#but the story is a really compelling mystery and the worldbuilding is really good

[itsthenovelteafactor]

i'm watching carnival row right now and honestly, i think it's really good but i only have a few episodes left and i know in my heart it's not going to end with polyamory even though it really should end with polyamory

[wileycap]

So, uh, Netflix Avatar, huh? Yeah. I guess I'll make a really long post about it because ATLA brainrot has is a cornerstone of my personality at this point.

So.

It's okay. B, maybe a C+.

That's it.

Now for the spoilers:

The biggest issue with the Netflix version is the pacing. Scenes come out of nowhere and many of the episodes are disjointed. Example: Aang escaping from Zuko's ship. We see him getting the key and going "aha!", and in the next scene he's in Zuko's room. And then he just runs out, no fun acrobatics or fights, and immediately they go to the Southern Air Temple where he sees Gyatso's corpse, goes into the Avatar state, and then sees Gyatso being really cheesy, comes out of it, and resolves that conflict. Nothing seems to lead into anything. The characters don't get to breathe.

The show's worst mistake (aside from Iroh fucking murdering Zhao) is its' first one: they start in the past. Instead of immediately introducing us to our main characters and dropping us into a world where we have a perfect dynamic where Aang doesn't know the current state of the world and Katara and Sokka don't know about the past, thus allowing for seamless and organic worldbuilding and exposition, they just... tell us. "Hey, this is what happened, ok, time for Aang!" There's no mystery, no intrigue, just a stream of information being shoved down the audience's throats and then onto the next set piece.

The visuals are for the most part great, but like with most Netflix productions, they just don't have great art direction. It feels like a video game cinematic, where everything is meant to be Maximum Cool - and none of the environments get to breathe. It's like they have tight indoor sets (with some great set design) and then they have a bunch of trailer shots. It's oozing with a kind of very superficial love.

Netflix still doesn't know how to do lighting, and with how disjointed the scenes are, the locations end up feeling like a parade of sets rather than actual cities or forests or temples. As for the costumes, Netflix still doesn't know how to do costumes that look like they're meant to be actually worn, so many of the characters seem weirdly uncomfortable, like they're afraid of creasing their pristine costumes.

The acting is decent to good, for the most part. I can't tell if the weaker moments come down to the actors or the direction and editing, but if I had to guess, I'd say the latter. Iroh and Katara are the weakest, Sokka is the most consistent, Zuko hits the mark most of the time, and Aang is okay. I liked Suki (though... she was weirdly horny? Like?) but Yue just fell kind of flat.

The tight fight choreography of the original is replaced with a bunch of spinny moves and Marvel fighting, though there are some moments of good choreography, like the Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko (there's a million things I could say about how bad it was thematically, but this post is overly long already.) There's an actually hilarious moment in the first episode when Zuko is shooting down Aang, and he does jazz hands to charge up his attack.

Then there's the characters. Everybody feels very static - Zuko especially gets to have very little agency. A great example of that is the scene in which Iroh tells Lieutenant Jee the story of Zuko's scar.

In the original, it's a very intimate affair, and he doesn't lead the crew into any conclusions. Here, Iroh straight up tells the crew "you are the 41st, he saved your lives" and then the crew shows Zuko some love. A nice moment, but it feels unearned, when contrasted with the perfection of The Storm. In The Storm, Zuko's words and actions directly contradict each other, and Iroh's story gives the crew (and the audience) context as to why, which makes Zuko a compelling character. We get to piece it out along with them. Here - Iroh just flat out says it. He just says it, multiple times, to hammer in the point that hey, Zuko is Good Actually.

And then there's Iroh. You remember the kindly but powerful man who you can see gently nudging Zuko to his own conclusions? No, he's a pretty insecure dude who just tells Zuko that his daddy doesn't love him a lot and then he kills Zhao. Yeah. Iroh just plain kills Zhao dead. Why?

Iroh's characterization also makes Zuko come off as dumb - not just clueless and deluded, no, actually stupid. He constantly gets told that Iroh loves him and his dad doesn't, and he doesn't have any good answers for that, so he just... keeps on keeping on, I guess? This version of Zuko isn't conflicted and willfully ignorant like the OG, he's just... kind of stupid. He's not very compelling.

In the original, Zuko is well aware of Azula's status as the golden child. It motivates him - he twists it around to mean that he, through constant struggle, can become even stronger than her, than anyone. Here, Zhao tells him that "no, ur dad likes her better tee hee" and it's presented as some kind of a revelation. And then Iroh kills Zhao. I'm sorry I keep bringing that up, but it's just such an unforgiveable thematic fuckup that I have to. In the original, Zhao falls victim to his hubris, and Zuko gets to demonstrate his underlying compassion and nobility when he offers his hand to Zhao. Then we get some ambiguity in Zhao: does he refuse Zuko's hand because of his pride, or is it his final honorable action to not drag Zuko down with him? A mix of both? It's a great ending to his character. Here, he tries to backstab Zuko and then Iroh, who just sort of stood off to the side for five minutes, goes "oh well, it's murderin' time :)"

They mess with the worldbuilding in ways that didn't really need to be messed with. The Ice Moon "brings the spirit world and the mortal world closer together"? Give me a break. That's something you made up, as opposed to the millenia of cultural relevance that the Solstice has. That's bad, guys. You replaced something real with something you just hastily made up. There's a lot of that. We DID NOT need any backstory for Koh, for one. And Katara and Sokka certainly didn't need to be captured by Koh. I could go on and on, but again, this post is already way too long.

It's, um, very disappointing. A lot of telling and not very much showing, and I feel like all of the characters just... sort of end up in the same place they started out in. I feel like we don't see any of the characters grow: they're just told over and over again how they need to grow and what they need to do.

To sum it up: Netflix Avatar is a mile wide, but an inch deep.

[poryphoria]

see madcom has genuinely got to be one of my favorite ways a story, or fictional world, has ever been told. krinkels has fucking MASTERED the art of environmental storytelling- i think my favorite example is Mag Agent Torture, a character who could easily just be a big baddie for Hank to fight, but bears some pretty grim implications about their own past & existence if you're really paying attention. it goes like

•they have weird spikes stuck in their head and a cool name

•oh, wait. those spikes kind of look like the ones auditor uses to punish dissenters, seen in the background of several episodes, don't they?

