Have you ever been so inspired to make something, but lack the technical skill to make it, or for some reason or another have no way to externally express this like pent up need to make SOMETHING, and it feels like a gazillion thoughts running through your head and you get so restlessly frustrated because you NEED to make something, but for some reason or another, be it personal or technical, you just can’t? And then you end up giving yourself an anxiety attack and heart palpitations and it feels like you’re going to explode?

State of the Blog 8.1.2022

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

The good news is that after months of feeling burned out and uninspired, I finally feel like posting and writing again.

The bad(?) news is that it probably won’t be much about either Magia Record or When They Cry.

That’s right, it’s time for this blog to take another sudden and random swerve in direction! But first, consider this post a farewell and postmortem to my feelings on the aforementioned fandoms, and an update on what to look forward to from this space in the near future.

tl;dr: friendship ended with MagiReco and WTC. now The Locked Tomb is my best friend. This is your warning to follow/unfollow accordingly!

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As is probably evident from my half-year+ disappearance, I’m extremely not in the mood to engage with When They Cry stuff. Last year’s new mangas taking any queer SatoRika interpretations out back and shooting them dead (ow, right in the headcanon!) was the end. And that turned out to be the final nail in what was already a well-built coffin.

After the disappointment and frustrations of Higurashi SotsuGou being capped off with my worst queerbaiting fears coming true, I just… I just couldn’t any more. I saw the rest of the fandom engaging with the new material, and I wanted no part in it. I realized that thinking about WTC was making me miserable, and I have so many better things to do than rain on other people’s parades. Seriously, if you’re still enjoying the fandom, more power to you! But I don’t see myself coming back for a long, long time. If ever.

Without love, it cannot be seen. And I no longer have that love, so there is no point in my looking.

My only regret is not finishing my fic, Cat Got Her Tongue. I was quite close to finishing Chapter 7, and I might still try to do that one day. I also still have the very extensive plot outline, which I might polish up and post here at some point, just for the sake of closure.

But as much as it sucks to say it: consider CGHT officially abandoned.

I’m also not particularly enthused to post about MagiReco either, sorry. I eventually did watch the last four episodes of the anime, and I’ve put up my thoughts on them in this post. But while the anime sure was Something, that something wasn’t enough to grab me back. I’ve even stopped playing the game itself. My feelings on MagiReco aren’t quite as bitter as Higurashi, but, well, I’d already been disappointed in it for a very long while. Now I’ve finally run out of patience and impossible hopes.

So what will this tumblr be moving forward?

Well... few months ago, my procrastination and avoidance of anything WTC or MagiReco-related morphed into aimless wandering through an assortment of many different things - cosplaying Rozen Maiden in FFXIV, playing lots of Touhou-inspired D&D, and catching up on a few books with Actual Queer Characters that I’d had recommended to me - wondering if perhaps something might stand out and plant the seeds of a new obsession.

As it turned out, The Locked Tomb series struck just the right nerve! The whole “lesbian necromancers in space” tagline already had my Attention, but somehow no one had told me they were also mystery/psychological thriller novels! Like hi, hello, yes, that is precisely my jam.

I hope you all like the disaster lesbians as much as I do, because I will not be shutting up about them any time soon.

So yeah, to reiterate: this blog will be shifting gears again, and if you’re only here for WTC and/or MagiReco analysis, this is your warning to unfollow.

And you choose to stick around, prepare for skeletons!

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Now, the existing TLT books technically came out two years ago, but as everyone knows, time is an illusion during the pandemic and therefore doesn’t count. As such, I’ve decided to dig through the entire Locked Tomb tags on both AO3 and tumblr in chronological order, a thing that is both reasonable to want and possible to achieve.

In fact, I was initially planning to finish all of that before posting any of my own analysis or fics (because I do so hate the feeling of failing to do my fandom homework), but at my current progress rate, it will be months and months before I’m fully caught up. And Nona the Ninth is coming out in September, oh my!

So, for the time being, I’ll still be fairly quiet while in the process of devouring and incorporating a new fandom into my brain, and I probably won’t have much to say about all the Nona spoilers and hype while they’re relevant. 

But I won’t be completely on hiatus either. I’ll be putting up giant reblog queues occasionally, and maybe sprinkling in some of my own posts that I feel most confident about. I apologize in advance if they’re things that have been discussed before! As far my adventures in time travel are concerned, I’m living in December 2020 right now~

Is it possible to get some more Luka Charm, or Tikki brand boyfriend content? Found your blog today and binge read all of it.❤

kjnfdkjgf THANK YOU

And sure, you can get some more content! Since I just posted some Tikki-brand Boyfriend, I’ll give you some Luka Charm instead~

~~~~~

Anxiety was a spiral, but not a bottomless one. It both charged Marinette with energy and wore her out at the same time. When she was anxious, all other thoughts had to wait. All other feelings had to wait.

She’d neglect her needs, forgetting about food or sleep until the task was officially over. It was what made Ladybug even more stressful than it already was; anxiety led to mistakes, and there was no room for mistakes.

Now though, she’d hit the bottom of that spiral, where anxiety went to die out in a swift fizzle. It was a hard, hollow feeling that she didn’t like, nor cared to feel again.

But, at least with that landing, Marinette could officially say that she was tired.

As she sat in class, she completely ignored the world around her. Honestly, it wasn’t intentional, but it’d become a habit.

After all, when everything was Lila this, Lila that, conversation became very boring. Plus, she had a fashion piece to work on, so she had little time for her thoughts to be elsewhere.

Clara had requested a special jacket from her after hearing good things from Jagged Stone. Marinette didn’t mind the attention - certainly not, given how focused on Lila her classmates had been lately - but after she’d already hit rock bottom?

Yeah, no. Her inspiration was at an all-time low.

Class came and went, with Marinette mindlessly scribbling down notes the whole way through. She was half-sure that Alya had asked a question at some point, but by the time it registered with her, it was way too late.

She’d sat alone at the lunch table that day. Part of her suspected that Alya was mad over whatever question had gone unanswered, whereas the other part cruelly reminded her that the only reason Alya and Nino had sat down with her at lunch after the temporary seat switch was because she was trying to warn them about Lila.

She tried not to think about it, instead daydreaming about Clara in a Marinette-brand jacket.

Unfortunately, it was either too simple, too complex, or a bizarre mix of the two whenever she tried.

Sighing to herself, she went to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, lamenting how cruel it was that her anxiety had died only to be replaced with an uninspired mind.

As the lock of hair had almost slipped behind her ear, her fingers brushed her earring. She stopped in place, her hand awkwardly hovering beside her ear before she lowered it back to the table, the lock of hair falling back into its original place.

Luka. That was what he’d titled himself as. The name brought a faint smile to her face for the first time that day.

She didn’t particularly understand Lucky Charm or the intricacies of it, at least in this scenario, and she wasn’t eager to talk to Tikki about it, considering—

…Well, the Lucky Charm had to create someone for her to talk to for a reason.

She hummed, thinking back to him again; the soft voice, the thoughtful eyes, and the warmth against her face right before he disappeared.

He was sweet. It was hard to know much about him in the five-minute timeframe they spent together, but she could say for certain that he was a sweetheart. His words from before were still ringing in her head.

“I’ll be here whenever you need me.”

As she stroked an earring fondly, reminiscing about the moment, it was like it was responding in kind with a gentle warmth.

He’d said it with such conviction, like he really meant it, and she wanted him to mean it.

She wanted to see him again.

But, for now at least, she knew she’d have to make progress on Clara’s jacket.

~~~~~

“…I give up,” Marinette said tiredly, pushing away from her table. Her chair creaked as it rolled away, Marinette laying back on it like she was about to fall asleep.

“I’m sure you’ll get it!” Tikki encouraged. “You just have to keep trying!”

Marinette’s frowned. She didn’t like the implied guarantee that she was going to get this right, especially when her mind was blank and she honestly didn’t believe in her ability to come up with a good design right now.

Naturally, none of this was helped by the fact that she was still so tired.

She took a deep breath, then pushed herself out of her chair. “I’m going out for inspiration.”

She immediately headed for her staircase. Before Tikki could even reply to her, she called out, “Tikki, transform me!”

The instant the light washed over her, Marinette was up on the balcony and swinging out into the night.

Okay, maybe “inspiration” was an analogy for “the boy that her yoyo made,” but still, it was nonetheless important. Not only that, but it wasn’t impossible that having a different perspective of Paris might actually give her inspiration, so she hadn’t lied.

Ladybug jumped from rooftop to rooftop, carefully keeping an eye out just in case Chat Noir decided to show up early. Even if he did, she knew the usual path they took during patrol and was careful to avoid it.

Five minutes. She’d only need five minutes.

Or, well, she’d only have five minutes.

Landing on a flat rooftop (she was not going to make the same mistake as before), Ladybug took a good look around to ensure that she was completely alone.

Paris was so quiet today. That was good. It would let her clear her head.

She reached for her yoyo, hesitated, then slowly took it off and stared at it. She brushed along the surface with a thumb, recalling exactly what had happened last night.

She’d always seen Lucky Charm as fickle. It gave her what she needed, not what she wanted. One couldn’t just ask the yoyo for something specific, because it didn’t work that way.

She brought the yoyo to her lips in silent hope. Sure, maybe she wouldn’t burst into flames if she didn’t see Luka again, but she still wanted to see him.

And her stress wasn’t getting any better without him.

Breathing up, Ladybug threw her yoyo in the air. “Lucky Charm!”

Please.

It almost felt like the light took slower than usual, just to taunt her. She waited with bated breath, watching the yoyo’s light take shape.

Her eyes lit up at the familiar form, and then the familiar colors that followed. She held her arms out, a familiar weight landing in them.

“Luka,” she greeted, voice soft.

He gave her a smile, but there was a sadness there, likely in knowing that he was needed again. “Hi.”

She shifted, letting Luka down. “I was worried. I’ve never gotten the same Lucky Charm before, and definitely not when I was hoping for it.”

The sadness in his smile lessened. “You have a little more choice when things are like this.”

She didn’t ask if it was because there was no akuma or because of her current mood.

She was afraid to know.

She glanced at him, looking him up and down as she chewed at her bottom lip. “Um…”

He stared back at her, patiently.

She grinned sheepishly. “Is that hug still available?”

He gave her a fond look in response. He walked towards her, standing to her side, then sat down on the rooftops and held his arms out, welcoming her.

Her heart melted on the spot. She sat down next to him, then slowly eased herself closer before throwing herself at him. His arms wrapped around her and she slowly threw her legs over his, allowing him to pull her onto his lap.

She hummed in content, now able to confirm that he was indeed comfortable and soft.

Luka slid one hand along her back, running it up and down in a soothing motion before telling her, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

She frowned, pressing her face into his chest. She knew he wouldn’t judge her if she indeed decided not to say anything, but…

There was also something safe, knowing that he was completely detached from everything in her life.

“I have a fashion piece that I’m making for a famous musician, but I’ve got nothing,” she admitted. “Tikki says that she’s sure I can get it if I just keep trying, but–” She sighed. “I’m tired.”

She didn’t particularly expect a response out of him. The hug was more than enough, especially with the way he was running his hand along her back.

He spoke anyway. “I think it would still be impressive even if you didn’t get it.”

She blinked, glancing up at his face. “What? Why?”

“You’re already amazing, Ladybug,” he replied with a fond smile. “Everything you’ve done is more than enough for one person.”

She blushed, hiding her face into him so as to not show how flustered he was making her.

“Sorry,” he said in a tone that wasn’t at all apologetic. “I can still sense how you feel as long as I’m here.”

She straightened, pulling away to look at him. At first, she thought she’d fallen into his trap, as if he’d lied to her just to get her to show him her blush, but his expression was very genuine and he didn’t laugh at her.

There was maybe a bit of amusement though.

She looked away from him, then shifted for comfort. Luka spread his legs, allowing her to sit between them on the rooftop. He backed away just slightly so she could lay back against his chest.

Her head pressed against his chest, her hands resting comfortably on his legs.

“Is that okay?” she asked. “Being able to sense how I’m feeling? It must be a lot.”

He shrugged, unbothered. “It can’t be any worse than feeling it all the time.”

She glanced up at him, giving him an abashed look of ‘point taken.’

Now that she wasn’t as stressed as the last time she’d seen him, she could really take in his appearance. He might’ve sensed that too, meeting her gaze as she studied the vibrancy of his blue eyes.

Blue was an okay color, she mused. She preferred pink herself, but blue wasn’t bad.

Though, he actually made it look really good, the blue highlights of his hair even making the black of his eyebrows stand out. It was a good choice, to be honest; she had no idea that Lucky Charm could appeal to her nature that way.

Without thinking, her hand drifted upwards, her fingers lightly tousling the front of his hair. Luka glanced at her fingers, eyebrows raised in curiosity, then looked back down at her.

It took her another second to realize what she was doing. “Ah–”

She brought her hand back down, blushing and mentally scolding herself. Just because he was made for her didn’t mean she had the right to touch him without permission, after all.

“S-sorry,” she said softly. “I was just… wondering how your highlights felt.”

He blinked at her, seeming confused that she was apologetic at all, then smiled. He raised a hand, and Ladybug felt his fingers briefly running through her hair, essentially making them even.

She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling, but then Luka pulled away out of nowhere. Her eyes snapped open, looking up at him with concern.

His hand was awkwardly hovering in the air, and he was staring at her in a way that seemed to imply that he was surprised he’d touched her.

Hm. Mysterious.

“Why’d you stop?” she asked gently, giving him a smile.

He paused, thoughtful. He looked to his hand, then back to her, then slowly lowered his hand back down to her head. As his fingers ran through her hair again, she let out a content hum.

“Thank you, Luka.”

Though she’d closed her eyes, she could hear the smile in his voice.

