“His holiness, Karter the Magistrate of Fire, Ruler of the Easterns,” the courtier yelled. Karter never remember who the fool was.

The other magistrates of air, earth, and water rose up to bow. The magistrate of study was absent. Karter narrowed his eyes but went to his seat.

“Magistrate,” Earth said.

Karter dipped his head in response. He sat down and opened up the itinerary, which opened only for his touch on pain of death unless the proper handling words were spoken. “Where are we?”

“Tarm’s defenses are faltering. We can expect to take Tarm-Ioa before we lose too many more men.”

“How many, in estimation?” Karter asked.

“A thousand, perhaps a little less if Life favors us.”

“Quite a loss,” Karter mumbled loud enough for the others to hear, but low enough to seem cowed by the number of lives sacrificed to this ongoing war. In truth, he didn’t care. He never did, not if it meant winning against the Tarmin. “But it will even the odds.”

There were assenting murmurs around the table.

A moment later, the doors opened. “The Emperor of Life and Breath, Ruler of These Known Sands,” the emperor’s personal servant called out, much to the surprise of everyone in the room.

All the magistrates, even Karter, stood up and bowed as their Lifelord came in. But Karter frowned at the stone floor. What was the emperor doing here? He never bothered with the droning on of war councils and domestic quarrels. The old warlord wanted nothing more than to fight on the front lines, for glory.

The emperor was apparently as displeased to be among the magistrates. The strong frown lines became deeper as he looked around. “Where’s Xer?”

What did the magistrate of study want with their leader? What would be important enough to summon him away from the battlefield?

“I don’t know, Lifelord,” Karter said. “Might I ask what’s going on?”

“There was an important breakthrough in his runic studies. He said he had a protoype weapon ready to show me — and us, I suppose. Don’t worry, Karter, I haven’t forgotten you.” The emperor came up and clasped arms with Karter. “I only wish this foolish Southlander wasn’t late for his own meeting.”

“Perhaps while you’re here, we can discuss what to do about the siege of Tarm-Ioa?

“Yes if we must — ”

The door opened again, but there was no courtier to announce Xer. In fact, no one else was in the room anymore, aside from the other magistrates and his emperor. The others left quickly through side doors that were now shut.

Something was wrong.

Karter’s hand gripped the pommel of his scimitar as something human-like followed behind the magistrate of study.

“Calm down, Fire, calm down.” The emperor waved his hand at Karter without looking at him. His eyes fixated on the thing in front of him, making his hunger apparent. “Is this it?” He asked Xer.

“My Lifelord, I present the Runeman.” The magistrate of study bowed and swept his hand towards the thing.

So it was a weapon. Its fingers had claws instead of nails. Two scimitars rested in sheathes built into grooves at its hip, where a sash would be. But its hips were suspended in the air, hovering between — but not touching — its torso and legs.

It had a three eyes that were blue pits. As it walked in, the pair at the back of its head gave off a faint glow. The rune of life, forbidden from use, gave off a white smoke as it perpetually burned. The heart of the beast.

There was no point in crying out against runic technology. This was war. And they were losing, albeit by a small margin. Still, something felt off.

Xer looked back at the thing with a crooked smile. “It is superior to human soldiers in every way. Unfeeling, uncompromising, and built only to kill Tarmin.”

“And who controls them?” Karter asked.

“Why, the Lifelord, of course. I will teach him the runic commands.”

“So until then, they obey the one who knows the runic language.” Karter put his hand on his scimitar’s pommel in a relaxed way, but he saw Xer understood his message. Betray the Lifelord and die.

“How many do you have?” The emperor asked. “And are they tested?”

“They are, Lifelord, and I have five hundred of them. That is all we’ll need,” he said in response to Karter’s frown. “Trust me.”

“As you say,” Karter mumbled. “As you say.”

Maybe they could win the war after all.

—

Another flash fiction piece for a Chuck Wendig prompt. If this one seems a little clipped that’s because I think I’m going to make it into a short story, maybe a novella. I liked the world and the conflict I came up with.

