The Problematic of the Unproblematic

Panda: I have lost all track of days and time at this point. How is everyone? Hugsss. Trotwood: COVID has melded the space/time continuum. It's hard to distinguish days and time when you spend so much time in virtual realities, which is what 8 hours of zoom meetings feel like. Kids are in school but then are at school at home. We see so many government protests that I am starting to have difficulty distinguishing one from another because people everywhere seem to be protesting similar things. In the U.S., our election has turned into the movie Groundhog Day. Now with daylight savings time where I live, it looks like midnight by 5 PM. I seem to be dropping more shows than I'm picking up.   kakashi: I have the sit-at-home fatigue. I am looking forward to things like daily grocery shopping or taking out special waste to the waste collection place. I might go to the office just for the sake of going to the office next week. People are saying to watch Murderous Affair in Horizon Tow...

kakashi: My mother passed away last week. It was peaceful. I'm grateful she was in no pain until the very end. And now forget I wrote this and enjoy chatting about dramas! Trotwood: I was so sorry to hear about your mother but happy that she was able to pass peacefully, Kakashi. Don't forget to take some time for yourself and good memories in your time of grief. I have been swept up in a wave of Japanese dramas with subs. I don't know why this is happening all of a sudden, but I'm not going to question it. I've seen it before--going through a season with a large number and then going another seven months to a year without new Japanese dramas getting subbed. I'm going to appreciate while it lasts knowing that there is always a chance that they won't be completed.    Also, is anyone watching the Korean drama Kairos? I reviewed first episode when it came out, but I dropped it not because it wasn't good but because it was making my anxiety levels go through ...

Trotwood: I didn't watch very much this past week, or at least much that was new--because I was feeling far too stressed about what was happening in the world. Halloween caused a spike in numbers in local campuses and the US election was (and is still in some ways) dragging on. I ended rewatching the 2016 Thai drama Ngao Asoke and the 2015 Bromance with Megan Lai and Baron Chen (one of the few OTPs that I had to fight shipping in real life). Waiting to hear about test results for an entire residence hall and election results wasn't conducive to sitting through any kind of other angst. Positive thing about getting my twitter account suspended was not seeing all the news updates every minute from all the news organization I follow. (see My Wonderful Life to get full account of twitter suspension if you want a laugh) JoAnne:  I think I'm current with DDSSLLS and Start-Up and that's about it.  Last night I couldn't resist though and started an Egyptian show called Par...

kakashi: Not a single child wanted to collect sweets yesterday. I kind of expected it, but it still makes me sad. My mother is still in the hospital. I move further and further away from wanting to watch any light entertainment. Husband and I watched two NXIVM documentaries though (well, parts of it). I'll write down some thoughts below. Oh: and the Mandalorian is back! Trotwood: I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, Kakashi. About dramas, I'm the opposite I think in that I can't really watch anything dark and realistic right now with the States going increasingly dark. Watching a Trump supporter caravan trying to run a Biden bus off the road and another murder of a black man whose family had called for help because he was having a mental breakdown hasn't made me feel a lot of faith that things are getting better either. However, I noticed looking through the shows I wrote about that it is the hopeful ones that I' gravitating towards now. Panda: Prayers for yo...

  Chapter 83 written by LigayaCroft edited by Kakashi Meditation while in Hùndùn brought with it a deeper power than when done in the Created World. There, Li could feel more connected to the nascent energy that permeated all living beings. Because of this, he healed at a faster rate there than he would have elsewhere. Thus, after being well enough to stand after the skirmish in Kunlun, Li requested to borrow his Uncle’s meditation cave and went to Hùndùn. This time, he found Nüwa in a world within a dreamscape that looked much like what Kunlun could have looked like when it was new. Its wood, the stone, all gleamed. The pools in front of the worship hall were already there but they had water lilies in them. There were still trees where in present time there were several buildings as an extension to house the Sanctuary’s disciples and servants. Nüwa sat on a woven mat underneath a tree, one arm perched against an arm rest as she read a scroll. Li went straight toward her, and with ...

