chromatic_fanfic | Member Posts

ineptshieldmaid

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ineptshieldmaid

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scaramouche

I have finished H2O: Just Add Water, what a fun that's been! It's been interesting marathoning because while I find season 3 the most balanced, coherent, well-paced and mature (comparatively) of the seasons, and some of the episodes are legitimately amazing, these traits still don't necessarily make it my favourite season.

I still think season 1 was the best, with its little scenarios and wacky yet simple adventures and the excitement of newness. But shows have to evolve as they go along, so of course season 3 would try new things and give the characters and situations more thoughtful depth, which I think they succeeded, even if it couldn't recapture the magic of the start.

When I say (comparative) maturity and thoughtfulness, I means things like the show adding a new setting with Zane and Rikki opening up a cafe, and Rikki in particular showing aptitude and passion in running a business, which makes perfect sense for her despite her being the free-spirited one, because she has from season 1 been worried about financial security because of her family background in poverty and her necessary spiritual independence and stubbornness because of that. The girls in a sense "having" a cafe (Rikki as the owner, Bella as an employee, and Cleo helping out) marks them out as young women now, compared to the earlier seasons that marked them as teenagers with teenagers' concerns of having fun and grumbling about homework. (Rikki's still a student, so is she allowed to co-own a business? Does it matter?)

( This got so long. )

And I'm actually ready to watch the spin-off Mako Mermaids now.

Current Mood: okay

ranalore

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Current Mood: hot
Current Location: I'm not sure I can stand for this slow extinction event y'all

nicki

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delphi

Armand/Daniel continues to delight me, and xthatsecret's edits continue to give me life. This one uses its song's offbeat bounce and dark humour to create the perfect mood for revisiting and recontextualizing Armand and Daniel's scenes together up to and through the recent revelations.

An Unhealthy Obsession by xthatsecret
Fandom: The Vampire Lestat (Interview with the Vampire s3)
Relationships: Armand/Daniel Molloy
Medium: Vid
Length: 2:03
Rating: SFW (spoilers up to 3x6)
My Bookmark Tags: dark, romance, humour, ambiguous ending, developing relationship, obsession, courtship, secrets, then and now
Song: An Unhealthy Obsession by The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra

Excerpt:

You've got those eyes that drive me crazy
and I've got eyes to watch you sleep
I brought a packed lunch and some coffee
for my stakeout in your tree

Watch on YouTube

( Some Brief Thoughts About 3x6 and the Upcoming Finale )

hokuton_punch

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Current Mood: excited

snowynight

Stealing the idea from: #tenmonstersetting challenge by 3toadstools

Setting:
A grim low fantasy setting that an ancient evil is spreading disaster across the land. The nymphs, ogres and krauls join together to destroy human civilization. Monsters from the underworld prey on people's flesh and souls.

10 monsters:

Semi-intelligent humanoid: Kraul, an eusocial insectoid folk with an instinct for teamwork
Undead: Corpo-Seco: rotting corpse of a person too evil to be welcomed in the Abyss, now goes on spreading evil deathlessly
Ancient Fey: nymphs
Giant/Ogre/Troll: Ogres, which vicious insult is a weapon
Great Wyrm / Lizard: Serpent of Isaby - huge enough to coil around mountain peaks
Aerial: Imps
Lurks in the Water: Tardigrades. As they are hard to kill, wealth patrons pay for a hunt to prove their worth.
Extradimensional: Bebilith: infernally-spawned, vermin-like creature whose sole purpose seems to be to hunt and devour its demonic prey
Mythological: Perelesny, feeding on regrets and hidden dream
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing: Ghosts

Source:
A Folklore Bestiary
Monster Overhaul
The Monsters Know What They’re Doing
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Book of the Damned

snowynight

Ingredients

1 kg butternut pumpkin
2 cups water
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp chicken stock powder
1-2 tbsp thickened cream

Instructions:

Microwave on high all together for 12 minutes
Cool
Puree
Add cream (delete as taste requires)
Serve with crusty bread (Optional)

Source: Microwave Pumpkin Soup

china_shop

Previous poll review
In the Music listening habits poll, "all the time" and "sometimes/occasionally" tied for first place with 27.7%, followed by "most days" with 25.5% (within the margin of error, so it's really a three-way tie). "Only in specific settings" garnered 19.1%.