Anyway, the prompt was a mash-up thing. Roll a dice or use a random number generator to get one of the listed TV shows or movies. I got Terminator and Game of Thrones. Hopefully you can see the influence of both. Mash-ups are fun.

I think we can all agree we’re happy we don’t have to write and rewrite by hand like that anymore. Right? Right.

This isn’t a new subject for me. In fact, some of y’all are probably going ELISA SHUSH. JUST SHUSH. To which I say NAY. I have learned to use capslock, darnit, and to write my blogs in the same derpy way I talk. (Yes, I really do talk this way once you get me TO talk. Hah.) In some ways, I realize now how far ahead I started all of this. I’ve done everything as out of order as possible, and you know what? That’s fine. GASP. You know why?

I’m learning. I’m not just failing to get anywhere with myself. Failure is one step. FEELING like you’re failing is another rock to jump onto and off of as you cross this lovely river known as — AW SHIT THAT WATER IS COLD. Wait was that the title?

Today I let insecurity fester in me. It’d been a scab gained after a short story rejection (those things are polite projectiles, man), and I picked at it and questioned why I got the damn thing until it got infected.

A friend pointed out that the paying literary magazines have no reason to accept me. Sure, my writing could be made of digital gold, but what proof do they have of that? To people like that, self-published titles are negative, and I have two up for sale with no other credits, and no other short stories accepted by other lit magazines.

What did I expect? The gates to open wide and the editor-in-chief to go OH ELISA DOTH THOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVEST THOU WRITING?

Yeah, no.

While my mental image wasn’t that ridiculous, I was still setting my expectations way too high. Here are some things I haven’t done:

1: rewrite the first novella I put out and make it a legit novel

2: finish its damn sequel

3: start on a few of the other projects

4: tried to submit my short stories to non-paying literary magazines, which everyone agrees is the starting grounds for most writers. Why am I an exception? I’m not, and I was dumb to think I could skip that step

5: do you see how I stack this stuff against myself?

So that’s my point. I know these are things I need to do, and I submitted two stories to non-paying lit magazines upon realizing the error of my ways. But seriously, the rest of this list is going to take a while. A year or two at least, without a job or college. I have college, and will eventually have a job (yes, I’m fortunate to be in a place where that isn’t a concern. I don’t take it lightly).

Elisa you’re depressing.

I’M SORRY.

But I’ve figured it out. I need to get off my butt and get a schedule going again (you know that one spiffy schedule that worked for a grand total of a week?) so I can get back into action consistently. From there, I can’t shove all this stuff on myself.

I think writers in general need to remind themselves that writing is a slow path. It takes a long time and it isn’t rewarding monetarily. I was so worried because nothing was moving forward in that area. I was silly.

I don’t write for money, and I want a career in writing because it’s what I love doing most. I couldn’t imagine pursuing anything else, and it’s all I’ve ever wanted since I was a kid.

The rest will come, in time.

I just need to put my all into it without pressuring myself so badly that I choke from strangling myself.

How do you discipline yourself? What have you learned about handling your career choices along the way?

I have no idea why Tear’s hair is light brown. It’s dark brown in the game. BUT THAT IS A MINOR QUIP.

Let me start off this review by saying that if you don’t like JRPGs, you shouldn’t bother with this game. No seriously, nothing I say will make it interesting.

That being said, I’ve always loved JRPGs. One of my first console games was Final Fantasy X, so yeah. They’re very near and dear to me.

My friends mentioned the Tales series a while back. I watched the Tales of Symphonia anime but have yet to play the game (which, I’ve been told, is one of the better ones, next to Vesperia and Abyss). I was in need of another 3DS game and saw this at the store and finally decided to pick up one of these Tales games. So how did it go? Well, let me explain what this game is about first.

Plot

The story starts out with the frustratingly arrogant Luke fon Fabre (or, as my friend calls him, Luke fon Fabulous). Luke has lived his whole life held prisoner in his own mansion. For his own safety, as he was once kidnapped by enemy people. When Luke’s swordmaster’s sister, Tear, tries to kill him, the two of them are transported miles and miles away into enemy territory. From there, the story evolves — and I do mean it.

