#it is so weird about its soap opera plotlines

[yellowocaballero]

mcu peter parker vs miguel o'hara is nepotism baby vs other much weirder nepotism baby

NO JOKE JAKLDSF

Yeah, I make fun of MCU Peter, but Miguel "I got scouted early and especially picked to advance quickly through the megacorp and recieved personal attention from the VP because I'm just that great" O'Hara is a) so much worse and b) so much more annoying about it. Bright side is Miguel steals Evil Corp from his dad and then proceeds to vindictively run it into the ground. Socialist king. Peter take notes.

I don't know why Miguel didn't go IMMEDIATELY to the tabloids with the "bastard son of Evil Corp VP tried to addict his son to drugs" story, but maybe Miguel prefers direct action and takes care of his problems himself (kill his dad). Miguel's story arc involves being a member of Evil Corp and trying to save lives, becomes a cult leader and has Marx forcibly dictated to him by Thor worshippers as he tries to escape yet another guy trying to smack him with a DCMA claim, and then engages in praxis by killing capitalists and neoliberals. Great character arc over the series where becomes better and also somehow a lot worse.

Anyway, I think in a time travel situation Peter would have a conspiracy theory that Miguel is an immortal vampire who is secretly using Tony's genetics laboratory to make everybody else into vampires (Miguel has red eyes and fangs in the comics, because he was made in 1994 and he is fantastic). In 2099 Mobius is the patron saint of several small Eastern European villages and the vast majority of Finland, so Miguel takes this as a compliment. He goes by Miguel Ojeda, because he hates all three of his parents.

I have actual legitimate theories for Miguel's appearance in ITSV but I think the funniest possibility is that Miguel involves himself in inter-dimension saving, but the minute a portal opens up back to 2099 (probably 2/3ds of the way through this fake movie or comic) he walks straight through and goes back home, leaving everybody else to do all the work. This happened in the comics. Everybody extends sympathy that he lives in a dystopia. He thinks everybody else lives in an unlivable hellpit because their universes contain libertarianism. And/or smartphones, much in the same way if I stepped inside a utopia without internet I would turn around and walk right out. Somebody tries to explain democracy to him, which he also finds statistically and scientifically inefficient. They should have Doom as a "president" like in 2099. He makes the trains run on time.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Hello friend, I was thinking about the Mina-as-a-reincarnated-love-of-Dracula's plot element from the 90's movie and once more wondering where the hell it came from. Do you have any idea if the germ of that element was present in some other vampire/dracula-related media?

Hello my friend! This is an excellent question that others have sought to answer over the years. This is my best recollection right now without consulting all my sources; if others (@atundratoadstool, @forthegothicheroine, anyone else?) remember something I'm forgetting here, feel free to jump in.

The Coppola film was not, properly speaking, the first Dracula adaptation to include a reincarnated wife plotline; that dubious honor goes to the 1974 Dan Curtis adaptation starring Jack Palance, though there the reincarnated wife is Lucy rather than Mina, and also takes much less of the attention and runtime than it does in the Coppola. Blacula, made around the same time as the Curtis film, also has a reincarnation plotline, though there it's of course not involving the characters of Stoker's novel directly.

Dan Curtis was previously the creator of the long-running vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, which I have not myself seen but which I understand has a prominent 'vampire finds the reincarnation of his love' story, and really popularized it as a trope.

Most people trace the origins of the trope to a different undead narrative - the 1932 The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund (cinematographer on Tod Browning's Dracula) and starring Boris Karloff. The Mummy, which I finally watched for the first time a few years ago, is a strikingly compelling though unambiguously orientalist film, and there's a lot in it from which I think subsequent Dracula adaptations have pulled.

The relationship between the undead Imhotep and Helen, who recovers memories of their tragic past life together, is in many ways persuasive. Like the occult opportunist Kay in Son of Dracula to whom I think Helen is rather akin, Helen seems stifled in the modern world (in her case the impression is exacerbated by the hints we get of racism she experiences as a half-Egyptian woman), and it's a rather direct line from her characterization to Lucy Seward in the Badham Dracula, Mina in the Coppola, and ultimately Vanessa Ives. Helen and Imhotep's love cannot succeed because he has the unfortunate impression that he has to kill her and resurrect her as a mummy so they can be together, but the sense the movie conveys of her connecting with her whole self when she recovers her earlier memories, and especially of her devotion to Isis, is quite moving.

Stepping back from the specificity of Dracula as a story, I actually think the reincarnation plotline makes a lot of sense as something that comes into play when you're dealing with immortality and undeath. One of the things that I think makes the way that the Dracula adaptations use it so weird and awkward, aside from the pure arbitrariness, is that they're divorcing the trope from the spiritualist connotations it clearly has in The Mummy, leaving it flat and metaphysically inexplicable. The Mummy is a text with clear origins in the spiritualist movements of its time, with their attendant orientalism - questions about reincarnation are all over those.

I played once myself with trying to recuperate the reincarnated wife trope in a Dracula fic, though I didn't touch the spiritualism stuff. I've been thinking about it, though, because I'm trying to work on Penny Dreadful fic and it's all over that canon (and also because I've been reading some Dion Fortune). I'll keep thinking about it.

[greatcheshire]

What is the deal with Twin Peaks Season 2?

Oh gosh so

Twin Peaks season 1 was a huge surprise hit for ABC, which obviously the executives loved. What they didn't love was the fact that the show, which focused on finding the killer of Laura Palmer, ended its first season without revealing the killer of Laura Palmer. In addition, the show was also such a big hit that they ordered 22 episode for season 2, about three times as many as the 8 episode first season, which meant a lot more space that needed to be filled.

There's also another thing here where season 2 also marked David Lynch putting more... Lynch things in the series. Season 1 had touches of supernatural or surreal elements, sure, especially compared to other TV shows at the time, but for the most part could still be enjoyed or viewed as a standard small town mystery soap opera by a wide amount of its audience. Compare this to early season 2, which introduces spirits, a cream corn ghost child, and sunglasses that possess you and make you smoke cigarettes. A lot of people were put off by this turn, either by it getting too weird for them or for simply not liking the more overt supernatural tone the show was taking.

For what it's worth, in my opinion, the first 9 episodes of Season 2 are phenomenal. Some of my favorite stuff in the series. The moments where Twin Peaks really becomes its own beast. One thing about this section is that this is where ABC was really pushing for Lynch and Frost to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer's killer, something they had never wanted to do but ended up having to do anyway. The end result is the killer getting revealed 1/3 of the way into the season, and the final three episodes dealing with the reveal of the killer and the aftermath are honestly amazing. Fantastic work. Episode 7 has probably my favorite TV moment of all time. It's that damn good.

But then a problem came - the killer was found. The central mystery had been solved.

And there's still 13 more episodes left of the season.

What happened next is one of the most famous quality drop offs in television history. Lynch, both due to his frustrations with ABC and also due to his obligations with filming his movie Wild At Heart, took a step back from the show, letting other writers try to fill in for him. The result was disastrous, with writers struggling to figure out how to replicate Lynch and Frost's style and what Twin Peaks could even be about without the Palmer case.

Some plotlines that are in Twin Peaks season 2, I shit you not:

A business owner gets PTSD and believes himself to be a confederate general, forcing everyone around him to recreate the Civil War with miniatures

David Duchovny shows up as a trans woman FBI agent

The show's Hannibal equivalent disguises himself as a horse and tranq darts a military general involved in classified Area 51 material

The show's Hannibal equivalent kills some random guy and stuffs him in a giant, house sized chess piece as a calling card

Local cool biker James Hurley leaves Twin Peaks, discovers a woman who is trying to scam him into killing her husband but that scam is also a scam from the husband who is also her brother to convince some boy to do a fake scam and attempt to kill him or something and it takes up five episodes and nothing happens and then James leaves the show

The main planned romance arc was vetoed by one of the actors so they had to come up with new love interests solely so fans would stop shipping the two of them. The two new love interests are played by Heather Graham and Billy Zane. They get nothing to do. Heather Graham is a suicidal nun named Annie Blackburn. Billy Zane is a cowboy named John Justice Wheeler

A 40 year old woman with an eyepatch and super strength gets amnesia and believes she's a high school cheerleader. They let her onto the wrestling team because of her super strength and she starts dating the jerk jock there because she's able to dom him

A woman becomes a door knob

They decide to host a beauty pageant to raise money to save a pine weasel. This is the plotline for the final few episodes.

We begin to learn more about UFOs and aliens and the existence of a dark dimension called the Black Lodge

Two men compete to see who is the real father of the sheriff assistant Lucy's child. At one point, they believe he might be the spawn of Satan.

They take Cooper out of the FBI because he went to Canada without permission and place him in Lesbian Flannel for the rest of the season (The only time Lesbian Flannel is a downgrade for a character)

The mayor's 80 year old brother, who investigates UFOs, dies by getting fucked to death by his 20 year old wife. The mayor brings a shotgun to the sheriff's office and plans to shoot the wife for killing his brother with sex and witchcraft. The police solve this by locking them both in the room together until they start to have sex and announce their plans to adopt

And this is just the simplified version of it!  All of this caused Twin Peaks to drop HARD in the ratings. Like literally from the top of the charts to the bottom. This stretch of episodes aren’t entirely bad. There is some good stuff there, the lore is important for future things, and the episodes start to pick up when the Hannibal equivalent Windom Earle gets introduced. But as a whole... OOF is it hard to watch.  Lynch would come back again to direct the season finale of season 2, hoping to generate enough interest from viewers and executives in giving it a season 3. He tossed out the script that was written by the season 2 writing team and made his own thing and it rules. The finale for season 2 is one of the best episodes of TV ever. A high mark of Lynch’s career. It’s so fucking good. It’s so good, it’s worth season 2 despite it all. And it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. 

Only to get cancelled. 

Lynch was given the opportunity to do a movie to end the series properly and resolve the cliffhanger. Instead he made a prequel. A move that angered many at the time. And then 25 years later, Twin Peaks finally got a third season, one that was so good, it was named the best movie of 2017 by Sight & Sound. But the effects of season 2 live on, the way that it alienated audiences and put Twin Peaks solely into niche territory one baffling decision at a time. 

[magic-multicolored-miracle]

Listen, I understand that "they changed it, now it sucks" is the battle cry of the internet.

But if you're writing an listicle about why a tv show is bad compared to its source books... (I am going to write a counter-list of the issues with common complaints but it's too long, so now it's under a cut. The short version is "you need to remember it's a different type of storytelling, you're boring, and I hate you.")

1) If you complain about storylines being cut or changed, or potentially being cut that are about rape and/or incest...you're gross. And creepy. And I don't trust you or your opinions on anything.

2) If your complaints are about character changes are that they are more outwardly ambitious instead of secretive and scheming, consider the fact that books have the ability to portray internal thought processes and decision-making, tv has to show it visually and ideally without weird omniscient narration. So a character may be doing the same scheming, it just looks bolder/less secretive. Also if you have 80 characters who are all scheming schemers who quadruple-cross each other, it gets confusing and hard to follow, even in a book. In a show with limited time, plotlines get streamlined and some of those 80 characters stop playing the long game.

3) If you complain that characters are less sure, somber, level-headed, strategic etc. than their book counterparts, consider again that the tv can't show their internal thoughts, so being outwardly expressive suits the medium. Also, many of these characters are starting at different points of their story, and character growth is interesting and relatable. Also also, a show full of just somber, cold, strategic men and level-headed self-assured women is frankly Boring. (A book is too, but at least with internal reflection you can add more depth and variety so it isn't unsalvageable.)

4) If you complain about secondary characters being cut or having their storylines given to others, think about the practicality of scripting, casting, filming all of those side things, who never appear again. It's not practical. TV shows have a limited time, audiences have a limited attention span.

5) If you are upset about storylines being changed or replaced by entirely new ones, ask yourself "was the original one convoluted, difficult to follow, nearly identical to another storyline, or only tangentially connected to the main characters and plot?" if the answer is yes, there's a good reason for it getting altered. Cohesion and focus are essential to storytelling, especially when you have a limited amount of time and resources to work with. Unfortunately, most shows are not syndicated daytime tv soap operas that run for 40 years and can tell an evil twin, amnesia, or surprise return from the dead story every three seasons (I'm being generous to say they wait that long).

[scenics]

Honestly, though, I’ve seen the og Bungee Jumping movie and it is fucking weird, but its faults could have largely been sorted with a smart screenwritter in charge. A couple of extra scenes here and there (which would have been possible, considering it was getting turned into a drama with plenty extra screentime), a reworking of the general structure (perhaps a change of ending too lmao), and it could have turned into a sort of arthouse drama hybrid that condemned both homophobia AND the weird ass age gap/power imbalance.

Plus the role itself was interesting, in terms of showcasing acting range: Jaehyun would have been playing a character that is actually two characters, with an age and gender transformation within the same body at one point. It would have certainly showcased his talent, if he has any and managed to pull it off. Very different from the usual silly romantic dramas idols get typecasted into.

Then again, this is Korean tv, and I have absolutely no faith they would have managed to rework the script into a better version of itself, so it’s probably for the best that it got axed. We were probably just going to get an extended version of the original, or they might have even managed to make it worse with all the extra time 😵‍💫

i think most kdrama writers aren’t super good at their job (or maybe they are), they always fall into the same tropes + plotlines. in general kdramas are just glorified soap operas disguised as legit dramas that are really borderline cw dramas. i’ve watched too many of them and i believe that every good kdrama writer (there's not many of them) eventually has to give into studio (even audience) demands. i understand your wish for jaehyun’s drama but sk is NOT at a stage where age gaps+homophobia are being openly criticized in mass media. as for jaehyun.......i know you want to believe the best in him (i do too), but i know he took this role on (personally chose it, was EXCITED about it) because he's a very unrealistic overshooting romantic. an out of this world absurd romantic. yes this was a very dynamic role for him but i've looked at his movie+media recommendations and that's really all i need to know about his taste.

[jbk405]

Carole & Tuesday was a fun, enjoyable series with some very good music.  Interesting characters (mostly) and very subtle sci-fi worldbuilding.

