#some of the plot streamlining made a lot of sense. making everything in the house feel unreal was a great choice

[meticulousfragments]

I don’t know if anyone else who follows me has both read the book and seen the movie Poor Things

But I read it this week and watched the movie last night and I feel like I need to talk about it with someone because it’s still rattling around in my head

[kuiperblog]

Deathloop sure is a video game

Every October, there's pop-up entertainment venues like "haunted houses" (or other haunted attractions) that attempt to artificially recreate the motifs common in horror movies, complete with live actors who are dressed as vampires or zombies or serial killers or whatever who leap out and scare the guests who squeal in delight, if only because it gives them an excuse to tightly cling to their partner.  It's more exciting than going to a horror movie, because it's a more tactile experience, so you're mostly just there to experience the various horror motifs without being concerned about a plot.

The thing is, there are actual horror movies that are set in haunted attractions.  And while this does make for some fun early reveals (like when the teenagers laugh at the knife-wielding man who they assume is an actor and part of the attraction, only to realize that he's actually a homicidal madman), the very idea of a horror movie set in a haunted house kind of feels like cheating.  Haunted attractions are, in a way, a simulacrum of a horror movie, which I suppose is an odd thing to say considering that haunted attractions are real and the events in horror movies are not, but I think that is the main level on which most haunted attractions are designed: a haunted attraction is a "horror movie IRL," so to then make that the setting of your horror movie “horror movie IRL but in a movie” is like a simulacrum of a simulacrum.  It’s shortcutting past the part where you would ordinarily come up with some kind of lore-based explanation for why the teenagers are hanging out in a creepy house and why there’s a demented killer or vampires or whatever who are trying to kill them.

I sort of feel this way about one of the first levels I played in Deathloop, which is a video game both in medium and form. It's a bit like Dishonored (one of Arkane's earlier titles) in the sense that the core objectives boil down to identifying an assassination target, and hunting them down in their mansion or laboratory or whatever.  The first target I assassinated was a fellow by the name of Charlie Montague, who is obsessed with games, and has populated a section of the world where you can speed-run an obstacle course to be rewarded with a gun, because this is a first-person shooter video game that is set on murder island, where everyone's favorite hobby is killing each other because they’re in a timeloop where everyone will revive the next day.  However, when I found Charlie Montague, he was in the middle of a LARP session.  This is literally how the game describes it: Charlie is hosting a game where he invites guests to participate in a game somewhat akin to a murder mystery, or maybe more like Among Us. When I arrived, Charlie announced over the loudspeaker to all of his guests that the killer monster (me) had arrived, and the objective was now for them to hunt me down.  (I, for my part, did my best to avoid the guests, but I had to gun down the entire party before finally getting to Charlie at the top floor.)

So, this is a video game level that felt very much like a video game level.  Which I don't really mean as a knock against it -- it was a fun environment, I had fun hunting down the game designer Charlie Montague and murdering his LARPing buddies, and the environment was set up in a way that made the confrontation with Charlie himself interesting, since Charlie possesses the blink power that lets him teleport across gaps and between floors.  But it kind of feels like cheating to have a video game level where the setting premise is, as explained by the game's fiction, literally a game created by a game designer (as opposed to trying to sell you on the idea that the level you're traipsing through is just some rich dude's mansion, or a military base, or whatever).  It is the video game equivalent of setting your horror movie in a haunted house attraction.

As an Arkane Studios fan (who started with 2006's Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and counts Dishonored among my personal top 10 games of all time), I quite enjoyed Deathloop.  But it is by far the most video game video game that they've ever released.

Games like Dishonored and Prey (2017) exist in what is sometimes described as the "immersive sim" genre, where there's a big emphasis on player choice and giving the players a bunch of tools to approach objectives without giving them a prescribed route through the game.  Dishonored pushes you in the direction of being stealthy and quiet (with a "chaos" system that causes the world to become more desolate if you kill too many enemies in each level), but there are many routes through the levels -- and sometimes, you'll find your way to an objective through what feels like it isn't a prescribed "route" at all. The objectives are often quite simple -- "infiltrate, kill a dude, exfiltrate" -- but a level that could be completed in just a few minutes might take an hour to complete the first time you play it as you spend time scoping out the target, gradually getting a feel for the environment and learning which parts of the level have lots of enemies and which parts are safe and easy to stealth your way through.

The immersive sim's emphasis on carving your own way through levels leads to a phenomenon where a lot of the progression that you make is "meta" progression that exists entirely outside of your avatar -- you might spend an hour prowling around a level, and your character hasn't gotten any stronger (apart from maybe finding a few optional collectibles), but you as a player have "leveled up" to the point that you now know the level like the back of your hand, which is how you have people who spend hours exploring a level in Hitman so that they can do a perfect 5-minute speedrun of that level.

Sometimes, this sense of "meta-progression" is further emphasized by making some of the collectibles information that you as a player can store.  I remember a part in Dishonored where I found a locked safe, and I had to root around the game environment and find the code to the safe before I could come back and get the goodie inside.  But if I wanted to, I could write that number down so that on any subsequent playthrough, I could just go right to the safe and open it right away -- which feels a bit like cheating, but it's no less cheating than sprinting through a specific route through a level because I know from previous playthroughs that the path I'm taking has no guards.

Deathloop isn't quite like that: the game is filled with combinations and whatnot (in one "puzzle" I had to insert specifically-labeled tapes into a machine in a specific order), but all of these are generated randomly: you can't take that information with you across playthroughs, and you can't look the number up in a walkthrough like some older immersive sims would let you do. But Deathloop takes this meta progression and makes it actual progression: it's a time-loop story, and your character (Colt) remembers everything that he encounters across playthrough, so when you find the combination to a door, Colt will make a mental note of it (no need to bust out your pen and paper), and the next time you come to a locked door that requires that combination, you don't even have to punch in the numbers: just hold the triangle button on your Playstation controller and Colt will automatically punch in the numbers that he learned during an earlier loop.

Deathloop is full of little things like this that, on first glance, almost just feel like QoL improvements.  But there's something that feels very different about how things are done in Deathloop: in gameplay terms, it basically boils down to, "Go to this place and press square to read the password, then go to this other place and unlock the door," which is really not that different from "go to this place and press square to pick up the key, then go to this other place to unlock the door."  The "passwords" that exist throughout this game are basically just keys that Colt can store in his brain and take with him whenever you advance to the next loop.

And to be clear, that's not necessarily a *bad* thing.  In fact, immersive sims are kind of a niche genre that don't have a very big audience, so anything that helps streamline and make it more like, well, what you'd expect from a "video game," is probably going to make the game accessible to a lot more people.  And they streamline a *lot* in this game.  The game is all about planning the "perfect loop" where you manage to kill the 8 big baddies in a single day, and everything before that point is just preparing for that final loop.  Even though that seems like an abstract thing that might require you to hold a bunch of disparate information in your head, the game is actually *really* good at making it so that Colt is already mentally mapping out the game plan as you go, to the point where you can just go into the quest book, select a thread, and then just follow the waypoints.  Colt is planning for the "perfect loop" and collecting all the information he needs (including passwords, and memorizing information about how to get certain bosses to go to certain areas where they'll be vulnerable), and Colt is so good at remembering these things that the player never has to: you can play the entire game from start to finish just by traveling from waypoint to waypoint and stealthing or shooting your way past anything that stands in your way.

That is, of course, incredibly reductive.  The process of getting from point A to point B in Deathloop is fun for the same reason that getting from point A to point B is fun in any other game.  The guns feel good to shoot, the levels are interesting to navigate, and the game lets you earn the ability to take certain pieces of gear with you between loops so it always feels like there's forward progression.  But I think that there's a critical thing that's missing:

Immersive sims aren't just about getting from point A to point B.  Before you can get to point B, you have to discover where point B is.  *Where* in this mansion is the assassination target?  Better spend some time skulking around and listening to his staff gossip about his daily habits so you know which parts of the mansion he's likely to appear in.  Oh wait, I don't want to just get in the same room with this guy, I want to get myself in the same room with him *when he's not surrounded by his guards*.  How do I do that?  Better do some more snooping.  And in a sense, Deathloop *sort* of does this.  Before you can follow the waypoint objective marker to your target, you have to find out where they are.  But the "find out where they are" is often, "follow this *other* waypoint objective marker to find the slip of paper that tells you where they're going to be, at which point you can follow the waypoint objective marker to their exact location!"

And to be fair to Deathloop, it's not *all* like that.  There are some times where the game sort of just points you in the right direction and leaves you to figure it out, like one dude who has hosted a masquerade party where he and his guests are all wearing the same masks, and so you have to figure out a way to ferret him out.  (Or you can just murder everyone at the party to figure it out by process of elimination -- which is actually much easier said than done, because this is murder island and everybody is packing heat, and this is an exclusive party so his guests are the type of people who carry around heavy weapons.)

Another way that Deathloop takes the "meta progression" inherent to immersive sims and makes it explicit in-game progression is by having a time loop where you can encounter and kill the same targets over and over again.  That's the kind of thing that tends to happen in immersive sims across multiple playthroughs -- Hitman doesn't *require* you to play each level multiple times, but you generally want to, because each level is filled with tons of different routes to explore and different ways to deal with each of the targets.  But that's all on the player: it's not as if in the fiction of the Hitman universe, Agent 47 is repeatedly murdering a bunch of people who magically revive so that he can kill them again, whereas in Deathloop, that is very explicitly what is happening.

The thing is, because Deathloop is kind of designed with the assumption that you'll kill each target multiple times, the first time you encounter them and blow their head off, it doesn't feel like the grand emotional climax.  In fact, in a way, it feels like the *start* of a relationship.  "Goodbye, Charlie Montague.  I hardly knew ye.  But I'm sure I'll know you better by the third time I'm leaving your LARPing session with that slab upgrade you're carrying."  I feel like that robs the kills of some of their impact, and maybe that's just inherent to what kind of game this is: in Dishonored, you feel as though over the course of a level, you get to know your target as you snoop through their quarters, overhear what their staff have to say about them, read the journals of their rivals while looking for possible weaknesses, and so on.  Because it's a stealth game, it makes sense to hide in the background and learn about their life.  Stalking a character through a level while waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike can actually feel incredibly intimate, because as  the eponymous Visible Man in Chuck Klosterman’s novel says, to truly know who someone is, you have to see them when they’re alone at home; their behavior anywhere else is just a performance.

But when I'm chasing down Charlie Montague with an SMG in one hand and a pistol in the other, the only thing I really know about him is what he's announcing over the loudspeaker.  (I don't really remember exactly what he said, but the subtext is that he's mentally unstable, and he's obsessed with games.)  And even though Charlie Montague was shouting at me what kind of person he said, I feel like I never really got to *know* him like I got to know some targets in Dishonored.  In fact, the moments when I got to know Charlie best weren't when he was yelling at my over the loudspeaker as I ran through his level as Shooty McFPS guy, but the moments when I got to read his notes or chat correspondence (which is *entirely optional*, because even if I don't learn the relevant facts from Charlie Montague's notes, Cole will -- and he'll verbally narrate the cliffsnotes version of them as I'm headed to the next objective)

Despite feeling like a clear descendant of Arkane’s earlier titles, Deathloop feels neither "immersive" nor "sim."  It's constantly doing things that remind me that I'm playing a video game -- which, to be clear, is not a bad thing!  It’s fun to be Shooty McFPS guy without worrying about hiding guards bodies or making noise. More than any other Arkane Studios game, it does everything it can to minimize player frustration, whether that means feeling lost, or feeling like you're not making forward progress, or feeling like your progress is being gated by a huge spike in difficulty.

Dishonored is a game that rewards patience.  This is one of my favorite things about it, but the fact that it rewards patience so generously means that it also *asks* patience of the player in order to get its best moments, which means that some players will never experience them.  Deathloop asks very little from the player.  Deathloop is a very "even" and "smooth" experience, but that's both for better and for worse.  The lows aren't as low, but the highs aren't nearly as high. Deathloop is a good game.  And it will probably be a "good game" to a greater number of people than Arkane's previous titles, but it didn’t have nearly the same impact on me.

Anyway, more than anything, my time with Deathloop has convinced that I should go back and play Prey (2017).

[emblemxeno]

Triangle Strategy Thoughts #1

I’m really excited about this game so I wanted to write down my thoughts on plot, characters, gameplay, etc. for the demo. I’ll probably continue it when the full game comes out lol.

Spoilers for anyone interested in it. I’ll put everything under the cut.

Chapter 1

-Just from the title screen alone, the game is fucking gorgeous and the music is incredible.

-The backstory conflict is already believable and engaging. Resource disputes is a common topic in fantasy warfare, but that’s because it makes so much sense to fight over it. Very nice.

-Gameplay is easy to grasp immediately, though I imagine the isometric view might cause some newer players some confusion. Positioning is as key as they say, as back attacks let you do big damage, and you get a follow up if you attack when there’s an ally on the opposite side of the enemy.

-Side Stories to get extra information are a great way to include nitty gritty details without derailing the main story, if the player just wants to get on with it.

-Political marriage between Frederica and Serenoa. However, Symon (Serenoa’s father) suspects that because House Wolffort is just a bannerman house and Frederica is a Rosellan (which, as far as we know, are people with rose colored hair and most likely a race that’s discriminated against), that the marriage is deliberately being made between lower powers of the nations, so if Glenbrook and Aesfrost were to war, there’d be little collateral with the newlyweds to deal with. Frederica is very shaken up about this. Very interesting.

Chapter 2

-There are notes scattered throughout towns when you explore, and they build the world without overloading the main story with text dumps from characters. You can read or ignore them if you like, and the entire thing is very streamlined.

-Town exploration in general is very neat. No voiced dialogue, so you’ll have to pay closer attention, but movement is fast and sharp, and the NPCs feel more like actual people rather than ‘History Notes in Human Form’.

-Family drama in the Glenbrook Royal Family. Regna seems to be kind of a distant father, and a king who only pleases others (dignitaries and the sort) to keep his influence. At least that’s what Roland thinks. Roland and Frani butt heads a lot, and Cordelia seems to be stuck in the middle sometimes.

-Dragan getting drunk is something I never knew I needed, I love this man.

-Erika and Thalas are evil children. Their smug auras mock me.

Chapter 3

-Even from just the demo, the class promotions look fucking gorgeous, jesus christ.

-The Scales of Conviction and the Persuasion phase are pretty neat. The decisions you make rely on dialogue choices when you talk to characters to convince them. Getting extra knowledge from talking to NPCs during exploration and strengthening Serenoa’s convictions may unlock new choices you wouldn’t get otherwise. I’m eager to see where this goes. As for the first big choice, I decided to go to Aesfrost, and I was successful in doing so (in a 5-2 vote).

-OH SHIT Cordelia accused Frani of not loving their brother (Roland). I love family drama. I think he does care, he’s just battling with personal feelings vs. royal responsibility. But we’ll see how it turns out eventually.

-Gustadolph and Aesfrost give MAJOR Ladlegard and Empire vibes, what with it prizing freedom above all else. If people show aptitude and desire, they are given equal opportunity to go into any field they please, with no regard to background, gender, or social status. Naturally, I’m suspicious of nations like this, but I’ll keep my mind open.

-Serenoa, while talking to Frederica during exploration, said freedom and meritocracy don’t mix easily. Which is basically what I believe. Having the freedom of opportunity means nothing when you’re not guaranteed the necessities of life. Which is why Aesfrost is suffering from poverty despite having so many opportunities.

-I love all the characters in my party so far. They all have a use and I like that.

Conclusion

Very, very excited for the full game to release. Everything has been promising, and I can’t wait to see how it develops further.

[thetypedwriter]

Gideon the Ninth Book Review

Gideon the Ninth Book Review by Tamsyn Muir 

It would be only a slight hyperbole to say that a million people have either recommended this book to me or have told me to read it. I’ve heard for years now that this book is incredible and extremely well written and beloved by many. So, if that’s the case why did I wait so long to read it?

I don’t have a good answer. Sometimes a book is on your radar, but either the time isn’t right, other books take priority, or in my case, it’s adult fiction and I held slight trepidation that I wouldn’t love it as much as everyone else in the world seemed to. 

Thank goodness, that didn’t end up being the case and I’ll get into why in a moment. 

First, Gideon the Ninth has the most amazing descriptive sentence belonging on any front cover of any book ever. 

I shall put it here for prosperity and awe: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” -Charles Stross. 

Now, I don’t know who you are Mr. Stross, but that has to be the best sentence written in the English language since its conception. If that isn’t enough intrigue for you to crack open the novel then I truly don’t know what is or what it would take. 

That being said, Mr. Stross wasn’t entirely accurate, but that’ll be clear soon enough. 

The novel surrounds our main protagonist, Gideon Nav, or, known as Gideon the Ninth, the primary cavalier to the Ninth House necromancer. Essentially, this world takes place in a different solar system with its own sun star known as Dominicus as well as nine planets also known as the Nine Houses. 

Each House has a specific specialty for what is known for, and as summarized helpfully, but also overwhelmingly, at the beginning of the novel, the Ninth House is also known as the keepers of the Locked Tomb, House of the Sewn Tongue, and home to the Black Vestals. 

This meant nothing to me at the beginning and quite truthfully, I still struggled to remember throughout the novel who belonged to the Third House, or the Fifth and what that quite meant, as once again, each House has a reputation and expected skill set that precedes them. 

Not to say that it was poorly written because it wasn’t. Muir just has a lot of characters with specific titles and while she actually does quite a good job of categorizing them and helpfully reminding you who is who, I still struggled with just the sheer amount of information and people. 

Normally, this would be a massive criticism, like it was with the cast of characters in Lore but in this case it’s not Muir’s fault. She’s giving me all the information necessary to understand. It was just my brain that struggled trying to recognize and categorize everyone. If anything, I’m excited to re-read Gideon the Ninth and have it sink in like a second skin eventually. 

