queenlua | Reading

Chasing Cassandra

2/5. Victorian romance about the self-made railway magnate who claims to have only five emotions falling for a lady who has few distinguishing characteristics other than big boobs.

Boring, saccharine. She teaches him what love is. In addition to the above judgments, this is also eyebrow raising because the hero is heavily coded as on the spectrum, and the book has a definite tone of “fixing” him.

Content notes: Sexual assault as plot device.

mrissa

Review copy provided by the publisher.

I knew this was not my sort of thing, and I was correct, but Nghi Vo writes so well that I thought it was worth giving this specific instance of not-my-sort-of-thing a try, and that was also correct. This is in some ways like a billionaire romance if the author was really honest about the morality of billionaires. And also if the billionaires were literally natural disasters taken on (occasional, voluntary) human form.

So yeah, not a lot like most billionaire romances...but it does have the attention to luxury detail, tuned to a dark fantasy precision. Give our heroine a makeover? why not lend her entirely new faces? What happened to the previous owners of those faces? Don't ask that, smile, look how beautiful you are as someone else! So beautiful you could charm a hurricane. Literally. There are dances galore leading up to the titular ball, there is backstabbing and politicking and exquisite clothing, and there are forest fires masquerading as people for fun and profit. And getting boatloads of both.

If you're hoping for a moral ending where the wicked suffer and the good are rewarded, this is not that book. If you can be satisfied with something a bit more visceral, well...this might be the thing for you. Especially if you like either the trope of "dangerous rich man, I can change him" or that trope's subversion.

ryulynn

Currently playing
-anemoi
-Soukou Akki Muramasa
-Sins of Kaleido

Today's post is going to be about Monochrome Mobius. Look, I finished a RPG for once! But it's related to a VN series (Utawarerumono), and it would have been better as a VN hybrid in my opinion...

( Read more... )

Anyway I don't recommend this game unless you have the time. It's not a bad game, but it's not satisfying for newbies or for Utawarerumono series fans unless you are a lore head. It's too bad...

meikuree

crossposting my fragrance reviews from Tumblr onto here, in case they're of interest to people. caveat that I'm a perfume amateur -- my nose is not great at picking up specific notes yet and it's learning on the job -- so my reviews focus on what the perfumes I sample evoke for me and their nuances, rather than the technicalities that go into them like blending, performance, longevity and such. I've been joking that this is kind of like 对牛弹琴, or rather uhh 对牛喷香水, where the 牛 in this case is me.

background: I was gifted some non-transferable shopping credit which I can't cash out or easily convert to liquid cash, so I'm using it to procure samples of 'niche' (loaded marketing term)/designer/indie EDPs I would ordinarily never buy or are way out of my budget.

batch 1: Valentino Uomo, YSL, Creed, Christian Dior, Maison Margiela Replica, Lancôme Idôle

Valentino Uomo Born in Roma Green Stravaganza: 3/10. it smells so screechy and pointed, like if a spear of antiseptic had been jammed up my nose. I don’t get a lot of the bergamot opening? and the coffee note exists only as a concept.

Libre L'Absolu Platine Yves Saint Laurent: this doesn't do much for me lol. smells mostly like a very clean and professionally refurbished celebrity studio. in other words it's a 'soulless' kind of clean white fragrance.

Creed Queen of Silk: I loooooove the opening and the slight pinch of osmanthus, it smells very velvet and substantial. don't love the dry down as much, it starts smelling more like a musty vintage sofa stored in an upstairs attic.

Christian Dior Lucky: this was OK-to-interesting; the notes came off a little jumbled to me. nice lily-of-the-valley though. it's a little 'green' in a closeted and clinical way, like a temperate forest I guess.

Christian Dior Jasmin Des Anges: my favourite out of the lot, holy shit. highly realistic jasmine note. it's quite linear and simple but I'm a simple person and it brings me back to comforting times in my childhood, I associate jasmine with places I grew up.