However it could not bring its disparate storylines together, and instead came across like three different shows that barely took place in the same fictional universe, let alone interconnected.

Carole and Tuesday themselves are in feel-good comedy about kids forming a band and playing music together.  Rising to superstardom while not selling out.

Angela is in a soap-opera drama about the pitfalls of the entertainment industry and the crippling dehumanization it has on child stars.  How isolating and traumatizing fame is.

Valerie, Tuesday’s mother, is in a political pseudo-thriller about compromising your morals for power.  Her story is pretty much “What if Hillary Clinton ran her campaign like Donald Trump?”

Tao has his own fourth story which is....I dunno, sci-fi thriller?  The dangers of brainwashing the populace through AI control?  It never seemed to go anywhere.

These almost never intersect.  Valerie is running for president and apparently leading a morality crusade against immigrants and music that is feeding a cultural swing towards intolerance, but until Skip is hassled and arrested in the literal second-to-last episode the main characters never actually encounter any of that.  They’re never harangued for playing the wrong type of music, Carole is never heckled for being from Earth, it’s just not an issue for them at all.  Amer’s deportation comes close, but even that never manages to bring the two stories together.  Plus, considering that Valerie isn’t even elected yet and at the end we see the cops already hassling Skip -- even storming the finale concert in full combat armor -- it seems like government policy already outlaws a lot of expression.  So what is Valerie even campaigning for, and why is this regarded as a change for Martian politics?

Angela has a new Issue almost every episode that comes up, is dramatic, and then disappears almost without comment.  Her mother used to do something bad when she was a kid, which is why she doesn’t live at home anymore, but what that is is never revealed and after that episode it’s not even mentioned again (Although I am so glad they didn’t reveal Dahlia was a child molester, like I thought they were foreshadowing).  Dahlia reveals on her literal deathbed that Angela is adopted (And is apparently a genetically engineered designer baby which...what the heck?).  After Dahlia’s death Angela falls deep into drug abuse, ODing literally on stage at the Grammy’s, despite never having been shown with a drug problem at all beforehand.

Tao was weird.  Just....weird.

If you ask me, they should have excised Valerie’s plotline completely.  Have her only role be as the Rich-but-smothering-parent that Tuesday is escaping from, with none of the politics at all.  Devote that time towards Carole and Tuesday building more of a music brand and experiment with actual performing.  Put on a few more actual shows.  The best parts of the series were them figuring out how they wanted to sound.

That would give them more time to properly develop Angela’s storyline as well.  Tao could maybe be left in, but as a supporting character in Angela’s story instead of whatever he turned out to be here.

The series was worth the viewing despite its flaws, but it could have been so much more.

[reyloforcebalance]

Confessions of a Rated-T Fanfic Writer

I have something I want to get off my chest as a relatively new member of the fanfiction community (specifically Star Wars and Reylo). At the end of this post, I have a list of my favorite reylo fics, so if you like, just skip to that.

When I started writing fanfiction after The Last Jedi, I wasn’t much of a reader. This article from the Atlantic introduced me to the world of fanfiction, and I gobbled up Forms and Interstellar Transmissions but quickly found reading others’ work made me self-conscious about my own. So, in the interest of preserving my confidence, I focused on writing.  

During this period, I noticed most of the Reylo fandom was interested in rated E or M fics. Explicit fics were the most popular on Ao3 with a significant difference in the amount of attention and praise given to them verses rated T works, and the more I noticed this, the more resentful I grew. It bugged me to know that so many readers would never give my story a shot simply because of its rating.

Then one day on a whim, I clicked on a fic by Kylotrashforevor and got sucked in HARD. I found refuge in AUs because they weren’t set in the Star Wars universe and didn’t make me second guess my own plot choices. It’s like the sky opened up, the sun came out, and suddenly, I understood. I no longer felt resentful of readers who exclusively searched for rated E fics because WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T THEY!? Rated E fics have the whole package— great story, great characters, AND the sexy stuff.

Almost overnight, I became the very reader I hated. I snorted rated E fics like cocaine while barely giving fics with other ratings a glance. I was ashamed of my hypocrisy, but this did little to stop me.

Then, I started noticing a strange pattern. There were several times when I’d start a fic, get really into the plot, but when I got to the smut parts, they were just “so-so.” I glazed over the sex scenes but didn’t feel like I’d been robbed because I enjoyed the story so much the disappointing smut hardly mattered. That’s when it struck me…

Why am I only searching for E-rated fics when I’m clearly enjoying a lot more than that? If I can read an E-rated story and still love it despite so-so smut, why bother limiting myself?

So, I started opening my searches to all ratings and haven’t looked back since. I found rated G and T gems that I kicked myself for after reading because what if I’d never grown out of my stupid rated E exclusivity and missed them!?

So, if there’s a moral to the story, it’s this: You will greatly enhance your fanfiction reading experience if you put your biases aside and try a little of everything. I used to think most rated E fics were smutty trash heaps until I found Kylotrashforevor. I used to think AUs were weird, crossovers were nuts, and crack fics were just worthless. I was WRONG on all accounts. Trying new kinds of stories helped me better appreciate the breadth of talent and creativity in the reylo fandom, and I want to encourage others to do the same. 

So, if you usually read only E or M fics, try giving T and G stories a shot. I think you’ll be surprised by how little you miss the smut.  If you usually read T and under, let me assure you the explicit parts of many M and E fics are easily skipped. Don’t let a couple of sex scenes keep you from some of the best stories out there. Broaden your tastes, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Below are links to some of my favorite Reylo fics. In the spirit of this post, they represent a variety of genres and ratings. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve divided it into canon and AUs and noted if the work is incomplete.

Try a little of everything and enjoy!

CANONVERSE

Darkness Rises… And Light to Meet It series by @a-nerd-obsessed. A dark Rey role reversal fic where Rey and Ben grow up together in the Jedi Academy and struggle with their understandings of the Force. My ABSOLUTE favorite. Currently on part 3 of 4.

Higher Ground by @kathknight and Seraphprotocol. Post TLJ fic with hands down THE BEST actions scenes I’ve read in a reylo story.

The Machine by @vespaer77. Post TLJ fic that explores the role of the military industrial complex in the Star Wars universe. Incomplete.

Darkness, Take my Hand by @kathyswizards. Post TLJ fic where the Raddus rams into the Supremacy before Rey can respond to Kylo’s offer to rule the galaxy.

Sky-Marked Souls by AnonymousMink. Post TFA soulmates fic where Kylo and Rey get marks on their skin whenever the other feels physical pain.  

Like Sands Though the Hourglass by @jeenonamit. Someone’s posting Reylo fanfiction to the First Order’s Intranet and Kylo IS NOT pleased.

Pillow Talk by @themoonmoths. Post TLJ fic where the bond brings Rey and Kylo together every night for bed-sharing and conversation. Incomplete.

Strike Me Down by Mericat_Blackwood. Post TFA fic where the spirit of deceased Han Solo is dead set on bringing his son back home. Incomplete.

When the Force Ships It Too by Neuvoreylogirl. Alternate TLJ plotline that pits Snoke and Luke against one another in a galactic Reylo soap opera. Snoke is the worst “cool dad” ever... 

Stand in the Sun Then by @the-reylo-void. A Galaxy’s Edge-inspired fic where Kylo notices a certain three-bunned hairstyle has become very popular on Batuu.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

First Order IT, Can I Get Your User ID? by krossartist/ @theeamazingem. Mechanic Rey likes her job except for when the computer screws up and she has to call her least favorite IT guy for help.

Fireflies by quixoticlux. ABO meets Mansfield Park meets Clueless when high school Rey can’t stop crushing on her cousin Ben. Incomplete.

Nine Lives by on_my_toes. Doctor Ben becomes increasingly concerned when he notices the barista at his favorite coffee shop has a habit of putting herself in harm’s way.

Stay Out of Trouble by Deathtoallstars. Cop Ben keeps arresting the same wily college kid who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Incomplete.

Bleeding Edge by Succubusybody. Westworld meets Stepford Wives in a dark fic where Rey takes care of scientist Ben’s every need until she makes a shocking discovery.

Can’t Turn Off What Turns Me On by audreyii_fic. Omega Rey and Alpha Ben come together during her heat and an intense connection sparks.

Miles from Where You Are by Mooncactus. Rey and Kylo get into an online battle about Star Wars films.

Nevertheless, She Persisted by @dawninthemtn. Campaign staffer Rey is tasked with keeping an eye on her boss Leia Organa’s aloof son. Incomplete. 

Self-Inserted by @kylotrashforever. College student Rey happens upon journal belonging to Ben Solo, an old crush from high school she assumed hates her. As it turns out, he doesn’t…

Epithumia  by Pontmercy44. Engineering student Rey keeps falling asleep in Introduction to Classical Art and Literature. Professor Solo is less than pleased.

[jeffhane]

dynasty live watching: an incoherent post so that i’m not spoiling people on the twitter tl (i doubt any of this will be chronological or coherent enough to actually contain spoilers but better safe than sorry!)

oh my god the “previously on” - i forgot abt fallon and evan....

Theyre at a FUNERAL??? this was actually predicted but oh my god. if its steven i am going to be so mad. what an unfitting end to the- WAIT WHAT SIX MONTHS? what was that font;;;;:; whes sueiwjwk

copper arch🥵🥵🥵

this is cute. this is cute i like faloon pretty women so true

BYE I FORGOT ABT THIS VASE

fallon is genuinely such a bad person this is so bizarre,,,, i think she needs to calm down about oiterally everything ever

“This wedding is our chance to break the cycle of craziness” babe ur literally the one making the cycle of craziness

w. was that an ikmenn of liam getting his head off

JEFF MY BELOVED HE LOOKS STUNNING IN THAT OUTFIT. WHYS ALEXIS HERW “POWER COUPLE” YOU WERID MANIPULATIVE PERSON GET AWAY FROM HIM LOL

alexis is up to no good. bad bad jpeg. why do they write her dialogue like this

adam is acted so well lmao he’s the most unhinged person to ever exist *screams*

ohhh dominique, i don’t remember much abt her 😭😭😭 this woman she’s with is beautiful

ITS LAGGING????? i cannot Believe tjis

~rebrand~ ok girlboss!!!!!!!!! can we ship this businesswoman i dont recall her name with fallon???? id like that i think

too many plotlines have happened in too many minutes, i’m already forgettint things that have happened... isn’t blake supposed to be in prisoj? no? Ok: sure

adam is constantly doing this expression that is like 👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁 HI SAM HI SAM HI SAM BEAUTIFUL MAN I LOVE HIM WHOS THIS MAN

raf is so stunning ughhhh i’m loving the costumes this season, everyone looks great! is this man a sam love interest? nervous? that is kinda cute. i miss stevej though. sadness. so many emotions

UHHHH hi alexis sure ig ur here

~OMENS~ babe that’s a tad dramatic don’t you think?????????? “Ignore the lore at your own peril” alright

WHOS THAT? WHOS THAT? OH HER OK

bye everything is going wrong for this......:..:::... *rubs hands together evilly* that will certainly be entertaining

credit scene!!! such a beautiful cast! where’s anders, oh how i miss him... i miss monica too wasn’t she supposed to be BACK🤔🤔🤔🧐🧐🤨🤨

its a commercial break... havent had to watch the show with these for so long😑😑😑. getting american ads is so funny bc the vast majority of them are Not at all relevant... at all

BACK TO DYNASTY!!!!!! was that a slinky? huh? oh ok that’s why the marriage is happening at the manor. #whenyouonlyhaveoneset oh hi ok monica so shes not going to be here?????😑😔😳

WHY IS SHE GETTING A CAR I FEEL LIKE THATS FORESHAWDOIWIJG FOR UMMMMM.... NOT GOOD THINGS ..... ITS LAGGING AGAIN 🤨

blake having dinner... ok hi cristal,,,,; is the priest subplot back? that was a weird one

adam???? how on earth does adam work his way into everything? NEXT GUEST? HUH? are you cheating on your wife? HI CULHANE! HI!

“straight people are exhausting” i mean yes, objectively, absolutely, but culhane is #notstraight .... idk how i feel about sam and this man. also what? huh? staying here? ok cool ig

OHHHHH he got married i see i see

“Haven’t you milked the carrington cow already” but....... she is literally the person who deserves the stuff..... k......... i don’t like dominique but she was given the short end of the stick also blake stop manipulating people just bc they tell u the truth😶😶😶😶😶😶😶

frustrated that we haven’t seen fallon in any non-wedding related stuff yet i always liked her more ~dramatic~ plots . like she’s a sweetheart but i do want her to evolve beyond thsi. idk if that makes sense. ok bye

“A relative’s happy marriage” uh???? we live in a society😔📈

who is father lynch<3333 oh he is in the hospital that’s not great oh adam upset that’s new /s

y is kirby dressed like an elf. god bless.

ughhhh i just think adam is not good for kirby. he’s not good in general. so true . what is he up to. ads again hhhhhhhhhh💯

omg we are back!!!!! blake wear the suit!! hi liz!!! i’ve seen pictures of this outfit, it looks nice. “I really want things to work out with liam” now that would be great but you’re in a soap opera so the chances of that are .... I DONT EVEN ONOW IF U CAN WEATHER ANYTHING W CRISTAL...)))))!$$ NOT NECESSARILY THE BEET CHOICE????