Having this large cast of characters, the book revolves around each of the Nine Houses (except for the First House) sending their best necromancer, a wielder of both thanergy (death energy) and thalergy (life energy) in the form of a House Adept, someone who is able to wield this kind of energy either in bone magic, flesh magic, or spirit magic. 

In accompaniment, each Necromancer Adept has a primary Cavalier, a trained fighter that is both protector, companion, and often, necessary energy suppliers to their Adept in both horrendous and acceptable ways. 

The goal of these pairs, having been sent to the First planet, is to become a Lyctor, an immortal servant to the Undying Emperor. The catch is that once the Necromancers and their Cavaliers arrive on the First, the shuttle departs and they are trapped in an abandoned, dilapidated, once-regal and great mansion that boasts hundreds of floors, secret doors, and mystery upon mystery. 

Each pair expects a streamlined process to Lyctorhood once they arrive, a methodical procedure, perhaps some training, and ultimately a test. What they don’t expect is a mellow man by the name of Teacher that claims to know nothing about the process himself, but is the overseer of the First. 

What follows is a mind-boggling search to become a Lyctor and unravel the mysteries of the haunted palace. What the pairs don’t expect is the death of their own, gruesome murders at the hand of someone in their very own positions and an evil danger beyond any of their imagination lurking in the mansion. 

This novel was a great concoction of mystery, action, interpersonal relationships, character growth, dazzling descriptions, and world building. 

The world of Dominicus and the Nine Houses is expansive and rich, something that I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into, and not for lack of trying, but because it is so deep and so layered that I simply need to take several bites to get it all down.

The mystery is fulfilling and strangely, to me at least, reminiscent of a game called Danganronpa. If you know what that is, and even if you don’t, it centers around the idea of a murder mystery, but where the killer is one of your own and the mystery is trying to figure out not ony the who, but the why of what they are doing, amongst a slew of other deadly riddles.

Gideon the Ninth is the same. As people continue to get picked off and brutally murdered, as a reader you find yourself trying to puzzle out not only who, but why someone would commit such atrocities and the motivation behind it. 

The plot itself of Gideon the Ninth was extremely satisfying and alluring. There were times where I personally found that novel bogged down with excessive description, but it was usually broken up with Gideon’s personal brand of crass humor, a very much needed breather with the expansive exposition, that, while extremely well done, well researched, and well written, did get a tad boring from time to time for me personally, even if it allowed for clear imagery as well as adding to already well formed world building. 

In addition to the plot, all of the characters were well done and as fleshed out as they could be considering the amount of characters involved. First, even though this is set in a fantasy sci-fi setting, each of the characters seemed realistic and like they could potentially be real people. 

A large criticism of books I often have, especially in YA, is that the characters often come across like caricatures, and not real flesh and blood humans with both positive and negative qualities. 

Each character, some developed more than others, have both flaws and strengths, even the main characters, which I highly appreciated. Not only does it make the story more real and palatable, but it also is just more interesting to read about as it’s actually based in humanity and the nature of human beings rather than some perfect carbon copy of one. 

Gideon as a narrator was hilarious. She was often crass, blunt, horny, humorous and ignorant. But on the other hand, she was also an extremely talented fighter, actually very sweet deep down, forgiving, and loving. 

This mix in a main character was a welcome one in addition to making Gideon feel like a real person, despite all the bone magic and necromancy, and often her thought process and dialogue made me laugh out loud. 

Another main character, Harrowhark Nonagesimus (What a name!) is Gideon’s Necromancer and main companion. She’s bitter, rude, spiteful, and ruthless. She’s also hardworking, intelligent, and stubborn. 

If you’re catching the pattern here, Muir isn’t just writing archetypes and passing them off as characters. She’s writing complex and nuanced personalities that are intriguing and interesting and well developed. 

I could get into the other plethora of characters like Camila, Dulcinea, Palamedes, Magnus, Judith and so on, but this review would be a thousand pages long so I’ll just settle for saying that every character was well done and lovingly crafted and not one of them, even the annoying ones, were characters that I hated. 

One important thing to note was Muir’s writing itself. It was incredible. Such descriptions! Such characterization! Such detail! Such vocabulary! I was supremely impressed with her writing as a whole and often found myself having to look up words that I had never heard of in my life (always a welcome change of pace). I was blown away by her sheet talent and creativity. 

The last two things I have to note might get me in trouble. 

One, the ending for me was...bittersweet. For fear of spoiling someone, I won’t get into details, but I found it both lacking and simultaneously making absolute sense. I wanted both more and yet, found that everything was just enough. It’s hard to put into words, but if you know, you know. 

I do have a slightly sinking feeling though that the ending twist will somehow be undone in the sequel. I don’t know if this is true (although I will eventually find out), and I can’t decide if I’m going to be happy or dismayed by it. 

Such conflicting feelings are in of itself homage to Muir’s skill as a writer and the complexities of her tale. 

Lastly, the one aspect that might get me into the stickiest of predicaments: Harrowhark’s and Gideon’s relationship. I don’t know if I like it or not. On the one hand, I absolutely love it. It's a hate-to-love slow burn, which really is the only way an OTP makes its way into my heart. I love that they’re so different and yet so compatible, one flesh and one blood and all that other nonsense. 

They see each other as equals, as adversaries, and I adore that dynamic in any pairing. I also love the F/F representation of some badass women and that they’re not traditionally attractive and beautiful. 

One of my favorite lines came from the end of the book where Gideon describes Harrowhark’s face as, “bitter” and “hateful”. I just love when characters aren’t conventionally gorgeous and yet beautiful in the eyes of the beholder and all that jazz. 

Now. Onto the problems. 

Harrowhark’s and Gideon’s relationship is kinda...toxic? It grows into something less so, but it definitely starts off that way. I really hate imbalances of power of any kind and Harrowhark definitely has power over Gideon, power that she creully abuses. I asked myself: if Harrowhark was a man and treated Gideon so abysmally for years, and then Gideon eventually forgave him and loved him despite everything, would I think differently?

And the answer is yes, yes I would. 

Is that fair? Probably not. But I can’t help but think how the dynamics change with the two of them being women, and how in my opinion, I think more is forgiven of Harrowhark because of it, even when it’s not deserved. 

Now, Harrowhark is a complex character and has traumas of her own, but I just can’t help but think of all the things she did to Gideon and the things she took away from her and forced her to do and then think of them together and it’s...not great. 

Overall, my feelings on their relationship are complicated (which is a repeated pattern when it comes to Muir’s writing) and I don’t mind that it’s complicated, it makes it interesting, but I also would be bereft to mention it here. I look forward to seeing how it develops and if my feelings change and grow on the matter as well. 

In total, Gideon the Ninth is a fantastic read. It has everything you want inlaid with characters who not only push the plot along, but incentivize you to read more. It has complicated issues and complicated characters, but that means it’s nuanced and complex and juicy enough to bite into. 

Don’t do what I did and wait years for this novel. If you need a good read, you don’t need to look any further and then let yourself be swept along for the necromantic ride. 

Recommendation: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” -Charles Stross. I mean. Come on people, what more can you ask for?

Score: 8/10 

[reversecreek]

hi it’s me... clicks across the linoleum of the dash wearing high heels w a spray tan like i’m a member of jersey shore suddenly..... best summary of willa is that she got moira rose as her #1 chara on a What Character Are You Most Like personality test out of thousands of options.... says so much. u can find her pinterest here n her playlist here 😋 like this or hmu fr plots!!

* ashley moore, cis female + she/her  | you know willa deneurve, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, most of her life, on and off? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to watch me by the pom poms like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole sticking gold stars over old polaroids until you can barely see faces, dressing as marie antoinette at your high school prom & delivering fake laughter to a bratz doll you’re pretending is a talkshow host thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is august 1st, so they’re a leo, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nai, 24, gmt, she/her )

HISTORY:

willa ws born to honestly like….. the perfect family not to honk my own tit bt……………. they were jst rly quite wholesome. her mum celeste was this larger than life person who could never b contained by the four walls of any room she was in. she hd the presence of a gold glitter chess piece on an otherwise mundane wooden board. her dad marlon used to always joke that he had absolutely NO idea how he landed her bc he was just this like. rly average guy by all accounts n purposes….. blended into the sea in high skl……. had a few close friends but was never rly Notable or made a proper impression anywhere…… he always retold it as him coasting thru life until he met her in college. kind of like he’d been half awake before. they just Clicked n no-one cld believe she’d chosen him bt she was jst. completely head over heels n didn’t care what anyone had to say bc that was That

willa always very much took after celeste…… there’s this one quote i remember reading that goes vaguely like “my mom and i would sit and listen to leonard cohen and joni mitchell lyrics together. from a young age i remember her being like "i’m playing this song and when it’s done i want u to tell me what’s happening in it” n she would give me a fake glass of wine when i was 8 and i would listen and b like. i think there was an affair.” which so much summarises their dynamic…… she ws just so like. dramatic n fun n always encouraged that in willa too. her mum was like. everything she aspired to be…… got scouted by a modelling agency in college n shot one campaign before blowing it off simply bc she was bored. starred lead in a play. spent a few weeks travelling asia selling handmade candles shaped like koi fish or curled up foxes or elegantly stretched hands. dated a parisian movie star during a break she and her father took n was featured in tabloids on his arm at the premiere. sm fun n exotic stories willa literally cldn’t get enough. whenever she’d tell them to willa as a kid her dad wld roll his eyes like ohhhhh here she goes again but it’d all b playful n he’d smile bc he honestly cldn’t get enough either. the stuff dreams are made of luv (lizzie mcguire stans rise)

(car accident & death tw) so u know when ur walking down a flight of stairs n then out of nowhere u miss a step n u get that lurch in ur stomach like ur in free fall? yeah. i won’t go into it too much but one night they were driving back from getting frozen yogurt and then suddenly they weren’t. she doesn’t rly remember much about it except for completely ignoring the doctors trying to give her the news and just saying “dad chose pecan. who chooses pecan?” n repeating that over n over n over until it didn’t rly register in her ears as english any more.

willa was uprooted from irving at 11 to go n live w her aunt in NY. this was like. a huge adjustment honestly….. her aunt blanche hd always been a little unconventional bt extremely glamorous. she lived in an old defunct theatre she’d bought out n came from a lot of money. willa’s mum’s side of the family hd always been well off bt celeste opted to live a little more Ordinarily shall we say after settling whereas blanche ws jst balls to the walls dripping w eccentric excess…. wld say she was never naked bc she ws always wearing black opium by yves saint laurent…… probably the living embodiment of la vie boheme….. she’d been admitted a yr early to a rly prestigious parisian design school n is an AMAZING seamstress. a corset she stitched a broadway star into got commissioned fr an actress’ red carpet walk at an indie film festival. rly just lived such a life rich w lots of stories n lots of talent too…… had that star quality essence tht her mum had n that was smthn willa found quite comforting everything considered.

(grief tw) u would think maybe a situation like this (one involving so much sudden change) wld cause a kid of tht age to withdraw into her shell bt willa only came out of her shell MORE. she coped w her situation by spinning it into a celebrity origin story inside her head. the tear jerker tale someone tells during their x factor audition to get the judges rooting for them. mentally streamlining things. repackaging all that hurt as a surefire ticket to success bc it had to be useful for something right? there had to b a point to it right? willa decided the point was she’s a star. KFHSGKFHGFKHGKJSFHG. get it girl….. she ws literally just like ok well clearly i’m destined to be famous n i’m the main character of this story. this story called earth. it’s all about me.

rly heavily immersed herself in her high skl theatre scene……. loved experimenting w fashion n literally wore the most outlandish things like. she treated the hallways like her milan f/w debut every new school yr…… a lot of the things she wore were actual like. costumes frm her aunt’s collection…… she has a multi-story closet u have to climb ladders to reach things in like a very rustic library…. it rly wasn’t uncommon for willa to turn up one day corsetted like a pirate with billowing sleeves or sporting the baby blue gingham of a swedish milk maid. it’s like she literally jst…… became a role. always. every day. the world ws her stage. the cameras were always rolling. her aunt only encouraged this tbh n honestly? icon. we love to see it. willa partied a bunch n rly lived a lax lifestyle where responsibility was concerned…. her aunt ws her best friend…… made rly gd friends with performers in the drag club scene n loved the glitz of that….. lots of wild nights turned grossly bright mornings

snagged an agent fresh into her first yr of college (she gt accepted to a pretty competitive theatre program at [redacted] in NY bc i haven’t looked into what that wld be yet <3 i’m merely a helpless british lass <3) n booked a few commercials n things….. when i say willa wld enter audition rooms like she owned the place i’m rly not exaggerating…. once she turned up to a casting call for MEN n just walked right to the front of the line scraping a random chair along the way n then took a seat w her legs crossed popping a bubble in her gum as they all glared at her like wtf is literally going on who are u. she received several complaints n she was just like “ur all acting so jealous of me….”

i feel like she got a pretty big role in a theatre production in her last yr at school. haven’t decided what yet. maybe smthn rocky horror or even mimi in rent. this was meant to b some like huge moment for willa like yes girl finally making it ur on ur way this is what u wanted n she WAS happy abt it but once it was wrapped she jst had this strange like Huh feeling in her chest……. n a la celeste w all her exciting stories was just like well i’ve done that so what’s next? i think she’d graduate n then jst suddenly decide to move to irving in a fit of impulse. to all her college friends she’d be like “ugh a beach retreat is so necessary honestly the city is sooooooooo toxic this place cld literally enlarge my pores if i wasn’t so rigorous with my skincare routine” bt like 🤔 what u seeking girl? results pending.

SO basically i feel like she finally moved back to irving little over a yr ago. she hd a brief stint starring on a reality tv show tht filmed in one of the larger beach houses where her dog gained a handful of fan accounts dedicated to him……. u maybe will see why in the first bullet point of her personality section………… FKGHKSHFGGKFSHKHG. honestly she ws received pretty well too (mostly bc she’s so fking dramatic n like a caricature of a person) bt it wasn’t anything to warrant actual Fame (despite what willa herself might think). she’s mostly jst like. chilling honestly. accepting scripts n flying out fr auditions still. she’ll nab the occasional part bt she’s looking for that One Thing that rly feels like her big moment….. otherwise i cn just imagine her treating irving like a little dollhouse compared to the roaring mansion of NYC n having fun playing around in it. strikes a pose w a hand on my hip…. and now to personality.

PERSONALITY:

got a very large n lithe greyhound n named him marlene dietrich bc she was a black n white hollywood starlet famously known for her affairs n “bedroom eyes”. willa was like ugh. icon status instantly. didn’t rly foresee the responsibilities tht came w owning a dog tht loves exercise n complains abt him being like “ugh he wants to run soooooooooo much 🙄 like where are u literally going”. having said tht loves him dearly n he can often be seen wearing little clothes. a baby’s bonnet. a quilted leather waistcoat. a custom dog boa. he’s very glamorous. willa calls him a gay icon despite no evidence to support this theory. she also says he can sniff out evil in ppl so she brings him sometimes when she’s first introduced to a friend’s new bf n if his nose quivers a certain way she’s like “marlene has spoken. it’s done”. her friends r like omg? what’s done? willa gets up n walks away without elaborating. marlene’s little paws clicking along the floor w attitude.

literally dressed as marie antoinette for her high skl prom even tho there was no theme pertaining to this. jst loves the spotlight. can fake cry and WILL to get out of a parking ticket or teach someone to watch their tone or even simply for the theatrics of it all. the Most dramatic………….. rly fits being an actress like when people find out what she does it’s very like oh that makes sense.

says she doesn’t get hangovers. she’s just like “i revoked that it doesn’t happen to me”. alludes tht this is bc she’s an all powerful deity that was Chosen to be Blessed bt really she’s jst great at bouncing back n acting fine even w a blistering headache. it’s about believing the performance so much that u even convince urself.

has an extremely elevated sense of self importance bc this is kind of the equivalent of several layers of bubble wrap to cushion her frm the world. strives to b extraordinary bc ordinary honestly feels like a death sentence n there’s nothing she’d want to b seen as less. despite this weight she puts on that she rly doesn’t tend to let ppl’s opinions affect fr the most part like she’s quite firmly set in this I’m Literally The Most Gorgeous And Beautiful Angel Star Creature To Walk This Narsty Little Earth view

probably an incredibly big fan of dramatic short lived love affairs. she wants the glamour of it all. the scandal. the randomly breaking up w someone in a public place n sliding on sunglasses after delivering the words over a freshly ordered coffee (tht she’ll leave without drinking bc that’s star power babey she waits fr no man or no hot beverage)…….. has no preference gets w any n all regardless of gender……… romanticises things so they hv a better spin or story in her head n doesn’t rly take things seriously like jst has fun in her fantasy world…. she’s like ugh chuck i know u wanted to marry me but i’m a beautiful bird in a cage n u literally need to undo the latch n set me free……. the guy’s like……. my name’s chase n we’ve only been on two dates….. willa’s like…… please don’t take this so hard i can tell ur besides urself but people r starting to stare……. gets up n leaves. no-one was staring. chase is confused n honestly probably semi concerned fr her welfare.

always has to b the hottest n most glamorous person in a grocery store…. probably goes to them when she doesn’t even need anything jst holding a basket nonchalantly over her forearm glancing over at a cashier in her wizard of oz corset seamed interpretation on a dorothy dress thinking he wants me soooo bad it’s not even funny….. seduces him over the check out counter jst for him to ask her to come back to his so she can lean back scandalised n cry “IS THAT THE KIND OF WOMAN U THINK I AM, PAUL?! YOU’RE A GHASTLY LITTLE MAN, YOU ARE….” with all the gusto of a telenovela. attracts the shocked glances of all surrounding elderly.

speaks fluent french. probably on her brief stint on tht reality show i mentioned earlier was like “ugh can you believe Deneurve of this guy?” n in her head was like this catchphrase is sensational it’ll catch on fast the twittersphere is abt to implode but it didn’t become a thing except for in a small isolated community. despite this she’s like “yeah it went viral….. go figure. just another day in the life.”

honestly like a lot of fun bt also a huge handful at the same time. keeps her real Serious emotions in a locked box bt is always overflowing w melodramatics n rly giving her all at the drop of a hat where Performing is concerned. probably Loves parties n sees them as another form of production in which she wants to b the lead. rly just. loves herself. except does she? 🤔 lifts my hand up like rihanna n winks. find out next time. lucky by britney plays as i slowly disintegrate in spiderman rp…..

