Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Ticket (2025)

The first thing you have to say about this is that it just reads like a dream. I mean, I've been a fan of Pynchon for a while now, and appreciated his writing, but somehow this just drove it home for me. Is that because of the book itself, or because I read it immediately after flippin' Pamela, which can best be described as astylistic? Hard to say, but I loved reading it. I took longer than you might have thought, but it's not because I was stalled out. It's because I was savoring it and didn't want it to end. True fact.

Another rather amazing thing about is how horny it isn't. Seriously, there's no reason you'd find anything amiss if this was your first Pynchon, but the lack of sex scenes, or any explicit material, is extremely noticeable if it's not. There IS one scene where sex occurs, but it's glossed over in the way a PG-rated movie would do. And it's interesting: because on the one hand, I'm all for this. I can absolutely do without, especially, the very quasi-consensual stuff he likes a little too much (did someone sit him down and tell him, Pynch, dude, that's just a liiiiiittle iffy the metoo era?  Either way, it's very clearly an intentional choice). But you do notice--well, I don't even really know how to put this: the sex stuff is often badly-done and awkward and generally ill-advised, AND YET, sex is what life is predicated on, and is it reasonable for me to suggest that, however subtly, its absence maybe somehow vitiates the book slightly? Don't get me wrong; I'm not coming to any firm or even loose conclusions. But it's interesting to think about.

Well, I haven't really talked about the plot, but there's actually not that much to talk about, unless you want to get really granular. Hicks McTaggart is a private eye and somewhat-reformed pinkerton in Milwaukee, just doin' cases, until he gets involved with the "Al Capone of Cheese" (hey, it's Pynchon), and gets enlisted to go after his missing daughter, which ends up dumping him in Hungary. This is 1934, by the way, so not a GREAT time! A lot of the stuff in Hungary is very jumbled; we have really quite a lot of not-very-differentiated characters doing their things. I know some of my confusion is my fault; I'll certainly reread it one day: but you are left with the conclusion that it IS maybe a bit slight.

I know there's a tendency to dismiss shorter Pynchon as "lesser," and I don't approve of that. Vineland isn't lesser than anything. But the fact is, I wanted Shadow Ticket to be longer. I wanted it to have more space to sprawl out. I still loved it! Don't get me wrong! It's a wonderful gift to get a new novel at this late date, and I will TAKE it! So...yeah.

Oh, right, we have to ask how this connects to the PCU, and in this case it's easy: we've got fuckin' Lew Basnight from Against the Day. Booyah! I suppose when you think about it, he IS the most appropriate character to show up. I'd have loved to see what that crazy old coot Merle Rideout had been up to, too, but what the hey. Also, Hicks travels to Europe on the Stupendica, which real heads will remember as the bifurcated passenger ship/war vessel in AtD. Seems pretty safely in the former mode for now, though. Good job, everyone.

Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740)

Richardson's kind of hard, because you hear two simultaneous things about him: that his novels Pamela and Clarissa were extremely influential on the development of the English novel, so you want to read them, but also...that they're excruciatingly dull with embarrassing gender politics. So you don't. I mean, a long, didactic eighteenth century novel is a hard sell for anyone.

For a long time I'd avoided him, but, for reasons that at present escape me, I decided to dive into Pamela, which at least is shorter: a mere six hundred fifty pages to Clarissa's thirteen hundred. Moderation! But for god's sake, people, there's a new Pynchon novel out, and I'm reading this? Hell's bells!

Do people generally know the plot of this novel by osmosis? Or do I just come from a weird family? Well: it's an epistolary novel, mostly consisting of letters from Pamela to her old and insanely virtuous parents (I mean, it is until it isn't: that structure actually kind of disappears pretty quickly, and then it's more or less like journal entries). She's a poor girl in service as a maid to a noblewoman, and when she dies, her dissipated son inherits her and the other servants. Really? Is that how that works? Kinda sounds more like slavery to me. Well, at any rate, said son--only known as "Mister B_____" or, if you're Pamela, "my master"--takes a fancy to our heroine and as such tries to wear her down to seduce and/or rape her, most notably by isolating her on his country estate with no hope of escape, and goddamn, obviously, a poor woman in eighteenth century Britain is going to fare poorly against a rich man, but kidnapping like that has to be not just psychopathic, but at least theoretically illegal. And yet, it isn't even brought up as a strike against B. I mean, the attempted rape is, but the abduction's barely even mentioned, and COME ON! But anyway, she spends a lot of time resisting him, until finally she gets to leave, and then I guess she figures she's resisted him enough and he figures he's tried to rape her enough and he should be more virtuous, so they get married. I dunno: if this is meant to be teaching young people about social mores, I'm just really not sure how helpful it's going to be to anyone. It kind of reminds me of the "romantic" rebuffments that knights have to suffer before they can love ladies in Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, but that stuff is meant to be silly.

