#and the execution sequence is so sad

[lexcat-11]

Reimagining that one really sad scene from a piece of media you like in extreme new detail when you have an extremely vivid imagination

[ladyloveandjustice]

I was stubbornly not wanting to cry at dandadan I was like "single mom doing sex work supporting her child backstory! obviously some guys are gonna come attack her and her kid will die or be taken I've seen this I refuse to cry for this basic ass woman suffers story wanting to tug my heartstrings I REFUSE"

but then it was so well directed and Momo's reaction and the hug and "to a kinder world" and I cried anyway. you win this one dandadan.

[somedayillbepeterpan]

I have gone down this rabbit hole now and I'm afraid I'm never getting out. I hope I give justice to this. And sorry if this is long.

I've seen a lot of the Colin and Marina vs. Colin and Penelope analyses in here and I want to raise this parallel as to how the Butterfly ball was such a powerful move for both Penelope and Colin. We all have our issues with how they handled Pen and Colin finding their way back to each other but let me add this perspective and hope it helps us understand how real they handled the issue of LW and pushed the character development for them both.

The scene on the left is from S01e06 (Swish) and the right is S03e08 (Into the Light)

S1 scene - Violet is still in her dressing gown, obviously distraught having just read something from LW. She hears someone come down and finds Colin.

S3 scene - Violet is dressed for the morning and her face looks a combination of surprise and confusion after reading a letter. She turns around when she hears someone coming down the stairs.

In both scenes, we see Colin coming down the stairs.

S1 - we only see Colin's back. We're in suspense on what emotional state he is in but we do know that he's on his way to elope with Marina.

In S3 - we see Colin's face immediately looking determined and ready. We see Violet calling his name quite urgently.

S1 - Colin sees his mother's face looking like a combination of disappointment and anger. He asks what's happening. She doesn't say anything but just looks at Colin with a sadness that only a mother can give.

S3 - Violet pointedly says that she received a letter from Colin's wife (I love this line so much) that sounds awfully like "I need you to explain what's happening right now."

S1 - Violet hands Colin LW without saying anything and just looks so so so sad. Colin is shocked to his core because we learn that LW (Pen) exposes Marina's pregnancy and that she has been pregnant from the beginning of the season.

S3 - Colin determinedly faces his mother telling her that they had better sit. And I'm guessing that Colin tells her everything.

Where am I going with this? (Gosh, doing an analysis is hard 😂)

The first time Colin fell in love (thought he fell in love), he was blindsided. But I believe the pain he felt at that time was made deeper because his family had to save him from the situation (Anthony explaining that his actions in the scandal will affect his sisters' prospects as well). To think that it was his mother who first learned of the situation added salt to the wound because we all know that he is a mama's boy and that the one person he dislikes letting down is his mother.

The second (and last time) Colin falls in love, he once again feels betrayed. But he's fallen in love so deeply that he can't imagine his life without Pen. The struggle he goes through in understanding his emotions was very hard to watch and it's because the issue goes beyond his and Pen's relationship. It extends to his family.

Colin's hero complex goes beyond feeling worthy of Pen's love but also worthy of the Bridgerton name. We see it several times in S3 when he mentions it in his confrontation with Portia (" I advise you not to sully our Bridgerton name...") and when Pen tells him that Cressida discovered her secret ("It will besmirch our Bridgerton name. The entire family").

The whole sequence in the study is now more significant because of what Pen addresses in their conversation-- Colin's family ("Your family... the one you so kindly shared with me, they are too good").

Pen's "sacrifice" ("But I can no longer conceal the biggest piece of information I have. My identity."), I believe, was to save the Bridgerton family (once again) and she asks Colin to stand by her as she formulates and executes this plan.

It was very important that Pen wrote a letter to Violet directly and that Colin was there right after she's read it to explain everything. From this point on, they were a team. From this point on, Colin moves in parallel with Pen instead of against it. Colin finally sees that version of Pen that she's always been even while she was LW-- the person who was always determined to save his family just as much as he does.

From this point on, their goals were aligned.

10 rewatches after, I finally see how Colin found his way back to Pen. It wasn't very obvious to me how he got over the feelings of betrayal after he discovered Pen was LW. Of course, him reading the letters help but the events leading up to the Butterfly ball, helped him see her as both Pen and Lady Whistledown and the overflowing pride we see on his face was heart-melting to watch.

From this point on, they finally see each other eye to eye. From this point on, they finally accept this version of each other.

If you got to the end, thanks for reading my humble musings.

*Editing to add this: The Butterfly Ball deep dive series

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

In which I cling to the last vestiges of two of my favorite shows of the year, write a eulogy for one of the most disappointing, and rejoice over the entry of a new fav. These shows are available for weekly streaming on Gaga unless otherwise noted.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Farewell to a wonderful show. @isaksbestpillow has posted all seven episodes as of last week, so if you've been waiting for a binge, now is your chance. I already said a lot about why I loved this one, so I'll just use this space to urge you again to watch! This show is a goddamn delight.

Takara's Treasure

The main narrative ended last week, but this week we got a sweet little epilogue and one more visit with Takara and Taishin. I enjoyed the brief glimpse into their near future and getting to see Taishin turn 20 with his very first fuzzy navel, though I was a bit sad we got a repeat of the finale's themes rather than treading new ground for their relationship (I could not have cared less about the fujoshi writing RPF). This was a lovely show and I will miss these characters.

Happy of the End

CWs: Assault, child abandonment, child molestation, childhood sexual slavery, dubcon (including between the main characters), human trafficking, rape, sexual coercion and exploitation, suicidal ideation/possible attempt, unsafe S&M practices, violence

A very rough week for this show in terms of the content--please mind the triggers above because these are explicit depictions and it can be hard to stomach. I am waiting to see where this show is going with its themes before I make a final judgment, but watching the fourth episode in particular, some parts felt like crossing the line into gratuitous trauma porn that provided little additional illumination. We'll see how it shakes out in the end, but please take care with this one. I continue to find the characters and relationship dynamics compelling, and I am invested in Haoren and Chihiro's attempt to have a relationship despite the metric ton of baggage they are shouldering between them. Neither is equipped to even have any idea what a healthy relationship looks like, but they see something in each other and they want to try. That tiny bit of hopeful but likely doomed thinking may be all we have to cling to in this story.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I am sad about what this show could have been. For me, the finale definitely did not succeed at sticking the landing and making the last six weeks of wheel spinning feel worth it, and this show is going down as one of the big disappointments of the year for me. As you know if you've been keeping up with this weekly post, I loved the first half of this show, and Taichi's original characterization, so much. And I don't understand what happened here. The second half has felt like a completely different, confused, demonstrably worse show. Taichi hasn't felt like himself in weeks, the plots with Maya and the job at Sign were poorly grounded, inconsistently executed, and offered little pay off either thematically or in terms of character development, and the romance writing was a complete failure. It was actually painful to see Kohei run after Taichi and confess to him again, and the directing and editing of that sequence was so muddled that I had no idea what I was supposed to understand about Taichi's emotional journey or why this was the moment he was suddenly able to reciprocate. After all that brooding and his big speech about communication, he did not communicate much of anything to Kohei in the end. And I'm supposed to be content with leaving them here? Deeply unsatisfying on just about every level.

I understand from @twig-tea that while the story followed the beats of the manga's first two volumes at a high level, this production chose to remove many of the contextual details that actually made sense of the characters' behavior. It also seems they didn't understand they were setting up character arcs that did not get resolved until a later volume the show will not cover, thus ensuring the story would end at the wrong place. Just a baffling set of adaptation choices, and so much wasted potential. It's a shame.

Love is Like a Poison

But at least we have a new favorite coming in hot a week sooner than expected! I absolutely loved this first episode, in which we meet Shiba, our cold-hearted lawyer with delusions of grandeur and a sexually charged fixation on his house plants, and Haruto, our flirty scammer who has his number. This show is really well written and packed a ton of story, comedy, and deep characterization into its first episode. It's a promising start! For now it’s only available grey outside of Japan; I am hoping it will get picked up for proper international distribution soon.

Tagging @bengiyo to add this week's anime update.

[twig-tea]

GL odds and ends 20 October 2024

Still feeling out how regularly it makes sense to do this; first one was 2 weeks ago on 6 October. If you're interested in GL older than that, check out my GL rec list through Feb 2024 and my update in July 2024. New series marked with an asterisk*.

