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So I'm kinda bad at remembering faces and putting names to them. I suspect aphantasia is involved. Not having a visual memory makes it hard to remember visual things without additional information/context.
The characters on the Untamed are mostly a group of young men, roughly the same age, wearing identical or near-identical clothing, with identical hairstyles, speaking a language I don't understand, and they're all Chinese.
It gets worse: they all have 3-4 names. I don't mean long names, I mean different names. Which were used variably according to a system I did not initially understand at all.
Here's the process I went through:
Episodes 1-3: Wei WuXian is the smiley one who's often wearing a different outfit. He is also the YiLing Patriarch, and I think he is Wei Ying because there's no other Weis, I THINK? Lan Wangji or Lan Zhan - not sure which? - is the one who is deadpan at all times, even when somehow also conveying "barely-contained homicidal rage" and "I want to stab you in your stupid, attractive face" and "your unseemly display of emotion causes me physical pain". Jiang Cheng is the one with the Hapsburg chin. The Lan minions are Sweet Soft Boy and Sassy Boy. I can't tell the rest apart.
At this point, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) velithya had a long and busy working week, and we took a break from watching. In the interim, I read a guide on how the names work and also read a number of translated chapters of the book the series is based on.
Which means that between episodes 3 and 4, I learned how the names work/in what situation each name is applied, which group of names attaches to which character, and who the other characters are, and some sense of the role the play in the story.
Episodes 4-6: None of these people look remotely similar. I know exactly who everyone is, and can remember all their names. These are very different individuals who happen to be wearing similar clothing and matching hairstyles. Lan SiZhui remains delightful, and Lan JinYing remains sassy.
Mostly what it's brought home to me is the level to which I rely on *really broad* distinguishing features like hair colour/style to tell people apart.
There'd been indicators before this, I did kinda know it, but until I watched a group of people who matched in age, ethnicity, hairstyle, and dress, I didn't realise that I wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
Like, if there were two characters on screen, obviously they looked different from each other? But unless they were using names in that scene, I was struggling to identify who they were and place them relative to the story. And names were only so helpful because the names weren't consistent so if they were using a completely different name from prior appearances, I was like, "I am sure this guy has appeared previously but I am not completely certain where."
The moral of this story is, for people who know me personally:
If you change your hairstyle I will hate it for a while even if it looks good, because even if I know you well and love you, when I see you, it will take me a moment to verify to myself who the hell you are.
Maybe that's why in fiction I tend to like the shows where characters wear uniforms or something that means their outfits are thoroughly consistent. Because even if the outfits match each other, then that becomes background information I can ignore when identifying people.
And so they're some of the most recognisable people I've ever seen on TV. Like, there's a brief shot in the closing credits of a guy with a goatee and I'm pretty sure I can actually tell which character that's the older version of, despite makeup differences and facial hair, and usually I am terrible at that. But because all the broader categories of distinguishing features have been eliminated - hair style, hair colour, dress styles, age, ethnicity, even build (they're all slender-but-fit) - I have never identified faces so well in my life.
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Me, from the kitchen: "I'm going to try something that may be an offence against God and Man. We'll see."
Housemate.Dave: "Does it involve kiwi fruit chocolate custard?"
Me: "No, just plain chocolate... but I have some whipping cream to make tasty treats for tomorrow, but I won't need all of it, so I'm going to try adding some cream and making whipped chocolate custard cream."
slightly late
result: DELICIOUS
So what I did was, I started out making thickish vanilla custard, using gluten-free custard powder. Then I added a smallish chunk of milk chocolate, stirred it through, and took it off heat. Left the saucepan a couple of minutes, then added a little more cold milk, stirred that through (custard was now lumpy, but that's fine because of later stages), transferred it to a mixing bowl, added some whipping cream, and whipped it but good. (Which makes it fluffy AND smooths out the lumps.)
The lukewarm result is delicious. I've put most of it into two cups and put those in the fridge to chill overnight. Tomorrow I shall offer Nic Whipped Chocolate Custard Cream Mousse.
SO TASTY. I AM A COOKING GENIUS.
Also, another Conversation with Dave:
Me: What are you playing? That guy is familiar.
Dave: Devil May Cry 4.
Me: Who is he?
Dave: Dante.
Me: ... I think I've seen him cosplayed.
Dave: Probably.Current Music: Queen - '39 Current Mood:  accomplished
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OK, first thing: I cannot recommend highly enough keeping a roll of black electrical tape in your house. I have MacGyver tendencies and I love to work them.
Reason I originally bought my electrical tape: Damage to the coating of a power cord I didn't want to replace, and so instead sealed with electrical tape.
Subsequent uses I've found for it:
- Repairing a damaged (black) music stand. The stand no longer collapses, but that's fine - I don't need to travel with it, and what it DOES still do is "be a music stand".
- Holding together, and discreetly in place, the pocket triangles for the suits of the groom and groomsmen at Chas and Dean's wedding. Their suits were black, so the black tape was easier to make invisible, while firmly holding the pocket triangles in place, when they were really reluctant to do that before (especially the groom's, since his suit had a false pocket.) And sticky tape isn't sticky enough for just about anything other than gift-wrapping.
At some point I will deconstruct one of those pocket triangles and post pictures, because, seriously, in the end they required an amazing amount of tape, both sticky and electrical. (Part of the problem: The fabric pieces were themselves slightly too small to work easily.)
- Emergency substitute knee brace.
No, really. Oddly, the medical fabric-type tape usually used for this kind of thing gives me a hideous rash, but electrical tape doesn't. Some tape wound tight around my bad knee reduced the pain substantially in an emergency when I couldn't use my actual brace.
- Decorative markings on my Tape Box.
I had a sturdy cardboard box that was doing duty as a bedside table. I decided to make it prettier and sturdier, and wrapped the whole thing in silver duct tape, which I then gave a better-defined appearance by judicious marking with black electrical tape, because I'm just that cool.
It's also entirely possible I'm going to be "hemming" some jeans with electrical tape later, because I'm getting sick of treading on my cuffs. Of course, I am reminded of my mother's tale of a guy she knew when she was about my age, who hemmed his trousers with a stapler. She rolled her eyes hard at him and then made him watch her redo them properly so he could do better in future.
Me, I like being inventive about solutions to problems, so I think stapled cuffs would be cool.
... I was going to post something other than an advocacy of electrical tape (I do have duct tape too, but electrical has benefits duct does not, really it does), but I have to leave in five minutes to go see my endocrinologist. (For, we hope, some answers regarding this aggravating hypoglycaemia crap. Although I may poke him about the HEY SUP WITH THIS OTHER STUFF THAT I MENTIONED LAST TIME AND YOU KIND OF IGNORED issue.)Current Music: Ladysmith Black Mombazo - Knockin' On Heaven's Door (with Dolly Parton)
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