Icing on the Cake: Female Leads of Final Fantasy

Months ago, I locked my keys out of my car. Fortunately, I was very close to a friend’s house, and called them immediately. Having a warm place to wait for the AAA locksmith turned into me staying for dinner and cocktails, and that turned into me coming back the next week at the same time for another Tuesday dinner. I kept going back for more Tuesday dinners.

Then, last month, my birthday (March 27th) fell on a Tuesday, and my friend (who is also a chef) went wild.

That was my birthday cake. A five layer lemon cake with raspberry filling between each layer. I believe the icing is cream cheese frosting. But, despite my pleas to my friend for them to give me the recipe (to share with you of course, not for my own selfish gain! Not at all!), I was told I may have the cake whenever I wish, but I may not have the recipe.

So here are my half hearted attempts to find something similar on the internet, since I can’t give you the real recipe. If you feel like making everything from scratch, this one is for you. If you’re more interested in a less skill-intensive version, here’s one that involves a cake mix but should still turn out delectable. And here’s a guide on making cream cheese frosting.

Now, speaking of wonderful things I’d like to have all of the time but are really only available to me when the people in charge of it feel inclined to give them to me, let’s talk about the female leads of the Final Fantasy franchise.

I’ll be focusing on Terra from Final Fantasy VI, Yuna from Final Fantasy X and X-2, and Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII and Lightning Returns.

One of the most interesting things to me about Final Fantasy titles that feature women as main characters, is that they often share that role with other people throughout the game. When Final Fantasy XIII was being marketed, it wasn’t only Lightning that was on posters and promotional material. Snow appeared alongside her consistently. Lightning also isn’t the character the player is forced to play as. The story jumps around—much like Final Fantasy VI does—allowing the player to control every party member individually at different times. The only two Final Fantasy titles where the player isn’t allowed to switch away from the main female character are Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns, neither of which are main title Final Fantasy games.

When I used to complain (before the release of Final Fantasy XIII) that there was no main title Final Fantasy where a woman was the main character, all of my friends (who were male gamers) told me to play Final Fantasy VI. At the time, I was resistant. I had seen gameplay footage from Final Fantasy VI, and the footage I had seen featured Sabin’s battle with the Phantom Train (which has an all male party), and Locke’s separate rescues of both Terra and Celes. Knowing nothing else, I had written the story off as one like Final Fantasy X—where a woman was the most important character in the game, but it was not she who was the player character.

How wrong I was. While it is true that the player can choose not to play as Terra for a good part of the game, she’s also the most valuable character in the game—both as a party member, and within the story’s narrative. By end game, my Terra could dual cast and did maximum damage with every one of her attacks. No one could stand up to her. And, in the final battle, it is she that speaks to Kefka:

Everyone else is there to back Terra up when she tells Kefka they have something to protect:

To the point of making Kefka visibly ill:

It was Yuna in Final Fantasy X that held the role of a female main character who was not the player character. It’s Yuna’s summoner abilities in the game that drive the narrative forward—and without her, Tidus (the character the player actually controls) would have no purpose. In a way, Final Fantasy X takes the trope of female narratives that center only around a man, and flips it on its head.

In X-2, however, we end up with an interesting subversion of that trope. Yuna, free of her duties as a summoner, becomes a sphere hunter. Her motivations for doing so? She found a sphere that held footage of a man that looked like Tidus—meaning he might still be alive after the events of Final Fantasy X. Her motivations for becoming a sphere hunter revolve around her lover from the previous game, yes, but Final Fantasy X-2 is one of the Final Fantasys out there to have multiple endings. While the player can choose to reunite Yuna and Tidus at the end of the game, the player can also choose not to.

If the player selects “It’s better this way,” the context of Yuna’s game suddenly becomes about her dealing with her grief over losing Tidus as opposed to letting her life be defined by him. Due to that, it’s arguable that Yuna’s choice to become a sphere hunter was never wholly about Tidus to begin with, but rather finding something new to do with her life now that she’s done being a summoner—and that small detail adds so much more agency to Yuna in the story. As she says in the good ending without Tidus, this is her story, and it’ll be a good one.

