#review of sorts

[cybernaght]

Baldur's Gate 3

Well hello, strangers on the internet, I am here with another wall of text that has nothing to do with the actual topic of this blog. And before you ask why on Earth do I not make a free-for-all blog: last thing I need is encouragement to write more walls of texts. 

The topic of today’s Wall of Text is - shock, surprise - Baldur’s Gate 3, because it came out, and half of the internet and I have lost our collective goddamn minds. 

So, today I’ll talk about why for me, as something who thinks she is a non-gamer, but who is also an aficionado of interactive storytelling - both collaborative and not - this game is a kind of a marvel that I have not seen since I was a child.

I’m doing so in three parts. The player introduces my personal perspective and relationship with video games. The interlude talks about what on earth is interactive storytelling exactly, and where RPGs fit into that term. The game mostly sings praises to Larian’s masterpiece. 

As ever, this is a think piece with the main source being “my brain.”

The player. 

The thing is, I’m not a gamer. 

I do love video games. I play plenty of video games. It’s one of my favourite pastimes, and one of my favourite types of media. That said, I don’t believe myself to be a gamer for two reasons:

One, there is a subculture around it, and I have never been part of it, nor have I ever strived to be. It’s not that I don’t like it - it’s more that I don’t think we have the same, or even similar, values when it comes to what we seek in our gaming experience. For one, I play solo. Even in server games, I play blissfully alone, always. More importantly, I don’t pride myself on my gaming skills, because I effectively have none of those, and I’m not overly interested in developing them. When I play anything, I seek something else entirely; we’ll talk about that momentarily. For now, suffice it to say, I’m not a gamer because I say I’m not.

Two, I didn’t grow up as one. I have played a lot of old nineties/early naughties games - RPGs predominantly, but also point and clicks, and dungeon crawlers — a kind of stuff that honestly, looking in hindsight, formed a core of my interests. By the time mid-two-thousands rolled around I stopped. There are several reasons for that, but the biggest one is simply that the games outgrew the hardware I had access to. Growing up, I have never had - was never allowed to have - a console; and I have not actually had one until only five or six years ago when I was ageing out of my twenties. This massive break between gaming will be relevant later.

And, because I’m merely a person who likes video games, I have two functions for them.

Function one: a digital fidget toy. My brain frequently refuses to shush, and my hands need to do something for it to do so. This is where my deck builders are handy (Slay the Spire is my time sink of choice, but Monster Train does just as well); as are my Diablos and all their infinite clones. Those are my “in the zone” games. I am pretty okay at those through exposure by now, but being good at them is not part of the appeal because the less they need my actual mental engagement, the better. Being challenging - or me perceiving them as challenging - goes directly against what they are for me.

Function two: a vehicle for a story. The genre is immaterial. Do I like RPGs still? Doubtlessly, provided those are narrative-focused (which not all of them are). But well-written adventure games do just as well, as do indie dialogue-tree ones. And, well, this year, was absolutely wild for those, across the board. 

Star Wars Jedi Survivor learnt every mistake from its predecessor and made me excited about Star Wars for the first time in literal years with the way it put you into that world and the story it’s telling. The world-building there is fantastic, and it made me want to slow down my race for the endgame payoff and savour the atmosphere much more than the first title did. I also really appreciate a game which is effectively a Dark Souls-alike allowing you to nope out of that particular style of play from the get-go.

Failbetter Games' Mask of the Rose is an absolutely sublime dialogue-tree game, incredibly well-written, intuitive, and so narratively rich that it warranted no less than a dozen play-throughs. It has its limitations - mostly through the sin/virtue of being very indie - but the core of it is absolutely breathtaking. If you like macabre horror-comedic Eldritch Victoriana, mystery solving and date-simming, I’d recommend giving this one a go. 

And then Baldur’s Gate 3 had its console release - finally - and the world tilted on its axis.

The Interlude: three steps to interactivity (and then one step further than that)

Let’s envision a path to interactivity in games as a ladder. 

Ground zero, absence of narrative focus.

I think it is useful to distinguish between narratives that support the act of playing and the act of playing that supports the narratives. Most games come with a story; Candy Crush Saga has a story if you squint. But, quite often, the story exists around the mechanics of playing: it’s present but not really what the title is about. Diablo games have narratives, but, let’s face it, none of us were buying Diablo IV to find out what happened in Sanctuary after the titular villain was finally properly vanquished. (If any of us are buying Diablo IV these days; although that’s a whole other can of worms.)

I see Bethesda games in this category. They have narratives, but they are not about those. They are about simulation of living in a type of reality, be it high fantasy, post-apocalypse, or space exploration.

Step one, linear narrative. 

For me, a vessel for narrative is a game in which narrative is the main event, and the reason the game exists, with the engine and/or series of mechanics facilitating the consumption of said narrative. The narrative can be absolutely linear. Jedi Fallen Order and its predecessors in the platformer genre are as linear as they go: you travel from area to area, helping the story play out by engaging in predetermined events, and no one is pretending otherwise. 

Step two, false-choice narrative. 

Then, there are false-choice narratives: think of it as getting from one point to the next and then to the next, where the journey has some cosmetic or flavour variation. You can get from point A to point B via two or three different routes (physical, or conversational), but none of them actually change what happens at point B.

