Favorite Things From Summer 2022: Sinister Clouds, Bad Mushrooms, and a Sworcerer Named Moss

It’s a four-month blog this time around! I missed May because I got covid and slept for a month, and now it’s suddenly September. 😬 In August I took my first proper vacation in 3 years and boy was it exquisite. Here are some things I enjoyed this summer…

MOVIES

Nope
Every time I see a new Jordan Peele movie, it takes over my brain. Just like with Get Out and Us, I was completely absorbed the whole way through and thought about Nope long after I left the theater.

This sci-fi-horror-western follows OJ and Emerald (played by Daniel Kaluuya and the excellent Keke Palmer), the children of a famous Hollywood horse wrangling family, who are trying to keep the business afloat after the mysterious death of their father. But strange things are happening in the clouds above their remote ranch, the horses are getting spooked, and when the siblings set up security cameras around the house, what they see is bananas. Nope is weird, funny, scary, really unsettling, and grandly epic. I love Peele‘s sense of atmosphere and vibe and the way his movies embrace surreal storytelling; not everything makes sense, but it all works towards the feel of the film. I’m really glad I was able to see this one in a theater with big sound and a big screen. I’m also glad I didn’t know what to expect, since I was constantly surprised.

BOOKS

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
A re-imagining of Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher, What Moves the Dead follows a retired soldier who is summoned to the crumbling house of a dying childhood friend. What they discover when they arrive are possessed rabbits, a glowing lake, an abundance of strange mushrooms, and a mysterious illnesses effecting everyone in the house. I loved Kingfisher’s mushroomy take on the classic story and would definitely recommend it. I’m currently reading another good retelling of this story which I’ll talk about next time - apparently Fall of the House of Usher was swirling around the collective conscience recently. (HORROR FICTION)

Fatal Fidelity series by Rien Gray
After living with an abusive husband for 10 years, Justine hires the mysterious, nonbinary assassin Campbell to kill him. That’s the set-up for this this dark romance series from Rien Gray and if you can get on board with murderous protagonists with no remorse for their actions, then I would recommend it. (DARK CONTEMPORARY SPICY ROMANCE)

Murder for the Modern Girl by Kendall Kulper
A Jazz Age supernatural mystery/love story about a mind-reading society girl who spends her evenings poisoning bad men and a shape-shifting morgue janitor with a mind for forensics who discovers her lethal hobby. A sinister gangster and a mortuary meet-cute bring the two together and they end up working to dismantle a network of organized crime and government corruption. I enjoyed this book and particularly liked the weird way the shape-shifting manifested. (YOUNG ADULT-ISH PARANORMAL FICTION)

Strange Love by Ann Aguirre
When I picked up Strange Love, I assumed it was going to be an entertaining but forgettable alien romance. But surprise, I loved it? The main characters are Beryl, a wayward human with a disappointing life, and Zylar, an awkward alien who accidentally abducts Beryl (and her dog), thinking he is rescuing the prospective bride he met on the internet. Unable to return Beryl to Earth due to a computer malfunction, the two decide to make the best out of a bad situation and travel to Zylar’s home planet to take part in a gladiatorial marriage competition. Like you do. I was constantly charmed by the characters (especially Beryl’s dog who gains the ability to speak) and the rational way Beryl and Zylar dealt with problems. I immediately downloaded the other two books in this series and am looking forward to reading them soon. (SCI-FI ROMANCE)

The Faerie Hounds of York and Obsidian Island by Arden Powell
A great new author discovery I made this summer was Arden Powell. They write in a lot of different genres, but I’d say both Faerie Hounds of York and Obsidian Island fall under the dark fantasy adventure + queer period romance umbrella. Something that really stood out for me in both books is Powell’s unexpected narrative choices - neither story takes the expected path and that made them both memorable.

Faerie Hounds takes place across the desolate moors of 1800s England, where magic is both real and dangerous. William wakes up in the middle of a faerie ring, with no memory of how he got there. Luckily, he soon crosses paths with John, a mysterious traveller who knows all about faeries and magic and is able to help him escape. But the faerie ring is only the beginning; it turns out William has been cursed and the two men have to figure out how to dispel the magic before it kills him. (DARK FANTASY ROMANCE)

A surreal blend of Master and Commander and Annihilation, Obsidian Island follows naturalist Emery and ship captain James, best friends who find themselves shipwrecked on a strange volcanic island following an unexpected storm. It quickly becomes apparent that things here are Not Right. As James and Emery try to survive the dangerous flora and fauna, a sinister force begins pulling them towards a colossal red tree in the center of the island. Other than a brief reprieve of flashbacks to their college days, Obsidian Island is a non-stop barrage of things getting progressively worse for these characters. So while I was engrossed in the story, I was also frequently exhausted; I had to be in the right mood for James and Emery’s Very Traumatic Island Adventure but I would definitely still recommend it. (HORROR ADVENTURE ROMANCE)

That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming
As you may guess from the title, this is an extremely silly book. The second installment in Kimberly Lemming’s Mead Mishaps series, TTIGDaYaLPaaW follows a cheese maker named Brie, who accidentally hits a cute werewolf in the face with a love potion. Shenanigans ensue. Both books in this series (the other being That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon) are very tongue-in-cheek, with modern prose and humor in a spicy romantic fantasy setting. You can tell Lemming is a fan of the classic bodice-ripper genre and is having a blast playing around with tropes and traditions. (SPICY FUNNY FANTASY ROMANCE)

GAMES

Elden Ring
The only thing I have played for the past four months has been Elden Ring. I’ve put about 100 hours into it and still have things to do. This game is ENORMOUS. I played a bit of Bloodborne a few years ago, but I didn’t expect that I would be able to get so far in this notoriously hard FromSoft game. I’m really proud of myself and Moss, my level 138 sword-weilding sorcerer (sworcerer if you will). I’ve been having so much fun exploring the seemingly endless game locations and I’ve looked up so many wikis and walkthroughs that Google automatically knows I’m searching for Elden Ring tips now.

