#harvey my absolute beloved no character will ever mean more to me than he does . undisputed.

[kureijei]

came to terms with the fact that i probably wont put anymore effort than i already did into these harveys (im busy...)- but i still like them and i had a ton of motivation to draw him from the update lol.. i am at fall year 2 on a save i started the day the update came out.

[tyrantisterror]

TT Blathers About Monster Hunter Stories

For thousands of years, people have come to my altar, desperately begging that I play Monster Hunter games, and for thousands of years I let my heart be hardened to their pleas.  Then this year Yaweh released the 11th plague: a Monster Hunter game that was also a Mons game, which is to say a game where you collect and raise various monsters to be your friends and allies, i.e. my favorite type of game ever conceived.  In that moment, I was doomed – I cannot resist a good Mons game, and god help me, this game was good.  I played the free demo four different times before the game finally came out, so thirsty I was to play it.  I had a fever, and the cure was Monster Hunter Stories.

From a story standpoint, it’s just kind of ok – fairly standard JRPG plot of saving the world from a vaguely supernatural ecological destruction, standard JRPG characters (Here’s your perky female childhood friend!  Here’s your angsty male childhood friend turned rival!  Here are the silly comedic villains!  Here’s the quirky sidekick!  Etc.), very formulaic across the board.  To its credit, the story DID manage to sell me on the whole setting of Monster Hunter in general – it helps that the titular hunters have a lot more sympathy for the titular monsters than you usually get in a “Heroes kill monsters” game, and that the storytelling really does want you to love these creatures even when you have to fight them. Still, it ain’t no Persona 4 by a long shot.  

But that’s fine, because the real appeal was raising all those lovely monsters, and oh, how fucking good that was.  Great gameplay goes a long way in this game, and while the story is by the numbers, the fights and monsters were ABOVE AND BEYOND.  Which is why I’ve decided to talk about EVERY SINGLE Monstie (i.e. catchable monster) in the game, even the ones I haven’t gotten to meet yet because Capcom hasn’t released their DLC yet.

So come with me as I spiral into madness and gush about some goddamn monsters.

Velocidrome (Goggle)

Redecos: Gendrome (Chopstix)

Goggle was the first monstie the game gave me, and as such has a special place in my heart even though he was quickly outclassed by everything around him.  A sweet, innocent creature, Goggle shepherded me around as I first discovered the world of Monster Hunter Stories.  His species is also a good introduction to the Caveman meets JRPG European Fantasy (with a dash of Sci-fi) aesthetics of the Monster Hunter games.  Like, yeah, on the surface he’s a dinosaur, but he’s also a brightly colored dragony dinosaur.  A dragonosaur.  Goggle is a treasure.

Later in the game you can get Gendromes, which are a slight retooling of the Velocidrome model.  I named mine Chopstix.

Aptonoth (Steakbone)

A big gnarly looking hadrosaur/ankylosaur hybrid, Aptonoths look far stronger than they actually are, being the rattatas of the Monster Hunter World.  There’s a lot of them, they go down in one hit, and after a point you just kind of avoid them because fighting them is mostly pointless.  And you know what, that’s fine.  I’m fine with letting these sweet creatures just wander and graze to their hearts’ content, safe from the attacks of my darling murder lizards.  Of course, sometimes the wild murder lizards eat them, but that’s just nature being a pre-programmed A.I. interacting with itself.

Steakbone was on my team for a long while because I had five open slots and not much to put them in.  She never saw combat.

Arzuros (Poobah)

A great big nasty bear, Poobah illustrates what I really came to love about Monster Hunter’s approach to monster design: almost everything in this world is part lizard.  Even the fuckin’ bears.  You look at this guy from a distance and think “That’s a bear,” but up close?  Up close to see all sorts of lizardy scales and other reptilian elements.  It’s a world of monsters where Lizard is the apex of evolution – like the Kanto region in Pokemon!  I love it. I absolutely love it.

Poobah was a beefy boy and I brought him into battle a couple of times, but he was quickly overshadowed by…

Yian Kut-Ku (Skittle)

Redecos: Blue Yian Kut-Ku (Sherbet)

Skittle and Sherbet are beautiful creatures of grace and goofiness, their bright colors reminding you of the radical 1990’s.  They look the way Capri Sun tastes.  Both were heavy hitters early in my game, quickly illustrating how poor Goggle would have a hard time later on when all their stats exceeded his while they were only half his level.  Sherbet in particular stuck on my team a long time, and I regard her quite fondly for the fights she put up in the hellish snow-encrusted hills before I finally got that de-frosting perfume or whatever the fuck it is you need to keep from freezing on that map.

Popo (Mutton)

Popos look like a sentient hairwad chewing on a wishbone.  So, y’know, pretty good for the Bidoofs of Monster Hunter.

Lagombi (Harvey)

You’re basically forced to have this fucking rabbit bear for the snow map, because he’s the only species you can get that can break rocks and is also involved in a cut scene that shows you how gene hybridization works.  It’s a goofy ass thing and one of the few monsters that doesn’t have much lizard in it, so points for fun and variety.  Harvey wasn’t my favorite and, unlike the movie/play character for whom he was named, didn’t really endear me to him as the game went on, but he is a giant rabbit with, like, a beak or something, so there’s that for you.

Bulldrome (Hamhock)

There’s some good bacon on this critter.  Mmm hmm.