WANTED CONNECTIONS

unrequited flame: willa burns thru people like matches. bright n fast. honestly i feel like she struggles to take romance seriously so it cld be fun to play around with someone who’s been singed by that in the past…. mayb they hd actual feelings whereas willa was just messing around n having fun…. living la vida loca so to speak…….. we can discuss a time frame or specifics to expand upon this but. sexy angst perhaps.

those she knew from childhood: willa moved to NY at 11 n i feel like it was very sudden n soon after the accident. maybe she didn’t even say goodbye. maybe they were rly close n all of a sudden she didn’t show up to school the next day n when they rode past her house on their bike the sign said sold and that was that. honestly very dramatic of her even at a young age. we love a disappearing act. houdini who?

acting rival: honestly jst feel like this cld be funny. willa’s so dramatic she’d be like i literally want them dead they’re a despicable little gremlin fr trying to steal my spotlight. cld be as simple as having auditioned a few times fr the same parts or something.

childhood sweetheart: i think it cld be rly cute n sad if there was someone that kind of echoed the dynamic her mum n dad had except she was the celeste n they were the marlon…. (open to any gender)…….. so like. willa was always very larger than life commanding attention in a room n they were more to the sidelines but they just kind of got each other n brought out the best in one another. added angst to the fact tht willa wld maybe want to avoid them as much as possible now bc it dredges up feelings she doesn’t want to confront where her parents r concerned n also in a way any possibility of them winding up together feels like sellotaping an expiration date to both of their foreheads in willa’s brain

someone who was either a fan of or also on the reality show willa was: i imagine it like a reinvention of the hills honestly except based in these irving beach houses…. probably didn’t run that long bt there was a bunch of drama on it mostly staged…… maybe they were willa’s love interest bt it was all fake fr the cameras…… it wasn’t like. a huge deal n didn’t rly catch flight so much where popularity’s concerned bt. cld be fun to play with <3

patti frands: jogs in high knees to translate that into party friends as i adjust my spectacles. willa’s very sociable bt she’s also like kind of full of herself n obnoxious so do with that what u will. KFHGKSHGKGHFSKG. she knows hw to have a gd time tho like growing up she was rly into the gay club scene n the drag scene in NY so like. let’s hear it fr the gays who know how to do it right <3

someone equally over the top: i luv the idea of willa having someone who just like runs with made up scenarios n roles she makes up on the spot n them hanging out is like a 24/7 improv session tht they reel random surrounding strangers just fr the fun thrill

the other woman: willa is quite detached n selfish so she wld easily be the other woman in a relationship n not care about it n this cld make for good spice <3

[jebazzled]

Level Up! Upcycling an Intermediate App

Hello friends and welcome to another unsolicited writing tutorial, aka my bread and butter! Today we’re going to build off of ground covered in my earlier tutorial, Level Up! Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced RP and You. 

As always, I’d like to point out that there is nothing wrong with being a writer more naturally suited for intermediate sites! But if you’re looking to write in the more ~advanced or ~literary space, you will need to adjust your writing to fit the community standard. While your writing will likely improve over time as you write with more advanced writers, step one to threading in such a community is getting an app accepted there.

In today’s tutorial, I’ll be talking about how to revise an existing intermediate application to make it more suited for an advanced site. Let’s begin! 

As a staffer on an advanced site, the note I most often have for applications that we pend or decline is: this feels very telly. 

I don’t mean “telly” as in Telly the Sesame Street character: 

I mean “telly” as in extraordinarily expository. 

An intermediate freestyle application often looks like a straight-up timeline of a character’s history, delivered without much style or voice. It might feel like a Wikipedia article, or a very long explanation like you might see in a shipper. 

I often find that it can help streamline the writing process to write a handful of telling anecdotes, rather than rehashing a character’s complete history, infancy to present. More on that in my freestyle application tutorial here!

But if you’re having a hard time wrapping your head around anecdotal-style applications, particularly if you’re accustomed to application formats that have you write a “history” section as opposed to a freestyle, you can improve upon your current app to make it more suited for an advanced site. It will take some work, and certainly more than ten minutes of it. Writing on a “reach” site can be very rewarding, but only if you’re willing to put in the effort. 

TELLING

Before we solve the problem of “telly” writing, we need to establish what “telly” writing is. For purposes of this tutorial, I’ll be using my one application that is a full rehashing of character history. Below is a “telly” take on Sadie Shunpike: 

Sadie grew up in a working-class neighborhood of London with her twin brother, Sam. Neither of her parents were very good at magic, but hid their insecurity in the belief that any magic at all made them better than their Muggle neighbors. Sadie and Sam weren’t educated at the local primary school, but were homeschooled by their mother until they could read. From there, Sadie and Sam would check out books from the local library and teach themselves, with Sadie helping Sam. 

Sadie was very smart, but Sam struggled more with learning. As they got older, Sadie started to read books she ordered from Flourish and Blott’s, learning about magical theory. Sam started to show signs of magic, which he hid from Sadie. When they turned eleven, it became clear that Sadie was a squib. She resented Sam for being magical, especially when he went to Hogwarts and needed Sadie’s help to do his homework. Sadie continued to educate herself.

Sadie developed an interest in the Dark Arts and got mixed up with Death Eaters in a research and study group she attended at Flourish and Blott’s. One of them promised her a Ministry job and ensured her safety if she acted as a spy in the Ministry for the Death Eaters. Later, she got placed into a safehouse, and began to spy on the safehouse network for the Death Eaters. 

This tells you a lot about what Sadie has been up to, but doesn’t tell you much about Sadie, or about my skill as a writer, or about how someone else might expect Sadie to behave in threads. There is no voice, no personality, no interest - just rote explanation. 

As a staffer on an advanced site, when I see an app like the above, I know I will be pending or declining the application. The question I ask when making that distinction is: is the character development strong enough to merit working with the writer on the prose? Is the prose strong enough to merit working with the writer on the character development? 

If the writing itself or the character development is there, it can make sense to help guide the writer - though this is more the case with character development issues than with prose. Character development can be improved with specific notes and adjustments, whereas generally speaking, improving prose is a gradual process over time. 

It is entirely possible that a writer might have much better prose in their threads than in their application! However, your application serves here as a writing sample. which is why it is imperative that it be good writing on its own. I have said it before and I will say it again: I don’t care how much you hate writing apps, lmao! You’ve got to write a good one if you want to do well on sites that use them! 

SHOWING

Writing communities are always talking about show vs. tell. Unless you’re writing stage directions, it is always better to show than to tell - or at least, there aren’t enough exceptions to the rule that you shouldn’t be aiming primarily to show. 

So how do you communicate a character history without making it too telly? 

DESCRIPTION

Here, I’ve described Sadie’s neighborhood as “working-class” and left it at that. What if I went into a little more detail? Explained to you what I imagine when I imagine her upbringing, and shared with you what’s going on in my head between the lines? 

In a small, shabby house in a small, shabby suburb, a small and shabby family lives a small and shabby life. Samuel Shunpike, Sr. sells advertisements for the Daily Prophet, tossing a handful of Floo powder into the minuscule fireplace in the sitting room every morning and getting ash on the threadbare round braided rug every night. 

This has more flavor, doesn’t it? The repetition of “small, shabby” is a deliberate style choice that communicates an idea of how I write in practice when I’m being ~artsy, and the image of a man in a shabby suit crawling into his fireplace and messing up an already messed-up rug builds Sadie’s father as an NPC that will come into play later in her app. Dynamic NPCs - whose actions impact your character, who are more than wooden cutouts - help build the fictional world of your character’s life. They don’t even need to be vital to playing your character - I’ve never really had anyone in Sadie’s family in play onsite, despite how heavily her brother figures into her character development - but they can be very useful in understanding your character. 

DIALOGUE

Ha, irony, that dialogue can make an app less telly! Dialogue gives your reader an idea of how your character interacts with the world in concrete situations, not merely in the abstract. It also helps build the dynamic NPCs that make your character’s history feel more real, and feel like something that genuinely impacted them rather than something manufactured for plot. 

While the Shunpikes are nobodies in the circle of wizarding society, Margie and Samuel Sr take comfort in the fact that they do have one thing making them better than the Muggles who live the small shabby lives on either side of them: the Shunpikes are magic. small, shabby magic, but magic nevertheless. "You lot are better than this," Margie says, smoking a pipe on the stoop, gesturing at the sidewalk where children walk to school with their parents. Sam and Sadie don't take their eyes off their Exploding Snap game. It's no use arguing with Margie, they know. When she goes inside, grumbling about Muggle trash, Sam and Sadie train their eyes on the walk outside. The parade of children their age, all wearing matching khakis and polo shirts. "What do you think they get up to?" Sam asks, glancing at Sadie. "Same as us, i imagine," she says, "but probably, y'know, more guided."

This brief vignette tells us a few things:

Margie Shunpike, Sadie’s mother, is mean, and relies on what little magic she has to feel like she has worth

Sam looks to Sadie for leadership/guidance

Neither of these are specifically about Sadie, but having this background information about her mother seen in action rather than merely mentioned will impact how we digest the news that Sadie is a squib. Sam, as a recurring NPC, will inform how we see Sadie develop, and seeing his changing relationship with her will give another metric for the reader of how Sadie has changed. 

DETAILS

Details build your world, make it feel more real. When I wrote earlier that Sadie ordered books from Flourish & Blott’s, they could have been any books - they could have been the magical equivalent of ABC “First Concept” books - they could have been magical erotica. Don’t details tell you a lot about a person? If I tell you that Renee Rye Bread reads 50 books a year, what have you learned about her? What if I clarify that it’s 50 romance novels? 50 crime dramas? 50 political biographies?

When Sam and Sadie were younger, Margie would sit them together at the kitchen table and clumsily teach them letters and numbers. Once they could put together sentences and basic sums, she happily stepped back and let them figure it out on their own. On an average day, Sam and Sadie will watch the parade of schoolchildren, finish a game of Exploding Snap or Wizard's Chess, eat an early lunch, and spend the rest of the day doing their best to get an education. Sadie tries the hardest, dragging Sam with her to the Muggle library around the corner to read Muggle fiction and do basic research on whatever catches her fancy. She saves her allowance and coins from doing chores for the neighbors and orders secondhand books from the Flourish & Blotts catalog, poring over wizarding texts and trying to make sense of magic beyond even her parents' meager skill. Sam sometimes gives her his sickles, too. He isn't doing anything with them, and everything makes more sense with her in charge.

These details - what Sadie and Sam’s homeschooling looks like, Sadie’s attitude towards books and learning, Sam’s support in her academic endeavors - are building blocks in your understanding of Sadie’s personality. She is driven, self-directed, curious. She doesn’t ask Sam for his input. She is, perhaps, a little selfish. 

DIORAMA

Trying to keep to a “D” theme here for an easy mnemonic device here! What I mean by “diorama” is that even in an app not specifically built around anecdotes it is good to provide a few key slices of the character’s life - a clear window into specific scenes and moments. What strikes you as more impactful: me telling you, “there’s a scene in Heathers (1988) where Veronica’s boyfriend has put a bomb under the bleachers during a pep rally. It’s fine, it doesn’t go off,” or me describing to you: “the gym is full of stamping feet and shouting cheerleaders; no one could hear Veronica and JD fighting under the stands even if they were interested. The bomb is beeping so loudly but no one is paying attention, no one can hear it. It’s a pep rally and everyone is cheering at their own wake.” 

Rather than saying:

Sam started to show signs of magic, which he hid from Sadie. When they turned eleven, it became clear that Sadie was a squib. She resented Sam for being magical, especially when he went to Hogwarts and needed Sadie’s help to do his homework. Sadie continued to educate herself.

I went with the below: 

In June, Sam is sitting in the kitchen while Sadie makes a solo trip to the library, folding paper airplanes and flying them with no success. After a dozen failures, however, he watches in amazement as a piece of notebook paper folds itself up into a perfect airplane and flies around the room on its own. He's done magic, and he has no idea how. And he keeps it a secret from his parents, but more importantly, from Sadie, who he now knows is not going to be coming with him to Hogwarts after all. Later that week, while the family is tucking into ham sandwiches for dinner, the owl arrives, and Sam's stomach sinks when Sadie proudly carries it from the sitting room window into the kitchen on her forearm. She unties the letter from its leg, looks at the front of the envelope, grinning. Samuel Sr and Margie see a shadow pass over their daughter's face for half a heartbeat before she slowly hands the envelope to her brother. But Sam sees it all: her smile cracking like broken china, her eyes widen just a little, the furrow in her eyebrow. He catches the hitch in her voice as she congratulates him. He senses her anxiety in the lightspeed jiggle of her left foot under the table, as he stares at the letter, unable to make sense of the words, as worried as he is about Sadie. She excuses herself early, and Samuel Sr and Margie exchange a look, as if they've forgotten Sam is there. Sam doesn't know what any of them were expecting, but it wasn't this. The next few days, during which Sadie does not speak to him at all, are the longest of his life. Then, one morning, as he sits at the kitchen table having a silent breakfast with Samuel Sr and Margie - who are still flabbergasted to have a squib in the family - she comes down the stairs from their shared attic bedroom. She sits across from Sam at the table as if nothing has happened. She helps herself to a slice of toast from the stack on a plate in the middle of the table, and takes a piece of bacon off Sam's plate. "Since i won't be going to Hogwarts as expected," she says, folding the toast to make a sandwich and taking an enormous bite, "I'll need to arrange for a more formal education.” She swallows her bite and pours herself a glass of orange juice. “I’m happy with our current method of self-directed study, of course, but - i intend to supplement it with the odd lecture or class audit in the city.”

We get a few things here:

Sam’s anxiety/guilt about being the magical one, a dynamic that informs how Sadie will use him later

Sadie quickly hiding her actual emotions and performing fake ones, which comes up later when she manipulates people at the Ministry and in safehouses as a spy for the Death Eaters

Sadie’s decision making, which doesn’t allow room for input, feedback, or disagreement

Think of your favorite books and characters. If a novelist gave you a quick description of a character in one paragraph, you wouldn’t feel the close connection to them that you feel after reading even just a few chapters of them acting, reacting, interacting. Of course we don’t have as much time for that in an app as we do in a novel, but there’s a happy medium between the shallow understanding we get from pure exposition and the deep one we get from 50,000 words and a hardcover. 

IN PRACTICE: HOW DO???

So we’ve got our intermediate app. We’ve got our Four D’s: Description, Dialogue, Details, Diorama. We’ve got an advanced site we are lusting over. 

How do we Frankenstein this all together?

STEP ONE: REREAD YOUR ORIGINAL APP

Give her a look. Get the basics in your head. Think about how you might be able to repurpose this writing for your shipper. Because, hey! It’s already done! And at least in my experience on advanced sites, shippers are a TL;DR for your app, so a quick expository jaunt through the highlights fits the bill just peachy. 

But you’re not going to be able to work from that app directly for version two, okay? Be honest with yourself. How much do you ever revise things? Because this isn’t a “change a word, add one (1) sentence,” project. This is an overhaul. 

Like I’ve said! Going from intermediate to advanced is HARD WORK!

STEP TWO: GET WRITING

Start writing that app from scratch. Think about the Four D’s. 

If you’re approaching this as a straight history of your character, have at it wherever you want to get started. But before you move on to the next phase, address your Four D’s. 

Susie was a difficult baby. 

STOP! Give me the D. Was her nursery hyperfeminine? Did her nannies gossip about her parents behind their backs? Was Susie a fussy baby, or was she sickly? Show me her cold and distant mother awkwardly holding her before passing her off to her father!

If none of these D’s feel important to this phase of the character’s life: don’t include it in the app! A character history does not need to cover every minute! You can just hit the important phases, and you should! Believe me: staff usually do not want to hear about how mom and dad met each other unless it actually has a major bearing on Susie’s life! 

Once you’ve given the moment its due (Due, the fifth D), move on to the next, and consider the D’s every time. 

STEP THREE: REREAD & REVISE

Before you submit your app, give it another look. You’ve likely done a lot of character development between your original application and the fully-overhauled version. Is your characterization consistent? Do your character’s motives make sense? Have you left any gaping holes in their story? Look back at your shipper, especially if you used your original application to build it out. Does it align with the new application? What edits do you need on the shipper to have it describe the same person as your app?

STEP FOUR: PROFIT

Obviously, as with anything else, your mileage may vary. It might take a few tries, or even a few different characters to land on something that works for an advanced site. But the practice of implementing the five D’s - and keeping them in mind subsequently as you post with and develop your character - will be instrumental in growing your abilities as a writer, and isn’t that what this is all about? Wishing you all the best in writing as in life - let me know how you’re doing, and what other tutorials you’d like to see from me. Cheers, and happy writing!

[deadmandairyland]

I’m watching reviews of the Resident Evil 3 remake. From what I’ve seen so far, general consensus seems to be that it’s good, but not as good as the RE2 remake, and probably not worth buying at full price. One common criticism was that they left out a bunch of stuff the original had. From what I heard, they pretty much cut out puzzles from the game (and to be fair it’s kinda silly that an entire city would require solving the soup cans to get through), which I think might be the reason why iconic locations like the clock tower were cut. But that’s still a shame because while I haven’t played the game myself yet I cannot imagine this game without the clock tower. But I’ll reserve my judgment for when I play the game myself, which I probably will eventually, if only because I have a big collection of RE games on my PS4 that is distinctively missing a 3 and it’s bugging the hell out of me.

