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+ This year's Victoria Day weekend has been somewhat cold, as usual, but still nice overall. I finished all of my Obligations on Saturday and Sunday, and now I get to just relax and do nothing. (I might relax, but I will not do nothing.)

+ The interval act from this year's ESC with Baby Lasagna vs Käärijä was pretty awesome, not gonna lie.

+ Wrote a little. Feels good. I also have a finished thing that I don't know what to do with. It'll go up on my writing DW as usual once I'm done a few nitpicks, but I haven't decided if I want to crosspost it or not. It's one of those stories without much substance and not much happening. On the other hand, it's a rarepair. Hm. (I'm leaning toward not crossposting because I can't be arsed to make a decision on how to tag it, but we'll see.)

+ I rewatched Conclave with the director's commentary. It's a good commentary; would recommend giving that a look if you enjoyed the movie. Lots of insight into cinematographic choices and casting choices etc. I found it interesting that they deliberately sought out an unknown to play Benitez - since the cardinals don't know what to expect from him, the director wanted the audience to be unable to have any preconceived notions of the actor, too. It's not something I'd considered but it makes sense. (And it means they ended up with Carlos Diehz, which is of course wonderful.)

+ ...Also spent way too much time playing Delectatio Morosa. On the one hand, I generally like to complete all routes when I play visual novels. On the other, getting the Bad Routes will be hard for me - I am way too attached to these characters and I don't want to upset anybody. On the third hand, I am curious about how cardinal Lawrence could possibly fuck up so badly that it ruins his relationships with everybody, including Benitez. So.

+ I'm rather glad that I did not go to Calgary this weekend to watch the judo nationals in person. It would have been interesting, but I think it would have also been very stressful for me, and I don't really need that. One of our competitors placed, and the other did not. I looked in more detail about the match for our guy who did not place, and found out that our friend was going up against someone from Montreal. So, against someone from a bigger club with many more training opportunities due to the location (compared to here in this small northern town, where the club is small, the opportunities are limited, there is nobody at his level/weight category to train against, and the nearest training camps are 5 hours away). Of course, this is a generalization. But taking that into account, I'm not surprised, and think the guy from our club did very well considering the circumstances. Even getting to compete at the national level at all is a big achievement.

I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 recently. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either; it was kind of meh. I don't have much to say about the film itself, even.

Like a lot of sequels, it suffers from being compared to the original, which was very fun if a little dated now. I have seen some speculation that the third movie also suffers from being directed by its main actor, Nia Vardalos - but she didn't direct the second film, which I thought was very disappointing (rather than just kind of meh) so I don't think that's the issue. It could be that the first one was just a very fun film and that it's hard to replicate its energy.

The one thing that I did like about MBFGW3 was a new character, Victory, played by Melina Kotselou. It was another of those situations where after the movie I immediately went to check what other works the actor has been in. Unfortunately, like I ran into with Conclave and Carlos Diehz, aside from MBFGW3 Melina Kotselou has only been in a couple of short films. But apparently they're in something that will be coming out this year (?) so I will have to make a note to find more information about that later. They seem to be more of a theatre actor rather than screen.

Victory is a great character. Very funny, very delightful. I love how optimistic they are and how much love they have for where they live, all the ambitions they have to make the village flourish even if on the face of it the situation is impossible. Stole my attention every time they appeared on the screen, honestly, including from the moment they showed up to pick up the family at the airport and it becomes very clear that the new Greek cousin is just as weird as the American visitors. I didn't expect to stumble across a nonbinary character in this film, let alone one done so well, and it was a really nice surprise.

I wonder if that was planned - like, if Victory was meant to be NB from the start, or if it was a situation were it was like, "Okay, we found this great actor, and they're NB, so we might as well make the character nonbinary too". I wonder if Kotselou had some input into how their scenes should go. I especially liked the dance scene where all the men are on one side, and the women are on another, and Victory starts off on one side, and then switches to another - it's so low-key and very nicely done.

Anyway... The movie wasn't awful, and it's possible I might even rewatch it some time. But that's just the one film. Hopefully Melina Kotselou will be in more movies in the future.

I made some new ESC icons. Kicked Tix out since I was only using him at ESC time - perhaps Barei and Subwoolfer will be more multipurpose. And also deleted a few other icons that I rarely use. We'll see if I decide to reupload them later.

Also want to make a few others - mostly Poli Genova and Dami Im - but I wasn't able to find good screencaps, so I'll have to take those myself. That'll take more time.

I have a hugeass gallery of icons saved... It's interesting to see how my tastes have changed over the years.

Things done on Sunday:
- Went out for breakfast with parents
- Also went looking around at garden centres with parents. Decided that I don't want to do any flowers on my deck this year; just can't be arsed.
- Also decided that I really should make more of an effort to sit out on my deck this year. While there is no smoke to deal with.
- Went out for a walk
- Watched a movie. It was okay.
- Slept poorly and for some reason I am now exhausted auuuugh
- Apparently slept poorly Saturday night as well

ESC this week coming up. I'm looking forward to it.

I'll have to watch the semifinals in the evening after it's over. In some ways I don't mind that - it's kind of relaxing. Plus I get to fast-forward through anything I don't want to watch. (Not songs, but green room stuff and some of the voting process - I want results not process).

I've never heard of Basel, the city it's held in this year. Looking at photos now. It's very pretty.

The final is on the same day as judo nationals. I don't know if I want to watch the nationals though. Maybe I'll look for videos after the fact.

I think judo class is cancelled on that day as well, because the senseis will be in Calgary. But I'm not sure. There is enough time for me to get home after class, though, so I'm not worried.

I haven't listened to any of the 2025 songs yet. But I was relistening to the 2016 songs last night. A lot of them aren't remarkable, standard ESC fare, but they're still so special to me because I was there in person for it. And my favourites are still awesome. (Jamala!!)

Every year I tell myself that I should make some icons of my favourite acts from 2016, and every year I forget to do it. I should get off my ass and make some Poli Genova icons at the very least. From the music video probably.

Sent a message to Bea, trying to set up a coffee meet for Saturday. She's checking her schedule; will see how it goes.

My weekend is going to be really busy, but I also want to talk to somebody. There are people that I would have liked to talk to at the Pride meetup, but they weren't able to come. So. I guess I'll make do somehow.

If she can't make it, I might go see Sinners instead. Or, hell, maybe I will go see Sinners regardless. I remember seeing the preview and thinking it looked really cool. And I've heard so many good things about it.