#mahjong playing lesbians

[thehours2002]

not to be a downer, but i am bothered by the fact that all of these lines supposedly confirming her queerness are phrased in such a way that if you are firmly enough entrenched in heteronormativity that you would not necessarily put together that she's a lesbian. even her use of the word "straight" here could be interpreted as "candid" or "direct."

my mom, for example, a straight woman who always does stuff on her ipad while watching television and would've missed the "almost kiss" (which was still. again. elliptical.) because she was playing mahjong probably would not have picked up on this.

maybe there will be a lesbian kiss in the last episode but it's deeply off putting to me that this was all orchestrated to create plausible deniability about her lesbianism for as long as possible

[manonamora-if-reviews]

New Year's Eve, 2019 by Autumn Chen

============= Links

Play the game See other reviews of the game See other games by Autumn or follow @cyberpunklesbian

============= Synopsis

Social gatherings are not your preferred activity. But this one is obligatory, and it threatens to ruin you. You are Karen Zhao, a senior in college who is home for winter break, and seeing your old high school friends for the first time in years. You are not ready, not even close, but perhaps you could make the best of it. Two endings, many paths to arrive there.

============= Other Info

New Year's Eve, 2019 is a Dendry* game, submitted to the 2022 Edition of the SpringThing. This game is a sequel to Pageant (review). *Autumn is also an unofficial maintainer of the Dendry format.

Status: Completed Genre: Dating-sim, Slice-of-life, LGBT

CW: social anxiety, panic attacks, depression, family conflict

============= Playthrough

First Played: June-2022 Last Played: 31-May-2023 Playtime: around 1h (1 full playthrough - 1 half-assed) Rating: 4 /5 Thoughts: A science-type forgets how to human, has a panic attack at a party. May or may not be fine at the end.

============= Review

Jumping a few years into the future of Pageant, Karen Zhao comes back, more anxious than ever, for a short evening, celebrating the turn of a new year*. Stuck in a house out of social obligation, Karen has the option to interact with a cast of familiar faces, go down memory lane, or hide from everyone as best she can to avoid starting a panic attack before the clock strikes twelve. How ever will she cope????? *and what 2020 brings... rolling eyes

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

The one thing that I love about Autumn's games is how real the characters and their interactions feel. NYE19 is no different, continuing on the tradition of anxiety-inducing situation and self-deprecating humour bordering on self-loathing. But unlike its predecessor, Pageant, NYE19's tone translated less as slice-of-life-of-a-stressed-teenager-trying-to-make-it-through-the-semester-oh-god-is-she-having-a-panic-attack-again-just-kiss-her-you-dummy and more of this-is-what-a-college-student-forced-to-come-home-for-the-holidays-special-sitcom-epidose-feels-like. From the really awkward meetings with your old high-school friends (or did you date them? or were they crushes?), to the adults hounding you with questions about your future, or your family wanting to uphold a certain image around people. It's a party we've all been to, it's the kind we wish we didn't have to stay...

And Karen, our favourite anxious lesbian, does too. From the start, she warns the player she does not want to be here, really does not find having to engage in small talk (especially with people she's lost touch with), and actually wishes being anywhere but at this party. It is awkward to interact with people you knew (or more than knew) some years prior but with who you have lost contact (life...), finding how they have (not) changed, and how they've been fairing compared to you.

During the span of an evening, you meet (again) Emily, a trans woman (out of the closet then?) who helped you in Pageant to win (kinda) said pageant; Miri, your best-friend, who tagged along for the party because she did not want to be at her family's party* and became the social butterfly you could not be; and Aubrey, your high-school rival, who seems to still be doing just as well with her Harvard education, her Harvard boyfriend**, her probably-perfect-looking Harvard life... You also get to roam around the party daydreaming nihilisticly about the state of the world, hide in the basement to watch a MCU movie and be cringe to your brother, stuff yourself with food*** to temper with your imminent anxiety attack, play some mahjong and lose badly, hide in the bathroom and take selfies sending your into some self-loathing, play some games on your phone****... *the reason is pretty unclear, even with the option of confronting her. **who the fuck brings up the election topic on a New Year's party?!?!?! The gall of that man... ***which of course, I did... ****that one is hella meta, since you can play IF games AND a Pageant-like dating-sim

Whatever you do (especially your interactions), you are constantly reminded of your shortcomings from the past and how you let your anxiety cause the dwindling of your relationships. Your past haunts your every move and your every thoughts, and being in the presence of people from your past makes it all the worse for your mental being.

Half-way through the game, you sit down to have some dinner, forced at the kids-but-not-really-kids table where all your (former?) friends are interacting. It is very awkward, with Aubrey forcing everyone to introduce themselves as if they were having some sort of team-building meeting, her boyfriend forgetting about the No-No-Conversations (Politics-Religions...)... You can choose to participate in the conversation, eat, or listen, but no matter what happens, you will leave the table before the meal/conversation is over, leaving the party as well to go for a walk.

This is where things get interesting. Emily asks whether she can come along, and agreeing or not will give you very different outcomes. The latter will find you wallowing about your loneliness and how devoid of human connections your life is (much due to your own actions), while the former has a more hopeful and levelheaded conversation (leading possibly to a relationship...). With each still, and throughout the whole game, Karen goes on an introspection about the seemingly importance of human interaction, how easy it is to fuck up things, and the transactionality of relationships, all wrapped in a nihilistic and fatalistic bow (everything goes wrong, even if you do the right things).

Even if this sounds all depressing, it strangely is not. I found myself giggle at some passages*. The dry self-deprecating humour is honestly hilarious (especially the Narrator's comments). At any moment, I was expecting a laughing track to cue. Or maybe I was just playing this with a strange mood... * You have committed CRINGE. Kevin may not remember this, but you will. don't worry, game, I will remember...

The game is also very meta about what it is trying to convey. From playing a dating-sim game within an essentially dating-sim game, to the commentary on human interactions being comparable to dating-sims in the optimisation of [emotions/variables] to get the best possible outcome through a sequence of actions we hope is the correct one while we play a dating-sim where the sequence of choices can be optimised to get that "good ending", the story and the gameplay play quite interestingly on each other to get those points across.

Still, unlike other works from Autumn, while I enjoyed myself playing it, it didn't have the same impact on me. I didn't click as much with it as her other games, and felt a bit unsatisfactory? by the end of the playthroughs. The game has some strong moments, especially the part outside of the house, and some funny moments during the roaming around before dinner/before the countdown, but at other moments, it felt hollow. Maybe it is because of your limited agency in the way you interact with others or act, since Karen is an anxious and socially awkward person who has a hard time expressing her feelings and thoughts. Maybe it is because some of the characters you interact with and the way you defined your previous relationships don't feel as fleshed out (Miri and Aubrey comes to mind*, especially compared to Pageant or even Emily). Or maybe it is Karen's blasé look on dwindling and lost relationships that ticked me** that only allows her to have superficial contact with people (aside from Emily). Or maybe it is the more fragmented type of different gameplay/mechanics that didn't work as well as the Storylet format of Pageant***, or the more linear work of GG and the war. Or maybe because the end was a bit too abrupt... *I was wondering if you could choose to have had a relationship with either of those as in Pageant, but you can only with Emily **was it because the game called me out of doing the same as Karen did to some friends from school? Who knows... ***yes, it's bad to compare games that are inherently different...

There is a wonderful sentence from the post-mortem that really encapsulate the vibe of this game, and strangely reminds us of the hope Karen feels just before returning to the party... and this is where I will be ending this review: The past is inescapable, but the future is not entirely determinate.

There is still time...

Some loose points:

Dendry has some really interesting customisations, from the addition of backgrounds to extra assets in form of character portraits, putting the game in a strange text-only choice-based/visual novel limbo.

The conversation bits, especially the dinner between the gals, have such BPH vibes, which is not surprising, since his work is mentioned in the influence for this game. (with the character portraits style and the formatting of the dialogue with the colours (though the grey for Emily was a bit hard to read).

I really liked the inclusion of the Chinese characters in the dialogues in Chinese. This was only included on the first few lines in Pageant (continuing only in italics), but this really helped distinguished better the conversations in English and the ones in Chinese.

As with Pageant, some choices are worded in a way to form a full sentence or complete a thread of thoughts. I liked that.

[ayearwithoutwater]

Eighteen.

When I lived in the East Village, I shared an apartment with Yin, my then-best friend, who I'd known since our freshman year in college. We had attended the same program within our university—an interdisciplinary curriculum with an emphasis on individualized education—and virtually came of age together.

We met at a small party during spring break of 2012, but didn't hit it off right away. I remember finding her to be reserved, quiet and less easily amiable as her other Hong Kong friend, who was also in attendance. But, repeated hangouts did the trick, as we were all newcomers to New York without any local anchors, and I soon found myself spending all of my time with her. In Yin, I found a kindred spirit, familiarly foreign because we were ethnically and homosexually similar yet of different varieties: I was a gay boy from Los Angeles; she was a lesbian from Hong Kong.

I was deeply fascinated by her. She was my introduction to Grimes and Beach House and all the music that I'd never before heard, and she always knew what to order at the Japanese restaurants we began to frequent. She was rebelliously independent, whether attending underground concerts somewhere out in Brooklyn or reading philosophers (Freud was her favorite) and modern culture critics that laid out all the possible ways that the world not just was, but could be. Of all my peers, she was the one who had the most formidable impact on my intellectual development, introducing me to Judith Butler and Jasbir Puar before even my professors did. To me, she was effortlessly cool.

I think I was annoying. Part of why I chose to attend college in New York was that I wanted to escape my parents, and the core of that logic is that I wanted a chance to find out who I was without external controls. Practicing independence meant living without having parental figures nearby to whom I could run if anything went wrong, and college was a safety net there for me if ever my mistakes led me awry. Still, I felt the weight of my choices, and I desperately craved that gravity because I wanted to grow up a little bit faster, because I'd spent my teenage years in a bubble of a suburb of Los Angeles, where I was incubated for college acceptances and nothing else. Attending a magnet high school resulted in me feeling anything but normal, and I knew that I needed to be properly socialized. I think I was annoying because I'd spent six years of my life in a school where it felt like all we were allowed to care about was studying hard and getting good grades—which are, yes, important, but still I felt stifled, surrounded by all the academic excellence and geniuses against whom I didn't match up. Thus, when I met Yin, I was still trying to figure out how to behave.

