#but also unfortunately she ends up as another way too prevalent trope of

[dustin-but-gayer]

My post vanished??

Anyway I was bitching about the fact that big box office horror movies like to make white people their lead actors in everything and also for some reason ALWAYS have a poc doing woowoo magic to save the white people from occult shit???

Like if it's not Father CatholicPriest it's the Hispanic neighbor doing Hispanic Catholocism which is totally different and involves witches bells and salt circles in tandem with a rosary or the "weird" African American the main characters look at jusgementally the first time they move into town who performs bastardized voodoo with tarot cards and blood to save them like what the fuck gives

[wintermelonbear]

Artistry

Pairing: Damian Al-Ghul Wayne/Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Trope/s: Childhood Friends, No Powers AU

Summary: A story in which two seemingly dissimilar eight-year-olds build bonds through their love for martial arts. Written for the MGI Trope Tussle 2021.

Words: 4808

Damian and Marinette first met when they were 8 at his mother’s Wushu studio. At first glance they were an unlikely duo, before meeting in martial arts class their social circles ran entirely parallel with one another with Damian attending a private school that was a feeder for Gotham academy and Marinette attending a public elementary local to her, but they truly brought out the best in each other.

Damian had grown up inside his mother’s studio, working day in and day out from the tender age of 3 to improve his weaponry and martial arts skill. His mother and father, divorced but trying their best to co-parent for his sake, each preached to him about the importance of self-discipline and concentration. When his mother and her father, Ras himself a master martial artist, had competed in Wushu they were national champions. As a third-generation practitioner of Wushu, Damian had a lot riding on his shoulders.

Marinette’s mother had practiced Wushu as a child in China. When she first arrived in France she found herself disappointed that there were no local Chinese martial arts centers, let alone Wushu training centers. Sabine always thought it would be a passion she could pass down to her future child, but there was only so much she could teach on her own. However, as fate would have it, after a falling out with Tom’s father Roland the Dupain-Chengs found themselves in a city not too far from Gotham, New Jersey. Sabine was pleasantly surprised to find that the martial arts scene was much more alive there than it had been in Paris. However, between the bakery and her young daughter Sabine had little time to spend practicing martial arts. It wasn’t until Marinette’s kindergarten teacher suggested that Marinette be enrolled in a sport to better her hand-eye coordination that Sabine finally put her daughter into formal martial arts courses.

At first, everything was fine until it became apparent that Marinette was progressing much faster than her peers, despite her typical clumsiness she was surprisingly adept at martial arts. Sabine wasn’t entirely surprised as while Wushu was difficult to teach within the confined space they had at home, she still took the time to practice Tai Chi with her daughter on the weekends, providing Marinette with martial arts fundamentals and self-discipline. With Marinette’s slight inclination for martial arts paired with her hard work she was outperforming her classmates and even some of the older kids at the studio she went to. Eventually, Marinette found herself ostracized by her peers, but her teachers at the studio refused to advance her because they had an in-house rule where children could not be advanced more than two years past their age group. Tom and Sabine knew that pulling Marinette out of the sport entirely was off the table, the pure joy that spread across her face every time she mastered a new trick was proof enough that she was in love with the sport. So they set off to find a new studio to train at, where Marinette’s needs as a budding martial artist would be met. After looking around for a while, they decided to give Talia’s Wushu academy a try despite it being a little over a 30-minute drive from their house.

In regards to the first year of their friendship, Marinette would describe it as very professional, and almost nothing more. It took a while for Damian to become more cordial with her. When asked, Marinette would say “Damian didn’t like me, but he tolerated me enough as a partner because there was only so much practice he could have done alone.”

At first, Damian did not like Marinette at all, in fact, maybe he even hated her. When he first met her, Damian thought she was like every other “talented” kid that came into his mother’s studio, only to realize talent alone would get you nowhere in the sport of Wushu. On her first day, she immediately took up the spot next to him at the front and center of the class and offered him a warm smile, “Hello my name is Marinette, I’m new here.” Damian returned her greeting with a harsh tut of his tongue and the turn of his head, he was there to train, not to make friends. Marinette’s expression was aghast, but she quickly recovered and mumbled a soft “okay not talkative then…this is going great….” Damian suppressed an eye roll, simply because he knew his mother would not tolerate that in her classroom.

Against every one of Damian’s expectations, Marinette proved herself to be a hard-working individual. Eventually, after seeing her work on her technique and tricks after class during open gym hours, seeing that she wasn’t relying purely on natural ability and truly was putting in the effort to become a better martial artist, he began to tolerate her. The first time he returned her daily “Hello” with the nod of his head Marinette’s facial expression went from neutral to shocked to absolutely beaming. Damian simply raised his eyebrow and continued with his pre-class warmup.

Over time Marinette had grown a deep respect for Damian; she wished he was a bit friendlier, but despite their rough start Marinette realized early on that, while gruff and unfriendly, Damian was kind in his own way. He always pointed out when someone’s technique was wrong so that they wouldn’t hurt themselves, he always helped bandage someone up when they were hurt, and he always stayed after class to help his mom clean up. Most people would think he did it out of obligation or his mother’s demands, but Marinette loves people watching, and even after just a few months Marinette has observed that Talia would rather Damian use the time to better himself and will insist that she, or one of their workers, handle the menial tasks.

It was not until Damian saw Marinette work through her struggles that he gained respect for her. While Wushu is a largely performative sport where everyone’s moves are choreographed, Talia wanted to ensure everyone was also learning basic self-defense resulting in regularly held sparring sessions at the end of class. Marinette was a great performer, she was highly expressive and could easily recall choreography, but she had minimal exposure to actual sparring and her reflexes were not as sharp and trained like the others. She managed to win against her opponents in the first few classes by utilizing her creativity, but eventually, her lack of experience caught up with her and in her third month at the studio, she began her losing streak. Looking at her lose to her opponents time and time again he couldn’t help but wonder to himself, “will you still be here tomorrow?” Growing up in the studio, Damian knew that most of the people who were considered to be “gifted” had a tendency to drop out the moment things no longer came naturally to them, they grew frustrated with themselves and then with the sport. At this point, he figured he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, the stage was set for her to become the most prevalent figure in his life.

Despite being in the same classes for over 3 months Damian and Marinette had never sparred. It was actually quite odd that they hadn’t yet sparred, the pairings for the most part were random. Talia reasoned that with the right circumstances even someone who seems weak could win; it was important to never underestimate an opponent and lower your guard. After bowing to one another their eyes met. If you asked them as adults they would unabashedly say that they love the other’s eyes, it was like staring at the calm before a storm. Their eyes were clear, fierce, and piercing. Despite being clearly disadvantaged Marinette showed no fear. She met his first few strikes blow for blow and even managed to evade a few of his strikes with a few unique tumbling passes – something Damian noted that she excelled in. He could tell she has been studying him, observing his strike patterns from his previous matches. Rather than reacting to his strikes, she was anticipating them – a smart move considering her reflexes were lacking. Unfortunately for Marinette, this meant that one unanticipated fake was all it took to defeat her.

That night during open gym hours Marinette approached Damian on her own for the first time. “There is only so much I can practice on my own, please train with me.”

“Why would I do that?” Damian held his face firm, his mouth in a thin line and his eyebrow slightly quirked.

Marinette’s eyes steeled over with conviction. “Did you know that every time you get up from xie bu you duck your chin down in your struggle to regain balance? It’s obvious you’re trying to shift your center of gravity. Instead, try leaning on your front leg from the beginning. The first few times you try this method, you should put a ball between your chin and neck to keep your head held up until you get used to it.”

“How did you–?”

“Notice? I love observing others, I can help you. There’s only so much we can practice on our own. I need help with my reflexes and you need someone who can review your performances. We can’t do this alone. You don’t have to like me, you just have to work with me. What do you say? Deal?”

“Tch. Deal.”

At first, their conversations mainly consisted of Marinette’s one-sided chatter during their warm-up, breaks, and cool-down stretches. It took a while for Marinette to get Damian to open up, but once she found the right topics she found that he was strongly opinionated about almost everything and shared quite a few hobbies with her. While Wushu was the common interest that brought them together, they were much more alike than they thought. They both enjoyed art, video games, and superhero shows to name a few common interests. Damian would say he would want to be a hero without any powers, someone who relies on their own skill to punish evil-doers. Marinette on the other hand would love to be a magical girl who could save others without causing too much damage. After hotly debating the topic of normal heroes and powered heroes, Damian and Marinette came to an agreement that both sides had their own set of struggles and perks.

Damian and Marinette found themselves spending more time with each other both inside and outside of the studio. After arguing over which type of paint was superior, Marinette was team watercolor because of its varied use, relative cheapness to oil paints, and blendability where Damian was a more traditional artist who believed that the blending capabilities of oil paint were just as good, if not better, and their longevity was worth the cost, the two decided to settle it with a paint off. Art sessions quickly became a biweekly tradition between the two, whenever the Gotham botanical garden would have a new exhibit Marinette would insist they go to sketch the flora. Damian quickly found that Marinette was almost as passionate about plants as he was about animals, with the way she flitted about the garden he couldn’t help but wonder if she had been something like a ladybug in her past life. There were also plenty of weekends spent sketching Damian’s pets, though Marinette would note that no drawings could capture what good boys Titus, Alfred the Cat, Jerry the Turkey, and Bat Cow were.

Together they found new ways to integrate Wushu into their hobbies, Marinette had plenty of friends at school who loved art and plenty of friends who did Wushu at the same center, but Damian was the only one she shared nearly all her passions with.

With their art, they began making flyers and posters for the studio, and banners to cheer on their classmates at competitions – Damian would argue he only did this because it would increase morale, which in turn would produce better results for the studio. Marinette struggled with the posters at first as a lot of proposed designs incorporated traditional Chinese characters, she couldn’t even write in Pinyin! Tom and Sabine had prioritized teaching Marinette about her French roots, in the event that one day they decided to move back to France, and neglected teaching her much about Chinese heritage. Marinette still learned basic conversational phrases: yes, no, please, thank you, and familial titles, but she was nowhere near conversational or fluent. After realizing Marinette did not know how to speak Mandarin Damian made it his personal goal to make her at least conversational before they would begin to travel internationally for competitions. Many of the major Wushu competitions took place in China and if Marinette was going to be his partner in the couples division he was going to make sure she was able to converse with any interviewers they may meet, and that if she were to end up lost – he swears Marinette was born without a sense of direction – that she could find her way back to him or their hotel. He hoped that while working on the banners he could work in a few lessons on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters so that Marinette could at least read signs. Apart from art, reenacting scenes from video game cutscenes and superhero movies became one of their favorite activities, it became a way to train while still having plenty of fun. Sometimes after mastering a new move-in Ultimate Mecha Strike, they would break out the crash mats to test if the moves in the game were actually physically possible.

Even the hobbies Damian didn’t share with Marinette he was willing to partake in, and the fact that he was trying meant the world to Marinette. Damian was rarely physically affectionate in the first few years of their friendship, and it was even rarer for him to vocalize his emotions, and so Marinette quickly learned that Damian had a tendency to express himself through his actions. A lot of people failed to see how warm and loving Damian truly was, but Marinette saw it in how he interacted with everyone. For example, when Damian’s eldest brother opened up an acrobatics and gymnastics center Damian immediately volunteered to design and paint a mural on the outside that would more easily catch attention, Marinette watched him alter the design day and night and sort through hundreds of color palettes to ensure the pairing was just right. She saw his kindness through his interactions with his family and hers, the painting of her mom and dad baking, a gift from Damian for their 20th anniversary, hung up in the living room was more physical proof of it. When Marinette began sewing he proudly wore her designs and when she began to take commissions, he always kept her business card on his body in the event someone asked about his apparel.

