muneca_brava

I.
I added a bunch of people, so welcome! I can't remember who I added for what reason at all, but I'm sure we'll get to know each other. I think I'll post some memes or something at some point.

II.
I might talk about my life here a bit in the future so I'll give some basics because pretty much everyone here is new:
I'm 27, I'm Belgian, I work in a library, I live alone, I'm single. I don't think I'll use this as a journal much, but I might talk about major life events.

III.
Fandom-wise I'm mostly obsessed with Critical Role these days. I don't play D&D myself (yet) but over the past two years I've consumed pretty much all Critical Role-related content available. Which is...a lot. I generally don't get to watch the episode until Friday or Saturday night my time so that's a weekly obstacle course through spoiler territory. Since I added a bunch of Critters, I might not be active here much until I see the episode each week. So I haven't seen the last one yet when I'm posting this! I did see the new *thing* they showed at the beginning of the show and it's SO GOOD.

How about you guys who watch Critical Role? Do you manage to keep up with it? Do you watch the other stuff they put out as well? Do you have time to sleep?

III.
I have made a Pillowfort acount @sallylockharts (if I keep using DW I might pay for a name change here so all my accounts are under the same name again). I'm not doing much there yet but we'll see.
Also still on Tumblr under the same name!

I'm really not sure how long I'm sticking around on Dreamwidth but I'm gonna give it my all for now ;)

The first year I'm not doing this on Lj. SO Sad.

( 2017 in lists )

Man, Livejournal. Remember livejournal? Definitely the best fandom-time in my life was on here. I wasn't even going to post this thing here, I just came by to look at last year's list, but now I'm all nostalgic. I used to talk to people on here! I had friends! I discussed the things I was fannish about! Now I just occasionaly open Tumblr and stare at pictures or read weird memes.
Like, Hamilton! Imagine I had loved Hamilton in the Lj era, I would have made such a long post about it, with bullet points and rambling sentences. Now I just kinda like it silently by myself?

I keep thinking, once fandom as a whole moves on to a better platform maybe I'll be part of it again properly, but it's been about three years and Tumblr is still the only thing happening.

Anyway, there are like five people who have posted anything on here at all the last year (I have such respect for you btw) so this is mostly for me.
One day I'm going to come here to check last year's list and the site just won't exist anymore and it will basically be a whole part of my life that's been wiped out.

( 2015 in the usual lists )

There is literally no one here anymore - I'm not here myself tbh. But I like doing these lists each year and it feels nice and nostalgic to post it here. My livejournal time was important to me and I still love it a lot. I kind of like keeping a little record of how much I've changed over the years here.

This is the first year I haven't been keeping a list of movies I watch and books I read so I'm gonna be forgetting a LOT of them.
( all the lists )

I have not been on Lj for a really long time. That's partly because I don't have that much to say, but mostly because I feel like the lj community is dying down more and more. It's sad, because while I love Tumblr it's not easy to get close to people or have conversations there, or even really talk about anything in-depth. But still, when I look at my flist there are so few people still active, and nothing really exciting is happening (with one or two exceptions).

So I'm not going to promise I'll be around more, because I'm pretty sure I won't. I might still post some reaction posts if the feelings get to big, or a meme if I'm particularly bored. I do still read posts of you all regularly, but as you've no doubt noticed I hardly comment. I'll try to do that more, so that I at least stay in touch somewhat with the friends I've made through this site.

If anyone's interested, I might as well have a small update on me: I'm now studying at a filmschool in Brussels (but still living with my mum), where I'm doing screenwriting. I like the people there and some of the assignments, but I'm not entirely sure it's the right choice for my future. I guess I'm having a slight identity crisis. Nothing I can't handle ;)
I'm watching as much tv as ever, especially since all my shows came back. I'm rewatching Justified, which I still recommend to everyone because I really believe it's one of the top three best shows currently on tv. Idk what else. I'm writing a short film for school; it's a five minute gothic and it's fun, but again, not sure if it's my thing.

If you want to see more of me, mostly I'm on Tumblr where my ask box is always open. I've also made a proper blog. Atm there are only reposts of old lj posts there but I plan to put more in-depth reviews and analyses of art or movies etc there.

And of course you're also welcome to e-mail me at flowergirl106@hotmail.com if you ever wanna talk ;)

I promised, months ago, to do 100 Cultural Lifechangers as a series of Lj posts. I haven’t forgotten, I just don’t feel up to making big lj posts a lot of the time. But, I have just finished Bring up the Bodies, want to rave about it, and thought; what better way to finally start this thing.

I have been making lists of the things – books, movies, art, etc – I want to talk about in this series, and one of the first titles I wrote down in the list of books was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I was slightly doubtful about including it because I only read it last fall so I worried that maybe I should give it some time to see if it stayed with me. But then the sequel, Bring up the Bodies, came out in May. I reread Wolf Hall and immediately followed it up with the new book, which I finished earlier today. I feel confident that I am not in any way overstating things to claim this as one of the most important books I have read.

I do feel like, since this is basically a post raving about these books, that I should put up a disclaimer, which goes for all future posts. These things are personal. You may not like this book, and I would understand if you dislike it, because while it’s very very good, it may not be your thing. Every one of these 100 Things will by default be a recommendation, and I hope that if you read it (which, good on you if you wade through my word vomit) you want to give the thing a try. But sometimes, probably more often than I realize, the reason I love a story is because of personal taste or the place it has in my life at the time I read it.

