Fourth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

btw feel free to suggest/nominate post titles

Post about fandom! Or whatever! Whether it's a rave about some obscure series, or an essay dissecting every last reason why some internet-famous author should rethink their career, someone will probably read it at some point! We also just chat about life.

(start a comment thread by replying to this post)

Comments

TV

[(Anonymous)]

Whatcha watching?

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

The person playing Homelander in ‘The Boys’ is called Antony Starr. Which means he is Tony Star.

That is all.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Am I the only one who couldn't stand David Tennant as the Doctor? Everyone else I meet always says they loved him. I found him irritating and unconvincing. Seems to be my most fringe opinion, but am I truly the only one out there???

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you, but I'm also not much of a Whovian.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

I mean I'm not either really, I dipped in a bit with the reboot, stopped watching bc the combo of Tennant and RTD annoyed me too much, then came back for the first Matt Smith season and stuck around for a while before wandering off again when it got worse. I can't gel with the fandom because most of the bits they like are things I thought were crap. Idk if there's a parallel world where the fandom's preferences are closer to mine and where I could have got more into it.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I watched about half the first Matt Smith season because I was trying to become better friends with a huge Dr Who fan, but even her friendship wasn't worth sitting through more of it.

My only attempt to watch a Tenant episode stopped halfway through.

I absolutely love sci fi and fantasy as genres but I don't think there's a single live action tv series in the genre that I actually enjoy ... maybe the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica if I forget about Gaius and Six?

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Ecclestone was a better actor. Tennant felt more like he was being ‘the Doctor’, but got more and more exaggerated as time went on.

Watch the classic stuff, instead! There’s always something to notice and talk about.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I'm fond of Tennant's Doctor, but I'm not sure if all the praise is justified. He's probably my favorite of the ones I watched, but I liked Eccleston's and Smith's iterations of the Doctor quite a bit (stopped watching after them) and I wouldn't really put him that far ahead of the others. I can see why you'd find him irritating, but I actually enjoy that personality type so it's a plus for me.

A good part of it is probably nostalgia, though. I started with David Tennant and there's some absolutely exceptional episodes during his run that I loved. I also enjoyed Martha and Donna most of the companions, I think.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Saw part of this kdrama where the eunuch goes "Just put my soul into the shaman anyway, she's powerful and I've been a eunuch for so long I can be a woman"

The idea of the eunuch flipping his shit at periods is hilarious :D

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

So I watched Players, which is a mockumentary about League of Legends esports players. I don't know if I'd call it good - it's clearly got a tiny budget and it relies heavily on crass humor that, as the gamer bros say, I am 'too female' to understand - but it was definitely way better than it had any right to be. You could tell the producers did their research and had the knowledge necessary both to treat the subject with respect and take the piss out of it. Literally. There's a character named 'Piss Jar,' and yes, the name is relevant to the plot.

Fundamentally, it's a story about how esports has changed. It centers around Creamcheese, an abrasive veteran player who hails from an era where the world finals were held in some guy's basement, where your parents would disown you for playing video games and you had to live on a friend's couch until you made a name for yourself. He wants to win, desperately; the average career of a League pro is not long and this is, quite possibly, his last chance to right the mistakes that once cost him the championship.

Unfortunately, his new lane partner is Organizm, a seventeen-year-old prodigy who the corporate overlords of the league are setting up as the new face of his team. Gone are the days where you could just get five guys together and go pro; nowadays teams are owned by big-name sports teams like the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks. Organizm's signing fee is unheard of; player salaries have skyrocketed to be competitive as good players realize it's far more lucrative and far less stressful to be an entertainer than a pro. He wants to win, too, out of a pure and honest love for the competitive side of the game, but it's up to the two of them to put aside their egos and conflicting personalities, and figure out how to do it.

It's the perfect set-up for a feel-good story, but it really isn't one. There's touching, wholesome moments as the characters grow and develop, but in the end, they're still the same old people. Creamcheese is still an asshole. Organizm has yet to realize that League of Legends is a team game. North America still goes 1-5 at Worlds. But that's real life for you, I suppose. Everyone has potential to become more than they are, but it's a lifelong journey, not a neat little story.

