Nightcrawler
I really dug this. it was disturbingly compelling and entirely about power and power dynamics, which is totally up my jam. I can't think of anyone other than Jake Gyllenhal who could have pulled off that protagonist and he should have gotten an Oscar nomination for it. recognizing an actor solely from The Wire is a deep cut I haven't had in a while. the climax was almost unbearable to watch, not Uncut Gems levels (nothing is that bad) but up there. I felt grimy after it finished but in kind of a good way, but also a really bad one. me review good. articulate yes.
Tenet
I usually enjoy Nolan's fantastical offerings for the creativity if nothing else. I found a reaction afterward "If someone told me to spoil the movie for them or they'd kill me, I'd be fucking dead" and that about sums it up. Nolan is such a particular writer/director that I'm sure the plot does make sense if I dig into it and read analysis and go through scenes frame by frame, but I was left with absolutely no desire to. it felt more than any of his other films like flexing his chops in ways that did a disservice to the story. a lot of the temporal shenanigans reminded me of 12 Monkeys (show) and made me miss the crew. the thing that will forever confuse me is that according to Nolan's usual principles of magical system (lbr) logic intertwining with emotional narrative, Protagonist's first meeting with [redacted] should have been [redacted]'s last meeting with Protagonist instead of how it played out. or maybe I don't understand anything. who can really say?
My Cousin Vinny
I saw posts about this movie on three separate sites this week and took that as a sign. the plot was kinda silly and most of the characters were, there, but it's worth watching for Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa's dynamic. she was completely not what I expected, and I loved that her actual earned knowledge (not just "I grew up with brothers") is what made the case. the "argument" they had in the hotel room where he was being pettily scolding and she was ingenuously justifying herself with more and more elaborate lies until they were smooching was basically my ideal relationship. they were both so proud and so supportive for all they bickered and made fun of each other. upon further research (I looked it up on r/movies) apparently this is shown in law school for how much it gets right about courtroom procedure and how expertly Vinny handles his witnesses. I feel like this is one of the rare times Ebert should have given it a second look. maybe my heart truly does belong in the '90s.
Stranger Than Fiction
as someone who lacks an internal monologue (yes I still think) this concept is nightmare fuel. I'm extremely not fond of Will Ferell but he can occasionally fit a role. I don't think this was one of them. I liked it better when the movie focused on Emma Thompson and found her whole writerly thing much more interesting. I just didn't buy his character the way I did with Elf, there was some inauthentic vibe that bothered me. Maggie Gyllenhal's character also would absolutely not have been into him and that didn't work at all. I'm just a hater tbh.
TV Shows
extremely short this month because there's a DNF I'd rather not write about. maybe I should try anime again.
Widow's Bay
of course this started blowing up as soon as I dropped it. fine. FINE. but I watched during daylight hours only and it also got less scary for a couple episodes. before becoming terrifying again. Patricia is obviously the best character and is so uncomfortably relatable I've decided to ignore every way in which she is similar to myself. there's so much creativity and absurdity in this and I am not surprised the showrunner is the Babadook party lady. I was hoping for Parks and Rec in a Stephen King setting and got exactly that so I'm happy it's been renewed. the best line reading and scene partner reaction of the season goes to "But he got bit by an animal and became that animal". the biggest thing the show does right is respect the tension of its horror rather than using humour to undercut it; I appreciate being able to give a little guffaw at a perfect character moment while watching through my fingers. I know it's a common complaint these days but with something closer to a half-hour comedy it's more apparent than ever how shortened seasons are. I think it hit me harder this time because instead of the usual feeling like they took a 12-16-episode season and crammed it into 8 (while somehow also adding an entire filler episode), it felt like only the first arc of the season and the rest should be coming soon. which may or may not make sense. I'll be tuning in when it comes back in, oh, 2029.
Games
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
after 91 hours and 612 saves I finished the main quest (read: finally ran out of sidequests). I had so much fun with this game. I'd avoided it for years because "old" then kept avoiding it even after the remaster because "bad". I was happy to eat crow in this instance. the setting was more pleasing to me than Skyrim or Morrowind because I'm a basic fantasy bitch, and mods took care of every one of the complaints I'd heard over the years. I didn't even run into that many bugs (!!!) aside from being stuck invisible a few times but tbh that was more of a feature. somewhere in the middle I sat back and took a moment to appreciate my quest log of a dozen waiting quests of all types around the region because I knew it would be a long time before I had that specific anticipatory contentment again. the Dark Brotherhood questline was my favourite and since I saved it for last I got to go on a killing spree with all the skills and tools I'd picked up along the way. it was a nice capstone to the whole experience, like a murderous victory lap. my least favourite quests were any quests where I had to escort someone with 5HP and armour made of grass whose pace averaged out to "glacial". (no one saw me do it so no one can prove I picked my first murder target from among former escort questgivers.) if I ever see another generic cave it'll be too soon but otherwise it was a fantastic experience and only left me wanting more. when Elder Scrolls VI comes out in 2053 I sure hope I won't be disappointed in comparison. but no, Todd would never do that to me…
The Roottrees Are Dead
I was told this was basically Return of the Obra Dinn with 56k internet, which sounded like a cool enough concept to try. the first 80% was really fun putting clues together and took some real investigative work, but the last 20% turned into tediously going back over the evidence and looking up every proper noun I could find to see what tiny thing I'd missed. I also figured out the central mystery pretty early on but had to wait until the end for evidence to support it, the age-old Ace Attorney issue. despite what people (probably) advise, you never need the "use two known identities to help guess a third" trick and everything can be deduced through evidence. it was a good brain flex and genuinely tricky at times, especially if you turn off all the hint systems </humblebrag>. I'd play obralikes forever.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) (DNF)
at first I was feeling pretty optimistic and even jotting down some notes as I went, which I will preserve for posterity (?):
I did the Leo pointing meme when Peter had a copy of Deathtrap Dungeon on his bookshelf
I was going to make a comment about the soundtrack reminding me of Peacemaker before remembering one step further and feeling dumb
said "really?" out loud when the first code was 0451
being terrible at games works in my favour because I can just lose the challenges and the entire team makes fun of Peter and it's still a win
there is so, so much missable dialogue in this game
the bickering isn't immediately annoying me and I'm keeping in mind it also took until episode 4 until I was sure about Tales from the Borderlands
the characters are all suitably assholish to each other instead of that snarky passive-aggressive version that drives me crazy
referring to what I said some months back one of the reasons Guardians banter works in general is Peter spends all his time either showing off or recovering from failed showing off so no one takes him seriously (including himself) and the relentless bullying feels earned
to ponder: groups that don't pick the leader because they're the most competent or charming or influential but because they're the easiest to put all the blame on when anything goes wrong
my favourite funny games are ones in which too many of the options look tempting but I'll settle for ones in which there's one option I dive for immediately
then I broke for the day and when I sat down to go back the next, I didn't want to. just, flat-out, could not make myself click the mouse, and it's entirely because of the gameplay. shoot with R2. hold L1 for your abilities wheel. keep an eye on that cooldown. O to dodgeroll. traverse clumsily with minor platforming. squeeze through that crevice. turn on your detective vision. pick up resources with △. crouch under the debris. it's designed so anyone who's played a modern AAA game should be able to jump in immediately, and after this and much of FFVII: Rebirth I have realized I am not a modern gamer. this kind of gameplay system is both challenging for me in unfun ways (reflexes and timing) and also bores me to tears.
playing Trails earlier this year was kind of a revelation in that sense. I was fighting a monster contract and got wiped out, rare for me in a non-DQ-hard-mode JRPG (not </humblebrag>). instead of frustration I sat up straighter in my chair "all right so that's how you wanna play it huh"-style and tried again with a more focused strategy. another failure and the game condescendingly offered to nerf the enemies. I thought hell to the no, I'm doing this legit. fifth time I won by the skin of my teeth and punched the air because it'd been years since I'd had that experience of getting a little better and a little closer every time I failed a boss. I can lose a fight in Guardians ten times in a row and do even worse the 11th, and finally beating it gives me none of the same satisfaction because I know it was mostly a fluke. this type of gameplay can only be suffered through for me if the plot and characters are promising enough. these, unfortunately, are not, and I actually don't feel it's the fault of the writing (best part of the game) but that the title is preceded by "Marvel's" with all the toothlessness that implies. it's apparently a pretty good time, but alas, not worth it for me. hey maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this DNF thing!
Final Fantasy XVI
I almost, almost hopped back on my Witcher 3 bullshit after Songs of the Past (!!!) (!!!!!) was announced but valiantly resisted. there is "replaying old favourites" and then there is "committing to a 150-hour experience I have already (exhaustively) completed". so surely I won't regret firing this up instead.
because playing a new FF game is such a rarity I decided to forgo a traditional writeup until after I've beaten it and focused on rampant self-indulgence.
