halfcactus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
halfcactus) wrote2022-05-02 04:46 pm
halfcactus) wrote2022-05-02 04:46 pm
Entry tags:
april media log
My current headspace is that I can't really watch or read anything on my own rn, so very grateful for groupwatch/groupreads! I also spent the start of the month making a list of short mobile games to play to reset my brain. I've given up on borrowing my brother's Switch (my other brother has taken custody of it haha). I don't think it's a good idea for me to start more standard-length games anyway—I have a really bad game (sometimes TV) addiction problem that gets in the way of my ability to function and take care of myself.
Monument Valley
Short, self-contained, available in iOS. It's beautifully designed and has a strong visual-based narrative (no dialogue), but I struggled because I'm bad at spatial puzzles. Haha. Playtime is somewhere between 2 to 5 hours? I wasn't keeping track.
Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise
A chaptered puzzle game with escape room type puzzles. It's fun and has a good variety of puzzles and progression of environments. It’s just that a few of the puzzles require some level of reflexes/hand-eye coordination, and there's no way to slow down the mechanisms or pause them. And some of the puzzles require you to take screencaps for reference, and switch between your screencaps folder and the game screen, which was super annoying.
The plot is a simple cat-and-mouse chase, but I was fascinated with how callous Agent A was about murder (of either the “bad guys” or civilians). I guess that’s what makes them a good secret agent. XD
(Note: Agent A is not a cat, it's just that the only screencap I have on hand is of the cat, which belongs to my nemesis Ruby La Rouge.)
Thoughts here.
Who's the Murderer 7 (2022)
I've temporarily stopped following Who's The Murderer 7 because my headspace hasn't been right for it (what with election tension, and the one week I was struggling with fatigue and just slept a lot), but I did really enjoy the Rose Island and Visitor in Time episodes for the storytelling! And the yelling!
Under The Skin (2022)
Not finishing this until this week, so I'm withholding my final judgement/opinions. For now I will say that it's not a good crime show and the way it tries to highlight/empathize with women does more harm than good. But I can't be mad because eps 14–15 has a magnificent scene accompanied by![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
liuet yelling "Calm down, Hieronymous Bosch!" on voice that has been living in my head rent-free for days.
Livetweeting our groupwatch in this thread.
The Strongest Men of God (2018)
A low-budget esports BL webdrama (based on a novel of the same name) that came out in 2018 but Youku just uploaded to Youtube last month (no English subs yet). It has very strong (and annoying) shounen/sports anime beats and will not be restrained by esports expectations. There are swimming competitions, drag races, ominous evidence boards, and an athletic rival team that always appears to be shirtless because their angst cannot be contained. I'm only on episode 20 out of 36, LOL.
(This is not a good show.)
(The audio is also sometimes reaaaaaaally bad, it's maddening.)
Zhang Xincheng is in it as a supporting character and the main character's love interest (I think!!!!!). I did not know it was BL until ZXC Twitter reliably informed me that it was and then suddenly everything made more sense (except for the plot). I'm only really watching ZXC's scenes in this show because he and the FL (team manager Jiang Xue) are the only valid characters in it, but they treat Jiang Xue's character really badly and I don't like seeing her stuck with a team that doesn't deserve her. The main character is insufferable, but I'm invested in watching him become Zhang Xincheng's sugar daddy.
Here's my general livetweet thread and my Zhang Xincheng-centric livetweet thread that has clips (some of which I quickly sub as I go for my 5 followers lmao).
And here is a list of important scenes so far:
Episode 2 shower scene (noises might be NSFW)
Product placement???
Just 2 boys on a bike with a shovel (scene starts 30 seconds into this compilation clip haha)
THEY WENT ON A LITERAL DATE!!! The main character gives Wu Zewen (ZXC) a makeover!!!
ZHANG XINCHENG CRYING
Jona, "Sabel" (Live at the People's Rally, 04/23) (Ben & Ben / KZ Tandigan cover)
A women's empowerment song sung during VP Leni Robredo's birthday/campaign rally. English translation here. I've been feeling pretty manic and anxious with the election being one week away, and irritated that a lot of international coverage has had an "oh look the Philippines might put Marcos back in power isn't it wild????" angle. I feel that the rest of the world could learn a lot from our rallies and volunteer movements, actually.
Kimberley Chen feat. Flesh Juicer, "打開太陽"
Moody Taiwanese rock song. I have little exposure to Taiwanese Hokkien, so it was pretty educational hehe
Good article about troll farms
It's technically a feature for the professor who investigated political troll farms, but it contains a lot of information. If anyone has been wondering why I tweet a lot about trolls and the "scripts of the day", this is why.
![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
jeannette_ng: [thread] So, you’re a writer and you’re worried about writing outside your immediate experiences and identities.
An old thread about writing outside your identity that I only read vialunatique yesterday because of recent fandom discourse. It's so long I wish it wasn't a Twitter thread lol but at least it's actually substantial and cohesive, and ages quite well!
