then there are blackbirds

Wow it's been ages since I've read/watched any new content?? Things I plunged into on recent rest/recovery/workfail days:

- Zuko fic, including lots of Sokka/Zuko - I love their canon relationships with Mai and Suki (and to a slightly lesser extent Yue) to bits so this ship hadn't previously registered for me, but I find their combined ridiculousness... astoundingly appealing right now??

- Kimetsu no Yaiba/Demon Slayer - sister watched the anime on Netflix and poked me about it, and then I went and watched it and read the whole manga in approximately 2 days. I didn't expect to love it so much, but TANJIRO! NEZUKO! Cute and heartwrenching and sweet, but tbh my first overall reaction was CLOWN FRIENDS, HOW DO YOU HAVE SO MANY. ♥ ♥ ♥

- Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official's Blessing - I marathoned this on Netflix after I finished Kimetsu no Yaiba, and then did the same thing with the manhua and novel translations. >.> (Hello again, completionist tendencies?) 800 years of pining, literal/emotional suffering, and EPIC OBLIVIOUSNESS are truly A Combination, wow. The portrayal of the pains of bureaucracy also made me laugh really hard- Ling Wen is a truly underappreciated martyr!

Side notes: I think non-live-action is the only reason I could handle the amount of gore/body horror in these, though the art style in Kimetsu no Yaiba was less of a buffer for me than, say, Mononoke. Really, the art style in TGCF doesn't have Mononoke's extra buffer of surreality either, it's just that Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are distractingly pretty so the eye gets drawn away a lot more. xD

♣ I downloaded the Daily Yoga app yesterday in yet another bid to get into the habit of daily stretching, and I did actually do some yoga this morning. Also I noticed there's a whole section on yoga poses during menstruation! This seems particularly promising, as my previous attempts at home exercise have been derailed by aches and cramps before. We'll see how this goes!

♣ I started on this sweater a few days ago, which looks nice in theory but is very, very boring to execute. Super tempted to break up the hdc monotony with rows of other stitches, except for the part where I'm not sure it'll actually look good, so I probably won't. If I manage to finish it before winter here is over I will be amazed.

♣ And finally, a few notes on Atomic Blonde, before I forget everything I had to say about it! I had no strong opinions or expectations going in beyond LADY SPY HOORAY!, which it delivers, in a Jane Bond sort of way. The plot twists were a bit hard to follow, not sure if that was the execution or my being fluff-brained while watching. The violence occasionally made me flinch (I really dislike gore) but it was pretty satisfying to watch Charlize Theron take on all comers. ( vague spoilers ) Also why is the espionage business portrayed as so overwhelmingly male?? Surely this can't be accurate? (Not even gonna touch the lily-whiteness of it; some of the Bond movies did better there.)

I have been (unsurprisingly) useless this week, so I ended up in an internet spiral of fic* that somehow led to me marathoning Love in the Moonlight/Moonlight Drawn by Clouds in, uh, 2 days. >.> It was surprisingly addictive for what seemed like a fairly fluffy premise- though in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. I mean, come on, woman MC disguised as a man who somehow ends up as a palace eunuch falls in love with the crown prince? What is that, 5 romcom/fandom tropes smashed in one ball of epic glee? *g*

Anyway, after the pit of FEELS and TEARS that was re/watching Lang Ya Bang/Nirvana in Fire (which is the only thing I've been allowing myself to watch after I inhaled YOI), this kdrama hit the spot re: both feels and ALL THE FLUFF that made it better, haha. I couldn't say how accurate it is in terms of historical details, but I also felt that the storyline came from a more character- and relationship-driven angle than the incredible but unrelenting complex-politics-fest of NiF. As it definitely delivered on those, I'll leave analyzing those other parts to those who know them better :D

*Ending in the relevant stories: Day-to-Day Trials of a Longsuffering Cloud: The Diary of Head Eunuch Jang, A Warm and Generous Heart

Yesterday, I watched The Handmaiden as a birthday-prelude outing with a couple of girls from my cohort. It was a super busy week (or 10 days, whatever), so all I'd based this decision on was this one-sentence synopsis from IMDB. Lady spy! I mean, really, there are a million awesome movies to be made about lady spies! Surely one can't go wrong!

