What was the name of the movie
Feb. 23rd, 2019 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollWhere it turned out the diverse, talented team just needed a mediocre white dude to pull them together?
james_davis_nicollChocolate Box
Feb. 23rd, 2019 12:07 pmcesperanzaYay, the Chocolate Box reveals happened! I got a gorgeous little Steve/Peggy snapshot that really sells the sexiness of skinny!Steve and the marvelousness of her:
I feel it in my bones (755 words) by ljparis
Summary: "He said her name, quietly so as not to startle her, letting the word slip past his tongue as his hand came up to cup her elbow."
and I wrote two Stucky ficlets:
No Kind of Life[ (1995 words) by Speranza
Summary: "You know I have to do everything the hard way, Buck. It’s the fundamental fact of my nature.”
and
Seashore (505 words) by Speranza
Summary: "Who is that, screaming like a girl?"
I feel it in my bones (755 words) by ljparis
Summary: "He said her name, quietly so as not to startle her, letting the word slip past his tongue as his hand came up to cup her elbow."
and I wrote two Stucky ficlets:
No Kind of Life[ (1995 words) by Speranza
Summary: "You know I have to do everything the hard way, Buck. It’s the fundamental fact of my nature.”
and
Seashore (505 words) by Speranza
Summary: "Who is that, screaming like a girl?"
(no subject)
Feb. 23rd, 2019 11:59 amskygiantsMy roommate has a copy of Stephen Puleo's Dark Tide, the one full-length history book about the Boston Molassacre, which I'd been meaning to read ever since last month's centenary and therefore decided to use as my Space Opera detox.
It's a solid and well-researched account of the disaster, covering the period of time from the initial construction of the giant molasses tank through the end of the court case to determine who was responsible for the tank's destruction and subsequent massive amounts of death, with detours into the munitions market during WWI, the Boston anarchist movement, the Harding presidency, and the big business boom of the early 1920s.
It also has an unfortunate tendency to do the thing, you know that history book thing, where it's like "March 15, 1916: heart-rending scene in which several people who three years later will be devastated by the molasses flood think uneasily about the new tank in their neighborhood, and also about Boston's changing socioeconomic demographics, and then have a conversation about molasses." Don't give me that, Stephen Puleo! If you want me to believe someone had a specific thought or a specific conversation on a specific date, I want a footnote and a source I can trace back; otherwise, talk in broader generalities and leave novelistic internal monologues for the novelists.
On the other hand, all the novelistic internal monologues does provide a LOT of opportunities for beautifully creepy horror-movie descriptions of molasses, which I DO approve of very much:
As Isaac straddled the pipe and gripped the flange to examine the bolts, he could almost hear the molasses shifting and wriggling in the pipe, could feel it wriggling inside, like a long thick worm inching towards its home. Behind him he heard something else, an unnatural wail that sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He tried to shut his ears to the groan and the long roll of rumbling that came from inside the molasses tank. But it was no use...
OK, well played, Steven King, I TOO feel the unearthly horror of two million tons of molasses poised to unleash destruction on an unsuspecting city.
Puleo also gets a bit hagiographic about judge Hugh W. Ogden, who eventually decided the case in favor of the claimants and against the USIA corporation that built the bank, which: a good decision! I approve of it! I don't think we needed several approving chapters about how Ogden's experience in the war and opinions about how the country needed a good dose of military discipline etc. and how all that probably maybe influenced his decision-making, but of course YMMV.
My sympathies were however very effectively engaged with Isaac Gonzalez, general man-on-call at the tank, who historical record shows not only attempted many, many times to warn the company about issues with the tank but also stressed about it so much that he went on daily 1 AM cross-town runs just to make sure everything was OK and the tank hadn't exploded in the middle of the night.
(The incident that both I and everyone involved in the court case considered most infuriating:
ISAAC GONZALEZ: the tank is leaking! everyone can see it leak! children come steal molasses from the leaks! WE ALL KNOW IT'S BAD!
CORPORATE USIA: .... ok! ok. we have heard and listened to your concerns.
CORPORATE USIA: We will therefore paint the tank brown so it's harder for people to see it leaking.)
Anyway then I rewatched the Drunk History episode about the Molassacre and got mad about how they attributed all of Isaac Gonzalez's attempts to warn the company to a random firefighter played by Jason Ritter and didn't name Gonzalez ONCE, so I clearly learned something from this book! Despite my frustrations with the writing style, an overall solid read and resource.
