this team is so loaded with fire power*
Jun. 2nd, 2025 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musesfoolWork was nuts today, especially since I was out on Friday and some of my cow-orkers apparently just waited around for me to come back instead of sending an email themselves. Plus I had 2 committee meetings (unusual - we try not to do that unless we absolutely can't avoid it) but luckily 1 only lasted 15 minutes, so I was able to knock out the minutes in about a similar amount of time. *g*
Yesterday I roasted some ears of corn, and ate 2 for lunch and then scraped the other 3 into a big bowl and the added some crumbled up bacon, 2 pints of really beautiful grape tomatoes, some little pearls of fresh mozzarella, a sliced vidalia onion, and some salt and pepper, oregano, basil, rosemary, and thyme, and dressed it all with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! I will make some orzo to add to it for lunch over the next couple of days and I am looking forward to it.
I also finally hit upon a good way to cook hotdogs without a grill - in the broiler. I don't eat them very often but a couple times during the summer I get a craving, so when they go on sale, I sometimes snag a pack and some soft, cheap buns to eat with them. Of course, since I have the palate of a 5-year-old, I still prefer ketchup on my hotdogs, but since I live alone, there's no one here to judge me. *g*
*The Dodgers, not the Mets. Sigh.
***
Yesterday I roasted some ears of corn, and ate 2 for lunch and then scraped the other 3 into a big bowl and the added some crumbled up bacon, 2 pints of really beautiful grape tomatoes, some little pearls of fresh mozzarella, a sliced vidalia onion, and some salt and pepper, oregano, basil, rosemary, and thyme, and dressed it all with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! I will make some orzo to add to it for lunch over the next couple of days and I am looking forward to it.
I also finally hit upon a good way to cook hotdogs without a grill - in the broiler. I don't eat them very often but a couple times during the summer I get a craving, so when they go on sale, I sometimes snag a pack and some soft, cheap buns to eat with them. Of course, since I have the palate of a 5-year-old, I still prefer ketchup on my hotdogs, but since I live alone, there's no one here to judge me. *g*
*The Dodgers, not the Mets. Sigh.
***
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(no subject)
Jun. 1st, 2025 02:40 pmthawreckaI went to see The Phoenician Scheme yesterday, and alas, it's a fizzler. The opening is so strong, that I was genuinely excited! I felt that I was in capable hands. Very Wes Anderson, but the music gave the opening a sense of urgency and Benicio del Toro's physicality brought a degree of menace to it that I genuinely don't expect from his work. And then... it turned out to be a stiff, surface-y lukewarm rehash of the sort of thing he's already done in The Royal Tennenbaums and The Life Aquatic & etc. etc. Shitty patriarch reconnecting with child, sets that make everything feel like a dollhouse, a bunch of celeb cameos, a bunch of monotone line delivery. The comedy doesn't land. Mia Threapleton's acting style is too casual and monotone, to the point that sometimes it feels like a humorous juxtaposition to everyone else's OTT acting and sometimes she just seems like a bad high school drama student. And this is on the higher end of orientialism for his films. This felt like maybe he's entering a Tim Burton-esque bad parody of himself era.
It's a shame, because I actually really enjoyed his last two films: to me they felt like he was using his style to do slightly different things and evolve, and while they were certainly more niche than his most popular, they had just as much heart. Asteroid City felt like it connected so well with lockdown grief, and The French Dispatch is such a charming blend of styles in what is blatantly a love letter to The Paris Review. But this felt like it was missing its heart, just going through the motions. And why would you waste a guy like Benicio del Toro on bad comedy.
It's not all bad - Richard Ayoade's bit as the leader of a humorous stylish freedom fighter/thief gang is delightful, and Riz Ahmed's bits reminded me that he's very good looking. And the beginning really is so good, stylish and urgent with a dark humour underlying. The afterlife segments scattered throughout the film are also a highlight for me, and they felt like that was where the real story was. Honestly, I felt like he could have done more with those and less with the wacky mid century basketball nonsense.
It kind of makes me want to see Anderson do a film about a character with genuine menace. If this had turned expectations on their head, and instead of being another unnecessary shitty patriarch becomes less shitty through reconnecting with adult children story had been about a villain who stayed a villain and didn't reform it all, it would have been a much better story. But this is more of a deflated balloon of a film.
I'm still going to watch the next one he makes though 😂
I also finally went to see Sinners last night. I'm sure everything that could be said about that film already has, and I'm not particularly qualified to say it, because I discovered while watching it that my hearing loss is worse than I thought because I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. I'd like to watch it again once it's on streaming and I can use subtitles. It's obviously in dialogue with other vampire films, along with everything else it's doing. Great sound design; I felt especially wrapped in the music, but the way it used sound as an auditory flashback overlaid over the present of the story was also a highlight. Charismatic actors. I was especially compelled by Wunmi Mosaku as Annie.
