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saucedlx · 9 months

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Metafuckery in videogames

This is pretty much just copy pasted from my steam review of AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative. It contains major spoilers for that game, so don't click keep reading if that's something you want to avoid.

tbh i don't know how to deliberately make the post cut off so i'm just adding a buncha line breaks and hoping that's enough

seriously there's spoilers for ai the somnium files nirvana initiative below. and also vague allusions to a twist happening in metal gear solid 2. which i know most people prolly know about cause it's been 22 years but i genuienly didn't know that was gonna happen my first time playing last year cause i never was that deep into metal gear

Okay the real post starts here

It's understandable to not like the story but as someone who loves the sorta mindscrew pulled by Metal Gear Solid 2, this is the only other thing that even gets close, so I loved it for that. More specifically the way it slowly builds up the meta fuckery going on, with small incongruent details slowly becoming more noticeable until the big reveal. I could totally understand not liking this sorta thing, since the story very much has to contrive itself to not reveal this too early on (two mizukis) and the game is very intentionally tricking the player. But I think it's worth it if you enjoy media that in part is about its own status as media, that relishes in its own ability to portray things in deliberately unintuitive ways. And personally I think some (not all [two mizukis]) of the misdirections are really clever. For example, the weirdness of 'the two halves of the same body being found 6 years apart' is mentioned with the first body the player finds, but then is never brought up again for the subsequent bodies despite them being presented in an order that would lead you to assume the same thing is going on. I could totally see that being annoying, "I never said the rest of these bodies were found years apart" "come the fuck on you obviously wanted to believe that" "but I never SAID that was the case outside the first one". Personally I loved that kind of stupidly simple trick, but if someone thinks it's just kinda bullshit that's a totally justified reaction.

I love the small details that lead up to the realization the game's initial description of the timelines is inaccurate; the lack of reaction to Date's supposed 6-year disappearence, the offhand mention of Komeji's bowtie being bought a year ago despite him supposedly having been dead for 6 years. Also there's the whole Frayer ending but it's the slow buildup that sticks with me the most. It reminds me of the slow realization of how similar MGS2's plot/progression is to MGS1's, of initially thinking something might be a minor oversight but eventually concluding that it's too blatant to not be deliberate. (although tbh i still don't think the prototype machine suddenly not needing eye removal is a deliberate part of the story).

Anyways this doesn't really go for the same vibe as MGS2; compared to that, AINI feels more lighthearted about its trickery, with the whole Marble scene where the game comes clean about it. The Frayer ending gets closer to that eeriness MGS2's reveal has, but it also feels less consequential to the overall story, and more like a little bonus thing that gets really meta but only within its own space where the game asks "would it even be that interesting for the 'true' solution to be the neatest happiest one". This sequence as well as the Ryuki hallucination moments also do the other thing I most love about MGS2's fuckery; the feeling that the game is collapsing on itself.

I still think MGS2's meta fuckery has something special and unmatched in anything I know of (emphasis on "I know of"; if you know anything like this feel free to give me recommendations cause i love this sorta thing), but at least now I have one other example of a game that does something similar in a way I enjoyed. Also if you're thinking of Undertale/Deltarune now, I love them too but I don't put them in this category of thing because they're way more upfront about their metanarrative stuff from the start. Also there's the Zero Escape series but that does more to try to justify meta gameplay stuff in-universe (the fields, babyyyyy).This kinda turned into a whole essay but TLDR the story does some unconventional stuff, and it's totally understandable to not enjoy it but personally I really like it.

Footnote: Two of them

Maybe I should write something like this except more focused on MGS2. It's been out for way longer and is way more known so I didn't feel compelled to, since people prolly already analyzed the shit out of it. I guess I love most of its ending except the main conclusion of "behind all the conspiracies, there's some shady group that has 99.99% perfect seamless control over everything and if you blink it's because they planned for you to do that a couple decades ago". While personally I'm more of a "there's no big master plan, people in power try to maintain their power through fucked up means but they're not superhuman, they're capable of fucking up" truther. And it feels like a decent amount of people do respond to MGS2 with "this is literally whats happening in real life the Patriots are just like wokeness". And I don't feel like dealing with that shit. But yea I love metafuckery in games.

#ai the somniun files nirvana initiative #a saucedlx original #thoughts #metal gear solid 2 #metanarrative #metafuckery

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aksm · 2 years

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Initially I was gonna send this to my friend who hasn't seen the Midnight Club and I just assumed they weren't interested since they weren't really interested in Flanagan's other shows/didn't vibe with horror but it looks like they might watch it so I just cut the whole essay I was typing and decided to save it for tumblr anyways spoilers for the Midnight Club.

First of all I don't know anything about the book(s) this show was based on. But I do love the concept. The titular midnight club consists of the patients in this hospice who are all teens meeting up at the hospice library at midnight to tell stories (usually spooky stories). The hospice was built in the 60s and the story takes place in the 90s. No one knows how the tradition was started since none of the patients live for long because yknow, they're terminally ill. Each episode usually has someone tell a story that's a metaphor for their experience or something related to the storyteller. And the cast in the story are usually the other teens at the table.

But the last story shared in the finale... My god.

Ok first of all seeing the reviews and takes and to see a lot of people hating these 'story' segments because it takes away from the actual show. Like the stories are a waste of time and have nothing to do with the main plot?

Basically the plot is 'the new girl' with thyroid cancer came to this hospice home because she read that a patient who came here miraculously got cured and there's also history about a cult that based itself in the hospice before it became a hospice. And the new girl found a hidden basement where cult activities used to be, and she was also seeing ghosts and also seeing the wallpaper change and the lights in the corridors changing to old lanterns from the 60s so the supernatural stuff is already established. So yeah, there definitely is stuff going on that's seemingly more interesting than the side plots with everyone sharing random, disconnected stories that vaguely have something to do with the person sharing said story.

But those stories are what the show's actually about? God it's like midnight mass all over again where everyone's missing the forest for the trees. Like legit the show is called the Midnight Club and it's about this club of sick teens who sit around telling stories. Stories are everything. And that's a big thing in the show.

Like a third way into the series I realised I would be very disappointed if the new girl figures out a miracle cure or a supernatural ritual to save everyone because that's where the 'main' plot thread was headed. And I'm soooo glad that didn't happen.

Anyway back to the story in the finale. To set up that story let's go back to ep 1. Sorry it won't take long I swear. Basically we listen to a guy's story, which apparently has been going on for a while since he never ends the story and leaves it on a cliffhanger, saying: if you wanna hear more you'll have to live a little while longer. So throughout the season when he's the one sharing a story it's always just a continuation of the same story, which he concludes in the finale.

Sadly two of the kids didn't make it to the end to hear this story. One died, one left because it's found out she's fine and it was a misdiagnosis.

The new girl also had started a story that she didn't finish. And in the finale she also finished it. But the story gets too real. And then everyone else chimes in to help her finish it. And by god was choked up at that point. Sorry I'm not explaining it properly but I literally finished watching the show and I'm still tearing up thinking about that scene and the culmination of it.

Also fuck that dumb plot twist ending and setting up for the next season I hope it's actually a genius move and there's no next season.

#the midnight club #mike flanagan

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thelittlemars · 9 months

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𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 — 𝑹𝒆𝒅, 𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑹𝒐𝒚𝒂𝒍 𝒃𝒍𝒖𝒆 👑

by Casey McQuiston ✒️

I decided to read this book since the movie is coming up. The trailer for the movie did not convince me at all, but I decided to give the novel a try since I only heard good reviews of it.

I'd say that I liked the novel, for the most part. At least half of it. I think the first half of the story really struggles, but the plot starts to kick a bit more in the second half.

Okay, so. I'm gonna go into some details, so be aware of potential spoilers!

more under the cut! ✨

I really did not like the first half of the book. I found some parts to be way too cringe for my tastes, but I understand that's a me problem. It might even be fault of the Italian translation — which was awful, by the way. Some things were just poorly translated and added to that uneasy, cringe sensation.

The second half of the novel, though...I really liked it. I think that, after Alex and Henry admit their feelings for each other, the plot starts to work better than the first half. McQuiston is really good at writing the political implications of their relationship, and it's probably the thing I enjoyed the most.

Of course, with this novel you have to suspend every disbelief. It's an AU in which the son of the US President can date the Prince of England. I found that very difficult to do though, due to hyper realistic details given to some of the events. It looked a bit too much like our own world, if the Royal Family decided to change the names of everyone.

And OF COURSE, the connection to another, very similar story surfaced in my mind. I am, of course, talking about Young Royals. I think that Young Royals aced its AU aspects, because it managed to keep it both vague and realistic. RWRB just...doesn't. And that made me feel a bit weird. But again, might just be a me problem.

(I also did not enjoy all of those spicy scenes. I like some spice in my novels but that was just a bit too much. As in number of scenes. But this is DEFINITELY my own preference and not a flaw per se)

Okay, now that I talked about the things I didn't like, it's time to sum up what I actually enjoyed.

First of, the characters. I really really liked them, they all had their own personality and they were characterized really well! Chapeau!

The way the author tackles LGBTQ+ issues. It had some very relatable moments, like Alex realizing most of the things he thinks are definitely not Typical Heterosexual Behaviour™.

The weird nonsense of it all. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. I just said the I didn't like the AU. However, the absurdity of the story is exactly what makes it so compelling. Exactly as it happened with Young Royals, it's the fact that this kind of thing could happen that makes it so interesting.

To conclude, I liked the novel. It was fun, it was entertaining and it was the perfect light read to kick start the summer after a long exam session (which is not over yet, but soon it'll be).

I still have my doubts on the movie though. The actors seem a bit too old for the role and I think it didn't get the tone of the story completely right, but it's not okay to judge a movie by it's trailer. The trailer is there just to sell the movie. We'll se how the final product turned out.

Hope you liked this review and kudos for getting down here! See you in the next one.

— 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒔

#liittlemars thinks #book review #red white and royal blue #rwrb

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i-do-unimportant-things · 4 years

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Enola Holmes, it’s a movie

I kinda had to do this review because some people on instagram just won’t SHUT UP about it. (This is not a calling out nor a bad thing) Oh yeah, SPOILERS. Anyway, Enola Holmes, a movie about Sherlock’s little sister being a detective of her own, who doesn’t need no useless man. You can guess where this is going. The movie constantly portrays men as bumbling useless idiots and women as awesome and strong. It’s not as present as… other movies, but the message is definitely there. I’m getting ahead of myself. First off, there are some good things to point out. Millie Bobby Brown was great in this movie. She does emotional scenes, action scenes and makes it look easy. The fact that this movie works at all is because of her acting. Also I really enjoyed the music. The score was very fitting for a lighthearted mystery adventure. Now the movie starts faltering in story structure, there’s two main plot lines about her missing mother and a murder plot. Now at first this seems like a classic Sherlock Holmes mystery where two plot threads seem unrelated but tie up together in the end. But the movie does a very poor job of placing them with each other, being a lot more focused on the murder plot, and possibly made her mother missing so that Enola would have a motive to leave. And when they tried to connect the murder to the mothers disappearance at the end, it feels cheap and inauthentic because it is, they tried to tie two unrelated things together. The next issue of the movie is the feminism angle, I for one am SO TIRED of feminist movies trying to force-feed us their ideologies. Fortunately, Enola Holmes isn’t so obsessed with this agenda that it becomes destructive to itself, *cough cough* CHARLIE’S ANGELS 2019 *cough cough* if the only way you can tell your message is ramming the idea down everyones throats, you may want to take a writing course. Wonder Woman was a movie that didn’t have to keep repeating ‘Women good, men bad’ to get it’s message across and be a good movie. The nicest thing that’s said about any male character is that he’s ‘Not entirely an idiot’ and even then that had to be said by the guy who’s name I’m not even going to try to remember, about himself. Also, there are so many lines peppered around this movie about things like ‘don’t be thrown off your way by anyone, especially men’ This is all being done in that interest of female empowerment, which is great, but this movie, like so many other feminist products, that you don’t have tp drag men down to build women up. But with many filmmakers, this seems to be the only arrow in their quiver when doing a project like this.The concept of making the men idiots so that women can succeed is an insult to everyone. If you follow that train of thought, it’s telling you that women can’t compete with competent men, which really tells you about the “progressiveness” in movies these days. Now, thankfully, it doesn’t hammer the nail as hard as horrible movies have done. Mycroft is there to represent the idea that women should only be what men want them to be or what society wants them to be, not really original there. And I honestly cannot big the fact that Mycroft would force Enola to be “acceptable for society” and Sherlock wouldn’t do anything to stop him. Aren’t these the Holmes brothers? The way-too-clever-to-do-normal-human-stuff Holmes brothers? The brothers who disregard social norms in favour of Justice? And just IMAGINE saying “You haven’t any hope of understanding any of this” to SHERLOCK HOLMES. IMAGINE TELLING THE SHERLOCK HOLMES THAT HE HAS NO HOPE OF UNDERSTANDING SOMETHING YOU DO.

