1. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. A few years ago everyone was buzzing about this book and I'll admit that it was a pretty wild ride. It takes place in 19th century Britain and it's also written like a 19th century novel. I love historic settings and old-style language, but even so this book was almost a DNF for me. I usually give a book about 100 pages before I decide to stick with or not. After 100 pages of this book I was still undecided, because the premise was so immensely promising, but hardly anything had happened at all. I read online a bit what other people said and decided to at least stick with it until Jonathan Strange shows up - which he did about 220 pages in. Even with Jonathan in the story it continues being pretty slow going until he goes off to Portugal/Spain to fight Napoleon (with magic), but as soon as that happened I was stuck and my appreciation for this book went through the roof. I could even see myself reading it again. I loved everything about Jonathan Strange, even when he was being extra and summoned thunder storms for the heck of it. I tend to really enjoy fairy magic and this turned out to be no exception at all. I loved seeing how the different storylines came together and finished and how each character met their fates. But I would really like to have a sequel story where they dispel the Darkness and rediscover their country now so full of magicians and fairy magic. Childermass was my second favourite character in the book, and I would also really enjoy more of his story. I wanted a better ending for Strange, but I suppose what I got was fitting in the end. After being so slow to start and get going the end of this story had me like:
2. Good Behavior, by Blake Crouch. Yes, I admit to finding out about this book after I saw the TV show and I only watched the TV show because of Michelle Dockery. But hey, it was worth it. This book is actually a compilation of three novellas chronicling Letty Dobesh. The first novella starts off pretty much exactly like the pilot for the TV show and I could literally hear every line Letty said in Michelle Dockery's voice. Her portrayal was just that good. After every novella there are some comments from the author about choices and changes they made for the TV show and I really appreciate having those tie-ins because it explains their thought-process and makes the changes less glaring. The first novella ended extremely different from the pilot of the TV show and I can certainly see why. The novella is so dark. The second novella had pretty much nothing to do with the TV show (and the author explains why afterwards) but it was a really great glimpse into who Letty is and the story was fast-paced and fun to read. The third novella had glimpses of scenes from the show, but all in all it played out kind of differently from the show. Honestly, the blurb at the back of the book gave me the expectation that Arnold/Javier would play a much larger role in the story (like he does in the show) but he literally only shows up in the first novella and there's no strange relationship between them. All three stories were action-packed and exciting and made me unwilling to put the book down, even when it dealt with Letty's addiction and self-hatred. It was a fun read. I would've liked it even more if the three novellas didn't feel a little bit disjointed. And if they didn't leave me wanting so much more of Letty.
3. Mirage, by Somaiya Daud. I think this is the first time I've read a book set in an Arabia inspired world. Which is a shame really, because there's a lot of romance in the old classic Arabian culture. I liked the world-building, I liked the characters, I liked the story, and yet this book didn't leave me wanting more. I finished the book and was just... content? It is set up for a sequel, probably set up to be a trilogy, but I just don't care enough? It's a weird feeling. Usually when I like something I want to consume everything about it. Anyway, this is a sci-fi world of terraformed moons and droids. The Andalaans were conquered by the Vath around a decade ago and everyone's wounds are still fresh, even though most people are afraid enough of the Vath might to keep to themselves and not bother anyone. There's a rebellion and then there's the farm girl Amani and the princess Maram. Amani looks extremely similar to Maram and she is kidnapped from her family to serve as the princess's body double during occasions where they expect trouble. Maram is half Vath and half Andalaan and both sides hate her. The Vath because she isn't pure and the Andalaans because she's a constant reminder of the occupation. The Vath are working tirelessly to beat the inherited culture and language out of the Andalaans and replace it with their own. The whole thing is pretty sad tbh, and yet there's something with the language or story-telling that isn't compelling enough to make me want to read more. It's such a shame.