~technically it wasn’t cancelled~ alright love i feel as though you’re not telling the full truth here. ok his name is ryan . we know that now . cool . this relationship is awkward but it could be sweet

what the Fuck is dominique talking about this is so creepy😭😭😭 please do not market lingerie to ur niece 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂 why does no one in this show know how to be polite

“You want me to stake my personal assets” i’m sure this would be meaningful if i knew anything about finance????? WAIT WAIT WIAT WAIT WAIT DHE REHEARING THE SAM DONS G THE SONG ALEXIS DONT INTERRUPT HER SINGING THE SONG🧐😔😔😔🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🥰🥰🤬😤😤😤😤😤😤

~duplicitous sham~ that’s quite a juicy phrase ms fallon. alexis i dislike your marriage. and you in fact. yes x . “We were just like any other newlyweds” except the newlywed factor........:

anders. oh my god i adore him so much. he reminds me of my grandfather . YES adam is dangerous. anders i love you so much. be my grandfather figure. top 10 cool old dudes of all time.

liz is so beautiful how am i suppised to “Focus” on the “storyline” kirby just went 🥰🥰 also hi culhane ily babe

“My father’s convinced adam is pure evil” you see, that is......... trueeeee...........:.::: im sorry culhane ily love

this dialogue unfortunately does not flow all that well LOL . people dont think up things like this on the fly “my love is like that boutineer” sir i guarantee that metaphors r not going to save ur relationship... HI sam. so true. hi ily. samhane? culsam? 😳😳

DONT STEAL ANDERS SPOT OH HI JEFF YOU LOOK STUNNING.......... BEAUTIFUL BOY ....... HI!!!! ~you are the only family you’ve ever needed~ shit none of this wouldve happened if the Carringtons werent so greedy ij the first place

~true love has many faces~ how many anti liam omens can they sneak in into the episode 😭😭😭😭 hi laura whats up

the poor waiters at this establishment...... why does laura look like a rlly young version of my grandma........: huh.... wont think abt it /... alexis bad mom.jpeg

“I don’t want to miss my sons special day” ok bye i don’t #care she’s kind of rude

fallon trying to avoid future drama is confusing to me as that used to be her ENTIRE THING? HUH??? everyones talking to their moms today what the heck do that many people talk to their moms???

jeff hiiiii <333 that maroon suit!!!!! love!!!!!

Dont hurt anders you strange little evil man!!!!!!!!!!! (Adam, for reference)

fallon likes to ~e n u n c i a t e~ her dialogue. Drama Teachers Love Her

FIRBY SCENE! WELL THEY R TALKINF! UWU ! UWU ! smiles:) smiiiiiles:) the height difference i cannot do this😑😊😊😊🕯🕯🕯 BYE

BueirHWIIDWJDIWIFJWIFJWJJFWJFJWJDJWJDJWIFJWJFJWJDKWJDJWDJJWHDWHDHWHEHWHDHWJDJWJRJWJEJWJDJQUEUWJEJWJEJW CRIES SOBS SCREAMS THIS OS SO FUCKING FUNNY

Kirby you dumbass😭😭😭😭😭 ALEXIS WUDIWNDJW JEFF CAN YOU NOT HEF FCANKREMTIWN WHY IS THIS DIALOGUE IM SCREAMIGNRJFJD

kirby babe you are the kist imorjri WHQT? HUH? when all the characters have the maturity of a 13 yr old <33333 DID THE SHOW JUST END?????? OK.... DAMN.... they were really 2 minutes away from the end and remembered that things are supposed to happen in tv show episodes.... i cannot tell whether it os over actually?????? huh??? going to keep watching because it would be so embarrassing if i missed a few minutes oh yeah theres more

IM SORRY WHYBARE THESE PEOPLE SO STUPID. every single one of them. ih my god l. ohhhh my god . “I never meant to hurt you” you cheated on him. both of them are bad people. 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 kirby darling what were you thinking . this dress on kirby is STUNNING ugh, she’s so charming . adam Shut the fuck up. He hasn’t said anything but shut the fuck up. OH MY GOD ADAM SHUT THE FUCK UP. OH MY GOD I HATE ADAM SO MUXH. OH MY GOD HOW IS HE THE WORST PERSON TO EVER LIVE 😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶 HES SO EVIL

“I didn’t want to tell you because i didnt want you to think of me as a monster” why did you do that stuff then bro . Kirby you SHOULDNT trust someone after they say that? How naive? Huh ?

omg hello jeffs grandma!!!!! she deserves better than every shitshow in this family... god🤨 dominique being a good person? i like to see that. she seems so genuine. ok this is nice . wait... SAFE? 😳😳😳😳 💴 💵 #money i miss monica

why do they never have sufficient lifhting in WAIT..... HER?????? #dumbofass HI JEFF <33333333 HI you can scam and whatever ur allowed to i support u

ooohhhh GORGEOUS fallon outfit

“Such a fail” IS THIS 2012 . CRINE HEIDJWJFIWNDWJDNWKFJW ENJDJSDJWJNDJWJD they keep saying folklore and im thinking its some sort of reference to the album and i get confused. wheres scheming fallon. need scheming fallon. do a scheme. do it

“We are that lucky couple” press x to doubt .... wait who is this🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 this seems cincerning im cocnentwd why did it zoom in on this random man

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 44 Review: The Second Séance

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, in time for the final episode of Strange Paradise by its co-creator and original headwriter Ian Martin. This marks yet another milestone in the history of this fun and sometimes perplexing soap opera: a little bittersweet, although I know that, unlike viewers in 1969, I can return to early Maljardin whenever I want.

In some ways, Ian Martin’s departure will benefit the show. Like a traditional soap, his SP scripts were generally slow-paced and heavy on recap, with variations of certain lines (e.g. “we must find the conjure doll and the silver pin”) repeated episode after episode. When Robert Costello replaced Selig Alkon as producer, he mandated several changes to the show. His stated reason: to help SP’s other co-creator Jerry Layton achieve his goal of improving the Gothic soap’s ratings:

"New York and Los Angeles stations took it off the air because ratings were poor.  And because they are the key stations for money purposes, Robert Costello, who did Dark Shadows for four years, was called in," one of the actors said this week. "Costello took one look at several episodes and said he wasn't going to have anything to do with it the way it was.  So the series was changed considerably.”

[...]

In the studio this week, Costello (who produced The Nurses, the Patty Duke Show and Armstrong Circle Theatre) said Strange Paradise was abandoning old voodoo, hallmarks of the first 13 weeks, for heavy occult (witches covens, ESP, apparitions and the like). "The concept, though good, was not completely workable for a day-in and day-out series," admitted its creator and executive producer Jerry Layton.[1]

Naturally, so many changes required a segue from the show’s original format that wasn’t too abrupt, hence the break from Martin’s original plans for the story and the creation of the current weird transitional plotline about the Rabbit of Evil. There are twenty-one episodes of Maljardin left after this one, followed by a shift of setting to Desmond Hall. Like Maljardin, Desmond Hall has its good parts and bad parts, fun characters and not-so-fun ones, but I’ll cover those when I get to them.

Do you remember my Episode 40 review, where I speculated at the end about how the original second séance might have gone? Well, this one is similar in some ways to the séance described in the Lost Episode summaries, but the way it plays out is bizarre. And by “bizarre,” I mean, “What the hell is Vangie thinking, holding it now?”

The (visible) participants of the first séance, from Episode 36 (clockwise from top left): Dr. Alison Carr, Quito, Vangie Abbott, Raxl, Reverend Matt Dawson, and Jean Paul Desmond.

In Episode 36, the choice of who participated and who didn’t participate in the séance followed a certain logic. Four of the six chosen participants had a direct connection to Erica Desmond: her sister Alison, her husband Jean Paul, and her servants Raxl and Quito. The latter two were doubly qualified to participate, both being members of the Conjure Faith, with Raxl helping Vangie determine who could attend and who was forbidden in the previous episode. They excluded Elizabeth, Tim, and Dan for being “disruptive influences” and Holly out of concern for her safety, but allowed Matt because of his strong faith as a man of the cloth. (Remember that, at that point, they still trusted him.) In addition, they left a seventh chair open for Erica’s spirit, making the total number of (invited) participants seven. This, according to Vangie, is one of the ideal numbers for a séance, the other being five. It’s logical, it follows the rules that the author establishes via Vangie, and therefore it makes sense that the second séance would be set up in much the same way.

In my post on Episode 40, I used this logic along with clues from several Lost Episode summaries (including the one for this episode) to try to reconstruct the events of the original second séance, which was slated to take place in that episode before script rewrites. The summaries indicated that Matt would return for the second séance and that Elizabeth would join him, although Vangie’s reasoning for including her in this one is unknown. I excluded Holly from my list because I felt it would be out of character for Vangie to knowingly endanger her life and speculated that Alison may have refused to take part out of justified anger at Jean Paul for making Vangie endanger all of their lives. I also excluded Tim and Dan, because I felt that neither had any reason to participate unless substituting for someone else. In addition, I assumed that Jean Paul would have originally participated in all the séances, being the one who initiated them in the first place, as well as Raxl and Quito for their loyalty to both their dead mistress and to Vangie. I concluded that the most likely participants for the second séance would have been Vangie, Matt, Elizabeth, Raxl, Quito, and Jean Paul: six living/undead participants like the first, but with Alison swapped with Elizabeth.

But what do you do on short notice, while Jean Paul is freaking out in his room, Alison trying to help him calm down, and Raxl and Quito are...sleeping, I suppose? (The episode gives no explanation for their absence, unlike with Jean Paul and Alison.) You hold an emergency séance in the same exact location as before, at a glass-top table identical to the first, with whomever is available. That includes Matt, Holly, and the disruptive influences of Elizabeth and Dan. Vangie claims there’s no time to wait, so emergency séance it is, even if it means breaking all the previously established rules.

Holly lampshading how the second séance comes out of frigging nowhere.

“Jean Paul cannot wait,” says the Conjure Woman. “The need is urgent, the need to find out from whence this locket came. I must choose those of you who will help Jean Paul Desmond contact his wife Erica.”

Holly tries to nope out of it, but Vangie--surprisingly, given her previous concern for her safety--refuses to let her. “You, if the spirits choose,” she insists, “the spirits” here most likely meaning some combination of Robert Costello, Jerry Layton, and Steve Krantz. (Let’s remember that the Serpent previously told her not to invite certain people, Holly included.) It’s a cop-out line, in effect, where the show acknowledges that it’s breaking the previously established rules to obey the new producer’s wish to speed up the action.

The reason why this séance is so urgent? The bloodied locket of Erica’s that Raxl found around the black rabbit’s neck in the previous episode, combined with Vangie’s speculation that the rabbit may be Erica reincarnated. The fact that the locket had blood on it makes Dan even more suspicious of Jean Paul, especially after Matt reminds him that eclampsia (which Jean Paul claims took Erica’s life) is a bloodless death. He begins another tirade about how he thinks that Jean Paul killed both Erica and Dr. Menkin and how he’s going to sail off the island, which Vangie interrupts:

That’s Vangie’s way of saying “shut up.”

Vangie tells the four characters in the room--Holly, Elizabeth, Dan, and Matt--to sit at the table and begin the séance, because a presence has arrived. The first three do, but Dan remains standing and tries to persuade Matt to not take part in the occult ritual.

“You, GO!” Vangie screams at Dan. “PLEASE, GO!” He leaves and, without having anyone join hands, Vangie calls out to her father, the Conjure Man, to ask whose spirit is there. And then she enters a trance and starts screaming, “LET ME OUT!” while breathing heavily. Frightened, Holly runs to her room, while Vangie continues screaming, only to leave her trance a moment later and ask, “Where’s Holly?”

“She couldn’t stand it,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t think that I can, either, or any of us.”

“It was two spirits,” Vangie continues. “One so angry, so confined in some place, in some form.” She rubs her neck as though rubbing scabs left by the chain of an uncomfortable locket. “It’s so dry, so dry!” Elizabeth leaves to get her a drink to quench her thirst.

The way Vangie rubs her neck reminds me of Erica’s bloodied locket.

Their first attempt a disaster, they go their separate ways. Vangie speaks to the portrait of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, demanding an answer to how the rabbit and locket appeared. In her monologue, she reveals that he “[has] always been an enemy” and that he “would laugh at [her] clouded sight”; also that the spirit she felt was “not so much evil as angry, horribly angry and confined!”

Elizabeth offers Vangie some wine. Rather suspicious.

Elizabeth returns with some wine for Vangie’s throat (wouldn’t that only dehydrate her more?) and is about to set it on the séance table when Vangie stops her. “The spirits may not cross it,” she explains, so Elizabeth moves the glass and decanter over to the table where they usually sit.

Vangie picks up the locket and starts thinking out loud about it, when Elizabeth says that she wishes that Jean Paul would just let them open it. This enrages Vangie, who says, “I made a mistake when I asked yo to join the séance. I need all the help I can get, but yours will disrupt!”

“I will not be ordered around!” Elizabeth shouts.

Hearing Vangie scream about how she brings anger, Elizabeth leaves for Holly’s room, where she confides in her about how she doesn’t trust Jean Paul anymore. I think that this is Martin’s subtle way of letting the audience know that her romantic pursuit of Jean Paul/Jacques is over and the new producer and writers have no intentions on continuing it.

Elizabeth’s dress has some interesting pleats/pintucks in the front.

Holly asks her if she believes that the rabbit is Erica’s reincarnation. She thinks it’s ridiculous, but acknowledges that they must humor him while they are stuck on the island because his delusions affect everyone trapped there. “Holly, we need each other,” she says, “if only to exchange notes.” She persuades Holly to return to the séance to keep tabs on what happens.

Elizabeth has come to her senses.

Meanwhile in the Great Hall, Vangie lampshades Jean Paul’s and Alison’s absences again and predicts Dan’s death and Jean Paul’s continued possession. (At least that’s what I think she means by “Jean Paul’s mind and body will hang in the balance by an act of the Devil.”) Still determined to disbelieve in his religion’s personification of evil, Matt accuses either her, Raxl, or someone else on the island of masquerading as the Devil. She starts to try talking him into staying and being part of the séance using his belief in the afterlife, when Dan arrives and announces loudly and in the direction of Jean Paul’s bedroom(!) that he’s going to use one of the boats in the boathouse to escape and tell the police about his suspicions.

That’s when Holly arrives for the séance do-over. This time, it’s four visible characters--Holly, Dan, Matt, and Vangie--plus the spirit, thus making a total of five. Like the first séance, she tells them only to focus on Erica, but this time Dan’s anger disrupts the contact and Vangie flips out on him!

The bad subtitle here, while not especially original, is too perfect.

