not today or tomorrow

If you are like me and often don't pay much attention to the DW news page, you may have missed the notice that there are some significant design changes coming!

There is a window somewhere between a couple of weeks and a couple of months to comment on those changes and help the dev team address any major bugs.

Personally, I switched to the new Create Post mode earlier this year and have found it visually less 'pretty' but mechanically more workable, and I'm interested to see what doors might open up for the dev team once they're no longer strapped to maintaining ancient code, heh.

I've gotten so far behind my media round-ups that I think this is going to have to be a 'greatest hits of the interim' post or it's going to go on for far too long.

• I have a soft spot for cephalopods, so the premise of The Mountain in the Sea was instantly attention-grabbing: a scientist is hired to investigate the possibility that a population of wild octopuses have developed a level of consciousness and intelligence comparable to humans, and the consequences of this possibility slowly spiral outwards through adjacent plotlines. I ultimately enjoyed this book, as there were a lot of interesting ideas thrown around, and the writing style was refreshingly brisk. I don't think it rose to its full potential, though; the octopus were there and I loved every second of them, but in a way the story was less about the discovery of a new, non-human culture as it was a treatise on communication and social identity, explored through a series of near-future sci-fi thought concepts. The character voices in particular were pretty weak. This is the author's first published novel, though, and it will be interesting to see if he grows more adept at spinning a truly extrapolative story with more long-form writing experience.

• From the future to the past: We Have Always Lived in the Castle is my first Shirley Jackson outside of The Lottery, and whoo. Whoo. There really is just something about the greats and their ability to re-write your brain a little, isn't there? I find myself fascinated with the way Jackson works with absence; the story is as much, if not more so, about what isn't on the page as what is, and it leaves so much room for the reader to insert themselves into the experience. This book troubled me for days.

• Galavant is easy and fun. Apparently its creators claim it as a mix of Princess Bride and Monty Python, which are some rather large boots I don't quite think they fill, but I'm a sucker for musical comedy and the cast is very charming.

• I never dabbled in Critical Role, mostly because that is just a lot of time to give over to a single story good grief. Thank goodness for cliff-notes then! The Legend of Vox Machina promised well-animated fight scenes, which as usual is an easy sell for me. There really aren't many complaints I can make that aren't immediately explained away by the fact this is a fan-funded project based on a tabletop game that a bunch of friends played together for the lulz, and given that foundation I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the accompanying storytelling. Like, yes, it could use a pre-season to actually get to know everyone before we launch into major dramatics, but I know why it doesn't exist and I accept I'm not the priority audience. Maybe the pacing could be better; it does well enough. Maybe the quantity of crude jokes aren't to my taste; I guess they were to somebody's. The animation and soundtrack are both fantastic. I'm looking forward to season three.

• A couple of movie nights with weirderwest worked us through Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and Alien, which were entertaining in, um... very different ways. D&D was very silly, but wow, loved the platonic life partnership at the centre. Alien was also sort of silly, but mostly in the sense of watching a pop culture tragedy and going noooo stop making all these inevitably terrible decisions!! Love that old school sci-fi aesthetic though, truly we've gotten more boring.

• A whimsical rewatching of the ever-classic Muppet Treasure Island ended with me starting to pick through a sampler of The Muppet Show itself. I keep thinking 'wow, why haven't they brought this back, it's such a simple but fun formula' and then I remember they did do that and it apparently sucked. Something something worst timeline.

• Like ten months after my parents showed me the first couple of episodes I've FINALLY finished Deadloch - the delay was less because I didn't want to continue and more because it's taken me this long for me to grudgingly sign up for Amazon Prime. The ratio of comedy to drama was weighted rather more in the latter's direction than I expected over the course of the show, but I ended up really invested in the mystery, and the character arcs were compelling as well. I think my only real whinge is I wish they'd folded Tammy and Miranda's B plot more snugly into the A; for a second in the final episode it looked like they would, and then they weirdly veered away from it? Let the girls be plot-critical! The actors were great, they deserve it.

• I've hit a bit of a wall with Baldur's Gate 3... Act III is definitely the roughest, aheh.

