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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I have nothing more sophisticated to offer than Floor is Lava.

(I like to imagine a running Murderbot commentary when I watch it.)

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Mythic Quest is excellent and that first season has one of the single most audacious things I've seen a TV show do in some time in it.

I just finished Concrete Genie for the PS4 which is pretty much the definition of surprise in a good way. You play Ash, a kid in a small, functionally abandoned fishing town. Ash is an artist and none of the other kids there are so he gets picked on a lot and is ultimately thrown on a cable car out to the spooky lighthouse. It's a GREAT spooky lighthouse.

There he meets Luna, the spirit of the town who gives him the ability to make what he paints come to life and asks him to bring light back to the town. Which means you spend the next ten hours or so wandering the town, covering every wall in gorgeous landscapes and designs, occasionally aided by the genies you create. These are essentially fluffballs with customizable forms who can project air, or channel electricity or heat all of which you need at various points. So you run around the town, Doing Art, avoiding the bullies and playing with your grobbly friends, it's GREAT.

And then in the third act things take a left turn and suddenly you're having to both fight and save the genies. It throws mechanics the game has never had at you before and it feels jarring and weird and it's intentionally so. Especially as it leads to a bossfight (One where kindness is actually what saves the day) and that bossfight in turn leads to a profoundly moving message about self care. You CAN save the day and you can ALSO eat a food and get some sleep and have some fun and this month, and especially in this absolute assstorm of a year, I really, really needed to hear that. So yeah, Concrete Genie. Gorgeous to look at, surprisingly nuanced and really smart.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Fun fact: when we did the Nebula awards ceremony this year we originally intended to get that misprint one out of storage but they were still using it for reshoots so Mary Robinette had to ship hers to Aydrea so that we could have a physical award in the ceremony.

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I recently found Justified, which is a huge amount of fun, and watched Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts when you were squeeing about it. And I've been playing Sunless Skies, and various CYOA games from Choice Of Games. I far prefer story games to twitch games or puzzle games; I got fed up with getting killed in SS and not progressing, so I've gone to lenient mode. Now I can get into the depths of it, it's beautiful and weird and mysterious, which I'm really enjoying.

Also! I've been pitching for work at Choice Of - we're at the outline stage, fingers crossed...

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Having finished She-Ra and been bereft, I've just watched all of the existing two seasons of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and it is so good! Although I did have a nightmare about a giant otter...

Like She-Ra, it's good SF but it's more about the wonderful characters.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I can't believe no one's yet mentioned The Old Guard, maybe because it's a movie rather than a TV series, but it's all I've been watching for the past week.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Happy Friday!

I just got done watching Black Friday, the latest Starkid musical about Tickle Me Elmo dolls, Cthulhu, and late-stage capitalism. If I haven't posted about this before -- if you don't know Starkid -- I couldn't recommend it more. It is, in a word, brilliant. I will fully admit it's not as polished as a Broadway musical, but it's also the kind of show where I spend two emotionally draining hours watching it and IMMEDIATELY want to listen again to all of the songs.

(Black Friday also references the previously released Starkid musical The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, which is also brilliant).

Other than that, I've finally finished playing Zelda Breath of the Wild (with significant help from my partner!), and have started playing Divinity: Original Sin in co-op mode. I recommend Zelda, with some reservations. I so far heartily recommend Divinity: Original Sin. We're an hour in, and I've already helped some rando steal a fish while my wonderful partner was off solving a (different) crime. Things I am sure will go swimmingly :)

Have a great weekend!!

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

In my tradition of picking up shows a decade late, I started watching Leverage in the past week or so (thanks to Seanan McGuire frequently referencing it on her social medias). Turns out it's the exact show I wanted right now, a. Because I love a good heist in general, and every episode is a fresh one; b. It's kind of cathartic to escape into a world where, even if only at the hands of good-hearted thieves, rich/powerful people actually do face some form of justice (especially since each scam/heist only works because of the villains' own greed & hubris), and c. It has all the found-family vibes that I crave in my fiction.

(Also, once I finish a first watch of just enjoying it, I'm going to have to go back and deconstruct some of the episodes, because I love the writing/pacing/characterization so I want to puzzle out how they did it.)

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

My husband and I are big into board games and a recent discovery we have been enjoying is Ora Et Labora by Uwe Rosenberg. This game designer has given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment from his games (Agricola, Patchwork, Feast for Odin, Le Havre) over the years. Ora Et Labora is a complex strategy game wherein each player has 3 worker monks who do actions that ultimately yield points (They make wine! They brew beer! They harvest wood!). It’s a lot of fun to play, and one day I might even win, ha ha. Yesterday I was so close...

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OH OH OH Mir and Sita and I watched THE GREAT, and it—oh—!! It was so GRUESOMELY HILARIOUSLY PERFECTLY DARLING! And awful. And wonderful. And lovely. And, well, SHOCKING. And dazzling.