Currently airing (with thoughts up to Oct 6):

Reverse 4 U 7/8 (Thai, Tuesdays 1:00 PM EDT, Netflix / YouTube) I'm disappointed by how this final arc has gone. We haven't really seen any growth for Wa, and the whole plot with Wa and Vivi's father didn't really make sense. I really don't understand why he had to stay away, or why the rules are so different for him than for Wa. The relationship between Wa and Four also feels flat because we've barely seen them together. I was rooting for this one but alas.

Unlock Your Love ep 6/8 (Thai, Wednesdays, GagaOOLala / YouTube [cut version]) The sequence where Rain and Love keep trying to have sex but getting interrupted/hurt was very funny; this show still drags but the core of it is pretty good. I mostly just wish it were tighter.

Chaser Game W s2 ep 5/8 (Japanese, Thursdays 12:30 PM EDT, GagaOOLala) @lurkingshan is already doing a great summary of this week to week in her JQL weekly round-up!

Affair the series ep 8/8 END (Thai, Fridays 11:15 AM EDT, iQIYI/ YouTube) Other than the jealousy in the last 10 minutes of the show, I really did like this ending for the series. I really liked Wan's decision to take time for herself after being disappointed by Pleng's decision again. The plot and melodramatic-ness of this show is not my favourite, but I enjoyed it week to week in spite of that. The acting was so solid, the women so gorgeous, the chemistry so fire, and the writing was great for the genre its in (the story was internally consistent and coherent, and the characters were complex and their motivations were clear. There was even a good plot reason for the 'they might be siblings' twist). If you don't mind melodrama, give this one a try!

*Pluto ep 1/12 NEW (Thai, Saturdays 9:30 AM EDT, YouTube) Starting off with a fantastic kiss and Namtan on a motorcycle is truly an incredible opening gambit. That being said, I don't buy the core premise of the plot and it is making it difficult for me to actually enjoy the show. I'll probably be mostly quiet about this one because the things I don't like about it aren't actually about its execution but rather my taste.

*Apple My Love ep 2/7 NEW (Thai, Saturdays 11:45 AM EDT, GagaOOLala and YouTube) I already shouted on main about ep1 here; so far I'm obsessed with this show. Kris is too gay to function, and the misunderstanding is perfectly executed. Very excited for this one, it's so far fantastic.

The Loyal Pin ep 12/16 (Thai, Sundays 12:15 PM EDT, YouTube) Anin's speech in this episode was fire. I feel for these girls, Anin and Pin are just so desperate to be together and their choices are limited. This show continues to be gorgeous and so well done, and I keep bracing for pain.

Red Whisper ep 4/8 (Korea, [schedule is kinda unpredictable; vaguely every 5 days??], YouTube) Cheating and taking advantage while your crush is heartbroken and drunk is not my fave but is par for the course with these SukFilm short series; my fave so far has been their first GL so if you haven't seen that yet I'd honestly recommend that instead.

Recent One-offs & Side Couples

We finally got the sapphic backstory in The Hidden Moon but it was (as expected) sad and mostly inferred.

We also got more of the Aim as a Lesbian plotline in the new Love Sick 2024 remake (this was not a plotline in the 2014 version and it's one of the changes I really like and that I think works really well)

Sastra film app YouTube channel has several short Cambodian GL series that come out weekly Honestly they are not to my taste but I don't like gatekeeping GL especially from smaller markets. I check in on these time to time and if there are any that I think are great I'll give them a shout-out

Ditto above with JPC media YouTube channel for Thai GL shorts if there are any that stand out to me I'll say so

Starting soon:

The Nipple Talk, [ensemble] Taiwanese, 1 November GagaOOLala

My Ex's Wedding [in theatres in Thailand 14 November]

Mom Ped Sawan, Thai, 17 November [international distribution uncertain; it should be on VIPA app with subs, but that is region-locked]

Petrichor, Thai, 23 November, TBD

[2rats1gogh]

I am disappointed with the way the show portrayed Blood and Cheese

[spoilers ahead for ep 2x01]

First of all, I fully understand the absence of Maelor and I’m not even mad about that. The choice between the two twins aka “which one is the boy” is good imo. Also, Phia is a great actress and I don’t blame her one bit for what happened to her character. She did the best she could’ve with what she was given. But the execution of all this? Meh.

1. Why did Helaena choose Jaehaerys, instead of Jaehaera? It would’ve made MUCH MORE SENSE for her to choose Jaehaera because she’s the girl. And then B&C would’ve killed the other twin, Jaehaerys, because they knew she would not give up the heir to the throne, king Aegon’s only son. Her choosing Jaehaerys takes away her guilt of living next to the child she named to die.

2. Why was the death of Jaehaerys so off screen? I’m not saying I wanted to see a six year old child be beheaded, in all it’s gory and graphic details, but I wish Helaena and Jaehaera were there to witness it. It was important for them to see it happening. It could’ve been just a silhouette, a shadow on the wall, or just Haleana’s expression of horror. Instead, she just runs away. It’s still sad, obviously, in its own way, that she wasn’t there for her son in his last moments, but again, that takes away from her guilt and eventual downfall into madness.

3. Why the fuck was this whole thing played off as a misunderstanding/accident? Of course the creators wanted to make Daemon look less evil, by making him tell B&C to kill Aemond instead. And I kinda liked the addition of one of them saying “what if we don’t find him?” and I expected Daemon to say something like “You can kill another son” or whatever, but then it just FUCKING CUTS AWAY? And now have to INTERPRET STUFF? So that no one can hold Daemon accountable because “technically we never saw him say that in the show!☝️🤓” Fuck this.

4. The Alicole sex scene fucking ruined the whole scene. I was hoping, praying even, that the leaks of Alicole having sex while Blood & Cheese happens was just a rumor, a theory. But no. The creators fucking decided to make them have sex while this horrible incident happens. Someone in that writing room said “You know what? Let’s have Alicent and Criston do the nasty as Aegon’s six year old child is brutally murdered and Helaena is being traumatized for life! That seems like a great idea!” AND THEY WENT WITH IT. That addition was just so fucking unnecessary. What was the fucking point of putting that in? Wouldn’t it be great if Jacaerys heard of the death of Lucerys first and then ran to Rhaenyra on Dragonstone to tell her that his brother was fucking murdered, only to find Rhaenyra having sex with Daemon? Like, why was Lucerys’ death so serious and tragic, and impactful, but then Jaehaerys’ death is overshadowed by Helaena running into her mother having sex with her lover? God, I’m so angry.

5. Helaena didn’t seem to be affected at all by the death of her son. “They killed the boy” and that’s IT? She didn’t cry her eyes out, didn’t scream, didn’t beg for B&C to kill her instead. She almost didn’t react at all. Her son, her baby, her six year old child, was just brutally fucking beheaded and the creators don’t even show her reacting to it? Rhaenyra showed more emotions when she found the clothes of her death son, and Helaena was like 🙁 when HER SON WAS BEING KILLED IN FRONT OF HER?? What the actual hell. And may I repeat, this is in NO WAY an attack on the actress, Phia. I think she still gave us an amazing performance, but it’s fucking obvious that the creators decided to go with the “oh well, she’s weird and distant, and cold and unemotional” narrative they made up. They won’t fucking allow her to grieve.

All those people writing that “Even GRRM was horrified by this scene!” or “This is gonna be like the Red Wedding!”… I was fucking lied to.

This whole sequence felt so short, and rushed, and unemotional… I am very disappointed, and sad. This was supposed to be one of the most important events of the entire Dance. They first actual innocent blood that was spilled. The event that led to Helaena going mad. The event that changed Aegon as a person and made him declare war on Rhaenyra and gave him motivation to repay Team Black for what they’ve done. It was supposed to be fucking important. And the show turned it into a four minute awfully paced scene with dumb additions and lots of unnecessary and easily avoidable changes.

[londytellsall]

mouthwashing is keeping up at night

spoilers for the game (obvi) if you haven’t played it or watched a play thru i HIGHLY recommend it, but pls read the warnings and be safe!

i keep thinking abt how everything could have gone if swansea was able to get daisuke in the cryopod. it was how i thought everything was going to play out near the end of the game, which made his death so much more fucking devestating. but the fact it was done by swansea himself? no way! i refuse to believe it which is why i have this theory: jimmy put daisuke out of his misery, not swansea.