One of Marinette’s fondest memories with Damian was when they decided to host a bake sale to offset the cost of international travel for the competition team. It was near the Mid-Autumn festival so Marinette and her parents decided to make mooncakes. Damian had some experience in the kitchen helping his mother make baozi and baklava, but he definitely wasn’t as experienced as Marinette who grew up in a bakery, yet he still came over to help them with the first few test batches and to help design packaging. Watching him carefully weigh out the ingredients her parents listed and chat about his favorite flavors with her parents in French filled her with so much warmth. The kitchen was filled with banter as a discourse between traditional baked mooncakes and skin mooncakes arose. Marinette and Sabine preferred snow skin mooncakes, the chewiness pairs well with pastes like red bean and taro, where Damian and Tom were strongly on the side of the more traditionally baked mooncake, arguing that the crumble of the pastry paired with fillings like salted egg and lotus paste was clearly superior. Marinette was unsurprised that Damian was strongly advocating for traditional flavors, but her father? The same man who made mustard macarons? It wasn’t until Marinette suggested thousand-layer mooncakes were simply croissants with a pasty filling that everyone else was willing to set aside their different preferences to unite against her. While the thousand layer mooncakes and traditional mooncakes baked, and the snow skin mooncakes steamed Marinette and Damian got to work on the packaging. In order to reduce cost, they had ordered plain packaging and planned to carve potato stamps with Mid-Autumn festival motifs: the moon, rabbits, flowers, fans, and lanterns. Despite having seen how proficient Damian was with a blade in training, Marinette was pleasantly surprised, if not downright awed, by Damian’s precision with a knife. By the time Marinette had finished carving out one flower Damian had finished three lantern carvings. After finishing stamping the final package Marinette daringly pressed the still paint-laden potato stamp onto Damian’s cheek which quickly devolved into a paint fight. The picture of Damian and Marinette covered head to two in paint was proudly pinned at the top of her corkboard, Marinette would never forget the sound of the kitchen filled with laughter that day.

Damian’s parents were extremely supportive of this arrangement. Talia thought it was a great opportunity, open gym hours were busy and she couldn’t give all her attention to Damian, having a training partner could really help him grow. If they got along well they could even enter paired events together! Bruce was enthralled that his son found someone to spend time with other than his friend Clark’s son, Jon. Jon and Damian were great friends, but Jon lived in Metropolis and so the boys rarely saw each other outside of business galas and Skype calls. It was nice knowing his son had someone he could spend time with in person, Bruce was concerned that Damian’s interpersonal growth would be stunted by his lack of interaction with his classmates at school. To see his son being a kid, laughing freely, filled him with great joy, he knew that being the son of a billionaire and a top-notch martial artist had put a lot of pressure on Damian’s shoulders, but he never knew what he could do to help his son. Seeing the walls in Damian’s room at the manor fill up with pictures of him and Marinette smiling, Damian smiling, made Bruce figure that everything was going to be okay.

Sabine and Tom grew to love Damian like their own son with the more time he spent at each other’s houses. At first, they were a bit skeptical, they didn’t quite understand what their daughter saw in the boy, but they trusted her judgment and boy are they glad they did. Damian was like a missing piece of their family, despite his hard exterior, the boy was extremely loyal and caring, they could always count on him to have Marinette’s back. Sabine especially had a soft spot for him after watching him correct Marinette’s brush strokes on the banners, teaching her the differences between what she wrote and what he was writing. The two watched their daughter give herself wholly to this boy, and in return, he gave himself back to her and that was all they could’ve ever wanted for Marinette, to love and be loved.

As they grew older they shared more than just common interests: their dreams, their fears, and the pressure they faced from their families. Marinette knew what she wanted for herself – something Damian was envious of. When they were 11 to offset the competition costs, Marinette’s mother began designing and sewing their competition outfits. Once Marinette saw what her mother was doing she wanted to help, and she ended up falling in love with fashion design. From the age of 13 and onward Marinette designed all of her own stage wear, as well as Damian’s. Sabine would joke that with such a talented daughter it’s a shame they didn’t stay in Paris. Damian wouldn’t admit it – Marinette would – but the thought of possibly never meeting Marinette made him feel uncomfortably empty; he wonders how he bore with that feeling before becoming close with Marinette. Damian wasn’t sure what he wanted for himself, he would love to take over his mother’s Wushu studio, maybe even expand it, but he was always raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit his father’s corporation. Despite loving both options, loving both his parents, there was also a part of him that wanted something that was completely Damian, he had already spent so much of his life living in the shadow of his parents. It wasn’t until high school that Damian opened up to Marinette about this, as the time to make decisions grew closer Damian naturally grew more anxious about his future. Marinette rarely gets the chance to comfort Damian, oftentimes he bottles his emotions up until they’re ready to burst, and even then Marinette has to slowly coax him into talking about them, even if it is with his brothers and not her, she just wants him to feel safe with his own emotions. The first time Damian opened up to her about the pressure he felt as his parent’s only biological son she immediately swept him into her arms, stroking his hair she began to tell him about how loved he was. She told him “Damian I love you, your family loves you, my family loves you. I just want you to know how loved you are. I speak not only for myself, but for everyone who loves you when I say this, do what makes you happy. Your parents will be happy as long as you are, they trust that they raised you to make good decisions for yourself. Even if you don’t know what it is that makes you happy yet, don’t be afraid to explore your options; I’ll be right here by your side and I’m going to support you no matter what. You’ve told me before that even if you inherit the studio Maya would co-own it with you, or even if you inherit your father’s business you would be working alongside your brothers. You are not alone, the world is not riding on solely your shoulders.” Damian was completely silent, if not for the wetness on her shoulder and his grip tightening around her, Marinette would figure he was unphased. Marinette has known that she loves this boy, far past the platonic love she just expressed, but for Damian, it was at this moment that he realized that not only was he loved, but he was in love with Marinette.

“WELCOME TO THE WORLD WUSHU CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019 LIVE FROM GOTHAM, NEW JERSEY” roared overhead on the speakers.

Damian and Marinette were standing in a hall away from the main room where other contestants were preparing themselves both appearance-wise and physically. Marinette herself was fixing the crown braid in her hair. The women’s event would take place in the morning to late afternoon, where the men’s event in the evening giving Damian ample time before he needs to warm up to support Marinette. He gave Marinette’s ensemble a once over and with his cheeks tinged red he muttered “I like your costume, you look really cute”, quickly averting his gaze.

Marinette immediately flushed, almost as red as the silken top that adorned her torso, and brought the hands that were adjusting her braids down to her hips and leaned forward, exclaiming in a hushed shout as to not disturb the other competitors warming up, “Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, are you making fun of me? I just want to make sure that any pictures taken do not make me look like a hot mess. Could you imagine what could happen if Audrey Bourgeois sees pictures of me completely frumpled looking and cancels my apprenticeship?? Oh my God and then Parson’s will find out and rescind me and then I won’t be able to visit you at NYU!” Marinette’s hands now rested on her cheeks smearing away her perfectly placed blush. How Marinette managed to go from disgruntled to spiraling in less than a minute is still a mystery that still eludes Damian after years of friendship, but it was his duty to calm her down. He understands her nerves, they had spent the last few years dominating the juniors division and as they entered the senior division there was a lot of pressure for them to win there too. Unfortunately, for every person who wanted them to win, another five were praying for them to slip up, but now is not the time to be overcome by nerves, her turn would come soon and she cannot afford to be overwhelmed by nerves.

Damian fully grasped her wrists pulling her hands away from her face, “Marinette, genuinely you look stunning”. After that comment, Damian noted to himself that it seems like there was no more need for the blush she applied anyways. With the soft tut of his tongue, he smoothed out the harsh lines of her smeared blush using the pad of his thumb. He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, “Don’t worry too much about your hair and makeup, the most important thing is your form”. Marinette leaned into his touch and gave a small nod, calming down from her spiraling thoughts, he always knew how to ground her.

“Contestant number 54 you’re up next!”

“That’s you; you might want to fix up your makeup real quick, but everything is going to be fine.” He handed her a bag with her cosmetics and a wipe and quickly clapped his hands around her shoulders to guide her to the main stage so she could focus on herself.

Fixing her makeup Marinette shot him a cheeky grin, “wish me luck?”

“You don’t need luck. Marinette you have the skill, you know that.”

“Next up is Marinette Dupain-Cheng from New Jersey, USA! She is definitely a fan favorite to win today on the Women’s Taolu floor. She is internationally known for competing not only in the women’s division but also in the couples’ scene. She’s been training for the individual event from the age of six and for the partner event from the age of nine with her studio mate Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, who is predicted to win the Men’s Taolu event. While we do not have a couples’ Wushu competition here, since turning 18 they have been dominating the senior international couples’ Wushu scene and have gone undefeated.”

Taking off her team jacket, with a quick nod to her parents, Talia, and of course, Damian Marinette strode to the center stage. Damian would never grow sick of watching her transform on stage, it was strikingly similar to the magical girl shows she had been obsessed with as a child. The moment Marinette stepped onto the mat her whole demeanor changed. Her back straightened up, her head would be held high, and most of all, the look in her eyes was filled with inextinguishable fire.

By the end of the event after getting changed Marinette and Damian were making their way to his car. Once Damian turned 16 and got his license, it became a tradition for them to go out for a celebratory meal together without their parents. “Marinette!” Damian heard a voice call out, Agreste he noted in his head. Marinette had met Agreste and Tsurugi while vacationing in Paris. While they weren’t the worst, in fact, Tsurugi was typically pleasant company, Damian was in no mood to socialize after the several rounds of interviews he had to endure after winning first place in Men’s Taolu. Many of the interviewers failed to understand that while yes, he had more opportunities to train as he is a third-generation Wushu champion, it was his hard work that got him to where he was, not his genetics.

Seeing Damian continue on to his car, not wanting to keep him waiting, Marinette quickly bid them farewell with a promise to see them tomorrow. “Hey wait for me!” Marinette called out, running after Damian. Despite his pride usually preventing him from heeding to his peers’ commands, Damian stopped in his tracks, his breath shallow and wondering why Marinette’s voice still makes his heartthrob despite having heard it call out to him for over 10 years. Feeling her hands latch around his arm gave him a sense of comfort. Her grip was strong and steady, yet still gentle. He couldn’t help but envision his hand in hers instead of his arm. The bouquet and hand-painted card in his car were waiting to see if she felt the same.

[darlingxdarkling]

I can’t believe my first Medium article is a pop culture piece criticizing Sindel’s depiction in MK11 Aftermath, but you know what? It’s totally worth it.

Full text under the cut in case the article is inaccessible because of Medium’s paywall. I want my pieces to be as accessible to the public as possible.

Warning: Heavy spoilers for Mortal Kombat 11 and its expansion, Aftermath.

Ever since its first release in 1992, the Mortal Kombat franchise is known for its extreme, action-packed violence and gore that led to the creation of the ESRB. It’s also know for its controversial depictions of scantily-clad women; however, did this not deter female gamers from becoming fans of the franchise, myself included. Admittedly I am one of the fans of Mortal Kombat who was late to the party, partly due to my age and inaccessibility of gaming platforms, only discovering Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in 2010 while playing with my older cousins, who were mostly boys.

Eyes fixated on the pixelated, motion-captured sprites on the screen in wonder, I remember being a fan of characters such as Raiden, Nightwolf, and Sindel. Especially Sindel, whom I grew to adore because of her regal, gothic appearance. Due to the stereotype that gaming is a masculine interest prevalent during those times, I felt alienated at times, having no other female playmate aside from my younger sister. However, seeing female characters such as Sindel gave me characters to identify with in my formative years.

A decade later, I still am a fan of the franchise, and of those characters. With the years that passed, there had been significant changes in the video game industry, and the clamor for better depictions of women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other minorities. Mortal Kombat is one of the franchises that changed with the times, even introducing their first confirmed gay character Kung Jin in Mortal Kombat X, and depicting classic character Mileena and 3D era character Tanya as lovers in the same game, confirming that Mileena is indeed canonically bisexual.

Mortal Kombat X’s female character designs were diverse and realistic too; there were some female characters whose designs didn’t show too much skin, like Sonya Blade’s main costume, befitting her role and demeanor as a tough-as-nails general, and there were female characters like Mileena who had more skin in her costumes, justified by her character’s desire to compensate for her monstrous Tarkatan genes. It’s not perfect, but overall, Mortal Kombat X is a breath of fresh air to the franchise. As a bisexual, an Asian, and a woman, I felt seen. I felt good, because minorities like me are respectfully represented.

As for its sequel, Mortal Kombat 11, there are some noteworthy depictions of real-life social issues in the game, such as colonization, which is explored with Nightwolf’s revamped lore. In the rewrite, Nightwolf is depicted as someone who used to be angry that his people, a fictional Native American tribe called the Matoka, resigned themselves to colonizers in his youth, but was blessed by his tribe’s deity, the Great Spirit, with power to help his tribe move forward after he defended the Matoka’s honor against Kano. The subject of race is also explored with Jax’s ending, where he uses the power he obtains from the hourglass to create a world where Black people were never enslaved, which garnered manufactured outrage despite the lack of any real controversy. Another example is Fujin’s ending, where he uses his power to experience the lives of mortals of different races, realms, genders, and faiths, putting emphasis on the value of integrating with the masses in order to understand and serve them better.

