This Week I...

 Look at that. It's Saturday again. Let's see what I did this week.

Wrote

Not much. I got an idea for a Star Wars fan-fiction so I've been working on that for a couple of days.

Read

I finished A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands.

So, that's my Now Reading Stack. Over halfway done with the Young Jedi Knights book. Switched out a Goosebumps book for a spooky Star Wars book. Not sure if I'm gonna keep it in the stack since I'm already reading one Star Wars book. Don't wanna confuse my poor widdle brain.

Watched

A bunch of stuff on YouTube.

The Clone Wars movie.

More stuff on YouTube cause I won't let myself watch anything with a plot until I write up two blog posts... I hate myself sometimes.

Played

Just some games on my phone.

Posted

My ramblings about Salem's Lot mini-series.

Anything Else?

Dropped my external hard-drive and it stopped working. So that's fun. Thankfully I didn't lose much, but still frustrating.

Oh, and we had to get a new printer. Fun times.

Well, that's all for this one. Wednesday's post will either be me rambling about a book or rambling about another Star Wars movie. Who knows. Not me.

Stephy Watched Salem's Lot (1979)

 Hello There! Time for me to ramble about another movie! And to finish out spooky month, I actually watched something spooky!

No picture this time. For reasons. Reasons that are I didn't have a picture this time...

You'll enjoy Mr. Barlow. And he'll enjoy you.

- Straker

no I won't...

About/Summary

A 1979 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's novel. 

A novelist returns to Salem's Lot, where he lived as a child, to write a book. But things begin happening to the residents soon after he arrives.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Violence

Non-graphic deaths

Lying about rape (a woman is cheating on her husband and when caught, says the other man was raping her. It is very obviously a lie)

Child Death

Characters/Casting 

Casting was pretty good. Though almost none of the characters were how I pictured when I read the book. Not sure if it's because Stephen King described them differently, or if my brain just came up with my own descriptions. 

Susan and her mother were less annoying this time. Which was nice. 

Atmosphere/Setting

The setting is a small town named Salem's Lot (actually, it's Jerusalem's Lot but it got shortened) in the 1970s. I enjoy fictional stories set in small towns because, unlike Jason Aldean, I actually live in a smallish town (not sure what counts as a small town, but the town I live in has less than 3,000 people). I always find it a bit interesting to compare fictional small towns to my own. My small town is lacking once again because it does not have a spooky house on the hill. But I feel like the movie kind of got the small-town vibe down pretty well. I feel that the book did a better job, but the book had entire chapters dedicated to telling you about the town and the people in it. A lot of which was cut in the movie, but I understand. Couldn't fit all that into three hours. If they tried there would have been at least one hour of just that. So, good job with the setting. 

The atmosphere was spooky. Which was good. I really got nothing else to say about it. Sorry? not sorry

Writing

Stephen King wrote the novel. Paul Monash wrote the screenplay. And both did a damn good job. Five stars, sirs.

Adaptation

This is a weird adaptation. There were a lot of odd little changes. Like, character names were changed. Some of the changes were okay. The combination of characters was a change. For example, Bonnie Sawyer was having an affair with her boss, Larry Crockett, instead of a random teenager (did he work for the phone company or something? I can't remember). It worked because it was one less character to introduce. And there were a lot of characters in the novel. So, those changes worked for me.

One change that did not work for me was Barlow. Just... Nope. Did not like that.

But otherwise, it was a pretty good adaptation, in my opinion.

Plot

The plot was really good. I mean, the whole plot was "Dude moves to small town then weird shit happens, and look at that, vampire." And the mini-series (and yes, I keep referring to it as a movie and as a mini-series because my brain refuses to pick one...) did well to convey that plot over three hours.

Costuming

Is this how people dressed in the 70s? Interesting 🤔

Larry Crockett's suits, though. Why? Was that fashionable back then? Way too much white.

How diverse is it?

I think I saw a black man. Not sure though cause it wasn't a long shot and I think you just see his back.

Also, everyone is straight... Boring.

Overall Thoughts

Quality mini-series. Pretty good adaptation. Four out of five stars. Y'all lost a star for that Barlow change. I did not like it. Sorry. not sorry this time either.

And that's all I got for this one. See y'all on Saturday for the post that makes me realize I did nothing once again for an entire week.

This Week I...

Hello all.

Saturday again. So, let's see what I got into this week, shall we? 

Wrote

Basically nothing. 

