#ame reviews

[amewinterswriting]

Ame Reads: Charmed Life by Diana Wyn Jones

I'll be honest - this one was a reread for me. I read most of the Crestomanci books as a child and could still remember the broad brush strokes of the plot.

What I couldn't remember was just how skillfully written it was and still is. While the book is marketed at children as young as 10, and the plot moves quickly because of this, it never feels rushed or oversimplified. In fact, I've read adult and young adult fiction with less complex plots, character motivations and language.

(Spoilers after the cut and discussions of themes which does include familial abuse and mentions of death)

I remembered that Gwendolyn was not a nice person (to put it mildly). I didn't remember exactly how much of an evil little shit she is. In any other children's story, it would have been easy to paint her as selfish but simply that, in the way many children can be. She sees that her brother has something she doesn't (magical power) and takes it from him simply because she wants it for herself. But the story makes it explicit that she planned the sacrifice of her own brother and she even casually mentions that they will need to kill him multiple times due to his extra lives, showing that she has thought about this for months in detail and clearly has not had any hesitation or stirrings of guilt whatsoever.

In a more subtle way, the story does make it clear that Cat has been abused by his sister for his whole life - Janet, Julia and Robert all comment on it in various ways, even if the word 'abuse' never comes up. Crestomanci and the other adults are also aware but unsure of what exactly to do, especially as they aren't entirely certain that Cat isn't a willing participant in Gwendolyn's plans. For a book written in 1977, aimed at children, it's really quite radical that Diana Wynn Jones even hinted at abuse within a family unit, let alone an older sibling as an abuser.

Reading as an adult, the way in which Cat and Janet are profoundly let down by the adults is also radical and quite tragic because it's very understandable how it happened. Crestomanci is aware of virtually everything the whole time (or very early on) and yet the whole plot is Cat and Janet trying valiantly to fix the mess Gwendolyn's left them in without any adult help because they don't know the adults can be trusted and the adults think that not revealing what they are aware of is the best for everyone involved. Everyone is doing what they believe is best given the information they have, but everything could have been resolved with a few short conversations and more trust shown from both sides. And I'm really glad Janet gets to point out that Crestomanci should have talked to them sooner and he doesn't brush her off.

Other surprisingly dark things in hindsight - Gwendolyn summoning the 'drowned life' of Cat as a petty power play not once but twice, and Cat not realising why exactly it gives him the heebie-jeebies but having a very strong reaction to seeing his own drowned corpse (understandable) each time. Except that the second time, it's accompanied by the other times he's died, including at birth. A giant foetal corpse is not exactly something you expect to see in a children's book!

Anyway, I'd love to see the Chrestomanci series adapted into a television serial that really takes it seriously. Like the recent (ish) adaptation of Pullman's His Dark Materials that the BBC still hasn't finished. Hour-long episodes, I reckon, something like Charmed Life as a two-episode special to introduce the world and concepts (and Janet waking up in Gwendolyn's bed would be the perfect place for a cliffhanger at the end of episode 1, let's be honest) and then take an episode for each book in the series so while the episodes could be watched in any order, watching them all will give you more information about who reoccurring characters are and what they're doing.

In the meantime, I definitely think I'm going to dig out the rest of my old books and go through the rest of the series myself. Diana Wynn Jones' writing is complex enough that it really demands a second look. If your only exposure to her work has been through (the magnificent) Studio Ghibli adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle, consider this your sign to delve into her works, too. Charmed Life is an excellent starting point for the whole Chrestomanci series but you really can read them in any order, as the plots of each book are self-contained, with some characters making regular appearances throughout.

[lapdogchase]

[snaxle]

btw if a trans man decides that they want to get pregnant and you're not normal about this and start spewing a bunch of transphobic shit i show up at your house and beat you to death with a baseball bat

[thedas-elf-lover]

A slightly deranged review from a long time Dragon Age fan.

What this game promised to be in terms of a Dragon Age game: - Most romantic - Offer a few key world state choices that would have great plot impact, which emphasis on wanting to give players choices that have a visual impact, not just codex. - The most complex, deep companions yet. - Choices that matter.