OK HEAR ME OUT, cuz this is all going to sound scrambled. swansea’s speech and his reasons for putting a dying daisuke out of his misery are valid and seem like something swansea would say to daisuke, BUT something bothers me.

after all of this we hear swan say that he basically has no other reason to keep going and said that jimmy could take the pod if he wants to, seemingly too sad to move on after the only person he planned to protect is dead. we see jimmy get the gun and then swan run at jimmy with the axe now manic for some reason? doesn’t make sense to me after he seemed so resolved, but maybe he wasn’t?

i think that whole speech came from jimmy’s imagination still trying to pin the blame of this whole mess on someone else. and the crazy axe murdering swansea was also something that jimmy made up in his mind. in my opinion these were excuses he made so he had a reason to kill swansea. he probably just retrieved the gun from the bed, grabbed swansea, tied him to a chair and executed him, all the while repeating in his head that swansea is a bad person.

i could make an entire separate post about how the angry drunk guy was probably the most merciful and safest out of anyone on that ship, but that’s besides the point.

it’s been proven to us (near the end of the game especially) that we can’t trust what jimmy sees. other than the crazy fits of dream sequence we see from jimmys pov, after we are shown how jimmy kills swansea, the pods are foamless. this man is hallucinating.

then can we talk about the position of the wound? i find it hard to believe that swansea would go for somewhere as brutal as the face of the boy he’s been trying to protect.

TLDR; jimmy probably killed daisuke with the axe. then killed swansea after he made a big fuss about it. he also probably hallucinated the axe murdering swansea as an excuse to kill him.

edit: i don’t even know if i agree with this theory anymore lmao

[sinfiltrate]

Act 3 spoilers

I just wanted to voice my opinions on the entirety of act 3, I will be making another post focusing on Jayce because I am disappointed with his story specifically.

Let's start with what I'm happy with!

The display of Mel's magic was amazing. All her scenes were so powerful.

CaitVi is canon! (which was predictable for obvious reasons but i'm still happy for them)

The music choice was perfect, as well as the quality of the episodes, as expected. No matter the storyline's flaws, the art style itself is undeniably gorgeous.

Maddie dies IMMEDIATELY after betraying Piltover, so I'm happy with that. Don't get me wrong, I think the season looked rushed, but the instant karma of that scene was enjoyable. It's well executed shock value.

The Caitlyn/Mel and Ambessa fight sequence was SICK. They really emphasized Ambessa's strength and battle IQ here, and while I dislike her, it was satisfying to watch.

The JayVik ending. Now, I am very conflicted with this, but I'll focus on the positive part. THIS MOMENT WAS SO TENDER!! It revealed how much Jayce truly loved and cared for Viktor, and that Viktor thought Jayce to be the only person who could ever make him acknowledge the importance of humanity. Jayce was his last and only hope, and Jayce proved Viktor right in every timeline.

Jayce defenders, we won. We got an entire episode dedicated to what Jayce and Ekko/Heimerdinger went through, and it proved that JAYCE WAS RIGHT AND HIM AND EKKO ARE OUR SAVIORS THANK YOU 🙏

Jayce looked fine asf. That is a beautiful man and I'm expecting many more edits (pretty please).

Alright, now let's get to what I'm upset about.

Jayce's wasted potential. The way I see it, they just reduced him to a pawn in Viktor's character arc, considering that his life begins and ends with Viktor. It's sweet, yes, and can be counted as a win for JayVik shippers, but I really wanted more for Jayce. And yes, I will most definitely come back to this on my Jayce-centric post.

The lack of reaction to Jinx's and Jayce's "death". I'm honestly not sure if either of them are dead (I am also somewhat in denial). Mel lost her lover, of whom brought out a softer side of herself that she didn't even know existed, and there's no reaction? Not even a scene of her finding out? The same goes for Caitlyn, since she literally saw Jayce as an older brother. Then there's Vi, who's seen completely fine with Caitlyn, and Ekko, who's having the only appropriate reaction, but even so, it's too calm. We'd have to assume that there's been another timeskip, but it couldn't have been long since the war. ALSO XIMENA, Jayce's MOTHER, she's seen putting a paper of Jayce's name to burn and honor him after his supposed death, but her expression is blank. Just simple resignation. I don't know, the lack of reaction had me questioning why I was sad.

No proper reunion scenes besides Ekko/Jinx and Mel/Jayce?????I actually liked Ekko and Jinx's reunion, but Mel and Jayce? Not even close to what I expected or wanted.

This season was rushed; that's something everyone can agree on. I think it was very focused on action rather than the complexity of these people's relationships and minds, while the first season had a balance between both. There just wasn't enough time for that balance with all the information they had to give us.

Honestly, and this is gonna sound horrible but hear me out, I would've preferred it if they had episode 6 be the last episode instead, and used the act 2 to explore Caitlyn's dictator arc and truly emphasize how long Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger had been gone. I know how this sounds, but I really wanted to see more of Caitlyn and her mindset during the whole fascism plot rather than have her throw it all away three episodes later. It would've helped others understand her more, while also acknowledging how blinded she had become with anger and sadness. Also, this would've given more time for people to grow an attachment to Isha and see how she reminds Jinx of Powder!!! Just imagine it, the season closing with Jayce "killing" Viktor, no sign of Ekko or Heimerdinger, and Isha dying would have been even MORE devastating; the ultimate cliffhanger. There's no denying people would've been angry and shocked, but it would've made us want more, just like the first season did. I would be 100% willing to wait 3 or more years for the next season than have such an underwhelming ending.

Okay, I think that's it. Might add more to this post later if I come up with any other critiques, be prepared for the Jayce post because I NEED to talk about him.

[fangsandfeels]

Honestly, Alruna is romancing Lucanis, but that doesn't stop me from being a nitpick. But I'm being gentle here because I liked Lucanis, which made me all more sad about what could have been.

The premise is good. I like the idea of a possessed companion. I like the idea that the demon that possess him is not necessarily evil, it's just pissed off because it's also a prisoner and it didn't ask for this.

I like the idea of that demon trying, in its own way, to dig its host out from the layers of trauma and self-loathing and doesn't understand how that man can hate himself so damn much.

But the execution....

First things first, it was hilarious to imagine Alruna and Lucanis just zoning out in the middle of the conversation, with Teia and Viago standing there like:

Now, on a more serious note, it all felt rushed and undercooked.

For instance: the dream sequence.

There are numerous implications that Lucanis was tortured in the Ossuary, abused in his childhood, but we don't see any of the flashbacks, just bodiless voices of the Venatori, Zara, and Caliban mocking Lucanis - and it feels like the team just chickened out of showing anything more, ignoring a great opportunity of telling us more about the character.

Yes, we never got explicit scenes of Fenris getting his lyrium scars or flashbacks of him being tortured by Hadriana, but we didn't need to: Fenris' behavior, habits, and tendency to lash out were telling us everything we needed to know. We could guess just enough.

Lucanis, however, is a closed book. He always maintains that calm, polite demeanor, which makes it look like his time in the Ossuary didn't affect him at all. This is not bad - he is good at hiding pain and anything that can distract him from the job, he was trained for this. However, the Inner Demons was a wonderful opportunity to reveal the complete and utter hellscape his mind was boiling in all that time. Imagine Rook bearing witness to some of most painful moments of his life and realizing he is going through those over and over. Imagine Rook having to not just exchange a couple of words with his mind's fantoms, but to fight them - or, quite the opposite, talk to them despite the burning desire to cave their face in

*cough*Caterina*cough*

Or, quite the opposite, maybe Rook knows some stories from Lucanis' childhood and grows to silently resent Caterina, only to catch a glimpse of her in the memories and realize that she truly believed she was doing her grandchildren a favor, even if it hurt her to hurt them.

(Heck, it would have been much better if Caterina actually sacrificed herself to save Lucanis - because she stopped caring about him not being able to go back, she wanted a chance for her grandson to live, to get out of that deathtrap of a life she got stuck in, together with her children.

Seriously, if we're talking about parents/relative getting a redemptive death, it should have been Caterina, fight me)

It would have added so much to the Lucanis' character and past, not to mention to the romance. Especially if Rook wasn't that well-versed in psychoanalysis and found themselves unsettled by accessing someone's traumatic memories, but didn't regret it because it meant Lucanis wasn't dealing with that shit alone anymore - and that they didn't see him as a lesser man for hurting.