•then the torture focused Incident reveals in their internal monologue that "their disharmony is my pain", implying in some way that torture carries the burden of suffering for the entire agency

•oh. dissenter spikes and that knowledge in mind, and the name Torture. did something happen to this guy. Were they always like that? is auditor punishing them in some way?

like, idk. krinkels is just very good at knowing exactly what to elaborate on and what to leave nebulous- giving hofnarr & jeb proper backstories & explanations for how they got that way in mpn doesn't really end up removing any character agency or weight of the mystery behind their actions, it just characterizes them more thoroughly & makes them more compelling overall. meanwhile refusing to elaborate in a clear cut way on whatever the fuck is going on with Hank keeps them a nebulously terrifying force, just as they're perceived in-universe- i think if we ever did get a straight answer for why Hank is the way they are without it being vital info for the conclusion of the series, it'd just kind of fall flat and kill the wiggle room your mind has for working with them

some things in worldbuilding are more fun and interesting when they have more thorough explanations, and some of them aren't. it very heavily relies on the context and level of plot relevance of the information itself- you can't just spoonfeed everything to the audience, they have to be able to make their own takeaways of course! but you can drip-feed them in small enough increments about inconsequential enough things that it still ultimately gives them a rich and fascinating array of information to work with.

idk. madcom the animated series is primarily very good at this bc of it's lack of dialogue, but mpn dodged a HUGE bullet in destroying this method with the way the story is framed- ultimately it ends up being exactly like a very long, playable version of one of the animated "incidents", because of how inconsequential it ends up being to the main story. it gives us MASSIVE insight into how the world works and what goes on in the background of it, but is far enough removed from the main plot that we don't end up sitting through the characters literally just grabbing us by the shoulders and spoiling the entire mystery of the series through soliloquy.

i think it's cool!!! i think it's really fucking cool and really masterfully done!!! and its one of the many many reasons i adore this series as much as i do. Muah

[zephrunsimperium]

is Knowing Me, Knowing You a romantic billford story? what kind of story is it, actually? it looks interesting but I’m afraid to read any type of billford in fear of it being… not the best. what do you think of the ship, actually, since you’re such a fidduathor fan? also, does it end okay, even when incomplete? I have a lot of questions about the fic tbh. too scared to read it tho lol

Whooooo boy do I have a lot to say about this... I highly encourage everyone to read this entire post.

So, my thoughts on BillFord are extremely complicated. I am, first and foremost, a FiddAuthor shipper. That is the ship I consider canon and I even headcanon Bill to be aroace and actively encourage Ford and Fidds to get together because Ford needs to get over stupid societal homophobia plus it's fun to wear down the human's moral compass about hitting on a married man.

BillFord is a FASCINATING concept and it's not hard to see why the ship is as popular as it is despite the (well-deserved) stigma; a lot of things between them that can be read as fuel to the shipping fire. (ie the hair ruffles, the nose flick, the nicknames, the gold statue, the piano serenade, Ford being attracted to the strange, Bill offering to make Ford "one of us," even the possibly kinky undertones of glowy blue chains and bodily possession)

But the problem is that the ship can get very nasty very fast. Make no mistake, what Bill does to Ford is abuse. He is manipulative and violent and cruel. "Mystery bruises?" Literally torturing Ford on screen? Driving a wedge between Ford and his support system to the point that he has extreme trouble trusting people? Preying upon Ford's insecurities about being a freak? That is horrifying stuff, in particular because of how clear the parallels are to real world abuse.

With that in mind, let me talk about KMKY. I loved this fic to pieces. It’s written and organized incredibly well with a good mix of humor, sentiment, tragedy, and villainy without ever feeling off-balance tonally. The best thing about this fic, however, is the mature and nuanced themes about abuse: how hard it is to still love your abuser even when you start realizing that they're as bad as they are, accepting that you're a victim and have no reason to apologize, how an abuser's own trauma isn't an excuse for their actions. I really appreciate that the author has sympathy for Bill while still clearly acknowledging that "hey, what Bill did to Ford was abuse and Ford doesn't have to forgive him, much less take him back." A lesser writer would force Bill and Ford together, but that's not what happens because it's not what should happen.

So, for anyone who is interested in reading it... The gist of it is that instead of inviting Fiddleford to work on the portal, Ford makes a body for Bill to assist in person. The first 33 chapters develop their relationship (ft. Fiddleford being confused and stressed) and then Ford finds out Bill has been lying and eventually goes through the portal. It is very much a romance but the writing is so good that there are times when it's genuinely heartbreaking that the two of them won't work out.

I would definitely say that Bill is the main character (even though Ford has a significant amount of viewpoint time and he's the one you're supposed to root for) because he's the one who changes throughout the story. It's not a positive change, but it is an extremely compelling character arc. The characterization of Bill in this fic is particularly cool to me because he’s definitely a complete person, but he’s very clearly inhuman.

A little preview/incentive to read it: all of Bill’s underlings have individual personalities, Jheselbraum is a super important character and her characterization is... really cool (that's not a good description, but I was in love with it), the worldbuilding of all the places Ford visits in the multiverse was really cool and fun, there are great OCs like Wendy's mom, this mob boss guy that is a delight to hate, and a sarcastic kick-ass alien lady, Bill's backstory is really impactful, Pyronica is a bad bitch, Bill and Ford fight zombies while We Go Together from Grease plays in the background, there are cool themes about enjoying the mundane things in life and how society treats the Strange, and well-written humor that had me laughing out loud constantly. For as long as it is, all of it was extremely memorable and hardly any of it felt like filler. (I will warn you if you choose to read it, there is some serious steam.)

As for the ending... I totally understand why the author stopped writing it. They were trying to make it canon-compliant, but by the time it caught up to the show it was very clear that adhering to the canon material was holding them back. They did their best, but I could tell they weren't enjoying writing it and if you're not enjoying your art, then I don't think it's worth doing.

Wow that was a long post. Thanks so much for the ask, Anon! I hope this was a satisfying response!

[megaweapon]

The current situation with Wizards is yet another reminder of why I think it’s good for the hobby that people explore other kinds of tabletop games. There’s no one end-all be-all game that fits every player, every group, or every scenario. There’s a wide variety out there designed to do everything from play a funny one-shot to organize a whole campaign.

Spend an evening with your friends playing a round of Fiasco. Get up to some action-movie nonsense with a night of Wu Shu. Play a night of Dread, a game whose primary mechanic is a Jenga tower. Try one of the many PBTA-framework games out there--City of Mist! Scum and Villainy! Monster of the Week! Make up your own with the framework, if you like.

Fall in love (as I did) with the storytelling potential of the Genesys system, which can be adapted to all manner of genre (most famously in the fantastic FFG Star Wars series of tabletop games). Again, you can build your own world off of this system, and there are conversion rules to get around the biggest stumbling block, which is their proprietary dice (and free resources to replace physical dice like skyjedi in-browser and RPG Sessions on discord).

Explore (one of my personal favorite) sci-fi settings in Eclipse Phase, a game that’s distributed under Creative Commons, so you can get all the source material you need free and legally. ...I wanna recommend Shadowrun because I do like some of the stuff it has going for it (less so others) but god I’m still recovering from 5th ed. Hopefully the new edition is better. I haven’t played the new edition of Traveller but I remember it as being a delightfully weird but very fun experience.

If you want something a little scarier, there’s always Call of Cthulhu (my personal first TTRPG ever and what got me into the hobby), the newer more action-packed Pulp Cthulhu, or the 20th-century cosmic horror explorations of Delta Green. World of Darkness’s latest edition has done some interesting stuff if you like classic monsters, and the WoD LARP scene is still going pretty strong if you want an “extended cast with a vague murder mystery parlor vibe” kind of experience.

There’s a ton of stuff out there to suit all manner of sensibilities and play-styles.  At the end of the day, it’s all about telling a story, whether that story is happy, horrifying, intrepid, or silly as hell. There’s more than one way to tell it.

I’ll wrap this rant up with my own personal experiences. Technically, the game series I’ve been playing the longest, continuously, is Exile Studio’s Hollow Earth Expedition. Me and my pals have, at this point, about a decade’s worth of storytelling, worldbuilding, and (most importantly) inside jokes from the several campaigns we’ve run from it.

