acequeenking (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
acequeenking) wrote2020-03-15 09:47 pm
acequeenking) wrote2020-03-15 09:47 pm
Media Diary: February
(Let's quietly ignore that I'm posting February's Media Diary on March 18; this uh...did not work out in terms of having time to type it up in February.)
What I Read/Am Reading:
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, ed Ellen Oh – This was the next book on my list of “Vaguely Interesting Mythology Books” from the library and I pretty much ripped through it in early February. This one is (for once!) not a book on Greek/Roman mythology, but rather one focusing on Asian folklore and religious beliefs/mythologies. This one takes a pretty wide tack as far as what it considers suitable material, with some being very vague/short folktales being re-used, and others being deep dives into parts of the Bhagavad Gita.
Like most short story collections, this wavers between the great and the merely good, and what that is will probably change depending on who you are, but I overall though that this was a VERY strong collection; I particularly appreciated that they varied the setting quite a bit, as a common failing with these sorts of collections can be to go too hard in one genre or one setting (usually “modern-day”). There are a few stories that didn’t work for me, but only one was truly a slog.
My favorite stories in this collection were:
- Forbidden Fruit by Roshani Chokshi: A mountain goddess falls in love with a man; complications ensue. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding as to how a non-human entity would show their affection to a person. The mountain goddess Makiling does not really act like a person and as such, I thought she was fascinating.
- Olivia’s Table by Alyssa Wong: A Chinese-American woman takes over for her mother in preparing a feast for the ghosts of the dead to help them move on. This is gorgeous and I really admire how Wong incorporates both Chinese and Chinese-American history: the town she is conducting this ritual in is a ghost town that coolies who worked the railroads used to live in. Really strong. Looked for more of Wong’s works but it seems she is mostly a short story writer. A bit disappointed there’s no novels to sink my teeth into but she’s so good at short stories I’m excited I’ll get to see more from her quickly.
- The Crimson Cloak by Cindy Pon: Another really sweet, half-immortal romance between a man named Cowherd and an ethereal goddess; I greatly enjoy how much of the conflict in the original tale is subverted and goes in the more interesting direction of how fast life goes in the godly perspective. While the immortal character here is a great deal more human than “Forbidden Fruit”, it is just as fascinating. Also there’s a really amusing anecdote about a talking ox in here that I greatly appreciated.
- The Smile by Aisha Saeed: A dancer serving a jealous prince is sent to her death after she smiles at one of the Prince’s diplomatic guests, and experiences a revelation. This was short, but I’m a sucker for a good courtly-love-gone-bad story, especially a feminist one. I appreciate how despite this story being 50% in the protagonist's head, it’s never boring, and the other characters’ clashes and conversations with the main character all work both to move the plot along and highlight the characters' personalities. Short but exactly as long as it needs to be.
My least favorite stories were:
Still Star-Crossed by Sona Charaipotra: Hey, remember those kind of ucky overtones some Hades and Persephone re-tellings have about Hades falling in love with Demeter, but being rejected and then later fixating on Persephone? This is kind of the Punjabi equivalent of that. Written well, but the uckyness that is inherent in the premise is neither truly developed nor waved away, and it ends abruptly. Needed a few more pages to really stick the landing.
Spear Carrier by Rahul Kanakia: Opposite problem of the one above: needed way less pages. The story is about a young man who always wanted to be a hero and is offered a chance by a God to commit to a glorious battle, where he will die, but die a hero. He takes the offer, then second guesses it once he gets to the battlefield. This story goes on and on, offering world-building that is ultimately irrelevant The main problem with this story is that there are pages and pages and pages of worldbuilding for this magical battlefield: where the magical soldiers store their magical supplies, what clothes they wear, where species come from, etc. NONE of those details winds up mattering. Should have been pared down to just the protagonist’s meetings with the God(s), and perhaps one or two pages of the horror of war, not the tens (!) of pages on where their belongings go and where this particular crab comes from and all this unneeded detail. I did enjoy how the gods talked in this; they’re very distinct in their speech from everyone else and it reminds me of Madeline Miller in the way the Gods’ have very non-human and often cold airs they put on. I also enjoyed the ending but overall this was a slog.
My other kinda-bad note is that I also am a little bit wary of the fact that this collection calls still-major world religions “mythologies”; yes, there are still Hellenic believers and the like as well, but it feels sorta belittling to call major religions like Hinduism “folklore and mythology”. yes, you can argue Christianity and other world religions are also mythologies all their own, but I was kind of surprised to see stories focused on still-major real-world religions being treated with as on the level of Babe the Big Blue Ox, Tanuki, the Hydra, etc. Still, the authors and editor here have a lot more at stake than I do as regards the correct classification of Asian belief systems, and I’ll defer to their judgment since this comes out of a movement for more diverse writers – but for the record, it made me a bit uncomfortable to see it labeled so.
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson: This was the big novel for February and this was quite a fun story. The plot starts in a kind of standard way: A young girl risks life and limb to save her friend. What makes it both fun and more interesting than the regular sort is simply that it does not pull its punches and makes the tale quite complicated.
The story takes place in the last days of Muslim-held Granada; Fatima, the favorite courtesan of the Sultan, enjoys her days in peace with her favorite position and her best friend, Hassan, who she is allowed to visit entirely because he is gay and has little interest in her. Fatima is Circassian, and her viewpoint of the world is wonderfully shaped by her history: the daughter of a slave, Fatima was born a slave, and though she is a firey woman, her viewpoint in how the world is formed seems idyll at first and, as she grows as a character, is quickly shown not to be, and the marks her background left on her pop up later.
The easiest example of this I can think is her relationship with the Sultan: she is pleased to spend time with him in the beginning, thinks that if she has a son by him she may well become a sultana. However, when Hassan is put into danger, she realizes that the Sultan will not do much to save her friend – or her by proxy, because what is one head compared to the remains of his empire? Later, we find that he has quickly moved to help the villain of the piece, and Fatima, thinking back on her favored position, realizes she only had it due to her beauty, and little else: the scene she describes late in the novel of when she first began sleeping with the sultan at 15 (!), and how she found him ever so handsome, is brutal: he is very quick to point out this is not the type of arrangement where he is interested in hearing about her feelings or thoughts as a person. Ouch. Before she flees with Hassan, he asks what greater position she could have than to be the courtesan of a sultan: “to be Sultan” she says -- and it encapsulates so much of how she grows.