2. It strikes me how...unfounded Lucanis' concerns are? About Spite. Not only everyone seem to chat with Spite nicely, but also Lucanis has been out of control only once, when Illario provoked Spite? In the Ossuary, Lucanis was perfectly himself and in synergy with Spite as he broke out, giving us zero reasons to be concerned.

He didn't ran out half-feral, with glowing eyes, gutting his wardens and then pinning Rook to the floor, stopping himself only in the last moment.

He didn't attack anyone from the group.

He didn't have a fight with Rook and the group like it was with Zevran.

We got a glimpse of why Spite might be bad news when he got pissed off at Lucanis for not letting him talk to Rook and took his anger out on Lucanis. But, once again, this was a one-time performance. We don't even get a flashback of Spite lashing out at Lucanis many-many times when they both got forcefully tied to each other.

Of course, Lucanis has reasons to be afraid - abominations are known for being horrible. But we, as a player, as a group, don't get many reasons to be afraid of Spite. Not once we're given even a false impression of Lucanis - or us - being in danger because of Spite. We needed a lot more moments of Spite acting weird or unsettling. Maybe Spite talking more cryptically about the Lucanis' state of mind - until we get to the Inner Demons and realize that all that time Spite was trying to help him.

Like, I can't even consider Spite a demon i.e. corrupted. He is more like a traumatized spirit, who retained his original aspect. It would have been interesting if you actually could turn Spite into a demon and make Lucanis a real abomination (if an evil "destroy your companions' lives" route was an option).

(Also, it's so damn funny that after all the beef, after giving Lucanis so much shit for being an assassin and abomination, Davrin doesn't even get a cameo in Lucanis "don't trust the demon" section and there is Harding instead. It's Davrin who was aggressive (well, as aggressive as the game can allow it) towards Lucanis, constantly voicing his doubts and trying to attribute his mistakes to "Are you sure the demon didn't make you do it?". And for all that hard work, Lucanis doesn't feature him in his depression gallery. Davrin should be offended. I know I would have been.)

3. I feel it would have been better if Lucanis' conflicted feelings about Illario being a traitor weren't about "I have to kill him, but he is family and there are so few of us left" because, well, Crows aren't about family. They shouldn't be. Of course, the assassins born and bred in noble families would spew a lot of BS about family and loyalty, but only to gaslight the underlings into doing their bidding. One mistake, one unfulfilled contract, one slipup - and family stops mattering and this is how things are.

It could have made more sense if Crows took serious issue with Lucanis being possessed and Lucanis was, in fact, unable to go back. Not only Illario proved to be stronger by outsmarting him, he also took his previous life away from him - and even if Lucanis kills him, he won't be able to return.

Nobody will trust a demon - at best he would end up in another prison, to be studied for the Guildmaster's benefit.

Nobody would let a former Talon just live - he should die with all the guild's secrets. And why wouldn't he die? Without Crows, he is just a murderer, a bloody blade for hire - not worth anything, not worth anyone's trust, too much blood on his hands to pretend he could ever be something else.

Illario could have been the inner demon taunting Lucanis, calling him weak, calling him a fool for surviving and persisting - for what? Doesn't he know that justice isn't real? Did Lucanis get so desperate and pathetic, he started believing in fairy tales? As if one "right" death will fix everything?

Lucanis hesitation about confronting Illario should stem from "and then what?" - and Rook's goal should be to convince him that there are other options for him and that he should get payback for himself.

It would have been so interesting to have an opposite of Zevran - a Crow who can be convinced he doesn't have to live like this and that not being able to Crow anymore isn't the end of the world. And since I do like Lucanis as a character and like the crumbs of romance content with him, I wish there could have been more.

[maybeasunflower]

Star Trek theme tunes: worst to best

Star Trek’s many TV series each have an opening sequence that attempts to set up the viewer for the show ahead. A good theme tune delivers a high-quality piece of music that encapsulates the show’s essence — and it is on this basis that I’ve ranked the themes. What isn’t included in my ranking is anything about the graphics that accompany the music, nor the show itself. Naturally, these are all purely my personal opinions, so there can be no argument.

Let’s get started!

11: Enterprise

“It’s been a long road…” are five words that launched a lot of strong feelings — and rightly so. The jarring mismatch between everything about this song and everything Enterprise was about relegates this theme to the bottom of the heap. The opening graphics are spot-on for the show’s premise — but I never got to watch them because I needed to skip the music, and that makes me madder.

If you want to know what could have been, search YouTube for “Star Trek: Enterprise Opening Credits with Archer’s Theme”. That music is perfect for the show: slow, dramatic, building up for the big reveal. Then finish weeping / gnashing your teeth and come back here.

This theme also meant that we can never have a Star Trek theme with words again, ever, because we have been all primed to hate such things because of Enterprise — and that’s sad.

Imagine if we’d had a good theme with words that we could all sing at appropriate and inappropriate occasions.

10: The Animated Series

You’d forgotten about this series, hadn’t you? I will confess I haven’t watched any episodes (unlike the other ST series), but that doesn’t me having an opinion about the theme music. The jaunty theme music. The theme music that speaks of hijinks and hilarious consequences. The theme with super precise drumming — the perfect accompaniment as we join our hero sipping a cocktail in his usual bar by the beach.

Wait, this show is about space exploration?

9: Discovery

Open with Those Four Notes (good), wistful hunting call horns (good), build up to a climax (good), and then… umm…

What follows musically reminds me of Fringe (a great show that also involved Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci as creators). Fringe was a show about the discovery of new scientific things (and the consequences thereof)— but Discovery is not. The stories of Discovery revolve around battling against various things. The main theme (minimalist repeated eighth note patterns with a slow-moving melody) simply doesn’t speak to premise of the show. It ends with the ascending “Star Trek motif”, but it just feels like something bolted on to end things.

This is a theme based on the title, not on the events in the show.

8: The Original Series

I’m going to get some flak for this, but I don’t care. Yes, The Original Series is sacred. Yes, this theme gave us Those Four Notes right at the start. Yes, it gave us the classic opening words. Yes, we must remember TV was different back then when judging TOS. But I’m ranking the music, and so that’s all that matters.

This is a show about exploring strange new worlds and going boldly. The music is not that. The music is about going somewhere on holiday in your 1960s convertible, or possibly going home from work for the weekly comedic capers. It’s not going boldly anywhere, it’s not exploring new worlds, and that’s final.

… I am going to get so much flak for this.

7: Picard

This is a theme unlike any other, but this a series unlike other, so that’s OK. The wistful main melody on solo cello works for the show and its premise. The theme then gets musically developed by other instruments in a musically satisfyingly way.

However, two-thirds (!) of the title graphics are consumed by the 137 producers, supervising producers, co-executive producers, executive producers, and producing producers — and it feels the music had to be extended by a good 30 seconds to cover them all. Like Discovery, it ends with ends with the ascending “Star Trek motif”, but it (just about) feels musically connected to what came before.

Overall, I am left with a very neutral opinion. There’s nothing that bad about this music, but nothing that makes it stand out.

It’s boringly OK.

6: Strange New Worlds

After the classic opening words, the dramatic bass line/repetitive strings/drums kick in, the music builds, everything’s set up for the main melody…. and what’s that? Well, you can’t hear that melody because the orchestration that gives it insufficient body, and the sound mix gives the accompanying dramatic bass line/repetitive strings/drums far too much prominence.

The overall structure is good — repeat the main melody with some extra oomph, transition to the B melody, build to a climax with some block chords, then bring every down nicely with the hunting horn call. It ticks all the boxes on (manuscript) paper — but the orchestration and mix just means I can’t enjoy it properly.

Give the melody some more body, turn the volume down on the rhythm section, and this theme would jump up a lot of places.

5: Deep Space 9

DS9 isn’t about going boldly anywhere, but it is still about dealing with dramatic, important things. The music has a stately beauty that reflects both those things. The opening lonely horn illustrates the emptiness of space, before being joined by more horns to build drama. Then the main melody kicks in over a minimal accompaniment, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. There’s a pedal note that sustains through most of the opening — so that when the bass finally moves, it makes for a dramatic conclusion.

Later seasons brought a new version that tried to punch up the excitement a notch by increasing the speed of the main melody and adding some more texture to the accompaniment — but at the cost of the stately beauty that is this theme’s best feature. Let’s ignore it.

The title sequence is about 30 seconds too long, which means the beauty has faded somewhat by the end. (Yes, the opening for Strange New Worlds is a similar length, but the music doesn’t kick in until after 30+ seconds).