Games
Short, self-contained, available in iOS. It's beautifully designed and has a strong visual-based narrative (no dialogue), but I struggled because I'm bad at spatial puzzles. Haha. Playtime is somewhere between 2 to 5 hours? I wasn't keeping track.
btw i think the game’s biggest draw is that my nemesis has a cat. and the game’s biggest flaw is that you have to give the cat one whole fishbone to get it off the couch. the cat is ok but i do not think Agent A deserves to be friends with this cat
— @halfcactus April 5, 2022
A chaptered puzzle game with escape room type puzzles. It's fun and has a good variety of puzzles and progression of environments. It’s just that a few of the puzzles require some level of reflexes/hand-eye coordination, and there's no way to slow down the mechanisms or pause them. And some of the puzzles require you to take screencaps for reference, and switch between your screencaps folder and the game screen, which was super annoying.
The plot is a simple cat-and-mouse chase, but I was fascinated with how callous Agent A was about murder (of either the “bad guys” or civilians). I guess that’s what makes them a good secret agent. XD
(Note: Agent A is not a cat, it's just that the only screencap I have on hand is of the cat, which belongs to my nemesis Ruby La Rouge.)
TV
Delicious Romance (2021)Thoughts here.
Who's the Murderer 7 (2022)
I've temporarily stopped following Who's The Murderer 7 because my headspace hasn't been right for it (what with election tension, and the one week I was struggling with fatigue and just slept a lot), but I did really enjoy the Rose Island and Visitor in Time episodes for the storytelling! And the yelling!
Under The Skin (2022)
Not finishing this until this week, so I'm withholding my final judgement/opinions. For now I will say that it's not a good crime show and the way it tries to highlight/empathize with women does more harm than good. But I can't be mad because eps 14–15 has a magnificent scene accompanied by
Livetweeting our groupwatch in this thread.
The Strongest Men of God (2018)
A low-budget esports BL webdrama (based on a novel of the same name) that came out in 2018 but Youku just uploaded to Youtube last month (no English subs yet). It has very strong (and annoying) shounen/sports anime beats and will not be restrained by esports expectations. There are swimming competitions, drag races, ominous evidence boards, and an athletic rival team that always appears to be shirtless because their angst cannot be contained. I'm only on episode 20 out of 36, LOL.
(This is not a good show.)
(The audio is also sometimes reaaaaaaally bad, it's maddening.)
Zhang Xincheng is in it as a supporting character and the main character's love interest (I think!!!!!). I did not know it was BL until ZXC Twitter reliably informed me that it was and then suddenly everything made more sense (except for the plot). I'm only really watching ZXC's scenes in this show because he and the FL (team manager Jiang Xue) are the only valid characters in it, but they treat Jiang Xue's character really badly and I don't like seeing her stuck with a team that doesn't deserve her. The main character is insufferable, but I'm invested in watching him become Zhang Xincheng's sugar daddy.
Here's my general livetweet thread and my Zhang Xincheng-centric livetweet thread that has clips (some of which I quickly sub as I go for my 5 followers lmao).
And here is a list of important scenes so far:
Music
A women's empowerment song sung during VP Leni Robredo's birthday/campaign rally. English translation here. I've been feeling pretty manic and anxious with the election being one week away, and irritated that a lot of international coverage has had an "oh look the Philippines might put Marcos back in power isn't it wild????" angle. I feel that the rest of the world could learn a lot from our rallies and volunteer movements, actually.
Moody Taiwanese rock song. I have little exposure to Taiwanese Hokkien, so it was pretty educational hehe
Misc links
It's technically a feature for the professor who investigated political troll farms, but it contains a lot of information. If anyone has been wondering why I tweet a lot about trolls and the "scripts of the day", this is why.
Unable to get an audience with digital janitors, he interviewed political trolls instead. “I wanted to find out how much they are getting paid,” recalls Ong. “How did they even get there? What were the life circumstances that would lead a person to sign up to become a troll? May ethics ba sila? How do they sleep at night? How can they live with themselves? In 2016, nakita natin all these violence, hate, attacks online—that’s what got me into it.”
What he found out, first of all, is that no one calls himself a troll. “Trolls have very fancy titles. They are PR associates, marketing strategists, content managers, social media community managers,” he tells ANCX. “For me that is interesting—no one is formally a troll.”
He also found out that there are people who did not go into troll work voluntarily. Some were deceived into becoming a troll.
“There is an element of deception in the recruitment. Many respondents mentioned that when they applied to a PR firm, they thought they will be handling a corporate account—say, a shampoo or a soft drink brand. They underwent a series of interviews. May pa-tests pa. So that was the impression that they got. But they would later find out na si Mayor pala ang client. And then ang job pala, aside from writing press releases, is tagagawa ng memes. They were asked to create fake accounts,” he says.
An old thread about writing outside your identity that I only read via
lunatique yesterday because of recent fandom discourse. It's so long I wish it wasn't a Twitter thread lol but at least it's actually substantial and cohesive, and ages quite well!