singedsun

In previous years, I've kept a sort of media log in my OneNote - just on a monthly rolling basis but without a clear way to review those at the end of the year. It was mostly just a note for myself to see what caught my attention. With 2020 and 2021 and my concerted effort to watch more horror movies and catalogue prospective movies I wanted to watch, I moved everything over to my Notion at the end of 2020 and from the beginning of 2021 began to have a real trackable format for everything and a way to create them in a repeatable format to tie back to previous seasons. I do not really track episodes of television shows, though I've created a way to do it, I just don't like tracking it that way. This isn't a way to shame myself, but a legit effort to just see what I've watched and what I've enjoyed. And as I got used to Notion, I wanted to use this format for most media: books, shows, movies, ect.

So since I have it, I thought it'd be interesting to list out my numbers and my favorites in each category:
Television
I'm breaking out TV shows that are done in a tradition format and shows that are created from the beginning to be limited series. So just for shows with listed seasons:
87 seasons of television watched / 75 finished (this includes each season of something watched -- like all the seasons of M*A*S*H that Matt and I watched this year) Duplicates are counted, for instance if I watched Ted Lasso seasons one & two, twice, then that counts as 4 seasons.

Of those watched my favorites of the year (with what I'd consider 5 star ratings for myself):

• Sex Education - Season Three
• Slasher: Flesh & Blood (this is really season 4 of Slasher, despite it's Limited Series naming structure)
• 30 Monedas (this is a Spanish language show on HBO Max and might count as a Limited Series, if they don't intend to bring it back, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that)
• Loki - Season One
• Hawkeye - Season One (again, depending on what happens with both Loki & Hawkeye these might be stand-alone Limited Series, but I'm keeping them here for the time being)

Limited Series This are shows that are specifically, markedly Limited Series, where we knew from the beginning that it's being made with a one season run specifically. Of these I watched:
12 Limited Series / 10 completely finished

And my favorites here are:

• Misfits & Magic - the Dimension 20 5 part TTRPG game based on the Kids on Brooks system
• Midnight Mass

Movies
209 Movies in 2021 with some categories:
100 of those are specifically Horror movies - something I've made a specific emphasis on in the last two years and some of these are rewatches of entire series like the Saw series and the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
44 movies (both horror and not) are specific to my Sunday Bad Movie Night watches with my friends.

Overall Favorites from this year:

• Encanto
• Red Notice
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife
• The Green Knight
• Eternals

Horror Favorites: Candyman (2021), the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix, The Last Exorcism, Body Count & Untitled Horror movie.

Bad movie night favorites: Vicious Lips & Vampire Dad (I must state that these are "good" movies, they're just two of my favorites from this year so watch at your own risk)
Video Games
I only finished 2 Video Games this year: Disco Elysium & Control - both were fantastic, 5 stars for sure. I've also been playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla & Planet Zoo, but haven't really "finished" either of those.

Books
I didn't reach my 50 book goal for 2021 (I'm going down to a goal of 40 for this year which seems more doable for me looking back at the last several years) I finished.

Of the ones I've finished here's my favorites:

• Fugitive Telemetry, Murderbot #6 by Martha Wells
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Wells - which is a novella not quite (but close) to the Wayfarers series
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
• Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
• The Past is Red by Catherynne M Valente
• And non-fiction 5 star: You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Lacey & Amber Ruffin

The things that I don't count in my media lists, is YouTube videos. I watch too many to be willing to track them. And I also don't want to quantify it in the same way. There's also a matter that some of these are daily, aren't done for single-viewing and I have these often running in the background and don't watch them just to watch. I'm also content to let my Last.fm/Google/Spotify keep track of the music I listen to since again, the volume of these are going to be way to high to count. I'd also never thought about tracking concerts I go to either... but I think in 2022 if I do make it to any, I'd like to start adding those to my list.

If there's anything on my list you'd like to know more about, let me know. I just thought this would be an interesting view of everything. And it gives me an idea about how to move forward with tracking in 2022 as well

I've been watching this show, EVIL on Netflix. I think it was on network television but I don't have regular tv, so I didn't catch it while it was airing. I took a break from horror movies after Halloween and moved on to horror tv shows it seems. If you haven't seen it, EVIL is a show in the style of a procedural drama mixed with a bit of The Exorcist tv show from a few years back. Mike Colter (from Luke Cage) plays a priest-in-training who has a small team of assessors who study claims of possession and miracles for the Catholic church. It's a little on the cheesy side, but I've really been enjoying it. (I'm watching the last episode of season one now.) I appreciate that two of the three members of the team are non-believers, so they very closely examine all potential aspects of what could be the issue in each episode. But there's most definitely a supernatural bent to the show. I really hope there's an opportunity for them to start filming again at some point for a season two.

The show does suffer from "leaving shit out" syndrome where the characters just leave out important things they should be talking to the other people in their lives about. Like you're talking but you're not talking about the one fucking thing that might avoid some of these dramatic plot points.

Overall though, it's a nice distraction. I could see getting into writing something in that fandom later (is there a fandom??? I hope so. Investigation is required!) Later. I don't know if it was on the list for Yuletide but maybe I can treat it? We'll see.

Can't think about other writing now though.

I've been picking away at Nano. I decided to start a whole new story this year, something I've been thinking about for a few months and had stashed away a few notes on. I think if I can get through Nano, when I edit it the real story should be more like novella or even novelette in size, so way less than 50k. But for now, I'll push for more and see where it gets me. Of course writing tonight was really, really hard.

I've been an avid election night watcher since I first voted at 18 in the Bush/Gore election. It was maddening but riveting and ever since then I've been the person that stays up late and waits for all the counts to come in. I know I can't do that tonight, so not refreshing obsessively has been difficult. Writing tonight was like pulling teeth although I did finally get it done. I was hoping (optimistically) that I might be able to get ahead of my word count in preparation for my vacation next weekend. The trip to Florida (by car) is long an exhausting and I think those days might just get washed, I don't know. I'm going to keep trying anyway.

Things what I have finished recently that are not horror movies (caveat: some are horror games). For the basis of I don't have a lot to say about some of them and too much to say about other which would be spoilery, I'll do my best to keep these short.

Books:

I've been reading slowly this year because many of the books I usually read are audio books on my commute. Since I'm not doing that and I prefer to work to music than talking, I'm just not getting through them as quickly. But while the boys were here I did find it easier to pick up physical books while I was supervising their movie-watching or play time. [Books link to GoodReads]

Tyler Johnson Was Here :: a quick, engaging but rough read about a black teenage boy who loses his twin brother to police violence. This is an #ownvoices book and based on the author's life. This reads like a YA but honestly I think it only made the pace of the story move quickly and kept you well into the main character's head. If you're up for the subject matter, I'd definitely recommend it.

The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal :: I love the way they've transformed this show into a comic. It's got all the same beats, funny and bittersweet and the art from Carey Pietsch is lovely as always. Honestly I felt like this format worked pretty good for Petals to the Metal -- I found it hard to listen to and understand what was happening at some points during the podcast and this format definitely helps with that.

Faith: Taking Flight :: This is an original novel for Faith Herbert before she becomes Zephyr. If you're not familiar with her character, Faith/Zephyr is a fat, queer superhero who appears in her own comic from Valiant Comics written by Jody Houser. You can find that here The book is written by Julie Murphy who also wrote the novel that spawned the Netflix movie, "Dumplin'" last year. I LOVED this. It's amazing to read about a positive superhero, who's not just a big pop culture nerd but fat and queer. This also reads a little like a YA novel, both given the modern language, the character engagement and the ages of the characters in the story. I LOVED THIS and I really hope there's more.

TV:

The Umbrella Academy :: I blew flew the whole second season this past weekend. I loved it a lot and appreciated the nuanced approach to the growth of these characters. It's easy to see how their childhood formed them, and it's touching how their interactions as adults. I also really appreciated how they changed Vanya's character in this arc. I have not gone back and read the comics again yet, but I plan to break those out soon to do that.

Video Games:

The Last of Us 2 :: I cried more at this game than I have during any other piece of media I've consumed this year. That's not a bad thing I don't think, just for me a way to see the powerful impact of the story this game was telling. I cannot state how much I love this game and it's predecessor. Few games get to me the way this one does. Boy was it LONG though. I kept finishing story arcs and finding a new one just around the end of it. The way these games do soft and quiet moments are exquisite and contrast the violence just so well. There's a quote Troy Baker repeats from a fan during the Retro Replay series for TLOU 1 that's basically that the game is worth it for "the giraffe moment". And I think TLOU 2 (for me) has a moment like that too. I'm looking forward to replaying this sometime in the future.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season :: Because I guess I'm not enough of a glutton for punishment, I decided to finally pull this out to play. I love Clementine so much. I will always wish for more time with her. I loved how the decisions you make in this game are forming AJ's personality. I don't know if I'll go back to replay this to see the other outcomes. The route I chose was difficult, but I liked the end result. Also this game giving me the opportunity for a sweet f/f relationship, yes please and thank you. Back to back games with zombies and loving girlfriends.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune :: I got the remastered first three Uncharted games from my brother-in-law and needing a different vibe, I broke this out. This is a 2007 game that I never played and I almost wish I would have now. It's a quick game by today's AAA standards (about 7 hours) but the story is tight and controlled and you can set your own pace to explore (but not too much). It's more fun than I expected it to be. I've already broken into Uncharted 2. I don't know much about it other than people love it even more, so I'm looking forward to it.

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That's it for now I guess. I've started reading Brooke Bolander's "the only harmless great thing" novella. It's strange already, so we'll see how it goes. I've still been watching a BUNCH or horror movies (both good and bad) so expect another post about those soon.

I'm still feeling tired and worn down by this year and the 12 months just in general. I feel like this six months-ish fatigue I'm feeling is the fact that my hormones and my body is still recooping after the hysterectomy. They did tell me it could be up to a year before I really felt back to normal. However, there's also the matter having stepped down off on my regular Fibromyalgia meds in the last several months. It's been about three weeks I've been off them altogether and I'm definitely notice there's a more defined fatigue/brain fog that wasn't there even just before. My rheumatologist update isn't for a few more months left and I for sure need to see the GYN sometime very soon since I'm up on that six months mark since surgery. I've just been putting it off. We took out the offending organ for a purpose, so I know I just need to get my shit together and make the appointment. Which cycles back around to feeling like I don't the mind or energy for most of it.

The migraines from this round of pressure systems and winter weather definitely isn't helping. After the baby shower on Saturday for my sister, my mother called one of my brothers (the one I'm close to) and asked if he knew if something was wrong with me. Apparently I was "off" in a way she didn't want to attribute to tiredness or fatigue or just generally being over her stress about having the party in my grandparents house which has been reduced to a bunch of old furniture and a few stitched together memories. They've already moved into their retirement center, but the grandkids haven't been allowed to help with any of it because they don't want certain "elements of our family" picking through the leftovers of their house. I both can't blame them but am slightly annoyed by the whole process, because it leaves my mother and step-father to do most of the work when her siblings won't help.

This whole year has just a lot; both the month and a half of 2020 and the whole last 12 months. About this time last year, I was getting in trouble at work because I was having health issues we later found was attributed to my rebelling uterus. But the stress at the office itself hasn't really subsided and I've twice now been scouted by outside agencies for lunch meetings to talk about what it'd take to get me to leave. And knowing I have big options doesn't help with the day to day stresses, when I do truly like my team.

In the interim, I'm finding it own to lash on to new shows, especially long or dramatic ones. So I've been settling back into familiar territory, which I feel like I do just about this time every year. Thank you, winter moods. Recently, I rediscovered that Miranda (the British sitcom starring Miranda Hart) is on Hulu, so I picked that up tonight and watched a few episodes. If you like heartfelt comedy and can stand a bit of cringe (and a little out of date comedy) I really recommend it. This and Black Books are my seasonal go-tos, because every episode makes me laugh at least once. But with Miranda, I also feel so much for the main character, because she's size 20 woman in her mid-thirties who is not conventionally attractive. She's treated as awkwardly loveable and honestly I relate overmuch maybe, considering the number of toys on my desk at work.

(Also of note about Miranda if you've never watched it: Tom Ellis, now better known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the American television show, Lucifer, plays Miranda's friend and potential love interest. There's only 3 seasons, 20 episodes and it's just good fun.

Usually one run through the three seasons of either show is good to make me feel back to normal for a little while. So a couple of days and we'll see where I am. I guess. If I need a little something else, there's always Black Books or Black Adder... or by then I might be back to dramatic horror movies for a little while. (Stoker is almost always one of my go-tos.)

honigfrosch is doing a love meme (anon or not is up to you) and I'd love for it to take off and give some people some happy vibes. My post is here.

I'm assuming most of you that are into fandom type things or fic-writing of any sort are familiar with Yuletide, but the new vintage promo images are really great and I couldn't help myself. Plus, I know several of you are newly back to fandom in general or have been thinking about Yuletide this year, so consider this a good reason to go check out it out.



I have finished Gideon the Ninth and feel as though I may never again read something so perfectly written for me. I mean, when I read Wicked Saints earlier this year I felt like it'd reached into my little goth heart and found the high fantasy novel that I'd never hoped to ask for. I feel like Gideon the Ninth has done the same thing but for SFF. Gideon the Ninth would be at home in the Warhammer 40K universe in a world where none of the Warhammer lore mattered and if the characters weren't all grumpy old men. (That's only slightly unfair to the WH universe, but not much.)

I've also finished watching the last season of Hap & Leonard. I read that they're not making a fourth season which honestly, it's probably okay. I mean, it'd be nice to go out on a bit of a sweeter note than the third season did, but I can see why it's not getting more attention. It's a hard show to be writing in a climate like ours and while the show tried it's best to address some really sensitive subjects, there's no getting around how bad really not necessary a show like that is. There are plenty of ways to write really lovely male friendship stories without setting them in so depressing a setting. That said, I enjoyed it for what it was, most especially James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams work as Hap & Leonard. They were great.

Accidentally, I started watching Speechless on Hulu yesterday afternoon and now I'm over halfway done with the first season. I don't keep up with many sitcoms - Brooklyn 99, Superstore The Good Place being the only two I where I actually watch new episodes almost as soon as they air. I got out of the practice when we stopped watching cable. But, after finishing last week's episode of Superstore Hulu's auto-play feature started playing the first episode of Speechless when I got up to get a drink. I'd seen some gifs/screenshots of it on Tumblr, touting it's inclusivity, but I hadn't ever seen any of it for myself. And none of the stuff I'd seen for it ever included the fact that Minnie Driver (whom I love) plays the mom. So, Minnie Driver got my attention then I realized John Ross Bowie is the dad (whom I also love) and then I just sort of fell in love with the whole thing. I think I read that the series is done now? which is really too bad. I'm sorry I'm so late to it.

Matt and I had to wait a couple of hours while our cat Finn was at the groomers this afternoon, so we spent an hour and a half at the bookstore. I picked up the new Felicia Day book, which was on the 20% table. I'm about 60 pages into it. It's a quick read because there's a lot of places for activities (which I'm not doing). It's all about unlocking your creativity and releasing anxiety about making new things, which isn't something I need specifically but I think it'll be good for Matt to look at after I go back to work on Tuesday. I told him I'd finish reading it and then hand it over for him to actually mark up as he does the activities. I started reading Wayward Son last night and got a few chapters in, but I'm going to put it off so I can finish this as quickly as possible.

I came across this video last week of Jake Gyllenhaal as a guest on Live From Here, where he performs part of a monologue from the play he's currently in, Sea Wall/A Life.

Um...It's kind of amazing?

It's about ten minutes and I'll warn you in advance that it definitely ends abruptly -- not the video, his speech. I'll put content warnings below just in case. The monologue is so well written, and Jake performs it so seamlessly that it almost takes you a moment to realize he's not talking about himself, or not planning to introduce the piece. He just launches in. And the conversationality to the writing is *chef kiss* wonderful. Highly recommend.

Content warnings: birth, illness/death of a parent.

"Jake Gyllenhaal performs an excerpt from Sea Wall / A Life | Live from Here with Chris Thile" (Watch on YouTube)

In the realm of watching things with uncomfortable content I also watched the new series on Netflix, Unbelievable. It is a hard watch, especially that first episode. If you're unfamiliar, the show is based on a true story of the capture of a serial rapist. And in tandem to his capture, is the story of the first person to report him, but who walked back her statement due to treatment by the police. It's done in such a way that is purposefully highlighting the mistreatment of these cases without at all focusing on the acts themselves. There is no slow pan of a woman's body, there's no lingering on graphic imagery. We get a few short spotty memories from the first person, but they're a second or two at the most.

The main focus is on the two female detectives that treated cases that happened later with more proper due process and who joined their two separate cases into one task force to bring the bad guy down. I'm a big fan of Toni Colette, so I was going to watch this eventually, but I started to see really good reviews from friends as they got past that first difficult episode. I can't say that like... I enjoyed it as a series, but I think it was a really good, dramatic piece of television. The subject matter was well-handled and all the actors involved were great to watch.

Currently, I'm watching another Netflix series, Another Life. It's a future sci-fi with Katee Sackoff as the captain aboard a vessel sent into space to make contact with an alien force that's landed some artifact on Earth. It's a bit of all the space tropes shoved into a small crew but I'm enjoying it so far. I'm not a huge Katee Sackoff fan, but I do really like Selma Blair. She plays this huge reporter on Earth who worms her way into the investigation of the artifact. Matt's watched a few episodes with me and the main plot is moving slowly enough that he's able to keep track of it's progress even if he's not around for an episode.

When I'm not watching this, I'm rewatching The Good Place with Matt who never saw it the first time around. I'm enjoying him experiencing all the twists, we're into season two now, and after almost every episode he's remarking on what a good show it is. Which yeah, dude, it is. lol

I mentioned in my previous post that I've already watched all of Glow season 3 and Mindhunter season 2 in the time I've been home recovering. I don't have too much to say about either, other than that I really liked them both. I thought they were strong additions, although I'll admit that the choice for Mindhunter to more closely follow a single case for the majority of the season, leaving off a lot of the interviews like they did in the first season made it a little of a slower watch (for me) but I still enjoyed it. I'm also still getting a kick out of the small injects their doing of BTK, given the time period, and the link to the research that they're doing as they season progresses. I also like that they're picking cases that don't have these clear cut answers, so you get to see the application of their research and procedures, but that especially due to the time, there's no good way to have all the answers.

I've also caught up on a few movies that I hadn't been able to watch last year. I've seen Aquaman -- which I quite enjoyed. I really liked Jason Momoa's take on the character and despite the uncanny valley that is Amber Heard's wig throughout the movie, I liked it. I think DC does such a better job when they lay back from the super angsty hero take and have a bit of fun with the characters, it's certainly resulting in movies like Wonder Woman and Aquaman which are infinitely more fun to watch than Batman vs. Superman was.

I watched The Favourite, which I found... both interesting if a little boring. It was slower paced than I would've liked and without a satisfying ending. But I can see why it got such high praise for the acting and costumes because it was a beautiful watch with compelling characters. I don't know as much as I would like about Queen Anne's reign, but for what it was, it was enjoyable.

I've also just finished watching First Man, which while I finished it, I found boring af. Damien Chazelle managed to make Ryan Gosling a snooze to watch, and I get that's in part due to his role as Neil Armstrong. Of all the astronauts, Neil was not the interesting one, he was just the most reliable one. So centering the movie around him, makes it slow and disconnected and ...boring. I know not every movie about the beginning of the space program isn't going to be as exciting or as good as THe Right Stuff, or as compelling as Hidden Figures, but I'm not surprised at all this movie did so poorly in the theater. Mostly I kept it on as background noise tonight, so I don't feel like I wasted time specifically, but I'm glad I didn't actually spend money trying to see this in the theater. As an aside, I know a lot of people enjoy Claire Foy as an actress, I've only watched her in one thing before this and I can say that neither that or this has sold me on her. I really dislike her affected American accent in this but given how flat Ryan Gosling is playing Neil Armstrong, I'm willing to blame my dislike of her in this on the director/direction they had.

On my dad's recommendation during his own recent hospital stay, I picked up watching the show Black Summer on Netflix. From what he told me, it was an interesting and kind of scary, but low budget zombie show. Knowing it was low budget going in has helped me kind of keep my expectations low, but I'm about halfway through the first (and currently only) season so far and it's hard to keep with it. For one, I don't find any of the characters particularly compelling and for two, I really don't understand the sort of chapter-esque title breaks every few scenes. It makes it play out slower, especially when after the title break you continue following the same character/story line. Like I'm not sure what purpose they serve other than to slow down the action, which is NOT what I want in a zombie show. I know it's based on Z Nation, which I haven't watched or read, so I don't know if that's an aspect that's carried over from that or not.

Yesterday I finally picked up my copy of The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited graphic novel. It's a pretty quick read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it (as I expected I would). I love Carey Pietsch's artwork for these books and I like the way they've chosen to insert Griffin's GM asides. It definitely feels accurate to the podcast.

Today, I picked up Final Fantasy XV and started playing it for the first time since I got it for Christmas like two years ago. It's different that the Final Fantasy games I'm so used to, but I do like the way combat has changed. The story feels a little underwhelming, but what FF game doesn't leave something to be desired in the plot, really. It's a fun way to pass time, but I'm trying not to get too wrapped up in it for hours and hours at a time. I'm having to learn how to manage my time, especially since I get worn out so easily right now and I don't want to spend it all on video games. I might pick up another game at some point, a friend has been encouraging to pick up Hollow Knight and from what I've seen of that, it might be nice to have something that's kind of level based instead of open world to switch out with every day.

I've finished binging the first season of Sharp Objects on HBO, which I finally got into since I got my HBO subscription back for watching GoT. I don't have a way to describe exactly what I feel about that show other than to say it is extremely my shit.

I will say, I had the twist pegged in the first episode almost as soon as that character was on screen. I didn't know anything about the show going in other than people talked a lot about it when it first aired. Even having caught on fast, I was sold on the story and interested in the slow play towards that reveal.

The kind of women portrayed in this show and other shows like this are just so much my jam for reasons I can't quite explain. I've also really been thinking about the types of women I want to write, and how to write them, how to make them interesting and engaging and still write them true to character. This show is like a master class in characters I want to write.

Has anyone else watched Sharp Objects?

I just finished the new Netflix series Russian Doll (it's short, 8 episodes at ~30 min each) and I have thoughts but it's late and I don't know how to put them together. So like placeholder here for thoughts when I have them better formed maybe? I mean the only thought I have is how much I fucking love Natasha Lyonne, but that's not specific to this show, thought I am really happy to see her as a lead in something like this.

Has anyone else seen it? Have thoughts?

Feel free to put spoilers in the comments, just mark them as such so we can talk about it.