#or underbaked etc

[clonehub]

"why does the fandom complain so much!!" do you see what we've been getting

[samble-movedd]

i made boxed fudge brownies and added two cups two teaspoons vanilla extract and dark chocolate chips to make it "nicer" yay :3

[asinglesock]

unemployment arc update

[artbyblastweave]

Still playing Skyrim. And I’m interested to report that the game is actually better than I remember, on balance. But I’m kind of fascinated by what’s going on with Lydia, mechanically and narratively.

Lydia is the first follower who gets shoved in your face just by virtue of following the main quest. There are others you can pick up earlier, but not without finishing errands (for Faendal and Sven), by forking up a pretty big chunk of change for the early game by hiring Janessa, or by going out of your way in some other manner. If you’re completely new to the game and you’re just powering through the main story as it’s presented, she’s the first option for a follower that the game highlights for you in giant blinking neon lights. And as a quest reward, she’s mechanically kind of a godsend at that point in the story; a doubling of carry capacity, an excellent meat shield and distraction, a way to extract utility from weapons and armor you don’t want to use yourself. More subjectively she provides the impression of a stalwart ally or companion in what can be a very lonely worldspace to exist in. There’s very little reason not to take her with you, and once you have her, the majority of companions being equal, there’s very little reason to get rid of her until she stops level scaling.

Despite the mechanical utility Lydia provides at a crucial point, and the resultant likelyhood that you’ll haul her along for the ride, she’s only a couple steps up from the companion cube. She has no specific, non-fungible impact on the narrative beyond demonstrating Jarl Balgruuf’s favor. Her deferral to you is automatic; if someone is actively paying her a salary to help you defile graves, cut deals with every deity on the continent and invade the afterlife, it sure as hell isn’t you. It isn’t clear what her gig under Balgruuf was before she was assigned to you. She has no personal narrative. She has no personal side quest. One of her biggest inklings of personality is when she expresses vague dissatisfaction with being treated as a pack mule, but then she does it anyway.  She’s party to world-shaking events and political upheavals, but she’s present purely in her capacity as your appendix, so reality simply treats her as your plus-one. 

She’ll block doors you’re trying to get through, and she’ll get mad at you if you push her out of the way. She’ll charge into battle or set off traps while you’re trying to sneak. She’ll microaggress you with stock Nord dialogue while pulverizing your enemies, a plurality of whom are also Nords. She’ll distract bosses long enough to buy you breathing room for a healing spell or a potion. You’ll kill her by accident with an ill-timed area-of-effect spell, roll your eyes, and, ultimately, probably reload your save. Because she might only be a couple steps up from a companion cube, but the whole gag with the companion cube is how ridiculously low the threshold is for the audience to get genuinely attached to something in a video game. A thin character invites apophenia. Behaviors that are purely downstream of dev thoughtlessness will still imply character traits if taken at Watsonian Face Value. In this case, inexplicable undying loyalty, reserved comments on impressive landmarks, and comical stoicism in the face of some of the weirdest events it’s conceptually possible to encounter.  So here’s to weird, underbaked companions in Bethesda Games, and everything we can project onto the void they provide. And Here’s to that related genus of character- units in squad-based tactics or management-sim games with permadeath mechanics who last long enough and accumulate enough equipment, skill points, etc. that they become your Special Little Guy despite otherwise lacking any deliberate character traits.

[op3ra]

colorful cats nonrep redesign -- some info under the cut

i finally pulled together my two-year-old colorful designs--and filled in the rest of the cast--so i can finally share!

it's a bit underbaked: i don't have a setting in mind, other than perhaps a colorfully painted junkyard, but color in general would be very, very prominent in the show--with grizabella having lost all her color except for her one final pink heart, and macavity's fight sequence ideally being illuminated only by a set of sodium lamps--causing the entire stage to appear monochromatic--taking color away from all the other cats until mister mistoffelees returns it in his number.

overall the main point was to introduce bright or unnatural colors to all the cats; I really liked how mexico '18 included a bit of pink and a few bright colors in their designs, so I wanted to go a lot further with that, and use the london costume style

later on i would like to expand on the designs since i obv used the same silhouette for everyone when there SHOULD be some variation in the wig shapes and shoulder-fluffies placement, etc, but i definitely didn't have the time or energy for that this time around lol

note: the 'chorus' cats are all my pre-existing ocs except for tabbyswing!

[queenlua]

this is probably egregiously cringey and/or STEMbrained of me, but, i think it'd be pretty fun/interesting to make a workbook / writing workshop-type thing with the following format:

* you're given a detailed, just-the-facts, beat-by-beat summary of some story.

* the story, as given, should sound pretty mid. scenes that feel extraneous, unclear overall theme, etc

* you sit down and write out "how i would fix this story if i were the author." which plot threads feel underbaked & do you draw them out more or just cut those threads, do you add/remove any characters, do you change anything to ramp the tension up/down, etc

* if it's a workbook, maybe there's an "answer" "key" of sorts in the back where a couple solid genre authors share what they did. obviously there wouldn't be a Correct Answer™ but i imagine you could glean some interesting insights from seeing both (1) what those authors considered to be Problems To Be Fixed and (2) how they fixed them.

