Luckylyn

I’m reading a thriller by Alyssa Cole, When No One is Watching. Sydney is weary of the changes her community as neighbors she’s known all her life are being pushed out as gentrification takes hold. While dealing with a personal crisis she decides to hold on to the history of her community by creating a historical walking tour. The research for the tour leads her to team up with her new neighbor Theo and both begin having terrifying experiences. How far are people willing to go to force people out of the neighborhood? I have enjoyed the Honor Harrington series as well but I have paused reading them because I have gotten so frustrated with the political situation and the ongoing war. The last one I read was At All Costs. Part of me is dying to know what comes next and the other feels like the war is never ending. The whole situation in the book is so frustrating.

I keep hoping Disney will buy the rights considering their successful collaborations with Kenny Ortega in the past.

Delores listening to Bruno’s rat novellas https://youtube.com/shorts/yiDj6OdTMsU?feature=share

I’m reading the historical romance The Duke, the Lady and a Baby by Vanessa Riley. West Indian Heiress Patience is stripped of everything after the death of her husband. Her child Lionel being stolen from her leads her to pretend to be a servant to get a job as her own child’s nanny. She’s determined to find the documentation of her fortune so she can afford passage to escape with her child. After rescuing the baby from his late cousin’s uncle, Busick is determined to protect baby Lionel and raise him as his own and finds himself falling for the nanny he suspects has a secret.

Ben Affleck Hit Back At Accusations That He “Blamed” Jennifer Garner For His Alcoholism And Said That They Were “The Exact Opposite” Of The Truth

TV depicting a post-COVID world feels even more awkward in wake of the Omicron surge Grey's Anatomy Season 18 & Other ABC Shows Shut Down Production

Scream House Tour

I’m in the middle of reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It reminds me a bit of Ready Player One because it involves people spending a lot of their lives in a virtual world but the writing style is different. Snow Crash gives me 80s Noir Vibes. I was very amused by the blurb saying the lead character’s name is Hiro Protagonist. Society is lawless depending on what neighborhood you’re in and violence is rampant to the point that the mafia operates openly. There’s a mafia booth at the local job fair, bill boards advertising for them and a boy scout type group they head called the Young Mafia. Working in pizza delivery can be deadly and drivers have to be armed. If your pizza doesn’t arrive in 30 minutes the driver won’t live very long when the mob owns the franchise. So Hiro partners with a teen currier to investigate a new drug called Snow Crash that could have devastating consequences in the real and virtual world.

Dany being ruthless was telegraphed but calling her mad is what bugged me. She made brutal choices and could be unforgiving of her enemies going back to season 1. I just don’t see her as insane. Someone can do monstrous things and be sane. She does not have to be crazy to be the bad guy. I can see her as a villain with a better execution. There was a path to making her villainy come off as more organic but the writing rushed it. I can buy Dany doing horrible acts because it helps her reach her goal but murdering innocent people people after she already won was odd to me. Dany’s brutality usually forwarded her goals or punished people she thought did wrong. Burning Cersei would made sense but going after the civilians seemed random. Now if Cersei refused to surrender and used civilians as human shields for protection and Dany killed them to win the war then that would have been more believable. But to kill after the surrender did not make strategic sense to me. So much about the last two seasons was more about rushing to certain plot points being prioritized over organic character development and logical story progression.

Elizabeth Holmes found guilty on four out of 11 federal charges

Danaerys wasn’t crazy to me. She was ruthless. That ruthlessness was something multiple characters had in them. My sympathies with her actions depended on who she was exerting her ruthlessness on. She didn’t want to rule Westeros because she was an altruistic hero wanting to save people from the evil Lannisters. Dany felt entitled to rule due to her birthright and it wouldn’t have mattered who was on the throne. That’s why the revelation about Jon was so damaging because it rocked the foundation of her justification to rule. There was a path to making her a villain without it seeming forced. Unfortunately, the writers rushed things and poorly wrote the execution.

