#I can still make short scripts instead of trying to make a full-length book series with a bunch of pages

[emyluwinter]

@kandlewick - the author is au. I hope I can tag you in the post?

The queries are too short for me. ahahaha

I really love your Janitor AY!

Can I throw some ideas on this bonfire? ahaha.

Malleus sometimes brings and leaves some tea for the Janitor. Not accepting any refusals or refunds. Sometimes it's a cookie or any treat that can be stored for a long time. Sometimes dried fruits. "I want to have our conversations over a nice cup of tea, which I really want to treat you to. Consider it my gratitude for your hospitality."

When Kalim started taking Master Chef courses, he often took leftovers back to the dorm.

“yeah. I know that you don't accept the excessive luxuries that my family has. But look! There's a good piece of meat here and it's burnt!"

The janitor doesn't mind this time. The food will go bad soon anyway, and the students here are too spoiled and arrogant. And they accept Kalim's efforts, seeing that he tries not to "go beyond an adequate budget". Sometimes they share food with Ruggie in exchange for coupons to the store or any cleaning products for the building.

You can argue with me, but Kalim's magic would be VERY useful.

-So…Can you make clean, drinkable water in unlimited quantities?

-yes. It's completely useless, I know… Kalim knows that his magic is just child's play compared to the other students. He was already used to another burden in his soul and here. His train of thought is interrupted like a train. -Don't talk nonsense. Water for drinking, for bathing, for washing dishes, for cleaning surfaces. Hmm…If we get an old pump, can we make a steam cleaner? Listen, you're going to be indispensable here. Can you imagine what a hassle it was to drown snow and ice in winter when the water in the pipes froze?

-I had to filter it through charcoal from the fireplace.. I still remember how she smelled like smoke. -Grimm complained.

-Filter… water… with coal?- Kalim asked in confusion. There were many new lessons waiting for him.

Can a Janitor be a good storyteller?

Ace and Kalim are still technically, studying. And the Janitor, by virtue of his abilities, reads a lot of books, encyclopedias, old documents that can be found in the library. If Are they not busy working or improving their standard of living, getting food or money or other responsibilities? They're reading. A lot. Before going to bed. After dinner, when there is free time.

The Janitor can't explain everything about magic. But, oh, the seven. Ace was ready to sit out the whole day if they explained to him the whole story of how a Janitor does it.

During the removal of clothes from the dryer after a lot of washing.

-That's it…means…

-The king was greedy to such an extent that his people couldn't stand it and staged a riot. The documents stated that they had used his own weapon against him. His castle became for him both a shield and an iron maiden with nails inside.

-How can they sabotage an entire castle?-

-The servants, Kalim. Those whose families are not noble and see the full horror of the king's rule in their house. Their decision to rebel remains positive without hesitation. If their family can't afford a crust of damn mouldy bread. While the king signs a new decree on taxes. They're coming up with a plan. Take out all the supplies that they themselves have been replenishing all this time. To talk to the knights, those who have a head on their shoulders with the thoughts that the king will take them to the coffin faster than to the paradise of abundance. Locked in the castle alone with his entourage.

-And the king remains without protection and without food!

-And then they lock him up like an animal in a cage! It's creepy. It turns out that they left him no choice but to agree to their terms?

-History knows other cases. Both the smarter ones and the stupid ones, as well as the senselessly bloody ones.

-Aah! Please wait! I'm out of ink in my pen, I won't have time to write it down.

Ace and Kalim proudly showed the Janitor their improved grades in the subjects they explained to them. They have a separate cork board that stands on the floor, fastened somehow with nails. but he holds all the successes of the two dorm students as world medals.

I think Epel will turn to the Janitor at some point because they have an entire building that can be used as a warehouse for the surplus from his village. How did the student know?

Rook, of course. This guy brings various books, mostly poetry, poetry and fiction. Sometimes it's useful to take your mind off heavy books and do something light and simple so that your brain doesn't boil over with information.

Of course, the Janitor gets a couple of boxes for free as payment for renting a couple of unused rooms.

[titusmoody]

It’s the end of the first quarter of 2021. Here’s a brief review of the things I watched/played/read.

Games

Donut County- pretty charming, very easy, fairly satisfying to play. I’d recommend Untitled Goose Game over this, though.

Heaven’s Vault- If you only have room in your life for one space archaeology game, play Outer Wilds instead. However, you get to translate alien writings yourself (in a simplified game way) in this one, so I’d recommend both. 

Donkey Kong Country 3 103%- so many fun level mechanics in this one. The difficulty of finding and completing everything in the game was spot-on for me.

Donkey Kong Country 2 102%- Each level mechanic in this one is explored and used in far more interesting ways than DKC3, though I honestly had more fun with 3 this time around. This one is the “dark, edgy” one aesthetically which is extremely dumb. Also, there was a lot of guesswork involved in finding some of the hidden stuff, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Room 4- I like escape room games. This one was good. It continued 3′s trend of trying to shake up the format a little, which is fine (better here than in 3, I think) but I wouldn’t have minded if all 4 stayed exactly the same, just with new puzzles.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales- Everything about it was competent. Not only was each gameplay activity fine-tuned to feel good, but the structure of the game also kept kept you experiencing a good variety of each activity. PS5 graphics are good, too. Nothing about it really got me excited to play it, it was just a good after work unwinding thing.

Cyberpunk 2077- Exactly the opposite of Spider-Man in terms of quality consistency. There are aspects of this game that are amazing, horrible, and every step in between. However, I’ve thought about it quite a bit and will probably continue to think about it for both good and bad reasons.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair- Donkey Kong Country has better level design and controls. Well, the best levels of this were every bit as good as the best DKC levels, and maybe I’m just so familiar with DKC levels that I zone out a little during the boring bits, but had to pay attention to every moment of this game. Still, I didn’t have as much of an overall good time as the DKC games I played earlier.

Hue- Good 2D puzzle-platformer. I’m no longer surprised by these, but I still appreciate them, much in the same way as I like playing escape room games. I was under the impression for a few years that because I understood the potential of puzzle platformers, it meant I wouldn’t want to play any more of them, but that’s simply not true. I had a good time with Hue.