However, there are some aspects of the game that left a bad taste in my mouth. No, that would be an understatement. It left me furiously disappointed.

John Vogel is the lead writer for the franchise since John Tobias’ departure, writing the bulk of the story until he left around after Mortal Kombat X. Dominic Cianciolo becomes co-writer, alongside Shawn Kittelsen. Cianciolo is credited as the Story Director for Mortal Kombat 11, and thus responsible for the bulk of the plot.

After being unplayable in MKX, Sindel returns to the MK11 roster in a Kombat Pack, expansions featuring characters who aren’t present in the main story or are guest fighters from another franchise, such as Nightwolf and the Joker from the DC Universe. At the announcement of their return, I was ecstatic. The way Nightwolf’s character is handled and the added lore left me positive and hopeful for Sindel’s return.

But then, the retcon happened.

Originally, Sindel is the deceased mother of Kitana whose husband was killed by Shao Kahn. She then sacrificed herself through a suicide pact in order to protect the realms, and was brought back to life as an evil queen by Shao Kahn milennia later, but then escapes his hold. Here, she is made to be evil all along, responsible for her husband’s death and willingly coming with Shao Kahn to rule alongside him. Sindel becomes a character from her society’s ruling class who is obsessed with preserving her privileged position. Some fans claim that this new depiction is “empowering”, but is it really progressive?

Today, the terms “empowerment” and “women’s empowerment” are becoming buzzwords used by advertisers and big industry writers in an attempt to sell their product to a growing number of women who takes part in geek culture or play video games, and a society with values that are getting more and more progressive. Some people call this phenomena “woke capitalism”, where a corporation adopts progressive political causes. The gaming industry is not exempt from that; people pay for games, downloadable content, and microtransactions after all.

More often than not, when male writers write “strong” female characters, they tend to focus solely on enhancing traditionally masculine values, such as fighting ability, ignoring what other values female characters have that make them strong, or they tend to be horribly, horribly tone-deaf, which I will explain in detail later. These representations of “women’s empowerment” should force us to reexamine the media we consume, and discern whether these are genuine depictions of social issues or woke capitalism disguised as such.

In the first place, why are so many writers obsessed with “empowering” female characters, instead of writing them as characters capable of fighting for their emancipation?

Empowerment is passive; it’s something granted by those who hold power, not earned nor fought for. In the rewritten Sindel’s case, she is empowered by Shao Kahn when he took her as his wife and gave her the privileges he enjoys. Sindel’s empowerment is selfish; her rise to power did not empower, emancipate, nor liberate her daughter Kitana, nor Jade, nor Mileena, nor the women of Outworld. On the contrary, it made life worse and oppressive for all of Outworld’s denizens, including its women, who now have to serve not one, but two privilege-drunk monarchs who rule with an iron fist. If that’s the values the writers want to impart on their audience, I have serious doubts on the sincerity of their “wokeness”.

The release of Aftermath takes things up to eleven, where Sindel betrays her own daughter to be with Shao Kahn, who, originally, enslaves her and forces her into marriage, which holds so much unfortunate implications for those in abusive relationships. It doesn’t help that Cianciolo liked a tweet from a fan that said the original Sindel, an abuse survivor, was never an empowered female character and a was bad mother for killing herself and leaving her child behind, bringing even more unfortunate implications not just for women in abusive relationships, but also for people who struggle with suicide. Somehow, Cianciolo and the fans that agree with him ignore these implications altogether and believes that the new haughty, tyrannical Sindel is an example of a strong female character. This isn’t the first time male writers tried their hand at feminist writing and ended up with tone-deaf plot decisions.

Cianciolo took a nuanced and well-written character and turned her into Shao Kahn 2.0. What happened is essentially the creative butchering of Sindel’s character; she went from being a survivor to an oppressor. Shao Kahn already fills the role of a cruel tyrant who refuses to relinquish his privilege for the good of the masses, and rewriting Sindel to become his distaff counterpart is not necessary at all. This treatment of her character isn’t feminist or progressive at all; it’s poorly-disguised misogyny. It’s implying that a woman can only be powerful if she submits to her husband so that he may grant her a taste of privilege reserved for powerful men, an antiquated sentiment best left to the feudal ages. Granted, the fictional realm of Outworld is ruled by a monarchy, but Sindel’s previous characterization is proof that writers can refuse or avoid using that trope.

Emancipation, on the other hand, is an active role; according to Ruane and Todd, it is “a process by which the participants in a system which determines, distorts and limits their potentialities come together actively to transform it, and in the process transform themselves.” This concept can be applied more appropriately to pre-retcon Sindel.

Going back to my days as a highly impressionable teenager, though I grew interested in her for her benevolent demeanor despite her intimidating appearance, Sindel’s roles as a survivor and a leader are what cemented my love for the character. Shao Kahn murdered her husband, usurped the throne, conquered her kingdom, and coerced her to be his wife. Later, she sacrificed herself for the greater good of a realm, and after being resurrected as an evil brainwashed puppet, she finally broke free from her abuser. With her newfound agency, she became a queen of Outworld who recognized her privilege and used it to stand with its masses against tyrants, and she also becomes a doting mother to Kitana, demonstrating great love for her family. When finally removed from her abuser’s influence, Sindel chose to be free, she chose to lead her people benevolently, and she chose to be with her true family. This Sindel broke free from the traditional Outworld power structure that Shao Kahn perpetrated for thousands of years, no longer a bride to be forcefully taken, nor a pawn to be manipulated by its emperor.

If you can look past the scanty costume design standard for video games of that era, the original Sindel could be a female character ahead of her time. Original Sindel not only can kick ass, she also has agency, willpower, and a heart; a strong female character with good writing. For those reasons, Cianciolo’s Sindel is #NotMySindel.

[caithyra]

Full Circle: Almost An Arthur

One of the reasons why I believe Mad Queen Dany divided fandom so badly is because, well, ASOIAF has often been touted as the Fantasy that is either realistic or unlike other Fantasies.

Unfortunately, it looped back on its head until it wasn’t what was advertised.

I mean, lets talk about this Destined Heir who is growing up from humble beginnings after being displaced from the Throne. Little Arthur Pendragon is little more than a squire for a knight’s son, but then it is revealed that Estel is in reality Aragorn, descendant of the great kings of old! There is a even a prophecy that decrees that when the End comes to the world, Belgarion will be there and stop it! So it was a great day of hope when Dany rose from the ashes with dragons on her shoulders!

Except... There this lady, a woman, high-ranked, a queen who got a bit too much power, and we know these hysterical wimmens and Mad/Evil Queens are just sooo original that this story has at least two heavily featured ones and possibly more by the time this series ends!

Move over Menzoberranzan and make way for Meereen!

And then Alistair (bastard and only known surviving son of the previous king’s father) grew pissy because I wouldn’t kill Loghain in front of his daughter, the queen, and took the throne from Queen Anora (that ambitious btch according to fandom, who happen to have been the widow of the deceased king, oh and that king was about to set her aside to marry the Empress of Orlais, more on her empire later, that the grandking freed the kingdom from after a... shall we say, bad occupation in which Loghain’s mother AND dog were literally rped to death because taxes by Orlesian knights?) and ten years later sends messages in which he’s so incompetent his scribes make fun of him yet the kingdom is still running fine. Also, to receive your knighthood in the Orlesian Empire you have to go to the ghettos where the elven jewish equivalents live and kill random elves! And that’s just the surface of this empire ruled by a queen/empress (oh, and the great-grandqueen who started the rebellion to free the kingdom died before it was free, just to make sure there’s no counterpoint Good Queen in Thedas).

Well, I think you all might notice a pattern in popular Fantasy, now, right? Like, Male Destined Heir/Patriarchy=Good; Queens/Empresses/Matriarchies=Bad/Mad and/or incompetent?

And here we have a main female character, “rightful” heir to the Throne of Westeros who Brings Magic Back and all that, and taking into account the whole “Not Like Other Fantasy Series” (”Not Like Other Strong Female Characters”... “Not Like Other Girls”?), and I can totally see why Dany fans cannot believe that she’s meant to go Mad/Evil Queen. Especially with Queen Cersei Lannister having been born a monster worse than Scylla and Carybdis at birth.

The thing is, GRRM/D&D weren’t just content doing Destined Heir with a Twist just by making her female.

They wanted to deconstruct the Destined Heir trope.

Slavery, Colonialism, and you name it. They threw it at this trope to deconstruct it, completely blind to how, simply by making the Heir a woman they were looping back onto another, overly worn, overly annoying, overly prevalent Fantasy trope. Is it really any wonder that a lot of viewers/readers rebelled against this idea?

“Off with their heads!Dracarys!” - The Queen of HeartsDaenerys Targaryen

And then there are those who believe that yes, Dany will turn mad, just not as in the show, and, well, I agree with them. And it is also kinda obvious that with Aegon Targaryen (whether he is the real deal or not) will change a lot of things by virtue of not being Jon Snow.

I could go into my fan theory that Aegon is the Real Deal. That he will bond with Rhaegal. That he will marry Arianne Martell. That Dany will try to force him to marry her instead. That Aegon wont abandon his wife (or take a second one like Aegon the Conqueror) like Rhaegar abandoned Elia Martell. That Dany will believe that history will repeat itself (she believes that if Rhaegar married her instead, she would have been able to keep him in her bed unlike Elia) and kills them in a fury.

Killing her nephew unhinges her, but killing Rhaegal’s rider causes him to abandon her and be vulnerable and ensnared by the Greyjoys’ Dragon Horn unhinges her even more, and so on... But basically, no one will be under any illusions about her sanity or suitability long before she gets near the Iron Throne.

And I could go on, but that’s just a fan theory. My point is that things would go waaay different than in the show, and yeah, with how the books are right now, it can’t really go in the direction of the show even if characters end up “more or less” the same (according GRRM).

There are those who thinks it will go the same, but it really can’t with Aegon not being Jon (unless that’s how Jon will be rezzed, by warging his half-brother, but then again, my theory is that rezzed Jon is a fire-wight with his memories, much like Beric and Stoneheart, and the real Jon will forever be inside Ghost, thus turning Jon’s Ghost into Jon’s ghost, lol, gotta stop fan theorizing), and with the Greyjoys’ story being so different.

The point is that whatever your view point, it is pretty gosh darn annoying that when we for once get a female Arthur Pendragon in a mainstream series, they turn her into a colonialist, slave-owning, pyromaniac Mad Queen.

Like, we have a whole bunch of Mad Queens (or potential Mad Queens)! We even have Cersei Lannister for the Unrealistically-Proportioned-Castles-and-Wall’s sake!

“[...]of course you get into Sansa being jealous of Dany[...]” - David Nutter, Director of Game of Thrones

“[...]Then the Queen was shocked, and turned yellow and green with envy.[...]She called a [ranger], and said, "Take the [Dragon Queen] away into the [Godswood...erm, Red Keep]; I will no longer have her in my sight. Kill her, and bring me back her heart as a token."[...]” - Little Snow-White, a fairy-tale

Yeah... So... Yeah... Here we are?

Anyway, this wasn’t a defense or an attack of Dany (or any other character). It’s just one of the many times I notice how, in an effort to deconstruct a trope, the authors ended up rewriting a much more tired and offensive one instead. Essentially looping in a full circle back to being trite.

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Kiznaiver - Thoughts

I just finished Kiznaivers and despite people on both sides saying that they love it or hate it, I can say that it fits the niche that I was looking for, so I really liked it. I like shows where romance is prevalent but not the most relevant plot point of the show. The cast wasn’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, and I ended up enjoying this more than I should’ve. I’m about to get hyper-critical on a show that was given a 9/10 on MAL because that 9 was purely based on enjoyment.

Pros

Voice Cast

Good cast of characters (at times)

Good concept

Good script (at times)

Amazing art

Stunning music

Cons

Some of the characters aren’t that great

Lots of things are left hanging or just never got addressed ever

Story and writing can leave some things to be desired

Was not done to its fullest potential

Spoilers and full thing below!

Story

I separated stories and characters this time because I felt like I wanted to address both on their own.

The script was written by Mari Okada who’s known for writing the script for other sob stories like Anthem of the Heart and Anohana. I really like her writing despite criticism saying that her style is melodramatic. The script was a bit stuck at times during its idle moments, but when it was trying to hit, sometimes, it truly resonated with me. But I’ll admit, the tone of the show had a few mixed messages at times that took away the impact of her writing. It was unfortunate but between the mascot things and the Trigger art style, I understand how people think that the show can’t be taken seriously.