* if you're doing this in a workshop format, you hear how everyone else fixed their stories. hopefully at least one person in the room is kinda good at this lol

like, i feel like in writer's workshops i've been in before, you hear a LOT of talk about individual sentences and style stuff, which is good and valuable knowledge to have! but there's a lot less talk about plot structure, partially due to limitations of the workshop-as-implemented, i think—it's impossible to talk about The Structure Of An Entire Novel if ppl are only ever reading it in 5k word increments. so... why not operate on 1-5k word summaries instead

i'm basing this largely on my experience with this one particular creative writing prof, where like, i got a decent amount of value out of workshop time... but by FAR the most valuable time was whenever i camped in this dude's office hours to be like "hi, sorry, i'm accidentally writing a novella again" (i... i was the bitch who submitted stuff that blew past the word limit for workshop... multiple times... i'm sorry) "and also i'm stuck on this one plot beat, can i tell you what my story is & hear how you'd fix it?" and like. damn. for a dude who wrote a lot of quiet stories where nothing happened, he had pretty strong instincts for How Genre Works, & i always felt like i walked away with some new trick for thinking about story structure

but i'm not sure i've had an experience like that anywhere else!

which seems like a shame. like yeah i've read Save the Cat and similar "plot structure"-y guides but they always feel unhelpfully... abstract, to me? like the thing where you're learning some new technique in a math class and it's like ok that's nice and all but i don't actually *know* it until i watch someone work a few problems and then work a few problems myself. i want to see all the tedious scratchwork and such, i am too stupid to learn it otherwise lol

[stoplookingup]

Umbrella Academy S4 reaction (spoilers)

I'm a little surprised how negative the reaction to S4 has been. It's flawed and a bit too loose, sure, but I think there's a thematic arc, to do with the painful but redemptive potential of selfless love, that a lot of people didn't recognize, or didn't like, possibly because it's too sentimental, or too tragic, or both.

In particular, I have a really different take on That Relationship. You know the one I mean.

But before I get to that, I just want to address the issue of unexplained plot points, of which there are certainly many.

Short version: Just let it go.

Long version: Comic-book storytelling is all about the impossible premise, the unlikely twist, the overblown threat, the arbitrary race against the clock, the catastrophic non-ending. A big part of TUA's appeal is that it takes that formula to an absurd extreme, unwinding a plot so convoluted and horrifying as to be comedic, then offering a resolution that raises more questions than it answers, and that seems final -- but is it ever? There could always be more. Even now. Because reasons.

But scratch the surface, and it's really all about the over-the-top super(anti)heroes who are surprisingly endearing, nuanced and tragic, whom the audience roots for despite a million reasons not to. Would S4 have benefitted from a few more episodes? No doubt, mostly to give each character their due (Klaus, my Klaus, you deserve more!), and to let the story breathe a bit. The plot probably wouldn't have made any more sense anyway. But c'mon, did it ever, really? So, why a subway? Why a squid? Why a diner? Does it really matter?

On to That Relationship, the much-criticized story of Lila/Five (aka Live -- can I copyright this?). This comically trope-laden ship (forbidden love, montage love, love triangle, enemies-to-lovers, pocket universe, happily-ever-after, etc) fits right into TUA sensibility. Despite being a bit underbaked, it's moving. The actors play it well, and in dropping their characters' armor, you realize how much armor they're usually wearing, how hard they're always working to cover their feelings. Out of all the characters, seeing these two having real emotions is most devastating, especially with each other. It's because this pairing is wildly unlikely that it hits.

Lila and Five have similar histories as traumatized, sensitive souls turned cold, cruel killing machines. They're smarter, more cynical, and stronger-willed than everyone around them. And they are clearly starved of love and desperate for connection. (Everyone on this show pays a price, but I find Five's terrible loneliness the most heartbreaking of all.) So then fate throws them together in a way that makes it inevitable they'll form an attachment, only to then demand of them the ultimate sacrifice. Their surprisingly quiet, life-affirming, Guinevere-and-Lancelot love is redemptive, in contrast with the meddling, selfish, and/or destructive love of others: Reginald and Abigail, Ben and Jennifer, Gene and Jean. Live aren't an unnecessary digression, they're central to the thematic development of the story. Sacrifice saves the world, but without love, there is no sacrifice.

And yes, I absolutely think Lila loves Five to the end. And while I appreciate that some might find the age difference between the actors off-putting, I don't think there was anything inappropriate on a Doylist level, and it all makes perfect sense on a Watsonian level.

Also:

Aidan Gallagher and Ritu Arya are extraordinary;

the use of Baby Shark is genius;

Diego, Luther and Allison have been the least interesting characters from the start, and S4 does nothing to change that;

Viktor needs a sense of humor;

I love that alternate universes are all the rage these days (so many great tropes started with Trek), but tbh Loki does it better;

as visual representations of the space between realities, I love both the Loki automat and the UA subway, but at some point, using recent-past retro design to signal liminal space is going to get old, which, come to think of it, will be deliciously ironic.