Zamtrios (Belushi)

A giant shark-frog that can suddenly expand to the delight of fetishists everywhere, I felt there was no better name for this lovely creature than that of beloved 1980’s comedian John Belushi.  Belushi stuck around on my team for a while, and while he didn’t accomplish a lot during that time, I could always depend on him in a pinch if my stronger monsters got too roughed up.  His hopping animation was really fun despite being the opposite of helpful from a gameplay perspective.

Khezu (Akroyd)

Redecos: Red Khezu (Snausage)

These guys have to get the people who want nontraditional dragons, like, rock hard, right?  Giant phallus headed lamprey wyverns?  That’s what people like these days, right?  I like these guys just fine.  Akroyd was my stone wall for a while, having great HP and defense that allowed him to weather the nastiest of shit relatively unscathed. Snausage never quite came into his own, but to be fair, did he need to?  His name is SNAUSAGE.  Sometimes that’s all you need.

Apceros (Turtz)

I’m sincerely disappointed these guys weren’t viable fighters, because an ankylosaurus/turtle hybrid is a badass concept, and this design is a badass execution of it.  I would have been really tempted to use Turtz for the whole game if he didn’t have the survivability of a wet paper towel.

Royal Ludroth (Spengbab)

Redecos: Purple Ludroth (Koolaid)

I love most of the Ludroth family’s design, but that spongey neck just looks infected.  Every time I look at them I worry about whether or not I should take them to a clinic.  There’s gotta be, like, pus and shit in there, right?  Oh god.  Oh my poor sick lizards.  Oh no.

Gypceros (Plunger)

Redecos: Purple Gypceros (Grapekun)

Y’know, much has been made of the phallic nature of Khezu’s head/neck, but I honestly feel the horrible fleshy ovipositors on these guys is way more obscene.  They’re pretty fun monsters in their own right.  Not my favorite – they don’t hit my aesthetic sweet spots like some of the other monsters do – but they bring a wonderful variety to things.  However they’re also cheating fucks who use poison and blindness like cowards, and for that I bear a grudge.

Nerscylla (Vriska)

Redecos: Shrouded Nerscylla (Frosti)

I love these spiders and their adorable blankets.  I was sorely tempted to keep Vriska on my team, benching her only because she started getting roughed up too much about 2/3rds of the way through the game.  Not only does she have a lovely and endearing design, but her ability to put fuckers to sleep was so useful.  She and Frosti knit sweaters in my monster stables and regale the young monsters with stories of daring do.

Qurupeco (Honker)

Redecos: Crimson Qurupeco (Barry)

If you distilled the essence of, like, EVERY weird ass bird – not all birds, just the weird ass ones like toucans and pelicans and shit – and then mixed it with a wyvern, you’d get these guys.  They’re goofy as shit and really endearing even if they make battles take way longer than necessary by calling in reinforcements.  Plus Honker helped me get one of my best monsties in the end, so he’s alright.  You’re alright Honker.

Rathian (Clarent)

Redecos: Pink Rathian (Hrunting), Gold Rathian (Caliburn)

So early in the game, you escape the dreaded Ice Hell Wasteland Snow Zone into a beautiful green path of serene trees and flowers.  Sleeping on that path, surrounded by harmless Aptonoths, is a Sharkleberry Fin-pink ass dragon.  And deep down you know this is a trap.  It’s fucking sleeping.  You have to choose to fight it.  The game is setting you up.

“Fuck it,” you say, “I saved recently.  Let’s poke the bear.”

These fuckers were Monster Hunter Stories’ first taste of power, the first monster to make you realize that you are a puny ape made of meat and bone in a land of prehistoric dragonosauruses that would love to eat your goddamn guts.  God I love this heinous she-dragon, this haw-nosed viper-faced scorpion-tailed flying allosaurus. The game foreshadows pretty heavily that you’ll get one of your own at, like, the VERY beginning, so I didn’t bother putting Hrunting (my pink Rathian – I didn’t find the normal one until much later) on my team when I got her.  I mean, I actually couldn’t because the game was like “Yeah you got this egg but uhhhhh you are NOT ready for this responsibility” my man, but even though I knew it’d be alright, I still felt a twinge of regret.  There aren’t enough spaces on my team for TWO Raths, but Rathians, please know that Silver medals are high honors.

Also I’ll probably level you up for funsies once all my other monsties get to level 100 while I wait for the DLC.

Barroth (Caramel)

Redecos: Jade Barroth (Marzipan)

Caramel was the first monster I got who would stay all the way to the end of the story mode, and likewise became the first monster I raised to level 99.  Even just focusing on aesthetics, Caramel is wonderful.  Her design has the bonkers creativity and personality of an Ultra Man monster, with her giant pipe organ head and pangolin dorsal scutes.  And she likes mud baths!  What a lovely creature.  Caramel’s full name is Salted Caramel, because her ice genes make her look a little frosted, and because she’s the experienced veteran on my core team of monsters.

Diablos (Moloch)

Redecos: Black Diablos (Asmodeus)

A triceratops/therapod/pterosaur/Satan hybrid, Diablos is pretty fucking rad, and while it took me forever to get one of their fucking eggs, I still seriously considered raising one for my endgame.  I ultimately didn’t, but this is another monster that kinda neatly summarizes the basic rules of Monster Hunter’s monster design: take dinosaur parts, cobble together a dragon, and voila, you’ve got a pretty standard MH monster.