It is perhaps Lightning’s main characterness that is most like that of other traditional Final Fantasy protagonists: she just happens to get mixed up in events in the right way at the right time. If her sister had never become a L’Cie, she never would have taken the first step towards bringing down a Fal’Cie in Final Fantasy XIII. Then, in Final Fantasy XIII-2, she just happens to disappear from time and space—leading her sister, Serah (the only person who remembers her) to lead her own personal X-2ish quest in pursuit of her sister. Lightning Returns is yet another example of this—where a god of the crumbling world just happens to choose Lightning as his messenger.

While Terra is the halfling child of an esper and a human who is one of the only people left in the world able to control magic, and Yuna is the orphaned child of the previous High Summoner who is expected to do great things as a summoner herself, Lighting is just a girl in the military that loves her sister.

Lightning fighting for Serah at the beginning of Final Fantasy XIII

Serah and Lightning reunited after the events of XIII-2

Serah as Lightning’s strength in Lightning Returns

Lightning’s portrayal was a breath of fresh air—because she didn’t have to be anything special to be a female main character.

May we have many more great female characters and many more amazing lemon and raspberry cakes in our futures!

Jalapeños: Same Pepper, Different Challenges

For those of you who have never eaten with me in person, I like spicy food. One of the things I like about spice is all the different places it can come from. This month, we’re going to be talking about one of my favorite versatile spicy foods, the jalapeño.

As a spice fiend, jalapeños don’t really feel all that spicy to me anymore. Sure, I still get a kick out of them, but when I think of jalapeños, I often think of their citrus overtones and their appetizing crunch.

To illustrate my point, let’s talk about jalapeños in pho! Pho is one of my favorite winter time foods because it combines hot soup with all the vegetables I start craving as winter goes on. But pho without jalapeños lacks the same citrus taste as pho with just lime in it. While lime can give the soup a light citrus taste, it’s the jalapeños the dish depends on to highlight that bright, flavorful note in the soup. Pho doesn’t have to be spicy, and jalapeños that have steeped in the gelatin rich beef broth of the soup are often more mild than outright spicy.

If you’d like to try jalapeños in pho, here’s a good recipe for you.

But I do love the spice of jalapeños. So much so, that I’ll even eat them just roasted from the taco truck in Boring. If you want to create your own roasted jalapeños, just hold it over an open flame until the skin blackens. Then seal it in a plastic bag or a tupperware to let it steam for a minute or so, and remove the skin to enjoy the sweetened and spicy flesh of the pepper. This is a great way to soften up a jalapeño to include in any recipe of your choosing, but also a great way to prepare them if you want to appreciate jalapeños on their own.

Another option is stuffing the pepper with cheese and then deep frying it to create a jalapeño popper. I prefer my poppers a little less deep fried and a little more roasted, but the beautiful part of this method is that you can cut the heat of the jalapeño by using thick cheeses like cream cheese to stuff your poppers. Some of my favorite jalapeño poppers come from a sushi place in Portland called Miyamoto. They call them jalapeño ninjas. But if you want to try making your own at home, here’s a handy recipe for you.

Jalapeños aren’t the only versatile thing I’ve been enjoying lately. Two weeks ago, I finally played the first game from Danish Indie studio, Ultra Ultra.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, here’s the premise:

ECHO’s mechanic is that the Echos will always learn from you. What’s interesting about this is how many times the game forces the player to use that in different ways.

The player has a number of abilities available to them—but depending on the level and the objective, some will be more valuable than others. For example, I never lethally shot an Echo in the light while the Palace was watching. I also avoided crossing water and sprinting when the Palace was watching. However, in some stages, I wasn’t allowed to keep these abilities from the Echos—forcing me as a player to adapt and play the game differently.

But that’s not all.

It turns out the game trailer is lying to you: the Echos don’t want to kill you. They want to acquire the cube on your back. That’s right, the red cube on En’s back is what they’re after—and they’re willing to kill to acquire it.

