Comic Reviews: IvyQuinn vs Beronica, DC/Archie Fanfiction

Old School Harley and Ivy beside Betty and Veronica dressed up as Harley and Ivy

Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica

A rollicking blast of a crossover comic, wherein Harley and Ivy go undercover in Riverdale to prevent Hiram Lodge from wiping out Sweetwater Swamp, but instead end up accidently swapping bodies with Betty and Veronica. A little problem like suddenly being underage won’t derail their plans, however. Betty and Veronica, though? Not thrilled to be stuck in the bodies of two famous Sirens and stuck in Gotham City with all the pissed off criminals who want to do in Harley and Ivy.

Game Reviews: Love Bites

I’d like to introduce you to my new obsession. Okay, to be fair, I’ve been fiddling around with Visual Novel type app games for some time. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t that well-written, they’re expensive thanks to micro-transactions, the art suffers from balloon-boob or bodies-don’t-work-that-way syndrome, and most of them only give you maybe one or two same-sex options. More important are the “not well-written” and “expensive,” though, which is why I’ve become loyal to Winter Wolves.

Not all of their games are impeccably edited, but they always have good art and interesting plotlines. Love Bites… god, how can I describe it without spoiling?

The premise is this: Twins Brandon and Kaitlyn both just graduated from college and are planning on getting work for the summer to save up money before going out on their own. Unfortunately, whichever twin you choose to play has fallen under some kind of weird affliction. As the weeks progress, you start to change and race to find out what has happened to you. Potentially helping you in this endeavor are your step-sister Sabrina, your former teacher Nadia, and students you knew from school Viktor and Tyrone.

You can romance any of the major characters as either twin. Or, you can, through your choices, get a non-romantic ending.

Comic Reviews: Open Earth

Scene over Earth, with a floating space station. In the right corner, two young men and one woman stand with the man in the middle draping his arms over the woman and the other man's shoulders.

Open Earth is a short story, essentially, about the first generation of humans born in a space station orbiting Earth, after we have managed to ruin the planet/blow ourselves up or something. The main action centers on Rigo, as she tries to grapple with wanting a special attachment to her friend Carter, when the first generation is predominantly polyamorous and against partnered attachments.

Ocean's 8: Live Fast Die Young, Bad Girls Do It Well

The new installment of the Ocean’s franchise follows Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) immediately upon her release from jail. Her target? A multimillion dollar necklace, placed on a starlet attending the Met Gala, and she hires a team of women to help her do it, because who better to go unnoticed than women serving and cleaning up after a room full of elites?

All in all, I have to say the movie was entertaining. I did feel the beginning dragged a bit, but it is a problem with the caper flick genre as a whole, especially ones that have to introduce a host of characters. However, I’m probably not the person to review this movie as an instalment in the franchise, since I only watched the original Ocean’s 11 back in 2004 and didn’t find it compelling enough to warrant following the same plot twice more. I watched simply as a movie-goer, and one who ought to appreciate any movie franchise hijacked from previously all-male casts to all female casts.

First, the strengths of this film lie in the characters. Debbie’s motivations are complex and revealed throughout the movie.

(SPOILERS)

4 Shows that Broke Our Gay Little Hearts (that We Otherwise Loved)

4 Shows that Broke Our Gay Little Hearts (that We Otherwise Loved) 

Television shows are homophobic. Water is wet.

Unfortunately, if our favorite shows allow LGBT characters a long and healthy life, they often still constantly make homophobic and transphobic jokes. It’s depressing and disheartening, especially when otherwise, it’s a show you dearly loved.

Vurry, vurry gay.

Below is a list of several shows that have captured our hearts… But then, they proceed to break them as the writers yuck it up at our expense.

Excluded from this list are gems like Glee (because I just don’t have the energy to list all of its flaws, although Kurt still owns my heart KURTSTAN4LYFE) and The Hundred and The Walking Dead (because you lose your place as favorite when your lesbians exist only to further the plot with their brutal deaths).

Movie Reviews: Atomic Blonde, Deflated Luftballon

I wasn’t sure how to start this review. So I’m just going to say, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

I genuinely like Charlize Theron. I’m not a superfan to the point that I watch everything she comes out with, or treat her as my “exception” the way my straight friends do. But she is a bonus for any movie. Unfortunately, like another highly anticipated action movie that Charlize stars in, Aeon Flux, this film both falls short and doesn’t really do justice to the source material.

