Bloody Game
Jul. 4th, 2025 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scaramoucheI didn't finish watching The Devil's Plan season 2, but I did see other shows similar to TDP and The Genius mentioned in various discussion spaces - reddit, youtube and Taran's patreon. Bloody Game in particular got recced a lot, with people saying to skip seasons 1 and 2, and head on straight to 3, which they say has a bigger budget and is presumably more exciting.
A reddit comment linked to an online stream, so I watched a few minutes of Bloody Game season's 3 before deciding I should watch season 1 instead, so I'd know the format of the show going in, the way that the season 3 players obviously did. Season 1 appeared to be similar to The Devil's Plan in that the players are made to live together over a short period of time and play games each day, but there are some differences in that format as well. (Note: TG aired over 2013-2015, BG over 2021-2023, and TDP over 2023-2025.)
Unfortunately I got a few episodes into BG's season 1 when I realized that the ratio of game : social was way more weighted to the social aspect, i.e. the mechanism where players vote who gets kicked out of the main house Survivor-style means that a great deal of time is spent following negotiations and alliance plotting, which I just don't care about as much. TDP and The Genius are more my thing because eliminations are based on gameplay, so negotiations do play a part but happen simultaneously with the games and can get derailed by gameplay.
( Spoilers for Bloody Game season 1. )
I hoped that Taran would cover Bloody Game because then I'd get to follow an abridged version of that show with his entertaining commentary on top, but he's decided to start commentating on the OG The Genius instead. Which is great because I get to experience that show again, but leaves my Bloody Game consumption hanging.
A reddit comment linked to an online stream, so I watched a few minutes of Bloody Game season's 3 before deciding I should watch season 1 instead, so I'd know the format of the show going in, the way that the season 3 players obviously did. Season 1 appeared to be similar to The Devil's Plan in that the players are made to live together over a short period of time and play games each day, but there are some differences in that format as well. (Note: TG aired over 2013-2015, BG over 2021-2023, and TDP over 2023-2025.)
Unfortunately I got a few episodes into BG's season 1 when I realized that the ratio of game : social was way more weighted to the social aspect, i.e. the mechanism where players vote who gets kicked out of the main house Survivor-style means that a great deal of time is spent following negotiations and alliance plotting, which I just don't care about as much. TDP and The Genius are more my thing because eliminations are based on gameplay, so negotiations do play a part but happen simultaneously with the games and can get derailed by gameplay.
( Spoilers for Bloody Game season 1. )
I hoped that Taran would cover Bloody Game because then I'd get to follow an abridged version of that show with his entertaining commentary on top, but he's decided to start commentating on the OG The Genius instead. Which is great because I get to experience that show again, but leaves my Bloody Game consumption hanging.
This and that (but mostly drama watching)
Jul. 3rd, 2025 09:00 pmmaggie33We have a heatwave here, but a short one thankfully. It should be back to normal 23°C tomorrow. I spent the whole day today eating ice cream, drinking water and watching cute things to distract myself from that exhausting heat.
Seeing new pics from Q3 of Only Friends Dream On shooting helped, too. But wow, Aou, have mercy on me. There is hot enough here as it is, even without you being all bad boy DJ in a see-through shirt. 😊
The Ex-Morning
7th episode aired today, and surprisingly for me I’m enjoying this drama more and more with each new episode.
Also, wow, they made me sympathize with Phi. Yeah, what Tam did was shitty. I knew he had to have a reason for breaking up with Phi by sms, and then blocking him everywhere and not talking to him for years. But his reason absolutely doesn’t justify his behavior IMO. Couldn’t he just talk with Phi honestly? I fricking hate ‘I’m breaking up with you for your own good’ trope.
Speaking of cameos – I really, really hope we’ll get Boom’s cameo in the last episodes as a current or future boyfriend of Aou’s character. GMMTV lately loves to do that with their fixed ships, if only one half of a ship is in a drama. Till now we had Force’s cameo in Only Boo, Sea’s cameo in Sweet Tooth Good Dentist, and New’s in Break Up Service.
The Next Prince
I’m getting bored. I thought I would love this drama, but something is not working for me. Prince/his loyal bodyguard is my kind of ship, I feel like I should love Khanin/Charan, and yet I basically lost all interest in them. I blame the script, it’s just not good. Pacing is bad, too. For a long time I felt like almost nothing really was happening story wise. Also where is Ava? She disappeared completely lately.
I still am very much invested in Ramil/Paytai, their relationship is my kind of complicated and angsty and hot, and for them I will watch it to the end. But yeah, for me this drama definitely didn’t live up to my expectations.
I also started MilkLove’s new GL drama Whale Store xoxo. Two episodes aired for now and I liked them. Milk looks so beautiful that I spent the first half of the 1st episode just staring and sighing ‘she’s soooo gorgeous’ in an awed voice. Heh... The drama itself is cute and enjoyable, and perfect for relaxing on Wednesday evenings.
And yay, I did manage to finish something, too, finally. Two dramas, actually. One was the 2nd season of Tengu no Daidokoro. I loved it. It was as good and beautiful, and touching as the 1st season. And all the food porn made me so hungry at the most inopportune times, like for instance after 9 p.m. 😊
I also watched a short kdrama on Netflix called Mercy For None. I did enjoy it, but it was very brutal, dark and bloody, so it took me a while to watch all of it, even though it has only 7 episodes. It got a bit repetitive in the second half, but it satisfied my love for complicated and obsessive sibling relationships. And the fights were excellent.