“You’re welcome, Ladybug.”

~~~~~

Marinette dropped down onto her bed, looking briefly back at her balcony where Luka had disappeared once again. Their forced farewells were easily her least favorite thing about their meetings, but she couldn’t complain otherwise.

Tikki flew up to her, offering a smile. “So? How was it?”

Marinette opened her mouth to respond, but shut it when she remembered that she hadn’t told Tikki about Luka at all. She’d considered it when Tikki had found her crying the last time, but decided against it.

Something about it just didn’t feel right, and there was maybe a bit of a thrill in having a secret that not even Tikki knew about. Plus, she didn’t know enough about Luka’s creation to know if it was important that Tikki knew, especially not if he appeared again when she wanted him to.

So, put bluntly, it wasn’t something she was interested in doing.

Marinette descended the staircase, turning halfway towards her table before her eyes fell upon her abandoned jacket sketches. It had only just occurred to her that her quest for inspiration had turned into a hair petting fest with Luka. She’d originally hoped that maybe the view of the sky from the rooftops would give her ideas for a galaxy-themed jacket, but the only image in her head was Luka staring down at her with a smile, along with his black-and-blue hair being slightly ruffled from her touch.

…Actually…

Marinette straightened, dashing over to her table and sitting in her chair so fast that it did a full rotation. She pulled herself up to the table itself, then grabbed her pencil and began to draw.

A black and blue jacket; that wasn’t a bad idea at all. Maybe with a bit of white to match Clara’s usual attire… and the blue and black already went well with the pattern of her pants and the trim of her shirt.

That might actually work. It might really work.

“Ooo.” Tikki floated nearby, eyeing the sketch with approval. “I like it! What gave you the inspiration?”

Marinette paused, pencil freezing in place as she glanced briefly at Tikki. She considered her response, then smiled and simply went right back to sketching.

“…A friend.”

FRANKFURT UPDATE / DISORGANIZED RANT ABOUT TRUTH AND ART AND FASSBINDER

by Camille Clair

I spent the strict quarantine following my arrival in Frankfurt studying German in the mornings, and watching Fassbinder in the evenings. The time between morning and evening was spent...nervously. 

I watched so many Fassbinder films during my quarantine that I began to feel his cabinet of actors were my companions (quarpanions). We were all crying and grinning and swallowing our pills together. 

I am one of those people that believes that pain/discomfort/anxiety is necessary, important, a catalyst. That is one of the reasons I left, have left in the past, will leave again. Sometimes the next best life move involves ripping your heart out! Sometimes it isn’t quite so abrupt, and your heart will sizzle in the pan for months. You may even grow to cherish the sensation because it means you are working toward something. You may recognize your true self in that pain. And in that truth, your mission, which may, or may not be, your art. 

I do believe that, as an artist, you have to be a bit of a masochist. Your life is sustained via chopping yourself into bits, and, if you’re lucky, stowing those bits in the pockets of the wealthy, the devious. And though you may consider yourself an orthodox Marxist, this seems to be the only way to keep the axe swinging. I would never say aloud that I believe suffering produces great art, but I also must admit I understand the desire to drag oneself across shards of glass a la Chris Burden in Through The Night Softly. I relate to the impulse to bear it all. I want to be torn apart! For art. 

I don’t always want this, but fresh out of my Frankfurt quarantine - following a confounding summer in Los Angeles - I want this. I really, truly want to exhaust myself. 

Though Fassbinder himself may have been a bit amoral, he was, at the same time, so undeniably invested in all that is human. Many of Fassbinder’s characters seem to cave inward, unable to stand erect under the weight of the social, the political, the bureaucratic: the simultaneity, and responsibility of it all. Fassbinder’s characters give into their truth, or they parish. No time is wasted on the performance of goodness, because salvation was never in their cards to begin with. 

What I desire and revere most in art is truth. I want my “self” and my “art” to be inseparable, the same. I want my body to vanish in the company of my art. I don’t really want to exist. I repeat variations of a line from Reena Spaulings in my head all day long: Where does my (boyish, jaunty, smooth, freckle-dusted, foxy, stiff, screen-like) body end and a real event begin, for once? I do a little dance in the mirror. I have never been this alone. Some days I feel stiff with sorrow, so I remind myself that I am a character, and the director expects a performance, and then I stretch. 

Walking home in the rain, I envision Margit Carstensen waiting for me in my flat. I am her aloof lover. Or she is mine. I’ll fall through the door with a sigh, she’ll pour me a little glass of schnapps, and we’ll heartfully console one another. I sometimes play The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), which starts Carstensen, in the background while I go about my tasks. I speak my favorite of Petra’s lines back to her as part of my daily Deutsche practice. Maybe by Spring, I’ll have the entirety of her central monologue memorized. I love to fantasize about the spring, it’s become one of my favorite pastimes. It is possible to imagine nearly anything happening in the spring because real life has become so severely abstracted. 

I lament…

What is real? Now? And in hindsight, what was ever real? Is it, or was it, ever recognizable or is it just whatever you put into your head on a given day? I scroll through Contemporary Art Daily on acid and feel confused about what it is I am supposed to want. My eyes linger on words that used to resonate, and it stirs some sort of longing. I want it to be physical, I want to get dirty and injured in the process. I want to be so involved it’s disgusting. But for now, nearly everything I want is impossible. Maybe it's a symptom of the current situation, but I want to be overinvolved. I generally find most performance excruciating, but now I feel I would do anything for an audience. I desire an audience. 

I envy Fassbinder’s overinvolvement. In Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), a film about making a film, Fassbinder seems to play himself. He doesn’t play the director, he plays Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Often fussing around or yelling in the background, it’s unclear exactly what his role is in the production, but as a viewer one is intensely aware of him at all times. Upon first watch, I felt envious. I want to be present in that way, shrieking for the sake of, and within, my art. The ringleader, and also, the eager participant. In the opening scene of Germany in Autumn (1978), Fassbinder, dials a call, and says “Ich bin es Fassbinder” into the receiver. We know of course, who the man on the screen is, though we aren’t immediately sure who we are meant to recognize him as. 

In a 1997 eulogy for ArtForum, Gary Indiana writes, “what can you say about a fat, ugly sadomasochist who terrorized everyone around him, drove his lovers to suicide, drank two bottles of Rémy daily, popped innumerable pills while stuffing himself like a pig and died from an overdose at 37? [Fassbinder was]  a faithful mirror of an uglier world that has grown uglier since his death”. Fassbinder knew truth, and truth is as beautiful and precious, as it is vile. 

My sister, who is 17 and only just got drunk for the first time last week, told me she could never watch The Shining (1980)  knowing how much Shelly Duval was tormented in the making of it. I felt I couldn’t argue with her but I also wanted to argue with her. “So you will never watch what is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time?” 

“No,” she said. 

“Okay,” I said. 

Perhaps we are reaching an age in which you really cannot separate the art from the artist. Maybe it’s never actually been possible. But then again, there are so many things that seem to be art by mistake, and so many artists who die without recognition.

In the eulogy, Indiana goes on to say, “there is nothing you can say about Fassbinder that he hasn’t already said about himself”. This line again brings to mind Fassbinder in Beware of a Holy Whore, berating everyone in the vicinity, utterly repulsed by a multitude of things never made explicitly clear. Fassbinder lying dead in the train station after an overdose in Fox and his Friends (1975). Fassbinder lying dead, with a cigarette between his lips and notes for an upcoming film lying next to him, from an actual overdose. A parallel that reveals art is just as intertwined with death, as it is with life.

I realized this year that many of the artists I respect care a great deal about film, about drama. I have found solace in films, because I am alone nearly all of the time, and I don't know when I will see any of my cherished ones again. I am living vicariously through characters, beginning to think of myself as a character, which is admittedly therapeutic. I am the director. And I chose myself from a lineup of nervous red haired girls. I recognised myself at once, and thus, here I am. 

Some artists, or people!, are overly concerned with their own narrative. It can be irritating, indulgent, abject, but it’s convenient, and it may save your life. Though you’re never really alone you may feel really alone. Allein. Alleine... Sometimes there is nowhere to turn but toward yourself. And, once you begin to think of yourself as a character, you no longer bear the full responsibility of your being. You have been put in place to carry out the artistic vision. So, in a sense, all characters are artists, just as they are products of art. It’s reflexive, and Frankensteinian, in that way. 

Maybe as an experiment, try referring to your dismal flat as “the set”. 

Are you at home? 

I’m on set. 

Complain aloud, but to no one, about the uninspired refreshments. 

Stare longingly at everything. 

There is a misanthropic edge to many of Fassbinder’s films. A bleakness. It is often said that his work is about the fascism at play in interpersonal relationships. The fascism that blooms in all of our hearts.There are instances across Fassbinder’s filmography of, not only an awareness, but a patience, for all that is despicable. Human beings are weak, impressionable, they want to be liked but if it doesn’t work out, they’ll settle for being hated or feared. Often, Fassbinder will have a character do or say something that completely skews, if not, obliterates your previous impression of them. For example, in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Emmi who is, up until this point, mostly redeemable, chooses Hitler’s favorite restaurant to celebrate her and Ali’s wedding, stating upon entry that she has “always wanted to go”.  In the scene that follows, she mispronounces the names of menu items, the server scoffs, and one can't help but feel a bit bad for her. Is her desire to eat at Hitler’s favorite spot purely aspirational, a misguided highbrow charade? Or is she a sympathetic fascist? This is another fault of the character, any character, their world view is often contrived, never holistic. 

Fassbinder is the Postwar German filmmaker - generally considered the “catalyst of the New German Cinema movement”. In his films, World War II is often alluded to / background / partial context / a shadow, but it is never the subject, or the main event. A character’s idiosyncrasies, or disturbances, could be attributed to the wartimes, but often, their faults seem too deeply intertwined with their truths. But of course they’ve always had a tremor, a temper. Many of Fassbinder’s characters have a hard edge, or have suffered immense loss. They are either in, or narrowly escaping, crisis. 

In Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), Franz Bieberkopf, a rampant dilettante, oscillates between political affiliations. When we first meet Bieberkopf, fresh out of prison, he is a bit of an anarchist, sympathizing with soldiers and workers above all. As the series progresses, Bieberkopf is revealed to be immensely impressionable, confused, vindictive. He exhibits symptoms of several political philosophies, albeit meekly. Bieberkopf even briefly wears a Nazi armband, which, when questioned about, he is unable to defend, and from thereon, is never seen wearing it again. Franz Bieberkopf is similar to Tony Soprano in that way. Selfish, gruff, deeply flawed, indubitably human. Tony Soprano bites into a meatball sub and sauce dribbles onto his shirt and you forget, momentarily, that he's a bigot, because he’s the protagonist. And it is the job of the protagonist to represent a spectrum of human strength, and fallibility. It is arguably better, or more redeemable, to be overtly, rather than covertly, self-serving because then at least one is operating in defense of their own truth.

Truth is constructed daily and could easily be mistaken for anything but. Truth is nearly impossible to represent, and harder still to recognize. Truth is a fallacy, and thus, very lonely. Still, it must be guarded, I have been listening to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as I walk around Frankfurt which, in all honesty, fertilizes the melodrama blooming in my heart. Werther is bitterly alone, consoling himself via drawn out descriptions of his loneliness. “I am proud of my heart alone”, he says, “it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”. 

I am alone in Frankfurt, but I have my heart.  

Thoughts on Chinese to English translations and MDZS

I’ve been thinking recently about how Chinese and English differ and how that can affect the translation of media like MDZS, so I thought I’d collect those thoughts into a post with some resources if people are interested in further reading.

I saw a post the other day that brought up how useful it can be to recognize and accept tropes of a new genre, especially one aimed at an audience that speaks another language. One example given was the frequency with which characters will cough up blood in wuxia or xiaxia novels, which is based in the idea that blood can become “stale” or “bad” and needs to be expelled to bring relief. Other such tropes might include the idea of a golden core (based in Taoist alchemy and the search for immortality), etc. Some useful sources for those that I’ve found include:

Immortal Mountain – General resources, idioms, essays, and a common phrases and terms of address list (may have some overlap with Wuxia World, not sure about the relationship there)

Reference for Modao Zushi Writers: Chinese terms - on AO3, extremely useful

On a more language-based front, here are three things that I think are important to keep in mind when reading a Chinese work in translation, just based on my own extremely limited knowledge:

1. In Chinese storytelling it’s an established practice to reference idioms, poetry, folklore and historic events as a sort of shorthand for evoking the proper tone. Chinese writing tends to be extremely allusive, and much more understated than what we’re used to in English-language storytelling. We can see hints of this in some of the MDZS translator notes, and it’s likely that this difference feeds into a lot of dissatisfaction with the translation. Either the allusions are not translated in a way that adds meaning for an English-speaking reader, or the standards for detail are different. Indirectness and subtly are huge parts of Chinese literature, and so different words or scenes will have very different connotations for Chinese vs. English speaking audiences. And this isn’t even touching on the use of rhyme and rhythm in Chinese writing, which are all but impossible to translate a lot of the time, or the often extremely different approaches to “style” and “genre” between the languages (an interesting article on comparative literature is here at the University of Connecticut website). Given this knowledge, it’s entirely possible that, for example, the smut scenes of MDZS are more effective in Chinese than in the English translation. In fact, I find it difficult to believe it would be popular enough to get multiple adaptations and a professional publishing run if they weren’t. In translation, smut is a lot like humor: every culture approaches it a little differently. Unless a translator is familiar with both writing traditions and the relevant genres (or they have editors or sensitivity readers who can offer advice), something is going to get lost in the process. And sometimes that something is what at least one of the involved cultures would consider to be the most important part. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

2. Chinese grammar is slightly different from English grammar (I’m focusing on Mandarin as the common written language. A very basic rundown of major differences is available here). Verb tenses and concepts of time work differently. Emphasis is marked differently – in English we tend to put the most importance on the start of a sentence, while in Chinese it’s often at the end. Sentences are also often shorter in Chinese than in English, and English tends to get more specific in our longer sentences. From what I understand, it’s also a little more acceptable to just drop subjects out of a sentence, and that is more likely to happen if someone is attempting to be succinct. I’ve been told that it’s especially common in contentious situations, as part of an effort to distill objections or arguments down to an essential meaning (if I’m wrong about this or there’s more nuance to it, I’m happy to learn more). As one example of how this affects translation, let’s take that and look at Lan Wangji’s dialogue. I’m willing to bet that most of his words are direct translations, or as direct as the translator could manage. But his words don’t work the same way in English that they do in Chinese. If you continuously drop subjects and articles (which Chinese doesn’t have) out of a character’s speech in English, they start to sound like they have issues articulating themselves, and I see that idea reflected in fic a lot. The idea that Lan Wangji just isn’t comfortable talking or can’t say the words he means is all over the place, but I don’t think the audience was intended to take away the idea that Lan Wangji speaks quite as stiltedly as he comes off in the English translation. He’s terse, yes. But I at least got the impression that it’s more about choosing when and how to speak for the best effectiveness than anything else, because so many of his actual observations are quite insightful and pointed, or fit just fine syntactically within the conversation he’s part of. This isn’t a judgement on anyone’s headcanons or how they want to write LWJ (I very much enjoyed a lot of those fics!), it’s just an observation about languages and translation.

