Reviews September 2021
Sep. 10th, 2021 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrLive action TV: We Are Ladyparts, Ted Lasso
TV Cartoons: Owl House season 2, Amphibia, Master of the Universe
Games: The World of Art, Spiritfarer
Books: The Raven Tower
Live action TV:
We Are Ladyparts: An uptight English Muslim woman ends up in an all-female-muslim punk band and shenanigans ensue. Exactly as great as everyone said it was! Heartwarming, funny, unapologetic, and with catchy songs. The treatment of the protagonist's anxiety is a bit "JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF" but in a well meaning way. Cam really enjoyed how it didn't feel like it was aimed at Educating People About The Muslim Experience but is instead just a really fun story about a messy but loveable group of characters who are muslims. Not a romance, and the protagonist seems straight (as, sadly, does the angry androgynously presenting woman many of us ship her with), but there's some background f/f.
Ted Lasso: Sitcom about a cheery American Football coach who gets hired to revitalise a British Soccer team. Also as good as everyone keeps saying it is! It's like a fluffier semi-English Scrubs or Parks and Recreation, minus much social commentary but with a fun cast of workmates whose lives are enjoyable to watch unfold. Made with an evident love of soccer but still enjoyable to someone like me with an active antipathy towards the game. There's a certain ~wholesome conventionality to it which sometimes rubs me the wrong way, like it was written by a mildly left leaning white person to be inoffensive to as wide an audience as possible. I looked it up and one of the writers created Scrubs, which tracks.
TV Cartoons:
Owl House season 2: adventure/comedy children's cartoon about a a girl who finds herself in a strange world of magic. This was GREAT and also EVEN QUEERER than season 1 :D Including a cool canon non binary character whose plot has nothing to do with their gender, it was only after the episode finished that I went "wait, were those they/them pronouns??" Content note for s2 episode 4: the plot is a fairly transparent metaphor for parents of disabled kids hurting them in pursuit of a cure, it was handled fairly well for a kid's show but does have a simplistically happy ending and was emotionally intense.
Amphibia: adventure/comedy children's cartoon about a a girl who finds herself in a strange world of talking frogs. It's mildly popular with people who like Owl House/Gravity Falls etc, and seems fine, but didn't grab me.
Master of the Universe: A reboot of the old He-Man cartoon. I watched like half the first episode and it...sure was like watching the old He-Man! I heard a major spoiler which I was curious to see play out but not curious enough to keep watching.
Games:
The World of Art (Windows only): Famous paintings as jigsaw puzzles. Simple but effective. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles with good quality art, it gets me thinking about the usage of colour etc, so I went to see if someone had made something with public domain paintings and there it was! I got it for like $2 on special, it's not really worth the full price unless you really like the concept.
Spiritfarer: farming/basebuilding/quest game where you play a psychopomp helping people work through their feelings as they prepare to die. A lot more cute and cheery than you'd expect given the premise, and a lot of fun as a game, but after I said goodbye to the old woman with dementia and met a cute little kid spirit with a terminal disease my brain went THAT'S ENOUGH DEATH THANKS ACTUALLY and I haven't felt like playing since. Like it's tasteful and affirming and compassionate but also VERY MUCH ABOUT DEATH and I am a sook.
Books:
The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie: This is an enjoyable standalone fantasy novel about a prince coming home to unexpectedly find his uncle on the throne, which is undermined by being an adaptation of Hamlet. The fantasy worldbuilding is interesting, while I didn't connect with the characters as much as with some of her other books the main character (the prince's aide) is a likeable trans man whose transness comes up as relevant but doesn't define him, and the plot is engaging and emotionally and morally complex. Also the framing device is everything being told in second person by an absolutely fascinating character with a lot to say about society, stories, and gods. But I kept being distracted by how Hamlet-y the book both was and wasn't- like, there's two characters who are obviously Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but their whole personality is Creepy Twin. More significantly, the prince is hampered by his fatal flaw...which is to be hotheadedly decisive?? There's too many other changes for it to work as "what if Hamlet was NOT paralysed with self doubt", it plays things too straight for much of the plot to feel very subversive, and it's not set on Earth so doesn't work as 'the real story Hamlet is based on'. I spent most of the book irritatedly thinking "WHY IS THIS TRYING TO BE HAMLET?? IT WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER IF IT JUST DID IT'S OWN THING". In the end I think I get what she was going for, and she ends up subverting some aspects of Hamlet in interesting ways, but it didn't totally work for me. Also I'm glad I was warned that the ending is very abrupt. It works for what the story is doing, but is still a bit jarring.
TV Cartoons: Owl House season 2, Amphibia, Master of the Universe
Games: The World of Art, Spiritfarer
Books: The Raven Tower
Live action TV:
We Are Ladyparts: An uptight English Muslim woman ends up in an all-female-muslim punk band and shenanigans ensue. Exactly as great as everyone said it was! Heartwarming, funny, unapologetic, and with catchy songs. The treatment of the protagonist's anxiety is a bit "JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF" but in a well meaning way. Cam really enjoyed how it didn't feel like it was aimed at Educating People About The Muslim Experience but is instead just a really fun story about a messy but loveable group of characters who are muslims. Not a romance, and the protagonist seems straight (as, sadly, does the angry androgynously presenting woman many of us ship her with), but there's some background f/f.