I'm switching what program I use for writing so I spent a couple of days getting the program downloaded (yay for shitty internet...). Then installed. And yesterday (Friday) I started copying and pasting things. Which after I started I think I might be able to just... transfer it without copying and pasting. Eh, I'm old and am set in my weird ways. Partially. Right now I am actually splitting up my Writing Challenge document, so copying and pasting is necessary.

Read

I finished Goosebumps: How to Kill a Monster by R.L. Stine.  Won't be doing a blog post about it for reasons, but I did read it.

Now to read all of those. Just realized all those are re-reads except for The Stand on the Kindle... 

Also read some fan-fiction. I'm trying to catch up on my subscriptions on AO3. People write a lot in October. Which, makes sense considering there are, like, 20 monthly themes for the month. And a few writers I am subscribed to are participating. So I get at least four new stories a day. And I am super behind.

Watched

The Way of the House Husband - Just watched the anime... Three times. No joke. Episodes were short (I think all were less than 20 minutes long) and there are only... 15? So it wasn't too difficult to watch it all in one sitting. And then I just kept hitting the start over button. It was really entertaining. 

Garfield and Friends - If you have Pluto streaming (it's free) there is a channel that just plays Garfield and Friends and the various Garfield specials. There are other channels but I saw Garfield and never left...

Psych - Watched a few episodes, one of which was the horse racing episode. Do all quirky detective shows have a horse racing episode? Elementary had one. Psych had one. The Glades had one. Murder, She Wrote had one (I think...). I just started watching Columbo so I'm not sure if it has one or not...

Mysteries at the Museum - I enjoy this show, but every time I watch it I just wanna pack up and go on a road trip to visit every museum I can find. 

Columbo - I am really enjoying Columbo. I wasn't sure if I would like the whole knowing who the killer is thing or not. I like to solve the mystery with the characters. But I really like Columbo. I am just curious though, does Columbo go off on those random topics in conversations to lull the killers into false senses of security or does he have ADHD or something? Part of me likes the first option, but part of me likes the second option. Either way, the show is enjoyable. I do recommend it to anyone who enjoys quirky detective shows. It is free to watch on Tubi. 

Salem's Lot (1979) - Really enjoyed this. And there will be a blog post about it.

Return to Salem's Lot - Oh, this was horrible. There will not be a blog post about it.

Played

Mostly just a Sherlock Holmes hidden object/match 3 game on my phone. 

Posted

Ramblings about Attack of the Clones

Anything Else?

It rained most of the week which meant our internet and house phone were fucking horrible. Because that is a thing that happens. 

And that's all I did this week. Wednesday's post should be about the Salem's Lot mini-series. Hopefully. I got most of the post written up, we'll see if I can actually get it done.

Stephy Watched Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

Hello there.

So... Time for Attack of the Clones.

Yes. There will be spoilers. 

I want to go home and rethink my life.

- Elan Sleazebaggano

About/Summary

The sequel to The Phantom Menace (and the prequel to all the rest of the movies) was released in 2002. Directed by George Lucas. Written by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales.

After an assassination attempt against Senator Padme Amidala, the Jedi send Anakin to protect her while Obi-Wan tracks down the assassin. 

Content/Trigger Warnings

Violence

Character Death

Tropes

As I have been doing, here's a list of tropes on tvtropes.org. And I will be rambling about a few.

Battle in the Rain: I loved the fight between Jango and Obi-Wan. If only they would have kissed... I mean *clears throat* Great fight. Great fight. should have kissed and then raised the clones as their children and retook Mandalore and I'm gonna go read fanfiction...

Time Passage Beard: Obi-Wan's beard is lovely. Five stars.

Toxic Friend Influence: Why are the Jedi allowing Palpatine to spend that much time alone with a child? I know Anakin is, like, 19 in this movie, but it is hinted at in this movie, and the next, that Anakin spends a lot of time with Palpatine. That they're "friends". Why? I would not let a former slave child hang out with an old man who is the head of the government. Just... No. Obi-Wan, do better.

Characters/Casting

Ewan McGregor is still doing great. Five stars, Mr. McGregor.

I need more Dexter Jettster in my life.

The rest of the cast did the best with what they had.

Also, Jango Fett is a super interesting character that the movie didn't go into. 

 

Atmosphere/Setting

I like that each planet has its own sort of vibe. We see Coruscant, Naboo, and Tatooine again. And we also get a couple new planets, Kamino and Geonosis. 

Dex's diner looked like a small hometown diner and it was great.