But since I’ve already seen comments about this remake possibly being a step backward compared to the RE2 remake, I feel like now is a good time to make a post that I wanted to make for a while but didn’t really have the motivation to make until now. Because while I wasn’t as hyped about an RE3 remake as everyone else was, I couldn’t deny that I wanted it to happen... because then it would mean that there might even be a Code: Veronica remake, which was an idea I was actually more excited for.

Though I do love RE3, Code: Veronica holds a special place in my heart. It is what first got me interested in the horror genre as a whole. At the time I was--and, let’s face it, I still am--a bit squeamish, so horror didn’t really interest me until I--not even joking--looked up the IMDB page of one of the voice actors from a cartoon I was into at the time and found out he had a role in a Resident Evil game, and I looked up clips from it, and I saw this cutscene and I was like “Wow, I really like this.” ...And no, not because of the naked woman, I promise you.

But enough about all that. This post is already getting long and I haven’t even gotten to what this post is about: I want to share what I would like to see in a Code: Veronica remake.

(I’ll try to keep this brief)

First off, one thing that the RE2 remake was highly praised for was how streamlined everything was. The layout of the police station made a bit more logical sense (adding stairs in the main hall helped) and placement of items was done in such a way that backtracking didn’t feel like as much of a chore. I feel like this last bit is especially important because if there’s one thing Code: Veronica is criticized for, it’s how ridiculous the backtracking is... and I have to agree. Now, granted, I do like some of the ideas CV threw around--the metal detector and the optional stuff like running back to the solitary cell to give Rodrigo medicine come to mind--but there were times where the mandatory backtracking got in the way of the story being told and I think that’s the main reason why I want to see a remake of this game.

Because think about it. In the first RE game, what is everything leading up to? What do all the files and backstory of the game lead you toward? The laboratory under the mansion, right? Same with RE2: everything in the game leads up to the laboratory. Now to be fair these are endgame areas, so backtracking out of them would be kinda silly anyway, but I’m not bringing them up because they’re endgame areas. These locations are built up to through the plot and the files you find throughout the game. Imagine if after you reached the laboratory in RE1, you found a key that you needed to unlock a door all the way back in the guardhouse, and you had to do all sorts of other shit before you could finish the laboratory. Even if it wasn’t the final area of the game, having to backtrack out of it when there’s so much build up for it would ruin the flow of the game, right? So let it be clear that this is not an endgame issue, but rather a story flow issue:

Once you reach the private residence, you should never have to backtrack to another location on Rockfort Island.

Now, granted, the developers had enough foresight to realize that once you reach a certain area in the Ashfords’ mansion and hear this song, you are no longer required to go anywhere else on the island until it’s about to explode, because they knew that going back to bumfuck elsewhere at this point would have really killed the downward spiral Claire has become unfortunate enough to get caught up in. However, I feel like they didn’t go far enough with it. I personally feel that as soon as you walk through the front doors and hear THIS song, you should never have to go back to the prison or unlock anymore rooms in the palace! That should all be over and done with by this point! Because like the laboratories in previous games, every file, every cutscene, every fucked up thing you see in the prison, literally everything up until that point in the game is building up to this fucking house and the secrets within. It should be a point of no return up until the place starts to fucking explode.

Second, either make Chris’s segment of the game shorter or give him someone to interact with. That’s the unfortunate thing about Chris’s portion of Code: Veronica. Say what you will about Steve and Alfred, but at least Claire is interacting with them regularly throughout her portion of the game. Cutscenes can do wonders with breaking up monotony; without them, the game’s basically just all fetch quests. Honestly, while I do think it’s a shame that Chris only got one chapter in Darkside Chronicles, I understand why he was only give the one chapter: the meat of the story happens in Claire’s segment of the game. That being said, I do hope they would consider going with the second option before the first. There are characters Chris interacts with in the game; he just doesn’t interact with them enough. Wesker is more of a behind-the-scenes villain than Alfred, and Alexia sadly doesn’t really do much. Giving both villains more to do would greatly enhance Chris’s part of the story.

Now that the gameplay stuff is out of the way, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: Alfred. Honestly, I have no idea how they would portray Alfred in today’s political climate. I don’t really want them to hold back with him, because he’s basically a walking homage to classic horror villain tropes and he has the potential to be a very serious and dangerous villain, but I get the feeling that no matter what Capcom decides to do with him, either they’ll get a lot of backlash for transphobia or making the mentally ill look like Hitler, or they’ll get a lot of backlash for pandering to SJWs and making light of prison camps by pulling back their punches with the original Korekiyo Shinguji. I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking things, but I’ve been on Tumblr for a long time and I’ve seen some crazy shit on here (and Twitter... and YouTube... and 4chan... especially 4chan) over the years, so I can see literally any of these scenarios happening. Personally, though, I do hope their portrayal of him (including how the other characters view him) is closer to the Darkside Chronicles version than the Code: Veronica version, if only because I’d rather the protagonists feel bad for him than be like “Man, I know you’ve murdered a ton of people and might have a thing for your sister, but God forbid you crossdress, I mean that shit’s just fucking weird.” Yeah, that was pretty bad, not gonna lie.

Well, so much for keeping it brief. But that’s basically all I can think of off the top of my head for what I would like to see in a Code: Veronica remake. That and being able to see Rockfort Island in all its fucked up glory in fabulous HD and with a free camera, that’s be sweet.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

"You don't have to live this way if you don't want to. You can, of course ... but you don't have to."

Year Read: 2019, 2020

Rating: 5/5

About: There are spoilers ahead for The Shining. It's decades after the Overlook Hotel burned to the ground, and Danny Torrance is a middle-aged recovering alcoholic. He works as an orderly in a hospice, where the patients have nicknamed him Doctor Sleep for his uncanny ability to comfort the dying. The shining has faded some with age, but before long, his psychic radar picks up another kindred spirit, a young girl named Abra with a stronger shine than Dan has ever seen. But Dan isn't the only one who's noticed her power. A cult called The True Knot travels the country in RVs, living on the "steam" that children with the shining produce when they're tortured to death. The True Knot wants Abra, and they'll do whatever they have to to get to her. Trigger warnings: death, child death, torture, some gore/body horror, abduction, alcoholism, addiction, drug use, child abuse/abusive households, severe illness, cancer, injury, broken bones, hospitals, needles, bullying.

Thoughts: I didn't hurry to pick this up until it was slated to be made into a film (all hail Mike Flanagan) for a couple of reasons. The Shining isn't one of my favorite King novels, and I didn't want to see little Danny succumbing to the same demons as Jack Torrance. I'm also not much for cults in horror because they're so often ridiculous; they don't have to follow any logic. So let's begin this review by saying that I was wrong and more wrong about Doctor Sleep. This is one of the best novels I've read this year, and it easily jumped near the top of my favorite King novels of all time (far eclipsing The Shining, truth be told, although I liked it more on a second read). I was hooked in twenty pages. By fifty, I wanted to quit the rest of my life so I could read. After that, I stopped counting pages, and that takes some doing in a novel that's 500+. It's riveting from beginning to end.

There are so many things that King does well as a storyteller. Of course, he's a wonderful horror writer with an unparalleled imagination for the macabre, but Doctor Sleep works best because of its characters. If you're not into character novels (or you happen to not like Danny and Abra, which is mind blowing but, I suppose, possible), I can see Doctor Sleep not working so well for you. I feared that Danny had turned into Jack, both struggling alcoholics bent on self-destruction, but Danny is not his father. He also has the community of support that Jack never had in finding AA. They are fighting the same demons, but the way they're fighting them is entirely different. As someone who struggled a lot with Jack as a main character, it also helps that Danny is just more likable overall. He's humble; he accepts responsibility; he tries to make amends. He also fights like hell to protect a child he barely knows, which makes him at least as much like Dick Hallorann as Jack Torrance.

Abra is a bright contrast to so much darkness. I never feel like King talks down his child characters, and she's just as complex as any of the adult characters, if not more. She's clever, funny, brave, and with all the over-confidence of a kid with extraordinary powers. Her history is fascinating from the beginning, and I like the way we get to know her and Danny, both separately and together, over the course of about ten years. The story is nicely streamlined, hitting the most important events and moving on, and I never felt bogged down in the details the way I sometimes do in King novels. The mythology of the shining is expanded upon so much in this book. It's delightful to see the different ways it manifests for Abra, tempered by Danny's adult experiences with it. I love psychic stories done well, and this is as much a psychic story as it is a cult story.

The horror in this novel is of a very different kind than in The Shining. Readers expecting another psychological haunted house story will be disappointed because Doctor Sleep is entirely its own thing. The True Knot is a cult of traveling campers and trailers, the kind we've seen on every American highway and in every campground, the kind no one ever looks at twice. The terror of them is very simple: they torture and murder children, specifically children with the shining, so that they can live forever. It's horrifying in concept as well as on page, but it lacks the creeping dread of The Shining--and doesn't need it. There are all kinds of ways to tell a horror story. Rose the Hat is one of my favorite villains of all time, a cold-blooded killer whose pride is her fatal flaw. They're a formidable opponent, but so is Abra, and I had the sense all through the novel that they were about equally matched. The True Knot is a threat that can be faced, with the right weapons.

Plot-wise, there was never a dull moment for me. Even the backstory of Abra and Danny is peppered with significant events for both of them, along with more of the shining than, ironically, we ever got to see in The Shining. There are smaller battles that effectively build tension to a final showdown, which is so well-plotted I was left breathless. It's not entirely necessary to read The Shining to understand Doctor Sleep. King does a good job recapping everything without slowing down the current story, and most everyone has seen the Kubrick adaptation (which has a different ending from the book). However, I recommend reading both, if only to see all the clever ways that the books mirror one another, the way Jack and Danny face down similar things in different ways, and the way that everything--everything--circles back around. It's as though this novel had been drifting in the back of King's mind for thirty years, and when it finally came out, it came out flawlessly.

[relialin]

TRICKSTER AGE vol. 32, 2016/10/15 Toshiya’s Creativity VOL.01 -The Five Senses-

Translated by DIR EN GREY - Italia

Please DO NOT repost or use any parts of the translation without permission.

Toshiya, bassist of DIR EN GREY, the rock band that achieves an overwhelming support all around the world and, of course, in Japan. He currently conducts the production of the apparel brand he launched by himself, “DIRT 100% Natural Dirty / DIRT 100% Dissolutive Dirty” and he started a series in this magazine. This time, as a kickoff memento, we must look for his interests and preferences, as he’s doing well in both music and apparel, so we did an interview having the five senses as theme; sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

SIGHT

What are the things Toshiya has been seeing until now? The things that left an impression on him were many during his boyhood, as he’s curious about many different hobbies. That influence still goes on now…

“Sight”

Movies, Gundam, manga: childhood memories.

I haven’t watched any movie recently, but if I have to tell a movie that left an impression on me, that’s “E.T.”. It’s the very first movie I watched in a theatre since I was born. That time, since we were expecting my brother or sister to be born, I went to the theatre with my father, just the two of us, for the first time to watch that movie. Even if I was a child, I remember being greatly impressed by it. I said “Won’t he [E.T.] come to our house?” (laughs). I wanted to become his friend, I wanted to play the famous scene when they put their index fingers together.

I’ve been telling this since before, but I started liking Gundam when I was at the elementary school. The one that had an impact on me was “Mobile Suit Z Gundam”. The contents were clear, in the end the protagonist turns into a vegetative state and while watching those inappropriate things for a children I was like “what the hell is that?” (laughs). It was very different from the things about robots and heroes I’ve been knowing since that moment. I didn’t even understand the plot properly at that time, but to some extent, ever since I can remember, when I watched it I thought that it was a surprisingly deep story. I think it’s a story not suitable for children in which the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, in which there are opinions on both sides and each side fights for the things they must protect. I guess I liked it also because of that. Even if I started watching it in real time starting from “Z”, my favourite mobile suit was Qubeley. The robots I knew had an angular shape but, since Qubeley had a round shape, that streamlined feature was innovative.

I also went buying the gunpla with the pocked money I received. The first one I bought was a Char’s Zaku and, just in half of his body, you could expose the mechanics it had inside. Then there were supposed to be some kind of miniature bulb you had to insert where its eyes were so they could shine properly. That’s why I felt like it was more a thing to display instead of a thing to play with. But it was too difficult and I couldn’t build it well, so I remember asking my father to build it for me. Last year I went to the “Gunpla Expo Worldtour Japan” and there was a modeler named NAOKI who I became acquainted with, but that person is amazing. Recently, when I made a temporary store for my fashion brand, I was given a Qubeley gunpla as a present and I was so happy about that.

The mangaka I like is Morohoshi Daijiro. When I was in elementary school or so I went to play at one of my relatives’ place and at that time he had the Weekly Shonen Jump volume in which “Ankoku Shinwa” was serialized. I started to like the atmosphere of the pictures and the contents a lot since I read it. As for the plot, its basis were ethnology and archaeology and it also had quite a SF atmosphere… Besides, having the mystery factor, it was a worthwhile reading. Also, the unique design was good too. In addition to this, I also liked sports manga, a little bit of everything, I read pretty much everything.

HEARING

“Hearing”: something you can’t miss being an artist. According to Toshiya, it’s a valuable sensation that shakes many different emotions and also makes childhood memories come back alive.

“Hearing”

A sound in which one feels comfort, and then music.

I guess a sound in which I feel comfort is the sound of public baths. I hear it when I use the baths, the voices and the sound of daily existence echoing make me feel good. But this good feeling I get by using the baths may be just a bit deceiving. Talking about public baths, lately [the number of] stylish health centers has increased, isn’t it? Somehow health centers have a mechanical image. Like, they are way too beautiful… Getting into the bath and then eat one thing after another, it seems like a task that just leads to mere sleep. I feel like that’s completely different from public baths, they have an heart-warming aspect, I feel like they’re somehow close to onsen. Well, it doesn’t necessarily means that I hate health centers because I said so. When I go to other regions because of the lives, I go [to health centers] with the staff. There I get my body scrubbed. But, to my surprise, it happened I got it done by young girls and therefore I was a bit in panic (bitter smile).

The sound I hate is the noise of road construction in the middle of the night. When to that sound when I’m just about to fall asleep while lying down willing to sleep, I end up waking up bothered by it. Because of that my drowsiness disappears and I can’t sleep at all even if I’m willing to. I really want it to stop once for all.

I’m totally fine with high frequency sounds that are often labeled as detestable like the one you get when you scratch on a blackboard. Everyone around me was just like “Argh!” and seemed they hated it, but I was fine.

I was born in a rural area in Nagano and, since the mountains were close to where I was, I prefer the sound of nature instead of the peacefulness of the town. Even the sound of the frogs in the summertime could calm me down (laughs). As there were rice fields all around, you could hear them croaking the whole time. That reminds me that in the past I have a feeling there were some kind of Notostraca in the fields, but lately I can’t really see them. Even if it’s something that I recalled by chance. It’s not like I look in the fields all the time (laughs). I look at them when I stare out of the shinkansen windows while travelling to another region or when I go back home to my family. Then, I can’t see fireflies anymore. When I was a child, they often used to come to rest on the window screen and shine. I strayed a bit from the topic, but when I think about sounds, memories of a long time ago come back to my mind like this. I guess it’s because the things I felt from my childhood still remain just like this.

Talking about music, I can listen to everything. Or, in a better way, I listen to a wide range [of genres]. I listen to pop music and enka as well. When I was a child, my mother liked Sawada Kenji and Anzen Chitai and their music was often playing in the house. Then there was Yamaguchi Momoe, I think. I remember listening to her along with the others. That’s why, instead of pop being a recent thing, it’s more a thing of long ago… I tend to feel like listening to nostalgic things. Talking about really old song, I think I can know their melody too.

SMELL

“Smell” and “scent”. The one that impacts Toshiya the most is the former one. He says he hasn’t a very sensitive sense of smell. He doesn’t even have a good nose.

“Smell”

Food and places… smells that linger together with memories.

[The smell] I like… well, I think that probably you’ll understand me if you’re Japanese, but isn’t it the smell of the curry you have on Saturdays? (laughs) Like, when I came home from school and walked down the street, I could sense that peculiar smell of people preparing dinner coming from every house around. I really liked it.

Then, I also like the smell of rain a lot. I can’t compare it well with anything, but I like that wet smell that I can’t even express. Or rather the peculiar smell of soil and asphalt. I feel like my heart calms down. Besides I think that the smell of historical buildings feel somehow familiar to me. When we travel to different regions while on tour, I occasionally go to visit castles and so on, but I can sense a familiar smell when I go to my grandma’s place in the countryside. It rather feels quite humid. When I recall that scent, which was a smell to me during my childhood, all the time anywhere I am I’d connect it to my memories. Then, even the scent of museums and libraries is soothing, even though it’s not like I always go there. I like the characteristic scent and the silence. Lately I also enjoy entering cafés etc. and relaxing in there. I have a luxurious time [in there].

Among the smells I hate, the very first one to come to my mind is the one of stinky tofu. It’s eaten all over Asia and it’s made by fermented tofu and it’s a food similar to Japanese natto or kusaya, popular among foreigners. Again, its smell is just way too strong. I think we were probably touring somewhere around Shanghai or Taiwan and, as I wandered around the streets with all the members, there was a smell far from being the one of udon. It was so bad to that point of saying “I guess people’s dying somewhere because of this?!” (laughs) Actually I don’t know if that smell killed people. But its smell is so strong to the extent you pinch your nose. Since I was feeling uneasy about it, I asked the local people “What smell is it?” and they answered me “It’s the smell of food”. I thought “It can’t be true!” but people say that, even if it smelled so bad, once you eat it, you get into it. It’s horrible if you just take a smell of it, but I heard it’s delicious if you can manage to put it in your mouth. Even if I was told those things, it was absolutely impossible for me. I can’t eat it. Or perhaps I should say I can’t take it to my mouth (laughs).

