#it makes absolutely not sense for the narratives being put forth by characters like these

[comradekarin]

the consistent “peacekeeper cheerleaders” narrative for characters like rhaenyra, alicent, helaena, rhaenys and baela is not actually good writing, nor is it actually indicative of their relationships with one another, it’s just soft misogyny. the female characters in this show are being failed, and I’m tired of pretending they aren’t

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #47 – City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This book was recommended to me by a few different people, and in any case I am generally a pretty big Tchaikovsky fan. So of course I’m only getting around to reading it now, however many months later. Having put it off so long for no good reason at all, I can say that the book is in fact very good. Not Tchaikovsky’s best work (that’s still Children of Time in a walk), but a good read and one that left me curious (if not exactly excited) about checking out the sequel.

The story takes place in Illmar, the eponymous City of Last Chances – scarred and oppressed, tyrannized by cursed dukes and conquering imperialists, built upon a dangerous and unreliable route to other worlds and forever attracting the sort of people with no better options available to them. While the book has any number of characters, it’s really the city itself that is the star of the story – a story of how the theft of an imperial magistrate’s ward before he makes an experimental voyage through the gateway in the woods leads to a whole series of byzantine intrigues and bloody misadventures, culminating in an abortive revolution against the Pallseen who occupy and rule them. Which in one sense is an absolutely massive spoiler and in another just feels like stating an inevitability that was obvious from the first chapter.

The book was apparently quite heavily marketed as harking back to the whole New Weird trend of a decade or two ago – marketing that is lived up to wholly and entirely. The whole book absolutely drips with Mieville and Vandermeer. The oblique worldbuilding, the mundane day-to-day life built around the opportunities and inconveniences of some intrusion of the sublime, the awkward intersection of ancient magic and industrial bureaucracy, and so on, and so forth. The Reproach in particular feels very Area X (or very Roadside Picnic, as you prefer), but in general the city feels like absolutely nothing so much as Bas-Lag with the weirdness dial turned down from an 11 to a 5 or 6.

It’s a real triumph of the book, I think, that the world genuinely feels vast and strange even beyond the points where it matters to the story - that all the little asides and the ways something affects a certain character feel like just small parts of something far grander and more uncanny than anyone can hope to understand. Maybe I’m just painfully tired of rpg-system worldbuilding, but it’s an effect I dearly love.

Much like Bas-Lag, Ilmar is very clearly a magical fantasy city going through a magical fantasy 19th century industrial revolution (instead of steam engines its demonic slave labor contracted and imported from the Kings Below). The meat of the book is playing into the whole tradition of the idealistic, virtuous but tragic liberal revolution – 1848 in Berlin or Vienna, the June Days and Commune in Paris, Warsaw a dozen different times, Les Mis. You know the type. Students singing patriotic old songs, workers rising up against class oppression, ‘revolutionaries’ who are mostly cowardly nobles pining after lost privileges and criminal syndicate putting on airs being caught flat-footed by events. You can probably tell the basic story in your sleep. But for such a venerable genre, this book's honestly probably the best rendition of ‘fantasy 1848’ I can recall. Something which won it my instant affection.

The other thing the book just overwhelming shares with the Mieville’s Bas-Lag books is a very keen sense of the necessity of revolution combined with an extreme cynicism towards anyone who might actually carry it out. The university students are sincere believers, and also naive sheep the narrative views with condescension (at best). The professional revolutionaries are all power-grabbing hypocrites who have wrapped themselves in the flag. The workers syndicates have a real sense of solidarity among themselves, and also none at all to the demon slaves that are used and broken powering the mills and factories. And so on. The overall thrust of the book is a tragedy not in the sense of railing against the inevitable, but in the sense that triumph and revolution were absolutely possible – indeed plausible – but for the flaws and frailities of the revolutionaries who might have accomplished it.

Not to say that it's misanthropic – the book is very humane towards the vast majority of its POVs. Of which there are enough for ‘vast majority’ to be a meaningful term. It was something like 130 pages in before any character got a second chapter through their eyes, a feat I had previously only seen in Malazan – and that’s not including the chorus chapters which just give a half-doze vignettes from across the city. But yes, most characters (even the ones who are really just viscerally repulsive) are shown through their own eyes as someone who is at least understandable, if not particularly sympathetic. The sheer size of the cast in a 500 page book mean that no one character or set gets that many chapters from their perspective (you could easily have written as long a book about roughly the same events with half or less of the cast), but some of the dynamics that are very lightly touched on are just incredibly compelling. Its enough to make you wish this was a series that would ever get any fanfiction written about it, really.

Given the way the book is so deeply concerned with oppression and violence on the basis of culture, class, and nation – imperial occupiers, native population, refugees and immigrants used and scapegoated by both – it is kind of fascinating that this is a world where misogyny and (possibly? Not very explored, the only example of a queer relationship we see is hardly going to be concerned by normative society) homophobia just flatly don’t exist. Which would be less interesting if it was unusual, really – the same could be said about very nearly every recent sci fi or fantasy book on the same lines I can recall. Interesting because it is very much not the case in Melville’s stuff – the cultural impact of Ancillary Justice continues to echo down the years, I guess. So yes the imperial police inspector will extort sex out of a brothel owner in exchange for not stringing up the entire workforce for peripheral involvement with the resistance, but also this is entirely gender-neutral. Something very modern about how oppression is imagined relative to the ‘90s or ‘00s (or just a different genre of self-consciously feminist novel a few book shelves to the left).

But yeah, great book, I am compelled. No idea where the sequel would be going, but will probably hunt it down sooner rather than later.

[tapioca-puddingg]

Why GoWR Valhalla Is Important

Hey. It's me again. This time I'm not yelling about Kingdom Hearts or Drakengard, but I wanted to talk about God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla today and why I think it's important in trauma-centered narratives. This isn't a detailed analysis, just me spitballing.

SPOILER WARNING: There will be spoilers for God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla, so please proceed with caution!

EDITED: 2/26/24

As a brief summary, Kratos spent almost the entirety of GoW 2018 refusing to talk about his past. His guilt, shame, and trauma deeply affected his relationship with his son, to the point where he didn't want to be around Atreus bc he was terrified of being a bad influence on him. It was only when Atreus' life was in danger did it force him to finally admit just a sliver of the truth. Now I don't mean to say that Kratos revealing his godhood wasn't a big deal because it absolutely was, I'm just saying that it's just one piece of a MUCH bigger story. Anyway, he recognized his past mistakes, but the shame was too much for him to openly acknowledge it until damn near the end of the game.

Come Ragnarök, Kratos was pretty much an open book. He had grown SO much in those short years of fimbulwinter: He openly talked about his trauma to Mimir and Freya. He worked so hard to be a good father and a good support system to his friends. He went out of his way to make amends with Freya and restore their friendship. And he fought to restore peace to the Nine Realms.

But come Valhalla, Freya wants to recruit Kratos to be the new God of War of the nine realms, or at least to be a part of the new peacekeeping council that she's putting together. Kratos is extremely hesitant to take up the mantle. He doesn't feel worthy or deserving enough to hold this position given all that he's done. He and Mimir (and later on, Tyr) are constantly going back and forth about it. Both perspectives are completely valid. Valhalla is about Kratos facing his past in a more literal sense; parts of Greece have been manifested from Kratos' memories of it, so it's like he gets to be there in real time again. This is about helping him process what happened and to add some nuance to the conversation. It's like free therapy for Kratos.

It's funny too bc you have both opposing viewpoints being represented. On one hand, you have Mimir and Tyr being the supporting/validating voice, and Helios is the contrarian. Since he's a manifestation of Kratos' memories, he represents the doubts that Kratos has about himself. The harsh voice to show how hard he is on himself, and not without good reason.

The reason why I think Valhalla is so important is bc in media, survivor narratives are often linear. The character just "gets over" their trauma and then that trauma isn't addressed again. It's presented more as a hurdle than a lifelong battle. I guess this goes to show how misunderstood survivorhood is. But that isn't how healing works. We regress sometimes, and sometimes we still mull over the things that have happened to us. We might heal, but that trauma does leave emotional scars. So even after the many leaps and bounds Kratos has made, he's not "over" his past, far from it! It still haunts him every day and every night. Valhalla is Kratos still processing everything. From my own healing journey, I've learned that it takes a long, long time to fully process your trauma, if there even is a "fully", anyway. It takes a long time to learn and understand all the complexities and how it affects you in current day. And it takes even longer to process such a complicated history like Kratos'.

