This post is sponsored by bagels. Chewy, delicious bagels.

[lucymonster]

I'm in a good mood today because my husband brought bagels home from the markets this morning. I ate a blueberry one with jam for morning tea, and this arvo I'm having a plain one with peanut butter and nutella. Don't @ me if these are the Wrong Things to do to bagels - they're not really eaten all that often in Australia, so I'm improvising. They taste pretty bloody good to me, at least. Good enough to lift me out of my fatigue slump for an overdue post!


Video games

I thought Mark of the Ninja was going to be a fun, lighthearted sidescroller to kill some time with. It certainly was that - the stealth mechanics were fantastic, and the puzzles were just puzzling enough to feel satisfying without getting frustrating - but at some point Plot crept up from behind and punched me in the kidneys as well. I don't want to say too much about it, because I think it's best experienced as a surprise, but the ending made me so goddamn emotional. It only takes a few hours to play, but I suspect new game plus is going to suck me in hard on this one.

Dithering over what to play next. I have lots of good options downloaded to the console, but they're all much bigger commitments so I really need to pick just one. Star Wars: Squadrons has been on my list the longest and is meant to have really great flight mechanics, but my subconscious has irrationally lumped it in with Battlefront II, where the flight mechanics were so annoying that it soured me on the dream of flying starfighters. Horizon Zero Dawn and Greedfall both look fun - maybe HZD wins of the two of them, for its open world? IDK. There's also the Dark Souls remaster that I still haven't played, and Control, which wins points for apparently being inspired by the SCP Foundation stuff my sister's been going apeshit over lately. In further sororal challenges to my decision-making capacity, she convinced me to play the opening scene of Disco Elysium and I ended up loving it. So I can't strike that off the list either. Gah.


Books

I slowed my roll a bit on the Grishaverse after mainlining the first trilogy, but I've finished Six of Crows and am halfway through Crooked Kingdom. I'm still enjoying myself immensely, though I'm struggling to stomach one of the main relationships. Matthias is a soldier from an elite military organisation devoted solely to rounding up Grisha for execution; Nina is a Grisha who falls in love with him despite the fact that he believes her kind are inhuman, unfeeling monsters that deserve to be hunted to extinction. I found it off-putting but easy to ignore in the TV adaptation. In the novels it's one of the main elements, and includes multiple whole chapters from Matthias's point of view in which he ruminates on what an evil temptress Nina is and fantasises in graphic, sexually charged detail about how he's going to hurt her. Presumably there's a demographic out there who find empowerment in stories about women converting their predators into devoted protectors; I'm not part of that demographic, and I couldn't get past those chapters fast enough.

On the other hand, Bardugo really matured as an author between the Grisha trilogy and 6oC - the prose and pacing are greatly improved, and the alternating third person POV works better than the awkwardly executed first person of her debut. The expanded worldbuilding is also fantastic. Ketterdam could hardly feel more different from Ravka, but they still clearly belong in the same universe, and I enjoyed how the preceding three books got boiled down to 'oh, the Ravkans and that civil war of theirs' with the same mild, disinterested sympathy everyone's apt to show for political turmoil in faraway countries.


Music

Darkthrone are releasing a new album! I really enjoyed the first track, Death Cloak; I also enjoyed the field day metalsucks.net is having with it.

It's been a good few weeks overall for black metal. Panopticon's ...And Again Into The Light is hauntingly beautiful and feels like rambling outdoors in the vast, lonely wilderness even while I'm curled up in a beanbag in front of the heater. The bluegrass and folk elements sound on paper like they should be gimmicky, but they're not. At all. There is so much soul and feeling in this album. I think it's another one for the pile of albums I only listen to when I have time to sit down and immerse myself from start to finish, because listening to any one track in isolation just doesn't do it justice.

At the other end of the black metal spectrum, Wild North West by Vreid is a rollicking good time with lots of classic thrash and rock 'n' roll influences. I don't feel any special urge to meditate on it or anything, but it has the kind of high-tempo energy that makes it good for brisk walks or cleaning sprees.

In metal that isn't black, I've been enjoying Inhumation by Unflesh. And in music that isn't metal, I've been on a bit of a nostalgia kick for spooky, gothy bands with female vocalists: The Birthday Massacre, Kidneythieves, Digital Daggers, Rasputina. Also Jack Off Jill, though specifically only Clear Hearts Grey Flowers - I just can't handle their earlier shouty riot grrrl thing anymore, I wish I could but I can't, I don't know where I ever used to find the energy.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Personally I feel peanut butter & Nutella is the toast topping of the gods, and while I don't know that I've ever specifically had it on a bagel, I'm sure it's just as good there as it is on a regular toast. Embrace the goodness!

[lucymonster]

'Topping of the gods' is right! 10/10, would slather all over a bagel again.

[fiachairecht]

Peanut butter & nutella is an excellent bagel topping, and now I know what I want for breakfast.

...I also think I need to look into Mark of the Ninja now.

[lucymonster]

It's really good! Would love to hear what you think if you play.

[pauraque]

My only insistence about bagels is that they have to be boiled before they're baked, which it sounds like yours were if they have that characteristic chewiness! Without the boiling step, you just get round bread with a hole in the middle, which sadly is often the case with mass-produced "bagels" from the supermarket here in the US.

[lucymonster]

'Round bread with a hole in the middle' is what I thought bagels were for most of my life. On the rare occasions I came across one that's all they tasted like, and I was bemused by the enthusiasm for them in American media. But recently the proper boiled ones have enjoyed a sort of hipster foodie craze over here, and lots of specialty bakeries and market-based home business have popped up selling the proper boiled ones. Talk about a revelation. They're delicious.