Shuffling towards the end of the year
Nov. 19th, 2024 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
got_quietRL stuff has been going on. I'm feeling better which is great, but also received critical psychic damage from the election which is not great. Been doing a lot of escapism lately as a result, so below is some stuff I've been reading, watching, and playing.
Red, White, and Royal Blue
The day after the election I had to jump in the car and drive cross country. When I do this I typically spend a batch of time listening to the radio. I wouldn't say I "enjoy" flipping through dozens of channels of conservative talk radio, but I do like to have some idea what is being said in the places I never go. It's always a little depressing, but the day after the election it was especially so. On the way back I was very much not in the mood to do this again, so I decided to find myself an audio book to listen to. I just went to Libby, looked at the list of audio books that were immediately available, and grabbed the first one I saw that looked tolerable and was about the right length for my drive, which happened to be Red, White, and Royal Blue.
What a mistake. I suppose the title should have been the hint, but I didn't expect that almost 70% of the book would not be so much about the relationship of the two leads, but would be about a re-election campaign by a female Democratic president.
The romance between Alex and Henry was fine. It was a relatively paint-by-number's affair. Alex is obsessed with Henry, doesn't realize it's because he's got a crush and not because he hate's Henry's guts. Henry starts out as a bit of a cold shoulder, but he very quickly becomes vulnerable and open, and his obvious crush on an oblivious Alex was cute. Alex figures it out (or Henry forces Alex to figure it out) relatively early in the book, only about a quarter in, and after that things got a lot more boring as a lot of the focus turned to Alex's mom's re-election campaign. I was very much not in the mood for a bunch of bright eyed young Dems using the power of positivity and a little nepotism to "crunch the numbers" for the Democratic Party's machine, or the constant jetting back and forth across the Atlantic for hookups in the guise of political good will. To Alex's mom's credit she shuts this all down the second she finds out about it, but I was still sort of full body cringing during most of these scenes. Even if the outcome of the election hadn't been what it was it all just felt like the main character was fucking around with a lot on the line, and it made it hard for me to like him.
The stuff I liked the most was the epistolary stuff, where Alex and Henry are writing emails to each other, talking about their lives, sending romantic quotes to each other, and generally being sappy, love sick fools. I liked Henry a lot, though the guy reading the audio book chose to give him a voice that made him sound like he was 70 years old, so I couldn't take him super seriously most of the time.
I also found the way the book was able to avoid being explicit even when the two leads were sucking each other off to be low key hilarious. Like, congratulations on being able to dodge the word cock with such deftness, author. But this says more about my reading habits than on the quality of the book. Sometimes I forget that explicit and detailed sex scenes are not always what the general public is looking for. Textually Alex and Henry are complete horndogs, sucking each other off in semi-public at every opportunity, but even in their emails to each other they manage to stick to insinuation and euphemism.
I liked this book because I liked Henry, and I liked Henry mostly because I'm easy for closet cases. And I appreciate that the audiobook version managed to last about 12 whole hours and kept me awake on the road. But I can't imagine coming away from the overall political plot feeling anything but depressed.
Arcane, Season 2
I am a lifetime rider on the Arcane Train at this point. I was very into Jayce and Viktor'sdoomed relationship in S1, and in Silco's everything, and in the intense sexual tension between Cait and Vi, and the parade of women I would let benchpress me, especially Sevika, who is the loyalty kink queen of the series. So I wanted badly for S2 to live up to expectations, and so far it has. I have my quibbles, mostly that Jinx has become boring and that Isha could have been replaced with a small puppy and nothing significant would have changed, but other than that I am all in. I have liked and reblogged every gif, fanart, and shower thought that has come my way lol. I just need more. I was so beside myself with impatience after Act 2 I just rewatched a good chunk of Season 1 again. I thought I'd just review the Jayce and Victor parts, but the show is too good for that and I ended up just watching large portions of the entire thing. Watching Silco's swagger again...
I do think that Season 2 is a little less tight than Season 1. There were some problems with keeping things tied together in season 1 too, tbh, but I think Silco's position as the primaryprotagonist antagonist had a stronger tie to all of the other side shit happening than Ambessa's attempts at getting her hands on Hextech. I love Ambessa and I love her relationship with Cait, which is simultaneously manipulative and genuine, but she didn't really have her hands in all the pies in the way that Silco did. Also RIP her hot bodyguard. It's rough being a secondary character in Piltover. (Sevika, please survive!)
I have been a Jayce defender since Season 1. The poor boy is just a nerd with muscles who wanted to make things and got sucked into a political vortex. He didn't deserve this shit. But I must admit he gets hotter and hotter the more fucked up he gets. The Doomed Yaoi jokes are flying with good reason, but I can't imagine a more satisfying cliffhanger than Jayce, looking like he has literally dragged himself through hell and left his sanity somewhere along the road, blasting without hesitation.