It’s a defunct system now, and we’ve adapted our latest campaign for the Genesys system. We never got the third sourcebook we were wanting, so we’re making it on a WorldAnvil with our group. As a system, it was imperfect, and clearly not designed for the long campaigns we preferred. As a setting, it was compelling but definitely needed some tweaking and brushing up from players. HEX itself was a mere blip, and Exile Studios doesn’t even have a website anymore. Pretty sure they got snatched up by Studio2. Despite all that, though, it was the one that worked, somehow, for all of us.

You genuinely never really know which system is going to be the one that clicks in a way that lasts. Don’t hold yourself back from trying something new.

[slutforwings]

books i read in 2023 that i recommend :) mainly because i am trying to find new books to read in the 'book rec' tag and none of these people give summaries so I shall bravely do it instead for others!

wrong place wrong time - gillian mcallister (mystery)

Blurb: a woman sees her son killing someone in front of her, then wakes up the next morning only to realise it's the day before the murder. she keeps traveling back in time, unraveling the reason for the murder and trying to stop it along the way Review: i misread the back and thought it was gonna be a time loop but this was even better actually. i fucking devoured this book it was so compelling. i tend to devour mystery books like these regardless of their well-writtenness but this was genuinely really good and tied up everything neatly at the end.

autobiography of a corpse - sigizmund krzhizhanovsky (short stories)

Blurb: bunch of fantastical short stories like about the people living in your pupil, a society that deals in anger and malcontent, a guy trying to bite his elbow Review: this book made me realise i love short stories, but then it turned out i mainly love THIS GUY'S short stories. they were just that good. slavic writers are built different

the secret history - donna tartt (psychological fiction)

Blurb: cult group of pretentious college kids study greek and turn it into a personality trait. also theyre gonna conspire to kill one of their own and then try to hide it Review: all of these characters are cunts and i love them so much. do not believe the dark academia girlies peddling this book, these people are stupid and pretentious and morally corrupt and theyre SO MUCH FUN!! the internal monologues are fantastic, i want to study Dick's brain. its a very Long book and absolutely takes its time and yet it does not feel like any parts are really unnecessary. really good.

this is how you lose the time war - amal el-mohtar & max gladstone (sci-fi)

Blurb: two time travelers from opposing agencies each have a mission (the mission involves historic meddling through time travel but is honestly not as important) and keep encountering each other and leaving letters to taunt, falling in love throughout the story Review: listen i saw that tweet 'do not look up anything about this book and just read it' and i did and i had zero regrets. i bought the paperback after reading the ebook bc it was just that good. beautiful prose, fantastic worldbuilding that is sometimes only hinted at but everything made me go !!! can you tell i love time travel.

notes on an execution - danya kukafka (pyschological fiction)

Blurb: serial killer on death row recounts his life, as well as pov of the police officer that investigated the cases and got him in jail + pov's of the family of the victims Review: incredible story about family, morality and love. raises a lot of questions about criminals and 'evil' and does not answer them because that's the whole point. insane quotes too. also very vivid storytelling in the way that i could picture all the locations perfectly despite them not being described in detail. i think it was due to the intense Vibe

bunny - mona awad (uh. horror?)

Blurb: um. goth/'not like other girls' girl gets indoctrinated into joins a cult group of really girly girls that all call each other bunny and have kind of weird rituals meetings. Review: listen. i hate when people do this to me but. just read it. if you're a fan of magical realism and cult-y things, you're in for a treat. this book made me bike home in a daze. i love stream of consciousness where you as the reader are just as lost as the character! i love you bunny!

instructions for a heatwave - maggie o'farrel (fiction)

Blurb: a pensioned father leaves the house for his newspaper and then doesnt return. all the children are gathered by the mother to try and figure out what the fuck happened. Review: not so much a 'hey where'd he go' as it is a rumination on family and unconditional love. ofc theres some family secrets that get revealed but i found it more interesting to watch the family dynamic and the changes the secrets brought to it. bittersweet :)

[entryn17]

heyy can I know your thoughts on in stars and time? I like your thoughts on things

ahh, yes, of course!!! spoilers ahead for anyone else that might be reading :3

genuinely saying this - i think it's one of the best games i've had the pleasure of playing recently! it really does the idea of "character stuck in a time loop" justice. one of the things i'm particularly glad about is the pacing especially considering this all technically takes place in like, two locations for (technically) two days for the entire 20-30h of playtime. the dev did phenomenal writing it! the characters are all solid, the worldbuilding is good, the red herrings it pulls also, with the wish/time craft thing. i'm also really, REALLY glad it left some things unanswered at the end.

to elaborate on the pacing, it DOES feel like siffrin is slowly, surely losing their mind throughout all this. i don't think it happens neither too quick nor too slowly and i was immersed throughout! i like how different items have different dialogue and usage depending on when you interact with them at certain points throughout the story, and i thought all of the horror segments were truly unsettling!!

siffrin was a really compelling character and both them and odile really spoke to me because of the way the dev handled their relationships with their respective heritage. i burst into tears when i was playing odile's friendship quest; i hadn't really seen all of those particular thoughts and fears expressed for a while before playing ISAT, and so seeing them written out like this just felt like.. reopening a wound you thought had healed but was actually still pretty raw? and siffrin's desperation to connect, to learn more about where they came from, the hurt that is left unaddressed for so long that it blooms into resentment was just so poignant. odile and siffrin are really, really important to me because of this.

i really love the different small things that get recontextualized when you learn more. like the king asking if siffrin remembers, which i had assumed was about the loops in the beginning! and loop's "you may refer to us with the royal We" and such!! and the missing island too! reached the part where it had been mentioned for the first time in the library and then the game went on for a while to the point i was starting to think "isn't anyone gonna bring up the island that got erased from everyone's memories" and then THEY BROUGHT IT UP. AND IT WAS SO PAINFUL!!! the segment where siffrin tries to say the name got to me so bad!!!

also the little details i'll always die for the little details. the changes in flavor text, menu portraits, inner monologue. it's tiny thing after tiny thing until you pause, look back and realize that you don't even recognize siffrin anymore! like god!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm genuinely really curious how the dev managed to keep track of everything! how many switches and variables they must've used, how many event pages there are, etc.

ANOTHER THING. i think it's so fun how it does a subversion on RPGs as a whole. it's still that at it's core, of course! i'll always enjoy turn-based combat and it freshens it up with the rock/paper/scissors crafts system, and it's incredibly story rich and character driven but it's like.. i guess the RPG conventions that it plays with that i really, really enjoyed. like the whole "mysterious protagonist gathers a party and then goes on a journey to fight the big bad boss" (the big bad is even called The King!!!) except the majority of the journey leading up to that boss already IS over when we start, characters are leveled up and have gathered plenty of usable skills, and they've already have formed dynamics between each other! but we get to learn more about them through the loops! and at some point the king isn't even a threat anymore!!! i REALLY loved that when i realized how unimportant he'd become in the grand scheme of things!!! it was so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but yeah in conclusion i feel only moderately strongly about this game. LOL

[stitchlingbelle]

Halo Post-mortem

So... what did I think?

