Below are posts associated with the “❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️” rating.
🎙️ radioblog: La guerre des ondes, 1939-1945 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Même si je trouve que l’application Radio France est assez pourrie (difficile à organiser, de grosses pubs qui paraîssent en début de journée), elle a été utile pour trouver d’autres émissions sur Radio Londres et ses concurrents. Hyper fascinante, cette série !
📚 bookblog: Welcome, Nowhere (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
This series isn’t perfect—the shaman character has enough vague stereotype surrounding him to raise a concerned eyebrow—but it’s good. What’s more, I’m so happy to be returning to it after a month-long semi-accidental break that I’m giving this volume full marks.
It’s very weird, with beautiful art to back it up. It’s fast-paced in a way that could be annoying but is justified by the story in a way that works. The characters aren’t always sympathetic, but that usually works to the advantage of the story being told.
📺 tvblog: Smiley's People (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Loved this. I don’t know why I liked it better than Tinker Tailor—is it a better adaptation, or do I actually like the underlying story better?
That got to thinking about how much of Smiley’s People is a clear riff on Tinker Tailor (George tackles a problem from the outside, brings in Guillam, chats with Connie, recruits Toby…). You can’t have Smiley’s People without Tinker Tailor, but I wonder if Smiley’s People is actually the better version of that story.
🍿 movieblog: Project Hail Mary (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Excellent adaptation of a book I remember enjoying. My “book is better” brain wanted to quibble with some choices, but I think those choices made sense when considering the change of medium. I also really, really appreciated the almost-throwaway joke about the Phantom Zone.
📚 bookblog: I Excised All My Anxieties into Cartoon Characters Who Definitely Don't Have Feelings for Each Other (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Post-timeskip Dumbing of Age is good; some parts feel rockier, some parts feel even better.
📚 bookblog: Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Part of me thinks that I shouldn’t enjoy this particularly dramatic, action-packed sequence, but Willis does an excellent job of it—and of making it fit within the broader world and story he’s built.
🎙️ radioblog: Silent Majority (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
This series continues to be fun. It’s making use of a scary villain in compelling ways, and even the “let’s treat UK parliamentary elections like a US presidential race” doesn’t bug me too much.
📚 bookblog: Now Let's Go Commit Something Mildly Subversive (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Still enjoying this! I really appreciate Willis’s charitable, nuanced take on non-fundamentalist religion that comes out here while Joyce is wrestling with her faith.
📚 bookblog: Up Here We Can Be Garbage (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I really ought to scan back through each volume as I read it so that I can give it a more thorough review, but these go fast, blend together, and just make a generally good impression. I’d like to wrap up the reread so that I can turn my attention to other stuff, but sometimes you also just need a quick, easy rebinge of a high quality webcomic.
🎙️ radioblog: Square One (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
It came as something of a surprise that this next part of the story felt even better. It takes some liberties with the British political system, but since it came out in November 2016, it is clearly doing so to criticize Donald Trump, and I can live with that. The story continues to play with the basic concept of the Silents as a supernatural villain, and I’m enjoying seeing where it goes.
🎙️ radioblog: House of Silents (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I’ve made a few comments alluding to how interesting it is to explore expanded universe material in another franchise after a near-lifetime of exploring Star Wars auxiliary fiction. This is a good demonstration of how EUs can be good: The Silents are an interesting villain, and this story makes good use of them while fitting it nicely into the broader Doctor Who canon. I enjoyed the listen.
📚 bookblog: Just Put Down the Ukelele Only Then Can the Healing Begin (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
DoA is funny because its plot takes place over a few months, but the story has been told over years and years. That makes it hard to remember what happened when. I feel like this volume has some of the changes that most lead to contemporary characters and storylines, and yet that all happens earlier than I expected.
📚 bookblog: The Machinations of My Revenge Will Be Cold, Swift, and Utterly Ridiculous (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Still blurring together in my head, still enjoying the read.
📚 bookblog: Hey, Guess What, I'm a Lesbian! (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I wrote about this on my first read through (I think), but it’s very interesting to read this take on the college experience when mine was so very different. It’s interesting to see Joyce, for example, grow in ways I didn’t until a decade or so later in life.
📚 bookblog: Amazi-Girl is Always Prepared for Anything (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
These are such fast reads (and I’m waiting so long to review them) that I can’t say I remember the specifics of this volume, but I’m continuing to enjoy this reread, and that’s what counts, I guess.
🎙️ radioblog: Expiry Dating (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
My favorite thing in these audioplays is getting the tv actors to come back for their parts, and this is especially fun when it brings back Peter Davison and Colin Baker, too. It’s a good story that makes the most of these characters, and I enjoyed it.
📚 bookblog: Your Stupid Overconfidence is Nostalgic (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I’ve noticed this throughout the reread, but this collection really got me thinking about the connections between Willis’s previous work and this reboot/remix. It’s also amazing to me just how long this series has been going on! I’m reading material that came out when I was just starting grad school.
📚 bookblog: I Beg You, Don't Cast Your Body Into the Cragged Shame Pits of the Lustwolves (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Still enjoying this reread!
📚 bookblog: This Campus is a Friggin' Escher Print (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I had been trying to read some of Willis’s other work, making it through the whole Shortpacked! archive and trying to go through Roomies!, etc., but ultimately I realized that what I really wanted was a Dumbing of Age reread, and so here I am. I enjoy this series much more in collected form than I do one strip at a time, and it was fun to start again at the beginning.
🎙️ radioblog: Night of the Vashta Nerada (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
“Classic Doctors, new monsters” is such a fun concept for an audio play series, and hearing Tom Baker face off against the Vashta Nerada was a delight. Don’t know if I’ll enjoy the upcoming stories as much, but this was fun.
📚 bookblog: La source des secrets (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Après avoir fini les quatres tomes « Bergères guerrières », on revient maintenant à Brume, relisant le troisième tome avant de commencer le quatrième qu’on vient de recevoir.
On aime bien cette série dans notre famille ! Elle est mignonne, bien dessinée, et marrante.
📚 bookblog: L'abîme (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Comment dire que j’ai tant aimé une bd qui a fait pleurer ma fille ? C’est vrai qu’il y a des moments tristes à la fin de cette série impressionnante, mais je suis content qu’il y ait des œuvres pour enfants qui osent ne pas tout résoudre. En plus, l’histoire continue à être intéressante et l’art jolie.
📚 bookblog: The Terraformers (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Loved this book as much as I did the first time around. It reads like Walkaway mixed with Braiding Sweetgrass, with a bit of The Disposessed for good measure. It’s bonkers but delightful, and I’m glad that I own a copy now.
🎙️ radioblog: The Auntie Matter (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Clever genre blending is one of my favorite things, so setting a Doctor Who story in what I presume is the style of a P. G. Wodehouse story is delightful (even if I clearly don’t know the genre it’s being blended into!).
📚 bookblog: Le périple (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Cette série continue à être jolie et intéressante. J’ai déjà dit combien je trouve l’histoire innovante (alors que des contes d’aventure pour enfant, il y en a des milliers qui se ressemblent), mais je le répète ici.