During her search for her mother, Enola discovers that her mother is part of… something. It’s never given name of context, we just know she’s fighting for women rights, and we should root for her. She was, in fact, part of the Suffragettes, an old movement fighting for women rights to vote. Y’know, the people who would bomb churches and houses, tried to storm parliament, and jump into horse races to die for feminism. I know the way I’m describing it seems like they’re the bad guys, but they’re not, they just had a violent way of getting women rights. The movie, however, treats this movement as something dark and disturbing, as if her mother is doing something wrong. And the worst part is, they never contextualise anything behind what her mother is involved in, just ‘women rights’. For those unaware of the suffragettes, it would seem like the mother is part of a terrorist group or something.

There’s a scene where She has to fight an assassin, and I was expecting her to completely demolish him, as feminist movies do. But instead she realised she couldn’t overpower him at the end, and had to use her wits to escape, and that was a nice touch of something a little easier to buy into. At least she’s not another bland, emotionless feminist who dose’t have to work for anything and is just good at everything. *cough cough* MULAN 2020 *cough cough*

To me the flimsiest part of the movie was the ending. Where Enola’s mother just appears and gives a vague ‘to protect you’ speech, which is somehow supposed to tie into female empowerment, which felt really unnecessary and forced. And the reason behind her disappearance should be concluded at this point, and it is, but then it isn’t. I guess the screenwriters wanted Enola to be independent, while sequel baiting us, but there’s no real reason why the mother can’t be around.

It’s this ending that completely undermines everything that Enola Holmes goes through in the rest of the story. The purpose of the story is how she comes into her own as a detective, rivaling the skills of her brother. Which she somewhat accomplishes. But what we end up with, however, is a hodgepodge of situations, that never connect and an ending that is a total letdown. Enola going along with her mother’s vague reasoning is totally unlike the inquisitive and rational woman we saw through out. And the Suffragette movement never getting an explanation, made absolutely no sense, given its connection to the main story.

In the end, it’s not a bad move, especially compared to other movies trying to spread the same message, the whole female empowerment thing was holding the movie back in my opinion, I wanted a movie about a detective that just happened to be female, not a female detective that don’t need no useless man.

#enola holmes #review #movie review

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laureviewer · 4 years

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Dragons Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age—A Review

WARNING: (not full) spoilers below.

‘We did it darliiiings!’

That’s what I cried, a-la the Great Sylvando, once I finished this game. 112 hours in, and all the way through it showed no signs of slowing. Which, for a shameless JRPG-lover like myself, is exactly what I want in a game. Hours and hours of combat, exploration through stunning scenery, empathetic and deep characters and, most importantly, a completely immersive and entertaining story that I can’t wait to see the climax—but, crucially, I can.

The Chosen One

The story begins in Erdrea, where monsters have invaded the fantastical world—why, we’re not quite sure. All we know, as the infant protagonist, is that we are found washed up on the riverbank by a kindly old man named Chalky, who takes us to his village and gives us to our adoptive mother, Amber.

And, guess what? He’s the Chosen One—the Luminary. You’d have thought our hero would have realised something was different about him with the presence of a very specific birthmark tattooed on the back of his hand, but he and his childhood friend Gemma do come from a sheltered town with very little knowledge of the outside world, after all. True to form for a lot of adventure games, he’s the only one who can save the world. After finding this out in a coming-of-age ceremony a few years later, Amber tells him to go to King Carnelian of Heliodor, who is sure to help him understand what all this means. Right?

If our silent protagonist could talk, this is where he would be screaming, ‘I’m not the Darkspawn!’ as King Carnelian throws him in the dungeon. But thank Yggdrasil he did, or we wouldn’t meet our first companion in our band of loveable misfits.

The Power of Friendship

I’m still unsure why, after so many hours of gameplay, why Erik endears himself the most to me, but he does. Sure, he’s the first one you meet, and you team up to escape the dungeon (running from a giant dragon along the way!), but he’s also a dishonest thief. Throughout the game, you never quite know if he’s in it for himself or to help you save the world. I’ve concluded that he’s actually doing it for you, and your budding bromance…or, at least, that’s my own head cannon. He’s misunderstood. His cutting sarcasm is welcome in a story of overly keen optimists (see: Sylvando). And he’s who the hero seems to look at whenever there’s a sweet, sentimental moment in the story, cementing their true friendship.

Or, maybe it’s because Akira Toriyama drew these characters, and his colourful hair and spunky attitude remind me of my childhood DBZ crush, Trunks. Either way, I’m Team Erik, with his knife-wielding, quick-thinking style of fighting, all the way. My only gripe is that his damage wasn’t that great for me until endgame, unfortunately.

Even though we don’t meet Sylvando until later, it seems that my mind demands he be the next to discuss—much like Sylvando demands much of the attention within the game. We first meet him at the circus, where he is a beloved performer. His quest is to make the people of the world smile—a noble endeavour in a world where the Dark One is coming to rid the world of happiness for good. He is the absolute epitome of flamboyance: he calls your band of companions ‘darlings’; he has a half-naked ship captain with bulging muscles and a pink face mask called Dave, of all things; and he even leads a peacock-feathered parade at a certain point in the game, which the hero must cheerily join in, feathers and sassy sway absolutely necessary.

And yet, he doesn’t simply function as comic relief. He is brave, charming, sympathetic, and quite often the heart of the group. He is always the one to ask if a character is okay, or if they need help, and has conviction that only Henrik, our resident knight in shining armour, would rival. Plus, he’s fantastic with a whip (because of course he is) and has some fabulous healing moves that have saved me more than once in a tough fight. The group would be nothing without Sylvando—and he absolutely knows it!

Veronica & Serena serve as our other characters who are bound by destiny. They are Keepers, born to protect aid the Luminary on his quest. As twins, you’d expect them to look the same…but, after an encounter with monsters, Veronica was turned into a child, and is stuck that way. As an offensive mage who hates being treated like a child, she serves as the brash one of the group, quick to anger, much like her fiery spells.

Serena, on the other hand, serves as the yin to Veronica’s yang. She is temperate and always willing to help, if somewhat hapless. The primary healer of the group, she excels in restorative and defensive magic, and has a harp to while away the less hopeful days. As a pair, these two are steadfast, loyal, and…to be honest, aren’t much more interesting than that, unless Veronica is being goaded into an argument.

Until the later game, anyway. I won’t spoil that here, but will just say I underestimated both their spell casting abilities and their importance in the story.

You know how the hero is the Chosen One, the Luminary and the absolute saviour of the world? Well, he also happens to be a Prince of Dundrasil. Had the fates been kinder, he might have been brought up in a huge castle, with loving royal family around to raise and guide him.

Rab, a fierce, playful and wise old man (with a banging Scottish accent) is ready to heal, attack with offensive magic, and guide our hero around the expansive world. And, as we find out after defeating him and his sexy companion in a battle competition in Octagonia (see: Jade), he is also grandfather to our hero, and thus a Lord of Dundrasil himself. He may seem old, but not only does he have royal blood, but he is a capable spell-caster and martial artist, making it apparent that he is one of the most capable companions in the game. If I were to ask anyone for advice, knowing that he would neither mince his words nor omit anything important, I would go to Rab.

You know what any game directed at kids needs? That’s right, a sexy warrior princess that you can stick in a bunny costume for most of the game. Even if you choose not to do that, her combat outfit doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

Thankfully, Jade isn’t just eye-candy. She has far more going for her. She’s a Princess of Heliodor, the hero’s childhood companion who lost him as a baby. She just wants to find him, her younger brother figure (sadly), and help him fulfil his destiny. Plus, as a battle and spear fighter, she has some of the strongest moves in the game—albeit mostly from her sexy, love-based moves such as ‘Hip Thrust’ and ‘Sexy Beam’, only comparable with Sylvando’s equally as sexy and flamboyant ‘Lashings of Love’ and ‘That’s Amore’ moves. She’s a badass bitch who takes no crap from lovestruck men or monsters.

Though, she has her very own Princess Leia moment, where she is captured by a horrific, giant, evil and ugly monster and made to wear a sexy outfit (hey, there’s that bunny girl outfit again). It is heavily implied she has been under his mind control, and that he’s been having his ‘wicked way’ with her. Good thing she comes out of it with sexy vampire powers, isn’t it?

HEAVY SPOILERS NOW. I warn you, don’t go any further if you care about that kind of thing.

Our final companion is one who doesn’t show up until late game. Sir Henrik, a Knight of Heliodor, is the hero we all need. He defends his ruler to the last (which, spoiler alert, nearly ended up being his fatal flaw), is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all, and defends the weak: a true knight, with chivalry, bravery, and total care for all others. It’s a shame he hated the hero for the first half of the game, really.

But do I care about that? No, I care that his greatsword abilities make him an absolute tank. On a one-on-one fight, I needed him front and centre of every battle just for his incredible damage output. Against multiple enemies, he is less useful, but with his supplementary healing and defence skills, he isn’t just an attacker, but a true defender of the people to the last.

Calm it with the Combat

My god, this game has a lot of battles. While that’s expected for a turn-based JRPG, and there were a lot, unlike others such as Pokémon, you can choose which battles to avoid as the figures traverse the overworld. This is useful in such a slow-burning game, and also helps you find the monsters you want—again, a definite improvement on the way Pokémon works, as it saves you having to fight hundreds of creatures you don’t want to find the ones with the best EXP.

A notable exception to this is when you have to find and defeat a rare monster for a quest, which don’t traverse the overworld. This means you have to fight potentially hundreds of more common monsters to find the one you want, which can be frustrating, especially as it is all done on chance and not on how many you have defeated. While you can increase your chances with various items or equipment, it still adds a frustrating amount of time to an already long game.

Another vague annoyance is how much harder the game gets post-game. I actually did not have an issue with this, as a friend told me how to farm the elusive and high-EXP metal slimes using a particular Hero-Erik-Jade Pep Power and so I could use this ability throughout post-game. However, for those not in the know, the potentially grinding at the end of the game may put some people off finishing an already saturated game.

What I loved about the combat was how it kept getting harder and harder. I never worried about over-levelling (as said above, I was more worried about being under levelled) and that meant I could do what I do best: do all side-quests before the end of the main story. In other JRPGs, the completionist in me has always made me want to do all side-quests, but this has meant the final boss has been underwhelming and easier than it should be.

The variation of powers and attacks was also really interesting. You can spec into different forms of fighting for each character—I went for Swords with the hero, Whips for Sylvando, Boomerangs with Erik (after using Daggers for most of the game), Heavy Wands for Rab and Veronica, Wands for Serena, Spears for Jade, and Greatswords for Henrik—and this makes all the combinations of them in the party very cool. I normally just controlled the hero during the fights and let the others fight wisely, unless there was a specific quest to fulfil or a particularly hard boss. Not only did this speed up combat, but it also helped me to learn which of their moves were the most effective against which monsters automatically and quickly, which was easier than picking moves and trying them out myself. It’s easy, with enough gold, to respec if you like, and this I’m sure could make the game fee different every time if you wanted to play with different specs.

Pep powers were also a lot of fun. While it was sometimes annoying waiting for some or all of the characters to pep up and therefore use these moves that combine different characters’ moves for ‘Ultimate’ attacks, they provided fun cutscenes and made the battles more interesting. Plus, they reminded me a lot of DBZ moves, especially the epic ones with the hero and Rab!

Top tip: you can swap out characters and they will keep their pepped-up status. I wish I’d known about that a lot earlier!

The monster designs are great, as per usual Akira Toriyama style. There are lots of different kinds, from slimes, to mechs, to really weird ones like the kissy lip monster and the Bongo Drongos. The bosses are also amazing. Just all the character designs, from human to monster, to anything else. I see a lot of DBZ in all of them, which is fantastic.

You know what? Here’s some pictures. You’re welcome.

Mini Games & Challenges: Hey, I actually want to do these!

I often have issues with mini games, as sometimes they are so different from the main game that I just don’t want to spend time playing them. Gwent in another of my favourite games, The Witcher 3 is a good example: I never really learnt the rules, which I’m sure would have helped, but it was so detached from the main game I just didn’t care. Plus, it had no effect on the story or game at large, so what was the point?

