veronica

I could say “oh my god! It’s been like a year since I posted!” But that would sound like it’s a surprise and... it’s not. Yesterday I went for a walk and it felt like the first time in ages that I was taking a walk because I really wanted to, and not while thinking “you must move around or you will die.” My brain has really been sputtering out for a while as I’ve used various means to keep it afloat; my motivation to do anything but snuggle my wife and use minimal brain activity to play The Sims has been, well, pretty lagging.

But now the situation is going to be different for a while, anyway.

( Work stuff, basically )

Anyway, this all means I will be having a lot more free time to do some long form blogging again. And…. I really hope that ends up being more than just Star Wars hot takes. Like not no Star Wars hot takes but also. LITERALLY anything else. Lukewarm takes. But with twitter imploding it’s a reminder that I really like long-form blogging and have trouble… not doing that, and that this is really the only kind of medium I like doing it in, with a pretty simple layout and comment threads rather than reblogs. Not that it necessarily matters, but even similar (...... more old fashioned? yeesh) long form platforms don’t have the kind of clear comment layout that livejournal clones do, what’s with that?

So I will try to make it. Less than a year this time. Less than a month! We’ll see.

( Movies Logged )


So I finally wrote up my feelings on The Mandalorian season 2 and... they are not happy! This show just keeps reinforcing all my negative feelings about it! And I'm pretty harsh in this so really, really feel free to not read it, I have no desire to harsh anyone's squee (or, for that matter, argue about this very much). But, you know. Here you go. Also pretty minor spoilers for a couple episodes of Star Wars Rebels and also that thing that happens in The Bad Batch. You know. That thing.

( Hey seriously don't read this, I woke up and I chose violence )

Ironic to think though that Gina Carano could have inexplicably been Emmy-nominated right now if she'd just kept her mouth shut.

And... well we've watched a lot of other tv, including finally catching up on Bob's Burgers after I kind of lost it when I left for Mongolia. But briefly, some others have been:

Apple+ (thanks to my phone abruptly dying and my having to buy a new one, yay stimulus)

For All Mankind - This is a Ronald D. Moore-created show about an alternate history where the Soviet Union was the first to put a man on the Moon, reigniting the space race and resulting in considerably more investment in space exploration as a whole. It starts out a little slow, but then episode three adds a lot of women characters and we're good to go. It's not perfect, and there's a second season romance that was just... why. But it's incredibly inventive and visually gorgeous, and yes I am extremely attached to all of the Extremely Flawed RDM characters. The show builds on their relationships in interesting ways, and really makes a point of making the show character driven as much as anything else (even in tiny details – Margot always grabbing for the Tootsie Rolls when she's stressed!). It's also just interesting to see a grounded take on science fiction, based on a fictionalized NASA. That's also not uh, this is hard science fiction the characters will not matter here. I do wish the Soviet Union was depicted in a more dynamic/thorough way but. I just can't expect everything to be The Americans, okay, I know that.

Dickinson - This was the first show I wanted to try on Apple+, and unfortunately it ended up being our only disappointment. The thing is I love the visuals and aesthetic, and am really totally here for the modern tone in a period piece. But honestly for all that it's supposed to be this Very Feminist Thing and etc., the narrative more or less just seems to ping pong around Which Guy Emily Dickinson Is Going To Be Into Now. In theory there's also a serious sapphic love story, but there's not enough of it, you could just go watch Wild Nights with Emily and get a much more satisfying story on that count. Though I guess if this existed in the absence of that movie I might be more tolerant of it not having as much queer content as I think it should be, but. Meh, honestly, the guy love interests are just still so much the focus. There are some other fun elements, when Emily's siblings get to be just outright weird it's pretty great, but then her sister ends up in again het romances I don't care about, and her brother has to be a period-accurate Man Jerk. I guess I just wished it was more what it was nominally supposed to be about than what it actually turned out to be about.