Fatima leaves her idyllic (ish) origins with Hassan. He has been accused of being a “sorcerer” (Hassan has the magical ability to draw maps and “make” places on those maps appear – regardless of whether or not they actually exist in the moment) by the Spanish Inquisition, who are the villains du jour here. Hassan is a GREAT character and I love that he is not a gay stereotype (neither fey nor bitchy), but rather a wholly realized character. The relationship between him and Fatima is lovely – it’s a love affair, but a platonic one, and they both struggle with the dimensions of that in the 1490s. Fatima at one point wants to marry him because he represents one of the few men in her life who does not see her sexually. He wants, at points, to marry her because it is simpler and he does love her as a friend, but both know it isn’t fair to the other to deny their desires. Their platonic love is very real and very well-proven, and I enjoyed that the codependency that they develop with one another gets explored. I also enjoyed that their relationship also becomes prickly at some points in what is very real conflict for a gay man and a beautiful woman: Hassan gets jealous that a new (male) ally fancies Fatima and not him, at a couple points; Fatima has trouble letting go when Hassan meets someone who does desire him as more than a friend. And while the relationship between Hassan and his lover winds up underdeveloped, it’s lovely to see a story about a queer character where they don’t get a) killed or b) get their lover killed. My standards, they are low, but I liked it.
The remaining cast are all supporting for the most part: I enjoyed the jinn, who have fantastical abilities and personalities to match – I am a sucker for a un-human character, it seems. The villain is a bit underdeveloped – Luz, who is a friendly presence until she isn’t, but even as an antagonist she remains cordial if wrong-headed. She deeply wants Hassan and Fatima to convert to Catholicism, and at first she starts with asking, and later, well – doing more than asking. I enjoyed Luz’s turn in the story though I think her arc falls down a bit in the third act.
The book does very well during the chase in making things go fast and go loud; it slows, a bit, in the third part, where they find a place to call home-ish and things get complicated in different ways. I enjoyed this part of the book, but I felt like the new cast that came in on that point was not very well put together, and while I was glad that cast was there, I felt like the book should have been a bit longer as the ending kind of fizzles out without resolving a major plot point or characterizing them very deeply (though I do think every major character ends well – Hassan and Fatima and all their enemies/allies have endings, of a sort, that make sense with their characters). I did appreciate the last-minute twist about the place they find themselves in the world, and the rock and a hard place choice they must ultimtely make. Overall, I’d highly recommend the book.
Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: I read literally two pages of this because my library holds keep falling in and interrupting my progress! I like the loans, but I’m so mad I haven't made more progress. I quite like this story but I feel like I will have to re-read what I read before Christmas at this point.
What I Wrote/am Writing:
Spent most of it on, surprise surprise, winters nigh and summers o’er again; it’s my long-term iddy fic and it’s quite fun to work on. It’s certainly the longest thing I have ever written. The hard part at this point is trying to remember everything I've done with it; maybe with the time I have off remaining in march, I'll be able to take notes and add it all back into Scrivener, which I did and then (stupidly) stopped doing. It's a good learning experience, if nothing else! I'm hopeful lessons I learn in writing this, I can put forward in other works.
I did participate in Chocolate Box 2020 and took a pinch hit for the Reylo exchange’s newest round and enjoyed writing a few other fandoms to stretch my wings a bit:
Ace Attorney: Fascination [Miles/Klavier] for silvered – I write for silvered a lot because they’re one of the few people who a) are incredibly awesome as a recip and b) absolutely jives with the same Tekken headcanons I have, but I wanted to try to write them something non-Tekken once.
Ancient Greek Religion and Lore: Hymn for the Exiled [Persephone/Hades, background Orpheus/Eurydice] for nothingbutregret – Persephone watches Orpheus fail. I struggled with this one a bit (their letter was so good I took forever to figure out what I wanted) and worry still that I didn’t stick the ending, but I like the core idea of Persephone having quite mixed feelings about Hades leaving the boy to proverbially hang and seeing Eurydice be sentenced to the darkness in a similar – if not quite the same – method as she herself went through. I’d like to play more into that, but maybe in Hadestown where the method of luring them down is quite a bit more similar than in the OG tales.
Star Wars: The Universe Resting in my Arms [Rey/Ben Solo] for lightningpelt – post-TROS smuttiness as an attempt to fix the terribly disappointing ending. Pretty much just sweetness and good old fashioned canon denial, because canon made a choice that was Wrong.
Tekken: lie still upon his heart [Jin/Lars] for pirotess – I like playing with the devil-characters in the mishimas a lot, and honestly piro is just so nice and such a great recip I wanted to try to treat her for once while she was asking for a fandom I know.
Although I don’t have a category for this in this Media Diary series (and am not sure I'll do enough exchanges to justify it tbh), I do want to stress I got some lovely gifts as well, all of which are highly recommended:
Greek Mythology: Mothers Meeting by descoladin [Aphrodite/Demeter] – holy cow, I like this a lot. Demeter goes to confront Aphrodite about helping Hades and Persephone getting together, only to be disarmed by the goddess’ charms. Both Demeter and Aphrodite are under-utilized players in that particular passion play, and I love the direction tht this one winds up going in by the end.
Tekken: Tainted by silvered [Kazuya/Nina] – holy holy shit. I love Kazuya/Nina, and this is pretty much everything I ever wanted: ruminating on how time has passed rather oddly for the two of them, the wrongs they’ve committed against one another, and hot demon cunnilingus which was not even a thing I had thought of existing but much love to silvered for having a better imagination than I. Gorgeous.
Yakuza: Is This It by pirotess [Tachibana/Kiryu] – Did you feel the need to see hot art of Tachibana and Kiryu having sex in Tachibana’s office that focuses on Tachibana’s fancy glove? Yes? Go look at this. You’re welcome. It’s great. I love the power dynamics here. I also greatly enjoy the song this puts in my brain every time I see it on my gift's list, so its truly a joy that keeps on giving.