It's a solid and well-researched account of the disaster, covering the period of time from the initial construction of the giant molasses tank through the end of the court case to determine who was responsible for the tank's destruction and subsequent massive amounts of death, with detours into the munitions market during WWI, the Boston anarchist movement, the Harding presidency, and the big business boom of the early 1920s.
It also has an unfortunate tendency to do the thing, you know that history book thing, where it's like "March 15, 1916: heart-rending scene in which several people who three years later will be devastated by the molasses flood think uneasily about the new tank in their neighborhood, and also about Boston's changing socioeconomic demographics, and then have a conversation about molasses." Don't give me that, Stephen Puleo! If you want me to believe someone had a specific thought or a specific conversation on a specific date, I want a footnote and a source I can trace back; otherwise, talk in broader generalities and leave novelistic internal monologues for the novelists.
On the other hand, all the novelistic internal monologues does provide a LOT of opportunities for beautifully creepy horror-movie descriptions of molasses, which I DO approve of very much:
As Isaac straddled the pipe and gripped the flange to examine the bolts, he could almost hear the molasses shifting and wriggling in the pipe, could feel it wriggling inside, like a long thick worm inching towards its home. Behind him he heard something else, an unnatural wail that sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He tried to shut his ears to the groan and the long roll of rumbling that came from inside the molasses tank. But it was no use...
OK, well played, Steven King, I TOO feel the unearthly horror of two million tons of molasses poised to unleash destruction on an unsuspecting city.
Puleo also gets a bit hagiographic about judge Hugh W. Ogden, who eventually decided the case in favor of the claimants and against the USIA corporation that built the bank, which: a good decision! I approve of it! I don't think we needed several approving chapters about how Ogden's experience in the war and opinions about how the country needed a good dose of military discipline etc. and how all that probably maybe influenced his decision-making, but of course YMMV.
My sympathies were however very effectively engaged with Isaac Gonzalez, general man-on-call at the tank, who historical record shows not only attempted many, many times to warn the company about issues with the tank but also stressed about it so much that he went on daily 1 AM cross-town runs just to make sure everything was OK and the tank hadn't exploded in the middle of the night.
(The incident that both I and everyone involved in the court case considered most infuriating:
ISAAC GONZALEZ: the tank is leaking! everyone can see it leak! children come steal molasses from the leaks! WE ALL KNOW IT'S BAD!
CORPORATE USIA: .... ok! ok. we have heard and listened to your concerns.
CORPORATE USIA: We will therefore paint the tank brown so it's harder for people to see it leaking.)
Anyway then I rewatched the Drunk History episode about the Molassacre and got mad about how they attributed all of Isaac Gonzalez's attempts to warn the company to a random firefighter played by Jason Ritter and didn't name Gonzalez ONCE, so I clearly learned something from this book! Despite my frustrations with the writing style, an overall solid read and resource.
i heard they don't get so low-down
Feb. 23rd, 2019 12:40 pmmusesfoolHey hey, I posted a story yesterday:
A little idle talk of this and that (at AO3)
Star Wars/AtLA; Obi-Wan, Iroh, Aang, ensemble; g; 4,050 words
On his way to Tatooine with Luke, Obi-Wan makes an unexpected stop for tea in Ba Sing Se.
I normally don't like to post fic on Fridays or Saturdays because it always feels like no one is around, but I also didn't want to pick at this any more, so here we are.
I've wanted a crossover like this for a long time but couldn't find one that did what I wanted, so finally I just had to write it myself. *hands* I have a lot of stuff in my head about how this all works - why the Fire Nation symbol looks like the Rebel Starbird, how bending works with the Force, why the mind trick didn't work on the guard (earthbenders are hardheaded/strong-minded!), how Obi-Wan could get his ship fixed on an pre-space but industrializing world (some combo of Sokka and The Mechanist's genius plus Toph's metalbending). How Aang would be familiar and different - Aang actually learns the lessons Anakin never does about letting go of attachments when necessary. I think the Aang would be both comforting and alienating to Obi-Wan, because he shares basically the same philosophy as the Jedi, but the Air Nomads have also been wiped out, so is there just no place for them in the galaxy? What did he fail to convey to Anakin that would have led to him making different choices? (I mean, Obi-Wan does eventually realize in canon that Anakin's terrible decisions are not his fault, but. He still blames himself a lot in those early years afterward.) And I thought it was a sweet moment that both Aang and Obi-Wan are jazzed to meditate together because no one ever wants to meditate with them. *hands*
And the title of course is from Man of LaMancha because I have this post-RotS!Obi-Wan = Don Quixote thing in my head, not just because of "The Impossible Dream" but also "Knight of the Woeful Countenance." I am just saying. (Possibly Anakin is Aldonza and Ahsoka is Sancho...I am not saying it's an exact match but that's just how my brain works.)
Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing it - especially Sokka and Iroh - and I'm glad other people seem to like it too!
***
Brooklyn Nine Nine: The Honeypot
( spoilers )
***
Today, I plan to bake some bread (I'm going to use the King Arthur milk bread recipe since it only makes one loaf instead of the one I made last week, which makes two, and I don't want to deal with reducing it), maybe bake a cake, and clean out some old towels now that I have new towels. (I will keep the old towels for emergency usage, but not in the closet with the new towels - I need the space.)
I also need to gather all my tax documents to send to the accountant. I'm a little terrified of how badly screwed I'm going to be because of Cheetolini's tax scam, but there's nothing I can do about that now except hope some of the actions NYS took to mitigate the effects will help me.
Then I plan to make steak for dinner (something I almost never do at home, but it was on sale!). Mmm...steak. Tomorrow I will do pulled pork and then have that for lunch next week. I am excitedly anticipating deliciousness!
***
A little idle talk of this and that (at AO3)
Star Wars/AtLA; Obi-Wan, Iroh, Aang, ensemble; g; 4,050 words
On his way to Tatooine with Luke, Obi-Wan makes an unexpected stop for tea in Ba Sing Se.
I normally don't like to post fic on Fridays or Saturdays because it always feels like no one is around, but I also didn't want to pick at this any more, so here we are.
I've wanted a crossover like this for a long time but couldn't find one that did what I wanted, so finally I just had to write it myself. *hands* I have a lot of stuff in my head about how this all works - why the Fire Nation symbol looks like the Rebel Starbird, how bending works with the Force, why the mind trick didn't work on the guard (earthbenders are hardheaded/strong-minded!), how Obi-Wan could get his ship fixed on an pre-space but industrializing world (some combo of Sokka and The Mechanist's genius plus Toph's metalbending). How Aang would be familiar and different - Aang actually learns the lessons Anakin never does about letting go of attachments when necessary. I think the Aang would be both comforting and alienating to Obi-Wan, because he shares basically the same philosophy as the Jedi, but the Air Nomads have also been wiped out, so is there just no place for them in the galaxy? What did he fail to convey to Anakin that would have led to him making different choices? (I mean, Obi-Wan does eventually realize in canon that Anakin's terrible decisions are not his fault, but. He still blames himself a lot in those early years afterward.) And I thought it was a sweet moment that both Aang and Obi-Wan are jazzed to meditate together because no one ever wants to meditate with them. *hands*
And the title of course is from Man of LaMancha because I have this post-RotS!Obi-Wan = Don Quixote thing in my head, not just because of "The Impossible Dream" but also "Knight of the Woeful Countenance." I am just saying. (Possibly Anakin is Aldonza and Ahsoka is Sancho...I am not saying it's an exact match but that's just how my brain works.)
Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing it - especially Sokka and Iroh - and I'm glad other people seem to like it too!
***
Brooklyn Nine Nine: The Honeypot
( spoilers )
***
Today, I plan to bake some bread (I'm going to use the King Arthur milk bread recipe since it only makes one loaf instead of the one I made last week, which makes two, and I don't want to deal with reducing it), maybe bake a cake, and clean out some old towels now that I have new towels. (I will keep the old towels for emergency usage, but not in the closet with the new towels - I need the space.)
I also need to gather all my tax documents to send to the accountant. I'm a little terrified of how badly screwed I'm going to be because of Cheetolini's tax scam, but there's nothing I can do about that now except hope some of the actions NYS took to mitigate the effects will help me.
Then I plan to make steak for dinner (something I almost never do at home, but it was on sale!). Mmm...steak. Tomorrow I will do pulled pork and then have that for lunch next week. I am excitedly anticipating deliciousness!
***
The BFG missed someone's house
Feb. 23rd, 2019 12:01 pmpetraDid anyone order a dream about going on a date with Sidney Crosby? It got delivered here instead. If I can figure out how to package it, you can have all of it. (N. B. it was neither hot nor heavy, so if that's what you asked for, look elsewhere.)