Well but anyway, so that's about it, and it may surprise you to learn that all this is actually a lot more gripping than you'd think. In spite of everything, Pamela comes across as surprising resourceful and independent, and, I mean, it would be hard to call this a "feminist" novel, but it IS about a poor serving woman successfully rebuffing a rich aristocrat, so, I mean, that's not nothing. At one point she declares "But, to be sure, I must be forward, bold, saucy, and what not!" That seems empowering to me. Also, the best passage in the book: the context is that Pamela's using having a garden as a pretext for smuggling messages out, and she's giving a status report to B's servant, the menacing Mrs. Jewkes:

Here, said I, (having a bean in my hand,) is one of them; but it has not stirred. No, to be sure, said she, and turned upon me a most wicked jest, unbecoming the mouth of a woman, about planting, etc.

"Planting, etc." I literally lolled. Eighteenth century dirty jokes ftw!

So, you know, well played, Sam, more or less! I can see why eighteenth century people were super into this!

Um.

Well.

Kind of.

You see, the above is indeed a more or less complete plot description of the book, but also, the couple gets married or at least afianced about halfway through the narrative, and from there on...woof. Is the second half of Pamela the single worst thing I've ever read? It's certainly in the conversation!

Say what you will about the sexual politics of the novel, but, while our hero is resisting ol' B, there is definitely actually, you know, drama and conflict! Quite clearly delineated! The second half, nope. No conflict for us. What is there? Well, there's a hell of a lot of B, Pamela (who instantly loses whatever character interest she had had), and random side characters endlessly reiterating how noble and virtuous our central couple is. Believe me when I tell you: the two of them never have sex. They just sit there and talk at each other about what hot shit they are.

Here's how good B is: "No light frothy jests drop from his lips; no alarming railleries; no offensive expressions, nor insulting airs, reproach or wound the ears of your happy, thrice happy daughter."  My feeling is that a marriage can't survive without the odd alarming raillery. In any event, how goddamn boring does that sound?

What else? Well, there's a little interlude where B's sister is super mad that he would marry a commoner. She comes to visit while B's out and harangues Pamela for a while, to very little effect. Why? We know B's just going to come home and everything's going to be straightened out. This is not drama. Though there IS one part I "liked" (and I'm not going to quote it; you can check for yourself if you doubt my characterizations) where the sister is like, "how about if I married a stable groom? What about THAT, huh?" And his response is, "obviously, that's different, because when a nobleman marries a poor girl, he exalts her, whereas when a poor dude marries a rich woman, it degrades her. Duh! And also: if he's her husband, it means her master is a guy from a lower socioeconomic class than she is! Just think how fucked up that would be!" I mean, the sentiment isn't surprising, but it sounds kind of insane when you lay it out there.

The other thing you realize in the latter half is what an absolutely unbearable tyrant and fucking prig B is. Sounds awful to say, but I kinda think Pam woulda been better off getting raped in the first half: at least then he'd get bored soon enough, and she wouldn't have to spend her entire LIFE with him. He has a number of, ah "injunctions" as they're repeatedly called, to his new wife, and I KINDA think they should've been made explicit before they signed the marriage contract. EG:

I have often observed, in married folks, that, in a little while, the lady grows careless in her dress; which, to me, looks as if she would take no pains to secure the affection she had gained; and shews a slight to her husband, that she had not to her lover. Now, you must know, this has always given me great offence; and I should not forgive it, even in my Pamela: though she would have this excuse for herself, that thousands could not make, That she looks lovely in every thing. So, my dear, I shall expect of you always to be dressed by dinner-time, except something extraordinary happens; and this, whether you are to go abroad, or stay at home.

Don't worry; the threat is only implicit! Jesus christ, you're marrying a serial killer. Also, do you know what the Young People of today are doing? DO YOU KNOW?!?

This, dear sir, said I, is a most obliging injunction; and I most heartily thank you for it, and will always take care to obey it.—Why, my dear, said he, you may better do this than half your sex; because they too generally act in such a manner, as if they seemed to think it the privilege of birth and fortune, to turn day into night, and night into day, and are seldom stirring till it is time to sit down to dinner; and so all the good old family rules are reversed: For they breakfast, when they should dine; dine, when they should sup; and sup, when they should go to bed; and, by the help of dear quadrille, sometimes go to bed when they should rise.

