#but i know narratively they wanted the lack of us open to be significant

[mousemannation]

ranted to my mum for like ten full minutes over art donaldson having SIX grand slams AND them being evenly split over surfaces. came to the conclusion they should have given him two, for believability, or three if they really wanted him to specifically not have a US Open. then he'd be about on par with wawrinka/murray/delpo and such.

[inconveniently-discorporated]

My heart hurts so bad for Aziraphale because I can honestly just relate to him so, so, so much.

(not putting this one under a cut so warning season 2 ahead, I'll tag it at the bottom too)

Aziraphale says, "Nothing lasts forever," but I don't believe for a second he doesn't wish that it did.

He WANTS things to go back to how they used to be. He WANTS the seraphic Crowley squealing with joy as he cranks up the universal machine and sets the stars aflame. He WANTS there to be no sides, he WANTS to believe in the idea of the host united, he WANTS to go back before Crowley got himself in trouble by asking questions. He wants, I think, to be in that moment of creation and adoration forever.

Change seems to frighten him. There's an aspect of uncertainty. There's an element of chaos, the loss of control. I understand this deeply. And what the Metatron offered him was just that: certainty, control, the ability to dictate his own narrative.

I used to be in a toxic job. On top of it, I had intense anxiety and other undiagnosed neurodivergencies that made it even harder to fit in and understand the untold rules I was supposed to follow to get along. When I first got there, it wasn't so bad -- perhaps I was, like Aziraphale, also a bit idealistic. Then there were some changes that brought instability, significant more anxiety, and a lot of nights spent agonizing over my lack of control over it all.

My friends and significant other tried to convince me to leave, but I didn't want to. I didn't know what else was out there. I didn't know if it would be worse. I didn't know what kind of stability it would have.

Then my manager left, so that spot opened up. I had worked there for a long time, and honestly, I never saw myself going into management. I didn't think I could. I wasn't sure I even wanted to. All of that extra stress, on me? Not to mention, getting FURTHER into the job that was taking a massive toll on me? But then...

Then I would have control. Then I could run things the way *I* had always thought they should run. I wouldn't need to worry about who would replace my manager and whether my life would be a living hell -- I would make it what I wanted it to be. Upper management was really pushing for it, so I applied.

To make a long story short: I don't think it went very well. I didn't have the support I needed. I didn't have the emotional skills I needed. I think I did my best, but I'm not fond of those times. At the time, I was SURE that I wanted to move up even more, I was SURE this would make it all better. I thought this was what I REALLY wanted.

But that's not what I needed. What I needed was to get out, and eventually I did. Even as ready as I was to leave, it was absolutely agonizing. I could barely stand to handle the unknown. I was going to work together with my spouse, actually, and I was so excited for that, but I still... I still was upset and worried sick over the dramatic change that would befall my life, after I had made the decision to leave.

That's where I can relate to Aziraphale. I wonder what would've happened if, before I had actually left for good, the head honchos had come up to me and said, "We want to keep you -- how about we offer you (an even higher position)?" -- would I have said no, or would I have wanted to make a difference?

Funny, I said exactly that, too. That's almost why I didn't change jobs in the first place. I said, "But I feel like I'm really making a difference with what I'm doing now." But what pushed me over the edge was realizing that none of that mattered to them, it was all about THEIR control of ME, not the other way around.

I'm so intensely curious to see what happens with Aziraphale next, but I'm sure he will learn what Crowley understands: nothing lasts forever, and sometimes it's good that it doesn't -- even if sometimes we wish it did.

[queenaeducan]

In Defense of Spirits

Or, alternatively:

I. Introduction

Spirits are one of my favourite parts of the Dragon Age lore, but they didn't start that way! Initially with Origins the various demons I fought I considered little more than cannon fodder, enemies put in my way to cut down so I could move on with my mission. With the introduction of Justice in Awakening and Dragon Age II coupled with Merrill’s alternate perspective also introduced in the latter, my feelings about them started to change. Solas and Cole crack those feelings wide open come Inquisition, and when replaying the games I found myself questioning the motivations of encounters with people I once considered one-note enemies.

I wanted to compile a list of these alternate readings of the various spirits we meet throughout the series, starting first with Origins. I'll be detailing some common themes and, where it’s appropriate, to defend their actions. This list is not comprehensive as there are some encounters I don’t consider significant or interesting enough to mention, although if someone’s curious about a particular spirit I’m happy to oblige. For the purposes of clarity, if I use the word “spirit” I am still referring to all denizens of the Fade, whether they call themselves Pride or Compassion. I may use the word “demon,” as a treat.

The purpose of this retrospective is to reflect upon the motivations of the spirits we kill through the series and how I think Bioware successfully created a world where, in this instance, we were sucked into their preconceived biases regarding spirits. And hopefully to make you feel as bad as I do when I’m forced to kill spirits who probably are better people than my player characters. I am also not arguing that everything I put forth here was intended by the writers. I have the reach and flexibility to pull out threads they didn’t expect me to.

Finally, this won’t be an exhaustive examination. There are a lot of spirits and some don’t invite discussion on my part.

II. Analytical Lens

There are several recurring themes that will crop up when I’m recontextualising the motivations of the spirits throughout the series. We’ll be going over these in detail as we talk about individual spirits, but for now:

The Veil is a construct. There was initially no barrier stopping them from moving back and forth freely, and in many ways their desire to manifest physically outside the Fade is a natural inclination. The problem being that going there and back again isn’t as easy as it once was.

They don’t understand this world. Again, I think the presence of the Veil exacerbates this. Time and again we see spirits who do have enough will to manifest safely have difficulty adjusting. 

Trying to help hurts. Spirits can’t sicken with Blight or the common cold (that we know of), but intense emotions or cruel intentions can twist them from their purposes. Those who reach out in the honest urge to help may find themselves burned, sometimes through no fault of either party.

Their design encourages dehumanisation. For lack of a better word, considering this is a land of elves, dwarves, qunari, and so on. Many of the spirits we’re asked to empathise with are humanoid, with those we are at odds with being more likely to be monstrous or animal in design, making it easier to justify why we need to choose violence.

III. Dragon Age: Origins

Mouse

Mouse is among the first spirit players will meet in Dragon Age, depending on whether or not they play the Mage origin or not. Narratively he is meant to introduce the player to the role spirits often play in the lives of mages, that is to say: an evil that is not always self-evident. He tells a sympathetic lie, presents himself as someone who was once in a position like the protagonist currently is, and wants to make sure they don’t end up like him, only for it to be revealed that the entire reason he’s there is to possess them. At least, nominally that’s his role. A second pass at Mouse’s actions does raise questions as to his true intentions.

Throughout the test Mouse encourages two things within the protagonist: their self-worth and their questioning of the ritual. The former makes sense, he is ultimately revealed to be a spirit of Pride and so to stoke the protagonist’s own pride may inflate their confidence to a point where they can’t see the potential harm in dealing with him. Still, in a society where magic is feared and mages prisoners, there is something radical in encouraging that in someone. Especially when paired with remarks Mouse makes where he questions the logic of the Harrowing itself:

“It isn’t right they do this, the Templars. Not to you, me, anyone.”

This is one of the first things he says to you, and is one of the first pieces of Circle critical rhetoric in the entire series. From the perspective of the protagonist at the time, it would seem he’s referring only to apprentices, but is he? Spirits are drawn into the Harrowing as much as mages, ostensibly willingly with the promise of a body to possess, but we see in rituals such as the one that drew Wisdom into the world that the Circle isn’t above shackling spirits into doing their bidding, be it as a means of protection or garnering information. Once inside, they’re subject to the will of the apprentice, who have been taught to fear and mistrust the Fade since they were first brought to the Circle. So is Mouse expressing bitterness about the situation of the apprentices, or is he looking at the situation as being equally unfair to all involved?

Furthermore, what’s most interesting about Mouse is he never actually tries to possess you. He makes some requests, which Surana or Amell can’t agree to, but even if you avoid catching onto his game for as long as you can it never goes farther than that. He reveals himself as the final test and before the Harrowing ends he dispenses the to-be Warden a warning:

“Simple killing is a warrior’s job. The real dangers of the Fade are preconceptions, careless trust… pride. Keep your wits about you, mage. True tests never end.”

A piece of wisdom, if you will.

I don’t believe Mouse ever truly intended to possess you, although it’s impossible to tell if he truly would or not without the ability to agree to his bargain. He gives up the game too quickly, with the Warden only needing to vaguely doubt his story before he reveals it. By following the Warden through their Harrowing he helps them successfully bargain with spirits like Valor and Sloth and safely introduces the idea that not everything here is as it seems. Rather than being purely a Pride demon, I think Mouse is a spirit of Wisdom influenced by the Warden’s preconceptions towards what some might call the darker aspect of the values he represents. 

While I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Mouse was exactly what we’re led to believe, nevertheless I believe it probable that spirits aren’t always gleeful participants in the Harrowing and that the rite is damaging to them as well as the apprentice mages.

Desire

We go now to another spirit from the Circle, specifically the Desire demon we meet in the Broken Circle quest. When we come across her she’s possessed a Templar and letting him live out a fantasy of having a wife and children. When the Warden and their party come across her, she argues that she’s giving him what he wants and doesn’t see the harm in it. Upon my first playthrough I took this as a lie and killed her, although it was difficult not feeling bad, as from the perspective of the enthralled Templar he died defending his family from bandits. To him the Warden was unequivocally the bad guy, and it’s tragic thinking about what his final thoughts might have been.

As for Desire herself, I think there’s an argument to be made that she simply didn’t see a difference between her making a life for herself and the Templar all within his head and a physical, lived life. We see in Inquisition especially, where we talk to more spirits, that the nature of the physical world is as alien to them as the Fade is to mortals. Command wonders out loud why the rocks do not move at her command, and Cole asks Varric to talk to his shoelaces for him because they “don’t listen to him.” They existed in a world where will mattered more and where dreams were real, so it stands to reason that to Desire there is no discernable difference between giving him what he wants for real and dreaming it.

Interestingly, you can choose to let them both go, and we get no indication of where they go from the Circle. Leliana also approves because she thinks what counts is that he’s happy. Personally I don’t feel there’s a right option in this quest as either leaves the Templar in a tragic spot, but I do think the Desire demon’s motivations aren’t as evil or manipulative as they seemed on my first playthrough.

Lady of the Forest

The Lady is perhaps the first spirit in the series given a more complicated character than “spirit good, demon bad.” We have Valor in the mage origin, Wynne’s spirit of Faith, etc, but they aren’t given much characterisation and their benevolent nature is taken as a matter of fact. We have a biased introduction to her, we see the damage she has done to Zathrian’s clan and hear his side of the story. We go into the forest to carve the heart from her chest.

But when the time comes to actually speak with her, his bias and deception is plain. She has all the trappings of a demon: summoned at a point of great tragedy, as a tool of vengeance, enacting a literal curse upon Zathrian’s enemies. Yet now she is an advocate for non-violent solutions, only compelled to violence by desperation (she sent letters but Zathrian left her on read) or by the player’s encouragement (potentially). I do think this was an end she worked towards, and didn’t come by naturally, saying to the Warden at one point:

“Then the time has come to… set our rage aside. I apologise on Swiftrunner’s behalf. He struggles with his nature.”

While she is speaking of Swiftrunnher, given she is the curse’s origin, I think the same could be said of her nature (as it is her curse). Zathrian implies much the same, saying to her:

“Your nature compels it, as does mine.”