He storms out and the séance continues. Vangie calls on her father for help, saying, “There is a message...a warning...I cannot bring it through! The path must be clear! What is the warning, Conjure Man?”

And then, all of a sudden, the spirit comes through:

Vangie: (possessed) “Let me out! OUT! Let me out!”

“OUT, OUT, OUT, OOOOUUUUTTT! Is he here yet, Jean Paul? JEAN PAAAAAUUUUULLLL!” [Notice that they’re not touching hands as Vangie insisted that the participants of the first séance do.]

Holly: (possessed) “Out, out, out. Let me out.”

“Out, out, out, OUT, OUT, OUT, AAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Matt directs Dan to the decanter with a tilt of his head and Dan makes Holly drink the wine that Elizabeth poured for Vangie earlier. But, rather than calm her, the wine makes her collapse to the floor in agony:

Holly faints from the poison in the wine.

“If the missing cyanide was in this, I’m afraid Holly is dead!” says Dan after sniffing the inside of the glass. But is it cyanide, and is Holly Marshall dead? I suppose you’ll have to stay tuned for Episode 45 (the episode or the review).

I don’t want you to think that, because I criticized some things about this episode, I must dislike it. Quite the contrary. While some things about this episode do reek of subverting expectations just for the sake of subversion (they didn’t have to film a séance episode on Colin Fox’s day off), the final scene is wonderfully chilling and Angela Roland gets to use her acting chops more in this episode than in any of the previous ones. Also, the missing cyanide subplot finally becomes relevant again at the end with Holly’s collapse after drinking the wine.

Coming up next: A two-part post looking at the best and worst things about Ian Martin’s episodes of Strange Paradise, followed by the Episode 45 review. I’ve been working hard on these and look forward to posting them within the next week.

{ <- Previous: Episode 43   ||   Next: Episode 45 -> }

Notes

[1] Sid Adilman, “TV’s Colin Fox and his Strange Paradise,” Toronto Telegram, November 29, 1969. I omitted part of this passage to avoid spoilers, but the omitted portion is also noteworthy in that it indicates that they had already begun filming Desmond Hall by November 1969.

[queenlua]

book review: Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow

I enjoy telling stories at cocktail parties about my youthful internet exploits, because I am both a goddamn nerd and a goddamn delight. Explaining the basic shit like Neopets or IRC channel shenanigans is easy enough; most people have some experience with message boards or chatrooms. Explaining play-by-post RPGs is a bit trickier, but still doable—you frame it as a collaborative storytelling thing, compare it to Watership Down, describe your favorite wolf-soap-opera plotline, and at that point, you’ve either confused the shit out of someone or made a friend for life.

But the one thing I’ve never quite been able to describe, to my own satisfaction, is play-by-post horse battle RPGs.

Ostensibly, it’s really similar to the standard play-by-post RPG format. Your horse attacks the other horse; you describe it in a few sentences of prose. Theoretically, this could be as simple as “Smokey pivots on his right forehoof and kicks at Huey,” then “Huey rears up and falls on Smokey’s back,” or whatever, and you go from there.

But that would be too easy.

See, the winner of a horse battle was chosen by a handful of randomly-selected disinterested mods, who graded each post on the basis of (1) quality of prose, (2) effectiveness of attacks, and (3) creativity of attacks. You got points subtracted for godmoding or simply shrugging off damage, but you got points added for clever counterattacks or use of space. Each player had a fixed number of turns, with a fixed number of attacks each turn; each post had to be done within two days; there was a massive hierarchy of special powers/perks your character could get if you advanced high enough through Pony Fight Club; and the ponies who achieved Gold Rank were like. Envied and feared, all over the site.

Which meant, of course, that I needed to be on this list.

It took me a goddamn week to join my first horse game, because I had to read through a whole encyclopedia of horse breeds to determine, empirically, which breed would be the best at beating up other horses. For my first ever horse battle post I wrote 3,000 words to describe “Ska kicks Duplicity in the side” and revised it like 800 times and was physically shaking when I finally hit send. I had a fucking printout of the equine muscular system and the equine skeletal system taped on the wall next to the family computer for convenient reference. I reenacted horse poses in the basement to try and figure out which angle I could attack from. I scared the shit out of my horseback riding instructor by asking all kinds of weird questions about “so like what’s the WORST thing you’ve ever seen a stallion attack do, though.”

And the posts themselves, oh, the posts. See, “quality of prose” in this scene meant “as purple and neurotic as humanly possible (with a very strange set of jargon you will literally never use anywhere else),” and I rose to the challenge ably. We all did, and the results were some of the most tryhard, pretentious writing this side of David Foster Wallace:

Here’s an excerpt from one that I managed to dig up:

the rotation locates the spring action retention of the hind regions, the gashed arenas stretched and pulled with each following spin and force…hind flints echo ‘pon the soil as fores spin effortlessly upon the soil, hinds lifted in mirrored image of first attack by opponent, a similar region seemingly forced to location, but the motion of the receding spook renders the toss to the hock/limb region towards the more deadly region of rib-cage and right lung, knowledge of retractable inhalation essential to the sustenance of battle..forelimbs echo at the joint, bent and snapped back and forth towards this area with explosive force, the verbatim maneuver thusly completed, the fores lift from mud-caked position, crimson liquid staining the glossy extremes of the bloodkissed’s pelt [. . .] accepted plurality of motionless fate, flints return after seeken motions t’wards the murky loam, a snarl exhaled and soft smirk ‘crossed ashen mug... limp is obvious ‘thin hind regions o’ she as darkness reclaims torso, bulwarked vital throat region definitive as pools roam the other..seems more interesting than the others, but hell...when you’re certain that death is on the line anything becomes more interesting..

Did the horse like, kick the other horse? why are its forelimbs echoing; did it hurt itself just kicking the other horse? how did the kick drawblood? Who fucking knows? The important thing is it sounds fly as hell, and the mods will be too embarrassed to admit they don’t fucking understand what is actually happening. That’s gonna be a 10/9/9 score, easy.

But, uh, this is all a bit much to explain at a cocktail party.

So I am delighted to announce that I now have a better shorthand for explaining The Horse Battle Play-By-Post RPG Scene.

This is the horse battle book.

Sure, it’s ostensibly about some dude’s obsession with the classic arcade game Breakout. But the majority of it is a pseudo-philosophical, over-described, tangent-riddled description of the experience of playing Breakout. Which ends up sounding a lot like the horse battle stuff. Here is an excerpt chosen at semi-random:

A long fast volley at the finish was simply too much for me to handle. The more it lasts the more afraid you get it won’t last longer, and layer upon layer of competing advice rapidly piles up to overheat thoughts to an agitated concentration that melts your cool. The whole field of vision frazzles you with temptation, you stiffen up to fight off distractions, and through that very effort their beckoning power becomes even more salient. Anxiety about the future of the gesture flows backwards without really knowing what a hazard is, all while telling yourself not to analyze anything. Work over a long run at the piano, a tricky passage beginning on a certain measure in the music. Now play the entire piece, and that fast messy section is coming up. Now you’re into it, and in its midst you’re feeling a ragged uncertainty in the movements...

The whole book is like this. When I realized that this was what I was reading, I achieved enlightenment. I stopped and put down the book and grinned ear-to-ear at this man, this one goofy sociology-professor man, partaking in the bizarrely niche hobby of some hundreds of teenage horse girls in the early 2000s. What a blessing.

All that being said, I would not recommend this book unless you, too, have some horse battle nostalgia you need to get out of your system.

(crossposted from DW)

[starklore]

Ehhhhh... tell us about a fandom you want to write fic for but haven't yet?

GOOD question! Let me think...I have so many plot bunnies so there’s so many fandoms I want to write for but one I haven’t talked about recently is Teen Wolf? I haven’t watched in ages but I still have an affection for it.

At one point I had planned on writing a Jace Winchester verse where she was Stiles’ twin (originally I had them both as the half-siblings of the Winchesters in a superwolf crossover but eventually dumped that concept, although maybe I’ll bring it back--I’ve been vibing with SPN again lately.) And I actually wrote the first chapter of it and I happened across that the other day and really liked it.

Basically Stiles and Jace are psychically linked but don’t know it, so they’re heavily codependent. Jace is a psychic empath and she was sent to boarding school on the recommendation of her psychiatrist, who wanted her to make friends outside of her brother. But she had a nervous breakdown with all the new people, and the fic starts when she comes back to town, like a week after Scott turns into a werewolf, and Stiles and Scott try to keep it from her to protect her, but it just makes her feel rejected and they end up gaslighting her a lot in the process (not intentionally, but it happens) so when she finds out the truth she’s infuriated and won’t talk to either of them. Obviously they make up eventually. 

Also I had a plot bunny possibly in the same verse as the Jace AU about this OC named Kat who was a necromancer who met Isaac in the cemetery bc she hangs out there and they have this weird friendship and so Isaac knows about the supernatural before he meets Derek but still becomes a werewolf and anyways they’re shipped together...I miss them…

Anyways though yeah Teen Wolf is one that’s been on my mind lately!

I also--like this doesn’t totally count because I did technically write one chapter of a TVD/Heroes fanfic that I then abandoned bc I lost my notes and don’t remember where I was going with it, but I’ve always wanted to write for The Vampire Diaries. I have this fic in my mind that’s kind of its own universe the same way MM is, on a smaller scale (mostly bc the TVDverse also exists on a smaller scale) but it contains basically all my TVD OCs and it would be kind of a rewrite where the show has a structured ~5 season arc (or whatever number I need) kind of like SPN’s first five seasons where it all builds up in a coherent narrative, as opposed to TVD canon or SPN seasons 6+ where it’s just kind of a supernatural soap opera where new baddies come in as necessary until it felt like ending. 

Bc I really believe in the potential of the show and I do love the characters and I feel like it could’ve been a genuinely good show if it had like. A Plotline. 

So yeah those are the ones I’m feeling!

[loopy777]

You've got me curious now as to what anime youve seen, enjoyed and why.

Oof, I don’t track that type of thing. I’ve been asked about anime I like previously, and I feel like I always forget something. I suppose I should start a MyAnimeList one of these days, just for reference.

So let’s list everything I can remember, as well as a pithy reaction.

Baccano!This one is just so much fun. It’s violent and crass in a classy way, it’s funny in a weird way, and it’s a great example of a non-linear narrative. I love it.

Code Geass (Season 1)Ugh, I only watched this one because people solicited my opinion on it. Well, my opinion is that it’s not as smart as it wants to be, there’s too much contrived melodrama (and considering the wild premise, that’s saying something), and Kallen would be a wonderful and interesting character if she wasn’t always being demeaned for fan-service. I quit when the first season finale kicked off, because I felt things were just getting too contrived. I hear it really fell apart in the second season.

Cowboy BebopI found this a bit pretentious. It had good episodes and bad episodes. The production quality is good. But I'm not sure why it's legendary. Still, I liked its sense of humor, and enjoyed it when it wasn’t trying to be super serious. My favorite character is Ed.

Demon SlayerI'm mainly watching this because my brother wanted to give it a try on Toonami, but I kind of checked out when it unceremoniously removed everything difficult about the sister being a demon and made her into an order-following sidekick that fits in a suitcase. Now the latest episode introduced a loud annoying side character, so we may quit. I have no idea why this one is so popular.

Fullmetal AlchemistCovered

Gatchaman CrowdsI was asked to watch this one, as well, but it went a lot better than Code Geass. It’s a bit weird, and I think it's naively optimistic about the internet in many ways, but I still found it's exploration of Internet-age superheroes to be interesting, and it's the best, most mature take on the Power Rangers-style ‘sentai’ genre that I've seen. I don't know how well it matches up with its Gatchaman legacy, but as its own thing, it's pretty good.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (including 2nd Gig)This is another legendary one that I think is good but a bit over-rated. It's a good piece of modern Cyberpunk, but it's very talky, and very jargon-filled. I'm almost convinced that the viewer is not meant to follow half of the conversations, that they're just part of the ambiance. I tended to like the stand-alone episodes better than the storyline episodes. Still, it’s a very smart series, and probably the best thing in the franchise, from what I’ve heard.

Log Horizon (first season only)I’ll tell you what- I think it’s possible to make a good anime with the premise of people from the modern, real world entering a fantasy realm (either another dimension or a VR video game). Log Horizon did not end up being that ideal. The main character is a Gary Stu, his romances with girls who are either ten years old or just look like they’re ten years old are creepy, and it got boring seeing the protagonists’ plans always succeed without much of a hitch.

Lupin III (series 4 and 5)I like this franchise when it's being clever, when it's springing a twist while playing fair. Sometimes, though, it doesn't play fair with its twists, leaving me underwhelmed. And while the regular cast is amusing, they're fairly shallow characters; this isn't always a bad thing, as that allows them to slot into all kinds of genre fare, but does limit the storytelling ambitions. It’s fine.

Macross franchiseSuper Dimensional Fortress MacrossI still like the original, despite how dated it is. It's probably the best possible implementation of 'soap opera in space.'

Macross PlusI'm not sure why this one is so revered. I feel like it doesn't play fair with its mystery, despite being such a short story, and whole thing with the killer popstar AI just left me cold.

Macross 7I like the music, but the story really drags for the first half with a formula that’s repeated far too long, and then falls apart in the end. The love triangle isn’t resolved, and in fact I’m of the opinion that two of the participants didn’t even know they were in competition. The bad guys are allowed to sail off into the sunset, forgiven, despite still inhabiting the bodies of kidnapped humans. But this isn't a series you watch for the story; this is a series you watch because you like the idea of a rockstar flying into space in a transforming mecha, controlled by an electric guitar, to sing at alien invaders. Personally, I think the idea is dumb. Plus, this ruins the premise of the original series by adding in what is effectively magic.

Macross ZeroThis is pretty good and has the best dogfights in the series, but it has one of those weird arty endings that anime sometimes likes to do where no one can tell what actually happened and we need to find translated interviews with the creative team to get it explained.

