Squirrel Moon, 4/16/26

From over a month ago

Today is a day for being behind.

Rotavirus, congested sinuses with modestly colorful snot, yet more interrupted sleep, being on sick-baby duty: not a few of my favorite things, but certainly a list of things I’m experiencing this week. The pictures on my phone are ever-more full of baby, and less and less full of flowers. Perhaps spring will change that balance a little bit. Maybe I’ll have pictures with both baby AND flowers.

There are no extended analyses for you today. Instead, I’ve got a few random thoughts.

First, I’ve crammed in a few episodes of Harley Quinn and I’m loving the show. It’s been a good thing to watch while slightly addled. I admire the ways in which the writers are layering on additional depth as the episodes progress and I’m excited to see where (and how far) they take it.

Second, I can’t help but continue to see the parallels (and diachronic threads) between the genres of classical questing fiction, portal fantasy, middle grade adventure, isekai, and now LitRPG. They’re not all the same thing, but… they kind of are all the same thing. At the very least, they’re playing Mad Libs with each other.

Third, I’m tired. I’m going to call it here and go rest my eyes or something until nap time is over.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, after season 1

What’s my verdict after finishing season one of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters? No spoilers, I liked it. I even loved some of it. But I didn’t love all of it equally—for one, I didn’t care much about the big monsters most of the time.

My lack of interest in most of the monsters turned out just fine! That didn’t detract from the show, because Monarch is far more focused on people, and humanity, than on giant stompy monsters. And it was Monarch’s focus on people that I loved.

I think there are some interesting details in why I loved the parts I loved, and what didn’t work as well for me. Come check it out.

Continue reading

Scope, Scale, & Stakes in Genres: Detective Noir

I wrote about Scope, Scale, and Stakes recently, but I didn’t give clear examples of how they shift during the course of a story. I’ll try to give a more concrete account of that here, with a focus on one particular kind of story or genre.

Let’s try the genre of detective noir. Continue reading