There were parts that didn't work as well for me - Michael B Jordan passing something to Michael B Jordan did not, in fact, look as convincing as I'd hoped. I can't tell how much it's fair for me to judge characters for doing dumb things in a horror movie, when people doing stupid things when scared is often the fun of the genre for me.
But really, I need to watch it again with subtitles to truly judge the film because I couldn't understand half the dialogue.
It's a shame, because I actually really enjoyed his last two films: to me they felt like he was using his style to do slightly different things and evolve, and while they were certainly more niche than his most popular, they had just as much heart. Asteroid City felt like it connected so well with lockdown grief, and The French Dispatch is such a charming blend of styles in what is blatantly a love letter to The Paris Review. But this felt like it was missing its heart, just going through the motions. And why would you waste a guy like Benicio del Toro on bad comedy.
It's not all bad - Richard Ayoade's bit as the leader of a humorous stylish freedom fighter/thief gang is delightful, and Riz Ahmed's bits reminded me that he's very good looking. And the beginning really is so good, stylish and urgent with a dark humour underlying. The afterlife segments scattered throughout the film are also a highlight for me, and they felt like that was where the real story was. Honestly, I felt like he could have done more with those and less with the wacky mid century basketball nonsense.
It kind of makes me want to see Anderson do a film about a character with genuine menace. If this had turned expectations on their head, and instead of being another unnecessary shitty patriarch becomes less shitty through reconnecting with adult children story had been about a villain who stayed a villain and didn't reform it all, it would have been a much better story. But this is more of a deflated balloon of a film.
I'm still going to watch the next one he makes though 😂
I also finally went to see Sinners last night. I'm sure everything that could be said about that film already has, and I'm not particularly qualified to say it, because I discovered while watching it that my hearing loss is worse than I thought because I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. I'd like to watch it again once it's on streaming and I can use subtitles. It's obviously in dialogue with other vampire films, along with everything else it's doing. Great sound design; I felt especially wrapped in the music, but the way it used sound as an auditory flashback overlaid over the present of the story was also a highlight. Charismatic actors. I was especially compelled by Wunmi Mosaku as Annie.
There were parts that didn't work as well for me - Michael B Jordan passing something to Michael B Jordan did not, in fact, look as convincing as I'd hoped. I can't tell how much it's fair for me to judge characters for doing dumb things in a horror movie, when people doing stupid things when scared is often the fun of the genre for me.
But really, I need to watch it again with subtitles to truly judge the film because I couldn't understand half the dialogue.
goes right back to that breaking ball
May. 31st, 2025 06:36 pmmusesfoolRecs update!
unfitforsociety has been updated for May 2025 with 13 story recs and 2 vid recs in 3 fandoms:
✭ 12 Batfamily
✭ 1 Star Wars
✭ 1 Avengers vid and 1 Star Wars vid
***
I bought some string cheese a couple weeks ago on sale and today I breaded and fried it into mozzarella sticks. So good to eat! So messy to clean up after!
I slept poorly again last night - I had to shut the window while it was raining, and I don't know if it's the barometric pressure that's been giving me these headaches, but I don't like it. At least this cool rainy weather meant I made it all the way through May without turning on the AC. It looks like I will probably start needed it next week though. Last year, I signed up for the thing where they charge you the same amount each month to smooth out the ups and downs, which I've grown to prefer to the $110 swings in my electric bill come summer.
In other news, I learned that there really is a cocoa shortage and I'm not imagining it. So I'm glad I stocked up from King Arthur. Unfortunately, the bag had a small tear in it, so everything in the box it shipped with was covered in a fine dusting of cocoa powder. 🤨 But I washed it all and transferred the cocoa into a ziplock so it's all nice and tidy now.
***
unfitforsociety has been updated for May 2025 with 13 story recs and 2 vid recs in 3 fandoms:✭ 12 Batfamily
✭ 1 Star Wars
✭ 1 Avengers vid and 1 Star Wars vid
***
I bought some string cheese a couple weeks ago on sale and today I breaded and fried it into mozzarella sticks. So good to eat! So messy to clean up after!
I slept poorly again last night - I had to shut the window while it was raining, and I don't know if it's the barometric pressure that's been giving me these headaches, but I don't like it. At least this cool rainy weather meant I made it all the way through May without turning on the AC. It looks like I will probably start needed it next week though. Last year, I signed up for the thing where they charge you the same amount each month to smooth out the ups and downs, which I've grown to prefer to the $110 swings in my electric bill come summer.
