#hes like. vaguely sci and also vaguely fantasy. can fit into both worlds

[crowshoots]

gonna be setting up my oc over the next few days over at @kismate hoping to split my focus between him and jesper in the future !!! <3 carrd will be up in a few days

[tyrantisterror]

The ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D: Entry Roundup

You’ve been patiently waiting for the results of the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D, and now... you have to wait a bit longer, but at least you’ve got an entry roundup with lots of sketches and a good bit of feedback for all the entrants!  My goal is to get the finalists illustrated in a week or two, and after that, the grand prize winner will be announced.  But, for now, the official entry roundup!  After the cut:

I should note that while I sketched these in the order they were submitted, my scanner saved the documents with random names, so they’re a bit jumbled.  You know, just in case you’re like me and would get confused noticing that it’s almost in chronological order but with some entries jumbled around.

@bugcthulhu’s Obsideban was designed as a counterpart to Rohobaron - the Black King to Rohobaron’s Red King, if you will.  Or, well, Black Queen in this case, as Obsideban also takes her personality from the “delinquent girl” archetype in Japanese media.  Bug’s designs always ooze personality, and I had a lot of fun translating this big, gnarly retrosaur into my own style.

@toothlessloveshiccup‘s Argonox is the first - but far from the last - monster in this breakdown that brings in a bit of fantasy influence to ATOM’s roster.  A golden-fleeced ram with a vicious streak, this sheep is both treasure and dragon at once.  And while it wasn’t written in the monster’s profile, given the Yamaneon-rich nature of its wool, Argonox might be able to replicate the healing power of the golden fleece too!  A very fun mammalian kaiju and excellent entry.

@highly-radioactive-nerd submitted Gunmetal Jeeves, a robot butler who can gigantomax temporarily create a holographic/hard light version of himself to fight kaiju.  That detail was a late revision added to the entry before the contest’s deadline, made after the creator realized that ATOM allows for some truly ludicrous bullshit, which is something everyone should exploit when making entries for this in my opinion.  Also, this is a robot butler who can size shift.  Revel in its awesome absurdity!

Ultranerd submitted Rajasaurus, a dimetrodon-like synapsid kaiju with electric powers.  His origin specifies that the electric powers are a result of the volatile nature of the Yamaneon deposits he mutated under, which is an interesting idea.  That’s another theme that cropped up a lot in this contest’s entries, actually - people really wanted to play with what Yamaneon can do.

Case in point, @polygonfighter’s Yamaneolith takes the Monolith Monsters homage at the heart of Yamaneon even more apparent.  I like the implication that there is a second mineral-based lifeform at the root of this Yamaneon cluster’s anomalous behavior - a parasite, perhaps?  It brings up some interesting possibilities.

@ariccio50 submitted Kukulkuzana, and damn is this a cool spin on the body plan of my martians.  I made a few changes here and there (splitting its tail into two is probably the biggest one), but tried to keep true to the original design, because holy hell is it gorgeous.  The idea that this is a mountain-dwelling creature is really intriguing to me, as it looks like a sea creature, but at the same time, that flexible and low-slung build WOULD work pretty well in mountains, and it’s just the right mix of plausible weirdness that makes for a fun alien design.

@akitymh submitted Aramzados, a Venusian monster that’s basically an organic hot rod car.  I like the idea of organic machinery being the gimmick for Venusian kaiju, and Aramzado’s does it subtly enough to not feel like that gimmick is the sole thing going for it.  I especially love this monster’s stange, apparently mouth-less blade-beaked face.

@virovac submitted Rurzar and Zar Rider, a Beyonder kaiju and mecha (respecitvely) that were both modified and repurposed by humans reverse engineering Beyonder technology to make, like, a motorcycle-saurus essentially.  It is a delightfully absurd concept, and a very, very detailed one (13 pages of description).  There’s a dark undercurrent beneath the sillyness, though, as this pair show that humanity might still be following the same path as the Beyonders before them.

@dinosaurana brings us Krangor, a humanoid monstrosity of living kelp!  The goal here was to create a Jack Kirby-esque monster dude, complete with the gibberish name and all.  He’s also made out of kelp, which feels very classic 1950′s monster-y despite me not being able to think of any monsters that were explicitly made of kelp.  I love him.

@kiryuthechimera submitted Genkakurah, a psychic retrosaur with some draconic features.  Though his substantial powerset is probably the biggest distinguishing feature of this kaiju (given that most ATOM kaiju pretty much have the same standard powers), what really draws me to him is that reptilian pseudo-beard.  It’s just a fun detail!

@glarnboudin submits Tiratola, and see, there’s that fantasy influence again!  Even more explicitly dragon-y than Kraydi, Tiratola still manages to toe the line between sci-fi and fantasy enough to fit ATOM as is while still cementing its ties to my own slice of fantasy fiction.  Man it’s good I’m doing a Midgaheim book next, huh?

@dragonzzilla submitted Scuttlebutt/Argonautilus, a hermit crab kaiju who lives in/with a hollowed out mecha.  That’s a twist I can’t recall ever hearing before, and the idea of a kaiju and a mecha having an equal partnership that doesn’t involve one being grafted to the other is really intriguing to me.  A very unique concept!

@evolutionsvoid submitted Fleagor, an enormous flea who has no idea what to do with itself now that there’s no creature large enough for it to parasitize.  I love that concept - it takes the core idea of the giant bug kaiju archetype (i.e. unsettling the audience by showing how terrifying small, “insignificant” creatures would be if our sizes were reversed) and really turns it on its head.  The name also plays on the Universal Monsters, who were a huge part of 1950′s pop culture thanks to their movies being re-released in that era, so all and all this one is very on brand for ATOM!

@skarmorysilver submitted Lilacorn, another entry that plays up that Midgaheim/ATOM connection.  Reinterpreting the mythological unicorn as an Cenozoic wooly rhinoceros-inspired monster gives it a very unique look, both in ATOM and in the general world of unicorns, and she has a bad-girl with a heart of gold personality to boot!

dracosaurus-rex submitted Florasaura, a two-headed plant/retrosaur hybrid monster.  I love me some plant monsters, I love me some retrosaurs, and I love me some rhyming the word “flora” with other words that contain similar vowell sounds, so this one has me written all over it!

@downtofragglerock submitted Sauroguana, a delightfully odd flying retrosaur.  There’s a great deal of charm to the original illustration that this sketch doesn’t quite capture - it’s a deceptively simple design with a lot of personality in it, and with those unique leg-wings it really doesn’t need a whole lot of frills to stand out.

Draxi submitted Brakan, an unimpressive burrowing retrosaur kaiju whose mastery of illusions allows it to convince other kaiju it’s actually a big, super-powerful badass that’s the ultimate fighter in the universe.  It’s a delightful parody of the concept of a fan self-insert god-mode character, with a really fun story built into it to boot!

@quinnred submitted O.N.I.A.C., a mysterious cocooned kaiju whose chrysalis has been turned into an organic computer of sorts by the people studying it, and seems to possess a fairly advanced intelligence for a kaiju.  It’s a really bizarre and ominous idea, with built in intrigue given how vague its nature is.  Is it just a kaijufied butterfly/moth who got stuck mid transformation?  A relative of the Mothmanuds?  Something else, perhaps equally alien?  Good story potential here.

shadyserpent submitted Vespilitor, a bat/retrosaur hybrid made by the nefarious Spooks Organization.  A mercurial prankster whose tendency to stir up trouble never crosses the line into maliciousness, he’s the kind of monster who would make a great foil to a lot of ATOM’s cast.  I’d especially like to see him in a prank off with Ahuul - it’d be like Bugs Bunny fighting Daffy Duck, but on a kaiju scale.

@multiversefan submitted the Yamaneon King, a nomadic kaiju whose refusal to settle down causes problems as he stirs up trouble at kaiju sanctuaries all over the globe by showing up unannounced and stirring up the locals.  He was basically designed to be a monster that the kaiju sanctuary initiative would struggle to deal with, which is a good idea for a post-ATOM Volume 2 story conflict.

Sir K submitted Jadeera, a kirin kaiju that can actually forcibly convert most of its body to Yamaneon to enter a dormant, statue-like state in a loose homage to King Shisa.  Though the fantasy elements are far more present than I usually prefer for ATOM kaiju, I think it should be noted they’re pushed that far for a purpose - a theme in Jadeera’s entry, which continues where its creator left off with their submission to the previous ATOM create a kaiju contest (Yokaigon), is that the world of kaiju is more complicated and challenging than many are willing to accept, which is a theme in ATOM itself.  Yokaigon’s more supernatural/occult powers are based on the ghost parascience of my setting, which ATOM has delved into a bit (Pathogen being the big example), so it’s not as out of left field as some might think.

@cerothenull​ brings us our final entry (unless some got lost thanks to tumblr’s shitty tagging system), the flying spider Naeranti.  She’s a kaiju spider who uses silk to make complicate hot-air balloons, more or less, and that’s just delightful.  ATOM could always use more spider-monsters, and with a really unique gimmick backing up a wonderfully distinct look, Naeranti is sure to stand out among her fellow giant arachnids.

Well, that’s the roundup!  In a week (or two, depending on how much my hand cramps) we’ll have the five finalists, and sometime after that, the grand prize winner!

[ja-khajay]

Stuff I read (and liked) this year

As promised, here’s a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.

-------- Books --------

Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel

Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. It’s a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.

Indian creek, by Pete Fromm

...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. It’s a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and it’s the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.

-------- Comics (BD) --------

Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur Désire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin

A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While there’s no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.

World of Edena, by Moebius

Anyone who’s followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The cat’s eyes with an actual plot. While I haven’t completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour

Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)

Sfar’s work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. It’s an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If you’re familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin you’ll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that you’d overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.

The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles

Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for it’s prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as it’s own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.

The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi

A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, it’s both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and it’s morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but I’m not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad

-------- Manga --------

Favorite manga of the year: it’s a tie between the following two.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museum’s attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and “become” cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. It’s a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.

Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno

A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I don’t have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, it’s the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.

Hana, also by Taiyo Matsumoto 

A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha

Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui

While not marked as my year’s favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and it’s both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I don’t want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. It’s a delight

Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you can’t stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you don’t mind it, worth trying.

Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of it’s plot revolves around the rules of the world it’s set in, specifically the regulations around it’s magic and the social and historical reasons for them. It’s about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good

[ace-trainer-risu]

oh here! i’ll come ask you for book recs lol. do you have any spooky and/or autumn-y book recs? or just your fave books :)

First of all, I'm sorry this took me SO long to answer. I want to say I've been busy but it's just been general [waves hand vaguely] life.

ANYWAY thank you for asking! I actually don't read scary stuff a lot b/c I'm a wimp, but I have a few spooky/autumnal books up my sleeves! Let's see what we've got!!

1) The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Let me just start by saying that Sarah Waters is one of my absolute favorite authors ever! All her novels are suspenseful, twisty historical novels with great female and queer characters. Although, fair warning, actually The Little Stranger is like her one novel that isn't queer, but it is VERY good. If you read The Little Stranger and like it, please read Fingersmith and/or The Paying Guests.

The Little Stranger is set in the countryside of post-WWII England and follows a mild-mannered doctor as he becomes increasingly involved in the lives of the family living in the local, increasingly decrepit, possibly haunted mansion. Think Downton Abbey but creepy. Strange things keep happening inside the house, from dog bites to mysterious sounds to creepy black spots. Literally just typing that gave me goosebumps. It seems like someone may be out to get the family, but who...or what? Is it simply the ghosts of their own painful memories, or is something more? Sarah Waters is excellent at lush, intricate historical detail, and she leans into that here to create an atmosphere of slowly building dread and horror and mystery.

That being said, as a person who isn't normally a fan of horror, I don't think this book is too scary. It's more of an atmospheric, psychological horror than a jump-scare, bloody horror. It's not a book that will give you nightmares (probably), but you might lie awake thinking about it.

Also. Pro-tip. As a haunted(?) house story, the house is obviously fairly central to the story. Dear fellow Americans, keep in mind that the British refer to the floors of a building differently than us. For Americans, the ground-level floor is called the first floor, the floor above that the second floor, etc. For the British, the ground-level floor is the ground floor, and the floor above that is the first floor, etc. There's all sorts of creepy references to characters hearing noises above them on the first floor, but I was just like, Why are they always in the basement?

2) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia

This and the above are two very different books, and yet they are both set in the mid-1900s and both are about weird, creepy, maybe-haunted houses. What can I say, I like gothic fiction.

After our heroine, Noemi, receives a bizarre, borderline incoherent letter from her beloved cousin, she sets out to visit her in the literally decaying mansion she resides in with her husband and his new family deep in the countryside of Mexico. All Noemi wants to do is persuade her cousin to come back home with her, but her cousin's new in-laws are very determined not to let that happen...or to let Noemi leave either. Secrets abound in the bizarre house and even creepier nearby cemetery, and soon Noemi finds that she too is suffering from bizarre dreams and visions...although, are they just dreams?

This book is so weird, but in such a good way? I read it for a book club and every week we had increasingly bizarre theories about what was going on, we were googling alchemy and fungi and St George, and some of our theories were even right. Although definitely not all. Another very twisty one that keeps you guessing.

In terms of scariness, interestingly I think there's more overtly creepy and horrifying moments in this novel than The Little Stranger, but I found TLS more overall scary? But that may be because I read it quickly, which I think is the ideal setting for suspenseful stuff, and I read Mexican Gothic over a longer amount of time since it was for a book club. This one does have some more typical horror elements to it, but I don't think it's more creepy than terrifying.

3) The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

I listened to this one as an audiobook and the audiobook is excellent so would recommend that, but have no doubt it would also be great to physically read.

Oh my god this book...it's more thriller than horror, but I think it fits the brief. There were multiple moments listening to this book that I literally gasped or said "OH MY GOD!" out loud, and there are moments which are very creepy and horrifying. There's a particular scene in the backyard... Again, incredibly suspenseful and twisty. And the character development and character psychology is just! really really good! There's also really interesting and knotty feminist stuff which is a lot more complicated and nasty than some of the "girlboss" stuff which is popular right now.

Super minimal summary: All you really need to know is that it is a sci fi novel about a scientific researcher trying to pick up her life after her marriage has imploded, only for everything to go BATSHIT WRONG. Trust me, that's all you need to know, it's better to go into this not knowing what's going to happen or what to expect. I had no clue what this novel was about when I started it, and holy shit. Very good book, absolutely recommend this if you want some super suspenseful, creepy sci fi that will make you say "oh my GOD" repeatedly.

Okay, shifting gears a little now b/c autumn isn't just spooky, it's also cozy and restful and daydreamy!

4) The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker

This isn't maybe a cozy book per se, but it's a great book to cuddle down with on a dreary day and lose yourself in. If you've ever asked yourself, "What would it be like if you crossed Pride and Prejudice with Howl's Moving Castle except the wizard was way worse but somehow still sexy" - then you should read this book! I actually came across this book b/c I was like, I wanna read a book that's a portal fantasy but for adults, and this book was like OH here's everything you wanted.

It's about a grad student, Nora, who has totally stalled out on her dissertation and is at a shitty wedding when she accidentally wanders through a portal into a beautiful, fantastical fairy world. At first, everything is amazing and literally perfect...but surprise surprise, not all as is it seems, and soon everything goes to, how should I put it, shit. Nora escapes, but rather than returning home, she finds herself trapped in a far more dreary realm. But not one without it's own charms and it's own magic, and Nora finds herself the student-slash-sorta-captive of the crochety, sexy, maybe-killed-his-wife magician Aruendiel* and she begins to learn magic herself.

Unlike the above books, this is not a fast-paced, twisty book, and I think if you go into this expecting high fantasy along the lines of Game of Thrones, you may be disappointed. It's not really a typical high-fantasy novel, it's more of a cross of an 18th/19th century realist novel, a fairy tale, and a fantasy novel. But if you want that, then it's REALLY good! I loved this book! And the magic in it is so cool, something about the way its described feels so visceral and real and like you could really do it if you just tried hard enough. There is a romance and it's totally, intentionally hashtag problematic, but it's very laid back, very slow burn, so I think even if you aren't a person who digs romance you can still enjoy this. If you're looking for a feminist-leaning fantasy novel that you can just sink into and lose yourself in, this is the perfect book. You will long to magically fix broken plates.

5) The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

Honestly I can't even justify why I think this one is an autumn book. It simply is. It's autumn colored in my head. It is the coziest book I have ever read about necromancy and crime. Also I just want to recommend it. This is another one that I listened to as an audiobook and it's also a good audiobook, for those who are interested. But it also means I will not be able to spell absolutely any of the character's names.

This novel follows Delly, an enterprising young scoundrel of a fire witch with a teeny tiny gin habit as she attempts to support herself and her hot-mess of a mom in the roughest neighborhoods of Fantasy-City-That-I-Can't-Remember-The-Name-Of. Lice...gate? When Delly comes across an advertisement for a bodyguarding job for young women for a hefty fee, it seems like the answer to definitely not all but at least some of her problems. She accepts, along with an interesting assortment of other sorcerous young ladies, including a wonderfully bitchy Absentia (my love), a young woman who can turn into a boar, boar girl's necromancer mother, and the very sexy part-troll Winn, who in my imagination looks like Gwendoline Christie and talks like Miranda Hart. Which. Perfect woman. Winn being a fine, wealthy young lady, Delly can't help but think to herself that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Winn happened to fall in love with her and carried her off to be rich and spoiled the rest of her life.

Of course, things quickly don't go to plan, and soon Delly and her companions find herself caught up in wicked schemes of murder, drugs, and an undead mouse named Buttons who says BONG. I love Buttons SO MUCH.

This book is just a silly romp of a novel which worms into your heart and your brain. It's fun and cute and gay, and also it made me cry. I haven't stopped thinking, "Not quite regulation hammerball" since I listened to it like half a year ago.

Also, while I'm here, this novel is set in the same world as and features a few of the same characters as Unnatural Magic. Which is also a hell of a book. Literally the best bisexual relationship I have ever fuckin read. It's a winter book tho, so I simply can't go into it here.

