#just that its the same tragic premise of trying to get the best possible ending for everyone and absolutely fumbling bigmajor ubertime

[paradoxbeta]

just out of plain curiosity (I might have asked this before??? I have HORRIBLE memory) whats it about suns you particularly like

they tried very hard to do the right thing and none of it really worked and the same latent braincell that formed reading romeo and juliet woke up and started banging pots and pans

[giantkillerjack]

To give credit to the last of us for its queer rep, it’s not just queer characters who have tragic/bittersweet endings. Literally everyone (siblings, parent and child, heterosexual) queer or not, has tragic endings. The older queer couple gets the best one out of all of them.

I guess? I mean, it is certainly much better than if they were the only characters to die in the storyline. But people were on tumblr talking about how theirs was a happy queer story. And I think it is the misleading discussion around these characters that bothers me even more than the writing. Like if I had watched that episode instead of looking up the plot summary, I would have had a meltdown at the end when they both died because I truly had gotten the impression that it was going to be a happy story.

But now that I've mentioned the writing:

It's nice that they live till their 70s. It's nice that they get 20 beautiful years together. And it's a bit fucked that the writers felt the need to end those 20 long years on-screen with a terminal illness and suicide in the same episode they are introduced. It would have been incredibly easy to just say that those men get to live on past the end of the episode. There are a million reasons those men could have continued living in the story.

But that's the thing about a show like this. I think there is a distinct possibility that this show is actually incapable of writing a satisfying happy ending.

Craig Maizin, the show's writer, gained acclaim recently with Chernobyl, proving that he is apparently excellent at writing a long, horrifying tragedy in which character struggle only to find there is no way out.

(His other main credits are The Hangover sequels and the Scary Movie sequels, most of which I haven't personally seen, so make of that what you will.)

But more than the writer's background, the show itself troubles me. It has this repeated mantra in it that goes, "when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light." Which is a cool phrase.

But I have reason to suspect that this writer genuinely doesn't know how to write the light. I have no reason to believe he does. I hope I am wrong.

But when you write episode after episode after episode that is an endless inescapable slog of tragedy and desperation - and then advertise it to me, a sick queer person actually living through a pandemic and trying to escape disease and poverty - well.

I think a better writer would include moments of light and hope beyond just trauma bonding. Moments that don't end in death.

When my wife writes about characters in awful situations, there are still these moments of genuine loveliness and fun and joy between the characters; these moments remind the reader what is worth actually fighting for, living for. Imagine! Entire chapters in a post-apocalyptic novel in which characters don't undergo a "hacking someone to death with a cleaver" level of trauma!

But the fact that Bill and Frank still had to die even after an earnest attempt to tell a beautiful love story....

I fear that the light the story ends with - if there is any - will be as dim and desaturated as the show itself. And personally, I am at a point in my life where I don't care to see a story like that.

It's fine if you do like it. It doesn't matter to me if you find beauty in a tragic queer love story. There are places for that in this world. But it is tragic. I am sure of that. And I wish I hadn't been seeing posts saying otherwise, ya know?

And I hope I am wrong about the writer. But I see cracks in the premise. Like in Stranger Things. There was always a promise of light that kept me watching, but it never seemed to come. Instead, the misery and trauma continued to stack and compound for the lead characters, like in TLOU. But... does the writer know how to make that worth it, for us, for the audience - for me? I don't think he does.

I think it very possible that the light isn't really coming for Ellie and Joel in a way that provides catharsis because I have noticed that on shows with no intermittent joy and hope, this is too often the case.

But I do hope I'm wrong. Because if I am right, then a lot of mentally ill fans will leave the experience more depressed than if they hadn't watched it at all.

But for my own part, I'll just continue to skim through the show for monster design ideas. And also I'll say that everyone should watch Infinity Train - ESPECIALLY season 2 of Infinity Train, if they'd like to see a story in which people actually DO find a light that makes the whole journey feel worth it.

[thanks-mike-stamford]

Fics that inspire my writing - Part II

This is Part II. Read Part I or Part III

Continuing the discussion, I grouped these fics together for something they have in common: author style! It was actually a bit hard choosing them because they are all written by authors who have a distinct style. Something in them that makes you recognise the author right away, that makes you think - oh yes, definitely is a story from this person. When you have a bunch of stories with the same kind of feel, it's hard to choose one to illustrate my point. Tip is: binge read the authors below!

Part II

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You by etothepii Back when there wasn't even s2 yet I was already reading stuff from this author. I absolutely love their fics. This one is super interesting, a Good Omens fusion book version - beyond numerous screaming posts on the internet I'm not really familiar with this universe.

Something I like in all their fics and it's worked beautifully in this one is that there's more than it seems under the surface. The characters are not an open book even to the reader, and the narrator (close Sherlock POV) doesn't give all the information. The narrator sometimes doesn't even explain the information we are given. The facts are presented piece by piece, building the layers of a character, making it clear that even if right now, for this story, it's not relevant, this person is a complex human being (or angel. Or demon) that doesn't exist solely for the purpose of the plot. Two factors help with this: the non-linear narrative, that permits we only know a part of someone when it becomes relevant; and the sort of omniscience of Sherlock. I say sort of because yes, he's a demon and he has access to the core of someone. He's able to fish for stuff that happened in someone's life and how they feel about that as a way to build their vulnerability to sin. However, this is not necessarily mind-reading or future prediction. He makes deductions based on the soul, let's put this way. But because he can't use it to predict exactly what is going to happen, he still gets surprised. Because the characters are layered, they are able to be consistent with what we know and yet unexpected, up until the end.

The combination of giving powers to the narrator and using non-linearity is brilliant, working to enhance the themes behind the plot, which are about the complexity of the human soul. I'm working on a WIP that has similar themes and I try to play with these aspects to make it smooth like this story, instead of a philosophical essay using voices of characters. I've tried the non-linear narrative in a published fic, but it didn't have the same level of success in serving the story. Let's see if it goes better when I try again.

What It Is by toyhto This author has two main things going on in their fics: the type of angst that makes you question yourself, and the type of humour that is not really about trying to make you laugh, it's a very weird type of humour. I love weird stuff.

This fic is not Toyhto's best angsty one or best humourous one, but it's one that creates a good mix of both, like a tragicomedy (but without a tragic ending). You have John not knowing how to feel about Sherlock, and Sherlock gambling possibilities on how to fix the situation. It's the narrative that fascinates me. The story keeps its cards close, the reader is often a bit uncomfortable, a bit wrong-footed. You don't know where the story is going (hell, sometimes you don't even know where a scene is going), so you keep hanging up until the end. There's an underlying panic in how characters interact, but it's never hysterical, it's never loud or obnoxious. And then you find yourself snorting in situations that shouldn't have been funny. Life is usually not one genre or the other, so why literature should be? I love that the story never tries to be something (sad, funny, intriguing), and yet it is. It's not easy to pull something like this.

I have a WIP currently on my drive folder where I try to play with this tragicomedy narrative thing. This fic inspires me in trying to keep the reader on their toes all while looking effortless.

Borrowed Ghosts by DiscordantWords DiscordantWords has been out there since 2016 showing how there's more than a way to fix canon. In fact there are multiple ways. This is the author you want to go if you watch the show and think eeh this should have gone a different way. There's probably a story in here which takes the same premise you thought about.

This one is just too incredible. Because it picks up right from a crucial point in canon and said - ok, what if everything still happened, but they actually make sense? For this story consistency is key, and if canon gave us a John Watson making bad decisions while nursing an unreliable brain work, that's what you get. But make it make sense! This is what happens when you are on a roll of bad decisions, this story tells me. This is what happens when you're isolated from what before kept you on track. This is what happens when on top of everything your mind is playing you tricks: they don't just stop because you decided to. That's not how it works. This story acknowledges the bad stuff, but to fix them it doesn't propose miracles, and it definitely doesn't ignore them. We get the consequences but we also get the process of change that is necessary for things to be good once again. Like John says: there's a difference between wishing something happened differently and wishing it hadn't happened at all. But it did happen, so now what?

Make it canon divergence but character consistency and twist it to fix it, it's what inspires me in this fic.

The Ancillus's Tale by Chryse I reiterate that everything by Chryse is a must, but everyone that follows me on twitter had to deal with me constantly gushing about their most recent work for months, so it will be this one here. I just have a lot of feelings about this fic. Oh, yes, omegaverse again, inspired by The Handmaid's Tale.

The one aspect that comes to my mind when I think about Chryse's works is dark themes. If I want to read about fucked up stuff happening, I will go to them. And this particular fix has fucked up stuff from the first to the last chapter. And it's very immersive: you get inside the head of whoever is POV at the moment, Sherlock or John. You get their physical reactions, their thoughts, you know what they know. And the world building is on point: detailed enough that is totally credible, you can see reality becoming that way, but it's not described to exhaustion. We are presented the info about what we need to know, and rest is there, somewhere at your peripheral vision where you know it exists but it doesn't become a nuisance to the plot. But more important than that, it's how the dark themes are treated. It's never on black or white situations, surprisingly, despite the universe setting. The characters especially - they are allowed to have conflicted feelings, they are allowed to misbehave even if they are supposed to be on the good side, they have nuance and complexity. And the cherry on top: just because it has a dark premise, it doesn't mean it can't have a super satisfying happy ending that even brings comfort to the soul after letting it being hurt. We get snippets of comfort, the promise it's going to happen all along the fic, to compensate the extreme suffering the characters are going through. It's glorious.

I have been toying with the idea of writing something on the dark side. In fact my next multi chapter is super fucked up (but as always, with the certainty of a happy ending), and I hope it can see the world soon. I'm writing with this premise in mind: characters are allowed to have conflicted feelings, and they are allowed to misbehave, that won't make them the bad guys.

This was part II! If you missed part I, just click here. Part III is up!

[silver-wield]

tbh after playing the remake, I get the appeal of CA, because it's a familiar manic pixie dream girlfriend type love story. It even plays into the tragic boy loses girl trope which helps frame it as some grand romantic story. and yeah they're cute, and they definitely have a special connection. I think I could ship it if not for the whole rest of the story. It's a relationship that has the potential to become romantic, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. 1/5

The remake is doing a great job on untangling a lot of the ambiguity the OG left us with. Yes, Cloud could develop feelings for Aerith and vice versa, but the remake is planting so many seeds that confirm he currently has feelings for Tifa (which she reciprocates) and I don't think it's possible for any feelings he might develop for Aerith to overcome these feelings he has harboured since childhood. 2/5

Unfortunately those feelings are something he cannot fully understand because of his comprimised mental state. But you can clearly see that his deep affections for Tifa and desire to protect her stay with him despite that (as can Aerith). The problem with the OG (other than having to potray this incredibly complex subversive nuanced story through text and polygons) is that the LS scene recontextualize so much of who Cloud is, but by that time people had already made their conclusions. 3/5

With the remake you can see them trying to fix this by having a constant thread of romantic undertones to all of cloti's interactions. The CA relationship meanwhile is potrayed with these moments that play into romantic tropes and expectations. The bridge scene is flashy and grand and draws the attention, but it doesn't carry the substance that a single hand-clech does. 4/5

It's meant to be a smokescreen to the real story - just as Cloud is not the hero you think he is, the love story is also not the one you think it is. And that's what makes FF7 so great. It's all about the subversions of what you expect - it's about the truth underneath these grand and compelling illusions that is complicated and real but still just as beautiful. 5/5

Okay, first off I don’t see how anyone can play Remake with Cloud being biggest mood around Aerith and find that appealing. Personally I think it’s the most toxic and harmful behaviour in the entire game when he’s alone with her and she’s literally trying to force him to act like her dead boyfriend. There is zero appeal in that and it’s not cute how she behaves, it’s arrogant and self serving. Like I said in a different post (or maybe a tweet) both Sephiroth and Aerith use Cloud to fulfill their own selfish desires. Sephiroth needs Cloud to destroy the planet by getting him the black materia, and Aerith wants Cloud to emulate Zack so she can fool herself into believing he didn’t die. In both cases what Cloud wants doesn’t even factor into things. That harmful dynamic doesn’t give them a special relationship. It mirrors Cloud’s relationship with Sephiroth in that it hurts him. Aerith and Sephiroth are two sides of a coin and the whole isn’t anything that benefits Cloud. Even after they’re both dead they continue to harm him through their obsession with him. It’s only at the end of AC when they’re both truly gone from his life completely that he’s able to smile and be at peace. He has no stalkers in DC and that’s why he’s so cheerful. He gets to live happily with Tifa and not worry about ghosts coming after him. It has zero potential to become anything because to make that a thing, you need to totally destroy everything else about the story and characters themselves. You have to take away Zack being Cloud’s best friend and saviour, at which point he’s just dead. You have to take away Tifa being his motivation to become a soldier, at which point he’s dead cause Sephiroth still comes to Nibelheim and burns it. Point is, there is no way that dumdum dinghy is possible without removing Cloud and most of his personality from FF7, at which point he’s just a pretty face, so people should just go write AU fanfiction and admit they wanna bang the pretty boy and not deal with his canon personality and story. 

There wasn’t any ambiguity in OG because 7R is FF7 and the devs have said multiple times the story is the same as before. The problem back then was a poor translation, bad advertising and people refusing to follow the narrative to its proper conclusion. Cloud at no point in OG or any of the compilation could develop feelings because it’s shown in the entire compilation that he has always and will always love Tifa. Before Crisis he loves Tifa. Crisis Core he loves Tifa. OG he loves Tifa. AC he loves Tifa. DC he loves Tifa and Remake he loves Tifa. There’s zero room for anything with Aerith because his entire character arc is consumed with his desire for Tifa. It’s literally shown in the damn game that he’s in love with her. So, no, there never was any chance for Aerith, and I’m tired of people trying to entertain one by saying “if she lived”. Sorry, not sorry, if she lived Cloud is still in love with Tifa, so he never would, could or want to develop any feelings for Aerith. 

Cloud loves Tifa. It’s the goddamn plot. 

There isn’t any problem with the lifestream scene being the big reveal at that point in that game. The problem, again, is that people refused to follow the narrative to its logical conclusion and got hung up on their dumbass headcanon about Aerith. The entire premise of the game is built on illusion vs reality and yet some people still refuse to wake up and see reality. The game spells it out for everyone. They got so triggered over her dying that they acted like the game ended at that point instead of it carrying on and reaching the actual true culminating arc where we find out Cloud wasn’t himself this entire time. People seem to think Aerith dying is the plot and that she’s the main character or something. It’s Cloud’s game. The plot revolves around him. That’s why the lifestream scene is the apex of it. 

It’s Cloud’s story, not Aerith’s. 

I’ve pointed out several times how Aerith’s optional scenes in Remake show that Cloud is barely even a fixture. Her language of flowers you barely have Cloud in shot while she’s doing all that talking. She’s basically talking to the player. Her optional dress scenes show the illusion for what it is. That bridge is tiny and yet in the red dress is looks like this massive structure. I laughed my ass off when I spotted it. The pink dresses perspective shortens drastically for each one, with the funeral dress having Cloud standing nearest to Aerith, so that one’s probably closer to reality than that ott scene with random fireworks and fans popping up from nowhere. Not to mention the fact Aerith’s entire figure is padded out to fill that dress and she’s got hair extensions in and a ton of make up and the ost is actually called a mess of makeup or something like that and not a certain gaudiness. I mean, Madam M tried to turn Aerith into Tifa to win the bride contest and beat Sam. The game makes things very clear that the illusion is Aerith and the reality is Tifa, and players can’t turn Aerith into Tifa to make Cloud notice her no matter how hard they wanna believe they can. Her resolution literally has her repeating her OG lines from the GS about how Cloud isn’t himself, but she also arrogantly assumes he fell in love with her or would because she’s arrogant. It’s a character trait that again mirrors Sephiroth’s arrogance. It’s what gets them both killed in the end. Aerith underestimates Sephiroth and Sephiroth underestimates Cloud. 

And we already saw what Cloud had to say about her declaration cause he only ever refers to her as a friend and didn’t show any romantic behaviour when he rescued her. Unless “Yep” is the height of romance now. It’s not that the romance isn’t the one you think it is. It’s that it’s the one you ignored and acted like wasn’t important because you hate the heroine. Tifa and Cloud are together from start to finish, but because people decided the pink girl was more important they acted like Tifa had no right to what was hers from the beginning. She didn’t get between Cloud and Aerith. There never was any Cloud and Aerith. It was always Tifa. She just took what was always hers and kept it. 

Anyone who doesn’t understand that should try playing the game cause it’s clear they didn’t.

[brokasteltranslations]

Fate/Requiem: Chapter 5

Terror flooded the Colosseum like a breaking wave – first quietly, an almost-imperceptible swell, but then gradually escalating into a furious, all-devouring surge. Astonishment was plain to see on every face, but it came in different shades. Some spectators interpreted Hannibal's betrayal as all part of a cruel act, and cheered all the louder. They couldn't even imagine that a Servant could have truly killed a human.

I found it almost impossible to believe myself – all the more so given that I had met the Servant in question not a few days ago.

Struggling for words, the witch vainly tried to continue her commentary, but soon that too ceased. News of the incidents in other wards had spread through the crowd, and no small number of spectators had already been making to leave. Their presence in the stairwells spurred others who had only been watching into a rush for the exits.

Watching from a distance through a monitor as I was, I managed to maintain some degree of composure, but the spectators in the arena were quickly swept up in the panic of those around them.

Ms. Fujimura spoke, calmly, steadily, as though this were just another lecture.

“We must keep cool heads, Erice. I have already notified security, and they should begin the evacuation shortly. The rest of the Caren Series is attending to the incidents in other wards.”

“You're... evacuating? But...”

The panic I had feared was already beginning to spread. The analysis channels broadcast an evacuation message, and monitors all across the arena had switched to a static screen informing spectators that the match had been suspended. The battleground had descended into a full-on melee, spilling across both lines of ships. One of the rocky islands thrust skyward, and the water level suddenly plummeted.

“No...!”

As I watched, another master vanished beneath the feet of one of Hannibal's elephants. A second victim. A Servant sprinting towards them, tragically a few seconds too late, vanished in a burst of golden dust.

Who was that? I couldn't see... It wasn't her, was it?