Shows

Gravity Falls- It’s fine. Pretty entertaining. I wish there were more low-stakes kinds of episodes, just to get more familiar with different sides of the characters. It would have made the characters and setting feel more rounded.

Cowboy Bepop- I didn’t get the hype for this show when I first watched it at 21, and now I can say that it’s simply not my kind of show. I have much more appreciation for it now than I did the first time, but it doesn’t hit me emotionally the same way that it seems to hit so many people. 

Seinfeld- It’s Seinfeld. There was precisely one episode that I had never seen before, plus confirmation that I didn’t dream the episode that’s told in backwards chunks like Memento and is set in India.

Paranoia Agent- While it was disappointing that this ended up being a more simple morality tale than every Satoshi Kon movie I’ve seen, I still enjoyed watching this a lot.

Aggretsuko- I liked the mundane, every-day storylines like a modern, more empathetic Seinfeld. Unfortunately as the show went on, there were more and more wacky situations that no one actually gets into. I might watch the upcoming season if I hear that it’s less ridiculous.

Over the Garden Wall- This was really cool and I’m glad it exists. It’s ten episodes long, which is perfect for it. I thought it was at its weakest during the more lighthearted or humorous moments--precisely the opposite of Gravity Falls. The word “classy” comes to mind to describe this show. 

Beastars- Really good when it isn’t falling into anime plot and dialog cliches. A lot of this first season is dedicated to introducing characters and the setting, which I thought was very well done. I’m curious to see what Season 2 is like.

Movies

Scott Pilgrim vs the World- It’s a fun movie to watch. It definitely makes many of the characters’ flaws seem like more fun than it probably should, but I’m more bothered by the criticism I hear that boils down to “it’s a bad movie because the characters are bad people” which I suspect is an impression you only get if you lack both empathy and media comprehension.

Big- Kinda bad. It has iconic moments that are only possible with its weird premise, but it’s just not a premise that supports an entire good movie. 

Phantom of the Opera- Way better and way worse than I remember. Has the precise right amount of horses.

Knives Out- Not really a movie I needed to watch a second time, but it sure is good.

District 9- I didn’t remember most of this movie and unfortunately I zoned out for most of this rewatch, so I still feel like I don’t know what it’s about.

From up on Poppy Hill- Not one of the top tier Ghibli movies, but still really good in a down-to-earth way that I like from Ghibli. 

Enter the Dragon- I knew to expect everything to be turned up to 11, which is good because it really is a lot. I liked it, though.

Shutter Island- I have never actually liked this kind of twist-reliant movie. I thought I would for many years, but I was always disappointed. At least now I am aware that it’s not what I’m into.

Soul- The premise is much too convoluted, but it does have an excellent moment near the end.

Onward- I liked this one a lot. Why don’t more people talk about this one? It’s definitely better than Coco, which itself was really good.

A Silent Voice- The kind of movie that reminds me that sometimes Japanese storytelling is more to my taste than Hollywood style, in that scenes can be more emotionally ambiguous. 

Tangled- Good in exactly the same way as Frozen and Moana. I can’t really complain, but this isn’t the same situation as puzzle platformers or escape rooms. In this case, I do get a little sick of being completely unsurprised. This movie was made first, so it’s only by chance that this is the one that I saw last.

Monsters University- A good movie, but it really doesn’t have to be about the same characters as Monsters Inc. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail- Still funny

The Departed- Good if you want an enjoyable crime thriller to watch, bad if you want a Scorcese movie.

Titanic- Getting very drunk and watching this with Brittany might be the best time I had in the past three months. Maybe I won’t think too hard about why a movie about the overdue, violent death of a social order resonates with me right now.

Prince of Egypt- Impressive and grand, but I didn’t really care about the characters or story.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- A good but not great (by TNG standards) concept for an episode that was made extremely enjoyable by the added budget and longer runtime of a movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock- Not as good, but still watchable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home- The kind of ridiculous concept you’d only make when you’ve already had three successful movies and are confident that you’ll be able to make at least another couple. The gang go back to the 1980s (present day to the original audience) and save the whales. It’s apparently exactly the right movie to watch if this is the third consecutive Star Trek movie you’re watching.

Mamma Mia- A lot of fun, but has weird problems that seem like they would’ve been easy to solve at the script level. Maybe if the conflicts had been introduced early on instead of dragging the whole pace of the movie down for much of the last 20 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed the whole thing.

Books

The Well of Ascension- The second book of a trilogy. Very competent. Introduces a whole lot of minor conflicts that really keep the momentum going and give the characters short-term goals that contribute to the overall plot and their arcs. 

The Hero of Ages- The final book in the same trilogy. Equally competent. I wish there had been more long-term payoffs, which is the trade-off you make by stuffing the books full of those short-term conflicts. Spoilers ahead, but not ones that I think ruin the experience of reading. It’s very odd that of three of the central characters, one dies, one becomes a god and then dies, and one becomes God. 

Check Please- About as pleasant as it gets. Full of the type of minor character that sitcoms end up running into the ground because they’re too one-note (Creed from The Office, for instance) but in a series with a pre-planned length, there’s no chance for it to get stale. Plus, I really liked both of the lead characters.

Milkman- Good book about “The Troubles” in Ireland. Very odd collection of characters, but the narrator had an extremely enjoyable voice to read. 

And Then There Were None- Classic mystery story for a reason. Feels more like a Hitchcock movie than Sherlock Holmes. I read it in one day both because the prose was easy and I wanted to know what happened next. Not much substance to it, unfortunately.

Homegoing- Extremely ambitous book where each chapter is narrated by the descendant of a previous chapter, alternating between two branches of the same family. I liked it quite a bit, though because I only finished it yesterday I don’t have much reflection done yet so my opinion has yet to solidify.

[jgroffdaily]

[This article appears in the September 16, 2019, issue of New York Magazine.]