Writing

Oh. The writing. Most of it wasn't bad. But the dialogue between Anakin and Padme was just... It was bad, in my opinion. Anakin is supposed to come off as someone that could (does) fall to the darkside in his dialogue and actions. But they could have made it a bit more subtle. Because, he was throwing up all sorts of red flags and Padme was just ignoring them.

Plot

The main plot is good. The romantic subplot made me cringe so hard at times that I think I pulled a muscle.

Animation/Special Effects

As I said on my ramblings of The Phantom Menace, a lot of the special effects didn't age well. But, they did the best with the technology at the time. 

Costuming

Costuming was great, again. Padme's still looking great. 

How diverse is it?

About as diverse as Phantom Menace was. 

Overall Thoughts

If it wasn't noticeable, the romance between Anakin and Padme annoyed me. As I said earlier, Anakin was throwing up red flags constantly and she ignored them. He slaughtered a group of people and Padme just shrugged it off. Also, they met 10 years before this movie, spent a few days together, and then spent a few more days together in this movie and then they got married. I am used to speed-run romances, I mean, I read romance novels, but this just seemed very quick. And made little sense to me.

Aside from that, it was overall a good movie. But it could have been better 🤷🏻‍♀️

This Week I...

 Well, it's Saturday again. So, here's what I did this week:

Wrote

Basically nothing. Tried to work on a couple fics I have going, but aside from a few sentences here and there I got nothing.

Read

Mostly fan-fiction. Read a little on my books, but not a lot. But honestly, I kind of got into a Star Wars fic mood since I watched Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, so I've kind of just been wanting to read fan-fiction of Jango and Obi-Wan being all heart eyes at each other while they become dads to the clones. Don't look at me like that. That is the plot of a lot of Jango/Obi-Wan fics. And I love it.

Watched

Murder, She Wrote

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Shining - the miniseries from the 90s. And you know what? I liked it better than the movie. For reasons. Maybe someday I'll make a blog post about it...

Also watched a bunch of Outside Xbox Hitman videos.

Played

A bit on some mobile games.

Posted

Post about The Phantom Menace.

Anything Else?

Got some grading done on my kiddo's schoolwork. Ended up doing most of it while they were in therapy. Way easier when there isn't a cat lying on the book. 

That's it for today. Might or might not be another Star Wars post on Wednesday... 

Stephy Watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

 Me, end of September: Oh, October is coming up! Spooky month. I'll do a bunch of spooky posts!

Me, on October 7th: Star Wars is a thing. We should focus on that...

Look how pretty Obi-Wan is

There will probably be spoilers. But... come on. I'm talking about a film from one of the biggest franchises that was released over 20 years ago. If you haven't watched this damn thing yet, you're never going to.

You can't stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.

- Shmi Skywalker

About/Summary

Released in 1999, The Phantom Menace is both the first and the fourth installment of the Star Wars movies. Look, if you don't know how these movies were released, then what the fuck are you doing here? Do you understand anything I talk about? Star Wars is at least 30% of my personality.

Anyway.

Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, are sent to deal with a Trade Federation blockade of the planet Naboo. That doesn't go well, and after some shit, they end up on Tattooine, where they meet Anakin Skywalker. Things really go downhill after that.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Death

Slavery

Major Character Death

Tropes

Here's the listing of all the tropes according to tvtropes.org. Now for me to pick out some random ones to talk about.

Achievements in Ignorance - I laugh every time Jar Jar gets out of trouble because he's clumsy. Sorry. I like slapstick humor.

Body Double - I really liked the use of body doubles as a security measure for the Queen of Naboo.

Easter Egg - Didja all see the ET aliens?

Characters/Casting 

Ewan McGregor was fantastic as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Love Ewan McGregor... The rest of the casting was pretty good as well. But I've been an Ewan fangirl since I watched Trainspotting in high school so he was my favorite.

Jake Lloyd, who played young Anakin Skywalker, did the best he could with what he was given. I'm not going to say he was the best child actor I have ever seen, but he did a good job.

Casting was really excellent honestly.

Thinking about it, I don't think I really had a favorite character... I mean, Obi-Wan, yeah, but that comes from my love of Ewan McGregor than anything that happened in this movie. Darth Maul was a fantastic villain. I will admit that none of the characters are really fleshed out. A lot of them just seem very flat. Or we get the beginnings of a personality that goes nowhere. Most of my knowledge of characters in this movie do not come from this movie.

Atmosphere/Setting

Naboo was really beautiful.

Tatooine is still a hellscape.