Generally speaking about the idea of processing trauma, I said earlier that survivorhood is extremely misunderstood by the masses. Imo, our society is very anti-victim/anti-survivor. So with that in mind, from the perspective of the audience, some might perceive the processing trauma bit as repetitive or "milking it". These are mediums of entertainment after all, so ofc I understand wanting to put out an engaging story where the audience doesn't lose interest. But screw those ppl lol. We have to understand why we do what we do if we want to do better, and it's amazing that a video game is willing to have these conversations. Being more open about all the nuances of processing trauma, grief, healing, etc will go such a long way.

Even the roguelite gameplay style perfectly reflects this theme. Processing this stuff is slow. It doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're in Valhalla, I suppose.

Okay I said this wasn't a detailed analysis but I lied. I'm a liar now

[marley-manson]

Do you ever think about just how much Hawkeyes character evolved, like, the other day I was thinking about that one deleted episode, Hawkeye on the double (?) or something like that, and how in that when he found out he was being duped by two people working together he staged his own fake attempted suicide via fckn minefield to traumatise them into never doing it again, like, comparing that to the joker is wild is crazyyyyy. Like obviously the scale of pranks there is off, but idk it just made me think, Hawkeye as a character definitely lost some edge as the show progressed

Yeah! lol it's kind of wild how much less of a mastermind Hawkeye became when the writers decided BJ's thing should be pranks.

I feel like the real reason for this is that the show's tone shifted away from satire and into character drama. When the show is a satire Hawkeye is the political centre, so his role in the story is to be right. The army/war can beat him in a tragic way, but in the early seasons his only righteous comeuppances that I can remember off the top of my head were like, Ceasefire when he got dumped three times in a row, and lol the script you cite, where there's more of an equal back and forth between him and the two women but it does end with Hawkeye nearly accidentally killing himself for real lol. So like, in the early seasons he occasionally gets narratively punished for misogyny, but otherwise he's meant to be the cool guy who is right and better than all the army representatives. And because it's a satire, I think that's great, it works very well, Hawkeye is an awesome character who absolutely should get narratively rewarded for driving colonels into early retirement and taking out their appendixes.

But then the show shifted to character drama instead and now Hawkeye needs flaws to examine, weaknesses the narrative can use to tear him down in a deserving way rather than a tragic way, etc. Sometimes his left-leaning politics ~go too far~ now, sometimes he's too self-righteous or unreasonable, sometimes he has to capituate to authority and admit rebellion is wrong, and sometimes the narrative tears him down just because we're meant to get some schaudenfreude from it, as in Joker is Wild. Because the narrative is no longer on Hawkeye's side by default, and often gets entertainment value out of punishing him for various sins, real or not.

So I don't think it's meant to be an intentional character shift, but it does make me want an in-universe explanation for why he loses his edge.

And the explanation I like that covers most of Hawkeye's narrative repositioning for me, including the lackluster pranks in later seasons and like, guilt in Preventative Medicine, etc, is that it's because of his shifting friend group. Trapper the constant supportive presence and enabling partner in crime is replaced by BJ who only selectively enables Hawkeye and often likes to take him down a few pegs instead. Henry the CO Hawkeye could walk all over is replaced by Potter who is successfully authoritative and puts his foot down. And Frank's gone and Margaret's chilled out so there are no more ideological enemies to target. Plus Charles is also someone willing and able to take Hawkeye down, and even Klinger is no longer into rebellion by season 8.

I mean when you think about it lol it does kinda make sense that Hawkeye would lose a lot of his enthusiasm for fucking with people when his new best friend yells at him for taking out an asshole army guy's appendix instead of helping him. And he might not want to go too far in retaliation for pranks when the whole cast turns on him pretty easily now, as in eg Fallen Idol. And it's probably harder to bring yourself to rebel against the army when you're making friends with a bunch of career army types like Potter, Margaret, and Mulcahy, and have no one else around who shares your ideological hatred for it.

ANYWAY yeah hope you don't mind getting an essay in response lol, this is like one of the aspects of the show I like talking about most, to the point where it's my inspiration for like at least 2 fics lol.

[kithj]

quick reading wrap-up cus i haven't posted any in a whileeee

talking about Odd Girl Out, Merciless Waters, and The Weight of Blood

i finished Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon and am taking a break before i keep going onto I Am A Woman. i DID like this book, but it comes with heavy caveats... it is very frustrating to read at times because it was written & is set in the 50s. the misogyny in this book is crazyyyy, on an institutional level from the college the girls are attending as well as on a personal level, from every single man we meet (and some of the girls, too). i hated Charlie, i hated reading his POVs where he jumped through hoops to excuse his aggressive behavior towards Beth, and i hated the way their relationship was written. i don't really fault the author for this, again this is just very reflective of the time period, and i do want to give her some credit, because some of it is definitely intentional with the way all 3 of the main relationships parallel each other in the book (beth/charlie, beth/laura, emmy/bud) and i really really liked the ultimate subversions of the typical lesbian pulp tropes at the end. i can really see why these books were so popular and how they would have meant so much to young, closeted lesbians back then.

after that i finally picked up Merciless Waters by Rae Knowles & read it pretty quickly (it's a short read). i go back and forth on this one, it was a blast while i was actively reading it, but if i think too hard about it, there are a lot of like. i don't want to call them plot holes, but just little things that don't really makes sense once you put them under the microscope. i was also a little disappointed in the ending, it felt like a cop-out, and i wish that we had seen more of Lily, considering she's the driving force behind the narrative and the focus of Jaq's obsessive love. that being said Knowles' prose is lovely and it was fun for people who love awful sapphic women (me) i also have Rae Knowles and April Yates' anthology, Scissor Sisters, which i'm hoping to get to later....

then i read The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson cus i was looking for something easy to read. unfortunately i did not like this one..... i'm going to link this review because it honestly says everything i was thinking and i was happy to see it since otherwise this book is very highly rated. it's a retelling of Carrie, which i've never read (i don't like stephen king lol) but i DO like the og movie. and this book is SO derivative, which... yeah, it's a retelling... but it really gave me nothing. it's a shame, because i do think if you were to do a Carrie retelling at this point, this would be the way to approach it. but this book is a swing and a miss. and i could not believe the setting was 2014... of course, there absolutely are racist towns like this even now in 2024, but the time period was really the wrong choice for me, especially because it felt like it was only done so she could give the characters cell phones and twitter, but then she never really used the modern setting to her advantage outside of that. i also hated how much time we spent in the POVs of Maddy's racist bullies. i hated Wendy, i hated every POV from her... she's this books Sue Snell, but honestly worse. i do think her POV added something to the narrative, so i don't think it should have been cut entirely, but it also took way too much time away from Maddy who ultimately had no presence at all in her own story.

Kendrick was honestly the most interesting character with the most compelling POV, due to his own experiences dealing with the racism from his "friends" as well as grappling with his complicity as the "token" Black friend. however, even with Kendrick being the star football player, it didn't make sense to me that he was considered the "most popular guy in school" when said school was SO racist. i get that their interest in him was ultimately just so they could ride his coattails, but there was just a lot of dissonance in this story between just how explicitly racist some of the characters were in some instances but then not in others... i know racism has no rhyme or reason, but this just felt like inconsistent writing rather than anything intentional from the author. i also did not enjoy his romance with Maddy, for the same reasons as the other reviewer, but i'm glad he dumped Wendy for it so i'll take it, i guess.... overall, interesting ideas, but horrible execution. i really wanted to like this one but.... there's also a point where the author chose to name-drop Stephen King, thus implying that he exists in this universe along with all his works (they reference Firestarter in the text) but at no point does anyone say "Hey, isn't this case a lot like Carrie?" and that really broke the immersion for me lmfao

[td-frog]

okay i'm not done talking about this. i want to highlight again the all stars couples from previous seasons and what direction they seem to be heading in (and why i think it's a good narrative choice)

jaiden:

they had a whole arc throughout their season with loads of conflict. it went back and forth a little bit, but in a way that made sense for the characters, and it felt like it resolved really nicely by the end.

because of that, it would be really disappointing if they just brought the conflict back now that they're on a new season. they put in the work on the show and all signs pointed to strong, healthy relationship when they left off (having already had the experience of working through problems).

and so far, that's exactly what they are. the drama of the past season is resolved, they're still super close, and the conflict now is not within their relationship, but who they are outside of it. first with being on different teams, and now with james being out so early.