For background noise, 57.4% said they like quiet, and 44.7% prefer music. (I think this says something about the kind of people who like Dreamwidth.) And in ticky-boxes, more hugs won with 89.1%, followed by hugs (82.6%) and lemons on the lemon tree (54.3%). Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
A bit more of Borders of Infinity by Bujold, read by Grover Gardner, and some graded reading in Chinese (the one about the stray cat finding a home, and her adopted mother, the penniless student; now I'm onto one about a doctor impersonating a student so she can go back to campus and feed the cats there, only now she's going on a date with a student? I'm hoping he'll turn out to actually be older too). I am slow and occasionally tripped up by new grammar configurations, but enjoying it immensely.

Cdramas/Kdramas
We finished Miraculous Brothers. Kind of a slow ending, but it was great. Now Andrew and I have started a) The Apartment Job, about a retired gangster (possibly autistic-coded?) trying to rip off the maintenance fund of a huge apartment complex; and b) Agent Kim Reactivated, about a retired North Korean super-spy living a quiet, humdrum life in South Korea, who loses his shit when his daughter is kidnapped. The latter is full of groups of people being terrible so we can enjoy seeing them get beaten up, ie, lots of bullying, terrorising the helpless, etc. It's also cartoonishly violent, quirkily enjoyable, and has So Ji-sub.

Pru and I finished Love Scout (♥ ♥ ♥) and are about to start May I Help You (2022), about a woman who works in a funeral parlour and sees ghosts, and an odd-jobs guy who helps her carry out the ghosts' last requests.

And I'm still obsessed with The First Frost, about two wounded, gunshy people who've loved each other since they were at high school but have a hard time getting past their own defences. (CW: sexual assault, workplace sexual harassment.) It's one of those "every tiny bit of progress feels like a triumph" kind of shows. I'm not sure what I'm going to follow it up with once I'm done.

Other TV
Not a lot of other TV. Legends (UK) once a week with a friend; White Collar and Bluey with my sister; finished Fisk. Watched a few movies: Nonnas (very gentle light drama with Vince Vaughan), Smallfoot (animated yeti (雪人) movie with confusing cultural aspects and unnecessary musical numbers), and Toy Story 5 in the cinema (fun enough, but I always forget I'm not really into the franchise). A bit of The Rest is Politics on Youtube (interviews with Jacinda Ardern, Helen Clark, Volodymyr Zelenskyy).

Audio entertainment
Cross Party Lines, a bit of Dreaming Against the Machine, some Coherent Podcast episodes to help me with political submissions, and a metric ton of ChinesePod beginner and elementary lessons. I'm about three weeks behind on Writing Excuses.

Writing/making things
My writing time has mostly been taken up with the Slo-mo Guardian Rewatch on

sid_guardian and political submissions, but I did just edit a flashfic; I might even manage to finish it for this

fan_flashworks round. (I wrote it in Chinese first, translated it, and then had to fix the things that I either didn't think of or didn't know how to express in Chinese. ;-p)

Life/health/mental state things
One more political submission over the weekend. That should be it for a while, since the government has (hopefully) run out of time to start more terrible things before the election.

My email inbox is neglected and overflowing. We're in the cold, dark part of the year, and it's inevitably taking its toll. But I'm okay. I'm hunkering and studying and otherwise puddling along.

House
I have quotes from the builder and electrician, and I've paid for the oven. Wheels are in motion (hopefully next month! *knock on wood*). I still need to a) paint the baseboards in the kitchen, and b) choose a new toilet.

Language Learning
My Chinese study continues apace. I got three days of free Premium on Duolingo over the weekend and went hard, but mostly my focus has shifted to HelloChinese (grammar, cultural notes, characters, "immersive lessons") and DuChinese (reading, flashcards). And the podcast (sample dialogues, pronunciation).

Good things
Lunches with friends. The Slo-mo Rewatch. A wealth of language learning resources. Writing. Looking forward to trying out new dishes (and also baking) in the new oven.

Poll #34830 Packing for travel

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

View Respondents

I pack

View Answers

light
11 (24.4%)

medium
21 (46.7%)

heavy
7 (15.6%)

the kitchen sink
7 (15.6%)

other
3 (6.7%)

I prefer not to go anywhere
14 (31.1%)

other other
2 (4.4%)

ticky-box full of language-learning apps
11 (24.4%)

ticky-box full of giving your pets morning and/or afternoon tea and/or supper
19 (42.2%)

ticky-box full of pandas doing calligraphy and getting ink everywhere
23 (51.1%)

ticky-box of foxes telling knock-knock jokes
17 (37.8%)

ticky-box full of hugs
39 (86.7%)

ranalore

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Current Mood: morose
Current Location: is it still a heat dome if we're all under it?

deird1

After far too many years, I have finally seen Superman Returns. And I have fic.