In DQ11, sure, you don’t need to rack up 500,000 casino tokens in poker or the slots to buy better gear. You don’t have to finish first in all five Gallopolis horse races. Forging items isn’t totally needed to advance the game. It’s not necessary to win all five rounds of the Wheel of Harma in a certain number of moves (though this is much more like the rest of the game than the other mini games). But I did all of these, and it was great fun. It’s what’s helped make the game such a time suck (especially the casino) but I never felt like they were a chore.

Apart from the crossbow bullseyes. I did none of them as apparently I only noticed about three out of however many there are. They can suck my Sword of Light.

What’s a good JRPG without me questioning the point of life after it’s over?

JRPGs do it best—fight me.

The story of DQ11 is immersive, interesting, intricate and, at times, incredibly heart-breaking. Following the hero and his friends for over 100 hours really means you get to dive into their adventure, and more so, their relationships. You truly believe why they have chosen to follow each other into danger, to protect each other as well as the world. Sure, he’s the Luminary, so Serena & Veronica, the Luminary’s guides, at least have a reason to follow him to the end. The fact he’s the Luminary at may mean the characters have more faith in him than they would anyone else without lightning powers. But, even without that, you get the impression that they trust him for his innocent and yet resolute determination to do the right thing, whatever the cost.

The NPCs in the game also provide variety and are a lot of fun. There’s a lovesick mermaid, a brilliantly incompetent prince, two brothers in Laguna di Gondolia who are trying to sell the same things to you for different prices, and Silvando’s Smile Brigade, to name just a few. Their backstories, personalities and current stories all bring life to a game already chock full of it, and makes even simple fetch quests interesting and well worth doing, if you value a good story like I do. These little touches explain why the game clocks in at well over 100+ hours, but at the same time gives true justification to why that is. It’s the difference between a boring game, and one I loved to turn on and just relax of an evening. I might not have done all that much in three hours, but I still enjoyed every minute.

With everything considered, I will remember DQ11 fondly as one of my favourite JRPGs to date. The storyline, characters, combat and score are all fantastic and makes me wish I played the older games. Thank you, Dragon Quest, for giving me 112 hours of fun.

#game review #dragon quest 11 #dragon quest xi #dq11 #dqxi #games #gaming #review

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elizadoolittlethings · 4 years

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Dracula uncovered: We talk to cocreator Mark Gatiss about that episode two twist

{x}

As the BBC’s blood-draining drama concludes tonight, we talk to the show’s cocreator about the two episodes so far: how they originally planned to set the second episode in the Seventies, how Dracula could make a second-series comeback, and that twist...

GQ: First, congratulations on the on the huge success of Dracula so far. You must be thrilled with the reception...

Mark Gatiss: Yes, well, I don’t honestly read reviews. But I’ve seen it’s got five stars and so on, so I don’t have to! What I like more than anything is getting a sense of a buzz, a lovely sense of something happening, which is always nice.

GQ: So the big twist at the end of the second episode is that, after the period setting of the first two episodes, the third is set in the present day. Dracula AD 2020, if you will...

MG: [Laughs.] Everyone’s saying that!

GQ: Was that always going to be the case?

MG: Yes, it was. Steven [Moffat, cocreator] sent me a picture the other day – it was one of those Timehop pictures – and it was actually three years since we went out for lunch to literally start thrashing it out. Our very earliest idea was to do episode one and was sort of a very tight, 90-minute version of the novel. Episode two would be something like Dracula at 1972 – sort of period but modernised. And three would be completely modern day. But then we talked about how it would be a shame to feel like we got through Bram Stoker in one episode and that maybe the best way to look at it was to try to do the book in three episodes. But do each one very distinct. The idea came with doing [second episode] "Blood Vessel" based entirely on four pages of the book, just expanding this this marvellous idea [of Dracula sailing to England], and then we can have this twist which no one would see coming. And incredibly we got away with it. I really thought it would leak. But no one saw it coming and I'm so pleased, as we live in such a spoilery age.

GQ: The second episode is almost like Snakes On A Plane, only Dracula On A Boat...

MG: [Laughs.] That was the working title...

GQ: But also a bit Murder On The Orient Express. Again, on a boat...

MG: Well, the problem was, and in the first draft actually, he [Dracula] was more hidden, literally hiding in the box and appearing nightly to knock people off. And we can't do this. We've promised ourselves to foreground the character more. So what if he was just hiding in plain sight? What if he was just one of the passengers, and as soon as you do that, then it becomes a list of potential suspects. Except it's like Colombo – we know who the murderer is! And yet he’s also like the detective.

GQ: Very quickly, I really want to know who wrote the very funny line from the first episode, “You should never rush a nun”?

MG: I think that was one of Steven’s. Yes, definitely one of Steven’s.

GQ: So, naturally I don’t want you to give anything away that would count as a spoiler, but can you give us any idea of how the time leap happens from the ship going down at the end of the second episode to Dracula arriving on the coast in the modern day? I trust he hasn’t been just walking on the seabed really slowly all that time...

MG: [Laughs.] No, no, he's just been in the box longer than he thought.

GQ: A really terrifying element of the first episode was the undead victims of Dracula nailed into wooden boxes for eternity. How did you come upon that particularly nightmarish scenario?

MG: It was partly inspired by The Hunger, a fantastic Tony Scott horror film with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie. It’s not quite the same idea but her lovers all reach a point after several hundred years where they start to decay and she doesn't. And so she puts them away in the attic. It’s very moving, a wonderful film. With Dracula, there's some sadness to it. But it came from our initial discussion. Why is Dracula special? What are the rules of the beast? That’s why the episode is called that. You know, there's so many things... he’s simultaneously all powerful and also vulnerable to practically anything. You know, I don’t know how he gets out of bed. He can’t cross running water, he can’t touch hawthorn, sunlight, crucifixes... so we just had to figure out just what our rules are. And then that became a very exciting thing, with Agatha [the nun] saying why can’t he come in uninvited? Maybe there’s more to it... And so part of that is that he’s different, he’s the best of them, he chooses people very carefully and literally absorbs their talent.

GQ: As you say, you have, with these rules, a kind of fun with this idea of these were seemingly disconnected things in the first episode where you have to start with the idea of: are they all part of the same thing? You know that all these things that seemed to be not connected at all. But are they? Do you get to the bottom of that in the final episode?

MG: Yes.

GQ: I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me any more...

MG: No…

GQ: Fair enough. I know Dracula doesn’t exactly lend itself to an ongoing Sherlock-like series. But does that necessarily mean that there couldn't be another three films later on down the line?

MG: Well, Dracula tends to come back, doesn’t he? I mean, certainly, it's interesting. It's not what Stoker ever had in mind. Well, actually, the truth is, Dracula was a success. But the book was not the sort of success we imagine it to be until after he died. If he'd known how much of a success it [would] be [he'd have] definitely written a sequel! But Dracula is a strange book. It's very haphazard. The first third is extremely good but the rest is uneven. There’s an interview he [Stoker] gave to an American paper where he vaguely talks about a sequel set in America, interestingly... And in the series of films he does come back a lot.

GQ: It’s quite graphic. People get beheaded, a baby gets turned into one of the undead at one point... Was there any part you got pushback from the BBC on?

MG: The baby in the carpet bag is actually in the novel. It’s a ghastly little moment and it’s not done very often [in adaptations]. Dracula had brought it as a little tit-bit for his bride. We had a lot of discussions but there wasn't much pushback really about gore. Really, I was thrilled with how much we got away with. But it's funny, isn't it? The thing that caused most people sleepless nights was the fingernails falling off. And no one is going to send a memo saying, “I'm afraid we can't have people pulling their fingernails off at nine o’clock on BBC One”, because it’s not the most horrific thing in it. And yet it is, isn’t it? But we wanted to make it properly scary. My favourite bit of episode one is where Harker uncovers the vampires in the boxes and is chased into Dracula’s tomb and then Dracula rises up from it. It’s pure Hammer Horror.

#dracula #mark gatiss #uncovered #second episode #plot twist #interview #the man behind the genius #all things MG #haven't seen #hope to #tonight

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shielddrake · 4 years

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Final Fantasy XII: A Retrospective Review

So, I received Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for Christmas last year.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. I have played almost every game with that title that has been released…at least the ones released in America, since I sadly do not speak Japanese. So it’s not unreasonable to assume I would want a remake of one of its games. I have quite a few, in fact, including V and VI on my iPhone, III and IV on my DS, and I and II on my PSP. Final Fantasy IX was the first game I put on my PS4 when I got it (yeah, I admit I put a PS1 game on my PS4 before anything else) and I thoroughly enjoyed replaying VIII when its remaster came out last September.

Final Fantasy XII, however, is a bit of an exception because, my Internet friends, I have a confession to make: Final Fantasy XII is my least favorite in the franchise.

Now I wouldn’t say that FFXII is a bad game. Far from it. It’s a very good game. For the most part, I completely understand why so many people love it. I just don’t feel the same way.

When I first played the game when it was released, I was not too thrilled with a lot of the gameplay decisions and where it ended up going story-wise. At the time, I concluded that while it was a good game, it was a poor Final Fantasy title. And this is taking into account the fact that I had played and beaten both Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance several times before playing FFXII. Both of these games are quite different from the main FF series, but are great in their own right. I basically consider the Ivalice Alliance as a separate spin-off series, sort of like the Crystal Chronicles games or the Dissidia series.

But FFXII was not that great, in my opinion. I didn’t feel invested in the characters, I was not a fan of the combat or license board system at all, and I felt the story was incomplete at best and annoyingly vague at worst. There were a lot of missed opportunities for the use of the characters. I was neutral about the graphics, which, although beautiful, I felt did not really improve on what was presented in Final Fantasy X, and I didn’t like that a lot of the regular trends known in the previous installments (the summons being the main example that comes to mind) were thrown out for something completely disconnected. I finished the game just feeling a mix of boredom and irritation, to be perfectly honest. The only thing I can recall even remotely liking was the music, despite it not being composed by Nobuo Uematsu, my favorite composer of all time even to this day.

Needless to say, playing The Zodiac Age was not on my list of priorities, and I’m not sure I ever would have played it had it not been gifted to me.

All that said, I received the game and felt that, well, maybe since I have it anyway I would give it another shot. Let’s see if FFXII is as bad as I remember. Maybe a retrospective review would be a good thing to post on the twelfth anniversary of the game’s original release, so why not?

* Looks at the dates and realizes Final Fantasy XII was originally released 14 years ago, not 12. *

Uh, never mind. Clearly I’m way too late for that party.

Anyway, as I started playing, I decided that there were two big questions that I wanted to answer with this retrospective review:

1.) Is Final Fantasy XII as bad of a game as I remember it being when it was first released?

2.) Would I change my claim about Final Fantasy XII being my least favorite game in the franchise?

Obviously the game has been out for a long time, remake or not, but I want to warn against spoilers here just in case. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s experience after all. With that, let’s get started.

Statistics

I just wanted to start this review with a few facts about my playthroughs (yes, the plural is intentional).

I played through The Zodiac Age twice, once for about 42 hours in length and the second for about 47. I used each of the jobs in the zodiac job system in each playthrough, but in different combinations and on different characters. Of course, I couldn’t account for every possible combination. That would take a very long time…

The party was at level 46 on my shorter playthrough and 51 on my longer one. I did not complete all of the hunts, although I fought more of them the second time through. I did not try to get any of the special gear like the Zodiac Spear, mostly because I don’t know how. I also did not get all of the espers, because other than the required time you have to summon Belias to get into Giruvegan, I never used summoning.

I avoided any guides or other playthroughs for the game, relying on the game’s directions and my memory from my previous plays…fourteen years ago…to guide me through the main part of the story. Yeah, I haven’t played FFXII since it was released in 2006, maybe 2007, give or take a few months. So, if I got confused or lost during the course of the game, it was because I either missed directions or the game was not clear on where I needed to go.

At the time of this review, I have not experimented at all with Trial Mode or played through New Game Plus.

Graphics

This section will be short, since I don’t have a lot to say about it.

The graphics are very good. As I stated above, in the original I did not feel the graphics were all that different than Final Fantasy X released four years prior, and my opinion of The Zodiac Age hasn’t really changed. According to the Final Fantasy Wiki, the game was given “high resolution upgrades to backgrounds, character models, 2d parts, and movie scenes.” To be honest, I didn’t notice much of a difference, although that might be because I didn’t play the game often enough to have the original graphics etched in my memory.

However, that does not mean the game looks bad. On the contrary, it is still a beautiful game, despite a few small glitches such as Balthier’s dialogue not syncing up to his lip movements or Basch’s hair not moving, Those are minor nitpicks. The game is still lovely to look at.

