media roundup - november 2021

[seasignals]

only murders in the roundup

me last month: dark academia is fake it is a genre solely invented by tumblr
me after rereading the secret history: everything is tsh

the secret history by donna tartt - i've been wanting to reread tsh for a long time, and the truants gave me a perfect excuse. i first read it when i was in high school and thought it might be different to revisit after finishing college and... yeah. lol. in one of my first parties in my first semester at university, a senior classics minor (there was no major) i knew told me some of her classmates did a yearly """bacchanal"""/pig roast, so naturally i brought up tsh and she just laughed and admitted straight-up that was the inspiration... what... this is what the tumblr users warned us about. anyway, beyond that and the substance abuse, i can't pretend my college experience had much in common with tsh but it really did feel like a different experience this time around. it'll always be one of my favorite books, and i was so scared that my Grown-Up Experiences and inability to give into astonishment would take away some of its magic, but i think i only like it more. i'll never be able to read it for the first time again, but leaving such a long gap made the reread completely transformative.

in the woods by tana french - i love to finish a book about the dublin murder squad, the first book in the dublin murder squad series, and then get to an author's note that begins: "I've taken a number of liberties with the workings of the Garda Siochana, the Irish police force. To pick the most obvious example, there is no Murder squad in Ireland." my dad gave me this for my birthday and i could not put it down to the extent i needed to bring it into work the morning after i started it.

the likeness by tana french - lmaoooo ms french i see you have been reading your tartt as well… you get to a point where it’s like. well of COURSE [spoiler redacted], because that’s what exactly what happened in tsh… it happened like three separate times in one scene, iykyk. that aside, this was really fun… “fun”… the likeness somehow made me even more [laminated paper wobbling noises] about rob and cassie than in the woods did. i’ve been thinking a lot about this commentary i read on the lion in winter about how even though henry and eleanor’s relationship has been completely poisoned by hatred, they forgot to stop loving each other too; it’s a type of dynamic i really want to try writing, and i think i kind of see it in post-itw rob/cassie… [wobbles]. i was sort of hoping there would be more exploration of cassie's real experience at trinity, since the whole premise of the case seems like it would set up the shot perfectly but for some reason there's just one very indirect mention and then it's dropped; i thought it might be because you don't need to read the books in order and french was avoiding spoilers, but she spoils much more important things about itw along the way. shrug!

also: this longread about a murder in houston's high society has LITERALLY everything.

shadow beauty 1-3 — nakko this tastes terrible but i’ll eat it for you… nah it's not terrible, just kind of aggessively mediocre, and if nakko were the ONLY thing keeping me in, i would have dropped it bc she’s. not really in it. but it's fast paced and HONK is there. i'll give it another episode or two.

succ 3x3-3x7 — we’re in it now baybee! my feelings of Eh about the first two episodes have mostly gone away, and i am fully in it now. full-tilt insanity. although i don't think the brutality of 3x7 hit as hard for me as it seemed to for a lot of people, i think because i've heard so many times that the last two episodes are going to be such a doozy that i'm just clenching and waiting.

also: this interview with j. smith-cameron is a delight, especially - "But when a very sexy weirdo decides to make you his obsession, some part of you is, like, Ooh, you know?" ms. j you literally get it.

FILM

pride and prejudice (2005) - aksjd i convinced my dad to watch this with me but i had an allergic reaction to something at dinner and had to take a benadryl so i zonked out right after the first proposal scene. well, it’s p&p 2005, i’ve seen it before. i liked it less than i did when i was a kid.

house of gucci - i have never been so proud to be italian american

this was not a big month for my faves actually releasing new music so i’ve mostly been listening to my ggjb playlist and moody k-hip hop (also for ggjb). but! if nobody got me, at least chungha got me. and i still need to listen to the bsides for the new twice and wkmk… sometimes you’re underwhelmed by a title track and keep putting off the rest of the album.

WAIT I FORGOT ABOUT ONEUS. i was neither over nor underwhelmed by the rest of the album but i LOVED luna and i'm so happy my boys got their first win ;____; hopefully their lil sisters will be next ;________;