Macross FrontierBy this point, I was wondering why everyone is so eager for the Macross franchise to get American distribution. It’s better than Macross 7, but feels like a first draft of the intended story, and the creative team lost track of their own subplots. The two AU movies do a more satisfying take on the same basic story, but sometimes they come across like an abridged recap of the series, so you really need to watch everything to get a satisfying experience. That said, the final experience was indeed fairly satisfying, making this the second best thing in the franchise for me. Still, I wouldn’t say it lives up to the original in any way.

Macross DeltaBoy, this one was dumb. Everything wrong with Frontier is worse here, with none of the good stuff.

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaI still want an ending for this, despite nothing worthwhile coming from it since 2011. It wouldn't even be hard to pick it up again; set it in modern times, and explain the fact that everyone has smartphones now to be a result of some weird off-screen Haruhi antics.

Mobile Suit Gundam franchiseMobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded OrphansI've only ever experienced the Gundam franchise because my brother wants to get into it and he keeps trying to find a vector. This was my first experience with it, and I found it very 'teenage boy,' in both tone and story. I was underwhelmed.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096Another case where the storytellers reached the end only to have forgotten the rest of the story. Why does that happen so often in anime? And I think it assumes the viewer is familiar with the whole rest of the franchise, because there was a lot that just went straight over my head but didn't seem like it was supposed to. Nice animation and art style, though.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red CometEverything I said about Unicorn, only more.

My Hero AcademiaCovered

NichijouThis thing is still hilarious, even after a rewatch. Stick with the sub, as the new dub's voice-acting doesn't have the same range and power of the original, losing a lot of the humor.

Outlaw Star I'm struggling to remember a lot of this one. it’s another I watched because my brother was interested in it. I do recall that it was a fairly standard Space Western that ends in a way that's more like serious science fiction, and that for some reason a Japanese swordswoman in classic clothing was part of the cast. Now I wonder if that was an homage to Lupin III. Or maybe Japan just really loves throwing classic samurai into everything, regardless of setting or genre.

Pokemon (part of first series)I was in high school when this franchise first came to America, and for some reason all the geeks in my high school thought it was the greatest thing. The games were good, yeah, but the anime? I don't think it's bad for a kiddie cartoon, but it obviously has no greater ambitions than pleasantly occupying the kids for 22 minutes. Personally, what I really want is a series about Team Rocket done in the style of Cowboy Bebop.

Princess TutuCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I forget who asked me to watch this, but I owe them.

Puella Magi Madoka MagicaCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I still haven't bothered with anything but the original series, and I continue to be happy with that choice.

Samurai ChamplooI liked this better than Cowboy Bebop, but only because its ambitions were lower. It leaned more into its genre, had fun with its style more even when being serious, and as a result became more enjoyable. I overall liked going on a journey with these rascals, but I think it ended at a good point. I don’t need more.

Spice & Wolf (first season)I watched this on someone's suggestion, and found it a little underwhelming. What I really appreciated were the two main characters, especially that they seem to be into each other, romantically and sexually, and aren't freaked out by it while at the same time not being in a hurry to become a couple. It was just a kind of, "Yeah, this could really be something if we ever find the time." It was so amazingly mature and real. Too bad the main Economics plotlines just wound up being tepid.

Tekkaman BladeMy thoughts haven't changed on this.

Tiger & BunnyI'm still fond of this one, and I'm actually kind of curious to revisit it in light of My Hero Academia.

Transformers ‘Unicron Trilogy’These three cartoons are true anime, produced by and for Japan. (The other cartoons in the franchise were written, and sometimes animated, in the west.) It's garbage that assumes its child audience are morons, and on top of that the first two series wound up with laughably bad dubs. How this trilogy revitalized the franchise, I have no idea, and thankfully I'll never have to worry about it.

Volton (original)Either this or Robotech/Macross was my first anime; I was too young to say which I discovered first. I'll admit that the original Voltron isn't good, despite the toy being neat, but I have a soft spot for it. I tried the Netflix reboot, watching the first three episodes, and found it to be vacuous junk. Maybe some day a version of this will come along that will do justice to the toy.

And I think that’s it. If I remember anything I left off, I’ll reblog with the addition.

[youhadmeathohoho]

Does this movie have a good name?

It’s Christmas, Eve is a fabulous name for a movie about a lady called Eve who’s having a gently tedious yuletide experience.

Are we located in a small, picturesque, snow-covered town?

Why yes we are! Here’s Franklin in all its hackneyed glory:

Is the lead character’s name festive?

I guess it could be argued that Eve is just as much a New Year’s name as a Christmas name, but as far as I’m concerned, it’ll do. Her surname is Morgan though, which is a shame when it could have been Mittens.

How busy is said lady?

Eve is busy running away from her dreams! She was a talented singer, but turned her back on warbling after the death of her musician father. She also fled her beloved hometown Franklin because the memories were too painful. Now she chooses to travel constantly in her career as an “interim school superintendent”. So she’s back in Franklin on a short assignment - but next she plans to hoof it to San Diego, where no-one will nag her about her neglected dulcet tones.

So yeah, Eve is emotionally busy. And further frazzled from trying to squeeze in mentoring a pious child singer; romancing a Matthew-Perry-lookalike; and butchering the local school’s arts program with her proposed austerity cuts.

Recognise anyone?

Did I forget to mention that Eve is played by none other than the original country/pop crossover star, LeAnn Rimes? She’s fine. This whole movie appears to exist so LeAnn could have several featured songs on the soundtrack and release a tie-in Christmas album, also called “It’s Christmas, Eve.” That’s fine too. LeAnn needs the Christmas cash so she can buy new socks for her husband Eddie Cibrian, esteemed alumnus of much-missed soap opera Sunset Beach:

Hi Eddie! You are a weird age now! Good luck with that!

Otherwise, the dude playing Eve’s beau, Liam, might be Chandler Bing’s second cousin:

How are everyone’s Christmas Spirit levels?

Tip top! Eve digs Crimbo, as does her mum, and Liam, and his daughter. Actually, the rest of the town could do with pulling their socks up, now that I think about it - no Gingerbread Contest? No Cookie Crawl? HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

Does anything magical or supernatural happen?

Yes: all adult ladies have exactly the same hair!

Does a misunderstanding threaten the lady’s path to Happy Ever After with the man?

Well, you’d think that Eve rocking up and trying to kill off the art and music departments at the school where Liam TEACHES MUSIC could get awkward quickly. However, everything stays cool between them because, weirdly, Eve both proposes the cuts AND the idea of holding a public fundraiser to make up for the cuts. (n.b. It’s weird and depressing that we are meant to consider citizens paying for the provision of arts in their community to be A Christmas Miracle.)

Is this movie bang on trend?

- The leads meet while observing a meet-cute between two random passers-by. They even say ‘meet-cute’. It’s meta, dontcha know? 

- The fund-raising concert is said to have a live-feed streaming on Facebook, Youtube and Snapchat. 

- Some guy designs a website for the above fundraiser, but warns that it might crash because soooo many people have donated:

Is there a twiiiist?

The twist should be that Eve isn’t unmasked as the budget-slashing superintendent until she and Liam are about to get smoochy, and then he should hate her for 11 minutes. But her secret identity is pointlessly unmasked a few scenes in. Ugh.

Any missed opportunities?

- We find out that Liam stopped writing songs and became a teacher because he had to grow up and be more responsible. He used to be in a band called ‘Bingo Jones’, which is a weird fact to tell us if you aren’t going to show us an old video of him playing a gig in hilarious 90s clothes yet being so soulful and earnest that Leann realises she’s falling for him.

- A boy called Duane Snodgrass seems like he will crash and burn singing a solo at the concert, due to being weird and shifty:

In fact, Duane Snodgrass pulls off a delightful solo rendition of ‘Silent Night’ and everyone is pleased! This plotline is too rushed. Spin-off for Duane Snodgrass next year, please!

Best dialogue?

“The boy is sweet as Christmas candy, but doesn’t know how to amplify his talents.”

On reflection, is this movie about Christmas?

Gosh no.

Overall rating?

[cawfulopinions]

Fire Emblem Fates: Just Shove Your Children into the Puberty Void

           I really wanted to like Fire Emblem Fates. I really, really did.

           But there’s only just so much anime I can take, you guys.

           Fire Emblem Fates is the fourteenth entry in the long running Fire Emblem series of fantasy, turn-based strategy games. The series has always made itself distinct from other games in the same genre with its strong sense of fantasy aesthetic, its character writing, and smooth, smooth animation, but has always failed to get traction in the West due to its difficulty and occasional iffy mechanics choices. Fates’ predecessor, Awakening, sold very well, however, and proved that there was a place for Fire Emblem in the states, but sacrificed a lot of franchise difficulty, so Fates promised to give an experience that both fans of Awakening and fans of previous Fire Emblems could enjoy.

           It… certainly tried. I don’t think it quite got there, but it tried. But there was a lot going on along the way that makes me question what the hell they were thinking.

           Fates, ultimately, feels like it’s torn between being a Fire Emblem entry and being a cool light novel that all of the kids will like. There’s a lot that feels like it was cribbed from the latest cheap anime on the airwaves, just for the sake of appealing to people who’re into that. It’s a very weird atmosphere and it doesn’t really fit for what Fire Emblem has previously been. There’s some serious war drama, but there’s also some creepy incest stuff involving your non-blood related siblings and a lot of fanservice. There’s this soap opera stuff involving whether you should be loyal to your birth family or your adoptive family, but also a dimension crossing dragon man’s evil army that wants to destroy the world. There’s DLC gating. There’s a lot of DLC gating.

           It’s not a bad game, persay, but… well, there’s a lot to talk about. Let’s dive in.

           Disclaimer: All images in this long pile of salt are either pulled from official Nintendo press releases or official art, from Miiverse posts, or from other sources. Every image is a legitimate image from the localization, at least as far as I can tell. There’s exactly one image I ‘capped myself, and it’s because I wanted a good shot of a booty. Otherwise, I didn’t screencap them. Please excuse my laziness.

            So before we get into my gripes with the writing, let’s talk mechanics. Fates is split into two versions, Birthright and Conquest, with a third route titled Revelations available as DLC. Each of the versions sports a different plotline, with different units and different maps. However, rather than each game being their own separate thing, the three routes actually branch from a single choice point a couple chapters into the game, after which point you’re locked into one version’s storyline.

The three versions offer different gameplay experiences – Birthright has you supporting Hoshido and is most similar to Fates’ predecessor, with access to skirmishes to level your units and a generally easier experience; Conquest has you supporting Nohr and is a fairly traditional Fire Emblem experience, so resource management is the name of the game; and Revelations has you rejecting both countries and running off with the intended blue-haired waifu, and features several unique map mechanics and access to almost all units from both games, opening up strategies and marriage options that aren’t available in the other two versions.

This is basically foreplay for these two.

           These are all pretty ambitious ideas, so it’s a shame that they all just… don’t really work. For starters, unit types are largely divided by kingdom, which creates some weird balance issues. The majority of the units you get while playing with Hoshido are samurai, ninjas, and mages – speedy foot units with low defense –while the majority of your mounted units are Pegasus knights – low defense, low HP flying units who are vulnerable to archers, which Nohr has in spades. Which is a problem, because the majority of the Nohr units… are slower, hard-hitting mounted units who can tank hits way better than you can. When playing on Birthright, you have to work for your mounted and tanky units, as for a long time the only non-flier mounted unit is Silas, a defector from Nohr who brings along the precious Cavalier class, which can reclass into the tankier Great Knight class. It’s a helpful move, but it’s just not enough a lot of the time.

           In a move that’s clearly meant to balance them, Nohr’s units tend to have low resistance, making them more vulnerable to magic. This makes Conquest an exercise in frustration all on its own because the enemy AI on Conquest can afford to throw endless mages and ninjas at you to carve through your resistance and lower your stats with their throwing knives. And, of course, there’s the occasional Spear Fighter with a Beast Killer spear there specifically to fuck up all of your mounted units’ days,

           Only on Revelations do you have access to units to both types, since you get every recruitable unit between both games, save for a few specific plot units who you could only support off with the Avatar anyways. Besides the absolute pile of warm bodies you’re suddenly given, it opens up a larger experience with the game and better strategies you can now put into place… so it’s a damn shame that the route’s only available as paid DLC, and not as the base game.

           Unfortunately, all three routes (but especially Birthright and Conquest) have a particularly damning, unfun issue: their map design sucks. It’s awful. The maps are almost entirely designed around the quality of “how can we make it easy for everyone ever to get swarmed by everything” and it makes everything an exercise in frustration. There’s one particular map in Birthright where you’re storming a fort, and the lead up to the fort is a large, open field, and the moment you move into one enemy’s range, you’ve basically moved into every enemy’s range, and whoever you send up there is about to get swarmed by everything. Which is an issue, because your tankier units are in short supply, and there’s only so much that Pair Up can do to fix everyone’s defensive issues.

This map’s probably the most extreme case, but it’s far from the only one; several of the maps can more or less be described in qualities of either “big open rectangles” or “awful mazes of corridors”. There’s also a surprising dearth of interesting terrain – I think I can count the number of maps with actual forest tiles on one hand, and since the final chapters on both Birthright and Conquest are all indoors, the terrain’s even more limited.

           Making things a bit more interesting is the Dragon Vein mechanic – every map has special tiles that can be activated by any members of royalty you have in your team due to their draconic heritage, causing different effects depending on the map you’re on. These can be used against you or to your benefit, since there are more than a few maps involving you fighting the opposite kingdom’s royalty too. Honestly, it’s probably the shining feature of the game, aside from the rebalanced Pair Up mechanics, and I’d like to see something like it return in later games.

           It’s fairly obvious from how the routes were designed and the various balance issues that appear that the decision to split the game into three full games worth of content meant nothing was really properly balanced. Admittedly, difficulty is subjective, but for me, Birthright, when played on Normal, was disgustingly easy. When played on Hard, it was a ball-raking experience in frustration and bullshit deaths. Conquest remains frustrating for the entire experience, especially if you’re playing on Classic, but it never feels frustrating in a fun way – it always feels like you’re clawing against the game, desperately trying to find a foothold while you’re being relentlessly carved apart by a million ninjas. And for all of their difficulty, Fire Emblem games do generally feel fair about it. It never feels unwinnable unless you’re on, like, Lunatic or some shit. But god, there were legitimately moments in Fates where I felt like snapping my 3DS in half because it felt flat out unfair.