Title: Something You Find
Rating: G
Word Count: 630

Summary: Now that Jason's father is back in town, there's stuff Lois and Richard need to discuss.

( a long overdue conversation )

scaramouche

Adding two more Outer Wilds LPs that I am enjoying, though I haven't finished either, as I'm playing them in snippets in the background as I do other things.

WhimsyPsyche (youtube playlist)
Someone in her comments described her as Riebeck, which is true because she's a thorough player who enjoys the detail as she puts the story together, but she's also battling a fear of space (with some vertigo in there, it sounds like) as she plays, which is really brave IMO. She has pleasant commentary, recognizes Solanum really quick and gets invested in the story, but there are a handful of times where (and this is totally something I would do as a player) she panic-rushes a bit under the time crunch and misses important info, but she comes back to what she misses later, so it works out.

Cynthetic (youtube playlist)
I'm still very early in her playthrough but she's a thorough and observant player who figured out the existence of the Quantum Moon while checking out the map for the first time in the Observatory, and there's more where that came from. She also had a tremendously lucky run with the Tower of Quantum Knowledge, before she even knew it was a puzzle.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: Bee Gees - You Should be Dancing

delphi

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thistleingrey

Spring embroidery, red scarflet, modular scarf: fine.

I've been pondering a recently released slipover pattern that incorporates a flag and invites the knitter to swap its flag for another. The pattern is intended to be beginner-friendly, whereas I'd like a split hem, shorter armholes, a flag with different proportions and placement, and icord edges. Just a few tiny edits.

Since I haven't knitted much intarsia, this week I've done a bit of searching and experimenting. This is the flag I'm contemplating knitting. ( Read more... )

snowynight

Today I watched the Backrooms movie. The movie not only recreates an eerie uncanny liminal space, but also tells a suspenful psychological horror story.

Clark (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a divorced alchoholic failed architect who feels that he's stuck running an unsucessful cheap furniture store. He attends therapy session with Mary (played by Renate Reinsve), who has her childhood trauma. One day Clark discovered that his store basement was connected to a space, which looked like an abandoned office space made without actually knowing what an office was like in reality. He kept going back there abd became obsessed. After him missing his session and leaving an omnious call, Mary went to his store to look for him and gets trapped there.

The visual design and music were very good. The yellow fluroscent walls, the subtly wrong furnitures, the endless doors, chutes and rooms were uncanny. The music and sound effects was unsettling and enhanced the scenes. I kept my eyes shut during the gory scenes, but luckily there weren't many. I also find the use of found footage very effective.

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are really steller. They make the characters feel grounded and sympathetic. Chiwetel Ejiofor sold me the change of Clark throughout the movie, while Renate Reinsve's restrained performance fits her role well. The supporting cast is good too.

Although I haven't watched the original Youtube series nor the trailer, I find the movie easy to follow, though I'm sure I may have missed the nuance. I really like how it doesn't try to explain away the mystery of the Backrooms, but throwing out more and more questions.

I have just found out the director is only 20. It's really impressive! I look forward to his next work.

scaramouche

Books in the old unread pile: 3

A friend gave me an old family copy she had of Donna Tartt's The Secret History a few years ago. We must have been talking about the book (maybe I'd told her how I'd stumbled on some posts about it on tumblr) or she must've described the some of story to me as we were chatting about books we've enjoyed, and got me curious. I wish I could remember what we'd discussed, but anyway I have now read it.

Actually I just finished it a few minutes ago, so I don't know how I feel about it overall. I know that I was at first reading rather clinically, in appreciating the prose and turns of phrases and ways Tartt uses the narration to drop self-aware foreshadowing, then when the first murder is reported to the narrator I couldn't put it down and kinda inhaled the rest of it. I think that says something good about the writing and how compelling I found it? And how fascinating it is to read about a series of trainwrecks, one after another, as the characters make all sorts of bad choices that spiral out and bounce back (like some of my fav crime fiction, but different) yet remain compelling to read about in horrified fascination. Perhaps I shall look for some discussion tomorrow, when I have cleared my head.