Media Round Up: Cuteness, Swoosh, and War

Here's what I've been reading, watching and playing lately.

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell— This science fiction novel was first posted on AO3 as original fiction. It has a lot of fic tropes. I liked the characters, and I thought the setting was really cool. However the romance beats didn’t feel earned. Parts of the ending I found really hard to suspend my disbelief about. The book set in an Empire and dealing with politics I wanted more in the way of engagement with imperialism. Still it was fun to read, and I liked that so much of the action was talking to people. (content note: domestic abuse)

Venice by Jirō Taniguch— This is a comic/travel journal by a Japanese artist about Venice. The artist found some postcards from Venice in his recently deceased mother’s effects and traveled to the city to learn more about his family history. The format is a bit unusual; there's no text in comic panels but there is some text in the white spaces next to the panels. The art is lovely, water color with lots of focus on architectural details.

Meng Qi Shi Shen – Cinderella Chefep 4-— This really took a turn, and got way more dark and violent than I was expecting from a cute show with lots of cooking for a few episodes. Then it went back to being cute and full of cooking! I have a bit of tonal whiplash. There were lots of people enjoying food. We met a new character with fluffy hair There was a fun cooking contest! The show was also not great with regards to gender and sexuality in these episodes. But mostly it's cute and fun.

The Moon Brightens for You episodes 21-24 — Still enjoying this show! Since I last wrote about this show a couple of you have watched some of it. This is very exciting! I feel less alone with all my feelings.

The current story arc involves a war and I’m having trouble suspending my moral disbelief that the characters are on the Righteous side. Since other than the fact that our characters are on this side there doesn’t seem to be a ton of difference. The other side is “rebels” but we don’t know why they are rebelling. Maybe I’m missing some cultural context. US made media tends to be very sympathetic to rebellions in general, so if I’m supposed to assume rebels=bad its not working for me.

However the war plot did end up with a lot of focus on training the army which I really enjoyed! It introduced a whole set of new characters who l really like. And some big battle scenes that let us have more swooshy action. The show does a good job of making the stakes personal but still showing the scope of the battle. And the main character did something that was so cool and swooshy!

(content note: vomiting, homophobia)

Cosy Grove— I’ve been playing this with my kid on our switch. It’s very fun and cute. It’s a lot like Animal Crossing New Horizons, in that you are on an island and you find stuff and craft stuff, but it's a haunted island! The island is haunted by ghost bears, who are very cute. There’s a Ranger Bear and Maker Bear and Baker Bear, among others. The bears give you quests and teach you about the game. You also have a little fire spirit at your campsite that looks a lot like Calcifer in the Howl’s Moving Castle movie.