Watching, Playing, Reading: September Edition

==WATCHING==

THE BOYS SEASON 2:  Whoever at Amazon decided on this cruel, evil release structure that just plain sucks ass instead of the glorious binge model established by Netflix needs to have their genitals rubbed raw by old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottle caps glued to a lint roller.  Why are you following Disney's torture scheme?  Disney Plus kinda sucks.  You don't even really sell Prime Video by monthly subscription so it can't be about the money.  What, you want to trend every week on twitter?  What are you, a fifteen year old girl?  In fact, I don't even know if that joke works any more since fifteen teen year old girls probably use some other social media site my getting-older-by-the-day-ass doesn't know about.

You're the big dog, Amazon.  In the words of our prophet Billy Butcher:  you're fucking Posh Spice.  Or Mel B.  Pick one of the still relevant ones.  Disney Plus ain't even on the tour bus.  They have one great show and Hamilton, which...okay, why are those songs still stuck in my head months later?  You're evil Lin, super fucking evil.  But that's all Disney Plus has at the moment.  Baby Yoda, Hamilton, and nostalgia that only lasts so long before you need to snazzy new designer drug on the block.  You got about a dozen great shows by now.  You even made a show where Cara Delevigne plays a fucking fairy and she's a decent actress it in, you know how hard that shit is?  You're awesome!  So please stop this one-episode-a-week shit and never do it again.  If you pull it with Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time I will be EVEN MORE disappointed in you.

Also, please take this is friendly constructive criticism and let me keep publishing my books on Direct, cuz...I like to eat, okay?

Oh yeah, what are my thoughts on the second season?  Pretty slow so far.  Palpable feeling a dread that's pretty unique and extra ominous.  Homelander is just such an interesting and amazingly realized character and the powerlessness he projects on the rest of the cast is almost overwhelming.

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1:  How has Kelly Reilly not at least gotten an Emmy nomination for her work in this?  Just another killer totally fucked up character I love seeing in media.  Overall, it's a strange show.  Sometimes I'm very impressed by it, but other times I feel like it's got some serious multi-personality syndrome going on.  Like the writers aren't talking to each other episode to episode and the producers got distracted so oops, let's recon some shit.  Bit of a whiplash from it and it's happened multiple times.  On the other hand, show has some great quotes.  Maybe not Justified level, but also maybe the best since Justified was out.  Not that I'm a quote guy, my brain is horrible at it and I've even had myself quoted to myself and been surprised I was the one that wrote it.

COBRA KAI SEASON 1:  I'm actually disappointed in this one.  Not saying it's bad, I just expected more from it based on the ratings of people that actually bothered to watch it on YouTube Red  gave to it.  Only finished the first season so far, but it's just so very high school.  I do like the nostalgia but Karate Kid was never in my TOP 10 as an 80s kid and...like I said, so very high school.  Plus it comes across as really cheap.  Did watch the first episode of Season 2 just now and I am glad that someone realized "oh hey, this could make money for us, we should probably get the actors in shape and teach them how to do some martial arts!"  Going to keep with it!

==PLAYING==

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA:  Love!  Someone finally did a Japanese Assassin's Creed and OMG it was awesome, what a surprise Ubisoft!  Granted, it's just plain better than Assassin's Creed.  The combat is better, the gadgets are cooler, the stealth is actually existent unlike AC Odyssey.  And duels, man are those duels are fun.  Probably my favorite game since Red Dead Redemption 2.  They might even be neck and neck.  RDR2 is a great experience but at least with Ghost I never wanted to scream at my controller because I pressed a button and instead of talking to a person I just started strangling them and now the bounty hunters are after me.  Or ya know, accidentally hit a trigger and oh look I just shot my fucking horse!  But as far as Ghost, loved it.  Actually got a platinum trophy and it wasn't a huge hassle, how nice that was.  Thanks to everyone that recommended it to me in my emails, had already bought it, but you lot moved it to the top of the pile.

GREEDFALL:  So this is considered a Double A game I'm pretty sure, in that the studio isn't Indie, but they're not exactly dumping millions or paying thousands of employees to get it made.  So it's...good.  Especially if you're like me and you like Western Style RPGs.  If you haven't played the Witcher 3, you should play that.  If you haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition, you should play that.  Same for Divinity 2 and maybe even Mass Effect Andromeda.  But if there's nothing else in the Western RPG field and you love them...then Greedfall is a game to play.

Again, you can tell it's on the cheap.  Not a lot of enemy types.  Loot is randomized.  Voice acting is...there.  But there's a pretty cool story going on about colonization of a 'new' land and you're very much an explorer and diplomat of a character, which I enjoy.  Do you befriend the natives?  Do you side with the religious or the scientist faction?  Can you stop the plague that is ravaging your homeland?  Still got a lot of it to go, but we'll see if it keeps my interest or not. 

==READING==

PEACE TALKS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  So I made the mistake of assuming this was split up because it was SO FUCKING LONG it had to be split up or it wouldn't physically hold together as a hardcover.  Which...wow, I actually gave a better motivation to the publishing companies than them just being greedy assholes.  So...30 dollars for one book, nice one guys.  You jackasses.

It's a bummer too, because I think this might be my favorite Dresden novel.  I know I'm in the minority on that one.  I'm also in the minority that CHANGES is my least favorite Dresden novel.  I'm not an explosion, hit-em-with-your-staff oriented reader.  That's all that Changes was...so...didn't dig it.  But the fact that Butcher FINALLY dropped the mandated pointless fight scene every fifty pages with PEACE TALKS was just...nirvana.  Ya'll remember the jet ski scene in COLD DAYS?  How fucking horrible was that?  But not in PEACE TALKS.  And the fights that were there were character driven.  AND most of the conflict happened with words and emotions.  FUCK YES!  RR approves!

It could all go to shit in the last half, but...I have hope that even though it is obviously going to be action heavy, that it will be meaningful action.

With no fucking jet skis.

And the publishers have another fifteen bucks.  The twats...

THE BLADE ITSELF REREAD BY JOE ABERCROMBIE:  Maybe the worst part of me being sick and being so mentally fucked about Grandpa battling cancer is that I lost my connection to pretty much every one of my favorite authors in the last few years.  So my mission this year and the next is to get back at it and do rereads and catch back up.  It's a grave sin that Joe Abercrombie has two new books I haven't read.  So that's who I picked to start with.  I've also never reread his stuff, so it's fun to get a new perspective knowing what will happen and already having an understanding of the characters.  THE BLADE ITSELF reads a ton better already, just from knowing who Ninefingers is and Bayaz and all the rest.

If you like my books and you like fantasy novels, read Abercrombie.  Nowadays its kind of just something that's done, but when this first trilogy came out it was incredibly subversive.  Reading the last book I was just laughing like a madman and kept repeating, 'yes, just do it, blow it all fucking up you mad bastard' and it's one of my favorite novels for what it pulled off.  He also does some brilliant stuff with structure and character tics.    There's this whole chapter in The Heroes (I think!) with a letter that's just perfect.  He makes me very jealous, not of his fame, but of his ability, so...that's probably the best praise I can give.