Mythic Quest - An office sitcom about the makers of a major MMORPG game. Started it because I wanted something lighter, ended up a show where the only romance is between two women, the central relationship is an emotionally charged and intimate platonic relationship between a man and a woman (Poppy Li oh my god!!!!!), and a quarantine episode so good I actually felt angry at it for being so good. And Danny Pudi is just an outstanding sitcom villain! I'm really hoping this gets a third season.


Netflix

Master of None (season 3) – We're about halfway through this and it is a very interesting exploration of the undoing of a marriage between two Black women, but it is also extremely depressing and so sometimes it's just. You have to be in the mood. And recently it's been hard to be in the mood for much besides old sitcoms and cartoon musicals. Mmm idk the straight up cottage living is nice though. And both Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie are very good in it.

Young Royals - This has a title that makes it sound a lot more sexy/silly teen drama than it actually is. The basic premise is that a fictional modern Swedish prince is sent to boarding school where he falls in love with a non-boarder (aka poor) student there (who is also a guy). Rich asshole kids are definitely part of it, but their antics are relatively... realistic? One of the main characters is autistic and has ADHD and I feel like she's portrayed in a very interesting and nuanced way; the actors actually look like teenagers, down to not having airbrushed-clear skin; their interactions are generally awkward and uncertain, even the villainous schemer of the group feels like, well, a foolish rich child. There was also some really interesting use of language - obviously the primary language is Swedish, but the characters often slip into English, with side character who is an American and always speaks English while the others respond to her in Swedish, and the mother of two of the main characters always speaking Spanish with her children when they're at home. So there was a lot more to it than I would have thought from the title, and I guess as opposed to being just straight up rich kid soapy drama, the tone of the show actually felt much more sweet and genuine.


Amazon

The Underground Railroad - WE ARE GOING TO FINISH THIS OKAY WE ARE GOING TO FINISH WATCHING IT. I mean it's Barry Jenkins so that alone means it's a visual masterpiece, it's very well-rendered from the borderline magical realism of the book. Just also. Sometimes hard to step back into the difficult things. But we need to get to William Jackson Harper ahhhh.


Hulu

The Handmaid's Tale - I'd watched the first two seasons of this and then stopped, and finally came back in the most recent four the season because I was very much promised that I'd finally get payoff on what I watched earlier. Which, yeah, I did, pretty much. But mostly I'd like to summarize the Waterfords' plot this season as Guy in Hot Dog Costume.


HBOMax

In Treatment - We only watched season 4 because I wanted to see Uzo Aduba. And it was good! I don't know that I'd want to watch the previous seasons, but I think the setup of the episodes mostly being therapist-patient sessions worked really well both with the show firmly setting it in the pandemic timeline, and with the therapist being a Black woman who deals very frankly with the racial and social realities of her patients. Though I guess Black Lady Therapist is a trope in television right now, but in this case the therapist is the main character, so the patients really end up furthering her story rather than the other way around. And only one of the three patients is white. All of the patients are also very good – Anthony Ramos is honestly completely amazing and plays such a tender, complex character, Quintessa Swindell had great chemistry with Uzo Aduba in playing a character facing a complex nexus of oppression and privilege, and John Benjamin Hickley, well, was a lot of fun to watch being the jerk character he played.

Gossip Girl (the new one) - I don't have any excuse for this. I like Julien and her look and her schemes on top of schemes on top of schemes; I want the blonde girl and the pink-haired guy and the fuckboy to have a threesome; it's hilarious to me that the teacher is such a fucking psychopath and yet I'm also not invested enough to care if the show ever realizes that. The only thing I can care enough to get annoyed with is the occasional strange self-adulation the show has, okay this is not Edith Wharton or Dorothy Parker it is trash and I'm here to be a trash panda who wants to eat trash.


Disney+

The Bad Batch - I mean, this show does the bare minimum work of having consistent and distinct characters with motivations, events that have consequences, and clear worldbuilding. The Bad Batch as a focus isn't what I would be most interested in for a Star Wars story, and I don't agree with all of its choices, but it is at least making choices. And I am genuinely really into the worldbuilding going into depicting the SW universe at this period in time, during the transition from the Republic to the Empire. I just, you know, wish it did that even more. I mostly feel it drags when, really like any SW media for me, it just becomes about making references to other properties without building anything (did I need to know the backstory of the monster Jabba the Hutt feeds his sex slaves to? not particularly). But also Hera Syndulla two-parter, Eleni Syndulla wears earrings that are big loops around her cone ears, my critical thinking skills are shutting down. I'll probably write something about that in particular later.

Those Marvel Shows – I want to write a longer review about all three of these shows together, but the gist is: Wandavision was a gimmick tacked onto a very tired Scarlet Witch narrative; F+WS could have been fine if it had stuck to its better narratives but instead it really jumped into things it couldn't handle, and also had really severe plotting issues including noticeable unforced errors (there's been a ticking clock this entire time AND YOU DIDN'T TELL US UNTIL NOW???); and Loki was generally fine but I have issues with the finale.


And I've been reading a lot of books? Many books? Since I lasted posted? Something like that. And I'm too tired to talk about all of them so I guess here are a few.

The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin – Okay the long and the short is that whatever misgivings I had, or just straight up things happening that aren't what I would have liked to have seen, the worldbuilding in this duology is so incredible that I just sort of. Let it slide. And there are very specific things where I feel like I generally have to temper my expectations, but again, worldbuilding was so amazing that it felt hard to criticize anything I would otherwise criticize.

Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen – I'm on the second book now and already these books just need to have like... even less men, but the world is interesting and honestly most importantly, I am so extremely into the style of breaking up the narration with various alternate sources, and then academic study of these sources which devolves into male academic unsubtle sexism and historians sniping at each other.

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang – Outstanding, amazing writing and really fascinating thematic exploration of race and gender in particular.

Dune by Frank Herbert – I guess overall it's one of those things where like, I'm impressed the author created it. But everyone who has ever complained about a Mary Sue while loving Paul Atriedes owes me a personal apology. Also recently varadia and I were watching some youtube video and the person in it made a reference to Paul killing millions of people and I said "he didn't really kill that many people" and she said "no that's from the later books when he goes on the jihads" and I said "wait he's the emperor why does he need to do that now" and she said "no he has to because of the fremen" and I said "but the fremen just wanted water for their planet" and anyway I'm glad that the new movie I guess is changing "jihad" to "crusade." Maybe. I'm not actually sure which is less racist at this point. There was this episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie where one of the more conservative characters was trying to figure out if "Ice-Slammers" was an offensive name for an all-Muslim curling team and that's about what I'm feeling right now.

Jailed for Freedom by Doris Stevens – This is a contemporaneous account of the imprisonment and torture of suffragettes in the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment, written by Doris Stevens, one of the leading activists of the National Women's Party. The "radical" tactics the NWP suffragettes engaged in most famously included the Silent Sentinels, in which the protestors attempted to maintain a continuous guard at the White House gates holding signs calling for women's enfranchisement and pressuring Woodrow Wilson to publicly endorse a federal amendment extending the vote to women. This book is also pretty clearly a central source for the movie Iron Jawed Angels, which used activist Alice Paul as a protagonist in its depiction of the passage of the 19th Amendment. This being the only HBO made-for-TV movie I have on dvd, it was interesting to see what was incorporated and what was left out from this book – some things like extremely condensing the actual timeline of events, but also things like the relationships between suffragist prisoners and other prisoners, especially along racial lines. The writer was probably... relatively progressive for that time, but it was also definitely the case that the suffragists gained a lot of attention for being Nice, Upper Class White Women Who Shouldn't Be Going to Prison. The movie has a brief sequence involving Ida B. Wells, but neither really goes into the issue of racism among white suffragists. It is also really interesting to see well-known historical figures described in a time before some kind of legacy-narrative has been widely accepted about them - whether it's "Colonel Roosevelt" whom I learned from this was very supportive of enfranchising women, or director of US Food Administration Herbert Hoover who point-blank refused to meet with suffragists, but wrote to assure them that he'd totally supported votes for women all along when he later ran for president.

Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham – After reading this, I don't know if writing can really capture everything that made Veronica Mars entertaining – I felt more like I was missing rather than revisiting the candy-neon pinks and greens and blues of Neptune, like give me all that blue-purple girl noir again please. But the story works. And I really appreciated the closure it provided regarding one of the returning characters.


Do I do things besides watch the TV and read books? Yes I will have you know that my Sims are progressing along nicely and will soon have a fancy farming expansion pack; I play trashy games on my phone; and I'm definitely going to finish this Eirtaé fanfic even if I'm thinking things like 'I should watch Babette's Feast(????) for research.' Or god worse My Dinner with Andre, I'm going to be so mad if I end up watching My Dinner with Andre especially now that I've checked and know it's readily available for me to watch.

And we have also spent non-refundable money for a vacation in December so. If Florida could by any chance get its act together a little more in the next five months that would be. nice.

I mentioned in my Jedi Fallen Order post that I wasn't that fond of the most recent major Star Wars EA video game, Squadrons. Squadrons is, unsurprisingly, a piloting game, set mostly following the Battle of Endor, about two elite fighter pilot squadrons on either side of the OT war. So why didn't I care for it?

Well for one it doesn't have an in-universe Mongolian song that comes with it. Am I saying I now require all Star Wars media to come with new original in-universe music? Um, yes.

Okay, whatever –
( Squadrons )

Through various Steam bundle sales I own… a lot of Star Wars games, and I'm kind of tempted to just play a little of all of them to write a post about doing that. But maybe instead I should just try to finish a KOTOR someday. Regardless this is all going to be on hold anyway until my laptop returns from the wars.*


*Best Buy repair

So only uh... more than a year after it came out, I've written up my thoughts on Jedi Fallen Order! Including basically writing up its entire story so you don't have to play it or uh, try to navigate through YouTube videos.

Jedi Fallen Order is my favorite Star Wars story to come out since... 2017? packed into a Tomb Raider video game, lol. I really didn't go into it expecting to enjoy it nearly as much as I did, I wasn't feeling the need for a Jedi-focused story in particular and yeah okay white dude protagonist Cal didn't spark my interest (especially with some of the behind the scenes talk about wanting the protagonist to be "relatable" which plays even worse when you know the previous protagonist of a major SW game was a woman of color). But – the story, once you hit it, is great. The characters are great – yes, by the end I do even have a tender spot for Cal. The environments are beautiful and enjoyable to explore just on their own. And this game just does some things I'd never seen before in a game. I'm not a big gamer, I can't say what I experienced in here will strike everyone as so interesting, but I ultimately had a great experience.

Probably one indicator of how much I love the story of this game is that I've written it out in the cut below and that retelling is … 15 pages long. By contrast here is my retelling of the story of Battlefront II - the main character is an Imperial commando serving under her Imperial admiral father but then the post-Endor the Empire attacks her homeworld in Operation Cinder and she gets mad about it so she joins the Rebels and does a bunch of things with them leading to the final battle over Jakku where she confronts her father and before dying he tells her that he wants her to live and so she escapes a crashing Star Destroyer and reaches her love interest and they make out. And then also the bonus content happens. That's it, there's really not much more I can say about it because it needs no more explanation. It's very straightforward. Jedi Fallen Order is a much more complex story built around its video game sinew, and like – I wanted to tell it! I wanted to tell it as I experienced it!