It has been an unquestionably crummy year for writing, which probably makes it a little ambitious on my part to join tinyfandomflash. I just find the premise charming, and there are a good number of fandoms with fewer than 500 works on AO3 that I could conceivably write for - Raksura, Widdershins, the Old Kingdom, A House of Many Doors, my favourite Cherryhs...

(I say, like there are any Cherryh series that wouldn't qualify. The entire Alliance-Union universe rates 132 works apparently. Dire.)

Otherwise, it is just as unquestionably the year of Larian so far! Good grief. Firstly, syntheid and I finished Divinity: Original Sin II towards the end of August, proudly clocking in over a hundred hours of gameplay, eight months of dedicated Friday/Saturday timezone alignments, a solid collection of achievements, and only, uh, three attempts to get through the final boss fight. (Fuck you, [redacted], and your giant fucking [redacted].)

I wish I'd done better at keeping notes of things as we went through because there were so many funny and/or awesome moments. Pressing buttons that should not have been pressed. Fighting statues that should not have been fought. Lane constantly telling me not to eat people like an exhausted owner prying souls out of their dog's mouth (and then I impulsively ate a screaming flower and got superpowers so who's to say the impulse was wrong really). "...Did you just- did you just walk directly into the lava." Both of us cringing and wheeze-laughing our way through the romance / sex scene because this was Not Our Thing. The moment in the hectic final battle when a mostly-dead Lane went, "Hm, now seems a good time to use my Equaliser move" and completely flipped the outcome of the fight on its head. Chef kiss.

It was good times. I would definitely recommend the game to anyone looking for a very enjoyable and accommodating co-play game with a truly staggering amount of content. I don't know if I would have completed it alone, as I would not call it particularly compelling character work, but the plot has a few fun twists and the combat stayed novel.

Fortunately, Larian is doing solidly compelling character work in Baldur's Gate 3, which has been my next jaunt! I was a little worried my wee laptop wouldn't be able to run it, but it's doing admirably so far. I have next to no experience with Baldur's Gate as a series, so the experience is so far paralleling that of Dragon Age, where I similarly launched straight into a later title and paddled blindly around with a fairly generic player character. It seems a good sign I am already itching to try again with a more well-conceived PC despite having barely broached Act II.

• I enjoyed the TV adaptation of The Sandman comics enough that I figured I ought to go check out the original - I never had much exposure to comics in general as a youngster, so they'd passed me by until now, though I've been vaguely aware of them as gothic and well-regarded. Some elements have aged clumsily, but I was overall very tickled to find the series is exactly as queer as the show suggested, and the tale/s it spun were a fantastical journey complemented by a succession of stunning art. It took me a little while to come to grips with the ending, but I think I've landed on the side of it being a fitting conclusion for the characters and themes even if it's not entirely the ending I'd most like. Very curious as to whether the TV series will remain faithful; of course, that relies on it winning enough seasons to reach the end point, which [waves hand at Netflix] good luck and all.

• I honestly wasn't expecting Parable of the Sower to be such a straight-forward 'journey across a dystopian landscape' novel. What elevates it in this crowded genre is Butler's unshrinking commentary on class and race, the philosophical discussions around human nature and the proposition of Earthseed as a new spiritual driver, and her disturbing prescience. It is a very unsettling feeling to crack open a 90s novel on civil unrest tied to deep economic depression, callous corporate interests, and the pressures of climate change, and immediately get hit in the face with "2024". The sequel apparently features a tyrannical president spouting 'Make America Great Again' as a slogan, for heaven's sake. I don't know what she did to become Apollo's favourite, but I guess I'm glad her timeline was off by at least a decade or two.

• My parents showed me the first two episodes of Taskmaster AUS while I was visiting, and between those and rionaleonhart's enthusiastic recommendations from a while back, I started watching Taskmaster UK from the beginning once I returned home. Really fun! I love Greg Davies in general, the humour ranges from slapstick to absolutely wicked, and I appreciate that it doesn't really encourage binge-watching in me. I've made it through the first two seasons so far (enjoyed the first, howled with laughter throughout the second), and while I'm taking a bit of a break for now I fully expect to get through the remaining ten seasons eventually. Good dinner entertainment.

• I never read the Nimona webcomic, so I could only judge the movie adaptation on its own merits: cute if fairly standard animation, topical but weirdly shallow messaging, and the emotional pacing of an epileptic grasshopper. Not a big winner for me, but hopefully kids have a good time.