*
In other news, in case anyone needs them, I had to find enough interest-rate calculators to figure out what the real answer to a word problem was. Here's a general APR calculator, for all your needs but with more variables, and auto loan calculator, which is more purpose-built.
I'm really glad the internet can help with this kind of thing. I knew I couldn't do it all in my head, but I didn't have a real idea of how far off my guesstimates were till I crunched numbers.
*
In other news, in case anyone needs them, I had to find enough interest-rate calculators to figure out what the real answer to a word problem was. Here's a general APR calculator, for all your needs but with more variables, and auto loan calculator, which is more purpose-built.
I'm really glad the internet can help with this kind of thing. I knew I couldn't do it all in my head, but I didn't have a real idea of how far off my guesstimates were till I crunched numbers.
Well, 'best of all time' is a bit of a hubristic claim
Feb. 23rd, 2019 03:58 pmoursinSpotted via firecat recently, this list: The 100 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time -
(And no, contrary to my usual habit, I'm not going to go through marking read/unread/hated/dnf/read something else by author.)
- which is, is it not, a claim that can be thrown out of the window if a book is published the very next day which bumps one of the books already on that list off the list, no?
'There can be only [X]'
Or can there?
I really, really liked this apercu spotted the other day, in fact I think the very same day, on Twitter:
Rant: Our culture is far too obsessed with “the best” instead of “the excellent.”
I am so there for that. The idea that there are lots of things that are excellent/great/worthy of attention and that it is not necessary, and may be counter-productive, to try and limit them to a selection that is determined to be the [restricted number of] The Very Bestest Evah. Or to set up competitions as to which is the Ultimate In Its Class.
Songs of the day: Z-Boys "No Limit" and Z-Girls "What You Waiting For"
Feb. 23rd, 2019 09:54 ambrithistorianUntil this morning I had never heard of the agency Zenith Media Contents, but after seeing these two videos, I'm curious about them. Z-Boys and Z-Girls are both based on the same concept - obviously a marketing gimmick - which is crazy enough that it just might work. Each group is made up of 7 members, each member from a different Asian country, all singing in English. It sets them up for pan-Asian success, as well as for a possible breakout into the English-speaking world. Unfortunately, it also kind of sets them up for failure in Korea. There's a strong thread of "K-pop = Koreans" in Korean fandom, to the point that I've heard people say that Twice has too many foreign members[*]. Only time will tell, I suppose. The songs are catchy enough, now all we can do is wait and see if they catch on.
[*] Twice has 9 members: 5 Korean, 3 Japanese, 1 Taiwanese.
[*] Twice has 9 members: 5 Korean, 3 Japanese, 1 Taiwanese.
Blue Sky (and Not Too Cold)
Feb. 23rd, 2019 10:40 ammalkingreyIt won't last, though. There's a winter weather advisory up for all day tomorrow.
This is turning out to be a very wearing winter, as far as weather goes -- possibly because I have to spend so much time driving my brother to and from places in it.
This is turning out to be a very wearing winter, as far as weather goes -- possibly because I have to spend so much time driving my brother to and from places in it.
Butterfly
Feb. 23rd, 2019 03:44 pmguppiecat
Even though they’re pretty much just butterflies that are lacking the scales that make them special, I still get excited when I get to see a clearwing.
Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.
Interesting Links for 23-02-2019
Feb. 23rd, 2019 02:51 pmandrewducker- The Independent Group: a fundamental change or politics-as-usual?
- (tags:UK politics reform )
- People fake cancer too
- (tags:fraud society )
- Edinburgh streets could go car-free in major city centre shakeup
- (tags:Edinburgh transport )
- The Independent Group will back Theresa May in any vote of confidence
- (tags:UK politics OhForFucksSake )
--
Some notes on mastodon/activitypub
Feb. 23rd, 2019 05:45 pmautumnus1) Your first instance doesn't have to be your final home. A lot of people begin at mastodon.social and other large instances, but you might find small to medium sized active communities are actually lively and fun places to be. When you move an account, you can use the move notice in your old account to indicate that that account has moved. People are generally good at following mutuals in new server, especially after a few notes. Rule of thumb to choosing a new server: where does people you tend to follow live?
2) You don't need an account for each server you want to interact with. You might however want to have multiple accounts for different content and audiences. Most apps support multiple accounts. So it is not a hardship to manage them.
