#this will either age really well or really poorly depending on how the plot progresses

[slightlyplant]

haha this prompt is so yoomven. i mean nyoom. i mean electric apples. i mean yaven. i mean

[o-uncle-newt]

Enter Sir John (and Lord Peter)

This is basically a Sayers blog alongside a Finnemore blog at this point- and this is going to be mostly a Sayers post but also a bit of a window into my other detective fiction reading, which I don't really post about here but kind of want to. A bit of an experiment. (Also, some spoilers to a very old and AFAIK out of print book that I don't particularly recommend below, as well as a Sayers novel.)

So I have been reading a LOT of random old timey detective fiction recently, and at one point made a reading list based on having read the fabulous The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards, which I highly recommend to basically anyone with even the faintest interest in the subject (and even more so to Christie and Sayers fans). ANYWAY, I made the list, then completely forgot where I got it from, ordered a bunch of books through the NYPL's interlibrary loan system, and somehow got all of them at once. So now I have a stack of books from five states on my dresser, many of which are first editions. One of those is my copy of Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, which isn't only a first edition but literally has the pencil inscription by the original owner from Christmas 1928, when he bought/received the book. Gah I love reading other people's old books.

Reading other people's old books in general is fun- reading this particular one was more of a mixed bag. The pacing was kind of weird, the mystery was kind of thin (and the motive was... PECULIAR for a 21st century reader, a mix of oddly progressive and deeply, deeply problematic depending on how you look at it), and the characterization of most of the characters was pretty thin. The atmosphere of the small-time theatrical setting was fun, and the detective, Sir John Saumarez, is reasonably entertaining. To go through, and mildly spoil (you'll see why shortly), the plot- someone is found dead who had been known to have previously quarrelled with a woman in the past, under circumstances which make it clear that this woman had both motive, means, and opportunity. The woman is arrested and her trial is attended by a man with a title who is struck by her and feels compelled to work on her behalf. He works hard to find the actual killer when the trial goes poorly for her, and realizes that he is in love with her and confesses his feelings to her.

Sound familiar?

For context, Enter Sir John was published two years before Dorothy L Sayers's Strong Poison, and to be transparent I fiddled a bit with the timing and phrasing to make the synopsis as CLEARLY correlated as it is (he doesn't confess his feelings to her until after he's gotten her off the murder charges, she's actually in the room when the murder victim is found, she actually is convicted and her conviction is overturned on appeal, among other changes). If the above plot sounds interesting and you HAVEN'T read Strong Poison, just skip and read Strong Poison because it does the whole thing SO much better. For one thing, the mystery is better- this was Dane and Simpson's first mystery, and while I largely enjoyed Dane's earlier novel Regiment of Women (which I may post my thoughts about sometime), this book just didn't really work for me. It's technically fair play, I guess, but there aren't a whole lot of actual suspects or clues (there aren't many suspects in Strong Poison either, but there are many more clues and there's a much more robust structure).

The other major difference, and this is pretty important because it's at exactly the point where the two books are so similar, is that the characterization of the romance in Enter Sir John is REALLY NOT GOOD. Sure, as Sayers noted in her 1929 introduction to her Omnibus of Crime anthology, love interests in detective novels are often shitty and this isn't necessarily significantly worse than certain others I have read. But while there do seem to be attempts to describe the suspect's personality in a way that makes her sound more honest, frank, straightforward, etc (the kinds of ways that Harriet Vane comes across later in Strong Poison), she also comes across really naive and dumb, and really doesn't have a whole lot to do in the book at all to counteract that impression. On the plus side... she isn't AS racist as some other people, I guess? (This plays into the motive, which I can describe in the comments for people- it's too annoying to get bogged down in.) But anyway, Sir John largely (apparently? it's not characterized super well) is compelled by her and falls in love with her because of her striking appearance and her good breeding and gentility or whatever, and it's all just super awkward. (Also, there's the same "oh no I didn't realize you were proposing" awkwardness in this book as in Regiment of Women, which does it MUCH better and for MUCH better characterization-related reasons. In this book it's just kind of skin-crawling to read.)

