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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Odin's Ravens (second edition) in Tabletop Games

Sep 8, 2021  
Odin's Ravens (second edition)
Odin's Ravens (second edition)
2016 | Animals, Card Game, Mythology, Racing
7
7.0 (3 Ratings)
Tabletop Game Rating
Getting the group together for game nights has always been a struggle – especially now (at time of writing) in this Covid world. So finding good games for 1-2 players has become a priority for me recently. Enter Odin’s Ravens, a 2-player race across the world. Does this game soar to meet my expectations, or does it fall flat in the end? Keep reading to find out.

Odin’s Ravens is a light game of strategy and hand management in which 2 players are racing to be the first of Odin’s ravens (duh) to travel around the world. To setup the game, shuffle the land cards and place a line of 16 cards directly between the two players. Land cards are divided into two halves, each depicting a different landscape. This line of Land cards acts as the route around the world for both Ravens. Players choose one end to be the start/finish lines, and place their Raven meeple on their corresponding side of the starting Land card. During play, the Ravens will travel down their side of the Land cards, and will switch to the opponent’s side for the flight back to the finish. Each player receives a set of 25 Flight cards and 8 Loki cards, to be shuffled and kept separate from each other. Both players then draws 5 cards into their hand, in any combination of Flight and Loki cards. Choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin!


On a typical game turn, you will play as many cards from your hand as you want, either Flight cards, Loki cards, or combinations of the two. Flight cards allow you to move your raven down the path. In order to move your raven, you must play a Flight card that matches the landscape of the next Land card on your path. (Ex. if the next space is a Forest, you must play a Forest Flight card). If you have no Flight cards in hand that match the next card on your path, then you may discard any two flight cards of the same type to move forward one space. Loki cards allow you to perform Trickery actions, which alter the flight paths of both players. Some actions include rotating Land cards, moving ravens forward/backward a number of spaces, swapping Land cards, etc. It is important to note that once a Loki card has been played, it is removed from the game entirely – you only have 8 Loki cards total, so use them wisely! After you have played all the cards you wish on your turn, you will then draw 3 cards (in any combination of Flight/Loki cards), and end your turn. You may never have more than 7 cards in hand. Play continues in this fashion until one player has reached the end of their flight path – resulting in victory!
Seems simple enough, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. The overall gameplay itself is simplistic – draw and play cards to move your raven towards victory. The implementation of Loki cards adds a strategic twist to the game that keeps each player on their toes. Flight cards alone leave you at the mercy of the luck of the draw, but Loki cards give players a little more control over their game strategy. They provide ways to alter the flight path to benefit yourself or inhibit your opponent at various points throughout the game. Add in the fact that each player only has 8 Loki cards total, and that ups the strategy as well . You only have a finite amount of trickery to pull, so you have to be sure to use it at the perfect time. Was your opponent able to counteract your attempted trickery, or did you execute it perfectly for them to fall into your trap?


The components of this game are pretty standard and straightforward. The cards are good quality and are easy to manipulate, and the wooden raven meeples are big and chunky. Nice and simple! The artwork of the game, although clear and effective, is pretty basic and leaves much to be desired. It is clear in the way that it is easy to identify each type of landscape and determine the actions of Loki cards, but overall it feels a little too simplistic and not as immersive as it could be.
Odin’s Ravens is a decent 2-player game, although not my favorite. If I needed something simple, light, and relatively fast for 2 players, it is definitely one that I would pull off the shelf. But I have other 2-player games that I would rather play instead. Will it stay in my collection forever? Hard to say, but for the time being it has a spot on my shelves. If you are looking for something that is relatively simple, but has opportunities for strategy, check out Odin’s Ravens. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a flighty 13 / 18 – you just gotta keep your eye on that Loki…
  
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Erika (17789 KP) rated Loki - Season 1 in TV

