anne

Stray Kids is still my fave, but Ateez's new EP is really, really good. My EXO buddy sent me a box full of CDs, which has been keeping me occupied--they're growing on me, but I'm still not fannish about them. I may or may not be fannish about Ateez...so far not, but their dancing is so good I might break down, idk.

Ever since I got into Stray Kids in Aug/Sept, I've been paralyzed about my bias. I don't have one! I can't pick! They're all so good in their own ways! I couldn't even pick a bias line. But today I realized I do have two bias lines: the hyung line and the dongsaeng line. 🤡

My watching buddy and I binged the first 24 episodes in something like two days, then hit the Netflix wall and had to wait for the last four episodes. We finished the last two yesterday. Verdict: it's the second-best revenge drama I've seen. (Obviously Nirvana in Fire is the best. Not being as good as NiF isn't an insult.) I need to rewatch to see if they left breadcrumbs for some of the twists, but I think they actually did.

Comparisons to NiF are inevitable because Liu Yijun (Xie-houye) and Wang Jinsong (Yan-houye) have big meaty roles in this one too. And they're SO good. Cheng Yi does a stellar job of being quietly unhinged. There's a usurping gege and a huangdidi (<--please laugh, I'm so proud of that). Face-changing! Betrayals! Women just doing their jobs! And unlike a lot of shows where the conflict is "oh those horrible steppe barbarians vs Us, the Noble People of the Central Plains"...there's no genocide. There are war crimes and torture, mostly on the steppe side because it's still a mainland drama, but no culture gets wiped out, and the point of the show is that power for power's sake is bad, actually.

Last night I watched what I believe to be a pinnacle of the vertical-drama form: https://mydramalist.com/782382-define-your-style

Mistreated real da-xiaojie gets left at the altar and decides to keep her one-night-stand in style. Hilarity ensues! The ML, Liang Si Wei, was also in the three others I watched this week. He seems to specialize in playing wifeguys, which is great, and I think he has a Ryan Cheng Lei clause in his contract requiring him to take off his shirt at least once every ten minutes. (This is not a complaint.) I gather from Mydramalist that the novel this is based on has been adapted A LOT, so I might need to investigate further. There's even a historical version where the domineering CEO has become the crown prince! So that's my "brain has melted" watching sorted for the immediate future.

The keyword, for the curious, seems to be "jiejie romance."

May it be better than last year.

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but I have the intention of updating here more often.

I forgot to say anything about my teeth situation. The earliest my wonderful dentist could fit me in for a big complicated filling replacement was Dec 16, yes that's six weeks since the emergency filling he put in. Then it turned out that I needed a crown instead. Whee. But the great thing is that it didn't hurt AT ALL, not during the process, not even after the numbness wore off.

My friends Ashmead and Spouse and Kiddo have been here for a week, leaving tomorrow. They used to be local, now they're not, but A's parents are still in town. I took Kiddo to the library while Parents were off doing eldercare things. She picked out half a dozen graphic novels and finished them that evening. We're not related but our souls are! We did hotpot last night and we'll have leftovers tonight. And then I'll eat like a queen for another two weeks or so.

A is my cdrama zoom-watching buddy of choice, and it's a lot more fun and easier on my poor fragile brain to watch in person. We got hooked on Vendetta of An, featuring Cheng Yi at his most quietly unhinged, and we also watched some vertical dramas. Tiny budgets and narrative conventions that remind me of 1980s Harlequins, make of that what you will, but they're fun and require very little in the way of thought. The one I liked best was Take Away Love With A Knife (https://mydramalist.com/796770-take-away-love-with-a-knife), with Schemer4Schemer. Then we watched two more with the ML, Liang Si Wei, who does wifeguys better than anybody I've seen lately. I don't foresee any rewatches, but the next time I'm bored and brainmelty, I'll keep this guy in mind.

(healthwise, nothing new, so boring)

I've been fandoms-in-law with kpop for decades, but KPop Demon Hunters pushed me over the edge into the rabbit hole. So far my kpop buds have told me about EXO, Stray Kids, Ateez, and Mamamoo. Other suggestions very welcome--Athénaïs, I'm looking at you, obviously!

My current favorite subgenre is "Youtube vocal coaches losing their everlovin minds about Ejae belting an A5 and ad-libbing a D6."

technical singing wonk alert: those are notes that opera singers hit, except for the belted A5, which is...I'm not sure even Mariah Carey ever did that. D6 is one step higher than you hear in Allegri's Miserere. tl;dr Ejae should have been a household name a long time ago and I hope she gets a recording contract if she wants one.

Sigh. Okay. I continue to have post-exertional malaise (PEM) from long covid, but my brain is still getting incrementally better. I failed at going back to work two years in a row so this year I'm taking the whole thing off.

I joined a study investigating an off-label use for an existing med that ends in "nib." I don't remember what the official use is. It's manufactured by Pfizer and they're paying for the study, so it's not affected by the current bullshit.

I'm planning to spend the study money on a bread machine. I really want a Zojirushi! But that's not in the budget, so if you have a recent bread machine you like, I'm up for recs. (Recent because knowing that e.g. Hamilton Beach was good ten years ago does me no good. I need post-enshittification recs because I'm buying it now.)

They appear to have found my favorite non-medieval poet. I wish they'd rebury him in Angers! Or at least the Panthéon.

I'll take a moment to remember M. Dassonville, one of the best teachers I've ever had, in whose class I discovered just how much I love Du Bellay. I'd read a few of his poems in undergrad, but lacked the tools to really dig into them. M. Dassonville gave me those tools. His favorite thing to say was "La critique ne commence qu'à la deuxième lecture !" A piece of advice which has stood me in good stead through the years.

Today is the eleventh anniversary of my arrival in Boston.

I was going to throw myself a huge 10th anniversary party last year, but uh. Well. My new goal is to throw myself a huge 15th anniversary party instead.

Elon Musk may or may not be buying Twitter. Leave a comment with your Bluesky and/or tumblr handles so we can find each other.

I'm aegtx on Bluesky.

and @/aegtx@wandering.shop on Mastodon.

Comments are public. DM if you'd rather not connect your various nyms.

Another 90 min that didn't feel like it!

Who, what, where, why, how, how many; colors; clothing (and "knit," because if I can say "sweater, socks, beanie" I really need to know how to say I make them!)

25% of the class is over now booooooo