Books
The Count of Monte Cristo*
I did it. I finished the 1200-page book that I saw described last month as "litslop" on twitter. this wasn't my first Dumas, having previously read a translation of The Three Musketeers many years ago. I already knew he was wordy but readable with an ironic humour that can be missed by virtue of his being French. he uses clever turns of phrase just judiciously enough not to be insufferable, which I appreciate of witty people. so many times he'd go into detail about some dandy's day of entertainment until my eyes started glazing over then hit me in the face with an incisive remark about the human condition that rings just as true now as 200 years ago. once I realized the understated humour reminded me most of Jane Austen I had an uncomfortable "Boss Baby vibes" moment. the pacing of the book was strange, some of which I assume is due to serialization. I really enjoyed the first part with Dantès and his imprisonment and liked his resilience as a character. when the narrative shifted and the Count moved to the background things got unfocused and I struggled to gain my footing for a couple hundred pages. when I saw how much was left I thought there was going to be far more story than I anticipated, and then I realized this was just the slowest-moving revenge plot in the history of literature. I know they destroyed your life and everything but couldn't you just like…shoot the dudes and have it over with right away. the amount of plates the Count had spinning in the air at any given time defied credulity but I wasn't here for incompetency porn so that was fine. the Haydée thing was whatever, she could do a lot worse. the format of the narrative felt akin to a TV mini-series and I'm curious what cuts the screen adaptations make. I knew all the while this wasn't the kind of book that was going to change my life but was satisfied by the time I got to the end with a fun plot, sympathetic characters, and great prose. then I read "Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words - 'wait' and 'hope'." and put my Kindle down and cried. well played, M. Dumas.
I made a "no screen time for a week" bet with a child where defeat was obviously unacceptable so this is a bit lighter than usual (edit: oops). I'm really enjoying these monthly recaps. on an increasingly AI-slop internet it's nice to write for its own sake to get the thoughts and feelings out of my brain. it's not just journalling—it's authenticity.
Movies
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
it was time to go back to Gunn even though the Guardians have never been my favourite, and after Peacemaker even less so (more so? I confused myself). if you'd told me fifteen years ago I'd long for John Cena over Chris Pratt I'd probably assume I'd joined a cult. I feel like everyone involved in making this thought the audience was far, far fonder of Rocket Raccoon than I ever got the impression they were. it was baffling to me how much of the story hinged on him. The Peter/Gamora stuff was the most interesting dynamic in the movie and I liked the note it ended (?) on. I shed no tears but did laugh a few laughs, mostly thanks to the other wrestler-turned-actor-who's-better-than-The-Rock.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
well wasn't this quite the eclectic collection of character actors. what a fever dream of a movie. did I like it? did I not? I dunno man. I'm not sure I know anything more about the Odyssey than I did before watching. the fucking cows. I realized I've never once in my life found George Clooney attractive (this was not an exception). the soundtrack was as good as everyone's been saying all these years and I've been jamming along to it since. I cannot remember why I put this on my list. at least I got an Ebert review out of it.
Blade Runner 2049
that's a Denis Villeneuve movie all right. if you're into that sort of thing. which I'm not sure I am, though the visuals were breathtaking. but I honestly thought the movie justified itself, which is the most critical point a legacy sequel must hit. the story expanded on the concepts of the first one in interesting and natural (well, as much as Replicants are) ways. I liked Ryan Gosling as K and his relationship with his AI was eerily prescient of issues cropping up today, particularly her insistence that of course he's the special one. is this a safe space to say I can't really tell the difference between any particular Harrison Ford performance. this isn't my usual kind of scifi but I enjoyed it and the first one.
West Side Story (2021)
it was…okay? what is wrong with me?? why does my brain go beeeeep after most of the movies I pick?? I really thought a musical would be a slam dunk even though the soundtrack from this has never been my favourite. the dresses were incredible and the group dance sequences were obviously the highlight. Rachel Zegler was sweet but Ansel Elgort was seriously miscast imo (edit: ieo apparently). he gave me such offputting vibes I couldn't buy the romance at all. the concept of directors faithfully remaking movies the way an artist covers a song still seems kind of funny to me but I guess the GOAT is allowed to do what he wants.
TV Shows
Fargo
I wasn't sure about this for the first half of the season. I have a hot/cold relationship with CoBro vibes (see above) although I did love the original movie. I couldn't figure out the ultimate goal of the story being told until near the end when everything started coming together in a really satisfying way, and seemingly unrelated or dropped plot points came full circle. the tension and atmospheric dread in the last two episodes alone was right up there with the Leftovers. unpopular opinion but I think Martin Freeman was the weakest link in the cast. his character's insincerity wasn't authentic to me (I know that sounds insane!!) and I don't have enough confidence in his acting to assume it was deliberate. Allison Tolman made up for that though by being an even better detective than Frances McDormand, and Billy Bob Thornton was truly unhinged. I tried to pin his character down all season and came up blank but he was captivating every time he was onscreen and I actually kind of see now why six women have married him. the really hit and miss thing for me was the humour but I already expected that, and it turns out a little Key and Peele (???) go a long way. I thiiink it's an anthology type show with revolving casts and season 2 is supposedly amazing so I'll stick around. I will miss the characters I got to know but I frankly don't want any of their endings to change, for the better or worse. this and Leftovers s1 aired around the same time 11 years ago (a different age…) and good lord the difference in quality of reddit post-episode discussions. you hate Molly? MOLLY??? I would literally kill anyone who tried to hurt Molly except her dad, Gus, and she herself would get there first.
Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf (DNF)
I can't get into the main duo. their interactions are cute but something is missing for me. I gave the show a cour to see if I could find it and I didn't. it honestly might come down to how much more male POV this romance is than I'm used to in my anime. this isn't so much about fanservice (there's very little actually) but levels of agency between the two characters. Holo is the more reactive, ambiguous side of the dynamic here and I couldn't get a sense of what drives her. for an already unrelatable deity character that's a tricky combination and it makes her hard to really care about. no matter how awesome a dude character is (and Lawrence…isn't) I have nothing to work with when the lady is lacking to me. which is all to say that my heart didn't do a single badump in a dozen episodes and I'm not interested enough in the plot otherwise. sometimes the shallowest measures are the best.
Widow's Bay (DNF)
this is not a "and nothing of value was lost" DNF. this is a "I'm a complete and utter baby for horror and can't do it can't do it" DNF. in the three episodes I managed I saw the end of the beginning of what could possibly be an all-timer. when I learned people from Parks&Rec and Barry were behind the scenes a lot of things clicked. come to an island of weirdos governed by a tourism-obsessed mayor who keeps having to fix all the havoc caused by their sordid supernatural history. this was my first time with Matthew Rhys but he has universal praise for other stuff and is entertaining as the long-suffering mayor. Stephen Root is as always a pleasure to see in a big role and I regret not being able to watch their dynamic play out. it's not like I'm an expert here but it honestly perfectly balanced the horror and comedy: a third of the time I could relax and chuckle for a bit, a third of the time I was hiding my face, and a third of the time I wasn't sure which time it was, which was worse. ugh. maybe I'll come back if later reception says it delivers on its promise but I'm roping my brother into it.
Liar Game (2026)
pit Tohru Honda and Nao Kanzaki against each other in the Liar Game and they would form an alliance and somehow both still lose. this cannot possibly delight me on the level of Liar Game (2014) (RIP) but by god I'm going to let it try. halfway through the first cour I'm honestly appreciating the kdrama more than ever because episodes were three times as long but worked so much better. all the additions felt natural and developed the characters and gave the story needed downtime. the pacing of the anime feels strange and disjointed in comparison and taking five weeks to get through a single game makes it harder to keep track of what's going on (not, great when it comes to this concept). for a plot with so many mic drops some of the cliffhangers have been weirdly anticlimactic. I like Akiyama and his dub actor but the biggest letdown so far compared to the kdrama is the lack of central antagonist with whom he can be blatantly homoerotic. Nao is as dumb as she should be but being only 18 I have adjusted my expectations of her relationship with Akiyama accordingly and he's even shockingly nice to her at times. I'll keep watching and see if it has enough surprises for me to continue. if nothing else the OP is a true banger with a must-see music video. I was so absorbed I forgot about the song entirely.
Games
Librarian: Tidy up the Arcane Library!
fun fact: playing games like this is a little-known sign of extremely robust mental health. getting the no-magic-use achievement on a first run even more so. I clocked in at a final 14:01:15 sorting 3072 books onto 400 shelves manually. no regrets because it gave me a chance to appreciate some of the punnier titles (the romance novel "Fill The Solitude of My Millennium with Your Ninety Years" was uncalled for in light of recent ships). the cover colour distribution was ideal for the gameplay and I don't know how to explain it without sounding like a crazy person. the end result of a fully shelved library was more satisfying than I ever could have dreamed. I recommend starting with a no-magic run so you can spend the first half of the game descending into madness trying to figure out your optimal gameplay loop and the second half clawing your way back to sanity as you refine your sorting system and feel the sweet glow of efficiency. then the second run you go hog wild with the magic and shoot for the sub-three-hours achievement. after that, what could possibly still be wrong with any of us? GOTY (pending).