Honestly, I really enjoyed it! I admit that I came in with super low expectations, due to the vaunted Video Game Adaptation Curse, but across the board, the show was way better than I anticipated. The acting was solid, the visuals had care and thought behind them, the effects were good, and the characters were generally engaging (and/or enraging, as it should be).

Obviously, being useless at video games and therefore having absolutely no prior knowledge of the universe meant that I got to skip all the issues with the story and lore and what they chose to change for this "Silver timeline", which made it easier to like. Which led me to a realization...

It dawned on me about halfway through that one of the things I was enjoying about the show was the fact that I had no idea what was going on. Looking around, I realized that it's been literal years since I watched a scifi show where I didn't know the answers. Star Wars? Rey and Din may not know what a Jedi is, but I do. Star Trek? Since DS9 and VOY ended, there have been FOUR shows and/or movie series about the earlier days, and THREE of them feature Kirk and Spock. I was gnawing my laptop in frustration at not knowing who these aliens are or what the artifacts do or what the heck the halo actually is and why we care (note: this is still unanswered) AND IT WAS GREAT. It's a thrill to be piecing things together alongside the characters once again.

And that brings me to the only real complaint I have about the series: the modern mini-season is really too short for these sorts of stories. Everything needed to be shoehorned into essentially 8 episodes (to set up for the finale in 9). None of the characters, plotlines, or the halo mystery itself get to breathe. It's very effectively written to do a great job with the time they have, but everything happens because it has to-- characters can't take time to investigate xyz or try solution abc because the showrunners don't have time to show you that they did. They can't build up emotion or stakes, so they rely on the most efficient writing they can-- which in turn means relying on known tropes and cues to move the action, and the audience, along to their scheduled plot points. And they can't allow you to overlook a clue or piece of worldbuilding, so they can't be subtle.

(This is where the Kwan plot suffers the most, I think-- teenagers are hard to write, going from 'beloved as Luke Skywalker' to 'derided as Wesley Crusher'. Kwan's writing gets the most clichéd treatment and it shows.)

For a show that's trying to tap into a legion of pre-existing fans, it's particularly sad. The selling point of the show is getting to spend a few more hours in the world you love, with characters you love, experiencing it all again, hopefully in a way that is fresh and exciting. For me, it was like getting a tour of a best friend's new place right before going out for the night-- there's so much to stop and appreciate, the couch looks cozy, I want to chat with their roommate and pet their cat, but we only have ten minutes or we'll be late.

And what roommates we have! I'm usually a very character-driven fan, and I really enjoyed a lot of these characters. Kai was hands-down my favorite, and I'm impressed that they made her so compelling to me with so little (comparative) screentime. Her expressive nature breaking out was wonderful to watch. (And nothing bad had better happen to her, ever.) (...Nothing else bad.) Miranda and Laera were standouts to me as well-- Miranda for her sense of ethics and duty, Laera for her independent viewpoint and mysterious vibes.

Makee was well-acted (and well-dressed, my cosplay brain whimpers) and I could listen to her read the phonebook, but characters like her are written into a corner by their very nature. She either has a Redemption Arc, or she doesn't. She either gets to grow and change or stays a villain. Neither option is interesting. It's possible they could still surprise me with her-- I hope they do-- but I doubt it.

Parangosky, Keyes, and Halsey were all fascinating to watch in action; again, very efficient writing to cram in so many competing priorities, authorities, and past alliances. It's also interesting to hear from y'all how much darker they made Halsey. It's clearly a deliberate choice to make her such a bad guy, and I wonder where they're going with it.

My weird niche favorite character... was Halsey's clone, the one who died to make Cortana. Her one conversation with Halsey stole my heart and plot bunnies are breeding in my brain like tribbles.

Cortana herself was fun-- I appreciated her humor and her evolution from oblivious, order-following Siri to full-fledged person with her own opinions and agency. It'll be interesting to watch how being merged with John affects her. (Is it possible to grow her a body of her own? I feel like she'd love one.)

As for the man of the hour, the Master Chief/ John? He grew on me eventually. I've heard that the helmet thing and the brevity of his speech were to make him easier for players to project on to in-game, but it made him a bit bland to me with the compressed writing-- he's A Stoic Hero Guy even after the pellet gets out, if only because he's not allowed a single scene that isn't plot-relevant. (No hair dye for him! He didn't even get to read Makee's book or something.) I think that's why his comeback about overcoming indoctrination-- "I did"-- struck me so hard. It's one of the few bits of his interior life we get. In a week he became a new person, and crucially, saw himself as someone who had done so. That told me more about who he is and what he wants than anything else we got to see. I'm excited to get to know him better as he gets to know himself better.

I'm excited to follow along with them all!

...for however long each of them has left. The future in that trailer did NOT look bright.

[synthetic-ultramarine]

Ten Book Reviews

To celebrate the new year I thought I'd do some short book reviews! This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything I read in 2023; I decided to focus on fiction rather than non-fiction for this post, and I slowly trimmed down my list of books to focus on the ones that gave me the most to talk about.

Books I Liked:

Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer There's so much to be said about these books, they really deserve their own post. This series is so characterful, so atmospheric, and so masterful in its use of suspense, dread, and tragedy. Lives up to the hype 100%.

Devil House by John Darnielle John Darnielle reads his own audiobooks, and he's good at it. This book follows a true crime writer as he confronts the consequences of framing people's lives as narratives. It's about haunted places. It's about the often-forgotten potential for cruelty in the storytelling impulse. But most of all it's about the thesis that it's self-defense for a squatter to kill a landlord with a sword. If you like this, Universal Harvester is also good.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton I think someone should do an adaptation of this that takes place on tumblr.

Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis In this book, C. S. Lewis writes about a woman's struggle against god- no, wait, where are you going, come back! It's a take on the Cupid and Psyche myth from the perspective of the jealous sister, here reimagined as a genuinely concerned sister. Vivid imagery, beautiful prose, and a meditation on the relationship between the human and the divine that I still found interesting as a homosexual apostate. There's some fascinating stuff about the androgyny of God in here. Yes, for real. From Clive Staples Lewis.

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente This book is overstuffed with concept. It's set in an alternate 20th century where the empires of earth have settled the nine planets, and it's about the film industry, which is based on the moon because the united states never colonized california. The story is a collection of ephemera - interviews, ship manifests, tabloid columns, clips of damaged film - relating to the disappearance of a renowned filmmaker who vanished while working on an infamous lost documentary. Also, space whaling. It's about that as well. Every time I try to describe how I feel about Valente's writing style it comes out sounding like one of those weird perfume reviews. I'll just say I found the prose overwrought at times, but ultimately I'm glad kept reading. The book is packed with mythological references, and while some are quite effective, there are also some that don't really do anything. There's a lot of genre-hopping; the noir sequences chafe against the style of the prose a bit, but the cosmic horror scenes are chilling. What is really good about this book is how thoroughly everything in the alternate-history setting is thought through. It talks about how the long day-night cycle of Venus affects the work of a film lighting technician. It talks about French colonies on Neptune losing radio contact with Paris as the earth passes behind the sun. It confronts the idea of Venus and Mars and Pluto as terra nullius, even though that's a concept some people seem to prefer not to critique. I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time. If you like Nope, Dark City, or Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, you should read this.