• Known mountain-lover killyhawk recommended The Summit of the Gods to me, a known animation-lover, and boy this film definitely ticks both those boxes. A French adaptation of a Japanese manga, the film follows a young photojournalist's fascination with the story of Habu Joji, a talented climber dogged by tragedy, and their inevitable path to Everest. The movie managed to unflinchingly depict the brutal hardships of extreme mountaineering that have always made this hobby seem insane to me, while still pushing a sympathetic (and I would argue a little overly romantic) view of the people who pursue it - I kept flashing back to passages from MacFarlane's 'Mountains of the Mind' throughout. The animation was incredible, though, and it also had an unexpectedly lovely soundtrack! Double thumbs up to this rec.

• I went into The Favourite thinking it was a comedy and I don't know where I got that impression because it is uh. Not what I would call a comedy. Stunning acting across the board, though, and another fantastic entry into the genre of "man, monarchies aren't even fun for the monarchs".

• Had a stupid amount of fun rewatching first The Chronicles of Riddick and then Pitch Black, remnants of my teenaged tastes. The only downside is my long-standing regret I don't live in the timeline where the high space fantasy nonsense of Chronicles was its own movie series, and the sequel to Pitch Black was instead a more character-focused story in which the Imam hires Riddick to break Jack out of Crematoria and there is literally any sensible continuity to the character histories and general worldbuilding at all. Chronicles says "Carolyn Fry whomst? Time for another one-sided battle in which Vin Diesel I mean Riddick is Flawlessly Cool" and like, babe, love that for you in general, but why are you doing PB so dirty.

So I am a big fan of AMVs as a medium - it's all about the timing and the thematic resonance with the music for me, though occasionally some flashy effects will catch my eye. I used to keep a collection on Twitter of some that have made me seriously hoot and holler over the years, and decided I should probably transfer them over here as well so they don't get lost! There are already a couple that have simply vanished over time :'( I will forever mourn that one Firefly 'Adiemus' AMV. Where did you go, my lovely.

( various vids below the cut )
Anyone got any personal favourites to share? I always love recommendations.

I fired up the first Pillars of Eternity game on a new save with the vague idea that maybe if I re-familiarised myself with the mechanics I'd be able to get back into Deadfire, and instead I've kind of just… kept playing >> So I guess this is happening, for however long 'this' lasts! I did at least sheepishly tack on the White March DLCs so there's some fresh content waiting for me.

"New save file, new character?" Haha, of course not. There's always something fun about a first replay, though; taking all the character development and worldbuilding knowledge garnered over the course of the story, rolling it back to the beginning, and going oh, so this would have all landed way differently had I not been in the role of a blank slate blindly hoovering up knowledge.

'Ware spoilers for both PoE and PoE: Deadfire below!

( the arrival at gilded vale )

( backstory details )

...Well dunk. Incredibly funny I managed to reignite some old nostalgia for Red Vs Blue (thanks to a dream, no less) literal days before the trailer for the final season dropped.

That said, huh! Actual final season! Like, plain thank goodness, for one thing, meandering around forever is kind of a terrible fate for a story; and the trailer itself looks promising. I haven't watched since season 12 though so I'm hoping vague fandom osmosis will be enough to track what happens in it because I don't particularly want to wade through everything in between, lmfao. That's so many episodes of varying quality.

1) Always a little fascinating, and sometimes perversely satisfying, to take a look at what's in the top kudos'd category of a fandom and conclude none of it's what you're after. RIP to 3,000 odd strangers I guess but we're clearly different people. (Other times it's exactly what I want and I am one of the triumphant sheeple. Ever a gamble. The best strategy ofc is finding someone who writes what you like and raiding their bookmarks ad infinitum.)

2) Weather's been absolutely stupid. Slightly cold for two days. Sudden rain, in June. Hot again! Wait, shit, it's still winter. Uh, mildly warm? Fuck it, hot.

3) Had my first home repair incident because I went to the loo in the middle of the night and put my foot in a puddle. Spent an embarrassingly extended few seconds trying to figure out if the roof was leaking or if I had somehow wee'd on the floor before concluding the toilet itself was the problem, and then commenced the journey of trying to get a plumber in, which was also a rather meandering process. Seems good now though, fingers crossed.