Aaaaand...that it's! Happy autumnal reading :)

[antagonistchan]

so, some basics on my Magical Girl story

in addition to being a Magical Girl story, it’s also. kinda an Isekai. but a kinda weird Isekai (i mean, Isekais aren’t usually also Magical Girl stories).

basically: one day, the entire population of Earth is transported into another reality. this reality’s kinda a sci-fi/fantasy deal. and when i say “sci-fi/fantasy”, i don’t just mean “really soft sci-fi with a spiritual edge” like Star Wars, i mean straight up “there are Elves and Dwarves and Orks and magic but also it’s in space and there’s hyper-advanced technology”.

anyways, there are also dragons. or at least, there were dragons. the dragons went extinct a long time ago. but also, they were really weird dragons. as in, the dragons in this setting were basically elder gods, just in dragon form. yeah, they were giant winged reptiles... but they were also a much higher form of existence that could comprehend so many more dimensions of reality than we can and warped reality just by their mere presence. and see, while the dragons are extinct.... death doesn’t really mean much to something on that level of existence. they’re all still aware, and all still have some level of ability to affect their surroundings. but the vast majority are content to just lie in their graves and not bother with the rest of the world.

but some aren’t.

one of the really notable ones is known as Skull. Skull might be dead, but he wants to continue living his life. and even in life, Skull was one of the more noble dragons, one of the dragons most willing to defend the “lesser” races like humans and elves and orks.

Skull is... also one of the more macabre parts of this story. he’s not particularly dark, just macabre, but come on, he’s basically a zombie elder god. he’s macabre by default.

anyways, his body, even as just a skeleton, still has lots of power. so he used that power to construct a starship around it. this starship is still vaguely dragon-shaped, and he has full control over it, so it’s kinda like just being a robot dragon. except now he’s kinda frozen solid and people can go inside him (and he’s really big, it’s practically like a city in there). but that’s just most of his body. he did set aside a few of his bones for another purpose.

the Magical Girls. we’re finally getting to that part.

he split up those bones into a bunch of small (like, about the size of a marble) pieces, and then built devices around and powered by them called Magites.

the normal inhabitants of this reality couldn’t really use them, so initially, he made a group of six genetically engineered people specifically designed to use the Magites. and they were.... kinda a success. but not quite. but he was also aware of the existence of other realities, and realized that our reality was A: perfect for his plans, as most of us were compatible with the Magites, and B: on the brink of collapse anyways. so he rescued the entire population of Earth.

and then, whenever an Earthling proved worthy, they’d receive a Magite.

and Magites are just Magical Girl transformation devices. like Intelligent Devices from Nanoha, or Relics from Symphogear, or the Moon Pen or whatever it’s called from Sailor Moon. their purpose is to transform the user into a state where they can draw from Skull’s power. and this state happens to wear frilly dresses.

our main cast is a group of five girls (initially just three) who are particularly close to Skull. like, Skull kinda considers them his personal strike force. the initial three are:

Stella Greenfield, who came to Skull’s attention before even becoming a Magical Girl for her keen analytical mind and the rapid pace at which she learned about this reality’s robotics tech (like, she’d only been here for a month before she was able to program a fully conscious and emotional AI, Eve, who she considers her assistant and daughter). she’s actually the last of the five (not even of the three, of all five) to become a Magical Girl, supporting the team from the sidelines at first with her robots and tactical advice. when she does become a Magical Girl, she uses strong gauntlets to punch good and special gear that lets her deploy robots more easily.

Madison (no last name), who was actually one of those initial six lab-grown Magite users, also making her one of the few non-human Magical Girls (she’s an Elf instead). she was just kinda pushed onto the group, and was initially the only actual Magical Girl of them, so the group was initially just kinda “Madison and her handlers”. she’s timid and skittish, but in a pinch she’s fiercely protective of anyone she considers family or anyone she sees as weaker than her. in Magical Girl form, she uses guns (particularly a sniper rifle) and stealth (particularly the ability to turn straight-up invisible).

Kyouko Tenjou, who initially just kinda tagged along with Stella out of coincidence but then was the second one to become a Magical Girl. she’s harsh and abrasive, and ultimately has serious self-confidence issues stemming from her internalized transphobia (because she’s trans), but she has a heart of gold deep down and she generally tries to be a good role model for Madison in particular. she’s also Stella’s love interest. as a Magical Girl, she uses swords and psychic powers. stuff like telepathy, limited precognition, pyrokinesis...

and then after a few adventures of Stella supporting Madison and later Kyouko from the sidelines, she actually gets separated from them for a period of time, during which she meets the remaining two, who aren’t initially Magical Girls but do become them soon enough, and the three agree to stick together for the time while they try to get back to society. these two are:

Venus Bhatia, a violent and boisterous delinquent who’s ultimately actually second only to Madison in terms of friendliness. sure she’s violent, but if you haven’t offended her, she’ll be friendly (though her brand of friendliness is a bit intense to some people). she’s also a bit theatrical. when she transform, her whole vibe changes. her personality stays exactly the same, sure, but it fits both vibes, and her appearance changing is what brings about the change in vibes. in Magical Girl form, she comes off as more of a Female Prince-type like Kaoru Seta. also, she uses explosives. it’s very weird and specific compared to fists, swords, and guns, but it’s still got a practical offensive use. which is why it’s good that she was the first of the two to become a Magical Girl, because the second is...

Luna Flowers, a smug memelord and actual trained doctor who’s also got a slightly-hidden bitter and misanthropic side. and by slightly-hidden, i mean she tries to keep it under wraps and is generally just the smug memelord, but it really doesn’t take much poking to break down those walls and get her to express her true feelings. she’s also an amputee; as a kid, she got into a horrible car accident and her right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. so, she has a robotic right arm. and as a trained doctor? it’s fitting that in Magical Girl form, she’s the team healer. in her Magical Girl form, the main event is her robot arm, which suddenly has a bunch of support tech built into it. healing rays, buffing rays, diagnostic equipment, and even a forcefield generator.

anyways, after palling around with Venus and Luna for a bit and the two of them become Magical Girls, Stella is reunited with Kyouko and Madison, and Venus and Luna decide to stick around. and after that, Stella finally becomes a Magical Girl herself.

[ais-n]

How do you create your characters? (anon ask)

Another question from the same anon I mentioned in the other post: 

In general, how do you create your characters, especially their psychology/thought process/ flaws? 

haha I have two answers to this - and they depend on the level of ridiculous I’m being.

MORE THOROUGH - CHARACTER BIO TEMPLATE:

I actually have a character bio template I made so it was easier for me to track multiple aspects of characters in complex stories. You can download and adjust/use however you’d like - more info at http://aisylum.com/give-and-take/resources/ or download directly as .odt, .doc, or .rtf. 

I made that for my fantasy series but you can just change whatever you want to fit better for your particular situation.

In the thorough cases like this, I will usually start with some sort of idea of the character, whatever that may be, put that into the character bio, and build out from there. Sometimes the vague idea is the gender and/or orientation, sometimes it’s their past, sometimes it’s just a snippet of dialogue I think of someone saying and I have to figure out who would say that thing in that way and why. 

I also try to think about what leads to what. 

Like, Boyd was starved of consistent love and stability as a child, so he came to fully believe he didn’t deserve it while also desperately and subconsciously seeking it out. But because he also had low self-esteem and other issues including a number of tragedies in his past, he became self-destructive at times in his quest for feeling loved or needed. He was willing to put the needs of others above the health of himself, if it meant he wouldn’t be abandoned. Which meant he would be reckless at times, and it meant his emotions would vary hugely when it came to relationships; he would do really stupid things out of fear of losing love or acceptance because he had wished so dearly for it for so long - but that can also backlash and lead to the very thing he feared because he was doing things at times for the wrong reasons or was too willing to compromise when it would be healthier for everyone to stand his ground.

Or, looking at my LGBTQIA+ sci-fi/fantasy/cop/murder mystery-type story Incarnations for other examples - Cypress is a type of Mage (magic-user) who is maligned by pretty much the whole world, especially by other Mages. His kind was all killed in a genocide centuries ago. For various reasons that also pertain to his past (and which would be a spoiler to dictate right now but come up later in the book), he has a huge distrust for other people, to the point at times of rage and hatred and violence. He has almost no one who has been on his side and stayed on his side from the start, except his twin brother. But that comes with its own set of fears, of what would happen if something happened to his brother?, and because he equates emotions to weakness, and he loathes weakness, he can be very aggressive and cynical and sarcastic when interacting with other people. But at the same time, precisely because he’s the type of Mage who gets hunted down and killed or detained by others, and because of how he grew up, he’s learned how to stay under the radar and how to blend in when needed. For all his rage inside, he’s very good at playing a part if he has to, and those two pieces of him may feel at direct odds to one another but they’re just two sides of the same coin. He has the rage because of who he is, and because of who he is he had to learn to not be seen. He is volatile at best when he’s being his own ‘normal’ and yet he can act totally ‘normal’ according to the rest of the world at the drop of a hat if needed. You could meet him in the middle of a grift and have no clue he’s anything other than a regular Joe Schmoe kind of dude who wouldn’t hurt a fly, when in fact he wouldn’t hesitate to brutally kill you if circumstances made it in his best interest.

Basically, I often try to think of what makes sense for how people would react to things they’ve been through (both good and bad), and then how that might affect their behavior going forward, and what would positively or negatively affect that.

One very short, truncated example I’ll give is Sloane, another Mage from Incarnations; because of an event in her past that she survived and others didn’t think she should have, she’s seen as a monster by much of the local community. She became inured to random death from a young age, so she doesn’t question things the way you might expect someone to in the same circumstances, but she also became resentful of others because of how she was treated. She was a troubled child who acted out a lot, but then she had one person who decided to keep reaching out to her, again and again, despite how often she lashed out. And that person became a sense of stability for her, that led to her doing a 180. She went from a kid who was constantly in juvie to being a cop (in this world’s equivalents). There’s a lot more to her story but that’s just a quick way of showing her past and the way people treated her affected her negatively until she had enough of a positive impact on her life from someone else that she ended up changing her trajectory.

I work through a lot of those sorts of things when filling out the character bio so I get a good idea of their past, their tendencies, their biases, etc. And then there’s a section that asks questions like what would build them up, what would bring them down, what is needed for them to progress, etc. I answer those questions as much as I can, and oftentimes get some revelations about the character along the way. And then I look at the plot of the story as a whole and see if it makes sense to include pieces along the way that will provide character progression (or regression) for the character. 

That can be a good way of not only making sure characters don’t stagnate in a story, while also providing layers to the plot itself so that it’s not just about one single thing - there are multiple things happening along the way that provide something potentially interesting or fun or whatever as well.

I personally like to write stories where you can enjoy it as much or more on the second, fourth, tenth read as you did on the first... I want to try to add little things, if possible, that you may glance over the first time without enough context but later can go back and say OHHH when you know more. I find that doing that is particularly fun and enjoyable and easy when you have character progression or little character quirks you can include along the way, because it doesn’t have to be some big dramatic thing for the plot of the world or overall story. It can be something as simple as a character with long hair deciding to cut their hair off, or someone who always wears shoes and makes fun of another person who goes barefoot, now trying to go barefoot and thinking “oh crap, I get why they liked this all along.” It can be totally inconsequential things for the series as a whole that have some sort of meaning for the character or reader, big or small.

I get bored easily both as a reader and a writer so I guess to me that brings in a level of entertainment.

So essentially, I start with something that either I feel I know about the character or makes sense to me about the character, then I try to think about how they would view this thing, and then I try to think about logically what would follow based on their worldview. And that often will lead to flaws, psychology, thought processes, etc. You could think of it like “What would I do if I were them?” but try to not put your personal values in place of their own.

Like, I would never murder the fuck out of people so callously as Cypress does, but I want readers to understand why he does, and for that I need to understand too as the writer or else that’s asking way too much for the readers to understand something I don’t.

QUICKER, LESS RIDICULOUS WAY

I don’t always want to fill out a whole ass memoir/biography on a character to write or create them - sometimes I just want something simple.

In those cases, I don’t write everything down like that bio template, and I don’t go into such specific and detailed questions about every part of their past and their relationships and what they do or don’t need to get better or etc. Instead, I’ll just go with the vibe of someone - what’s the information that’s of import for them as a person and their particular story? Sometimes that’s gender, orientation, race, etc, or sometimes it’s things they like (like spooky things) or things they hate (like restrictive rules).

I try to do more of an overview of why they are how they are, and therefore how they may react to certain things, but I don’t worry myself about going deep into their thought process and psychology to know every detail of how and why. Because depending on the story, I don’t even need to know that information.

I tend to do more of a ‘surface-level’ view of characters for my short stories, because going super in depth would work against what I’m trying to do when I write those - which is develop SOME sense of brevity in my life. Somewhere lol 

A good example of that mentality is probably my short story Five Star Review which is about a god and a spiritual being having a conversation in a closed restaurant. In that story, both main characters are they/them, because that’s the pronouns that worked, and they are very briefly described but barely at all. That story is more about philosophy and the way spirituality/religion interacts with humanity, so that’s what more of the focus is on. I didn’t need to know every single thing Deity (the god) has ever thought, because it’s irrelevant; I just needed to know how they would feel about the particular topics brought up in this particular story. And then, if the dialogue, plot, or otherwise leads to it, I could figure out their flaws or merits as needed, based on the sort of “person” they had already shown themself to be in the previous scene(s).

I don’t know if that helps or if all of that is more confusing. But I basically just start with something I feel I know about the character, then build on that in the context of the world or environment they would have developed in, and then just kind of follow the logic along. 

Also, if that doesn’t lead to flaws or any depth of the character, I will go back and look at something central to them, and try to see if there is anything seemingly directly opposed that could be introduced as a flaw or aspect of them. Because I feel that humans are rarely one-sided, and oftentimes the complexity of us is because of juxtapositions within ourselves we have or haven’t come to terms with. So to make a character feel more “real,” I think it’s important for them to have at least two things about them that don’t, at first glance, seem like it makes sense - but it doesn when you think about them as a person growing up where they did, or how they did, or where they are now, or whatever other piece of them. Not only does that feel more nuanced as a character and more realistic, but it also introduces some internal conflict that can be used as character progression or, at the very least, something interesting to bring in when the plot is in a lull and you don’t know where to go next.

For me, the most important thing is being willing to change my presumption of the character as the writer, if the character naturally develops in a different direction. And therefore also being willing to change the plot to accommodate, instead of forcing the character to follow the plot.

Sorry this post was a million miles long..... hopefully it helps, like, at all, and isn’t just massively confusing.

[laylainalaska]

Torchwood 1x01-1x08

Since I’ve been posting Torchwood rewatch episode reactions over on DW, I may as well post them here too!

Cut with a readmore because long and also spoilery. No specific S2 spoilers except set off in its own section.