In other news, I learned that there really is a cocoa shortage and I'm not imagining it. So I'm glad I stocked up from King Arthur. Unfortunately, the bag had a small tear in it, so everything in the box it shipped with was covered in a fine dusting of cocoa powder. 🤨 But I washed it all and transferred the cocoa into a ziplock so it's all nice and tidy now.
***
went to the curveball, bounced it
May. 30th, 2025 07:45 pmmusesfoolI slept very poorly last night and woke up with a blinding headache and some serious nausea, so I called out of work and went back to bed for a couple of hours.
I keep meaning to post then forgetting what I want to say, since it's mostly just about work. I did get several amazing photos of Baby Miss L in a Spider-Gwen outfit with a hood (with a glittery pink mask on it), a cute blue spider on the torso (when I first saw it, I admit my initial response was "Khaji Da?" so it's more scarab than spider but also she's 2 and a half, so) and a skirt decorated with webbing. It's so cute and she apparently approved of it by saying "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!" in her specific toddler lingo. And the Superman dress finally arrived so I hope to see pictures of that soon, too! Also, she has taken to carrying her Easter basket over her shoulder like a purse and calling it her bag, so she is definitely getting a headstart on her fashionista personality.
In other news, I was reading some fic I was otherwise enjoying but I will never ever ever understand why in EVERY SINGLE FANDOM I have ever read fic in, there are some gobsmackingly awful non-canon nicknames that proliferate. Sometimes for characters who already have a canonical nickname, so why? I mean, I get that the use of a nickname can be intimacy marker (much like the switch from last name to first name, or full first name to canon nickname), but the fact is, none of the characters this is applied to would ever allow themselves to be called these names by ANYONE, not even an intimate partner. The worst is when Jason calls Talia "Tals." NO. WHO thinks TALIA AL GHUL, DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON, is going to let ANYONE call her "Tals." No, really, meet me in the parking lot, I just have some questions.
I also don't understand when people apologize for...well, anything really, in their author's notes, but especially when they say shit like, "Sorry this chapter is mostly dialogue! We'll get back to the introspection soon!" I mean, I guess some people don't like dialogue??? Obviously mileage varies. But it is frequently the best part of a story for me. If your story holds off on dialogue for too long in favor of maundering introspection, I will likely wander away and never come back (like, obviously if it's a 900-word plotless character ramble that's fine, but then you are not posting it in chapters, at least I'd hope not).
I guess if you're not confident in your character voices, dialogue can be difficult, but you're still going to need to get the character voice right in the narration/introspection, and some characters are not really going to be doing a lot of introspection at all, even in their own heads, so it's even harder to get them right. Which is probably when it's time to revisit canon. But I admit, dialogue is pretty much the easiest thing I find to write, so possibly it's just me.
*
I keep meaning to post then forgetting what I want to say, since it's mostly just about work. I did get several amazing photos of Baby Miss L in a Spider-Gwen outfit with a hood (with a glittery pink mask on it), a cute blue spider on the torso (when I first saw it, I admit my initial response was "Khaji Da?" so it's more scarab than spider but also she's 2 and a half, so) and a skirt decorated with webbing. It's so cute and she apparently approved of it by saying "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!" in her specific toddler lingo. And the Superman dress finally arrived so I hope to see pictures of that soon, too! Also, she has taken to carrying her Easter basket over her shoulder like a purse and calling it her bag, so she is definitely getting a headstart on her fashionista personality.
In other news, I was reading some fic I was otherwise enjoying but I will never ever ever understand why in EVERY SINGLE FANDOM I have ever read fic in, there are some gobsmackingly awful non-canon nicknames that proliferate. Sometimes for characters who already have a canonical nickname, so why? I mean, I get that the use of a nickname can be intimacy marker (much like the switch from last name to first name, or full first name to canon nickname), but the fact is, none of the characters this is applied to would ever allow themselves to be called these names by ANYONE, not even an intimate partner. The worst is when Jason calls Talia "Tals." NO. WHO thinks TALIA AL GHUL, DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON, is going to let ANYONE call her "Tals." No, really, meet me in the parking lot, I just have some questions.
I also don't understand when people apologize for...well, anything really, in their author's notes, but especially when they say shit like, "Sorry this chapter is mostly dialogue! We'll get back to the introspection soon!" I mean, I guess some people don't like dialogue??? Obviously mileage varies. But it is frequently the best part of a story for me. If your story holds off on dialogue for too long in favor of maundering introspection, I will likely wander away and never come back (like, obviously if it's a 900-word plotless character ramble that's fine, but then you are not posting it in chapters, at least I'd hope not).
