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thebrazenshame · 21 days

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Hi! Just saw some of your posts about SMEN and was wondering about some of the feelings you had about AKs writing for Eaten/Candles being bad? Just because the general consensus among people that played it seems to be that it's one of the best written content in FL, so I was wondering what specifically bothered you about it

I will preface this by saying I've been sitting on this rant for months and you, Anon, have finally given me a reason to type it up. Buckle your seat belt. You have hit a bees’ nest.

TL,DR: The promise of mystery surrounding SMEN is something that drew me into the game initially, but when I finally went and played it, I found it to be lacking in meaningful content and instead trying too hard to be meta. The purple prose is borderline indecipherable at times and reminisce of a man who thinks he's the smartest person in the room, and if you don't understand what he's written because it's frankly too vague, then you're stupid and he's superior.

I acknowledge that in the time it was published, SMEN was groundbreaking, but compared to the content of the game in 2022, it shows its age and just can’t compare. By far, SMEN is not the greatest writing in Fallen London. To each their own, but I feel to say so does a disservice to the new direction of the game since the wave of updates beginning in 2020.

Something I specifically didn't care for and ultimately is the thing that sways my verdict firmly into the "dislike" category is the heaviness of Christianity allusions, along with sexism and racism that bleed into the writing. A lot of people just can’t get past that and don’t play it as a result, and everyone should be respectful of that.

Look me in the eyes. I know that from the get-go, SMEN is advertised as not being worth it. This rant and your question are not about what the game says. This is about fandom opinion.

If you don't want major spoilers for SMEN (including some vague references to the endings), or if you don't want to read an exceedingly verbose rant, don't read beyond this. Also, obligatory disclaimer that the views ahead are my personal opinions and interpretations of SMEN. If you enjoyed it or interpret it differently, we’re cool, and I'm glad you had fun with it where I didn't. I respect people who take the parts of SMEN they like, divorce it from context, and make it their own story and characters. Fanfic my beloved. I myself took the few themes of SMEN that I did like and used it mostly as a MacGuffin for my own OCs’ narratives.

Now, let's do a piece by piece analysis, shall we? Content warning for mentions of anti-indigenous racism, sexual harassment, and infertility.

The Plot/Writing Style

Exhibit 1: Narrative Flow

I tend to divide SMEN into three distinct narrative arcs. 1. UP cards and the first three candles 2. Winking Isle and the next three candles 3. Gawain's candle and the ending. These parts all felt thematically different from each other, and not in a great way. Act 1 has some solid build up with the horror, and I can't say I hated it. St Beau's candle with visiting the nightmare carnival was the part of SMEN I was genuinely looking forward to and remains one of my favorite things I've experienced in the game. The UP Cards and the scars, stains, and memories of chains genuinely made me feel bad for what I was doing to my character. Every week when I got TTH, I was excited. If all of SMEN was like this first arc, I still wouldn’t have considered it to be the most phenomenal part of Fallen London, but I wouldn’t have been left with such a bitter taste by the end.

And then I got a certain calling card. I could sense a narrative shift once Winking Isle came up. The plot quickly derailed from tricky yet mostly coherent horror to gobbledygook. I’ve seen the argument that SMEN isn’t really happening and instead is all in the player’s head and that’s why the latter half is so bizarre and convoluted, but I don’t agree with that. Parts of SMEN happen in the Is-Not, but we know that things that happen in the Is-Not have real-world affects in the Neath. Plot points such as connections to the Lady in Lilac and the Lorn Flukes are skimmed over and left unresolved. I love mystery stories, but like, i feel like the reader expects the mystery to be revealed after putting in the effort to engage with the plot. What I got instead was something trying too hard to be genre aware, something that was excessively meta and called itself good writing for that reason alone.

Without spoling content, I found 2/3 of the endings to be reasonable. While not mind-melding, “What is due?” and “What is forgotten?” were thematically fitting for a cosmic horror. They made sense within the narrative and I didn’t feel like it wasn’t worth it. My Seeker PC did “What is due?” and I feel like it was the only satisfactory ending for their character arc, which was themed around a reckless pursuit of grandeur and a repeated refusal to accept offers of healing for past trauma.

Don’t talk to me about Who is Salt.

Another thing is how objectively short SMEN is. Many of the Winking Isle echoes are so short they can be put on the wiki without cropping. A lot of the “new” content as the narrative progresses is repetition or remix of previous content. The bulk of time playing it is spent on mechanics rather than text, and while I know Fallen London is a grind-heavy game, I wish SMEN had had more narrative weight. don’t enjoy spending a ton of time and mental energy for so little payback. With the amount of hype SMEN gets, I was expecting something longer, I guess?