Anyway, why have I made you all read about why I didn't particularly like a not-super-easy-to-find book that you were unlikely to ever read anyway? Well, partly because it's an interesting curiosity- and because as I was reading I was like "what the hell, how did Sayers get away with this?" So I cracked open my copy of The Golden Age of Murder again and in its description of the book realized that it mentions that Sayers and Simpson were friends and that Enter Sir John is of interest as an inspiration to Strong Poison, which in retrospect is probably why I put it on my list in the first place.

But I'm still left with some lingering questions. While the actual murder plot and motive are entirely different, this particular throughline on the part of the detective is really STARTLINGLY similar, not least because Sir John Saumarez has some distinctive surface resemblances to Wimsey. For one thing, the method used to trap the killer (casually having them be part of a reenactment/discussion of the way the murder took place) is used by Sayers in Strong Poison as a ruse that Wimsey uses to try to catch Harriet Vane out, if there's anything to catch (when he "casually" brings up the murder-for-book-profits mystery plot idea he had). For another, like Wimsey later would in Strong Poison, Saumarez has a whole inner monologue about how he has only a month to solve the case (though in his case it's before the suspect is executed, and in Wimsey's case it's the IMO more plausible situation of being before the retrial occurs).

All that being considered, one major difference is, of course, that at the end of Strong Poison Wimsey and Harriet don't get engaged, and Saumarez and the suspect (whose name I don't even remember, if I'm being honest, she REALLY wasn't that memorable) do. But Sayers famously wrote that she wanted to use this book to marry Wimsey off! If she had followed through, and still used this same book as a way to do it, would she have literally lifted, if substantially improved, this plotline from her friend's book in order to do it? She was such an original writer- would she have borrowed so significantly from another writer to finish off a series that she had worked so hard on, even if it was one she was wearying of?!

It's interesting, because I wrote in a previous post about how it feels like after writing the Omnibus of Crime intro, including how bad mystery romance plots are, she dared herself to do it better. Reading this book makes me wonder if she read THIS PARTICULAR BOOK and decided she wanted to do it better. Which would be fascinating whether that was a decision that she made before she'd decided to continue the series after this book or afterward- before, in which case she'd be wholesale lifting the plot but at the same time elevating it lol I feel like I'm writing crossword clues) just by virtue of better writing and characterization in both that plot and the mystery that surrounded it, or after, in which case one of her ways of elevating it would de facto BE changing the ending to make it less corny and awkward, and writing a detective romance which is actually psychologically plausible and satisfying rather than just pairing pants and a skirt, so to speak.

Anyway- decidedly mediocre book that I don't particularly recommend, but one that made me ask some questions that I had a lot of fun pondering! I also had fun writing this, and am considering doing another one on Leo Bruce's The Case for Three Detectives, which was tremendously fun as a pastiche of Wimsey as well as Poirot and Father Brown.

[three--rings]

Ask game tagged by @gnomeicecream

rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic? -10 -> very dissuaded  0 - don’t care either way  +10 -> very enticed  nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged.  Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

Age gap: 0

Yeah honestly this doesn't really mean much to me. I'm more likely to judge by the other tags, etc.

Codependency: +4

I don't dislike codependent relationships at all, though I might be a little leary of the fic if it seems like this tag isn't earned, because it can be a sign of Therapy Speak Ahead.

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: +4

Depends on the ship, depends on my mood, but it's not a turn off unless done poorly.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): +5

I tend to like my contrasting pairs a lot, but I feel like I usually know that about a ship going in and it's less about author intent. More relevant with orig fic. There is a slight danger of someone substituting a nuanced understanding of characters for extreme versions.

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: +10

Top tier tbh. I adore rival romance and antagonistic relationships because of how much more room there is to explore and so much more territory to cover. And actual barriers to being happy together than your typical friends to lovers or coffeeshop or whatever.

Friends with benefits: +6

I really love the next trope, which tends to come together with this one. I love a sex first, feelings later ship anyway I can get it. So yeah I eat this up.

Sex to feelings: +10

Like I said, this is catnip to me. I don't know exactly why, except that I really enjoy sex scenes that progress relationships and that's everywhere in this trope. Also personally I tend to be a sex to feelings person myself.

Fake dating/relationship: +3

This can be done well or badly. I have enjoyed it a lot.

Friends to lovers: 0

Yeah this is pretty bog standard to me and doesn't do anything particular either way.

