Comics, books, games, and anime
Sep. 25th, 2015 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrGraphic Novels:
The Wicked and the Divine: there's a queer comic book club this Sunday discussing volume 1, and since I've been meaning to read it anyway I bought the digital version. It was, as others have said, an interesting premise with middling execution, but it does have a lot of lgbt characters and an ethnically diverse cast. Basically: a group of young people have become/realised they are the incarnations of various gods. This means being immortal, having powers like fire, and the ability to "sing" in incomprehensible tongues that cause listeners to be inspired/overcome. So they act exactly like rock stars, with popular cheery goddesses, literally underground gothic death gods etc. The main character is a teenage god fangirl who gets caught up in a mystery around the gods when she befriends "Luci" (Lucifer), basically rule 63 Sandman Lucifer. The plot is moderately interesting though I've been massively spoiled for some major twists by tumblr. The characters are...ok. The dialogue is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is and mistakes sexual references and clunky one liners for wit. The art is good asides from the bland expressions, like it's traced from 3D models. I'm in that annoying in between place where I'd like to see what happens next but don't like it enough to spend any more money or effort on it. I think I'll wait until it's done then see if I can be bothered.
Miss Marvel (vols 1,2 and 3): this is the other diverse comic the teenagers on tumblr keep posting gifs of and I liked it a lot more, though it's less my kind of thing. A lower middle class muslim teenage superhero fangirl gains super powers, and decides to defend Jersey from evil. It's a pretty straightfoward "optimistic teen gains superpowers" story, but charmingly done, with likable characters, light humour, thrilling fights etc. There's some heavy handed Young Adult Fiction elements, like Consent Is Important, Teenagers Have Value But So Do Parents etc, as well as some plain silly aspects, it felt very aimed at young people. But I still quite enjoyed it as someone who was once a teen fangirl and still gets a kick out of imagining befriending Wolverine (this scene was so cute). Also there's a little Agents of Shield crossover at the end of Vol 3 with Simmons (and Coulson) which I enjoyed.
Books:
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner: A fairly cute regency romance. A poor, fat middle class widow can provide any new husband with a vote in an upcoming election. The upper class disabled brother of one of the candidates tries to find her a suitable groom, but then starts falling for her himself. They have a nice relationship based on mutual respect, and there's some sweet, consent heavy, mildly fem-dom sex. The class differences are used as a convenient hurdle then discarded for an implausibly fluffy ending but I didn't mind very much. Some mild humour and social commentary. I liked that the various antagonists were terated like real people without glossing over the pain they'd caused, even if it sometimes felt a bit like a Captain Awkward post with a 19th century veneer.
Anime:
Snow White With The Red Hair: One more episode to go! But so far it's a really sweet and gentle shoujo fairytale romance/female-character-finds-herself-after-difficulties story.
My Love Story! Cute and charming to the end! I was a bit worried it would get a bit Heterosexual Happy Endings For Everyone but it didn't (still heterosexuality assumed for everyone mind you) I continue to ship Suna/Takeo/Yamato and suspect the show does too, in it's heart of hearts, though doubt it will ever go there.
Games:
Avalon Solitaire 2: The first one wouldn't play on my computer, and this one throws you in without much explanation. Basically, playing solitaire games progresses you up the board and helps you upgrade your city. There are regular roadblocks checking that your score is high enough to progress to the next level, but no obvious tests on the city upgrades. I kept buying them anyway, but have no idea what would have happened if I didn't. I'm now at the point where I have bought every city upgrade and all the powerups (things like "see what card is on top of the deck" etc) so am just hoarding money and using it to buy wild cards. Which I will need, because afaict the final roadblock requires you to go back and get a perfect score on almost all 300 games. This is going to take some work. The plot is paper thin, boring, and happens off screen. But it's been an unobjectionable way to fill in time.
The Chronicles of Emerland Solitaire: cheesy fantasy themed solitaire game with some hidden object games. Had more plot than Avalon but that plot was annoyingly dude heavy and cliched. The boss fight at the end was surprisingly exciting.
The Wicked and the Divine: there's a queer comic book club this Sunday discussing volume 1, and since I've been meaning to read it anyway I bought the digital version. It was, as others have said, an interesting premise with middling execution, but it does have a lot of lgbt characters and an ethnically diverse cast. Basically: a group of young people have become/realised they are the incarnations of various gods. This means being immortal, having powers like fire, and the ability to "sing" in incomprehensible tongues that cause listeners to be inspired/overcome. So they act exactly like rock stars, with popular cheery goddesses, literally underground gothic death gods etc. The main character is a teenage god fangirl who gets caught up in a mystery around the gods when she befriends "Luci" (Lucifer), basically rule 63 Sandman Lucifer. The plot is moderately interesting though I've been massively spoiled for some major twists by tumblr. The characters are...ok. The dialogue is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is and mistakes sexual references and clunky one liners for wit. The art is good asides from the bland expressions, like it's traced from 3D models. I'm in that annoying in between place where I'd like to see what happens next but don't like it enough to spend any more money or effort on it. I think I'll wait until it's done then see if I can be bothered.