At a certain point in the game, the player loses the cube. What that means is the player is now working with a Palace full of Echos who learn from them—but that don’t want to kill them.

In that instant, the mechanic that was already so engaging is turned on its head. Suddenly, stealth is no longer an option. Thinning the Echos’ numbers isn’t beneficial. Teaching them to do things for you is easier, and more beneficial. The mechanic is the same, but the goal changes from strategizing to survive the Echos to making them work for you as you encounter them.

Once the player reclaims the cube, however, the Palace has another surprise in store.

Hyper Echos are the “perfect” version of En. They don’t require her to do something in order to be able to do it. They also attack the less advanced Echos in the palace and kill them as if they were En herself.

The mechanic of the Echos learning from En remains the same, but the goal changes once again. Instead of strategizing to create weak enemies or to use the Echos to complete puzzles and help En advance through the Palace, the goal becomes to balance the talents En gifts to the Echos so that she can survive encounters with them, while making them more difficult targets for the Hyper Echos to capture and kill.

Making Echos that are good distractions for the Hyper Echos is exceptionally beneficial to En, because while she may survive an encounter with an Echo that can do everything she can, En will never survive an encounter with a Hyper Echo unless she manages to kill it before it kills her—and, let me tell you, managing that is HARD.

Not only are Hyper Echos twice as tall and twice as fast as En, they kill her in one hit once they catch her. There’s no way to push them over or sneak up on them like with the other Echos either. A Hyper Echo dies after two shots from En’s gun—but killing them like that draws the attention of all the other Echos in the area.

You see now why having Echos that can distract Hyper Echos is so beneficial.

All in all, I was blown out of the water by how many different ways Ultra Ultra managed to challenge me with one simple mechanic. The game was more challenging and more rewarding than any other game I’ve played since Undertale.

If you still need convincing that this is the very next game that should be on your list, don’t take my word for it. Take the word of everyone who’s reviewed it so far:

Once you’re done playing and as in love with this game as I am, go support Ultra Ultra by liking their Facebook page, and Twitter.

(I’m shamelessly plugging them because I want them to make a sequel. Help me out, y’all!)

And maybe enjoy some tasty jalapeños when you need a break from playing. Enjoy!

Burritos: Everything Working in Unison

Aaaaand we’re back after our long break for NaNoWriMo and the holidays!

Today, I’m going to give you my recipe for quick, delicious vegetarian burritos.

Ingredients:
Black beans and rice (two boxes, or four cups)
1 avocado
1 small onion
1 carton cherry tomatoes
1 bag Mexican blend cheese
1 carton sour cream
1 jar of the hot sauce of your choice
1 bag of large flour tortillas

First, put your rice and beans in a pot, then add water. You’ll want to add enough water so that the rice and beans are submerged underneath the water, but not so much that the rice and beans won’t be able to absorb it all. If you have four cups of rice and beans, six cups of water is a good measurement. Put the pot on the stove and cover on medium/high heat. Should the cover begin to jiggle at all during your other preparations, turn the heat down. Check on it every 15 minutes until the water is mostly absorbed by the rice and beans. Then turn off the heat and leave covered until finished preparing the other ingredients.

While the rice and beans are cooking, all you need to do is cut up the avocado, onion, and tomatoes into pieces sized to your liking. I like to split my avocado in half, then slice it and then cut it in half again—but I like BIG pieces of avocado. I dice my onions. I split cherry tomatoes in half.

Once all of the ingredients are ready, lay out one tortilla on a plate. Begin with a base of rice and beans, then add avocado, onion, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, and hot sauce to taste.

Lately, I’ve been using a hot sauce that I picked up at my local Japanese market. It’s a spicy blend of red chilis that’s a little less fluid than sriracha and reminds me a lot of the red salsa you get at taco trucks sometimes.