i really really like that james immediately shut jake down with the accusations of cheating. it was very much an opportunity to reintroduce relationship conflict, but the show said "no, they're happy together."

i also like the choice to have james leave and aiden stay: first, james is a stronger competitor (explicitly why he got to go for the win in s2), second because aiden is less confident about being on his own and we get to see that, and third because of what's going on with tom/jake

i think at this point jaiden seems super solid and it doesn't look like they're planning to change that. which they shouldn't, these guys have had their drama and deserve to be happy.

tomjake

they also had a lot of back and forth in their season, but the key difference is that nothing was really ever fully resolved? there were mini resolutions, where they agreed to communicate better (and then failed immediately) but it didn't have the finality of "we've worked through the misunderstandings and are stronger for it" that jaiden had.

like, their issue has always been being Terrible at communication. tom because of the secretiveness of his spy background, and jake because of his gullibility and tendency to jump to the worst conclusions. so the fact that their plot this season seems to be Bad Communication turned up to 11 is perfectly in line with what we've seen before.

it's also a nice contrast to jaiden- they both have the "on separate teams" problem, but while jaiden have the trust and strength in their relationship to handle it, jake's insecurities cause him to fall back on old patterns with almost no prompting at all (and tom's not entirely innocent here either- i fully believe his friendship with aiden is just friendship and there's nothing wrong with that, but his avoidance of jake is absolutely feeding the problem and he should know that)

based on s1, it really doesn't seem like they'll make the relationship work unless some major conflict forces them to actually deal with their problems (and then they have to Actually deal with them), so i'm expecting it to get worse before it gets better. they both need to grow as people before the relationship can work, and until then they can suffer.

(also: removing miriam from the picture by putting her on the third team is key- she's the voice of reason for jake that he desperately needs, so taking that away rapidly accelerates the Problems)

hunterally

they're kind of an in-between case. we saw a little bit of conflict on the show, but they didn't actually get together until the very end (counting them resolving their friendship problems in the finale) or after (start of the actual relationship). so we haven't actually gotten to see how they work as a couple.

similar to miriam, tess seems like she is a key part of keeping the relationship together (given that the problems seem to have started after she left, and she seems to be the most chill and rational at this point), so distancing her is good for seeing how the relationship plays out.

as far as hunter and ally's conflict, it's interesting how it follows from their characters in s2. hunter seems like more of a jerk, but not in an ooc way- literally the first thing we learn about him is he's not big on socializing, so it's not surprising that he might not put much effort into a relationship. meanwhile ally always seemed a bit more invested in their relationship on the show (partly because she had a crush on him), so it tracks that she could be putting more into the relationship and get frustrated with him when he didn't.

like from what little we've seen so far, the conflict they're having feels very realistic for "we became friends on a reality tv show and started a relationship after"- they don't really know each other that well by the end, and they might not be as compatible as they thought (and regardless, need to work to make the relationship succeed)

also, another note on tess: while i am a little disappointed that it's not the poly throuple i expected, i don't hate it. tess's relationship to the other two was more "the first people to try to help her out of a very dark place" which can be romantic (and especially at first is likely to feel that way) but it doesn't have to be. i would be very disappointed if they weren't still friends, but that's not the case.

i also think there's a possibility that the resolution is their relationship doesn't work without tess. i don't know if this is the direction they'll take (and i don't need it) but i think it'd be super cool if it ends in a poly relationship that isn't romantic on tess's end but is no less important (possibly more important).

gabellie

shoutout to these two. i don't have much to say, mostly because their relationship has never been the source of drama in the same way as the other three.

i do like how they've almost kind of switched roles since s1? at the start of s1 everyone hated gabby, and ellie wasn't super popular but liked well-enough. now ellie's the one everyone hates and gabby's still not the favorite but is doing fine.

i think they're really cute together and i love how they support each other. and it's really nice to have a relationship that's almost fully outside of the drama of the show, like it's formed in response to individual drama (ellie being the only person to stand up for gabby) and it affects the drama (gabby saving ellie even though it could (and did) cost her a chance at immunity later on) but it's not dramatic itself. i hope that lasts.

as for other couples: i have some thoughts on connoriya but they're kind of separate from this. yulgrett is new this season so that's also a different thing. there isn't really anything to say about ashwill given that he was out first and didn't return. and i think that's it for all star couples so far.

[carecrowgames]

Yazeba Read Through Session 3

Today was pretty busy so todays reading is gonna be only of page 17, but I want to keep up doing these daily. On the other hand, page 17 is the dramatic personae so there is a lot of meat to chew on!

Reading the book this slowly really makes me appreciate how seriously it takes creating a strong image of the bed and breakfast, its characters and storytelling genre, as well as the feeling that you are being drawn Into the world of a BOOK. Idk seeing a dramatic personae in a ttrpg book just excites me ~~

This where part of me wishes I knew EVEN LESS about the book. Because what yazeba IS, is such a unique thing in the ttrpg space and I would love to be able to see how my brain puts the nature of the beast together as I read it. The dramatic personae would probably be even more exciting then! On the other hand knowing a bit of what’s to come means I can try and find out how it builds up to it with some forth sight so I don’t mind it at all.

Btw, I love how the little symbols next to the characters serve as mnemonic devices to remember core ideas of the characters. Yazeba being a heart that was broken several times over but still holds together sticks out as especially strong to me.

In general, while I believe strong design elements are those that fulfill several functions, I also think any one function should be fulfilled and reinforced by several design elements as well. The way the book layers, builds and reinforces information, themes and vibe of its characters so far is I think really strong - and necessary, if you want people to want to inhabit and explore them!

Because no mortal can stop me, I will give some notes on each of the character introductions:

Gertrude: "Capable beyond expectations" is such a wonderful and kind genre phrase, I just really love how much the book itself cares for Gertrude, it makes it impossible for the reader to not also care about her.

Sal: I did not expect Sal to have been yazebas dropout apprentice! What an absolutely amazing combination with wanting to be a Rockstar. I have so far mostly appreciated how this book deploys its genre space but it can't be unsaid how cool the specifics of the characters and world it is building is. Sal being a cool dropout lyricist who wants to be a Rockstar is a great character, but making him a dropout WITCHES APPRENTICE? absolutely in love with the idea I'm so hooked. Once again, I would read an entire book with him as the protagonist based on this premise alone!

Hey Kid: This page also has the first mention of Hey Kid!! They are one of the characters I come in knowing the most about, because they appeared so prominently in the advertisement of the book, and I am so excited to see more of them!! For now, i can only say: what an incredible name, it says so much of the character and their sense of identity and role in the b&b, even before you know they are a delightfully rambunctious devil-child. Like, of course they are, they are called Hey Kid!

Speaking off it, as you see I decided I will take the advertisement into account when I discuss my experience with this book – it is part of the paratext afterall, and I find with most ttrpgs people will most likely enter them with some amount of outside knowledge, that is propably informed by the games advertisement and strongly informs how they interpret the text. Sadly I don’t have an absolutely garbage memory, so what I remember of the advertisement campaign is full of holes. On the other hand, the fact that my entire brain lights up when I see Hey Kid makes pretty clear how delightful the voice of the character is and how well it stuck with me over the months. In that way the advertisement gave me yet another narrative hook to enter the world through, because I can easily imagine what sort of hijinks Hey Kid might get up to, and have a very clear voice in mind with which I could play them.

Parish: Here is where I have to admit that I already knew who the frog on the cover was, and that it is likely to be the first character I’ll play once I get a game of Yazeba together. I have an incredibly soft spot in my heart for gentle but burdened knights. Once again an amazing take on this character type, making him a frog and not-a-knight-anymore but instead someone who makes sure people get to eat is just *chefs kiss*. Immediately such a range of characteristics to combine and play with and apply to each other. Btw, I feel like with the way this book builds up characters from interconnection and layers information about them, that the wizard who cursed parish might come up as a guest or a chapter. Super curious, because this is yet another narrative thread I can see myself wanting to pull on as the story progresses.

Amelie: And here we have our teased at robot! I am actually the most unsure about what to make of Amelie from the vibe I have of them so far, which means reading that they also don’t know who they are supposed to be strikes a fascinating chord with me.

Yazeba: I love the playful way the book is written, especially when it surrounds Yazeba who stands in strong contrast to that playfulness and is all the more characterized by it. I am also amazed by how strong she is characterized already. I feel like I have a very clear picture of how she moves through the B&B, and also the way people behave around her, both in space and in relationship.

