Black is this years pink

Reading
Still reading Whispers Under Ground. Enjoying it, but not racing through it (obviously).

Kdramas
Two episodes into Chicago Typewriter. I'm intrigued but not yet fully hooked.

Mystery Queen seems good. I'm enjoying it so far.

J and I started My Girl (2005) last week. I like it, but the script and production values are very dated, and J is less convinced. We're hoping it's not just going to be repetitive love triangle shenanigans, and they're going to do something more interesting with the characters. *fingers crossed*

Chief Kim is still on hold.

Other TV
We're up to s7 of Parks & Recreation, but last night we just watched Brooklyn Nine Nine, The Mayor (may turn out to be a bit too mainstream for our tastes, in terms of comedy), and the first two episodes of Rosehaven, an Australian sitcom with Celia Pacquola.

Get/together
I really enjoyed get/together (local mini fan con) this year. In some ways, there not being a mega-fandom consuming the majority of attendees worked in my favour, because I've never successfully been part of that, so having everyone be in smaller fandoms evens things out a bit. I showed a clip reel of Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, focusing on the slash side of my OT-V, and I think it went over pretty well, and I contributed a couple of rounds to the quiz. And ate too many (delicious, Knope-inspired) waffles. Good times.

I'm already planning another Kdrama clip reel for next year.

Podcasts
This afternoon I listened to an episode of Stay Tuned with Preet, and it was excellent. I'm not sure I'll listen to more, because there's only so much US politics I can take (I really should be paying more attention to NZ politics!), but it's always good to hear smart good people's take on things.

Reading
Made my way through the caseficciness of Moon Over Soho and didn't care very much until the last line, which filled me with delight and propelled me straight into Whispers Under Ground. (The last line is: "Fuck me," I said [to Leslie]. "You can do magic.") I'm not far into Whispers, but I think I'll enjoy it more.

I still have the Cary Elwes one lined up* and want to try Six of Crows.

*I started out this year with the plan to see at least as many non-US movies as US ones, and one of my friends said, "Why not equal numbers of female and male directors, too?" Which I dismissed as impossible, given the number of films I go to and the small proportion of films by women that get a theatrical release. But it did make me determined to read a lot more books by women than by men, and these RoL ones and the Cary Elwes are throwing off my stats! ;-P

Kdramas
Just finished Fight My Way, which was fine. I enjoyed it, didn't love it, will probably never revisit. I think the thing about the "young adults with crappy jobs" genre is that it paints a (probably accurately) bleak picture of the world, full of petty tyrants and uncaring bureaucracy, and I want more optimism and kindness in my dramas. I did like that it was fairly relaxed about sex while dating, and I loved the fact ( spoiler )

. That's new! Also, I was relieved when the leading man's younger sister, who was disabled, finally got some dialogue and a little agency, though surely there was room for much more. As the show progressed, there were some fairly bloody Mixed Martial Arts fights and injuries, which is not so much my cup of tea.

Don't know what's next. Maybe Chicago Typewriter, so I can read skygiant's write-up.

Other TV
Still mostly Parks & Rec, but last night we watched:

- The Mayor 1.01, about an up-and-coming rapper who accidentally gets elected mayor, which was a lot of fun
- Ghosted 1.01, starring Ben Wyatt (P&R) and Doug Judy (B99), which was ehhhhhhhh (but may eventually find its feet?)
- Will & Grace 9.01, which is much too broad-comedy for me
- Brooklyn Nine Nine 5.01, which was up to B99's usual standard.

Will be continuing with The Mayor and B99, and also Speechless, which we're already behind on.

Films
Went to a free screening of Okja organised by the Korean Embassy to celebrate (I think) National Foundation Day. Okja is about a young Korean girl and her best friend, a gentle "superpig" about the size of a large hippo, who is huge and adorable and utterly believable. The film's great: inventive, funny, touching, ridiculous and gruesome -- plus I always like it when fantastic animals end up careening around urban environments. (I spent the first 2/3rds of King Kong waiting to get to New York.) Warning for graphic animal harm and being explicitly anti-industrialised farming (there's a horrific slaughterhouse scene). Stars, among others, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, and Jasper from The 100.

On Monday, the boy and I saw The Changeover, which is a NZ film based on the YA book by Margaret Mahy, about Laura Chant, a teenage girl whose little brother gets possessed; Laura has to decide whether to become a witch to save him. The casting was excellent (Melanie Lynskey as the mum, Lucy Lawless and Kate Harcourt as the Carlisles, Timothy Spall, and a really well-cast Erana James as Laura), but I found it hard to see beyond my knowledge of the book to the actual film. It's quite a loose adaptation -- for one thing, it's set in post-earthquake Christchurch -- and the deviations distracted me. Idk, I'm not a particularly visual reader, but this might be one of those books I have such strong feelings about, it feels weird to see it play out differently on a movie screen.

Computer
/o\ /o\ /o\

Get/together
Our local mini fan con, get/together, is happening this weekend. I'm frantically throwing together a promo reel for a Kdrama while my arms complain vociferously and time runs out. Ouch.