[ploppythespaceship]

Doctor Who Series 14 / Season 1 Review

Man, it feels good to be enjoying Doctor Who again. I haven't been keeping up with the show in years, but I caught up to see Tennant's return leading into Ncuti's run and I am so glad I did. This season is far from perfect, but it gets a lot of little things right and is consistently fun to watch, even if a lot of the details fall apart.

What I Liked

Ncuti Gatwa is simply phenomenal. He settles into the role so quickly and so easily, bringing such a fresh energy to the character. I love how distinct he feels, too -- when you're playing the fifteenth iteration of a character, it can be hard to find a new spin on things, but he's done it. He's also a fantastic actor, getting to show an incredibly wide range in just a few short episodes. I truly think he'll be remembered as one of the best Doctors.

Millie Gibson is also very good as Ruby, and her dynamic with the Doctor is a lot of fun. I appreciate having another Doctor/companion relationship that isn't romantic. They're just best friends, and it's very cute.

The show looks great. It's very clear that they've had a budget increase -- the costumes, effects, etc. are noticeably improved since RTD's first run.

Murray Gold's return as the composer is extremely welcome. His stuff isn't quite as bombastic as before (or maybe the episodes just have better sound mixing), but keeps a lot of the same leitmotifs. The result is a more subtle score that perfectly suits each scene.

Mel is so cool now. She was one of my least favorite classic companions, so seeing her worked into these storylines and feel more compelling is an unexpected delight.

What I Didn't Like

Ultimately, I think the season is just too short. Council of Geeks has an excellent YouTube video on this -- because there are only eight episodes, and a lot of them are going for bigger ideas and weirder premises, it feels like we don't really settle into a status quo.

The Doctor and Ruby's relationship also isn't as developed as much as I would like. If you pay close attention to the dialogue, there's actually a six month gap between "Space Babies" and "The Devil's Chord" -- we could have used another episode or two in that time period to really flesh out the beginnings of their friendship better. Instead the show jumps straight to them being best friends, without really showing us why that is.

I don't think the mystery box format of this season really worked. The mysteries were built up to such an extent that no answer could really be satisfying, and the finale really almost entirely on the big reveals that ultimately didn't amount to much. Ruby in particular feels like an underbaked companion, and I hope she gets more time to get properly developed.

Individual Episode Thoughts

Space Babies — This is easily the weakest episode of the season. It's not bad by any means, but it does remind me of some of the sillier episodes of RTD's first run. It felt like we were speedrunning the companion introduction, when things could have been slowed down and spread across a few episodes to feel more natural. The baby VFX also do not work and fall very firmly into uncanny valley territory.

The Devil's Chord — This one makes very little sense, but is entirely saved by Jinkx Monsoon being so iconic as Maestro. If you just go along for the ride, it's a ton of fun.

Boom — This episode is proof that Steven Moffat truly is at his best when he's writing self-contained stories under someone else's guidance. I don't think it's as iconic as Moffat's previous stories, and I felt like Ncuti was getting a lot of dialogue that better suited Matt Smith, but the entire concept was interesting and the execution was solid. Also, Ncuti acted his ass off without even being able to move.

73 Yards — Honestly, I'm mixed on this one. The setup is fantastic and eerie, and I enjoy the exploration of Ruby's character, solo from the Doctor. I like her experiencing this inexplicable thing, and deciding to find purpose in it to help others. But the story does fall apart for me at the end when it doesn't explain anything. I don't need every single thing handed to me, I understand the value of leaving things to the imagination, but the fact that the episode's last impression is "wait what?" does leave a bit of a sour taste. That being said, I do respect how weird and different this episode is, and how much discussion it prompted afterward.

Dot and Bubble — The trailers looked like a Black Mirror ripoff, and I was prepared for a shallow "social media bad" episode. Instead, we got something far more nuanced about the dangers of trapping yourself in a bubble of like-minded people and refusing to ever look beyond it. And the ending reveal that it's a society of white supremacists is so, so well-handled, because all the clues were there for you. If you're like me and didn't piece it together until the very end, it really challenges you to ask yourself why you didn't notice sooner. Also, another episode where Ncuti acts his ass off. My personal favorite episode of the season.

Rogue — Another with mixed feelings. Rogue himself is tons of fun, and I enjoy his dynamic with the Doctor, even if parts of it are pretty rushed. I really hope he comes back. The episode plot itself is serviceable but nothing special. My main complaint is the severe lack of Ruby. Her relationship with the Doctor doesn't feel sufficiently established, so the emotional beats don't really land.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday — This was an underwhelming finale, unfortunately. The first part barely even qualifies as an episode. It launches right into starting to answer the season's mysteries, but does so in an uncompelling and heavy-handed way. The Sutekh reveal is pretty epic in isolation, but...

