Blogophilia 31.14 – Love Between Fairy and Demon

It’s time again for Blogophilia, the fun blog group where participants use weekly prompts to write their blog. This week’s prompts are:

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 31.14 Topic:
Dragon Hunter

Hard Bonus: Incorporate a lyric by The Clash (Push a button, Activate)

Easy Bonus: Include your favorite childhood toy (Teddy bear)

I had a long post planned, but alas other things got in the way *cough* Nothing to do with the title of this post. Ignore that….

*sigh*

Okay, fine. maaaaayyyyybeee I have been a bit distracted by the Netflix drama Love Between Fairy and Demon. It’s an epic Chinese fantasy show (apparently that genre is called xianxia – word of the day right there). And, though it doesn’t have a dragon hunter it does have a dragon, and a fairy, oh, and a demon king.

I know you want to hear all about it, but don’t bother looking up the online synopsis because it doesn’t do it justice. A weak fairy, who is in love with the unattainable God of War, accidentally releases an immortal criminal from prison. Though she has no idea who he is, it’s none other than the demon king, who 30,000 years ago waged a deadly war on the fairies – and would have won had the previous Goddess of War not given her life to lock him and his 100,000 soldiers away. However, in freeing him, unknown to her, she casts The One Heart Curse on him, which links them together – if she is sad, he is sad, if she gets hurt, the wounds appear on him. If she dies, he dies. So now the strongest being in the magical realm is tied to the weakest fairy. Not only that, but while he was gone, his younger brother has let the Moon Tribe kingdom he used to rule fall into chaos and constant civil war, and he finds that to free his soldiers he needs the spirit of the dead Goddess of War, because she set the seal, so only she can unlock it. And did I mention he’s stuck with the fairy?

As you can probably tell, actually a lot of comedy in it. And though it has an epic romance *siiiiiiigh* there’s a lot of other story going on. For instance someone is manipulating the constant warfare between the Moon Tribe factions and the fairies for their personal gain. It’s really very detailed and well mapped out, and things that seem like throwaway lines in early episodes come back later to have been important clues. And the characters are really well done – even the secondary characters aren’t just one dimensional – in fact one of the most complex, interesting characters is the new God of War’s best friend. Heck, even the God of War himself is interesting despite starting out as the upright, sacrifice everything for duty trope.

Aside from the story and acting being great, it’s just beautiful to look at. The costumes! Oh my goodness! The sets are pretty, and I hear that the CG is amazing for a xianxia – though Rings of Power it’s not, it is still very pretty and very detailed. And did I mention the costumes? And the sountrack? And..and…and…

I could go on, but I’ll stop. Look, just grab your remote, Push a button, Activate Netflix and watch it. I need someone to, because I need someone who is as obsessed as me. Other people were, but since it came out months ago, they were all obsessed back then, so now I’m here all alone. Come. Join me. Seriously. I haven’t been this obsessed with a show/property since Lord of the Rings or Full Metal Alchemist. I need someone besides my Teddy Bear to watch this with!

Here’s a video someone else made that showcases some of the visuals I was discussing (this song is not in the show)

And I’m out!

Have an epic demon king kinda day!

Jo 🙂

My Only Love Song

Nothing yesterday worth mentioning except we finished the Kdrama My Only Love Song.

I’m not going to discuss how attractive the long haired men were and instead I’ll say that it was a pretty funny show with a cheesy but fun romance. (Come on, cheesy can be good). And the magical time traveling van is adorable. I want one, though I imagine in person it’s very tiny. But that’s ok. I don’t need to time travel with a crowd.

I’m not gonna bother reviewing this because it’s been out forever and it seems like half the internet has already done this, but if you like the funny kdramas, check it out.

I leave you with some John Jones pictures.

Have a fun kdrama kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Council Bluffs Day

Yesterday was Wednesday, so ot was the weekly Council Bluffs trip. Pickle Day it was 93 degrees, but Wednesday was like 68. And cloudy.

On the way to CB is a rest stop that’s been there since at least the 80s and probably longer than that. It’s the rest stop I’ve been going to since I was a toddler and, sadly, they’re building a new one. I’m sure it’s going to be nice, but it won’t have that nostalgia hit.