What Shows I Went to See:
Once on This Island - Once Upon this island was a very interesting show. It’s the sort of show that seems tailor made for my interest – Ti Moune becomes a plaything of several Gods, who place a bet on how she’ll react to different stressors in her life – and I vibed with it. I vibbed with it really hard and fell in love with it, and then the last act of it had such a profound record scratch that I went wait – what?? And then I felt very sore about it, because that last act really threw me, and yet, I had enjoyed the first seventy minutes so much, it seems unfair to judge the show based purely on the last twenty minutes of it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This is an interesting choice in adaptation. The Broadway revival of Once on This Island was done in the round, with sun and surf and sand manipulated on stage to try to bring you to Ti Moune’s island home in the French Antilles. There were live goats and chickens in the aisles; the Gods, when they appeared, appeared from nowhere. Restaging it into a proscenium-style seating isn’t exactly smoothly done: there are audience members on stage in trying to keep a nod to the in-the-round style, but they only wind up being distracting, and the space taken up by the audience means all the stuff that was spaced out on the ground on Broadway is now crammed up on stage, crowding the set design. The Gods slink in and out the same way everyone else does, rather than storming in from above or below, as they did on Broadway. It’s not a perfect adaptation.
But to some extent that doesn’t matter.
The cast is lovely, and the story remains powerful. Ti Moune is a beautiful heroine; an orphan child, spared by the Gods to be, one day, reclaimed in a horrible bet between Love and Death as to what is stronger. Ti Moune knows she has been chosen by the Gods and eagerly waits to find out what they will dictate her life’s purpose to be; similar to Beauty and the Beast, the townspeople act as a Greek chorus, bemoaning why the girl is different from them and why she doesn’t have enough sense to keep her head down low. Don’t invite the gods; trouble goes where they go. And that, perhaps, is the first hint this story won’t end well.
Ti Mourne falls in love with Daniel; Daniel’s a pretty beige character, someone who has few attributes. Daniel is from one of the most privileged families on the island, the mixed-race descendant of a French nobleman and a peasant girl’s affair: the song introducing their family history makes it explicit that the family always yearns to France, but because they are despised for their blackness by the French, they are forever chained to their island home. Daniel and Ti Moune meet when Daniel, speeding around the island in a fancy car Ti Moune’s family cannot ever hope to have, crashes onto Ti Moune’s side of the island. Ti Moune toils and toils, trying to keep Daniel alive while the island Chorus warns that she should not bother – even a wealthy man sometimes dies, her father says. Ti Moune however, cannot be convinced that this is the right order of things; when the goddess of death comes (Papa Ge), Ti Moune offers her soul in the place of Daniel’s. Papa Ge looks shocked by the offer, but we see by her smirk as she leaves that she is playing a far more long term game. Papa Ge is my favorite character by far (and no one reading this is perhaps surprised), and watching Tamrya Gray slink around, honestly, is worth the price of a ticket.
Her father travels, walking, to the other side of the island to tell Daniel’s father that he has found his son – and is beaten and nearly killed before he can get the information out. (The first, but not the last, suggestion that Daniel’s family are not actually good people.) The rich men come and take Daniel away,; on foot, Ti Moune follows. Ti Moune believes in her love of Daniel so much, so much – and even as obstacles come, set like boulders in her path: Daniel doesn’t believe her (and has to be convinced); the people in Daniel’s higher income social group gossip about the filthy peasant girl; his father tells Daniel that he cannot indulge too much in Ti Moune; a rival for Daniel’s affections tries to make her look foolish. None of these obstacle stop her. She keeps on believing.
But it all comes crashing down.
Ti Moune finds out that Daniel has a fiancé, and it is to the show’s credit that it does not, entirely, vilify this other woman, who clearly is trying to be kind to the other woman, who never asked for another woman, who has been brokered and paid for since she was a child – but it’s a betrayal, a lie of omission Daniel has disclosed too late. Ti Moune flees him, and then there is Papa Ge to play the part of doubt, and there is a knife, and in the end – Ti Moune chooses love. She lets Daniel live, but Daniel, seeing the knife in her hands, chooses death. He casts Ti Moune out of the fancy resort town, where she sits at the gates, begging. And that, perhaps, if sad, is not a bad ending.
After two week sof Ti Moune begging at the gates, Daniel marries the other girl, his childhood fiancé. As part of their custom, they go out to the beggars outside the gates. Daniel sees her, and a moment fizzles between them, but Daniel does not take her back. He takes his high-class bride’s hand, and they disappear from the narrative. Ti Moune is left with only her gods for company, who accept her into their arms – even Papa Ge. This, too, would have been a good ending point.
But then. Then it lost me.
So then...the Gods make her a tree. Yep. A tree. So she can shelter rich and poor alike. Which is a laudable goal, sure, but a whole depressing ending: Ti Moune, who has believed so much, who has come so far, who has, perhaps, 98% of the belief required to win all her goals, instead dies and has to be forced to take care of Daniel’s children, and his grandchildren, and their children’s children’s children. And perhaps that is poetic, but what of her elderly parents, who risk life and limb for her mad dream and now must live with a daughter who will never return, answers they will never have? What of Daniel, who has no comeuppance, nor, really, any guilt for having killed Ti Moune? I felt like “Oh, and she’s a tree now” came rather at the very end as an unneeded afternote and it put a sour taste in my mouth. I could accept her dying, but to force her into a mothering role to a man who has rejected her – it is a tragedy too far.
Summer – Summer: the Donna Summer musical is a musical I probably would have not seen had I not decided to go ahead and pony up for season tickets, this being the only one of the six shows I was rather ehhh on seeing. I actually like Donna Summer’s music – it reminds me of my mother, and singing in the car to the local oldies station – but I don’t usually go to jukebox musicals because, well, if I’m going to pay the money to go see someone sing, why go to see an actor imitating a musician performing when I could probably afford to go see the actual person for a little more, or see a cover band for a little less?
That said: I’m glad I went. For one thing, it gave me more appreciation for Donna, who lived a life that was truly fascinating and of which I knew very little, including:
- Being molested by a minister in her church, struggling to retain her faith in god, and then then later refinding her belief in her God
- Becoming one of the first black women in Germany, so unusual a sight that people would come up to pet her skin (!!!)
- Fighting a controversial lawsuit to gain more control of her works – as a black woman in the eighties
- Becoming a popular entertainment in gay circles, then making a horrible joke at the worst possible time that horrified the gay community (“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”) during a concert, while at the same time dealing with many of her friends dying of AIDs
- Constantly fighting with herself over her own image; at one point, Donna looks at her younger self, mouthing off about how many orgasms she can stand to have for “recording purposes” while (male) reporters salivate; “Why do you always play along?” the older Donna mourns. Donna’s presented as a religious girl, here, who is never quite comfortable playing the sexpot that she is so often written off as; later, she chafes about being considered a Disco Queen when she feels she’s much more than breathy singing.
