Things distracting me from having a cold
As always, bear in mind that my standard go way down when I'm sick.
Books:
Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon (On sale right now!) This is basically a cheesy, tropey 90s-esque eurofantasy romance... with lesbians! AND I LOVED IT. Stoic, protective, crossdressing butch bodyguard and feisty, headstrong princess yesss. Many of the tropes are questionable-if-iddy (eg there's a bunch of dub con kisses that "don't count") to outright unfortunate ("swarthy barbarians", really?) and it is SUPER earnest but the ratio of cheese I enjoyed to cheese I didn't worked for me. nb the cover art whitewashes the bodyguard, who has a dark olive complexion which is a bit exoticised.
Apparently the sequel is about the buxom lesbian chambermaid, SOUNDS GOOD.
Ask the Moon by Rose Lerner: Speaking of sequels about feisty maids! A really fun regency m/f romance about a cheerful maid (who showed up in a previous book) and an uptight-but-secretly -passionate butler. Turns out the sexy butler trope works for me WAY better when he's not a servant of the person he's being sexy at(*). Lots of interesting exploration of life for servants at the time too, manages to be light and optimistic without glossing over the drudgery and vulnerability too much.
Movies/TV:
What We Do In The Shadows: Hilarious mockumentary about a group of vampires sharing a house in Wellington, New Zealand. Recced to me by everyone but I was putting off watching until I was in the mood for dark humour about a bunch of mass murdering dudes. Which is indeed what it is, but I was in the right mood and loved it. Also, given the premise it is quite good natured and ends pretty happily (except for, you know. All the people who died bloody violent deaths onscreen) VERY straight-dude-humour, lampshading it with a single grumpy female character talking about them being a homoerotic boys club doesn't actually fix the problem, but not too obnoxious for me, and at least they didn't flinch from the homoeroticism. I really liked the use of special effects, it's mostly a low-key understated talking heads documentary but then someone flies or turns into a bat etc and it manages to feel weirdly natural and thus very disconcerting. Also the creators are mixed race and just cast themselves as 200+ year old Europeans which was a nice change from EVERY OTHER VAMPIRE STORY EVER.(**)
Azumanga Daioh disk...4? Second last one afaict: Continues to be fun!
Cam: Why are they all staring at that one girl in her underwear while another girl holds up HER underwear? This show is weird.
Me: No, see, it's supposed to be a study trip, but it turns out those two girls just want to go to the beach, so...
Cam: Ok, so why are they in their underwear NOW?
Me: That's what girls wear to play sport in Japan!
Cam: ...and their boobs are so big...
me: That's...one of the more flatchested characters....I NEVER SAID IT WAS FEMINIST.
(Many people do claim the show is feminist, and assume it is aimed at women, since it has lots of well rounded, relatable female characters and consistently passes the Bechdel test. I love it, but no)
Doctor Who Season 9: I was told I would probably enjoy this more than season 8 so I started with the initial 2 parter (it's 2 parters all the way this season apparently) Well made and I love Missy, but it's a Davros and daleks story and it kept pinging my disabled-people-as-monsters button more and more until I had to stop. Taking a break then will look up what the next few stories are about and give it another go.
Games:
Eventide: Slavic Fable (Collector's Edition): A fun hidden object game where you are a woman saving her grandma, who owns a historical park full of secret Slavic fairytale magic. I have NO IDEA how accurate the portrayal of Slavic stuff is (asides from the RANDOM DREAMCATCHERS?? WHY?? IS THERE A HIDDEN OBJECT GAME QUOTA???) but the makers are Polish and it was a nice change from the usual. The contrast between the pretty backgrounds and poorly drawn/animated people was sometimes jarring. I've never gotten much out of any of the collector's edition extra stories I've played before but I actually liked this one, a cute little story about a little girl living in the park back when it was a real village. (Stream only ever sells Collector's editions afaict)
Fill and Cross: Pirate Riddles 2: My first Picross game! (well, knockoff) If you haven't played Picross, it's a kind of logic puzzle where you uncover a pixelated image from information about how many squares are coloured in each row and column. And I love it! This specific game is a very bare bones pirate themed collection of puzzles with pretty backgrounds, the only complaints I have are that (a) it makes my computer run very hot for a program that spends 90% of it's time showing a static image (b) Having to go back and get enough "stars" on earlier levels to unlock new sections gets boring. I have no idea how it compares to other picross games, but imagine they're similar?
Dark Parables: The Curse of Briar Rose: Decided to replay the first game in the series. It's ok, but the lack of a map gets very frustrating.
Dark Parables: Queen of Sands: One of the new ones since the series changed hands. I was SO SICK when I played this I can't judge it very well, but it was pretty and easy and didn't do anything to piss me off. I know less out of it reviewers have found the story lacking.
(*)Meanwhile I can enjoy the sexy-bodyguard-of-love-interest trope because it feels less servile? Or something, idk.
(**)I found this out while looking up the cast to try and see if the "distractingly red cheeked" guy was someone they'd already worked with or if they'd had to do some casting call for "As ordinary looking and red cheeked as possible". Turns out it was the former :)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/606325.html. There are
comments.