Empire of Death — The Sutekh reveal doesn't really lead to anything satisfying. He doesn't have the presence of Toymaker or Maestro, he's just a CGI dog monster. This second part finally answers some questions, some of which are vaguely interesting, but it's happening in a plot so dull and so dry that I just can't bring myself to care. The episode is also just confusing? The plot points don't seem to flow naturally together, like multiple stories were smashed together with little rhyme or reason. The resolution is some of the most nonsensical nonsense that Doctor Who has ever come up with. Then we get to the reveal of Ruby's mother, which is so forced and it becomes clear in retrospect that things were added to seem more mysterious than they really were. And capping it all off is the Doctor's farewell to Ruby, which falls flat because, as I've said, their relationship is rather undercooked. It really does end the season on a downer, which is a shame because so many of the preceding episodes were pretty good.

[sillovn]

Shadow of the Erdtree: Review?

Been itching to get this off my chest, full thoughts on Shadow of Erdtree – there’s alot to say.

~~Major Spoilers Ahead~~

To best summarize, SotE is more Elden Ring - for better and for worse. An attempt to redo the base game in a microcosm; its not unreasonable to call this ER2. In that sense, it succeeds. But, if you have any conceptual problems with base-game ER (too projectile heavy, open world too empty, weapon art spam) – here’s to more of the same.

Encounters

Regular enemies are a more consistent threat. A gripe I have with base-game ER is that ‘Godrick Soldier’ type foes do not have enough dmg/hp, you can quite easily charge headlong into groups of 3-4. Messmer’s rank and file troops have the ‘DS1 hollow’ feel; where even basic enemies will deal enough damage to be worth your respect.

There is also more emphasis on ‘combat problems’ where enemy and environment interacts; from the Forge-Golems that act as walking obstacles in narrow halls, to the Belurat Priests who provide support fire from the roofs. IMO, non-boss encounters can be very compelling and memorable (see. Sens Fortress) and preferable to having a throwaway boss (ER dragons, cave bosses etc.). Which leads to…

Ruined Forges and Catacombs

ER would have benefited from fewer, more fleshed out side dungeons. As it turns out, SotE delivers on that. Catacombs are extensive, each with its own environmental condition. Ruined Forges are almost pure-puzzle areas, with no end boss.

Some may call it a gimmick, but I like that side-dungeons present a different pace/challenge type – they’re not just tiny-underbaked versions of regular story dungeons. There is an understanding that the compelling part of a Ruined Forge *is* the puzzle element – there's no obligation to put an end boss if you don't need one.

As a sidenote, I haven’t looked at how the PvP scene is shaping out, *BUT* I need to see fight clubs in Ruined Forges.

Overall, biggest strength of SotE is the quality of the dungeons

Player NPC type battles are much better. They now incorporate jumps to avoid and punish your attacks etc.

Furnace Golems are... eh? its fine to fight once.

The World

My biggest gripe with ER as a whole is that it has many elements that make a better ‘play it once’ game, but also worse for subsequent runs. If you didn’t like how Giant’s Mountaintops had vast (albeit very scenic) sections with no gameplay, the Shadow Lands are just more of that, while also much more vertical than any previous map.

These are the most striking vistas in ER, and I dread having to climb Jagged Peak ever again…

SotE also includes elements that really encourage ‘map-scraping’ for its own sake; Scadutree Fragments, whole areas locked behind tiny ravines, arbitrary treasure placement. The open-world feels exhausting. Then, there is the double down on questionable concepts...

rare consumables/materials

rare drop-only equipment

weapons dropping from 1 *very-specific* enemy as opposed to anything that wields it (see. Black Knight weapons)

Treasure placement/choice is just strange. Many new weapons/spells are just lying on random corpses, meanwhile there's so many treasure chests that contain things like currency runes and smithing stones.

New Weapons, Spells, Ashes of War

The new weapon classes are all winners to me, they are compelling on the moveset level, not just numbers and AoW options. The main issue now, is that many old weapons feel only relevant due to numbers. For example: I beat the evergoal NPC’s by mashing with a Great-hammer. Effective? Sure, but I dislike how even large weapons are fast in absolute terms. Outside of colossal and polearm types, weapons are very mash-y (TBF this is an ER problem, not SotE specific). The throwing variants of weapons are a nice surprise (ranged attack really spices up the default axe moveset). Main problem? The thrown versions are banned from using many AoW, so the already limited choice is even smaller.

New spell are in an odd place - being very cool but also likely bad. It is nice to see ‘high-end’ spells (Incants especially) that are appropriately interesting and finally make use of ER’s inflated stats (eg. Minor Erdtree). Caster equipment in ER is *very plain*, and SotE (finally) adds a universal sorc-incant staff (which should have existed in the base-game anyway). Besides that, the new seals are nothing to write home about.

New ashes are solid all around, only gripe would be that many (Wing Stance etc.) are just ultra-specific to a particular weapon class. Personally, very happy with ‘We have Death’s Poker at home’ and Crucible Wings.

Lore

Will only briefly touch lore, as there’s just *so much* to say that it deserves a separate entry. Ill sum it with the following.

Main plot doesn't have an interesting payoff (also fucks with source material in weird ways)

Ending is bad (very funny)

Marika-Messmer get fleshed out as people. But doesn't really explore the how of Marika's ascension or Messmer's curse to any degree Im happy with.