For an obvious example, some (but not all) of the TellTale Games’ titles exist within this step. 

Step three, true-choice narrative.

Congratulations, we have reached interactivity! So, let’s look at that in slightly broader terms.

According to Wikipedia, interactive storytelling is “a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined”, which essentially means an element of choice and consumer agency. 

Personally, I don’t think there is a need to limit this to digital entertainment. There is plenty of literature that I believe falls under this category, starting from Mark Z. Danielewski’s work and travelling through time and space to our friends at the indie British online magazine Voidspace.

Another obvious place for non-digital interactivity is theatre: immersive theatre specifically. If you’re not in the UK, here’s a quick run-down of things one can find under that umbrella term on our little island. Secret Cinema’s work is, strictly speaking, linear, but the variety and tangibility there can be enough to conceal that fact, and the routes you get to the outcome can be rocky enough to still have an element of choice. Punchdrunk’s promenade productions present a technically linear selection of narratives, but with a choice of which of those to follow, and so for you, the audience, the events differ from night to night. Then, there is a whole subset of game-theatre, crisis management theatre, and interactive work, which, in most general terms, gives the audience agency of playing and deciding, often with multiple possible endings at play.

If we loop back to digital media forms, however, playable films (Bandersnatch being an obvious one) exist in this realm. Quantic Dream’s interactive adventure games live here. Decent RPGs feel comfortable here too: Dragon Age series, Mass Effect, Greedfall, and Outer Worlds, just to name a few. And those are all good, don’t get me wrong. 

And yet, we can still go one step further, and shoot for the sky. 

Step four, collaborative (or generative) narrative  

The sky, to me, is a well-run table-top RPG, which does not just engage players in a story by giving them a set of specific choices, but invites players to effectively write that story together. This process is not just interactive - it’s collaborative, with mechanics and rules existing to facilitate it. It’s not just about giving players agency in the story but taking on their active input and feeding it back to them.

What I find particularly interesting in the context of video games is that technically this was the starting point for the RPG genre: taking tabletop mechanics and digitizing them. Fallout is MSPE, but make it post-apocalyptic and computerized. Baldur’s Gate is ADnD - but make it computerized. Bloodlines is quite literally Vampire: the Masquerade. Computerized, of course. 

For me, the epitome of RPGs up until, oh, let’s say just over a month ago, was Troika Games’ Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magic Obscura. This was a game that defined the genre for me; it’s a game that defined interactivity in general for me. It’s a game in which you could do just about anything, but more than that, the world around you was defined by your actions. Some companions would just leave - or never join you at all - if your actions and place in the world didn’t align with their values. Some decisions you made paid off dozens of hours later by, say, making entire areas hostile to you because you broke a law there in big ways early in your play-through. And yes, you did affect the fate of the world, but the paths there felt unique to you and you alone.

Naturally, whatever is programmed on a computer cannot have the limitless creativity that fleshy humans have when they (we) play games. And yet, the illusion of boundlessness was there, in those early days.

I think you see where this is heading. 

The game

There are many things indeed that Baldur’s Gate 3 has going for itself. The fact that it’s been openly tested for close to three years (I was there, in the early days) meant that the final product, when it was released, was as immaculate as a game could be at this point: it is, in fact, complete. This sounds like a bare minimum requirement, but we all know this is rarely cleared. Delaying it slightly for the console was also an excellent move: I love the way it runs on PS5, and I genuinely prefer the controls here than I did on my (arguably, rickety) laptop. Again, you’d think optimising the controls for the console would be a bare minimum requirement, but I, too, played Cyberpunk upon release, so…

Larian already having a very decent top-down engine with turn-based combat also works in favour of this game. It’s certainly sleeker here, but it’s recognisable as the Divinity engine, and it’s clear to me that the resources went into fine-tuning it, which means that in the last three years, this became more and more intuitive to play. And this engine is stable, which surprised me in combat that spawned 20+ hostiles. I suppose my one qualm is that they haven’t fixed the path-making AI. While companions forgetting that they can jump is only mildly inconveniencing, NPC’s complete lack of special awareness and self-preservation can be downright infuriating. I have both re-loaded encounters because the character I tried to keep alive chose to run into an opportunity attack, and just condemned people to death deciding, at some point, that if they really truly want to Misty Step right into an explosion, so be it. 

But then again, those are the only issues. In a game of this size. Upon launch. 

Speaking of the engine, I found some of the encounters hard on my first play-through, even on the easiest difficulty. As I mentioned, I’m not actually good at this. That said, I loved that on none of the occasions, did my finding it difficult have anything to do with what I did and did not have: it was not about optimising, or grinding, or shopping for gear - it was about observing the failure and developing a response to the strategy the game was using against me. While you can try to select a perfect party for every situation, equally, I found that the game didn’t force you to do that, and so, as a player, I can approach party selection as an in-world process, gravitating to the companions I wanted to have around for the kind of people they were and the relationships they have with my Tavs rather than for what kind of weaponry they carry. Is the act two boss fight punishing with a mostly melee team? Definitely. But, again, once you have figured out how to get around your limitations, it is doable. To me, that’s an excellent balance. It actually makes trying to figure strategy for any given tough encounter fun; and I’m saying it as someone who rage-quit Hades because she could not stand constant failure. 