What I got: [SPOILERS] - The shortest, chastest romances I've ever seen, where the end goal is quite literally sex. The final romance scene is the sex scene, after you've been locked in for some time. No sex before marriage, lol. Even the shortest romance in DAI is longer than the longest romance in this game. It's probably the least sex positive game out of them all. - The only choice that has visual impact is the Solas option, and even that doesn't really give anything major. Solas has maybe one unique line? Otherwise, there is no major change. The other two choices (Did you disband the Inquisition? Did you vow to save or stop Solas?) have no difference, either. It's a matter of do you want your Inquisitor to say "comrade" or "friend." The Inquisition doesn't matter. The South gets nuked off-screen anyway. In codex. So two of the three world state choices we get are mostly represented in codexes anyway. - I have nothing against the companions in Veilguard, but to call them the most complex is somewhat... false. Solas is a complex character. Thom Ranier is complex. Vivienne de Fer is complex. Fenris, Anders, Merrill, Isabela, Morrigan, and Sten are complex characters. They are characters who contain complexities that are not easily swept away. ALL the Veilguard companions are your next door neighbors. They're normal. There's nothing wrong about that, but they don't challenge you. There's nothing to think about. Lucanis isn't going to make you seriously consider your morality, despite being the "prince" of the Crows - hired killers. Neve's standing and possible privilege as a human mage in a magocracy is never commented on. These are just two examples, but the same applies for the rest of the companions. None of them are HIDING anything. I will reiterate that there's not anything necessarily WRONG with that, but it does mean they lack the flare of drama that previous companions had that made them brain-scratchers. - Choices don't matter. No matter what Rook does or says, you're railroaded into a scrappy, heroic person who is always right. The worst thing you can do in this game is just NOT do the companion quests. - Despite being a RPG, there is no roleplaying. It's more action/adventure. But it gets a little slow in places for an action/adventure. And it doesn't have enough roleplay value to be a satisfying RPG. - Pretty much the only reason I can see replaying this game is to see the opposite city routes. You don't have to finish the game to get the full romance, either. - No lore continuity. Elves, qunari, dwarves, and humans just living in peace in Tevinter. Some fantasy where poor communities aren't racist doesn't explain this away. - Orientalism in Rivain? - Reducing what was originally a story about slave liberation and rebellion to "love and murder" over Solas' ex situationship. - The game can understand gender that exists outside a binary but somehow can't understand multiculturalism. - Why does Bellara, a Dalish elf, have white guilt?

Some disorganized additions:

- Tonal whiplash. You go from losing a supposedly beloved companion to the final romance scene (the sex scene) in the space of 5 second. - You can't speak to your companions outside cutscenes. However, you can go around the Lighthouse snooping on your companions having nice conversations amongst themselves. - Not a SINGLE companion bothers to check in on the PC even once. You played as a Grey Warden who lost Weisshaupt? No one cares. Emmrich will check in on Davrin but not you. The only point in the game where they show even a smidgeon of care for you is after the Regret Prison, but they don't actually show it. You're pulled out and it immediately cuts to a war table scene. No emotional reunions. - This is Found Family - but only for the companions. Bellara has the opportunity to see Neve as a sister figure, but not you. This could roll into the lack of roleplay value in this game, but it really adds to the lonely element of this game. - "Okay guys, we lost the big game. Let's all take a step back and do some self-care exercises." But the game is Weisshaupt and the South is getting nuked. - Characters often feel like caricatures of themselves. Oftentimes this game feels like a fanfiction of the story and characters it's representing. Some of the things the characters say are not things that normal people would say. Because Rook never builds more than an entirely superficial relationship with their coworkers, it's entirely believable that the most moving thing Rook can think to say, whenever the obligatory Sad Moment happens to a companion, is "[Insert Name Here], I'm so sorry." - You could replace the Inquisitior with a cardboard cut out and it would have more life. - We already had a story about a disapproving parent who is hurtful to their queer child with Dorian. There was a missed opportunity with Shathann to explore the Qunari's view on gender, but only the Tevinter characters are allowed to talk to Taash about different gender identities. When Shathann talks about qunari gender identity, it's oppression. This game's handle on cultural identity is awful. And then they fridged Shathann. - Did you know Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, the ancient elven gods (we won't say Evanuris even though that's shorter and more believable to Andrastians who might balk at the idea of ELVEN gods), have escaped from their prison and are blighting the world? The elven gods escaped and they're blighting the world, because they're blighted and escaped prison and are elven gods and are blighting the world, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, those gods, who are elven, and escaped and are blighting the world. - This game is Young Adult. This game is YA with all the darker, grittier elements from the previous game filed away, presented as "politically correct" with "ethical piracy" with no continuity in characterization because Isabela Dragon Age 2 would NOT say any of that. It's if Genshin Impact was a Dragon Age game, complete with the canned body language (cross arms). - The villains are one-dimensional. Aelia's "Minrathous dark truth" AKA Batman villain, Butcher dies after 1 moment of glory, the Dragon King is nothing sauce, if Elgar'nan was just a little bit more intelligent he'd have just smashed that moon into Thedas and called it a day, Illario's speech is ripped right from the Lion King. Gone are the days where antagonists had complex reasons for their actions. Gone are the days where characters were put into situations were there was NO good choice for them to make and we could judge them with the nuance they deserved. - Also did you know: Whatever it takes?