Maison Margiela Lazy Sunday Morning: quite liked this, sweet-ish but in a light and wafty way. quite a mainstream 'fresh girl' scent. would happily make this an everyday EDP. I have basic tastes.

Lancôme Idôle Peach ‘N Roses: yeah this is too fruity even for me lol. makes you smell like sickly sweet candy.

Maison Margiela Soul Of The Forest: interesting and distinctive - makes you smell like you emerged from rolling around in a woodland. YMMV on whether you'd rather splash out for this or just go hiking in the rain to encase yourself in the same smell.

next-few-days verdict: a few days later the Christian Dior EDPs have emerged as my most-liked ones; Jasmin Des Anges in particular has nestled itself into the cockles of my nostrils/all-time faves or whatever. I realised it headlines two of my fave notes, jasmine and osmanthus, so that’s probably not surprising. I spray it on my pillow sometimes and let myself drift off to sleep with it and it’s uplifting yet calming enough for that, jasmine with a tea-like underedge. people who don’t like it complain the jasmine is too one-dimensional, but on fabric I can smell the osmanthus and apricot too, hovering and occasionally edging out jasmine then being backgrounded again in a dance of supplementarity or something.

I think some people who smell it for the first time might be reminded of jasmine garlands at Hindu temples too.

anyway, Jasmin Des Anges is also Fucking Expensive. my sample vial’s already running out. I’ll just keep looking for other jasmine-esque fragrances to save my wallet. also, what I learned from this testing spree is that white florals are my fave. again, not surprising because my everyday EDP before this was White Touch which is an aquatic water lily fragrance (I describe it as what it feels like to walk in a Chinese garden full of lotuses after a morning rain).

also, okay, I get why I like Jasmin Des Anges so much now. someone described it as “what a safe and kind older woman would wear”. my nose is not escaping the Freudian allegations.

batch 2: Tada Parfumeur & Mith (Thai fragrance houses), featuring Tada Archawong's seriously japanophilic/weaboo-adjacent names

Emishiki Sensation Blue: a chilled fruity sake EDP. I wanted to like this but the 1st spray smelled synthetic, like the plastic you get wandering into a sports shoe shop... the sake accord comes off ozonic, and radiating outwards the rest of the EDPs smells soapy and post-shower-esque? I think the 'plastic' note I get is exactly meant to help it evoke icy chilled sake, but it doesn't come off like that. I also wish I could detect the lychee more!

Another Tea by Mith: this is my Jasmin Des Anges goldfish replacement. I'm in love. super realistic jasmine tea note, smells exactly like drinking bottled jasmine green tea.

-- after a few days: somehow I get a metallic tang in the base of this, and even an earthy or slightly manure-esque note; I don’t know if that’s from the residual indole of the jasmine or simply what the oolong note is meant to be like. but it makes this slightly ‘cold’ or medicinal. it does smell like what fresh jasmine tea is like straight from my stainless steel teapot, I’ll give it that!

Shirayuki (白雪): runner up favourite. I don't get that much apple, only the faintest sour profile of just-oxidising apples, but the standout here are the green tea notes, which smell like longjingcha or sencha to me. calm and earthy, very meditative.

-- after a few days: OK, I can detect the apple now. my nose is learning on the job. there’s a meta-format thing going on here I suppose where spraying this is supposed to parallel the action of biting into an apple, that crisp punch which yields a fruity aroma. quickly develops into a refreshing, transparent powdery note which is v unique to me - it’s not the sensual powderiness of iris and such but very organic, outdoors-y rather than indoor powderiness if that makes sense. and that is of course what helps it evoke a snow-covered bridge in Osaka.

Nocturnal Noir: the opening was offputting, but this develops into a sweet yet woody velvet and evening-study-esque smell... it's like wandering into a room while a grandparent's working and smoking the biggest tobacco pipe ever. I don't find this that introspective.

Lost in a Fluffy Nest: the original bottle looks like this btw, which is so ridiculous and yet kind of charming at the same time. Tada Archawong is either a stealth furry or animeboo or both. quite nice that the brand doesn’t take itself too seriously though.

the 50ml bottle for Lost In A Fluffy Nest. the bottle cap is in the shape of an anime-style fox creature.

not much to say here - it's light and airy, very easy to wear. no cloying sweetness, more an innocent wafty scent. I don't get much of the cotton candy note, which is good tbvh.

Radiant Memories: I liked this, but I'm not a fanatic for gourmand perfumes so it doesn't compel me as much as some others.

batch 2.5: loosely focused on colognes + leathery/spicy/woody (what are stereotypically called ‘masculine’) EDPs

Safran Secret by Maison Crivelli: holy shit, I went in knowing very little about what it was going to be like and I love it! same for Cuir InfraRouge. my samples so far have told me I really do not like spicy or ‘oriental’ fragrances but I like how both come off and they’re the exceptions. they’re atmospheric without being cloying. Safran Secret was released as a competitor to Ganymede from Marc-Antoine Barrois, and I’m getting a sample of that soon-ish too so I’ll compare notes when it comes. but the metallic notes are - the first image I got was a techno nightclub, but a review (on Fragrantica, sorry) called it quite industrial, like ferrous or wrought iron that’s been freshly processed. and that’s an intriguing contradiction/contrast between past and future, but I can see why: the metallic notes have this cool ‘warmth’ to them without verging on singeing, like heat slicing through them, and an overall down to earth tone. with the techno nightclub vibes, it’s the heat of bodies vibing or dancing together, and with the industrial comparison it’s iron that’s been molded. it does remind me a little of when I helped out my father with circuit soldering & other metalwork tasks in his workshop as a kid.

When the Rain Stops, Maison Martin Margiela: I like the opening, it calls to mind the peaceful tail-end of a shower and the pitter-patter purification and transparency of raindrops splashing against your skin. afterwards I get more “chlorinated outdoors pool” than post-rain sunshine or petrichor, with a prominent minty top layer. that’s balanced by the green leafy earthiness though, so it’s still OK to me.

Aqua Celestia Cologne Forte, Maison Francis Kurkdjian: the opening is full-on astringent lemon for me, to the extent it mostly evokes dishwashing liquid. it doesn’t quite blend with the floral notes IME; it’s like the latter get trapped in the background by the overwhelming citrus. but it’s clean and crisp, which might be a worthy Mediterranean holiday fragrance for some. 🤷‍♀️ for some reason it makes me think of the exact kind of superficially nice but ultimately remote upper-class girl in secondary school who would wear this to a nepo law internship and be my nemesis.

J'adoube, Mind Games: really like the opening. pomegranate in a precise bite-into-the-fruit way. more dark, which possibly gives it a cerebral vjbe. then the leather and what seems like an inhospitable tinge of mint surges up and it lets me down a little. the dark pomegranate remains stable though, so I still like it.

Vibrato, Sospiro: I gave away my sample so I can’t recall the exact notes lol. but I don’t think I enjoyed this much.

Rouge Sarây, Atelier des Ors: aaaaaaargh, no. I associate dates with the opposite of an in-your-face saccharineness, which was exactly what this walloped me with.

Penhaligon’s Halfeti: this was… OK? not v groundbreaking for me. it's inspired by the town of Halfeti in Turkey & "Halfeti black roses bloom[ing] on the coasts of the Euphrates river", but this does not remind me much of Turkey. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's more complex and less linear than a lot of ouds I've tried, I'll give it that.

fragrance meets JJK meta: a friend and I shared what fragrances we see various characters in JJK wearing.

if you've tried any of these fragrances please feel free to share your experience, whether or not they diverge from mine! I also have a newfound interest in realistic jasmine or (green) tea fragrances now, so recommendations are welcome.

modzilla posting in

fffx

Hello all! Thanks for your nominations!

Please let us know if we've incorrectly changed or rejected your nomination, or if you see duplicates and overlaps in the tag set.

I meant to have a more fulsome queries post at this point and haven't quite got there, despite help. Sorry about that. However, I have some notes:

For Crossover Fandom, please specify which version you're interested in if the fandom label could mean book or movie, specific or umbrella fandom. Please spell it out further if you've currently entered 'LOTR' (books or movies?) 'Marvel', or similar.

We will be using last year's original works format with gender markers (or permission to use any/no genders) appended to the front of the tag. So: 'Any: ' at the start of a nomination for (example) Amnesiac Cleric/Demonic Fiend Who Wants to Be a Poet, and F/Other, M/M, F&M, etc where appropriate otherwise. (You don't have to change your existing submitted nomination, though you can, but please keep an eye out in case we make a mistake in reformatting.)

Please separate out nominations for the Marvel Cinematic Universe into individual or groups of movies/TV, or Crossover Fandom, as appropriate.

Dragon Age II will be folded into Dragon Age (Video Games) as it was last year.

Star Trek: The Original Series (TV) includes some TOS-era movie-only characters. Should this label be changed to something that reflects the fact it includes movies too? Or should we split them?

I will likely have questions about nominations for members of a family, or a work department, or Creator's Choice of [descriptor] Character. To help me review them faster, consider commenting when you nominate them, please.

Thanks everyone! Nominations close at the end of the 24th, New York time (though some new nomination slots will be available during sign-ups.)

rionaleonhart

As it was my birthday recently, I've been thinking: what's the most self-indulgent thing I could write right now? What's a fic that I really want to exist, even if it would have absolutely no audience?

And then I remembered that I am perhaps the sole Ted Tubberman fan in the Dragonriders of Pern fandom.

Here is some shameless Ted Tubberman propaganda.

Title: Out of Mind
Fandom: Dragonriders of Pern (specifically Dragonsdawn)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,500
Summary: Ted Tubberman is shunned. There's no room for unlikeable people on Pern, apparently.

( Out of Mind )

meningioma

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Laurie - Roses Are Red (Eurobeat Mix)

proustbot

I'm in Salt Lake City for a deliberate 36-hour layover, which means I spent yesterday getting a haircut and going to see some movies (and walking several miles in 101-degree heat, like the rocket scientist that I am). At the salon, the person sitting next to me was very enthusiastically telling the stylist about looking for cheaper real estate in Idaho and Colorado. "Gotta get ahead of the curve," she told the nodding stylist. "Before everyone here realizes that the Great Salt Lake is done-zo and has to flee." (The Great Salt Lake has been dying for years, but I suspect if you've made your peace with the famously terrible air quality caused by inversion here, more dust storms and drought are unlikely to dislodge you. But I am always interested to overhear regular people talking about looming environmental catastrophes!)

Then I walked over to the Broadway Centre Cinemas, a nonprofit run by Salt Lake Film Society, which is running a summer repertory series of John Woo films. They are playing The Killer this week, which was fun to see on the big screen: lots of neon signs and dramatic car chases and shoot-outs in candle-filled churches. The theater itself was really nice (perhaps, in part, because they just finished a big renovation of the space), and I will definitely return the next time I have an SLC layover.

Then I walked over to the Clark Planetarium and the "Northrop Grumman IMAX Theater" (lol) to see The Odyssey. I had noticed that tickets for the screenings of the film at this 288-seat theater had been selling out more than 24 hours in advance. (It's not the highest tier of IMAX theater, but it's close, and because the place is subsidized by a weapons manufacturer, tickets are a mere $15. It normally just screens educational films, so the once-a-night Odyssey screenings were an unusual event.) So I got there 30 minutes early, when there was already a substantial line in place. I still got a reasonably good seat, and it was cool to see the film on a really big screen in a totally packed theater.

The Killer (1989) -- Come for the slo-mo gun battles, stay to watch Chow Yun-Fat wear a variety of facial-hair disguises. (That salt-and-pepper mustache is surprisingly attractive on him!) The Le Samouraï homage is a little half-baked, mostly because The Killer doesn't permit Sally Yeh to do anything other than suffer like a small child (in contrast to the weird and twisty female characters that appeared in Le Samouraï). On the other hand, I did enjoy watching all the male characters in The Killer fall in violent love with one another as the movie progressed.

The Odyssey (2026) -- This follows the traditional Christopher Nolan pattern of great editing, lovely visuals, banger soundtrack, and also a thuddingly obvious script. Everything is carefully explained a couple of times, and the historical context for Homer's epic is so dutifully underlined that I started waiting for someone to turn to the camera and say, "I think we're on the cusp of a Late Bronze Age Collapse." And then the movie literally does this! Christopher Nolan knows writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards.

On the other hand, as I was walking out of the theater, I listened to the chatter of various neighboring movie-goers who had been absolutely confused and flummoxed by things that the movie had explained two or three different times. So maybe I shouldn't question the on-the-nose script strategies of the mastermind himself, Christopher Nolan.

On the whole, I like most of the choices made by the movie, even if I wish they had not been explained and re-explained quite so many times. I imagine this will be the defining interpretative take on the Trojan War for a while, and I can't be too mad about a pop-culture touchstone that portrays Troy as a trauma and the "heroes" of Ancient Greece as destructive and ruinous.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017, 3DS) -- GOING BACK FOR MORE OLIVE and noodling around in Alm's opening chapter. It is a good thing that I am unreasonably fond of half of this game's cast and one-third of its plot, because so much of its scenario is self-consciously silly. "Oh, here's a country-bumpkin teenager that I just met, I think I should hand over command of the entire rebel army to him!"

mindstalk

Big catchup post. Enjoy!

July 14: Took buses again, moved to new place, Airbnb next to Naksan Park. It's rather up hill, just 6-7 minutes brisk walk but you really feel it, maybe 15 degree incline? I'm not good at judging angles. Owner-occupied apartment, I'm in one half-basement unit, they're in the others, some other rooms above us. They met me and showed me around (the place has quirks, like having to hold the door a certain way to get it to lock.) Friendly; a couple nights ago the wife knocked and gave me some fresh cooked corn. (Very waxy and unsweet.)

Apart from one park entrance, everything is downhill from me. Bus stop, convenience stores (barely closer than the supermarkets, which are small), supermarkets. HomePlus Express feels expensive and has limited meat, but whole wheat bread and REALLY GOOD jarred pasta sauce; a K mart is cheaper, especially one cut of pork (only 900 won per 100 grams, boneless).

( Read more... )

Night view from my deck. Did some reading (Annotated Pride and Prejudice) until suspected mosquito bites drove me inside.

kradeelav

on a sustained day 5 of climbing out of the decades-worst joint flare i've had, sans surgery/falls. orz

- not 100% there; still can't do long comments, conserving wrists for dayjob>drawing>important projects first, but the typing endurance is coming back, and i'm trying out another painkiller to coast me to normal.
- cause unknown; possibly a mix of work stress, barometric pressure, or a trader joes chocolate crossaint. i am never fucking eating a trader joes chocolate crossaint again lol.
- it's a humbling experience. i really did forget how close to the edge sustained (weeks-long, 3.5 weeks in this case) chronic pain takes you especially when you don't know if it will stop. been there before as a kid, swore i wouldn't be back there again. kept my promise, at least.
- mostly locked in on the zihark doujin outside of work to white knuckle focus on something to keep me from.... y'know, spiraling a little. i'm glad i did, and with that.

anyway. if you were wondering where i went.

in happier news: june website update is up, and july fanshrine update is up. :) starting to cycle monthly updates regularly.

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Lost in Lualand

Reading

Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas

The Scarlet Ball, by Nghi Vo

2026 gaming post #17

fragrance blogger era

2026: Nominations Queries 0.5

Fanfiction: Out of Mind (Dragonriders of Pern)

i miss fulgrim

make myself my own telemachus

Seoul 12 -- city wall - palace - parks - cats - roof decks

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