setsuled

A few weeks ago, I installed a Skyrim mod that seemed to break the game. I don't even know which mod it was as I tend to install bunches of ten or fifteen at a time. Trying to figure it out, I uninstalled one at a time and then even mods that were already installed when the game still worked. Nothing did the trick. When I tried to start the game, nothing happened, like the computer didn't even know I'd double clicked the icon. So I had to completely uninstall the game and all the mods and start from scratch. It took almost three weeks to get the game back up and running in an acceptable modded state, just in time for me to try Varinia, the new companion mod from Maplespice.



Maplespice is the creator of Remiel, an extremely popular follower mod and certainly by far the best one I've ever installed. Many reviews and forum comments on Remiel are about how amazingly lifelike Remiel's dialogue is. The average follower mod tends to be an embarrassing female simp who becomes obsessed with the player character in dialogue and then is overpowered in battle so that oftentimes it feels like the computer is playing the game for you. Sadly, I think this speaks volumes about the average heterosexual male fantasy these days; a hyper competent girl who's capable of doing any and all of the work and who for some reason rapturously adores you. Remiel, meanwhile, can get knocked down pretty easily (follower characters usually can't die) and, although you can start a romance quest line with her, it's more satisfying to avoid it. Here's some dialogue she has with another mod follower called Thogra gra-Mugur:



It still amazes me all these great mods, into which people have put so much work, are still totally free.

So far, Varinia isn't quite as amazing as Remiel. Remiel feels more well rounded and I wonder if it was the mod author's inexperience that led to Remiel being loaded with a wider range of ideas. Varinia is a spy/assassin character, better suited for evil playthroughs. Maybe it's the narrower focus that makes her less satisfying. Though I wonder if the mod creator is afflicted by a problem I often think about affecting artists, which is a fear of the vulnerability inherent in creation. Art is about communicating something about our humanity and it takes guts to do that, or possibly a lack of awareness of just how vulnerable we're making ourselves. I think this is what often leads to a progression in careers in many media in which artists do their most popular, intimate work earlier on and somehow make progressively less satisfying media even as their skills are refined. Maybe Tim Burton would argue all day that Big Fish is actually a better film than Edward Scissorhands or Francis Ford Coppola would argue Megalopolis is better than The Godfather. On the other hand, I would say his Dracula is better than The Godfather so maybe there's hope for us old artists yet. And I haven't played that much with Varinia, maybe she improves.

In a post-apocalyptic, post-gender world. a young woman follows her destiny as the "seventh son" of a genealogy of ramblers in 2025's O'Dessa. Sadie Sink is the captivating star of this film which is an entertaining adventure, though not really much better than the kinds of Mad Max knock-offs I remember from MST3k like Alien from L.A., City Limits, and Warrior of the Lost World.

The movie follows modern American leftist ideology so perfectly I was able to predict many things from scene to scene. When a priest shows up, I knew he'd be a villain. When an MC starts introducing a singer about to perform a sexy dance of veils, I knew the dancer would be a guy, and not even a strikingly beautiful guy. Much like the live action Cowboy Bebop adaptation, the movie sets out to be transgressive but can't help putting its gender non-conformists into boxes. So the gender fluid guy has to be a burlesque singer, again.

I assume Sadie Sink does her own singing and she's really good at it. The songs aren't bad at all and I like the willow design on her guitar. From a basic filmmaking standpoint, it's well made and the politics don't get in the way of the storytelling. I was genuinely interested in the fate of Sink's character and was rooting for her. The visuals were typical for the post-apocalyptic genre but not bad, especially if you're a fan of the genre, which I am.

O'Dessa is available on Disney+.

The new Doctor Who was decent, if you happen to share Russel T Davies' politics. And I do, but I can't help lament his decision to take the show further into marginalisation. I mean, does anyone think the show would be converting anyone?

I think maybe the Conrad guy is based on Tommy Robinson. I don't think the simplistic, belligerent character is going to draw away any Tommy Robsinson devotees. I really liked the Rani's ship, though. I liked how everything seemed to be made of bone and those aliens collecting doubts reminded me of the medical alien from Farscape if it were designed by Gerald Brom.

