Crime Scene Returns
Sep. 23rd, 2025 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scaramoucheI was going to start watching Bloody Game season 3, but while browsing Netflix on my phone, I got a promo for Crime Scene Zero.
HUH, said I. Does this have anything to do with Crime Scene, the murder mystery variety show that I love? A quick click on the show's info (the show itself hasn't dropped yet) seemed to imply that it's a continuation of the same show????
I went to the show's wiki page to double-check, and sure enough Crime Scene Zero is mentioned there as a fifth season of the show.... but just before that, the article says that there was a fourth season LAST year, called Crime Scene Returns.
WHAT! Despite my acceptance that the show is labour intensive and difficult to set up and run, they've made another two seasons? I checked the usual places on reddit, and have now watched episode 1 and 2 of Crime Scene Returns, as it seems that this season has changed the format some by splitting each case into two episodes each.
Sure, the comments on reddit are more levelheaded, with criticism of the new episodes' pacing and the roleplaying skills of the cast, but meanwhile I'm over here watching episodes 1 and 2 while being gleeful, joyous, excited, grateful, delighted, ecstatic, and laughing until my asthma kicks in. (When ep 1 first started I went aww Park Ji-yoon didn't come back? But then she came walking in as the detective and I went YAY!!!!) I am so happy, I have to stop myself from bingeing the whole season, though I probably will.
HUH, said I. Does this have anything to do with Crime Scene, the murder mystery variety show that I love? A quick click on the show's info (the show itself hasn't dropped yet) seemed to imply that it's a continuation of the same show????
I went to the show's wiki page to double-check, and sure enough Crime Scene Zero is mentioned there as a fifth season of the show.... but just before that, the article says that there was a fourth season LAST year, called Crime Scene Returns.
WHAT! Despite my acceptance that the show is labour intensive and difficult to set up and run, they've made another two seasons? I checked the usual places on reddit, and have now watched episode 1 and 2 of Crime Scene Returns, as it seems that this season has changed the format some by splitting each case into two episodes each.
Sure, the comments on reddit are more levelheaded, with criticism of the new episodes' pacing and the roleplaying skills of the cast, but meanwhile I'm over here watching episodes 1 and 2 while being gleeful, joyous, excited, grateful, delighted, ecstatic, and laughing until my asthma kicks in. (When ep 1 first started I went aww Park Ji-yoon didn't come back? But then she came walking in as the detective and I went YAY!!!!) I am so happy, I have to stop myself from bingeing the whole season, though I probably will.
Book Log: The Spiral Staircase
Sep. 22nd, 2025 03:36 pmscaramoucheI got Karen Armstrong's memoir The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness from a book fair ages ago, but kind of avoided reading it because although I knew that Armstrong used to be a nun and that informs her perspective of religion, I was nervous that knowing Armstrong better might make me enjoy her other books less. As it turns out, knowing a bit more about life experience has indeed changed the way I view her books that I've already read, but in ways I wasn't expecting, and most of the guesses I'd made from her style of writing turned out to be pretty close.
( Cut for length. )
Anyway, great read, enjoyed myself even through the difficult parts, I have a better understanding (I think) of the ways that Armstrong thinks that differ from my own, but still illuminate routes that are useful to think about.
( Cut for length. )
Anyway, great read, enjoyed myself even through the difficult parts, I have a better understanding (I think) of the ways that Armstrong thinks that differ from my own, but still illuminate routes that are useful to think about.
Bloody Game
Sep. 21st, 2025 03:33 pmscaramoucheIt took me so long to finish Bloody Game season 2! (Looks like I started somewhere in July.) There was a stretch of a few weeks where I was three episodes from the finale and just couldn't get through, the pace and editing was SO BAD in the second half of the season. Made worse because at the same time I was watching Taran's The Genius season 1 commentary, which further made me appreciate how crisp the editing is in that show, even during its slower first season.
(Tangent: Taran paused his The Genius commentary to commentate over Survivor: Australia - Australia vs. the World, which I ended up watching because I figured that his commentary would be interesting enough to cancel out my general disinterest in Survivor -- speaking as someone who followed season 2 and 3 really closely back in the day. Taran had way less to say because he doesn't have as much game strategy to analyse, but it was fun to get a glimpse of Survivor fandom lingo and meta discussion about "player edits" and "social currency".)
I finally forced myself to finish Bloody Game's season 2, in the hopes of getting to the reportedly better season 3. It's been literal months since I first started season 2, and at one point I accidentally deleted my post on the earlier episodes when it was in a dreamwidth draft, so I'll try to recall what my thoughts were.
Why couldn't I have fastforwarded through season 2 the way I did season 1? Because Hong Jin-ho was a player. Dammit, Jin-ho! Though a lot of the time I let the show play in the background while I did other things. It is fun seeing Jin-ho, who "rescued" The Genius's debut season, appear almost ten years later in Bloody Game as a veteran (and thus letting go, fashion effort wise) in a mostly younger-than-him cast.
( More thoughts about Bloody Game's season 2. )
(Tangent: Taran paused his The Genius commentary to commentate over Survivor: Australia - Australia vs. the World, which I ended up watching because I figured that his commentary would be interesting enough to cancel out my general disinterest in Survivor -- speaking as someone who followed season 2 and 3 really closely back in the day. Taran had way less to say because he doesn't have as much game strategy to analyse, but it was fun to get a glimpse of Survivor fandom lingo and meta discussion about "player edits" and "social currency".)
