Uggh. I fell last night. As usual, it wasn't an easy thing to recover from. I was in the bathroom and it's a small space. I had to wiggle myself out of the room to really properly get out of it because I didn't want to grab anything and risk breaking it.
In the midst of the fall, I hit my head on the door and twisted my left hip. Both hurt. Some other layers of damage will probably show up in the next few days. That's usually how it goes when I fall.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
The Dragon and the Wolf Musings
In one of his last conversations, Littlefinger tells Sansa that sometimes he likes to play a game where he thinks of the worst possible reason someone could be doing what they're doing and sees if that explains their actions. While the worst reasons are not always the true reasons, sorting out people's motivations goes a long way in predicting what they will do. The finale of season seven is all about people and their motivations.
THE PACK SURVIVES
Sansa's story arc has come to a nice completion this season. At the beginning of the story, she was very motivated . . . to leave Winterfell, to marry the prince, to live out her fairytale. As time and events proved those ambitions to be wrong, her motivation became merely to survive. She's been in survival mode for years now, looking for a way to find some kind of security and stability for herself.
When Jon made her Lady of Winterfell, she found that. Now, as Arya pointed out, she has much of what she always wanted . . . power, nice things, importance. This could have been a place where Sansa fell to the dark side. She could have allowed the desperation of her years in survival mode to make her reckless about her rise to power. It would have been the same mistake Cersei has made over and over again and it was what Littlefinger was counting on when he started pitting her against her sister.
She didn't take his bait. Instead of falling for Littlefinger's trap (as basically everyone else in the show has), she had him put on trial and executed. Unlike the Stark men, she didn't kill him herself. She had Arya do it, as a nod to Arya's more visceral need for blood vengeance. It was really the only power Arya wanted in the situation anyway.
I think it's fitting that Littlefinger on the same episode where the Wall came down. Littlefinger's plots and villainy would have been eclipsed by the Long Night in any case. He no longer served a purpose. Had GRRM not added the element of the threat to the North and kept this as more of a political chess match kind of thing, Littlefinger could have possibly survived to the end. He didn't though, and I'm glad.
Not just because I found him cringingly awful, but because it actually subverts a trope. Littlefinger represents the common man who rises to power on his wits, despite all the power and lineage of the others. However, as the story has continued, we see that ancient bloodlines and abilities DO matter in the end. Littlefinger, at the end of the day, was small and unimportant. The realization of that probably hit him right before the blade hit his throat.
MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD
This was one of the best Lannister episodes we've seen in a long time. Lannisters are best when in groups because they're all so complicated when together. It's easy for them to be focused on what they believe to be their goals when they're not around each other. When they come back together, emotions and loyalties and concerns begin to muddy the water.
For a long time, Cersei's been hellbent on killing Tyrion for the deaths of her father and children. She had bounties out on his head. She sent people after him. Tyrion's death seemed like something she needed to heal on some level. And yet, when they found themselves together again, as much as they fought, she couldn't kill him. Even when he challenged her to do it, she couldn't. The scene between them is possibly the best scene of the season and one full of emotional complexity and subtle character development.
Later, she almost kills Jaime as well. I think of Jaime wasn't slated to be on next season, he should have died when she argued with him about his oaths and his honor. In a way, it would have been a fitting death for him and a shocking turn of events for a show that used to kill off main characters but hasn't in a while.
Like Sansa, Jaime's character arc reached a climax in this episode. When we first meet him, his only true motivation is Cersei. Everything he has done in his life has been for her, to be near her, and to keep their relationship. Every oath he took was out of the need to be near Cersei. When he meets Brienne, he begins to question that, to question himself and what he's doing with his life. However, at that point, he still had Cersei and their children to protect, so he can't do much to change things.
Now he has no children (except for maybe the one she's carrying) and Cersei isn't the person she was. He makes an oath to ride North to help with the White Walkers and when she tells him it was all a lie, he loses it. For once, he chooses his honor over Cersei and begins a real path toward being the knight he's always pretended to be.
It's possible that Tyrion, on the other hand, may be more loyal to Cersei than he thought. Tyrion was fine with Dany taking over Westeros until they got there and he realized it meant people he loves may die. Other people think he was upset by her executing the Tarleys. I don't believe that. I think he was upset with the idea that it could have been Jaime standing next to them. Tyrion goes out of his way to make this Truce happen and when it falls apart, he risks his life to see Cersei privately.
Their conversation ends with him realizing she's pregnant again. The next time we see him (and her), she is lying to Jon and Dany about helping them. It's quite possible Tyrion told her to lie, assuming it would at least get Jon and Dany out of the area (which means his family would be out of harm's way). This might explain the strange reaction he had to Jon and Dany at the end of the episode.
Honestly, if Tyrion has gone back to being loyal to House Lannister and his sister, it wouldn't surprise me. He's always been a loyal Lannister, always craved their approval, and was more hurt by the fact that his father and sister turned on him than he was by the thought of being killed. For Cersei's part, she knows that when she and Tyrion are allies, they are powerful allies. If she has a new baby to protect, she knows Tyrion will do a better job of that than anyone.
FIRE AND BLOOD
We know for sure that Jon Snow is really Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and Lyanna and the actual true heir to the throne. He will make a terrible king. Jon doesn't know this yet. All he knows is that his motivations have changed because he is in love with Dany. In fact, when he couldn't give his oath to Cersei it was because he's in love with Dany. To betray that oath would be to betray the woman he loves and after everything that happened with his last relationship, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It was a stupid move on his part, but just not in his character.
Jon's motivation has been to deal with the White Walkers. Everything he's done up to that point had that as the foundation of his plans. Dany is a new element to him. Suddenly even his plans to deal with the Long Night are complicated by her. The same can be said for her. Dany's first motivation was just to survive, then when her brother died, she wanted to take the throne back for her son, then when she lost him, she wanted it for herself.
The thing is, none of that has ever been solid for her. Dany is about movement and motion. She's about altering things and moving forward. Even though she wanted the iron throne, she never really understood, fully, what that meant, other than that she wanted to go home. One of the reasons she was so grumpy when she got to Dragonstone was because it didn't feel like home to her. Nothing did, not until Jon got into the picture and she started to fall in love with him.
I realize I'm writing about something that sounds like sappy romance here, but it isn't. I believe with people who are born Dragons, there is a certain attraction they have for one another. It's why certain Targs were fine being married outside the family and others just could not handle the idea. This is a family of destiny, a family with a destiny, and these two people who have been without home, identity, or any really true grounding are finding it in each other.
At the end of the day, as much as he thought he was a clever man, Littlefinger's fatal mistake was not really grasping the motivations of other people. While he chose to believe that the worst reasons, the most selfish reasons, would be what prompted people to move forward, that isn't always the case. In fact, often it is the more 'socially acceptable' motivations that can be the most powerful and the darkest. Theon beat a man to deal so he could rescue his sister. Jaime leaves Cersei for honor. Jon and Dany begin to move away from their original goals for love. Sansa kills Littlefinger to protect her family. In none of those cases would someone say their reasons were 'the worst,' but that doesn't make them any less deadly.
Final Thoughts:
This episode ran 80 minutes and it needed it. It gave time for there to be lots of interactions between people. The Hound and his brother. The Hound and Brienne. Tyrion, Pod, and Bronn. While none of these moments matched the mastery of the scene between Tyrion and Cersei, they were still really good.
Beyond conversation, some of the LOOKS people would give each other were great moments of acting. Cersei's first look at Tyrion was gloriously murderous. Jaime and Brienne kept looking at each other like two people who are trying to hide a romance in high school. Cersei kept looking at Brienne like she was on to her.
As I mentioned before, Theon left to rescue Yara. I have no idea how he's going to do that given that he has no idea where she is. His conversation with Jon about the matter was pretty good though.
Finally, I hope the final season is better than this one. This one wasn't as bad as season 5, but it wasn't good either. They're not running the final season until 2019, so they best make it good.
THE PACK SURVIVES
Sansa's story arc has come to a nice completion this season. At the beginning of the story, she was very motivated . . . to leave Winterfell, to marry the prince, to live out her fairytale. As time and events proved those ambitions to be wrong, her motivation became merely to survive. She's been in survival mode for years now, looking for a way to find some kind of security and stability for herself.
When Jon made her Lady of Winterfell, she found that. Now, as Arya pointed out, she has much of what she always wanted . . . power, nice things, importance. This could have been a place where Sansa fell to the dark side. She could have allowed the desperation of her years in survival mode to make her reckless about her rise to power. It would have been the same mistake Cersei has made over and over again and it was what Littlefinger was counting on when he started pitting her against her sister.
She didn't take his bait. Instead of falling for Littlefinger's trap (as basically everyone else in the show has), she had him put on trial and executed. Unlike the Stark men, she didn't kill him herself. She had Arya do it, as a nod to Arya's more visceral need for blood vengeance. It was really the only power Arya wanted in the situation anyway.
I think it's fitting that Littlefinger on the same episode where the Wall came down. Littlefinger's plots and villainy would have been eclipsed by the Long Night in any case. He no longer served a purpose. Had GRRM not added the element of the threat to the North and kept this as more of a political chess match kind of thing, Littlefinger could have possibly survived to the end. He didn't though, and I'm glad.
Not just because I found him cringingly awful, but because it actually subverts a trope. Littlefinger represents the common man who rises to power on his wits, despite all the power and lineage of the others. However, as the story has continued, we see that ancient bloodlines and abilities DO matter in the end. Littlefinger, at the end of the day, was small and unimportant. The realization of that probably hit him right before the blade hit his throat.
MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD
This was one of the best Lannister episodes we've seen in a long time. Lannisters are best when in groups because they're all so complicated when together. It's easy for them to be focused on what they believe to be their goals when they're not around each other. When they come back together, emotions and loyalties and concerns begin to muddy the water.
For a long time, Cersei's been hellbent on killing Tyrion for the deaths of her father and children. She had bounties out on his head. She sent people after him. Tyrion's death seemed like something she needed to heal on some level. And yet, when they found themselves together again, as much as they fought, she couldn't kill him. Even when he challenged her to do it, she couldn't. The scene between them is possibly the best scene of the season and one full of emotional complexity and subtle character development.
Later, she almost kills Jaime as well. I think of Jaime wasn't slated to be on next season, he should have died when she argued with him about his oaths and his honor. In a way, it would have been a fitting death for him and a shocking turn of events for a show that used to kill off main characters but hasn't in a while.
Like Sansa, Jaime's character arc reached a climax in this episode. When we first meet him, his only true motivation is Cersei. Everything he has done in his life has been for her, to be near her, and to keep their relationship. Every oath he took was out of the need to be near Cersei. When he meets Brienne, he begins to question that, to question himself and what he's doing with his life. However, at that point, he still had Cersei and their children to protect, so he can't do much to change things.
Now he has no children (except for maybe the one she's carrying) and Cersei isn't the person she was. He makes an oath to ride North to help with the White Walkers and when she tells him it was all a lie, he loses it. For once, he chooses his honor over Cersei and begins a real path toward being the knight he's always pretended to be.
It's possible that Tyrion, on the other hand, may be more loyal to Cersei than he thought. Tyrion was fine with Dany taking over Westeros until they got there and he realized it meant people he loves may die. Other people think he was upset by her executing the Tarleys. I don't believe that. I think he was upset with the idea that it could have been Jaime standing next to them. Tyrion goes out of his way to make this Truce happen and when it falls apart, he risks his life to see Cersei privately.
Their conversation ends with him realizing she's pregnant again. The next time we see him (and her), she is lying to Jon and Dany about helping them. It's quite possible Tyrion told her to lie, assuming it would at least get Jon and Dany out of the area (which means his family would be out of harm's way). This might explain the strange reaction he had to Jon and Dany at the end of the episode.
Honestly, if Tyrion has gone back to being loyal to House Lannister and his sister, it wouldn't surprise me. He's always been a loyal Lannister, always craved their approval, and was more hurt by the fact that his father and sister turned on him than he was by the thought of being killed. For Cersei's part, she knows that when she and Tyrion are allies, they are powerful allies. If she has a new baby to protect, she knows Tyrion will do a better job of that than anyone.
FIRE AND BLOOD
We know for sure that Jon Snow is really Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and Lyanna and the actual true heir to the throne. He will make a terrible king. Jon doesn't know this yet. All he knows is that his motivations have changed because he is in love with Dany. In fact, when he couldn't give his oath to Cersei it was because he's in love with Dany. To betray that oath would be to betray the woman he loves and after everything that happened with his last relationship, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It was a stupid move on his part, but just not in his character.
Jon's motivation has been to deal with the White Walkers. Everything he's done up to that point had that as the foundation of his plans. Dany is a new element to him. Suddenly even his plans to deal with the Long Night are complicated by her. The same can be said for her. Dany's first motivation was just to survive, then when her brother died, she wanted to take the throne back for her son, then when she lost him, she wanted it for herself.
The thing is, none of that has ever been solid for her. Dany is about movement and motion. She's about altering things and moving forward. Even though she wanted the iron throne, she never really understood, fully, what that meant, other than that she wanted to go home. One of the reasons she was so grumpy when she got to Dragonstone was because it didn't feel like home to her. Nothing did, not until Jon got into the picture and she started to fall in love with him.
I realize I'm writing about something that sounds like sappy romance here, but it isn't. I believe with people who are born Dragons, there is a certain attraction they have for one another. It's why certain Targs were fine being married outside the family and others just could not handle the idea. This is a family of destiny, a family with a destiny, and these two people who have been without home, identity, or any really true grounding are finding it in each other.
At the end of the day, as much as he thought he was a clever man, Littlefinger's fatal mistake was not really grasping the motivations of other people. While he chose to believe that the worst reasons, the most selfish reasons, would be what prompted people to move forward, that isn't always the case. In fact, often it is the more 'socially acceptable' motivations that can be the most powerful and the darkest. Theon beat a man to deal so he could rescue his sister. Jaime leaves Cersei for honor. Jon and Dany begin to move away from their original goals for love. Sansa kills Littlefinger to protect her family. In none of those cases would someone say their reasons were 'the worst,' but that doesn't make them any less deadly.
Final Thoughts:
This episode ran 80 minutes and it needed it. It gave time for there to be lots of interactions between people. The Hound and his brother. The Hound and Brienne. Tyrion, Pod, and Bronn. While none of these moments matched the mastery of the scene between Tyrion and Cersei, they were still really good.
Beyond conversation, some of the LOOKS people would give each other were great moments of acting. Cersei's first look at Tyrion was gloriously murderous. Jaime and Brienne kept looking at each other like two people who are trying to hide a romance in high school. Cersei kept looking at Brienne like she was on to her.
As I mentioned before, Theon left to rescue Yara. I have no idea how he's going to do that given that he has no idea where she is. His conversation with Jon about the matter was pretty good though.
Finally, I hope the final season is better than this one. This one wasn't as bad as season 5, but it wasn't good either. They're not running the final season until 2019, so they best make it good.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
GoT Season Ending Unanswered Questions
It was a long day and I know I still need to do my musings on episode seven, but I'm tired. I do, however, have some questions that I really wish would be addressed.