The Moon Prince: As predicted, our resident to be! I was curious how the book would build them up, considering they are the first of the locked characters. Would I only know of them once I get to the locked characters, would I read of how to unlock them in the early chapters, etc. I think it works really well for me that the expectation that they will join the cast is build up this early on. It gives a first hint at the very unique unlocking mechanics that are core to the books narrative construction and an immediate motivation to want to engage with them. And what a motivation it is! I am a sucker for romantic melancholics and the image evoked by the prince is such a wonderful picture of longing. It just gets me!

It also somewhat reminds me of the French childrens book the little prince. In honor of that I’m adding a french piece to the playlist. “Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi” is I seem to remember the first ost playing in the french-german cult hit The wonderful world of Amelie. It creates a melancholic mood that helps me imagine the prince staring out of his window, so there it goes into the playlist.

We end the page with a promise that there will be many guests to come, building first expectations for yet another part of the narrative structure. And the Rabbits in the Garden who wear little outfits are mentioned to! Yazebas realy knows what names will tempt me xD

That’s it for today. I ended up writing way to much for one page, but the introduction of every resident felt like something I couldn’t jump over quickly. See you tomorrow!

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

you can find my other Yazeba readthrough posts under #zeebthrough!

Preorder the game on https://possumcreekgames.com/pages/yazebas-bed-breakfast

[esperanta-dragon]

💥🦋🦈 for the ask game?

💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

The whole Shadowlands and whole narrative built around Sylvanas to make her appear she was only a victim and did not want any of it. I don't believe she did not want it. Not only it made her look weak and dumb, but the amount of effort put into breaking and twisting the old established lore to achieve this... ooof. No. It does not work and will never work. To be honest I am still not sure what Blizzard tried to achieve. Why they went bonkers with her just to pull the breaks in the last moment. Why they couldn't make her a really good villain she deserved to be? Why she had to end up being just a pawn in all this? They wanted us to feel sorry for her? Did not happen because it does not work. Not even the book made me think that. The whole book was trying to avoid the Jailer and Shadowlands plot. Now we will never know how her original story after WotLK was supposed to go. I am just sad because she did not deserved it as incompetent writers used her badly and destroyed the whole lore to make it happen... what made it happen? I don't know and will never understand the reason behind this decision. Shadowlands will never belong to WoW lore, it will always stick out as some strange spin-off and I wish Blizzard made some change in the timeline with Bronze Dragonflight and erase it or claim that it was an alternative reality. We deserved better Shadowlands. And many characters deserved better resolution.

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write? More of them.

Darion Mograine It took me 10 years to find out how to write him correctly. At first he was way too soft because I was a teenager who had this phase that all dark characters are misunderstood and they are all soft inside (yes even Arthas, Kel'Thuzad, etc... ugh). Then I wrote him way too tough, almost indifferent just to make him tough which is not true. He is not and it was shown in Legion and in We Ride Forth how much he cares about everybody even Bolvar.

Death knights are hard to write in general because you have to find the balance between their indifference to the living world but also show that they have a lot of issues, trauma, and regrets. So when I started writing RP with my friend, I couldn't be happier when she told me that Darion is incredibly complex and at first it doesn't make sense what he is doing and how does he react but when you figure out his core values, you get to understand him more and suddenly it makes sense.

Until this day, my friend who is writing Anduin still says from time to time that she can't exactly get into Darion's head because sometimes he does a lot of illogical stuff based on his moral compass and inner values. And I am not talking about how trauma and regrets and all the bad things are getting into his behavior.

And that makes me happy he is this kind of a weirdo.

Kel'Thuzad

Strange but KT is my favorite villain. When I started building my story with death knights many years ago, the Lich King was the one in the spotlight and doing decisions. Then I realized it doesn't make sense and he doesn't have the goddamn time and why should he care. So Kel'Thuzad would be the one doing all the stuff and planning before Light's Hope.

Then the book about sir Zeliek was in making. He wasn't there that much with the first version of the book. Which is absolutely pitty because I got to like him a lot. In the second version I am rewriting after years, taking out the stuff which was not working and using the potential on maximum, I can't wait to catch the drive and finish the book in a few weeks.

I just love writing highly calculating, insane characters. Which reminds me he is in one of my AU fanfics I am rewriting and I enjoyed absolutely every moment he was in. I should get back to it. He is crazy. I love working with him.

sir Zeliek

My child, hello. There are like 2-3 fanfics with sir Zeliek on the internet. 1 is goddamn good from @rabbitprint called Holding Circles. As an undead paladin, he has an incredible potential never fully used by Blizzard. So I adopted him, created his background from scratch, and connected his story with Warcraft III and WotLK so he ends up being crucial.

I've written the whole book about him in 2014. At that time it was not perfect but it helped me cope with toxic environment I was in. It was a first draft and over the years I've managed to analyze what should be deleted, what should be explored, changed and how to use the full potential of the book. My writing got better and I've managed to put a lot more details into it.

It was always my big dream to write the second version which will be finally good and translate it into English. I don't know if people will read it, if it will have at least one comment each chapter because... I tend to like characters nobody cares about.

But I hope somebody will like it and maybe people will in the end appreciate the story I've created around him. He was built from scratch. And I hope people will like him. Because he is in a grey moral zone and I've put a lot of effort into him. People realizing how big potential was missed would make me happy.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

You wouldn't believe but Arthas as the Lich King. It's super hard to write this kind of deity which should be stoic, and calm but creepy and intimidating at the same time. Unfortunately... when I try it, he always ends up being cringe.

Maybe it's just my feeling and maybe it got better. I would have to start rewriting the AU when the Lich King won the war in Northrend because he was there for a few moments.

Still, I am avoiding him when I can. It is funny when you write about death knights and you... can't avoid it 100%

[fortheturnstiles]

4 & 14!

4. Is there a film that you love except for the ending? What would you change about the ending? -- this question kind of stumped me in a way that i didn't expect but i think i have a couple. i rewatched The Nice Guys (2016) recently and upon revisiting i think the ending feels a little tacked-on to me, for the sake of tying up lose ends in a nice little bow. doesn't really do it for me i think the movie could just do without it. the ending of After Hours (1985) is okay but to me it kinda would have been funny if he died. maybe that's just me though. ok ok my actual Real Answer for this actually is Sleepaway Camp (1983). i saw this for the first time fairly recently and the experience of finally viewing it was both delightful and confounding. it's got basically everything i love about early 80s slashers -- simultaneously scary and funny, men in exceedingly short shorts, gruesome kills -- and then Boom. the ending...... i've seen some of readings of the film that embrace the perversity of it, but there's no getting around the film's ending as making a total abject spectacle of the transfeminine body, for the shock and awe of the cisgender viewer. and i wouldn't change angela's transness if the ending could be different it just wouldn't be centered around witnessing the reveal of her naked body as something horrific and purely on display as a means to evoke disgust. all that being said i love trans monstrosity and scaring cis ppl and rejecting the hegemony of "proper" bodies etc etc in but that movie was obviously not going for that it was made in 1983 by a cishet man lmfao. for the record angel was kinda right for killing all those ppl who were mean to her they fucking sucked

14. Who is your favorite director? Why? -- literally the hardest question for me to answer ever because i have a handful i love for various reasons i was about to just list a bunch of them but you guys probably already know based on the movies i post about on here lol. i think both in his approach to filmmaking in a philosophical sort of sense as well as his style and frequent subject matter amongst his work i'd have to say david cronenberg. kinda goes without saying i love the commonly occurring subjects and themes across his filmography (bodily transformation, perversity, crossing boundaries between the physical and psychological, disgust and desire, disease, technology, etc. etc.) -- when i first was getting into his films something that i deeply appreciated and was really refreshing for me was the way that his films are first and foremost presenting ideas in a manner that is open for interpretation, and typically avoiding any sort of moral judgement upon what his characters are doing or events in a narrative. there's so many ideas he'll put forth in a given film and they're not being set upon the viewer as absolutes or indisputable truths but as ambiguous and complex ideas that are meant to be questioned! his sensibility about film in general in regards to high/low art and sex and violence in the movies and the nebulous nature of the horror genre and whatnot overlaps with my feelings pretty much completely. i think he's never really compromised his vision for the sake of popular appeal or monetary gain he just makes his weird little movies and some people love em and some people don't. i sure do. also he's clearly a fellow sick bitch who likes freak sex. make horror cinema erotic again long live the new flesh let's all crash our cars into each other

movie questions ask game

[elrics-inferno]

Selim Bradley's name has always struck me as out of place, and I just realized why. It's foreshadowing, and it's absolutely brilliant.