The concept behind the episode, called "Wish World", is of reality transformed by someone seeking a return to a past that didn't really exist, a pretty typical form of political cycle most recently and starkly in evidence from the "Make America Great Again" crowd. But I was also reminded of reading about Japanese history yesterday and how the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century was not really a restoration at all but a radical transformation of the country into something it had never been before, despite many participants being motivated by "kokugaku", a Japanese academic philosophy emphasising the superiority of Japanese culture in earlier eras. You could also look at the Restoration in England in 1660 which certainly didn't return things to the status quo of the 1630s. It's a nice template for the Doctor and Belinda to be trapped in a reality that inevitably has flaws. The guy in the office freaking out because the Doctor called him beautiful could only be aware of homosexuality since, in the time when awareness of homosexuality was less prevalent, it wasn't out of order for a straight man to call another beautiful at all. You can't be constructive when what you're concerned with is destruction at heart.

I was also reminded of the first story featuring the Rani, 1985's Mark of the Rani, in which she takes advantage of 19th century Luddites. I have to say Archie Panjabi falls far short of Kate O'Mara's portrayal. I even prefer Anita Dobson ("Mrs Flood") who at least avoids all the pathetic teeth gnashing.

The scenes with Ruby and the group of disabled people was really, really awkward. It wouldn't surprise me if that scene alone was the cause of many televisions being shut off or channels changed. In any case, I don't think the show's downward trajectory is going to be righted any time soon. But "Wish World" wasn't so bad.

Mostly I've been pretty pleased with the neighbourhood around my new apartment. There are lots of restaurants and a movie theatre. I've dreamed all my life of living near a movie theatre and I finally got my wish. But there were still a few things I wished were in walking distance, particularly a laundromat, though I've been washing most of my clothes by hand. A few weeks ago, I went to see a concert put on by the brass band of one of my schools and I had to go down a street I'd never been down. Not only did I find a laundromat and a liquor store with a good selection of Irish whiskeys, I found a Makotoya, barely ten minutes from my apartment!

Japan's ramen is legendary all over the world and I've had a lot of amazing ramen since coming to Japan five years ago. But by far, one of the best restaurants I've eaten at is Makotoya.



Their signature ramen has a beef bone broth. Nowadays, ramen generally comes in four kinds of soup bases; salt and soy sauce are the two traditional bases and the popular newcomers are miso and pork bone broth. Pork bone is typically my favourite kind but Makotoya's choice of using beef bone broth is an excellent alternative. As you might expect, it has kind of a milky quality, which is nice for someone like me whose gut no longer likes to digest milk properly. A basic bowl of their beef bone broth ramen without egg is relatively cheap at only around 750 yen, which I think comes to around seven dollars. For a hundred yen more, you can get their 赤辛牛白湯 ramen, a red spicy variant.

The place never seems too crowded and I can always get a seat at the bar with space for my book so I can read while eating. There are a lot of restaurants I want to try around here but it's going to be hard tearing myself away from Makotoya at lunchtime.

I finally watched the first episode of House of the Dragon season two last night. It's certainly not as splashy an opening as season one but it's nice to be back in that world of beautiful costumes and dark, mediaeval locations. I appreciated some greater level of detail in this one, especially the scene at the docks where you can see men scraping barnacles off a ship.

I guess the show hasn't reached the heights of Game of Thrones. It seemed like everyone on Game of Thrones started turning up all over the place, especially in big budget movies, but the only star who seems to have come out of House of the Dragon so far is Milly Alcock, who was in less than half of the first season. I guess the legacy of Game of Thrones' rushed final seasons continues to haunt the franchise.

"A Son for a Son", the season two premiere episode of House of the Dragon I watched last night, certainly didn't feel rushed. We spend a lot of time with Rhaenyra grieving for the son she lost at the end of the previous season, setting up her motive for revenge. Writer and showrunner Ryan Condal also takes a moment to lampshade one of the more egregious missteps in season one's writing, when Rhaenys, for no apparent reason, refrained from killing the opposing leadership when she had the chance. I'm sorry to see the writer of that notorious episode, Sara Hess, wrote a few episodes of season two.

Still, even on its worst day, House of the Dragon is a cut above most shows.