Sound and Music

Again, the music for this game is excellent. As I mentioned before, the music was probably the one thing I would praise about the game when it was originally released. The Zodiac Age somehow manages to make it better by providing a rerecorded soundtrack that makes a lot of the notes sound less harsh. There is the option of switching it back to the original version, but I preferred the new one. Basically they took the one thing I liked about the original game and made it better.

The voice acting I am pretty neutral about. For the most part, I don’t think anyone’s voice work was either bad or good. Other than the overuse of sighs, of which I get most annoyed by Ashe’s because she sighs all the time, I don’t mind the voice acting very much.

The only one I have a problem with, and this was also the case when I first played FFXII, is with Fran’s voice. I always feel bad criticizing a voice actor because they put a lot of training and passion into their work, but I just can’t help but be really annoyed at the choices SquareEnix made when casting Fran. She sounds so different in the English version compared to the Japanese one, and I don’t think it fits the character at all. Viera, all viera, are supposed to be these rather ethereal beings akin to the elves in The Lord of the Rings. So why, then, would the translation team have Fran be given a voice that makes her sound like a nasally four-year-old? According to the Wiki, the translators wanted to “sell the new take on the viera,” but it just falls flat.

Miscellaneous Gameplay

Okay, I only made this section so I can briefly go over some of the extra gameplay components the game has, both old and new. First, the good.

The high-speed mode is great. I always thought the characters moved so annoyingly slow! This fixes that problem and honestly saves a lot of time. I feel like it sheared off a couple of hours off the game that are just empty time needed simply to move from place to place. I used this in the FFVIII remaster as well for the same reason. I basically never turned it off. It didn’t affect cutscenes, so that wasn’t a problem. Also, the sound effect of four people running in high-speed mode is strangely hilarious to me.

There is a transparent overlay map now available. I find this to be much more useful than the minimap alone, which was constantly moving and incapable of helping me orient myself. Previously, I was frequently frustrated and getting lost in pretty much every area, dungeon and town when I played the original version. The overlay map was especially useful in places where direction was important, like the part in the Tomb of Raithwall where you need to turn the statues to face the blade. I could never tell which way to turn them and needed to bring up the main map over and over and over again. The overlay map resolves makes this and general navigation much easier.

My only complaint is that, although it is transparent, it does take up a lot of the center of the screen, but that is a small price to pay for the relief of so much frustration. There are times when the overlay map isn’t useable, namely in parts of Giruvegan and the Bahamut, and then the frustration rises again, which only emphasizes how nice the overlap map is the other times.

Autosave feature. Need I say more? Thank you, SquareEnix, for an autosave feature! Especially during some of the hunts.

And now the bad, which can be lumped into one thing: minigames. Or I guess they’re minigames. They’re small quests that are required to further the story that are not combat based. The yell at the guards to make them move game while stealing the Dusk Shard, AKA the dumbest guards ever. The have Vaan declare he’s Basch in front of people in Bhujerba to get the Resistance’s attention, which unless you had already played the game you don’t know to do in front of the guides, leading you to just listening to Vaan spout annoying nonsense while literally nobody listens. The exchanging information quest in Archadia to get chops to be allowed to ride a flying taxi, which is only slightly less annoying this time around because they reduced the number of exchanges you need to do from nine to three. I guess they realized how tedious it was. I disliked all of these when I first played the game and they were superfluous and dumb and add nothing to the experience this time around too.

Character Progression and Combat

Now we get to the parts where I feel I can really say something constructive. I was initially going to have these be separate sections, but they are so closely related to one another that it seemed silly to split them.

There is something I want to make perfectly clear, that I must admit came very much to my surprise: The combat in The Zodiac Age is nowhere near as bad as I felt it was when I played the vanilla game. Before it felt like a boring slog just to get from one quest to another, but I found that not to be the case this time around. I think the changes to the license board helps with the combat be more dynamic and require a bit more strategy since not every character ends up being the same. I’ll get to the license board in a moment.

With the job system in place, you have to think more about how you’re going to approach an enemy rather than having everyone just attack the whole time. I mean, you can still do that, but your white mage is not going to be as strong as your knight, so having the white mage do only physical attacks doesn’t work quite as well. And with the option of giving everyone different abilities, it means that every character has a different role to play in battle.

The ability to add a second job later in the game adds to the diversity you can bring, since you can make any number of combinations of jobs and really none of them are bad. You’re also not limited by which characters can have which job. Once you pick a job for a character you are stuck with it (at least on the PS4 version) but that does not lock the job away from other characters. You can have two white mages, two knights, five red battlemages, or make every character a bushi if you so desire. You can have someone balanced, someone focused on only offensive spells, someone focused on healing, someone just for physical attacks, a tank…the possibilities are huge!

The gambit system is still in place, and I still am not a huge fan. If I have to micromanage a character’s actions, I’d rather have a system that allows me to input commands individually like in previous Final Fantasy games rather than allowing an AI to do it. However, I understand that the combat in FFXII is fast-paced enough that it makes that sort of system more difficult, and I managed to deal with it fine. I wish I didn’t have to buy gambits for every single miniscule action though.

On the other hand, I did find having multiple gambits useful for the various abilities each character has, especially since the job system allows for more individualized characters. This time, I felt like having several gambit slots was actually worthwhile because I had the characters able to do more things under specific circumstances, especially for spellcasters. This made it seem like it was worth the license points to spend on gambit slots from the license board. So while I still am not fond of the gambit system, I found it overall less annoying than before.

Obviously the license board is the biggest change to The Zodiac Age. The job system is excellent this time around, compared to the complete lack of a job system in the original version. Normally a blank slate for character progression isn’t a bad thing. VI, VII and VIII all had no job system as well, but you could still customize the characters to fit with a play style that you liked. Vanilla FFXII didn’t allow that. It was far too easy to make every character identical, so it ultimately didn’t matter which character you had in your party. This time, the available variety made it much more enjoyable to play and experiment.

The board was also improved on in that it was much more logical within each job. Before, the board was literally just a board, with every license just kind of lumped together. The license for a helmet was next to a license for the fire spell. It never made much sense and it seemed hard to predict what adjacent licenses you were unlocking. This time, armor licenses are together, sword licenses are together, magic licenses are together, and so forth. Some licenses in the same category are spread apart, such as the technicks, but for the most part there is at least some sort of logic to it all, making it much easier to plan character growth instead of it feeling random.

Later on, it is possible to make the characters very similar to one another, so that everyone can cast white magic, use the same technicks, wear the same gear, etc. This is especially easy if you pick secondary jobs that are opposite the first job (for stance, adding a foebreaker job to a white mage). This doesn’t happen until late in the game though, so it doesn’t feel nearly as cheap. FFX did the same with the sphere grid, but you had to be pretty far in the game before that was possible. Same thing here.

I feel I should mention the quickenings and summons, even though I never used the latter in battle. The mist abilities now have their own gauge rather than using MP, which is a nice throwback to the limit break bars of some of the previous games. I definitely prefer it that way. I found myself using quickenings less frequently than during my first playthrough, but that might be because the game was made to be overall a little easier.

Story and Characters

While the job system was the big change for The Zodiac Age, and certainly for the better, I feel I still need to talk about the story and the characters even though nothing about these parts of the game have changed. The big reason for this is because the story was where I had the biggest problem with the original version of FFXII, and therefore will probably have the biggest impact on answering my two burning questions at the beginning of this review.

That being said, if I were to go into all the details about the story and characters and what I think of it, this review would probably be three times as long as it already is. To add to that, since the game has already been out for twelve fourteen years I’m not sure there’s a whole lot I could add to the conversation that hasn’t already been said, other than to point out how I would change the story to make it what would be, in my opinion, better.

Perhaps if people are really interested in my in-depth analysis of the story I can do that in another post, but for the purposes of this review, I’m just going to give summarized version here.

1.) Reks should have lived, or been replaced by Vaan, or have both in the party.

2.) Vaan is not as annoying as I previously thought, but he needed to have a more concrete connection to the plot.

3.) Same for Penelo. Still kind of preachy, but seemed more like a Jiminy Cricket character this time around.

4.) The Strahl needed to be stolen somehow, both to give Balthier a better reason to go with the group and to give a better excuse to not just fly somewhere.

5.) That said, knowing the whole plot of the game makes Balthier’s behavior throughout the story make more sense. Better foreshadowing, in a way.

6.) Fran’s storyline needed to have a more satisfactory conclusion. It just sort of ended.

7.) Basch and Gabranth needed to have more personal interactions throughout the story to make their final moments more satisfying.

8.) For that matter, have more personal interactions between the party and both Dr. Cid and Vayne. We meet both of them a total of two times…over the course of a 40-hour game. Too disconnected from the party’s actions to give much motivation for us to defeat them.

8.) Why did they not use Vossler’s actions as a bigger plot point, with Basch trying to stop Vossler from doing what Basch was accused of? It’s sort of there, but it ends far too quickly. Big missed opportunity.

9.) More judge fights! We fight a total of three, Ghis, Bergan and Gabranth. I wanted more judge bosses!

10.) To add to that, have more context for some of the bosses. It kind of felt like so many of the bosses were there just for the sake of being bosses, and there’s only so many times I can say to myself, “It’s probably a guardian of whatever place.”

11.) I still don’t get the love people have for Ashe. I just don’t get it.

12.) And finally, Larsa should have been the main character. End of story.

…Yeah, that’s the summarized version.

Conclusion

All things considered, I definitely had a different experience playing through The Zodiac Age compared to when I first played FFXII twelve fourteen years ago. And ultimately this is why I decided on playing this game again. I wanted to see if my opinion had changed, if I could look at it from another perspective rather than just negative memory. And although some of my feelings haven’t changed, it’s good to look back on something and see that maybe it isn’t exactly as I recall it.

Let’s go back to the big questions I proposed at the beginning of this review.

First, is Final Fantasy XII as bad of a game as I remember it being when it was first released? No, it’s certainly not. I think the changes made to the license board made the combat more enjoyable for me, and by extension it seemed less of a hassle and more of an actual game. I enjoyed running around and exploring more, and the bosses and hunts were more entertaining as well. While I’m still not fond of the gambit system, I wasn’t as irritated by it and actually found myself experimenting more with it.

Second, would I change my claim about Final Fantasy XII being my least favorite game in the franchise? Eh, probably not. Again, even with the alterations made to the game, there are still a lot of things that I personally was not a fan of, especially involving the story. I’m one of those people who love the story of a game more than anything else (which is clearly why I prefer RPGs to any other game genre). Since the story is still the weakest aspect of FFXII, in my opinion, especially compared to other Final Fantasy games, the game overall doesn’t grab me as much as some of the earlier ones. It’s still a good game, but not great. To be fair, short of completely overhauling the storyline and characters, it would the difficult change those aspects for the better in just a remaster. This makes me wonder how the FFVII remake is going to go, but the jury’s still out on that one.

With all the various opinions and thoughts about what makes a video game good, it’s hard for developers to create what might be considered a perfect game for everyone, and the Final Fantasy franchise is no exception. That doesn’t mean a game cannot be corrected to make it better than the original. That’s what is good about patches and remasters. It gives the developers another opportunity to improve on what was criticized. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age definitely succeeds in this, even if there are still parts that are not quite as good.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Kingdom Hearts DLC to play and then proceed to tear apart.

#final fantasy xii #ffxii #the zodiac age #retrospective #review #my opinion

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rainbowravioli · 5 years

Note

Please share your thoughts on Avengers Endgame, especially regarding Captain America, Iron Man and Black Widow (being very vague to avoid spoilers)

(Sorry for the wait, this wasn’t easy to write)

Oh boy…

So my thoughts on the overall movie are that it was an enjoyable movie for about 80% of its run time, though the other 20% were mostly awful. It’s not anywhere near perfect or a masterpiece as I’ve seen some people call it. The character arcs aside, the movie itself has problems. The pacing, for example, is all over the place. Also, somehow, I left the movie feeling they both did too much and too little, though I would have to delve into specific scenes and characters to explain what I mean. It’s kind of a amazing that they managed to build so many great callbacks to the past MCU movies and still have the movie that’s supposed to close of this chapter end without a sense of finality when it comes to a bunch of plot threads and characters. But you asked specifically for Steve, Tony, and Natasha thoughts.

Before I get into them I would just like to say one thing that may be an unpopular media opinion in general: I don’t believe that tragedy is meaningful by default, and I don’t believe happy endings take away from sacrifice or emotional impact or that a battle without stakes (AKA deaths) is unsatisfying. Especially when we already saw our heroes in this particular case lose everything once. Infinity War was about loss and tragedy. Endgame should have been about rising up from it and taking it back. Why is it more meaningful to end this chapter with tragedy than with joy and togetherness?

Anyway.

I’ll start with Natasha.

BEWARE SPOILERS

Honestly my biggest problem with Natasha is that they didn’t bring her back. I had this problem with not bringing back everyone who wasn’t dusted, honestly. I thought that the scene between Natasha and Clint in pursue of the Soul Stone was one of the best scenes in the movie and it made perfect sense that both of them would try to sacrifice themselves. Natasha repaying what she saw as her life debt to Clint was very poignant. My problem is with the idea and framing of Natasha’s death as some sort of redemption for her character. I saw a reviewer say something of the effect that Natasha’s death was beautiful because finally the “red was wiped out of her ledger”.

Natasha was taken as a child, groomed to be an assassin, endured a lifetime of trauma, but she still wanted to make herself a better person and, with Clint’s help, she did! She changed her circumstances, she rose up against those who wronged her, she found friends she could trust who were like a family to her, and she spent FIVE YEARS at the Avengers base keeping the Avengers going, throwing herself into work to keep what was left of Earth as safe as possible. She had already done more than enough to wipe the red of her ledger. She was a hero. And it’s vile that she had to die for the greater good as redemption.

It’s even worst though, that she was not mourned properly. Her death was brushed aside so quickly and there was barely any reaction from the team. Clint and Bruce were clearly affected, but I was not impressed by Steve’s Single Tear™ over one of his closest friends or how everyone else just pretty much shrugged it off because you know, gotta move on with the plan.

Someone had to die for the Soul Stone. I expected it. My friends and I all agreed pre-movie it would fall to Clint or Natasha. But having Natasha be brought back after the final snap would not erase the depth of emotion of the scene where she fights Clint for it, where she begs him to let her go, where she tries to comfort him before making the ultimate sacrifice for the world. Let her come back, let her be welcomed back as the hero she is, let her live out a happy life with her new family who loves her.

Natasha deserved better but then again, she deserved better throughout most of the MCU.

Tony is actually one of the parts of the movie where I felt they did too little in a way. And no I am not asking for more Tony screentime, but that I feel that the 5 year gap screwed over some characters and Tony was one of them. It was beautiful to see him having the family he always wanted, but it felt strange and distant that we didn’t get to see that happiness before it was fully realized. We missed out on the wedding, we missed out on Tony learning he would be a father. It was honestly a bit jarring to be pulled right into the middle of Tony being a husband and parent and living a quiet life without seeing how he got there, even though we can of course guess from his reaction after being rescued from space. It’s just that this was Tony’s endgame. We’ve known since IW. His literal dream was to have a child with Pepper. Personally, it would have been more satisfying to me to see him achieve it. But that’s a minor detail.

And the thing is, the fact that Tony was fully immersed in that life, that he was fully retired, already showed that you didn’t have to kill Tony to get him out of the game: he walked out of it willingly, and he fully intended to get back to his family life once they brought everyone back.

Him getting the stones and doing a call back to the very first Iron Man was spectacular. Honestly an amazing moment. His slow, painful death scene? Not so much. I don’t think he had to die. It felt more like they were killing a symbol than a character, to put a definite period on this chapter of the MCU. So by basically objectifying Tony as mattering more as a symbol, I believe his character integrity suffered. Tony was the one character always focused on preventing IW from happening. His methods have not always been the best, but he was driven by panic and PTSD and ultimately good intentions (even if, once again, his actions haven’t always been The Best™). He wanted to protect the people that mattered to him, he wanted to go back to Pepper and to watch Morgan grow and be a better parent than what he got.

Killing Tony was unnecessary. Make Tony lose the arm. That’s how I would have handled it. The suit technology protects him long enough to be saved from dying, but he permanently loses his entire arm. He built it in a way that he would be able to make a gauntlet of it and use the stones, he could have also built it in a way that protected him from the after effects. It’s still a sacrifice, but it’s not his life. He can go back and live the rest of it. He can keep contributing to saving the world through his inventions without having to be in the center of the battle itself. It wouldn’t have taken away from the fact that he was willing to put down his life for the world (it’s not even the first time he did so), and it wouldn’t have taken away from how awesome his “I am Iron Man! *snap*” moment was!

Tony didn’t deserve this.

I’m not even sure what to say when it comes to Steve, I’m so angry and heartbroken.

I’ll say that, and maybe I’m extremely biased because he is my favourite MCU character, but I could live with all the other faults of the movie until they had Steve make the most possible out of character decision he could have and trash 8 years worth of movies and character development. That final decision made no sense, broke the movie’s own previously established rules, and was as far from a happy ending as possible.

You’re telling me Steve Rogers, whose character arc has been about moving forward, who has never been one to abandon his friends, who had built a life for himself in the future with a new family with the Avengers, who had just gotten his best friend and main motivator throughout 3 movies and arguably his most important relationship back, who knew Peggy had lived a full happy life, decided to be a gigantically selfish, cruel man and give up on everything he built to go back to the past and rob Peggy of her own life?! Over a relationship that we were shown him making peace with? When Peggy herself tells him the best thing he can do is move on and live his own life?

Steve’s arc has always been about moving forward and protecting what he had with all his might. Steve going back, abandoning everyone he knows and everything he achieved, isn’t him living his own life, it’s him robbing someone else’s, it’s him giving up and regressing completely. Not my Steve Rogers.

Not to mention, the fact that Steve shows up as an old man breaks so many canon established rules it’s not even worth getting into, it simply makes absolutely no sense. And no, don’t give me any of that “he closed his loop and was Peggy’s husband all along” because lol no, all past movies contradict that, and also that means Marvel supports Sharon getting with who she knows damn well is her uncle because it’s ok if he’s young and hot I guess.

There’s too much to say about Steve, it would be a whole essay on its own. I’ll just conclude with something that breaks my heart to say, but it’s where the movie brought me to:

Marvel might as well have killed Steve because what they did was character assassination.

#avengers endgame #endgame spoilers #endgame critical #natasha romanoff #tony stark #steve rogers #replies #Anonymous

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xenosgirlvents · 5 years

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Perdition’s Flame - Review

So here’s a quick tidbit about me: I really like horror of a specific bent. I’m not a fan of gore really, I find it lacks punch, but creeping dread, unsettling atompsheres, subtle horror is a genre I truly, truly enjoy.

So this is the first of the Warhammer Horror audio dramas I listened to and, personally, I feel like an audio drama is actually a pretty effective way of conveying horror. I’ve often found that any amount of frightening imagery can be handled by simply muting a video, robbing it of impact. But listening to something frightening even with now images often unsettles me.

So how is Perdition’s Flame? Well since these are beginning to get wordy I’m going to use a spoiler bar and write about it below. Further I’ll try to be a bit more systematic in my thoughts since this might help some people choose if they do or do not want it. That being said I don’t pretend to be ranking quality here with this only my personal position on how enjoyable I think it will be and to whom.

Perdition’s Flame: A disgraced Vostroyan Imperial Guardsman huddles, alone and freezing, against a dark storm. Desperate for a chance to redeem himself, he grasps at any hope for peace. But in the Dark Millennium, the Gods offer nothing but horror…

Plot: Perdition’s Flame has a fairly succint and tight plot which works in it’s favour. Largely set upon a single vessel and dealing with a rather small timeframe the story doesn’t really drag or plod or have unneccessary sequences barring the introductory framing device and the concluding framing device, both set some time after the actual events of the story.

The story also largely focuses on just two characters, Officer Brandon and her companion the prisoner Vostroyan Vosk (the protagonist). This tight focuses helps us get to know both characters and invest them to an extent. I often find in short audio dramas it is important to have a small cast as a large cast often simply reduces the characters into very unmemorable individuals.

The short of the story is largely that an assault forces Captain Brandon and Vosk to work together to try to stop a series of supernatural phenomena dooming the prison ship they are on, connected to some mysterious cargo an Inquisitor has brought aboard the vessel. The story actually has a not bad bait-and-switch concerning the actual ‘horror’ with the obvious candidate of Chaos ultimately not being as obvious as it first appears.

So how is the horror then, seeing as this is a horror story? It’s not bad...but I’d stop short of calling it amazing. There is one or two early cases of genuinely pretty unsettling scenes, which I enjoyed, but the story’s ‘horror’ transforms into a more visceral ‘zombie hoard’ style of horror by the halfway point which I just never really find very interesting or frightening. The horror, thus, is mostly contained to the first half after which it’s more just like a monster story with little in the way of dread and more just very instinctive ‘this monster will eat me if I don’t shoot it’ fear.

Whilst the plot is middling to good I must admit the end is just to me flat. I know it’s pretty standard for horror stories to feel the end to finish on a very depressing note but in this story that depressing note seems to undermine the primary theme of the entire story. So for this reason I personally feel the ending doesn’t work and undermines the theme of the story.

Characters: There are really only 3 characters who need to be discussed; Brandon, Vosk and Inquisitor Herrin. Without a doubt, for myself, Brandon shines through as the most engaging characer. A Captain of the Praetorian Guard Astra Militarum Regiment she has the most agency in the story by far, her actions largely being the only proactive ones that drive the plot forwards. The story also, despite introducing her as a hardass, shies away from making her a vindictive brute as many Imperial ‘hardasses’ are portrayed as being. Indeed I greatly enjoyed that she directly questions and defies the authority of the Inquisition when it endangers the lives of everyone onboard the vessel.

(On a seperate note just how casually both Brandon and her superior do question and defy Inquisitor Herrin is...perhaps a little questionable? Considering the aura of menance the Inquisition is normally afforded in 40k the fact that a ship’s Captain seems to have almost no fear mouthing off to an Inquisitor and demanding she jettison her cargo is perhaps a little uncharacteristic.)

Vosk is our protagonist and, if I must be honest, the most exogenous of the characters. He isn’t bad, per say, he just isn’t particularly interesting or well-integrated. For example one would think specifying he was a deserter would be part of the theme of the story or important to it but, in actuality, it really is irrelevant. It isn’t worked in as part of the plot really. Indeed, if anything, the primary theme of the story probably means him being imprisoned for being an atheist, or a heretic, would have worked better. Regardless Vosk isn’t a bad character he’s just a rather dull one. He very much serves ONLY as a vessel for narration and I feel often that if you’re doing an audio drama having a character who’s just there for narration is a waste as the audio drama already provides that.

Inquisitor Herrin then is, I suppose, the closest to an antagonist in the story. There is little given on her beyond her being an Inquisitor of the Ordo Chronos and, well, she is a problem. Unlike Vosk her problem is not that she is uninteresting just...the story makes her come across as an idiot. This is a problem considering she is meant to be an Inquisitor and there is already a small tendency of Inquisitors being reflected as idiots at times in stories. To her credit she doesn’t fall into the common narrative trap of being a bloodthirsty idiot, as many Inquisitors are shown to be, just one with seemingly poor grasp of reality. She is consistently presented with evidence that she, and everyone else, onboard the vessel is about to die...but seems to take no action to stop this? Even hinder some of Brandon and Vosk’s actions and insist that everything will be fine if everyone ‘does their jobs’ even though it is made painfully clear that everyone is dying en masse.

Part of this maybe comes down to a poor job of conveying her meaning at the end. In her final sequence, when her ‘special cargo’ is broken open she babbles a bit about some vague indication that she could have prevented something but...the story doesn’t make clear if she actually means she was about to solve the problem or just refering to a smaller, different issue related to her cargo. Either way it would perhaps have been better to replace her with an Inquisitorial Acolyte delivering the cargo for their Mistress or Master and thus more easily excuse their incompetence.

That, or, considering how ridiculously significant the cargo turns out to be, I have no idea why a random prison ship is being used as a transport and not an Inquisitorial Vessel or a Blackship.

Sound Direction: As always the sound direction and voice acting is great. Grace Andrew’s Brandon is particularly fun but even Vosk’s Vostroyan accent is a delight to hear. There is good use made of ambient noise at quite a few stages in order to help give the story a more grounded feel. The only part where I think this ambient sound becomes a bit silly is a sequence near the end where a laugh track from Brandon seems to play on repeat for a few good minutes and sounds incredibly robotic and unconvincing after the first few times.

I must draw special attention, though, to the use of distorted voice for the ‘horror’ at the end. As much as I feel the ‘horror’ lacks punch at the end the voice given to it is superb and very well-done!