She was my best friend. I didn't make any decisions without first consulting her. I imagined that that was how normal people relied upon their siblings; I imagined that she was sort of my (dizygotic) twin. Within the same year that we'd met, it was in her kitchen where I was sat when I began the fraught, tentative negotiations that precipitate first-time dating as I was wooed by the man who would become my very first boyfriend. (She advised me on my every response; my then-boyfriend later told me he'd wondered, as my messages lagged, "Why is he taking so long to reply?") We purchased cheap Rieslings and spirits, mixed bad homemade sangria, and spent night after night playing mahjong and billiards together.

Through Yin, I became acquainted with Hong Kong. She and her friends regaled me with stories from their times as students at a girls' school, growing up in one of the world's densest metropolises. Over winter break, I accompanied them back to their city, which I came to see through their eyes. (For the briefest of moments, I was a neighbor of Jackie Chan.) With them, I ate true Cantonese-style dim sum, I scaled Victoria Peak, and I marveled at the efficiencies of their subway compared to New York's. I'd technically traveled the world with her, and that made me trust her all the more.

Yin was one of the few people I relied upon during my first breakup. Though our friendship had lulled around that time, we reconnected over my loss, the end of the relationship that she'd helped me to foster. Though I didn't know how to process such a loss, she dragged me out of my stupor and forced me to interact with the world, to continue on with life; the precedents she set for me during that first breakup have since become weighty and constitutive.

I think that I trusted her so much because our formative experiences were so intertwined. After she moved out of the dormitories into her own apartment, I spent all of my free time there. I knew all her doormen; I would walk in without having to announce myself, and I'd irritate her to no end by commandeering the aux cord to her stereo system so that I could play Carly Rae Jepsen songs on repeat. I would pick through her jewelry until I found the thick silver band that I always borrowed. (After our separation, I would later take myself up to the Diamond District, where I purchased one in tribute to hers that I now customarily wear exclusively on my fourth finger.) Where she was laconic, I was loquacious, and every Thursday evening after class I invited myself over just to invite her outside. She would say that she wanted to stay in, but within the hour we'd find ourselves doing pickleback shots until we had enough liquid courage to venture out to the West Village.

The West Village was where we spent most of our free nights for two reasons: proximity and queerness. It was our entry point to another world, one that compulsory heterosexuality did not dominate, and crossing Sixth Avenue those evenings felt like entering another dimension through a nondescript portal unnoticed by most. I always accompanied her to the Hot Rabbit parties at Monster at the end of each week, and I always made her accompany me to the drag shows at Boots & Saddle where we knew Yuhua Hamasaki (pre-RuPaul's Drag Race) performed. (A decade later, Yuhua was hired by my company to give a talk on diversity, and I afterwards went up to her to reminisce about the days in which Yuhua and Yin would amiably cuss at each other in Cantonese almost every week.) I would go to Cubbyhole and Henrietta Hudson with her, where I imagined she'd meet some hot lesbian and where I invariably was the one doing the hooking up, tipsily making out with a cute bisexual Latvian man who claimed to walk Mariah Carey's dogs on one such occasion (Facebook later informed me that he's since happily become a father with a woman).

When we graduated, I sat next to her in the stands at Yankee Stadium. After the graduation ceremony, it seemed as though everyone else already had plans or places to be; she and I stood awkwardly outside the stadium with our parents before we ultimately decided to take the 4 train back down to a restaurant in Chinatown. Our parents quarreled in good nature over who had the honor of paying the dinner bill; I think my mom allowed herself to lose. I think my mom thought she was my girlfriend, a notion I did no work to dispel because I hadn't yet come out to my parents.

In 2015, the lease on my Lower East Side apartment lapsed, and we decided to move in together. I would later come to view that year as one of my happiest, despite it being the year where it all went wrong.

We found a newly remodeled two-bedroom apartment on 7th Street, and I negotiated down the rent by a whopping fifty dollars per month for us. We hosted our first Friendsgiving, and my second boyfriend cooked a turkey. Indeed, between him virtually living with us and her other best friend, a photographer who'd also gone to college with us, being a constant presence, it felt like we had established our own happy family. I was there when she came out to her brother, whose response—"Now we both have something in common!"—I still remember because it cracked us up, because we were each nursing pints of beer at a Japanese gastropub, because we wondered whether he was gay too. ("We both like girls," he'd finished his sentence, after an agonizingly long pause.)

I'm choosing to gloss over our falling out because I don't like to remember it. I don't like to remember the icing each other out, the acrimonious text messages, and what I did in the fallout of losing my best friend. I felt betrayed, so I in turn betrayed her, and it's a chasm that will never be bridged.

In the years since, I've never met anyone that could so capably encapsulate in one person all that she was to me. It's entirely reasonable that I haven't, that I won't—if every individual is a universe, the void she left in my life was bigger than any that could be engendered by even a supermassive black hole. There have been people who have taken up the burden of shouldering bits and pieces of the weight she carried, but that only illustrates the point all the more: no one could, would, should replace her. She was one of my everythings, and now I'm one everything short.

Yin had been with me through my first two successive boyfriends. She'd seen my evolution from an awkward teenager to a self-assured young adult; indeed, she was disproportionately responsible for it. As I later processed my worst breakup ever during my year without water, I wondered to my therapist whether her disappearance was my original loss, the big one from which all my later grief stemmed, and whether my lack of having processed that loss was contributing to my continued state of emotional decline. I'd never properly mourned her, you see. When she left my life, I obstinately remained angry until my anger no longer mattered, and when that finally happened my life became preoccupied with other matters. I never had the time to grieve. As I missed the ex-boyfriend who'd so willingly and determinedly walked out of my life, so too did I find myself missing her.

Wherever she is now, I hope she's happy. I'm sorry for the way things ended between us, and I do wish they had never taken place, and I wonder what restitutions could even be made now, when it all is no longer significant. I've since chosen to interpret her parting as her final, ultimate life lesson for me: to not take anyone for granted, to not let a relationship get so bad that it becomes beyond repair, and to let my loved ones know, over and over, that they are loved. It is a weight that I, myself, will forever shoulder.

[cripplerage]

An update on my journey playing Yakuza for the first time:

0: Finished the story on easy mode. It felt a bit stretched out but mostly satisfying... the ending made me cry a bit. I'm sort of attempting to 100% it, since I'm playing Kiwami with my partner and can't play when he's not around.

I'm at about 70% on the completion list... if I want all the PlayStation trophies, I'd have to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. I probably couldn't do that. Also I'm terrible at pool and batting so I might not finish all of the achievements anyway.

The cat fights piss me off SO MUCH, it looks so stupid and I never win!!!!

Recently I maxed out all of the cabaret club achievements, and I've done about half the mahjong ones. I did not know how to play mahjong at all before this week... now I've spent about 8 hours playing it (with several guides and tutorials open) and I still don't think I know. I'll probably try to learn shogi next.

Kiwami: Wow, what a downgrade in quality! I'm very sad. The story felt like it could have been different but the execution made it feel IDENTICAL to 0, and not in a clever way. It just feels lazy.

Also, at least in 0 Majima spent SOME bonding time with the girl he needed to protect. It made us connect to her more as a character. But in Kiwami it felt like the girl was a prop - extort exposition, transfer her places, and the ONE TIME we could have had bonding time we had to profit from her with gambling instead.

I'm confused as to how the fuck Majima changed so much inbetween games... his character arc just doesn't make sense to me. I could see 'being tortured for an entire year' being an appropriate origin story to acting like the joker, but he seemed fine from that! In my opinion nothing from 0 would explain it. I waited for the story to see what I thought about Nishikiyama's arc and it's a bit more understandable, but I don't think the cutscenes did a good job at showing us that transition. I really liked 0 as a stand alone, but so far it mostly seems very irrelevant to the rest of the games, despite the references.

The only side content that seemed at all worth doing was befriending the hostesses - it was pretty fun befriending the lesbian one especially. It probably wasn't 10/10 representation, but it was fun! I'm not sure if she's from the original game or not, it would be pretty cool if she was. Once we realised the rest of the game kinda sucked though, I gave up on completing the other hostess/es. Our current goal is to finish the story as quickly as possible so we can move onto 2.

So far nearly all the side stories seem to be 'someone tries to scam Kiryuu. Combat ensues.' It's very boring.

Majima is very funny now but sadly, his fights got old very quickly.

We have about 3 chapters left of Kiwami, hopefully we'll finish it tomorrow! Apparently 2 is one of the best ones, so I'm excited.

No spoilers please! I'm going into this series nearly entirely blind :)

[moonshine-gravy]

This anime deserves more attention than it gets

[callgespenst]

Back at it again!

Formerly call-gespenst, tbkultracombo, captain-harlock-confessions, and probably a few other stupid urls I'm forgetting about.

The short version: I dipped out on tumblr when a lot of other people did, and now that Twitter is spiraling, spiraling down, it feels like a good time to try this again.

The long version:

Back during the Great Tumblr Exodus of...2018? I was barely using tumblr at the time to begin with, and my old blog had A Lot of old content from people I'm really, really glad are no longer in my life. But I've definitely been feeling like I could use a good old fashioned blog again. Keeping things organized and visible on twitter is at best a nightmare, and I have a lot of creative projects I've been putting off for anywhere from a few weeks to several years that I want to finish off and document.

If any old friends that have stuck it out here for the last few years are reading this (here's hoping!) it's good to see you again. I'm doing objectively pretty well. I'm married and own a house and have two very sweet cats that some lesbian cat whisperer friends of mine found at a motel. We've got a big tv with surround sound we use to watch all our anime, a basement big enough for an airbrush booth and a sewing area, and once a week I go out with the lads and play mahjong. Life is pretty good, and I hope you're all doing good too.