In any case, this is a first-person combat/adventure game where the player is playing the story's protagonist, Cal Kestis, a former Jedi apprentice who has been living in hiding since Order 66. The gameplay itself combines combat with, again, Tomb Raider - a lot of is effectively navigating very beautiful obstacle courses. And then with combat, since you're a Jedi, you're fighting with the Force and a lightsaber, and I'll admit there were points when I would miss Battlefront II and just being able to shoot people, but. There's a scale of difficulty settings if you're like us and you know not amazing at combat games and just want to experience the story (I've been replaying the game on the setting one notch above Story Mode and have been mostly doing okay except some of the 'boss' fights are still kicking my ass.) The fights are generally with animals/big monstery creatures and a large array of Imperial troopers, with the occasional Inquisitor or bounty hunter also in the mix. And while you're playing a set character, you can go around collecting all the loot you can find in crates in every location to change up Cal's outfights, lightsaber, and how his droid friend and ship look.

I generally found that the gameplay worked smoothly and integrated fairly well into the Star Wars world. The game uses save points that are indicated as these symbols on the ground where Cal can 'meditate' during which you can restore health/health boosters (though this also means respawning opponents), and as you fight and also discover new information about the various places you explore, you earn "Force points" that you can use to learn new abilities, which are rendered in a really visually pleasing skill tree. The combat itself has an interesting reliance on blocking that I hadn't seen before, and sort of limits you by limiting how much "Force HP" you have in combat (there's no such limit outside combat) before you have to earn it back by attacking opponents. Which if there's one thing that's weird it's that you "earn" Force knowledge in part by killing things, that's kind of strange, but also it's a game mechanic, I get it.

The settings are also again – beautiful! You travel to seven different planets over the course of the story, and strictly completing the story I'd say requires only exploring maybe 70% of the maps themselves. There's a whole lot you can do just for fun, and...I had a lot of fun just exploring! Even relatively simple things – in one map you find a crashed Republic capital ship, and there's one point where you can jump down into this darkened room with a hologram projector in the center, and activate a holo of a Clone Trooper giving a report, and you don't need to do it but... it's nice?

And generally I've thought the animation is well done (though my new computer is capable of running the game at the highest graphic setting and I've... been taking advantage of that). In gameplay the moving elements are always going to look less well rendered than the static ones, though I thought this game largely avoided the plastic Barbie doll look that Battlefront could have sometimes; the most awkward appearance happens when the player can have Cal talk to the other characters outside of cut scenes, which can look weird just because it's that typical video game thing of stilted posture and poses and characters not looking directly at each other when they speak. But the cut scenes look great, there's great expression from the characters and the actors really do a nice job.

Oh and also the game makers commissioned a song for this game from the Mongolian band The Hu and it's so great.

Anyway, I think that's it for my non-spoilery comments, so I'm going to put my description of the story under a cut, and then after that put my more spoilery feelings.

( Jedi Fallen Order For People Who Don't Want To Have To Play A Video Game )


And now for more spoilery discussion!


( Spoilery comments here )

Also because I can't go into the world and take photos, I've been having too much fun with photo mode in this game, so here are some instagrammable screenshots

( Pretty! )


and now that that forever review is done, other upcoming sw reviews maybe:
- Shadowfall - yesss murder me alexander freed
- Star Wars: Squadrons - I can now officially give the rankings for the current Star Wars EA AAA games and they are (1) Jedi Fallen Order; (2) Battlefront II; and (3) Squadrons. Sorry, Squadrons.
- Queen's Peril - I read this entire book in a single day just so I wouldn't have to be reading it anymore
- The Mandalorian - you know that comic about executive dysfunction that's like an alligator writhing on the floor yelling "DO! SOMETHING!" that is me at this show
- And I'm also reading Last Shot which is one I feel bad about because I generally like the ideas in it I just... have some kind of issue with Daniel José Older's writing style. And I guess the perpetual "I am once again asking you to understand that women can come in categories beyond: (1) your mother (2) your girlfriend (3) large teddy bear that can't be your mother or your girlfriend"