3. Chinese is both more metaphorical and more concrete than English in some ways. In English we use a lot of abstract words to represent complex ideas, and you just have to learn what they mean. In Chinese, the overlap of language and philosophy in the culture results in four-character phrases of what English would generally call idioms. Some examples I found: “perfect harmony” (水乳交融) can be literally translated as “mixing well like milk and water” and “eagerly” (如饥似渴) is read as “like hunger and thirst.” If these set phrases are translated to single word concepts in English, we can lose the entire tone of a sentence and it’ll feel much more flat and... basic, or uninspired. The English reader will be left wondering where the detailed descriptive phrase is that adds emotion and connotation to a sentence, when in the actual Chinese those things were already implied. I know that I frequently came away from the MDZS translation wondering at how bare bones it was, and my theory is that this might be one of the contributing factors.

I think that keeping these things in mind, and learning more about Chinese culture and literature, can be really useful in making sure we as readers can enjoy and get meaning out of works like MDZS in translation, even as we go on to create our own fanworks in English. If anyone has further thoughts or resources to add, I’d love to see them!

My Big Damn Irina Derevko Post

(Note: Spoilers for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and The Americans ahead. And for Alias, obviously.)

I’ve never understood why Irina Derevko is so beloved.

No, scratch that. I do understand why she’s beloved. What I don’t understand is the belief that the character on-screen actually had anything but the most superficial likeness to the character than exists in the better-than-the-actual-show fandom headcanons.  Like, season 2 is overwhelmingly considered the best season of the series, and Irina is often credited as one of the main reasons, and…I can’t see it? [*1] 

Similarly, I don’t understand the hate for Irina’s final story. Yes, the missiles and mass murder specifically were stupid, and the final fight with Sydney is seriously lacking in “oomph”, but these are execution problems, and most of the complaints appear to be about the concept—as in, fans believe Irina wouldn’t put her ambitions above Sydney, especially after season 4. To which I say…really? 

Sure, I can buy that Irina loves Sydney, and Jack, and Nadia, in her own, destructive way; what I can’t believe is she cares for them more than she does her agenda, whatever that is at any given moment .  Like, I don’t believe anything she does in season 2 actually works, if the idea is that she’s somehow doing it for a greater good. Maybe if she were operating from a position of weakness, but that’s not the case—she remains the strongest piece in the game throughout the season. [*2] Why, exactly, is all this convolution and emotional manipulation of the people she allegedly loves needed, if her goal is a sympathetic one?  Furthermore, the series glosses over, if not outright ignores, the various details which indicate that Irina was not on the level—first and foremost: why go to the C.I.A., i.e. the United States, in the first place, unless she wants something only they can provide?  She’s not American!  Her work as the Man was global!

(Speaking of agendas, I know that it’s taken as gospel by at least part of the fandom that everything Irina did in season two was in order to be able to find Nadia again. Fair enough: even if it’s not quite canon—I don’t think they ever explicitly say this was actually the case—there’s enough actual in-show evidence (a rare thing, in some respects) to make it plausible [*3]. That, said, I’m not sure “trying to find my daughter” justifies much of anything she does—not enough to make her more sympathetic than, say, Sloane.)

I also don’t think Irina’s presence does a whole lot for the series’ larger narrative, as evidenced by the fact that, for all her importance, she doesn’t actually change a whole lot. It feels like she should, but between the SD-6 take-down being way emptier than it should have been, and the fact that neither Sydney nor Jack end the season any different than they started it, she ends up feeling largely inconsequential. [*4] It is also equally hard, if not impossible, to say how the events of the season have changed Irina, given how opaque everything about her is designed to be.  Later, Irina ends up being largely incidental to Nadia’s discovery, and Nadia’s story is arguably better with Irina as the unsolvable dead mystery, in part because it helps differentiate her from the possibly evil possibly repentant figure that already exists in SpySkipper’s life.

And that’s one of my other issues with Irina as a character: while there is in theory a lot to distinguish her from the rest of the cast—her upbringing alone!—the way the show uses her de-emphasizes those differences and emphasizes the similarities to such a degree that she often ends up feeling redundant.  The “whose side is she on” beat, in particular, had arguably already become overused when it came time to play it with her, and by the time SD-6 was done and she explicitly joined Sloane, there were too many similarities between the two to make the dynamic between them compelling, particularly since the show made it verboten for either of them to speak about their motivations.  Furthermore, if one believes that Irina did it all for her family, then what is there to distinguish her from Jack, who’s already ready to torture as many people as necessary for that very thing?  

To be clear, there were ways Irina could have realized her potential to be Alias’ version of Metal Gear Solid’s The Man The Boss or The Americans’ Elizabeth Jennings—or rather, a version of those characters that actually works as well as they do.  That’s certainly what her fans seem to want. Unfortunately, those ways rely on Alias being…not like itself.

I am not the first person to note the similarities between Irina (a.k.a. Laura Bristow) and Elizabeth Jennings (a.k.a. Nadezhda): they’re hard not to notice, given that they’re both KGB spies and assassins embedded in the United States and operating under cover during the Cold War, and forced to select between loyalty to their country and the family they’d made (although it’s worth noting that Elizabeth’s husband, unlike Jack, is in on the scheme and also a KGB spy/assassin) [*5]. The Boss, meanwhile, parallels season 2 Irina: at the beginning of Snake Eater, where she appears, she betrays the C.I.A. without explanation and defects to Russia, and she spends most of the story running rings around everyone, including her protégé Snake (the game’s protagonist, who’s been assigned to kill her and stop her sponsor, a Russian colonel named Volgin) until her actual motives are revealed. She also exists in a universe which combines semi-realistic espionage with frequent batshittery, including psychics, hornets as a weapon of choice, impossibly old snipers with the power of photosynthesis, and a ridiculous amount of reversals and double-crosses.

That said, despite the similarities, there is one chief difference between either work and Alias, which is crucial to making their stories work: neither is naive about the world they’re presenting, both understand, in a way Alias does, that one can’t be a spy and keep one’s hands clean. Being a spy, for the Boss, meant betraying her old friends and everyone she ever loved, allowing herself to become an international pariah, and ultimately dying, because that’s what the mission required.  Elizabeth Jennings killed innocent people, ruined friends’ lives, blackmailed countless people, manipulated her daughter into following her footsteps, and ran herself ragged for years, all because she believed in the cause.  It’s not a great life, being a spy. 

MSG 3 images obtained from Metal Gear Solid 3: The Movie, a re-edit of the game’s cutscenes by KefkaProduction. It can be seen here.

(Sydney, meanwhile, often just has to lie a lot.) [*6]

The thing about this sort of work is that it breaks down one’s ability to claim the moral high ground. Once you’re doing terrible things on the regular, it’s easy to see enemy spies are just other people who are also doing terrible things for their mission—potential comrades who just happen to be on the other side. Snake, The Boss’ protégé in Snake Eater, develops a relationship with Ocelot, a Sark-like soldier working for the Russians.  Elizabeth and Philip Jennings develop a friendship with Stan Beeman, an F.B.I. counter-intelligence agent living right next door, which turns out to be every bit as genuine as it is an effort to cultivate a source. 

Alias, however, spends much of the series unable and unwilling to strip Sydney of her moral high ground, once she obtains it by working for the C.I.A.  What should have been the beginning of her moral journey—after all, how different is SD-6 from the C.I.A., if the people working for the former can’t tell they aren’t working for the latter, and their missions largely work out the same way?—is instead treated as the end. As terrible as U.S. intelligence proves to be, it never actually makes Sydney question her loyalties, or even her feelings about it all. This, in turn, utterly undermines Irina’s potential as a storytelling element.  What good is a temptress if there’s no potential for the person being tempted to change? 

(Similarly, if we’re not allowed to know what Irina Derevko wants—a key element of character-building, as many people will tell you—how are we meant to know how she herself is being changed?)  

Given what we got, it’s no surprise that Irina’s season 4 return is so uninspired, consisting largely of fan service moments, and very little in terms of character progression, or sense that the Sydney’s relationship has moved forward in any way that feels natural—what else was there to do? [*6] It’s inoffensive to the point of being really annoying. 

While Irina’s season 5 appearances are in a way a step backwards, Irina was always more interesting the closer she got to villainy. Her appearance in “Maternal Instinct” is a hoot, and allows her and Sydney to play roles only they could play.  Their final battle, while not really satisfying—in part because it’s the fourth ladyfight in as many finales, and none had come even close to matching the original—feels necessary for Sydney’s story, which had finally begun progressing again after seasons of stalling: there is catharsis to “I am through being disappointed in you” that feels utterly necessary. Could it have been better?  Sure, but then, so could 80% of everything having to do with Irina. 

Footnote footnote revolution!

[*1] I remain convinced that season 2 is actually the worst season, is the one that irrevocably ruined Alias, and that Irina actually had a fair amount to do with that. But that’s a different TED Talk, and I’m willing to fight about it, if anyone wants.

[*2] Well, it depends: the status of Irina’s organization following her “defection” is…unclear. If we accept the idea that the organization is in shambles, as the season suggests, then there’s really no reason why, exactly, the C.I.A. actually needs her cooperation, given that they…uh… didn’t need it in order to actually grievously ruin it in the first place.  And yet, here we are.  

[*3] To a degree, anyway. The Nadia story gets us as far as explaining why Irina would need The Telling, but doesn’t tell us why she’d need The Circumference, even if we ignore its eventual canon purpose.  

[*4] No, their season 3 belief that Irina can be worked with doesn’t count, as it is spun out of whole cloth, and can’t be directly tied into anything that occurred the previous season.  

[*5] The Americans also features an enviable wig game, which should feel very comforting to Alias fans.

[*6] I’m being mostly glib here, but also accurate: while they were a million reasons why Sydney could justifiably consider her double agent status to be  hellish, having to lie to everyone was consistently treated as the absolute worst part of it all.  Fair enough, in a series ultimately about identity, except Alias never really made the attempt to explore that element, either. The closest it got was Julia Thorne, and that was aborted before it could really get anywhere interesting. 

[*7] Although to be fair, that’s partly because, again, the series isn’t really concerned with having Sydney evolve as a person since season 1.

🏹 👻📒

♕ ♕SPILL  MITSURU’S  SECRETS||  accepting  ||  @orgiia  

👻- For something that scares or disturbs them, but they refuse to tell anyone

[ already replied to these here ! ]

🏹- For a talent they wish they had

that was a funny one. no one would have probably believed her if she was to speak the truth of her mind; the skill she did lack, for how absurd it did sound like, had proved itself to be a rather popular matter of discussion - capable of igniting discourses or push them to one funny or even painfully uninspiring end. but that was the charm it had !  nothing else seemed to matter, besides maybe gossip, for fellow girls and classmates Mitsuru had the chance to meet and see; after all, what could teens her own age divulged into, if not playful banter. 

         «  Honestly, is it childish to think I’d have found useful the talent of a quick tongue ?  Iori is a good example of that, he always has the right answer for all occasions; and I mean funny ones, while humor remains one subjective matter. I wish I could make people feel as light-hearted and happier as he, Akihiko or our Leader too can, at times.  »

📒- For a secret journal/diary they keep (Bonus: Share an entry from it!)

[ funny story, i’m currently translating the official fanbook of the various version of persona, where the characters all seem to have a IC recorder they use to record what they did that day AND a private blog they use, either publicly or for SEES members only. so yea, Mitsuru keeps a diary !  and… i guess under the read more i’ll copy one of the official, true Kirijo diary extract ahah, from when Mitsuru returns home after the film festival ]  

30TH AUGUST 2009:

“ Eternal love… although they sacrificed all they had for love, the two movie protagonists decided to marry each other anyway. Yes, that boy and girl. Their lives will continue on after they’ve gotten married, they’ll move in together but all their past dreams will be impossible to achieve anymore. A wedding is nothing more than a contract between two different parties. But for others, it is to be considered a new starting point. And your life spent together, although never eternal, will be blessed by true neverending love… but perhaps I’m being way too idealistic, right? If I were to be born into a different family, like Takeba or Yamagishi, what would have I thought about all this? … fufu~ until the day I get married, I can only hypothesize how it will be for me. Well, tomorrow is the last day of vacation we can use to relax. Let’s enjoy it. ”

every second i’m with you is completely and totally right.

it’s silent in his home as they lay in front of the fire place,     her body warm as it lays naked surrounded in a sea of blankets they had brought to the floor.      one is wrapped around her chest,     her hand tracing the muscles on his chest and getting lost in the simplicity of the moment.      the words he speaks are exactly what she feels in the moment.   THIS FEELS RIGHT.     but how?     this past week has been nothing more than a fantasy.     even laying here,    hands on him,     feet playfully running into each other,     it still feels like a dream,    one that she had thought about more times than she would ever want to really admit.      

it’s not like her to be this open with someone,     but it wasn’t like her when she first met him either.     he showed her how easy it was to be open,    to share herself with someone else   ——   to speak her mind,    to believe in her thoughts,     to be herself.        he taught her that.     that’s what she longed for all these years,     that connection she shared with him and how impossible it was to get with anyone else she ever came across.      maybe that’s why his words ring so true   ——-    it’s right because it had never been wrong.    even when things ended between them,      it wasn’t because something they shared together didn’t fit.  EVERYTHING FIT,   and that was the irony.      they liked each other too much,    and it fell apart.     neither of them truly knew how to deal with that kind of feeling,     the feeling that was so strong and intense and passionate and raw.     it was overwhelming,    so much so that tracy had blurted it out rather than thought about what she was saying,     and that had been the start of their downfall.    

