#episode: a smattering of intelligence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wellntruly · 9 months

Text

The 4077 Film Festival

I watched three (plus) movies that they watched on M*A*S*H; this is my book report.

“Marlene Dietrich is back in town.” / 2x24 ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’

Okay so this one is actually just referenced in dialogue, not a specific film we watch them watch, but it happened that I watched two of Josef von Sternberg’s Marlene Dietrich films right before starting the M*A*S*H fest programming in earnest, so prologue, baby, prologue!

I had moved Shanghai Express (1932) up my watch list ever since it kicked off the Little Gold Men podcast’s Pride month Oscar flashbacks series this year, reminding me that I really wanted to see another Marlene Dietrich movie. Just stepping forward a few years into the 1930s also felt good, felt right after watching just so many (all) of Buster Keaton’s movies from the 1920s. Hot Chronological Summer!

I ended up watching both it and Morocco, because Shanghai Express SO enchanted me. Morocco (1930) is the one where Dietrich dresses in a tuxedo and steals a kiss from a woman, but Shanghai Express actually felt more pervasively, albeit subliminally queer to me, perhaps because she and her fellow sapphically inclined co-star Anna May Wong were rumored to have had an affair at some point. There’s just something about the scenes of the two of them lounging in a train car together just listening to music or silently playing cards and coolly eyeing anyone who comes in that says ‘gay culture.’ The actual romance plot is heterosexual of course, but it was wild how much more I was into that relationship than I was her one with Gary Cooper in Morocco, a much more famous and famously handsome star than [looks him up yet again] Clive Brook, and yet Brook all the WAY for me, girl. If we have to choose between Marlene Dietrich’s male love interests in von Sternberg pictures.

Anyway in the second season M*A*S*H episode ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’, Radar is engaged in a bit of hoodwinking (the 4077th’s second favorite pastime after flirting), and to indicate that he’s surreptitiously swapped some papers to further confuse some spy vs. spy antics going on, lights a cigarette and strikes a leg-up pose silhouetted in the doorway, causing spy #2 to ask if that’s the signal, and Hawkeye to remark, “Either that, or Marlene Dietrich is back in town,” and honestly describing Radar as being in drag as a famous bisexual woman from the ‘30s is not necessarily the least accurate description of Radar’s ideal gender that I can think of.

Should you watch Shanghai Express? Babe yes, so moody in the best way. The play of light and shadow! This mysterious cast of characters all thrown together on a train! The Chinese civil war??? SHANGHAI EXPRESS.

Should you watch Morocco? Also looks so so beautiful, but if you only have room in your life for one Marlene movie, easy choice it's the above.

Blood and Sand (1941) / 3x05 ‘O.R.’

And now we reach the movies they actually watch on the show, although the first is a slight feint: this one we only hear. Early in the third season episode ‘O.R.’, recognizing that they’re all going to be working through the night, Radar asks Henry if he should pipe the audio from the movie in over the PA system, and Henry approves of this. I IMMEASURABLY approve of this, and think hearing the sound of old movie dialogue and Spanish guitar playing half muffled overhead as they operate is one of the most spellbinding atmospheres this show ever captured.

But the interesting thing about the choice of Blood and Sand for this episode, is that what this movie was most known for was actually its bold Technicolor visuals. Reportedly, director Rouben Mamoulian would carry around spray paint with him so he could change the color of props at a moment’s notice, and was also known to just paint shadows onto the walls sometimes if he couldn’t get the effect he wanted with light alone. The efforts of Mamoulian and his crew nabbed them the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: Color for 1941 (this was the era where there were two cinematography categories for color and black & white; ran until the 1960s actually!), as well as a nomination for Art Direction.

Though the film got no other notices and somewhat mixed reviews overall, Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth were big deal movie stars, and their star-power is probably what contributed to much of this movie’s commercial success. When Father Mulcahy, hearing a scene playing over the speaker, asks what this is, Henry just states the title and their names. From another table, Hawkeye adds as a piece of description: “The Frank and Hot Lips of Old Seville.”

As it happens, Hawkeye’s joke is not so far off really! Tyrone Power is playing a passionate dumb matador married to a beautiful and innocent Linda Darnell (secret stalwart of the M*A*S*H programming, she's in two of these!), but gets swept up in a tumultuous affair with a powerful temptress played by Rita Hayworth. Something I learned watching Blood and Sand is that when Loretta Swit is playing Margaret in glimmering, half-lidded seduction mode, a big loose enticing smile on her lips, she is absolutely channeling Rita Hayworth in movies like this. And given the way Blood and Sand goes (I am so sure you can guess), Hawkeye would seem to be implying that Margaret is fully capable of destroying Frank’s whole hapless married ass.

Verisimilitude Corner: What plays over the speakers is 100% a scene in Blood and Sand, but I believe that the Spanish guitar I so love is actually lifted from a different part of the score and layered in with this particular Power & Hayworth dialogue. It creates a much more distinctive auditory profile to weave through the background of this scene; I completely understand why they would have done this.

Should you watch Blood and Sand? Naw, it’s sure got a look, but story and construction aren’t exactly anything to write home about

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) / 3x18 ‘House Arrest’

The first thing I noticed about Leave Her to Heaven should have occurred to me earlier: 20th Century Fox. All three of these titles turn out to be Fox movies, making all the sense in the world, as M*A*S*H the show was produced by the Fox television arm, after the success of the feature branch’s surprise hit, M*A*S*H the Altman film. Licensing clips of movies is definitely easier when they are also your movies.

The next framing element we need to discuss is that once more, this film was known for its vivid Technicolor cinematography, again the winner of the Academy Award for Cinematography: Color its year! And yet, what they’re watching on M*A*S*H is definitely Leave Her to Heaven, and definitely in black & white. Come to think of it, they all are.

I have tried to figure out what’s going on here, and in the process have learned a lot more about the mechanics both physical and economic of Technicolor film, but have not come up with any definitive explanation (yet), just an educated guess. Which is, as it so often is, especially with the Army: cost. Shooting Technicolor film was outrageously expensive, involving huge cameras that you had to rent by the day from the Technicolor company, through which you would run three strips of film that were treated in different ways, so would respond to light and then dye differently (yes they dyed the film! incredible! are you seeing why it was SO ‘SPENSIVE), and then they’d all be layered together, et voilà: the richer-than-life colors you see in Technicolor films from the 30s-50s.

