It’s been hard to not make things about coronavirus and COVID-19 lately, but this is our new normal — one of continuous change. Maybe you’re struggling with a lot of free time on your hands due to quarantine. Maybe you’re inundated with bad news and have been seeking a pick-me-up outside of your usual creature comforts. Everyone is experiencing the impact of the virus differently, but one thing’s for sure…this has also been a time where people have been seeking out new things, all for the sake of trying something different. On that note, our editor-in-chic Shara White tapped into the zeitgeist by asking our contributors, “What have you discovered during coronavirus/quarantine that you wouldn’t have otherwise?”
Kelly McCarty: My preferred methods of coping with the coronavirus have been taking walks and stress baking. The absolute highlight of my weekends now is feeding apples to the farm animals that live alongside the local greenway. I wasn’t exactly living a life of sophistication and intrigue before, but this is pretty dull even for me.
Baking has always been a hobby of mine, but it’s getting out of control with the extra free time. Since the stay-at-home order has been in place, I have made blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cream cheese pound cake, banana raspberry muffins with chocolate chips, cinnamon bread, browned butter pound cake, blackberry blueberry scones, and caramel apple bars. I might need help. To be perfectly honest, I’ve actually made chocolate chip cookies twice. Fortunately for my health, I am still able to safely share my treats with others. Comments that I have gotten recently include: “I found a recipe for no-bake cheesecake that tastes like a Creamsicle” and “This would taste good with vanilla ice cream.” My responses have included: “Y’all are spoiled rotten” and “I can’t make you cookies every single day.” I may have created monsters. If anyone else is baking cookies to cope, I highly recommend the baking blog Sally’s Baking Addiction. It has tons of delicious recipes for cupcakes, cookies, scones, cake, pies, and much more. I have never made a recipe from this site that did not turn out well.
In terms of new speculative things that I have discovered during the time of coronavirus, I enjoy the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. It’s a radio show from the fictional desert town of Night Vale, which is populated by the sheriff’s secret police, hooded figures, angels, and Old Woman Josie. It’s totally weird and completely perfect for these surreal times. In Night Vale, the PTA meeting is disrupted by a pterodactyl attack, the library imprisons the children for the summer reading program, and dogs are not allowed in the dog park. In episode 10 “Feral Dogs,” Night Vale’s schoolchildren are attacked by the dogs “but protected themselves ably with their school-issued nerve gas canisters and automatic pistols.” In episode 2 “Glow Cloud,” Cecil, the radio announcer says, “ If we had to shut down the town for every mysterious event that at least one death could be attributed to, we’d never have time to do anything, right?” I appreciate that Night Vale’s library is often a place of death and carnage and also has a biography section composed only of copies of Helen Hunt’s biography. Welcome to Night Vale is an odd mix of creepy and humorous, which feels ideal for our unsettling new normal. It is available on any podcast app and also has an official YouTube channel.
Kristina Elyse Butke: I read a lot of manwha (Korean comics) through Lezhin and Tappytoon. And while I tend to gravitate toward reading BL, during coronavirus times I think my mood hasn’t been able to cope with a lot of the darker stuff I tend to read. Completely on a whim of my own — though probably because I’m seeking out good vibes amid all this madness — I started reading fantasy romance, a genre I’ve never sought out before.
The two works I’m reading right now through Tappytoon have very similar setups but are completely different styles of comics, both based on hit Korean novels: The Villain’s Savior and A Tender Heart. Both center on female leads who are avid readers, and their favorite book has a secondary male character destined for tragedy due to unjust circumstances. Through magic and their own love for the characters, our leading ladies are whisked into the world of the books with the foreknowledge of how the plot goes down, but are nonetheless able to influence the course of events to prevent their dashing heroes from their profound demises.
