#its that ~narrative format~ that saves me I think

[rotzaprachim]

one of the most interesting aspects of andor to me is how i think it didn’t decision to alter character timelines so much as make the decision to alter- or rather, cut open and interrogate- the entire timeline of the rebellion, in ways that have fascinating implications for the entire worldbuilding of the starry wars. one of the lingering uncertainties of “andor” comes from the refusal to play any of the cards of the Rebel Alliance as the plucky good-guy army, for whom Joining the Rebellion is as straightforward as enlisting and getting a uniform, who can show up and do army things at any moment. as the episodes build and build and build and the tension and power of the imperial army grows higher, the Rebel Alliance just.... doesn’t appear. there is no Secret Base for Luthen to take Cassian too, only a tiny group of guerillas in the highlands. there is none of the famous iconography of the Rebellion- no orange flight suits (though boy does andor give a new cast to that color choice), no rebel armed rebel bases, no x-wings go swoop in at the last moment. as I watched Andor I felt the lingering stone-drop realisation: the Rebellion, as we know it, simply does not exist. what we get is a hyper-isolated, fragmented rebellion in its infancy, tiny groups and intellligence operations so low on cash that the theft of a single sector’s payroll or access to a single wealthy woman’s family funds. Cassian can’t join the rebel alliance, because it doesn’t exist yet. 

And that’s one story. that’s a far, far more complicated story, and a more difficult story to exist within, than the plucky rebel army versus big empire narrative star wars has been living in. how do you join something like that? it really isn’t that easy. BUT! here’s the thing. BUT BUT BUT. andor complicates that further by showing, over and over again, that even if that rebel alliance can’t swoop in and save the day, that even if the number of *official* Rebellion members is a tiny fraction down to their last resources, organised rebellion is, in fact, possible. and it already exists. it exists everywhere, in numerous forms. it is both non violent and violent, and it is often the work of *civillians,* because the fundamental conditions of war, occupation, and totalitarianism make, politicise, designate everyone as a soldier. looking back on andor, there isn’t a single arc that isn’t made possible by some form of organised, collective rebellion. cassian couldn’t have escaped from ferrix if ferrix didn’t already have a system of pounding metal in order to spread the word, if salman and wilmon paak didn’t get set to banging metal, and brasso didn’t weld weights to the police squad car. the rebels couldn’t have pulled off the aldhani heist if hundreds of local aldhani hadn’t continued their cultural rites and kept coming on that pilgrimage even as local imperial agents actively worked to prevent it- because existence can be rebellion, because the continuation of cultural and religious traditions under oppression can be rebellion. the crowning point of the season, for me, is the prison break at narkina five, the five thousand prisoners knowing that there’s only one way out, and that’s by running, shooting, killing, by climbing out together. the series ends on an entire local uprising as a town’s funeral march turns into a riot against armed, shielded cops. 

And it all leads into these much more nuanced things that Andor is saying about the natures of both oppression and resistance. Because it isn’t giving the (individualist, and somewhat defeatest, but sure damn repeated) narrative that rebellion against authoritarianism is about a few Englightened individuals - the luthen’s, the aldhani rebels- versus the mass of Sheeple who just take it. Are thankful for it. That there’s just the Special ones who see the light, and those that.. Haven’t. Nor are there the essentialistly Good Pure Rebels who have all the Right Ideas in a nice Color Coded Format, who have fought Purely and Totally for the Rebellion From the Start, versus the bad guys The structures of empire don’t work like that- they make huge numbers of people complicit because of the way they stack and tier and turn subjugated people against each other when so few individuals, actually are in charge, and they make the alternative to complicity be nothing but death, in horrific ways. The people in Andor have dirt on their hands. It’s about what they do now. The X-wings can’t come to save Cassian from Narkina. The prisoners have to climb their way out. No one can give the Aldhani rebels backup. Only Luthen and Cinta and Vel can come to Maarva’s wake, and when the fighting comes, it isn’t even about them, anyway. Andor asks what happens when there isn’t the golden saviour, the Good Guy army coming in for us, and makes the case for rebellion as something intensely collectivist and intensely local, that rebellion and rebels exist before our very eyes, in more complicated ways. It’s what makes the show both brutal and brutally hopeful - for one of the first times, watching star wars, i get the sense viscerally that better worlds and forms of existence are possible within the star wars world.

As for cassian, the arc I hope they’re going for, and i really do think are going for, is not that he joined the rebellion as we see it in rogue one. It’s that that rebellion as we know didn’t exist yet, and that his arc will be about helping to stitch together the various forms of rebellion that already exist, everywhere. I think we’ll walk into Rogue One now not seeing Cassian as Mon and Draven’s hand- already fascinating - but as one of the rebellion’s quiet powerbrokers and kingmakers whose a big part of why they’re there to begin with.

#andor #screaming crying vomiting blood over this show forever and ever #cassian andor

[being-of-rain]

I wasn’t really a big fan of The Giggle by the time I finished watching it, and I liked it less the more that I thought about it. Which is a real shame, because I think it was full of a lot of great ideas that were squandered with poor execution. I didn’t really want to just post pages of negativity, so I’ll quickly skim through a list of things I think could’ve been done better, and maybe I’ll expand on some of them later or if I’m asked about them. Still, this is your warning for negativity.

The whole 'screens are evil and making everyone think they're right' felt so shallow and cheap, especially because it was set up as the main obstacle and then largely ignored. A lot of the characters at UNIT really didn't do much (I totally forgot about The Vlinx after my first watchthrough) but I think that didn't bother me much while watching because I was used to Chibnall regularly ignoring characters like that. It was nice to see Mel again, but she didn’t really serve much purpose.

RTD’s take on the Toymaker is quite similar to his take on the Master, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying (specifically the German accent, which lost its appeal pretty quickly for me). But he felt pretty hollow and full of wasted potential beyond that, feeling like he was there just to give the episode a villain. Although speaking of the Master, his brief inclusion was hilarious and an easy way to write him back into the show later, nicely done.

The last third of the episode had some many intriguing and potentially awesome ideas behind it. The new Doctor turning up partway through a story? Cool! The Doctor defeating his final villain alongside the next star of the show? Fun! The Doctor getting self-care and words of wisdom from his next self? So heartwarming! One Doctor retiring to be happy while his next incarnation travels off to continue the adventures? A fun use of the show's format!

But for me these ideas just didn’t work or didn’t fulfill their potential, and it’s mostly because there’s no narrative justification for them. No cause and effect. There’s no given reason for the Doctor to bigenerate, it just happens. There’s no particular reason that it was the Doctors rather than the Toymaker who won the game of catch to save the world, it just happens. Without any narrative reason the third act feels so unsatisfying, like spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and (I don’t say this lightly) incredibly lazily written.

That lack of story reason also undermines the ending, clearly the thing RTD was most interested in, by making it feel unearned. Like a first draft script that worked backwards to make it happen. The retirement ending itself I have mixed feelings about, which I’m not sure I can fully articulate. One thing I love to see is that RTD can actually do a genuinely happy ending rather than making every ending a tragedy. But said happy ending feels a little too ‘married-with-kids-and-a-white-picket-fence’ to me – though obviously I can’t stress enough how relieved I am that romance didn’t factor into it. It just felt like it wasn’t set up well enough. I’d probably like it a lot more if they made clear if Tennant’s Doctor was going to turn into Gatwa’s Doctor or if they’re just separate people now. It was sweet of RTD to try and bring a conclusion to the ‘Doctor is traumatised’ thing that he introduced to the show 18 years ago, but he did it poorly. At least it offers interesting new possibilities for the show going forward!

With all that said, in the end The Giggle felt to me like RTD retreading some of his biggest flaws as a writer, and throwing in a few borrowed from other showrunners for good measure. It was a disappointment both because of the good ideas just below the surface, and because it came after a very fun first episode and an incredible follow-up.