PODCASTS

Mom Can’t Cook! A DCOM Podcast
So yeah, I’m obsessed with this podcast. I’ve listened to each episode easily 10 times or more. Hosts Luke Westaway and Andy Farrant discussing the very specific topic of Disney Channel Original Movies from the 90s to mid 2000s is incredibly funny and charming. You don’t have to have watched the DCOM’s they dissect to enjoy the show (I certainly haven’t). Mom Can’t Cook is easily one of my favorite pieces of 2022 media. Apple | Spotify | Libsyn

ART

In June, I once again had a tent at the Lincoln Arts Festival which was extremely hot but still a lot of fun. I may be a super awkward introvert but I really like meeting people at events like this. Plus I won an award!

In July, I took part in a public art project sponsored by the Lux Center and Constellation Studios. I carved a woodblock print that was wheat-pasted on buildings around town along with work by 8 other artists. Of course my print was a borb. This was a different sort of project for me and I had a lot of fun; maybe i’ll try more printmaking in the future.

And finally, here are two new collages I finished this summer; one for Gallery1988’s tv-themed IDIOT BOX show in August and one for Gallery 9 here in Lincoln.

“He Went That Way” (inspired by FLEABAG)

“Tiny Screaming Armadillo” (inspired by screaming hairy armadillos which exist and are amazing)

Favorite Things From March & April: Bumbling Pirates, Young Love, and So Many Quests

I really enjoy writing about my favorite things each month - it helps me remember what I was enjoying at certain times in my life and maybe introduces someone to a movie/book/game/show that they’ll like - but sheesh, it constantly feels weird to talk about fun movies and books when there is so much sadness and anger in the news every day. I had a little intro written where I talked about how great it was to have books and movies that exceeded my expectations in March and April, and then my brain instantly went into guilt mode for being happy when so many things are bad. It’s a weird mental road to navigate. But I think it’s important to find joy where you can, especially when things are dark, and writing my silly little blog about things that make me happy hopefully puts a speck of positivity into the universe.

MOVIES & TV

Our Flag Means Death
Led by Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby, I expected Our Flag Means Death to be a very silly pirate show, but it ended up being a very silly pirate show that is also a surprisingly genuine and sweet love story. The show follows super fictionalized versions of actual pirates Steed Bonnet and Blackbeard. Steed is a wealthy gentleman and a dandy, who is not at all cut out for pirate life yet persists at trying to be a pirate. His comically chaotic crew is equally unprepared for actual piracy. After bumbling their way through a few adventures, Steed draws the eye of the infamous pirate Blackbeard, who shows up intending to kill Steed and take over the ship, but ends up befriending the crew and falling in love. I desperately hope OFMD gets a second season since it ends on a major cliffhanger. (HBO Max)

Everything Everywhere All At Once
This movie is bananas. It’s simultaneously the emotional story of Evelyn, a frazzled Chinese American woman (played by the excellent Michelle Yeoh) learning to value her family and deconstruct generational stigmas while trying to get her taxes filed, a dimension-crossing sci-fi adventure involving a cosmic bagel, and a martial arts action epic. There are a couple scenes where the weirdness goes a bit overboard and detracts from the story (thinking of one fight in particular) but for the most part all these elements work really well together. Also Ke Huy Quan, who plays Evelyn’s optimistic and warm-hearted husband, is wonderful and steals every scene he is in.

The Batman
Batman adaptations that I tend to like best are ones set in a surreal sort of Gotham - I’m far more willing to suspend my disbelief and let things slide when the action is taking place somewhere that doesn’t seem real. This may be one of the reasons I enjoyed The Batman so much. Instead of grounding the action in reality, The Batman is set in a dark, stylized, rain-soaked noir city - the claustrophobic vibes reminded me a lot of David Fincher’s Seven. The action of the movie follows a young, obsessive caped crusader as he tries to solve a mysterious string of gruesome murders and learns that “vengeance” is not the best motivation. Robert Pattinson makes an enjoyably melancholy and messed up Batman who has a good character arc, and the supporting cast is great. I’m glad I saw it in the theatre and have enjoyed watching it again on streaming.

Heartstopper
Heartstopper is one of my favorite graphic novel/comic series so I figured going in to this Netflix adaptation that it probably wouldn’t live up to all my expectations. Yet somehow it exceeded them? I planned to watch one or two episodes before bed and ended up binging the entire season in a single sitting (and have watched it a few more times since then). Heartstopper is the story of two boys falling in love in high school: Charlie Spring is out and dealing with depression and bullying; Nick is the king of the rugby team and really confused about his growing crush on his friend. The two leads, Kit Conner and Joe Locke who play Nick and Charlie, are wonderful and so are the other young actors who round out their friend group. Heartstopper may not hit you the way it hit me, but this show was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. It makes my heart happy. (Netflix)

BOOKS

So This Is Ever After by F.T. Lukens
Speaking of things that make my heart happy. So This Is Ever After follows a group of D&D-style adventurers who set out to fulfill a prophecy and defeat the evil ruler of their kingdom. The book starts immediately after they do the defeating, with our protagonist Arek unceremoniously removing the ruler’s head from his body. In need of a temporary ruler until a captured princess can be rescued, Arek briefly puts on the king’s crown and accidentally becomes the kingdom’s new ruler through magical shenanigans. With this royalty comes a caveat: the king must choose a partner by his 18th birthday, which for Arek is just a few months away, or he will literally fade out of existence. This mandate is extra complicated because Arek is hopelessly in love with Matt, his best friend and the group’s sorcerer, but they’re both teenagers who are awful about expressing their feelings. So the two end up ignoring what is right in front of them and instead work together to try and set up meet-cutes with their other friends so Arek can fall in love with someone. Of course, things don’t go as planned and each meet-cute just keeps putting Arek and Matt in closer proximity. F.T. Lukens lovingly plays with genre tropes and romance standards in ways that constantly made me giggle and smile throughout the book and the familiarity of the situations make things so much more entertaining when they are subverted. (fantasy/adventure/romance)