fingers stop their trail,     her eyes glancing back up to his as she rests her hand flat over his chest.      ❝   this is a dream,    theo,    ❞        she whispers,    her head shaking in clear disbelief.        ❝  we can’t be seriously considering this.     right?   ❞          her brows furrow,     eyes glancing down his body to where her hand rests on his chest.      she thinks back to those nights in college,    when she had been too sleepy to make it back to her dorm and he wished for her to stay with him.     his shirt off,    hers on,     head on his chest,     his arms around her waist.     it felt natural then too.      it felt like she could make a home in the comfort of her arms,    the same exact home she was making in it now and nearly planning to make more PERMANENT.      was she really ready to pick up her entire life for a boy who had been too stubborn to ever admit his feelings for her after she had poured her heart onto him?      

they’re both different people now,     but what they have isn’t.     it’s the same,    yet more intense than ever.       after so long of wondering what could have happened if they reconnected,     she finally has her answer,     and it’s so much better than she ever could have imagined.      they deserved this chance back then and they deserve it now too,     but it’s not realistic if she’s not here with him.      her job has become uninspiring,      she has no friends to lean on,      and things are always breaking down in her apartment.      there is no reason for her to STAY where she is,      but the thought of moving solely to BE WITH HIM is what scares her.      she could find a life here,     one for herself,     but at the end of the day,     it will still always be because of theo.       and she already feels like she had lost so much of herself just not being with him all this time   ——-    what if this doesn’t work out?      what if she moves here,    and she starts to find some sort of happiness again,     and she loses this part again?     she has always been so stuck on pessimism,     and when she and theo walked out of each other’s lives the first time,     that only got worse     (   it convinced her that she really hadn’t put herself out there as much as she needed,     that perhaps she wasn’t WORTH what she needed to be.   )    

❝    you’re right,   ❞       she speaks quietly,     eyes meeting his again.       ❝   all of this.     it feels really,    really right.      it feels just how i always imagined it feeling.      but what if we’re just living in the fantasy of the moment?      what if this past week is just too good to be true?    ❞        she wasn’t supposed to stay in town this long.      she spent one night with him and then he asked for another.     so she stayed.     then he convinced her again,    and she stayed.     she doesn’t want to leave.    she doesn’t want to go back to the mundane life she had been living ever since she walked out his door the day they stopped speaking.      she wants to go back to this,    to having a friend and a man who makes her feel like she is so much bigger than herself.     back to laying like this,    bodies intertwined and hearts pounding against one another.       it’s like they picked up right where they left off,   the opportunity to fall in love with him for real this time all too tempting and too terrifying.        it’s too good to be true.        ❝    what if i leave to go get my things,     and your place is your place again,     and you’re back to your life,     and you   ——-    you realize this was just fun for a week and that’s all you needed?    ❞        she asks,     gulping as her eyes shoot back to his.        ❝   you already gave up on me once.   ❞

she gulps,     eyes darting away as soon as she speaks the words.      maybe it wasn’t her that he gave up on,    maybe it was himself.      she spent years convincing herself that it was her,    but HE was the one to reach out.     that was the first time she started to believe that there was so much more to it.       this all feels so silly,    like they’re jumping into something they have no idea how to prepare for.     all she knows is that the other option doesn’t welcome her.     the idea of going home,     back to her own life,     leaving this week stay here and pretend like theo doesn’t matter to her.      she can’t accept that.      if he’s back in her life now,     she has to find some way to KEEP HIM there.      and maybe that really does mean she has to move here,      it’s just her own insecurities making her fear that this could get even more sour than it had been back then.        

hand slides up to his neck,    then to his cheek.      her thumb rubs over his jaw,     eyes locked with his.      ❝   i don’t want to go another second not knowing you.      that wasn’t fair.    it wasn’t fair to get to know you and then have to lose you.   ❞       she wonders if she would have rather not known him at all,     because then she wouldn’t know what it felt like to lose him       (    NOTHING felt worse than that.    )      ❝    so you have to be sure.     i know that we can’t be sure this will work out,     but    ——-     we have to be sure that we’re willing to give this a real try this time.     i don’t want to get my heart broken the second i move to town.    i barely put it back together.   ❞       she gulps,      fingertips brushing over his forehead and then back to his cheek.      her eyes say more:     i could fall in love with you if you let me.     the quiver in her lips begs him to.       ❝   i have to know this is really real for you.     not just right now,    because right now   ——-   right now,   everything is PERFECT.     but what about when we step out of our bubble?    ❞         will they be strangers again?      she knows her heart can’t take that.

      🦎჻  *   @perfectevil​.

Now that I've been asked all my fanfic ideas have suddenly fled me haha. Uuhhh, hmm, well, more of that KuroFai animal transformation au would be sweet? But if you're wanting something new... OH! I got one that is hopefully good: Klavier copes with things by making mixed tapes/playlists. He makes ones based on himself, ones based on other people (to both understand them better and to sort out or express his feelings for them). But he's never ever shown anyone them. And then someone finds them.

;;A;; im sorry this took so long anon, work drop-kicked me right in the face, and *gestures vaguely* things happened. Anyway! I give you more KuroFai!!! And you will be pleased to know that I actually thought up of a sort of plot for the conclusion to this sort of fic, though that’s for another part. Lolol I’m actually considering after I finished, cleaning this up and properly posting it to AO3. Though you should tell me if there are things you want to see beforehand!!! I am remarkably uninspired when it comes to thinking up fluffy things and the slow progression of two people getting closer lmao.  Also!!!! holy shit, I love both of those other ideas, and if I can, I will definitely write them for you because omg??? I love it so much.

So without further ado, here’s part two!!!

Sakura watched.

It took her a bit to catch on, longer than ithonestly should’ve taken, but it wasn’t that hard to connect the dots when sheactually thought of the possibility. Likely, she would’ve understood what washappening if Fai’s behaviour as a human and as a cat wasn’t so drasticallydifferent. She was so used to Fai being there for her and Syaoran, encouragingher and supporting her, helping her keep her spirits up. But as a cat, he wasthe exact opposite. And it broke her heart thinking that deep down Fai was justas skittish as he was now, just as in need of protection and support andattention, but never once thought he could show it to them.

Well. Except for Kurogane. In some ways, theirdynamic hadn’t changed at all, and it was that that had actually tipped her offas to what was happening. The two of them were constantly orbiting each other, Kurogane,the steady and passionate sun that Fai couldn’t seem to help circling, gettingcloser and closer before drifting away again. Or maybe it was more like themoon, silently begging the ocean to reach them, coaxing the waters closer, onlyfor the quicksilver sea to change their mind and move away.

Either way, even as a cat, Fai and Kurogane couldn’tseem to step away from each other. He actually spent time in their spaces now,on the table during dinner, and walking side by side when they went out forerrands. But he still shied away from any unexpected touches, and even the oneshe saw coming. And he was tense; every time Sakura petted him, she could feelthe energy just underneath his pelt, on edge, and ready to move at a moment’snotice. But something seemed to settle within him when he was around Kurogane.Or at least when he accepted being around him; some days he seemed even moresuspicious of the tall, dark man than he was of anyone else in the group, andSakura really couldn’t understand why. And Kurogane never really reacted toeither behaviour, though she was sure he noticed it all.

“Sometimes I don’t understand Kurogane at all,Kitty.” She was sitting next to Fai as he ate his supper, staring off into thedistance. She saw Fai’s ears perk up at her words in her periphery, though hedidn’t stop eating. Sakura wondered if he even knew that he reacted andobviously showed his interest. What was it even like being a cat? Did his mindalso shift, and that’s why he didn’t think to hide things as he would before?

“It’s just… It’s hard to tell what he’s reallythinking sometimes, because he seems really obvious about his thoughts andopinions, but he also keeps a lot quiet. And he actually is upfront and honest,Kitty. So you’re left wondering if maybe you’re the one not noticing what he’sthinking.”

By this point, Fai had stopped eating and waswashing up, but he gave soft meow when she stopped talking in what she thoughtsounded like agreement.

She turned to smile at him. “I knew you wouldunderstand, Kitty, since you spend so much time with him. Almost as much as Faidid.” Fai actually paused in his washing, before resuming a tension in his bodythat wasn’t there before.

“You know, I think Fai understood Kurogane betterthan anyone. Probably because Fai loved annoying him and they spend so muchtime together. It’s shame he isn’t here, Kitty, I’m sure he would have youfalling in love with him in a moment, he’s so sweet and caring and fun.”

Fai was actually curling up in a ball at this point,face buried in his paws, and Sakura had to stifle a giggle at his embarrassment.

“Though maybe it’s better this way.” She leanedcloser and dropped her voice to a whisper like she was sharing a big secret. “Theylove each other a lot, though they don’t seem to want to admit it. You’dprobably make the other jealous if you showed either one of them any attentionbecause you’re just so cute and loveable it’s impossible not to lavish you withaffection.”

“Sakura.” A deep voice grabbed her attention and sheautomatically turned before she could see what effect her words had on Fai.Kurogane was glaring at her suspiciously, looking between her and Fai. “Whatare you doing?”

“Just telling Kitty all about Fai since he hasn’tgotten the chance to meet him yet.” She smiled up at Kurogane, and though hereally didn’t seem to believe her, he looked like he would let it go. “Look outfor Kitty, I want to go with a walk with Syaoran.” She got to her feet and wentupstairs humming to herself.

With Fai out of commission, someone had to stir up trouble, and she couldn’t deny that it waspretty fun.

ME:A Fic: Five Gifts (1/1)

Guys. I don’t think I have ever been the first to invent an AO3 tag before. I made this post yesterday night. It’s... been a wild ride?

Pairing: Vetra Nyx/Jaal Ama Darav

Also on AO3

#

Five Gifts

Voeld

Some time after the first trip to Voeld—where, yes, maybe she’d complained just a little about the ridiculous cold—Vetra finds a piece of fabric on her workbench. It’s the exact color of her markings, which is strange. Even stranger, the small, delicately-embroidered flowers winding around the edges are gold, and if the fabric is a perfect match for her markings, she can’t help noticing the embroidery’s the same color as her eyes.

It’s a kind of tube. Weird. She has no idea what it’s for. Pretty, though. It’s also the softest, silkiest fabric she’s ever felt, which is saying something because she’s sourced some pretty fancy shit over the years.

There’s no note, no explanation. She asks around, discreetly. She knows how to be discreet. Ryder’s as confused as she is. Drack snorts. Peebee jokes about secret admirers. Figuring it might be some kind of angaran thing, she brings it to Jaal. He’s busy with something, but instead of just turning in his chair or speaking over his shoulder, he stops what he’s working on immediately, rises, and faces her directly, as if she’s now the most important thing he has to think about. She not sure she’s ever going to get used to that. He smiles when he sees the fabric in her hands, but the smile fades when she asks if he knows what it’s for.

“Ah,” he says slowly, as if savoring the single syllable. “You did not get the note?”

(She finds it later, after an office-wide search, swept aside with a pile of irritating requisitions and hiding under two boxes of cereal, one empty.)

He takes the fabric from her hands, looking for all the world like he’s about to start performing some kind of ritual, and says, “May I?”

She’s used to people wanting things, of course. Half her life is spent getting things for people who want them. Jaal’s weird, though. When he asks, she always gets the sense that the question is real. If she said, no thanks, he’d only incline his head and accept the refusal. She’s not used to that either.

So she says, “Sure?” still without the first clue what he’s about to do. He lifts the tube, moving his hands toward her, and though she stiffens, she doesn’t pull away. He drops the fabric over her head, where it pools in her cowl, impossibly soft against the hide of her neck. She stops herself from nuzzling into it. His hands fuss a moment longer, and though he does not actually touch her, just the heat of his hands so close is almost a caress.

She’d laugh at herself if the thought wasn’t quite so unexpectedly disconcerting.

“For when you are cold,” he says, stepping out of her personal space and taking his heat with him. She’s not sure if she’s disappointed or relieved. He tilts his head, as if admiring her, though she knows he’s probably just looking at his handiwork. “It suits you. I hoped that it would.”

“Uh, thanks,” she says, managing to keep her voice even, even if her subharmonics are all over the place. She’s pretty sure he can’t tell, anyway. Hopes he can’t.

When she finds a mirror, she has to admit it does look nice. She doesn’t really believe such a flimsy scrap of pretty nothing could possibly keep her warm, though. The next time they’re down on Voeld, though, she humors him and tries it out.

Damn if the thing doesn’t work as advertised.

Aya

She loves Aya. It’s beautiful, sure, but there’s also real trade and so many new things to discover, and she’s always loved new things. And discovery, for that matter. The climate’s a relief after the insanity of Voeld and Eos, and everything smells so damn good. One thing she has to hand to the angara, they’re no slouches when it comes to hygiene. Even up to their damn eyeballs in war with the kett, they still make time for beauty.

She wanders through the market, for once a tourist instead of a trader, smelling perfumes and lotions and whatever other magical potions the angara douse themselves with. Doesn’t buy anything, though; she’s always happy to shop for Sid, but she’s not big on spending on herself. Too many years saving every credit and living job to job; old habits die hard.

Back on the Tempest, though, surrounded by the familiar but uninspiring scents of metal and Nomad and recycled air, she wishes she’d splurged.

“I saw you in the market,” Jaal says later, when it’s just the two of them in the galley.

“I’m hard to miss,” replies Vetra. “Not a lot of turians down there.”

She hasn’t figured out yet if she loves or hates the way he thinks about everything she says, even the flippant stuff. He says, “You did not buy anything.”

She shrugs, pushing food around her plate to give her hands something to do. “Yeah, well. A lot of that stuff’s… it’s nice, but it’s extravagant. Not necessary.”

He leans forward on his forearms, watching her intently. “I disagree. If we do not remember what we fight for, do we not risk becoming no better than our enemies?”

She snorts. “You’re fighting for lotion?”

He laughs, low and deep. She can’t stop the flutter of her mandibles in response. “Yes, Vetra Nyx. I am fighting for lotion.”

Three days later, there’s a small tub of lotion on her desk. She rubs a little onto the hide of her wrist. It’s not too floral, not too sweet. It reminds her—strangely, since she’s pretty sure none of the plants are the same—of her childhood, of soil after a good rain, the feel of her dad’s big hand curled around her little one, and the sweet baby smell of Sid in her skinny arms. You know, with flowers.

Instead of saving it, instead of leaving it on her desk and smelling it, she uses the lotion every day. She finds some fabric in Kadara port she thinks Jaal will like (only, she knows, if he doesn’t realize it’s from Kadara port), and trades him for more lotion when it’s gone. He insists the trade isn’t necessary. She insists it is. Besides, she wants him to have the fabric.

Havarl

After the stress of the whole Sid-pretending-to-be-her thing, when Jaal asks if she—they, she and Sid both—would like to come to meet his family, she accepts.

She worries, of course, only after she’s already agreed to go. When it would be too weird to say hey, about that meet the family thing, what exactly does that mean in angaran?

When she tells Sid, Sid says, “So what does that mean, exactly? Are you two like, a thing now?”

And Vetra thinks about the gifts Jaal’s left on her bench, and the tone of their banter, and the way he always manages to take his meals the same time she does. She thinks about how often he makes her laugh, and how she never stiffens or backs away when his arm brushes hers now, and how once or twice she’s even leaned into that touch and, well, really liked it.

“I don’t know,” she says, because she really doesn’t. “Angara. They’ve got feelings all over the place. I think we’re just friends.”

“You know there’s actually a way to find out, right?”

Vetra raises her brow plates and Sid rolls her eyes.

“I know this is a tough one, Vet, but what you gotta do is open your mouth and let words come out.”

“Ha, ha,” says Vetra, because of course she knows this. She’s just not sure she wants to hear the answer if she asks. She tells herself it’s because she likes things the way they are.

She’s always been able to lie to protect herself.

Jaal’s family is… overwhelming. Everyone talks at the same time. Everyone laughs. Here, people touch each other all the time. Forget arms brushing arms—there are hugs everywhere and it’s more common to see angara in happy piles of arms and legs and leaning heads than standing alone. A handful of cousins closes around a laughing Sid, promising to show her all kinds of exciting things.

“Mother,” Jaal says, when he introduces Vetra to Sahuna, “this is my—Vetra.”

My Vetra, thinks Vetra, as Sahuna’s arms wrap around her. This is my Jaal.

But she can’t say it. Can’t be sure. Doesn’t want to assume. My Vetra could be my friend, Vetra just as easily as it could be the Vetra I want to be mine.

He gives her the stars, just the two of them and whatever it is between them, alone in his childhood room. How different his childhood must have been, surrounded by mothers and siblings and cousins. Like the stones in a wall, he told her once. She thinks she understands better now. The back of his hand brushes the back of her hand and she knows, she knows she could reach out and wrap her fingers around his, but she doesn’t.

She does lean against him, though, just a little. Shoulder to shoulder, looking at a projected sky. My Jaal, she thinks, and wonders, just a little, how well the two stones of Vetra and Sid could fit into this wall.

Elaaden

He gives her a… poem.

She thinks it’s a poem, anyway. She’s never been all that big on… poetry? So she doesn’t understand a bunch of the metaphors and there’s an awful lot of talk about water considering how generally—and specifically—turians avoid splashing around in the stuff. There’s some really nice stuff about beauty though, and courage, and a particularly poignant stanza (she thinks they’re called stanzas?) about survival and determination.

I mean, she’s pretty sure she’d have to be dead to not appreciate that someone (Jaal, especially) thinks (she thinks?) she’s beautiful and courageous and determined. They’re all good things. She’s pretty sure they’re all things no one’s bothered calling her before, not specifically, and certainly not all at once.

He gives it to her almost nervously. She loves when he’s a bit nervous, actually. She feels like it evens the playing field a bit. It’s written on the crisp, beautiful paper one of the krogan merchants on Elaaden was selling—weird, yeah—and she’d bought thinking he’d like it.

“There was… more I wished to say,” he explains. “But I could not find the words.”

“These, um. These words are great, Jaal. I… you know, I really like these words.”

Before she can stop herself (she’s not sure she wants to stop herself) she presses her brow swiftly to his.

He nods. He shakes his head.

He probably doesn’t even know what her gesture means.

“I do not want you to answer now,” he says, bafflingly. “But—thank you, Vetra Nyx. For considering.”

She reads the poem three-hundred and forty-one times after he backs away from her little office, and she still can’t figure out the question it’s supposedly asking.

Kadara

“Hey,” she says. “Wake up.”

She’s careful not to stand too close, in case Jaal wakes the way she would: with a knife or a gun in his hand.

He doesn’t. He rolls to his side and blinks into the near-dark. It’s a couple hours until sunrise and the light filtering through the window is dim. The glow of her visor illuminates his outline, even as it spits information at her, rapid-fire. For the first time in a long time, she reaches up and turns it off. A moment later, she takes off her visor completely. She feels naked without it, strangely vulnerable, but it’s a good sort of vulnerability. She thinks. She hopes.

“What is this?” he asks, and damn if his voice isn’t even better all rough and growly with sleep. “Vetra?”

“I’m giving you a present,” she says. “Ryder’s going into the port today, and I’m getting you out before she makes you go with.”

“I hate Kadara port,” he says with real feeling, and she laughs.

“I know, Jaal. We all know. Everyone in the whole galaxy knows. Come on. Get your big purple ass out of bed. We’re on a schedule, here.”

“My… ass,” he says slowly, pushing back the blankets, “is not big.”

It is, however, definitely naked. Actually naked, not just vulnerable-naked. Angarans. Jaal. She swallows hard and turns around until she hears the rustle of fabric being pulled on.

“You are not wearing your visor,” he says.

“Yeah, well. Hopefully I’m not going to need to kill anything on the way.”

He laughs again. “We are on Kadara, Vetra.”

He doesn’t wear his eyepiece either, though, she notices.

He doesn’t ask where they’re going. She’s still kind of blown away every time he just trusts her like that, without needing anything in return. She drives the borrowed vehicle a little too fast, watching the ever-lightening darkness of the sky. She can feel Jaal watching her with his pretty blue gaze that always sees too much, but it doesn’t make her nervous anymore. Doesn’t make her want to pull back or hide or deflect. The silence now is companionable instead of strained.

He is game when she insists they climb up the cliff. Of course he doesn’t cheat, and though she wins, she doesn’t think it’s because he let her. He’s grinning when he reaches the top, every exhale almost a laugh. She’s never known anyone quite so able to wholeheartedly experience things. He holds nothing back. The sun rise is a ruddy glow on the horizon. “You are right,” he says. “This is much better than Kadara port. Thank you.”

She says, “I read your poem three-hundred and forty-one times, Jaal. I don’t even know what the question is.” She holds up a hand to stop him before he can speak. “But I have a question—there’s a question I want to ask you.”

I know this is a tough one, Vet, but what you gotta do is open your mouth and let words come out.

He nods.

“Is this… real?”

She has no visor to hide behind; he has none to distract her.

“This?”

She flicks her fingers, gesturing to herself and then to him. “This. Between us. The… gifts. And the… everything. You like me, I get that, and we’re friends, but—”

“I do not merely like you, dearest,” he interrupts. “That I thought you knew.” He touches his brow. “You… kissed me, did you not?”

Her mandibles flutter. Her stomach joins them. “I wasn’t sure you’d know what that meant.”

“I have been reading,” he says. “A lot.”

He steps closer, lifting his hands, palms-up. She inhales, catching the faint scent of both his lotion and hers—it’s probably stupid, but they smell good together—and lowers her own hands to his. Their fingers curl around each other. They stand almost as close as angara.

Low, very low, he says, “Do you want this to be, as you say, real?”

She nods. She swallows. She lets the words come out. “Yeah,” she says. “I really do.”

The Hungry Earth - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The day Steven Moffat announced he was finally going to relieve us of our torment and leave the show for good, my reaction was mixed to say the least. On the one hand, yes that bastard is no longer going to be ruining one of my favourite shows, but on the other hand he’s being replaced by Chris Chibnall. A writer who’s almost as incompetent as Moffat and has written some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who and its god awful spinoff series Torchwood. (And to those who occasionally ask me if I’m going to be reviewing Torchwood at some point, the answer is a definitive no. I have got other things to do, you know. Stop pestering me). While he has earned some of my respect since then by casting Jodie Whitaker as the first female Doctor (and about time too), I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t deeply concerned about the quality of the show moving forward.

I mention this because this two parter, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, was written by Chris Chibnall and I feel perfectly demonstrates all of his weaknesses and shortcomings as a writer.

In a small Welsh village in the year 2020, some scientists have drilled deep into the Earth’s crust, further than anyone has ever done before. But something is drilling up to the surface to meet them and has left some bio-programmed dirt (just go with it). Some guy called Mo, upon seeing this suspicious patch of dirt with steam coming out of it, does what any smart, sensible person would do and sticks his hand in it.

So he gets dragged underground, and soon enough Amy joins him in an admittedly tense scene where the Doctor desperately tries to hold on to her.

From there, this giant energy dome thing seals the village off from the outside world and the whole thing becomes a bog standard base under siege story. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a base under siege story. It’s just the base under siege story has been done so often in Doctor Who now that it’s hard not to let your eyes glaze over while you’re watching it. Of course it’s possible to revitalise the base under siege narrative, like The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit did, but The Hungry Earth most certainly doesn’t. So the whole thing was a bit of a snoozefest for me if I’m honest. Everything you think is going to happen does happen and with an extra dose of stupidity. 

The Doctor tells everyone to set up shop in the church, but wouldn’t the TARDIS be safer? I know you can’t fly it because of the energy dome thing, but surely it’s better than a church. Then he gets everybody to set up a security surveillance network that covers the entire village in 8 minutes flat, which is remarkably daft even by Doctor Who’s standards, and it never goes anywhere. Then he gives Ambrose a strict telling off about her rather sensible decision to stockpile weapons. Sigh. I think I’ve mentioned numerous times before how much I despise New Who’s pacifist bullshit considering that the Doctor has always been pretty violent and has frequently used guns before despite claims to the contrary. I wouldn’t mind except the Doctor then completely contradicts himself a few minutes later. How is knocking the Silurians out with a sonic pulse any less violent than hitting them over the head with a cricket bat? And then, after bonding with the kid Elliot, he stupidly lets the kid run off to fetch his headphones just two minutes before the Silurians are due to arrive. What a pillock! Not that I was upset to see Elliot get taken. He’s a bland, one dimensional kid whose only character trait is he’s got dyslexia. Also I can’t fucking stand children. Especially fictional children. if I was there, not only would I hand Elliot over to the Silurians, I’d offer to gift wrap him for them as well. (Yes I am an arsehole. How did you know?).

Yes The Hungry Earth sees the return of classic series ‘monsters’ the Silurians, and my God do I wish Chris Chibnall wasn’t writing a Silurian story.

The thing is the Silurians have only ever had one good story, Doctor Who And The Silurians, way back in the Jon Pertwee era, and it was phenomenally good. A seven part serial that’s nuanced, morally complex and with a truly shocking ending that cemented the Doctor’s frosty relationship with UNIT. It’s one of my all time favourite Doctor Who stories and I recommend everyone should watch it. In all honesty, I’d have been okay if the Silurians never came back after that because it was a truly brilliant one shot story, but if we must keep bringing them back, they could at least find some way of moving the story forward. Instead all the BBC ever seem to do is just repeat the same story over and over again to diminishing returns. The Sea Devils was basically the same as Doctor Who And The Silurians only without the moral complexity, the reptiles now emerging from underwater rather than underground, and the pantomime villain the Master was in it for virtually no reason. Warriors Of The Deep tried to use the Silurians and Sea Devils to make a Cold War allegorical narrative that really didn’t work. And now here we are with The Hungry Earth. So this is the fourth time they’re telling story now and I’m sure you all know the drill (no pun intended). Reptiles want their planet back. Humans don’t want to give it back. Whatever shall the Doctor do? Been there, done that, got the T shirt.

Now let’s quickly address the elephant in the room. The new look for the Silurains. For the benefit of @captainivyb and others who may not be familiar with the classic series, this is what the original Silurians looked like:

YYYYYYeah. What can I say? It was the 1970s. But Doctor Who And The Silurians is still good, honest!

The new makeup definitely looks more convincing than the original Silurians, but I’m not too fond of it. They just look a bit too human for my liking. Couldn’t they at least have kept the third eye?

A definite highlight for me was seeing the Doctor interrogating Alaya, the Silurian they take hostage. It’s a really good two hander between Matt Smith and Neve McIntosh, who both add a lot of dramatic weight to a scene that, let’s be honest, doesn’t really deserve it. The reason Doctor Who And The Silurians worked so well was because all of the characters, human and Silurian, were well written and complex. It wasn’t a simple case of good vs evil. Both sides had a point and both sides do horrible things to the other, motivated either by fear or self preservation. Chibnall tries to replicate this here, but he’s not doing a very good job so far. While McIntosh gives a good performance with the material she’s been given, the character of Alaya is boringly one note. A rabid zealot with no sympathetic qualities whatsoever. The humans too are drawn with very broad strokes. Most of them aren’t even remotely interesting and despite the Doctor insisting that they can just trade hostages and everything will be okay, they’re still talking about dissecting Alaya. There’s no slow buildup or anything. No nuance or depth. They just jump straight to the most violent option. So much for showing the best of humanity. Frankly I’m amazed the Doctor still thinks a peace can be brokered between the two species considering this is the fourth time he’s tried to do this now and it’s always ended in disaster.

The only character I gravitated towards in any way was Nasreen, played by Meera Syal from The Kumars At No. 42. I enjoyed her open mindedness and scientific curiosity, and right from the off both she and the Doctor seem to have a mutual respect for each other. And Syal is always a ton of fun to watch in everything she’s in. In fact I liked her so much that at the time I may or may not have written Doctor Who fanfic with her as the companion... Well I’d sit down and watch that.

So that was The Hungry Earth. Bit dull and uninspired, but maybe things will get better in Part 2, right?

Review - Metroid: Samus Returns

Metroid: Samus Returns is another mediocre official Metroid release that shows that Nintendo just doesn’t know what to do with the franchise. Fans of Metroid should temper expectations, newcomers should maybe look somewhere else.

Note: there will be some minor spoilers in this review.

It’s impossible for me not to compare Samus Returns to last year’s fan-made Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R). Both games reimagine a Game Boy only sequel to a popular NES game, but take drastically different approaches. AM2R was my favorite game of 2016. It captured the spirit of the genre and franchise so well, while also modernizing it in some smart ways. It was the best Metroid related thing I’ve played since Super Metroid. It’s unfortunate to report that Nintendo official remake doesn’t come close to achieving that.

Samus Returns felt like a lot of the other handheld Metroid games. Just how Fusion and Zero Mission suffered from the limitations from the GBA’s fewer buttons, Samus Returns faces similar issues. I played it on an original 3DS XL, and often ended sessions because my hands (particularly my left hand) hurt. The game requires you to hold the shoulder buttons, sometimes both at once, to aim and it felt so awkward. Using the circle pad to to both move and aim doesn’t quite allow precision with either. Holding L to lock your position then aiming with the circle pad is never as precise as you want it to be. Even trying to shoot directly forward while moving is a chore. Firing missiles while holding R often ends up with them going slightly off course. This makes boss fights or some of the tighter exploration way more frustrating than enjoyable. Controls can’t be changed either. There is no option to make it so that L and R are toggles instead of holds. In an ideal world, you would be able to move with the D-pad, aim with the circle pad, and use L to go through the new Aeion abilities. Well, in a real ideal world this game would be on a platform with a modern gampad, but regardless the developers did not utilize what they had well enough. Control customization is something that has been widely unavailable in the first party 3DS games that I’ve played and it’s never not a knock against them. Nintendo really needs to step of their game and allow players to rebind their controls. It’s clearly not a priority for them and they need to change that. Especially considering that it was a feature in many first party SNES games.

Controls asides, Samus Returns is lackluster in other ways. Where in other Metroid games each area had its own unique appearance, that’s not really the case for this game. While there are some really beautiful unique backgrounds and the occasional one-off set piece, all the rooms are built from the same few tile sets. Here’s the purple caves, here’s the ancient tech, etc. Music is bound to the tile sets too. Hot rooms always have a rearranged Lower Nofair theme, etc. This creates a feeling of sameyness. It’s easy to forget what area you’re in when exploring for missed upgrades. Lack of enemy variety compounds this. You face maybe around five to six different enemy types throughout the game. There are upgraded versions that are colored slightly different, but the tactics don’t generally change much. Maybe you use the Screw Attack against this version, or Powerbombs against this one, but generally once you’ve seen an enemy you know how you’ll be dealing with it for the rest of the game.