It’s about an ex-gangster Nam Gi Jun who left the underworld in dramatic circumstances 11 years ago. And now he returns to uncover the truth about the mysterious death of his beloved younger brother (who in present time was the second in command in Gi Jun’s former gang). And to ruthlessly take revenge on people responsible.
I haven’t seen So Ji Sub, who plays Gi Jun, in anything before. And he is very good here. Very charismatic in that tortured, brooding and silent type of way. And it was great to see Lee Jun Hyuk playing someone so different from his green flag character in Love Scout. Here he guest stars in a few episodes as Gi Jun’s younger brother Gi Seok.
Seeing new pics from Q3 of Only Friends Dream On shooting helped, too. But wow, Aou, have mercy on me. There is hot enough here as it is, even without you being all bad boy DJ in a see-through shirt. 😊
The Ex-Morning
7th episode aired today, and surprisingly for me I’m enjoying this drama more and more with each new episode.
More with spoilers here.
Mix’s cameo as a vet! And he looked gorgeous, I can’t wait for Only Friends Dream On.Also, wow, they made me sympathize with Phi. Yeah, what Tam did was shitty. I knew he had to have a reason for breaking up with Phi by sms, and then blocking him everywhere and not talking to him for years. But his reason absolutely doesn’t justify his behavior IMO. Couldn’t he just talk with Phi honestly? I fricking hate ‘I’m breaking up with you for your own good’ trope.
Speaking of cameos – I really, really hope we’ll get Boom’s cameo in the last episodes as a current or future boyfriend of Aou’s character. GMMTV lately loves to do that with their fixed ships, if only one half of a ship is in a drama. Till now we had Force’s cameo in Only Boo, Sea’s cameo in Sweet Tooth Good Dentist, and New’s in Break Up Service.
The Next Prince
I’m getting bored. I thought I would love this drama, but something is not working for me. Prince/his loyal bodyguard is my kind of ship, I feel like I should love Khanin/Charan, and yet I basically lost all interest in them. I blame the script, it’s just not good. Pacing is bad, too. For a long time I felt like almost nothing really was happening story wise. Also where is Ava? She disappeared completely lately.
I still am very much invested in Ramil/Paytai, their relationship is my kind of complicated and angsty and hot, and for them I will watch it to the end. But yeah, for me this drama definitely didn’t live up to my expectations.
I also started MilkLove’s new GL drama Whale Store xoxo. Two episodes aired for now and I liked them. Milk looks so beautiful that I spent the first half of the 1st episode just staring and sighing ‘she’s soooo gorgeous’ in an awed voice. Heh... The drama itself is cute and enjoyable, and perfect for relaxing on Wednesday evenings.
And yay, I did manage to finish something, too, finally. Two dramas, actually. One was the 2nd season of Tengu no Daidokoro. I loved it. It was as good and beautiful, and touching as the 1st season. And all the food porn made me so hungry at the most inopportune times, like for instance after 9 p.m. 😊
I also watched a short kdrama on Netflix called Mercy For None. I did enjoy it, but it was very brutal, dark and bloody, so it took me a while to watch all of it, even though it has only 7 episodes. It got a bit repetitive in the second half, but it satisfied my love for complicated and obsessive sibling relationships. And the fights were excellent.
It’s about an ex-gangster Nam Gi Jun who left the underworld in dramatic circumstances 11 years ago. And now he returns to uncover the truth about the mysterious death of his beloved younger brother (who in present time was the second in command in Gi Jun’s former gang). And to ruthlessly take revenge on people responsible.
I haven’t seen So Ji Sub, who plays Gi Jun, in anything before. And he is very good here. Very charismatic in that tortured, brooding and silent type of way. And it was great to see Lee Jun Hyuk playing someone so different from his green flag character in Love Scout. Here he guest stars in a few episodes as Gi Jun’s younger brother Gi Seok.
Book Log: Malaysian Cinema and Beyond
Jul. 3rd, 2025 06:00 pmscaramoucheI got food poisoning! I haven't gotten it in years and forgot how absolutely miserable it can be even after the worst is over. My appetite is back, which is nice, but I'm still feeling a little wary in general, which is a shame because the restaurant that I got it from (from the salsa!) was fancy, instead of some stereotypical dinky eatery, which just goes to show you can never be sure.
While feeling bleh I managed to finish reading Malaysian Cinema and Beyond: Genre, Representation and the Nation which is a relatively recent get at a local bookstore (I do have exceptions when adding to my carefully-controlled to-read book shelf). I don't think I've ever read anything about local media except a P. Ramlee biography from way back when that I can barely remember, so I jumped on this one, which is a recent 2024 publication, and features seven essays from different authors covering various local cinema topics.
The essays are short-ish and as a layperson I found some of them a bit too technical for my understanding, but I totally respect that because editor Wan Aida Wan Yahaya (who also contributed one of the essays) is totally right in that there's a dearth of scholarly analysis about our movie output and they should be as in-depth technically as they can be. The topics are: an overview (yay!) of trends through the pre-golden, golden and post-golden eras as they are generally understood; the use of CGI as flash to compete with Hollywood-made expectations vs. to actually say something; two essays about Dain Said's Bunohan; trends in representation of Malay women; war films in mythmaking of the modern nation-state; and films that look at the permeability of borders in the Nusantara region.