Overall, a solid piece of music that aligns well with the show’s premise.

4: Lower Decks

Lower Decks is a show that is both 100% serious and 100% affectionate parody. It does everything any other Star Trek TV series does, while turning it up 11 in order to skewer those things. Musically, that’s a tough premise for a theme tune.

So what happens? We open with Those Four Notes, followed by hunting horn calls, then a dramatic main theme on trumpet that’s repeated on all the strings — followed by gear-changing chords into the real main theme. A theme that gets a full-bore orchestra with a melody on brass that descends like someone resigned to not doing first contact (no hopeful ascending motifs here!). Then a solid build-up brings it to a satisfying conclusion.

Like the show, this theme works both seriously and as affectionate parody.

3: Voyager

The show has a tension between “let’s get home as soon as possible” and “ooh, new alien planet to explore” — and the music reflects that.

The theme opens with muted trumpets on a lonely motif (plus timpani) at the start to bring a sense of the dramatic, but without wanting to shout too loudly about it in this unknown part of the galaxy. The main theme on the horns is repeated with added texture and followed by a B melody on strings. Both bring a sense of the long journey ahead, with an ebb and flow throughout.

A slow build-up is then followed by a gentle climb back down — then a rapid (and musically seamless) build up to an emphatic restatement of the opening motif, ringing out to remind us this isn’t just about skulking back to Earth.

Voyager may be headed for home, but it’s still boldly going new places.

2: The Next Generation

Whatever you feel about Star Trek: The Motion Picture, we can all thank it for this music. TNG opens with Those Four Notes on something ethereal, followed by the best delivery of the classic opening words (sorry Anson Mount!) with a hunting call on horns underneath—then we’re into music about exploring strange new worlds and going boldly. It’s going on an adventure — journeying to places unknown to find things unknown.

Structurally, it’s simpler than other themes: after the main melody on brass, we get the string-heavy B melody twice, then back to a shortened version of the main melody to end. However, the post-words music only takes up half the opening, and those two melodies have enough going on to sustain our interest.

You’re left excited about what’s going to happen this week— because we’re exploring, damnit.

1: Prodigy

Four chords build tension, launching into drums+ostinato that tell you right away that exciting things will be Going Down.

Dramatic trombone and bells set up a musical cadence that gets resolved into the start of the heart-stirring main melody soaring out on horns clearly over the accompaniment (take note, SNW). The main melody repeats with added trumpets, and transitions into the drum-less B melody on lush strings that tells you it’s also about the journey. Then bridge into a repeat with everything turned up a notch.

Things get a little chaotic for a moment (what else do you expect with this crew?), but it’s OK, because we’re back to those dramatic trombone and bells (plus friends) to bookend things and lead us into a final resolution… that leaves just enough going on afterwards to accompany Those Four Notes, as though that was the plan all along. Then spike the ending so there’s no doubt we’re done.

Perfect.

[dangermousie]

I really wish they got a better actress for the general because it's such a fascinating, amazing storyline on paper - a righteous warrior who has joined the dark side/genuinely fallen for the resident psychopath (who loves her back.)

I mean - this is such an interesting arc but she can't act. But it's OK since Baron can act for two I guess - during this whole sequence, you can tell he feels bad she feels sad but it's overwhelmed by his ecstasy that she's picked him even over her morals. He is a bottomless pit of need, for whatever reason and in a different, dark and not subject to censors dramas, he'd make a fascinating protagonist. (I mean, they are a Fei Wo Si Cun romance come to life!)

This is amazing! He is staying there praying even as he's completing the murder of his father. Genuinely meaning it. I think his understanding of religion is...flawed.

AAAAAAAA they are the psycho couple of my dreams even in the flawed execution.

And then back to murder, eh?

He is a psycho but he ain't wrong.

Yeah, choose him. I mean, can honor and duty sub for you with beautiful unbound hair? I didn't think so.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Section 12 in review of Dragon Age Veilguard

96 Hours in, 94 hours playtime..

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard (and other Dragon Age stuff, I'm a Lore fiend.)

Section 11 is here.

So, the whole Mourn watch section with the half Lich was very well written and put together. Had an interesting (if not difficult) puzzle and a poignant ending. Loved it.

Did the Treviso sequence where Illario gets his comeuppance. Even though it's a very stale plot idea, it was so very well written and executed (har har) that it's a shame they fired Lucanis's writer. (Mary Kirby wrote Lucanis.)

They probably should've kept her and let her write a lot more than that. The game would've been so much better. It might’ve actually approached good.

Instead of something that when my partner saw me loading it up he said 'wow, you look like you're about to be tortured'.

Rueful face. So much of this game has felt like torture that having two sections on the same day that were legitimately good is odd.

The ones with Taash in Rivain were fun or sad, depending. But still well written and put together.

Still seem to have more to do. Gonna play for a few more hours. It's rare and nice that it's actually curiosity I'm feeling while logging in tonight, vs. any of the gamut of yucky emotions this game has treated me to.

Oh! Before I forget and in the name of attempting to provide a fair review, I do really love the light puzzles and ancient elven tech stuff. That's been a great deal of fun.

There are good parts to this game, but they just don't make up for the shit.

...

A. Single. Meaningful. Glance. As an intimate scene? Fucking DAO had better than that! Are they serious? Is there more in the final sequence? Dear gods, if I'd paid for this game I'd be bloody furious. Incandescently, explosively furious.

Let's talk about consumer expectation. It's something anyone hoping to sell things has to be aware of.

In its, what, 14 year Dragon Age history? Bioware has set certain expectations with their market share. As I mentioned, DAO, while dated and with poor graphics, actually had something extremely suggestive for the intimate scenes. You had no doubt what the characters were doing. Same went for DA2. Not much actual nudity, but again, no bloody question about what was going on. In DAI, some was sweet, some was saucy, but it was even more clear what was happening.

So the expectation for a behind door scene that you got to see has been set. If there had always been fade to black meaningful stares for the intimate scenes, fine, whatever. But that has not been Bioware's history. And it certainly isn't their gaming market's expectation.

Expectation isn't as important in a standalone game. There's no weight of expectation like there is in series work. Unfortunately for everyone who bought this game, the expectation of so many years and so much material has been firmly set. And a long, searching, intense look doesn't cut it. Are all the Romances like that? I don't have the stomach to replay it that many times to find out.

I still have to finish the final sequence. So it's possible my utter disappointment will be fixed, but given the way Bioware has structured its games in the past, the Romance parts were finished before the final sequence.

My level of disappointment with this game has been high all along, but this is indeed the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae of this game.

Hah! And to think I'd actually hoped for an intimate scene between Solas and Inky! (Hysterical, breathless, cackling. OMFG.)

The problem with market expectation? And not meeting it? Is that you utterly lose the confidence and trust of the people who buy your stuff. And that means they're less likely to buy your stuff again. I certainly won't ever buy anything Bioware makes again. I'm out. I'll enjoy the previous games, but if I'm right about my predictions? Veilguard doesn't exist as part of my universe. I'll pretend it wasn’t ever made. Unless I decide to write a long fix-it fic. Because OMFG.

If, as an author, I shifted from rather explicit, panties-melting intimate scenes to closed door fade to black... I would be betraying my reader's expectations and losing their trust.

If this is it for the intimate scenes? Oh man. Bioware, you fucked up.

Pre-play pithy commentary

If you want to skip the snarky paragraph ^?

13th review here.

[devsgames]

Open-World AI Design: On The Conflict Between Systemic and Scripted Behaviours

I've been playing Skyrim recently, and having not played it for over a decade one thing that has really been standing out to me is how painfully stilted the scripted NPC interactions are in the game. Seeing just how rough these sequences are reminded me of my own experiences designing non-systemic moments in primarily systemic-open world games, and I wanted to reflect on that.

Disclaimer: I recognize that "Why does the AI in this open world game suck?!" is a common complaint The Gamers have and that it's not a new observation by any stretch, and please don't misconstrue me as bashing A Thing You Like. You can still like it. It's fine. I just think it's interesting how the needs and philosophy of open-world AI often encroach upon and affect the execution of highly scripted sequences in open-world games like these.

THE PROBLEM: SCRIPTED INTERACTIONS

Here's a clip of a sequence from my playthrough of Skyrim that illustrates part of the problem. For context, this sequence occurs at the end of a quest chain wherein you help an old and sick alchemist and his apprentice create an ancient artifact he's been trying to make for his entire life:

I think there's a lot of things that are incredibly lifeless (haha!) in the execution here:

The apprentice is standing at the foot of the bed and not next to it, while the mentor is sleeping on his side and not even looking at him.