Theme: Despite the name, the reference to fire, the protagonist’s main trait, redemption, damnation, perdition are not really the themes of the story. The primary focus is more on faith, as hope, in a dark situation. Throughout the story the cast are confronted by a ‘dark reality’ they have not encountered before and which now shakes their faith and their hope. Brandon, the character of agency, is defined by her constant working to save them even in the face of hopelessness, whilst for Vosk his primary motivation is an all-consuming desire to escape and run away from the things he’s now seen.

The conclusion, though, is an event which Brandon interprets as a ‘miracle’, evidence that there is hope, via faith, for them, that they are not left in a hopeless situation. Though Vosk does not share her thoughts on this ‘miracle’ he comes to see Brandon as representing that hope for him, stressing his desire to ‘live on’ is purely because he doesn’t want Brandon, who saved him, to have done so in vain. Finding something to believe in, despite a seemingly grim outlook, is the stronger theme to me.

Which is part of why the ending, which basically invalidates this, falls flat in my opinion. It’s one thing to have a cruel twist ending, it’s another to build a theme throughout a story and then just pull it out from under the audience at the end and go ‘silly rabbit hope is for kids!’

Conclusion: Perdition’s Flame is okay. Certainly better than Killshot and the Devil You Know. It is not amazing or incredible but it just manages to coast by enough that though I would not be enthused to listen to it again I would not never do so as with Killshot and Devil You Know. It manages to just about break average or slightly above average. I can’t recommend it as a story I think anyone needs to listen to but I can say that if you are bored give it a try.

#warhammer #warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #inquisition #astra militarum #imperial guard #vostroyan firstborn #legion of the damned #chaos #lost and the damned #audio drama #review #warhammer horror #black library

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maple-clef · 5 years

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Lies Sleeping obligatory flail

Well, that was a helluva ride!

Spoilers in review behind cut, obvs.

There’s a fun reference in Lies Sleeping to Sneakers, which happens to be a film I’m fond of. The scene referred to is where Whistler, a blind man, is coaxing Marty to reconstruct his journey in the boot of a car, using audio cues to trace where his kidnappers took him and culminating in a flamingo “cocktail party” by a reservoir which allows them to locate the baddies’ HQ. You should watch the film, it’s pretty great and a lot of fun. I was actually talking about it with my husband the other day, partly because we went past a load of geese at a bird reserve and they sounded like the flamingos, but also because we both reckon it’s a film that has aged well - if you ignore the specifics of the technology side of things. And thematically, it happens to resonate quite strongly with Lies Sleeping, too.

It’s all about power, and who holds it, and what you would do if you could take it: get some lever, some key which gives you access to the reins of power and lets you rewrite the rules. No more secrets, let it all hang loose... You can see how it resonates today in things like Wikileaks, the breakdown of trust between people and their governments and also the populist surge behind Trump and Brexit. People are angry, and they want to burn it all down - the system isn’t working for many, and that anger is exploited in a cynical way by the usual suspects: Farage, Trump, Boris. Entitled types who spin a speech, whip people into a frenzy. They aim to bring down the whole applecart, and ooh - they’ve got a brand new cider press they’ll sell you for the right price. See also: The Big Short etc.

And that’s kinda what Lies Sleeping is about, on one level. It’s about Brexit Britain - the people who insist the country is broken so that they can further break it and re-mould it in a fashion which pleases them, and those who understand that it’s not perfect, it’s often a bit shit, but let’s try and make it better and anyway it’s not a good idea to sink your own liferaft, who are trying to plug the leaks. Peter, Nightingale et al. (law and order, keeping the Queen’s Peace for the benefit of all) are in the latter camp. Chorley is - as we’ve always suspected, I think - a Boris, Bullingdon club figure. While he hides behind the conceit of wanting to make Britain great again, his “romantic” notions of reviving the greats of Arthurian legend to do this turn out to be a lie: he doesn’t really believe it. He just wants power. To make a legend of himself. Lesley does, I think, believe it - she talks in vague but apparently sincere terms about wanting to make the world a better place, in the vein of so many Brexiters. She even echoes the dissatisfaction that many have with London, the idea that the city bleeds the rest of the country dry. Peter denies this, because he’s a staunch Londoner and how dare she (although I’m not sure he really addresses all her grievances). Although in the end, she mostly wants revenge on Punch. She’s hurting and she wants to hurt him.

In Sneakers, Marty’s old friend Cosmo talks the talk about wanting to change the world too, but ends up wanting mostly to turn a profit on anarchy. But their estrangement and the different ways they both feel the other has moved away from their (originally strong) friendship and partnership kind of reflect Peter and Lesley’s arc, too.

Okay, enough about Sneakers. Although you should totally watch it.

I loved the book - it felt really solidly plotted, and there was lots of meaty stuff I’m sure we’ll all be talking about for a while in terms of the Follyverse: the new info on Molly’s background, and her new companion was a particular favourite thing for me. We also get a hint at Guleed levelling up, the Chinatown arrangement (hers and the Folly’s), quite a bit of additional background on the Folly’s history, the pound shop version of the Folly (in the Paternoster Society), *lots* of cool scenes in the proto-London-verse with the old (and new?) Rivers, another Court, this time upstream and oodles of Rivers stuff.

It was really interesting to see how the Folly had expanded by necessity and been brought more firmly into the fold of the Met, operations becoming much more of a team affair. With all those extra Met staff and with the additional help from Doctor Vaughan and Abigail, and more regular Postmartin involvement, Peter and Nightingale (and Guleed, and Carey) get freed up to go and do their action-filled actioning, which I think was part of why there was so much ground covered in this one, and why the pace never felt like it was laggy. The exposition could be farmed out and kind of drip-fed, rather than Peter having to essentially do all the leg-work (which can make pacing difficult in a first-person pov).

I felt that it was a really satisfying story, and that it did a really good job of bringing together lots of threads and characters and themes that have been initiated in the earlier books, and really weaving them together in a meaty and filling way. Like... a Greggs pasty (I’m hungry okay). It was so thorough that it really felt like an end to the story arc that began back in the first book - obviously the Punch/Lesley story bookends things, but it also feels like a definite punctuation in terms of most of the characters’ arcs. I obviously am not hoping it ends here, and don’t think BA has said anything about wrapping up, but it *could* conclude here and it would feel finished, I think.

But there are plenty of unresolved things, too - Peter’s fatherhood (!), what Lesley does/becomes next, and all the possibilities that come from opening the Folly up, with Guleed and Abigail becoming practitioners in their own right. And Peter hints at further recruitment, to aid in his reorganisation efforts and to ensure the SAU can sustain their workload... Nightingale’s retirement plans (!) and new pupils...

I also am keen to see more from the Rivers and explore their weird dual persona/timey wimey stuff, and the High Fae, and what goes on in America (is there a new Yellowstone, now, and what are they like?) and elsewhere in the former colonies... The idea that they’re taking Peter’s lead and developing a network/outreach of their own beyond their watersheds is a fun touch that could be explored further.

So, plenty of exciting possibilities for future installments. Can’t wait!

Other nice touches - the character development for David Carey, the increasingly sympathetic Alexander Seawoll, the way that Peter and Nightingale are developing into more of a partnership as Peter levels up, the character of Nguyễn, Walid and Vaughan’s double act. Guleed and Peter’s banter.

The bonus story from Abigail’s pov was great - I’d be really keen to read more in her ‘voice’.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say when it’s all sunk in, and when I inevitably re-read it, and read everyone else’s reactions and theories on here :)

The only complaint I have relates to the number of typos and errors I kept finding, which made me a little distraught if I’m honest. Partly because I’m a professional proofer/copy-editor and would have probably done it for free once I start seeing this sort of thing it becomes very hard to relax and enjoy the read, and partly because it was *such* a good book that it deserved to be properly shiny and finished off, and why don’t publishers invest in their products you’d think a flagship series like this would warrant it grumble grumble. Sad times. But only a bit.

#rivers of london #lies sleeping #lies sleeping spoilers #ben aaronovitch #flail #meta

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im-a-writer--im-in-distress · 5 years

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Everything Has Changed

Writer: im-a-writer—im-in-distress.tumblr.com

Fandom: NCIS, Criminal Minds

Insert with: The B.A.U., Tony Dinozzo (sibling), Jenny Shepard (mention)

Rating: #Death, #ShutDown, #Mourning

Words: 750+

Warning(s): sibling death, assumed death, xovers, NCIS plotline (spoilers for S5), undercover work, (word-vomit writing where even I had no planned outcome)

A/N: Several things... 1) “Everything has changed” was the quote-prompt for this fic, but then I never used it. Still befitting the story, though, so now it’s a title. (I don’t remember which prompt list.) 2) I wrote this very early in the morning after very little sleep, and so even I realize the plot is vague and kind of ridiculous. Still, I have this thing about making sure my writing ends up on this blog, even the ones I’m unsure of. So, here we go. 3) Spoilers for NCIS Season 5! 4) So the code... “Anthony” can mean ‘highly praiseworthy’ or ‘flower’. A sister’s going to make fun of him, so that’s why it’s mixed. An inside joke. 5) No OC-version of this fic. Definitely thinking a certain multi-chapter plotline of one of my WIPs, but that hasn’t seen the light of day yet, so forgive that. 6) Read & Review. Hope you like it!

It should’ve been a normal day. Grab a coffee--three shots of espresso--and a croissant, wander into work, pleasantries, sit around the round table, not-so-pleasantries, hop on a plane and see if you could do some good in the world. It should have been that.

Then your brother had to go and get himself blown up.

And of course, nothing in your life was ever simple. You couldn’t run to his side, stand with the team as they examined the wreckage, examined the body, concluded that it was Tony, or maybe that it wasn’t.

No. You couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t risk your placement in the B.A.U. It was a miracle Jenny had managed to get you in at all.

Instead, you saw the remnants of his Corvette ZRI in flames on the television in the South Dakota police station. Someone had leaked to the news that the man inside was a federal agent -- that’s what the officers muttered around you -- and you felt your heart drop.

You knew his car. He was damn proud of it. Bought it himself the year it came out, his first real transaction as an adult, out from between the clutches of their father.

You’d know it anywhere. Even melted into a pile under a tower of smoke.

Emily stopped beside you and asked something, but you didn’t catch it. Instead, you used the distraction as an excuse to turn away and get busy with your own job. You tried not to imagine what the body might look like.

You couldn’t focus. Your brother was melted around a steering wheel. You couldn’t be bothered with the missing women of Fort Thompson, South Dakota.

The others noticed. You knew they did. They didn’t say anything, but sometimes it’s hard not to profile someone. Especially someone as predictable and as reliable as you. And today, you just weren’t.

Day Two, after your silence during the profile briefing, Hotch pulled you aside. You were sure it was a lecture, but you weren’t there to hear it. Your ears were glued to the leaked statement that the victim of the explosion was a male NCIS agent.

No name. And you found you couldn’t break the lock on your emotions until you had a name, until you knew for sure. Until you heard it from somewhere more reliable than the news.

You’d been carrying your cell phone in your hand since arriving. You couldn’t leave it in your purse, or your pocket. You couldn’t help it. Even if you knew no one making it ring would know anything about your brother. Not Tony. Only the missing women.

If there was an arrest made, you weren’t there for it. All you knew was at one point, whatever day it was, JJ guided you by the arm away from your spot in the conference room staring blind at the naked board and onto the plane.

How many days it had been, you weren’t sure. You didn’t know if the images that hung on your eyes were dreams or hallucinations. It didn’t matter. You couldn’t see anything else anyway.

Only Tony, only your brother; all else had faded away.

Blind and deaf and scentless and tasteless. You found yourself floating in a limbo you didn’t know you’d lost yourself in. You were only mildly aware of Spencer’s hand resting on your arm and his lips moving near your ear.

He was repeating it when you snapped awake. You didn’t know how long he’d been saying it, but you had to be sure. “What did you say?”

Penelope’s voice bounced up and over the seats from the screen, making yours sound even more rough and choked from lack of use. “He said, an urgent message came for you this morning. ‘Oona floor low-- Reid, help me out.”

With a fluent tongue, Spencer spoke: “‘Une fleur louable fait taire la grenouille.’ A commendable flower silences the frog.”

“Praiseworthy.” You corrected him, tears filling your eyes as relief washed over your body. “A praiseworthy flower silences the frog.”

A single breath left you as your collapsed against your seat, liquid and jelly making up your bones. The others moved towards you, concern etched on their faces, but you could only smile at them. It was over.

And it would be many months before you knew the true story as to what happened, a day when your brother would swear he was over Jeanne, but today, all you could think about was that Tony was okay, and that René Benoit would never reach anyone again.