Viktor is obviously still alive. He's monologing while his body is flopped on the ground so he's probably transcended a need for it or something. It's already clear he's capable of projecting himself into others, after all. So now all I'm hoping for is one or two scenes between the two of them in the final act. And if Jayce sheds some tears I'll consider that a bonus.
Some quick notes from my watch through in no particular order, including the S1 rewatch:
Detroit: Become Human
My roommates and I also finished up Detroit: Become Human. It ended about as well as I expected it to.
Kara got herself recycled with Alice. It's hard to tell what the game wants out of you in the robot concentration camp, and Kara's player wasn't able to find an alternate to following instructions, so she just sort of walked calmly to her doom. RIP Kara.
Connor ended up throwing Hank off a building. Connor's player was pretty shit at quicktime events, but he was juust good enough to win. The action part of this game is extremely forgiving. He kept saying, is this where I can turn things around and kiss Hank? No, honey, the point of no return was 10 miles back. Anyway he let Hank live, Hank hated him so much he tried to sneak attack push Connor off the roof anyway, and my friend unfortunately got the quicktime right for once and flipped poor Hank right off the roof. We were laughing the whole time because my friend insisted that he did not expect that's what would happen. Like, my man, please consider the situation. Anyway, RIP Hank.
I was pretty sure the few androids who still trusted Markus were just going to get going to get mowed down and it would be RIP Markus too. It felt like I was making all the wrong choices every time. He'd been oscillating between peace and militancy the whole game which meant no one liked him, but I guess he managed to thread the needle and play the MLK Junior at the very end. Plus I had the advantage that I remembered that singing a fucking freedom march song was the right play, (Also it was almost my only available option because I had played so shit) so I went with it. So Markus lives to survive another day, even though Simon is dead. RIP Simon.
All in all, this was the most disastrous playthrough I've ever seen. My friend made some noise about maybe trying another run to see a better outcome, but I think she'll have to go it alone for that one, or just watch some youtube. It did make me want to read some Connor/Hank fic, but I am super picky about them. I only really want fic that's relatively canonical and keeps Connor's characterization as a stubborn little shit that rarely listens to a thing Hank says, and the stuff I've found usually infantalizes him way too much for my tastes.
Red, White, and Royal Blue
The day after the election I had to jump in the car and drive cross country. When I do this I typically spend a batch of time listening to the radio. I wouldn't say I "enjoy" flipping through dozens of channels of conservative talk radio, but I do like to have some idea what is being said in the places I never go. It's always a little depressing, but the day after the election it was especially so. On the way back I was very much not in the mood to do this again, so I decided to find myself an audio book to listen to. I just went to Libby, looked at the list of audio books that were immediately available, and grabbed the first one I saw that looked tolerable and was about the right length for my drive, which happened to be Red, White, and Royal Blue.
What a mistake. I suppose the title should have been the hint, but I didn't expect that almost 70% of the book would not be so much about the relationship of the two leads, but would be about a re-election campaign by a female Democratic president.
The romance between Alex and Henry was fine. It was a relatively paint-by-number's affair. Alex is obsessed with Henry, doesn't realize it's because he's got a crush and not because he hate's Henry's guts. Henry starts out as a bit of a cold shoulder, but he very quickly becomes vulnerable and open, and his obvious crush on an oblivious Alex was cute. Alex figures it out (or Henry forces Alex to figure it out) relatively early in the book, only about a quarter in, and after that things got a lot more boring as a lot of the focus turned to Alex's mom's re-election campaign. I was very much not in the mood for a bunch of bright eyed young Dems using the power of positivity and a little nepotism to "crunch the numbers" for the Democratic Party's machine, or the constant jetting back and forth across the Atlantic for hookups in the guise of political good will. To Alex's mom's credit she shuts this all down the second she finds out about it, but I was still sort of full body cringing during most of these scenes. Even if the outcome of the election hadn't been what it was it all just felt like the main character was fucking around with a lot on the line, and it made it hard for me to like him.
The stuff I liked the most was the epistolary stuff, where Alex and Henry are writing emails to each other, talking about their lives, sending romantic quotes to each other, and generally being sappy, love sick fools. I liked Henry a lot, though the guy reading the audio book chose to give him a voice that made him sound like he was 70 years old, so I couldn't take him super seriously most of the time.
I also found the way the book was able to avoid being explicit even when the two leads were sucking each other off to be low key hilarious. Like, congratulations on being able to dodge the word cock with such deftness, author. But this says more about my reading habits than on the quality of the book. Sometimes I forget that explicit and detailed sex scenes are not always what the general public is looking for. Textually Alex and Henry are complete horndogs, sucking each other off in semi-public at every opportunity, but even in their emails to each other they manage to stick to insinuation and euphemism.
I liked this book because I liked Henry, and I liked Henry mostly because I'm easy for closet cases. And I appreciate that the audiobook version managed to last about 12 whole hours and kept me awake on the road. But I can't imagine coming away from the overall political plot feeling anything but depressed.