The transition from Sleeping -> Ragdoll death when the mentor dies looks REALLY goofy.

The phial the apprentice explicitly mentioned as 'filling up' isn't visible anywhere in the scene at all.

The sudden transition from death -> NPC approach -> conversation leaves no room to organically breathe.

The narrative feels incredibly serious and sombre, but the execution is so hard to take seriously.

The ambient music is jaunty and heroic, when tonally the interaction is very sad.

The player doesn't really have much to do here, aside from stare in the corner while waiting for two AI to talk.

The narrative feels incredibly serious and sombre, but the execution is so whiplash-y and abrupt it's hard to take the outcome seriously.

Now first I want to preface that there's a few obvious causes for some of the awkward 'genericness' of this scene, much of which is rooted in more standard production/resources issues with any AAA open-world game. For example, creating an animation of someone holding the phial in question while it fills up would be too expensive to justify creating for just one side quest, only for it to never be used again. While it certainly doesn't help the sequence, I think there's always varying degrees of 'eh whatever it's a video game' plausible deniability that happen here among players too, and it's always understandable that elements like these might fall absent from this scene as a result. It's also a dang video game from 2011, so that certainly doesn't help.

Aside from that, I think a big issue in realizing scripted sequences in open world games like this stems primarily from open-world AI and interactions are often fundamentally at odds with these types of scripted scenes, which in turn reflect poorly on the implementation of the latter.

WHY SYSTEMIC AI?

To understand why scripted sequences can easily feel stunted it's helpful to look at what an AI in an open world context is most frequently expected to do, because it's the baseline of how an AI performs in an open-world game.

In a traditional game a "bandit" AI might only really need to do basic behaviours that have concrete and easily-defined outcomes, such as search for a player and attack them until they die.

In an open-world game like Skyrim an AI primarily has to act believably in an open world where almost anything is liable to happen. A "bandit" in an open-world context would need to keep a running track who is hostile and who is friendly (based on a variety of different changing parameters), pick and choose different locations to travel from organically, travel to potentially unknown locations across a persistent world, use modular systemic behaviours in a way that still appear organic and unique, remember which points it needs to be travelling to and from, what areas it can and cannot go, flee from combat, understand what objects in the world it can and can't interact with, and a lot lot more on top of that. What's more is every AI in the game have to run these same calculations themselves at all time about everything around them - there's a ton of moving parts and AI with different objectives and executions operating at the same time. This is also why systemic AI in open-world games tend to suck - because an open world is inevitably going to write realism cheques that no AI can feasibly cash because there's so much going on in an open-world game.

However there's also good reason why all this complexity is necessary! Killing a bandit who is stationed idly at a guard post in his camp is passable encounter, but killing a bandit who accidentally draws aggression from a patrolling sabre cat from the forest nearby his guard post creates a story out of what was otherwise just an okay encounter. These systemic behaviours are often what people like and expect to see in open-world games to give the world flavour.

On Far Cry there was a name for this sort of concept: the "anecdote factory" - the idea that any sort of emergent experience should make up a fun 'anecdote' for people to talk about and reflect on afterwards, and this approach to AI design is usually built to supports those systemic and organic narratives. This systemic-first AI design is a large draw of what makes open-world games what they are - without this the whole world easily can feel rigid, predictable, and lifeless.

Now this is all well and good, I hear you say, but weren't you just complaining about scripted sequences? Why are you talking about systemic AI? How are these two even related to each other?

Well herein lies the issue: what happens when your immensely systems-based AI needs to do one hyper-specific thing exactly as you planned?

THE FRICTION: SYSTEMIC VS. SCRIPTED

Scripted AI design is often a philosophical counter to systems-driven AI - while a systemic open-world AI needs to calculate many different elements and act out generic AI behaviours on the fly, scripted AI often needs to successfully do a sequence of bespoke behaviours the same way every single time, usually in relation to a larger narrative or sequence.

This causes friction - potentially a lot of friction, depending on the implementation.

The initial assumption most people would have is that if a designer really needs an AI to do one thing perfectly, then they should just force the AI to do it! After all, if it's that important, then why not make absolutely sure it gets done? However, the problem with this approach is that forcing an open-world AI to do just one thing actually makes the AI less realistic in context of an open world game.

In the above scene lets say the player hates the apprentice and decides to blast the apprentice with a fireball while he was speaking to his master. They'd then logically expect the apprentice to react to being hurt by the player and become hostile (as anyone would be, if hit with a fireball). This would be expected to break the sequence as combat would ensue as the apprentice tries to get revenge. This is believable, as it would make the apprentice feel more like an actual human being with the desire to not die. If by contrast the apprentice was forcibly scripted to perform his lines and execute the behaviour like nothing happened, it would feel even worse! This is why most open-world games will actually almost never force AI to perform scripted behaviours if they can help it, because it usually reflects poorly on the intelligence of your AI should anything else happen during the execution of the event.

Unfortunately, the tradeoff to ensuring scripted AI still abide by systemic rules is it means that scripted AI are now expected to perform actions are now operating at the whim of systems, which may choose to override it at any time. For example, if the systemic AI overrides the scripted component of the AI, the apprentice may get distracted by something (a passing enemy, a wandering animal, a stray arrow from nearby combat, etc.) and not complete the sequence as it was intended. This might not seem like a major issue, but keep in mind that a scripted AI failing to perform a task usually results in a sequence break - which in terms of scripted sequences can break a player's entire playthrough. It also reflects poorly on narrative, when scenes of narrative importance might be undermined by systemic nonsense that may happen.

Whenever mission designers witnessed these sort of behaviours on Far Cry the inside joke was that we were just abiding by the "anecdote factory" philosophy. After all, the AI was acting systemically by-design - it just so happened that the anecdote was that a systemic behaviour distracted them. :)

In fact on the production of Far Cry 6 I spent actual months troubleshooting and wrangling AI that just would not adhere to scripted sequences due to the overriding of systemic AI behaviours. For every minute you spend in a scripted sequence you can bet there was hours and hours and hours of unseen troubleshooting behind it!

Now what does any of this have to do with how awkward this conversation looks?

The philosophy of your game design extends downward, and systems-driven is no exception. Instead of using special, bespoke behaviours in quests it becomes cheaper and safer to bank on existing systemic that are widely tested instead of trying to push the limits of what an AI can do. Remember that a sequence failing to execute can block a player's progression entirely, or alternatively result in a ton of work or additional bugs for a level designer putting them together. Safe execution is usually the #1 priority, and that's a tough thing when lots of your scripted implementation is relying on the tech equivalent of shoestring and bubblegum holding it all together.

Even this small scene reflects the drawbacks of a systems-driven philosophy. A good example here is when the mentor dies - he doesn't smoothly transition into a 'death' state, or lie still with his eyes closed, or something more appropriate. Instead, he pops into a ragdoll and plays his generic death sound effect, because his AI is adopting the same generic systemic 'death' actions any AI in the game would. It's how an AI was designed to die from the ground up across the board, so this AI has to die like that for the rest of the game's systems to properly work around it. It could look cleaner, it could look nicer, but for a scripted sequence in a system-driven game it just needs to work.

You'll also notice the apprentice doesn't have any particular uniqueness to his behaviours around the master. He doesn't kneel next to the bed, or do much else for that matter - he just plays his idle on a point until the scripted sequence tells him not to. In fact outside of combat in Skyrim you'll notice that most NPCs use these generic animations because they're built into the AI and are the most likely animation to work in the widest number of cases. In fact, I could probably list the most commonly used animations in Skyrim based on how many times I saw them while playing. A Quest Designer could try to spice a scene up or add variety, but most of the time that would create unnecessary risk around these sequences, so in most instances safe and universal generics are the way to go - which unfortunately limits visual interest because they don't adapt well to unique contexts (like the death of a loved one).

Even something seemingly small like changing music - if we ignore the cost of creating new songs - can bring unnecessary risk. Music is also handled systemically by the game's systems, transitioning based on environment and combat with different enemy factions, so overriding that to play unique songs brings even further risk on a scripted setup - what if combat breaks out during the sequence? Or if the overridden music isn't correctly reverted back by the system? The safer option is to work closer to the bare minimum (i.e. leave the music as-is) than it is to actually push the envelop a bit and bring on further risk.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on how scripted interactions are uniquely affected by systemic design philosophy and some of the drawbacks surrounding it. I feel fairly confident that any open-world game has had to deal with the friction between these two approaches and needed to meet an awkward middle ground as a result. After all, it's sorta an inevitability when you're making massive games intended to mimic a believable world.

