#but like he specifically mentions this one thing which is an EXTREMELY COMMON fantasy novel concept

[ace-trainer-risu]

sometimes I’ll read goodreads reviews and it’s like Ah. This person and I do not exist on the same plane of reality.

[volturialice]

Hey G, what cdramas do you recommend? I'm in the middle of The Untamed right now and I'm interested in putting more cdramas on my watchlist.

oh boy, so ok lemme preface this by disclaiming: I haven't seen any of the (mlm) gay ones. my shipping preferences are exclusively het/femslash and that is reflected in my cdrama consumption! I also don't care for modern stuff, so it's period dramas and a lot of wuxia/xianxia (mostly xianxia, which is kind of my platonic ideal of a genre.) also it's a lot of yang mi dramas but that's a coincidence—she just takes roles in all the projects i'm interested in!

that said, I know the mlm shippy ones everyone else recs include Nirvana in Fire, Word of Honor, and Heaven Official's Blessing (idk if there's a live action version of this yet but there's definitely a novel/donghua.)

so with that out of the way, I'm gonna separate this into a) recent recs, b) classics and recent adaptations of classics, and b) other shows I've seen but did not Vibe with. note that I'm not including cws because there are just too many, but if you have questions about potentially triggering content in any of these, feel free to ask me for more info.

actual recs

1) Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, aka Three Lives Three Worlds aka Eternal Love (I think that's the dumb genericized english title on netflix.) it’s extremely difficult to summarize this one due to its huge cast and elaborate plot but suffice to say: local immortal couple are so extremely star-crossed it takes them three lives to get it right and causes great collateral damage to international immortal politics.

fun fact: this is the single most watched tv show of all time. like, anywhere. possibly because it's so unhinged and eminently re-watchable. I think it's a great intro to the xianxia genre and I chalk its success up to the fact that it's fanfic trope overload. seriously, there are at least three "there was only one bed" scenes in this one show. I think the protagonists are fairly terrible people and yet I can't look away from their train wreck of a relationship.

luckily it's a huge ensemble cast so there are plenty of other characters for me to enjoy (bi4bi king and queen zilan and yanzhi supremacy give me their spinoff right now.) there are also Supporting Character Gays who could not be more obviously homosexual if they tried and it’s very fun.

there's also an actual spinoff I couldn't get into because I Simply Do Not Care about those characters but hey maybe you guys will

in conclusion, TMOPB is a good Xianxia Starter Pack because it includes a lot of common tropes. I learned a lot just by googling which things were specific inventions of the show vs which things were actual mythology! this show is so popular that basically every other xianxia made post-2017 is a clone of it (seriously, if they don't STOP with these stoic emotionless love interests i’m gonna hurl myself into a magical abyss.)

goofiest cgi character: the Four Beasts (no I’m still not over the sphincter-mouth.) honorable mention goes to yehua’s tiny offended snake form

2) Legend of Fuyao - sort of a rags-to-riches hero’s journey/jianghu story in which the heroine wanders through several different fantasy countries kicking ass and doing fun sidequests.

the first cdrama I ever watched (after seeing how epic the trailer looked) and still my favorite. notably the only time I have ever actually shipped the two leads. also notable in that the characters are more flawed and multidimensional than you'd typically see in a show like this—I particularly enjoy the concept of "fun Trickster King love interest but he's also kind of a pathological liar and that has actual consequences." has a rough start and drags in places but it's one of the most visually stunning shows on this list and has a fun ensemble cast, some of my favorite fight scenes, and a lot of good h/c moments.

goofiest cgi character: gotta hand it to yuanbao. if I had a nickel for every time the entire plot hinged on the actions of a single cgi guinea pig

3) Story of Yanxi Palace - a backstabby court intrigue period drama that imagines the rise of real historical figure Consort Ling, who rose from obscurity to great power in the court of the qianlong emperor.

the single most googled show of all time. notable for its gorgeous, elaborate costumes and general attention to detail in design. one of two on this list that's pure period drama, no fantasy (though it certainly takes liberties with actual history.) also probably the most ~”western”-style~ show on the list in terms of pacing and plot structure. it fits right in with prestige period shows like The Tudors or The Borgias, (albeit with far less graphic violence and sex scenes.) a pretty interesting heroine who, again, has actual flaws (still too much candy:spinach ratio, but I'll take what I can get here.) 

I'm just gonna say it: yingluo and empress fuca were super gay for each other. just let them stay home and lez

sadly devoid of goofy cgi characters

4) Princess Agents - another hero’s journey-style fantasy, this time about Becoming A Badass Spy. basically the cdrama Nikita. 

another of those ones everyone recs as a quintessential drama of the last decade. I actually haven't finished it, but the big chunk I've seen is solidly Good even if it's another stoic love interest I can't stand (the second lead is charming enough to make up for this.) has one of the sickest opening themes out there

and contains both princesses and agents but sadly none of them are the same people so I consider the title false advertising

goofiest cgi character: I s2g if that parrot doesn’t sHUT UP

5) The Wolf - girl meets boy raised by wolves. Tiny Horse scene is reenacted. they meet again as adults but he’s since become a war criminal so that complicates things :D

if you like angst and betrayal, this is the show for you. a Stoic Love Interest I actually don’t mind for once + a fun arranged marriage slowburn arc and a likable second lead (Untamed stans have ensured that you will see zero gifs of the two actual leads when you search for this show.) has the other sickest opening theme out there

goofiest cgi character: I mean, it’s right there in the title

6) Novoland: Pearl Eclipse - another fantasy about being trained as a badass secret agent, only this time involving mermaids and domestic abuse! hooray

watching this one right now and it’s interesting so far. I once again only care about the side characters but it’s possible that’s a Me Problem ([holding up zhuoying] I just think he’s neat!) has the single most unhinged opening scene I have ever experienced. I haven’t seen any of the other Novoland Cinematic Universe shows but I’ll probably look them up after this!

goofiest cgi character: the sharknado

7) The Eternal Love (and The Eternal Love 3) - not to be confused with Eternal Love sans-“The,” this show was made on a budget of ten and is so weird and silly. it gets so much mileage out of its simple bodyswap/time travel/fish out of water concept (which is also RIPE for fic AUs imo) that it was a runaway hit and they made two more seasons (which are basically...AUs of the first season? it makes sense in context.) I skipped season 2 but season 3′s “lol role reversal it’s a MATRIARCHY” concept was also really fun.

a few shows I haven’t seen but get recced all the time: Rise of Phoenixes, Story of Minglan, Novoland: Eagle Flag

some modern classics/adaptations of modern classics 

1) Princess Pearl, aka My Fair Princess/a bunch of other titles. a “Prince and the Pauper” -type story set during the rein of the qianlong emperor (but much lighter and fluffier than Yanxi Palace.)

made on a budget of half a shoestring (and it shows), this show was a crazy runaway hit that catapulted its unknown leads to megastardom so powerful that the government straight up erased zhao wei from the internet. 

maybe the real princess was the Gal Pals we made along the way

2) The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006) - another “orphan becomes a badass and experiences star-crossed love” jianghu story. this seems to be the most well-liked adaptation of its extremely popular novel afaik. I haven’t seen that much of it, but I can definitely see why it’s popular!

3) Handsome Siblings (netflix version) - two Very Opposite fraternal twins separated at birth are manipulated into becoming mortal enemies, and hijinks ensue. sort of a picaresque take on the jianghu with lots of comedic sidequests. also based on a super popular novel.

tbh I probably wouldn’t have gotten all the way through this one if I hadn’t been sick and couchbound when I watched it, but the third act is super fun! the non-netflix adaptations might be better, idk.

gotta love that title. the author said look at my OCs!! they’re a couple of real handsome boys!!!

shows I Do Not Vibe With no tea no shade they just aren’t for me

Ancient Love Poetry - I tried really hard because the cast looks fun but it’s just. a much more soulless clone of TMOPB with none of the fun Weird Shit or compelling characters.

The Flame's Daughter - this plot was so complicated I could not tell you the first thing about it. kids are getting switched at birth, everyone is double-cast as their own dead mom, and I don’t care enough about the characters to try to parse out their bizarre motivations (ok, fine, I admit I liked the side characters.)

Maiden Holmes - a fun “woman dresses as man in order to be a detective” premise but I simply didn’t care about the characters.

Miss the Dragon - maybe the later episodes are good, but I couldn’t get past the complete lack of story in the first few.

[dharmadischarge]

Top 5 Novels: or it gets dark around here early.

So now I am trying to say something. That is all. No, that will not do at all... Here is a list of my top 5 novels, with one short review and four long ones.

1, Jim Dodge - Stone Junction. Reading Stone Junction by Jim Dodge is like meeting the father you never had

2, Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow Subtlety is overrated... and just because you have a boner doesn't mean you're a terrorist. I mean, it doesn't mean you're not causing those rockets to come from the sky. But, still, that is beside the point.

For me, this book is about obliterating the arbitrary distinction between high and low culture. The ironically arbitrary distinction between good and evil and the dangerously subtle distinction between despondency and hope.

Fractured, layered, elusive, you could accuse Pynchon of all these things.

The way characters bleed into one another to make one voice. A hellish symphony of discordant cries of pain reaching out to a belief that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and paranoia is the glue.

Also, it is funny. Like in a dumb way and there are songs. Also, dumb.

Everyone will talk about how polarising this book is but I don't believe it. you can follow the bouncing ball and sing along or live in fear that at any moment the terror will become real and you will collapse into ellipsis...

It is the third and newer testament. An epilogue to western culture as racist cultural energy written by a crazy white guy. T.S. Elliot and his wasteland were a prelude, in hindsight, nothing but a john the baptist-like figure for the cross that Pynchon presents to all readers as their burden to carry with this book.

Hope is crazy painful, consciousness is such a fragile thing and the burden of consciousness is the pain of knowing that (beyond the act of effort itself) it is a futile one.

Jim Dodge once said, "a stone falls till it hits the earth, transcend what?" and that about sums it up.

3, Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian.

Blood Meridian is a kind of repetitious, primeval-hillbilly level of primitive interpretation of the morality expressed in the book of revelation fighting its way onto the page as barely literate poetry.

It is not a book of social niceties, justice, or the warm feeling you get when you do something good. also, this book could also easily be seen as porn for serial killers.

I scanned the reviews and saw all the campy (and not the good kind of campy) parodies this kind of book inspires in the age of irony we live in (though it seems like it is on its last legs). And while I like me a good parody, I find that Eli Cash did it better.

There is something to be said about how Cormac McCarthy (ab)uses the English language. The one good line I read from one of the negative reviews of his books was that a middle schooler could list what he doesn't like about the kids who bully him and that this list would have more emotional nuance and better use of punctuation than a Cormac McCarthy novel. This is fair.

The conceptional power of Blood Meridian though is that it frames cruelty and violence for what it is: reality. While also through its sometimes monotonous exaggeration of William Faulkners styled repetitions it creates a sense of unreality. A sense that like David Lynch's best work that we are walking, daily, through something so evil and violent that it borders on slapstick, and at last we laugh in self-defense.

