Look, I just love its whole vagina dentata/Venus fly trap/ribcage/entire-body-as-maw/spine-snapping-backbends thing, okay? And it’s a fun fight, despite its absurd number of hitpoints and ability to kill you if it bumps you with a leg while it’s charging.
For anyone curious about how the process of figuring out a Dark Souls boss fight can go, some samples:
Important context for some of what’s happening: Dark Souls has no animation cancelling, so if you press the “light attack” button twice, your character will swing twice, and if you press the “heal” button they will start the (slow) flask-drinking animation, even if you’ve subsequently realized this was a terrible idea and are now frantically pressing the buttons to dodge and screaming at your character to move. This is part of what requires you to be more deliberate and tactical; you can’t button-mash your way through even if you can mash buttons quickly.
(Also, both Reggie and Mapo started off summoning an NPC for assistance, but the trouble with it in this fight is that the NPC AI is not very bright and tends to stand in front of the dragon and get eaten early, leaving the player dealing with a boss that still has the extra HP to make up for the summons.)
the thing with romance for me is that you need to convince me through behavior and dialogue that the characters enjoy spending time with each other and seek each other out. even with enemies to lovers a foundation of mutual respect goes a long way. you can be like “he’s the youngest ever general of the dragon slaying guild and I’m secretly a dragon, but he’s the best swordsman I’ve ever fought and our sparring matches are the only thing that make me feel alive ever since my family was killed.” if he implies something similar then bam, you have a reason for the two of them to hang out even though one of them knows it’s dangerous. you can’t be like “he’s a dragon slayer and he’s mean to me all the time but the flex of his arms when he swings his sword is just too sexy.” it does not matter how many times you have your protagonist say “I shouldn’t be drawn to him… but I am” if you never show a real moment of connection between them that draws them together
i think my main opinion on the “horror novels these days are too woke” idea (see LRB for context; edited in a link bc this has been rbed by others now) is that it’s True….. but the “wokeness” isn’t necessarily the issue. the bigger issue is Usually mediocre writing.
bear with me tho. i Promise there’s more to this than just, like. “have you considered that you’ve only consumed horror that sucks?? 🙄 i am very good at media analysis”
so. My Onion.
over the past decade or so, i feel like i’ve seen a Remarkable shift in how horror media is analyzed by mainstream audiences. the genre Used to be widely seen as sort of schlocky, low-effort, no-meaning garbage.
and then over the past like 15 years, there’s been an influx of Really Really Really Fucking Good and Really Original and Really Deeply Frightening horror movies.
and a Lot of that horror incorporates social commentary. and cultural context. and a lot of those stories are and were done in ways that most mainstream media enjoyers hadn’t ever seen before.
(social commentary in horror is not new At Fucking All, to be clear. but i Do think there’s been a shift in how your average moviegoer thinks about the genre, bc of the popularity of these films.)
so. the attitudes around horror and Being A Fan Of Horror shift. horror stories are no longer low-budget schlock with no artistic merit. NOW they are multilayered, Very Deep pieces of art peeling back the Layers of Society and our ingrained cultural fears and whatever other Very Important Issues you wanna address.
now, to write a horror story is to interrogate your surroundings, and the human condition, and your culture, and The System, and so on and so forth.
and then this becomes, like. the Expectation with horror. a Good horror story is theme-first, fear-second. a Good horror story has Something To Say and is full of Allegories for Real Deep Things. we know this because some of the most subversive and interesting horror of the past 15 years was all stuff with Something To Say!
which is True. like, i don’t think anyone on god’s green earth would argue that jordan peele’s horror has Nothing To Say OR that it isn’t scary.
he can do both!!
and So. a lot of inexperienced and mediocre writers start penning their own horror stories, as they have been doing since time immemorial. but instead of emulating the former genre conceits of scary slashers, weird aliens, spooky ghosts, random fucked-up unexplainable shit, etc….