I think it’s very likely that had we encountered the Lady those hundred years ago when she was first made, she would have been to our eyes a demon, rather than the semi-benevolent force of nature she appears as in-game. Interestingly, her outward nature doesn’t change if she is compelled to kill the Dalish. She isn’t thrilled, but neither is her nature twisted. She’s pretty quick to move on, afterwards. Of the major spirits in DA:O, I do think she is an outlier in the series. Killing her is the bad option, especially when a mutually beneficial solution is forced upon you. She also has a stronger presence of mind than many of the other spirits, perhaps accounting to her age and the fact that she is tethered to the world through not only Zathrian but her ‘followers.’ It’s fitting that the Dalish quest is the one where a spirit is presented not only sympathetically, but (as far as I can tell) exclusively referred to as a spirit whether they are doing right or wrong.

Rage

We meet many Rage demons in Origins, and throughout the series, but the spirit I’m referring to are the ones we meet in the Alienage’s orphanage. The recent site of a massacre, the orphanage is now home to a spirit of Rage who attacks those who enter. Rage, I thought, was a curious choice, when Despair and Terror exist. Although the fact that they probably didn’t want to make a new spirit model for this one sidequest would probably explain it on a development level, but then I wondered— whose rage?

The spirits don’t seem to embody the rage of the people who massacred the orphanage, or even the rage of the victims. They tell the Warden and Ser Otto that they “do not belong here” and one is furious that the party has killed “my brood.” I think the presence of the spirits here is indicative of how helpful or benevolent spirits can be twisted by the horrors of our world, that they were drawn by the misery of what happened at the orphanage and upon witnessing it they became enraged. They are ultimately protecting nothing, just an empty building that’s probably best torn down or cleared out, or whatever the elves of Denerim’s Alienage decide they need to properly mourn. Yet as we walk through the building the screams of children still play around us, it’s still happening for its current residents.

In the final encounter of the quest, the Rage demon targets and kills Ser Otto (assuming those mabari you encounter like two minutes in don’t get him first, like they do for me every time if I’m not paying attention) first out of your entire party. It makes sense, although his motivation was pure, he is representative of the human justice that allows horrors like this, and what’s more— how many orphans were taken from the orphanage’s midst by people wearing armour just like his, never to return?

The rage demons had every right to be angry, even if their anger manifested in a harmful way. The tragedy is that, outside of Denerim’s Alienage, most people weren’t.

IV. Other

These are spirits whose roles I don’t have much to say about, for one reason or another.

Kitty. I don’t have much to say about Kitty, who as a reminder is the spirit held captive in the basement of Wilhelm, the former master of Shale. Given Kitty can agree to not possess Amalia, content simply to be free of the basement, and then doubles back on that promise once you complete the puzzle, I don’t have the highest opinion of Kitty. However, can I do want to point out that Wilhelm held Kitty captive in his basement for decades for his research. Research which, by the way, was to find ways to prevent mages from becoming possessed. A little ironic that he essentially possessed a spirit to do so. I want to point this out only because I think it highlights how spirits are casually used by people and at no point do we stop and wonder what decades of being locked up in a basement outside of their intended realm of existence might do to someone, even a metaphysical someone.

Herren. The merchant and life partner of the blacksmith Wade, who may have made your Warden some nice armour from all those endangered dragons they killed. In the Darkspawn Chronicles Herren is fought— as a desire demon. Gaider says this is not canon, but he doesn’t even go here anymore, so instead I’d like to put forth the idea that Herren is a desire demon taken physical form who lives out his existence peacefully (if somewhat grumpily) with his eccentric husband. I have no evidence of this being a fact, in fact I have the opposite of evidence, but I like my version better, so.

The Grand Oak. I think everyone with a modicum of taste likes this guy, but I do think he's an interesting lens to look at how spirits in Elvhenan might have lived. I like to think all of them had a period where they just vibed as a tree for a hundred years or so.

[catty-words]

the way devi engages with her heritage is an important part of the text because anything that helps make up devi's identity - or crisis of the same - enhances the bildungsroman nature of the story. it's also hugely important for the way it establishes the tension in devi and nalini's relationship.

from the very first scene, mother and daughter are at odds over the value of being indian. devi is praying to their gods, sure, but she's asking for a more classic american teen high school experience. she wants to go to parties and have boyfriends but less body hair. she eats meat with abandon.

(sidebar, but i've always found this quiet, subtle bit of storytelling fascinating -

nalini and mohan are clearly at odds, too, about how heritage should fit into devi's upbringing. mohan feels a certain amount of pride/amusement/affection over devi being all-american, yet nalini disapproves and is even disgusted that this bit of ingrained respect for animals is being violated by her family.)

devi's textbook, then, is imbued with narrative significance where this through line is concerned by the following exchange:

nalini: devi, are you still praying? our gods have other stuff to do, you know?

devi: i was about to ask for good grades.

nalini: now, grab your textbooks. we need to go.

nalini: devi, that textbook has been blessed. if it touches the ground, i have to take it back to the priest. i don't have time to go to rancho cucamonga today!

it wouldn't be apparent to first-time viewers, necessarily, but there's a frustration at the lack of responsibility here that becomes indicative of their season one dynamic, right? nalini wants devi to take praying seriously, she wants her to take the blessed textbook seriously, and she doesn't have the capacity to patiently guide devi toward valuing that seriousness. she herself is grieving and working a demanding job that supports her family and expending more time than she really has to assert the importance of their culture's rituals on devi's life has put a strain on their relationship.

of course, on devi's side of things, she feels this pressure from her mom and the pressure to be accepted by her peers as diametrically opposed forces in her life. being indian only ever alienates devi from american normality, which is why kamala straddling both worlds with what devi perceives as effortlessness gets under her skin so easily.

the show further weaves these threads together - nalini's desire for devi to have a closeness with and respect for her culture and devi's tetchiness over letting her mom down being at odds with her need to be seen as normal - using the textbook in the following dialogue.

devi: how long is kamala gonna stay with us?

nalini: as long as it takes for her to finish her studies. why?

devi: she's just so... [with embarrassment and mild disgust] indian.

devi: like, the other day, she said she was gonna open the tv instead of turn on the tv.

nalini: devi, she is family. she's bettering her life, you could actually learn a little bit from her.

the way devi handles the blessed textbook symbolizes a disconnect with their culture for nalini, and nalini's focus on how it nearly touched the ground even though it didn't symbolizes an impossible standard she'll never be able to meet for devi.

it's obviously significant, then, that at the emotional climax of the episode, devi flings the textbook out of her window.

she's been made to feel fragile by her closest friends who, let's be real, devi was taking comfort in being cooler/more normal than up until the moment she finds out about eleanor's boyfriend. stressed about the way this sets back her misguided plan to paint over her grief with a shiny coat of popularity, devi lashes out at the symbol of these conflicting pressures on her life. she's never more at a loss about her own identity than when she smashes the window with the blessed textbook and lets it hit the ground.

but you know what? that complete lack of control motivates devi to seek out an actually healthy outlet for her emotions, i.e. a talk with her therapist. devi starts rebuilding herself immediately, and that tenacity and strength of spirit is something nalini will acknowledge as a pillar of her daughter's identity when standing up to rhyah two seasons from now.

[suzieburself]

Mike and El’s Opposing arcs in Season 3 and how They Will Lead to the Downfall of Mileven

This will mostly cover season 3, but I’m going to briefly go through the first 2 seasons as well for a bit of context to the overall analysis

Season 1

The milder version of the born sexy yesterday trope. A lot of smart  people have already analyzed this but it’s basically when the nerdy male protagonist that’s easy to project onto gets the superpowered woman who knows nothing about the world. The Duffers faced some backlash for this and said they were subverting the genre by giving El some independence. 

Season 2

Separates the two to give El a new arc not centered around Mike at all while Mike is centered around both her and Will. At the end, they still have had pretty much zero real conversation but they do share a kiss. 

With these two seasons in mind, it seems obvious to the GA that they are in love, but in reality, there is a lot to question in their relationship. Is it really love if El is the first girl that’s ever shown interest in Mike? Is it love if Mike is the first person her age to ever show her any kindness? Is it love if they’ve never had an emotional talk? Is it love or is it still just the born sexy yesterday trope?

Queue season 3 answering these questions…

This is where I can see people disagreeing, but here is what I believe to be El’s arc first throughout season 3, how she gets her independence to throw off the trope and proves her genuine love for Mike. 

Eleven

The season starts off with the Mileven makeout where they playfully disagree and then Mike has to leave, already opening up the illusion that this season is going to be full of Mileven. Then what happens? They break up the next episode and stay broken up for pretty much the whole season. The breakup opens up for the Max and El friendship and for El to become her own person away from Mike.

With Max’s advice, she dumps Mike, not because she doesn’t want to be with him, but because there is a clear lack of communication in their relationship. And although El seems generally happy broken up with Mike and hanging out with Max, Max does have to reassure her that Mike will come crawling back to her. 

The most interesting El line from the season is “How do I know what I like?” 

This holds a lot of significance in terms of Mileven because again, El is very new to the society and all relationships. She’s still figuring herself out and I think this line perfectly captures her arc this season of figuring out what she likes or in this case, who?

Through the season, we see her warming back up to Mike during the sauna test, at the hospital, and then when she overhears him at the cabin. Max gives her a lot of advice, but ultimately, no one tells her whether or not she should get back with Mike. That is her decision that she comes to at the end of the show. 

So, where does El’s arc wrap up?

Now she has a female friend which is one of her strongest platonic relationships, she has a father, and she gets to act more like a normal teenage girl and discover what she loves, in other words, she’s starting to fully figure herself out. She’s now a more fleshed out character that doesn’t fall into the born sexy yesterday trope with complicated relationships and real interests. So that leaves the ultimate question… Where does Mike fall into all this?

And that leads us to the closing of the season. This is where El decides that she does know what she likes and even with everything else in her life, even with her independence, she still wants to be in a relationship with Mike. 

Whether you ship Mileven or not, the break up was absolutely necessary for El’s narrative, allowing her feelings to finally be truly confirmed and real. “I love you, too,” she says and this is absolutely genuine, at least based on the rest of her arc. 

So if El’s romantic love of Mike is genuine, then it must be true for Mike as well, right? Obviously, he wants to get back with El just as much as she does with him. Obviously, they are the main couple and so what if they have a small fight? Clearly Mike and El would have similar arcs since they are soulmates and meant to be, right? Right????

Mike

It’s all in the opposing narratives of Mike and El in this season (and honestly the other seasons as well) which is laid out for us in the first scene where they want different things (Mike singing and El telling him to stop). Sure it could be not that deep, but let's look at the two characters narratively speaking. 

Mike is in the perfect nuclear family, he has interests, personality, and good friends. Sure he’s not popular, but like he says in season 4, what if he doesn’t want to be? The only thing he’s missing? A girlfriend, obviously. We all know in order for someone’s life to be complete, they need a romantic interest. 

Original pitch for Mike’s character for the Montauk Project (now Stranger Things)- “Mike Wheeler is twelve. He is a cute kid, but a birthmark on his left cheek leads to much bullying and near-crippling insecurity. He has never had a first kiss, much less a girlfriend. He escapes his insecurities through reading fantasy novels, spending time with his three best friends (Lucas, Dustin, and Will), and retreating into his own vivid imagination. The Dungeon Master of his Dungeons and Dragons group, he writes sprawling adventures with fantastical monsters. When he finds himself on a real adventure, facing real monsters, he will discover a courage he didn't know he had. By the end, he will even kiss a girl.” (Taken from Stranger Things Wiki) 

His arc surrounds a lot of things, but kissing and being with a girl to fight his insecurity is very obviously one of them. 