On the bright side, the CC is great.

[celestial-sphere-press]

Book Decoration: AKA All The Ways I Don't Use a Cricut

(this post is for people who don't want to buy an expensive cutting tool, or for those that do have an expensive cutting tool that would like to mix things up a little)

1. Print That Shit

If you're already printing your own textblocks, an easy step for titles is to print them. Above is a title printed onto an "obi" of decorative paper. I measured out where I wanted things on the finished book and laid it out in Affinity, then printed it on a full sheet & trimmed it down to wrap around the book. A more simple method is to print & glue on the label into a slight indent in the cover (to protect it). A third option is to do the spine in bookcloth, while you print on paper for the cover and then glue that paper onto the boards (this usually looks even better when it is a three-piece bradel bind).

2. Foil Quill / Heat Pens

The heat pen is one of my go-to tools, but it can be a bit touchy about materials. The most popular version is the We R Memory Keepers' Foil Quill (which is one of the most ergonomic), but other pens exist that can get you to a higher heat temp, finer lines, or more consistent foil. For example, I have a pen created by a local Japanese bookbinding studio that fares way better on leathers than the WRMK quill & with a finer tip, but it's hell to control. Best results in general are on paper or smooth bookcloth (starched linen, arrestox, colibri - even duo will work but its less solid). The fuzzier a bookcloth is, the less your foil quill wants to deal with it. This means the heat n bond method of making bookcloth does not play nice with a heat pen usually, but there are two solutions: 1) use this tutorial on paste + acrylic medium coated bookcloth instead that will get you a perfect surface for the heat pen, or 2) use the pen on paper & then glue onto the cloth. I did a video tutorial for both foil quill use and this type of homemade bookcloth for @renegadeguild Binderary in 2023.

You get the most consistent results by tracing through a printed template that is taped in place, as I do in the video above.

3. Paint That Shit

Acrylic paints will do you fine! The above is free-handed with a circle template, because I wanted that vibe. If you need straight lines that won't seep, lay them down with tape first & then paint over it first with a clear Acrylic medium, then your color. Same goes for stencils. Two more examples of painted bookcloth:

4. IT'S GOT LAYERS

By using layers of thinner boards, you can create interesting depths & contrasts on your cover. You can also make cutouts that peep through to the decorative paper behind. The most important part to this technique is the order in which each edge is wrapped. To get a good wrapped inside edge, you will split the turn in into tabs to get them to conform to a curve. You can also layer multiple colors of bookcloth without multiple layers of board, as seen below left, so long as you mind your cut edges for fraying.

5. Inlaid... anything

Mirrors! Marbled paper! I saw someone do a pretty metal bookmark once! The key is creating a little home for it to live in, which is pretty similar to the above layering method. On one layer you cut the shape, & glue that layer onto the bottom solid board before covering. You can do the top layer as an entire 1 mm board (like I did for the mirrors) or a sheet of cardstock, like I would use for inlaid paper.

6. Decorative Paper

Decorative paper is always helpful & adds to the paper hoard... & its effects can be layers with other techniques, as below. Marbles, chiyogami, momi, or prints & maps of all kinds can be great additions. Some papers may need a protective coating (such as wax or a sealer).

