Previous poll reviewIn
the Patterns poll, 77.3% of respondants opted for solid colours. Florals and "other" tied (20.5%), followed by checks (13.6%), stripes (11.4%) and spots (6.8%).
In ticky-boxes, the baby dragon character 飞 ("to fly") won 52.3% of the vote, second only to hugs with 72.7%.
ReadingFinished
Ancillary Mercy. I love it so much.
Then I got four hours into Alexis Hall's
For Real (age-gap m/m BDSM), read by Shane East and Kishore Walker, before deciding it wasn't for me. I've liked some (but not all) of Hall's other books, so it seemed worth a shot, and I think it's an interesting take. No regrets.
Now I'm three hours into
Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell, read by Rebecca Lowman, and it's like -- cosy romance? The main character is in the middle of a sad-but-amicable divorce and has started dating a cute guy she's had a crush on since college, who seems to adore her. The only point of friction so far is her self-directed fatphobia. I keep waiting for a shoe to drop, or even a slipper. Like, will the ex will want to take the dog? But so far nothing.
I'm on the fence about giving up. Okay, I'm going to try a random paranormal romance instead, for the sake of one of the audiobook readers, Will Watt. Will report back.
More graded reading. I've nearly exhausted the elementary stories that appeal to me in DuChinese, which means it's probably time to venture into Intermediate (meep!), where there's a series based on
Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Watching(It makes less sense to separate out Cdramas/Kdramas from other TV now that Andrew and I are watching more Asian dramas together. Feel free to say if you'd rather I keep them separate, though.)
We abandoned
Live Up To Your Youth after episode 30 (out of 32), and then I skimmed the final episodes to make sure we hadn't missed anything. (We hadn't.) It's been interesting thinking about why it lost us:
rambling
It started out being about young people moving to Beijing in the 1990s to make it in the arts (a screenwriter, a singer, an actor, an artist, a saxophonist, and a movie extra), but all of them kept getting diverted by the need to make rent, and by the end, they'd all given up on (or, probably more precisely, changed) their dreams and become entrepreneurs or (in one case) a scam artist or (in another) a tour guide in Paris. So from our POV, it felt like the message was the opposite of the title. But the Chinese title is actually more like "Seasons Change", and maybe if we'd gone in with that expectation, we'd have enjoyed the developments more? Idk.
There must have been struggling people in Beijing at that time who were ultimately successful in their artistic careers -- so why were we following this particular group? Was the message of the show that young artistic types will eventually become productive members of society too? Because if so, that feels like a bait-and-switch.We raced through the available episodes of
Slow Horses, and then realised the season finale hasn't been released yet, argh. It's fun and gripping, and this season's divergence from the books means we have no idea what's going to happen. LOL at River running around in a suit, like James Bond.
A tiny bit more of
Ted Lasso, mentioned here only because we were talking about why it wasn't working for us,
grumbling
and concluded that part of the problem is the show banging on about how no one's interested in women's football, while showing us zero women's football. Apparently that "no one" extends to the showrunners and their perception of the audience too. We have no idea where the team is in the league, none of the players have football-performance-related issues or storylines, and the coaches aren't grappling with any coach things either. I don't personally care about sport, but I think sitcoms work best when they stay aware of their premises.A couple of eps of
Shrinking, which shines in comparison. Some of the characters are cartoons, but they're living, breathing cartoons with hearts, and mostly not re-treading old ground. Plus them often being the inevitable authors of their own problems is thematically appropriate in a show about therapists.
Some more
Detective L, very fun. It's so obvious that the female lead has a lot of brothers (this is canon, I think?) and is used to holding her own. I love her!
About ten episodes of
Never Too Late, the age-gap friendship (f & f) and second-time-around romance (m/f) Cdrama I'm currently solo-watching, which I'm enjoying tremendously. The female lead is uncompromising even when it costs her dearly (she comes across as maybe on the spectrum?), and the show loves her for it, I think. She's grumpy a lot at this stage, for good reasons, but when she does relax and smile, she's completely adorable.
And we just watched a British miniseries,
Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, starring Toby Jones and an all-round great cast -- enraging and heartbreaking, omg. The narrative had some minor structural issues due to being a true story, but it was otherwise excellent. Highly rec.
Audio entertainmentThere are a few things in my listening history that aren't ChinesePod, but I mostly just started them and then got distracted.
Online life*waves to you all*
Writing/making thingsI've been poking away at a Guardian fic off-and-on for the last week or so, currently 1400 words. Idk, man.
I've also stopped checking in regularly at Write Every Day, but I'm signed up to host the first half of November (stay tuned!), so hopefully that will shift things. If nothing else, I'll be posting little daily life updates.
House( Not safe for Laireshi )The toilet hunt continues. My new unsavoury-adjacent hobby is getting people to send me photos of their toilets (or other possible toilets they encounter).
Language Learning( Cut for length. )FoodMore banana muffins. Next up, scones!
GoalsOrganise some more of my house. Relatedly, return my Korean teacher's books that I borrowed mumblemumble years ago. Find an online Chinese tutor. Make cheese scones.
Good thingsLast week was pretty social. The weekend was quiet and mostly not. Today is sunny. The cat is adorable and so well-behaved. Hiding from election news/coverage (all elections). Asian dramas. Baking. Still enjoying my tablet. Dreamwidth and all of you. Offline friends. The boy. ♥
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13
Candles / scents generally
View Answerslavendar or rose or whatever
2 (15.4%)
sandlewood or leather or whatever
2 (15.4%)
some kind of citrus
4 (30.8%)
cinnamon or other spice
3 (23.1%)
other
3 (23.1%)
no candles
8 (61.5%)
other other
1 (7.7%)
ticky-box of this sad little character 哭 means to cry
3 (23.1%)
ticky-box full of Like Potion No. 9
1 (7.7%)
ticky-box full of staying up too late and waking too early
8 (61.5%)
ticky-box full of 哭 me a river
5 (38.5%)
ticky-box of a leopard wearing multi-coloured claw-polish
4 (30.8%)
ticky-box full of cartwheels and backflips
6 (46.2%)
ticky-box full of hugs
10 (76.9%)
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