These were great, and while reading it I did watch some of the movies the essays discuss! Of course I had to check out Bunohan which, besides already being the topic of two essays, is mentioned in THREE other essays in the book. It's one of those few times when Netflix actually does have the thing I want to watch, and they tagged it as "understated", "art house", "rivalry", and I went -- oh no art house. I am not an art house person, and I think if I watched Bunohan without being preempted for what Said Dain was doing, I would have been lost, because I don't think I would've understood the supernatural elements of the movie until the very end (i.e. that the main characters' mother has become a supernatural creature, and their father is in possession of a saka) and from there wouldn't have been able to reflect retroactively on the film that came before it. I would've understood the encroachment of capitalism on the traditional ways, though! But the supernatural elements are a huge part of it and the film gives no context for that. That said, the camera work and framing choices are brilliant even if I wouldn't be able to get all of them, and I do love the strange opening scene.
A lot of the book's topics were fun (eg. we love melodramas and horror movies, and Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam was the turning point for modern horror -- I actually saw that in the cinema!) but my main enjoyment was in learning the older history in the early decades. Like how our movie industry was kicked off by outsiders, hence why the early films looked like Bollywood or Hong Kong-made output because they effectively were, even if the actors used were local, and that it took a while for local voices to become part of the industry and be able to tell our stories effectively, and that P. Ramlee being at the right place at the right time to absorb skills like a sponge gave the entire industry a boost. I did not know Filipino directors and crew were a strong influence as well, as that relationship doesn't seem to have carried forward much, unlike our greater overlap with Indonesia.
While feeling bleh I managed to finish reading Malaysian Cinema and Beyond: Genre, Representation and the Nation which is a relatively recent get at a local bookstore (I do have exceptions when adding to my carefully-controlled to-read book shelf). I don't think I've ever read anything about local media except a P. Ramlee biography from way back when that I can barely remember, so I jumped on this one, which is a recent 2024 publication, and features seven essays from different authors covering various local cinema topics.
The essays are short-ish and as a layperson I found some of them a bit too technical for my understanding, but I totally respect that because editor Wan Aida Wan Yahaya (who also contributed one of the essays) is totally right in that there's a dearth of scholarly analysis about our movie output and they should be as in-depth technically as they can be. The topics are: an overview (yay!) of trends through the pre-golden, golden and post-golden eras as they are generally understood; the use of CGI as flash to compete with Hollywood-made expectations vs. to actually say something; two essays about Dain Said's Bunohan; trends in representation of Malay women; war films in mythmaking of the modern nation-state; and films that look at the permeability of borders in the Nusantara region.
These were great, and while reading it I did watch some of the movies the essays discuss! Of course I had to check out Bunohan which, besides already being the topic of two essays, is mentioned in THREE other essays in the book. It's one of those few times when Netflix actually does have the thing I want to watch, and they tagged it as "understated", "art house", "rivalry", and I went -- oh no art house. I am not an art house person, and I think if I watched Bunohan without being preempted for what Said Dain was doing, I would have been lost, because I don't think I would've understood the supernatural elements of the movie until the very end (i.e. that the main characters' mother has become a supernatural creature, and their father is in possession of a saka) and from there wouldn't have been able to reflect retroactively on the film that came before it. I would've understood the encroachment of capitalism on the traditional ways, though! But the supernatural elements are a huge part of it and the film gives no context for that. That said, the camera work and framing choices are brilliant even if I wouldn't be able to get all of them, and I do love the strange opening scene.
A lot of the book's topics were fun (eg. we love melodramas and horror movies, and Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam was the turning point for modern horror -- I actually saw that in the cinema!) but my main enjoyment was in learning the older history in the early decades. Like how our movie industry was kicked off by outsiders, hence why the early films looked like Bollywood or Hong Kong-made output because they effectively were, even if the actors used were local, and that it took a while for local voices to become part of the industry and be able to tell our stories effectively, and that P. Ramlee being at the right place at the right time to absorb skills like a sponge gave the entire industry a boost. I did not know Filipino directors and crew were a strong influence as well, as that relationship doesn't seem to have carried forward much, unlike our greater overlap with Indonesia.
Purrcy; Pride
Jul. 3rd, 2025 12:20 ammecurtinI finished taking the laundry out of this basket & put it down on its side for Purrcy investigation. It was worth snooping in, but not really good for long-term use, he found.
What's that in the sky? he wondered, after several days of rain & thunder-growler attacks.
My back continues to be better, while not being anything like *all* better. Prednisone has the reputation of being Side Effects City, my biggest ones so far are dry mouth making my voice all scratchy, and a certain amount of ADHD/mania type behavior, trouble settling & sleeping. Only 3 more days of tapering to go, though.
Amid all The Horrors ramping up & up, here's something that's given me active joy in the past couple of days: Sir Ian McKellan joining Scissor Sisters onstage at Glastonbury Festival:
My god, he's still got that full Royal Shakespeare voice.
It makes me cry a bit with joy at the end there, seeing Sir Ian being able to lead his people in a public celebration of being out & proud. And to see an old man being *venerated*, for once, admired for achievements but in this case also as a symbol of what people like those in the audience can have with age: a *full* life, a *long* life, a life with everything in it, despite what they may have been told. You don't have to be young to be queer, it's not a phase, it's part of a complete human life.
What's that in the sky? he wondered, after several days of rain & thunder-growler attacks.
My back continues to be better, while not being anything like *all* better. Prednisone has the reputation of being Side Effects City, my biggest ones so far are dry mouth making my voice all scratchy, and a certain amount of ADHD/mania type behavior, trouble settling & sleeping. Only 3 more days of tapering to go, though.
Amid all The Horrors ramping up & up, here's something that's given me active joy in the past couple of days: Sir Ian McKellan joining Scissor Sisters onstage at Glastonbury Festival:
My god, he's still got that full Royal Shakespeare voice.