But like I said, I’m excited to see what the show does next! I saw talk that there’ll be lots of mythical and unnatural creatures turn up due to the Doctor’s salt thing, which is super cool. And obviously I’m excited for more Gatwa! I haven’t really felt a lot of reason to be excited about Ruby yet, but as always I’m ready to fall in love with the new companion quickly!

#my thoughts #dw spoilers #ten #donna #toymaker

[shuttershocky]

It really is something how beloved Shimousa is when if picked apart it wasn't even that good.

WAIT before you all throw your shoes at me, know that I fully agree that Shimousa rules. It's the only FGO chapter I really want to see animated and done right. I also just don't think it was that good.

Shinjuku had the stronger narrative arc for its primary protagonist (+ antagonist) Moriarty, Salem made better use of its setting with some fantastic paranoia and the surprising introduction of the outer gods into Type-Moon, and Seraphix (the CCC event) was just Nasu showing off his skills by using the structure of the ballet Giselle and making Meltryllis follow Giselle's footsteps while making something completely different while Shimousa was a straightforward "beat these seven guys and then the boss" adventure. If it wasn't for Agartha existing, Shimousa might have actually been the worst part of Epic of Remnant. All of its strengths would have been vastly improved by being in a different, more visual medium (see: the manga version and its sick art), as the format (and just the prose + dialogue in general) just couldn't capture all the cool shit it was trying to show you.

Yet it's the most popular, and it's just so damn fun. Musashi's charisma is among the best in Type-Moon, and everything about her just clicks. Her character design is simple and yet instantly recognizable, she can turn on a dime between being the dashing hero and the goofball oaf, and most importantly, she dual wields swords. (That's rad as fuck.)

Musashi became so iconic they're literally making a whole game about samurai so she gets to appear in something else after FGO killed her off. What a star.

This part probably doesn't apply to as many people, but if you're like me and like a lot of old Type-Moon it was also just really great to see TM do dark fantasy / horror again. Shimousa went MAXIMUM chuunige: servants get horrifically corrupted beyond the point of saving and their eyes weep blood, Musashi's duels take place in a field of skulls underneath a blood moon, there's a terrifying scene where Musashi beheads Lancer of Purgatorio, only for him to keep laughing and fighting while his head reformed from warped flesh from his neck. We even got a new EMIYA remix out of nowhere. What the fuck.

Shimousa ruled so hard. I want an anime so bad, but at the same time I don't know if I can trust an anime to do it right now that I've seen what the manga did with it.

#Fate

[nihilnovisubsole]

how are you finding ffxiv btw? curious to hear what you think of it so far if youre open to sharing!

i wrote up some early impressions here! tl;dr, it's got me good. the people who said i'd like it were absolutely right. i'm enjoying talking about it, so have some more

it's funny to see how many of the game's incidental quests follow the "you look like an adventurer" format. "you look like an adventurer, go save my cat from that tree," "you look like an adventurer, bring me a blue flower with red thorns," etc. it's a format i've been banned from using at my job - our narrative policy is that it feels gamey, and questgivers should always have a deeper reason to solicit the player specifically. that said, even the starting cities have a dizzying amount of sidequests, and you can't afford to be precious when you're writing at that scale. hat tip to the writers for having to come up with it all!

i mean, really, it blows my mind how much there is to do. i worried that i was chewing through the ARR story too quickly, but my friends keep saying this is only the beginning? omg

i find myself chasing a kind of roleplay that i haven't before: one that revolves around the game's time-of-day system. since cutscenes [in general - i guess some are forced] match the current weather and light, i've been scheduling cutscenes around what seems most cinematic or plot-appropriate. i waited until nightfall to do the greenbliss festival and hear the grand company speeches to make them more solemn. by coincidence, i fought foulques during a downpour, and it felt so much more dramatic. so did crossing thanalan at nigh noon. you know that bad thing that happens at the waking sands? i trudged all the way to the church alone in the dead of midnight afterward. now that's kino!!

oh yeah, those veteran friends i mentioned earlier? they're obsessed with which eligible bachelor i'll attach my character to. i'm so flattered. how can you not be. getting ubereats deliveries of "yeah, this one is a miserable bastard, you might like him." i'm told that the game implicitly encourages this sort of thing by stressing how much your player means to the major characters. no wonder you've all been having so much fun over here

i made some rookie mistakes in the character creator, so no screenshots yet ): thank goodness you get a free fantasia eventually

i have more details cooking, though. i see her as a fallen dragoon who thought she'd failed at being a hero and has been given a second chance. starting in gridania was less a "newbie lancer" thing and more a kurosawa "stranger comes to town and solves its problems by the sword" thing. she's also been forged-in-battle friends with raubahn for many years, and i've heard he gets a lot of story, so i'm looking forward to that.

don't worry, i've been forearmed about what happens-

[the vaudeville cane drags me offstage]

#asks #heyneon #ffxiv

[valittlecorner]

—⁠☆ "It's all my fault, again.." 1nm8 AFTER SHOWDOWN VD PREDICTION !! ☆—⁠

- Hey hey!! Recently it was announced we're getting a short VD as an update on last round's losers, and to put it frankly, I don't think 1nm8 are taking this loss very well. We already know Kei, his saviour complex mixed with all the overall pressure aren't going to end well. So, I'm here to share my own theory about this next Voice Drama, mostly based around my interpretation of Kei and facts from the Showdown VD!! Tbh, more than a theory, this is more like a "what I wish would happen" so do keep that in mind. This is formatted like some sort of summary or fanfic, I already crafted a whole narrative. Now let's get into it!

—⁠☆ #Act 1 ; Saviour complex backfires ☆—⁠

- It's already widely known Kei has a serious Saviour complex going on. He blames himself for everything and believes it's his complete responsibility to singlehandedly save every Phantommetal user, since he doesn't want anyone to end like Itsuki and Rokuta. But still, in Showdown, we're given info that Kei hadn't 'fully committed' to the bit until then. For him to lose the exact moment he became really serious about being the saviour... That must've hit him like a truck. Knowing Kei, he probably hasn't stopped thinking about how everything is his fault. He should've committed earlier. Now what is he supposed to do? 1nm8 can keep preaching their message, but without the possibility of winning and obtaining ParaClub, it's pretty much over for them. The only thing he must be thinking about is making more music. Itsuki already told him the music he produces can help others, so that's what he can do while putting his usual calm and composed front. It must be overwhelming, and he thinks no one is noticing, but the other members are actually very worried. Bringing us to our next point.

—⁠☆ #Act 1.1 ; Itsuki and Rokuta ☆—⁠

- In terms of these two, they're also very affected. Of course they would be. Rokuta is pretty sad but keeping it positive while Itsuki is stressing. They have told Kei his music could save them, it could save everyone (Showdown VD), so losing wasn't really in their plans. They rely on each other to deal with all the mixed feelings, but ¿Who is Kei relying on? He's been producing like crazy and trying to keep it natural, but they both know he's not doing well. Itsuki told Kei it's okay to lean on them sometimes, but Kei doesn't do that often. Neither Itsuki or Rokuta have stopped to think they're probably partly at fault for Kei's complicated feelings, don't get me wrong, they're all traumatized trying to cope, but while doing so they're accidentally pressuring Kei way too much. And that's coming to get them now it seems.