“Some losses must be expected, given the present situation. I am attempting to contact the surviving Masters to enlist their cooperation in bringing it under control, but around half are unresponsive.”

“You mean, because of Hannibal?”

“No.”

I gulped. Did that mean it was Hannibal's Master who was responsible? No, that couldn't be right. It didn't make any sense.

“Did you know this was going to happen, Ms. Fujimura?”

She shook her head sadly. “No. Among all conceivable scenarios, I had disregarded this one as highly improbable.”

Even the Holy Grail, in all its omnipotence, did not have the means to prepare for every possible eventuality. She had undoubtedly done all that she could, where she could, and now lamented that it had not been enough. Fiercely, bitterly. Regret churned beneath her cool, calm exterior.

I forced myself to ignore it. Right now, I needed to be the Reaper.

“I had made my preparations in Shinjuku, but it seems I have been taken unawares. In the name of Caren Fujimura, municipal administration AI of Mosaic City, I have invoked Code Crimson.”

Code Crimson! The scarlet summons. I knew what it meant: it was Mosaic City's highest threat level. To the best of my knowledge, it had only been invoked once since the restructuring of Akihabara.

“Are you capable of distinguishing Servants from ordinary citizens, Erice?”

“Of course. I'm better than any-”

“Good. Your task is to eliminate any and all hostile Servants on the premises. The security forces alone will not be sufficient.”

I shivered, both with joy at the request I had so long been waiting for and with fear at the nature of what was being asked of me. Unilateral elimination was a highly unorthodox measure to take. If the situation hadn't been so dire, I doubt Ms. Fujimura would even have considered it.

“Do you really mean... every single one? Across the whole Colosseum?”

“Wherever you suspect hostile intent, you may engage at your own discretion.”

“Noted. One last question, Ms. Fujimura. Is this a mission for the Reaper?”

“No. This is a personal request for Utsumi Erice.”

“Understood. I won't let you down.” She knew that she was directly contradicting Chitose's restrictions, and she was doing it anyway. Just that was enough for me.

----

“I'm afraid there is something else I need to take care of”, Ms. Fujimura said. “You require no further direction, I trust?”

I nodded confidently, and just like that we parted ways.

Now it was time to get to work.

-

I embraced them; loathsome spirits, vile spirits, evil spirits all.

I turned none away. As I would for a dear friend, I embraced their rage, their sorrow and their terror, and made it all a part of me.

I steadied my breathing as I drew closer to the end of the passage. The sounds of battle echoed from beyond, mingled with screams.

With each swish of my arms, deep crimson blood spattered across the ground. I let it flow as I ran onward.

-

Ms. Fujimura had charged me with eliminating all Servants, and I knew all too well what that meant.

The first thing I made out was a group of spectators jostling with each other at the bottom of the ramp leading to the audience seats. One of them, a man, was lashing out at the rest with wild abandon, his frenzied clawing and scratching sufficient to draw blood. Despite his contemporary clothing, I could tell immediately that he was a Servant. As I watched, it began to dissolve into the mana it was woven from, revealing medieval garments underneath.

Armed security personnel tore him from the spectators, dragged him to the ground, and loosed a barrage of rounds into him from bullpup-type handguns. He was weak, for a Servant; weak enough that ordinary humans could engage him without much difficulty. However, the thaumaturgically-enhanced bullets pierced straight through him to ricochet from the hard floor, leaving him relatively unharmed. Only a little worse the wear for the hail of bullets, he rose to his feet once more and lunged for another nearby citizen.

Nearby, a hysterical woman tried desperately to control him with her Command Seals, but even direct orders to stop did nothing to dissuade him, and he showed no sign of being willing to revert to spiritual form.

This is even worse than Hannibal. It's like he's lost his mind entirely...

I checked whether the classification tag I had received from my master for use within the Colosseum was properly attached, then gestured to the security personnel. They checked me, and then immediately fell back obediently.

-

I extended a 'branch'.

The defiled blood pouring forth from the evil spirits within my arm coagulated and flowed outward, forming a black branch that shone with a dull lustre. It extended from my fingertip with incredible speed, as though growing organically.

Easily, so easily, it pieced the Servant's external barrier. It tore ravenously around his insides in search of his Spiritual Core, and, that located, seized his Saint Graph and wrested it violently from his body.

A Servant's Saint Graph was their centre, their heart, their CPU. It dictated their every function. Rendered temporarily visible, it shone in vibrant hues – only vaguely to ordinary citizens, but more clearly to magi. It differed from person to person. The Servant clutched for his stolen heart, gasping bestially as he tried in vain to return it to his body. I could sense nothing higher from him than his most primal instincts.

A woman suddenly lunged for me from the side; the same woman who had been trying so desperately to stop the Servant with her Command Seals.

“What are you doing?! Stop it! Stop it, I said! Don't you understand? He's my Servant!”

“I'm sorry”, I said. It was all I could offer. I could not ignore any Servant who presented a danger to those around them. Squeezing the life from a human's neck or gouging out their eyes would present little difficulty for even the weakest of them.

Deprived of his Saint Graph, the Servant finally lost the strength to maintain his corporeal form and dissolved into colourless mana.

“I'm sorry”, I repeated. “Please, evacuate as you have been instructed.”

“Just stop this!”, she implored. “Please, just... Just stop...” The Command Seals were already beginning to fade from the back of her hand. I was under no illusions about the sense of loss that she must be experiencing.

She sank to the ground, her body wracked with sobs. I managed to haul her to her feet and handed her to the security personnel.

-

I stared at the Saint Graph, now stripped of its vessel, clutched in the end of my 'branch'. As I watched, it blackened, becoming one with the blood that held it. The deceased Servant had not returned to the Throne of Heroes.

Once his Master's wounded heart healed, the Grail would summon a new Servant for her, and her Command Seals would recover. All would be well, so long as the Grail continued to function – although even if by some miracle it were to summon the same Servant, his memories would not be preserved.

-

In the time it had taken me to attend to this one Servant, the hall had begun to fill with evacuating spectators. I connected to the security network and searched for my next targets as I forced my way through the tide.

Over the next few minutes, I eliminated several Servants with hardly a moment in between. All had lost their reason and become little more than animals. My branch punctured their bodies and ripped out their Saint Graphs without mercy or quarter.

One Master, a man, resisted particularly vigorously, and gave me a punch to the face and a split lip for my trouble. Taking the blow, I reasoned, was the quickest method of quelling his anger. I disliked pain as much as the next person, but I was capable of accepting it when I had to. Seeing me continue to urge him to evacuate in spite of the punch, he returned to his senses, blanched, and sheepishly apologised.

The Servant I had eliminated had been a young woman; a wisp of a thing, barely even there. She had not made for difficult work.

Now my mouth tastes like blood... This is the worst.

I felt the evil spirits' excitement heighten even further.

If an ordinary fourteen-year-old girl with no training had taken a punch like that, she would have dropped on the spot, unconscious or comatose. Unfortunately, I was permitted no such reprieve; it would require more than that to take me out of commission.

The Servant's appearance and reactions had not given me any clues as to her identity, and I wondered briefly who she had been. I was well aware that many Servants summoned nowadays were lesser-known, but I still felt ashamed of my ignorance. I would have to study harder.

In time, a new Servant would appear before the man who had been her Master, and heal him from his grief – just like all the Masters before him I had clashed with as the Reaper. But I had to wonder...

What happens to those Servants who pass on, forgotten?

I remembered them, always. I had to.

Even if they left behind no other proof that they had lived here, in Mosaic City, that proof was here, within me, carved into my own heart.

----

As I eliminated Servant after berserk Servant, I began to notice a peculiarity about them. More and more reports of Servants being successfully pacified began to filter through the security network. They were vicious and hostile, certainly, but their savagery was not directed as one would expect of a Servant with a clear grievance. They had not fallen into a state of violent insanity like berserkers on the battlefield, and could be dealt with by keeping them at a safe distance from others and restraining them with a Spiritual Isolation Net.

I had also been keeping an ear open for any reports of the walking corpses left behind by the Command Seal Hunter that had been widely reported throughout the other wards, but as yet only one had been discovered on the grounds of the Colosseum.

-

However, even as the the security personnel began restraining the errant Servants, so too did the number of affected Servants grow.

Every time one Servant went berserk, three more cases would emerge in their vicinity a scant few minutes later. It was almost as though the insanity was transmitting through contact between their spiritual forms, spreading like a disease. I began to hear the same words uttered over and over again, a burgeoning whisper, from security officers and civilians alike:

“They're almost like voodoo zombies.”

It can't be necromancy – we'd be looking at physical bodies walking around, not spiritual ones. Is it even possible to make zombies out of spiritual entities?

If the goal behind this was seizing control of the zombified Servants from their Masters, there were far more efficient ways to do it. If it was to turn them to some purpose, the chaotic results hardly justified the sophistication of the method.

It's like whoever's behind this doesn't have any other objective beyond spreading death...

-

The sounds of battle resounded intermittently from the direction of the arena; sounds of raw destruction that could only have been born of a battle between Servants. I wondered what could be happening there, on the battlefield still half-submerged in water. The surviving security camera feeds hadn't furnished me with any details.

A mighty impact rocked the Colosseum with a loud bang, followed by an electrical crackling as the remaining interior lights shut down. The emergency generator and the security network's mainframe must finally have fallen victim to some attack or other. Robbed of any other means of communication, the security personnel resorted to physically shouting to each other.

A large number of the interior exits had either collapsed or become blocked by other debris. On seeing the path had become impassable, evacuating spectators tried to return the way they had come, only to have to fight through the rest of the crowd pushing from behind, and the evacuation quickly fell into confusion.

Those Servants who had escaped infection – for the time being – remained cool and collected, and were cooperating with those around them while protecting their Masters. However, in their confusion and panic, some evacuees even resorted to reckless actions in the hopes of forcing those Servants to prioritise protecting them instead.

Someone needs to take command here. Where's Ms. Fujimura? Where's my master?

About twenty minutes had passed since the suspension of the match, and the chaos was reaching its peak, when I suddenly spotted a familiar face.

“You...! What are you doing here?!”

Pran stood like a statue in the middle of the crowd of fleeing spectators. Karin and Kouyou were nowhere to be seen.

“Did you come here all by yourself? You need to find Karin and get out of...”

He blithely ignored me. “There was a dog.”

“What do you mean, a dog?”

“It was calling me.”

Time to waste wondering what he was getting at was a luxury I didn't have. I hurriedly dialled Karin's number, but the call showed no sign of deigning to connect.

The 'branch' drooping from my arm came close to brushing him.

“Nngh... You can't be here right now, okay? You can't be near me. It's not safe.” I backed away from him, bumping into evacuating spectators as I retreated into the shadows of the corridor.

“We stay together. That's what you said.” Even in the midst of the chaos, I could still clearly make out his voice.

“I know! I know, but...!”

He stared up at me with a frail, quizzical expression.

“You're going to cry. I know it.”

I started. For a moment, I could have slapped him for real. Karin and Kouyou were doubtlessly out there somewhere, risking their lives searching for him, and here he was, mocking me. The evil spirits stirred eagerly, feeding on the dark flame of anger that had flared in my breast. Control yourself better, Erice. I could not allow my frustration to get the better of me.

“Maybe so. You're right. I'm sorry.”

I admitted it, my voice shaking. I wanted to cry more than anything, but what good would it do anyone now? More to the point, why were my innermost thoughts and feeling such an open book to this child? And why could I not accept him, even though I could open myself to far viler spirits so easily?

A sudden sea change came across the milling crowd. Now, all at once, they were running in one direction, away from something. The churning pond became a surging wave, with pure terror written upon every one of its myriad faces.

It must be him.

The Servant who followed them had clearly lost his mind. I recognised him from his thin, light armour, and his distinctive bulk, like a heavyweight wrestler. This man had stood on deck with the Ottomans. I knew him to be one of the clan leaders of the Matsu-ura League: an alliance of Japanese feudal warlords from in and around the Matsu-ura county of Nagasaki, famed for their naval prowess. They had fought both at Dan-no-Ura and against the subsequent Mongol invasions. It would be no exaggeration to say that they had helped to shape Japanese history as we knew it, and he was one of their greatest warriors.

His naked blade was slick with innocent blood, and not a trace of his strategist's cunning remained in his crazed eyes. His Master was nowhere to be seen.

I can't watch this. The least I can do is put him out of this misery.

It would not be easy. He may have lost his mind, but he was positively busting with mana. The innumerable bullet holes that peppered his body began to fill even as I watched. If he unleashed his Noble Phantasm here, the casualties would be unimaginable. I couldn't afford to hold back.

But...!

My thoughts jumped to the child behind me. My powers were a threat to every Servant in the vicinity, not just my target. Was I really so confident that I could control them?

“Get back! Please!”

A female voice rang out from above me, sharp and clear. I looked up to see a girl sprinting along one of the upper corridors, closely pursuing a Servant. She vaulted the railing and flung herself out into empty space.

Is that... Koharu?

Her white coat flapped wildly as she began her inexorable fifteen-metre plummet to the ground, and then her diminutive body was eclipsed by Galahad's lanky frame as he materialised. The knight of the Grail wrapped an arm around his Master's waist with an exasperated sigh. The pair spun in midair as they fell – and as I watched, an extraordinary change came over them.

Two people, Master and Servant, had leapt from the upper corridor. By the time they landed on the floor below, they had become one: a woman clad in armour of deep indigo. The same knight, brave and bold, whom I had once seen on an enormous TV screen in Akihabara.

That's it. Her Possession. It must be. I had never imagined I would witness it quite like this.

The Matsu-ura warlord didn't even afford her the opportunity to recover from her fall. She took his blow from a low-slung stance with her own sword.

“Koharu? That's you... right?”

“It is.” In her possessed state, Koharu stood taller than me. She had two swords, very much like Galahad's pair, at her belt; the one currently in her hand was a longsword of curious design, with two pieces of ribbon-like cloth trailing from the hilt, while the other still rested in its scabbard and had yet to see use.

“He's not going to stop, Erice. Not until his Saint Graph is destroyed... Nngh!”

“So it seems”, I managed.

“So I've decided...” Her blade danced as she spoke, blocking the Matsu-ura warlord's weighty swings. “I can't just give the order to Galahad and be done with it. If I'm going to kill him, it's only right that I do it myself... Ungh... With my own hands!"

The two warriors gripped their swords in both hands, and exchanged a flurry of blows in a shower of sparks. The warlord made to pull back, to open some distance between them, and Koharu seized her chance to press all the harder. Her opponent was her better in sheer strength, but with his every wild slash, her blade licked silently and inexorably closer to his neck.

As I watched, spellbound, cracks spread out across the concrete floor beneath them with a sharp snapping sound.

Despite the warlord's furious snarl, he was powerless to stop what was coming. He writhed like a trapped beast as his doom crept closer and closer, until at last Koharu's blade sliced his throat open in a crimson torrent.

“I owe him that much.”

She curtly flicked the blood from her sword, painting a scarlet arc across the floor. Then, with nothing so much as bitter remorse in her eyes, she drove the blade through the spine of her twitching foe. She had dispatched him with ease, without even needing to draw her second sword. Facing her on dry land, the warlord of the Matsu-ura League had been hopelessly outmatched.

As I confirmed the destruction of his Saint Graph, a small figure wandered out from the cover of the shadows to squat down and survey the aftermath of the battle. The bloodstains were already beginning to disappear.

“Um... Pran?”

He stared avidly at the gruesome spectacle, as though burning it into his mind. His gaze now was as fierce as any he had directed at any street performer's work.

-

Koharu and I told each other what we knew. If the situation hadn't been so pressing, I would have jumped at the chance to grill her on the details of her Possession – what effects did it have on her body? Could she still hear and talk to Galahad? - but now was most definitely not the time.

“No. It was someone different I was chasing. A magic-user, working alone.”

“A magic-user?” Apparently she come from the arena hot on the trail of the very unknown foe I was after: the one who had so incapacitated Hannibal, his Master, and most other capable Servants in the Colosseum.

“The infected exhibit drastic degeneration of their mental faculties and indiscriminate hostility toward anything around them, while the infection itself appears capable of propagating among spiritual entities. I have never seen any magecraft quite like this. Ghouls, perhaps? Or maybe some subspecies of minor vampire?”

“I can think of one thing that could do this. You've probably heard of it too, but...”

But it couldn't be real. It was the stuff of fiction, of cheap popcorn thrillers. It had begun with fanciful folktales that spoke of using the dead as mindless servants, before they were warped and twisted by age of slavery to become...

“Zombies? Do you mean... Voodoo magic? The kind that even children know of?” No matter how much older she appeared to have grown, that expression of childish surprise was the Koharu I knew.

“After the death of El Cid and his master, the arena fell into chaos. We could no longer tell our allies from our enemies, so we all elected to put some distance between each other. I have yet to encounter any of my allies, but if the infection has spread among their ranks, the harm they could inflict would be grievous indeed. This Colosseum would be the least of our concerns.”

With Galahad possessing her, Koharu was no longer merely human, yet not quite a Servant; she hovered somewhere in between.

“Your Possession should keep you safe from the infection... shouldn't it?”

“I would like to hope so, but I would prefer to err on the side of caution. More importantly, Erice. That blood on your arm is no mere wound, is it?”

“No. No, it's...” I felt a young pair of eyes on me even as I answered, burning into me reproachfully. “This is nothing but poison to Servants. You shouldn't come too close, just in case.”

“Understood.” She nodded.

Another question came, this time from Pran. “Are you going to do more killing now?”

“If I have to.”

“Is that because it's a war?”

Not a flicker of fear crossed his face as he tottered toward me. He stood on tip-toes to stretch out his hand to caress my swollen cheek, as though he were no longer satisfied with just burning the image into his mind but wanted to take possession of my pain as well. Once, he said, a hole had opened up in him, where he had been pricked by a thorn.

“No, that's not right. You want to be useful to someone. That's why.”

They're the same thing, aren't they? We love because we want to be loved in return. If you want to know the meaning of life, ask the dead. We living have to struggle in ignorance.

“I used to think like that. I'm all alone, just like you. I'll always be alone. And I thought I was doing it to make somebody else happy. But now I think I was wrong.”