Atomic Blonde doesn’t fail because of its titular character, though. Problems like this tend to stem from writing, direction, and editing. Since the movie has been out for some time at the writing of this review, I’m just going to tag SPOILERS here, so I can break down the movie on a macro level.

Vamp Reviews: Fledgling

Pictured: Fledgling by a bottle of Poison Girl, with dark purple flowers.
My love for Octavia Butler is deep and all consuming. I’m closing in on reading her entire oeuvre as soon as I nail down the Patternmaster series. She has stories about gene trading aliens, pregnant men, the destruction of America under a demagogic leader, among other thought experiments. She does with sci fi what should be done with sci fi: Explore social phenomenon and test the boundaries of human social expectations.


Fledgling (2005) is no different in this regard. It isn’t my favorite book of hers by any means (that award goes to Parable of the Talents), but it’s just so darn interesting that I’ve returned to it many times. The story follows a young vampire named Shori, who wakes in agonizing pain, nearly burned to death, and blinded, in a cave. As she heals and makes her way out into the world, she has to solve the murder of her family and try to navigate a society she has no memory of in order to get justice or her people.


Fledgling was supposed to be Butler’s “fun” vampire novel, and t was the book she wrote just before she died. (Too soon!) In spite of that, the novel continues to explore the concept of power in hierarchical societies, as well as biological interdependence through a completely original imagining of how vampires and their humans may interact. While some of this novel’s prose isn’t as polished as Butler’s other novels, the conceptual development is more than worth the read.

Sapphic Game Reviews: Blossoms Bloom Best

Pictured: Three women standing in a huge galley. Erica the Captain, Kotoha the otaku engineer, and Sara the only person reacting to this situation normally.

Title: Blossoms Bloom BrightestPlatform: Steam
Cost: Free!
Medium/Genre: Visual Novel/Sci Fi

Blossoms Bloom Brightest is a visual novel about three sapphics in space. They wake up from stasis, with two of the characters, the perky engineer Kotoha (basically an otaku who reminds me of a high school friend of mine) and the justifiably suspicious Sara (who is much more interesting imo, but comes with some serious baggage), as your potential love interests. You guide the actions of the captain, Erica, who mysteriously won’t tell her tiny crew what their mission is or why they’ve been chosen for it.

This is a cute, entertaining little game that takes about an hour to complete for one storyline. Thus, it’s pretty short, although considering the price, you could do worse. The concept behind the plotline is pretty standard sci fi and worth exploration. What the game lacks mostly is development; of plot, of characters, of romantic relationships, you get what you pay for. However, if you enjoy the game, Reine Works and Dharker Studios will be releasing a rebooted version with new artwork, another love interest, and longer gameplay sometime in Summer 2017 under the title Galaxy Angels.

Vamp Reviews: Blood Trail

Pictured Above: My cat with Blood Trail.

Blood Trail was my least favorite installment of the Vicki Nelson series. I'm not sure if that's because the precepts of the series work less well with this plot or because I have such high expectations for werewolf stories.

Yep! In this book, Vicki and Henry go out to London, Ontario to solve the murder of some werewolves. Henry Fitzroy happens to be a friend of the family!

Vamp Reviews: Blood Price

These days, you can’t seem to throw a stone without hitting a brooding vampire… or at least a brooding vampire SERIES. Anne Rice, the Sookie Stackhouse novels, Twilight, and the Vampire Diaries… everyone had a deep Teutonic brow and even deeper angst.

But this isn’t the only feature to vampire fiction. Bram Stoker isn’t even the originator of the genre, if we’re being really honest. Now that I’ve been rereading some of my favorite (as well as less than favorite classics) of the vampire genre, I thought perhaps it would do me good to put the word out about the world of vampires outside of your run of the mill brooding beau.

Mostly, I started this because I decided to reread the Vicki Nelson series by Tanya Huff. Huff is an amazing author regardless of the genre, but most of what I associate with her has its place in high fantasy. However, Huff contributed substantially to the urban fantasy build during the 90s, before Sookie and Dresden, before Buffy and Angel. People wanting to look into the urban fantasy genre could do worse than 

The Vicki Nelson series is set, for the most part, in Ontario. Our heroes? The half-blind ex-cop Vicky Nelson, and the bastard (vampire) son of Henry VIII, versus an entitled computer geek and a Demon Lord.

Why not.