Tigrex (Nublar)

Redecos: Brute Tigrex (Sorna), Molten Tigrex (Winston)

Look, at the end of the day, I’m a pretty boring person when it comes to my personal tastes.  I like hamburgers with just ketchup on them – anything more and you can’t focus on the meat.  So when I say that Tigrex is my favorite monster in the game, please, please understand that I’m aware how boring that makes me.  I mean, I get it – it’s JUST a dragon with a T.rex head. But… but that’s so cool!  And it’s such a nice dragon with SUCH a NICE T.rex head! And it has this adorable animation when it wins where it snaps its jaws twice like “YEAH FUCK YOU YOU WANNA GO AGAIN GUESS NOT FUCKER I’M A T.REX AND A DRAGON WHAT ARE YOU YOU AIN’T SHIT IS WHAT YOU ARE CHOMP CHOMP MOTHERFUCKER CHOMP CHOMPITY CHOMP!”

Anyway I raised the three different Tigrexes all to a high level and used them all substantially throughout the game because they’re beautiful and adorable and badass and just my favorite ok?  Yes I know it’s one of the least creative designs in the bunch but goooooooooddddd it just works for me ok it just works.

1000/10 would raise more would raise entire team of tigrexes try and fucking stop me I’ll do it I’ll goddamn do it just try to stop me CHOMP CHOMP motherfuckers

Iodrome (Nedry)

I did a lot of level grinding in the volcano, and discovered that some of my monsters could send these fuckers running at the sight of me just by roaring.  It was delightful.

Basarios (Pebble)

Redecos: Ruby Basarios (Poprox)

These burly fellows look like they’d be a lot tougher than they are.  I mean, they can endure a lot of punishment, but their fights were never hardfought – just long.  They’re pretty neat for giant rock dragons.

Gravios (Nugget)

Redecos: Black Gravios (Licorice)

A bit tougher than Basarios (and apparently related to them? ), I still have trouble telling these two apart most of the time.  They’re nice. Decent geodudes.

Uragaan (Roundboy)

Y’know, everyone remembers the Ghost with the Most and Lydia, but Otho brings a lot of comedy to Beetlejuice too.  Like, he’s even more inexplicable and weird than all the dead people in that movie.  Otho should be more fondly remembered.

Like Caramel, Roundboy has a really fun design that once again has a distinctly Ultra Man-ish feel to me.  He also looks sort of like a hairbrush, but, like, a terrible one where the tines are too fat to properly help your hair.  I like him.

Great Jaggi (Newman)

Redecos: Great Baggi (Elvis)

I feel like the game knew these two were basically a waste of time because there’s, like, no promotional renders for them at all.  It’s kind of a shame because they’ve got lovely wicked raptor designs, but yeah they’re basically like Velocidromes in that they’re kind of useless, but unlike velocidromes you don’t get them until a point in the game where there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT they will always be useless.  I feel bad for them.

Kecha Wacha (Seylmer)

Redeco: Ash Kecha Wacha (Vendor)

So… I’m not the only one who thinks this is the lovechild of Elmer and Seymore, right?  It wants to sell me sands and fruit.

Yian Garuga (Gothrox)

The goth cousin of the Yian Kut Kus, this creature manages to look kinda badass despite being derived from such goofy stock.  I can respect that.

Congala (Garbage)

Redecos: Emerald Congala (Dumpster)

From a design point, these punk rock hippo-gorillas are really cool, mixing a lot of disparate elements into a single creature.  On the other hand, every time I fought one they farted on me a lot, which did not endear me to them one bit.  I did not appreciate their south park humor.

Zinogre (Balto)

Redecos: Stygian Zinogre (Baskervill)

In recent Pokemon generations I’ve just been clinging to the few reptilian designs we get, no matter how far they are from y actual preferences for reptile monster designs, because more and more they are crowded out by goddamn mammals.  I imagine Zinogre here must be that for MH fans who also prefer mammal monsters to reptile ones – in a sea of lizards, here is a lizard that looks very much like a wolf!  It’s still a lizard though – like, it’s got a big long tail, and scales everywhere, and even a squatter stance than most mammals have – but dammit, it’s a wolf-ish lizard.

I think wolves are kinda neat, so if there had to be a super strong mammal-ish monster, they could do a lot worse than this one.

Nargacuga (Bagheera)

Redecos: Green Nargacuga (Swampcat)

Basically a panther dragon, Nargacuga is another strong more-mammal-y-than-normal monster from the later part of the game, and it’s a pretty fucking rad one.  It was hard not to have a grudge against them at first because of the, uh, opening cutscenes of the game, but since the game hammers in the idea that we can’t blame these wild animals for their actions, I grew to love my sweet panther dragons.  They’re frail as fuck though, so sadly I didn’t get much use out of them, but I love them nonetheless.

Rathalos (Ratha)

Redecos: Azure Rathalos (Durendal), Silver Rathalos (Excalibur)

Ok, so, you automatically get a Rathalos about halfway through the story, and the story really rides upon you making the Rathalos your favorite.  Which, in turn, kinda inspires a bit of rebelliousness on your part – especially when other monsters have been with you longer (Caramel) or endeared themselves to you more (Nublar/Sorna/Winston).  Also they don’t let you nickname your Rathalos yourself – your stuck with the shitty nickname one of the NPCs gave him instead. Ratha?  Ratha?  I know I could do better than that.

Like Rathian, Rathalos is a badass theropod bodied, scorpion tailed, hawk/viper faced wyvern, all of which gets blended seamlessly into a really unique and expressive design. This is basically the mascot monster of the series, right?  A good choice.  Definitely more creative than a simple dragon with a T.rex head.  A good choice.  I’m sure some might argue the better choice.