Jul 16, 2021 (Updated Jul 16, 2021)  
Loki - Season 1
Loki - Season 1
2021 | Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
5
6.4 (10 Ratings)
TV Season Rating
I’ll stick with Loki’s original story-arc.
Contains spoilers, click to show
Loki, featuring the return of Tom Hiddleston to the MCU, has escaped with the tesseract, and is subsequently caught by the TVA. He agrees to help Owen Wilson’s Mobius track down a variant that is conveniently a version of himself. What ensues is a painful setup for Ironman with Magic… oh, sorry, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
On one hand, my ma always told me, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, but on the other hand, I haven’t been this pissed off at a major franchise since Star Wars: The Last Jedi. My visceral, negative reaction was caused by many things.
First, this series did not need to be made. Loki had a perfect ending to his overall arc, and it really didn’t need to be messed with. I am a huge Tom Hiddleston fan, I went to NYC to see him in a play, waited outside freezing my butt off to meet him, all of that. I was so glad when Loki was killed off, so he’d be free to do other things, and not just be known for Loki. Alas, that did not happen.
This series was made for two subsets of fans: the fans that can’t accept the death of their favorite character, and the fans that are absolutely, irrationally obsessed with having their favorite character paired up romantically. I fall into neither of these categories. ‘More Stories to Tell’ was the tagline… it should have been ‘More Money to be Made’.
After watching the same movie in a different flavor for over ten years, I realized that maybe the MCU wasn’t for me anymore. But, when Loki was announced, I was promised something new and weird! I thought, maybe this will be the show to get me back into the MCU. That was not the case. I cannot believe the rave reviews about this series; did we all watch the same thing?
The first warning sign for me was when it was announced that Michael Waldron, who was a writer for Rick & Morty was going to be helming this series. Rick & Morty is funny… if you’re a dude-bro, drunk, or high. When I read a few of his interviews prior to the release of Loki, another warning sign, this guy kind of sounded like a huge douchebag. I was then calmed and reassured that maybe it wouldn’t be a train-wreck because Hiddleston was heavily involved in the series.
As I’ve mentioned before, we were promised something new, different, and weird. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, creative team behind Loki.
Episode 1 was cheap; did I need to see clips from previous movies used in a very uncreative way? No, I did not. There was also something just off about the casting of Wilson. Now, this may be on me because my teen-years were spent quoting Owen Wilson films. There were a few things I liked about Episode 1, like the Blade Runner robot reference. There was a red flag in this episode though. Pro-tip: never, EVER have a character verbalize/confirm that they’re smart. Because it’s probably not the case.
Episode 2 was the bright spot, it was my favorite, by far. It was fast-paced, amusing, and the most interesting episode out of the whole series. The Mt Vesuvius/unleashing of the goats thing was the sort of thing I was looking for in this series. I actually chuckled a little, which rarely happens. It moved the story along, and we get the big reveal of the Loki variant that’s causing all the havoc.
 