Seriously, the plot becomes a large save-the-world type of thing, bigger than a lot of other JRPGs I’ve played in the past, and certainly longer. It took me sixty hours to get through the main storyline without a guide (WHICH WAS DUMB OF ME. Use a guide. USE ONE). I can’t really say more than that without giving major spoilers, as it’s a snowballing plot type thing. Let’s just say the ending is amazing.

What I liked:

The characters. Guy, Natalia, Luke, Tear, Jade, and Anise are the main party members. By the end of the game I loved them all, which surprised me. Luke is a dumbass for the first quarter of the game, then things happen and he’s forced to change and evaluate his life. This is called character building and plot and amazing story, which little ol’ writerly me loves to see in video games.

I also loved the plot. It was so large and grand. It really left me guessing for a good while, though it wasn’t without its cliches (especially the ones inherent in Japanese anime and JRPGs in general). Seeing how far the world goes as a whole, religion-wise, as well as how each individual character story advances, is a genuine pleasure.

The voice acting was really nice. Some of my favorite voice actors were in this one. (Erin Fitzgerald, Yuri Lowenthal, and Johnny Yong Bosch — yes the black ranger from Power Rangers. He does VA a lot these days.)

The battle engine. It was really fun, once I got the hang of the FOF and mystic artes stuff. DO look up how to do these exactly, and which abilities do what in the FOF change sense, as well as how to trigger your mystic artes. You feel like such a badass. I hear these types of battle designs are normal in the Tales series, they’re just not always called artes. Still super fun.

All the sidequests and costumes you can unlock! No, really, it’s so worth it. Sadly, even with my friends screaming this at me, I didn’t realize how fun it could be (due to the major issue mentioned below) until a good halfway through the game, if not more, so I had missed a fair amount of quests.

What I didn’t like:

The repetitive name-calling. If I had to hear Asch or Luke or MASTER VAN one more time, I was going to punch something. This would be one of those major JRPG flaws, which I’m not sure is partially translation error or just bad scripting. Either way, it’s frustrating.

The next one is major. I got lost a LOT in this game, even though they all but thumped me over the head and said GO HERE. Remember, Luke, we have to go here. Let’s go here. AND THEN HERE. But at the beginning to about the half-ish point of the game (which translates into a good 25- 30 hours of gameplay, basically), you get lost so EASILY. This could partially be because the game is old. The 3DS version is just a port of the PS2 original after all. But still, I saw this summed up nicely in an article I read recently. While the article was on writing in video games and what it meant to be a game writer, this bit applied to Tales of the Abyss quite nicely:

“Why say ‘take the third door on the left’ when you can illuminate the correct door, or make the controller shake when you walk near it? Reading is cumbersome, it’s abstract and it’s slow, and in a medium that uses light, sound and even touch, you have to be conscious of what jobs language does well, and what it doesn’t, and video games expose those strengths and weaknesses really well.”

If you go off the roads, which you have to do a lot or do by accident at first because you don’t know any better, oh my gosh. You get lost and then some. I had the hardest time, and I swear I’m not bad with games and maps. It was really bad. ALSO THE NOT BEING ABLE TO PARK THE DAMN AIRSHIP ANYWHERE (once you did, in fact, get an airship. For the longest time you only get a ship-ship). Also you can’t fast travel until like… the 3/4 mark. What. DO.

On top of this, all the sidequests, except for a few, are totally missable. That is to say, without the help of a guide, you’d never know where to start them. There are no hints. No one stands out as special to talk to very often. By habit, a lot of JRPG’ers will just talk to everyone. But this game is LONG. Some clues would’ve been nice.

Anyway, I think Tales of the Abyss highlights a lot of what could be improved with RPGs. No need to spoonfeed me, sure, but damn. Can a girl get some pointers or clues or something? Some of y’all might argue that there already are, and that’s fine. That just means this wasn’t a big issue for you, or at least not as big of an issue. It frustrated me to no end.