So... varadia and I got married this afternoon! And therefore got to tick 'zoom wedding' off our 2020 pandemic bingo? >_> But yes for real we had our very brief official thing over zoom and uploaded the completed license to city hall, so it's all done and we're married. So yep, fyi!

and um, now on to your regularly scheduled post –


( Movies I've logged, cut because yet again, it has been many )


And we have also watched a bunch of TV, like –

( The Queen's Gambit )

And after watching season 3 of The Crown when it came out because Olivia Colman, we watched season 4 and are now watching the first two seasons. And most of the result has been me even more learning what made up nonsense the monarchy is. Lynne did at one point wonder aloud if the British royal family is especially dramatic or just the most high profile royal family and some Wikipedia searches taught me… it's the latter! Where is the Netflix drama about the royal family of Monaco, I'm saying.

And I've read some books, including the Frozen AU fanfiction book Conceal, Don't Feel which I read because… it was free. Disney has a line of what are essentially AU fanfiction books like "what if Sleeping Beauty never woke up" or "what if Wendy visited Neverland with Captain Hook" or increasingly more random "what if the Enchantress who cursed the Beast had been Belle's mother"? Anyway, this AU difference was that Elsa and Anna had been raised separately and didn't know they were sisters, and the result was basically the Frozen movie but more convoluted and without that big twist. So, I'm glad it was free. I kind of liked getting the different points of view, but you know. Also a thing I can get from fanfiction.

And I also read Kindred by Octavia Butler.

( Kindred )

I also read The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin, which I really liked a lot, I loved the worldbuilding in particular, but I think I'll hold out on writing about until I've read the second book.


And what, I finished my fish nun/bird fic! (aka most recent in my fic series about women characters in Star Wars)

The Salt & the Shadow (4028 words) by Ria Talla (ronia)
Fandom: Star Wars – All Media Types, Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: None
Characters: Alcida-Auka, Terna-Gentu
Additional Tags: Planet Ahch-To (Star Wars), Lanai (Star Wars), The Force, The Dark Side of the Force (Star Wars), The Light Side of the Force (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Nuns, Force Philosophy (Star Wars), Mentioned Luke Skywalker, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Summary: Alcida Auka, Resistance Era/Post-The Last Jedi

Because it was only the Sisters who were made for the Shadow. That was their pride, and so with it they sought the humility of simple work in their lives, to sweep the paths that others walked, cook their meals and light their hearths.

Even as the most recent Outsider had refused much of their work, collecting his own food and cleaning his own hut. He had even begun to pick up their words, to thank them, to ask them questions, to weave kind phrases. It hadn't surprised Mother that some of her younger Daughters thought to share the Shadow with him. Yet she had no need to forbid it, as even these Daughters knew that they could not.

Okay, basically I went very much off my in own direction with these creatures from The Last Jedi, including taking the opportunity to develop an alternative view of the Force for them. So they're Caretakers but you know, also their own thing.

( This is the seventh entry in my series, the previous are listed below the cut )

But I've decided to no longer do this by strict alphabetical order because adj;asdjfkja;sfd, so instead I'm going to switch between a choosing a character I already have an idea for, and choosing a character with my random number generator app. I'm doing the former first, so the next fic will be about the Naboo handmaiden Sabé.

I'm also about to finish Shadowfall so I can write about that soon! I'd also like to do a review of Jedi Fallen Order at some point but I got into a thing where I was writing out the entire plot of the game and now it's seven pages long and I -___-. I just know a lot of people won't play the game but I think it's a great Star Wars story and so would like to share it with those who don't want to fighty fight a billion giant frog monsters and stormtroopers. And someday I will also review the Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Cookbook, but there are a few things I want to make. Maybe shaak roast for Christmas dinner?