Did I mention I’m leaving out Donna’s entire Broadway career, witnessing a murder, turning state’s witness and being threatened for it, and Donna’s own (eventually fatal) battle with cancer? I’m not sure how much of it is true, but I almost admire how complicated a portrait they paint of her. Donna isn’t afraid to show off her less-than-stellar attributes: Donna contemplates having an affair, makes bad choices at bad times, mouths off when she should stay quiet, and mourns how she screwed up. The show accomplishes this through splitting Donna into three characters – roughly, Baby “Duckling Donna,” Height-of-her-fame “Disco Donna,” and “Diva Donna”, aka the older post-Disco Donna that looks back on her life with these characters offering differing viewpoints on the events – mostly, it is Diva Donna shaking her head ruefully at the mistakes she’s made, or rejoicing in the fun she’s had. In a couple numbers, the girls combine their pipes – not enough, for the three actresses who play Donna do harmonize quite nicely – to become a sort of Ur-Donna: past/present/future all mourning the cake they’ll never taste again. (MacArthur Park, thankfully, does not use the 14 minute long cut in this jukebox.)
The downsides, of course, that of of all bio-jukebox musicals: the music is being bent to fit a life story, or a life story fitted into slots in the music: there’s no sense in the growth of her music or of her as an artist, because tracks from her latter career get played early, and tracks from her early career wind up near the end the show. Not all the lyrics are so sharply pointed toward the show because, of course, why would they be? The other big problem with it is that it RACES through all these plot points, with only Donna’s relationship with God getting more than one song. Honestly, I wish they’d slow down a bit and explore any of those major thematic points in depth, but this is more of a show where the music and the story comes fast and furious. It’s the sort of show that you can tell most of the budget went to the outfits (which, it must be said: are spectacular). That doesn’t make it bad, but I wished it was less sequin and more shimmy. I still had a lot of fun though!
On a sidenote, I could quite tell going to the jukebox musicals that the crowd for them is mostly not the same as that for the musical-y musical shows. It’s still old – all theatre in Chicago skews older, and I worry about that, being on the younger end of people who enjoy theatre – but the ushers very sternly told everyone absolutely no dancing in the aisles, and more than a few people disobeyed it. People in general treated it more like a concert: more singing along, more moving about, more whistling and clapping – but it was a fun experience. Not sure I’d have paid if I didn’t want to see the other five shows in the set, but I’m glad I went.
What I Watched/am Watching (TV/Movies):
I pretty much watched very little in February – I spent about three weeks hyping myself up to watch the Good Place finale and then I stupidly sobbed through the whole last episode. It was an incredibly bleak episode: I felt like I was waiting for most of the main characters to die, and given how much I like the main cast, it was hard to watch. Smiled at Chidi wanting to go to Greece; me too, Chidi, me too.
The only characters I felt it did right by were Tahani and Michael; I LOVED Tahani becoming an architect and fashioning afterlives for others, and Michael’s desire to become a Real Boy has long been documented, though I think it’s weird they opted for him to become a human as he is rather than just...have him reincarnate into a baby. Or something.
In the end it felt more like a funeral dirge. If I re-watch the series, I might skip the last episode, though I greatly enjoyed the ride the series put me on over all. I fundamentally disagree with the last couple of episodes, but I think the journey was still worth watching.
I wanted to go see Cats in theaters but...I didn’t. And I didn’t go see Birds of Prey despite wanting to, as well. I suck. I backslid a lot on this one. Started watching Watchmen in March for erm, March, so at least I have something to put here for next month.
What I Played/am Playing:
I didn’t have a lot of time for games in February; I don’t think I played many, which isn’t good as one of my many goals for this new year was to try to clear some badly needed backlog in my media (including games). I was waiting for people through an awful lot of appointments in February and tried to be better about taking my 3DS with me – what seemed practical to buy several years ago (in 2012) now seems silly to bring along in an age of cell phones! – to clear the small backlog of games I’ve yet to play there. I started Fire Emblem: Conquest. Years ago I’d bought Birthright and tried to run through it, despite not liking a lot of the cast on that side of the Fates set. I’d bounced harder when I found that that one has more “practice” style battles, which meant more time playing without seeing the plot because you have to “train” everyone up.
Finally, after having Birthright sitting on the shelf since practically the day it came out, I said “screw it” and gave myself permission to spend the money to get Conquest instead. I like it better – first in that the plot goes in more interesting places: You are playing for the “bad guy” team, but the characters are the typical Fire Emblem “heros”, which means you have a lot of people being very ill at ease with the demands of the rather possessed (and possessive) king of Nohr and struggle to find ways to meet his desires without spilling the blood he craves. Meanwhile, your Corrin also has to do this while fighting your blood family who you turned your back. Birthright has you reuniting with your birth-family, and is, overall, a less complicated affair. Secondly, I like this one better because it plays more like an old school Fire Emblem title (no practice battles!), the plot goes faster which makes it a lot easier if you, like me, only play for a little bit every other day when you are waiting for someone at the doctors, or the dentist, or the pharmacist, or whatnot.
I am still playing Judgment, and still making miserable progress in it. I don’t think I’ve actually made it much further in the plot than I had in January, though a friend and I found and were brought almost to tears by some rather slashy dialogue on the quick and dirty method. It’s been hard for me to find time to play it but I’m going to make more of an effort.
I started Fire Emblem: Three Houses, that I stupidly pre-ordered, years ago (when it was first announced), and finally played it for a bit – maybe half an hour. It is, decidedly, okay. I think I’m growing out of these games; all the characters are ridiculously young save for maybe two options. Usually these are fun romance simulators (well, the last two), but because Byleth is a teacher, I feel like almost every possible (student) option is out of bounds. Of the teachers, I’m leaning for my Byleth winding up with Seteth, a grumpy monk, or Rhea, thus far. Allegedly there’s a big plot twist but I’ve managed to stay in the dark about it – hopefully one or both of them survive.
What I've Been Listening To:
Honestly, I fell down on this a lot, and it's pretty much just been Once On This Island tracks going over and over.