The story itself... needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Or maybe a small pile. Heck, just take the whole bag of salt. It establishes more questions than they could ever answer within their run. While you can mount most of this to humans and their stupid ideas, I have a hard time believing that this happened in modern-day Japan with kids under the government’s eye with mascots roaming about. Yeah... it gets off to a bit of a rough start.

Characters

In this kind of show, characters are vital to the show’s success. This show takes the classic “seven deadly sins” and spin them off using a mix of classic anime tropes. We have the “lifeless kid”, “tsundere”, “thug”, “eccentric freak”, “ikemen”, “cold bitch”, and “insane masochist”. We also have the “mysterious girl” to top it all off, but I found her annoying throughout the duration of the entire story. It didn’t even matter once her backstory was revealed, I didn’t like her. 

But want to know the weird thing? I liked the tsundere and thug. Chidori and Tenga were my favourite characters. This cast was written pretty well. Maki the “cold” one gets the development she deserved. We barely touched upon the other characters besides Noriko, Katsuhira, Maki, and the environment. Maki’s development had so much potential, and luckily, they used a lot of it. However, as I mentioned before, too many ends were left undone. We see characters have issues that are never addressed. One character arguably has an eating disorder, and I was waiting for them to come out, say, it, and show us that it’s okay to come out. And for a male character at that. Why couldn’t we have that? And Maki’s development, she’s bisexual. It’s canon. Nice. I think they could’ve gone further into it. Where and how did Chidori and Kacchon meet if he wasn’t “always like this”? I felt that the romantic connection between Niko and Tenga was kind of forced within episodes eight and nine, but that scene in episode eight and nine was so well done by all standards. Given the certain circumstances, maybe it didn’t hit that hard, but for me, it gave a pretty good impact. The love confessions were so well acted that even if the feelings flew over my head, I still felt bad for them.

The way I see it, Noriko and Katsuhira go way back and their past is the reason why they wreak havoc on these other people’s lives (I weirdly didn’t like either of the leads). Noriko does it because she’s in pain, and Katsuhira is like this because he never got over his childhood crush and doesn’t understand anything. Chidori deserves better than she got, I don’t know why she gets so much hate. Her design is cute, she has the perfect voice, and she’s transparent making her very easy to read. Tenga is super transparent too. He’s the kindhearted thug, and I like that trope. His genuine liking towards Chidori comes across easily. I also like the whole “trying to set people up but falling in love along the way” when it’s done right (look at Toradora). Yuta is good, but we got nothing on him. Maki is great. She got the development she deserved, and even though it took a whole chunk of the show, it was one of the best parts of the series. Hisomu is just a messy insert character who is a masochist because it fit the niche of the series. He also spews wisdom at times because he’s a plot device. I didn’t strongly hate any of the cast.

Art

Yuzuru Tachikawa has worked on Death Parade and Mob Psycho 100. And with Trigger’s style, the anime turned out great. The OP and ED were stunning in their own right. Even when the anime got emotional, it was still good! The art did its job great and showed the eccentric side of their characters in a way that made me believe them even more. 

Sound

This is one of the strongest parts of the anime. The OP by BOOM BOOM SATELLITES was so catchy, fitting, and I know they won’t ever make a song like that again because of the tragic death of one of the two members but this song was such a high note. The ending was great and with the visuals, I liked it! The score was done by Yuki Hayashi which I didn’t find out until after I watched the show, and if you don’t know what he has worked on, he has done Haikyuu, My Hero Academia, and more. When they use the soundtrack, it’s really good. I just wish they let it showcase a little more.

The voice acting! Where do I even start? 

Another role for Kaji, and honestly, I have heard too many main characters by him now. My outlook was like Katsuhira. It was so bland. His performance as an actor was great leaving little to ask for, but I almost wish this role was given to a smaller voice actor to get their big break.

Tomoaki Maeno has blown me away quite a few times with his performance in Death Parade and Hak in Akatsuki no Yona. He was also really good as Doujou in Library Wars and the White Blood Cell in Hataraku Saibou. However, he has had quite a few misses for me. One of the biggest misses was the main character role as *cough* Dino (*STOMPS FOOT*) in Blend S.

Nobunaga Shimazaki is quite a capable voice actor too, but he is mostly known for a certain niche with his higher voice. Ironically, this character in Kiznaiver doesn’t hesitate to swim. One of his most notable roles is Haruka Nanase from Free. I personally know him for playing Shinichi in Parasite and Kaidou from Saiki. I would say something more, but as his character wasn’t developed much, what can I say? A voice actor only gets as good as the writing does.

Ironically, both Yuka Terasaki and Hibiku Yamamura are known for voicing the child versions of a lot of main characters but don’t get as many main characters themselves.

And I tried to see whether there was any other Terasaki role that I would want to watch, and honestly, there wasn’t anything (since I hold general consensus and genre above voice actors). I wanted there to be, but there wasn’t any. Her performance for Chidori was so powerful, innocent, pure, naive, and raw that I was genuinely surprised. Terasaki got married a little while back. Congrats! Maeno and Terasaki both gave me surprises performance-wise.

But you know who else surprised me? Kuno. Misaki Kuno. I only know her for voicing children or babies or the token mascot pig. This was genuinely surprising. I had already heard Sugita and her having a heart-to-heart conversation, and I heard her interview saying that she had a hard time with this role, but it came out beautifully.

Rina Satou is a very, very, very strong voice actress. She’s almost as old as Sugita and Nakamura. She’s married with a kid, and this role was done just a year before that news came about. In fact, this anime came out in 2016, but within that same year, she revealed she had a kid and was married. You probably heard her voice somewhere, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of mainstream leading roles. She does have a seiyuu award for Best Leading Actress though.

And Koutarou Nishiyama... right... him... his BL career (assuming he has one) is paying off because you can certainly see it shine? I don’t know. The writing didn’t let this character go far. Maybe another role will make me respect him as an actor.

This show had a strong voice cast, and it’s one of the strongest parts of the show.

[captainpikeachu]

my crimes of grindelwald review

so some time back, people were asking me about my feels regarding this movie, i didn’t put out a review then because i was still thinking things through and rewatching the movie and re-reading the screenplay

but now that it’s been some time since the movie opened, i feel like i’m at a good place to be sure of my feelings about the film

to put it simply:

am i going to watch it a million times and scream about my feels? YES.

do i think that it is a good film? NO.

------------------------------------

the good:

the visuals of course are amazing, these FB films have a sense of confidence in its visual flair and that’s not shocking given that most of the people working on these films have been doing films in this world for like over a decade

the performances are great, whenever the cast is allowed to have their little interactions, they nail it and make the most of what they are given

the beasts are frankly the best parts of anything, they’re cute and adorable and amazing and i wish this whole film series actually was focused on the beasts

Newt and Theseus’ relationship thankfully was not one of jerky older brother bullying younger brother, no, Theseus is actually a great and caring older brother and their hugs are everything

Jacob is a joy to watch always

Newt and Tina's salamander eyes moment LOL

Jude Law is a great young Dumbledore

the bad:

this screenplay of JKR’s unfortunately exposes the weakness of her ability as a screenwriter, it is not focused, and three million things are happening at the same time as we jump from location to location to location - this all works well in novel format, as we are able to more space to explore more things, but in a script, it doesn’t work, there is no space - this in turn ends up with backstories that could be useful but is never explained, things that would actually flesh out character reasons and actions that are left on the cutting room floor

as I said once to a friend of mine about this movie, it’s like JKR made this huge great amazingly rich feast with so many delicious dishes but every time you take a bite or two from a dish, it’s then snatched away from you - so you get a tiny taste of everything but never the actual rich meal - and yes, I am fully aware that COG is only part two of a story, but the lack of focus and some very thin characters makes the film on its own, just not well done - a part two in a series should also be a complete story on its own

for example, while I am grateful that there wasn’t much Leta/Theseus/Newt drama, JKR not focusing on any of that just then makes me wonder what is even the point of saying Leta is engaged to Theseus? We get the tiniest glimpse of Leta and Theseus as a couple and then she just dies in this film - this was what I mean when I say thin characters or the feeling of a meal being snatched away - we are never explained how Theseus and Leta met, why did they choose to get married, or does Theseus know that Newt had feelings for Leta? A backstory of Leta and Theseus’ relationship would have done wonders to elevate both Theseus and Leta as supporting characters. This film focuses on Leta and Newt having a bond, even going back as showing their years at Hogwarts together, and that’s all great and all, but then why did Leta chose to marry Theseus? This movie is trying to tell me they have a great bond, yet Leta wants to marry Newt’s brother? Why? But that’s the issue, Theseus and Leta’s relationship is just there and never explained. So then what is the point of all this supposed love triangle if it is left up so ambiguous with one side of the relationship just never explained or shown? The fact that they fridged Leta in the end....*shakes head*

another example is Nagini and Credence - Credence’s whole plot in the movie is just leave the circus, find information about his family, go to the tombs, and then join Grindelwald, and Nagini is literally just a tag along with no discerning plot of her own - it’s like they just tagged her in because Credence couldn’t very well be moody and talk to himself so he needed a person to do exposition to - we are not shown how Credence came back, we are not shown how he and Nagini met and why did they become friends enough to escape together - we are simply just told that they know each other and just accept it - but then, Credence pretty much just dumps her for Grindelwald and leaves, again a female character is all but given nothing to do

and then there’s the Queenie and Jacob thing - *sighs* - I adored that relationship in the first film but Queenie’s actions in this film crosses a line that I honestly don’t know if there is redemption for - while everyone might shrug off the love potion thing because “well Jacob loves her” - but let’s think about how that scene would look if a man put a love potion on a woman to keep her wanting to marry him, no, we wouldn’t think very kindly on that, so the fact that it’s a woman doing it to a man shouldn’t make it any less a disgusting act, and saying that Queenie did it for love really doesn’t make it any better, it in fact paints her character as a selfish and manipulative person who doesn’t care about people’s consent, that she just does whatever she wants or thinks is best for her - case in point, she literally joins a man whom 9 months ago SENTENCED HER SISTER TO DEATH AND ALMOST KILLED HER - maybe this is just me, but if someone did that to my only family, I would never listen to anything that someone had to say - and the implications of a Jewish woman siding with Wizard Hitler? Yeah....no thanks....

Tina is another character whom suffers in this film’s problem with treatment of its female characters, she is literally given no plot of her own, again, like Nagini, it’s like she’s just tagged onto Newt’s story, and while they have a cute adorable moment that I love, she is not given a center stage spotlight to shine

and here leads to the other issue - there are way too many characters in this movie that JKR does not how to juggle and balance in a screenplay - it’d be one thing if this was a novel, but in a three act screenplay, she ends up having to sacrifice so many characters’ depth - this movie feels like three different movies are happening at the same time but each other is given little focus - this problem wasn’t a prevalent issue in the first FB movie because we had the core four characters that our story focused and followed - but in COG, that’s not the case anymore, we are no longer following the core four, it’s more like core 10 but they’re all over the place in their own little movies - the only time this movie had a focus was the last 30 min with everyone going to the tombs for the rally, the plot meanders until we reach that point

and then I have to touch upon the issues of canon - now this doesn’t make or break a movie, I’m not so attached to canon that a whole movie is ruined, but this break in canon does present a problem - is JKR just retconning her own stories now? I like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but certain decisions in her storytelling lately have made me iffy on that - the whole Aurelius Dumbledore thing doesn’t really matter to me, I think that one can be explained away eventually and I’m sure JKR has an explanation so I can wait on that, my only problem with the reveal is how it was presented, out of the blue with no set up - this wasn’t a little clues laid down and AHA! moment, but it literally comes out of nowhere as a shock moment only because there is no canonical ground laid for it - we never see Grindelwald even bringing anything up about something like that even in the first FB film, in fact, Grindelwald spent most of that movie convinced that Credence was just a squib. It’s a big twist sure, but a twist that nobody could have predicted because no one knowing canon would have even thought about that? And then there’s the whole McGonagall thing, my brain hurts thinking about it and the only explanation is that time turners are involved, as much as I hate bringing up time travel again in HP, it’s the only explanation. I want to think that JKR isn’t that bad at keeping track of her own canon. Like I said, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

other things:

Grindelwald still looks like a bleached pineapple

#JusticeForAntonio and for the family and that baby Grindelwald also murdered

#WhereIsTheRealPercivalGraves - seriously, HOW IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS OR GIVING ME ANY ANSWERS? IS HE ALIVE? IS HE ON VACATION? IS HE HIDING IN A CIRCUS WITH A FLYING ELEPHANT CALLED DUMBO?????

that opening escape thing was great to watch but logistically makes no sense, what was the point of going back to get Abernathy when you could just escape already.........unless Grindelwald just did it to be extra, which I guess he would

Yusuf and Leta and the whole thing with their mother...eh...I think people more of an expert in the problematic racial tropes have spoke better on this issue than i ever could

i really wished they just stuck to a series about beasts instead of dragging in the Grindelwald and Dumbledore drama/war - why not just let that be its own series where then you get a good focus

------------------------------

look, fact is, you give me a wizarding world movie, i’m gonna watch it and be happy and watch it a million more times because I love this world so much, i have all the books, the merch, been to the wizarding world like more than a few dozen times, this world is life

but as someone who has a degree in screenwriting...this script was just...not good at all, and it further shows that JKR is a great novelist but not necessarily a great screenwriter - I can only hope that maybe she will get another screenwriter to help her with the focus, maybe get Steve Kloves back since they have worked together - it’s great in a novel to have so many characters in a story, but there is a reason on screen even in the HP movies, they chose to move and combine certain characters into one because you didn’t want so many characters to eat up the screentime and focus - this is JKR’s main problem right now, and the fact that her female characters in this film were not treated well

i hope that the next few films improve, but either way i’m still gonna watch them of course

[liugeaux]

Ranking the Roach

I’m gonna to skip the verbose explanation on why I think it’s important to rank these albums, and elect to just jump in. Here’s my definitive ranking of all the Papa Roach albums.  