I wasn’t really joking when I told that I pinch my nose. Either speaking of it, I think I’m an insensitive person. Sometimes there’s people who perceive something like “It doesn’t feel good” and who have a fine ability for sensing things. But I feel like women are definitely more sensitive about that.

TASTE

Toshiya, the one who isn’t picky about food, so far. As he said “I’m not that sensitive to taste, but I end up overreacting to hot and spicy food”.

“Taste”

He’s not really picky, but in fact he has a sweet tooth.

When we travel to different regions while touring, I look forward to eating those regions specialties. Even if I say so, I’m not even the type who’s a picky eater. It may sound unexpected, but I like sweet things. I like both japanese-style sweets and western-style sweets. I buy pretty much sweets of the konbini. After having breakfast, I drop in at the konbini and while thinking “Mhh…” I’m already reaching out for them (laughs). It’s hard to say what’s my favourite sweet thing. It fairly depends on the mood I’m in that very day. Mh, maybe it’s the moon cake (laughs). When I see it, I often feel like grabbing it. Some drinks to accompany it are hot green tea, soy milk or cow milk. The chemistry between those three and the moon cake is the best. I also like alcohol, so I drink it too while eating sweet things. Even moon cake and sake are absolutely perfect!

I don’t think there are things I can’t eat, but I don’t like spicy foods. Red things like chili are definitely out of discussion, and I don’t really like pepper as well. But for some reason, I’m fine only with wasabi. Since I’ve never eaten anything that stimulated me since I was young, I guess I haven’t that much immunity against hot food. Even the curry at my parents’ home wasn’t hot. In the past, when I used to go to play to at my friends’ home, I usually had curry. I remember being astounded after eating by its excessive hotness. Like “Is curry this hot?!”.

Then, I thing I still can eat but I don’t really like is coriander. I guess I prefer not to eat it. The ones who like it seems to appreciate it very much, but I can’t believe it. Lately on TV I saw many shops specializing in coriander, many all-you-can-eat coriander restaurants and so on and I thought that isn’t a thing I would eat like that. I heard there are many women who likes coriander, although I think that sweet things are suitable for women, but I can’t understand coriander.

There’s one more thing I hate. When we were on tour overseas, I really hate the pizza we used to have on the bus. It was more a matter of quantity than a metter of taste. It didn’t feel like japanese delivery pizza, a single slice was already too huge. We ate it all together, but it was… (bitter smile). I can’t like it. The pizza we ate in Italy was delicious, so it’s not like I hate pizza. That catering pizza we had overseas was awful.

Speaking of food, I used to cook often before. But lately I don’t do it that much. I used to make hamburger and cabbage rolls. When I cook, I may pay particular attention to it. Before I tried to cook thinking that if I cooked using incredibly expensive ingredients, it would have been super delicious, but it wasn’t really like that (bitter smile). I guess I didn’t like it because I wasn’t raised in a bourgeois family.

TOUCH

It feels that “touching” leads to many different sensations and behaviuor. It’s also something that’s connected to one’s interests and likings and that becomes an important factor to determine one’s appearance. How’s Toshiya’s touch being surrounded?

“Touch”

Painting, developing, building up.

It’s not really a hobby, but from long ago, around the time I went to Art school, I liked drawing. When I was a child, since in my neighbourhood there were more girls than boys, I often played with girls. But I started hating being rallied for playing house and from that time on I started drawing at home by myself. Since crayons stained, I draw a lot using pencils. Speaking of what I used to draw… I feel that I used to draw a lot of robots, as expected. I also draw the character of a picture book I liked called “Memementama” all the time. Like, it was this kind of cute ghost with just one red eye and a black body, a bit round. This mementama liked red things, so it would eat all red things. The story is a bit grotesque because the point of it is that when it finds out its own eye is red, it ends up eating it.

Then lately I’m interested in Rolex. In the past I used to think that Rolex were somehow too royal, but since I had the chance to hold in my hand one that was made in the same year I was born, I changed my mind and thought that good things are fine. From that time, whenever I tried to look for many different things about them, it was more interesting than expected. The Rolex company itself became a sort of secret society and the whole thing didn’t become evident. Maybe that’s because the brand image is firmly encircled. Because of that, nearly every information coming from Rolex comes like something that an employee leaked. Now I know things like that model was made around that time, but that’s a leaked information as well. Even that model and the newest one will change and I’ll seem like not knowing it anymore, but surely in a few years won’t anybody leak anything once again? That kind of hidden side is also intriguing.

Speaking of touch, I’m also interested in how a body is made. Meaning that I like to touch my body by myself. I’m turning training into an habit. When I say training, no matter how effort I put in doing it, but when I lost my concentration even for a bit, it loses all its meaning. That’s why I have to keep doing it every day. When I first started doing it it was fun, but the fatigue piles up little by little and doing it every day is tiresome. There are also times in which I’m too tired to do it. However, when neglecting it like that, my muscles disappear immediately. When I do it, I gain them on the part I trained, but when I don’t, they will degenerate two times faster… I think that kind of simple cycle became interesting. From that I learned again that I have to keep on doing anything.

“In conclusion”

About his current interests, roots and serialization.

This time, as a commemoration of the very first column of the series, we had to investigate Toshiya’s interests and likings by interviewing him about the five senses and, lastly, we tried to ask him about the things he’s interested in right now.

“Let me think… maybe it’s the long drama called “Maguromaru” (laughs). It’s the most interesting among these days’ dramas. Until now it was “Aibou”.”

In the entry of Smell the word “castle” popped up too, and it seems like he likes historical things very much.

“When I was a child, during Tango no Sekku [the festival that later became Kodomo no Hi, children’s day] I used to wear a paper helmet and an armour and, instead of having my name written on them, they had like “1Xth generation”. After having asked to my grandmother many things about that, somehow it felt like my family was a line of warriors. In my hometown Nagano once ruled the Takeda family, but there were the twenty-four generals of Takeda Shinken and it feels like my family was a descendant of one of them. That’s why, considering that, I may somehow feel fascinated.”

Toshiya is active in many fields like being a musician and making apparels but, does he assimilate various data from daily things in order to create anything?

“As far as the things I’m interested in are concerned, I think I’ll try to look into it them some extent, but I’m a lazy person (bitter smile). Because of that I guess it’s a fifty-fifty. I think it’s okay not to know in particular those things that I may be interested in, but I’m also fine not knowing. So, I’m the type who don’t really think he will create something from himself. But I cherish the connection with this.

It seems that the attitude of reaching out as much as possible for things he’s interested in didn’t change since he was a child.

“In fact I’m spoiled. I’m the type who gets anything he wants, but as I grew old I realised that there are also things I can’t get. So I learned that maybe I have to reach a good compromise with myself (laughs). But if there’s any chance, I tend to reach out for it. That’s because otherwise I won’t be able to grasp it.”

In this time serialization, we’re planning on having his creative part as a feature. As the one in charge of editing says, it seems that there are already a many different projects, but perhaps even showing his other aspect, the one that’s different from the usual one of him playing the bass on stage, would be great.

“I wonder how will it be. As far as personal things are concerned, I guess I’ll refrain a bit from telling them because I want to keep them for myself. That’s why I’m a bit afraid of telling the truth (laughs).”

This series, which will dig into Toshiya from various points of view, will start for real in the next issue. Don’t miss it!

[aion-rsa]

House of X and Powers of X: Key X-Men Comics to Read

https://ift.tt/306iu50

We picked out some key books from Marvel's history to help you understand the big X-Men reboot.

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House of X and Powers of X have done the unthinkable: they’ve made having an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel X-Men continuity minutiae an asset. Now I have a reason to talk about Xorn’s brother Xorn who was posing as Magneto pretending to be Xorn OTHER than to make someone go away.

This is, of course, a joke. HoX/PoX is remarkably accessible for anyone with any level of background knowledge of the X-Men, from “I like Hugh Jackman” to “remember the time the Sentinels tried to kill the sun because it was causing mutations?” But there is certainly a lot in here that rewards deeper knowledge. And to help you understand it all, we put together a reading list that might help you see the throughlines from Marvel Comics history that help create the comics sensation revitalizing the X-Men books. 

For this reading guide, we’re not only going to tell you what’s good and why we like it. We’re also going to try and piece together how it fits into what Jonathan Hickman and crew are doing in today’s series. Because of that, we’re slapping a big ol’ SPOILER WARNING here: proceeding beyond this point risks spoiling big twists from the first half of the HoX/PoX epic.

  FOR GENERAL BACKGROUND: X-Men: Grand Design

Ed Piskor is the indie comix guy who, prior to this book, was best known for a webcomic-turned-prestige-series, Hip-Hop Family Tree, which told the story of the origins of the biggest genre in music (it’s fantastic, by the way). His acclaim for that book, where he would quite frequently homage superhero covers, eventually garnered enough attention from Marvel for them to take a risk on him. In a fit of uncharacteristic ambition, they allowed Piskor to rework thirty years and 300 issues of X-Men or X-adjacent comics into one miniseries. The result is absolutely stunning.

There are retcons involved, but Piskor manages to turn several eras of comics history into one coherent narrative. Retcons become plot points, characters move rationally instead of for post-hoc rationales and slow-burn payoffs are seeded even earlier. It’s all done with a distinctly underground style, which is refreshing and appropriate, since this is the era when the X-Men became counterculture iconography. 

In other words, if you need the best X-Men comics history lesson imaginable, this is the book for you.

Pay close attention to: Anything with Moira Mactaggert. The revelation in House of X #2 that current Marvel continuity was the tenth time Moira had been resurrected and that she had been planning for six lives to protect the mutant race casts literally the entirety of X-Men history in a new light. So now any interaction with the Professor or his students, like, say, when she was watching Jean Grey become the Phoenix on Muir Island, has potentially new meaning. Grand Design is particularly valuable here because Piskor started before the planning for Hickman’s relaunch did, so you are reading source material that the rebooter himself was probably working off of.

read more - The Best Episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series

You may also like: For tone and craft, X-Men: Grand Design is unique. Despite countless reboots and cleanups attempted in the almost 50 years the X-Men have been published, nothing to my knowledge has been this comprehensive or accessible. However, if you like the characters and the idea of a modernized, streamlined origin-esque story, Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz’s mid-aughts series, X-Men First Class, which tells new stories with the original team of X-Men, is worth checking out. It’s a lot of fun, certainly a lot more fun than reading the original Silver Age issues themselves.

start with the first volume of X-Men: Grand Design here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE BIG THEMES: Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye 

No, I’m not kidding. I am absolutely recommending an alternate universe Hawkeye miniseries in an article about X-Men comics. 

On his way to destroying it, Jonathan Hickman was given space to play around with the Ultimate Universe, and he used it, writing a Thor miniseries and relaunching the Ultimates. Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye was the third prong of his overall story and it focused on a fictional country - the Southeast Asian Republic - as Hawkeye and a team of SHIELD agents arrive on site to deal with a civil war. We quickly find out that SEAR scientists have created a virus to eliminate the X-gene, and a serum that gives their own people a virus-resistant mutation. A “paradigm shift,” as one of the SEAR officials calls it.

That government unleashes both prongs of the plan and promptly loses control of the situation, setting up SEAR as a mutant haven for people taking their serum and thus one of the three prongs of a global conflict that plays out in Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

Pay close attention to: The Xorns. Not because they’re anything like the ones who have shown up in HoX/PoX - the ones in House of X have only thus far been glimpsed, and the millennial nihilist icon from Powers of X is a corpse in an alternate timeline (probably).

read more - Pryde of the X-Men: The Animated Series We Almost Got

No, we’re watching the Xorns in Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye because the idea of mutants as resources in a geopolitical struggle seems central to the conflict playing out between the Krakoan mutants and the humans in the X^1 timeline of today’s series. With all the talk of omega mutants and alignments, you should be able to get a very good sense of what is to come in the mutant conflict by reading this.

You may also like: Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Hickman and eventual Secret Wars collaborator Esad Ribic’s story of what else is going on in the world while SEAR blows up. That story is mainly concerned with SHIELD being woefully outgunned by the mutants on one side, and evil Reed Richards’ Asgard- and Europe- destroying hyper evolved Children. It’s really good.

read Ultimate Comics Hawkeye here.

FOR A SENSE OF THE TONE: “Days of Future Past”

“Days of Future Past” is right smack in the middle of what Piskor covers in Grand Design. So why read it separately? Because I strongly suspect this is the foundational text of what Hickman is trying to do with his story.

This is one of the all-time classic X-Men stories by maybe the most well liked team in the franchise’s history. In the far future of 2013, Sentinels have taken control of the US and are on their way to taking over the world, because they see human existence as the flaw causing mutation that they are programmed to wipe out. So they kill most of the heroes and round up the remaining ones into camps. Wolverine, Rachel Summers (in her first appearance), Katherine Pryde (not long after her debut), Colossus, Storm and Magneto all team up so Rachel can send Kitty’s consciousness back in time, take over her younger body and prevent the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (led by Mystique and Destiny) from killing Senator Robert Kelly, sending the future spiralling towards extinction.

These two issues function as an effective preview of the conflict that HoX/PoX explores. Humans are irrationally afraid of Mutants, who alternate between trying to be left alone and trying to dominate their progenitors. Meanwhile, the robots say “you both suck” and (presumably before falling into the sun in the case of Mothermold) just start killing.

read more: X-Men Movies Watch Order

Furthermore, “Days of Future Past” is precisely the kind of dystopia that PoX is pushing. The X^2 future has lot of Age of Apocalypse trappings, but its central conflict is between mutants trying desperately to survive and robots who hate everything biological trying to destroy everyone. Surprisingly, though Nimrod is closely associated with this dark future, he doesn’t actually appear in these issues. He comes back in time about 50 issues later, from that future but not seen in it. 

Pay close attention to: The mood and milieu of this story are the important factors, but it’s also probably worth keeping an eye on Destiny and Moira Mactaggart here. The mutant precog had one very...pointed...run in with Groundhog Lady in her third life, and they come very close to each other here. This may be fertile territory for a retcon.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men #208-209. This is Nimrod’s big battle with the X-Men and the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, as Rachel Summers lays dying in Central Park. It’s nowhere near the bleak, oppressive tone that “Days of Future Past” has, but you get some sense here of the sheer power that Nimrod has at his disposal. Also, he’s clearly insane, and as far as things you want from your robots, insanity is not high on the list.

read Days of Future Past here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE MAIN VILLAIN: “The Phalanx Covenant”

The X-Men crossover that introduced Generation X, the second wave of mutant students after the New Mutants/X-Force, also seems surprisingly important. Originally presented as an offshoot of the techno-organic space mutant Warlock’s race, the Phalanx are half Borg, half grey goo nightmare. In this story, they invade Earth to assimilate and destroy it, but find that they can’t assimilate mutants, so they start trying to figure out why by kidnapping the X-Men and a group of teens identified as potential students. They fail, of course, but not before planting phalanx eggs around the planet and killing off a character who became inexplicably popular a year and a half later (Blink, who existed in the 616 for a grand total of 20 minutes before dying. She’s great, but I don’t get why she endured and not someone like Synch). 

read more: The Many Different Versions of the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga

The Phalanx are the hive galaxy in the X^3 future being called down by the Librarian to assimilate humanity, and it looks like (at least in whatever life of Moira’s this is), they’re finally successful. 

Pay close attention to: Husk and M. I went back and forth on whether to prioritize this or the other comics you might like, trying to figure out which is more important to the narrative, and what sold me on The Phalanx Covenant is the fact that Husk and M are part of the X-Men strike force attacking Mothermold in space in House of X. They’re also two of the more plot-relevant members of Generation X during this crossover - Monet is the one who finally breaks them out of captivity, and Husk’s powers are revealed because one shell is infected with TO virus. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

You may also like: Annihilation: Conquest. This is the second mid-aughts Marvel Space crossover, the first helmed by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning exclusively, and the one that launched this line of books into what would eventually give us the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The galaxy is reeling from the events of Annihilation, and as it recovers, the Phalanx take over Hala and the remains of the Kree empire. This series is good, pure Marvel Space fun. It’s the exact moment where I fell in love with this line of books. It’s also very thorough in laying out the mythology and rules of the Phalanx. 

read The Phalanx Covenant here.

TO TAKE A WILD GUESS ON WHAT IS YET TO COME: “The Dark Angel Saga”

This run on Uncanny X-Force, ostensibly a side book full of stabby mutants (and Deathlok) brought together first as Cyclops’ wetworks squad, then held together by Angel’s money, is without a doubt the best X-Men comic of the last 15 years. It’s also brimming with Apocalypse lore, which feels like one of a couple things left deliberately unstated by the events of HoX/PoX. 

The gang finds an Akkaba enclave in the desert, discovering that they’ve resurrected Apocalypse and are training the now six year old kid to be the evolutionary destroyer they believe he’s destined to become. So Fantomex shoots the kid in the head.

read more: The X-Men Movies You Never Saw

What follows is an extended superhero musing on nature vs. nurture, while at the same time the Death Seed Apocalypse planted in Angel’s back to turn him into Archangel takes over Warren’s mind, turning him into the new Apocalypse. The story goes through all the reasons for it and has Warren reassemble his horsemen. It functions essentially as a deep dive into the reasons for Apocalypse’s ascension and the role that he plays in the galactic ecosystem of the Marvel Universe.

That’s noticeably missing from Apocalypse’s scenes in the new series.

Pay close attention to: The Celestial stuff. Apocalypse in Powers of X was a heroic figure, leading a suicide mission against Nimrod and the robots to get Moira information on Nimrod’s emergence so she could stop it in life 10. There’s no mention of the role he was originally created for, one that exists separate from the Moira cycle because it started thousands of years before she was born: to guide evolution on Earth so the Celestials don’t return and destroy it. How that plays into the man-mutant-machine war seems like a clear fit, but also completely unmentioned.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men vol. 2 #14-17. Even though it takes place during the utterly dreadful A vs. X, Kieron Gillen’s Mr. Sinister story is the definitive recent take on the master genetic manipulator, and he’s DEFINITELY coming.

read The Dark Angel Saga here.