Episode 3 was, for lack of a better word, boring. The pace slowed, and it was the infamous Disney+ show filler episode. We’re introduced to Mary Sue, sorry, I mean Lady Loki, but not really, Sylvie, the Enchantress, right? No, wait, she’s a completely different, new character. Probably shouldn’t have opted for the name Sylvie in that case. She’s a brand new, *strong* female, that shows her strength by punching people and has no personality (see: Carol Danvers - Captain Marvel, Hope van Dyne - Ant-Man). Y’all, you told me you were going to give me something different, new, weird. A Mary Sue isn’t new, different, or weird. This episode was a get-to-know-each-other, and build a pseudo-sibling relationship, right? Because anything else would be weird in a bad way, not an interesting way. There was a considerable shift in our TVA ‘Smart’ Loki character evolution, he opened-up, announced that he was a member of the LGBTQQIAAP nation, progress! First bi-sexual character in the MCU, way to go Disney, getting with the times! It was still a filler episode though, and while the stakes seemed high, you knew that there were three more episodes to go, of course they would live.
Again, I was reassured after this lackluster episode by Hiddleston, that 4 and 5 were his favorite. That fact is now disturbing.
Episode 4 was the death knell. I think the response from the creative team afterwards was also incredibly tone-deaf, and, quite frankly, insulting. The 4th episode was so bad, I legitimately had to go cleanse my eyes and brain with a GBBO marathon. The fact that the creative team had no idea that the insta-love (see: Jane and Thor - Thor) between two characters that had seemingly formed a pseudo-sibling relationship wouldn’t come off a little incest-y is really strange to me. If a pseudo-sibling relationship was not the intention, then it was poor writing, directing and acting by all parties involved. Sometimes, when a Mary Sue punches our main character, he falls in love with her (see: Hope and Scott - Ant-Man). The whole narcissism thing was hilarious, I’m glad our TVA ‘Smart’ Loki was cured of that by Sylvie and another *strong* personality-lacking woman (see: Sif -Thor/Thor: the Dark World) kicking him between the legs was what he’d needed all along. If a small portion of this episode was actually utilizing the myth of Narcissus, then I’m glad they followed it through to the dying part. This is when everything clicked for me. Our TVA ‘Smart’ Loki’s character evolution made him a big ol’ bowl of mushy, overcooked oatmeal. HOW and WHY would you take one of the best anti-heroes in the MCU, or any superhero franchise, and make him so mushy? More importantly, I didn’t care about what happened to any of the characters, except B-15. Normally, that’s my cue to stop watching a show, but I wanted to see if they tried to convince audiences that this Oatmeal Loki was actually smart and logical.
Episode 5 was when things slightly improved. Again, I couldn’t forgive the events of Episode 4, and I totally fast-forwarded during whatever talk Loki and Mary Sue, sorry, Sylvie, had with a blankie around their shoulders. All of the other Lokis were better in their tiny amount of screen time than Oatmeal Loki and Mary Sue Loki. Alligator Loki had more personality than Sylvie. Richard Grant is the superior Loki in my opinion. This episode also reintroduced hand holding with CGI colors swirling around characters (see: Guardians of the Galaxy).
Episode 6 was our finale. Thank God. We’re introduced to the real head of the TVA, which was who everyone was expecting. This episode was a little slow-paced, with a lot of interesting chit-chat. Oatmeal Loki actually seemed like he had a brain cell or two for a few brief, fleeting moments. He even showed off some of his powers, which, by the way, we were told we’d see more of… but didn’t. Then, our Oatmeal Loki was distracted by his Mary Sue, went for a kiss, and plopped right on his ass, looking like a fool. I almost snorted my coffee as I watched. Then, they confirmed a Season 2.
Honestly, I was hoping Oatmeal Loki and Mary Sue Loki would get killed off. Sadly, it didn’t happen, and they’re getting another series, and an appearance in Ironman with Magic. I’m so glad this series was something new, different, and weird, not just the bog-standard, MCU drivel we normally get. Oh, wait… I probably don’t even need to state that this wasn’t my cup of tea, and, again, solidified the fact that I’m over the MCU. I also know that I should avoid anything Michael Waldron and Kate Herron touch. Eventually, I’ll stop feeling betrayed by Hiddleston, but it may take a while. Is that ridiculous? Probably.
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Merissa (12616 KP) rated Knight to Castle Two (Diviner's Game #2) in Books

Feb 12, 2021 (Updated Aug 3, 2023)  
Knight to Castle Two (Diviner's Game #2)
Knight to Castle Two (Diviner's Game #2)
Jennifer Cody | 2021 | LGBTQ+, Paranormal, Romance
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
KNIGHT TO CASTLE TWO is the second book in the Diviner's Game trilogy and this time we find out just what's going on with human Headsman, Loki, and his step-brother Drakon, Gage.

We met with Loki and Gage in book one, and this one runs on a parallel time, so we see some of the same events but from their eyes instead. This is incredibly hard to do but excellently executed by Jennifer Cody.

Loki and Gage are as close as two people can be, but DO NOT share blood. They are not related in any way, apart from being step-brothers. Their relationship might raise a few eyebrows but is not incestuous in any way. What it is though, is hot as hell! Loki is a leather-wearing, kick-ass, take no s**t Headsman, but Gage is the force in their relationship. I loved seeing what makes both of them tick.

A little bit more of the intrigue is unravelled in this book, but not enough for me! I guess I'll just have to read the third book to find out the whole story. Oh, what a shame. The pacing is just as perfect as the first book, and I also loved seeing Matt and Deejay through someone else's eyes too.