The voice acting, mocap and animation are wonderful: you genuinely get full-bodied, nuanced performances, which… is just plain rare. The character writing, too, is spectacular, and the people you interact with feel real and unique, even if they only are here for a few scenes. Writing really shines when it comes to companions: they are humanly complex and multi-faceted, and all have a wonderful mix of love-able and hate-able in them. They are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny! They are also relatable, in that high fantasy way that takes commonplace anxiety and elevates it to proportions where it’s no longer real, and yet so very recognisable. 

Story writing made me actually scream, the first time around. I pride myself on being someone who is quite good at reading narrative clues, and yet, there were several subplots with twists that got me reeling. This only gets better on subsequent play-throughs, when you realise just how much of the meat surrounding the main “bones” of the story depends on your character, the paths you take and the options you select. The latter is particularly astounding in acts one and two, which have so much variety in them they feel limitless. 

The date-sim aspect of this game is… well, horny, in that hilarious way where every time you show a genuine interest in a character they immediately fall in love with you, provided your actions align with their worldview (which is not a given) — but role-playing always has an element of a wish-fulfilment, and I found something very joyous in thwarting (or leaning into) romantic and sexual advances of what felt like everyone in my path. Aside from that, the relationships I have seen have been well realised, each with a unique texture. 

And yet, none of the above is what makes this game such a unicorn.

Choices do. 

For me, true choices are defined not by the freedom to make them, but by the limitations they impose. When we open one door of possibility, other doors must close, and that is a risk we always take when we choose something. Taking an action - taking a leap of faith - should not feel safe. 

In this game, opening one door can lead to another one being permanently locked somewhere down the line. Chasing what you think is right might lead to death and devastation. Trying to satisfy someone with one point of view can alienate others who disagree. Quite often, it is not a game of picking the “optimal” choice, because, as in life, optimal choices are an illusion. 

This game allows you to make genuine decisions by asking yourself what difference you want to bring into the world and the lives of those fictional people you care about, and then it remembers those decisions, and pays them off. And fine, this does not happen all the time, I grant you that. I, too, feel somewhat let down by act 3 relative to early-game. The closer you get to the ending, the more you seem to be boxed into a few possible options where there would be multitude of those in act 1. But even then, the quality drop is from “so good it is actually unbelievable” to “incredibly decent”. To me, this is acceptable enough to not detract from the overall impression.

Having elements of randomness which dice-rolling introduces (and if you ask me, the very reason why dice exist in the first place in TTRPG) only enhanced this effect. Dice rolls can lock and unlock areas, they can make and unmake relationships, save and ruin scenarios. This creates a solid impression that at every step things can go awry - because they, effectively, can. Your choice here is how to approach this fate: whether to save every five minutes to try again or roll with the situation dice and your curiosity have created (pun fully intended). 

Baldur’s Gate 3 is incredible because it plucks you out of your world and does not just place you in another one - it populates that world with people for you to love and admire, and hate, and feel exasperated with, gives you situations that often don’t have a straightforward moral hardline, and then asks you “how would you like to do this?”

It does what tabletop games do. 

When I started DMing my first DnD campaign - which I decided, overachiever that I am, to home-brew from the ground up, - a friend of mine reminded me to fail upwards, always. In terms of storytelling, it’s a challenge. In terms of video games, it’s almost never done. You fail; or you succeed. Baldur’s Gate 3 lets you fail, and deal with the pieces you need to pick up.

And I know - of course I do - that it’s all programmed, so it cannot be truly generative, the way tabletop games can be. By virtue of having pathways, of course, a video game cannot do that. But it comes really damn close — it comes closer than anything I have seen since those early entries in the genre because those were made to directly emulate being in a campaign with live people. 

For a few years now I have been lamenting that they don’t do RP video games the way they used to any more. 

Well, my friends.

Turns out, Larian does.

It shoots right for the sky. 

[t-hirstreview]

[theautistichalflinghole]

Does anyone else see the vision

[sanguine-fangs]

Yeah, sure, sex is great and all, but have y'all ever tried being lounged on by a guard dog who's stronger and meaner than you? Serving as a weighted blanket, casually pinning you down beneath them under the guise of cuddling whilst watching a show/video. Their hands roam wherever they please, just softly exploring your skin with their fingertips and nothing more. Their lips are even more explorative whenever they're not pressed firmly against your own: panting hot breaths into the crook of your neck, leaving bite marks and hickeys all over your throat and shoulders. They growl each time you shift, any attempt to move making them more handsy out of spite. Any whining only makes them chuckle at your helplessness and bite/claw at you harder. You're stuck there, helpless to move, and so deeply content to be dumb and teased and frot against another, bigger dog who loves to watch you squirm beneath them.

[nellasbookplanet]

I recently started reading (and ended up dropping partway through) an m/m retelling of an old legend, and it made me think of this reoccurring thing I've come across a handful of times now in m/m fiction and how they approach women, equality, and world-building.

Let's call it the omegaverse problem, because that's where it seems the most blatant (I've only come across it twice outside of fandom spaces that I can remember). Basically, it's when the writer looks at the unequal and sometimes oppressive roles women serve in society (today and historically), and goes 'this is a good basis for dark romance but there are too many women here' and then just. plops men into the roles traditionally served by women and recreates heteronormative tropes but They're All Men Now, none of those icky women.

Now, completely removing any and all gender based inequality isn't a bad basis for a queer-inclusive fantasy! But thing is, this type of narrative isn't interested in women, so they often read as if women have mysteriously disappeared from society (except for the occassional mom or sister). They don’t bother to include women in traditionally male areas (the book I dropped had plenty of male courtesans, with diplomats and bodyguards and advisors also being male) nor to create new roles for them.

They also generally don’t bother to look critically at the systemic and societal inequalities they're mimicking. The concept 'typically sexist society but they're all men (or all women)' could be used to alienate and deconstruct our ideas of what’s 'normal' and what’s oppressive, a way to compare the intersections of class and gender. Instead, this kind of story is only interested in using inequality as inter-character conflict and set-up for romance. And it sucks.

[possessedopossum]

The Veilguard: my full review [positive, long post, less about game mechanics and more about meta, spoilers]

The thing that makes Veilguard special to me is how self aware the game is. In every dialogue, plot twist or quest I can feel the presence of somebody who wanted to share something with me. Be it personal experience, message, pain or joy. As of 2024, many games have lost their creative spark. Video game industry is no longer a nerd only zone, it's a business no different than others. Many studios utilize AI to write their plots, chase after current trends or simply make decisions that would create the biggest audience possible at the expense of something people love the franchise for. Veilguard did well, because it showed me something I haven't seen in a very long time: the human soul.

Perhaps you have noticed it on your own. The world has gone completely nuts after the covid. Or maybe it has always been this way and I only noticed it now. It is not a surprise to me that players want their game to be darker, to have more aggressive dialogue and to have a morally grey or even evil protagonist. For the past few years I've been feeling like someone had turned the lights off. And the game gave me an impression that someone at bioware feels this way too.

Only negativity gives content creators views and money these days. Open any social media, read any post or watch any video. If something is on top, it's almost always a hate post. What was the last movie most reviewers enjoyed? The last game? Perhaps the one that was released 10 years ago? What was the last time, you, my dear reader, have smiled? Not bitterly or sardonically, but out of genuine joy?

It is extremely fitting that Rook's mentor figure is Varric. Varric is somebody who always sees the best in people. He grew up in one hell of a city but he still loves it. He can find something to laugh about no matter how dire the situation is. He is a people person who can build friendship with anybody. Varric is very charismatic and tends to avoid conflict. He is a chronic liar but that doesn't make him bad because he never lies with malicious intentions. And in some ways, Rook is similar to him.

Yes, Rook can't be a complete asshole. Because the game is not about being an asshole. One of our antagonists, Solas, considers the world to be sick. Modern Thedas is a grave mistake that haunts him. He can't forget and move on because even the elves themselves wear his mistakes on their faces. Many things that are normal to the player character aren't normal to Solas. The world is so wrong and disgusting to Solas that he is willing to sacrifice things and people who are dear to him just to make the twisted world better.

Rook is nice because they are supposed to represent what is good in modern Thedas. They are supposed to be somebody who thinks the world is worth fighting for. And to a certain extent, their factions as well. The crows are contract killers and the lords of fortune are thiefs. Grey wardens are very concerned with politics and all the secrets they refuse to share constantly get people killed. Mourn watch has their immoral power hungry politicians as well and veil jumpers are sometimes willing to trade people for ancient secrets. They all aren't without sin but that's not the point. The point is, even with all the ugliness and darkness, there is still a place for light. And the light in the darkness is the exact message bioware tried to convey. The crows not being comically evil is not bad writing. It is a conscious writing choice to give us a human face for something we consider ugly and not worth fighting for. The player is metaphorically Solas, who needs to be persuaded that the world is worth at least something. The writers didn't need to bare the souls of player factions in all their mistakes, imperfections and cruelty. Because they showed us the factions' humanity. Some cruelty is still there, on the background, but it doesn't overshadow what is good. The crows, no matter how terrible, are a family. Viago may call Rook an idiot and while Rook considers their training literal torture, they sure love Viago back.

In fact, familial love is one of the core themes of the Veilguard. We have Emmrich and Manfred, Davrin and Assan and uncle Endrin, Lucanis and Caterina and Illario, Taash and Shathann, Bellara and Cyrian. It's a bit less direct with Neve and Harding. Neve has a lot of love for her city which is almost like a person to her, and Harding...I'll explain with a quote. "You're Lace Harding! You're more than this rage! You believe that the world is beautiful! That people are good! Hold onto it, hold on to who you are!".

Even the evanuris share the theme of family. Rook can compare Elgar'nan and Solas to relatives who can't get along. Elgar'nan calls Ghilan'nain his sister. Both shards of Mythal consider modern elves her children. Different but no less beloved, as Morrigan puts it.

Veilguard shows family without rose-tinted glasses. It shows that sometimes to love your children is to sacrifice something else you love (Lichdom for Emmrich), that parents have their own problems that may harm their children no matter how much parents wish to protect them (Shathann understands she is not the best mother and has complicated relationships with the Qun that harmed Taash), that sometimes parents do not understand their children at all and it's only up to children themselves to close the gap in understanding (Mythal, Solas and Rook), that familial love and desire to protect your family may turn into something ugly (Caterina being cruel to her grandchildren to prepare them for harsh realities of the antivan crows).