I have mixed feelings about the combat. They tried something new by giving you the ability to “parry” certain incoming attacks. It works well enough and it utilized well in boss fights, but for the majority of encounters against regular enemies it’s the most common way to deal with them. Your gun is pathetic. Even after upgrades. Most enemies take tens of shots to bring down. It’s best to let them do their one attack then counter it. Countering leaves enemies dazed and usually then only takes a single shot to kill. This makes shooting feel flimsy and underpowered. I ended up trying to just avoid enemies if I could, or impatiently waiting for them to do something I could counter. It really ended bringing the game to a crawl. Move a screen forward, counter the enemy, then repeat. A lot of the combat is in boss battles. Just like any of the other versions of Metroid 2, this game features many encounters with metroids in various points in the metroid life cycle. These encounters are by far the best part of this game. I particularly liked the fights against the Zeta and Omega metroids. If there is anything that this game has above AM2R it's these fights. However, that’s not saying too much because the metroid fights were the weakest part of AM2R. Here, they’re varied and more interesting. Though they’re still fairly repetitive and I wish there was even more variation in the arena designs. Especially for the later encounters. I wish I could be as positive about the non-metroid related boss fights, because those are by far the worst part of the game. There’s not many. Only about three or four. One in particular was so awful that I had considered putting down the game for good. That boss was this large robot thing that you face late in the game. The fight has the typical hallmarks of poor boss design. Short windows when it can be damaged, long periods (2+ minutes!) where you can do nothing but dodge, and one-off gimmick mechanics that aren’t very clear. But there was one thing that was especially egregious. In its second phase it has an inhale attack that is real easy to dodge. You can see it sucking up rocks from the ground and if you try dropping bombs in its path they do nothing. Then in the third phase, it has that same attack, but this time to further the fight you HAVE to drop bombs that then get sucked up and damage it. That’s some extremely questionable design! None of the bosses in this game are super challenging. They’re all very pattern based and focus completely on having the player recognize those patterns. The cost for any mistake, however, is tons of damage. It’s not unusual for an attack to drop more than two full tanks of health off you. Fortunately the game checkpoints before every fight. So when you die, you can, after a rather long loading sequence, start the fight over without losing progress.

The abilities in this game, outside of the new Aeion abilities, are pretty standard for a Metroid game. The Aeion ones are fine, but not really used very well. Of the four, I found myself only really using two of them frequently. The other two were completely situational. One thing of note is that almost every ability you get also acts as a key to a particular type of door. “You need the charge beam to open this door,” etc. It’s odd. It some ways, it makes sense and prevents sequence breaking (though why would you?). On the other hand, coupled with how underpowered the shooting already is, it makes your weapons feel like just keys. They do find some clever ways to use the grapple beam that as a fan of the series I certainly appreciate though. Then there’s the upgrades. Missile tank upgrades are a common thing in Metroid games. Typically they end up giving you around 255 missiles if you collect all of them. This game is no different. However, in Super Metroid you would pick up 5 at a time. Meaning there are 51 missile upgrades in that game. In this game, you pick up 3. Meaning there are 85 missile tanks to collect! You pick up so many missile upgrade over the course of this game. Almost all the rewards for exploration are more missile upgrades. You never need more than maybe 100 missiles, and are more likely going to rely on super missiles once you get those as you’re more likely going to counter them instead. Missiles aren’t an important thing in this game at all, but man, will you be collecting them.

I can’t say that Samus Returns is awful. It’s not. It’s playable, but unremarkable. Coming off the heels of AM2R really paints this mediocre game in a much worse light. Nintendo needs to with Metroid what Sega did with Sonic Mania. Give it over to the fans who know what they want rather than making another dull addition. I’m starting to feel like Super Metroid was lightning in a bottle and they’ve been failing to recapture that ever since. At least with the 2D Metroid games. I have not played the Prime games and have no opinion on them. AM2R is a much superior product and I’m excited to see what comes from that dev in the future.

I’m not sure who to recommend this game for. Fans of the series will likely be disappointed. Fans of the genre will find a playable, but uninspired game. Newcomers to both should probably start elsewhere. The price is too high and the game is not worth it. I have not done hard mode nor used any of the Amiibo stuff, so I cannot comment on that. I know Metroid fans have been clamouring for a new 2D Metroid, but they should turn to other developers for the higher quality experience they’re looking for, as they won’t find it in this game.

As always you can find my as-I-played thoughts on the game in my List of Games Played 2017.

Okay, @tonyglowheart , here is that promised response:

@three--rings  already brought up some points I was going to mention so I’ll skip over going into detail on those and just say that I agree with the use of caution and thoughtfulness in approaching works produced by other cultures (of whatever language), and I, too, love a mash-up of MDZS and CQL for ideal storytelling. Accepting genre tropes in general is really important as well. I once showed my grandfather a piece of my writing based on pulp adventure stories like Indiana Jones and his main reaction was “All these secret chambers and codes and gadgets, isn’t that all very convenient?” and I just had to shrug and say, that’s the genre, it’s part of what makes it fun to read. Also, based on reading about various medicinal histories I’ve been exploring, I can say that the coughing up blood thing is a trope based in Ancient China’s traditional medicine. Lots of pre-understanding-of-blood-circulation societies thought expelling old or stale blood was important for the body (possibly based on how menses works and reflected in Western medicine’s several-century-long obsession with bloodletting), and I recently read that having it caught in your chest and needing to cough it up was part of China’s take on things. I’m still not sure about all the other face bleeding, but if it’s not actually based in something historical it seems like a reasonable extension for the genre.

Okay, so the thing I want to respond to most is the translation bit, because I… okay. I understand that people are going to find works in translation less accessible than works written in a language they can read, and especially works written in their native language and of their own culture. Because obviously there are a ton of underlying ideas that inform word choice and symbolism and character arcs that most people just don’t really think about until they make a serious study of writing or literature (or they travel and learn more about other languages and literature traditions). On a linguistic studies level, language literally shapes the way humans in different cultures think, and what they pick out as important (an academic article that compares English and Chinese specifically can be found here). Even the distinctions between British English and American English, on a word choice and theme or syntax level, can have an impact. I have seen it turn kids off a book, because there are just too many elements they don’t get (this is, for example, why there are two English versions of Harry Potter). Same thing with different decades even. I’m talking about kidlit and YA here because that’s a lot of what I work with, but in that realm, the way we approach stories today is just incredibly different from how they were approached even 50 years ago, even in the same language and the same country. Think Judy Blume or The Dark is Rising vs Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Percy Jackson. And I’m fascinated by those changes, and by the effects of culture and bias on translations (I am extremely hyped to read Emily Wilson’s Odyssey translation, for example), so I tend to approach them as puzzles, where I’m reading the work, but also looking for clues that will tell me more about both the translator and the author to hang in balance. I enjoy that part, and I enjoy figuring out aspects of the two languages that can contribute to how a translation evolves.

I’m a language and literature nerd, and I know not everyone is going to take the approach I do.  I’m not going to fault anyone for saying they don’t enjoy or can’t get into a translation. That’s a perfectly valid opinion. Reducing a work to its translation and judging it only on that impression of it, however, seems pretty shortsighted to me. Here are some things that I think are important to keep in mind when reading a Chinese work in translation, just based on my own extremely limited knowledge:

1. In Chinese storytelling it’s an established practice to reference idioms, poetry, folklore and historic events as a sort of shorthand for evoking the proper tone. Chinese writing tends to be extremely allusive, and much more understated than what we’re used to in English-language storytelling. We can see hints of this in some of the MDZS translator notes, and it’s likely that this difference feeds into a lot of dissatisfaction with the translation. Either the allusions are not translated in a way that adds meaning for an English-speaking reader, or the standards for detail are different. Indirectness and subtly are huge parts of Chinese literature, and so different words or scenes will have very different connotations for Chinese vs. English speaking audiences. And this isn’t even touching on the use of rhyme and rhythm in Chinese writing, which are all but impossible to translate a lot of the time, or the often extremely different approaches to “style” and “genre” between the languages (an interesting article on comparative literature is here at the University of Connecticut website). Given this knowledge, it’s entirely possible that, for example, the smut scenes are more effective in Chinese than in the English translation. In fact, I find it difficult to believe it would be popular enough to get multiple adaptations and a professional publishing run if they weren’t. In translation, smut is a lot like humor: every culture approaches it a little differently. Unless a translator is familiar with both writing traditions and the relevant genres (or they have editors or sensitivity readers who can offer advice), something is going to get lost in the process. And sometimes that something is what at least one of the involved cultures would consider to be the most important part. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

2. Chinese grammar is slightly different from English grammar (and I’m focusing on Mandarin as the common written language here. For anyone interested, a very basic rundown of major differences is available here). Verb tenses and concepts of time work differently. Emphasis is marked differently – in English we tend to put the most importance on the start of a sentence, while in Chinese it’s often at the end. Sentences are also often shorter in Chinese than in English, and English tends to get more specific in our longer sentences. From what I understand, it’s also a little more acceptable to just drop subjects out of a sentence, and that is more likely to happen if someone is attempting to be succinct. I’ve been told that it’s especially common in contentious situations, as part of an effort to distill objections or arguments down to an essential meaning (if I’m wrong about this or there’s more nuance to it, I’m happy to learn more). As one example of how this affects translation, let’s take that and look at Lan Wangji’s dialogue. I’m willing to bet that most of his words are direct translations, or as direct as the translator could manage. But his words don’t work the same way in English that they do in Chinese. If you continuously drop subjects and articles (Chinese doesn’t have articles) out of a character’s speech in English, they start to sound like they have issues articulating themselves, and I see that idea reflected in fic a lot. The idea that Lan Wangji just isn’t comfortable talking or can’t say the words he means is all over the place, but I don’t think the audience was intended to take away the idea that Lan Wangji speaks quite as stiltedly as he comes off in the English translation. He’s terse, yes. But I at least got the impression that it’s more about choosing when and how to speak for the best effectiveness than anything else, because so many of his actual observations are quite insightful and pointed, or fit just fine syntactically within the conversation he’s part of.

3. Chinese is both more metaphorical and more concrete than English in some ways. In English we use a lot of abstract words to represent complex ideas, and you just have to learn what they mean. In Chinese, the overlap of language and philosophy in the culture results in four-character phrases of what English would generally call idioms. Some examples I found: “perfect harmony” (水乳交融) can be literally translated as “mixing well like milk and water” and “eagerly” (如饥似渴) is read as “like hunger and thirst.” If these set phrases are translated to single word concepts in English, we can lose the entire tone of a sentence and it’ll feel much more flat and... basic, or uninspired. The English reader will be left wondering where the detailed descriptive phrase is that adds emotion and connotation to a sentence, when in the actual Chinese those things were already implied. 

As translations go, MDZS in particular is an incredibly frustrating mixed bag for me, partially because of the non-professional fan translation, and partially because my knowledge of Chinese literature and especially Cultivation novels is so minimal as to be nearly non-existent. But I have enough exposure to translations in general and Chinese language and literature in particular that I could tell there were things I was missing. The framework of the plot and scenes was too complete for me to ever be able to say that any particular frustration I had was due to the author, not the translator. There’s a big grey area in there that’s difficult to navigate without knowing both languages and the norms of the genre extremely well. At one point I was actually able to find multiple translation for a few of the chapters and I loved that. It was really cool to see what changed, and what remained essentially the same, and I was actually really surprised to find that rant you mention, because to me, more translations is always better. I think it was probably about wanting to corral an audience, and possibly also about reducing arguments from the audience about whether a translation was “wrong” or “right.” And that is an issue that’s going to crop up more in online spaces than it has traditionally. Professional translators don’t have to potentially argue with every single reader about their word choice. But then, professional translators also tend to have a better grasp of both the cultures they’re working with as well, and be writers of some variety in their own right, and while I can’t know how fluent (linguistically or culturally) the ExR translator was at the time, the translator’s notes lead me to believe that at minimum their understanding of figurative language use was incomplete. So I can’t fault people for not enjoying the translated novel as much as CQL, for example, because it can be quite choppy and much of the English wording feels like a sketch of a scene rather than something fleshed out fully, but I don’t think it’s fair to apply that impression to MXTX herself or the novel as a whole in Chinese.

More about ExR: I also got the sense that they have a strong bl and yaoi bias as you mentioned, mostly from the translator’s notes. And in general, okay, that’s fine, they’re working with a particular market of fans and I’m just not as much a part of that market. I knew going in that I wasn’t the target audience. I’m okay with that. What I was less okay with was getting to the end and reading the actual author’s notes in translation and finding that the author herself expressed a much more nuanced, considerate, and balanced approach to the story and her writing process than I had been led to believe by the translation and the translator’s notes. And so when people want to criticize the author for things that happen in the translation…. I just think it’s very important to remember that the translator is also a factor, as is the influence of the cultivation genre, and the nature of web novels, and the original intended audience. As you said, white western LGBT people were never the intended recipients of this work. It comes from a totally different context. But I think it’s also important to remember that, again as you noted, it wasn’t first written as a professional work. It was literally a daily-updated webnovel, which works a lot more like a fanfic than a book in terms of approach. And on top of that, it was the author’s second novel (if I’m reading things correctly) and one that they experimented with a lot of new elements in. Those elements earn a lot of forgiveness and benefit of a doubt from me.

About MXTX herself: Most of the posts or references to posts that I’ve seen that judge or dismiss her have to do with the stated sexuality of characters who are not Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. And it just kinda baffles me, because this is fandom. Most of us spend our time writing about characters who are stated to be straight all the time. Why is anyone getting up in arms about this? How can anyone in fandom just summarily dismiss an author for producing original work that centers around a gay relationship when that’s… literally what most of us write, to some extent or another? Again, I’m not saying there’s aren’t aspects that can be criticized in her stories, but the hypocrisy is kind of amazing. I think that fandom, as a culture overall, has issues with treating gay men and their relationships as toys rather than people, and individuals can address their own behavior on that as they learn and grow. That doesn’t mean that every work about gay men having sex is fetishistic, and honestly I’d say that the translator demonstrates more of that attitude than the actual story ever does. The smut is such an incredibly tiny part of the world, plots and character arcs in MDZS that it could be taken out without significantly changing the main narrative very easily. That’s… not fetishistic. That’s smut as part of an overarching romance plot.

Which leads me to the tropes discussion. Yes, obviously there are tropes in MDZS. There are tropes in every story. It’s not a failing, it’s part of writing. Are some of those tropes BL or Yaoi tropes? Sure. Wei Wuxian denying his own sexuality for much of the novel and his tendency toward submission and rape fantasy are some of the very first tropes mentioned in relation to the genre. That Wei Wuxian just sort of seamlessly moves from “pff, I’m NOT a cutsleeve, I’m just acting like one” to shouting “Lan Zhan, I really want you to fuck me” in front of friends, enemies and family without much of a process for dealing with the culture of homophobia around him also seems to be characteristic of the genre. But I think that’s about where it ends. You and @three--rings both made some good points about the nature of the actual relationship, which I agree with: There’s not much of a power play element, or an assigned gender roles element. They’re both virgins who only partially know what they’re doing from looking at illustrations of porn, and they do enthusiastically want to have sex with each other. They’re just bad at negotiating their kinks clearly and could use a decent sex ed manual. The trope I actually have the most issue with is the use of alcohol. I personally despise the trope of “I’ll get someone drunk on purpose for reasons that benefit me personally,” due to my own real life experiences. But it’s an exceedingly common trope in Western media (Idk about Chinese media, but my guess would be it exists there too), and it’s not exclusive to mlm smut scenarios. It’s pretty much everywhere. And, thankfully, Wei Wuxian does seem to eventually realize that he’s fucking things up by using it. That said, despite knowing what happens to him when he drinks, La Wangji keeps doing it. So they’re both contributing to that mess, no matter how much I dislike that it exists, and the narrative doesn’t actually condone it. No one says “Oh, Wei Wuxian, that’s such a good idea, that’s definitely something you should keep doing.” He is consistently warring with himself over it but unable to resist. It’s still dubcon and manipulation, and I certainly understand people not wanting to read it. I just also think that reducing the entire relationship down to “bad, terrible, fetishistic BL tropes” requires the reader to ignore large parts of the story and pretty evident intent on the parts of both the characters and the author.

On purity culture: Yeah, that’s obviously been cropping up all over the place the past several years (I have indeed been in marvel for ages :P). It does seem like there are places in fandom (to some degree any fandom), where “I don’t like how this idea was executed in this context” gets conflated with “This entire work is terrible,” which is a disservice to everyone involved. I agree that there are many things that can be legitimately criticized in MDZS, but I also just… really don’t understand where this attitude comes from that because something is not perfect, it’s trash. Wasn’t fandom essentially invented out of the desire to respond to canon? To make it more your own? Isn’t picking out the parts you like and ignoring the bits you don’t (or writing around the bits you hate until you can fit them in a shape you like better) pretty much what all fic is about? Aren’t those holes people are sticking their fingers into and complaining about opportunities for more fan content?  But even more than “purity culture” I would term it “entitlement culture,” because a lot of it seems to be about the idea that media should fit into and support a certain set of beliefs at all times. A lot of fandoms are no longer an atmosphere of “I don’t like the way this is presented so I’m going to create my on version that works for me.” Instead there’s a growing element of “I don’t like the way this is presented so that means it’s wrong and bad and the original creator should admit that it’s wrong and bad and fix it to satisfy me.” And honestly? That’s just sad to me. More and more, we’re not having a conversation with canon, or even with each other. We’re not building what we want to see we’re just… tearing other people down. I really don’t understand what anyone finds fun in that, and I’m going to do my best to keep creating the things I actually do want to see instead.

Hi Reddit!I'm here seeking advice regarding the possibility of quitting what I thought was going to be my dream job to pursue something bigger. And now, things are coming to a head but I'm not quite sure what to do.A little background on myself - and will try my best to keep this short and sweet. I work in the esports industry (competitive / professional gaming) - I got my career started roughly four years ago as a journalist and was lucky enough to contribute for some of the biggest gaming publications available (and still do as a freelancer). 16 months ago, I was recruited halfway across the country to join an esports company on a full-time basis, what I thought was my dream come true, and somewhat is, but still feels far from it.While the current role I'm in has allowed me to work on some amazing projects - ones I could've only dreamed of as a kid who loved gaming - as well as collaborate with big companies and key players in the industry from time to time, I still don't feel like I'm living out my passion of gaming as effectively as I want to. The team of roughly ten people that I work with - albeit some of them are incredibly talented - are for the most part unmotivated, have shit attitudes, don't show up to the office, purposely produce half-baked work out of laziness and are uninspired. Since I've started, there's been a major disconnect from the core team (myself and three others that produce most of our work) and the upper management (CEO and primary investor). Moreover, there is no vision for the future of this company, and while we have operated and made somewhat of a name for ourselves in one sector of esports, we are gearing up to shift into an entirely new and foreign district of gaming (news) with no clear outline of how the two companies - yes, that's right, they want to create a separate company with the same staff - will function or split. This obviously comes with a few key complications, but primarily in my eyes, we are starting completely fresh with zero direction - losing our current social followings and brand repute in the process.. additionally, I am the only individual on the team that has experience working in news, which creates internal tension for vision, content direction and otherwise between myself and the other co-lead. Our output in my time with the company has been laughable, in my opinion. The content we have producing is garbage, and attempting to improve it through our lazy designer or sensitive and unapproachable co-lead has made addressing the larger problem almost impossible. I have tried in many cases bringing up the hard conversations but it typically results in blowout arguments and truly childish behaviors, splitting the team and the focus without making any progress.. I feel stuck. There is also no clear chain of command either, which leads to our small team thinking everyone is a manager or that one person or the other is just 'telling them what to do' when in reality we are moving backwards.Currently, we are mapping out the launch of the company with roles, responsibilities, content strategies, distribution and all that jazz.. For what we are trying to accomplish, we are all underpaid, severely understaffed and there's no clear leader. In short, while I can get behind this at time, and am giving my overall best to get behind the project (as I have with every other venture at this company) I have little faith in its potential for success, especially considering my affiliation to other leading publications and learning from some of the best managing directors in the space. I try to elicit my advice on the matter, but feel that my voice/opinion is lost, not trusted or just disregarded. To round this out, I will be taking on an insurmountable increase in workload, transitioning from the current PR/communications lead into an editor in chief - but then again, I don't know what the future will even have in store as I'll essentially be an employee to both companies at the same time. Confused yet? Yeah. Me too. My point being is that I will not only be losing money from missed freelance opportunities as a writer, I'll create a conflict of interest between myself and these outside publications that are far ahead and keeping my finger on the pulse of the industry. My affiliation with a few specifically offers a powerful position to be in whereas I am somewhat limited in the brand power of the current full-time company I am with. I am talking an international company with strong ties to the biggest brands and individuals in the space versus a blimp on the radar.It's been a bumpy road the last 16 months.. while a majority of it has been extremely rough on me, I've still gotten to experience and do some incredible things. Although, those moments of success are really few and far between, and it feels increasingly difficult to go in everyday and be excited about work and our projects when I physically see people pissing off, or just blatantly not showing up knowing what could be done to improve the situation here. Almost five years ago now I set my sights on getting into this industry and making my mark, and while I feel in some ways I have the ability to accomplish that here, I'm not sure if I'm being honest with myself, and the constant back-and-forth is taking its toll on me mentally.I'm in a tough position really, either I could ride it out and fully commit, although knowing that each instance of doing so has yielded almost no fruits of labor. OR, I could venture out to another company and take a massive leap in one direction or another. I have a 3-month non-compete, but depending on the next prospective company, there could be some work arounds - although, with the possibility of this news switch on the horizon, that could complicate things as I'd ideally like to remain in media. Overall though, I would hate to betray my team as we are all good friends and they had invested in me in the first place.I have heavily considered launching a blog of my own, which, under my direction solely, I believe could work. I know deep down inside that I have what it takes to make whatever I put my mind to work, as cliche as that sounds. My work up until this point has been a testament to that and I would hate to lose this spark as a byproduct of being in a toxic workplace. I am an individual that is fixated on growth and constantly reaching the next step in my career, but again, I feel as of the last 16 months that growth has been somewhat stagnant, and not even at the expense of a high-paying job or super fulfilling life as I often find myself depressed and unmotivated to come in, often daydreaming about the possibility of going elsewhere or starting my own business.I apologize for the long-winded post, but I feel as if I'm at a crossroad in my life, and while I can sit around and wait (clearly as its impossible to get fired from this place) I am itching to get back on track to where I was prior to starting.I'm not sure what I'm looking for here in terms of comments and replies, but any advice that could be solicited would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has been in a similar scenario of feeling stagnant and taking a leap into something in an effort to grow themselves, I would love to hear your story.THANK YOU.

Contains 900% less screaming.

I've not done a movie review in a while. It's not that I haven't seen many movies lately, quite the opposite in fact, but I've not been properly motivated to write a review about any of them. It's not that those movies have been particularly bad ones either, quite the opposite again. I've been watching some really good movies from my to-watch list and since that list is very properly curated, the experience is usually a positive one.

No, the process of writing a review on this blog is often driven by the purpose of writing one. I'm not a film reviewer by any means. I'm just a person who enjoys movies. I enjoy every aspect of movies, not just the final product. I enjoy looking out for smart casting choices, great camera work, beatufiul music and sound production, and the likes. Films to me are a culmination of so many art disciplines that they are an incredibly dense single serving that explodes into a vareity of experiences and emotions.

But that's not the reason I write movie reviews and those of you who've read a selection of them will know that I have written lengthy (very lengthy. Shamelessly lengthy) reviews of things I enjoy and also things I didn't. But neither of those ocassions are done simply to praise or diss the film at hand. The real reason for writing them is to demonstrate just what makes a film something great and resonating on multiple levels, and also sometimes to demonstrate the exact opposite.

Some of my favourite movies to write about recently have been things like Arrival (not on this site, I wrote a short one on facebook) and Batman V Superman - one film I absolutely adore and am seriously considering putting it on my list ofgreatest movies in my lifetime (a list that is at the moment 3 films long), and the other I absolutely despise for just how many things it got wrong and how many things it doesn't understand about the comic-book movie universe we live in today..

And so I find myself now reveiwing something that has given me enough irk (sorry, it is going to be that kind of a review) that I am well motivated to write about it. There will be complaining, there will be self-entitled moaning, and all of it will not mean anything to the movie industry, but perhaps some of you might find it entertaining to read. Also the fact that I'm currently looking back at how little I've been writing and I'm starting to get annoyed at myself.

Remakes have long been part of Hollywood tradition. Remakes and reboots have been going even before color films were a thing. An example of this is Ben Hur, which has now been remade so many times it's only a matter of time before a intergalactic-space-podracing version of it is made next. Wait. It seems like this already exists. To dislike something for simply being a remake or a reboot is silly because even though some classic stories are classics for a reason, a touch of modernity or a recontextualizing of the premises can somethings offer a brand new experience even for those who are familiar with the story. Romeo and Juliet has probably been reimagined a million different times in a million different settings and at least a dozen of those have been decent. I think.

So I'm not going to bash Skull Islang for being a remake or a reboot or whatever the heck it's trying to be what with the DUCU (the Dark Universe Cinematic Universe, which is the name we will forever be using instead of 'monsterverse') and eventually a Godzilla VS Kong film. I am, however, going to put it side by side with the other Kong film that I have seen (because I am too lazy and uninterested in watching the 1933 one and the 1976? one), and that's the Peter Jackson one.

Boy, oh boy is this new one terrible. It's not like I am a super fan of the film Jackson made, but this turd makes that thing shine brighter than Gandalf the White.

I don't even know where to start with this thing. For one the writing is absolutely atrocious. The tone is so incoherrent and the interaction beetween characters so uninspired that even the charisma of one flaming hot superstar, Tom Hiddleston, couldn't save it. And I was just coming around to like Brie Larson but this is going to be a rather bad stain on her career trajectory. She's going to be Captain Marvel next and if the only other work people know her for is Room and Kong, well.... that doesn't look very good.

It's just idiotic dialogue that doesn't make any narrative sense that irks me so much. Sure there are a lot of character stereotypes that get mashed into filmls like these and most of the time it's not as bad as people think, but this one had the added bonus of also being tonally incoherent. There was an unpleasant whirlwind of serious and silly moments that no sentence or character in the film could be taken any bit seriously. There were snarky comments in dire moments, unnecessary idiotic lines dotted all over the place and characters that almost had no idea if they were to be taken seriously or made fun of. To watch John C Reilly flip from insane old man to serious wise man to out-of-touch caveman, all within a minute or so, is beyond ridiculous.