Once you’ve stuffed everything onto your tortilla, it’s time to close it. This can be the hardest part, so I’m going to share my tips with you. The top and bottom of the tortilla are perpendicular to the lines you’ve drawn with your hot sauce and sour cream. This will ensure that those condiments run throughout your burrito, rather than accumulating in one circular bite within it. Take the top and bottom of the tortilla, and fold them over the contents of your burrito by half an inch to an inch. Then, while holding the top and bottom of the tortilla over the filling, begin to roll one side of your tortilla. You’ll want to take the side you’re rolling all the way across the burrito, and make sure that it closes OVER the fillings that are trying to escape. Finish rolling, and the burrito will sit beautifully on your plate with each end tucked in!

If you’re worried about ingredients being cold, chuck it in the microwave for 45 seconds to a minute. And presto!

What I like about these burritos is that they’re delicious, filling, and good for you (assuming you use all the veggies).

You could even say they’re well rounded—much like the series of games I want to talk to you about today: the Ace Attorney series.

Some of you may know this series, since it’s actually kind of old! Defense lawyer Phoenix Wright is the main character. In a corrupt and legally questionable court system, he has the burden of proof placed upon him to prove his clients innocent of the crimes they’re accused of. This would be a lot easier if his rival, prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, wasn’t so focused on getting them proved guilty!

The series is one of puzzle games, where the player must both investigate crime scenes to find evidence, and then use that evidence in court to defend their client. While in real life a lawyer needs to know how they’ll present their case before going into court, Phoenix almost never knows how the clues he’s found fit together until he’s in the courtroom. A large mechanic of the game is breaking down witness testimony and using the evidence you have on hand to either discredit them or cast suspicion on them.

As you can imagine, the “seat of your pants” energy of the game leads to more than a few humorous moments.

As do the naming conventions of the game.

While we all remember the painfully unnecessary adaptation changes made to early ‘90s anime, the Ace Attorney series manages to change every single name in the game, and yet remain true to the heart of the series.

You see, in Japanese, each character in the Ace Attorney series has a name that also acts as a pun. Phoenix himself is named Ryuuichi Naruhodo. His last name “Naruhodo” means a few different things in Japanese depending on the context, but is mostly used as an expression to mean, “I see,” “that’s right!,” and “indeed.” His first name “Ryuuichi” also uses a kanji that references a mythical creature—the dragon. Calling him Dragon Wright in English wouldn’t have made much sense, so the substitution was made for a different mythical creature—one who often comes back from death’s door again and again the way our dear main character does when he doesn’t know what to do in court: a phoenix. And so, Phoenix Wright became the name of Ryuuichi Naruhodo in English.

A similar process was applied to all the other characters, allowing them to keep the spirit of the jokes of each of their names, while making them accessible to English players.

I’ve seen a lot of bad adaptations in my years, but this is one that I feel was able to do more good than harm with its changes. The change even helped to preserve an element of the game that English players wouldn’t have caught otherwise!

It’s like a burrito. All parts preserved as singular, but rolled up together to make a wonderful harmony of flavor.

Until next month!

A Galaxy of Squash: Zucchini Bread Muffins and Pie from a Pumpkin!

My garden did two things really well this year: zucchini and a miracle pumpkin that came from the seeds of a store bought pumpkin I made soup out of last year. But what do you do when you have more squash than you know what to do with?

You make zucchini bread muffins and real pumpkin pie straight from a roasted pumpkin, that’s what!

Zucchini Bread Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

½ cup canola or vegetable oil

¼ cup milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup shredded zucchini

¼ cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

¼ cup chopped walnuts

First, preheat your oven to 350°F so it’ll be ready to bake your muffins. Then combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. In a separate, larger bowl, beat the egg, oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla together. Then stir in the dry ingredients until the entire mixture is moistened. After that, it’s time to fold in the zucchini, chocolate chips, and walnuts. At this point, you’ll want to either grease a muffin tin or throw some muffin cups into your muffin tin. Then fill each muffin mold two-thirds of the way full. DON’T completely fill them or your muffins will be difficult to get out of the tin, and will be monstrously big. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

These muffins freeze pretty well too, if you want to make a large batch and then save some for the winter. This recipe will give you about a dozen muffins, so plan accordingly. I made tons this summer to keep up with the way my zucchini plant was producing.