….they emulate the genre conceits of Wokeness.
which is to say, they emulate a story with Something To Say.
because that’s what’s expected of the horror genre now!! that’s what makes a Good Story. your audience should be able to recognize that there’s a metaphor and an allegory and a big Message to take home n make video essays about. and a preachy earnest undercurrent underneath it all. about The Human Condition. And Society . And. Intergenerational Trauma. Or Whateverrr
the Problem is when these authors don’t…. actually…. HAVE something to say.
instead they’re retreading the plots and motifs of prior stories without, like, understanding Why they work. this is not something exclusive to horror. it reminds me Especially of how the YA genre was FLOODED with generic uninspired dystopian knockoffs of the hunger games – a story that actually did have A Lot To Say, and said it very well – because the hunger games sold well, and so that became the publishable Genre Of Fiction.
if this was the early 2000s, i Firmly believe that these exact same authors Wouldn’t be writing woke theme-first allegorical horror. they would instead be writing generic slasher ghost spooky abandoned house stuff… which would Also have absolutely nothing new or interesting to say. the plot twists would be contrived, the characters would be uninteresting, the resolutions would be tropey and uninspired.
because they’re writing to conform to the genre expectations. not to tell a story they care about.
admittedly, this may be a little harsh – because i DO think a lot of inexperienced horror writers Are Actually Earnest about their Themes and Messaging. and they do care about the story they’re telling. and they just don’t have the experience to execute those things super effectively yet.
but as someone who’s been mainlining a TON of short horror films and horror stories and horror audiodramas with very little fanbase lately – i also feel like i can Tell when a writer is earnest but inexperienced, as opposed to going through the motions bc Horror Is Woke Now.
with the former, i can usually enjoy and finish the whole film/story/podcast/etc. and then i conclude, “well, that could have been better… lots of room for scarier monsters and more suspense and better character arcs. but at least it was fun and genuine!”
with the latter…. i tend to get irrationally mad. and quit early.
LMAO.
in conclusion. i dunno. there’s nothing to really be Done ™ about this, bc it’s just. how storytelling and genre and popularity work in general.
however. i DO think that we Gotta stop using “this story is an allegory for real world stuff” as shorthand for “this story is well-written and poignant.”
I think you meant smotash and yeah, I've seen that reel, it really is sweet :) Not to get too optimistic in advance but so far it seems like my favourite Marines are in good hands
I haven't been seeing as many booklists as I sometimes do; maybe it is the quiet part of the year for it, or maybe I've just been skimming past and not registering them. Anyway, what have I found?
from the Otherwise Award site, Celebrating work from 2022-2023: Part I a list of works to consider from the years the awards were on hiatus. I was in a 'no, no more books' mood so was reading for interest but not to put things on the wishlist.
from pangur-and-grim at tumblr, their favourite books from this year. Not normally the kind of list I'd look at, but at first glance it starts with Alien Clay, which I loved, has a couple I think I'd like and a stack I've never heard of. It also has The Last Unicorn. There are six that Greer has read, and three 'up next'. Turned out some of the ones I hadn't read were already on the wishlist; i added all but one of the rest.
at tumblr, suspiciouspopsicle said I need some good fantasy or scifi to read that doesn't involve romance., First set of replies from specialagentartemis. Sadly, their absolute favourites is three I've read and one I don't want to (saw the movie, don't care), and the weird and interesting is a mix of read it, can't find it, that doesn't sound like my thing. Second from girlfailuregawain, where the ones I recognise make me a bit meh on looking up the rest, because very much Not My Taste. There are some more in the comments, but I ran out of steam. One book added to the maybe list.
I also added two to the wishlist after reading bibliofile's notes about them.
Playing Wrath of the Righteous and my characters have levelled up to the point where the main problem is standing still for two minutes before a fight while we cast all the buffs. Also remembering all the buffs. That is a non trivial problem now. There are... so many.
I am having a weirdly unsatisfying time playing even though I am beating most fights and even the tough ones only take two or three goes, on Core. I think it's because I am aware I am not doing it right. I haven't thought of a better way but I know this one is actually rather rubbish. So I am winning, but it is not elegant glorious solutions to demon problems, it's just the thing where I can stack buffs until the enemy are rolling for twenties just to have a chance to hit, we've got armour and damage reduction, their elemental damage can't get through, everyone is protected from poison AND disease, and death ward is taking care of level drain and negative energy on the whole, so when they actually do hit at all with anything? There's barely any damage. Teensy tiny damage of smallness. So I can do really badly, Woljif tends to be rolling for twenties himself because I cannot build that guy so he can hit for toffee, I've had to turn off half the clever feats because they might up the damage but the to hit is too bad, and yet still, I can just ignore the being hit, so I win.
It's like I'd rather play like Batman but at the moment I'm just a set of somewhat mobile walls and that's somehow working.
Still, progress is being made, and new things happen a bit because I am playing Angel this time, so that's neat.
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