Arcane, Season 2
I am a lifetime rider on the Arcane Train at this point. I was very into Jayce and Viktor'sdoomed relationship in S1, and in Silco's everything, and in the intense sexual tension between Cait and Vi, and the parade of women I would let benchpress me, especially Sevika, who is the loyalty kink queen of the series. So I wanted badly for S2 to live up to expectations, and so far it has. I have my quibbles, mostly that Jinx has become boring and that Isha could have been replaced with a small puppy and nothing significant would have changed, but other than that I am all in. I have liked and reblogged every gif, fanart, and shower thought that has come my way lol. I just need more. I was so beside myself with impatience after Act 2 I just rewatched a good chunk of Season 1 again. I thought I'd just review the Jayce and Victor parts, but the show is too good for that and I ended up just watching large portions of the entire thing. Watching Silco's swagger again...
I do think that Season 2 is a little less tight than Season 1. There were some problems with keeping things tied together in season 1 too, tbh, but I think Silco's position as the primary
I have been a Jayce defender since Season 1. The poor boy is just a nerd with muscles who wanted to make things and got sucked into a political vortex. He didn't deserve this shit. But I must admit he gets hotter and hotter the more fucked up he gets. The Doomed Yaoi jokes are flying with good reason, but I can't imagine a more satisfying cliffhanger than Jayce, looking like he has literally dragged himself through hell and left his sanity somewhere along the road, blasting without hesitation.
Viktor is obviously still alive. He's monologing while his body is flopped on the ground so he's probably transcended a need for it or something. It's already clear he's capable of projecting himself into others, after all. So now all I'm hoping for is one or two scenes between the two of them in the final act. And if Jayce sheds some tears I'll consider that a bonus.
Some quick notes from my watch through in no particular order, including the S1 rewatch:
- Vi's post breakup depression montage was peak cinema. People are griping about how there are montages that feel like we are fast forwarding through plot, and I think in some places it would have been nicer to push internal conflict a little more, but honestly I think the show has done a great job of knowing when it can summarize.
- Poor Jayce's mom. Did she think he was dead this whole time?
- I swear whoever led Silco's animation needs to get their own individual reward. It's so fucking good. Every swaggering motion from him oooooozes character.
- The Loyalty scene between him and Sevika is one of the best of S1. His expression when she swings lol. Really Silco was a masterpiece of characterization. I can't emphasize this enough.
- Jayce was willing to bring Victor into Hextech instantly. Victor says he thinks it'll work, Jayce is like it's ours now, baby. This is not normal behavior for inventor types.
- There's a lot of small moments of humor in the first season. Victor in particular likes his quips. It makes his decline all the more painful because he starts of as a comedian and then that all disappears.
- The old dude on the council is working on that children's puzzle for literal years. Like after the multi year time skip he's still struggling with it lol.
- The lore is getting interesting. I don't know much about LoL lore, and I'm not particularly interested in lore that requires digging through wikipedia typically, but show me some weird shit and my eyebrows rise. I'm in love with the organic chaos of wild magic.
- Laughing a little bit about that tumblr post that was going the rounds talking about how Maddie was clearly the most fash of the fash. Not that I don't stand to make doomed takes, but I was pleased that the show didn't go with such a boring option and instead Maddie was the one going, you know, maybe lets not go so hard on totalitarianism?
Detroit: Become Human
My roommates and I also finished up Detroit: Become Human. It ended about as well as I expected it to.
Kara got herself recycled with Alice. It's hard to tell what the game wants out of you in the robot concentration camp, and Kara's player wasn't able to find an alternate to following instructions, so she just sort of walked calmly to her doom. RIP Kara.
Connor ended up throwing Hank off a building. Connor's player was pretty shit at quicktime events, but he was juust good enough to win. The action part of this game is extremely forgiving. He kept saying, is this where I can turn things around and kiss Hank? No, honey, the point of no return was 10 miles back. Anyway he let Hank live, Hank hated him so much he tried to sneak attack push Connor off the roof anyway, and my friend unfortunately got the quicktime right for once and flipped poor Hank right off the roof. We were laughing the whole time because my friend insisted that he did not expect that's what would happen. Like, my man, please consider the situation. Anyway, RIP Hank.
I was pretty sure the few androids who still trusted Markus were just going to get going to get mowed down and it would be RIP Markus too. It felt like I was making all the wrong choices every time. He'd been oscillating between peace and militancy the whole game which meant no one liked him, but I guess he managed to thread the needle and play the MLK Junior at the very end. Plus I had the advantage that I remembered that singing a fucking freedom march song was the right play, (Also it was almost my only available option because I had played so shit) so I went with it. So Markus lives to survive another day, even though Simon is dead. RIP Simon.
All in all, this was the most disastrous playthrough I've ever seen. My friend made some noise about maybe trying another run to see a better outcome, but I think she'll have to go it alone for that one, or just watch some youtube. It did make me want to read some Connor/Hank fic, but I am super picky about them. I only really want fic that's relatively canonical and keeps Connor's characterization as a stubborn little shit that rarely listens to a thing Hank says, and the stuff I've found usually infantalizes him way too much for my tastes.