This child and his enigmas seemed so out-of-place amidst the carnage around him that it was hard to believe he was real. Koharu regarded him warily.

He scared me – for no reason so much as that he reminded me of my childhood self.

----

As Koharu's battle had played out, the evacuees had thinned from around us until none were left at all. Now the dim hallway was enveloped in an eerie silence, lit only by emergency lighting operating on its independent power supply. I hoped Karin and Kouyou had managed to find a way to escape.

The way ahead of me grew brighter. The end of the passage was near now. I could see where the arches opened up to the outside.

There's an exit right here, and yet they all ran the other way. That can only mean one thing...

The presence alone told me that I was right. Koharu, too, couldn't possibly have missed it: the approach of someone who commanded such an overwhelming amount of mana.

“It's them! The magic-user! She's a Caster!”

The entrance hall was strewn with debris and possessions toppled or left behind. The afternoon sunlight streamed in through the open doorway, and beyond, a Servant walked barefoot toward us. Her hair was pure white, and her skin was deepest ebony. Behind her, as she might a tote bag, she dragged the corpses of three unlucky civilians. It did not take much to surmise that this was our enemy.

“Not a Caster, I'm afraid. A sorceress. Although I don’t care for the difference.”

She walked with strangely fluid, viscid motions, but her voice had a young girl's sweetness. The short cape slung over her shoulders was dyed in garish primary colours and patterned in African fashion, while golden jewellery adorned her torso and legs. In one hand she carried a blade of absurd, outlandish design, and as we watched, she set it to one of the corpses' forearms and severed its hand from its body.

Or rather, severed its Command Seals from its body.

“Just look at the two of you. What a pair you make.”

She moved on to the next, and the next. Then, with her task complete, she began to collect the severed arms, her eyes trained on us all the while.

It's her! She's the Command Seal Hunter!

The Command Seals she had taken now dangled from her shoulders, her cape, her arms – still emblazoned upon the body parts that bore them. There were hands, and ankles, and extracted collarbones among the grotesque display. I could even make out entire shrunken heads, their mouths sewn shut with thread. Mosaic City's distinctive Command Seal designs were plain to see upon the fresher-looking articles.

“You aren't even human, are you, girl? You're a homunculus... Barely alive, even with that Heroic Spirit bound to you. Well, I suppose your Command Seals are as good as anybody else's.”

Koharu... So you really are...?

Her gaze – at least, I assumed she was female – turned to me, and she scrutinised me intently.

“And you... Oh? Oh my. Just what are you?” Her eyes, as fiercely red as rubies, widened in surprise.

Behind her, the corpses whose arms she'd taken rose unsteadily to their feet. I suddenly realised that the area around us was littered with dead bodies; the remains of those whose frantic flight for the exit had come too late.

No...! I froze at the sight of a school uniform among them. Wait... It's not Karin. Thank goodness... Anyway, it must be her. This Servant is the one responsible for all those murders!

The walking corpses' empty eyes trained on us, and they lurched toward us at a half-run, hands outstretched and grasping. I grabbed Pran and ushered him back behind me. Koharu stepped forward to engage the advancing horde; she sent some of the dead flying with explosive kicks, and coolly sliced the limbs from others to render them harmless. It was as though our enemy was watching to see how we would react.

“I can't hold myself back any more, Erice. Please, let me fight her. You saw what she did to our comrades!”

From the girl before me I felt both a raging desire to fight and the crackle of raging mana.

“Come, face me. You can’t ignore this fight forever.” The enemy Servant sounded almost bored as she sent corpse after corpse shambling toward us.

Her taunts were for me and me alone. She ignored Koharu as though she weren't even there at all.

-

“Are you not yet entertained? How demanding you are. Perhaps playing a while longer with my dear children will ease your boredom.”

In answer to her call, more dead bodies appeared from farther down the passage: two war elephants, draped in chain mail. Both of their feet were dyed deep red with blood and gore. I could only imagine how many people had met horrifying deaths beneath their weight.

“My, an elephant of the African forest and an elephant of the Indus. Such a rare sight. Aren’t you honoured?”

Once, these giant beasts had terrorised the Roman republic. Now, they were Servants – of a sort – under the command of Hannibal. That they were yet to disappear suggested that Hannibal may still be alive, but I had no idea what to make of the blind obedience they displayed toward our foe.

Koharu gulped as they neared; she knew their formidable strength better than most. She looked back at me as she readied her sword. I could feel her mana building even as she whispered.

“I'm going to use my Noble Phantasm. I need to end this in one-”

“Think again.” The enemy Servant leaned forward into a crouch, and I heard the swish of movement. Almost before the sound reached my ears, she was before Koharu, swinging her outlandish sword. The blow to her flank sent the tall knight flying. She smashed through the wall of the arena like a piledriver, coming to rest half-buried in fallen rubble.

“I suppose Servants don't die so easily. I had hoped to take that right hand of yours, though. Would have done, too, if you had been half a second slower.”

I levelled my Freischütz at her, but Koharu beat me to the punch. Before I could fire, she broke from her prison in a burst of debris and streaked toward her foe, who caught the blow with her misshapen blade.

The shockwave rocked the arena. Koharu's battle against the Matsuura warlord had been stunning, but this opponent was in a different league. The Servant fought almost hunched double, with one hand flicking her sword this way and that, beating back Koharu's strikes with savage blows of her own. As her enemy lifted her longsword above her head, she seized her chance, sending the knight flying once more across the arena.

Oh no...

Koharu's arc ended abruptly as she crashed into the sharp corner of a wall. She vomited blood.

“This sad little girl couldn't finish off Hannibal when she had the chance. I wonder how many people he went and killed, after that? Such a shame. Imagine the guilt she must feel.”

This was a Caster? This woman? This was hardly even a battle, and her mana had not even reached its fullest peak.

What the hell's Galahad doing in there?

Galahad's current circumstances might be rather unusual, but he was still a knight of the Round Table. Seeing him overwhelmed, even toyed by an opponent with no business even lifting a sword, I couldn't help but doubt his qualifications as a Heroic Spirit.

“Haha. Oh, little doe, such sprightly legs you have. Hahaha... Hahahahahaha!”

With a pitter-patter of bare feet on stone, the enemy Servant sprinted for where Koharu lay. The fallen knight's attempts to struggle to her feet were thwarted by a merciless foot brought down on her right arm. That outlandish sword followed a second later, pinning the arm to the floor. It was still attached, but only barely.

“Hahahahahahahaha!”

Koharu's agonised screams were barely audible above the sneering laughter.

----

“Hahahaha! Hahaha... Ha?”

The enemy Servant's cackling stopped, cut short as my unerring Freischütz struck her square in the back.

This arcane bullet was the weapon of Samiel, the Black Huntsman. It would pierce the Saint Graph of any Servant of Mosaic City, bringing immediate dissolution.

It struck true - I saw it - but the bullet simply passed gently from her back, through her mana-woven body, to be pushed out through her chest on the other side. It fall harmlessly to the ground with a clatter, without drawing even a single drop of blood. In her stead, one of the articles dangling from her cowl – a bundle of collarbones – crumbled to dust.

Slowly, she turned around.

“Must you be so eager to rush to death?”

“Don't... count me out... so easily!” Despite the sword pinning her arm to the ground, Koharu made to grab at her legs. She received a kick to the face for her trouble, followed by several more cruel stamps for good measure.

Koharu! Dammit!

“I'm afraid that my dear children have matters to attend to on the far side of this citadel at the moment. Our foes have sealed the exits, it seems, and are fighting hard to last the siege. My children are inside their walls, you see. I cannot imagine they will last long. The Servants of this city are all so terribly frail, don't you agree?”

“You mean there are still civilians left in here? Ones who couldn't evacuate?”

“Hahaha. Once my family has grown large enough, the time will come to fly the nest. Then our fun will really begin.”

She's going for this entire town! So what's her plan right now? Stay here and gather her strength?

There was little doubt about it: I was facing a being once worshipped as a deity, now summoned as a Servant. A Divine Spirit. However, if it had been summoned by the Grail, there must be limits to the status it could attain.

Don't let her intimidate you, Erice. She's not a real god! I tried to reassure myself. Perhaps it amounted to nothing more than making myself feel better, but I couldn't afford the slightest hesitation in the coming battle.

-

I swung my raised arm down, and the gnarled black branch extending from my hand grew into a vicious whip. It extended three-, four-, fivefold as it drew figure-eight patterns in the air, its flicking tip travelling faster than sound. I closed a few paces and lashed out. My enemy moved not an inch as my whip streaked across her chest, only slightly grazing her. I had chosen to avoid going for a fatal blow.

But it still had an effect.

The tip of my branch just barely touched her cape and the arms she held crossed within, slicing open her flesh – or as much as Servants had flesh.

“My, my. Maybe my defences won't be much use against you after all. What was that – Imaginary Numbers magecraft, perhaps? Whatever it was, I was told nothing of it. What secrets have been kept from me, I wonder?”

It's working! Whatever defences she's using, they don't work against my branch!

“You aren't a Master, are you, girl? A spellcaster, perhaps? In any case, if you have no Command Seals, I have no use for you. And that means I need no longer put up with you.”

Despite the threat in her words, she made no motion to beckon the war elephants closer. It was clear that she still regarded me with curiosity – and therein lay my best chance of victory.

If she wanted to know what I was, I would show her.

“Imaginary Numbers? I should be so lucky. I'm hardly qualified for that.”

The boy was a safe enough distance behind me now. I was going to make him watch me kill again. The evil spirits exulted at the prickle of sadism within my breast.

It's not a branch or a scythe I need. It's an axe. An axe to destroy, an axe to rend. I'll need to call upon spirits starved of such impulses.

I transformed the branch wrapped around my forearm into an enormous double-headed battleaxe, gargantuan enough to cover one of my arms entirely – and I allowed the evil spirits ever deeper into myself.

----

The evil spirits called out to me ever since I was very young.

At that age, I could not tell the difference between them and the people around me. I doubt I could even tell the difference between the clamour of their countless voices and the sound of my own thoughts.

There was never a minute, never a second of the day when they were not by my side. I was a peaceful, comforting refuge on their long, dark road.

They were neither Heroic Spirits, nor Anti-Heroes. They were Dread Spirits. The souls of the dead, steeped in hatred and loathing.

They had no fame to boast of. They had no glory or notoriety to their name. None had given themselves to acts of infamy that would echo beyond their lifetimes. They were nothing more or less than evil in its purest form, misbegotten creatures that the Throne of Heroes spat upon.

They had been given the gift of life - and yet they been rejected by the world, stripped of even their names, and, in the end, denied their place in the natural cycle.

To these lost souls who so craved a return to flesh and blood, I, Utsumi Erice, was the one and only candle in the dark.

-

I was on the verge of losing my sense of self when the two of them saved me. They taught me how to survive the curse I lived – at least, for a little longer.

Take control, Erice, they told me. Grasp the throttle, and bend them to your will.

Then I could fly swift and sure, even in the darkest night.

To these spirits that wounded me so sorely, they taught me to become mother, and bestow upon them a name.

---

“Erlkönig.”

The great hazel. The king of the fey, bedecked with crown and tail. Lord of the wilis, those graceful nymphs of the silver willows, and gatekeeper of the kingdom of the dead.

“For this bough is the touch of the Erl-king's hand.”

He who laughs at those spirits who strut proudly across this world they think their own. He whose grasp drags them from their horses.

“Lay waste!”

With such tempting prey before them, the evil spirits acceded eagerly to my command. My black battleaxe wailed mournfully as it swung through the air, its edge keen enough to slice a soul in twain. The strike sent the enemy Servant's outlandish blade spinning through the air – and then I stepped in, and brought my weapon's weight back down in a second blow.

“My, my, my.”

Her wound was deep, stretching from shoulder to breast, and through the deep slash I could see the stark white of flesh and fat.

“Wonderful, girl. Truly wonderful. A display worth at least a shrunken head. Who would have guessed your powers would be equal in kind to those of Nzambi?”

Her true name, freely given; perhaps this was the closest she came to unreserved praise. I had heard of Nzambi, just about. She was the origin of all zombie folklore: the high goddess of the Vili people of the Congo, at once a great empress and the mother of all life.

“For both of us wield death itself.”

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Review – ‘Eve and Eve’

Reviewing an anthology presents unique challenges. Each story must be considered as a standalone piece able to present a cohesive and engaging narrative (or not) by itself. However, being bound together intrinsically adds something greater to the works. They are no longer independent pieces but contribute to the book as a whole. I will admit this is the first time I have had the pleasure of reviewing an anthology but given the current trend of Yuri anthologies in Japan, and with the many English adaptations looming on the horizon, I figured I best get used to the prospect.

Eve and Eve is a mature Yuri manga anthology featuring six stories by Nagashiro Rouge. When I say mature, I mean it! the stories contain explicit (although not pornographic) depictions of intercourse. Two of the stories were originally published in Yuri Ninshin, a hentai publication, all explicit genitalia or nipples were edited out in re-printings in Japan. These edited editions are the ones which appear in Seven Seas’ Eve and Eve. Given these alterations, Eve and Eve is actually one of the few Yuri works in English I classify as an adult piece containing sex that is not pornographic, a classification I rarely make outside of visual novels, such as Kindred Spirits on the Roof. However, as this review does discuss the explicate content in the manga I am warning that you should read the following at your own discretion.

Now that the long-winded introduction is finished, let’s go over the universal aspects of Eve and Eve before I break down each of the six stories. Nagashiro’s artwork is clean and detailed. With each panel being full of detail except in a few circumstances to accentuate a character, object, speech bubble or interaction when white space is used. Their character designs are extremely impressive, with almost every character having a distinctly different hairstyle, face, and body type that mesh properly and make each individual feel distinctive. This is especially important for an anthology, as the short stories leave little room for individual personalities, so a lot of what has to be memorable is the design.

On the note of the characters, none of them are extremely complicated, often only having one distinctive personality trait. However, this lack of sophistication is to be expected and helps cut down on needless fluff. None of the personalities or dynamics between the characters feel overused or played out. Instead, they compliment the story well and allow for engaging short narratives. An example of this is Eko, in the second story, whose timid nature is the main conflict of her romance.

The content of the stories varies but there are shared elements. Half of them are science fiction stories with elements of aliens, robots, artificial intelligence, and the apocalypse. Additionally, unlike many of Yuri titles, those presented here are about adults (save one exception) who have consensual sexual encounters. Many of the pairings in Eve and Eve are women in relationship with each other that have a life together, which is tragically rare in this genre.

As previously mentioned, Eve and Eve has more than a few moments of intercourse. While these are certainly lewd, I did not find them disgusting as I do with so many instances of sex in Yuri. Part of this may be due to the omission of genitalia but mostly it is in the way sex functions in each story and how it is depicted. I will examine the former aspect later, but in the depiction, the intercourse itself, it is universally well done. While it is explicit and salacious, the sex does not contain gross moments of overly exaggerated orgasms or uncomfortably manipulated breasts. It feels mature and thoughtful, at least most of the time, something I greatly appreciate.

Finally, I need to talk about the “Summary of Stories” page that appears at the end of the book. This glorious spread gives me precious information about each of the six stories including when and where they were originally published. Alongside each story is a blurb from Nagashiro Rouge describing each story and their thoughts on it. I subscribe to Barthes’ “Death of the Author,” so I usually care little about the creator or their intent when evaluating a text. This belief is especially useful as an English teacher; that’s right, we know Fitzgerald may not have intended to put that much symbolism into The Great Gatsby, we just do not care! But I am also a hypocrite so I will on occasion use Nagashiro’s summaries to contribute to my thoughts and arguments about each story.

The first story, I Want to Leave Behind a Miraculous Love is about Sayu and Nika, the last two survivors of the apocalypse. They do not speak the same language, with Nika’s limited dialogue being written in Russian (only a few lines, even if you do read Russian it adds almost nothing to the story). Despite this difficulty, the two of them grow incredibly close and eventually become lovers. Through narration and effective visual storytelling, this story actually does an effective job of communicating how close the two are and how they care for each other despite the women's’ inability to talk to each other. This is seen in scenes where the two wander the dilapidated remains of a city and during their sex.

The intercourse here is the best that Eve and Eve has to offer, both in is salaciousness and the deeper meaning. The sex is a physical expression of their love and the way in which the two can communicate their feelings and devotion to each other. It is more than two characters smashing into each other to achieve climax, but an act that physically confirms their love. I applaud this depiction.

I Want to Leave Behind a Miraculous Love, is one of the stories originally published in Yuri Ninshin. To remind you, this is a hentai work and thus contains a lot of sex (although again, this is the edited version). It is also worth mentioning that “Ninshin” translates to pregnancy, Yuri Ninshin is a fetish work about pregnancies occurring between women. I will admit, I LOVE stories about women having and raising kids together, typically not biological kids, although I have done some quack reporting on the real world possibility (something I am in no way qualified to talk about. However, pregnancy fetishizing is absolutely not my things. It is easy for most people to dismiss this story because of its inclusion. I, however, will take a different approach.

Sayu repeatedly mentions her worries about one of them ending up alone if the other were to die. The pregnancy produced by magical science shenanigans produces children to keep them company in the isolation as survivors of the apocalypse. They are physical results of their love which shall endure beyond either of their lifespans, demonstrating the strength of Nika and Sayu’s devotion to each other. Additionally, they are a symbol of life returning after the tragedy of the apocalypse. The final panel of the story depicts life in both their children and returned plant-life surrounding the two female figures, mothers to the new human race, Eve and Eve.

The second story, The Case of Eko and Lisa, is about an artist, Eko, and Lisa, a sexbot that she uses to pose for drawings (but not for her intended purpose). Lisa malfunctions and begins to develop feelings for Eko, who spurs her advances.

The two characters struggle to confess their actual feelings for each other because of Eko’s anxieties about their possible relationship. During the climax of the story she reveals the source of her trepidation in a very human moment, she is scared that if they were to have sex she would be disappointing or that things between the two might change. It is a fear that many people in the real world have and Nagashiro is able to use it so well in this story, complete with some of the best art in this book. Equally as incredible is the response of Lisa, “just be honest with yourself and love me however you like.”