Movies I've logged:
Hamilton (2020) ★★★★
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) ★★★
Clue (1985) ★★★1/2
The Old Guard (2020) ★★★1/2
DuckTales: The Movie – Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) ★1/2
The Rescuers Down Under (1990) ★★★
My Neighbor Totoro (1988) ★★★★★
Beauty and the Beast (1991) ★★★★1/2
The Fifth Element (1997) ★★★
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) ★★★1/2

Also I already reviewed it up there but I'm going to talk about exactly one trope thing in The Old Guard, so spoilers for that –

( The Old Guard, but exactly one trope in it )

Anyway, I guess in real life, but also extremely not -

( covid talk, but it's just about my dreams because they've been weird )

In actual real life, things continue to not be very different. varadia has to go back to the office which is annoying but mostly not really… frightening? Because she doesn't have to use public transport and the precautions being taken do seem essentially adequate. Meanwhile I have no idea what will be happening with my job any time soon when it comes to that, I don't see how in the near future we can approach anything close to what was normal before this, so… I'm glad my employer at least seems to be resisting any rush back to normality but also the perpetual uncertainty isn't that fun! But again I know I'm better off than so many it's hard to. Whatever.

So you know, reading, watching movies, etc.

And so looking for something to put in my book series spot, I read the first Murderbot book and did not decide to continue, cut for being negative -
( All Systems Red )

And then I read A Wizard of Earthsea which I liked fine, but as I approached the end I was just thinking 'idk this is fine but I'm not sure I want to read however-many-books-are-in-this-series of it' and then at the end came around to 'maybe I could come back to this but I need to read something else first.' So I started N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon and I am really liking that.

I also read Amy Poehler's memoir Yes Please and that was also fine. On the scale of celebrity memoirs, it's certainly more coherent than a lot of them, but it also ultimately reads like a series of blog posts. It's also not exactly Poehler's fault that the constant namedropping of Louis C.K. doesn't exactly read well now but. Reading this also coincided with what seems like a lot of shit coming out of UCB, so maybe not the best timing.

And because there always has to be a Star Wars book in the mix, I read Star Wars Myths & Legends, which I had been hoping would be something like in-universe fairytales from the SW universe, but ended up just basically being short stories that were sometimes additional stories about existing characters. Which I guess is what I should have expected but was still disappointing, and I wouldn't say I found any of these particularly interesting, but, for details –

( Star Wars Myths & Legends )

And also we finally finished playing Jedi Fallen Order and I really liked it a lot! Once the actual emotional story became clear. Which took a bit, maybe partly but not entirely because, uh, I suck at playing combat video games. But I'll write that up later.

This is going to be a completely Star Wars-free post! … that is still me talking about media.

Movies I've logged –

Galaxy Quest (1999) ★★★★1/2
Pete's Dragon (1977) 1/2
The Emperor's New Groove (2000) ★★★1/2
Mad Max Fury Road (2015) ★★★★1/2
The Rescuers (1977) ★★★
Minority Report (2002) ★★★★
Titan A.E. (2000) ★★★1/2


And a couple books -
( Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky Trilogy )

I also reread 1984 I think for the first time since it was Required Reading -
( 1984 )





And varadia wanted me to watch Into the Woods (the stage musical) with her –

( Into the Woods )


Other than that – more time, more work from home and very little else. One of our AC units broke, which isn't great in a time when having someone come into fix things isn't ideal, but we have two others in this apartment so we're hoping that makes up for it for the time being. And… that is the extent of anything new happening! We're pretty close to Prospect Park but don't go there because it's apparently crowded all the time. Honestly despite being cooped up I don't actually feel that way most of the time. My only thing is that I wish I had my old reasons to move around more, as I know it's unhealthy to be so inactive, and I'd rather go for long walks or even be forced to walk up and down the courthouse than do the Youtube exercise videos I've found. But it doesn't feel worth going through all the going-out-of-the-apartment procedures just for a long walk, so.