Within minutes of my meeting Jonathan Groff, he asks if I would like a slice of cherry pie, and then, only a short time later, if I would like to be eaten by a giant plant. The first I readily accept because Groff and the rest of the cast of Little Shop of Horrors have thoroughly analyzed the desserts they picked up for a bus ride down from New York to the suburban Philadelphia puppet studio where they’re rehearsing for the day, and they’ve all concluded it’s the best option. The idea of being eaten by a plant seems a little less palatable, considering the contortions involved in entering the hippopotamus-esque maw of the man-eating Audrey II, which is operated by several puppeteers, and because I’m not sure if Groff is making a serious offer. I learn quickly that he is always offering you things, and those offers are always serious.

The puppet in question represents the largest form of Audrey II, a sassy carnivorous horticultural oddity that convinces Seymour, an awkward flower-shop assistant, to commit murder in the pursuit of fame, fortune, and a suburban life with the original Audrey, a human who works with him. The day I visit, Groff, playing the misfit Seymour (despite good looks that actor Christian Borle, who plays the maniacal dentist, Orin, describes as “scrumptious”), and his castmates are climbing inside Audrey II one by one, figuring out how each of them will die. Wearing a hat from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “On the Run II” tour, Groff jumps inside wielding a floppy machete, which is so un-aerodynamic it keeps getting stuck in Audrey II’s lips. Groff suggests a real machete prop would be sturdier, and they try substituting an umbrella, which flies out more cleanly. Michael Mayer, the director, says with satisfaction, “It’s a belch!”

Staging this revival of Little Shop is “illegal fun,” as Groff puts it. The original ran from 1982 to 1987 but never transferred to Broadway, at the insistence of writer-lyricist Howard Ashman, who wanted to preserve the show’s off-kilter spirit in a smaller space. Ashman and composer Alan Menken would go on to fill the Disney Renaissance — which consisted of films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast — with the Marie’s Crisis–ready melodies and queer subversions you can already hear in Little Shop (Ashman died of aids-related complications in 1991). Despite a Broadway staging that kicked off in 2003, this version is staying put at the Westside Theatre Off Broadway in hopes of preserving the quirky spirit of the original. There’s a lot of laughter in rehearsal as well as dress codes like a “kimono Wednesday,” which Mayer enforces by handing me a spare kimono when I drop in that day.

I can’t imagine anyone who is consistently involved in or adjacent to homicide having a better time. In addition to playing a murderously nice guy in Little Shop, Groff stars in Netflix’s David Fincher–produced drama Mindhunter, playing an FBI agent who interviews serial killers; the show is based on the real work of John Douglas, who was one of the first criminal profilers. Considering he’s no big fan of true crime, Groff is somewhat confused about how he became a poster boy for gore and mutilation, though he’s enjoying the texts from friends who point out that even when he does musical comedy, there’s a dark edge involved. A few days after we meet in Philadelphia, we’re talking over breakfast at the cozy Grey Dog in Chelsea, where he insists on paying for everything, picking up all the water and utensils, and getting up from the table to refill my coffee cup when it’s empty.

Groff signed up to star in Little Shop this spring after careful consideration, by which I mean he got the offer and then listened to the original cast recording on repeat for a whole weekend. He’d never played Seymour before, unlike the majority of white male theater actors, but he had positive memories of seeing the first performance of the 2003 Broadway version just after high school, when he was rehearsing the role of Rolf in a non-Equity tour of The Sound of Music. “I wanted to make sure that I’m bleeding for it eight times a week,” he says, which is his measure for doing musicals; he wants to make sure he won’t get bored with the material. Even now, when I assume he might want a break from it during rehearsals, Groff still has the album on repeat. “I never went to college, and I’m not educated, really, so I couldn’t say, like, intellectually why that is,” he says. “When I listened to it, it shot through my heart.”

There’s a clue, however, in the way he remembers obsessing over the film version of the show as a seventh-grader, standing in his kitchen with the song “Skid Row” on repeat — specifically when Seymour sings, “Someone show me a way to get outta here.” It was an appealing message to a closeted kid whom Groff describes as just “a sweaty, uncomfortable person with a secret that was so deep-rooted I wasn’t even flirting with the idea of being myself.” With a little distance from that version of himself (the child of a phys-ed teacher and a horse trainer, growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and occasionally having to clean stables on the weekends), Groff recalls the kinds of tells that seem obvious in retrospect, like, say, listening to “Skid Row” on repeat. Or developing an obsession with I Love Lucy, which he still watches before going to bed. Or dancing along to the Donna Reed’s Dinner Party album when his parents weren’t home. There’s a similar longing in Little Shop, which has the queerest kind of perspective on its central couple, as Audrey and Seymour imagine an unreachable, heteronormative life away from skid row and where she looks “like Donna Reed.”

If there’s a murderous kinship between Little Shop and Mindhunter, it extends to the shows’ shared skepticism about that white-picket-fence-style normalcy. Holden, Groff’s profiler character, is a cardboard cutout of a man with a girlfriend who introduces him to 1970s-style sexual liberation, but he is ultimately more fascinated with the deviancy of the killers he’s interviewing. To play him, Groff shuts down his charisma, amassing such emptiness between his angular jaw and his eyebrows that you wonder if he’ll slip into deviancy himself. It’s a performance of square, even sinister straightness that feels close to the best-little-boy performances of closeted queer men, though what seems to thrill Holden most in the show are his interviews with killers. “Sexuality is so complicated, and the people I’ve ended up working with who have cast me in straight parts are interested in looking at things in a complicated way,” Groff says, noting that he feels the argument about whether gay actors can play straight, or vice versa, has gotten “sillier” as time goes on. “Being out and gay and being myself, it allowed me to find people that weren’t closed-minded.”