----

1x01: Everything Changes, aka Torchwood is the worst-kept secret in the greater Cardiff metropolitan area. The episode with the infamous date rape via alien aphrodisiac. I have made the deliberate choice to compartmentalize this/pretend it never happened due to TV writers being notoriously terrible with recognizing the real-world implications of fantasy aphrodisiacs and sex magic (there was just a scene like this in The Witcher in 20-fucking-20), and treat it as what it is clearly supposed to be in context -- unethical but basically harmless misuse of an alien artifact -- instead of what it really is. But I recognize that this is a personal choice and I also hate this writing decision and wish they'd picked literally any other way of making this particular point, for the record. Anyway ... the rest of this episode other than the fucking date rape was a lot of fun, though. Torchwood is the worst secret quasi-governmental agency at being secret. THE ACTUAL WORST. I love the team trying to keep straight faces and then giggling when Gwen enters their secret base, and the entire base set is just so fantastically bonkers; I really really love it a lot. There's literally a fountain in the middle of it and, like, random water everywhere?! And a pterodactyl. And the invisible lift, with Gwen's wry comment about how there's nothing to stop random pedestrians from falling down it. It's possibly the most utterly bonkers secret spy base outside of kids' cartoons and I love it. 1x02: Day One, aka Murder By Orgasm. In which the show classes things up with an alien who kills people (men only!) via orgasm. Choices were definitely made in this episode. Many choices. For sure. Owen continues to be a total sleaze because the writers think it's funny. Also, his survival when the sex alien targets him makes absolutely no sense at all. He's literally the only person she left alive, and she's in the throes of sex-energy withdrawal at the time. In short, this was an episode that happened. There were a few cute team bits but really not enough to redeem it. 1x03: Ghost Machine, aka Burn Gorman Is Very Pretty. Not that I am biased. He is so pretty in this episode. SO PRETTY. Also, for a refreshing change, Owen manages not to be creepy and sexist at all in this episode. He's just prickly and kind of sweet. I like this Owen. I want to keep him. This episode overall was really a lot of fun, aside from (or perhaps also including) the most unintentionally hilarious death of a redshirt ever, in which he goes to hug Gwen and she accidentally stabs him with the knife she's holding. But overall it's so great! The Owen arc was my favorite - I love how affected he is by the memory device (the scene where he's clearly having a panic attack and trying to keep control!) and how determined he is to get justice for the murdered girl, only to be essentially brought down by his basic decent nature and inability to kill an old man in cold blood. Owen trying to save the guy's life when he was holding a knife on him thirty seconds earlier breaks me a little bit. Lots of fun team scenes in this one, too. The Splott conversation! ("Estate agents call it Sploe.") 1x04: Cyberwoman, aka CYBERBIKINI! Here again, Choices Were Made, most of them by the costuming department with a side of deeply uncomfortable racial implications on the part of whoever cast the episode. To be fair, maybe they just couldn't afford enough tinfoil to cover CyberLisa entirely, since the budget for this episode was clearly three shoestrings and a potato. I don't know if my favorite part of the low-budget f/x is the way they're clearly splicing in Doctor Who clips for the cyberization process, or the fall of Torchwood One, a giant battle involving hundreds of participants that is represented by Ianto screaming while surrounded by plastic sheeting. Honestly, I really love this episode. It is not good by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something incredibly charming about its sheer commitment to utter batshittery and OTT sobbing over emotional team betrayals, and parts of it were incredibly tense. It has the general feel of a horror film shot by college theater majors. Also someone getting doused in barbecue sauce and fed to a pterodactyl is literally a plot point, and the team basketball game at the beginning is one of my favorite little team moments; it's so cute. Cyberbikini aside and with expectations properly lowered, this was terrific fun. 1x05: Small Worlds, aka Death By Hanahaki Disease. On the whole this episode was not terrible nor was it memorably unpleasant; it was just kind of there. In going back to write about the episodes, I really had trouble remembering what even happened in this one. The concept is really interesting, but the fairies stopped being nearly so creepy once you actually see them in all their low-budget-CGI glory; I think the episode would actually have been better if they'd stayed invisible. The flower petal deaths were really gross. I hadn't realized that, while Gwen (unlike the rest of his team) knows that Jack can die and come back, she didn't actually know before this episode that he's much older than he looks. 1x06: Countrycide, aka Don't Split The Party. WELSH MURDER VILLAGE. I loved this episode. This is the ridonkulous teamy sci-fi horror shenanigans that I'm here for. I mean, I was there with bells on for TEAM CAMPING TRIP and then it just got better and better. Ianto gets to go out in the field for the first time and nearly gets eaten by cannibals! Poor Ianto. His life is the worst. I sort of vaguely knew because of season two that there was Owen/Gwen in the first season, but what really caught me off guard is how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting meaningless sex with a side of skeeve, and I do really hate that she's cheating on her boyfriend and how pushy about it Owen is at first, not to mention outing their kiss to the whole team. But the crazy thing about it is, by the midpoint of the episode they're actually, genuinely very sweet, and by the end of the episode you can see what they're both getting out of the relationship and get the feeling that it's a positive human connection for both of them. Also, the near-kiss and teamwork in the woods was incredibly hot. I really loved (and was also surprised by) how loyal and protective Owen is toward his teammates. We saw it a little bit in the previous episode with his "Don't you touch her!" re: Gwen, but it's abundantly on display here, from Owen repeatedly insisting that they need to go after Tosh and Ianto, to his fury at the guy threatening Tosh, to his captor having to restrain him when they pull the hood off Ianto's head near the end. Love Jack's big-damn-hero entrance to the Murder House, and everyone running around screaming and getting separated and hurt, which is always a good time. Basically I just loved this episode. It needed more hurt/comforty aftermath, though. I might have to write some. 1x07: Greeks Bearing Gifts, aka Tosh Has An Alien Girlfriend. I really loved this episode, on the whole, but it is Made Of Ouch. As well as Tosh's isolation and hurt, there's also that bit where she hears Ianto's thoughts and it's just endless painpainpainpain. I like to think that after this episode, she started getting together with him for drinks occasionally and talking about things. They both need friends so badly. (I do not love Jack's random transphobic comment near the end. From JACK of all people. WHY.) And seeing Tosh's delight and squee when she gets to just geek out about things is so lovely. Tosh is absolutely a person who leaves her teammates notes with little hearts on them. I love her. ♥ (Also, as much as I love Owen personally, I really wish that so much of Tosh's storyline didn't revolve around her hopeless crush on Owen. Toshiko deserved better, in all ways, than what this show gave her.) It's too bad that Gwen and Owen's affair is, on the whole, a rather destructive thing, because they're really happy! They're like the only happy people in Torchwood at this point. It's not a grand love story or anything, but I felt like the sheer joy of that initial rush of infatuation was well conveyed and sweet. Owen's relationship with Tosh in season one is completely baffling to me. He's not only staggeringly oblivious to Tosh being into him, but she's literally the only woman at Torchwood that he doesn't hit on. And yet, it's not that he doesn't like her! He clearly does like her in a friend kind of way and enjoys hanging out with her. The card that Mary was looking at in Tosh's apartment looked handmade to me, so he literally made her a handmade birthday card! And yet, he is blindingly oblivious to her interest and rejects her every time she makes overtures. ... I mean, the meta-reason is probably just that the writers thought it would be funny if the character who always sleeps around doesn't notice the one person who really wants him. But I can't help wondering if the basic issue is that Owen has somehow, without really intending to, classified his relationship with her as basically a sibling-type one. We know from the flashbacks in season two that they both joined Torchwood at about the same time and were both in a very emotionally fragile place when they did, and Jack also has a very quasi-parental sort of vibe with both of them. It makes me wonder if Owen either tried to initiate something early on and was rebuffed because Tosh wasn't really coping well either, or if he met her at a point in his life when he was really not interested in having relationships with anyone and simply classified her mentally in a sort of little-sister category. This actually does fit very well with the sometimes bullying, sometimes playful and sweet, generally sexless way that he relates to her this season, and the way that he clearly does care about her and in fact is very protective at times; he just doesn't view her as a target of romantic interest. Anyway, Tosh was very beautiful this episode, and her alien girlfriend was also quite hot, and I really enjoyed it. 1x08: They Keep Killing Suzie, aka I don't think anything I could come up with is better than the actual title. The scene in which they've accidentally locked themselves in their secret underground base and have to call the cops to let them out is possibly my favorite scene in this entire show. That was GOLD. I also wish the cop lady from this episode had come back. She was great, and her rapport with Jack was really neat. Part of what I want to say about this episode contains massive season two spoilers, so that's set off in a spoiler section at the end. This was a highly entertaining episode with a plot that was total nonsense that falls apart within 0.2 seconds of actually thinking about it. Good emotional stuff, yes! Plot? BONKERS. I mean, Suzie's plan was something like this: 1. Drive someone insane by feeding them Retcon for two years. 2. Kill yourself. 3. ???? 4. Profit! I am just going to headcanon that the team are actually wrong about Suzie planning all of this, and it's mostly an accidental set of circumstances that she took advantage of. I did love the twist of Suzie wanting a deathbed reunion with her dad not because of love, but because she wanted to watch him die because he's terrible. (However, this does completely undermine what was previously given as part of her motivation for getting addicted to the glove, which was trying to save her dad. See above re: plot nonsense.) But the team stuff was fun! Love everyone scrambling to save Gwen, and Owen holding her at the end -- I'm still seeing them through a lens of mostly-platonic more than romantic. The general vibe with the team pulling together vs. Suzie having basically no one in Torchwood to talk to is really interesting; it's hard to say how much of that is the team having gotten closer over the course of the season, and how much of it is just Suzie not really ever bonding with her co-workers the way they bonded with each other. I mean, I do get more of a co-workery vibe off them early on, as opposed to the chosen-family feeling later on, but the closeness is there under the surface; I'm just not really sure if they've realized it yet. But with Suzie, it's hard to say if the closeness ever really was there. They're all damaged in their various ways, but I feel like Suzie might be damaged in a way that simply precluded her ever really being able to let people in, as the others are learning to. Ianto's visible depression at this point in the show is mostly down to Gareth David-Lloyd's acting, but it's so well done -- his flat affect and thousand-yard stare, especially contrasted against his dry, sarcastic humor when he's not miserable (mostly in season two). The other Ianto-related thing I noticed is that the warmer, more bantery rapport between Ianto and Owen in season two is actually present in this episode to some extent, for perhaps the first time ever. In particular, Owen makes him smile at one point by teasing him (the only time Ianto smiles in the last few episodes, I think, up until he's with Jack at the very end), and offers him the first shot at naming the knife in spite of Ianto's artifact names being genuinely terrible - like, trying to include him a little bit, in a way I haven't seen Owen doing with him before. There's a general feeling throughout this episode that Owen has warmed up to him a bit and is actually reaching out a little. And Ianto and Jack are sleeping together now! I don't know when that happened and I wish we'd seen more of the beginnings of it. It's nice to see Ianto smile, though. Season two 1x08-related spoilers: 

Watching this episode after having seen Owen's resurrection glove arc in season two was FASCINATING, especially for the compare/contrast of the way the team reacted to resurrected!Suzie vs. resurrected!Owen; I mean, the fact that she died in the process of betraying them after becoming a serial killer is obviously a large factor here, and they were somewhat wary of Owen too, but there's just so much more ambivalence in how they deal with Suzie, vs. the way that Owen's death and resurrection actually brought the team closer together, and brought Owen closer to all of them.

But the most interesting contrast to me is how Owen and Suzie, as characters, both reacted to the whole idea of having to survive by killing people, with Jack trying (unsuccessfully) to argue Suzie out of allowing Gwen to die, whereas Owen's immediate reaction to finding out that his survival might be killing people (just random people too, not teammates) was to try to sacrifice himself, not just once but multiple times, starting with a fundamentally horrible euthanasia-type death and continuing on to destroy the resurrection glove himself even though it was likely to re-kill him. Why yes, I can turn any episode discussion into an Owen discussion, even an episode he wasn't especially prominent in.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/15/2019: THE TALL MAN (2012)

If you do not personally crave movies that undermine both your intelligence and your suspension of disbelief with their totally bizarre bullshit, then please allow me to spoil all of Pascal Laugier’s THE TALL MAN for you. Laugier is responsible for 2008′s infamously hard to swallow MARTYRS, so if you’re acquainted with that, then you may have a general idea of what you’re in for. I had actually seen THE TALL MAN before, and all I could remember about it was my own vague sense of bafflement and annoyance. I’m so glad I chose to revisit it this blogtober, because it is really satisfyingly idiotic!

This incomprehensible rural thriller stars the perennially exhausted Jessica Biel as a widowed country nurse in a decaying northwestern mining town that is suffering from a seemingly endless string of child disappearances. The crimes have given rise to an urban legend about a Tall Man who spirits little kids away to do all sorts of awful things to them. Jessica Biel is too busy to worry about that, being the town’s last human being with a caring heart, until it happens to her--one night, her home is violated, and the intruder absconds with her little boy. She chases the Tall Man into the night, ultimately losing him after being dragged behind his JEEPERS CREEPERS van and having a surprisingly long, action-packed misadventure in the woods. When she is recovered by the FBI (dreamy Stephen McHattie) and dropped off at the local diner, she seems to uncover traces of a conspiracy among the locals, who may all be jointly behind the Tall Man kidnappings. This sends her off on the second leg of her chase, deeper into the gothic industrial recesses of their depressed burg...whereupon, after almost exactly one hour of this sappy but intriguing narrative, Jessica Biel confronts the Tall Man, who is ACTUALLY the mother (Colleen Wheeler) of one of the latest disappeared children (backed by the shifty locals), because Jessica Biel is ACTUALLY the Tall Man! Or at least, Biel delivers a borderline spiritual confession about how she has been delivering all of the town’s children to the Tall Man in order to rescue them from...well, mainly from being raised by poor people. Now that she is jailed for life as a presumed child murderer, in spite of the lack of a single corpse in the labyrinthine caverns beneath her house, the narrative shifts to one of the town’s other denizens, selectively mute teenager Jodelle Ferland (better known to me as Sharon/Alessa from SILENT HILL!) who has been yearning for the Tall Man to take her away from her crappy family. Having expressed her desires to his Jessica Biel, she is warned tantalizingly that if she causes problems, then the Tall Man will “do things to her that (she) can’t even imagine!” (This won’t make any sense later) But now that Biel is behind bars, an actual Tall Man--Jessica Biel’s enigmatic and apparently alive HUSBAND--comes, scoops the girl up like a football, and runs her out to an underground adoption agency whose mission is specifically to kidnap kids out of poor, neglectful families, and farm them out to childless rich people who will give them the perfect childhood. At the very end of the movie, now cultured and fashionable but lonely for her old life, Jodelle gazes DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA, allowing tears to fall from her troubled eyes, and asks OUT LOUD if she made the right decision. The end....?!?!?!

I hope that by now, you understand why I feel compelled to lay out every single beat of this ridiculous story. The experience of watching this complete nonsense unfurl is fascinating; The movie is richly atmospheric, and Jessica Biel’s evocation of physical and moral weariness is strangely effective. But then it has to be about...what’s it about exactly? Jessica Biel and her spouse, who has vanished himself in order to perpetrate this elaborate crime, claim to rescue children from dire circumstances, but it isn’t really explicit what the kids are going through, other than the town-wide economic depression. OK, so Jodelle Ferland’s home life kind of sucks, but the idea of a teenager on the verge of adulthood deliberately submitting herself to a human trafficking ring so she can get adopted by rich people is so inherently comedic to me that I just can’t take it seriously. Also, as Colleen Wheeler explains to Jessica Biel in jail, just being poor and imperfect shouldn’t make you a candidate for being deprived of your family. As the film’s latter revelations unfold, we see several photos of Jessica Biel and her husband serving in Save the Children-type organizations around the world, including a picture of them surrounded by smiling black faces. I don’t know if the implication is that Mr. and Mrs. Tall Man went to places like Haiti and the Congo in order to snatch children out of their poor mothers’ arms--it’s hard to imagine that the rich and childless of Seattle would be as interested in them as they are in a little white cherub like Jodelle--but it’s an icky thing to add to the mix. And about Jodelle, who has infiltrated the Tall Man scheme in order to get herself some less drunk and pugnacious parents: Her closing V/O monologue is mortifying in its pseudo-poetic prose, but more than that, what am I supposed to think about her epiphany that getting illegally adopted might have been a pretty mean thing to do to her birth mom? The movie is gravely serious at all times, but I’m not sure what about. It feels a little like writer-director Laugier explained his latest movie idea to somebody, and that person said, “Wait, are we supposed to admire Jessica Biel? This seems like kind of a bad, judgmental thing to do,” and then he just wrote in all this hemming and hawing about what the meaning of all this is supposed to be.

So not only do I feel confused about how I’m meant to feel toward the characters in THE TALL MAN, but I feel confused about what it’s about metaphorically. There are lots of genre movies about childhood and parenting, understandably, since it is such a potent subject. There are evil little kid stories, about the reasonable suspicion that your precious offspring is actually a separate and independent person from you. There are stories about bullied little kids who turn out to have an epic destiny, that help us combat our feelings of ordinariness and anonymity. Adjacently, stories about evil parental figures who must be vanquished stem from a similar desire for self-validation. There are also stories which sort of mix these two ideas, about children getting to go on a magical adventure that is ultimately NOT preferable to the comforts of home--iterations range from THE WIZARD OF OZ to any number of Slenderman narratives (of which this almost is one). Then there are stories, usually distopian sci-fi or fantasy products, about adults who have to fight for their right to breed against a fascist government that aims to prevent undesirable children from being born--which in turn are adjacent to stories about parents who try to artificially produce the perfect child, and who inevitably pay for this transgression against god and nature. It’s easy to see what real feelings and experiences inspire each of these stories, but I have no idea what THE TALL MAN is about. I would think that there isn’t a big and reliable enough audience of, say, people who think you should need a license to have a kid, for somebody to make an entire movie about what if you could remove children from parents who are unstable, oh but like also what if you can’t really tell WHO is or is not a fit parent, but then like what if you were a kid and could pick your own parents, would you be sad later if you tried it??? ...I just mean to say that I don’t know what THE TALL MAN is an allegory for, or even just what it wants me to think or feel. And for some equally idiotic reason, I seem to enjoy the only emotion I am left with, which is confusion.

PS With this viewing, I managed to watch two movies in a row that end with spooked out kids speaking directly to the camera, and that just makes me feel totally and completely cursed.

[veryfashionabledesigns]

Analyzing the Snicket Aesthetic, Part 1/5: Time Period, Technology, and Medicine

.-There are quite a few fan theories placing the main events of ASOUE in the 80’s or 90’s, which is plausible, if not quite probable, in terms of the technology present in the series and the timing of the real-life publication of the books. On the other hand, I’m a shameless hipster and I live for that retro aesthetic, so I like the ambiguity.

-The post-post-apocalyptic theory is a fun one, but it can be a little limiting—not to mention difficult—to apply too many practical implications to this universe. Realism is all well and good, but it can easily be discarded for the sake of a good yarn or a pointed bit of commentary.  

Figure 1: The Illustrations of ASOUE are mostly influenced by the woodblock prints that frequently appeared in Victorian fiction--black and white, hatched shading, realistic perspective—while those of ATWQ vaguely resemble Modernist and/or Cubist art—subtle color, solid shadows, and slightly warped perspective.

(Continued under the cut)

        -Anachronisms everywhere, of course.  One of the books mentions a blacksmith and a computer repair shop in the same sentence. Events and media from before, during, or (infrequently) after the date range are regularly referenced.

        -Personally, I mix and match from a date range of about 1890-1980, for reasons we’ll get into over the course of this analysis, although this is really quite a large range, and even then it’s rather approximate, and can change depending on which version of the story one is referencing, and even from book to book or character to character.

-Time does not pass normally like in the real world. The atmosphere of ASOUE feels a bit older (gothic, vaguely turn of the century) than that of ATWQ (noir, 1930’s-40’s), but the latter is set before the former (see fig. 1). History has been run through a blender set to puree.

TECHNOLOGY

        -It’s sort of lowkey steampunk/dieselpunk. Relatively little sci fi tech is floating loose in the world, but given the materials and time, Violet would almost certainly come up with some fun retro-futuristic inventions.

        -Violet’s inventions involve mechanical and electrical technology, but seemingly nothing digital. She’s largely indifferent (and in the books, possibly even disdainful) in response to the “advanced computer” at Prufrock Prep, which always struck me as a bit odd. Maybe she distrusts Nero’s vague assertions that it will deter Count Olaf, maybe she prefers a more hands-on approach to inventing, or maybe she has the soul of cranky old lady.

Figure 2: Prufrock’s advanced computer in the Netflix series features cameras, a CRT monitor, and something resembling an oscilloscope.

        -Computers exist in this universe, but they don’t seem to do much, and there aren’t very many of them. Smart phones, laptops, and similar devices of the 21st century are almost certainly not around.

-In the books, Prufrock’s computer can display a recognizable image of Count Olaf and is compared to a toad in appearance, meaning it was likely modeled after PCs from the 80s and 90s.

-In the series, it’s even more anachronistic. The monitor looks more or less like what was described in the books, but it also comes fitted with a built in camera, much like a modern webcam, and can recognize faces about as well as most characters (although this really isn’t saying much), implying some kind of primitive deep learning capacity.  

Figure 3: A few computers that could fit in the Snicketverse. (The Apple 1, hilariously, is the real thing.)

-If the internet exists, it’s pretty useless. The first season of the Netflix series has a few references to the internet, none of which are relevant to the plot. The internet makes everything easier, and the Snicketverse is all about inconvenience and suffering.  

-Photographs appear in both black and white and color, although the color is quite grainy. The shift to color photography occurred gradually throughout the 20th century.

-Hector’s self-sustaining hot air mobile home is really quite impractical, if not impossible. A proper hot air balloon would require quite a bit of fuel to keep the air inside the balloons sufficiently hot. Historically, airships of comparative size would have filled their balloons with hydrogen and/or helium, which, barring leakage or other damage, could actually remain buoyant more or less indefinitely. Hydrogen, by the way, is very flammable.

-The submarines in The Grim Grotto are steampunk as heck—that is, realistically impractical but really friggin’ cool—likely inspired by early science fiction such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In real life, submarines rarely have portholes; in warfare or high water pressure, they could potentially be a weak point, and they’re fairly pricy for something that isn’t strictly necessary. There are a few exceptions, though, such as in subs designed for tourism or marine biology.

Figure 4: The Quequeg has a number of features solely for the comfort of its crew, such as this lovely library with paintings and antique-looking lamps. The use of brass and copper tones, as well as the warm lighting reminiscent of gas, oil, or early incandescent lights, also add to the steampunk vibes.