Ted Lasso: Sitcom about a cheery American Football coach who gets hired to revitalise a British Soccer team. Also as good as everyone keeps saying it is! It's like a fluffier semi-English Scrubs or Parks and Recreation, minus much social commentary but with a fun cast of workmates whose lives are enjoyable to watch unfold. Made with an evident love of soccer but still enjoyable to someone like me with an active antipathy towards the game. There's a certain ~wholesome conventionality to it which sometimes rubs me the wrong way, like it was written by a mildly left leaning white person to be inoffensive to as wide an audience as possible. I looked it up and one of the writers created Scrubs, which tracks.
TV Cartoons:
Owl House season 2: adventure/comedy children's cartoon about a a girl who finds herself in a strange world of magic. This was GREAT and also EVEN QUEERER than season 1 :D Including a cool canon non binary character whose plot has nothing to do with their gender, it was only after the episode finished that I went "wait, were those they/them pronouns??" Content note for s2 episode 4: the plot is a fairly transparent metaphor for parents of disabled kids hurting them in pursuit of a cure, it was handled fairly well for a kid's show but does have a simplistically happy ending and was emotionally intense.
Amphibia: adventure/comedy children's cartoon about a a girl who finds herself in a strange world of talking frogs. It's mildly popular with people who like Owl House/Gravity Falls etc, and seems fine, but didn't grab me.
Master of the Universe: A reboot of the old He-Man cartoon. I watched like half the first episode and it...sure was like watching the old He-Man! I heard a major spoiler which I was curious to see play out but not curious enough to keep watching.
Games:
The World of Art (Windows only): Famous paintings as jigsaw puzzles. Simple but effective. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles with good quality art, it gets me thinking about the usage of colour etc, so I went to see if someone had made something with public domain paintings and there it was! I got it for like $2 on special, it's not really worth the full price unless you really like the concept.
Spiritfarer: farming/basebuilding/quest game where you play a psychopomp helping people work through their feelings as they prepare to die. A lot more cute and cheery than you'd expect given the premise, and a lot of fun as a game, but after I said goodbye to the old woman with dementia and met a cute little kid spirit with a terminal disease my brain went THAT'S ENOUGH DEATH THANKS ACTUALLY and I haven't felt like playing since. Like it's tasteful and affirming and compassionate but also VERY MUCH ABOUT DEATH and I am a sook.
Books:
The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie: This is an enjoyable standalone fantasy novel about a prince coming home to unexpectedly find his uncle on the throne, which is undermined by being an adaptation of Hamlet. The fantasy worldbuilding is interesting, while I didn't connect with the characters as much as with some of her other books the main character (the prince's aide) is a likeable trans man whose transness comes up as relevant but doesn't define him, and the plot is engaging and emotionally and morally complex. Also the framing device is everything being told in second person by an absolutely fascinating character with a lot to say about society, stories, and gods. But I kept being distracted by how Hamlet-y the book both was and wasn't- like, there's two characters who are obviously Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but their whole personality is Creepy Twin. More significantly, the prince is hampered by his fatal flaw...which is to be hotheadedly decisive?? There's too many other changes for it to work as "what if Hamlet was NOT paralysed with self doubt", it plays things too straight for much of the plot to feel very subversive, and it's not set on Earth so doesn't work as 'the real story Hamlet is based on'. I spent most of the book irritatedly thinking "WHY IS THIS TRYING TO BE HAMLET?? IT WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER IF IT JUST DID IT'S OWN THING". In the end I think I get what she was going for, and she ends up subverting some aspects of Hamlet in interesting ways, but it didn't totally work for me. Also I'm glad I was warned that the ending is very abrupt. It works for what the story is doing, but is still a bit jarring.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-10 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 12:30 pm (UTC)Yes!! Like she was saying 'see, Hamlet's an asshole if you look at things from everyone else's POV' and I'm like "Yes, obviously, but not that kind of asshole!"
no subject
Date: 2021-09-10 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 12:28 pm (UTC)Yes, I eventually decided that was the good thing about it being Hamlet, plus the reverse: it's not actually Hamlet, that's just our pattern matching brains adding value judgements and narrative framing that doesn't entirely apply, and the contrast adds to the overall theme about the stories people tell. But I feel like she could have made that aspect work better somehow.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-10 11:14 am (UTC)And I managed to completely ignore the Hamlet-iness of The Raven Tower while reading? I think I liked the narrator enough to just roll with it.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 12:25 pm (UTC)I didn't even get to the sad part with the kid, I just extrapolated from the other characters and went NOPE.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-10 02:43 pm (UTC)This made me burst out laughing so hard that my son ran in to find out what was so funny, but I'm not sure he appreciated it as much as I did. XD
no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 12:24 pm (UTC)It's a great show, I hope you enjoy it once you get there!
no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 09:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-11 12:21 pm (UTC)I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd done the same!