Groff came out when he was 23, without directly consulting his agent, after he’d become an idol to the nation’s theater teens of Facebook by starring as the sexy, rebellious, tousle-haired Melchior in Spring Awakening. “I was so compartmentalized,” he says, “singing about sex but then not talking about it.” He remains thankful for the way Mayer, who also directed that show, choreographed the explicit sex between himself and Lea Michele’s Wendla clinically, without asking them about their own experiences. He hadn’t spent too much time worrying about the aftereffects of coming out on his career, which were more limiting in 2009 than they are now. “I did think I might not be seen as a romantic lead, but ultimately I was okay with that,” he says, explaining that he was in love at the time and didn’t want to hide it. “At 23, I’d rather just have a real romantic relationship than pretend to have one with a girl.”

Several years after coming out, Groff booked a leading role in HBO’s Looking, a comedy-drama about gay men in San Francisco, which he calls one of the most fulfilling roles he’s had. The series ran for two seasons and got a wrap-up movie but never quite found a viewership, even among queer audiences, instead receiving, as he puts it, “a total mixed bag of very extreme reactions.” Some of that was because people just didn’t like the show — which was often slower, more interior, and whiter and fitter than people may have wanted — and some of it was because it was “carrying a lot of weight; there wasn’t a lot of specifically gay content on a major cable network.” To Groff, making the show opened him up to the possibility of using material from his own experience in his work. Among the cast and crew, “we would talk about stories about PrEP and uncut dicks and monogamy,” he recalls, among “so many stories about anal douching,” and those anecdotes would make their way into the scripts. He was used to a sort of “closeted training of the mind” to abstract himself from his own experience. Looking taught him he could use it.

Recently, Groff has developed an ability to end up near the center of cultural sensations. He stepped in for Brian d’Arcy James as Hamilton’s fey Britpop version of King George III midway through the show’s Off Broadway run. It was a somewhat ideal gig, given that he was onstage for only about nine minutes a night, performed crowd-pleasing kiss-off songs, met Beyoncé, earned a Tony nomination, and got a lot of reading done backstage. This fall, he’s in Disney’s sequel to Frozen, where he returns to play Princess Anna’s rugged (at a Disney-appropriate level) love interest, Kristoff. In the first movie, while Idina Menzel’s Elsa got the vocal-cord shattering “Let It Go,” Groff sang only a few lines of melody between Kristoff and his reindeer, Sven. This time around, he’s putting his Broadway training to use with a full-length solo. It’s the second one he recorded for the movie, since the writers had one idea for a Kristoff piece (“a jam”) but then canned that song while promising Groff they’d write something different, which he didn’t quite believe. “Then they fucking wrote that other song,” he says, characteristically effusive. “I was like, Wow, and the animation of the song is so brilliant.”

As personable as Groff is and as successful as he has become — and as beloved, especially among theater fans and people like my mother — there’s a point at which he maintains a certain distance, in what feels like a way to stem his own impulses. He doesn’t use any social media, though he did consider it when Looking was struggling, before he realized “I’d have to be good at it and want to do it, and I don’t.” He has never thrown himself a birthday party, because the impulse to make sure everyone’s having a good time would stress him out too much. In behavior that reminds me of both a secret agent and Kim Kardashian, he regularly goes through and deletes all his texts after responding to each of them. “I want to make sure I get back to everyone,” he says, holding his iPhone up in front of me to reveal the remarkably few surviving messages.

Before Groff gets up to leave breakfast and travel to rehearsal by way of the single-speed bicycle he rides around Manhattan, we end up talking about the larger trajectory of his career. Considering that he’s scaling down for a revival run of a musical Off Broadway, was he ever the kind of actor who thought of his work as building up to something? A big film? A franchise? “I think I gave that up when I came out of the closet,” he says. “I gave up the idea that there was an end goal or ideal or some kind of dream to work toward.” An image appears in my mind of the life Audrey sings about in Little Shop, a place that’s comfortable, traditional, and expected, somewhere that’s green. “When I moved to New York, what I wanted was to be on Broadway. That happened and then I came out, and it’s sort of been anybody’s guess since then,” Groff says. “I like when something makes me cry or I can’t stop listening to it. Okay, I want to do that.”

Little Shop of Horrors is in previews and opens October 17 at Westside Theatre Upstairs. Buy tickets here.

[timeagainreviews]

The Edge of Acceptable

Hello friends! Previously I said I would try and post an article between then and my "Doctor Who: The Edge of Time," review. This was mostly due to my not knowing how long it would take me to finish playing the game. Well, intrepid reader, it appears I overestimated the game's length, as I have beaten it and I have many things to say. Before we begin, however, I would like to state that this review will be full of spoilers, so if you plan on playing "The Edge of Time," for yourself, you may want to hold off reading this. There, you've been warned. Let the spoilers commence!

The game begins in a laundrette somewhere in a dark corner of London. After some strange anomalies, a television kicks on, and the Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker can be seen on screen. Speaking directly to you, she tells you that you're the only person that can help her. Suddenly a shift in the lights (and possibly time) occurs and the laundrette is filled with a black sludge reminiscent of the purple gunk from "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." Peering from the individual dryers along the wall are black sludge monsters with murky red eyes that stick to you. If you get close to them, they lunge and crack the glass.

After explaining to you that the universe is like a hard drive and that people and moments are like individual files, the Doctor informs you that someone has installed a sort of computer virus. Lost on the edge of time, she is unable to help you, but using a bit of her Doctory magic, she's going to help you help her, and by extension- save the universe. It's no small order, but you're raring to go!

It's during this point, however, that I did find myself slightly frustrated with the game design. As the Doctor begins speaking to you, she's oftentimes drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear what she's saying. When I went to the options menu, I was surprised to see that no option to lower the music volume was available. There was however a subtitles option, which I opted out of due to my feeling that seeing subtitles somewhat sullied the immersion. The next bit of frustration came from the following scene in the back office of the laundrette.

Another big source of frustration was the controls. While in the office, you're made to find the code to a safe, and then enter the code into its keypad. As excited as I was to be playing a new Doctor Who game, I almost rage quit due to the sheer difficulty of entering a simple four-digit code. Now, it's worth mentioning that at this point, I was still using my Playstation controller. After switching to the Playstation Move controllers, my experience improved exponentially. However, even with these Move controllers, performing minute actions felt a lot like trying to unwrap a lemon sherbet while wearing a pair of woolly mittens.

