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ninja-muse · 4 years ago

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i’m trying to branch out and read outside my genre (fantasy) do you have any book recs for someone whose heart is in fantasy but needs to see what else is out there?

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask! Fantasy’s such a wide genre, and this is such an open ask, that I’m mostly going to be recommending books with similar feels or themes from other genres, to push you a little outside the fantasy bubble and introducing you to different genres and types of storytelling. If you have a favourite subgenre or trope or author, I can maybe get a little more specific or offer read-alikes.

Also, I don’t know if you knew this before asking, but fantasy is my favourite genre too, so some of these recs are books that pushed me out of the genre as well, or that I found familiar-but-different.

And this is getting long, so I’m going to throw it under a cut to save everyone scrolling.

Science fiction

the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - This is space opera, which means it’ll have fairly familiar plots except with science-y things instead of magic. There’s an heir with something to prove, heists, cons, and mysteries, attempted coups and assassinations, long-suffering sidekicks, and a homeworld that’s basically turn-of-the-century Russia but with fewer serfs. It was one of the first adult sci-fi books I read and genuinely liked.

The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey - I finished this recently, and the second book of the trilogy just came out. This is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but not grim or particularly complex. (Some SF gets really into the nuts and bolts of the science elements; this isn’t that.) Basically, Koli’s a teenager who wants more than his quasi-medieval life’s given him, and finds himself in conflict with his village (and then exile) because of it. I could see where the story was going pretty much from the start, but I loved the journey anyway.

The Martian by Andy Weir - This doesn’t have much in common with fantasy, but it’s my go-to rec for anyone who’s never read science fiction before, because it’s funny, explains the science well, and has a hero and a plot you get behind right away. In case you haven’t heard of it (or the film), it’s about an astronaut stranded on Mars, trying to survive long enough to be rescued.

Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh - This is an alien first contact story, about a colony of humans in permanent quarantine on an alien planet. The MC is the sole social liaison and translator, explaining his culture to the aliens and the aliens to the human, and working to keep the peace—until politics and assassins get involved. It’s been over a decade since I read this, so my memory’s blurred, but I remember the same sort of political intrigue vibes as the Daevabad trilogy, just with fewer POVs.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor - One from my TBR. It looks like dark fiction about women, outcasts, and revenge, which sounds very fantastic and the MC can apparently do magic—but it’s post-apocalyptic Africa.

Speaking of political intrigue and sweeping epic plots, the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has both in spades. Rebellions, alien technology, corrupt businesses, heroes doing good things and getting bad consequences, all that good stuff. It takes the science fairly seriously, without getting very dense with it, and will probably register as “more sci-fi” than my recs in the genre so far.

Oh, and Dune by Frank Herbert is such a classic chosen-one epic that it barely registers as science fiction at all.

Graphic novels

It’s technically fantasy, but assuming you’ve never picked up a graphic novel before, you should read Monstress by Marjorie Liu. Asian-inspired, with steampunk aesthetics, and rebellions and quests and so many female characters. It’s an absolutely fantastic graphic novel, if you want a taste of what those can do.

I’d highly recommend Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. It’s an epic science fiction story about a family caught between sides of a centuries-long war. (Dad’s from one side, Mom’s from the other, everyone wants to capture them, their kid is narrating.) It’s a blast to read, exciting and tense, with hard questions and gorgeous tender moments, and the world-building somehow manages to include weaponized magic, spaceship trees, ghosts, half-spider assassins, and all-important pulp romance novels without anything feeling out of place.

Historical fiction

Hild by Nicola Griffith - Very rich and detailed novel following a girl growing up in an early medieval English court. It’s very fantasy-esque, with battles and politics and changes of religion, and Hild gets positioned early on to be the king’s seer, so there’s “magic” of a sort as well.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry - A widow goes to the Victorian seaside to heal and reawaken her interest in biology. Slow, gentle, lovely writing and atmosphere, interesting characters and turns of plot. Doesn’t actually deliver on the sea monster, but still has a lot to recommend it to fantasy readers, I think.

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin - The late-medieval Jewish pirate adventure you didn’t know you wanted. It’s funny and literary, full of tropes and set pieces like “small-town kid in the big city” and “jail break”, and features the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus, the Fountain of Youth, and talking parrots, among other things.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - A thousand pages about the building of a cathedral in England, mostly focusing on the master builder, the monk who spearheads the project, and a noblewoman who’s been kicked off her family’s land, but has several other plots going on, including a deacon with political ambitions, a war, and a boy who’s trying so hard to fit in and do right.

Sharon Kay Penman - This is an author on my TBR, who comes highly recommended for her novels about the War of the Roses and the Plantagenets. Should appeal to you if you liked Game of Thrones. I’m planning to start with The Sunne in Splendour.

Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - Either a Robin Hood retelling that’s also a romance, or a romance that’s also a Robin Hood retelling.

Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O’Farrell - A novel of the Shakespeare family, mostly focused on his wife and son. Lovely writing and a very gentle feel though it heads into dark and complex subjects fairly often. A good portrait of Early Modern family life.

Mystery

There’s not a lot of mystery that reads like high, epic, or even contemporary fantasy, but if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, which is basically mystery with magic in, then I’d rec:

Cozy mysteries as a general subgenre, especially if you like the Sookie Stackhouse end of urban fantasy, which has romance and quirky plots; there are plenty of series where the detective’s a witch or the sidekick’s a ghost but they’re solving non-magical mysteries, and the genre in general full of heroines who are good at solving crimes without formal training, and the plots feel very similar but with slightly lower stakes. Cozies have become one of my comfort-reading genres (along with UF) the last few years. My intros were the Royal Spyness novels by Rhys Bowen and the Fairy Tale Fatale books by Maia Chance.

If you like your urban fantasy darker and more serious, and your heroines more complicated, try Kathy Reichs and her Temperance Brennan novels. Brennan’s a forensic anthropologist, strong and complicated in the same ways of my fave UF heroines, and the mysteries are already interesting, with a good dash of thriller and a smidge of romance.

Two other recs:

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart - The first of four books about a forensic anthropologist in Ireland, who’s called in when the Garda find bodies in the peat bogs and need to know how long they’ve been there. They’re very atmospheric—I can almost smell the bog—and give great portraits of rural Ireland and small-town secrets, and since not all the bodies found in each book are recent, they also bring interesting slices of the past to life as well.

A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger - This is essentially a medieval thriller about a seditious book that’s turned up in London. I liked the mystery in it and that it’s much more focused on the lives of average people than the rich and famous (for all that recognizable people also show up).

Classics

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - I swear this is actually one of the first fantasy novels but few people ever really class it as such. Basically, Gulliver’s a ship’s doctor who keeps getting shipwrecked—in a country of tiny people, a country of giants, a country of mad scientists, a country of talking horses, etc. It’s social satire and a spoof of travelogues from Swift’s time, but it’s easily enough read without that context.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Another, slightly later, fantasy and satire! Even more amusing situations than in Gulliver’s Travels and, while it’s been a while* since I read it, I think it’ll be a decent read-alike for authors like Jasper Fforde, Genevieve Cogman, and that brand of light British comic fantasy.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - Also technically a fantasy! I mean, there are fairies and enchantments, for all it’s a romantic comedy written entirely in old-fashioned poetry. It’s a pretty good play to start you off on Shakespeare, if you’re interested in going that direction.

On the subject of Shakespeare, I would also recommend Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and King Lear, the first because it’s my favourite comedy, the others because they’re fantasy read-alikes imo as well (witches! coups! drama!).

the Arthurian mythos. Le Morte D’arthur, Crétien de Troyes, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, etc. - I’ve read bits and pieces of the first two, am about 80% sure I read the third as a kid (or at least The Sword in the Stone), and have the last on my TBR. Basically, these stories are going to give you an exaggeratedly medieval setting, knights, quests, wizards, fairies, high drama, romantic entanglements, and monsters, and the medieval ones especially have different kinds of plots than you’ll be used to (and maybe open the door to more medieval lit?) **

Beowulf and/or The Odyssey - Two epics that inspired a lot of fiction that came later. (There’s an especial connection between Beowulf and Tolkien.) They’re not the easiest of reads because they’re in poetry and non-linear narratives, but both have a hero facing off against a series of monsters and/or magical creatures as their core story.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The first real science fiction novel. It’s about the ethics of science and the consequences of one’s actions, and I loved seeing the Creature find himself and Frankenstein descend into … that. It’s also full of sweeping, gothic scenes and tension and doom and drama.

* 25 years, give or take

** There are plenty of more recent people using King Arthur and associated characters too, if this "subgenre” interests you.

Other fiction

Vicious by V.E. Schwab - I don’t know if you classify superheroes as science fiction or fantasy or its own genre (for me it depends on the day) but this is an excellent take on the subject, full of moral greyness and revenge.

David Mitchell - A literary fiction writer who has both a sense of humour and an interest in the fantastic and science fictional. He writes ordinary people and average lives marvelously well, keeps me turning pages, plays with form and timelines, and reliably throws in either recurring, possibly-immortal characters, good-vs-evil psychic battles, or other SF/F-y elements. I’d start with either Slade House, a ghost story, or Utopia Avenue, about a ‘60s rock band. Or possible The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I fully admit to not having read yet.

Devolution by Max Brooks - A horror movie in book form, full of tension and desperation and jump scares and the problems with relying on modern technology. The monsters are Bigfeet. Reccing this one in the same way I’m reccing The Martian—it’s an accessible intro to its genre.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson - Contemporary fiction with a slight literary bent, that doesn’t pull its punches about Indigenous life but also has a sense of humour about the same. Follows a teen dealing with poverty and a bad home life and drugs and hormones—and the fact that his bio-dad might actually be the trickster Raven. Also features witches, magic, and other spirit-beings, so I generally pitch this as magic realism.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones - Another Indigenous rec, this time a horror novel about ghosts and racism and trying to do the right thing. This’ll give you a taste of the more psychological end of the horror spectrum.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia - A good example of contemporary YA and how it handles the complexities of life, love, and growing up. Follows the writer of a fantasy webcomic who makes a friend who turns out to write fic of her story and who suddenly has to really balance online and offline life, among other pressures. Realistic portrait of mental health problems.

Non-fiction

The Book of Margery Kempe - The first English-language autobiography. Margery was very devout but also very badass, in a medieval sort of way. She went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was possibly epileptic, frequently “saw” Christ and Mary and demons, basically became a nun in middle age while staying married to her husband, and wound up on trial for heresy, before talking a monk into writing down her life story. It’s a fascinating window into the time period.

The Hammer and the Cross by Robert Ferguson - A history of medieval Norse people and how their explorations and trade shaped both their culture and the world.

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor - Travel writing that was recommended to me by someone who raved about the prose and was totally right. Fermor’s looking back, with the aid of journals, on a walking trip he took across Europe in the 1930s. It’s a fascinating look at the era and an old way of life, and pretty much every “entry” has something of interest in it. He met all sorts of people.

Tim Severin and/or Thor Heyerdahl - More travel writing, this time by people recreating historical voyages (or what they believe to be historical voyages, ymmv) in period ships. Severin focuses on mythology (I’ve read The Ulysses Voyage and The Jason Voyage) and Heyerdahl’s known for Kon-Tiki, which is him “proving” that Polynesians made contact with South America. They both go into the history of the sailing and areas they’re travelling through, while also describing their surroundings and daily life, and, yes, running into storms and things.

Hope this helps you!

#bookblr #booklr #fantasy #read-alikes #answered asks #book recommendations #rec lists

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lizabethstucker · 4 years ago

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The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe edited by Josh Pachter

Subtitled: Parodies and Pastiches Featuring the Great Detective of West 35th Street

I loved this collection of stories, with only a few exceptions. Overall, I would give it 4.5 out of 5.

Introductions: Trouble in Triplicate

“At Wolfe’s Door” by Otto Penzler ~ about the characters.

“A Family Affair” by Rebecca Stout Bradbury ~ Rex Stout’s daughter provides a peek at the author.

“Plot It Yourself” by Josh Pachter ~ how the collection came to be.

Pastiches (Respectful imitations of the original works)

“The Red Orchid” by Thomas Narcejac

Translated from French, the story was written in 1947. The first English publication wasn’t until 1961. A young woman comes to hire Wolfe to discover who is trying to kill her uncle, a man who claims to have developed a red orchid. More creepy than respectful, especially how Archie hits on the female client. Too offensive for me. DNF

“Chapter 8 from ‘Murder in Pastiche’” by Marion Mainwaining

Published in 1955, this novel can also be found under the title of “Nine Detectives All at Sea”. A notorious gossip columnist is murdered during a sea cruise across the Atlantic. There are nine famous detectives on the ship as passengers. Trajan Beare, aka Nero Wolfe, is the focus of this particular chapter. It is hard to judge the whole book based on just one chapter. However, the characterization should be noted as being extremely close to the original source material. A nice read. No rating as it is just an excerpt.

“The Archie Hunters” by Jon L. Breen

Written in 1968, but never published until now. A cross of Nero Wolfe and Mike Hammer. Mock Himmler beats the crap out of anyone he encounters, particularly if they disagree with him or do something he doesn’t like. After beating up a news seller for carrying a “commie” magazine, Mock discovers an ad in the back requesting a private investigator for a missing person case. The ad, placed by Nero Wolfe, leads Mock to presume the missing person is Archie Goodwin. I’ve never been a fan of Mike Hammer nor his creator, Mickey Spillane, finding both of them to be disgusting in their love of violence, misogyny, and attitudes in general. I did enjoy this story nonetheless. 4 out of 5

“The Frightened Man” by O. X. Rusett

Gave up early on this anagram-stuffed story, even to the author’s name. More annoying than clever or cute. DNF

“Chapter 1 from ‘Murder in E Minor’” by Robert Goldsborough

I read the whole book when it was first published and, frankly, wasn’t too impressed. I do know that Goldsborough was selected by the Stout Estate to be the official author of the novels and I have read a few of his more recent books. I may try and reread it sometime down the road to see if my opinion has changed. No rating as it is only one chapter.

“The Purloined Platypus” by Marvin Kaye

While Goldsborough has the exclusive novel rights, Kaye asked to write short stories and was given the Estate’s permission as long as no novels were ever written. Benjamin Moultrie, president and board chairman of the Museum of the Strange, Odd and Peculiar, wants to hire Wolfe to investigate a robbery at the museum. As I wasn’t reading the magazines such as Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock, I missed reading any of these stories. Which is quite a tragedy. Excellent portrayals of not only the characters, but the case itself. 4 out of 5.

Parodies (Exaggerated imitations intended to poke fun at the source material)

“The House on 35th Street” by Frank Littler

Originally appeared in The Saturday Review in 1966. Little is known about the author, despite Pachter’s research attempts. A crowd is assembled in the Brownstone in a murder case, wanting to see some of the detective’s famous actions and quirks. There is an undercurrent of a very personal nature, especially at the end. 3.5 out of 5

“The Sidekick Case” by Patrick Butler

Another entry from The Saturday Review, this time in 1968, and another case of little information on the author. Wolfe objects to Archie being called a “sidekick” in a listing of the latest book. Cute. 3.5 out of 5

“The Case of the Disposable Jalopy” by Mack Reynolds

America has turned into an illiterate welfare state, Wolfe and Archie are old and sometimes forgetful, and things are beyond tight financially. Reynolds uses the last names of some of the biggest authors in Science Fiction in the story. These men want to hire Wolfe for a case of sabotage and the disappearance of a key developer. What a weird world Reynolds has built. As to the updates on the normal cast of characters in the series? Well, I never liked Orrie anyway. 4 out of 5

“As Dark as Christmas Gets” by Lawrence Block

An unpublished manuscript written by Cornell Woolrich is stolen during a Christmas party. The owner hires Wolfe wannabe Leo Haig and his Goodwin substitute, Chip Harrison, to recover it. I’ve come across stories in this series before and loved them, both for the obvious affection for the source material as well as the excellent characterization. 4.5 out of 5

“Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe?” by Loren D. Estleman

Arnie Woodbine, currently on parole, was fired from his last job for gambling on company time. He needs a job and finds an ad looking for an assistant sharp of wit. He finds himself hired by Claudius Lyon, a corpulent man with delusions of being Nero Wolfe. Arnie is hired as his Archie. Now all they need is a case. Since Lyon doesn’t have a private detective license and Arnie’s felony record prevents him from ever getting one, they would not be able to charge for their services. No problem as Lyon is actually quite wealthy. Their first case is regarding a poetry award that carries with it a $10,000 prize. One winner doesn’t appear to actually exist. Seriously one of the best sendups that I’ve ever read! This was a delight to read and deserved more stories. 4.5 out of 5.

“Julius Katz and the Case of Exploding Wine” by Dave Zeltserman

A friend of Julius’ that has a champion bulldog and heads a dog food company comes to see Julius with the dog in tow, asking for help to find someone to prevent Brutus from being kidnapped. He also asks that Julius find his murderer if he’s killed. Sure enough, the man is killed. Julius had agreed to investigate, but only after he gave the police a week to solve it themselves. Just as the week is up, an adversary calls to warn Julius that there is a bomb in his house, contained in a box of wine. Julius allows almost everyone to believe he is dead after the townhouse is completely destroyed from top to bottom. I absolutely loved this sorta tribute to Rex Stout. I’m particularly intrigued by Archie, an AI who is installed in Julius’ tie pin. That alone has me eyeing the book collections, but to be honest, this is a damn fine mystery. Julius is definitely not Nero Wolfe, at least in size, athleticism (martial arts), and loving women (a former womanizer who now has a regular girlfriend). He definitely is in the aspects of intelligence, laziness, and cutting Archie out of the loop. His collecting focus is wine rather than orchids, but both can be very expensive hobbies. 4.5 out of 5.