I think the people who parody the book without much thought got trapt in the intellectual self-defense state that is part of coping and couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Civilization is a fragile thing, it is the human race trying to domesticate itself, and the longer it goes on the more it seems like we're just sweeping what we don't like under the rug.

4, John Crowley - Little, Big.

There is a kind of hokey-Americana style kitsch that most of my favorite writers could be accused of, from, Tom Robbins to Jim Dodge. John Crowley may be the peak of it. It could be because on the surface Americans don't have a unified culture we are a melting pot with capitalism only encouraging the lowest common denominator (the pursuit of greed as its own reward).

But in any creative act that does not presume to be the literal expression of anything but pure gratitude, there is politics. The politics of worth, of greatness, inherent value, and the desire to prove that the wisdom offered was truly earned. That a difficult pleasure does not mean that there is none.

This is an American fairytale. A once upon a time that seems eerily to remind of another Crowley, that codesigned the deck of Thoth tarot cards (A really good one for those curious) more than the writers of magical realism. And probably because I didn't read this in translation I preferred it to a hundred years of solitude. This may seem random to people of the fantasy crowd who know that genre is only a limitation to artistic merit if you want it to be (usually for cultural-political reasons). but people often compare this book to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing. And while they are both family chronicles with supernatural elements. this is kind of a shallow comparison.

Crowley's work is more in the tradition of an occult mystic, and Gabo is more a romantic using personal folklore as the vocabulary of that romantic expression (of which I think love in the time of cholera, is his masterpiece).

I am trying to not give away any spoilers, or even talk about specifics at all. but the ending is worth it. Like most things in life, it's your journey to go on so I won't ruin it for you, but they are out there waiting for you, where the lights never go out.

5, Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

"words save our live's sometimes"

I was a frustrated borderline feral child, who could not deal with reality. My parents taught me how to read and not much else. I was homeschooled and weighed three hundred pounds by the time I was thirteen. I remember one night unable to deal with any more abuse that I laid down and decided my dreams would have to be enough, I close my eyes and went away for a long time. Lettie Hempstock's ocean is real to me I almost drowned in it.

When I was a teenager the cult-like fundamentalist atmosphere of my home life became less extreme, but the damage was done. I was still in the ocean. it says something about my state of mind that the closest I came to getting traction on reality was starting a habit of reading insistently, my favorite book was Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

Once on Twitter, I told him "thank you" for writing it. I later after reading this book I wrote a short review of this book and sent it to him. He said "thank you" to me in a @ mention. It was nice. I later @ mentioned him in a playfully sarcastic way and he deleted his original comment.

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. I have been told I had childhood-onset schizophrenia. I have been told I milk it. I have been told that I self isolate.

I have been writing reviews tonight, going through my favorite books, and just live streaming my mind. Thinking about how they made me feel and what they make me think. Neil Gaiman's work always makes my brain retreat on itself. Possibly because of stardust. But more than that it is the wisdom he has. He knows that stories are true in a way that transcends a mere list of facts. communicating for those with an ear to listen that there is more than what we know, there is more than our understanding, there is more than us. More than you, more than me. There is an ocean that is healing for some while necessarily absent for others.

We forget, and we remember. Each other and ourselves. Cruelty and innocence. But there is an ocean and it is Lettie Hempstock's.

[qqueenofhades]

First of all thanks so much for all your TOG history posts! I have a question specifically about the one where you explained the continuity errors with Nicky being a priest. I like your "second son of a nobleman" Nicky that you use in your fics a lot. But I also really like the idea of a lower-class Nicky; TOG already has wealthy merchant scion Joe and literal queen Andy--i love the idea that Nicky comes from humbler origins. Is there any way to make that make sense in a historical context?

I mean, pretty much anything is possible in history? If it can happen, it probably has happened at some point, and even the broad categories and generalizations that historians apply to things are never always right in all cases, even if they represent the major trends. I obviously don’t want to shoot down people’s headcanons or ideas, even and indeed especially from my soapbox of “cranky historian complains about things on the internet.” I have personally tweaked some aspects of Joe and Nicky’s backstories that I use in my fics, since I came up with DVLA before I knew anything about the comics or any bonus content that had been released about the characters. My feeling is that since a) it’s film-verse, not comics, and b) their backstories haven’t been shown on screen and may be subject to change in adaptation, I can, while engaging in transformative fanworks, create them to suit myself. I obviously keep the broad parameters of what canon establishes, but within that space, I do occasionally nip and tuck and move things around. For example in my new AU fic, I DID make Nicky a priest as in graphic-novel canon, but that’s long since changed by the time he arrives in Jerusalem. For the fics I write for them in canon-verse, I tend to use the backstory I established in DVLA, just because... well, I like it a lot, obviously, and that was what I wrote it for. This is just because I am the aforementioned cranky historian and I rearrange the toys when I am playing with them, but my interpretations don’t necessarily have to be everyone else’s.

On that note, since you did ask for some historical context/plausibility for this headcanon, it depends (again) on how much extra story you want to invent for Nicky and how many gaps you want to fill in. Which is totally fine either way! I talked in this ask about the People’s Crusade of 1096, the involvement of unarmed/unskilled commoners in the crusades more generally, and how that would have impacted on Nicky if he didn’t have any previous training in arms. Once again, as with him being a priest, him being a low-class peasant/freeman of humble status runs into some (not insurmountable, but still extant) problems with where he would have learned how to use a sword and weapons more generally. I also obviously approve of the idea of bringing some class diversity into our historical immortals, but the son of a very poor bondsman (the stereotypical peasant in a cottage or a serf working a lord’s land) is, alas, going to have gotten into trouble in his community if he is training with a sword. (Or at least definitely raised some eyebrows, as well as questions about where he got it and how he paid for it.) As I’ve mentioned, the sword is a knight’s weapon, so if Nicky has been using it at all, he has at least enough status to qualify for that.

Happily, however, there are plenty of ways to make him not be from a rich family. As late as the end of the 11th century, aka around the time of the First Crusade, knights could still be distinguished as “free” or “not free,” and since this was before the rise of chivalry as a major social force, knights and men-at-arms were often (and indeed could be throughout the medieval era) from humble families, minor gentry, or even the working class. Chivalry made knighthood into an especial aspiration for the nobility, but not every man on a battlefield was a nobleman -- far from it. Indeed, the nobleman would call up the families who owed allegiance to him, and they could call up the families who owed allegiance to them, and so on. The definition of “knight” in the pre-chivalry landscape is a little muddy; does it convey prestige or social status, or just that someone was trained in arms? Is there a difference between that and just “man at arms” or “armed man?” For instance, at the battle of Hastings in 1066, the English army under King Harold II was composed of fyrdmen, aka regular working stiffs who had been summoned from the land (and indeed, we know they were of humble status because they had to go back and help their families with the harvest after William the soon-to-be-Conqueror had still not arrived in September), and housecarls, the professional/lifelong soldiers who served in the army as a career and were paid for their service. But we don’t always have the luxury of clear terminology for the many, many kinds of armed men who existed in various social strata in the Middle Ages.

That means, therefore, that Nicky can very easily be a poor knight, a man-at-arms of humble status who has just his sword and his armor and is subject to the vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-lord, or other armed man of unclear rank who definitely doesn’t have money or come from a rich family. Despite the unavoidably classist nature of many medieval history chronicles, the ranks of society weren’t only king, duke, earl, and nobleman. It was a patron-and-client society, and while the king was the ultimate patron, plenty of lords of middling rank or lower would have vassals who owed allegiance to them, and vassals who owed allegiance to those vassals in turn. The word feudal, which has been so misused and turned into an (incorrect) shorthand for constant petty territorial violence, basically just means this hierarchical society of mutual rights and obligations, where (unless you were the king) you both owed fealty to someone higher in rank than you and had people lower in rank who owed fealty to you. That would only end with the serf/bondsman, who wasn’t patron to anyone. But within that, there is plenty of wiggle room to make Nicky non-noble.

This would raise the question, however, of how he was going to pay for his journey to Jerusalem. Crusade financing was a perennial problem even for kings and lords with deep pockets, and the cost of a journey to the Middle East was far, far beyond most ordinary people’s ability to cover, which is why the commoners’ crusades kept ending in disaster. (That and obviously the fact that they weren’t trained in war.) When you are traveling for months and months and have to provide all your own food, shelter, arms and armor, transportation, upkeep, etc., you would either have to have a wealthy lord paying your maintenance, have substantial private financing of your own, have sold most of your property to go (which then implies that you had property to sell), made good with a religious house who had advanced you the cash, etc. We can really go down a rabbit hole here about Duke Hugh of Burgundy making a deal with Genoa in 1192 to provision King Philip and the French army on the Third Crusade. (This is helpful since it deals with Genoa, i.e. Nicky, even if not for the First Crusade.) This covered 650 French knights and their squires and came out to nine marks a knight, which is about £6, for an overall bill of 5,850 marks.

To give you an idea of how much this is in comparative terms: in 1380, a poll tax of twelve pence per person was considered so extortionate that it helped kick off the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. And this was two hundred years later, when wages had risen and exchange rates had increased. One pound was worth 240 pence, so if twelve pence was an exaction for your average laborer, you can see that they’d get nowhere close even to one pound. A gift of £4 to William the Conqueror in 1066 was also considered a wildly high sum. And this was all on the extremely cheap end of crusading ventures. Frederick Barbarossa, who went on the Third Crusade at the same time as Philip and the French, had expenses coming close to 100,000 marks. Crusading, in other words, was wildly expensive (often ruinously so), and either Nicky would have a wealthy patron (meaning that he was somewhat closer to the top of the heap, even if below the first rank of noblemen) or money of his own or some way to finance his journey. Which again means that he has to have some kind of background that enables him to do it. The issue with the ordinary people who went on crusade (and they absolutely did, despite various attempts to forbid them as not militarily useful) is that, as noted, they weren’t trained in arms and they didn’t have money, and when you’re trying to travel from Europe to the Holy Land under 11th-century conditions, that becomes a big problem.

So yes. Basically: you can absolutely make Nicky a person of lower rank, down to a humble man-at-arms, who doesn’t have a rich family and doesn’t come from money. But if he’s going on crusade all the way to Jerusalem -- and if he’s successful at it, i.e. we’re assuming he didn’t get killed until Joe did it the first time -- then he has to have at least enough social status that he is the direct vassal of a wealthy lord or can make some financial arrangements on his own, has been able to train with a sword, knows what he’s doing with it, etc. You are obviously welcome to invent whatever details or backstory you want for him, but alas, crusading was often the provenance of knights, noblemen, and kings for brutally practical reasons, whether economic, social, military, or pragmatic. So the further you go down the social rankings, the more logistical details you’ll have to think up for him (at least if you want to be historically nitpicky, and it’s fantasy, so you frankly don’t even have to, but hey, what do you people come to me for if not historical nitpicking?) as to how he would have trained in arms, paid for his journey, been able to go on crusade in the first place, etc. So yes.

Thanks so much for this question! It was a lot of fun.

