Favorite Things From November: a puppet, A Necromancer, and a pungent garlic man

Just a short little November Favorites before the big end-of-the-year blog in *checks calendar* four weeks!?

MOVIES

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is the classic story of Pinocchio mixed with the director’s very particular style, meaning you’ve got a puppet boy going on adventures, but in this case the adventures involve standing up to abusers and fascists, learning the futility of war, living with grief, and accepting the inevitability of death and mortality. Light stuff. This has been a passion project for GDT for many years and I’m happy he was finally able to make this movie. The stop-motion animation and character designs are beautiful and add a lot to the story. I really liked it.

BOOKS

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and colorist Phoebe Kobabe
A graphic novel memoir examining author Maia Kobabe’s childhood and young adulthood trying to figure out and accept eir non-binary gender identity. It’s an incredibly personal story and the whole time reading it I kept thinking about a young person reading this and feeling less alone in the world. It’s really depressing that this book has become a lightning rod for people banning LGBTQA+ books at schools (there are a couple of small scenes involving Maia’s experiences with sex and sexuality), because knowing other people have gone through something you are struggling with can genuinely save kids lives. (MEMOIR / GRAPHIC NOVEL)

The Reanimator's Heart by Kara Jorgensen
A fun take on period paranormal romance, Reanimator’s Heart sets the action of the story after one of the protagonists has already died. Felipe is an investigator for the Paranormal Society (basically the magic police) who has supernatural healing which helps when he’s constantly getting shot and endangered while solving cases. Oliver is the Society’s mortician who is autistic and has the power to raise the dead. When Oliver finally works up the courage to ask Felipe on a date, he finds the man has been murdered and accidentally resurrects his crush. The two then try to solve the mystery of Felipe’s murder before he starts to decompose. Overall I quite liked this book, but I think it does have a couple of too-convenient plot points and lacks some world building that would have been helpful (the book description says it is set in 1890 but I genuinely could not figure out the time period). This is the start of a series though, and also part of a larger universe of Paranormal Society books, so it’s possible I came in late to an already established setting or that it will be fleshed out more in future installments (which I would definitely read). (PARANORMAL ROMANCE)

GAMES

Vampire Survivors
I really didn’t expect to get so engrossed in this retro rogue-like + bullet-hell game. In Vampire Survivors there is only one control: moving your character. You don’t control when you attack, you can’t defend or even interact with things. All you do is gradually improve your skills as you travel around the map using automatic attacks to take out the steadily increasing swarms of enemies. Like, literal swarms. The goal is to survive as long as possible and gain enough coins to go into the next game a bit stronger. My go-to character is an elderly gentleman who has an aura of deadly garlic fumes - which is surprisingly deadly to bats and skeletons. It’s the perfect brain-off entertainment when you just want to play something fun for 30 minutes and hits all the joy centers of “one more game” and “oooo loot”.

ART

Here are a couple new bird friends I finished up in November, plus info about an upcoming Holiday Market where I will be selling my wares.

“Greater Yellow-Headed Vulture”

“Dracula Parrot”

I will have a booth at the Love, The Locals Holiday Market this weekend at The Bay in Lincoln and will be bringing plenty of prints, cards, stickers, some original collages, and hopefully some little desk calendars that I am trying out this year (if I get them all assembled).

Favorite Things From September and October: a Werewolf, a Cat, and Some Creeping Dread

I unintentionally, but very appropriately, consumed a lot of spooky media these past two months.

MOVIES

Werewolf by Night
I adored this Special-Event-style B-Movie throwback from the MCU, about a group of monster hunters who gather in a mansion to decide who gets possession of a special anti-monster medallion. Gael García Bernal is great and charmingly goofy as the mysterious hunter with a secret agenda and I really liked Laura Donnelly as the exiled daughter of the medallion’s previous owner. Plus there is a Very Good monster friend. I think I’ve watched this like 6 times.

Bodies Bodies Bodies
This movie is definitely not for everyone - it has a loud, hyper style that I can see grating on people and there are a few “everyone shouts at each other” scenes that go on too long - but overall I quite liked it. Set in a garishly large mansion during a hurricane, a group of extremely privileged, vapid young people get together for a storm-themed party involving lots of drugs and alcohol. After a game of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (a social-stealth-style party game), one of the guests turns up dead and it basically becomes live action Among Us. Who is the murderer? Who is telling the truth? Why do more people keep getting killed? I thought the resolution was satisfying, with just enough clues sprinkled throughout that it all made sense. Plus, Lee Pace is in it.

Honorable Mention

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
Not all of this show worked for me, but there is still a lot that I enjoyed. Tatiana Maslany is really good, I loved the episode with Daredevil, and I appreciate that Disney/MCU tried something different.

BOOKS

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
When her cruel, vindictive grandmother dies, it falls upon Mouse to clear out the old house in rural North Carolina. But when she and her loveably stupid bloodhound Bongo arrive, Mouse quickly realizes that her grandma was a hoarder and making matters even worse, there is something unsettling about the woods in the back yard. In one strangely uncluttered room Mouse finds the diary of her long dead step-grandfather, who keeps going on about strange twisted beings in the trees. But surely that was just just his imagination, right?