The relationship between Eko and Lisa is easily the best in the volume. Each of them struggles because of Eko’s anxiety around their relationship and trying to figure out how to best express their feelings. The resolution to their conflict is also one of the sweetest and healthiest things I have seen out of a Yuri relationship.

The third story is Top or Bottom? The Showdown! As the title suggests this story is comedic. It begins with a group of female students arguing about which of them is a “top” or a “bottom.” All the girls agree that protagonist Anzu is a bottom because of her small stature, something which she is outraged by. Anzu enters into a contest with the tall but passive Emi to decide who would be the better top. Hilarity and some (non-lewd) service occur.

I am on record as not easily crying but I am an easy laugh and Top or Bottom had me rolling in whatever the homosexual equivalent of “the aisles” is. The premise is ridiculous, as it should be which leads to some great jokes. The side plot of the girls “shipping” their male classmates together also ends up with one of the best twist punchlines I have read in a long time.

While it is easy to enjoy this story given what is presented in the book, it also invites some deeper analysis. Nagashiro plays with the expectation of the assertive and submissive, bottom and top, roles that often define relationships. The comedy comes from the characters struggles to fit into these defined roles, each possessing one of the traits of a “bottom” Anzu’s small size and Emi’s passive nature. Anzu eventually says, “deciding [roles] like that doesn’t feel right.” It becomes evident that deciding who should be the top or bottom is not something that needs deciding before a relationship begins but something more fluid which, if they are formed, are done so during the relationship.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book that amusement ceases with the fourth story, An Infidelity Revisited. Two women, Azusa and Midori, who are former classmates run into each other on the street and cheat on their girlfriends with each other. When Midori suggests that they break up with their partners Azusa declines saying the only reason the sex between them is so good is because they are cheating. The two women begin to leave but stop walking away at the last second.

I really did not like this story for numerous reasons. First, cheating is such a lazy and problematic way to make sex feel scandalous and exciting. Secondly, because the characters never face any repercussions or consequences as part of their infidelity that we see. This could make for an engaging narrative if done properly and in a longer format. As it is, all the reader sees is their cheating, no fallout, no resolution, and no redemption. Some stories are able to present such a small window into the lives of characters without these aspects but An Infidelity Revisited does not have the literary chops to pull off such a narrative.

Nagashiro wrote that “I hope I was able to convey that way in which logic eludes us even as adults, and the incredible impact that our feelings can have on us.” While the mangaka succeeds with that first point, the total lack of logic, they utterly fail to deliver on the impact. The only effect that this story has on me is leaving me mildly exasperated and bitter. As I previously said, there may be an engaging, albeit unhealthy, narrative here but begins so incomplete robs it of the chance to deliver.

Continuing with the theme of stories I did not like is Heir to the Curse. This is a second Yuri pregnancy story and the third to feature explicit sex following I want to Leave Behind a Miraculous Love and An infidelity Revisited. However, while the first story is a tale of love and eternity between two women this one is far more manipulative and disgusting. The beginning and ending are both fine, a girl is cursed because she is born from two mothers and can only reproduce women and she ends up living happily with another woman.

It is the middle that I take issue with. The cursed girl, Ichika, forces herself onto her childhood friend Yui to implant her child. This is so absurd that I almost threw the book across the room, the only reason I did not was that I had an ebook which I was reading on a very expensive laptop. Moreover, this assault feels so out of place with the rest of the anthology which features (mostly) thoughtful and wholesome depiction of same-sex relationship where women have consensual and mutually pleasurable intercourse.

Sure, eventually Yui realizes that she loves Ichika and wants to be with her but this epiphany coming immediately after an assault is a whole other can of worms that I do not want to eat because they are freaking worms. Ichika displays some remorse and it becomes clear that she is doing what she has been raised and abused to know how to do. In the end, Yui “saves” her and brings her away from the village that labels the woman as cursed. I actually like this part, but I wish the action she had taken against her friend was not assault. Even a pained but consensual sexual encounter would have been preferable. Ultimately what I can say is “cool story, still rape”.

Nagashiro wrote that this as “a story about friendship and love.” I call horse dung on this description. If you only read the beginning and ending sure, but when you include blatant assault in the middle of the story that becomes a central element to the story which again, because of the short nature of the story, was not properly addressed.

The anthology ends with Eternity 1 and 2: Eve and Eve. This is the only work by Nagashiro Rouge I had read before this, having browsed the issue of Comic Yuri Hime it was published in, and it is easily my favorite story in the book.

In this tale, two lovers, Eternity 1 and 2, have their brains put into satellites and to act as the watchdogs of humanity. The artwork and symbolism are stunning! By itself, this chapter would easily earn a nine or ten rating from me in that department. One standout moment is in the opening pages, a display of the two women sitting in wedding dresses about to undergo the operation with a wedding officiant standing behind them. This scene replicates the themes of legacy and eternity in love seen in I Want to Leave Behind a Miraculous Love but furthers them even more.

The women, torn from their flesh live together only as minds and spirits. While this story is devoid of sexual intimacy between the two the emotional connection of having their minds work as one is so strong and transient. I will not spoil the stories climax but the actions of the women to display and finalize their love are so intimate and powerful that I was blown away. Nagashiro also does a great job of tying in the other science fiction stories, chapters one and two, to Eternity 1 and 2: Eve and Eve making these three works feel like one continuous world, an excellent shared world anthology.

Eve and Eve has its ups and downs. While many of the stories are spectacular they are bogged down by a few inferior ones. However, I did not outright hate any of the stories and find myself earning for continuations of the inadequate ones so that their potential could be realized. If you are willing to overlook a few questionable chapters Eve and Eve is a wonderful and salacious Yuri anthology with surprising depth and humanity. I definitely recommend that older readers give it a look.

Ratings: Story – 7 Characters – 5 Art – 9 LGBTQ – 9 Lewd – 8 Final – 7

Purchase Eve and Eve from Amazon - https://amzn.to/2WyC2BY digitally and in print

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[inshadydenominations]

The Norwegian

My greatest fear in telling this story is that he is actually Finnish and I'm just tossing cold white people into one category. 

So this starts on a beautiful day when my cousin moves into her apartment with absolutely no furniture or doors and is sleeping on the ground on some towels. Things should only get better, theoretically. Less theoretically, the next door neighbor is a rich Norwegian who lives off investments and has a penthouse and claim to the entire rooftop. The rooftop needed to be acquired because how else is he going to stand up there and spray pedestrians with a hose? Then he would have to additionally trespass to make local news for nuisance crimes.  Whereas the roof terrace ownership takes the edge off his anti law approach.  And so it's his personal battlement, and so checkmate.  Anyone walking your dog down below, hide yo kids, aminals, wife etc.

We call this trash money, I and other poor people standing at a safe distance, willing and eagerly available to criticise others for support and justice.  It’s notable that I suffer from such extreme accuracy, all the while, looking in at a somewhat biased angle. It’s a gift. So here is the rest of truth according to history and science: 

He is dedicated to the nightlife with aggressively high spirits and she wasn’t yet used to his regular rounds. Julia considered banging on her door incessantly at 2am while on LSD terrorism.  It’s not her fault, she was just new to the building.  She said that she thought he was going to kill her, but it was unclear from her story as to how.  After all, certain deaths are worse than others, and without knowing the method this piece of information is very subjective and heading towards irrelevance. Soon after she calls the police and when they arrive he, ever so dubiously, vanishes. Yes, exactly like Zorro probably. Perhaps galavanting in some other, now afflicted and suddenly less fortunate, part of the building. His reception among other neighbors was coincidentally the same, and  the po got hit heavy that night. He was apprehended, it was tragic. The game over came too soon for one, but too late for most as he had urinated in the hallway, but no one cared that he had so much more urine.  

A day later he shows up at her door. Julia now thinks he is going to kill her more than last time. And her blood will soak deeper into the hardwood because she got him removed from the premises. Oppositely, he brought her flowers to apologize and explained that he indeed remembers nothing being that he was “tripping balls” with the LSD.  But he is really sorry and they are cool, and furthermore: best friends. Yay!

His friendship maintained its roller coaster like pace by lowering a rope ladder to her window as a kind gesture in the middle of the night. He wanted to give her easy roof access, and I know no greater generosity. She was like “no thanks”. He was insistent.  In the end she did not exit the apartment via rope ladder from the 7th floor. It could have been for safety reasons, or she was just tired, or didn't do drugs or idk I would have gone.

Still pals. He often stops by around 3 am because he is trying to further immerse her in his personal life and she just has to meet this great friend of his that dropped by with a bag of choice weed. After banging on the door for 20 minutes she answers and plays hard to get like “I gotta work in the morning”. But he sees right through that and continues to bring by different friends during peak hours of nocturn traffic. He at some point, as a token of his appreciation, paid for a house cleaner for her. I only bring this up because later in his absence, and you know “the show must go on”, she had to be extracted. Yes, by Julia’s human rights intervention . Yes ,because she was frantically screaming rape and murder. And the cops are back and not surprised. She had to get him on speaker to give police permission to knock his door down in that fun SWAT way. He definitely was cool with it and they tore in and rescued the girl. After which my cousin received many flowers and a lengthy letter about how she saved a life and is a hero. Still has it. 

Many times she was scared that she was gonna die, through direct fire or entanglement, but it definitely was not from boredom. I guess he lives meagerly though, all his money went towards the game. He really only ever bought the essentials: bread, rope ladder, a hose, some LSD and carbonated water. Nevertheless, his adjacentness did lower the price of the apartment, and now he is gone and possibly dead so it was worth it.

[synthient]

The Key to Understanding Deltarune: The Halloween Hack

So we’re currently in the middle of a 4000 year content hiatus

Which is unfortunate, because ever since the big iconic Halloween-day surprise demo drop, my brain has been rattling a baseball bat against the inside of my skull and chanting “CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT”

Undertale was like candy for the thematic analysis side of my brain. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights going “fun value......he put a quantitative value on fun.....numbers going up.....”

I am desperate to know what kind of themes Deltarune is going to tackle. Can you effectively predict that from one (1) 3 hour demo? No. Does my brain care? No.

Which is what lead me to the wonderful world of intertextuality, or examining how a media text is shaped by other media texts

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this with me doing a playthrough of EarthBound, the video game that Toby has cited as his biggest inspiration for Undertale

That was fun & interesting (the “throwing away an emotionally engaging experience to grimly make Numbers Go Up” thing feels a lot closer to home after trying and failing to get the sword of kings), but it didn’t provide much insight into Deltarune, specifically. It wasn’t enough. I needed more. I was willing to dig into literally any intertext (except Homestuck, which no force on this earth can compel me to read :) )

anyway thats how I ended up playing Toby Fox’s high school fangame

And somehow (sorry Toby) I walked out of there with an unironic theory (a game theory....if you will....): Deltarune is Toby’s adult reexamination of the Halloween Hack.

What is the Halloween Hack?

You know that thing where, like, people take the engine of a Pokemon game and edit it so there’s a new region and a bunch of new fakemon, and also There’s Swears Now

In 2008, Toby Fox entered a contest on an EarthBound fansite for the best Halloween-themed EarthBound hack

In one sense, reducing the Halloween Hack to a “bad romhack with swears” is a little bit of a disservice. There are some glimmers in there of a really affecting, thought-provoking game, and you can see some of the early blueprints of what would later become Undertale (“do video game ‘monsters’ really deserve to die” is a major theme, and the character of Dr. Andonuts was effectively split up into Alpyhs, Asgore, and Sans)

But it’s also. very much a fangame made by a 16-year-old.

You can read a basic summary of the Hack here. High school-age Toby wrote two pretty extensive analyses of his thought process behind the game. I’ll be referring back to them a lot, and I’d highly suggest giving them a read--Toby’s been so famously resistant to making any Word of God statements about Undertale that it’s kind of fascinating to see him being so candid

an extremely long and rambling examination of How This All Relates To Deltarune

The Halloween Hack opens in the town of Halloween Twoson. Twoson is one of the cites in EarthBound, and here it’s been painted orange. and there’s pumpkins now

See, high school Toby had...a bit of a chip on his shoulder. In the Making Of notes, he explains that he was frustrated that “most people generally thought I was just ‘another funny guy’”. So he designed the opening of the game to seem unoriginally close to the original EarthBound--like “a regular, funny, lazy hack”--to lull players into a false sense of security before the horror elements set in.

Two interesting things there:

“Lazily, unoriginally close to the source game” sounds an awful lot like the Dark World segment of Deltarune

Halloween Twoson looks very visually similar to Hometown

Toby’s description of Twoson also sounds pretty Hometown-esque:

The main impressions of Twoson that I wanted to give the player were: It's funny. It's a nice fall day outside. The person hacking this game is ridiculously lazy. It's a nice place to live. If you look at it a little closely, it's kind of claustrophobic.  

And when does the horror kick in? When the player descends into the underground tunnels beneath the city.

The “horror” in the Halloween Hack is, however, Pretty Not Good.

There’s a whole lot of the flavor text narrator (put a pin in that one) insisting “this is so scary. you’re so scared. your hands shake and your head throbs because you’re so scared.” There’s also a thing where the battle text keeps going “the shambling zombie BITES your HEAD OFF!!! (you lose 15 hp).”

I think the True Lab sequence in Undertale is a decent demonstration that Toby’s come a long way since then (and that Honey We’ve Got A Storm Coming :’) ). But you know what the Hack’s style of horror reminds me of?

My first thought when I beat the demo and saw this stinger was “this looks like an intentionally shitty creepypasta.” Now I wonder if it’s lowkey adult Toby poking a little fun at teenage Toby

The Halloween Hack is a game about railroading. It’s Spec Ops The Line before there was Spec Ops The Line.

According to Toby:

The main theme of this game is the lack of choice. There is really no choice in this game. From the moment you start to the moment you finish, you're destined to kill Dr. Andonuts. There are two endings, but they both eventually end up the same way. It's all a big joke on the player.

You know why there isn't a choice there? Because you already chose to make Varik go into the door. You already chose to go forward. The only real choice, as Varik realizes at the end of the game, is to stop or keep going. By "stop" he means "turn off the game," and that's all you can do. Anything you play is your own fault for playing, and that's the only real choice you can make.

Interesting? Yeah. A little obnoxious? Also yeah.

That’s one of the criticisms people had of Spec Ops. "The atrocities we commit when we feel like we don’t have a choice” is an intriguing theme, but “~the only way to win is not to play~ [the game I worked hard on for the express purpose of people playing it]” isn’t a very satisfying conclusion.

Undertale, in direct contrast to the Hack, is all about choice. It earns the right to guilt you for the No Mercy Run by giving you every opportunity not to go through with it.

But even Undertale plays a little with the concept of railroading--you can’t stay with Toriel; you can’t spare Asgore in any of the neutral runs; you can’t save Asriel.

Now Deltarune seems to be returning full-on to the Hack’s “your choices don’t matter” premise. But it’s going to need to find something more insightful and satisfying to say about it.

Which makes me really curious about this:

If the Hack has a secondary theme besides railroading/lack of choice, it’s The Soul-Crushing Impact Of Internalized Homophobia.

The tragic antagonist, Dr. Andonuts, destroys his own life trying to repress his gay desire. He retreats into a dream world made of his neuroses and trauma, and he’s inevitably Otherized and murdered by the player. He’s something of a dark version of Alphys, who “disappears” into her lab without ever meeting and getting support from Frisk, Papyrus, and Undyne.

Undertale takes an opposite approach to its lgbt themes--the Underground is a utopia where homophobia and transphobia don’t exist. Everyone respects Frisk’s and Chara’s pronouns. Alphys finds solace and healing in her relationship with Undyne.

It’s a heartwarming growth from the despair in the Halloween Hack. And it’s a vision that’s been deeply meaningful to a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no value in exploring issues of homophobia. 16-year-old Toby tried to do that, but...wasn’t exactly at a point where he was equipped to handle it with a ton of sensitivity and nuance.

(There’s. There’s a boss battle where you fight the physical manifestation of Andonuts’ gay repression. It’s a crotch. You fight a crotch.)

Some of the hints in the Deltarune demo, however--the Toriel Has Become Catholic thing; the fact that Alphys and Undyne haven’t met and Mettaton hasn’t been able to transition; the potential trans implications of choosing a name only to have it discarded for an assigned one (“you can’t choose who you are in this world”)--make me suspect that’s one of the themes that Toby will try to revisit from an adult perspective.

The Hack is interested in the idea of the flavor text narrator as a distinct, intelligent entity, whose thoughts and goals don’t always align with those of the player character or the player. 

The Hack’s narrator makes a habit of dictating “your” emotions to you (you’re scared; you can sense ‘the monster’ and you want to kill it; etc). The narration starts to seem more and more unreliable, until, as Toby put it, “The narrator starts talking to you personally...rambling about incoherent things.”

At the game’s turning point, you’re given a yes/no choice to kill Dr. Andonuts. Choose yes, and the narrator (mockingly?) calls you a good person, describes the murder you commit, and then narrates what appears to be your (or their? or Varik’s?) psychological breakdown. Choose no, and the narrator tells you that’s not a real choice and redirects you back to the yes/no box. If you press the b-button to try and opt out of the choice (the game’s unofficial subtitle is “Press the B-Button Stupid,” and doing so allows you to follow Andonuts into his dream world), the narrator starts to panic, although the game ultimately ends the same way.

Not to NarraChara Real, but NarraChara Real 

The Hack is also interested in the idea of the player character as a possibly-unwilling puppet controlled by the player (who in turn is controlled by the railroading/their need to beat the game).

According to Toby:  

 As you approach someone you've never met that you're labeling as a monster, your body pushes you forward to kill him. What's funny is that it's not even uncontrolled, it's really just the force of the player's controller pushing that little bounty hunter into murdering Andonuts. You might not realize it, but Varik is almost dead, and yet he can't stop moving because you keep pushing those buttons. 

The Halloween Hack is, fundamentally, a nostalgic meditation on an existing game.

It’s a little obvious to say, but the Hack isn’t a standalone game. It’s a hack of EarthBound.

Toby writes:

EarthBound dominated my childhood, shaped my preteen years, and played a large role in molding me into the offbeat pseudohippie I am today. It gave me a sense of humor. It helped me learn how to read. Its lessons served as a basis for my sense of justice and courage.

But at age 16, Toby’s feeling about the game that had shaped him were a little mixed. He describes “the staleness of a fifteen-year-old video game” as one of his motivations for making the Hack.

In Deltarune, he (kind of hilariously) has Alphys parrot his teen-self’s “staleness” line:

(I could write a whole meta just on the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie vs Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 thing)

Still, Toby’s nostalgia for EarthBound is essential to how the Hack operates. Earlier, I said there were glimmers of an thoughtful, affecting game buried in the “bad romhack with swears.” The most genuinely moving moment in the Hack, in my opinion, is the Onett sequence. 

You wander though a faded, dream world version of Onett--the hometown from EarthBound--while a slowed down arrangement of the Onett music plays. Snatches of forgotten conversations appear on road signs. Various monsters from EarthBound follow slowly behind you, but don’t attack. The only battles are against creatures called “Remember Me?”

The EarthBound characters appear to recognize “Varik” as Ness, EarthBound’s protagonist--or are they recognizing you, the player, as the same person who played EarthBound once upon a time?

The one problem, of course, is that not everyone has played EarthBound. It’s a relatively niche game. The sense of remembrance and regret and loss in the Onett sequence is universal, but being shaped as a person by the specific video game EarthBound isn’t a universal experience.

But in the years since the Hack, Toby has created something with a wider reach than EarthBound. Something that can evoke that sense of memory and nostalgia in players. A familiar game that he can take apart, rearrange, and examine in an entirely different light.

He made Undertale.

And now he’s rearranging the pieces into Deltarune.

[popwasabi]

“The Farewell” Review: Asian Family Dramedy Finds Bittersweet Humor in Grief

Directed by Lulu Wang

Starring: Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin

It’s been a while since I’ve gone out of my way to see a film that didn’t feature super heroes, dog-loving hit-men, or giant atomic-breathing fire lizards but a chance to see Awkwafina flex her comedic and dramatic chops while supporting Asian American creative voices was too good to pass up in “The Farewell.”

Director Lulu Wang’s film, based on “an actual lie” that her family went through, is a mesmerizing bittersweet and often hilarious take on the cross section of immigrant family values and the love that holds it all together. It’s the kind of story that will make you want to hug your parents and relatives extra tight, while laughing your ass off and shows a new angle to the family dramedy through Asian American voices that Hollywood rarely touches on.

(Since I’m sure most of you NERDS don’t watch Indie films, here’s the trailer to get you up to speed.)

“The Farewell” tells the story of an Asian American woman named Billi struggling to find purpose in her life out in New York. When she learns that her Nai Nai (grandmother) is dying from cancer she is told she is forbidden from telling her about her condition as per Chinese tradition. Under the guise of a wedding for her cousin the family uses it as an excuse to get together to be with Nai Nai one last time but the secrecy does not sit well with Billi and now she finds herself struggling with keeping the truth as it slowly eat her inside.

The best thing about “The Farewell” is that it doesn’t choose a side in its East vs West dynamic that may feel apparent in the film’s trailer. In fact, it’s more closely East AND West when it comes to the message of the story. The film doesn’t aim to vilify Billi’s family for hiding the truth from their matriarch but rather simply state this is how it is in China. It doesn’t try to state that this is the right way of thinking either, of course, as plenty of the film’s dramatic frictions comes from this lie but the film balances this East and West ideology very well by ultimately choosing not to take a side and simply show how this family loves one another which is ultimately more important to its narrative.

Though the film has an ultimately tragic premise it is here that much of the movie’s great comedy comes from and often at hilarious levels. It doesn’t simply make comedic scenes take place between the family drama it actually melds the two perfectly as humor comes directly from the tragedy. Often while viewing this film in fact you might find yourself wondering if you should laugh or cry and sometimes, you’ll end up doing both and the film is better for it in this way.

(That look we all gave when we tried to avoid spoiling “Endgame” to friends a couple months ago before they got a chance to see it.)

The film does such a wonderful job of making good, bittersweet humor out of this familiy’s struggle with tip-toeing around the truth that you’ll simultaneously want to sympathize with them and laugh at/with them at the same time. The humor can be both outrageous, dry and sometimes even dark in this way and makes for a very complex viewing experience. It’s a great balancing act that projects both emotions in perfect harmony from start to finish that’ll have you crying from laughter and sadness.

It’s the cast though that makes all this work perfectly as they form a believable loving but slightly dysfunctional family from various parts of the world. Tzi Ma is great as Billi’s father who struggles in his own way with his Chinese principles and his newer American beliefs. Diana Lin reminds me almost too much of my own mother, who is both loving and haranguing toward Billi throughout the film. And Zhao Shuzhen will make you wish she were your grandmother as her undeniable charm keeps the story humming along at a delightful and loving pace.

But it’s Awkwafina (real name Nora Lum) of course who shows off her impressive range here as both a dramatic and comedic talent that brings this all together here. Her catchy one-liners and star-making performance in last year’s “Crazy Rich Asians” was one of the film’s big highlights and she’s no less charming in “The Farewell” as well. 

Awkwafina carries this film as the audience’s primary western point of view but again it never turns to condescending of cultural traditions as our main character struggles internally throughout the film but never vilifies what is going on either. It’s a highly nuanced performance that shows Awkwafina’s star is indeed rising and deserving of recognition when awards season eventually rolls around.

(Side note: If I ever get famous I want to party with Awkwafina haha)

So, now it’s time for me to get on my soapbox again for a minute. If there was any doubt that diversity and showcasing minority artistic talents is important just look at all that’s changed in the wake of last year’s “Crazy Rich Asians.” I mean, just look at this picture of the theater I went to see this film at this past weekend.

It was a full house and it wasn’t even the showtime I originally wanted to see it at because the previous one had sold out too! And this wasn’t a crowd of predominantly Asian folk seeing this film; viewers of seemingly all backgrounds came out to see this wonderful family dramedy. It’s further proof that these films about the Asian American condition are relevant and more importantly have mass audience appeal.

On the surface a film like “Crazy Rich Asians” (especially compared to the complexities of this film) feels like a pretty standard rom-com but by getting it in theaters past all the countless bull shit, nay-saying it effectively broke down the door for new films that featured Asian Americans. In just a year’s time Henry Golding has already starred in “A Simple Favor” and is set to star in two more before the year’s end. John Cho was able to make his directorial debut with “Searching” and is set to play Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop.” Ali Wong’s “Always Be My Maybe” was a huge streaming hit as well on Netflix last month. And Marvel Studios is finally ready to have an Asian American super hero make his debut in Shang Chi later in the MCU’s phase 4.

(Ali Wong is just delightful if you didn’t already know btw.)

This is what I mean whenever I say Hollywood needs to give these films a chance because look how much has changed with just one movie. Who knows if a movie like “The Farewell” would’ve had a chance at even minor independent film stardom if a movie like “Crazy Rich Asians” hadn’t been given a chance to shine first on the big stage.

These movies and these people deserve a chance to tell their stories because they are relevant, they are poignant and more than anything they are good fucking stories! “The Farewell” is easily my favorite film of the year and I am grateful to “Crazy Rich Asians” for making it a possibility to be here. And if you think diversity still doesn’t matter then kindly just go fuck yourself because Asian Americans, these films and these beautiful, heart-wrenching and often funny stories are here to stay whether you like it or not.

(Seriously though can we like hang out, Ms. Awkwafina?)

“The Farewell” is well worth searching for a theater that’s playing it on the limited release circuit and will have you laughing and crying at the same time before and after the credits roll. It’s a film that will undoubtedly leave a mark no matter what cultural background you come from because the love in this story is relevant to everyone.

So, go see this movie and don’t forget to bring your Nai Nai too.

 VERDICT:

5 out of 5

*Me after the credits rolled.*

[flydotnet]

Shuichi Saihara and the Mystery of the Neverending Melody

Summary: Ever since he was a child, Shuichi has heard the same melody, an experience he didn't share with anybody. This is the story of how and when he found out why it was. 

Fandom: Danganronpa V3 (AU) Ship: Saimatsu/Saiede/Saiaka/y’know the drill

Wordcount: 3.2K words

Notes: Once upon a time not too along ago, in a place not so far away... My giftee was (unknown to me, due to the rules of the exchange) @xoxorandomfangirl! Glad we could rejoice in some good ol’ Saimatsus. This is... a weird trip. It's a soulmate AU with a twist! God, the plot barely makes sense in this story, it's a disaster and a half haha. I hope both aren't too out of character, that'd be super embarrassing, especially with some of my ~veteran experience~. Anyway! As I expected, I had... more or less zero idea who this would be for, so I went wild and, as a result, this story is... weird and I guess kind of impersonal? I still hope you like it pal! 

Written for the @saimatsugiftexchange

AO3 version available here.

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It first began when he was a little boy. After his parents (or, rather, their butler or maid) would have left his room, Shuichi would hear the serene notes of a piano in his now quiet room. He used to believe it was someone playing said instrument in a nearby room: after all, his mother owned a piano, a family heritage he had been told by the family’s most loyal butler, she could have very well been playing it, or asked someone else to do so for her husband or herself. Truth be told, Shuichi didn’t know much about his own house.

He never mentioned to his parents, or anyone for that matter. He was afraid of not getting believed. He had read somewhere before that, sometimes, you were just cursed to hear the same music over and over again for the remainder of your life until you’d find the one true way to break the curse and liberate your soul from going insane from the repetitiveness of it all and the loneliness it’d bring upon you. Again, Shuichi was but a little boy, and he was afraid of the curse too, more than he had ever been about the darkness of the night. Maybe that, if he ignored the song, it’d just go away… He figured he had grown out of believing such mythos, like the existence of the tooth fairy, of the soulmates his parents claimed to be in front of the cameras, and the curse of some piano music stalking him.

 He wasn’t weirded out by the myths, despite how much he’d hear about them and the number of stories he’d end up collecting in his mind with time. When he was a child, his parents would buy him a lot of story-focused books with urban legends like these plastered all over the pages. He’d watch, like every kid his age, series and movies about sirens, fairies, werewolves, vampires, soulmates with specific birthmarks, mermaids and haunting music. They usually ended well, turning darker as he got older and got to watch more grotesque content. The happy siren marrying the sailor she had first enchanted had become a tragic, death-riddled version of itself.

Shuichi didn’t believe a lot of them, despite hearing the music. Someone at school once told him it was someone searching after him and, when they’d get close to him, he’d hear the music. While she thought it was his Princess Charming searching for her beloved, he only found it creepy to think about: it was essentially being followed around your entire life until someone, possibly with malicious intent, would find you. How was that supposed to be reassuring?

 Speaking of the never-ending song, it got eerie when he’d start hearing it again when he was a teen. He had moved places entirely: to keep up with the demand for their services, his parents were mostly overseas, or at least far from home, and he had since moved in with his uncle Shinichi and the latter’s wife. Neither of them owned a piano, there was no such instrument in their house. If he let his soul get too carried away in its first instincts, he could almost feel the crescent-shaped mark on his chest itch.

Still, there was a rational explanation to that mysterious phenomenon, as there’s always been to various other enigmatic occurrences. When he absentmindedly mentioned this fact to his uncle and aunt, Auntie Ran mentioned that their neighbours had a son around Shuichi’s age who played the piano. It may have been this guy all along, so he shook the idea of being haunted or cursed away. There was always rationality to everything in life. There wasn’t anything to worry about…

 …that was, until he’d start hearing the melody where there was no piano nor the possibility of someone playing it, and especially in times where he shouldn’t have heard it.

He figured he’d just play it in his mind to soothe his own soul when finding himself in dire situations. When he was very sick and seeing things that weren’t, when he was about to fall, only for something to retain his body before it’d break itself, when the car he was in almost got hit by another. The serene melody would always play, albeit quicker than before, and he’d feel better or get out of the situation safe and sound. It must have only been him but, deep down, a part of his sceptic mind was thankful for it…

 A part of his brain couldn’t compute anymore when, on an urbex trip with his best friend, the serene music reached his ears. Around them, nothing but the rests of life that once was: they were in the middle of an abandoned hospital, torchlights in their bags, a camera in his hands. Kaito noticed something was bothering him, so he immediately popped the question to the latter, making Shuichi feel his cheeks burn with embarrassment. With how rational Kaito was despite his silly appearance, he’d surely never believe him. Still, he owed his friend the truth, so he went for it anyway. While Kaito didn’t outright laugh at his face, his eyebrows still twitched in disbelief. He then proposed the idea that there could have been a piano in the premise, just well hidden and, while that wouldn’t make too much sense, nothing was impossible in urbex. Someone could have brought their instrument with them, or put in a wireless speaker to play with the visitors. It wouldn’t have been his first time seeing that happen, at least.

In the end, there was no piano in the old hospital, nobody else but them, and they found no speaker, even with Kaito’s best efforts. They both decided to believe they just hadn’t seen it. It could have been hidden in some rubble, after all, leaving shortly thereafter.

Little did they know that, by trying to follow the music, they had avoided an unfortunate encounter with a murderer hiding behind the rubble of what had once been.

 Still, the phenomenon kept on. It didn’t scare him in the slightest when he was staying over at his uncle’s, finding himself get soothed by the serene notes played by his neighbour. It didn’t scare him when he was sleeping over at Kaito’s grandparents’ place. In fact, he wasn’t scared of it whenever he was with someone else, because, even if they didn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t hear the music, they helped him rationalize it. He must have had a sensible hearing, like his mother apparently was. She’d sing for her own scenes; he must have inherited something from her except for his long eyelashes and slender figure.

The melody would actually change every time he heard it. It’d be subtle differences he’d notice more and more: an octave higher, an octave lower. It must have been him, but it’d differ depending on his mood. If he was sad, he’d hear solemn, yet optimistic notes. If he was trying to focus, it’d subdue and become background noise. If he was happy, it’d hear triumphant sounds. If he was embarrassed, the air would be comical and he’d feel easier, encouraged to take it easy. Hiding in some bathroom stall had never felt this comfortable.

 Now, the issue rose its head when he also realized he was always the only one to hear it in the unlikeliest place. The moment he realized that fact turned his entire life upside down: he was all alone in one of his family’s secondary residences, enjoying some time separated from the rest of the world during the holidays, without a butler nor a maid. Just him, all on his own, with the sound of his footsteps echoing through the empty corridors. For how weird it seemed to literally anyone around him, Shuichi took great pleasure in some voluntary solitude. Someone like him just needed moments where he could cool down from how heavy socialization could get.

Alas, he wasn’t all alone in this villa: the piano was playing. Haunted and anxious at the idea that a burglar could have step foot there, Shuichi braced himself and started making his way to the music room of the house, just to make sure it was just all in his mind again. He let himself get guided by the notes: the louder the calm symphony was, the closer he felt to the source. For a burglar, they sure were a gentleman to only play the piano instead of robbing the place out of its fairly pricey electronics and other luxurious expenses. His parents weren’t materialistic people to begin with anyway.

 Bracing himself one last time, he breathed in and out, and proceeded to open the door to the music room. The notes were at their loudest yet remained eerily peaceful, undisturbed. Time to see what the face of his musician, impromptu visitor was…

Shuichi’s jaw almost dropped to the floor when his eyes laid upon the piano. It suddenly felt like a fever dream.

 On the bench in front of the keyboard sat a blonde girl around his age, fingers moving almost on their own as she closed her eyes, too much into her music piece to notice someone entering the room, he quickly guessed. She wasn’t dressed any oddly by any normal means, albeit very formally for a robber: a mauve dress reaching to her ankles, only leaving her ankles bare, with a trail sitting diligently at her feet, with matching gloves covering most of her arms. Even her hair seemed nowhere near ready for quick action and housebreak: it was a fancy hairdo, with strands all over her back and shoulders. Her profile was, you could say, divine.

Now, how she had gotten herself there was a complete enigma to Shuichi. Even his uncle would have a ton of troubles trying to decipher what in the flying disorder was happening before his eyes. A girl his age had somehow broken into a high-security house dressed for a ball… only to play the piano and leave everything else intact in her stead. Surely he had to be hallucinating it all, stuck in a fever dream and barely realizing it. It was unreal to say the least.

 Eventually, the piece ended, and the girl opened her eyes, revealing pink irises glancing right into his. God, she was beautiful in all the meanings of the physical team, but seriously, what the hell? Who was this woman, what was she doing there, playing the piano? How and why? She couldn’t have possibly been the cause of all the music he had lonelily heard all of his life, could she?

“Ah,” she spoke up before he could even phrase a single thing in a coherent sentence, “I see that you have found me at last. I’ve lost our little game of hide-and-seek!”

Okay, now that was getting a tad creepy and way too cryptic for his liking.

“Who… Who are you?!”

 Shuichi didn’t want to scream that like some angry drunk guy stumbling upon his own imagination, especially when the empty halls and rooms resonated this badly; yet his voice decided to do so anyway. Sometimes, his body could ask for his consent, but apparently it didn’t want to know anything about his desires. He’d have dwelled more on it if he wasn’t staring right at a girl playing on his mother’s piano with a slight smile and shimmering eyes.

“Well, I kind of expected you to ask me that first-hand. My name is Kaede. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Shuichi!”

Okay, what the fuck. How did she know his given name? What in the hell was that evasive response? And she still hadn’t only replied to most of his interrogations! Was she making fun of him, on top of stalking him with piano music of all things? He didn’t know how to phrase anything without sounding like a future murderer or a maniac.

 Still, “Kaede” quickly noticed he wasn’t convinced by just having her name. She simply hummed and resumed the conversation (if conversation this weird situation even was).

“I’m certain you won’t believe me, but we’re soulmates! Have you never heard the myth of hearing music everywhere you went until you’d meet your one true person? It doesn’t even have to be about love!”

“…you’re kidding me, right?”

She didn’t seem quite that happy with being questioned, instead shrugging with a slightly displeased expression. She ought to have had a knife hidden under her dress.

“Why would I joke about that? I’ve waited seventeen years to meet you!”

 She rose from the bench, hair and trail flowing behind her, floating in the air like wind blew in the room. He had to admit it: she was absolutely stunning and, frankly, didn’t seem too mean aside from being… weirdly playing the piano in an empty house.