All The Feels by Olivia Dade
All The Feels is the second book in Olivia Dade’s charming Spoiler Alert romance series, following actors from Gods of the Gates (a very direct fictionalization of Game of Thrones) as they try to navigate the very bad final season of the show. ATF is about Alex, a charismatic chaos sunshine man who plays Cupid on the show and has a very hard time controlling impulsive behavior. After getting into a bar fight in the last few weeks of filming, the directors hire Lauren to be his 24-7 companion and keep him out of trouble until the final episode airs. Close proximity leads to begrudging friendship, begrudging friendship leads to romance. I really like both of the main characters in this one and really appreciate how well Dade writes confident, plus-size women. (romance)

The Forgotten Dead by Jordan L Hawk
While there is a little bit of a romance in this one, The Forgotten Dead is mostly a solid and entertaining ghost story that successfully creeped me the heck out. Haunted house stories always get me. Parapsychologist Nigel is desperately trying to get grant money so he can continue his research at a prestigious university, but when he finds a donor, the funds come with a catch: he has to investigate a haunted house with a ghost hunting group from the internet. Complications arise (of course) because Nigel has a personal connection to the house and Oscar, the host of Outfoxing the Paranormal, can actually see ghosts. A very entertaining story featuring a trans protagonist written by a trans author. (paranormal)

Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells
Another fun D&D-esque adventure story, this time in graphic novel form, following a ridiculously pampered prince who decides on a whim to join an adventuring party and go on a quest. Said adventuring party isn’t thrilled to add the loud, constantly upbeat prince to their group, but he’s their only option. This is a short comic which focuses more on the characters than the quest itself, but that works since I liked all the characters so much and Kendra Wells’ art is wonderful and expressive. I really hope we get to join these characters on further adventures. (fantasy adventure/graphic novel)

The Heart Hunter by Mickey George and V. Gagnon
The Heart Hunter takes place on a cursed island where people’s hearts live outside their bodies and everyone is immortal until they meet their soul mate. Some have grown so afraid of meeting a partner and losing immortality that they hire special hunters to find and destroy the hearts of potential soul mates. This is situation for Psyche, a Heart Hunter, who is hired by the king who keeps sending hunters to destroy his soul mate but none have returned. The Heart Hunter is surreal and allegorical - people literally “wear their hearts on their sleeves” and “mend broken hearts” - but if you can get on board with that, I found the story and art really interesting and memorable. (fantasy adventure/graphic novel)

A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske
When Robin, a very minor baronet who inherited a worthless estate, is moved to a new office in his civil service job, he doesn’t realize there was a mix-up. Instead of being just another bureaucratic assignment, he has accidentally been set up as the liaison between the government and a secret society of magic. His counterpart in the magical world, Edwin, is anxious to get the problem fixed and have Robin replaced with someone who actually knows about magic, but before that can happen Robin is struck by an increasingly dangerous curse and the two set out on a journey to Edwin’s family estate to find out what happened to the previous liaison. A Marvelous Light is both a magical adventure story and a romance and has a neat take on magic. It was one of those books I was literally reading in every moment of free time I could find. (paranormal romance)

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Nettle & Bone is fairy tale through and through - princes and princesses, witches, quests, magic, it’s all there - yet it feels distinctly original and very, very Kingfisher. When her older sister is married to the prince of a neighboring kingdom, princess Marra is sent to a convent to keep her from having children that could inherit power. This is fine with Marra because she has no interest in the machinations of royalty. But after the birth of her niece, Marra discovers that the prince is an abusive tyrant and no one is willing to help save her sister from violence because of the tenuous political situation between the kingdoms. So Marra seeks the help of a gravewitch, who sets her on a quest to complete three impossible tasks in order to gain the power to kill the prince. As this is a T. Kingfisher book, Marra is of course joined on this quest by a number of great characters, including a possessed chicken, a disgraced noble knight, a dog made from bones, and a flighty fairy godmother. A great combination of dark drama and light humor that I loved reading. (dark fiction)

MUSIC

Apparently what was needed to break me out of three months all-Orville-Peck-all-the-time was a bunch of upbeat synth-pop from the Heartstopper soundtrack. Every five minutes I was pausing the show to look up another song. In particular, “Colors of You” by Baby Queen and “Clearest Blue” by Chvrches have been on solid rotation. I made a whole playlist if you want some fun jams.

I’ve also had Florence + The Machine’s “Free” on a loop as well - it has a similar vibe to the Heartstopper music, so i’ve clearly been in a certain mood. 😂

ART

I got 13 new pieces done for my show at Gallery 9, which was hard but rewarding. It’s been a struggle to keep hold of creativity recently, with so much going on in the world and a bunch of new responsibilities at work.

Favorite Things From January & February: A Sparkly Cowboy, a Haunted Ship, and Two Very Bad House Parties

Not a ton to share for January and February. I’ve been pretty burned out with work and the short winter days, so most of my evenings were spent knitting and zoning out watching YouTube videos. Plus, world news has been very upsetting. But I do still have a few favorites to share and journaling about things cheers me up.