There is conflict in Veilguard, of intergenerational nature. Companions and their families, Rook and their faction leader, elves ancient and modern. It's up to the player how to deal with the last one. Humans, dwarves and qunari may not share blood ties with ancient elves but they still live in the world ancient elves created. As Rook, you're allowed to lash out in anger at Mythal and Solas. You can call Mythal guilty of all modern problems and fight her. You can bind Solas to the veil by force, call him asshole and express your frustrations with him multiple times throughout the game. You can also express sympathy and forgive them both. Because forgiving is neither condoning nor condemning, it's understanding and letting go. Being understood and allowed to peacefully let go of his mistakes is the exact thing that Solas needs to change his mind.

I believe that the Veilguard companions are one of the very best I've ever seen in a video game. They may not have as many different fates as for example Alistair has but is goodness measured with the amount of ways a character can be killed? I love the Veilguard crew because they all feel very real. Their personal problems are universal and very close to the player. Taash's story is not about being non-binary. It's about growing up, finding your place in the world, separating from your family and learning to appreciate it despite the mistakes your parents did while parenting you.

It's hard to decide who is my favorite. Taash's story made me cry but so did Harding's and Bellara's. The last scenes of Lucanis romance made me feral. I can't stomach the scene where Davrin and Assan die. The consequences of destruction of Minrathous/Treviso were hard to look at. I felt guilt, and if a game makes me feel something, it's a good game. I laughed, I cried, I was afraid and I felt joy, I was angry, I felt shame, I felt love. The game made me feel alive, I played through Rook's story like it was my own, what not to love about it?

The double blight wreaking havoc in Southern Thedas is sad but beautifully symbolic. Almost like a love letter from a long lost lover, It felt like bioware's meta commentary to me. "Yes, a whole lot of time has passed. We are no longer as young as we used to be, and so are you, not only the player, but our treasured friend as well. We have changed, you have changed and so did the world around us. Gaming and the video game industry are not what they used to be. We will never be able to go back no matter how much we want it because the only path that is left is the path forward. It doesn't mean that we no longer remember our shared past, no. We may not be able to go back but we promise to remember it fondly. We are still capable of creating beauty and the past will serve as a foundation for something new. We still have hope, and so should you".

The Veilguard to me is about nostalgia as well. I don't want to feed my inner Solas who sees the current world as sick. I want to make space for my inner Rook who is hopeful about the world just enought to fight for its future.

[ducktracy]

🫵 i can smell you

[raayllum]

Was originally gonna start this later and then thought more about timelines / my own schedule, so...

Welcome to Raayllum's Review Fic-Athon, which is not about reviewing fic, but leaving reviews for TDP on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and getting ficlets in return! Most episodes and seasons don't actually have that many reviews and it's an easy way to boost engagement / get the show's rating up higher so Netflix will #GiveUsTheSaga. Both sites just need an email address and nothing else, and immediately allow you to start reviewing.

The review system for each site works a little different, so here's how the fic-athon will work in response:

For Rotten Tomatoes, you can only review seasons, not episodes. So reviewing all 6 seasons = 1 ficlet for a pairing/character/topic of your choice. Reviews on RT have to be least 20 words, so this is probably the easiest pathway. Seasons get a star ranking.

For IMBD, you can do individual episodes, so 1 season (a review for each ep) = 1 ficlet for a pairing/character/topic of your choice. IMBD reviews have to be 600 characters (not words), which is about 1-2 paragraphs, and each episode gets a star ranking.

This is an effective way to show support because if stuff is trending on IMDB or has high ratings on RT, people are more likely to see it, watch, and/or get caught up. It also means that even if there were some eps of S4 you hated, giving the season / all episodes 10 stars every time is important to help boost their ratings and get them higher up.

Proof of reviews can be submitted here through screencaps on posts / in asks or by ID'ing your reviews by username (i.e. I left reviews on s3 under name XYZ). All ships and characters are welcome and if you're at a loss of what to prompt for, taking inspiration from previous prompt lists may be helpful.

Happy reviewing, and if you've been needing a kick in the butt to leave reviews, hopefully this is a worthwhile motivation!

[muchcelebrated]

PSA: If you loved My Lady Jane you should watch The Artful Dodger! It has immaculate romance and banter and angst and the two leads (Thomas Brodie Sangster and Maia Mitchell) have great chemistry!

It’s got great writing and is a part period drama, part medical drama, part romance, and has heist elements! I also really can’t overstate how great the romance is!

[jasper-the-menace]

If I had a dollar for every horror book I read this year (that was also published this year) in which a conservative cult used powers beyond mortal ken to enforce their conservative agenda onto a bunch of queer and neurodivergent children who then turned that power around to decimate the cult at some point in their lives, I would have two dollars, which isn't a lot but it's great that it happened twice.

Anyway, read Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle and Mister Magic by Kiersten White.

[cybernaght]

One and Only: a review of sorts

I bet you did not expect the actual topic of this blog to resurface, and yet, here we go.