10. Old Friends From Young Years 1997

We kick it off with the Roach’s indie debut. Old Friends From Young Years was recorded before scoring a record deal and like most independent debuts it’s messy and raw. The band had several EPs pop up before and after this release, but to keep this as clean as possible we’re just doing major albums. There’s not much more to say here, let’s keep it moving. 

9. F.E.A.R. 2015

FEAR has a lot to offer, a great theme, some cool collabs, and a tight 10 song track list. Songs like “Face Everything and Rise”, and “Gravity” are classics in the Papa Roach library, but overall it fails to keep the momentum up for the entire album, and to not be able to do that through 10 tracks is not a good sign.  

8. Who Do You Trust? 2019

When P. Roach tries new things we get mixed results. Who Do You Trust is quite a departure from the Mainstream Rock albums they had produced in the ten years prior. The programing and pop feel just didn’t hit as hard as I feel it could have. The result was an album that doesn’t quite feel like it knows what it wants to be. My prediction is that Who Do You Trust will end up being the awkward stepping stone to their next classic album, much like lovehatetragedy was.

7. lovehatetragedy 2002

Speaking of lovehatetragedy...Papa Roach’s second album suffers from a really bad case of the “sophomore slump”. Technically not their sophomore album, but it is their second major label album and first album coming off the incredible success of Infest. lovehatetragedy starts the band’s transition into a more straight-forward rock act, by dropping most of the nu-metal trapping that are so prevalent on Infest. Many of the songs feel forced and on the nose. Even the lead single “She Loves Me Not”, is far from P. Roach’s best work. The brightest bulb on this album is “Decompression Period”, a lumbering, emotional song that’s as big as it is personal. It could be the best song Jacoby Shaddix has ever written, but we aren’t litigating that today.  

6. Metamorphosis 2009

Metamorphosis has the unfortunate task of following The Paramour Sessions, a fantastic and potentially career defining album. The good news is that despite the album’s name, sonically, it shares its sound with its predecessor. Metamorphosis’ biggest crime is not taking enough chances. “Lifeline” has become one of the bands signature songs and “Had Enough” is the type of anthem every modern rock band strives to write. Ultimately, Metamorphosis is forgettable and that’s why it’s not higher on this lst.  

5. The Connection 2012

As the first P Roach album after leaving Geffen, The Connection has a lot of seminal Roach songs and sounds. Creatively, the band pulled every item out of its bag of tricks and put together yet another solid release, but much like Metamorphosis, “solid” is not good enough to top this list. What differentiates this album from others of this era, is that it doesn’t really try anything new. For better or worse the three albums after this go places The Connection isn’t comfortable going. On the other hand, The Connection is the first of the albums on this list that I can recommend whole-hog. Track to track, The Connection is easy to listen to and holds up almost 10 years later.  

4.5. Time for Annihilation: On the Record & On the Road 2010

I’m putting this one at 4.5 because technically it’s not a full studio album. It’s basically a new EP coupled with a live album on one disc with 5 new songs and 9 live tracks. Although the new content is short, every single new song is an absolute banger. 4 of the 5 songs ended up being singles and “Kick in the Teeth”, “One Track Mind”, and “No Matter What” represent some of their best work. 

4. Crooked Teeth 2017

Crooked Teeth is the best “modern” P. Roach album. It’s a tightly produced, well-paced, piece with fresh ideas and sounds. Everything from the straightforward rocking of “Crooked Teeth” to the introspective collaboration with Rapper Machine Gun Kelly on “Sunrise Trailer Park” feels new. The journey through this album never gets stale, and before you know it, you’re already into the bonus tracks and live extras. My only complaint is the song “Periscope” featuring Sklar Grey. By itself, its fine, but coming just 2 years after the mind blowing track “Gravity” featuring Maria Brink, “Periscope” feels like a failed attempt to catch lighting in a bottle twice. Sonically, Crooked Teeth lives in a pocket somewhere between Metamorphosis and Who Do You Trust?. The former being an album that relies too much on predictable P. Roach tropes and the later being an often unwelcomed departure from the bands roots. Crooked Teeth successfully took new ideas and made them successful and believable as a Papa Roach product.  

3. Getting Away With Murder 2004

There’s no easy way to say it, GAWM had to save Papa Roach’s career. lovehatetragedy, did not resonate the way Infest did, and if they didn’t hit hard with GAWM, P Roach could have easily become “that Last Resort band”. What this album ended up being was a complete reset of what a Papa Roach album could be. The songs were heavier, more personal, and more dynamic. Where the band had previously only dabbled in straight forward anthems (with mixed results), GAWM has multiple fully formed epic anthems that are arena-ready, and infectiously singable. Tracks like “Getting Away With Murder”, “ Scars”, “Be Free”, and “Not Listening” are perfect examples of tracks that both fit the landscape of the rock music of that era, and still had a unique marketable polish to them. The abandoning of Rap on GAWM was welcome, and made the release feel more mature than I’m sure Shaddix even intended. It also allowed him to finally stand out as an underrated vocalist in the genre. This was exactly the album P Roach needed at this point in their career and it set a high bar for future releases.   

2. Infest 2000

Papa Roach will be playing the songs from Infest for the rest of their career, and they will likely always be the songs that will garner the most applause, so it would be hard to put Infest very low on this list. However, even without factoring in the built-in audience these tracks have, Infest is a seminal album of an era of Rock that doesn’t a fair shake. The dour lyrics and agro delivery of much of the album is both a sign of the times and one of the album’s strengths. Tracks like “Broken Home”, “Between Angels and Insects”, and the monumental hit “Last Resort” resonated with fans like few songs of the era did. Even if you ignore these three hits there are still a handful of perfectly crafted genre masterpieces, that could have been genuine hits for other bands thirsty to get some of that nu-money. Infest is what P Roach will be remembered for 50 years from now, and despite it not being their best album, I think I’m ok with it.  

1. The Paramour Sessions 2006

Papa Roach has always been about incremental changes. Each album is informed by the previous one with small changes made here and there to make each collection of songs special. Arguably, the band’s career can be broken up into 3 or 4 different eras. The Paramour Sessions is the best album from their best era. They took what they learned from GAWM about stadium ready anthems and tightened the melodies even more to produce standouts like “Alive”, “The World Around You”, “Forever”, and “Time is Running Out”. As a collection of songs TPS is the best complete set, and “Forever” is a top three Papa Roach track. Here’s the part of the write-up where I’m supposed to say this album is a turning point, or is transcendent, or hyper-influential, but I’m not going to. It’s none of those things. TPS is a somewhat by-the-numbers P. Roach album that stands out because of the quality of its tracks and sleekness of its production. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be deeper than that. It may not be the album that will live forever (no pun intended), but it’s hands down their best.  

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2017) - #348: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - dir. Denis Villeneuve

As the end credits rolled on Blade Runner 2049 last Sunday night at the Regal Union Square multiplex, I turned to my friend and asked her my usual question, “So, what did you think?” She groaned out, “that was really boring,” and the wave of relief I felt at her response was the perfect summation of my feelings.

How did Blade Runner 2049 disappoint me? Let me count the ways.

I watched Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner (1982) back in September. I was impressed, though not bowled over, by the theatrical cut, but I still wanted to give the final cut a chance. When I got around to watching that “definitive” version, I found that I actually missed Harrison Ford’s gruff, noiresque narration from the earlier edit of the film, but overall my appreciation for Blade Runner had grown and the second viewing allowed me to focus less on the plot and to better appreciate both the acting and the technical aspects of the production.

My expectations for Blade Runner 2049 were fairly high. I was eager to see how Denis Villeneuve built on Scott’s (and, of course, writer Philip K. Dick’s) visions of dystopian Los Angeles by pushing the narrative thirty years further into the future from the first Blade Runner’s setting in 2019. Although I missed the chance to see this new installment in IMAX - hey, those tickets are expensive when you don’t have spare cash to throw around! - I knew I still had to take the time to watch the film on the big screen. No TV could possibly do justice to an epic sci-fi tale of the Blade Runner variety, at least not for an introductory experience.

Bear with me, now, when I say that Blade Runner 2049 was a massive letdown. Yes, Roger Deakins’ stunning cinematography is practically guaranteed to earn him an Oscar nomination. And yes, the art direction, production design and set decoration further supports Denis Villeneuve‘s strengths regarding compelling visuals. I would also be totally fine with Renée April getting an Oscar nomination for costume design since the coat that Officer K (Ryan Gosling) wears throughout the film is incredible. Unfortunately, for the third year in a row (after Sicario and Arrival) my hopes for Villeneuve’s work have been dashed. For three years running he has fallen short of his ambitious ideas, whether attempting to concentrate on an idealistic DEA agent (Emily Blunt in Sicario), a linguist simultaneously mourning the death of her daughter and trying to make contact with aliens (Amy Adams in Arrival) or a Replicant Blade Runner (Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049) who unravels a mystery about a female Replicant who was able to bear a child. All of these protagonists should be worthy of my undivided attention. Instead, Gosling - like one of Nexus’s new edition of Replicants - is just another in a continuing line of failed leads.

Part of the issue is Ryan Gosling’s own fault. In interviews I find him absolutely delightful, a funny and self-deprecating guy with a nicely offbeat sense of humor; in movies he is unremittingly bland. Whether we’re talking about The Notebook or Crazy, Stupid, Love or The Big Short, he never seems to have any discernible personality on film. It makes sense, then, that he would be chosen to play an android in Blade Runner 2049. But what does it say that he didn’t even play Officer K well? Replicants can be portrayed with emotion, if you recall Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, Brion James and Joanna Cassidy in the original Blade Runner. Each actor breathed life into their characters in unique styles. So why couldn’t Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green find a way to inject some flavor into their film’s characters?

The posters for Blade Runner 2049 imply that Harrison Ford and Jared Leto play important roles in the film, but in actuality, Leto’s “antagonist,” Niander Wallace, barely has any screen time and Ford’s returning antihero, Rick Deckard, doesn’t show up until the last third of the film. I enjoyed every moment he was onscreen, spitting his dialogue out with the same jaded sarcasm he had in the first film, but I wish the character had had more time to develop in the film. Wallace bears an undistinguished aura of evil, but what was supposed to be so special about him? Given the spotlight often put on his sightless eyes during “creepy” closeups, was his blindness really intended to be read as part of what defined him as bad (in which case, uh, what is that saying about disabilities)?

Next we have to take a look at the women of Blade Runner 2049. There are six notable female characters: Joi (Ana de Armas), a hologram who is a product created by Niander Wallace and who functions solely as K’s live-in girlfriend; Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a Replicant who acts as Niander Wallace’s right-hand woman; Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), K’s supervisor on the police force; Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), a "pleasure model” Replicant; Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), who works for the Wallace corporation in a capacity that I shouldn’t spoil for those who have not seen the film; and Freysa (Hiam Abbass), who plays a role that I similarly should not divulge. Of these six, Joi and Ana Stelline are the most sympathetic characters, but regardless of how these women’s actions are meant to be interpreted, the designs of these ladies are problematic.

