#the magic system is dope though. never read the second book

[iamthepulta]

Staring out at this lake, I have so many thoughts about The Broken Earth trilogy that I would actually have to reread TBE to articulate.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 3

Let’s Split Up and Look for Clues! 

Welcome back to the Seven and the Museum of Adventuring. My previous pronouncement of combat was a little premature but hold tight, we’ll get there. For now, we’re back with Antiope who just saw a glimpse of the Ending of Things (aka, Ending) and is freaking out a bit. She tells the others and they all do various checks to see what they can find out.

Ostentatia casts Commune With City and clocks that there is some kind of abjuration shield magic on the government buildings in town, stopping them from being spied on. She also clocks some lingering undead-ish magic and a weird divination effect on Antiope, specifically on the Aguefort logo of her jacket, like someone scryed on her and just got that she had something to do with Aguefort. At this, Penny reminds her that the only true piece of info they gave Ending when they broke her out is that they were from Aguefort.

Sam with a 19 Insight still feels the connection she and Ant have with Ending because of their spells turned against them in the initial encounter. Yelle does a Perception check (27) and once again doesn’t really get bad, dreadful, menacing vibes. But also, she recognizes that she’s chill with a lot of things most people don’t love. 

Antiope reiterates that she texted Charity that she’s interested in the internship so she can learn more info--even better now that they know the buildings are safe from scrying. Yelle remembers Aguefort’s warning about people watching them and Sam asks Zelda if her “weird boyfriend” (“he’s actually really cool”) is friends with the elven oracle. Zelda says yeah, they’re both friends with Adaine, she can ask about any weird divination stuff. Sam makes sure to specify she should look into TK but NOT Ending, no doubt remembering what happened when she tried to do a spell on her. 

It’s been a big day as Zelda says so they all go to the TGIF-esque Slappy McFinnigans to celebrate (which Sam has problems with--the fact that they’re celebrating I mean, but she’s mainly ignored). They’re quickly kicked out because Katja can’t help herself from trying to brush the mane of their centaur server and they reconvene at the more their speed SlamBurger, where a horse can fully destroy a soda machine to absolutely zero reaction.  Zelda says that Ostentatia was right in that they should all do the quest because it doesn’t close any doors and they have the 2 weeks to figure things out. They all seem a bit more on the same page (though Sam is still pretty frosty towards Ant) and start making plans.

Before they leave, Yelle pulls aside Ant and Sam and says hey, first of all, you two are still linked to Ending from before. Second of all, I know y’all are Going Through It right now and you don’t have to talk about it or make up right away but you need to get your heads in the game and you need to know that you’re both loved and still family. 

Penny, Zelda, Katja, and Ostentatia go back to the museum to try and get more information for their quest. Katja goes to the information desk (horse in tow, of course) and just starts asking information about TK. She’s told that she’s one of the museum’s benefactors and has been missing for years, and hey, do you understand that a museum’s info desk is about where the water fountains and exhibits are, not just random information about the world?

Ostentatia bails her out by calling her over so she can do her plan which is just to walk into the back area like she owns the place. Now, Aguefort students do have a certain level of clearance to be back there and she does have her school ID. But instead of explaining that, she tried to use her Earrings of Diamond Charm to charm the employee she runs into which fails. And then she does a pretty good tag-team lie with Katja about how they NEED to pass a class but that doesn’t fly. Then Ostentatia tries flirting which ALSO doesn’t work. Zelda at this point steps in and just headbuts the dude so they can book it away. I personally would have gone with, “Do you know who we are? We killed the dragon that’s your current main exhibit,” but you know. No backseat adventuring. 

While this is happening, Penny is stealthing like a pro, looking for anything Arcana related. Ostentatia and Katja also did checks (O getting a nat 20) and we’ll go through all their info gathered now. 

Katja basically gets info on TK we kind of already knew. She was a benefactor of the museum. She’s centuries old like Aguefort. She was concerned with consciousness and divinity and specifically how will and divine will manifested, as well as elemental magic.  

Ostentatia gets a lot of info with her Nat 20. She gets a full map to the temple where TK went which is called the Temple of Earth Defiant. The point of the temple is that it’s up in the open air and harsh winds--wind being a symbol of chaos and unpredictability to dwarves--but they still use it as a place to honor their heroes and they rebuild and upkeep it despite the erosion and how hard it is to get there. It’s hallowed from evil and lots of stories about it involve heroes racing there for sanctuary. It was made by dwarves but it’s a pilgrimage site for other primordial beings like goliaths and earth genasi (which is what TK is). There are 3 heroes who have big statues here: Asha Hammerheart (a SUPER dope name I must say), Yvonna of the Sundering Hills , and Kora Ironbrow.

Penny finds that, amongst Kalvaxus’s hoard there were 7 unrecovered artifacts--the Mirrors of the Eidolons (which are the smashed mirrors they found it seems). Eidelons are kind of like the elemental plane version of angels/celestials. They’re primordial (remember Katja saw primordial language on the wall of the dragon cave) and kind of aligned with things like titans and genies. Raw element with no agenda (unlike celestials and demons and such which have a clear alignment which makes up the D&D religious system). It is said by wizards--who look at these things in more of a nuts and bolts way than say clerics who take the fuzzier religions view--that Eidolons are the hands of the gods because gods are beings of spirit--how could they form the physical world. Will of the divine manifested by elemental beings? Sounds right up TK’s alley.

Sam decides she’s desperate enough for information that she calls her mom who she is understandably snippy with. Her mom gives her a contact to talk to when she asks about TK but Sam stonewalls her on show business talk. She tries to play the “mother knows best, you’ll thank me later,” in a kind of Gothel-y way while acting like anything in the past never happened and says Sam is attacking her but when Sam accuses her of neglect, she proves her right by hanging up the phone.

Sam then calls the number and it turns out to be Lola Embers (Fig’s agent) who has been waiting for Sam’s call for ages and wants to talk to her, even though she’s currently chasing her dog across the park. She says she met TK once at a genasi woman networking thing and also says she once saw Charity get into an argument with TK over government funding or not getting a grant or something similar. She then says she’s in a lake trying to get her dog and Sam, being a water genasi who can breathe underwater and also a fundamentally good person even though she’s currently being aggro as hell, goes to the park to help her. Lola assures her that if she’s ready, she’ll help her get new acting gigs and that the world is ready for the new her. 

Yelle meanwhile casts Speak With Plants on some trees near TK’s office and, after a super stoner to stoner conversation, gets a magical footprint trail of where she ran off to when she absconded 12 years ago. 

Antiope (who is in a sports bra because she destroyed her top with the Aguefort logo since that’s what was pinged, revealing in a wild, nat-1 fueled retcon that she got a tramp stamp reading “Leader” in the Red Waste) goes to see Charity to fill out some paperwork, ingratiate herself, and perhaps get some info. Charity has her hot, young, assistant (who Antiope is instantly crushing on) give Ant his shirt (and Charity’s lack of surprise at seeing his 4 horses pulling a chariot tattoo makes the group think they’re def banging). She kind of explains what the Ministry does and Antiope boils it down a bit to snitching on other adventurers. Charity says it’s more of a who watches the watchmen situation and visibly twitches when she has to say the word “snitch”. 