Finna by Nino Cipri Weird, fun novella about two exes who still love each other, wandering through a maze of alternate universes for minimum wage. Portal-esque corporate satire, snappy pacing, and a compelling central relationship. So good.

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon A beautifully written story about body horror, giant robots, gay sex, religion, mortality, and tenderness. The worldbuilding is intricate, sprawling, and sometimes ambiguous. The relationship between the main character and the love interest is far from the Standard Romance Subplot Structure, it's fresh and very compelling. The in-universe sacred poetry that shows up throughout the book is also very good. I have it on hold at the library for a reread. This book is tragically underrated because they're marketing it to the wrong audience. It's more cronenberg than canva cover. Tor should be selling this to the Annihilation weirdos, not the Red White & Royal Blue crowd. People go into it with the wrong set of genre expectations and then don't know how to react. I'm here to set the record straight: The Archive Undying rules and you should read it. I especially recommend this book to Friends at the Table listeners, since the author is One Of Us and the show is a notable influence.

Books I Didn't Like:

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty The setup to this book is very compelling: 6 people lived a happy life together, isolated on a spacecraft for decades, until they were all violently killed. New copies of their younger selves wake up in the ship's cloning facility with no memory of last 60 years. One of their future-past selves was a murderer, and the killer's clone inherits their legal culpability. While the high-concept murder mystery is a great idea, the future politics are profoundly unimpressive, and sadly by the end of the book the latter has entirely subsumed the former. There keep being these flashback scenes about cloning politics back on earth - not only are these very politically shallow, they also kill the claustrophobic ship-in-a-bottle atmosphere of a good fucked up space scenario. As an example of the shallow politics: "all major religions" are stated to be intolerant towards clones. Apparently all the sects and denominations of All The Religions are just doing the same thing, as if they are interchangeable with each other. And then there are The Riots, which are portrayed as a political misstep, too disruptive, too loud. And then of course we have the NYC real estate billionaire villain. Florals? For spring? It's beyond me why a locked-room murder mystery would even need a villain who wasn't in the room. There's also a hacking scene I found so absurd that it nearly made me return the book unfinished. Disappointing.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman Yeah, that's right, I'm gonna talk shit about Neil Gaiman on tumblr. You think you can scare me. old man?! I can't be silenced! Anyway, remember the Sexy Lamp Test? This is the worst failure of the Sexy Lamp Test I've ever seen. The girlfriend that the guy in this book is fighting with his brother over could be replaced by a nice car the brother took for a joyride, and the plot wouldn't change. At least with a car there wouldn't be consent issues.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey In the real-life 20th century, there was a proposal by the U.S. government to introduce the hippopotamus to North America as a meat animal. Thankfully, it was scrapped. This alt-history western asks: what would the world look like if they went through with it? It's an intriguingly bizarre premise. Unfortunately, when I made that "your story should have scenes that aren't bioware cutscenes or tvtropes pages" post, this book was one of the reasons why. The dialogue and characters are nothing to write home about, and the plot is just rote. Here we are in a bar fight. Now we are planning the heist. Now we are remembering the tragic backstory. Now the antagonist has double crossed us. The hippos are involved in the plot, but they don't drive the plot in any way that depends on their being hippos. They only really differ from horses aesthetically. The thing that really bothers me about this book, though, is that this story clearly wants to be a modern, progressive take on the western genre, with a queer cast and all, but it doesn't give a single thought to the existence of native americans. There are no native main characters or side characters. Despite being a story about the radically destructive transformation of the north american ecosystem by the settler state, there is not even a single throwaway "the Choctaw are not pleased with the feral hippopotamus situation" line. Radiance gives more thought to the status of native american society in its alternate history than River of Teeth, and Radiance takes place entirely in outer space. Come on now.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Do you know of any media, webcomic or otherwise, that have the same vibe that early gunnerkrig court did? Like compelling mystery with science/fantasy elements? I miss the old comic before coyote died :(

Nan Quest

What is it: In this spiritual sequel to Ruby Quest, a goat girl electrician sets out to fix a broken fuzebox and ends up ensnared in a psychological horror conspiracy.

The Good: Much more effective use of the simple MS Paint art style, with more color and some simple animations (animated panels being marked [A], a convention Homestuck would later adopt for its [S] sound panels). The characters are better fleshed out than in Ruby Quest, and the horror is more effective as well, with less gore and more tension.

The Bad: Though used effectively, the art is still MS Paint doodles. The story mechanics behind the mystery are much more ambiguous, which can be a plus.

Content Warning: Gore, threatened sexual violence.

You should read it if: You like Ruby Quest and/or psychological horror comics that can be read in a few hours.

Everything Is Fine

What is it: Maggie and Sam are a normal married couple in a very strange world where proving your loyalty is the key to winning, and the best way to prove your loyalty is to show someone else is disloyal. And also everyone wears mascot suit cat heads all the time.

The Good: Well-written characters, a novel premise, and excellent pacing. I'm not the biggest fan of the webtoon "really tall page" format, but it's taken advantage of at times for nice transitions

The Bad: The webtoon format can be irritating, and the worldbuilding is toeing the line between "compelling mystery" and "If there were two astronauts on the moon and one shot the other wouldn't that be fucked up?"-ism.

Content Warning: Gore, Suicide themes. Every page with such content has a warning on it (which works better in Webtoon format, actually)

You should read it if: You liked the dystopian fiction fiction books you had to read in high school.

Homestuck

What is it: You fucking know what this is.

The Good: Great character writing, high production values, one of the best soundtracks of really anything. The middle section (in which mysteries are slowly uncovered), is phenomenal and justifies the comic's existence.

The Bad: Most of the really bad stuff is in the sequel, Homestuck^2, but in Act 6 the story kind of goes up its own ass with the meta, and Act 1 is also a notorious slog for most people. Homestuck is an excellent sandwich with moldy bread.

Content Warning: Gore, sexual themes, some of it has not aged well (in that it's kind of edgy, but also a lot of casual ablest slurs)

You should read it if: You like seeing weird sci-fi mysteries unfold and like reading pages and pages of mostly-good dialogue, and you're okay with the fact that after all the mysteries are revealed the comic just kind of keeps going on and on instead of ending.