Dragon plot ties up surprisingly neatly, and very directly too. Unusual by FROM standards.

Finger lore really delivered - answers some questions, poses deeper more interesting ones.

Crucible(s) gets fleshed out, but is (somehow) even less coherent now.

[thecraftyninjacat]

Theory on the Fourth Hatchetfield Musical!

Since we already know that Ms. Holloway is going to be the focus of the next Hatchetfield musical, here are my thoughts on what's going to go down!

Focus on Nibbly (themes of gluttony, the food industry etc.)

A restaurant plays a major role, or is at least a major setting. (maybe Pizza Pete's or Pasquali's if we're going for already existing location)

This one's a REACH but maaaybe Travis Coulson will be an important character? Idk the one time he's mentioned in NPMD there are references to starving to death and that would tie into the whole food theme...

(some of my thoughts were fed by this crack theory and this post)

anyway this is very underbaked bc i haven't watched nightmare time in full, but tis my take :)

[beesmygod]

JJBA PART 5, VENTO AUREO IS THE UNDERBAKED MESS I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT FIXING...PART 2

FIX 2: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A PROBLEM LIKE GIORNO?

thats the homo photo of my dad

answer: i dont know.

the unfortunate and honest to god truth of the matter is that the protagonist of JJBA part 5, giorno giovanna, fucking sucks.

what if that little shithead from the twilight zone episode "it's a good life" was gay and watched "goodfellas". you might think "wow that sounds great" but, well, somehow it's not.

it is months later and i have been struggling with writing this for a bazillion reasons: i got sick, real life events occurred, i had to work on comic, i died, etc. but the most strenuous reason of all in the end was facing the impenetrable, tangled, and deeply complicated gordian knot that is the little ladybug loving bitch named giorno and not knowing where the fuck to even begin.

i had to think long and hard about how to approach the problem of "giorno giovanna". he is like a diamond of sucking ass: multi-faceted and beautiful in his perfection but is, ultimately, just a stupid fucking rock from the dirt. he completely lacks the innate charisma and personality inherent in previous jojo protagonists AND antagonists; despite having both the joestar AND brando gene pools to pull from, he manages to snag a net total of 0 personality traits. this problem is multiplied 100 fold once he starts actually doing things to move the plot along and the universe repeatedly bends itself like a pretzel in order to gift him undeserved and unrewarding (to us, the audience) win after win after win.

his theme goes hard as hell tho

if you were to ask me what is wrong with giorno, i would have no problem making a long and detailed list of why i want to slap the little cinnamon rolls of his head. i have no idea how to organize that list into a more coherent form of criticism that points at the overarching structural weakness of part 5. part 5 really, really wants you to like and root for giorno. it hinges on it. his victories are explicitly supposed to be emotionally and morally gratifying. they are instead trite and annoying.

for years, YEARS, my only experience with the entirety of part 5 outside of infamous panels and the most basic information about the story, was this incredible, evergreen and laser targeted tweet:

i thought this was a funny shit post. all i knew giorno had some kind of "life creation" power. what i didnt know was:

giorno says this exact line and then turns cars into frogs so that they (the bad guys) cant catch them (they do catch them)

giorno's power IS fucking stupid

i fucking hate him

he should stop using it

abbacchio was right. he was right about everything

how DO you talk about giorno? giorno's blandness permeates any situation he has the misfortune of attending and the parts of the narrative where he's missing for one reason or another are significantly improved by his absence. in comparison with the deuteragonists (bruno bucciarati) and tritagonists (the members of bruno's squad in the mafia family passione), he has all the flavor of a communion wafer. his character arc is non-existent. emotionally, he might as well have just gone to the store and back by the end of the story.

and, look, araki likes to play fast and loose with how powerful a stand is or what its abilities are. im not here to measure power levels or fucking whatever stupid shit people get up to. the more wild and insane he gets with his incredibly "unique" ""understanding"" of science and geometry, i'm 99% on board for. but giorno's stand, gold experience, is whatever the narrative needs it to be at any given time with no consistency. it's OP as hell long before he gets the 11th hour power boost; his stand has the extra trans-dimensional ability to remove any tension from a fight scene. through this, gold requiem can destroy the psyche of the audience, truly making it the most powerful stand of all time.

people used to love to bitch about not understanding how the villain's stand works in this part, but if anyone tells you they understand what the fuck THIS means they're lying to you.

anyway, there is only one solution i can think of when it comes to how to approach this: assess the major story beats in order. i think jumping around in the progression of events to highlight individual flaws in the character will not adequately impart the suffering one feels as an audience member while the narrative yo-yos between being rollicking good fun and being at the mercy of the little 15 year old twink with god mode on.

and so, having made it past koichi's tiny ass role (and his tiny ass) in the story and addressing how we can proceed, we can cover bruno (a genuinely wonderful character), polpo, and the wasted character building opportunity of the piss drinking scene, which vexes and infuriates me to this day. [thinking about the piss scene and getting mad again] ooooh!!!!