Pumpkin Pie Crust Ingredients:

1 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter

3 ½ tablespoons cold water

Pumpkin Pie Filling Ingredients:

2 cups mashed, cooked pumpkin

1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk

2 eggs, beaten

¾ cup packed brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

First off, if you don’t want to make pie crust or roast your own pumpkin, store bought is fine. If you are roasting your own pumpkin, make sure to cut it in half, take out the seeds, scrape the sides with a spoon, and roast it at 400 degrees for 20-40 minutes. Placing the cut sides down on a cookie sheet is an effective way to do this. Once you can spear the pumpkin flesh easily with a fork, it’s done. Remove from the oven, and mash. If you end up with more than 2 cups of pumpkin, double your recipe and make two pies!

To make the crust, mix together the flour and salt. Cut your butter into the flour, and then add cold water one tablespoon at a time. You may need only 3 tablespoons, or up to 4 tablespoons, so pay attention to the consistency of your dough when mixing. Mix the dough after each tablespoon of water and repeat until dough is moist enough to hold together. With lightly floured hands, shape the dough into a ball. On a lightly floured cutting board, roll the dough out to about ⅛ inch thickness. With a sharp knife, cut the dough 1 ½ inch larger than the upside-down 8- to 9-inch pie pan. Gently roll the dough around the rolling pin and transfer it right-side up onto the pie pan. From there, unroll it and ease the dough into the bottom of the pie pan.

Once your pumpkin is done roasting, take it out of the oven and let it cool. Then peel off the skin and mash it! If you want a smoother consistency, you can also puree your pumpkin. I just really like getting my hands dirty mashing the pumpkin, and feel the mashed pumpkin consistency of the pie holds together better, but both methods will taste delicious! After you’ve prepared your pumpkin and put it in a large bowl, add your evaporated milk, eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt to the bowl and mix. You can do this with a spoon or with an electric mixer or immersion blender. Regardless of your method, be sure to mix the pie filling well. Then pour the filling into your prepared crust and bake for forty minutes or until when a knife is inserted one inch from the edge comes out clean.

Now that we’ve squashed all that squash away into those baked goods, we’re going to talk about a game that was squashed into the shadow of its predecessors—Mass Effect: Andromeda!

Let’s take a moment also to appreciate how well BioWare did on making the cover for Andromeda a whole lot less gendered than their previous covers. It still bothers me that I have to look at male Shepard’s ugly mug every time I pull up a track from one of the Mass Effect trilogy soundtracks. Star reflecting helmet and practical genderless spacesuit/armor, however, I’m all about.

When Andromeda was first released I lovingly referred to it as Andurrmadurr because it was so buggy that it was nearly unplayable. I put it down for a few months and came back after a hefty amount of patching had been done, and loved every minute of it.

What’s unfortunate about Andromeda is that since it follows the monumental Mass Effect trilogy, it had a lot to live up to—and has been catching a lot of hate from disappointed fans of the previous trilogy and fans who wanted a less buggy game in the beginning. My hope today is to convince you that Andromeda deserves a second chance—because it’s chock full of really important, interesting things for the intersectional and feminist gamer.

If you’ve never heard of Mass Effect before, google it or get the run-down on it from my previous blog post that went up earlier this year.

Now that you understand that Mass Effect is a sci-fi title set in space where multiple alien species coexist and collaborate, imagine they decided to take a little jaunt over to the next galaxy. A one-way trip that takes 600 years in a cryo-stasis pod with the hope of establishing a new home. When Ryder wakes up in Andromeda, it’s to the reality that the previous intel on livable planets in the Andromeda galaxy has become a little outdated. One mission later, she’s replacing her father as the human Pathfinder and tasked with finding a way to make a home for herself, humanity, and all the other people who came to Andromeda with the dream of a new life.