The restaurant of the week was Primos Mexican Restaurant and I have to say that the steak tacos were amazing!! The meat was so tender and spiced perfectly and…mmmmmm! So, so good!

I mentioned that semi wreck the other day? So on the way home we stopped and checked out the aftermath. It’s not as bad as we thought – they missed the water and the culvert by a hair. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they did go through at least one tree and a fence, as well as the metal guard banister, but they didn’t end up down in the water, so it could have been way worse.

We got home in time for a surprise – someone is digging holes in my yard. Again. Though it’s not AS surprising as it was years ago because this time we at least have watched them coming up the street slowly. I’m not sure you can see it in the pictures, but the machinery is parked right next to our walking stick tree, so I’m a little nervous, especially after the mess FMTCs people made when they dug up the yard (for instance they wrecked one flower bed buy just digging it up and throwing it all over. I still have Irises in weird places from that).

We ended the day by watching the last episodes of Hometoen Cha Cha Cha. My official review is “squeee!!” if that says anything. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I can now say that I really liked it. The dentist lady was kind of annoying to start with, but she got better. Her live interest, Chief Hong, was not annoying, however, which is why I initially stuck with it. That and the town’s people. They were a lot of fun, too. They also wrapped everyone up. Like, seriously, everyone. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a show that so complete covered what happened to every single character, no matter how small. So that was good

And another fun thing, they had that coffee candy on it.

I love how they work their product placement in as just a part of the show. I wonder if my little TV buddy liked it, too?

There’s half an hour left until Rings of Power, so gonna go get some things done before it starts.

Have a Cha Cha Cha kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Rings of Power Episode 3

So, I still haven’t done a good review on the show. I meant to, but you know how it is. I liked the first two episodes ok, but the third was better. It felt like we finally got some plot – like the story was finally moving.

So, visuals: despite the weird crappy reviews about this, the visuals are amazing – especially for a TV show! The two trees in Valinore – I got misty eyed looking at it! Each location is better than the one before, and even the harfoots costumes and props are gorgeous. They look worn and homespun. Numenore looks old, with fading grandeur that reflects where it is at in its history. The forest with the elves carved in the trees…oh and Khazad dum….omg. It was freaking amazing. The greenery was a fantastic touch – I’ve always wondered how the heck the dwarves, living deep in Moria, ate. And their war masks were a lot of fun to see! The human villages even have some great touches, such as thar looming Mt. Doom like volcano hulking in the background of the barn scene where they find that dark sword…oh yeah. That’s not foreshadowing or anything. Heh heh. The costumes are all great as well, again despite people complaining. It’s like the warg CG that the die hard haters are screaming about – I think they’re confusing quality with personal aesthetic choices. They don’t like the design so that must mean the quality sucks, but it doesn’t. Something can be beautifully high quality and still not visually appeal to someone.

I could carry on about the visuals and all the little Easter egg things and such, but moving on to characters. This is where I’m iffy. I like the actor who play Gil Galad, but why does he look way older than Galadriel? I admit, I haven’t dug up their birth dates (if they even exist!) But I believe he is younger than she is (if not then someone please correct me). Galadriel…hmm. the actress is better than I thought she would be, but she still lacks the presence to pull Galadriel off. To be fair, maybe none of the actresses they auditioned had it, it’s something very rare to be both feminine and yet give off the vibe that you can kick their ass at the same time. Cate Blanchette managed it, and this girl tries her best, but there’s something lacking.

I have mixed feelings on Elrond, too. But, after thinking about it, i have mixed feelings on Hugo Weaving’s Elrond from the movies. We all seem to forget that those movies are not the final, be all, end all Canon and frankly I’ve never seen an Elrond yet that I’ve been completely satisfied with. This guy does a good job with what role he is given, and I could sew hum turning into the movie Elrond, so there’s that.

Actually, out of the elves, my favorite so far is the original character Arondir. He seems to be the most elvish of the bunch. (Come on, at least airbrush the elves! Make them look elegant and better than us! -more on that later). He carries himself well, and seems superior to the Hans without having to be rude or snotty to demonstrate the superiority. His interactions with his fellow elves have been a bit stiff, there’s a definite vibe that they don’t get along, which may be there on purpose considering Bronwyn and what not.