It was fun to finally see some of Coruscant. Been reading about that place for years and I was excited to finally see it.

Writing

It could have been better. But it wasn't the worst written movie I've seen.

Plot

The plot was good. But honestly that whole "Anakin is the child of prophecy. He will bring balance to the force." was stupid. I'm sorry, but when I first watched this movie when it came out and they brought that up I was like "Uh... what? Y'all realize that bringing balance would result in all you Jedi dying cause there's only one sith but a bunch of you?" But... Plot was fine, I guess. It would have sucked if this was a solo movie, but as the beginning of a trilogy, it was fine.

Animation/Special Effects

Ugh. Okay, I know how much green screen shit they used for this movie. And back when it came out, it was noticeable but ignorable. I saw it, I knew it was special effects, and I ignored it. Now... It aged badly. I know they did the best with what was available at the time. But... some of the stuff looks so bad now. But honestly, it's still ignorable for me. My brain will be like "Oh, that looks bad. Anyways... When does Obi-Wan drop those robes?"

Costuming

Queen Amidala's dresses are fucking fantastic. I always loved Padme's look in this movie.

Putting Darth Maul in all black was cliche as hell, but it fucking worked fantastically.

Honestly, I think the costuming of this movie was top-notch.

How diverse is it?

Well... There are a lot of white people. But there are also a few people of color. And I'm not talking about the aliens. The head of the queen's guard is a black man. And Mace Windu, another black man, is a high-ranking Jedi. And... is everyone else white? Fucking white people. Also, is there any sort of racism against aliens of different colors? Like, do people in the Star Wars universe think one color of twi'lek is worse than the others? Do they have phrases like "Well, you know how those green twi'leks are..."?

No discussions of sexuality, by the way so who knows if any of these people are queer or not. Probably not... Though I think Obi-Wan could have made a fantastic bi-icon.

Overall Thoughts

This movie doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. It's not the best Star Wars movie, but it's not that bad. Some parts were a bit ugh-inducing. But overall it was a good movie. It's probably my favorite of the prequels.

This Week I...

Well, let's see what I did this week.

Spoiler:

Fucking nothing.

Wrote

Basically nothing. It was not a good week for me to write anything (again).

Read

I finished a Goosebumps book. Wasn't a big fan of it so I won't be doing a blog post about it. 

Read some fan-fiction, too. Of course. I read fan-fiction damn near every day it seems...

Watched

Columbo - I've been meaning to check out Columbo for awhile now. Ever since I watched Pushing Up Roses' video about the show. Then I was watching a Drawfee episode and they mentioned Columbo and I was like "It is time." Only watched the first three "episodes" but I really enjoyed it. 

Stuff on YouTube

I thought I watched something else but I cannot remember...

Played

Monster Hunter Now - I hunt monsters now. This game is super fun. I never played any of the actual Monster Hunter games, but now I feel like I should probably check them out. 

Pokemon Go - I'm out of pokeballs now...

Sherlock - another mobile game. I was playing this one constantly a few months back and then just... stopped. And I regret doing that cause I love this game. It's a hidden object and a match-three game. With a background plot of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson going into classic books to solve mysteries. Fucking love it. 

Posted

Post about The Haunting of Hill House

Anything Else?

Kind of a shit week for doing anything.

Period started on Monday. So that took me down for a couple days. Then me and the kiddo got our flu shots, which I didn't have a reaction to, aside from my arm was sore where I got it. And of course I got it in the arm I sleep on because I forgot that was a thing I do (sleep... I forgot I sleep). So I slept like shit that night and the next day I was barely functioning. A friend came to visit on Friday and then I had to go to Walmart right after she left, so my social battery was dead by late afternoon and I just gave up on the day.

Oh yeah, I joined BlueSky thanks to Ryan. So, go follow me there if you want. 

And that's what I did this week. No idea what Wednesday's post will be. I got three days to figure it out. Here's hoping for something spooky, cause it's spooky month. Anyone got a good idea? Keep in mind I got three days and am already reading enough books. 😂

Stephy Watches The Haunting of Hill House

 Hello There!

So, it's Spooky Month. Which I figured that means I should talk about spooky things. Because... That's what people do? Do people really just watch and read horror stuff in October?

Anyway!

The Haunting of Hill House

Yes, I did screen shot the show's page on Netflix. I don't own the DVDs (yet) so this was the best option...

How can a house, just a collection of bricks, wood, and glass have that much power over people?

Dr. Montague

I will try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

About/Summary

The Haunting of Hill House is a horror mini-series created and directed by Mike Flanagan. It originally aired on Netflix in 2018. 