—⁠☆ #Act 2 ; Its not your fault ☆—⁠

- While 1nm8 are like a family, Kei seems to pretty much be on his own, with the pressure of becoming a world saviour. He's doing it because he feels responsible, Itsuki straight up told Kei he's the only one who could save everyone, and Rokuta's mere existence makes him want to keep pursuing the plan. There have been worries about Kei's wellbeing since forever, and now it was time for Itsuki and Rokuta to actually ask him what's wrong. Itsuki tried to avoid bringing Rokuta, knowing its less likely for Kei to be honest with him there, but Rokuta still tags along and they both ask Kei what's up. Kei is dodging questions but after insisting for a while, he finally breaks down and explains it's all his fault again, he made them suffer again and didn't give enough for them to win, so now not only they but even himself has to keep dragging the weight of all their past sufferings. Kei wholeheartedly believes the only one at fault is himself, Itsuki and Rokuta were amazing as always, it's him who's dragging them down. Not enough strength to do an in-depth description but Itsuki and Rokuta try to help Kei understand it's not his fault, and that it's okay to just take it easy sometimes and stop pressuring himself this much, and they also apologize if they ever made him feel he had to hide his feelings. Therapy over let's get to the happy part.

—⁠☆ #Act 3 ; Its okay to take it easy! ☆—⁠

- As a closing act, let's just say peace came back to the 1nm8 household for now. Kei can't make a radical change in his mentality, but he can try to change slowly. We already had that tweet of him saying "what he believed was correct wasn't" so I can only guess he's changing his methods to spread the message. And if we get that + Kei trying to stop the saviour complex-ing then we can relax, they'll be okay. They ate Karaage for dinner and were happily ever after. Yippee

—⁠☆ Outro ☆—⁠

- And that's it! It really looks like a fanfic, got a bit carried away but to summarize: I think / hope this short VD is gonna be Kei centred and very angsty, in usual 1nm8 fashion. Again, I got carried away so maybe the topic won't be as widely covered as I described it, it's a 10 min VD, but I have hopes that at least something of what I said it's getting covered okay. I'm also sleepy so who knows if this is well written. But yeah tysm for reading!! This was really fun to write, would do it again. if I'm completely wrong here we'll just treasure this as a fun little fanfic. 😊

#pararai #paradox live #1nm8 #paradox live 1nm8 #kei miyama #itsuki #rokuta #valittletheories

[miyakuli]

OneShot

Dream a little dream of me

OneShot is a narrative puzzle game that takes us into a dark and dying world that little Niko will be trying to save, but not without our help. And yes, that's all you'll need to know before launching it, because believe me, the game will have plenty to surprise you.

❤ The pixel art style is very beautiful; the chara-design is varied, the illustrations are really charming and the backgrounds create a strange, gloomy atmosphere that serves its universe well. ❤ Little Niko is adorable and very lovable, and as the game often breaks the 4th wall, there's a real chemistry that forms between him and us. It's not every day I get to brag about being friends with a video game character ;) ❤ The story itself is fairly simple, but the lore is really rich and intriguing, whether it's the technological society where robots and humans live side by side, or the mystical aspect with the Author, the source of knowledge in this world and our ally in this quest. I really found myself interacting with all the elements of the game in order to better understand how it works. But the game really starts to shine in its Solstice mode, once you've replayed the game. Without spoilers, it's a way of getting back into the game by rediscovering this world all over again, but above all, of leaving it with a feeling of pure satisfaction this time, but not without emotion. ❤ The puzzles are well-balanced in terms of difficulty, and are easy to progress through, although some will make you think a little harder. However, the game's unique feature is that you use your computer to solve some of them. This mechanic also contributes a great deal to the story, with some really ingenious ideas for setting the scene! It makes for quite a unique experience (although yes, it's not the first game to have done this, it's still effective in its execution).

+/- I have very mixed feelings about the backup system. There are no automatic or manual saves. In fact, the game is built around checkpoints represented by a bed in which little Niko can rest to let us leave the game. The problem is that when you want to take a break, you have to wait until you find a bed, and there aren't that many. And when you want to continue the story, it's our tired little Niko who tells us to rest and close the game. But afterwards, this leads to a dream phase for the character when the game is relaunched, which reinforces immersion and adds extra elements to the story. In itself, it's a really interesting idea, but I still think it's a bit impractical. +/- The OST adds to the sinister atmosphere of the universe, but there aren't many tracks and the loops are noticeable when changing locations. +/- The zones are really vast and never give you any real visual reference points, which reflects Niko's feeling of being lost in this strange world….but you just get totally lost! x) Fortunately, the game allows you to teleport to different regions so that you can move more quickly once you've discovered them.

✖ Some entrance doors blend too much into the walls and really don't stand out (especially indoors, where there are no clear indications that the wall can be passed through). ✖ The footsteps are getting really annoying. ✖ The game imposes the windowed look at times, but the window is really tiny and I couldn't find any way of changing the format.

The story of OneShot has a fairly basic premise but, thanks to its gameplay choices and staging, as well as its well-developed lore, it manages to stand out a little and offers you a place of your own in its narrative, which in itself makes it rather special.

➡ My Steam page

#oneshot #oneshot game #I miss my little Niko already ;v;) <3 #Lola plays games #personal #Youtube

[darasideblog]

Offloading thoughts on the whole Goshawk season of the White Vault because I need to put to word what didn't land for me with this season and I don't want to annoy my friends babbling about shit

It. Is. So. Slow.

And yet there's no tension whatsoever. Despite that the production value and voice actors are absolutely top notch as always. I have zero critique on that front, everyone's great.

I don't have any reason to root for these characters. At the start of the season I knew one thing about Iffy.

She's a nature photographer.

At the end of the season I know a whole two things about Iffy.

She's a nature photographer. And probably Casner's daughter.

Which is just dropped right at the end in such a abrupt way that I half expected to hear the 'dun dun' music that the Black Tapes used whenever they'd drop a revelation without really setting it up.

I don't mind the change of format, the found footage format worked great for season 1-3, but pretty obviously had gotten forced by season 5.

But if I the listener am no longer privy to the characters' inner thoughts, they need to externalize those thoughts. Within half of the first season you have a good grip on who the Svalbard team is, what they have left behind and want to get back to, which just makes it all the more heartbreaking when they get killed (or transformed). The season 3 expedition is a odd half and half in that the academics are pretty much just there, but Simon, Dragana, Maheer and Raimy get enough presence and dialogue between them for me to care about them.

There's none of that in Goshawk. I can honestly barely keep the sisters apart in my head because there's nothing beyond 'one has a injured leg' to really keep them separate. They don't talk about themselves, and neither do Iffy. Which makes sense for the first half, running from kidnappers in a blizzard doesn't leave room for much chit chat. But once they find shelter there should have been some room to get to know them. Even your shittiest action movie will let one soldier have a line about how much he misses his wife and baby at home, so you'll at least feel a little bit sorry for him when he inevitably gets shot or blown up.

Which really is the second major issue I think there is with this season: the narrative is split between two stories, in every episode.

The whole family stuff is... interesting, in that world building kind of way, but it adds absolutely nothing to the overall horror and survival story. It isn't really helped either that the stakes feels so hilariously low. Dís and her entire family is all acting like the sky is falling, and they're all about to die to various accidents because their protection is disappearing, when Ardna throws herself in front of a car to save a friend, and... walks away with what amounts to a bump on her head that just requires a couple of days in the hospital and off home she goes.

You could pretty much cut out half if not two thirds of the family side of the story, put it in the latter half of the season as a cut away, and ramp up the stakes to build some proper "Oh shit, something is up with this system that's been in place for centuries" feeling. Artifact showed there's plenty of creepy feelings to get when the guardians starts to mess with things, even while you're in the safety of civilization. But aside from the very last bits with one randomly showing up at Dís place and whispering to her, there's nothing really supernatural going on here either. Just a mother concerned for her daughter, which is all well and good but it's not a supernatural horror story.

So one story line feels like it's not really getting any room to establish its cast and do the whole supernatural horror thing, nor actually drop any 'oh, something is suspicious about our saviour' hints in regards to Jason, and the other is honestly taking up too much space with too little substance to it.