It makes me cry a bit with joy at the end there, seeing Sir Ian being able to lead his people in a public celebration of being out & proud. And to see an old man being *venerated*, for once, admired for achievements but in this case also as a symbol of what people like those in the audience can have with age: a *full* life, a *long* life, a life with everything in it, despite what they may have been told. You don't have to be young to be queer, it's not a phase, it's part of a complete human life.
Not a GREAT week when it comes to ending sexual violence.
Jul. 2nd, 2025 09:08 pmmuccamukkThe whole Diddy thing. It doesn't matter how much proof there is.
Brad Pitt, who is known to have struck his wife and his children then perpetuated lawfare on them for years to the point where several of his kids no longer want contact with him, has the number one movie right now. Best opening weekend of his career. Most of the coverage doesn't even mention the violence.
On the anniversary of Tortoise Media publishing allegations of rape and sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, Netflix is dropping season two of The Sandman. Meanwhile, Gaiman is forcing one of his victims into arbitration. Not because she's libling him, but because she broke an NDA. Everything's gone very quiet, which I assume is what he wanted.
Some thoughts from smarter people:
Rebecca Solnit: Cynicism Is the Enemy of Action.
Tarana Burke: Tarana Burke doesn’t define #MeToo’s success by society’s failure.
Brad Pitt, who is known to have struck his wife and his children then perpetuated lawfare on them for years to the point where several of his kids no longer want contact with him, has the number one movie right now. Best opening weekend of his career. Most of the coverage doesn't even mention the violence.
On the anniversary of Tortoise Media publishing allegations of rape and sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, Netflix is dropping season two of The Sandman. Meanwhile, Gaiman is forcing one of his victims into arbitration. Not because she's libling him, but because she broke an NDA. Everything's gone very quiet, which I assume is what he wanted.
Some thoughts from smarter people:
Rebecca Solnit: Cynicism Is the Enemy of Action.
Tarana Burke: Tarana Burke doesn’t define #MeToo’s success by society’s failure.
Some people want to judge the movement on specific outcomes, so when a case is overturned, Burke said, “people are like, ‘Oh the #MeToo movement has failed.’” Instead, she said, such outcomes are proof of the difficulty of the work.
“It’s not about the failure of the movement; it’s the failure of the systems,” Burke explained. “These systems are not designed to help survivors, they’re not designed to give us justice, they’re not designed to end sexual violence.”
“When we bind ourselves to the outcomes of these cases, we are constantly up and down with our disappointment, our highs and lows,” Burke continued. “What they tell us is just how much work we need to change the laws and the policies but most importantly, to change the culture that creates the people who commit, who perpetrate acts of harm.”
Things learned in June
Jul. 2nd, 2025 11:07 pmtinnyJune was a slow month, but better than nothing. :)
( 14 things, some animal trivia and other random stuff )
( 14 things, some animal trivia and other random stuff )
The Way Up is Death, by Dan Hanks
Jul. 2nd, 2025 01:39 pmrachelmanija
In a prologue that's very Terry Pratchett-esque without actually being funny, an enormous floating tower appears in England, becomes a 12-hour wonder, and is then forgotten as people have short attention spans. Then thirteen random people suddenly vanish from their lives and appear at the base of the tower, facing the command ASCEND.
I normally love stories about people dealing with inexplicable alien architecture. This was the most boring and unimaginative version of that idea I've ever read. Each level is a death trap based on something in one of their minds - a video game, The Poseidon Adventure, an old home - but less interesting than that sounds. The action was repetitive, the characters were paper-thin, and one, an already-dated influencer, was actively painful to read:
Time to give her the Alpha Male rizzzzzzz, baby!
The ending was, unsurprisingly, also a cliche.
( Read more... )
The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James
Jul. 2nd, 2025 08:27 amrunpunkrunOne of those thrillers that splits the narrative between two women—both twenty years old, working at the same grubby motel and living in the same apartment, one in 1982 and the other in 2017 trying to solve the mystery of the first one's disappearance—and their stories run so parallel they're basically interchangeable and you start wondering if maybe the author should have only told the story once. It certainly would have cut down on the amount of clunky exposition and awkward dialogue.
The thrills were not thrilling, but the mystery might have been interesting if we weren't getting it from both ends. As it is, not worth the time.
Contains: References to rape, domestic abuse, and child death; descriptions of dead bodies; ghosts.
The thrills were not thrilling, but the mystery might have been interesting if we weren't getting it from both ends. As it is, not worth the time.
Contains: References to rape, domestic abuse, and child death; descriptions of dead bodies; ghosts.
Start July as you mean to go on
Jul. 1st, 2025 11:10 pmsholioTechnically this was yesterday, but I climbed a hill and had an eagle fly past me. (The hill is the Bodenburg Butte in Palmer, AK.)
I realize the eagle is more like a dot, but if you've tried to take a quick photo of a bird, this is without zoom (I was just trying to snap a fast shot without completely losing the experience of having an eagle flying in front of me) so it is actually very close! After it flew past, I turned around and two teenage guys were standing above me, having just descended from the top and watched it too. "Sick," one of them said in obvious delight, and we nodded at each other.
I'm down in Southcentral doing Mom Things. Mom has been moved out of the rental where she was living since last August, and she was supposed to go home via helicopter today, but the weather was a problem. But that's why I reserved two extra days at the Airbnb beforehand, just in case. Tomorrow we try again! She was very respectful of my space today - I think she recognized that I was planning on having the evening to myself tonight and it didn't happen - and I wrote both fanfic and original fiction, and took a long walk to sort some plot things out in my head. Thursday I go home, and perhaps drive the Denali Highway on my way, if the wildfire smoke isn't too bad.