Other than a slightly clunky narrative device that constantly caused Mouse’s phone not to work, I was fully absorbed in this spooky story of constructed creatures, impossible locations, and creeping dread. Plus, major kudos to T. Kingfisher for including a reassurance that Bongo survives the story unscathed, exactly when I needed to read it. Literally the moment I went “nothing bad better happen to this perfect dog” the narrator, who is writing the story after the fact, mentions the dog is fine and sitting at her feet. *phew* (HORROR FICTION)

The Sceptic by Lily Morton
I am kind of hit-and-miss on Lily Morton books - many of them don’t work for me - but I really like her Black and Blue paranormal romance series. The Sceptic is a spin-off from that series which follows Will, the best friend of the B & B main character, and Jem, a nature photographer who was also introduced in the previous books. Taking a break from filming penguins in the Antarctic, Jem is currently working as the cameraman for a YouTube ghost hunter show and enlists Will’s help in a weekend excursion to a very haunted house. This is a romance so of course the close proximity and the ghostly shenanigans lead to smooching. The supernatural elements are definitely where this book shines and I did sleep with the light on at least once (but bear in mind that I am 100% chicken and particularly susceptible to haunted house stories). The ghost mystery resolution was a little lackluster and the book lost a bit of steam once they were out of the haunted house, but I still enjoyed the book overall. (PARANORMAL ROMANCE)

Hollow by Shannon Watters, Branden Boyer-White, Berenice Nelle (Illustrator), Kaitlyn Musto (Colorist)
This charming modern take on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow follows teenager Isabel “Izzy” Crane, who moves to Sleepy Hollow with her parents and quickly learns that the town is obsessed with Washington Irving’s famous story. Everything is Headless Horseman related and the Van Tassel family is still around, with classmate Vicky Van Tassel being high school royalty. As the town prepares for the annual Halloween festivities, Izzy, Vicky, and fellow classmate and prankster Croc encounter the famous ghost for real, leading to an “it’s up to the kids to solve this mystery'“ style adventure. There is a sweet romance between Izzy and Vicky and Croc’s cinnamon roll energy is adorable. Berenice Nelle’s art and Kaitlyn Misto’s colors add a lot to the story as well. It’s a small thing, but I really love the way Nelle illustrates simplified faces for panels where you’re seeing characters at a distance - there is so much emotion and humor with very few lines. (YOUNG ADULT PARANORMAL ADVENTURE)

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
Through the Woods is a collection of 5 illustrated stories in the vein of Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark or Tales from the Crypt; that something-scary-happens-and-it-ends-on-a-dark-cliffhanger vibe. Emily Carroll’s illustrations are excellent and add so much extra creepiness. I immediately wanted to go make art after reading this book. (HORROR GRAPHIC NOVEL)

Honorable Mention

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I alluded to this book in my most recent blog because I was enjoying it at the time, but it really lost me in the last half. Hence the honorable mention. I think Moreno-Garcia does a great job building the setting and the location of the story, and I liked the protagonist and her misguided “gothic heroine” choices, but an abundance of gaslighting, assault, and inconsistent characters took me out of the story in the end. But as with all my blogs, these are just my own hot takes and what doesn’t work for me might totally be your jam, so I thought I’d mention this one since it has a lot going for it and might appeal more to other people.

GAMES

Elden Ring (updated)
Just a note to say that I finished Elden Ring and it’s probably my GOTY. The final boss took me A WHILE and involved re-doing all my character stats, but I have officially completed a FromSoft game. My elation at finishing the fight made me immediately miss the final thing I had to do to get the ending I wanted, but still.

Stray
As a palate cleanser following Elden Ring, I finally played Stray, a short, wonderful little game where you are a cat trying to escape from a strange underground city populated by robots and dangerous monsters. I had to obtain assurances before starting the game that the cat didn’t die at the end so I will pass those assurances on to you; it hurts it’s leg briefly but is otherwise unharmed canonically. You can get killed by monsters if you mess up one of the chase or stealth sections, but it’s not too brutal and the cat is fine when you retry the section. I only died once and it was OK. Most of the time you’re leaping around rooftops, exploring, and getting into cat mischief. Be prepared though, even though the cat is fine, the ending made me cry extremely hard for story reasons.

ART

In October, I posted spooky art every day on my social media feeds, which included a few new pieces as well as a bunch of old stuff from as far back as 2012. Here they are all together. It was a lot of fun revisit some of these old pieces and made me want to try reimagining some of them now that I have nearly 15 years of paper cutting experience.

Here are bigger versions of the new pieces, so you can see them better:

“King Boo”

“Wisp”

“Pale Man’s Feast” (from Pan’s Labyrinth)

“You’ve Been Watching SUSPIRIA”

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.