#and also because of how much danmei I've been reading I've adjusted my relationship with INCREDIBLY long works

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Decided to go back and review previous Princes chapters. Things have changed, which means I'm going to push back any publishing until I've got more in the tank. Hopefully we'll get an update before the two-year mark 🙏🏻

[bronanlynch]

managed to keep most of the categories fairly concise this week, please clap (this is partially bc I was busy and not doing as much ~media consumption as usual but shhh)

listening (podcast): as usual I am keeping up with Palisade, which really does just keep being So Much. you would think things might calm down after disarming every single sun-destroying bomb and assassinating a god-emperor but no things have not calmed down and it's great

also continuing to make my way through the Great Gundam Project episodes on 0079, which is making me miss those characters and especially Sayla :( I miss my girl :(

listening (music): did a lot of driving this past weekend which means listening to car CDs which means no new music. shout out to classic staples like Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace and All Signs Point to Lauderdale by A Day to Remember, which is a genuinely good song but also the first line is literally "I hate this town" so adjust your opinion of my music taste accordingly

reading: once again reading The Death I Gave Him (sci-fi Hamlet retelling by Em X. Liu) which continues to fucking rule. I'm enjoying that the Ophelia figure is getting a little bit of a Laertes arc, which is fun, love it when Ophelia gets to be a bit vengeful as a treat

also, I've started reading The Imperial Uncle, a court intrigue danmei novel by Da Feng Gua Guo (published in English by the same people who published/translated Golden Terrace/Golden Stage, which is how I found out about it). I'm having a lot of fun with it so far, I'm always a fan of political intrigue, especially political intrigue that is also a family drama, and the premise of it is that the main character has a reputation as scheming & untrustworthy that he's leaning into in order to prevent a coup that his friends are planning, all of which is catnip to me personally. also I enjoy that not only is the main character married, as someone in his position in this context would have been expected to be, but he's also textually slept with people who aren't the love interest. I think that's fun! I like when characters have histories and exist in contexts! and also I sometimes get bored when the main couple have never had a single relationship other than each other sorry

watching: still keeping up with Bakeoff. I'm sad that Rowan & Nicky are gone because I really liked both of them, even if I think it was fair that they're the ones who left two weeks ago. I was a bit surprised that is was Dana this past week though, like I get why she was in the running to leave but I didn't think she did that badly, y'know? anyway, absolutely loved the theme. as a guy who loves desserts that aren't too sweet and also floral flavors, I enjoyed that they were doing botanicals. although I think more of them could've afforded to be a little more daring tbh like come on, hibiscus is a flavor that plenty of them already use in other challenges, get weirder with it. I don't blame people for shying away from rose because the judges are always talking about how they hate it when someone puts "too much" rose in something, but I love rose flavor so I think they're all cowards

we have also been watching more ZZ Gundam. we've gotten to the new opening, and I've gotta say, the first one was a lot more of a bop, but alas. I don't have a whole lot that's new to say because it's mostly like, I'm having fun, I like Judau and his friends, I miss Kamille and Char, I wish there weren't so much weird misogyny sometimes, I love to see Haman, etc. actually the main new thing I have to say is that the set of episodes where they're lost in the desert is like, it feels like they're trying to make a point about how it's bad that these people trying to live their lives have gotten caught up in the fighting between two imperial powers neither of whom care about the collateral damage because they're too busy trying to kill each other in giant death machines, but the show doesn't let the characters or the audience sit with that or allow much interiority for the people living in the village (other than the woman who was in love with one of the soldiers and wants to die while vindicating his choice to also pilot a giant death machine which. we don't have time to unpack all that) so Imo it falls flat as a critique and ends up wrapping back around to being kinda orientalist

also saw a play that was a comedy retelling of Dracula which was. well. overall it was mostly fun, it was campy, the costuming was delightful, I mostly had a good time despite a couple of pretty odd adaptational choices. however. there were parts of it that I did not enjoy and those parts were the transmisogyny. I wish I could say I was surprised that something that was billed as "gender-bending" and "for the gays and the theys" had some pretty uhhh blatant transmisogyny in it but. unfortunately here we are, and unfortunately marketing yourself as queer-friendly doesn't prevent you from having a running "joke" about how a female character played by a man is ugly & unlovable. it's uncomfortable and bad and kinda soured me on the play as a whole which is a shame because it could have been so good otherwise. what if we as a society decided to tell jokes that are actually funny instead of relying on transmisogynistic caricatures. what if.

playing: still on Ace Attorney 5, and now that Pearl is back it really feels like the people making this game were not confident that people would be invested in the new characters so they have to keep bringing back the old ones. I like Pearl! but we've had multiple games with Pearl already and Trucy has barely been in AA5 at all, so why can't we have Trucy as the assistant for the rest of this case? tbh I think this case especially would be stronger if the points of view you got were Athena and Apollo like, you can investigate as Apollo, Trucy tags along and then gives information to Athena even though he doesn't want her to, and then you play as Athena for the trial with Phoenix there for moral support. please Capcom. please I love Phoenix but it doesn't really feel like they're doing much with him here so I would rather focus on the new characters who haven't gotten as a much screentime instead

making: we've gotten to back to assembling Miorine. she has two eyebrows and a torso now (picture taken before we did the torso)

alas, poor Mi-Yorick

drinking: according to the internet some recipes for an aviation leave out the creme de violette which I think is a crime. that's the whole point. anyway. had a very good aviation which did in fact include the violette and it fucked. shout out to gin drinks that don't include tonic water

writing: worked on a fic for a zine check-in, got rejected from a different zine that I was really interested in. the epic highs and lows of trying to get your writing read by more people than your roommate and maybe a mutual or two