You can change the difficulty mid-game, but you can only turn it down – Hard to Normal to Easy, Classic to Casual to Phoenix, where units, upon dying, come back the next turn. There’s basically no middle ground when it comes to difficulty – either you’re coasting through with absolutely no challenge whatsoever, or the game actually has your testicles in a vicegrip. Doesn’t help that the game gives you a few really good units in the form of your royal siblings, some of which come pre-promoted, and others with their own unique weapons. In fact, Ryoma’s weapons and stats are so good that people have actually soloed Birthright with him.

Beware the lobster man, for his lust for destruction is endless.

           On the subject of weapons, Fates does away with something that’s been a series standard for decades – weapon durability. Instead, the game gives you several weapons with several differing effects – for example, the Sunrise Katana gives the wielder an insane dodge rate, but has a lower strength. Extra weapons can be forged into one another, letting you steadily improve their stats and, over time, make a weapon far superior to the one you started with. This is a pretty contentious subject in the fandom, but honestly? I don’t have any problems with it. Healing staves still have durability, and it means I don’t feel afraid to use my cool weapons like I always do in other Fire Emblems.

           It also carries over the Pair Up mechanic Awakening introduced, with some new balancing to it – now, units can only aid in attacks if they’re standing to the side of the units in question, and only defend if they’re paired up with (on the same space as) another unit. Enemy units can also pair up, which leads to a lot of frustrating moments when you’ve got two heavily defensive units bottlenecking an area and you’ve got to get past them to make progress. Still, it’s an improvement, and I’d like to see it come back in a game with more unit variety, so I could fully take advantage of it.

           Another thing Fates introduces is unique skills for every character – some get bonuses depending on the type of terrain they’re on, or the characters they’re around. Others have conditional bonuses or abilities, like Orochi and Niles being able to “capture” units that can be convinced to join your army, or Sophie being able to strip enemy units every now and then. This is actually a pretty cool thing overall and it really makes me think more about who to use beyond just stats and if I like them or not.

           There’s also been several changes to how supports work, specifically through the addition of the A+ rank and the new class change seals that have been added. While S-rank is still exclusive to units of different sexes (symbolizing them getting married), A+ notes a “best friend” unit of the same sex, and like S-rank, every unit can only A+ rank once. The new Marriage and Friend seals allow a unit access to classes of their maxed out ranks, giving greater variety in the skills and classes they can earn. It’s a nice change. Master Seals are still in, as are a new variant that allows a child unit to upgrade to a promoted class immediately after recruitment if they’re recruited after a certain point in the game.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           There’s also the My Castle, which is an expansion of Awakening’s barracks, and is honestly such a weird part of the game that it barely garners mentioning. It’s where your shops are, and over time you can add more facilities, gather materials to use to upgrade your items and make stat boosting food with, and participate in some faux-multiplayer matches to get points for other upgrades. It’s interesting, but its existence is… odd, especially since the plot explanation for it has to deal with Fates’ weird flirtation with alternate universe bullshit.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           Overall, the mechanical changes are for the better, it’s just they’re marred by a lot of other dumb shit. Like the map design, the terrible balancing, and Jesus Christ, can I just have a knight, please, so I can stop getting punched in the face???

           This is all without getting into the story, writing, and aesthetic, which is some of the most contentious in the franchise for a good reason. It’s, to be frank, kind of bad. It’s weird and anime in ways that Fire Emblem hasn’t really been in the past, and it feels more like I’m playing a not-so-great light novel adaptation than a fantasy war simulator. And it’s not like Fire Emblem isn’t tropey – for how much people love it, Sacred Stones’ plot sure wasn’t winning too many writing awards, and a good chunk of Awakening’s characters are better described by what anime tropes they adhere to – but Fates really goes all in, complete with some of my least favorite tropes: people being prideful about dumb shit, and sibling fetishism, because no light novel style plot is complete without siblings who want to bang the protagonist.

Some, more blatantly than others.

           So here’s the basic outline of the start of the plot: the player Avatar (default name Corrin) is one of Nohr’s princes/princesses, and have been raised in seclusion in a castle distant from Nohr’s capital. Your siblings, who are also children of the king, Garon, have visited you over the years to keep you company and have grown very close to you. After a series of events, Corrin is captured by Hoshido, the neighboring kingdom, it’s revealed that the protagonist was actually born a prince/princess of Hoshido and was kidnapped by Garon in a previous war. In retaliation, Hoshido kidnapped a Nohrian princess, Azura, and raised her among their royalty. A rapid series of events take place following these reveals, with the Hoshidan queen being assassinated through a curse on your sword and the sudden attack of half-invisible soldiers, Corrin suddenly turning into a dragon, and Nohr invading Hoshido, all leading up to the moral choice that marks the version split: do you stay with Hoshido, the family you were born with; do you return to Nohr, the family you were raised by; or do you seek a third path?

           So let’s talk about something that becomes very, very obvious when you start off: Nohr is evil. Nohr is hilariously evil. One of the literal first things that happen after you meet Garon is him ordering you to execute a pair of prisoners who were captured in a recent skirmish. When you don’t execute them, and your brother Leo pretends to execute them for you so you can let them go later, you find out that your siblings have to do this shit all the time and spend a lot of time only really following the letter of the order under ol’ Dad. One of the next things that happens is you walking in on Garon literally praying to an evil dragon skull. Basically every Nohrian army executive you meet who isn’t one of your siblings or their retainers is also some degree of evil and/or stupidly bloodthirsty. When you get to Hoshido, you find out that Nohrian mages have been sending literal animated corpses over to Hoshido to fuck shit up and just letting them do whatever they want, because Hoshido has a magic barrier keeping Nohr from directly invading it around it (in fact, this is why the queen had to be assassinated in such a roundabout way).

           So when the route choice is presented, it’s supposed to be less “I want to be with this family” and more “I want to stop Nohr” and “I want to change Nohr from within”. Or at least that’s the intent. And while much ado has been made about Treehouse’s various translation changes (which I will not be getting into here, because that’s a can of worms I ain’t touchin’), the changes made at the route split were absolutely for the better. In Japan, when you choose to go with your Hoshidan family, it’s explicitly because they’re your birth family. In the NA version, it’s because you can’t reconcile your own morals with what Nohr’s done.

           The weird part is, it really would not have been that hard to present Nohr in a sympathetic light – it’s stated that due to their perpetual night and poor weather, they have always had poor crop yields and had to invade other countries to support themselves, and ultimately it’s Garon’s dickishness that’s perpetuating the war. Previous Fire Emblems have also had antagonistic, but sympathetic enemy armies, including the Plegians from Awakening, who go to war in the first place because their mad tyrant wants revenge for the previous slights of Ylisse. So Nohr’s levels of cartoonish evil aren’t because it’s not a thing the franchise does… it’s because they just didn’t want to put the effort in to make it actually nuanced.

           From the choice point onward, the plots follow three different paths. Birthright’s path is a fairly standard trudge through a Fire Emblem plot. I’ve heard it called the best “plot” out of the two starting routes, but I think that’s more because its plot is actually paced out well and doesn’t spend the first 15 chapters fucking around making you do Garon’s dirty work and complaining about it ad nauseum. What makes Birthright annoying is in the individual plot beats. There’s two distinct instances of characters killing themselves for no goddamn reason that occur during the story, and while the writers clearly want you to feel something during them, the actual reasons and circumstances are so contrived it’s hard to feel anything about it.

*muffled Rihanna plays in the background*

Furthermore, the further you get into Birthright, the more contrived the reasons for your Nohrian siblings to not ally with you get – Elise is blatantly on your side (and gets a storyline death for it), Camilla is clearly considering defecting before some contrived plot bullshit happens to make her want your friends dead again, and Xander and Leo just keep fighting you for reasons. Reasons that are never adequately explained beyond “Me Nohr, you Hoshido, you traitor, blaaaaaaugh”.

           “Contrivance” is the name of the game with Conquest, too, which sounds like it’s going to have a sneaky storyline about you trying to pull a coup on Garon and change Nohr that way, but is actually about you putting down rebellions for him and fucking up Hoshido because you found out that he’s secretly a monster, and the only way to convince your siblings that he’s a monster is to sit him on Hoshido’s magic throne, because the plot device that Azura pulled out of her ass to reveal this to you with was a one-time use. And your character complains about this a lot. A lot. Half of the dialogue between them and any members of the Nohrian army boils down to “BUT WHY—“ and then your siblings rushing in and saying that yes, you’ll do the evil thing, don’t worry about a thing, and then your character resuming complaints. By the end of the game, you succeed on putting Garon on the throne, revealing that he’s a gross monster, kill said gross monster, and then have a surprise boss fight with a possessed Takumi, who had previously appeared to kill himself for inadequately explained reasons.

           No matter which route you finish first (because let’s be real, you have to pay extra for Revelations, so you’re definitely not playing it first), you’re going to be left with a lot of unanswered questions, first and foremost being “Who were those semi-invisible enemies I fought all the time? What was up with that alternate dimension I fell into with Azura that one time in Conquest? Why were Takumi and Garon possessed by weird gross monsters? Why did Azura just suddenly die at the end for no real reason?” Good news: these are all explained if you buy Revelations. Bad news: You have to buy Revelations to even get so much of a semblance of an explanation, because otherwise these plot things are all left completely unexplained. The plot for Revelations barely has anything to do with the plot for the other two versions, too – while Birthright and Conquest are about the war between the two countries, Revelations is about a dragon that went mad, an alternate dimension kingdom, and how basically every problem in the game was because of these two things.

           All routes manage to hit on one of my bigger pet peeves about Fates, though, and that’s that for all the plot tries to be about this moral quandary of the war, it ends up being more of a soap opera about how much it’s tearing you apart to have to fight your siblings, with a lot of very anime bullshit along the way, and by the time you get to Revelations, it’s gone so full anime that it’s not even pretending to be about a war anymore. The weirdest bits of the writing are in the alternate universe stuff, which you’re first introduced to early in the game when they introduce the My Castle, a pocket dimension only the Avatar can access where time doesn’t pass and the army can just hang around and chill. This alternate universe stuff then proceeds to go wholly unreferenced until a brief visit to Valm that takes place in Conquest, and Revelations, where it’s suddenly the crux the plot spins around.

           Or unless you have a kid.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           There’s a myriad number of other things that make the plot feel weirdly anime and amateurish for such a huge production. Azura is pretty much just “Plot Device: The Character”, with the song she sings through the game basically just being “Plot Device: The Song” with how many different things it gets used for (its actual effects, naturally, are unexplained unless you play Revelations). Azura being a songstress in the first place is a very tropey move – singers and divas are frequently very important characters in Japanese media, and having their songs have magical effects is one of those very common tropes that always feels contrived when it shows up. She’s extremely obtuse with her intentions, which turns out to be because of a literal curse that keeps people from talking about Valm (the alternate universe kingdom) without being in Valm (so again, you want explanations for stuff, better buy  Revelations).

           Similarly, Corrin tends to basically stumble onto new powers and weapons as the plot demands, giving the feeling that they’re meant to be a self-insert wish fulfilment character of some sort. In order, Corrin is a member of all three courts of royalty (yes, including Valm’s), is part-dragon, can turn into a dragon, suddenly has a magic weapon reveal itself to them that’s actually the key to saving the world, and spends a large portion of the plot seeking out a massive power boost so they can go fight Garon on his terms. And while there’s definitely something to be said about a character you can customize being meant to be something of a self-insert, since Corrin’s appearance is fully customizable, and since they can support with everyone, have the most versatility class-wise out of anyone, there’s an amount of wish fulfilment fantasy I can take, and we crossed it a while ago here.

           Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Revelations and things that come out there, one of the big plot points is that your birth parents actually aren’t the same as your Hoshidan siblings’ birth parents, and your dad’s actually a dragon. This is something that’s also told to you when you S-rank one of your Hoshidan siblings, in the form of a secret letter your mom left for them, but up until that point on Birthright? You just think you’re partaking in some incest of the highest degree. So if you want to get that explanation without thinking you’re banging your biological siblings? Better buy Revelations.

           Not that any of this makes any of the sibling fetishism in Fates any less creepy. Since the Avatar, like in Fates’ predecessor, Awakening, can marry any character in the game, all of your Hoshidan and Nohrian siblings are fully marriageable. However, a few things are made immediately obvious when you’re interacting with these characters. The first is that both families consider you to be their family, which raises a ton of awful, creepy questions about power dynamics and the morality of fucking the people who raised you. The second is that the developers absolutely wanted you to fuck your siblings anyways, because Elise and Camilla exist.

From left to right: Three potential routes in the mythical bisexual anime dating sim that only exists in my dreams.

           All of the Nohrian and Hoshidan royalty characters are written around specific anime tropes and honestly feel like they could have been plucked from an otome game, or at the very least, a passably written light novel, but Camilla and Elise specifically play into a particular incesty trope-set that’s very common in Japanese media: the sister who wants a more-than-sisterly relationship with the protagonist. Half of Camilla’s dialogue is basically just throwing innuendo at you while simultaneously implying she wants to mother you, leading to a frankly disconcerting combo of MILF-femme fatale-big sister tropes. And just in case you hadn’t gotten the memo yet, Camilla gets an entire CG scene dedicated to showing off her tits and ass on Birthright, while on Conquest, a large part of the ending CG scene is dedicated to the protagonist running headlong into her titties. Subtle.

Elise, on the other hand, is a cute little gothic Lolita little sister who’s always cheering you on and calling you “Big brother!” or “Big sister!” – grating, but standard enough little sister tropes in Japanese media. The problem is that she’s marriageable, and unlike Awakening, where it was implied that the debatably legal characters all had their kids at least a few years into the future from when the game takes place, the children in Fates are all born not too long after characters get married. So either Elise is supposed to be a legal loli (which is creepy), or you’re banging your underage adoptive sister (EVEN CREEPIER).