Miss Marvel (vols 1,2 and 3): this is the other diverse comic the teenagers on tumblr keep posting gifs of and I liked it a lot more, though it's less my kind of thing. A lower middle class muslim teenage superhero fangirl gains super powers, and decides to defend Jersey from evil. It's a pretty straightfoward "optimistic teen gains superpowers" story, but charmingly done, with likable characters, light humour, thrilling fights etc. There's some heavy handed Young Adult Fiction elements, like Consent Is Important, Teenagers Have Value But So Do Parents etc, as well as some plain silly aspects, it felt very aimed at young people. But I still quite enjoyed it as someone who was once a teen fangirl and still gets a kick out of imagining befriending Wolverine (this scene was so cute). Also there's a little Agents of Shield crossover at the end of Vol 3 with Simmons (and Coulson) which I enjoyed.
Books:
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner: A fairly cute regency romance. A poor, fat middle class widow can provide any new husband with a vote in an upcoming election. The upper class disabled brother of one of the candidates tries to find her a suitable groom, but then starts falling for her himself. They have a nice relationship based on mutual respect, and there's some sweet, consent heavy, mildly fem-dom sex. The class differences are used as a convenient hurdle then discarded for an implausibly fluffy ending but I didn't mind very much. Some mild humour and social commentary. I liked that the various antagonists were terated like real people without glossing over the pain they'd caused, even if it sometimes felt a bit like a Captain Awkward post with a 19th century veneer.
Anime:
Snow White With The Red Hair: One more episode to go! But so far it's a really sweet and gentle shoujo fairytale romance/female-character-finds-herself-after-difficulties story.
My Love Story! Cute and charming to the end! I was a bit worried it would get a bit Heterosexual Happy Endings For Everyone but it didn't (still heterosexuality assumed for everyone mind you) I continue to ship Suna/Takeo/Yamato and suspect the show does too, in it's heart of hearts, though doubt it will ever go there.
Games:
Avalon Solitaire 2: The first one wouldn't play on my computer, and this one throws you in without much explanation. Basically, playing solitaire games progresses you up the board and helps you upgrade your city. There are regular roadblocks checking that your score is high enough to progress to the next level, but no obvious tests on the city upgrades. I kept buying them anyway, but have no idea what would have happened if I didn't. I'm now at the point where I have bought every city upgrade and all the powerups (things like "see what card is on top of the deck" etc) so am just hoarding money and using it to buy wild cards. Which I will need, because afaict the final roadblock requires you to go back and get a perfect score on almost all 300 games. This is going to take some work. The plot is paper thin, boring, and happens off screen. But it's been an unobjectionable way to fill in time.
The Chronicles of Emerland Solitaire: cheesy fantasy themed solitaire game with some hidden object games. Had more plot than Avalon but that plot was annoyingly dude heavy and cliched. The boss fight at the end was surprisingly exciting.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-26 07:24 am (UTC)I went into it just looking for a fun and light fluffy read, and about my only complaint is that it is a bit too fluffy and thin for my tastes.
Amazon says there are multiple sequels:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=clockwork+dagger
Straightforward and heteronormative, there's no mention or implication that I can recall of anything non-heteronormative, which is both bad (All hetero! All the time!) and good (No homophobia here!)
There is a lot of grim* in the background and several characters with disabilities, none of which felt gratuitous or exploitative to me, but then I am less well informed than a lot of the other that read/post here.
Oh, and the first scene is pretty graphical in the damage done to a puppy, and then despite it being saved it is made very clear that freshly saved and healed puppy is due for an unpleasant end really soon. That may or not be a deal-breaker for folks.
(*) In the background of the world and the main character is a brutal war that comes across very much like World War One, and it's very clear that it is destroying the country and it's people, and yet, it never quite feels 'real'. I can't quite articulate *why* that is. Love interest is missing one leg below the knee, but is mostly barely disadvantaged by this due to the fantasy/steampunk prosthetic he already has at the start of the book.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-26 01:44 pm (UTC)Interesting, thanks! I'll bear it in mind!
no subject
Date: 2015-09-26 05:16 pm (UTC)and is this a rec or a pan?
no subject
Date: 2015-09-28 01:16 pm (UTC)A criticism, but not a super strong one, and I overall liked the book.