4. A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle. I've consumed countless screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and several games and yet somehow I have never read a book until now. It was a short and easy read. Its age is clear from the simplicity of the plot (detective novels tend to be a bit more complicated nowadays), but I enjoy that it's so straight-forward and yet doesn't give the reader all the clues. If I hadn't known the plot from before I wouldn't have figured out the murderer before the reveal, and the reader only gets what clues Watson can gander himself or is told by Holmes. It's a neat trick to avoid frustration on the reader's part for having to wait for the characters to catch up to what the reader already knows. I like the legend of Sherlock Holmes (it's old enough to be a legend now, isn't it?) and Holmes as a person is very relatable to me. So I probably enjoyed this book more than I would have if I perceived Holmes as a narcissistic emo with a superiority complex, which is a description I have seen thrown around on the internet. I love how the story ends with a hinted promise from Watson that he's gonna make Holmes famous and let him have his due :3
5. Le Cid, by Pierre Corneille. I feel like I should write this review in French since I read this book in French, but my spelling is bad and my grammar is worse so I'll make do with English. The first time I read this book was for French literature class at university. I didn't keep a lot of the books from that class, but I kept this one because I remember thinking it was pretty interesting and funny at times. So I picked it up and wow, this was a ride. So much melodrama! I didn't remember the story, but Chimène is such a whimsical drama queen and poor Rodrigue (and the King) is just along for the ride. She's so obviously a teenager trying to be an adult and not really knowing how to go about it, so it's like she says and does things that she's seen and heard other adults do, but it's never really what she wants to do, only what she thinks others expect her to do... And it's a mess. The fact that these are actual conversations in the book is hilarious to me (and way more modern than I expected of a 17th century story): Rodrigue: Listen to me. (Écoute-moi.) Chimène: I'm dying. (Je me meurs.) Rodrigue: One moment. (Un moment.) Chimène: Go, let me die. (Va, laisse-moi mourir.)
~~~~~
Chimène: Go, I don't hate you. (Va, je ne te hais point.) Rodrigue: You should. (Tu le dois.) Chimène: I can't. (Je ne puis.)
They're both such emotional drama queens. And I love it! Just kiss, already! But yeah, so this book was a lot more fun than I thought it would be from what I remembered. Definitely keeping this to read again.
We both really enjoyed the first season so when the second season released this week we binged it. The first season had 18 episodes, while this one only had 8 and every episode where only around 10-15 minutes long, so it didn't take a lot of time to binge it.
My favourites in this season were:
Automated Customer Service: An elderly woman's automated cleaning bot goes on a murdering rampage and she calls customer service for help, but all it does is help escalate the situation.
The Tall Grass: Beautifully crafted animations. An old steam train stops in the middle of nowhere for some "maintenance" and a man wanders off despite warnings not to do that. What unfolds is kind of Lovecraftian.
All Through the House: An absolutely horrifying rendition of the night before Christmas. Loved it!
The rest of the episodes were all pretty good, but none of the others stuck as these did. The episode called Ice is probably my least favourite of this season.
Toni and I started playing this last summer after we had finished with the Pre-Sequel. As much as I found Tyreen and Troy to be an absolutely hilarious parody of Twitch streamers, I also found the Borderlands 3 base game story to be one of the weakest Borderlands stories. I loved how integral the original gang was to the story and that the gang from the sequel also showed up, especially Maya, but apart from sweet, sweet nostalgia that was it. It was pretty sweet to see the events of the Telltale game made canon though, with the inclusion of Rhys and Vaughn.
We played as FL4K and Amara respectively. I just got a thing for Sirens after playing as Maya in Borderlands 2.
The final fight against Tyreen was completely underwhelming, but the final fight against the Pandoran Vault monster was pretty cool iirc.
I know Ava has gotten a lot of mean comments, but I really ended up liking her as an addition to the gang and I hope she'll be a playable character if there's ever another Borderlands game coming.
As with most games the DLCs are better than the base game. The first DLC was to hijack Handsome Jack's casino, which was cool, but we both feel like the Jack angle is kind of a done deal. It's been made to death.
The second DLC was Hammerlock and Wainwright's wedding which was Lovecraft inspired and I absolutely loved it. Every single main quest was named after a Lovecraft story and they all felt like we were playing table-top rpg Call of Cthulhu: and it was so creepy in a good way. Loved it!
The third DLC was inspired by the wild west but with a Japanese twist. It was so weird to have all the NPCs call us tomodachi (friend in Japanese) with a Southern accent. I'm not big on the wild west, so for me this DLC was pretty meh. Rose was kind of cool though, and we both really liked the song.