Anyway, knock on wood, but at this point I think tumblr is the social media equivalent of a cockroach and unless the servers all explode at once, it's probably going to stick around. So I'm hoping I do too.

[lesbian-helen-gansey]

books I read in June & July

This is late because I’ve been on a self-imposed social media hiatus for the past few weeks! I’m technically still not back, I just got on to post this. My weeks being semi-offline have been relatively uneventful. I have watched pretty much every Netflix documentary I’m even remotely interested in and have regressed to listening to the podcasts I used to listen to in high school. I’ve completed a few sudokus and gotten stuck and quit a ton of sudokus. I’ve mostly been using my concerta to play mahjong tiles on my laptop with a laser focus. Staying off all social media entirely has so far been the only effective way of preventing me from doom scrolling, and it seems (at least from my daily listen of NPR up first) that there remains of plethora of things to doom scroll about, so I am going to try to wait a little longer before returning. The enchanting lure of Tumblr does call me tho. To quote John Milton "God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?”

The Harbor by Katrine Engberg (4/5)

This is a crime novel that takes place in Copenhagen about detectives searching for a missing child. I think that it’s actually the third book in a series about this team of police officers, but it made sense as a stand alone having not read the others. It was pretty slow, and hard to get into, but I did end up really liking it. It was hard to get into it, but once I was in it, I was really in it. I read a lot of thrillers, and I find many of them to be sort of absurd in an attempt to be clever. I concede that it’s hard to think of an ending that is both surprising and satisfying, but I still think many of the current authors don’t do a particularly good job with the task. This one, however, built to a really interesting ending. It was both well-foreshadowed and sufficiently surprising.  I think I just dislike how a lot of thrillers and crime dramas build to something that is an almost absurdly dramatic climax in an attempt to, I don’t know, shock the reader or raise the stakes, and I really appreciated that this wasn’t that. I’ll probably read the others in the series. (adult fiction)

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (5/5)

I liked this a surprising amount. I’ve grown sort of jaded with the personal essay scene, so I was a little skeptical about how much I would like a book of essays from a New Yorker writer, but I have really liked the Jia Tolentino essays I’ve read online, so I decided to read it, and I loved it. I find it difficult to find thoughtful, and nuanced essays about feminism, but these essays were really interesting. The kind of essays that are willing to hold a lot of things in their hands and aren’t interested in driving home some argument but rather examining thoughts. “Always be Optimizing” is one of my favorite essays from the book, and it just has such interesting thoughts about the influence of capitalism on feminism. I found Tolentino to be really self-aware and begrudgingly lovable. Almost against my wishes, I left this book really loving Jia Tolentino. (Before reading this, I had found her instagram incredibly annoying bc I am a judgmental person, but now I’m entirely endeared. Too bad I’m not on instagram anymore to see her photos.) (creative nonfiction)

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (5/5)

This book is like, gay gay. I thought people were calling this book “lesbian vampires” like it had gay subtext 21st century readers were reading into. But no. Gay for real. Gayer than gay romances published today. Gonna have portions of it as the selected readings for my wedding one day. They probably won’t let me get married in a church if I do, but worth it. If you can’t get enough of Lucy and Mina in your inbox, this is for you. (adult fiction)

Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown (4/5)

Brene Brown Stans rise. This book basically defines and categorizes a bunch of emotions to help us better understand what we’re feeling, which Brown says helps us process our experiences. This wasn’t a favorite of mine by her, mostly because it’s a little more of a reference book, but I still ended up with a bunch of hastily typed notes in my notes app of things I need to remember from it. (nonfiction)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (5/5)

This book is so fucking good. You have to read this book. I think it’s probably best to go into it with as little info as possible. It’s hard to describe without giving away things that make it exciting. When my best friend recommended it to me, she described it as if Madeline Miller wrote a psychological thriller. She all but forced my other friend and I to read it, and subsequently all three of us have been evangelizing about it. We’ve all but started some sort of mlm of our own personal downlines spreading the word about Piraniesi. I’m currently making my therapist read it. This book made me say “holy shit” and “oh my god” out loud as I was reading. (adult fiction)

How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell (3/5)

This was a little too conceptual and philosophical for me. But the author does love birds as much as I do, which I loved. (Also I recently discovered that there are apps that basically let you Shazam bird calls. This is one of the greatest discoveries of my life. I’ll never be bored again. I’ll be outside shazaming the Sparrow songs.) The book is basically about pushing back against the capitalistic urge to always be productive and instead to really engage in the world around you, which I have, subsequently, been trying to do more of. I’ve been spending a lot more time than usual almost moved to tears by how many different shades of green trees are. One of my favorite things is when the leaves blow in the wind, and you can see the undersides have a whiter color, and the contrast between the tops and bottoms of the leaves blowing looks so dynamic. (nonfiction)

Nice Girls by Catherine Dang (3/5)

Speaking of thrillers with over the top endings. I was actually pretty into this book until the end. I think I had to stop and roll my eyes more than once during the climax. It seemed like it was building to something interesting, and then, at the big reveal, the author took like, the least interesting route, which was disappointing. I don’t know, it was fine. I don’t know why I keep reading like, the women’s thriller genre when I always feel meh about them. (adult fiction) 

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie (4/5)

Not my very favorite Christie, but I still liked it. I did find it a little difficult to keep up with who all the characters were, but that’s par for the course for me with Christie lol. I wish I had more to say about it, but I really don’t. Poirot meets a young women who has had several attempts on her life, and he interjects himself to try to save her. Maybe one day Poirot will go on vacation without getting mixed up in a murder, the poor guy. He can’t go anywhere. (adult fiction)

Feminism is For Everybody by bell hooks (5/5)

Everything about feminism that I read from bell hooks I’m just like, yes. Fucking yes. She gets it. I think (hope) everyone is finally realizing the extent to which the modern feminist movement is slightly spineless and had been eaten away at by capitalism, and this book is like, back to basics. It’s time to end lifestyle feminism. (nonfiction)

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (5/5)

I loved this one. A man is murdered in his study and a local doctor helps Poirot, who recently moved to the town, solve the mystery. Super clever, couldn’t put it down. I don’t ever expect that I’m going to solve Christie’s mysteries, but I felt truly had by this one, in the best way possible. She got me good. (adult fiction)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (5/5)

Honesty, Pride and Prejudice is a page turner. Having seen the movie a lot combined with Austen’s writing style, I knew I would like it, but I didn’t expect to like, can’t-put-it-down-love-it, but I totally did. I could not stop reading it, and the whole time I was like, girl you know Pride and Prejudice how are you on the edge of your seat about this, but it was so good. Austen knows how to write a romance. She perfected the craft in 1813. (It also got me back into the Lizzie Bennet Diaries which is somehow still super fun all these years later). (adult fiction)

Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke (3/5)

Told through the lens of her patient’s stories of addiction, a psychiatrist writes about how modern society’s easy access to dopamine is actually making us more unhappy. A lot of the book focuses on how we are able to get high dopamine rewards very easily from things like social media without any of the effort it would usually take to get a dopamine reward, and this is skewing our ability to find happiness in more mundane things. There were definitely parts of this book that I thought were super interesting and important and have encouraged me to spend more time without any sort of distraction and to not be so pain and boredom averse. That being said, the book really lost me in the last half. I feel like it kind of goes off in a different direction that feels less relevant. (nonfiction)

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentil (4/5)

A meta-feeling mystery about a writer writing a book about a writer who is in the Boston Public Library when a woman is found dead. She and the group of people she meets while they get wrapped into trying to solve the mystery. I really liked the story within the story and the connection between the fictional author and the mystery. I don’t think it actually meets the definition of a cozy mystery, but it felt more like that than a sort of traditional mystery or thriller. I found the main character slightly annoying, but it didn’t bother me all that much. (adult fiction)

Running with Lions by Julian Winter (3/5)

This was a cute book. It’s a ya romance about two boys on a soccer team who reconnect at their team’s summer practice camp. It was a little young for me, which is why I didn’t love it. If I had read it at like, fifteen I probably would have been a lot more invested in it. It was cute though. I just, don’t really connect with a character worried about graduating high school anymore. It’s a little harder to get into. (ya fiction)

Rush by Lisa Patton (3/5)

This book is about girls and their moms going through sorority rush at the university of Mississippi, which is an incredible concept. Sorority rush is fascinating, and dramatic, and cutthroat. However, this book, especially the second half, stops being about the drama of rush and starts being “white girls discover racism and then decide to fix it.” They do fix, by the end of the book. Don’t worry, the white girls do solve racism. The parts of this book that were about rush were great, the parts that attempted to be about race were just, borderline painful. I think this is probably what would have passed for a “brave” book about race in like, 2011. Except it was written in 2018. (adult fiction)

[teaboot]

So my boomer 2nd cousin has been semi disowned since 2016 for voting a certain way, it was the last straw for most of us including her own mother. I say semi as some of the family still speaks to her. I was at a wedding where she was invited and she decided to start up a conversation with me, the disabled lesbian cousin, about how my pills are what make me sick and gay. I stg I almost launched over a buffet table to beat her with a ladle. Any tips on not killing her?

I too have similar issues, and deal with them in one of three ways:

First, I remind myself of a time when I too had similarly ignorant beliefs fuelled by flawed reasoning and a lack of personal experience. I remind myself of the experiences that corrected my ignorance, and do my best to gently replicate those circumstances with the individual- I listen to their concerns and carefully steer them into questioning why and how they came to these conclusions. 

I do this got two reasons: firstly because they will naturally resist any outside idea that conflicts with their image of themselves or the world around them, and secondly because any answer they come up with for themselves will always be more powerful than an answer said to their face. 

If you want to teach a dog to sit, you don't yell at him to sit until he gets it right- you manipulate his circumstances so that he decides to himself.