[fytheuntamed]

Do you have any thoughts on why the novel might be so popular among lgbt people despite (sometimes quite obviously) being written by a straight women for straight women. I think this is quite evident in for example the sex scenes

Why do I think the novel is so popular amongst LGBTQ+ people despite being written by a straight woman for straight women? Simple! It’s a good story and the characters are complex and intriguing. No piece of media is ever perfect, so it simply comes down to whether an individual feels the positive aspects of the media outweigh the negative aspects of the media. Are there problematic aspects within the novel? Of course! But that doesn’t mean the novel as a whole should be disregarded. You can consume media while still being critical of it, just like you can like a character while acknowledging that they’re not a good person. LGBTQ+ people, like everyone else, value a good story and interesting characters, so even if there are aspects of the story that we dislike, we may still stick around if we think it’s worth it! Also, I think there’s a shortage of stories like “Mo Dao Zu Shi” where you have LGBTQ+ characters whose sexuality isn’t the focus of the story. Yes, Wangxian are soulmates and very much in love, but that isn’t the whole point. You have a delightful bundle of politics, magic, familial ties, concepts of right and wrong, mystery, etc etc that also features a beautiful love story between two men. I guess my point is, LGBTQ+ people are flawed just like everyone else and sometimes we consume content even if we don’t agree with every part of it.

I’ve avoided getting involved in any discourse surrounding the various versions of MDZS because I wanted to keep this blog drama free, however I would like to take this chance to offer my own thoughts on the “problematic” aspects of the novel. Before I get into it, I just want to make three things clear: 1) I’m white, 2) I’m not mlm, I’m a lesbian, and 3) I’ve only read the second half of the novel and honestly I can’t remember too much of the specifics. The relevance of my opinion on the matter, therefore, is limited and my words should be read with this fact in mind. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and feelings on this matter, so do feel free to either leave a comment or reblog and add your two-cents. All I ask is that we keep it respectful so this can continue to be an enjoyable space for all fans.

I’ve been going through the untamed’s tumblr tag daily since the start of this blog in August 2019, so I’ve seen the whole spectrum of opinions on this matter. Some people feel very strongly that some of the ways in which MXTX writes particular aspects of the novel are “problematic,” some people are indifferent, and others feel that criticism of MXTX’s writing comes from a lack of knowledge of Chinese culture (particularly LGBTQ+ Chinese culture). (I remember seeing a post touching upon this last matter, but I didn’t save it, so unfortunately I can’t link it.)

I think the two most common criticisms of the novel that I have come across pertain to matters of consent and the imposing of heteronormative concepts onto Wangxian. Again, I want to stress that I haven’t read the novel in its entirety and my memory of it is foggy. Talking about consent first, some felt the scene in the novel where LWJ kisses an unexpecting blindfolded WWX was a big no no, while others thought it was a very sweet, romantic scene. (To give context for those who have only seen the drama, this scene would have been placed in episode 25 had they included it). For this matter, I’m of the belief that consent is a must. Regardless of whether WWX enjoyed the kiss, the fact stands that no one is entitled to another’s body, and this is why consent is, in my eyes, non-negotiable. For those who have no problem with this scene, I do think it is worth considering how you would feel about this scene had it involved, say, Jin Zixuan kissing a blindfolded Jiang Yanli. If that had been the case, I do think the majority of readers would have found the scene in poor taste (I could be wrong, though!). I will say that the trope of the forceful kiss is extremely common and can be found in every genre; it’s definitely not restricted to LGBTQ+ couples. For the aforementioned reason, I don’t like the forceful kiss scenario irregardless of the genders of the people involved. I do think writing such scenes for LGBTQ+ couples in particular can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, particularly that LGBTQ+ people have no respect for personal boundaries and can’t control their physical desires. I think the situation is doubly bad if the person who is being kissed is “not yet gay,” because again, it perpetuates the idea of the big bad gay person and the innocent “straight” person who is at the whims of said big bad gay.

Moving on to WWX and LWJ’s sex life, I have seen multiple people in the tag mentioning WWX having a “rape kink” and their discomfort with this fact. Logically, I understand that we are all allowed, as human beings with different tastes and preferences, to enjoy the things that bring us pleasure (excluding certain obvious things). That being said, I do not personally enjoy rape fantasies in my media and try to stay far away from it. As I mentioned, we are all welcome to our own tastes and preferences, but I do think it is important that we realize that we are all also the product of our environments. Things, including kinks, do not exist in vacuums, and therefore they must arise as a result of some mixture of external and internal forces. Does MXTX giving WWX a rape kink automatically make her demon spawn? Not really. Does MXTX giving WWX a rape kink add anything to his character or the story? Also not really. All this being said, I do think LGBTQ+ media is oversaturated with consent issues and I’d personally like to see this come to an end, because once again, it perpetuates harmful stereotypes that do have a real impact on LGBTQ+ individuals.

As for the imposing of heteronormative concepts onto Wangxian, I think the biggest complaint I’ve seen is about WWX being referred to as the “mom” or the “wife” within the Wangxian couple. I would like to state here that this may be a situation in which cultural differences come into play. Additionally, because the novel is not originally written in English, it may be a case of telephone in which the true meaning becomes distorted as it is translated from one language to another and then to another and so on and so forth. Therefore, I am going to proceed with my thoughts on the matter in a more generalized way. For me, this is a big pet peeve of mine, to the point where I will not reblog content that refers to any of the male characters as “mom” or “wife.” My reasoning is simple: WWX is a man, so he would be someone’s “dad” or “husband,” not their “mom” or “wife.” I know from first-hand experience that non-LGBTQ+ people will often try to place a gay couple within a heterosexual context to make it easier for them to process how two women or two men could be together. I understand the reasoning behind this way of thinking, but that does not mean this way of thinking should be encouraged. It’s bad enough that non-LGBTQ+ couples are ensnared in an endless maze of gendered ways of being and thinking - let’s not force that on LGBTQ+ couples as well. My other issue is that the words “mom” and “wife” not only have gendered connotations, but they have implicit sexual connotations as well. In this context, “mom” and “wife” are just another way of saying “bottom.” Just think about it; nobody’s out there calling LWJ “mom” or “wife.” The whole idea of “top” and “bottom” in gay media is so……..it’s almost like an obsession? And for those of you who may be thinking it’s not that deep and has no bearing on real life….I really wish that were true. Go look at the comments section of any gay couple’s youtube video and you will invariably find someone asking who is the top and who is the bottom. That’s invasive as fuck, y’all, and you don’t see that shit on straight couple’s videos (again, because the assumption is that women are always in the submissive, therefore there’s no need to ask because it’s assumed the answer will always be that the woman “bottoms” and the man “tops”). All this being said, I can only speak about this matter from my viewpoint as a lesbian. If one day I were to get married, I wouldn’t want people referring to my wife as my “husband,” because the whole point is that we’re both the wife! I know there isn’t one rule/mindset that applies to all gay people, so I would love to hear others’ feelings on this matter.

Finally, I would also like to briefly touch upon Mo Xuanyu, who we don’t really get to see in the drama. I don’t know whether LWJ or WWX ever explicitly state their sexualities or which gender(s) they’re attracted to, but I’m pretty sure Mo Xuanyu is explicitly stated to be strictly into men (please correct me if I’m wrong!). I do wonder what MXTX’s intentions were (if there were any) when she decided to make Mo Xuanyu gay, because what I’ve grasped of his characterization is that he is written similarly to other gay male characters that give the impression they were created by checking off a list of every popular stereotype about gay men. I guess I’m just curious, as someone who knows very little about Mo Xuanyu, how others felt about his character in terms of complexity and stereotypes.

If you took the time to read all this, thank you! Let me know your thoughts~

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

SP Influences: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace

CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RAPE (NOT JUST THE FANTASY METAPHOR KIND) AND SLAVERY. ALSO SPOILER WARNING FOR THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, AND BOTH THE FIRST AND FINAL ARC (INCLUDING THE ENDING) OF STRANGE PARADISE.

Although it never directly copied from other works, the 1969-70 soap opera Strange Paradise appears to have drawn inspiration from several classic works of Gothic fiction. Unlike its more famous cousin Dark Shadows (1966-71), which lifted most of its major plotlines from public-domain horror classics like Dracula and The Turn of the Screw with relatively few changes, the influence of other works on the plot and characters of Strange Paradise generally took a subtler form. Many of the early advertisements and articles promoting the serial compared its protagonist Jean Paul Desmond and villain Jacques Eloi des Mondes (both played by Colin Fox) to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, but--as Curt Ladnier has pointed out--there are only superficial similarities between the plot of the serial’s Maljardin arc and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, making the two works less similar than readers likely expected. Instead, the plot more closely resembles that of another, lesser-known story about a protagonist controlled by his evil counterpart: the 1963 Roger Corman/Vincent Price film The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The plot and characters of Strange Paradise have too much in common with those of The Haunted Palace to be mere coincidence. In particular, the character of Joseph Curwen and his characterization in the film strongly resemble the portrayal of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, enough to conclude that Curwen must have inspired his backstory and his interactions with the other characters. While it is likely that Lovecraft’s original 1927 novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward also directly influenced the serial, there is stronger evidence for indirect influence by way of the film adaptation.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

The plot of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward shares a common theme with the Maljardin arc: the evil ancestor from the seventeenth century who returns from beyond the grave and assumes the identity of his lookalike descendant. In both cases, the ancestor was involved in the occult during his lifetime and reviled for his rumored diabolical activities. During his lifetime--which he used magic to prolong--Curwen practiced necromancy, tortured knowledge out of the people he resurrected before murdering them again, experimented on living people, and summoned the god Yog-Sothoth for assistance in his occult activities using spells from the Necronomicon. Two fellow warlocks named Simon Orne and Edward Hutchinson assisted him with his occult studies, and were both still alive when his descendant Charles Dexter Ward brought him back to life. In the early episodes of Strange Paradise’s Maljardin arc written by Ian Martin, Jacques is portrayed as the literal Devil: an accusation about which he often jokes. He has many supernatural abilities, including possession, manipulation of electricity, telekinesis, the ability to magically alter messages written in sand, and--most importantly--the ability to resurrect Jean Paul’s dead wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins), which is why he frees his spirit in the pilot. He has an interest in voodoo, although he himself does not appear to practice it and instead fears its power. Unlike Curwen, no accomplices of Jacques’ return from the dead in the Maljardin arc, although it is possible that Martin intended for the seventeenth-century witch Tarasca, an earlier incarnation of wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell), to fulfill this role after possessing Elizabeth.[1]

But these occult matters are not the only common interest that Joseph Curwen and Jacques Eloi des Mondes share. Both character were involved in the more earthly evils of the slave trade. A merchant by trade, Curwen also bought and sold slaves, importing enormous numbers of enslaved people from Guinea into his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island in 1766. He sold few of them, however, and Lovecraft heavily implies that he used most of them in his experiments. The televised version of Strange Paradise never explicitly references slavery (although Jean Paul’s immortal servants Raxl (Cosette Lee) and Quito (Kurt Schiegl) are implied to be Jacques’ former slaves), but the non-canonical book series by Dorothy Daniels does on occasion. In the second book Island of Evil, Jean Paul lists “black gold, another name for the importation of slaves” along with piracy and brigandage as one of the sources of the des Mondes’ family fortune.[2] A flashback sequence in Island of Evil confirms the past enslavement of Raxl and Quito, as well as an African voodoo priest whom Jacques forces to turn Quito into a zombie: the closest event in the Strange Paradise expanded universe to Curwen’s experiments.