The fourth DLC had us delving into the mind of Psycho Krieg, which gave us flashbacks to the last DLC for the Pre-Sequel in which you go inside Claptrap's mind. This DLC was weird and hilarious, but felt way too short. We both laughed until we could barely breathe during the sidequest where we help a gun AI take back its nest and then watch it give birth to an egg. Which Amara sat on until it hatched. It was so weird and hilarious.
After the fourth DLC I decided that I was done with the game. There was no more story. We did all of the Circles of Slaughter, and we even tried to do the Takedowns, but we both found them annoying and tedious. Initially we both found the second season pass to be a greedy money-grab and so neither of us got it. After Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck we were done. Or I was. I'm a RPG girl at heart. Games are a way for me to consume a story. Toni on the other hand kept playing, because he wanted the best loot. So for him Borderlands 3 turned into a Diablo-esque loot hunt.
I really enjoyed Borderlands 3, but I definitely agree that Borderlands 2 is the best. Borderlands 3 had the best DLC, though; Guns, Love, and Tentacles.
I was super excited for this show and I've been waiting for it for over a year! The first season is based on the first book of the Grishaverse, also called Shadow and Bone. I fully expected to be sitting there watching and complaining about things they didn't get right. But just like with Good Omens, the show turns out right if the original writer is more literally involved in the process.
Kaz & co. aren't in Shadow and Bone book, but the gang's addition to the plot was made flawlessly. What happened to Nina and Matthias isn't explored in the first book either, but the timeline adds up, so I'm glad they actually showed that part in the show. Nina, Matthias, Kaz, Inej and Jesper don't show up until the book Six of Crows - three books down the line. But I'm so glad to see them. When Kaz said 'No mourners' I automatically replied 'No funerals' before even Inej said anything.
The book is literally all about Alina and from Alina's perspective. I really loved the scene where they show how the Darkling created the Fold. That scene isn't in the book (since it's all Alina) only explained and told that he did it.
They've given the Darkling a name, which was interesting. Ofc he told Alina his actual original name, Aleksander, in the book as well, but for everyone else he was just the Darkling or the Black General. He never had a name in the books. But in the show he's Kirigan.
I'm really excited for the second season. If the end of season one is any indication, then the second season of Shadow and Bone will feature both the plot for the second Alina-book as well as the plot for the first of the Kaz-books, or at least half the plot for the first Kaz-book.
Which should mean that Nikolai will show up in the second season and I'm stoked. They got the casting for everyone absolutely right and I can't wait to see Nikolai in the flesh :3
I watched the first season on Netflix last year, and then the second season just now. It's pretty chilling to watch about all these murders and disappearances that are unsolved and nobody knows how or why they happened.
In the first season I was the most interested in the one about the French family, but I was also pretty curious about the case in the very first episode. Both completely chilling.
In the second season I was the most interested in the murder in the hotel in Oslo. But the episode about Fukushima brought me almost to tears, just like it did when I first heard the news in 2011.
Some episodes are straight-up weird, but some are so chilling. Like how can a person just disappear like that? And these are real-world cases.
The trailer for the first season tells the viewer that these are real unsolved cases from around the world. But there are just 1-2 episodes per season that are not in the US. The rest are all American.
In any case, this show is super interesting and if there's a third season I will continue watching it :)
I started watching this show last year. I had heard a lot about it, both good and bad, and decided to give it a go. The first season was really hard for me to watch, because bullying is something I have first-hand experience of and it gave me all the memories, even though my bullying wasn't so... hands-on. So that's why I waited 6 months to continue with the rest of the show. Second to fourth seasons weren't as hard to watch, but they still gave me all the feels. Especially the end of season four broke my heart.
I enjoyed watching the second season and how it dealt with the fallout from the first season. It really showed what happens to the ones that are left behind after a suicide and it felt on-point to me. All the grief and the questions.
When the third season came around I had no idea what to expect, since the second season pretty firmly dealt with all of the aftermath, but the third season escalated issues that were brought forth in the first two seasons and it did it brilliantly.
The fourth season is all about Clay and I thought finally we're dealing with his obvious psychological issues. But it became so much more. Children on the verge of adulthood trying to find their voices and paths in life. While some paths end abruptly. I was so sad about Zach going completely downhill and Justin just broke my heart.