-Mobile phones do not appear in the books. As with the internet, they’re just too convenient. Should they be necessary to your story, however, there are a few ways to work them in. The movie featured telephones built into cars, which is actually pretty cool. In real life, portable phones have existed since at least the 1960s, although they were too large and expensive to be popular with the public until recently.

Figure 5: The Radio Common Carrier, a sort of mobile phone introduced in the 1960s.

MEDICINE

        -If Heimlich Hospital is typical of the Snicketverse, then the medical technology of the time is… not good.

        -For all the bureaucracy and paperwork depicted, there seems to be very little control over what sorts of operations are actually performed. Count Olaf can waltz in and say he needs the operating theater for a “cranioectomy,” and nobody seems to question it. It’s entirely possible that the amount of paperwork required is so massive that nobody can really keep track of it all.

        -Patients at Heimlich Hospital often ask volunteers for simple things like a glass of water—implying that the hospital is severely understaffed.

        -It is unknown what happens if a Volunteer is seriously injured in the line of duty. V.F.D. may have its own medics/infirmaries. Alternately, they may try to recruit medical professionals who will treat patients without revealing any secrets. It is also possible that volunteers are expected to lie to their doctors, or that the healthcare system is such a mess that nobody really asks questions when someone turns up with a suspicious injury.

        -There is some good news: near the beginning of The Hostile Hospital, Klaus mentions antibiotics and shots (likely referring to vaccines). From this we can assume that many of history’s nastiest plagues (i.e. tuberculosis, cholera, scarlet fever, etc.) are more or less under control. (Although I personally headcannon that Mr. Poe’s cough is an early symptom of tuberculosis, as this would be a fun little shout-out to Edgar Allen Poe.)

        -The rusty knives used in Violet’s “surgery” imply that doctors could get away with some pretty lousy sanitation. In the Netflix series, the entire hospital is filthy.           

Figure 6: The operating theater in The Hostile Hospital is similar in structure, if not style, to the one at the Old Operating Theatre museum, built c.1822.

-Public operating theaters like the one seen in the Hostile Hospital were gradually replaced by sterile operating rooms as doctors developed proper understanding of germ theory between c. 1860-1900. (See fig. 6). Notably, the set design for the operating theater in the series uses a 19th century layout with mid-20th century materials and lighting.

        -Treatment for mental health conditions is given little attention, which is troubling; sooner or later those poor kids are going to need some therapy. If memory serves, one of the patients at Heimlich is described as looking sad but otherwise healthy, suggesting depression.

        -Given how dystopian the Snicketverse is, PTSD and anxiety are probably quite common—especially among V.F.D. members, who often wind up in very dangerous situations at very early ages. In fact, one could make a solid argument that childhood trauma might be behind the neuroses of characters such as Aunt Joesephine or Hector—both of whom, despite having severely debilitating anxiety disorders, never seem to receive any treatment.

FANTASY ELEMENTS

         -There are very few of these, but it’s far from realism. Some rough rules of thumb would be to avoid things typically considered supernatural (i.e. dragons, ghosts, vampires), but things that are not quite possible (i.e. babies can bite through concrete, reptiles can be trained to imitate human speech on command), or possible but very improbable (i.e. a harmless snake being officially named “the Incredibly Deadly Viper” solely for pranking purposes, a phony surgeon convincing a crowd that decapitation is a risky but necessary medical procedure) are all well and good.

         -It should be noted, however, that at least a few characters in-universe believe in the supernatural. In the Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaires are briefly mistaken for ghosts, and in The End, Ishmael claims to predict the weather using magic.

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Get in your robots, audience, it's time for Paul is Weeaboo Trash!  And today, I'm finally watching a show it seems like everyone just... assumes I must've seen:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

Episodes watched: 8

Platform: Netflix

The idea of something being a "classic" may be in decline in the anime fandom, or at least be getting very specialized, since "anime" no longer implies a narrow interest in specific sci-fi and fantasy subgenres like it used to, but certain shows still manage to pervade the pop culture indirectly.  Neon Genesis Evangelion is one such show, enduring in the modern fandom and general internet culture because of its status as one of those old sci-fi anime classics.  It has contributed memes — not just as in image macros or running jokes, but as in units of culture in the form of iconic quotes or character designs or elements of the plot — to the point that you have certainly been in some way exposed to them without any knowledge of the source material.  But despite its reputation as a must-see cultural touchstone, it has been out of print in America for years.  Used copies of the DVDs sell for absurd prices, and I don't think I knew anyone who owned it when I was a young weeb in the mid-2000s.  I'm fairly sure my family did not have cable during the one specific season it was on Adult Swim, and there's no chance I would have been up at 12:30AM on Thursdays to watch it anyway.  I am not much of a fan of media piracy and wasn't even aware of that option when it was apparently everyone else's favorite pastime to ruin their computers with sketchy torrents.  So there was never a reasonable way for me to watch it, only for me to be dimly aware that this was An Important Show I Need To See.  Until now.  Because it's on Netflix.  As if I hadn't already been awaiting it, I was aggressively reminded of it, because social media and geeky news outlets were soon blowing up with retrospectives and Very Serious Analyses — and fans of the old ADV translation were offering hot takes on how Netflix's release compares.  So let me finally check this out for myself.

We start out in the distant future of... 2015, where UN forces are defending Tokyo-3 ("Old Tokyo" is mentioned and depicted later; no mention yet of Tokyo-2 unless I somehow already forgot it) against an attacking "angel", an immensely powerful alien with barely-comprehensible powers.  Meanwhile, an officer of a UN agency called NERV, Misato Katsuragi, brings our main character, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari, to an underground NERV base under Tokyo-3 on the instructions of Shinji's father Gendo, who runs a secret research project.  Shinji has been brought there to pilot an Evangelion, or Eva for short, a giant robot operated by some sort of neural interface.  In combat.  With no training.  He is, understandably, not happy about this.  After seeing how badly injured the other available pilot, Rei Ayanami, is, however, he agrees to do it — and it works far better than he or anyone else expected.  He apparently has an innately great ability to "sync" with however exactly the Eva's interface works.  But this only gets him as far as starting the thing up.  When he actually engages the angel, he has trouble just getting the Eva to walk, and he feels the pain of the Eva taking damage once attacked, a frankly horrifying feature of the interface.  We cut to him waking up in a hospital, but having surprisingly won because his Eva "went berserk", operating on its own.  A flashback later shows what happened when he lost control of the Eva: it fought the angel by itself, but also took heavy damage, and we see its visor? faceplate? sōmen? of the Eva's armor come off to reveal a fleshy-looking face and a very biological-looking eye.  At this point Shinji blacked out, which is really the only reasonable response to this situation.

Over the next several weeks (the time scale is vague, but since Rei apparently fully recovers from the injuries she had when we first saw her before the time she and Shinji are both deployed, it must be at least 3 weeks between eps. 1 and 5), more angels appear, to the surprise of civilians and UN forces alike.  The Evas continue to be excellent weapons against them (though Shinji himself is still, uh, not great at using them), but despite having now killed several angels, the Evas are considered a ridiculous boondoggle by personnel of other UN branches, and Gendo's sinister superiors seem to be losing patience with his project.  In the words of... uh... that UN navy guy in ep. 8, "Shit!  A bunch of kids are supposed to save the world?"  The alternatives are wildly ineffective conventional weapons and a remote-controlled nuclear-powered giant robot that almost had a literal Chernobyl-style meltdown, which was averted by Misato and Shinji.  Although repairs are expensive, injuries common, and pilots in short supply, Evas indeed seem to be the only effective weapon against the invading cosmic horror, the barely-comprehensible aliens that are impervious to ordinary human technology and also don't fit our concepts of life or... uh... possibly physics.  So, instead, in the words of Misato later in the same episode, "This plan may be insane, but I don't think it's impossible."

While this is going on, Shinji has been adjusting to this new life poorly and slowly.  Despite being a pilot, he is still after all a 14-year-old, so he is enrolled into the same class as Rei at a local school whose student body has dwindled as more people evacuate over the initial angel attack.  He also needs somewhere to live, so Misato arranges for him to move into her apartment.  Some of Shinji's classmates think he's incredibly lucky to live with her, and spend a good deal of their screen time drooling over her, but Shinji is highly uncomfortable around her not just because Captain Katsuragi is his commanding officer, but also because she has a tendency to not wear much clothing around the house and is, er, a bit of a drunk and a slob.  Oh, and she has an inexplicable, clawed, beer-drinking penguin.  You know, all stuff that would make a nervous, lonely, scared 14-year-old completely at home.

Neither NERV training nor school guarantee a community, though, and Shinji, isolated and confused, could sure use one right about now.  He seems quite likely traumatized from the first battle.  He keeps ending up in situations that make him wildly uncomfortable while other characters take them in stride.  He repeatedly attempts to quit NERV or at least defy orders before backing out (or... backing back in?) at the last moment.  It would frankly be bizarre that they accept him doing this, except that (1) nobody really seems to take Shinji that seriously anyway, (2) he's the boss's kid, and (3) most importantly, it seems that only a small number of pilots, all the same age as Shinji and Rei, are even capable of using Evas.  (Wife and I are starting to suspect reasons why this might be, especially given the whole cyborgs with neural interfaces thing, but... uh... let's not embarrass ourselves with public speculations about the plot of a ridiculously famous show almost as old as we are.)  He only slowly gains any support or comfort from his new classmates and colleagues.  They don't reach out to him, and he certainly doesn't reach out to them, because who is he supposed to talk to?  His roommate/commanding officer who is twice his age?  His classmates who treat him as a celebrity, not a person, once they find out he's an Eva pilot?  Even if his default state since the very first episode hadn't been basically imploding into despair with no idea how to communicate that anything's wrong, there's nobody that really makes sense for him to try to communicate it to.  Except one person: Rei.  He notices that she's also isolated at school, and especially after seeing her dark, miserable, unmaintained apartment, he attempts to be friendly towards her.  I thought this might be a hint of growth indicating that he understands she is possibly the only person more isolated than him and the only one who might be able to relate to him, but then the next time he threatens to quit NERV after that conversation, he explicitly claims she doesn't know what he's going though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe he just has bad social skills.

Sigh.

Shinji does start to make friends with Aida and Suzuhara, two of his classmates, though.  And it's interesting because they contrast against him in their reactions to the conflict outside.  Aida roleplays being in the military and finds Shinji's role as an Eva pilot glorious and enviable.  Suzuhara is initially furious at Shinji because his sister was collateral damage — she was injured when Shinji fought the angel — and his mind is changed only after Shinji rescues him (and Aida) from an angel.  Shinji, though, having been thrust into a role he doesn't even understand and about which he is ambivalent and unstable, lacks Aida's optimistic admiration of his role and a full appreciation of either Suzuhara's resentment or gratitude.  He not only rejects their praise, he calls himself a coward during (sigh) one of his attempts to quit NERV.  It occurs to me that this could be seen as indicating different perspectives about the military (ask any American vet who's sick of being "thanked for their service"), or even different perspectives about adulthood itself — I'll bet any millennial who did not achieve their dreams can recognize Aida's "wow this is amazing I can't wait to be a grownup too" roleplaying vs. Shinji's "I am doomed and isolated by the responsibility that has been thrown at me" actual experience in NERV.

Also thanks to the school scenes, we start to learn some backstory, including the famous "Second Impact".  A catastrophic asteroid impact in 2000 melted Antarctica's glaciers, which led to unprecedentedly rapid sea level rise, leading to mass extinction, including that of half of humanity through not only direct climate change impacts like displaced populations and crop failures but also conflict stemming from it.  Or so the official story goes.  It is later revealed that the Second Impact actually involved somehow the previous arrival of angels on Earth, although this has yet to be explained in detail.  (Actually, I accidentally saw spoilers about more detail about this while revising this review, because I went to sanity-check myself about some other detail on one of the fan wikis, so I know part of where this is going, but only part.)

Over the first eight episodes, which must be several weeks at least after the start of the show given that Rei has recovered from her initial injuries (although the time scale is very vague), Shinji fights four angels total and gradually improves, but the biggest improvement comes not from him being an individual hero but from finally working well with others.  For example, the octahedral angel that drills into NERV's base has incredible abilities to detect and counter incoming attacks.  It kicks Shinji's ass on the first attempt, because duh.  But Misato devises a plan to test its abilities and concentrate the power of... uh... Japan's entire electrical grid(?!) at it from a safe distance, and the plan succeeds only because of Rei giving Shinji cover.  An angel attacks a UN ship convoy transporting the third pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, and her Eva, and she and Shinji fight the angel together in a ludicrous fight that involves both cramming in to pilot the same Eva together (which, interestingly, requires them to give it the same, or maybe just compatible, instructions together in the same language for it to work... yay neural interfaces).  So maybe/hopefully the direction this is going is "the chosen one is a stupid idea and even talented people need both training and cooperation to not suck at things"?

Episode 8 leaves off with Asuka joining Shinji and Rei's school class, and with the dramatic and creepy reveal of an embryo encased in bakelite which is described by Gendo as "Adam, the first human"...  Well.  That comes off as the kind of thing that would drive the future plot, and hopefully all the Biblical imagery will finally start to converge into something coherent instead of just sort of serving to draw extra attention to the fact that the humans refer to the aliens as "angels".  I've been wondering about that since the beginning.  There's the title, of course, but also the sefirot in the opening and on Gendo's office ceiling, the first angel's attacks using what appears to be a directed energy weapon which invariably forms glowing crosses, and the fact that most of the angels themselves are wildly non-humanoid (a choice which echoes the rather... eldritch... classical depictions of angels — see also the seraph in the opening).  NERV's motto is even explicitly, well, monotheistic at least, if not sectarian: "God's in his heaven.  All's right with the world!", which is counterintuitive at best with the idea of calling the alien invaders "angels".

Well.  I'll find out, and I plan to write a followup like I did with Re:ZERO, going into the broad swaths of the rest of the plot and my overall impressions of how they handled things.  Especially given that this show has a famously-controversial ending.  I jumped into this determined to watch the whole series, so I'm not backing out.

I'll just threaten to quit repeatedly then almost immediately come back.

-----

W/A/S: 4 / 3 / I feel kinda bad about this but 4?

Weeb: I mean, anything with giant robots fighting giant monsters deserves a few points just for that, right?  I don't think this requires much by way of Japanese cultural references or assumptions to watch, though.

Ass: Nudity so far has been brief, partial, censored by convenient angles and object placement, and not remotely sexy.  Thanks to another contextless spoiler I happen to have picked up, I expect an infamous later scene that is clearly supposed to be sad and disturbing in context, which is, again, not the kind of thing this scale was originally designed to describe.

Shit (writing): Even though I tend to overall like their plots, I always sort of sigh and eyeroll at the "let's put children/teens in combat and/or experiment on and/or just plain torture them to force them to become powerful" storyline formula that’s been semi-popular for the last few decades, and Evangelion is definitely in that category.  Friends have said the story is confusing or poorly-paced, and I kind of agree but also think some of the confusion is warranted by the choice to enter the story in media res in order to reveal what's going on to the audience at about the same time it's revealed to Shinji.  As for the tendency to have some long shots where literally nothing happens, that does get annoying, and I suspect its primary motivation was to save money, but I think it also usually emphasizes how lonely the whole situation is, at least before Shinji starts to warm up to Misato and Rei to Shinji in the last couple of episodes I've watched so far (which have, appropriately, had much more action and interaction).  Mainly, my writing complaints are actually about translation, because there are some noticeable and consequential differences between translations for the sub and dub.  Yeah, yeah, I've heard of the love vs. like thing everyone on the internet is already upset about, but I haven't gotten to that episode yet.  I'm talking about things like Misato saying "it will work!" in the sub vs. just "okay!" in the dub when Shinji is first able to control his Eva, a choice which suggests very different things about both her level of knowledge of the project and why Shinji has been called on for it at all.  The new dub also feels... uh... too at home as a dub of a '90s anime, as it prioritizes matching lip flaps over flowing like believable speech.  Having not seen the old dub, of course, I can't make any kind of judgement about whether this is a step up, down, or sideways from how ADV did it.  And the sub has many on-screen captions in Japanese are left untranslated — not things like signs in the background, but actual captions the audience is meant to get information from.

Shit (other): Maybe we're spoiled in this age of computer-aided art, but i's surprising to see a show with such limited animation — speech conveyed only with lip flaps, obviously reused shots within the same episode, foreground objects gracelessly sliding against a background to indicate movement — and so I'm willing to give the show a pass on most of that, especially since the characters are distinctive and the setting and aliens and robots so interesting.  Much of the limited animation actually serves to show the vast scale of NERV's facilities and the Evas vs. the humans and/or to emphasize loneliness like the pacing.  But there really are some painful mistakes from time to time in the art: objects and faces that look utterly wrong, like the artists just did not successfully figure out how to draw that particular character or vehicle from that particular angle.  The legendary opening theme is certainly catchy — it’s been stuck in my head almost continuously for the past week — but I just don’t think I enjoy it as much as other people do.  Some of the immediate complaints that were apparently worthy of news media attention were about the replacement of Fly Me to the Moon with a piece from the show's soundtrack as the ending theme.  I understand why people would be upset by that kind of change, but I am willing to take the controversial stand that it's not a bad change.  The piece they chose as a replacement is haunting and tense, which fits in with the mood of most of the episodes so far, while Fly Me to the Moon feels to me like an inappropriate mood change from that.

Content: Actually among the least graphic of the various shows I've covered involving violent or horrifying elements.

-----

Stray observations:

- God it was weird to write this by constantly abbreviating “Evangelion” as “Eva”, considering that Wife's name is Eva.

- A lot of people seem to hate Shinji as a character, but I find him understandable in a way that probably implies uncomfortable things about my own sanity.  I just... I understand that sheer degree of doom and misery and indecision and inability to articulate any of those.  Man.  Ugh.

- I don't know if you've ever seen an undisguised angel, but trust me: they're horrifying.  (link NSFW)

[dr-gloom]

You’re Scared

Summary: Based off this AMAZING prompt from @britbrodcast​! 