Both Jacques and Curwen also met their ends at the hands of locals. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Ezra Weeden begins spying on Curwen because he suspects him of illegal activities including witchcraft. Eventually, he turns most of the prominent figures in Providence society against him and they band together to raid and destroy Curwen’s Pawtuxet farm. During the raid, Curwen dies for the first time, but only after devising a spell for his future resurrection. Likewise, in Strange Paradise, Jacques dies after the natives of Maljardin turn against him, although the trigger and cause of his death are different. When Jacques murders his wife, the princess Huaco, by pushing her off the island’s cliff, a group of natives including Raxl and the Conjure Man band together to kill Jacques using a conjure (voodoo) doll and silver pin. These weapons curse Jacques to throw himself from the cliff and keep his spirit "shackled to the Temple [of the Serpent, Raxl’s god]” until the day he tricks his descendant Jean Paul Desmond into removing the pin from the doll, thereby setting him free.

Jacques’ disappearing portrait from Strange Paradise Episode 12.

Also significantly, both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Strange Paradise give the evil ancestor’s portrait a prominent role in the plot. In both cases, this portrait hangs at the ancestor’s former residence and disappears either temporarily or permanently when he takes control of the man who resembles him. When Charles Dexter Ward is researching the history of Joseph Curwen, his sources lead him to an eighteenth-century townhouse at Orney Court in Ward’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, where Curwen settled after fleeing Salem, Massachusetts. He hires a restorator to restore the painting, has it moved to his study, and discovers some documents of Curwen’s hidden in the wall behind it. When he finally succeeds in resurrecting Curwen, the painting disintegrates into dust: an end which Curwen himself later meets. On Strange Paradise, Jacques’ oil painting sometimes disappears when he possesses Jean Paul, but the show is inconsistent about this cue from episode to episode.[3] In contrast to Curwen’s painting, Jacques’ portrait always returns after he leaves Jean Paul’s body and appears to be indestructible: when Jean Paul sets fire to Maljardin in Episode 65, the portrait survives and later re-appears in the attic at Jean Paul’s childhood home Desmond Hall in Episode 131.

In spite of these similarities, I should note that the method of resurrection differs from one work to the other. In Strange Paradise, Jacques achieves this by possessing Jean Paul: after Jean Paul frees him by removing the silver pin from the head of his effigy, Jacques’ spirit can enter and exit Jean Paul’s body at will. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the title character literally resurrects Curwen, his great-great-great-grandfather, using his essential salts, after which Curwen murders him. Ward behaves as though Curwen has possessed him--he has the speech and manners of a man of the colonial period and knows extremely specific details about the history of Providence--but the pit above his right eye which Ward did not previously possess and the lack of the olive birthmark on Ward’s hip indicate a different body. When Jean Paul opens his casket in the pilot, he finds only the conjure doll and silver pin; the absence of Jacques’ body is never explained and could be for any number of reasons, which we shall not discuss here.

The Haunted Palace

A lobby card for The Haunted Palace asking the question, “What was the terrifying thing in the PIT that wanted women?” (Source)

In 1963, American International Pictures released The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Roger Corman. Due to alleged executive meddling (a theme which should already be familiar to regular readers of this blog), the film was marketed as an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name, which Vincent Price quotes throughout the film. In the adaptation process, Beaumont made many changes to the source material, the most notable of which was the decision to have Curwen breed human women with the elder god Yog-Sothoth, as alluded to on the lobby card above.[4]

Though an entertaining and visually enthralling film, most of the changes made to The Haunted Palace weaken the plot. In my opinion, Beaumont added too many Hollywood horror conventions during the adaptation process, which did not always work effectively considering the unconventional source material, not to mention left many plot holes unfilled. The dated and sleazy sexual angle which he added to the film makes the cosmic horror of Yog-Sothoth less cosmic and more carnal; whether this makes him more or less frightening depends on one’s personal opinion, but I feel it contradicts his otherworldly characterization in Lovecraft’s works. For the most part, the talents of the director and the actors (especially Price, who is fabulous as always) make up for these problems, but I prefer--and highly recommend--the far more faithful radio drama adaptation by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

The most notable influence of The Haunted Palace on Strange Paradise comes from its characterizations of Charles Dexter Ward and Joseph Curwen. Despite many similarities with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the characterizations of both Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi des Mondes owe far more to the portrayals of the protagonist and villain in the The Haunted Palace than in its source material. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, neither Ward nor Curwen shows any romantic or sexual interest in women whatsoever.  Lovecraft’s Ward only cares about antiquities, the local history of Providence, and the story of his ancestor; at twenty-six, he is unmarried and either asexual or simply too absorbed in his studies to pursue any romantic or sexual partner. The sexual orientation of Lovecraft’s Curwen is just as much of a mystery: although he took Eliza Tillinghast as a wife during his lifetime and their union produced a daughter, theirs was an arranged marriage for the sake of elevating Curwen’s social status within Providence society.

Both Price’s Ward and his Curwen, in contrast, show a marked interest in women. While their marriage is never outright stated to be a love match, Ward and his wife Ann (Debra Paget) appear to feel mutual love and devotion and have enough chemistry to imply a mutual sexual attraction. Like a dark mirror of Ward, Curwen shows a marked interest in the sexual and sexualized domination of women. In The Haunted Palace, the people of Arkham consider him a threat primarily because he lures local women to his palace to use in his rituals. While possessing Ward, Price’s Curwen rapes Ann--whom he later offers to Yog-Sothoth as well--and resurrects his former mistress, Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant), who assists him in his sorcery in the film’s climax. If Lovecraft’s Curwen never did any similar actions, he does not mention them in his novella.

In Strange Paradise, romantic and sexual desire for women motivates both Jean Paul and Jacques. Jean Paul resurrects his ancestor neither out of an obsession with his history (as in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor by accident (as in The Haunted Palace), but because Jacques’ spirit promises that, if the recently widowed Jean Paul frees him, he will restore life to his beloved wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins). Many episodes show Jean Paul mourning her death and narrating a tape-recorded journal to her, and he obsesses over protecting her cryogenically-preserved corpse from danger. Jacques romantically pursues several female characters over the course of the Maljardin arc--including Erica, her sister Dr. Alison Carr (Dawn Greenhalgh), and the wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell) and her 20-year-old daughter Holly (Sylvia Feigel)--and makes many sexual innuendos about them. After resurrecting Erica, she obeys Jacques as though he were her husband and assists him by murdering most of the guests on Maljardin. This makes her character’s role comparable to that of Hester in The Haunted Palace.[5]

On a more superficial note, neither Jacques nor Curwen wears a costume appropriate to his era of origin. In his portrait and in flashbacks, Jacques wears a side-parted 1960s hairstyle and clothing, including a doublet and lace collar and cuffs, more appropriate for the 1630s than the late 17th century when he lived (1660-1689, according to the plaque beneath his portrait). Similarly out of place, Curwen has short hair and a beard and wears a historically inaccurate lace bib in his portrait and in the prologue at the beginning of the film. Unlike the others, this similarity is almost certainly coincidental.

An even greater similarity, however, can be found in the scene forty-five minutes into the film where Curwen speaks to Charles through his portrait.The scene occurs after the second instance of Curwen possessing him, during which he unearths Hester’s coffin and has his fellow warlocks Simon Orne (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and Jabez Hutchinson (Milton Parsons) deliver it to his cellar laboratory. Ann catches him down there and he sends her away, still possessed by Curwen. When Curwen leaves his body, they have this conversation:

JC: (from painting) "Charles Dexter Ward…" CDW: "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!" JC: "I will never leave you alone. Your blood is my blood, your mind is my mind, your body is my body. It will do you no good to resist me. Your efforts grow weaker every day." CDW: "No! NO!" JC: "You cannot keep me out, Ward. My will is too strong." (he possesses Ward again) "Too strong for you, Ward. Too strong for you."

Similarly, most episodes from the Maljardin arc of Strange Paradise feature at least one scene where Jean Paul communicates with Jacques’ disembodied spirit, represented by his portrait. In some scenes, they use a shot of the portrait hanging in the Great Hall; other times, they superimpose Jacques’ painted face over that of his identical descendant. One of the earliest examples of Jacques referring to them as one comes in Episode 5, when he taunts Jean Paul about his attraction to Alison. “She’s so delectable a woman. How could I--you--we--ever resist or let her go?” he says, snickering throughout. During another such conversation in Episode 27, Jacques refers to Jean Paul’s body as “our body” and commands him to rest because he is tired. In still another scene ten episodes later, he complains to Jean Paul that he is “waiting for the use of our body” as Jean Paul begs him not to “enter”; the dialogue in the scene has undertones suggestive of fantasy-metaphor rape, which Jacques’ sickeningly sweet tone of voice underscores. These are only a handful of examples of the recurring theme of Jacques viewing Jean Paul’s body as his own and seeking to dominate it completely.

Comparison of a shot of Joseph Curwen glowering in front of his portrait with a similar one of Jean Paul glowering in front of the portrait of Jacques from Strange Paradise Episode 41.

Surprisingly, unlike in the novella, Curwen's portrait does not disintegrate when he possesses Ward. As Strange Paradise eventually started doing with Jacques’ portrait, Curwen’s portrait remains hanging until the end of the film, when it burns along with the rest of the palace (which begs the question of how it is even physically possible for stone to burn). Jacques’ portrait meets the same apparent end when Jean Paul sets fire to the château and flees Maljardin, but later returns to him at Desmond Hall, seemingly undamaged by the flames. It does not vanish for good until the final week of the show (Episodes 191-195), when a group of characters force him out of it by rubbing his brother’s ashes on his eyes and lips; this drives him out of the painting and into Jean Paul’s body, which he leaves at the end of the penultimate episode.[6]

Still another similarity comes from what is, in my opinion, Beaumont’s most ingenious change to the plot: the implication that all the human townspeople in 19th-century Arkham are reincarnations of identical people from the previous century, not just the necromancers. The same actors even portray their descendants: for example, Leo Gordon plays both Ezra and Edgar Weeden, and Frank Maxwell portrays both Dr. Marinus Willett and his ancestor Priam. Implied reincarnation figures heavily in the original outline for Strange Paradise, with Jean Paul, his sister-in-law Alison Carr, and the young heiress Holly Marshall all having dreams about previous lives on 17th-century Maljardin. Much like Jacques who possesses his descendant, Holly’s mother Elizabeth Marshall may have also been possessed by her previous incarnation, the native priestess Tarasca, under this outline, as foreshadowed in the clips in this video. The second Desmond Hall arc (Episodes 131-195), likewise, involves reincarnation from past ancestors (including the return of Jacques), but this final arc otherwise shares little in common with either The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or its adaptation.