When she takes a second to call Antiope’s dad, she accidentally leaves a tab open on her computer which has TK’s file open (probably up from when the Maidens asked about her earlier). Antiope sneaks a peek and learns that the artifact that TK stole is called the Legendarium Extrodia and it tracks quests. It seems that at some point TK must have had top level access to get her hands on it. It also shows that TK was marked for assassination (which seems like a pretty good reason to get the heck out of dodge). Brennan also says she’s learned enough that she can use the L.E. if she finds it. 

At this point, Yelle tells everyone to come back ASAP so they can follow the magic footsteps. Antiope wants to come but doesn’t want to burn bridges with Charity (or chances with Preston--equally important) so she, at Katja’s suggestion--pretends to have diarrhea and is Nat 20 convincing. Interesting choice for the end of the first meeting with a person you��re crushing on. But Preston is actually pretty supportive as she races out the door as fast as possible.

The Seven follow the footsteps out of Solace and it becomes clear that TK was headed to the dwarven temple Ostentatia learned about. This is a multi-day journey so Cinnamon sings a glorious, magical, horse song and summons mounts for everyone which I will now name because this is obviously the most important part of the episode:

Snowfire - Danielle

Taffodill - Sam

Alagonia - Antiope

Candyheart - Penny

Starforge - Ostentatia 

Strawberry Dancer - Zelda 

Crucial info. 

As they travel, Antiope casts Primeval Awareness and gets that there is something ancient in the mountain. They travel through Pilgrim’s Pass (a village area most travelers to the temple pass through) but find it completely razed to the ground. They investigate. 

With an 18 Survival check, Antiope finds tracks that seem halfway between dog and cat. There are more than 4 legs and it’s hard to tell how old they are because there’s not a lot of rain in the area. They could have been left long ago and been undisturbed. Regardless, these are clearly from monstrosities. On a 26 History Check, Katja knows that this area used to be protected by Blink Dogs (teleporting dogs) but they seem to be all gone now. On a 22 Nature check, Yelle sees a weird feather made out of plant material. It seems like fae stuff but bad vibes. On an 18 Insight check, Sam knows this was a purposeful slaughter.

And on Penny’s 30 Arcana check, oh boy. Penny finds broken common scrawled on the wall in human blood talking about a queen of the mountain who rules the skies. That only the queen may see and none may see themselves. And that the people were told to destroy the seeing glass and did not obey. In from of that message is a bear hide covering something magic. Penny lifts it with reckless abandon and sees tons of mirror shards.

Friendship bracelets! She thinks.

Gotcha bitch, the thing in the mirror says.

Uh-oh.   

Penny calls over her friends to let them knows she may have made a tiny mistake. The group is pretty split between, “Understandable,” and “Girl, WHAT?” In her defense, she did try to cast Friends on the person on the other side of the mirror shards but that’s not enough to stop an entire pack of 50-60 Displacer Beast (magic tentacle cats)/Blink Dog hybrid monstrosities along with the Harpy Queen (voice from the mirror) and her plant feathered harpy minions to start rapidly making their way to their location. 

It is at this point that Ostentatia remembers that abominations and monstrosities cannot step into the temple which means it’s time to RUN. 

And NOW it’s combat time. 

The premise of this fight is that the girls are on their horses, moving towards the center of the temple as fast as they can while fending off the closest enemies. I won’t give an exact play by play but the two highlights are as follows:

Yelle conjures up a bunch of geese with raptor stats (...so normal geese) to swarm the head cat/dog abomination and has to do a truly stunning amount of math for which she is rewarded with SEVENTY POINTS OF DAMAGE. 

Antiope does some insane arrow trickery and gets the Queen Harpy in the wing (which Ostentatia helpfully gets on video so she can show Preston later) and then forces her to take damage as she falls. If not for an extremely lucky Box of Doom nat 20, she may have been down for the count. Antiope still comes away with more than FIFTY points of damage on her though. 

And we end the episode mid-combat! We will catch up on our girls next time!

Superlatives 

Penny: Most Likely to Make Friends During a Hostage Situation 

As a companion to Danielle’s superlative last episode, Penny gets this award for reading or misreading every situation as an opportunity to make friends or make friendship bracelets for the ones she already has. 

Random Thoughts

Did you guys notice that with Katja having Cinnamon and Charity’s assistant being Preston, that’s two of the main pet NPCs from A Crown of Candy?

Antiope’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Rail against the dying of the light! Why are you OK with this?

Penny’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Entropy is TERRIBLE! Everything needs order!

The greasy cashier’s response to Ostentatia’s flirty, “Come here often?” is “To my job? Honestly no.” Brennan? Chef’s kiss. 

My other fave line this episode is from Sam. “I believe Cinnamon fucks.”

It’s very cute that Penny is like, “I gotta text Riz about this Eidelon stuff!” Not because she wants help. Just so they can geek out together. 

The joke that Brennan didn’t think about the birds is so funny considering all the bird facts in Misfits.

Also re Birds attacking: “They made a movie about this Brennan!” 

Good on Ant for refusing an Aguefort sweatshirt from Charity when offered after the little scrying incident before. Remembering things like this saves lives. 

It has been brought up several times that Ending isn’t necessarily Bad just Ancient and Powerful and I trust Yelle’s vibe check but also, like, a forest fire doesn’t have malice behind it but it can still devastate a city while it clears out dead trees that need to be cleared, you know? Not ready to start wild speculation yet but I am curious. And am similarly curious about the sisters Ending has mentioned. Oh and the parallels of 7 Maidens, 7 mirrors. It’s all there, we just need a little more info. 

Honestly, get you a man who will see you rushing out of a building, loudly claiming to have diarrhea, and instead of being grosses out will just supportively confess his own stomach issues. I wish he was just a little younger cause I want that for Ant. 

I do like that D20 has been playing a little more fast and loose with the RP ep/combat ep format. I think it really helps with story flow. 

In this episode Antiope and Brennan as various non-Zelda NPCs rolled 2 Nat 20s. O rolled one. Ant rolled 1 Nat 1--which was on a self imposed roll to see how she responded to Sephie’s tramp stamp improv. And O may have rolled one for initiative also but I wasn’t sure. 

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Biweekly Media Roundup

- Dark (TV) - Well into the second season now and while I do still want to finish it, the show has not been nearly as entertaining as it was in season one. I suppose it was inevitable that it would be less interesting once they answered most of the central mystery questions, but also it really feels like they are dragging out the melodrama, and I just can’t bring myself to care about all these boring heterosexuals as they lie to and cheat on each other constantly. Bring back the time travel nuclear fusion death ball and the 50′s lesbians. 

- The Thing (Movie) - Was planning on seeing this in theatres for a 40th anniversary special, but there was an issue and the tickets got refunded. Luckily my friend had the Bluray so my homies and I met for a rewatch anyway, dope. Obviously, The Thing is a cult classic for a reason, great sense of suspense, awesome practical effects, awesome concept, tight writing, and a hell of an ending, it’s great. Also, a very good doggo.