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
I played this because I'm catching up on 80,000 unread posts in the Something Awful Steam game discussion thread and someone said "musical murder mystery" and I went "sold" sight unseen. why do I keep getting ambushed by Laura Bailey protagonists. and also every other gaming VA I know. I could tell a character was voiced by Troy Baker before he even opened his mouth and started romancing him immediately for the predicted eventual duet. everyone did a great job with the singing but with her lower register it was kind of like hearing the Boss from Saints Row burst into song (derogatory).
the writing…made it clear I was not the target audience. I am trying not to be a megahater here but too much of the script was the essence of "well THAT just happened" from any Marvel movie. the BFF character grated on me by being the embodiment of that romance novel/fanfic trope where the MC's friends are overly invested in their life to an unrealistic degree: they react more than act, they have no conflicting beliefs or goals, and I never care about them in the slightest because they don't want anything. I thought the exploration of "Greek gods but--get this--in modern society!!!" was largely uninspired. when Persephone said she killed Hades for kidnapping her and Grace had an "oh gosh that's totally understandable" response there was some upward ocular movement. I needed more lore like Aphrodite's rituals or Apollo's passing references to his messed-up relationship with his muses. c'mon, it's the Greek gods, there is so much crazy shit they'd be into in the 21st century. the romances were whatever, my choice had already been made years ago (2015).
the really tragic thing for me though were the songs. I couldn't remember a single melody mere minutes after they ended. it felt like the gameplay concept of dynamic musical numbers resulted in less cohesiveness. like yeah you can switch between paragon/renega blue/red/green but I couldn't help but feel it was a better experience if I just stuck with one all the way through. there are "technically" 12+ versions of each song depending on your choices, but how many of those are actually sonically appealing? there is little you can promise in a video game that will get me more excited than my character being put on trial and also the trial is the big finale musical number, but even that was disappointing. maybe I'll give the official soundtrack a listen later and see if anything grows on me.
probably should've DNFed when I realized what a hater I was becoming but this is the kind of concept I must see through to the end. my final score is "got to make Laura Bailey flirt outrageously with a stuttering Troy Baker"/10.
addendum: CREATIVE DIRECTOR DAVID GAIDER??? lol. lmao. rofl.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
I had the insane urge to reinstall Skyrim, a game I should never for my own sake boot up again because I can't be trusted not to spend more time tinkering with mods than actually playing, and luckily redirected myself instead. considering Skyblivion is still MIA this is a pretty ideal way to experience Oblivion in tyool 2026, especially as a first-timer. I considered never forgiving them for starting me off in a sewer dungeon (not even Patrick Stewart can save that) but after I got out into the world things brightened up. game looks good, plays good (grateful I upgraded in 2023), quality of life doesn't make me want to bash my brains out. the way it really shows its age is the frequency of loading screens between areas/buildings but with an SSD it's tolerable. if they could somehow get rid of 80% of the loading it'd be almost indistinguishable from a modern Eurojank game.
now that I've settled in after the usual whiny adjustment period I'm enjoying myself hugely. I'd forgotten how fun the randomness of Elder Scrolls can be. in some games I get annoyed by constant distractions from my goal but here I flit from objective to objective like a mercenary of whimsy. pop into an unassuming inn to level up and suddenly I'm embroiled in a multi-part quest I'd never have found otherwise? yeah sure this delivery for the Emperor probably wasn't that important anyway. the dungeon designs are truly 2006 but the countryside is varied and pretty (with a ReShade preset to restore actual colour) and satisfyingly "see that mountain?" in scope. it's nice to just point my horse in a direction and roam around to see what's out there besides endless endless wolves oh my god you're not cliff racers please stop. there's really nothing like making the long trek to a new town and walking up to the main gate knowing I get to explore and shop and find out what bullshit the dumb townsfolk have gotten themselves wrapped up in lately. the architecture and environments all look really distinct from each other and the decor and NPC schedules help the world feel lived-in. I actually enjoy being told to talk to someone at their store and finding out when I get there that they close up shop Morndas so I have to head to the temple instead. the voice acting is…Bethesda-ly repetitive but I get to pretend Varric lives in Cyrodiil so it's cool.
it might sound weird but my biggest praise for the writing is the intentionality of it. from the most epic to the most frivolous, every quest in this game had careful attention paid to the breadcrumbs, success/failure paths, relevant NPC dialogue, aftermath, etc. I know people complained about Skyrim's downgrade in comparison and now that I see the difference I'm really glad I played that first. it feels like such a novelty that aside from the throwaway gossip, it's worth paying attention to every line because then I don't have to look stuff up as much. even though I have so many options available I appreciate that Elder Scrolls always accommodates my every-problem-is-a-nail approach (sneaking; if failed → speechcraft; if failed → frantic bludgeoning). I have thus far avoided being sent a letter with a black handprint but I figure someone's going to deserve a little murderin' at some point or another, also I want my damn Shadowmere. no idea about the main quest, I haven't even seen an Oblivion Gate yet. I'll get started on that in a few dozen hours (maybe).
it's nice to experience older games like this and Trails that I wouldn't have been able to get into previously due to my anti-aughts-games prejudice. the modding scene is not quite the bottomless rabbithole that was Skyrim but I do love that someone made a mod specifically to fix the physics of shop signs. find a way to stick boobs on them and then we're talking.
Books
yes this is a pretty pathetic showing for a month with less screentime but I'm working on a big one!! I might even not DNF this time!!
The Lathe of Heaven
oh thank god my attention span is fine, I just needed an author I find fascinating to read on a word-to-word level. I loved this. I was captivated from page one and it was short enough that it never lost momentum. Le Guin's scifi is my favourite kind of conceptual exploration and this book in particular got pretty wild. the dreaminess of the narrative reminded me of something from Philip K. Dick but with (slightly) less drug use. I really liked George as a protagonist even though I can't quite put my finger on him without thinking about it more. he was somehow both transparent and impenetrable to the reader at the same time, the middle of every metric. Le Guin writes romance not so much with passion or effusiveness as a deep, tender love that touches me. I copied down "He stood looking at her and smiling, a broad radiant smile of pure joy. She had never received so great a compliment in her life; she was abashed by that joy, which she had caused." there's even an entire passage expanding on the idea of "making love" which I know is a super uncool term these days but which I will DEFEND to the DEATH. another upside to awesomely well-read authors is all the new words I pick up that I've never seen before in my life. my favourite this time was "maunder" and I'm going to use it until people tell me to shut up ("oh, so you want me to stop…maundering?"). it's comforting to have a prolific writer whose well I can always return to between failed classics. last note: the concept of Portland, OR being the capital of the world was extremely funny.
As a meta nerd and recent Frieren/Himmel obsessive, the Goddess Monument arc shakes so much loose it's hard to know where to begin. I can't believe this is canon.
[Open spoilers for Frieren Ch. 107-119]
When looked at from an in-depth shipping standpoint (as normal people do) I think this arc confirms some things about Frieren and Himmel that are otherwise left ambiguous. I don't have a thesis here, I'm just a rambler and like noticing little details and rolling around in what they imply.
So why did Himmel never say anything to Frieren about his feelings? I mean, he didn't exactly not say anything, but he never confessed or confronted it even after they defeated the Demon King. It can be explained by his wanting her to be herself to the point of watching her walk away with a smile, or that he knew she wasn't capable of reciprocating, but I think the Goddess Monument arc adds even better context.
From the moment Frieren realizes she's in the past, she wants to go back (tap tap).
When they're discussing how long it could take to decipher the scripture, Eisen reminds her that years aren’t much consequence to her, but Frieren is adamant. Not for some vague "it's the place I belong" reason but because she wants to get back to Fern and Stark. They're her responsibility and she needs them and doesn't want to risk their futures; but mainly she wants to get back to that ridiculous journey she's enjoying every single moment of.
And Himmel sees this, sees her picking her own time without hesitation over this impossible reunion with now-dead companions, and thinks it's awesome.
Himmel is consistently shown to understand Frieren in a way no one had since Flamme (I could posit Flamme taught Frieren how to hate, lovingly, and Himmel taught her how to love but that's another thought train). At this point seven years into their journey his Frieren is still the same old heartless elf, referring to their adventure as an insignificant fraction of her life and dismissing the idea of an apprentice because they'd just die anyway. As per Grausam's miraculous illusion, Himmel has already given up hope he could ever be with her the way he wants, even as he wouldn't change a thing about her.
Now he's spent the past few days seeing all the ways she's different a mere 83 years in the future. She apologizes (lol at everyone being flummoxed), she works seamlessly in a team, she shows fondness for her companions, she even has an apprentice she mentions with a smile. Frieren truly seems focused on making the most of her life, moment to moment, and loving the people she's with.
This is an enormous change for such a long-lived race. This isn't the kind of change an elf goes through because they were a little sad about old acquaintances passing. Frieren is living a perspective shift that comes from profound regret over not understanding what (who) she had during the brief time she had it. Flamme knew Frieren would make this mistake someday and 1000 years later Himmel is seeing the result of that mistake. If anyone knows what could spark such a change in her, it's him.
But she wants to go back. Her life completely changed because of loss and regret and she still wants to go back rather than spend a single moment longer with him. How could he ever want to interfere with her becoming this version of herself, who has something important to return to? This is the best possible outcome he could have dreamed of for how Frieren is doing after his death. Her future with Fern and Stark is more important to her than her past with Himmel and the others and that's exactly how it should be.
So of course after he gets his Frieren back he'll say nothing and defeat the Demon King and then let her walk away, ready to dedicate the rest of his life to ensuring she can return to hers; that's the definition of what's best for her. Just gotta polish off a few dozen more statue poses to compensate.
For me, a key milestone in slowburn progression is mutual acknowledgment of feelings, and I think after the wedding illusion Frieren and Himmel meet this threshold.
