Quarantine Meme
Apr. 21st, 2020 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
syllabaanceps Quarantine Meme from elinox.
elinox.1. Are you an Essential Worker? - I'm working from home for the first time ever, so I guess no if this means someone who has to still commute? I was the last person still commuting in my office but gave up just before it became mandatory. I detest working from home but it is what it is. I am fortunate to have a job, so not complaining.
2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine started? - More than usual. I've been trying to support the local queer-owned brewery so I've bought a six pack every week or two which is more than usual for me. I had a fair amount for each of Mal Blum's online concerts which were amazing. Also while playing Guggenheim with my family. And it took two strong ones to get through Phantom of the Opera, holy hell.
3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts? - No kids, no pets. Just me. The only physical contact with another creature I've had in months is one dog who was friendly enough to jump up and kiss me and accept pets.
4. What new hobby have you taken up during this? - Tabletop roleplaying-games! It's actually an old hobby but given that all my regular social things are canceled or using zoom, ttrpgs have been a lifeline while meeting new people on various discords. I detest Zoom and any other teleconferencing but thankfully discord does not have video chat by default so everyone does voice chat rpgs there which is nice. Ttrpgs used to be a big part of my life but I vastly prefer in person and I've struggle to find a group lately. Now, however, I take what I can get. Just have to finish writing this new ghost-hunting Dread game so I can run it. But wow it has been wonderful creating so many new characters. If you want to hear about them, I'll post more. I feel like I've rediscovered a part of myself I had lost.
5. How many grocery runs have you done? - Two or three a week.
6. What are you spending your stimulus check on? - I'm trying to commission folks and support artists and musicians.
7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine? - The entirety of my thirties. It's been gutting knowing that I'll be so old that I'll be a complete social outcast by the time this is over
8. Are you keeping your housework done? - Not really. I thought I was going to do a lot more and get on top of it but the psychological damage of being 100% socially isolated has been pretty severe and I'm honestly lucky to have any sanity at all right now. Taken all my effort just to survive this. Staying at home with your family or partner is way different from staying at home with no human or animal contact whatsoever. No one has any idea how bad this is. But I'm not literally dying so I try not to complain too much as others have it worse.
9. What movie have you watched during this quarantine? - Well, it's a musical, but I just watched it, so why not? Phantom of the Opera. There was some thing where you could watch it for free over the weekend, the whatever anniversary version from 2011. It was horrible. I feel bad cause my friend liked it but wow it was so, so bad. I did not expect the villain to be a misogynistic, abusive, gaslighting incel. I think we're supposed to sympathize with him or he's supposed to be an anti-hero or something but nope. Ew. There weren't many likeable characters, but Carlotta was easily my favorite. She was so badass and I kept wanting her to be gay. When she and Christine were flirting as part of a play within a play, that was easily the best part. I'd ship them. The rest was awful, alas. The main theme feels so 1980s which did not fit the 1800s setting at all. I enjoyed the Cats movie so much more than Phantom. And Cats passes the Bechdel test quite easily! Phantom does not
10. What are you streaming with? Nothing. Still don't have a streaming service ever since I quit Prime.
11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby? - Nope.
12. What's your go-to quarantine meal? - All the same stuff as before, really. Only difference is making coffee at home with beans from my local coffee shop. I did invent a brand new way of brewing coffee accidentally that has been working for me. If you want to hear about it, I'll explain.
13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid? - I was already paranoid and socially isolated and those things have just gotten much, much worse.
14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time? - Nope!
15 What month do you predict this all ends? - June 2021
16. First thing you’re gonna do when you get off quarantine? - Go to work I guess. Attending a local genderqueer group will be really nice. Yeah, my life has not been too good even before all this, sorry.
17. Where do you wish you were right now? - Antarctica? I guess it's Fall there, now, though, so getting uninhabitable. But that's one of my few bucket list items left unchecked.
18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most? - Any kind of contact with other creatures.
19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer? - I was down to two rolls but managed. I have no need to hand sanitizer since I have soap. I am not really sure the point of hand sanitizer.
20. Do you have enough food to last a month? - No. I still go to the grocery store two to three times a week. I can't keep a week's worth of breakfast foods in my home without eating it, alas. But I am not in a high risk group and I wear a mask and wash my hands afterwards and all.
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Date: 2020-04-22 01:16 am (UTC)The Globe is also offering free weekend performances and this past weekend was Hamlet. I wasn't paying much attention to it until I looked up and saw that a woman was playing Hamlet; something I've never heard of before! Several other main characters were also played by women, and Ophelia was played by a man; it was incredible! This upcoming weekend is Romeo and Juliet, my least favorite Shakespearean play, and I wonder if there will be genderbending there too; I hope so!
I'd love to read more about your RP adventures! I've been playing for years, and with being quarantined the two games per week have been moved online, which I don't enjoy as much. But it's interaction at any rate.
Hope you stay safe!
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Date: 2020-04-22 01:56 pm (UTC)But no, I had never seen Phantom before. My thought was that the Phantom was a real person who hid in the theater and wore a mask because his face was disfigured by acid and creeped on the actress, which was true enough though they never said anything about acid in this version. I just expected him to be likable? And he wasn't. At all. I think giving antiheroes a gigantic helping of toxic masculinity and misogyny really hinders their ability to work as antiheroes. I love Gollum and he's a manipulative murderer, too, but far more sympathetic in my mind. The Phantom (Erik??) just came across as literally an incel. I know it was made in the 80s, but I was made in the 80s, too!