- Escape From New York (Movie) - After finishing The Thing, the Kurt Russell + John Carpenter dream team continued with my friend putting on Escape From New York. I’d surprisingly never seen it despite being pretty familiar with the Metal Gear Solid Franchise that it spawned. I do respect the creativity of the premise and the unique look of the film, though I can’t say I’d be interested in watching it again, it’s not really my thing. The politics are still disappointingly relevant though. 

- Heartstopper (TV) - Binged almost all of the first season at a friend’s house before finishing it up on my own, as well as reading a good bit of the comic. It was really cute; I liked the little graphic elements they added to the show and how sweet and relatable Charlie and Nick’s romance was. Representation wise it does a great job, and I’m glad a show like this exists for the next generation of queer kids who will really appreciate it.  

- Witch Hat Atelier (Manga) - oh man oh man, this has been on my to read list for awhile and now that I’ve finally checked it out I’m in love. The art is gorgeous, the hard magic system is interwoven into the plot so well, the characters are all engaging and well-written, and I love the way it handles it’s themes of teaching and living with a disability. The child characters are precious and some of the best I’ve seen, and I love their little family with their adopted father mentors-both of whom are fantastic characters in their own right and have such a likable dynamic on their own that the author made a whole-ass other series just about them cooking meals for each other and their daughters together, absolutely wholesome. One of the few series that I’m buying the physical books for, which says a lot for how much I plan to reread it. Unfortunately the fandom is moderately small at the moment (at least in the west), so hopefully the upcoming anime will bring in some well-deserved attention to the series.

- Prehistoric Planet (TV) - Hell yeah, high quality dinosaur documentary where the dino’s are treated as actual animals? Some of them have feathers? David Attenborough?! This has been fun, makes me miss my child discovery channel phase.

- Spy X Family (Anime) - They have a dog now, nice.

- Phoenix Wright: Justice For All (Video Game) - Almost through with the second ace attorney game, I am liking Franziska and how petty she is, very Azula energy it’s great. Overall though I’m admittedly not as into it as I was with DGS, the cast isn’t nearly as solid and the Circus case in particular was. Ooof. This last case seems more promising however, and I’ve heard good things about Trials and Tribulations so hopefully the worst is behind me.

- Lot’s of Monster Anime (Multi-Anime) - Still working through these monster anime, been wanting to just skip straight to the good ones like Hanako-kun instead of sitting through all the mediocre ones but eh I dug my own grave, gotta lie in it.

Listening to: Samaritan by ionnalee, Cold Cold Man by Saint Motel, Willow by Taylor Swift, Killin’ It by Foxy Shazam, Atlantis by Seafret, Why Am I Like This? by Orla Gartland, I Won’t Say I’m in Love by Susan Egan, Starry Eyed by Ellie Goulding, Go Get Your Gun by The Dear Hunters, Twilight Princess OST

[am-molloy]

Book Review: The Guardian by A.T. Duguay

I have the pleasure of actually knowing the author personally. Duguay and I go way back to high school, and though we haven't really spoken to each other for nearly 15 years (wow that makes me feel old haha), we recently re-connected through our love of writing.

Now, onto his novel. For a first-time author, this book was very well written and the formatting was gorgeous. (He did the formatting and cover design himself and it turned out dope!) Duguay was able to do excellent world-building without making it a big info dump. I was constantly excited to learn more about Gauthak's world (and the world around him). It's obvious there is still plenty to learn, but knowing this is the first in the series definitely helps. As it stands, the story itself is a good stand-alone in terms of world-building and character development.

Before I gush about all the good things about this book, there were only a few "negative" things I should mention. I wouldn't even call them negatives. More like nitpicking based on my own personal preference.

For starters, I loved all the names of the main characters, Gauthak, Lauranna, and the names of the Northmen. But it seemed as though if the character didn't have a big role to play, their names were taken from our world and "made to look fantasy". Names like Samanda, Josiph, Sorcha, for example. Nothing wrong with that. Again, it's me being nitpicky.

Second, I found it odd that after each part, (the book is divided into three parts), the chapter titles would reset back to one. This may be a common fantasy practice that I'm unaware of, but from the books I've read that were divided into parts (my unpublished one included), the chapters never reset to one.

The story did drag--only a little!!--a bit at the start of part three, but did pick up again. But, can't have action all the time!

Last, sometimes the character's voices sounded more modern than I feel they should. (I just imaged in the setting they're in to sound all Game of Thrones like, and they totally don't have to, but yeah). Sometimes they sounded like they were in the fantasy setting they were in while other times a few modern sounded phrases seemed to pop through. At least, that's how it felt to me.

Anywho, as I said, nitpicky stuff. All very minor.

Now, onto the good stuff.

First off, LOVE Gauthak. He's a well-written character and has a great history (albeit sad) and a very interesting culture to learn about. I love how it isn't insta-love between him and Lauranna and it was sweet to Gauthak slowly get smitten with her.

I loved all the Northman, but I'm sad about how some of their stories had ended. They are a strong group of characters and the camaraderie between them and the rest of the cast felt very realistic.

Faron is easily one of my favourite characters aside from Guathak. He's the magic user in this world and I love his sarcastic yet hard truth-telling attitude. Plus the way Duguay wrote how Faron performed magic was pretty cool. Can't wait to learn more about him and the magic system of this series.

All in all, a solid good book. Great read. For a first-time author, Duguay should be proud of what he's accomplished. Here's hoping book two comes out soon!

[desert-dyke]

the things I’ve read in 2020 and some thoughts...

hey blacklist this now because it’s gonna get long from here. I spent NYE home alone and reading and it has really set the tone for this year. Fortunately, I’ve been reading way more for the first time in...I literally don’t even know? Maybe forever? Which is really dope! Books are fucking fantastic and I hope this trend continues for the rest of the year. So I’m gonna use this post (and continue to add to it as I finish books) to talk about the things I’ve read. It could be annoying. I could give up on it really soon. People might not read this at all. It’s okay! It’s my blog I’ll use it how I want and I want to talk about books I otherwise don’t really have a place to talk about them. 

The Shape of Water - Guillermo Del Toro & Daniel Kraus

If you know me irl you’ll know that I love this movie. Like, it’s probably my favorite movie as an adult. I love watching a movie and then going back and reading the book to compare and vice versa, but knowing that the book came out after the movie did discourage me at first, making me think it was nothing more than a cash grab. Though I was talking to (my boss) who also loves this movie and is a huge bibliophile and she highly recommended the book, so I figured I’d give it a stab.

The writing style is beautiful and enticing and overall I was impressed with the quality of it. It’s fast paced and switches perspective between characters frequently, though remains easy to follow. The book focuses a little less on Elisa and more on the other characters and stories around her, including, surprisingly, Elaine Strickland, who despite never wondering much about during the movie, I enjoyed being included in the book. There’s a deeper exploration into pretty much everyone’s backstories, and more prominent character development. It’s excellent as a standalone piece, and supplementary to readers who have seen the movie. There’s also some alternative takes on certain scenes, which I don’t necessarily like better or worse than the choices made in the movie, but it makes for an interesting read. 

The book explores themes of alienation and being othered, with a main cast that breaks the stereotype of straight white fully-abled male. Elisa is a mute woman, Zelda, a black woman, and Giles a gay man. With the political climate of the 1950′s, all of them are outsiders and all of them find solidarity in each other, despite their unique struggles, and also with the creature.

