Some of My Favourite Media:
Lotte's Latest Highly Rated:
LOTTE
Hi! I’m Lotte, and I’m a ~creative~. Before developing a deepy unhealthy obsession with figure skating, I spent most of my free time making stuff, mostly drawing and sewing. Nowadays I don’t have that much time because I’m always at the rink, but I still try to get some sewing done on the weekends.
My standard for media honestly isn’t very high. The most important thing to me is whether something is fun. I don’t believe liking things that are “grimdark” makes you edgy and cool. We get it, life sucks sometimes. Why would you want it to also suck in the worlds you escape to for fun? At the same time, not every piece of media needs to be happy and light. What I like most are light-hearted stories that also happen to deal with difficult themes, and dark stories with a good dose of comic relief.
One thing I struggle with as a reviewer is negativity. I don’t like to be negative about things that other people love. At the same time, that is what I am sometimes called to do on the site, and I don’t want to refrain from giving my opinion just because others might disagree with it. I also know that negative reviews are often the most fun to write, and the most fun to read. I’d like to stress that even when I think something is hot garbage, my opinion shouldn’t matter to you if you love that thing. If you really like Cloud Atlas I definitely don’t think you have poor taste – it just differs from mine. Man, I hated Cloud Atlas, though…
- Seemingly dumb ideas with excellent execution
- Shows and movies with excellent premises and ideas that constantly miss the mark on their execution so you end up comically frustrated but somehow also inspired
- Proper lgbtqia+ and bipoc representation
- Character driven stories
- Things that are both high-stakes AND funny – now that’s realism
- Worldbuilding that is incomprehensible and boring/politics where politics aren’t called for.
- Poor writing or otherwise bad use of the chosen medium.
- Mistreatment of, and violence against oppressed groups to make things “grimdark”
- Male characters who are rude to everyone but are snarky and good at A Thing so we’re expected to like them? Learn to be nice.
- Board games
Pet PeeveS
Strawman feminism where the bad guy is so cartoonishly sexist that you can easily frame your boring protagonist as a woke girlboss
People who know nothing about corsets, writing about characters wearing corsets (literally do not get me started on this)
Movies that start with a block of text as if I’m gonna read that shit
Ugly costumes. Why.
Games without horses or dogs. WHY.
Thing that has dragon in the title but no dragon in the content. This should be illegal.
Recent Contributions
Review: Minority Report – Steven Spielberg
This Spielberg film is loosely based on ‘The Minority report’, a 1956 short story by Philip K. Dick. It takes the story’s premise of a police agency that prevents crimes on the basis of predictions of the future, and a police chief whose life is turned upside down when it is predicted he will commit a murder himself. Hollywood adds Tom Cruise, an innovative near-future cyberpunk visual style, action-packed chase scenes, and a twisting plot.
Review: KPop Demon Hunters – Sony Pictures Animation
This animated musical follows K-Pop group the Huntr/x, who use the magic of singing to protect the world from demons, and strengthen the Honmoon, a magical barrier shielding our world from that of the demons. As the girls gear up to permanently banish the demons, one of them is forced to confront not only the demons she and her friends are fighting, but also the markings on her skin indicating that she is part demon herself
Review: Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman
The Owens sisters have always been different from their peers. All Sally and Gillian wanted was to get away from the kids and school, who shunned and teased them for the magic that surrounded them and their aunts. When an unexpected death brings the sisters back into each other’s lives years later, they discover that the love of a family is its own kind of magic.
Review: Van Helsing – Stephen Sommers
Van Helsing is a monster hunter with no memories of his early life. His current days are determined by the jobs the Church assigns to him, thankless jobs that most often leave him hated or feared by the general public. Van Helsing’s latest quarry requires him to travel to Transylvania to deal with the infamous vampire lord Dracula, in order to save the souls of a pious family. In these dark lands, he discovers a greater plot is in the works, something that might even relate to his own unknown history…
Review: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales – Heather Fawcett
Emily Wilde is a researcher specialising in dryadology, the study of faeries. Having previously managed to escape a faerie realm by tricking their king, she now finds herself facing a new conundrum entirely: finding her place in the realm of the faerie king she loves, and helping him defend his home.