3) Invitation only/closed communities are not hard barriers. If you ask nicely to someone you know, you follow or the admin, by telling why you want to be there, chances are you will be given an account if there is space. Many instances are just trying to make sure they don't scale faster than they can moderate. A closed sign-up does not mean you are unwelcome.
4) pure twitter/wordpress mirrors and posters with no interaction are not considered good citizens by most. Follow people, talk to them. Boost and favorite. It is the best way to make new friends. This a networking and communication platform, not marketing one.
5) If you are creating a bot account there is a way to label them as such from settings. It is also conventional to note that fact in account description - there is even a mastodon instance dedicated to bots: https://botsin.space consider using that for particularly spammy bots. Don't forget to respect the #nobot tag.
6) boosting helps propagate content across instances. Boost content you like. Its actually helpful here.
7) If you only want to post images without interacting much and create a portfolio account of sorts. You might be better off with a pixelfed account. Pixelfed federates with mastodon, and like mastodon has many servers scattered, but it is focused on instagram-like image feeds. Similarly for video there is peertube which again comes with many instances. Again many people have a pixelfed and a mastodon, etc. You don't have to pick one over the other.
8) Follow your admin. No really. Its like living in an apartment building. You need to know if there is a maintenance coming, or policy changes. Note that different servers have different rules of accepted content, moderation rules and policies. Take a moment to look at their about page. It is not a uniform whole, you get to choose.
9) There is no plain text search really, so use relevant tags, that is how we find and organize content.
10) If you are new and want to have some content to read/follow. trunk is helpful lists of people you can batch follow. You can also request creation of new lists or ask to be added to lists.
Some servers that might be interesting to fandom, writers and other people on my DW following list off the top of my head.
tenforward.social (generic, star trek themed)
fandom.ink (fandom)
wondering.shop (writing)
mastodon.art (artists, illustrator heavy)
Bonus: fandom.stoptheimp.net
This fandom fediverse instance is actually a hubzilla rather than mastodon. So it is totally a different software but you should however still be able to follow and be followed by mastodon and other activitypub accounts, at least for public posts.
2) You don't need an account for each server you want to interact with. You might however want to have multiple accounts for different content and audiences. Most apps support multiple accounts. So it is not a hardship to manage them.
3) Invitation only/closed communities are not hard barriers. If you ask nicely to someone you know, you follow or the admin, by telling why you want to be there, chances are you will be given an account if there is space. Many instances are just trying to make sure they don't scale faster than they can moderate. A closed sign-up does not mean you are unwelcome.
4) pure twitter/wordpress mirrors and posters with no interaction are not considered good citizens by most. Follow people, talk to them. Boost and favorite. It is the best way to make new friends. This a networking and communication platform, not marketing one.
5) If you are creating a bot account there is a way to label them as such from settings. It is also conventional to note that fact in account description - there is even a mastodon instance dedicated to bots: https://botsin.space consider using that for particularly spammy bots. Don't forget to respect the #nobot tag.
6) boosting helps propagate content across instances. Boost content you like. Its actually helpful here.
7) If you only want to post images without interacting much and create a portfolio account of sorts. You might be better off with a pixelfed account. Pixelfed federates with mastodon, and like mastodon has many servers scattered, but it is focused on instagram-like image feeds. Similarly for video there is peertube which again comes with many instances. Again many people have a pixelfed and a mastodon, etc. You don't have to pick one over the other.
8) Follow your admin. No really. Its like living in an apartment building. You need to know if there is a maintenance coming, or policy changes. Note that different servers have different rules of accepted content, moderation rules and policies. Take a moment to look at their about page. It is not a uniform whole, you get to choose.
9) There is no plain text search really, so use relevant tags, that is how we find and organize content.
10) If you are new and want to have some content to read/follow. trunk is helpful lists of people you can batch follow. You can also request creation of new lists or ask to be added to lists.
Some servers that might be interesting to fandom, writers and other people on my DW following list off the top of my head.
tenforward.social (generic, star trek themed)
fandom.ink (fandom)
wondering.shop (writing)
mastodon.art (artists, illustrator heavy)
Bonus: fandom.stoptheimp.net
This fandom fediverse instance is actually a hubzilla rather than mastodon. So it is totally a different software but you should however still be able to follow and be followed by mastodon and other activitypub accounts, at least for public posts.
cimoreneRobert Sheehan is so cheeky. Wax put on a few videos of him and if anything he was even more ... him. Like imagine that he's playing himself in Umbrella Academy except he's having to tone it down.