I realize the eagle is more like a dot, but if you've tried to take a quick photo of a bird, this is without zoom (I was just trying to snap a fast shot without completely losing the experience of having an eagle flying in front of me) so it is actually very close! After it flew past, I turned around and two teenage guys were standing above me, having just descended from the top and watched it too. "Sick," one of them said in obvious delight, and we nodded at each other.
I'm down in Southcentral doing Mom Things. Mom has been moved out of the rental where she was living since last August, and she was supposed to go home via helicopter today, but the weather was a problem. But that's why I reserved two extra days at the Airbnb beforehand, just in case. Tomorrow we try again! She was very respectful of my space today - I think she recognized that I was planning on having the evening to myself tonight and it didn't happen - and I wrote both fanfic and original fiction, and took a long walk to sort some plot things out in my head. Thursday I go home, and perhaps drive the Denali Highway on my way, if the wildfire smoke isn't too bad.
what fresh hell is this?
Jul. 1st, 2025 09:44 pmtrobadoraIt rained for three hours straight - thunderstorm, hail and torrential rain - and didn't cool done one bit. That shouldn't be allowed. And now we have all the heat and all the humidity, and ugh.
(Hi! I'm still here. Things are just very busy and I can't seem to find the time or energy for posting, much less keeping up with anything other than the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sid_guardian discussions ... I hope everyone's doing well, whether you're caught in this heat wave too or not.)
(Hi! I'm still here. Things are just very busy and I can't seem to find the time or energy for posting, much less keeping up with anything other than the
sid_guardian discussions ... I hope everyone's doing well, whether you're caught in this heat wave too or not.)Knitting Pattern Preferences
Jul. 1st, 2025 02:26 pmbuttonsbeadslaceI finished fruit slice #3 and that means now I'm putting together the pattern for all the fruit slice variations. So I have some questions:
1. If you download a knitting pattern from a website, do you print it out to refer to while you're knitting, or do you read the pattern off of a device?
2. If you read patterns off a device, is it a phone, tablet, or computer? Screen size is what I'm curious about here.
1. If you download a knitting pattern from a website, do you print it out to refer to while you're knitting, or do you read the pattern off of a device?
2. If you read patterns off a device, is it a phone, tablet, or computer? Screen size is what I'm curious about here.
RL is meh, but at least I have a lot of entertaining things to watch
Jul. 1st, 2025 12:50 pmmaggie33I’m a bit sick, ugh. Nothing serious, just a sore throat and a bit of a cold, probably because I’m sweating a lot (ahh, my lovely frenemy menopause 😒), and when I go out there is a strong chilly wind outside (and has been for the last two weeks or so), and of course air conditioning inside everywhere.
Also I have the attention span of a gnat lately and started watching so many new things, I don’t know when I’ll finish all of them. 😊
I mean, ok, I did finish a few things. Amongst them:
Kpop Demon Hunters
This is Netflix’s new animated movie everybody is talking about right now. It’s about three demon huntresses, who form a kpop girl group named Huntrix, and use their songs to build the protection spell around the world, to save all the humans from a big scary demon, who wants to eat their souls. So this demon sends five demon boys to form a kpop boy group to compete with Huntrix and steal their fans and their fans’ souls from them.
Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, and it’s also funny and entertaining, and touching and sweet. I enjoyed it a lot. And I didn’t expect much, just an hour and a half of fun and cuteness and a few catchy songs. And it was all that, but it also made me teary-eyed at the end.
Also – this cover of Your Idol is very good.
My Sweet Brother in Law
The last episode aired last week and it was bit of a letdown after decent and enjoyable four episodes.
Even though I do wish they didn’t make Khanh’s wife a gold digging cheating psycho, to make it okay that Khanh cheated on her with Bao. After watching the first three episodes I was so pleased that the women involved weren’t vilified in this drama, and unfortunately, that didn’t last.
I also watched two other BL dramas. And they both had a very similar plot. Chinese and Taiwanese BL dramas sure do love dramatic, full of longing and forbidden desire, step-brothers pairings, don’t they? 😊 And sometimes I get a craving for such pairings, too.
So first I watched Moon and Dust, a new short (6 episodes) Chinese BL. An older boy rescues a younger boy from homelessness and suffering, ends up raising him, and then of course a younger boy falls desperately in love with his Da Ge and tries to quash those feelings, but can’t help confessing in an emotional scene. And the older brother clearly feels something more than brotherly feelings, too, but can’t admit it, because he doesn’t want to recognize those feelings for what they are, and he feels that as an older brother he has to be the responsible one and refuse his brother’s love.
I liked this short drama a lot. It’s cheaply made, cheesy and OTT sometimes, but good actors with very nice chemistry made it work for me.
The 1st episode is available for free on Youtube here. When the drama was airing they did make each new episode available for free for the limited period of time, and now you can still watch the last 6th episode there, but episodes 2-5 are available for members only.
And since Moon and Dust was so short I decided to finally watch Unknown, Taiwanese BL from 2024 with the same trope. I did watch the first episode back then when it started airing, but it was rather dark and violent, and I wasn’t in the mood for something like that then, so I never watched more. But now I watched all of it.
My opinion – it’s very uneven. The first half is good, and then it starts falling apart. It took me a week to watch the last two episodes, because they were either super boring (episode 11) or made me cringe so hard (episode 12).