First of all, this is going to go insane when animated. The implication here is that they stood through the entire ceremony without saying anything; it's only at the point of the kiss Himmel interrupts. (Does that mean they exchanged vows?) And unlike the figments of Heiter and Eisen, he seems to know this is the real Frieren. This isn't part of the illusion created to tempt him, it's Frieren herself even more swept up in the wedding than he is. There's no need for him to look that bittersweet unless he's turning down something more real than anything else in the room.
(girl stop lying you were puckered up lmao)
Once he interrupts she instantly pivots and starts theorizing about what's going on, further demonstrating she isn't illusory or befuddled, she was just a really easy sell on the idea of marrying Himmel.
No matter what he might think about the impact he's had and will continue to have on her, Himmel at this time has already given up hope of her ever reciprocating a dream like this. The Frieren of the future not only shares it but is going through with it despite how unusual it should be for a powerful mage's mental defenses to be broken on her wedding day. Himmel gets to see Frieren as his bride because she wanted to be his bride to the point of ignoring signs of hypnosis. To a guy who received bafflement in response to his proposal, that's quite a change in sentiment.
By the by, this is intriguing as a throwaway line. Memory of what, exactly? How do they "remember" getting here? Was there a whole courtship or was it an abrupt decision? What makes their love story so plausible Frieren didn't question it?
Well that was unnecessary, but thank you Frieren for deciding to cover Himmel's hand with yours while you close his fingers around his hilt. The wedding attire while this is happening is a nice touch, as well as Frieren being cute as a button. The top left panel is somehow most endearing because she doesn't look bothered at all that she can't do anything as long as she can talk Himmel up (also touch Himmel up). I'm uncertain how he manages to keep his composure when Frieren is smiling up at him like that talking about him feeling his sword. It's hard for me to believe this page exists. Bring back the AO3 "lewd handholding" tag. #height difference. There is no analysis here, just *gesticulates wildly*
I think this is the most "damsel" we ever see Frieren get in the series. She's literally flopped down in her wedding gown sulkily unable to know what's going on while her groom Heroically saves the day. She actually doesn't do much in the finale of the arc besides look pretty and send him off to battle; it's all her companions and especially Himmel breaking them out of the illusion and allowing her to escape. Frieren specifically can't do anything to help or save herself here and doesn't even try, which is an interesting choice for the protagonist during the climax of the storyline.
Side thought: Are demons just lazy? If they'd been in their own separate illusions they probably wouldn't have been able to break free. Did Grausam pop into their heads, go "well that's convenient" and bam?
For Frieren the fight ends with Himmel and the others fending off the demons so she can return to her own time. She spends a single moment longer with him after all, but I don’t think he looks at her once after the illusion of their wedding breaks. I checked the original JP for Himmel's "It was a really nice dream…" (お陰でとても良い夢が見れた。) and after an amateur amount of research I think a more literal translation might be "Thanks to/Because of [you/this], I had a very good dream."
Himmel got to see the love of his life dressed in white waiting to seal their vows with a kiss because she wanted it just as much as he did. He had this now thanks to how she'll feel in the future, and he wants her to know he’s grateful. For a guy who made romantic gesture after romantic gesture toward the most oblivious elf in the world, I think this understated acknowledgement is the most direct he ever is about his love for her. There's no way to misinterpret marriage being someone's dream come true. A lot of arguments can be made as to how aware at any given time the extremely dense Frieren is about both Himmel's feelings and her own, but I think it's pretty clear she understands as she says goodbye. This was the single point of intersection where their love existed at the same time, and he kept that secret to his grave.
The entire arc is really more Himmel's when it comes to agency and who drives the plot forward and gets Frieren back to her own time (both immediately and longterm). She has a problem, so he steps in to help her because that's what Himmel the Hero does. Frieren mostly reacts and follows and isn't faced with major conflict. She's never tempted to linger in the past except when she's under the influence of the illusion, which isn't temptation so much as her being all-in from the start. Himmel's the one who makes the choice not to kiss her and interrupt the wedding. Then he gets to be a total badass while his bride relies on him focusing harder than he's ever focused in his life to save her, and lets her go without looking back. If his goal was to help her get over him he frankly did a terrible job.
After this arc Frieren and Himmel both know their love was/is/will be mutual, and they know what that love feels like on its most impossibly joyous day. Himmel got to suffer with that alone for 53 years and now Frieren gets to suffer for eons, I guess. This ship makes me abnormal and this arc has destroyed me, thank you for your time.
now if they both weren't such terminal virgins they could have dreamed of the wedding night but nooooo
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
loool @ all the people who weren't expecting the cliffhanger ending. that was hilariously brutal. this was a good sequel! the animation is still too stylized and frantic for my tastes (to the point I can't tell what's going on sometimes) but these movies are funny and care a lot about their various Spider-(wo)men. Miles and Gwen are super charming and I want to beat Peter up in an affectionate kind of way. I can't say I hopped on the Migwen train like some people I follow on Twitter but I'm glad they're having fun. is Sony like…still making the third one? is that a thing that's happening? animation is so dire these days man.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
I do not understand the point of this movie. I actually liked the second one, whose interminable runtime gave me enough time with the family that I was won over even by the kid characters. this one seemed to retread and rehash so much (except in a different setting) that I don't see why they couldn't have been combined. it looked nice I guess, but too much fighting and not enough talking. also Sigourney Weaver should never, ever, ever have been cast as a teenager. ever. you can find someone else who's close enough for god's sake, it's not like we're lacking footage of her as a younger woman here!!!
Blade Runner: Final Cut
it's important to have someone in your life you immediately think of asking when you're trying to figure out which cut of Blade Runner to watch. I read the Philip K. Dick novel a few years back which bore…not a ton of resemblance to this. but I enjoyed it and the vibes of the setting were insane. I can see how narration would completely and utterly ruin the experience (although I am kind of tempted to see just how bored Harrison Ford sounded doing it). Rutger Hauer stole the show (duh) but Ford did a good job too even if he was totally being rapey in that scene oh my god film bros what are you not getting about this. ahem. I continue to wish someone would make an adaptation of Ubik.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
okay so maybe my new method of “write down what movies you naturally encounter in the wild throughout the week and pick one” did not work out quite so well in this case. but the joy I felt when I did my usual looking up the Ebert review afterward and saw the rare zero stars made it well worth the boredom. just go read that for why it fundamentally failed its premise instead of any review I could make.
TV Shows
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Frieren reminds me of Hamilton (bear with me) in that it's so universally adored in certain circles that when you're a hater at heart (not, not guilty) you hold off on trying it and almost want to not like it because it's so praised. and then you grow up and realize that's a dumb way to live and actually yeah it is that awesome and now you get to join in on the fun!!
it's impressive what the first episode gets across about the characters/dynamics without all the background that's filled in as the story goes. it's like inferring a conclusion that you get to see slowly proved more and more correct over time. the writing in this show is so sincere and…fitting is maybe the best word for it? I can think of character moment after character moment where I reacted "that is exactly what s/he would say and I never would have thought of it". it’s interesting to follow a protagonist who doesn't understand other people at all but is deeply understood by them. Flamme knew 1000 years ago that someday Frieren would love someone and not realize it until they were gone. Heiter and Eisen worked for years to find her a path to closure because they knew her grief and regret would last eons. Fern has the least grace for Frieren (deservedly) (oh my god so deservedly) but Frieren also tries hardest with her and they’ve got the whole weird mommy thing going on anyway. they all love her so much and accept her as she is, which is someone who could never remember two of her companions of ten years were childhood friends (really girl). Frieren is seen as deserving love and consideration even though there will always be a difference as to how she shows it in return. she doesn't have normal emotions or empathy but she listens and she keeps trying, and is also an amazingly good mage which honestly helps a lot.
the lore and world-building continue to add interesting and logical details for me to roll around in. why did demons adopt language when they have no sense of community? because crying out for "mother" when a human is about to kill you works. why is Frieren more vulnerable to Zoltraak than mages many times her inferior? because it's too recent a spell for her to have instinctive reflexes against it whereas for human mages it’s existed their whole lives. it might say something about the current media landscape that I was actually shocked when the show didn't explicitly state why Serie passed Fern when she had every intention of failing her and relied on the viewer putting it together instead. normally action and battle scenes are a big snoozefest for me but the way just as much attention is put into the planning makes it really satisfying here (less so for Fern and Stark when Frieren's in one of her "I have every faith you can handle this without me~" moods).
there's something about female POV stories where the love interest is kept more of a mystery who must be studied over time that is my catnip, and it's even more fun in this case because the viewer understands what Frieren absolutely doesn't. I mean, Himmel wasn't exactly being subtle. at any point. over the course of a decade. man literally tried to attack a kid for flipping up her skirt because he was jealous he couldn't see too. man literally got knocked senseless when she blew him a kiss. man literally proposed to her. every other flashback is Frieren piercing Himmel's heart with her indifference while he clutches his chest thinking "she is the coldest most heartless woman I have ever known, how can anyone be this perfect??" devastatingly handsome anime men who are vain about their devastating handsomeness deserve nothing less than to pine after the one (1) woman who is immune to their charms (although 50 years of no contact is a bit much even for me, ouch).