I consider Amestris to be mostly based on Germany (although I do see influence from other Western European nations) with the exception that its lore and alchemy are connected to ancient Persia. The main characters largely have Western European/German-sounding names, such as Edward, Alphonse, Hohenheim, Roy, and so forth, which makes sense considering the setting.

Except for Selim.

Selim Bradley is the only major character whose name is Arab-coded. As an Arabic speaker, I noticed this difference immediately, but I didn't think much of it. In Arabic, the word "selim" translates to intact, safe, undamaged. It's a common name, which is why it eluded my scrutiny.

When we meet Selim, he is all those things. Before we realize he is a homunculus, he is just a normal boy. A harmless, happy, normal boy, whose innocence appears whole and unblemished.

However, when Pride reveals himself, we see that the monster that lives inside Selim, that is Selim, is fragmented. Any innocence we thought he had as a child is completely shattered, along with whatever knowledge of his character we thought we had. As pride, Selim is literally made of dark, glass-shard-like shadows. In other words, he is the opposite of selim. Anything but intact, undamaged, and safe.

This serves three purposes in the narrative.

1. It sets Selim apart from the other homunculi. Because he is Arab-coded, it automatically gives him a stronger connection to the Persia-inspired lore of Amestris, and therefore a stronger connection to Father and Hohenheim's origin story. Pride was the first homunculus, the first one separated from the Dwarf in the Flask because it recognized its pride as the biggest threat to its plan to become "god." As Father's fatal flaw, he has the strongest bond to Father/the Dwarf in the Flask. It makes perfect sense that his human identity would bear that cultural connection in name and in design.

2. Selim, both in name and character, is foreign. Even if the viewer doesn't catch on to the Arabic meaning, any English speaker (or anyone familiar with English or Western European languages) can catch on to the fact that "Selim" does not sound like a European name. Even before we learn that he was "adopted" or that he is a homunculus, we feel like he doesn't belong there. The name alone has us questioning things before we know we should even be asking questions. This leads me into

3. Foreshadowing, but mostly in hindsight (unless your critical eye is sharper than Pride's knife tentacles). Apart from the uneasiness that his foreignness sparks, the subtle but brilliant irony of his name being Selim when he is concealing the broken, deadly mess that is Pride in the adorable, innocent body of a child becomes dramatic irony when we rewatch the show. And it's not just because we obviously know Selim is Pride while the characters don't yet, but because we are aware of a completely new layer of deception with the aforementioned details in mind. The meaning of his name is never brought up in the show, meaning that it's not just Selim/Pride who is deceiving us and the characters, it's Hiromu Arakawa. With just his name, Arakawa is telling us to trust this character. It's ok, it's safe. The same way Selim so easily deceives Ed, Al, and Roy--a disarming facade. All of this contributes to the horror of realizing that Selim Bradley, this cute little boy, is not cute, or little, or a boy. And if your critical eye really is as sharp as Pride's tentacles, then it is absolutely possible to put together the oddity of his name and the visual, more obvious hints dropped throughout the show, to figure out that Selim Bradley is not what he seems, and that he might even be connected to the homunculi.

To conclude, I am once again in awe of the storytelling master who is Hiromu Arakawa, but what's new? I have a feeling I'm going to be discovering ways in which I was fooled and didn't even notice for years to come.

[pale-silver-comb]

So I know absolutely nothing about Leverage except what I've been seeing you post lately and I have to admit you're making it look tempting to watch! Can I ask what are some of your favorite things about the show/reasons you would suggest people watch it? And is there really a poly relationship that is canon?

Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I am going to do my best not to just “asdfghkjl” at you and answer coherently.

In a nutshell, Leverage is about 5 people. 4 are criminals (Parker, Hardison, Eliot and Sophie) with different and unique skill-sets and 1 is an ex-insurance investigator (Nate) who, at one point or another in his career, has tracked down (or at least attempted to) the other 4. The whole show is essentially: man reluctantly reforms 4 criminals to use their criminal powers for good and 4 criminals move into man’s life and stubbornly refuse to leave because, goddammit, now they have morals. 

I’ve got a lot of favourite things about the show but the main ones are as follows:

1. Found family. And I’m not talking about loners who come together to fight crime and happen to co-exist to the point where they realise they happen to have found themselves a family. I mean, Nate and Sophie are the Drunk Uncle and Wine Aunt who somehow become Mom and Dad to 3 beautiful criminal children. Mom and Dad love their criminal babies and the kids love them (as well as each other, but we’ll come to that in a moment). You get amazing family moments such as: Mom and Dad packing the kids lunch before sending them out to kick corporate greed’s ass; Mom and Dad giving the kids ridiculously expensive and personal Christmas presents causing their most Grumpy Kid to go very very quiet and soft as he runs off to gleefully play with his new murder toy; the kids interrupting Mom and Dad’s big Movie Style Kiss to ask if they can please keep their new underground layer and huffing and puffing when Dad tells them no.

2. Found family: the OT3 edition. To answer your question, the OT3 is indeed canon, confirmed by the creator. Now, usually, “confirmed by the creator” infuriates me because most of the time it’s a way for a creator to be seen as “progressive” without doing anything to actually be progressive. That isn’t the case here. The OT3 are built up carefully and while it is obvious the creators didn’t originally intend for all 3 of them to become a relationship in the romantic sense, by mid-season 5 we are given a very clear picture of where Parker, Hardison and Eliot are heading in their relationship. There aren’t any kisses at the end to signal this but there are solid marriage vows in not only one but two episodes. (And by marriage vows I mean literal equivalents of marriage vows: “for better or worse” and “’til death do us part”. I’m not even exaggerating). The OT3 also doesn’t need explicit romantic narratives to convey how much they love each other. Their love is laced through the whole show, from the way they teach each other things to the way they respond to each other and work as a unit. The way they fiercely protect and admire each other. Like someone once said, if you need characters to kiss or say I love you to let the audience know they love each other, you are writing them wrong. 

Aside from that, each of the parings in the OT3 are just. Gah. They are so well done, with friendship being the solid basis for them all. The creators never expect the audience to assume anything about them or fill in the gaps. They give us their relationships on screen and reference many things off-screen to show us how these relationships continue to build in between episodes.

Hardison and Parker are a canon couple and date in the show: it’s approached slowly and they are so goddamned sweet. They are basically every fluffy slow-burn trope with a healthy dash of mutual pining in the mix. They are basically that quote “love is patient, love is kind”. (I would like to add their romance never becomes the focus of the show or overrides the importance of any other relationship they have with the other characters, especially Eliot.)

Hardison and Eliot are the Old Married Couple and from day one are already bickering and looking at each other/making comments that are found in every UST fic ever (not to mention Hardison has a very good knack for making Eliot grin like a little kid, when usually he’s basically an Angry Little Chef Man). They argue, they play, and love each other plain as day. 

Parker and Eliot are more subtle but every bit as wonderful. They have an unspoken connection and understand each other on a level no-one else can. Parker and Eliot are not good with giving themselves over to affection for different reasons (and Hardison plays a central role in helping them realise it’s okay to want it and have it- that boy has endless patience) but there is something so beautiful in the way the two of them come together on their own and develop their own special bond that works for them. Parker and Eliot are that trope where the characters don’t need to speak to understand each other perfectly. They just do. Their love language is a lot of the time non-verbal but speaks volumes. (Parker also likes to annoy the hell out of Eliot and Eliot....just.....lets...her. Because he’s soft. The softest, grumpiest boy.) 

I could go into so much depth for each pairing and their dynamics as a 3 but that's for another post.