BOOKS

I had to give up on two books in a row in February because I just could not get into them. Since it always takes me a long time to decide to stop reading a book, I spent most of the month just not reading anything because I wasn’t interested in what I had started.

Missing Page by Cat Sebastian
The Missing Page is the second book in Cat Sebastian’s Page & Sommers period romance series which follows the lives of a spy and a small-town doctor in England following WWI. Book two has James (the doctor) and Leo (the spy) caught up in a mystery set in a sprawling mansion filled with decades of secrets and a bunch of distant relatives brought together for the reading of a will. I really enjoy the chemistry and caring relationship between Leo and James and the way Sebastian plays with the expectations and tropes that come with this sort of buried family drama story.

Sword Dance / Saffron Alley / Strong Wine by A.J. Demas
The combination of one of my favorite authors recommending the series and one of my favorite artists doing the cover illustration lead me to Sword Dance by A.J. Demas. The story is set in a fictional Ancient Greece-adjacent world and follows Damiskos, a military veteran who ends up at the house of an old friend just in time for an intrigue-filled house party. Problematic gatherings in remote locations seems to have been a theme for me in January. At the house, Damiskos meets the enigmatic eunuch dancer Varazda, who is definitely more involved in the intrigue than they are letting on. Varazda is a non-binary character (who mostly, but not always, uses he/him pronouns) and I felt that Demas did a really lovely job in the characterization of Varazda’s fluid gender and difficult past. Sword Dance is another book with a really sweet romance, built on two people respecting and trusting each-other. The subsequent two books continue Varazda and Damiskos’ relationship as they navigate an assassination plot, a bogus murder charge, and the drama of bringing someone new into a close-knit, overly protective found family.

Heartstopper Vol 4 by Alice Oseman
It’s always a joy when a new volume of Heartstopper comes out. This graphic novel series follows two teen boys navigating school, friendship, families, and young love. Volume 4 focuses on Charlie’s challenges with an eating disorder and depression and Nick’s journey learning how to love Charlie without enabling unhealthy behavior. It’s a heavy point in the boys’ story and Heartstopper doesn’t rush things or introduce easy solutions for difficult problems: dealing with mental health issues is hard and Oseman (a young person herself) illustrates this beautifully from a teen perspective.

GAMES

Return of the Obra Dinn
This is such a cool game. When the missing ship Obra Dinn reappears in 1807, an insurance investigator is sent to figure out what happened to the missing crew. You piece the mystery together using a magic watch which lets you view a series of tableaus connected to skeletons you find on the ship. These scenes offer clues to what happened and you use the power of deduction and investigation to account for everyone. The way the story unfolds is really amazing and I was constantly surprised by the turns of events. My brain isn’t really wired well for this style of mystery solving though, so I did have to have a friend help me out when I got stuck. In addition to the really cool story and game structure, there is also excellent music and a clever use of old Macintosh computer-style graphics.

Deathloop
A super stylized, 60s/mod-themed, time-loop first-person shooter from one of my favorite game developers. Things would have had to go very wrong for me not to like this one. You play as Colt, a man who wakes up on a beach with no memory of how he got there and who quickly learns that he is stuck in a repeating day and the only way to escape is to use an arsenal of arcane powers and weird guns to take out eight “visionaries” in a single loop. The gameplay is excellent, the environments are so much fun to explore, and I really loved the voice acting.

Minecraft
Minecraft? But that’s an old game! Seriously though, I have been playing a TON of Minecraft in a shared server with some good friends and it has been a major source of joy for me. I am 100% a Minecraft newbie but escaping to this block-based world where I can build a house or explore a cool cave or carry around axolotls in buckets has made me so happy. Sweet beans THE AXOLOTLS. Look at them.

MUSIC

Orville Peck
I kind of knew who Orville Peck was before I listened to him for the first time. I knew about his stellar mask + fringe + rhinestone fashion and vaguely that he sang country music. But when I finally put on his album PONY, I was NOT prepared for 60’s-style country western in the style of Dolly Parton and Jonny Cash. I was also not prepared to become EXTREMELY OBSESSED. Orville Peck is basically all I have listened to for the last four weeks. I fell HARD. I have also watched the music video for C’mon Baby, Cry many, many times. There is a point at the end where Orville serenades another cowboy while wearing a hat and vest covered in lights with glitter confetti raining down behind him and that single image has been burned directly into the joy center of my brain.

Favorite Things From 2021: Feuding Sisters, Wayward Paladins, and Little Crows

In 2021 I achieved the nigh-impossible Millennial milestone of purchasing a house. Like, a HOUSE house. This was made possible by kind, generous people helping me out every step of the way and by the great local organization NeighborWorks which provides financial assistance and home rehab for first-time homebuyers. So with that all going on plus the general awfulness that is a second pandemic year and the dismal social/political landscape at the moment, a large portion of my free time in 2021 was spent zoning out watching YouTube instead of creating or consuming new things. I even had to bump my reading goal down and just barely made it by binging graphic novels the last two days of the year. I do still have favorite things to share though, just not quite as many as last year.

MOVIES

With covid precautions making my trips to the theater pretty rare and a general inability to focus on movies when at home, I didn’t watch much in 2021. This is doubly disappointing since I literally work at a movie theater.

The Green Knight
David Lowery’s surreal, dream-like interpretation of the Arthurian legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, chronicles a grand mythological quest for honor, through incredible imagery, visceral sound design, moody lighting, and a strong lead performance from Dev Patel. There is some frustrating bi-erasure from the original story, but overall, I love how The Green Knight distills and elaborates on the myth.

Dune
A big sci-fi space adventure with beautiful people and places, space magic, sand worms, and galactic politics. One of the few 2021 movies I watched twice.