“The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo” by Michael Bracken

Age and diet are catching up to Tiberius Dingo’s body, but his mind and deductive reasoning is still as sharp as ever. His long-time assistant, Jughead Badloss, brings a client he dances with at the Senior Center, a woman who is certain she is being stalked. Family ties and age-old secrets are ripped out into the open before the case is done, for their client and for Jughead himself. The names are a little lame, but the story made up for it. 3.5 out of 5.

Potpourri

“The Woman Who Read Rex Stout” by William Brittain

Gertrude Jellison was the fat lady at a carnival sideshow, an intelligent woman whose extreme weight, over 500 pounds, kept her from her dream job of teaching psychology. Her partner, Robert Kirby, is the thin man, barely weighing seventy-five pounds. As a stunt, the carnival boss gave her Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books to read during the shows. Surprisingly enough, Gert loved them and continued reading. She never expected to use what she learned to solve a murder, but sadly a newer member of the troup, a beautiful woman named Lili who was like a daughter to Gert, is murdered and the older woman knows she can solve the crime. This is a character that I could seriously have loved to read more about. A good little mystery as well, even if I quickly realized who the murderer would turn out to be. 3.5 out of 5.

“Sam Buried Caesar” by Josh Pachter

Police inspector Griffen had eleven children, each of whom was named after a famous fictional detective. Nero, just eleven years old, had set up his own detective agency, aided by his best friend and neighbor Artie Goodman. Their latest client, Sam, came to them after his dog, Caesar, was hit and killed by an out-of-state driver. Not wanting the poor animal to be left coldly abandoned on the street, he buried the dog in an empty lot. Coming back a short time later to get Caesar’s collar, the body is missing. He hires Nero and Artie to find the killer and recover the body. Sad and cute and inventive, but how Artie puts up with Nero will always be a mystery. 3.5 out of 5.

“Chapter 24 from Rasputin’s Revenge” by John Lescroart

The basic premise is that Nero Wolfe is the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. I’ve not read this particular book, but it appears to be the last chapter in which Archie and Wolfe, going under his original name, are in Russia, appeared to have come up against Gregori Rasputin (although the author has it as Gregory), and was helped by Holmes and Dr. Watson after they were wanted for murder. I’m not going to rate it as I don’t consider it fair to rate a novel based on just one chapter.

“A scene from Might as Well Be Dead” by Joseph Goodrich

Adaptation of the story into a play. Once again, not rated.

“The Damned Doorbell Rang” by Robert Lopresti

When their fourteen granddaughter came to visit in a snit because her parents won’t allow her to go with friends to a concert in New York City, Eve and Jack decide to tell her about why they left the City. When they were younger, they had a brownstone in the City. Their neighbors were definitely different, all men living there. Jack didn’t much like any of them and keeps disparaging Eve’s stories about what they saw while living there. But Eve tells a tale of how she saved the men’s lives. Too many close calls are the reason that they moved to New Jersey. How could I not love this outsider’s look at Nero Wolfe? 3.5 out of 5.

#book review #Nero Wolfe #collection #The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe #Josh Pachter #mystery #short stories

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ducktastic · 4 years ago

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2020 Gameological Awards

Over on the Gameological Discord, we have an annual tradition of writing up our games of the year not as a ranked list but rather as answers to a series of prompts. Here are my personal choices for the year that was 2020.

Favorite Game of the Year

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into Paradise Killer. I knew that I liked the vaporwave resort aesthetic from the game’s trailer and figured I was in for a Danganronpa-style murder mystery visual novel with an open-ended murder mystery at its core. Those assumptions were… half-right? The game definitely plays out like the exploration bits of Danganronpa set on the island from Myst but with far simpler puzzles. What I didn’t expect was to fall so deeply in love with the environment—its nooks and crannies, its millennia of lore, its brutalist overlap of idol worship, consumerism, and mass slaughter. It makes sense that the world of Paradise Killer is its strongest feature, since the cast of NPCs don’t really move around, leaving you alone with the world for the overwhelming majority of your experience as you bounce back and forth between digging around for clues and interrogating potential witnesses. And despite what the promo materials indicated, there IS a definitive solution to the crimes you’re brought in to investigate, the game just lets you make judgment based on whatever evidence you have at the time you’re ready to call it a day, so if you’re missing crucial evidence you might just make a compelling enough case for the wrong person and condemn them to eternal nonexistence. Am I happy with the truth at the end of the day? No, and neither is anybody else I’ve spoken to who completed the game, but we all were also completely enthralled the entire time and our dissatisfaction has less to do with the game and more to do with the ugly reality of humanity. I’ve always been of the mindset that “spoilers” are absolute garbage and that a story should be just as good whether you know the twist or not and any story that relies on surprising the audience with an unexpected reveal is not actually that good a story, but Paradise Killer is a game about piecing together your own version of events so I feel that it’s vital to the gameplay experience that people go in knowing as little as possible and gush all about it afterwards. Just trust me, if the game looks even remotely intriguing to you, go for it. I’ve had just as much fun talking about the game after I finished it with friends just getting started as I did actually solving its mysteries myself.

Best Single Player Game

I honestly missed out on the buzz for In Other Waters at launch, so I’m happy I had friends online talking it up as Black Friday sales were coming along. The minimal aesthetic of his underwater exploration game allows the focus to shift more naturally to the game’s stellar writing as a lone scientist goes off in search of her mentor and the secrets they were hiding on an alien world. It only took a few hours for me to become completely absorbed in this narrative and keep pushing forward into increasingly dangerous waters. In Other Waters might just be the best sci-fi story I experienced all year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi novels, regardless of their experience with video games.

Best Multiplayer Game

Look, we all know this year sucked. 2020 will absolutely be chronicled in history books as a fascinating and deeply depressing time in modern history where we all stayed inside by ourselves and missed our friends and family. It was lonely and it was bleak. Which is why it made my heart glow so much more warmly every time I got a letter from an honest-to-goodness real-life friend in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Knowing that they were playing the same game I was and hearing about their experiences and sending each other wacky hats or furniture, it lightened the days and made us feel that little bit more connected. Sure, when the game first launched we would actually take the time to visit one another’s islands, hang out, chat in real-time, and exchange gifts, but we all eventually got busy with Zoom calls, sourdough starters, and watching Birds of Prey twenty-two times. Still, sending letters was enough. It was and still is a touching little way to show that we’re here for one another, if not at the exact same time.

Favorite Ongoing Game

Zach Gage is one of my favorite game designers right now, and when I heard he was releasing a game called Good Sudoku I was sold sight unseen. The game as released was… fine. It’s sudoku and it’s pleasant, but it was also buggy and overheated my phone in a way I hadn’t seen since Ridiculous Fishing (also by Zach Gage) seven years ago. Thankfully, the most glaring bugs have been fixed and I can now enjoy popping in every day for some quick logic puzzle goodness. Daily ranked leaderboards keep me coming back again and again, the steady ramp of difficulty in the arcade and eternal modes means I can always chase the next dopamine rush of solving increasingly complex puzzles. It’s not a traditional “ongoing” game the way, say, Fortnite and Destiny are, but I’m happy to come back every day for sudoku goodness.

Didn't Click For Me

With Fortnite progressively losing me over the course of 2020, finalizing with my wholesale “never again” stance after Epic boss Tim Sweeney compared Fortnite demanding more money from Apple to the American Civil Rights movement (no, absolutely not), I dipped my toe into a number of new “battle pass”-style online arena types of games, and while Genshin Impact eventually got its hooks into me, Spellbreak absolutely did not. With graphics straight out of The Dragon Prince and the promise of a wide variety of magic combat skills to make your character your own, the game seemed awfully tempting, but my first few experiences were aimless and joyless, with no moment of clarity to make me understand why I should keep coming back. Maybe they’ll finesse the game some more in 2021, or a bunch of my friends will get hooked and lure me back, but for now I am a-okay deleting this waste of space on my Switch and PC.

"Oh Yeah, I Did Play That Didn't I?"

I remember being really excited for Murder By Numbers. Ace Attorney-style crime scene investigation visual novel with Picross puzzles for the evidence, art by the creators of Hatoful Boyfriend, and music by the composer of Ace Attorney itself?! Sounds like a dream come true. But the pixel-hunt nature of the crime scene investigations was more frustrating than fun, the picross puzzles were not particularly great, and the game came out literally a week before the entire world went into lockdown which makes it feel more like seven years ago than just earlier this year. I remember being marginally charmed by the game once it was in my hands, but as soon as my mind shifted to long-term self care, Murder By Numbers went from hot topic to cold case.

Most Unexpected Joy

I was looking forward to Fuser all year. As a dyed-in-the-wool DropMix stan, the prospect of a spiritual sequel to DropMix on all major digital platforms without any of the analogue components was tremendously exciting, and I knew I’d have a lot of fun making mixes by myself and posting them online for the world to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was the online co-op mode to be such a blast! Up to four players take turns making 32 bars of mashups, starting with whatever the player before handed them and adding their own fingerprints on top. It sounds like it should just be a mess of cacophony, but every session I’ve played so far has been just the best dance party I’ve had all year, and everyone not currently in control of the decks (including an audience of spectators) can make special requests for what the DJ should spin and tap along with the beat to great super-sized emoji to show how much they’re enjoying the mix. Literally the only times my Apple Watch has ever warned me of my heightened heart rate have been the times I was positively bouncing in place rocking out to co-op freestyle play in Fuser.

Best Music

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Only one video game this year had tunes that were so bumpable they were upgraded to my general “2020 jams” playlist alongside Jeff Rosenstock, Run the Jewels, and Phoebe Bridgers, and that game was Paradise Killer. 70% lo-fi chill beats to study/interrogate demons to, 20% gothic atmospheric bangers, 10% high-energy pop jazz, this soundtrack was just an absolute joy to swim around in both in and out of gameplay.

Favorite Game Encounter

It’s wild that in a landscape where games let me live out my wildest fantasies, the single moment that lit me up in a way that stood out to me more than any other was serving Neil the right drink in Coffee Talk. Over the course of the game, you serve a variety of hot drinks to humans, werewolves, vampires, orcs, and more, all while chatting with your customers and learning more about their lives and relationships. The most mysterious customer, though, is an alien life form who adopts the name Neil. They do not know what they want to drink and claim it doesn’t make a difference because they cannot taste it. Everybody else wants *something*. Neil is just ordering for the sake of fitting in and exploring the Earth experience. It’s only in the second playthrough that attentive baristas will figure out what to serve Neil, unlocking the “true” ending in the process. Seeing the typically stoic Neil actually emote when they tasted their special order drink? What an absolute treat that was.

Best Free DLC of the Year

It’s still only a couple of days old at the time I’m writing this, but Marvel’s Avengers just added Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye, and THANK GOODNESS. Almost every character in the game at launch just smashed the endless waves of robot baddies with their fists and that looks exhausting and uncomfortable. Hawkeye (the game calls her Kate Bishop, but come on, she’s been Hawkeye in the comics for over 14 years, let’s show her some respect) uses A SWORD. FINALLY! Aside from that, I’m just having a blast shooting arrows all over the place. She and Ms Marvel are the most likable characters in the game so far, so I hope they keep adding more of the Young Avengers and Champions to the game, and if the recently announced slate of Marvel movies and tv shows are any indication (with America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Riri Williams all coming soon to the MCU), that seems to be what Marvel is pushing for across all media

Most Accessible Game

Nintendo is, first and foremost, a toy company. They got their start in toys and cards long before video games was a thing, and they still do more tests to ensure their video game hardware is childproof than anybody else in the industry (remember how they made Switch cartridges “taste bad” so kids wouldn’t eat them?). This year, Nintendo got to rekindle some of their throwback, simplistic, toys-and-cards energy with Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a Switch collection of timeless family-friendly games like Chess, Mancala, and Backgammon, along with “toy” versions of sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis for a virtual parlor room of pleasant time-wasters. The games were all presented with charming li’l explainers from anthropomorphic board game figurines, and the ability to play quick sessions of Spider Solitaire on the touch screen while I binged The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix made Clubhouse Games one of my most-played titles of the year. Plus, local play during socially-distant friend hangs was an excellent way to make us feel like we were much closer than we were physically allowed to be as friends knocked each other’s block off in the “toy boxing” version of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

"Waiting for Game-dot"

I get that everyone loves Disco Elysium. I saw it on everyone’s year-end lists last year. I finally bought it with an Epic Games Store coupon this year. This year was a long enough slog of depressing post-apocalyptic drudgery, I didn’t want to explore a whole nother one in my leisure time. I’ll get to it… someday.

Game That Made Me Think

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Holovista was an iPhone game I played over the course of two or three days based on the recommendation of some trusted colleagues on Twitter and oh my goodness was I glad that I played it. What starts as a chill vaporwave photography game steadily progresses into an exploration of psychological trauma, relationships with friends and family, and the baggage we carry with us from our pasts. In this exceptionally hard year, I badly needed this story about spending time alone with your personal demons and finding your way back to the people who love and support you. Just like with Journey and Gone Home, I walked away from Holovista feeling a rekindled appreciation for the people in my life.

#video games #holovista #paradise killer #animal crossing #animal crossing new horizons #spellbreak #good sudoku #fuser #dropmix #in other waters #marvel's avengers #avengers #clubhouse games #coffee talk #2020

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masked-buffoon · 4 years ago

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Chapter 13: Filled emptiness (Part 2)

Warnings: cursing, angst, mentions of addiction

Author notes: that one is a very long part (around 3k words...). I tried to separate it, but it just wouldn’t fit, so here you go...! I think it’s been too long since we’ve had angst, so, as an author, it is my duty to write some for you XD please enjoy it!

"Kunikida-kun is so annoying~" Dazai whined as we arrived at his place "I did help the two of you~"

"Won't you admit that you could have done so earlier…?" I raised an eyebrow, removing my shoes.

"Well, it isn't wrong that it was funny to see you struggle…~" He chuckled.

"See…?" I sighed "That's why Kunikida is so tired of you…"

"Is that so?" He shrugged it off "I didn't know~"

I gave up trying to reason him. After all, messing around with our coworker was also something I did, although less than Dazai.

Even though it had almost been half a year, I still did not have a place of my own. The money I had started saving was not enough to rent an apartment, after all. For the moment, I thus stayed at my friend's, who had not lent me his bedroom. His place was divided in two rooms; a bedroom and a living one, where he was supposed to eat. I was his guest but he had graciously accepted to make me sleep in the living room… What a perfect gentleman Dazai was… Hopefully, I would soon be able to get my own apartment in the Agency's dormitory and sleep in my own comfortable windowless bedroom instead of waking up everyday because of the daylight.

"What about opening a bottle of sake to celebrate the end of the case?" He suggested.

"I don't want to drink tonight…" I declined "Tomorrow, I have an appointment with Yosano-sensei for my… Detoxification therapy…"

"Oh, I see." He did not insist "Let's just have a quiet evening then~"

"I'd like that." I smiled "By the way, did I tell you Uemura-san would teach me how to cook?"

"You didn't. That's great~"

"That's obviously not to feed you." I huffed "It is so I don't have to eat crab cans my entire life."

"You're mean…~ I do eat instant noodles as well…~"

"I can finally eat properly after all this time, it's not to have a diet based exclusively on junk food." I said simply.

"You might be right after all." He hummed "So, should we order something tonight?"

"... I'm still saving money..." I looked away.

"And I'm already indebted to the cafe beneath the Agency… I suppose that's either instant noodles or crab can tonight~"

He had tricked me again…

After eating frugally yet another evening and taking a relaxing bath, I unfolded the futon I borrowed from Dazai and let myself flop down on the mellow blanket, exhausted. Unexpectedly, my friend lied next to me.

"What are you doing…?" I questioned, eyebrows furrowed.

"I'm too lazy to go to my room…~ Besides, can't I stay with my friend~?"

"You've never done that before…" I noted. Is there a reason for your sudden behaviour?"

"You're wrong…" He chuckled, pulling a book out of nowhere "We've already been in a similar situation… Numerous times…"

"Cancelling my ability doesn't count…" I looked away.

He sighed slightly and casually started flipping through the pages.

"What are you reading? The same book about suicide methods again?" I asked, changing the subject.

"A good book is still good, no matter how many times you've read it~ Should I try committing suicide like this?"

He showed me the weirdest picture; a man sat in a large can, legs above his head. The method was supposed to kill him by eventually ripping his body in half. I stared at Dazai.

"Do you want my approval or my opinion?"

"I already know you won't give me your blessings for my suicide~" He grinned "Just tell me what you think~"

"Well… The chances you die are very low… It looks more like a… Torture method to me…"

"Eh? So it's painful…?!" He exclaimed, dramatically "I'm not trying that then…"

"I hope not…"

I took a book too, a mystery novel, and tried to distract myself from his annoying humming. I wanted to solve the crime before the fictional detective, but hearing Dazai sing next to me did not help me focus. After a moment, I put the book aside, and turned towards him. He had not turned a single page.

"Dazai…"

"What is it, Ogawa…~?"

"Let's get changed. We're going out." I said, standing up.

"Eh? But I've already taken a bath…~" He whined.

"Don't question it."

I should have doubted that this day would be strange, and that he would feel even more bothered by his usual torments. While he was putting his shirt on, I called the Fox.

"Do you know what time it is…?" He grumbled.

"Early enough, since you're awake." I smirked "I need you to find me something important… I need them in an hour…"

When I told him what I wanted, he yelled at me, but it was quick to hang up and avoid his scolding.

"So? Where are we going?" My friend asked me.

"You already know the answer…"

A shadow clouded his face, and he simply nodded. It had already been three years since that tragedy, yet it still seemed as present in our mind. Softly, I opened the door for him and called a taxi. It was dark, outside, a moonless night only enlightened by the stars and the lampposts in the streets. In that part of the world, humans still had the luxury to protect themselves against the monsters of the darkness.

The Fox was waiting for us in front of the cemetery, a bouquet of white lilies in his hands. As he gave them to me, he whispered:

"You owe me one."

I only nodded, and asked that we were left alone. Far from the entrance, under a majestic tree, which branches gently flustered with the wind, laid a single gravestone which bore the name of Dazai's late and most precious friend. When I looked at him, despite the lack of light, I saw he was expressionless. And motionless, too. I took his hands into mine, and placed the bouquet into them with a smile.

"This is important for you… Take all the time you need."

"... Thank you… You remembered…"

"In all honesty, I thought you'd slack off to pay him a visit, today… I'm sorry I was wrong…"

"Don't wait for me and just… Go back…"

I pulled the key to his apartment from my pocket.

"You know, I closed the door earlier. And…"

I placed them in his coat.

"I can't go back if you have them."

"Ogawa, I —"

"I'll be just at the entrance."

Surprisingly, the Fox was still there when I went out of the cemetery. I grinned at him.

"So~ What can I do to repay you for your help~?"

"Aren't you tired, Ogawa-san?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, and crossed my arms.

"What's with the sudden politeness? It's unlike you to be so formal…"

"I thought you might take me more seriously like that."

His face was severe. It was the first time I saw him without a childish expression and, suddenly, he did not seem like a teenager anymore. That reminded me we were the same age.

"Alright. Tired of what, Fox? I'll answer you, just… Drop that "-san"... I'm not used to it from you…" I gave up.

"Sure, I didn't plan to call you that endlessly anyway." He shrugged "Just tell me… How long are you going to pretend you're happy?"

"What are you talking about? My life really has changed for the better. I never thought I'd reach twenty-one years old, in the first place and I can even control my ability…" I sighed "Everyone in the Agency is so friendly, and I'll finally get treated for that damn morphine addiction, how can't I be happy…?"

"Well, since humans are all different, we all have various ways of being happy. Ogawa, I'm afraid your own happiness revolves a bit too much around… Him." He pointed at Dazai with his chin.

My friend was joyously chatting with the tombstone, as though his surroundings had disappeared, and as though I did not exist anymore. In his world, there was space only for him and Odasaku… I smiled slightly.

"You look as though you revealed me the purpose of my existence." I chuckled "I already know that, unfortunately… But he is my precious friend, the one I want to be happy…"

"At the cost of a fulfilled life of your own?"

"Nothing will fill the emptiness in my chest, except for his smile, maybe… I'm touched that you are concerned about me, Fox… But I assure you I am fine."

"What's the point of fighting so hard to earn the right to live, if it is to give it all up to a person who doesn't even see how soaked in blood the heart you give him is…?" He angrily shoved his hands in his pockets "Don't you ever tell me I didn't warn you…"

"I promise I won't." I giggled "You remind me of someone, a man I knew… I think you could call him my friend. Behind his rough facade is hidden a very sensitive poet…~ He usually had the right words to put me back on track…"

"Let me guess… You didn't listen to him at all…?"

"Am I so predictable?" I laughed "You're right, though… I didn't listen to him… So, I became addicted to morphine, then entered the Armed Detective Agency to be with Dazai… I don't regret it, nonetheless."

"I see… So you're the type who doesn't care about advice. That's good to know…" He mumbled "Anyway, let's talk about business."

"Mmh. I do owe you a favour. Do tell me what it is." I said, leaning back on a wall.

"In fact, I've been meaning to make that request to you a moment ago, but that's just the opportunity I needed." He told me, pulling a picture out of the pocket of his jacket "I have a friend. We grew up together, then got separated. I lost my parents and… Forget it. He's now a brilliant chemist, and he wants to open a laboratory in Hokkaido for his research. The government already agreed, but the locals aren't too fond of the project. He's already survived three assassination attempts… Could you protect him, please?"

"Being a bodyguard, eh…?" I took a look at the picture "You know I'm not bad at this kind of job. Well, I'll accept your request. I've been meaning to visit Hokkaido, after all…"

"I know. That's where I told you your sister is…" He remembered "Will it be alright for you?"

"I never said I'd meet her… What is your friend's research about?"

"It's complicated, but I think he's working on a formula to create petrol, you know… Instead of importing it."

"That's a very polluting business… I do understand the locals…" I frowned "I don't want to support him…"

"I know right? It's just… It's been more than five years since our ways have drifted apart… When he reached out to me, I couldn't help agreeing despite being powerless… I thought I could count on you." The Fox rubbed the back of his head.

"Of course you can. I'll handle the case for you. You've done so much to help me, I can't refuse a friend's request either." My lips turned upwards.

"I knew working with a detective was the best…" He snickered.

"That's because you work with the best one." I winked "I'll leave as soon as possible, maybe in a week."

"Oh, you're going to start therapy tomorrow?"

"... How do you know…?"

"You told me you would get treated soon, and I guessed you believed you'd feel better after a week, which is wrong, but I can only support you from afar." He shrugged.

"Why don't you work as a detective, too?" I laughed "I know it's going to be hard… But I'll manage, somehow. I have to… I'm this close to getting rid of that disgusting habit of mine…"

"Is that so?"

I nodded, and shivered. Although it was a summer night, the sudden breeze felt cold, and I tightened my tattered coat around me. My last trench had been ruined by my first case for the Agency and, since, I had only been able to afford an old, second-hand one which had already been well-used. Before buying new clothes, I needed to have my own place. These holes were not a bother to me, anyway…

"It's almost two…" The Fox noticed "If you start your treatment today, you may want to sleep, Ogawa… Otherwise, it'll be unbearable for you."

"Are you worried about me? That's so nice~ You're showing me your soft side today~"

"I've been worried about you since the first day we met…!" He suddenly raised his voice "Even though you were wearing a mask, your hands were so thin, and your clothes looked too big for you. And when you spoke… You would frequently pause to take your breath. You regularly came for the Mafia, and I do worry about my customers. If they die, I can't be paid…"

"... Was I really like that…?" I muttered "Whatever… I'm glad to have such a caring friend~"

"... Are you never going to take me seriously…?"

"I do take you seriously. However, as I said, you need not concern yourself with me. I am and will be fine."

"Idiot…"

It was touching that he cared about me to this extent. Five months ago, when I had come to him again to seek his skills as an informer, I had been such a troublesome customer, I had believed he would never want to work with me again. Thanks to Uemura-san, the Fox had dedicated his time to the cases I managed for the Agency, but, more importantly, we had gotten closer, to the point of becoming friends who playfully teased each other. However, I had never predicted that he would be so concerned about me. He had gone out of his way many times to help me out, going as far as finding Ruriko-chan and giving me, without charging me, all the information he had gathered about her life. I had not considered that I could be a person one could ever care about… It did feel nice, and I was ashamed that I had not, indeed, taken his feelings seriously.

We remained quiet, listening to the peaceful night of Yokohama. My eyes closed, and my ears were filled with sounds of all sorts. Above us, the wind danced in the tree leaves, gently accompanied by the distant song of the sea, which gently undulated under the thick veil of darkness covering the sky. Even Dazai had stopped chatting to silently honour his late friend's memory. The lamppost which enlightened the space around us started flickering, tired and old, before suddenly turning off. We moved towards another one, without a word.

I thought time had stopped, suspended by the beautiful concert nature was offering us, but I noticed I was wrong when I raised my eyes and saw the sky had cleared up, slowly taking its usual blue shade. That day would be a sunny one, I thought when my gaze fell onto the clouds coloured in warm orange watercolour by the rising sun. It was already dawn… We had spent the entire night out, and I had not gotten a single minute of sleep, unlike the Fox, who had succumbed to Morpheus as soon as we had moved to another lamppost. He was still standing, arms crossed and faced down. One could think he simply closed his eyes, but his slow and heavy breathing betrayed him. So, the best informer of Yokohama had the special skill to sleep anywhere, at any moment and in any position… It was a valuable one, yet a weakness he would not want his enemies to know of. This was proof that he trusted me… I could always use this information to tease him.

"... Is it… Already morning…?" He mumbled, sleepily.

"It seems so…"

"He's still not done…?" He frowned "For f*ck's sake, he made you wait the entire night and —"

"It's important to him… That's his late friend's death anniversary, after all…"

"... Aren't you his friend too…? And a living one, on top of that…!"

"Fox, it's enough… I'm tired, I can't bear your shouts so early, this day…" I stopped him.

"Right.. I'm sorry." He shoved his hands in his pocket "Well, do as you wish. I have work, today, so I'll head to my place. Thanks for accepting my request, by the way."

"You're my friend, it's my pleasure." I assured him.

He glanced at me, a strange, indescribable feeling reflecting in his eyes, before turning around and walking away. I could understand why he disapproved that I supported Dazai; any sane person would have already gone back to sleep, after all, and I knew no one who would be able to wait as much as I had. Even so, I felt it was my duty to be with him, from afar, so I could be there when he would be tired and broken by this peculiar night. It had always been my role…

I jumped in surprise when I sensed a coat suddenly covering my shoulders, on top of mine.

"I'm sorry, Ogawa… You must have been so cold… And it is the start of your treatment, too… I'm sorry…" Dazai apologised.

His hands did not leave my shoulders, and I pleasantly felt warmer, simply by being close to him. I smiled, gently.

"It's alright. I promised I would wait for you, after all. Besides, I wasn't alone. The Fox kept me company. He left just a few minutes ago." I told him.

"Is that so…? That's good."

"Yes… Are you ready to go, now?"

"Mmh. I'll go back to my place and slack off as usual~ What about you?"

"I guess I'll come with you. Yosano-sensei said she'd be waiting for me in front of the dormitory anyway." I told him.

"I see… It must be ready then~"

"What is…?" I raised an eyebrow.

"That's a secret~" He chuckled "Let's go~ I want to see the face you're going to make~"

"I'm a tad afraid of what I'll see though…"

"I can't say a thing~" He hummed, putting his hands on his hips.

He would usually put them in his pockets… But…

"Dazai…! Your coat…!" I followed behind him.

"You can keep it, I'm not that cold~"

"It's barely six a.m.…! There is no way you aren't cold…!" I protested.

"I'm not taking it back~"

"Dazai…!"

#bsd #bsd fanfic #bsd dazai #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs oc #dazai #Dazai Osamu

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glam-apollo · 4 years ago

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Title: Mr. Yellow Dies

Fandom: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Summary: When Jane Oliver approaches Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency about a murder she thinks might have happened years ago without any clues, evidence, or even a victim, the agency quickly agrees to take the case. Dirk, Farah, and Todd find themselves at the Oliver family's Halloween party while investigating and have to participate in the family's Halloween tradition: the murder mystery party game. Will solving this fictional murder help them uncover anything about the real crime they're investigating, or is just a distraction from the actual case? And who died, anyways?

Written for the Halloween @dghdabigbang! @browneyes-asiandragon made some lovely artwork accompanying the story so please go check it out! It’s really amazing!

I’ve included the fic on here but you can also read it on ao3 if preferred.

Mr. Yellow Dies

Knock! Knock! Knockity-Knock!

There was a pause before the sound of footsteps could be heard coming from inside the house. The front door creaked open. The man opening the front door was tall, well-built, with dark hair that flopped nicely over his forehead. He smiled at the trio that stood on his doorstep but his eyes betrayed confusion. "Can I help you? You seem a bit old for trick or treating."

Todd Brotzman looked at the man standing next to him out of the corner of his eyes. What were the three of them doing there? They certainly were an odd trio--Holmes, Watson, and a Care Bear, all a good fifteen years too old to be ringing doorbells asking for candy. What was his plan? He'd been vague as ever on the way over, assuring Todd that it was a party, a party for the case, and everyone loved parties, now, didn't they? So come along!

The whole ordeal had started with a simple statement. “I’ve been invited to a party twice,” Dirk Gently announced to his friends proudly in their agency’s office. “And, as much as I’d like to think this shows I’ve come far in my social standing, I’m afraid there will be no possible way for me to attend this party twice at the same time.”

"Two invites?" Farah Black said. “You got two invites to the Olivers' Halloween party?”

“Indeed I did, Farah!” Dirk said.

Todd set down the files he had been sifting thru. “How’d you manage that?”

“My natural charms and talents, of course,” Dirk said, pretending to be offended. “Geez, Todd.”

"What’s the plan, then? I don’t want to sit around, waiting for a report of two party-crashers getting shot." Farah pursed her lip. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Todd said. “I’ll stay back.”

"Au, contraire!" Dirk said. "Farah will be accepting my invitation from Jane. I will be going with my invite from Lenny. And Todd will be going as my date."

"Right, okay," Farah shrugged.

"What?" Todd said.

That had been five days ago. Since then it had been a flurry of finding costumes, Dirk obsessively dragging Todd and Farah into any Halloween themed store he could find, arguing he hardly ever went to parties, much less costume parties, so they should indulge him. Todd secretly thought that it was very likely Dirk had a long streak of elaborate costume parties from his days back in England, but he held his tongue. Seeing Dirk delighted by styrofoam coffins and confused by slutty fireman costumes was worth keeping his own suspicions withheld.

In the end, Dirk had somehow managed to convince Todd that a Sherlock-Watson duo costume was a good idea. “You see,” he pointed out, “no one would suspect actual detectives to dress as detectives for Halloween! That would be absurd.” Todd agreed that, yes, it would be absurd. Dirk bought him a bowler hat anyways.

Farah had been quietly indecisive about her costume all month. Todd hadn’t been sure what she’d go as--she’d shown interest in a variety of things, from a champion scuba diver she said was a childhood hero to the main character of the action novels she’d been obsessively reading during downtime in the office. In the end, she ended up with a Care Bears onesie Tina had lent her after, from what Todd understood, a very long phone call about how stressful Halloween was and a subsequent long drive to Bergsberg on the 30th.

Back at the front door, Dirk smiled at the man questioning them. The man was quite handsome, with a square jaw and tough cheekbones. Almost too classically handsome, Todd thought to himself. But it worked with his costume--some variation on Dracula--which became apparent when he opened his mouth and showed off his tiny fangs.

"Max Oliver?" Dirk asked confidently.

"Yes," the man said, eyebrows raised, fangs revealed in the O his mouth formed. "And you are?"

"Dirk Gently," he said, pushing the front of his deerstalker cap out of his face. "I was invited by Lenny. This is my date, Todd, and this is the lovely Farah Black, who was invited by Jane."

"I've never seen any of you before in my life," Max admitted. "I didn't know guests could invite guests, either."

"It would be a bit awkward to send Todd home now, wouldn't it?" Dirk said pointedly.

"Dirk," Todd groaned.

"No, I mean, I didn't realize Lenny could invite guests," Max said, shaking his head. "Although, I suppose he's never really been one to follow our family's ideals."

"Is that so!" Dirk said, giving his friends a pointed look.

Max nodded. "It isn't my place, of course, but I consider him an outsider to our family." Max stared up and down at the three of them, as if to make a point that they were even more outsiders than Lenny. After a beat, he sighed and opened the door for them. "You might as well come in. I’ll at least give Mother the final call on you three."

Dirk smiled and gave his companions a thumbs up before walking into the house after Max. Todd and Farah followed, Todd already regretting his itchy costume, Farah already regretting her lack of weaponry.

Max led them into a lounge where five other people sat around in couches and chairs, chatting quietly to themselves. Todd only recognized one of them--Jane Oliver, their client. She was the reason they were here in the first place, the reason the case had been opened. She was small both in size and presence, the youngest of the three Oliver siblings, still in her teens. She was wearing a mostly plain, long red dress, which Todd assumed must be some sort of Princess--Princess Bride? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty? He hadn't the slightest clue.

Jane was sitting next to an older woman, presumably her mother, the infamous Cordelia Oliver. Cordelia was the owner of the local community theater and a force to be reckoned with. She had lost some of her dazzle with the passing of her husband, Jules. Jules Oliver had been her partner in the theater, her partner in their home, her partner on the stage. Losing him meant she had lost love. Yet none of her fierceness faded; if anything, it grew into a strong and steady resentment towards the world and life itself.

Dirk smiled at two men sitting on the couch opposite Cordelia and Jane. "Lenny! Daniel!" he said. Daniel Oliver was the middle child of the family. College-aged and somewhat unmotivated, he was a stand out in his family of determined extroverts. His boyfriend, Lenny Anderson, seemed to represent everything the rest of the family couldn't stand about Daniel and worse. His lazy nature, lack of care for anything, inability to make and hold commitments annoyed the Olivers on the best of days. Lenny couldn’t keep a job, stay on a major, anything. At least he made Daniel happy.

Max flocked to a woman standing alone by the bookshelf. Adrianna Waye. She was the star in most of the local theater productions and Max's fiancé. She was gorgeous, elegant, and, by all accounts, extremely unpleasant to be around. Cordelia loved her.