[taylortruther]

idk if this is controversial but i’ve seen people say lover and ttpd are similar in being unedited/too long/etc but to me the highs of lover are very high—there’s nothing i would change—and the lows are songs i would entirely scrap. whereas with ttpd i feel like each individual song was underbaked in itself—i don’t think i could improve the album (to my personal taste) by cutting or rearranging songs, it’s more like i feel like the good songs are almost there but need a few more passes

lover feels a bit more polished/edited, and more experimental, so maybe it feels unfocused to some. ttpd feels very focused and determined, it's just rawer. i don't think i'd call it underbaked, necessarily, but i think we mean the same thing when i say it could've used editing!

personally, my main issue with ttpd is that it meanders and the overwrought quill-y lyrics get grating as a result. however, she did say in her fortnight explanation that she wanted it to be an album of melodramatic poetry. so like, she hit that on the nose for sure.

[thebestoftragedy]

what are some books you liked and disliked so far this year?

So I read a lot (so far this year: 123 books finished, mostly novels), so I have a lot of books I liked and disliked. Let's call this my almost-mid-year year-in-books review. it's long. sorry (?)

5/5 star type books:

2666 by Roberto Bolaño - technically a reread (I read this for undergrad 10+ years ago). Really really good expansive weird dark book. A 'reading experience'. It's about knowledge and power and misogyny and history and academia and murder and death and what it means to have a legacy, and it's also pretty funny.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - It's Jane Eyre! Not a reread but I was basically familiar with the plot due to basic cultural osmosis (I haven't seen any adaptations of it unless you count gifs on tumblr dot com). Good and fun. Romantic. All the haters are wrong.

4/5 stars, really good but maybe I had some reservations or it just didn't 'hit' the way I wanted:

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin - funny, weird, blah ending

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith - good but tbh I like the movie better

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather - good!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick - weird! fun.

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham - fast fun gloomy

White Tears by Hari Kunzru - some awkward setup and bad pacing but a killer ending. stealth horror novel

The White Album/Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion - it's joan didion

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers - quiet people leading lives of quiet desperation, etc.

Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui - I read the whole manga series, I loved the first few volumes, hated most of the rest of the series, and then felt neutrally towards the last one or two volumes.

Looking Glass War, A Small Town in Germany, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré - slowly working through all of his books, so far they're all worth reading but I'm not sure I'd be able to 'rank' any particularly far or below the others

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett - some cringey stuff but a good fun weird sci fi/fantasy murder mystery. it's gonna be a series (maybe just a trilogy?) so I'll read the rest also.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon - killer killer first 60% and then the last 40% was like whatever.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - so it took me until page, like, 250 to really get into this, which I can't really forgive. overall I think this is a very good book that mostly justifies its weird formatting/premises/characters, but I would say it does not change my vague impression of the author as someone who fundamentally lacks empathy with women. there are a few chapters of this book (where a 'chapter' can easily be novella-length) that I think are pretty unconscionable. but it's still well done, totally unique, and effective at what it sets out to do. oh also the author gets the DEFCON system wrong and that's a pet peeve of mine. so.

A lot of the Bad books I read were just mediocre romance type novels and not super worth breaking down.

Notably Disappointing/Bad Books, 2/5 stars (where I pretty much hate them or think there's almost nothing worth reading there, but I at least got Something positive out of the experience):

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - this is a terrible bad stupid book I would have been embarrassed to have written as a 15 year old. but it had a few individual funny scenes/lines so it wasn't totally miserable to read.

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - almost incomprehensible sequel to The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I liked ok/thought was interesting but underbaked. I'll try the third book, but I'm bailing if it's not immediately interesting to me because this was a total slog.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn - I think this got that second star on the merits of basically one good blowjob joke. going in I thought this was going to be more of a serious literary novel and not what it is, which is basically yaoi for twentysomething women who are really into song of achilles or whatever.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata - I got absolutely nothing out of this. Sorry Women

Murder Road by Simone St. James - wouldn't have been notable except that I used to enjoy this author a lot (when she wrote historical mysteries) and haven't liked her contemporary/more modern stuff as much, and then this was a new low. dull clumsy boring novel.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - this got a huuuuuuuge insane marketing push this year and I think has already been optioned for TV (this will be a recurring theme in this list). utter mess of a novel, combines secxually explicit self-insert RPF, wallowing about Being The Child Of An Immigrant, wallowing about Accidentally Doing Microaggressions Against A Coworker, wallowing in general, bad sci-fi, actually pretty good fish-out-of-water time travel comedy, and just general misery for me, personally, the reader. massive massive disappointment, actively makes me angry it was published. did I mention there's a scene of the narrator, who is very clearly the author, getting eaten out by this guy:

anyway. that happens.

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck - a few tumblr mutuals loved this, I found the writing style distracting and inapt. it's supposed to be a cerebral type horror, but I couldn't get into it because the aw-shucks narrative voice keeps anything horrifying at a pretty far remove. also you could tell the author Really wanted to show off the Research he did, or like prove to you the reader how smart he is, and I dislike that sort of thing intensely when it's not pulled off well.