Damn, this show was a ride. A really good ride. It dealt with a lot of current issues and I feel like it did so brilliantly. The horrors that can happen while growing up and still having to figure out who you are and who you want to be. And also realising that a lot of thing that grownups do that seems unfair is only because they try to protect you from the world. The world is pretty darn grim. Clay's speech on top of the car in season four is exactly my thoughts. They were my thoughts when I was 18 and they still are.
Next up of our dinner shows was Altered Carbon. The trailer looked cool and so we decided to try it out.
The first season was really good and I really enjoyed the world-building and how the story progressed. The writers kept the storylines so frickin tight that I hadn't figured out who was behind it all until Kovacs told everyone what he knew, but when he did everything made total sense I all the pieces fit together. It was beautiful.
Unfortunately it felt like they dropped the ball in the second season. Mostly because the few subtle hints towards what Elders actually were that they had dropped throughout season one and two had been too subtle and the pieces didn't fit together as well as they should have. Poe carried this whole season. He was the best part of it. Dig helped, but man, I loved Poe. I loved him from the get-go in the first season and figured out every reference to Edgar Allan Poe even before they made it obvious. He's one of my favourite classical authors, so what do you expect?
Joel Kinnaman was great as Kovacs and I also really enjoyed seeing Will Yun Lee as original Kovacs. Anthony Mackie, somehow, didn't bring the same feel to the character. Mackie was less intense, I think, than Kinnaman and Lee, and I guess that's a danger for every show like this where you can switch actors for the main character.
First season was really good, second season was meh.
I started this project in November last year. Then AC Valhalla and Cyberpunk interrupted, so when I returned to Enemy Unknown in Feburary I had almost no clue what I had been doing. But here goes.
Enemy Unknown: This was so epic. I had heard a lot of good about this game and since I enjoy TBS I decided to give it a try. I had a lot of fun with it, even when some of my favourite soldiers died. There were a lot of times where I just reloaded the latest autosave to avoid having anyone killed altogether. It's funny how you can grow attached to characters that have no backstory and basically no personality, but here we are. I struggled a lot with money in the beginning, only to have way too much money at the end. And I realised way too late that I had forgotten to level my soldiers' Will and they kept getting mind controlled and panicked all over the place. So when I already had the Gollop Chamber built I started to level up my rookies with Will hoping to get them at a decent level before I started the final assault. Way too late. But it worked out in the end. The final assault was so epic and it explained the whole backstory of the alien forces and the different kinds of aliens I had been fighting throughout the game.
Enemy Within: Let's do it all again, but better! Enemy Within is an expansion to Enemy Unknown, but it's basically the base game with added features. Enemy Within is so much better than Enemy Unknown. New features include cybernetics (I loved, loved, loved the brain implant that made the soldiers immune to mind control), mec troopers, medals, new aliens, new weapons, new missions and an entirely new threat added on top of the alien threat. I was completely surprised by the sudden attack on HQ and I wasn't entirely pleased with how that played out. There were a lot of reloaded autosaves before I completed that mission, but man was this expac worth it overall. There was so much more going on and I loved the different types of missions and the different story paths that this version offered, that Enemy Unknown didn't. Enemy Within is just... more. It was amazing. Without being deliberate I ended up with a full squad of black women fighting on the front lines. It was pretty cool. My Heavy class soldier got the nickname Big Momma. (The game assigns random nicknames to high-ranking soldiers). My A-team was usually five black women and Shaojie Zhang from the Slingshot DLC as an upgraded Mec Trooper.
The Bureau: This was different from the others. Instead of a being a clear TBS like the others, this was more of a tactical FPS. It gave me strong Mass Effect vibes. The gameplay was a lot like the first Mass Effect game. The story is set in the 60s instead of contemporary times so we have all the macho men and casual sexism. Both Carter and Faulke really bothered me in the beginning due to this, but the more I played and the more I interacted with the characters the more I came to really like Carter. The game is short, only around 14 hours, but the story gets pretty deep nevertheless. I feel like if they had made the game longer the story would've become diluted. Was it as good as the others? I can't compare it gameplay-wise, because it's a completely different style, but storywise I feel like it's up to par. However it was a little janky to see the XCOM HQ filled with those massive 1960s computers and yet they still somehow manage to understand and pick up on alien tech. This takes place before humanity got to the moon on the processor power of a calculator, so how are you even able to use their tech? At the very least; how are you able to use their tech so quickly? It should take months, if not years, for you to understand and implement. Anyway, the story seems pretty straight-forward but there are several twists at the end and the player gets to make several choices that impacts how the story ends. I'm always one for war table missions, so I really liked that I was able to send other agents on missions and have them report back while I was out doing other things. More of that, please!