Exhibit 2: Purple Prose

I'm gonna be honest, after countless rereads, I still do not understand half of what SMEN says. It’s heavily steeped in obscure allusions (more on this later). Specifically, Saint Arthur’s Candle, the SOUTH storylet, and the Chapel of Lights were the most difficult to read for me. By the last two candles, there’s little new that we learn that isn’t a remix of something from earlier in the story. The endings remain a selling point as the ultimate forbidden text, but even then (without spoiling too much), we get some vague lore references and not the level of detail I was hoping for. While reading it, I felt like there was just text being thrown at my face in an alphabet soup of evocative words that didn’t actually spell out sentences. I have a bit of a joke with my friends calling it “fridge magnet poetry made in the dark.” And I’m someone who enjoys more complicated writing, like, I read Shakespeare for fun and Chandler Groover is my favorite ES writer. But to be blunt, AK makes no goddamn sense. When I’m playing a text based game, I enjoy being able to comprehend the text, especially if the text is difficult to access mechanically.

Don’t talk to me about Who is Salt.

AK has a distinct style, and it does not work for me. Oh wow, you repeated a few sentences at the end of the echo, you're such a profound writer, do you want a cookie? Oh wow, you think cannibalism/flesh horror is scary and you’re going to put it everywhere, along with wells, candles, cults, and numbers. You’re so innovative and unique and everyone should love you. I’m sure that literally no one else has written a story about the pursuit of forbidden knowledge before. (Have you looked at the kickstarter for Cultist Simulator and read the summary of its plot? Man has no original ideas.)

There’s a difference between reading a mystery author in which you have to have some awareness to uncover clues as the plot progresses, and a mystery writer that’s being intentionally obtuse for the sake of being “meta” and feeling smarter than the reader. As a writer myself, I think the latter is a bad writer.

If you’ve read T.S. Eliot and know that AK admires him, you understand why AK writes the way he does, and that’s not a compliment to either of them. But I digress.

Exhibit 3: Personal Opinion

I think I'm entitled to share my preferences here. I play a strongly revolutionary character who plays black on the chessboard. I've studied the Victorian era in some detail, but even if you haven't, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the 1800's were a wasteland for human rights. One of the major themes of the game is referencing and condemning the period-typical rigid ideas of class, as well as the horrors of industrialism. It also shouldn't come as a surprise that AK hated the Revolutionaries as a faction and hated the Liberation of the Night. Regardless of how you feel about the LON, I don't think that aligning the faction that wants social change (and, you know, basic worker's rights) with evil is a good move. I'm glad that the current writers and content such as the railway has portrayed them in a much more positive light. However, SMEN is explicitly a play by the White. I don't want to go anywhere near the White unless it's for regicide. Honestly sometimes while reading his writing, especially with the “What is due?” ending, I feel like AK doesn't even like the world he helped to create. Far too grimdark a tone for me. One of my friends played Flint and enjoyed it. I don’t hate the Sackmas storyline. In general though, I find AK’s writing lackluster at best.

For SMEN specifically: Look at me. I’m about to say it. I don’t care about Mr Eaten. I think that the Masters are cartoonish villains and deserve every bad situation that they wind up getting themselves into lmao. Oh, you’re upset you were betrayed by your companions? The residents of the first and second city are upset that you exploited them, farmed them for love stories, and erased them from existence.

The Allusions

Exhibit 4: Christianity

I say this as a practicing Catholic: there were far, far too many Christianity allusions in SMEN. It's shoved in your face the entire time. Maybe you could argue that it would make sense for a seeker character that was from London to be making biblical allusions, but there's no reasonable explanation for why a millennia-old space alien would care about any human religion. Winking Isle repeatedly refers to "The Twelve," which is meant to be the twelve masters, but it's too close in context to twelve apostles for comfort. Seven is a big number in the Bible. The whole process of obtaining the calling card requires knowledge of the Bible. One of my best friends is Jewish and we both just really hate all of this. Not only does it not make sense for a Master to care about Christianity, but it makes the situation deeply uncomfortable for non-Christians and people who just don't like having that sort of thing in horror.

Furthermore, there's that whole implication that Candles is a Christ figure and I do not agree with it. First of all, by definition you cannot separate Christianity from "Christ" figure. The literary trope is a character who is inherently good and different than others, and tries futilely to save a society before being destroyed by that society. Objectively speaking, Mr Candles was given over to the priests of the Third City in order for the Masters to purchase the Third City and continue to farm humans for love stories. There is nothing good about that. The whole narrative of SMEN tries to get you to feel sympathy for Candles, but it falls flat for me. I've read fanfiction about Candles and the sale of the Third City that is hundreds of times better.

Exhibit 5: r/menwritingwomen

And then there are the other allusions. I don't know how to put this any other way than bluntly, but it's implied in SMEN that the reason that Mr Candles was betrayed was because it was infertile. Winking Isle talks about lacking the "Dual Nature" as well as an Arthurian allusion to being "wounded in the thigh." The former implies that Curator anatomy includes both sets of reproductive organs, whilst the latter is an explicit reference to castration. I just. How do you manage to be that much of a Cis Male Author [TM] that you create an r/menwritingwomen plot with a character that isn't even a woman? Oh, this character's traumatic past is because... dun dun dun they can't have kids. I cringe so hard. This is why I say "Candles honey you deserve better."