If only because he's not drinking three beers first maybe.
Oh, and doing an American accent, that probably automatically reduces the perceived cheekiness value.
But we were comparing him to other notably cheeky people such as James McAvoy, scourge of press tours, who can keep up such an intense cheekiness that you can't even tell if he was fucking with you or not by the end of the interview, and who sucks people like Daniel Radcliffe into his orbit so they're just adding to the cheekiness as well. Domhnall Gleeson's another example of a cheeky Irishman (and Oscar Isaac has played the DanRad role when doing publicity with him).
And then there are people more like Ewan Mcgregor: palpably cheeky but not really up there in the stratosphere perhaps.
So obviously cheekiness isn't a universal celtic characteristic (there are non-cheeky Scottish and Irish people out there), nor is it unique to them (I'm sure everyone everywhere has had some cheeky bastard in their class or at their workplace who instantly springs to mind, plus there are other cultures that are known for it eg cockney), but it is a sort of salient cultural characteristic in that it's... presumably positively reinforced as part of the identity or something like that?
And this is what brings us back to leprechauns and American Gods on Starz, which we're enjoying even though it's not perfect. And the same should be said of the performance of the sublime Liev Schreiber's incredibly ripped little brother: he's doing a good job and we're enjoying it but it's not perfect. I'm not saying they needed to cast a person of celtic descent to play a leprechaun-slash-celtic-diety, just that cheekiness is, I would argue, a core characteristic of a leprechaun, and for whatever reason - it could be in the actor or higher up of course - he just doesn't seem very cheeky (in addition to his ginger hair never being remotely convincing, which is pretty odd in this era of wig and dye technology and I really have to wonder why they couldn't achieve a more realistic color at least on his head). He's thrumming with energy in a similar way, it's compelling and fun and all that jazz, but it's just... the frustrated and potentially violent and changeable elements of the trickster god are all there in the aura, but the cheeky quirk isn't. It's like if you take a cheeky smirk and remove the twinkle in the eye: it changes the whole mood from cheeky to ... ??? (smug? mocking? threatening???). It isn't necessarily changed for the better or for the worse, but it's definitely different.
IDK, maybe I'm assigning too much weight to the cheekiness of leprechauns.
If only because he's not drinking three beers first maybe.
Oh, and doing an American accent, that probably automatically reduces the perceived cheekiness value.
But we were comparing him to other notably cheeky people such as James McAvoy, scourge of press tours, who can keep up such an intense cheekiness that you can't even tell if he was fucking with you or not by the end of the interview, and who sucks people like Daniel Radcliffe into his orbit so they're just adding to the cheekiness as well. Domhnall Gleeson's another example of a cheeky Irishman (and Oscar Isaac has played the DanRad role when doing publicity with him).
And then there are people more like Ewan Mcgregor: palpably cheeky but not really up there in the stratosphere perhaps.
So obviously cheekiness isn't a universal celtic characteristic (there are non-cheeky Scottish and Irish people out there), nor is it unique to them (I'm sure everyone everywhere has had some cheeky bastard in their class or at their workplace who instantly springs to mind, plus there are other cultures that are known for it eg cockney), but it is a sort of salient cultural characteristic in that it's... presumably positively reinforced as part of the identity or something like that?
And this is what brings us back to leprechauns and American Gods on Starz, which we're enjoying even though it's not perfect. And the same should be said of the performance of the sublime Liev Schreiber's incredibly ripped little brother: he's doing a good job and we're enjoying it but it's not perfect. I'm not saying they needed to cast a person of celtic descent to play a leprechaun-slash-celtic-diety, just that cheekiness is, I would argue, a core characteristic of a leprechaun, and for whatever reason - it could be in the actor or higher up of course - he just doesn't seem very cheeky (in addition to his ginger hair never being remotely convincing, which is pretty odd in this era of wig and dye technology and I really have to wonder why they couldn't achieve a more realistic color at least on his head). He's thrumming with energy in a similar way, it's compelling and fun and all that jazz, but it's just... the frustrated and potentially violent and changeable elements of the trickster god are all there in the aura, but the cheeky quirk isn't. It's like if you take a cheeky smirk and remove the twinkle in the eye: it changes the whole mood from cheeky to ... ??? (smug? mocking? threatening???). It isn't necessarily changed for the better or for the worse, but it's definitely different.
IDK, maybe I'm assigning too much weight to the cheekiness of leprechauns.