The previous time I went to a cinema to watch one of those Chinese films was actually completely by accident. I had a long break/cancellation situation at work which meant a three-hour break with a cinema around the corner. I ducked into said cinema and found out that a screening of Born to Fly has just stared, so… what’s a girl to do. I then didn’t write anything about it because I didn’t have much to say about it.

This one, however, was planned.

One and Only/热烈 is a story of a working class boy with a passion for dance (Wang Yibo - obviously) being roped into being an understudy for a cocky obnoxious star of a dance team by that team’s coach (Huang Bo - obviously), learning a thing or two about himself, finding friendship and hoping to one day complete in the Nationals.

As the film is in cinemas, I cannot provide visuals, so, instead, I’m gonna populate this with some of my many gifs from Street Dance of China season 3-5.

Plot-wise, it’s not really unpredictable in any way. The highs and the lows are placed roughly where you would expect them to be, all the lulls are appropriately proportioned for character development, and the final-act dance competition is as exhilarating as one might hope.

And yet… this one has a heart, it really does, and the writing really does a lot to elevate a cookie-cutter premise. The characters have a hell of a lot of inner life, including whole sets of circumstances that are merely implied - a real joy to see in any movie, I love the effect this has on the feeling of the characters’ realness. There are also fantastic decisions made pacing-wise in the final two acts, with one specific time-skip which I found very exciting indeed.

Themes of mutual respect and cooperation are not by all mean new to this kind of a movie, but I really appreciated how well developed they are, being set up in the opening scenes, and paying off in the eleventh hour; and it was lovely to see those themes explored organically. Again, writing elevates the premise here, too.

Wang Yibo’s acting keeps improving in a way which is pretty damn impressive. He seems to be a very hard-working young man, and that hard work seemingly pays off, too. Good for him. There are a few idiosyncrasies that are still very “his” (I swear I have never seen him have any screen chemistry with any woman ever), but there were also moments that read as character, and that read as truth. Honestly, he’s all grown up now, it’s very sweet to watch.

And if you are here through Street Dance of China route, whoooo boy do I have good news for you.

Ye Yin is here

Jr. Taco is here

B-Boy George is here — with plot! (Is this a spoiler? It might be. It might not be.)

Rochka is here, with the signature ankle spin

So are Klash and MT Pop, by the way.

Liao Bo is here AND he! is! actually! dancing!

Kevin is in it, although he is not, in fact, dancing

I am certain this list is not comprehensive. Suffice it to say, there is enough on the screen to make a Street Dance of China fan very happy.

(The only real crime was that Chick was not in it. Because he absolutely should have been.)

Speaking of dance — I really want to know who choreographed this, because some of the routines were fantastic. I only wish that we could see them uncut - but of course this is a movie, and it is edited as one. Besides, you have to have cuts to be able to cut-in Wang Yibo’s dance double*, the true unsung hero of this cinematographic show.

(*last year the boy could do like, one freeze. He is a fast learner so I am ready to believe that he can be pretty good, but he is definitely not “halo five times in a row” good.)

All in all, if you are feeling sad that SDC 6 seems to be nowhere in sight at the moment, and One and Only is in cinemas near you, this comes with a cybernaght stamp of approval.

Go see your favorites doing the thing that they do - and doing it well.

You made a promise. Please hurry up. It's late August already, and you've not even announced the captains yet.

[sendmyresignation]

i think there's really something to be said about how there has never been a record i've encountered where people wanted justification or excuse to refuse to acknowledge the intention and seriousness of the project itself like danger days by both defenders and haters. i find it so incredibly bizarre and strange and partially fascinating.

[alackofghosts]

huddled

[catboy-a-day]

catboy 170.. me rn.

[ladyloveandjustice]

List of "Does it Like Women" Results and whether I agree

I find the "Does it like women" blog fascinating, as y'all have probably noticed. I always tend to think deeply about this topic when I consume media, so I wanted to make a list of results I disagree with, because it interests me! I'll likely be updating this through reblogs if my interest doesn't wane, I'll make a note in the replies when I do!

Loves Women

I agree with all of these so far! Well, loves women might be a little bit of a stretch for the first Spiderverse movie (on the other hand...doc ock...hnnn), but I think the second does so yeah basically agree.

Likes Women

Kill la Kill- Man it's 2013 again and I'm seeing tumblr make powerpoints about how klk is deeply feminist and it's actually a super deep critique of harassment that Ryuko has to wear the ugliest outfit ever and Westerners Don't Understand (person making this argument is inevitably a Westerner).

Yeah, based on the part I've seen and everything I've heard, hard disagree. But I have not seen the whole thing, just those three, I do know the part I saw included rape jokes a plenty, a weird victim-blamey take on "not being ashamed" of being forced into a skimpy outfit and how if you're bothered by men ogling you that's your weakness, and a vagina wedgie. I'm not as mad about it as I was back then,and I can appreciate the show has it's good points later on. Not having watched it also means my knowledge is incomplete. However, I have listened to really in depth breakdowns of the series (mainly Anifem's podcast), so I know exactly what happens, and yeah, the treatment of women doesn't impress me. I'm on the dislike side, (holding back on hates because again, haven't seen all of it)

...could understand mixed feelings though, I guess

Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 anime- nahhhh man, it doesn't like women, treating them significantly worse than the manga it adapted. I have a lot of issues, from how thoroughly it shafted Winry, to how it gave Riza nothing, to Dante being every cliche about a female villain they could fit in here, the treatment of Rose leaving a horrible taste in my mouth (I see arguments of what happened to her being a critique of imperialism, however I have yet to see anyone justify why the show had to continue to have her kidnapped and assaulted and treated as an afterthought after that) and some truly rancid one-off episodes.

I break down my problems with it at the end of the little FMA 2003 liveblog I did, though it's phrased super obnoxiously because I wrote it...oh my god twelve years ago oh god I'm crumbling to dust as we speak. But I break down the basics with the "top gross things" post I did (ignore any thoughts on race I had no place writing bout that tbh). The tag anime: turn your zombie mom into ethanol also goes into more of my thoughts, though again, very obnoxious and the deeper you dig the more ancient and obnoxious it will get lmao.

I have several ancient posts on how it treated Winry in particular, as she was my fave and was done so dirty, and I think they hold up fairly well. Here's a post I made about the Winry-Roy plotline, and a good response by another user. Then we have this post, ignore horrible art.

(Please don't try to spark a debate with any of this stuff, it's years and years old, I went through so much drama and legit panic attacks, and I'm not committed anymore. Love 2003 and think it likes women if you want, that's fine! I'm just trying to illustrate what I mean in saying imo it dislikes women).

The Handmaiden- This poll reminded me to finally get around to watching this movie, and I'm so glad I did! I'd go with "loves women" for this one actually,The nos must either be misclicks or people who don't understand that two women having sex on screen is not the same as the male gaze.

Madoka- I'd definitely go more towards mixed feelings honestly (especially if we're counting Rebellion) but I get the people who say "likes".

Yuri is my Job- it loves women, it loves messy women, it loves women who love women, it loves them so much, idk why it got a sizeable no vote. People who only watched the first ep? People who think yuri is "bad"?

Mob Psycho 100- Someone in the notes says "accidentally likes women" and that's the only answer in the "likes women" area I'll accept. It has 10 million prominent male characters and like three prominent female characters. ONE really really obviously has a hard time imagining women as powerful or action heroes. (this is reflected in One Punch Man too) (One Punch Man actively hates women and queer people though, Mob is infinitely better) Only one who ever gets to fight and play with the boys, and she's a low level mook, and we have to spend 75% percent of her limited screentime on whether it's actually okay to fight women, with her winning argument being "Well you're literally a child so I guess it evens out" (???) The little girl with the evil dolls gets even less screentime.

I do like that the series examines how Mob idealized Takane and how people not caring about the real her made her tired, as well as how it allowed her to reject Mob and was basically a lesson in the importance of accepting rejection. But her screentime is also really limited, and I feel like we could have dove into her a lot more. Tome is a wonderful weird girl and I liked her little arc, and I hear she gets more in the Reigen manga, but still not a TON of screentime, and even with her there are a couple jabs about how she doesn't "count" as a girl due to not acting traditionally feminine we're clearly supposed to find funny. Emi is...there I guess. There's that sweet scene with the writer girl, and the bully girl, but they're like, not reoccurring at all, as evidenced by how I can't remember their names.

And uh. the girls school episode.

Anyway. Hot take but I don't think "they're barely in the story but when they are two of them are treated pretty decently and have some depth, though there is some weird stuff about whether women can even fight men or whatever" really counts as "likes women". I'd go more mixed feelings.

Life is Strange-out of the two options I chose dislikes, but my feelings are a lot closer to "mixed feelings". I go into why here.

Gushing Over Magical Girls- lol. lmao even. The anime about middle school girls who look 8 sexually assaulting other middle school girls DEFINITELY doesn't like women. I go into more detail here.

Cowboy Bebop: Mixed feelings, probably. I chose dislikes because yes, Faye and Ed are great (you could def read Ed as nb though), but Faye also is repeatedly damsel in distress'd and treated as incompetent in her field when I don't think she should be, she can be a failgirl without being the sole woman in the action side of the group and also the least capable (there's also That Scene in the movie). also i just. it's fine that she's sexy but I hate her outfit. give her something nicer looking, it's so ugly. But my main reason for a dislike vote is the treatment of Julia. Girl is a textbook example of fridging. They really gave her so little. But yeah I could see mixed feelings.

Also do you remember that one scene during Faye's tragic backstory where she's hospitalized and the camera requires us to look down her super (painful looking? like idk how she's not screaming about it) squished boobs during this tense and important moment god that took me out. whenever anyone acts like Faye always owns her sexiness and the camera never does anything I remember that scene.

Ranma 1/2: I've seen read a good chunk of it, and this result is...surprising. Maybe by the standards of 80's manga though, who knows.

Better Call Saul- I did vote yes on this one, but I'd put it more at mixed feelings. Kim is a fantastic character, but there aren't enough women on the show at all. She's a major part of the show, but basically the only one of any note. I only voted yes because I finally remembered Francesca was a reoccurring character and she's all right, but the fact I had to think to remember...