This is just, to quote Lionel Trilling, a series of irritable mental gestures on Richardson's part. He sounds just unbearable on every level. I will not lie.

And look, maybe you think this sounds entertaining in a train-wreck-y way, so allow me to assure you, it is not. If you wanna read this, you're just going to have to suffer. I hate to put it so bluntly, but it is what it is. But DO YOU HAVE THE WHEREWITHAL to read Pamela in Her Exalted Condition, Richardson's own sequel which I didn't know existed until today? Well, you're wrong. You don't. No living human is. It sounds like death itself. Also, it's not even available on Gutenberg, and if you want a physical copy, your only choice is a scholarly edition that'll run you into triple digits. THANK GOODNESS.

Ironheart

I feel like Marvel TV shows used to be kind of zeitgesty; everyone was writing think pieces and things about them.  Is that not the case anymore?  It feels like it's not.  I looked for Ironheart (the latest MCU show) on Slate and Salon, which strike me as the two most likely places to find such things, and neither had so much as mentioned it, which seemed telling.  But I feel like maybe it SHOULD have, because good lord.  Okay.  Right.

So the star of this show is Riri Williams, Black teenage girl genius.  She previously appeared in Wakanda Forever.  I would have sworn she was meant to be a Wakandan exchange student, but that may well just have been my brain trying to make sense of them coming for this random student.  I'm not gonna lie: I don't really remember what she did in that movie.  Presumably make robot suits, as that seems to be her big thing.  She's more or less just Tony Stark born into completely different circumstance.  Hey, nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, this is after all that, and the show only occasionally indirectly refers to prior events--which is a little weird, right?  Like they're trying to skirt copyright law, even though that obviously wouldn't be an issue here.  Well, never mind.  As this show opens, she's losing her MIT fellowship, on account of her constantly selling finished projects to other students and refusing to do any coursework.  I mean, fair.  Her deal apparently is that she wants to build robot suits to help people, and I'm REALLY not sure how these are differentiated from Stark robots, but never mind.  It's just background bullshit we're not really meant to think about.

So she's back with her family in Chicago, and she more or less immediately falls in with a criminal group performing heists on various billionaires and like that (don't look for any real ideology here; the show gestures in that direction, but ultimately there really isn't any).  Because she's still fixated with these robots she wants to build, apparently, though that is all VERY much lost in the shuffle.  And I just HAVE to tell you about the first one that they pull off with Riri's help.  There's a Musk-esque billionaire shithead (a gender-swapped version) who wants to turn the Chicago metro into an underground route for cars (you may remember this as an actual plan Musk had, I think for somewhere in California, if you have a good memory for shitheads).  So some slam-bangey stuff occurs, and then this woman is trapped in a car with the leader of the gang, who forces her to sign documents making members of his gang into highly-paid employees and putting them invivisbly onto the company's board.  And...I tell you, I was thinking there was a serious possibility that the show was going to reverse this next episode: nah, that didn't actually, uh, work.  But no.  Later we heard a radio broadcast showing that it IS going forward, even.  And, I mean, we're all sentient adults here, yeah?  I don't need to explain why this would NEVER, EVER work, surely?  Seriously, what's the plan?  We're gonna go to a lawyer with this not-at-all-suspicious document and demand they enforce it?  Well, it's clear that the show didn't even think that far ahead.

So this is what the show is capable of.  I know that might sound like a turn-off.  It DOES have some good stuff, though!  There's a fun sort of frenemy relationship between Riri and this random dude (who naturally turns out to be Marvel-related) which they express mainly by cheerfully blackmailing one another.  So that's good, but then in the end--as seems retrospectively inevitable--it all just devolves into big punches.  There may be an element of this show that is somewhat trapped by convention.

Then again, maybe we should all cheer for convention, because when the show tries something new, we get horrendously misbegotten shit like Natalie.  Jeezus, do I have to talk about this?  I do, if I want to talk about this show at all.  But gawd.  Right, so Natalie was Riri's best friend, but at some point before the show she was killed in a random drive-by shooting.  So that's sad, but then, apparently by accident (not real clear on the specifics), Natalie reappears as an AI hologram, and hoo fucking boy.

So Riri's kind of hesitant at first, but it DOES seem a lot like the real Natalie!  But, of course, in our current context, this differs from what "AI hologram" would've meant in the past.  I mean, think about Rimmer from Red Dwarf: the show does sort of suggest that, oh, this isn't the real guy, it's just a machine thing, but we know perfectly well we're not meant to believe that, and there are no ethical issues to speak of.  But now, AI is such a freighted term.  Everyone has strong feelings about it, and BOY OH BOY does the show fail to meaningfully engage them!  It lurches back and forth, trying to find a position, and then just sort of...doesn't.