All of the siblings in Fates have these problems, but Elise and Camilla really get it the worst, because they’re so overt about it. They’re characters whose entire identities are wrapped up in being your sibling, and you can fuck them. Even with them not being your blood sibling, there was a conscious decision to write them in this faux-incesty manner that adds a real creepy sheen to the whole thing. All of the other members of the royalty? They’re dating sim tropes. Ryoma and Xander are dependable, kind of dorky older guys, Leo and Takumi are supposed to be the standoffish, full of themselves ones, Sakura’s the cute, shy one; and Hinoka’s the hot blooded genki girl. And then there’s Elise and Camilla, who fall into two varieties of incest trope, with a double dose of lolicon on Elise’s end.

But hey, while we’re talking marriage options, let’s talk about the other characters in Fates. So a big thing about Fates is that since it’s technically two separate campaigns, both Birthright and Conquest have complete casts and full armies to take with you, with the characters you get determined by which route you’re on. This isn’t inherently a problem (at least until you get to Revelations and you get both casts, minus a few pre-promotes, giving you a massive pile of units you’ll probably never use), but something about the cast feels very incomplete. There’s a lot of character tropes that are reused from Awakening – for example, Subaki is a Pegasus riding retainer for the crown who’s well known for being absolutely perfect at everything, much like Awakening’s Cordelia; while Hayato is a child-like mage who wants to be taken seriously and has been trying to prove himself, much like Awakening’s Ricken.

It doesn’t stop with just tropes though – a few of the characters are wholesale lifted from Awakening, too. Did you like Cordelia, Tharja, and Gaius? Well, I hope you did, because they’re child units on Birthright. This is actually one point where Conquest has a definite leg up on Birthright, because Conquest’s Awakening cameos, Odin, Laslow, and Selena (Owain, Inigo, and Severa, respectively) actually came to Fates’ world using an actual plot mechanic from Awakening, and get a set of DLC dedicated to explaining their presence in the world in more detail. So that’s another paywall on massive plot material, because that’s the name of the game with Fates, but at least the effort’s been put in.

And something that doesn’t really help is a lot of characters seem to be written very differently depending on route and whether you’re in the main story or the supports. For example, Takumi, if you’ve only played Conquest, is a raging asshole. There is nothing good about him, definitely nothing that seems to suggest the popularity he apparently has in the fandom. If you play Birthright, he’s cold and standoffish and jealous, but there’s depth there. But then there’re his supports, and he’s awkward and prideful and somewhat endearing about it. It literally feels like three different characters.

Top: Takumi in Conquest. Bottom: Takumi in Birthright and his supports.

Overwhelmingly, the various Support chains feel better written than the majority of the game. Even with how tropey a lot of the characters are and how sick I grew of them in the main story, I still enjoyed the support chains a lot. Anything involving Mozu pretty much immediately became a feel good, good time, even with the less personable characters. Raging asshole Takumi became likeable through his supports. It legitimately felt like I was reading a completely different story when I got to the supports, and I genuinely wonder if they were written by a completely different writing team.

Fates also does something no other Fire Emblem has allowed before: there’s gay marriage options. There was much ado made about how stupid it is that they’re version locked, as well as the tropes that go into them, but I’ll give Intelligent Designs credit for trying. However, I won’t give them credit for the fact that the options suck ass. The gay marriage options are Niles, an innuendo spouting Nohrian thief with a thing for bondage and enough angsty backstory and hidden darkness to make him a stereotypical yaoi “top” character; and Rhajat, who is literally just Awakening’s Tharja, a creepy Dark Mage with a penchant for curses and is the Avatar’s stalker. These characters weren’t written to actually make them appealing to gay people – they’re written to fit yaoi and yuri archetypes to make them appealing to straight people.

Go away.

And it’s not like I didn’t give them a chance on my own playthroughs – both my Birthright and Conquest avatars were actually genders that matched the gay options for those routes – but as I got through their support chains, I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t want anything to do with either of them. I’m not interested in marrying someone whose only interesting character traits are his love for innuendo and his angsty backstory, or a creeper who wants my vagina because she’s convinced that I’m her fated lover, and is willing to curse everyone to make it happen.

Legitimately, there’s other characters that would have made more interesting gay options, like Silas, the Avatar’s childhood friend who’s dedicated enough to them to defect to Hoshido; and Soleil, Laslow’s daughter who loves girls so much that her personal skill is all about powering her up when she’s around other girls. Why she’s not the gay option, and Discount Tharja is, is beyond me.

There’s something that’s really jarringly apparent about the Fates cast the further you get into it, though. The game really wanted no business with any party members who weren’t conventionally pretty and young. And nowhere is this more exemplified than with certain pre-promotes you can get, the character of Nyx, and the non-recruitable boss character, Zola.

           So in Fates and Awakening, pre-promoted units (units who come to you already as an upgraded class) generally can’t be supported with any party members besides the Avatar. Both games have exceptions (specifically, Frederick and Anna in Awakening and the royal family members in Fates can all be supported with other units besides the Avatar), but that’s generally the rule. It was odd in Awakening, because in previous Fire Emblems pre-promotes usually could still support with other party members.

But something Fates does that Awakening didn’t is that all of the pre-promoted units who can only support with the Avatar are also old. From Reina, a Kishin Knight with visible wrinkles and a lust for murder; to Shura, a vagrant from a Hoshidan border nation who defected to Nohr; to Gunter, an old man who is one of the Avatar’s retainers. It seems like anyone over the age of 20-something is shoved into the “Avatar-only” category of supportable characters, regardless of their apparent depth of character. Some of these characters are also among the few who don’t come back for Revelations – Scarlet, a Wyvern Lord Resistance leader who joins you in Birthright, gets a particularly undignified death when you first go to Valm to justify her lack of involvement.

It’s the kind of thing that really feeds into Fates’ weird, creepy light novel feeling, because that’s not something other Fire Emblems really have done. Awakening had a good amount of visibly older characters who were still fully supportable (Frederick and Gregor come to mind), and previous Fire Emblems had multiple older characters per game and never really called attention to them the way Fates does. But here, every character (save, say, Benny on Conquest) has to be in the age of conventional attractability and look appropriately, and god forbid they don’t, especially if they’re a woman.

The most egregious instance of this is quite possibly Nyx, a child-like Nohrian mage who’s actually old enough to be an old woman. She falls into a long-standing Fire Emblem tradition of “characters who look like little girls but are actually super old”, which are usually among the various Manakete characters of Fire Emblem. These generally range from “wise despite their appearance” (Myrrh from Sacred Stones) to “uncomfortably childlike” (Nowi from Awakening).

Nyx is a rare exception in that she’s fully human, and looks the way she does because of a curse… and she’s also a Dark Mage, so she wears a bikini everywhere. It really does feel like they wanted an excuse to put a kid in a bikini, and used the “she’s really like a hundred years old!” excuse to justify it (which they also did in Awakening, and it was just as uncomfortable there). And yes, you can marry her as a male Avatar, and yes, she will give you a kid. Have fun with that mental image.

And then there’s Zola.

Who wouldn’t want to give this little creeper a hug?

Zola is a character with… very contentious writing, and another character where, in order to get any perspective on him, you have to play Birthright first. In all three routes, Zola is a minor boss who impersonates the Duke of Izumo, a neutral kingdom in the war, and uses this as a chance to try and execute the Hoshidan royal family before getting killed by Leo for his dishonorable behavior. It’s pretty standard Fire Emblem boss fare, and he’s pretty forgettable there.

But on Birthright, Zola lives past that chapter as a prisoner of the Hoshidan army, and this allows him to gain more depth as a character, revealing that despite his cowardly nature, he does have loyalty toward the Avatar and there’s something sympathetic about him. In any other Fire Emblem game, it’s entirely possible he would be recruitable. In fact, he factors into the Hoshidan army’s plans to fight Garon during the theater episode in Chapter 12.

However, by this point, keen-eyed Fire Emblem players have probably already noticed that Zola did not join the army after his “recruitment”, and the plot summarily executes him after taking three chapters to humanize him, and he’s completely forgotten from that point on. The thing is, more morally ambiguous characters are recruited to the Avatar’s team in Fates alone (cough cough Niles cough Rhajat cough), and they’re allowed to stick around. But Zola is executed despite the game clearly showing he’s loyal to the Avatar (he even pleads to Garon to spare the Avatar after he betrays the party) and him having a fully fleshed out character.

As far as I can tell, the only reason Zola is not recruitable is because he is not pretty. He’s a coward whose looks match his personality, and so he was always intended to be cannon fodder. It creates some legitimate questions about the equating of beauty and goodness in Fates, because there’s legitimately no reason why that plot development needed to occur in Birthright considering how that event is handled in Conquest and Revelations. It would have been easier to leave it all out.

So that’s three distinct cases of characters who are over the hump as far as “acceptable age” and appearance goes, and how they’re treated. It’s another thing that feeds back into Fates’ “big budget light novel” feel – you’re not going to see a ton of those with main characters who aren’t conventionally attractive young people, and the characters are generally designed in a way that they’re appealing to younger players and their aesthetics.

And boy oh boy, does this show in Fates’ character design.

While Fates borrows a lot from Awakening, one thing it does not borrow are Awakening’s class designs. Awakening’s designs were generally fairly simplistic, and aside from a few specific things (flying classes’ baffling lack of armor, those… shoulder things on knights, cavaliers wearing toilet seats for neckpieces), they were fairly reasonable fantasy armor. In fact, most female characters, including the prissy aristocrat troubadour Maribelle, wore pants. The downside there was that a lot of classes were gender-locked; Pegasus knights and troubadours were female only, but even so, they didn’t have particularly egregious designs.

Fates removes gender locking for all classes, but the female only designs are often… egregious. By which I mean, everyone wears panties. Everyone wears panties into battle.

Can you please put on some goddamn pants before you chafe your thighs into oblivion?

Hoshido classes, thankfully, generally wear loincloths over their panties, but the egregious lack of pants tends to be really blatant. But Nohr classes tend to be more than willing to let it all hang out there, even if (or especially if) they’re a horse-riding class. Nothing was worse than upgrading my daughter to a Great Knight, only to find out that she was now riding her horse into battle pantsless. I may have explicitly decided to go with a male Avatar for my Conquest run because I found out that the upgraded Nohr noble class just bares her panties everywhere for female Avatars.

Fates has a lot of really weird fanservice in it. The explicit focus on Camilla’s everything, the panty-baring female class designs, the access to a hot spring that doesn’t seem to have any real purpose beyond being there, and being able to strip enemy units with certain weapons all just gives it a really weird atmosphere for a game that’s supposed to be a serious war drama. It’s the same incongruity I get from a lot of recent anime, such as Re:ZERO, which is apparently a serious story, but also gives its generic main character a harem of pretty anime girls who all want to get with him.

A lot of Fates feels like it’s trying to appeal to the most common denominator by emulating what other games and anime are doing, like the dynamics between characters and the related character design, as well as things they felt were the most popular elements of its predecessor, which was the best-selling Fire Emblem game in a long, long time and possibly saved the franchise. So it gives you a massive cast of characters and a dynamic world-saving plot makes pairing them all up a major mechanic, and even includes previous games’ characters as a throwback to people who liked Awakening. And, most bafflingly, it includes Awakening’s child mechanic.

IT’S TIME.

           When two characters of opposite sex reach an S-rank support with each other, they get married, and their child can then join your army after completing a side mission. Awakening reconciled the fact that the parents and children could fight alongside one another through the use of a time travel plot – no one actually has any children over the course of Awakening’s story (besides Chrom, which is part of the set-up for this element); rather, their future children travel through time to help prevent the horrible future that happened in their own world. It’s a major part of Awakening’s plot, and while none of the child characters have major plot relevance outside of Lucina, the fact that they go out of the way to weave the explanation for why they exist into the plot helps ground them, and several of the children’s Supports involve them trying to connect with their younger, past parents now that they’re in a world where their parents are alive again.

           Fates, however, doesn’t use this explanation. Instead, after your first marriage scene, you’re treated to a cutscene explaining that the parents didn’t waste any time getting knocked up, and after the child was born, it was determined it was too dangerous for any kids to be kept around with the war going on, and so the children were sent off to their own alternate pocket universes (or “Deeprealms”) to grow up safely. Because time passes differently there, the children almost instantly grow to adulthood from the people in the army’s perspective, and by the time they’re recruited they’re fully trained, fully capable soldiers ready to go stab the shit out of some enemy soldiers.

Just shove ‘em riiiiight in. Don’t worry about any consequences, it’s fiiiiiiine.

           There’re a lot of stupid holes and questions that pop up as a result of this, first and foremost being the very obvious question of “When did anyone have time to have children?” All of the female characters in Fates are also combatants, so unless they’re all badasses on the same tier as Metal Gear Solid’s the Boss, they probably weren’t fighting at the same time they were pregnant. Also, Fates isn’t very clear about the time frame the game takes place during, but since no one ages significantly, it can’t be more than a couple of years. Since time doesn’t pass while the characters are in their My Castle, theoretically they could have stayed there for the duration of their pregnancy, but unless the gestational period in Fates’ world is significantly shorter than real life human gestational time, that would mean individual characters having to stay in My Castle for periods approaching upon months, at which point they would have their children, and then shove them in the puberty void to keep them safe while the parents go right back to fighting in a war.

           Which brings it around to the next unsettling implication -- the neglect in the children’s upbringing. Fates’ children only aged quickly from the perspective of their parents outside the pocket dimension – inside their Deeprealm, time moved for them at a normal rate, and the occasional visits the parents gave (as indicated in their Supports with their children) were separated by periods of years. Fates does not shy away from showing how this kind of upbringing affected their children – many of them have major gripes with their parents for essentially abandoning them for their own good, and a few of them have developed some odd quirks and delinquent behavior as a result. Several of their recruitment events are about guilting their parents into bringing them along for the war, and it’s a constant subject in their Supports, as well. No one is particularly happy with how the situation worked out in-story.