Lastly, the pacing after the halfway point is just bad. You spend a lot of time running from one city to another to another just for some cutscenes. No. No, no, no. It made that 61 hours really feel like 80-100, and that is not a good feeling to impart on the player. Certain things should’ve happened differently. Or maybe that’s just the downside to having such a monumentally LARGE plot in terms of scale and factions and peoples involved. There are three major powers, each with their own continents. And you have to run around each of them SO MUCH. It was fun until it became LET’S GO TALK TO SO AND SO FOR FIVE SECONDS THEN GO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING. Oh just kidding now we really need to go talk to this other person.

Final word

This is a really GOOD JRPG with some accented flaws, but nothing that makes this a downright displeasure to play. Sure, it gets frustrating, but not I FUCKING QUIT THIS IS GETTING NOWHERE. No. The plot is always moving forward, even with the busywork feeling of jumping around and talking to people. The plot has so many feels. The fighting is great. The ending is epic and well worth the time invested into the game. The characters go through some serious conflicts and grow as people so much that you become very attached. So…

Rating: 4/5 stars

TL;DR: A solid JRPG with an epic plot and great characters, but with some frustrations typical to the game genre (confusing world maps, hard to find sidequests and costume quests, and awkward dialogue in places). Well worth the 40-60 hours for one run-through.

—-

The pale woman came for me at last. I didn’t fight back when she shackled me in ethereal wisps of magic-fire. It was cold against my knees as it forced me to kneel. She didn’t bother to unsheathe her sword.

“You’ve uncovered forbidden texts from a Divorced archive without our permission.” Her voice was as cold as her magic.

“So I have.”

The spell twisted my wrist. I winced but refused to cry out.

“Give them to me,” she said.

“I’m afraid I can’t.” I pointed to the ashes of a fire before flashing a cocky grin. “Best not to let it fall in pale hands.”

I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more, the fact that she didn’t react to my taunt or the sound of her taking her gloves off and walking to me in frozen silence. Moonlight wrapped around her hands.

The two half moons on her cheeks glowed as fiercely as the full circle on her forehead. Like all Divorced, her irises were white while her eyes were a pale yellow. Her hair was like a shadow in comparison. She was a predator. They all were.

Where her fingers lightly touched my skin, magic sigils burned into place. I screamed, twisting and writhing in pathetic attempts to break free of the pain. It was an old trick to get people to talk during interrogation.

Her kind took it one step further.

The spell burned all my memories except the ones in relation to what she wanted. It left only enough for me to understand what she took. And I would do anything to gain that past back. She knew it, too.

“You’ve enchanted the scroll’s text to your memory?” She asked after standing up again.

I nodded.

Her eyes glowed as she whispered a recording spell. “Speak it.”

So I am.

Long ago, Mathan Dro split the world in two, ever orbiting one another as punishment. Their people were eternally at war. Millions died for nothing. Under Dro, split apart by space and magic, the two worlds prospered. As atonement, they named themselves Husband and Wife.

After Dro died, the couple determined to prove their change of heart. They took Dro’s magic and split it in two, reuniting them into a whole planet again.

Except the Husband had developed an entirely different culture, being apart from the Wife for so long. The Wife, in turn, felt no love for the Husband. Bitter tension turned to bloody war. The Wife would take the Husband’s land and use it for better purposes.

A group of Husbanders snuck into a secret Dro cathedral, where their half of his magic resided. They stole the power and pushed back the Wife’s army to a single continent. Using the same method as their former leader, the Husband cast off the chunk of earth that was left of the Wife.

Over the years, they became known as the Republic of the Divorced Moon. Any of the Husband’s kin were ordered to kill the Divorced on site if they managed to find passage off what had become the world’s moon. But there was a way to end it. Dro’s powers also worked in reverse. That which created peace could also induce destruction.

My tongue rambled over the spell that would turn the magic force keeping the Divorced separated against the Husband. It would create a chain reaction within the magic in the world, destroying everything. Only the Divorced would remain untouched.

She smiled at this information. “I thank you for deciphering it for us.”

“You can’t do this,” I whispered. My energy was drained. It was hard to hold onto who I was.

She kicked me over and didn’t stop kicking. “Husbander filth.”

“Give it back.” I coughed up blood. “Please.”

Fear snaked its way into my stomach as she grinned. It was such an evil expression when worn on her lips. “I will.”