Option two: I accept that this relative is simply one of many people on this earth who just generally sucks, and resolve myself to putting up with their incoherent, intolerant ramblings as I would the anxious, frantic shouting of a coked-out businessman riding the subway at 9 PM on a Wednesday. Am I uncomfortable? Am I concerned? Am I worried for his wellbeing and the health of his social circle? All yes. Am I fully equipped, able, willing and responsible to personally take him under my wing? Unfortunately less so. It would also be in poor taste to punch him into silence, and so I sit, playing Mahjong on my phone.

Option three: Relentless Mockery. 'Yeah dad, the atmosphere isn't real. Neither are lakes, birds, or 38% of your highschool graduating class. What, you're gonna believe what some scientist tells you? They work for the government, genius, they'll tell you whatever they want you to believe. You think Australia is a thing? It's a cover, genius. You ever been to Australia? No? Didn't think so. Hey, look at me, I'm Craig, I believe in global warming and dolphins. God, read a book.'

Relentless Mockery can be practiced both to the subject's face and in private, by your digression. Bonus point in favor of privacy or the close confidence of a friend: from there on, any otherwise shitty future encounter is *magically transformed* into yet another in a long line of ridiculous stories; an event to look forwards to instead of an ordeal to be suffered.

With Option Three™, you too can experience the euphoric high of a close personal friend asking, 'so, any new Aunt Linda stories?', to which you can respond, 

"Oh my god. Okay, so my cousin's funeral was last weekend, right? So I go, and she's there. Not a big deal, except- you know- she *specifically* wasn't invited. So like, I'm in line to go in, and she's right in front of me just *sobbing*. I'm talking snot, tears, the whole nine yards. Going on about she can't believe he's gone, poor Danny, oh, she's going to miss him so much, she was his favourite auntie- and then she starts talking about the time she took him to Disneyland for his birthday. And I haven't heard this one, so I'm just nodding along, but she's saying how she rented a motel and took him to the pool, and how she took him up on the log ride and took pictures with peter pan or some shit- and I'm starting to zone out, right, but then my other cousin cuts in, and he's like, "when was this?" And she was like, "oh, his fifteenth birthday", and HE goes, "you were in Chicago when Dan was fifteen, remember? Your boyfriend invited you out while he was on time off", and she just turns, like, purple. Saying that he must be remembering, that it was definitely then, and she could never forget, but then- get this- AUNT CAROLINE shows up. And she's, like, PISSED. "You never took Daniel anywhere, you haven't been there for his birthday since he was nine years old, what are you talking about?" And I'm just standing there like. Oh My God. Right? And then they're just SCREAMING at each other, right, and that's when the priest walks in, and he just sees them tearing each other apart, and he goes- "ladies, please keep it down, we can hear you in the chapel"- ...and then she turns to HIM. I didn't hear the rest. I just ran. Didn't go back until the wake. They're not talking anymore, though."

Option Three: A Trusted Personal Favorite. 

Then again...... Some people really do need an ass whooping. Not that I'd endorse that. Encouraging violence would be irresponsible. Don't hit your shitty relative with a ladle.

Or just avoid her forever. That works, too. 

IDK. Still working on this one. Anyone else got anything?

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again

by god it sure has been another week!!!

listening fallen straight back into comforting familiar music, here’s bo en’s track Miss You off the EP Pale Machine, find out more at waypoint.zone/boen . this track is like moving through a bunch of different rooms at the chillest pre-party ever. not quite lo-fi beats to study and relax to, but a very chill vibe. 

reading this essay from Roxane Gay about quarantining with her fiance made me tear the fuck up. 

In many ways, distance makes a relationship easy. When your time together is finite, you’re generally on your best behavior. Every night is date night — sexy restaurants, exciting theater, museums, fancy parties, hot dogs at three in the morning from Chelsea Papaya, our favorite lesbian bar and booze in plastic cups and grinding on a tiny dance floor surrounded by people 20 years our junior. You don’t really settle into any ruts because you’re always on the go, go, go. Before any cracks might start to show, you’re apart again and missing each other and hearts are growing fonder. You get quality time together and quality time alone, the best of both worlds.

this is probably obvious to long-time mutuals, but i am someone an old therapist once called “chronically independent”. i am a person who needs a lot of space and alone time. if i ever have a long-term partner i live with, i expect there will be a lot of adjustments necessary to my horrible night-owl bachelor lifestyle. anyway this made me tear the fuck up bc it’s just Nice my god do i hope someday to love someone as much as Roxane Gay loves Debbie Millman, but also bc it’s like hey! they’re making it work! maybe i can make it work someday! frantically clawing for any sense of stability by projecting everything onto a nebulous imaginary future partner is not a healthy coping strategy but it’s what i’ve got today. 

watching dipped my toe into The Midnight Gospel but found it fucking insufferable. is the animation cool, even if it’s very dense and the action gets hard to follow? yes! episode three is about a ship crewed by cats and a fish in a bowl who pilots a robot body, and that’s just fucking fun to watch.

however, this is adapted from a podcast. since moving to central massachusetts, i have identified a broad category of aging white liberals who are really really earnest but also won’t shut the fuck up about their own life experiences, and we tend to irritate the shit out of each other. in a similar vein, the podcast genre of rambling-interview-with-one-person-about-how-they-got-to-where-they-are is not a genre i enjoy (except in very rare instances).

critics have hailed it as the anti rick and morty, and i think that’s an accurate take. i like pendelton ward’s work broadly speaking, and i like when animation takes risks and embraces the strengths of the genre, but this irritated the shit out of me and that’s fine, it’s not for me. chugging along to the next thing, which is probably finally finishing black sails

playing the giant fuckoff itch.io bundle is a touch overwhelming. i have bounced off a lot of things and discovered my laptop refuses to run some things. a real priority for future kay with a job and a safe place to hunker down for the winter and six months of grace on student loans will be acquiring something a little beefier. probably not a full on gaming rig, but i have been looking very covetously at desks that accommodate dual-monitor setups. look at this giant stupid thing. i want it. look at all those Drawers and Compartments.

i have also been playing a lot of mahjong solitare as a way to turn my brain off enough to listen to podcasts but i don’t have anything fun or exciting to say about that. it’s solitaire with mahjong tiles, we all know what it is.

making bought a new qsnap frame. it got lost in the mail. ordered a second frame from a different supplier. started a new thing that’s a glitch remix of the old thing that actually fits in the existing 8x8 frame. profit?

[mysmedrabbles]

RFA + V as Senior Citizens

requested: by anonymous

a/n: this is?? a super cute ask?? totally seems like the sequel to an old MC lmao

warnings: n/a

-young mod alex

Jumin

-distinguished gentleman through and through

-he’s the type of man that ages gracefully, i hc him to look kind of like eugenes dad (for anyone who watches the try guys)

-he’s faithful to his spouse until the day he dies, and provides the best care for his children, especially supporting them no matter what their passions are

-even though physically the age still has taken a toll on him, the crows feet and laugh lines only prove that he’s led a good life

-he doesn’t believe in “old people activities”

-would rather die than play bingo, he does however enjoy the odd game of mahjong, and even the occasional board game, but only when he’s playing with his kids (however he’s ruthless and doesn’t go easy on them)

-he teaches the kids how to play chess

-his sense of fashion never changes, always sporting a crisp suit and his classic striped dress shirt

-he starts collecting italian shoes as a hobby once he reaches 60, and he’s never been so proud of a collection

-resigns as CEO and passes on the company not to his children, but to the most qualified prospect, changing his ideas on nepotism, now wholeheartedly believing in hard work and working your way up

-you can see the change in him post marrying you, as more and more magazines claim he’s gone “soft” in his old age, but in reality he doesn’t fear the public eye and although sometimes he struggles with emotional blocks, with you by his side he can handle anything

Jaehee

-she’s the anime grandma that chases the troublemakin’ young’uns out of her shop with a broom

-very wholesome old lady, she never gives up her cafe, and although Jumin offers to help her expand her business, she refuses, insisting that she wants it to be family owned

-she teaches your guys’ kids and grandkids how to bake, and at first she seems like she has no patience, trying to discipline them, but you catch her smiling at your first grandchild, a 3 year old boy who's hands are covered with flour as he claps vigorously, childish wonder as flour poofs in a magical cloud

-she always continues to love and support zens work and shows, but her interests start to move on once she reaches her late forties

-she had to stop drinking coffee because her blood pressure got dangerously high, so she moves on to drinking tea

-having a little garden in your backyard where the two of you grow different flowers and herbs to make and experiment with new tea leaves

-she’s sweet, but also retains her businesslike formality and becomes a respected member of the World for Women Entrepreneurs Organization, which she puts down as the first members of the RFA party every year

-cute old lesbian couple, going to every pride parade together and holding hands on the street because, even though she may have aged, her judo skills haven't

Yoosung

-sweet old man, the kind that will be there for every single family reunion, holiday, birthday and will spoil the kids rotten

-he buys a rocking chair to put on the porch, first ironically but he’s quick to change his mind, buying another one in order for the two of you to sit outside together, watching from the porch as your kids play in the yard

-he never loses his passion for cooking, and all the neighborhood kids, even if they aren't your own, line up for Grandpa Kims cooking

-the two of you essentially adopt the whole street of kids

-he stops dying his hair blonde, letting the brown grow back in

-he loves telling the story of how the two of you met, to the point where your kids will groan whenever he starts talking

-never really stops playing video games, and of course teaches all your guys’ kids how to play, however he gets extremely disappointed when your youngest chooses books over games (in a joking way)

-he’s the kind elder that might never really have “wisdom” but he’ll always make you feel better if you have a problem

-by the time the two of you reach 70, your house has become a place for stray animals and kids, not wanting anyone to feel the loneliness that he had when he was younger

Seven

-he never really gets past his trauma, although living with it becomes easier

-saeyoung never loses his childish sense of humor and happiness, making his the strangest elder on the block

-he’s the one all the kids want to have ice cream with

-he retires fairly early compared to the rest, saying that he needed time to focus on his family and on his life for once

-he ages well, but makes the biggest deal out of it when his hairline starts receding

-because of stress, his hair starts greying early, and he refuses to leave the bunker for a week straight, you having to coax his dramatic ass out by hiding all the HBC

