keelywolfe

Completely by accident, I ended up rewatching Gigi and the Fountain of Youth, the English-dubbed version of the Minky Momo OVA, which I used to watch on VHS as a kid.

Thanks to the near-manic dubbed dialogue that I now, as an adult, fully understand instead of having wash over me as a child, it's so absurdist! There's so many characters and so many things happen! All those accents and OTT delivery! There's barely any pauses between gags! Though I can totally see how I glommed onto Gigi so hard, her ability to easily transform into glamorous adult versions of herself was SUCH a dream to a kid.

My first time reading about Hannibal of Carthage! Ernle Bradford's Hannibal is a decent intro and well-written, though after reading stuff by Mary Beard and others, it makes the lack of visible scholarship within Bradford's book stand out a bit. He does occasionally mention when Livy and Polybius' takes of Hannibal contradict each other, and does do some speculation on which route Hannibal and his brother may have taken into Italy, but otherwise it mostly presents things to be fact, right down to quotes that Hannibal was reported to have said. (By whom!) Which makes it good for an intro reader like me, but doesn't get into the nitty gritty or discuss other causes and effects of Hannibal's campaign except the overarching consequence that in the aftermath, Rome's influence in the Mediterranean increased and grew out into an empire.

Something like 90% of the book's content covers Hannibal's decade-and-half campaign in Italy, with particular focus on battle tactics. It's generalizing to say that male historians enjoy focusing a great deal on the minutiae of battle tactics in the biographies they write, yet that is a pattern I'm seeing. I would like to know more about the Hannibal's world and the political machinations of Rome in resisting and eventually repelling him. Because Bradford does present the opinion that Hannibal's wartime strategy in Italy was sound for invasion but not for consolidation, and it's the strength of Rome's political institutions that allowed them to resist Hannibal for over a decade of warfare without capitulation or destruction, but those processes are what I would liked to know more about. I would also love to know more about how fear of Hannibal impacted Roman society! But that's a minor thing, and not necessary for an intro read of the topic.

On a very basic note, the times being what they are, whenever Hannibal's father gets mentioned I have to forcibly read Hamilcar as a name instead of a Pixar AU of Hamilton.

I've watched (or "watched") so many Outer Wilds playthroughs I figured I'd try to remember the ones I liked in case I want to find them again. I've already been unable to find some that are not in my watch history for whatever bizarre reason. I'll probably be editing this post as I re-find the players I remember.

Oliver @ About Oliver (main game supercut & echoes supercut)
An astrophysicist plays Outer Wilds! An easygoing player who enjoys and discusses the science and space details of the game, with little anecdotes on what's accurate to real life and what's not. He notices the time differential when warping and talks about macroscopic quantum behaviour before the game mentions both, and gets excited when the game validates his theorising.

Liera (main game supercut and echoes supercut)
Liera is a very pleasant player, easygoing and cheerful, and thoughtful as she talks out her understanding of the lore. Interestingly, she's thorough but not traditionally methodical, which means that she sometimes finds secrets in the wrong order, which is fascinating (eg. she finds the probe tracking module before ever exploring the remains of the orbital probe cannon, and she finds ALL the burned slide reel rooms before finding the guide in the tower). In playing the main game she develops the Nomai timeline correctly through her notetaking.

Adam @ King Adam XVII
Adam is a fun player, he's not particularly focused but comes into the game with appreciation and commentary on the music (trends, influences, etc. plus he points out that the Prisoner's theme at the end uses a suspension). He sometimes pauses the game to play the music on his own instruments, or perform his Outer Wilds-inspired work, and he loves messing around with the mechanics of the game and seeing what he can do with its physics.

Becca @ BeccaBytes (main game supercut and echoes supercut)
Becca is a cheerful player who has nice reactions and figures out the emotional weight of the game, I think she's the one who calls the anglerfish cave the "place of sadness". She's not a very efficient player and misses some elements of the main game that she fills in with the dlc, but she does figure out some things other players don't (like the Stranger's movement), she gets a very good closeup of an owlk when the dam breaks, and she gets so frustrated with the sneaking that she makes a word doc plan that leads her to solving all three dream locations by entering from different points.

Ryan @ lil indigestion (main game supercut)
I've got this on right now, he's a cheerful, meticulous player who takes his time to look at things and pontificate appreciation for the lore, so he sees a lot of detail (he figures out Solanum grew up in the system before he even recognizes her as the Quantum Moon pilgrim) but also wanders a lot and struggles with the time-sensitive and platforming sections.

Allie @ AllieCat (main game supercut and echoes supercut)
Player with good energy and engagement in the Hearthian and Nomaian lore, and she loves Solanum! Her talking through the story is fun to listen to, though she wasn't as engaged with the Echoes DLC.

Mapocolops (main game supercut and echoes supercut)
Good energy dude, I can't remember other details.

Lukael @ Lukael Plays
I can't remember specific details but I do remember that this player was very pleasant to listen to.

Cohh @ CohhCarnage (main game supercut and echoes supercut)
Another one I can't remember details but that he had good energy and I liked listening to him. I just rewatched a bit and he stumbles into the Ash Twin completely by accident and way too early!

I got this Star Wars short story collection eight years ago! But delayed reading it I think because I was put off by one of the stories in The Legend of Luke Skywalker that I found weirdly mean-spirited and feared more of the same. But now I'm determined to clear my to-read shelf, and have also just finished watching Andor season 2 followed by a rewatch of Rogue One and Star Wars, so I am having those SW feelings right now. I just double-checked that the collection was published after Rogue One came out but before The Rise of Skywalker, so it has certain elements pretty fresh in the telling.

As a collection of short content from various authors, the majority being short prose fiction, that follows points of view of characters that aren't central to the plot of Star Wars, it is a mixed bag of:
(1) meandering retellings of SW events,
(2) less meandering retellings of SW events yet still do not add much to my understanding or appreciation of the SW universe,
(3) retellings of SW events that imply a greater hand of destiny/the Force in getting certain events to happen the way they do, as if coincidences cannot just be coincidence, and minor characters cannot just be minor characters whose lives happen to intersect with the heroes but instead whose very purpose of existence is to enable destiny to happen, which makes the world smaller and less interesting to me,
(4) stories that think they're gosh darn clever by being meta;
(5) actually interesting stories (to me!) that spin-off from SW events.

I did really like some! The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction is a fun crime caper style evening in the Mos Eisley port, the Mon Mothma story by Alexander Freed especially hit well after watching Andor, and Stories in the Sand (about a curious Jawa) by Griffin McElroy is one of those outsider POV styles I like. There's a couple of others, but these particular stood out to me.

Also, shoutout to Of MSE-6 and Men by Glen Weldon, which I think might be Ground Zero of the Wilhuff-Tarkin-had-a-gay-affair-with-a-stormtrooper bit of canon that I've seen mentioned here and there? I had no idea, and double-taked when it got to that bit!