1. What did Sansa do with Ramsay's dogs? After she had them eat Ramsay, what did she do with this kennel full of mean, angry dogs that eat people? It seems cruel to put them down because it isn't like it's their FAULT they're that way. At the same time, it seems highly irresponsible to keep around a whole bunch of dogs that have a taste for human flesh.
2. What is Dany's plan for the Dothraki after she wins? Will she send them back to Essos to do whatever they want? Does she think they're going to somehow settle into feudal life and become farmers? Yes, they are an effective fighting force, but once the lands are under her control, what would she do with them?
3. Who is in charge of the Stormlands, the Reach, Dorne, and the Riverlands right now? All of these places need some kind of leadership to get them through winter. It's like everyone just forgot about them.
4. Where is Davos's wife? He has one. Did he forget? He was near the place where he left her.
5. Is the Faith of the Seven completely without power now? Cersei destroyed the Sept of Baelor, but that wasn't all of the church. Is there no retaliation from her actions? It seems like this would be the kind of thing people would rebel over.
6. Now that the Wall is down, does the Nightswatch really exist anymore? Their purpose was to guard the Wall. No Wall, no Watch. This might be good news for Sam Tarley considering he's basically deserted his post.
1. What did Sansa do with Ramsay's dogs? After she had them eat Ramsay, what did she do with this kennel full of mean, angry dogs that eat people? It seems cruel to put them down because it isn't like it's their FAULT they're that way. At the same time, it seems highly irresponsible to keep around a whole bunch of dogs that have a taste for human flesh.
2. What is Dany's plan for the Dothraki after she wins? Will she send them back to Essos to do whatever they want? Does she think they're going to somehow settle into feudal life and become farmers? Yes, they are an effective fighting force, but once the lands are under her control, what would she do with them?
3. Who is in charge of the Stormlands, the Reach, Dorne, and the Riverlands right now? All of these places need some kind of leadership to get them through winter. It's like everyone just forgot about them.
4. Where is Davos's wife? He has one. Did he forget? He was near the place where he left her.
5. Is the Faith of the Seven completely without power now? Cersei destroyed the Sept of Baelor, but that wasn't all of the church. Is there no retaliation from her actions? It seems like this would be the kind of thing people would rebel over.
6. Now that the Wall is down, does the Nightswatch really exist anymore? Their purpose was to guard the Wall. No Wall, no Watch. This might be good news for Sam Tarley considering he's basically deserted his post.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Quick Bit
So today was nice weather again. Our lawn got mowed and things were more or less pleasant. I'm in a pretty good place as this week is starting, which is rare for the tail end of August. If the weather stays like this, it may be a nice, actual Fall.
This won't be a long post. I'm still working through my thoughts about the end of Game of Thrones. I have enjoyed blogging about it all season and think I'll do that for the last season as well.
This won't be a long post. I'm still working through my thoughts about the end of Game of Thrones. I have enjoyed blogging about it all season and think I'll do that for the last season as well.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Charcoal Peel Tips
As anyone who reads the blog knows, I've only recently started exploring new makeup and new skincare items. Some of them aren't things I've really had contact with before and others only bear a passing resemblance to the products I've used in the past. In a lot of ways, many things are now an experiment.
My first exposure to charcoal peel off masks is probably a lot like everyone else's . . . I saw a YouTube video where someone screamed as they were pulling one off. It looked really painful, but at the same time, they were really happy with the results. My first exposure to charcoal as a beauty product was through Sephora. I received a pudding you put on your skin. It isn't a peel though. You wipe it off. I wanted to see what the peels were like.
I bought one and liked it. My experience wasn't as extreme as the videos. It didn't make me scream when I was pulling it off, but I did like the results. Besides pulling things out of pores, charcoal is also good for dealing with skin discoloration. The pudding was helping some with a few spots I have on my face, but I notice that with the peel, I'm seeing faster results. I like the mask, but there are some tricks to it.
Before you begin, make sure your face is clean and remove any hair you don't want messed with. Mine wasn't intense enough to yank hair from my face, but a lot of them are. Be careful around your eyebrows. You should also tend to any physical needs like using the restroom or hydrating yourself before you start putting black goo on your face.
Speaking of black goo, this stuff IS charcoal. Don't do this unless you have unimportant clothing on. Make sure you have wet wipes near you because it's going to get on your hands and anywhere else it spills.
And it is going to drip and spill. This kind of peel, at least the one I got, doesn't have the consistency of the typical face mask. It isn't some thick gel. This is more like oil and it's going to run, drip, and then very quickly dry. With this in mind, it's best to work in quadrants of the face and then join them. In fact, it's best to just do one spot of your face before you do the whole of it. If you are allergic to the product, better to just find that out in one spot.
Once you have it on your face, you may have to apply more. With just a thin layer, it mostly just lays over your pores instead of sinking into them. I had to apply another layer over the first one to get full coverage. It's also a good idea to make sure your edges are thick because when you start to peel it off, thin edges cause you problems. In some cases, they don't want to come up at all.
Finally, when you're finished, make sure you wash any leftover charcoal off your skin and apply a good moisturizer to prevent your skin from drying out. Clean up the area and be sure to follow whatever instructions are on the product about how to store it. You don't want this turning into my super glue that is unusable now because the top layer of it is all dried up.
I'll keep you updated on my experiments with the peel.
My first exposure to charcoal peel off masks is probably a lot like everyone else's . . . I saw a YouTube video where someone screamed as they were pulling one off. It looked really painful, but at the same time, they were really happy with the results. My first exposure to charcoal as a beauty product was through Sephora. I received a pudding you put on your skin. It isn't a peel though. You wipe it off. I wanted to see what the peels were like.
I bought one and liked it. My experience wasn't as extreme as the videos. It didn't make me scream when I was pulling it off, but I did like the results. Besides pulling things out of pores, charcoal is also good for dealing with skin discoloration. The pudding was helping some with a few spots I have on my face, but I notice that with the peel, I'm seeing faster results. I like the mask, but there are some tricks to it.
Before you begin, make sure your face is clean and remove any hair you don't want messed with. Mine wasn't intense enough to yank hair from my face, but a lot of them are. Be careful around your eyebrows. You should also tend to any physical needs like using the restroom or hydrating yourself before you start putting black goo on your face.
Speaking of black goo, this stuff IS charcoal. Don't do this unless you have unimportant clothing on. Make sure you have wet wipes near you because it's going to get on your hands and anywhere else it spills.
And it is going to drip and spill. This kind of peel, at least the one I got, doesn't have the consistency of the typical face mask. It isn't some thick gel. This is more like oil and it's going to run, drip, and then very quickly dry. With this in mind, it's best to work in quadrants of the face and then join them. In fact, it's best to just do one spot of your face before you do the whole of it. If you are allergic to the product, better to just find that out in one spot.
Once you have it on your face, you may have to apply more. With just a thin layer, it mostly just lays over your pores instead of sinking into them. I had to apply another layer over the first one to get full coverage. It's also a good idea to make sure your edges are thick because when you start to peel it off, thin edges cause you problems. In some cases, they don't want to come up at all.
Finally, when you're finished, make sure you wash any leftover charcoal off your skin and apply a good moisturizer to prevent your skin from drying out. Clean up the area and be sure to follow whatever instructions are on the product about how to store it. You don't want this turning into my super glue that is unusable now because the top layer of it is all dried up.
I'll keep you updated on my experiments with the peel.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Night before the Ending
Tomorrow is the season finale of Game of Thrones' seventh season. I wasn't sure how I would feel about the shorter season and now that it's almost over, I'm certain I'm not happy with it. This isn't even really a season with story arches and over reaching themes. Last season they were off of the books on almost all of the plotlines and it worked fairly well. In fact, last season has some of the best hours of television I've ever witnessed.
This season has just been about moving people into place for the finale. Because that was the focus, we saw little character development, awkward encounters, and illogical plot points. It honestly would have been better to end it this season after 14 solid episodes than to split it up into two seasons of seven. There just wasn't enough payoff here.
Oh well. This is all still coming out probably decades before the book version of the story will end.
This season has just been about moving people into place for the finale. Because that was the focus, we saw little character development, awkward encounters, and illogical plot points. It honestly would have been better to end it this season after 14 solid episodes than to split it up into two seasons of seven. There just wasn't enough payoff here.
Oh well. This is all still coming out probably decades before the book version of the story will end.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Quick Friday Post
We went shopping today and got enough food to last the weekend. I'm eating somewhat less than I had been, so meals are lasting longer. It's nice and it's nice to have a sense of feeling content and full. It's nice to be able to not finish a meal and that not be a weird thing. We'll see how it goes.
I hope this weekend is calm and there aren't more riots and fights. My guess is the closer we get to football season, the less of that stuff you'll see. I'm a big jaded though.
I hope this weekend is calm and there aren't more riots and fights. My guess is the closer we get to football season, the less of that stuff you'll see. I'm a big jaded though.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Calm Thursday Evening
It finally cooled down. I suspect this has something to do with that tropical storm that is brewing. We're fairly far inland, but we still sometimes get weather shifts from things like that. Whatever caused this, I'm happy. It's nice to sit in the living room and not be wet, tense, or annoyed. There is a kind of calm to the evening and it's soothing.
This week seemed to zoom by. It's a little shocking that tomorrow is Friday again. We'll be shopping and then hopefully have a nice, calm weekend. We seriously need that. I need a good, easy Fall.
This week seemed to zoom by. It's a little shocking that tomorrow is Friday again. We'll be shopping and then hopefully have a nice, calm weekend. We seriously need that. I need a good, easy Fall.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The Migration
I don't have a lot of time tonight, so go read this if you want to see something actually beautiful and amazing on the internet.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
The Dark Corners
The eclipse came and went. We got a little weirdly dark but nothing compared to what some people experienced. It's cooling down and we're expecting rain. It didn't feel like Fall today, but it kind of feels like Fall tonight. As you know, this is the only season I really enjoy. Hopefully, I can enjoy it this year.
I still think about my cats every day. I still miss them every day. I feel wounded about this in ways I haven't felt about anything. I have a lot of irrational thoughts about it. Some dark part of my mind whispers that Rowan's sudden death was my punishment for putting Rhiannon down. I mean, I did not want to put Rhi down. I had to. She was past the point where living was comfortable or easy for her. As a pet owner, you have to make that hard choice. I know this but it's still a choice that messes with me.
Ever since they died, I feel like I've been in a very dark corner of my mind. It's this little grief pit that won't go away or heal or close. The grief pit isn't just about the cats. It contains all the regrets and guilt and shame connected with every other person who has ever died in my life. Most of the time I try to ignore it, but it isn't always easy.
Perhaps Fall will lift my spirits.
I still think about my cats every day. I still miss them every day. I feel wounded about this in ways I haven't felt about anything. I have a lot of irrational thoughts about it. Some dark part of my mind whispers that Rowan's sudden death was my punishment for putting Rhiannon down. I mean, I did not want to put Rhi down. I had to. She was past the point where living was comfortable or easy for her. As a pet owner, you have to make that hard choice. I know this but it's still a choice that messes with me.
Ever since they died, I feel like I've been in a very dark corner of my mind. It's this little grief pit that won't go away or heal or close. The grief pit isn't just about the cats. It contains all the regrets and guilt and shame connected with every other person who has ever died in my life. Most of the time I try to ignore it, but it isn't always easy.
Perhaps Fall will lift my spirits.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Beyond the Wall Musings
Some of my earliest memories involve fantasy stories. My mother loved them and it was one of the few things she seemed interested in sharing with me. Runes, magic, elves, narrow escapes, and returning heroes were beloved parts of my childhood. As a child, I accepted them without question. Of course the heroes never really died. Of course, the calvaries would show up at just the right moment. That is the nature of the Song of Fantasy.
As an adult, I still accept many of these tropes and handwave away their use when they are done well. However, as an adult, especially when I read (or watch) something that is intended to be viewed by adults, I expect a certain level of sophistication to my fantasy. Complex character development. Intangled plotlines that unravel themselves into glorious reveals. Earned moments of emotional drama. When it's at its best, Game of Thrones is so good at all of that. When it's being written in a lazy, sloppy way . . . well, it's like eating a cupcake. Cupcakes are pretty amazing when you're a kid. As an adult, you realize they're also cumbersome, overly sweet, and expensive.
WINTERFELL
Winterfell better have some kind of grand payoff because right now it's just annoying. Arya is verbally attacking Sansa over every decision she's ever made. Sansa is paranoid and scared of her sister. Littlefinger is slimy and trying to suggest Sansa have Brienne kill Arya. Bran is . . .
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but in the books, Bran's storyline is one of my favorites. It has moments of pure terror and moments of deep desperation, but there is also a richness to it as the Reeds and Bran tell each other stories to pass the time as they travel. On the show, things just got depressing fast and then kind of boring. Now Bran has all the knowledge in all the world but won't open his mouth to get his sisters to stop fighting.
I have a feeling this will end up like the Arya in Braavos storyline. There are ways that story could have been amazing, but it wasn't. I don't think the writers know what to really do with the Stark children and just keep inventing roadblocks to seem like something is happening. This is needless! Kill Littlefinger and focus on them getting things ready for winter!
Winterfell DID have the Smartest Person Who Learns from Mistakes this week. When Sansa received a letter from Cersei asking her to come to Kingslanding, Sansa remembered that when her grandfather, uncle, aunt, father, mother, and older brother road South, THEY ALL DIED. Instead of going South herself, she sent Brienne.
DRAGONSTONE
We only see Dany and Tyrion here, as they pass the stressful hours waiting for the people who went beyond the Wall to return. They debate about how things are going. Tyrion suggests Jon loves Dany and she doubts it. He asks her who is to hold the throne after she dies and she is not having a discussion about that. When word comes that Jon needs her, she leaves to rescue him. Tyrion objects to this, which I thought was rather stupid as his whole plan to get Cersei to back down hinges on them bringing a wight for her to see. Tyrion and Dany fight more like siblings than Sansa and Arya do.
BEYOND THE WALL
Where to start? The good part was the various conversations between the men as they traveled. A lot of the stuff I complained about last week (like the issue of Jon having Jorah's sword) got discussed and settled. The battles that followed LOOKED good.
However, the actual plotting of this whole section is so bad. First of all, they have these Redshirts with them who seem to be pulling along supplies. The Redshirts start dying as soon as they get attacked by the zombie polar bear. This is where the first problem comes in. Not the bear itself. That was pretty nifty, but the whole 'how does one wight?' issue.
Up to this point, it's seemed that if you are attacked by something already zombified, you will become zombified. Both Tormund and Jon SHOULD know this. So once the first guy dies, the mission should be over. Jon should have said, broodingly, "Well, look, mates, this honored member of the Brotherhood Without Banners.....or wildling.....or.....wotever he wos......he is dead. He'll be a wight in about six hours or so. Let's tie him up and head back. No battle, sorry. But this is safer." We know this is what happens when someone dies from a wight attack. When Thoros dies a while later(from wounds sustained from that same bear attack), they even remark on it.