Frieren is a 10/10 anime for the season 2 OP alone but also the other stuff. if they fumble season 3 it will genuinely be more tragic than Frieren fumbling Himmel.
addendum: okay so since I write these notes throughout the month, after all of the above I accidentally stumbled upon the one incredibly spoilery manga panel that could cause me to abandon my resolve to wait for the anime. which I subsequently did. and now...I am very much not sure how to incorporate all this new information into my understanding of the characters. the Goddess Monument arc makes it so that every single flashback with Himmel occurs either before or after [redacted]. Frieren now knows a secret kept for over 80 years and the innumerable and completely staggering character implications of this arc are going to keep me busy for a while. thanks for the excruciating hiatus(es), guys!
Fruits Basket
this petered out at the end. the final season really needed 2 cour instead of 1. there wasn't any room to breathe and the pacing suffered for it as well as the melodramatic atmosphere. it was a show that worked much better with its filler than any of the heavy plot tbh. I had a good time overall and the ending was sweet, although anime's really gotta figure out how to stop pairing up teen girls with men in their late 20s. Tohru is a shoujo protagonist of all time and I can only hope someday, somehow, there will be a character even dumber than her (currently impossible to conceive).
Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf (2024)
I knew the puppygirl show was a gamble but I'm in a yolo phase of my anime life right now. luckily the other protagonist Lawrence is an Actual Grown Man who looks about 40, which in anime terms means he's probably 25 [edit: nailed it]. it's refreshing after so many shoujos to have a dude find a naked wolf goddess in his cart with nary a blush in sight. he started to win me over when Holo asked what he was working on and he showed her a sketch of the shop he wants to own someday, not to make oodles of money but to be part of a community, have a home, friends, find a wife (her immediate sulking was admittedly cute). when it comes to the economics plotlines I am embarrassingly lost at times but there is a helpful redditor who exhaustively explains those parts in every post-episode discussion. the dub is enjoyable and it's cool the actors got to reprise their roles from the 2008 adaptation and have reportedly only gotten better. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet but I've resolved to stick around for the first smooch and see how that lands. Holo please try to keep your/Lawrence’s clothes on as much as possible until then.
The Leftovers
o/` 24-hour psychic damage part 2 o/` this is the best show I will ever watch that is impossible to convince anyone else to try. there is no elevator pitch here, no thematic summary or gripping hook. I can't even coherently wring together my thoughts in anything but fragments. the vibe this season was dread, constantly building, unrelenting, poisonous dread. the genre might as well have been horror for all the times I watched through my fingers. I don't think anyone in the world could ever get over this kind of trauma, life becoming that inexplicable and terrifying in an instant. every kind of repressed anger that exists is seen in this show and it would be unbearable to watch if there were a more realistic tragedy behind all of it. Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon are masters of hinting at something seething just below the surface. I've never seen an actor better at acting bad-but-not-terrible-at-lying as Theroux. Matt's episodes are the best except for all the rest and Matt and Nora are my favourite TV siblings since Severance. Ann Dowd should have gotten an Emmy (I mean, she has one, just not for this deserved role). this show is everything nothing like Lost but I don't think Damon Lindelof could have made it without having made Lost first. he managed to answer the season-long mystery in a way literally only one Redditor predicted but everyone (including me) agrees was the only possible way it could have gone. I know as much about where this is all headed in the final season as I did about what was in that damn vault. this show has earned every tear it's wrenched from me (and it's been a lot), but most of all the ones that came when Kevin’s last line of the season didn’t include "can".
JOHN: What if nobody's home?
KEVIN: Then you come over to my house.
Games
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
my main takeaway is that I think I was the wrong audience for this remake of a game I have played through 10+ times in my life. this was a bad game. game bad.
after all my chillax resolve about world exploration I finally threw in the towel in Gongaga because open plains I can do, rocky terrain traversal I cannot. if I had not already given up by then Cosmo Canyon would have made me cry. I spent more time on youtube trying to figure out how to get from point A to B than should be legal. despite the gorgeous scenery the lighting is just plain bad a lot of the time and the faux bright/dark transitions drove me nuts. I don't think I understood half the systems despite (somewhat) trying and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting weapon upgrades in 30 hours. the number of times I tried to go to my menu only to accidentally pause the invisible cutscene was legion. there was not a single character or vehicle or minigame that felt good to control. the Cait Sith Shina Manor section is the new pinnacle of "knowing you have to replay this part stops you from starting the game altogether" in JRPGs. if Chadley comes back in the third game I'm making a mod to murder him.
modern FF is the only game series that makes me feel like I have media illiteracy for all I do not understand what the purpose of a scene or interaction was. it reminded me of FFXIII where I had to read the chapter summaries afterward to clarify what the hell was even going on. the general issue with remakes or prequels or anything of the sort is expansion is almost never more effective for a story than cutting. DQXI:S shares a lot of the same problems in that "ooh, I want to see how that actually happened!" rarely ends up adding to the narrative in a natural way. if you want to show instead of tell then you really have to plan it from the start. not since Persona 5 have scenes gone on…and on…and on…repeating information. and the game would just not end. the final dungeon/last boss(es)(es)(es) took me five hours and I was cheating the hell out of it by that point. every time I thought I'd won, surprise! ANOTHER BOSS PHASE!!!
but nothing, nothing, is as unforgivable as how they fucked up Aerith's death. like, that was a travesty of writing on every possible level. they cut all emotion off at the knees and confused most of the playerbase at the same time. I'm still not sure what the deal is with the alternate universe or the whispers or any of it and I feel like that is not the intended result. if your super cool "ooh maybe Cloud's going ~craaaaazy~" plotline requires ditching the scene where he lowers Aerith's body into the Lifestream, you went wrong somewhere. it's kinda nostalgic getting mad about how Aerith's death was handled for the first time since that demo CD spoiled it for me in 1997.
on the plus side the voice actors are still fantastic and I can't imagine anyone else playing the characters. I'm actually fond of Cloud and what a dork he is, which is not something I ever thought could happen. the setpieces were truly astounding and the Gold Saucer was beyond 14-year-old!Clara's wildest dreams. I sucked up to everyone equally and got Tifa for the date so I shrugged and went all-in (had my fingers ready for a kissing minigame I s2g). honestly she's so pathetic for Cloud I think I've come around on the ship in the years since the OG. don't get me wrong, Aerith and Tifa are still better off with each other, but if anyone has to put up with that loser it might as well be the girl who has nothing else going on.
this game turned me into the biggest whiniest baby about something I could have voluntarily stopped at any point, but I felt with our long history I at least owed it an informed loathing, y'know.
Books
aside from the Frieren manga I found out this exists and brought shame upon my ancestors by spending much of the month reading doujins and comics instead of actual literature. god bless JP fanartists who lose their minds about specific ships for years on end. in a failed attempt to compensate,
Crime and Punishment (DNF)
stayed for the crime, bailed before the punishment. this book anti-streak is getting me down, man. it may have been a translation issue but the 40% I managed never got any easier to read or connect to. it wasn't even the "every character has four different names" thing but that I just could not get into a flow with the prose. I gave up when I saw I had six hours left and…didn't want to spend the time. I may try another Dostoevsky at some point because everyone needs that kind of pretentious phase in their life, but next I will aim for a slam dunk instead of going further experimental.
so I’m no anime aficionado or anything but this is the greatest OP I have ever seen. that’s it, that’s the show. it's the story in a minute and a half and I need to figure out how to stop crying at it.
it’s not even just the blink-and-you-miss-it moments from the heroes' journey that are absolutely worth pausing for. Frieren getting further away from the others over time until she’s alone again. her journey stopping at the burial. the flower petal colours.
it’s when the choral part kicks in and Fern and Stark appear and be, well, kids at her. Heiter's kid and Eisen's kid and Frieren's kids now too. but also Himmel's kids in that every child in the world is his, has looked up at one of his statues and been inspired by his dream. Frieren is opening herself up to love after decades (centuries), and as long as she stops giving them relationship advice she'll get to love Fern and Stark's kids and their kids' kids. she's moving forward again but this time to catch up, to join, to be where she's welcomed.
endless life means endless time to love and be loved. what a story.
I've gotta figure out the whole movie night situation because something ain't working here. I'm a slowburn gal at heart; anything a movie tries to evoke that could be better served by a ten-hour season of TV just tends to feel too rushed for me. next month I might recalibrate for chemistry and/or spectacle.
Sunshine
a brother-rec, always a risky endeavour. it was interesting enough up until it turned into a horror movie and then my satisfaction plummeted. I had no idea the cast was so stacked. not my thing. nothing to say.
Paddington 1&2
decided to double-feature this. I'd heard they were delightful but I'd forgotten how utterly charming British understatement can be in kids media. it feels like after the HP movies we forgot about subtlety as a concept. sincere and heartfelt from top to bottom and also incredibly funny. Sally Hawkins portrays my ideal mom self complete with infinite nickname generation. the first one was sweet but the second was the standout. I'll tackle #3 when the right mood hits (Danganronpa-level despair).
Howl's Moving Castle
I'd never actually seen this before but it used to come across my dash occasionally. it was intriguing enough to make me interested in the book but I always struggle when one of the protagonists is transformed in some way for the majority of the story. the romance ultimately left me cold because of that but everything else about the movie was the usual Miyazaki excellence. Princess Mononoke may never be surpassed, I fear.
The Bodyguard
the most 1992 movie to ever exist. this was the first, last, and only time Kevin Costner has ever been hot and I’m still kind of flummoxed. I can see why they waited for Whitney Houston to film because the chemistry was off the charts. the most significant takeaway is that Richard Schiff spent twenty years of his career looking 40. idle thought: the underrepresentation of bodyguard AUs in modern fandom should be studied.