[bolankus]

More spoilers for DRDT but c'mon man I gotta say this somewhere

In MY OPINION..... That episode was so much better than I thought it would be NOT IN A MEAN WAY BUT IT HAD SO MUCH MORE???? But holy shit I was reading the comments to the newest episode and I didn't realize this but like. no one said how fucked up Ace's execution was so. no one cared WHICH MAKES ME SO SAD AND UPSET

But at the same time I was sobbing at first but then I was actually fine with it since after that whole talking sequence or whatever it helped make Ace's death less upsetting for me. The execution was NOT about horses but about his fear of death which is genuinely so smart and how the execution didn't particularly kill him but it was because of his own FEAR. Which is probably why I'm not as upset with the execution and episode.

Very good episode gang. please don't kill Charwhit next 😞😞

[absolutebl]

This week in BL - Gay Boy Turf Wars Galore!

Also, ALL the guest couples: TutorYim & MacNat showed up in Korea. Korea also reused the Love Class pair. And Wayne Song & Huang Chun Chih (H3:MODC) popped up AGAIN. (To be fair, when does Wayne not show up in a Taiwanese BL?)

Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized by favs in each category. No numbered lists anymore, tumblr be buggn'.

Aug 2023 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

Laws of Attraction (Sat iQIYI) 7 of 8 - Plot reveals galore + all the penultimate tension we could want. (How many different kinds of smiles does Film have in his arsenal?) OMG I LOVE the unhinged idiot bloody tattooed ex bf - intro music and all. He is my precious psycho-bunny-snookums. Also Tinn, baby-boy, communicating about your honest feelings in a BL? What madness is this? I sense doom incoming. Smart Chan, always tell him he’s better in bed than your ex. The sides getting caught! Noooooo. I mean we knew it would happen but still noooooooo! 

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Sat YT) ep 2 of 12 - I like the surreal slip-stream dream-sequence openings. Is it a cerebral examination of temporal paradox or just designed to creep us out? The pace has picked up a bit and I'm delighted that external threat, stressors, and conflict are driving this plot. Refreshing. I love historicals - every touch and action can have such lingering significance, it’s very elegant. Thai BLs can often feel clumsy but not this one. I’m really enjoying it. 

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 2 of 12 - Sailom is great. I love a smartass who’s actually really smart, reminds me of Bai Luo Yin in Addicted. (The real Addicted.) Never a bad thing. Kang is nasty bit of business, I look forward to his redemption arc. I love his grandma. (BL is giving good grandma right now.) Nicely executed narrative twist into sympathy too: rich kid sees how rough life really is. The complexity of character depth needed for this script makes me so happy it's Perth & Chimon, they both have such expressive nuanced faces.

I do keep wanting to rewatch LBC tho. 

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 3 of 10 - It remains a blast. Boston is king of red flags, cutting down Ray because he is the easiest punching bag? Going after his friend's bf just to prove he can? No thank you. I know Ray is lovely when he’s soft but danger zone, Sand. Be careful upon entering a minefield, every little step forward may cause an explosion. I don’t think being master of snark is gonna help you avoid getting blown up.

Sand is the one I feel the worst for - bi guy strays into cesspit of gay toxicity. He ain’t gonna make it out alive.  

Hidden Agenda (Sun GMMTV YouTube) ep 7 of 10 - The boyfriends date ep! Zo’s past explains a lot about his behavior. Flirty Zo is v dangerous to all our hearts. Nice kiss. Poor Joke. Meanwhile, the side couple gave good kiss too! However, why is Title playing the bad guy again? Did GMMTV bring him in just to be resident jerk face in all their BL? Makes me sad.

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 8 of 12 - This should be a 8 or 10 ep show, 12 is too many. I think I just don’t like the lead couple's character dynamic and personalities. (No shade on JaFirst.) Side couple went startlingly high heat allasudden. And while their sex scene was good, I wish Daddy and the Hot Doc were being given a lot more script, screen time, and character dev. Sigh. I guess I just wish they were the mains and the others were the sides.

Can't have everything, I suppose.  

Wedding Plan (Wed YT & iQIYI) ep 6 of 7 - Nuea is a saint and next week everything comes to a head (that didn’t already get head this episode). Trash watch here!

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 2 of 10 - The side couple is everything. They are so cute and my favorite trope. Plus hugs with neck kisses! I love big brother using his adorable boyfriend to try and help his annoying little brother’s business. It’s just perfect. Unfortunately, that annoying little brother, is too fucking annoying. I remain largely unable to watch the main story arc. 

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) 1 of 24 eps - Sampler pack BL, 12 pairs, each pair gets 2 eps, so this show will run all the way into 2024.

First installment is Casanova Begins. Dead boy wakes up in his enemy’s body, 2 years after his own death. Has to make things right with the boyfriend who thinks he was abandoned. Everyone has secrets. No one can be trusted. And the dead kid can never tell anyone who he really is. It’s … different? Unique take on the My Ghost Boyfriend trope.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 6 of 8 - Random moment of TutorYim. Hi cuties. Simon is my favorite, I love him and his flirty irreverent ways.

Who does he actually like?

Or is he just flirting with everyone?

Can he have a crush on anyone but himself?

He’s a house cat among the pigeons. Clearly wouldn't know what to do with the bird if he managed to catch it. Or would he?

The 4 boys dodging around each other and re-shuffling is so funny. I can’t tell you how delighted this show makes me. I do feel sorry for Lee Jun, he’s just the toy everyone wants to play with. I understand his frustration, do any of them really want him or is it all because the others are interested? Kiss! Yay! Good kiss! Even more yay! 

Stay By My Side (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 9 of 10 - Poor baby doesn’t think he’s good enough and is holding JC back. They are THE CUTEST BOYFRIENDS. It hurts. The sappy. 

Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) eps 1-2 of 13(?) - From screenwriter Lin Pei Yu (We Best Love, H3: Trapped) formerly known as Miracle, features a student doctor forced to take care of a gangster. I love the premise and like the writer. This one could be sad. Never forget Taiwan will go there.

Shall we get tucked in?

Gay boy turf wars! Main couple is cute. Sunshine gangster (turns out to be a sweetie who cooks) meets broken brilliant tsundere student who wants to be a doctor. Side couple is the leader of the gang and his rabid Pet. Also, all praise the guest couple de jour (baddies). Nice to see you 2... again. All actors are clearly having a blast with this script.

Triggers for knife play, child abuse, lingering trauma. 

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 5-6 of 10 - Aw guest couple from Love Class original, that is very sweet. The tutor and returning student, aka couple 3, are the best. So funny. But the whole thing remains engaging in a messy way.

Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 1-2 of 8 - Oh, it’s very odd. Certainly a lot more comprehensible if you've already watched the Thai version. As with that version, I still dislike the SaifahZon couple and love the FighterTutor couple. And once again I hate the weird IRL shipping sister. HATE HER. I’m not mad at the "Man who Fell into the World of BL" overtones but I wish they went at it more intentionally. (They’re not using NPC the way I would, are they? Cause that’s hella cruel.) MaxNat are fun. I love that Fighter went to his girlfriend's birthday party, didn’t even say hi to her, picked up her drunk bestie, and took him home.

This show is WILD. It’s very Korea tries to do a Thai BL. And, I gotta say, I kind of like the absurdity of the whole scheme. Do I think it will ultimately "work" as a stand alone piece? No. But as a very odd kind of parody? Sure.

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 7 of 12 - Truth always comes out in hot springs. It's a rule of life. Coming clean is coming clean, I suppose. Still, moving very slowly for me and I need sake to get through this season. It's certainly suffering from sophomore slump.

Stay Still (Hong Kong Tues YouTube) ep 4 of 5 - Sad episode is sad. 

In case you missed it

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 3 of 8 - didn't air this week

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI) ep 9 of 10 eps - Didn’t drop this week? MDL thinks it should have. Everyone is confused. But also… who cares? 

Low Frequency (Thai iQIYI) Finished it's run - NO SINGING as flirty boyfriends they very cute actually, but this final ep was V E R Y slow.