Joi is an immediately likeable character, but since she is a product (and one who does not initially have a corporeal form), she does not have autonomy. With the push of a button, K can turn her off any time he wants, which I’m sure is an option a lot of dudes wish they had available for their girlfriends. Joi exists only to serve K, telling him how wonderful he is when he gets home from a long work day and providing whatever eye candy he desires (she can shapeshift to alter her clothing, hair and makeup). Should I ignore the fact that Joi has zero character development and applaud Blade Runner 2049 anyway for highlighting the ickiness of a future society where Joi-models are prevalent (thus eliminating the need for actual human women)? Maybe, but the film doesn’t bother to make a statement about this element of social interaction, other than the fact that it exists.

K is finally able to experience physical contact with Joi when she “syncs” with Mariette, a prostitute, to combine their bodies for a sexual encounter with K, resulting in my favorite shot in the film: an unsettling image of Joi and Mariette’s four blurry hands wrapping around the back of K’s head and caressing his hair. While this interlude incorporates an interesting degree of romantic intrigue - to what extent do K, Joi and Mariette understand what love is? - there is something a little too weird in the film’s dependence on the Madonna and Whore tropes, suggesting an either/or dichotomy where the only time a woman can possess both attributes is when she finds another person (technically a Replicant) who can temporarily provide the missing skills.

Luv is probably the best-developed female character, although since she is Niander Wallace’s servant, it is impossible to say where her allegiance to him ends and her own taste for violent retribution begins. Luv seems to genuinely savor hurting people, but I suppose that attitude was programmed into her by Wallace, which somewhat minimizes the cool factor in her badass fight scenes. It’s kind of odd, though, that she manages to outshine the film’s other resident tough gal, Lt. Joshi (I didn’t think anyone could outdo Robin Wright in this department, especially after Wonder Woman). Villeneuve and his writers couldn’t settle on how best to represent Joshi, so the character fluctuates between a generically butch stereotype and a leering boss who drinks too much and flirts with K. Again, not that women have to be only one thing, but I like consistency in characters rather than mixed messages. I wonder how much of Blade Runner 2049′s muddled and archaic depictions of women are thanks to Hampton Fancher, who also co-wrote the original Blade Runner’s screenplay, which was full of troublesome approaches to womanhood, sexuality and sexual consent.

In the end, the difference between Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 is like the distinction between a human being and a Replicant. 2049 tries to live up to the originality of that which inspired it, but it lacks the soul of its predecessor. It really says something that the most heartfelt moments in Blade Runner 2049 are two references to Ridley Scott’s film: a pivotal scene in Wallace’s lair that conjures up the memory of Rachael (Sean Young) from the film, and a moment in the penultimate scene that reuses a key piece of music from Vangelis’s original Blade Runner score. I recognize that many viewers see Blade Runner 2049 as a masterpiece, and I have tried many times in the past week to understand why, but I’m hard-pressed to comprehend why I should have spent close to three hours sitting through such an unsatisfying project, other than being able to say I bravely weathered this particular storm.

P.S. (because I couldn’t figure out where else to write this): I don’t know how many viewers will know where I’m coming from, but for the cult classic freaks out there, let me propose this theory: Blade Runner 2049 is trying to be like Paul Morrissey’s notoriously wild horror-satire Flesh for Frankenstein (1973). Check it out: a really bizarre and wealthy man (Udo Kier/Jared Leto) and his devoted assistant (Arno Juerging/Sylvia Hoeks) endeavor to construct a set of superhumans (FfF) or humanoid robots (B42049), entities that will give birth to a new generation of superbeings that will take the place of their inferior progenitors and obediently do their master’s (Kier/Leto) bidding. In fact, there are two specific scenes that reminded me of Flesh for Frankenstein while watching Blade Runner 2049: when Niander Wallace kills the naked, infertile Replicant woman (ugh, what a terrible scene), it mirrors a moment in Flesh when Arno Juerging, the loyal assistant, tries to commence sex with Baron Frankenstein’s female zombie-monster by punching her in the stomach and fatally damaging her internal organs, resulting in a grotesque display of violence similar to what we see in Blade Runner 2049.

Secondly, when Luv battles K at the sea wall and she kisses him, she is mimicking an action that Niander Wallace carried out when he killed the Replicant woman; this is also reminiscent of Flesh for Frankenstein since the Arno Juerging character often does horrible, perverse things - like conflating his lust for the female zombie with a disturbingly compulsion for violence - because he is following his master’s patterns. Take all that analysis for what it’s worth, Blade Runner fans!

P.P.S. I am also convinced that Blade Runner 2049′s Las Vegas wasteland scene was either an homage to or a ripoff of Nastassja Kinski’s desert dream sequence from another of 1982′s finest cult offerings, Cat People. Even in the slightly faded YouTube upload of the clip, the orangeness cannot be overlooked.

[readingallthethings9490]

✨ Sapphic-A-Thon Wrapup ✨

So, about halfway through SapphicAThon I lost momentum of reading wlw stories because I kept being so disappointed by what I found 😖 I have a bunch of books I didn’t get to that I still plan to read~ Now to summarize all the things I read, and links to reviews 😎

One of the books I started was GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS by Melissa Bashardoust. I’m still in the process of reading/listening to it (I fell into the trap of The Bright Sessions podcast, so haven’t been listening to audible 😅), but I’m about 19% through and plan to finish it next.

The first book I read was EITAN’S CHORD by Shira Glassman, which fulfilled the Jewish Char bingo square. I’ve read other books by Shira Glassman and KNIT ONE, GIRL TWO is basically a happy place read for me, but this one was less than stellar to me. I wanted to like it because polyamory/triad and Hanukkah fairies! But it just fell a little flat for me. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2213933363

Next on Kindle I tried reading VILLAINS DON’T DATE HEROES by Mia Archer, which could have fulfilled Hate to Love bingo square. Unfortunately this was a huge DNF for me, at only 36%, which is a huge disappointment because I love villains and hate to love is such a good trope. This book was a mess, though; definitely needed a good editing and it was just so long-winded at times. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2162748323

Next up, we have THE PRICE OF MEAT by KJ Charles, which fulfilled Non-Coming Out bingo square. I adore KJ Charles and her writing is always so good. This was a quick, creepy read with some really interesting history. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2215862781

Next, GIRL MANS UP by M-E Girrard, which probably could’ve fulfilled Interractial bingo square, but I NOPEd outta there real quick (28 pages quick). The friendship between MC and her “best friend” was gross and toxic, the way she helped him get and then toss girls was gross, and how the best friend told MC she needed to leave his exes alone and not listen to them really bothered me. Everything about those 28 pages made me so uncomfortable. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2217413312

I read GRRRLS ON THE SIDE by Carrie Pack, which fulfilled Bisexual MC bingo square. The premise of the book was interesting and I liked the punk scene in the 90s with the zines as part of story telling style, but in the end this book didn’t completely wow me. It had a lot of issues, including: fatmisia, transmisia, racism, not listening to WOC voices, and erasing/invalidating MC’s bisexuality. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2216300341

I tried (and failed) to read EELGRASS by Tori Curtis; I only made it about 14% through before I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to use this book to fulfill SF/F bingo square, but the attitude towards Bettan’s lost sealskin and subsequent kidnapping (she’ll be happier for it, she’ll have babies and find her place, it’ll settle her, etc) just made me TOO uncomfortable and I couldn’t finish it. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2217554958

I was reading ASH by Malinda Lo for about half of SapphicAThon, but ending DNFing it because while I enjoyed the writing style, I was bored of the story. No review.

RIPPED PAGES by M. Hollis was my next reading adventure, and it fulfilled Retelling bingo square. It was a unique, cute Rapunzel retelling, but sometimes the pacing got to me. It was a bit of a Princess Saves Herself (major positive) but also really nice example of princesses saving each other. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2140722418

I also read M. Hollis’ NIGHT AT THE MALL, which fulfills Less Than 500 Goodreads Ratings bingo square. This was another cute fluff read, but it felt more like the Meet-Cute (which I love) without the subsequent relationship and feelings that I wanted. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2220418677

MY HEART IS READY by Chace Verity was my next read, which fulfilled Established Relationship bingo square. I have also read TEAM PHISON by Chace and omg their writing is so much feelings for me. I can’t wait more of this series to come out 😍 but I adored Corsine and Tristis, and their flawed but loving relationship. Just, such fun characters and a cute story! Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2197767772

Finally I read IT’S NOT LIKE IT’S A SECRET by Misa Sugiura, which fulfilled Both WOC bingo square. I have some mixed feelings for this book, especially because cheating is such a prevalent theme (MC cheats on her gf with a boy bc she thinks gf is cheating, and friends are all “it’s not cheating if she cheated first.”). Definitely has strong themes of racism and prejudice, and examining how those views affect us and our perceptions of people. Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1929858655

In total I finished 7 books, DNF’d 4, and am still reading 1. I fulfilled the following bingo squares: Both WOC, Established Relationship, Less Than 500 GR Ratings, Retelling, Bisexual MC, Non-Coming Out Story, and Jewish MC. I did not manage to get any BINGO though 😅

[coffeebooksorme]

THE BLACK WITCH REVIEW

GOODREADS REVIEW: Elloren Gardner is the granddaughter of the last prophesied Black Witch, Carnissa Gardner, who drove back the enemy forces and saved the Gardnerian people during the Realm War. But while she is the absolute spitting image of her famous grandmother, Elloren is utterly devoid of power in a society that prizes magical ability above all else. When she is granted the opportunity to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an apothecary, Elloren joins her brothers at the prestigious Verpax University to embrace a destiny of her own, free from the shadow of her grandmother’s legacy. But she soon realizes that the university, which admits all manner of people—including the fire-wielding, winged Icarals, the sworn enemies of all Gardnerians—is a treacherous place for the granddaughter of the Black Witch. As evil looms on the horizon and the pressure to live up to her heritage builds, everything Elloren thought she knew will be challenged and torn away. Her best hope of survival may be among the most unlikely band of misfits…if only she can find the courage to trust those she’s been taught to hate and fear.

I have to preface this by saying that I was not originally interested in reading this book. I have to admit, the original backlash brought forth by that review definitely put off even wanting anything to do with this book, and then I joined book twitter. I noticed quite a lot of people defending the book (specifically POC & marginalized people) and was intrigued. So I went to GR to read some reviews and after I scrolled through all the 1 star reviews from folks who hadn’t even read the book, I found some decent reviews from folks who had. Interest piqued, I decided to pick up a copy and give it a shot.

I’m also quite apprehensive about even posting this review because I’ve seen the vitriol and hate slung at people on Goodreads over this book. I’m more than willing to engage in discussion with anyone that would like to discuss this book, but I will only do so in a mature fashion. I’m not going to get into a screaming or name calling match with anyone.

