So we've finally met 'Malish' -- who gives his real name, but I didn't get it as it flew past...

I started off on this 'episode' of "Smok and Malish" (half an hour or so of watching; we are still in the first episode of the series) with the studious intention of doing all the 'work' over short segments; watching the scene straight as intended, then rewatching with Cyrillic subtitles, then rewatching with Cyrillic subtitles and pausing with a dictionary, then finally rewatching with the auto-translated English subtitles to see if that picked up any colloquialisms or other material that I'd missed. And for the first couple of scenes I did do just that( but got carried away ) while YouTube persisted in inserting advertisements in the worst --or most effective-- places imaginable.

It absolutely cannot have been random. Every time something lethally dangerous happened, there was another cliff-hanger ad break at that exact moment, with multiple ads clustered close together in the most action-filled section :-P

I mean, objectively I knew that both characters had absolute plot armour at this point in the story, because neither the titular Smok nor Malish (even if we don't yet know how Kit becomes 'Smoke') couldn't possibly die in their first scene together. I even consciously *told* myself that during one of the enforced pauses for advertisements. But by that point the film had grabbed me to such an extent that I had my nails dug into my palms and my jaw clenched tight, and couldn't look away( cliffhanging action )... and I breathed a long sigh of relief and was finally able to stop watching ;-)

So by this point I'm clearly *very* much emotionally engaged in Kit's story, whether because it's an excellent lead performance or a compelling production overall (based on promising source material)!
Created a new tag, because we're obviously going to need it :-D

Title: Hold Me on AO3
Artist: mific
Rating: Gen
Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Notes: Made in Procreate for the ICE OUT donation challenge, and for challenge #75 - Romance

Made another rhubarb pie following the amended baking times suggested by my last attempt, i.e. 30 minutes in a hot oven to set the pastry followed by 30 minutes in a slow oven to set the filling -- it worked perfectly (apart from the portion of the juices that boiled out and turned to toffee on the tray I had fortunately placed underneath the pie-plate!)
I need to annotate the recipe, which is unfortunately in very small type in a very small booklet (or simply copy it out into my scrap-book...)

I don't know if this post is allowed, I just wasn't sure where else to ask. 

I'm currently working on a Strangers Thing fic. I am very new to the fandom. I'd like someone I can bounce off of, and maybe a beta down the line? It's an AU with a better ending to El's story, giving her what I think she deserved. There might be some Canon Divergence for S4 as well.  The fic is Byler, not Mileven, although she and Mike will remain good friends. 

Any takers? 

Again, Modly Beings, feel free to delete. 

"Waiting for the Out" finished on a high with two unexpected yet earned and credible happy-outcome twists: a series strongly recommended.

( Marie Antoinette )

Kit Bellew is now firmly launched (although not yet rechristened 'Smok') on his Yukon adventure in "Smok and Malish" -- though I'm afraid that, as with the Soviet "Twenty Years After", after an initially hopeful start I was able to pick up rather less of the plot in what followed, despite the fact that large chunks of this section are completely dialogue-free, and indeed shot in what amounts to fluid silent-film storytelling technique...( Read more... )
As I said, this section consists of a lot of what are effectively silent film sequences with the occasional 'title card' snatch of dialogue, so Smekhov's expressive face is used to convey a lot of his character's thoughts and decision-making, to my benefit; it was the actual conversations I had trouble with!


I was somewhat shocked to gather from the podcast that the composers for "Ali-Baba" apparently didn't get paid for their work; they were classified on the record sleeve as 'dilettanti' ('amateurs'?) due to not being members of the official Composers' Guild, and thus the mere glory of getting their work published and distributed was presumably supposed to be enough! (Smekhov, likewise classified, presumably didn't get paid either due to not being an officially sanctioned 'writer'... but then the project was his idea in the first place. They were just doing the music in their spare time as a favour.)


I am now several chapters into the Russian version of "The Three Musketeers" as bed-time entertainment( Read more... )

So it’s entrance exam time, and all the ninth-graders have Red Books (collections of past exam questions for practice, which have red covers). At the junior high school attended by some of the kids from the Saturday juku, it is apparently a thing to write each other encouraging messages on the Red Book covers, like a yearbook in advance. Most of these are very sweet. I was looking at Sakura’s while she worked her way through a practice test, noticing that one long and enthusiastic message was signed with a boy’s name and included 사랑해 at the end. “Sakura, did you know this kid is confessing to you?” “Oh, sure. He said I could rub it out if I wasn’t interested.” Since she left it there, I’m curious to know whether Yusuke-kun will have some good news after exams are over… (I still don’t know why Japanese teenagers are using Korean to say “I love you” to each other, but I think it’s another fad. Very cute regardless.)