-has crippling back pain and has to start using a cane by his mid forties. of course, everyone in the rya makes fun of him for it, but he just waves it threateningly at yoosung, laughing along

-takes daily walks with you to the park, over the lake and bridge, around the cherry blossom tree and back home

-he strives to be there for his children and grandchildren, loving and supporting them in a way his parents never did

-continues to play pranks and crack jokes throughout his life

-every wedding anniversary he decorates the bunker like a space station and you dance to every frank sinatra song ever recorded

-on your 60th wedding anniversary you take him to KARI (Korean Aerospace Research Institute) to look around, inspect the models, check calculations and try the zero gravity machine, and he cries

Zen

-does this man age? not necessarily

-he never stops acting, continuing to rise as televisions most popular actor, but in the end he moves back to theatre, where his passion truly lies

-you quit as his manager at some point to go follow your dreams, and he lets you know that he’s with you every step of the way no matter what

-he doesn’t become more humble as he ages, and can often be seen telling his kids about his amazing adventures from when he was younger

-his laugh lines do get incredibly deep, which he struggles with for a while until you finally step up and tell him that all it means is that he lived well, that he had a good time on this godforsaken planet and that he had a few good laughs

-the energy is broken when you poke your finger in his laugh line, giggling to yourself

-he loosens up on the strict diet, letting himself eat more sweets and fatty foods, but his stance on exercising stays the same

-the storyteller of the family, always calling the grandkids out to the backyard to tell them incredible stories of monsters and knights in shining armor and the beautiful princess

-domesticity out the roof

-doesn’t actually officially retire, but leaves the industry while he’s ahead, getting to enjoy his last few decades surrounded by a family he chose to make

-surprisingly he takes up crochet, likes the meticulous design and patience needed for it, even though he has none, its a good way to teach himself to be more patient

-refuses a cane and or walker his whole life and would “never be caught dead in one”

-at some point he lets his hair grow out all the way, not leaving the rat tail, rather just having long hair

-because of his good genes and extreme self care, he doesn’t lose much of his hair, to which he is grateful to. those wrinkles though....

V

- V, starts losing his sight because of age: ah shit here we go again

-he’s kind, the type of senior that will always help someone out, and picks up trash off of the ground

-volunteers at the local garden, helping with the sunflowers in particular

-never stops painting, insisting that he must paint you and any possible children at every stage of yours and their lives

-the trauma of Rikas abuse left him scarred, but he copes with it, going to therapy until the day he eventually dies

-cute old married couple number two, its impossible to go anywhere without hearing “V and his spouse,” the two of you are a package deal, his life would never have been the same without you, and you would never want to be anywhere else except besides him

-as similar of age as you guys may be to the RFA, the two of you absolutely adopt them, and as all your families expand, V makes it his mission to invite everyone Jumin and his spouse, Jaehee with hers etc etc and their respective children and children spouses,, grandchildren,,,

-he doesn’t talk about his past much, but is always willing to listen to the younguns problems and impart his knowledge

-the older he gets, the more sweaters he owns. is also partial to wearing suspenders over said sweaters

-he begins to fall in love with the environment the older he gets, ultimately starting multiple foundations to save the bees, oceans and various endangered species

-becomes a UN ambassador for a good few years, but resigns due to wanting to get back to his family and passions

-after marrying you he becomes quite content with his life, and he doesnt majorly change in any way

[m0k3l]

Man, my sleep schedule is like, super screwed up right now. I've been staying up til like, 4:30am way too much lately. Mostly been playing Mahjong a lot lately. And I mean like the real game not the tile matching game. It's fun and surprisingly simple when you learn the rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #me #selfie #cute #kawaii #transwoman #transsgirl #transgender #transgenderwoman #transisbeautiful #thisiswhattranslookslike #lgbt #lesbian #translesbian #lipstick #blacklipstick #makeup #casual #model #sweater #goth #choker #legs #gothgirl #punk #punkgirl #leggings #boots #curvygirl #transmodel https://www.instagram.com/p/B6Erv8vHZ-o/?igshid=1l4jbtx8lcuwn

[dizzydennis]

Asahinagu - Movie Review

Almost two years ago, Chihayafuru came to theaters and found immense success. This lead to a boom of Japanese films being based on similar club activities like shogi, mahjong, and many others. Asahinagu comes into the fray with its take on naginata, but the question is: “Does it stand out from the rest?”

I went into Asahinagu with some excitement, but no huge expectations. The film doesn't take itself too seriously, but it knows when to buckle down for the drama. There's comedy, dramatic tension, and a hugely positive push for girl power. It all comes together to make an excellent movie. One that immediately drew me in and I was interested throughout.

To be honest, Nishino Nanase isn't the best actress, but she makes her character, Tojima Asahi, to be extremely likeable. Her relationship with her senpai is great too and while not explicitly a lesbian crush, I am sure that people can (and will) interpret it that way. She's also so cute as a meek 1st year high school student. Her growth feels fully realized.

I am not an avid fan of Nogizaka46. I don’t dislike them at all, but I just don’t follow them. Therefore, besides Nishino; I had no idea there were so many idols from Nogizaka46 in this movie. Shiraishi Mai plays Miyaji Maharu, the slightly stoic senpai. She does a wonderful job as a mentor to Asahi. I personally really enjoyed Matsumura Sayuri. She plays a complete airhead that has an interesting character arch too. Of the 6 main characters, I don’t think any of them were weak. They made a very cohesive team while feeling natural and enjoyable.

The film had wonderful moments both for character building and touching sentiments. Even so, it still had a few problems. Some very minor pacing issues, claustrophobic filming of the action/competition scenes, and a couple of odd uses of music are the only complaints I can really make. Of these slight misses, the filming of the action was the most painful. You can tell there is some good choreography, but when the film is so zoomed in, you can’t help, but feel it’s either masking the lack of ability from the actresses or it was just poor planning.

At the core of Asahinagu is the friendship between our main characters. It not only works, but it intrigues. It doesn’t reinvent any genres, but what it does, it does extremely well. I am not even a fan of the source material, naginata, or Nogizaka46, but I loved this film more than I thought I would! I'm so glad I saw it!

I honestly left the movie thinking that it was one of the best Japanese movies I have seen in 2017.

[tialovestelevision]