Found Family: 0

I tend to really be romance focused. I enjoy a good Found Family but only when it's background to other things I'm into.

Hurt/Comfort: +3

I feel like people's idea of what hurt/comfort is varies WIDELY. From like "I had a slightly rough day" to "extreme torture." So I feel like this tells me very little about what I'm about to experience. Also it's just sorta basic: bad things happen, good things happen, which is just...like how plots work.

Love Triangle: -2

If it's put like that, slightly negative. Cause I have no patience for "who should I pick" stories. Threesomes, triads, and poly shit on the other hand...

Poly, open relationships: +7

I enjoy polyamory a lot more in fiction than real life. I mean, I have lots of poly friends and I've tried it but also the drama omg. Seen so many relationships torn apart by it. But in fic? Yeah yeah absolutely I'm there.

Mistaken/hidden identity: +3

Mmm, it depends on everything else about the fic and whether the premise appeals to me.

Monsterfucking: +8

Like, there are limits okay, but have I read some shit out of my comfort zone out of perverse curiosity? Yup. Yup. But also your standard monster shit? I'm about it. Tentacles are sexy. I've been a vampire girl since age 12. I wrote that Beauty and the Beast au where WWX is a ghoul-type thing.

Pregnancy: -10

And here we have the thing I won't read, no matter what. Pregnancy is body horror to me both in real life and fiction.

Second Chance: +5

Very much like this when it's fixing or redoing canon. Little less when it's "I took this couple and broke them up so I can get them back together again" because I don't like invented barriers to romance.

Slowburn: +4

I have not great patience, and as mentioned, I have a problem with artificially thrust in barriers to two characters being together. Some fics I really enjoy have nearly gone sour on me when I just want to scream from like WHY WHY can't you be together already. Why are you just inventing new reasons not to be happy! So it's good in small doses, and as with most things when done well.

Soulmates: +7

I like a good soulmate fic. I don't have the problem with them that many people do. Because IDK I just don't take it that seriously I guess. Like, people have soulmates in this world, okay. That doesn't mean they only have one or lose all agency or whatever. And I don't need the fic to go to great lengths to prove their soulmate AU is Different Actually. I will just suspend my disbelief for a while it's cool I have rope.

Because I enjoy being tagged for things like this, I will tag some folks, but whatever. And if you want to do this please do. @waterhobbit, @sunshine304, @amuseoffyre, @chubsthehamster

[farchanter]

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition

The laws have always been the tools of whoever happens to hold all the chips.

There is nothing in this world I love quite so much as a good co-op game. My brothers and I still play something together every weekend. This love stems from, in particular, three action RPGs we played when I was in high school: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (the remaster of which we’re playing next), The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (a sequel to which we’re long overdue for), and Tales of Symphonia. Thanks to the magic of Steam’s relatively new Remote Play feature, Tales of Vesperia became the first game in the series since which we could finally play together again.

The Tales games are set apart from traditional JRPGs by their signature “Linear Motion Battle System”. Players control one character of their party, and combat plays out somewhat similarly to Super Smash Bros.: you can advance toward or away from your target along an imaginary x-axis drawn between you and said target, jump into the air, attack, and block. The other members of your party are doing the same thing with their targets along their axes. Fights play out in real time— while the combat system isn’t nearly as precise or versatile as Super Smash Bros., I hope that comparison gets across the gist of what combat looks like.

Tales of Vesperia is largely the same as Symphonia in this area, with some cool quality-of-life improvements over its more celebrated sibling. In Symphonia, the combat camera tightly follows whoever Player 1’s character happens to be— meaning that it was inevitable for the other players to be in the unenviable position of trying to fight without being able to see what they were doing. Vesperia, on the other hand, will either zoom in or out depending on how far apart the player-controlled characters are. Vesperia also has a “free run” feature, which allows you to temporarily eschew the axis-bound fight system to reposition yourself as you see fit. That isn’t new to Vesperia, but wasn’t present in Symphonia. These two seemingly small things are big improvements. This being said: both Symphonia and Vesperia were made using the same proprietary engine, and it’s definitely showing its age. Strange decisions were made for button mappings— it’s seemingly impossible to give your AI teammates orders without first draining your Overlimit meter, which is particularly frustrating when an entire control stick went unused. It’s still possible to wind up in a situation where it’s impossible to advance on your enemy because of how they are positioned on the screen. The engine is finally being replaced for the eventually-upcoming Tales of Arise, and I hope that team can take the good things done here and apply them to the new Unreal-based Tales engine.