I guess if you're not confident in your character voices, dialogue can be difficult, but you're still going to need to get the character voice right in the narration/introspection, and some characters are not really going to be doing a lot of introspection at all, even in their own heads, so it's even harder to get them right. Which is probably when it's time to revisit canon. But I admit, dialogue is pretty much the easiest thing I find to write, so possibly it's just me.
*
(no subject)
May. 28th, 2025 06:28 pmthawreckaI did burst out laughing at HelloChinese teaching me how to say 'New York is extremely clean' in Mandarin.
纽约非常干净 ...I was like, infamously not, though. Unless it has the cleanest pizza rats around!
纽约非常干净 ...I was like, infamously not, though. Unless it has the cleanest pizza rats around!
what a find by O. G.
May. 27th, 2025 08:57 pmmusesfoolI slept through for a full 7 hours last night! right up until my alarm went off, actually, without waking up once!
I also got some fantastic videos of Baby Miss L going nuts about TATOES and BROCCOLI and also some mouse game she plays on my sister's tablet. She is such a character! <333
I haven't started the new season of Poker Face or Andor yet - I am still in HGTV mode. No emotional investment, and it satisfies both my nosiness about other people's houses and my need to be judgy about other people's aesthetic taste without hurting anyone's feelings.
Every time someone says they want to go BOLD with color and their palette is black and white I want to punch them. (I'm not saying black and white can't be a bold choice, just that it's not a bold COLOR choice.) Everyone wants POPS of COLOR but then the color turns out to be greige. I just...find it wearisome sometimes. I get it if you are doing a quick refresh in order to sell, since allegedly neutrals sell better? But these are people supposedly doing their "forever homes" or their "dream homes" so why not pick something interesting? At least a little bit? In the downstairs powder room??? I'm begging you, please!
Ahem.
If you asked me what my preferred home decor aesthetic is, I would say beachy with lots of blues and greens in various shades, and okay, a lot of white, a little gray, and some occasional wood or wicker accents. Definitely would want hardwood floors (or LVP that looked like hardwood). I'd want a large zero-access shower with a built-in bench with some fancy tile, and I wouldn't want to waste space on a tub (or double sinks, since I live alone), but I would like more linen/towel storage.
I would obviously want a large chef's kitchen, with FULL SIZE appliances and a big range - I don't go for that countertop stovetop and wall oven set up, I'd want a bigass stove with six burners - and I certainly wouldn't put it (or the sink) on an island. I'd like a large butcher block work surface and a breakfast nook with an eastern exposure, but don't need a formal dining room or a ginormous island. I do like white upper cabinets, probably with reeded glass doors, and then a color on the lower cabinets - a cobalt blue, maybe, or a deep teal.
The place I might go a little modern/industrial/maybe even avant garde would be in the light fixtures. I have seen some WILD chandeliers and lighting options on these shows and some of them are gorgeous.
Obviously I worked a lot of this out in the time between going into contract on my apartment and finally closing, so I was able to pick stuff out that all kind of went together, because I absolutely understand being a renter for years and not really being able to put your stamp on a place. (all the people who already live in their own houses who have no sense of their own style, though - they kind of baffle me, because didn't they paint/decorate their house? I get maybe not knowing what your architectural style is but these are mainly people in their 30s and older - they should have some sense of what they like, shouldn't they, even if they can't pin it to a specific style?)
Anyway, I don't need people to do their own homes in my preferred style, and some of these homes turn out to be gorgeous, but it would be nice if everyone wasn't doing the same things across several different home renovation shows. I guess HGTV has a bit of a house style? But if you've watched any of it, you can see why Keith and Evan from Bargain Block are my favorites - they actually do a lot of fun different things (or they used to, anyway), where even if it isn't something I'd choose, it still has a strong sense of style.
*
I also got some fantastic videos of Baby Miss L going nuts about TATOES and BROCCOLI and also some mouse game she plays on my sister's tablet. She is such a character! <333
I haven't started the new season of Poker Face or Andor yet - I am still in HGTV mode. No emotional investment, and it satisfies both my nosiness about other people's houses and my need to be judgy about other people's aesthetic taste without hurting anyone's feelings.
Every time someone says they want to go BOLD with color and their palette is black and white I want to punch them. (I'm not saying black and white can't be a bold choice, just that it's not a bold COLOR choice.) Everyone wants POPS of COLOR but then the color turns out to be greige. I just...find it wearisome sometimes. I get it if you are doing a quick refresh in order to sell, since allegedly neutrals sell better? But these are people supposedly doing their "forever homes" or their "dream homes" so why not pick something interesting? At least a little bit? In the downstairs powder room??? I'm begging you, please!