3. Subverting stereotypes. There is the occasional hiccup in the show regarding stereotypes but ultimately, Leverage gets an A+ when it comes to writing characters and making them 3 dimensional people who are not defined by certain characteristics or events. Nate could so easily fall into the White Man Pain trope where he uses the trauma of losing his kid as a reason as to why he is entitled to act like a dick. Nate is a dick but he doesn’t use his pain to excuse it and I appreciate that. Hardison is a black man who is soft and nurturing. Easily the most empathetic and patient of the group. He’s nerdy, an actual genius, and has the biggest heart of all the characters. Nate is maybe the glue but Hardison is definitely the heart. Media’s usual aggressive, amongst other, racist stereotypes can fuck right off. Parker is canonically autistic (I am sure this was confirmed by one of the creators) and she is not defined by it. It’s not written as some kind of singular personality trait. It’s part of what makes up Parker but it’s only one facet of who she is and not once is her actions, thoughts or feelings treated like a joke. Sometimes people don’t understand why she does and says the things she does but it’s met with patience and fondness over the course of the show. Equally, it’s not met with over-caution. Parker is just Parker. No-one tries to change her. The other nice thing is Hardison, who always makes sure Parker knows she’s amazing because of who she is and not in spite of it. Finally, Sophie is in her 40s. She’s not treated like she’s past her prime. Ever. She’s sexy, smart and never is she pitted against or compared to Parker (who is younger) for anything. Sophie is amazing and there’s never even a conversation of “I may be older but I am still *insert adjective typically associated with younger women here*”. Sophie is possibly the first female character I’ve ever seen who isn’t just unapologetic about her age but has never had to apologise for her age. It’s a non-issue and that’s that. The women on the show are written so well, right down to secondary characters and it’s beyond refreshing.  

4.) It’s just fun. The show has a “monster of the week” type format. Except instead of a ghoul or a ghost, the monster is some corrupt wealthy and powerful individual or organisation. The show draws on real-life individuals to do this and therefore closely parallels real-life people and events. It addresses important political, economical, social and environmental issues while at the same time remaining fun and light-hearted. The characters constantly get the chance to play dress up and by GOD do they have fun with it. You get to watch Eliot beat up bad guys in the most delightful of ways, usually after a witty non-sequitur and with a weapon you’d never think could be a weapon. The dialogue and back and forth between the characters is everything. And finally - my favourite thing- the team can never resist striking a dramatic pose after they’ve taken down the bad guy, making sure the bad guy sees them. I mean, they COULD just walk away, satisfied they’ve taken the person down, but nope. They gotta be dramatic bitches 24/7 and pose like they are models for every single month of this year’s Criminal Calendar.  

5.) Competence Porn. So. Much. Competence Porn.  

Honestly, I could list a thousand reasons for why Leverage is amazing but to list them would to be spoiling so many amazing moments you’d get to discover for the first time on your own if you do choose to watch it. It’s the kind of show you can watch with an eagle-eye and sink your teeth into. But it’s also the kind of show if, you would prefer, put on in the background for something entertaining while you do something else. Each episode is about the job at hand but it’s made up of so many moments between the characters that show how much the creators and writers care about them. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll do whatever it is you do when something Soft and Wonderful happens that makes your heart melt. I am so beyond grateful for Leverage. It’s everything I always wanted in a show. Nearly every show I’ve watched in the past 10 years has disappointed me in some way, usually either because the writers run out of steam or characters who I love are treated poorly or given some kind of unnecessary “shock value” arc. Leverage doesn’t do that. Leverage is what it says on the bottle. Fandom isn’t something I joined because I needed canon fix-its. Fandom only enhances and celebrates an already excellent canon. 

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Book Review: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Emotional as well as suspenseful, Mad Honey is a buzzing beehive of a story with many separate yet interconnected pieces. Part teenage love story, part murder mystery, and part courtroom drama, it's a page-turner that swarms readers with compassion and empathy at the same time that it asks them to consider their own inner prejudices around a sensitive topic. Challenging them to learn to love people for who - instead of what - they are.

Told in dual perspective, the book follows Lily Campanello, an 18-year-old-girl who is navigating her first brush with love while also tackling her own sense of personal identity, and Olivia McAfee, a mother, a beekeeper, and a domestic abuse survivor whose son, Asher, has been arrested, accused of murdering his girlfriend. The narrative flits back and forth between the past and present, giving rise to a bevy of real world issues, obstacles, and complications. Not only are there delicate secrets revealed about the characters, but there are also poignant themes about depression, abuse, abandonment, judgment, and acceptance.

I was drawn in by the plot, by the characters. They were well-developed and dimensional, making it easy for me to connect to them. Whenever Lily was toiling over who she was, over whether or not she could share the most private personal parts of herself with Asher, so was I. Whenever Olivia was questioning her own son's guilt or innocence, terrified that he might be violent like his father, I was right there with her. I cannot count the number of times I was suspicious, skeptical, surprised. I cannot tell you how overcome I was with curiosity, with emotion.

There were so many times when all I could do was hold my breath...and wait. Just wait for whatever was going to unfold next.

This is absolutely a story designed to give readers pause, make them think. Force them to ask questions. It's tragic in a lot of ways, upsetting, too, but also moving. The twists are the sort that surprise, perhaps even astonish because of the way they come together one single thread at a time, but I have to admit I liked the sense of trepidation, doubt, and worry I carried with me the entire time I was reading. I didn't know where I was being lead but I knew I wanted to follow. I didn't know how the story would end, if things would conclude the way that I hoped or anticipated, only that I wouldn't put the book down until I finished--heart torn, still sticky with tension, from my chest.

A soul-stirring read, indeed! Seamless collaboration. Great social and psychological insight into difficult topics, too.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Random House, and Ballantine Books for the ARC in exchange for my review.

4/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

[rainsongmp3]

heaven as a bureaucracy is so fundamentally boring to me. angels are fundamentally inhuman, ethereal, incomprehensible being are you’re telling me that they work like a corporation?? corporations are a very human invention. it simply makes no sense for them to behave like one. also, if we’re talking about a God who has abandoned heaven, that makes the whole concept even more boring. they call God their Father, but act like he was their CEO?? no. God as an absent father is vastly more compelling. angels as a extremely fucked up celestial family is so very interesting. i want to know how daddy issues impacted a being of pure energy and light. i don’t care about how a CEO took an extended vacation. the CEO narrative is literally just ok the big boss is gone we just defer to the second in command until he comes back and we continue to function normally. the absent father narrative allows for nuanced and complex individuals. you get to examine how each angel deals with the void of a father and how this impacts their relationship with obedience, humanity, and faith.

in season 4 alone, we get zachariah, uriel, castiel, and anna who each have their own views and motivations. uriel sees God’s absence as proof that he never cared, never loved them (the angels or the humans) so he follows in lucifer’s footsteps. anna is doubtful and falls not because she has issues with The Absent Father, but because she doubts the chain of command without him. she wants love and emotion so she chooses to become human to find the things she was lacking as an angel. castiel has unwavering faith in The Absent Father throughout season 4. his doubt is in the chain of command and their purpose. but unlike anna, he doesn’t want to become human. he wants to watch over them and protect them as he believes his Father would’ve wanted. zachariah is so interesting in season 4 because he’s nothing like the other angels we’ve seen before. he doesn’t doubt. he doesn’t rebel. he arguably doesn’t even have faith. he doesn’t care that God is gone because that void leaves room for him. he puts michael into the Father/God position, but not out of faith or love. it’s out of an odd convergence of duty and lust of power.

in season 5, this becomes even more interesting because of the introduction of the archangels and cas’s continued rebellion. (i’m not going to get into how michael and lucifer are direct mirrors for sam and dean and how this correlates to the absent father parallels between God and john because that is an entirely separate deeply compelling topic.) michael is set forth as the good son, the good soldier who is entirely driven out of love and loyalty to a Father who abandoned him. he steps up to fill the void, but it’s not about power for him; it’s about duty. lucifer doesn’t experience The Absent Father, but his actions are all in direct response to his father. lucifer was the favorite. he had a real, close bond with God. according to him, he was cast out of heaven because he loved his father too much. it’s that rejection that drives him. he’s fundamentally a petulant child doing anything to get his daddy’s attention. his tantrums just involve a lot more bloodshed. gabriel, in my opinion, has the most interesting feelings about The Absent Father. gabriel loves his family very deeply and watches it be torn apart which just completely wrecks him. when lucifer falls, gabriel loses a brother who he still loves even if he hates his choices and actions. he loses a father presumably soon (for an angel) after that. (if jesus doesn’t exist in the supernatural universe at all, then it’s very possible that God leaves directly after lucifer falls. if jesus does exist, then God probably leaves very soon after jesus’s death and resurrection. but most likely, jesus exists in the supernatural universe, but he was never resurrected. this is another separate issue but it’s based on how salvation and sin is treated in the show. very compelling, but once again not what i’m supposed to be talking about.) all of this loss is so much for gabriel that he leaves. he does the exact same thing that was done to him. gabriel is an archangel. he’s powerful. he’s up there in all of this. and he leaves too. that is so interesting because it begs the question: did God do that too? gabriel runs away from responsibility and pretends that he just doesn’t like it, it’s not his style, but it’s really out of a very deep wound that never healed. he resents his Father for leaving and he resents that he’ll have to watch his brothers fight to the death and presumably pick a side. gabriel was the mediator who bailed. he runs always from his problems instead of dealing with them and ends up carrying all of his pain with him. he fills this up with sex and fun and booze and tricks and pretends to be happy. when he finally confronts his issues, he’s killed!! murdered by the brother he loves!! so maybe, abandoning your family is the only way to survive. we never get to see much of raphael’s views even though he’s a main antagonist in season 6. but we get a little of it in free to be you and me. out of all the archangels he’s the most removed from the idea of God. he truly believes that God is gone. he might be dead. he might not care. he might never come back. it doesn’t matter to raphael. God is gone so the archangels should be in charge and rule heaven and earth as they see fit. he wants the apocalypse, but not out of love or faith. for him, it’s just what should be done.