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Jul 27, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I recently got a new computer and have finally been able to catch up on my gaming. I am playing Graveyard Keeper, which is like a farm game except you primarily care for a graveyard. It's spooky, macabre, and really cool.

Mythic Quest sounds pretty good but I don't have Apple TV. Alas. The silver lining is that I recently watched ALL of the new She-Ra for the first time recently. Lots of wonderful gayness.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I’ve been enjoying the current (and final) season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - it’s structured as a time-travel romp working its way though the 20th century, and each episode’s opening credits have been created in the cinematic style of the era - film noir, 50s sci-fi, 70’s M*A*S*H*-style character montage - with music and typography to match. Delightful.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I recently binged all of She-Ra, and that was such an excellent decision. Scorpia is the best, and I love her to bits. And Catra is an all-time great tv character. This was a particularly interesting experience because I knew where it ends - the memes were inescapable when it ended - which was actually great for me as it reduced my anxiety tremendously.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I did catch Mythic Quest and Poppy is one of my favorite characters. (Although my favorite episode is probably the one w/o the main cast.)

Right now playing video games. One recent discovery was Monster Train, which is a deck-building game where demons from Hell have been defeated by Heaven and they're out to rekindle the flames of Hell by rekindling its heart and they do so via a train where you're attacked by angelic forces.

Was pleasantly surprised yesterday that Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 got a review at Locus, as it's not exactly a genre book, but definitely an important feminist novel. (Saw the film earlier this year--was alone in the theater even pre-COVID.)

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I've been watching the HBO series I'll Be Gone in the Dark, based on the book by the late Michelle McNamara. I'm not usually into true crime, but I've found this show particularly gripping and poignant, because it's as much about McNamara's journey as a writer and her quest to find out the identity of the Golden State Killer as it is about the killer and his crimes.

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Jul 25, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Mystic Pop-Up Bar is fun, and the food depicted looks delicious. https://www.netflix.com/title/81264882

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I've fallen in love with some video games over the last few months!

The first is called Celeste! A young woman climbs a mountain, trying to outpace her bad thoughts. The gameplay is smooth and challenging, lots of platforming with puzzle solving, with a gorgeous soundtrack and graphics. But this story is all about mental illness and learning to understand it/deal with the parts of yourself that hurt or want to hurt you. Phenomenal in every way.

The other is called Hollow Knight! You play a nameless knight descending into the ruined, endless halls of a dead empire under the earth, once run by the great bugs of Hallownest, now shattered and shuttered, an infection of bloody dreams running through the shrouded halls. What I loved the most is that everything is en media res; you only learn about the rich, deep lore of this old empire as the Knight does, having to go out of your way to turn every stone, read the moss-covered tablets, to plumb the depths of the once great empire, and what your role is. And the world building is some of the best I've seen. With all that said, what I loved the most is that there's so much life in these dead halls, so much whimsy and quirky characters populating the ruins, trying their best. I loved it, and am sort of obsessed with it!

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One of the more surprising (and most enjoyable) series I've watched is Midnight Diner, and Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories on Netflix. A wise chef opens his diner from midnight until 7 a.m. His menu is limited, but he'll cook whatever you want, provided he has the ingredients. Often profoundly moving.

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As for TV, Kaguya: Love Is War (Crunchyroll for S1, Funimation for S1 and new S2) is a joy. The premise, two high-school students not merely determined to date one another but /to make their opponent confess/, seems like it would run dry within no time. Yet glorious writing ingenuity keeps it fresh every episode. While howling with laughter is always good, it’s REALLY good these days. And the narrator, oh my god, the narrator.

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My two six-week grad school courses are ramping up the pace as they draw to a close, so I've spent more time swimming in metadata standards and crafting faux information literacy lesson plans than watching TV or playing video games. I did watch Bumblebee the other night, and I was pleased to see that it took its notes more from Spielberg than Bay. Fun and full of heart, if not terribly deep.

Back when FFVIIR released, I cracked open the copy of the original FFVII I'd gotten when it was on sale on the Switch and played it through to the final moments. I held back from completing it because I wanted to take down the optional Weapons, but then school forced me to put it down. I think I'll just beat the game to have this playthrough behind me once I've finished my final projects.

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Our TV habits ran out of a lot of heart once She-Ra, Rilakkuma & Kaoru, Kipo S2, and AtLA all got finished with. So much HEART. Waiting on Korra to come to NF.

We sidestepped into Hannibal once it was on NF, which is weird and artsy. Then took up with Miss Marple, Stumptown (PI procedural with slight comedic vibe). Would love to take on Dark S3, but we often want to watch/listen tangentially while my partner plays Animal Crossing and I fiddle around with stuff, and Dark's dub is atrocious, plus it's complex and we'd want to be attentive.

So two episodes in, I'd recommend Stumptown if non-police procedurals are your thing! The opening scene of the first episode is a masterpiece, frankly. We'll see how the show develops.

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