Not sure if I'd recommend it to someone who's not familiar with the League of Legends esports scene, though. I have - unfortunately - followed it for over ten years, and it's just such a treat seeing how the creators have woven clear real-life inspirations and references into their story while keeping it original and compelling. Many of the non-story characters are real people in the scene, too, and some of the original characters are portrayed by actual pros.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

I'm happy for you, nonny! Nice to find something you never expected to exist, and sounds like it was made with love.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Another year where the best shows coming out of the Chinese drama scene are blatant government propaganda. Perhaps one day I will be capable of enjoying things again.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

Das Boot. I was lured in by hopes of a ship that sunk halfway through the series, but the u-boat scenes are so good! The lesbianism felt a bit gratuitous at first, but I really liked the way they were not 'happy and in love', and the part where one of them baths after being with a man, her disgust felt very visceral.

The copious amounts of rape was a bit annoying. Probably realistic in the scenes with the sailors though, I really like the fact that the drama did not show the sailors as 'good men' in that regard. Seeing a 'sympathetic' sailor force himself on a woman for reasons that make sense to him and not us as the viewers spoke volumes about the way they saw women.

There were a lot of lovely, sweaty young men in desperate positions, sadly none of them got intimate with each other in season one. Here's holding out hope for season two, please Bavaria film, if no homos then at least give us some nice shipping material.

Re: TV

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Halfway through season two. We had a swimming scene, and then the narrative botched it. Two boys finally kissed as part of a party scene, that was nice, but I was hoping for more from this series. At least the visuals are nice, Art Deco in New York looks very dazzling, and the focus on jazz music is very nice to see.

Re: TV - Sea Monsters

[(Anonymous)]

Was watching a cooking show on dailymotion (old ep of Rick stein's Spain if curious; I'm turning into my dad) and afterward the autoplay took us to Sea Monsters, a sequel/spinoff of Walking With Dinosaurs. I was half asleep and was confused for a while trying to work out the "rules" for the show (ie: just how much they were faking combining footage from current day animals, and how much they were pretending was real). I don't remember being confused by it as a kid but it seemed like it would be incredibly confusing. He had a bit where he ran a bunch of experiments to see if a dino would be repelled by a chemical, with footage of the different results, and as an adult it was clear that not only were the dinos cgi, none of the chemical whatever was set up as stated and the whole segment was just done for some kind of narrative value. But I feel like a kid would go away thinking the experiment was basically legit and they'd prolly just done it with sharks and overlaid the footage? Who knows, I assumed it was food colouring and wires, but maybe they did. Maybe a good show to watch stoned? The commitment to the fantasy is impressive even if it's all a bit baffling.

Re: TV - Daily Kitchen Live

[(Anonymous)]

Spunoff from the internet weirdness thread. I'm catching up with this carcrash of a show. This is not edifying to the soul, but I have nothing to do today.

Daily Kitchen Live was a live cooking show that the bbc aired for a couple of weeks in 2020, officially a show to help viewers find ways of cooking around pandemic shortages; unofficially as some attempt to calm the nation fwict. It's everything that's terrible and weird about bbc daytime TV: inane chatter, stupid questions from stupid viewers, information so obvious you really didn't need a show to tell you, hosts with no charisma, and an obsession with world war 2. If you've seen the One show, it's that kind of shit. If you haven't seen it, you're lucky. I assume someone at the bbc just has a burning hatred for housewives.

So "handy recipes" include things like "nuts with salt on", "a mug cake", and "a broccoli calzone made from potato". I cannot overemphasise how useless this show is AS a cooking show.

But then, it's not a cooking show. Daily Kitchen Live must actually be experienced as a dark sitcom. The premise is this: Matt, an experienced TV chef, who's hardworking and takes pride in his work, yet still is not as famous as he'd like, gets a spot presenting a daily nationwide cooking programme. A stressful gig, with a lot of constraints, and not the show he'd prefer to be doing, but if it goes well and he can stay relaxed, he could be the next Jamie Oliver.

There's just one catch: his co-host, Jack, is some kind of hopeless twitter personality who has blagged her way into the job. She knows nothing about food, nothing about presenting, fights with everyone, neglects the absolute basics of the work, yet proclaims herself an expert.