Conclusion

There is strong evidence that Strange Paradise drew inspiration from both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace for the story about Jean Paul Desmond’s possession by Jacques Eloi des Mondes. We see elements from both the book and its first film adaptation in the serial: Ian Martin’s characterization of Jacques, the possession, and the talking portrait owe more to the film, while the disappearing portrait and certain elements of Jacques’ backstory are more reminiscent of Lovecraft’s original novella. Despite this inspiration, Ian Martin added many other elements to the story of Maljardin that were not present in either work, including the conjure doll and silver pin, the strange circumstances surrounding Erica’s death, and secondary protagonist Holly’s pursuit by several male characters and victimization by a mysterious spirit. The result is a serial combining the plots of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and its adaptation with original ideas to create a unique and--yes--strange new story.

Notes

[1] For more information on the aborted Tarasca storyline, see “The Secret of Tarasca“ and the section of my review of Episode 40 titled “The Lost Episode 40.”

[2] Dorothy Daniels, Island of Evil (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), p. 45.

[3] The Paperback Library novels do not just portray this consistently, but portray the other characters as seeing an empty frame while Jacques is controlling Jean Paul’s body. See also my review of Episode 15.

[4] For an in-depth plot comparison, see the blog post “The Films of Charles Dexter Ward” by Fake Geek Boy.

[5] According to an early newspaper summary for Episode 35, Tarasca would have endangered the life of Jean Paul’s love interest Alison, also shows some signs of possible influence by this subplot. See also this video.

[6] Many of the events of the final month of Strange Paradise are unclear and/or unexplained, so this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt.

[translationandbetrayals]

Milky Holmes' Rise to Fall, or How to Find Hope in Troubled Times

Milky Holmes reminds me of Žižek. And while it might seem quite nonsensical to tie this sentence together, it’s also something that gives us light about the times we’re facing.

Milky GODS

Always controversial, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek does have some interesting things to say. But even though he’s mostly known for his approach of leftist politics, the analysis of his that has stuck with me the most doesn’t relate to politics, or at least not directly. It’s his commentary about the animated film Kung Fu Panda, produced by Dreamworks. He has referred to the film a couple of times while highlighting something that has now become sort of a recurrent topic of his mythos. The idea of faith. This idea, also explained by him in the form of an anecdote about a scientist (Niels Bohr) who didn’t believe in charms, yet used to put one in his house just because he was told “it would work, even if he didn’t believe in it”, is essential to Kung Fu Panda and to Dreamworks as a whole (even if Žižek doesn’t directly acknowledge it). While the film works as a parody of Chinese martial arts films, and spends part of its runtime satirizing Chinese philosophy, in the end these principles are embraced, as Po’s wu wei defeats Tai Lung’s ambition (and we can say the same about the way Shrek and Megamind relate to fairy tales and superhero fantasy, just to cite other examples). 

But what does any of this have to do with Milky Holmes? What is this Milky Holmes, even? And as many of you might not be familiar with this long running multimedia franchise, it wouldn’t do harm to recapitulate its history. To understand Milky Holmes, we must first understand its seeds, which are in Broccoli and Bushiroad, two Japanese companies which were both founded by a single man, named Takaaki Kidani. Kidani started Broccoli in the late ‘90s, which first worked as a doujin management company for events, then expanding itself through Gamers, a goods store directed towards the otaku market. Gamers was immortalized and popularized through the Di Gi Charat franchise, produced by Broccoli and extremely massive through the late 90s and early 2000s. Spanning various anime adaptations, numerous manga, and lots of merchandise, the now classic characters were a boom within this same otaku market, and part of this success even crossed overseas, as you might see if you venture into old anime archives.

This really handsome dude is Takaaki Kidani

Now the success of Di Gi Charat probably wasn’t just because of the mascot made designs, though of course that had a part in its popularity. Aside from the already obvious fact, the Di Gi Charat franchise, at least in its first animated adaptation, had a pretty good sense of humor and irony. In a way, it was mocking the very own otaku it was targeted towards, and while it sure wasn’t the first to do so, this style of self-deprecating and sometimes grotesque or even infantile humor the series subjected its viewers to was something special. And while Di Gi Charat had quite the acid tone, it wasn’t without its share of tame and even heartwarming moments. It was moe, marketable of course, but there was something else as well. This series had a heart.

The heart of the show has a name and it’s Puchiko

It’s this spirit that Milky Holmes, more than 10 years after the creation of Di Gi Charat, held as its foundation as one of the star projects of the then recently started Bushiroad, founded after Kidani left Broccoli. Learning from his success in Broccoli’s projects such as the aforementioned Di Gi Charat, and also the media franchise Galaxy Angel, Milky Holmes was thought of as a multimedia project from the start. In the case of Milky Holmes, radio dramas, a manga, a PSP video game, an anime adaptation, and, perhaps most importantly, a seiyuu/idol unit were launched. I say most importantly because it was the disbandment of this unit that signaled the end of the franchise as a whole. In January’s 28th of 2019, Milky Holmes gave their final live performance at the Budokan, in fact ending the decade old franchise.

The end of Milky Holmes

On the anime side of things, the last installment was Psycho no Aisatsu, a crossover special episode featuring the main character of the Cardfight!! Vanguard franchise, a trading card game series for kids that was also created by Bushiroad. It was the symbolic pass on the torch to a younger, still profitable franchise in Bushi, that hopefully might keep the spirit of the Milkies alive. But we must not be sad for what has ended, as this franchise will always stay there to be revisited, even for people who never got to experience it when it was still active.

And it’s because of this that I have not forgotten about Milky Holmes, even though it has been years since it ended. I feel especially partial to the anime, particularly its first two seasons, and the 2016 movie: Milky Holmes' Counterattack (and what a movie is that one). One common thing about these three is that all of them feature Makoto Moriwaki as a director. And I feel she’s the one who better captures the spirit I mentioned above when talking about Di Gi Charat. It isn’t the only way to understand the series: there’s the video games, that might be seen as the source material; the Alternative OVAs, that are a closer adaptation of the games; and the two other anime seasons, which are completely different to anything else (and most people don’t seem to like); but Morikawi’s interpretation is the most interesting one, at least to me.

Now, you might be tired of so much anticipation and context, but it’s important to understand the background of this director to realize what she brought to the franchise (because yes, it’s a she) to, as I believe, perfect it. Makoto Moriwaki has mostly made a career out of directing children’s anime, more specifically anime for girls. Series such as the Sanrio based My Melody and PriPara have been directed by her, along with some Jewelpet seasons and even some Doraemon episodes. But a sort of black sheep among all that family friendly content is the raunchy adult comedy Ebichu, which, in spite of its cutesy visuals reminiscent of Hamtaro, is a series mostly targeted towards older women, full of jokes about adult life that, of course, involve a lot of sex.

it means a dirty word, if you didn’t realize

The Milky Holmes directed by Moriwaki is a middle ground between those two poles. On one hand, the cynicism, irony, and hidden sexual references in an outwardly kids friendly series, and on the other, the fantasy and the hopeful nature of magical girls and idol anime. And this dichotomy is also highlighted when we understand the target of this series. Despite its looks, Milky Holmes is not directed towards children. It’s not a kids show, but rather, a completely otaku business. It was broadcasted as shinya anime at 11 pm, it has its share of adult humor, and of course, the moe characters are exactly that, there’s no ambiguity there. It’s made to sell merchandise, discs and BDs to fat weirdos. But it’s quite interesting how the show treats its own audience, because if we’re to take Milky Holmes as an otaku product, it isn’t simply cynical.

Yes, that there is a ****plug

We have talked about Milky Holmes as a product and as a media franchise, but let’s review the series itself. To those who don’t know, Milky Holmes is set in a fantastical time and space called the Age of Great Detectives. In this world, Great Detectives and their eternal rivals, Gentlemen Thieves, are in constant struggle. They’re aided by their Toys, special powers whose name might be an irony on Bushiroad’s own status as a company.

A fascinating part of the Milky Holmes franchise for any crime or detective fiction freak is that most of the character names are taken from legendary detectives and criminals. There’s the 4 Milky Holmes members, which are respectively: Sherlock “Sheryl” Shellingford, the always energetic and optimistic leader (named after the most famous detective of all); Nero Yurizaki, a greedy, egotistical bokukko (named after the gluttonous Nero Wolfe); Hercule “Elly” Burton, a shy girl who has the most awareness inside the Milkies (named after Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot); and Cordelia Glauca, the shoujo-esque dramatic and delusional member of the crew (named after Cordelia Gray, the only character of the four that is originally female).

From left to right, unlike your Japanese mangos

They battle constantly against the Gentlemen Thief Empire, led by the intense and prideful Arsene (after Arsène Lupin, the French gentleman thief also recalled by the Monkey Punch character); and completed with Twenty, a narcissistic nudist that weaponizes his erect nipples (based on Menso Nijuu, a villain from the Ranpo Edogawa canon); Stone River, a prude warrior with a samurai pride (based on Goemon Ishikawa, the outlaw hero from Japanese folklore, also referenced by Lupin III); and Rat, who’s victim of everyone’s forgetfulness (based on Kozo Nezumi, a folk hero from the Edo period).

Twenty, Arsene, Stone River, and Rat

There’s also a third party in discord, that can either work as ally or enemy depending on circumstance (much like in your typical detective story) which is of course formed by the cops. The G4 is the “elite” patrol of law enforcement whose effectiveness also depends on plot convenience, and their leader (and child genius with infinite amounts of IQ) Kokoro-chan’s (named after Kogoro Akechi, the famous Ranpo Edogawa detective) mood. The other members are Tsugiko Zenigata (after Heiji Zenigata, a Japanese legend), a somewhat tomboyish girl voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro; Hirano Hasegawa (after Heizo Hasegawa, from the Onihei Hankacho novels), a traditional Japanese girl who is a master of combat; and Saku Toyama (after Kagemoto Toyama, a historic character made legend), the technological expert of the gang.

She just keeps it going up

Don’t call her Kokoro-chan, she’ll get angry

However, the main source of conflict (and comedy) in the series is that, despite being quite powerful and capable as detectives with the aid of their toys, the Milkies are pretty much nothing without them. Dame dame (useless), is something they’ll often have to hear, as they constantly struggle with the loss of their toys at the start of almost every new installment (save for Futari wa and TD, in which they weren’t the main characters because of this exact reason). Nonetheless, in spite of how hard they might fall, how much they can be humiliated and degraded (and they sure will), and basically turn into dumb slapstick cartoons, they will always stand up again, never losing hope even when taking a detour, or when they’re becoming farmers instead.

Milky farmers

In this acknowledgment of the cyclical and absurd nature of their misfortunes, made explicit in the movie by the (unintentional) use of words by Sheryl: “it’s rise to fall”, the philosophical implications of the series are unlocked, at least from the Moriwaki iteration of it. It’s an absurd reality, in which no matter how high one can be, one can always fall to the lowest of the low. Yet, when you have fallen, there’s nothing else you can do but go up, try and hope for the best, never giving in to life no matter how discouraging or absurd it might become.