…

Anyway I love the various Rathaloses I’ve raised, and like Tigrexes I raised one of each subspecies up to pretty high levels.  They’re great monsters.  Probably in my top ten of the ones listed here.  Maybe even top five.  Just… just not my favorite.  I’m sorry Ratha, but you should have let me name you.

Lagiacrus (Ogopogo)

Redecos: Ivory Lagiacrus (Inverness)

It’s a crocodile… and a cobra… and a sea serpent… I love it.  I love this design.  Of all the monsters I planned to put on my team, I was most excited for Ogopogo here. Like, if I had to pick a favorite monster on design alone, it would be this guy.  Ogopogo struggled to make her mark in combat though, being kind of middle of the road – not super hard hitting, not super durable, just kind of alright everywhere.   She wasn’t as quirky as the others either.  I still love her though, and I’ve been toying with her genes to see if I can help her make her mark.  She’s probably just a late bloomer – it’ll be her time to shine soon, you’ll see.

Deviljho (Corncob)

I have heard tales of the Deviljho for as long as I have heard people telling me I should play Monster Hunter games – which is to say a long ass time.  Feared by all, the mighty deviljho is an unstoppable murder beast that arrives when you least expect it.

At least, that’s what the legends say.  In Monster Hunter Stories I had to seek out this son of a bitch.  SEVERAL TIMES.  Me and Honker spent an entire fucking night just farming these bastards, beating up Jho after Jho in a desperate attempt to get its precious egg.  Eventually our efforts bore fruit, and sweet Corncob was born.

A plucky, chunky pickle skinned child, Corncob worried me at first – she seemed frailer than my Tigrexes and didn’t hit as hard, and I feared she might have to be benched for her own sake.  After finishing story mode, though, she really came into her own.  With the help of some gene re-arranging and some level grinding, Corncob has become a juggernaut – beefier than Caramel and harder hitting than all save Winston the Molten Tigrex.  Corncob isn’t the average monster warrior – she has become the legend, the legend that you fear.  She is the legendary super monster – the Deviljho!

Anyway, Corncob may be my second favorite monstie.  She’s just the sweetest little murdersaurus.

Barioth (Varney)

Redecos: Sand Barioth (Carmilla)

The third mammal-ish reptile, Barioth looks pretty cool.  I mean, it’s a sabre tooth cat’s head on a standard MH style wyvern body, you can’t fuck that up really.  If MH didn’t offer so many other monsters that were far more lizard-y, I’d probably use it.  It’s right there in that later-gen Pokemon category of “I guess this will do” monster design.  If I were dying of thirst, Barioth, you would be my water in the desert.  But there’s fresh water aplenty here, soooooo yeah.

Brachydios (Bajablast)

Originally I had no intention of using Bajablast, since the design seemed a little overdone to me – like it was trying to hard to be EVEN MORE badass than other monsters.  But goddamn did Bajablast win me over!  Not only does she have the best kinship attack animation in the game, but she’s a durable, hard hitting worker – not the best fighter on my team, but a consistently reliable one.  After giving her water genes that complement her fire resistant nature, Bajablast is both a thirst quencher AND an explosive attacker – she truly does the Dew.

Kirin (Amalthea)

Redecos: Oroshi Kirin (Unreleased – no nickname chosen yet)

While on the outside Kirin looks like just a horse with a horn, on closer inspection you’ll find it also has a weird old man face, and that’s creepy in a fun way.  A perfectly acceptable horse monster.  Kirin is an “Elder Dragon,” which research tells me is MH code for “Boss Monster” or “Legendary Pokemon,” so I guess that’s why you have to wait until the postgame to get one.

Monoblos (Belphegor)

Redecos: White Monoblos (Unreleased – no nickname chosen yet)

Monoblos is like Diablos but with a less cool looking head.  So there’s that for you. It feels kind of underwhelming to get this guy in the postgame, to be honest – it’s just Diablos with a less cool head.  But it gives you something to do, and I’d rather wait for this than, say, sweet, dear Corncob.

Seregios (Pinecone)

Like Monoblos, this monster felt kind of underwhelming as a post-game critter – it’s another wyvern, neat – but at least it’s a cool and unique design, with its backwards scales and pissed off rooster face.  Sir Reggie O’s is ok in my book.

Great Poogie (Baconbit)

If you find 100 pigs in the game you get a really big pig that you can ride and it’s kind of a joke on you for working so hard to find a bunch of useless fucking pigs, but on the other hand you can ride on a pig and it’s hilarious.  Just… just imagining a person choosing to ride on a pig instead of dragons and bears and shit is hilarious.

Epona (un-nickname-able, but I would have called him Bojack)

There’s a DLC tournament you can fight in to get a fucking horse.  Just… just a horse.  Just a normal goddamn horse.  You don’t even get to name the horse because fuckin’ Zelda beat you to it.  Excuse me, princess, I wanted to name this horse off an alcoholic sitcom star with clinical depression!  Fuckin’ dream killing horse.

THE UNRELEASED DLC MONSTERS

Rajang (Unreleased – thinkin’ of calling it Vegeta)                    

Every time I’ve fought one of these apes has been a fuckin’ nightmare. I am terrified of them.  I am scared of these goddamn dirty pawed apes.   I want to raise one just so I can get over my fear.

Kushala Daora (Unreleased – no nickname chosen yet)

The closest the game comes to, like, the iconic European dragon – I mean, let’s be honest, if you think “Dragon,” you think “lizard with four legs and two wings”, right?  If we’re being honest here?  Right?

Oddly, I’m less enthused by this guy than I felt I would be.  It actually makes me understand where all the “reptilian dragons are boring!” people are coming from.  It could use just a bit more weirdness.