And as a side product this process also resulted in: a black & white negative. Now I have not yet found anyone confirming this, but my suspicion is that the studios would also make some copies off this negative that were not run through the pricey dye process, and those black & white reels would have been available for cheap if you were, say, the U.S. Army, looking for a discounted way to distract for a couple hours the people you’ve sent to fight a war from the fact that you’ve sent them to fight a war. I think it’s a good theory! But if anyone has actual info PLEASE let me know, I’m so so interested in what was going on here.

But meanwhile: in the third season M*A*S*H episode ‘House Arrest’, Hawkeye, on the titular house arrest, learns that Gene Tierney, striking in any color scheme, is in the movie they have that week, and is ready to move Heaven & Earth, or at least Father Mulcahy, to be able to see her. What Hawkeye does not know at this moment, nor would anyone watching this episode who has not seen John M. Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven, is that it also predominantly takes place in SMALL TOWN MAINE. I love the idea of M*A*S*H writers putting this easter egg in here, winking “and this will be one for the Criterion crowd :)”, also predicting the emergence of the Criterion Collection ten years later.

Verisimilitude Corner: For reasons I cannot fathom, the Leave Her to Heaven clips playing on the wall of the Swamp are happening all out of order. The first scene we see set at a table takes place in the early middle of the film, then we cut way back to the beginning portion in New Mexico, before swinging all the way to a piece in the last act. There is no wedding scene, no matter what Father Mulcahy says, but it is in fact even funnier that Henry cries at the one he does, as this is actually one of Gene Tierney's big dangerous femme fatale moments (for all that like, they all are—tbc!!), and his weeping at it tracks with how Nurse Able is mystified by his reaction, and earlier he'd complained that after looking away for two seconds he had lost the plot.

Should you watch Leave Her to Heaven? So turns out Leave Her to Heaven is considered one of the few COLOR NOIRS, and it kinda fucks totally. It looks so Douglas Sirk melodrama gorgeous, but with a plot straight out of Gone Girl. And like, you ever seen Vincent Price, young? NOT I. Impossibly tall. Shows up in a literal rain storm in the desert. Martin Scorsese has said this is one of his favorite movies—the taste.

My Darling Clementine (1946) / 5x22 ‘Movie Tonight’

And finally, from the Potter era, and from Potter’s heart, comes the fifth season episode 'Movie Tonight', where we watch really a remarkable amount of the battered copy he’s managed to track down of his favorite film, the John Ford western My Darling Clementine.

Harry Morgan is so cute, the phrase “My Darling Clementine” is so cute—with its lilting song to match—and this episode itself: it’s cute. The film screening works just as Colonel Potter hoped it might: a way to bring his campful of grown theater kids together during a tense patch. It’s very funny how little urging it takes for them to begin using every unplanned projector failure intermission as an opportunity to get up and start doing impressions for each other.

But do you know what’s so intriguing? When I finally watched My Darling Clementine, I found it actually struck a kind of harmony with M*A*S*H’s more melancholy currents. Filmed in 1946, it’s been called one of the first true post-war westerns, and there does feel something sort of haunted in it, this sense of loss. It starts in the song even, which after those first lines you remember is actually about a young woman “lost and gone forever.” So many of the characters are carrying some sort of wound, physicalized in coughs or injuries if not simply the toll clearly being wrought on them by the deaths that keep falling around them.

And then there’s that the two main characters are a brooding, Shakespeare-loving, TB-stricken outlaw surgeon (oh okay!), and their reluctant but-I’ll-do-it new marshal, a mellow, even-voiced, semi-secretly then not at all secretly total fucking weirdo, who caused me to message a M*A*S*H friend part-way in, hey, did we know Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp is Such A BJ. Fun, FUN. That would have been fun in the mess tent.

The film itself isn’t devoid of humor, either, should mention! Particularly around Old West Hunnicutt. It's that element as well as its dreamy bleakness that pairs well with a mobile hospital post in Korean War sitcom purgatory. Colonel Potter, famously, loves horses, so his 2/3rds horse-based explanation for why he loves this movie raises zero questions, but what that doesn’t indicate is you’re also going to get scenes like one where Doc Holiday is having alcohol poured over his hands so he can do emergency surgery on a pair of scrubbed tables in the saloon. This was a good pick, M*A*S*H writers, is what I’m saying.

Should you watch My Darling Clementine? Oh yes if I was not clear: Yes

4077 Film Festival: Closing Remarks

I enjoyed this process so much. I love conceptual experiences and homework, so. Really optimal for me. And I love old movies and I love M*A*S*H and I love their use of old movies on M*A*S*H! Contemporary cultural elements like this do wonders I think to call you to their actual time period, as this show is so much about the 1970s and Vietnam, that remembering it's actually set in the '50s can give me an enjoyable swoop in my stomach as I suddenly fall back further in time. It was the 1950s... The records that show up in 'Your Hit Parade' are all jazz... M*A*S*H: good show, good movie & music supervision.

Up next: NOT Bedtime For Bonzo (1951), a real movie, that also underscores my statement above as I just need to express to you: starred future president Ronald Reagan. M*A*S*H!!!!

15 notes · View notes

rescue-ram · 5 months

Text

Finished Season 2 of MASH!!

Didn't binge this quite as quickly as S1 but took notes

What is the best season of MASH and why is it S2?? Just hit after hit after hit

They give Trapper more to do and it's great I love him, extremely funny and some excellent TrapHawk moments

I wish I could better put into words what they did with Trapper but this whole season k was just like There's my baby boy 🥲 This is why I love him... Just so many great moments and I love the subtle but consistent characterization of Trapper being pragmatically principled

TRAPPER'S RECURRING SOUTHERN ACCENT "MIZZ HAWKEYE" MY BELOVED

Continuing my "Maybe I just have bad taste in MASH episodes" I genuinely didn't mind Operation Noselift. It was extremely stupid but I have a high tolerance for offensive 70s sex humor and it had extremely good Trapper moments

My personal least favorite was A Smattering of Intelligence but that was still a good episode and a decent satire of spies

Literally can't say enough good things about this season it was so fun to watch with like half of my all time faves in a row

I also noticed several episodes leaned into the "one bloody thing after another" plot form where it's kind of fast paced and chaotic rather than a narrative

More FrankMarg bickering, they break up and get back together several times

Also more sex and crimes for TrapHawk lol, they definitely get put on a watch list after this season lol

No recurring girlfriends but TrapHawk canonically have sex together (not WITH each other but group sex strongly implied twice lol), and they nearly get arrested like 3 times

Henry was so good I was loving McClean Stevenson, he plays Henry with such sincerity

My all time favorite MASH episode is Dr Pierce and Mr Hyde but I loved literally every episode this season LITERALLY hit after hit