7. Stamps (with optional linocut)

While I've not used many more regular rubber stamps, I do know some who have, successfully! And I've used one once or twice with embossing powder (see photo 3 up, the gold anchor on the little pamphlet bind). What also works is to carve your own linocut or stamp, & then use block printing ink to ink it onto your fabric (as i did above). A bit time intensive, but it was nice how easily reproducible it was, and I liked the effect I got for this particular bind.

These methods are not exhaustive, just ones I've used, and there are of course many others. I haven't gone too into detail on any of these for the sake of length (& post photo limits) but feel free to ask about more specifics. Usually I'm using them in combination with other options.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's that (Almost Christmas) time of year again!

(2023) (2024)

[hoshiina]

pairing: hoshina soushirou x gn!reader (no prns)

summary: in which he realizes you were the one for him

warnings: none i think !

wc: 1100

Hoshina wasn't a player. He wasn't one to say yes to everyone who came his way nor was he one to lightly pursue just about anyone who slightly interested him— not to mention he didn’t fall easily to begin with. He was a busy man in a dangerous line of work so having a relationship simply didn’t make sense most of the time.

However, this is not to say he hasn’t had a few relationships here and there. He loved those he dated, he really did. He did not believe in dating for the fun of it nor did he believe in starting a relationship he knew would end at some point, but subconsciously he tried not to get attached. He kept his distance and locked away his heart to keep from getting hurt. Was it unfair? Well yes, but he was scared. Everyone has something that terrifies them greatly, this just so happened to be Hoshina’s.

Yet, recently he could tell that something was different with you. It had only been a few months since you started dating, but he feared the shift in his feelings. He knew what it was— he knew very well, but as soon as he admitted it, it would be over. There’d be no going back for him. He knew he was being rather irrational, he knew that if he sat down and confronted these emotions he’d realize they weren’t that big of a deal, but he couldn’t. He’s never been able to.

However, while fighting this kaiju, it became plain obvious that he was simply in denial. 

It upset him how important you were to him, but more than that it upset him that he knew he was important to you. You had made it so painfully clear that he meant the absolute world to you and that broke him to pieces every single time.

To him it was easy being alone— he just had to make sure his job was complete before he died. If he could ensure everyone’s safety or at least help Mina out, there was nothing more he wished for. Yet while fighting Kaiju no. 10 today, when he saw his life flash before his eyes, his immediate thought was of you. If he died you’d cry. And that alone was going to get him home alive.

He’d rather die than make you cry. Especially not alone.

As he stood up again, he could see his blood dripping from his wounds and immediately it made him chuckle. You’d cry anyways when you see the state he’s in. 

I’ll have to be around to wipe your tears at least, he said to you in his head.

He was incredibly lucky that you didn’t work on the battlefield, his heart simply would not be able to take it. But he did, and for you he’d have to get home safe. Even if no one else cared that much, not even himself, he knew you would.

All of a sudden, it was easy to admit. He was hopelessly in love with you, in a way he didn't know he was capable of. He wished that he would spend the rest of his life with you and he hoped you would spend the rest of yours with him. Perhaps he was just afraid and a little flustered to admit that he was important to someone, especially someone special to him too. He had seen how painful it was for those left behind, a little too often. 

But there was an easy solution to that, he’d just get back to you safe every time. He just won’t make you worry and he’ll be there for you. This was supposed to be a dilemma, something he thought he'd stress over, but in the moment he felt eerily relaxed, definitely not like he was fighting an identified grade kaiju. The rest of the fight was a blur, he couldn't remember much. His head was clear but the fatigue had taken over at that point, but before he knew it, the kaiju laid in front of him still.

He was faintly conscious as they rushed him into an ambulance and patched him up. Once he was properly treated and awake, they had warned him to stay put and take it easy, but all he wanted to do was see you.

As soon as he left his assigned room, he immediately bumped into you. You had been waiting to be let in to see him. You took one look at the way he was patched up and tears welled into your eyes. He could tell you didn't mean to, you didn't want to worry him.

“Please don't cry,” he said softly, wiping your tears away. He couldn't help but smile at the sight of you. “I'm perfectly fine.”

“I'm not crying,” you said with a scowl on your face, but the way your voice cracked was not very convincing. “I'm so glad you're back.”