The French Dispatch
If someone told you to envision the most “Wes Anderson” movie you can think of, you’d probably end up with The French Dispatch, an anthology film that tells three small stories under the umbrella of a group of reporters putting together the final issue of a fictional news magazine.

Minari
Inspired by Director Lee Isaac Chung’s childhood, Minari follows a Korean-American family trying to start a farm in rural Arkansas. All of the elements of the film - acting, cinematography, script, direction - are great.

TV

Ted Lasso
Ted Lasso is probably the show I got most into this year, sometimes watching it in the morning before work because I couldn’t wait until I got home. It has wonderful characters, a story that balances tropes and unpredictability, and a feeling of optimism even when things are bad. (Apple TV)

Loki
Definitely my favorite of the Disney+ Marvel shows, Loki has great design, a fun cosmic story, and Tom Hiddelston being charismatic as heck. Almost makes you forget all the people Loki murdered in the first Avengers movie. Almost. (Disney+)

UNHhhh
Each episode of UNHhhh has drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya talking for 10ish minutes about a very random assortment of things tangentially related to a single topic. It is vulgar, R-Rated, and it brings me joy. (YouTube)

Arcane
Yet another show I started watching because artists on twitter were posting cool fan art, Arcane is the gorgeously animated story of a grand city full of sciencey-magic and the dark underground slum that it is built on. It follows lots of different characters and story lines, but the crux of Arcane is about two sisters who end up on rival sides of a growing conflict. This show is based on the League of Legends video game franchise, which I know absolutely nothing about, so there were some story beats (particularly the ending) that felt a little nebulous to me, but probably made a lot more sense for LoL players. I think it’s still really enjoyable even if you don’t know all the lore. Plus seriously, did I mention the animation? I binged the heck out of this one. **Riot Games, the publisher of LoL and a producer on the show, has had some big issues with a toxic work environment and harassment of female employees. While Arcane seems to be a fairly separate entity, and Riot at least appears to be making some improvements, the connection is still something to be aware of and it definitely muddied my enjoyment if the show a little.**

Fun fact: For some reason I convinced myself early-on that the stories set in the city above and the stories set in the city below were happening at different points in time. I was 100% expecting this to be revealed in a big twist at the end. This did not happen.

GAMES

Boyfriend Dungeon
Boyfriend Dungeon is a dating sim/dungeon crawler where you date your weapons. And it was unexpectedly one of my favorite games of 2021. You play as a young 20-something with zero dating experience who spends the summer in a small sea-side town populated with attractive and charming people who occasionally shape-shift into weapons. And, it turns out, you are a “wielder”, able to use these weapons (with their consent) to defeat monsters and traverse dungeons that are scattered around town. Over the course of the summer, you can befriend and/or romance a whole bunch of these shape-shifters and they are totally cool if you decide to befriend and/or romance everyone at the same time. Which I did. Content warning: the main storyline of the game involves themes of stalking. I think it’s handled thoughtfully, but it may be triggering for some players. (Nintendo Switch)

Ratchet & Clank
I’m a big fan of the previous Ratchet & Clank games and I had a lot of fun with the new installment Rift Apart, which continues the story of lombax Ratchet (sort of an anthropomorphic fennec fox) and his tiny robot-pal Clank, who go on adventures to save various planets/galaxies/dimensions. (PS5)

Death’s Door
A little like Dark Souls and a little like Legend of Zelda, Death’s Door puts you in the shoes (bird feet) of a crow reaper, sent out into the world to collect souls, unlock a mysterious door, and fight lots of enemies. The gameplay of Death’s Door is super fun and occasionally very challenging (the final boss fight took me two days). The character design is also a highlight, especially the charmingly adorable crows. (Xbox/PC)

Assassins Creed: Valhalla
In AC: Valhalla you play as the viking warrior Eivor, who is helping their clan establish a foothold in medieval England and dealing with the simmering conflict between Assassins and Templars. The gameplay is polished and fun and I spent a lot of time just wandering around the vast game gathering collectibles. (Xbox/PS/PC)

OTHER FAVORITES
Psychonauts 2
Picross S6
Tetris99
Kitty Letter
Concrete Genie
Animal Crossing New Horizons: Happy Home Paradise

A large number of the books I read in 2021 were from my regular pool of favorite authors who I’ve mentioned many times before: TJ Klune, T Kingfisher, Alexis Hall, Allie Therin, Rachel Reid, Roan Parrish, Jordan L Hawk, KJ Charles, and Cat Sebastian. If they write a book in a given year, I will be reading it immediately.

BOOKS - FICTION

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Wallace, a cold, uncaring lawyer, finds himself stuck at a way-station for troubled ghosts after he suffers a heart attack and dies. The residents of the way-station (which is actually a tea house) include soft-spoken ferryman Hugo, new reaper Mei, and Hugo’s ghostly grandfather and dog. As Wallace learns to accept his death and come to grips with a life poorly lived, he grows and changes in the best ways while bittersweetly falling in love with the still living ferryman. It took me a little while to get into the book but by the end I was a sad-sobbing/happy-sobbing mess. (Fantasy/Fiction)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
This one is hard to sum up; it is stories upon stories, interwoven together in complex, nebulous ways. Starless Sea follows Zachary, a grad student who picks up a strange book in the library and discovers one of the chapters is about his childhood. Interspersed with Starless Sea’s main story are a number of fables, fairy tales, and journal entries that connect in obvious and less-obvious ways. In an attempt to figure out how an old book from the library can specifically describe his own life, Zachary ends up on a strange adventure that takes him to a magical place outside of time where all stories are kept. There he meets a number of people working to protect the stories, and another group trying very hard to destroy it. (Fantasy/Fiction)