If we look at Eleven, her arc isn’t about romance at all. Her arc is about discovering the world and finding friends and family who love her, things Mike already has. This comes to fruition at the end of season 3 where she gets everything, friends, family, and romance. When El is without Mike, she actually grows her other relationships such as with Hopper in Season 2 and Max in Season 3 (one could even argue Will in season 4). 

The opposite ends up being true for Mike when he’s with El. Season 3 is the first time we actually get to see them act as a real couple (excluding the Snow Ball) and it is also the first time we see a rift in the party, specifically caused by Mike.  Mike and El are the first ones to leave Dustin and the others in the first episode, he’s the one late to the movies, prioritizing El who he sees every day, over his friends. Sure Lucas is also responsible for making fun of Will’s campaign but that’s not who Will calls out…

“You’re ruining our party!” 

“You’re destroying everything and for what? So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?” 

Everyone is putting the blame on Mike and his prioritization of El over everyone else. So while El is making friends, Mike is losing them. 

Another difference between the two is how they receive relationship advice. This is both of their first relationships so obviously it’s normal to go for advice, but the key is when. Max gives El advice on breaking up with Mike, sure, but she follows her heart in terms of getting back together with him.

In the hospital scene, this is the first time after their break up that they are interacting alone. This only ever happened because Lucas pushed Mike to talk to her, to give her the olive branch. Without him, Mike would have continued to do nothing and let them be broken up.

Through all of this, we still don’t quite have a grasp on Mike’s real feelings. Sure we know he thinks getting back with Eleven would be “logical”, but does he love her?  Well, just like El, Mike does get a moment similar to El’s love confession at the end of the season that is supposed to prove Mike’s true feelings, but just like everything else, it is pretty much the opposite of El’s.

“I love her and I can’t lose her again!”  This is loud, this is panicked, this is public, and this wasn’t even supposed to be something Eleven heard. 

Compared to El’s “I love you, too,” which was quiet, something she took time considering saying, during an intimate moment, and something that was only supposed to be for Mike’s ears. 

Hm, I wonder which one was more genuine?

And if you think just saying he loves El is enough, well look at season 4. Why would they reuse the plot of Mike not being able to say he loves El if it’s so obvious he does love her and already said it? Just the fact that that was an actual plot line proves this one wasn’t enough to prove Mike’s real feelings. 

So still, Mike’s true feelings in his relationship with El are hidden from us. 

And this brings me to the other differences in Mike and El’s actions at the very end of the season when the Byers move. 

All of the romance in this goodbye is initiated by El. Mike’s being friendly, sure, but he doesn’t make any romantic moves on her. El even tries to flirt with him and he is so friendly with her, it becomes incredibly awkward. 

And as El fulfills her arc and initiates a kiss with Mike, saying how she loves him, and making it her own decision, what does Mike do? 

Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t kiss her back. He doesn’t even close his eyes. 

Thus ends El’s arc. 

And thus opens Mike. 

Thus answers the question of El loving Mike with a “yes”.

And answering the question of Mike loving El with an “I think so?” at best, a “no” at worst, but more likely than not, and “I’m not really sure yet”. 

I’m not going to go into detail surrounding season 4, but his arc only continues from there. We still don’t have that moment of “oh, he loves her” (and if you think it’s the monologue then I don’t really know what to say…). I want to go into more detail of this in a different post and how Byler ties in to that. 

In conclusion, after season 3, we are able to determine El’s feelings as genuine and are not able to yet figure out Mike’s. 

The question still stands, how do we know what he likes? 

[nofomogirl]

Introductions in opening scenes from Good Omens S1 and S2

It's time to revisit the walls of Eden scene after all the new info from the new season (part 1? nor promising, but maybe it's just part 1)

Warning: This post contains very minor spoilers for season 2. Mostly, as the title suggests, from the opening scene. But if you haven't seen the show yet and don't know what the opening scene is, I suggest you come back after watching because it's OMG.

In Good Omens the book the very first line of dialogue is "I'm sorry, what was it you were saying?" strongly implying that we've started listening to Aziraphale and Crowley mid-conversation. They are introduced to us, the readers, in the narrative bits, but the names are never used in actual dialogue.

Maybe they had introduced themselves earlier, maybe they didn't. Maybe they didn't need an introduction, maybe they did. We don't know and it doesn't matter. The authors wanted us to focus on the conversation at hand, not on their relationship. An angel and a demon on the walls of Eden are just an excuse to discuss certain ideas.

The show changes the scene a little and makes some things more explicit. We now know for sure that what we saw was the entire conversation because we were shown how it started. We now know for sure that (1) Aziraphale never gave his name, (2) Crowley never asked for it, (3) Crowley gave his name (4) but only after Aziraphale gently pressed him to.

After season 1 I was mostly looking at it from a practical perspective, probably because I like comparing how different kinds of media can convey information, and I mostly focused on how the book was translated into the show.

From that perspective, it was okay to cut the information that the angel's name was Aziraphale from that first scene, because we were going to learn it soon enough anyway, and there was no point in disrupting the flow of the conversation to include it. However, we needed to know that the serpent's name was Crawly because it was going to change and changes in Crowley's name are important. So it was justified to take this information from the narration and squeeze it into the dialogue. But in the most unintrusive way possible.

Of course, that doesn't mean I have never considered the in-universe significance of their introduction/lack of introduction in Eden. However, my headcanon was that the S01E01 opening was their very first meeting, and season 2 proved me wrong, so I will skip my old theories here.

Instead, let's look at S02E01 and S01E01 side by side.

S01E01 Aziraphale never gave his name / S02E01 Crowley never gave his name

We now know that Aziraphale hasn't introduced himself in Eden because they had met before.

But why has Crowley done the same among the stars? It couldn't be that they had already met even earlier, because if that was the case why would Aziraphale introduce himself then?

I believe one of the main reasons is that we're not supposed to know Crowley's angelic name. At least not yet, maybe not ever (I hope we will never learn it, since it is his dead name).

But that again is not an in-universe explanation.

Have you noticed how throughout season 2 two characters expected Crowley to know them, but he didn't? Sure, there's always memory manipulation theory, but honestly, I'm beginning to believe that he simply doesn't pay attention to people around him. And the way he acted towards Aziraphale seems to confirm it. He called out to a passing angel simply because he needed a hand. He wasn't looking for company and would be perfectly happy if Aziraphale left immediately after, leaving Crowley to enjoy his creation alone. It takes considerable effort on Aziraphale's side to engage Crowley in the conversation.

S01E01 Crowley never asked for Aziraphale's name / S02E01 Aziraphale never asked Crowley for his name

Again, because they had already met before Eden.

Right?

It is a valid explanation, obviously, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case. I think it's quite possible, that Crowley didn't remember Aziraphale just like he didn't remember Saraqael or Furfur. I know we wish to think Aziraphale was special and must have left an impression but I see no evidence of that in pre-Fall Crowley's behaviour. Quite the opposite.

I think the reason Crowley didn't ask Aziraphale for his name might have been because, as usual, he didn't care.

Unless, of course, they met before the Fall more than just this once and got to know each other better.

Ok, so why Aziraphale didn't ask Crowley for his name among the stars? I think we can rule out not being interested. Perhaps it was a sign of social awkwardness and insecurity; after he introduced himself and Crowley failed to reciprocate, he got discouraged? Not impossible, but it's not speaking to me.

My (veRy oRigINal) theory is that Aziraphale didn't ask because he already knew. It was the first time they were speaking face to face, but he was aware of Crowley before. Maybe because Crowley was a high-ranking angel and everybody knew who he was. Or maybe he personally caught Aziraphale's interest for some reason, hmm?

S01E01 Crowley gave his name / S02E01 Aziraphale gave his name

Now this is where things get really interesting.

Remember the "Crowley fell first" theory? It was neat, wasn't it? Unfortunately, it's going out the window now, because it couldn't have been any more obvious that Aziraphale had a massive crush on pre-Fall Crowley and in the creation scene he was bending over backward to flirt with him and extend their interaction. What's more, Crowley wasn't particularly interested!

Aziraphale introduces himself completely unprompted and seems so incredibly happy that he can. Crowley's reaction is a "nice meeting you", that sounds an awful lot like "whatever, bye".

After that, I will never be able to see Crowley's reaction to "I gave it away" and not think about how in season 2 he says "it is always too late"...

Ok, now let's have a look at the moment Crowley introduces himself in Eden.

He doesn't do it on his own. He only responds when Aziraphale shows interest.

Aziraphale doesn't explicitly ask Crowley for his name. He just talks to him, reaches a point when it would be natural to address him by his name, and suspends his voice. Crowley gets the hint and fills his name in. Aziraphale repeats it, Crowley gives him a little nod, and the conversation continues smoothly.

Before season 2, I just thought that it was a courteous gesture proving that Aziraphale sees Crowley as a person.

Season 2 makes it a little more complicated.

When Aziraphale stops mid-sentence at the point where Crowley's name should be, was it fully conscious? Was he going to use Crowley's old name and realize last moment, that he shouldn't? If so, what was his reason? Was it out of respect for Crowley, who might not identify with that name anymore, or was it because he believed a demon had no right to an angelic name? Or maybe it would be simply too painful for Aziraphale himself?

I'm going to stop here, but honestly. After you're done crying after the S2 finale, I strongly suggest watching the S2 opening scene, and then the S1 Eden scene. A new perspective really adds to it!

Then watch S2 opening again followed by the rest of S2 because we want to create numbers and make S3 happen.

[4dmc]

Sucker Punch was the feminine equal to Fight Club's masculine

They're not similar, I even think Sucker Punch takes inspiration from Fight Club as the older film by a decade.

They are both psychological, thematically about fighting the system through their perspectives, and speaking of, both have supposed unreliable narrators or are structured to tell us a sort of flashback. But the flashback story isn't quite as straightforward.

They're both from the weary, exhausted and common, perhaps invisible, voices.

Fight Club may have "Tyler Durden" who is an upper-middleclass man, but he's not particularly significant in his job. The club he establishes invites common men, some may have been white collar, but mostly of blue collar jobs. They want to escape, as escape rather, and violence was there means of that.

Sucker Punch is much crueler. The asylum houses mentally-disturbed women, their backgrounds unimportant. The Brothel World leaves a very important subtext of what is being done to the women in the asylum. Their only escape is literally and figuratively their wits, their imagination.

Both definitely delve into how their psychosis copes and helps them adapt with their problems, but their problems aren't the same.

Fight Club deals with a transgressive thought of how men are both restricted and neglected with their expected tasks, norms, roles, etc. They are not to sway away from this path, which is disheartening for those who want and need financial and social mobility. The story showcases so many men who need help, but the therapy groups feel lacking. It's as if the society that has given them so much may not be what could complete them all along. And yet there lingers a "Tyler Durden", who opposes these expectations, especially as it's seen as a way that it was handed to them, not really earned. But "Tyler Durden" is destructive in his ways, especially to himself. He had given to his urges and was going to bring a lot of people with him down. The ending has him accept the consequences and even accept "Marla Singer" herself, instead. He wanted freedom from being just another revenant common man passing by, who's mental illness and perhaps implied physical illness, a cancer maybe, was neglected. He finally frees himself by "killing" that part of him that wasn't going to help him.