Books:
Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon (On sale right now!) This is basically a cheesy, tropey 90s-esque eurofantasy romance... with lesbians! AND I LOVED IT. Stoic, protective, crossdressing butch bodyguard and feisty, headstrong princess yesss. Many of the tropes are questionable-if-iddy (eg there's a bunch of dub con kisses that "don't count") to outright unfortunate ("swarthy barbarians", really?) and it is SUPER earnest but the ratio of cheese I enjoyed to cheese I didn't worked for me. nb the cover art whitewashes the bodyguard, who has a dark olive complexion which is a bit exoticised.
Apparently the sequel is about the buxom lesbian chambermaid, SOUNDS GOOD.
Ask the Moon by Rose Lerner: Speaking of sequels about feisty maids! A really fun regency m/f romance about a cheerful maid (who showed up in a previous book) and an uptight-but-secretly -passionate butler. Turns out the sexy butler trope works for me WAY better when he's not a servant of the person he's being sexy at(*). Lots of interesting exploration of life for servants at the time too, manages to be light and optimistic without glossing over the drudgery and vulnerability too much.
Movies/TV:
What We Do In The Shadows: Hilarious mockumentary about a group of vampires sharing a house in Wellington, New Zealand. Recced to me by everyone but I was putting off watching until I was in the mood for dark humour about a bunch of mass murdering dudes. Which is indeed what it is, but I was in the right mood and loved it. Also, given the premise it is quite good natured and ends pretty happily (except for, you know. All the people who died bloody violent deaths onscreen) VERY straight-dude-humour, lampshading it with a single grumpy female character talking about them being a homoerotic boys club doesn't actually fix the problem, but not too obnoxious for me, and at least they didn't flinch from the homoeroticism. I really liked the use of special effects, it's mostly a low-key understated talking heads documentary but then someone flies or turns into a bat etc and it manages to feel weirdly natural and thus very disconcerting. Also the creators are mixed race and just cast themselves as 200+ year old Europeans which was a nice change from EVERY OTHER VAMPIRE STORY EVER.(**)
Azumanga Daioh disk...4? Second last one afaict: Continues to be fun!
Cam: Why are they all staring at that one girl in her underwear while another girl holds up HER underwear? This show is weird.
Me: No, see, it's supposed to be a study trip, but it turns out those two girls just want to go to the beach, so...
Cam: Ok, so why are they in their underwear NOW?
Me: That's what girls wear to play sport in Japan!
Cam: ...and their boobs are so big...
me: That's...one of the more flatchested characters....I NEVER SAID IT WAS FEMINIST.
(Many people do claim the show is feminist, and assume it is aimed at women, since it has lots of well rounded, relatable female characters and consistently passes the Bechdel test. I love it, but no)
Doctor Who Season 9: I was told I would probably enjoy this more than season 8 so I started with the initial 2 parter (it's 2 parters all the way this season apparently) Well made and I love Missy, but it's a Davros and daleks story and it kept pinging my disabled-people-as-monsters button more and more until I had to stop. Taking a break then will look up what the next few stories are about and give it another go.
Games:
Eventide: Slavic Fable (Collector's Edition): A fun hidden object game where you are a woman saving her grandma, who owns a historical park full of secret Slavic fairytale magic. I have NO IDEA how accurate the portrayal of Slavic stuff is (asides from the RANDOM DREAMCATCHERS?? WHY?? IS THERE A HIDDEN OBJECT GAME QUOTA???) but the makers are Polish and it was a nice change from the usual. The contrast between the pretty backgrounds and poorly drawn/animated people was sometimes jarring. I've never gotten much out of any of the collector's edition extra stories I've played before but I actually liked this one, a cute little story about a little girl living in the park back when it was a real village. (Stream only ever sells Collector's editions afaict)
Fill and Cross: Pirate Riddles 2: My first Picross game! (well, knockoff) If you haven't played Picross, it's a kind of logic puzzle where you uncover a pixelated image from information about how many squares are coloured in each row and column. And I love it! This specific game is a very bare bones pirate themed collection of puzzles with pretty backgrounds, the only complaints I have are that (a) it makes my computer run very hot for a program that spends 90% of it's time showing a static image (b) Having to go back and get enough "stars" on earlier levels to unlock new sections gets boring. I have no idea how it compares to other picross games, but imagine they're similar?
Dark Parables: The Curse of Briar Rose: Decided to replay the first game in the series. It's ok, but the lack of a map gets very frustrating.
Dark Parables: Queen of Sands: One of the new ones since the series changed hands. I was SO SICK when I played this I can't judge it very well, but it was pretty and easy and didn't do anything to piss me off. I know less out of it reviewers have found the story lacking.
(*)Meanwhile I can enjoy the sexy-bodyguard-of-love-interest trope because it feels less servile? Or something, idk.
(**)I found this out while looking up the cast to try and see if the "distractingly red cheeked" guy was someone they'd already worked with or if they'd had to do some casting call for "As ordinary looking and red cheeked as possible". Turns out it was the former :)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/606325.html. There are
comments.