Farah and Dirk had been doing most of the research on the family, while Todd had been going back and tracing old case files, trying to find a crime or a missing person or an unsolved murder that would otherwise connect with the case. He hadn't found anything, not anything they could confirm at least. Todd reflected on how this had all started. Jane Oliver had stumbled into the agency one day, clutching a yellowed composition notebook and trembling a bit, explaining that she had seen a crime, a murder, as a child. She had blacked it out and forgotten it until now, but going back through her diaries, she had found her recounting of the crime. It was dark, she explained, so she couldn't really tell them who or what. She thought it was a man--or maybe a boy. It was someone with a small build, and they were attacking another person brutally. She couldn't remember what happened after that, just terror, sheer terror.

They had a murder to solve. With no evidence of the murder having actually happened besides a child's diary. No suspects, no victims, nothing. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency gladly took the case.

The crime had taken place in the backyard of this family property, Halloween ten years ago, when Jane was only six. At least, she said, according to her diary. Her memories of that Halloween were all jumbled--something about her family, lots of yelling, some sort of dispute. And the crime, the attack that she could only remember that she forgot.

"Max?" Cordelia asked. "Who are our other new guests?"

"I don't know, Mother," Max answered evenly. "Why don't you ask Lenny? Or Jane?"

Cordelia narrowed her eyes and focused her gaze on Lenny. "Leonard?"

"Geezy, m'am," Lenny sighed. "I invited Dirk here as a plus one."

"You're already a plus one!" she shrieked. "And what about these other two?"

"Todd is my plus-one!" Dirk chirped.

"A plus one can't invite another plus one who invites his own plus one!"

"Ah," Dirk said quickly, "but wouldn't me having invited my own plus one make us our own set of guests?"

"Daniel, do you know these men?" Cordelia demanded.

"A bit," Daniel said without looking up from his phone.

"And what about this woman? Who the hell is she?"

"Ah," Jane said softly. "Mother, I invited her." After Dirk had determined who was accepting what invitation, they had reached out to Jane to tell her about Farah, not wanting there to be any mix up. They had decided on a brief backstory and that was that.

"Who is she?" Cordelia demanded.

"She's a school tutor. She tutors me and some of my friends in the library," Jane answered evenly. Todd wondered if they should at all be concerned about what ease and grace their client was able to lie through their teeth. But really, he thought, that was what they were all doing. They had no reason to be at that party.

Cordelia Oliver knew that.

She was a queen surveying her kingdom, and she was not pleased with what she saw. Todd felt himself holding his breath, ready to be kicked out at any second. To his surprise, she sighed, deciding this battle was not worth fighting today. "Fine," she said. "You can stay. You're lucky the party kit I bought comes with extra characters."

"Party Kit?" Todd said, feeling any ounce of relief of not being kicked out dissipate.

The Olivers had a tradition, a tradition that went back for at least the last eight years, maybe more. They would every Halloween have a murder mystery themed party. They would purchase a "party kit," either from an online retailer, or, some years when they felt particularly excited, commissioned from a friend. The kit would give each guest at the party a character and a few clues. In the course of three rounds they would develop their characters, discover and investigate a "murder," and have the murderer finally revealed in the third and final round. It was truly perfect for a family of actors, though as the kids grew up and her husband passed away, it was something Cordelia clung onto more than anyone else. The schitick was getting old. But she wouldn't let go.

Cordelia started passing out envelopes with character names on them. "You all know how the game goes," she said, a stage voice taking over, complete with pause for dramatic effect. "Tonight, one of us will die. Tonight, one of us will kill. Tonight, we will all solve a murder." Jane looked white as a sheet hearing her mother's words and looked to Dirk. Dirk smiled back at her reassuredly.

"We have a few extra guests tonight," Cordelia continued, handing an envelope to Adrianna and another one to Max. "Let us hope they survive the night."

"God, Mother," Daniel said, continuing to focus on Candy Crush rather than the manila envelope he'd been slipped. "There's no need to be so melodramatic."

Cordelia paused and looked at him with stony eyes. "Tonight," she said, "we are all actors. Whether we like it or not." Lenny smiled at his boyfriend encouragingly, reminding him it wouldn't be too bad. Daniel glared back at him. He knew this tradition far too well and was not pleased to put on a performance for his mother’s sake.

"Great!" Dirk said, happily accepting his envelope. "So, how does the game work exactly?"

"There are three rounds," Max said, walking away from the wall to behind the sofa his mother sat at. "Round one, we all open our envelope and look at our character and the clues we are given. We mingle as the characters, deciding whether or not we want to share our clues with the others."

"Round two!" Cordelia jut in. "Someone will have instructions telling them they will 'die.' After their 'death' occurs we will have another round in which to mingle and see if we can discover which of us might've had the motive to 'kill.'"

"I feel as though we've grown out of this, mother," Daniel said. "It's just glorified Mafia. When will you give it up already?"

"I find it very fun, Daniel," Cordelia snapped. "It's the least you could do for your poor mother."

Daniel sighed.

"And what about the third round?" Farah asked lightly.

"Third round, we open this envelope," Cordelia said, holding up an envelope that. Unlike the manila ones she had handed out, was a deep red. "It has the answers in it. Then we will find out who was right and who was wrong and who was the killer."

"What a dreadful and yet surprisingly delightful game!" Dirk enthused. Cordelia narrowed her eyes at him.

"Quite," she said. "Now, let the games begin."

Everyone began opening their envelopes. Todd ripped the top off of his, wondering how this was in any way going to help them solve the case. Had Dirk known they were going to play this game? He gave Farah a look, who seemed just as lost as him. She shrugged and went back to reviewing the papers from in her envelope.

Todd reviewed his envelope. He was playing as a character called “Mr. Red,” an older gentleman who was a banker. The only clues he was given was that he suspected Mr. Yellow, one of his bank’s employees, of fraud, and that his character saw Madame Orange and Mrs. Indigo discussing something in hushed voices on his way home from work one day. Todd grimaced. They were really about to play live-action Clue.

"Todd." Todd jumped up in surprise as Dirk slipped up next to him. "You know I'm not one for a classical approach," Dirk said, keeping his voice hushed, "but I must admit this situation compels oneself to do some very non-holistic detecting."

"Wouldn't the fact that the situation has arisen at all make it holistic?" Todd pointed out.

"Ah! Great assisting, Todd, or should I say," Dirk looked down at Todd's papers and then back up at him with a pleasant smile, "Mr. Red."

"You're excited for this, aren't you?"

"Quite! But seriously, Todd. Please consider trying to use this as an opportunity to ask key questions that seem like they're about the game but are actually about our investigation."

"Dirk, we still barely have any idea of what we're investigating," Todd sighed.

"Having time set aside to mingle and interrogate should help then!" he replied before disappearing into the room.

"Let round one," announced Cordelia Oliver, "begin!"

Todd sighed, feeling out of his depth. He looked around the room, seeing that people had already begun to talk quietly and exchange clues amongst themselves. The one person left by themselves besides Todd at this point was Daniel Oliver.

Todd sat down next to him. "Sherlock abandoned you, ey, Watson?" Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow but looking otherwise completely disinterested in the appearance of a new person in his vicinity.

Todd laughed nervously. "Dirk? Ah. Well. He's playing the game, same as all of us." He swallowed. "So... what's your character?"

"Mr. Maroon," Daniel said with a slight roll of his eyes.

"I'm Mr. Red," Todd said.

"Practically the same names," Daniel complained. "I know there aren't that many colors in the rainbow, but they could've come up with a better theme. Colors? Mysteries? Incredibly overdone, if you ask me."

"You'd know better than myself," Todd said.

Daniel snorted. "I know far too well. Do you want my clues?"

"Sure," Todd said. "Are you just supposed to give them to people like that?"

"Not if you want the game to be harder," Daniel said. "But I'd rather this be done as quickly as possible. So my character doesn't trust Mr. Yellow or Mrs. Grey."

"I also suspect Mr. Yellow," Todd admitted.

"And it's supposed to be a mystery." Daniel shook his head.

"You've done a lot of these, then?" Todd said.

"Every year. Since what feels like forever. Mother has gotten persistently more annoying about it since Dad died." Daniel looked resentful. "She can't let go of it."

"That must be hard for your family," Todd said.

"Maybe for them," Daniel replied evenly. "I'm glad he's dead."

“Oh.” Todd said. "You don't feel like you're one of them, then?"

"No. I don't want to act. I don't want to be the center of attention. All of them are hardworking attention whores. I truly feel like this tradition is the pinnacle of that. It makes me feel sick."

Todd felt his stomach curl in an uncomfortable way. "You should be careful," he said.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "What, are you going to impart some wise-wisdom on me? I don't care. I don't even know you."

"You're right," Todd said, trying to ignore the feeling that he needed to get Daniel off of the track he was on, lest he fall into the same self-destructive hole of lies that Todd did when he was his age.

"I'm sure you think I'm ungrateful and selfish. But they're cruel to me. And they don't like Lenny either."

"No?"

"No. They hate him even more than me. If I'm a black sheep, he's an entirely different animal to them."

"Five more minutes of round one!" Cordelia shouted from across the room.

Todd stood up from the couch awkwardly. "I should talk to some more people," he said. "Nice to see you, Mr. Maroon."

Daniel rolled his eyes.

Todd wandered around the room, trying to find someone else to talk to, and eventually ended up tapping the shoulder of Adriana Waye, who had been standing by herself in the corner of the room. She flinched and then turned around, her bright green eyes first looking a bit surprised and then totally disengaged.

"I'm Ms. Grey," she said. "I'm Madame Orange’s maid, working for her and her daughter, Mrs. Indigo, and her son-in-law, Mr. Yellow. And you?"

"I'm Mr. Red," he replied. "Uh... I'm a banker."

"The bank owner?" she said quickly. "The man who owns the bank Mr. Yellow works at?"

"I think so," he said.

"Hmm," she said, and Todd got a very distinct feeling that she did not like him at all, although he could not tell if the impression came from her acting or real judgement she was imparting on him.

"I, uh... I think Mr. Yellow is committing bank fraud," Todd said lamely, looking at his notes.

"Would you kill him if he was?" she said, her blue eyes hard and intense.

"What?" Todd said, shrinking back.

"In the game,” she said, her gaze softening slightly. “Obviously.”

"Oh," Todd said. "Wouldn't it be strange for me to suspect myself? I mean, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point?" He paused. "And we don't know Mr. Yellow is going to be the one to die, yet!"

Adrianna looked across the room at Max. "Mr. Yellow is certainly going to be the one to die," she said. "You’ll see."

"How do you know?"

"It's the way these games always work," she said. "God, who invited you again? Have you really never done this before?" Todd shook his head and Adrianna looked exasperated. "Cordelia should've kicked you out."

Todd didn't have a good argument for that. He coughed nervously, feeling weirdly squeamish looking at her dark grey eyes. "So what are your clues?"

She looked absolutely done with him. "You cannot ask me for my clues as yourself. You need to discuss the situation with Ms. Grey as Mr. Red."

"I guess I misunderstood," he said. "You really enjoy the acting part of this, huh?"

"It's a good thing I do," she said. "I'm our theater's biggest star for a reason."

"Cordelia likes you a lot, then?"

Adrianna shrugged. "She likes me. And she loves Max. And Max loves me. It all works out."

"One minute left!" Cordelia shouted.

Adrianna looked irritated. "I really spent some of my time talking with you, huh?" she said, stalking off before Todd could answer.

Todd slouched, taking a deep breath, looking around the room before making eye contact with Farah and meeting her across the room. "I'm Dr. Violet," Farah explained. "I’m Madame Orange’s physician. And you?"

"Mr. Red," he said. "They seem like an awfully happy family, don't they?"

"Mr. Yellow and Mrs. Indigo? Or the Olivers?"

"The latter. Although the former might be true, too, I'm having a hard time keeping up."

She nodded. "Fictionally and factually miserable in both cases. I have a good feeling about our case, though."

"Yeah?"

"I was talking to Jane. She's sweet, you know? And I think we're very close to cracking the case."

"She didn't do it, though. Right?"

"Oh--no. No. But I think someone here did."

"That doesn't exactly make me feel incredibly comfortable being a party crasher here."

"That's the end of round one!" Cordelia shouted.

Dirk noticed Farah and Todd talking together and walked over to them enthusiastically. "Well!" he announced. "I'm not sure what I just learned, but I definitely learned something, which will definitely help solve one, if not two, cases! It's true one has a bit more importance to it, but I'd like to think that in solving our fictional case we'll solve--"

Dirk was cut off by a loud scream from across the room. Max Oliver let out another large cry, holding his hand to his chest, before having his knees buckle underneath him, falling down on his knees, letting out a final sob before collapsing on the floor.

"Oh my god," Farah said.

Cordelia walked over to where her son lay sprawled across the floor and then looked up across the others in the room. "A murder," she said. "Has been committed. Mr. Yellow is dead." Adrianna gave Todd a pointed looking from across the room, her hazel eyes piercing. Todd looked away.

"How ghastly," Dirk said with some enthusiasm. "What a wonderful performance."

Max sat up from his place on the floor and beamed. "Thank you," he said, fangs sticking out.

"Now, for round two," Cordelia announced. "Max will not be able to participate. You must talk amongst yourselves and try to discover which one of you is the killer. We will have ten minutes. Let round two... begin!"

"Alright," Todd said. "I suppose we should get back to mingling..." He looked over to see Dirk's eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought. "Dirk?"

"Todd," he said quietly. "Farah. I have the strangest feeling the case of Mr. Yellow is much more tied to our case than we'd thought."

"How so?" Farah asked.

"I'm not quite sure," he said. "Let us try and discover who killed Mr. Yellow. And perhaps that will reveal it to us."

The three nodded and scattered across the room.

Todd found himself in the unfortunate position of being under the immediate scrutiny of Cordelia Oliver.

"I," she announced, "am Madame Orange. I'm afraid we've never had the chance of meeting before."

"Mr. Red," he said shortly. "Banker, Mr. Yellow's boss, I think."

"Ah, yes," she said, face sorrow clouding his face. "My son-in-law’s employer. Isn’t it tragic what has happened to Mr. Yellow?"

Actors, Todd thought, are insane.

"Right," Todd said. "Erm, do you have any idea who... killed him?"

His willingness to play along seemed to please Cordelia. She raised an eyebrow playfully. "I have some idea," she said. "He had a few enemies. I heard," she leaned in, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone, "he owed some people money. Would you know anything about that? As the banker?"

"Oh," Todd said, trying to remember if he did. "Uh, no. I don't think I knew that. Although I..." he paused, grabbing his notes and looking them over. "I suspected him of committing some sort of fraud."

"Hmm!" she said. "Fraud at the bank isn't a good look for you. Do you think that could stir yourself to kill?"

"Uh--no?" Todd frowned. "I guess I don't know. Am I supposed to defend myself?"

Cordelia seemed disappointed at his breaking character. "It's up to you," she said tightly. "But if you've killed someone, we'll find out in the end, when we open the envelope with the answers to the case."

"Oh," he said. "Well--I guess I don't think Mr. Red, er, me, did it." He paused a beat. "And... why didn't you do it?" he asked, knowing giving Cordelia an excuse to talk should lighten her up.

"Mr. Yellow was my daughter Indigo’s husband! I loved him as if he were my own son. I wouldn’t lay a hand on him unless he did something to hurt my daughter.”

"But what if he did?” Todd pointed out. He looked at his notes. “I saw you discussing something with Mrs. Indigo the day before his death. That doesn’t look particularly good for you, Madame Orange."

"You don't look unsuspicious yourself, Mr. Red. Although I don't think you killed Mr. Yellow."

"No?"

"No. You don't have it in you."

Cordelia turned on her heel and went away to talk to someone else, and Todd felt weirdly stung by her harsh assessment of his fictional banker self.

He wandered across the room, trying to find someone to talk to. He walked past Max and Adrianna who were talking in hushed tones in a language that didn't sound familiar to him. He decided not to interrupt them and turned around, nearly running into Jane Oliver.

"Oh dear," she said. "I am very sorry, Mr. Todd."

"It's okay!" he reassured her. "And tonight, I'm Mr. Red."

She nodded. "I'm Mrs. Indigo." She sighed. "I'm Mr. Yellow's wife, apparently. A bit awkward, I think, for several reasons."

Todd smiled. "Fair enough. I am--or was?--his employer at the bank. I suspected him of fraud. Would you know anything about that?"

"The only way Mr. Yellow was ever a fraud or a phoney was in real life, Mr. Red," she sighed, playing into her character lightly. "I do believe he was having the most awful affair with Mrs. Grey."

"I suppose that made your character--you, I mean--pretty upset."

"Yes." She sighed. "I think it's likely I did it. Or--Mr.s Grey’s husband, Mr. Maroon."

"It's kind of funny suspecting yourself."

"I think it makes the most sense," she said evenly, then in a lower voice, "thank you, by the way. Dirk said you and Farah have been invaluable in helping with..." She looked around. "...with a case."

Had he been helpful? Had any of them been helpful? Todd felt as though he was getting nowhere, stuck in a sludge of clues and names and characters and confusing bits in the middle. He wasn't sure he had done anything effective to help Jane Oliver. He thought about denying her claim, telling her to take it back, telling her that her impression wasn't true. But he swallowed it in his throat. Be nice, Todd.