I guess this doesn't occur to them because the cold is freezing their brains. They continue on and find a scouting party of wights with a White Walker. I have no idea why they were scouting because what would be the point, but here we are. Fighting happens. Jon kills the Walker and ALL the wights explode too, except for one of them. So.......now I guess if you're Turned by a Walker, you are linked to it, kind of like in shoddy vampire stories? So all they have to do is get to the Night King and kill him and all the others are gone? Okay.
As I said, one of them doesn't explode. They tackle him like how Steve Irwin and his buddies used to tackle crocodiles and secure him for transport. However, the wight starts screaming like some kind of baby t-rex and suddenly the whole damned billions of zombies army is on its way after them. Jon tells Gendry to RUN back to Eastwatch and send a raven to Dany for help. He does not tell Gendry that once she gets there, she should locate the White Walkers who are all standing off on a hill by themselves and burn them so that all the other zombies explode. He should have because that would have been a great way to end all of this, but he doesn't.
The army of the dead shows up and starts to get at our band of heroes. But they happen onto a lake with a small island in the middle of it. They run to the island. As the zombies try to follow, their zombie weight is so much that it cracks the ice and they begin to fall into the frozen water. The zombies realize they have to stop and just wait on the edges of the lake, staring out at the men on the island. Jon knows Gendry getting to Eastwatch and a raven getting to Dany is his only hope.
This whole damned solution to his plan has been a topic of various people online. People did research and actual math to see if this was possible. Assuming it only took Gendry like 8-12 hours to run back to the castle (because that was the least amount of time anyone could reasonably see it happening given how far away they were), it would take a raven about 40 hours to get to Dragonstone, probably closer to 48 because at some point that bird would have to stop for food and rest. We have no idea how long it would take Dany to get back with dragons, but at least a day or so? Even if she flew straight there she would need to stop at Eastwatch to rest, pee, eat something, find out exactly where they were. By the time she gets there, the ice has hardened enough for the wights to get to Jon and company. They figure that would take around five days given the rate ice hardens. So the timeline is somewhat-ish almost possible as long as you assume the men on the island brought enough food and water to last that whole time and didn't die from exposure.
So basically, it's unlikely. But less unlikely than these few men holding off hours and hours of zombie attacks before Dany actually does show up. Stupid Sandor throws a rock at a zombie and misses. The rock slides across the ice so the zombies realize it's frozen enough for them to cross. Suddenly there are zombies everywhere and no one is getting killed except for more Redshirts and almost Tormund.
When Dany does finally show up, there is much dragon fire. She gets everyone on Drogon except for Jon, but then the whole world stops because the Night King kills Viserion with an ice spear. It was so unbelievably sad. I mean, we've watched these dragons since they hatched and to see one of them die was heartbreaking. Jon urges Dany and the others to leave before any other dragons get killed. He stays behind, gets knocked underwater, pulls himself out, gets saved by Benjen, and then sent back to Eastwatch on Benjen's horse.
We end on a ship down to Kingslanding. Jon, in bed, shirtless, and recovering from his injuries, tells Dany that she is his Queen and looks at her like he loves her. She tells him she will fight the Night King and looks at him like she loves him. They hold hands.
The last scene is the zombie army pulling the dead dragon out of the lake with massive chains they got from who knows where and the Night King turning him into a dragon zombie.
Here's the thing about writing fantasy for adults. It can't be 'adult' in JUST the way that it says all the curse words and shows some titties. It has to be adult in the way where the plots are complex, satisfying, and logical. Things need to make sense. Things need to follow rules. Characters who have been established as not stupid should not conduct themselves as stupid people. People who have vital information should share said information unless they have a good reason . . . like they're in a coma. In other words, if you want to present your show as 'for adults' do not plot it at the level that only a 7 yr old would forgive. Game of Thrones needs to step up and start being ADULT entertainment again. Not just . . . this.
FINAL MUSINGS
Arya keeps all of her faces in a backpack. How does she keep them from twisting up and getting unusable?
Tormund wants to have giant babies with Brienne.
With Thoros dead, Beric can't be brought back to life anymore. So he's probably on suicide mode now.
The other two dragons screamed in pain when their sibling died. It hurt my heart.
As an adult, I still accept many of these tropes and handwave away their use when they are done well. However, as an adult, especially when I read (or watch) something that is intended to be viewed by adults, I expect a certain level of sophistication to my fantasy. Complex character development. Intangled plotlines that unravel themselves into glorious reveals. Earned moments of emotional drama. When it's at its best, Game of Thrones is so good at all of that. When it's being written in a lazy, sloppy way . . . well, it's like eating a cupcake. Cupcakes are pretty amazing when you're a kid. As an adult, you realize they're also cumbersome, overly sweet, and expensive.
WINTERFELL
Winterfell better have some kind of grand payoff because right now it's just annoying. Arya is verbally attacking Sansa over every decision she's ever made. Sansa is paranoid and scared of her sister. Littlefinger is slimy and trying to suggest Sansa have Brienne kill Arya. Bran is . . .
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but in the books, Bran's storyline is one of my favorites. It has moments of pure terror and moments of deep desperation, but there is also a richness to it as the Reeds and Bran tell each other stories to pass the time as they travel. On the show, things just got depressing fast and then kind of boring. Now Bran has all the knowledge in all the world but won't open his mouth to get his sisters to stop fighting.
I have a feeling this will end up like the Arya in Braavos storyline. There are ways that story could have been amazing, but it wasn't. I don't think the writers know what to really do with the Stark children and just keep inventing roadblocks to seem like something is happening. This is needless! Kill Littlefinger and focus on them getting things ready for winter!
Winterfell DID have the Smartest Person Who Learns from Mistakes this week. When Sansa received a letter from Cersei asking her to come to Kingslanding, Sansa remembered that when her grandfather, uncle, aunt, father, mother, and older brother road South, THEY ALL DIED. Instead of going South herself, she sent Brienne.
DRAGONSTONE
We only see Dany and Tyrion here, as they pass the stressful hours waiting for the people who went beyond the Wall to return. They debate about how things are going. Tyrion suggests Jon loves Dany and she doubts it. He asks her who is to hold the throne after she dies and she is not having a discussion about that. When word comes that Jon needs her, she leaves to rescue him. Tyrion objects to this, which I thought was rather stupid as his whole plan to get Cersei to back down hinges on them bringing a wight for her to see. Tyrion and Dany fight more like siblings than Sansa and Arya do.
BEYOND THE WALL
Where to start? The good part was the various conversations between the men as they traveled. A lot of the stuff I complained about last week (like the issue of Jon having Jorah's sword) got discussed and settled. The battles that followed LOOKED good.
However, the actual plotting of this whole section is so bad. First of all, they have these Redshirts with them who seem to be pulling along supplies. The Redshirts start dying as soon as they get attacked by the zombie polar bear. This is where the first problem comes in. Not the bear itself. That was pretty nifty, but the whole 'how does one wight?' issue.
Up to this point, it's seemed that if you are attacked by something already zombified, you will become zombified. Both Tormund and Jon SHOULD know this. So once the first guy dies, the mission should be over. Jon should have said, broodingly, "Well, look, mates, this honored member of the Brotherhood Without Banners.....or wildling.....or.....wotever he wos......he is dead. He'll be a wight in about six hours or so. Let's tie him up and head back. No battle, sorry. But this is safer." We know this is what happens when someone dies from a wight attack. When Thoros dies a while later(from wounds sustained from that same bear attack), they even remark on it.
I guess this doesn't occur to them because the cold is freezing their brains. They continue on and find a scouting party of wights with a White Walker. I have no idea why they were scouting because what would be the point, but here we are. Fighting happens. Jon kills the Walker and ALL the wights explode too, except for one of them. So.......now I guess if you're Turned by a Walker, you are linked to it, kind of like in shoddy vampire stories? So all they have to do is get to the Night King and kill him and all the others are gone? Okay.
As I said, one of them doesn't explode. They tackle him like how Steve Irwin and his buddies used to tackle crocodiles and secure him for transport. However, the wight starts screaming like some kind of baby t-rex and suddenly the whole damned billions of zombies army is on its way after them. Jon tells Gendry to RUN back to Eastwatch and send a raven to Dany for help. He does not tell Gendry that once she gets there, she should locate the White Walkers who are all standing off on a hill by themselves and burn them so that all the other zombies explode. He should have because that would have been a great way to end all of this, but he doesn't.
The army of the dead shows up and starts to get at our band of heroes. But they happen onto a lake with a small island in the middle of it. They run to the island. As the zombies try to follow, their zombie weight is so much that it cracks the ice and they begin to fall into the frozen water. The zombies realize they have to stop and just wait on the edges of the lake, staring out at the men on the island. Jon knows Gendry getting to Eastwatch and a raven getting to Dany is his only hope.
This whole damned solution to his plan has been a topic of various people online. People did research and actual math to see if this was possible. Assuming it only took Gendry like 8-12 hours to run back to the castle (because that was the least amount of time anyone could reasonably see it happening given how far away they were), it would take a raven about 40 hours to get to Dragonstone, probably closer to 48 because at some point that bird would have to stop for food and rest. We have no idea how long it would take Dany to get back with dragons, but at least a day or so? Even if she flew straight there she would need to stop at Eastwatch to rest, pee, eat something, find out exactly where they were. By the time she gets there, the ice has hardened enough for the wights to get to Jon and company. They figure that would take around five days given the rate ice hardens. So the timeline is somewhat-ish almost possible as long as you assume the men on the island brought enough food and water to last that whole time and didn't die from exposure.
So basically, it's unlikely. But less unlikely than these few men holding off hours and hours of zombie attacks before Dany actually does show up. Stupid Sandor throws a rock at a zombie and misses. The rock slides across the ice so the zombies realize it's frozen enough for them to cross. Suddenly there are zombies everywhere and no one is getting killed except for more Redshirts and almost Tormund.
When Dany does finally show up, there is much dragon fire. She gets everyone on Drogon except for Jon, but then the whole world stops because the Night King kills Viserion with an ice spear. It was so unbelievably sad. I mean, we've watched these dragons since they hatched and to see one of them die was heartbreaking. Jon urges Dany and the others to leave before any other dragons get killed. He stays behind, gets knocked underwater, pulls himself out, gets saved by Benjen, and then sent back to Eastwatch on Benjen's horse.
We end on a ship down to Kingslanding. Jon, in bed, shirtless, and recovering from his injuries, tells Dany that she is his Queen and looks at her like he loves her. She tells him she will fight the Night King and looks at him like she loves him. They hold hands.
The last scene is the zombie army pulling the dead dragon out of the lake with massive chains they got from who knows where and the Night King turning him into a dragon zombie.
Here's the thing about writing fantasy for adults. It can't be 'adult' in JUST the way that it says all the curse words and shows some titties. It has to be adult in the way where the plots are complex, satisfying, and logical. Things need to make sense. Things need to follow rules. Characters who have been established as not stupid should not conduct themselves as stupid people. People who have vital information should share said information unless they have a good reason . . . like they're in a coma. In other words, if you want to present your show as 'for adults' do not plot it at the level that only a 7 yr old would forgive. Game of Thrones needs to step up and start being ADULT entertainment again. Not just . . . this.
FINAL MUSINGS
Arya keeps all of her faces in a backpack. How does she keep them from twisting up and getting unusable?
Tormund wants to have giant babies with Brienne.
With Thoros dead, Beric can't be brought back to life anymore. So he's probably on suicide mode now.
The other two dragons screamed in pain when their sibling died. It hurt my heart.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
End of the Weekend
Tomorrow there will be an eclipse. People are pretty excited about it. I like unexpected darkness, so I'm excited too. I wish it was lasting longer than it will. I wish it would last long enough for people to question if that is the last we'll see of the sun. Then again, as freaky as things are right now, maybe that isn't a good idea. We have enough chaos.
My weekend was hot but otherwise okay. Actually, it wasn't AS hot as it had been because the real heat of the day helped to burn away the humidity. That is always a kind of mercy during August. I spent part of the weekend reading the Sabrina comic and it is very good. It reminded me of old school Vertigo comics.
I'm hoping this week is quiet and easy. Tomorrow, I have many thoughts about Game of Thrones.
My weekend was hot but otherwise okay. Actually, it wasn't AS hot as it had been because the real heat of the day helped to burn away the humidity. That is always a kind of mercy during August. I spent part of the weekend reading the Sabrina comic and it is very good. It reminded me of old school Vertigo comics.
I'm hoping this week is quiet and easy. Tomorrow, I have many thoughts about Game of Thrones.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
August Box Blender and Scent
My last offerings from the August box are by famous names. One, Kat Von D, we've discussed before. The other is beautyblender, a tool product that many people swear by.
My beautyblender beautyblender® micro.mini is the first tool I've received in my box. I was pretty thrilled when I got it because it's tiny and adorable. The full purchase price is 18$ for a set of two. I've used blenders before, but they were full-sized and knockoffs. Working with sponges while doing makeup is tricky at first. It's certainly something that requires practice. If you learn to work them well, it can do amazing things for anyone who hates the feel of having makeup on because sponges can put it on so light it feels like nothing.
My microblender did its job. It's less porous than my knockoffs and handles water/creams better. They don't do a bad job, but the beautyblender is certainly a better texture for application. Having said that, I don't think I would bother to pay full price. The knockoffs do well enough and eventually, they're going to all fall apart. You have to keep in mind that while this is a tool you can use quite a few times, you're still going to be tossing it in the trash after a while. And as the microblender is a little tough to clean, I'm betting I'll be tossing it away sooner than later.
The scent this month was a double scent. Kat Von D's Sinner and Saint perfumes. Separately, they run 65$ for 1.6 oz. Apparently, she stopped making these for a while and just started production again. I liked Saint more than Sinner because it's lighter and floral, but even it was too heavy of a scent for me to be totally in love with it. Had it just been the vanilla and jasmine, I would have been fine, but she also adds notes of mandarin, caramel, Mirabelle plum, sandalwood, and creamy musk. It's just A LOT. She said she created it a scent that reminded her of falling in love for the first time....and....well, as I said. It's A LOT.
Sinner seemed out of place as a summer scent. It has the jasmine, mandarin, vanilla, and plum in common with Saint, but adds orange blossom, but adds cinnamon, vetiver, patchouli, and wood. Which . . . patchouli . . . though I do admit she masks the patchouli well. Then again, with all this other stuff in there, how could she not? She said this was her more edgy side, which, yes, I get, but it's still A LOT. The problem with scents this complicated is that nothing really stands out. On some people that may work, but on me, it just comes off as someone spraying jasmine Fabreeze in the room where people had an orgy.
Over all, I was pleased with this month's box. My exploration of makeup and myself continues to yield some valuable discoveries.
My beautyblender beautyblender® micro.mini is the first tool I've received in my box. I was pretty thrilled when I got it because it's tiny and adorable. The full purchase price is 18$ for a set of two. I've used blenders before, but they were full-sized and knockoffs. Working with sponges while doing makeup is tricky at first. It's certainly something that requires practice. If you learn to work them well, it can do amazing things for anyone who hates the feel of having makeup on because sponges can put it on so light it feels like nothing.