Sucker Punch deals to us a meta-narrative of women, in real life and in fictional media. The actual events of what happened is unimportant, though lore theorists are welcome to try. The significance of the events that had been "presented", as it opens with a theater curtain being pulled apart, to us are all metaphor, implied, subtext, to create a more cinematic show to present a grim reality of how some suffering is invisible to the public. And even more so how the most important type of strength is also invisible. There's a dichotomy of a battle of wits and quiet, versus the cinematic "imagination" of how a battle is supposed to be presented to us. It's not important if "Babydoll" did exist through Sweet Pea's survivor's account, but her conclusion tells us there's lots of "Babydolls" out there in real life fighting for their lives, even if nobody will ever know. And knowing that, their fight is worthy after all.

[eliza1911o1]

LOTS of feels from the finale today. Both expected and unexpected, the episode was much more wholesome than I think anyone anticipated. Nonetheless, the season still concludes as lacking with Ch 24 not delivering nearly the same impact as the last two seasons

This finale had everything we wanted: Bo vs. Gideon and uniting the Mandalorians; reclaiming Mandalore; Din and Grogu being the best clan of two in every possibly way — BUT, for all the dynamic fights and flashiness, the force of the episode still wasn’t up to par. Although it was triumphant and there was gratification in seeing Bo reclaim her throne and the Imperials be destroyed, it was a feeling more of fulfilling expectation rather than a win we desperately wanted. For me, the only real emotionally-charged scenes were those between Din and Grogu, especially when they were separated and Grogu was left alone with the Red Guards. (That part really got me… almost cried at the thought of something separating them again when they were so close…)

The season was set up to build up and conclude to this final episode where all the Mandalorians retake their planet together. However, and I’m making assumptions here, I think the majority of us still didn’t really care for any Mandalorians other than Din in the end. I’m not saying there weren’t some characters we enjoyed or rooted for, but the connection never came anywhere close to what the audience felt towards Din or others in previous seasons. We think the armorer is cool and lament Paz’s sacrifice, we’re happy for Greef Karga and excited by Carson Teva’s return, but these reactions are built on their familiarity from and we never really have any relationships furthered (past Paz and the reveal of his son). For characters like Bo and the other Rebels cameos, the excitement comes, again, from outside familiarity. For Mandalorian-only viewers, Bo’s entire arc is hollow since it requires so much background from the animated series. Katee did a great job making us invest in the character, but with the limited content in the show, much of this was due to her acting and indict rather than careful construction. While in the past there was an assortment of lovable characters we wanted to see alongside Din, s3 relied too heavily on sentimentality and the frantic nature of the plot was both too hesitantly developed and too spread out for there significant investment in anything

The season 3 finale is this huge win for the Mandalorians as a whole, it’s achievement based on the strong ties of the culture and how they are stronger together. Honestly, we don’t really care. We were rushed into those feelings. We don’t really know these new characters and we’re still learning about the culture as well as our titular character (Din, up until now)

It is jarring for the emotional heart of the show to suddenly switch from the relationship between Din and Grogu to literally all the Mandalorians. Prior seasons have relied on Din and Grogu to provide weight and this also occurs in s3 even though, unlike the past two, their relationship is not the focus

There are no stakes to this finale. The Mandalorians have to win because they are the new focus. The show has hurried them along and forced our commitment to them too fast for their to be any alternative. Din and Grogu have to be alive and reunited because they are still the essence of the show and need to exist on the outskirts of this new narrative. Paz died and as much as we dislike that fact, it is a safe choice — Paz is not a super popular character, though he is liked; his death is more heartbreaking because he’s leaving behind a kid; he embodies the culture, part of a noble house and dies in battle for his clan. That’s it. His death doesn’t even really affect any of the other characters for more than a few minutes

As satisfying as everything was, it wraps some loose ends up a little too cleanly and leaves far too many questions still open or forces too many results for ends to meet. While the s3 finale is good, could even be considered great, the entirety of the rambling season causes it to fall flat. Though there are some standouts, the season as a whole fails to deliver what was promised from the past twos other thoughts are being thunk but this is the most general opinion I can land on for now. Very interested to hear the discourse on this season as time progresses and we can look back on it objectively

[k-asternix]

In honor of the new life series supercuts we've been getting, here are my rankings for each life series season. From least to most favorite, with explanations for each ranking.

4. Last Life

I'm sorry but this one wasn't all that memorable. There was nothing wrong with it per se but it just felt a tad...incomplete compared to the others. I don't really have much to say about it. Like, yes there were interesting moments but as a whole the series didn't quite "tie together", you know? Not a bad series but not my favorite either.

3. Limited Life

This was a good season. There were a lot of great moments (I loved the judge Judy and Executioner plot). Martyn's win at the end of the series, and the lore that followed, was great. But I feel like this one suffers with a lack of narrative weight when it comes to the deaths of the characters. In the other series when a character died, regardless of the cause it was always important and had an influence on the plot. Here because of the game mechanics used (timer instead of set number of lives, keep inventory) each death felt less significant than I would have liked.

2. Double life

My second favorite. I feel like this season gets a bad rep, people say that the alliances were predictable or "forced" because of the soulmate mechanic. Or that the relationships weren't interesting because the alliances (in general) in this season lacked the kinds of tension and betrayals that they had in other seasons. I don't agree with that assessment at all.

First, not everyone stayed with their soulmates. Scott and Cleo chose thier own alliance with each other. As for the other groups, nobody is forced to stay with anyone else. They all chose to stay with their soulmates for their own reasons. Nothing forced about it.

Second, the dynamics in double life are interesting! And there's all kinds of tension and betrayals! Heck! The season even opens with Scott, Pearl, Cleo and Martyn all betraying each other! It's big! It's dramatic! It changes the course of the season!

That's not even mentioning all the smaller, more personal betrayals. (Think: secret soulmates).

Personally I found each soulmate pairing to be interesting in their own ways. And in terms of storyline this season was super solid!

Pearls decent into madness! Her eventual win! Beautiful! Tragic! Everything you want from a season of the life series!

(Plus it gave us the ranchers. What more could you ask for, really?)

1. Third Life

They. They. They never....left....the desert....they never left :(

[sagevalleymusings]

You already know what people missed in Barbie, but I'm going to deep dive it anyway because these negative reviews are hilarious

Reading one-star reviews to the 2023 movie Barbie are genuinely hilarious. 

First and foremost, the male characters lacked any significant development. They were one-dimensional, bland, and existed primarily to either praise Barbie or act as obstacles for her to overcome. This reduction of male characters to supporting roles, devoid of any substance or complexity, was a disservice not only to the male characters themselves but also to the narrative as a whole.

Like, yes. That’s… that’s literally the point. You have correctly assessed the central criticism the movie is making about patriarchy. But you think it’s a bad thing because you haven’t realized it’s on purpose.

Mattel's CEO and corporate people started as a mockery of men having all the top positions in a company; as the movie goes, they're just there at the back of your mind, and it's an unpleasant experience because they did nothing after.

Like… yes! Mattel had to sign off on this movie. Their real-world attempts to control and influence the plot of Barbie would have been sitting as an unpleasant reminder in the back of the minds of the creators, even if they ultimately did nothing. The writers clearly responded to this pressure by just making it a part of the movie.

Overall, a movie that comes off strongly like the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters; during which year, it was reviewed as being "stunning and brave" with the same misandry-esque storytelling (that time, replacing an all-male cast mind you).

This one is just funny. The rest of the review didn’t even seem that negative, and then there’s this, “I hated Ghostbusters specifically because it had women in it” dig that’s just… so telling on yourself.

More analysis after the cut. Stick around if you want to learn something ;-) 

I want to take a break from laughing at people with no understanding of subtlety and nuance to actually look at the film. I watched Barbie last night, and I thought it was great. There were a lot of relatable moments, as someone who grew up playing with dolls. The basic setting is that there is a world parallel to ours called Barbieland, which is essentially a kind of alternate dream universe, where beings in the universe are tied to and influenced by objects in the Real World. In theory, Barbieland cannot change without influence from the Real World, but if it does, it can have echoing ramifications in the Real World. That’s a setting you could do some interesting things with, and it does necessarily require some degree of surrealism. 

Surrealism was a post World War I art movement in Europe which sought to combine dreams and reality into something Andre Breton called a super reality. The irrational juxtaposition can be nonsensical, but is often used to attempt to heighten the real by contrasting it with the unreal. It is extremely relevant that it came out of Europe post “The Great War” because it is by nature a way to grapple with feelings which feel too great to express through realism. Much like Goya, when painting the Penninsular War, painted a Colossus trampling the countryside with no real acknowledgement of the harm being caused, surrealism taps into one’s feelings, to evoke the sense that the real causes, instead of simply portraying the real with accuracy. 

And I pause to explain this because Barbieland is a land of dreams. It is literally the surreal. By opening our movie with an unambiguously surreal portrayal of Victorian girls playing with baby dolls in an empty wasteland, then transitioning to the imagined Barbieland, our writers are sending a pointed message: nothing that happens in this movie should be taken literally.

That aside, the film’s scenario is disjointed, didactic, and literal. The duration of the movie is a series of speeches with every woke cliché.

Barbieland cannot be divorced from its origins. Rather than having been created organically, it was made - by men. While looking into the character/real person of Ruth Handler, I discovered that the name “Mattel” was created by combining the names of businessman Harold Mattson and Ruth’s husband Elliot. Ruth’s contributions are written out of history every time someone says “Mattel.”

Barbieland is ostensibly a matriarchy. Barbies are dolls made for girls, so the dolls are mostly girls. With the wave of second wave feminism, there was a desire to market to a more empowered type of girl. What does that look like to the men trying to come up with it? You give the dolls jobs. President Barbie, Nobel Prize Barbie, Construction Worker Barbie. Barbieland has all the trappings of a patriarchy, just with women in the gender of power instead of men. That may sound like it is therefore a matriarchy in that case, but in fact that’s not how that works. There have been real matriarchies in the world, and they don’t function the way that Barbieland functions. That Barbieland is a playhouse run by men with Barbies acting out their roles and Kens acting out the roles of women in an idyllic fantasy for the men creating them with the intent of producing a profit under patriarchal capitalism matters when analyzing this movie.

It's a long ramble about how matriarchy is perfect and patriarchy is stupid. I agree with the latter, but the execution is just awful. 

Having said that, Barbieland isn’t exactly a one-to-one to our world - it’s more like a “good old days” subversion of our world, with a specific focus on tradwife nostalgia. It’s reminiscent of 1950s “return to the home” propaganda post World War 2 - shows like Leave it to Beaver or I Love Lucy which re-emphasized to a generation of women that had been forced to enter the workforce that what they should be striving for was a husband and a home. 

In Barbieland, Kens can’t have jobs - they just stand around looking pretty, especially on the beach. Barbies have all the jobs. Also everyone owns their own homes. The aesthetic of friendly, white-washed suburbia is deeply ingrained in how everyone knows and likes their neighbors, even while 1990s multiculturalism bleeds in.  

now if we were sticking to an actual representation of Barbie Land we would also have a BEACH barbie just like we have Crystal Barbie and Ken or Great Shape Barbie and Ken or even Animal Lovin Barbie and Ken! This perception that Ken doesn’t have a REAL job is just untrue, in fact there is many Ken Careers including DOCTOR KEN!

There’s a point in the movie that I find is deeply profound actually. The Kens have taken over the Barbie dreamhouses, which prompts the question, “where do the Kens sleep?” Not only does Barbie not know, but the question is never answered. DO they sleep anywhere? 