So Riri kind of gets used to Natalie, but her MOM, whoa.  When she meets the hologram, she has no reservations WHATSOEVER about this simulacrum of her daughter's dead friend!  It is creepy and inhuman!  But, well.  I still had no idea where this was going; it sure looked to me like it was going to be a thing where the hologram gradually gets weirder until...you know, a horror thing.  And it sure felt like it was going in that direction.  And maybe that's because someone on the writing staff at some point had the idea that maybe it would.  But, no.  It just sort of goes back and forth between Natalie being annoying and Natalie being helpful, and it seemed like I was supposed to like her, but I never found her presence not creepy.  For the record.

Riri has a friend and possible future boyfriend, Xavier, who's Natalie's brother.  And when Xavier meets the hologram, mirabile fuckin' dictu, he reacts like an actual human being: what the fuck is this nightmare shit?  What the hell is wrong with you?  And Riri's half-hearted responses sorta suggest that she takes the force of at least some of what he's saying, but it doesn't really go further than that scene.  And then, holy god, we get a scene where Natalie and Xavier make up, and I swear to god, it sounds like paid programming by an AI company.  If it's not, Disney left some money on the table.  Here's a line: "Having Nat around makes me feel more like myself again. Like she's supposed to be here. And to be honest I don't really want to go back to the way life was without her."  To be clear, there's no indication that we're supposed to find this horrifying or fucked up in any way--and yet, it is.

But then later, after the hologram dies, she does have some line about letting go of the past, so I guess we all learned a valuable lesson here, though I am goddamned if I know what.  Actually, I guess that's not quite how it ends; what happens is that she sells her soul to Mephistopheles to bring the real Natalie back from the dead.  Wait, what?  Yeah, there's a rather jarring lurch here, as Doctor-Strange-style sorcerers become part of the proceedings (look, Marvel, just because these things are all part of your larger cosmology doesn't mean you can just stick them anywhere without them seeming incongruous).  I don't want to go into it, I feel like I've already talked to much about this show, but yes, I am not lying, that IS how the show ends.  And yeah, Sacha Baron Cohen is quite fun in the role, but boy, these guys must be REALLY damned confident of another season or a movie, and I dunno, man.  All these shows keep setting up ALL these unresolved character things that could be continued, and I feel like they've reached the point that they're not physically going to be able to do it.  All these things are getting wildly out of control.  I dunno.  Still kinda fun to watch, though.  Mostly.

The show, oddly enough, has a rotten tomatoes critic rating in the seventies and an audience rating in the forties.  And here's the frustrating thing: I'd say that the latter IS a more accurate representation of the show's quality.  But I'm still not happy about it, because I know goddamn well that a lot of these people are NOT disliking the show for good reasons.  I know you would expect me to say "RACISM!" in a kneejerk way, but instead, why don't I link you to--actually, why don't I just reproduce the current top-rated google review:

Ironheart Fails to Live Up to the Marvel Legacy

Ironheart is not just a misstep—it’s a bewildering detour that cheapens the very foundation the MCU was built on. It doesn’t honor what came before. Instead, it undercuts it.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: the treatment of Tony Stark. Iron Man wasn’t just a rich guy in a suit. He was the soul of the MCU, a flawed genius who clawed his way toward redemption. Reducing his legacy to "he had money" is not only inaccurate—it’s an insult. Tony forged hope out of despair, building his first suit while on death’s door. He evolved, sacrificed, and led. To strip that down to a wallet-size summary is a complete betrayal of his arc and of the fans who followed him for over a decade.

The show, from a narrative perspective, is equally lackluster. Riri Williams is introduced as a prodigy, but we’re told she’s brilliant rather than shown why we should care. Her actions lack weight. Her choices seem impulsive, disconnected, and at times morally questionable—but the writing never challenges her. There’s no growth, no journey, just attitude packaged as character. Rather than a compelling origin tale, we’re left with a series of half-baked scenes stitched together with hollow dialogue.

The pacing is sluggish. The stakes? Virtually nonexistent. Scenes drag on, never quite earning the emotional payoff they reach for. It’s a show that feels padded, unsure of itself, and ultimately forgettable.

Visually, it does little to impress. The CGI passes muster, but not much more. Suit designs look more like action figure prototypes than iconic armor. The action sequences are flat—lacking the creativity, tension, and adrenaline that made earlier MCU entries shine.