The plot is also a mismatch in so many departments. You have three different parties involved in this 'expedition' and at no point are the motivations of the characters ever clear or rational. I've talked before about movies that make it almost impossible to believe that any actions of its characters fall anywhere in the realm of rationality and how badly this hurts films. Even something as silly as Civil War creates a situation of conflict that is believable enough, and that's really stretching it, where you can buy into the premise of the film.

There's this one jarring moment in the film when the whole troupe of people suiddenly decide that they ought to follow Nick Fury to go hunt down the monkey and at no point in the movie were they ever required to follow him to certain death. Half of them aren't even soldiers and Hiddleston is a hired tracker who's on the island solely for the money. Shouldn't he be listening to his employer and not crazy army man with a grudge?

Brie Larson's unnecessary sarcasm was also very painfully written in. As were the half dozen throwaway jokes that didin't land because there wasn't any hint of this film being any sort of fun light hearted romp.

My favourite bit of the entire film is the red bandana soldier (I don't remember any of their names because they were all so irrelevant to the film) kept belting out something along the lines of "WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT HOW CRAZY ANY OF THIS IS?", and that's probably the crux of why this movie is so bad. Nothing in it makes any sense on any level and so I spent the majority of the movie laughing at it. Not laughing with it like a good comedy would do (by the way, I laughed a lot watching Adult Life Skills, a good movie for anyone interested in a lovely take on the whole 'thirty year old not growing up' type of story), but laughing at it for how stupid and silly the entire film was.

And then I went digging into wikipedia and found this statement - " Vogt-Roberts also wanted Kong to feel like a "lonely God, he was a morose figure, lumbering around this island," and took the design back to the 1933 incarnation, where Kong was presented as a "bipedal creature that walks in an upright position " And that to me is a shining example of how some directors justify their stupid decisions with this idiotic garbage and can't smell the scent of their own hubris infused farts. Kong in 1933 was a stop motion doll. Just because something is old and even if it was in the original, doesn't make it good. This is the whole 'member berry' thing that South Park spent an entire season talking about. It's a demonstration of how naive and immature a director can be when you see decisions like these being made and then the excuse that's given to justify it. That kind of explains the other slew of poor decisions made in the film when it came to the script, the style, the characters, the decision to play music while fixing their gear in the middle of a monster infested island, etc.

It reminds me of Jurassic World in the way that both these films clearly haven't got a clue what makes their predecessors such giants in the film industry. Films like these simply try to create moments and link them together with idiotic dialogue and unnecessary sequences rather than creating a proper narrative weight and emotional resonance. And then go on to make tons of money.

And then there is of course the entire arc of Kong that makes him such a great character to begin with. The essence of Kong as a character was really brought to a perfect cadence in the original plot's third act where Kong is captured and brought to the city. He dies, succumbing to the world of the modern man. That provides a gorgeous contrast to his dominance on his own little island. There have been reviews that have talked about this in greater length, and I agree with all of them. Without the tragic third act, this new Kong movie is simply a big beastie with no motivation and no personality. He's just smashing stuff. Sure they try to shoe in the whole 'protector of the island' thing, but unless it's framed in the cadence of his tragic end, none of it really means anything.

Kong was always a tragedy. The original 1933 film was billed as a horror movie and in many ways it was, but it will always remain as a tragic story and that's where the true personality of this character shines.

And so we have to do the dirty business of comparing Peter Jackson's King Kong with this one and in so many ways Peter Jackson made a far superior movie. One of my favourite scenes in Jackson's movie is the part that they encounter the giant slugs and insects. Jackson's choice of silencing the music in this sequence allows the viewer to feel the hopelessness of the situation for all the characters as they realise the circumstances they have brought upon themselves. But even the action sequences of Jackson's film are so much better. The legendary fight with the dinosaurs was a far better sequence than 100 foot Kong against 'The Big One'.

On a side note, I find that throwing one helicopter and hitting another when you're the size of this new king kong is like us throwing a stone and hitting another stone in mid air. You go try it. Not only is Kong a bit monkey, apparently he's a Major League pitcher as well. Unlike in the original and in Jackson's film you get to see Kong swat furiously and mostly unsuccessfully at flying airplanes, this King Kong can pluck a moving helicopter out of thin air and then chuck it at another moving one with destructive accuracy. No, Mr Vogt Roberts, this does not make the scene cool. That's like schoolboy Michael Bay levels of cool. Which is another way of saying 'idiotic'.

While we're on the topic of idiotic sequences, there's a sequence where lady photographer hears the sound of an animal stuck under one of the crashed helicopters and decides to help it and then SURPRISE! Kong shows up and plucks the helicopter off the ground. And I'm supposed to believe that a giant 100 foot monkey somehow snuck up on this lady and she didn't notice it coming at all. It's a normal idea for there to be a 'sudden' reveal or encounter between character and monster - it's one of the reasons the Alien movies do so well - but when it's a 100 foot ape, there's just no way it immediately looks ridiculous.

I've mentioned that I'm not exactly a big fan of Jackson's remake, but he's done so many things better than this one and you can tell it was a passion project for Jackson and even though he was granted a big enough budget after the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, he was faithful and true to not just the story, but Kong as a character as well.

This new movie is throws all of that in the bin and it feels exactly the way it was intended - as a necessary remake to set up the big fight between monkey and lizard. That makes sense that Kong's character is no longer important, his tragic arc no longer the definition of who he is, and the most important element of the screaming lady completely banished from the script. Say what you want about how we need more strong female leads instead of the helpless damsel in distress but I have a lot of respect for both Fay Wray and Naomi Watts for bringing the scream to life in their respective films. I rewatched Jackson's movie maybe a year ago and every scream Watts did was absolutely impressive. You go try it. You go try screaming like that and conveying the reall feeling of fear and helplessness in the hands of a CGI giant ape. That's some amazing work right there.

And without the final cadence in this new Kong movie, the whole movie is in fact unconsequential. None of what has occurred in this film actually matters. Kong did not grow as a character. All the humans suffer from Transformers level of inconsequence (they killed of poor Toby Kebbell without any rhyme or reason). And the fact that this film has actually recieved generally favourable treatment from the critics and the public means that we're going to invite more of these kinds of movies into our lives and also that Mr Vogt-Roberts will go down the path of many directors who've made stupid decisions and then get handed big franchises. I'm lloking at you Niel Blomkamp, you sci-fi traitor. This young chap is about to take on Metal Gear Solid next so it is likely that the ridicule of video game movies will continue. Even Duncan Jones couldn't save it with his Warcraft movie that was actually good and nobody liked.

So you can probably tell that I'm not invested in the DUCU at all at monkey business hasn't convinced me otherwise. In fact it's convinced me that this is an altogether terrible idea and it's going to add to the pain of already having to deal with franchises that refuse to die like Transformers and The Fast and the Furious. Now we add to that a slew of monster movies that'll take on the 'successful' style and tone of this ape caper.

Sigh.

Ranking the most compelling divisions in baseball

The Cubs are going to win the NL Central. After that, it’s a beautiful mess.

This exercise used to be a lot more fun before the advent of the wild card.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m still in favor of the current postseason system. It’s essentially an eight-team postseason wrapped in the cloak of a 10-team postseason, with an extra cruel surprise waiting for two of the teams that spent a couple dozen hours thinking they were a real postseason team. It has nice balance, giving hope to a third of baseball before ripping it away quickly and meticulously at the same time, like a Band-Aid that spirals up your entire torso.

But danged if it’s not harder to give a rip about divisional races these days. I can’t pick a winner in the AL West, but it doesn’t matter because the loser just might have a safety net. Or two.

One of these divisions will spit out a compelling race, though. Those are just the odds. And if I had to place odds on which divisions would be the most interesting, the order of likelihood would go something like ...

6. NL Central

Ostensible contenders Cubs, Cardinals

Enigmas in the middle Pirates

Rebuilders Reds, Brewers

Notes You can feel free to move the Pirates up a rung — I know I’m bullish — just as you can feel free to move the Cardinals down after the Alex Reyes injury. It’s all fluid.

Except for the Cubs at the top. They’re going to win the division. We can all agree on that. This is the dullest division in baseball in that respect.

Concoct an apocalyptic injury scenario for the Cubs and they still look like the favorites. Even if something unspeakable happens to the rotation, they still have the lineup to overcome it, along with 38 games against the Reds and Brewers to act as a buffer. If something unspeakable happens to the rotation and lineup, they still have depth at every level, every position, and they wouldn’t be automatically eliminated.

Again, that’s in the event of a roster apocalypse. Assuming that they have a normal baseball season, with ups and downs, surprises and disappointments, they’ll win the division by a comfortable margin. The Cardinals and Pirates should be interesting, but they won’t be beat-the-Cubs interesting.

5. AL Central

Ostensible contenders Indians, Tigers

Enigmas in the middle Royals

Rebuilders Twins, White Sox

Notes Come on, middle America. You’re killing us.

The Indians aren’t exactly a juggernaut who are guaranteed to win the division by 15 games. They’ll still have some of the injury concerns that plagued them last season. A forearm strain for Danny Salazar is kind of a big deal, even if he recovered quickly enough to appear in the postseason. It’s impossible to know how much they can expect from Michael Brantley, and the lineup seems surprisingly thin without him, even with Edwin Encarnacion.

Not only are the Indians the clear favorites, though, but the closest team to them (Tigers) spent the offseason signing minor-league free agents and nothing else. The Royals have a lot of familiar names and a rotation filled with competent-to-solid known quantities, but the projection systems absolutely hate them. We’ve heard that before, and Royals fans are right to wear these dour projections as badges of pride, but, well, we heard them last year, too. And they were kind of right.

At the bottom, we have the Twins and White Sox. They will play 19 games against each other this year. That reads like a missing verse from “Eleanor Rigby.”

4. NL East

Ostensible contenders Mets, Nationals

Enigmas in the middle Marlins

Rebuilders Phillies, Braves

Notes This might have the best 1-2 race at the top, which means I might be underrating this division, but the Marlins are also the sketchiest of enigmas. While they might have the best outfield in baseball, give or take, they also have one of the most uninspiring rotations. That’s not fair to them for obvious, painful reasons, but it’s hard to concoct a lot of scenarios where they pitch enough to contend with the Mets, much less the Nationals. It’s possible that the two teams combine to feature nine starting pitchers better than Wei-Yin Chen, and if Zack Wheeler comes back at full strength, it might be a clean sweep.

The Phillies and Braves are both better than you think, with rotations that are surprisingly deep and effective, but they’re in the rebuilding category because they haven’t been shy about rebuilding recently. Move them up if you need to, but it’s not going to change that this is a division with clear, unambiguous tiers.

3. NL West

Ostensible contenders Dodgers, Giants

Enigmas in the middle Diamondbacks, Rockies

Rebuilders Padres

Notes The NL West just squeaks ahead of the NL East because a) Giants/Dodgers has a ring to it, even if the Dodgers have dominated the division since 2013, and b) I’m just curious enough about the Diamondbacks in a post-Stewart and La Russa world. We expected Zack Greinke, Shelby Miller, and A.J. Pollock to be huge contributors at this time last season. So let’s pretend it never happened and, wham, instant contenders again.

The Rockies are everyone’s underrated team, to the point where they’re probably rated just fine. They have some flaws. They spent their money in a curious fashion this winter. They also might have the best lineup in baseball, so they’re worth getting excited over, especially considering how hard they’ve worked to build a young rotation that might not have their souls flayed by Coors Field.

The Padres signed Jered Weaver, and I’ll be honest, I missed that news entirely. He also might start Opening Day. That combination is a perfect way to describe the 2017 Padres. But the Diamondbacks and Rockies are likely to bug the Giants and Dodgers just enough, if not surprise the heck out of everyone.

2. AL West

Ostensible contenders Astros, Mariners, Rangers

Enigmas in the middle Angels

Rebuilders A’s

Notes Some housekeeping, first. A team with Mike Trout is not an enigma. It’s a team with an eight-game head start on the rest of the league, and the Angels spent the offseason making sensible, rational moves. FanGraphs’ projected standings has them finishing with the same record as the Mets, you know. They’re one of my sneaky almost-contenders, too, so don’t stuff them in the rebuilding category.

Don’t stuff them in the contending category, either. That’s filled with three teams that are hard to separate. The Astros have the division’s lineup, with five starting pitchers who can help a team. The Rangers are the defending champs, with just enough youth to balance out their aging players. The Mariners are the Mariners are the Mariners, but they were busy this offseason, and they probably got better. I’ve picked three different winners at different points this winter, and I’ll probably cycle through them again before I settle on one.

It’s not like the A’s will be boring, either, with enough young starting pitching to avoid last place, so the AL West should have one of the most evenly distributed collections of talent in baseball. That’s usually what it takes to have the most interesting division in baseball.

But I’ll get a little contrarian.

1. AL East

Ostensible contenders Red Sox

Enigmas in the middle Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, Orioles

Rebuilders Nope

Notes On one hand, the problem here is the same problem with the least interesting division. There’s a clear favorite. It’s not a controversial favorite, either. The Red Sox have Chris Sale, and last year’s Cy Young winner is probably their No. 3 starter. The lineup is loaded with youth and veterans alike, and the bullpen could be one of the best in the AL. They’re probably going to win the AL East.

They’re not guaranteed to win the division, of course. And the reason the AL East is baseball’s most interesting division is that any of the four teams below them might rise up and chew through the Red Sox’ sense of entitlement. It’s a stretch with the Rays, and the projection systems sure hate the Orioles, but any of the non-Sox could win 95 games without us demanding a congressional inquiry to figure out how it happened.

It’s a matter of preference, then. Do you prefer your divisional races to have a couple of heavyweights at the top, exchanging body blows all summer? If so, the NL West might be for you. Do you prefer a mess of teams at the top, each with a roughly equal chance of winning? The AL West might be your spirit division.

I’m a parity junkie, I guess. When I look at the AL East, I see a bunch of teams with a chance, and they’re all going to be playing each other in the last two months of the season, with the teams out of contention still talented and prideful enough to play spoiler.

It’s the AL East for me, with the other two teams close behind. There’s also a chance that none of these stupid divisions will be worth watching by the end of the season, and that we’ll have to focus on a hilarious three-way Rays/Tigers/Mariners battle for a wild card spot. I’m cautiously optimistic about some of them, though. It will never be 1993 again, but there’s still a chance that at least a couple of these divisions will be worth watching for the entire season.