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Feature Jim Dandy

Sep 10, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

Jonathan Hickman

from Books https://ift.tt/2ZPW4sO

[hypexion]

crimes of grindelwald: the thought post

Truly the greatest summary of this film is “Queenie shows up at Newt’s house unannounced, and things spiral out of control from there.“

Spoilers below the cut as I ramble about Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

(i’m aware it’s been a... while since the film happened but i write slow and this spiralled out of control into a bit of a mess)

So, The Crimes of Grindelwald. In a sense, it’s hard to say more than what’s already been said. The narrative is too busy, the characterization is confused, the plot twists are overdone, and there aren’t even that many Fantastic Beasts. It has some good scenes also but they’re sort of floating in the rest of it. It’s hard to find a starting point, but perhaps it’s best to start with the start.

Crimes of Grindelwald does not begin in a way I would described as ‘clean‘. While the opening scene is fairly good, the plot begins to contort itself as soon as Newt Scamander appears. Newt wants to travel internationally, but the Ministry of Magic will only let him if he goes to Paris to hunt down Credence. Newt says “no“ because he isn’t an Auror. Albus Dumbledore then shows up to bother Newt, and also wants him to go to Paris. Newt, not wanting to go to Paris, says he won’t go. Then Queenie and Jacob show up, and Newt finds a postcard from Tina. She’s in Paris! Newt proceeds to do a 180 on the whole ‘go to Paris‘ thing, and sets off.

The whole Paris dance really seems like it could be streamlined. The whole thing is obviously set up to get Queenie and Jacob into the plot, but there’s no reason for them not to start in Paris and meet Newt there. Sure, it’s a coincidence, but it’s not like the Wizarding World is big. The British magical community seems to consist mostly of three places, including the sprawling urban location of an alleyway in London. This extra complexity is ultimately a portend of things to come, since Crimes of Grindelwald gets rather busy.

Probably my second largest criticism of Crimes of Grindelwald is that there’s too much going on. There are several characters, and they all have several goals that only end up driving the conflict because everyone crashes into each other. Newt and Jacob are looking for Tina and Queenie, while Tina is looking for Credence. Yusef Kama is also looking for Credence, but for murder reasons. Meanwhile, Credence wants to find his true identity, along with Nagini who I assume is searching for why she’s in this film. Leta wants to absolve her crushing guilt probably, and Theseus would like to catch Grindelwald. Grindelwald himself is just waiting around for Credence to attend his rally, and doesn’t really do much despite allegedly being the antagonist of this whole thing. Ultimately, everyone’s goal becomes “Get Credence“ but probably it should have started that way. Then we’d have more time for some Fantastic Beasts!

Crimes of Grindelwald is at it’s best when it’s actually being Fantastic Beasts 2. Whenever Newt is doing his magical zoology things, or unleashing the beasts, things are okay. Even Tina gets in on the actions, moving from ‘gotta kill the beasts‘ to ‘hey let’s do the Newt thing to stop the beast‘. There’s even a perfectly good beast related reason for Newt to go to Paris - a magical circus that could have easily been dragging around some seriously scary magical beasts that Newt would need to deal with. Sadly, Crimes of Grindelwald ultimately care more about the big conspiracy than it does about magical creatures, so mostly we get a few set pieces with them, and that’s kind of it.

Speaking of the big conspiracy, that’s a rather tangled mess. We have one Credence Barebone, who wants to find his true identity. There’s a big thing made of how he’s suddenly the last member of a dying family (or something) and everybody knows it. Except Credence. Eventually, Yusef Kama explains everything - Credence is actually Corvus Lestrange number five, and NOW HE HAS TO DIE. Except no - he isn’t! Leta swapped Corvus with a random baby, and then a boat sank, so Credence is just some random baby. An unsatisfying reveal for all. This is literally the main plot thread of the film, and it ends with what is effectively a non-answer.

But then the film doubles (triples?) down on the madness, and reveals that Credence is actually Aurelius Dumbledore, the never before mentioned fourth Dumbledore sibling. Except this is clearly a deception since the timeline makes no sense otherwise, and this information is provided by Notorious Magic Crime Person Gellert Grindelwald. This whole thing just feels like a twist for the sake of having a twist, which is not really that good of a writing thing.

On the topic of Notorious Magic Crime Person Gellert Grindelwald, he doesn’t really do that much, even though the film is called Crimes of Grindelwald. He certainly crimes, performing murders and break-ins, he conspires to pervert the course of justices and holds a proto-fascist rally in a graveyard. He also tries to destroy Paris, which sort of undermines his point in his proto-fascist rally. I think that, minus World War Skull Vape, Grindelwald’s big speech is actually a pretty good scene. Rather than going for a stereotypical rant, Grindelwald wraps his words in plausible deniability. Muggles aren’t inferior, they simple have a ‘different purpose‘. He shifts the narrative, making his audience into the victims of a world that forces them to hide. And, despite its delivery, the grim warning of another war is enough to shake many who oppose Grindelwald.

Of course, Grindelwald is ultimately a lying liar who lies. In private, he’s already mentioned how he’s going to liquidize most of the Can’t-Spells, and keep the rest as slaves. Yet he still manages to coat his genocidal ideals in veneer of respectability, and it seems likely than many people already thinking “maybe this Gellert chap is speaking sense“ would be pushed into his camp. But if you already think that Grindelwald is a jerk, you’ll probably not be convinced. Especially if you can, I don’t know, read minds.

Which brings us to the true crime of Crimes of Grindelwald: The Character Assassination of Queenie Goldstein by the Coward JK Rowling. It’s tempting to suggest Queenie joins the baddies in order to demonstrate the toxic allure of Grindelwald, except her character starts the film derailed. Nothing in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them suggests that Queenie would resort to straight-up mind control in order to solve a relationship problem. The closest she gets to unethical use of magic in the first film is a bit of minor blackmail in pursuit of saving her sister’s life. Queenie doesn’t even spend that much time around Grindelwald, so it doesn’t really feel earned when she turns. Ultimately, I just can’t get over how Jacob and Queenie are reintroduced to the plot. While the narrative doesn’t entirely avoid the problem with the enchantment, it never really faces it head on. It’s a jarring shift in characterization, and it’s justified by a few mentions of things that happened entirely off-screen.

Speaking of off-screen changes, it’s Tina Time. Here’s a meta-spoiler for you: Tina and Newt are going to end up married. Yay! I know this because the original Fantastic Beasts book says so. Which makes the entire relationship regression basically pointless. Really, it’s one of those weird plot complications the film could do without. Then we could have more Tina the cool Auror who is going to GET CREDENCE for actual reasons, unlike everyone else trying to get him. Tina gets the lion’s share of the character development, which is too say her character actually develops in a way we could expect - she uses the same magic Newt uses to calm down a beast, and that’s pretty good. Tina also immediately understands the magic of Salamander Eyes which is cute goofy stuff that works even though the relationship was put through a mangler for drama that doesn’t even materialize. Really, Tina is the best character in Crimes of Grindelwald since she has a motivation that is both consistent and comprehensible, unlike other characters. I’m not quite sure that Tina really has a character arc in this film, but she at least follows some sort of line, so it’s okayish.

Which brings us to the character with the actual character arc: Leta Lestrange. Leta is mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them as Newt’s mysterious person from the past. Crimes of Grindelwald builds up her character on a scaffold of what’s come before - Leta is a non-evil Slytherin, and is part of the same family as Magic Murder Woman Bellatrix Lestrange. People expect her to go along with Grindelwald’s Wizard Fascism thing because she’s from the mystic and circular Lestrange family. But she doesn’t, because Leta is her own person with her own functioning sense of morality. She even has a vaguely sensible connection to GET CREDENCE - she knows he’s not who people think he is, because she was involved in Corvus Five sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Leta is a character with a lot of room for interesting depth and complexity, especially given that she’s got a connection to Newt’s expulsion from Hogwarts. So it’s pretty messed up that she gets killed off to provide emotional damage for the male lead.

What’s terrible about Leta’s death is that it’s utterly pointless. Newt doesn’t need that kind of motivation to choose a side. What Grindelwald is doing is wrong, and as a character who sees the value in the life of beasts and monster where others don’t, Newt should be opposed to Grindelwald on principle. It’s not like Leta is clogging up the narrative either. Her existence actually has a point to it, unlike some characters. Leta had the potential to be more than a tragic backstory and a tragic end, and writing about it makes me super ticked off at the wasted potential.

(Leta is also involved in those weird first person scenes. I found them kind of uncomfortable but if they worked for you I guess it’s cool.)

Now, if Leta is the deepest character in Crimes of Grindelwald, Nagini is the anti-Leta. In a sense, Nagini is not a character in Crimes of Grindelwald, since she barely has a character to begin with. Sure, she doesn’t like being a circus attraction, and is upset by Credence joining up with Notorious Magic Crime Person Grindelwald, but that’s basically it. Mostly, Nagini is just kind of around when Credence is around. Crimes of Grindelwald is simply to busy to include Nagini, yet she’s here anyway. The annoying part is that like Leta, there’s actually some potentially interesting stuff surrounding Nagini, but it is never explored. Nagini is a ‘Maledictus’, a woman cursed to eventually turn into a big snake. This is kind of neat. Not for Nagini, of course. It’s probably very upsetting, but we never find that out since she bearly has any presence in the film. In a sense, Nagini is becoming a Fantastic Beast, which means she has reasons to interact with Newt. Reasons like “hey can you stop me from becoming a big snake, Mr. Magic Beasts Expert”. But everyone is too busying GETTING CREDENCE, so Nagini doesn’t get time to exist. In theory, she could be giving Credence off-screen pep talks, but maybe we could have had something along those lines on-screen instead. On a second viewing, it soon becomes apparent that Nagini averages roughly one line per scene she’s in. Also I think her name is only spoken once? Ultimately, Nagini isn’t a well-written character, simple because she’s not really a written character.

Nagini also has the additional problem of being everything wrong with Expanded Universes. According to J.K. Rowling, Nagini the Maledictus is one and the same as Nagini, Horcrux of Voldemort. Really. JK Rowling claims that she’s known this for twenty years, which is how I know that JK Rowling is a liar. There is absolutely no value, literary or otherwise, for Nagini the Snake to have once been human. More than inane, this detail is just bizarre. Why would we need a backstory for Voldemort’s snake? It makes sense for him to have a big snake, given that his previous big snake died in a tragic sword accident. It also means that Nagini the woman is doomed to become an evil snake. Which is pre-emptive bad story, because I refuse to believe that Good Hufflepuff Newt Scamander would leave a woman to the fate of permanent snakification. Newt even knows Dumbledore, a genius Transfiguration Master. If anyone can stop Nagini from becoming a big snake forever, it’s Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. (In before Nagini the woman is magically split from Nagini the snake, with the snake part slithering off to team up with Voldemort.)

It is, of course, impossible to forget that Albus Dumbledore is in Crimes of Grindelwald. He is one of the many characters who fails to really do much. Okay, he gives Newt a ticket to meet Flamel, but does meeting Flamel do anything for the story? No. Dumbledore spends most of his screen time in a castle, being harassed by Aurors. At the end of the film, Newt gives him a MacGuffin. The end.

Oh, and Dumbledore looks in a mirror. The Mirror of Erised, to be precise. In the magic mirror, he sees his forbidden past: he was definitely, undoubtedly, the subtext is just text, in love with Grindelwald. The presentation of this fact is as subtle as a passing train belting out heaving metal at the highest possible volume. Yet somehow, the film never quite gets around to stating this out loud. While Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald was an interesting footnote in the Harry Potter novels, it is the entire reason why Crimes of Grindelwald is about Newt Scamander and not Albus Dumbledore. It’s like a kind of literary cowardice not to say that Dumbledore is gay, in a film where Dumbledore being gay is actually directly related to why the story happens the way it does. Unlike most of my issues with Crimes of Grindelwald, this doesn‘t fall back to the film being too busy. Actually stating the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald would take a single line, but instead we get a drawn out, yet painfully obvious pile of subtext that dances around the issue. It’s almost as if JK Rowling isn’t as inclusive as she’d like us to believe.

But enough about that!

There are other characters in Crimes of Grindelwald, but at this point they don’t have much going for them. Theseus Scamander is probably one of the only side characters who actually makes sense to be in the story. He’s trying to help out Newt, catch Grindelwald, and get married, but things go wrong for him and it’s kind of sad. Jacob is back, along with his memories of magic, because he was in the first film, and just having him to not be exposed to the Obliviation Rain would be too simple. Yusef Kama is almost a Nagini-tier character, but he does occationally propel the plot forward. He does save Nagini when Grindelwald decides that it’s murder time, which counts as some level of characterisation, but overall he’s squeezed out by other things.

There’s a bunch of minor characters as well, but the likes of Newt’s Assistant Bunty, Bucket Man, Beast Killer Evil Dude and Guy Grindelwald Kills only exist within the scenes they are in. They perform a necessary function of filling out the world, and I suppose they do it well enough.

Having finally, finally slogged through all the characters of note, it’s time to mention the setpieces. They’re pretty good! Magic Circuses, the Black Sheet of Grindelwald, The Big Speech, Grindelwald’s Carriage Adventure and Save Paris are all neat. It’s good to see magical stuff in this film that’s set in a magical world. Otherwise, the colour-scheme is a bit washed out, you know? Fight scenes also feel a little drab, with everyone embracing the “wand is gun“ sort of thing. Except Grindelwald, who does occasionally do fancy magics. Really, this point could apply to the original Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them as well. There’s magic aplenty, but it doesn’t always seem, well, magical, for lack of a better term.

In fact, the whimsical eccentricity of the magic world seems diminished. We’ve gone from “Muggles“ to “No-maj“, “Non-magic“ and “Can’t Spells“. Muggle is a word you can imagine being said in many ways, from serious to slur. No-maj is just awkward. It all feels a little paint-by-numbers, with details being filled out for the sake of details, an attempt to create additional depth. Muggle, I feel, has a sort of depth to it, as a word. It doesn’t quite connect to the concept it describes, yet it seems to fit. No-maj, meanwhile, is incredibly direct, deriving directly from “No magic“. But it sounds wrong. The same applies to “Can’t Spells“. We live in a wonderful world of slang, and this is really the best people can come up with? I suppose this is ultimately picking at a minor detail, which is worth overlooking, since the real problems with Crimes of Grindelwald are the major details.

The ultimate problem with Crimes of Grindelwald is simply that things don’t fit. The individual parts don’t fit together properly, and the side plots don’t quite meet up with the main plot. And all the characters don’t fit into the film, with several would-be major characters ending up as side characters, as everyone tries to Get Credence. At points, the film effectively interrupts itself, as it tries to fit in all the required backstories and character interactions. There are places where Crimes of Grindelwald could be streamlined, certainly, but without extending the runtime, it doesn’t feel like everything the film wants to do can be done.

The final criticism I have for Crimes of Grindelwald must be saved for the end, as it is about the end. Except, Crimes of Grindelwald does not have an ending. Instead, it’s one of those works that simply stops. While Crimes of Grindelwald is obviously setting up for Fantastic Beasts 3 and beyond, it fails as a self-contained work. I can’t help but think of A Dance with Dragons, a book so packed with events that two of the major end events got pushed out of the book and (presumably) into The Winds of Winter. Again, this is a problem that can really only be solved with more film.

So, thankfully, the end is here. I have spent far too many words on Crimes of Grindelwald, and perhaps too much time as well. This “essay“, if you will, is sprawling, vaguely focused and probably not entirely coherent. Which in some sense makes it the perfect review of Crimes of Grindelwald. Both would surely benefit from additional editing passes. Or any editing at all, one might argue. But as a not-so-humble internet blogger, I look up my work and realise something. The time to stop has come. I doubt I’ll write this much about Fantastic Beasts 3. Or possibly anything. Eesh. Now that’s slightly terrifying.

In the end, less can be more, and more can be less. Ultimately, Crimes of Grindelwald misses the mark, and suffers for it, in both plot and in character.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #404

Top Ten Favourite Strategy Games

Y’know, sometimes I do these things, and I search in vain for a hook to hang the list on. I’ve been doing a lot of work for Countdown recently, so I thought about doing ten gameshows of the past, but that requires a lot of soul-searching and wandering through mazes of nostalgia and disgraced prime-time entertainers. So in lieu of any relevance, here’s a list I’ve had cogitating for a while: my favourite strategy games.

As usual, a boat-load of caveats, because I’m not some hardcore strategy nut. In my gaming heyday (the 90s, basically) I loved RTS games, which felt – alongside FPS games – like one of the twin pillars of PC gaming at the time. Eventually my love of the minutia but crapness at the combat made me gravitate towards the slower, more cerebral pace of turn-based strategy, and that’s where most of my love remains.

However, my interest in the genre piqued long before anyone asked me if I “want axe” or offered to do something “for King and country”; probably the first game about directing the lives of sprites that I fell in love with was The Settlers on the Amiga. I also played the seminal Dune II for a bit, but not really enough to merit inclusion here; however, I still feel a sufficient “I was there” thrill to know that I got to experience a “C&C clone” before there was even a C&C to clone.

Also we have to make some kind of distinction here between empire-building, frequently war-focused strategy games, and more (for want of a better word) prosaic city-building/management-style games. I think I will do another list about those, and the Settlers franchise is probably where we draw the line between the two; but for now, the Sim Cities and Theme Parks of this world can be kept under wraps for another day. Suffice it to say I have not forgotten about them. Oh, and I’m not including games where you direct squads into battle, be it Cannon Fodder or X-COM; yes, they’re a type of strategy game, but they ain’t what I’m on about today. Blimey, me and my caveats.

So with no further ado, let’s hit space to end this turn and bring on my favourite games about crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before, hearing the lamentations of their women, and also making sure you’ve got enough wood to build a fisherman’s house.

Civilization VI (2016): I’ve played every Civ except, I think, the first one, and though nostalgia demands I keep III (played to death at uni with my now-wife) and IV (refined and improved loads about III) in high regard, everything from the interface to the visuals to the end-game (especially in the latest DLC) makes VI the greatest Civ yet, and one of my favourite games of all time.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996): synonymous with my intense PC gaming days at school, which saw me building levels and modifying game files to create new units, Red Alert was a compelling, addictive, fun and funny strategy game whose grounded setting resonated stronger with me than the mainline C&C titles.

Medieval II: Total War (2006): the combination of turn-based empire-building and epic battles with thousands of troops made this compelling. Building a dynasty by marrying off intelligent daughters to victorious generals provides hours of fun. Despite refinements to the engine and deeper gameplay additions (such as naval combat), I’m still drawn to Medieval II above all others because I just find the setting a lot more interesting. Wish they’d do Medieval III.

The Settlers II (1996): the original Settlers game on the Amiga has a smidge more nostalgia value, as it sucked me into the concept of looking after little computer people (I never got to play Little Computer People), but playing Settlers II on PC I couldn’t argue it wasn’t an improvement. Better graphics, better story, easier interface… does a great job of bringing the Settlers to life and making the village you build feel real. Settlers III and IV – the only other ones I’ve played – seemed to take some of the joy of building out of the thing, even if they streamlined other rough elements.

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999): if Red Alert represents the pinnacle of 90s action RPGs, then AoE II is the more sedate real-world equivalent. Another game that I associate with playing extensively with my girlfriend at uni, this was a refinement of the Warcraft multiple-resource-hoarding formula, with a very robust technology tree and terrific graphics. I should really play the Definitive Edition, which is on Game Pass.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995): “STOP CLICKING ON ME!” Bringing a sense of humour as well as exquisite world-building to the table, Warcraft II is a fantastic, colourful, thoroughly entertaining RTS game, that all the same never quite clicked with me the way Red Alert or AoE would. Does a great job of mining Tolkien/D&D tropes and converting them into RTS gold. Still eminently playable.

Total Annihilation (1997): one of the first RTS games to successfully exploit 3D graphics, TA changed the game with its resource gathering dynamic, allowing units to be recycled or resources converted from one to another, as well as giving us powerful commander-type units, line-of-sight, and a wealth of upgradable unit trees. Probably not as good as the Supreme Commander games, but I’ve not played them as much.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005): most RTS games are PC-focused and best played with a mouse, but AW:DS – the first Advance Wars game I played – was a terrific handheld console experience. The nuances of base acquisition and defence are great, as is the interplay between units, but really it’s the tension of knowing that, next turn, you’re probably going to die, but maybe not, that makes it great.

Battlezone (1998): surely one of the greatest remakes of all time, and a spin on the RTS genre that I’m amazed didn’t take on, especially with the increased popularity of console gaming (they should do a Halo Wars like this). Taking the standard base-building and squad-controlling aspects of an RTS, but making it first-person, was a masterstroke, and it plays equally well as a strategy game or – really – an FPS. Plus a cracking plot about Soviets on the moon.

Earth 2150 (2000): meshing bits of C&C and TA together, this was a gorgeous 3D strategy game at the dawn of the millennium. Building bases, acquiring power, but churning out armies of meticulously researched and configured troops – with different offensive and defensive capabilities – it made the best use of the technology of the time, and allowed for distinctive play-styles. Great fun over a network at university.

I’m aware that after dismissing the squad-controlling games such as X-COM, I included Advance Wars and Battlezone, which are arguably more about troop control than resource gathering or building. But I still feel these games are about constructing or acquiring bases, defending them, and attacking enemies with troops; they just do that in innovative ways. Originally I had Pikmin in there too, but on reflection I felt it was more of a strategic troop-controlling game such as Cannon Fodder than it was a game about territorial expansion or defence (you could even argue that it’s a puzzle game, I suppose).

Anyway, strategy games: an incredibly confusing genre, it turns out.

[into-the-demimonde]

Game of Thrones season 7, episode 4, “The Spoils of War” review

My friend Alex will be joining me again. This week on Game of Thrones, the Lannisters needed some ointment. Jon gives Dany a history lesson. Meanwhile Arya comes home and duels with Brienne. Theon returns to Dragonstone with his tail between his legs. Bran is even more annoying than usual, but Meera doesn't let it slide. Virginia: this was Game of Thrones’ shortest episode ever, and even though it was only by like a minute, I think it was a noticeable difference. Alex: I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. It felt really tight for a Game of Thrones episode. Pretty much everything was either important to the plot or a nice character moment for one of the main players. V: yeah, they didn't play around this week. I have a feeling the rest of the show will be much more streamlined than the padded first seasons. A: I’m glad. There’s no season I didn’t like, but the earlier ones got really draggy in parts; I had to force myself to keep watching after a few episodes of season one. And while some of the slower stuff was necessary and very well done, this is the home stretch. It’s time to start paying off all that setup, and they’re doing a great job of that. V: agreed. My favorite part of this episode was the battle at the end obviously, but all of it was great. I really enjoyed Meera taking the piss out of Bran. A: That was so necessary. It was looking like the showrunners didn’t get what a creepy little weirdo Bran was being, but that scene makes it clear they understand. Hopefully that mean his nonsense will pay off somehow. V: since he's a god or whatever now, it would be too good for him to die in some uneventful, boring way. A: Yeah, he has to be eaten or something. His jerky attitude has earned him that. V: and his haircut. If you're not a lesbian and it's not the 1970s, just don't. A: The clearest sign his “godhood” is going to his head. Luckily, his much more interesting sisters had some great moments this week. V: that woman in the background people are calling Cat is more interesting than Bran. What did you think of Brienne and Arya fighting? A: I really liked that moment, the way Arya’s reverence for Brienne led to Brienne respecting Arya as a fellow warrior instead of just someone for her to protect. They’re on equal footing now, and I hope they get to do some damage together. V: they have a lot in common. I also liked the scene where Jon shows Dany the cave, at least until she said her dreaded catch phrase. A: They were so close! It felt like she had finally come around and let it go. I guess it’s just a step in that direction. That’s an indication of how fast things are moving, too; I’m saying “finally” about something that’s been going on for all of two episodes. But I did like the scene, and how it showed her there’s more than just her birthright at stake. V: she's still pissing me off. How can a person go through so much and come out so self-righteous? How is the breaker of chains also so full of herself? A: I think part of why it’s so annoying, and we talked about this last week too, is because the show did such a terrific job of showing her grow in that respect. Last season in particular had Tyrion begin to influence her and get her to move away from ultraviolence and lust for power to be more effective. This feels like a regression, and it wasn’t really set up. I can appreciate her distrust because of the past, but after her back and forth with Tyrion it seemed like she had gotten over that sort of thing. V:  exactly. Her character has been handled so well up to now, and then they take several steps back. I feel really oppressed right now. I really hope Jon “wins" somehow. A: I think he will, eventually. It’s taking more time than it should, but I imagine she’ll come around. Baby steps. V: give that baby some caffeine. I don't have this kind of patience! A: She can’t really afford to either; she needs all the help she can get after the last two weeks. V:  too true. She chose a bad time to be all high and mighty. A: And not only have the Lannisters been winning, but they’re close to getting the Iron Bank on their side. I really enjoyed that moment between Cersei and the head banker (although I had to remind myself not to expect Mark Gatiss to call her “Brother mine”). She’s made some disastrous mistakes in the past, but he points out that she’s become possibly an even better leader of House Lannister than her father. Those are big shoes to fill, and it’s strong character development as well as a boost of her threat level. V: oh yeah. It's amazing compared to where she was in the early seasons.  The battle in the end was really great, and one of my favorite battle scenes from the show. Still, nothing compares to Battle of the Bastards. A: Oh my god, that was amazing! They do these battles so well on Game of Thrones; every single one feels distinct from the others, even down to how they’re filmed. The Battle of the Bastards was astonishing, and they resisted the urge to just replicate it. It was also a much needed catharsis for those of us rooting for Daenerys to break the wheel. The losses she suffered this season were necessary for the story, but hard to take. This was the exact right moment to see her get her own back, and it was a real crowd-pleaser of an action sequence. And I love the “Oh shit” look on Jamie’s face when he sees how much trouble he’s in. V: I agree completely. Jaime wants his queen to beat out Daenerys and puts himself in danger to bring it about, just to get his ass kicked and almost toasted. Do you think Drogon will die? Some people have speculated that the arrow was tipped with poison. A: I don’t think he’ll die from this, but I do think at least one of the dragons will die eventually. I actually went back and forth during the battle. First I thought Bronn was going to die, and then when he got to the dragon-killing super arrow I thought this was it for Drogon, V: me too actually. I genuinely couldn't guess what was coming. A comparatively simple scene was one where Daenerys inquired what transpired between Missandei and Grey Worm. A: I love that moment. It’s a perfect example of allowing female characters to be feminine. They’re waging war and invading a kingdom, but they can take a few minutes for some girl talk. What I liked somewhat less was Loras’ talk with Jon, one comment in particular. V: ughhhh. Every time someone suggests Jon and Daenerys as a couple it's just sickening to me. I expect a lot from Davos and this was way beneath him. Shipping incest? Really? A: It scares me because I wonder if the show is laying the groundwork for it, and sloppily at that. Just because they’re the two beautiful hero people doesn’t mean they need to end up together. I’d much rather them just achieve some mutual respect for each other. V: they don't have any chemistry to be a couple anyway. It's exactly the kind of thing you expect to see on fanfiction.net. A: That’s what makes it even worse; did they really intend to do it, or are they just giving the fans what they want? Nine times out of ten that’s a mistake, and this would be one of them, V: it's always the worst when creators give into fan service. Tell fans to make their own stories(with new characters!) If they don't like it. A: I remember years ago Joss Whedon said you don’t give the fans what they want, you give them what they need. That’s true, because a lot of times what people think they want won’t turn out as well as they imagine. This is the perfect example; people want these two to get together, but would it feel right for either one of them if they did? V: it would be a cheap and cheesy move. Of course the two most popular, attractive characters would hook up. Ridiculous. Is it crazy if I still root for Jorah? A: Probably, but he makes you want to believe. V: I got the warm and fuzzies when Arya and Sansa embraced. A: Speaking of cathartic moments. That was wonderful, and so well-earned. They’ve changed so much, gone through absolute hell, and now I think they appreciate each other in way they never did as kids. V: I think Sansa in particular appreciates her entire family in a whole new way. She's had my favorite transformation through the seasons. A: She’s definitely had the biggest. She’s been forced to grow up fast, and now she’s as steely eyed as Arya is, even if they go about things in different ways. V: they are basically opposites on the outside, but now they have more in common inside. A: I liked how Sansa new exactly where Arya was too. The look on her face when she realized it was really her sister was perfect. V: every reunion that hasn't involved Bran has been perfect. A: And he did his damndest to ruin this one, because he’s Bran. Maybe Arya can add him to her list. He can take Joffrey’s place.

[antialiasis]

Billy Elliot

So in the wee hours of the morning of my birthday, I rewatched Billy Elliot, the original 2000 film, with Shadey.

It’s a good movie in its own right, but it also gave me a lot of added appreciation for the musical, which is a really good adaptation. I originally saw the movie sometime in maybe 2003 when it was on TV; then, in 2015, my aunt invited me along to see the Icelandic production of the musical adaptation, and sometime last year I watched the 2014 anniversary DVD recording of the musical with Shadey. By that point, I didn’t remember too much about the original movie, beyond the basic beats; I couldn’t tell exactly what had been changed or cut or expanded. Rewatching the movie after getting familiar with the musical was really interesting just to compare and contrast the two.

First of all, simply by its nature this was a really good story to adapt into a musical. The original movie already has Billy dancing as an emotional release on various occasions; since that’s not really a thing people do in real life in quite this way, these scenes feel a little weird and quirky, a touch of something almost like magical realism in an otherwise pretty gritty and down-to-earth film set during a specific historical event. It’s definitely a neat effect in the movie, emphasizing both how clearly Billy is born to be a dancer and the contrast between him and everyone else in the miner town. But in a musical, it becomes a completely seamless, natural emotional reaction. In the movie, the “angry dance” scene is interesting and works great, but it’s inevitably kind of goofy; in the musical, though, it’s a deeply powerful emotional gut-punch that is able to play itself completely straight because the musical context removes the quirkiness of it. The build-up is stronger, too: “Mum would’ve let us -” “Well, your mum’s dead!” And we go straight from that to the way darker, more rocked-out instrumental song playing and Billy helplessly screaming his rage and frustration and step-dancing furiously, to his agonized dance blending chaotically into the conflict between the police and the miners, sirens blaring, Billy screaming at the cops - it’s such a great, goosebumps-inducing scene and overall it blows the original movie out of the water.

Similarly, in the movie, Billy has a little, slightly awkward but resonant answer to “What does it feel like when you’re dancing?”, which concludes it feels like electricity, and it’s a nice moment of a bit of insight into how Billy feels about dancing. But in the musical, as Billy explains the same in the song “Electricity”, he suddenly throws his bag to his dad and starts to dance as Jackie stares, perhaps for the first time fully appreciating his son’s immense talent. Instead of a question asked after the end of his audition, his answer sort of seamlessly becomes part of the audition, actually showing off his skill and passion in a way that implies it’s what actually gets him admitted, and whereas Jackie couldn’t watch the actual audition, he can be a participant in this scene, which I think does a lot for the emotional journey of his acceptance and understanding of Billy’s passion for dance. In a scene that couldn’t originally include a dance in the same way - it wouldn’t have made sense - the musical can, and it creates a whole new interesting effect to it.

In terms of the actual story, the musical is really very faithful, more so than I thought. I didn’t remember Michael crossdressing or being psyched about tutus (only the later rooftop moment where he kisses Billy), so I had wondered if they’d sort of ‘gayed him up’ for the musical, but nope, that was totally in there (although of course, it’s a short scene in the movie and doesn’t lead to a major song and dance number about self-expression). Lots of the dialogue and lyrics are verbatim, or close to verbatim, from the movie. The musical streamlines things a bit, cutting out little tangential bits like Billy’s visits to the Wilkinsons’ house and Tony being outright arrested and replacing them with expansions of other elements: Grandma gets to be a bit more present and has a backstory expanding upon her simple, wistful “I could have been a professional dancer” from the movie, and the letter from Billy’s mom (another thing I didn’t remember being in the original movie, but it’s there and almost identical) is given a more prominent role, which it totally deserves, because man, does that play the heartstrings like a harp.

When I first saw the movie, I didn’t really understand the plot about the miners at all. I was a kid, I didn’t really get politics, I didn’t know anything about the history involved, and I’m pretty sure I missed the first maybe 15-20 minutes of the movie too; all in all, I didn’t remember much about that part of the movie, just sort of vaguely that there was this strike going on in the background and that Billy’s dad was a miner. When I saw the musical I was struck by how prominent that aspect of the plot was, and I assumed my brain simply hadn’t retained it originally, but actually, on a rewatch, the miner plot is mostly just the background to Billy’s story in the movie, whereas the musical is less fixated on Billy’s point of view and thus pays more attention to the struggles of the miners and their solidarity in the strike, lending poignancy to the sad, crushing moment at the end where we’re told the strike is over and they all have to go back to work. And I think the musical’s version of this balance works better on the whole - the kids’ limited understanding of what’s going on in the adults’ world still gets across, but it gives a bit more attention and sympathy to the characters of Jackie and Tony, and I think the musical does a more interesting job of deliberately juxtaposing and playing with the contrast between the vulgar, violent, hypermasculine world of the striking miners and the graceful, stereotypically feminine ballet. (See: the entire song “Solidarity”, which is the best song and plays these contrasts so well. Admittedly I’m not such a huge fan of how it’s staged in at least the 2014 live recording; I really dug the staging in the Icelandic version, which unless my brain is making things up had the police/miner confrontation parts being a lot more aggressive and violent (if stylized), then had the same actors seamlessly switch to ballet during the parts with Mrs. Wilkinson’s class. The staging in the 2014 recording makes more of a solid block of exaggerated over-the-top group choreography spectacle out of it, which I don’t think is nearly as effective at playing up the contrasts that are so beautifully conveyed by the actual song.)

There is one thing I think I do definitely like better in the original movie, though: I think the moment between Tony and Jackie after Jackie decides to cross the picket line to get money for Billy’s audition is more powerful there than it is in the song “He Could Be a Star”. In the musical Jackie starts off saying they’re finished and then repeats over and over that maybe Billy could be a star and they need to give him a chance while Tony talks about the strike and everything they’ve been through, while in the original movie Jackie starts off with Billy and only admits he’s lost hope in the strike as a counter to Tony, and the way he breaks down there is just stronger for me emotionally than the song is. I think I get what they were trying to do there, shifting the focus a bit and letting Tony articulate more of how important the strike was to them, but I think this may also just be one of those cases where saying something in song reduces the impact rather than enhancing it.

(I do think the musical proceeds better from there, though - the original movie kind of skips over how they ultimately obtain the money, but showing all the miners pulling together to help him is another good aspect of the added focus on their solidarity, and the way they ultimately end up having to swallow their pride and accept money from one of the strikebreakers for the sake of Billy’s future also has a sad poignancy to it.)