It’s existential philosophy, right inside a moe anime, and one can’t be anything but thankful of someone who is giving such messages inside a work that could conform to just offering a product for profit. Instead, what Milky Holmes is doing is to tell its audience that no matter how hard their lives might get, no matter how repeatedly they might hear that they’re useless, that they’re dumb or hopeless, they must never give up. It’s quite beautiful, even more so when you’re aware of the darker sides of the otaku and the stigma and social alienation a lot of these people face in their country. And so, Milky Holmes might be a ray of light amidst a rabbit hole of isolation, which can be relatable to most of us as we face the current pandemic. A sign that even if we can’t see it, there’s hope at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, she’s saying that when they’re in prison

Closing on a hopeful note, I’ll let you in on a cool fact. Do you know who directed the Milky Holmes movie alongside Moriwaki? I will give you some lines to guess, if you think you’re smart detectives.

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Yes! It was Hiroaki Sakurai, who, coincidentally (or not), was the series director for most of the Di Gi Charat anime versions since its first installment in 1999. It’s really cool how everything circles back to a now almost prehistoric franchise, but it also circles back in a less symbolic way. 2021 seems to be a new year for Di Gi Charat, as the franchise is getting a revival as “Di Gi Charat Reiwa”, a new generation of the series which contemplates lots of merchandise and, most importantly, a new anime series, helmed by no other than the same Hiroaki Sakurai. Here’s hoping for a revitalization of this lively spirit, a hopeful affirmation of the disgusting manchildren we all have inside.

Promotional image for this era’s own Charat

Salvador González Turrientes

Links and additional sources of information:

Žižek on Kung Fu Panda 

The Milky Holmes article from the English Wikipedia 

Wikipedia list of the Milky Holmes characters (in English)

Takaaki Kidani's article (in English)

Takaaki Kidani’s article (in Japanese)

Di Gi Charat's Wikipedia (in English)  

Hiroaki Sakurai's (in English) 

Makoto Moriwaki's article (in English as well) 

The news of the Di Gi Charat Reiwa anime (from ANN) 

[masked-disciple]

What is the technology level of the "duct-tape realms" in Ilya Serina? (steampunk, high fantasy/LOTR-esque, more advanced than earth, etc?)

This is gonna be a long answer, mainly because in order to answer this, I have to explain how the Serin works. For the record, this is based off of how it works in Fall of Ilya Serina- I don’t know what’ll happen in Starlight so let’s work off the timeline I know.

The Serin is a world of pure creation. (Long ago, it was based off of Minecraft. Five or six or maybe even eight years ago. It also has a nod to CS Lewis’ Wood Between the Worlds- he should’ve done more with that and he didn’t so I’m taking the idea and fucking running with it.)

Nothing stays in the same place. You see mountains on the horizon, by the time you get there, it’s a fucking forest. Fuck you, fuck your “cartography”. Shit moves around and it’s the portals to the other realms that don’t. There are specific locations, of course, they just move the fuck around.

It’s like- you make a puzzle with a map image on it. But the puzzle pieces are squares. They can fit anywhere, in any combination. There are little lights, though, on the board that will glow through the puzzle no matter what piece is on top of it. There are locations on the pieces- civilization, certain mountain ranges, forests, lowlands- but the pieces themselves just fuckin move around.

In Fall, it is canon that locations wander in large, wobbly, looping paths in the daytime and move towards the centre of the Serin at night. The Serin itself is kind of shaped like a donut- the sun sets and rises in the center, and the moon circles the outskirts. For these reasons, eclipses are quite common.

It is also canon in Fall that the Serin is largely conscious, if not sentient. It is aware of its inhabitants and how they are different from world-travellers who are passing through. If there is something in the Serin that it doesn’t like, you will know. Because it will take the problem and put it in your way. As many times as it takes for you to fix it. (That actually happened in Fall, too- Lusmos, Jules, Kinefira, Ophi, and Tarathiel were getting to Ilya Katayona and it put a mountain in their way three times before they went and fixed the problem, which was Lillith was stealing all the dragons meant to protect that area of the Serin.)

The Serin is however, lazy as fuck. It will sometimes mess with you and shove a forest in your way every now and then. But it won’t shove a whole lot of objects, like a city, in your way more than once. It doesn’t like moving more than one thing at a time to fuck with just one person or group. If you see the same thing twice and you’ve already passed it once, it’s because the Serin wants you to check it out.

Hence, maps are virtually useless. But then, Pale, why the fuck does anyone live there, and how? Well, they make do. In the many languages of the many species found in the Serin, in Jules’ words, you are less likely to come across a word that means ‘tower’ than you are to find one that means roughly ‘tall thin structure’.

Because the Serin, on top of moving shit around and fucking with people and being awful to deal with, looks differently to different people. What one person sees as a crack-like ravine full of trees just in front of them will appear as a river to someone else. What one person views as using large crystal spires to walk across is what another might see as walkways between old buildings made out of steel and large wires.

Jules explained this neatly to Tarathiel like this: It’s like 3D modeling. The models themselves don’t change, but the painted textures sure do. 

So maps and most directions of any sort are nigh impossible to make. In Fall, Jules found the formula the Serin uses to move things and used that, plus a general location network and a few other things and actually made a smartphone app that can work as a navigational tool for the Serin. Tarathiel uses this app to get herself to Ilya Taranisi to go rescue Lusmos in Fall, which befits the following cut from the novel:

I pulled out my phone and opened up Jules’ map app, to see what it wanted me to do. Firstly it started searching for a signal. The tip below the searching icon said “Tip: Get somewhere high. It’s easier to catch a signal.” Well, I was up high, so there wasn’t much of an issue there. After about thirty seconds of a cheerful “Searching for signal...”, it displayed a quick “Signal found!” followed by a “Connecting to signal...” A few seconds after that, it told me that it had found a signal, and then the popup went away, followed by a very Google-Maps like display. I noticed a search icon, and just to see if I could, searched for Ilya Taranisi. Jules’ app would probably save my life, so going after his god first seemed like a good idea. The only search result was for Ilya Taranisi, with two options: About and Get Directions. Hell, let’s get directions to Ilya Taranisi.

(Tarathiel is somewhat tech savvy, being from Ilya Tirana and having some adventures in Ilya Karina, homeworld to Maria Leuite and the solarpunk-style theme of pure science.)

And that’s how the Serin works. That all being known now, what sort of tech do the different civilizations in the Serin have?

There is no good way to answer this- different civilizations will have different resources and abilities. I’d like to say nobody in the Serin has anything like steampower or higher, since if they did they’d know better than to stay there in the duct tape realm that quite literally makes a game out of trying to kill you.

Most of the Serin’s civilizations have few trade routes if any at all, so they’re largely isolated from each other. Nomadic species are very likely to get wiped out with little trace of having ever existed. The ones that survive, like Kinefira’s changeling hive and the Maybo, learned to do so by clinging to their roots and not moving very far from their headquarters and capitals. 

Those two are actually two of the few documented civilizations- I haven’t stuck my protagonists in the Serin much, and those two are the only ones that have cropped up except for the occasional village that has accepted their fate and relies mainly on trade and worship to survive. (The Serin is nicer to those who worship the gods, if only because getting the faithful killed isn’t usually wise.)

Kinefira’s changelings are largely militaristic, and have figured out metalworking and some agriculture, though they largely gather considering their area is generally a forest to people, and always bears edible things. Winter does not strike the area too often because of how deep the forest is. (It’s like a lake, but replace water with trees. Elk as big as whales and entire civilizations in certain divisions like the oceanic ones- like the bathypelagic division from 700-1000m deep in the ocean. Forests do this in our world to a point, with different lifeforms appearing at different depths of the forest depending on the height of the trees, but the Changeling Forest takes it to an extreme.) They live at the bottom centre of the forest at the deepest point, so it’s very humid and very hot and their metalworking underground, below their fortress, makes it no more bearable.

The Maybo, on the other hand, are a friendly bunch who don’t really disturb anyone and generally just harass each other when they feel like it. This is the description I wrote for them in Fall, and if you want to draw it, be my guest because I sure as hell can’t.

The city grew closer, and soon, I stopped at its edge, in awe of the movie-elf-like craftsmanship in everything. And then I caught sight of what must’ve been a Maybo: they were odd little creatures, actually. They were about as tall as most halflings and some gnomes, but incredibly thin and short-limbed. They were covered in fur for the most part: their forearms, heels, and around their eyes seemed to be scaled. Their fur was far longer on their back, giving off an interesting look when combined with long, faun-like ears. This Maybo’s longer fur was kept tied in what looked like a ponytail, just below their tailbone. They had an angelic looking tail, but with fur instead of feathers at the end. It was impossible to tell if they had a male-female system like humans, but they, like most ‘fantasy’ races, weren’t almost naked.

(Though I should mention that immediately after this, the Maybo in question grabs Tarathiel, takes her to the elder of the city to get a spell so she can understand their language, which I very cleverly named Meyh’ktaio and did not include a guide on how to pronounce. Then they ask her about the outside world and she just fuckin shows them her phone and Jules’ app and her selfies with all her friends. They are mystified and I had so much fun writing that scene.)

The Maybo are among some of my favourite to write for: they have absolutely no basis in anything except maybe a slight nod to RuneScape’s Naragi in appearance. I made them and their entire culture and language up on the fly. In Fall, after Tarathiel returns to them after freeing Lusmos and heading to Ilya Katayona, Lusmos’ gifts to them for helping him and his group out are a silver elk that calls to whoever is worthy that can call it, and turning their God of the Waterfall into a person again so they can act as a spiritual leader for their people. The Maybe don’t really work with the Aethelian gods, as they’ve got their waterfall guy, but the waterfall itself is made of Tomian magic and they do generally follow his creeds, so they are regarded as Tomian.

I really like the Maybo. I don’t know where they might crop up next, as they don’t generally leave their area, but I like to think there’s a few out there who might be more personable and in the spotlight than Renmi, Nmenra, and Aushla, our two background character Maybo. (I have no idea what the gender culture is like for the Maybo, but I like to think Renmi’s a trans guy. Aushla’s the elder so she’s just Old Sage Woman, but Renmi’s definitely a trans guy.)

So, all in all, it really depends on the civilization, but with limited resources and the lack of reliable trading routes for anyone, don’t expect too much in the way of advanced technology. Kinefira’s changelings are about the most high-tech you’ll be seeing for a while, if and when we ever take a thirty-thousand-word trip through the Serin again.

(I like to keep the Serin as far from coherent as possible- the less rules I put on it, the more I can stuff in there. It has some young gods in there too, but it doesn’t need to have any real requirements.)

Though I feel I should mention that Ilya Serina is the real base of the whole project- not Ilya Aethela or Haridor or even Tarathiel: the Serin is what ties the whole project together, just as it ties the realms together. No novel I have written concerning the project at all hasn’t had at least a brief trip through it. It’s my pride and joy.

And yes, at one point I really did call it Afiroja. What was wrong with past me.