TV Shows
12 Monkeys
god I love television, it’s my favourite passive medium for stories (sorry books you’re still legit it’s just my visual imagination isn’t great). this show had absolutely no right to be so fucking good. I held off on the finale for a week because I didn’t want it to end and watched the last half-hour in tears. it managed to keep me caring through four seasons of non-stop stakes-raising plot. through established relationship. through BABIES. I was not previously aware that a married sex scene could make me blush. for an intensely plot-centric narrative about time travel it’s a miracle I never once felt cheated or let down by a twist, and it at least seemed like they’d planned most of it in advance. the final season’s "last loop" vibe was the most exciting since Outer Wilds. yeah "desperately looking for family only to realize it was with you all along" is a cliché but that’s for a REASON dammit and I maintain anything can be done right with the right execution. this was the right execution. I loved that they made time (lol) for the characters to get necessary closure with each other, including dynamics that might have been overlooked by other writers. I’m really gonna miss this. I need a recording of Dr. Cassandra Railly telling me it's all going to be okay. bless you Twitter for putting me onto a show I’d never in a million years have heard of otherwise.
Succession (DNF)
well, I lasted five episodes. I knew it was a show about loathsome people doing loathsome things, a concept I am not inherently against. loathsome and pathetic however is another thing entirely. I already struggle with secondhand embarrassment, so cringing on behalf of people I consider deeply contemptible is not a pleasant experience on any level. the performances themselves were marvellous and I honestly was going to stick it out for the first season, but when the patriarch hit his grandson and everyone swept it under the rug I decided there was nothing here for me and bailed. on the plus side I at least understand the memes better.
Fruits Basket
oh my god why did I think this was going to be a light and fluffy romcom. featuring so many horrific childhoods it is not safe for ANY parent to watch. yeah yeah dude kissed her forehead sparkly bubble background that’s nice but can we go back to the part where he was blamed for his mom’s suicide at age 5??? that part???? it's getting to the point in the love triangle where they start pulling the second lead away from the heroine and give him his own friend group and purpose so his fans don't feel too bad when he crashes and burns in the main romance, and I confess I am finding myself yawning more. I will persevere, though, for Tohru's sake. the current crop of anime and gaming VAs is good but there's something about veterans like Laura Bailey who add that extra sparkle in comparison. she's just got it, man.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
what if you only realize a journey changed you a century after it ended? what if you only start putting a name to love decades after their funeral? the first episode surprised me by serving not as an introduction but as an epilogue to a story we never got to see, saying goodbye to characters we didn’t get to know. it surprised me by how understated the writing was and how much I was expected to infer from the (gorgeous) visuals and (gorgeous) music. and then it really surprised me when I started sobbing during a meteor shower and have cried almost every episode since to the point I’m putting the Scotties CEO’s kids through college.
Frieren is an elf, which for me was a pretty big strike against the show from its outset because elf prejudice is the one form of bigotry I will never relinquish. she is expressionless most of the time and a big whiny baby the rest of it and only smiles for magic-related reasons. she is indifferently weird and focused on her own interests to the obliviousness of others’ feelings and/or survival needs. she is mildly surprised by every display of human emotion she encounters. she is 1000 years old and possibly the most powerful mage alive and has never met a Mimic she didn’t ingenuously fall for. she has no greater ambition in life than to wander the land collecting new spells as a perpetually broke loser (until Fern is there to hold the purse strings) (they’re still usually broke). Frieren would be the most exasperating and ridiculous person to travel with and I could not possibly love her more. apparently what elves needed all along was less wisd'm and more 'tism.*
the one complaint I’d heard about the show before watching was that nothing happens. after consulting the spectrum from Goblin Emperor (lack of tension at odds with the premise of the story) to Pluribus (character study rearranges my fundamental understanding of myself) I can happily say conflict does exist here and people need to brush up on their "man vs" charts. the "two timelines of adventures revealing simultaneous emotional truths" narrative format could be a fic I wrote. (is, kinda, a fic I wrote.) information about the world is given when necessary rather than constantly lore dumping, my favourite kind of world-building. Frieren’s approach to her craft is ruthlessly logical and I like how scientific the setting treats magic at times rather than purely spiritual, like a puzzle to be solved. my favourite episodes explore the implications and consequences of the lore, like Frieren not already being a first-class mage because she couldn’t be bothered to keep up with all these accrediting bodies in her lifetime. having a protagonist who shrugs off waiting ten years for something to happen (while Fern sternly corrects her that they’re staying a week tops) makes for interesting pacing, in that I have a vague idea where this will go and no idea how long it will take to get there. (according to release schedules, apparently…long.)
Fern and Stark are precious but one thing I will always have Lucifer to thank for is solidifying that eldest daughter/youngest son ship vibes seldom grab me and yes that’s totally a thing look it up. there are anime teenagers who can survive, say, an accidental hot spring encounter (Joshua, Estelle) (okay not so much Estelle) and there are anime teenagers who definitively cannot. Fern and Stark are a level of baby that means their first kiss will be sometime in their 30s and their second 5+ years after that. Frieren and Fern’s relationship is even more entertaining in that Mistress Frieren is the most negligent master in every way and takes enormous advantage of poor Fern but Fern is so absurdly talented she can't help but learn anyway. their constantly flipping mommy&daughter dynamic is bonkers weird and almost as hilarious as Yuri Briar's シスコン (impossibly high bar). my favourite character moment so far was Frieren's intrigued "Oh?" when Fern said she knew how to kill her.
the only thing I can say about Himmel the Heroic Yearner is that the ring scene was the second-most staggeringly romantic thing I have ever seen in an anime. I stopped in my tracks (treadmill was luckily on cooldown pacing) and instantly rewound it like eight times. I'd tell him to keep it up but I think he’s already standing with the greats tbh.
*still workshopping
The Leftovers
going into this I knew two things: 1) certain episodes routinely come up in "what are the best tv episodes ever?" discussions, and 2) it isn't about the mystery of the departed (hence…the name) which is frankly required information to avoid mismatched expectations. after watching the entire first season in one day with all the psychic damage that entails, my conclusion is that I have no idea what this show is supposed to be about. what I do know is what it's about to me, and not to sound pretentious on main but I think that might be the point. so for me, this show is about pain and it's about goodness, and it's about who seeks and who avoids both. there were performances in this that I didn't know anybody could convincingly pull off. there is cruelty depicted that took my breath away and kindness that gave it back. characters did unforgivable things that I'm not sure anyone has the right to judge them for. I have never seen anything like this and have never had some of the feelings I felt while watching. I want to continue but I'm also not sure if I'll psychologically survive it, which is exactly why I know I will continue.
the only note I took was during the season finale:
TOMMY: You just go around asking people if they need help?
STRANGER: Yeah.
TOMMY: Does anyone ever say yes?
STRANGER: All the time.
Games
Disco Elysium (DNF#1, DNF#2)
look man, I’ve tried. my record is an hour 38 minutes before throwing in the towel. I cannot, cannot, cannot do extensive prose-like text in games. even Ace Attorney gets me too eepy anymore and that’s all dialogue (aka best kind of writing). I know I’m giving up on the finest old man yaoi AO3 has to offer but some things just aren’t meant to be.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
finding an RPG when I wanted to play something new but my head was still stuck in Liberl was tough, so compromise: new game, familiar idiots. after the first few hours I had all these ranty notes queued up about every little way this was annoying me. basically bitch eating crackers: gaming edition. and every single one of them was justified and also very funny, I want to be clear about that. but somewhere around Junon, trudging through the latest Horizon-like open world nonsense trying to get back to the story, I was faced with a choice: start vibing with exactly where this game is at or give yourself an aneurysm every time you overshoot the pixel-wide resource hitbox. since dropping the game or skipping even a single line of dialogue were clearly not options, I chose vibing and it’s been going much better since. if all you read about FFVII is from fandom or publications you start to forget how goofy it is (how goofy the entire series is) at its core. you aren’t supposed to be fighting over whether Aeris Aerith or Tifa belongs with Cloud, you’re supposed to be making fun of him right along with them. you can complain about how infuriatingly dogshit the chocobo terrain controls are, or you can admire the awe-inspiring scenery as you struggle with your controller and come up with humorous analogies to Squenix as a company. the moment you start taking FFVII seriously is the moment you have made yourself a greater clown than any of the characters (read: notorious clowns). must a remake improve on the original? is basic coherence essential to a story? if I fail to save the planet does that mean Chadley will finally shut the fuck up? some things are simply not to be asked or known. I can’t say whether I’m enjoying my time here but it’s certainly a time.