You learn a little bit about the late owner of the laundrette. He used to be a janitor at Coal Hill School, and he's now a pile of ash on a chair. The books strewn about the office show he was a man interested in strange phenomena dealing with time and space. The Doctor, using a bit of Time Lord magic, has stashed her sonic screwdriver away in the safe. After fishing it out, I took great glee pointing it at literally anything I could. Sadly, the sonic has very little actual interactivity with the surrounding world other than pre-scripted actions like opening doors that carry the story to the next stage.

Once outside, you get your first glimpse at a Dalek saucer, floating above the sky like something from the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a great little callback, and the alley conjures images of Totter's Lane. After building a signal booster with junk from the alley, you call the TARDIS to your location, where it materialises like the beautiful Ghost Monument we all love. Now, I'm not too proud to admit it, but as I walked into the TARDIS for the first time, I got a little misty-eyed. It really does feel like you're walking aboard the greatest ship in the universe. The people at Maze Theory did a fantastic job rendering the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS interior. And yes, the console does dispense custard creams. Trying to make my boyfriend laugh, I held the biscuit to my mouth and was pleasantly surprised when my virtual character actually ate it!

This joy was short-lived, however, because I was once again at the mercy of needing to perform exacting tasks with rather sloppy controls. What should have been a joy (piloting the TARDIS), was instead another rage quit moment. Really though, this is more of a problem native to virtual reality. You're only ever as good as your tools, and Move Controllers aren't hands. Controls are one of the game's biggest flaws, really. For instance- there is no duck or crouch function. Meaning that despite all of the wonderful little Easter eggs peppered throughout the game, the second you drop one on the floor, it's gone forever.

After being recruited by the Doctor, you're treated to a title sequence in full 3-D glory. Let me tell you, the time vortex has never looked cooler. I was like David Bowman entering the Star Gate. Moments like these are when the VR really shines. Afterwards, the first place you land is sort of a head-scratcher. You arrive on what looks like a planet, where you're being stalked by a creepy race of aliens known as Hydrorks. I was slightly sad that you never have to actually worry about them. They're mainly there to scurry about in the shadows. Despite the warnings of a woman you're speaking to over a holo-pad, they don't ever actually attack you. You can stop right in front of them and shine your torch at them and walk away unscathed.

If you recall from my Doctor Who and Video Games article, I complained that one of the biggest issues Doctor Who games have is puzzles. This chapter of the game has the most egregious of the puzzles and had me worried that it was about to devolve once more into a series of irritating puzzles, but they lessen as the game progresses, much to its benefit. I would like to mention though, that the game does take accessibility into consideration. Puzzles involving colours also incorporate shapes for those that are colour blind. You can also switch between hands with your sonic screwdriver, a fact that I, as a left-handed person, wish I would have discovered far earlier in the game.

After getting to the lift, you discover the planet you're on is a sort of space ship. The effect of leaving what seems like the outdoors only to find a giant window overlooking alien planets was like something David Lynch would do. I was reminded of episode three from "Twin Peaks the Return," when Dale Cooper exits a room in a building surrounded by a vast purple sea, only to find himself climbing out of a boxy spaceship surrounded by a network of stars. This kind of otherworldly experience is yet again another strength of VR. After a series of puzzles involving lasers, you meet Emer, the ship's computer that forgot it was a computer. Remember how I mentioned David Bowman earlier? Well, the "2001: A Space Odyssey," vibes don't stop there, as Emer's interface looks a lot like HAL 9000. It's a great little homage.

Before leaving the ship, you save Emer onto the sonic screwdriver and find yourself a time crystal. The time crystals are artefacts the Doctor needs you to collect to save the universe. It's a little vague in that "It's a video game, so just go get the thing," kind of manner. But it's a video game, so I'm not even bothered by it. After arriving back on the TARDIS, the Doctor uploads Emer into your brain. Emer's job is to help you along with little hints here and there. I was a little disappointed because the only reason I can imagine they did this is because they only had Jodie Whittaker for six hours on the day she recorded her dialogue. Having the Doctor speak to you like her closest friend is a rapturous bit of nerd joy, so replacing her for a bit is regrettable. But Emer is a likeable character so you don't really mind. The only time Emer really gets under your skin is when she's dropping hints repetitively. You may know exactly how to solve a puzzle, but the mechanics aren't as spelled out. Having her tell you what you already know, over and over again begins to grate on you.

The next place you visit is a very shabby looking Victorian London. You know right away that you've entered Weeping Angel territory. However, the classic Who fans will love the fact that part of this portion of the story incorporates Magnus Greel's time cabinet from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang!" I could tell the people at Maze Theory threw this in for the nerds out there. The Weeping Angels portion of this chapter is easily the creepiest moment in the game. There's a jump scare that had me jumping out of my skin. For full immersion, headphones are a requirement as the sound design is full of little creaks, groans, and stabs as the Angels make their way toward you. The incorporation of the cherubs (which you never see) and a baby pram only adds to the nightmare fuel.

This isn't to say that this sequence is without criticism. One of my chief complaints is that it's a very repetitive sequence. Once you do the first portion, you know exactly how to do the next portion. It then becomes a waiting game which is more tedious than tense. If they'd had varied up the gameplay in this section, I would have said it was the best part of the game. Instead, the Angels only play a minor part, and once you know how to beat them, their terror factor plummets. After a while, the worst part of getting caught by an Angel isn't the dying, it's the waiting for the level to reload. Even with my PS4 Pro, the loading times are egregious. Expect to spend a lot of time staring at the floating orange embers that are the loading screen. At least you can fiddle with the sonic screwdriver while you wait.

After receiving the next time crystal from Magnus Greel's time cabinet, it's time to move on to the next phase. The Doctor begins to tell you a little more about who is tearing apart reality- an entity known simply as The First... or the One. I honestly can't remember which, and the internet isn't much help. It's not a very memorable name, much like the title of the game itself. This "First One," is the very first form of consciousness in the universe that has awoken to find her creation of other forms of life is a disappointment to her. Our penchant for death and destruction has lead her to believe that the only course of action is to reboot the universe, hence the reality virus.