[dailybestiary]

Kabandha

(Illustration by Nemanja Stankovic comes from the artist’s ArtStation page and is © Paizo Publishing.)

Hoo boy.  Now this is an interesting monster.  

With no head and a single eye, nose, and mouth placed in the center of its chest, the kabandha is clearly a monster out of myth and fable.  (Which it is—Indian myth, to be precise.)  And I think for a lot of gaming tables, that’s where it will remain (if it’s even used at all).  The kabandha’s outlandish appearance, so monstrous and childish at the same time, limits its easy application in most game worlds.  Like Bestiary 4’s one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged fachen, this is a monster that most easily fits into your campaign’s Mount Olympus, the land of Faerie, or the kind of fable-packed island chains you find in works like the Odyssey, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Gulliver’s Travels, and the Earthsea novels.  Even according to Bestiary 5, you’re most likely to find a kabandha serving the will of a god or guarding a mysterious ley line. (They even lay eggs(!) made of stone—yet another fairy-tale touch.)

But why not put them in your campaign, especially if it’s one where the gods regular intrude?  The B5 authors specifically list the kabandha as a cyclops, thus giving it a family tree and a place in the world.  The easy answer is to sequester it along with the rakshasas and the nagas in your world’s take on fantasy India…but why not in your world’s Ireland, Jotunheim, or a homebrew location all your own?  Somewhere out there is a campaign where kabandhas are as common as minotaurs, and I want to see what that looks like.

That said, while we’re on the subject of fantasy India, the original Kabandha was laboring under a curse, and in death he was returned to his original celestial form.  What happens if your PCs kill a kabandha, only to have it return (especially if proper funeral rites are observed) as a manasaputra, angel, samsaran, or some other wise and blessed creature?

An adventuring party’s bard has been given a seemingly simple task: Deliver a cask of nutmeg to Lord Malar and convince him to open up a trade route, so that the spice caravans may travel freely through his lands.  This is a tougher assignment than it seems.  First, Lord Malar is extremely partial to cinnamon; second, he challenges any minstrel he meets to a song contest of deafening proportions; finally, he is a creature the likes of which the adventuring party has never seen—a kabandha of great age and influence—and he regards his stewardship over his lands (and the ley line they contain) as a divine charge.

Some off-duty musketeers are hired as guards for a private auction.  Among the rare books and glittering heirlooms are two seemingly ordinary stone spheres. The spheres are kabandha eggs, and the musketeers’ security measures (and hopefully, their sense of morality) will be tested when four kabandha parents come looking for their offspring.

Traveling in the Spirit World, adventurers encounter a kabandha who bars their way.  They are stunned when killing the cyclops does not silence it.  Instead it asks them to perform the proper funeral rites to honor its passing.  If they do so, the pyre hatches a rishi manu, who promises to return to their side for a future combat of their choosing.  If they ignore their responsibilities, the kabandha follows them throughout the Spirit World as a vengeful penanggalen of great power.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 64

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the weirder nuggets in the “basic” D&D anthology accessory AC10 Bestiary of Dragons and Giants was the claim that stone giants, too, laid eggs.

One day we will get a proper India-inspired setting for Pathfinder.  (Looking at BoardGameGeek’s list of such things, the closest we’ve come so far in 3.5 seems to be Mindshadows, from Green Ronin’s Mythic Vistas line.  I gave in to curiosity and literally just ordered a copy since they were cheap, but Lord knows when I’ll have time to even skim it.)  

Until then, as always I highly encourage you to keep an eye out for the excellent Allen Varney D&D Hollow World module Nightstorm (and you want the physical copy because those old Hollow World hex maps are a joy).  I believe a few kits for 2e AD&D PCs (that’s archetypes for you Pathfinder fans) also occasionally tiptoed into Indian territory; they were sprinkled throughout the pages of the Complete Handbook series and Dragon Magazine.  Dragon Magazine #189 is especially worth seeking out for Michael J. Varhola’s “Rhino's Armor, Tiger's Claws,” which looks at Indian weapons.

Finally, I’ve gotten lots of fantastic reader responses to some of our recent posts.  There are too many to list here, but be sure to read what other folks are saying.

[tortuga-aak]

The best multi-platform games you can buy

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

The Insider Pick:

Whether you have a PlayStation, an Xbox, or a Windows PC, you can play any of these great multi-platform games. Our favorite titles include “Doom,” “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt,” “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard," “Metal Gear Solid V,” and “Overwatch.”

The game industry is at an interesting crossroads right now. PC gaming has become hugely popular over the past decade or so, with many people even building their own custom machines. As a result, consoles makers have increasingly had to compete with stronger and more regularly-updated computer hardware. Many gamers still prefer consoles due to their lower cost and convenience of use, but there’s no arguing that these systems, by their nature, lag a bit behind PCs when it comes to delivering a bleeding-edge graphical experience.

Since the Nintendo Entertainment System, game consoles have typically followed generational releases with new ones coming out every five or six years. We may be witnessing the end of this traditional launch cycle, however. In an attempt to close the gap between gaming PCs and consoles, Sony and Microsoft have offered more frequent hardware refreshes with machines like the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. These units, while still technically falling within the current console generation, boast beefed-up hardware that allows developers to push them further and stay up-to-date with modern trends like 4K and VR – features that have been available on PC for a few years now.

This ongoing arms race between console and computer hardware has also seen a notable decrease in the number of system exclusives. The PC, Xbox, and PlayStation each have their own libraries of unique games that are particular to each platform, but we’re increasingly seeing games released across multiple systems. Compare this to a decade or two ago, when the vast majority of games were exclusive to one platform and these “multi-plats” were far less common.

If trends hold, then more frequent console hardware updates and multi-platform gaming appear to be the future of the industry. This is good news for PC and console gamers alike: Players who love the pick-up-and-play convenience of consoles don’t need a beefy custom computer to play the latest AAA titles at high resolution, and dedicated PC gamers now get to enjoy many franchises, such as Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid, that were just a few years ago confined to specific platforms like Nintendo or PlayStation.

The sheer number of multi-platform games available today makes it difficult to narrow it down to just five. And although things like DLC and micro-transactions have caused their fair share of controversy in the modern industry, one thing is clear: There have been some truly awesome titles coming out recently from developers around the world, and the past few years have been great for gaming.

In this guide, we’ve done our best to smoke out what are arguably the five best multi-plats available on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 so you can enjoy them all no matter what system you prefer.

Read on in the slides below to find out why we love “Doom,” “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt,” “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard," “Metal Gear Solid V,” and “Overwatch.”

The best first-person shooter game

Id Software

Why you'll love it: Id Software’s 2016 “Doom” delivers all of the insane and over-the-top FPS gameplay that made the original famous, offering the classic first-person shooter experience that gamers have been craving for years.

There are few games that can be called “legendary,” and id Software’s 1993 classic “Doom” is certainly one of them. Although it wasn’t the original first-person shooter, “Doom” remains perhaps the biggest pioneer of the genre and has sold more than 10 million copies to date.

The game is still revered today for many reasons: Its intense high-speed run-and-gun play style, its sprawling open level design that encouraged exploration, its famous silent protagonist (known only as “Doomguy”), and, naturally, its over-the-top violence, which was relatively unique — not to mention extremely controversial — at the time.

Id Software has developed a number of successful sequels and re-releases over the years, but the studio’s pledge to return to the original formula made 2016’s “Doom” the most ambitious of them all. “Doom 3” was the most recent release before then, and while it earned high praise from gamers and critics, it traded the high-speed shooter gameplay for a more fleshed-out narrative and a brooding survival-horror atmosphere. In contrast, the new “Doom” was built from the ground-up to capture the spirit of the golden days of first-person shooters, and at this, it truly excels.

A full reboot of the franchise, 2016’s “Doom” once again takes place at a research facility on Mars where a portal to Hell has been established. Doomguy (now referred to as the “Doom Slayer”) is a legendary demon hunter who has been trapped and kept asleep by the forces of the underworld. After the armies of Hell invade, you, as the Doom Slayer, are awoken and tasked with repelling the incursion and sealing the portal. All the classic ingredients are there: Familiar demons, familiar weapons, and the familiar fast-paced and violent gameplay.

But “Doom” is more than just an old-school FPS with a new coat of paint. This pony comes with a few new tricks all its own, like vertically-oriented level designs that take advantage of Doom Slayer’s new-found jumping and climbing abilities — a far cry from the original game where Doomguy couldn’t even look up and down, let alone jump around. The open stages encourage exploration in true Doom spirit, standing as a refreshing counter-point to many modern shooters which send you running from cover to cover down long corridor-like levels.

Another new combat element is the “Glory Kill,” which allows you to perform brutal melee executions on wounded enemies which yields extra ammunition and health bonuses. There are no recharging shields or health packs for you to rely on here. Instead, Doom Slayer heals his wounds only through violence. There is also no cover system that encourages you to hide behind obstacles or avoid fire – everything forces the player to keep pushing forward, making for a fast and furious experience that harks back to first-person shooters of decades past.

“Doom” stands as a gory, adrenaline-fueled triumph of old-school game design and is proof positive that in a sea of modern shooters, sometimes all players want to do is rip and tear.

Pros: Fun and fast gameplay exemplary of the glory days of first-person shooters, an intense metal soundtrack, and excellent level design that rewards exploration

Cons: Somewhat repetitive campaign, a lackluster multiplayer suite, and the extreme violence may be too much for some

Buy "Doom" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for $29.99

The best action role-playing game

CD Projekt Red

Why you'll love it: A great story, excellent combat, and a breathtaking open-world make “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” one of the best action role-playing games of all time and easily the best entry in CD Projekt Red’s award-winning series.

The Witcher series has had an interesting run. The action-adventure role-playing franchise, developed by the Polish studio CD Projekt Red, came out of nowhere in 2007 with “The Witcher” (the studio’s debut), which became a sleeper hit.

It went on to spawn two successful sequels: “The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings” greatly expanded upon the original, adding an enhanced combat system and more dynamic open world, while “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” masterfully perfected these elements, earning its place as one of the greatest gaming achievements in recent years.

CD Projekt Red has stated that “The Witcher III” will be the last game to feature Geralt of Rivia — the titular “Witcher,” or monster-hunter — as the main character, and it’s the perfect game to cap off the trilogy. The plot of the series is based on popular fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The player, as Geralt, is tasked with bringing down a myriad of dangerous otherworldly creatures as he tries to find his daughter, who is herself being hunted by a supernatural force.

“Wild Hunt” drops you into a wide-open world — more than three times larger than that of “Skyrim” — and lets you tackle the main storyline at your leisure, giving you plenty of freedom to explore and complete the many side-quests available throughout the game. You control Geralt from a third-person perspective, duking it out with enemies both human and non-human utilizing a variety of melee and ranged weapons along with a number of magical attacks. The hack-and-slash action-adventure gameplay is layered with an RPG system that lets you level up your character, strengthening your skills and unlocking new abilities.

The gameplay is fluid, fun, and challenging, but where “The Witcher III” really stands apart is in its epic world design. With “Wild Hunt,” CD Projekt Red set out to redefine sandbox games by creating an organic, breathing, dynamic world that “lives apart” from the player character and his actions.

