in a more enlightened time
yo yo here we go here we go
My social media vacation/mental health break has pretty much come to an end, although I’ve been unfollowing and in general paring down my internet experience to something more manageable. It had become this behemoth sort of thing that I felt I had not much control over, and that’s not fun! It’s been fun again, this week.
Also fun (and the reason this missive is later than usual) is that one of my best internet pals has been visiting from the UK, so I’ve spent my days off being in the actual physical room with some of my favourite people who are usually just words on a screen. A delight! I also got to play tourist in my own city, which I love. We went to the Hirshhorn Museum and saw a bunch, including this collaborative piece by Yoko Ono.
Notable Breakfast
Dog Thing
in honor of national dog day, my dogs tolerated this nonsense
Mixed Media
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy came out last week, and I played it immediately. I’ve spoken before about how much I love the Uncharted series, and this game is maybe my favourite thing an existing franchise has ever done. Uncharted has always been mostly about Nathan Drake, and it has a great cast of secondary characters, but they were always meant as just that: secondary. Lost Legacy took two of them and gave them their own adventure.
Lost Legacy is about Chloe Frazer, a thief and antiquities expert like Nathan Drake, who first showed up in Uncharted 2. She starts out as a rival for Nate’s affections, but by the end (she’s also in Uncharted 3), she’s just a friend and ally.
In addition to Chloe, there’s Nadine Ross, a mercenary who is one of the villains in Uncharted 4. I was really, really excited to see these two paired up, and the game did not disappoint.
It was a much smaller game than the usual Uncharted offerings, which clock in at around 15-20 hours of playtime, usually (for me). Lost Legacy took me just over 8, and was a much more contained story. Which isn’t a criticism, although I would happily have spent many more hours with Chloe and Nadine. It was full of all of the puzzles and adventure and jumping from trains that I’ve come to expect from Uncharted games, and fully gorgeous. There was no reinventing the wheel here, in terms of mechanics.
But it made such great use of Chloe and Nadine, who are both flawed, interesting characters. And I cannot overstate how INCREDIBLE it was to play a game that was 99% women talking, and laughing, and fighting, and challenging each other and saving each other. I found myself just grinning in delight pretty much constantly. It was a great, great game, and if Naughty Dog shifts gears and makes the Uncharted franchise all about Chloe and Nadine from here on out, I’ll be in that line for the midnight release.
I finally finished the 3rd season of Haikyuu!! I’d been putting it off because I knew it was going to be stressful as hell. And it was! But ultimately extremely satisfying. I love those volleyball idiots. Netflix put up the 2nd half of the season of Little Witch Academia, and I gobbled it up. It’s so, so good. Just a perfect show.
I read A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, the sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which I read last year and loved. Closed and Common picks up right where The Long Way ends, but is a very different book. I think I liked it more? It’s hard to compare them, and I love them both a lot. Becky Chambers is great at what she does. I read Spinning by Tillie Walden, a memoir about growing up queer framed around figure skating. It was incredibly good, and I cried a bunch. I read KJ Charles’ new book, Spectred Isle, and loved it. It’s a new time period for her, but she handled it well. I also read its sort-of prequel The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal, which was a different sort of thing–a first person account of the Watson to a ghost hunter’s Holmes–but I loved the format. I read Clueless: Senior Year, a graphic novel follow up to the beloved 90s movie, and it was perfect. Also good: Castle in the Stars: the Space Race of 1869, a fun, Verne-ish adventure.
It’s not music, but it is audio, so I’ll put this here: my entire life has been consumed by The Adventure Zone, a dungeons & dragons podcast. It’s just recently finished, so I’m years behind the times, but am catching up quickly. It’s so good.
I saw In This Corner of the World, about a girl living near Hiroshima during World War II. It was beautiful, extremely sad but moving, and I was very glad to have caught it on the big screen. The first Ghibli Festival movie was When Marnie Was There, which I hadn’t seen before! It was lovely, but a bit slow. The final Ghibli Fest movie was Kiki’s Delivery Service. Farewell, Ghibli Fest! I watched Doukyuusei (Classmates), about two very different boys who fall in love. It was enormously sweet. Finally, towards the end of my social media exile, I treated myself to a rewatch of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, one of my very favourite films.
Anxiety Pyjamas
Fics I Shouted About
Too Many Tequila, or, Doreen Green and Nancy Whitehead Do the Authentic College Experience by awesomocity // Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Doreen/Nancy. This perfect fic in which Doreen and Nancy wake up in a situation also features trans!Nancy, and I love it all the way around.
Half a Chance by ratherunnecessary // Yuri!!! On Ice, Yuri/Otabek, future fic. This is a fic about Yuri falling in love, fucking it up, fucking everything else up, and then somehow ending up just where he needs to be. Plus some of the best Yuri/Otabek banter I’ve seen.
don’t care if the world knows by aknightly // My Hero Academia, Midoriya/Todoroki, 5+1. Everyone seems to know how Todoroki is feeling, except the person he’s feeling everything about.
the meaning of donuts by Katranga // Voltron, Lance/Keith. Lance and Keith meander from friendship to more. Keith gets there first.
In Transit by Mysecretfanmoments // Haikyuu!!, Hinata/Kageyama. Hinata and Kageyama stand next to each other on a train. I love fics in which characters who are so focused on one thing have to learn the vocabulary to describe how they feel about another person and this has that in SPADES.
Eternal Tango by counterheist // Yuri!!! On Ice, Victor/Yuuri, Gundam Wing AU. The earliest fanfic I ever wrote was for Gundam Wing, so I was WAY INTO THIS. It’s actually an AU of Endless Waltz, the OVA that followed the show, and it’s incredible. Perfect.
Lastly
Whew.
hit me with a reply or find me sometimes here: tumblr I twitter I instagram