What I Read/Am Reading:
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, ed Ellen Oh – This was the next book on my list of “Vaguely Interesting Mythology Books” from the library and I pretty much ripped through it in early February. This one is (for once!) not a book on Greek/Roman mythology, but rather one focusing on Asian folklore and religious beliefs/mythologies. This one takes a pretty wide tack as far as what it considers suitable material, with some being very vague/short folktales being re-used, and others being deep dives into parts of the Bhagavad Gita.
Like most short story collections, this wavers between the great and the merely good, and what that is will probably change depending on who you are, but I overall though that this was a VERY strong collection; I particularly appreciated that they varied the setting quite a bit, as a common failing with these sorts of collections can be to go too hard in one genre or one setting (usually “modern-day”). There are a few stories that didn’t work for me, but only one was truly a slog.
My favorite stories in this collection were:
- Forbidden Fruit by Roshani Chokshi: A mountain goddess falls in love with a man; complications ensue. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding as to how a non-human entity would show their affection to a person. The mountain goddess Makiling does not really act like a person and as such, I thought she was fascinating.
- Olivia’s Table by Alyssa Wong: A Chinese-American woman takes over for her mother in preparing a feast for the ghosts of the dead to help them move on. This is gorgeous and I really admire how Wong incorporates both Chinese and Chinese-American history: the town she is conducting this ritual in is a ghost town that coolies who worked the railroads used to live in. Really strong. Looked for more of Wong’s works but it seems she is mostly a short story writer. A bit disappointed there’s no novels to sink my teeth into but she’s so good at short stories I’m excited I’ll get to see more from her quickly.
- The Crimson Cloak by Cindy Pon: Another really sweet, half-immortal romance between a man named Cowherd and an ethereal goddess; I greatly enjoy how much of the conflict in the original tale is subverted and goes in the more interesting direction of how fast life goes in the godly perspective. While the immortal character here is a great deal more human than “Forbidden Fruit”, it is just as fascinating. Also there’s a really amusing anecdote about a talking ox in here that I greatly appreciated.
- The Smile by Aisha Saeed: A dancer serving a jealous prince is sent to her death after she smiles at one of the Prince’s diplomatic guests, and experiences a revelation. This was short, but I’m a sucker for a good courtly-love-gone-bad story, especially a feminist one. I appreciate how despite this story being 50% in the protagonist's head, it’s never boring, and the other characters’ clashes and conversations with the main character all work both to move the plot along and highlight the characters' personalities. Short but exactly as long as it needs to be.
My least favorite stories were:
Still Star-Crossed by Sona Charaipotra: Hey, remember those kind of ucky overtones some Hades and Persephone re-tellings have about Hades falling in love with Demeter, but being rejected and then later fixating on Persephone? This is kind of the Punjabi equivalent of that. Written well, but the uckyness that is inherent in the premise is neither truly developed nor waved away, and it ends abruptly. Needed a few more pages to really stick the landing.
Spear Carrier by Rahul Kanakia: Opposite problem of the one above: needed way less pages. The story is about a young man who always wanted to be a hero and is offered a chance by a God to commit to a glorious battle, where he will die, but die a hero. He takes the offer, then second guesses it once he gets to the battlefield. This story goes on and on, offering world-building that is ultimately irrelevant The main problem with this story is that there are pages and pages and pages of worldbuilding for this magical battlefield: where the magical soldiers store their magical supplies, what clothes they wear, where species come from, etc. NONE of those details winds up mattering. Should have been pared down to just the protagonist’s meetings with the God(s), and perhaps one or two pages of the horror of war, not the tens (!) of pages on where their belongings go and where this particular crab comes from and all this unneeded detail. I did enjoy how the gods talked in this; they’re very distinct in their speech from everyone else and it reminds me of Madeline Miller in the way the Gods’ have very non-human and often cold airs they put on. I also enjoyed the ending but overall this was a slog.
My other kinda-bad note is that I also am a little bit wary of the fact that this collection calls still-major world religions “mythologies”; yes, there are still Hellenic believers and the like as well, but it feels sorta belittling to call major religions like Hinduism “folklore and mythology”. yes, you can argue Christianity and other world religions are also mythologies all their own, but I was kind of surprised to see stories focused on still-major real-world religions being treated with as on the level of Babe the Big Blue Ox, Tanuki, the Hydra, etc. Still, the authors and editor here have a lot more at stake than I do as regards the correct classification of Asian belief systems, and I’ll defer to their judgment since this comes out of a movement for more diverse writers – but for the record, it made me a bit uncomfortable to see it labeled so.
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson: This was the big novel for February and this was quite a fun story. The plot starts in a kind of standard way: A young girl risks life and limb to save her friend. What makes it both fun and more interesting than the regular sort is simply that it does not pull its punches and makes the tale quite complicated.
The story takes place in the last days of Muslim-held Granada; Fatima, the favorite courtesan of the Sultan, enjoys her days in peace with her favorite position and her best friend, Hassan, who she is allowed to visit entirely because he is gay and has little interest in her. Fatima is Circassian, and her viewpoint of the world is wonderfully shaped by her history: the daughter of a slave, Fatima was born a slave, and though she is a firey woman, her viewpoint in how the world is formed seems idyll at first and, as she grows as a character, is quickly shown not to be, and the marks her background left on her pop up later.
The easiest example of this I can think is her relationship with the Sultan: she is pleased to spend time with him in the beginning, thinks that if she has a son by him she may well become a sultana. However, when Hassan is put into danger, she realizes that the Sultan will not do much to save her friend – or her by proxy, because what is one head compared to the remains of his empire? Later, we find that he has quickly moved to help the villain of the piece, and Fatima, thinking back on her favored position, realizes she only had it due to her beauty, and little else: the scene she describes late in the novel of when she first began sleeping with the sultan at 15 (!), and how she found him ever so handsome, is brutal: he is very quick to point out this is not the type of arrangement where he is interested in hearing about her feelings or thoughts as a person. Ouch. Before she flees with Hassan, he asks what greater position she could have than to be the courtesan of a sultan: “to be Sultan” she says -- and it encapsulates so much of how she grows.