The weak script in the second half was the main problem for me. Exacerbated by me not really seeing much romantic and sexual chemistry between leads. As actors they are both good, but it was very hard for me to buy Qian reciprocating Yuan’s feelings.
And this post got quite long already so I’ll write about all those other, started things the next time. And now I’m going to watch some of them, and maybe I’ll even mange to finish something else today. 😊
Also I have the attention span of a gnat lately and started watching so many new things, I don’t know when I’ll finish all of them. 😊
I mean, ok, I did finish a few things. Amongst them:
Kpop Demon Hunters
This is Netflix’s new animated movie everybody is talking about right now. It’s about three demon huntresses, who form a kpop girl group named Huntrix, and use their songs to build the protection spell around the world, to save all the humans from a big scary demon, who wants to eat their souls. So this demon sends five demon boys to form a kpop boy group to compete with Huntrix and steal their fans and their fans’ souls from them.
Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, and it’s also funny and entertaining, and touching and sweet. I enjoyed it a lot. And I didn’t expect much, just an hour and a half of fun and cuteness and a few catchy songs. And it was all that, but it also made me teary-eyed at the end.
Spoilers here.
And not because of Jinu’s sacrifice. But because I’m a sucker for ‘power of friendship saving the world’ stuff. And that movie delivered so well on that front. Rumi, Mira and Zoey’s friendship was my favorite part of the movie.Also – this cover of Your Idol is very good.
My Sweet Brother in Law
The last episode aired last week and it was bit of a letdown after decent and enjoyable four episodes.
Spoilers here, too
That went into a full OTT dramatic soap opera in the last episode: a cheating psycho wife, a homophobic dad throwing his gay son out of the house, a stabbing, Bao saving Khanh’s life and ending in a coma for six months, and then a cliffhanger with a sudden arrival of Bao’s handsome ex-boyfriend. I think they hope for the 2nd season. And you know what, I hope they will make it. In general I enjoyed this drama. For my first Vietnamese BL it was great.Even though I do wish they didn’t make Khanh’s wife a gold digging cheating psycho, to make it okay that Khanh cheated on her with Bao. After watching the first three episodes I was so pleased that the women involved weren’t vilified in this drama, and unfortunately, that didn’t last.
I also watched two other BL dramas. And they both had a very similar plot. Chinese and Taiwanese BL dramas sure do love dramatic, full of longing and forbidden desire, step-brothers pairings, don’t they? 😊 And sometimes I get a craving for such pairings, too.
So first I watched Moon and Dust, a new short (6 episodes) Chinese BL. An older boy rescues a younger boy from homelessness and suffering, ends up raising him, and then of course a younger boy falls desperately in love with his Da Ge and tries to quash those feelings, but can’t help confessing in an emotional scene. And the older brother clearly feels something more than brotherly feelings, too, but can’t admit it, because he doesn’t want to recognize those feelings for what they are, and he feels that as an older brother he has to be the responsible one and refuse his brother’s love.
I liked this short drama a lot. It’s cheaply made, cheesy and OTT sometimes, but good actors with very nice chemistry made it work for me.
Spoilers for the ending here.
This is not a happy ending. I would say it is ambiguous. It’s clear they both have feelings for each other. But they don’t get together, and it ends with the older one rejecting the younger one’s feelings. But there is no tragedy or death or anything like that. So you can imagine very easily a post-canon fix-it with them getting together in a few months or a few years.The 1st episode is available for free on Youtube here. When the drama was airing they did make each new episode available for free for the limited period of time, and now you can still watch the last 6th episode there, but episodes 2-5 are available for members only.
And since Moon and Dust was so short I decided to finally watch Unknown, Taiwanese BL from 2024 with the same trope. I did watch the first episode back then when it started airing, but it was rather dark and violent, and I wasn’t in the mood for something like that then, so I never watched more. But now I watched all of it.
My opinion – it’s very uneven. The first half is good, and then it starts falling apart. It took me a week to watch the last two episodes, because they were either super boring (episode 11) or made me cringe so hard (episode 12).
The weak script in the second half was the main problem for me. Exacerbated by me not really seeing much romantic and sexual chemistry between leads. As actors they are both good, but it was very hard for me to buy Qian reciprocating Yuan’s feelings.
More complaining with spoilers here.
And seriously, everybody around them is perfectly fine with Qian and Yuan’s relationship, and so accepting as soon as they hear about it? And people in Qian’s office instantly start gossiping about who’s the top and who’s the bottom. And then they openly ask Qian about it. I cringed from second hand embarrassment so hard and instantly pressed a fast-forward button. Why? Why do BL dramas still do that in 2024?And this post got quite long already so I’ll write about all those other, started things the next time. And now I’m going to watch some of them, and maybe I’ll even mange to finish something else today. 😊
Purrcy, Rivers of London, my back
Jun. 30th, 2025 10:52 pmmecurtinPurrcy was lying on top of the sofas and then Suddenly a Wild Hand Appeared! With Pets! it was pretty choice for everyone involved tbh
One of the things I've been doing to deal with stress is occasional binge-reading of book series. Most recently Rivers of London, which I'd never read all of before.
I do like them, and they're cute and all, but I'm forcefully reminded of why I don't read police procedurals any more, or watch TV shows with law enforcement heroes. Because this is really a fantasy of copaganda, as well as a fantasy with copaganda. I mean, the very idea that murders are treated so *seriously*, with huge commitments of personnel & resources ... This has *got* to be a fantasy for the UK, right? It's certainly a fantasy for the US, where almost half of all murders are unsolved.