The 1 star zone, or: the abyss gazes also:

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas - this is a super-well-known, super-well-loved, often listed as one of the best-of-all-time romance novels, and I just fucking hated every second of it. awful characters, awful plot, I wanted everyone to explode in an iron foundry accident (this happened in a different novel by the author, which also sucked).

Penance by Eliza Clarke - it's a fake true crime novel, very heavily based on a real crime, and it just did not justify its existence in any way. I got Nothing out of it and enjoyed none of it and it had no redeeming qualities for me. moderately offensive for it to exist at all, which I could more or less forgive if it were very good, but it's not.

Disfigured: On Fairytales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc - bad tumblr posts pretending to be an academic type exploration of disability in fairytales, except you can tell the author has only read like 2 essays on the subject (because she only every references 2 other writers) and then watched some disney movies (but not even all of them). really lazy, bad-faith, deeply anti-intellectual. I spent my entire time reading this sending angry messages to @ilovemymutedcalico8487 about how wrong it is and how much it sucks.

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen - I broke my rule and read a book with the word 'sapphic' in the goodreads description. really inept gothic, really clumsy 2014 tumblr SJW stuff wedged into a story that takes place in midcentury the netherlands, just bad.

Margo's Got Money Trouble by Rufi Thorpe whose name I will NOT mistype as Rupi Kaur even though she might as fucking well be - absolute garbage shit idiot trash for garbage shit idiots. actively loathsome and evil book. soon to be adapted as a tv series starring (and I'm refusing to google to double check this, so I could be completely misremembering, but this this does not deserve care or accuracy) elle fanning and nicole kidman. just don't.

congrats on reading. as a reward, you should go read a book that's good.

[baldursyourgate]

How do you think you’d rank the ‘evil’ companion paths (Ascended Astarion, Shar Shadowheart, Vlaakith Lae’zel, God-Gale, Minthara in general since she doesn’t really have a good path) I’ve been trying to decide which might be worth playing through, particularly in a romance sense, and which aren’t since some seem underbaked.

Honestly, in terms of worth playing through, I think it'd come down to your personal preference. What about these characters that appeal the most to you?

In terms of amount of content, Astarion seems to have the most of it, ascended or otherwise.

As for Minthara, I think she has the least amount of content out of all companions you've listed. She only has one animated romance scene that happens at the celebration party after slaughtering the grove. However, if you enjoy a romantic relationship with an unapologetically evil character with undying loyalty, I'd say go for Minthara. You want to conquer the world? That's your woman.

She's also the only drow in the party, so learning about drow culture & her upbringing in Menzoberranzan etc. is pretty interesting. Even though she isn't an origin character, she's still got a solid backstory, and direct involvement with the cult of the Absolute and one of the dead three. Taking down the cult means a lot to her. As an oath of vengeance paladin, revenge is also a part of her romance. Bring her to kill a certain someone and she'd tell you the drow word for 'deep, unselfish love'. How someone who grew up in the backstabbing, brutal culture of Underdark drow could find that kind of love is beautiful to see.

I could go on and on about her... I have nearly 3000 posts on this blog and probably 2k of them are about Minthara 💀.

Despite her lack of content, I still like her very much, that's why, like I've mentioned before, it all comes down to personal preference.

I don't know much about the other companions other than Minthara, unfortunately, so I can't give you an accurate ranking. I usually persuade the companions to turn away from their god (or godhood in case of Gale so...).

If anyone reading this post wants to share their insights, feel free to do so in the replies or reblog :)

[doonarose]

What is 'Crashing' about?

Crashing is a 3400 word framework that I haven't look at in a month. I wrote it as some sort of therapy after I hit a kangaroo in my brand new car. It would be a longer multi-chapter human AU fic (something I've never done) in which Crowley and Aziraphale meet on a dark rainy night after Crowley swerves to try to avoid hitting a deer and crashes into Az. They're both fine, cars are a bit fucked, deer is injured and Crowley basically commits to doing everything possible to nurse it back to life, including waking up the local vet in the middle of the night and throwing money at surgery.

Az knows the vet because has has a hobby farm where he rescues and rehabs injured and runty goats.

Both cars are too fucked to drive (the Bentley only makes it to the vet because Crowley wills it to (not really, he's human remember, but the axle is bent and so they are stuck)) and it's like 2am so Crowley ends up back at Aziraphale's little cottage/farm and they fuck. That feels like it comes out of no where but adrenaline, etc., and right before the vet calls to say the deer's on the mend which makes Crowley very happy.

Anyway... that's basically meant to be a one night stand except their lives kind of intertwine because of course Aziraphale takes on the deer rehab and Crowley's grown attached. And also Crowley's realized Aziraphale's got no money and now a totally fucked up car, but also doesn't want any charity.

Did I mention Crowley works in some sort of gross property finance roll and that his company is trying to buy out Aziraphale's hobby farm to build a highway or something. And basically forces that through... even though for a very long time (And several more unavoidable, definitely the last time, i'm just here to see the deer, one night stands) Aziraphale doesn't know Crowley's the one responsible for basically kicking him out of his home.