And the humans. They are all doing a good job and seem fine, though it looks to be like instead of making the elves look more elegant, they just made the humans extra grungy to show the difference – aka instead of elevating the elves, they faked it by dropping the humans down a notch. I mean, it works for the village, but then we get to numenore, where we don’t have the grungy humans but have still not elevated Galadriel, and she doesn’t appear more elegant or ethereal than the rest of them. At a glance she looks as human as they do. They should also have skipped that weird slow motion closeup of the horse ride. Just saying.

The dwarves have been perfect. That’s all there is to say about them. And that brings us to the harfoots and…hmm. I’m not sold on them. I’m waiting to see if they actually matter to the story – don’t get me wrong, as a writer I get the absolute blast they would have been to create, and they were created well. They look good, are visually different from other races, and have their own culture, even down to the detail of colloquial phrases such as “mind your fire” meaning to mind your own business. They also had a very interesting festival. The one niggle I have with their culture is the idea of leaving people behind when their entire culture is supposed to be based on the mantra that nobody walks alone – this is such a tenet of their society that they chant it repeatedly as a part of the festival. So, if they survive by sticking together, then why would they leave anyone back? I understand that it’s to create tension and add danger to the harfoot story, but it feels like a confusing stretch, especially when the entire Stranger thing could create enough tension and danger. To be fair, all of the people they mentioned that were left behind clearly died in accidents and such, so perhaps the being left behind fear is foundless, but we will see.

As to the stranger…all I have to say is that I really hope it’s not Gandalf because that would be the low hanging fruit and I want this show to do better.

As to other original characters, I have no complaints yet. The storyline is of course compressed greatly, which I understand since the events actually take thousands of years (If I recall right, at one point it takes 20 years just to raise an army). And they’ve played more than loose with Galadriel’s timeline, but the second age…hmm. How can I pit this…it’s a mess canonical, anyway, because Silmarillion, Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, on and on, etc etc concerning the second age wete ALL published AFTER Tolkien died. And they contradict one another. The only actual 100% author approved Canon is in the appendices, and there isn’t much there at all.

I could go on, but I’m ready to watch my Kdrama now (Hometown Cha Cha Cha) so this is a good enough place to end. I would say that I like the show, I’m interested to see where it goes, and I’m hoping for more. It’s not perfect, but neither are any of the movies!

And here’s a random John Jones

Have a kitty stare kinda day!J

Jo 🙂

Not a Review…

I’ve been waiting all weekend hoping I’d have time to write my review for Rings if Power, but I haven’t had it. Haven’t had time to do much, actually. Long story. Anyway, no, it doesn’t stick to the real story because they don’t have the real story licensed and, on top of that, the real story is sort of a confused mess that was never completely hammered out, anyway. Galadriel’s history, even on the absolute best Middle Earth fan sites, is filled with a lot of “might have” been here/done this/done that/or not. However, to be fair to the detractors, I’m fairly certain she did not lead a group of Elves to the Northern Wastes hoping to theart Sauron. Instead, in the first age, she led a group of elves over the grinding ice on their way to Middle Earth hoping to thwart Feonor – sound familiar much? Basically, Galadriels interesting and Canon stories took place before the second age, so it looks to me like the show runners are just sliding it up to the second age and disguising it. Is that bad? Is that good? Not sure yet, but we’ll see.

I have more thoughts, but they have to wait. If you’re interested in some of those we’ll organized sites I mentioned, here’s a very comprehensive write up on Galadriel – https://www.tor.com/2017/04/18/the-trial-of-galadriel/

And now I leave you.