So I can't really like them unreservedly, I can't *wallow* in them, my disbelief won't suspend that far.
But! Good news today!
I went to the doctor about my sciatica, and he started me on a course of prednisone, and ... it already seems to be working? maybe? Could this be what not being in pain is like?
Honestly it feels very strange. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!
One of the things I've been doing to deal with stress is occasional binge-reading of book series. Most recently Rivers of London, which I'd never read all of before.
I do like them, and they're cute and all, but I'm forcefully reminded of why I don't read police procedurals any more, or watch TV shows with law enforcement heroes. Because this is really a fantasy of copaganda, as well as a fantasy with copaganda. I mean, the very idea that murders are treated so *seriously*, with huge commitments of personnel & resources ... This has *got* to be a fantasy for the UK, right? It's certainly a fantasy for the US, where almost half of all murders are unsolved.
So I can't really like them unreservedly, I can't *wallow* in them, my disbelief won't suspend that far.
But! Good news today!
I went to the doctor about my sciatica, and he started me on a course of prednisone, and ... it already seems to be working? maybe? Could this be what not being in pain is like?
Honestly it feels very strange. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!
don't go where i can't follow
Jun. 29th, 2025 08:12 pmkaydeefallsSo on top of the general shitshow that has been this year so far, we lost our hamster yesterday. Mr. Samwise Hamgee was an excellent little buddy, who came a LONG way with us from his very skittish origins. By the end, he was regularly curling up into our hands to nap - holding on tightly to our fingers with his little front paws - and had many squeaky opinions which he shared with us vociferously. Seriously, I have never experienced such a chatty hamster, and that includes the childhood hamster I literally named Squeaks for her squeakiness. It will be very strange going back to quiet hamsters after this little guinea pig impersonator.
He was about six weeks shy of his second birthday, which put him in just under the average hamster lifespan. But he had some mysterious hammy health problems that started last September (we did take him to a vet, but they couldn't find anything to explain the VERY noticeable behavioral changes), so honestly, we're just thrilled he continued trucking along for so long with us. He was determined to make the most of his little life, and he brought a lot of joy to ours, and we miss him very much.
And we've already made arrangements to go pick up our next hamster from the same breeder next weekend, because life is short and these lil critters make ours so much better. So. That's something, anyway.
He was about six weeks shy of his second birthday, which put him in just under the average hamster lifespan. But he had some mysterious hammy health problems that started last September (we did take him to a vet, but they couldn't find anything to explain the VERY noticeable behavioral changes), so honestly, we're just thrilled he continued trucking along for so long with us. He was determined to make the most of his little life, and he brought a lot of joy to ours, and we miss him very much.
And we've already made arrangements to go pick up our next hamster from the same breeder next weekend, because life is short and these lil critters make ours so much better. So. That's something, anyway.
Poetry in translation: Chinese to Finnish
Jun. 29th, 2025 03:50 pmextrapenguinI recently got Pertti Nieminen's compilation of translations Veden hohde, vuorten värit, with a bunch of translations from the Book of Poetry (詩經 Shi Jing) onwards, and have been slowly making my way through it. (Out of print, so I got it via antikvaari.fi and ended up paying more for postage than the actual book lol. Joys of living abroad.) This was for the most part an exercise in seeing whether Chinese poetry works better translated into Finnish than into English, given that all three poetic traditions have different defaults of what is considered poetic. Anyway, the short answer is "yes". I picked a few poems I liked from the Shi Jing to illustrate the differences. The text itself is available on ctext, along with out of copyright 1800s translations by James Legge, to which I shall compare.
(My largest annoyance with the book so far: the transliteration chosen is, uh, not pinyin, so I'm here like "who tf is Su T'ung-po" whenever a name comes up. My copy already has a random inscription on the front so I might add a pinyin gloss to the authors' names with pencil at some point.)
( intenseish poetry discussion )
I might do some similar comparisons of the Tang poets and then, later on, other sections – I think there must be enough famous Ming poets that one of them has also been translated into English, and at the very least I can talk about Mao Zedong's stuff for the Republic/People's Republic section.
(My largest annoyance with the book so far: the transliteration chosen is, uh, not pinyin, so I'm here like "who tf is Su T'ung-po" whenever a name comes up. My copy already has a random inscription on the front so I might add a pinyin gloss to the authors' names with pencil at some point.)
( intenseish poetry discussion )
I might do some similar comparisons of the Tang poets and then, later on, other sections – I think there must be enough famous Ming poets that one of them has also been translated into English, and at the very least I can talk about Mao Zedong's stuff for the Republic/People's Republic section.
Purrcy in the morning
Jun. 28th, 2025 11:21 pmmecurtinDuring the heat wave this past week there was no Purrcy on the bed, but I woke up to him at my feet again yesterday and this morning. Lookit that face! Lookit how I touch that paw with a single finger!
I haven't been Purrcy-posting regularly for a while, because I've been tired and distracted and didn't have time -- because of the fascism, but also because of sitting outside in the spring and listening to birds. I'm trying to get back into it now, as you can see, but it's hard to keep in focus.
Also, my sciatica has been acting up, which means a lot of time just lying in bed, dozing or reading. I'm going to the doctor on Monday, hopefully I'll get a steroid injection or something similar & things will be better for a while. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
I haven't been Purrcy-posting regularly for a while, because I've been tired and distracted and didn't have time -- because of the fascism, but also because of sitting outside in the spring and listening to birds. I'm trying to get back into it now, as you can see, but it's hard to keep in focus.