Ahem.
If you asked me what my preferred home decor aesthetic is, I would say beachy with lots of blues and greens in various shades, and okay, a lot of white, a little gray, and some occasional wood or wicker accents. Definitely would want hardwood floors (or LVP that looked like hardwood). I'd want a large zero-access shower with a built-in bench with some fancy tile, and I wouldn't want to waste space on a tub (or double sinks, since I live alone), but I would like more linen/towel storage.
I would obviously want a large chef's kitchen, with FULL SIZE appliances and a big range - I don't go for that countertop stovetop and wall oven set up, I'd want a bigass stove with six burners - and I certainly wouldn't put it (or the sink) on an island. I'd like a large butcher block work surface and a breakfast nook with an eastern exposure, but don't need a formal dining room or a ginormous island. I do like white upper cabinets, probably with reeded glass doors, and then a color on the lower cabinets - a cobalt blue, maybe, or a deep teal.
The place I might go a little modern/industrial/maybe even avant garde would be in the light fixtures. I have seen some WILD chandeliers and lighting options on these shows and some of them are gorgeous.
Obviously I worked a lot of this out in the time between going into contract on my apartment and finally closing, so I was able to pick stuff out that all kind of went together, because I absolutely understand being a renter for years and not really being able to put your stamp on a place. (all the people who already live in their own houses who have no sense of their own style, though - they kind of baffle me, because didn't they paint/decorate their house? I get maybe not knowing what your architectural style is but these are mainly people in their 30s and older - they should have some sense of what they like, shouldn't they, even if they can't pin it to a specific style?)
Anyway, I don't need people to do their own homes in my preferred style, and some of these homes turn out to be gorgeous, but it would be nice if everyone wasn't doing the same things across several different home renovation shows. I guess HGTV has a bit of a house style? But if you've watched any of it, you can see why Keith and Evan from Bargain Block are my favorites - they actually do a lot of fun different things (or they used to, anyway), where even if it isn't something I'd choose, it still has a strong sense of style.
*
A Fantasy Life i set of notes with a brief spoiler-free review
May. 26th, 2025 06:36 pmestiroseI've spent quite a bit of time in Fantasy Life i (I haven't managed to finish Chapter 7, due to my frustration with the game, but that may be more a me thing than a game thing). Here are my thoughts on it, mostly under cut because I tried to avoid spoilers but they're there.
Spoiler-free review version: More combat-heavy RPG than cozy, though the cozy certainly is there. Unlike the 3DS game, this game emphasizes both developing a set of Lives/classes and a set of villagers in a town that you will establish. The crafting minigames require a fair amount of reflexes. 3DS players will enjoy the nostalgia but be aware that you will not be able to do a 1-life challenge - in fact, you will be using at least 11 of the 14 available classes by the end of the game. The omnipresent quest marker can cause players to rush the plot where they really need to slow down.
(Also, I will mention that while this is not the game I fell in love with, I've poured in a lot of hours and don't feel the purchase was a waste.)
ETA: I think I'm getting the hang of the game! Still irritating that you have to at least intro quest the majority of Lives but quite doable. My one tiny item I want is the ability to unselect the main quest - my brain tends to want to hurry because you can unselect side quests but not the main quest, which my brain translates into a priority to-do.
( A lot of comparison between Fantasy Life i and Fantasy Life 3DS )
Spoiler-free review version: More combat-heavy RPG than cozy, though the cozy certainly is there. Unlike the 3DS game, this game emphasizes both developing a set of Lives/classes and a set of villagers in a town that you will establish. The crafting minigames require a fair amount of reflexes. 3DS players will enjoy the nostalgia but be aware that you will not be able to do a 1-life challenge - in fact, you will be using at least 11 of the 14 available classes by the end of the game. The omnipresent quest marker can cause players to rush the plot where they really need to slow down.
(Also, I will mention that while this is not the game I fell in love with, I've poured in a lot of hours and don't feel the purchase was a waste.)
ETA: I think I'm getting the hang of the game! Still irritating that you have to at least intro quest the majority of Lives but quite doable. My one tiny item I want is the ability to unselect the main quest - my brain tends to want to hurry because you can unselect side quests but not the main quest, which my brain translates into a priority to-do.
( A lot of comparison between Fantasy Life i and Fantasy Life 3DS )
(no subject)
May. 26th, 2025 06:07 pmthawreckaI've been trying to watch less YouTube the past week (hahaha, good luck self), and I'm cleaning out my Netflix queue (which works about as well as you'd expect; I try a thing on there, don't like, remove it, and then add two other things to the queue).