But then Crowley only works for the bank because it gives him the kind of power and income to do some very quiet anonymous good. Which then sees him donate substantially to the goat rescue thing. So Aziraphale will be fine, but has still lost his home.

So then the bad guy Crowley stuff comes out and Aziraphale rather hates him for it. And then eventually the penny drops that Crowley's also the good guy. And this is all very underbaked but here have a bit of the first meeting:

“Fucking fuckity fuck.”

“Are you quite alright?” Aziraphale calls as his sodden shoes slip in the mud.

The stranger whirls around like he’d thought he was alone. “Of course I’m alright. How fucking close did you need to get up my arse?”

Aziraphale’s taken aback. Hadn’t this gentleman been the one who braked, suddenly, on a narrow, dark, wet laneway, and caused the accident? Wasn’t he lucky that Aziraphale was quick-witted enough to swerve? Not that propriety would allow him to point any of that out. “Are you alright, though? No damage?”

That seems to take some of the wind out of the man’s sails. “’m fine, just… FUCK.”

It isn’t the most impressive vocabulary. “Perhaps we can exchange details and – ”

He’s waved off with a dismissive hand and the man disappears around the back of his car (which is facing forward) and into the dense trees beside the road. Aziraphale tries to scurry after him but a particularly sharp press of wind pushes him back.

“Excuse me,” he presses. “But we’ve been in an accident and I will need – “

The man appears, suddenly close to him, imposing but only to raise a finger to his lips and very loudly shush him. Then he stalks off in parallel with the road, back towards the ditch harbouring Aziraphale’s car.

Aziraphale watches him, pause and look around. “If you could perhaps – ” He’s shushed again. “Really, it’s pouring rain and – ” Again, the loud shushing. “Legally you are req – ”

“Shut it.” The spectre, barely more than a silhouette ghost, takes a sharp right and heads into the tree further.

[totentnz]

V, #14 😈

Dark OC Asks

14. What is your OC's "villain song"?

now there is at least two answers for this, i have many many thoughts on the topics and i hope i can get em all out lmao

IM BETTER

i LOVE a good joker arc, some defining moment in a characters life that just breaks or changes them in some way, this doesn't fully happen for v but she stands on the precipice plenty of times.

namely the vdb debacle and when she gains control of the blackwall via songbird. (there might be more but it's been a minute since i properly played)

now what do these two instances have in common? netrunning/ hacking. this song (and others like it) always get me thinking about v getting lost in the power she holds with her quickhacks.

a cyberdeck wasn't even her first choice, she wanted berserk in combination with gorilla arms but viktor refuses to install them for her. she could go to a different ripper to get them obviously but he's the only doc she trusts and who won't rat her out to the authorities for having cracked soft. (this explanation is a bit underbaked i will admit) she also knows he's lowkey right, she cannot be trusted with that kind of chrome.

now one could argue that being able to kill people via command does more damage than a pissed off ape but maybe she can control herself better than vik gives her credit for. or maybe he's not too familiar with netrunning/ hacking.

there is also the aspect of v knowing exactly what happens when she uses a hack, she wrote the code herself. (i'm not saying she invented them but they are her own versions, either written from scratch or modified some way)

my favourite example for this is the suicide quickhack: v takes control of the target for a few moments, she has to raise the gun, she has to pull the trigger, she has to leave the person's consciousness before they die but not too early or they will flinch away at the last moment. she doesn't die if she stays too long but the repercussions can be dire anyway: she passes out, there is psychological damage etc. if the target is right and she executes it well it can be pretty fun though, sort of like playing russian roulette but without dying.

but to get back on topic: i LOVE the mental image of her just standing in the middle of a bunch of enemies, activating overclock to wreak havoc on them AND herself.

i also enjoy copy-paste - she makes herself an easy target for another runner just to pull this out of her sleeve and fuck them over so much more, she simply IS better.

this mindset is also reflected in her aversion to chrome, she doesn't need it or rather she doesn't want it. she is better than them, she is built different. now that is simply not true, she can tell herself that lie as often as she likes but she needs cyberware to keep up. (i actually have a background story for this, maybe i will even write it one day)

so she slowly begins to betray herself: she replaces her glass eye with kiroshis, she installs extra ram, she gets the reinforced tendons. these changes come slowly and her body is still mostly ganic by the end of the game but in quiet moments she hates herself for caving in and for enjoying it.

ultimately: power corrupts, nobody is immune to that.

EAT THE CHILDREN

any otep song tbh, since it's the band i chose to use for rotten (her band) and v turns into the worst version of herself when she's on stage. it's one of the reasons she decided to end the band in the first place, though everyone involved just thinks she was being asshole (they ain't wrong)

her whole band era was a double edged sword, on one hand she finally had a voice and was adored by some but at the same time she had never been more miserable. their songs are filled with her traumas and that puts her back into a powerless position, add the adrenaline of being on stage and you get a truly volatile concoction.