“Hold up”, he still said, rising a hand. “How did you break in? Why aren’t you, I don’t know, stealing anything?”

“Why would I steal anything? I’m not here for items, I’m here for you!”

“Still, how did you make your way here?”

Kaede seemed bothered by his question, looking aside with an awkward smile.

“Weeeeell… It’ll sound unbelievable, but I can go through walls when I want!”

“…you really got to be kidding me.”

 As if to prove her point, she walked past him and, indeed, made her arm go through the wall behind his back. He felt a shiver go down his spine with a cold sweat.

“O-okay… And how do you do that…?”

He may have been terrified to see such a display without a proper forewarning.

“I’m a goddess!”

How far could this girl push his willing suspension of disbelief?

“Gods aren’t real, no? That’s old mythological stuff.”

“Yet you have one right in front of you!”

He supposed she could go through the walls and play the piano wherever he went…

“Wait, that means you’ve known me since I was a little boy, right?”

That had the most unfortunate implications ever.

“I… actually never saw you until now.”

 The situation kept growing weirder and weirder.

“Wait, what?! How do you know I’m “the one”, then?!”

She pulled down the right side of her dress, revealing a part of her breast and, most importantly, a crescent-shaped birthmark. With her other hand, she pointed exactly where his was, on his right.

“…so, all along, all those legends were true? God, I must be dreaming all this.”

Kaede looked annoyed.

“I thought you’d be happier than that to know you’re linked to a goddess in such a way!”

 Only then did it hit him.

“Wait. You’re the one who was playing this song I’d always hear, right?”

“Yeah. That was me trying to locate you, but most of the time, you’d be in trouble…”

“So, in short, you’re also the one who saved me when I was in harm’s way.”

“I tried my best back there! I couldn’t lose you before we’d meet, right? That’d have been anticlimactic!”

 It felt like being revealed the truth after a lifetime of lies and he, honestly, didn’t know how to handle it, or even if he could. That must have been when he felt her soft, warm touch around his body.

“Hey, are you okay?!” She asked, frantic, as she carried him like a firefighter around, until she found the nearest bedroom to put him on the bed.

Words had escaped his mouth, head spinning in dizziness.

“I suppose that’s a lot to take in…”

She picked a chair and sat on it, right next to it, her fingers hovering over one of his hands.

“I… I don’t know what to say…!” Shuichi laughed, still half in disbelief. “That stuff’s just insane!”

“I can only imagine so.”

 He took a deep breath and tried calming himself, if not just to stabilize his swimming field of vision for a moment.

“So… You’re some kind of goddess, right?”

“Yeah! I’m a deity of music! My father is the god of harmony and my mother is the goddess of technique and precision. My twin sister is the goddess of the harp!”

Okay. That made… some coherence, at least. It wasn’t entirely hazardous pull after hazardous pull.

“But, like, does that mean you were in love with me since I was born?”

“I didn’t know who you were for real until today! I just knew your name, where you were and things like that, but I couldn’t see your face until you’d see mine first. It’s the thing with being a goddess with a mortal soulmate…”

She seemed saddened by that fact.

“That’s a thing that happens, sometimes?”

“We deities have a few different soulmates in our lifetime. Sometimes, our bond to them is so strong the mortal get to ascend, but it happens very rarely. You’re my first soulmate, though! I’m a very young goddess by our standards!”

“You’ve waited for me for seventeen years, right?”

“Yeah! I hoped you were a good guy, and I’m not disappointed. I’m sorry if I’ve scared you with my attempts at finding you.”

“It’s… it’s fine. Now I know it’s not a stalker with malicious intentions, at least…”

 Kaede put one of her hand on his. It was only now that he was noticing she had somehow changed into something much more comfortable-looking: a pink toga-like dress with an untied hairdo. He supposed that was part of her powers…

“If you don’t want me around, I can always go back to where I come from. But, if I’m to be honest, I’d rather discover the mortal world with you.”

“N-no, not at all, you don’t bother me!” (Now that he was getting over his emotions, he realized she seemed like a nice sport all around. He could get used to her magical shenanigans later down the line). “I just have a question to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you take a human form? I don’t want to introduce you to Kaito as my invisible friend who can go through walls…”

Her expression, which had been serious and determined until that point, broke into a laugh.

“I like that title, though! Anyway, yeah, I can take human shape and pretend to be a mortal. I’ll just have to use a bit of my goddess magic to give me some officialness.”

“And you don’t mind that?”

She shook her head. “Nuh-huh!”

“That’s good…”

 Shuichi felt a wave of fatigue suddenly washing over him before yawning. That was a lot of emotions…

“It’s getting late,” Kaede noted as she looked outside, the pale moon lighting the otherwise pitch-black bedroom. “I guess you want to sleep.”

“Wouldn’t be against it for sure… But I think you have a lot to tell me.”

“Oh, it’s no problem! I’ll be back in the morning then, when you’ll be all rested up! Goodnight, Shuichi.”

“Goodnight…”

He fell asleep before her fingers had even left his, still dressed for the day. Maybe that it was all just a dream, an absurd dream of absurd proportions. For now, it was a soothing experience, so he figured he may as well enjoy what was left of it until he’d wake up…

 When he woke up, it was to the smell of breakfast and the sight of a now-familiar smiling face with blond strands of hair cupping her cheeks.

[blodreina-noumou]

Throwback Thursday - Season 2 - Tag Game

Tagged by the wonderful @boomheda @osleyakomwonkru and @johnmurphysreddit Thanks as always, my friends.

Favourite look:

Lexa’s commander gear, specifically the moment where she and Clarke first meet, and she’s toying around with that little knife.

Iconic, cool, just a lil bit extra. And so very like Lexa, to keep a weapon directly on hand while first meeting an adversary, yet remain cool as a cucumber during the conversation itself.

Favourite episode:

2x08 - “Spacewalker”

In this moment, from this very line, you know Finn is gonna die. The rest of the episode is an excellent, slowly building tension, culminating with Clarke mercy-killing her first love, in front of their enemies, Finn’s people, and Finn’s only surviving family.

I’d been hot and cold on this show since 1x05, waiting for it to make full use of its premise in a compelling way. This episode, and the scene where Clarke kills Finn, is still the peak. It’s what finally let this show sink its claws into me, and somehow, years later, I’m still watching. Genuinely shocking, gut-wrenchingly emotional, and full of the interpersonal character moments that make such epic and difficult scenes worth it. From Finn and Raven’s last goodbye, to Clarke impaling herself on Indra’s pike to prove her determination, to Raven’s soul-searing shriek of despair when she realizes Finn is dead. It’s tense, emotional, and maybe my favorite episode of television, ever.

Favourite song: 

I also love the soundtrack of this series, so I’m 100% with you, Luce. I think “Home” is a great contender (linked here). It’s emotional without being overwrought, epic and soaring without being cheesy. It sets the tone for the rest of the season really well.

I also really love “Couldn’t Stop Caring” playing behind the moments where Abby confronts Clarke about the bombing of Tondc (linked here). The song doesn’t kick in until towards the end of the scene, and I think it’s a well done moment of soundtrack. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, because, at this point, Clarke has really lost touch with a lot of her humanity in her quest to save The 47 from Mt Weather. She’s embraced “love is weakness” - yet the climax of the song states: “I couldn’t stop caring.” The heavy beat, the rising wall of sound, the grim tone and expression on everyone’s faces as they march towards war - it’s effective, chilling, and kind of badass all at the same time.

Favourite scene: 

Season two is full of good scenes, honestly. I think one underrated, really well-done moment is Lincoln’s resurrection in 2x07, “Long Into an Abyss”. I was genuinely so scared as Lincoln seized and died, all while Lexa is approaching the dropship. She’s staring around in horror and rage at the burned bodies of the 300 warriors she sent to attack The Hundred.

You can see how ready for vengeance she is - and then, she arrives in the dropship, and it could not be clearer to her that Skaikru lied, that they couldn’t cure reapers, that Lincoln is dead. Octavia’s wailing, undercut by the tense, scared glances Skaikru share with one another, realizing they’re doomed -

- and then, Clarke saves the day, telling Abby to use a shocklash as a makeshift defibrillator. Miraculously, it works. In the most dramatic, tense way possible, Skaikru proves their value to Lexa and to the grounders at large, and for a moment, it seems like things will be simple.

Least favourite scene:

Probably Ghost Finn, tbh. Wtf was that?? Clarke banished her delusions with the power of “love is weakness”! That’s so dumb!! Grief will do crazy things to a person, but damn!

Most interesting character on first watch: This is Clarke’s best season, hands down. She struggles so hard, but finds herself getting the short end of the stick, again and again. It turns her ruthless.

Her desperation and slow descent into genocide is very compelling to watch. She goes through so much, and it’s only her single-minded determination to free her friends that keeps her going. She loses almost everything, is betrayed time and again, comes up against countless obstacles. At the end of it all, she finds herself with the blood of a civilization on her hands, and at a complete loss for who she is. That’s a compelling story.

Most interesting character on rewatch: 

Octavia Blake. It’s a sleeper season for her, but her transformation from plucky, mouthy scrapper into full-blown warrior is incredible.

It has its downs. I don’t love the way she treats Lincoln upon his return from reaperdom, but overall, it’s a really exciting storyline, with a satisfying payoff. Seeing Octavia march among the rest of the grounders, finally content in her place, secure in her role, is so satisfying.

Favourite arc/storyline:  

This season is still my favorite, so it’s hard to choose. 

The beginnings of Clexa are the best part of Clexa - their uncertain yet undeniable connection carries the season through its lowest moments. 

Pike’s journey into the desert, Murphy tagging along because he “has nothing better to do.” That thread eventually leading to the insanity that is the CoL storyline - but the Prophet’s Quest through the Dead Zone is a really fun diversion from the rest of the season, which is particularly heavy.

Raven and Wick, genius-rivals-turned-lovers, providing a lot of very necessary comic relief. Raven’s struggle to adapt to life, now that her leg doesn’t work.

The struggle of The Delinquents inside Mt Weather, especially Jasper’s. He’s really the main character of that location, and it’s his best season. Watching him fall for Maya, feeling the dramatic tension of him trying to grab ahold of his own story, like the main protagonist he wants to be, only to have the actual main protagonists intervene out of nowhere, and ruin his life. It’s tragic. But getting there is actually a lot of fun, with juvenile delinquent shenanigans and scrappy underdog vibes.

Getting to know the Grounders on a cultural level, seeing what makes them tick, learning a bit more about how humanity survived in the 97 years since the bombs.

Favourite dynamic:

Clarke and Lexa; Octavia and Lincoln; Jasper and Monty; Jaha and Murphy; Raven and Wick; Bellamy and Octavia...

It’s a good season for most of the character dynamics, tbh.

Favourite New character introduced this season: 

It’s a toss-up between two of the best grounder women to ever exist -

Favourite quote:

“Thanks, princess” is definitely up there. Heartbreaking, succinct, too perfect.

“We’ve all got a monster inside of us, and we’re all responsible for what it does when we let it out.” Lincoln was too good for this show.

“Yu gonplei ste udon” - I gotta include some Trigedasleng, as this was the season where it’s introduced.

Tagging: @lovelyrosaye @blodkru @captainwilldameron @dylanobrienisbatman @nightbleeder @bellarke-addict @spacegamora @imacreepygirl and anyone else who sees this and wants to throw it back!

[badyogurt]

I’m a big fan of the Joker. Ever since I saw Health Ledger’s amazing portrayal of the “Clown Prince of Crime” in The Dark Knight, I was convinced that the Joker was the best, and certainly my favorite, villain in any medium of entertainment. I’ve had Chucks, a pencil case, a wallet and a handful of shirts with Joker prints in them. I’ve even asked my gifted friends to draw me portraits of the Joker. Needless to say, I am a fan. So when I saw the character’s latest cinematic iteration under the writing and direction of Todd Philipps, I found myself unhappy and in a conflicted state. I’ll just say that I don’t like it. It’s still well made and it boasts of another great performance from Joaquin Phoenix but I just didn’t like where the story went and what (I think) it’s trying to say. 

This is going to sound preposterous because we are talking about a movie here but I just can’t buy in with its premise and the world that it’s trying to portray. I have too much faith in humanity to really believe that such a cruel world inhabited by heartless people could exist. That humanity would subject itself with so much oppression and a privileged few would be so ignorant to the plight of the many that it would breathe life to an unhinged, mentally-ill, blood-thirsty avenger in the guise of a clown. Even if such a world does exist and we quite possibly, live in it right now, I still find myself still believing in the resiliency of the human spirit. That despite a world in which capitalism and privilege rampantly control, oppress and continue to commit injustices on the less fortunate, the mentally ill, the unnoticed individuals, the everyman and those at the fringes of society. I can still see people rising above all of these things to find a way to survive. I do yield that it’s too hefty of a dream to say that people can topple these structures so we can live in a society with equal bearing but perhaps, survival would be enough? Yes, such words reek of naivety and idealism and I am very much a pessimist but deep down I believe this to be true. 

I can’t believe I just said that. This is why I feel so conflicted. 

For the longest time, I have embraced how cinema as a medium has portrayed the darkness of humanity. I have seen my fair share of bleak, nihilistic and violent films. To be honest, I prefer to watch films with a heavier tone and a grim sense to them than to watch light-hearted and sappy ones that were meant to uplift the soul. I’d choose dark, tragic, heart-wrenching and bloody horrors, thrillers or dramas over fluffy and light comedies and romance any day of the week. Some of the films that I love are even very much akin to the Joker and revenge thrillers, as a specific sub-genre, are really up my alley. But somehow, I don’t (can’t) like this one. I’m puzzled. I’ve seen and read about more violent films. I’ve encountered other films that contain the same levels of bleakness and nihilism, or perhaps more, than this one does. But this one just doesn’t work for me. It feels glorified and overly sensationalized. There is no glory in pain and there’s nothing sensational about suffering, at the least the ones being portrayed here.

Thinking about it, I would have probably loved this 5 years ago. At this age, I just really mellowed out. I no longer have the same angst and anger to really connect with this film. Well, I think the angst and the anger can never really go away because we live in such an unjust world. What this film did is remind me of a time wherein I was in a dark place. Back then, I really did want to hurt some people. I wanted revenge. I wanted to dish out pain and suffering to those people who have, in my eyes, wronged me. I am scared and ashamed to admit that I’ve fantasized of losing control and letting unadulterated rage consume me. In my head, it always ends up the same. A bloody conclusion. After which, I always find myself ridden with guilt and scared that I would entertain such thoughts. I don’t think I can ever face up to such an aftermath but there was that inkling of curiosity about letting go and losing control and it found a way for me to fantasize about it. I’m well behind those now and I’ve found a way to rein the anger in. I’ve come to realize that it’s much easier to take out the anger on yourself than on others, but that’s neither her nor there so...

I just think this film is problematic. There’s no subtlety in it. That soundtrack seems predictable and some scenes feel tonally inconsistent with the rest of the film. I love Joaquin Phoenix and I think he’s an amazing actor but all that dancing and laughing, it gets old and annoying after a while. Heath Ledger’s Joker did so much more by showing less. He just showed you a look, licked his lips or told a joke and I’m all convinced that he’s not someone to mess with. Phoenix’s Joker just looked silly and barely, menacing. This is not at all a slight on Joaquin Phoenix and both him and Ledger are very talented actors but it’s really hard not to compare and  I just think the way this new Joker was written just fails in comparison. I, for one, prefer the Joker written as a chaotic enigma. Someone with no rhyme or reason that just wants to watch the world burn. Yes, I am aware that this is an origin story and he might end up exactly like that. Let’s just say, I’d prefer a Joker that isn’t demystified into a vengeful man that became a symbol of unrest. I don’t want to know where he came from, I just know that he’s there and it’s scary. There’s something scary about not knowing.

By the way, if you really want to see Joaquin Phoenix play a severely traumatized, mentally ill individual hurt people, you’re better off watching Lynn Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here. I’d say he’s equally as brilliant but that film is much better.

I did dislike Joker but I do appreciate its contemplative nature. The way it forces us to reflect on how we, as individuals and as a society, deal with the oppressed and the mentally-ill. It really reminds me of John Doe’s memorable quote from the film Se7en. 

“ Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention.”

It certainly grabbed my attention. Just enough for me to write about it.        

[swingbeard]

Matt Reviews... Shadowbringers

Tossing a review of the Shadowbringers MSQ below the cut.

I ended up writing a lot more than I ever thought I would. 

WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. 

I’m not exactly honest where to kick things off here, as I have a lot of thoughts.

WoW has been the MMO I solely dabbled in and played for the longest time before hopping into FFXIV in late 2017. I had tried it out before, but hadn’t really committed in the way I wanted to. When I finally got into Stormblood, something clicked there for me. A large part of it was finding the character I wanted to play finally, and another was being engrossed in this story centered areas of the lore that always had me interested.

I found Heavensward and Stormblood to be rather intriguing stories that continued to push the narrative along between expansion and building out the world, and expected more of the same from Shadowbringers. 

But I had some worries too. The last time an MMO tried to pull off the “alternate dimension/universe” idea? It didn’t go the way a lot of folks wanted, and much was left on the cutting room floor. 

Of course, that was a different game and company but I still had my concerns. My quibbles with previous FFXIV expansions also came into play; the story of Stormblood, which I liked, was uneven due to moving between two different locales and there have been examples over the years of some expansion events dragging a little bit*.

* I’m looking at you, post-A Realm Reborn MSQ content. 

Nonetheless, I headed into the expansion with reasonably high expectations. Said expectations were not only met, but shattered. Shadowbringers is legitimately the best story I’ve ever seen implemented in an MMO, and it’s also one of my favorite stories in video games in a long time.

Shadowbringers is a story of sequences, of tension and release that pays off not only threads and plot points introduced early on in the expansion but from previous expansions as well. SE has always focused on long-term storytelling as part of their MSQ, but it’s more evident now than ever with this expansion.

For folks unfamiliar with the premise, your character - the Warrior of Light - is teleported to a world similar to their own but essentially on the precipice of total destruction and tasked with saving it alongside your companions from previous games. In the FFXIV universe, light and darkness are palpable concepts and balance is important. One without the other can lead to total destruction. In the player character’s world, the threat of world-ending calamity comes from the forces of darkness but in this alternate universe the threat comes instead from the Light. 