Tales of Vesperia tries to tackle many of the social, ecological, and political issues we see in the world today— and it’s not subtle about it. Working poor trying to get by on what they have while the wealthy feast, an elite crust of society seemingly immune to any sort of consequence, law enforcement brutality, a natural resource powering the world which is wreaking increasing environmental havoc— these are all less “metaphors” so much as “actually just the plot of the game”. The tension in the story is ultimately distilled into the tension between two characters— childhood friends from the poor district of their city: one a rising star in the Imperial Knights, the other a former Knight who grew upset with working for a system that desires to keep people like him downtrodden.

It is, then, a story about the conflict between revolutionary and reformist politics. However, Tales of Vesperia never really feels sure about or comfortable with that theme. The implications of that political motive are uncomfortable while still trying to portray the two characters as friends— the two philosophies are at odds with each other in time of crisis, and ultimately revolution will either need to be snuffed out or the existing system destroyed—  and impossible to do while generally presenting their viewpoints as equally valid. The game presents a tragedy— that the two are on a collision course— but ultimately chickens out of that conflict. Because of this, the game frequently struggles to provide clear connections between story beats. Up through the end, we frequently asked “so, wait, why are we doing this?"— which isn’t necessarily a great question for late in a 70-hour RPG. What begins as a quest to restore the only source of drinking water in the poor part of the city escalates and escalates— though, importantly, it’s not always clear why. Perhaps because of its squeamishness about its central conflict, Tales of Vesperia instead ping-pongs all over the place. This disorientation is magnified by some, frankly, sloppy writing. For example, there is a massive war which makes up a big part of Vesperia's backstory: so long ago that none of the younger characters remember anything about it at all, and all of the characters who did fight in the war are now old men. Yet, the game also repeatedly tells us the conflict ended ten years ago. And, in the end, the story appeals to a Watchmen-esque deus ex machina— a cataclysm so serious that political difference becomes irrelevant and requires no further introspection— as a way to resolve that conflict without an actual fight or a real decision by either of the main characters. Because of this, neither of them really grows— which is disappointing at the end of what is, again, a 70-hour game.

This isn’t to say that Tales of Vesperia isn’t fun— we enjoyed it, and we did sink a full 70 hours into it. It’s perfectly satisfying as an action RPG. However: I would be lying if I said that any part of Tales of Vesperia, for as fun as it is, is particularly well-made. The story can’t really decide what to do with itself, the English translation is spotty and seemed to deteriorate as time went on, and the combat system is improved but still rough around the edges, but the biggest offender by far are all of the other game mechanics not strictly related to combat.

In Tales of Symphonia, there are relatively few rules. If you use your fire spell a lot, you eventually get a more powerful fire spell. It’s simple, but it’s fairly effective. Vesperia, on the other hand, squirrels its progression behind a slew of intersecting systems both poorly explained and hard to use even when understood.

Much of the game is like that, too. While I like it when a game doesn’t hold your hand through everything, Tales of Vesperia takes pride in explaining none of its complexities. We missed fairly important plot events because we weren’t told about them, and whole systems of the game were essentially unintelligible to us. It’s hard to master something when you don’t even know what it is you’re supposed to master.

Graphically, however, is where I think Tales of Arise will realize the most gains by moving to a new engine. Character renderings in Vesperia are awkward, and the system most shows its age when trying to show emotional cutscenes with lots of movement. However, there’s another type of cutscene— one where characters are reduced to boxes with their portraits in them. The game gets a lot of traction out of these limited animations freed from 3D renderings, and they were some of my favorite moments of character development. Why, then, the game didn’t rely more on them is somewhat of a mystery to me.

I feel like I’m complaining a lot about an experience I enjoyed, which is something of a shame and perhaps not an accurate representation of my feelings. My frustration stems from all of the pieces being present for something great, but none put together well.

This was our first experience with Steam’s Remote Play— while there were a number of technical glitches for this fairly experimental feature, it worked reasonably well. I’m excited that it opens a door to a whole spectrum of local-only co-op games.

[royalchemy]

ROMANCE CANONS

NAME: Samar Solomon NICKNAME: The Honorable Samar Solomon.  GENDER: Woman, cisgender ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Bisexual/biromantic PREFERRED PET NAMES: Depends on the person and the relationship. If a person is close to her and says it in earnest, they’re likely to get away with it. If they say it condescendingly...pray for them. OPINION ON TRUE LOVE: “I believe true love may yet exist, but our definition and scope of it are limited. Do we define the truth of love as something constant, or does it shift? Something can be true one day and false another if we change as people, and if we are always aiming to change as people, then our love must change with us or dissolve. Or perhaps as in an alchemical reaction, the act of loving someone changes us on a core level and, no matter the outcome of a relationship per se, nudges us towards our own ultimate truth. In this essay I will —” OPINION ON LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: Dangerous. Riveting. The feeling when steel strikes steel for the first time in a duel. Either fleeting or fatal; there’s no in-between. HOW ‘ROMANTIC’ THEY ARE: Woo her. Buy her flowers, write her wax-sealed letters and send them by carrier pigeon, take her to the opera. Bring her shiny things like a magpie, or wine like blood tribute to a goddess. She loves the ritual aspects of any kind of courtship. There was once a time when she was apt to get too caught up in the whirlwind to discern a person’s true intentions, but the years have made her wiser. However, if you’re being insincere about your intentions the very least you could do is manage to court her properly in spite of it. Her versions of romantic gestures might be a bit more modest; tailored to what she’s noticed about a person's wants and needs, and what they’re capable of receiving. She’s also emotionally intelligent enough to recognize when a person constitutionally incapable of traditional grand gestures still cares for her. Every person has their own unique language, and although Samar’s might be a bit easier to translate in symbolic terms, she puts in the effort to decipher others. If it means a lot For Them, then that’s how she’ll read and accept it. IDEAL PERSONALITY TRAITS: Exceptionally skilled. Insightful. Compassionate. Committed to self-improvement in some way. Clever. Possessing some sort of personal code. UNATTRACTIVE PHYSICAL TRAITS: Frequent scowling, grimacing, or undeserved smirking. Earned smirkiness is fine. UNATTRACTIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS: Willful ignorance, oppressiveness, possessiveness, stifling of personal and/or social progress, greed. IDEAL DATE: Long walks on the beach with witty banter. Dinner and a show. Or a duel. Or perhaps an intimate night in, plotting to thwart shared enemies over candlelight.  DO THEY HAVE A TYPE?: A partner-in-crime or a sparring partner or both. Those who can rival her in wit, skill, word, or sword. Those who prove themselves willing to take significant risks for her sake, and for whom she would do the same.  AVERAGE RELATIONSHIP LENGTH: Ranges from one-night stands to committed relationships spanning years to on-and-off relationships. Factor in magical suppression of aging and the fluidity of time across realms and dimensions and there’s really too much data for the mean to be any indication. PREFERRED NON-SEXUAL INTIMACY: No one goes in her study. If she lets you in there, you’ve either been granted a key into her mindspace or you’re saving her from a spell/dreamwalk gone terribly wrong. COMMITMENT LEVEL: Ranges. Capable of maintaining multiple casual sexual relationships, as well as committed polyamorous or monogamous relationships. The one crucial components for any of these is respect. If you deliberately treat her poorly or try to use her kindness against her it’s over and you better get an entire congregation to pray for you because she doesn’t need to consciously hex you for your life to be cosmically screwed. However, she enjoys being in mutually devoted relationships, and if it’s love she’ll brave anything. OPINION OF PUBLIC AFFECTION: Isn’t it far better when you desperately want to touch someone, but opt to let all that desire simmer until you can at last find a moment in private? PAST RELATIONSHIPS: Verse-dependent. One constant is a deep betrayal detailed here.

tagged by: @acreatureofpureirony tagging: @porticosdaughter @sylvansmercy @sniperwithasmoke @fastenwings @taromancies @fcmiliar @arielthelionhearted @vorcotec @godblooded @mystarsforanempire @shotgunshellsandfeathers @whcwashe @longestarms @peaceific + anyone, literally please just @ me when you do this i wanna know !!