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merry happy
I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas are having/have had a good one.
I spent much of today muzzy and tired, after having been fool enough to take Benadryl last night (when I was feeling the kind of frazzled-tired that means I can find it hard to sleep). In my intervals of consciousness I ate chocolate (I'm giving myself a break from carb restrictions for a couple of days) and, in the tradition of Christmas ghost stories, listened to several episodes of The Magnus Archives. I've now listened through episode 55, "Pest Control," nearly halfway through season 2. I love the show enormously, but I also increasingly feel like the lore is getting so interconnected and complex that it's hard to follow. (I know there's a wiki, but I am really really spoiler-averse so I mostly avoid it.) Relatedly, I would like to ask Sims-the-writer what the hell he was thinking when he named two very different characters "Gerard."
I'm worried about Jonathan, who is quietly losing his mind. He has good reason to be paranoid, but still. And of course he is least cautious about Sasha, who as far as I know is theperson entity he ought to fear the most.
I'm hoping Martin isn't secretly evil, because Jonathan needs someone to help him. And to give him hugs and possibly also kisses. (I'm not really shipping them that hard, it's just that Martin is the only person who seems to care about Jonathan. And Jonathan occasionally shows small signs of caring about him! They're the only two people in the Institute I like, so I reflexively want them to get together. And then to resign from the Institute and go and live somewhere very very dull.)
Tim is an asshole, but I confess to being amused by his complicated love life/network of informants.
Some days and several episodes after first listening, I am still freaked out by "The New Door" and Michael. That fucking laugh, my god. And the fact that he somehow lured/forced the estate agent back into the corridor maze after she escaped. It's not fair! Once you've escaped, you ought to be safe! Something about the escape that isn't really an escape is especially chilling, to me. Anyway, I think whatever sort of alliance Michael may be offering the Institute is a devil's bargain.
Returning to Christmas-y stuff: I treated myself to a copy of John Le Carré's Agent Running in the Field, bought in hardcover because it was only a couple of dollars more than the e-book. I haven't started reading it yet but I'm looking forward to it. I rewatched part of White Christmas last night and may get around to the rest of it tonight; it's frothy and fun and I do my best to ignore all the ways it's problematic because Danny Kaye brings Big Queer Energy. Here he is camping it up like mad with Bing Crosby (plot context: the sisters who normally perform this act needed to leave town hastily, and Kaye's and Crosby's characters are trying to buy them some time).
I love Danny Kaye so much.
My plans for the rest of the evening include eating Christmas lasagne (store-bought, because I did not want to cook) and more chocolate. Perhaps I'll look at Yuletide at some point, though every year it seems I know fewer and fewer of the fandoms.
I spent much of today muzzy and tired, after having been fool enough to take Benadryl last night (when I was feeling the kind of frazzled-tired that means I can find it hard to sleep). In my intervals of consciousness I ate chocolate (I'm giving myself a break from carb restrictions for a couple of days) and, in the tradition of Christmas ghost stories, listened to several episodes of The Magnus Archives. I've now listened through episode 55, "Pest Control," nearly halfway through season 2. I love the show enormously, but I also increasingly feel like the lore is getting so interconnected and complex that it's hard to follow. (I know there's a wiki, but I am really really spoiler-averse so I mostly avoid it.) Relatedly, I would like to ask Sims-the-writer what the hell he was thinking when he named two very different characters "Gerard."
I'm worried about Jonathan, who is quietly losing his mind. He has good reason to be paranoid, but still. And of course he is least cautious about Sasha, who as far as I know is the
I'm hoping Martin isn't secretly evil, because Jonathan needs someone to help him. And to give him hugs and possibly also kisses. (I'm not really shipping them that hard, it's just that Martin is the only person who seems to care about Jonathan. And Jonathan occasionally shows small signs of caring about him! They're the only two people in the Institute I like, so I reflexively want them to get together. And then to resign from the Institute and go and live somewhere very very dull.)
Tim is an asshole, but I confess to being amused by his complicated love life/network of informants.
Some days and several episodes after first listening, I am still freaked out by "The New Door" and Michael. That fucking laugh, my god. And the fact that he somehow lured/forced the estate agent back into the corridor maze after she escaped. It's not fair! Once you've escaped, you ought to be safe! Something about the escape that isn't really an escape is especially chilling, to me. Anyway, I think whatever sort of alliance Michael may be offering the Institute is a devil's bargain.
Returning to Christmas-y stuff: I treated myself to a copy of John Le Carré's Agent Running in the Field, bought in hardcover because it was only a couple of dollars more than the e-book. I haven't started reading it yet but I'm looking forward to it. I rewatched part of White Christmas last night and may get around to the rest of it tonight; it's frothy and fun and I do my best to ignore all the ways it's problematic because Danny Kaye brings Big Queer Energy. Here he is camping it up like mad with Bing Crosby (plot context: the sisters who normally perform this act needed to leave town hastily, and Kaye's and Crosby's characters are trying to buy them some time).
I love Danny Kaye so much.
My plans for the rest of the evening include eating Christmas lasagne (store-bought, because I did not want to cook) and more chocolate. Perhaps I'll look at Yuletide at some point, though every year it seems I know fewer and fewer of the fandoms.
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You are really drawing me in with the Magnus Archives! I'm not sure about horror but I'm very tempted... After all the last audio drama I listened to on your rec was Cabin Pressure and that was AMAZING *g* I've been watching a lot of subtitled TV recently, which is good in and of itself but means you can never look away and e.g. do some knitting, and some audio drama would be perfect for that.
I've ordered myself some Cadfael dvds btw.
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In case it's of any use -- my post here has quotes from various people on the subject of how "horror-y" it is (which is obviously an impossible question to answer, but I think the quotes give some idea of what kind of thing it is and what it isn't, so people can gauge whether it might be their idea of a good time or not):
https://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/732843.html
There's also good discussion here:
https://findingfeather.tumblr.com/post/189766118082/on-the-one-hand-i-do-get-what-this-post
And my personal rec post about why I love the show is here, FWIW: https://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/735506.html
All non-spoilery! (Apart from things like "there's a plot" and "there are characters other than Jon", which you will already have gathered from this post. *g*)
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As for TMA, all I can say is that I've found the level of horror . . . mostly tolerable. But my feelings about horror in general are kind of odd--I read a certain amount of short horror fiction (basically, Ellen Datlow's annual and themed anthologies) but I don't watch horror movies and I don't generally read horror novels, because in longer form I get invested in the characters and want them to be okay. Which is starting to be a bit of a problem for me with TMA, because I've become extremely protective of and worried about the characters I like, although the showrunners have outright said that nobody is going to be okay. But I'm hooked at this point.
TMA's horror is very different from the horror of Hannibal (the only horror-ish fandom I can think of that we both know). It's not aestheticized, and there's not even the slight moral justification of Hannibal mostly choosing to eat the rude. Bad things happen to good people in TMA, and they're not turned into art afterwards. But the show's well-written and well-performed, and I think Jonathan in particular would be your type of character.