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Pairings: Platonic LAMP? what’s it called when Dee’s in it??? Who knows

Words: 4,774

Tags/Warnings: Virgil is spoopy but also a dork so it balances out, Patton is Concerned(tm), I guess this could be considered Sympathetic Deceit?, Idk, But he isn’t a bad snek so, mild swearing, angst, panic attack

Read it on AO3

fic masterlist

like what I do? buy me a coffee or GoFundMe

((i listened to all of Folie A Deux on repeat while writing this cause that’s like my default Virgil playlist honestly))

It was no secret to Thomas and the other sides that Virgil didn’t exactly get around like them. It’d been proven that he was capable of sinking out, but he always just, as Logan put it, “appeared”. Roman was convinced it was because he was really a Dark Side, but Patton wasn’t having any of that. Virgil was his sweet and sour son and there wasn’t a dark or sinister bone in his body. So no one knew how Virgil did it, or even why, because it wasn’t really asked. Maybe they didn’t mind, or maybe they were scared of the answer. Maybe Virgil really was a Dark Side; if that were true, well, ignorance is bliss. 

Patton was cooking lunch as he hummed along to some song on the small kitchen radio, chopping up some veggies when he turned to grab something and the knife slipped out of his hands and clattered to the floor, making him jump with a yelp. He held a hand to his heart, trying to calm himself as he glanced down at the knife now on the kitchen floor. A voice coming from above him startles him even more.

“Jeez Pat, be more careful. You could’ve seriously hurt yourself.” Patton looks around, confused when he doesn’t see anything. “Up here.” Patton looks up, eyes widening a bit as he spots Virgil on top of the fridge. How had he gotten up there? And how long had he been sitting there? “Oh, hey kiddo! You doin’ okay?” Patton remembered Virgil saying something about sitting in strange places on more... stressful days. Virgil shrugs, seeming to not have considered that. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” Patton makes a small ‘o’ expression and nods. 

“Yep! No knife can hurt this cleaver dad!” He bends over and picks up the vegetable cleaver. Virgil rolls his eyes, swinging his legs to dangle over the side of the fridge. “That pun wasn’t cleaver.” He mutters. Patton giggles, just glad that Virgil is joking along with him. He knows the other is usually a little jumpy, cautious, reluctant to join the other five (the four other sides and Thomas, of course) in any kind of banter or fun-making. “Why don’t you come down from there and help your old man with lunch? Cheese?” 

“That one was just bad.”

“So it wasn’t Gouda.” Patton smiles brightly as Virgil snrks and hops down from the fridge straight to the floor. Patton almost protests - that can’t be good on his knees! - but Virgil seems unaffected. “How long were you sitting up there anyways? You too cool to say hi to your old man?” Patton thinks he hears a mutter of same age before Virgil replies, “I’ve been there the whole time. I just didn’t want to bother you.” Virgil isn’t looking at Patton, but Patton just figures it’s because he’s shy and ‘doesn’t like to be a bother to anyone’. He could never bother Patton! Patton loves his dark strange son. 

“Well gosh kiddo you know you can talk to me whenever! I love our talks.” He grins at the other as he gets a new, clean knife and Virgil moves the cut up veggies to the waiting pan. “I guess... You’re good, though?” Virgil glances over at Patton through his bangs, and Patton’s smile softens. “I’m okay. Thanks kiddo.”

Logan sits in his usual spot at the end of the couch, reading a book while the TV plays on in the background. Roman had started some sci-fi horror film, leaving part-way through when he was stricken with a sudden idea. Of course, this often happened, so Logan didn’t mind the background noise that was more like a quiet static underneath his focus. Judging by the music and increased screaming, Logan would venture a guess that the movie was nearing the climax. He turned the page, further tuning out the movie as he became immersed in the world of Mr. Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights. 

He made it through nearly half of the book before his focus waned again, the sounds of someone - most likely Roman - coming down the hall caught his attention. His suspicions were proven correct when the princely figure plopped down on the opposite end of the couch and picked up the remote, seamlessly putting on another movie without a second’s thought. It goes through the ads, and the dreaded THX sound blares out of the speakers. Logan jumps, dropping his book, looking around. Roman looks just as startled, despite being the one who put the movie on, and mutters an apology. Virgil sits on the back of the couch (when did he get here???) and leans down, snatching the remote from Roman and quickly turning it down. 

“Seriously Princey, you’re going to make us all deaf.”

Roman and Virgil launch into a fit of banter as Logan watches them silently, now feeling calmer and thinking to himself. How odd; he was certain Virgil was in his room just a moment ago. He obviously knew of Virgil’s penchant for Appearing(tm) places, but he almost always walks around like the rest of them when in the Mind Palace. So why Appear(tm) now? They weren’t in any imminent danger. Logan thought of asking, but with how cryptic and vague Virgil tended to be, he doubted he’d get a real answer. Virgil turns to look at Logan, eyebrow raised. “What?” Logan blinks. “Ah, it’s nothing. You just startled me with your appearance, that’s all.”

“Yeah, Edgar Allen Woe, quit popping up like that! It’s so rude.” 

Virgil tenses slightly, and if Logan hadn’t been studying him so closely he knows he would have missed it. “Maybe the valiant prince should learn to keep his guard up if he wants to be good at protecting people.” Roman opens his mouth to quip back when Logan cuts him off. “Now Virgil, you know that’s absurd; you’re the protector of the five of us. Well, I suppose Deceit is as well to some degree, but your role presents in a more physical aspect.” Virgil blows a puff of air and shrugs, slinking off the couch and heading back to the hallway.

“Hold on, Wizard of Odd, watch a movie with us. You’ve been in your room all day.” 

Virgil pauses and looks between the two sides before shrugging just slightly and sitting between Roman and Logan, with a comfortable distance between each. Roman and Logan share a look before they both move to sit so there’s only a few inches of space between each side, Roman grinning satisfactorily and grabbing the remote to put on Big Hero 6 - something all three of them enjoy. Logan isn’t one for physical contact, but he knows that Virgil can be when he’s in the right mood and yet will never ask for it, so he’s more than happy to nudge the boundaries of his comfort zone to help him out. As the movie starts though, Logan’s mind wanders over the information he’d gathered while observing the anxious side. Now to figure out what it all meant...

Dee rarely had the commons to himself. Since his appearance in Can Lying Be Good? the others have... sort of accepted him into the fold. They’re still a bit on edge around him, for obvious reasons, but he can tell they’re trying. And it’s appreciated, really, but it can be... tense, and exhausting. So he tends to stay away unless it’s famILY meal time, as Patton puts it, or if only one sides is in the room. He can deal with any of them on their own, but two or more of them and the atmosphere became too muddled. Too conflicted. 

So Dee preferred these times on his own, knowing that Roman had taken Patton into his strange fantasy realm and that Logan was off somewhere, categorizing memories or... something. He can’t remember. He knew Virgil tended to keep to his room as well, and honestly he wouldn’t mind if the other came to join him either way, so he settled onto the couch and turned the TV on. After a while, he decided to settle on some children’s show Thomas ha been getting into, Duck Tales. Honestly (ha, honestly), Dee didn’t see the appeal, but since he was part of Thomas an this strange famILY, he figured he might as well try. 

He thinks back to the day he revealed himself to Thomas, his mouth quirking to the side. That.... could have gone worse. But it could have gone better, too. He had been trying to help Thomas, that’s always his intention, but even he could see that there was a better way to do so. How was Thomas supposed to trust anything he said if he went around pretending to be someone else, both physically when he looked like Patton and characteristically when he acted the part of the bad guy. 

But it had gone so well for Virgil.

“Half-truth.” Even Dee got caught in his lies sometimes; he had to remind himself of when he was actually lying, and what the truth meant. Sure, Virgil had essentially done the same as Dee, but the other had eventually started to act more like himself around the other sides and began building relationships. The others actually started trusting Virgil and liking him. But Dee? They didn’t know much about him, they had few interactions with him, so how could they possibly feel the same for him as they do about Virgil, who’s been around for years? 

I need them to like me.

“Lie.” He didn’t need their approval to do his job, or even exist. His existence up to this point was proof of that. 

I want them to like me.

“Why?” He was aware he was talking to himself in the middle of the living room, but he honestly didn’t care; it’s not like anyone could hear him.

Because I’m lonely.

Dee’s brow furrowed. “Truth...” And it was. It scared him, but it was true. He’d never admit out loud how he felt, but the feeling was as old and familiar to him as lying itself. Before, he hadn’t paid any mind to it; he’d contented himself on performing to his best, keeping Thomas’ relationships afloat and keeping everyone happy. He lived vicariously through Thomas’ interactions with his friends, found happiness and peace in their laughter and their smiles and their shared jokes. That’s why he fought so hard to keep it that way.

But now? Now he had something to draw his focus, something he could lose. As fragile as it was, he had some sort of relationship with the other sides now and he couldn’t mess it up. If he had to go back to Thomas’ subconscious, alone...

I’m scared. 

“Hi scared, I’m Virgil.” Dee jumped, falling off the couch. He laid on his back in shock, staring up at Virgil who was hanging upside down from the spinning ceiling fan, legs spread as they were each hooked over separate wings. His hair dangled in the air, giving a rare sight of his whole face. Virgil sighed as the fan spun him until his back was facing Dee. “Of all the places...” He comes back around. “You okay, Dee?” Dee stares up at him, sitting up slowly and watching him spin around lazily. 

“How did you-?” 

Virgil smirks slightly, but it doesn’t look snarky or menacing. “I’m anxiety, I know fear. If you’re so scared of being alone, try being yourself.” Dee scoffs lightly. “It’s very easy.” Virgil frowns slightly, brushing a hand through his hair (which does nothing, he’s upside down). “Try taking them to your room.” Dee’s room was one of the very few places he could actually speak the truth without his words being twisted without his consent. He rubs his face with a sigh. “They’ll believe me. I never lie.” Virgil hums as he’s spun away again, answering as he’s brought back to face Dee. “I could come with you. They know that I know you, and they trust me, I could convince them if they don’t believe you.” 

Dee watches Virgil spin around one more time before speaking up. “Why are you up there?” He found out long ago that questions are something he can speak without them being twisted. Virgil shrugs, which looks a bit strange upside down. “You know how this works just as well as I do, Dee. When someone-” 

“Yes, yes. I don’t mean... Why are you still up there? Don’t come down.” Virgil looks at Dee’s face for a moment before curling up to grip the fan, then maneuvering his legs so he was danging upright. He lets go of the fan and lands on his feet in front of Dee, offering him a hand. “Come on, Princey and Patton should be back soon, we can do this together.” 

Dee nods, taking Virgil’s hand and standing up. 

Roman panted loudly as he ran, feet pounding on the solid Earth beneath him, causing small puffs of dust to rise and trail behind him. He was sweating; it was hot out and he’d been running for a good ten minutes, with the monster never showing a sign of faltering or tiring. He curses under his breath as his empty scabbard hits the back of his thigh with every other step. If he hadn’t lost his sword... 

The monster roars, the sound loud and cacophonous, making birds in the surrounding field take off in flight. Roman feels his heart leap as he pushes on past his growing fatigue, trying to remember where he put the door. He runs until he sees the local village, and makes a beeline for it. The door wasn’t far from the other side of the village, he was almost there. Roman stumbles, almost falling and regaining his footing and just barely escaping the monster’s claws. It roars in anger again, gnashing it’s teeth. Roman spares a glance over his shoulder as he nears the edge of the village, paling at the sight of the monster gaining on him. He runs through the streets, calling at the villagers to turn and run as the monster comes thundering after him, carelessly crushing stalls underfoot and ramming into buildings as it passed. Roman swallows around the lump in his throat, his heartbeat deafening his ears, his legs complaining from being pushed so far for so long. 

Roman looks over his shoulder at the monster once again, not seeing the cart in front of him and crashing into it with the right side of his body, sending him sprawling to the ground. He halts himself with his hands, getting to his hands and knees just as a shadow blocks out the sun overhead. 

Roman rolls to sit, resting back on his hands, eyes wide, hair and clothes disheveled, staring up at the monster looming over him, snarling. It’s breath is hot, and reeks of decaying flesh. Roman gags, his heart thundering in his chest and his arms shaking. He feels along the ground for something, anything, as he refuses to look away from the beast. Oh god, he’s going to die. This thing is going to kill him and Thomas will never have an idea ever again and Patton will cry and Virgil will never leave his room and Logan will- 

There’s a familiar scream as the monster goes in for the attack, and Roman looks over to see... Virgil? No, not just that..

Virgil.

Stuck in a stone wall.

Looking absolutely terrified as he watches Roman just lay there as this monster-

Roman tears his gaze away long enough to roll to the side, just missing the jaw of the beast and jumping to his feet, running to Virgil. 

“Virge! What are you-? How did you even-?” Virgil looks like he’d been falling through the wall when it decided to solidify around him; his left arm is encased in stone almost up to the elbow as well as half of his right hand. His left leg is almost completely in stone, the upper half of his thigh the only denim showing. His right leg is free though, dangling at an odd angle due to Virgil being several inches above the ground. Even some of his hair seems to be caught in the stone, keeping him from moving his head too much. 

Virgil isn’t looking at Roman though; his terrified gaze is locked on the monster behind him, clawing at the ground and getting ready to charge. Virgil’s breathing is shallow and uneven, and what Roman can see of him is trembling like a leaf. “R-Roman-!” Virgil screams again as the monster charges, and Roman spins around, summoning his sword just in time to bring it up and block the monster’s claws, pushing it back a step. It roars and Virgil’s breathing does something funny. Shit, Roman needs to end this soon and help him out.

Roman goes on the offensive now, attacking the monster with a vengeance. He can’t let this thing defeat him or hurt Virgil! He cuts the monster’s arm, blood gushing from the deep wound as it screams and rears back on it’s hind legs, then comes down on Roman. Roman runs toward it, sliding down to his knees as the front paws near the ground, and brings his sword up to stab into the monster’s stomach, cutting it open as he slides to a halt. Blood covers both him and the Earth around him, and he squeezes his eyes shut, clamping his jaw. Monster blood, eugh. 

Roman takes a moment to just sit there, catching his breath and letting the tremors leave his body before he stands and tries to wipe some of the blood from his face. He turns to look at Virgil, large grin dying on his face as soon as he takes in the other’s appearance. 

Virgil is an absolute mess. He’s shaking uncontrollably, sobbing loudly as tears race down his cheeks, his breathing quick and panicked, eyes wide, staring right at Roman. Roman frowns with concern and raises a hand, taking a couple steps closer, but when Virgil’s breathing gets worse he stops. Shit, what is he supposed to do now? His friend is literally stuck in a wall and having a panic attack and Roman is covered in-

He wants to slap himself for being so stupid. He snaps his fingers instead, and instantly all the blood is gone, along with the monster’s corpse. Roman holds both hands up placatingly as he slowly, so slowly, moves closer to Virgil. Virgil tries to speak, but with how hard he’s crying and how much he’s panicking he can’t form a coherent sound, much less a sentence. Roman gently shushes him and rests a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “It’s alright, Virge. It’s okay. The monster’s gone, it can’t hurt you or me. You’re safe. Everyone’s safe. We’re okay. Just breathe.” Roman stumbles through Virgil’s breathing exercise a few times until Virgil is mostly calmed down, now just crying softly with the occasional soft whimper. “there you go, you’re doing great, Virge. Everything’s okay. We’re safe. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Roman feels the stone wall, frowning slightly. It certainly feels like solid stone, so then how did Virgil..? “Virge? How did you get here?” 

Virgil sniffs and looks at his arm poking out from the stone. “I-” No use in hiding it now, “When people- sides- experience fear, if I’m too distracted to filter it out, it summons me. You... You were scared...” Realization dawns on Roman’s face and he sighs softly. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Virge. I’m sorry I scared you.” Virgil shakes his head. “You didn’t know. Besides, you can’t help how you feel.” Roman hums and raps his knuckles on the stone. “How are we supposed to get you out of this?” 

Virgil actually looks embarrassed. “I... I can’t sink out like this.” Roman just looks at him. “You mean...”

“Yeah.”

“Poseidon’s trident. Alright, I’ll go... recruit some help.”

It took nearly three hours for Roman and the village men to chip away at the wall enough to free Virgil, and the entire time the anxious side had been tense, flinching any time a pick came too close for comfort. Roman had been there to reassure him, and once they freed his leg, Roman helped him to the ground. As they were walking toward the other end of the village, to the door leading back to the Mind Palace, Roman spoke. “This is going to make such an epic tale!” Virgil just snrks and shakes his head, earning a quizzical look from Roman. “What?”

“No one will ever believe you.”

((lol did you think we were done?))

On one of Thomas’ rare days off - no videos to make, no plans with friends, no need to visit the store, not even a phone call to be made - all five of the sides were relaxing with Thomas in his apartment. Roman and Patton were playing some old video game on the TV, Logan was reading at the table, and Dee was laying across the other end of the couch, his head in Thomas’ lap and Thomas’ hand carding though his hair. Thomas sighs happily as he closes his eyes, listening to Roman and Patton shout and jeer and make a general ruckus, the occasional page flipping from Logan, and Dee’s soft relaxed breathing. Virgil was around here somewhere... Thomas was honestly bummed that the anxious side hadn’t wanted to hang out with them; even Dee was  trying to get past his discomfort to spend some time with all of them! But he supposed it couldn’t be helped. Virgil was anxiety, Thomas was sure some social settings just weren’t his thing. 

Patton and Roman finished their game and suggested a movie, to which everyone agreed happily. Thomas stood as Dee sat up, making his way over to the TV and looking through his DVDs, grabbing Toy Story and popping it int he DVD player and sitting next to Dee again. The five of them got comfortable as the movie started, Thomas wishing for the dozenth time that day that Virgil felt comfortable enough to be here with them. 

Twenty minutes into the movie, Thomas starts feeling a fluttering of nervousness in his chest. This confuses him, because he doesn’t have any reason to be anxious or scared right now. No one’s arguing, he doesn’t have any deadlines approaching, the movie isn’t even scary. And yet... 

Thirty minutes into the movie and Thomas is feeling anxious. He fidgets, unable to focus on one thing, eyes darting around a bit as his heart starts to speed up. He does the breathing exercise Virgil taught him, and keeps doing it because it doesn’t seem to be working. He hopes his sides don’t notice; he doesn’t want to worry them unnecessarily. 

Forty-five minutes in and Thomas is verging on a panic attack. His heart is beating too fast, and his mind is racing too much for him to even figure out what he’s panicking about. His chest feels tight, and he feels light-headed. He slowly and gently slips his hand into Dee’s and squeezes lightly. Dee glances at him, frowns, and squeezes back. Thomas doesn’t answer his questioning look. He doesn’t know what’s wrong either. 