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher
14-year-old Mona works in her aunt’s bakery, which is great since she is a wizard whose magic only works on baked goods. Mona is thrust into a dangerous series of events when she finds a dead girl in the bakery and is promptly accused of murder. An assassin is roaming the streets attacking magic people, a looming threat is approaching the city, and Mona and her bread-based-magic might be the only person who can save the day. Just the right combination of darkness, kindness, optimism, and melancholy - I got almost everyone in my family to read it. (Young-Adult-ish Fantasy)

Paladin’s Strength and Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher
You know those books that you are sad to finish because it means you have to stop spending time with a character or setting that you’ve fallen in love with? T. Kingfisher’s Saints of Steel series is like that for me. The books follow a group of paladins whose lives are thrown into upheaval when their deity mysteriously dies. A wonderful blend of fantasy and romance, each book in the series adds to the larger story but is also its own adventure. Paladin’s Strength follows paladin Istvhan, who is working as hired muscle for a convoy traveling through hostile territory. Not long into the journey he crosses paths with Clara, a tall, muscular nun in search of her recently kidnapped sisters. But Clara has a secret and there is more to Istvhan’s story than he’s letting on and then things get complicated.

Paladin’s Hope moves on to paladin Galen, a wonderfully dashing red-head who showed up frequently in the earlier stories. When dead bodies with baffling wounds start showing up on the banks of the river, the city watch is happy to brush them off as unfortunate accidents. But Galen and Earstripe, the only gnole (aka anthropromorphic badger) member of the city watch, are unconvinced and seek the help of Piper, a lich-doctor (aka fantasy coroner). While searching for answers, the trio ends up trapped in an elaborate death maze, each room more dangerous and deadly than the last. A death maze isn’t the most romantic of locations, but Galen and Piper find themselves falling in love while trying to survive peril and cope with traumatic emotional pasts.

If you are interested in these books I’d definitely recommend starting with Paladin’s Grace and it probably wouldn’t hurt to also read the stand-alone Swordheart (featuring some characters that pop up later in Saints of Steel). Maybe just read everything T. Kingfisher has written just to be safe. (Fantasy Adventure/Romance)

BOOKS - ROMANCE

Seducing the Sorcerer by Lee Welch
Fenn Todd is a homeless drifter, barely surviving by taking whatever work he can find. After doing some backbreaking daily labor at a strange farm, Fenn is cheated into accepting payment not in money or food, but in the form of some sackcloth shaped sort of like a horse. But after walking away with this pile of rags, the rags start behaving very much like a living horse. A living horse that can also fly. So this magical sackcloth horse leads Fenn to the fabled black tower of Morgrim, the kingdom’s terrifying sorcerer who is dealing with some big problems of his own. Seducing the Sorcerer, as you can probably guess from the title, is a romance as much as it is a fantasy story, and Fenn falls hard for the prickly magician. This book instantly drew me in and I loved the strange, rich world of magical flying horses and ensorcelled towers covered in unending rain. (Fantasy Romance)

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall
Single mother Rosaline is having trouble making ends meet and decides to enter a reality TV baking competition (a la Great British Bake Off) in hopes of winning the cash prize. On her way to the show, Rosaline has a meet-cute with Alain, a fellow contestant who seems to be everything she’s looking for in a romantic partner. As the competition (and their relationship) progresses, Rosaline builds friendships with the other bakers, including shy, blue-collar Harry, and begins to question the things she always thought she was supposed to want. Alexis Hall is such a good writer, and no matter if you are reading one if his spicy romances or his more “general audiences” books like Rosaline Palmer or Boyfriend Material, you are sure to get a story with a charming narrative voice, great humor, and characters to root for. (Contemporary Romance/Fiction)

Wonderstruck and Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin
Book three in Allie Therin’s wonderful Magic in Manhattan paranormal romance series, Wonderstruck completes the story of Arthur, the wealthy son of a political family who has devoted his life to helping rid the world of dangerous supernatural relics, and Rory, a powerful psychic trying to control his currently uncontrollable magic. Lots of storylines from the previous books come together and we finally meet the villain who has been pulling all the strings. A really fun series.

A Magic in Manhattan spin-off, Proper Scoundrels follows two side characters from the previous books, pairing snooty, hard-to-love aristocrat Lord Fine with, as Therin excellently puts it, “dangerous marshmallow” Sebastian, who is dealing with lots of guilt over his actions from earlier in the series. When Lord Fine gets embroiled in some magical goings-on, the two have to go into hiding at an empty country estate. Oh no! I sure hope they don’t accidentally fall in love. (Paranormal 1920s Romance)

OTHER ROMANCE FAVORITES - CONTEMPORARY
Role Model by Rachel Reid
The Lights on Knockbridge Lane by Roan Parrish
Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert

OTHER ROMANCE FAVORITES - PARANORMAL
The Quiet House by Lily Morton
Unseen by Jordan L Hawk
Blind Tiger by Jordan L Hawk

OTHER ROMANCE FAVORITES - HISTORICAL
Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian
The Queer Principals of Kitt Webb by Cat Sebastian
Subtle Blood by KJ Charles
The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles

BOOKS - YA

In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens
17-year-old Prince Tal sets sail for the coming-of-age tour of his family’s kingdom, but almost immediately encounters a complication when his crew finds a sinking ship, a chest full of treasure, and a mysterious prisoner named Athlen. The two end up on a big adventure involving mermaids, secret magic, kidnapping, pirates, political machinations, a sea witch, and some smooching. I loved this book. (YA Fantasy Adventure/Romance)

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
A “grim dystopia” sort of YA book, Iron Widow is set in a patriarchal kingdom constantly under attack from strange metallic beasts. The kingdom fights these enemies with giant robots called Chrysalises, piloted by young men and powered by the mental energy of concubines, young women who usually don’t survive the process. In an attempt to avenge the death of her sister, 18-year-old Zeitan volunteers as a concubine so she can assassinate to the pilot responsible for her death. But when Zeitan uses the pilot-concubine mental link to kill the pilot and then unexpectedly survives, she becomes a liability for the kingdom. Too precious a resource to kill but too dangerous to the patriarchy to be allowed to live, she is paired with Li Shimin, the kingdom’s most feared and powerful pilot, who will surely overpower Zeitan when they connect, right?