We’ll be using female pronouns for the player character in this blog post, as Sara Ryder is the twin I’ve picked both times I’ve played through Andromeda, and she’s the one I know best. Her twin Scott Ryder will also be mentioned, as whichever twin the player doesn’t pick also plays a role in the story. The reason? Andromeda is a family story. While Shepard’s story in the Mass Effect trilogy was more of an epic, Ryder’s story is one of discovery and new life.

The theme of family doesn’t stop with Ryder, however. Many of Ryder’s team mates are also very attached to their families. Drack, the old krogan warrior, is a grandfather. His granddaughter Kesh serves on the Nexus as Superintendent. Vetra, your turian artillery and trade specialist, is a big sister. Peebee is an asari misfit who finds a place on the team. Drack’s granddaughter Kesh, Vetra’s sister Sid, and Peebee’s ex-lover that left her with attachment issues all feature heavily in these team members’ loyalty missions—which really brings out the theme of family and how familial connections define us. In tone, this gives Andromeda a focus on nurture and creation that Mass Effect has never had before.

Drack

Vetra

Peebee

These themes and ideas are furthered by the profile of the new alien species the player encounters in Andromeda—the angara. The angara are a hugely emotional species—but in a very different way than has been previously portrayed. Often, emotion is seen as the opposite of logic and is therefore discounted as worthless. It’s also been coded as “female” in our own culture for a very long time, which has a whole other set of associations that I won’t bother to get into, but you get the idea. It’s a big deal to see emotion highlighted as an intelligent and valuable thing. Plus, the angaran team member to join Ryder—named Jaal, for those of you wondering—is male. This means that we have a male character exhibiting high levels of emotion in healthy ways within the game, which is another great stride for the Mass Effect franchise.

On top of that, we finally have female krogan, salarians, and turians popping up as normal NPCs everywhere in the game—giving the galaxy a more realistic population than the earlier games. Female angara are common as well. As are women in power, from the sleazy human crime lord Sloane Kelly to the powerful and rigid krogan leader Nakmor Morda to the asari and salarian pathfinders. Conversations about diverse family groups, correct pronouns, and same-sex relationships aren’t uncommon either. Andromeda is also the first videogame EVER to feature a sex scene with cunnilingus in it! If that’s not a feminist victory in itself, I don’t know what is—and that scene is part of Jaal’s romance, since I know some of you are wondering. ;)

Although Mass Effect: Andromeda had a rough start—read all about the drama that went down at BioWare here—the game has been patched, and the story and characters were handled with so much love and compassion that you won’t regret squashing Andromeda into your media queue. Especially if you have a side of zucchini bread muffins or pumpkin pie to refuel on between skirmishes.

Peanut Butter AND Chocolate Brownies: September Means Both

It's Bi Visibility Month!

Those of you who follow me in other places on the internet know I'm bisexual, so you get why I'm excited. It’s all too often that those of us who are bisexual are erased by the gender of our partners—or our lack of one. People assume being bi means that you’re constantly craving the company of two sets of genitals, instead of understanding that it means that we can find our perfect partner amongst people of more than one gender.

The bi pride flag is made of three colors. Blue, pink, and purple. The purple rests solidly in the middle as a visual metaphor for what it’s like to be bi. No matter the gender of the person I may one day choose to spend the rest of my life with, that will never change my sexuality. It’s like being a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Not chocolate, not peanut butter, but BOTH.

So let’s talk about how to make some mouthwatering peanut butter brownies!

Ingredients:
Brownie Batter -
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
⅓ cup unsalted butter (plus a little greasing the pan)
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp coarse sea salt
⅔ cup all-purpose flour
(Store bought is also fine if this sounds like too much work)

Peanut Butter Batter -
¾ cups peanut butter
⅔ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
¼ tsp vanilla extract
A few pinches of salt

Before you begin, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. You’ll want to dig out an 8’’ square baking pan as well, and line it with parchment paper and then coat that with nonstick cooking spray or butter.

Once you’re done with that, we can start in on the respective batters. To make the brownie batter, melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a gently simmering pot of water. Turn off the heat when they’re mostly melted, and stir them together until they’re fully melted and smooth. If you don’t have a heatproof bowl, you can melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave using thirty second bursts. Be careful not to microwave for too long, though, because you could burn your chocolate or cause it to separate.