season 6 begins to move away from angels as a family and God is an absent father. it’s more political. heaven is engaged in a civil war while raphael and cas campaign for the ultimate political office. godstiel is very interesting in relation to God is an absent father. cas is put forth as a rebellious angel, yet he is also the most loyal to God’s intentions (love humans more than angels live Him). he originally wants nothing to do with power, but he eventually begrudgingly accepts it because he has faith in his beliefs and The Absent Father. then, absolute power corrupts absolutely. cas declares himself the New God. he demands the angels follow him and slaughters those who do not. he even takes it as far as to proclaim himself their Father. this character trajectory is influenced by cas’s views on fate vs free will, paranoia, and his relationship to God. this power hungry, possibly manic, walking blasphemy version of cas can’t exist without God as the absent father.

after season 6, we really lose the family dynamics feel of the angels. season 8 is espionage. season 9 is angel politics. the later seasons have heaven function as a bureaucracy with the occasional mention of the archangels as brothers. it’s also vastly more interesting for the angels as soldiers interpretation if they are also a very fucked up family. sibling order is taken literally and to the extreme. the older siblings command the younger siblings as superiors or commanders. the Father is sending his children off to fight wars in his name.

a lot of the nuance is lost in the bureaucratic heaven. it takes away from the complexity and otherworldliness that is supposedly inherent to angels.

[cannellaeluce]

I'm SO glad you watched (and liked) The Expanse. I discovered it by chance... ok, for Jared Harris reasons. And it stole my heart. Ok, mostly Camina Drummer did. Anyway, I finished it a few weeks ago and I'm still processing.

Since you've also watched Black Sails, I wanted to ask you: parallels? Maybe? Mostly Flint vs Drummer? (or actually, Nassau Vs the Belt) But somewhat opposite narratives? I don't even know if you could call them parallels or if it makes any sense to relate/compare the two shows. BUT the brainworms are real.

I can't really elaborate right now, so feel free to ignore this if it doesn't make sense 🤣 i just wanted to leave this here, just in case.

What a great ask! I feel like I'm gonna ramble a lot to get to my point, but I'll try and make your question justice =)

So, disclaimer: I adored The Expanse; I deeply deeply enjoyed it, and came to passionately care for its characters, so on so forth. But one thing that I learned the hard way is that it is better for me not to compare any show I like to Black Sails, because what that comparison ends up doing for me is usually to point out how incomparably good Black Sails is above anything else ever.

Now, does this mean that I didn’t think about possible comparisons between the two shows? Hell no. And I do believe that there is something good to be said there about the character work both shows made, both in terms of individual arcs – it could be argued that Camina is a Flint who’s been given Max’s arc – and in more general terms of how nuanced and thought-provoking and subtly progressive the characters in both shows are; how we’re allowed to explore the emotional backlash of every single choice they make; how their psychology feels grounded and real even through all the war and grief and loss they’re all constantly facing. And yet…

And yet, if I look at the overall philosophy of these shows, at their deeper meaning, at the deeper story they tell about the state of the world, I can’t help but feel that The Expanse is yet another narrative convinced that Civilisation is the good guy, and that in the dark there be dragons. There are physical incarnations of Civilisation that may be corrupt, sure: we spend the whole of the first seasons fighting them and outgrowing them. But in the end, the biggest enemy humanity has is a dragon born of darkness, and the best shot humanity has is to come together to fight for Civilisation, and against the dragon.

Now, do I blame the Expanse for this? Absolutely not; were it not for Black Sails, I would not think it possible to have any show articulate the revolutionary idea that there is freedom in the dark once we illuminate it. It’s Black Sails that sets the bar too high; the Expanse is thought-provoking and subtle and progressive in its own ways. I just think that those ways are better found in the character work. Which means that I’ll revel in the thought that the character of Naomi even exists: a marginalised woman who’s a brilliant engineer and who’s allowed by the narrative to put her own survival and shot at happiness before her motherhood, without it depriving her of her capacity for love. I’ll rejoice at thinking that we got a male hero such as Holden: a quiet, physically frail man whose strongest suit is his deep compassion for others and whose arc is fulfilled by him letting go of power. I’ll stand in awe in front of Camina Drummer, pirate queen extraordinaire, a marginalised queer woman who’s allowed to fight and love and lose and emerge from her all encompassing grief unbroken, unbent, unbowed, wielding unimaginable power with which to protect her people. And I could go on raving about Avasarala, the literal more powerful person in the universe being a woman of colour who so easily exudes authority and assertiveness through her every move that she could single-handedly end sexism and racism by the simple act of standing in a crowd and commanding it; or about Bobby Draper of my buddy Amos or anybody else, really.

These are the things that I’ll keep thinking about when I think about the Expanse. Whenever I’ll want to have my mind blown by the thought that we are many and they are few to fear death is a choice and they can’t hang us all – I’ll rewatch Black Sails.

[interact-if]

Day 2 of Pride Month interviews! You know them, you love them…. give it up for Ames!

Ames, author of Attollo and Metamorphosis

Pride Month Featured Authors

“…and it was a singular, terrible thought, which burrowed itself into your mind like an engorged maggot. This was not a man nor a monster. This was a concept, an ideology, a terrible myth, which had personified itself to stand before you now.You were, to put it simply, screwed.”

After several years of radio silence, you receive a message from your younger sibling that carries a strange sense of urgency to it. Either out of familial concern or boredom, you embark on a journey from your residence to your sibling’s apartment in New Hampshire to see what’s going on and, hopefully, be home before the weekend.

Too bad it’s never so simple.

Demo: Attollo, Metamorphosis (TBA)

Tags: cybernoir, thriller

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: Tell us a little bit about your project(s)!

Attollo is a cyber-noir horror set in a walled city off the coast of the Atlantic that’s been a victim of a nuclear disaster. After several years of radio silence, you receive a message from your younger sibling that carries a strange sense of urgency to it. Either out of familial concern or boredom, you embark on a journey from your residence to your sibling’s apartment in New Hampshire to see what’s going on and, hopefully, be home before the weekend. Too bad it’s never so simple. Attollo is a 17+ game that deals with heavy topics and a lot of moral questioning; from cults to corrupt government, it has no shortage of monsters in the dark—both metaphorical and literal.

Metamorphosis is a crime/horror story based in the world of crime scene cleanup, where there are three simple steps: Get the call, clean the scene, and don’t ask too many questions. These are the rules that you live by under the employment of Noctua’s Crime Scene Services, and you credit them for keeping you alive.

However, after a routine house call brings forth nightmares of memories that are not your own, you find yourself pulled deeper into Noctua—a city of both monster and man—in a bid to find out the truth behind the murder of Deirdre Callow, and better yet, how her memories came to be yours. Your job mandates that you don’t dig too deep—but could this finally be the exception?

Metamorphosis is 18+ and will have explicit content; follow the last moments of a stranger to find out not only who took her life, but how this connects to the underbelly that Noctua works so hard to hide.

Q2: Why interactive fiction? What drew you to the medium?

Lmaoo, oh man. I think it really all began last summer when I first found examples of interactive fiction. I don’t even remember how I came across it, it might’ve been that I saw it mentioned in a post or I saw it as a tag on Itch.io, but at some point, last summer I began to investigate it more. I think what really drew me in was the ability for the player to control the narrative; it was like playing an old RPG, but modernized, and the fact that I could see a story unfold that was influenced by my decisions was so fascinating to me. Not to mention that IF allows so much more character depth than regular novels, in my opinion.

I’m 99% sure my first exposure to interactive fiction was through the game Crème de la Crème (a fantastic game, by the way) and I just enjoyed it so much that I went haywire for the genre. Then Temple of the Endless Night came out (another fantastic game that I’m looking forward to!), and that was really the turning point for inspiring me to give it a go. Now, almost a year later, here I am working on my own two games!