In this world, your counterparts defeated the forces of darkness and disrupted the balance. This led to an apocalypse by way of The Flood, a wave of Light that engulfed the planet and destroyed everything except for a small section that you explore throughout the expansion. 

Those who remain are scraping by and praying for a “warrior of darkness” to arrive while attempting to avoid the wrath of the Sin Eaters, the Light’s army of monsters that seek to eliminate and convert the remaining people. For a near century, the sky above is hidden under a layer of Light, a constant oppressive reminder. 

The expansion does a fantastic job not only telling a tight and cohesive story that moves throughout the land, but it also succeeds in building out the world and making you give a damn. Sidequests that appear simple have a depth you usually don’t see in MMOs, and I’ve already had conversations with friends about certain side characters that most people would just meme at. 

In a way, the MSQ works off a familiar premise that you see in most Final Fantasy games: you’re the big gods damned hero who’s arrived just in the nick of time to push back the big bad and save the world. It’s simple. It’s easy. But what Shadowbringers does differently is the emotional twists and turns throughout.

Long-standing characters like the Scions have new motivations, new things to care about, and new characters are given simple yet effective backstories and personalities that make you care in a matter of moments. 

The latter makes me think of the Hrothgar character Runar, who has been living in the forests; even in a cult centered around the idea of darkness and bringing that back, he proves a warm and friendly character who cares about the people around him. 

There’s also a Miqo’te couple in the opulent city of Eulmore that could have been the butt of so many bad jokes, but instead they’re woven into the main narrative with thought and care; they’re given a character arc and prove to be one of the more heartwarming stories of the whole expansion. 

It’s these smaller interactions woven into the fabric of the narrative at large that make it so good. An attention to detail you don’t see in MMOs often is showcased throughout, and you have the ability to chat with numerous NPCs about events, both past and present. 

While Shadowbringers has plenty of hope within its narrative, there’s so much heartache and tragedy too. There’s terrifying moments, pure body horror on display - yes, no joke. There’s a scene in the expansion that made me get out of my chair and have to stop for a moment. In fact, this happens on multiple occasions. 

The moment of body horror I refer to surrounds a character named Tesleen, a young woman living in the Ahm Araeng desert. She is a healer who looks after the terminally wounded and dying, those who will become Sin Eaters post-death; she seeks to ease their pain in any way possible, including poison in their last meal that will carry them off to an endless sleep. It’s their way of life, what they do.

She becomes close with Alisaie, but unfortunately… things take a turn for the worse. Tesleen goes into the desert to seek out a child from the encampment and protects him from a Sin Eater, who converts her into one. What occurs is a terrifying scene, body horror on display as she is transformed into one. It is a raw and emotional display, one of many throughout the expansion. 

It’s a tough watch, but it’s also how the expansion hits you in the heart. Some characters are lucky enough to escape from some tragic events, but they’re changed for the experience. When you think something might be happening, it often ends up getting worse.

The First is not a kind world. Yes, there are moments of hope but there’s an oppressive feeling throughout the expansion that the next moment could be your character’s last, that any of this could go wrong at any point.

But you have your friends. It’s here again I mention the Scions, your group of companions dating back even to the original release of FFXIV. Some have been on the First for years, and have been tasked by the Crystal Exarch (who we’ll get to later) with trying to help the people, to save them from the Sin Eaters and push back the Light. They have their own character arcs, their own development; some have changed for the worse, and others have changed for the better. 

The new Minfilia stands out to mind here. She’s a character who is aware of her heritage, where she comes from, given the tales that have been relayed to her but she isn’t sure how to handle it, what to do with the information. She struggles as she learns about the world around her, but her character development is so fantastic to see. 

Near the end of the story, she decides to become her own person and even takes on a new name where I thought she would embrace the role of “new Minfilia” and continue along that same path, which probably would have upset some folks. 

Instead, it’s an idea of the twists and turns of the expansion. You think they’re headed one direction, and totally turn the other way. I can legitimately only cover a handful here because there are so many without feeling like being too overbearing. 

I think it’s here where I talk about the villains of the expansion, as there’s a full array. Vauthry, the larger-than-life leader of Eulmore, regards himself as a leader free of sin when really he’s perhaps the worst of all. He is callous, cruel, vain, and has aspirations of becoming a god, of controlling the Sin Eaters. 

His general Ran’jit is a great foil, an older man who fights with fists and feet. While Vauthry has been corrupted from consuming the flesh of Sin Eaters (yes, this happens), he truly believes in the righteous causes of his leader. There’s more than meets the eye with both characters; they are fascinating studies in how righteous causes can go so horribly wrong.

Then there’s Emet-Selch, an Ascian who has taken on the body of the previous Garlean emperor Solus. He was introduced in the post-Stormblood content, coming across as a wicked madman who appeared to have deeper motives. There wasn’t much to work off of then in terms of who he was.

There’s very good reason. 

At some point in Shadowbringers, as you have begun to establish your resistance against the forces of the Light, he decides to accompany your party, to see just what drives you, keeps you going. He helps with reviving Y’shtola, as she decides to sacrifice herself during the story, as a way of gaining your trust.

Then he drops a bomb, a revelation. He does this time after time. In a way, Emet-Selch reminds me of a favorite character in Kreia from KOTOR 2. 

They are liars and destroyers, but they also will lay the truth of their world out for you to clearly see, giving their own rational reasons for why they’re doing what they’re doing. Whereas Zenos was a fantastic villain in his own right, as he was an unapologetic villain, Emet-Selch is a different sort.

He’s a tragic villain. 

He reveals the Ascians, this group of villains that didn’t really have much inspiration or any context outside of “we want to summon our dark god and take over the universe” before this expansion, as a tragic force. They were once a utopia, a society of thinkers and bureaucrats with unlimited power in the form of creation magicks that ended up destroying their world. 

It’s here Shadowbringers really dives into the cosmology of the FFXIV universe in unapologetic fashion. It reveals insane truths about how the First, the Source, and other worlds are connected, how when worlds are “rejoined”, it causes cataclysmic events and thus leads further to the endgame of the Ascians.

They just want to go home and bring their people back, the majority of which were sacrificed in an effort to try and salvage their utopian home. As you get into the endgame of the Shadowbringers MSQ, you learn more about what exactly happened, what led to this, and how Emet-Selch is truly a tragic villain, someone who just wants to go home, wants to bring their people back. You see it in the way he walks, in how he talks; he is burdened by the hundreds of thousands of souls he considered his friends, his family.

They are gone. Only he and a few others remain, steadfast and committed to their cataclysm task of death leading to new life, a new chance. 

This is only the surface of his arc and the backstory surrounding the Ascians. SE went ahead and made a group of villains I didn’t find particularly interesting into one of the most fascinating parts of their lore and universe. 

It is because of this the ending of the MSQ is so tragic, so devastating, but also it’s a release. The sequence leading up to the final trial (boss) of the expansion is parts inspiring and heartbreaking, as your character - who has taken on the overpowering Light of the world into their body - nearly succumbs and becomes a Sin Eater. 

But then you’re saved by another soul, a former Warrior of Light-turned-Warrior of Darkness named Ardbert. If you’ve played through the post-Heavensward MSQ, you know of him as a more antagonistic force-turned-tragic-villain but in Shadowbringers, he is a spirit, your guiding light. The reason why he eventually joins forces with you is an absolutely insane one, but it’s earned by the story at that point because they explain it. They show it. 

It’s here where I find it difficult to really explain just what happens in this MSQ at times because I truly believe you have to see it and play through it. So many moments are earned, tragic or heartbreaking, and to explain it by way of a review in text would do it a disservice. You know a game’s story is good when I haven’t even really touched upon the zones you explore or the gameplay. 

When the Shadowbringers MSQ finally ended, I just kind of sat there. Just thought upon everything I had seen, had played through, had watched. There’s some post-credits content that gives information on just what is happening back on the player character’s homeworld and it’s… interesting.

In a way I wondered just how they’d play up the threat back home because the threats on the First are so cosmic-spanning that it would be tough to go back to Eorzea and deal with the Garleans, but SE as always looks long-term and sets up some interesting pieces and plot threads that I feel like will be handled in the post-MSQ patches. 

While I know some folks aren’t a huge fan of FFXIV’s gameplay, the main differentiation comes down to story and character development. SE gives a damn about keeping a consistent lore and storyline that covers multiple expansions, not at all letting up on the gas pedal especially in Shadowbringers. It is in this expansion that they completely triumph in all aspects: worldbuilding, tension and release, character development, and numerous revelations that fit so well within the lore they’ve established.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing more I can say or do than this:

Go play Shadowbringers.

[bibliophileiz]

I figured out my issue with the new Charmed

First I want to say I like most of these characters in the new one. I’m rooting for them and I hope they do great. I’m going to keep watching through this season because I want to know how Macy died and how she got brought back to life and I want to know who killed Marisol. 

That said. There is too much crap going on this season and we are only halfway through.

At the risk of comparing this show too much to the original ... actually, fuck it. Everything about this show from its marketing to the premise asks to be compared to the original, so here goes. I know I look at the original through a nostalgic lens, but I have tried to remove that lens when looking at this new one and I am pretty convinced that in this one aspect, at least, the original Charmed was better.

A lot of things that were memorable about the original Charmed -- the romantic subplots, the conflict between the Charmed Ones and the Elders, the mom’s love triangle and reason for giving up one of her children -- all those things developed slowly over multiple seasons. Never were there two major romantic subplots going on at once, at least not in the first four seasons (which are the ones I actually remember). The Whitelighters weren’t a thing until more than halfway through the first season and the Elders were even later than that. The mom’s love triangle was introduced in one episode in Season 2 to parallel with Piper’s romantic subplot and then only picked up again when they had to retrofit it to introduce Paige after Shannen Doherty left the show. Meanwhile, the main myth arc plot of each season involved all three sisters ... if there even WAS a main myth arc plot. It was the late ‘90s, and Charmed episodes were less like Supernatural, which has season-long plots, and more like Touched By an Angel, which involved the main characters helping out one or two people per episode and then moving on to another mini plot. With some exceptions, of the episodes stood alone.

That’s not in vogue now. Television today is all about season-long plot arcs and cliffhangers and making your entire show one story -- even though TV shows are a risky medium for that type of story because you never know how many episodes you’ll get a season, if you’ll be renewed and which actors will sign back on.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be done. Veronica Mars was super good about telling complete stories in the span of a season, at least until the network micromanaged Rob Thomas into fucking it up in Season 3. Justified is the same way, as is The Hour, my favorite TV show.

The new Charmed, knowing one, that the thing to do in TV shows today is tell a story over a season and two, that all those things I mentioned previously -- the Whitelighters, the Elders, the babies given up for adoption, the romantic subplots -- are all big Charmed things, is trying jampack them all into the first season to make sure you know it’s Charmed and it is ... cluttered.

We are what -- 10, 11? -- episodes into the season and every single character -- including the Whitelighter who at this point in the original had been in like three episodes and only had magical powers in one -- have their own plots and romances. For two of those characters, the romances don’t even have anything to do with their magic plot, thus giving them a separate plot. And if these plots are all related, they’re very tenuously so. Here’s what I mean.

Macy: Romantic interest in Galvin, and it’s so far going pretty smoothly. There were bumps in the road what with him being a mortal and with her thinking he was being preyed on by a succubus or a siren or whatever his earlier girlfriend was supposed to be before she turned out to be a perfectly normal lady who just conveniently broke up with him. And there’s some issue with her being a virgin and a little unsure around guys in general. Right now they’re together and figuring out how to be a couple with everything she’s got going on. Also, Galvin’s not really supposed to know about witchy stuff and Harry keeps wanting to wipe his memory.

Macy has another plot, though, the secret back-story plot where her mother gave her to her dad to raise her as a mortal, and Macy doesn’t know why. In this last episode, Macy learned her parents kept in touch and were still in love, even to the point where they conceived Maggie, making her Macy’s full sister and Mel’s half-sister (opposite of what they’d always believed). Then at the end of last episode, it turned out that Macy’s parents did something BAD -- something they worried Macy wouldn’t forgive them for -- to bring her back from the dead. (It was at this point that I decided that, no, I would not be waiting for the show to come on Netflix to finish out the season like I’d been considering, I would be watching the next episode the night it aired.)

But also, Macy has a plot where the lab she’s working for has been pseudo-taken over by demons who have stolen all the Charmed Ones’ DNA for presumably nefarious purposes. This plot actually is tied to one of Maggie’s plots and is the closest any of these plots have to being about all three Charmed Ones.

Mel: Gets TWO romantic interests and what might turn into a love triangle, despite the fact that it was looking like her two romantic plots might not overlap. First there’s her long-time girlfriend Niko, a cop whose memory Mel ends up having to erase for Niko’s safety -- a nice tragic romance trope which usually stops the memory-less character’s plot cold. Now Mel is falling for Jada, a cool-ass witch who works for a secret, possibly-nefarious, possibly just politically and philosophically different from the Elders witch organization which has a cool name that I forget. But wait -- there’s more! It turns out, after having her memory wiped, Niko became a private investigator hired by Jada’s family to save her from the “cult” she’s joined. Remember what I said about memory erasure usually stopping the character’s plot cold?

At least Mel’s romantic subplots tie into her actual plots, and at least Mel gets character points for seeming to be the only character who is actually interested in finding out who killed their mom. She first starts to infiltrate Jada’s witchy organization on the Elders’ orders when they all think Jada’s organization might have had a hand in Mom’s death. Now Jada says her mom was actually a part of the organization, which is also trying to figure out who killed her. Mel is secretly working with Jada, without telling the Elders, Harry or even Mel’s sisters (unless that came up in another episode and I totally forgot about it while trying to keep track of all these other plots).

Harry: Harry’s romantic interest is Charity, an Elder. It’s a little unclear what exactly Elders are in this version of the Charmed verse. Are they powerful Whitelighters, powerful Witches or a mixture of both? Charity says the Charmed Ones’ mom was an Elder, suggesting at least some of them are witches. In the original Charmed, the Elders were extra-powerful Whitelighters, but the suggestion was that once witches were dead, they not only were not beholden to Whitelighters anymore, but they were even more powerful than them. (At one point Grams tells Phoebe, “I’m beyond them now.”) What IS clear is that Elders and Whitelighters aren’t allowed to be together -- little shout-out to the Piper-Leo plot from the original there. So not as dramatic as Mels’s love triangle, but more dramatic than Macy and Galvin.

But Harry, it turns out, has another, totally unrelated-to-Charmed-things plot involving wiped memories and a son he THOUGHT died, who he then forgot about, but he now remembers and now actually IS alive after all. What this has to do with ... anything else on the show ... remains to be seen.

Maggie: Maggie had a forgettable love interest for two episodes on the show before moving onto the most dramatic romantic subplot a teenage girl can have -- she falls for her best friend’s boyfriend! After several episodes of angst and an illicit kiss, the boyfriend, a totally boring dude named Parker, breaks it off with his girlfriend so he and Maggie can be together. Maggie’s BFF, whose name I forget, gets an episode dedicated to her rage and Maggie being sorry before she’s shuffled aside so Maggie and Parker can be together, which is important because ....

Psych! Parker’s actually half a demon who needs to become whole demon through Charmed magic or he dies. His mother runs Macy’s lab and his father is an evil demon who controls people, which led to him stealing the Harbinger from Charity and --

Wait, I just realized none of these plots are the actual plot of the season -- because the first episode established that Trump becoming president and the rise of the Harbinger -- which is some kind of evil demon -- are both signs of the apocalypse which the Charmed ones have to stop. (I wasn’t even done explaining Maggie’s plot yet!)

Anyway, this show has too much going on.

How all these plots affect the show:

One thing -- and this sounds sarcastic but it’s totally not -- the characters all deliver their lines extremely fast. They have to -- they have plot things to say. They don’t get much time for the usual CW pop culture references*, let alone verbal pauses and room for their lines to spread out and let them react to what’s going on through their facial expressions and body language.

*at least that I recall -- although Macy got a very good one a couple of episodes ago where she called a demon “Daenerys” because he introduced himself by listing a million titles he supposedly has. 

It also makes it really hard to keep up with each individual plot arc while taking away valuable time we need to get to know the characters. Occasionally the show fits in a good sisterly-bonding moment -- Macy and Maggie in particular get scenes to themselves where they’re goofing off together while Mel’s off brooding somewhere. Plus, at least for a while, there were some good scenes between Mel and Harry at least until they each got their own romantic subplot. But with the last couple of episodes -- which managed to fit every gd one of the above-mentioned plots into their 42-minute runtimes -- I’m kind of left wondering how the sisters’ plots are related and what Harry’s even doing in the show.

And I love Harry -- I love that the sisters were bringing him tea in the episode after he got out of Tartarus. Except that they actually gave it to Charity to give him, because we can’t have family bonding time when there are romantic subplots to get to, and other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to worrying about Harry in the exposition, they seem to have pretty much forgotten about his trauma by next episode. I thought he was becoming part of the family. 

And what I said above -- I wasn’t being funny for effect, I actually did forget that there was a whole plot with the Harbinger -- who was introduced in the very first episode -- until I typed “Wait I just realized none of these plots are the actual plot of the season.” All these plots literally made me forget about the season’s actual plot.

I’m not a die-hard fan or anything -- I’m sure there are people who know the names of Maggie’s ex-boyfriend and best friend and know what Jada’s witchy organization is called or can remember whether Elders are witches or Whitelighters. But I’m watching each episode one time once a week, which is what most viewers are going to be doing, and I’m missing major stuff. 

Charmed needs to -- step back, de-clutter, do some spring cleaning. But at this point, I don’t know that they can. They’ve invested too much into all these plots and I think it would be pretty weird to just ... never tell us if Parker died. Personally I wouldn’t mind if Parker died because I found him extremely boring and thought he took up time from more interesting characters and story arcs, but there was so much time invested in telling us his story that it would be a mistake to leave it where it is and come back to it next season. And the same thing goes for all the other plots.