"You're welcome," he said. "We're trying our best. To solve..." he paused, and added, feeling kind of silly, "...Mr. Yellow's murder." That made the girl laugh, which pleased him.

"Speaking of Dirk," Adrianna said, "here comes Mr. Green." Dirk approached the two of them, grinning brightly.

"Todd! Jane!" he addressed them both with enthusiasm. "I've got half a mind that this is going somewhere!"

"I sure hope so," Todd said.

"I'm glad you think that," Jane said with her shy smile. "I think I'm going to go try to talk to Adrianna." She made a face. "Tell me what you find, later?" she asked Dirk.

"Of course," he promised, waving at her as she made her way across the room. "Todd!" he turned to Todd, his deerstalker hat flopping in front of his eyes. He pushed up the rim. "I think I've found out my motive for killing Mr. Yellow!"

"That's great, Dirk, but.... what? Do you think your character killed him?"

"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm Mr. Green, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned it to you. And I don't think it's awfully likely I am the killer, but I love my brother Mr. Maroon a lot, and his wife Mrs. Grey cheated on him with her employer Mr. Yellow!" Dirk sounded enthralled. "The way this game is played is absolutely fascinating, wouldn't you say? I think we should definitely buy one of these for the office during holidays."

"Dirk," Todd said, "there are three of us who work in the office. And... Mona sometimes. I don't think that's enough people."

Dirk frowned. "I guess not."

"Do you have any idea who actually killed Mr. Yellow? Or... about the other thing?"

"No," Dirk admitted. "Well, maybe. There's so many different threads in this game. And it's not exactly... how I do detecting. I think you or Farah would have a better idea, quite honestly. I’ve had a very fun time getting into character and developing Mr. Green, though. I wasn't given much, so I gave him a new profession! I've decided he works for the secret--"

"Dirk," Todd cut him off. "We need to focus. Right?"

Dirk looked a bit put out. "Can't hurt to have a bit of fun, too."

Todd backtracked. "Sure, of course, but I think we're running out of time to investigate--"

"End of round three!" Cordelia announced loudly. The chattering continued. "End! Of round three!" she holler. This time, a hush fell across the room.

"Everyone," she said, her voice commanding the space, "let's gather round in a circle and discuss our theories of who killed Mr. Yellow." She stood behind where Max sat on the couch and put her hands on his shoulders protectively. The party goers made their way to the couches and chairs situated in a nice circle around the coffee table. Once everyone had settled down, Cordelia smiled, although she continued to stand behind Max instead of sitting in the circle herself.

"If someone can say who killed Mr. Yellow and why, with certain accuracy, they win the game." Cordelia held up a bright magenta envelope. "Once everyone has given their input, we'll open the envelope and see who was really the killer. If you are accused of being the murderer, you may defend yourself if you think someone else has done it. Now who would like to start?"

Todd felt Dirk beside him tense in excitement. He wondered if this did have any connection to the case they were here to solve, or if it was a red herring, a detour that would eventually lead them somewhere completely different in order to actually solve the case.

"I'll start," said Adrianna. "I think Mrs. Indigo did it."

Jane frowned. “My character? I guess I don’t think it’s entirely impossible I did…”

“You found out Mr. Yellow was hiding some things from you,” Adrianna said. “Including his affair… with me, Mrs. Grey. So you killed him.”

“Jane?” Cordelia asked. “Do you have someone else you think could’ve done it?”

“I think Mr. Maroon would’ve had half a motive, for the same reason as I.”

“Leave me out of it,” Daniel groaned. “I think it was… uh…” He looked around the room, seemingly trying to pick someone else to become the scrutiny of the conversation. “Madame Orange. She found out Yellow cheated on her daughter.” He shrugged. “She’d be as mad as anyone else.”

Cordelia pursed her lips. “That’s assuming I even knew about the affair. Perhaps I didn't even know until he died! How would you know?”

“Everyone wanted to kill Mr. Yellow,” Dirk muttered to Todd.

“Madame Orange was angry after her check up with Dr. Violet before the murder happened,” Farah pointed out. “Although she didn’t say why. It could’ve been about the affair.”

“Everyone wanted to kill Mr. Yellow!” Dirk said again, sounding surprised. Todd looked at him and he grinned back.

“I was upset because my gardener, Mr. Turquoise, had quit in a huff.”

“You fired me!” Lenny butted in. Todd realized he’d barely spoken to half of the people playing the game, feeling suddenly like he’d shown up for a test he hadn’t studied for. “And I certainly didn’t kill Mr. Yellow!”

“Alright,” said Cordelia. “But I deny that I did. I still find Mr. Maroon awfully suspicious.”

Daniel glowered at his mother. “If you won’t admit it, I’ll accuse someone else. Like….” He looked around the room. “...my brother. Mr. Green.”

Dirk smiled. “It could have been me,” he said. “I love my brother, Mr. Maroon. I found out Mr. Yellow was having an affair with his wife. And I felt this was an affront to my family. But I think we are focused much too narrowly on the what and the why. In fact,” he said. “I think we are far too focused on this game.”

“Too focused on the game?” Lenny said. “Isn’t that the point of the final round?”

“The point of the final round,” Dirk said confidently, “is to find out who killed Mr. Yellow and Max Oliver.”

“Oh,” Todd said softly. Dirk had solved it.

“I am Mr. Yellow,” Max said.

"Exactly! So the question we have to answer," Dirk continued, "is who killed Max Oliver. I, of course, have my own theories, but I would like to share last. Mrs. Cordelia. I still find you a bit suspect. Why don't you tell us again why you aren't the killer?"

Cordelia stiffened in offense. "Why am I not the killer? You must be kidding me! I just went over this. I wouldn’t hurt my own son!"

"Ah, but perhaps Max wasn't the child you wanted. And neither was Daniel. And neither was Jane. You wanted a child who was a star, Mrs. Oliver. And you knew you'd never get that if you didn't intervene yourself."

Adrianna narrowed her eyes. "He knows this is a game, right? We aren’t our characters."

Dirk's eyes lit up. "Ah! And Adrianna Waye. What an interesting piece of this puzzle you are."

Adrianna shifted uncomfortably. "Don’t even bother accusing me of killing him. I was the one who was having an affair with him. I was one of his only allies. It wouldn’t make sense."

"No, you're right," Dirk agreed. "It wouldn’t make sense. Besides that, a lady such as yourself seems unlikely to get her hands dirty with murder." He paused. "She'd make someone else do it."

Adrianna turned to Max and laughed. "What is he talking about? This isn't connected to the game at all."

"You know what it's about--"

"Ah!" Farah cut in. "I have a theory. Did Lenny's character actually do it? Mr. Turquoise was Madame Orange’s gardener, so maybe he saw something at the house, like the affair. Blackmail gone wrong type situation."

Dirk nodded. "Lenny seems a bit suspicious, doesn't he?" He looped around the living room, ending behind Lenny's chair. "Lenny, what do you have to say to that?"

"I don't know,” Lenny said. “I don't think my character ever actually interacted Max, though, did he?"

"Exactly," Dirk said. "Lenny is too much of an outsider. He might not like Max, but there was no reason he would want to kill him. He wasn't even present at the crime scene. Now, Daniel, however..."

"Wouldn't it be my luck to pick the character who's the killer three years in a row?" Daniel sulked, shooting his mother a look.

"Of course Daniel could have been jealous of Max. Jealous of how his mother adored him and doted on him. But... that doesn't explain why he would kill him." Dirk turned to Jane. "Do you understand what I'm getting at, Miss Jane?"

Jane's eyes widened. "But I still don't understand! Who--who did I see die on that night?"

“Who did you see die on what night?” Cordelia turned to her daughter, her eyes narrowed. “Jane, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Sorry, mother,” Jane whispered softly. “But yes. Ten years ago, I saw a murder.” Dirk gave Farah a small nod and Farah quietly moved to block the one door that led out of the study. Todd moved towards the window, having a strong feeling that any possible exit was soon going to quickly need to be blocked. Jane continued, “These people have been trying to help me solve the murder, mother. But… But I don’t know who did it, or who even died…” She trailed off, looking small and lost in her big velvet chair.

“You’re detectives?” Cordelia demanded.

"Indeed,” Dirk said. “Quite a good disguise, right? Now, Jane, the person you saw being murdered on that night was your brother, Max."

"But that's absurd!" Cordelia burst out. "Max is right here!" Max stood behind his mother, his expression stony.

"That," Dirk pointed to Max, "is certainly someone going by the name Max and living his life as if he were Max Oliver. But that is not your biological son, Max Oliver. He was killed on this day, ten years ago, in your back garden."

"Don't be absurd," Max cut in, his voice cold and stiff. "You've been talking nonsense all night."

"Have you ever," Dirk said, "met an actor who was so incredible that sometimes you didn't even know they were acting?" Todd got the very distinct feeling Dirk was thinking of Mona. "I have. And I will tell you this much. When someone who is talented enough chooses to not be found, they won't be."

"You're crazy," Max said. "You have no proof."

"Alright," Dirk said. "Maybe I'm wrong. Then answer me this. How come you and Adrianna talk in a language no one has ever heard when you think you're alone?"

"What?"

“Oh!” Todd cut in. "And is that why Adrianna’s eye color shifts so dramatically? I wasn’t imagining that?"

"People's eye color can shift--"

"Not from light blue to deep brown they can't,” Dirk said, nodding at Todd.

Max snorted. "Just because you're dressed as a detective doesn't mean you can say whatever you'd like and expect it to go over."

"Alright," Dirk said. "Let me read from this journal," Dirk said, reaching into his trenchcoat and pulling out a copy of Jane's diary that they had photocopied and brought along. Todd hadn't realized Dirk’s intentions in bringing the copy along--but he wasn’t sure Dirk had known until this exact moment, either.

"’October 31st, 2008,’" Dirk read aloud. "’Dear Diary, Today I saw something very frightening. It was during the Halloween party, I went out in the back garden to get a bit of fresh air and because everyone was very loud. When I was out there, I thought I heard someone screaming. I thought maybe it was one of my brothers, and so I ran. I saw a figure in the dark standing over someone else, but when I got to where I saw their silhouettes across the garden, they were gone. I saw something I thought could've been blood or beer or water but it was too dark to see. I'll go and see if it's still there tomorrow. I don't know what I saw. I went inside and told mama and papa about it. Papa joked that I'd seen a ghost on Halloween. I don't know. Love, Jane.’"

"I know who Jane saw that night," said Dirk. He pointed at Max. "She saw you. And she saw her brother, Max."

"I am her brother Max," Max replied evenly.

"Oh please," Dirk said. "Will you give that up already? You may live as Maxwell Oliver but you were at least not born that way. You weren't born in this town, or, quite frankly, even this planet."

"What're you going to do about it?" Adrianna said, rising to her feet.

"Adrianna," Max snapped. "Sit down."

"I'm going to..." Dirk said confidently, and then stopped. "Well, I hadn't really thought of that."

“It’s true,” Jane said softly. Cordelia had stepped away from Max and was now standing behind her daughter. She placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder, looking tense. Jane looked up at Cordelia. “It’s true, mother. It was Max I saw on that night. It must’ve been…”

Max frowned. “Are you really going to believe this, Mother? Believe all this slander about your favorite son?” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been so good to you… an absolute star, in fact. Don’t tell me you believe some sort of alien-murder plot thought up by a stranger over the word of your own son?”

Cordelia Oliver's eyes clouded over. "I'm not sure, Max."

"I cannot believe this," Max said. Adrianna fidgeted in her chair uncomfortably. "Do you know everything I've given for this family? Everything me and Adrianna have given for you, Mother?"

"What are you?" Dirk asked curiously. "You must be something quite interesting. And..." He paused, his nose bunched up. "...and either undetectable or fifteen years new to this planet."

"We were undetectable," Adrianna said.

"Adrianna!" Max barked. "Will you shut up?"

"Oh, give it up, Max," she said irritably. "He's caught us in our game. Might as well admit it." She turned to Dirk. "You wouldn't really believe it if we were from a different planet."

"I certainly would," he said. "I've come across a fair few extraterrestrials in my time. I don't suppose you communicate through music on your planet?"

"What?" she snapped. "No. Don't be stupid. You were right, we communicate in our own language. And these weren't our original forms." Max glared at her, his lips pursed in determined silence. "But there's no way for you to prove that, you know? That's the best thing about what we are."

"Oh god," Cordelia said, holding her hand over her mouth.

"And what is that?" Dirk asked.

"Can't pronounce it in your language. In fact, you numbskulls hardly have the language to describe it. Leech? Reincarnate? Phoenix?" Adrianna seemed almost pleased by this, as if the fact that she was somewhat undefinable was a final act of rebellion against whatever separated her from them. "The point is," she said, "we take on different forms over our lives. We essentially could live forever--as long as we kill before our vessel dies. When that happens, we take on the form of whatever we last killed."

"Woah," Dirk said.

"What happens to the body?" Farah said, eyeing Max and Adrianna nervously while still guarding the door.

"We become the body," Adrianna said as though it were obvious. "The last vessel we occupied turns to dust once we leave it for good, once there's no use for it anymore."

"And you killed Max and took his body," Jane said softly, looking Max straight in the eyes. Max frowned and looked away.

"What--what now?" Daniel asked nervously, looking between Max and Adrianna. The room was filled with a tense air.

Max sighed, breaking the silence. "This is truly awful," he said, his tone almost bored, "I never wanted it to come to this, and I am very sorry. I did love you, Mother," he said to Cordelia. "Unfortunately..." He reached into his coat pocket, pulling something small and metallic out, "...the two of us will have to kill all of you now that you've discovered our secret."

Max Oliver had a gun. The room broke out into hectic noise. Cordelia screamed, Daniel let out a large stream of profanities, Todd started to argue with Max, and Dirk shouted something about everyone needing to talk this out, please, and not have so much killing all the time. Everyone was on their feet in a few seconds. Todd and Farah exchanged a look, guarding the door and window respectively, not sure if they should run or stand their guard. The only person who remained sitting was Max Oliver.

"No one move!" he barked. "Shut up!" And he was pointing the gun, and the room quickly fell silent. "You see," he said. "You all have made this so hard for me and my dear EtTew0si." He stood up from where he sat and went to the bookshelf, grabbing a candlestick. He handed it to Adrianna who smiled at him and kissed his cheek.

"Now who's first?" Max said, sounding almost bored. Todd gave a sideways glance to Farah and mouthed the word "gun." She shook her head, mouthing back a long sentence. He had forgotten he couldn't read lips.

"Oh Jane," Max said. "Why not you? This whole dilemma is your fault, now, isn't it?"

"It's not my fault," Jane said, trembling but holding her voice steady. "None of this would've happened if you hadn't hurt Max."

Max pursed his lips, ignoring her comment. "Come here, and we'll make this quick and painless," he said.

"No," she said, holding her ground.

Adrianna shoved her forward from behind, pushing her with the end of the candlestick. "Do what he says!" she said.

Jane opened her mouth to make a retort but decided against it. She looked back at the other people in the room, staring hopelessly.

"My dear sister," Max said, pointing the gun at her head. Adrianna stayed behind her, holding the candlestick up. "I am sorry it had to come to this."

"No, you're not," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

"You're right," he laughed. "I'm not."

The next few seconds were a whirlwind. Farah leapt up from her place by the door to in front of Max, grabbing Jane out of the line of fire as Max pulled the trigger. Adrianna, not realizing what had happened before it was too late, didn't dodge and instead was hit squarely in the head with the bullet Max had fired. Adrianna barely had a second to let out a cry of pain before her body turned to dust, drifting down to the floor, lifeless. Max whirled around, still holding his gun, pointing it at Farah and Jane where they sat on the floor.

"You think you're real smart, huh?" he demanded. "What--"

A bang fired in the room.

Max stopped talking.

Max stopped breathing.

Max fell over onto the floor, fading into a pile of dust.

Across the room, Cordelia Oliver held up her pearl handled pocket purse pistol, smoke still drifting off the tip of the weapon, tears streaking her face.

The next week, Jane Oliver visited Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective agency. She knocked lightly before walking into the office. "Hello!" she said.

"Jane Oliver!" Dirk said, his entire face lighting up. He jumped up from his desk. "How are you doing?"

She smiled sadly. "This whole ordeal has been a lot for my family... but I think we are better for it. We've all been trying to understand, of course. But it's brought us closer too."

"I'm glad to hear that," Farah smiled, looking up from her desk. "Thank you for visiting, Jane."

Jane nodded. "I’m to give you these." She passed two envelopes to Dirk.

He looked at her, confused. "What?"

"For the case," she said softly.

"Ms. Jane, I was under the distinct impression that we were not taking payment from you," he said. He passed the envelopes back to her. "In fact, I insist on it. I don't want to take money from you."

She laughed. "It's not from me. It's from my mother. She's going through a lot, as we all are, but she's extremely grateful to you guys." She shrugged. "She didn't actually tell me what was in those. Just to deliver it to you three."

"Well, thank you," Dirk said, surprised, taking the envelopes back from her.

"Yes!" she said. "And thank you guys... for everything. The truth is hard, but I'm glad I know it. And..." she turned to Farah, "thank you for saving my life."

Farah smiled awkwardly. "I mean, yes. Of course. That is... yes. You're welcome."

She beamed at them. "I'll be sure to recommend you guys, although I don't know how many other sixteen year olds have use of a detective agency."

Dirk smiled. "Thank you Jane."