Also, the movie ends with an epilogue set fourteen years later, showing Jackie and Tony attending Billy’s professional debut in The Swan Lake. I’d completely forgotten about this part until the rewatch, but they meet Michael at the show, with a man implied to be his boyfriend, showing that as an adult he’s happy and out. In the musical, this epilogue is cut; instead, there’s a scene earlier on where Billy dances to The Swan Lake alongside an adult version of himself, implying that Billy does indeed go on to become a professional ballet dancer starring in The Swan Lake, and in some ways I think this is a more elegant way to convey that. However, this means that the musical doesn’t have the closure for Michael’s story that the original movie has; it simply closes with Michael heartbroken as Billy leaves town. That’s a bit sad, and I wish they’d found some other way to give him the same kind of closure.

But aside from those niggles, it’s a really good musical adaptation that in many ways refines and does a better job of telling the same story. Which, again, is not to diminish the original film, which was already good and does a whole lot of its own interesting things. But I find it fascinating to study how and why this adaptation works so well, hence this lengthy ramble.

(I may also have developed this weird characterization-crush on Tony. The scene just before "Angry Dance" may be my favorite scene in the musical. Tony is so incredibly, aggressivey, horrifically mean in it that it hurts to watch, and yet it's also so achingly clear that he's just lashing out because the strike is breaking him. He's just been in a brutal fight, the police are after him, his mind's been nothing but picket lines and scabs and an increasingly fanatical spiral of violence for months. The last thing he wants to hear about is that some people's biggest concerns are fucking ballet auditions. The way he uses Billy as a prop to beat Mrs. Wilkinson with while accusing her of being some kind of pervert titillated by watching little boys dance, only to simply redirect that anger straight towards Billy when he defends her, and engineering a 'victory' in the argument through transparent bullying, is so, so terrible and so utterly human. And meanwhile there's Mrs. Wilkinson being great and standing up to him, calling him a sanctimonious little shit and "Don't you lecture me about the British fucking class system, comrade." They're such real people in this scene. It's an expanded version of a scene from the movie and the expansion just nails it, but perhaps even more than that I like that it's recontextualized to be even more brutal and stressful for everyone involved, which makes it hurt so much more - Billy was actively trying to get to his audition, Tony’s just taken a beating and his face is bleeding, the police are coming after him right now instead of it happening after he's released, even Mrs. Wilkinson almost gives up on Billy after seeing what his family’s like. My heart.)

[latestnews2018-blog]

The 7 Best Netflix Original Shows Of 2018 So Far

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The 7 Best Netflix Original Shows Of 2018 So Far

Netflix releases so many shows. Keeping up with each one has become impossible; you’d stream your life away if you tried. But a few Netflix Original shows in 2018 have risen above the others and are well worth your time.

The collection below includes scripted shows, a reality show, a documentary series and a talk show with fantastic sketches. Netflix has really diversified the types of content it offers in 2018, and these standout shows reflect that.

A few weeks ago, Streamline rounded up the most underrated Netflix Originals of the year so far. That list included great shows that somehow have remained niche in terms of audience, had cancellation scares or didn’t earn Emmy consideration. Those shows ― “One Day at a Time,” “Collateral,” “Aggretsuko,” “Dear White People” and “Ugly Delicious” ― are not featured in this article but may ultimately make the Best of 2018 list later this year.

Read about the highlights of 2018 thus far below.

And if you want to stay informed about what’s joining Netflix on a weekly basis, be sure to subscribe to the Streamline newsletter. 

Netflix

“The End of the F***ing World” stood out on Netflix earlier this year.

Ji Sub Jeong/HP

Streamline makes recommendations for streaming shows and movies. Every Saturday, Streamline highlights the best shows to watch online, with a focus on Netflix.

  “Queer Eye”

Netflix

“Queer Eye” on Netflix.

Premise: Five gay men transform lives across Georgia. Although the routine has some variance, this team typically gives the full-life makeover to a straight, male schlub. The “Queer Eye” guys specialize in five separate fields: home design, beauty, fashion, culture and food.

Value: A tear-jerker through and through.

Netflix released not one but two seasons of “Queer Eye” in the first half of 2018 (although each season only had a few episodes). The new cast definitely established the reboot as a worthy successor to the show that originally debuted in 2003.

The show does a good job balancing the formulaic nature of the makeovers with moments of authentic emotion unique to each episode. The transformations basically just make the targets look like rich people, but the journey to get there repeatedly delights.

Trailer:

  “The End of the F***ing World”

Netflix

“The End of the F***ing World” on Netflix.

Premise: Two teens decide to run away from home together and quickly get into misadventures. Instead of falling into quirky love story tropes, the couple has to deal with traumatizing problems of great magnitude. All the while, they each have emotional baggage to sort through and try to mature beyond.

Value: This show came out of nowhere both narratively and marketing-wise.

“It was astounding how popular it was for us,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said to New York Magazine for a profile on the company released earlier this year. Internal forecasting for the show predicted the show’s audience would be far more niche. “On one level, it was a massive failure that we didn’t see that coming.”

The trailer alone has garnered over 10 million views, much more than most Netflix shows. The absurdity and dark humor of this story must feel refreshing amid an ocean of shows playing things safe these days. The show takes real risks that could have riled up protesters or at least caused people to turn this off, but strong performances ultimately won over viewers. 

Trailer:

  “Wild Wild Country”

Netflix

“Wild Wild Country” on Netflix.

Premise: A documentary series about the rise of the Rajneesh movement in Oregon. The first couple of episodes focus on the radically contemporary teachings of the leader as he preaches peace and harmony. Then the story takes a turn and focuses on political intrigue within the group.

Value: The rare documentary that features a subject so compelling and has such incredibly high stakes that you think the filmmakers must have made everything up.

The Rajneesh story ― a fringe community attempts to establish an American home ― is full of fascinating details. The group only wore shades of red and white. Certain members had ambitions to conquer the world and were willing to do anything to accomplish that. The leader encouraged the followers to have sex and they did … a lot.

By the end, you become unsure whether you should condemn the group or join it. Although this community never took off as planned, the series inherently recontextualizes the other religions that dominate American life and therefore forces a re-examination of life itself.

Trailer:

  “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

Eric Liebowitz/Netflix

“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” on Netflix.

Premise: Now adjusted to the basics of life outside the bunker, Kimmy Schmidt must learn how to thrive in a traditional work setting. Titus Andromedon tries to become a star, while Jacqueline Voorhes manages him. Schmidt’s original captor garners sympathy through a true-crime documentary that advocates for setting him free.

Value: This fourth season finally settles onto firm and fertile ground.

Earlier seasons of this show focused on Kimmy’s naiveté about the world around her. She rose from a life trapped in a bunker into a life defined by constant mishaps and mistakes. The show gleaned humor from this, but this bumbling role often became tiresome. Crazy jokes in a crazy world fell flat.

But in these new episodes, Kimmy (both the show and character) graduated to competence and sanity. As the world in the show starts making more sense, the jokes shine through as moments of absurdity. If you gave up on the first few seasons, consider returning for these new episodes.

Trailer: 

Erica Parise/Netflix

“Glow” on Netflix.

Premise: The “Glow” team tries to achieve television success. Sexism and harassment become major hurdles. The low pay and tough work weigh on the wrestlers, and everyone must decide whether this adventure remains worthwhile.

Value: A period piece that can heavily lean into camp and cheap thrills, while also offering nuanced portrayals of struggle.

Professional wrestling already has a ridiculous premise, what with the fake fights, the costumes and the melodrama. “Glow” uses that backdrop and then makes the “behind the scenes” the, well, scenes.

“Glow” highlights the pain that goes into the fun. This balance makes the show both an enjoyable watch and a show that can gut-punch you at any moment.

Trailer:

Suzanne Hanover/Netflix

“Love” on Netflix.

Premise: Mickey Dobbs and Gus Cruikshank enter a new phase of their relationship. Both have matured considerably, and they become ready to make longer-term commitments. They must decide if they found “the one” in each other.

Value: The third and final season finally calibrated the characters to be both realistic and entertaining.

Seasons one and two of “Love” had potential but hardly rose above mediocrity. The characters acted nonsensically and jokes often didn’t land. The show had winning qualities ― such as the chemistry between Mickey and Gus, the detailed careers each character pursued and the wonderful roommate character, Bertie ― but that didn’t add up to enough. Season 3 finally became more than the sum of its parts.

In this season, the show veered into the ensemble comedy realm and gleaned better, funnier jokes from the wacky characters surrounding Gus and Mickey. But the show also took a half-step back to focus on the underlying desires and fears of each character, taking time to establish clear motivations. As plot points culminate, you finally cheer for the characters rather than feel indifferent.

Trailer:

  “The Break with Michelle Wolf”

Cara Howe/Netflix

“The Break with Michelle Wolf” on Netflix.

Premise: A talk show with standup and sketches. Michelle Wolf and her cast satirize the news, modern issues and other talk shows. Netflix releases a new episode every Sunday.

Value: A Netflix talk show finally feels relevant and a part of the zeitgeist.

Wolf started the promotion cycle for this show by performing at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. As you may remember, conservatives attacked her, claiming Wolf viciously criticized the physical appearance of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she simply didn’t do that. In any case, the media coverage surrounding the controversy helped Wolf get the word out about her new talk show.

The show quickly earned this attention. The sketches, in particular, have shined, rivaling the best of “Saturday Night Live,” “Inside Amy Schumer” and other shows that focus on cultural commentary. Wolf clearly has a unique and incisive take on the world, which makes the show worth watching every week. 

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[thementalattic]

A couple of years after Estelle and Joshua saved the kingdom of Liberl, trouble brews in the lands of the mighty empire of Erebonia, and it’ll be up to Class VII to save their home. This is The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.

Genre(s): RPG

Developer: Nihon Falcom | XSEED Games

Publisher: XSEED Games

Release Date: August 2017

Played Main Story

Platforms: PC, PS Vita

Purchase At: Steam

Good:

Great setting and plot.

Great voice acting.

Fantastic music.

Bad:

Simplified quartz system.

Review

I heard about Trails of Cold Steel while playing the second chapter of Trails in the Sky, and while I was on the fence about buying the two games in this new entry of the Legend of Heroes series for the PlayStation Vita, XSEED announced the release of this PC version of Trails of Cold Steel. Preferring the upscaled visuals if not just the bigger screen and the new content, I jumped at the chance of playing Trails of Cold Steel on PC.

And you know what? I absolutely love it. I often play games for reviews with a distinct sense that I’m not fully enjoying the game as much as I should, since I’m working with a deadline. But with Trails of Cold Steel, I was hooked from the very beginning and even though I still played with a deadline in mind—one I inevitably missed considering the length of the game—I just couldn’t pull away from playing, spending hours playing it every time I had the chance.

I spent my last couple of weekends playing for hours Saturday and Sunday, something I haven’t done in a while.

Arts are even flashier in Trails of Cold Steel

Trails of Cold Steel takes us back to the world of Trails in the Sky, the world of the Orbal Revolution, the fantasy quartz equivalent of the industrial revolution, with the difference that Orbal technology leads to anything from Magic to airships and even a crude form of internet and mobile networks. Basically, it’s the starting point for technological innovation, one that drives progress and even social, political and economic changes.

Trails in the Sky showed us Liberl, a Kingdom not without its issues but generally very relaxed, with nobles and commoners on the same level, where the people love the Queen and she’s humble and kind.

Here’s the gang!

Trails of Cold Steel on the other hand gives us Erebonia, a country you hear in passing references in Trails in the Sky, particularly for its military might. In this game, however you see how it works from within, the conflicts that keep its population tense, the near-war state it maintains with its neighbouring countries and the Empire’s constant struggle between keeping its traditions and moving forwards.

While in Liberl Nobles are much like commoners in their outlook—save for that one annoying noble in Trails in the Sky whose attitude is played for jokes—in Erebonia they’re very different. Nobles control their regions very differently from one another, with the greater houses often treating commoners with contempt.

Where you’ll spend most of the game, and the place hiding most secrets!

Opposing them are the Reformists, commoners in government who earned everything they have, who even have the Emperor’s backing and support. They want to centralise and standardise things, to keep the wheels turning as they should, even if it means taking some power from the nobles.

And that schism, that conflict of ideologies is at the core of this wonderful setting, which in true Nihon Falcom and specifically Legend of the Heroes fashion, gives a name, a face and a distinct personality to every single citizen you come across. Every NPC, from the little girl playing with her dog to the old cranky pawnshop owner have their own life, a spark that makes them feel alive.

Bosses can be massive!

The protagonist Rean and his classmates start their new lives as part of Thors Military Academy, one of the most prestigious schools in the country, one where both commoners and nobles attend, though they don’t mingle. Nobles are in Classes 1 & 2 and the commoners take the next three numbers.

Except for our heroes, Class VII, a new course that draws its students from across the nation and makes no distinction of social classes or family heritage. They have different background, opinions, ideologies and yet they’re supposed to work together to overcome the challenges ahead of them, using their new experimental battle orbments, the Arcus units, to form “Combat Links” that boost their effectiveness.

Aren’t these adorable?

The problem is, those links depend on the personal relationships. If the students despise or mistrust each other, forming those links is impossible and this plays into the interpersonal conflicts and growth of the characters in the game, a clever way of combining story and gameplay. In fact, Trails of Cold Steel goes even further. If a character decides that they won’t be active in combat, they really won’t be.

Trails of Cold Steel’s plot has some amazing political and social intrigue—and a few genuinely awesome twists—but at its core is about the characters, their lives at school, their issues with their families, no matter their social standing. In fact, these stories play out in tandem with the crises the characters face in their monthly “field studies,” which in game terms follow the same blueprint as the story arcs of new settlements in Trails in the Sky, where you can complete a set of optional quests for rewards and some mandatory ones that push the story forward.

Turbo mode is a blessing in this port, especially in the Nord Highlands!

Trails of Cold Steel also adds a bit of this on the school town, with Rean, the protagonist, helping the student council by completing tasks for the student body and the nearby townspeople. Doing so nets you some nice rewards and you can use these “free days” to interact and improve your bonds with your classmates, unlocking new manoeuvres for when you’re in a combat link.

While the Combat Link mechanics of the Arcus orbments is pretty fun and leads to some amazing moments, such as the Burst link technique, I’m not a fan of the quartz and Orbal Arts system of the game, which has been streamlined too much. Where before you combined quartz of different elements and strengths to unlock arts, in Trails of Cold Steel you get the arts by equipping the quartz that gives them. There is no longer the need to experiment with different combinations, what you see on the quartz is exactly what you’re getting.

Part of this streamlining comes from the Master Quartz mechanic, a special quartz that levels up and unlocks special abilities for the equipping character. Arts are among those special abilities. The cookbook approach wouldn’t have played very well. The downside is that we lost some flexibility. Trails in the Sky also attempts to convince you to change the master quartz, even giving you shops, but with how difficult it is to level one of these quartz, changing them around never feels worth it.

Combat is as good as ever and in Trails of Cold Steel it feels much faster, which adds to the excitement. At first it took some getting used to, as the area of effect and pushback mechanics of the fights are easier to follow from the isometric perspective of Trails in the Sky, but once you get the hang of it and learn to “unbalance” opponents to give your linked buddies an opening to attack, even the longest fights become a joy to play.

Love the dialogue in this game

One part of this game that deserves special praise is the voice acting, and the PC version includes many more recorded lines. I’ve read harsh descriptions of the talent, calling the amateurs, but if they’re amateurs, they’re fantastic. There is a degree of earnestness in their voice, and while some of them have characters with rather strange turns of phrases, such as Laura and Jusis, the noble-born, even their deliveries feel genuine. And the writing is clever enough to poke fun at some of the more cringe-worthy dialogue and deliveries. Though that’s not to say there aren’t some weaker performances, because there are. Elise, Rean’s sister is perhaps the worst of all, both in delivery and voice tone.

This dude is such a badass that he stands on tanks while they fight!

Reminds me a lot of Persona

Skeletal dragons, a classic. I approve!

Yep, there are grades, much like they were in Trails in the Sky

Oh Angie, she’s after every woman with a pulse. Gotta love her!

Yggdrassil is such an insanely powerful Earth Art

Isn’t Legram gorgeous?

Love these maps

She’s adorkable

Massive and incredibly phallic-looking guns. Is the Empire compensating?

Rean Schwarzer, main character, nice guy, total badass!

Some optional, some required in every Field Study. They rarely pay you money though…

This mechanic could’ve been better. the bonuses are great, but it takes too long to level.

S-Crafts are amazing as ever, especially Angelica’s

That’s a questionable name for a food place.

You’ll be seeing these a lot!

Those eyes…

Some familiar faces show up!

Home sweet home

The rest of the cast, those with easier characters to play, really shine and do something I think is still very difficult to do, they made the translated Japanese jokes work. Their delivery is spot on and I found myself laughing at many of their comments. It’s great when voice acting feels so natural that it brings the characters to life. Instructor Sara’s actress is superb, as you can feel the character’s humour and simple joy of life and booze in every line.

Music is of course superb, as it tends to be in Nihon Falcom games, and the theme for one of the final bosses is outstanding. There is something about RPGs and fighting against incredible odds that makes orchestral music and choirs feel incredibly epic.

Conclusion

Trails of Cold Steel is one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played in my life and the new standard by which I will judge future entries in this long-running Nihon Falcom series. The only other thing I can say is that I hope XSEED releases Trails of Cold Steel 2 on PC soon and then give us Trails of Cold Steel 3 as soon as possible after its September release in Japan. I cannot wait!

TMA SCORE:

5/5 – Hell Yes!

I absolutely loved #TheLegendOfHeroes #TrailsOfColdSteel! Our review! @XSEEDGames @nihonfalcom

A couple of years after Estelle and Joshua saved the kingdom of Liberl, trouble brews in the lands of the mighty empire of Erebonia, and it’ll be up to Class VII to save their home.

I absolutely loved #TheLegendOfHeroes #TrailsOfColdSteel! Our review! @XSEEDGames @nihonfalcom A couple of years after Estelle and Joshua saved the kingdom of Liberl, trouble brews in the lands of the mighty empire of Erebonia, and it’ll be up to Class VII to save their home.