XCOM 2: I enjoyed going "back to normal" with this one unlike in The Bureau. What I didn't like was the Avatar Project timer making me stressed. Stressed to the point that I decided to start up the dev console to gain some kind of control over it. I don't want to be rushed through these kinds of games. I want to take my time and do everything to the best of my ability. Not haphazardly hoping everything will turn out alright because a stupid timer is stressing me out. I only used the dev console once though in the very beginning, soon after that I realised I could control it pretty well anyway by doing the actual missions instead of just hopping around scanning things xD Did I enjoy the game? Yes. At the moment I'm not sure which I liked the most of EU/EW or 2, but I did find myself missing EU/EW sometimes while playing this one, which is definitely in favour of EU/EW. So it's been 20 years since the first game and XCOM doesn't exist in the same way anymore. After the original invasion the aliens came back and settled down, brainwashing the people to think that they were benevolent overlords. Bradford (mission control from the first game) rescues the commander from alien grasp and sets up a makeshift XCOM and starts raising the resistance all over the world. This game was cool. All the new aliens and tech and stuff. I also very much enjoyed all the nods to the first game, and was actually kind of sad to find out what happened to Council Man. XCOM 2 was a wild ride.
War of the Chosen: Let's do it all over again, but better! This seems to be a theme of XCOM's. This is an expansion to XCOM 2 that's basically the same thing as the base game but with added content. This expansion adds three new factions, covert missions (basically a war table - yay!), and three super villains called the Chosen. The Chosen each added another timer on top of the Avatar project timer, but this time, instead of getting stressed about it I realised I could deal with it if I focused on it. If those timers are left to run their course the Chosen will attack and infiltrate the HQ - not ideal. But focusing on the Chosen I managed to defeat all three of them before I even got halfway through the main mission and with time to spare on the Avatar Project timer. I loved the three new factions. The Templars are super cool and I loved seeing my Templar buddy do every single one of her Rends because omg so cool *_* But Mox became my sweetheart. I just loved him to bits and brought him on every mission I could. WotC also added soldier bonds, meaning that soldiers who do a lot of things together get bonuses, which was cool. I really enjoyed getting Mox to the highest bond level with my Reaper buddy because they hated each other in the beginning. WotC also added an energy meter on every soldier. After going on a few missions in a row a soldier usually gets tired and has to rest for a day or two before they can head back out. That was a pretty neat feature imo which forced me to use more than my standard ten soldiers; six default and four backup in case of injury. If I get the urge to play XCOM again after this series playthrough I'll definitely play WotC before I play the original XCOM 2. So much more to do, so much more fun :3
Chimera Squad: This is the most recent game of the bunch and it's obviously a spin-off. It takes place five years after the events of XCOM 2 and instead of playing as XCOM you play as an off-shoot called Chimera Squad employing both humans and aliens (and hybrids) working in a single city instead of all over the globe like previous XCOM games. This game very much feels like a simplified version of the other XCOM games and the campaign is very short and straight-forward. The one thing I really liked was that instead of randomly generated soldiers without background or personality this game has a preset group of soldiers to choose from and they all have background and personality. What I didn't like about this setup was that I was forced to choose only 8 when the game actually has 11 soldiers to choose from. Which means that if I want to play all the characters and get to know them all I'm forced to play through the game at least twice. Because of this I ended up with the same people in the squad pretty much all the time (because why change when I found my style?) Cherub, Shelter, Zephyr and Torque became my default team. All the missions are super short and in the same style and don't offer much room for being creatively handled. It was a surprise to find out that a mission failed and had to be restarted if a soldier died, because that hadn't been the case in all the other XCOMs. When I realised that one time that I wasn't going to be able to save that solider I figured I'd simply get a new recruitment slot. But no. I was forced to restart. The game is cute and has a lot of personality and I kind of like the cartoony comicbook style of the game, but it didn't catch my attention the way the others did and it didn't scratch that itch.
I probably won't be going back to the 90s and play the original XCOM games, but you never know. I went back to the 90s to play the original Elder Scrolls games, just because I love the last four entries in that series.