Honestly, I was hesitant about this season anyway, since I left season 5 feeling a little sour at how it felt like it just wanted to get rid of this particular story beat and start over, without really giving much payoff to the whole five season story line (and the miniseries' events), but I wanted to give Goshawk a fair shot.

And now I'm not sure if I'll even bother with the next season. Which sucks, I started listening to it shortly before season 2 dropped, and have eagerly awaited each season since then.

#the white vault #white vault #the white vault critical #IDK

[mothymusings]

Second Entry

“In the end, a simple happiness is better than a complex disillusion.”

― Janelle Monáe, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer

Synopsis

Memory Librarian and Other Stories is an anthology inspired by Monae’s album Dirty Computer. Each story is set in the near future, where a new government called New Dawn controls everything a person does down to their memories. Within each short story is a message of Queer, POC, and Female resistance against the rigid conformity New Dawn tries to impose.

There are five stories within the anthology, every single one could be read independently of the other, however there are references interspersed each novella. The titular story, Memory Librarian, follows Seshet as one of the high ranking officials in New Dawns order. Her job focuses on categorizing as well as monitoring the memories of her city until strange circumstances cause her to question her loyalties and even her own memories.

Nevermind follows the residents of the Pynk Hotel, a resistant group of queer women who have run away from New Dawn, dubbed Dirty Computers. However things are not as harmonious as they assume, as tensions between those who try to restrict what it means to be Pynk threaten to destroy the safe haven forever.

Timebox centers around two women who have found out that their closet has time altering powers, and the arguments on how best to use such a valuable resource as time for the benefit of the whole, or the individual.

Save Changes also deals with time, as Sisters Amber and Larry deal with being outcasts due to their mothers status as a reformed resistance leader. Gifted with a stone that their late father claims to rewind time, Larry tries to save her sister and mother from fates worse than death.

Timebox Altar(ed), the final story, is about a young child named Bug, who with their friends find and create art in a clearing with the help of Mx. Tangee, a strange woman who almost seems to have magical powers.

First Impressions

Wow! Memory Librarian blew me away with the descriptive prose and inventive stories of rebellion and love in an oppressive society. I enjoyed each story and the messages they imparted. I think my favorites were Nevermind and Save Changes, especially Save Changes with how well it mixed technology and magic together. I think for me it was definitely a fun read all the way through

The Good, The Bad, and The Fuzzy

The good has to go to the inventive worldbuilding of the setting Memory Librarian is in! Details are kept vague in terms of how New Dawn gained power, how memories are able to be used as a resource as well as what being a Torch entails. But I think that vagueness is in its favor from a narrative standpoint as the characters we meet already know all these things (Save for Bug and their friends), as well as for the reader to keep drawing you back in. It’s a nice blend of sci-fi contemporary without being set in such a heavily futuristic setting, there’s technology everywhere but it doesn’t feel like it’s the main focus or detracts from it.

The bad, I will admit I had trouble reading through some of the prose, especially in the Memory Librarian novella. I had to go back and reread many large paragraphs to try to figure out what exactly was going on. I think other than that I couldn’t really find anything else I had a problem with?

The fuzzy is more to deal with plots being abruptly cliffhangers, however I don’t find it as a fault due to the formatting but I still had moments where I would go “And then what??!!” before turning the page to be met with a new story.

Conclusion

Memory Librarian and Other Stories from Dirty Computer is an amazing anthology that talks about being different in a society that tries its hardest to stamp it out through the lenses of black queer women. Its sci-fi setting is friendly enough to those who aren’t familiar with the genre while also providing an interesting spin on the genre. I think this is a perfect read for those that enjoy evocative short stories within the same world as well as fans of Monae’s music. Listening to Dirty Computer while reading definitely helped immerse me in the world of New Dawn.

Rating

A nice 8.9/10 lamps!

Upcoming…

Next entry in this blog will be Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir!

#book review #bookblr #mothymusings #the memory librarian #janelle monae #my art #moving image #science fiction #queer books #poc books #anthology #long post

[betawooper]

why YJH orv shouldve been a girl

*Specifically a trans woman, btw. If she was a cis woman that would be a different conversation and there are nuances regarding transness which wouldnt exist in what im talking about otherwise

(This is gonna be a bulleted list bc fuck ordering things in an essay format, also mega orv spoilers so look away if you havent read the novel in its entirety)

it wouldve been a legitimate time save in previous regressions while mastering breaking the sky swordsmanship and that concept is So Funny to me

the transcenders are all gnc af, theres a whole theme surrounding breaking from the norm to reach their true potential, it wouldve fit thematically

if done right, it could emphasize the theme of loneliness thats tied with joonghyuk’s character if none of her other companions are trans; even if they were it wouldnt have mattered since they would have forgotten she was a woman in future regressions anyway

if she tries to repress her identity bc expression of it is deemed unnecessary or meaningless, even more points

would have pushed the narrative foiling with dokja even further since they already have opposing imagery and metaphors, now they would be the opposite gender too

the ‘does dokja and joonghyuk is gay’ joke wouldnt poke fun at the thought of two men being together, but rather at the absurdity of a relationship occurring and still being called such in the first place simply bc of joonghyuk’s gender

bonus points if you emphasize joonghyuk’s canonical lack of interest/attraction to men in light of this, dokja could have joked about that easily

random person: “you two look like lovers lol”

dokja, internally: the bitch is literally a lesbian but Okay-

it would have fit orv’s style of comedy a lot and also remove the slightly homophobic undertones of the original joke too, do you see a downside to this? i dont

she would parallel sookyung (dokja’s mom) even more since joonghyuk essentially “raised” dokja after sookyung could no longer do so

theres already a strong theme about how twsa became dokja’s caretakers in a sense and having joonghyuk be a mother figure instead of a father figure would push the idea of her taking up what should have been sookyung’s duties

besides, the narrative focuses way more on how the lack of a present maternal figure affects dokja over a paternal one so itd be more relevant

also insert joke about joonghyuk being a milf

next, this would parallel sooyoung a lot more, there tends to be this joke amongst creative circles that a creator often projects parts of themselves in their works and that includes characters, both of them being women would make that way more obvious

parallels hayoung bc uh, Trans obviously (sooyoung loves her trans main protagonists lmao)

transfem joonghyuk wouldve made her dynamic/relationship with seolhwa much more interesting since they wouldnt be a typical “het” couple anymore, seolhwa’s character could have been given a little more relevance with the kind of conflicts which could arise from this, the most obvious relating to sexuality

on that note, their ideas of femininity and how they prefer to express it are completely different despite them both being the same gender which could bring up interesting conversations about it (mostly thinking about that scene where seolhwa and joonghyuk go to the auction house prior to gigantomachia and talk about cosmetic skills, this scene couldve been way more fleshed out than it was presented in canon)

if you still want the punisher to exist, this could also fit into that conversation about gender expression and bring up interesting ideas depending on how butch you make joonghyuk

both seolhwa and the punisher would add a lot of complexity to joonghyuk’s whole relationship with self-indulgence and happiness since again, bc of her situation as a regressor she either wouldnt want to open herself up in the interest of practicality or doesnt feel deserving of it when her goal hasnt been accomplished

god are there more points? ill edit this if so but this is already so fucking long-

I actually wrote a whole thing about joonghyuk being uncracked during the events of orv and the comedic potential of it is endless when dokja is the only one who knows, so trust me when i say it does work out very very well (i can link to the stuff in the replies? so far ive got uhhhhh *counts* 54k words of that shit)

Anyways transfem yjh supremacy

#yoo joonghyuk #sauce reads orv #omniscient reader #orv spoilers #transfem yjh #ok to rb btw #though i would append a long post tag as well bc damn #also i wasnt originally gonna post this but then i realized it wouldve been funnier if i did #bc holy hell jhfdhfjkds #transfem yjh au #transfem yoo joo au

[plant-lesbian569]

Starship: Requiem Thoughts:

Spoilers for Starship: Requiem

Starship: Requiem was a really fun listening experience and really reignited my love for the Starship universe.