This isn’t mean to be wank. I legitimately like this show and want it to succeed, but I’m wondering what everyone else thinks. I don’t know that new Charmed will get enough of a following if it keeps throwing new plot lines at us every episode in hopes of bringing us back every week. There needs to be more time developing characters to make us actually care about these plots. And if you’re hoping to have more seasons, then surely some of these can be saved for farther down the road like in the original Charmed.

In the meantime, ... team Niko. (Sorry Jada.)

[elite-guard-hardygal]

Okay so I saw that you haven't gotten any asks about this so! I am here to fix it!! 😁 For the BNHA Asks, lemme say 3, 15, 19, and 21?? Sorry if that's a lot bestie!! Love you!!

BNHA Ask Key

Hey! Thank you so much for sending this to me, even though I took a long time to answer it - I just started rambling throughout most of these questions, so it took a little longer than it should have to answer ^-^’

Hope you enjoy my long-ass, rambling answers tho :P

3. Favourite Villain - Hmmmmm, that’s a good question…! I do love myself some good villains, and My Hero Academia has no shortage of them, but oddly enough, it’s rare that I think about who my favourite villain could be. And the second I started typing out that last sentence, the answer hit me:

Tomura Shigaraki.

Ah, it figures… My favourite protagonist is the main character and my favourite antagonist is the main villain. Geez, my choices for favourites sound so typical and boring ^-^’ Seriously though, I was rewatching the entirety of My Hero Academia up to season 3 recently, and I realized just how… interesting a villain Shigaraki is.

Shigaraki starts off immature and childish, reaching for a goal even he isn’t quite sure about, blowing up at the slightest setbacks. He’s threatening, but without a clear goal, he doesn’t come off as a threat. Just a man-child with murderous tendencies, taking whatever pleases him. Then he’s humbled (thank you Stain) and forced to consider his intentions, what it is he really wants. Then he reaches an epiphany (thank you Izuku) and finally figures out what his goal is…!

From then on, Shigaraki is more mature, more focused, able to make decisions without letting his emotions get the best of him. He proves himself to be a damn good strategist and psychological manipulator. He’s actually a threat now!

People, this is character development! For a villain! We’ve seen fledgling heroes learn what it means to be proper heroes - that’s basically the arc for every protagonist in My Hero Academia - but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fledgling villain learn how to properly “villain.” It is fascinating. And that’s setting aside the fact that the guy clearly has a terribly tragic backstory! That’s setting aside the fact that he actually cares deeply for All For One, the man who is nurturing his villainous tendencies, acting as the wise sensei in Shigaraki’s “villain academia.”

That… got a little longer than I intended. TL;DR, Tomura Shigaraki is a fascinating villain and he is my favourite MHA villain.

15. Least Favourite Quirk - Oooh, that’s an interesting question. If I had been asked what my favourite quirk was, I would probably just list a bunch of quirks I personally found really cool…! Even the most underutilized quirks can become interesting if you really think about all the possible applications and techniques that can be used/must be used for it to be as ‘good’ as it is! If I really had to choose though, I might have to say Minoru Mineta’s Pop-Off.

It has nothing to do with the quirk itself really, or its utilization, cause it’s actually a very useful quirk that has been utilized well throughout the show. But, Mineta kind of annoys me, and so by association, his quirk annoys me. Makes me feel bad for the quirk, really.

19. What were your thoughts before watching the show? - I didn’t really have many thoughts before watching My Hero Academia. I guess you could say I didn’t expect much of it. The idea and premise seemed interesting, and I knew the English dub had some serious talent behind it, so its seemed worth checking out. I just didn’t have any expectations going into the first episode, and all I mentally asked was that I like the main character.

Cue the main character’s overall joy and enthusiasm, cue me actually crying not halfway through the first episode, and this show pretty much instantly stole my soul and hugged it in an inescapable grip.

21. What or who got you interested in giving it a try? - Oh this is a fun story…! Honestly, I probably would not have ever known about My Hero Academia (at least not for a good while) if I hadn’t first gotten into Danganronpa.

For a good while, Danganronpa was the only Japanese-originated series I truly loved, including the original games and the spin-off animes. After I finished the entire series though, I was kinda hungering for more content. I really liked the English voice actors in both the games and the anime, Bryce Papenbrook and Johnny Yong Bosch being my particular favourites, so I started looking for animes with dubs featuring either of them.

good lord im gonna be lambasted for saying that arent i

Alongside Bosch and Papenbrook, I also found myself extremely impressed by the work of one Justin Briner, who voiced both Ryota Mitarai and the Ultimate Imposter disguised as Ryota Mitarai in the Danganronpa 3 anime. Both characters successfully came off as their own person despite being voiced by the same guy.

also i was especially impressed with briners ability to believably have mitarai outright sobbing at the end of the series

So when I found out that Briner voiced the main character of this show called My Hero Academia, I was like, “Oh cool, I’ve heard him voice supporting characters in Danganronpa, I wonder what he would be liking voicing a main character…! The idea and premise seems interesting enough, anyway.”

And… Yeah. This show has a tight grip on my heart, and I am consistently impressed by the English voice work Briner and everyone else working on the English dub. Seriously, Briner’s Deku voice is the best and I’m certain I’ve talked about how amazed I am at Clifford Chapin’s performance as Katsuki Bakugo.

Heck, alongside becoming one of my most favourite shows ever of all time, this show revitalized my interest in voice acting! How bout that?

[akatokuro]

With the advent of Go Away, Milo: The Episode: The Series: The Franchise: The Life, some more in-depth thoughts about Saintia Sho and the fundamental problems I have with it.

I watched the first episode of Saintia Sho when it aired, and found it cute and interesting enough. A series revolving around ladies, awesome! Saint Seiya is fun in its goofy way, but that was always an obvious hole within its fabric. And the protagonist seems very cute and earnest, and I love the focus on Saori. With my interest in Saint Seiya recently being tragically reignited, I went ahead and binged on the manga soon after.

Uh... well.

Well.

That sure was a lot of Milo!

Okay, well, let's look at the premise of Saintia Sho and what it's about in relation to Saint Seiya as a whole. There's actually a really interesting, unique, potentially fascinating setup going on here!

yumetabibito pointed this out to me, but Saintia Sho actually has a more "standard" shounen setup than the rest of the franchise, in terms of Shoko starting out as a normal person who ends up sort of tripping and falling into Sainthood, and learning about it from the ground up. Which, in a lot of ways, when she finds out it's actually composed of an entire worldview and a lifestyle, and not just magic punching powers, would be fucking wild for an ordinary person to wrap their head around.

Sainthood is a really screwed up, brutal, dehumanizing process. The training candidates are young children who mostly get killed in the process. The series basically opens up with "to train new Saints, we kidnapped a hundred orphans, and ninety of them died! Well, them's the breaks! Get going on protecting Athena, kids!" Saints aren't allowed to marry or generally have children. They are expected to devote themselves wholly to Athena, body and soul. To become a Saint is to prepare yourself for death. It is expected that basically everyone will die in the Holy War. These things are repeated over and over.

And that element is present in Saintia Sho. You have Mayura trying to lock Shoko away because her being so strongly fueled by her love of her sister is unacceptable in a Saint. You have Mayura, again, reminding Saori that she is the Goddess of War and "it is a Saint's role to die." Even in terms of basic plot points, being unable to save Kyoko and having to kill her instead for the good of the world at large fits into this idea. You have Katya having to sacrifice her love for Saga and literally wipe all traces of it from her mind in order to accomplish her mission as a Saint.

It's an interesting tension throughout the original series, which, emotionally, more or less culminates when Ikki finds himself unable to kill Shun in spite of all of his tough-talk before then. And even though there is a climax of sorts with Ikki in regards to it, I wouldn't say Saint Seiya devotes an actual specific "exploring this theme" to it, per se. As established, Saint Seiya is generally pulled from Kurumada's ass to sell toys, but nonetheless - that tension still did emerge, one way or another.

Saintia Sho, though, seems to go out of its way to more explicitly embrace this through the subplots of the various Saintias. Mii makes it clear that her devotion to Saori goes way beyond simply a servant for her Goddess. Nearly every single Saintia besides Mii has a subplot about having to face off against a loved one, that they feel they have personally failed in the past, in order to accomplish their duties, in an almost formulaic way that Saint Seiya never really did. EVERYONE HAS A DEAD SISTER THEY MUST DEFEAT. And once again, Katya's whole deal is falling in love with Saga, something that is seen as unacceptable in a Saintia.

This is complemented by the early focus on Saori herself. Saori is a good girl, who genuinely loves and cares about the people around her, and is deeply troubled by the institution of Sainthood being necessary for the greater good and for her own protection. It's a great idea to focus on Saori's pain over this, and her trauma, grief, and nightmares about people suffering and dying for her sake. There is an inherent contradiction about Saints, who are meant to help Athena protect "love and justice", being tortured and sacrificed and not allowed to actually be people in most meaningful ways. The people who protect "love" are discouraged from loving. It's an excruciating position for Saori.

You can even tie this in to the (questionable and pretty gendered, but anyway) idea of "Saintias are meant to protect Athena's noble heart." What does that mean? Well, from the various character setups and portraying Saori herself struggling emotionally near the beginning, the obvious translation is helping Saori to balance humanity, love and compassion with the actual duties of being a goddess and commanding the Saints.

So with this basic setup - we have a more explicit look at Athena being torn up at how her Saints are treated - an ordinary person in Shoko who would suffer total culture shock at the zealotry of Sainthood, and is basically committing a form of heresy by entering Sainthood for solely personal reasons - and a team full of girls who all have personal emotion-fueled encounters standing in the way of their duties - Scorpio Milo also enters the fray and is a major character, with lots of pagetime devoted to his antics, to contribute... uh... hm.

Hm.

It is pretty ridiculous, with this in mind, to set up Rigel - a character who is also motivated solely by his personal love for Kyoko - as Milo's rival. Like, in this context, what does Rigel vs Milo have to add to the conversation? Milo tells him "hey, you're doing Sainthood wrong." Uh, no shit, Sherlock? Like, even if you want to have a character stand-in to take that standpoint, we already have Mayura, and more importantly, potentially the other Saintias. Why miss the opportunity to actually develop the girls and the bonds between them by not having Mii, not Milo, be the one to talk about what a great Saint Kyoko was by being willing to die? Why not set things up so Mii is ultimately the one who chooses to pull the trigger, and this being a point of tension and development within the girls' team?

Like, imagine a Mii who went there on Saori's orders to try to help Shoko, but for the good of the goddess whom she is obviously in love with, and considering herself Saori's most devoted servant, she acts on her own - to Saori's own protests - and does "what needs to be done" to protect her, as per her Saintia training and worldview. That puts Mii in a super interesting position in respect to both Saori and Shoko. Does properly serving her Goddess mean sometimes disobeying her Goddess when she feels Saori's human sentimentality is clouding her decisions? Is this what it means to protect Athena's heart?

And Rigel vs Shoko with debating ideas on how best to help Kyoko is the most obvious thing in the world. They literally have the same basic motivation, but are choosing wildly different ways to go about it - Rigel with the more fucked up, flawed one because, implicitly, he differs from Shoko in that he was conditioned to be a Saint. Sainthood demands absolute loyalty and largely giving up personal attachments and happiness. So it's natural for Rigel to just tilt that into a different directions when he decides something exists more important to him than Athena. Shoko, meanwhile, as an outsider to Sainthood, is in a position to want to search for a different way.

"What does it mean to be a Saint? What do you have to sacrifice to be a Saint? How do you love other people as a Saint? How do you protect your, and Athena's, human heart as a Saint?" is a question Shoko and the girls, close to Athena, understanding that Athena doesn't actually want Sainthood to be a glorified slaughterhouse but doesn't know any other way, are in a really specifically unique position to question and explore.

All of these things would have been great to delve into, but instead, we get pretty simplistic characters - again, Shoko doesn't seem to really develop beyond "I want to save Kyoko" and weaving awkwardly in and out of the original Saint Seiya plot - and lots and lots of Gold Saint fanservice. Shoko sits outside of Eris's keep while Milo and Aiolia storm the place, have dramatic rescues, and uncover the true villain, Saga! They have a dramatic confrontation with him! Because Shoko has... so much reason to care about Saga popping up as the antagonist...

And here's the kicker: even if you must include Milo as a major player within this story and this theme, you could still make it work. You just have to, you know, keep him in character.

If you want to keep Milo, have Shoko actually react to his attitude and his actions. Milo would consider he and Shoko to be polar opposites on the Saint spectrum. Milo is all about pride as a Saint, he thinks he embodies Sainthood more than anyone else - he even argues with or overrides Athena in the name of Proper Sainthood. He shittalks Aiolia because he has "traitor's blood" and is pissy about Aiolia possibly dying because it'd make the rest of them look bad. He gets huffy about being assigned missions he considers "beneath him" as a Gold Saint. Milo is stupid enough about this to put Kanon through this whole hazing torture ritual to prove he's worthy of Sainthood while they're being invaded by Specters coming to assassinate Athena at that very moment and Kanon is in the literal process of trying to fend them off.

Shouldn't this sort of attitude be very repellant to someone like Shoko, who loves her family, only became a Saint out of the desire to save her family, and was raised as a normal person? Shoko finds all of Mayura's talk about love being a form of evil and Athena's worthiness completely incomprehensible. Milo's arrogance and ideas of being the High Standard for all Saints to have to measure up against is off the charts. The series touches briefly on the idea that Saintias are looked down upon by regular Saints to begin with. Wouldn't it make sense to involve Milo on some level in this, because Milo is very, very uptight about Saint Standards?

This doesn't mean you have to make Milo evil. But he can at least start out as logically antagonistic as far as Shoko is concerned, and very skeptical of her capacity to succeed as a servant of Athena. You can carve him out as a figure that Shoko looks at and thinks "I don't want to be this kind of Saint." Shoko can make him soften, or change his mind, or prove herself worthy in his eyes. And it gives Shoko the ability to wrestle with a concrete figure she thought was respectable actually being a huge reflections of the aspects of Sanctuary and Sainthood that she would find troubling. I would love the idea of Shoko and Milo actually challenging each other instead of their interactions stopping at "wow, what a strong, dreamy Gold Saint here to princess carry me away!"

And finally, for Milo himself, I'll be blunt: what the hell are you smoking when it comes to a series with the recurring theme of negotiating personal love vs Saint duty, include Milo as a major character - the major Gold Saint - and then, uh, basically pretend like Camus doesn't exist?

There was already a tension throughout Milo's character in terms of him having to negotiate his friendship with Camus, who he loves so, so, so much, and his own ego-driven ideas of what is necessary to be a worthy Saint. You can see it in almost every appearance he has. (And this is me actually delving into the fun time of "cross-referencing the pachinko with the gacha game and...) Milo running all the way to Siberia because he's freaking out about Camus not responding to the Pope's summons quickly enough. (Warning him: you'll be seen as a traitor, dumbass!) Milo fantasizing about Camus and he in perfect harmony as loyal Saints to Athena. Milo in EpG going out of his way to nose his way into Aiolia's business because he's worried it'll somehow reflect badly on Camus in the eyes of Sanctuary. His over-the-top tantrums about it in Soul of Gold, failing to even notice Camus protecting him.

And fundamentally, of course, Camus himself. The person Milo, Pride of Sainthood, Gatekeeper of Sainthood, loves more than anyone else in the world is someone who, when it comes down to the wire, is not only very much driven by personal love and a very humanistic moral code, but is willing to toss aside duty and Athena for his loved ones if it's a dire enough situation. Camus doesn't actually care about the institution of Sanctuary. Athena only matters so much as she is useful to actually help people. And there's a sense that Milo did his best to just refuse to actually process those things about his beloved best friend, because of the implications it carried. Milo walking that weird mental la-la-la tightrope is interesting.

Milo is someone who has internalized Sainthood so much that Camus can't explain the traumatic, painful (if very stupid filler) reasons he's abandoning it without Milo taking it completely personally and rejecting it out of hand. To him, as far as Camus goes, rejecting being a Saint is a rejection of Milo himself, and he completely loses his head about it. Milo is someone who, in a lot of ways, cannot reconcile how much he loves this person - because he does, truly - with his role as a Saint. When you try to force him, it comes out in extremely weird crying-while-strangling-him ways.

There would obviously be an interesting place for a person like this within Saintia Sho's setup and themes.

So if you must have Rigel vs Milo, you can still have some form of the broader conversation - how they choose (or chose, in Milo's case, since Camus died) to "protect" their respective loved ones. Rigel is choosing a path of absolute unconditional loyalty, protecting Kyoko no matter what she becomes or how much harm she causes, even if it means throwing away everything else. Milo, on the other hand, was in this constant state of trying to correct or cover for Camus. Constantly subtly warning Camus not to step out of line, or punishing him for doing so - because Milo is really afraid to lose him. Because as a Saint, Milo can't actually choose him.

So how would he react to seeing Shoko, shamelessly, blatantly, unapologetically, and repeatedly, choosing her sister, and trying to find another way that, unlike with Rigel, he can’t just dismiss?

(Milo and Rigel are both wrong, by the way, and both stances reflect that neither of them are really thinking of their loved ones' actual feelings and wellbeing, but nonetheless. But you can even play that up: Rigel's tactics led to losing both himself and Kyoko, fundamentally, and Milo still lost Camus and even wound up hurting him even further, no matter how much he tried to corral him in and squash out his disloyalty. You guys both suck, congratulations.)

But of course, there's none of anything like that! Milo's role as a hardass, arrogant Saint is stripped from him in any meaningful way, and his internal conflict over Camus is stripped from him too, so what we've left with is Generic Cool Gold Saint who, well, looks like Milo, and... is there for cool badass action scenes and heroism that the girls should have gotten? There is literally no actual reason for Milo as he exists to be there, let alone take up so much pagetime and focus. He adds nothing to Shoko's story. He adds nothing to the themes. He adds nothing to the question of the role of the Saintias. Hell, he adds nothing to his own story arc and struggles.

Go away, Milo.

To the manga's credit, in the more recent chapters it's finally tilting towards focusing on the girls, which is fantastic. It just took way, way too long (and it's pretty obvious that for all intents and purposes we're basically on the final story arc) and for some reason Pod Person Milo is still hanging around trying to act like he's relevant.