Moreover, because of social distancing measures, all guests must be present only via videolink, with all the joy that entails.

Now the pro chef must keep his temper on a live show while also presenting it. Live.

We, as the audience, witness the chef's breakdown in real time. As his co-host suggests the nation grate corned beef, we see the light die in his eyes. As we cut between clips of elderly member of the public presenting their best jar-opening tips ("bash it on the floor!"), a segment from the hairy bikers with the background audio mixed too loud to hear the words, and some man on twitter begging to know what he can
possibly cook with a potato, we witness a vicious social comedy in which the protagonist's very skills and experience doom him to failure. It's the kind of cringe comedy that Peep Show could only aspire to be. You will want a shower after watching, not a meal.

I have four episodes to go. I may actually turn this into an original novel/script. The show is almost too painful to watch but there's comedy gold here.

Re: TV - Daily Kitchen Live

[(Anonymous)]

On ep 7. I think he's broken. He seems to be drunk.

Re: TV - Daily Kitchen Live

[(Anonymous)]

Oh no :/

Do report if he ends up bouncing back...

Re: TV - Daily Kitchen Live

[(Anonymous)]

Watched ep8. He still seems a bit drunk/hungover; red face and less jolly than last ep. His "onscreen companion" (they can't seriously call her a co-host) made a joke about her dead aunt; it seemed to be adlibbed and unwelcome, since host looked taken aback and uncomfortable and rushed the show on. Possibly because the show was a "keep people's spirits up during the pandemic" and thus mentions of dead relatives were on the NO list.

I've only two episodes of this catastrophe left. I'm almost going to miss it. On this one they made a chicken curry that looked v boring (all one colour!) and also like it would give you food poisoning (big cuts of chicken cooked for only 30 mins on what looked like a low heat). And "popcorn with chocolate on it". Because that's a recipe. Last time they did some kind of pickled veg where they didn't say what they were putting in it, along with tinned salmon on potato bread. 🤷

Re: TV - Friends

[(Anonymous)]

We're (re)watching Friends. I've seen the odd episode but not very much.

I knew I'd hate Ross, but, fuck, I hate Ross. All the Friends are pretty horrible; Janice is probably the nicest character on it so far. They all leech off Monica and put her down... but at least they're not Ross. At first we were like "at least he's not as bad as Riley Finn", but as it's going on, he may actually be worse. Every episode, I go, "I hope this is the one where he dies", and friend sighs and says "he doesn't die", which is a cold hard return to reality that I just don't need.

Re: TV - Friends

[(Anonymous)]

Sa

You're just trying to enjoy a sitcom and then every so often there's a little interlude where he does some abusing.

Re: TV - Friends

[(Anonymous)]

Sa

god ross is such a rapist

Re: TV - LOTR

[(Anonymous)]

> I don’t know anyone who’s seen it that doesn’t like it. Not everyone loves it but I don’t think I’ve seen anything close to an honest non click baity review that said it was below average.

> This is simply that disgusting white guy “fan” culture at it again.

> Give it a day and they’ll quickly be distracted by the next thing, a new she hulk episode or maybe Rick and Morty will introduce a black male lead character. There’s always something new for them to hate right around the corner.

Can we stop blaming white guy fan culture for everytime someone disagrees with us. Underwhelmed by Rings of Power, probably prefer the LotR movies to it, not sure about where I'd rank the Hobbit films next to it.

White has really become shorthand for "you should ignore and silence these people" and I say this despite my skin being yellow as all fuck.

Re: TV - LOTR

[(Anonymous)]

I read it as a shorthand for 'see see im one of the cool ones plz accept me plz plz'

(my skin's green)

Re: TV - LOTR

[(Anonymous)]

sa

(but I'll butt out; not seen the tv series; did actually rewatch the first lotr film yesterday as it happens and had a nice time. :) the locations have aged well (as I knew they would!). all I've seen of the tv show so far is the page of characters, where we were like 'THAT'S MEANT TO BE ELROND?!! HE'S A JOCK WITH A SQUASHED FACE?!!'. and galadriel looked way too normal. so based on 6 character photo portraits, which is obviously a great way to judge a show, I say it doesn't look otherwordly enough.)