So I finally gave the Yu Yu Hakusho live action a try. The first two episodes are a lot better than I expected. The lead actor is well cast, and the visuals are nice! The fight scenes are mostly good! I still don't understand why Kuwabara couldn't have red hair, but w/e w/e. The shot composition is often really lovely, and I do like that they jettisoned the sexually harassing Keiko stuff from the beginning of the original. The Kuwabara scenes don't have him being funny often enough, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, even if it wasn't what I was expecting. And while I like Kuwabara/Yuusuke, I sort of felt like Yuusuke and Kuwabara should kiss... Listen I've never felt that with any other version of the story, but they have a shippy vibe.
The real problems are mostly with the next three episodes, IMO, which make some choices, that are maybe not the correct ones. Mostly the fight scenes are cool, but there's some effects wonkiness. I get not wanting to hire a child actor, but Koenma is just funnier if it's a little guy. And the pacing is the big issue - if it were ten episodes instead of five, there'd be enough time to build up enough emotional resonance for the stuff with Genkai, for example, to really work, but it would still be short enough to skip all the boring arcs. I'm in favour of shorter series generally, but this felt too short.
Karasu did look a lot cooler than I expected, honestly! And I've seen Shison Jun be better elsewhere, but he was fine as Kurama, and I thought a lot of the other cast suited their roles fairly well. So it's not a terrible adaptation, but it just needed a bit more.
Ah, but then the blood moon came upon me this weekend, and I've only wanted to watch nonsense since. It's that time of the month, I'm tired and want to heckle shows. Honestly the ideal shows for when you're feeling under the weather and want to watch something dumb you can make fun of: bad romance dramas that operate on bad romance drama logic instead of normal human logic, badly written palace dramas where everyone's plans make no sense and everyone's an idiot, pulpy action/adventure like dmbj that's going to be like 'that's not a ghost it's a swarm of jellyfish' when it's trying to give sciencey explanations for the supernatural.
I picked Blossom back up, not sure if I was going to get into it, but it has a pleasantly soap operatic quality to it that means I've now watched to the end of episode 10. The writing and acting are not brilliant, but it's lavishly filmed, like the best night time soap operas. Meng Ziyi and Li Yunrui aren't good actors, and I don't think I noticed before 😂 but right now I don't mind too much.
I also watched a bunch of First Frost, something like ten episodes, which has standard romcom issues (I see that they are slowly revealing her tragic past through flashbacks to show what emotional wounds she has to heal before they can get together and/or commit, but it's failing to show why they should actually be together in the present beyond throwing a bunch of tropes at the characters. Do they actually like each other? What do they have in common beyond a living space? What do they want out of life? Who knows, honestly), so I will probably not watch it once I've stopped feeling blah.
And I knew it was vaguely related to Hidden Love in the sense of some of the same characters but an entirely new cast, so I gave that a try. After struggling through a few episodes of a high school girl getting a crush on her older brother's friend and dealing with the embarrassment of getting her period in public & etc. I thought, ah, unlike First Frost this is aimed at 13 year olds, and therefore I am nearly three decades too old for this nonsense, and dropped it.
Luckily, The Next Prince -- a Thai BL about a guy discovering that he's secretly a prince and getting thrown into a tropey fight for the throne with OTT gold outfits and dramatic attempts on his life and sexy tension with his bodyguard who is also an art professor -- dropped another episode, so I got to enjoy that. It's definitely not deep, but I do enjoy how it plays with the different ways the main character and his love interest have power over each other.
So I finally gave the Yu Yu Hakusho live action a try. The first two episodes are a lot better than I expected. The lead actor is well cast, and the visuals are nice! The fight scenes are mostly good! I still don't understand why Kuwabara couldn't have red hair, but w/e w/e. The shot composition is often really lovely, and I do like that they jettisoned the sexually harassing Keiko stuff from the beginning of the original. The Kuwabara scenes don't have him being funny often enough, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, even if it wasn't what I was expecting. And while I like Kuwabara/Yuusuke, I sort of felt like Yuusuke and Kuwabara should kiss... Listen I've never felt that with any other version of the story, but they have a shippy vibe.
The real problems are mostly with the next three episodes, IMO, which make some choices, that are maybe not the correct ones. Mostly the fight scenes are cool, but there's some effects wonkiness. I get not wanting to hire a child actor, but Koenma is just funnier if it's a little guy. And the pacing is the big issue - if it were ten episodes instead of five, there'd be enough time to build up enough emotional resonance for the stuff with Genkai, for example, to really work, but it would still be short enough to skip all the boring arcs. I'm in favour of shorter series generally, but this felt too short.