Teostra (Unreleased – no nickname chosen yet)

So here’s a dragon that is also a lion.  Neat.

Glavenus (Unreleased, but will be named Razzlberri)

Every week I hope and pray that the game gets the DLC that lets me have my sweet, dear, beautiful Razzlberri.  As of this writing, my prayers remain unanswered.

TT’s Top Ten Favorite Monsties So Far (in no particular order)

Nublar/Sorna/Winston (Tigrex and its variants)

Corncob (Deviljho)

Caramel (Barroth and its variants)

Ogopogo (Lagiacrus and its variants)

Bajablast (Brachydios)

Ratha/Durendal/Excalibur (Rathalos and its variants)

Clarent/Hrunting/Caliburn (Rathian and its variants)

Razzlberri (Glavenus - yeah I know it hasn’t been released yet but look at it)

Vriska/Frosti (Nerscylla and its variants

Moloch/Asmodeus (Diablos and its variants)

[blitherandblather]

CAoS Theory

If I were a religious man, I'm pretty sure I'd have given Satanism a shot. I'm not the kind of person who commits to anything for very long, so it wouldn't be that big a deal. I switch pinball-fashion from one dead-end, minimum wage job to the next on a bi-weekly basis. I just don't have the attention span to make a career of anything. I've already forgotten what I was talking about at the start of this paragraph and now I'm going to have to go all the way back to beginning to find out. It has pros and cons,  short attention span.

Satan, that's it. Or, at least, the Church of Satan. It's hip, it's new and it's utter bullshit. I find most religions to be utter bullshit, but at least this one has a few ideals I can get on board with. For one thing, Stupidity in a cardinal sin in Satanism. In fact, it's sin number one; it's the worst thing you do in the Church, be stupid. I can agree with that, it's my least favourite characteristic in a person too. There's a suspiciously prominent “don't fuck children” rule thrown in there too, as if in direct response to some other religion. Almost as if they were worried priests getting kicked out of other churches might end up theirs, so they just wanted to get the message out there. Come if you want, but, let's just be clear here, absolutely no fucking children. In fact, no children at all. Seriously, we're not letting anyone under the age of 18 through the door. Understand? Good, welcome to the CoS; here's your birthday cake.

Satanists are also atheists, so there's no real worry about being judged in the afterlife, because there isn't one. They also don't really care if you're a Satanist or not. They don't have masses or go knocking door-to-door. There's very little you actually have to do to be a Satanist. Most of it is about self-reflection and embracing nihilism. Oh, and their High Priest has released a bunch of albums you could use as mood setters while playing Dungeons and Dragons. Above all, though, Satanism is a philosophy and a way of thinking as opposed to an actual religion, and, if I were to join any organisation, I think they'd be the ones for me.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with the Netflix show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a new imagining of the Archie Horror comic book of the same name. It's a far darker and grittier look at the character than that taken by Melissa Joan Hart. Like most of Netflix's own shows, this 10-parter has an ongoing arc, split by story-of-the-week episodes. Sabrina is a half-witch, which means youngsters can relate to her, but also that her life is going to be more interesting than yours.

The Dark Lord, the devil, wants Sabrina to join his legion of followers, like her father promised she would before mysteriously dying in a plot point. But Sabrina is half-human, too, and she has a boyfriend and it's all, like, so unfair and stuff. So, a deal is struck between the innocent teenager and the manifestation of all evil, ruler of hell and destroyer of souls. She's allowed to go to her regular, human school, as long as she also attends The Academy of Unseen Arts, which I was positive was where Rincewind got kicked out of. As if this wasn't complicated enough, there is a witch-killer on the loose picking off Satan's followers. Also, there's like, these really mean girls? And, like, this boy? Like, a wizard boy? And he, like, likes Sabrina? But Sabrina's already with this human guy? It's totes drama, you guys.

There are a lot of positives with the show. Kiernan Shipka, playing Sabrina, is very likeable and exudes a confidence which makes us feel like she's been playing the role for years. The certifiably insane Michelle Gomez, perfectly cast as the possessed corpse of Sabrina's (human) High School teacher/(spoilers) Madame Satan herself, has great fun lurking around mischievously in the background of shots, plotting devious deeds and threatening pretty much everyone she happens to bang in to. Richard Coyle, playing the High Priest, hams it up unapologetically as the puritanical and ever-so-slightly-corrupt Father Blackwood. The show rarely panders to the viewer, assuming we already have at least a passing knowledge of the occult, mentioning Morgan le Fay, Lilith of Aradia, the Witch of Endor, Hildegard of Bingen, Marie Laveau, Tituba, Nehman, Badb, Macha, the Virgin of Juno, and the Kindly Ones (not looking forward to spellchecking that sentence). All of that is in one monologue, by the way, powerful stuff although, admittedly, utter gibberish if you don't know your witches. The plot also leans heavily on the Devil and Mr. Webster, with many feel-good moments where the clever half-human beats the devil himself in a game of wits.

There is plenty to moan about too, however. The storyline is plodding and, for most of the season, utterly directionless. Minor plot points are brought up to give the show a feel of gravitas it doesn't actually possess; an underdeveloped young girl is bullied by transphobic jocks, her father refers to his gay brother as “an abomination” and Sabrina's ward, Aunt Zelda (she's got a harsh exterior but, shock and horror, there's a heart of gold under there!) has an affair with Father Blackwood, whose wife is too pregnant to satisfy him sexually. To atone for this affair, both participants flagellate themselves, which also brings BDSM in to the mix, completely out of place and tone with the rest of the show.