I’m reminded of a real world parallel. Before women were allowed to work, where did they live? That might seem like a stupid question, because of course they lived somewhere, but the fact of the matter is that if you were not allowed to generate income, you could not afford a home. Girls lived with their fathers until they were married at which point they moved in with their husbands, because of course they had husbands by that point. Women didn’t have their own homes. Kens don’t have houses. In that context, the fact that Barbie continues to reject Ken to have a sleepover with other Barbies who all have their own homes takes on a much darker tone. Kens in Barbieland, much like women were in parts of the history of the Real World, are so subjugated in society that they literally don’t have access to food or shelter without relying on the other gender.

They even point out “oh where do the Kens sleep at? I have NO idea!” basically is saying they don’t have Kens contribute at all the Barbieland and all they are is dumb dressed up side pieces for the Barbies.

But I don’t think this metaphor of “patriarchy but the genders are swapped” is the only metaphor at play. After all, at some point, Barbie and Ken enter the Real World, and discover that the playacting they have been doing is literally a lie. In the Real World, patriarchy is the rule of law. Barbie is uncomfortable. Her playacting is called fascist. Meanwhile Ken is given access to any space he wants, even while having to realize that his experience - the way he was raised - means that he’s still missing critical components necessary to enter Real World patriarchy. He decides to bring patriarchy to the play world.

In our metaphor, it seems to me that this component of the movie is a direct criticism of radical feminism. The whole movie essentially speed runs the last sixty years of feminism. This also means that the metaphor becomes strained, as we maintain the plot through lines while changing the meaning, but I think it still functions well throughout. 

As the movie progresses, we reach the Kens want power in society movement, and they go way too far with it, choosing to place themselves in power with women being subjugated instead. There were separatists in second wave feminism that called for this move specifically, who argued that men were too violent to assume any position of power, and genuinely argued that a matriarchy should be instituted instead. 

I can see why someone experiencing power for the first time might believe this was the solution. Ken isn’t concerned about equality, not really. But he is concerned about the way his gender has been treated in this world, and he wants to bring other Kens out of their status as second class citizens. 

But Kendom isn’t better. Wanting to subjugate and oppress the people who were subjugating and oppressing you is an understandable reaction, and it’s the wrong one. The goal is equality, not retribution. 

Was Barbie's Director aiming at an anti men revenge film?  The film subjugated men; demeaning and objectifying them and labelling them as dumb and superfluous. They are so worth more than that and young men today struggle to find their place in a society trying to demonise them.

But by the end of the movie, the Kens haven’t gained equality. And in an extremely barbed line directed straight at the audience, our narrator says, “maybe one day they will be as represented on the Supreme Court as women are in the Real World.”

I do think it bears noting, though, that right now, in 2023, four out of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are women, which is just about fifty percent. We are achieving equality, we really are. The point isn’t that women have not achieved equality. The point is that that happened extremely slowly. There are four women on the Supreme Court today. Those four represent nearly 70% of the TOTAL number of women who have ever served on the Supreme Court. The first woman served on the Supreme Court 192 years into its existence.

I think there’s some relevant context here, then, that Barbieland, the imagined space created when playing with Barbies, has existed since 1959. Barbieland isn’t starting from nothing, since it is importing Real World values, but it has only existed for 64 years. If Barbieland operated on the same time scale that the United States did (which we know it doesn’t but let’s pretend) then men would see someone represented on the Barbieland Supreme Court in the Real World year of 2151.

In conclusion, "Barbie" is an unforgettable journey into a realm where men are vilified, female empowerment lacks subtlety, and any semblance of realism takes a backseat. 

There’s a lot more that I could say. There’s a lot more feelings I had about this movie. But I want to keep this to responding to the unintentionally hilarious critiques of this movie. It’s endlessly amusing to me that the primary critique of this movie seems over and over again to be “the movie accurately portrayed what it was trying to portray.”

The disconnect is one that I’ve seen in an increasing amount. Barbieland’s idyllic, “matriarchy is perfect” version is extremely bad. In the end, even the Barbies don’t want to return to that version of their world. Confronted with the degree to which they’d been subjugating their Kens up to this point, they now see at least in part how harmful that version was not only to the Kens, but to the Barbies too. 

But viewers can’t seem to understand that just because something is being portrayed on screen does not mean it is being condoned. 

Such an incredible steaming pile of liberal garbage that it almost seemed satirical. The supposed intention of the film was to empower women, but instead did nothing but tear down men. 

There’s one last thing I want to say before I sign off on this fun romp through Barbie’s one-star reviews, and it’s something I didn’t see very much critique of. 

Barbie is transgender. 

Barbie wanting to be human: A theme that starts with Barbie‘s interaction with an old lady and her observing other people. That motive disappears completely until the end, Barbie has no motivation to become human throughout the movie.

I think this is a metaphor that people just completely missed on. The only real critiques I saw on this part of the movie was that Barbie wanting to be human seemed like it came out of nowhere. And in some ways I’d agree that it was not as obvious as the rest of the movie was. But if you read that plot point through the lens of metaphor, it’s much more obvious.

Margot Robbie has gone on record saying that Barbie and Ken are sexless, and that therefore, they don’t really have sex drives. In a very literal way, Barbie’s existence highlights the difference between being socialized as a woman and being born as a female. But in Barbieland, there are no ‘women’ in any sense of the term. Barbie is not a human. She hasn’t been socialized the way human women have. Her gender literally isn’t ‘woman.’ It’s Barbie. And Barbies don’t have genitals. Midge was an embarrassment for Mattel in the Real World, and she’s also taboo in Barbieland, because she’s non-gender conforming to what that means for Barbies specifically. 

With that in mind, is it really true that this comes out of nowhere? I would argue no. In fact, I would argue it is the central conflict of the movie, because there is a specific gendered aspect of Stereotypical Barbie that she is not conforming to outside of Gloria’s influence. 

She doesn’t want to date Ken. They are dating, nominally, because that’s what Barbies and Kens do. But she won’t kiss him, and she won’t let him sleep over. And it’s made clear in the beginning scenes that this strain on their interactions existed before Gloria started imagining “Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie.”

Barbie doesn’t want things to change. Perhaps that’s because she can only imagine a world where things change for the worse. Where she does let Ken sleep over. And there’s something deeply troubling to Barbie about that scenario. It simply isn’t part of the version of herself this Barbie wants to be. 

Barbies playact the real world. And an extremely common and expected aspect of the playacting is the relationships they have to Kens. And regardless of the fact that all Barbies and Kens are asexual because they literally don’t have sex drives, it does seem to be the case that there’s still a gendered aspect to Barbies and Kens that they both be heteroromantic. Ken certainly has feelings for Barbie. All of the Kens are seen exhibiting jealousy. None of the other Barbies are seen as unhappy in their interactions with Kens the way that Stereotypical Barbie is. 

She’s different. She can’t playact a relationship the way everyone else can. She needs it to be… real. So she becomes real. Ken does not come along, this was never about Ken.

But that process of becoming real, of becoming human… it does mean that her gender changes. It means her sex changes. Barbieland being surreal means that this can happen instantaneously, but I do think it’s intentional on the part of the writers that the very last page of feminism - after second wave feminism, after radical activism, after reactionary conservatism pushes radical activism to the fringes, after speedrunning the last 60 years of feminism, the very last form Barbie takes is queering the narrative. Barbie has a vagina now. And she’s very proud of it. And that’s feminist too actually. 

So yeah Barbie is transgender and Greta Gerwig said trans rights, and it’s extra funny that no one noticed because they were too busy being mad that the rest of the movie was effective storytelling actually.

[navree]

About the Targaryens again… So George said that Rhaenys was a “flirt” (and we know it for sure because she obviously loved the company of males and it was a part of her extroverted personality) and Visenya was a “seductress”, but ASOIAF doesn’t portray her as a seductress at all, nor is it clear who she would be seducing. It doesn’t seem to have been Aegon, or she obviously didn’t succeed in seducing him, nor it seem to be anyone else at all. All we know is that she was cold, dark, serious and had a little sense of humour (like torturing a monkey for fun could count ok). What do you think about that?

"About the Targaryens again" I mean, do I ever really get questions about anything else, lol?

So, I think the "So Spake Martin" stuff tends to fall into the lines of "semi-canonical" rather than out and out canon from the official texts we have, which would be ASOIAF (which Visenya and Rhaenys aren't in due to having been dead for three hundred years) and Fire&Blood, where they're really only referred to because it's a historical text covering past events, not a contemporaneous narrative. But it does seem like the "So Spake Martin" description of Visenya ("Visenya is both stern and sensual, more voluptuous than her sister, more passionate, but with a dark and unforgiving side") is still meant to be taken in conjunction with her F&B official description ("Even those who loved her best found Visenya stern, serious, and unforgiving") since Rhaenys's "So Spake Martin" description ("Rhaenys, the younest of the three, is slender and graceful, playful, with a mischievous aspect to her personality than Visenya lacks") follows pretty closely with her F&B description ("Rhaenys, youngest of the three Targaryens, was all her sister was not, playful, curious, impulsive, given to flights of fancy"). So the idea that Visenya might have had a seductive aspect to her personality that she wielded when it suited her doesn't seem to be entirely out of bounds.

As to who she was seducing, that's more unclear. If you follow the conventional wisdom surrounding Aegon's relationships with his sister-wives, then she might have tried to be "seductive" towards him to try and sway him into being more attracted to her, as opposed to Rhaenys, and it simply didn't work. Or maybe it did at least once, we have no idea what the circumstances of Maegor's conception were beyond the fact that it happened at an opportune time for his parents. If you have my specific set of brain worms, then she might have tried to seduce Rhaenys somehow and whether or not she succeeded depends on how sad I want to make myself on any given day. And while there were never any rumors about her going after anyone while married (though she very well could have, just kept it incredibly on the down low), Visenya did spend a significant amount of time widowed. And while some might say "OK, but she was in her sixties and seventies when widowed so who was she seducing" I will respond with a) GILF rights and b) Visenya was said to dabble in dark sorceries and blood magic, she could have easily used some of that to make her look more youthful than her years, potentially even explaining why she suddenly had such a steep drop-off health and looks wise in the last year of her life (something something magic always has a cost something something). So it's entirely possible that, now that she was unencumbered by marriage, and powerful enough in her own right (even more so after Maegor became king) that no one would brook any argument against her for doing it, that she took some lovers in the last decade of her life, and probably seduced them into bed with her. There's also this quote that "To most of the world, she presented the grim face of a warrior, stern and unforgiving", which could easily mean that Visenya had a more sensual side to her that she didn't show in battle or on progresses or to much of open court, aka most of the world, but was present enough to be accounted for by other people, including whoever was in the inner sanctum of the Conquerors time as rulers.

Of course, just because she's described as a "seductress" doesn't necessarily mean she went around enticing everyone she met 24/7. It could easily be a description of her personality as much as it is about her actions. People generally contain multitudes, Visenya can absolutely be both stern and serious as well as using wiles to try and get people to do what she wanted. It's an element of her personality that we can actually see in how she took the Vale, tempting Ronnel with Vhagar and the promise of flying around on her, and using just that to get Sharra to realize that she needed to submit and surrender to the Targaryens. Visenya could have been a seductress in more ways than just sexual, and had her own purposes behind it, just like Rhaenys's flirty patronage of singers also served as masterful propaganda to prop up Aegon and their dynasty.

As for the monkey thing, I don't think there's any suggestion that she tortured the ape she took as the second Lord Monkeyface (even though we as modern Earth humans now know better than to try and dress animals up in little outfits that they don't want), just that she had a fool named Monkeyface and then replaced him with an actual monkey that she thought was funnier.

