Things consumed lately

[alias_sqbr]

Anime:
Card Captor Sakura: The new show now we've finished Utena. We're watching via AnimeLab, and it's been ok though we have to use the laptop because I can't figure out how to get it on the tv. Anyway! A cute fun magical girl show. My friend had only seen the old, terrible US dub, and is enjoying noticing the differences, apparently Yuki being a fakeout love interest was totally cut.

D-Frag: About the shenanigans of a highschool game making club. Now I have access to dubs I watched the fluffiest looking dubbed thing in my queue when feeling too stupid for subs. It was, alas, too silly and nonsensical for me even in this state, and not funny enough (or...at all) to make up for it. Hapless dude is harassed by hot girls, meh.

Jo Jo's Fantastic Adventure: Exactly as weird and violent as everyone said. Not my thing, but interesting, and I appreciated the Savage Garden in the closing credits.

This boy is a Proffessional Wizard: An inoffensive but so far bland little m/m anime about a professional wizard. Got bored after one 5 minute episode. Strange animation style, like a graphic novel covered in photoshop filters.

Ace Attorney: Ran out of steam in the first episode, might try watching once they hit stuff I haven't played.

Manga:

Snow White with the Red Hair/Akagami no Shirayuki-hime: I can't remember if I said, but I watched season 2 and caught up on the manga. It's just really sweet and satisfying light fantasy with a female heroine and a touch of romance. Lots of mutual yearning between the prince hero and the herbalist heroine, with an unspoken agreement that they can't get married with the given political situation, but they still get some cute romantic moments. The rest of the cast is endearing, and there's a surprisingly fleshed out ot3 dynamic with the bodyguard Obi, a lot of people in fandom think the mangaka is making it as canon as the genre will allow. Anyway mostly just fun fantasy shenanigans.

Wolf Girl and Black Prince/Ōkami Shōjo to Kuro Ōji: I saw this recced as a shoujo romance that seems sexist but is actually self aware fun where the "douchebag hero/sweet heroine" dynamic is mutually enjoyable roleplay, and though it's not spelled out it did feel that way. I mean it's not less sexist than your average shoujo, and the hero's doucheyness is only 90% performative, but the other 10% of the time he gets called out by all the other characters, who have the same attitude as me: I wouldn't date him but she seems happy. And he's not sexually domineering which is a nice change. Aside from him everyone else is quite endearing, and nothing gets too angsty or unpleasant. Not deep, very straight, and a bit too much emphasis on LOVE IS ALL THAT MATTERS but a pleasant way to kill some time.

Games:
Squarecells: A picross variant from the maker of Hexcells. Fun, but short, and while I finished it I had to guess a few times and feel there are logical tricks I missed and had no hints towards.

The Wraiths of Eden: Hidden object game blatantly cribbing from Bioshock, except the protagonist is a woman rescuing her fiance and there's zero social commentary. Also the underwater city is never explained, it's just there. Pretty fun, but has some moderate gore and horror in parts.

Regency Solitaire: felt like playing it again, the romance plot is so dire but it really is pretty and a fun game. Am finding it much easier the second time through, but not so easy I'm going onto hard mode.

Books:

Untamed Anna Cowan: Regency romance about a bitter, pragmatic woman making an unexpected bargain to get the effete rake hero to stop sleeping with her married sister. I read this after reading skygiant's hilarious rec, which made it sound like enjoyably silly crossdressing romance. Which it is, but I enjoyed it way more unironically than I was expecting to, it was delightfully free of gender essentialism. Society cares what gender the characters are, and present as, but they seem entirely ambivalent, to the extent that the hero is pansexual and they are both in dresses for their first kiss. A lot of crossdressing romances involve angst about sexuality and "You thought it was a man but it is REALLY A LADY OMG THEY ARE SO DIFFERENT HOW TO RENCONCILE". Which I enjoy plenty. But in this book the hero crossdresses as a woman and the heroine knows, and it is barely a blip on her radar, she feels much the same about him either way (which is to say, INTENSELY PISSED OFF but also attracted which just pisses her off more) There's none of that "she was soft and smelled of woman/he was big and muscular and smelled of man" etc, they're the same height and she's stronger, darker, and less conventionally attractive. It was SO REFRESHING. The emotional arc was less unusual but 100% my jam, lots of self hatred and touching related Issues resolved with emotionally conflicted but intense makeouts and overpowering emotional connection :D :D Everything skygiants says about the worldbuilding making zero sense is absolutely true though, and it's underwritten in places in that typical "first novel" way. I look forward to seeing what the author does next!

Temptations of a Wallflower by Eva Leigh: felt like a cheerfully anachronistic regency romance to wash the fetishised classism/sexism of Regency Solitaire out of my hair, and it has been hitting the spot. Heroine is a well born wall flower who secretly writes smut, hero is a vicar who secretly reads it. I normally get put off by all the focus on sex in romances, but they're both made so miserable by sexual repression, and get such happiness from recognising the hidden, sex positive passion in the other that it felt really charming. It's one of those romances which hits a mostly happy resolution halfway through so I'm taking a break before some likely VERY ANNOYING conflict happens to drag things out for a few more hundred pages. It's massively anachronistic, just using the regency setting to up the sexual repression angst, based more on other romance novels than the real 19th century, but it works for what it is.