The only thing I didn’t quite like was the portrayal of the creature. I think greater efforts were put into making him more godlike and otherworldly, but also, simultaneously, he comes off as much more like a wild animal in the book, and the latter came off as strange to me, and not in the way I like it. Overall, even if the movie didn’t exist and I only read this, I’d still think it was a really good story.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers

If I depended on the synopsis on the back of the book to decide whether or not I wanted to read this, I don’t know if I would have bothered. To be honest, I only wanted to read this because Becky Chambers is my current favorite author and all other of her works I’ve read I’ve absolutely adored, so naturally, I wanted to give this one a chance, even if the concept wasn’t as riveting as I would have hoped.

She didn’t disappoint. 

Whereas her other books take place in a vast space civilization where humanity is integrated with aliens and there’s technology beyond our dreams, this book took place in a different creative universe, a little more closer to our timeline. The book is about space exploration for the sake of learning and taking care to be as least intrusive on the explored worlds as possible. It’s a nice break from what I usually see in sci fi, with colonization and owning space and wanting to use knowledge in order to hurt others. It follows a research crew of four, sent to research four planets in a far solar system. There’s a lag in travel time, since FTL travel had not been discovered yet, so a common device is communication with Earth is off by years. Eventually, the crew realizes they have lost contact with Earth and Earth had likely suffered some sort of devastation. It wonders if Earth has forgotten them or if it’s even worth it to return since they might be the last astronauts of their time. 

The worlds they visit and research are unique and vivid and fill me with wonder. They’re realistic to the point where I found myself questioning if the book was prophetic. Chambers makes effort to incorporate science into her novels, but in a way that does not estrange a reader like me who only has a basic knowledge in science. It’s one of the things I find most attractive about her work, because it has this added realism and this feeling of “wow, this really could happen” and yet remains easy to follow. 

I found the crew to be likeable and diverse. Three of them are in a relationship with each other, and while polyamory isn’t usually an interest of mine, it’s in the background as well as it’s never used as a point to cause drama. It’s a healthy functional relationship. Also, one of the crew is a trans man and another is asexual, both details that exist within a single line, but yet important to be included to flesh out the characters. 

What I didn’t like was the almost rush to the end of the book. It’s a short book, roughly 100 pages, but it seems to me as if it reaches it’s climax and then the book just ends and it kind of feels like it’s still in the middle of things. I’ve had time to think about it, though, and I’ve considered that maybe anything else written would have been redundant or just filler and therefore not needed. So in that case, that’s fair. It still felt a little abrupt to me, but that’s what fic is for. 

Overall, if you haven’t read anything by Becky Chambers you need to change that immediately. Please don’t leave me alone and fanning over this incredible author!!

All Systems Red - Martha Wells

This was another short one, and in fact, I read it entirely in one sitting. The concept of the book was really intriguing, and actually I selected it because I liked the opening line so much. I have a lot of feelings about AI and robots, so this was a naturally alluring story to me. Mixed with the fact that the beefed out security robot, who calls themselves “Murderbot”,  was absolutely obsessed with soap opera tv just absolutely gets me!

The story is told through Murderbot’s perspective, who is assigned to guard a research team. They had recently hacked their government module, which now allows them full autonomy and no longer having to obey orders from their assigned humans. It’s interesting to see Murderbot actively choose to help the humans. Also, needing to maintain an illusion that they aren’t unshackled, since what they did was forbidden. 

The research team is full of interesting characters, who I find tragically under explored. The only couple in the story is wlw, which I vastly appreciated, along with they obviously cared and loved each other and their relationship was not used for drama purposes. In favor of the lack of development with the cast of characters, since the narrator is Murderbot and part of Murderbot’s personality is they are actively trying not to care about these humans, it does make sense. Still, I would have loved to see more of the crew and more development between Murderbot and them. 

I like the dark lore that is hinted behind Murderbot’s existence. There’s organic counterparts to their machine made from cloned humans. It’s creepy and morbid, but a lot is with the lore of the universe that the story takes place in. There’s hints towards a heavy capitalist society in space where the humans and Murderbot came from, where the right price will get you anything, regardless of morals. The overall tone of the story is very quirky, but it needs to be to offset just how dark everything that happens actually is. The book explores the concept of corporate greed, from the existence of Murderbot to the deaths that come to humans on the planet the crew is studying.

This book was deeply fascinating, but I didn’t love the way it was written. I love every concept and choice made, but I didn’t love the execution. It left me wanting without satisfaction. It’s not a bad book and I still over all enjoyed it. It is part of a series, which I did not realize at the time of reading it, but the ending leaves room for more to be written, so maybe in the following books there will be the development I desired. However, the ending of the book leaves it apparent that Murderbot will not be interacting with the same characters of the first, but that is just an assumption and I could be wrong. I’m not sure yet if I will read more in the series but I’m not entirely opposed to it.

All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders

This is another one that I definitely would not have read if I had to choose based on the synopsis alone. The synopsis made it sound so run-of-the-mill star-crossed-lovers, which, hey, maybe that actually helps sell the book because its a pretty well loved trope, but for me it was off-putting, as well as isn’t fair to what the book actually turned out to be. But that’s what reviews are for, and I found this book from some sort of list, I think it was best sci-fi books written by women.

The general idea of the book is a witch and a techie fall in love while the world is falling apart due to a conflict between magic and technology. The book is lauded for bending genre and honestly, it fucking has. It’s as equally a sci-fi novel as it is a fantasy novel. There’s advanced technology, such as robots, two second time machines, rocket ships, and ultimately, a portal leading to a different universe in hopes of escaping the destruction of earth. On the magic side, there’s a connection to nature, rules that have to be abided, quirky witches and magicians and mystique. Both Laurence and Patricia are outsiders that have seemingly found these secret niches in the world that becomes their own.

Both plots are interesting in their own, and could possibly exist as two separate books, but what ties the entire story together is the connection Laurence and Patricia have, and their ultimate romance.

The romance is a wonderful slow burn, from childhood friends, to adult friends to lovers. By the time Patricia and Laurence finally get together, you really fucking want them to. They weave in and out of each other’s lives throughout their own personal plots. There’s tensions and there’s release. And most importantly, they have lives outside of each other. Their romance compliments the story, rather than the story being entirely about romance. 

Similar to the former review, there’s a lot of quirkiness in the story, that ultimately offsets how dark the story can be. The story doesn’t shy away from complicated relationships with parents and siblings and friends and other people, people of mixed ages and backgrounds. It explores abuse, bullying, natural disaster and loss. The story would have been miserable and a drag to read without the whimsical qualities of it. Plus it’s a fantasy/sci-fi, so it should have some quirkiness to it! And it made for a very enjoyable read!

My criticism for this one is, yet again, the ending. The conflict resolves and the story comes to an end. In favor of how it was written, the way things resolve, I believe the world is about to go through a grand change. While the story is quirky, I think it would have been too corny to have had a glittery magical wave drag across the land, altering the world as it went. So, it’s fair, I guess, that the author chose to end it where she did. Still, it left me craving more. Maybe because the story was so good and I wasn’t yet ready to let it go.

