The front door
Hello and welcome to The Brew.
Remember last issue when I went on about living in Heartstopper land?
Well it turns out that a lot of people have been doing that, to the point where there’s now a sub-Reddit for it, which at last count has 2,500+ members:
r/Heartstopper Syndrome: A gathering place for those queer people who are dealing with complex emotions after watching the absolutely beautiful show Heartstopper
Because if there’s one thing that misery isn’t miserable about, it’s having heartsick company.
Library
Books
Eta Draconis by Brendan Ritchie—Elora has just finished high school in her hometown of Esperance, Western Australia. Her older sister Vivienne, already attending university in the city, has been home for the summer holidays and they are driving back to the city together so Elora can start at university. But since they were young, the meteor Eta Draconis has been raining down upon the earth, showers filling the sky with lights and destroying homes, roads, and livelihoods with falling debris and shockwaves. It was also the catalyst for their family’s move from the city to Esperance in the first place, and when the bond between Elora and Vivienne began to wane.
Despite the danger, and their strained relationship, the sisters start out on their long road trip across the southernmost part of the state. In this world of random destruction, intermittent communication, and violent uncertainty, who is Elora to go to university and seek a future that may never eventuate? And how can she recover the connection with her sister, who lives as though Draconis never started falling?
As Elora and Vivienne travel the bare highways and brown farmland from Esperance to Perth, they witness the panicked flight of families from the city into the wilderness, as though being on a different part of the earth will control the randomness of the universe. As the sisters’ journey is delayed, detoured, and stripped of any certainty, Ritchie explores every difficult question that young adults cycle through when looking at different versions of their future.
This is a brilliantly-crafted, deeply-considered work that studies this immense, beautiful, lonely corner of the world through the eyes of someone on the cusp of the rest of their life. The story is with unique insight into the terrifying process of leaving behind not just a childhood, but a hometown community, a way of life, and the comfort of the familiar, for something unknown and alienating, and having no sense of certainty that it is the right decision.
Lounge
TV
Sweet Tooth (2021-present)—If I said that this was a story set in a post-apocalypse America about a hard-boiled and reluctant older man taking a special young person across the country and all the obstacles they face along the way, you may think I’m referring to The Last Of Us.
No.
This is Sweet Tooth. The apocalypse is not mushrooms, but a sickness, and the kid is not mushroom-free anomaly, but a human-deer hybrid.
This show has both a very strange premise (human-animal hybrids? Purple flowers? Vibrating pinkies??) and a familiar formula (America = kaput; one person to save them all), and it’s interesting how the two work together to create an intense, interesting story. The vibe sits somewhere between the seriousness of The Last Of Us and the absurdity and innocence of a fantasy story like The Labyrinth (including puppets!)
After bingeing season one, I’m excited to see where they’re taking the story with season two. If you like apocalypses and grumpy-sunshine dynamics, you may well enjoy Sweet Tooth.
Games
Tetris—Did you know that the blocks in Tetris all have names?
My personal favourite is Smashboy.
And another thing…
Links for desserts:
Happy 35th Anniversary to ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit,’ a Freaking Miracle of a Film
‘A smorgasbord of unlikability’: the authors helping ‘sad girl lit’ grow up
Queer LARP: Exploring gender and sexuality through Live Action Role Play
How to Uphold the Status Quo: The Problem With Small Town Witch Romances
And a meme for a midnight snack:
Find more of my writing on my website: Oddfeather Creative
I create and send The Brew from the lands of the Gunaikurnai people, where I also live, work, and drink lots of hot beverages. I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land, and pay my respects to the Elders, past and present.