Surviving brutal oppression and constant attacks, Zeitan, Shimin, and Zeitan’s childhood friend Yizhi search for a way to escape their situation and hopefully bring down a society built on the subjugation and murder of women. Iron Widow is angry, subversive, and empowering and I enjoyed reading it even though it’s grim from start to finish. It does feature a proper love triangle though, which is a nice bright spot in all the darkness. (Dark YA Fantasy)

BOOKS - GRAPHIC NOVELS

Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe
Lore Olympus is a retelling of the Hades/Persephone myth with excellent artwork and a thoughtful narrative, set in a nebulous sci-fi-ish/ancient Greek-ish Olympus. While Lore Olympus is romantic and mostly lighthearted, it is definitely an adult story and weaves in dark elements of the Greek myths, depicting the selfishness of the gods and the lack of agency afforded to female characters. Content warning: Lore Olympus Volume One contains a depiction of sexual assault and gaslighting which is hard to read. It’s not graphic, but it is very emotionally honest and grounded in reality. (Fantasy/Mythology)

Estranged and The Changeling King by Ethan M Aldridge
Estranged is about two boys, Childe, a human that was kidnapped as a baby and grew up in the land of faeries, and Edmund, the faerie changeling that was left in his place. Neither child feels like they belong, for obvious reasons, and when a Childe’s royal family is turned into rats by a nefarious villain, he seeks out his counterpart in the human world for help. The Changeling King continues the story, with the boys and their allies trying to restore magic to the faerie kingdom when it starts to disappear. Ethan Aldridge’s watercolor illustrations are wonderful and perfectly match the magic and adventure of the story. (YA)

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag
In a close knit community where boys shape-shift and girls learn magic, Aster yearns to be a witch even though “boy’s don’t learn magic”. But it is Aster’s magic and his friendship with a non-magical outsider that saves the day when a dangerous spirit starts attacking the other kids. Through this YA story of magic and spirits, Molly Knox Ostertag beautifully illustrates the dangers of toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes. (YA)

OTHER FAVORITES
The Crossroads at Midnight by Abby Howard
Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag
Salt Magic by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock

PODCASTS

Ologies
Each episode of Ologies has host Alie Ward sitting down and charmingly chatting with scientists about their various fields of study, covering topics like turtles, squid, shipwrecks, veterinary medicine, dancing spiders, bad knees, and crow funerals. I love Alie’s sense of humor and constant fascination with the things she’s asking about. So check this one out if you want to laugh and also learn cool facts about gar fish.

MUSIC

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey
I’m a big fan of Halsey and I had their super atmospheric and slightly haunting album on repeat for months.

Montero by Lil Naz X
A great mix of genres and styles that go from cheeky rap to super personal ballad to impossibly catchy pop.

Boyfriend Dungeon & Gris Soundtracks
I frequently found myself needing chill background music to listen to while working this year, and the soundtracks for Boyfriend Dungeon and Gris were what I turned on the most. Boyfriend Dungeon is an excellent combination of chill, synthy pop music and sword-based pun lyrics. Gris is fully instrumental, again featuring a synthy sound, combining big orchestral drama and chill emotional vibes.

ART

If I’m doing the math right, I think I made 40 new pieces in 2021. Not too bad.

Favorite Things From October and November: A Sackcloth Horse, An Anthropomorphic Badger, and a Psychic Space Boy

MOVIES

Dune
I have never read Dune and have not seen David Lynch’s 1984 film, so I went into this movie with zero emotional attachment or expectations. I think that definitely influenced my opinion and I know that feelings will be different for people who love series. That being said, I quite liked this movie. I think I was in just the right mood for a grand sci-fi-chosen-one story full of beautiful people and imagery and all the cliches that come with the genre. And now I shall summarize Dune. A simple thing really. Ummm. Paul Atreides is the son of a galactic Duke, whose kingdom is given exclusive rights by the Space Emperor to mine “spice” from the planet Arakkis. But when the Atreides family (and their army) get to the desert planet, they are quickly betrayed and everything goes wrong. And Paul is also a magical psychic wizard messiah or something. This is a classic sci-fi series that you probably know way better than me, so trying to summarize the story feels a little silly. It’s a big magic space drama.

Dune is very clearly the first part of a larger story and suffers a bit from that, with an anticlimactic ending that directly leads into the currently non-existent part two. It also has a bit of a “white savior” problem because almost all of the characters surrounding Paul and his mother (played by white actors) are stellar actors of color. I’m glad that there was so much diversity in the cast but the tradeoff, in a story like this, is that you’re seeing so many POC killed off in the service of the white character’s story. A white character who is being set up to save the native inhabitants of a planet. So there is that. Enjoyment with some criticism.

The French Dispatch
If someone told you to envision the most Wes Anderson thing you could think of, you’d probably end up with The French Dispatch. It is EXTREMELY Wes Anderson. And, being a fan of Wes Anderson’s movies, this worked for me. The French Dispatch is an anthology that tells three small stories under the umbrella of a group of reporters putting together the final issue of a fictional news magazine, a la The New Yorker. The first story is about an incarcerated artist and his prison-guard muse, the second is about a youth revolt, and the third follows the kidnapping and rescue of a young boy. Each story is influenced by and pays tribute to the work of real journalists, with the third story, emulating the work of James Baldwin, being the most heartfelt and effective of the three (in large part due to Jeffrey Wright, who is excellent as always). Wes Anderson tells these stories through a mix of film styles using his signature meticulous staging, timing, and imagery. If you like his other films, you’ll probably like The French Dispatch.