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papercats · 6 years

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Here’s some good lgbt (again with a focus on lesbian books bc I’m a lesbian so if i dont say anything specific about it in the list assume its f/f) books I read this year Ver 2.0 this time on my book blog...Previous years post (x)

I actually read a lot of lesbian fiction this year, I will try to include only stuff that I absolutely loved and/or I don’t see talked about in these kind of lists! Also, if you want content warnings about any of the books dm me.

-The Crimson Empire Series by Alex Marshall: Okay this is the real reason I’m bothering to make this write up I’ll own up to it! It’s so GOOD. I think its the first really successful casual no misogyny/heteronormativity fantasy setting I read. Most stuff I read that tried this ends up just adding in some strong female character(tm) and a blink-and-you-missed-it mention of some side character being gay. But not here. Most of the main characters in this are women...and most of the cast is also lgbt. The man character is a bi woman who also happens to be a 60 year old badass and I love her. There are other characters that are bi lesbian or gay of varying importance (there are a million pov characters and some of them are spoilers so im being vague here). And also there are trans characters. I literally never seen trans characters in fantasy except in indie lgbt publications. AND beyond that its just such a good series, its incredibly fun. There is a lot of political intrigue and a lot of action and a lot of weird dark magic. It's also hilarious and made me laugh out loud multiple times which is very rare for books! Also, it’s a trilogy and it gets gayer each book. Like, the gay content is growing geometrically by the page count, trust me.

Rest under the cut!

-Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich this is very different and much more literary than the rest of the list. It’s a Taiwanese classic from what I understand, and it’s also the authors suicide note. I won’t pretend to understand this book, it’s written in letters which the author tells us can be read in any order. The author is a lesbian, and the story is said to be semi-autobiographic, but I can’t say this is lesbian fiction exactly. Not even who the narrator is is quite clear, as they seem to change gender from one letter to the next, sometimes being called by a different name. I don’t think I can do it justice in a few lines so I suggest if you’re interested you do your own research on it. It’s fascinating book, but it’s not something that everyone will enjoy, if enjoyment is even the right word for the experience of reading this book.

-When Women Were Warriors series by Catherine M Wilson: Okay I recommended it in the last years post but I read the last book this year and it was actually my favorite among the trilogy. And honestly , it deserves a second mention, it’s that good. It’s historical fantasy, magic exists but in a more mythical sense than throwing fireballs around (I’ve seen someone call it celtic fantasy, which might be more accurate). It follows the story of a young apprentice trying to become a warrior. There is a lesbian romance, but the overall plot is more about this apprentices coming of age, though the scale of the story expands widely as the books go on.

-Letters Never Sent by Sandra Moran. This is historical fiction very reminiscent of Sarah Waters, if you like her definitely check this out. It follows a young woman finding old letters of her death mother and learning about a side of her she never knew. It’s a dual perspective story with one for the daughter, and one for the mother in her youth. Both dealing with their own drama, though the focus is more on the mother. The story unravels slowly and though it’s not necessarily unpredictable it’s still a great read if you like historical fiction.

-Amatka by Karin Tidbeck this is a swedish dystopian sci-fi story where words quite literally shape reality, reminscent of classics like 1984, not necessarily in content but the general feeling it gives, I’m not sure whether it’t the themes or the writing but it feels more like an old book. And I mean that in the best way possible. The main character is a lesbian, she gets into a relationship during the story, but this is very much not a romance book, it’s more about the main character slowly questioning the world she is in, and asking too many questions. I highly reccomend this one if you’re a fan of sci-fi dystopians, or want to see an unique take on the genre in a world filled with hunger games rip offs. (I was a bit confused that I couldn’t find the translator of this book, until I realized the author translated it herself. Just an interesting tidbit!)

-Pegasi And Prefects Series by Eleanor Beresford: light board school books with just a little magic and lesbians. I found these short books to be surprisingly good and well written (sadly this is rare in lesbian fiction in my experience). The author described is as a slice of life harry potter which is pretty much it. Though there is some homophobia in these books, so be warned. The main story is concluded, and although the author teased more books in the setting there don’t seem to be updates in some time.

-The Mermaids Daughter by Ann Claycomb: This was a weird kind of melancholy book about a woman who only is relieved of her pain when she’s in the water. As were all her female predecessors, who all died young, by suicide. Her girlfriend delves into her family history in hopes to prevent her having the same fate. It’s a little mermaid retelling but that might be misleading, the main character is not the little mermaid, she’s her great great great grandaughter, or something like that. There is also the constant theme of Opera, which serves as a way to tell the story too, which sort of flew over my head. But it was still very much enjoyable.

Short Stories and Novella

Undertow by Jordan L. Hawk : So this is a f/f novella in a long running m/m series. I can’t speak for the main series but this novella was good for its length. The setting is lovecraftian, but not quite so dark. I originally picked this up because one of the reviewers were complaining the love interests, who is some sort of mermaid-esque sea creature, had shark teeth. She’s great by the way, and so are her teeth.

The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho: This is a novella set in the Chinese afterlife. More specifically Malayan. The people in the afterlife receive money and items when living people burn things for them. The story explores the main character who is married to the richest man in afterlife life, and her relationship with her husbands second bride, who is not a human but a terracotta wife who her husbands relatives have burned for him.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz: A very simple straightforward story about an old model robot girl who owns a tea shop and a mechanic. It has a great atmosphere and I love the image of the old tea shop owned by a robot whos slowly breaking down.

The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan: This is a collection of excellent weird fiction short stories. I have a book by her in all my recommendation posts by this point, and I hesitated before adding this. Not all stories feaure any lgbt content, but enough of them do that it’s not out of place in this list. Though all of the stories in it are fully worth reading. My personal favorite of this collection is Galapagos, a rather disturbing story about space.

#lgbt books #lesbian books #i also read a mm book but that one is super well known so i dont see a point in adding it #anyway i hope this gets as popular as the last one bc i need ppl to read crimson empire #my recs

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herotheshiro · 3 years

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ok i didn’t do a review of the phoenix wright trilogy but i’ll do a mini-write-up on apollo justice which i just finished earlier. this is mainly due to me looking up apollo justice/ace attorney afterwards and seeing ppl talk vaguely abt how and where the series and characters go after this... i wanted to add my 2 cents to the void of the internet i guess lol

spoilers for aa4 below

i think as a story, apollo justice is quite good but definitely a bit lacking in writing compared to the 1st trilogy. i feel like this is pretty much the common fan opinion, esp since the 1st trilogy was written all together as a 3-game-set and apollo justice has to conclude everything within 1 game. i think this game did real good at revealing info over time... i remember when they revealed the troupe gramarye poster and i was like WAIT... THAT’S SHADI SMITH... HOLD UP... personally though, i think the ending was not very strong for me -- i feel like we nailed kristoph almost a bit too easily at the end without much i guess concrete evidence linking him to everything even if basically everything was really pointing to him. [EDIT: lol ok reading summaries on aa4 and yeah apparently this is the point and why it being a jurist sys trial was so important… and the realization that he really could get nailed for the crime that he’s been paranoid abt for years made him break down at the end. Ok that makes sense I guess, I was just used to things playing out like the 1st trilogy where you would last min get decisive evidence lol] other than that, there was quite a number of loose ends that didn’t get tied up

so what happened to valant? i think the implication was that he was gonna turn himself in out of guilt even if he didn’t actually kill magnifi (sp?). and also w trucy having the rights i guess it would be complicated for the 2 of them to work that out. that whole aftermath wasn’t entirely clear to me esp since they didn’t give him a post-credits scene

so we’re not gonna get an explanation for why thalassa left her not-even-1-yo son to fend for himself? that was like my no. 1 thing i would’ve liked to get a reason for but the ending is just her being like oh yeah i remember now he’s my son and that’s it. no explanation for why she left him behind and returned to troupe gramarye w/o him. like at least a “oh it would’ve been complicated to bring a literal baby to raise back into that traveling group” would’ve sufficed, esp since we’re supposed to get the impression that lamiror is a kind woman. yet she left her damn kid behind with only a bracelet. were we just supposed to assume the explanation i gave above? i mean yes i’ve looked it up vaguely and i think we get more info on apollo’s growing up in later games but i’ve heard w very little mention of thalassa. which i mean i get, thalassa left him when he was around 1yo so he prob wouldn’t remember shit but man we never gonna get that explanation huh. it’s kinda messed up to leave this baby behind who i assume you care about; it’s another story if she didn’t want the kid and therefore didn’t care what happened to him but she left a bracelet w him which implies she does care

also the loose end of them not telling apollo and trucy they’re siblings. i’ll save this for a later paragraph though

also side note but when i was finishing the game up and before i saw the ending, i literally had a passing, very brief thought like “oh what if lamiror was actually trucy and apollo’s mom lol. what a crack thought” but then it actually happened... i mean it’s good to wrap up that mystery of lamiror’s past, plus they were insinuating so hard that maybe thalassa wasn’t actually dead lol so yeah you knew the mom was gonna pop up fr by the end

apollo himself as a character. now i’m not gonna nit-pick as much here bc he does show up again in later games w more backstory and character development as i’ve heard, but yeah he is very much a mystery character in aa4 i feel. he has basically no given history throughout the game, and the lack of detail made sense at first when you slowly started connecting the dots that he and the gramarye power were related, but then they never really shed any more light on him at the end. they really only reveal he and trucy are related just to explain why and how he has the power to perceive, not even to really indicate anything abt them as characters. i kinda forgot about this as i played the game, but i read a write-up by someone else being like “oh yeah phoenix you know his motivations as a defense attorney but apollo has basically none” and i was like yeah that’s right huh. bc the 1st trilogy reveals p early on that phoenix had a certain motivation to be a defense attorney but apollo you don’t get that, he’s just an attorney just to be an attorney i guess. which i mean is fine, you don’t always need a reason to do stuff sometimes, but it does make him a weaker character. i think maybe in the beginning they were like oh apollo respects kristoph as a lawyer but then they don’t really develop mpre backstory there like how they met or why kristoph decided to take him on. i thought the latter was gonna be a point that was gonna come up, like maybe kristoph took apollo on as part of his large masterplan or something bc i think kristoph does mention being aware of apollo’s “power” but yeah they didn’t delve further into that. anyway i’ll go less on this bc i’ll just assume they had plans for him to show up in later games therefore they didn’t fully flesh him out here. otherwise that means they just didn’t bother on him other than him having the perceive power and having a personal relation to the whole gramarye case

how did drew misham or vera idk who painted it know abt all of apollo’s 3 cases? i thought it was gonna be like oh phoenix or kristoph saw all this coming and somehow told misham abt it who drew it but uh that didn’t happen. was that bc drew misham was following phoenix in the news and saw the stuff happening w apollo and was inspired to draw his cases? that was a dramatic reveal when apollo/trucy/ema found it out but i mean i guess it was just to show that misham was connected to them/the overall story more than just a simple jurist sys test case

the last writing thing i’ll mention is abt trucy and apollo being siblings. after the whole phoenix x maya crap in the 1st trilogy i suspected they were gonna do the same with apollo and trucy... thankfully they didn’t which was good bc i liked them a lot as a platonic duo, also since i actually thought apollo was 25yo for a while so that age gap is pretty weird too if you do it romantically. i suspected they were actually related p early on after discussing my playthrough w my sis who upon googling info said ‘lol i did say why not ship them but i will not say that anymore’ so i was like lol it’s prob bc she found out they were related or something. regardless i mean i would have suspected that anyway bc the game pushes the ‘oh this perceive power is really only seen in trucy’s family line’ so hard so it’s like not that hard to draw the line bw them, esp when they’re super vague abt apollo’s history and how he even got that bracelet in the 1st place. anyway i think it’s cute to imagine two siblings running all over town to solve shit. as expected tho, there are still ppl out there who ship them even after knowing the truth which is meh but i mean what do you expect of fandom/the internet.

although one of my biggest disappointments is the fact that apparently even in later games, the two never find out they’re siblings. i mean i guess it’s not a major plot point that NEEDS to be addressed as covered in point #3 above, but come on? their mom is literally still alive? a mom and her children reuniting and developing their family relationship again? i mean she’s been so distanced from them for so long that a family reunion would be awkward sure but zak literally made phoenix promise to tell trucy apollo was her bro so i’m surprised he never told her even before his conversation with thalassa at the end of the game. like i thought for sure they were gonna reveal their sibling relationship in aa4 but sadly my imagined revelation scene never happened