What’s most frustrating is that the show constantly puts message before narrative. Every beat feels calculated, like it’s trying to satisfy corporate directives rather than tell a meaningful story. Representation is important—but it has to be meaningful. Here, it feels forced, surface-level, and lacking genuine heart. Instead of building a character we can rally behind, it delivers a checklist.

Worse still, the show leans on harmful stereotypes in an attempt to build tension. Certain portrayals feel dated and even offensive, especially in the way urban environments and Black characters are depicted. That’s not progress—it’s regression.

Ironheart didn’t need to exist in its current form. It doesn’t push the MCU forward. It doesn’t inspire. And it certainly doesn’t entertain. At best, it’s filler. At worst, it’s actively damaging to the Marvel brand. The franchise once stood for bold storytelling and rich character work. Now, it feels like it’s chasing trends with no real direction.

Unless Marvel is willing to recalibrate and remember what made audiences fall in love in the first place, projects like Ironheart will continue to feel like empty content dumps.

This isn’t a story. It’s noise. And it’s not worth your time.

Is it fair-use to copy the entire review?  Well, given that the fucking thing was very obviously "written" by chatGPT, I don't feel very guilty.  I will admit that I was a bit slow on the uptake, and was even sort of trying to argue with aspects of it, until I realize there's nothing to argue with.  As AI-written reviews do, this tells you absolutely nothing about the subject.  That thing about Tony Stark at the beginning is notable, though.  It still doesn't get into specifics, but it's at least pointing at something specific, maybe.

Well, you might think.  I read this before watching the series, and committed myself to looking out for dastardly anti-Stark bias, but nah, man, it's not there.  I suppose there's some subtextual comparisons to Ironman, given that she's basically another version of the character, but people aren't walking around hollering "TONY STARK IS TEZ SUXXORZ," if that's what you're thinking.  No, it's extremely obvious that this person is pissed off because he perceives that a black woman is muscling in on white man's territory.  And the three thousand six hundred eighty-nine people who have liked this worthless, empty review to date feel the same way.  I mean, they couldn't have been responding to anything ELSE there.  They responded to this, though.  Some consciously, some less so, but please don't argue with me.

To show how empty this whole thing is, let's just have chatGPT reverse polarity on that review:

Ironheart Brilliantly Carries On the Marvel Legacy

Ironheart is not just a success—it’s a bold, thrilling continuation that strengthens the very foundation the MCU was built on. It doesn’t just honor what came before. It builds upon it.

Let’s address the heart of the matter: the treatment of Tony Stark. Iron Man wasn’t just a rich guy in a suit. He was the soul of the MCU, a flawed genius who clawed his way toward redemption. Ironheart doesn’t diminish that legacy—it celebrates it. By highlighting Tony’s brilliance, sacrifice, and hope, the show reaffirms his impact while showing how his spirit inspires a new generation. Riri Williams doesn’t replace Tony; she reflects the spark he lit, evolving it into something fresh and powerful. It’s a heartfelt homage that both honors and extends his arc for fans who have followed him for over a decade.

From a narrative perspective, the show is equally impressive. Riri Williams is introduced as a prodigy, and we’re not just told she’s brilliant—we see it through her daring choices, inventive solutions, and bold personality. Her actions carry weight. Her decisions are challenging, risky, and deeply human. This isn’t a static character; it’s a dynamic one, whose growth is evident across the season. Rather than attitude packaged as character, Riri’s story becomes a compelling origin tale, stitched together with sharp dialogue and emotionally resonant beats.

The pacing is deliberate, giving moments room to breathe without ever losing momentum. And the stakes? They feel both personal and global. Scenes build naturally to emotional payoffs that land with real power. It’s a show that knows what it wants to say, delivers with confidence, and leaves a lasting impression.

Visually, it’s a triumph. The CGI not only passes muster—it dazzles. The suit designs are striking, futuristic, and full of personality, immediately iconic in their own right. The action sequences crackle with energy, creativity, and adrenaline, standing shoulder to shoulder with the best the MCU has offered.

What makes the show even more remarkable is how seamlessly it blends narrative with message. Every beat feels purposeful, telling a meaningful story while embracing representation in a way that feels authentic and earned. This isn’t box-ticking; it’s heart-driven storytelling. Ironheart gives us a new kind of hero we can rally behind, expanding the Marvel universe in ways that feel vital and fresh.

Even more, the show portrays urban environments and Black characters with depth, respect, and vibrancy. It pushes past old stereotypes, offering progressive depictions that feel long overdue in the superhero genre. This isn’t regression—it’s a bold step forward.