First off, the accusation of racism/sexism is absolutely correct. This book contains a lot of racism/sexism in it, sometimes too heavy handed for me, but I think that was the point. IMO, the author was trying to show us readers just what kind of vile and horrendous world that our MC & friends live in. And it worked. Think the end of Harry Potter 6 with the beginning of Harry Potter 7. Umbridge pushing Hitler like propaganda about wizard purity and ‘testing’ for genetic purity of wizards. Anyone not of purebloo are rounded up and imprisoned. ‘Mudbloods’ being tortured by Voldemort. Racial slurs thrown around like a baseball. All that happened in the HP world, but it was to show just how vile and horrible the world would be if Voldemort was in charge.That’s the world Elloren is in in ‘The Black Witch’. Now let’s add some religion onto the story. All the racism, segregation, and hatred are stemmed from religious beliefs, and the Gardnerians are religiously indoctrinated from birth to believe this racist baloney. Religion is prevalent in every aspect of their culture; their dress, their patriarchal society, the way they marry, to even the way they eat a dang cookie! They are religiously brainwashed to believe that their almighty ‘God’ created them to be the ‘special’ people, the most important, the greatest above all, etc. As a matter of fact, each race has their own version of this ideal within their own religions. Now, imagine a member of the FDLS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is moved from their home to, let’s say, New York City, San Francisco or, even, Detroit. It’s going to be one HECK of a culture shock for them because they’ve lived a very secluded life with heavy religious influence. They’ve been brainwashed from a young age to believe certain things. They’re ignorant, yes. But not willfully ignorant, IMO, because they don’t know any better. The culture shock alone is going to be enough to make them recoil, especially considering they’ve been raised in a religion that demonizes anything that isn’t part of their group. Now add in them being brutally attacked upon arriving to their new city. That will certainly reinforce whatever preconceived notions they have from their religious indoctrination. That is Elloren in this story. She was raised in a heavy religious society to believe certain things. Not only that but she was hidden away at the edge of the country in a small town with barely any outsiders. Moving from Halifax to Verpax was one hell of a culture shock. She’s our sheltered FDLS member that’s been taken from her small town home and thrust into a bustling university in a major city. She was brutally attacked before arriving at University so the fear is only encouraged. Upon arrival, again, she is brutally attacked, verbally assaulted, and threatened with future physical abuse. This attack was completely unprovoked, mind you. It happened because she is part of another race. She’s constantly judged because she looks exactly like her grandmother (who, upon research, Elloren finds out was a brutal person who committed genocide against people), and she falls in with the wrong crowd by becoming so smitten with Lukas (the first male to show her any romantic attention, btw), who, in her mind, is her only protector from all the bullying, violent attacks, and threats. Because Elloren is scared, she reacts badly. Badly is an understatement because she feeds into the racism and hatred. Rather than turning the other cheek to attacks and verbal abuse, Elloren reacts in kind and throws back racial slurs, runs to Lukas who in turn commits atrocious, racially spurred actions on her behalf, and she even commits a few herself because as Lukas teaches her, ‘Dominate or be dominated’. Does this justify her actions? Absolutely not. Under no circumstances are her actions or words justified. But I can understand why she reacts this way. Fear is one hell of a motivator and when that’s combined with religious indoctrination, it’s a dangerous thing. I think that was the whole point the author was trying to make. Was it done in the best way possible? Probably not. But as a first time author, I think she did a pretty decent job. The whole story is about how Elloren is submerged in this racist, sexist, homophobic society and how she overcomes these notions to form her own opinions by interacting with the other races, researching the history instead of blindly believing what’s been presented to her her whole life, and eventually, fighting back against the inequality because she wants a better place not only for herself but her brothers and her friends as well. Sure, some of her old racist habits come through every now and again, but habits die hard, especially those that were indoctrinated into you from birth. She’s trying. Obviously, POC are going to be very uncomfortable reading a story that shoves racism down their throat for the first half of the book. If I read a book with fatphobia for the first 3/4 book, I’d be uncomfortable as well. I get the reluctance and the flat out refusal to read a book that would make you uncomfortable. If you don’t want to read it then that is absolutely your prerogative and I do not blame you one bit. I do not agree, however, with calling the author or it’s readers racist POS and white supremacists that support a racist narrative. That’s flat out condescending and erroneous. If you’d read the book rather than someone’s subjective review, you’d see how the story is about a girl overcoming the indoctrination of her racist society. People also seem to have a problem with this being a ‘white savior’ book. I can see where people think that, but I do respectfully disagree with that point. I understand why people are upset because it’s like ‘Oh god, another story about a white person saving the day’, but that’s the whole premise of the story. That’s the whole point behind a lot of ‘chosen one’ stories. HP was a ‘chosen one saves the day’ story about a white boy fighting a racist POS villain at the root of it’s story. The Hunger Games was a story about a white girl saving the day for the poor folks. Divergent is about a white chick saving the day from oppressors. If you look at any ‘chosen one’ stories, it’s about someone saving a marginalized group. Is the YA community saturated with that trope? Yes, absolutely. Is ‘The Black Witch’ racist for using that trope as well? Absolutely not. I really enjoyed this story. I laughed. I was upset. I was deeply uncomfortable at times. It’s one of the first YA stories that has really made me stop and think about things. It’s unfortunate that it’s gotten a bad rap because of one persons opinion, and even more unfortunate that the mob/herd mentality has vilified readers who have enjoyed it. I implore anyone who has even thought about reading this book to give it a shot, read with an open mind, and realize that this book was never intended to be a fluff, easy read.

[operationrainfall]

Title Legend of Everything Developer Kidalang Publisher Culture Select Release Date

Nov 8, 2019

Genre Visual Novel Platform PC Age Rating N/A (veiled nudity, suggestive dialogue) Official Website

Legend of Everything is an isekai visual novel by developer Kidalang which attempts to break away from the common tropes seen in both this genre and VNs. For those unfamiliar with the term, isekai refers to a genre of storytelling in which the main character is born or transported to another world, one that is more often considered fantasy in comparison to the character’s origin world. These stories will typically follow the main character as they meet natives of the new world and begin their new life, adjusting to differences and resolving conflicts that come with the new fantastic locales and its peoples. Legend of Everything, however, takes this concept and tries something drastic.

Legend of Everything changes the formula of isekai by starting us off in the supposed fantasy world. We follow the story of Brane, a volunteer soldier who joins a campaign to rescue his kingdom’s princess from a demon lord. As the campaign fails and the survivors are told to retreat and regroup, he gets separated from his group and stumbles upon a young woman named Electra Bernhard. Electra has no memory of how she arrived in this world, but soon realizes that she is now in a world reminiscent of an RPG from hers. It seems she has been transported to what she considers the game’s world. And so she lets Brane join her party and sets out to save the princess because that’s what the protagonist, of whom she believes she is now, does in these kinds of games. Meanwhile, Brane follows, having similar goals, yet not understanding a word of what Electra is talking about.

So from the start, we actually follow Brane, who feels like a side-character in this supposed game world as he joins Electra in her initially jovial quest to save the princess. Along the way, Electra speaks of completing side quests and grinding to level up and becoming strong enough to defeat the demon lord. What makes Legend of Everything intriguing, however, is that this is definitely not just a story that follows Electra’s seemingly obvious quest to save someone and complete the main quest akin to completing any RPG. Discussions on classical mechanics, theoretical physics, digital logic, relativity and other physics and computing topics soon take over the main focus, as describing the game world using real-world applications becomes the drive of the story. Electra, being a physics student, explains events in this fantasy world by drawing these comparisons. There is also a philosophical element, though not nearly as pronounced as the physics discussions, in which Brane is ever questioning what Electra says, especially when it comes to his reality and existence. Electra claims Brane’s world is fictitious, yet this world is all Brane knows and understands. This brings into question which world or existence is the real one, assuming any of their existences can be called real at all.

Despite the sheer ambition, the story’s execution is a mixed bag. The overarching story is mostly captivating until the end and there are plenty of thought-provoking questions posed to hold interest, as well as to make the plot twists and mystery reveals worthwhile and impactful. The overall tone is lighthearted and there is plenty of humor too, which helps against the prevalent dryness. At times, this is a fun, fascinating story to experience with enough to keep one entertained.

But, then there are the missteps to the story’s presentation. As I said, much of the narrative is driven by discussions in theoretical physics, as the characters draw conclusions of the relationships between the real world and the fantasy one. Though it can be intriguing at times, much of the narrative in regards to this is presented via lengthy and dry exposition. Regardless of whether the information is disguised as character thought processes and the making of new discoveries through scenes and interactive dialogue, the outcomes are still dry and weighty, like reading a textbook, in their delivery. It’s also far too much explanation during dialogue to the point that it affects pacing. One moment you’ll be reading about the journey and the fantasy elements of it, but then you’ll come to a screeching halt as the discussion shifts to quantum mechanics for the next several paragraphs. Many times, it just feels like the physics topics are being dumped onto the reader. Not only does this break game flow, it also destroys immersion. Perhaps their worst offenses are when these discussions pervade and interrupt the most exciting moments of the game, in which climax and emotional buildup come crashing down with yet another textbook-like series of explanations. While the topics themselves can be interesting, the way they’re presented and the length at which many of these dialogues drag on makes the entire experience exhausting. Large walls of text, even when necessary for explaining advanced theoretical concepts, will never end well. It’s a shame the presentation is so dry and taxing rather than having been broken down into more manageable pieces, as some of the game’s story logic is pretty incredible and, again, thought provoking. Unfortunately, the narrative strengths reveal themselves too few and far between to make up for the sheer drain on the reader.

If you get confused, there’s a list of topics that goes into even greater detail…

Legend of Everything’s characters are also a mixed bag, as many aren’t built up to a memorable level and that hurts all the more for a visual novel. The perspective of playing as Brane rather than Electra as he struggles to come to terms with his existence is clever and the tie in questions of existence itself are equally riveting. However, Brane is truly a side-character at best, posing for us the obvious questions one would most likely ask in the given situations. He is bland, lacking any distinct characteristics that could distinguish him. He fails to stand out or establish himself as a memorable character, despite playing from his perspective. He is so unspectacular that, at times, you may wonder whether the devs’ decision to follow Brane’s perspective was really the right call.

Electra fares far better in her design, for she at least has personality. As the self-proclaimed protagonist of this story, she’s energetic, brash, and a bit of a geek. Her dialogue also suggests she is gay or bi in the beginning, as she humorously speaks of wanting a heroine to join her and not simply to journey alongside with. However, outside of these initial character traits, we don’t see much else. There is no development or evolution to her character, rather she mostly stays the same throughout. The element of her sexual orientation is soon abandoned, as she states she is straight, and only continually used as a means for humor. Even as mysteries are revealed and truths are tackled, her behavior abides by her initial formula. Even worse, she and the rest of the cast that participate in these physics based discussions are completely overshadowed by the dry exposition. Instead of characters engaged in discussion, it feels like a lecture. There are major missed opportunities to see additional sides to Electra that could have served to better define her character or develop her across the length of the story. Yet having said all of that, what she has helps add humor and mood to the narrative and her striking personality is strong enough to permeate the exposition and stand out in the end.

Could have fooled me…

As for the other characters, they, too, suffer from a lack of depth and development. Their personalities are familiar and form-fitting, simply serving as devices to move the story along when additional characters are needed to do so. I will say Quarrey’s overly static personality does lend itself to a number of humorous moments, as well as Posy’s tangential side-stories, as she tries to fight for catgirl rights. I also appreciate the swiftness all of the characters have in labeling Brane a pervert and harem seeker. It definitely helps to break the monotony of the physics discussions. Overall, I realize that this is a visual novel and not a proper piece of literature, but I did expect to see more depth and evolution from the characters overall than what we actually receive.

Moving to gameplay, the only interactions the players have are in making inconsequential decisions, such as choosing locations or choosing which extra wall of text you wish to read from a menu. This could have easily been a kinetic novel, as there is only a single, linear storyline. Though, I did like the options to visit alternative locations before continuing the main plot. Visiting locations most often lent themselves to character backstories and interactions. I would have liked more of these, as I would have also liked to have seen these visitations used to perhaps hide plot hints or further develop the characters. At the least, they could have helped adjust pacing and break up those walls of text into more approachable forms.

As for its build quality, the overall product is solid. The use of Ren’py works well and I found zero problems with functionality. Having rollback enabled from the get-go helps whenever I needed to re-read or when I clicked too fast. I experienced zero slowdowns, hangs, crashes, or bugs. Build quality is sound and lightweight, so those using older systems should also experience zero problems.