My microblender did its job. It's less porous than my knockoffs and handles water/creams better. They don't do a bad job, but the beautyblender is certainly a better texture for application. Having said that, I don't think I would bother to pay full price. The knockoffs do well enough and eventually, they're going to all fall apart. You have to keep in mind that while this is a tool you can use quite a few times, you're still going to be tossing it in the trash after a while. And as the microblender is a little tough to clean, I'm betting I'll be tossing it away sooner than later.
The scent this month was a double scent. Kat Von D's Sinner and Saint perfumes. Separately, they run 65$ for 1.6 oz. Apparently, she stopped making these for a while and just started production again. I liked Saint more than Sinner because it's lighter and floral, but even it was too heavy of a scent for me to be totally in love with it. Had it just been the vanilla and jasmine, I would have been fine, but she also adds notes of mandarin, caramel, Mirabelle plum, sandalwood, and creamy musk. It's just A LOT. She said she created it a scent that reminded her of falling in love for the first time....and....well, as I said. It's A LOT.
Sinner seemed out of place as a summer scent. It has the jasmine, mandarin, vanilla, and plum in common with Saint, but adds orange blossom, but adds cinnamon, vetiver, patchouli, and wood. Which . . . patchouli . . . though I do admit she masks the patchouli well. Then again, with all this other stuff in there, how could she not? She said this was her more edgy side, which, yes, I get, but it's still A LOT. The problem with scents this complicated is that nothing really stands out. On some people that may work, but on me, it just comes off as someone spraying jasmine Fabreeze in the room where people had an orgy.
Over all, I was pleased with this month's box. My exploration of makeup and myself continues to yield some valuable discoveries.
Friday, August 18, 2017
August Box Skin and Hair
It occurs to me that if you don't know I'm talking about beauty products, my various monthly titles might sound a little sinister.
The skin item is GLAMGLOW VOLCASMIC™ Matte Glow Moisturizer and to own 1.7 oz of it, you must pay 54$. I have to say that is way out there far more than I would feel comfortable paying for a moisturizer. And yet, I would seriously be tempted by this product. It's fabulous. As it also acts as a primer, I will admit my makeup never felt as good as it did when I had this on my skin. Not only did it glide on smooth and light, but it held during very hot weather.
Apparently, the volcanic sand acts as little tiny sponges that absorb oil. For anyone who has oily skin, this product would make you happy. When the oil is being handled, pores feel tiny and skin feels tighter. When I was reading the description, it talked about how Glamglow keeps the skin 'calm.' I snarked at this, at first. I used the product and now I get it. My makeup has never been so uneventful. No sliding. No melting. No long streaks of sweat and disruption. Glorious.
My hair item for this month is ALTERNA Haircare CAVIAR Anti-Aging Miracle Multiplying Volume Mist and it costs 30$. Now, this product is supposed to help people regain volume and look fuller, like how it looked when you were younger. They note in the product description this is best done with the shampoo and conditioner related to this product. I don't have those so I can't attest to its thickening abilities.
I can say I love the way it smells. It smells like grape soda and that makes me happy. I also like its holding power. When I put it on, it did what I wished without feeling clumpy or stiff. I would go so far as to say it made my hair feel BETTER than it does with no product in it at all.
Would I pay 30$ for it? No. It's a nice product and I would go so far as to say it does feel very lux, but I can't justify that amount of money for hair spray. Mind you, if it really does, over the course of the month, make me feel like my hair is thicker and better, I might change my mind. It would have to be drastic though because my guess is the shampoo and conditioner are equally expensive.
Tomorrow we're talking about two scents I received and my baby beauty blender. That should be fun.
The skin item is GLAMGLOW VOLCASMIC™ Matte Glow Moisturizer and to own 1.7 oz of it, you must pay 54$. I have to say that is way out there far more than I would feel comfortable paying for a moisturizer. And yet, I would seriously be tempted by this product. It's fabulous. As it also acts as a primer, I will admit my makeup never felt as good as it did when I had this on my skin. Not only did it glide on smooth and light, but it held during very hot weather.
Apparently, the volcanic sand acts as little tiny sponges that absorb oil. For anyone who has oily skin, this product would make you happy. When the oil is being handled, pores feel tiny and skin feels tighter. When I was reading the description, it talked about how Glamglow keeps the skin 'calm.' I snarked at this, at first. I used the product and now I get it. My makeup has never been so uneventful. No sliding. No melting. No long streaks of sweat and disruption. Glorious.
My hair item for this month is ALTERNA Haircare CAVIAR Anti-Aging Miracle Multiplying Volume Mist and it costs 30$. Now, this product is supposed to help people regain volume and look fuller, like how it looked when you were younger. They note in the product description this is best done with the shampoo and conditioner related to this product. I don't have those so I can't attest to its thickening abilities.
I can say I love the way it smells. It smells like grape soda and that makes me happy. I also like its holding power. When I put it on, it did what I wished without feeling clumpy or stiff. I would go so far as to say it made my hair feel BETTER than it does with no product in it at all.
Would I pay 30$ for it? No. It's a nice product and I would go so far as to say it does feel very lux, but I can't justify that amount of money for hair spray. Mind you, if it really does, over the course of the month, make me feel like my hair is thicker and better, I might change my mind. It would have to be drastic though because my guess is the shampoo and conditioner are equally expensive.
Tomorrow we're talking about two scents I received and my baby beauty blender. That should be fun.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
August Box Eye Items
My Sephora box was really full this time! Normally I receive five items plus a scent. This time one of the items was doubled, as was the scent. This was a neat surprise and really pleased the Capricorn in me.
One of the benefits of having these new (and out of my usual budget) makeup items is that I'm starting to understand why my face can't tolerate certain products. If you asked before, I would say I was allergic to mascara, but I've handled the two from my boxes just fine. I think the issue is that I'm allergic to something normally put into most cheaper versions of the product and not in these.
The mascara that came in this month's box was doubled. One side was CLINIQUE High Impact Mascara (18$) and the other side was CLINIQUE Lash Building Primer (17$). What I received as a sample was a double-sided deal with the mascara on one end and the primer on the other. The primer serves two purposes. The first is that it adds a conditioner to the lashes and helps to keep the mascara on longer. From my perspective, it did this fairly well. I was pleased with it. It coats onto the lash clearish to white. The mascara is designed to do what mascara does. I will say this one is very pigmented and made my lashes look pretty glam. Because these are Clinique products, they're safe for anyone with contacts and allergies. They're also scent free and I LOVED that. Overall, I was pleased with this sample.
Would I buy these? The thing is, I'm figuring out if I plan on wearing mascara, I would need to purchase something at this price point. Scent free and easy on my eyes is the only way I'd be able to function.
I received another lash product as well, the Too Faced Mascara Melt Off Cleansing Oil. This product costs 17$. I have to confess. I have never used mascara cleansing oil. I always just washed my mascara off like I did everything else. I know cleansing oils aren't a new thing because I remember my mom having one when I was little. I remember opening the container and being confused by how the brush looked. I just thought it was some weird other mascara.
She never explained it to me because Mom had a weird relationship with makeup. Every woman in my family did. Makeup was treated as something almost forbidden, almost on the level with dirty magazines. I literally would sit behind the hedges with a friend and experiment with eyeshadows with a friend. We HID this eyeshadow under the leaves like it was our smack gear or something! People! Makeup is PAINT. It is a tool, like a knitting needle or a tube of oil paint. Don't make your kids uncomfortable about art!
Anyway, back to the melting oil, I am very pleased with it. I'm one of those people who always have raccoon eyes after wearing mascara and when I used this, that didn't happen. Some people were saying they didn't like that you wait a full minute before removal and that you still have to wipe it with something else to get the stuff off. To me, the point was that it comes off easier. Now would I buy this? That is a lot of money for a uni-tasking product when you can accomplish it with other things. On the other hand, if I were wearing an intense, hard to get off mascara every day, it might be a worthwhile investment.
As I said above, the mascara (and related eye products) have been interesting for me. I am learning a lot about my eyes and what I need for them, which means I'm accomplishing one of the primary missions of this Sephora experiment. Tomorrow we'll talk about skin and hair.
One of the benefits of having these new (and out of my usual budget) makeup items is that I'm starting to understand why my face can't tolerate certain products. If you asked before, I would say I was allergic to mascara, but I've handled the two from my boxes just fine. I think the issue is that I'm allergic to something normally put into most cheaper versions of the product and not in these.
The mascara that came in this month's box was doubled. One side was CLINIQUE High Impact Mascara (18$) and the other side was CLINIQUE Lash Building Primer (17$). What I received as a sample was a double-sided deal with the mascara on one end and the primer on the other. The primer serves two purposes. The first is that it adds a conditioner to the lashes and helps to keep the mascara on longer. From my perspective, it did this fairly well. I was pleased with it. It coats onto the lash clearish to white. The mascara is designed to do what mascara does. I will say this one is very pigmented and made my lashes look pretty glam. Because these are Clinique products, they're safe for anyone with contacts and allergies. They're also scent free and I LOVED that. Overall, I was pleased with this sample.
Would I buy these? The thing is, I'm figuring out if I plan on wearing mascara, I would need to purchase something at this price point. Scent free and easy on my eyes is the only way I'd be able to function.
I received another lash product as well, the Too Faced Mascara Melt Off Cleansing Oil. This product costs 17$. I have to confess. I have never used mascara cleansing oil. I always just washed my mascara off like I did everything else. I know cleansing oils aren't a new thing because I remember my mom having one when I was little. I remember opening the container and being confused by how the brush looked. I just thought it was some weird other mascara.
She never explained it to me because Mom had a weird relationship with makeup. Every woman in my family did. Makeup was treated as something almost forbidden, almost on the level with dirty magazines. I literally would sit behind the hedges with a friend and experiment with eyeshadows with a friend. We HID this eyeshadow under the leaves like it was our smack gear or something! People! Makeup is PAINT. It is a tool, like a knitting needle or a tube of oil paint. Don't make your kids uncomfortable about art!
Anyway, back to the melting oil, I am very pleased with it. I'm one of those people who always have raccoon eyes after wearing mascara and when I used this, that didn't happen. Some people were saying they didn't like that you wait a full minute before removal and that you still have to wipe it with something else to get the stuff off. To me, the point was that it comes off easier. Now would I buy this? That is a lot of money for a uni-tasking product when you can accomplish it with other things. On the other hand, if I were wearing an intense, hard to get off mascara every day, it might be a worthwhile investment.
As I said above, the mascara (and related eye products) have been interesting for me. I am learning a lot about my eyes and what I need for them, which means I'm accomplishing one of the primary missions of this Sephora experiment. Tomorrow we'll talk about skin and hair.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Early Days
The roommate and I had a discussion about the pros and cons of Movie Pass. On one hand, just paying ten bucks a month to see any movie in the theaters you want for free sound great. On the other hand, it also sounds a little bit too good to be true. Mind you so did Netflix at first. It's been a lot of years, but at one time it was utterly unimaginable that you could pay a fee and rent a bunch of movies every month with no late fees at all. That worked so well that it destroyed the movie rental industry.
The problem is, Movie Pass has to work WITH the theater industry and a lot of movie theaters are nervous about this. Already AMC said they were looking for a way out of the Movie Pass deal. They're not sure if they can find one, but they want out because, well, because I guess they think movies SHOULD be expensive.
Honestly, from the theater side of this, I don't see the problem. Movie Pass IS paying for the ticket. If someone is walking in there and paying nothing for their movie, they're more likely to purchase concessions, which is where most theaters make their money anyway. It also means they will have more people in the theaters more often, and that could be a huge boost to some of these places that are just about to close for good.
From the customer side, at least at the moment, things are more complicated. For one thing, Movie Pass doesn't have a clear and easy list of participating theaters. Or rather, they do, but their website stays so overwhelmed, it's almost impossible to link to it. I only found the listings in my area because someone posted a link where you could see it, but only in code. That isn't going to be a welcoming thing for most people. They need to upgrade their website and honestly should have done that before announcing the price reduction.
There is also the physical annoyance of it. MoviePass sends you a card that has to be swiped and confirmed every time you go to see a movie. This doesn't seem like it would be any more hassle than using a credit card, but some people have reported that the process somehow takes a lot longer than it should and that sometimes the cards won't go through at all. It also makes it more difficult to see popular movies on the first weekend because most of the tickets will have been bought up in advance. There is really no way around that second one, but in the first case, various kinds of solutions could be found. Door detectors, outside ticket machines, etc.
For most people, the biggest deterrent is going to be the level of crap they may have been given by the theaters around them. A lot of theaters can be assholish to their customer base, especially when they think said customers are getting away with something. They would rather have empty seats than allow certain movies to be watched by passes or reward tickets. They may refuse to honor Movie Pass for any number of reasons, create obstacles, and do whatever they can to discourage people from using them. And as I said above, there really is no logical reason for this, but I've noticed most businesses don't run on logic.
When it comes to this new Movie Pass experiment, it's early days. A lot of the problems could be solved if people are willing to work on them. I really hope they do get solved and not just because I don't want to pay a lot of money for movies. People need outlets right now. No one smokes anymore. Fewer people drink socially. No one can afford to just drive around to unwind. As a nation, we are stressed out and in serious need of distraction and comfort. During the Depression, movies helped to get people through it. Maybe that could work for us again. Something needs to.
The problem is, Movie Pass has to work WITH the theater industry and a lot of movie theaters are nervous about this. Already AMC said they were looking for a way out of the Movie Pass deal. They're not sure if they can find one, but they want out because, well, because I guess they think movies SHOULD be expensive.
Honestly, from the theater side of this, I don't see the problem. Movie Pass IS paying for the ticket. If someone is walking in there and paying nothing for their movie, they're more likely to purchase concessions, which is where most theaters make their money anyway. It also means they will have more people in the theaters more often, and that could be a huge boost to some of these places that are just about to close for good.
From the customer side, at least at the moment, things are more complicated. For one thing, Movie Pass doesn't have a clear and easy list of participating theaters. Or rather, they do, but their website stays so overwhelmed, it's almost impossible to link to it. I only found the listings in my area because someone posted a link where you could see it, but only in code. That isn't going to be a welcoming thing for most people. They need to upgrade their website and honestly should have done that before announcing the price reduction.
There is also the physical annoyance of it. MoviePass sends you a card that has to be swiped and confirmed every time you go to see a movie. This doesn't seem like it would be any more hassle than using a credit card, but some people have reported that the process somehow takes a lot longer than it should and that sometimes the cards won't go through at all. It also makes it more difficult to see popular movies on the first weekend because most of the tickets will have been bought up in advance. There is really no way around that second one, but in the first case, various kinds of solutions could be found. Door detectors, outside ticket machines, etc.
For most people, the biggest deterrent is going to be the level of crap they may have been given by the theaters around them. A lot of theaters can be assholish to their customer base, especially when they think said customers are getting away with something. They would rather have empty seats than allow certain movies to be watched by passes or reward tickets. They may refuse to honor Movie Pass for any number of reasons, create obstacles, and do whatever they can to discourage people from using them. And as I said above, there really is no logical reason for this, but I've noticed most businesses don't run on logic.