Fifty minutes in and Thomas is openly having a panic attack. Patton pauses the movie, face etched in concern, and crouches in front of Thomas. Roman sits on his other side, taking his free hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of Thomas’ hand. Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him that everything’s okay, he’s safe. But Thomas knows he’s safe, he knows everything’s fine, he just doesn’t know why he’s panicking and that’s freaking him out even more and that panic leads to more panic and- 

“V-Virgil-” Thomas gets out, and Patton nods, standing and heading for the stairs. He’s not even on the third step when Virgil appears. 

Except he doesn’t just appear. He falls into the room. Through the ceiling. As soon as his head pops out he’s screaming, black eye shadow streaked down his face - just like Thomas thought, he’d been panicking too. Virgil is screaming, terrified out of his mind. He stops falling, which confuses Thomas and seems to scare Virgil even more, because now he’s hanging from the ceiling by one ankle, his other limbs akimbo. His face is covered in running makeup, his clothes are rumpled, and he’s crying uncontrollably, screaming every time he moves and it causes him to sway a bit. 

In an instant, Patton is moving to stand right below him, trying to calm him down while stretching to reach him. Logan rushes to the dining area, grabbing a chair and bringing it over. Patton doesn’t hesitate to climb on top of it, cupping Virgil’s cheeks and petting his hair, trying to support his head and keep him from moving too much. Dee fidgets beside a stunned Thomas; he wants to help, but he doesn’t know how he can. He can’t reassure Virgil because he can only speak in lies. He’s honestly a little freaked out because he’s never seen this happen before. That is, he’s never seen Virgil come plummeting through the ceiling. Logan goes and grabs two more chairs, both soon occupied by himself and Roman, who are both trying to help Patton calm Virgil down and support his weight so he doesn’t feel like he’s dangling by a foot. 

Logan turns to the two remaining Sanders on the couch. “Please do try to calm down, he can’t calm down if you’re panicking.” Dee bites his tongue and nods, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down. Thomas does the same and the two of them watch as the other three slowly calm Virgil. It feels like hours before he stops screaming and crying, but he never stops shaking. Patton and Roman stay on the chairs, petting Virgil’s hair and keeping his head propped up, gently stroking his cheeks, shoulders, chest, anything to ground him. 

“We need to devise a way to free Virgil’s foot from the ah... Ceiling.” Thomas looks from Virgil to Logan, now standing in front of him. “How? Do we need to... Break it?” Virgil makes a panicked sound and Thomas clarifies. “The ceiling! Not your foot, oh god Virgil, not your foot.” Patton shushes Virgil gently and Roman speaks up. 

“Yeah, we’ll have to free his foot manually. He can’t sink out when he’s like this.” Thomas hums with concern, trying to think if he has anything that can help. 

“Oh!” He runs off, shooting up the stairs and coming back a moment later with a toolbox. Logan’s face lights up in recognition. “We will have to be very careful-” He lowers his voice, “or we may injure Virgil.” Thomas nods and sets the toolbox on the couch, taking out the two hammers sitting within and handing them to Logan. Logan takes them and holds one out to Dee. “I require your assistance.” 

Dee’s eyes widen. “Me?” Logan nods. “The other two will be preoccupied with keeping Virgil calm. It will only take longer if I do it by myself.” Dee nods nervously and grabs another chair, getting on it along with Logan on his chair and he glances at Virgil. “We... We will get you out soon.” He makes eye contact with Virgil, who nods shakily. Dee can tell the truth, if he tries hard enough, but it takes a lot of effort, so he saves it for important moments. Dee and Logan slowly start hammering at the plaster, and when Virgil whimpers Patton and Roman talk to him to distract him. As the ceiling around Virgil’s foot is broken away, Patton and Roman slowly start supporting more and more of Virgil’s weight. Once his foot is finally free, Logan and Dee slowly and gently lower his legs. Once he’s upright, he clings tightly to Patton, trembling uncontrollably. Patton holds onto Virgil protectively, one hand on the back of Virgil’s head. The others get down and put the chairs back, and Logan starts vacuuming up the mess as Patton and Virgil finally get down. Virgil refuses to let go of Patton as they sit on the couch, and Thomas immediately moves to Virgil’s free side and hugs him as well. 

Once everything’s cleaned and put away, the other sides join them on the couch, Logan next to Patton and Roman next to Thomas, with Dee spread out across everyone’s laps. Virgil intertwines his fingers with Dee’s as Roman puts on the Black Cauldron. Virgil falls asleep soon after. 

A/N: The Dee part is my favorite. I haven’t had a chance to write him (aside from one fic where he’s an abusive ass) and I’ve had all these ideas buzzing in my head so I just had to do it. Plus, when I thought “what would scare Dee?” I instantly thought “the truth”. But it’d have to be a truth Dee was at least semi-unaware of; something that he didn’t recognize or dwell on, because he’d be admitting to something he’d rather not acknowledge. So it was part me-wanting-to-analyze and part can’t-rush-the-fear-factor. This was SOOOOO much fun to write!

[douxreviews]

The Flash - ‘We Are The Flash’ Review

“Now it ends.”

We’ve reached the culmination of the season-long march towards the iconic image of Barry sitting in The Thinker’s chair. You didn’t have to be a comic buff to see that coming.  You just needed to spend five minutes on the Internet once The Thinker was named this season’s Big Bad. Was it worth the wait? I think so.

I’ll be honest. My first response to the finale was disappointment. After last week’s cold open I was so hyped, I don’t know if anything could have lived up to my expectations.  The idea it took all of Team Flash to the defeat The Thinker was a given. I originally thought (and hoped) it would be a combination of the gifts and skills they brought to the table but I should have known better. If that was the case they could have defeated him at any point in the season. It made far more sense for it to be the strength of Team Flash’s emotional bonds.

As DeVoe’s intellectual abilities grew, his emotional awareness deteriorated to the point where emotions no longer figured into his calculations. This left him vulnerable and thanks to his increasing hubris, oblivious to those vulnerabilities. Thus we have the final confrontation. Barry traveling into DeVoe’s mind in search of the last shred of goodness based on Marlize’s belief that part of the man she married still lives in The Thinker. Wrong. He literally killed that part of himself in the mistaken belief that aspect had no value.

Yet her theory was sound. There was still goodness there. It was just in the form of Ralph Dibny. His willingness to sacrifice himself to save Barry completed his redemption arc and confirmed him as a hero. In addition to everything else this episode accomplished, it solidified Ralph’s position as a member of Team Flash. His actions, along with the others, led to The Thinker's ultimate defeat. And the name of the episode.

Cecile has become more than just Joe’s loving partner and the mother of the latest addition to his growing brood. Over the season she has become the mother that Iris and Barry never had, a friend and confidant to Caitlin, and a full-fledged member of Team Flash. Cecile's telepathic abilities from her bond with her unborn child are the literal representation of those connections. It granted her the power both to connect with the other members of Team Flash and enabled her to be the conduit Barry needed to link to DeVoe’s mind.

Joe’s love for his family gave Joe the ability to resist DeVoe’s mental control. While it wasn’t enough to stop DeVoe, it was proof of the power of love. Just as Barry’s love for Iris was what enabled him to hide his thoughts for his final mental showdown with The Thinker.

The sheer amount of narrative ground covered pushed Cisco’s story to the background but his relationship with Harry has been one of the highlights of the season and it was paid off here in both his vow not to lose anyone else and his heartbreak at learning that while his friend had been saved, Harry’s brilliant mind was lost forever.

Caitlin’s journey this season was more about coming to terms with the darker and lighter parts of herself and integrating this new version within Team Flash. Yes, I know that Killer Frost and Caitlin are separate identities. However, since they resided within the same body and Caitlin came to the conclusion that she is incomplete without Frost, I think my argument is valid. Besides, is there anyone who thinks Frost is gone for good?

Which leaves Harry. Harry thought of his intelligence as a force for good. The means of keeping Team Flash safe from any who would harm them.  However, he was not devoid of hubris and his arrogance could brook no intelligence greater than his own. This led to more and more reckless choices culminating in the loss of that intelligence. In a reverse image of DeVoe, as his intellect dwindled his emotional intelligence increased. And at several crucial moments, it was his emotional awareness that ultimately allowed him to succeed in protecting his team despite the exorbitant cost.

The idea Harry’s sacrifice would be the cost necessary to defeat The Thinker made narrative sense though logistically problematic. Given their love for Harry, he would always have a place with Team Flash whatever his intellectual shortcomings. Unfortunately, those shortcomings limited his narrative contributions which led The Powers That Be to have their cake and eat it too. Marlize’s cure restored Harry’s personality but not his intellect. This saves a beloved character and leaves open the possibility of him returning and/or regaining his intelligence at some later date while not entirely negating his sacrifice. Unfortunately, it also undercuts the power of that sacrifice.

The Powers That Be made multiple unexpected choices. Chief among them appearing to resolve the war with the Thinker in the first half hour and leaving the rest as a prologue to next season. However, this year’s focus on the bonds forged by family and friends also serves as the setup for the next. Both in terms of how Killer Frost intersects with Caitlin’s father and Barry and Iris’s daughter Nora.

No episode is perfect and finales have the additional burden of tying up all the threads of the past season. That said, I thought this was a fitting end for one of the Flash’s better Big Bads and it left me with enough questions to torture me over the long hiatus. Success.

4 out of 5 world-saving sonic punches

Parting Thoughts:

Barry might actually solve cases as Barry next season. It looks like the Mayor had a change of heart and he’s getting his job back.

They did a much better job of making me care what happened to Harry then last year’s finale. Or was it simply the product of knowing Harry longer than I knew HR?

After his misogynistic introduction I was surprised both that I missed Ralph, and that I’m looking forward to seeing him next year.

And while I know they aren't going in this direction, shouldn't Ralph have all the abilities The Thinker stole from the other metas?

I don’t know what pleased me more. Seeing Wally back in the bosom of his family. Or, the acknowledgment that there is no place for him with Team Flash. He’s a good fit over on Legends.

My suspicion that our mystery girl was Barry and Iris's daughter proved true, although I thought she'd be Dawn from the comics.

Quotes:

Iris: “What do you see?” Barry: “Nothing.” Cisco: “A little vague for the viewers at home. What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

Cisco: “Everyone chill. It’s not like Cecile is going to lose her powers if she has this baby. Cecile’s going to lose her powers if she has this baby? Won’t that leave Barry stranded in DeVoe’s mind?” Marlize: I’m afraid so. Cisco: “Information you may have wanted to share, like, way before now!”

Cisco: “I won’t lose anyone else today.”

Barry: “Have you seen him?” Dibny: “A good DeVoe? No. Just the evil, floating chair variety.”

DeVoe: “They’ll be no defeating The Big Bad this year, Mr. Allen.”

DeVoe: “We are gathered here today to worship in song. I suggest ‘Kumbaya.’”

Dibny: “Allen, you said the only way to save the world is by finding the good that’s left in DeVoe. It’s right here. With a hole in its chest.”

Barry: “They can read our minds.” Dibny: “Then we do this Dibny-style.” Barry: “What?” Dibny: “We don’t think.”

DeVoe: “How did you beat me?” Barry: “I didn’t. We did.”

Marlize: “Goodbye, My Love.”

Harry: “Don’t worry. You have been and will always be my friend.”

Barry: “Who are you?” Nora: “I’m your daughter, Nora. From the future.”

--

Shari loves sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, and anything with a cape

[witchyangels]

Writing Questionnaire

Tagged by @melaena! Thanks so much! :D sorry for being so late on this 😅

Short stories, novels, or poems?  

Novels mostly. I’m not very good at poetry. Short stories are hard for me to write because anything I write normally likes to be longer. 

What genre do you prefer reading?

Fantasy all the way. I love it! I’ve read a couple of sci-fi, but fantasy is where I find myself going when I want to read. 

What genre do you prefer writing?

Haha, fantasy again! It’s freeing to me, you know? I try to always write something that has nothing to do with my life in the real world. I don’t like reading about every day things and every day people, I like adventure, with a little magic. I’ve done a little sci-fi, but not as much as fantasy.

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

Weeell, a mix of both? I have like a vague outline of what I want to happen in the story and then write as I go, making the pieces all connect in the end.

What music do you listen to while writing?

A lot of different things. It really depends on what exactly I’m writing. Sometimes I listen to a playlist I make for the story, or I listen to instrumental soundtracks, just, anything to get me into the mood and in the right state of mind.

Fave books/movies?

Books: I love, downright LOVE the Percy Jackson series! Greek Mythology and a fun protagonist with awesome friends that keep him grounded, what’s not to love? 

Of course, Harry Potter! It’s really what got me into wanting to read and maybe helped me in wanting to write.

Movies: I just did a meme with some of my favorite movies, but I have so many more that I love so much than the ones I shared in that post XDD Gaaah, there’s too many...

Any current WIPs?

Haaahaha... a couple. (I’m lying, I have over a dozen and they’re not all fanfics, a lot of them are original fics.)

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

Hehe, I have a few ideas! Standard would be a red flannel button up shirt probably closed mostly, open would be over a dark form fitting shirt, either black or a navy dark blue, sleeves rolled up past the elbows, blue jeans with sneakers. Cooler days I’ll have my n7 hoodie on. Maybe a scarf for the colder days. Give me fingerless gloves. If I’m in a dress, it’s got to be flowy. I love dresses I see advertised that are like I guess witchy dresses? So definitely things like that. High top boots when I wear those.

Create a character description for yourself:

Short brown curly hair and bright brown eyes, with light olive tan skin. Pink lips that are almost always in a smile, grin, smirk. So often that people will ask if she’s okay if she’s not smiling for even a second.

Loves to be around people she knows, but feels uncomfortable if she’s with people she’s unfamiliar with. Has a trusting heart, but has been hurt too many times so she keep it guarded as best as she can. Loves with her whole heart and puts her all into her passions.

Has a love of acting, writing, and art, though she feels she’s still mediocre with her art. Hates to disappoint people, but will not be sorry if she feels what she did was right.

Wants to be more than she is, but has a hard time trying to get out of the dark at times. Thoughts swim around, trying to keep her down, but all she wants is to be happy and bringing happiness to others.

While her thoughts can be dark, she pushes forward and tries to never let others see her darker thoughts. Only those she feels she can trust will she share.

Loyal to almost a fault. Will fight for her friends and family. Her close friends are her family.

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

Like, reference them? Or do you mean their personalities? It depends? Always ask permission and make sure what you write is okay with them. Also, probably want to get it in writing that it’s okay if you’re putting someone your work.

Are you kill-happy with characters?

Noooope. :)

Coffee or tea while writing?

Tea, definitely.

Slow or fast writer?

Eeeeh, overall, I guess slow? But I can write fast when inspiration hits juuuuust right.

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

That’s hard to pinpoint. I daydream all the time, it’s just how I function. If I’m not focused at work on a task or something, or reading or watching something, I’m daydreaming. The inspiration to write what I’m daydreaming about comes and goes. I’m not sure how else to answer this question x’D

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

Like me as I am? Oh, I don’t know. I’d probably end up in a preforming circle or something? If I was able to, I’d want to be the one to go on the adventures. I probably wouldn’t be the main hero, but maybe I could help. I’m willing to learn anything that anyone is willing to teach me. Put me anywhere and I’ll do my best.

Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

Least favorite: “I hate you! But secretly deep down my hatred is actually love!, blahblah!” When two characters hate each other from the beginning, always belittling each other, and apparently that means they are in love... I hate it. It’s so over done. If it’s done well, sure, I’ll enjoy it, but most of the time, if I know that’s how the romance goes, then I won’t read it. If they care about each other they should just admit it instead of being so cruel to one another...

Fav: Well, idk if I have a fav? See I even forgot to add this one XD cliche I love is the characters having a fun silly moment and suddenly they realize how close they are and their hearts are thumping fast. Just move closeeer...

Fave scenes to write?

Hmm, interactions between characters, banters, sweet moments. Oh and I do enjoy writing scenes where someone is needing comfort. Just he heartfelt moments. Emotional moments, I guess? XD

Most productive time of day for writing?

Either in the middle of the night when I need to be sleeping or when I’m at work and need to be working. Well that’s when inspiration hits me hard XD at times I find myself writing a great deal on my phone when I need to be sleeping (yay for google docs!)

Reason for writing:

For myself and to share what my imagination comes up with. I want to share everything I think of. I want everyone to read it and tell me how it made them feel, what’s your favorite part? Who do you like? Do you hate this guy? Is the main protagonist annoying? I write to share stories. :)

Tagging: @shannaraisles, @sunlighthuntress, @jchb32273, @vorchagirl, @alyssalenko, @naromoreau, @joufancyhuh, aaaand whomever else.

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day Two! (6/19)

Welcome back for my second day of LGBTQ visual novel recommendations! If you didn’t check out my first post, I recommend at least skimming the "One note before we get started” section to get a handle on what this series of posts is. (And especially, as the case may be, what it isn’t.)

Today’s topic is “crafty creative design”, so I’ve pulled out Marccus’s Eldet, Geek Remix and ChicMonster’s Pairanormal, and Team Rumblebee’s Love Is Strange to talk about their development teams’ ambition (and ability to deliver), followed by a discussion with Boys Laugh+ about their 2017 NaNoRenO entry, //TODO: today!

Keep on reading to hear about treasure hunts with hot guys, mysterious twists and turns, power in reimagined narratives, and why taking time to look for brand-new visual novels you’ve never heard of before can be worth your while!

ELDET (MARCCUS)

Kickstarter Tagline: "A medieval fantasy themed visual novel with emphasis on LGBT characters and people of color.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy. Release Date: July 1st, 2017(?) (updated demo); TBA (full version). Content Warnings: Fantasy violence.

When it comes to aiming for new heights with visual novel storytelling and art, Marccus’s Eldet is one of the most standout examples of ambition — if it’s a possibility or a feature you could potentially implement, you’ll probably be able to find a mention of it somewhere in Marccus’s Eldet development updates on Kickstarter. They’re jam-packed with information about ways he’s exploring different ideas for interlocking narratives, replay value, or using the absolutely gorgeous art to its full potential. If the final version lives up to even a tenth of what Marccus has demonstrated working to include over the past two years, that ambition and drive to see things through as much as possible will almost definitely provide one hell of a visual novel.

Strictly looking at the demo alone, though, still provides a uniquely detailed experience where focus on trying out new things that suit the story is crystal-clear. The writing is sharp and captivating, with an interesting plot and gorgeous scenery that’s complimented by a smart use of animated effects. There have been more and more visual novels that have branched into the use of things like Live2D or animated sprites, but for me as a player, it’s been interesting to see how far use of effects like that can go before they just plain old start to be distracting. Idle animations or things like blinking and breathing can be charming, but the uncanny valley is very real and very easy to dive headlong into if you’re trying to include as many of those as possible.