Also, my sciatica has been acting up, which means a lot of time just lying in bed, dozing or reading. I'm going to the doctor on Monday, hopefully I'll get a steroid injection or something similar & things will be better for a while. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
Misc Books: Helene Hanff, Lauren Tarshis, Stuart Turton
Jun. 28th, 2025 01:12 pmrachelmanija
A sweet epistolatory memoir consisting of the letters written by a woman in New York City with extremely specific tastes (mostly classic nonfiction) and the English bookseller whose books she buys. Their correspondence continues over 20 years, from the 1940s to the 1960s. It's an enjoyable read but I think it became a ginormous bestseller largely because it hit some kind of cultural zeitgeist when it came out.
The graphic novel version! I read this after DNFing the supposedly definitive book on the event, Dark Flood, due to the author making all sorts of unsourced claims while bragging about all the research he did. The point at which I returned the book to Ingram with extreme prejudice was when he claimed that no one had ever written about the flood before him except for children's books where it was depicted as a delightful fairyland where children danced around snacking on candy. WHAT CHILDREN'S BOOKS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
The heroine of I Survived the Great Molasses Flood is an immigrant from Italy whose family was decimated in a flood over there. A water flood. It's got a nice storyline about the immigrant experience. The molasses flood is not depicted as a delightful fairyland because I suspect no one has ever done that. It also provides the intriguing context that the molasses was not used for sweetening food, but was going to be converted into sugar alcohol to be used, among other things, for making bombs!
My favorite horrifying detail was that when the giant molasses vat started expanding, screws popped out so fast that they acted as shrapnel. I also enjoyed the SPLOOSH! SPLAT! GRRRRMMMMM! sound effects.
A very unusual murder mystery/historical/fantasy/??? about a guy who wakes up with amnesia in someone else's body. He quickly learns that he is being body-switched every time he falls asleep, into the bodies of assorted people present at a party where Evelyn Hardcastle was murdered. He needs to solve the mystery, or else.
This premise gets even more complicated from then on; it's not just a mystery who killed Evelyn Hardcastle, but why he's being bodyswapped, and who other mysterious people are. It's technically adept and entertaining. Everything does have an explanation, and a fairly interesting and weird one - which makes sense, as it's a weird book.
Purrcy and the snake
Jun. 28th, 2025 01:34 pmmecurtinThe other day I heard Purrcy scrabbling in the corner between our bedroom & the laundry room, and then hissing. When I went over to see what was up his tail was all puffed up, as he confronted a new experience:
a milk snake!
( cut for snake pic )
Purrcy was very excited, but wary--he clearly has a "snake instinct" that says this isn't normal prey, but something possibly dangerous. We weren't able to catch the snake, but we're pretty sure it went out the way it came in, it was pretty scared of us (& Purrcy).
Purrcy spent the next half week sniffing & searching for it everywhere, & also being v suspicious of all the cords & any long or snakelike toys. It's like his "snake instinct" was dormant & had to be activated.
The bad part about Our Inside Snek Adventure is that I mentioned it to the housecleaner ... who turns out to be *horribly* snake-phobic. So much that just knowing there'd been a snake in the house, she was too scared to come this week. We're blocking up the Snake Holes, hoping that helps, & she'll try to come back next week.
I'm not going to tell her that this is the 3rd *species* of snake we've seen close to the house, which is made of stone, 100 yrs old, on a stony NJ hillside (others are garter & black racer). Mr Dr Science & I love it! He in the Atlanta suburbs, I in Champaign, IL, we were the kids who caught snakes & brought them in for show & tell in elementary school.
Gloria, our housecleaner, grew up in Jamaica, but she's a city girl through and through. She's prob. too old for snake therapy, I hope this works.
a milk snake!
( cut for snake pic )
Purrcy was very excited, but wary--he clearly has a "snake instinct" that says this isn't normal prey, but something possibly dangerous. We weren't able to catch the snake, but we're pretty sure it went out the way it came in, it was pretty scared of us (& Purrcy).
Purrcy spent the next half week sniffing & searching for it everywhere, & also being v suspicious of all the cords & any long or snakelike toys. It's like his "snake instinct" was dormant & had to be activated.
The bad part about Our Inside Snek Adventure is that I mentioned it to the housecleaner ... who turns out to be *horribly* snake-phobic. So much that just knowing there'd been a snake in the house, she was too scared to come this week. We're blocking up the Snake Holes, hoping that helps, & she'll try to come back next week.
I'm not going to tell her that this is the 3rd *species* of snake we've seen close to the house, which is made of stone, 100 yrs old, on a stony NJ hillside (others are garter & black racer). Mr Dr Science & I love it! He in the Atlanta suburbs, I in Champaign, IL, we were the kids who caught snakes & brought them in for show & tell in elementary school.
Gloria, our housecleaner, grew up in Jamaica, but she's a city girl through and through. She's prob. too old for snake therapy, I hope this works.
Only Friends Dream On
Jun. 28th, 2025 02:15 pmmaggie33Oh wow, look at that. 😍
These are AouBoom pics from the first day of shooting.
People are speculating that Only Friends Dream On may even replace Memoir of Rati when it finishes airing in September. It would be great. And I already know I will be even more obsessed with this season than I was with the first one. 😊
These are AouBoom pics from the first day of shooting.
Two more pics (EarthMix and JossGawin) behind the cut.
People are speculating that Only Friends Dream On may even replace Memoir of Rati when it finishes airing in September. It would be great. And I already know I will be even more obsessed with this season than I was with the first one. 😊