Books
Dead Man's Walk / Comanche Moon / Lonesome Dove (DNF)
ohhh, this one hurts. I saw someone recommend Lonesome Dove for those trying to get out of a reading slump because it's a genre most people haven't tried and has easy prose. my first mistake was being born a dumbass and accidentally grabbing Lonesome Dove Chronicles which includes two prequels and a sequel, bringing the page count from 800 to a number that probably doesn't fit on a calculator. you'd think I'd have realized something was up when they only spent a chapter in the town of Lonesome Dove in ~1000 pages? welp.
finishing the two prequels is honestly a good stopping point, though. it flowed easily enough but the brutality of the setting and the casual cruelty of the people in it really wore me down. some parts (Ahumado ugh) I could only read a chapter at a time because the torture described was so horrifying. I do not think I will forget Inish Scull anytime soon. I know these weren't written that long ago (says the aging Millennial) but there was a surprising amount of empathy for the tribes and their cultures and more POV chapters than I'd expected. for women, too, although a few more non-prostitute characters would have been nice. if I never read the word "outrage" again it'll be too soon. I also picked up a lot of desert-related vocabulary that will surely come in handy someday.
the stars of the show are of course Call and Gus. I went through a fascinating journey with my opinions about them over the course of these two books. by the end of Dead Man's Walk I was a little (lot) in love with Woodrow Call and shared my namesake's frustration with that no-good Augustus McCrae. Call is smart, cautious, loyal, dedicated, terrible with people; Gus is a gambler, drinker, whorer, allergic to work, everyone's buddy. they make an entertaining duo in that they are polar opposites and agree on literally nothing ever, but can't seem to imagine life without working together. they're young and idealistic with romance in their hearts (well, more Gus than Call) and I enjoyed their adventures with the Texas Rangers.
after the ten-year time jump in Comanche Moon, though, I started seeing them differently. Call's relationship with Maggie was my turning point on him. every time he realized she meant more to him than he'd thought, that he genuinely was bothered by the idea of her entertaining other men, he turned away from her and back to the job. she wanted to marry him and he knew he'd never get married and he kept seeing her anyway. the decisiveness and caution I'd admired in him when younger now seemed more like rigidity and avoidance. his refusal to acknowledge Newt or give him his name was the last straw for my respect. meanwhile, here I was having assumed Gus regularly fell for any pretty girl who smiled at him, and instead he's been pining over Clara for the entire ten years begging her to marry him. he co-captains the Rangers with as much reluctance as ever to work but can smooth over frictions that Call can't be bothered with. Gus is kind to Newt and treats him like a son more than Call ever does. he even gives some actual sensible advice in the course of the book. I never had so much respect for him as when Call is upset over Maggie seeing Jake and Gus is all "yeah maybe that's because you won't marry her?? the fuck did you expect bro???" I still think Clara made the smart decision but maybe it might not have been as terrible as I'd thought. (just kidding, Gus would make an awful husband).
the few pages of Lonesome Dove I started just had me annoyed at Call all over again so I decided I was done. I don't regret reading and I don't regret stopping, which is a nice place to be.
[redacted novel-length fic]
speaking of bodyguard AUs! now, I don’t go here. I so far from don’t go here it’s not even a ship-in-law of mine. but I needed something light to balance out the last few months of Lonesome Dove Chronicles and everything everyone said about it promised me an exception, so I loaded it on my Kindle and dived in. and it is an exception: exquisitely crafted on every level (especially the canon compliant worldbuilding and humour), nailed exactly what they were going for, deserving of all the tens of thousands of kudos. it even features exclusive male lead POV which is my white whale in M/F and makes me clap my hands like a seal whenever I find it.
but ultimately the romantic development didn't work for me. content warning for being a curmudgeon but I guess at its most distilled: I prefer that banter show off how dumb the characters are than how clever they are. as soon as I get a whiff of an author wanting me to find something witty and charming, I’m immediately turned off. for me, the purpose of a scene should never be to have funny banter. the characters should be trying to achieve a goal (even in conversation) and their funniness is a by-product of their fuckups accomplishing that goal. good humour is more about thinking of something so dumb I crack myself up then writing it down so other people can also marvel at how dumb it is and laugh too. okay I’m done pontificating about my personal preferences (lie).
I also learned my tolerance for sex scenes that don't serve any story or character purpose has dropped to zero, but as a card-carrying member of the "accidentally put too much plot in the porn" club, I saw that one coming years ago.
The Long Walk
this is maybe one of the best King adaptations? it didn't overstay its welcome, didn't crowd the story with too many flashbacks, didn't cram in unnecessary world-building. just a really tight, contained experience with some truly disgusting imagery. the casting was great and holy moly is David Jonsson a standout. no nightmares after but I was uncomfortably aware of my walking speed for a week.
No Other Choice
I didn’t enjoy this in the end and I’m not exactly sure why. I think the characters were too caricature for me and the absurdity got a bit much. I didn’t vibe with the main dude and that’s hard to get past. it’s worth watching for the visuals alone though because wowww some of those reflective shots. I don’t know! I should have more to say! it left me cold.
Game Night
okay I think I've cracked the Jason Bateman code. his characters are always losers no matter what, he can't help it, that's not the issue here. the insufferability of his characters is what makes or breaks them and this is entirely dependent on the framing. it works when a Bateman character thinks he's cool but the narrative doesn't (Arrested Development). it works when a Bateman character doesn't think he's cool and the narrative concurs (Zootopia). it absolutely does not in any sense work when you're putting him next to Kyle Chandler and telling me Jason Bateman is actually the competent, mature, successful brother of the two. not as funny as it should have been but Jesse Plemons was a gem.
Moulin Rouge!
please refer to the title of ISBN 9780740706721 for my review.
TV Shows
12 Monkeys
shockingly good for a Syfy show?? it's no Dark but it's following its time travel rules faithfully enough to earn my trust, and the pacing and continual continuous raising of stakes is really well done so far. Cassie is smart and ruthless and delightful and Cole is scruffily charming in that "chug a gallon of cranberry juice and hope for the best" kind of way. the supporting cast is strong enough to have won me over on multiple characters I initially disliked, although it embarrassingly took me a season and a half to place Kirk Acevedo. RIP Tom Noonan, you could do unsettling like nobody else. started for the star-crossed romance, staying for the causality diagramming (which is fortunate because there hasn't even been a smooch yet what do you mean "we shouldn't do this" chronologically you already have!!!).
Ranma ½ (2024)
ahh, the original tsundere². I think there were three looking-at-each-other-then-hmphing-aways on average per episode. you'd think two characters couldn't plausibly go through insane jealousy at their fiancé(e)'s myriad suitors that many times without having a few realizations, but they're just that committed to the bit. this is a fantastic re-adaptation in every sense and a pure nostalgic joy to watch. I’ve actually laughed out loud by myself which happens like once a decade. for a series with so many separate (and, entangled) love lines I've always appreciated how crystal clear it is with its OTP and their development from the start, ty Takahashi-san. the new dub actors are fine (aside from the Estelle jumpscare) but I do miss girl!Ranma's shrill "what the heck didya do that for?!" currently debating the urge to dive into all 161 episodes of the original anime for the first time.
Fallout (Season 2)
oof. the minimum necessary to salvage this was at least double the episode count. the plot was breakneck in the worst way and I thought a lot of the developments actually made the overall story weaker. compared to the first season it felt like they leaned harder on "hey hey do you recognize this from fnv do you do you!!!!!" and less on actual interesting character interactions. Lucy and the Ghoul's scenes were obviously a highlight but god were the actors carrying it sometimes. tbh going back and reading a 50k ghoulcy fic written during the hiatus would probably satisfy me more, both narratively and lasciviously. I will give them the Legion civil war situation though because Caesar would absolutely do something that funny. all the Dogmeat actors are the best boys and girls in the world.
Fruits Basket (2019)
as a professional voice-recognizer there will never be any shame greater than finally checking IMDB after ten episodes only to see LAURA GODDAMNED BAILEY as the main character. in my defense I haven’t heard her Rise-style voice in a long time and she's also really good at this. at any rate, this is so impenitently entertaining I’m taking everything in stride. you bishies are all secret mythical zodiac animals? all right. you transform when a girl hugs you? yeah sure. like half the crazy zodiac cult family attends the local high school? checks out. the vibe is an insane mix of unnaturally wholesome and some of the most horrific depictions of motherhood in anime (yes I realize that's saying something). the female lead might be the dumbest character of all time but that’s just part of her charm. keep cooking and cleaning for all these perfectly capable dudes for free, hon, I’m sure it’ll work out great (sincere).
Games
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter (again)
replayed this a normal amount of times. after completing the original game I appreciate even more how astounding a 1:1 remake this is, especially compared to the recent DQVII which is reportedly missing whole arcs of content. the quality of life was improved in literally every way it could be plus extras I'd never even thought of (bless you NPC map markers). switching back to the remake after 45 hours in isometric gave me that magical playing-FFVII-for-the-first-time feeling for a bit. the only thing I wanted from my replay was to stumble upon one (1) shippy moment I’d overlooked the first time around and instead I found like, thirty. GOAT. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for blindsiding me with that ending, except when I'm playing the sequel at which point it's all water under the (Langland) bridge. despite avoiding all fandom I have the sneaking suspicion "remake translation > xseed" is my most nuclear level take.
Dispatch (DNF)
if I had a nickel for every time I played a game with an Erin Yvette and Laura Bailey love triangle I’d have...three nickels. huh. gameplay style, concept, voice cast, devs—everything about this should’ve been a slam dunk. my first warning was the loser main character getting any cool options at all at the start of his journey, which should be his most loserish point in the story. my second warning was the episode 1 kiss option (that 54% of players chose??) with gorgeous superhero lady despite the complete lack of any atmospheric or narrative setup. I wound up bailing five minutes into episode 2 because she was already so inexplicably and bafflingly crushing on him I simply could not suspend my disbelief any longer. I'm sure there's a good game in here but apparently only James Gunn knows that a loser superhero with daddy issues needs to be pathetically down bad for one woman who can't stand him, no exceptions.
