lady_ragnell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_ragnell) wrote2024-01-01 04:37 pm
lady_ragnell) wrote2024-01-01 04:37 pm
Entry tags:
Media Catchall Post, Fourth Quarter
2023 is closed out, which means my usual end-of-year posts will be going up! Probably all tonight, maybe one tomorrow if I run out of energy, we'll see. But this is the easiest, since it's only a quarter of the year, so we're starting here!
Music
Actually listened to some new music this season! I saw a rec for the "Operation Mincemeat" musical, which was mostly fun but didn't capture me, with the exception of the song "Dear Bill," which I've listened to a whole lot, it's incredibly affecting and I love epistolary anything, of course. Over on tumblr, I made a music rec post asking for two different categories, and have been reaping the fruits of both--one was the general theme of "I support women's wrongs," and the other, for which there were far fewer recs, was songs primarily in 5/4. If anyone over here has 5/4 recs, I'd still love those, I finished my women's wrongs mix but I'll be collecting 5/4 songs for ages! I've also been listening, as I often do, to a bunch of choral music. I've been liking Jacob Naverud a lot, and also I found a TB song about Duct Tape, which made me giggle.
Movies
Always the biggest movie season of my year, because of traditional family Christmas rewatches and also my household's addiction to Christmas romcoms, but there were a few non-holiday movies too. So, to start with, rewatches: Mansfield Park (the one with Rose from Doctor Who as Fanny, not the 2009 one), Love Actually, Muppet Christmas Carol, A Princess for Christmas, Elf (unfortunately, I'm not fond but the nine-year-old I was hanging out with on NYE requested it), and Star Wars: A New Hope. For new watches, the holiday ones, which were largely very bad, were: Family Swap (Freaky Friday but a whole family and Christmas, it wasn't good), Catering Christmas, and Reporting for Christmas. I also watched the very silly mystery Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop on recommendation of some friends, and the Japanese movie Once Upon a Crime, in which Red Riding Hood solves a murder at Cinderella's ball. I wasn't wild about the solution to the crime in the end, but I love a fairy tale crossover and a mystery, so there are way worse ways to spend an evening.
TV Shows
When we left off, I was watching season three of Only Murders in the Building, so I finished that off! I also watched some usual suspects, Antiques Roadshow and the new season of The Great British Bake-Off (it rescued itself from the very edge of last season, but I'll never stop missing the original configuration of everything, this show cares way too much about Paul Hollywood these days), and in the past week I've just gone back to watching M*A*S*H. I also watched season two of Columbo (eh, I'll stick with Murder She Wrote from here) and the latest season of Taskmaster. I also, very rarely for me, watched an anime! My Happy Marriage, which doesn't shy away from dealing with emotional abuse and the recovery therefrom. I liked the first half, where that was almost everything that was going on, more than the second, where the supernatural plot kicked into high gear, but still, a breath of fresh air in a samey season.
Other
2023 continued to be my year of Dropout, though I'm behind on absolutely everything right now! So there was a lot of Make Some Noise, some Play It By Ear, the new Very Important People, and some Breaking News. I may watch some more Dimension 20 at some point, but phew, those episodes are long. I've also, along with my usual YouTube channels, watched a few Starkid shows that have been added. VHS Christmas Carol was fun even if the Scrooge acting choices were sure a thing, but I really enjoyed Nerdy Prudes Must Die. Despite horror not being my preferred genre, I have to respect Starkid's Hatchetfield trilogy, it's really cool seeing them take things a bit more seriously while still making their signature jokes.
D&D
I'm continuing to get so much enrichment from DMing! The campaign is moving fast, the players just hit level 8 after our most recent adventure. I had to take some weeks off in this quarter because I was music directing a musical, but we've had some fun. First, as an experiment, I had them each do a solo adventure, which is something you can get away with as a three-person table (the left-out person didn't just have to sit there, I gave them NPCs to play). The paladin got to do a serious emergency-response adventure, dealing with problems after a major earthquake, and then the warlock got to do a rather silly mini-dungeon to pick up a resource to help a colleague make a magic item. And then, when the school year started (their characters are now college juniors, because again, it's a fast-paced campagin, and also there's only so far that works when you need them to get into Big Adventures), the soda oozes and their creator attacked in full Godzilla form and triggered a time loop arc that was a nice mix of the characters getting some Classic D&D Trauma in (their favorite friend died twice) while also handling everything with disgusting amounts of competence, they only had to do four loops. I don't want to spoil the next adventure, but it's going to be a fun one!
Creative Projects
I did a bit of sewing and then some weaving this season! The sewing was all for one dear friend of mine from high school, and specifically for her baby shower. I sewed three bibs from some woodland creature fabrics and a stuffed horse (my friend is very much a Horse Girl) out of space fabric for the baby. And then I managed a whopping three woven scarves for Christmas gifts! The edges are all neater than any I've woven before, I'm terribly pleased with them. I definitely need to learn more than just straight-across weaving at some point, but in the meantime the motions are very soothing. Crafting aside, you'll get the usual writing wrap-up later!
Things I'm Looking Forward To
I'll do crafting plans with my writing plans for the year in that later post, I think, so this is just notes to myself on things I want to watch, largely! I want to catch up on the Dropout things I'm behind on, for sure. I also want to watch a bunch of seasons I know I'll enjoy that I've been putting off for ages--seasons three of The Great and The Orville, a few seasons of The Dragon Prince--and movies likewise (truly, no excuse for not having seen EEAAO lately). I also want to see the recent Rebel Moon, which I don't expect to be great but which is at least sci fi that hasn't been building up lore for several decades, I'm just so starved for non-franchise sci fi movies and shows. I want to get some watching-things mojo back in general, I've just been finding everything so uninspiring.