Fatima leaves her idyllic (ish) origins with Hassan. He has been accused of being a “sorcerer” (Hassan has the magical ability to draw maps and “make” places on those maps appear – regardless of whether or not they actually exist in the moment) by the Spanish Inquisition, who are the villains du jour here. Hassan is a GREAT character and I love that he is not a gay stereotype (neither fey nor bitchy), but rather a wholly realized character. The relationship between him and Fatima is lovely – it’s a love affair, but a platonic one, and they both struggle with the dimensions of that in the 1490s. Fatima at one point wants to marry him because he represents one of the few men in her life who does not see her sexually. He wants, at points, to marry her because it is simpler and he does love her as a friend, but both know it isn’t fair to the other to deny their desires. Their platonic love is very real and very well-proven, and I enjoyed that the codependency that they develop with one another gets explored. I also enjoyed that their relationship also becomes prickly at some points in what is very real conflict for a gay man and a beautiful woman: Hassan gets jealous that a new (male) ally fancies Fatima and not him, at a couple points; Fatima has trouble letting go when Hassan meets someone who does desire him as more than a friend. And while the relationship between Hassan and his lover winds up underdeveloped, it’s lovely to see a story about a queer character where they don’t get a) killed or b) get their lover killed. My standards, they are low, but I liked it.
The remaining cast are all supporting for the most part: I enjoyed the jinn, who have fantastical abilities and personalities to match – I am a sucker for a un-human character, it seems. The villain is a bit underdeveloped – Luz, who is a friendly presence until she isn’t, but even as an antagonist she remains cordial if wrong-headed. She deeply wants Hassan and Fatima to convert to Catholicism, and at first she starts with asking, and later, well – doing more than asking. I enjoyed Luz’s turn in the story though I think her arc falls down a bit in the third act.
The book does very well during the chase in making things go fast and go loud; it slows, a bit, in the third part, where they find a place to call home-ish and things get complicated in different ways. I enjoyed this part of the book, but I felt like the new cast that came in on that point was not very well put together, and while I was glad that cast was there, I felt like the book should have been a bit longer as the ending kind of fizzles out without resolving a major plot point or characterizing them very deeply (though I do think every major character ends well – Hassan and Fatima and all their enemies/allies have endings, of a sort, that make sense with their characters). I did appreciate the last-minute twist about the place they find themselves in the world, and the rock and a hard place choice they must ultimtely make. Overall, I’d highly recommend the book.
Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: I read literally two pages of this because my library holds keep falling in and interrupting my progress! I like the loans, but I’m so mad I haven't made more progress. I quite like this story but I feel like I will have to re-read what I read before Christmas at this point.
What I Wrote/am Writing:
Spent most of it on, surprise surprise, winters nigh and summers o’er again; it’s my long-term iddy fic and it’s quite fun to work on. It’s certainly the longest thing I have ever written. The hard part at this point is trying to remember everything I've done with it; maybe with the time I have off remaining in march, I'll be able to take notes and add it all back into Scrivener, which I did and then (stupidly) stopped doing. It's a good learning experience, if nothing else! I'm hopeful lessons I learn in writing this, I can put forward in other works.
I did participate in Chocolate Box 2020 and took a pinch hit for the Reylo exchange’s newest round and enjoyed writing a few other fandoms to stretch my wings a bit:
Ace Attorney: Fascination [Miles/Klavier] for silvered – I write for silvered a lot because they’re one of the few people who a) are incredibly awesome as a recip and b) absolutely jives with the same Tekken headcanons I have, but I wanted to try to write them something non-Tekken once.
Ancient Greek Religion and Lore: Hymn for the Exiled [Persephone/Hades, background Orpheus/Eurydice] for nothingbutregret – Persephone watches Orpheus fail. I struggled with this one a bit (their letter was so good I took forever to figure out what I wanted) and worry still that I didn’t stick the ending, but I like the core idea of Persephone having quite mixed feelings about Hades leaving the boy to proverbially hang and seeing Eurydice be sentenced to the darkness in a similar – if not quite the same – method as she herself went through. I’d like to play more into that, but maybe in Hadestown where the method of luring them down is quite a bit more similar than in the OG tales.
Star Wars: The Universe Resting in my Arms [Rey/Ben Solo] for lightningpelt – post-TROS smuttiness as an attempt to fix the terribly disappointing ending. Pretty much just sweetness and good old fashioned canon denial, because canon made a choice that was Wrong.
Tekken: lie still upon his heart [Jin/Lars] for pirotess – I like playing with the devil-characters in the mishimas a lot, and honestly piro is just so nice and such a great recip I wanted to try to treat her for once while she was asking for a fandom I know.
Although I don’t have a category for this in this Media Diary series (and am not sure I'll do enough exchanges to justify it tbh), I do want to stress I got some lovely gifts as well, all of which are highly recommended:
Greek Mythology: Mothers Meeting by descoladin [Aphrodite/Demeter] – holy cow, I like this a lot. Demeter goes to confront Aphrodite about helping Hades and Persephone getting together, only to be disarmed by the goddess’ charms. Both Demeter and Aphrodite are under-utilized players in that particular passion play, and I love the direction tht this one winds up going in by the end.
Tekken: Tainted by silvered [Kazuya/Nina] – holy holy shit. I love Kazuya/Nina, and this is pretty much everything I ever wanted: ruminating on how time has passed rather oddly for the two of them, the wrongs they’ve committed against one another, and hot demon cunnilingus which was not even a thing I had thought of existing but much love to silvered for having a better imagination than I. Gorgeous.
Yakuza: Is This It by pirotess [Tachibana/Kiryu] – Did you feel the need to see hot art of Tachibana and Kiryu having sex in Tachibana’s office that focuses on Tachibana’s fancy glove? Yes? Go look at this. You’re welcome. It’s great. I love the power dynamics here. I also greatly enjoy the song this puts in my brain every time I see it on my gift's list, so its truly a joy that keeps on giving.
What Shows I Went to See:
Once on This Island - Once Upon this island was a very interesting show. It’s the sort of show that seems tailor made for my interest – Ti Moune becomes a plaything of several Gods, who place a bet on how she’ll react to different stressors in her life – and I vibed with it. I vibbed with it really hard and fell in love with it, and then the last act of it had such a profound record scratch that I went wait – what?? And then I felt very sore about it, because that last act really threw me, and yet, I had enjoyed the first seventy minutes so much, it seems unfair to judge the show based purely on the last twenty minutes of it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This is an interesting choice in adaptation. The Broadway revival of Once on This Island was done in the round, with sun and surf and sand manipulated on stage to try to bring you to Ti Moune’s island home in the French Antilles. There were live goats and chickens in the aisles; the Gods, when they appeared, appeared from nowhere. Restaging it into a proscenium-style seating isn’t exactly smoothly done: there are audience members on stage in trying to keep a nod to the in-the-round style, but they only wind up being distracting, and the space taken up by the audience means all the stuff that was spaced out on the ground on Broadway is now crammed up on stage, crowding the set design. The Gods slink in and out the same way everyone else does, rather than storming in from above or below, as they did on Broadway. It’s not a perfect adaptation.