Restless

Epilogue! What is the cost of becoming Voltron Person? 1. Nothing but the Previously On before the credits. 2. “Guest starring Kristine Sutherland.” 3. Riley has to go get court martialled or something, but he’ll be okay. 4. Joyce just met Riley. Holding off on that seems like a good idea. Joyce disapproves. Xander got chick and British guy flicks, in addition to Apocalypse Now. 5. FBI Warning: Everyone is asleep. Cut to commercial. 6. I’ll be watching the dreams without much commentary here. I am glad to see Tara in Willow’s yet. And Miss Kitty Fantastico. Tara says they’ll find out about Willow. Willow is painting on Tara’s back… in Greek. Willow doesn’t want to leave, but she has to get to drama. But she mostly doesn’t want to leave because there’s a desert outside, and there’s something in the desert. Creeping. Miss Kitty Fantastico will protect her! Now she’s in the hallway, talking to Oz and Xander. Xander says she does spells with Tara. Then he talks about masturbating to fantasies about lesbian sex. Oz disapproves. Willow is in a production, and Riley is Cowboy Guy. Giles is the teacher. Harmony is there too. Everyone Willow knows is in the audience. So is the creepy thing in the desert. Giles says to hide, and Harmony is trying to eat him, and Willow keeps stepping on cues, and Riley is Cowboy Guy in Death of a Salesman. This fellow has made space for the cheese slices. Willow is in a corridor of curtains, and creepy music. Tara is there, though, and there’s a cowboy in Death of a Salesman and something’s wrong and something’s following her. Cowboy Guy is looking for a salesman. Tara says people are wondering about the real Willow, and if they find out she can’t help. Buffy chewed Riley out, and now Willow is being attacked by a thing with a knife. Buffy helped her out, and they’re creeping through a classroom. Willow is very seldom naughty. Buffy asks why Willow why she’s in costume. She took the outfit away, and now Willow is Season One Willow, and Tara and Oz and Anya and Xander are making fun of her. And now she’s being attacked by the creeping thing and nobody’s helping and something happened to her skin and now outside the dream she’s choking. 7. Xander wakes up, and they’re watching a war movie. He and Giles and and Buffy are, anyway. Buffy offers Xander some New Car Smell popcorn. Xander doesn’t need help to pee. Joyce is… my brain is rebooting. I will never be okay again. I will NEVER be okay again. Xander is a comfortadore. This is terrifying and I really dislike Joyce and Xander and every single hair on my arms is trying to escape. Xander’s using the bathroom now. And being watched by the Initiative. They are taking notes. He’ll find another bathroom. Now he’s in his basement, and something’s coming downstairs, but he didn’t order any vampires. The door is not the way out. The park is the way out. Spike and Giles are on swings while Buffy plays in the sand. Giles is going to teach Spike, who is like a son to him, to be a Watcher. Xander is watching Xander sell ice cream, because you have to move forward, like a shark. With feet. And less fins. And on land. Spike suggested that last bit. The sandbox is infinite, and the creeping thing is coming, and she called him big brother. Swinging is important to Watcher training, because a Watcher scoffs at gravity. Now our viewpoint Xander is ice cream Xander, and Anya’s in the truck with him. She’s thinking about getting back into vengeance. It’s going to be a big year for vengeance. Xander doesn’t want Anya to have a vengeance hobby. Willow and Tara are in sexy clothes and making out in the back of the truck. Their mouths don’t properly move when they talk. Xander is staring at them making out, and Tara invites him in the back with them. Huh. When people are going out of character to cater to his sexual fantasies, their lips don’t move. Now he’s back in the basement, and Willow and Tara aren’t, but the thing at the door is trying to get in still. That’s not the way out, Xander… god, I’m actually worried for him. He knows what’s up there. The cheese will not protect him. The dor just gave out… it’s in the basement. Xander is in the high school corridor, being stalked by the creature. He found Giles. Everything is green-tinted. The thing after him is because of what they did. They’re giving him important instructions in badly-dubbed French, and now he’s in the war movie. Kneeling on the ground. “Where are you from, Harris?” There’s a guy… it’s Snyder! Snyder’s Martin Sheen! Xander is glad he got eaten by a snake. He’s supposed to meet Tara, Willow, and Joyce, but time is running out. He’s trying to get away because he can’t fight the thing. This scene is amazing. I love Armin Shimmerman. Now Xander��s at Giles’s house. The creature is there, and Giles and Anya and Buffy are figuring out what to do about Willow. Now he’s in the dorm. Buffy’s dorm. Into the closet to escape. Through the tunnels. Back to the basement. The door isn’t the way out. His father is there. Yelling at him. His father is scarier than the thing chasing him. His father is pulling his heart out. The person - it’s a person! - chasing them is pulling his heart out. 8. Giles’s dream. He’s hypnotizing Buffy. She’s laughing. Now there’s a glowy elephant hedge and Buffy is his daughter and they’re with Olivia. She’s throwing water balloons at a vampire, and she hit it with one. She gets cotton candy. Which is mud on her face. Spike has garden gnomes in front of his crypt. Olivia is crying, and Spike is being a sideshow freak. Spike called him Rupes. The guy wears the cheese. It does not wear him. Cheese guy is appalling. Giles is at the Bronze. It’s time for research. Willow and Xander are there, and Xander has a chest wound. Anya is terrible on stage, but also very Anya. This is his fault. Giles has a gig. It was the duck and not the man that spoke. Willow called him Rupert. He’s singing about what’s going on. Warrior beast. Giles has to warn Buffy. Giles is following the wire from his mic to the back, crawling. Found a huge wire tangle. The watch he was using earlier. The warrior never had a Watcher. 9. Buffy being woken up in her bed by Anya. Anya’s in Willow’s bed. Now Buffy’s at Joyce’s house in the bed she and Faith made. It’s a mess. Tara’s there to talk to her. They don’t know who the bed’s for. Her friends need her to find them. The clock is wrong. Tara is giving her a tarot card, and the bed is made. Buffy’s going to go find the others. “Be back before dawn.” Buffy’s at the university, looking for her friends. There’s a hole in the wall. Joyce is inside the hole, living in the walls. She’s fine there. It’s dirty in there. She made lemonade and is learning mahjong. A mouse is playing with her knees. Buffy could break through the wall, but she’s looking for her friends instead. She found Riley at a table. He’s Surgeon General. They’re drawing up a plan for world domintion with coffee makers. There’s a gun on the table. Adam - human Adam - is at the table. The warrior is following Buffy. The demons have escaped. Please run for your lives. Riley and Adam are going to make a pillow fort. Buffy has weapons. Or mud. There’s mud in her weapon bag. And on her hands. And now on her face. Riley is back. He’s decided Buffy is on her own. Now she’s in a dress and sandals, walking on sand. No more mud. She’s in the desert. She won’t find her friends there, but Tara is there, telling her that’s why she’s there. Tara is speaking for the warrior. The warrior is looking at Buffy. She has no speech or name. She is the first Slayer. Cheese guy shows up; Buffy decides to wake up, but the first Slayer attacks. Now Buffy is in the living room, working on getting up, and being attacked by the Slayer. The stabbing isn’t working. She’s going to ignore the Slayer. Now she’s awake, and so’s everyone else, and they’re very confused. 10. Clean-up plot stuff. Overall: Well, that was foreshadowy! Also very good. There’s a lot to break down. First off: The franchise is now up to three major characters of color. Kendra, who is awesome but is killed off after appearing in like four episodes, Mr. Trick, who is a vampire who is amazing in and of himself but also reminiscent of 80s racist stereotype wrestler/manager character Slick, and now the First Slayer, who is a savage killing machine explicitly denied a voice by the narrative. The First Slayer SHOULD be of African descent, but the franchise needs a few people of color who aren’t there to get killed off or victimized to advance a white person’s story as well. Right now, it has none, and that’s a very bad thing. As for the rest… this episode is amazing. It belongs in a pantheon of the best Buffy episodes with “Amends” and “Hush,” because it is just that good. I love basically everything about it - the individual dreams, the running thread with the First Slayer, the play with Riley as Cowboy Guy and people talking about Willow being in costume, Xander’s weird sexual fantasies and his own subconscious being aware how out of character they have everyone acting, Giles singing about figuring out the plot, Buffy meeting Adam’s human self (by the by, how much more interesting could Adam have been had they played THAT up?), cheese guy, Buffy’s confrontation with the First Slayer… all of it. This was really great, and bookends Season 4 nicely. It did what Season 4’s actual season arcs failed to do - made me want to watch more Buffy. But I get to do the ending of Angel season 1 instead, so time to start that!

[elvesofnoldor]

its almost 3am and i cant sleep and all i can think of is Steven Universe’s episode “Last one out of beach city”, except in a very futuristic setting, with SW series characters Poe Dameron, Kare, bb8 and Finn instead. 

Poe is Pearl bc he’s a Known Gay^tm, seems cool and popular but is actually a nerd with lots of feelings on the inside, therefore the Repressed Nerd^tm. Kare is Amethyst, the Cool Lesbian Wingwoman^tm. Her girlfriend Jessika Pava lost a bet with her aunt and had to play mahjong instead of going to a rock concert she and Kare planned to go to on a Friday night, so Kare went back to the apartment she shares with Poe, Jessika Pava and Iolo. Iolo was out and about, probably at a house party, Poe was the only one left in the apartment, playing some hologram board game with bb8--the family droid his parents gave to him from an early age, also the voice of reason in this case. Like I said, Poe is a Giant Nerd. Kare complained about not being able to go the concert that night to Poe, which led to bb8 suggesting that they all go together. Poe even offered to drive them in the futuristic family hover car he spent a long time trying to upgrade. Before they go, Poe donned on his favourite leather jacket, flipped up his collars, was gonna mop some grease on his tousled hair but Kare stopped him. When they stopped at a convenience store, Finn, the Mysterious (but actually pretty nerdy ) Man, walked in, looking cute af, 

Tragic backstory time: Poe had a boyfriend during his first year in college, his name is Muran and when they were having a bit of rough fight with a group of dudes that were harassing girls at a pub, one of them fatally injured Muran with a hit in his head with an iron rod. Poe felt personally responsible and felt even angrier that the university refused to press charges, so he switched into a better program with better scholarship at a different uni with his closest friends--Iolo, Kare and Jessika. 

Finn reminded Poe of Muran. 

Poe was so dumbstruck by the resemblance, he didn’t even get a chance to talk to Finn before he left. On the group’s ride to the concert, both Jessika and bb8 noted the resemblance between the two men. Poe thought of Muran, but he bit his lips and said, “Tonight, I’m all about the future”. Naturally Finn caught up with their futuristic hover car in his futuristic hover motorcycle. Recognizing Poe, he smiled and waved at him. Poe blushed, and Finn drove away, a red light separating them both....forever--except that Poe decides to run a red light to catch up with Finn! However, he did draw the attention of a cop car, and Poe didn’t realize he forgot his licence at home before having to pull over to the side. Long story short, being a good driver he is, Poe pulled some stunts that scared the shit out of bb8. Kare was having the night of her life though. It caused a bit of chaos on the streets since they were driving through downtown areas. Afterward, they did have to walk over the concert after the car ran out of fuel, and Poe thought he’s forever haunted by the past. Eventually they found Finn at the concert--he went to the concert to meet up with his best friend Rey! After Rey left ( “oh no Poe he’s with a girl, hopefully that wasn’t his girlfriend”, “No need for assumptions, Kare”) to get them both a drink, Poe went up and talked to Finn. They were both kinda shy and kinda nerdy and Finn was a huge fan of the band. Before he left to join Rey and her friends, Finn gave Poe his number. On the sheet of paper he gave to Poe, he also scribbled “FN”, so Poe decided to call him...Finn. For now. 

[chinad]

In completion of 2017.

Dec 19, 2017

dreamt being friend of an English noble family, or Japanese host, ie their 2 boys and only daughter. first the boys showed me their real estate, and traditional kid practices around & in trench of their castle, which so beautiful, with yard and fence, and harvesting field with peasants nearby. I commented British buildings usually round shape while Chinese commodity residential block usually in slice alike. they also showed me their parties. then their only sister returned. the girl likely an artist, she put on me new shirt & introduced me to her party. when I prepared to performance and jumping from 2nd floor balcony to hall ground over awaiting crowd, my alarm woke me up. it's a warm dream, without pressure, esp the daughter cares me so much. this week still in wilder joys aid by alipay virtual credit. I try to prepare an installment with the credit, so I in urgency to spend near ￥1500 so as to mount to 2000 CNY installment. spending upon year end gifts really a breeze. I equipped dearest son a suite of SQAD winter uniform, including coat & pants, pricey ￥350. last night I spend another 120 on family photo book reviewing a decade golden memories, esp in woz's growth. for our domain registrar, godaddy defies the credit, I partially shift some deposit from monthly mobile data plan and spare cash for renewing our remnant 16 domains year end. but mobile fee recharging has limit set by the virtual credit, so I only allowed 400 CNY to transit. however, after these operations, I more confident that 2017 will complete without regret. past week also allows us enjoying benefit of goods, like my kid brother aided me a new Japanese style bed cushion, quite soft & warm & economic efficient, I praise it exceeding word. otherwise each morning esp chiller morning when I get up my bone hurts. our new google home mini first arrived amid our seasonal cyber gifts. it's so beautifully functional, enrich my son's spoken English & informative anytime empowered by the moral uplifting American corporate giant. we spend half hour to setup it, still my son at a loss for he was not left alone to accomplish the task. he wants now to carry independent workload on his own. that remind me how hard my situation can be in a tiny world our economy & social circumstance permits. my kid brother this time generously extended arms to me, likely last time our elder brother loaned me for domain renewal even in his hard time shamed him, and his aid grants us to upgrade our rechargeable batteries stock, which prepares us for more e-gadgets to harness even more wonderful modern living standard. God, dad, reviewing our situation, we felt so much blessed: our beneficence hinders nobody, our broad laugh shadows no one. while most renowned billionaires bow to PRC sinful tyrant, confronted by lawless deprivation and death penalty instead of standing clean, esp IT industry monopolies in rats' race. God dad, our anxious free growth might ceilied esp upon my offspring, but dearest God dad, is there anything we bestowed is not under your Holy Majesty warranty? grant us usual path, and merry heart forever, under shine & shrine. bring me sooner my Royal China, my Crown Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for broader future of our 2 nations. in our ancestors' forged link, we stand firmer on the eastern Asia now and then forever.