The show follows the Crain family (parents, Hugh and Olivia, and their five children, Steven, Shirley, Theo, Nell, and Luke), who in 1992 lived in Hill House while Hugh and Olivia, were fixing it up to sell it. Which would have been okay, if the house wasn't evil and full of ghosts. 26 years later the family is still poorly dealing with the aftermath of that summer.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Animal Death

Suicide

Sex

Child Sexual Assault

Drug Use

Major Character Death

Child Death

Murder

Blood and Gore

Tropes

I was going to list all the tropes that I noticed while watching the show, but... my observational skills are sometimes shit. And there are so many tropes that I don't even know. So, here's a link to the TVtropes listing of all the tropes in the show. I'm just going to talk about a few of them.

Character Focus - I really liked how most of this show's episodes focused on one character. You got five episodes for each of the kids, and then two episodes for the parents. It really let you get to know all of the characters and see what they went through.

Dark is not Evil - The house is haunted, but not all the ghosts are evil. And I like that. Why do ghosts always gotta be the bad guys? Sometimes they're just dead people who like to chill out and be spooky.

Reusable Lighter Toss - I fucking hate this trope. Like, do these people not realize how expensive Zippo lighters are? I don't care how cool it looks. Also, Luke is the one who just tosses the lighter away. I do not believe that man has a lighter. Guess he could have bought it on the way... Ya know, the trope makes sense if you headcanon that Luke bought the lighter on the way... 

Characters/Casting

All of these characters are flawed as shit. They're likable, but also very frustrating. Casting was great. And the child actors did a fabulous job. Which is usually pretty hit-and-miss. No insult to child actors, but sometimes they're just not that remarkable. But these kids did a fantastic job. 

Atmosphere/Setting

The whole show is spooky as fuck. Even scenes that aren't supposed to be that spooky have an unsettling feeling. 

The major setting is Hill House, which is fantastic looking. And spooky as fuck at the same time. Fantastically spooky.

Adaptation?

This is inspired by the book by Shirley Jackson. I haven't read the book so I have no thoughts on this topic really. 

Plot

The plot is twisty and turny. There is a nonlinear narrative, which means it bounces around in the timeline and you just have to keep up. Which wasn't too hard as long as you pay attention. 

How diverse is it?

Slightly diverse. 

The main characters (The Crain Family) are all white. One is queer though, so yay for that. A lot of the side characters aren't white people. 

Costuming

Costuming was good. I mean, it was a modern(ish) story so there wasn't a lot of elaborate costumes. Aside from a few of the ghosts. Which, Poppy's outfit was *chef's kiss* As was Nell's wedding dress. And the costuming for the 1992 bits was pretty spot on. 

Overall Thoughts

I loved this show. And it is definitely one that I can't put on as background noise because it always sucks me in. One reason being the hidden ghosts. Here and here are videos about those. Every time I watch it I try to see how many I can spot. Another reason is that it is a very good fucking show. But sad. Seriously. This is not a happy show. It is sad. Very sad. It is more sad than scary most of the time. In my head, it is filed under "spooky show that made me cry". 

One of my favorite scenes is the "did you just punch me in the book?" scene. It makes me laugh every time. The dialogue. Theo and Shirley's facial expressions. The fact that it is a little bit of comedy in the middle of some drama-heavy spooky shit. The whole scene is just *chef's kiss*

That's all for this one. See y'all on Saturday.

October Plans

Hello There.

Tis the first of the month, which means time to outline my goals for the month that I will avoid doing. Because I am a horrible person. 

Write

I plan to write something. I have been having some trouble actually writing lately, so hopefully I can change that.

Read

September was not good for my reading either. Got better towards the end of the month so hopefully, I can keep that up.

I just wanna finish one of these books. Just one. Well, I want to finish them all, but baby steps.

Watch

Well, still haven't watched the things I said I was gonna watch last month. So... Let's try those again. And I wanna get caught up on Marvel and Star Wars stuff. I am very behind...

Play

I wanna play some Mortal Kombat. Just been in the mood... 

Anything Else?

Me and the kiddo are gonna start on some sewing stuff for school. That is mostly all they have left to do. Well, Life Skills, two book reports, three history essays, and three writing assignments. Wow. They got a lot to do. But they got the time to work on it all. 

I think that's all for this one. Mostly because I thought there were 31 days in September and was quite shocked late last night when I saw all the October 1st posts on Tumblr...