“Can't live without me?” he teased. He knew you couldn't live without him, but he couldn't either. Yet, now he even hated the thought of you living without him, let alone with someone else, so here he was. And here he always will be.

“Shut up,” you said. “You know I can't.”

He knew, but hearing you say that still made his heart flutter. He reached out with his right hand to grab your left and held it carefully. He leaned in to kiss you, but it was so much sloppier than the careful ones he usually gave you. Forgive him, he was terribly exhausted.

“I can't either,” he said, snuggling his face into your shoulder.

“You can't?” you asked, a little surprised. It broke his heart that he had possibly made you feel such way.

“Not for a second,” he said, still avoiding eye contact. “I'd rather die than wake up without you next to me, actually.”

You wouldn’t reply, so he brought his head back up to look at you.

“Oh, don't cry,” he said and chuckled a little, wiping your tears away as he kissed you again. “I didn't mean to make you cry.”

He hadn't let go of your hand and although he was gentle, he held it firmly. He didn't say anything, but he vowed to himself that he'd put a ring on it someday. He wasn't letting go of you ever.

You were the one for him.

[adam-scott]

SWANN ARLAUD + LETTERBOXD REVIEWS Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

[wiltkingart]

Asche and Vindt from Ocean's Blood by Thelma Mantey

[twyllodrus]

bright young things (2003) / good omens parallels

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I really want you to get started on Jurassic Park now after reading your tags.

All right, you asked for it! This post is going to be long because I've been rereading Jurassic Park since I was about 10 years old. But. My thoughts:

Jurassic Park is the oldest story in the world: one about hubris, and the price men pay for their ignorance of nature. From the first moment the protagonists step foot on the island, they can see it. There are poisonous plants next to the pool because they "look pretty." The harbor has no retaining wall because tropical storms aren't considered important. And there's a steep price for that hubris. Wu doesn't bother to learn the dinosaurs' names before breeding them, Nedry ignores them as unprogrammable, Malcolm mansplains them to their own creators, Regis laughs at the idea of them escaping, Hammond relentlessly monetizes them, Arnold insists he can control them... And they all get eaten by dinosaurs. It's the characters with the good sense to be overawed and scared (Muldoon, Gennaro, the paleontologists, the kids) who make it out alive. Almost paradigm.

More specifically, it's a book about the most fundamental principle of engineering: be scared, be confused, and then do something anyway. Then do something else, then something else, until something works. Timmy isn't a master hacker in the book; he's just (unlike Grant) willing to push buttons on the computer until he finds the power grid. Gennaro's still a scaredy cat in the book, but he clenches his teeth and goes into the velociraptor nest anyway. The heroic characters are the ones who conclude someone has to do something, despite not knowing what that something is. The villainous ones are the ones who refuse responsibility.

Speaking of which, can we talk about Ian Malcolm? I'm a sucker for a good Cassandra character, especially one that manages to get even the genre-savvy reader rolling their eyes and going "will you shut up?" And Malcolm is one of the best, every off-putting academic habit rolled into one: He thinks he's better than other people for not liking sports. He brags about not caring about appearances and then comments on Sattler's legs. He assumes Hammond has read his monograph and — when Hammond reveals he hasn't — pulls out a copy that he keeps on his person at all times to have Hammond read on the plane. He smugly explains that other characters should've foreseen they'd be killed by dinosaurs, only to be killed by dinosaurs. He calls his theory the Malcolm Effect. I do love Jeff Goldblum's gentler, more charming take on the character ("See, here, now I'm sitting by myself, talking to myself, that's chaos theory" I say literally every time I ask a question of someone who just left the room). But I prefer the way original Malcolm gets away with being right about everything because we so so badly want him to be wrong.

Speaking of that comment about the legs: by the low low bar of 80s/90s thriller writers, Crichton is surprisingly progressive. Jurassic Park invites us to laugh with (and roll our eyes with) Sattler, every time someone expresses shock the world's top paleobotanist is a woman. The Lost World perfectly captures the "women in STEM have to be twice as competent to get half the respect" dynamic, and it's a story about the male characters over-estimating their own competence as the female ones go about saving the day. Race isn't handled perfectly, but it is discussed in both books. Malcolm's chauvinism is designed to make everything else he says a bitter pill, to poison us against him. Crichton's no feminist. But Sattler's hardiness — later Harding's and Kelly's as well — are shown as hard-won in a world that batters nerdy girls so hard that only the toughest survive.