It worked: The realm of the Northern Kingdoms feels more real than ever before, equally dark and beautiful, and it truly comes alive with changing landscapes, ecosystems, and human communities. You don’t just feel like a character who was dropped into a static game environment of pre-programmed NPCs, but instead like a smaller part of a larger, truly active organic world that moves and evolves around you.

The breathtaking visuals, wonderfully-designed living world, great action-RPG gameplay, and well-written story are all capped off by a fantastic soundtrack executed by the Brandenburg State Orchestra using older instruments to create an authentic late Medieval/early Renaissance sound.

“The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” is also a meaty game: The main story alone will take you around 40 to 50 hours to complete, but all of the side quests, included DLC, and ample opportunities for exploration (which you will find yourself doing a lot) can keep you busy for well over 100 hours.

Pros: A huge and dynamic open world that truly feels alive, compelling story and character writing, excellent action-RPG gameplay, breathtaking graphics with masterful art direction, and a superb orchestral soundtrack

Cons: Some bugs and optimization issues (although this has mostly been patched), too many minor “fetch” quests that interrupt the main story, and the violence and sexual themes are not suitable for young players

Buy "The Witcher III: Wild Hunt Complete Edition" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for about $27.99 on sale or $59.99 originally

The best survival-horror game

Capcom

Why you'll love it: “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” represents a true return to fundamentals for Capcom’s long-running survival-horror series, delivering all of the atmospheric terror that defined a whole genre while still managing to put a modern spin on a classic formula.

In 1996, Capcom released “Resident Evil,” a classic that defined an entire genre of survival-horror games. Many developers attempted to imitate it with mixed success, and after a few well-received sequels, even Capcom grew weary of the standard formula it had created. “Resident Evil 4,” while massively popular, signaled a major change in focus for the series away from brooding slow-paced gameplay with a focus on scavenging and survival towards a faster, more action-oriented style that felt more like popular third-person shooter games.

A few lackluster sequels to “Resident Evil 4” were met with a lukewarm reception from players and critics. Gamers increasingly clamored for a new entry in the series that was true to the experience of the originals, and thankfully, it seems Capcom finally took the hint. Enter “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard,” a triumph of game design that heralds a much-needed return to the fundamentals of survival-horror that Capcom had largely pioneered.

As popular and beloved as the original Resident Evil formula was, it was not without its criticisms. The third-person view with pre-rendered environments came with a control scheme that felt clunky and awkward at times, especially during combat.

For “Biohazard,” Capcom instead implemented a first-person view (the first main entry in the franchise to utilize this, although a few unsuccessful spin-offs had tried it before). This goes a long way in addressing the problems with the old control scheme while greatly enhancing your immersion into this terrifying game-world.

The setting of “Resident Evil 7” will feel instantly familiar to fans, dropping the player into an old mansion that harks back to the setting of the first title. Instead of zombies, however, this house is inhabited by the bizarre Baker family along with bizarre humanoid creatures known as the “Molded.”

The player, as a man named Ethan, must use whatever means available to survive — stealth, caution, and escape are the focus here rather than combat, although you do get a number of melee weapons and firearms. Ammo is precious, forcing you to scavenge for it along with first aid supplies, adding to the tension and to the oppressive sense of danger and fear.

The return to the slower pace and exploratory gameplay also sees the return of the classic puzzles that the player must solve in order to proceed, but sadly, these are sparse and easily overcome. The boss battles also leave something to be desired, although this is not enough of a detriment to mar the fantastic atmosphere and edge-of-your-seat gameplay. “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” is a true sequel, not a reboot or re-imagining, and some familiar faces appear near the end of the story to help out Ethan.

The final scene even alludes to the existence of a re-formed Umbrella Corporation, so it’s safe to say that Capcom is far from finished with this series or its story — and as long as the devs stick to the excellent formula of “Biohazard,” then fans of Resident Evil have a lot to look forward to.

Pros: Immersive and terrifying survival-horror atmosphere, a true return to the classic roots of Resident Evil, a great VR mode, and the new first-person perspective works extremely well

Cons: The puzzles are too easy and too few, the boss fights pale in comparison to the rest of the game, and it’s definitely not recommended for the faint of heart

Buy "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for $49.99

See the rest of the story at Business Insider from Feedburner http://ift.tt/2zURNYb

[jurakan]

I meant to post this on Tumblr when I posted this on Facebook, but I never got around to it. Since @moochiethinks was going to finish replying to that thread on the book I thought I’d post something a little closer to my full thoughts on it.

I’ve been meaning to talk about American Gods for a while, because I’ve had a lot of thoughts since the show came out. I think that this will mostly be about the book, though I don’t know if I can go without mentioning the show, its style of adaptation, and reactions to it. It’s like trying to talk about A Song of Ice and Fire without discussing the impact the show Game of Thrones has had on its perception.

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On American Gods

American Gods by Neil Gaiman was once my favorite book. But it was a difficult book to recommend. There wasn’t yet a guide or annotations that were completely comprehensive (although this guide was online and it was helpful), and there are parts of the book that were difficult. Not just difficult in that they were intentionally strange and repulsive (although there are plenty of those; readers of the book always refer to That Scene, in which Bilquis eats a man through her lady parts), but difficult in that there are tons of references that are bound to fly over most reader’s heads. It’s difficult to get into a book that you don’t know all the details of what’s going on, especially if no one else does either.

But Gaiman had made something I really loved: mythology in the modern day. So did Rick Riordan, who was also one of my favorite authors at the time (and still is, in many ways, though I don’t think he’s as good these days but that’s another essay), but this felt like it was much bigger. Not just Greek mythology, but all mythologies, and the way they struggle to find a place in the modern world.

The gist of the book is this: Shadow Moon, our main character, just got out of jail and his wife has died. Having nowhere else to go, he’s picked up as an employee of a con man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. Wednesday, of course, turns out to be the American incarnation of the Norse god Odin, and he’s doing his best to organize the Old Gods, the deities and mythological figures of the belief systems carried to the US by its immigrants that cling to tradition, so that they can stand united to fight the New Gods. The New Gods are, of course, the things that Americans worship and believe in  now: the Media, Technology, the government’s Men in Black, the cars and computers and big brands.

[Also I feel the need to clarify because a bunch of watchers of the show don’t seem to get this: the gods we see in the story are almost all American incarnations. Mamma-Ji, the American Kali, specifically refers to her Indian counterpart as doing better than her, and Mr. Jacquel, the American Anubis, says that Jesus is doing great in the United States but terrible in Afghanistan.]

The entire story is a journey through roadside America, with contemplations on what it means to be American, what it means to be a believer, and challenges our ideas of worship and deities. It’s pretty gutsy for an author who is neither religious nor American to write, but I think in the end it works. The conclusion of the end of the book is that “America is a bad land for gods,” not that there cannot be gods here, but that they don’t grow well here. We’re always eager to move to the next best thing, and so often questioning our national identity, and since it’s a massive country not everyone’s going to agree on all of these points.

And while I obviously didn’t agree with the idea of gods being created and shaped by believers (as a religious person I think you by necessity can’t agree with that notion), I thought it was an interesting premise. Sadly it’s become overused in fantasy these days, and most people can’t use it anywhere near as intelligently as Gaiman or Pratchett. But when applied well it’s an intriguing thing to think about. The anniversary edition of the book, for instance, has a deleted scene in which Shadow meets Jesus, who is wearing clothes that don’t match and talks about how He looks contradictory because so many people have different ideas of who He is and how He looks.

[The show decided to play with this and say that there are several different incarnations of Jesus, coexisting at the same time, one for each rite, race and denomination. This is an interesting style and leads to great dialogue and visual gags, but it ultimately causes more questions as one wonders where the alternate incarnations of of Odin, or the other Old Gods, could hanging out. It’s not that I was offended as much as it raised too many questions about worldbuilding.]

I remember growing up Catholic there were several times that we were told that the whole ‘Don’t worship idols’ thing doesn’t just apply to pagan deities, it applies to everyday things. Don’t put more value in things like money and fame and television than in God. And for a while that really rang hollow for me, because why would we worship television? No one does that. Except as American Gods points out… we do. We totally do. As Gaiman points out through the character of Media, people will happily sacrifice their time at the “altar” of television.

American culture is terrible for gods, especially nowadays. Someone on Tumblr argued against this point, saying that we came up with the Hollywood movie star and the cowboy archetype and that we still talk about God and His place in the public sphere, so no, we’re just fine when it comes to growing gods. But while I see her point, I think that Gaiman’s not wrong. Because our ideas of celebrity and the like are so...easy to pass through. The concept of the One Hit Wonder comes to mind. We build celebrities up like gods and heroes, sure, but we get over them. We constantly raise up someone as a hero and then demonize someone we previously elevated.

And...just look at this last presidential election. Look at how this (cringeworthy) article right after the election ends with the line “Hillary is Athena” and says that we should start devoting homage to Clinton as if she were a religious figure. Look at this (even more cringeworthy) picture someone took of a person’s van with art comparing Donald Trump to Jesus as a messiah who descended down to the common people to help us out. And both of them are vilified by significant portions of the populace, and ran on campaigns that demonized each other and other prominent members of their parties, past and present, in order to build support for themselves. How often did we talk (on my end of the rainbow, mostly to criticize) Trump saying he was smashing the established system? Or of Clinton desperately trying to appeal to young people through popular memes? And let’s not even get into the causes they supported or fought against, and how those were elevated as deities in and of themselves.

Now I’m depressed about the state of this country again. I mean really guys, we have Donald Trump as a president.

My point was that we are all about elevating people and things as deities and tearing down their predecessors to either forget or make into demons. We happily do it. And in the next election I’m sure we’ll tear those people and ideals down and build new ones instead.

Neil Gaiman’s take on America isn’t flawless, but it’s more insightful than some people give him credit for.

I’ve seen one review claim that the story (and albeit, this was based off of the show) was about being an atheist in a religious country, but...while I don’t want to say they’re wrong (Neil Gaiman’s rule of reading interpretations comes into play here), it’s certainly not the obvious point of the story. The story is about the fickleness of American culture, and how we’re loathe to stick to one type of worship. Another review claimed that American Gods, like Handmaid’s Tale, is about the dangers of religious extremism, which… again is a very odd way to look at the story, considering there isn’t an organized religious group that’s imposing a certain lifestyle on anyone in the story.

But maybe it’s rather telling that people are imposing their own beliefs on a book that is itself about how everyone in this country is obsessed with their own beliefs. Within the novel, reality is shaped by what people believe; likewise in real life, people see through the lense of what they believe, whether it’s something as small as a television show or as large as who’s running the country.

Yes, the novel’s a bit dated, and the series misses several of the really big picture bits of the story (though it’s only the first season, so it could become truly great going forward), but I think American Gods has a lot to teach us about our culture and worship. It’s rough, but it’s worth it. Seeing the discussions arising from the recent adaptation remind me of how much I love the story and how much it influenced my own writing and perceptions of the world.