[lakesbian]

I’ve been stuck too nervous to start arc 17 because of all the conversation about it making me nervous. Is there anything you think will convince me to get to it?

this is going to contain some arc 17 spoilers because i can't talk about why it's good without saying at least some concrete things about it

anyway. after some research (making a post asking why people don't like it) i have come to a conclusive awareness of the most prominent reasons 4 the two primary camps of opinions abt arc 17

why some ppl think it's one of the most excellent arcs in the book: - extremely well-written fucked up horror tragedy - extremely cool and scary and interesting perspective on the simurgh (give it up for the simurgh everyone give it up for the simurgh) - engaging character writing & dynamics - context 4 a bunch of worldbuilding shit delivered in an interesting little packidge - some of the best character concepts in the book (noelle/krouse) why some ppl find it boring (have not actually seen anyone who Hates it i think just ppl who find it boring/uninteresting): - no taylor PoV or undersiders for the entire arc - flashback that puts the main plot on pause for the entire arc - underdeveloped and/or uninteresting focal characters - unlikable/annoying focal characters

now obviously i am an arc 17 enjoyer. so my refutations to the reasons i've seen ppl disliking it for are: - this is 100% a matter of personal taste. like it's understandable to be less engaged w/ parts of the story that aren't about your guys of choice, but it worked for me because i enjoy the rotating cast of perspectives. i like how it expands the world of worm more. it Is time spent away from taylor and friends, but it's finally providing context for one of the most built-up mysteries in the book, so, like. i do not mind taking a brief taylor break to read what's basically a really good wormverse horror story. we already have like 1.6 million words of taylor so i think if you're going in with the awareness that you're going to just take a little one-arc break from her and then get back to her & try to be open-minded about it you might find it not such a big deal

- i can understand why it induces "AUGH come on i wanted to find out what happens next" syndrome but i'm a "that's ok we get there when we get there :)" person about books so again i personally did not mind. the pacing just works 4 me. like you get the mystery of wondering what's wrong with noelle -> the dread of having it revealed via arc 17 that she's a simurgh plot and subsequently this was always fated to happen and end horribly -> being thrown back into the Noelle Incident afterwards with full awareness that because it's a simurgh plot horrible things are going to happen. which is good! it provides context at the perfect moment to maximize the impact of revealing how tragic and awful the situation is.

- i do agree that the travelers aren't as well-developed as they could be, oliver & cody particularly, but it wasn't an issue for me during the arc. i think they all have the amount of characterization necessary to make it feel appropriately tense. even if they aren't the most distinct characters in the book, they do their jobs Well Enough. i actually really liked some of the genesis/trickster interactions in particular, and i think the most important character (trickster) ends up really well characterized in a fascinatingly detailed way. it overall captures the gist of what we need to know to be compelled by the travelers just fine.

- no none of them are especially likable but this one is like. fully just a personal taste thing. i don't care if characters in a book are likable people, i care if the narrative & themes are well-written and compelling. which they are! also the fact that krouse fucking sucks and the character dynamics are all unpleasant and uncomfortable is genuinely a pro of the arc 4 me. them fucking sucking and causing problems is part of their charm, and also literally integral to why their character concepts are interesting. "found family that never should have been a family" is by default going to involve some level of suckiness. also, like, taylor isn't likable. she's manipulative and violent and uncommunicative and would generally be awful to hang out with. all of which is part of her charm. if you can like taylor for the interesting ways in which she sucks (affectionate) then surely you can like the travelers for the interesting ways in which they suck (affectionate). but even if you don't their Story is still worth breaking down and paying attention to. because it's good.

best case scenario for reading it is you think it's excellent (which it is) worst case scenario you just find it kind of boring. which isn't a big deal, there are plenty of worm arcs that people find meh. if you've gotten thru the rest of worm you can get thru arc 17 too, it's ultimately just another worm arc at the end of the day. one i would highly recommend, but ultimately just another worm arc. no reason not to give it a try, because all that will happen is you'll either go "that was good" or "didn't love that" and then carry on with the rest of the book.

[dutchdread]

Rebirth Update 2

Well, after 11 hours I'm finally done with all the quests and intel gathering in chapter 2 with the exception of one quest....by cosmic coincidence I happened to have completed everything EXCEPT the Aerith side quest XD Not sure if this is the universe telling me something or not. Part of me isn't that interested in getting Aeriths favorability score up since her flirting with Cloud is extremely weird to see, but it might be best to just do everyone 100 so I have the most full picture possible during my first playthrough. Broden is an interesting character, although I think him talking about the degradation as openly as he does might make the audience less confused about Clouds predicament, even if it IS technically a red-herring, which could lessen the impact as well. But that is a minor nitpick. I'm enjoying the combat more than I did at first. The synergy combat abilities are very useful to get Tifa airborne. Not only that, but if you use it while fighting she will do a backflip/kick before jumping off which will take the enemy airborne as well which is extremely satisfying. Also works well in conjunction with unbridled strength. Use unbridled strength, then kick the enemy airborne, and follow. The fact that I am trying to go airborne instead of hating enemies that are airborne is a good sign. In general I enjoy the worldbuilding in this area and it's a good idea to separate the quests from the intel gathering. If I were to feel compelled to do the intel because I wanted to raise my party members favorability that would be quite annoying. Chadley and Mai interacting with each other is pretty cringe, I wish Chadley would just leave Mai to handle her side of the deal. In general I wish they'd made a better character than Chadley for this function, the existence of realistic robots is a huge can of worms to randomly add to the story. Traveling is quick and easy and eventually you start understanding the layout of the plains and the map is pretty clear. Fast travel back to Kalm does make paid rest benches useless though. Right now from a mechanics standpoint my main gripe is the increased convoluted nature of the skill and weapons systems as well as the menu. It's still not clear to me how to upgrade my weapons, I have a bunch of SP but apparently I can't do anything with it until the weapons level, giving me barely any choices. Minor gripe, and I know this is probably just a translation issue from the original, but I soooo prefer "Midgard zolom" over "Midgardsormr", but I suppose this does fit the original Norse better. Speaking of which, I really should go into all the norse influences in FFVII at some point. The scene with Sephiroth and the Midgard zolom however suffers from the same things the remake suffers from a lot. It tries to show too much, and loses it's mystery. Finding the Midgard Zolom impaled on a spike in the original had a much more drastic impact than how its presented here. And seeing Sephiroth so often takes away from the experience of chasing a monster. It's too clear that Sephiroth is just something Cloud is seeing, and it doesn't feel like we're chasing anything. Also, I wanted to learn Beta damnit. Outside of that though, I'm enjoying the exploration and battle intel gathering, so overall having a good time. No significant updates on Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, although I would have liked to have seen Tifa dive after Cloud after the Zolom encounter.

[pigeonwit]

9, 12 ,14, 25 for the end of year asks !!

9. best month for you this year?

june! i did the most writing i've ever done, saw newsies with my friend ceriann, met ryan kopel for the first time, started to genuinely engage with fandom after years, made a bunch of great friends, got a massive boost in my confidence - spectacular, really.

12. talk about a new friend you made this year

DAVEY!! my dear friend davey you are so skilled and so hardworking and so genuinely kind that it actually surprises me. i have been the most obnoxious nihilist for,,, years and it's quite rejuvenating for the soul i think to be surrounded by kind and genuine people, and you're a big part of that. i'm so grateful for your constant support and i'm so happy i got to support you in return by delivering your art to the newsies cast at musical con and get you that video of them, too :) and i still can't get over the manhattan wv drawing you did!! was not expecting it at all but oh my god it's wonderful. you're such a creative and hardworking person davey, it keeps on inspiring me. i hope good things keep happening to you - i'm so grateful for all your support and to have you as a friend :)

14. favorite book you read this year?

WRANGLESTONE!! yeah i read a lot of more Classic and Scholarly books for my classes but wranglestone was my 'treat myself' book - i got it when i went to see billie the kid because i wound up walking past 'gay's the word' by pure accident so i decided to make a big queer day of it and treated myself to a fun little gay zombie cowboy novel. and god i love it. i'm not a Classic and Scholarly writer and i've always been a little ashamed of that but this book reminded me i don't need to be :) there are people who want and need the kind of stories i want to tell, and i'm one of them. this book's so special to me for that. and yknow, it helps that it's a genuinely good adventure with a cute romance, a compelling mystery and excellent worldbuilding.