JoAnne: Things are heating up at work again which means that when I eventually stop, my brain/eyes are tired of watching screens. I think this week I saw Search, TofTN-T, and...oh, I watched Helstrom and really enjoyed it. Not a lot of TV happening here but otherwise things are chugging along. Miss Mouse has a name now - Minnie - and a colorful mouse house with lots of soft bedding to burrow through, and her eyes opened. She's so tiny and soft that my finger doesn't even register when I touch her, and I can barely feel her weight when she snuggles into my hand. We are all in love. Except the cat. The cat is hungry. Trotwood: I'm completely charmed by your mouse stories, Jo. It's like you are living in a Beatrix Potter book or something, so snuggly, and just in time since we may be getting frost and some flurries this week. I got access to a bunch of Japanese dramas last week, and I liked them all. It will be interesting to see how consistent the subs are. Panda: I have ...

Chapter 82 written by LigayaCroft edited by Kakashi Youchao’s mood hadn’t improved in the thousands of years since he had last met Nüwa. Compounding his bad mood was the frustration that twelve thousand years since His Beloved’s mortal form’s death in Huicūn and he was still blind to where her subsequent mortal incarnations had been all this time in between! Fate had clearly decreed he no longer deserved the honor of being her Observer. As much as he found this development to be troublesome, it was a price to pay for the decision he had made at that time in Huicūn. But did he regret it? No. It was a human trait to regret, because humans could no longer turn back time, and with gods writing their stories, nor could they change their futures. But he was a Creator. More than that, he could envision and build anything! A magickal artifact that could bring her back would be nothing but child’s play for somebody like him. The first time Youchao had this realization, he broke down in tears la...

kakashi: I have a lot going on right now and we're going back into home office next week - cases are surging here. Fuck this shit, I'm exhausted. It happened so damn fast...  one day we had only a handful of cases, then within 3-4 days, we're in the thousands. Oh no :/ Trotwood: Sorry to hear that. There doesn't seem to be any respite soon. I spend way too much time looking at these charts COVID Dan's COVID charts   or the one put out by Johns Hopkins that does the global numbers as part of my job. I had a whole conversation with my daughter about what supplies we should be stocking up on for the winter and spent far too much on my car in case we are on lockdown, and I can't get new brakes in December. And you all know we've got a scary US election coming up. Dramas, fanfiction, and you guys are really the things keeping me sane at the moment. Panda: Sorry to pile on the gloom but I lost a younger cousin yesterday to kidney failure. I still can't believ...

Panda: Hullo!! I just popped in to say hope everyone's doing great. I am trucking along with my crime shows. I just binged Scott & Bailey and my gosh, it was EXCELLENT. I absolutely loved Gill and it was such a rush and pleasure seeing these smart women on my screen. Highly recommended. kakashi: Hullo! I'm spending time with my mother and it snowed overnight. The mountains are all white, it's beautiful! In other news, I'm making Königsberger Klopse tonight. Trotwood: Such a pretty picture. It's getting cold at night here as well. Stocked up on supplies with the feeling foreboding as if the other shoe that was about to drop was a big heavy steel shoe. Wil vote early and walk my ballot to a fire station to put in an official box. Feeling paranoid. Perhaps listening to the When Diplomacy Fails podcast isn't a good idea. I alternate it with the Revolution podcast. I'm rewatching a lot of the ends of dailies because I need to see bad guys taken down. P.S.--Ka...

Chapter 81 written by LigayaCroft edited by Kakashi This can’t be real. This can’t be real! Mei Lin’s throat felt dry, her heart was pumping hard as she rushed toward the gates of Kunlun. Anyone could see that somebody had put up a barrier. It shone like a golden honeycombed wall from the air to the ground. Immortals thronged outside the edges of the shield, but none looked like they wanted to breach it. Inside and above were Gun Gun and her Li-Ge in a deadlocked fight. To Mei Lin, the scene looked familiar. Li and Gun Gun had always been evenly-matched. Gun Gun lacked more powerful elemental spells and better swordsmanship against Li, but he had always made up for it with strategic defense. Yet in a limited battleground such as this one, Mei Lin knew, Gun Gun didn’t stand a chance. Over the past thousands of years since saving the thirty-six Heavens, Li’s cultivation had increased at an exponential rate. Because of this, he had turned himself into an effective weapon for the Heavenly...