Our next stop is Metebelis...Four? I would be lying if I said I wasn't massively relieved to discover they weren't sending us to Metebelis III. That would have been cruel and unusual. When arriving at Metebelis IV, you're greeted with a gigantic temple structure. In VR, its size and design are really grand in scope. I was reminded of my visit to Durham Cathedral with its impressively high vaulted ceilings. After a quick time jump, you find yourself in a point in history where the Daleks have taken over the planet. I really enjoyed the music cues in this part, because you knew right away you were about to encounter Daleks. You can almost hear a digitised version of their voices in the score that really sets the tone.

This portion of the game was probably my favourite. A lot of it is sneaky stealth missions, which gradually increase in difficulty. The only problem with the stealth portion is you really need to bait the Daleks into following you at points. It goes against usual stealth mechanics which at this point are generally universal. When you accompany this with long load screens, and Emer repeatedly telling you what you already know, it gets to be a bit much. But getting to drive around as a Dalek later on in the level makes up for this in spades.

Much like the Weeping Angels portion of the game, the key to beating this section is patience. You can systematically work your way through the level by budgeting your time. If you take out drones and Daleks in the right order, it's a piece of cake. It becomes a memory game at that point. That being said, I still had a lot of fun. Dalek vision was especially cool. After tearing ass through various temples, you find yourself sort of outside of time. The reality virus has almost torn the universe apart but using memories of the places you've been, you're able to hold things together long enough to stop the First One. The Doctor congratulates you and tells you what a star you are. Emer is given human form for her efforts. The TARDIS drops you off back at the laundrette, seemingly to do it all over again, which leads to my biggest question about the game. Am I supposed to play it again, or was that just a meta-joke from the designers encouraging you to replay at your own leisure? Furthermore, is the Doctor not also now stuck in a time loop along with the player?

I've not done a second playthrough, so I can't rightly say if it adds more content to the game. I'm going to bet the answer is probably no. This is a shame because for a game that has been marketed for as long as it was, and had its release date pushed back almost two months, it's surprisingly sparse. At the very beginning in the Laundrette, the Doctor mentions both the Stenza and the Zygons, which made me expect to see at least one of them throughout the game. What turned the laundrette owner into a pile of soot? Hell, you don't even see the sludge monsters from the laundrette again. I expected them to be a far bigger problem than they were. The game is surprisingly devoid of other characters. Perhaps this is a symptom of VR, but disembodied voices, static Angels, skittering background aliens, and rail driving Daleks are the most interactivity you'll have with other characters.

Throughout its runtime, I couldn't shake the feeling that "The Edge of Time," was originally supposed to be a much bigger game. While I'm aware that most VR games are generally shorter in length, this feels truncated. Perhaps it was from budget issues or internal problems, I can't say. But is it twenty quid's worth of video game? I would say that maybe with DLC it would be, but as is, it feels incomplete. The ability to select chapters does increase replay value. I could see myself pulling up the Weeping Angels level for a group of friends. However, due to the lack of variety in said level, I don't see the novelty lasting long. If they were to release a couple extra levels that were more like survival horror where you were in a creepy mansion avoiding Angels, or maybe something with Cybermen or Zygons I could see the value increasing. I wouldn't want to pay more for these levels, mind.

Compare the price of this game to going to a movie with friends. These days £20 will buy you maybe two tickets to see a film. The game is basically a feature-length episode of Doctor Who. So if my boyfriend plays the game, and my wife and friends, then sure, it's paid for itself. But for people who might play this game alone, they may want to wait until the price drops a bit. I had a good time playing the game, myself, but I have to temper that response with the fact that I am a massive Whovian. Will it have the same appeal for casual fans of Doctor Who? That's really the big question, isn't it?

When the game was announced, my first reaction was to shake my head at the BBC's inability to make a proper Doctor Who game. As you may recall from my article on Doctor Who games, this stems from the fact that going with VR was pre-emptively cutting off a large portion of gamers. While there is a very real demand for Doctor Who video games, VR is still a niche market. Not everyone is going to buy VR just to play one game as I did. And even if they are, VR systems aren't cheap. I had to purchase mine on credit. The cost of admission is now much higher than the asking price of twenty pounds. That being said, the game manages to prove that Doctor Who video games can still try new things. The formula and gameplay are very close to what a lot of people have wanted for years. While I still don't feel like we've seen a truly great Doctor Who game, I had a lot of fun with this one.

[imsfire2]

Lot of memes lately

Number one: I was tagged by the lovely @cats-and-metersticks; thank you for tagging me!

Your questions:

1. List your current WIPs!! 

Eeek.

·         The bargain of liberty – original fic

·         Volume Two of “By stardust and moonlight” – still at planning stage but definitely feels like a WIP in my mind

·         Stardust dancing (completely stalled, to my great shame and sadness)

·         Fragments from the Tale of the Ring - LOTR/Rogue One fusion AU (only ever going to be bits, not the whole thing!)

·         The star of Lyonesse (Arthurian legend/Rogue One AU, stuck on the rocks of angst and the appallingly high Major Character Death factor)

·         A dozen or so assorted one-shots which will eventually be published as more Fragments from the Multiverse    

·         Three attempted re-writes of novel-length fanfic into original fic

·         Five original novel-length fics that stalled between chapter three and chapter eight

2. What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever written? 

>screams weakly and lies down to die< I am so bad at choosing favourites.  I am never sure that anything I write is genuinely any good, but at one and the same time I’m also really childishly loving and protective and generally a fond mama to my own work.  

One answer I could give you is “The eternal love of Gabriel Yeats”.  This is an original story which I wrote in 2005-6 and revised in 2015. It remains unpublished and probably always will, but it’s been shared with a few friends.  I know my writing has got better since then and I know it has many problems structurally and in the internal logic of the plot, but it has a special place in my heart because it was the first full-length story I finished that I felt was genuinely solid and worth reading.