And Malcolm is just one of the many ways Jurassic Park masterfully lampoons scientific bullshit. After little Tina is bitten by a "strange lizard" and nearly dies from the swelling, Dr. Cruz assures her parents that lizards bite zookeepers all the time, that some people are allergic to lizard venom, and that the lizard Tina drew resembles a basilisk — and then we cut to him talking to his fellow MD. Where we find out that lizards don't attack humans in the wild, no human they know of has ever been hospitalized for a lizard bite, basilisks aren't venomous, and Tina's condition doesn't resemble an allergic reaction. They have no idea what this "lizard" (a Procompsognathus) could be or how it poisoned this kid, but they've been taught to obfuscate rather than admit that. Scientists are arrogant, and ignorant of their ignorance.

But the book is every bit as positive about empiricism as it is negative about individual scientists. The seamless way Crichton blends science fiction with science fact gets me every time. His preface connects Watson & Crick to Swanson & Boyer to Malcolm & Levine, explaining each step of the research process as he goes. He goes on to explain how Genetech developed its ideas from IBM, and that IBM and Genetech both contributed to InGen, which in turn influenced Biosyn, funded by Hamaguri... and only two of those names are fictional, but don't worry about which. Crichton does his homework, and then he presents his homework in the most compelling way of any writer I've ever encountered.

You need no further proof than the technologies — satellite phones, electric cars, touchscreens, gene editing — that were sci fi in 1990, commonplace today. Crichton did the reading. And he rolls that science out ever-so-slowly: dribbling first the mystery of the worker with a 3-foot gash in his torso who claims a bird of prey did it, then the mystery of the resort that needs the world's most powerful data storage, then the mystery of the billionaire who calls in the middle of the night with "urgent" questions about what baby dinosaurs eat... Until even 10-year-old me could look at that picture of a fractal and go "ohhh, I see how the unstable phase shifts of chaos theory explain the fact that a thunderstorm caused that guy to get eaten by a T. rex." Almost paradigm.

And all Jurassic Park's banging on about chaos theory belies a deep understanding of how interconnected ecosystems are. Animals, like plants, like subatomic particles, must be understood holistically. Pretending that the best way to learn the truth of any system is through breaking it down "is like saying scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast is human nature. It's nothing of the sort. It's uniquely Western training." Crichton clearly loves biology: "a single fertilized egg has a 100,000 genes, which act in a coordinated way, switching on and off at specific times, to transform that single cell... A house is simple in comparison. But even so, workmen build the stairs wrong, they put the sink in backward, the tile man doesn't show up when he's supposed to. All kinds of things go wrong. And yet the fly that lands on the workman's lunch is perfect." And he clearly hates what capitalism has done to biotechnology.

Hammond the venture capitalist is a perfectly despicable villain: No dinosaurs have escaped, because I said so. If there are problems, no there aren't. Put on a good show for investors, no matter how many contractors die in the process. Talk about all the "good" the park will do by making tons of money. The kids are stranded and the tech expert's dead? No they're not, because I said so, now pass the ice cream. It's truly a delight watching him get eaten by dinosaurs.

For that matter, Jurassic Park is bursting with details of style over substance. There are cutesy Apatosaurus cutouts in the hotel rooms and bars on the widows, a half-finished restaurant covered in Pterosaur poop, and a celebrity-narrated tour track that can't synchronize with the dinosaurs. It's trying to be Disney World, and it's actually a roadside zoo. The signage — "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth," the hand-lettered "Welcome to Jurassic Park", the room (and department) called "Control" — isn't subtle in its irony. But it is fun.

Which is yet another great sci fi trick. "Our funding is infinite but our peer review sucks" perfectly sets up the blend of the accurate with the plot-fueling (likely why Crichton reuses it several times). Why are there Pterosaurs in a dinosaur park? Our funding is infinite but our peer review sucks. Why are so many Cretaceous dinosaurs in Jurassic Park? Our funding is infinite but our peer review sucks. You didn't know Dilophosaurus is venomous? Our funding is infinite... It's perfect, because it's the opposite of how the scientific process usually works. Again: Crichton knows his shit, and he knows how to communicate it.