I forgot all about Doctor Who on Saturday, which says something. But when I finally did watch it on Sunday I was very happily surprised to find it was a pretty good episode. I'm surprised to see many review quotes saying the episode feels "rushed" because, to me, it was the first story this season that didn't feel rushed. In particular, I liked that writer Juno Dawson gave some space for Belinda to panic over the apparent death of the Doctor. It was the kind of human reaction to a dangerous and scary situation the show rarely seems to get around to anymore. It was one of the things that made it feel like a classic series episode.

Dawson has written a number of books, including This Book is Gay, which ranks as the tenth most banned book in America, surely an admirable distinction. Her Doctor Who episode, "The Interstellar Song Contest", features gay characters and possibly a reference to transgenderism (Dawson is transgender). When one character, Cora, is revealed to be a member of species that faces persecution across the galaxy, her partner accuses her of dishonesty. This conceptual conflict tends to crop up more in arguments over trans issues than it does over hidden ethnicity. I thought Cora was an effective enough character, particularly when she was being gracious with Belinda.

I'll go into more significant spoilers for the episode now so, be warned.

Maybe the most notable aspect of the episode, for fans, is a pair of revelations that point back to the classic era. We finally learn who Mrs. Flood is--it turns out she's none other than the Rani, a Time Lady from the Sixth and Seventh Doctor eras originally played by Kate O'Mara. In this episode, she "bi-generates" and becomes Archie Penjabi. I like Archie Penjabi and it's nice to see her getting work though the show's going to have to do some work to distinguish her from Missy now. I also still really hate the idea of bi-generation. I have a bad feeling we're just not going to get an explanation for the Rani's bi-generation. I wonder if it'll eventually be revealed to be a biological response to a diminished Time Lord population. In any case, the Doctor's claim to be "last of the Time Lords" gets weaker and weaker.

Particularly since the episode features another Time Lady, none other than Susan Foreman, with Carole Ann Ford reprising the role she first played all the way back in the show's 1963 premiere. For decades, fans and people working on the show have wanted to see the return of Susan and the fulfillment of the First Doctor's promise to one day come back to her. That actually did occur in an audio play starring Paul McGann and Carole Ann Ford and I always thought this was why it never happened on the show, that the makers of the show wanted that audio play to be canon. Maybe it still will be. In any case, I wonder why Russell T Davies chose now to bring Susan back. Ratings were slightly up for this episode but they're still well under the norm even for the 13th Doctor era. Maybe, despite his optimism in interviews, it's an acknowledgment by Davies that this really is the end for Doctor Who, at least for a few years. The Doctor's reunion with Susan would make for a good bookend.

Doctor Who is available on the BBC iPlayer and on Disney+ everywhere else.

The new Superman trailer premiered a few days ago. It's supposed to be the first full trailer though it seems like we've already seen an awful lot, mostly involving the dog, Krypto, which has been effective. This trailer finally gives us some Clark and Lois interaction and I'm disappointed to see she already knows his secret identity. It seems like that fun dynamic hasn't lasted long in any superhero film since the first Christopher Reeve movie. I suppose people feel like it prevents the characters from having meaningful dialogue. I would recommend those people watch the popular anime Spy Family in which two characters have identities they keep secret from each other and it's loads of fun. And it has a kind of nuance because a secret identity can stand in for the inevitable depths and complexities about another person which we're unable to understand however open the person is or however much we might pry into their personal lives.

This is the first time David Corenswet really came across as Superman for me but, sadly, it was when he wasn't in the costume and his muscles were allowed to show through a simple white button down shirt. This Superman costume is all wrong. The high collar looks military and it makes him look smaller. It's thick, too, like Batman's armoured suit. The costume shouldn't look like it's something he needs for protection.

Rachel Brosnahan is pitch perfect as Lois.

I love the saturated colour palette, which is one thing that definitely shows James Gunn was the right director for this material. He usually does go for a rainbow over the more standard two or three key tones. It's more difficult to work with so much colour but the rewards are worth it.

I really hope this movie is good. We need more media demonstrating that altruism is cool. There are too many fucking savages out there, including the big orange one squatting on the White House.

For the final three episodes of Andor, which were quite good, the curious decision to bring a new writer to the series, Tom Bissell, was made. It wasn't a bad idea, it turns out. Bissell is best known for writing video games, according to Wikipedia. Maybe that gave him a good instinct for kinetic suspense.