Memories of a life in the Republic washed over me. I was Koravin Jan. She was Lauria Tel. We were comrades sent to uncover the ancient texts together. And we’d finally found it. I grinned in utter delight. By the Light, we’d found a way to finally end it all.

—-

Inspired by Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction prompt of the week. We had to pick three words out of a list. The three I chose were Republic, Moon, and Divorce. Obviously this turned into the Republic of the Divorced Moon. League of Legend’s champion, Diana, and the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, “The Rains of Castamere,” inspired the tone. I regret NOTHING. The ending was actually fun for me because it just sort of happened.

Hope you like it.

Reblogged from Words & Words More:

Ahem.

Lately it’s made me feel like I’m not really connected to life. It’s made me wonder why I’m bothering with college (AKA why get an English major when I can just focus all my time on getting a part-time job and writing my books — to which I already know the answer, but it’s still conflicting).

I know we all go through these ups and downs, which is why I’m not suddenly going PACK MY THINGS I’M GOING TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS FOR WEEKS AND NEVER SEEING A LAPTOP AGAIN. I try not to think in extremes, but I tend to lean towards the exaggerative and/or emotional side of things. Maybe that’s writers in general. Or women. Or derps. Yeah.

But I’m going to pursue more opportunities to explore places outside of my imagination. We’re going on vacation soon (YESSS). The husband found a nice botanical garden about thirty minutes from where we live, so we plan on going more often. Plus parks (there’s a big one fifteen minutes from us) and bookstores — which the husband suggested without any pressure from me! I can’t be a hermit forever, as much as I want to.

Time to go do all the things.

What do you do for fun? Or to just get out of the house?

Instead I’ll tell you a story of child Elisa. We used to live in a condo, and my mom refused to let go of my dad’s old TV. When I say old I mean 1980′s old, and it was 2001. One side of the screen was a green bubble because the tubes were going out. At least that’s the explanation I remember. Anyway, Toonami was a favorite show of mine back in the day. I remember being old enough to watch Adult Swim (the title alone made me feel badass because, well, I was ten and the show was for adults).

“One More Time” from Daft Punk’s then-new album Discovery came on after some music video for a Gorillaz song. I’ve been in love with Daft Punk ever since. Interstella5555 is STILL one of my favorite movies.

Daft Punk has influenced me in a weird way. My writing reflects them and yet it doesn’t. I don’t think anyone can point at my stuff and go OH THAT IS SO DAFT PUNK. Yeah, no. (Does that really happen to people anyway?)

Daft Punk is one of my top favorite anythings. Seeing them live is on my bucket list (WHICH I MIGHT BE ABLE TO CROSS OF THE LIST THIS YEAR FINALLY). They’re funky and relaxed, which is so nice for my anxious little hamster of a brain. Best thing about them? They create a mental image in my mind 9 times out of 10. Their music tells a story to my freaking soul, man. My soul. *intense

Okay, Elisa, this is nice and all but what does this have to do with Random Access Memories? Why not just name this Favorite DJs: Daft Punk?

Because Random Access Memories seems to be the strangest and best album by Daft Punk yet. It’s not as beloved as Discovery (nothing ever will be), but there’s a, uh, almost rich quality to each of these songs.

Also none of the damn things have the same genre. There’s always a funky quality to them, but other than that, they each do different things. I can’t even explain it very well. Daft Punk mentioned they wanted to bring back the sounds of the 60′s and 70′s. I was born in the 90′s, so I have to admit I have no clue what the sounds of those decades would remotely look/feel like. But I imagine this album does a good job in some places, especially really funky tracks like “Give Life Back to Music.” As always, there’s that same Daft Punk vibe, which is funkadelic in and of itself. Anyone who listens to these guys regularly knows what I mean.

Favorite songs

In no particular order:

“Touch (feat. Paul Williams)”

“Instant Crush (feat. Julian Casablancas)”

“Contact”

“Doin’ It Right (feat. Panda Bear)”

The whole damn album, basically.

Do you like this album? Why or why not?

This was the case of the decade.