Dec 12, 2017

these weeks brewing shopping online for quite some times, empowered by alipay virtual credit. but unfortunately godaddy doesn't support it. so I ordered woz's new boot, google home mini as planned in this dawn. later I will buy myself tea whose deficit last months helplessly. In dawn dreamt of a respected elder, likely PRC general Liu Bocheng. he first in my dream appeared as a painter, who drew golden leaves with Chinese traditional calligraphic painting. then he linked 3 painted leaves in a line to forge a brush and drew more in batch likes painting software, painter which can animate painting procedure does. then some relatives of the elder appeared, claimed the renowned man never query the elapse of his old acquaintances, for he can grasp the information in solitude & void. after woke up I felt he must be old partner of Deng Xiaoping, General Liu. these days PRC surveillance turns more rampant, and insanely. last weekend it only deterred playing back & restricted sources available via lagging internet, but last night it shameless rip audio from online episodes real time stream, and reset cache building minutes each after 2 or 3 minutes, just aiming upset my watching experience. hatred in PRC, esp dogs arranged by tyranny let me sad sometimes recently, by their desperate, cheap and total equipped to teeth. nevertheless my son rejoiced after my analyses of adversity we were beset, after he felt insulted by my scorn when he refused counting cash for me when I handover bills to pay our spa groupon in front the counter. might he thought the ammount, ￥250, too small for his engagement, but I hoped he recount before shifting to cashier, for I just roughly fetched from my purse. but he move them directly to cashier with whom I natively didn't trust. my son got hurt and in next Saturday when we went cinema & bought Taiwanese sweet juice he refused to face cashier. I first puzzled by his refusal, blamed him shy to publicity. then I saw his attitude & reason behind. so in Sunday luncheon, I explained why I didn't put him as independent but a kid. we more or less reunited & the downtown hotel restaurant lunch is delicious. after showered & returned to his mom's house, I let him watch "Rick & Morty" while I massaged his feet. his sinful mom tentatively arranged her lesbian friend's son came over for her english tuition, then my son looked diligently to play steam game with the docile kid while his mom, also the cheating kid, posed to be too busy and left my son unfinished amid game playing. its all right God, dad, just let the bitch does her utmost sins trying tearing my son apart between beast & holy, hership vs fathership. God, dad, 2017 ends soon. grant us renew all 21 domains with bonus, my only source of surplus in bare living year long including boarding & lodging, spa, barber, monthly cinema, weekly dining out with woz, dearest son. grant us self-relying sooner my online portal of Royal China. bring me sooner my Crown Queen, Asoh Yukiko, for future ahead, for tomorrow reality in eastern Asia. protect zhone 21 domains in our title & promising in their far-sight & far reaching game changing. grant us merry Christmas & lunar new year!

Nov 30, 2017

dreamt editing video as my old career in QRRS cable TV. a piece of video abnormal & frequently freezed. I reported to leader that its likely encrypted. my once departmental leader, likely framed me and side watched for my clueless while playing Mahjong with his pals in the studio. but I checked carefully to assure its not damaged but encrypted, then gradually decrypted the video. after that I posted my resignation notice for the unfriend environment in which the boss conjected with departmental leader setup me in. last night I felt sad for our new registrar, dynadot, so irresponsible to fix its problematic dns setting rule. it domain root record defies matched field, say title and value, but just arbitrary single value. while zoho mail hosting SPF and let's encrypt ssl dns verification both need title "@" matching txt value field, otherwise the only txt value wouldn't be recognized, and verification halt to proceed. such a simple malfunction defied many users' operational inc mine, and caused many complains in its user community. but after near 3 months after my transferation from godaddy, I yet saw fix at all. the boss of the company shows his leisure time with his pet dog in his pool on social media. this reminds me their less concerns with their product on which I deeply hope I can firmly cling to, after departed from godaddy which more intelligent and powerful esp dns setting, just in one shortcoming, too expensive & bargain needed in renewal. I hope our new registrar, dynadot, responsible, steady, but new found let the assumption shakeable. God dad, why domain registry so thin in scale of intellectual property, why is it so easy to be a domain registrar with such a problematic product while remains open service? it shakes my faith in American corporate moral, and traditional Chinese, esp from Taiwan, as dynadot founder is a Taiwanese, more equipped with merit of hard working and emotional smarter. On Tuesday our ordered ssd from taobao arrived. but last mile express, contractor Yuantong express failed to deliver. I buzzed the agent according sms noticement and the man claimed he no longer in the job for days. so I visited local office of the contractor a bus stop away. the small office jammed with parcels. 2 women there helped me find my package after a quarter's scrutiny. Yuantong once had a wonderful service, speedy & well organized, but now seemingly in deconstruction. for its too earlier to fetch my son from his school, I lingered awhile in KFC local franchise, now under PRC native brand. there I found my alipay virtual credit, 花呗, resumes my limit from freeze. I paid a KFC groupon via the payment tool in a blink. that's so exciting even before I went to bed hours later, I still felt shocking satisfaction. I need credit so badly. in next days I wondered what credit is and how it can facilitate my life, I took granted that it only encourages installment. so this month I will equip my son & my own 3 items, woz's new boot, google home mini, and my tea, all in one installment and hopeful year end bonus will pay the bill eventually. God, dad, enlive quality service in American Chinese startup, esp established corporations like dynadot. bring me fruitful usage of credit. bring me my Royal China, my Crown Queen Asoh Yukiko for better management of monetary. grant me constructive credit adoption, and booming business my online portal empowers.

Nov 27, 2017

retrospect last week, it elapsed so peaceful. but in fact I burning for the coming salary which turned out extraordinarily surprising. previously I thought the year end most financially demanding tasks completed with 2 loans from my old hometown relatives, ie my sisters & brother. but suddenly my vpn service informed me renewal due in couple days, exactly Nov 22. while recently my salary released usually on 19th monthly. so I took it easily. from 19th, Sunday, I looked out hopefully descending of salary till 22rd, Wednesday. everyday I prayed for solution. it was a sunny noon on 22rd Nov, 2017, I gave up canteen lunch and hope my last salvage. but it didn't. then I sought out with blessing resolution for dorm canteen's loan. they didn't refuse my appeal, offer ￥1000 at once. with it I immediately deposited in my icbc credit account. CCP surveillance blocked my trading attempts for a quarter, then went smoothly. my paypal strangely refused my payment, claiming verification failure. so I ditched it and paid via alipay, a mainstream electronic financial tool in PRC. my vpn vendor listed under its transaction log in alipay. might be that's what PRC surveillance demands in defying of my paypal which done last year perfectly. then most wanted salary release notification sms arrived: with year end bonus, I got 4420 CNY. I had previously doubted many times my budget & salary supporting gap, and thought I will save my purchase from returning less to bank credit, which already warned me insufficient pay back & possible sue over me. the main coming bill is my son's desktop os, ubuntu on a ssd usb drive, and gift sending to my nephew whose first child, a daughter just born. I had already refrained from gifting his wedding ceremony nearly year ago. so this time my congratulation really due to manifest. they both costs ￥300. with the powerful salary, I maintained last month pay back standard, 500 CNY each for ccb & psbc credit debt, while clear all my due liability among bills active in life, except debt to canteen loan adds more hundreds. but in the afternoon, when I handed over ￥1700 including 200 to pay a woman staff there for my laundry, the canteen operative woman and her husband accepted without complains. God, dad, what a wonderful moment after so many neck breaking anticipation! in the night I informed my son online the clearance of bills and claimed only left unfinished is donation annually to poor kids in China mountainous area, and bbn bible radio. but now, I want more: equipping my son woz a pair of new winter shoes to replace his wrecked one, and my tea deficit for months. my son's programming lesson arranged by his mom stepping in, my preparing his desktop environment is portable os on ssd udisk hopefully running on hardware of his old dell notebook and intel nuc in his lounge. dad God, let my son adopt my suggestion, first step to master typing via training tools from chrome store on his chromebook. grant me helpful and his prompt execution for remaining aid from powerful google & online courseware. I have almost no more debt in his education, nor in my online business, our portal for Royal China and democracy of China progressive. God dad, grant me another surge of spacious budget for renew our domains year end, nearly 15 domains left. grant us happier lunar new year, and Christmas 2017. thx for this clueless post in firm hint of publish in rest of recent elation.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2BkFvp8

[be21zh]