I am feeling like Peace Corps maybe gave me some preparation for not being able to do things I would like to do, and also having a long, involved procedure for going outside. Or maybe I've just thought 'if I lived without running water for two years you can just wear a stupid mask.' Though at least when I was in PC I didn't get a bunch of 'uncertain times' emails. Really I might be safer in Mongolia right now…

And I started watching the Disney+ ASMR shorts so I'll probably have to admit to liking ASMR now. It's all very exciting, I know, but also we're lucky for having uneventful lives at the moment.

(Star Wars comments will be returning soon.)

Movies I've logged:

Robin Hood (1973) ★★★
Tangled (2010) ★★★1/2
Double Indemnity (1944) ★★★★★
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) ★★★
The Director and the Jedi (2018) ★★★★
The Report (2019) ★★★1/2

(in other news, why are so many dudes suddenly following me on letterboxd and why are ALL OF THEM dudes who like Tarantino and Fight Club)

Anyway, I wrote up my response to Doctor Who series 12, and they are, um –

( Doctor Who series 12, or 'why is Veronica giving me this insight into her id that I really didn't need and also somehow Knives Out is briefly in here' )

And I managed to finish the fic I was writing for my women-in-Star Wars-series –
The Only Man Who Can Save You (6348 words) by Ria Talla (ronia)
Fandom: Star Wars – All Media Types, Star Wars: Darth Vader (Comics)
Rating: Teens and Up
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Aiolin Astarte & Morit Astarte, Aiolin Astarte & Cylo (Star Wars)
Characters: Aiolin Astarte, Morit Astarte, Cylo (Star Wars), Original Characters, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious
Additional Tags: Children, Harm to Children, Unethical Experimentation, Human Experimentation, Family Drama, Stolen Children
Summary: Aiolin Astarte, Pre-Rebellion Era/Original Trilogy

"What are your names?" he asked them, as his hand moved to Aiolin. They each answered in turn, and he nodded, before kneeling down to meet their level. "I am called Dr. Cylo. I've been a friend of your parents for quite some time."

"I don't know you," said Morit. Dr. Cylo smiled, leaning closer to her brother.

"We've never met," he answered. "And aside from that, I sometimes prefer not to wear the same face for too long."

Aiolin Astarte briefly appeared in the 2015 Star Wars: Darth Vader comics run, and there was exactly one thing I wanted to write about her and it took me forever and was kind of miserable but now I have and it's over and I get to move on to fish nuns yesssssssssssssssssssss.

( Previous entries in this series so far now below a cut )



And meanwhile, Plague Year continues and we continue to seem to be okay and not sick and are working from home. We are nerds and had planned in the Before Time to do a picnic in Prospect Park on May 4, but have still decided to take it off and do an Inside Picnic. But you know, it's probably good to hope things stay at exactly that level of excitement for now and nothing more.

I said I would come back to complain about Space Fascists, and look. This also barely breaks 1300 words, because honestly not that much happens and I couldn't be bothered to check back on things like people's names no of course I did, so, most recent Thrawn book -

( Thrawn Treason, In Which Thrawn Continues To Not Do Anything Remotely Treasonous )

aand because I got this done... Happy New Year!

Movies I've logged:

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019) ★★★★1/2
Parasite (2019) ★★★★1/2
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) ★★
Frozen II (2019) ★★★
Love Actually (2003) ★★1/2
Knives Out (2019) (again) ★★★★1/2
A Christmas Story (1983) ★★★
Little Women (2019) ★★★★
Us (2019) ★★★★
Burning (2018) ★★★1/2

(I've also rewatched a lot of Star Wars which is logged but I'm not linking to it.)

And books I've finished recently –

( Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear )


( Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin )



And the obligatory Star Wars reading –
( Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse, and this includes some inevitable TROS comments/spoilers so be aware of that. )

And because yet more Star Wars -


( Thoughts on the back half of The Mandalorian season 1 )


I had some further thoughts on TROS and the trilogy series as a whole, but I've set it aside for now because. meh. but it does have some funny galaxy brain comments so it'll be coming at some point.