Lucy Davis, Sabrina's other ward, Aunt Hilda (she's got a soft and squishy exterior but, shock and horror, there's a bellyful of fire under there!) mumbles distractedly in the background, utterly unsure how to play the character and becomes more of a distraction from, as opposed to a part of the story. The love triangle between Sabrina, dishy human Harvey Kinkle (who is given precisely fuck all to do except be dishy) and the dishy warlock Nicholas Scratch (maybe a spoiler alert, this was the devil's name in The Devil and Mr. Webster) feels tacked on and pointless. All YA fiction requires a love triangle, because how else can a young woman figure out who she truly is unless she can figure out which, of two, boys she wants to fuck the most?

Characters motives change on a whim, ranging from mildly irritating – Aunt Hilda warning Sabrina not to cast a particular spell, while simultaneously telling her exactly how to do so – to the fucking baffling – Madame Satan helping Sabrina exorcise a demon out of a human body, then coming back later on to murder the human for no fucking reason.

A plot point is brought up early in which a young, and possibly unaware, warlock is brought in to the morgue. He has definitely been murdered, and the Spellmans worry a Witch Hunter has come to town. They are so sure of it, they bring the news to the attention of Father Blackwood, who tells them to “keep an eye on it”. And it's never mentioned again.

Father Blackwood's position is similarly vague and malleable. In the first episode, the Spellman sisters are so terrified of the man, they're reluctant to even speak to him. In a later episode, when they've got shit going on, they pretty much to tell him to fuck off and let them get on with it. And he agrees. Sabrina constantly interrupts his sermons, pointing out that their religion is a crock of shit and that he, himself, is making up shit as he goes along. She's correct, of course, but he's the head of his particular coven and yet does nothing about her impertinence. On the other hand, when a full witch makes a minor mistake, he threatens to kill her and her two sisters if they ever screw up again. There's absolutely no consistency with his standing in the community, nor what his reaction will be to any given situation. Particularly irritating are the scenes with Blackwood and Madame Satan, during which it's never explained who is whose boss. They bark orders at each other one minute, then cow down the next. It feels like parts of the show are still in their first draft, whereas others have had copious amounts of rewrites, but both have been filmed and edited in to the final product.

Episode five – of ten – is a dream episode! The ultimate failure in any show (Star Trek disguised their dream episodes using a Holodeck instead, but the result was exactly the same), dream episodes are ones in which nothing fucking matters, because it's all a dream. It doesn't matter what happens in the episode, it's wiped out by the end credits. To stick a dream episode halfway through your first season stinks of an underdeveloped script. If there isn't enough plot to fill up ten episodes (and, believe me, there isn't), then don't film ten episodes. Condense it in to nine, or eight. Hell, be British about it and just have two six-part seasons and then never return to the premise ever again. You'll be beloved forever.

Therein lies the major problem with CAOS. There just isn't enough of it, and there's too much of it. The characters are, on the whole, dull, unimaginative and one-dimensional. The plots to each episode are dribbled across an hour plus of screen time, with barely half an hour's worth of material and the overall arc of season one focusses far too much on setting things up for season two, without giving us a reason to want to come back. By the end of episode ten, I was bored more than anything. I cared nothing for any of the characters and any good will I had felt towards the show at the beginning had been long-since spent. To the devil with them all.

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Glenn Close: You lose power if you get angry

From vengeful mistress to Agatha Christie matriarch: the actor talks about Harvey Weinstein, mental illness and growing up in a cult

Glenn Close and I sit at the corner of a large boardroom table in an intimidatingly minimalist office on the 14th floor of a Los Angeles talent agency. Its the kind of environment in which Patty Hewes, the ruthless lawyer Close played in Damages for five seasons, would feel at home and Im almost waiting for her to stand up, slam both hands on the table and shout, Ill rip your face off or any of the other terrifying put-downs that defined her double Emmy award-winning performance.

But Close is in high spirits and radiates such warmth I barely notice the chill from the tower blocks air-con. After we fiddle with the settings on our swivel chairs, which are so high they make anyone under six foot kick their legs like a child on a swing, the 70-year-old, six-time Oscar nominee and star of stage, television and film starts telling me about her dreams. I have had a lot recently, full of this wonderful love for a younger man. The dreams just keep coming and I wake up thinking, that was wonderful! It wasnt necessarily us doing the sexual act, just the feeling of love.

With her white hair cut to a sharp crop, and wearing a relaxed navy blazer, chinos and black scarf on account of the arctic corporate temperature, she looks stylish and fit. I have never felt better in my life, and I am, like, 70, she says. Im really a late bloomer.

She says she feels a disconnect between how she sees herself and how people may view me when I walk down the street, like: Theres an old lady. You know, there is now this cult of the model. Everyone on the red carpet is made into a model. That is very hard to not play into I have a bit of podge I am trying to get rid of, but its hard. I just think, Oh fuck, Ive been doing this my whole life! But the irony is, you just get better and better with age. You dont feel less alive or less sexy.

In Agatha Christies Crooked House. Photograph: Nick Wall

We are here to talk about Crooked House, the Agatha Christie adaptation debuting on Channel 5, before its theatrical release, in which Close plays Lady Edith, a matriarch of a very dysfunctional family. Close says, Christies grandson came to the set and he validated the fact that it was her favourite book, and the one that had never been adapted. He said when she handed it to the publisher, she was told she had to change the ending, because it was too upsetting and controversial. She refused. Its still pretty controversial.