If original work isn’t covered and I have to keep to fic, that makes it even harder to choose!  

In a dark time, the eye begins to see has a place in my heart for similar reasons to Gabriel Yeats; I’m more a natural long-form than short-form writer and it was a delight writing a full-length novel to give our Rogue One heroes a totally different path from hope to victory.  Likewise A rider comes to the valley, which forced me to face the challenge I’m currently baulking at with the Arthurian AU mentioned above, namely writing an AU that is desperately sad instead of a fix-it.  

I very seldom write Baze/Chirrut as I find them hard to get right, but I’m genuinely quite proud of The last dancer, which is about the experience of being part of a very small, very broken diaspora and the decision to hold on to your culture and everything it means in the face of that breaking.

I’m also very fond of some of my bleakest one-shots.  In particular I feel very Loving-Mama towards the non-Rebelcaptain ones, which often don’t get much love, like The mask and In the holding pen, and Recruitment, and The first time.

Also one of my earliest pieces for the Rebelcaptain fandom, Poetry of the First and Second Republics, Vol 3: The War Poets (extract), which is both a really unusual form and canon compliant, but was a very satisfying technical challenge.

3. What are some of your current goals as a writer? 

Keep writing.  Get better at it.  Finish my WIPs.  Start new ones.  Never give up writing.

Also, find ways to get people reading my original work as well as my fanfic.  Find, one day, a genuine old-fashioned agent and get a publishing deal.  Be, not just a writer on AO3 who’s also self-published a couple of novellas on Kindle, but an actual on-paper published novelist with books in bookshops.

4. What first inspired you to write fanfiction? 

Ever since I was little I’ve had ideas about what I would do if I wrote the scripts for assorted films, TV series etc.  My first conscious attempt to write one of these ideas down – completely in secret because I didn’t even know there was such a thing as recognised fan fiction – was a rambling Star Wars story set after “Return of the Jedi”.  Adventures for Luke and a bold and heroic OFC, trying to track down Palpatine’s heir.  Lots of badly-written lightsabre fights, feels, hiding in caves, mutual pining and a solid dose of H/C.  So yes, writing Rogue One fic now is kind of coming full circle for me because it all began with Star Wars!

5. What’s your favourite thing to cook for dinner vs. what’s your favourite meal to eat out? 

When I’m doing the cooking, probably something simple but tasty like a cheese omelette and a salad, or a bean chilli.  Eating out, either eastern Mediterranean/middle eastern food (Turkish, Greek, Cypriot, Lebanese etc.) or south Indian food.

6. What would your dream house be like?

It would be rather larger than a single person has any right to expect!  That way, I could put up guests easily.  It would have high ceilings and large windows, and a big garden with mature fruit trees.  It would either be quite near where I am now, in west London, or somewhere on the coast. It would never be particularly smart inside but it would be comfortable, and there would be a lot of books.  Also cats and dogs.

7. How do you like to start a story? 

With whatever bit of it really wants to be the bit I start with!

I know that sounds daft but I’ve found from experience that waiting for The Right Opening Line to come along can leave an exciting idea completely bogged-down.  Jumping in with the scene that has my energy at the moment, on the other hand, gets things started.  Then I can go back, do the beginning and fill in the gaps, once the blockage has broken.

8. What’s the biggest thing that convinces you to read the second chapter in a multi-chapter fic?

What happens next to these characters?  I need either a plot, or strong character writing, and ideally both.  

9. What fic are you currently obsessed with (any fandom, reading or writing), if any? 

I’m waiting in mixed anguish and awe for the conclusion of the mighty jplus’s historical AU Indigo; suspect I will cry my eyes out several more time before the end.  This series by the same author, The Edge, is also terrific.

And although I fear this will end up as that rare and heart-breaking thing, the canon-compliant AU, I’m eager for the next chapter of @ruby-red-inky-blue aka guineapiggie’s superb The World through a Scope .

10. Describe your perfect Saturday!

Get up, find myself full of energy and optimism, open the blinds to find it’s a perfect sunny-but-not-boiling-hot day; shower, dress, breakfast, make coffee.  Spend the morning writing, without either worrying about what I’m working on or experiencing the urge to procrastinate. Go for a walk along the Thames in the afternoon.  Meet a friend at one of the pubs on Kew Green, have a beer and perhaps watch the last overs of a cricket match on the Green, then stroll into Richmond for a lazy supper out and a movie.

11. Metaphors or similes? 

Both; both is good!

Haven’t analysed my own writing in detail but I’m going to guess I use metaphors more than similes; but I could be wrong!  They both have their place and I’d hate to be denied one or the other.

Thank you for tagging me!

[rieshon]

Spring 2017 Power Rankings

1 Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashii Desuka? Sukutte Moratte Iidesuka?: The adaptation of my favorite light novel ended up being my favorite anime of the season. Although it only goes through three of the five books, the new truncated script penned by the original author still tells an emotionally affecting tale about the tragic hero and heroine, Willem and Kutori. It's a shame we didn't get to see more of Nephren being the best girl, but what we did get is still one of the best LN anime I've seen. The show is helped along by a magnificent soundtrack full of amazing vocal pieces that will certainly stand out as one of the best of the year come year's end.

2 Eromanga-Sensei: Another LN adaptation at number two, but the reasons Eromanga-Sensei are up here are a lot simpler. It's lewd, it's cute, it's got good girls. This show definitely had the best animation of the season (going so far to make the heroines appealing they had an animator credited as a dedicated 'Sagiri Animator') and it was used to full effect to put these heroines on display. The production is so good it even made me do a 180 on my opinion of Sagiri... but Elf-sensei will always be the best.

3 Seikai Suru Kado: This one is a surprise. Although the plot went off the rails a little bit towards the end, and we could debate the effectiveness of the ending, Kado is a surprisingly smart science fiction anime that feels more like a good novel in terms of tone and pacing than it does your average anime. The show takes its time revealing the secrets of the enigmatic "Kado" and its master, Yahakuizashunina, and although the payoff may not have been what some people were hoping for, the slow build is captivating enough to get it all the way up here on my power rankings. In fact, the plot is so good I almost forgot to mention how butt ugly the 3DCG used to animate the show is. Plus, in spite of it, Saraka is super cute.