Undead Unluck: I know it gets a lot better later but I'm not sure if a work that has it's female character continuously and comically sexually harassed for the first few chapters can ever get liking women privileges. I don't know enough about it but it might be a mixed feelings situation.

Akiba Maid War: tbh I'd probably give this 'loves women'.

Ducktales: For the second season specifically I'd say "loves women". The first season leans more towards 'like women' though, so it evens out.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend- Should be "loves women" but people are ridic and voted based on the title.

Mixed Feelings

Dracula- IIII definitely think it dislikes women, sorry guys. Mina is a great character and you do have to take it in the context of when it was written. But there are surely contemporaries of Bram Stoker that wouldn't have randomly gone out of their way to scoff at the "New Woman". Not to mention again, really random sidebars about how men are so much smarter and cooler and women should be grateful to them. I could go on about Lucy and how Mina is treated and whether that's a critique of sexism or just playing into it and how it's so open to interpretation but I'll stop here.

also the book is hugely anti- Romani, immigrant etc and I think that ties into disliking women since some women are those Romani and immigrants

It really really felt like a case where a lot of people in the Drac Daily tag just wanted it to be super feminist because they liked it (you can like things without having to make them feminist! it's fine!), and the way they scoffed at feminist scholars who had "surface level readings" of the text (aka they dared to say it was sexist) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The Lego Movie: dislikes women. what are y'all on. Even it's own sequel calls it out for disliking women. Wildstyle is basically the only woman with real characterization and she's the purest concentration of "hypercompetent woman must play second fiddle to Average Male loser who is the one who actually saves the world and also she falls in love with him because of course she does'. Then Wonder Woman got one line (in literally the first theatrical move she got to even be in) and Superman and Batman a lot of screen time.

Does not like

Scott Pilgrim- Don't get this result, I'd put it at likes or mixed feelings? It's literally about how Scott has weird issues with women where he doesn't see them as to full people they are, and it calls him out on that hard. The whole sixth volume is how he made up a damsel in distress scenario for Kim and always took her for granted, how he put all the blame on Envy for the end of their relationship when he played a huge role in that, Knives finally getting over him, moving on, and telling him he needs to grow up a little (highlighting how his grossness towards her was him refusing to accept that he was an adult now, and that he was horrible to her, and yes he does apologize), and accepting that he and Ramona are both messed up people and she's just as flawed as he is, taking down the pedestal he put her on. And having Ramona triumphantly confront her abuser. Scott acknowledges he has a lot in common with Gideon, the supervillain!

Roxy is a sticking point, the whole 'it was a phase thing' and her and Ramona's relationshipbeing unexplored was annoying (fixed in Takes Off) but even she had some moments of pathos and was definitely the (Ramona's) ex the story seemed to sympathize with the most.

I dunno. this seems like a tumblr lacks media literacy thing again. Did you think the narrative agrees with Scott. Did you only watch the movie.

Succession- I'd go more mixed feelings? Dislikes is fine, I think it doesn't have enough women and often privileges male characters over them, but sometimes it's examination of the sexism Shiv faces is really incisive, and she's a complex character. But she should have gotten that abortion.

Watchmen: hates women actually. Pretty much anything written by Alan Moore does.

Persona 4: I think it hates women actually. But dislike is fine too.

Merlin: Everything I've heard about the show puts in in the hates camp rather than dislikes, but i never watched it (I did watch this video on it, and the bootlicking is out of this world if it's accurate) so I can't really comment

Fables: I cannot fathom how this did not get "hates women". Not just the fact it's written by a known misogynist. I will always remind everyone that I was literally there to see Bill Willingham say the female fans protesting the misogynist treatment of Stephanie Brown were annoying and he wishes he could shoot them. I was there. I heard him. This attitude completely shows up in his work. On top of that, his conservative, women hating idealogy all over this comic. Do you not remember all the random abortion soapboxes and how hard Snow White got sidelined????

And when I refreshed my memory, I discovered the reason Snow White had kids when she didn't want to was because a spell made her have sex with the male lead and she didn't even remember that happening. I also forgot that her backstory was the seven dwarfs raped her (but then she murdered them! Girl Power!) This is only the tip of the iceberg, I rediscovered way too many screwed up things he did to his female characters. Plus blatant Zionist propaganda and a ton of racism.

Like Snow White's backstory was some dark and edgy rape revenge and she's an Empowered Woman now, only to have her be raped by the man she will marry (in a mutual rape) but we don't call it that, and now she has kids she doesn't want, she can't get an abortion because It's Evil, time to quit her job she's proud of and move to a farm to have six kids.

iCarly-- It hates women! Dan Schneider. That should be all we need but some people in the comments insisted on separating the art from the artist despite the fact the artist is ALL OVER the art, and said art directly tormented Jeanette McCurdy! There was so much content in the show that was there to specifically torment her-- the fact her character has a food addiction/eating disorder while she had a real life eating disorder and they had to have known this, the fact after hearing she had a crush on an actor then they wrote it into her character to humiliate her, the fact they continually sexualized her while knowing her discomfort with it and with her body-- I have also watched the exhaustive basically minute-by-minute breakdown by QuintonReviews. Some gross shit happens on that show.

Hates Women

Agree with all of these so far!

[rthwrms]

science = modern magic