When it comes to this new Movie Pass experiment, it's early days. A lot of the problems could be solved if people are willing to work on them. I really hope they do get solved and not just because I don't want to pay a lot of money for movies. People need outlets right now. No one smokes anymore. Fewer people drink socially. No one can afford to just drive around to unwind. As a nation, we are stressed out and in serious need of distraction and comfort. During the Depression, movies helped to get people through it. Maybe that could work for us again. Something needs to.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Eastwatch Musings
A while back, I mentioned that the problem with the speeding up on Game of Thrones is that we're not taking the time to really let people emotionally reflect on things. There are small seconds of it, but not many. We're not seeing any kind of character growth or development and this is a problem. It's also a problem because the payoff that we need on this show, even more than any cool action battle, is rooted in the emotions of the characters.
REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO . . . .
Last season, Jon and Sansa saw each other for the first time in years, I actually cried. The payoff on this scene was massive. Reunion scenes have a big emotional impact and if you don't handle them properly, they leave a bad taste in people's mouth. This is exactly how things went with Jaime and Tyrion's reunion. After seeing him almost die on the battlefield, it was clear Tyrion still loves his brother. After everything he's gone through, it's clear Jaime has changed and realizes the world is more complex than he thought. Their reunion should have been one of the bigger moments of this episode, but instead, it's just a hurried infodump/guiltfest.
Jorah reunited with Dany and Tyrion this week. The meeting with Dany was weirdly more emotional than I expected. Then again, I guess she assumed he was going to die. His meeting with Tyrion was better, honestly, it was more oddly touching than the Lannister's meeting with his brother. Tyrion gave Jorah a coin he'd been keeping for good luck, one they'd had since their time in captivity.
One of the problems with the Jorah stuff is that he shows up, says hi to Dany, and then the next scene with him, he's deciding to leave again and the reasons just honestly aren't clear. There are guesses one can make. He feels guilty about his father dying. He feels like he cheated death and maybe he owes it to everyone to go on a really dumb and deadly mission?
Oh, and about this mission . . . Jon knows he has to convince everyone down South about the army of the dead. So he and Tyrion (and Jorah, who jumps in to help) decide to go past the Wall, grab a wight, and bring it South. This is an idiotic plan. The dead people North of the Wall aren't spread out in little convenient groups. They are all together as one big army. I'm pretty sure they'd notice the living people wandering around. Though, maybe they won't notice Jon? He is kinda dead too.
Anyway, this leads to the WORST of reunions. When they get to the Wall (because that is a thing that is happening by the end of the episode. It took Jon and Tyrion like two episodes to get to the Wall from Winterfell the first season but honestly travel just does not matter now), Tormund has captured Thorros, the Hound, and Beric. He's keeping them in the dungeon for some crazy reason. Jon and company go to look at them and it's basically this:
Jon: Yor the Hound you helped kill my family.
Beric: That's Jorah Mormont!
Tormund: Mormont? Yor da kilt the free folk!
Gendry: The Brotherhood! They sold me to Fire Witch!
Davos: Fire Witch evil!
Beric: *starts to make speech*
The Hound: All of you should fucking shut up.
Jon: Oh! We all alive (mostly). We on same side. GO KILL WHITE WALKERZZZ!
Okay, it was a little better than that, but only a little. Oh, and Gendry is back. In fact, he and Davos had the best reunion of anyone. They actually seemed reasonably emotionally connected to one another, spoke about the time that had gone by, reconnected, and seemed to have a sense that things were good.
I JUST MET YOU AND THIS SOUNDS CRAZY . . .
Reunions are a tricky business and the same could be said for characters meeting each other for the first time. With certain characters, there are levels of context, especially when they have situations and other characters in common. This works out well in situations like a few episodes ago when Sam met Jorah. When Sam realized the context of who Jorah was to him (the only son of the Lord Commander), Sam knew he had a duty to Jorah and risked everything, even his own life, to save him. Jon and Dany have a lot of tension when they first meet due to what her family did to his.
The show is moving so fast, however, that certain relationships with complications are just being brushed to the side. Davos seems rather calm about the fact that Tyrion made decisions that lead to his son's death. Jaime seems to have forgotten that his sister's Hand saved his life and always acts like he can't remember who he is. In this episode, we have an instance where one of these situations goes poorly and two where they go very well.
The poorly done one is when Jon and Jorah meet. They have a huge history together. Ned sent Jorah into exile. Jon served under Jorah's father. Jon 's brother got the majority of Jorah's family killed in his war, and yet Jorah's only remaining cousin (Lyanna Mormont) is perhaps Jon's biggest ally. Oh, and most importantly, JON HAS JORAH'S SWORD. Longclaw was given to Jon by Joer, but he always intended for it to eventually return to Jorah. And yet, none of this is mentioned, discussed, anything. That's disappointing because a real conversation between them could have been the emotional volley needed for them to decide to go on this stupid death trap mission.
Now the episode did get this correct in a couple of places. When Jon met Gendry, it was great. Gendry brought up what and who they have in common. It created a quick bond between them. We got to see two characters actually warm up to each other and it was well done.
But the BEST example of this, and really, the BEST scene in the whole show was Jon meeting Drogon. I'm linking to this scene because it's so perfect. Jon is just standing there, watching Dany come back, expecting her to land somewhere else. Drogon insists on landing close to Jon because he CLEARLY senses something about this person. Drogon's instincts are telling him this is another Dragonlord and something inside Jon wakes up and he realizes it too. No matter how else Jon's heritage is revealed (which, is actually done by Gilly on this same episode but Sam doesn't notice), THIS MOMENT is the truest and most pure moment of that revelation. Jon is a Sighted, Prophecy-linked, destined to save the world Targaryen, just like Dany.
People have a lot of opinions about Destiny Families in their fantasy stories. Many people see the trope as overdone, overused, and overwrought. But that will never be the case for me. I LOVE Destiny Families. I love knowing my story is about this crazy, magical family with a complicated history, lots of violence, and a zigzagging path to saviorhood. There is something about this concept that pleases me to no end. With that in mind, the Jon and Drogon scene sold the episode for me. Everything else could have been bad puns and plotholes and I would not have cared.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Okay so Cersei made the Tarleys the paramount family of the Reach. Dany killed Sam's father and brother, so I guess this means Sam will probably end up being Lord of the Reach. This is quite funny because it means that Craster's incest son could end up one day being Lord of the Reach.
Speaking of Sam, he finally got sick of the Maesters, stole a bunch of books, loaded up Gilly and Little Sam, and GTFO of Old Town. This is the second time in two seasons that Sam has left somewhere in the middle of the night, angry, disgusted, and full of stolen goods.
Speaking of Cersei, she's pregnant again and plans to publically claim Jaime as the father. I'm sure that will go over well. She also plans on being clever to defeat Dany and thinks everyone is betraying her.
Oh, and Jaime is alive. Bronn saved him and told him that Jaime isn't allowed to kill himself or let dragons kill him until Bronn gets his castle. Only Bronn can kill him. Bronn also arranged the meeting between Jaime and Tyrion to try and discuss a peace deal.
Tyrion is all angry and salty about Dany killing her enemies. He didn't seem to have too much of a problem when she was doing this in Essos, but now that it's HIS people, he's having qualms. He and Varys had a talk about how Dany needs to be better advised.
No one is happy with their monarchs. The lords in the North way to elect Sansa as Queen now because they've figured out she's better at it than Jon could ever be. She declined but somehow ended up in a fight with Arya about it anyway. Arya is sneaking around, spying in Littlefinger. She found the note Sansa sent back in Season One about how the Starks should follow the Lannisters. Littlefinger was really unsubtle about her finding this, almost to the point of twirling his mustache when she did. This whole plot point is annoying me because it's taking time away from the areas where we really need character development. Just kill Littlefinger and be done with it!
Anyway, we only have two episodes left. Next week will explore what happens when a small band of idiots goes to face a massive army of ultrafast ice zombies. As I mentioned above, I'm sure that will go really well.
REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO . . . .
Last season, Jon and Sansa saw each other for the first time in years, I actually cried. The payoff on this scene was massive. Reunion scenes have a big emotional impact and if you don't handle them properly, they leave a bad taste in people's mouth. This is exactly how things went with Jaime and Tyrion's reunion. After seeing him almost die on the battlefield, it was clear Tyrion still loves his brother. After everything he's gone through, it's clear Jaime has changed and realizes the world is more complex than he thought. Their reunion should have been one of the bigger moments of this episode, but instead, it's just a hurried infodump/guiltfest.
Jorah reunited with Dany and Tyrion this week. The meeting with Dany was weirdly more emotional than I expected. Then again, I guess she assumed he was going to die. His meeting with Tyrion was better, honestly, it was more oddly touching than the Lannister's meeting with his brother. Tyrion gave Jorah a coin he'd been keeping for good luck, one they'd had since their time in captivity.
One of the problems with the Jorah stuff is that he shows up, says hi to Dany, and then the next scene with him, he's deciding to leave again and the reasons just honestly aren't clear. There are guesses one can make. He feels guilty about his father dying. He feels like he cheated death and maybe he owes it to everyone to go on a really dumb and deadly mission?
Oh, and about this mission . . . Jon knows he has to convince everyone down South about the army of the dead. So he and Tyrion (and Jorah, who jumps in to help) decide to go past the Wall, grab a wight, and bring it South. This is an idiotic plan. The dead people North of the Wall aren't spread out in little convenient groups. They are all together as one big army. I'm pretty sure they'd notice the living people wandering around. Though, maybe they won't notice Jon? He is kinda dead too.
Anyway, this leads to the WORST of reunions. When they get to the Wall (because that is a thing that is happening by the end of the episode. It took Jon and Tyrion like two episodes to get to the Wall from Winterfell the first season but honestly travel just does not matter now), Tormund has captured Thorros, the Hound, and Beric. He's keeping them in the dungeon for some crazy reason. Jon and company go to look at them and it's basically this:
Jon: Yor the Hound you helped kill my family.
Beric: That's Jorah Mormont!
Tormund: Mormont? Yor da kilt the free folk!
Gendry: The Brotherhood! They sold me to Fire Witch!
Davos: Fire Witch evil!
Beric: *starts to make speech*
The Hound: All of you should fucking shut up.
Jon: Oh! We all alive (mostly). We on same side. GO KILL WHITE WALKERZZZ!
Okay, it was a little better than that, but only a little. Oh, and Gendry is back. In fact, he and Davos had the best reunion of anyone. They actually seemed reasonably emotionally connected to one another, spoke about the time that had gone by, reconnected, and seemed to have a sense that things were good.
I JUST MET YOU AND THIS SOUNDS CRAZY . . .
Reunions are a tricky business and the same could be said for characters meeting each other for the first time. With certain characters, there are levels of context, especially when they have situations and other characters in common. This works out well in situations like a few episodes ago when Sam met Jorah. When Sam realized the context of who Jorah was to him (the only son of the Lord Commander), Sam knew he had a duty to Jorah and risked everything, even his own life, to save him. Jon and Dany have a lot of tension when they first meet due to what her family did to his.
The show is moving so fast, however, that certain relationships with complications are just being brushed to the side. Davos seems rather calm about the fact that Tyrion made decisions that lead to his son's death. Jaime seems to have forgotten that his sister's Hand saved his life and always acts like he can't remember who he is. In this episode, we have an instance where one of these situations goes poorly and two where they go very well.
The poorly done one is when Jon and Jorah meet. They have a huge history together. Ned sent Jorah into exile. Jon served under Jorah's father. Jon 's brother got the majority of Jorah's family killed in his war, and yet Jorah's only remaining cousin (Lyanna Mormont) is perhaps Jon's biggest ally. Oh, and most importantly, JON HAS JORAH'S SWORD. Longclaw was given to Jon by Joer, but he always intended for it to eventually return to Jorah. And yet, none of this is mentioned, discussed, anything. That's disappointing because a real conversation between them could have been the emotional volley needed for them to decide to go on this stupid death trap mission.
Now the episode did get this correct in a couple of places. When Jon met Gendry, it was great. Gendry brought up what and who they have in common. It created a quick bond between them. We got to see two characters actually warm up to each other and it was well done.
But the BEST example of this, and really, the BEST scene in the whole show was Jon meeting Drogon. I'm linking to this scene because it's so perfect. Jon is just standing there, watching Dany come back, expecting her to land somewhere else. Drogon insists on landing close to Jon because he CLEARLY senses something about this person. Drogon's instincts are telling him this is another Dragonlord and something inside Jon wakes up and he realizes it too. No matter how else Jon's heritage is revealed (which, is actually done by Gilly on this same episode but Sam doesn't notice), THIS MOMENT is the truest and most pure moment of that revelation. Jon is a Sighted, Prophecy-linked, destined to save the world Targaryen, just like Dany.
People have a lot of opinions about Destiny Families in their fantasy stories. Many people see the trope as overdone, overused, and overwrought. But that will never be the case for me. I LOVE Destiny Families. I love knowing my story is about this crazy, magical family with a complicated history, lots of violence, and a zigzagging path to saviorhood. There is something about this concept that pleases me to no end. With that in mind, the Jon and Drogon scene sold the episode for me. Everything else could have been bad puns and plotholes and I would not have cared.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Okay so Cersei made the Tarleys the paramount family of the Reach. Dany killed Sam's father and brother, so I guess this means Sam will probably end up being Lord of the Reach. This is quite funny because it means that Craster's incest son could end up one day being Lord of the Reach.
Speaking of Sam, he finally got sick of the Maesters, stole a bunch of books, loaded up Gilly and Little Sam, and GTFO of Old Town. This is the second time in two seasons that Sam has left somewhere in the middle of the night, angry, disgusted, and full of stolen goods.
Speaking of Cersei, she's pregnant again and plans to publically claim Jaime as the father. I'm sure that will go over well. She also plans on being clever to defeat Dany and thinks everyone is betraying her.
Oh, and Jaime is alive. Bronn saved him and told him that Jaime isn't allowed to kill himself or let dragons kill him until Bronn gets his castle. Only Bronn can kill him. Bronn also arranged the meeting between Jaime and Tyrion to try and discuss a peace deal.
Tyrion is all angry and salty about Dany killing her enemies. He didn't seem to have too much of a problem when she was doing this in Essos, but now that it's HIS people, he's having qualms. He and Varys had a talk about how Dany needs to be better advised.
No one is happy with their monarchs. The lords in the North way to elect Sansa as Queen now because they've figured out she's better at it than Jon could ever be. She declined but somehow ended up in a fight with Arya about it anyway. Arya is sneaking around, spying in Littlefinger. She found the note Sansa sent back in Season One about how the Starks should follow the Lannisters. Littlefinger was really unsubtle about her finding this, almost to the point of twirling his mustache when she did. This whole plot point is annoying me because it's taking time away from the areas where we really need character development. Just kill Littlefinger and be done with it!