Godzilla Minus One
they were right! everyone was right. this is an excellent movie that happens to have a big lizard in it messing shit up. the main dude was heart-twisting in his shame and regret and I loved how he just kind of wound up with a family despite his protests. great until the final scene which made it perfect and had me sobbing right along with him.
Edge of Tomorrow
good good good sci-fi film. my favourite part of the movie was how the viewer along with the characters had no idea which loop was the "real" one until it was already too late to go back. tight script, clever plotting, compelling chemistry, just an all-around fun watch. it's even better for not having a sequel (knock on wood).
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
sometimes my brother's tastes and mine line up exactly, sometimes I need to find a diplomatic way to say "it did not work for me on basically any level" and wind up just bluntly saying that instead. features a more soon-to-be-famous cast than an X-Files guest actor list.
Uncut Gems
do not recommend. will never recommend. if you enjoy feeling like you're having a heart attack for two hours then possibly recommend. every single decision the main character made was so far from rational I felt visceral discomfort. the horrified gasp I let out at "Let's fucking bet on this" was scarier than all of Sinners.
TV Shows
Heated Rivalry
incredibly watchable. the five-bucks-and-a-timbit budget actually elevated the show by constraining them to a "moments in between" kind of pacing that really worked. the showrunner earned my respect by understanding if you're going to do emotional slowburn then you need to go all-in on the physical part. so to speak. still thinking about the Ottawa Centaurs.
Lucifer
I was moderately entertained by the dynamic between him and the detective but dropped off in season 2 when Lucifer started getting too emo about his family issues. you'd think he'd have gotten over that already in the last few thousand years?? if Timothy Omundson had stayed on as God I sincerely would have kept watching. alas,
Attack on Titan
finally finished this up. was it all worth it? not when Mikasa's going to do things like that it isn't. why Mikasa. why.
Games
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter (2025)
this game is special. this game is a GOAT. it looked so generic at first glance I almost played something else and now I'm doing a runthrough of the original just for the bonus translation. the story lives and dies by how much you like Estelle and Joshua and luckily they are two of the most likeable characters in gaming. I spent the first half idly scrutinizing every anime dude I came across for shippability before hitting "Get your filthy hands away from Estelle…!" and doing the meme in realtime. slowburn so good I was in the middle before I knew I had begun. this is oblivious idiot x long-suffering idiot-protector in its purest form. if I had any hope of escape it was foiled by the sheer audacity of Joshua using their first [redacted] to [redacted] Estelle in the cliffhanger ending. knowing that I could technically continue the story any time I want has me white-knuckling until the 2nd Chapter remake this fall because I just need these kids to be okay. structurally it felt like playing a fantasy travelogue anime complete with seasonal arcs. I have never seen so much text in a game focused on so minute a scale. full cutscene compilations on youtube are 20+ hours long and like 50% of that is Estelle being dumb and Joshua scolding her. the constantly refreshing NPC dialogue drove me insane (affectionate) (also derogatory) and tracking townspeople from region to region throughout the journey made the world feel very lived in. the gameplay systems were incredibly fun in that old school JRPG way that works for my brain unlike modern fare (coughFF7Rebirthcough) and being able to mow down shrubs like a maniac was the best addition to the remake. the only downside to the whole experience is I know nothing about the ten (?!) other games in the series and must go on fandom blackout to keep it that way. I never expected a game that opens with a sewer dungeon to feel like it was made just for me but here we apparently are. bonus drinking game: take a shot every time Estelle brotherzones Joshua and he dies a little inside.
my fave fiction in 2025 (though not necessarily of 2025):
Movies
Wake Up, Dead Man
this helped me realize my preferred deadly sin in a protagonist is wrath because they're the ones most focused on justice. the middle-of-movie "will you pray for me?" scene is my favourite turnabout in a murder mystery ever. Rian is a king but I'm not sure he'll ever write anyone kinder than Father Jud.
Superman (2025)
the best part of the movie was the 12-minute argument between Clark and Lois about ethics in journalism and I would watch five more hours of just that. the other stuff was good too and James Gunn's playlists remain superior. favourite "bitch" of the year.
12 Angry Men (1957)
sometimes they are the classics for a reason. masterfully paced and riveting in a way I don't feel very often with movies. they should teach this script in film school, I bet no one's ever thought of that before. my ranking of jurors by attractiveness started involving too many numbers so I gave up. juror #8 was top tho (obviously).
KPop Demon Hunters
I would have lost my mind to this for like four years if it had come out when I was a tween, which is conveniently how long the damn sequel is going to take. dude was decent but much better in Business Proposal (2022). congrats to all the bbs on their first doomed ship.
Zootopia 2
with footage from this I could now easily write a long WildeHopps meta about why they're textually canon regardless of what anyone in production will officially tell you. I don't think I will. but I could. just one more scene or two to breathe and it would be an almost perfect sequel.
TV Shows
Peacemaker
season 1 was my completely out of left field favourite anything of the year. it's like the TFTBL crew with more murder and f-bombs and the greatest intro in television history. the less-satisfying season 2 was saved by the reveal of what happened on the boat being so much more romantic than I expected. P.S. Vigilante is my boyfriend 🧜♂️
Maxton Hall
mad chemistry between the leads. like, mad mad. I-even-forgot-about-the-German kind of mad. rich boy/poor girl never hit so good (maybe it requires foreign language as a filter? must make note for further study). they did not quite nail the ratio of "they hate each other" to "they're weirdly getting along" but the kickin' bonkers chemistry more than makes up for it.
Abbott Elementary
this feels spiritually like Parks&Rec but even more family friendly (affectionate). Ava consistently says the things I expect the least therefore she's the funniest character. if there were any justice in the world it would go on for as long as The Simpsons and have nepo baby student extras of former student extras.
Plur1bus
this did some stuff to me I don't have words for yet.
Games
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
everyone's said everything there is to say about this already. Act 3 gave me the same mouthfeel as DQXI Act 3 and I still haven't figured out if that's a good or bad thing (she says, eight months after beating the game). Verso shares the same tragic fate as Arthur Morgan of being a shippable dude with no one for me to ship him with. aside from his s--
Wanderstop
come make tea with my friend, Boro. it very appropriately got me out of a gaming slump by letting me slow down and focus on the little things that matter for as long as they matter for. (that made more sense in my head.) my favourite art direction of the year. bonus award for the most pictures I've ever voluntarily taken in a game. it's funny because it's sincere, not despite.
The Case of the Golden Idol
pros: makes you feel like super genius wow so smart
cons: makes you feel like dummy idiot geez much loser
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
almost didn't try it because of the title. almost didn't try it because it was a visual novel. almost didn't try it because of the card battle system. tried it anyway and it remains the only (uh, non-salacious) VN I've run through more than twice. the writing was genuinely engaging despite wanting to give all the kid characters noogies.
Wylde Flowers
many games would shy away from such seemingly contradicting story elements as "small town cult leader character is magically turned into a duck for plot reasons" and "small town cult leader character is dateable by player character". not so for Studio Drydock! a full letter grade bonus bump for both that and everyone in the usually-amiable town telling me "are you sure? I mean…him? really?" at my actual wedding reception to aforementioned cult leader.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
if this were the only game I'd played all year it still wouldn't rank higher than "honourable mention". deeply, deeply hilarious to experience as someone for whom DA was always more of a series-in-law. it started to run out of steam by the end and make me bored which is the worst sin one of these games can commit. I romanced the only guy with edge and even he gave me a cavity. not enough Solas in the end, which is something I did not expect myself ever saying ten years ago.
Books
The Dispossessed
it's always one of those eerie experiences when you're reading a book you know you're not smart enough for but you know the author realizes you probably aren't smart enough for it and instead of pomposity or condescension she shapes the ideas a thousand different ways and tosses them all at you until suddenly one of them clicks and they all start clicking and this metaphor got lost somewhere idk. I was glad to have read this.
The Word for World is Forest
the reason I know I am not smart is because "Selver was silent" blindsided me in the worst (best) way. Le Guin's perspective on what men think about women remains one of the most fascinating aspects of her works. this is the one I want to see made into a movie or mini-series.
The Left Hand of Darkness
my favourite of the Hainish Cycle because it's the one most driven by love.
Hi there! Uh, I’m late to Dragon Quest XI (and therefore late to all the shipping fun). I’ve just finished the game and have come to realize that I can’t NOT ship Jade and Hendrik. Evidently, I’m definitely a sucker for the princess and knight trope - that, and knowing Hendrik would literally treat her like a queen. Having gotten that out of the way, I’ve recently stumbled across your fanfics and just.. wow. Wow wow. I’ll die for this ship and I have you to thank for it.
Well, anon, you officially made my Christmas with your amazing asks. Imagine my face like 🥰 except the hearts are also doing the doki doki thing. Thank you so very, very much, you're a treasure and I'm going to be smiling all day!
Aw man, I get the sadness of feeling you're too late to the fun, but the best part about the DQ series is the party never actually stops! There's always a new game on the horizon and new people coming in and discovering the old ones all over again. And I feel like we probably haven't seen the last of any princesses or knights, given the usual fantasy setting. (Although it's unlikely we'll see such a shining example of the himbo wifeguy as Hendrik again anytime soon, alas.)
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