So last year we started watching Final Space. It's an adult cartoon about a guy named Gary and his crazy life. It's got a lot of humour, especially the first season, and we spent a lot of time just laughing at the absurdity of it all. Second season is a bit more serious but also a lot more epic, but there's still room for crazy antics! Tribore forever ♥
Story starts with Gary in space prison for accidentally destroying a space station. He has five years and his five years are almost up. He's really looking forward to find a girl he fell in love with at first sight just before he destroyed the space station (he's sent video messages to her every day for the past five years and never got a reply), and he's also really looking forward to having some cookies. His only companions in space prison is the ship's AI called HUE and his insanity-avoidance robot called KVN. KVN is hilarious and HUE is so cute. Gary is a hilarious drama queen.
After he's released from prison things don't exactly go according to plan and somehow he finds himself on a quest to defeat the Lord Commander and save the Earth with help from the girl he likes (Quinn) and a Ventraxian called Avocato, while also taking care of the cute and mysterious Mooncake.
Tribore is the leader of the Resistance. What are they resisting? They're not sure.
The third season promises to be really frickin epic.
While we were watching the second season of Final Space, the third season of Disenchantment dropped and so we temporarily left Final Space to watch that. We both loved the first two seasons and the third season was no different. It's still a story about all the messes Bean gets herself into and how she gets herself out with the help of Luci and Elfo, but this time around she grows up a bit and realises that she doesn't just represent herself, but as a princess she represents all of her country. As her father falls ill and her brother is unfit to rule she steps in and takes command. People around her treat it like some temporary solution, but it soon becomes obvious that the king isn't getting any better.
Even with the serious undertone there is a lot of fun to be had in this season and it flawlessly ties together all the different storylines from the first two seasons.
The next season looks to be really good as well :3
After Dark my choice was to watch Lost in Space, which turned out to be such a good choice because every single episode felt like a movie. Every episode was epic and bombastic and had us on the edge of our seats.
I didn't expect to feel attachment towards a robot, but here we are.
So the story follows a family who've all been accepted to go to the human colony on Alpha Centauri. But from the start it becomes obvious that something doesn't add up. The mom is a brilliant engineering and helped design and build the spaceship that would take humanity to a new planet. She built the ship, but not the engine and as far as she knew, humanity hadn't yet created an engine capable of long-distance space-flight. That mystery is solved in season two, but the solution is hinted to already in season one.
Every episode has the family facing threats that could potentially kill them, most of them are natural in nature, but since they're always at alien planets or deep in space, the natural conditions aren't really what we're used to.
Of course there are human things happening, like love and betrayal and friendship and treason (even a good old-fashioned mutiny), but most of this show is about surviving in an unknown and sometimes hostile environment.
The Robinsons are all pretty badass and brilliant in their own respective ways. Poor dad keeps getting banged up.
Toni chose the next show for our dinner with Netflix theme and he chose Dark, which had a really cool trailer but was also talked about as "Stranger Things for intelligent people". It's a German show and neither of us speak German, but slap some subs on there and we're fine.
We both spent the first season in perpetual confusion, but at the same time it was so so good and exciting and interesting that we just kept watching. Every evening it was time for "Jonas and food". However, by the time we started the second season I had figured out how the characters connected and which story thread went where. Or so I thought. The third season turned everything I knew upside down, in a way that actually disappointed me. It seemed like such lazy writing to have the first two seasons be one way only to introduce things at the last minute to kind of tie the whole story together. As a result the third season seemed kind of haphazardly put together and pretty rushed out.
The story is about time-travelling and later on dimension-travelling. It revolves around a small German village called Winden. The kind of place where people all know each other and somehow nobody ever leaves even though they may dream of it as teenagers.
The time-travelling is connected to the nuclear power station in the town, and the heroes of the story want to prevent the apocalypse that will happen due to the power station, and the bad guys want to make sure it happens. Their respective plots stretch through the times from 1888 to 2052.
The first two seasons were brilliantly done, which is probably why the third season fell so flat for me.
But up until the moment they decided to destroy everything they had established over two seasons this show was so so good. Give it a watch. Maybe you'll think differently from me.