Also, as a side note, the author is a trans woman. So if you’re looking for books written by trans authors to support, put this at the top of your list.

[tessatechaitea]

The Invisibles #4

Is this how idiotic social beliefs are purged from assholes?

I don't understand the people who want less politics in comic books. We need more politics in comic books! Except what I don't really understand is using the word "politics" when they're actually angry about discussing social ills. Except I really do understand what they mean when they refer to social issues as politics. Certain people refer to being compassionate and kind and inclusive as "political correctness" because they can't imagine being compassionate or kind or inclusive until the cost of not being those things adversely affects them. So they think people only believe in being that way if it confers some kind of selfish advantage, usually in the political arena. And thus actually being a compassionate human being becomes political to them. Also, can we just stop arguing about how comic books used to be when they've always been about making the world a better place and there have always been comic book fans who found that political because they were terrible people? A terrible person reading a comic book where Batman stops some bank robbers can feel good about the story because they know they'll never rob a bank. But when Batman deals with some social ill, the terrible reader might see themselves reflected back at them in the villain of the story. Suddenly, to them, the story has become political. How dare the comic book company choose the other side which is just a political difference and not a basic human decency issue! And they never think, "Maybe, like Batman, I should also try to do better?" No, instead they send a letter to the publisher demanding that the publisher change the stories they tell so that they don't have to take a long, hard look at themselves. Ideas are political. If you think a story about Batman breaking the bones of The Joker's henchmen because The Joker is robbing banks isn't political, you're kidding yourself. You're just not looking deeply enough into the story and the systemic problems in Gotham that creates a demand for henchmen that are desperate enough to work for a maniac who could murder them at any moment while also having to worry about a man in a bat suit nearly killing them for working for the maniac. How is a billionaire going out at night dressed as a flying rodent to beat up poor and mentally ill people not political? How is any Superman story not political when it's about an immigrant to America embracing his new country and trying to make it a better place for everybody? If you actually think you want comic books to not be political, you're telling on yourself. You're just saying that you're the type of person who doesn't want to read criticism's about our world that might make you feel guilty about your selfish attitude. The Invisibles is an old comic book which came out 26 years ago and it couldn't be more political. But then it's dealing with magic and the irreality of reality, so if you're dumb enough, you can probably pretend it's not political at all.

This issue begins with a Books of Magic trading card.

At the end of the last issue, Tom told Dane they were going to climb to the top of the skyscraper with the magic pyramid on top and leap off. It was going to teach Dane about the finality of life and not really kill him. But when this issue begins, they seem to have put that off for the moment. Instead, they've stolen a sports car, driven it out to some sleepy little UK pasture, and begun a game of catch with a Frisbee. Tom starts rambling on about how his time is up and he's going to die because he's a warrior sorcerer and his time is up and he can see the shape of his life and it's super small and everything sucks but it also doesn't, you know? Dane barely listens to him because he's now full of life again and he just wants to do the things people who feel alive do. I don't know what those things are because I just sit in barely lit rooms reading terrible books from my youth and finding reasons not to begin writing my second module for my role playing game, Places & Predators. I should take a break and call my mother! I'm back! I also ate and watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and an episode of Community and lay on the couch with Gravy.

Gravy's head is behind mine and not inside mine because we don't own a teleportation device and, if we did, we wouldn't be so careless with it.

The next day, Tom and Dane head off to jump off of a skyscraper. Tom will presumably be doing it for real because he's tired and he's done his part and he thinks Dylan Thomas is a fucking asshole who can't just let a person die in peace when they're ready to go. I mean, lay off me, Dylan! I'm fucking dying here! This isn't about you and your fear of death (which, ironically, is probably why you drink so much and why you'll be dead at 39). Dane smokes some blue mold which will probably allow him to fly or bounce or something. Sometimes I think about the angst of youth and then I think about how optimistic and embracing Quiet Riot was of the youth and youth culture and it just makes me fucking smile, man. That wasn't supposed to be a non sequitur. That was just a reaction I had to Tom telling some bystanders witnessing Dane's drug induced realizations, "It's drugs. Dope. They're all on it nowadays. With their computer games and violent videos and swear words. We had The Bible and a nice apple when I was his age." Tom is being smarmy and telling the adults what they want to hear. And, especially with reference to their video games, it made me think of Quiet Riot who didn't care what adults wanted to hear. They knew what the kids needed to hear. And it wasn't just "Being a teenager sucks and we get it and the world is garbage!" Their message was often "We see how things are different for you and how you cope differently than we did and we fucking get it man and we approve and you're going to be all right. Your doing good, kids." Most of you probably only know "Metal Health" and "Cum on Feel the Noize" so you're thinking, "What the fuck are you talking about?" But some of you also know "Winners Take All" and "The Wild and the Young" so you fucking know what I'm talking about.

This reminds me of The Last Temptation of Christ.

The problem with books that revolve around Jesus is that I truly can't tell if they're making a statement about secular life or if they're truly reinforcing the opinion that Jesus was the son of God and the only truth you need to know about Jesus is that he was resurrected. Was Jesus preaching about being good on Earth because it was the salvation of your soul and your way into heaven? Or was Jesus literally trying to tell everybody to give unto Caesar what is Caesar's because this shit don't matter, bro. Fuck Earth and Earthly conceits. Should every action taken on Earth be concerned with your spiritual self and your relationship with God and getting into heaven? Because I'm tempted to see The Last Temptation of Christ as a parable for secular life. Are we all Christ in the desert being tempted by the devil away from our true calling? But if all the regular trappings of society are illusions and lures away from whatever it is we should do, what is there really? What would a person do if they didn't have a career? Or a spouse? Or a mortgage? Or a child? Not falling for those temptations isn't enough, right? So what's the next step? Sacrificing your own desires for the common good of the world? But what common good would that be if people aren't supposed to fall for any material temptations?! What are we striving for if we aren't striving for everybody to equally fall for the same societal illusions?! What is the magic asking of us?! To just burn it all down to prove that we weren't fooled by any of it?! How is waking up outside of The Matrix better than living within it?! Show me my fucking cards before you ask me to jump off the top of a skyscraper is what I'm saying! You know what? I think that's what Jesus asked God the night of the Last Supper! Jumping off of a skyscraper to get Dane to pierce the illusion of reality and see what lies beneath is way better than giving him a red or blue pill. The Matrix pussed out, even though it had this scene from The Invisibles as a perfect example of what it was doing. Dane survives the leap and finds himself in a four color comic sci-fi pulp novel cover. The world has changed and he's not sure what to do. So he goes to the address of the Invisible College that Tom gave him. He's finally ready to report for duty. Dane meets the other Invisibles: King Mob, Ragged Robin, Boy, and Lord Fanny (which would have gone right over my head in 1994 and possibly only made it into the comic book because the editors didn't know quite enough British slang). As far as drag names go, Lord Fanny is proper good. Meanwhile, some shadowy guy answers a phone call from Orlando (probably exactly the Orlando you're thinking of because why not? He/she was good enough for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). They discuss raiding an Invisibles safe house they've discovered. But the non-Orlando guy on the phone can't direct it because he's got British politics to do.

Back in 1994, I also wouldn't have understood what this door with the 10 on it was telling me about the person on the phone.