Karasu did look a lot cooler than I expected, honestly! And I've seen Shison Jun be better elsewhere, but he was fine as Kurama, and I thought a lot of the other cast suited their roles fairly well. So it's not a terrible adaptation, but it just needed a bit more.
Ah, but then the blood moon came upon me this weekend, and I've only wanted to watch nonsense since. It's that time of the month, I'm tired and want to heckle shows. Honestly the ideal shows for when you're feeling under the weather and want to watch something dumb you can make fun of: bad romance dramas that operate on bad romance drama logic instead of normal human logic, badly written palace dramas where everyone's plans make no sense and everyone's an idiot, pulpy action/adventure like dmbj that's going to be like 'that's not a ghost it's a swarm of jellyfish' when it's trying to give sciencey explanations for the supernatural.
I picked Blossom back up, not sure if I was going to get into it, but it has a pleasantly soap operatic quality to it that means I've now watched to the end of episode 10. The writing and acting are not brilliant, but it's lavishly filmed, like the best night time soap operas. Meng Ziyi and Li Yunrui aren't good actors, and I don't think I noticed before 😂 but right now I don't mind too much.
I also watched a bunch of First Frost, something like ten episodes, which has standard romcom issues (I see that they are slowly revealing her tragic past through flashbacks to show what emotional wounds she has to heal before they can get together and/or commit, but it's failing to show why they should actually be together in the present beyond throwing a bunch of tropes at the characters. Do they actually like each other? What do they have in common beyond a living space? What do they want out of life? Who knows, honestly), so I will probably not watch it once I've stopped feeling blah.
And I knew it was vaguely related to Hidden Love in the sense of some of the same characters but an entirely new cast, so I gave that a try. After struggling through a few episodes of a high school girl getting a crush on her older brother's friend and dealing with the embarrassment of getting her period in public & etc. I thought, ah, unlike First Frost this is aimed at 13 year olds, and therefore I am nearly three decades too old for this nonsense, and dropped it.
Luckily, The Next Prince -- a Thai BL about a guy discovering that he's secretly a prince and getting thrown into a tropey fight for the throne with OTT gold outfits and dramatic attempts on his life and sexy tension with his bodyguard who is also an art professor -- dropped another episode, so I got to enjoy that. It's definitely not deep, but I do enjoy how it plays with the different ways the main character and his love interest have power over each other.
at the knees with a cutter
May. 25th, 2025 08:42 pmmusesfoolThe bbq was fun, even if the weather was chilly and rainy. We saw a huge double rainbow after it rained, and one of them was the most vivid and long-lasting rainbow I ever saw. it was pretty amazing.
Baby Miss L had a grand old time her in personal ball pit, and dancing to both the 90s playlist (it was a 90s-themed party) and later to her own favorite Elmo songs. She was really vibing with Pantera and Alice in Chains - that child is going to be in the mosh pit at the club before you know it.
In other news, Alyssa tried the confetti cookies and really liked them. This morning, she texted me like, "this is exactly what they're supposed to taste like!" Anthony and my sister also liked them, so I guess it's just me, but thy were disgustingly sweet to me. *hands* Trish also liked the brownies, so that worked out too! I will definitely have to make the brownies again, so I can taste them. My sister made ice cream cone cupcakes for the party, which I guess she used to make for the kids to take to school for their birthday's back in the day, so there was a nostalgia factor involved. They were good, though I still like my chocolate cupcake recipe best. *g*
Now I'm watching the Mets, though really, I'm listening to the local radio broadcast because good lord the ESPN broadcast is the worst. Simply terrible in all aspects.
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Baby Miss L had a grand old time her in personal ball pit, and dancing to both the 90s playlist (it was a 90s-themed party) and later to her own favorite Elmo songs. She was really vibing with Pantera and Alice in Chains - that child is going to be in the mosh pit at the club before you know it.
In other news, Alyssa tried the confetti cookies and really liked them. This morning, she texted me like, "this is exactly what they're supposed to taste like!" Anthony and my sister also liked them, so I guess it's just me, but thy were disgustingly sweet to me. *hands* Trish also liked the brownies, so that worked out too! I will definitely have to make the brownies again, so I can taste them. My sister made ice cream cone cupcakes for the party, which I guess she used to make for the kids to take to school for their birthday's back in the day, so there was a nostalgia factor involved. They were good, though I still like my chocolate cupcake recipe best. *g*
Now I'm watching the Mets, though really, I'm listening to the local radio broadcast because good lord the ESPN broadcast is the worst. Simply terrible in all aspects.