I can see why it was never made into a full production but I think it would work really well in a similar style to nightmare time and you can see a lot of inspiration for future Hatchetfield content in its writing. Especially the comment about Bug plush toys for the holidays. Bug is the OG Wiggly!

The Jim and the Povolos songs fit surprisingly well in the narrative and a JATP jukebox musical is such a cool idea. (I absolutely adore Jim and the Povolos of you couldn’t tell).

I desperately need to know if Starship: on the wings of liberty was ever a fleshed out concept that Starkid ever planned on putting out in some format. I need the Lore.

Also Specs!! I need more lore on their character because they really came in to save the day and leave us on a cliffhanger!

I absolutely loved the continuation of the “I’ve always wanted to see Venice” running joke. Is Ultrabeam Megagirl secretly the old snatch?

Domestic Tootsie and Megagirl & Malewife Tootsie is everything to me.

I wanna know more about Tootsie’s Dad. His name is Eats Dicks and cheated on his wife with his sister. Sounds like an interesting character for sure.

The running joke of “if this were the movie version we’d do this” was great. Especially when they played sweet home Alabama.

And of course the GLEE and Darren Criss jokes which were so on brand with OG Starship.

Overall Starship: Requiem was a great time and I want more lore and content on the Starship universe now.

#starkid #team starkid #starship #starship: requiem #tootsie noodles #tootsie megagirl #ultrabeam megagirl

[mindfulwrath]

Books of 2022

Not including DNFs.

“The Authentic William James” by Stephen Gallagher - a British show cowboy is accused of setting a theater fire that killed a German noble. Sebastian Becker, special investigator for the British Crown, must find the accused so he can be scapegoated before rumors of assassination spark a pan-European war. Along the way, Sebastian finds that the accused man’s daughter has been kidnapped by another, rather more authentic stage cowboy. This book has an awful lot, folks: murder, Theatre, cowboys, turn-of-the-century Hollywood, labor rights, addiction, insane asylums, and more! Fans of “Murder with the Devil and Friends” will probably enjoy this one (I did). Recommended.

“The Amulet of Samarkand” by Jonathan Stroud (reread) - A young magician in the heart of the British Empire summons a djinni to steal an artifact from the man who humiliated him, and fucks it up worse than any other protagonist I’ve ever read. The story is half told from his perspective, and half told from the perspective of the snarky, self-aggrandizing djinni whom he has enslaved to carry out the theft. Mr. Stroud did not pull his punches with this one, I tell you what. Still, it works infinitely better as part of a trilogy than on its own, maybe more than any other Book One I’ve read. Recommended.

“The Golem’s Eye” by Jonathan Stroud (reread) - MR. STROUD DID NOT PULL HIS PUNCHES WITH THIS ONE, I TELL YOU WHAT. Our young magician from the last book continues fucking things up, but this time while the djinni ruthlessly roasts him for his fashion sense while the two of them try to get to the bottom of a series of mysterious break-ins. We also get to spend some time with our third protagonist, a young woman who has a resilience to magic and is part of a small Resistance, whose goal is to break the stranglehold the magicians have on the government. Boy, if you thought Book 1 was scathingly critical of empires and those who run them, Book 2 doubles down on it hard. Chillingly relevant, despite being written in 2004. Stroud also does a great job writing a protagonist who exhibits the very real disease of being 14. Recommended. (Bonus points for correctly attributing golems to Jewish tradition!)

“Ptolemy’s Gate” by Jonathan Stroud (reread) - MR. STROUD DID NOT COME TO FUCK AROUND, GODDAMN. The thrilling conclusion to the Bartimaeus trilogy, and it really delivers on every front. No setup goes without payoff. Honestly, it feels like these 3 books are really just one very long book, because details from Book 1 and Book 2 come back with real significance, little fanfare, and a hell of a lot of momentum. I really fucking love this series, and this book drives home why. Recommended.

“How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi - Dr. Kendi defines racism, antiracism, and many related terms and intersections, goes through the origins and history of racism as well as his own journey from being raised in a racist world to choosing to be antiracist. A greatly clarifying and galvanizing read, at least for me. Dense at times, but well worth slowing down for. Recommended.

“Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Vol 2” by MXTX - Things get much worse but also much gayer for our fast-talking protagonist - although really the vast majority of this book is about side-stories that happened many years in the past. The side-stories are really good though, and add to the narrative tension rather than distracting from it. I really do think this series (and probably all MXTX novels) could be used as a masterclass in non-linear storytelling. Recommended.

“Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix” (vol. 1) by Shiro Amano - An abridged version of the story of KH1 told in graphic novel format: kid’s world is swallowed by darkness, he gets separated from his two friends, he somehow acquires a magic key-sword that lets him fight the creatures of darkness, he goes on a quest to find his friends and ends up saving a bunch of Disney worlds along the way. It’s got some interesting little tidbits and alternate translations (and very, very cute art), so I certainly enjoyed it. Recommended if you’re already a KH fan or if you want to get the basic story without playing several hundred hours of games or watching a few dozen hours of cutscenes.

“Heaven Official’s Blessing: Vol 2” by MXTX - The plot thickens and things get worse for the protagonist (and isn't that just a summary of all MXTX novels?). I had some trouble with keeping all the names straight in this one because everyone has three names and it's a little trickier when I don't have a face to pin them all to, but it's still a good read. You can feel the plot putting on weight like a teenager getting ready for a growth spurt. Plus there's a really fun scene in a gambling den that is simultaneously the most chaste and the dirtiest thing I've ever read in published fiction. Recommended.

“Dracula” by Bram Stoker (reread, via Dracula Daily) - A fresh methodology on the old classic. I'd forgotten some of the twists and turns since I read this book back in high school, and the "daily" format is something I'd long wanted to engage in (i.e., reading a book that has a set timeline according to that timeline). The community of memes and analyses was a great joy to partake in, too. Recommended, particularly via Dracula Daily (there's always next year!)

"Dreadnought" by April Daniels - A teenage trans girl inherits a superhero mantle that not only gives her superpowers, but the body she's always wanted. This causes a tremendous amount of problems and immediately flings her into a mire of political turmoil while having to navigate high school and an abusive father. This is a book that knows its stuff back to front and remixes it adeptly. Recommended, but with trigger warnings for abuse, transphobia, and some fairly disturbing gore (and that's coming from me).

"Heaven Official's Blessing: Vol 3" by MXTX - The plot thickens, and things get worse for the protagonist. No, I mean really, REALLY worse. But there's also a damn good kiss in there, and plenty of other fun stuff to keep it from being oppressively grim. Recommended.

"Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie - A fragment of a ship's AI, confined to a human body, seeks revenge for the murder of her favorite lieutenant. Unfortunately, the person she's seeking vengeance against happens to be the emperor of a massive, millennia-old space empire, whose consciousness occupies a thousand bodies. A sedately paced, intricately built story about love and imperialism and culture and war and music. If you like Robots With Feelings, complex political dramas, or conlangs, this book is for you. Recommended.

"Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Vol 3" by MXTX - This one is primarily flashback, although not all the same flashback (have I mentioned the whole "masterclass in nonlinear storytelling" thing yet?) and stitched together in a way that flows naturally and keeps you reading to the very end. Also, a damn good kiss in there (vol 3 seems to be the magic number for that). But also also, some really fucking horrifying gore, to the point that I went: "who looked at this and decided they could make a show that got past the censors?" I mean, they were right, whoever they were, they managed it and "The Untamed" kicked ass, but I have to wonder what kind of person rolled up their sleeves to do it. Recommended.