Anyway, we only have two episodes left. Next week will explore what happens when a small band of idiots goes to face a massive army of ultrafast ice zombies. As I mentioned above, I'm sure that will go really well.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Rainy Monday
It rained most of yesterday and into today. It's making my joints ache and my mood is no better. I watched GoT, but I don't feel like doing the analysis yet. Perhaps tomorrow. I also got my Sephora box in so I'll be doing reviews on that too. It will be a full week.
I got an email from someone I've not talked to in several years. That's always fun in some ways, but it others, it's embarrassing because he asked what I was up to and honestly, what can I say? My life sucks and I've accomplished nothing. No, never married. No, no kids. Made a bunch of bad decisions and it's impossible to crawl out from under them. Sigh.
Oh well. At least it cooled down.
I got an email from someone I've not talked to in several years. That's always fun in some ways, but it others, it's embarrassing because he asked what I was up to and honestly, what can I say? My life sucks and I've accomplished nothing. No, never married. No, no kids. Made a bunch of bad decisions and it's impossible to crawl out from under them. Sigh.
Oh well. At least it cooled down.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Playing with Fire
Today was hard. The aftermath of this whole Nazi rally thing was difficult. A lot of these people are upset because people are calling them nazis and talking about how filled with hate they are. The thing is, there is a lot of hate out there and they seem pretty hellbent on supporting it. They say they want a dialog, but it's difficult to do that with people holding torches.
As always, they're trying to control the narrative. They're saying the woman who was hit was horrible. They're calling her all kinds of names and accusing her of things just to keep the focus off the bastard who hit her. I suppose this is their way of trying to keep the reality of them being the bad guys as far away as possible. It's the same propaganda we see every time a man decides he needs to shoot a bunch of people.
I also can't help but think about how, after the Women's March, people just spent days and days and days posting rants about how these women have all the rights they need and they're marches left trash on the street and didn't they have better things to do. I seriously doubt those same people will be criticizing this march. They should. If you're upset about abandoned signs, I would think that blood on the street would upset you more.
This solved nothing. It just made things worse. Any situation like this is just going to keep making things worse.
As always, they're trying to control the narrative. They're saying the woman who was hit was horrible. They're calling her all kinds of names and accusing her of things just to keep the focus off the bastard who hit her. I suppose this is their way of trying to keep the reality of them being the bad guys as far away as possible. It's the same propaganda we see every time a man decides he needs to shoot a bunch of people.
I also can't help but think about how, after the Women's March, people just spent days and days and days posting rants about how these women have all the rights they need and they're marches left trash on the street and didn't they have better things to do. I seriously doubt those same people will be criticizing this march. They should. If you're upset about abandoned signs, I would think that blood on the street would upset you more.
This solved nothing. It just made things worse. Any situation like this is just going to keep making things worse.
Replacements
Racism is alive and well in America. Truth be told, it always has been. Ever since people landed on these shores and decided to 'other' the natives, it has been. Manifest Destiny was the justification. God wanted us to have GOD'S COUNTRY. It is the same justification people always use when they plan to slaughter those who live in a place and they want that place for their own. The Jews did this when they took land from people after their exile from Egypt. God's word or not, there is no way to pretty that up. They killed people so they could have land.
I'm not anti-Semitic for pointing that out. If you choose to believe the Old Testament, it's just a fact of what is written. And see the thing is, people were so accepting of conquest, of colonization, of tribalism, that for centuries, very few people have ever really commented on how horrible that was. Enslaving the Jews was horrible. The Jews using violence to take land from other people was also horrible. The thing is, no one examined how horrible all this was because, at the time, it was just common.
It's still common. We use different names for our slavery, but we still do it. People still take lands and homes via conquest. In other countries, we decry this because it's still violent. In our country, we use money and the legal system to gentrify people out of their homes. We keep the native population on reservations and mock the ones who find ways to actually take care of themselves. We complain about how the black people have never 'made anything' of themselves but then get angry when some of them do. We ignore the facts like the destruction of Seneca Village in Manhatten and the Little Rock race riots.
These are facts. I'm not being anti-white here. I am white. Or at least, I'm white as white is currently defined. I'm mostly Irish and Italian and there were points in history where both of those would not have been considered 'white.' In fact, if all the other people that the current Alt Right hates were to magically disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't alter anything. They would just select out groups of their own to make the new 'bad people.'
Yesterday in Virginia, the Alt Right and their assorted friends marched to protest what they see as a great injustice. This great injustice was not sparked because laws were being passed to not let them marry as they choose or worship as they choose or control their own bodies or be paid well. They weren't being murdered in the streets or driven from their homes. No, this great injustice was that a statue of a dude who betrayed America and lost a war was being taken down. Three people are now dead over a statue.
The protesters are chanting "We will not be replaced." Okay. Look, admittedly things have changed. You can't just step on the necks of other people to get where you want to be. You have to work harder, as hard as anyone else. If you don't want to be replaced, stop thinking of yourself FIRST as 'white straight man' and start thinking of yourself in terms of things you can alter and control. Artist. Farmer. Student. Doctor. You can improve on these. You can learn more and do more. And if you don't as quickly or as well as you feel you should, perhaps examine your own sense of expectations instead of blaming other people.
The fact is, life can just suck sometimes. It's like when I got cancer. Cancer is terrifying. It's seriously the most terrifying thing I've gone through as an adult. I started to feel sorry for myself and wonder 'why me?' but then it occurred to me, 'why would it NOT be me?' There are things you can do to prevent cancer, but it's really just a toss of the dice. I was just as likely as anyone else.
So go home. Being an angry villager with a torch isn't a good look.
I'm not anti-Semitic for pointing that out. If you choose to believe the Old Testament, it's just a fact of what is written. And see the thing is, people were so accepting of conquest, of colonization, of tribalism, that for centuries, very few people have ever really commented on how horrible that was. Enslaving the Jews was horrible. The Jews using violence to take land from other people was also horrible. The thing is, no one examined how horrible all this was because, at the time, it was just common.
It's still common. We use different names for our slavery, but we still do it. People still take lands and homes via conquest. In other countries, we decry this because it's still violent. In our country, we use money and the legal system to gentrify people out of their homes. We keep the native population on reservations and mock the ones who find ways to actually take care of themselves. We complain about how the black people have never 'made anything' of themselves but then get angry when some of them do. We ignore the facts like the destruction of Seneca Village in Manhatten and the Little Rock race riots.
These are facts. I'm not being anti-white here. I am white. Or at least, I'm white as white is currently defined. I'm mostly Irish and Italian and there were points in history where both of those would not have been considered 'white.' In fact, if all the other people that the current Alt Right hates were to magically disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't alter anything. They would just select out groups of their own to make the new 'bad people.'
Yesterday in Virginia, the Alt Right and their assorted friends marched to protest what they see as a great injustice. This great injustice was not sparked because laws were being passed to not let them marry as they choose or worship as they choose or control their own bodies or be paid well. They weren't being murdered in the streets or driven from their homes. No, this great injustice was that a statue of a dude who betrayed America and lost a war was being taken down. Three people are now dead over a statue.
The protesters are chanting "We will not be replaced." Okay. Look, admittedly things have changed. You can't just step on the necks of other people to get where you want to be. You have to work harder, as hard as anyone else. If you don't want to be replaced, stop thinking of yourself FIRST as 'white straight man' and start thinking of yourself in terms of things you can alter and control. Artist. Farmer. Student. Doctor. You can improve on these. You can learn more and do more. And if you don't as quickly or as well as you feel you should, perhaps examine your own sense of expectations instead of blaming other people.
The fact is, life can just suck sometimes. It's like when I got cancer. Cancer is terrifying. It's seriously the most terrifying thing I've gone through as an adult. I started to feel sorry for myself and wonder 'why me?' but then it occurred to me, 'why would it NOT be me?' There are things you can do to prevent cancer, but it's really just a toss of the dice. I was just as likely as anyone else.
So go home. Being an angry villager with a torch isn't a good look.
Friday, August 11, 2017
Tired
I am seriously tired. Today took a lot out of me and I'm just exhausted. I think it would have been easier had I slept well last night, but the mugginess just made that impossible. It's better tonight. There was NO sense of coolness in the air at all last night. Things are better now and I am hoping I'll sleep more soundly. I need that.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Thursday Meh
This is really strange. It's supposed to rain for like the rest of the month. We rarely have a wet August. We need the rain, but at the same time, I'm used to August being the time when the grass starts dying and I don't have to pay for the lawn to be mowed anymore. Plus, while this is calming the heat down, it's amping up the humidity.
School started back today and people are posting their First Day of School pics of their kids. They're cute, but I'm pretty down so it's wasted on me. Not that they're doing it FOR me, so it doesn't matter.
School started back today and people are posting their First Day of School pics of their kids. They're cute, but I'm pretty down so it's wasted on me. Not that they're doing it FOR me, so it doesn't matter.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Spoils of War Musings Part Two
Even though I've been a reader of fantasy for years, I've never been one to enjoy battle scenes. It isn't that I'm against violence. I just found a lot of them boring. In books I'd skim them, just refocusing back on the story when I'd see the dialog. In visual form, a lot of the times battle scenes only get interesting once things are dire and the cavalry rides in.
Now when it comes to historical battles, I actually do enjoy those. I love watching docs about them, especially Alexander the Great's because he's one of my favorite people. I think he's one of the reasons I will never hate Dany. To me, she's very much the Alexander of the story. In a fantasy world grounded in reality, she's larger than life. That's how Alexander the Great was.
When it comes to Game of Thrones, I have never been disappointed in their larger battle scenes. Some of the small ones annoy me, but the large, epic scenes never fail to impress. The Loot Train Battle impressed me a lot. It was a unique battle for this show because we had main characters on both sides. Okay, granted we did with Blackwater as well, but I never liked Stannis so it didn't matter. Here, I had emotional ties to several characters and that made for a greater emotional ride.
This battle also contains a great deal of character development. There aren't just political and plot level consequences to this. There are personal consequences as well and that is so important. This isn't a battle about glory. Battle of the Bastards, the battle at Castle Black, even the one at Hardhome were battles where we see characters have moments of glory. That never happens here. The decisions are character driven, the mistakes are character driven, and the outcome of the battle is very much pyrrhic.
THE SETUP
Jaime starts the episode, opening up a wagon full of gold taken from High Garden and giving Bronn a bag of it. Bronn notes that Jaime is in a foul mood and also that he still owes him a castle. Jaime, who is still reeling from killing Olenna and also from her confession that she killed his oldest son, tells him that the more stuff he has, the more miserable he'll be. There is always too much at risk and it's best to just travel light. Bronn disagrees with him but Jaime doesn't want to talk anymore. He sends Bronn off with the Tarleys to threaten the farmers of the Reach into giving them all of their food and supplies.
There is also a small scene where Cersei and the rep from the Iron Bank discuss her next loan. She says she may hire the Golden Company, which is interesting if they keep them anywhere near how they are in the books. It looks like she'll be able to do this because, in a later scene, Jaime and the Tarleys talk about how the gold arrived safely.
When we next see the Lannister forces, it's assumably a few days later. They're now making the slow move back to the capital with all of the foodstuffs. Jaime and Bronn ride over to Sam's brother and Jaime gets his name wrong again. When he says that it's "Dickon," Bronn laughs in his face then makes some comment about him going to 'fancy lad school' and knowing nothing about real battles. As they talk, they begin to hear the vibration of hundreds of horses riding towards them. It's the Dothraki and with them is Dany on her dragon.
THE BATTLE
The battle takes place from four points of view. Tyrion watching in the distance, Bronn and Jaime on the ground, and Dany in the sky. Normally we only get these battles from one point of view, perhaps two. Having four people giving their own narrative perspective was a brilliant choice for the directors because it allowed us not only a chance to get a lot of various visual ideas about the battle but also emotional ones.
The thing is, in earlier battles on the show, things took place at night. Nighttime can cover a lot of sins when it comes to staging a battle. Doing one during the daytime takes away almost all shortcuts. People have to work harder and better to make this feel right. In this case, they certainly did. We see the riders as they come. We see them standing to shoot their bows (special devices had to be made for that to happen). We see Dany on her dragon from multiple angles. I think they said they did like 80 shots of her on the dragon for this scene. There is battle chaos and people turned to ash, multiple explosions of fire hitting grain. It's glorious.
But as great as the scene is in a technical way, the best part is the emotional side of it. Jaime is hopeless here, watching as his world is changing, watching as he's losing the last advantages he had. He killed Dany's father for his insane antics with fire and now he's having to face her with dragons. All that he did in the first case LED to what he is seeing now.
Bronn is on foot for a lot of the battle and we get the most chaos from his perspective. Bronn is a great Reluctant Hero. He wants to just be a greedy mercenary, but that is in conflict with the fact that he sees Jaime as a friend. At one point, he loses his bag of gold and only hesitates about getting it for a second before he abandons it completely so he can try to take down the dragon. He actually almost succeeds with that, but only wounds Drogon before narrowly escaping the fire. The old Bronn would have seen this as his chance to just GTFO, but instead, he stays and saves Jaime's life.
Dany is focused and on point with all she does. She destroys the wagons, destroys what troops she needs to let the Dothraki do the rest. When Broon hits Drogon though, she has to face the fact that her dragons can die. They almost fall out of the sky with that hit, but he steadies himself. When they do land, she slides off his back to try and remove the bolt, horrified her 'child' was harmed during the battle. For perhaps the first time, she has to face how much her conquest is really costing her and everyone around her.
Tyrion is facing the same thing. As he watches the battle from the hills above, he realizes his brother is on the battlefield and could die. When Jaime begins to charge Dany, Tyrion faces the worst possible situation, either his queen or his brother might not walk away from this. He's pleading for Jaime to run, but of course, he wouldn't. Tyrion is really in a war against his family here and the reality of it isn't easy on him.
The episode ends with Drogon almost burning Jaime to death but Bronn pushing them both into the water to escape that. Of course, Jaime is in armor so he's sinking. A gold hand and a lot of armor will have to be abandoned if he's going to live. We'll see how that goes next week.
Truly, it was a glorious battle. I'm putting a link here to the making of it if you're interested. It's a long video, but worth the watch.
Now when it comes to historical battles, I actually do enjoy those. I love watching docs about them, especially Alexander the Great's because he's one of my favorite people. I think he's one of the reasons I will never hate Dany. To me, she's very much the Alexander of the story. In a fantasy world grounded in reality, she's larger than life. That's how Alexander the Great was.
When it comes to Game of Thrones, I have never been disappointed in their larger battle scenes. Some of the small ones annoy me, but the large, epic scenes never fail to impress. The Loot Train Battle impressed me a lot. It was a unique battle for this show because we had main characters on both sides. Okay, granted we did with Blackwater as well, but I never liked Stannis so it didn't matter. Here, I had emotional ties to several characters and that made for a greater emotional ride.
This battle also contains a great deal of character development. There aren't just political and plot level consequences to this. There are personal consequences as well and that is so important. This isn't a battle about glory. Battle of the Bastards, the battle at Castle Black, even the one at Hardhome were battles where we see characters have moments of glory. That never happens here. The decisions are character driven, the mistakes are character driven, and the outcome of the battle is very much pyrrhic.