25. did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? describe one

i think the only characters i created this year were alice, maggie and florence for run boy run... i HAVE been noodling an oc for a children's book series concept i have though! haven't decided on a name or design but i know i want him to be a cowboy who rides a utahraptor and has a little hunting crew of smaller velociraptors he's rescued (i actually had this idea before reading wranglestone btw. cowboy media just calls to me)

[notjanine]

3, 4, 6

3. What were your top five books of the year?

(I will restrict this list to recreational reading only, bc tbh most of my top five would actually be good stuff i read for work!)

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle- i think this was the first one i read in january (it was a christmas gift from Books, back when i wasn't sure if this thing was real yet). it's one of those books that feels so familiar and whole that you can't believe it hasn't been part of your life before. it's just such a perfect little high fantasy story- not too serious, but not too simple, not bloated with unnecessary worldbuilding details, but still feels very lived-in. i loved it so much and i know it's one i will return to many times more.

The Devourers by Indra Das- a journey! i'm a slut for stories about shapeshifters, and i really liked what this book did with that. it's tense and sexy, and the perfect length for the story it's trying to tell. lots of sensory detail made it feel wonderfully immersive. it's not like anything else i've ever read.

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia- it's definitely got flaws, but it's an interesting fantasy medical mystery, and i was surprised how much i liked it. i'm not usually one to get attached to a protagonist, but i really enjoyed this one.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky- human space exploration drama plus super-intelligent giant spider society bullshit. fun. the protag didn't sit well with me, but he's so boring and such a non-entity that it barely affected my enjoyment of the book. i took issue with some of the gender politics (i love when men write matriarchal societies that are just genderswapped patriarchy without being thoughtful about why that phenomena would arise in the first place 🙄 this one is more thoughtful than some i've seen, but there were still a few eye roll moments). all that being said, it is a very compelling, crunchy sci-fi novel that i would recommend.

Love after the End edited by Joshua Whitehead- a great collection of queer and two-spirit indigenous speculative short stories, some of which have realllly stuck with me!

bonus bonus can't not mention it!: Cosmoknights vol. 1 (reread) and vol. 2 (new!) by Hannah Templer- i just fucking love these space lesbians so much!

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

i'm down hard for the aforementioned Naseem Jamnia! Zin E. Rocklyn's Flowers for the Sea didn't make it into my top five, but i will definitely keep an eye out for anything they do next. i'm in the middle of Out There Screaming, and so far Cadwell Turnbull and Lesley Nneka Arimah are new-to-me authors i'm def gonna get more into. there were also a few authors in Love after the End that i want more of, but i've added their books to my goodreads want to read and forgotten their names since i returned that book to the library.

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

tons! here's all my fun books (i.e., books that are not 100% directly related to work) that i have yet to read

[gascon-en-exil]

In your opionion is there things that Engage did better than 3 Houses or things they did worse than 3 Houses ? if that is the case, which one and why ?

Those are two different questions, and ones that people have been bandying about online for months now. I thought for about five minutes about turning this into a video prompt, but there's already plenty exactly like this on YouTube - plus I'm currently working on way too much as it is.

What FE16 does better than FE17:

In general, character work - I say in general because there are characters I like in Engage and characters I very much don't in Houses, but the more substantive supports and other side interactions in the latter help the cast stand out more. They're also broken up more, so it's easier to focus on the groups you enjoy.

Non-Avatar queerness - So much lovely subtext, so many paired endings. I've done multiple videos centering around them, even. I said in a video a few months back that I dislike how so many of Engage's non-Avatar supports end with bland affirmations of friendship, which in combination with the lack of endings really kills the potential of pairings like Fogado/Bunet and Timerra/Merrin. Dimidue though? When their A support pivots around the word "friend" you just know that it's a euphemism, and that they'll be calling each other that mid-coitus that evening. Throw in around a dozen other pairings who've gotten big based on subtext and you've got a bunch to choose from.

Cozy life sim elements - The Somniel may be more streamlined and its loading screens slightly less agonizing, but the monastery better nails the feel of a persistent hub area - even if its coziness kind of undercuts the tone of the game's second half. This isn't something I'm really into, but I know a lot of fans get into stuff like gardening and fishing and tea time, and the calendar system and (weird) time progression does make Houses feel more like a life sim in contrast to the Somniel and its randomized character loadouts. Also, Engage has way more to grind for if you want to see everything, which is annoying. This is in contrast to...

100% Completion - It may be something only I care about, but Houses goes above and beyond any other mainline FE if you're a completionist. Of course there's the support logs and event gallery and such (features Engage doesn't even manage correctly), but there's also the in-game journal which provides a ludicrous but still doable 100% target in the form of watching a whole bunch of bars fill up very slowly over dozens of playthroughs. This requires so many spreadsheets to keep organized - love it!

What FE17 does better than FE16:

Story originality - Yes, really. Houses's story is three variations on the series standard plot, plus one other option - side with the conqueror -that Fates came up with first. Engage is the least politically-interested game in the series, and it barely even teases at a mundane war between nation before it's back to fighting zombies and collecting rings. Original doesn't necessarily mean good, but at least Engage knows exactly what kind of story it's trying to tell and what it can feasibly expect to do.

Tangible, linear worldbuilding - Engage isn't as ambitious, but it's more successful thanks to more traditional FE worldbuilding tools like talking to NPCs around the world as opposed to gathering them all in hub. The single story also helps keeps everything orderly and easy to understand, rather than going for an unreliable narrator + mystery box approach across multiple routes and half-assing the execution.

The Avatar - No contest here. Alear is an actual character with an identifiable arc, and while it's not the most compelling thing in the world it's leagues ahead of anything Byleth can claim. Byleth is a blank vessel for the player (and also Sothis for a while, lending them some facsimile of a character in the form of her reactions) with a ludicrously contrived backstory to justify why they are the way they are; Alear has fears and development and a backstory that's coherent even if it relies on a fair amount of cliché. Also, even in localization Alear as a god complex fantasy is undeniable, whereas Houses bends over backwards to act like a main source of its appeal isn't teacher-student sex. Speaking of -

Avatar queerness - Again, no contest - not that I especially care. Byleth's same-sex S rank options are limited, while Alear can give their not!engagement ring to every character regardless of gender, a huge step up in open-ended self-insert romance that gets mostly overlooked because they can also give the ring to preteens.

Understanding of FE's camp appeal - The above only underlines how much better Engage can be when it comes to the campy and the tasteless. From the ridiculous outfits to the Emblem stuff being compared to Saturday morning cartoons or Power Rangers or such to Zephia/Zelestia to the AU dragon incest wank nonsense, Engage wears its silliness on its sleeve. Houses doesn't totally lack that element, with stuff like the Proper Conduct Tournament and Manuela's...everything, basically, but like the teacher-student fetish it's hidden beneath this veneer of respectability that begins to grate after a while. Most of that is probably just overcorrection for the poor response to that sort of content in Fates, but it obviously didn't stick...not even for Fódlan content in Heroes. Look at the new duo Cathmir, and tell me these characters still aren't being sold on sex appeal aimed primarily at straight men.