"The Long Earth" by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett - The course of human history is forever changed when a rogue scientist releases the designs for a device that allows people to step to parallel Earths, all of which seem to be uninhabited. A young man named Joshua, able to step without the aid of a device, is recruited by an artificial intelligence to go on an expedition to find what's at the end of the seemingly infinite stack of Earths. An interesting read with a lot of cool speculation about alternate Earths and some very grounded and unfortunately relevant observations on the nature of humanity. It doesn't read like a Pratchett, although it has some very Pratchett-esque concepts in it. I liked it okay, but not enough to particularly want to read any of the sequels.

"Moving Pictures" by Terry Pratchett (reread) - The wild ideas of Holy Wood are escaping into the Discworld and causing hauntingly familiar scenes to play out in a little spit of desert by the sea - but anywhere where Things That Don't Exist can become Things That Do Exist, there will be Things That Want To Exist trying to come through.... Dryly funny as standard for Pratchett, and probably at least a quarter written just to see how many film references he could upend in one go. Featuring (what I think are) the first appearances of Gaspode The Wonder Dog and Archchancellor Munstrum Ridcully. Recommended.

"Fadeout" by Joseph Hanson - Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is "contentedly gay," investigates the mysterious disappearance of a small-town entertainer who hit the big time. Atmospheric, noir-adjacent, and pleasantly twisty, this mystery also benefits from half the cast being queer. It would be excellent if written today, and considering that it was written in the sixties, it's in a league of its own. Recommended.

"Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis - A novelette-length essay on the origins, consequences, and possible alternatives to the prison-industrial complex, as well as a litany of reasons why it's imperative for the health of our society that the carceral state be dismantled. Thought-provoking and perspective-shifting in many ways. Recommended.

"Station Eternity" by Mur Lafferty - Mallory Viridian seems to constantly be followed by murders - and constantly finds herself solving them, too. She thought escaping Earth to a sentient space station would free her from her 'curse,' but, whoops, it doesn't. Featuring multiple sentient alien species, military interferism plots, eighty percent of a romance, and several murder cases across space and time, this felt like a book trying to do too many things at once, each interfering with the execution of the others. The detective story got lost in the space station story, and the space station story suffered from having to serve a detective story. The dialogue and the plot both clunked audibly at times, although the third act featured a clever twist and a fairly satisfying finale. The book wasn't so grating that I gave up on it, but I was glad to be done with it.

"Iron Widow" by Xiran Jay Zhao - A young woman living in a world that’s a milieu of ancient and modern China seeks vengeance against the celebrity kaiju pilot who killed her sister. And then seeks vengeance against the system which allowed said sister to be killed. And then decides: "since this system is fucking over everyone and everything I care about, how about I fuck it right back?" It's like Pacific Rim meets Handmaid's Tale meets real Chinese history, and that’s not even getting into the nuanced and incisive meditations on gender and sexuality. Recommended, but with content warnings for body horror, familial abuse, heavily implied sexual assault, and hardcore misogyny.

#books of 2022 #my goal was to read more books this year than last year #and i managed it (just barely) #otoh my reviews got MUCH longer this year lmao

[canmom]

I'm all done with WtC but it does leave me thinking the same thing that I did after Animal Man, about metafiction and the ending that has the author self insert appear and explain that everyone is fictional. The Holy Mountain is another one to do a fourth wall break ending, with Jodo saying 'pull back camera' and addressing us directly. the ending of Eva 3.0+1.0 doesn't exactly go there but it does a related device, situating the animated Shinji et al in a real filmed location rather than a painted background as they go to new lives off camera. there's a rather inscrutable hint of that kind of context break in one of the "Seeking Mr Eaten's Name" endings in FL, and its sister "Go East" ending in SSea, though with all things Seeking it leaves a lot to interpretation. i have a feeling that Umineko is going somewhere similar.

it's the natural endpoint of a story that plays around with metafiction or pushes into abstraction (unless like tailsteak's webcomic and that's where it starts, and the whole rest of the work is characters interacting with the author, but that's a dry well by now). thematically it can represent a bunch of stuff, but it's usually like, the story's work being done, the alchemical journey completed, the personal transformation made, now you understand: turn back to the real world and carry it forwards.

the thing about this device is that it burns everything you carefully built to the ground and salts the earth. you pull this trigger to say you're done, the story is done. whatever comes next is outside of what fiction can provide. that's usually the point! everything is now completely arbitrary, the characters simply puppets; stop suspending disbelief. (completing SMEN shuts your account out of Fallen London, going East deletes your save completely.)

if there is a way to carry on past this point, without completely shifting gears into an exhausted well of mid-2000s webcomic, I'm not sure what it is. it's a curious thing to think about, how you could possibly rebuild. one answer might be to shift from traditional prose to something interactive. ideally on the coauthorship/ttrpg level. whatever it is, it's gotta be big.

Homestuck had a lot of fourth wall fuckery, come to think of it. but for all that it played with its format and made little winks about "breaking the fourth wall" and even put in a kind of goofy gremlin version of the author, it played by certain rules; once it truly got to the 'protagonists realising they're fictional and have roles in a narrative' point in the Epilogues it got... a bit lost, to put it kindly. though tbf it was all setup for Homestuck 2, and we'll never know where they planned to take that. homestuck fanfic Detective Pony actually did pretty well, but the whole thing was a kind of impossibly elaborate shitpost about how narcissistic its fictional author is, so it's a complicated case.

maybe there's just only so much you can do with metafiction? it's a very tricky line to walk to stay on the side of endearingly playful and not grating. i think i have more patience for it than many, but it's a spice that can very easily overwhelm. it's definitely the age for sprawling genre-aware epics that fuck around with form though, if you've ever felt moved to write in that direction. you can probably get me to liveblog it ;p

#fiction #metafiction

[ravendruidreads]

A Deadly Education - Review

Author: Naomi Novik Saga: The Scholomance Date Read: February 26, 2024 - February 28, 2024 Format: Physical Pages: 319

Characters: 6/10 Atmosphere: 4/10 Writing: 3/10 Plot: 7/10 Intrigue: 5/10 Logic: 5/10 Enjoyment: 7/10 Rating: 5.2/10 (3 stars)

I got this book from a blind date with a book at Barnes & Noble. The premises were "a gorgeous book about monsters and monstrousness"; "dark, dangerous school of magic"; and "unwilling dark sorceress destined to rewrite the roles".

The review is hidden below due to spoilers.

I went into this book completely blind because I didn't read anything about it other than what the blind date cover mentioned, so I wasn't expecting it to be a young adult kind of book (I thought it would be something more like Fourth Wing), which is partially why I gave it such a low writing score.

The writing felt... weird? I don't mind stories told in first person but in this case, the narrator felt like it was talking directly to me, as in breaking the fourth wall, and that didn't feel much like telling a story. I would have enjoyed this type of writing more when I was younger, so I guess I can say that the author is doing a good job at reaching their target.

Another thing I didn't like about the writing was that the author broke the narrative multiple times to explain details that, in my opinion, were not necessary, making it hard to keep up with the story. A lot of those explanations were also very confusing, which is also why Atmosphere has such a low score. I had trouble visualizing because the descriptions were often confusing.

The characters are fine. They are what they are: common teenagers with relatable issues (like being an outcast). Orion is the typical teenage boy that has no clue how to talk to girls, so he accidentally starts dating El without even asking or telling her his feelings until the very end. Not gonna lie, that made me chuckle a little. They are kind of cute together and remind me when I was a teen (except I was the Orion in the situation-as in not knowing how to talk to boys).

The plot is what saved the book, in my opinion. I liked the idea that the school is always moving and trying to kill its students. It gave me a little big of Hogwarts vibes.

Something else that confused me at first was the fact that this is a fantasy book set in our world. I was taken aback when I first read the mention of New York and other cities because I wasn't expecting it to happen in our world. However, I did enjoy the diversity and the importance the author gave to languages. If it wasn't for the fact that the school is trying to kill its students on a daily(nay-hourly)-basis, I would have loved to attend it just for the language learning part.