What a fantastic trilogy this is turning out to be. Two down, one to go, and I honestly can't wait. Absolutely recommended!

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Feb 12, 2021
  
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ClareR (5841 KP) rated Norse Mythology in Books

Jun 14, 2019  
Norse Mythology
Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
10
8.4 (38 Ratings)
Book Rating
A short and sweet book, but I would have been happy to read more! These are very human Gods: Thor seems rather challenged in the brain department, and Loki is the annoying child at the party (or anywhere!).
This is the complete opposite to the Marvel movies (neither a good or bad thing), and I feel it's more faithful to the original myths (go figure!). Thoroughly recommended!
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Erika (17789 KP) rated Red Wolf: Man Out of Time in Books

Feb 11, 2018  
Red Wolf: Man Out of Time
Red Wolf: Man Out of Time
Nathan Edmondson, Dalibor Talajic | 2016 | Comics & Graphic Novels
8
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Red Wolf was the best character to come out of the 1872 collection of comics during Warzones. Of course, 'Man Out of Time' has been used to describe Cap in the past (by Loki in Avengers), but it fits Red Wolf as well. I was disappointed that this was a one volume and done, because I liked it enough to want to read on. Marvel always cancels my favs.
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Ryan Hill (152 KP) rated Thor: The Dark World (2013) in Movies

May 10, 2019  
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
2013 | Action, Sci-Fi
4
6.4 (67 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Thor and loki team up Chris Hemsworth as Thor Tom Hiddleston as loki Final action sequence was creative (0 more)
Malekith is possibly the worst MCU villain Thor and Jane's romance Boring plot Darcy aka Dar Dar binks Selvigs's stone henge moment (0 more)
"i didn't do it for him"
I was hoping to see something in The Dark World that I had missed the previous two viewings...something to help me enjoy this a bit more. Unfortunately, I hadn't missed anything. This is a drag.

Where do I start with the flaws? A lot of characters are criminally underutilised including Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Odin, Heimdall and perhaps most important, the main antagonist, Malekith. I like the idea of the Dark Elves being used here but the execution is terribly flawed. It doesn't help that the likes of Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins are seemingly coasting here; the former with literally no chemistry with her love interest. Although the latter's sheer presence helps boost scenes he is in, even if he isn't trying. The other issue is this whole film is essentially flashes of brilliance drowning in a sea of mediocrity. Every now and then we get a cool scene involving Loki or Thor will crack a joke or there will be a cool action sequence but then that 5 minutes is followed by 20 minutes of characters having little to do. It's criminally boring.

I bet you can all guess the good...Chris Hemsworth who plays Thor and Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki. These two are the stars (obviously) and if it wasn't for them, this would probably get only one star. I mean, I like Thor's friends but they don't get much screentime in this. I like the look of Asgard but the story that accompanies it is boring.

It's a shame that two great lead characters are wasted by weak writing and unmotivated performances from some other cast members.
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Kaysee Hood (83 KP) rated Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor in Books

Nov 20, 2017 (Updated Nov 21, 2017)  
Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor
Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor
Rick Riordan | 2016 | Children
10
8.8 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Still Sassy (1 more)
Gender-Fluid Alex
Abusive Elf Dad (3 more)
Loki
Ragnarok
Betrayal
So, I'll be honest and say I read this book back when it came out (Oct. 2016) and do not quite remember how I felt in terms of words about the second Magnus Chase book, but I can say I did enjoy this book as much as the first one.

We're able to gain a bit more insight to the main characters and be introduced to a non-binary character, which is interesting with the events going on right now with people figuring out who they are. Alex is well written without appearing as an icon to change views, simply to open the minds and introduce the reader to them.


Hearthstone's past comes into play rather largely when they have to go to his childhood home to obtain an important item for their quest. It kind of brings light to why the Elf is the way he is. The gang uncovers he plays a rather great role I will not spoil because you need to read the book.


To sum up what I do recall, the goal is to prevent Loki from escaping his bonds. A wetstone and sword must be found to do this. Sam is also being forced into an arrange marriage by Loki to a giant (very rude if you ask me considering she is already in one she is VERY happy with).


Read the second book if you liked the first one.
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