[jcmarchi]

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector Preview - On The Run, Again - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/citizen-sleeper-2-starward-vector-preview-on-the-run-again-game-informer/

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector Preview - On The Run, Again - Game Informer

Citizen Sleeper took me by surprise in 2022, giving me a rare new video game experience, both mechanically and narratively, and my dice-centric role-playing adventure has stuck with me since. I still think about my Sleeper and what they’re up to now. In a year where Elden Ring didn’t release, it would have been my game of the year with a bullet – read my Citizen Sleeper review here to find out why. Now, a little more than two years later, I’ve played parts of the opening hour of Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector and find myself desperate to play more. It brings back its incredible sci-fi score, cyberpunk (yet distinct) visual style, and thought-provoking and stress-inducing writing. It infuses everything I love about the first Citizen Sleeper with new mechanics that fuel the game’s central decision-making processes. 

Like the first game, I assign my Sleeper one of three classes. I go with the Operator, which the game describes as physically fragile but great at working in interfaces and computer systems. Immediately, I notice the selected class plays a more significant role in how your experience will play out because the Operator lacks access to an entire skill. This means I’m automatically at a disadvantage with any action requiring said skill. However, I have access to the Reboot skill that allows me to reset my system, which mechanically means I gain a dice reroll. It’s a risky skill, as I could roll an even lower number, putting whatever action is at hand further into jeopardy. I could also roll a significantly better number, too, though. 

The story picks up after my Sleeper has been helped by their friend Serafin. I’ve recently rebooted my entire system, ending my dependence on the Stabilizer drug that plays a major role in Citizen Sleeper and the gang leader Laine, who supplies it to me. It’s these types of touchstones to the first game players will find in the sequel, which is its own standalone story. However, the reboot was just a partial success. Sure, I no longer need Stabilizer, but my artificial body is malfunctioning. Serafin and I flee on a ship called the Rig, which we steal from Laine and take to Hexport. 

Laine, unhappy with everything we’ve done, is after us by way of gang members, bounties, and more. He’s someone my Sleeper once saw as a protector, a savior even, but now, they know him as “a pursuer, a tormentor, a nightmare.” I can’t help but notice the setup for Citizen Sleeper 2 is nearly identical to the first game – a Sleeper whose body is fighting against them is on the run from someone bigger than them. Gareth Damian Martin, the sole developer at one-person studio Jump Over The Age (though Martin has some help in developing Citizen Sleeper 2), says that’s intentional. 

“I’m a big fan of noir storytelling,” Martin tells me. “I guess it’s a bit of old-fashioned storytelling, but I like the idea about an ordinary person who’s getting sucked into extraordinary circumstances trying to improvise their way through it.”

They say they wanted to change it up a bit for the sequel – instead of running from a corporate conglomerate, you’re running from a singular person and his gang of underlings. Martin says they feel the result is a story that’s a “bit more intimate and intimidating, and in a way, weirdly scarier because it feels a little more dangerous.” 

Laine

After selecting my Sleeper, I’m thrown right into the dice action that returns from the first game. Serafin is going to check on something, so they task me with going to the Hexport Docks to pick up some small gigs. I put a 5-dice (the higher the number, the more likely the action I assign the dice to ends up with a positive outcome versus a neutral or costly negative one) on a “Chat to Crews” function here to get some tips on potential crew recruits and contacts. However, despite the high positive chance with a 5-dice, I get a neutral outcome and only get material. From here, I explore the area more and eventually unveil a new location after completing enough actions at a different spot. It’s “The Bends,” and I can gamble some Cryo (currency) in the Star and Stoker game or buy some fries to restore my energy. 

You lose one segment from your energy bar for each cycle or day of action (largely determined by your running out of dice). If this bar is empty, you starve and gain one stress bar per cycle. It’s here I learn Martin has taken a recurring feeling from the first game – the stress one experiences while playing and its effect on your decision-making – and turned it into an actual in-game mechanic aptly named stress. This dictates how much damage your dice will take when rolled. Damage a dice three times, and it breaks until it’s fixed. 

Stress joins another new mechanic called Glitch, which I don’t experience in my hands-on demo but witness in a hands-off preview played by Martin. If you roll your dice while you have some Glitch, which, like Stress, is represented in the U.I., you can roll Glitch dice. These have an 80% chance for a negative outcome but a 20% chance for the best possible outcome, once more playing into the risk-and-reward feel permeating the game. You gain Glitch based on how you repair or heal your body – scrap parts might yield more Glitch, whereas more premium resources yield little to none. Together, these mechanics add an exciting but stressful new layer to each decision you make with dice. 

“When you look up there [at your U.I. bar], there’s this kind of game of plates spinning,”  Martin tells me. “The big part of those plates is actually you dealing with the facilities and capabilities of your body. Even when you heal one of your dice slots, you’re having to deal with the fact that you’re taking on Glitch, and therefore, you’ve got to think about, ‘Do I go on a job right now when I’ve got this level of Glitch or do I rest a bit?’ In general, this is connected to me adding a bit more mechanical heft to the game, especially when it comes to players who aren’t necessarily drawn to the role-playing without some kind of mechanical support for that.” 

Martin hopes these additional layers of mechanics provide new pathways for role-playing. With Citizen Sleeper, they noticed some players would lean into the role-playing aspect, making money and decisions based on how their Sleeper might. However, some players said, “I like to make money wherever I make the most money.” It was strictly mechanical for them. 

“I always felt like, ‘Oh, that’s a shame because I want you to engage with this character that you’re playing and the story they’re telling,’ so this time around, if I want players to think about how they have to deal with something, there’s a mechanical effect,” Martin says. 

As there’s no point in spoiling the narrative events that transpire in this preview build, given how narrative-focused the series is, I’m going to jump ahead to another new mechanic: Contracts. After picking one up at the Hexport contract board, I learn these high-risk, high-reward jobs greatly expand the scope of Citizen Sleeper 2. Unlike the first game, which primarily takes place on a singular space station called the Eye, Citizen Sleeper 2 gives players access to a large star map with various points of interest. 

Before embarking on this contract, the game warns me to ensure I have enough fuel to travel to the contract, supplies to keep my Sleeper and crew going, and that I take the opportunity to scout out new freelance crew members to join. Your crew plays a significant role both in the main narrative of Citizen Sleeper 2 and these contracts, which Martin describes as vignettes or episodes inspired by, for example, sub-arcs in series like Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, or other sci-fi greats. They say you might do two or three contracts and see the same character repeatedly, or there might be contracts where you meet a character for the first and last time. Regardless, it’s about the “little story” you get from these contracts. Some are high intensity, others are more laid back, Martin says. The one I do in my preview falls into the former. 

After traversing across space to a security drone with something inside I need, I learn that said drone is rigged to blow. Four mistakes and the contract could be over on account of an explosion. As such, I must disable parts of the drone in a semi-sequential order while maintaining a balancing act of dice, supplies (and energy), and more. Supplies, of which I can carry a maximum of five at this point and do before leaving for this contract, automatically replenish energy after each cycle during a contract. When you run out of supplies, your energy will deplete each cycle, and as your energy depletes, your dice get worse, jeopardizing the mission at hand. That’s why preparing ahead of time for a contract is essential. 

However, with a drone rigged to blow after four mistakes, I can’t risk using low-number dice with high chances of failure or my low-number crew dice, which, like mine, take into effect our skill proficiencies and can be used alongside my own Sleeper’s dice. Not wanting to risk the low-number dice, I end cycles prematurely, crossing my fingers that I roll some higher-number dice the next day. Fortunately, I do and complete the contract. Some intriguing story stuff happens when I return to Hexport that I won’t spoil here, and my demo is over. 

During the preview Martin plays, I see even more of the mechanical and narrative synergy (and stress) of Citizen Sleeper 2 at play. You can utilize Push to get dice bonuses, but doing so immediately adds to your Stress meter. The skill tree is more expansive and customizable, designed with freedom in mind rather than guiding players toward a specific build. Everything I see excites me. 

Martin says they’re halfway through developing the game and already at 120,000 words – Citizen Sleeper and its DLC totals 180,000 words, promising a rich storytelling experience in the sequel. There’s a larger push from Martin to lean into Citizen Sleeper’s tabletop inspirations and its cyberpunk themes. Citizen Sleeper 2 is, on paper, a classic example of more story, more systems, more to do. But critically, Martin isn’t just going bigger, instead carefully curating an experience that strikes sharply at the heart of what made the first game work so well: the oh-so-fine balance between success and failure and the stress that lives between the two. If the heart-pumping I felt during my hour with the game is any indication, Martin has rolled a strong set of dice in this first preview cycle for this sequel.

[havenofcybele]

The Gender Identity Model

So many discussions around trans people revolve around ‘identity’, whether it’s cis allies or transphobes speaking. I’ve seen a significant number of transphobes assert, sometimes to me personally, that they don’t believe in ‘gender identity’, as if ‘gender identity’ is the fundamental aspect of being trans, and that the whole thing just falls apart like a house of cards if you reject the notion of an immutable, internal ‘gender identity’ from birth.

This is odd, because among the trans women I regularly talk to at least, there is little discussion surrounding a notion of internal identity, at least in the sense these people mean it. The most intimate discussions are of shared experiences, internal and external, shared feelings, shared desires, wants, yearnings. The notion of identity mainly appears when discussing external factors, how others perceive us, treat us, recognise us, etc. This is what identity really is, it’s a social tool, a means of achieving social recognition from others; it is not a magic essence that floats beyond one’s social context within one’s consciousness, immutable and present from birth. Identity relies on the existence of others–identity is used to gain social recognition of something other than the identity.

Here is an excerpt from a poem from a 14th century Rabbi, Kalonymus ben Kalonymus:

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman.

Today I would be wise and insightful.

We would weave, my friends and I

and in the moonlight spin our yarn

and tell our stories to one another

from dusk till midnight

we’d tell of the events of our day, silly things

matters of no consequence.

But also I would grow very wise from the spinning

and I would say, “How lucky am I” to know how to make linen,

how to comb [wool], and weave lace;

[to design] cup-like buds, open flowers, cherubim, palm trees,

and all sorts of other fine things,

colorful embroideries and furrow-like stitches.

Is she expressing an internal immutable identity here? I’d argue no. This isn’t to say that Kalonymus ben Kalonymus wouldn’t have desired to be recognised as a woman (that desire is obvious from the poem), but rather that this desire for recognition is coming from something deeper, which is displayed in her poem with heartwrenching emotion: yearning. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus is yearning to be a woman, to be a woman physically (she makes reference to menstruation in another part of the poem), to be a woman socially, to dress like a woman, to socialise as a woman, to make love as a woman. External identity is the social recognition of an internal longing, not an internal identity. The poem ends like so:

What shall I say?

why cry or be bitter?

If my father in heaven has decreed upon me

and has maimed me with an immutable deformity

then I do not wish to remove it.

the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure

and for which no comfort can be found.

So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground.

Since I have learned from our tradition

that we bless both, the good and the bitter

I will bless in a voice hushed and weak:

blessed are you YHVH who has not made me a woman.

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus is not lamenting because she has an internal female identity, she is lamenting due to her lacking the markers of womanhood, the physical, biological markers and the social markers in dress, gendered division of labour, socialising, marriage, etc. This isn’t to say no trans woman has ever conceptualised herself as a ‘woman on the inside’–this used to be a very common narrative. But, I’d argue, it is just that, a narrative, a particular means of understanding the feeling of gender dysphoria, the yearning to be a particular gender that brings such agony to the heart, as such a strong, all-consuming feeling demands an explanation from the self in order to cope with it. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus frames her experience through her religion, while others may frame it through other means. This isn’t to downplay the significance of such narratives, I don’t wish to condescendingly presume that Kalonymus ben Kalonymus’ religion was fundamentally unimportant to her experiences. My point is that any particular narrative framing isn’t necessarily getting to the heart of the matter as trans people can express what is so obviously a similar feeling through such different means, and so tearing down particular framings, such as the ‘born in the wrong body’ notion or 'immutable gender identity at birth' notion, doesn’t even begin to tear down the notion of transness in general.