4) Honestly this time of year is awful financially, I feel like my bills are lining up to kick me around in a gutter and loot me for spare change. Peacock dryly reflected that you know you've crossed out of a certain life bracket when you go from "tax return, whee, free money!" to "tax return, whee, QUICK PAY THE CAR REGO".

5) Had a nice "oh I have come a ways" moment at work when I held my own in an argument over grass species. The old Winger could not have thrown down about the fact that white speargrass is, despite the common name, Aristida, and what's more there IS more than one species of Heteropogon commonly found in our region! Listening to people argue grass ID sounds is so funny though, there's a reason this image decorates my desk. We're trying so hard and guessing so much.

Throwing up some 'sketch page' style noodling in the absence of any completed fics of late - a couple of incomplete drabblets featuring my Fallout: New Vegas characters and their borrowed best beaus. One of FNV's strengths is the complex web of power and politics it builds around the Mojave, and it's always interesting to dip into different characters' takes on the factions and their personal histories with them and the region.

Larkin & Vivian (killyhawk)

( under the boot )

Avery & Wyn (weirderwest)

( two mojaves )

• Mum leant me a copy of Water for Elephants, which I read during my trip into the mountains. She liked the colourful writing style, and it did have that! It also hit unexpectedly close to home during the elderly Jacob's reflections - we've been going through the process of moving my grandmother into aged care, and my lower lip may have done some quivering. It otherwise seemed fairly standard mainstream book club fare, if with at least one moment that genuinely upset me. I can't say I particularly liked most of the characters save Walter, who deserved better.

• The Greatest Showman had a far more romantic take on circuses, including a list of foot-tapping songs and some fun choreography. They titled the movie well, though - it's not about the circus or family or class struggles, and it's certainly not about the burden of discrimination or a group of outsiders finding a home. It's about Hugh Jackman getting to prance around as the star of the show, flawed but so, so, so good-hearted, really, look how much he loves his children and he was poor once so he's not really exploiting anyone, right? Right. I'd almost rather they'd just owned the shallowness of the motivations rather than trying to bake weak meaning into it.

• Speaking of gratuitous male flexing, I got about nine episodes into Suits and had to bail. Couldn't do it. The cases were interesting, but the narrative positioning of the majority of the women was so off-putting, and instead of using Mike's status as the underdog outsider to interrogate an established system of rich and powerful people, it was mostly used to emphasise how Cool and Awesome it is to be rich and powerful. What. Why.

• weirderwest and I had a movie night reliving the joys of Pacific Rim. I think the funniest thing was both of us confirming how hard Tumblr gaslighted itself in some respects - can we all now finally admit Raleigh is a poorly acted blank space of a character who sucks up screentime that should have gone to Mako, the vastly more interesting protagonist? Still, the wish fulfilment of PacRim is at least fun, and there is ample glee to be had in its shameless love and indulgence of the appropriate tropes. The giant robots? Epic. The giant monsters? Even more so. Worldbuilding? Cool. Drift compatibility? Great concept. Music? SLAPS.

• I stubbornly dragged my ass back to the first season of the His Dark Materials TV show and successfully, if not enthusiastically, finished it. I'm sorry. I really tried. The visuals are on point, I'll cop to that without reservation; it was seeing some lovely gifsets that lured me back, in fact, and the second and third season title openings are as incredible as the first. The show's interpretations of the characters are often very different to the books, however (though I quite liked what I saw of Will), the depiction of dæmons remained clunky and inconsistent, the pacing was all over the shop, and the dialogue was just... awkward, to me. I know there is a lot going on in the setting, but like. C'mon. The books are literally right there.

• In contrast, I had a marvellous time re-reading and re-watching Watership Down! Now there's an adaptation that knew what it was doing, and I say an emphatic fie to all those reviewers of the time who dared suggest it would have been better to do it Disney style. Things get lost, of course - most of the supporting cast gets flattened out, for one thing, but you can tell the writers still clearly understood who they were meant to be. The condensing of plot events are logical, the physical depictions of the characters are striking, and they fit in as much of the lore as they can manage. The only really questionable decision is the amount of time we spend on Fiver's weird Bright Eyes fever dream.