All in all, it was a fun book to read and I'm excited to see what happens next. El's mom's letter brings in the perfect cliff hanger for book two.

Quotes that stayed:

I love having existential crises at bedtime, it's so restful.

I think that after a certain number of evil choices, it's reasonable shorthand to decide that someone's an evil person who oughtn't have the chance to make any more choices. And the more power someone has, the less slack they ought to be given.

#raven's reviews #the scholomance #a deadly education #naomi novik #3 stars #this review contains spoilers #blind date with a book #<- (I really want to do more of these) #I can't believe this book was my accidental 6th read of the month #I was not planning on reading 6 books in the shortest month of the year

[agirlinsearchof]

So, I have an ebook that I recently had to edit, because of the incredibly bizarre line breaks and typos. My mom had it, I don't know where she got it from.

As a result of editing it, I read it in its entirety, and actually enjoyed it (though I must confess, I would have enjoyed it more if I weren't so focused on correcting the formatting and typos).

It's called Nightlight: A Parody. It's a Twilight parody about a teenage girl named Belle Goose who falls in love with Edwart Mullen, a teenage boy with a love of computers and awkward social skills, who she concludes must be a vampire after he accidentally "saves" her from... a flying snowball.

TL;DR: I did not even like Twilight, yet I loved this book. And I bet even people who do like it will also like this.

Spoilers below!

So this parody has a couple of major twists to it that made me like it even better than I would have if they had stuck strictly with adapting the source material!

First of all, Edwart turns out to be a regular human guy, who Belle assumes is a vampire based on a series of coincidences. He's genuinely very sweet, and I was happy that he got together with Belle. I liked him way better than Edward!

Belle herself was also enjoyable to read about! She starts off kind of conceited, thinking every boy who pays attention to her is in love with her, but she outgrows this by the end. Her taste in boys changes, too! She's initially attracted to Edwart, aside from his good looks, because she thinks he is a vampire. Then they get attacked by an actual vampire, and when Belle finally directly, unambiguously tells him he's a vampire (up to this point he thought Belle was simply an eccentric role-player), he runs away, so she goes out with said actual vampire (who never meant to actually kill her, he was just pulling a prank). When he treats her badly, though, she and Edwart get back together, and the final chapter ends with a sweet scene of them as a couple.

And said actual vampire who Belle goes on a date with is Joshua. Ironically, personality-wise, while Edwart is closer to how Stephanie Meyer intended Edward to come across, Joshua is closer to how Edward was actually written. And unlike Edward, whose creepier behaviors were glossed over by the narrative, Joshua's mistreatment of Belle results in her leaving him in favor of Edwart, who she loves even if he isn't a vampire like she thought.

My only criticism of the writing is how unrealistic the video game Edwart made seems. Is Belle using an arcade stick? The way she's described using her pinky and middle fingers to press buttons suggests as much, but the game is apparently on the Wii? I know there's a Wii arcade stick, but I don't know how realistic homebrew Wii games are for late 2009. (Was the Wii arcade stick even around in 2009? Or does Edwart's uncle work for Nintendo?)

To quote the book itself:

[Edwart's] hands grabbed my hands like they were video game controllers. He pushed down on my left index finger. I low-kicked. He pushed down on my left pinkie. I jumped. He pushed down on my right thumb. I paused in mid-air. He kind of rotated my wrist while pushing down on my right middle finger. I crouched down and shot a fireball from my hands.

Like, what the frick is going on with that game controller? I get the feeling that between Edwart "saving" Belle from an old man trying to sell her "Sega products", telling her to stick with Nintendo, and... this mess of a description of someone using a game controller, I get the feeling whoever wrote those scenes was old enough to remember the Nintendo and Sega console wars, but hadn't played video games in a long time and wasn't up to speed on the fact that Nintendo's primary competitors were now Sony and Microsoft.

But this is just a nitpick. It doesn't bother me enough to stop me from recommending this book to anyone remotely interested in a Twilight parody.

#nightlight a parody

[mistyheartrbs]

Please explain the Glee Vriska theory I want to know more

i'm so glad my glee vriska theory has sparked discussion amidst the mistyheartrbs tumblr community. this is what @battleofthevriskas is really about.

so character by character it's as such:

RACHEL BERRY: she actually feels the Most vriska to me because people hate her mostly for being a woman who dares to be ambitious and you can’t have a vriska without the fandom being divided over them. she’s definitely not a good person a lot of the time but within glee’s insane framework she’s really not that bad, yet people either love her or hate her while having much less negativity towards. say, noah puckerman, who is actually objectively horrible. and also rachel sent someone to a crackhouse.

QUINN FABRAY: gay. sad. tried to steal a baby. she has that certain combination of the worst plans you’ve ever heard of and the desperate desire to still be a kid while being forced to grow up.

SANTANA LOPEZ: while rachel is the most vriska in terms of her role in the narrative i think santana is the closest to vriska (vriska) in terms of actual personality. which is to say she’s mean and sardonic and yet she also loves a certain few people very deeply.

SUE SYLVESTER: married herself and then got divorced from herself. can’t die? also just like. she’s textually the villain but is The fan-favorite character who’s basically become synonymous with the show which is what vriska is also.

but overall - on a more meta level - glee and homestuck are surprisingly similar beasts. they both turned expectations of their respective mediums (high school tv drama and webcomic) on their heads. they both started in 2009 and ended within about a year of each other (glee in march 2015, homestuck in april 2016 excluding the epilogues and homestuck 2); in other terms, squarely within the obama era. this comes through in the optimism and genuine belief in the young people they center around - these kids can change the world. things are turning around for the better, and they're different.

and on a narrative level there are also a lot of similarities - they're both coming-of-age stories, obviously, but they're also the rare coming-of-age stories that let their teenage characters be unabashedly kind of awful, without a lot of judgment from the narrative. they both tap into what it feels like to be a teenager, rather than trying to tell a "realistic" story about being one. in glee's case, the musical format does this - doesn't every breakup or rocky friendship or crush feel worthy of an elaborate musical number? aren't you the star of the show? for homestuck, it's the world literally exploding when john turns thirteen - none of these kids know what the hell they're doing, but they're expected to inherit a legacy they only barely signed up for.

and i don't think it's a coincidence, then, that they're both projects with massive queer followings and unprecedented queer representation. characters like santana and kurt and rose and kanaya were new and exciting and they got to be the center of the story, instead of side characters there to support the straight leads. glee and homestuck both queered their mediums; they let these people who would have otherwise been snappy sidekicks be the ones to have the big end-of-story romance, to save the world.

which brings me back to vriska! in the past few years tumblr dot com has definitely become much kinder towards female characters - largely, i think, because its userbase is now mostly in their twenties and they've developed critical thinking skills and so there's less instinctive hatred of any vaguely complex woman in a tv show if she commits the heinous crime of Being Girl. getting into glee as an adult instead of as a teenager has given me a sort of. opportunity to learn this through praxis - i love rachel berry, she's my favorite character in the whole show, but i look through old glee detritus and i know that even with faberry as one of the most popular shows there were (and are) people who unabashedly hated her, who called her the worst character on television. vriska wasn't ever subject to that much hate, i think in part because she is an antagonist for much of homestuck and so it's easier to view her actions through that lens while there's admittedly some dissonance when rachel sends a girl to a crackhouse and then gets the solo a few episodes later, but people still couldn't stand her as if equius didn't force aradia into a blue-blood robot body so she wouldn't be "inferior" anymore and then make that robot body fall in love with him. did anyone remember that. why doesn't anyone remember that it's like the scariest thing in homestuck. "oh vriska killed people" she had her reasons.

but anyway there's been sort of a reckoning as tumblr adults look back at their favorite childhood/teenhood media. and everyone loves vriska now, and while rachel is still pretty divisive (understandably so) people love glee's other two vriskas (quinn and santana) and think their unpleasantries are compelling and shouldn't be sanded over. and bringing it back to the bigger picture, glee and homestuck were both seen for a while after they ended as "cringe," as things that were already aging badly, as unfortunate crap we only liked as teenagers because there wasn't anything better. but they were both good, at the end of the day, warts and all. they were weird and funny and they spoke to that peculiar loneliness that comes with being a kid. and people are starting, finally, to remember that. in other words,

thank you for coming to my vriskanalysis!