           The constant statements that it was done for the children’s own good in their Supports and recruitment events really pushes to the forefront how baffling the explanation is, because the game makes it more than clear that it was this distant upbringing that messed the children up so badly. It goes into absurdity if you’re playing Conquest, which features three returning child characters from Awakening as potential parents, who should know what it’s like to grow up with no parents (all of Awakening’s parent units are dead by the time their children travel back to the past) and would probably not want to subject their children to the same upbringing.

           It’s the inclusion of the child mechanic that pushes Fates from a passable, if flawed, game, right into “basically unplayable”. It’s blatantly obvious that Fates was not written with a child mechanic in mind, and that it was added because Awakening’s shipping mechanics went over very well, and they wanted to capitalize upon that. And it’s not like any of the child characters are bad characters--

           Well, most of them aren’t, anyways.

You are not my children. You are a disgrace.

           But ultimately, all they do is serve to give you more units in a game that’s already swimming with units, and end up being a massive distracting bit of bad writing in a game whose writing is already only passable at best. They literally could have been left out of the game entirely, and nothing of real importance would have been lost.

           (Also, it would have forced them to make a lesbian option that wasn’t just “Discount Tharja”. Or at least tried to make it less obvious that they were recycling everyone’s favorite stalker waifu.)

           Fire Emblem Fates is, ultimately, not a bad game. For all of my griping about the map design and unit distribution, there was clearly a lot of thought put into the new mechanics. Forging weapons to make them stronger feels more rewarding than the old durability system, which always ended up boiling down to “Iron swords for everyone!” so you didn’t waste your cool super weapon. And if you can look past the writing, you’ll definitely have a good time with it, or at least end up frustrated in the kind of fun way only Fire Emblem players do. But the obvious DLC gating, the poor writing, and the nonsensical puberty void bullshit make it a very hard game for me to like, and I don’t think I’ll ever get around to playing the third route as a result.

[willreadforbooze]

Hey everyone!!

Hope you guys had a great week! We are all convinced its still March. K? k.

Can y’all believe it’s May!? Work is about to be crazy busy for me these next few weeks, so we’ll see how much reading I get done.

I’m also your host over on the @willread4booze Twitter account this week 

What Minda is reading now:

The Jewel Thief by Jeannie Mobley – Slow-burn romance set in 17th C France centered around the missing Hope Diamond. The supposed jewel thief’s confession will mean her life or death—and maybe her heartbreak.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire – Second in the Wayward Children series with the twins, Jack & Jill, in the high logic, high wicked world. I think this might be a prequel? Listening on audio.

What Minda finished:

Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold – A twisted retelling of little red riding hood that does not shy away from the reality of womanhood, to say the least. It’s very pro-woman and I liked it, but I can see this as being controversial.

Sam’s Update

We’ve reached the point of quarantine where I can feel the breakdown about to happen. I need other humans… I did read a fair bit though…

What Sam Finished:

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: I thought this was a fantasy… i was wrong.. it’s a true sci-fi and fantasy. Basically Gideon is blackmailed into being the personal guard to her childhood tormentor and literal garbage person while she competes to become immortal. They are also literal necromancers. There are nine houses and people keep dying. Gideon is also hilarious. I can’t say too much more about my thoughts because this is the book club book for this month.

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen: This is a really weird story. The main character is being groomed to be chief of her Crow… clan? i guess? and basically they go to all the towns to collect people who’ve died from the plague. She makes this oath with the crown prince to take him to his allies in exchange for security for her people. This was… ok. I won’t be continuing with the series. Not worth it, really.

What Sam is Currently Reading:

Upon A Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker: I’m reading this for Tome Topple. I am like 40 pages in but it’s gonna be great, I can tell.

Ember Queen by Laura Sebastian: This is the last and final book in the Ash Princess series. I can’t say too much about what this book is about because spoilers, but this was one of the only YA fantasy trilogies I actually enjoyed. It broke a bunch of the stereotypes that I was sure there was gonna be.

Ginny’s Update

I managed to get through a few books this week and it’s very strange to actually say that. Some of it is that I just buckled down and got some stuff read. But hey, who cares how it happened, the important thing is that it happened.

Finished:

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin: this book was a gosh darned delight. There were a few similarities with Pride and Prejudice (only towards the end) but I really enjoyed the push and pull between the main characters where religion and culture and values intersected. I found some of the characters frustrating at times (and I think one of the back plotlines could have been handled a little better) but every character flaw was there to allow for growth, which was a lot of fun.

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang, Guirihiru: I apologize if I got the author name wrong. This is a graphic novel and we received an ARC, which means half of the art was unfinished. But this book kind of embodied the great things about Superman going back to it’s roots. This book focuses on a Superman who hasn’t come into his own completely, but still stands for what is right and the little guys. This book follows an Asian family who has just moved out of Chinatown, and deals with the racism at the time.

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn: I’m probably going to end up writing a review for this. I had been looking forward to this book for a while so I was really excited to finally get it. A hand-letterer writes a code into a man’s wedding invite that the relationship is doomed to fail. He’s a (kind of on-theme) Mr. Darcy-esque character in that he just has trouble talking to people.

The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune: I may have already written the review for this one… This was an ARC from, I think, ALA. The book follows Nick and his friends who live in a world with superheroes. Nick is OBSESSED with one of the superheroes and ends up actually running into them during an attempted robbery (he was being mugged) which sets off A LOT of plot.

Currently Reading:

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant: This book is a soap opera. Martha is recently widowed and only inherits from her husband if she has an heir. She doesn’t, but talks a rogue-ish neighbor into sleeping with her every day for a month to try to fake an heir. She’s also pretty darn prude. It’s fun.

Forbidden Promises by Synithia Williams: This is also a soap opera but more on person. The Robideux’s are a wealthy tobacco-empire family. The youngest daughter has spent years away after the guy she was in love with married (and then divorced) her sister. There’s still plenty of chemistry. I’m not certain how much I care yet, mostly because rich people having rich people problems partially because of a shitty patriarch forcing the family to conform might not be my fav. I’m still willing to give it a chance, but we’ll see how this one goes.

Minda’s Update

It’s Minda’s first Mother’s Day so she gets a break 😉 HAPPY MOTHERS DAY, MINDA!!!

Until next time, we main forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Ginny, and Minda

Weekly Wrap-Up: May 4 – 10, 2020 Hey everyone!! Hope you guys had a great week! We are all convinced its still March. K?

[spynotebook]

The first season of Twin Peaks is almost perfect.

The gist of the core plot is not unique to David Lynch’s soon-to-be revived brainchild, but he pulled it off better than anyone else. A local teenage’s grisly murder and the subsequent investigation take center stage, and the unraveling of that central mystery soon sweeps up the whole town. The seemingly idyllic town that gives the show its name is, surprise!, not the sleepy hamlet it may seem. Unnervingly dapper FBI agent Dale Cooper sifts through the fresh horrors stirred up by Laura Palmer’s death while a rich cast of supporting characters help him out, get in his way, or navigate their spooky town outside of Cooper’s orbit.

Twin Peaks’ first season works so well because the show goes to such extremes when it both portrays the town’s endemic evil and paints saccharine portraits of small-town life in 1990s America. Lynch’s show is a loving paean to small towns and TV sitcoms, which makes his subversion of all their seemingly placid elements that much more disturbing. The line separating the two is paper-thin and liable to blur at any time. A tryst between high school lovers might get interrupted by a murderous psychopath. A character’s independent investigation might lead to her almost being fed to her father, who runs a secret brothel over the Canadian border. The evil shown in the first season oscillates between a sketchily-defined cosmic rupture and a tightly plotted story of a police investigation, and Lynch never shows all his cards. It covers a lot of ground but does not meander.

Lynch preceded Twin Peaks with 1986's Blue Velvet, which is perhaps the best film of the 1980's and resembles Twin Peaks on several fronts. A puppy dog-perfect Kyle MacLachlan stars as a college student who returns home to his idyllic small-town home and falls for a mysterious woman being lorded over by a maniacal creep (played by Dennis Hopper, who puts forth one of the scariest performances I have ever seen). Laura Dern plays interlocutor and audience surrogate, as Lynch plumbs the same thematic depths that he returns to with Twin Peaks: the hidden savagery at the heart of supposedly placid American life. No mater how calm things seem, no matter how cleanly the lawns are mowed, violence and perversion are woven into the fabric.

MacLachlan’s all-American steadiness drives both projects. Blue Velvet works in part because the boyish, innocent-looking MacLachlan (who had just starred in Lynch’s Dune, a legendary flop, as a 25-year-old unknown) is a peerless representative of the sort of Americana that Lynch seeks to simultaneously skewer and praise. His character in Blue Velvet is an innocent college kid who is nonetheless curious about the kinkier, darker side of town. Dale Cooper is almost a progression of that character. He has seen the lurking menace at the heart of the American experience, and he’s on a crusade to eradicate it wherever it pops up.

Advertisement

Given the thematic heft of the show, it could easily lurch into soap opera nonsense, but Cooper is utterly unflappable and the town’s inhabitants are not written as clueless rubes, even if they are acutely dramatic people. Twin Peaks plays it all straight, which makes it all the more unsettling. As someone who wasn’t born when the series ended and only came across it after the whole thing had been turned into one big meme, I was struck more than anything by the uneasiness of the world. The coffee habit that launched a thousand tote bags is there, and, yeah, the red room scene is deservedly iconic, but the show isn’t a campy send-up of the American television show. Its subversion comes from its unrelenting weirdness and obtuse horror. Lynch’s camera fixates on screaming mouths and spinning sawblades, picking away at the fabric of the town as it shows it to you.

Then it turns into a big mess.

The tightly-knotted yarn of Season 1 unravels the moment Season 2 starts. Instead of a resolution to the season-ending cliffhanger where Cooper gets shot in his room, viewers get their heads dunked into a big bucket of cold water and are forced to watch Cooper lie on the floor bleeding and rambling. A geriatric waiter enters the room and instead of helping, he just sort of bleats at the camera. It’s a grating and abrupt capsule of the entire season in miniature: a once mysterious and claustrophobic show has bloated out and glazed over.

Advertisement

Yet it still works. The consensus is correct; Season 2 is the inferior season. The majority of its episodes are worth a damn, though, and things don’t truly go off the rails until the home stretch. The show’s second batch of episodes reach higher highs than those in the first season, and ambition and restlessness serves the show well. The episode where the audience discovers who Laura’s true killer is features perhaps the most chilling single scene in the entire series. I am amazed that so many moments made their way onto television screens unedited, and nothing short of the finale is as chilling as watching the killer take his second victim while he garbles desperately at the camera.

The schlock also gets dialed up to 11 in Season 2. The first season balanced its horrifying impulses and tendency towards grandiose sweetness well by playing them off each other and never going too far in either direction. By the time Episode 9 rolls around, the show has abandoned any restraint. Season 2 isn’t anything like the evenly-tempered pilot episode (for my money, the best pilot ever put to wax) and it goes way too far in every direction as David Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost became less involved with writing and directing as they pursued other projects. One of the James-centric subplots is pure soap opera trash; a core character has a breakdown and lives out an extended fantasy that he’s a general in an alternate universe Civil War where the South won; there is perhaps the schlockiest scene in TV history.

If you dig the atmospherics of Season 1 and enjoy the moments where the shows fully indulges in its own whimsy, you’ll like the bulk of Season 2. It’s the apotheosis of everything that made Twin Peaks unique, for better and for worse. I can’t defend the back third of the season, where a ratings nosedive caused producers to flail at all manner of rotten and nonsensical plotlines. There’s nothing good about Audrey’s sudden fling-ette with a dapper cowboy guy from out of town or the ham-handed way the entire Windom Earle plot is carried out. It’s a big dumb mess and there’s little to enjoy.

However, the show did not end with a whimper. The hallucinogenic finale, where Cooper enters the Black Lodge and seeks to confront BOB and Earle in an interdimensional M.C. Escher nightmare world, does not hold back. Cooper plunges deeper into new layers of a funhouse-mirror infested chamber, unsheathing new horrors at every turn. A malevolent spirit devours his rival as doppelgängers wail and shriek. The grotesquerie of the Black Lodge is relentless and nigh-inscrutable, as if Lynch (who took charge of much of the episode personally) wanted to pull back the curtain once and for all, exposing the supernatural rot and savagery at the heart of Twin Peaks.

Lynch briefly returned to the town of Twin Peaks for the 1992 prequel Fire Walk With Me. At this point, the humor and spirit that animated the show was gone and all that was left was the repulsive side of things. The movie tells the story of Laura Palmer’s last days on Earth. MacLachlan is briefly present, but the film spends most of its time digging into the grittier stones that Twin Peaks turned over. One could make the case for Fire Walk With Me as a fittingly unflinching meditation on abuse, but as for the town of Twin Peaks, the mask had come all the way off and the product Lynch put forth was gross and listless.

Advertisement

Sponsored

Twin Peaks makes its prophesied return this Sunday after 26 years off the air. Lynch is directing all 18 episodes and not even the unbelievably deep roster of actors who comprise the new cast really know what to expect. Uneven as it was, Twin Peaks crafted a cohesive world that warrants revisiting. Even though the show lost its way for a bit there at the end, you can trust that David Lynch’s new vision for this story will be just as unsettling and sublime. It never made sense, and it never needed to. That won’t change now.

Laura Palmer promised Cooper in a dream that she’d see him in 25 years, and if you count Fire Walk With Me (count Fire Walk With Me), that’s just as long as it’s been since Lynch showed us Twin Peaks. Kyle MacLachlan is no longer a pretty boy on the cusp of superstardom; he’s a successful veteran with a winery and 86 episodes of work on Desperate Housewives. This Dale Cooper will be far different than the dapper mannequin who chomped chocolate bunnies outside the Roadhouse. He’s changed. Lynch has changed. Twin Peaks hasn’t.