BOOKS

Seducing the Sorcerer by Lee Welch
Lee Welch first popped up on my radar with her excellent Salt Magic Skin Magic, a gothic romance with mythological magic. Seducing the Sorcerer, somehow only Welch’s second novel, is another great story full of smooching and sorcery. Fenn Todd is a homeless drifter, barely surviving by taking whatever work he can find along the roads of a drought-stricken kingdom. After doing some backbreaking daily labor at a strange farm, Fenn is cheated into accepting payment not in money or food, but in the form of a pile of sackcloth shaped like a horse. But after walking away with this pile of rags, the rags start behaving very much like a real horse. A real horse that can also fly. This magical sackcloth horse leads Fenn to the fabled black tower of Morgrim, the kingdom’s terrifying sorcerer who is dealing with some big problems of his own. Seducing the Sorcerer, as you can probably guess from the title, is a romance as much as it is a fantasy story, and Fenn falls hard for the prickly magician. This book instantly drew me in and I loved the strange, rich world of magical flying horses and ensorcelled towers covered in unending rain.

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Wallace is an asshole. He’s a cold, uncaring lawyer uninterested in helping anyone other than himself. Alone in the office one evening, he has a heart attack and dies. The next thing Wallace knows, he’s viewing his own sparsely attended funeral and being whisked away to a strange tea house in the woods, which is a way-station for troubled ghosts. The residents of the tea house include the soft-spoken ferryman Hugo, the new reaper Mei, and Hugo’s ghostly grandfather and dog. As Wallace learns to accept his death and come to grips with a life poorly lived, he grows and changes in the best ways while bittersweetly falling in love with the still living Hugo, who he can’t touch.

In the acknowledgments for this book, Klune talks about how this was his way of trying to process his own experiences with death and grief and that definitely shines through the story. It explores all the varied, difficult emotions and unknowns that surround death and feels both melancholy and hopeful. And whoo boy, Under the Whispering Door made me cry A LOT. Like extended crying-while-reading situations where my dog got distressed and came over to comfort me. So, you know, look forward to that. My one complaint with UtWD is that it took me a while to get into the story because I have a hard time with smug characters and I found a majority of the cast to be frustratingly smug at the beginning, although I think they were meant to be charming. But as I got into the book and the characters grew and changed, I ended up absorbed in the story anyway.

Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher
So there I was, poking around my various to-read lists and all of a sudden I saw that the third book in T. Kingfisher’s Saints of Steel series, which at this point I didn’t know was even happening, was in fact coming out the next day. I clicked that buy button SO FAST. Easily one of my favorite book series in recent years (so much so that I’ll probably buy the hard-covers for my bookshelf even though I already own the e-books), Paladin’s Hope returns to Kingfisher’s world of lost paladins trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their patron god. This third book follows Galen, a wonderfully dashing red-headed rogue of a paladin who showed up frequently in the earlier stories. When dead bodies with baffling wounds start showing up on the banks of the river, the city watch is happy to brush them off as unfortunate accidents. But Galen and Earstripe, the only gnole* member of the city watch, are unconvinced and seek the help of Piper, a lich-doctor** with the secret gift of seeing the last moments of a dead body’s life. While searching for answers, the trio ends up trapped in an elaborate death maze, each room more dangerous and deadly than the last. A death maze isn’t the most romantic of locations, but Galen and Piper find themselves falling in love while trying to survive peril and cope with traumatic emotional pasts. Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher is so good.
*Basically an anthropomorphic badger
**Fantasy coroner

Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe
Retellings of the Hades/Persephone myth are all over the place right now and I have consumed a number of them this year, some more successful than others. Lore Olympus is yet another take on the story, but really stands out thanks to Rachel Smythe’s GORGEOUS artwork and thoughtful narrative. The story is set in a nebulous sci-fi-ish/ancient Greek-ish Olympus where Hades and his brothers are kings of their respective kingdoms. At a party thrown by Zeus, Hades sees Persephone and proclaims her more beautiful than Aphrodite. The goddess overhears this and arranges some mischief which inadvertently leads to an instant connection between the Hades and Persephone. While Lore Olympus is a romantic and mostly lighthearted modern retelling, it is definitely an adult story and interestingly weaves in dark elements of the Greek myths, depicting the selfishness of the gods and the lack of agency afforded to female characters. Originally a web comic, the Volume One print edition collects the first 25 chapters and makes for a gorgeous book. Content warning: Lore Olympus Volume One contains a depiction of sexual assault and gaslighting which is hard to read. It’s not graphic, but it’s so emotionally honest and grounded in reality that it really effected me.

Unseen by Jordan L Hawk
Unseen is the second book in Jordan Hawk’s Widdershins spinoff series Rath & Rune and, as is usually the case with Hawk’s work, I devoured it in like a day. This installment continues the adventures of librarian Sebastian and book binder/child of a chaotic tentacle god Vesper, as they attempt to find the second evil necromantic book wreaking havoc in their town.

PODCASTS

Ologies
My sister got me hooked on Ologies by recommending an episode about opossums. From there I went on to learn about turtles, squid, shipwrecks, veterinary medicine, dancing spiders, and crow funerals. Each episode of Ologies has host Alie Ward sitting down and charmingly chatting with scientists about their various fields of study. I love Alie’s sense of humor and constant fascination with the things she’s asking about. So check this one out if you want to laugh and also learn cool facts about gar fish.

ART

Here is some stuff I made in October and November!