Have a golden tree type day

Jo 🙂

Mad About Each Other

Little John Jones

Still got “the covid” as they say, haha! Didn’t do much yesterday except watch TV. We binged a whole Kdrama series (it had 13 half-hour episodes) called Mad About Each Other on Netflix. I actually didn’t like the first episode very much (A man with anger management issues runs into this crazy, paranoid woman who thinks he is out to get her because he happens to live next door to her and goes to the same therapist she does and so through a series of misunderstandings she attacks him with an umbrella, kicks his shoe into the street and jumps up and down on his car ), but we went ahead to the second and that one had a hook that actually starts getting into the story of who he is and what happened (he’s a suspended cop who got suspended after some hinky shenanigans via the head office and a drug dealer, while he was just trying to do his job he was falsely accused of corruption and he wants to clear his name), then it gets into why she is so paranoid (and it turns out she has a really good reason to think somoene is after her – because they are) so we stuck with it and it actually turned out to be a really good series. It has a lot of comedy in it (literally laughed out loud a few times) and some drama of course, but it never gets super dark. I’ll say it’s one of the few shows that had me actually yelling directions to the characters. Speaking of them, there are a few side characters that get some attention and are used well to add drama or comedy in when the main storyline gets too heavy with either one, and each episode is better than the one before until the next to last episode. It mostly annoyed me because they, of course, pull the stupid “we must break up boo hoo” crap that all series have somewhere, but it does have a happy ending in the final episode, so I can let that go (everything gets wrapped up, which is nice). I still think it would have been better without the break up drama, though.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. It’s hot outside, so I’m happy to stay inside. Stay cool!

Jo 🙂

Nothing to Write Home About

Nothing interesting to say. Finished the Heaven’s Design Team anime the other day and need to find a new one. Also finished the K drama Romance is a Bonus Book. It was really good. Now it’s Amy’s turn to pick the next one, lol!

We finished Cobra Kai the other day – gosh I love that show. I didn’t think I would, wasn’t interested in it at all, but then hubby duped me into watching ir and it’s great! I love the character development in it and how even the “bad” guys get their moment to say, “hey, I don’t think I’m bad.” Because no one is a villain in their own story, and that’s a hard concept to pull off well, but they manage it.

Wow. Sounds like all I’ve been doing is watching TV. I wish! Got some book covers done. One set I really like.

Not that I don’t like others, but you know. Also been working on the gender swap and did some beta reading. And we got Christmas taken down, now I just need to deep clean and start painting ceiling tiles for the craft room.

Anyway, plenty to do, so I’m outta here.

Have a character development kinda day!

Jo 🙂

It’s Cooooold Out There!

Hello, hello. Man, is it cold outside. I was going to stay indoors, watch some TV, do my Live Writing and let Pokemon Day pass me by. Of course, in the end, I didn’t. We did watch some TV, though. We’re on episode 12 of Voltron and my curiosity got the better of me, so I finally looked up Beast King Golion that it’s based on. Turns out it’s free on Crunchyroll, so we watched episode 12. It’s amazing the difference a few lines of dialogue make in the show to make the two episodes very different from one another. Golion, of course, is the superior story line since its the original, so it makes more sense. But I still love Voltron anyway.

As for Pokemon, we ended up hitting Red Oak for a couple hours. I did not get the shinies I wanted, but hubby hatched a shiny cleffa, which he was nice enough to trade me for my Starmie from 2016, netting us both luckies.

Shiny!

And I got some of the special eevees. When you evolve them, they keep their flowers.

Hippie Vaporian

I also snagged a second Smeargle.

Photobomb!

And got some fun AR shots:

Spheal in the snow

Snorunt is cold

The arctic explorer is bundled up against the cold.

The snow pile was really amazing. Zoomed in, it looks like an LotR mountain.

See?

Other than that my big accomplishment was that the brother finally got his homemade noodles. I’ve been supposed to make them since January 3rd (his birthday) but something always happens. Not tonight, though.

So there were the highlights of my day. Tomorrow is turtles qnd hopefully hanging some shelves. Good times.

Have a birthday noodles kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Discovery Rant and More

I watched Discovery and Orville last night and forgot to share this. Discovery has improved this season BUT Michael Burnham is STILL running things. Example: they receiving a hale from the planet below. Bridge officer tells the Captain. Before he tells them to answer, he, the captain, first LOOKS TO BURNHAM FOR PERMISSION! And this isn’t just any captain, it is Pike, in his prime, getting permission from someone who is not even his first officer! What???? In the whole show I think she is present for a single order that she does not then countermand in front if the WHOLE BRIDGE CREW. I’m sorry, but that’s not how Star Fleet works. It just irritates the crap out of me. They need to chill and either make her act like someone on her pay grade or promote her so it makes sense. If she were first officer, then okay, but she’s not. Or if she and Pike were long time friends, ok, but no reason he should be tolerating her behavior. Despite what the show tries to cram down our throats, she is not the most brilliant mind in Starfleet. They could get along just fine without her, do this constant butt kissing is wearing.