Next, whisk in your sugar. Then your eggs (one at a time). Then your vanilla and salt. After your whisking is done, stir in your flour with a spoon or spatula.

The peanut butter batter is much simpler than the brownie. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk/stir until completely combined. I find whisking works best when using smooth peanut butter, but can be tricky when using crunchy.

Once both batters are ready, spread a thin layer of brownie batter across the bottom of the pan. Then toss alternating spoonfuls down in rows to fill the pan. Use a butter knife to swirl the batters together in pretty wavy fashion. This works best for me if I think of drawing figure eights or infinity signs. Now the brownies are ready to go in the oven! Bake for thirty to thirty five minutes, and check with a toothpick to make sure the brownies are cooked all the way through.

There’s a very special book I want to talk about this month. I only just got my hands on a copy a few weeks ago at Rose City Comic Con in Portland, and the artist (Irene Koh) was sweet enough to even autograph it for me.

That’s right, you guessed it. The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1!

“But what’s so exciting about this book?”, those of you who didn’t guess what I was talking about might ask. What’s exciting about this book is that it’s a fantasy story about a young woman named Korra, who is tasked with keeping her world in balance. She is the Avatar, capable of manipulating all four elements and communing with spirits. And she just happens to be in a relationship with Asami Sato—another woman, who also previously dated Korra’s ex-boyfriend.

That’s right. You heard me. There’s an A-list title out there that features two bisexually behaving women in a relationship with each other THAT ISN’T FOCUSED SOLELY ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP.

That doesn’t mean the relationship between them isn’t a large part of the story, though. And what’s even more exciting about it is how realistically Korra and Asami’s love story is handled. While the previous iteration of The Legend of Korra that ran as a cartoon on Nickelodeon refused to even acknowledge the same-sex relationship Korra and Asami canonically started during the events of the cartoon, the Turf Wars Part 1 gives Korra and Asami room to talk about what it was like when they were still questioning their feelings for each other.

These two pages made me cry because they were so spot on about what it’s like when you first discover you might have feelings for someone of the same sex as you. You’re scared they might push you away, you’re not sure what you’re feeling is real—and yet ultimately you come to the conclusion that you want to take the leap.

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 doesn’t fall prey to the trope of letting Korra and Asami exist as the only queer characters in a non-queer vacuum, either. Almost as soon as Korra and Asami return to Republic City from their vacation, one of the previous Avatar’s children Kya notices their relationship—in part because she’s in a same-sex relationship herself.

The book then goes even further to retcon how same-sex relations were handled by the different cultures in the entire Avatar franchises continuity.

Normalizing same-sex relationships, giving them a place in the historical narrative even when they weren’t accepted… These are new, exciting things for an A-list title to do. Korra and Asami meet with different reactions as they navigate their new relationship. Korra’s parents are worried she and Asami will be mistreated if they don’t keep it private. Due to their reaction, Korra and Asami are nervous about telling their friends, and their mutual ex/friend, Mako. The truth comes out after a battle when Korra rushed to the side of a possibly wounded Asami.

Everyone reacts well, except for Mako. But Mako doesn’t react poorly! What’s exciting about Mako’s reaction is that it hints at further discussion about how friends can support their friends who come out. Sometimes people feel that someone else’s sexual preference reflects on them. In particular, sometimes men who have ex-girlfriends that come out as bisexual or gay will feel emasculated and respond poorly, taking their misplaced hurt out on others. Mako isn’t the sort of character to take those feelings out on Korra and Asami—but he is the sort of character that might be confused about his feelings after hearing that two of his exes got together. Should something come of that and a conversation is had between Mako, Korra, and Asami, it will serve as a positive example for how other people in Mako’s position can respond.

All in all, The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 is exactly the sort of representation I’ve been craving all these years. It couldn’t have come at a better time—and we finally got that kiss Nickelodeon refused to give us at the end of Season 4.