It is clear to me that desire, yearning, longing, is the fundamental aspect as to what makes someone trans. A yearning to change one’s body and in most cases one’s social role to something else. This yearning shouldn’t demand any kind of explanation from others, at least no more than any other kind of yearning should. If someone finds their calling as a writer and another as a painter, am I expected to meet their desires with suspicion, to interrogate where their yearning comes from? No, of course not. The beautiful thing about humanity is how diverse in our desires we are, and criticial interrogation of desire is ultimately a deadend anyway, for one cannot unbind oneself from the environment one was created in.

So, it’s curious that dysphoria, which in my opinion, is the medical term for this yearning (and note that medicalisation is a narrative of understanding this yearning, not the yearning in of itself), has become more and more peripheral in discourse around transgender people, with this shift in focus towards ‘identity’, despite dysphoria being the core of the trans experience. I personally think this is a product of academia–humanities academia is absolutely obsessed with notions of identity, and so much academic work is done through the lens of identity. The internal experience of dysphoria is not particularly relevant to academics, for two reasons. One is that internal experience in general is not of particular interest to academics, probably due to the difficulty of studying it, and two because the internal experience of dysphoria does not serve any kind of progressive goal. The notion of a transgender gender identity can be and is used to problematise notions of gender in general–in other words, a transgender framework which emphasises identity is useful for feminist and gender abolitionist academics. Transgender people are just a useful tool to these people, nothing more, and our internal experiences are worthless, because, if anything, they would serve to reinforce the importance of gender in society and reverse the decades-long attempt by feminist academics to trivialise it.

Why would this lead to a notion of internal gender identity? Well, because so many progressive activists regurgitate what they read in academia, even when it’s wrong, even when it’s in an inappropriate context. They engage with academic analyses of gender and trans people (or engage with people who have engaged with them) and regurgitate them to other progressives and those sympathetic to them. This causes a problem, because many progressive activists want to legitimise trans people, but the framework they’re using serves to do anything but, and so with the focus on identity, they fashion the notion of an immutable, internal gender identity. Many transgender people, who naturally gravitate towards spaces that are at least slightly more accepting of them than anywhere else, will then internalise these ideas and regurgitate them themselves.

At the risk of sounding condescending, I don’t think many of these people give what they’re saying much thought. When they do, I think they inevitably end up trivialising transness, by either staying nominally pro-trans while framing it as something fundamentally absurd, implying that trans people are victims of a gendered system and that we would be ‘cured’ if gender didn’t exist, or by becoming TERFs, who in trivialising trans experiences see trans people as enemies of their dystopian gender abolitionist vision for the world. Most won’t remain fervently pro-trans when thinking further about the subject, because they won’t think to leave the confines of the internal gender identity model, because there is little to no intellectual interest in dysphoria–in yearning–as a lived experience of trans people.

However, this isn’t to say identity–external identity, in which one receives recognition of one’s internal experiences and desires from others–is unimportant. We are social beings, who crave recognition from those around us. I am certainly not arguing that trans men are not men and trans women are not women, and you’ll note that I referred to Kalonymus ben Kalonymus as ‘she’ even as I said I don’t think she had some internal gender identity. Rather, as I said earlier, identity is a tool of social recognition. This heartwrenching yearning, which leaves the deepest imprint on the mind and colours every single experience one has from birth, which when repressed hollows out the soul to its very core, which drives people to upturn their entire lives and radically alter their bodies (bringing their sex closer to the sex they long to be) is self-evidently socially significant and worthy of recognition, and any just society would do all it can to help ease such yearning, especially as it comes at such a trivial cost.

(I apologise for this post not being very well-formed, I wrote it mainly to get some thoughts out that have been bouncing around in my head for a while. I might return to this subject and write a better structure essay about it in the future.)

[sinceileftyoublog]

Katy Kirby Album Review: Blue Raspberry

(Anti-)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Cubic zirconia. Blue raspberry flavoring. Synthesizers: Do they truly possess less innate worth because they're not organic? Or is worth determined by the value we put on them? These are the questions Katy Kirby grapples with on her sophomore album Blue Raspberry, but in the context of self-definition, outward image, and the mind games of people in a relationship. Just like on her stellar debut Cool Dry Place, Kirby's clever wordplay elevates mundane imagery into deeper queries on life and love. Blue Raspberry, though, is more biographical and more instrumentally sweeping; that is, Kirby's first written album as an out queer woman, more emotionally complex than anything she's released to date, required more elaborate arrangements and production than the comparatively sparse Cool Dry Place. "Why wouldn't that be enough?" she sees herself asking throughout the queer love songs of Blue Raspberry, always answering by yearning for something more lush than bedroom recordings of bedroom-and-beyond tales.

Nonetheless, on Blue Raspberry, what happens between walls carries major consequences, and Kirby expertly builds up her stories. Take opener "Redemption Arc"--its title itself a reference to plot and narrative--with its initially arpeggiated piano and Kirby's vocals following the melody atop weeping strings. "I pour out a drink and I stand for a toast / I raise up a glass to your personal growth," she sings, ambiguous in her tone. Eventually, you realize she's being sarcastic, which mirrors her significant other's lack of genuineness: "You misspelled apology / You ended it with I and E / Diminutive contrition / But I still know what you mean," she sings, sliding a grammar joke into her barb. Towards the end of the song, producers Alberto Sewald and Logan Chung's pattering drums and distorted bass swell as Kirby tries to prevent tragedy, albeit recounting the dark humor of the event: "I lock the doors and I talk you down," she sings, quipping, "I put our reconciliation in my calendar." Leave it to her to supply an album's worth of sounds and moods in one song.

But with Blue Raspberry, Kirby's given us a whole collection of tunes tied together through their balance of romance and rawness. "Cubic Zirconia" concentrates on surface-level attraction and her attempts to nonetheless dig deeper. "Magazine quiz called you apple shape / You look to me like dollar signs," Kirby flirts, eventually admitting that her wants can usurp her needs: "I'm still craving that unstable sort of shine." The collection of key instruments on the song, from panning Rhodes piano to organ, gives it an expansive, yet tactile feel, an expert manifestation of how even the cheapest jewelry and plastic can gleam. The album's title track--whose writing process helped Kirby realize her own queerness--plays with similar ideas of authenticity. Her vocals are layered and pitch-shifted, horns and acoustic guitars muted by otherworldly synthesizers, the perfect backing to similes like, "Her eyes burn white as Styrofoam right into me."

Perhaps most rewarding about Blue Raspberry is the extent to which the same instruments can conjure contrasting feelings. Swirling, percussive textures and plucked strings on "Hand to Hand"--reminiscent of Fetch the Bolt Cutters--recall the unvarnished emotions of breakups, but in the contrast of "Fences"' statement of agency, provide a breezier sway. Sean Brennan's forlorn cello leads "Party of the Century"'s reckoning with the ethical responsibility each of us have as the world burns, while it menaces the slow-lurking, doomy "Alexandria", a song about something far more personal: the dissolution of Kirby's first queer relationship. For the whole record, Kirby enlisted the likes of Rowen Merrill to compose baroque orchestral arrangements to match the cinema of the album, which they do to great success on piano ballad "Salt Crystal" and chiming satire "Drop Dead". Kirby's anything but obvious, though, as it's actually the most gentle-sounding song that viciously guides you through the peaks and valleys of infidelity. Over a slinky instrumental, Kirby sings, "I turned off my location / Let her fuck me like you thought you did," before delivering the kicker: "I remember every minute." On an album concerned with inner and outer beauty, Kirby at least comes away with the realization that the deeper you go, the greater the permutations for levels of ecstasy and hurt.

[glassmarcus]

Take a shot every time I mention Zelda

*Played in March 2023 While I had Covid, Written in May 2023

Within the first hour of playing it, I started categorizing Pandora's Tower as a Zelda-like. It's not labeled as such usually because there are a lot of elements The Legend of Zelda series exemplifies which Pandora’s Tower lacks. I had no clue what sub genre this would fall under before playing it. I assumed it was a Hack nSlash game with RPG elements and a few puzzles involving your chain. I usually do a bit more research before buying a game for 90 bucks at a retro game store, but it didn’t really matter what genre it was. Pandora’s Tower has a historical significance that made me want to own a physical copy. It was one of the 3 Operation Rainfall games, right along side The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles. To summarize, Operation Rainfall was a fan movement to get 3 Nintendo JRPGs released in the United States, which surprisingly succeeded. As someone who wanted to buy all three but could only purchase Xenoblade, getting my hands on the other two was always a dormant dream of mine.

I booted it up with the full intention of playing a God of War type game with a leveling system, but having finished it, the only parallel I can draw is that the main character uses a chain weapon. The structure, design, and even story motifs are remarkably analogous to Zelda. But does it really fit the billing for the genre? I could just say it doesn't matter and judge it by its own merits, but I think there’s something of worth to consider here. It might be a bit reductive, but I find it genuinely interesting to frame my thoughts on the game in this way. It's better than just ignoring it as I sincerely thought about the Zelda franchise frequently while playing Pandora’s Tower. Not only because it borrows concepts from the series, but because it nails them to a startling degree.

The first thing about Pandora's Tower that made me jump to the Zelda analogs was the dungeon design. Yea I know, Shigeru Miyamoto didn't invent dungeons and simply having dungeons shouldn't raise alarms. But they were put together in a distinctly Zelda way. It's not like you are just going from room to room looking for keys and solving puzzles as you go. These are the type of dungeons that are puzzles in and of themselves. They require an intimate understanding of their architecture and unique mechanics. Not all Zelda Dungeons are designed this way, but all dungeons designed like this remind me of Zelda. They are a common occurrence in this franchise and are likely my favorite part of it.

People seem to really latch on to the idea that Zelda is all about open world exploration at its core, and that isn't a baseless conclusion. The first game was more about finding the dungeons than anything else. The dungeons themselves were essentially gauntlets full of terrible enemies and puzzles where you push a single block. They were a narrative cornerstone for sure, but not something to look forward to gameplay wise. That started to slightly shift down the line with every following game until we got to Ocarina of Time. Ocarina was a big title for the Nintendo 64, but it can feel cramped when compared to its 2D brethren. There wasn't this big map full of secrets anymore. They were there, but it was more condensed. There was a noticeable dearth of open areas to run through. That vibe of being an adventurer combing each corner of a kingdom was lost. But to replace it was the change in dungeon design philosophy.

Dungeons are allowed to be compact. So while the overworld design suffered in the jump to 3D, the dungeon design was allowed to truly shine. Dungeons couldn't be gauntlets anymore, there wasn't enough space for that. They had to use the space they had more effectively and become more complex. Dungeons need to be a place players spend time in so they feel like milestones within the game. And Ocarina succeeded in this by making dungeons something you had to solve rather than something you had to get through. Each room existed in context with another and you had to use your mastery over your abilities to corral them so they can cooperate.