So Eldet’s demo is noteworthy to me not just for trying out all of the visual effects it can manage, but even moreso for knowing by and large where to place those effects and varying sprites for the best possible impact. Characters are integrated into different backgrounds for special conversational scenes, or specific parts of event graphics glow, and none of it — to my eyes, at least — felt overused or poorly-executed. In fact, it all seemed especially suited to the fantasy genre Eldet is fitting itself into, with all of the pieces working together to create a world that feels alive and breathing. And it’s a world that seems well worth waiting for a final version of!

Eldet’s demo is available now on Kickstarter; you can also keep up with the final version’s progress on its development blog, or follow Marccus on Twitter and Patreon (18+).

PAIRANORMAL (GEEK REMIX, CHICMONSTER)

Itchio Tagline: "Love is a mystery and so are ghosts.” Genre(s): Mystery, romance.  Release Date: April 1st, 2018 (Chapter 1); TBA (Chapters 2+). Content Warnings: Glitches and static (can be turned off); jumpscares.

There have been a couple "real person dating sim" visual novels in the past few years, but I've never really been all that interested in actually playing any of them; I can see the connection back to all those elaborate magazine quizzes about which celebrity you'd date, so I think they're interesting conceptually, but none of them have really pulled me in. I'm equally wary of the trend of Western visual novels from first-time developers that want to "subvert genre conventions" because of how many have fallen woefully flat of even understanding what that means beyond a very limited scope — I'm talking "oh, I don't really like or play any visual novels, the whole medium isn’t for me" visual novel developer commentary, here — so if an EVN promises a twist on a genre, or even if its players do, it's unfortunately a lot harder to sell me on it.

To my pleasant surprise, Pairanormal's demo sold me on both its "real person-inspired characters" aspects and its departure from the dating-based focus I'd been expecting into sharing space with another genre! I don't want to spoil anything about the plot, but upfront, the turn in the demo alone was a genuinely interesting look at a “blank protagonist” and well-served by being placed where it was. That’s to say nothing of the charming art style! Mechanically and visually, it's also one of the most interesting visual novels I've played; the character movement, the individual soundfonts, and the pacing of the dialogue all come together to work consistently well. (I love smartly-used soundfonts! Please give me all your VNs with good soundfonts!)

Even as someone who's watched a handful of YouTube playthroughs by two of the YouTubers being shown here, Mari and Stacey of Geek Remix, the writing in Pairanormal was sharp and fast-paced enough to actually make my brain draw a pretty easy divide between the real Mari and Stacey versus "Mari Sashimi" and "Stacey Croft". I'm sure there's plenty of rewarding jokes for their primary audience of a Geek Remix fanbase, too — but one of the strongest merits of Pairanormal for me as a player was the experience of having so little personal familiarity with most of the people these characters were based on and still finding the characters enjoyable, well-defined, and interesting.

Chapter 1 of Pairanormal is available now for free; you can also follow development of the coming chapters on Chicmonster’s Patreon, Twitter, and Itchio.

LOVE IS STRANGE (TEAM RUMBLEBEE)

Blog Tagline: "A fanwork based off of Life is Strange.” Genre(s): Slice of life, romance. Release Date: April 1st, 2016. Content Warnings: Drug use; underage drinking; mentions of severe bullying.

Do those characters and that title look familiar? If you’ve paid attention to the gaming scene at large in the past three years, you probably recognize the acronym "LiS” or Max Caulfield’s character design — Team Rumblebee’s 2016 debut project, Love is Strange, came to life as a Life is Strange (DONTNOD Entertainment) fanmade visual novel! In Love is Strange, set a year later after the original game in a completely different timeline, protagonist Max never gained her canonical magical powers and many of the tragedies that gripped Arcadia Bay never came to pass. Instead, she’s given a week to team up with one of her four love interests — Chloe, Kate, Rachel, or Victoria — and win a photography contest together.

There’s a lot to love about it beyond any connection you may or may not have to Life is Strange itself — everything, from the art to the music to the writing, pulls together seamlessly. But the biggest strength of Love is Strange as a fanwork, in my opinion, is the way it’s not trying to totally remove itself from the original canon tonally or trying too hard to conform to that tone without it seeming natural. Max’s character arc is reflective of some anxieties she’d had in the original story, which goes doubly for the explorations of her love interests’ arcs, but it’s fundamentally a different story where her priorities are different. Love is Strange loses what isn’t necessary or what doesn’t help the story — including the teacher-turned-[spoilers] from the original series, Mr. Jefferson — then fills in a lot of the blanks with the same charm and same compelling characters that captivated fans in the first place.

My favorite example here is Rachel Amber, one of the four routes but the lone one who never appeared in the text of the original Life is Strange itself, and a route that felt as wholly comprehensive as the rest. Love is Strange takes the perpetually absent, long-since-departed Rachel and recreates her from whole cloth, giving her a distinctive speech pattern, a history, and a set of beliefs that all work together as a perfect answer for the void around her character in the original text. She feels as real and authentic as the rest of the pitch-perfect cast, a character it’s difficult to imagine the original Life is Strange without. So in both enhancing the original text’s characterizations without ever losing its charm and standing alone as its own thoughtful, genuine F/F dating sim that is just as enjoyable without any fondness for the canon, Love is Strange easily cemented itself as one of my favorite visual novels — so strongly, in fact, that I’m still planning to cheer on Team Rumblebee’s individual and collective outputs for years to come.

Love is Strange is available now for free on the development blog. You can also follow Team Rumblebee on Twitter, Tumblr, and Itch.io to be the first to know if they decide to release anything next!

//TODO: TODAY (BOYS LAUGH PLUS)

Itchio Tagline: "A visual novel about figuring out life with the help of an AI.” Genre(s): Modern sci-fi. Release Date: March 31st, 2017 (Part 1); August 2018 (Part 2). Content Warnings: Depictions of severe depression.

Player personalization is one of the more tricky things for developers, largely in part because there’s no way to write something every player will be happy with; while some people prefer being able to insert themselves entirely into a protagonist with minimal predefined personality and more vague actions, so they can headcanon more easily, other audiences would rather explore specific situations with a smaller number responses that each more clearly reflect the defined protagonist’s personality. It’d be nearly impossible to please both of those groups at once — and there’s dozens of other, more specific takes that other players can have on visual novel protagonists!

As someone in the latter camp out of just those two examples, I thought //TODO: today’s handling of their protagonist Teal (plus their love interests Joyce and Phoenix) was right up my alley, so I reached out to Felix and Rohan of Boys Laugh+ to talk about their work on its story!

IVAN: Pleasure to be talking to you both today! Can you give me the elevator pitch of //TODO: today that you might give to an interested attendee at a con? You're both free to answer this if you'd like, haha.

FELIX: Sure, thanks for having us! //TODO: today is a slice of life visual novel about the aspiring artist Teal who already struggles to make ends meet but things get a little more complicated when an AI suddenly appears in their computer, with the intention to help Teal get their life back in order.

Perfectly put! (I like the phrasing of "aspiring artist Teal", haha, I feel like I'm reading their Twitter bio.) The gender/sexuality/pronoun options (and what I've seen of the dialogue variations) for the protagonist plus the romanceable characters are comprehensive, but never in a way that feels insincere or bland. I really feel like Teal's character — and that of both love interests — shines through strongly no matter what! What went into designing the personalization system as it currently exists, and why did you choose to include it in the first place?

ROHAN: Haha, yeah, Teal is the type who's a bit insecure about their art. So it's easier to say "aspiring artist" even though Teal has been drawing for a while. :'D Although our protagonist has their quirks and own background story we wanted the player to be able to identify with Teal. The player can choose to change Teal's name in the beginning of the game too. And the gender and sexuality options are based on this idea. :3

Back when we were developing the concept for //TODO: today in 2017, we had a close look at other recent VNs. And Date Nighto's Hustle Cat got us thinking about using "they" pronouns then. Hustle Cat's protagonist "Avery" has a gender-neutral design too. That got the ball rolling for us to think how we could make the typical romance situation in //TODO: today inclusive and enjoyable for queer people as well!^u^

FELIX: We also tried to keep the additional work for this fairly small. For the three main characters all pronouns and their variations are stored in variables. That makes it pretty easy to use the same base dialogue regardless of the characters' gender. But in addition to that, we used conditional statements to add some custom dialogue whenever it made sense. The romantic preferences are pretty much the same. They mainly decide the gender of the romanceable characters but there are a few moments where dialogue varies depending on the preferences the player chooses.

That also means that there are some things that people will miss if they don't make a specific selection of gender or romantic preferences but we wanted to make sure that those choices are also part of the characters and the writing and not purely cosmetic. All in all we tried to make the game as inclusive of LGBTQ identities as we could without making the scope unrealistically big for a two person team.

I think you definitely struck a good balance there! If I'm not mistaken, the two of you work in Ren'Py, right? What kind of Ren'Py limits or perks do you take into consideration when working to augment a story with more complex pieces of code other than dialogue variables, like deciding what your upcoming project Defaction's cellphone (?) can do? Anything you've unfortunately had to give up on? (And are there any lines of dialogue or features you're especially proud of including in //TODO: today?)

FELIX: Yeah, we're working in Ren'Py. I can't really think of any limits aside from smaller issues where different systems and languages intersect but there have definitely been a lot of perks! I really like Ren'Py's screen system which is where at least 80% of the work for the phone in Defaction happens.

The python integration is also really nice. In //TODO: today I barely used any python aside from if-statements and variables but being able use custom code pretty much anywhere in the script makes the engine really flexible!

As for feature decisions, so far we mainly based them on what we wanted to include from a narrative design standpoint and then tried to figure out how or if we would be able to implement them. I can't think of anything we had to cut for technical reasons so I think it worked out pretty well so far :'D

//TODO: today was the first bigger visual novel I worked on and aside from the gender and preference options for the characters, something I'm pretty proud of are the optional work and gaming scenes. They are pretty much the first piece of non-linear writing I ever did and it was a fun challenge to make sure they make sense regardless of what in-game day the player sees them on.

ROHAN: I think the most obvious feature we're proud of are the preference options we included, haha. We really wanted to take a few steps aside of the otome or exclusively hetero male-oriented genres out there. And to make the experience feel tailored to the player there are the dialogue features Felix has described before in combination with the visual designs of Joyce, the AI, and Phoenix, Teal's bookstore co-worker.

It's integrated into the story that Joyce has been made just for the Teal. Other AIs in the world would look different depending on their owners. That's why you get a feminine or masculine looking Joyce that match the player's preferences.

Of course there are limitations, I mean, we can't read the players mind to know what they like. And we couldn't include too many unique character sprites due to the scope. But I'm very happy about how the different designs turned out in the end. It was generally fun to visually design the game. Cute colours everywhere! >u<

On another note I think what really went well, too, was how AI Joyce behaves. We took some liberties with sci-fi magic, but Joyce is a being with their own set of characteristics, goals and values. They were made to serve, yet they're on eye-level with Teal and you get some funny situations out of it.

That's right, I'd completely forgotten that the work and art contest scenes weren't confined to the story's timeline on any specific dates — they definitely always felt like they matched up. And I'm so glad you brought up the designs, Rohan, that was actually my next question! The overall world design and character stylization of //TODO: today clearly had a considerable amount of care put into making sure they all meshed well and looked good individually! Can you talk a little bit about why you settled on the design aesthetic you did and what influenced //TODO: today's style or character designs? (Also, who are each of your favorite characters out of the cast, visually or personality-wise?)

ROHAN: Ah, well. First and foremost we were under a good amount of time-pressure during the NaNoRenO '17. Thus I had to decide for an artstyle that I could pull off for the game's assets to be produced in time. There's no complicated shading, not too much intriciate line-work. It was also the first time for me to create art for a visual novel. I was mostly a concept artist before. So I wanted to play it safe. That's one part of the story at least.

The other thing was that by the end of 2016 a lot of artists have emerged online who experimented with reduced palettes, pastel tones and comic and anime inspired shading. I was really intrigued by the charm of this combination. I wanted to make myself feel okay that although I'm a guy I can express myself in shades of pink, haha. This kind of aesthetic also matches the overall cute but realistic story of //TODO: today. I wanted the reality of the game to feel like our world but with some intense photo filters on top, haha. And my favourite character(s)? As the artist who designed them, I'd say visually all of them! xD But character wise, I think it's a close head-to-head of Joyce and SuuJ. <3

FELIX: I think my favorite character is Snow. I also really like Zen's design and his relaxed personality, but Snow was really fun to write! They're reserved and don't show much about their insecurities or problems, but Snow is still fairly confident and mature for their age.

I think a lot of that personality was also inspired by the art. Snow's design really brings across how introverted they are and because Snow doesn't have a lot of facial expressions, this definitely influenced the way I wrote some of their dialogue.

As a big fan of pastels/pinks, I can definitely empathize with that desire to express it more in art regardless of gender, haha! If you could each add any one feature to your projects that's currently beyond of your technical/artistic capabilities, a "wildest dreams" kind of thing, what would those two features be?

FELIX: I'm really intrigued by the idea of procedural narrative. Not in the sense that a story is random, but rather that it's systemic and somewhat non-linear. That's not really something you can just add to any project though and it probably also involves a lot of trial and error before it works but maybe one day :'D

ROHAN: Oh, nice question! I think it would be super cool to have hand-drawn animated cutscenes in a game. But that's completely beyond our budget of...everything...right now. TuT

Haha, I would love to play a procedural visual novel with animated cutscenes! (Although those two things combined would add even more work to each other, huh? #gamedev!) One final question — do you two have any LGBTQ visual novel recommendations from any other teams or creators?

FELIX: Ladykiller In a Bind left a pretty strong impression on me. In general, Christine Love's visual novels are usually really interesting mechanically in addition to their LGBTQ themes.

Most people probably already heard of Butterfly Soup but I really liked how heartfelt it is and the way the story is told!

And we already mentioned Hustle Cat, which is interesting in the way the main story and the romance routes are intertwined in addition to allowing you to romance all characters regardless of gender.

ROHAN: Hahaha, just imagine creating cutscenes for every generatable piece of story. That would be a killer xD And yes, I'd agree with what Felix wrote. The games by Christine Love, are really well written. Butterfly Soup is a fun ride and way too relatable for people growing up with Asian families. I also play The Arcana on my phone right now. I don't like the payment system too much but the story and characters are well-developed. And the artstyle is just gorgeous!

But one should also keep an eye on indie devs who aren't too well-known. Visual novels seem to generally be on the rise right now and we'll surely find some nice surprises if we keep looking! :3

Definitely agreed that people can find some really pleasant surprises by doing deep dives into places like Itchio's VN tag — or hopefully even from my list and these interviews, haha! Thank you both so much for talking to me, Rohan and Felix, it's been a pleasure.

The first half of //TODO: today is available now for free, or you can follow Boys Laugh + on their Twitter and Itchio accounts to find out more about their progress on the second half!

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter 2018

AO3: laughingpineapple

Hello dear author, I’m glad we share one of these wonderful little fandoms and I hope you’ll have fun writing for it. The sections aren’t all of equal length for one reason or another but I love them all so much, from the classics I’ve been requesting since I started doing Yuletide (can’t have enough of those!) to this year’s shiny new findings. I tried to leave both specific and non-specific prompts for each canon and, again, I wanna see the farfetched postcanon scenario just as much as the vague one-word prompt and my general likes. Pick whatever works for you, or mix and match!

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (doubly so if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots , outsider POV, UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, cuddling, wintry moods, flannel, ridiculous concepts played straight, creating a dynamic between characters who never spoke in canon, sensory details, sickfic

Cool with: what-ifs, AUs, any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, gen, shippy, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, unrequested ships, canon retellings, consent issues

Ghost Trick: Cabanela, Jowd

General: platonic or romantic, loyalty kink here we go, in any shape and form. Night time and secrets. Out of town. Knitwear. Twenty years from now. Size difference. UST. Cabanela’s scarf being in the way sometimes. Cabanela’s legs being in the way sometimes. I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFIV, VI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (Monk Jowd, dancer/red mage Cabanela...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy… anything fancy!

Canon-specific dislikes: Sissel not being Jowd’s cat in the new timeline (which ofc doesn’t shut out Yomiel’s unbreakable bond with his cat – as the saying goes, Sissel has four paws...), infidelity

Cabanela&Jowd or Cabanela/Jowd: I love Cabanela being fierce and dazzling bright and determined and loyal to the very end, dancing to his own rhythm, so sure of himself and of his ideas that he doesn’t even need to prove to anyone that he’s right. Too sure of the wrong idea, once, and everything crashed and burned. And I love Jowd being the immovable object to Cabanela’s unstoppable force, a self-depreciating asshole with a penchant for gallows humor that grows more morbid by the hour, and also incredibly smart (both jerks figured out Sissel’s powers better than Sissel did) and athletic and with an unsuspected talent for stealth.

I ship them dearly, as part of a triad (or Jowd-centered V...? Has it been explored?) with Alma with all the fun possibilities of the third party sneaking into the marriage and negotiating that relationship. Or adjusting to a life together with Kamila in a no-reset scenario or a what-if in which Alma was never around (please no breakups or noncanon deaths if you don't want her around).  But I also want to read all the best friends fic with the corniest, most intense found family dynamics you can muster!

Alternate scenario where it’s Cabanela who keeps his memories, not Jowd: how does that change their dynamic in the new timeline? Or what if Cabanela stays dead in ch15 like he wished he could, joins the rest of the gang as a ghost and goes back 10 years with the others and so both of them keep their memories? (with my apologies to Yomiel, whose ch16-17 redemption has just been made a lot harder by the added stowaway)

Jowd knowing how much Cabs did for him and remembering him broken and bloodied is A Lot. especially if he’s a lil into it (and mr spotless is. not really on the same page.)

Casefic! With ghosts! There could be a new ghost created by Temsik’s shards or even by some unfortunate soul dying on top of the buried meteorite. Or with their own ghost, teaming up with Sissel! There’s so much potential for tense, death-defying situations! (with make-outs afterwards, if that’s your thing)

Deathfic, until it’s reverted. Jowd dying in Cabanela’s arms or the other way round, but one of them knows about Sissel and the other does not…

Jowd’s loyalty to Cabanela being tested for once, as a change of pace.