4 Hinako Note: The first Comic Cune anime, and it's definitely what you would expect from a magazine for cute 4koma. Hinako Note follows in the footsteps of the best Kirara anime, delivering some of the cutest girls of the season -- especially Yua. It did take a few episodes to really grow on me, and some of the character quirks feel like the author is scraping the bottom of the barrel, but once I did settle in I fell in love with this cast of characters. Especially Yua. Yua dabes.

5 Shingeki no Bahamut Virgin Soul: It's more Bahamut, baybee. At least through one cours, this show is actually not quite the spectacle the original show is, using its additional length for a more character-driven buildup in setting the stage for what will no doubt be an over-the-top final battle between a bunch of characters whose names I can't remember. The new protagonist, Nina, is great (her silly romance with the human king notwithstanding) and she carries the series as well as Favaro and Kaisar ever did. I give this series a ton of credit for being patient and waiting an entire cours to start reassembling the "crew" from the original series; it really makes it that much more satisfying when we finally get to see Kaisar and Favaro working together again.

6 Frame Arms Girl: When I saw the terrible 3DCG being used in this show I was prepared for the worst, but FA Girl was probably the most surprising show of the season. It ended up having some of the silliest comedy of the season, and it really makes the most of the premise of a girl's cute girl action figures coming to life. Silly antics like the FA girls competing to see who can be the fastest to run an errand or trying to put together the ultimate hot pot despite being action figures who can't eat food were some of the most memorable vignettes of the season. Unfortunately, the show has a major case of multiple personality disorder and when its serious side comes out it's just dreadful. It wouldn't be so bad if the CG animation for the action sequences wasn't so hideous, but it is, and I found myself counting the seconds until they would be over. That inconsistency hurts it a little, but FA Girl is still a comedic accomplishment.

7 Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata♭: I guess Katou won the Rinrib Owl? The plot of this sequel is pretty stupid, revolving around a bunch of situations where the series desperately wants you to feel bad for Tomoya despite there being no reason to. That aside, the heroines are as great as ever, especially Kasumigaoka Utaha, who continues to be the most perfect woman in the world. The subplot concerning Utaha and Eriri's relationship is actually the best thing about this series, and I really couldn't give a damn what happened to Rinri-kun in the end.

8 Busou Shoujo Machiavellianism: This show was definitely a surprise. It comes off as edgy at first but rapidly becomes one of the silliest comedies of the season as our overly-charismatic hero makes short work of the cast of "villains" and engages in some top tier romantic comedy shenanigans, complete with making a gigantic boxing female bear fall in love with him. Unfortunately, that edginess does come back in the last few episodes and ends up leaving a bad taste in my mouth, but this was a solid series overall.

9 Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Record: I debated all season whether this or Busou Shoujo was the better Blade Dance anime; I ended up giving Busou Shoujo the nod for being a little more original, but that doesn't mean Rokudenashi is a bad show by any stretch. The comedy and such aren't super strong here, aside from Glen-sensei occasionally being a goofball, but the real appeal is in the heroines (and their amazing school uniforms) -- this show has much better production values than Busou Shoujo and the girls are cute enough to carry it, especially Shironeko.

10 Sakura Quest: Unfortunately this show does not quite manage to fill the admittedly massive shoes of Hanasaku Iroha and Shirobako. I never really expected it to in the first place, and Sakura Quest is still a good show in spite of it. The show is a love letter to rural Japan, set against its decline, and the town of Manoyama is arguably a better-developed character than any of the heroines... wherein lies the problem with the show. These girls just aren't on the same level as Ohana or Miyamori -- those anime were undoubtedly stories about the characters' own journies of self-discovery, but here it feels like a story about the town and the girls are just kind of along for the ride.

11 Tsugumomo: This was a show that I kept expecting to drop, but every week it delivered a little more. A shounen battle anime on the face of it, Tsugumomo ends up being a great romantic comedy, helped along by the fact that Kiriha is magically turned into a loli a few episodes in and stays that way for most of the show. I wouldn't call it a harem, since most of the other heroines besides Kukuri are either mostly unappealing or absent for most of the show, but Kiriha ended up being one of my favorite girls of the season and she completely carries this show. Also, the mostly dialogue-free grocery shopping pudding adventure was one of the most adventurous things a show did this season, and it was fantastic.

12 sin Nanatsu no Taizai: It's a shame that this will always be remembered as just 'that show where the studio went bankrupt,' because Nanatsu no Sin is one of the better shinshi anime I've seen. Kitamura Eri is wonderful as sexy, big-boobed Lucifer and the antics she and her lesbian girlfriends get into are fantastic. The idol episode, featuring Astaroth as a shy YouTuber who can only communicate through moe rapping, was especially great. But as mentioned before, as of writing at the end of July the show is still not finished because of one of the studios making it going under... hopefully the last episode is not entirely terrible, because this is a series that deserves better.

13 ID-0: Sanzigen makes the cutest CG girls and they continue to succeed with ID-0. Of the full CG anime I've seen I think ID-0 is probably my least favorite, but it's still a pretty solid science fiction story, at least for a good part of it. It started to lose me at the end with the whole consciousness inside of rocks thing... Most of the cast being robots for most of the show also makes it difficult to connect with the characters, plus the girls are super cute so I'd like to have been able to look at them more. Karla was hot but she spends most of her time as a purple robot.

14 Tsuki ga Kirei: This was almost one of the most earnest and genuine depictions of young love in anime history and then they had to ruin it with that stupid ending montage. Still a really cute show though.

15 Sword Oratoria: I'll never understand why they made this instead of just making a second season of the original show. This wasn't necessarily worse, it's just strange. I enjoyed the new protagonist and her quest to create a lesbian harem but unfortunately the show neglected her more often than not to show us Aiz's boring drama or even worse, scenes from the first series we'd already seen. Needed more gay elves.