On sex and character development

 It still feels kinda weird that everything led to me writing a bad review of something so close to opening this blog.

 I mean, it's not like it was planned but it was mostly something that happened.

 Still, since as every artist I'm a creature heavily depending on the opinion others have of me for my self-validation, I do find it important not to leave it alone as a precedent and as some sort of...'indication' of things to come.

 Even because I'm not entirely sure how much I can keep up doing ranting reviews. They're fun to do, but I'm quite aware that I have a bit of an issue with commitments.

Me when nobody watches. Nakedness included.

But I felt I wanted to be positive more than negative, and boy can I be negative (as I already displayed in my review of Open House). So I wanted to do something about it.

 Let me introduce you to "I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love" from Alexis Flower (here's the twitter profile) Now. Warning. It's DEFINITELY NSFW, but I meean, look at the title of this post. Y'all knew we were about to talk about some naughty stuff. Hell, some of you might be here just for that, and the fact I've found this probably says a lot on my take on the subject.

*

*Consume with moderation. Make sure to keep hydrated. Images depicted aren't a representation of real life interactions.
But don't let that stop you from trying to make it so. :3

 Now, why am I going to talk about this comic? Well, first because my upcoming book does entrench kinda in the same 'territory', but using it as an example sounded a bit too self-aggrandizing (and who knows me knows I'm really not a self-aggrandizing person).

 Second, because it's a good way to speak about something I do find important. Story in porn and porn in stories. Weird, I know, but I'm a big advocate for it.

 Third, simply because I enjoyed the hell out of all of it, the author has been so amazing to put it online for free, and it's awesome and hot, and even funny at times. Just look at the writing on the map! LOOK AT IT! *squeals*

The story so far

 The comic introduces a big number of characters, but the ones we'll be following more during the adventure are Cinder (or at least that's one of the names she uses) a buxom-y, very, very friendly and kinky elf working as a scout ranger for the local guild, and Maeryll, a silver haired, posh, lithe magically active elf with a taste for fine clothes, chess and boobs. The two enjoy thoroughly their time together and with various other people, and both of them are very reluctant and actively trying their best to avoid the BIG OVERARCHING QUEST™ looming over The Land menacing to suck them in, just wanting to enjoy life, go around, and basically pretty much fuck their way through their long, elven life.

I approve of this course of action.

  Of course, all good plans meet with reality eventually, and starting with the untimely demise of a Royal figure, the two will both take their path throughout the land with a lot of new encounters on the way, mysteries to solve, and raunchy, graphic, messy flings with a lot of people.

 And all of this with an absolutely delightful artstyle that is a feast for your eyes. The anatomy and the 'softness' of the bodies is portrayed delightfully, the colors are vivid and enticing, the details on some of the shots is astounding and the landscape as well! It's just lovely. The quality you see on the cover is the same sort of quality you can expect in the bulk of the books themselves.

 So, to top off this mini 'review' part, go, read it, enjoy it, share it around and support the artist !

GET ON WITH IT!

Ok, ok, put down the spears. Geez.

  So, the reason I wanted to talk about this comic it's because it's a perfect example of what I like to call 'porn with story'. Which, incidentally, it's what I tried to do with Tiogair (even if Tiogair kinda went the way of being a story with porn, but hey, I'm absolutely fine with it.)

  Now, I'm not saying everyone in their stories should have graphic orgies between twenty characters every few pages, but please, please please, if you're people who are writing for adults and want to tackle this sort of themes, don't be stopped by the thought that 'if I put a graphic scene into my work, my story will be lessened'. And at the same time, if you're writing erotica, don't be stopped from exploring deeper stories and character development because 'no, the two things don't mesh well'.

  We tackle mainly stories that have as protagonists people - sure, some might very well be not exactly people, but you get my point. In a lot of cases, not all of them obviously, sexuality is an important part of a person, and knowing how they act, how they flirt, what they like (even if it's not shown in the book!) can make a story so much more enticing, because it makes the character rounded. Your big, strong, brooding warrior perhaps likes softness in intimacy, and just him glancing  with a bit of a discreet, longing gaze to a happy, cuddly couple because he knows he has an image to maintain and won't be able to show that side of his if not in very private settings, can give us an idea that under that big chin, the broad shoulders and the big sword there's something more.

  And the comic I've brought here today as an example is an amazing testament to this, exactly for its erotic nature - while the sex is absolutely prevalent in the whole work of this artist, we don't lose track of the fact that these are all people. With their personalities, their ideas, their way of living, and so on.

  That they actually enjoy genuinely all the naughty bits, not being just a mean for pornographic images (nothing wrong with that either btw, as long as the work 'knows' that's its reason) and they have a deeper, more interesting story to look forward to after all the bodily fluids have been gushed out and the afterglow passes.

  In a society where sex, and people working in the sex industry, still is seen as something 'taboo' and 'weird', where people who enjoy different lifestyles are being shamed, normalizing and realizing that under the kink there are actually real people - in fiction and not - is a powerful thing.

  So go forth, my fellow pervs and pervettes. Find more works of this genre. And if there's none?

  Hey, we are writers for a reason, aren't we?

  If you feel like giving it a try, make some.

  Toodles!

The Open House (2018) Rant - Spoilers! Bad language!

 You know. There are some days where life seems to just... fall into place, somehow.

 Like, events happen in such a succession it almost makes too much logical sense for it to be a case, and, for how small of an event this is, this is one of those days.

 It was literally a couple days ago that I was working on the header for this blog. I was there on Canva, getting the image done, and when I was thinking about silly things like "I'm going to name the space the Gatecrash Network (it makes sense in my head, it's tied to Tiogair, but yeah)", "I'm gonna write some things on the bottom" and initially I thought just putting professional stuff, you know. Writer, #CharactersTell, writing tips. Then I thought and I went "I'm gonna put in rants and some random stuff as well. I mean, you never know, right?"

 And so I did.

 Yesterday, me and my friend Avrin - You met her, the one who actually basically made this blog happen - watched 'The Open House' together.

 Boy, oh boy, am I ever happy that I put that 'rant' part on my header. 'cus y'all about to get one.

 As I said in the title, HEAVY SPOILER ALERT. You have been warned. If you want a quick cut and dry 'watch it/don't', the verdict is 'It has some redeeming qualities, but don't expect anything to make much sense. Watch it at your own peril, depending if you like having things make sense or you want just a thrillride.'

 With that out of the way...

 The story so far

 The movie is about a mother, Naomi, and her son, Logan, having to cope with the loss of the father due to a tragic accident. As it seems, the driver of the car that runs him over dies of a heart attack, and in this whole mess, the family is left without money as well.

 In dire straits, Naomi's sister (who is clearly wealthy as fuck considering what we're going to learn later on) offers Naomi and Logan to stay at her mountain house currently on sale since they can't pay rent in their old place. Now, let's completely IGNORE the fact that with the wealth they have and the house Naomi and Logan had sister dear would probably have been more than able to help pay the rent for their place until they settled as well, thus avoiding Logan having to change school during such a traumatic period - and the whole plot of the movie - and let's move on.

 Accepting the offer, Naomi and Logan drive for hours to get to the small mountain city, where they soon meet a colorful cast of characters.

 You have Martha, the sweet old lady with Alzhaimer who we're gonna think has something to do with the odd events in the house due to how she behaves.

 You have Chris, the flirty dude of the clothing shop, who we're gonna think has either something to do with the events or is dead for a good chunk of the film. (spoilers: he's black. double spoilers: he does die eventually.)

 Then a couple of secondary characters, like the mean realster's assistant, the plumber, the lazy small town policemen...

 And they're all ninjas.

In this frame: the supporting cast pictures. You can't see them because they're ninjas, but they're there.

 Everyone of them is a sneaky fuck, setting up cheap jumpscares and managing to move on uneven, noisy terrain without as much as a ruffle, managing to catch the main characters by surprise even when they should have been in plain sight.

 It must be the mountain weather giving every native a +20 natural bonus on stealth checks. 

 After they're kicked out to let potential buyers visit the house, weird things start to happen. While the main characters don't notice it, too busy dealing with their own straining relationship and problems, we the audience see clearly that someone is in the house and that something is happening. The tension will continue to rise until the mysterious someone decides to stop playing around and tortures the two, eventually killing them.

 Now, before we go on with the bad, I'd like to give some goods. Because there are at least some.

The good

 I do have to admit the movie is amazing at creating tension, despite cheapening it from time to time with really shoddy and predictable jumpscares (people entering other people's room without knocking and all of a sudden, or instead of acting like a normal human being and making their presence known when someone is distracted going over to them silently and touching them), and its portrayal of the relation between mother and son in such a difficult situation was quite good.

 The city they find themselves in is gorgeous, giving some really nice panoramic shots and conveying the sense of isolation and how tiny of a community it is.

 And speaking of shots, some of the composition is really well crafted - the basement composition when it's Logan's turn to turn on the heater I found to be rather interesting, as other 'creepy' shots of the killer.

 Message wise, the movie does manage to convey what it tries to convey, in terms of it's 'meaning' in the grand scheme of things, so despite the way it does it is imho abysmal, a couple brownie points for that as well.

You deserve at least this, movie. Before I go into the next section.

The bad

 My oh my. After all that praise, it might seem like this is not gonna be that negative, innit?
 Well, buckle up. Because I've got an axe to grind with this movie, and I wanna do it right on its skull.

 For starters, despite some of the shots were very well thought out, the jumpscares are abysmal. They're almost all setups you've seen a thousands times, with the usual dead silence in the shot, long sweeping camera movements, and not only that - they're all basically cop outs, due to the fact that everyone in this town is a fucking ninja.
 Yes, even the sweet, forgetful old lady.

She's going to crochet your pressure points like a sweater, and you won't even see her coming.

 There are a number of inconsistencies with the plot and the setting as well, which, while usually not enough to actually take me out of a movie experience, surely didn't help when we'll get to the next part.

 
 Off the top of my head:

1. As I said, the whole movie could have been avoided if the sister, clearly wealthy, just offered to pay rent until Naomi got back on her feet, or some other solution that didn't mean moving in the middle of nowhere.
2. It's a big fucking house. We're talking really big. It has an alarm system as well, but no cameras? Especially when such a valuable asset is left for complete strangers to peruse at their own leisure during the open house events? I'm sorry, no one can trust people that much.
3. When things get creepy as hell, ok, they can't get in an hotel due to the lack of money, but it's not like they lack any option - they can sleep in the car, or they can ask someone to crash at their place for a night - to Chris, for example. I mean, he would have appreciated not being dead thanks to that, I guess.
4. Ok, this one might be due to me being italian, but what's with you people and the absolute revulsion for light sources in the basement? Is there a reason for it? I swear, three quarters of this movie could have been avoided if someone bought a fucking lightbulb.

 As a side note, the acting is hit and miss. The main characters are all pretty believable and have a good 'strained mother/son' chemistry, for some of the supporting cast the jury is still out.
 For how I intended it, especially in the old lady's case, she's been portrayed deliberately like that to make her a suspect in the whole mystery. But that's just my reading of it, and awfully optimistic at that.

 And now, for the real winner of the WTF awards...

Where I completely lost it

 Listen. I get it. The whole sense of this movie is based on the absolutely realistic horror of a situation where people can be in your house and you don't know it. I'm aware of it, and as I said in the 'good' part of the review, the movie actually manages to convey that feeling and that message well.

 

 But for fuck sake this killer really got on my nerves. So. Goddamn. Much.

 Especially because we NEVER LEARN WHO HE IS.

 

 Yep. That's the big reveal. We never learn who he is. Hell, we never even get any hint of who he might be, I found myself going through the start of the movie all over again just to figure out if I missed something by mistake and missed some clue or some throwaway character.

 

 The setup is actually good and has tension, but when things pick up, the movie completely falls flat on its face and proceeds to skit along for the last 20 minutes in an horrifying crash.

 

The things the killer does throughout the movie are petty - moving a bowl of cereals, taking away glasses and walking creepily around the house unseen - and when he finally reveals himself the movie does EVERYTHING to keep him out of focus, to the point of the ridiculous.

 

Let's ignore the fact that after killing Chris and leaving Logan to freeze outside he enters Naomi's bed - and Naomi, getting up to pee and turning back, is completely unable to tell the visible silhouette of a corpulent, muscular grown man from his teenage son's athletic, track-runner, lithe body. There's being slightly unaware due to you not sleeping right, and then there's being completely fucking blind.

I bet even he would have been able to tell the fucking difference.

 The torture scene was absolutely gratuitous, with no reason to be drawn out for this long and not even graphic enough to garner the simpathy of those of us who love some guts and blood to spill all over the place (and let's remember this movie is rated MA).

 The rest of the climax is just ridiculousness after tragicomical ridicolousness - you know already they're both dead, because Naomi is there with her fingers completely snapped, Logan is a popsicle with a knife, and the killer finds it amusing to push Naomi in front of him, with tragic death of the mother ensuing.

 And then there's the contact lenses scene.
 Oh for fuck sake movie.

 That's the extent the movie goes to leave its killer unrevealed - when he catches up to Logan, instead of killing him outright, we see the shot of his thumbs carefully removing Logan's contact lenses to see from his view the assassin all blurry. Are you actually serious? Really? And then he lets him go forcing him to run blind through the night (with another ironic tragedy when Logan is almost saved by ninja grandma passing by, but fearing for his life stays silent to go undetected) to then get killed unceremoniously the morning after.

 AND THAT'S IT.

 That's the end of the movie. Just a scene of the killer, still faceless, driving to another Open House event, and that's it.

 Gods damnit.

Conclusion

 While the setup itself was possibly very effective and the director shows quite the imaginative eye to get some very intriguing shots, I've found myself very, very pissed with this movie.

 The message is clear, yes, but at the same time we see things happening in a way too deliberate manner for it to feel like Naomi and Logan are just random victims - the killer goes out of his way to make their life weird and miserable, giving the impression for the whole movie that whoever is doing this is doing it due to a deep and personal reason - and with the knowledge we have as spectators that the father left them with such an extensive debt, you have too many questions to just be met with a "Nah, they were just picked at random" explanation.

 And I wouldn't even been that angry if we didn't have to go through such painfully obnoxious lengths to keep the killer's face out of focus. We see it a number of times throughout the whole movie, on very strong, still shots, and it's always out of focus. Either you go completely no face, or eventually you have to cave in and give us something, movie. 

 The only thing I felt you giving me after this experience is balls so blue they would mimetize perfectly with the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

 So, with that being said, do I reccomend this movie? Yes if you feel like you want a completely senseless crime and just want the tension of it.

 But if you don't like being left hanging, give it a pass.