More detailed prompts for a few FF fusion AUs: FFX, Summoner Jowd and reluctant Guardian Cabanela. Any moment of their pilgrimage could be fun (and/or tragic and/or intense), or if you like a more detailed prompt, would Yunalesca’s truths be the tipping point of Jowd’s conviction? Would Cabanela manage to drag himself and his Summoner to safety before she killed them? What would life look for them afterwards as survivors bearing forbidden truths, would they stay away from Yevon? FFTA or XII, viera Cabanela and nu mou or bangaa Jowd. I’m sure there’s a poignant plot about magic-endowing extraterrestrial rocks and political backstabbing somewhere at the intersection of Ivalice and GT. If you can see it, I’m here to read it. But I’ll be honest here, the real point here is bunny Cabs. Please consider bunny Cabs. (viera, nu mou, bangaa visual refs for non-FFTA players who might wanna do a regular fantasy AU instead?) FFVI, Cabanela faked defecting to the Empire and is a magitek-infused officer while Jowd has Blitz and... Sketch somehow? And they meet again in the World of Ruin and things are very emotional?

The Last Remnant: Any (Pagus, Maddox, Sibal, David)

General: characterization based on battle quotes, red bubble dialogues, and even their unique stat (‘authority’ is a natural fit for David but ‘romance’ tells me something new about Sibal!) Character interaction. Bit of worldbuilding. What’s another festival they celebrate? Do they erect something else instead of the Valeria Heart? Any fun discoveries down in Siebenbur? Where the hell IS Veyriel, anyway, do they go look for it and if so what do they find out? End of an age. Old bonds.

Canon-specific dislikes: strong narrative emphasis on game mechanics. Stuff like mentioning that a character leads a unit is fine, but for example listing the materials they need for their weapon upgrade would take me out of the story.

The Qsiti bunch: just give me the deets on Qsiti worlduilding and I’ll be a happy camper. I ship these three very much but I’m also invested in their friendship and in each of them as a singular character. The fact that Pagus is a goddamn catch is one of my favorite things, and he can be a smart cookie with any of the other smart cookies in the party, or be a history buff with Glenys, or tutor Yuniver. Proud, paranoid chatterbox Maddox entrenched in his cover-up stories, finding it hard to stop being a spy and relax, maybe spending time with someone very simple, like Sheryl, or a very different kind of fellow veteran like Roberto. Self-assured Sibal who probably knows a lot about the mysteries of the underground world and is also the most romantic soul out of the entire cast, talking volcanoes with Paris or discussing the Rainbow Bond with Haruko? If you also like all three of them, either as old friends or as a ship, who of them comes up with what excuse to reconnect again now that Remnants are no more, or do they drop all pretenses and admit they just want to make up for lost time? And what do Qsiti cuddles look like?

David: Post-canon, adjusting to a life without remnants - how did it feel to be bound to one or two of them anyway, and what’s it like without, and suddenly knowing you’ll be the first Nassau in who knows how long who’ll reach old age? - and without Rush. Finding support and friendship even outside his trusted Generals. I’d be interested in seeing him get closer to any unique leader you might like, I can easily see half the characters absolutely adoring him sooner or later. From the Duke of Ghor to Roberto, to sweet Zolean who knows what it’s like to lose someone dear and hope he comes back, or Rhagoh & Remnant Kate, or Paris or Jager or, eventually, even Allan… David/Rush prompts: focus on Rush’s supernatural nature, how he was a strange boy with a good heart (Things Unchangeable meant so much to me!) who ignored human social conventions because he was not in fact human. Reunion fic more than a decade into the future, showing how David has changed and with emphasis on Rush’s Remnant nature.

David & Qsiti: basically a mix of the other prompts. David is close to all his Generals but what’s his dynamic with Pagus specifically? Is he a mentor, a friend, did Pagus stop David once when he was about to do something very stupid? And what can David learn about his dear General from people who have known him since long before David was born?

Myst: Yeesha, Jeff Zandi

General: The oddest of friendships. Road trip. Desert sunrise. Desert bird shenanigans, be it with actual roadrunners speeding by or cartoon ones. Descent. An oddly shaped rock. Strangers. Shooting stars. Any line from Words.

Canon-specific dislikes: please no Yeesha bashing?

Yeesha & Jeff: He’s definitely Team Yeesha and she could definitely do with a friend, the year is 2018 and I still want fic about this unlikely duo.

How much can he really say he gets her? When did they meet? Was it when a younger Jeff was exploring D’ni with his father Elias, did that create a rift between the two?

What do they do when they hang out? Has he played the Myst games – heck, has she? Does he play Magic the Gathering like his RL counterpart?

Do they set out on a road trip because she needs to chill for a hot minute and experience for herself that whole ‘you shall seek the journey’ thing? Late night driving and liminal places could be cool. Or does she link him somewhere cool with no travel time needed?

Do they agree to meet by his camp fire once a month or something like that, and one time Yeesha doesn’t show up? What happened?

Does he get to hang out with bahro thanks to her, in the depths of the Cavern where the DRC will never be able to reach, and what’s that encounter like for him (and for her, and for the bahro)?

Maybe some relaxing time can take place after End of Ages. He’d notice that something has changed, she’s somewhat less of a depressed wreck that she used to be...

Speaking of End of Ages, was Jeff chosen by the Tablet? If so, how did he fail his quest? I appreciate Esher a lot so if you go for an EoA plot feel free to use him too.

Anything based on Uru history is great!

The Secret History of Twin Peaks: Tammy Preston

General: Character dossiers that involve Tammy more directly. TSHOTP themes being used front and center. Owls, figurative and otherwise. Tammy Fashion™. Tammy Freeform Infodump™. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. AUs and fusion AUs are great for this fandom! I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFVI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (what would Tammy even be... scholar, fencer, mystic knight...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy... anything fancy!

Canon-specific dislikes: Gordon being a harmless, fun dad or conversely having the worst intentions. Clear explanations for canonical ambiguities.

(my Twin Peaks canon-specific likes and dislikes in the next section may also apply)

Tammy: what I find fascinating about Tammy’s positioning in the narrative of the books (and of the show, but not as markedly) is that there is this whole narrative of trauma, and the circularity of trauma, even within Blue Rose and the organizations that came before it, and she stands at the end of it and learns about it all without being directly involved. She can learn from it in a sheltered position. Maybe when her turn will come, she’ll know a little better. Her name’s anagram is Praemonstrata, “Having been guided”. She’s the new Archivist, in a way. She’s the future of Blue Rose, last woman standing as soon as Albert and Gordon retire and/or vanish (and after the show’s finale, I can’t see either of them lasting long). What does it all mean, in the context of the book’s overarching theme of secrets VS mysteries and the cost of knowledge (and the show’s connections between trauma and the fragmentation of the self, and TFD’s doubling down on the general concept of shoveling oneself out of the shit, and her moving final considerations)?

What could be a test for her, something that would involve her personally and make her risk losing her way? What makes her tick - would she cross to other worlds, how, and why?

I don’t know much about aliens, but I really enjoyed how the book wove it all into Twin Peaks lore. If you want to do the same with some other bit of UFO trivia and have Tammy draw her connections, I’m interested!

The books show that she’s not only Albert’s spiritual successor as the only other rationally-inclined soul in there, she also knows Albert personally to some extent, for example that he’s a jazz lover. Have they ever gone drinking in cool (LGBT…?) clubs with fancy live music? Are they jazz buddies or what kind of music is she into (and what does he have to say about her tastes)?

What other characters or pieces of TP history would she look into? What about that Diane dossier, for example? What about Lucy? (If you have her look into Diane, please be empathetic toward her and her tulpa)

Twin Peaks: Harry Truman, Lucy Moran, Chet Desmond, Garland Briggs

This one is an OR request – feel free to only write about some of these people and completely ignore the others. There were just too many good characters in the tagset and I couldn’t choose so, you know, to hell with matchability. The prompts are for the characters on their own or with some nominated canon mates but if you have an idea for Ruby&Lucy, Garland&Albert, Harry&Naido or any other odd combo, go for it!

General: the mystery of the woods, obviously. How do they relate to the woods, what do they gain and what do they lose in the woods. Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. Still any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt. When in doubt, add Margaret. AUs and fusion AUs are great for this fandom! I have Final Fantasy on my mind a lot recently so any FFVI, VII, T, IX, X, XII or XIII reimagining would be fantastic (paladin Harry, dancer Lucy, fighter Chet, sage Garland...?), or indeed The Last Remnant, but also regular fantasy, space opera, sci-fantasy... anything fancy!

Canon-specific Dislikes: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman's House by the Sea being the White Lodge, Naido being nothing more than Diane but since she was nominated as her own character I'm hopeful here

(my Secret History of Twin Peaks canon-specific likes and dislikes in the previous section may also apply)

Harry: Bookhouse Boy Harry both in the sense of avid reader Harry promoting literacy and vague bastion against the evil in the woods Harry. Harry getting a sword out of a pond in the woods like he was meant to but , like, in a way that’s less random kitsch and more meaningful magical realism. Harry and Frank as actual brothers but also Frank as a projection of Harry’s insecurities. Harry, Ed and Hawk as friends. Harry finding some sense of belonging somewhere, somehow.

Lucy: Kimmy Robertson said she would like to be the color blue in Lynch’s palette, if the prompt works for you. Lucy taking her time to understand and organize the world around her. Lucy with Andy (the one functional couple in all of canon, bless), with Wally, with Maggie Brown and the rest of the new sheriff’s station cast. Lucy with people who don’t usually appreciate her (both sheriffs and Albert come to mind) but have to come to terms with the fact that she’s amazing. I also like that Hawk is a first-class gossip, apparently, and so is Lucy, so if THAT prompts works for you… last but not least, she seems to have some sort of connection with the symbolic weave of reality (picking chairs when a very important chair is introduced, wondering about bunnies and Jack Rabbit palace will be relevant, Robertson said that Lynch said that Lucy perceives a lot and needs time to sort it all out) and I’d love to see it explored one way or another. If you wanna go wild with meta Invitation to Love shenanigans, Lucy could be a good POV character.

Chet: What’s his deal? Empirically, new canon draws a hell of a lot of connections between personal troubles and being jettisoned out of reality. So why did he? A friend recalls that he was named after Chet Baker and Norma Desmond, so that could be a starting point. I like to think that he manages to pull himself together at some point and make it back – how? Does he find any familiar faces beyond the curtains, like Phil? Finally, like all Blue Rose and Sheriff’s station characters, when all other prompts fail: office shenanigans. Please. Now that they’ve all been blatantly retconned as a merry gang who coexisted at some point, please give me Chet bouncing off literally any other named character in there.

Garland: He’s a good bean, almost naive compared to Doug Milford & co in TSHOTP, and I wish him the best wherever he is... the metaphysical adventures of Garland’s floating head could be a fic (maybe Bill Hastings and Ruth Davenport could tag along). Or back when he was alive, weird occurrences at Listening Post Alpha up on Blue Pine mountain. He wasn’t born in town, so what’s HIS relationship with the woods? Or an encounter with some of the federal cast, like Gordon and Phil or a very young Albert. I’m also intrigued by his s3 narrative but I have a very negative view of The Plan(tm) so I don’t really know what to make of it. If you also think that the Fireman’s hints only ended in tragedy and that Blue Rose’s search for Judy was a monumental act of hubris, and you have a good spin for Garland’s role in all of this, I’m listening! All I got is something like "he gave his last fuck... now he's free....." (not that Garland is legally allowed to say fuck, I mean)

Albert/Harry: my main headcanon is that they got together in the aftermath of Coop’s disappearance, holding onto each other in his absence not unlike James and Donna did with Laura. Then... did they last? Or was it a terrible moment to get together (...not unlike James and Donna) and they had to go their separate ways for a while before finding each other again? Does this sad time last up until the end of s3, when Albert can finally quit the castle of lies that was his job and stay with Harry? I am also, however, open to other timelines for these two. Emotional reunions are great and so is domestic fic with a dash of surrealism. What would Harry do for Albert? For example, when would he take his side in a heated dispute with someone else? What would Albert share about his past? What could they do in town? Or do they take a well-deserved vacation somewhere else? Do they team up for a small investigation? Old men taking care of each other is very much welcome, especially after Harry gets through the worst of his treatments.

Dale/Harry: Harry seeing his Coop again... somewhere, somehow. Maybe he perceives him in the woods, maybe Coop isn't all human now. Monster cuddles very welcome. Could be canon divergence but could very well be post-s3. Harry getting closure for waiting all that time in front of Glastonbury and never giving up on Coop... they can live in the woods together...

Harry&Lucy: what could make them spend some time together outside of work (is it donuts)? Does he ask for relationship advice since she and Andy are literally the only people in town who could make it work? Does she feel loyal to him and Frank or is it just a job to her? Does she go visit him after s3 and does he tell her that she was very brave? What about Wally - Harry is the boy’s godfather after all, I don’t usually read kidfic but I can make all sorts of exceptions for my beloved Wally (maybe when he’s more of a teen than a kid). Are they all fans of Marlon Brando?

Chet/Sam: reunion fic! Chet’s been AWOL for years, Sam has fallen through the cracks, how do they find each other again and why do they choose to remain off the grid? I would also like to read about them in the present day-ish, handwaving the return and reunion. Maybe they made a new life for themselves. If Sutherland were to play Sam again, Sam would be... notably more buff. What caused that change, was it traveling with Chet, what kind of person is he now? Could they be in Buenos Aires, investigating on their own whatever that shrinking box was?

Chet&Dale: In which ways are they both real boys and in which ways are they aspects of each other? How do they work together?

Chet/Albert: whatever passes for an uncomplicated office romance around those parts, where they both know very well that they’re not the other’s One True Love, but they have a good understanding - except when Albert’s pacifism clashes with Chet‘s readiness to throw down 24/7. But then again Albert is also ready to throw down 24/7, only with words instead of fists, so there’s fertile ground for conflict and unexpected agreements. Also they’re hot.

Garland&Harry: they’re both good dogs living in a cold and cruel world, with their own partial experiences of other worlds beyond this tangible reality, and I think they should be at least a little friends. Maybe Harry found himself at Garland’s observatory one day without even knowing how he’d gotten there, maybe they chatted at the RR. Then there’s Mfrost spitballing some connection which, given how Garland ‘died’ literally on the day after s2, can only be read as Harry passing his info to Garland when Garland was already beyond this world. I’d read that in a heartbeat.

[letswritesomenovels]

Letswritesomenovels Query Critique #2

Welcome back to the letswritesomenovels query critique series! In this series, I’ll be critiquing followers’ queries, helping prepare them for agents. The query featured today is for a Sci-Fi novel by @onlyheretolookatthings

Dear Agent,

Fifty years after its pyrrhic victory in the Fae War, humanity remains uneasy.

I think you introduce an interesting backdrop to your story here! It’s definitely a first sentence that makes me want to keep reading! 

Owen Williams, loving husband and doting father, is horrified when his wife Tiffany falls prey to the unknown force that turns humans into Fae. After she’s killed and anti-Fae forces attempt to kidnap their children, he’s forced to flee with his family to the Fae Haven of Tearmann.

This paragraph is very strong. It does everything required of it: it immediately lets us know who our main character is, what matters most to him, and what sets the plot into motion. Which is wonderful! 

The only thing I would really change is the first line. “Loving husband and doting father” reads like an epitaph: pleasant but vague. And you don’t need it—the rest of that paragraph tells us that he cares about his family. 

Instead of that description, do as much as you can with 1 or 2 sentences to set up Owen as character before his wife is killed. Craft an intro that will rip our hearts out a moment later when everything changes.

Also relevant: how does he feel about the Fae before his wife’s transformation? We don’t really know, but it’s so important to the rest of the query. If he hates the Fae, if he fears them, if he secretly has always been fascinated by them—that’s something we need to know to understand the stakes of the story. 

A good place to sneak this opinion into this paragraph is when you introduce his wife’s transformation. After that sentence I would recommend a brief description of 1. what it means to turn Fae and 2. why it’s so horrifying. 

Upon reaching the Haven, Owen is thrown headfirst into the strange world of the twelve Fae races living under the protection of the Fae Queen.

Your query is on the shorter side, so you have some space here to give us some juicy details about this “strange world.” Describe it a bit for us in two or three vivid sentences. Tell us how to feel about the Fae Queen. (Is she scary? Mysterious? Beloved?) Show off some of your world building skills. To make these new descriptions really carry their weight in this query, describe it from Owen’s point of view -- the things he finds strange, that fascinate him, scare him, excite him, etc. Are the Fae as terrible as he was probably told they would be? Are they not what he expected? Play up that tension, because it’s so important to the hook of this query.

The tension between the Fae and humans approaches a breaking point as his children succumb to the change one by one. When Owen is confronted by a force that threatens everything he is trying to protect, he must choose between his family and the world he knows.

This paragraph is a good hook—the sentences themselves are lovely and the general structure is perfect—but it can be made more compelling if the stakes are more specific. Tell us what that force is—it’s far too vague for me to understand how it’s a threat. If it’s meant to be a mystery, at the very least I need to know what its nature is (human, army, force of nature, virus, evil scientist, etc.) and what it can do (blow Haven up, change every human into Fae, kill Owen’s children, start a war, etc.) Tell us exactly what is being threatened. Tell us why “the world he knows” is even a choice for this doting, loving father when his children are on the line. 

You’ve mentioned on your website that you’re interested in Science Fiction so HAVEN, a science fiction novel complete at around 103,000 words with series potential, might be of special interest to you. HAVEN will appeal to fans of Frankenstein and Dr. Franklin’s Island.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind Regards,

[Author]

[Phone Number]

[Email Address]

There’s nothing in this query that reads as science-y, so I’m interested to know what science fiction elements are in it. I think if you want to show us some science-y aspects they can come in your description of the human world Own lives in, your description of the Fae world, your description of “the force”—if it’s a scientific achievement by a mad scientist (like your comp titles lead me to believe) that tells us a lot of what we need to know.

Speaking of the comp titles, Frankenstein and Dr. Franklin’s Island are both rather old and tell me very similar things about the book (And I love the Dr. Franklin’s Island reference, I loved that book so much when I was younger!!). I would suggest axing Frankenstein as a comp, and choosing a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel from the past 5 years or so instead.

Otherwise, this paragraph is in good shape!! 

Overall thoughts.

The general structure of this query is great. It has so many of the elements a compelling query needs. The language is lovely and everything is easy to understand. The novel length fits its genre. This query has extraordinary bones, and it’s almost where it needs to be. I know it may seem like I’ve given you a lot of changes here, but really, it’s mostly just a matter of adding an extra four or five sentences--and, coming in slightly under 200 words, I think you have ample room to add them. 

I hope this all helps! Thanks for sending your query in!

If you would like your query to be critiqued on the blog, learn how to submit it here.