Kleya's infiltration of the hospital had kind of a horror video game vibe, actually. More than anyone else, these three episodes were really Kleya's story as we see flashbacks from her first encounter with Luthen and how he raised her and trained her juxtaposed with her bringing their operations to an end and finally being coaxed into going to Yavin. Her journey in the three episodes, from an agent of paranoia in a reality defined by consistent despair to accepting the reality of Yavin, a world of hope, stands in for the story of the Rebellion as it progresses from a spark of limited fire to a flame poised to seriously threaten the Empire.

That was great but I think the best parts of the episodes were the vicious, bureaucratic shufflings within the ranks of the ISB, starting with that wonderfully absurd, nightmarish moment when Dedra is arrested at the height of her professional triumph.



I also loved that the Imperial mind couldn't acknowledge that Jung was a spy. In Krennic's interrogation of Dedra, he was obliged to make some awkward verbal contortions to portray Jung as the accomplice of Dedra the data scavenger. She points out that she was forced to be a scavenger, to get access to intel she didn't have clearance for, in order to do her job. The system has absurd rules built in likely for the very purpose of being invoked only when a scapegoat is needed or an officer needs to be disposed of for some other equally sinister or absurd reason.

I noticed Tony Gilroy has been kind of kissing up to Dave Filoni lately in interviews and one of last night's episodes even featured one of Filoni's signature "loth cats". I'm hoping this means Gilroy is trying to secure a place for himself at Lucasfilm. I'd love to see him write a series or movie just focusing on Imperials.

Andor is available on Disney+.

I found myself watching 1957's Funny Face again on the weekend. What an odd man Fred Astaire was. Such a great dancer, such an odd look. I truly think he was asexual. He never seemed especially interested in any of his costars, just pleasant and gracious. Somehow Ginger Rogers made it work with lust entirely on her side. Audrey Hepburn is impossibly lovely as always but she can't make the chemistry work between her and Astaire somehow in Funny Face.

It's not that he was thirty years older than her. She worked fine with Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, William Holden, and Cary Grant. Grant was probably the best because she was able to work up some real lust for him in Charade. Like Funny Face, Charade was directed by Stanley Donan so maybe that was a lesson the director took from Funny Face.

The screenplay is surprisingly intelligent and its dialogue about high art and philosophy versus fashion and sensual indulgence is interesting. Maybe the movie is too intellectual. It gets bogged down in it and Hepburn doesn't get time to properly come across as overcome with feeling.

Hey, kids! Did you enjoy last night's Doctor Who? Did you like the theoretical dispersion of conceptual text deployed through post modern analytical framework? What a rip roaring adventure!

Okay, so Doctor Who is currently not for kids, or anyone who's not an American or British college student or liberal arts graduate from the past twenty-five years. And, no, it certainly wasn't for Nigerians. Nigeria has its own film industry and it looks like this:



I certainly am pleased by the idea of Doctor Who going to Africa but it would be nice if he had an adventure there instead of weak, reheated Salmon Rushdie fluff about the nature of stories, their connexion to culture, and the nature of cultural identity. I'm not a fan of Rushdie's work but last night's Doctor Who couldn't hope to approach his intellect or creativity.

It was written by Inua Ellams, a Nigerian born British writer and poet whose biggest success was a play called Barber Shop Chronicles, and last night's Doctor Who had the Doctor visiting a barbershop in Nigeria. Apparently it's somewhat related. In this case, the barbershop turns out to be a spaceship powered by the stories told by people trapped in the shop, a pretty simplistic allegory for how indigenous cultures are exploited for the self-interests of powerful colonialist entities. Again, it's all been done better by Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Angela Carter, and various other people fifty or sixty years ago. Now, you could argue that Doctor Who in the 60s and 70s was influenced by Flash Gordon and HP Lovecraft and I would say, yes, influenced to tell exciting stories, not influenced to regurgitate academic twaddle. Ellams might have been better off drawing influence from Nollywood. At least those movies are fun. His Doctor Who episode almost ranks with Disney's Wish as being a conceptual boondoggle but I wouldn't say it's as convoluted as Wish. Few things are.

Doctor Who is available on the BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ elsewhere.