She nodded once more. "Goodbye!" They waved and wished her well and then she was on her way.

"I wonder what Cordelia sent," Todd said.

"Let us see!" Dirk said. “This first envelope is addressed to ‘Dirk Gently & Co.’ Fancy!” He tore the envelope open, pulling it out and looking it over. His eyes widened.

"What?" Farah said.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I don't think we'll have to worry about agency finances for a while," Dirk said, eyes wide. He passed Farah the check from inside the card.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh-kay!” she said. “Well. We should definitely send a thank you note.”

“She wrote a note, too,” Dirk said. He read aloud, “‘Dear Dirk and Company, I never did like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. However, the three of you I found quite tolerable. To think I would’ve lived with and loved an imposter my whole life if not for your agency. Much thanks. Sincerely, Cordelia Oliver.’”

“I guess she’s got a heart under her mean exterior after all,” Todd said.

“‘P.S.,’” Dirk read. “‘I am assuming you will be quiet about the disappearance of my ‘son’ Max. I hope this check more than manages that.’”

“Oh,” Todd said, and Farah laughed.

“Well!” Dirk said, setting down the card. He smiled at his two friends. “I think that’s another case solved with arguable efficiency.”

“What’s the other envelope?” asked Todd.

“I don’t know…” Dirk looked at it. “She wrote something on the front... ‘I couldn’t be bothered to open this after what happened. but I thought one of you care want to know more than I. Sincerely, Cordelia.’”

“Oh!” Farah said. “It’s the envelope from the game--the one that has the killer in it.”

“I didn’t even realize we never revealed the fake killer,” Todd said.

“I did,” said Farah. “Open it?”

Dirk nodded, pushing a pencil thru the top, ungracefully breaking the seal. He popped the envelope open and looked inside before pulling out a tiny slip of paper.

“Oh God,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Of bloody course it had to be.”

Farah raised her eyebrows and he passed her the paper. She looked at it and frowned. “Crazy coincidence, that’s all.”

“Let me see that,” Todd grabbed the paper.

“Farah, nothing ever ends up being mere ‘coincidence’ with me,” Dirk said pointedly. “Ever.”

“Alright, that’s weird,” Todd said, tossing the paper back onto the desk in front of Dirk. The three of them started at the paper for a moment, saying nothing.

“I say we break early for lunch,” Farah broke the silence. “My treat.”

“Avoidance,” Todd said. “I like it.”

“Burgers?” Dirk chimed in. “I love it.”

The three of them stood up and cleared out of the office, turning off the lights and locking the doors to the office. In the now quiet office lay the small slip of tangerine paper on a desk. It read, in plain cursive, Madame Orange is the killer.

End

#dirk gently's holistic detective agency #case fic #dghda #dghda halloween mini bang 2020 #fanfiction #dirk gently fanfiction #my art

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copperbadge · 5 years ago

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Do you have any thoughts about the announced adaptation of 'the City Watch' books by BBC America? Opinions seem pretty mixed in the fandom and I'd love to hear your take?

For a show I was almost definitely never going to watch from the outset, I have more thoughts about the Watch adaptation than I really know what to do with, to be honest. It’s actually hard to assemble them coherently.

There are basically three strands of opinion I have about watching The Watch: personal, critical, and literary.

The personal:

I don’t have a great history of enjoying media adaptations of Terry Pratchett’s work. One reason I didn’t watch Good Omens until a month or two after its release is that I knew this about myself and I didn’t want to turn it on, get disappointed, and turn it off, as I’d done with The Hogfather (we need not speak of The Animated Soul Music, lord). Granted, the Death books are not my favorites, so I was never going to deeply engage with The Hogfather, and then they came out with The Colour Of Magic, another non-favorite, so I skipped it, and so I was super disengaged by the time Going Postal came out (though I should really give Going Postal a chance because I do love Going Postal as a book). So I acknowledge this isn’t objective, this is personal, but it’s still a factor.

So I’m not coming into this whole situation with The Watch as someone who actually wants, or enjoys, TV adaptations of Pterry’s books, Good Omens notwithstanding – and let’s be real, Good Omens is an outlier. It was a collaboration, one of the original authors had deep control over the adaptation, and also Good Omens isn’t a Discworld book. It’s much more thoroughly rooted in our known reality, which makes it easier to convey to television. But my ultimate point is that when I hear about a Discworld book being adapted to TV, I shrug and move on. I have the books. I don’t need the shows.

The critical:

I think it is a bad habit of fandom that we extrapolate a lot of inference from a relatively small amount of data – we tend to take a couple of photos, a press release, some casting information, and very quickly make a large set of assumptions. It’s not necessarily that these assumptions are wrong, but we jump to a lot of conclusions. I’m thinking of early backlash over Good Omens, which I don’t even remember what it was about but I remember Gaiman having to get pretty stern about “could you wait until at least the trailer is out before jumping down my throat”. I’m also thinking of the casting of David Thewlis as Remus Lupin, which was not well-received until we saw more than blurry set photos.

Now, all that having been said, some of the casting news has been…difficult. On the one hand, a Black Sybil Ramkin? Sign me the fuck up. On the other, I know that for a lot of people, having a Sybil who is both large and older is really important (I think it’s important too). Especially if Vimes is older, it’s creepy and backwards to have Sybil be young and hollywood-idea-of-pretty (even if the time travel element is involved, it gets into a weird area). Also, I’m really over only ever casting people of color as villains or supporting-role-women. Vimes canonically comes from a “poor but respectable” neighborhood that could easily be reframed as an ethnic neighborhood, which would be especially pointed and interesting given his family’s long connection to the history of the city. An Indian or part-Indian Sam Vimes would be really, really interesting and cool, for example.

There’s also a lot of discussion about casting a nonbinary person as Cheery and explicitly setting Cheery up as nonbinary, as opposed to explicitly a trans woman*, especially since in the books she identifies as a woman, not as nonbinary. But I’m not entirely sure if Cheery as nonbinary is actually going to be canon or if that’s just the reporting on the show not knowing how to handle the whole Female Dwarf situation. Not everyone interprets Cheery as trans at all, either, because of how dwarf gender identity works, which complicates matters somewhat, so I’m not going to wade too far into these waters. I do think it’s great enby actors are getting work in enby roles, but there’s some issues there that need further examination.

(* Note -- corrected the above after it was pointed out to me that NB are not trans light; I’ve changed it to trans woman rather than trans-as-umbrella-term, more here.)

So I think overall it’s early days to make a lot of calls about what The Watch will and won’t be, but I also think there’s a lot of reason to be concerned and annoyed, and that brings us to the real, hardcore reason that I saw the first reporting on The Watch and immediately noped out:

The literary:

“Punk rock thriller.”

Oh go fuck yourself.

Despite everything I said above about not making snap judgements I immediately read that it would be a dark punk rock thriller police procedural and went “Well, guess that’s that” and walked away from the idea of being even vaguely excited about this show, because what I read demonstrated a basic, fundamental lack of grip on what the Watch books are about.

One, the Watch books aren’t about crime. They really genuinely aren’t. The crimes are macguffins on which to hang social commentary about other things entirely. Even in the very earliest Watch books, when Pterry was still mostly making fun of high fantasy, the crimes the Watch investigated were committed in the service of a larger discussion about things like totalitarianism, interculturalism, and civic life. There’s at least one moment, and I believe several but I’d have to re-read the books to be sure, where Pterry explicitly makes fun of murder mysteries where the hero Solves Crimes Like Sherlock Holmes. Vimes hates clues. Feet Of Clay has an extended subplot about how you 100% cannot trust clues even when the author is the one feeding them to you. I do not want a Watch series that is about Clues.

Two, the Watch books are explicitly the antithesis of the action genre. They have action in them, but the point is that nobody in these books are action heroes; they’re ordinary people attempting to go about their jobs in a situation where that constantly becomes increasingly difficult. I read “punk rock thriller” and I thought to myself of the dedication of Guards! Guards!:

They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. This book is dedicated to those fine men.

This does get a bit tricky because by the end of Snuff, Vimes is very heroic, almost too heroic for my comfort, but at the same time his heroism is of a very specific sort: he is heroic not because he slaughters the palace guard who get in his way or shoots the baddie or blows up a cop car with a helicopter (or vice versa) but because he deeply, intensely hates those things, and wants nothing to do with them. He is heroic because he is forced into it by circumstance, but spite in the face of monstrousness is what powers him. I think of The Fifth Elephant, where Vimes has just killed a werewolf:

There were a lot of things he could say. “Son of a bitch!” would have been a good one. Or he could say, “Welcome to civilization!” He could have said, “Laugh this one off!” He might have said, “Fetch!” But he didn’t, because if he had said any of those things then he’d have known that what he had just done was murder.

I don’t trust someone who thinks The Watch should be reimagined as a thriller to understand Sam Vimes. Like, there’s room for interpretation as to Vimes’ character, but there is a fundamental underlying bedrock Vimes is built on and if you don’t grasp the broad points of that, you’re just writing a cop show with some names stitched on.

Three, the Watch books aren’t a static series, they aren’t like cozy mysteries where the circumstances change but the hero rarely does. That’s nothing against cozy mysteries; I love mystery novels and some of my favorites involve characters who don’t even age over the course of the forty years the books were written in. But you cannot pastiche the Watch and expect it to work.

Again this is a bit of extrapolation based on low amounts of data but I think it’s probably accurate – the casting indicates that either we’re dealing with the events of Night Watch or at the very least heavily engaged with aspects of it. But Night Watch, while I think it’s one of Pterry’s best books hands down, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is one point in a very specific developmental arc, not just for Vimes but for the entire Watch. If we’re dealing just with the plot of Night Watch (which I don’t think we are) that’s tough to pull off. If, as I suspect, they’re going to be pulling from various aspects of various Watch books, then that’s just fucking nonsense.

Even Carrot, who is a very constant figure, undergoes some fundamental shifts in personality between Guards! Guards! and, say, The Fifth Elephant. Vimes, while maintaining his personal moral and ethical code, undergoes a radical shift between Guards! Guards! and Night Watch, and he continues to develop emotionally and in some ways spiritually up until Snuff. The Vimes who bitches about diversity in hiring in Men At Arms will not react to any given situation the way the Vimes who befriends the goblins in Snuff will.

And because these books also all address very specific issues, you can’t just slam them all together and expect to get anything resembling the Watch as Pterry envisioned it over the course of the books.

So while I love the comedy, the characters, the plots, even the macguffin crimes, I believe that a Watch book – a Discworld book of any kind – without that satirical bite is just a high-fantasy husk. There’s no point to it, nothing that sets it apart from a bad Saturday Night Live skit about Game of Thrones. The tv series might actually turn out great and all my concerns will have been unfounded, but first looks aren’t promising on a number of really basic levels.

So we’ll see. If I’m wrong, great; the show will probably electrify fandom in the same way Good Omens did. If I’m right, well, I had no hopes to begin with, so I’ll just enjoy re-reading Night Watch, which is the book that got me back into fandom and which you can all blame for my presence here today. :D

#discworld #the watch #copperbadge is named after the copper badge of sam vimes #Anonymous #you will pry ugly bastard sam and fat practical sybil from my cold dead hands

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toongal1998 · 4 years ago

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Hey, this is just an idea that’s been nagging at me for awhile, but what if Darkwing Duck was a Girl? How would that change the 91 version? Would anything really be different?

(Excuse the ruff drawing, I tried my best.) So that’s how this came about, I guess. I don’t really have much of an name for this au, but it pretty much goes like this.

• Drake Mallard in this universe is a girl. (as far as I’ve decided Darkwing is the only one with their gender flipped in this au)

•I was trying to think of a good name for her and so far I like Drina. It’s feminine, but also sounds cool and is pretty close to Drake. (note: I might change this.) I also think her nickname from her youth would be Drini/Tini Drini, which she hates being called. (Not intimidating enough.)

• She pretty close to Drake personality wise, but also has to deal with 90’s era sexism. Which, really ticks her off. Like OG DW no one really takes her seriously as a superhero, but even more so then before thanks to her being a ‘female superhero’ (with no powers.) Heck, even less know that she exist and most people who do, assume that “Darkwing” is a male before they meet her. (Gizmoduck makes this mistake in Tiff of the Titans and Immediately regrets it after seeing DW’s reactions.)

•Read with heavy levels of anger and sarcasm: “Oh What?! Can only ‘men’ be heroes?! Am I too ‘girly’ to take down criminals?! Listen here, you spotlight stealing, misogynistic tin can! There is only one hero in St Canard and that hero is me!”

• She still adopts Gosalyn in this au and tries her best to be a good parent to her like in the original. She actively encourages her daughter to be herself. As she feels her parents never supported her interests in comics and superheroes when she was young. “That is not very lady-like, Drini.” So because of that she wants to give her child all support in the world. As much as her kid’s rule breaking, rambunctious ways can get on her nerves sometimes, she never stops loving how spirited her baby-girl is and wouldn’t change one thing about her. (maybe listening to her more often, would be nice though.)

• Binkie is even more overbearing and annoying in this universe. Always trying to set Drina up on dates with some of the ‘nice young single men, she knows’. She also tries and gives Drina ‘helpful’ tips on how to be a good mother. Binkie isn’t malicious about any of this. She’s just old fashioned and would like to see her younger friend settled down with someone nice. She’s oblivious to how this all makes Drina feel, but she means well despite how obnoxious she is about it all.

• Drina Mallard is happily single, but if the right person comes along she wouldn’t say no....probably. She does have trust issues due to her past experiences with relationships. Most of the time she prefers to be married to her job as St Canard fearless, beautiful defender. People often assume that she’s with Launchpad, but they’re mostly just good friends/partners in fighting crime. (Maybe, they could become something substantial later on, but where they are now they’re just a guy and girl, who happened to be close friends.)

•As I mention above she has bit of complex when people unintentionally/intentionally make sexist comments at her and can get pretty firey when that happens. She, like Drake has a bit of an Ego and can be a bit childish sometimes when things don’t go her way. She not as greedy as Drake, but does have her moments of weakness. She still is kinda bossy to Launchpad, but does really appreciates him as her partner/sidekick.

• like OG DW she loves crime fighting and solving capers. She much rather be on a case, then being forced to go to one of Binkie’s boring book club meetings. She loves coming up with new gadgets to use on her adversaries, but sticks with her tried an true gas gun. She likes mystery novels, and still enjoys reading the occasional thriller or comic in her spare time. She can not bake for the life of her, and will buy already bake goods at the store to avoid it.

So that’s basically all have so far. I do have some other ideas here and there, but what do you guys think of this? Do you think there would be any real differences if Darkwing Duck was girl? If you guys have any questions and or suggestions for this au, then please feel free to share them and let me know what you think. I’d love to know your thoughts. Just please be nice about it, I guess...Anyways see ya!

#darkwing duck #genderbend #drake mallard #gender flip #random idea #female superhero #90’s cartoon #DW 91 #fight like a girl au

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krinsbez · 4 years ago

Text

Random Pulp Hero Thoughts

So, I'm on a bit of a Holmes kick, RN; two of the books I read last week had vague Holmes ties...

-Murder In Old Bombay by Nev March, a mystery set in 19th Century India who's protagonist decides to become a detective after reading the then-recently published The Sign of the Four.

-The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman, who's protagonist chose to name herself after The Woman, and who's supporting cast includes Peregrine Vale, a Great Detective from an alternate universe weird steampunk Victorian London who is repeatedly noted as being very Holmes-like.

...and the two books I finished this week and the third I've begun and will finish next week, are even more so. In backwards order...

-There's A Murder Afoot by Vicki Delany, the secondmost recent installment (which I missed on initial publication due to the Current COVID Crisis) in the "Sherlock Holmes Bookshop" series of cozy mysteries, about an expat British woman who runs a Sherlock Holmes-themed bookstore in a small New England resort town and keeps solving mysteries with the Holmesian intellectual abilities she refuses to acknowledge she has. This book has her return to the UK, and introduces the fact that she has a more intelligent older sister who supposedly is a minor functionary in the British Government but clearly is of greater importance.

-The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars by Anthony Boucher, a recently-republished 1940 novel set in then-contemporary Hollywood. When Metropolitan Pictures announces that their upcoming film adapatation of The Speckled Band will be written by Stephen Worth, an ex-PI who's a devotee of the hardboiled subgenre of detective fiction an has made his utter disdain for the Great Detective genre and of Holmes in particular, that early fandom society launches a campaign to get him fired. In an effort to appease the BSI, who's number include quite a few influential public figures, five of them are invited to come to Hollywood and consult on the film. When Worth is murdered, they become the chief suspects...

And finally...

-In League With Sherlock Holmes, the latest anthology of "stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon" edited by Laurie B. King and Leslie S. Klinger. It comprises...

"The Strange Juju Affair At the Gacy Mansion" by Kwei Quartey. In contemporary Ghana, a police detective consults Superindentendent Mensah Blay, a legendary former member of the Ghana Police Service who has retired to make wooden children's toys, to help solve a crime that has him stumped. Very good, feels pretty Holmesiean despite, y'know...

"What My Father Never Told Me" by Tess Gerritsen. A young woman comes to Britain to dispose of her late father's ashes, and discovers he was part of something grander than she ever imagined. Yecch. This isn't a story, it's the prologue to a story, and also hinges on the idea that Holmes was actually a villain.

"The Case of the Wailing Ghosts" by Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale. A duo of occult detectives are hired to break a ghost, and end up dealing with a supernatural murderer. Great story, not sure what it's doing in this book, asides from the two protagonists having a somewhat Holmes-and-Watson relationship.