The Villain’s Savior, by Zetson, Myoung rang, and YeonSeulA, is probably my favorite premise of the two because it does go into a bit darker fare — the villain of this story truly is a villain, and the first chapter is devoted to providing his unbelievably tragic backstory (one of the saddest I’ve ever read). The premise:
Set on a path to tragedy and misfortune from a young age, Aseph Randell is doomed to die a villain. That is, until the mysterious Elzay Tiathe appears in his life with a promise: “I can save you.” After having vivid visions of him for so long, can Elzay untangle the twisted fate tied to Aseph…or will they both be dragged down together?
The art for The Villain’s Savior is gorgeous and Aseph makes for an absolutely compelling character. I’m less enthused about his savior, Elzay (transported into the book from the real world), because she’s a bit passive and indecisive, but I can also tell that she is going to bloom into a wonderful character and her growth is going to come from reconciling her passiveness to become an active heroine. Thus, I’m rooting for her anyway and am glued to this story.
A Tender Heart (subtitled The Story of How I Became a Duke’s Maid), is from creators Aloha and Jooahri, and is much lighter fare. It’s been a joy to read and I look forward to its updates on the regular. The premise:
Liandro was stricken with a hideous curse at a young age, shunned by his family and rejected by the only people he ever loved. As the supporting character in a novel, he’s doomed to a role of misery and loneliness. That is, until a sympathetic reader is suddenly transported into this fictional world as his lowly maid, determined to change his fate! Can Evelina break Liandro free of his wretched destiny and help him find true love after all?
Don’t be fooled by the character art in the title card — Liandro is fifteen and Evelina is eighteen; Liandro just looks eight years old because the curse’s effect on his body. Spoiler alert — the curse is broken early on in the comic — and he immediately grows into the young man he was always meant to be, so the three-year age gap between him and the female lead doesn’t seem so extreme. Plus, we know early on that the majority of Liandro’s time in the novel is spent as a young man, so it’s been fun seeing the foundation of Liandro and Evelina’s relationship being laid in their early years. I look forward to seeing their eventual romance blossom; as of now it’s one-sided on Liandro’s part!
I never thought I’d be reading these types of comics, but I’ve really enjoyed myself and I think they’ve been a balm for all of the weariness I’ve experienced during these coronavirus times. While both series are quite different in tone and style, I find them both incredibly uplifting, and I can’t wait to see their happily ever afters.
Nicole Taft: For a long time I didn’t have Netflix. Yeah, I was the one odd duck that didn’t have quick access to on-demand things like Netflix, HBO, and Disney+ which means I get to popular series WAY late. Look, I’m saving up to buy a house, and literally every penny counts.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not a cheeky monkey that can’t piggyback off a family member, right?
Even though I’m still working from home so my 9-5 days are still the same, I finally managed to plunk myself down and start watching a few things I’ve been missing out on. iZombie (season 5). Lucifer (every season). The Witcher. I end up burning hours into the wee morning absorbing media until I can’t anymore.
Until one night after a few episodes of Lucifer, I was skimming through some of the random stuff Netflix has to offer and stumbled upon Beastars. It looked like an anime, but made by Netflix, and I could have sworn it was a manga. Turns out it is a manga, got turned into an anime, and Netflix licensed the show. It looked…odd. And out of sheer curiosity I started watching it.
To be fair, it was late so I did hit the “10 second forward skip” Netflix button a lot. The gist of the series is that these anthropomorphic animals live together, although carnivores and herbivores still have a lot of issues – meat is never available to carnivores, and occasionally a murder will take place because someone likely got too hungry. The setting is in a school and focuses on a gray wolf named Legoshi who does everything he can to suppress his carnivore side which leads to a lot of complex issues when he attacks a dwarf rabbit named Hal one night, only to bump into her later and develop feelings for her.