But to some extent that doesn’t matter.
The cast is lovely, and the story remains powerful. Ti Moune is a beautiful heroine; an orphan child, spared by the Gods to be, one day, reclaimed in a horrible bet between Love and Death as to what is stronger. Ti Moune knows she has been chosen by the Gods and eagerly waits to find out what they will dictate her life’s purpose to be; similar to Beauty and the Beast, the townspeople act as a Greek chorus, bemoaning why the girl is different from them and why she doesn’t have enough sense to keep her head down low. Don’t invite the gods; trouble goes where they go. And that, perhaps, is the first hint this story won’t end well.
Ti Mourne falls in love with Daniel; Daniel’s a pretty beige character, someone who has few attributes. Daniel is from one of the most privileged families on the island, the mixed-race descendant of a French nobleman and a peasant girl’s affair: the song introducing their family history makes it explicit that the family always yearns to France, but because they are despised for their blackness by the French, they are forever chained to their island home. Daniel and Ti Moune meet when Daniel, speeding around the island in a fancy car Ti Moune’s family cannot ever hope to have, crashes onto Ti Moune’s side of the island. Ti Moune toils and toils, trying to keep Daniel alive while the island Chorus warns that she should not bother – even a wealthy man sometimes dies, her father says. Ti Moune however, cannot be convinced that this is the right order of things; when the goddess of death comes (Papa Ge), Ti Moune offers her soul in the place of Daniel’s. Papa Ge looks shocked by the offer, but we see by her smirk as she leaves that she is playing a far more long term game. Papa Ge is my favorite character by far (and no one reading this is perhaps surprised), and watching Tamrya Gray slink around, honestly, is worth the price of a ticket.
Her father travels, walking, to the other side of the island to tell Daniel’s father that he has found his son – and is beaten and nearly killed before he can get the information out. (The first, but not the last, suggestion that Daniel’s family are not actually good people.) The rich men come and take Daniel away,; on foot, Ti Moune follows. Ti Moune believes in her love of Daniel so much, so much – and even as obstacles come, set like boulders in her path: Daniel doesn’t believe her (and has to be convinced); the people in Daniel’s higher income social group gossip about the filthy peasant girl; his father tells Daniel that he cannot indulge too much in Ti Moune; a rival for Daniel’s affections tries to make her look foolish. None of these obstacle stop her. She keeps on believing.
But it all comes crashing down.
Ti Moune finds out that Daniel has a fiancé, and it is to the show’s credit that it does not, entirely, vilify this other woman, who clearly is trying to be kind to the other woman, who never asked for another woman, who has been brokered and paid for since she was a child – but it’s a betrayal, a lie of omission Daniel has disclosed too late. Ti Moune flees him, and then there is Papa Ge to play the part of doubt, and there is a knife, and in the end – Ti Moune chooses love. She lets Daniel live, but Daniel, seeing the knife in her hands, chooses death. He casts Ti Moune out of the fancy resort town, where she sits at the gates, begging. And that, perhaps, if sad, is not a bad ending.
After two week sof Ti Moune begging at the gates, Daniel marries the other girl, his childhood fiancé. As part of their custom, they go out to the beggars outside the gates. Daniel sees her, and a moment fizzles between them, but Daniel does not take her back. He takes his high-class bride’s hand, and they disappear from the narrative. Ti Moune is left with only her gods for company, who accept her into their arms – even Papa Ge. This, too, would have been a good ending point.
But then. Then it lost me.
So then...the Gods make her a tree. Yep. A tree. So she can shelter rich and poor alike. Which is a laudable goal, sure, but a whole depressing ending: Ti Moune, who has believed so much, who has come so far, who has, perhaps, 98% of the belief required to win all her goals, instead dies and has to be forced to take care of Daniel’s children, and his grandchildren, and their children’s children’s children. And perhaps that is poetic, but what of her elderly parents, who risk life and limb for her mad dream and now must live with a daughter who will never return, answers they will never have? What of Daniel, who has no comeuppance, nor, really, any guilt for having killed Ti Moune? I felt like “Oh, and she’s a tree now” came rather at the very end as an unneeded afternote and it put a sour taste in my mouth. I could accept her dying, but to force her into a mothering role to a man who has rejected her – it is a tragedy too far.
Summer – Summer: the Donna Summer musical is a musical I probably would have not seen had I not decided to go ahead and pony up for season tickets, this being the only one of the six shows I was rather ehhh on seeing. I actually like Donna Summer’s music – it reminds me of my mother, and singing in the car to the local oldies station – but I don’t usually go to jukebox musicals because, well, if I’m going to pay the money to go see someone sing, why go to see an actor imitating a musician performing when I could probably afford to go see the actual person for a little more, or see a cover band for a little less?
That said: I’m glad I went. For one thing, it gave me more appreciation for Donna, who lived a life that was truly fascinating and of which I knew very little, including:
- Being molested by a minister in her church, struggling to retain her faith in god, and then then later refinding her belief in her God
- Becoming one of the first black women in Germany, so unusual a sight that people would come up to pet her skin (!!!)
- Fighting a controversial lawsuit to gain more control of her works – as a black woman in the eighties
- Becoming a popular entertainment in gay circles, then making a horrible joke at the worst possible time that horrified the gay community (“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”) during a concert, while at the same time dealing with many of her friends dying of AIDs
- Constantly fighting with herself over her own image; at one point, Donna looks at her younger self, mouthing off about how many orgasms she can stand to have for “recording purposes” while (male) reporters salivate; “Why do you always play along?” the older Donna mourns. Donna’s presented as a religious girl, here, who is never quite comfortable playing the sexpot that she is so often written off as; later, she chafes about being considered a Disco Queen when she feels she’s much more than breathy singing.
