not unexpectedly since I had decided from the trailer that I was unlikely to tolerate it, but

So the visuals of Blood and Shadow or - was it Shadow and Bone? Where am I getting Blood then? Anyway, the visuals looked good (apart from the universal refusal of film media to tie up long hair realistically and practically in historical/fighting contexts which continues to enrage me each and every time because I'm easy to enrage like that), and so I told Wax she could take her headphones off so I could hear it as well.

It quickly surpassed my threshold for how much bad dialogue and cheesy tropes I will tolerate before throwing a piece of literature or media across the room, literally or figuratively.

My main question is whether the dialogue was already this bad before it became a screenplay or not, but I'm increasingly suspecting that it was, or at least, close to it, because of the selection of tropes and topics, like the awkward and overly contemporary flirting exchanges, for example, and even more obviously out of place feisty, spunky, and witty ("") comebacks that seem completely out of place given their background.

This reminds me a lot of watching The Witcher, actually, although the dialogue isn't quite as bad, I think. Or maybe I was just feeling more irritable then.

It's a shame people with decent concepts and plots don't more often have a writing partner to make sure the dialogue is good. Or a script polish by Carrie Fisher. Or maybe an incisively funny rewrite by Helen.

an eventful day

The first time socializing with anybody but siblings, niblings, and our tenant since the pandemic began: we had dinner at our tenant's bff's house today, along with tenant and MIL's bff (tenant's bff's sister - that's how we found our tenant in the first place). And we met the tenant's bff's husband, but that was just one unknown person and so it didn't really feel alarming and new and we stayed for exactly two hours before coming home to give the diabetic cat insulin, which was also good.

Because they're all over 70 - in fact, MIL was a bit younger than all of them - everyone except us was vaccinated. It was surprisingly nice! Low key, of limited length and not too novel - I admit I reacted "NOOOO" on receiving the invitation because we already spent a few hours Friday evening planning our garden with tenant & her bff, and that is closer together than I would generally like social interactions to be, but it turned out to be fine after all. It was actually nice! Enjoyable conversation, and it's nice to get Swedish conversation practice in real time.