Also, a note on spoilers; I don’t think I can really…spoil these books? I mean, plot-wise, these things happened 500 years ago, I don’t think that it still counts as a spoiler if I tell you what happened to Anne Boleyn :P

For those of you who don’t know the books, a short introduction to the plot: Wolf Hall is set in England in the early sixteenth century: the Tudor era, when Henry VIII was king. The main character in Thomas Cromwell, an infamous historical figure who becomes a layered and surprisingly likeable character throughout these books. We follow him as he rises above his humble origins as a blacksmith’s son and becomes the King’s right-hand man. Henry VIII is in this period trying to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn, and Cromwell helps him to achieve that. In the sequel, Bring up the Bodies, Henry turns against Anne and she famously is convicted of treason, and is beheaded at the Tower. Again, Thomas Cromwell is the man responsible.

( cut for lengthy discussion of why it's a great book )

But why is it a lifechanger, and why is it one of ten books I'm discussing? I can tell this part is going to be a problem for the other 99 things too because damn, that's hard to articulate. Basically, I think what it comes down to is that it hits on the right combination of quality, personal interest, and emotion for me. I wouldn't be as into it if I didn't have all those feelings about the period and the people (ie Anne) already, I wouldn't rave about it as much if the writing wasn't so compelling, and I definitely wouldn't be writing this post of overflowing words if I hadn't had such an emotional reaction to it. On several occasions throughout reading the books I got overwhelmed with emotions and did this. I don't get that enough, that feeling of being completely involved in a story so that you can't put it down and you just have to force yourself to stop and breathe. And this is the first one in a long long time that combines that lovely feeling with extremely good writing. These novels have restored my faith in historical fiction and have assured me that I can truly love books that aren't fantasy or YA.

( some quotes )

Even though, like I said, I'm not starting the 100 Things Challenge until June, thinking about it has made me want to change the way I blog a little. I usually think that nobody will read my posts unless I just make them as short as possible with lots of bullet points and memes, and a lot of the time I love doing that. I react to new episodes best in a fragmented way because I tend to be too overwhelmed to be eloquent, and I cannot stress enough how much I love memes. However, I sometimes want to talk about a book I've read or a movie I've seen or a thing that's happened to me or a thought I've had. And I don't do that because I think 'who cares' or because I'm too lazy.
So I'm going to make an effort to sometimes - in between the fangirly squee posts - write blogs that are a bit longer and about things that aren't necesarily big fandom discussion points or cute questionnaires. This is primarily for myself so I can practise writing and think a bit more about why I like what I like, but if one or two of you enjoy them that would be a bonus of course ;)

I. I finished The Fault in our Stars by John Green and was pleasantly surprised by it. It was the first novel of his I'd read. While I love his videos and knew he was an interesting and intelligent guy I wasn't sure that would mean he's a good author. But while I think I would have treasured this book more than I'm now able to if I had read it a few years ago, I was impressed by how engaging and emotional it was
( NO SPOILERS just a cut for length )

It's not a perfect book, it's not going to become one of my all-time everlasting favourites and I don't think everyone would enjoy it. But I spent a whole day with those characters, I grinned at them in the train and cried over them in my bedroom, and when I went to bed that night I fell asleep thinking of them. So if you're interested in reading this book at all but haven't because you think it'll be too much of a downer or too after-school specialy because of the subject, trust me and go get it. And if you don't want to now because I made a big deal about how much it made me cry, don't be stupid about that either because wouldn't you love to let a book affect you so much it does that? Isn't that the whole point?

II. Audience participation required for the 100 Things! I want to talk about 10 different 'subcategories' of culture so I get a 10x10 format, but I'm having trouble coming up with a tenth. So far I have movies, books, plays, poems, paintings, non-painting works of art, songs, places, and tv shows. Originally I was going to do 10 non-fictional texts but I'm having trouble finding more than two or three that were in any way influential to me.
So is there anything you'd want me to talk about, or do you just have any general ideas for a subject? :)

I. F+TM was great! She was wearing the greatest dress thing with giant sleeves, I kind of want it. Her voice was really strong, she played songs from both albums and she was really cute onstage, actually :) So yeah, that was a good night. Afterwards we went to this small cafe in Brussels in a tiny alley which was strangely nice. :)

II. So Game of Thrones came back! :D I only watched the first episode because I don't want to not have an episode next week. I refer to characterizations in the books but any actual spoilers are under the handy new spoiler cut. (lj actually made a good improvement?)

( Power is power )

III. I feel like I have to add this to combine points I and II:

I. First off: hello new friends! At the top of my journal is an intro post that should tell you all you need to know about me! I try to post and comment regularly on Lj but don't always succeed. But I'm around a lot on Tumblr so you should follow me there too! :) If there is anything else you would like to know or anything you'd like to talk about, go for it!

II. NOT MY SHIPCOMMENTFICATHON

You should click that link and go leave / fill some promps!

III I went to Brussels to go to the English bookshops (well, really to go to take a look at the school I'm thinking of applying next year) and I bough 4 books. because it's not like I don't have a few shelves looking at me accusingly already :/
But I got The Hunger Games (because apparently unlike when Harry Potter came out, I like to follo a hype), The Fault in Our Stars, A bio of the Mitfords, and Hark! A Vagrant because Kate Beaton is one of my favourite people so I couldn't not buy it when I saw it.

IV: I tried watching Happy Endings but didn't like it (especially after Cougar Town). I also tried The X-Files but couldn't get through the pilot.
So instead I started rewatching Prison Break. Idek.

GAME OF THRONES IS ALMOST BACK!!! (and Mad Men but that excitement is getting overpowered by GoT)

I never expected this, but Sansa Stark has won the Game of Thrones bracket! Unfortunately, she is already up against Buffy Summers, one of the most popular characters EVER, so she could use your support!! GO VOTE!

And while you're at it, vote for Laurie (Cougar Town), Annie (Being Human), and Alice (Luther) and Veronica Mars.
I cannot tell you who to vote for in Fiona vs Mary and Parker vs Peggy because I don't know myself. This is why watching too much tv is a bad thing; too many favourites!!