Dane decides to stick with The Invisibles as Jack Frost and they make their getaway before Orlando and the Prime Minister's Myrmidons break into the safe house. All they find is a chalkboard that reads, "Big Brother is watching you. Learn to become invisible," and a pink grenade with the word "smile" printed on it in ransom letter letters. And that's the end of the first story arc. The Invisibles #4 Rating: A. I'm seriously getting angry at my 23 year old self for not continuing to purchase this series. It's hard to remember exactly where I was at that time in my life that caused me to stop reading it. I'm sure I liked it. Maybe I just had trouble remembering it from month to month. Or maybe I just missed Issue #6 at the comic book store (I never had anything put on hold. I'd just show up on Wednesdays (unless it was Thursday back then? I can't even remember that!) and pick up my books (I didn't even ask the store to hold a copy of the Death of Superman for me. The clerk, Jeff, just happened to hold one for me anyway. He probably thought I was super cool or something)) and so just forgot about the series. Maybe I'll pick up the collected edition whenever my local comic book store reopens. Although if I show my face in there, they may try to get me to buy comics that were placed in my pull box after I cancelled my pull box. See, they weren't getting comics from Diamond for over a month and I just decided it was as good a time as any to stop buying new comics. So I cancelled my pull box. But what if, in their mind, I was still on the hook to buy all the comics for the weeks that Diamond didn't ship?! That would be fucked up and, knowing me, I'd instantly cave and say, "Oh yeah! Okay! Sorry! Sorry! I'll purchase all of this shit I don't want anymore just so we don't continue this awkward conversation!"

[garywonghc]

The Man Who Told the Future

by Pico Iyer

Kristin and I were scuffling around the back streets of Kathmandu on a lazy November afternoon. We’d already gone to the zoo that day, and been unsettled to see a brown bear clutching at the bars of his cage, wailing piteously. We’d trudged around the National Museum, where every artifact of the King’s life was recorded, with particular reference to “The Royal Babyhood.” We’d passed an early evening amongst the spires of Durbar Square, watching bright-eyed boys play Carom while their elder brothers brushed against us in their jackets, muttering, “Brown sugar, white sugar, coke, smack, dope.”

But now the afternoon was yawning ahead of us and we didn’t know what to do. It was a rare opportunity for shared sight-seeing: Kristin was accustomed to heading out every night at 10 p.m., reeling through the pubs and bars of the old city, being chatted up by self-styled mystics before fumbling back to our tiny room in the Hotel Eden as the light was coming through the frosty windows. I’d take off, a little later, into the heavy mist, notebook in hand, to record the bearded sages who sat along the streets peddling every brand of cross-cultural wisdom. She was collecting experience, we liked to think, I was collecting evidence.

We’d met in New York City eight months before and, on a wild impulse, had decided that Kristin should join me on the last stop of a four-month tour through Asia that I was planning to take. She had a charming boyfriend back on East 3rd Street, and I was romancing my notebook, so it felt more than safe as we settled into our sixth-floor room on Freak Street.

I opened my Lonely Planet guide — my companion through all the countries I’d visited — and pointed out to her one item that had long intrigued me. There, tucked among long lists of trekking agencies and meditation centers, explanations of living goddesses, and reviews of apple-pie emporia, was the single most startling entry I had seen in such a work: “The Royal Astrologer.” For a price, the write-up said, this mage who consulted with the palace on even its most important decisions — When was the right day to pass some edict? Which time boded well for a royal birth? — was available to anyone who wished to see him.

How could either of us resist?

I had grown up in England, among little boys at boarding school who defined ourselves by everything we imagined we could see through. By day, we committed to memory the lines of Xenophon and Caesar; by night, we proved ourselves “superior” to everyone around us with cascades of fluency and quasi-sophisticated airs we’d borrowed from our books.

Three times a year, I left my all-male internment camp and flew back to my parents’ home in California. There, in a blindingly yellow house perched above the clouds, my father was reading the palm of every stranger who visited, talking of Aquarian precessions and the “Ascended Masters of the Himalayas.” His students, graduates of the Summer of Love, were attuned to psychic vibrations, auras, and verses from the Bhagavad Gita, but I wasn’t sure they’d recognise real life if it punched them in the face.

What better environment for producing someone who loudly announced he believed in nothing?

Kristin, however, had never given up on magic. She was five years younger than I — twenty-three to my twenty-eight — and she had a powerful belief in herself (or some parts of herself), matched only by her conviction that life would reward that faith.

One time, she’d come to my office, on the twenty-fifth floor of Rockefeller Center, and I’d pulled out a backgammon set. I was one throw from victory, and the only way she could defeat me was by throwing a double six. She closed her eyes, she shook the dice again and again between her hot palms, she muttered something nonsensical, and then she sent the dice clattering across the board.

One stopped rolling, and disclosed a six. The other came at last to rest: another six.

Now, as we tried to follow the runic instructions to the Astrologer — what true sage would allow himself to be listed in a Lonely Planet guide, I wondered? — we found ourselves passing through empty courtyards and along a scribble of narrow lanes. We were directed toward a golden temple, and then through another maze of darkened backstreets, and then led out into an open space where a ladder brought us up to a second-floor redoubt.

When the Royal Astrologer greeted us with a business card listing his doctorate and his work for NASA, my every doubt was confirmed.

Still, I was sure I could get a good story out of this, so we agreed on neither the priciest of his readings, nor the cheapest. We padded off to while away the hours before he could give us his verdicts, and settled into one of those Kathmandu cafés that might have doubled as Ali Baba’s cave.

Nepal in those days was budget time-travel to all the revolutions we were too young to have experienced firsthand. Pillows and cushions were scattered across the floor of this (as of many a) café, and a swirl of peasant-skirt bedspreads turned the space into a kind of magic tent. A creaky cassette of “The Golden Road of Unlimited Devotion” unspooled blearily on the sound system, and any number of mushroom enchiladas and “secret recipe” lasagnas on the menu promised transport of a more mysterious kind.

Travel, for me, had always been a testing of the waters. Every journey is a leap of faith, of course, a venture, ideally, into the unknown. But for me a large part of the point of encountering the Other was to see what and how much to believe in. Every stranger approaching me with a smile posed a challenge of trust — and asked, silently, how much I could be trusted, too. Something was at stake in nearly every transaction, I felt, and it was as essential as whether you believed the world made sense or not.

Kristin and I had met when she, a former student of my father’s, had read a cover story I’d written on the Colombian drug trade. She dreamed of being a writer, though for now, just out of college, she was working as a temp in a succession of Manhattan offices, deploying her capacity for typing at a furious speed. I had similar dreams, though for the time being I was cranking out long articles every week on world affairs for Time magazine, drawn from the reports of colleagues in the field. The explosion of demonstrations that was convulsing apartheid-stricken South Africa, the manoeuverings preceding the Mexican election, the gas leak in Bhopal: I covered them all with the assurance of one who had never seen the places I was describing.

In the warm summer evenings, the two of us met often in the gardens of tiny cafés in the East Village, and she showed me the story she’d just written about Desirée, an Indonesian bride arriving in America. I told her of the book I was going to write on Asia. We swapped our latest discoveries from James Salter or Don De Lillo, and she told me of her girlhood adventures growing up in India and Japan and Spain (her father a spy under deepest cover).