1. The Trouble With Peace, by Joe Abercrombie. Holy fucking shit. Like wow. Those twists at the end have me at a loss for words, like... What?!How did I not see that coming? None of it?! I usually figure stuff out! Okay, from the start. Most of this book is about Savine and Leo ending up working with the conspiracists who plan to overthrow the government, and they're both so convinced they can do it. Half the book had me shaking my head at Leo, like what are you doing, you blundering dunderhead of a fool!? The other half had me exasperated at Savine, wishing Stour would die, admiring Rikke, really starting to like Orso, and kind of wishing Clover was my big brother. Then came the battle and through it all I had no idea who would win at the end, the writing was just so expertly done that every time I read about Orso's side I was convinced he'd win, and every time I read about Leo's side I was convinced he'd win. Like damn. O_o And Abercrombie can write battles. He's proven that time and time again. I was actually wincing at the book as I read my way through the battle. I was really sad to see Glokta resign though, that passage (apart from the ends) really hit me the hardest, like admitting he was getting old and I don't want him to die. Don't kill my favourite, please? But those final thirty pages. Savine. Orso. Leo. Clover. Stour. Rikke. Pike. O.M.G. Is the next one out yet?
2. Storm Front, by Jim Butcher. Amazingly, I have never read a Harry Dresden book before. I grew up slightly preoccupied with another wizard named Harry. Just as well. This book was published in 2001 and I don't think 10 y/o me would have appreciated this book. 30 y/o me very much did, though. It was snarky, sarcastic, exciting, interesting, action-filled and clever. Dresden sounds like a very fun guy to hang around. I kind of envy Susan. And Murphy. This book starts out with two cases, one run-of-the-mill missing husband (probably cheating) and one definitely not run-of-the-mill double murder. Unsurprisingly, these two cases have everything to do with each other and exactly in the way I first figured. The story and lore are cleverly crafted, but I solved the puzzle way before Dresden did and with a lot less roundabout manners. Dresden is lucky he's so cute. "Cute" meaning odd and sweet, not "cute" as the word you use for a puppy. Even if I did figure out where the story was heading way before even the second murder scene, the story was engaging enough and Dresden amusing enough that I didn't mind to read about all the ways he tried to figure things out. Do yourself a favour and don't ever listen to Bob again, alright?
3. The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. I've known about this comic for years, but it was only after we watched the Netflix show that I decided I wanted to read it. I went in expecting something very similar to the show, but there were major differences. Personality wise they've done a pretty good job in casting, except Allison and Klaus are way cooler in the comic than they are in the show. Luther's body is way different in the comic than in the show. Considering the way he looks in the comic I think that would've been really hard to portray on camera without a blockbuster budget and lots of CGI. Klaus' powers are so much cooler in the comic too! Like he can fly/float and he's telekinetic on top of being psychic! All of them are sarcastic shits in the comic while they're mostly just sad sacks in the show because their lives have been hard. If I try to look at the comic objectively, and if I try to think of how it would be to start reading it without any previous knowledge of the characters or the story, then I assume it would fall pretty flat because it leaves a lot empty spaces and question marks in the story, but I really enjoyed the sarcastic shits and the action-packed superhero thing. Like I always do. I just really like superheroes. And sarcasm.
4. The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. Yes! This is what I'm talking about! Beautifully crafted threads of story that all come together in the end! For the show I felt that the second season was weaker than the first, but for the comic the second volume is way better and a lot stronger than the first. We finally have Hazel and Cha-Cha and the stupid goldfish. And I love that Vanya isn't the cause of the apocalypse this time around (she deserves a break), but that it's actually a joint effort by Five and Klaus. And Klaus has a baby?! omfg! Nothing in this volume turned out the way it did in the show and so I kept being pleasantly surprised every time I turned the page. This was so good.
5. The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. This one disappointed me. I believe it was designed to be the epic climax that brings everything introduced previously to a point and brings back old villains and heroes and there's a huge thing. Kind of like Endgame. But it fell completely short of it. Mostly I think because the villains hardly ever got established. Some of these villains show up briefly in Apocalypse Suite and are then never heard of or from again until this volume. It made the whole epic showdown seem disjointed. It was a lot of wait who are you and do I know you and where did you come from and how do you connect with all this? Vanya's sidestory was a whole lot more interesting to me than the epic showdown, too bad there was so little of it and nothing came of it before the volume ended. Worst part? The next volume isn't out yet. This volume ended the same way as season 2 of the show. Sort of. Same basis anyway. So that's gonna be interesting.