Did I mention I’m leaving out Donna’s entire Broadway career, witnessing a murder, turning state’s witness and being threatened for it, and Donna’s own (eventually fatal) battle with cancer? I’m not sure how much of it is true, but I almost admire how complicated a portrait they paint of her. Donna isn’t afraid to show off her less-than-stellar attributes: Donna contemplates having an affair, makes bad choices at bad times, mouths off when she should stay quiet, and mourns how she screwed up. The show accomplishes this through splitting Donna into three characters – roughly, Baby “Duckling Donna,” Height-of-her-fame “Disco Donna,” and “Diva Donna”, aka the older post-Disco Donna that looks back on her life with these characters offering differing viewpoints on the events – mostly, it is Diva Donna shaking her head ruefully at the mistakes she’s made, or rejoicing in the fun she’s had. In a couple numbers, the girls combine their pipes – not enough, for the three actresses who play Donna do harmonize quite nicely – to become a sort of Ur-Donna: past/present/future all mourning the cake they’ll never taste again. (MacArthur Park, thankfully, does not use the 14 minute long cut in this jukebox.)
The downsides, of course, that of of all bio-jukebox musicals: the music is being bent to fit a life story, or a life story fitted into slots in the music: there’s no sense in the growth of her music or of her as an artist, because tracks from her latter career get played early, and tracks from her early career wind up near the end the show. Not all the lyrics are so sharply pointed toward the show because, of course, why would they be? The other big problem with it is that it RACES through all these plot points, with only Donna’s relationship with God getting more than one song. Honestly, I wish they’d slow down a bit and explore any of those major thematic points in depth, but this is more of a show where the music and the story comes fast and furious. It’s the sort of show that you can tell most of the budget went to the outfits (which, it must be said: are spectacular). That doesn’t make it bad, but I wished it was less sequin and more shimmy. I still had a lot of fun though!
On a sidenote, I could quite tell going to the jukebox musicals that the crowd for them is mostly not the same as that for the musical-y musical shows. It’s still old – all theatre in Chicago skews older, and I worry about that, being on the younger end of people who enjoy theatre – but the ushers very sternly told everyone absolutely no dancing in the aisles, and more than a few people disobeyed it. People in general treated it more like a concert: more singing along, more moving about, more whistling and clapping – but it was a fun experience. Not sure I’d have paid if I didn’t want to see the other five shows in the set, but I’m glad I went.
What I Watched/am Watching (TV/Movies):
I pretty much watched very little in February – I spent about three weeks hyping myself up to watch the Good Place finale and then I stupidly sobbed through the whole last episode. It was an incredibly bleak episode: I felt like I was waiting for most of the main characters to die, and given how much I like the main cast, it was hard to watch. Smiled at Chidi wanting to go to Greece; me too, Chidi, me too.
The only characters I felt it did right by were Tahani and Michael; I LOVED Tahani becoming an architect and fashioning afterlives for others, and Michael’s desire to become a Real Boy has long been documented, though I think it’s weird they opted for him to become a human as he is rather than just...have him reincarnate into a baby. Or something.
In the end it felt more like a funeral dirge. If I re-watch the series, I might skip the last episode, though I greatly enjoyed the ride the series put me on over all. I fundamentally disagree with the last couple of episodes, but I think the journey was still worth watching.
I wanted to go see Cats in theaters but...I didn’t. And I didn’t go see Birds of Prey despite wanting to, as well. I suck. I backslid a lot on this one. Started watching Watchmen in March for erm, March, so at least I have something to put here for next month.
What I Played/am Playing:
I didn’t have a lot of time for games in February; I don’t think I played many, which isn’t good as one of my many goals for this new year was to try to clear some badly needed backlog in my media (including games). I was waiting for people through an awful lot of appointments in February and tried to be better about taking my 3DS with me – what seemed practical to buy several years ago (in 2012) now seems silly to bring along in an age of cell phones! – to clear the small backlog of games I’ve yet to play there. I started Fire Emblem: Conquest. Years ago I’d bought Birthright and tried to run through it, despite not liking a lot of the cast on that side of the Fates set. I’d bounced harder when I found that that one has more “practice” style battles, which meant more time playing without seeing the plot because you have to “train” everyone up.
Finally, after having Birthright sitting on the shelf since practically the day it came out, I said “screw it” and gave myself permission to spend the money to get Conquest instead. I like it better – first in that the plot goes in more interesting places: You are playing for the “bad guy” team, but the characters are the typical Fire Emblem “heros”, which means you have a lot of people being very ill at ease with the demands of the rather possessed (and possessive) king of Nohr and struggle to find ways to meet his desires without spilling the blood he craves. Meanwhile, your Corrin also has to do this while fighting your blood family who you turned your back. Birthright has you reuniting with your birth-family, and is, overall, a less complicated affair. Secondly, I like this one better because it plays more like an old school Fire Emblem title (no practice battles!), the plot goes faster which makes it a lot easier if you, like me, only play for a little bit every other day when you are waiting for someone at the doctors, or the dentist, or the pharmacist, or whatnot.
I am still playing Judgment, and still making miserable progress in it. I don’t think I’ve actually made it much further in the plot than I had in January, though a friend and I found and were brought almost to tears by some rather slashy dialogue on the quick and dirty method. It’s been hard for me to find time to play it but I’m going to make more of an effort.
I started Fire Emblem: Three Houses, that I stupidly pre-ordered, years ago (when it was first announced), and finally played it for a bit – maybe half an hour. It is, decidedly, okay. I think I’m growing out of these games; all the characters are ridiculously young save for maybe two options. Usually these are fun romance simulators (well, the last two), but because Byleth is a teacher, I feel like almost every possible (student) option is out of bounds. Of the teachers, I’m leaning for my Byleth winding up with Seteth, a grumpy monk, or Rhea, thus far. Allegedly there’s a big plot twist but I’ve managed to stay in the dark about it – hopefully one or both of them survive.
What I've Been Listening To:
Honestly, I fell down on this a lot, and it's pretty much just been Once On This Island tracks going over and over.
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I just started watching The Good Place with my SO and we're only to Season 3, but I am loving it SO MUCH RIGHT NOW! Tahani and Eleanor are my trashbag faves and I love their dynamic, but haven't gotten far enough to see the gang together again in Season 3. I'm looking forward to it! I'll also keep the ending in mind, but the ride has definitely been worth it to me so far.
(Fun fact: That's how I usually feel about ME3. I love the trilogy as a whole, but usually my itty-bitty heart can only tolerate going as far as the Citadel DLC and then I leave the last missions unplayed.)
I like reading through your media posts, no matter how delayed. :')
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