Roya grinned mysteriously for effect. With any luck it put off her would-be sentencer. Enhanced memory and cognition systems or not, he was still vulnerable to uncertainty and fear.

“Roya Mender, you stand accused of psychic abuse in the murder of the revered Nathan Van. Do you call for any defense, robot, congitive, or otherwise?” the judge intoned with apparent disgust.

“No.” But she didn’t stop smiling.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“No.”

The judge blinked. “Given the substantial evidence against you, and in light of your lack of testimony, I’m obligated to decide your guilt in this case.”

“Oh, I’m guilty. Van deserved to die. All of you do, for the sins you’ve committed against us.”

“I take it by ‘us’ you mean those with psychic powers.” It wasn’t a question. The judge merely went on to give a good show at this point.

“How are we freaks when you genetically deform yourselves to become perfect?” She said this directly to a media bot, glaring into its lens.

“This is irrelevant. You committed murder.”

“Did you ever stop to ask how?”

“You disappeared in front of the policebot only to reappear two blocks down. Teleportation was the automatic verdict.”

“And yet here I am.” She held up her shackled hands. “The shield around this place wouldn’t keep a teleport in or out even on a good day. I’m only here because I wanted the world to know that we aren’t the freaks. We’re the ones that let nature take its course while you altered it to suit you best. I didn’t want powers. They happened.”

“Are you done?” The judge crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“No.”

A female guard walked in, hat obscuring her face. She walked up to the judge with a piece of paper. Instead of handing it to him, she stabbed him in the neck. The media bots swirled around her. Roya’s two guards blasted at her with their railguns. They hit. There wasn’t a way to avoid botfire. Too accurate.

The body was Roya’s. The deadly silence of the room was accented by the photo bots’ shutters clicking constantly. The guard didn’t bleed. The body disappeared into nothingness.

Roya laughed. “You want freak? You got it. But you’re too dumb even with your cognitives to realize that this is a distraction.”

By now a force of psychics with greater powers than Roya’s would’ve taken over their compound of a city. This moon belonged to the psychics, and no one could say otherwise.

She waved to the bots and disappeared from the room, only to reappear where her copy stood inside her home. A man stood in her doorway. He was a precog, one of the most accurate Roya had ever seen. He told her exactly what to do and what to say at that hearing. It worked. She lived. No one would look for her now, with the psychics storming the capital building. The imager on her table showed men and women burning, freezing, and throwing around city defenders — human and bot alike — as if they were nothing but dolls.

“How long will we be in power?” She asked without looking at him.

“Two thousand years and thirteen days.” He walked up to her and handed her a disc. “We gave you a little extra for the dramatic flair.”

“I do what I can. Will there be any bad riots or wars?”

“Not under our regime, no. But they’re inevitable.”

“True.” She didn’t want to know any details, and decided to keep it brief. “I guess that’s it, then. Been a pleasure doing business with my own for once.” As the man turned to walk away, Roya asked, “Why me? Out of all the resources and powers available to you, why me?”

“You’re the only one with bilocation.”

She contemplated that with a small smile as her door shut behind him.

—

This is for Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge. The prompt? “Must contain psychic power.” There was a list of abilities and bilocation was the one that stood out most. The rest sort of evolved from there. Sorry if it feels rushed or squeezed. I’m still working on my pacing for shorter works.

ANYWAY. Y’all didn’t want to read a Lost rant! No, no, you came to hear me rave about Star Trek: Into Darkness, right? Because that’s all you’ll get out of me about it.

I loved this movie for what it is: a science fiction action adventure LET’S GET INTO TROUBLE DAMMIT JIM I’M A DOCTOR FASCINATING time. Yes. That is an actual genre, specified only for Star Trek movies. Ahem. If you haven’t noticed by now, I am A-okay with movies that entertain only. I like depth, don’t get me wrong (and I love deeper science fiction movies), but I will watch and become a rabid fangirl of stuff like this, too.

Plot

Commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) starts some shit and Kirk (Chris Pine) goes on a rage-induced manhunt because of it. From there, all sorts of things happen in typical Trek fashion — as in it’s one series of events after another after another and fight scenes and and oh what wait.