Another sneak peak

Season 6 Sneak Peak

I decided to read the romance The Christmas Deal by Keira Andrews. Seth needs a fiancé to get a promotion from his family oriented boss and Logan needs a home for himself and his step son after an accident at work left him unemployed. They fake a relationship but of course fall for each other along the way. So far the step son is obnoxious but I have only just started so I am hoping he cools the hostility to his stepfather. He hero worships his biological father who abandoned him and treats his stepfather like crap even though he’s the only one whose been there for him since his mother died. I know dynamics like that exist in real life.

As a fan of hers, I am glad she announced her intentions so viewers aren’t left anticipating videos that will never come. Things had reached a a point that I do think there isn’t anything she could say to smooth things over with people who hate her but her fans can appreciate a goodbye .

I wasn’t sure where to post about the question of whether or not family vloggers are predatory. In professional acting there are laws to protect children that limit the amount of hours they have to work a day and a percentage if the income must be placed in a trust. But with family vloggers there are no laws. These families can film their kids 24/7 and don’t have to reserve any income for the children even though the children are the money makers drawing in views. these family vloggers are very popular. I definitely have gotten drawn into a view of kids being adorable or funny. My little niece likes to watch family channels. I’m sure there are wholesome families but it’s unregulated and abuse can so easily happen. How do we know what’s happening behind the scenes? Do these young children want or even comprehend being online? Will these kids get bullied at school because their parents shared personal videos of them online? What happens to the family dynamic when home life is business? There’s also the issue of predators watching and sharing clips from these channels for their own perverted use. There was one Mommy vlogger who stopped using her kids in videos after she found out pedophiles were sharing clips on predatory websites. The Dark Side of Family Vlogging Family channels are actually terrible Family Vloggers: Something needs to change One upsetting video was of a Vlogger who mistakenly uploaded an unedited version of a video about the seriously ill family pet. At the end of the video she pressures her child to cry for the picture she needs for the YouTube thumbnail. The child was already crying but it didn’t look the way she wanted. It makes you wonder what ugliness that gets edited out of these channels. One family vlog I like is the Holderness family because the kids aren’t heavily featured. They are like guest stars who show up occasionally. You could go through tons of content that doesn’t have their kids in it. I know they probably aren’t all bad but I have concerns.

Lindsay Ellis author and YouTuber is quitting YouTube. Why did Lindsay Ellis quit Twitter? Internet blames cancel culture for YouTuber's exit In my opinion, her tweet that Raya and the Last Dragon and other YA content was derivative of Avatar the Last Airbender didn’t earn the level of hatred directed her way. Especially when other content creators like Honest Trailers made the same criticism but got no push back I thought her video Mask Off addressing the controversy was the beginning of moving on for her I respect her prioritizing her mental health. Her channel was one of my favorites and really had an impact on other video essayists. I wonder if the harassment she received from author Addison Cain she was also a factor. She was also harassed years ago when she said something stupid on the internet in the past. Sometimes when people talk about being canceled it’s b.s. What happened to them was simply that they got criticized and didn’t want to deal with the consequences of their actions. There’s a difference between good faith criticism and harassment. Once things get to harassment territory and death threats it’s gone too far. Some things she’s said deserve criticism but the extreme levels of harassment and the impact on her mental health were too much. No one should be free of criticism but cruelty isn’t justified.

True Kim Cattrall ‘quit Sex And The City 3 because of sexting storyline between Samantha and 14-year-old Brady’

I love her cover of Never My Love

I heard Gene Wilder ad libbed that line

Exactly

I’m reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. In this story historians can time travel to the past to learn accurate information about the eras they are researching. Kivrin pushes to be allowed to visit the 1300s against the advice of her mentor. She put in 2 years of preparation but things go wrong in the both past and present potentially trapping Kivrin in the past.

Comparing the different versions This was well researched.

The Lost City This looks like silly fun. I want to see it.

They were so happy the audience knew the words