Ironheart absolutely needed to exist in this form. It pushes the MCU forward. It inspires. And it entertains at every turn. At best, it feels like a landmark. At worst, it still raises the bar. The franchise has always stood for bold storytelling and rich character work, and Ironheart proves that tradition is alive and well.

By remembering what made audiences fall in love in the first place—while taking risks to explore new directions—Marvel has delivered a series that feels anything but empty.

This isn’t just a story. It’s a triumph. And it deserves your time.

Truly, a thing of beauty.

Anyway, three out of ten, I guess, but NOT FOR RACIST REASONS, you fuckheads!

Oh, one last thing, because I just can't stop: okay, so he used AI.  Whatever.  But surely for the part he actually cared about--black woman supplants white man--he would've wanted to write it himself, surely? Get that catharsis out. I dunno; is the problem that there wasn't really much of anything he could point to, and he didn't want to confront that? Hmm.

Agatha All Along

 I've been watching a bunch of Marvel TV shows lately.  I'm not proud of that fact, but it is what it is.  I'd always liked MCU movies, but somehow the shows felt like too much work.  Well, now--perhaps in an effort to distract myself from The Horror--I'm delving into them, perhaps TOO much.  Maybe I'll say more later.  Some of them are pretty good!  But right now, I just want to talk about goddamn Agatha All Along, a terrible show that sucks but has both critic and audience ratings in the eighties on rotten tomatoes.  I hate it when people insist on having objectively bad opinions like that.

Okay, so before I can talk about AAA, I have to briefly talk about Wandavision, I suppose, which also sucked, in spite of a level of artfulness that eludes its spinoff.  The basic problem was, Wanda was absolutely fucking awful--trapping thousands of people in what is explicitly characterized as a fate worse than death so she can live out her dumb sitcom fantasy.  And she's just SO self-absorbed, and SO self-righteous about her shittiness.  But we're supposed to sympathize with her, because her brother and her husband died, and at the end she did the bare minimum to make things as close to right as possible.

Agatha was, I suppose, the antagonist there, playing Wanda's comic sitcom neighbor.  But she's secretly a witch!  And I've gotta say, when she got the upper hand on Wanda, it felt SO cathartic.  Because okay, fine, she's a villain, she wants to take Wanda's powers, whatever, but did she cast a whole town of people into a living death?  I submit to the court that she did not.  And yet then, at the end, we're apparently suppose to be happy that Wanda consigns her to that same fate.  I don't know how it's possible for a writer to so misread their characters, but here we are.

That, at any rate, was why I was at any rate eager to see Agatha All Along--because I wanted the character to get a better deal.  But...well.

As AAA opens, Agatha is still under the curse Wanda put on her at the end of WV, only not quite--not that I care about this that much, but it doesn't feel like I'm nitpicking too badly if I point out that the form she was trapped in at the end of the earlier show was a bubbly, nosey-neighbor type.  Whereas here, she's nothing like that; she's a hardboiled detective in what feels like a miserabilist Scandinavian crime drama (and unlike Wandavision's sitcom pastiches, there is ZERO reason why this should be structured as a TV show).  Why would you just change that?  Is this the same character?  Well, she gets out of her trap thanks to this teenage kid known only as Teen in the first part of the show (look at me, I'm avoiding spoilers!), and then we start on the show's quest, which is to go down this nebulously-defined "Witches' Road," a strange and deadly place where you can get what you want if you get to the end, apparently (I kept thinking it seemed a bit like a Zone in Roadside Picnic, but that's neither here nor there).

First, she has to get a 'coven'--this is a witch show!--so we get a rather hackneyed series of scenes where she recruits other witches, generally in the "join us!" "never!" "come on!" "no way" [fifteen minutes later] "oh, okay, fine."  So we have these extremely poorly-defined characters going on this extremely poorly-defined quest.  The only one of them who really seems promising is Kitty Forman (reprising her role of a few episodes in WV) as a woman who doesn't appear to actually have witch powers or know anything about what's going on but is just kind of tagging along with the others in a bewildered way, and you think, okay, THIS could go somewhere super-interesting...but nah, she's just the first to be killed off, quite unceremoniously, she didn't have any meaning.  It feels like a joke without a punchline.