Like, even when I'm reading Sphere or Terminal Man — books where I'm perfectly aware I know more than Crichton on the subject, not in the least because their science inevitably became outdated — I still find myself believing, at least for the length of the story. You don't have to suspend disbelief when reading Crichton's work; he hoists it into the stratosphere for you. Half the time he won't give it back even after you're done. Almost paradigm.

But despite all that nerdery, Jurassic Park is still a rocking adventure story that builds momentum until it smashes to its conclusion at 70 miles an hour, ending the millisecond it can do so with not a word of denouement. You can practically hear that last deep piano note on the final words. It's cinematic as hell. This is Crichton post-Westworld, pre-Twister, the ultimate adventure writer. He reads, clearly, avoiding the errors of sci fi amateurs who watch too many movies (the T. rex has a distinctive smell, the island is relentlessly humid, so on) but he knows how to make a tight fast-moving story that you can consume in under three hours. His imagery is powerful, his pacing is on point, and his plot sucks you in and shoots you out like a water slide.

Jurassic Park is fun. It's informative. It makes you laugh, and gasp, and sigh, and think. It has its flaws (Harding Sr. fades out in the 3rd act, Grant's Maiasaura expertise never pays off) but those are minor in a book that stands up so well to rerereading. Almost paradigm.

[amewinterswriting]

Ame Plays: Little Dragon Cafe

Very cute, but annoyingly short of the mark.

I want to love this game. You play a child struggling to run a cafe with their sibling and raise a dragon, with extra flavour thrown in by the wide cast of guest characters, all with their own problems that can be solved through the magic of a good meal.

There are some great elements: the aesthetic is cute and cozy, the dragon is adorable and does a lot to help and support you, the island is really well designed to give you a lot to explore in a relatively small space and the soundtrack is way better than it really needs to be.

The problems start when you realise that the game isn't quite sure what it wants to be. You are encouraged to be physically present at the café to help during rushes (and stop the staff from slacking) and failure to step in will lose you customers because after long enough waiting they will leave in a frustrated huff.

If you spend too much time not gathering ingredients, however, you will inevitably run out of ingredients for your dishes. In fact, towards the late game, even if you spend all your time foraging, you will likely run out of ingredients and have to swap dishes around in your menu - it's just mathematics. If you get 25 customers in a day, and each one orders a dish with three ingredients, that's 75 ingredients used. (You can choose to use up to six ingredients in a recipe, which would obviously deplete your ingredients faster) Which means you need to gather at least that many ingredients per day. The ingredients are somewhat randomly generated at gathering points, so even if you keep the numbers up, you might not get the specific ingredients that you need for the dishes you currently have on your menu. My best attempts at efficiently foraging result in under 120 ingredients in a day and that involves completely ignoring the cafe and any reasonable bedtime for a small child, gathering from dawn till midnight - or beyond. In fact, you don't have to sleep at all unless plot demands it - there's no passing out and being carried back home, there's absolutely no penalty for simply staying awake and gathering ingredients. Which I like as a game mechanic, but given you are controlling a small child, feels very odd and at odds with the cozy aesthetic. Just don't sleep and work yourself into the ground for the sake of your cafe feels like the wrong message to send, somehow...

The actual act of helping out in the cafe feels very cramped and clumsy, which doesn't help matters. You have to run around taking orders, submitting the orders in the kitchen, delivering the food and cleaning up the dishes afterwards, plus interrupting anyone who decides to slack off - and they will, frequently. Everyone gets in the way of everyone else, the little galley to clean up dishes is a particularly bad spot for getting pushed around by NPCs as everyone tries to get in and out of the small space.

Still, you can ignore the actual act of running the cafe with little penalty. Your approval never actually drops as far as I can tell, not even if you decide to skip the day to trigger the next bit of plot and go straight to sleep at 7am and have no customers for the day (because for some reason, the cafe is only operational while you're awake, despite your sibling being somewhat capable of running the place when you aren't there). This at least means you aren't losing ingredients that day, but it does present the best way of completing the game as...not actually engaging with the game and skipping as many days as possible as being the most rewarding way to play.