So we go to the theater and get through Part 1, and huh, lady spy movie with lesbian romance? If ever there was a fanfic setup, but way to put that on the big screen. (At this point I note that I haven't read Fingersmith, which my friends later told me this was based on. Given that they came with me to watch this anyway, I likely wouldn't have changed my decision.) ( semi-detailed spoilers-ish start here )

Overall reaction: what did I just watch. (Answer: a bad fanfic.) My friends inform me that most of the reviews for this movie were great; I highly disagree. My sister calls it over the top; I'd call it an interesting mess that buried all the interesting bits in piles of wtf. Given wider media trends of hypersexualized Asian women, not to mention Asian women in porn, a lot of this movie made me uncomfortable. It's SO male gaze-y, often with LITERAL ON-SCREEN MALE GAZE. (Weirdly, the lesbian sex scenes are probably the least male gaze-y moments I could name in this movie.) Also, this movie perpetuates the narrative that Asian women need saving from Asian men, though at least ( vague spoiler? ). The various portrayals of mental illness, suicide, various types of abuse, and general sexual skeeviness probably need trigger warnings; I sure as hell wish someone had warned me about those. In conclusion, I'm not sure I exactly regret watching it, but it definitely left me in a haze of perplexity and dismay.

So I finally watched Free!, which is all inkstone's fault, of course. Predictably, my reaction to everything is LOLOL :DDDDD ♥ ♥ ♥ and other assorted incoherencies, but if you want some more specifics to my gleeface, they're all included in that primer post (except for a number of very specific spoilery bits).

1. Also predictably, Haruka is my FAVORITE. ♥________♥ Someone needs to write/draw him and Kuroko having an expressionless face-off!

2. Has anyone made icons yet? Should I be getting on that?

3. I checked out some of the iwatobiswimclub fills, and would just like to state for the record that seen everything there is to be shown is A GEM. Seriously hilarious Rin/Haru, and long-suffering Nitori makes the whole story, poor baby. xDDDDDD

A taxi, bullet train, bus, plane, shuttle bus, and car ride later, I am home! Proper babble will come later (maybe, after the jetlag), but I wanted to log the movies I watched on this trip before I forget them all.

1. The Four/四大名捕: This is the one movie I watched on the plane to Taiwan, having for once in my life actually slept for most of the flight. The wiki has a fairly un-spoilery summary, and a more coherent one than I can muster at the moment. I generally enjoy watching wuxia movies, and I am always in need of badass ladies, but the jealous love triangle aspect made it kind of meh. It was a fun watch at the time (long plane flights are good for fairly brainless entertainment!), but I wouldn't rewatch it if I had the opportunity.

[Technically The Return of the King should follow here, as I rewatched it with my cousins' kids on New Year's Day, but a) I'm almost positive all of you have seen it, b) all of the LOTR movies still leave me verklempt.]

2. Johnny English Reborn: The wiki says this was a James Bond parody; I'm only surprised it's not called "Mr. Bean Does James Bond." I watched this one at my aunt's as well, though I missed the beginning. There are definitely elements (the Bond-ish and British Imperial elements, now I think of it) that bothered me when I watched it, but upon further reflection, using bumbling Mr. Bean Johnny English as a James Bond substitute is an interesting way to highlight those issues. In any case, Rowan Atkinson and his comedic genius made me cackle myself silly regardless.

3. The Thieves/도둑들 (wiki): Part of the movie marathon I had on the flight home, and also it has replaced Ocean's Eleven as the heist movie OF MY HEART. I loved Ocean's for the teamness of it, but The Thieves has layers and layers of infighting and intriguing as well, which makes things so much more interesting! (And also much more practically self-interested.) All the characters are amazingly developed and flawed, and I especially appreciated that the ladies varied in age and outlook and skill-sets, and that none of them were ever primarily a love interest.