Dec 19, 2017

dreamt being friend of an English noble family, or Japanese host, ie their 2 boys and only daughter. first the boys showed me their real estate, and traditional kid practices around & in trench of their castle, which so beautiful, with yard and fence, and harvesting field with peasants nearby. I commented British buildings usually round shape while Chinese commodity residential block usually in slice alike. they also showed me their parties. then their only sister returned. the girl likely an artist, she put on me new shirt & introduced me to her party. when I prepared to performance and jumping from 2nd floor balcony to hall ground over awaiting crowd, my alarm woke me up. it's a warm dream, without pressure, esp the daughter cares me so much. this week still in wilder joys aid by alipay virtual credit. I try to prepare an installment with the credit, so I in urgency to spend near ￥1500 so as to mount to 2000 CNY installment. spending upon year end gifts really a breeze. I equipped dearest son a suite of SQAD winter uniform, including coat & pants, pricey ￥350. last night I spend another 120 on family photo book reviewing a decade golden memories, esp in woz's growth. for our domain registrar, godaddy defies the credit, I partially shift some deposit from monthly mobile data plan and spare cash for renewing our remnant 16 domains year end. but mobile fee recharging has limit set by the virtual credit, so I only allowed 400 CNY to transit. however, after these operations, I more confident that 2017 will complete without regret. past week also allows us enjoying benefit of goods, like my kid brother aided me a new Japanese style bed cushion, quite soft & warm & economic efficient, I praise it exceeding word. otherwise each morning esp chiller morning when I get up my bone hurts. our new google home mini first arrived amid our seasonal cyber gifts. it's so beautifully functional, enrich my son's spoken English & informative anytime empowered by the moral uplifting American corporate giant. we spend half hour to setup it, still my son at a loss for he was not left alone to accomplish the task. he wants now to carry independent workload on his own. that remind me how hard my situation can be in a tiny world our economy & social circumstance permits. my kid brother this time generously extended arms to me, likely last time our elder brother loaned me for domain renewal even in his hard time shamed him, and his aid grants us to upgrade our rechargeable batteries stock, which prepares us for more e-gadgets to harness even more wonderful modern living standard. God, dad, reviewing our situation, we felt so much blessed: our beneficence hinders nobody, our broad laugh shadows no one. while most renowned billionaires bow to PRC sinful tyrant, confronted by lawless deprivation and death penalty instead of standing clean, esp IT industry monopolies in rats' race. God dad, our anxious free growth might ceilied esp upon my offspring, but dearest God dad, is there anything we bestowed is not under your Holy Majesty warranty? grant us usual path, and merry heart forever, under shine & shrine. bring me sooner my Royal China, my Crown Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for broader future of our 2 nations. in our ancestors' forged link, we stand firmer on the eastern Asia now and then forever.

Dec 12, 2017

these weeks brewing shopping online for quite some times, empowered by alipay virtual credit. but unfortunately godaddy doesn't support it. so I ordered woz's new boot, google home mini as planned in this dawn. later I will buy myself tea whose deficit last months helplessly. In dawn dreamt of a respected elder, likely PRC general Liu Bocheng. he first in my dream appeared as a painter, who drew golden leaves with Chinese traditional calligraphic painting. then he linked 3 painted leaves in a line to forge a brush and drew more in batch likes painting software, painter which can animate painting procedure does. then some relatives of the elder appeared, claimed the renowned man never query the elapse of his old acquaintances, for he can grasp the information in solitude & void. after woke up I felt he must be old partner of Deng Xiaoping, General Liu. these days PRC surveillance turns more rampant, and insanely. last weekend it only deterred playing back & restricted sources available via lagging internet, but last night it shameless rip audio from online episodes real time stream, and reset cache building minutes each after 2 or 3 minutes, just aiming upset my watching experience. hatred in PRC, esp dogs arranged by tyranny let me sad sometimes recently, by their desperate, cheap and total equipped to teeth. nevertheless my son rejoiced after my analyses of adversity we were beset, after he felt insulted by my scorn when he refused counting cash for me when I handover bills to pay our spa groupon in front the counter. might he thought the ammount, ￥250, too small for his engagement, but I hoped he recount before shifting to cashier, for I just roughly fetched from my purse. but he move them directly to cashier with whom I natively didn't trust. my son got hurt and in next Saturday when we went cinema & bought Taiwanese sweet juice he refused to face cashier. I first puzzled by his refusal, blamed him shy to publicity. then I saw his attitude & reason behind. so in Sunday luncheon, I explained why I didn't put him as independent but a kid. we more or less reunited & the downtown hotel restaurant lunch is delicious. after showered & returned to his mom's house, I let him watch "Rick & Morty" while I massaged his feet. his sinful mom tentatively arranged her lesbian friend's son came over for her english tuition, then my son looked diligently to play steam game with the docile kid while his mom, also the cheating kid, posed to be too busy and left my son unfinished amid game playing. its all right God, dad, just let the bitch does her utmost sins trying tearing my son apart between beast & holy, hership vs fathership. God, dad, 2017 ends soon. grant us renew all 21 domains with bonus, my only source of surplus in bare living year long including boarding & lodging, spa, barber, monthly cinema, weekly dining out with woz, dearest son. grant us self-relying sooner my online portal of Royal China. bring me sooner my Crown Queen, Asoh Yukiko, for future ahead, for tomorrow reality in eastern Asia. protect zhone 21 domains in our title & promising in their far-sight & far reaching game changing. grant us merry Christmas & lunar new year!

Nov 30, 2017

dreamt editing video as my old career in QRRS cable TV. a piece of video abnormal & frequently freezed. I reported to leader that its likely encrypted. my once departmental leader, likely framed me and side watched for my clueless while playing Mahjong with his pals in the studio. but I checked carefully to assure its not damaged but encrypted, then gradually decrypted the video. after that I posted my resignation notice for the unfriend environment in which the boss conjected with departmental leader setup me in. last night I felt sad for our new registrar, dynadot, so irresponsible to fix its problematic dns setting rule. it domain root record defies matched field, say title and value, but just arbitrary single value. while zoho mail hosting SPF and let's encrypt ssl dns verification both need title "@" matching txt value field, otherwise the only txt value wouldn't be recognized, and verification halt to proceed. such a simple malfunction defied many users' operational inc mine, and caused many complains in its user community. but after near 3 months after my transferation from godaddy, I yet saw fix at all. the boss of the company shows his leisure time with his pet dog in his pool on social media. this reminds me their less concerns with their product on which I deeply hope I can firmly cling to, after departed from godaddy which more intelligent and powerful esp dns setting, just in one shortcoming, too expensive & bargain needed in renewal. I hope our new registrar, dynadot, responsible, steady, but new found let the assumption shakeable. God dad, why domain registry so thin in scale of intellectual property, why is it so easy to be a domain registrar with such a problematic product while remains open service? it shakes my faith in American corporate moral, and traditional Chinese, esp from Taiwan, as dynadot founder is a Taiwanese, more equipped with merit of hard working and emotional smarter. On Tuesday our ordered ssd from taobao arrived. but last mile express, contractor Yuantong express failed to deliver. I buzzed the agent according sms noticement and the man claimed he no longer in the job for days. so I visited local office of the contractor a bus stop away. the small office jammed with parcels. 2 women there helped me find my package after a quarter's scrutiny. Yuantong once had a wonderful service, speedy & well organized, but now seemingly in deconstruction. for its too earlier to fetch my son from his school, I lingered awhile in KFC local franchise, now under PRC native brand. there I found my alipay virtual credit, 花呗, resumes my limit from freeze. I paid a KFC groupon via the payment tool in a blink. that's so exciting even before I went to bed hours later, I still felt shocking satisfaction. I need credit so badly. in next days I wondered what credit is and how it can facilitate my life, I took granted that it only encourages installment. so this month I will equip my son & my own 3 items, woz's new boot, google home mini, and my tea, all in one installment and hopeful year end bonus will pay the bill eventually. God, dad, enlive quality service in American Chinese startup, esp established corporations like dynadot. bring me fruitful usage of credit. bring me my Royal China, my Crown Queen Asoh Yukiko for better management of monetary. grant me constructive credit adoption, and booming business my online portal empowers.

Nov 27, 2017

retrospect last week, it elapsed so peaceful. but in fact I burning for the coming salary which turned out extraordinarily surprising. previously I thought the year end most financially demanding tasks completed with 2 loans from my old hometown relatives, ie my sisters & brother. but suddenly my vpn service informed me renewal due in couple days, exactly Nov 22. while recently my salary released usually on 19th monthly. so I took it easily. from 19th, Sunday, I looked out hopefully descending of salary till 22rd, Wednesday. everyday I prayed for solution. it was a sunny noon on 22rd Nov, 2017, I gave up canteen lunch and hope my last salvage. but it didn't. then I sought out with blessing resolution for dorm canteen's loan. they didn't refuse my appeal, offer ￥1000 at once. with it I immediately deposited in my icbc credit account. CCP surveillance blocked my trading attempts for a quarter, then went smoothly. my paypal strangely refused my payment, claiming verification failure. so I ditched it and paid via alipay, a mainstream electronic financial tool in PRC. my vpn vendor listed under its transaction log in alipay. might be that's what PRC surveillance demands in defying of my paypal which done last year perfectly. then most wanted salary release notification sms arrived: with year end bonus, I got 4420 CNY. I had previously doubted many times my budget & salary supporting gap, and thought I will save my purchase from returning less to bank credit, which already warned me insufficient pay back & possible sue over me. the main coming bill is my son's desktop os, ubuntu on a ssd usb drive, and gift sending to my nephew whose first child, a daughter just born. I had already refrained from gifting his wedding ceremony nearly year ago. so this time my congratulation really due to manifest. they both costs ￥300. with the powerful salary, I maintained last month pay back standard, 500 CNY each for ccb & psbc credit debt, while clear all my due liability among bills active in life, except debt to canteen loan adds more hundreds. but in the afternoon, when I handed over ￥1700 including 200 to pay a woman staff there for my laundry, the canteen operative woman and her husband accepted without complains. God, dad, what a wonderful moment after so many neck breaking anticipation! in the night I informed my son online the clearance of bills and claimed only left unfinished is donation annually to poor kids in China mountainous area, and bbn bible radio. but now, I want more: equipping my son woz a pair of new winter shoes to replace his wrecked one, and my tea deficit for months. my son's programming lesson arranged by his mom stepping in, my preparing his desktop environment is portable os on ssd udisk hopefully running on hardware of his old dell notebook and intel nuc in his lounge. dad God, let my son adopt my suggestion, first step to master typing via training tools from chrome store on his chromebook. grant me helpful and his prompt execution for remaining aid from powerful google & online courseware. I have almost no more debt in his education, nor in my online business, our portal for Royal China and democracy of China progressive. God dad, grant me another surge of spacious budget for renew our domains year end, nearly 15 domains left. grant us happier lunar new year, and Christmas 2017. thx for this clueless post in firm hint of publish in rest of recent elation.