"The Twenty-Five Year Engagement" by James W. Ziskin. A proper pastiche, pretty good.

"When You Hear Hoofbeats" by Robin Burcell. A contemporary detective story, with minimal Holmesian content, asides from some proper names (the victim is a plastic surgeon named John H. Watson, the suspects are his wife Mary and his business partner Joseph Bell), and the police detective narrator enlisting a former colleague who's become a PI to help solve the case. Good though.

"Mr. Holmes I Presume" by Joe Hill. This is a short essay written as an introduction to...

"Dying Is Easy" a short comic written by Hill, illustrated by Martin Simonds, apparently an installment of a series they did a few years back about a '90s cop-turned-standup-comedian who keeps having to solve crimes anyways named Syd "Shit-talk" Holmes. Not very Holmes-y, but fun.

"The Observance of Trifles" by Martin Edwards. the tale, in the form of a rather ramble-y blog posts and some comments on it, of how a Sherlockian becomes convinced that another Sherlockian who has become wealthy and famous with his works analyzing the Canon, has been plagiarizing him, and sets out to murder the man. All the characters are given pseudonyms drawn from the Canon, and vaste swathes of the text are quotes or paraphrases thereof. Fun, if a bit depressing.

"Infinite Loop" by Naomi Hirahara. An R.A. in 1980s Stanford University, Joann Wat, is forced to enlist the aid of Shel Rock, a Junior who is the dorm's resident drug dealer, when the parents of one of the Freshmen under her ostensible care may or may not have gone missing. Good stuff, not very original flavor-y of course, but there are some neat Holmesian touches asides from the proper names.

"A Seance in Liverpool" by Lisa Morton. A young ACD, about to set out on his stint as a ship's surgeon, before completing his Doctorate, is convinced bya friend to attend a seance. Things do not go as planned, but he gets an idea for a new character...Good stuff, not what you'd expect.

"Benchley" by Derek Haas. A printer's apprentice finds a body and summons the police. More I cannot say without spoiling. I love it, although it isn't quite Canon compliant.

"The Murderer's Paradox" by David Corbett. A tale narrated by Prof. Moriarty, which seems to follow the take that he was a Fennian. Or he's posing as one in order to enlist two young people as part of an effort to mess with Holmes, it's not clear. ACD's defense of the Boer War is crucial to the plot, though I wonder if some of the language used is anachronistic; did the terms "racist" and "Imperialist" in the modern, derogatory sense exist in 1902? Not a bad story by any means, but not for me.

"A Scandal On The Jersey Shore" by Brad Parks. In which a modern-day descendant of The Woman must prove her BFF isn't guilty of murder. A fun romp.

"The Adventure of the Northwood Bilker" by James Lincoln Warren. A contemporary Forensic Linguist, Shirley Ho, is hired to find a missing journalist who infiltrated a cult. Very good stuff, if a bit technical in places.

"Cumberbachelor" by Maria Alexander. In modern LA, a young woman must find a way to save her sister's wedding when their mother becomes convinced she's become engaged to Benedict Cumberbatch. Good story, not very Holmes-y.

"A Case of Mistaken Identity" by Chelsea Quinn Yarboro. A somewhat unethical therapist treats (or pretends to treat) a brilliant serial killer who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes. The story hints that the POV character has A Plan in mind for his patient, but never states what said plan is. Not my cuppa.

#Book Recommendations #Sherlock Holmes #Pulp Heroes #Random Thoughts

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hiddenawayforme · 4 years ago

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A quick media year in review.

It wasn’t until I sat down to write this that I realized I made it through quite a number of series. This list does not cover everything I watched, but emphasizes the highlights. It’s half recommendation, half rambling.

The Untamed: the reason this sideblog exists. It was the first show I watched after the lockdowns in my area started back in March. At this point, if you’re following my blog, I think you know my opinion and thoughts on this series.

The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: Tang Fan, a government official, and Sui Zhou, an embroidered uniform guard, reluctantly work together to solve a murder and end up adopting each other and all their friends and family as they get pulled deeper into dynasty shaking conspiracies. And Wang Zhi is there as well (48 episodes). Honestly, my favorite series from this year. It’s my comfort food. Produced by Jackie Chan, the fights scenes are phenomenal, the sets are gorgeous, the plots are interesting. If you want found-family, this is it. The series is based on a BL novel (though the romance became a bromance in the final version of the novel). The two leads have excellent chemistry and some very fantastic moments together. Recommended if you like detective shows that build up to a massive plot, characters doing whatever it takes to save the other even if it means self-sacrificing, conflicts of loyalty and politics, food as a love language, sneaky palace intrigue.

Hotel del Luna: Jang Man-wol is cursed to run a hotel for souls seeking to finish their business before passing to the afterlife. Her new general manager, a human named Gu Chan-sung, seeks to help her resolve her past trauma so that she can finally heal and move on (16 episodes). I love IU (the lead actress), so I was very eager to watch this. I adored the two leads, but the supporting cast is also really interesting. If I had one complaint, it is that I wish we dug deeper into the supporting characters’ backstories sooner in the series. Their reveals felt like they were all stacked up at the end, which didn’t give as much time to the leads’ endings. I’ve seen a lot of people disappointed in the ending, but I thought it was perfect and the obvious conclusion to what the series was clearly foreshadowing. Recommended if you like slow-burn romances, gorgeous clothes (I would do so much for Jang Man-wol’s wardrobe), plot twists that reinterpret what you’ve been watching, mini arcs that peer into people’s lives and regrets, reincarnation and questions of complicity.

Love and Redemption: Chu Xuanji and Yu Sifeng’s friendship and budding romance is tested as they are pulled into a conflict between the three realms and past secrets are brought into the light (59 episodes). I knew nothing about this xianxia show going in. I had encountered a few interesting gifsets so I started it on a whim and absolutely devoured it. This is probably the tropiest show I have ever watched. Amnesia, star-crossed lovers, whump/hurt and comfort, berserker button, reincarnation, stuck in a cave together, bed sharing, every misunderstanding ever. The list goes on and on. The leads have great chemistry and are so charming together. And there are plenty of other ship options if shipping is your focus. There is a lot of plot that is covered, but it never feels like too much. Out of all the dramas I watched this year, this felt the most evenly paced. Recommended if you like it when tropes are inverted so that the female lead gets a kickass musical cue and a power-up moment to protect the injured male lead (it happens so many times!), expensive CGI budgets, misunderstandings fueling conflicts, beautiful men swooning and coughing up blood, the power of love, sisters, wing porn.

My Roommate is a Detective: Police Inspector Qiao Chusheng enlists the help of lazy genius Lu Yao and journalist Bai Youning to solve crimes in the Republic of China in the 1920s (36 episodes). When this series was good, it was really good. But when it made missteps, it was hard to overlook. I must note that it seems as though a lot of people loathe the female lead. At certain points, I loved her. But there is a lot about her that I didn’t like. And the ending seems to be very controversial (I personally hate it, but find it easy to ignore). But I don’t want to give a negative impression of the series. It is absolutely gorgeous and flows nicely. The plot does build up to a big final conflict, even as it maintains a pace of smaller mysteries until the very end. Recommended if you like interesting and convoluted solutions to cases, annoying geniuses and their longsuffering police friends, badly dubbed English scenes, relatively light and low stakes (compared to the rest of this list lol), bromance, never getting enough clues to solve the mysteries alongside the leads.

The Lost Tomb Reboot (Reunion: The Sound of Providence): Tomb raider Wu Xie and his “iron triangle” companions Wang Pangzi and Zhang Qiling set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Wu Xie’s uncle (62 episodes split into 2 seasons). Yes, I started watching this because of Zhu Yilong. But I stayed because of the wonderful cast and amazing chemistry. It does have some pacing problems, 2 of the 3 main female characters get appallingly terrible fates, the plot was obviously butchered by censorship so some plotlines go nowhere or are dropped. And yet despite all of that, I was charmed by everything else. I knew nothing about the franchise going in beyond a few bits and pieces and yet I was able to follow along relatively easily. Recommended if you like ridiculous antics balanced with dramatic moments, Zhou Shen singing the ending theme song, creepy tombs, strong character relationships

#please excuse my terrible summaries #it was hard trying to describe without giving away too much #if anyone wants to know more about any of these series please hit me up #some might need a trigger warning or content advisory #nothing really bothers me so I have a hard time determining if someone might find it to be too much #I've reblogged posts for all of these series except Hotel #so if you look at my blog you can find gifsets to give you a better idea of each one #personal problem

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years ago

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Super Duper Supermen

This will be a long one, so pour yourself a cuppa and settle down. We may seem to meander, but we’ve got a destination.

. . .

I’m tired of superheroes.

I’m tired of a lot of genre fiction.

Part of the reason is that too much of the current material is ugly and loud, but the real reason is it isn’t fresh, it isn’t fun.

I tried watching The Boys. I got to the end of the second scene of episode one and realize, “This ain’t for me” and turned it off and went over to YouTube and watched guys build model airplanes.

At least they look like they’re having fun.

. . .

Look, superheroes are a power fantasy and they’re okay for little kids who want to believe there’s always going to be a mommy or daddy who will protect them, but they’re an absurd genre at best and when you start taking them seriously -- and recently even the funny parodies and spoofs take themselves Too Damn Seriously -- they become horrific.

What prompted me to realize this is an article posted on The Vulcan by Abraham Riseman “The Boys Is the End of the Superhero As We Know It.”

Highly recommended, by the way.

. . .

It’s not like Riseman was the first to make this observation.

30+ years ago Gary Groth observed:

“Superman is one version of the hero with a thousand faces -- to employ the title of Joseph Cambell's excellent book on the subject -- and his appeal should therefore not surprise us. But Superman is a crude version of the hero; if you will, an elementary one. Unlike his more developed analogues in all the world's great religions, Superman does not offer love or goodwill, self-knowledge or contemplation as keys to man's salvation. He offers his own physical powers.”

And he ain’t the only one.

Alan Moore recently chimed in:

“They have blighted cinema and also blighted culture to a degree. Several years ago I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous; it was infantilizing the population.

“This may be entirely coincidence, but in 2016 when the American people elected a National Socialist satsuma and the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, six of the top 12 highest-grossing films were superhero movies. Not to say that one causes the other, but I think they’re both symptoms of the same thing — a denial of reality and an urge for simplistic and sensational solutions.”

. . .

I don’t like cruelty.

I used to enjoy old weird horror films back in the day -- movies like The Reanimator -- because I appreciated their absurdity and never took them seriously.

When the torture porn sub-genre came along, I lost interest in horror films.

The Babadook is the only modern one I’ve seen in the last 5 years and I enjoy it because like earlier horror films (and here I include both classic Universal / RKO movies and the artistry of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) it’s essentially a very dark fairy tale, not an exercise in cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

Violence doesn’t turn me off.

Sadism does.

And sadism is all about power and fascism is all about power, so when I remark on modern superhero and thriller and horror stories as being fascist, I know whereof I speak.

. . .

Superhero stories may not necessarily be tales told by idiots, but they are full of sound and fury, and signify nothing.

Ultimately superheroes fail because:

they can’t lose

they can’t win

There is no finality in the superhero genre. The damn Joker keeps crawling back, Les Luthor constantly schemes, Dr. Doom and Galactus pop up whenever things lag in the sales department.

Superheroes as a genre are failures insofar as they can’t permanently deal with these existentialist threats, nor can they step out of the way to let others deal with them.

Superheroes promise salvation but deliver bupkis, slapping a band-aid on a cancer and telling us it’s all better.

They can’t permanently defeat their greatest threats, yet neither can they be truly harmed by them.

I’ll grant you the occasional Captain Mar-Vel but they are very minor exceptions to the rule. Gwen Stacy was bumped off in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 in June 1973, first reappeared as a clone in May 1975 then several times thereafter, and most recently shows up as Spider-Gwen in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (September 2014).

As Roy Thomas aptly observed: “In comics they’re only dead if you have a body and even then only maybe.”

(In fairness, there’s no finality in most formula / genre fiction either, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)

. . .

Before we delve deeper, let’s be clear as to what we’re discussing when we say “superheroes”.

They don’t need to possess “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men”.

As noted above, they just have to be:

always victorious

never in real danger

You can bash ‘em / trash ‘em / slash ‘em / smash ‘em and they still bounce back -- heroically -- to save the day.

Break both legs, riddle them with machine gun bullets, hit them with a car, cave in their skulls with sledgehammers, and yet somehow they summon up the super-human reserves needed to keep in the fight.

Mind you, in the real world there are people who display super-human endurance in horrific situations and not merely survive but go on to achieve incredible success. They don’t do such things every year (as do heroes in movies), much less every month (comics) or every week (television). They sure as hell don’t make a career out of it.

Let’s veer away from brightly colored naked people flying & fighting to superheroes in a different genre than costumed crime fighters.

Mike Hammer is a superhero.

Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.

Philip Marlow might actually be a literary character.

Look at the criteria: Can they lose?

Never in Hammer’s case.

Rarely for Holmes (and when he does, it’s always with bittersweet irony).

Frequently enough with Marlowe that one can’t anticipate if any of his stories will end with him victorious (yeah, he solves mysteries, but always at profound personal cost, and in more than one novel he ends up realizing he’s been a sucker all along).

Here’s another example that snaps the dichotomy into ever sharper relief:

Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft is a superhero.

Richard Roundtree’s Shaft is just a hero.

Roundtree’s Shaft is aware he can fail.

No “macho bullshit irony” as they say over at the Church of the Sub-Genius.

. . .

Superheroes don’t grow -- they decay.

They never truly use their power for good (because that would involve changing the world) nor do they adequately protect the innocent.

They serve no true function except to entertain and to be exploited.

Series novels and television shows can feature character growth, but the concept has to be baked in from the beginning (Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City books are two examples that spring immediately to mind).*

More typically, in series fiction the character/s show little actual growth; they are more or less the same at the end of their adventures as they were at the beginning, maybe a little greyer, maybe a little creakier, but essentially the same person.

Sometimes, particularly in military or nautical or police series, they may start out as a callow cadet but soon wise up to the stalwart hero we want to see.

As perfect an example of superhero decay can be found in the Die Hard movies.

The original’s superhero character, Detective John McClane, implausibly goes through a night of hell yet actually shows some character growth: By the end of the film he’s able to swallow his pride and admit to his wife he was wrong.

A very farfetched movie but an emotionally satisfying one. We’ll overlook a multitude of injuries that would have rendered him hors de combat in reality in exchange for the movie actually being about something.

All that gets chucked out in the first sequel, Die Hard 2, where the characters are thrown into a contrived situation to mirror the first film without the satisfying emotional growth but with far more ridiculous action; Die Hard With A Vengeance jettisons McClane’s marital relationship except as an afterthought and ups the absurdity of the story (indeed, it’s best viewed as an action comedy); Live Free Or Die Hard totally trashes all the character growth before it; and A Good Day To Die Hard not only trashed previous character growth but went so badly over the top that it and the star’s aging out hopefully are the one-two punch needed to end the series once and for all.

. . .

Look at non-superpowered / non-comic book superheroes and see how they fare.

D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers are superheroes (conversely, Cyrano de Bergerac is not because the focus of his story is on who he is and not the what but the why of his actions; all the cool sword fighting is just bonus material).

Natty Bumpo is a superhero; anybody who can jump into a birchbark canoe from a tree branch 30 feet overhead without crashing through is a superhero because that character simple Can Not Lose.

For that matter, most 1950s TV cowboys and virtually all Italian Western protagonists are superheroes.

Tarzan is a superhero.

James Bond is a superhero (the SPECTRE / Blofeld arc in the novels and short stories actually do end up with him going through significant growth and personal change, ending with Smersh brainwashing him and sending him back to assassinate M…but then the British Secret Service intercepts him and a couple of paragraphs later he’s all better and off after The Man With The Golden Gun).

Modesty Blaise is a superhero.

Claire Starling is not a superhero, but Hannibal Lecter is (don’t give me that; even if you’re evil, when you’re the central character of a series of books / movies / TV shows you’re a damn superhero).

They’re all superheroes because they can’t lose and they can’t change their world and more importantly they can’t change themselves.

. . .

There is one exception to the above re superheroes, and that’s in the realm of sci- fi and fantasy stories.

Occasionally we find a character who becomes a king (viz Howard’s Kull) or a demi-god (viz Herbert’s Paul Atreides) and does alter their world for good or ill.

That, of course, is the ultimate power fantasy.

. . .

Fascism focuses on the Will and the Act.

It is a philosophy of movement.

It’s a philosophy that attracts the weak and the sadistic, because it promises protection from and power over others.

It’s a philosophy that actively seeks conflict, not necessarily overt violence, but the promise of same is always there.

. . .

A brief sidebar to the other side of the comic book spinner rack.

Funny animals are essentially anti-authoritarian.

From Aesop forward to Carl Barks, their characters, filled with all too human foibles, can and do fail.

And when they win?

Ah, then it’s almost never by force or action, but by cleverness.

Funny animals are tricksters, accurately sussing out a situation and maneuvering to gain the best outcome for themselves without obtaining dominance over their opponent.

Bre’r Rabbit and Bugs Bunny.

Ducks Donald, Daffy, and Howard.

Superhero stories seems obsessed with keeping everything orderly and in continuity.

Without continuity, anything goes, and that’s fatal to the superhero trope as it annihilates authority.