Seconding Marley Manson's start with S2 finish with S1 MASH watch strat this is such a consistently excellent season you can't pick a bad start point to introduce people to the show

My favorite nurses are gone 😢 but we did get some quality Klinger and Mulcahy content so I guess that's the equivalent exchange you have to strike with ambiently misogynistic 70s screenwriters... Mulcahy with no glasses sighing "I'll go sleep with the nurses... What am I saying" iconic

Also timing a lil more ambiguous in parts esp since both Tai Dong and Kim take place over about a month each, but S2 has about 3-4 months happen on screen, so I am now confident for Harebrained Timeline Endeavor will be possible 🥲

In conclusion I loved this season so muchhhh 😭

#need to ramble more later #and i get to start S3 now!!!#oh we closing in the timeline is filling out...#mash

7 notes · View notes

mashpoll · 6 months

Text

Round 1, Batch 4 Results

I've been busy so forgot about posting the results earlier, here they are now! Round 1 has officially concluded, and Round 2 will start tomorrow 😁 Doing it in 2 batches, and the episodes excluded from round 1 due to evening-out-the-number-of-polls reasons will be in this round. So every episode is now in play!

90. Out of Gas 91. The More I See You 92. Cementing Relationships 93. None Like it Hot 94. The Tooth Shall Set You Free 95. 5 O'Clock Charlie 96. Hawk's Nightmare 97. Tea and Empathy 98. A Smattering of Intelligence 99. Heal Thyself 100. The Kids 101. Peace on Us 102. Yessir, That's Our Baby 103. The Life You Save 104. Iron Guts Kelly 105. April Fools 106. Der Tag 107. Dear Dad 108. Communication Breakdown 109. The Nurses 110. Give 'em Hell, Hawkeye 111. Check-Up 112. Bombed 113. Pressure Points 114. Dear Sigmund 115. Officer of the Day 116. For The Good of the Outfit 117. The Birthday Girls 118. In Love and War

#results #round 1

13 notes · View notes

marley-manson · 1 year

Note

if you feel like it, i would very much like to see the "top 10 episodes marley doesn't care for" list. not episodes you hate, just ones you could take or leave. and not necessarily 10 if you don't want, i'm just really curious.

Ooh yeah this'll be fun, thank you! This is specifically like, episodes where I feel like I dislike them more than most of fandom, rather than known controversial episodes, or bland episodes most of fandom agrees are bland. Cut to spare others my negativity lol.

A Smattering Of Intelligence - I think this is a pretty well-liked episode since it's Flagg's proper introduction, but it's probably my least fave of Flagg's appearances. I find it a little too cartoony, and to me it almost feels like a generic satirical spy story that someone took and inserted into Mash's universe. The vibes feel off.

The Party - lol like Movie Tonight this is another episode that's so beloved I feel kinda bad for not liking it much. There's lots I do like about it (Klinger's mom!) but overall I feel like the off-screen characters are annoyingly softened and made ooc to serve an uplifting, sentimental purpose that I don't really want from Mash anyway lol. Like Margaret's divorced parents getting along for this, or Charles' parents making friends with Radar's family.

And on top of that the vibe is... again, not what I want from Mash. I don't want that sense of uncomplicatedly positive bonding outside the war. Like imo Dear Dad Three's offhand joke where everyone unanimously voted against a reunion, in which the idea of a ten year MASH reunion is inherently laughable, is miles better than this episode in its entirety to me.

Bug Out - some good moments, some great jokes, but the army good vibes are infuriating to me. Potter's "If the U.S. army wants land, we just take it!" in a totally uncritical, ha ha funny context; the end where the US beating back North Korea is played for triumph complete with military remix of the theme... bad stuff.

April Fools - I definitely see the appeal of the squad teaming up together, but unfortunately this episode failed to capitalize on it, and I hate the premise immensely. I'm sure it's intended as a simple "lol the prankers become the prankees!" reversal but Potter enlisting his war buddy to prank the draftees (and Margaret) by making them think they're going to get court martialed and sent to prison for insubordination is just not my idea of fun shennanigans lol, which makes the tone of this very incongruent and awkward. Plus more making fun of Klinger, plus Hawkeye's epic prank finale sucked and we all know he could and would do a lot better than that if he had nothing to lose. It's fun if you totally ignore the lighthearted tone and take it for the mindfuck it is though lol.

Movie Tonight - I mentioned it already but yeah, it feels like the actors rather than the characters and that's not a vibe I enjoy personally, it has its moments but it's kind of awkward and unfun to me overall.

Hey Look Me Over - I've talked about this at greater length before but yeah it's like, I definitely appreciate the sentiment of a story where a not conventionally attractive woman wins a dude over with her personality, but I don't think it accomplished what they were aiming for. To me it made Hawkeye seem like a saint for changing his mind about her after getting yelled at for friendzoning her lol, and I don't think Kellye came across well in it compared to all her much cooler brief appearances. Nice that she tells us she sings and tapdances, but I'll take watching her smoke a cigar over that any day.

Who Knew - boo hiss, I've complained about it before at length. I know a few other people who also dislike it but overall it seems to be taken pretty uncritically in fandom and it shouldn't be, frankly.

As Time Goes By - the whole concept of the capsule is bad, it would've been bad even if Hawkeye filled it with subversive jokes, but then it was taken seriously as a poignant symbol of the army... woof.

The Price - I don't think this is beloved by fandom by any means, but it flies under the radar when by rights it should be hated imo. As perfect as Hawkeye is in this episode, Potter and the war hero's storyline is one of the worst subplots of the show, and I'm not qualifying that with an 'imo.'

Taking The Fifth - I had a hard time coming up with one more lol which just goes to show how good Mash is, but I went with this because I think most fans generally enjoy it and find it fun but I dislike it. I don't hate hate it, but like, Potter and Klinger's subplot is obnoxious, Hawkeye's plot is obnoxious and I hate the pathetic failed womanizer thing, and it's my go-to example of the kind of gay jokes that don't appeal to me nearly as much as the satirical seasons' jokes.

#mash #marley on mash #how about you - any episodes you want to complain about?

23 notes · View notes

mashbrainrot · 1 year

Text

#mash #m*a*s*h #mashposting #colonel flagg

8 notes · View notes

drpierceandmrhyde · 1 year

Text

Flagg episodes are very hit-and-miss for me. “Deal Me Out” and “The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan” are two of the funniest episodes of the whole show, but “A Smattering of Intelligence” is way too over-the-top

#I think Flagg works better in a supporting role

4 notes · View notes

oh-hawkeye · 1 year

Text

I got an ask, and accidentally deleted it. I didn't know that if you delete a draft of an answer to an ask it deletes the whole ask :( Be careful of that. The ask was anon, and said: 10.