I’m just like. Oh, you read the Bible, you read a book of T.S. Eliot poetry, and you read some King Arthur myths. Clearly this makes you the smartest and most creative person in the room, because no other story has every aggressively referenced Christianity before.

Exhibit 6: Anti-indigenous Racism

I don’t feel the need to say much here. The Third City was in Mesoamerica. The priests wanted to sacrifice and eat flesh. They’re depicted as superstitious and manipulative. Doesn’t that just reek of the colonizer narrative of the “savage” indigenous person? The human sacrifice trope could have been put literally anywhere and the fact they picked a Mesoamerican culture is absolutely not a coincidence. None of the other fallen cities are vilified in such a way. I will acknowledge that AK is not the only one to blame here and this point remains one of my criticisms of Fallen London as a whole. I love the game, but it’s okay to acknowledge the faults in things we love while still enjoying them.

The Mechanics

Exhibit 7: Gameplay

This criticism focuses mainly on the writing, but I can't resist a brief aside about the mechanics. I understand that it's meant to be punishing, but the effect is poorly executed in my opinion. Congrats, you clicked the same button a thousand times in a row and now you can click a few more buttons to get the ending. Not mentally stimulating or rewarding. And honestly Winking Isle wasn't even as hard as other parts of the game. It took me a few weeks whilst knifegate took me months.

The pain feels overhyped, imo. Instead of feeling challenged or scared, I got bored, which is the opposite of the goal a game should have, don't you think? Look, I play games to have fun. I don't want to invest my limited free time into something that's going to be frustrating in a bad way. It's one of the reasons I could never get into Sunless Sea.

I played and greatly enjoyed the Discordance storyline, which uses similar punishing and puzzle solving mechanics. That didn’t make me want to hit my head on my desk. It was enjoyable. There was what felt like a meaningful narrative payoff for the struggle. It cost valuable items, but the sacrifice didn’t feel like it was in vain. There was a reward at the end instead of just an endless downward circle jerk of pain. Dark mechanics can be done enjoyably. The Discordance says that the world is vast and dark and unjust but there is love in that world, and love is worth the sacrifice. SMEN just showed up at my house and said that life is short, frustrating, and futile; there’s no way to challenge the Powers That Be; we’re all going to die alone; and you’re a sucker for playing.

(I think it’s clear by now that I have a strong preference for Groover lol)

In Conclusion

In the broader narrative context, SMEN shows its age. I acknowledge that at the time it was first published, it was groundbreaking. For example, it was the only way for Nemesis characters to feel some sort of satisfaction before the ambitions were finished. However, in 2022, after having the lab and railway and parabola, I feel that the lore from SMEN is outdated. We know the red science exists and we’ve studied it ourselves, we’ve explored “the light at the edge of sleep,” and we’ve even gone to the Avid Horizon (with an adorable baby bat in tow).

If it was just mediocre and outdated writing, i wouldn’t care so much. The aggressive Christianity and the bigotry of the author that bleeds into the text spoils it for me, though. I tried to keep this rant objective to the content of SMEN, but I can’t in good faith post this without acknowledging that AK has been accused of sexual assault. The Failbetter Devs have spoken about how awful he was to work with in general. If you want sources for these, you can DM me. But yeah, if AK was just a writer I disliked, I wouldn’t care so much, but something rubs me the wrong way when I see people on Reddit worshipping a scummy human.

Let’s end with a metaphor. My experience with SMEN was like spending hours picking the lock on a safe that you were told contains diamonds only to find a rubber band collection inside, and also the rubber bands are sexist, and there’s someone on Reddit trying to convince you that rubber bands are diamonds. Maybe there are economic models in which rubber bands are more valuable than diamonds, or maybe you would enjoy nice functional office supplies more than overpriced rocks, and that’s okay. But rubber bands are not for me, and Fallen London is full of plenty of diamonds that I would much prefer to spend my time and energy on.

If you read this far, hey, how’s it going, unclench your jaw, adjust your posture, and drink some water. And if you read all this and decided that you want to yell at me for interpreting the lore wrong and not understanding the “point” of SMEN, consider this: I really don’t care and will block every rude ask I get.

Anon, I don’t know if you were expecting a *checks notes* 2500+ word rant, but here we are. Thanks for the ask, or sorry this happened, or whatever. I was tempted to skip the rant and just write “I think it’s a big box of wank,” but that wouldn’t be doing justice to you, the story, or myself.

Also, to the diehard fans: AK isn’t going to love you back.

#will say i havent played smen #but from my experience a lot of the main-game older FL writing is near-impossible to understand for someone thats not natively english lol #and i suspect a lot of these parts were also written by him #ive played his two other later games and i think hes gotten somewhat better at being comprehensible and also moving on from...#...most of his bigotry #not the focus on christianity though #cult sim also has an 'enigma' part that feels equally as unsatisfying puzzle-wise as is described here though. self-indulgence type writing #(the SA accusation also seemed wrapped up in some kind of IP/copyright battle?? i dont even know)#tl;dr im saying: yea this tracks

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