The perplexing part of the cafe is that the 'customers' don't actually pay for their meals. There is no currency in the game nor a shop to spend it in, so that makes some sense. One of the staff characters starts working for you to pay off his bill - he was just going to dine and dash - but apart from that one scripted mention of money, there's no actual exchange of money you see as the player. Which makes the bad reviews and frustrated customers really funny - like guys, you are literally getting a sit down dinner for free, maybe be nice to the kids?

The other half of the game is exploring the island with your little dragon companion, which does at least feel more relaxing and fun. There is a bit of an issue with the jump mechanic - occasionally the button will be unresponsive and occasionally you'll catch on ledges and not be able to get the full jumping height, which is mostly only an issue because there are so many little steps and ledges to jump up that you will run into both multiple times a day. Once your dragon grows a little, you can ride him to traverse and he can thankfully jump much better than the human kids. The dragon will also help gather some ingredients, and randomly emote around you and he's genuinely a delight to be around.

There are also monsters and egg-birds. The monsters will 'attack' you but given this is a cozy game, they'll only steal meals from your pockets - there's no health to lose. They can be hunted for their meat, which is a gamble (the dragon sometimes gets distracted and doesn't hunt the monster the first time you ask) or you can lure them into running headlong into a rock which also results in meat. The egg-birds must be collected and then they will live near the cafe and produce an egg a day you can pick up...for a few days. Then they'll return to where you got them from. Which feels like annoying busywork for no reason - you already know where the bird is, you just have to go back there every so often to get them back.

You do have a small garden that will produce ingredients as time passes, or instantly if dragon manure is used, but you cannot choose what it produces or how much, it will just randomly generate anything you have already gathered from elsewhere. Including meat, oddly enough. There is a fish hatchery that does the same. This is the best way of getting a lot of ingredients all at once, but in order to get dragon manure, you have to feed your dragon, and the larger it gets, the more food it needs to produce manure. And you need to cook every dish manually using a small rhythm mini game - no batch cooking. It kinda feels like the game just wants me to spend an hour cooking lots of dishes, then force-feeding my dragon to get the manure to spend on speeding up the garden to get the ingredients (which I am also spending on the food for the dragon, so the game is incentivising me to use as few materials as possible to maximise returns). That feels like no fun so I'm not going to batch cook 30 single scotch eggs (using just egg, no meat or breading here) and force-feed him eggs until he poops...at least not for very long.

There are also some short stories revolving around some guest NPC characters who usually show up with an emotional problem, stay in the cafe for a few days, open up about their issues, need a particular dish cooking for them to resolve their emotional conflict and then leave, leaving a space ready for the next character to come and stay. These are actually pretty well written compared to other cozy life-sims like Harvest Moon and the characters are really charming and relatable.

To be honest, it wouldn't take a lot for me to love this game. Like, let customers pay for their meals and then give us a shop to buy upgrades for the cafe or the staff (so that you wouldn't need to personally intervene when they start slacking, for example, or that they would slack off less often) or let us buy 'basic' ingredients like flour and rice, but still have us forage for more exotic food and the upgraded ingredients. That would help take the big pressure out of trying to forage more ingredients than you use daily. Otherwise, tweak forage spots so they give multiple ingredients per interaction, which would save time, or give us more options in the garden. Say, use materials to upgrade the amount the garden yields, or let us choose what types of ingredients we would like the garden to produce. Basically a little more customising in general and a little automation would turn the grindy chore bits of the game into something a little more interesting.

Because there isn't really a penalty for failure, there also isn't a reward for doing well. The game will mostly chug along at its own pace regardless of how well or badly the cafe does, only requiring an increase in customer satisfaction between NPC story episodes and that can usually be achieved in a single day. This is probably by design - to avoid frustrating younger players - but it does make mid to late game feel like a grindy chore that you don't actually need to deal with. You can progress quickly by skipping most days, only sticking around to trigger the scenes and then going straight to sleep. But at that point, why bother to still play the game?

[t-hirstreview]

[raisedbythetv89]

The most important Venn Diagram I’ve ever made

[gael-garcia]

YES ! YES! YES!

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

Happy new Quinton Reviews video to all who celebrate