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Funny how nobody belongs to The Common Herd.
May. 25th, 2025 06:18 pmfull_metal_ox posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
metaquotesThis eternal verity from thanekos:
There's never yet been a definition of " ordinary people " without some kind of self-aggrandizing exclusion.
Context is ascans_daily post on Nightwing #125 and law enforcement arms escalation.
thanekos:There's never yet been a definition of " ordinary people " without some kind of self-aggrandizing exclusion.
Context is a
scans_daily post on Nightwing #125 and law enforcement arms escalation.
makes the one-hand catch
May. 23rd, 2025 10:48 pmmusesfoolI'm so tired of people blowing their deadlines and making it my problem. But at the super last minute, it did finally come together so I was able to log off at 3 pm (it's the first Summer Friday of 2025, and we get to sign off at 2:30 until Labor Day).
My sister is having a birthday bbq tomorrow for my oldest and youngest nieces, who share a birthday, and one requested Smitten Kitchen confetti cookies (even though I told her I found them too sweet) and the other requested brownies (which is why I asked about brownie recipes yesterday - I don't make them often anymore so I don't have a go-to recipe). I couldn't lay hands on dutched cocoa for love or money today, but it turns out that the King Arthur "triple cocoa" or whatever it's called, works in recipes calling for dutched cocoa, and I have that. *hands* But like, nobody even has Hershey's special dark! I was surprised by that. Anyway I ended up making these King Arthur Fudge Brownies and they smell fantastic, though next time I will probably try the microwave to melt the butter instead of doing it on the stove - I did it in a pot on the stove and even on low heat, it got so hot that I had to wait like 30 minutes for it to cool to the temperature required by the recipe (110° - 120°F), so it took a lot longer than I planned for. Other than that, the recipe is really easy. I guess because you beat the cocoa into the eggs, you don't have to worry about the hot butter/sugar mixture scrambling them (you laugh, but that happened to me once with the old mascarpone brownies recipe when I added the melted butter!).
I hope they both enjoy them!
I also bought a banana squishmallow for Baby Miss L, because her response to them has been A++ hilarious every time.
Hopefully the weather tomorrow cooperates. It has rained here so much. Today it rained all morning and then the sun came out late in the afternoon, and then...it poured while the sun was out for a while, and the temperature has lingered in the low 60s. I mean, I'll take the cooler temps for sure, especially at night, but I'm really tired of the rain.
In other news, last night I fell asleep on the couch when I was trying to read, so when I woke up, I decided to just go to bed, and for once, couch sleepy did translate to bed sleepy and I ended up sleeping for almost 10 hours last night! It was glorious! But I don't think I can realistically make myself go to bed at 10:15 every night. *glances at clock* I mean...¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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My sister is having a birthday bbq tomorrow for my oldest and youngest nieces, who share a birthday, and one requested Smitten Kitchen confetti cookies (even though I told her I found them too sweet) and the other requested brownies (which is why I asked about brownie recipes yesterday - I don't make them often anymore so I don't have a go-to recipe). I couldn't lay hands on dutched cocoa for love or money today, but it turns out that the King Arthur "triple cocoa" or whatever it's called, works in recipes calling for dutched cocoa, and I have that. *hands* But like, nobody even has Hershey's special dark! I was surprised by that. Anyway I ended up making these King Arthur Fudge Brownies and they smell fantastic, though next time I will probably try the microwave to melt the butter instead of doing it on the stove - I did it in a pot on the stove and even on low heat, it got so hot that I had to wait like 30 minutes for it to cool to the temperature required by the recipe (110° - 120°F), so it took a lot longer than I planned for. Other than that, the recipe is really easy. I guess because you beat the cocoa into the eggs, you don't have to worry about the hot butter/sugar mixture scrambling them (you laugh, but that happened to me once with the old mascarpone brownies recipe when I added the melted butter!).
I hope they both enjoy them!
I also bought a banana squishmallow for Baby Miss L, because her response to them has been A++ hilarious every time.
Hopefully the weather tomorrow cooperates. It has rained here so much. Today it rained all morning and then the sun came out late in the afternoon, and then...it poured while the sun was out for a while, and the temperature has lingered in the low 60s. I mean, I'll take the cooler temps for sure, especially at night, but I'm really tired of the rain.
In other news, last night I fell asleep on the couch when I was trying to read, so when I woke up, I decided to just go to bed, and for once, couch sleepy did translate to bed sleepy and I ended up sleeping for almost 10 hours last night! It was glorious! But I don't think I can realistically make myself go to bed at 10:15 every night. *glances at clock* I mean...¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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