alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
I think I'm up to three? Something like that.

Movies: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Live Action TV: Word of Honour
Anime: Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan

Games:
Mushroom Cats
Antichamber
Cat Quest
Thimbleweed Park
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: exploding train (train)
A Marvel animated series about alternate universe versions of various characters and stories. Some of these were a lot of fun, like the first episode about a world where Peggy Carter becomes Captain America. Others were trite and OOC and seemed to exist mainly for the animators to have fun. Still, the animators obviously were having fun, even the dumbass episodes were fun to watch on a visual level.

The episodes start out as stand-alone stories, but the last two episodes tie everything together into a REALLY SILLY crossover story that solves everything with a bunch of nonsensical violence.

This show will have zero appeal to anyone not already invested in, and willing to put up with the flaws of, the MCU. If you're only interested in specific characters, you could just watch individual episodes, so I've done a summary of each below the cut.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
TV: Loki

Webcomics: Under the Oak Tree, Tigress Queen

Games: The Lost Art of Innkeeping, Calico, Nekopara: Catboys Paradise, Hive Time, Ruya
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: Alien city skyline (atlantis)
I have been watching and enjoying the Marvel show Loki. It's overall quite good, asides from the very unfortunate choice to make the two most significant black female characters humourless killjoys who want to murder the main character, while the white dudes get to be fun. Their characters aren't totally awful individually (like many people, they have reason to want to kill Loki!), but taken together...nng :/

But other than that it's a fun, weird little show about Loki getting tangled up with the secret organisation in charge of maintaining the timeline of the universe. As with Wandvision there's twists and turns that make it fun to watch week to week, Cam and I have fun watching together and then discussing it.

No spoilers but more details )
alias_sqbr: exploding train (train)
Non spoilery review: it was exactly what I expected from the trailers: bloated but not unwatchable. Too many characters, all spread out amongst simultaneous plots relying on unconvincing contrivances to create hollow spectacle. But with enough explosions, space imagery, and mildly amusing/touching moments to keep me from getting too bored.

Also, the race and gender dynamics are Not Great. The more time passes since watching it the more the short term OOH PRETTY wears off and I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth.

If anyone is curious about what happens to their faves etc I am happy to answer questions!

EDIT: Have decided to screen comments so people can ask without being spoiled for other things.
alias_sqbr: Torchwood spoilers for various episode numbers: Jack dies (torchwood spoilers)
I had a great time at the con, but spent most of it resting. On the upside, this means I don't have much to write up. This was the first panel I went to and I wrote more detailed notes than I did for any of the others haha.

Captain America Vs America:
There were two old school comics fans, including Stephen Dedman who did his Phd on scifi and the US military, and one younger fan who got into the comics via the movies. They made for a nice variety of points of view.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: exploding train (train)
This was exactly what I expected from the trailer: a well made, entertaining superhero film with great fights, nice character moments and utterly repulsive political subtext. On the plus side it abandons it's pretense to ~realism about halfway through and becomes purely character/explosion driven, at which point I stopped thinking "bloody Americans" every five minutes and was actually able to enjoy it.

Spoilers for the basic premise and political subtext stuff, but not the rest of the plot or the ending )
alias_sqbr: exploding train (train)
No spoilers but under a cut anyway because I know some people want to go in with no preconceptions.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: (happy dragon)
A bunch of entertaining if implausible things. They all have female main characters but ended up being about dudes a lot of the time.

There Will Be Phlogiston by Alexis Hall: (which is free right now!) a short, unabashedly silly but goodhearted steampunk m/m/f romance. Had basically no plot, it was just a lot of the central dude going "So I really like you and you are obviously miserable let's have amazing sex and be happy" and both other LIs going "But you are common and I just CAN'T" and him sighing manfully before they realise the error of their ways and everyone lives happily ever after. Felt very fanfic-ish, I found myself thinking of it as teen!Viviene/Iron Bull/Dorian minus all the kink and political complexity (and with everyone white and human). Various conflicts etc are glossed over in favour of like 2 chapters at the end of pure cuddles and sex and found family fluff. The characters were slightly different from romance novel norms, the woman was genuinely kind of a jerk in a way only men usually get to be, and while the central dude was Super Manly And Large of the "even men want him" variety he was SUCH A SWEETIE deep down, his main flaw was feeling more like wish fulfilment for readers identifying with the two more prickly LIs than a real character in his own right. Note: the gay male LI experiences some pretty intense internal and external homophobia. Also, this is the 5th in a series, the world building could be confusing but I was happy just to let it wash over me, all you really need to know is that the central guy made his money as some kind of miner and the other two are upper class. I'm pondering reading some of the others but apparently they have phonetically spelled dialect and look a bit twee.

Trade Me by Courtney Milan: Poor, bitter Chinese American woman finds herself swapping lives with charming billionaire fellow college student. I liked this as a drama about two 20 somethings figuring out themselves and their families (the complicated relationship between the main character and her activist immigrant mother was REALLY well drawn) which explored class and stuff, but it didn't entirely click for me as a romance, I'm not sure why. Still it's been cool watching Courtney Milan push the boundaries of inclusiveness in romance novels more and more, the next book in this series is about the main character of "Trade Me"s trans woman best friend which sounds great.

Hatoful Boyfriend: finally finished this, I read a Lets Play a few years ago so knew the ending was intense and was kind of putting it off. Overall a great game for what it is: an increasingly cracky, bizarre, but surprisingly heartfelt parody of dating sims where all the love interests are birds. ALLLL about the dudes in the end but I mind less when it's pigeons. Has a lot more death and darkness and Weirdness About Illness than you might expect from the genre!

Agent Carter: The season finished in a pretty satisfying way. Not perfect (POC men largely exist to say one line then have something awful happen to them), but a fun 40s spy thriller/drama with some nice continuity within the larger MCU. I was happily surprised that they didn't go anywhere really awful with the canonically disabled character! They overdid people saying "you know Peggy will never date a cripple" but mostly he got to just be a flawed but mostly decent and competent guy whose disability was not his only defining feature. Would have been nice to cast an actual disabled person but I'm pretty happy with "neither evil nor faking".

Profile

alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
alias_sqbr

September 2025

S M T W T F S
 1234 56
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930    

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Sep. 25th, 2025 11:00 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios