Caffeine for Nerds

The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix) Review

Given how it was just recently the season of Halloween, I decided I was in the mood to watch some scary shows/movies, so when I saw there was a massive crowd of praise following The Haunting of Hill House, I thought it was worth checking out. I get scared quite easily, yet I enjoy the horror genre given how it always produces the strongest visceral reactions from me. I thought I could handle the horror from this show; I was wrong. This show is terrifying in the best way possible. After one particular episode, which I regrettably watched before bed, I couldn’t turn off my lamp until I watched funny vine compilations and cat videos. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you can confront the horror, you’re in for a mostly-well executed story about broken family relationships, loss, and regret. However, this show is far from perfect, but the first six or so episodes are some of the finest television I've seen this year, and even the last few episodes still have stellar moments despite their faults. Note: this show is actually based on a novel fyi, which I didn’t read, so I have no bias (though after this show, I'm compelled to read it sometime in the future). Also, SPOILER WARNING!

Caffeine for Nerds' 2018 In Review (so far) | Games

2018 kind of felt like a dry spell for games, to me personally anyway, but every other month along came titles that have me obsessed, and they each warrant some attention. It's also quite telling how all the games on this list are PlayStation exclusives. The games in this review qualify as good entries to mark the end of a successful and spectacular chapter in gaming for the PS4. Note: It's impossible to mention every single game from the whole year, and this review is in no way a reflection of the opinions of a collective whole. This list strictly has games that happen to appeal to my tastes; not all games, no matter how acclaimed they are, are everyone's cup of coffee, and that's okay. Also, the games are listed in chronological order according to their release date. That being said, let's begin. SPOILER WARNING!

The Last Jedi (Drunk Now Sober) Review and Thoughts: PART TWO

(Originally recorded on Jan. 3, 2018) It’s 2018 now, and I continue to babble about how cool The Last Jedi is despite the “controversy” amongst Star Wars fans. I further explain how Rian Johnson fantastically crushed fandom expectations for this film, address the importance of the “Where’s Han?” line, and pickup my review where I left off with the reylo elevator scene all the way to the end of the film.

Please excuse my ugly ass, nasally and strained voice. Feel free to contact me and tell me what you guys thoughts, and I hope you enjoy my fangirling and analysis!

The Last Jedi (Drunk) Review and Thoughts: PART ONE

Time/Table of Contents:

00:00:00 - Intro and Now Sober / What I Forgot to Address about TLJ in PART ONE (no Stormpilot, unwarranted Rose hate, why Finnrose over Stormpilot in canon, Poe’s arc overtaking Finn’s, the problematic mystery boxes in TFA, “Where’s Han?”, Han’s Dice, Color in TLJ, “You are a monster”)

00:14:48 - Elevator Scene with Rey & Kylo Ren / The Misinterpreted Vision that Rey and Ben See

00:20:38 - Poe’s Mutiny and Temper Tantrum

00:22:27 - Finn, Rose, & DJ Undercover / Phasma vs Finn

00:26:50 - Leia and Holdo

00:28:12 - Snoke’s Throne Room / Snoke Plagiarizes the Force Bond between Rey and Kylo / Kylo choses Rey / Parallels with ROTJ & The Wizard of Oz / REYLO SEX metaphorically HAPPENS / Kylo slays the Dragon Snoke / Kylo & Rey vs the Praetorian Guard

00:44:20 - The Tragic Breakup between Rey and Kylo/Ben / Reverse Anidala / Kylo’s Marriage Proposal / “You’re nothing, but not to me.”

00:54:11 - Holdo’s Sacrifice

00:56:45 - Rey and Kylo’s Tug of War for the Lightsaber / The Will of the Force / NOT the End of Reylo

00:58:42 - Supreme Leader Kylo Ren / Kylo vs Hux (*I accidentally say Hux was pinning himself against Kylo, when I meant to say Snoke)

01:00:05 - Battle on Crait / Even more Freudian Imagery / Rebirth of Luke and the Spark

01:03:48 - Finn’s Resolve / Rose’s “Saving What We Love”

01:05:40 - The Darkest Hour / Luke’s “No One’s Ever Really Gone” / Han’s Dice = Heart of Gold

01:08:10 - Crystal Foxes, Porgs, and Fathiers

01:10:40 - Luke Confronts Kylo

01:13:48 - Who Really are/is the Last Jedi?

01:16:10 - Kylo Finds Han’s Dice / Hux’s Imminent Betrayal

01:17:24 - Rey and Kylo’s Last Force Connection

01:19:00 - Ben’s Broken Lightsaber/Heart

01:23:54 - Luke is the Spark / Broom Boy / It (Reylo) Ends with Kids (yep, seriously) / Reylo is Endgame

Hey guys! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on this blog, but given how this is about reviewing and analyzing nerdy content, OF COURSE I had to do something for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Instead of the usual written meta, I decided to be experimental and do a podcast, so here’s a little premise:

PART ONE: It's New Year's Eve, and I decide to start 2018 with a glass of wine while drunkenly babbling about how cool The Last Jedi is despite the "controversy" amongst Star Wars fans. Please excuse my ugly ass, nasally voice and mic problems (as well as the fireworks blowing up in the background). I also fangirl about reylo and shirtless Kylo Ren.

Ohtze's Kill the King and take the Crown: Kylo Ren, Rey, and the Usurper/Holy Mother.

Let me know if you liked the review and if you’d like to see more of this kind of content. Enjoy!

Yeah idk why that’s happening, considering that I even tagged my review when I posted it. But tumblr is dumb; 3-4 yrs here and they still fuck up like this. Not much I can really do about it.

First off, I'd like to apologize for posting this weeks after the finale, but I've been bombarded with irl work, and it goes without saying that I had to prioritize that over this silly anime. Anyway...

This is it. We've finally arrived at the ending of Virgin Soul, and boy is it complete A-S-S.

Before we dive into hell again, let me play you a song that describes the show for me. Pay close attention to the lyrics because it really captures the essence of Virgin Soul (the orphans and "plot that's not quite awful" parts maybe not so much, but you get the gist):

With that out of the way, please turn your attention to my previous writings for Shingeki no Bahamut if you haven't done so already:

Rage of Bahamut Anime is Great! ...Until Virgin Soul Gives Me Mixed Feelings

(Not So) Cool Motive, Still Murder | Rage of Bahamut Virgin Soul Episode 22 Review/Rant

The Good News Is... The Bad News Is... | Rage of Bahamut Virgin Soul Episode 23 Review

If you've followed me throughout my small journey with this anime, then it's probably safe to assume that we were all expecting this finale to go to shit, which it did, but it took "shit" and turned it into the biggest, jurassic mound of Indominus-rex feces there ever was. I'm astounded, and infinitely more disgusted than I was before with Virgin Soul, but at least I was able to laugh throughout the entire episode because even in its own bizarre, fictitious world, this finale lacked any sort of common sense to the point where it all turns into a big fucking joke. Surely the writer must be in on their own joke because I refuse to believe that any sane person with a brain (and a paid "professional" scriptwriter, mind you) can write something that stupid and dense, and call it a serious narrative work. A caveman could've written this episode and it would've been more intriguing. For fuck's sake, I've read tons of poorly-written fanfiction and they're all immensely better than this garbage.

The only way this ending starts to become palpable is if you unconditionally like Charioce and/or Nina, and frankly I'm not attached to those characters, so consider yourself warned because if you're not prepared or open to read criticism on them, then this review is not for you. I would rather avoid the whole situation of people feeling personally offended when I'm criticizing the argument presented by the writer, not the people who support it.

I might not address every little thing wrong with the episode and season overall because there is A LOT to address (not to mention the review would get repetitive since I've constantly described everything wrong with Virgin Soul on previous posts); it's overwhelming to tackle, and I'm tired.

Let's just get this over with.

It was indeed a horrible message, as you said. It’s no wonder there are many who are disappointed with this season, especially because it had a relatively decent beginning.

I’m personally a fan and big supporter of Hero x Villain ships, as well as ships with Beauty & the Beast archetypes. Hell, you can even have unhealthy ships and they can still be well-written (why do you think everyone is obsessed with the Phantom and Christine from Phantom of the Opera?). The point is, whether the pairing’s relationship is healthy or not, what matters in the end is the quality of the writing. A well-written pairing in a narrative owns the flaws and crimes of their problematic characters; they won’t try to hide them away.

Clearly that doesn’t happen with Charioce because the writer tries to convince us that all the horrible things he has done were necessary in defeating Bahamut and that he’s a good guy all along, which is totally unconvincing. For example, Charioce didn’t just keep demons as slaves; he exploited them in the most ineffective manner to the point where you think it’s personal. He lets both soldiers and civilians torture them, objectify them (100% implying rape), and normalize bigotry, etc. Plus that whole thing about not wanting to upset the gods is bullshit because earlier in the season he was perfectly willing to go war and even provoked them. He’s an idiot for not realizing that gods, demons, and humans need each other to survive against Bahamut, whom in the end all came to the human’s aid anyway. I’ll leave it at that because if I go on, I would have a novel explaining all the misdeeds of Virgin Soul.

Charioce’s behavior is more believable in the role of the villain. I was even expecting to get a monologue where he blames demons and gods for their incompetence ten years ago, which released Bahamut and consequently killed his mother. At least that would’ve explained the slavery and mass genocide a little more, but you know the writing sucks when my own headcanon is better than what the writer presented for his backstory (and I think I’m being rather modest). I would’ve even enjoyed a narrative where Nina also gradually became a villain in choosing Charioce as her partner; honestly, any other narrative would be better than the shit the writer produced.

I’m writing more about Nina in my next review, so I’ll reserve my opinions on her till then.

Lastly, I have no beef with people (unconditionally) loving Charioce and Nina because I’m also a firm believer of shipping whatever the hell you want so long as you let me ship whatever the hell I want, but I would also encourage those people to be open-minded to valid criticisms for the show. Here’s a video of a fairly popular anime reviewer, who doesn’t dislike the ending and Charioce as much as I do, still criticize the ending.

(I’m replying on a separate post b/c I hate being limited to write in a few characters in the comments. Oh, and sorry in advance for the long reply; I got a little carried away haha.) 

Yeah, I’m not prepared to let Azazel die either, he’s so dear to me. At the same time, I really wished he could’ve given Ch. a totally-deserved ass whooping, but unfortunately that’s a lot to ask for with these writers. Plus, Azazel doesn’t deserve being punished by these writers for their careless choices in the narrative, so at least he’s not dying (yet) to prove how revenge is bad…yada yada, some basic shit like that.

And yes, it’s incredibly infuriating how it’s supposed to be ok for only Ch. to act on his vengeance, but when everyone else does it (justifiably), it suddenly becomes one of the deadly sins. If that’s the case, then why convey Ch. as this cruel and heartless tyrant who destroyed the lives of thousands and feels absolutely no remorse for it? He begins to feel a bit of regret with Nina in the picture, but he still continues to be an ass anyway with hardly any shame. Honestly, these writers need to read up on how to write redemption arcs because they’re doing it totally wrong. Not to mention the whole “my mom died” thing is totally bland and unconvincing because we never truly see this fall into his development (it’s simply stated, never shown in elaborate detail) and how it causes him to enslave demons for shits and giggles. 

And I don’t mind romance being in the story, in fact, it’s my guilty pleasure and I’m usually among the first to ship characters together even without romantic context existing in the narrative. Like, I shamelessly ship reylo, a heroxvillain ship, from Star Wars, so if Charioce and Nina were presented in the proper manner, then sure, I’d ship it.

Speaking of reylo, and forgive me for going on a tangent, even though his character arc isn’t complete, Kylo Ren is a prime example of how to set up a character for redemption. For as vicious as his crimes were in The Force Awakens, the boy is in obvious pain and constantly doubts himself, and the subtext implies that he even has suicidal tendencies a la Hamlet with his “I’m being torn apart”/“I feel the pull to the light” speech. Not to mention that he tries so hard to be this cruel and powerful figure like Darth Vader, and he fails, he utterly fails (i.e. instantly regretting killing Han, disobeying orders and going against logic to pursue Rey, the stand-in for the “light”, I can go on and on, but there’s tons of metas out there that explain all this, plus professional critics have noted how compelling and well-written his character is). Charioce should’ve been taking notes from this guy (or even someone like Prince Zuko). 

Also, Kylo Ren, who again, doesn’t have a finished arc, is already better written than Charioce in just over 2 hrs, meanwhile Chr. has had more time with 24 episodes to redeem himself and atone for his crimes, and the payoff is nowhere to be seen.

I would much rather embrace Ch. as an antagonist because he was shaping up to be a good one at the start of Virgin Soul, and that makes his unforgiving and ruthless nature all the more appealing. But to be kind-hearted deep down? Only to Nina, but he couldn’t possibly give a shit for everyone else, so this misunderstood white knight nonsense is a heavy load of bullshit designed to paint him in a better light so that it becomes easier for audiences to root for him and his romance with Nina (and clearly the writers’ manipulative tricks are working, just look at how divisive the fandom is).

People are free to like Ch., be my guest, but I’m not going to pretend to like him when his development consists of some of the worst writing I’ve seen. This can only get worse if it turns out to have a basic shounen ending where everyone gets paired up and has babies for no good reason other than to portray “a happy ending”.