Q3: Are your characters influenced by your identity? How?

My bisexuality doesn’t have much of a major influence on the game, but I do think it contributed to the way that I view and write relationships. I figured out my sexuality around high school (I kissed a girl in high school and found out I liked it just as much as when I kissed a boy) and since then I’ve been very involved in the LGBTQ+ community of both my hometown and uni town.

I think this involvement, like being able to hear about other people’s experiences and share my own, has made me feel a lot more comfortable writing some of the characters in the game. Although Attollo and Metamorphosis both don’t focus heavily on relationships (both have murder in them, which I feel is a bit more pressing), I do keep the option for any RO’s to be romanced by anyone, regardless of gender or preference, because that’s simply what I’ve become so attuned to. In terms of side characters relationships as well, I think my involvement and my own experiences have allowed me to write far more diverse relationships than I might have, and I think that this has also allowed a more fulfilling experience for players when reading through.

I also have incorporated some struggles that I’ve faced before because of my identity into the games. For example, I and a few others have faced issues with religion due to who we are, and I incorporate this into both games. Dreamwalker, Pariah, and Sysba from Attollo all have shadows of this experience in their character origins, and Ilali and Ariston from Metamorphosis has a major point involving identity and beliefs. Both games also have undertows of ostracization and division between groups, which is also something I’ve experienced in the past. Being able to grapple these moments and control them via a narrative has been eye opening for both myself and others involved, and I’m hoping it can be a learning experience for the readers as well.

Q4: What would you like to see more of in LGBT+ fiction?

I think, now, the amount of progress in LGBTQ+ fiction is expanding at a wonderful rate. There are so many interactive fictions with options to select sexuality, select gender, select beliefs, etc. However, despite this expansion, there’s still a good deal of backlash against some aspects of LGBTQ+ fiction.

For example, as a bisexual woman who has dated men, I know there are some individuals who may not consider me a part of the LGBTQ+ because of this aspect. Not only is this incredibly disheartening, but it’s a viewpoint that I think should be educated against, and fiction is a fantastic pathway to do this. Another example I can think of is a friend of mine who identifies as asexual but is sex-neutral rather than sex-repulsed. Most people can’t believe her when she says this, and she often faces backlash for this declaration as well. This is another thing that I think that, with exposure through a medium such as fiction, can be worked on.

What I’m trying to say here is that I think LGBTQ+ fiction can be a brilliantly educational platform—if used right. Although it already teaches so much with what it has, I think having that representation of different subgroups of sexuality, of their experiences and beliefs, so people can become aware and knowledgeable of these options, is something I’d like to see more of.

Q5: What or who are some of your biggest inspirations?

Oh man, I struggled to list off inspirations because I know I have some, but as soon as someone asks me who they are my brain just goes ‘brrrrrr’ LMAO.

In terms of the games that I write and the worlds that I build, I think David Lynch and Robert Chambers are probably the two that I somehow incorporate. Attollo and Metamorphosis both have a lot of surrealist horror, which are what these two really specialized in. Shirley Jackson is also another person who inspired me a lot when it came to the writing and creation of Attollo, especially the intrapersonal relationships between the characters.

In terms of life, this is something else I really struggle to answer. I don’t really have celebrity inspirations or anything like that, but I do get inspired by my close friends and sister a lot. Seeing them go through the struggles that they face and absolutely thrive really drives me to push through my own struggles. They’re the strongest, most brilliant group of people that I know, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I can be a part of their lives. Not only that, but we also all collectively encourage each other to push further and to chase our dreams (as cheesy as that is LMAO) and that’s something that I think is another stroke of good fortune. I struck gold when I met them, and they’re some of the biggest inspirations in my life.

Q6: What’s a super vague spoiler for your current project?

For Attollo, I’d say ‘Home is where the heart is.’ For Metamorphosis, to quote John Berendt, ‘Always stick around for one more drink.’

Q7: Lastly, what advice would you give to your readers?

What advice would I give to you all? Oh my, I’m not exactly a wise woman here, but I’ll do my best to give you something lmaooo. I think what I really want you to walk away with, from both my stories and this interview, is that if you’re passionate about something, then share it with the world. Don’t let anyone deter your passion.

I remember listening to this painter once who commented to his friend how he ‘really liked painting’, and his friend’s first response was ‘but are you good at it?’. He then compared this to the scenario of walking; would you say, ‘but are you good at it?’ to someone who said, ‘I really like walking’? No, because it simply wouldn’t make sense, and it doesn’t make sense to say that to anyone who’s doing something out of passion.

To put it simply—if you love something, then don’t let anyone take that passion from you. I began writing these stories because I’m passionate about Attollo and Metamorphosis; I love each character, each bit of lore, and I share it with you because I want you all to enjoy it as well. Am I the best writer? God, no. Does everyone like what I write? Definitely not. But will I let this stop me from writing, from enjoying what I’m doing? Never, and I want you to do the same.

Explore your passions, embrace your passions, and let what makes you happy continue to do so

[whetstonefires]

In a Pride and Prejudice au of Naruto where the Uchiha are the Bennetts and Itachi is Jane and Itachi-Jane Uchiha-Bennett ends up killing Mr and Mrs Bennett to protect them, what would that be? I've never read P&P, so I wouldn't know. Regardless of plot/narrative of either, which Naruto characters would be which P&P characters in your opinion?

Oh my god?? Oh my god. I'm. I know this was technically my idea to begin with but I'm still dying. I put it forth specifically as something impossibly dissonant.

Okay. I can't handle these as two separate questions so I'm gonna just.

Start from Itachi-Jane. Hm. There is...no reasonable force in the narrative of Pride and Prejudice that would lead to this outcome. Itachi doing it required the combination of his having been raised as a child soldier with a strong background in assassination and a very specific political climate, plus two separate layers of scheming old man plot. Polite society in Regency England is just not going to put a gentleman's daughter in that kind of position.

And while the Bennets aren't great parents, there's nothing they could reasonably do to make it a necessary decision. In fact one of the driving tensions in the whole story is that legally speaking when Mr. Bennet dies his wife and daughters will instantly become homeless, because his estate is entailed to a male heir. This is why they have five daughters and haven't done right by them; the entire plan was to have a son and when that fell through Mr. Bennet was kinda like WELL SHRUG I GUESS.

So Jane like, martyring herself to keep her dad alive so her mother and sisters will be safe is more the kind of thing you'd get if you escalated Pride & Prejudice into the melodramatic violence kind of plot Austen so pointedly eschewed.

Jane Bennet as the Uchiha heir and she's ANBU captain at 13 and everything but still Jane is screamingly funny. Also terrifying. Imagine this middle school student fussing over her four younger sisters and insisting everyone is actually a good person somehow and there must have been a tragic misunderstanding, and then she goes to work and cuts a bunch of throats. This person is coasting even harder for total mental breakdown than Itachi.

Casting Naruto characters into P&P--okay, step one, starting from the established point of contact Sasuke and Shisui are in competition for Elizabeth. Janetachi's younger sibling who she's most loyal to and the Main Character, but also her nearest confidant and support.

Logically Bingley must be played by Kisame, as Itachi's partner with whom he was on relatively good terms, after leaving home. Soft himbo Kisame coming up? It's not the worst casting tbh they're both very honest people. Shark Bingley. Itachi/Kisame by default. I'm sure they'll be very happy?

I...how do I cast Darcy. I mean obviously it depends on who's Elizabeth. Can I make Elizabeth Sasuke just so Darcy can be Sakura, on the basis that technically she's his canon love interest and that's the funniest casting I have thought of so far?

Sakura being from a Grand Old Family that looks down on Sasuke's is too weird tho. And there are no Senjus of their generation really I can arbitrarily ship Shisui with. Oh now I want to stick Tobirama in there, he's got the same 'lordly attitude of maximum social awkwardness and genuinely looking down on you' deal. Although then we risk replacing 'your inferior connections' with the whole. Feud thing.

This is terrible. 😆🍻 There is no way to do this that makes sense.

Okay Tsunade as Sakura's horrible aunt would be great though. Obviously very different energies from Lady Catherine, but. Family feud canceled, Senju Sakura is go--this is totally unreadable, nobody write this, please--

Did I just make Ino be Mr. Collins.

Do I have to make Obito be Wickham. No. Absolutely no.

Help.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🌻