Handling of characters of color - Not something I discuss often, but it has to be said. Solm is as developed of any of the other main four nations of Elyos, with just about as much of a role in the story and a presence in gameplay (i.e. you spend around half a dozen chapters there). There are still some oddities, like how the royals and NPCs are all dark-skinned but the retainer characters aren't, but compared to the various periphery nations of Fódlan it's a real standout and actually feels like a part of the world. Sreng is a plot device in Hopes, and even less than that in Houses. Duscur, Brigid, and Dagda basically only exist in relation to Dedue, Petra, and Shamir respectively. Even Almyra, from which we get two playable characters including one of the lords, barely appears at all, and most of Claude's Almyran heritage is left out of his writing because he spends the whole game disguising his identity.

Standard gameplay - I play on Normal and freely abuse time rewinding so my opinion here isn't going to be held in any regard, but go check out anywhere Engage is being discussed online and you'll see tons of tier lists and comparisons of builds and chapters and Emblems and whatever else. You know, the things that people ordinarily talk about when it comes to FE, and not -

Less enabling of toxic fandom elements - The inbuilt faction drama in a faux-serious war story, the continued growth of the anti phenomenon first seen when Fates was current, and a years-long global pandemic fostered endless division and conflict that persists to this day. It somehow even continues a year after the release of Hopes, now in the form of bashing Engage because it didn't sell as much (while still talking about its gameplay way more than I could ever bother, go figure) and IS is being more conservative with its Heroes appearances. There's still pointless nonsense to argue about here - like the aforementioned incest wank - but there's far less of it in a linear story that doesn't encourage players to latch as hard onto their favorites.

Non-100% replay value - Related to the gameplay, if you're not going for all the supports/bonds/achievements there's much more variety you can pull out of repeat playthroughs of Engage via the standard ways to mix up your runs in FE: using different characters, allocating resources differently, limiting yourself in certain ways etc. Houses's gameplay is so freeform and has such clear best options that for replays you're relying on the story...and there's exactly four stories. Worse, White Clouds is almost the same regardless of house, and there's a bunch of crossover content among the Part II routes as well, even Crimson Flower, which leads to it all feeling quite repetitive even if the narratives technically go to different places.

Nostalgic throwbacks - Not only the Emblems, but also the many legacy paralogues. These were a fun element of Awakening and Fates's DLC, and it's nice to see them brought back here with a bunch of callbacks for fans of those older games. Houses has...its batch of DLC classes all coming from Awakening, and the Archanean regalia appearing as random drops. Oh, and probably the least notable playable version of Anna ever.

Absurdly cute mascot factor - Could have talked about this under the camp factor, but some players get really into how adorable Sommie is. It's a fount of memes and goofy videos if nothing else. Is IS taking notes from Pokémon?

And yet I still prefer FE16 overall, because it better caters to my specific interests (gay stuff that doesn't involve Avatars, spreadsheets). The years of fandom toxicity are unfortunate, but I've grown accustomed to laughing at it when it amuses me and ignoring it when it doesn't.

[narwhalandchill]

ok not to randomly go off on a somewhat negative ramble But. (general genshin story direction worries basically)

while there are a bunch of stunts i fear the genshin story slash lore could end up pulling that would serve as not only disappointments but to varying degrees also just retroactively ruin a lot of games writing for me. i dont think theres anything that im as genuinely concerned about as the possibility of like. completely losing their narrative marbles to an overdone time travel/temporal manipulation in one way or another like just the thought of that shit haunts me

bc like. while i dont find them particularly compelling as an argument for that to be the case regarding Everything in the narrative in current lore/theory circles (like. makoto n ei teaming up w istaroth once doesnt automatically establish universal time travel). it is unfortunately true that in canon lore there are many of the kind of lore pieces present that you could use to set that kind of reveal and complete restructuring of the story up. istaroth and the sacred sakura and some shady things said by various characters and how you could argue Any time loop or travel adjacent is just hidden by the irminsul 5head (another piece of writing whose potential misuse seriously alarms me, mind you). and so on.

and i am just. Not about any of that shit. like. for me absolutely any plot device or element that has the risk of fundamentally fucking up a storys continuity and coherence sideways to the degree BOTH the

"genshins gonna turn out to be ALL time travel/time loop/simulation to make [sudden endgame twist X heavily at odds with what was established in the central lore prior] appear sensible"

and

"celestia just irminsuls away all evidence for [that twist X again] so achsually it was always genius and compatible with lore"

tier of nightmare scenarios will have. is just. Not fucking worth it. this shit has ruined countless stories with vastly better writing and way more competent authors because its just. not the kind of stuff you can just insert in a massive fucking story willy nilly to explain away the mystery box you didnt bother to set up together so it ultimately comes together in a cohesive way that Doesnt need to be broken on multiple levels to scrape together some conclusion. and its just hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and like ive never expected some massive masterpiece out of genshin like at best its gonna be one of those stories that once finished gets some really fucking banger fanwork as its community expands upon and explores a solid but flawed canon groundwork. theres fundamental flaws and limitations to its storytelling and format and that cant be helped. so im expecting no miracles on that front.

but the one fucking thing i dont want them to fall for is that misguided at best and outright pretentious and disrespectful at worst allure of. SEE! we outsmarted the audience! the theories! we broke our own story continuity to force a twist because our established worldbuilding technically makes it an option! isnt this smart!

like just please. no. no clue how unpopular this is but im already quite conflicted on the established use of irminsul in sumeru and how it arguably voided a lot of important characterization (nahidas inferiority complex) and narrative potential (scara literally becoming a non factor in the grander story more or less) for good but like. for now. fine. it hasnt become overused yet. i dont think its inherently bad as a factor of worldbuilding. i like how it recontextualizes fact and fiction and the significance of stories that appear mere fables in the world of teyvat. but as it stands the irminsul is still a deus ex machina. and thats a dangerous tool for any writer to have in careless use. and when combined with the sprinkles of lore involving the possibility of time manipulation and such to be further explored. its like powder and keg. two tools that can absolutely gut a story of its narrative cohesion and the weight of its stakes in an instant. its really fucking worrisome.

genshins writing is flawed but the one thing this game has going for it that i REALLY hope the writers will understand to respect is its world. how much the marriage between this massive and beautifully crafted immersive open world and the intricacies of lore and history afforded to all corners of it truly do in tandem to establish the world of genshin as more Real. as weightier. as a place you grow and remain attached to even when the main storys writing stumbles. the world is so important and to let it remain feeling real is just. i hope they understand how fragile of a gem that is.

featuring an artificial world order established by fraudulent divinity and that involving some degree of cosmic fuck-uppery of the natural order and all-encompassing illusion to maintain it is fine. this is a story heavily referencing gnosticism that theme is literally a given. but it needs to be an artificial world order imposed on a real world that remains feeling real the entire time through. and for that to be preserved it needs to remain grounded.

but the problem is that once a story truly commits to the "anything could be altered and fundamentally reversed with the right mcguffin at play with seeming impunity" there is no going back. it becomes very fucking difficult to keep the figurative feet of a narrative even touching the ground for even the most skilled of writers afforded absolute creative freedom to work with (which genshin does not have). and just that much more easier for the stakes to be lost completely. and i dont want to see that scenario become reality