They end up on Kronos (YAY KLINGONS) during said manhunt, then they end up in space, and then and then. No really, this plot is very straightforward and I don’t want to give spoilers.

HONESTLY THOUGH these spoilers are practically not spoilers. Cumberbatch’s character is supposed to be a Starfleet secret or some such, whose real identity is carefully hidden by the higher ups and JJ Abrams alike. If you have even the TINIEST knowledge of Trek lore or past movies, you will know exactly who he is the minute certain things are mentioned (WHICH I WON’T MENTION BECAUSE SPOILERS). Or if you happened to casually look up the movie on IMDb. DON’T YOU DARE DO IT.

There’s a lot of caps lock going on in this post.

Things I Liked

Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk have some fun dialogue and derps. If you liked their interactions in the first movie you will definitely like it here.

All the characters are as lovable as ever. From Scotty (the hilarious Simon Pegg) to Chekov (Anton Yelchin) to Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana), everyone is on par with their older counterparts. I know, I know them’s fightin’ words, but IT’S TRUE FOR ME. I love new Star Trek characters, but I understand why it must be weird (or downright wrong) to see these beloved people remade. I was more of a Picard fangirl. If/when they get to his era of things I’m going to have a hard time imagining anyone NOT Patrick Stewart filling those shoes. So I get it. But still, if Not-Patrick-Stewart did a great job and the movie was good, I’d still like it. That’s how I am.

Holy crap that was a long disclaimer-esque paragraph.

The graphics are awesome.

Not once did the pacing lag or bore me. I was completely engrossed for the majority of the movie.

The snarky dialogue and character interactions even in dire moments made me laugh a lot. The whole movie theater did, really. In that sense Into Darkness is a lot like Iron Man 3, just not QUITE so much. (That’s a different review though.)

Uhura and Spock are a strange couple to me, but I like it. It shows that this Spock is more human than alien, and it’s a nice change of pace. Quinto’s Spock isn’t trying to be Nemoy’s Spock, and I’m beyond grateful for that. Why? Because I love the fuck out of both of them, but if new Spock was just a copy of old Spock he wouldn’t be half as interesting.

EDIT: I FORGOT TO MENTION SOMETHING. I really liked that this movie revolved around the peacekeeping vs militarization of Starfleet. It really pushed this WE NEED TO KILL but is that really right? IT’S NECESSARY SOMETIMES but is this right? This isn’t what we do, is it? Should it be? I really liked that question, and it was something I felt was a nice addition to the movie. (It’s not totally explored. I admit I explored it a lot on my own time though. I’m cool that way.)

Um um um I really can’t think of anything bad — oh wait.

Things I Didn’t Like

ALICE EVE’S CHARACTER. I get who Carol Marcus is, but seriously? That girl was there to take her clothes off and get rescued. She was beyond pointless and useless and annoying. But I have a thing for strong women. Even Uhura is slightly on the weaker end (SLIGHTLY. She was pretty badass in this movie though, and definitely more independent than Marcus’s and other stereotypical female side characters).

Rating: 4/5 stars

Tl;dr: If you don’t think about the plot too much (because this is action adventure scifi with ridiculous tech) it’s a very very very fun movie. DON’T go see it if you have a super hardcore attachment to old Star Trek stuff. DO go see it if you like fun scifi movies with great action and characters.

Also: the dragon in the background picture just might be a sneak peak at a future book cover.

Also, also: I am going to publish my romance novels under my actual name (yes, Elisa Nuckle is actually me. I admit the husband has a memorable last name). Something I realized about my romances is that I don’t like letting the lovers get their happily ever after without some serious turmoil. Also the stories tend to take place in fantasy and science fiction settings. The ones that are contemporary always have a magical realism aspect to them. I think this is solid enough for a romance brand under my name. Romance readers can expect these things.

Fantasy readers can expect some typical creatures in a world where the conventions tend to be reversed or changed. And I like dying worlds and dystopian futures when it comes to scifi. It’s nice to know my general parameters for that kind of stuff, but I don’t expect everything I write to fit that description 100%. That would be boring.

Anyway, new layout, yes. Hope you like it.