THE SETUP
Jaime starts the episode, opening up a wagon full of gold taken from High Garden and giving Bronn a bag of it. Bronn notes that Jaime is in a foul mood and also that he still owes him a castle. Jaime, who is still reeling from killing Olenna and also from her confession that she killed his oldest son, tells him that the more stuff he has, the more miserable he'll be. There is always too much at risk and it's best to just travel light. Bronn disagrees with him but Jaime doesn't want to talk anymore. He sends Bronn off with the Tarleys to threaten the farmers of the Reach into giving them all of their food and supplies.
There is also a small scene where Cersei and the rep from the Iron Bank discuss her next loan. She says she may hire the Golden Company, which is interesting if they keep them anywhere near how they are in the books. It looks like she'll be able to do this because, in a later scene, Jaime and the Tarleys talk about how the gold arrived safely.
When we next see the Lannister forces, it's assumably a few days later. They're now making the slow move back to the capital with all of the foodstuffs. Jaime and Bronn ride over to Sam's brother and Jaime gets his name wrong again. When he says that it's "Dickon," Bronn laughs in his face then makes some comment about him going to 'fancy lad school' and knowing nothing about real battles. As they talk, they begin to hear the vibration of hundreds of horses riding towards them. It's the Dothraki and with them is Dany on her dragon.
THE BATTLE
The battle takes place from four points of view. Tyrion watching in the distance, Bronn and Jaime on the ground, and Dany in the sky. Normally we only get these battles from one point of view, perhaps two. Having four people giving their own narrative perspective was a brilliant choice for the directors because it allowed us not only a chance to get a lot of various visual ideas about the battle but also emotional ones.
The thing is, in earlier battles on the show, things took place at night. Nighttime can cover a lot of sins when it comes to staging a battle. Doing one during the daytime takes away almost all shortcuts. People have to work harder and better to make this feel right. In this case, they certainly did. We see the riders as they come. We see them standing to shoot their bows (special devices had to be made for that to happen). We see Dany on her dragon from multiple angles. I think they said they did like 80 shots of her on the dragon for this scene. There is battle chaos and people turned to ash, multiple explosions of fire hitting grain. It's glorious.
But as great as the scene is in a technical way, the best part is the emotional side of it. Jaime is hopeless here, watching as his world is changing, watching as he's losing the last advantages he had. He killed Dany's father for his insane antics with fire and now he's having to face her with dragons. All that he did in the first case LED to what he is seeing now.
Bronn is on foot for a lot of the battle and we get the most chaos from his perspective. Bronn is a great Reluctant Hero. He wants to just be a greedy mercenary, but that is in conflict with the fact that he sees Jaime as a friend. At one point, he loses his bag of gold and only hesitates about getting it for a second before he abandons it completely so he can try to take down the dragon. He actually almost succeeds with that, but only wounds Drogon before narrowly escaping the fire. The old Bronn would have seen this as his chance to just GTFO, but instead, he stays and saves Jaime's life.
Dany is focused and on point with all she does. She destroys the wagons, destroys what troops she needs to let the Dothraki do the rest. When Broon hits Drogon though, she has to face the fact that her dragons can die. They almost fall out of the sky with that hit, but he steadies himself. When they do land, she slides off his back to try and remove the bolt, horrified her 'child' was harmed during the battle. For perhaps the first time, she has to face how much her conquest is really costing her and everyone around her.
Tyrion is facing the same thing. As he watches the battle from the hills above, he realizes his brother is on the battlefield and could die. When Jaime begins to charge Dany, Tyrion faces the worst possible situation, either his queen or his brother might not walk away from this. He's pleading for Jaime to run, but of course, he wouldn't. Tyrion is really in a war against his family here and the reality of it isn't easy on him.
The episode ends with Drogon almost burning Jaime to death but Bronn pushing them both into the water to escape that. Of course, Jaime is in armor so he's sinking. A gold hand and a lot of armor will have to be abandoned if he's going to live. We'll see how that goes next week.
Truly, it was a glorious battle. I'm putting a link here to the making of it if you're interested. It's a long video, but worth the watch.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Spoils of War Musings
Wow.
Game of Thrones Episode 4 is one of the best episodes I've seen. It concluded some things, set up other things, and had one of the best battle scenes ever filmed. It was so good I've watched it like three times now. It isn't getting old. One of the reasons it worked so well is because we really only had three dedicated locations. No Sam. No Band of Brothers. We just focused on Winterfell, Dragonstone, and the area between Kingslanding and the Reach. This made for more intense scenes and I think the episode needed that.
WINTERFELL
We start with Littlefinger giving Bran the dagger that was used in season one to try and kill him. Sam saw a drawing of this dagger in a book on the first episode, so it's clearly an important and historical Valyrian steel blade. LF tries to do his usual oily charm thing on Bran, but Bran not only doesn't care, he manages to creep LF out in the process. The older man leaves as Meera is walking in to tell Bran she was going home.
This scene hurt me. In the books, Bran is deeply in love with Meera but it's weird because she's quite a few years older than him. They're basically the same age on the show, so a relationship would be more plausible, especially as it's fairly clear she cares for him too. Unfortunately, being the 3 Eyed Raven has made Bran emotionless and almost inhuman now. The sweetness that was once between them is gone now and Meera knows the person Bran was is dead. She leaves in tears.
Arya comes home to Winterfell and it's amazing. Her first scene is her looking over a hill down on her home in something close to awe. When she gets there, no one recognizes her. She has to threaten guards and then sneak around to get into the crypts. Sansa joins her there and hugs her. Their conversation is awkward, but they never got along and things have been horrible for both of them over the last several years. They still love each other, that is certain. Moreover, there seems to be a respect now.
When Arya sees Bran in the Godswood, he gives her the dagger that LF gave him, knowing she'll get more use out of it. After this is one of the most heartwarming scenes in the series. The three remaining Stark children walk back into the main courtyard of the castle. Arya is pushing Bran's wheelchair, with Sansa walking beside them. There is only music for the first part of this scene, but we watch as people look at them, their faces full of emotion. Some clearly remember Ned and the other Starks. Others are happy the family has returned.
The most poignant of these is Brienne. She made an oath to Lady Stark that she would return her children safely to their home. Pod tells Brienne that she did this and she reminds him that she did next to nothing to make it actually happen, but still, here they are. Their mother would be happy.
Later Brienne agrees to train Arya and spars with her. This is such a good scene! It's beautifully done because each little sequence of it is a call back to the various people who have trained Arya along the way. Sansa and LF watch them. Sansa seems to finally understand the accomplishments of her little sister while LF seems to be thinking of ways to use that to his advantage. The scene ends with Sansa walking away and LF eyeing Arya like a new possibility.
DRAGONSTONE
Jon finds some cave art done by the Children of the Forrest and shows it to Dany. There are a lot of spirals and depictions of the White Walkers. She tells him she will defend the North but he still needs to swear to her. It's their usual impass. Some people don't buy the chemistry between them but in this scene, I certainly did.
When they leave the caves, Tyrion is there with Varys to inform them that Castlery Rock has been taken but it wasn't really a victory. Dany realizes that Tyrion's plans are backfiring and decides to take matters into her own hands. She does, however, ask Jon for his advice, clearly more as a note of a respected equal than anything else. His advice is only not to burn innocent people.
Davos seems to have realized there is a clear solution to the Dany/Jon problem. He isn't to the point of suggesting marriage yet, but he does talk to Jon about how he clearly likes her. Jon dismisses this, claiming he has no time for such things, but Davos knows it's there. They talk with Messandei about Dany and what she's really like. Messandei explains to Jon that those who follow Dany do so because they believe in her, not because of her bloodlines (which would not matter to people from the East anyway). He perhaps begins to realize she is far more like Mance in that regard than the usual queen/king.
All of this is interrupted by Theon and his ship of Iron Born arriving to ask Dany to help them save Yara. Jon is very angry with Theon and tells him that it's only because he saved Sansa that will keep Jon from killing him. Then again, Jon at this point has no idea what hell Theon has been through to get him to where he is.
That is, perhaps, the biggest problem with people reuniting after long epic journeys. Everyone has changed and while they understand why THEY personally have changed, it's harder to accept in other people. Sansa and Arya acknowledge this to each other the best, but even they have a difficult time accepting how much Bran has changed.
I think I'm going to save the battle section of this recap for tomorrow because I have tons to say about it.
FINAL MUSINGS
Okay, so Davos has a wife and as he followed Stannis, I'm assuming she lives somewhere near Dragonstone. Are we ever going to talk about that?
Speaking of Dragonstone, the location where it is filmed is stunningly beautiful.
Dany and Tyrion are starting to fight. That makes me sad, but it's understandable.
I read this theory that Varys is already betraying Dany. So far, he's done nothing to really help her. He's not getting any spy information to her, and yet Cersei's armies have consistently been very prepared for any of Dany's plans. Either the writers have forgotten how skilled this person is supposed to be or Varys is selling her out. Because in the same episode that Hot Pie knew Jon was King in the North, Varys didn't. If HOT PIE is running a better spy network than Varys, everyone is doomed.
After everything Meera Reed has gone through, I hope she not only survives the winter and the wars to come but has a happy, beautiful life.
Bran through LF's "Chaos is a Ladder" line back in his face. It scared the old scumbucket!
Battle tomorrow
Game of Thrones Episode 4 is one of the best episodes I've seen. It concluded some things, set up other things, and had one of the best battle scenes ever filmed. It was so good I've watched it like three times now. It isn't getting old. One of the reasons it worked so well is because we really only had three dedicated locations. No Sam. No Band of Brothers. We just focused on Winterfell, Dragonstone, and the area between Kingslanding and the Reach. This made for more intense scenes and I think the episode needed that.
WINTERFELL
We start with Littlefinger giving Bran the dagger that was used in season one to try and kill him. Sam saw a drawing of this dagger in a book on the first episode, so it's clearly an important and historical Valyrian steel blade. LF tries to do his usual oily charm thing on Bran, but Bran not only doesn't care, he manages to creep LF out in the process. The older man leaves as Meera is walking in to tell Bran she was going home.
This scene hurt me. In the books, Bran is deeply in love with Meera but it's weird because she's quite a few years older than him. They're basically the same age on the show, so a relationship would be more plausible, especially as it's fairly clear she cares for him too. Unfortunately, being the 3 Eyed Raven has made Bran emotionless and almost inhuman now. The sweetness that was once between them is gone now and Meera knows the person Bran was is dead. She leaves in tears.
Arya comes home to Winterfell and it's amazing. Her first scene is her looking over a hill down on her home in something close to awe. When she gets there, no one recognizes her. She has to threaten guards and then sneak around to get into the crypts. Sansa joins her there and hugs her. Their conversation is awkward, but they never got along and things have been horrible for both of them over the last several years. They still love each other, that is certain. Moreover, there seems to be a respect now.
When Arya sees Bran in the Godswood, he gives her the dagger that LF gave him, knowing she'll get more use out of it. After this is one of the most heartwarming scenes in the series. The three remaining Stark children walk back into the main courtyard of the castle. Arya is pushing Bran's wheelchair, with Sansa walking beside them. There is only music for the first part of this scene, but we watch as people look at them, their faces full of emotion. Some clearly remember Ned and the other Starks. Others are happy the family has returned.
The most poignant of these is Brienne. She made an oath to Lady Stark that she would return her children safely to their home. Pod tells Brienne that she did this and she reminds him that she did next to nothing to make it actually happen, but still, here they are. Their mother would be happy.
Later Brienne agrees to train Arya and spars with her. This is such a good scene! It's beautifully done because each little sequence of it is a call back to the various people who have trained Arya along the way. Sansa and LF watch them. Sansa seems to finally understand the accomplishments of her little sister while LF seems to be thinking of ways to use that to his advantage. The scene ends with Sansa walking away and LF eyeing Arya like a new possibility.
DRAGONSTONE
Jon finds some cave art done by the Children of the Forrest and shows it to Dany. There are a lot of spirals and depictions of the White Walkers. She tells him she will defend the North but he still needs to swear to her. It's their usual impass. Some people don't buy the chemistry between them but in this scene, I certainly did.
When they leave the caves, Tyrion is there with Varys to inform them that Castlery Rock has been taken but it wasn't really a victory. Dany realizes that Tyrion's plans are backfiring and decides to take matters into her own hands. She does, however, ask Jon for his advice, clearly more as a note of a respected equal than anything else. His advice is only not to burn innocent people.
Davos seems to have realized there is a clear solution to the Dany/Jon problem. He isn't to the point of suggesting marriage yet, but he does talk to Jon about how he clearly likes her. Jon dismisses this, claiming he has no time for such things, but Davos knows it's there. They talk with Messandei about Dany and what she's really like. Messandei explains to Jon that those who follow Dany do so because they believe in her, not because of her bloodlines (which would not matter to people from the East anyway). He perhaps begins to realize she is far more like Mance in that regard than the usual queen/king.
All of this is interrupted by Theon and his ship of Iron Born arriving to ask Dany to help them save Yara. Jon is very angry with Theon and tells him that it's only because he saved Sansa that will keep Jon from killing him. Then again, Jon at this point has no idea what hell Theon has been through to get him to where he is.
That is, perhaps, the biggest problem with people reuniting after long epic journeys. Everyone has changed and while they understand why THEY personally have changed, it's harder to accept in other people. Sansa and Arya acknowledge this to each other the best, but even they have a difficult time accepting how much Bran has changed.
I think I'm going to save the battle section of this recap for tomorrow because I have tons to say about it.
FINAL MUSINGS
Okay, so Davos has a wife and as he followed Stannis, I'm assuming she lives somewhere near Dragonstone. Are we ever going to talk about that?
Speaking of Dragonstone, the location where it is filmed is stunningly beautiful.
Dany and Tyrion are starting to fight. That makes me sad, but it's understandable.
I read this theory that Varys is already betraying Dany. So far, he's done nothing to really help her. He's not getting any spy information to her, and yet Cersei's armies have consistently been very prepared for any of Dany's plans. Either the writers have forgotten how skilled this person is supposed to be or Varys is selling her out. Because in the same episode that Hot Pie knew Jon was King in the North, Varys didn't. If HOT PIE is running a better spy network than Varys, everyone is doomed.
After everything Meera Reed has gone through, I hope she not only survives the winter and the wars to come but has a happy, beautiful life.
Bran through LF's "Chaos is a Ladder" line back in his face. It scared the old scumbucket!
Battle tomorrow
Sunday, August 6, 2017
End of the Weekend
This weekend wasn't bad. It wasn't anything all that exciting, but it wasn't bad. We didn't do a lot and that's a good thing. I needed the rest. My brain was a little fried and I ended up hitting one of those moments when I mourned my kitties hard. That was pretty rough. I'm not sure when I'm ever going to get past this.
Thankfully, it rained last night, so it cooled down somewhat. It was still humid and awful, but not as bad as it was. The weekend went by too quickly, in fact, I'm shocked that it's already August. This summer went by quicker than I thought it would, which, honestly, is nice.