#bandydear #homestuck #glee #(thank you for sending this dandy tlgbf changed me as a person)

[mcl38]

it's mostly the delusional shippers that turned me off "carlando."

after qatar when he was being all dramatic and doubting himself, there were full on essays weird carlando shippers were writing about how he clearly just wasn't ready to lead a team and still needed carlos to guide him and encourage him before his mental health spiraled or something idek. like what the everliving fuck do you mean he's not "ready to lead a team?" the guy fucked up and he knew it, yeah maybe was a little too self-critical but he took accountability for his error, he was right there to congratulate and support his teammate despite those feelings, etc. it genuinely amazes me how whenever a teammate outperforms lando we start getting these he's "not ready to lead" or he's "a shit teammate" accusations because those are genuinely the moments where his being a team player shines through for me. he's had a few opportunities now, with basically every f1 teammate he's had, where he could have been a shit team player and gone off to sulk and cry, yet he's been there supporting and celebrating with the team even in those moments.

but idk there's something so infantilizing about people acting like lando needs carlos to function or depends on him to know his worth or talent or abilities. and i'm sure carlos encouraging lando in his rookie year did play an important role in his development, but one of my fave things has been seeing him come to terms with his imposter syndrome and struggles and finding healthy ways of combating and coping with that and genuinely believing in himself. like i don't think these people realize mental health is not just something one person is going to come along and fix - and i think as evidenced by andrea stella's statements on how they were going to try to find ways to help lando spin some of that self-criticism into healthier mindset - that's a continuous battle and something lando himself will have to deal with, to some extent, likely throughout his career. carlos whispering "omg ur so talented mi vida" or whatever these people fantasize about isn't going to do shit for lando after he's screwed up and is punishing himself for it. like idk i'm just not a fan of this lando "damsel in distress who needs carlos to save him" narrative so many carlando people push. he's proven he's more than capable, why the hell people still look at him in any context - whether personally or professionally - and think he needs carlos to function/survive beats me

so like firstly anon u make me feel so lucky that ive managed to avoid the majority of carlando content since like 2021. "writing about how he clearly just wasn't ready to lead a team and still needed carlos to guide him and encourage him before his mental health spiraled or something idek" gives me actual hives one of my biggest icks is when a fan of a 'ship' clearly isnt actually a fan of at least one of the individual drivers on their own. rly theyre just infatuated with whatever collective fantasy of a relationship theyve bought into, and while shipping drivers absolutely does not imply you're unable to confront reality on its own, i do think theres a correlation between intense (read: irl rather than just rpf) shipping culture and absolute delusion about what a driver is like (so when the driver shows their true colours its shock horror hate)

anyways god those r some insane takes about qatar. i do find it funny retrospectively how landos biggest narrative flop was literally a p3 sprint p3 race and ppl acted like he was in p13 getting lapped by oscar. i also think qatar was an obvious demonstration that lando CAN lead the team, and sustain a relationship w his teammate. and he can do those things WELL at that. a pettier person wouldnt have congratulated oscar as much as he did. oscar doesnt even count his sprint win as a win, but lando does - again, a pettier person would go pedantic about the sprint format and refuse to acknowledge it. but he didn't - despite clearly feeling his Feelings the whole weekend, he manned up (unlike someone else that week lmao) and held his head high, smiling for the journos and placating them when they were concerned abt how self-critical he was. i respect and admire him so much for that. thats my guy

yeah the one thing we saw return w a vengeance that week was the self-flagellation - a thing thats not only very much NOT new, but also that landos talked about at length. like hes been SAYING this, this is the main thing he talks about every time he talks about mental health, which is a lot (bless him). this is like when ariana grande wrote a song called 'break up with ur girlfriend im bored' and then years later she broke up a married couple and her fans were like gasp what did this evil hag do how dare she like my beloveds she TOLD YOU. she TOLD you she was like this why did you not LISTEN.

anyways you say some downright beautiful things about lando and his development that i wholeheartedly agree with. "one of my fave things has been seeing him come to terms with his imposter syndrome and struggles and finding healthy ways of combating and coping with that and genuinely believing in himself" is SO true and correct bc like YEAH this is a journey he's been talking about and trying REALLY hard at. this is gonna sound kinda perverse but i think his 2023 challenge is like... unrosberging himself. i think he (following in the footsteps of nico, wait, let me expand on this) took the easy way out of his intense self-doubt and self-criticism: that is, he bought into the (unsustainable) strategy that if he just doesn't make any mistakes, he'll get rid of his impostor syndrome and be mentally healthy. lmao. so its easy for him to look back at 2019 now and be like 'i was way too stressed about being a bad driver but i was just a rookie, i had room to learn, see im better now, no stress', but when he DOES make an error nowadays, i don't think he's quite yet reached the level of stability where he can rly take that on the chin. which, as u say, is SO normal, bc stuff like this is such a continuous battle (i should fucking know my therapist tells me that every session lmao).

its just that the one thing carlandos or other ppl who consume f1 media in similar ways is that carlos comforting him is so not what lando needs or what he'll get either. landos worked w a legit sports psychologist for a while, and he's got jon who clearly actively tries to document himself on how to deal w mental health issues in athletes, and mclaren has just added a team psychologist to their paddock crew, AND like u mentioned, andrea said he'll try to find other ways to help lando mitigate his self-doubt. if anything, carlos whispering sweet nothings to lando (if we entertain the hypothesis n all) will only aggravate him further. not only do i know this from personal experience of how i (a known self-flagellator) respond to that kinda stuff, but he's also like famously rly unreceptive to ppl understating bad situations ("well, the only way is up, isn't it lando?" "n-no, actually, for us it's also down" and all the other extremely funny pressers at the beginning of 2022, esp in australia where everyone was trying to convince him the car was suddenly way better when it was just track-specific performance). AND we also know almost verbatim from carlos (the only f1 driver whos ever spoken abt the less camera-ready aspects of landos personality) that he does Not know what to do w lando when landos in a funk. i rmbr theres this bit in one of the last interviews they did together, that retrospective one, where carlos was talking about landos moods, when he gets quiet and crabby, and how he couldnt get through to him, and it was like lando was a completely diff person. but, yk, whatever serves ppls fantasies ig

so like yeah i absolutely absolutely agree w you that especially within the carlando dynamic theres this super nasty damsel-in-distress element. i think it probably started as ppl projecting onto lando's anxieties and wanting a big strong man with a sexy accent telling them everythings gonna be alright (which so fair), but bc lando wears his failures and deficiencies on his sleeve as a defence mechanism (known fan of low expectations, wants to preempt anyone saying he's shit by saying it himself, this goes from his painful-to-watch post-quali self-criticism to his aggressive anti-intellectualism in general knowledge quizzes) then its so easy for the fandom to characterise him as a hopeless mess, weepy, stressed out, needing someone to come fix shit around him. if lando himself knew this, considering how independent he is, i think he'd have an anneurism lmao. bc like it IS infantilising as well (a pattern w lando). and disrespectful. and dismissive. and w an implication that they dont like lando for his qualities, but for the stuff thats wrong with him, so they can imagine someone making it right and completing the narrative.

and all this over a mess-up in quali that he still converted to a podium. jesus christ. being a lando fan is genuinely exhausting fr

#anon #ask #lando #meta