This production, co-written by Julian Fellowes, might not be as spendy as Kenneth Branaghs $55m Murder On The Orient Express, but the ensemble cast is equally starry: joining Close are Gillian Anderson, Max Irons, Terence Stamp and Christina Hendricks. Close presides over her co-stars with gravitas and grace, in an understated performance that finds the humour in an otherwise bleak setup. But youd expect nothing less from the actor whose 40 years in the business started with star turns in Broadway productions (she won a Best Actress Tony in 1983 for Tom Stoppards The Real Thing). Her first film role, at the age of 35, was with Robin Williams in The World According To Garp, for which she received an Oscar nomination as she did for her supporting roles in The Big Chill and The Natural. Her performances in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and Albert Nobbs, about the life of a transgender butler in late 19th century Ireland, which she also co-wrote, racked up further Oscar nominations but still no win. This is seen by many as a travesty: Close brings a precision to her film work, honed through her years on stage. She has that rare taut quality Jack Nicholson also has it where you believe that beneath the steely control she is capable of snapping at any moment.

It was this that led Andrew Lloyd Webber to cast her in 1993 as the tragic silent movie star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. Close reprised the role 23 years later, getting her old costumes out of storage (she has kept all her costumes and recently donated the collection to a university in Indiana) for its revival in Londons West End.

As Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction: Clearly she had mental health issues. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

But it was her Oscar-nominated turn as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction in 1987 that proved career-defining. Thirty years on, Close still counts Forrest as the character of whom she feels most fond; she has admitted to fighting tooth and nail against the films eventual denouement, which turned the character into a bunny-boiling psychopath and Close into the casting directors go-to woman on the verge for years afterwards. Now we have the vocabulary to talk about these things, clearly she had mental health issues, she says.

Close sits regally still as she speaks, emphasising her points by leaning forward and locking eyes. Shes comfortable with silences and often takes a theatrical beat or two before answering questions. Shes all poise and control, but does she ever lose her temper?

I express my feelings quietly. I am not afraid of confrontation, but I am not particularly good at it. If I get attacked, I am not good at attacking back. There is fight, flight and freeze and I tend to freeze. That is not a strength of mine. I love the fact that my daughter Annie [Starke, an actor] is more of a fighter than I am. She doesnt let people get away with shit. While she agrees that women have a harder time being angry, publicly, than men, she says, I have played a lot of characters, and actually anger makes you lose power. Patty Hewes [in Damages] she hardly ever lost her temper, but when she did, it was very specific. I have always felt you lose power if you get that angry.

The collective outpouring of anger among women in Hollywood right now is something of which Close is acutely aware. She says that sexism in the industry has shifted more slowly than it should have done throughout her career: It took Harvey Weinstein and someone calling him out [for real change to happen]. I know Harvey, and he has never done that to me, but people would say he was a pig. I never knew that it was that bad and I dont personally know anybody who has endured that. I would like to think that I would have done something about it.

We discuss whether its possible to separate the work from the personalities involved in it. News has just broken that House Of Cards will be back for another series without Kevin Spacey, after it was originally canned because of harassment claims brought against its leading man. Close wraps her scarf around her chest and fixes me with her electric eyes. Artists, to make a huge generality, walk on a very thin line. Sometimes, like my beloved friend Robin Williams, who was one step away from madness, whatever makes them a great artist also makes them very complicated human beings. Again, that doesnt mean they can prey on and abuse people.

With Harvey Weinstein in 2013. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

At the root of the problem of sexism in Hollywood right now is, Close says, biology. I think the way men have treated women, from the beginning of time, is because they have different brains to women. So I am not surprised by it at all. I say to a guy, Tell me the truth, if you see a woman walk into a room, what is the first thought that goes through your head? His answer, always, is, Would I fuck her? It doesnt mean they act on it. If you can evolve into a society where men know that they should not always act on it then there has been a positive revolution. But you cant just say that theyre not going to have the thought that is ridiculous. It also has to be the women, who are not powerful, to be OK to say no and leave the room. I think its unrealistic to say were going to change but we have to evolve.

I ask Close who she thinks is a great man today. She is silent, thinking, for what feels like a full 60 seconds in which I am so tempted to throw out some options: Barack Obama, the Pope, the friendly security guard on reception who let us in

Nelson Mandela, is her final answer, but Im not sure shes convinced. I guess for me, she says, greatness is taking your humanity and still doing the good thing. Its sad to say that there are very few men, who are leaders, who have some sort of moral code that they dont deviate from because of popular opinion.

She thinks we are undergoing a crisis of masculinity: In the public mind, yes. I was outraged when I heard that there was a war against men I was like, are you joking? What do you think has been happening against women for centuries?

Close knows all too well about the misuse of power, because her own upbringing was, as she puts it, complicated. When she was seven, her parents joined a cult. Moral Re-Armament or MRA was a modern, nondenominational movement founded by an American evangelical fundamentalist which extolled the four absolutes: honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Her father, a physician working in the Congo, sent Close with her brother and two sisters from the family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to live at the MRA HQ in Caux, Switzerland (Closes mother, Bettine, was a socialite).

She is vague on the details but clear on the impact this experience had on her as a teenager: I was repressed, clueless and guilt-ridden. The timeline is patchy, but Close travelled with MRA in the 60s as a member of their musical groups, and spent time back in Connecticut at an elite boarding school. I had a wonderful time at Rosemary Hall, a girls school, she says. I was in a renegade singing group called the Fingernails: A Group With Polish. But she remained, as she calls it clueless. A lot of my friends knew boys youd have these horrendous dances with boys schools and they would get the guys they wanted and I would just stay with the person I was with.