First of all, thanks! I didn't think anyone would ask :3 Also, you're the first ask ever I got on this blog, congrats! (yay me for deleting my first ask...)

10. Episodes that make you laugh like crazy.

Tbh, I barely even laugh out loud when I'm watching MASH, or anything for that matter, because I'm only watching it on my own, so I don't think literal laughing like crazy ever happened. However some of the ones I find the funniest are: Chief Surgeon Who (S01E04) A Smattering of Intelligence (S02E24) The General Flipped at Dawn (S03E01) Novocaine Mutiny (S04E21) Rally Round the Flagg Boys (S07E21) Rumour at the Top (S10E03) Hey Look Me Over (S11E01) - it's a little heavy on stereotypes, and has a significant plot hole, but I like it regardless

I say "some of" because I don't remember all the episodes (obviously), and even though I have written a list of my favourite episodes, they're not my favourites because of the humour alone, so they don't fit here.

Even though I'm sure this list is incomplete, I still put quite an effort into making it (checking all the episode lists and summaries), definitely way more than I'm comfortable to admit, so I hope you like it :)

I'm sorry the answer is so long, I can't help myself rambling. I hope you don't mind. And sorry for deleting the actual ask.

Thanks again for writing me, and joining the game! Have a nice day :)

#ask #first ask #game #me #funniest episodes #funniest MASH episodes #MASH blog #M*A*S*H blog #my post

3 notes · View notes

lgbt4077 · 2 years

Note

5 for the MASH sleepover!!

5. An episode that makes you laugh out loud?

Tuttle always gets me! Such a classic episode.

I also love any of the Flagg episodes (a smattering of intelligence is a good one)

Thank you!!

#send me mash asks!#quentinbecksass

6 notes · View notes

kermits-cup-of-tea · 5 months

Note

Now you've got me excited for S5. I'm used to some of the expected sexism crap from older shows (mostly from old Trek), though the Callahan and Captain Sherman scene wasn't great. Do you remember if there's anymore scenes like that? I'd rather avoid those.

I got lucky, I didn't even know there was supposed to be a laugh track to the episodes, so I guess I found the trackless ones in my search. Think I definitely prefer it without them too

yah theres a couple rough episodes like that, lemme send the list just so you have it in case it gets old. i cant remember if there are many more like that one, but i know margaret gets a few really rough episodes (same in the movie so heads up if you decide to watch that) the ones with double stars are particularly important/good

oh hell yah, you hit the jackpot. the laugh track is fine but it takes so much away from important moments, glad you found the non-laugh track version first!

1x01 pilot

1x02 to market, to market

1x03 requiem for a lightweight

**1x04 chief surgeon who?**

**1x06 yankee doodle doctor**

1x07 bananas, crackers, and nuts

1x08 cowboy

1x10 i hate a mystery

1x12 dear dad

**1x15 tuttle**

**1x17 sometimes you hear the bullet**

1x19 the longjohn flap

**1x20 the army-navy game**

**2x01 divided we stand**

**2x02 5 o’clock charlie**

2x04 for the good of the outfit

2x05 dr pierce and mr hyde

**2x06 kim**

**2x10 the sniper**

2x11 carry on, hawkeye

2x12 the incubator

2x15 officers only

**2x22 george**

**2x24 a smattering of intelligence**

3x04 iron guts kelly

3x05 o.r.

3x06 springtime

3x09 alcoholics unanimous

**3x11 adam’s ribs**

3x12 a full rich day

**3x14 private charles lamb**

**3x17 the consultant**

**3x18 house arrest**

3x19 aid station

**3x21 big mac**

3x23 white gold

**3x24 abyssinia, henry**

0 notes

maxwellqueerklinger · 2 years

Text

I love the fight in the episode End Run, especially what Klinger wears but I couldn't help but notice he didn't wear his usual pink bathrobe.

He wore a yellow bathrobe.

Where did he get it from? Unless someone left it to him,

#john trapper mcintyre #maxwell klinger #mash 4077 #episode: end run #episode: a smattering of intelligence #episode: officer of the day

52 notes · View notes

grimmseye · 3 years

Text

Left Reel Clockwise

(Read on Ao3)

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Tim Stoker & Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Jonathan Sims

Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker, Sasha James

Warnings/Tags: Episode 200 spoilers, Time-travel, Fix-it, Apocalypse-typical PTSD

---------------

The first moments of existence after death were spent in a muddled haze. Awareness came languid to his mind, filling in the knowledge of a cool and smooth surface beneath his cheek, the weight of his arms, the tickle of a long lock of hair teasing his nose.

He couldn’t say exactly how memory flooded back, but later would register it rather like a sudden fall, as though rain fell in a single, uniform sheet rather than droplets from the sky. In a heartbeat he went from half-asleep to surging to his feet as he remembered. He crashed into a sturdy weight that tossed itself away from him then toppled to the ground, barely processing the noise over the scream of static and blood in his ears.

“Martin?” He called out, with a sudden flare of hope. Then Jon’s breath gusted from his chest. There was no Martin, no shock of white hair atop a bespectacled face. He reached out on instinct to the Eye, demanding its knowledge — and got only a faint buzz in response.

Tamping down panic, Jon forced himself to take in the room. There was a desk. A toppled-over hair. A window, letting slits of muddled afternoon light in through the blinds.

It was his old office. The knowledge floated through his mind, though he couldn’t process it. Tape recorders were stacked on the desk, those that had been used marked with post-it notes. A thin stack of papers was beside another.

He staggered to it, the need to understand overriding anything else. Atop it was a paper he’d seen far too many times: the form they gave to every client before they gave their statement. Name, date, subject, all filled out by hand in black ink. This one was written by Jason North.

He repeated the name, and the oddest part was that he didn’t instantaneously know who that was. A second later he remembered: the man had been a victim of the Desolation. Had lost all but his child to the Lightless Flame. He had first recorded that statement even before Jane Prentiss’ attack.

A wave of dizziness made him stumble, and he steadied himself on the desk. He stared at his hands, and found them strangely smooth. No twisted, long-healed burn. No pockmark scars of infestation. There was the silvery line from a neighbor’s dog, which had caught his middle finger in its eagerness to take a treat. Another, on the side of the thumb. A kitchen knife had slipped.

2016. The last time he had looked like this was 2016.

“Martin!” The shout rose unbidden from his chest, sudden panic seizing him. He reached to the Eye again, realizing with a twist of his stomach that the connection was there, but distant. It was a lingering thread, gossamer thin, that passed from his grip heedless of his call.

At once Jon was just a pinprick in a wider, crueler universe, the suffocating sense of helplessness washing over him. It left Jon bracing his weight against the desk, unable to even walk through the door to see what lay beyond it. Was this an alternate dimension, exactly the same except save for minute twists in the detail? Or just a feverish dream, the last screaming throes of his dying mind?

He started to paw at his own chest. His innards felt strange, like something had been stuffed beneath his skin that hadn’t been there before. He shoved one hand beneath his shirt, and there he felt it: a scar. Thick, and short, one he didn’t recognize. It was about the right length to match the base of a knife, the one he himself had used to cut the first Pupil out of this life. The one Martin in turn had slid into his heart.

The door opened.

Jon froze.

Tim peeked around the door, wearing the lightest of frowns. It deepened in clear concern as he took stock of the room, and then Jon himself. “Whoa there, Boss,” he said, stepping inside and moving towards Jon. “Did you trip?”

He was halfway to Jon before he regained use of his legs. He skittered away from Tim until his shoulder hit a wall, making him buckle and nearly collapse. Tim gave a call of concern, but halted in his tracks when Jon braced an defensively arm in front of himself. He had no weapon, but his heart was pounding, muscles coiled tight. He looked like a cornered animal, hunched against the wall with teeth half-bared and fingers curled like claws.

“Do not —” Jon choked out, unable to tear his eyes away from Tim, looking for the one detail that would prove this was fake. Black skin, darker hair that sat close-cropped atop his head. The clothes were right, passable to the dress-code with as much flair as he was allowed. Looking at him, Jon wanted to believe it, he wanted for all the world to let this be true. But he couldn’t.

“Do not come near me,” he spat.

He hated the look on that thing’s face, twisting Tim’s expression into something alarmed, worried both for himself and for Jon. Yes, that was it. He was in a nightmare. The Eye hadn’t liked him trying to sever its hold on the world, and had trapped him in his own personal hellscape.

But the thought didn’t fit right in his brain. The Eye simply wasn’t that intelligent. The one sense it lacked was foresight. He knew, with cold clarity, that his paranoia was wrong.

And then he knew that this was Tim.

He gasped, breath strangled. It felt like his skull was constricting down on his brain. Pressure thrummed behind his eyes, a migraine threatening at the edges. “Tim,” he wheezed. It came out as half a sob. “Oh, god. Oh god, Tim.” Jon covered his mouth, trying to still his breathing.

“Hey, hey.” It was softer than Jon had heard Tim’s voice in years. Not since Sasha —

“Sasha!” Energy flooded his limbs, and he straightened up, wild-eyed. “Is she here?”

Tim blinked at him. “Y-yeah, but, look —”

Jon brushed passed him, throwing the door open. The sight of the archive was almost nostalgic, and he drank it in as greedily as Beholding. “Where is she?” He asked.

“Um —” Tim came to hover at his shoulder. “At her… desk? Boss, are you feeling alright?”

Jon didn’t answer. Muscle memory carried him there, hurried strides to the place where the Not-Sasha once sat, all long hair and round glasses and thin smiles.

The woman sitting there instead was a stranger. She was small, dark-skinned and curly-haired. Her curls had been pulled back out of her face in a ponytail that sat nearly atop her head, and bobbed whenever she moved.

Jon couldn’t stop the uncertainty in his voice when he called for her. Her name felt foreign on his tongue, but she paused and looked up with a smile. It dropped when she met his gaze, and flickered to Tim behind him.

She rose. “Jon,” she started. His breath caught. Her voice was light and soft-toned, and he felt his shoulders begin to slump as she said, “what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen… well…” A wry smile curled on her lips.

He memorized her face. Every detail, the smattering of freckles, her brown eyes so dark they were nearly black, the pinprick at her lip where she had once had it pierced. He struggled to blink back tears.

“Sasha, I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words poured out before he could stop them. She didn’t understand, it was written on her face. And he knew he wasn’t anywhere he hadn’t been before. Maybe he’d really jumped back in time. Maybe this was something parallel, and he’d simply fallen into the stream. But whatever this was, these were his people. This was his Tim, and his Sasha, and they were still in danger.

But they were alive.

“You deserved better than what you got,” Jon told her, emphatic. “And I can’t change what happened, but — maybe I can fix it. Maybe I can…” He spiraled. Possibility was stretching out before him. If this wasn’t a nightmare, if it was a second chance…

“Jon, is this about the position?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I mean… sure, I was a bit, well, bitter over it at first, but… I mean it’s hardly your fault if Elias is like that.”

And just like that, his soaring hopes came back down.

He’d forgotten about Elias. What churned in his belly now was some mixture of nausea and crippling hatred. Stabbing him to death the one time hadn’t been enough to satisfy him. Hearing him beg for his miserable life hadn’t been enough. If he was here again, if he was breathing again… and if he knew what Jon knew…

“I’m… calling out sick for the day,” Jon announced. “Do whatever you want, just... “ he trailed off, shook his head, and stumbled out. Neither of them stopped him.

His feet carried him up the stairs. The sight of people, just normal people walking through the corridors of the archive had tears stinging in his eyes. There were cordial smiles and shadows under eyes, simple office displeasure the worst in the faces he saw. It was peaceful. It was wonderful.

He pushed the doors open, taking a dozen paces out into the courtyard that sat behind the institute before he slowed to a halt. Jon tipped his face up, eyes closed, and let the sun pour on his skin. It was warm, and perfect, and vital. The tears were trickling down his cheeks as he stood there, swaying back and forth on unsteady feet.

It was only the sound of footsteps that shook him from his reverie. He wiped his eyes, ducked his head, and hurried along his way.

Until he heard Martin call, “Jon?”

He spun around. Relief and adoration burst in his chest in equal measure as he looked to Martin, feeling like at long last the missing piece of him had slid into place and he could breathe again. When he saw him, though, that piece crumbled away.

His hair was black. Not that pure white bleached into him by the Lonely’s touch, but a soft, healthy black, neatly trimmed. Beneath it were freckles on a pale and sun-dappled face, square glasses framing his gaze. He couldn’t see a single scar.

And he was giving Jon a look that made his heart ache. Wary. Uncertain. Afraid.

He didn’t remember. This was his Martin, but there was no recollection in his face.

“Everything alright?” Martin asked, with such trepidation it would seem mocking if Jon didn’t know it was well deserved.

Voice strangled, Jon could only turn around and flee.

#jonathan sims #tim stoker #sasha james #jonmartin #tma #tma fic #martin blackwood #my writing #jon sims

32 notes · View notes

mash-rated · 3 years

Text

S2E24 “A Smattering of Intelligence”

Synopsis: two operatives from rival US intelligence agencies race to find a potential leak in the 4077th, sabotaging each other's investigation as they go

Rating:

Jokes: 3/5

Seriousness: 1/5

Plot: 2/5

Queer subtext: 2/5

Margaret's characterization: 1/5

My thoughts: this is the only funny Colonel Flagg episode

#M*A*S*H season 2 #mash rated #colonel flagg

4 notes · View notes

gaysails · 4 years

Text

having finished all the s1-2 mash episodes that were on my list I’m pleased to be able to report I only actively didn’t care for two of them... and in fact I went back and added 1x19 The Longjohn Flap even though nobody recommended it because I saw alan wrote it and it ended up being a fun little watch. for anybody following hot mash summer here are the prequel episodes I would recommend thus far. top picks are bolded and episodes with a star are ones where I can remember trapper being actually interesting or entertaining beyond just gag bits even if it was only for one scene

1x06 Yankee Doodle Doctor

1x12 Dear Dad

1x15 Tuttle

1x17 Sometimes You Hear The Bullet

1x19 The Longjohn Flap ✪

1x21 Sticky Wicket ✪

2x02 5′O Clock Charlie

2x04 For the Good of the Outfit

2x05 Dr Pierce and Mr Hyde ✪

2x06 Kim ✪

2x11 Carry On Hawkeye

2x13 Deal Me Out ✪

2x14 H*t L*ps and Empty Arms (was very pleased to find out they don’t actually say the nickname at all in this one)

2x24 A Smattering of Intelligence

#the extent to which almost nobody on earth recced sticky wicket versus the extent to which I liked it is nuts what's up with that #also for the record even though kim is bolded and is a good episode #it's really laughable how much it felt like an attempt to make trapper appealing that they brought out of nowhere and then abandoned #like I haven't started s3 yet but the writers really did wayne rogers dirty I would have quit too if I was him #mash recs

16 notes · View notes

thexwanderingxsouls · 4 years

Note

Turn offs for each character? Personality wise and sexual 👀

Oh gosh...lemme think. This is going to be another long one because I’m a long-winded human. I’m sorry.

Some General Housekeeping: In general, all of the girls automatically write off belts and pregnancy scares because their writer is not on board with writing that in general (possibly negotiable, but only with trusted established writing partners and with ample discussion first). I will also not write bathroom play, sexual activities involving actual minors, sexual activities involving non-human animals, and dead things. Bad hygiene is also a catch-all turn off.

Lily

Lily is a fairly open-minded and accepting person and she understands the different people express passion and thirst for life in different ways, but a complete lack of passion for anything at all will put her off pretty quickly. She enjoys hearing what people pour their heart and soul into, what makes them tick, and lack of passion for anything in particular will make her wonder why that is.

Along with that, Lily is a very passionate person and values that same trait in others. She thrives on encouraging those around her to pursue what they love and doing the same herself. She doesn’t care to be around people who put others down for what they love and belittle someone for their interests or things they’re learning how to do.

Sexually, Lily doesn’t do well with too much pain - It takes her head out of what’s going on.

She also has a hard limit for heavy humiliation and degradation.

Azalea

Azalea is stubborn, she’s cold, and she’s proud of her achievements, but she is not entitled. She’s worked hard for every inch she’s gained in her life. Running across people who exude a sense of entitlement without having worked to support those achievements will be an automatic turn off.

There has been a lot of trauma in Azalea’s life, mostly associated with sex, intimacy, and vulnerable relationships. She’s slow to warm to those things with a partner and there will be PTSD episodes and trauma responses to contend with along the way. Trying to force her to move too quickly with things of that nature will make her turn tail and walk away quicker than you can blink.

Azalea does not enjoy single-tail whips (bullwhips, snake whips, buggy whips, etc). She may be willing to break this hard limit with a trusted partner, but it would take a lot of work and patience to build up any amount of gratification from this act.

Do not, under any circumstances, try to initiate age play or DDlg play with her. Don’t even call her things like “little one”, “little girl”, “baby”, or “babygirl”. Not only does she associate such dynamics with past traumas, but the idea of age play just generally skeeves her out.

Azalea values intelligence and a thirst for educating one’s self. Willful ignorance and a lack of interest in learning new things or building one’s knowledge is distasteful.

Delaney

Delaney is someone who likes to experiment, both in life and in the bedroom. She’s willing to try something new and fail spectacularly in the process to say she hasn’t missed out on a new experience and she values the same willingness to try things and not let the potential for failure get them down. Letting your inhibitions hold you back will cause her to lose interest pretty quickly.

She also enjoys a spontaneous streak in her partner. She’s less of a planner and more of a “that sounds fun, plans are changing” type of person. If her partner is incredibly inflexible, it’s not going to work out well.

Laughter is important to Delaney. Lack of a sense of humor is a deal-breaker.

Sexually, she’s absolutely not into medical play. Introducing her work into her playtime is a turn-off.

Cassidy

Cassidy enjoys a good meaty debate and welcomes opinions that differ from her own. She’s easily turned off from a person if they are easily offended when their own beliefs and opinions are countered in friendly debate. And open mind and willingness to discuss without getting bent out of shape or defensive works better.

She values quality time with the people she cares for and dedicates time to that. She makes it a priority. She also enjoys having time to do her own thing or spend time with her friends outside of her romantic relationships. She appreciates wanting to spend time with one another, but she will not tolerate clinginess for too terribly long. She needs space now and then.

Pure, straight, vanilla sex is all well and good but will drive Cassidy to boredom really quickly. For her to be sexually compatible with someone, there need to be at least a few sprinkles or a smattering of chocolate sauce on top of the vanilla - A little spank, a little tickle, something.

She doesn’t mind a bit of sexy talk, but she gets turned off quickly by derogatory names being used in dirty talk. Don’t call her a bitch, slut, whore, etc unless you want her to call her safeword and call it a night.

#Anonymous #answered #About: Lily #About: Azalea #About: Cassidy #About: Delaney #//I'm sorry this is so rambly.