4. Painted Skin: Resurrection/畫皮II (wiki, youtube: trailer, youtube: Korean-subbed): Wiki has a very short summary and the trailer is pretty spoilery, so I will just say that Vicky Zhao + Zhou Xun = FLAILY HANDS OF YAY!! Also, they have more chemistry together than Vicky Zhao does with her actual love interest in this movie, which I think is more awesome than it is a mistake. Heh. Sorry, actor dude.

5. Rurouni Kenshin (live action): I watched this without having consumed the manga or anime versions, and I liked it a lot! Went *____* at the fight scenes, and also Kenshin and Kaoru, who were adorable. Now I'll have to hunt down the rest, dammit. (Maybe before school starts up again? I don't have that much time to be fannish these days!)

6. Clash/Bẫy Rồng (IMDb): Being a mob-type movie, this was distinctly more grim. Fight scenes were much dirtier (which comes with the territory), but also pretty fun to watch. I enjoyed Trinh being a boss, but am not so sure I enjoyed the movie as a whole- there is quite a bit of fridging, including ( spoilers (trigger warnings apply) ) Also, Clash is not nearly as character-driven as the other movies I watched on the flight home, and the plot was a little flat. I think these are flaws in most contemporary action films, though, so it would probably be unfair of me to single out this one.

Finally, just for the record: I want ALL THE FANWORKS for The Thieves and Painted Skin: Resurrection! (Tagging to remind myself to nominate them for Kaleidoscope.)

Belated & abbreviated watchblog!

1. Snow White and the Huntsman. Dear internets, I was forewarned, and it still made even less sense than I was expecting! Totally agree with oyceter that there are about four logical movies that could have been made out of it (two of which I would actually have enjoyed watching). I should have listened to you all and not paid to see it in the theater, but at least I didn't pay full price?

2. Korra. I... keep trying and failing at coherence, but in the meantime, my general reaction:
( in macro form )

3. The Dark Knight Rises. I watched this post-dance-class, not for full price, and with my brain half off, which may have contributed to my enjoyment of the movie in addition to my complete lack of knowledge of comics-verse. ( spoilers-ish )

4. Kuroko no Basuke, for which I blame inkstone! ♥ I seriously inhaled all of the manga and anime in a day. I don't even know where to begin talking about it and also am in a state of total A:JKS:DLFHSDL:F *\o/*!!!!!!, but if you enjoy sports series and/or are a sucker for all things team like me, I recommend checking it out! Also: endless eye candy, even though there aren't a lot of female characters. >.> inkstone's promo post has video clips.

An incoherent list of things, as usual, but basically: HI LIN HI! ♥ ♥ ♥ ( spoilers! )

Wow, this is the first time I have actually had a class canceled! In celebration I had a glorious two-person dumpling party and, er, started inhaling notes for Monday's midterm. Which I need to get back to, actually! Therefore, some randoms:

» I'm not sure I made it clear in my last post that yes, I have watched (and rewatched and rewatched) the first Korra ep! Proper discussion will have to come post-midterm, though. In the meantime: ( CAPSLOCK SPOILERS )

» Check out ( Janelle covering Jimi Hendrix! )

» a number of recipes I am planning to try:
- the single lady pancake
- eggs in bell peppers or onion rings
- eggs in avocado slices
- guac omelette

Since I went show-marathoning yesterday (twice), I figured I'd finally tackle the list of things I have watched & flailed about over the last few months!

( Mononoke )

( Tumbling )

( Coffee Prince )

( My Name Is Kim Sam Soon )

» eta; STILL BRAINLESS APPARENTLY, I FORGOT TO ADD ( NATSUME YUUJINCHOU )

And that brings us to last night's marathons!

( Ayakashi )

( Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales )