#also it’s interesting to take a deeply unhinged character and find their limit >:)

[eldritch-muppetshow]

another medic oc. not entirely happy w his design (mostly his outfit), but he’s been scuttling around in my brain for weeks and i want someone else to see him

his backstory is that a respawn glitch cloned the red medic, but he’s the original— the two of them have all the same memories up to that point in time, but the clone immediately took the opportunity to capture him and run all kinds of experiments and dissections on him, and basically went on to seamlessly replace him (they’re technically the same person, after all).

medic escaped, only to find his clone had already taken his place on the team and he’s too physically fragile to go back to working (he’s no longer respawn-compatible, the machine will just register him as dead because the replacement medic is already registered in the system). since then he’s just been kind of lurking around the battlegrounds, living off of stolen food and medkits, and plotting a violent, drawn-out revenge on his clone. other than that he’s fairly pleasant, or at least as affable as a half-dead man with a serious existential crisis can be anyway.

[comicaurora]

Hey I'm getting into DnD, do you have any podcast or series of a DnD campaign to recommend? I know there is critical role, but wich one of those should i start with? Is there a better beginning than critical role? I am lost here, please help

This is gonna very much depend on your personal preferences and attention span! I recommend sampling a range of DnD podcasts to find your personal tolerances and what parts appeal to you. I'm not the most widely-read person in this space because frankly most DnD podcasts are on too slow a boil for my attention span, but I've got a few you could check out-

Critical Role is the biggest and most well-known one for sure, but pacing wise I personally can't get through it. I love it in concept, but it's slow enough and huge enough that my brain zones out in the downtime and I lose track of important details when things speed up again. I think my first successful exposure to it was a brisk two-hour video that's just a Best Moments Of Grog compilation. That's also why I've been really liking The Legend Of Vox Machina, which keeps all the biggest and best moments but paces them like an actual story instead of a game. It's not representative of the experience of playing a TTRPG, but it is a lot of fun.

I personally enjoy limited-run miniseries a lot more, because they work better for my limited attention span, and on the critical role front that means I recommend EXU Calamity, a Doomed Heroes far-distant prequel to the modern setting of CR. Only four four-hour episodes and it's on a bit of a slow boil for the first three, but because everybody involved knows how the story's going to end, there's an endless drip of dramatic tension along the way. The DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, is going to show up a lot more on this list.

On the subject of short miniseries DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Escape From The Bloodkeep is my personal favorite and the one I revisit the most. Six two-hour episodes, deeply unhinged and intrinsically comedic as it's a full-series parody of Lord of the Rings. I recommend it for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that Matt Mercer, who is an excellent DM, gets to play, and his playstyle is a great example of how to roll with the punches and the dice, since his extremely menacing nazghul captain is afflicted by a string of hilarious failures and he kind of just owns it, to the point where his character arc becomes accepting his worth as an individual with the power of friendship. It's a great example of not taking yourself or your character too seriously, which is a vital skill for players to learn in order to handle the whims of the dice sometimes (or often) not cooperating with your narrative wishes. If CR isn't working for you but you're interested in what you can pick up from this extremely talented DM, this is a good way to get that!

Dimension 20 (Collegehumor's DnD branch) has several series I really like, most of them DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan again. His DMing style really works for me, and he takes an approach to pacing that I quite like, so they're generally a safe bet for me. One I categorically recommend is The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy DnD game set in New York City. This one is 19 two-hour episodes, so longer than the other miniseries but still much shorter than CR, and it can give you a bit of a sampler for (a) the genrebending you can do with DnD and (b) a longer-form story with a less rigidly determined finale than the previous examples. Brennan's DM style is very cool, and he puts an unusual amount of focus on characters getting solo vignettes, which is sometimes considered a bit gauche in DM circles because it means the other players don't have a whole lot to do during those solo conversations, but it works for him and his players and the effect is very cinematic!

But if you want to see a different DM's style in the same space, A Court Of Fey And Flowers is run by Aabria Iyengar, one of the EXU Calamity players, and she has a very different but also cinematic DMing style! The game is also a hybridization of DnD and a different system for facilitating Jane Austen romances, which is dope. Only the first episode is up on Youtube, but that should probably be enough to let you determine if you want to check out more.

I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the two DnD Actual-Plays I'm in, Rolling With Difficulty and Heart of Elynthi. Rolling with Difficulty is subdivided into three seasons of 8-10 four-hour episodes each, with each season having one overarching plot or threat but mostly being composed of episodic adventures - it's a Planescape series, meaning most episodes take us to a completely new plane of existence to deal with its unique geometry, fun denizens and wacky threats. It's also a lot more edited than some actual-play podcasts, with an effort to avoid the slow parts and the dice-rolling, mental math, "what am I gonna do this round," etc. Heart of Elynthi is an ongoing series that's only about five or six episodes in, with an overarching mystery in the background and a "collect the things to save the world" plotline in the foreground. It also streams new episodes on Twitch on (some) Wednesday afternoons, so if you'd benefit from a live chat to hang out and talk with during games, that might be worth checking out to see if you like it! Elynthi also has had some pretty cool behind-the-curtain stuff about how the players can handle in-character disagreements without them turning into IRL fights, which is something I don't think I've ever seen another DnD actual-play explicitly unpack but is also extremely important for players to consider, so that's fun.

[thatmooncake]

Aaaaa big same to be honest I love Sun just going wild and getting a little unhinged and opinionated

And also for me I feel like it speaks a lot to the way he has to deal with so many stressful things and has basically been (in the book universe at least) ripped away from his original job because cost cutting.

The way he still has to deal with Moon (and that deeply deeply concerns him).

The way he has to keep you in one place because? Who knows? So many potential reasons but I’ll name a few:

- Because more running around means more messes means you will run off while he’s cleaning which he HAS TO DO or he’ll get in trouble

- Because when the lights are about to go out he won’t be able to get you outta there in time

- Because he already has a million things to keep an eye on

- Because Sun, like Moon, sees a running thing and he doesn’t know what to do with it, and he might just find himself wanting to chase it

Personally I like him being competent when it comes to his technical skills but not necessarily being the most tactful creature in the universe. He has flaws. He has quirks. He’s sassy. He’s funny. He has a short temper. The guy deals with a lot, he’s doing his best.

(Also. I find it super interesting how very extremely aware of his limitations he is and how frustrated and agitated this seems to make him. Could write a million page essay about that alone but anyway yes. I enjoy unhinged Sun and I’m happy he’s like this but in an AU you can literally make him into whatever you want. You’ve enjoyed the character for this long, don’t let anything take that joy away!)

Is it bad that I'm saddened by the fact that Sun actually hates taking care of kids especially since I've had this impression that he likes taking care of kids ever since SB released? :') I felt like my heart shattered and the AU I have in mind wouldn't make sense anymore

Once again: You can do whatever you want forever!

Don't let Canon stop those soft Sun and Moon headcanons.

However, for me, I actually love this and thinks it adds a lot of humanity to his character, ironically.

And as any person who works in childcare will tell you, My Own Mother included, will say "FUCK THEM KIDS" outside of work hours.

Sun has a very short temper fuse. And he gives the impression of someone who deliberately plays favorites. Any kid who's not following the rules, he gets angry at from like a zero to 10000 immediately.

He absolutely plays favorites, and even a child who isn't nessasarily "BAD" ...but doing something outside the norm... Example, some child who isn't coloring inside the lines...

"THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR CREATIVITY, THIS IS A TIME FOR ART!"

Which is so interesting to me. It's part of his programing to adhere to the rules and the structure of the institution to an absurd degree he won't engage with critical thinking, creativity, or childish mistakes?

It's honestly just a cool and interesting concept in general?

Like an animatronic made only to look after children but there is something that causes him to be bad at it. Is he good at it and merely glitching?

Was he never properly programmed from the start and Faz Entertainment pushed a malfunctioning product out to recoup costs?

Is there something overriding that skill from an outside source?

Is something overriding it internally like some manifestation of the "ghost in the machine" thing?

Is it because he used to be a theatre bot not intended to work closely with children?

Is it just anxiety? and Who programmed the anxiety or did it develop because kids didn't listen to him, and now he's just on his last straw with them? ???? I look forward to fnaf canon answering none of these questions.

[thejuleselliot]

the Flaws of ‘Wonder Woman: 1984′

Fair warning: I’m gonna go longform on this one. If you want to read an essay dissecting the failures of this movie, read on. If not...

...

I wanted it to be great.

After suffering various delays over the years, I was as excited as anyone else to see it. Unfortunately, when I eventually did, I was disappointed.

The film’s many problems essentially boil down to only one: it can’t pick a side. Steve Trevor is Diana’s soulmate, or he isn’t. Barbara Minerva is Diana’s friend, or she isn’t. And, most glaringly, Maxwell Lord is either a good guy... or he just isn’t. The filmmakers themselves don’t seem to know, but they expect you, the audience, to. None of this is played out skillfully, or with a hint of nuance.

It could be argued that the majority of 1984′s problems lie with Lord. While almost every commercial or promotion for the film portrayed Wiig’s Cheetah as the film’s villain, it’s obvious upon first viewing that Pascal has spades more screen time. But the fact is, Lord is never given enough opportunity to become a menacing villain because the film never bothers to take the time to paint an accurate portrait. The first time he’s really introduced to the audience is through the eyes of Wiig’s Barbara Minerva. The meeting is awkward, even cringe-worthy. You’re meant to find him charming, yet you don’t. This is an absolute failing within the script.

When creating a villain, a screenwriter needs to make a choice: the monster you fear, or the monster you love. In the Dark Knight, Heath Ledger’s Joker inevitably fits into the former category. Through the film, he not only murders Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend, he is shown to be completely unhinged on several occasions. The audience never questions for a minute that he will do anything and everything to create havoc in Gotham City. So, here, we not only have a defined personality, we have a motive.

For the latter, let’s look to Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in the first Avengers film. Loki is the charmer. Intense, but beguiling. The characters - and, by extension, the audience - is drawn in. Therefore, when he does do evil, it catches you off-guard. When he shouts, you listen.

The character of Maxwell Lord never gives you that chance. He’s been compared to the 80′s personality of Donald Trump, which is a apt description. The one issue of this, however, is that Jenkins chooses to give Lord a different dimension - that of a caring father. She can’t seem to commit to one side of the character. Is he a monster, or isn’t he? By the finale, you’re expected to believe that by reversing his actions, he’s proven what side of morality he’s on. However, without defining the limits of that morality early on, the audience lacks a personal connection to the character. A better version of the script would have eliminated the son entirely and committed entirely to a Trumpian parody, or eliminated the Trump-ishness and depicted a struggling, good-hearted businessman who allows power to corrupt him and ultimately chooses the right side in the end. Without defining clearer character boundaries, the audience is never given a chance to care what he does next.

Cheetah belies another narrative issue entirely. While Lord is complicated to the point of confusion, the script can’t seem to discern a motive for self-styled superhero Barbara Minerva. Her own introduction shows her being stepped over (literally) by coworkers at Diana’s work, the Smithsonian museum. Her supervisor can’t remember her name. Sounds bad, right?

However. It’s worth noting that we quickly learn that Barbara has started there only one week earlier. Yes, it’s pretty rude to be ignored or forgotten by your coworkers. But it’s not as if she has known them for years and still been treated this way. I wouldn’t expect a coworker or superior to have my name locked-in on week one. Barbara has started a new job, and the film never bothers to tell us what her old job was or where she's been since college. (We also learn, most upsettingly, that she has a series of impressive degrees - something we are merely told, not shown. With the exception of one scene in which she researches for Diana, she’s completely terrible at her job, and Diana constantly steps in to do it for her.) We’re meant to believe that it was simply fate that brought her to Diana, and to the path she is set on.

Quickly, Barbara proves herself to be a kind, if vaguely frenetic soul. That alone is enough potential for a lovable, Luna Lovegood-type character. However, by consistently ensuring that she is the most obnoxious person in the room, it’s difficult to gain audience sympathy. Early on, she’s attacked by a man while walking home, before quickly being saved by Diana. This kindness is forgotten, once she has successfully made Diana the villain in her mind.

Strangely, the film never really tells us why she goes after Diana so viciously. Outside of a power struggle, one from which Diana has nothing to gain, they have no disagreements, with exception of Diana’s generic, disinterested distrust in Barbara’s quickly-discarded love interest, Maxwell Lord. The Lord/Minerva subplot never really goes anywhere, burning brightly in snippets of the film’s first thirty minutes and largely disappearing for the next two hours. Jenkins decides not to treat Barbara as a woman manipulated, instead making her in charge of her own actions.

There would be merit in this, if it didn’t remove any or all motivation from Minerva’s story. Later in, Barbara seethes and makes several inane statements about being ‘special’ like Diana (during a battle, no less) and the film clumsily tries to assign this as her character motivation. At the end of the film, Barbara is electrically shocked in a way that would kill most people. The last shot shows her sitting on what appears to be a cliff, looking out at almost-Wakandan sunset, boldly copying one of Black Panther’s iconic final shots.

Another issue with Barbara stands with the film’s issues with character perspective. In the first film, almost every scene, with the exception of those with the villains, takes place from Diana’s point of view. This doesn’t work as well when employed in WW84. For one, unlike the first, the film is unable to choose a perspective. The first major scene set in the 80′s takes place in the eyes of a group of thieves who are never seen or heard from again. (We assume Lord hired them... this is never clearly stated?)

By doing this, the film suffers. Sometimes it chooses to focus on Diana’s rich and grieving state, still deeply affected from the loss of Steve Trevor. And when it does, it expects you to care. However, by choosing to focus almost equally on the emotional state of Lord and Minerva, it takes valuable screen time away from the woman with her name in the title. And all that time spent sympathizing with the villains is left wasted when the viewer struggles to find a reason to love them, and the film never tells you why.

The character assassination of Steve Trevor is its own failing. By removing him from his time, he is removed completely from his own motivations. He exists only to be a kind of spiritual guardian to Diana. He had not been brought to life by the film’s MacGuffin, it would have made little difference to his overall effect. Steve and Diana get a few moments, but they’re clumsily written and badly paced. By the end, Steve and Diana do part, and you’re left wondering why the script bothered to bring him back in the first place.

Then, Diana herself. The film opens with a woefully, painfully dull Olympic-style obstacle course, showing a eight-year-old Diana attempt to win. While doing so, she cheats, which causes her to be held back by her aunt, Antiope (R.I.P.). You hope this disappointing sequence will lead to a satisfying conclusion later on, but the only thing I could garner is that they were attempting to make a clumsy comparison to Diana’s eventual choice to leave Steve Trevor behind. (A bit of a reach. I know...)

Diana never gets much of an opportunity to be herself in this film. She performs several rescues, the first of which involves a long, intense eye-contact filled scene with a little girl.

(Who, in case you were wondering, does not come back or prove to be important later. A more discerning screenwriter would’ve had this child be Maxwell’s son, but... I digress.)

(There’s another grievance, there, and I’m going to take the opportunity to air it: this overstuffed, yet completely airheaded film takes time to tell us the backstory of a great Amazonian warrior. Do we ever meet this warrior? No.

No, we don’t - unless you count a post-credits scene where she is portrayed by Lynda Carter, who for some reason, could not be bothered to help Diana out when all of this mayhem was afoot. The part of this that annoys me most of all is that the entire backstory is created simply for the sake of justifying Diana’s new, golden eagle-wing armor, which could have otherwise been explained with four little words: ‘I took up metalworking.’”)

In conclusion...

agh.

[gwynnew]

Sam Rockwell on channeling American rage in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'

Sam Rockwell as Dixon, with Frances McDormand in a scene from the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Photo: Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox)

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Sam Rockwell plays a slow-witted, racist police officer prone to hot-tempered abuses of power – in other words, the guy in the headlines that everyone hates. But neither Rockwell nor writer-director Martin McDonagh are willing to let Officer Dixon be a straightforward villain. The drama, which often spins into black-comedy territory, tells the story of Mildred (Frances McDormand), a single mother who calls out her small-town police department (via the three billboards of the title) for leaving her teenage daughter’s murder unsolved. Woody Harrelson plays the police chief, arguably the best cop Ebbing has to offer; Rockwell plays the worst. And yet, through a series of hairpin plot turns (we won’t spoil them here), Dixon and Mildred see themselves reflected in one another’s grief and rage.

A critical favorite for his off-kilter characters, Rockwell has yet to be nominated for an Oscar — but his knockout performance in Three Billboards, at once infuriating, hilarious, and touching, is likely to catch the Academy’s eye. The film itself, Rockwell’s third collaboration with McDonagh (after Seven Psychopaths and the Broadway play A Behanding in Spokane), is remarkably timely, a parable about seeking grace amidst the anger and hopelessness of modern-day America. Rockwell spoke thoughtfully with Yahoo Entertainment about tapping into his dark side for Three Billboards, the freedom of playing “unhinged” characters, and how his early Robert De Niro obsession has shaped his entire career.

Yahoo Entertainment: I understand the character of Dixon was written for you. What did you know about the role in advance and what was your reaction to first reading it? Sam Rockwell: When you read a Martin McDonagh script it’s kind of like opening up a present on Christmas Day, because every page you turn, there’s something really thrilling that happens. There’s all these twists and turns. So it’s what we call a no-brainer. Sometimes you have to talk yourself into doing something a little bit, or you get talked into doing something. And with a Martin McDonagh script that’s not the case.

Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards (Photo: 20th Century Fox)

You’ve said before that all of your Martin McDonagh roles are like Travis Bickle, the Robert De Niro character in Taxi Driver. Martin and I, we’re theater and film nerds, especially the Scorsese movies of the 1970s. a lot of our vocabulary comes from either theater references or Scorsese references. [We talked about] Mean Streets. Bang the Drum Slowly is a De Niro movie we talked about — we actually sing a song in the beginning of the film from Bang the Drum Slowly. There’s Travis Bickle. I think there’s elements of King of Comedy in the fact that Dixon lives with his mother. But I think that all the [McDonagh] characters, including Mervyn in A Behanding in Spokane, the play that we did on Broadway with Christopher Walken, come from that world. And Billy in Seven Psychopaths, too. They all share in common that the text demands a sort of comedic goofiness, and yet you can’t go too goofy because Martin also demands from you a certain kind of danger and emotional unpredictability. So you have to ride that line from goofy to dangerous. And I think that’s what’s interesting about some of his anti-heroes.

You get to some very angry places in this film. Is it frightening to go there as an actor? You know, I was watching this Gary Oldman documentary, and he was talking to these acting students and he used an analogy that I thought was kind of brilliant. He said, it’s kind of like you’re taking a snow globe –  you being the vessel, the snow globe — and you’re shaking up all this stuff that’s inside you from your past, and you have to kind of explore that again. So I thought that was a great analogy.

Watch a trailer for ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

One reaction a lot of people are having to your performance is admiration that you’ve made a character like Dixon into someone “sympathetic.” That seems oversimplified to me, but what does that idea of a sympathetic character mean to you? Maybe I’m being too humble, but I think that Martin’s script really provides all the clues for that. And I guess as an actor, I have to find the humanity in a guy who might be considered a monster. I just see it like it’s my job.

It seems like an important job right now. The times we’re living in, people have trouble sympathizing with people who aren’t like them. That’s interesting. Can you elaborate on that?

Well, the political and cultural divisions seem so extreme; there’s an instinct to label anyone who doesn’t agree with you as a villain. I think people are really struggling with the idea of wanting some moral clarity they can’t find, which is a lot of what this movie is about, in a way. Yes. There’s a childlike point of view right now, maybe in the world, that things are black and white. And I think these characters live in the gray.

As an actor, you may be in an interesting position to see that. For example, if I see a headline about a racist police officer beating someone, I might think, “I am nothing like that guy,” because I don’t want to identify with him. But as an actor in this film, you have to understand that guy on a deeply personal level, and find some humanity in that guy. So how do you get there? Well, you know, I think it’s hilarious that I get all these rednecks and cowboys — they’re always trying to throw me on a horse. I’m a city kid. I went to an interracial school, and I used to break dance and stuff. That’s just not where I come from. I don’t relate to racism. But what I can relate to is — I just played a Klu Klux Klan member in a movie with Taraji Henson. It’s a true story called The Best of Enemies. And I was able to locate an ex-white supremacist who now pulls people out of hate groups. I had a brief conversation with him. He was very helpful. And he said, it’s not so much that you hate brown or black people; it’s that you hate yourself. That was a key component that helped me a lot. Because that’s universal. Everybody’s had a bad day. So if you’ve had a bad day, you’re going to relate to that. And Dixon has several bad days in this movie.

Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Photo: 20th Century Fox)

So I think the best way I can put it is that, if you’re able to tap into the loneliness and maybe the self-loathing that some people experience on any given day – and that’s not saying that I sit around feeling bad about myself all the time, I’m just saying that I know how to tap into that stuff and I don’t mind delving into it. For me, it’s sometimes even cathartic. So I think, if you just sort of redirect that into rage, that equates as hatred, danger, racism. That’s kind of how I approach it.

In a couple of earliest film credits — specifically Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Basquiat — your character was just called “thug.” [laughs] Yes. I think early in my career, I was watching too many Robert De Niro movies.

But Dixon is probably the most evolved and interesting version of that character type. Totally. I mean, Dixon’s a redneck. But it’s funny. Early on in my twenties, I wanted to be like Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro. I wanted to be a New York Italian guy, so I tried to perfect that. And now I do all these country folk, so I think that’s from watching Coal Miner’s Daughter and Tender Mercies too many times. It’s all derivative, you know?

You actually did spend some time with police officers in Missouri, right? What did you learn from them? I did a ride-along with a cop in Los Angeles, and an officer Josh McCullen — I think that’s his last name – in southern Missouri. He told me a lot of great stories. I had Josh take my lines and he came up with some alternative ad-libs and stuff. And Martin actually liked some of it and he put it in the movie.

Was there anything that surprised you about their job or their attitudes? You know, they’re really nice guys. They were nice to me, probably, because I’m an actor. But when I saw them interrogate people, they were all business. They also, I thought, related to people in a more human way, maybe because it was a small town. But of course, my character’s not like that.

When Frances McDormand has talked about making this film, she described getting into arguments with Martin McDonagh over particular lines. Has that been your experience as well? No, I think Martin knows what he wants. I think because I play characters who are a little, shall we say, unhinged — whether it’s this movie or Seven Psychopaths or The Green Mile, where [director] Frank Darabont gave me a lot of rope, so to speak. You can’t say, “Well, let’s keep it in the lines!” You have to draw outside the lines a little.  So someone like McDonagh or Frank Darabont might not let the prison guards do as much ad-libbing, but he’d let Wild Bill do a little bit because Wild Bill is unhinged. So I get a little more leeway because I’m playing a crazy guy.

You’ve had such an eclectic range of roles. What movie do people most often want to talk to you about? It’s five or six movies, I’d say, that come up a lot: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Moon, The Way Way Back, Charlie’s Angels, Galaxy Quest, and actually, people talk about Seven Psychopaths more than you’d think. A lot of dudes like The Green Mile and Seven Psychopaths. I think Seven Psychos is kind of a movie-nerd-dude movie. I notice a lot of young kids, of all nationalities, love my character in The Green Mile because he’s an outlaw. And I’m very pleased that Moon gets so much attention, because it’s a little movie, you know?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri opens in limited release Nov. 10 and nationwide Nov. 22. 

Watch: Woody Harrelson on what makes ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ so powerful:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Dana Carvey goes deep inside his controversial sketch show in ‘Too Funny to Fail’

Director Griffin Dunne on Joan Didion’s extraordinary life, and why she won’t write about Trump

Frank Oz restores dark original ending of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ for Trump era (exclusive)

[rebeccaheyman]

reading + listening 08.10.20

When I say that my book consumption this week swung from the best 2020 has to offer so far to the absolute worst, I am not exaggerating in the least. Another wild ride from start to finish...

Love is a Rogue (Lenora Bell), ebook, ARC. Full review on NetGalley. LOVE IS A ROGUE was my first Lenora Bell book -- but clocking in at a solid B, it won't be my last. Beatrice is an able-enough heroine, distinguished by her love for etymology, books, and the etymological dictionary she's planning to write once she achieves full spinster status. All she needs to do is fail one more season with the ton to circumvent her mother's plan's to make an advantageous marriage. Ford, our dashing hero, enters the scene as a carpenter whose role overseeing the renovation of the duke's estate brings him into Beatrice's path. They collide with flirtatious results, and the fun continues when Beatrice hires Ford to renovate a bookshop she just-so-happens to have inherited from a dead aunt. Unbeknownst to Beatrice, the property brings Ford's past directly in-line with her present, and they unite to overcome the challenges posed by society, their personal demons, and Ford's dastardly grandfather. 

For me, Beatrice's status as the duke's sister undermined the urgency of her final season in society; she doesn't have to marry to save the family fortune or escape a cruel family situation, and in fact, Beatrice quickly decides to play along and appease her mother, all the while knowing she'll reject any proposals and retire to the country in due course. So the stakes are not especially high from a cultural perspective, which deflated the conflict somewhat. Likewise, Ford's inner demons don't hold the same power over him that might seriously impact his actions; he's set to return to the Royal Navy any day now, but decides with zero fanfare that actually no, he'll decline another tour and stay land-locked, tyvm. How realistic would it have been to back out of military service? I can't say -- but it seems like this would have been a serviceable point of separation for Ford and Beatrice, that would have prolonged the third act and provided valuable tension. Because it's the third act that keeps LOVE IS A ROGUE from ascending higher in my estimation. 

The Midnight Bargain (C.L. Polk), ebook, ARC. Full four-star review on NetGalley.

I unequivocally adored THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN, the first I've read from author C.L. Polk. It's a little tricky to categorize this standalone fantasy romance, which takes place in a decidedly other world, but still calls on the culture of Regency-era England -- so to call it "historical" is misleading, but readers who enjoy historical romance will surely find the cultural mores in THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN both familiar and compelling. Beatrice Clayborn is in town for her last Bargaining season -- a time for male sorcerers to find powerful wives whose magic will serve them once the marriage is sealed. Because in this world, women aren't allowed magic and marriage simultaneously; the danger of a spirit taking over an unborn child is too great, so women are collared, literally and figuratively, to keep this atrocity from happening. Beatrice has plans to study magic in secret and become a full-fledged Mage, which would render her ineligible for marriage and destroy her family's social and economic standing, but secure her rights to her own power and body for the rest of her life. All she needs are the secrets hidden in one particular grimoire -- that's stolen right from her hands by the Lavan siblings. Powerful, and with ambitions and secrets of their own, the Ianthe and Ysbeta and Ianthe complicate Beatrice's plans by drawing her into their lives; Ysbeta as accomplice, confidante and friend, and Ianthe as all those things plus potential lover and love.

Polk's writing is fluid and charming, with careful attention to detail. Her evocative world-building and subtle magic system is never forgotten, but it also never overwhelms the distinctly human motivations that move our characters through time and space. THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN was compulsively readable, full of lovely language and delightfully unassuming turns of phrase. Beatrice is intrepid and brave; Ysbeta is fierce and loyal; Ianthe is the profoundly romantic, feminist hero we all need. A delight from the first page to the last, THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN is a tightly-woven, beautifully-rendered fantasy romance that will make you a C.L. Polk fan if you aren't one already.

Midnight Sun (Stephanie Meyer). eBook + aBook. Perhaps like me, you thought a little nostalgia and escapism would revive the dregs of this terrible, pandemic summer. Maybe you thought a throwback to simpler times -- the year 2005 to be exact -- would make you feel young and carefree again. Bella and Edward’s angsty bullshit would be fun to revisit, and maybe Edward’s POV would reveal something interesting about a story we might not all have loved, but definitely loved to hate. Well, 2020 is here to set you straight again: this year absolutely blows, and no amount of sparkly vampires can save it. I can say with perfect clarity that MIDNIGHT SUN is the worst novel I (or anyone) will read this year. The degree to which MIDNIGHT SUN fails as a novel is so extreme, it’s actually hard to qualify which aspect of the book is worst: the writing, the narrative development, the unadulterated laziness of retelling a story from a POV that adds literally nothing to our understanding of that first narrative. Fail, fail, fail. In no particular order, here are my thoughts:

The writing is as bad as you think it’s going to be. I don’t know what Stephanie Meyer has been doing for the past 15 years, but it’s not working on her craft. Purple prose takes on newly virulent shades in this trash heap of lazy language. 

While I understand that the story itself was restricted by an established plot, there was an opportunity to leave behind some of the language that simply hasn’t aged well. “...[M]y own personal brand of heroine” was cringe-inducing the first time, and no effort was made to allay a scene that is frankly embarrassing to read. Perhaps worst of all, though, is that language on the same plane of egregiousness is introduced to the narrative with no precedent from the original text. Bella’s claim that she’s “so clumsy that I’m almost disabled” (245) doesn’t feel like something that should have passed muster in 2020. Did no one flag this for blatant insensitivity? Yeesh.

The original TWILIGHT was just shy of 500 pages. MIDNIGHT SUN is 675 pages. Six! Hundred! Seventy! Five! How does a story that was overlong at 500 pages stretch almost 200 MORE pages, you ask? Easy, when you commit to narrating every scene in painstakingly slow detail. The infamous baseball game you remember? It takes nearly fifty pages for it to unfold in Edward’s slow, tedious narration. At one point, when Ed & Co. are trying to throw James off Bella’s scent, Edward starts articulating individual footsteps. It’s... stunning, how god-awful boring this book is. 

Dear Reader, you know -- have always known -- that Edward is an obsessive sociopath with stalker tendencies and a serious control problem. Your conscious mind has elected to allay your concerns about the health of Bella and Edward’s relationship because it’s fun to watch two kids being dramatic and self-centered, yearning for each other with the kind of intensity that only comes with the blinders of young love. Dear Reader, you will STRUGGLE to maintain this elan for toxicity if you read MIDNIGHT SUN. Edward’s murder-fantasies, which extend to all the kids in Bella’s science class and later, to the school secretary too busy salivating over a child to recognize how unhinged he is, are difficult to stomach. The constant litany of “it hurts but I like it” is incredibly off-putting and, again, boring as dry toast. 

I can’t keep going. It was just so, so bad. It wasn’t fun or nostalgic or even funny. Just pathetic. I know this was a cash-cow slam-dunk for Meyer and her publisher, which is all the proof we’ll ever need that money is the root of all evil. Rarely have I ever felt this way but here it is: I wish this book didn’t exist. Don’t buy it. 

The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo), eBook. I admit, I started THE POET X months and months ago, and had 50 pages to finish that I just didn’t get to until this week. I was floundering after M*dnight S*n, and knew the only remedy short of bona fide brain bleach would be an infusion of thoughtful, beautiful, elegant language. Finishing this novel-in-verse started the process of reviving my faith in the written word. Acevedo never trades pathos for angst, and allows Xiomara’s complex emotions and experiences to shine with subtlety and heart. THE POET X occupies that top-tier of novels-in-verse that, for me, has since been limited to BLOOD WATER PAINT (Joy McCullough).

These Ghosts are Family (Maisy Card), aBook narrated by Karl O’Brian Williams. I love a multi-generational narrative, especially when a well-earned comp to one of my favorite novels, HOMEGOING (Gyasi), indicates a globe-spanning, culturally complex, deeply human story that hinges around one decision that ripples through time and space. When Abel Paisley assumes his dead friend’s identity, the consequences of his choice reverberate through the family he left behind in Jamaica and the one(s) he forms in New York. With Abel’s life fast coming to an end, his desire for closure brings the truth of his deception to light, and that decision, too, has far-reaching consequences. This is a beautiful debut from Card, and the narration from Williams is exemplary. If you read and adored ALL ADULTS HERE (Emma Straub), dive into THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY for an even more poignant family portrait that still capitalizes on a strongly-braided narrative and multiple POVs.

Migrations (Charlotte McConaghy), eBook. If M*dnight S*n is the worst book 2020 has to offer (and it is!), MIGRATIONS is undeniably the finest. I’m calling it right here: This is the best book you’ll read this year, full stop. As of this writing, on Monday morning, I’ve already gifted MIGRATIONS twice -- and I only started reading it on Saturday night. That’s how quickly it drew me in and wove itself around my heart. 

Franny Lynch is on a mission to follow the last of the world’s Arctic terns on their epic annual migration. For all that she’s following the birds, Franny is also running from her past, and speeding toward her own planned end. In a narrative that moves through time as fluidly as a dorsal fin cutting through the water, McConaghy slips in and out of the present to multiple eras of the past -- each as compelling as the next. How Franny came to be on her mission is a story of love and passion and wandering and heartbreak, and how a girl who has always belonged to the sea manages to make her way through the world on land. Like STATION ELEVEN (Emily St John Mandel), MIGRATIONS paints into being a future that is eerily possible and terrifyingly probable, but never sacrifices the propulsive character study at the center of the work in favor of grand-standing about issues. And the language... oh my soul, the language. I was spoiled for choice when it comes to excerpts, but here’s one that slayed me in Act III:

“And I am done with the universe between us. It is so perilous, this love, but he’s right, and I will have no cowardice in my life, not anymore, and I will be no small thing, and I will have no small life, and so I find his mouth with mine and we are awake at last, returned to a land long abandoned, the land of each other’s bodies.” (275)

Give yourself the gift of this novel, and then give the gift of this novel to someone you care about. Then find me on Twitter so we can talk endlessly about how wonderful it is.

Okay, on the docket this week:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Alix Harrow)

Sweet Sorrow (David Nicholls)

The Garden of Small Beginnings (Abbi Waxman)

Perfect Little World (Kevin Wilson)

The Vanishing Half (Brit Bennett)