More Taskmaster, and some meme answers

[hamsterwoman]

I'm continuing to mainline Taskmaster, to the exclusion of any other entertainment content. (I think I've figured out my sudden narrative allergy -- it's because all of the stressful things at work involve crafting a narrative out of a bunch of data and figuring out how it all goes together, so I think the fiction-synthesizing part of my brain and

Comments

[qwentoozla]

Are you going to continue going backwards with Taskmaster? Loving getting to read your thoughts on it

[hamsterwoman]

Are you going to continue going backwards with Taskmaster?

I thought I was just going to continue backwards, but as I got to the last episode of series 4, the next one YouTube had cued up was the first episode of series 1, so I started with that. I'm not finding it *as* fun as the first three series I watched -- they're pretty clearly still figuring things out, so it's less wild, and fewer of the contestants are working for me (I am finding Josh and Tim entertaining, though), but I might as well go through it in this order, I guess.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in feeling Hugh didn't get the recognition he deserved! I know what you mean about Greg finding one contestant to pick on, but I found it funnier in series 5, where that role was at least split between Nish and Mark somewhat, and also they both had funnier reactions to it -- Hugh was just kind of stoic throughout.

but I'm sure I've posted pictures or videos of him before. I went to see a live show of his in 2016. :)Oh yeah, probably you going to the live show is what I'm

[qwentoozla]

Yeah, I feel the same about series 1, they hadn't quite hit their stride yet and the contestants didn't work for me quite as well either. I do really like Tim though.

That's so true about Nish and Mark, the way they both reacted to being picked on was very funny.

All of Bob's stories are incredibly implausible whether they're true or not, that's the joy of his appearances on WILTY! He always embellishes them by giving all the characters ridiculous names too, haha.

[hamsterwoman]

All of Bob's stories are incredibly implausible whether they're true or not, that's the joy of his appearances on WILTY!

I'm starting to get that sense, haha! Which is kind of what I was expecting anyway, just from the stories he was telling on Taskmaster -- like the ostensible background research for his peeing volume graph.

series 1, they hadn't quite hit their stride yet and the contestants didn't work for me quite as well either.Yeah. At this point I'm about 2/3 through that series, and it's definitely feeling less fun. I feel like they must have put in a bunch of health & safety boundary conditions afterwards, and also like, common sense boundary conditions, because I feel like the prizes are kind of more extreme, too (or maybe the contestants did not believe that they really would lose the things). Like, I had to look away a couple of times during this series so far, in just the 4 episodes -- towards the end of the watermelon task with Tim and Romesh and when Romesh was rubbing hot sauce into his eyes -- which is not

[bearshorty]

How old was L when you read LoR to her? Did you do the Hobbit first? I had Hobbit as a child but couldn't get into it and only read LoR when I was 23, before the last movie came out. I'm just wondering when I can try to introduce it to Tanya

[hamsterwoman]

We did do The Hobbit first, kinda. I didn't have a Russian copy, but I had a graphic novel format adaptation, so when L was quite young -- 5 or something like that -- I basically did something that was partly telling the story based on the pictures and partly translation of the dialogue into Russian while we looked at the pictures. (I never read to the rodents in anything other than Russian, so I didn't just want to read it in the original to her

[enchanted_jae]

OMG, food coming to life would be...horrifying.

:D

[hamsterwoman]

It would be coming to life cutely, though! Like, imagine sticking googly eyes on a sandwich, or a donut, or something :D

[meathiel]

I'd have been surprised if anything else but LotR had been your first fandom. *lol*

Have you watched the film "Tolkien"? It was on TV here recently and I really liked it.

[hamsterwoman]

Hehe, fair :)

I have not watched Tolkien, at least so far. I saw posters for the movie and was curious, and read some reviews (and specifically sought out reviews from Tolkien fans), and haven't fully decided whether I want to watch it. I almost certainly would give it a try if it comes my way, but so far haven't tried to track it down.

That's good to know that you really enjoyed it, though! That's encouraging!

[aletheiafelinea]

"So, you Name things?" says Harry Dresden in a disturbingly thoughtful tone. :3
(I don't really give names, but I must be careful with attaching, too. I pick a leaf on a walk and the longer I don't throw it away the harder it gets. Poor leaf, I already took it away from its place, how can I abandon it on the top of that! I carried a tiny bundle of fluff picked from a sweater or something in my jacket pocket for days because getting rid of it somehow felt increasingly like a choice - why now and not later, why here and not... etc.)

All those crappy superpowers people keep coming up with seem to me more like just unglamorous superpowers. In right circumstances anything you can do that other cannot might be useful. To me, those list are rather interesting narrative starting points. :) Then again, I'm generally fond of crack-taken-seriously trope...

I don't understand people who make a big deal out of shipping certain things, or not shipping certain things, or whatever weird purity culture thing appears to have sprung up in fandom while

[hamsterwoman]

"So, you Name things?" says Harry Dresden in a disturbingly thoughtful tone. :3

Hehe, I guess so... I do like thinking of it as a magical power! :D

Poor leaf, I already took it away from its place, how can I abandon it on the top of that!

Yes, yes, exactly! It's the same kind of anthropomorphizing -- and I'm prone to it, too, even when I'm not naming things. (Interestingly, I mostly don't name objects that are meant to be in service for a long time -- like, my laptop doesn't have a name, it's only for ephemeral things.)

To me, those list are rather interesting narrative starting points. :)

I agree with that, actually! And I find it really interesting to read about magic/superpowers based on weird, oddly specific things -- I prefer that to the generic "can do pretty much anything except when depowered by a narrow set of circumstances" kind of thing that you have with Superman.

Just another iteration of radicalism itself being the problem more than what it tries to make a problem of.

Nod. That's a good way of putting it!