Orville was good. My only complaint is that it’s a two-parter and I have to wait to see what happens. I expected the usual trope with robots, which has not happened yet. If it does in part 2, I’ll be okay with it because it means we get Iasaac back. But if it doesn’t I’ll also be okay because it makes sense. By the way, no one in Orville spends all their time countermanding their captain in front of the whole crew, not even the first officer.

Also spent yesterday replaying Kingdom Hearts. 3 came out last month but we don’t remember the storyline, so we thought, what the heck. It was a snow day, after all.

After the blizzard.

Look what came in the mail. Just need set #5 at a cheap price! Yay!

And now for your AR photo of the day

Meowth says move, but Ancient Kitty doesn’t care.

And now I need coffee. Have a caffeinated kinda day!

Jo 🙂

P.s. bonus cat pic:

Thankfulness #122: Coffee

Yesterday (I think it was) my brother got my Ninja Coffee bar to stop blinking the clean light, so I felt the need to drink copious amounts of coffee today to test it out. It was all tasty, hot, and delicious. Also I used some snazzy sugar-free latte foam I picked up at wal-mart, so no sugar (I really need to kick the sugar in my coffee). It’s sucralose (or something like that) based, so maybe it won’t kill me as fast as aspartame. (No, I haven’t actually researched this). I need to learn to drink it black, but I think that is going to take some time. I have cut down on the sweetner/sugar, so plus there.

Dad brought a movie home tonight:

I’d give it 4.5 stars – it doesn’t get 5 because it wasn’t as cheesy as I had hoped. It does get points for counting bullets/ammo – they ran out of ammo multiple times when they were supposed to! Also because Miz actually *grabbed the guns* from the bad guys after he took them out instead of walking off and leaving them (That annoys the crap out of me) and because when chasing people in a dark parking garage, the bad guys used their brains and turned the lights on instead of running around in the dark like most movies! Oh, and they get props for giving the biker gang radios – that was intelligent. Most movies just have a bunch of disorganized bumbling bad guys, so it was nice to see some thought put into it. Of course, the final points go to Bo Dallas’ hair. It was looking especially fluffy and wavy. I’m afraid if he’d captured me I’d have smiled and said “Anything you want, sweety”. But then I have a thing for those Rotunda boys… (Yeah, Bray Wyatt too… though that beard could use some trimming… snip, snip.)

While I’m on TV, Dad and I are on season five of Hell on Wheels, the last season I believe. I think we’re getting close to running out of episodes. I have lots of varying opinions on things. I will say they do a good job of not making anyone 100% likable or 100% unlikable – except Swede. I hope he dies soon. But they get points for realistic layered characters.

In other news, I got Turtles done today – yay – and the new page is posted at TerribleTurtles.com . I also got some teaser tags made for Goddess of Night, which releases on Sunday. No, I am not doing much on the release day. It’s WWE Payback, y’all. Did you not see where I mentioned Bray?  He’ll be wrestling in a House of Horrors match.

Gotta have priorities.

Maybe later in the week. I’d have to try to throw something together and set up an event… I dunno. I might ask Book Born about it…We’ll see. Maybe I’ll crash Terrible Turtle Tuesday… how weird would that be since I an half of Terrible Turtle Tuesday? Ha ha! (I’m probably not going to do that, FYI).

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day (if hubby is feeling better – he’s sick tonight) and hopefully I’ll get the front matter updated in all the books and reupload everything. That’s always fun to do.

And now I leave you with a weird coincidence. I’ve been listening to 30 Seconds to Mars all say on YouTube – so they randomly drop in “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, just as I get to this page in a clickbait article:

The chorus was literally playing as I read it. OOoooOOOoooOOOooooOOooooOOOoo.

Have a Bo Dallas with good hair kinda day!

Jo 🙂