And that's all for this year's various kinds of media! Not my most exciting year for that, but I like tracking it just so I know that for sure.
Music
Actually listened to some new music this season! I saw a rec for the "Operation Mincemeat" musical, which was mostly fun but didn't capture me, with the exception of the song "Dear Bill," which I've listened to a whole lot, it's incredibly affecting and I love epistolary anything, of course. Over on tumblr, I made a music rec post asking for two different categories, and have been reaping the fruits of both--one was the general theme of "I support women's wrongs," and the other, for which there were far fewer recs, was songs primarily in 5/4. If anyone over here has 5/4 recs, I'd still love those, I finished my women's wrongs mix but I'll be collecting 5/4 songs for ages! I've also been listening, as I often do, to a bunch of choral music. I've been liking Jacob Naverud a lot, and also I found a TB song about Duct Tape, which made me giggle.
Movies
Always the biggest movie season of my year, because of traditional family Christmas rewatches and also my household's addiction to Christmas romcoms, but there were a few non-holiday movies too. So, to start with, rewatches: Mansfield Park (the one with Rose from Doctor Who as Fanny, not the 2009 one), Love Actually, Muppet Christmas Carol, A Princess for Christmas, Elf (unfortunately, I'm not fond but the nine-year-old I was hanging out with on NYE requested it), and Star Wars: A New Hope. For new watches, the holiday ones, which were largely very bad, were: Family Swap (Freaky Friday but a whole family and Christmas, it wasn't good), Catering Christmas, and Reporting for Christmas. I also watched the very silly mystery Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop on recommendation of some friends, and the Japanese movie Once Upon a Crime, in which Red Riding Hood solves a murder at Cinderella's ball. I wasn't wild about the solution to the crime in the end, but I love a fairy tale crossover and a mystery, so there are way worse ways to spend an evening.
TV Shows
When we left off, I was watching season three of Only Murders in the Building, so I finished that off! I also watched some usual suspects, Antiques Roadshow and the new season of The Great British Bake-Off (it rescued itself from the very edge of last season, but I'll never stop missing the original configuration of everything, this show cares way too much about Paul Hollywood these days), and in the past week I've just gone back to watching M*A*S*H. I also watched season two of Columbo (eh, I'll stick with Murder She Wrote from here) and the latest season of Taskmaster. I also, very rarely for me, watched an anime! My Happy Marriage, which doesn't shy away from dealing with emotional abuse and the recovery therefrom. I liked the first half, where that was almost everything that was going on, more than the second, where the supernatural plot kicked into high gear, but still, a breath of fresh air in a samey season.
Other
2023 continued to be my year of Dropout, though I'm behind on absolutely everything right now! So there was a lot of Make Some Noise, some Play It By Ear, the new Very Important People, and some Breaking News. I may watch some more Dimension 20 at some point, but phew, those episodes are long. I've also, along with my usual YouTube channels, watched a few Starkid shows that have been added. VHS Christmas Carol was fun even if the Scrooge acting choices were sure a thing, but I really enjoyed Nerdy Prudes Must Die. Despite horror not being my preferred genre, I have to respect Starkid's Hatchetfield trilogy, it's really cool seeing them take things a bit more seriously while still making their signature jokes.
D&D
I'm continuing to get so much enrichment from DMing! The campaign is moving fast, the players just hit level 8 after our most recent adventure. I had to take some weeks off in this quarter because I was music directing a musical, but we've had some fun. First, as an experiment, I had them each do a solo adventure, which is something you can get away with as a three-person table (the left-out person didn't just have to sit there, I gave them NPCs to play). The paladin got to do a serious emergency-response adventure, dealing with problems after a major earthquake, and then the warlock got to do a rather silly mini-dungeon to pick up a resource to help a colleague make a magic item. And then, when the school year started (their characters are now college juniors, because again, it's a fast-paced campagin, and also there's only so far that works when you need them to get into Big Adventures), the soda oozes and their creator attacked in full Godzilla form and triggered a time loop arc that was a nice mix of the characters getting some Classic D&D Trauma in (their favorite friend died twice) while also handling everything with disgusting amounts of competence, they only had to do four loops. I don't want to spoil the next adventure, but it's going to be a fun one!
Creative Projects
I did a bit of sewing and then some weaving this season! The sewing was all for one dear friend of mine from high school, and specifically for her baby shower. I sewed three bibs from some woodland creature fabrics and a stuffed horse (my friend is very much a Horse Girl) out of space fabric for the baby. And then I managed a whopping three woven scarves for Christmas gifts! The edges are all neater than any I've woven before, I'm terribly pleased with them. I definitely need to learn more than just straight-across weaving at some point, but in the meantime the motions are very soothing. Crafting aside, you'll get the usual writing wrap-up later!
Things I'm Looking Forward To
I'll do crafting plans with my writing plans for the year in that later post, I think, so this is just notes to myself on things I want to watch, largely! I want to catch up on the Dropout things I'm behind on, for sure. I also want to watch a bunch of seasons I know I'll enjoy that I've been putting off for ages--seasons three of The Great and The Orville, a few seasons of The Dragon Prince--and movies likewise (truly, no excuse for not having seen EEAAO lately). I also want to see the recent Rebel Moon, which I don't expect to be great but which is at least sci fi that hasn't been building up lore for several decades, I'm just so starved for non-franchise sci fi movies and shows. I want to get some watching-things mojo back in general, I've just been finding everything so uninspiring.
And that's all for this year's various kinds of media! Not my most exciting year for that, but I like tracking it just so I know that for sure.