I finally forced myself to finish Bloody Game's season 2, in the hopes of getting to the reportedly better season 3. It's been literal months since I first started season 2, and at one point I accidentally deleted my post on the earlier episodes when it was in a dreamwidth draft, so I'll try to recall what my thoughts were.
Why couldn't I have fastforwarded through season 2 the way I did season 1? Because Hong Jin-ho was a player. Dammit, Jin-ho! Though a lot of the time I let the show play in the background while I did other things. It is fun seeing Jin-ho, who "rescued" The Genius's debut season, appear almost ten years later in Bloody Game as a veteran (and thus letting go, fashion effort wise) in a mostly younger-than-him cast.
( More thoughts about Bloody Game's season 2. )
Book Log: Rogue One
Sep. 17th, 2025 04:43 pmscaramoucheI bought Alexander Freed's novelisation of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back when the movie first came out and I was fannishly excited over it, but I didn't read it. I think it's because most of the time novelisations don't really work for me, either by overexplaining what I prefer to be open, or going for characterisation choices that I disagree with. This novelisation does both! But enough time has passed, and Andor has opened the world further into its own thing, that I can process the novelisation as a product of a specific point in time.
Also, good thing I didn't read it back then because it completely undoes my missing scene fic, in the usual ways that crack me up, eg. my thinking that the timeline as seen didn't make emotional or plotworking sense in order to accomplish all the things that film needed to do during the Yavin 4 interlude, but the movie script, and from there the novelisation, disagreed with me.
The novelisation itself was interesting, and I suppose scratches that itch for world details and setting the scene. But its blank spots are funny, eg. Cassian really has nothing going on emotionally, except (1) mission and (2) Jyn, with the second point overtaking the first pretty quick; no insight into Chirrut's headspace at all, since he only gets the one scene (where he dies) since everything else is given to Baze, I think due to limitations in being able to flesh out the Guardians of Whills lore; Bodhi really does not get his due for what he actually did and sacrificed in order to get the plans out. The movie's already a little waffly on the last part, and I get that the story is wholly Jyn's, but... the novelisation's Jyn is not the movie's Jyn either, so I couldn't really pin emotional investment there either. The broad strokes of the character are the same, but the novelisation (and the script's?) Jyn is way angrier, conflicted and traumatized that movie!Jyn's heartbroken stoicism. So there's that! But I did like the imperial bureaucracy and Orson Krennic parts, which I suppose are difficult to get wrong.
Also, good thing I didn't read it back then because it completely undoes my missing scene fic, in the usual ways that crack me up, eg. my thinking that the timeline as seen didn't make emotional or plotworking sense in order to accomplish all the things that film needed to do during the Yavin 4 interlude, but the movie script, and from there the novelisation, disagreed with me.
The novelisation itself was interesting, and I suppose scratches that itch for world details and setting the scene. But its blank spots are funny, eg. Cassian really has nothing going on emotionally, except (1) mission and (2) Jyn, with the second point overtaking the first pretty quick; no insight into Chirrut's headspace at all, since he only gets the one scene (where he dies) since everything else is given to Baze, I think due to limitations in being able to flesh out the Guardians of Whills lore; Bodhi really does not get his due for what he actually did and sacrificed in order to get the plans out. The movie's already a little waffly on the last part, and I get that the story is wholly Jyn's, but... the novelisation's Jyn is not the movie's Jyn either, so I couldn't really pin emotional investment there either. The broad strokes of the character are the same, but the novelisation (and the script's?) Jyn is way angrier, conflicted and traumatized that movie!Jyn's heartbroken stoicism. So there's that! But I did like the imperial bureaucracy and Orson Krennic parts, which I suppose are difficult to get wrong.
Nomination Coordination Station 2025
Sep. 15th, 2025 06:14 amserenity_ribbon posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yuletideWARNING: Do NOT submit nominations here. Post for coordination ONLY.
This post is where people declare what they have nominated, or ask other people to nominate for them. So if you do comment and/or add your nominations to the spreadsheet, that's great, because it helps other people decide what to nominate, but it WILL NOT result in your fandoms or characters being in the tagset. The only place to nominate is the Yuletide tagset. Use the comments on this post and the coordination Google spreadsheet to coordinate nominations with others.
- For information about nominating fandoms and characters, what is eligible for nomination, and other important links and announcements, refer to yuletide_admin.
- Nominations run Monday 15th to Friday 26th September. Nominations will be approved after that time.
- Before tags are approved (after September 26th), you can only see your own nominations.
- You can nominate up to 5 fandoms and up to 4 characters in each fandom.
Please copy and paste the following information to comment on this post. Every item is optional except fandom.
- A nomination is something you plan to nominate. A request is something you're hoping someone else will nominate for you, because you ran out of slots.
- View and edit the google sheet here: Yuletide 2025 Nomination Coordination Station.
- If you can add your information to the spreadsheet yourself, please do! That would really help. PLEASE DO NOT SORT THE SHEET. If you want to view the list by nominated fandoms, use the autogenerated "sort by fandom" tabs.
- During the nomination period, the spreadsheet will get re-sorted by username daily at (approx) 6PM GMT, to keep the data tidier.
Help Wanted
If you have a few minutes and enjoy a bit of data entry, please volunteer to update the spreadsheet with information the comments in this post! If you do, add the data from the comment to the spreadsheet and reply to the original comment with Added to spreadsheet.
(h/t to
ashling for the original coordination station post text and spreadsheet!)Multifandom Exchange: AspecEx - Sign-Ups are Opened! Nominations Close Soon!
Sep. 14th, 2025 06:35 pm