I noticed that both Japanese and Chinese have adopted the English word “get,” but in different senses, both legit in English. Japanese uses it to mean “acquire,” usually but not always in the physical sense (Y will occasionally text me to say 苺ゲット, ichigo get, meaning he’s laid his hands on some of the hometown strawberries the supermarkets don’t sell here; I might text him back to say Kuro-chan get, meaning that I ran into Kuro-chan the cat who deigned to let me do some stroking). Chinese, on the other hand, uses it to mean “understand, empathize with, grok,” usually with the completion-complement as in “get到.” (Baidu offers sample usages as in 突然get到, to understand all at once, 永远get不到, an eternal lack of understanding, and 被get到, he gets me etc.) (Japanese also doubles the final consonant while Chinese pretty much swallows it, but that’s a thing the two languages will be 永远get不到 about each other.)

Courtesy of the farmboys I have learned that Winnie the Pooh in Chinese is 小熊维尼, Weini the Little Bear, and Tigger is 跳跳虎, bounce-bounce-tiger. (Also I did not expect to find out while looking this up that Winnie the Pooh is quasi-banned in China for use in political satire? Surprised that the farmboys were allowed to reminisce happily on camera about their favorite characters, also including 屹耳 the donkey.)

I’ve been watching little snatches of the Winter Olympics on TV while I do other things; I like all the flying events, ski jump most of all, although I can’t imagine how anyone ever makes it to Olympic level without breaking themselves into little pieces along the way. Along with everyone else in Japan I was very happy to see Rikuryu (Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi) win a gold in pairs skating, coming back from fifth place after their short program. Very touching and amusing that Kihara, nine years older than his partner and three times her size, is the one who bursts into tears on the spot (happy or sad) while little tiny Miura keeps her cool and comforts him.

Reading a new book by Yang Shuangzi (author of Taiwan Travelogue) called The People at No. 1 Siwei Street or words to that effect; the edition I have is a Japanese translation (also by Miura Yuko), I don’t know if there is an English version and I can’t get my hands on the Chinese original. I’m only about a third in but it is very fun, modern-era but with callbacks to the colonial period, about four young women renting rooms in an old Japanese-style house (and falling in love with each other along the way, I think, will keep you posted). Maybe I should trouble A-Pei to go out to a bookstore and send me everything by Yang Shuangzi she can lay hands on.

A new favorite and an old one: Schumann Six Canonical Studies, arranged by Debussy for two pianos, one of his love letters to Bach. Why isn’t there an orchestration of this? (I have found some chamber-music versions, but it’s not the same. Also the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, a version with soprano and countertenor that I wasn’t familiar with (and just to show that poor short-lived Pergolesi had a range, my favorite aria from his comic opera).

Y and I went up to the outdoor track one station over this morning to run for a while. He has very mild asthma and prefers to start and stop—“or I could just run slower?” “Sweetheart, you know what it’s called if you’re running slower than me? Walking.” I do have some staying power, however, and today I got through twenty laps of the little track without stopping for a break, so about 6K if my arithmetic is right. We were entertained along the way by an invasion of hiyoko-chan from the nearby nursery school, little knee-high kids in bright yellow hats, running and somersaulting and in one case meandering along hand in hand like it was a romantic date opportunity, adorable. (Their teachers wear signs on their coats saying “No photography please” in three languages, so I can’t record it for you.)

Photos: Flowers, a very patient dog outside the supermarket, an alarming bakery sign (I was good, I didn’t go up and tell them about it), actual snow on my balcony plants (a once-a-year occurrence if that), and somebody’s paper art on their doorstep, with a sign saying “Help yuorself” [sic]. I took a little tiny origami star.

Be safe and well.

Planted my first seeds of the year: some rocket, to replace the overwintered plants, which are elderly and not really regrowing.

The original seed packet (though this is saved seed) says 'plant outdoors from March', but the poppies and chickweed are busy germinating all over the place of their own accord, so we shall see.

One of the beetroot plants has died -- dropped and decayed from the base, probably from the relentless damp -- but I didn't need that many anyhow.

I fell asleep while listening to Smekhov read Chapter 1 of "The Three Musketeers" in Russian (the audiobook is on YouTube), and dreamt first that he was reading an anomalous version of Chapter 27 (La femme d'Athos), thanks to having listened to a heavy metal version of the Soviet film's 'Ballad of Athos' immediately beforehand, and then that he was reading Jack London -- this is what you get for mixing your canons :-D

The Russian audiobook is surprisingly comprehensible, given that I only understand about a quarter of the vocabulary -- it of course helps enormously that I already know the story, and can sometimes recognise bits of it word for word! I have a certain suspicion that the unexpectedly raucous voice Smekhov gives to his young d'Artagnan may be a take-off of his friend Boyarsky, although it's not inappropriate to the young man's exasperated and combative disposition ;-)

(I tried listening to an 'intermediate level' modern educational clip featuring two girls discussing the subject of 'why it is important to keep a diary' very slowly and with illustrative graphics and gestures, and although I could indeed understand every word, it was rather less enjoyable than Dumas grasped at in passing, and -- unsurprisingly -- very much less creative than the 1970s educational programmes, where there was clearly some serious talent enlisted...)