3 notes · View notes

innuendostudios · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on... some more games

[discussing The Silent Age, Unforeseen Incidents, and Unavowed; all spoilers studiously avoided]

Thoughts on The Silent Age

I think I first heard about The Silent Age on an episode of Idle Thumbs at least a year ago? They implied it was a neat bit of time travel malarkey, and that’s exactly what it turns out to be. You’re a janitor in the 1970s who has a run-in with a dying time traveler who tells you basically everyone in the future he’s just arrived from has died of a horrible plague, he’s come back to prevent the outbreak, but now that he’s dying it’s your job to finish his task. You inherit his portable time travel doohickey and... well, solve a bunch of adventure game puzzles.

What we have here is a smattering of puzzles with the twist that every location exists both in the “present” and the post-apocalyptic future. It’s a clever hook, and it makes a fairly standard set of adventure game puzzles more interesting, though you’ll jump back and forth in time so much that becomes mundane. Outside of a few sequences where your time travel doohickey is out of power - which have some of the better solutions - every puzzle requires a jaunt forwards or backwards through time. Every single one. It loses some novelty after a bit. It doesn’t help that every single puzzle is also an inventory puzzle. The time travel mechanic seems like it would lend itself to some real clever braintinglers, but time travel mostly exists as a way of getting around locked doors, sneaking past guards, and giving you two versions of every room to look for inventory in. Any object that looks like it’s important, you need to slap another object on. The formula never changes.

I’m ambivalent about inventory puzzles, because an adventure game engine is generally designed such that you can fit rather a lot of different kinds of puzzles into it. I made a point in my Monkey Island video that the opening three trials each involves a completely different part of the engine: learning patterns in the dialogue system, interpreting information in the picture window, and possessing without necessarily using inventory while the game makes jokes with the sentence line. But inventory puzzles have always been the path of least resistance - they’re the simplest to design and the easiest to program. So far as inventory puzzles go, The Silent Age’s inventory puzzles are not at all bad, but, given there’s a much more interesting time travel mechanic right there, it's a missed opportunity.

As for the story, for much of the game, it seems purely functional. It’s not particularly original - as you can guess from the premise, it’s borrowing a lot from Back to the Future and Twelve Monkeys. And time travel stories can often feel like puzzle boxes more that interesting narratives; a bunch of curious loose threads in the first half are all explained in the second half when you see how the time-travel shenanigans played out. The characters aren’t deep, the horrors of the apocalypse aren’t deeply felt, the ethics and mechanics of time travel are hinted at but not really engaged with. For much of its runtime, it’s just a well-oiled machine, and you play to watch the cogs turn and the tumblers fall into place. This can be satisfying but also kind of hollow.

But, unlike a lot of time travel stories - and a lot of adventure games I’ve been playing recently - it gets richer in the final act. Right when you feel the puzzle box clicking inexorably and obviously into shape, the game makes room to get just a little bit heady. Not intensely so, but enough that the game proves smarter than you thought. And it manages to find an ending that is unexpected and oddly compelling. It still grazes against some topics its not prepared to delve into - okay, game, you’ve dutifully avoided the bootstrap paradox in some clever ways, but don’t these laws of causality kind of prove that fate exists? - but it does give the ending a bit more heft than I was expecting.

It’s a quick, play-it-in-an-afternoon game, and it didn’t exactly knock my socks off. But after so many capsule reviews where I say “good game, but I wish the ending was better,” it feels really good to say, just this once, “the ending made the whole experience better.” It’s short and it’s cheap and it’s worth checking out.

Thoughts on Unforeseen Incidents

I’ve never really gone into my problems with Broken Sword - and today is still not the day I rant about how Broken Sword is everything wrong with adventure games - but, as I’ve said elsewhere, Unforeseen Incidents is Broken Sword if Broken Sword were good.

It’s got a similar flavor of hapless dork protagonist who stumbles into a conspiracy by pure chance, a similar female journalist sidekick whom he clearly has a crush on, and even the last line of dialogue in the game seems like an intentional inversion of the ending of Broken Sword. The difference is that the conspiracy actually makes sense, the sidekick is capable and interesting instead of just cute and French, the jaunting between locations doesn’t have overtones of imperialist globetrotting ripped off from Indiana Jones, none of the puzzles are infuriating, it maintains a consistent tone, the jokes are actually funny, and there are no cutscenes with Don Bluth’s rubbery faces and bad pacing. (I said I’m not getting into it today!!!!)

So, yes, Unforeseen Incidents does Broken Sword one better, and, seeing as Broken Sword is (bafflingly) considered a classic, that should put the game on your radar. But, also, even if it’s markedly better in every way, the game is clearly derivative of Broken Sword, which robs it of some novelty. (It also borrows a major plot twist from a certain not-very-good action movie, but it would be a spoiler to say which one.) It’s generally good advice that, if you’re going to steal, steal from someone you can improve upon, but it would have benefited from feeling a little more original.

Anyway, the basic plot hook is - in keeping with The Silent Age - trying to stop the outbreak of a plague. The main character, Harper, is a broke handyman in a small town that appears to be ground zero for an incredibly virulent and lethal disease, and he gets involved, at first, to help out his professor friend in finding a cure. (So I guess that’s another game that borrows from Back to the Future, but Harper’s friendship with Professor McBride is at least a little more plausible than Marty’s with a disgraced nuclear physicist.) Things get weirder and more complicated from there.

Here’s a thing that happened while I was playing: Most of the puzzles are fine. Just fine. Nothing to write home about, but they get the job done. A few were a bit annoying, but nothing insulted my intelligence. But there were about three that actually stumped me, where I couldn’t think of what to do next, and I looked up solutions online. Now, most of the time, when I look up a solution, the answer is something dippy and I think, “Well, that wouldn’t have been interesting to solve,” or, “How was I supposed to think of that?” It’s rare that I regret looking up solutions to adventure game puzzles, because, generally, if I’m looking up a solution, it’s because the game has not convinced me solving it myself will be interesting.

But, in this game, every single puzzle I looked up the solution to I kicked myself for not thinking of the answer on my own. This is not my usual experience! The solutions were actually clever, and I would have felt genuinely smart for figuring them out. I kept thinking, “Shit, I should’ve thought of that!” I dunno why this happened multiple times in this game when it’s so uncommon in others. Maybe the bulk of the puzzles were normal enough that I kept assuming the ones I was stuck on didn’t have interesting solutions. Maybe they didn’t prime me for the kind of lateral thinking I’d have to employ a handful of times. Or maybe I’m just not as smart as I think. (No, no, it can’t be that.)

It might be a pacing thing? Since most of the puzzles didn’t give me trouble, the game moved at a pretty steady clip, so the few times I was legitimately stumped just ground everything to a halt. A game that had more stumpers might’ve had a more methodical pace, where being stumped wouldn’t have felt frustrating. But, whenever I didn’t know what to do, it was annoying, because the game felt like a page turner whose pages suddenly refused to turn.