When people think of a hero, they are probably imagining a brave soul venturing into the vast unknown. I tend to think of an individual who overcomes a precarious situation using nothing but wit and the minimal tools at their disposal. That's the adventuring fantasy for me. The finding the dungeon part is great (it's actually just as integral), but it's always been an appetizer for my insatiable cravings. So I'm happy to say that after playing Pandora’s Tower, I'm stuffed up to my head. Pandora's Tower gets right to the point. No fluff included, likely because they didn't have the development time to add any. This game has 12 dungeons and you will spend 90% of the game in them. There is no appetizer, there's hardly any side dishes. It just a fucking steak. That's all you get, because that's all you need. All the bells and whistles that give Zelda Dungeons that extra oomph aren't here. No mini bosses, no big keys, and no mid dungeon item. And I'm not even upset about that last one because you are given the best Zelda item from the jump.

We can all agree that the Hookshot is the best Zelda item right? Ever since Link to the Past introduced it, every game without it feels incomplete. Movement is always something that's been limited in Zelda games. You don't move particularly fast and you normally can't jump on command. This is what makes the mobility items so enticing by juxtaposition. That somewhat sluggish movement is no longer a problem once you get the Pegasus Boots and sacrifice your control for speed. Gravity isn't anchoring you once you get the Roc’s Feather. And the Hookshot takes those ledges and balconies on the other side of the labyrinth that take 5 minutes to navigate to and makes them traversable in seconds. Despite the hookshot only being allowed to latch on to certain points, it gives you more freedom than you thought was possible at the beginning of the game. And what makes it better than every other mobility item is that it's not just a mobility item. The Hookshot is a shorter ranged, lower damaging, Bow and Arrow that is worth using because it has infinite ammo. The Hookshot brings items towards you. The Hookshot exposes enemy weak points. The Hookshot activates switches from a distance. The only thing that can possibly compete with the versatility of it is possibly the Grappling Hook, which basically got merged into the Clawshot later. The Clawshot is the actual best Zelda item, but I usually just lump it together with the hookshot. It's just a hookshot that allows you to hang and latch on to walls like Spider-Man. Twilight Princess gave you a lot of toys to play with, but nothing got me more excited then when you find the 7th Dungeon item and it’s just a 2nd Clawshot. The Hookshot evolves to such a degree between games that you could probably design a whole Zelda game around it. And Pandora's Tower is that game.

The Oraclos Chain is the Hookshot's final form. It's does the work of an entire suite of explorer items all by itself. And it never feels like they're shoving mechanics where they don't belong. Everything you can do with it is intuitive. You can grapple from wall to wall. You can swing from ledge to ledge. You can connect objects together. You can use its leverage to launch heavy objects to a specified point. Activating switches, opening doors, operating mechanisms. If you imagined "what if I could do this with a grappling hook or hook shot?" you likely can do that thing. And you can do all of it from the beginning. There are no upgrades to your chain other than it getting stronger as a weapon. Everything listed above you can do immediately, you just don't know you can. The first 5 dungeons are about teaching you the mechanics of the chain and each time you learn a new ability, it feels like you unlocked something. And then the next set of dungeons act as checks to make sure you have mastered applying said mechanics in tandem. Pandora's Tower nails that feeling of being an adventurer with a limited tool set simply by having a single item. In terms of the use of the Oraclos Chain in individual puzzles, I couldn't ask for more.

And then there's the case of the dungeon layouts. Sure the individuals uses of the chain in puzzles are good, but it's much more interesting to me if the dungeon itself is a puzzle as well. Luckily 66% of the towers you travel through have some central mechanism you need to understand in order to progress. These never get as genius as the ones in Skyward Sword or Majora’s Mask, but the implementation of this kind of design makes them far more intriguing than most dungeons that don't attempt this. They really went for it with these layouts. It might be that there's no map, therefore I had to think about the architecture a bit more than usual, but the game never failed to make me feel brilliant each time I figured out what I needed to do in that room I was in 10 minutes ago. Pandora's Tower is my new standard for 3D dungeon design. Not because it's the best, but because it's the most consistently gratifying.

The parallels don't end with the dungeons though. The general set up is vaguely Zeldaesque in that a pretty blonde swordsman who doesn't talk a bunch (Aeron) risk life and limb to save a maiden (Elena). But even beyond the surface level, the structure of the game feels like an amalgamation of different Zeldas. The way Pandora’s Tower splits up its content is identical to a Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, where the first set of dungeons has to be done in order and encompasses the 1st act, the second set opens up the order in which you can complete them now that you've finished the tutorial and covers the 2nd act, and the 3rd act is 1 super dungeon that test all your skills. But also it takes a bit from Majora’s Mask in that you are constantly on a timer and you are pushed to get as much done as possible.

The Maiden in this game is your girlfriend. It’s never said in explicit text, but that’s 100% what she is to you. Instead of being kidnapped, she turns into a gross Bloodborne enemy. This can only be reversed completely by beating the game and temporarily by leaving the dungeons and feeding her beast flesh. If you take too long, she turns into a monster forever and is no longer wife material, resulting in a game over. This can be somewhat annoying, just like how it can be in Majora’s Mask. But it gives urgency to the story and makes for an immersive experience. The same way you try to maximize each day in Termina so that the citizens of Clock Town don't have to die repeatedly, you get the most out of every dungeon run so that your girlfriend can stop being a slimy monster in constant writhing pain as soon as possible.

One aspect I can say doesn't remind me of Zelda are the functions of the game that I would consider Dating Sim like. It's not like you have more than one option for dating, and she's gonna like you no matter what. But getting her to like you more is very important. So important that the affinity gauge for it is on screen at all times. This social link accounts for what ending you get, what unique items you receive, and most importantly, what dialogue options are available. I gotta come clean and admit that this is a frighteningly effective mechanic of the game. I became genuinely endeared with Elena. I would try to make my dungeon runs quick, not out of fear of a game over, but because I wanted to protect that smile at all cost and I didn't want her to be a monster for a single second. She's not a particularly deep character, but she's just nice and has a British voice actress. So I totally get why Aeron would fight a galére of vicious beast to secure her happiness. I say that as if fighting monsters in this game is some kind of crucible, but it's actually quite fun.

Fighting enemies in Pandora’s Tower gets you the engaging JRPG action you’d expect from 7th gen gaming. There is a single attack for your weapon. It seems boring, but you get some mileage out of it. You unleash a stronger version of your standard attack if you charge it, and if you attack at the correct time in the middle of your charge attack you get to use a sick combo string. As you upgrade your weapons, you get more levels of charge and a new combo to use when you cancel out of it. It's a lot of attacks for just one button and it’s exciting to pull off this over the top combo on enemies that would have gone down for much less. This is the least interesting part of combat though. It's all about the chain baby. Anything you can imagine doing with a chain while using it as a weapon you can do in this game. Grabbing enemies and throwing them into walls. Wrapping it around monsters to restraint them while you hack away at their defenseless bodies. Pulling out a fool's heart. The ceiling for wacky stunts you can pull off with this chain is higher than any tower in this game. The enemy attack patterns aren't complex or anything. Combat is for the most part, a cool playground for you to smack beast around in as many ways as possible. Bosses on the other hand have more than enough depth.

The boss fights in Pandora's Tower are the hypest fishing mini games ever conceived. I'm sorry Big the Cat, you've been dethroned. Using a chain to progressively yoink out a beast's heart is metal as hell. It takes the basic "hit the boss in its weak point" concept to its final destination. The boss knows it has a weak point, it knows you know it has a weak point, and it knows it’s gonna take a while for you to actually damage it. It is ready for your bullshit and will not make it easy for you. Every fight is a puzzle that requires the intellect to figure out the optimal moment to attack its heart and skill to get as much out of that exchange as possible. The most satisfying moments of the game are setting up the opportunity to strike, making the perfect shot into its heart, holding on for dear life, and yanking that sucker out with your most powerful pull. And none of the satisfaction is possible without motion controls.

I may not have made it clear before, but this is a Wii game. It is a Wii ass Wii game. A bonafide point and flick adventure. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I tried playing this with a classic controller pro. It works, but it's not optimal. You can't point as instantly to aim your chain as you can with the IR sensor. And swinging the Nunchuck to lariat enemies around, and flicking the Wiimote to pull your chain back just feels...correct. Most motion controls aren't as diagetic. Look at other Zeldas on the Wii. Shaking the Wiimote to attack in Twilight Princess doesn't feel like your swinging a sword anymore than pressing a button. In Skyward Sword, swinging your Wiimote does feel like swinging a sword, but it doesn't feel like your controlling a bird's wings...which you have to do in that game. This is the one area I’d say Pandora completely dunks on the Zelda franchise in. Every motion control makes sense and adds to the game. Most 3D adventure games focus a lot on locking on to an enemy to focus on them. I wouldn't say I dislike lock on, but I understand its draw backs. It ends up being a crutch for interacting with your 3D environment and leads to frustration when you target the wrong enemy. Pandora's Tower has a fixed camera so you are always at an angle that favors the player context. If you need precision, that’s where the pointer comes in. And because you don't have to focus on locking on to enemies before attacking, it feels far more natural going from fight to fight.

Unfortunately I have run out of evidence as to why this is a Zelda game. I don't want to admit it, but it's missing something vital. While I prefer the focus on dungeons, Zelda IS more than that. Exploring is an imperative organ of the series. Even though the 3D games were never as good at exploration as the 2D ones, they still tried. Pandora's Tower doesn't. It knows it's limits and stays within it's bounds. And I think that's why I can't call it a Zelda like without some reservation. It lacks....courage.

There are 3 tenants I would attach to the Zelda franchise that I'd say each major entry has followed. Exploration, combat, and puzzles. Or if we are to define it in an even dorkier way: Courage, Power and Wisdom. The Courage of the player is tested as they are shoved into the great and far unknown to brave areas they may not be prepared for. The power of the player is tested as they use their might to slice moblins and octorocks into minced pixels. The Wisdom of the Player is tested as they solve the mysteries of the world and navigate the complex inner workings of the dungeons. And these elements don't just exist in three separate vacuums. They all interplay with each other. You need wisdom to figure out the optimal way to take down an enemy. You need power to fight off the creatures you find on your journey. You need courage to explore the uncharted areas of the dungeons you raid. When all 3 of these pillars are used properly and in correct proportion, the Triforce, or in this case a complete Zelda adventure, is pieced together.

Pandora's Tower has Wisdom. It's got Power no doubt. But it's severely lacking in the courage category. Sure you explore the dungeons, but that's a very limited and structured space. It doesn't feel like an adventure where anything can happen, just a list of bullet points. And those bullet points are great, but now that I've played it, those bullet points don't really stand out. I didn't go out into the world and earn the right to challenge these dungeons. They just sort of appeared on a menu. Pandora's Tower knows its bounds. So it doesn't attempt to have anything between these benchmarks. But that leaves it feeling like it lacks ambition. Not to say it wasn't the correct call, but the adventure does feel a bit undercooked. And honestly, that's fine with me. 3D Zelda games are hard to make. There's a reason the amount of 2D Zelda like games that come out dwarf the amount of 3D ones.

Despite not fulfilling the criteria I myself have lined out, I'm still gonna claim this as a Zelda like. Because it's just unrealistic of a genre to be that strict. The standard for what counts as a 3D Zelda is lower for 2D ones in my mind. So if Pandora lacks 1 pillar but nails the other 2, I won't sweat it. It's better than it being middling in all 3 like Okami is, a game routinely touted as "The actual best Zelda game" by people who have no clue what they are talking about. And while I wouldn't agree with the same being said about Pandora's Tower, I'd be less perplexed. Pandora’s Tower is a Zelda like and a pretty damn good one too.