It’s weird, but mostly because the animals are anthropomorphic, so they have hands instead of paws and hooves, their necks occasionally seem longer than they should be, and Hal sleeps around so at one point you see her standing around in her underwear with a very human body (fur aside), and hooking up with another animal (person?) but at least that was under some sheets. For the most part it’s something that could almost be done with humans instead, except for the whole carnivore vs. herbivore tension. Legoshi is in the drama club and works the lighting and rigging. Hal is in the gardening club. There’s a lot of introspection by the characters (which is what I skipped a lot of).
It took a while to get used to. The setting is mundane (school, drama club, dorms, etc.), and for most of the series the carnivore vs. herbivore thing was weirdly mellow until you hit episode 8, and there’s a lot of dialogue (both outer and inner) that I could easily do without. The series ended in an interesting fashion, and since it did finally take a turn into interesting town, I’d likely watch season two — though I think I’ll probably end up doing plenty of skipping as I did in the first season.
Shara White: I’m not a gamer, not by any stretch of the imagination. The closest I get to playing games of any sort is watching my husband on his PlayStation 4. But thanks to quarantine, my brain’s been leaning to new and different forms of entertainment. First up, Erica. What makes this game so different and appealing is that it’s basically a Choose Your Own Adventure in film format. Yes, that’s right: rather than game-graphics (which are no joke in this day and age), it’s filmed footage, but you are constantly given the opportunities to interact with the film (flicking a lighter on, wiping a mirror, etc) and making active decisions to how you’ll react to what’s happening around you. Even cooler, is the controller is actually your smartphone! There’s an app you download for your iPhone (I’m told it’s available for other smartphones as well), and you simply use the touch screen to interact. Better still, is your actions do have consequences: between my husband and myself, we’ve played this game through about four times (it takes roughly an hour and a half straight through), and each time, we’ve uncovered new storylines and new trophies. And we’re going to keep playing, because we’re trying to platinum, and there’s certain paths we’re trying desperately to unlock. The story is straightforward and interesting: a girl gets pulled into an investigation that may involve the murder of her father many years prior. She’s taken to an institute for her protection, and there may or may not be a cult involved. It’s pretty engaging, and I’ve seen the play-through more than a few times.
Speaking of games, there’s also Funkoverse. You know Funko Pops, right? Those adorable vinyl figures with oversized heads from fandoms all over? Well, Funko has taken those adorable collectibles and created a strategy game. Wait, make that games: you can get the game in Batman-verse, Harry Potter-verse, Jurassic Park-verse, and then there’s expansion packs for those verses and Rick and Morty and even better, Golden Girls. The rules are the same no matter which fandom you pick up, but that just makes everything even better: you can mix and match the games. So while pitting Rick against Morty at Blips and Chitz might be fun, it’s even better to team them up against a velociraptor and T-Rex from Jurassic Park! The learning curve is a wee bit steep (fortunately, Game the Game on YouTube has both instructions and actual play-throughs to help you learn), but once you know the rules, it’s a lot of fun.
Last but not least, Facebook has given me a new favorite thing. I originally just thought it was art, but as it turns out there’s an actual story, a web comic, in fact! The web artist Sarah Andersen (you may recognize her name from Sarah’s Scribbles) has a series on Tapas called Fangs, and it is freaking delightful. A simple story: what happens when a werewolf picks up a vampire at the bar? An adorable (and sometimes poignant) take on horror tropes, that’s what! Fangs publishes two episodes a week, and I’ve spent multiple Sunday mornings in bed just reading through the story from start to finish. According to Amazon, the comic collection will be released in Hardcover in September, though I’m not sure how much I want to bank on that, given that there’s two new episodes every week. Regardless, anyone who’s a fan of romance and werewolves and vampires absolutely needs to read this from the very beginning, and unless you want to pay to get installments early, the story is absolutely free.
We hope you enjoyed our picks this month and found some new favorites to explore on your own. And as always with our Roundtables, the conversation isn’t complete without you. Have you ventured outside your wheelhouse and discovered something different? Do you have anything you’d like to recommend to us? Leave us your suggestions in the comments!
I really need to break down and listen to Welcome to Night Vale.