All in all this was not a great show. Classic pulp with an interesting twist on “ghost boyfriend investigates his own not-murder” but ultimately not very good in any arena. 6/10 Only if you have nothing better to do. 

Sing My Crush (Korea iQIYI) Finished it's rerun

This a cute coming of age drama around music and 2 kinds of self acceptance and actualization journeys. This was basically Korea’s version of About Youth, and was perhaps a bit too soft and ungrounded by comparison, like a marshmallow sculpture. Sweet but somewhat lacking in discernible flavor. Inoffensively unmemorable. 8/10 RECOMMENDED especially if you enjoy KBL's style

8/24 Man Suang (Thailand movie, domestic cinema release) - historical drama about Thai burlesque with KP’s MileApo. Do I know where to get it? Nope. Do I care? Nope.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Coming September

I have 4 on my radar:

9/2 Naughty Babe (Thailand Sat ????) - MaxNat back on our screens. We think iQIYI but aren't confident.

9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan ????) - it's taking over from Stay By My Side so likely Gaga. Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.

9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.

9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.

9/?? Venus in the Sky (Thai iQIYI) 10 eps - ????

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

No you aren't, Lom. You don't even know what that means. (Wedding Plan)

Minato comes out to the best person.

Trope spotlight! (Low Frequency)

I Fell You Linger in the Air

So true. (Only Friends)

I love them so much, as @heretherebedork would put it, Tiny Idiots!

(Last week) 

Gotta say I am hating this new UI so much I'm not bothering to tag with shows. We shall see what that does for ROI.

[blackmoonlightexpress]

Shui Long Yin 《水龙吟》 - What we know so far about this massive project

By now many of you have heard about Shui Long Yin 《水龙吟》, Luo Yunxi's upcoming and third project with the studio behind Till the End of the Moon. Here's my read on the announcement earlier.

1. Good news - It's going to be largely the same creative team behind TTEOTM. 

You have Wang Yirong as Lead Producer & Artistic Director, Huang Wei as Costume Designer, Wang Haiqi as Action Director, Tsang Mingfai as Makeup Director, Huatian for World Concept (also known for Ashes of Love and the Untamed). Basically, we'll see the return of the brilliant minds behind the Dunhuang-inspired costumes and hour-long epic fight sequences.

It's a good sign they're holding most of the team together. A lot of great directors, like Christopher Nolan, Tim Burton, David Cronenberg, work with the same creative talent over and over again. There's certainly an argument that you produce better work when you collaborate with people you trust and know well.

2. Up and coming Director Chen Zhoufei will make up some of the deficiencies of TTEOTM in the cinematography and lighting departments.

Chen Zhoufei started out as a cinematographer in films with the likes of Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. More recently he directed The Forbidden Flower (2023) and Double Tap (2021), which, if nothing else, is beautifully and stylistically shot.

It's interesting they've moved away from the old school Hong Kong directors they used in Immortality and TTEOTM. Directors from the TVB system are known to be more experienced, scrappy, and reliable when it comes to working within budget (which is why they're favored for big xianxia productions), but they've also been criticized for falling behind on technical execution and artistry.

It is as the industry article I shared predicted - Otters Studio is a relatively inexperienced player, but they can quickly close their gaps by bringing new blood to the team.

3. They're bringing a new Art Director, Zheng Chen from Lost You Forever.

This isn't all that surprising given that Luan Hexin, TTEOTM's Art Director, is with Huanyu, Bai Lu's management company. (In fact there was a bit of real life drama when Yu Zheng, Bai Lu's boss, publicly called out TTEOTM's producer for not refuting false rumors that Bai Lu was only cast because the production wanted Luan Hexin, arguably Huanyu's biggest asset, as part of her "dowry".) Now it's sad to see award-winning Luan go, but he is best for authentic period sets and IMO not the most suited for xianxias.

Instead, they've tapped Zheng Chen, who most recently worked on Lost You Forever, which I have yet to watch. With that said, some of the sets look great to me, with bold use of colors, and I can already see this pairing well with Chen Zhoufei's aesthetics.

4. This time they're not working with screenwriter He Fang, instead going with Lin Conghe (unofficial)

He Fang is the lead screenwriter behind TTEOTM and Immortality (everyone who's read Immortality's screenplay will know it's all but a guaranteed hit) and in my opinion one of Otter's greatest assets. She's brilliant at staying loyal to the spiritual core of source novels, while weaving convoluted plot points through a more robust background story and logic.

It's a slight disappointment that she won't be back, but it's also not entirely surprising. TTEOTM and Immortality are both big, female-oriented fantasy romance IPs. Meanwhile Shui Long Yin's IP is quite dated, lesser known, and incomplete, so I'd expect that the drama will only be loosely based on the original. While we don't know much about Lin Conghe, he did recently work on the Blood of Youth sequel, where he was the lead screenwriter alongside author Zhou Munan, so he might actually be a better choice for this genre (xuanhuan wuxia).

5. The way HunanTV & Mango announced the drama is unusually high profile, indicating that this is one of the platform's biggest projects.

It's rare to have one of China's biggest hosts announce a new drama that hasn't even started shooting or released any details yet live on prime time TV. (Usually a drama's official announcement comes out on the day of its booting ceremony, if not during its production or at its wrap ceremony.) It's even rarer for a costume drama to announce a TV platform at this stage. These days it's quite difficult for costume fantasies to get a coveted TV airing slot given genre restrictions and additional censorship requirements. Typically you do not find out officially whether it will air on TV until literally right before it airs.

Before the official announcement, rumors have already been circulating that there's a bidding war behind the scenes for this project, with Mango and its parent HunanTV outbidding Youku in the end. Mango/HunanTV is already the market leader in variety shows, but is behind the other three platforms in scripted content. Apparently, they've recently received an injection of funding to shore up their drama department and now investing in tentpole projects that can help them gain share. Clearly they saw what TTEOTM did for Youku.

6. There's another interesting player in the mix: China Mobile and its subsidiary Migu. 

It appears that China Mobile (one of the most valuable companies in China and a state-owned enterprise) has invested in the drama, which will be made available on its online video platforms. Apparently, the last time China Mobile invested in a drama, they sent text messages to every user to publicize it when it aired. Now not sure if this will happen (it's not patriotic drama after all), but they've already been promoting the drama through their gazillion affiliate social media accounts. Either way, it should be a good thing for the drama's distribution to have such an influential backer given Mango's lower daily active user.

7. They're making it super clear that Luo Yunxi is going to be the dominant male lead in this drama

In the first Weibo post, they only announced the title, Luo Yunxi, and the airing platforms. In the second Weibo post, where they announced the rest of the creative team, they still did not announce the other actors! Of course, this is likely because Luo Yunxi's company (which is really just him) bought the source novel's IP and is credited as a co-producer. (They don’t have any production capabilities at all, so Otter will likely be quarterbacking this.)

This suggests, like many who have read the novel already know, that Luo Yunxi will have by far the biggest part. The other roles, including the female lead role, will likely be smaller and revolve around the main character.

8. Shui Long Yin is already generating a lot of hype.

To date its Weibo announcement racked up >1M likes (more than double that of TTEOTM). There's already a very active Douban group debating all the rumors, most importantly whether Luo Yunxi will use a wig or his real hair (a highly divisive topic). The new drama has even been reported by China Daily, China's state media facing the international community, which is again exceedingly rare. China Daily doesn't usually report on entertainment news, and most hit shows don't get mentioned even after airing.

There's always a big risk with productions with this much anticipation so early in the process, from fan wars and disruptive stalking on set to accusations propagated by competitors that can invite more state scrutiny. Fingers crossed that the team knows what they're doing and can weather all the storms that will undoubtedly come its way.

9. Finally, I remain cautiously excited.

Production quality will likely be great, with such a strong creative team and financial backers with deep wallets. My main worry is that it'll be beautiful, but boring. For this genre (xuanhuan wuxia or basically wuxia with high fantasy elements), it's really important that the story moves fast and the underdog hero keeps outsmarting or outfighting everyone else in a way that gives viewers a sense of exhilaration. It'd be all too easy for the story to get bogged down by a large cast of unmemorable characters and a meandering plot. Otters Studio is usually great at delivering fast-paced high drama (just based on TTEOTM and the screenplay of Immortality), but they're working with a different screenwriter this time and it's not easy to be a consistent hit maker. Let's hope they stick to their intuition and continue to present stories and characters that excite viewers.