ostarella | Reading

Well, hullo Dreamwidth!

So...it's been a minute! I am thinking about dusting this place off a little as I go through a bunch of stuff and dang it, I miss longform blogging and posts. I'm wondering if having a space to write STUFF might help my brain and health some. I'll put the bigger stuff under a cut 'cause A LOT is going on.

However, here's my not-so-deep-thought for the day:

I was scrolling through something the other day and I just realized how much I miss movies. They haven't gone away, obviously, but my attention span and my ability to afford to take three hours out of my life to drive across town to watch something that may or may not be good is just plain gone. I actually had the urge to watch the new Jurassic World movie (cause I love a creature feature), but it was freakin' $20 to RENT. Nope. There feels like there's too much choice and yet not enough choices? Like I said, this is definitely a not-so-deep-thought and others have commented on it far more eloquently than I have. I'd just like my attention span back. That would be nice.

Anywho, I think I might try to be on here a bit more often. I miss writing and I miss y'all.

Have a Happy Saturday!

Current Mood: contemplative

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Vid show submissions are open!

If you have a vid, or you want to make a vid, that you would like us to include on our playlist, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/wqKxbWQFyfC3nxVi6

Submissions will close September 28.

We need the Drama, the Angst, the Slash!

kronette

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muccamukk

As a follow up to bitching about this in the last post, I thought I'd look and see where I was with watching some of these. The movies are in order they came out. The TV shows are sorta just stuck in there for the year they started, rather than breaking them up by season. I'm too lazy to look up the details of exactly when they aired (especially as I don't even remember some of these existed). I'm only including live action films and tv shows. ( Long list is long )

muccamukk

Going to the Movies!

(Success Rate: 1.5 out of 4)

In May, we tried to go to Sinners at Local Theatre #1, only to find none of their caption machines were working.

In June, we didn't bother trying.

In July, we tried to go to Superman at Local Theatre #2, only to find that they didn't have caption machines at all. In 2025.

Later in July, while visiting my parents, we went to their Local Theatre to see Superman, only to have multiple caption machines crap out part way through the movie, leaving Nenya to finish it on their speech to text app (an imperfect experience).

This week, I went back to Local Theatre #1 and asked in person if the caption machines were now working (they neither answer the phone, nor call people back if you leave a message). Being assured they were, we booked tickets to The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The first caption machine Nenya got didn't even turn on, but the next one made it through the whole entire movie! Diversity win! (Or something.)

Actual movie thoughts aren't that deep, but it's superhero films, so...

Superman (2025)

So I'm more of a Marvel Girl, though I did like the first Wonder Woman movie and Blue Beetle, but Nenya grew up on the Christopher Reeve movies, and this had been advertised as More Like That, so we decided to give it a go.

It was really fun! I thought the casting was great, and I'm really enjoying the "superheroes' lives are inherently ridiculous" vibe we're currently going with. Also: death to origin stories! It was really nice to see the Justice League International gang (lol), and have a Superman who was doing the Big Blue Boyscout thing in earnest. (I thought

Princess_Weekes' video Quentin Tarantino Accidentally Broke Superman had great insights about why people got on the wrong track with the character.) It was silly and had heart, and didn't have joyless desaturation, and I'm here for all of this.

Will happily come back for the Supergirl movie, and am even more invested in season two of Peacemaker.

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025)

I really liked the retro-futurist aesthetic, and was happy they didn't combine them with 1960s inequalities. Also: space! I haven't seen any of the cast in a whole lot, but thought they were great for the roles. Pascal was fully on point as Reed, and managed to capture his pathos without diving head first into manpain, and I really liked Reed/Sue here. I just like his face, also. They toned down Johnny's womanising into a low-key romance that actually worked for me, though even putting Natasha Lyonne in it didn't make Ben's crush that interesting (mostly because we got 2.5 minutes of time with that plot). Given all the natalism in the air, I'm a bit twitchy about movies focused around babies, but I liked that they didn't even consider that Sue couldn't go on the mission while eight months pregnant. I will riot if we don't get Valeria, though.

Which kind of brings me to the mid-credits scene. ( Spoilers for where this fits in the MCU? )

(Looking at AO3, it seems like people are into ~~Eddie Munson~~ Johnny het, either with the Silver Surfer or with Y/N. Though there is also some team!fic with woobie!Johnny. There's like two Ben/Johnny fic, which is surprising as they had a nice vibe in this, and it used to be the big ship. I'd also like more Reed!whump than I found, but early days.)

Department of "But It's Still Weird that It Happened Twice"

( Mild spoilers for both films )

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kronette

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muccamukk

I've been knitting and watching shows, which has led me to try to find stuff that's good to watch while crafting, especially things on Kanopy.

I was going to do a bunch of these in a post, but the first got long, so stand by for further knitting show thoughts.

North and South (2004)

(I haven't read the book, though I keep meaning to get into Elizabeth Gaskell, who is recommended when you run out of George Eliot.)

A star crossed romance between Daniela Denby-Ashe as an impoverished daughter of an auto-defrocked churchman from Hampshire, and Richard Armitage as a self-made cotton mill owner in ~~Lancashire~~ "Darkshire"* (amazing name, thank you, Mrs Gaskell). He's in the middle of putting down a strike, and she's in the middle of being appalled by the violence of literally everything that's happening. The main attachment between them seems to be that they are both stunningly beautiful, and appear even more attractive when they are sad. Which they are a lot.

So... he's a strike-breaking mill owner in 1855, who sets the army on his workers? (Which they are careful not to show in detail because it might distract us from how very beautiful Richard Armitage is when he's sad.) Absolutely no one talks about where all the cotton's coming from, other than "America."† He does, later in the show, come to be more sympathetic to the workers, and start actually talking to them and shit, but the strikebreaking is a lot to get past. If you're likely to spend much of the show humming "The Internationale," then maybe give this a skip. If you don't mind/can ignore that, the pining is excellent, and the actors are very beautiful.

Quality as knitting show: 4/5, would knit to this again.

( End Notes )

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I having a go at this art challenge

The first weeks prompts were: Horn, Gem & Glow

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muccamukk

Reading from

thewitchoftheforest.

1. What needs harvesting in my life?
The Fool

2. What is blooming and coming to fruition?
Six of Wands

3. What needs more time to grow?
King of Discs

4. How can I nurture myself now?
Seven of Swords

5. Ways my harvest will help others.
The Devil

I love the idea of the Fool as a harvest, and the Devil as helping others.