As Patty Hewes in Damages. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She was briefly married before going to university. It is a complicated story for me. I was married before college, and kind of in an arranged marriage when you look back on it, and my marriage broke up when I went to college, as it should have. I was 22. But my liberal arts school had a wonderful theatre that was my training, my acting school.

Was that where she finally learned about sex, popular culture, the ways of the world? Not really, she says. I still am learning.

Close has two sisters, Tina the eldest, and Jessie her younger sister; and two brothers, Alexander, and Tambu Misoki, who was adopted by Closes parents while living in Africa. At the age of 50, Jessie spent time in a psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a weight that had been hanging over the family, undiscussed, for years. Talking about mental illness just wasnt done, Close says. You dont have a vocabulary for it and youre also very aware of appearances. You dont want to appear a crazy family.

In 2010 Close founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity that aims to end the stigma around mental illness by talking openly about it and its effect on families. It was my nephew who was first diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. This is basically schizophrenia with an ingredient of bipolar. And when that happened, it was like, What? My sister Jessie, his mother, didnt know what was wrong. He went to the hospital for two years and that saved his life. Then Jessie was, finally, correctly diagnosed herself.

With sister Jessie in 2009. Photograph: Getty Images

Close felt a duty to her family to give them a high-profile person who is not afraid to talk about it publicly. It affects the whole family. We always knew my grandmother and mother had depression my sister does, I do to a certain extent. But I didnt know my great-uncle had schizophrenia. I knew my half-uncle died by suicide. There was a lot of alcoholism addiction, self-medication. Nobody ever talked about it. I knew my grandmother was depressed, but at first I thought she lived in a hotel, not a hospital, because she always said how good the food was.

Close says she and her siblings are of one mind politically, but admits she does have members of her family who voted for Trump. I tried to understand that. Theyre not crazy people who have been brainwashed by Fox News, but I try to understand the anger, because I think that has been building up ever since Watergate. It was watching that scandal unfold that made her realise Americans have always been naive, we just take for granted what we have, and we always thought of our leaders as good people. With Watergate, people became cynical about government.

Today, she says, Washington is a bunch of self-serving She searches for an expletive and after a second settles on men. She says, Its hard to believe that people are so out for themselves. It goes against what you would like to believe about your country. I feel eloquence is incredibly important for a leader, and we had that with Barack Obama, who made his initial impact because he gave that incredibly eloquent speech, but he lost his eloquence in his presidency. We always need someone to say, I hear you, someone who can put their words into unity and hope and we dont have that. I think the last person may have been Robert Kennedy.

And now you have Trump tweeting nonsense.

Its devastating. Social networks are now like our nervous system, and if you keep pumping that kind of crap into the nervous system, it is going to have an effect on a population.

With Kevin Kline in The Big Chill. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Close doesnt talk politics with her friends because she doesnt really have many friends. I have always forced myself into situations I am not comfortable in. I am an introvert, and I was painfully shy as a child. I think I still have a big dollop of that in my persona. I read a book called Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Cant Stop Talking and it was a real comfort to me I realised I was that person I had always been. And it was at that point I told myself to stop pushing myself into situations that I dont enjoy. I dread cocktail parties.

She tells me shes pretty reclusive and can count her closest friends on two fingers. I ask if shes still good friends with Meryl Streep.

I have never been close friends with Meryl. We have huge respect for each other, but I have only done one thing with her, The House Of The Spirits.

I apologise for assuming they were pals, being of a similar age and stature in Hollywood, and admit this negates my next question: Who would win in an arm wrestle, you or Meryl?

Close laughs. Oh, I would, because I am very strong.

***

The tightest bond Close has is with her only daughter Annie, 29. Annies father is the film producer John Starke whom Close dated for four years from 1987, but never married. Annie was never a door-slamming, difficult teenager. Close tells me: When my Annie was three, she looked at me, and said, I want you. I knew what she meant. I, at the time, was a single working parent, sometimes even when I was home, working or producing something, I was there and not there.

With daughter Annie Starke in 2010. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She doesnt think its any easier for working mothers today and acknowledges, I had it easy because I could afford to have help think of the women who cant afford it and have to put their child in some shaky childcare centre. No, I think it is incredibly hard for women. Any person, in any profession, feels that tug [of guilt]. We discuss the intimacy of the single-parent, only-child bond. Once, I went to vacuum Annies car seat as we were moving house, and a lot of life had happened there, so I was crying. She said, Mummy, are you OK? I said, Yeah, Im OK. And she said, Here I am.

She was married to businessman James Marlas from 1984 to 1987 and then, following other relationships, including that with Starke, she married again, in 2006, to venture capitalist David Evans Shaw, divorcing him nine years later.

Would she marry again?

I dont know.

Does she think marriage is important?

I think it is a positive evolutionary component that we are better with a partner. I think to have a partner that you can go through life with, creating a history with, that you can find a comfort with, have children with there is nothing better. This is an opinion I have come to very late in life, at an ironic moment, where I dont have any of that. I dont know if I will again. But I do think its a basic human need to be connected.

Despite this, shes happy on her own right now. This is a good time in life. I do think, what would it be like to have a partner again? But it would have to be very different from what I had before. Then I have that great dream and wake up happy.

Crooked House is on Channel 5 at 9pm on 17 December.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/16/glenn-close-harvey-weinstein-mental-illness-cult-fatal-attraction

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