Pretty simple: Locations in white have a bit of new text, locations with ? have much more, such as backstory, character interactions, etc, and ! moves the main story along

With visual novels, a strong aesthetic presentation can support the story and its characters, raising the overall quality to new levels. In this instance, however, the visuals neither add nor detract. The devs for Legend of Everything decided to use a 3-D modeling/ posing program to create their visuals. It feels like the visuals were not a priority, as the overall presentation has a dated and uninspired feel. The visuals aren’t awful, but they fail to enhance the story and characters, instead simply serving as something to look at while we read. I will say that I appreciated the efforts that went into varying the characters’ facial expressions. It’s a small touch, but one that stands out against the minimalism the posing software begets. As for the audio, Legend of Everything has a satisfactory soundtrack, one that fits the fantasy world, as well as the humorous, lighthearted mood of the game. The tracks fit their locations and events on-screen and also bolster the narrative. Not the strongest sound score I’ve listened to, but it helps, especially with the inability of the visuals to support in a significant way.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Legend of Everything is an intriguing attempt to change the traditional isekai formula, offering an entertaining story sprinkled with metaphysical bemusement. Glimmers of emotional depth and a fantasy story that brings reality into question make for an amusing journey. The mysteries and questions posed are engaging and the humor keeps the journey lighthearted throughout. Yet, the lack of deep, diverse characters, their utter lack of development or growth, the agonizing over-dependence on exposition, the awful pacing that results, and finally the uninspiring aesthetics all detract from Legend of Everything’s ability to fully immerse its players. If you have the patience, endurance, or you’re incredibly passionate for modern and theoretical physics, this VN may be worth a look. I will say that there is zero lack of content and assuming you do read everything there is to read, this VN will easily take you beyond the 15+ hour range to complete. Despite faltering with its dry, uninspired execution, Legend of Everything is a fantastic idea full of ambition.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″]

Review copy provided by publisher

REVIEW: Legend of Everything Title Legend of Everything Developer Kidalang Publisher Culture Select Release Date Nov 8, 2019

[elliedekk]

Internalized Misogyny, Machado and Le Guinn

Most women when asked if they believe men and women should be equal will respond “yes”. However, a significantly smaller portion of those women will respond “yes” when asked if they consider themselves a feminist. The disparity in the positive response rate between these two questions seems illogical because they are supposed to, by definition, mean the same thing.                                                                                                                                                      Perhaps the difference is due to connotation which accompanies the word “feminist”, and these women fear the association with bra burning, pink hat wearing, Hillary supporting image which is conjured up. I have often heard people attempt to distance themselves from this notion with phrases like “I’m a feminist but not like that” or even “I’m not a feminist; I’m an equalist”. These dilutions echo the same sentiments as “I’m not like other girls”; “I’m like one of the guys” or the idea of a “cool girl”. Internalized misogyny is the mysterious force which causes women to call each other sluts, view each other as competition and invalidate one another’s experiences. Too obvious are the ways that women embrace patriarchal demands of them in order to appeal to misogynistic ideals rather than support their fellow woman. In no way is a preference for societally labeled masculine things anti-feminist. It is the purposeful rejection of what men resent about womanhood in order to appease and gain the acceptance of the patriarchy.  No matter how much a woman adjusts to become more palatable to men, she will always be a woman. It is pointless to attempt to win the admiration of male peers by appearing seemingly above other women. Girls can never rise by stepping on other girls. By disdaining what is regarded as female does not serve to elevate one’s own position, it only oppresses one’s fellow women more. Equally terrible, internalization of sexism foments self-hatred. This self-hatred emerges in the guilt of throwing another woman under the bus, or the subtle pain when one laughs at a chauvinistic joke or the shame of denying enjoying something boys would think is silly. It is the feeling one has hearing the way boys talk about girls behind closed doors, but just because one listens and does not protest will not stop them from talking about her in the same way. Internalized misogyny is understandable. With a patriarchal structure, one cannot expect women to be immune sexist ideas similarly that men are frequently immune to toxic masculinity. The absorption of these messages is a byproduct of existence in an environment that does not celebrate the equality of femininity. From birth, a set of acceptable behaviors are laid out for both men and women. We grow to resent the women who do not follow these behaviors the same way we resent that we must follow them. It is easier to assimilate to patriarchal structures than live in outrage and question every preconceived expectations of our gender. Almost every woman contains at least some lingering relic of the gender-biased structures which decided our development. It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind proclivities to behave a certain to men, women and oneself, and even more difficult to retrain one's own mind. Thusly, when women perpetuate or permit sexism, they fall into the unusual role of being both victim and perpetrator. One way to see the extent of internalization of misogyny is through the lense of fiction. Particularly a story with a female narrator shows both its cognitive manifestation and effects. An essay which best allows for this is “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Machado.  “The Husband Stitch” tells the story of a woman with a ribbon around her neck. Machado begins as the character meets her future husband and ends with the removal of the ribbon. The main character’s internalization of the patriarchy reveals itself throughout the narrative. She feels a sense of guilt for keeping the ribbon away from her husband despite the fact he has no true entitlement to it. She feels as though she owes everything to him. She defers to the men in her life under the assumption that they must know better than her. “My husband has a list in his mind of things he desires from me, and I am willing to provide them and more” she says describing their relationship. She does not view it as forced. She intersperses in the essay folk tales and urban legends. Despite including many elements of a blissful relationship, a tone of foreboding melancholy permeates even the most joyous events in the story. The eerie atmosphere is facilitated by the myths which speak truths of womanhood through almost paranormal plots. One fable, described as one of her favorites, tells the fate of an old woman who carves a liver out of a dead body to feed to her husband out of fear of his wrath. When the ghost of the dead woman comes to reclaim her liver, the old woman looks down “remembering, now, how she carved into her own belly”. The horrific fate of the woman parallels all too perfectly the main narrative of “The Husband Stitch”. By using extreme and even paranormal examples, the author can spotlight misogyny in situations where it may be more evident. Additionally, tone resembles internalized misogyny itself- a force ever-present and not always seen but sometimes horrifyingly visible. In a climactic moment, the narrator realizes both her husband’s possible cruelty as well as her powerlessness. While under anesthesia but in a semi-conscious state, she witnesses her husband jovially ask the doctor to add a ‘husband stitch’ to his wife. She, however, does nto want this. “Please” she says “But it comes out slurred and twisted and possibly no more than a small mouse. Neither man turns his head towards” her. Having surrendered everything to him, when she finally encounters her limit, she has lost her voice too much to protest. Despite her husband’s many actions which hurt her, she maintains that he is a good man, and she is lucky to have him. The relationship this woman has with her husband, and with herself, exemplifies her internalization of the ways in which she is expected to give up herself to her husband. Not only in the story arch of fiction can patriarchy’s role be seen but also in the very construction of the writing piece. The trope of the strongman protagonist adding drama and dominating any other aspect of a narrative feels inherently patriarchal Ursula K. Le Guinn writes in her essay “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” against the idea of a hero’s journey. She draws from the very origins of humanity when, despite the prevalence of gathering, only the rare stories of violent hunts were passed on. She theorizes that the first invention was not a weapon but a bag. The idea of a carrier bag puts women, the gatherers, at the forefront of human development. Additionally, it rejects that invention stemmed from a propensity to kill. Le Guinn draws a connection to fiction and the common centricity of a valiant protagonist which thrives off of conflict. She supplements the heroic structure with that of a bag full of characters rather than battles. Machado does not conform to a hero structure in “The Husband Stitch”. A reader will struggle to find any hero. Even the narrator, the main character, behaves more like a supplemental character that has things done to her more than she does things. Many feminists attempt resolve the dominance of the hero narrative by supplanting the male protagonist with a female one. They applaud the introduction of woman superheroes and Disney princesses with more agency. However, the feminization of the traditionally male hero fails to address the issue with the narrative itself. These still glorify the identity of a protagonist who uses violence to colonize and destroy. Le Guinn does not distinguish between the gender of the hero, only the structure of the story. In this way, she challenges traditional notions of what deserves to be told and who deserves to be praised. Here we see how misogyny permeates every structure and institution, from marriage to literature and even the minds of the very people it oppresses. As long as the patriarchy remains as all-consuming as presently, sexist ideals of what should be, who should be and how they should act will persist, and, unfortunately, women and girls will internalize these.

[thesffcorner]

Unpopular Opinions Tag

This was created now over 3 years ago by the Book Archer, and I don’t know why, but I really felt like I wanted to do it. So without further ado, let’s get into the questions.

 A popular book or series that you didn’t like:

 I think the most popular of the books I haven’t liked is Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I just found this book excruciating to read, I thought the premise was underutilized, I hated the main character and all the supporting characters and the ending was convenient in a way that really annoyed me. 

 A popular book or series you like that everyone else hated

Hate is a strong word; I think polarizing is a better descriptor for both of these, which are the Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff and the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I love both of these series, but they are rather polarizing.  Nevernight is a book about a teen assassin full of violence, gore, explicit sex and murder so I guess if you don’t like any or all of these stay far far away. But it’s also a book full of humor, an interesting plot and magic system and one of the most interesting and fascinating fantasy worlds, I’ve ever read.  Inheritance is a classic fantasy dealing with dragons and words of power, written before Skyrim was a thing, which has one of the most likable protagonists I’ve ever read. I love Eragon and Safira they are an amazingly cute pair and I liked how much the series expanded after the second book, though I think that’s where most people take issue with the series in that it expands maybe too much for the scope of the first book. 

 A love triangle where you hated who the main character ended up with/ least favorite OTP:

Otherwise I’m pretty easy to please. If there is a love triangle, it’s usually pretty clear and simple to tell who will be endgame, and I tend to agree with the author.  This is an easy one: Katniss and Peeta. I always, always preferred Gale. Katniss cares for Peeta, sure but I never got the sense that she loved him romantically. And I hated how in order to get rid of Gale, Collins had to make him literary commit a war crime, that’s how far she had to go to make him unlikable, because he was nothing but supportive, caring and loving to Katniss and her family the entire series. I still get heated to this day about how much I didn’t like this ending. 

A popular book genre you rarely if ever reach for: 

Contemporary, both YA and adult. Unless it’s a thriller or deals with a very specific topic, I don’t like contemporary books. I live in the real world I don’t need more of it in my reading too. 

A popular character that you don’t like: 

Rhy Maresh. I just... He’s literary just a damsel in distress. He constantly gets kidnapped, killed, stabbed, wounded or threatened, and 90% of the time it’s so he can be a hurdle for Kell and keep him in the palace. I am halfway through the third book and I need him to develop some personality ASAP that isn’t just hot, promiscuous, drunk prince who gets put in danger near constantly and has to be rescued by Kell, because I swear, he is the most annoying trope of a character, the only difference being that he’s a dude. 

Popular author that you just can’t get into: 

Blake Crouch, and William Gibson. Blake Crouch I’m sad because I really wanted to read the Pines trilogy since I love that type of Twin Peaks, X-Files, Deadly Premonition vibe, but after Dark Matter which sucked in all the worst ways for me, I don’t think I will be.  William Gibson is basically the father of cyberpunk along with Ridley Scott and Shirow Masamune, and I love cyberpunk. But Gibson’s writing style, characters and especially way he treats and describes his female characters turned me off forever. The only other book I’d be willing to try by him is Pattern Recognition, because the premise sounds amazing, but I doubt I’d like it, just because of the way he writes. 

Popular book trope that you are just tired of: 

I have two for this and unfortunately they both seem to be more prominent wit female protagonists: the plain, unattractive protagonist who is really just a bombshell but they don’t know it; and obligatory romance if the protagonist is a girl.  Both of these tropes are present in book I really like! With the first trope, I hated it even with Katniss, and Alina, and even Mia Corvere. It’s fine for the protagonist to be insecure in their appearance, but why do you have to tell me, every 10 pages that they look plain or ordinary, or unassuming, when every character of the opposite gender they meet will fall in love with them in literary less than a page? This is especially true of Alina, who out of the three I mentioned has the most people falling in love with her despite her being supposedly actually ugly (like that’s how she’s described, not me being mean).  The other one actually annoys me even more. How many books have we read where the male protagonist doesn’t get a love interest or gets one halfway through the series? And now compare that to how many we’ve read where the love interest for the female protagonist has been introduced in literary the first 50 pages. Jace and Simon, Mal and the Darkling, Gale and Peeta, Tric, Gansey and Adam. And the protagonist has to end up with at least one of them by the end, they can never stay single. It’s not the individual books that bother me, it’s the prevalence of it.

Popular series that you have no interest in reading: 

There are a few, but I’ll mention 3: Throne of Glass, Red Queen, and Falling Kingdoms.  Red Queen is the one that has the highest chance I’d change my mind about, since it’s the one I know the least about. It has to do with the color of your blood determining magical affinity, which is a cool concept and I know it has a lot of court intrigue and a love triangle. Lots of people don’t like it, but I know people who do, so for now it’s a no, though not a firm no. Falling Kingdoms I was going to try, but then I lost interest. I don’t need a teen version of Game of Thrones; I have the ASoIaF books if I wanted to read Game of Thrones. Especially because it seems that most people like this series for the romance, which... I don’t want to read a 5 book high fantasy series for a romance.  Throne of Glass is the one I have the least desire to read and a firm no. First off there are 8 books in this series. Second of all the first 3 seem to be a completely different series than the latter books, to the point where the main character changes names and identities. If you followed an assassin just trying to survive in a world where everyone hates them, then maybe, but when she is also a faye and a lost princess and there is another love triangle.... I’ll pass thanks.   

Book or TV adaptation that you prefer more than the book: 

READY PLAYER ONE. I can’t stress enough how annoying and obnoxious the book is to me, but the movie is great. Yes it still has some of the confused world building, bland main character and the insta-love romance, but the challenges, the visuals and even Halliday himself is improves tenfold. I would rewatch that movie no questions, but I wouldn’t reread the book even if it was the only thing I had to read on a 12 h flight.