Funny animal stories rarely feature continuity and when they do, it’s rarely rigorous. If Porky Pig needs to be a businessman or a farmer or a studio executive or a traveling salesman, so be it.

He’ll be something else in the next story.

As tricksters, funny animals are bounded by one rule: They may save themselves and seek justice, but they will pay a penalty if they try to use trickery for selfish gain.

Howard the Duck -- “trapped alone and afraid / in a world he never made” -- is just trying to stay survive.

Daffy Duck -- greedy little miser that he is -- inevitably gets it in the neck when he tries to cheat someone.

Donald Duck -- floating somewhere between Howard and Daffy in his motivations -- finds no guarantee of success and reward, yet achieves success often enough to keep striving.

He may battle mummies or a reluctant coke machine, his stories may take him around the world on an adventure or no further than his kitchen to fix dinner.

It doesn’t matter.

Who he is makes his stories compelling far more than what he does.

He’s not on a power trip.

He doesn’t feel he has to win every time.

And as a result, he has a much richer life than Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

. . .

“So whaddya sayin’, Buzz? ‘Superheroes is bad’?”

No.

I deny no one their pleasure.

But I also think there are times when we have to demand not just more of creators but of ourselves as an audience with the media we consume.

I only saw the first two scenes of the first episode of The Boys.

That was all it took to convince me not to watch it anymore.

For similar reasons, I have no desire to watch Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul or Game Of Thrones.

I’ve picked up a strong enough vibe from each to know I’m not going to connect with them.

I’m certainly not saying you can’t enjoy them if you like.

Bu I am saying we’re cheating ourselves by not demanding more.

And until we start demanding more, the studios and streamers are only going to offer us less and less variety.

C’mon, people, we deserve more than that.

* I’m sparing you a whole long analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show because frankly it goes too far afield of this essay’s central thesis and besides I can use it for another blog post in the future.

#comics #superheroes #Gary Groth #Alan Moore #Abraham Riseman #The Boys TV series #Watchmen #writing

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stepphase · 4 years ago

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Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay: 9 things to know before playing

Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay: Of course, it is a game that arrive after eight years of anticipation and hype. Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay have officially launch in Global. As well as, it is already a broken Steam records. In fact, its fans expect of a game from CD Projekt Red. Also, the studio of The GTA 6 and Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a massive game. With a gigantic open world that is explore in the Night City.

After all, i have spent 40 hours with this game. And i feel fraction of what Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay have to offer. As well as, i have notice few thing which is powering through Cyberpunk 2077 weekend.

Image: CD Projekt Red

1. Loot every single thing

After all, here is a way to make money is to sell armor. In fact, a lot of enemy will drop their armor or gun after get killed. Just pick every single thing and sell them. After all, Crafting is big element of the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay. Also, you can craft armor, weapons and much more. As well as, you can use dismantle weapon to upgrade weapons.

2. What difference backstories make

After all, when you will start the game you will get 3 option with backstories for V: Nomad, Street Kid, Corpo.

In fact, there is 2 main impacts. The first effect the open hour of the game. As well as, if you will start in a Night City, different Characters, it is depend your choosing. Of course, the Corpo is in office building. And the Street Kid is in Sleazy bar. As well as, Nomad is in the Badlands desert outside of the Night City. After all, After gameplay of an hour you will come at the sam epath with fun for hire with your pal Jackie.

Af course, the second effect is with a different dialogue option that is base on the backstory that you choose. After all, when i went for Corpo, that give V ability to politic his own way to certain sticky situations. Also, your backstory won't make difference.

3. Don't just play the main quest

After all, i have spent 5 days around to get the Cuberpunk 2077 Gameplay review. Also, i force to ignore side quests and focus on the main storyline. Of course, Don't do this.

As well as, the Cyberpunk 2077 story is strengths and its relationship between V and Johnny Silverhand. As well as, the mercenary play by the Keanu Reeves with a characters called V. Of course, the Cyberpunk 2077 is explore a Night City. Also, Gameplay itself is encourages and prompting you regularly and take break with the main quest for other stuff.

In fact, its amazing to play Side Quests then the Main Quests. Also, from reining in seven AI-powered cabs is rogue to solve mystery of slain mayor. After all, it is my favorite that the rogue cabs have personalities often legitimately funny.

As well as, the more Side Quests will give you the access of the better endings. After all, i finish the game in 37:30:26 hours with less Side Questing. In fact, it is really clear that the ending i did in Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay and there is many possible ending. Also, i get the worst ending by the way.

Note: Do more Side Quests to get more resolute and satisfying ending for V.

4. Do gigs to get cash

As well as, in Side Quests, to help a character to complete overriding goal with "gigs". After all, their is a more mercantile: And a "fixer" will definitely ask you to go do a job for them. Just like an incapacitate enemy and sneak through hideout and place a tracker on vehicle. Or to take risk from one place to another place. After all, your'e a gun for hire.

In fact, this things is fun with challenging and it will take 15 or 20 minutes maximum. Of course, You will definitely need the money in Cyberpunk just to buy weapon, cars, and upgrades. Also, i find these gigs is the best way to make it.

5. Stack attributes

After all, you will get option at begin of the game is to distribute points for attributes: Body Reflex, Cool, Intelligence, and Technical Ability. As well as, you will have perks that you can unlock in attributes.

In fact, i spread the attribute points and perks senievenly. And i also have idea that skill trees in most AAA games. After all, i end up unlocking all perks eventually. In fact, you are better off choosing that how you wanna approach combat and tailor attributes point and perks.

Of course, there is a 2 ways to handle the combat: Stealth and Force but there is a subdivisions. Also, you can specialize in the meelee weapons, and fisticuffs or gunplay. Also, you can optimize sleuthing hacking abilities and stealth kill offense. After all, the cool attributes and the related perks will make enemies harder to detect you. As well as, you can hack tech to distract enemies. Also, throwing daggers.

In fact, you can adjust your style in game but do not do what i did. Just try to be balance.

Breathtaking Johnny Silverhand. Screenshot by CNET

6. Pump Body and Technical Ability to open doors

After all, there is a Body and Technical Ability to attributes both highly useful to navigate Night City. In fact, both is use to open lock doors. Also, have more benefits like getting higher Body points that will lets you hijack cars and open parked cars. In fact, there is a Technical Ability that will let you hack mainframes to get money and to crafting components.

Breathtaking Johnny Silverhand. Screenshot by CNET

7. No two playthroughs will be the same

After all, the choices is really matter in Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay. Also, it is a true in Main Storyline. As well as, do not go in game with impression that make small and cosmetic differences. How you complete missions and react it will have a drastic effect.

After all, I have a suggestion that open section in game and you are task with getting a piece of the military tech from the gang. As well as, there is a option to meet with operative from mega corporation that tech was stolen. In fact, when I demoed game in August i didn't bother meet the operative and a result to blast my way out of gangs hideout. After all, i play this time i meet operative and result her corp's forces to shootout with gang and leaving me scurry away easily.

8. Do not use fast travel everytime

As well as, this is a similar vein. Also there is a fast travel point to the city that you will be able to use it. After all, when objective is other side of Night City. In fact, you would not have the time to dally dilly but you will often be rewarded for travelling via motorbike and car.

Of course, there is a lot of things to do in Night City. As well as, you are bound to find something if you will travel manually. After all, you will definitely find multiple cool things as i find regular stops en route to next quest location after see it. And the icon beckoning me into the HUD map.

After all, the Night City Police Department will pay you if you break it up and apprehend the perps. As well as, the Fighting crime yield solid loot that you are left disappointed with payoff.

9. You can fail Side Quests

After all, you will definitely fail Side Quests and would not get chance to re-do them.

In fact, when the first time i experience i was midway through a Quest revolving a killer that is trying to seek forgiveness from the dude he killed. Also, at the end of the Quest, one of that dialogue option is "Alright, i've seen enough". As well as, it is reverse psychology trick that i choose. "OK, fine" and the Quest just ended.

After all, this is same for challenges. As well as, one "gig" taking part in shooting contest with rifle with the top prize. As well as, there is not a single option to redo it. I Just Lost it.

Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay

Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay: After all, Night City is like a deranged experiment in a social Darwinism. As well as, it is designed by a bored researcher who keeps one thumb permanently on the fast forward button.

In fact, that line is from William Gibson in 1984 novel Neuromancer. Of course, it help to define genre known as the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay. As well as, the book conjures world to cutting edge trends are embarrassing cliches and desperate hustlers rise overnight and also fade without the trace.

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay by the Witcher studio CD Projekt Red in Night City. As well as, the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay was announced in 2012 and that is based on the tabletop series which was launched in 1988. Of course, it is a years of work that is report months of the brutal crunch time. In fact, CD Projekt Red have deliver on incredibly ambitious vision. As well as, it is a vast virtual city with complex narrative and also the roleplaying system.

As well as, it is dont by playing elements straight and safe. Of course, the Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay is frequently satifying and also a impressive game. Also despite setting in fast moving future that is never surprising.

Trailer

https://youtu.be/BO8lX3hDU30

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay take the place in eponymous year 2077 which is at the Night City. As well as, it is a California Megalopolis where interlocking freeways thread between the skyscrapers and the street markets. In fact, you can imagine Los Angeles with the mile high holo billboards and the pedestrain friendly urban planning. As well as, there is a de facto breakip of the America.

Also, that is failed urban utopia has become an autonomous zone that is dominated by gangs and multinational corporations. After all, on every single street level, the surface has plastered with sexed-up ads and also nihilistic graffiti. As well as, it is an ultra-rich have retreated in cavernous hotels and apartments with gilded servant class. After all, the citizens disposable and the body is malleable, ripe for the dramatic cybernetic modding which is blends with chrome.

In fact, your protagonist is mercenary named V that is hail from three possible background. As well as, 2077's is small corporate overclass and the Night City teeming slums or the nomadic group at outside the city. As well as, V is a neon hair corporate taider for insance. Also, with a short origin story mission that is be drag in bloogy interdepartment conflict. Also, V is countless freelancer drifting at Night City demimonda. In fact, join heist arrange by flinty femme fatale and naturally its job falls..

Sexed-up Billboards, Nihilistic Graffiti, and Literally Gilded Service Class

After all, V is a witness cold-blooded into the crime of the Night City’s. As well as, in ensuing chaos and coverup. Also, its ends with a piece of dangerous experiment technology. Also, they resurrect the digital ghost of the Night City legend: In fact, the metal-armed punk rocker is the terrorist Johnny Silverhand and voice by the Keanu Reeves. As well as, Johnny’s suffering frustrated outbursts and cynical quips.

After all, they also figure out that who built tech and how to stop the deadly effects. As well as, appealing to the criminals and also corporate loyalists who will stab them in the back.

Of course, this is a threat in a narrative that is big by a standard to the open-world games. After all, i finish Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay in 37:30:26 hours. As well as, that covers major Side Missions and cruising around the Night City. Also, I left a few small tasks undone.

After all, Every single neighborhood is pack with jobs just to discover, random crime to stop, and conversation to overhear. After all, when you become the more powerful, crime bosses, and local fixers then start to ask out for help. As well as, they will try to sell you a secondhand car. Also, in the opening mission, you will definitely find major endgame story branches that is depend on your loyalties.

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 map's overwhelming experience. With the waypoint icons, pack and selecting a given item requires zoom in. As well as, the game does a good job of spin extends side arcs from core missions. Also, it is a calamitous first act, that given multiple leads to the main goal.

As well as, they tracked down require the cutting deals with the characters and also contacting heists to other participants. After all, these partners will ask for help with their problems. it Also, continue subplot to the main story and open doors to fresh Night City subculture. In fact, you will find more gigs but the several option section that will feel like V and Johnny Saga.

Night City future are eternally relevant

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 tropes have survive because of the ring true. As well as, Cyberpunk 2077 depics hyper-stratified societ. Which is rewards cruelty and exploits vulnerability, also commercializes everything. This game conventions help it avoid facile event references that is still feeling contemporary.

After all, Cyberpunk 2077 falls in irritating caricature. As well as, V and Jackie develop blend for streetwise cynicism and buried hopefulness. As well as, those dialogue is overladen with spanish aside. After all, this game is straightforwardly reproduces 1980s Cyberpunk's surface of level fascinating with China and Japan. in fact, it is arming japanese gangster with katanas. And building Japanese Characters around archetypes like a honor-bound samurai.

After all, the USSR hanging with them, and the Cyberpunk 2077's gender and race worldbuilding is feel like an alt-history relic. Also, it will let you customize V's voice and body shape.

After all, the tabletop series author Mike Pondsmith have stat that the rules of detail fictional society is political. As well as, the Cyberpunk import social conflict for a dramatic effect like an long subplot about the sex workers. In fact, its vulnerable class of the real people. Also, its trying to overthrow bosses.

In fact, these conflicts do not feel fail or successful social commentary. Also, its stock neo-noir conceits which happen just to involve oppression. Also, Cyberpunk 2077 is a brand of exploitation. After all, it is a piece of fiction that does not add stories and ideas it is borrowing.

After all, CD Projekt Red has created a sprawl populate a world. where meandering freeways also outlying deserts and the rows of factory-farm also greenhouses feel beautiful craft.

Cyberpunk 2077 Gameplay is a powerful machine with million slick toggles, but they feel disconnected

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 areas have the shortcut doors to the high-tech or high-strength players can unlock. As well as, it is not clever puzzle-box design you had find in the Dishonored or Deus Ex. Also, you can choose to kill the enemies, a thread of the missions where you have to bring the targets in alive. After all, this option affect gameplay style or character interactions.

After all, your background and stats in the Cyberpunk will produce extra dialogue choices. As well as, they rarely change how conversations unfolded. In fact, a lot of game is roleplaying choices are crude binaries or illusions. Also, the Cyberpunk 2077 is powerful machine with million slick toggles. But more of them will feel disconnected.

After all, its a silver lining for me just like a reviewer and granted because Cyberpunk 2077 pre-release for PC build was fully unpredictable bugs. As well as, its mercenery keeps reappear behind me when i knock him unconscious and also forcing me toshoot him. As well as, when i try to move their body some enemies clipped through floors and exploded.

I can destroy you just with my brain with a four different ways

After all, this game is open-ended roleplaying and few elements reminiscent of sims just like Deus Ex. As well as, purchase weapons and clothes are supplemented by the upgrade tree for games key stat. Also, dexterity, strength, and cool. After all, you can visit back to the alley technicians which is called ripper docs. As well as, they also install bionic weapons and swappable upgrades with perks.

As well as, Cyberpunk 2077 can approach a lot of areas by slip past enemies undetected. Also, you can shoot everyone. After all, there is a clever hacking minigame that provides blanket benefits and making enemies much more vulnerable or glitching out the security camera. After all, there are “quickhacks” for actions. As well as, in stealth, you can deactivating turrets or making vending machines chirp to distract the enemies. In combat, you can fry the enemy's brains by making implants malfunction.

After all, this system will help to carry the Cyberpunk's considerable length. Instead of the rewarding hyper-specialization and the game encourages versatility also mixing up firefights with the sneaky sections. As well as, Quickhacks add a touch of much-appreciated absurdity to the combat. In fact, it is satisfying to infiltrate a criminal hideout. Also, incapacitate cluster of the mooks by uploading some contagious poison brain virus. As well as, wait for their buddies to notice you, start a shootout with futuristic-looking “tech pistol”. Then knock the final gangster out with the mind powers.

Modern Cyberpunk 2077 is the broad vibe and a specific retro-future setting

After all, this saga is felt rote. In fact, it is Dungeons & Dragons codified that is Tolkienesque fantasy. As well as, Cyberpunk 2077 is distilled recognizable elements from influential fiction like Blade Runner and Neuromancer. After all, it is a loosely define cyberpunk genre that begins as a ground to space operas. Also, the post-apocalyptic is wastelands and heavily influenced by the hardboiled fiction.

As well as, it is permeated science fiction which has innovation cliches. Nowadays, “cyberpunk” has 2 contradictory meanings: tech-heavy futuristic media which is felt organically grown from the present-day to social conditions. Also, its specific set of the 1980s and 1990s influenced retro-future noir conventions.

After all, Cyberpunk 2077 sits in the timeline where the Soviet Union still exists. As well as, Japan is an economic and cultural superpower that is with chaotic warzones and big cities. In fact, this game set decades after when original tabletop release. And the CD Projekt Red tune down retro aesthetic enough just to avoid ostentatious anachronism.

Of course, there is a periodic flashback to an earlier era and also creating a strangely hilarious setup. Where 2077 is look sort of from this real-world in 2020. After all, fictional 2020 is actually a sci-fi 1980s right down to the vinyl record and the eye mount camcorders.

Bugs

After all, if the Cyberpunk is a game for the perfection than i consider it is a serious problem. As well as, i hope CD Projekt Red will definitely fix it. As well as, it is roll out one round of pre-release bug patches. Also, it is a huge sandbox with autosave system, which is not a deal-breakers.

Of course, the Cyberpunk is hype as triumph of the next-generation gaming. Also, it is sheer size which will take advantage of the modern computer and console specs. Of course, my PC is really powerful enough for games.

Cyberpunk 2077 is released on December 10th on PC, Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X, Fifa 21, Capsix Robotics, GTA 6 Project America, gta 6 release date/characters/map/news/rumors, cyberpunk 2077 release date, cyberpunk 2077 warn streamers to avoid dmca strikes,

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