But anyway, the others scuffle around a bunch.  There is A LOT of bickering in this show, and not fun, MCU-style banter.  Mostly just people yelling at one another over things that you may or may not understand.  But the real problem here is Agatha herself.  I think the show might be trying to make her seem complex, but it more or less settles for muddled, as she's portrayed as a good or bad guy according to the whims of the writers--until the end, when it's established extremely clearly that she's a very, very bad guy--we see a montage sequence of her murdering other witches she's established a coven with by provoking them into attacking her (because she needs them to do that for her to steal their powers), and turning them into wizened corpses.  It's pretty bad...but also--this fucking drives me NUTS--we are STILL supposed to sympathize with her, to some degree, because she's sad that her young son died.  In 1756, I might add.  And then the ending just fucking assaults us with stupidity: Agatha, along with all the others, is dead, only for some goddamn reason, she comes back as a ghost, and Teen tries to exorcise her--as well one might--only then for some incomprehensible reason he decides to spare her and they go off together for further adventures.  Teen and Malevolent Spirit.  A future spinoff that nobody needs or wants!  What the FUCK is this?  Who was this meant to satisfy?  

It's also a little, I dunno, on-the-nose that we see here the exact same fatal flaw that Wandavision had: wildly unsympathetic characters that we're meant to sorta-kinda like anyway because of personal trauma in their pasts.  Okay, fine, hurt people hurt people, but that doesn't make them likable solely by virtue of having been hurt.  I mean, I suppose they had little reason to change course after Wandavision, given that it's still very well-liked in spite of sucking, but it's still a LITTLE dispiriting...and yet everyone likes it!  I hate to cast sweeping judgments based on very little evidence, oh okay I don't hate it that much, so you might have other reasons for liking these shows, and if so cool, but if you like either of the title characters--which we are supposed to!--I think you might have some sort of personality defect.  Sorry not sorry.

Okay, in fairness, there ARE a few things I liked about it, as follows:

-On a pure craft level, I appreciated how in the last episode the show circles back to the coven scene, when they're all singing together, and makes it clear that she was just trying to provoke them to steal their powers, as she'd done so many times before, only she was interrupted.  And I REALLY don't think this would actually work; you say something dickish and all of them just immediately attack you at the same time?  Come on.  Okay, I guess I half-liked this.

-"Down the Witches' Road," the song that repeats in several versions throughout the show, is an absolute banger.  I wasn't convinced at first (probably because I'm somewhat snobbish about folk music), but it won me over.  Look it up.

-Some people praise the show because of the portrayal of Teen--a gay Jewish teenager.  And I'll grant you that--in the one episode that delves into his past--he's quite well-written.  But by the end of the show, who even knows WHAT he is.  Not interesting, that's for sure.

-Aubrey Plaza as Death, spoiler.  She's really great in the role, and I want to see more of her.

-Okay, one of the coven members survives: the African American one, who escapes to the surface, tastes freedom, and joyfully zooms away.  And no, she wasn't much of a character or anything, but she's the only one who successfully managed to escape this shitshow, so good on her.

Something that needs to be said

 I can't even TELL you how little I ever wanted to think about Charlie fucking Kirk as much as I'm being forced to now. There's no way I would ever have said anything nice about him after his death, because there's nothing nice to say, but I probably would have limited myself to something like "no one deserves to be randomly murdered, but he both lived and died by the sword, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯."

And that's still basically how I feel. However, due to their hysterical efforts to censor and destroy anyone not issuing encomia to this absolute fucking dipshit, I really, seriously--there is nothing ironic in this post--think it's my duty to talk about Kirk in a way that would really piss them off.

Obviously, I'm small-time. There's very little danger that anything I say here would be seen and seized upon by the fascists. Not NO danger, though, and I have to admit: there's a part of me that feels like, whoa, let's cool off here and not say anything TOO provocative. What if a future potential employer sees it and I lose out on an opportunity? What then?

And then I think, no, FUCK that. I'm not goddamn preemptively surrendering to these fuckers. Fuck them. They don't want me to say this? Fuck them; I'm saying it. I think EVERY non-fascist with any kind of online presence should be saying these things, so here it is:

Charlie Kirk was a real shit dude, and it's funny as hell that he was randomly murdered. The only way it could've been more hilarious would've been for the video of his horrible death to include wacky sound effects. I just wish JD Vance had been there and the rad-ass killer had gotten both of them.

There, is that good enough? I'm not gonna lie: I feel legitimately uncomfortable putting these words out there. But that's the reason I need to do it, isn't it? Pretty perverse that the fascists' efforts are the reason it's important to say things like this.

Sometimes wickedness prevails

 The succinct words echoed in Mma Ramotswe's ears. It was probably true--there were times when wickedness seemed to be so firmly entrenched that any attempt to dislodge it, and rebellion against it, appeared futile. That had happened; many people had led their whole lives under the shadow of wickedness in its manifold guises--under oppression or injustice, under the rule of some grubby tyranny. And yet people often managed to overcome the things that held them down because they refused to believe that they could not do anything about it, and acted as if they could do something. It had happened before and it would happen again. In her short career as a private detective, Mma Ramotswe had encountered relatively few instances of evil, but she had seen some, and in each case she had seen the wings of wickedness clipped.

-Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club

Now look here, people. I am well aware that you can level charges of Pollyannaishness at me for quoting that.  The evil of the Republican Party is just...well, we all know what it is.  But THE FACT IS, I encountered this quote as I was reading the book for some escapism after the murder bill (or, as we sometimes call it, the Death To America Act) had passed, and I choose to believe, only semi-ironically, that this is a message from the universe.  In any case, I DO think "and yet people often managed to overcome the things that held them down because they refused to believe that they could not do anything about it, and acted as if they could do something" is...well, true.  Things are worse now than they've been in the lifetimes of most people, but...I dunno.  Also, I think one of the best things we could do would be to consistently refer to Trump as a "grubby tyrant."  It does a good job of conveying what a small, worthless man he is.

Playdate season II part iv

 I've noticed that I'm having trouble with normalizing all the titles in this series, so I've decided to just lean into it.  Anyway, almost missed the deadline here.  New games tomorrow!  But meanwhile...these.

Shadowgate PD

So here it is: Shadowgate on the Playdate.  Ported by Pixel Ghost, who also did a charming series of little Playdate adventures called Life's Too Short where you play as...can you guess?  How did they get the license to do this?  Very unclear, but here we are.

Shadowgate, if you weren't aware, is an adventure game from the eighties designed for old Macs which  (along with its siblings, Deja Vu and The Uninvited) is probably better-known for its NES port.  When I was small it ATE ME UP INSIDE that I couldn't play it because I didn't have an NES (we DID have an old black-and-white Macintosh, so I probably could've played it there, but I didn't know about the original version).  The interface looks a lot like the one in Sword of Hope, a Gameboy game I enjoyed (though that's an RPG; this is pure adventure), so even though they really don't have much in common, argh!  Remember that old Realms of Power series of novelizations (probably more novelatizations) of NES games?  There was one called Before Shadowgate--a prequel because apparently no one was up to retelling the actual events of the game.  And I tell you people, I doubt the book was actually up to much but I ATE THAT SHIT UP.  I truly loved it. Forsooth.

Well, I actually DID end up playing through the game, many many years later, with a friend, just so we could see what it was like and goof around with the goofiness.  So I've beaten it, with heavy walkthrough assistance.  And it was kind of fun, in its own ungainly way.  But MAKE NO MISTAKE: this is not a good game by any reasonable metric.  The "puzzles" are insanely cheap and arbitrary, and you suffer frequent unforeseeable deaths (admittedly, these have pretty funny death text, but still...).  Beating it without cheating would really just be a matter of brute-forcing it.

So with that in mind, I didn't know what to expect from this Playdate version, but I was intrigued.  I figured it would HAVE to be substantially revised from the original.  Probably-maybe use the crank in some way.  Something interesting.  Well, let's cut to the chase: as near as I can determine (from, admittedly, not playing very far), this is a straight port of the game.  Yup.  I...don't know what to say.  There's obviously something I haven't seen, since the page DOES claim there's crank functionality, but even if there are some changes--it's still essentially the original game.  I hate to be mean, but this seems one hundred percent superfluous.  Want to play Shadowgate with slightly worse graphics and a slightly more cumbersome interface?  Then this is for you!  I guess.  It's not for me.  Moving on...

Catchadiablos

The gameplay here is rather hard to describe, which is surely a good thing.  You control this little girl in space.  Here's how it works: you have a little circle next to you.  You can use the crank to rotate the circle; then to move, you hold down the A button while using the crank to move around the circle's perimeter.  And you want to encircle various aliens for points and to add them to a kind of grimoire.

It shames me to admit it, but I didn't really play this game enough to have a really reliable opinion.  Stuff to do; you know.  I do find it a bit hectic from what I did play, but I'm going to provisionally say this is a really good game that I'd like to get back into at some point.

OTHER NEWS: Fulcrum Defender was always a good game, but since I've played it there's been an update that increases the difficulty after ten minutes and adds three new difficulty modes (so you're not leaping between the managable hard and the nigh-impossible insane, I suppose).  I appreciate it.  Good game.  Gold star for you folks.

Meanwhile, Blippo+ continues.  I still watch it, though the joke seems to get a bit repetitive.  Also, I noticed more freezing this week, though presumably that was just to do with my internet connection.