By the time we headed out into the streets again, dusk was beginning to fall over the Nepali capital, turning it into fairy-tale enchantment once more. Oil lamps and flickering candles came on in the disheveled storefronts and faces peered out at us, almost invisible save for their eyes. We slipped and lurched across the uneven, potholed paths, the silhouetted spires of temples all around us. The noise and the crowds of the big city seemed to fade away, and we were in a medieval kingdom at its prime.

As we climbed the stairs back to the Royal Astrologer’s chamber, we might have been stumbling into an emergency room after an earthquake. Half of Nepal was there, so it seemed, shivering in the near-dark as everyone waited for his or her fortune. A family wondering when to take its newborn to the temple, and how to name him; a nervous couple thinking about auspicious marriage dates.

Quite often, a sudden thump at the door announced an urgent messenger — from the palace perhaps? The Royal Astrologer handed out futures as easily as a doctor might, and the people who left his room were seldom the same as when they came in.

Finally, he summoned us closer and pored over the charts he’d drawn up from our times and places of birth.

“So,” he said, turning to Kristin — she craned forward, taut with attention — “generally, I have found that you have a special talent.” She braced herself. “This gift you have is for social work.”

I’d never seen my friend look so crushed.

“Does it say anything about creative work, an imaginative life?”

He looked again at the circle with all the partitions and said, “Your talent is for social work.”

She didn’t say a word at first. “Nothing about writing, then?”

He shook his head.

When it came to my turn, I worried it might prove awkward once he confirmed my future as a ground-breaking writer after what he’d said to my friend.

“So,” he said, looking down, “generally I have found that your strength is diligence.”

“Diligence?”

He pointed out the calculations and quadrants that confirmed this.

“‘Diligence’ in the sense of doing one’s duty?”

“Yes,” he said, and began explaining every scribble, but to someone who was no longer listening.

I knew that diligence was the quality that the Buddha had urged on his disciples in his final breath. But the Royal Astrologer wasn’t a Buddhist, and nor was I. To me, the word smacked of Boy Scout badges and “to do” lists.

“I think,” he went on, perhaps sensing our disappointment, “that every month, on the day of the full moon, you should meditate for an hour. And eat no meat all day.”

This sounded like the kind of thing my father would say. He’d been a vegetarian all his life and was full of talk of the virtues of stilling the mind and fasting so as to access a deeper wisdom.

I negotiated the sage down to fifteen minutes a month and a day without meat, and we filed out.

My four months wandering amidst the conundrums of Asia changed my life more irreversibly than I could have imagined. I went to California to write up my adventures, and when my seven-month leave of absence was over, and I returned to New York City, I knew I could never survive in an office now that I had such a rich sense of how the world could stretch my sense of possibility in every direction. While writing up my droll account of the magicians of Kathmandu — and the others I’d met across the continent — I’d remembered to keep an eye out for the full moon and had sat still for a few minutes once a month, restricting myself for one day every thirty to Panang vegetable curries.

It hadn’t seemed to hurt.

So now I served notice to my bosses at Time, packed up my things in the elegant office overlooking another 50th Street high-rise, emptied my eleventh-floor apartment on Park Avenue South, and moved to a small room on the backstreets of Kyoto without toilet or telephone or, truth be told, visible bed.

As I was settling into my cell, on my twentieth week in Japan, I found a letter in my mailbox downstairs. It was from Kristin, in New York. Her father had died suddenly the previous year, she told me. She’d been distraught, hadn’t known where to turn or how to get her longing out, so she’d taken to her desk.

Every night, while everyone around her slept, she’d typed — and typed and typed. When her novel was finished, she’d sent it out to publishers. Within hours, Random House had signed her up for a six-figure sum, and by now rights had been sold in a dozen countries around the world; she and her friends were spinning a globe as the number mounted.

At twenty-six, she seemed assured of a glorious future. She’d rolled a double six again.

A few weeks later, I walked, as I did every Wednesday afternoon, to the little shop across from Kyoto University that stocked a few foreign magazines. It was my one tiny moment of connection with the world I had abandoned. I forked over 700 yen, collected the week’s edition of Time magazine and consulted it, as I always did, while ambling back through the quiet, sunlit lanes to my tiny room.

As I was paging through the magazine, from the back, something caught the edge of my gaze that looked like a misprint — or, more likely, a projection of an over-eager imagination. There, in the Books pages, was a picture of someone who looked a bit like me — or, rather, like me in my previous life, in button-down shirt and striped tie.

I knew the magazine was eager never to take notice of books written by its staff — even former members of the staff — but I looked again and there, among the eminences, was a small, friendly review of my book about whirlwinding across Asia, accompanied by a visa-sized picture. I had any number of other projects I’d been chafing to complete, and now, I felt, I could try to be a writer at last.

“Diligence” and “social work” indeed! The Royal Astrologer didn’t know a thing.

That was half a lifetime ago, almost to the day, and more than a hundred seasons have passed. A few years after our visit, the palace in Kathmandu was torn apart by a crazy massacre and I had no doubt that the Royal Astrologer was no longer in service (if only because he would have been in trouble if he had predicted such a bloody coup — or if he hadn’t. Telling futures for the powerful has never been a reliable source of income).

As for Kristin, her path of double sixes had continued, almost impossibly, for quite a while. Her boyfriend in the Village, like so many, was a committed Star Trek fan and, like thousands of Trekkies, no doubt, had sent in a script on spec to the program’s showrunners in Hollywood.

Unlike most such fans, though, he’d seen his script accepted. He’d been flown out to L.A. and offered a full-time job with the program. He’d taken up a big house with Kristin in the Hollywood Hills, a chief architect of the universe he’d once worshipped from afar.

Few couples of my acquaintance had found such lustrous futures in their twenties. When I visited, Kristin and her beau seemed to have exceeded anything they might have hoped for, with their Spanish-style villa above the canyons, the red, open-top sports car, publishers and TV executives waiting to turn their words into pictures.

But Kristin had always had a restless soul — perhaps the same soul that had brought her to Nepal and sent her out into the streets every evening — and somewhere along the way, in flight from stability but not sure exactly of what she wanted instead, she’d burned the life she’d found and lost it all. Now, in her early fifties, she lives alone with a beloved cat, tending to every lost animal, still writing, but in a world that doesn’t seem very interested in novels, especially from the not so young.

Her strongest quality, though, remains her fierce attachment to her friends. She lives through them and with them, the centres of her universe, and keeps up with pals from high school in Tokyo and Delhi on a sometimes daily basis. She sends me warm and mischievous messages on my birthday and remembers every last detail of 1985. As the years have passed without bringing all the adventures that once seemed inevitable, she tells me that the trip to Kathmandu was one of the highlights of her life.

And me? A couple of years after my first book came out, I sat in a car just under the yellow house above the clouds and watched a wildfire take it apart, every inch of it, so that everything I and my parents owned — not least the notes and outlines I’d drawn up for my next three books — was reduced to ash.

In any case, I’d fallen under the spell of Japan and silence by then and decided to take on a wife and two kids, giving up my thoughts of becoming a writer, and simply turning out several articles a week to support an expanding household.