One hundred hours later and I've done every side quest and all endings. I usually luck out on rocky releases and Cyberpunk wasn't an exception for me. It ran pretty smoothly. No missing textures, no falling through the map, no stuttering. Only glitches I found was that sometimes I couldn't pick up white trash loot because it had glitched into the ground. But that was it. And my GTX 1070 autodetected the game on ultra so I was happy about that. Didn't manage to run it at 120hz ofc, but I still had no major stuttering. Hair glitched, but hair never looks great in games tbh... So yay, game worked and I'm happy.
And holy shit I loved this game. The world, the quests, the characters, the aesthetic... Just mwah ♥
As with any game I look forward to I don't watch anything beside the announcement trailer. So Cyberpunk turned out to be everything I wasn't expecting and nothing at all like I was expecting. But in a good way. I was thoroughly blown away.
Any downsides? Traffic was hell, driving in first person was terrible (so I always switched to third person for driving), and it happened way too many times that I accidentally chose a dialogue option when I was just trying to loot and a character started talking to me at the same time. Same button xD But Night City was so darn beautiful.
On a side note I really love that the band Samurai is available on Spotify as Samurai, even though it's Refused that's making the songs IRL. I'd love for Refused to do a world tour as Samurai and bring Keanu Reeves along and then have him appear on stage for every gig in full Silverhand getup. Can we please get on that?
HERE BE SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
So in the order stuff pops into my head:
Johnny was an ass, but a loveable ass. Halfway through the game I was properly in love with the guy. And I really enjoyed every quest where he got to take over and be in control. Those were always a lot of fun. Especially his boys night out xD
I loved Judy- And she was so pretty. Half of my screenshots from this game are just close-ups of her. So I was really sad when I came to the decision to turn her down and stick with River. River was a lot better SO for V. Like seriously. I love you, Judy, but you're volatile.
The side quests became soooo much better in the second act. I managed to play the quest with the crucifixion and the quest with Randy's kidnapping right after one another and I'm not sure whether I was blown away or grossed out, but both of those stayed with me. Because damn. Having to actually crucify a guy... I winced with every hit on the nails...
Losing Jackie in the beginning made me so sad and the memorial with Mama Welles brought me to tears. I used Jackie's bike 90% of the time after that.
I super enjoyed the hidden side quest where I get to fix and then ride a rollercoaster. So much fun! And all the loveable AIs... Skippy and Delamain to name a few. I wasn't happy with how Delamain's quest ended for me. But all three choices had terrible downsides...
And the endings... I played through all five of them. The first ending I chose was the default one which ultimately has you choose whether to surrender to Arasaka or not. I chose to surrender because V would die anyway. Sadness. Second ending I chose was going with Rogue and letting Johnny keep the body. I really liked the way this ending turned out, but that visit to the cemetery... More sad. Third ending was to go with Rogue but keep the body. V is still dying and the relationship is in shambles. Ffs. Fourth ending was to go with Panam and this ending shows the most promise in finding a way for V to survive. But losing Saul... SAD. Fifth ending is the one where V just goes fuck it all and commits suicide. That one broke me and I was trying so hard not to flat out burst into tears as the credits rolled and V's friends' voicemails started playing. Can I get one happy ending, please?! Just one?!?! :C
I definitely need to play through this game again. Once as a female and get Judy and maybe that means she'll go with me when I leave with Panam? She leaves on her own if you don't romance her so probably? And I also need to replay it as a male so I can get in Rogue's pants.
One thing I learned from this game; sex scenes in first-person POV are very strange.
I discovered this show through a meme. A meme in French nonetheless shared on Facebook by my old French roomie from the days in Tokyo. Such a roundabout way to find out about a show! xD
I was curious, looked at the trailer, figured why not and set to watch the first episode. It's Shonda Rhimes so I was expecting all the drama and heartbreak and action from all the other shows of hers that I've watched, and with Grey's Anatomy at the top, it's not like Bridgerton could be bad, right?
And it wasn't. It was really good. I want to say glorious but it's still the first season of what I hope aspires to be a longrunner, so it may have come across as a little tame. I'm smarter than Eloise, I figured out who Lady Whistledown was after four episodes. The end only confirmed what I already knew.
But I'm definitely invested in this show now so I hope there'll be another season. I need it.