Or perhaps I’m making excuses! The short version is, when you get stumped in this game, take a break and come back to it later, see if you can’t figure the stumpers out on your own. I think you’ll be happier if you do.

The writing is generally good across the board, owing, I suspect, to some journeyman script work from Alasdair Beckett-King of the Nelly Cootalot games. The story really lends itself to stock characters and functional dialogue, so having everyone be just a little more believable and interesting than is strictly necessary is quite lovely.

Overall, the way the conspiracy shakes out is, well, believable and it works fine enough, but it’s not... interesting. There’s some solid character work thrown in at the climax that’s seemingly there to make up for an underwhelming payoff in the plot proper, but it doesn’t carry enough weight. I don’t get to say “the ending made the whole experience richer” this time; it’s another good game with a weak ending. (Not bad, just weak.)

Still, I had a really good time with Unforeseen Incidents, and would highly recommend it, if recommendations are, for whatever reason, what you came here for. It’s got good characters and great voice acting and some nice twists and turns, and the design ain’t have bad, either. Check it out.

Thoughts on Unavowed

It finally happened! I’m writing up a Wadjet Eye game! (Well, it is in a batch of mini-reviews, not getting a whole post of its own, but shut up.) My previous assessment of Wadjet Eye as a company was that their games - both those made in-house and those published but made by other studios - are consistently interesting and often good but never great.

I might be taking that back now.

The buzz around Unavowed was that its opening was one of its best sequences, so I grew skeptical of the whole game when the opening didn’t do much for me. Having finished the game, I’d say the first half hour is actually beneath the quality of the complete product - the writing is fine but not amazing and the first proper puzzle is actively bad. Rather than opening strong, I feel the game’s real talent is for deepening as you play it.

The basic premise is that you are a person - in my game, a woman - who has spent the last year possessed by a demon. The game opens with the demon being exorcised from your body by what is basically the supernatural version of the Men in Black or the RIPD - a jinn and a fire mage who police the secret world of spirits and elementals who hide in plain sight in New York. Having been touched by a demon and having no place to go after a year of murdering people while possessed, you join the Unavowed and work to uncover the mystery of what your demon was up to during the year you can’t remember. Spirit activity has been on the rise lately, so your adventure also involves recruiting new people to the Unavowed who have been, in various ways, touched by the “other side.”

Where the game started to click for me is when I recruited Logan - a bit character from my opening flashback - into the team proper, and I, er... fell in love with him? I don’t usually crush on fictional characters, or on men (real or imagined), but in the rare event it happens, I apparently have a type? Logan is a strapping, bald, man of color with a soft voice and a tortured past and he’s filled with regret but also working every day to be a better person and he’s even good with kids and oh god I adore him. He’s also a spirit medium, which means, if I died - and I would die for him - he would ease my passing, but how can I move on to the next world if the thing keeping me here is you, Logan? How?

The richness of the characters is what starts to bring the whole thing together, and they are some of the best characters I’ve hung out with in a game. The game is rife with little touches that keep the spotlight on their personalities - you bring two companions with you on every mission, and there’s a smalltalk feature where whichever two you picked will just chat about whatever, and you’ll find yourself lingering in a scene with nothing to do just because you want to hear the rest of the conversation. You can also chat with your companions at any time, which serves as a hint system but also lets you make smalltalk of your own.

The buzz has mostly praised this focus on character, but I think maybe folks are giving the plot short shrift? Things are pretty episodic for the first chunk of the game - you have a mission, you bring two teammates with you on it, and you go home when the mission is done - but around the midpoint there are... developments... which are, frankly, kind of brilliant? I don’t want to say more than that, but its the kind of stuff that reframes what came before, and it starts building towards a complex, satisfying, and unpredictable conclusion. Dave Gilbert is good with characters, but he’s no slouch at plot developments, either.

There are still some weirdnesses that I wish weren’t there. This is one of those games where one needs to clarify that having good writing is not the same as having good dialogue; Unavowed has frequently excellent writing but its dialogue is only OK. One of those games where I keep rewriting it in my head, which is generally a sign that the emotional beats are solid, I just wish they’d been written slightly differently. Being given the choice of who joins you on missions means that puzzles that can only be solved with the abilities of people you didn’t bring with you are still present, and they, at times, threw me off of what I was actually supposed to do. I also couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just go get the person who can do the thing I need done; the game rather arbitrarily refuses to let you swap out teammates once you’ve started a mission, even though the plot sometimes demands one get swapped without your consent. (In my game, Vicki got shortchanged, because, every mission I brought her on, for plot reasons she would get replaced with Logan partway through, not that I’m complaining.)

The game also borrows the “moral choice with lasting consequences” that everyone’s been borrowing since The Walking Dead, and even does the thing when it confronts you with the consequences of all your decisions in the late game, and, while it executes it okay, it was contrived when The Walking Dead did it, it was contrived when Life is Strange did it, and it’s still contrived today. There have to be better ways to make your decisions feel meaningful than having an antagonist monologue all your choices back at you in the endgame!

Also, for a game so focused on character, I wish there were more complex character arcs. This is a thing video games are kind of notorious about: The cast of Unavowed often have character-building moments, but, because they can happen in any order and some are optional, they can’t really change the character in any meaningful way (at least, not without writing a whole lot of additional content). In my game, my darling dear Logan had a fairly significant epiphany that, due to the nature of the game, was never mentioned again and didn’t alter his trajectory. In screenwriting terms, it was a Transforming Change that never led to an Ultimate Boon. If I’m being honest, the beat was also a little pat, but there were several similar beats with other characters that landed with more impact, but also never came to anything.

All that aside, I really fell for this game. The plot seems designed to justify vignettes that explore the game’s magical world, but each vignette also furthers a satisfying narrative. In my experience, you often get one or the other. It’s one of the best narrative games I’ve played in recent memory, and, of all the ones I’m discussing today, the one I’m most likely to play again. It’s definitely the most cohesive and complete game I’ve played from Wadjet Eye; I’m not sure how I’d rank it against Resonance, which has higher highs but is a deeply, deeply flawed game. Fortunately, we live in a universe where we don’t have to choose!

Unavowed is great. You should play it.

Odds & Sods

I also played Virginia recently, but have nothing to say about it except that it’s beautiful and you should play it right away, and I played Alum which... hoo, I am not ready to talk about Alum yet.

#capsule review #unavowed #unforeseen incidents #the silent age #adventure games #writings

35 notes · View notes