I guess what I'm saying is that things aren't really bad, but I'm kind of not and annoyed, so nothing is really making me that happy. It's okay though. I don't always have to be happy.
Thankfully, it rained last night, so it cooled down somewhat. It was still humid and awful, but not as bad as it was. The weekend went by too quickly, in fact, I'm shocked that it's already August. This summer went by quicker than I thought it would, which, honestly, is nice.
I guess what I'm saying is that things aren't really bad, but I'm kind of not and annoyed, so nothing is really making me that happy. It's okay though. I don't always have to be happy.
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Mutters about Shopping
I have a headache. I need to replace my mattress and it's going to be an involved process. I've been reading reviews for the last hour. It's making my brain bleed. I might as well just stay with the old broke-ass mattress and be done with it. It's the easiest and least expensive option.
See, most of this is because I just don't want to cause anyone trouble. Buying a new mattress means getting all of my pillows off of my bed, but still having room to move the old stuff out and the new one in. It means trying to find someone who will take the old one away and it will HAVE to be someone else because my roommate and I may have been able to do that last time around, but it's been quite a few years ago and our health is worse than it was.
Of course, there IS also the expense of it. That is always a factor. I can't afford to spend a lot on anything so I need to get the best thing I can for my money. I have some ideas, and just about decided on something, but out of the 1350 something reviews, 50 of them were one star. So I hesitated and decided to keep looking.
Hence the headache.
See, most of this is because I just don't want to cause anyone trouble. Buying a new mattress means getting all of my pillows off of my bed, but still having room to move the old stuff out and the new one in. It means trying to find someone who will take the old one away and it will HAVE to be someone else because my roommate and I may have been able to do that last time around, but it's been quite a few years ago and our health is worse than it was.
Of course, there IS also the expense of it. That is always a factor. I can't afford to spend a lot on anything so I need to get the best thing I can for my money. I have some ideas, and just about decided on something, but out of the 1350 something reviews, 50 of them were one star. So I hesitated and decided to keep looking.
Hence the headache.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Day After
This was one of those days where the weather just set on the edge of being nice but never got there. It was muggy and slightly too warm. I wasn't that happy about it, but there were things to keep me occupied so I won't complain.
I'm still kind of reeling from the article last night. I just keep thinking about so many situations in my life that now make sense. There is a relief to that clarity, but it's still so strange. There are a lot of thoughts and emotions going on right now. It's all really fast paced. I'll blog more about it later.
I'm still kind of reeling from the article last night. I just keep thinking about so many situations in my life that now make sense. There is a relief to that clarity, but it's still so strange. There are a lot of thoughts and emotions going on right now. It's all really fast paced. I'll blog more about it later.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Very Frank Post
I think I got enlightened to something tonight that has needed to be told to me my whole life, or at the very least since I became sexually aware. This article is very long and probably not something most people would be interested in reading, but if you are a woman who has always found penetration painful (or if you know a woman who has), it's certainly worth the read.
This has always been the case for me. Sometimes I would cry or panic when someone else was doing it. Sometimes I would just deal with it. It always hurt though, and not just a little bit. There was always a lot of pain and it would last for days. Tampons were never comfortable and could be painful going in, which made my life hellish while I was a bleeder. At least they were small. Penises, dildos, anything like that could cause a lot of pain. Even when I tried to do things on my own, this was the case. To be honest, eventually, I just gave up on it. Clits are more fun anyhow.
Turns out, a lot of women suffer from vestibulodynia and/or vulvodynia, possibly as much as 16% of the population. That's about 14 million women. This is the pain in the full vulva or specifically in the vestibule area of the labia. There is very little research being done about this, very little treatment, and often women aren't taken seriously about it anyway (or told it's just in their heads). The researchers doing the work won't even agree on what causes it or what to do about it.
Some believe that it is hormonal, probably due to birth control pills. Their usual treatment is taking women off of the pill and giving them a low dose testosterone. For some patients, this seems to work, but not for everyone. In other cases, they believe the issue is due to issues with the vestibule area of the woman's body. Often, the way they handle this is by removing the vestibule tissue completely. Women who have had this done WELL often do report they have comfortable and even pleasurable sex afterward. However, there are only a few doctors who do this kind of surgery and it's often not covered by insurance. The price is usually around $12,000.
One of the indicators for the problem being with your vestibule is to push your finger into your belly button. If this causes pain in your vagina, it means you have a vestibule issue. I don't have a naval anymore, but when I was a kid, I would sometimes poke my finger into my belly and I did feel that pain. It makes sense that this would be the case for me. I have whacky hormones, but testosterone was never an issue.
I have to say though, this is a lot of validation for me. I'm seriously in tears even writing about this because I honestly thought this aspect of life was just hellish. I assumed it was this horrible for all women and had no idea how they could stand it happening so often. How I felt during that act isn't normal and it isn't something I should be expected to do.
Here's the thing though, while it's nice to know WHY penetration was always awful for me, I don't see a point in doing anything about it at this moment. It's illogical for me to travel that far and spend more money than some people make in a year to get something fixed when the problem can just be avoided. It's easy for me to live without penetration. If I somehow stumble into a relationship, they'll be told that act isn't on the table and have the option of walking away if they choose.
This has always been the case for me. Sometimes I would cry or panic when someone else was doing it. Sometimes I would just deal with it. It always hurt though, and not just a little bit. There was always a lot of pain and it would last for days. Tampons were never comfortable and could be painful going in, which made my life hellish while I was a bleeder. At least they were small. Penises, dildos, anything like that could cause a lot of pain. Even when I tried to do things on my own, this was the case. To be honest, eventually, I just gave up on it. Clits are more fun anyhow.
Turns out, a lot of women suffer from vestibulodynia and/or vulvodynia, possibly as much as 16% of the population. That's about 14 million women. This is the pain in the full vulva or specifically in the vestibule area of the labia. There is very little research being done about this, very little treatment, and often women aren't taken seriously about it anyway (or told it's just in their heads). The researchers doing the work won't even agree on what causes it or what to do about it.
Some believe that it is hormonal, probably due to birth control pills. Their usual treatment is taking women off of the pill and giving them a low dose testosterone. For some patients, this seems to work, but not for everyone. In other cases, they believe the issue is due to issues with the vestibule area of the woman's body. Often, the way they handle this is by removing the vestibule tissue completely. Women who have had this done WELL often do report they have comfortable and even pleasurable sex afterward. However, there are only a few doctors who do this kind of surgery and it's often not covered by insurance. The price is usually around $12,000.
One of the indicators for the problem being with your vestibule is to push your finger into your belly button. If this causes pain in your vagina, it means you have a vestibule issue. I don't have a naval anymore, but when I was a kid, I would sometimes poke my finger into my belly and I did feel that pain. It makes sense that this would be the case for me. I have whacky hormones, but testosterone was never an issue.
I have to say though, this is a lot of validation for me. I'm seriously in tears even writing about this because I honestly thought this aspect of life was just hellish. I assumed it was this horrible for all women and had no idea how they could stand it happening so often. How I felt during that act isn't normal and it isn't something I should be expected to do.
Here's the thing though, while it's nice to know WHY penetration was always awful for me, I don't see a point in doing anything about it at this moment. It's illogical for me to travel that far and spend more money than some people make in a year to get something fixed when the problem can just be avoided. It's easy for me to live without penetration. If I somehow stumble into a relationship, they'll be told that act isn't on the table and have the option of walking away if they choose.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Survival from the Underground Part II
I've been thinking about the post from last night and how important those tips were. This was shared on one of my private FB groups and a lot of people responded to it. With that in mind, I thought I would give some of my personal tactics for surviving the dark days.
PREPARE AS YOU CAN MANAGE
If you know you have no choice but to leave the house, prepare for it in as many small steps as you can. Set aside clean clothes a day or so before. Don't think too much about them. Just make sure they're clean and serviceable. Put items like shoes and bags by the door, that way you're not having to carry them through the house and add to tiring yourself out. If you're probably going to be in pain, take pain meds before you travel.
ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONAL LIMITS
When you're upset, your limits may be small. If you can't make it through the stress of a sitcom, don't try. If you can't handle shows about death or other triggery issues, don't watch them. I don't care what people say, it's FINE to stay away from this stuff when you can't handle it. If someone mocks you about that, it's a good indication that this person shouldn't be in your life. Until they understand what it's like to have these kinds of limits, they can just shut up.
ACCEPT YOUR PHYSICAL LIMITS
If you are someone who normally does things for/with people and you find that you can't, inform them that you can't do whatever it is at this time. Don't try to force yourself to do things beyond your limits. If you normally make meals and don't feel like making them, tell the other people in the house. Arrangements can be made.
ACCEPT THAT SOME THINGS WILL BE NEGLECTED
If you get ill in some way, you may no longer be able to do maintenance on your home. Mowing lawns, cleaning things, vacuuming the floors, all of this may be beyond your limits now. If you can afford to have someone else to do this, hire it done. If not, then you have to prioritize what can be hired out and what you can just let go for a while. This seems extreme, but it's something you sometimes have to face.
IF YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT DOES MAKE YOU HAPPY OR DISTRACTS YOU, DO IT.
As I've written about in the blog, when my cats died recently, I just watched stuff about drag queens and makeup for hours at a time. It was a place where I could let my mind go and I wouldn't have to think or feel. When I was younger, I would spend hours pouring over books full of house plans, dreaming about the house I would have one day. Okay, that one doesn't work as well anymore because it just depresses me because I know I'll never have the house I want, but when I was a kid, it got me through a lot of stuff. If music helps you, listen to music. If mindlessly playing games helps you, mindlessly play games.
Now, there is a danger in this that you need to avoid. Do not rely on people or addictive substances for your distractions and happiness. This always ends badly.
BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF
You can't move like you can when you're well. You can't think like you can when you're well. You may not feel like yourself. You may not BE yourself. It's okay. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes, a long while, to get better or at least to get less-awful. While you wait for that to happen, be kind to yourself. You are doing the best that you can. In some cases, you may be doing more than the best that you can. It's okay. Just try to get through the moments.
PREPARE AS YOU CAN MANAGE
If you know you have no choice but to leave the house, prepare for it in as many small steps as you can. Set aside clean clothes a day or so before. Don't think too much about them. Just make sure they're clean and serviceable. Put items like shoes and bags by the door, that way you're not having to carry them through the house and add to tiring yourself out. If you're probably going to be in pain, take pain meds before you travel.
ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONAL LIMITS
When you're upset, your limits may be small. If you can't make it through the stress of a sitcom, don't try. If you can't handle shows about death or other triggery issues, don't watch them. I don't care what people say, it's FINE to stay away from this stuff when you can't handle it. If someone mocks you about that, it's a good indication that this person shouldn't be in your life. Until they understand what it's like to have these kinds of limits, they can just shut up.
ACCEPT YOUR PHYSICAL LIMITS
If you are someone who normally does things for/with people and you find that you can't, inform them that you can't do whatever it is at this time. Don't try to force yourself to do things beyond your limits. If you normally make meals and don't feel like making them, tell the other people in the house. Arrangements can be made.
ACCEPT THAT SOME THINGS WILL BE NEGLECTED
If you get ill in some way, you may no longer be able to do maintenance on your home. Mowing lawns, cleaning things, vacuuming the floors, all of this may be beyond your limits now. If you can afford to have someone else to do this, hire it done. If not, then you have to prioritize what can be hired out and what you can just let go for a while. This seems extreme, but it's something you sometimes have to face.
IF YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT DOES MAKE YOU HAPPY OR DISTRACTS YOU, DO IT.
As I've written about in the blog, when my cats died recently, I just watched stuff about drag queens and makeup for hours at a time. It was a place where I could let my mind go and I wouldn't have to think or feel. When I was younger, I would spend hours pouring over books full of house plans, dreaming about the house I would have one day. Okay, that one doesn't work as well anymore because it just depresses me because I know I'll never have the house I want, but when I was a kid, it got me through a lot of stuff. If music helps you, listen to music. If mindlessly playing games helps you, mindlessly play games.
Now, there is a danger in this that you need to avoid. Do not rely on people or addictive substances for your distractions and happiness. This always ends badly.
BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF
You can't move like you can when you're well. You can't think like you can when you're well. You may not feel like yourself. You may not BE yourself. It's okay. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes, a long while, to get better or at least to get less-awful. While you wait for that to happen, be kind to yourself. You are doing the best that you can. In some cases, you may be doing more than the best that you can. It's okay. Just try to get through the moments.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Survival from the Underground
If you hit the Dark Place, this is a good little reminder for how to semi-function. The comment about neurotypicals was harsh, but I do get the frustration. When you're depressed or otherwise non-functioning, people's chipper ideas can really grate on the nerves.
I understand for people who have never been at rock bottom, it's difficult to understand some of this. "I can't get out of bed." "I can't prepare a meal." "I can't bathe." For someone who hasn't been there, this seems lazy or just impossible. It isn't. There are places one can reach, of mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion, where even moving one foot in front of the other is almost impossible.
When I was in bloodhell a few years back, showering was this completely dreaded experience for me. for one thing, I was terrified I was going to bleed all over everything and not have the strength to clean it up but still HAVE to clean it up and still HAVE to continue the shower. I was also scared that I would slip or fall because I was so dizzy and so weak. Thankfully, neither of these things happen (that I remember. I'm still sketchy on a lot of the details of that time), however, I still didn't shower well. Several times I left quite a lot of shampoo in my hair.
Another issue I have when I'm depressed is convincing myself it's OKAY to put on clean clothes. I'll wander around in the same clothes for days because I know if I put on clean ones, it means the ones I was in have to go in the hamper and have to be washed and that seems like such a burden. So yes, when I'm depressed, I literally have to convince myself that I deserve clean clothes just like everyone else.
Anyway, if you're having trouble, the link I posted may help. I especially liked one of the bonus suggestions, about stocking up on supplies on your better days. That way you're prepared on the days when things are horrible.
I understand for people who have never been at rock bottom, it's difficult to understand some of this. "I can't get out of bed." "I can't prepare a meal." "I can't bathe." For someone who hasn't been there, this seems lazy or just impossible. It isn't. There are places one can reach, of mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion, where even moving one foot in front of the other is almost impossible.
When I was in bloodhell a few years back, showering was this completely dreaded experience for me. for one thing, I was terrified I was going to bleed all over everything and not have the strength to clean it up but still HAVE to clean it up and still HAVE to continue the shower. I was also scared that I would slip or fall because I was so dizzy and so weak. Thankfully, neither of these things happen (that I remember. I'm still sketchy on a lot of the details of that time), however, I still didn't shower well. Several times I left quite a lot of shampoo in my hair.
Another issue I have when I'm depressed is convincing myself it's OKAY to put on clean clothes. I'll wander around in the same clothes for days because I know if I put on clean ones, it means the ones I was in have to go in the hamper and have to be washed and that seems like such a burden. So yes, when I'm depressed, I literally have to convince myself that I deserve clean clothes just like everyone else.
Anyway, if you're having trouble, the link I posted may help. I especially liked one of the bonus suggestions, about stocking up on supplies on your better days. That way you're prepared on the days when things are horrible.
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