Writing, I’d seen, demands a ferocious, all-consuming commitment, a refusal to be distracted — or, sometimes, even to be responsible. That would never be my gift.

I smile when I hear people say that the young are too credulous, too open, too ready to be transformed. I and my school friends were so much the opposite. It was only travel — being propelled beyond the world we thought we knew and could anticipate — that stripped us of our petty certainties, our flimsy defences, our boyish confidence. It was only figures such as the Royal Astrologer who showed us that we didn’t know a thing.

We sit on opposite sides of the world now — Kristin essentially a model of social work, with the passionate attention she brings to her friends, while I steadily meet my daily deadlines, the very picture of diligence — and see that life has much wiser plans for us than we ever could have come up with. The only one who really was exercising a writer’s imagination, the kind that sees the future as easily as the past, was the well-meaning man I had mocked as he tried to nudge us toward a truer understanding of who we really are — and were.

[murfeelee]

FF15 - Whaddaya know, more ranting: SUMMONS

curmudgeonness replied to your post “Late Replies! School Blues”  

FFX was not a winner in my book.  I cared for very little of the FF series. The blitzball was a total turnoff and was needed for my favorite character's weapon.  Lost interest very quickly.              

This is EXACTLY the way I feel about FF15. I know I’ve taken some epic dumps on FF13, because I thought the gameplay was wretchedly linear and the storyline was clunky and derivative, but at least it was a visual masterpiece, and emotionally compelling -- even if half those emotions were irritation or frustration.

In FF15 however I'm just BORED. I didn't even finish! I left it hanging somewhere, I don't even care. Once I realized that the Summoning system was STUPID, I threw in the towel.

(Does Carbuncle even qualify as a summon? :P )

The Platinum Demo was so freaking good; they should have gone in that more lighthearted chibi-chan Kingdom Hearts direction instead, IMO.

You get your first two or three summons really early in the game, but first of all, Summons don't work whenever you want them to, like in the other FF games -- you have to meet certain battle conditions, otherwise more than likely you'll only ever end up summoning Ramuh, or Sir Spam-a-lot, as I started calling him.

He’s the easiest one to summon (read: more than likely the only one you’ll ever summon in normal playthroughs) because anyone can be in danger in order to get him to help. Which he does. All the time. Every boss fight. Ad nauseum.

I was so thoroughly sick of looking at this dude.

The first summon you get is actually Titan, but I didn’t even realize he was an actual SUMMON until I went online for help for something else long after I got Ramuh’s behind. You can only call on Titan if you’re out in the open and your ALLIES are out of HP. Screw them -- what about MEEEE!?!

And put some GOSHDARN CLOTHES ON, Who the EFF do you think you are!? 

So, this actually sucks, because most of your major battles in FF15 happen INDOORS, like in those underground caves you’re crawling around in for effing ever to grab the ancient weapons of yada  yada some long-dead relative. Meanwhile, Ramuh’s big butt shows up in ALL the dungeons, and he’s just as gigantic as Titan is -- they’re like the same size; THE EFF!? So...thanks. Thanks a lot, Titan. I hope Eren Jaeger kills your whole family.

After Titan and Ramuh, you get what is quite possibly the most BAMF personality in FF15: the Hydraen/Leviathan, who I freeeaakkkiiiiinnnggg LOVE, because SHE IS SUCH A MEAN WENCH! XD

(And a sea dragon, hohoho.)

Unfortunately, you will never see this evil heifer, because you can only summon her if you’re in danger close to an ocean. Seriously. If you’re not next to a literal effton of water, don’t bother; she’s not showing up. And considering the appalling level of F*KERY involved in even beating the Leviathan in that ridiculous Trial of hers (where she’s literally pimp slapping poor Lunafreya around), this is CRAZY how useless she is! How many times are you going to need THAT kind of power at the beach? Was the volleyball THAT intense?

Next up is a sneak-in whose secret identity I won’t give away (but the reveal was AWESOME), but yes, Shiva comes back! ^0^ And she’s weird. In more ways than one -- pun not intended, there really is more than one of her though.

I’m not crazy about her new design (I LOVE her secret identity look, omg, but as a summon I don't think she looks all that different from every other FF Shiva outside of FF10, which had the best-looking Shiva IMO in her Aeon form.) But whatever; she’s still...busty.

Honestly? I liked FF13′s Shiva A LOT. I don’t understand why people freak out about SE turning FF13-Shiva into a twin pair of sisters and a motorcycle.

The Eidolons were all Magical Machine MOUNTS the characters could ride, to fit the scifi futuristic vibe (Lightning’s a valkyrie-wannabe so Odin was cosplaying as Sleipnir, Fang got Bahamut so he was of course a dragon, the others got battle mecha, etc.). Shiva was Snow’s Eidolon (no duh -- snow...ice...lol), so WTH ride did you think Snow would get other than a dope-looking bike with babes on it?

Whatever, back to FF15-Shiva: I’ve never done it, but apparently you can only summon her if Noctis is the last man standing and stays in danger for a really long time without being killed. ??? Who.... Is playing their game like this? Why would you do that?

(Understand, the Astrals in FF15 are OP. Like, seriously overpowered. One move from them is all they need; they OBLITERATE everything on the screen, they really do. I can understand SE wanting to prevent us from abusing the summons too much, but come the eff on. Come on.)

And there’s one more time she pops up, to help you get your next summon, who isn’t even a summon, but rather a Boss, that you actually encounter via flashback/foreshadowing at the very start of the game, then comes back way later.,...

Ifrit.

Who is, pun totally intended: HOT now.

UNF! <3

Gone is werewolf-looking hellhound monster thing from the other FF games. He is now a full-blown djinn-looking half-goat IFRIT, and I love it. SADLY, as I said, he’s NOT an Astral that you can actually SUMMON now; he’s just a Boss, and that SUUUUCKS!!! And he’s TOUGH AS NAILS, too. Shiva has to come in at the last second to deliver the killing blow, because the man literally cannot be beat.

And apparently, there’s a lil’ sum-sum going on with Ms Shiva and Mr Ifrit, heyheyhey. ;)

(She literally kisses him before she Diamond Dusts him, it’s interesting.)

But this boss fight is over the top, because there’s one other summon-not-summon that has to join in to help gang-bang and defeat Ifrit, and this nearly broke my EFFING heart because I was REALLY looking forward to wreaking total havoc on mofos in this game with him:

My baby’s daddy:

BAHAMUT.

Who cannot be summoned.

And is not a dragon anymore.

And talks too effing much. (This coming from someone who literally writes walls of text.) But no really -- he talks for like a good 20 minutes; he's a freaking encyclopedia of game lore information. Kinda like Maechen from FFX-2. But cooler.

He’s like some strange divine uber-giant dragoon warrior made completely of swords or something, IDFK. His voice was cool though. You can barely see his face under his “dragon“ mask, but I bet he’s hot, too.

I can’t WAIT to get my hands on the game models; first thing I’m doing is snatching that G-D mask off of Bahamut to see what he really looks like under there.

So.

Out of the SIX Astrals in the game, you can only summon FOUR, and at least TWO of them are on some bullsh!t and barely ever can be effed at all to show up.

GG.