(i literally thought up a funny scene too... them seeing thalassa and both being like “MOM??” at the same time and then looking at each other in confusion before thalassa confirms that yes she is both of their moms. although this makes less sense on apollo’s part since he prob wouldn’t remember what she looks like but i mean same bracelets)

otherwise, gameplay was pretty interesting this time around. music was bopping tbh, i played aa4 right after finishing trials and tribulations and wow the music quality improvement was so obvious. the perceive thing was pretty cool and their tutorial on how to use it was super cute lol (apollo: that’s cool but i’m freaking out a little here // trucy: yeah your eyes are kinda bugging out); although absolutely hilarious on how apollo "explained” it in court... imagine a lawyer looking real hard at you and then being like ‘actually you swallowed weird when you said this therefore you’re lying’... i cannot even imagine how that sounded the 1st time to the judge and klavier... anyway i also thought the MASON technologies chapter was really interesting, w phoenix going back and forth through time and using evidence from the future for the past and vice versa. fun time traveling stuff!

ok and that’s kind of all i wanted to say i guess. i’m prob gonna try to stay in the dark on fan content stuff like i was purposely doing before playing aa... i was looking some stuff up and i was like ‘huh... i didn’t get this impression of apollo or the apollo/klavier ship when i was playing aa4...’ i don’t want to get my own opinion of these characters warped by fan content/others’ opinions so i might just take a bit of time to solidify how i feel about/characterize each of the characters before i trek out into fandom land. also it’s prob bc i haven’t played apollo’s later games since he supposedly gets more character dev later. tbh idk if i will bc to be frank i’ve been using emulators to play aa so far and i don’t think there’s a rom out for the later aa games on 3ds. i mean if there really isn’t, i’ll prob just watch a playthrough on YT so i can continue the aa story since i did like apollo as a character despite his lack of backstory.

i was considering skipping edgeworth’s games to go right to dual destinies and continue on apollo’s story/the aftermath of that game, but tbh i’m less incentivized to since i’ve heard that the story/character continuity aspect kind of goes out the window in later games (also the point abt apollo and trucy still being in the dark abt them being siblings. even though yes it wouldn’t change how they interact w each other, i would also prefer the fact to be known officially in-universe so characters don’t be freaks as apparently there are some lines in later games that are a little weird). i mean i could end up having a different opinion abt the continuity, but yeah seeing those comments did put a damper on me diving straight towards dual destinies. so i might just play edgeworth’s games first as i originally planned anyway since they were developed right after even if they take place before aa4

#hopefully i don't have to censor the series #i don't say anything controversial in this but idk. sometimes ppl just want to have beef #i'll just say i've only played aa1-4 so just keep that in mind if i say something that doesn't sound right abt apollo #gaming

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beneaththetangles · 6 years

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Review: Tokyo Ghoul:re

When Tokyo Ghoul:re (TG:re) was confirmed, I was elated. Tokyo Ghoul was an anime I stumbled upon by chance somewhere in 2016. Something about the concept and particularly about Kaneki drew me quickly into the series. I binged the first two seasons and went immediately on Google, only to find a rumored but unconfirmed season three. Rumors turned into confirmation and then to a release date, and as you can imagine, by the first episode of season three I was on Funimation, popcorn at the ready. Although TG:re was ultimately not quite as good as I hoped, I’m nevertheless excited for part two in October.

**Some spoilers ahead – most will be within the first few episodes, or will be vague if from later episodes**

TG:re opens the season by introducing a new group of main characters, known as the Quinx squad. Quinx are the Commission of Counter Ghoul’s (CCG) newest weapon, half-human, half-ghoul hybrids. They are led by a mysterious Haise Sasaki. At first, we don’t know much about the Quinx members—why they want to fight ghouls, why they consented to being part of the Quinx experiment, etc. We are better introduced to some members in this portion of the season, and I suspect will learn more about the remaining members in part two.

And at first I was confused because Kaneki didn’t seem to be present in the series, despite being the star of the last two seasons; this confusion is resolved by a reveal at the end of episode one. Haise Sasaki is not a normal Quinx; he is, in fact, Ken Kaneki. Though the full circumstances of how he wound up as Haise are unclear, TG:re shows glimpses into how we got from Kaneki holding Hide in surrender to the CCG to Haise as leader of the Quinx squad, fighting the most dangerous ghouls as part of the CCG.

Looking at the season overall, I did have a few bones to pick with it. I initially felt—especially while watching it air weekly—that some episodes or mini-arcs didn’t flow together very well. For example, the first few episodes were introductory and then all of a sudden, we are thrust into a huge CCG mission to counter a large-scale ghoul auction. Once that portion is done, we are suddenly thrown into the pursuit of a high-rank ghoul who seemed unrelated for the most part. When following weekly, I’d occasionally pause and just double-check that I hadn’t missed an episode in the middle, as it felt a bit disjointed.

Additionally, this season reached some darker lows than even the torture scenes with Jason. This may have been an attempt to emphasize how dark things had become in the world at the time, but it had unsettling moments. One such moment was when a character became so distraught at his perceived failure, he ran into the woods and began smashing his head into a tree trunk repeatedly. Another few moments included some sexually suggestive and in a few cases more explicit moments, like a female ghoul known as “The Nutcracker” (she targets certain areas on male victims and dresses like a succubus), or when a male ghoul is being stabbed by his obsession (a character I suspect is in fact female) and eggs them on, asking, “Are we connecting right now?” and begging them to continue “connecting” with him. That scene in particular is very disturbing due to how it’s played out—it’s both graphic and highly suggestive.

Those qualms aside, there were still many aspects of the show which were well done. One thing I have always loved about Tokyo Ghoul and that TG:re pulled off just as well as past seasons was character growth. There are very few “flat” characters in Tokyo Ghoul; each one seems to change in some way, for better or worse. TG:re showed us, as noted above, the struggle Haise faces as he fights against himself—is he Haise, Kaneki, or both? Which part of himself should control him? Is he on the side of ghouls, humans, both, neither? As Haise begins to discover parts of his past as Kaneki and encounters those that Kaneki used to know, he finds himself forced to face a past he’s not sure he wants to learn. Starting from an encounter with Touka, following through to a meeting with Uta, and later meeting again with Tsukiyama and The Owl, he continues to seek to understand both sides of himself.

In typical Tokyo Ghoul fashion, though, Kaneki isn’t the only character who shows development. Hinami reappears not as a timid child, but a force to be reckoned with. Juuzou Suzuya is brought back to try and redeem his past. Urie, member of the Quinx squad, tackles his stifling pride. Shirazu (Quinx squad) struggles with his first ghoul kill. Takizawa descends a dark path from CCG investigator to quinx-type owl, bent on killing. Ayato from Aogiri Tree, on the other hand, seems to show signs of a change in heart from his past ways. These are just a few of the characters who we see growing and changing.

Finally, I will note that the fight scenes of the show are also very well done. It’s always cool to be introduced to new forms of quinque and kagune as different investigators and ghouls enter the fray. TG:re introduces kagune that send out missiles and can detach and be left hidden in walls or floors. We see investigators wielding quinque that are essentially chainsaws. Watching the fast-paced action of these fights and the new challenges brought on by new people on both sides always keeps things interesting.

In a nutshell, I was happy with this season, but I think how it concludes in part two will sway my opinion a lot. I also believe that I will appreciate the anime that much more when I am caught up on the manga. This may help tie up some loose ends and fill in some blanks I feel the anime didn’t address. This is certainly not a show for people who are bothered easily by blood and gore. There’s not much as far as swearing goes, and sexual content only extends as far as what was mentioned above. The themes can be very dark at times, from abusive pasts to mentally disturbed lines of thinking, but these themes are presented in a way that makes them authentic and often draws a clear line between the good and the bad, or at least poses some very good questions to ponder on the grey areas.

#Anime #Reviews #Tokyo Ghoul #Tokyo Ghoul:re #Articles

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erhiem · 3 years

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“It’s the 21st century – shouldn’t it be Gossip Woman?” The first episode of HBO Max’s new Take On has a comment made about the titular dealer-out of secrets gossip Girl, dropping one episode in the week starting today. This comment is made by a character who was actually born in the 21st century, but had a similar origin gossip Girl, and it’s the kind of detail that isn’t worth dwelling on for too long while watching this show, lest the madness kicks in.

recreated by Joshua Safrani (who was ultimately the executive producer of the original series), Gossip Girl: The New Class takes place in the same universe as OG, but in a post-vaccine New York City (presumably, fall 2021, though virtually all teen dramas, one way or another, function in a somewhat timeless void) . Kids are young, sexier and faster on social media; if Gossip Girl: Lost in New York If anything, this is a primer on the terminology “today’s kids” are using on the ‘gram.

As other outlets—not to mention the first episode—turned out, the identity of Gossip Girl isn’t a secret in this iteration (and if fans of the original series are curious, it is. No Dan Humphrey, that makes sense pen badley is currently busy being the source of a far more scandalous scam). However, the legacy of the original is more than respected here; While technology has been upgraded from blogging to Instagram, the tone is, once again, embodied by eccentricity. kristen bellThe voice-over of the song remains consistent.

The half-sisters are officially at the center of the story. Jordan Alexander and Whitney Peak – Julian, the elder, being a well-established influencer and model who initially takes the fresh new Zoya under his wing, though there is clear tension between them for reasons both surprising and surprising. The supporting cast of high school students is enough to avoid any accusations of tokenism when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation, with a lot of drama going on in the complex triangles (and potentially quadrilaterals and more) that come about when you’re young and There are furry and fluid AF. .

Changes made to keep the series as fresh as… well, I don’t know what the kids call fresh these days, but gossip girl with a vengeance Definitely feels like it belongs in the moment. However, the original gossip Girl Just hit the zeitgeist when it thirsted for the audacity of a new crop of teens who act much older than themselves, and it could be argued that right now, we have absolutely no shortage of similar material. In fact, I had a real moment launching the first episode today on HBO Max (so I could rewatch with subtitles for the sake of my aged and old ears), and being hit with a pre-roll ad. was generation. Another HBO Max Original, generation premiered only four months ago, while the HBO original series excitement A second season is currently in production, which will conclude by the end of the year. In short, there aren’t exactly new teen dramas available within the WarnerMedia family, and while each series certainly has its own unique spin on the subject matter, it certainly doesn’t seem to be reducing audiences here.

RELATED: New ‘Gossip Girl’ trailer teases an edgier, sexier reboot on HBO Max

This raises the question of who is the audience for these shows, especially Gossip Girl 2.0, which feels more aware than ever looking outside. I’m sure a lot of young people watch these shows too (when not making TikTok and advocating for climate change reform), but to speak from my own experience, when I was a teenager, I watched a lot of TV focused on teens. Don’t Look (Unless You Count Jake Cisco Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and you might not). But, again, I was hardly at risk of attending any wild house parties (perhaps see the previous parenthesis for an explanation) and didn’t particularly have the shows to remind me of what I was missing.

As an adult, I have consumed and enjoyed those shows far more than they are – escapism. As a critic who hasn’t yet discovered its ability to stop aging, it’s something I’ve become more and more aware of with each passing year, increasingly taking teen dramas into a unique universe. Looking in as a window I know very little about, which is why I watch shows about Mexican drug cartels and space stations.

what makes Gossip Girl: The Next Generation What stands out in this regard is that, without saying much about it for fear of spoilers, that approach—the curious onlooker, tries to understand the rites and rituals of wealthy teenager-hood as much as they are foreign and strange. Maybe – well shown in the show. Even so, at times, to the exclusion of stories about real teenagers at the center of the narrative.

This raises the question as to whom, exactly, Gossip Girl: The Teachers Strike Back That is, a question to which I do not necessarily have an answer. But I do know that I watched and enjoyed all four episodes provided to critics in advance, especially for the wildly vague references, by name-dropping. gasper noe For Extended Cameo by Tony-Nominated Playwright Jeremy O. harrisso — though, in fairness, I should say that these are the kind of references that feel appropriate for New York’s ultra-cultivated affluent teens.

It is worth noting that this type of buy-in Gossip Girl and Chamber of Secrets Questions from its audience include avoiding any questions about the age of consent, especially the fact that one of the main characters is 14 years old at the beginning of the season. This show has some borderline inappropriate to flat-out illegal stuff! And if you’re watching it with no idea what will actually happen, it can be very frustrating!

That being said, some addiction lurks here, and while that’s fine you can get elsewhere, Gossip Girl takes over Manhattan For the most part it knows what it’s doing and feels good doing it, creating a sense of something aspirational and completely unattainable. Whether its issues with balance emerge by the time the season ends remains to be seen, but it doesn’t have that undeniable magnetic quality.

. new episodes of Gossip Girl: Here We Go Again Premieres Thursday on HBO Max.

Keep reading: ‘Gossip Girl’s most ruined romances, ranked’

The post Gossip Girl on HBO Max Review: An Enjoyable But Non-Essential Revival appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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