The music didn't do a ton for me. It was okay. I preferred the Cats music, at least the second half. But the movie was more modern with several characters apparently gender flipped though I'll never think of them any other way. Cats will always be about Judi Dench and Ian McKellan to me, which honestly was basically the reason I signed up.
But like this Phantom was from 2011 and there was not a single actor of color in the play??? I was so confused how that could happen. I have only been to a few plays but that was never the case. London is a cosmopolitan city. And I last went to plays in the late 2000s so same time period.
Actually, one of the ones I saw was Hamlet which somehow I had never read in school for various reasons so I first consumed Hamlet by watching the Shakespeare Theatre Company perform it in DC. That was cool. I also watched Taming of the Shrew which I would rate as worse than Romeo and Juliet but I'm a hopeless romantic. Then again, I haven't consumed R+J since I was a teenager so who knows how I'd feel about it now? But I'm the teen who cried at Titantic when it came out.
Speaking of streaming, the Met is making a different opera available every single night!!!! I still haven't watched one. I never have gotten into opera. I keep meaning to check one out but haven't yet. I've never seen an opera in my life I don't think - my dad was into classical music but not opera so I was never exposed to it as a kid. My parents love musicals, though.
I'll try to do a new post about my rpg adventures. I also prefer real life gaming but couldn't find a new group after I had to leave my old one due to social issues (and eventually harassment - I really didn't think that would be a problem in an all-nonbinary group but alas, there are apparently truscum even in enby circles - I got attacked and made fun of for hanging around furries and being otherkin). I much prefer in person but it's hard to find a good place to run it as my home is small and not clean enough yet and maybe someday but alas.
The pandemic forced me to find new things and an rpg designer posted a link to his discord and about a Sunday Swords Swords Without Master run and we've been doing it every Sunday since, even though he's only made the original one! He's the same guy who wrote Dread, my favorite rpg of all time. I also am in a new D&D 5e campaign that was organized on the Mal Blum discord. And I am trying to get a game going of the Steven Universe rpg which is based on Swords Without Master as well as an indie discord based rpg, This Discord has Ghosts In It.
And I'm writing a Dread game about an abandoned theater in Boston. I will probably invite my Dreamwidth friends to play once I get it finished and the first run done. I am basically finished but I am being a perfectionist and trying to make my questions better. It's been over a month I've been writing it, alas.
More on my new characters like my beloved new shapeshiifting microraptor in a new post!
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Date: 2020-04-22 02:11 pm (UTC)I haven't seen the 2019 Cats movie yet, but I've heard it was awful. I've seen the musical live and watched the 1998 movie though. I've enjoyed both, although the plot is often lost on most people who seem to only fixate on the dancing kitty cats. Which, truth be told, also works for me. But everyone I talked to who saw the 2019 trailer thought the cat/human hybridization was too weird. Again, I'm not that worried about it because I love furry art! I think I'll try to rent it tonight!
I think my issue with Romeo and Juliet is how overdone it is. It was our go-to in High School and I just found the whole thing ridiculous. My favorites are Shakespeare's comedies, as I'm just not much of a melancholy, tragedy fan. My favorite is Much Ado About Nothing.
I prefer my theatre shows to have happy endings. If I want sadness and drama, I can read the news!
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Date: 2020-04-22 11:16 pm (UTC)I thought most musicals were mostly music? I thought what made an opera was the style of singing, which, admittedly, Phantom had some of what I think of as opera music for the opera within the opera as it were. I thought that music was fine but reading up on it, apparently some people think it's brilliant with certain choices such as the difference in style of music that was written by the Phantom vs the rest of it etc.
Romeo and Juliet is definitely overdone. My favorite is probably Macbeth just for the poetry, but I am not extremely well read in Shakespeare and I have not read or seen all the plays usually cited as the best. I'd like to read or see Othello sometime. I never could get into the comedies. I guess they always felt like how when you have to explain a joke, it's not funny? Might be different if I was raised in the culture or something. But I usually prefer sad movies, too.
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Date: 2020-04-22 11:31 pm (UTC)Musicals are plays with songs thrown in to express strong emotions or really important plot points. If it's all singing, then it's an opera. Which is technically a musical, I guess?
Classic musicals I think you've heard of: The Sound of Music, The King and I, anything by Rogers & Hammerstein.
Operas include things like: Phantom and Les Miserables.
Or at least I'd always thought they were operas! I'm by no means a musician or expert!
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Date: 2020-04-23 02:17 pm (UTC)I've never seen Les Mis. I grew up with Sound of Music because my mom loved it.
I find musicals a little odd because characters suddenly breaking into song is still very strange to me. I think operas make more sense to my brain because it's clearer the artform is that everything is a song, like an epic poem or something. But obviously I love Steven Universe so I can get used to it. Though one of my least favorite songs from the show was Mr. Greg which was probably the most musical like of all the songs!
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Date: 2020-04-23 02:20 pm (UTC)In my home, we break into song frequently! And sometimes dances too! :3
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Date: 2020-04-23 05:41 pm (UTC)