Yakiniku: My Beef with Dating Sims

Yakiniku with onions and ribeye has been one of my favorite Japanese style dishes since I was introduced to Japanese cuisine. It’s expensive, so it’s one of those things I only indulge in when I really want a treat—and I recently learned to make it at home.

Ingredients:
½ lb beef ribeye (or you can substitute a different cheaper cut in a pinch)
2 tbs unsalted butter
½ large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 tbs cooking sake
⅔ cup white wine
1¼ cups water
3 tbs soy sauce
½ teaspoon ginger juice (grate ginger root and then squeeze the pulp to get this)
2 tbs sugar
¼ tsp very finely minced garlic
½ tsp salt
2 cups hot cooked rice

Optional Ingredients:
2 tbs beni shoga (pickled ginger) for serving garnish
2 large eggs to break over your yakiniku beef bowls just before serving

Serves two, so double the recipe if you’ve got four people in your family like I do.

Before you do anything, you’ll want to freeze your beef for an hour. This will make the beef rigid enough to cut into thin slices. Slice the beef very thinly, almost shaving it. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt your butter. Once melted, add your onions and cook until translucent, about four to five minutes.

You may also want to start steaming your rice now, if you haven’t prepared it already. Each cup of rice will become two cups once it hydrates, so one cup of rice will be enough to make the two you need. If you’ve got a rice cooker, you won’t have to pay much attention to this, but if you’re working with a pot like I am, here’s a great way to make sticky rice. If that’s too much work, just cook it normally in a pot and keep the lid on. Once the lid starts to jiggle a little, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes until the rice is completely cooked through. After that, remove the rice from heat and let sit for another fifteen minutes without removing the lid. Washing and soaking your rice can also make a difference in how sticky your rice turns out, so consider letting it soak overnight or washing it vigorously before cooking it.

Once your onions are done to your satisfaction, add your white wine and cooking sake and let it cook for another two minutes. Next, add the water, soy sauce, ginger juice, sugar, garlic, and salt to the pan and mix well. I find it easier to do if I combine those ingredients in a measuring cup prior to adding them to the saucepan, as it makes it easier to dissolve the sugar in the other liquids and disperse it more evenly throughout the seasoning.

Next add the beef. Stir the mixture constantly to keep pieces of meat from sticking together and keep on heat until the meat is just cooked through. That should take about two to three minutes total.

Divide your rice between the bowls you’ll be serving the yakiniku in, then spoon the beef and onion mixture over the rice. If you feel like it, provide an egg for each person to crack onto their meal and mix with their beef. A garnish of Japanese pickled ginger called beni shoga will add a splash of color and a tasty side treat to the dish as well.

Hopefully you know what kind of media tie-in I’m about to make the leap to. But don’t worry, it’s not what you think. I’m not going to list off all the problems I have with dating sims. Instead, I’m going to talk about the beefiest dating sim of the year: Dream Daddy!

Dream Daddy is a dating sim produced by Youtube famous group The Game Grumps, and is a dating sim where you create a dad and then go forth to date other dads. Although there are definitely some really good dating sims out there in the world, this is the only dating sim that I know of that focuses less on the fan-service and more on the realistic portrayal of people.

Before even entering the game, the player is asked to choose a body type for their character. The game is body positive, offering players three different diverse body types. The game is also inclusive of trans men, mirroring the three available body types, but wearing binders.

After creating your Dadsona and jumping into the game, your first interaction is with your daughter, Amanda. Through your conversation with her, you establish your character’s backstory. Was their previous partner a man or a woman? Was your daughter Amanda adopted or born to you and your partner? The freedom allowed to the player with these dialogue options is momentous for a dating sim.

But the good feelings don’t stop there. In the game, there are six different dads to date. You can date every dad a total of twice before choosing to get serious about one of them—so the game doesn’t ask you to pick a favorite without getting to know them—but what’s exciting about each dad’s storyline is discovering how they go against the stereotypes you assume about them.

For example, let’s take Damien.

Damien is marketed as the goth, Victorian obsessed dad of the game. The achievements you get for going on dates with him are called Interview with a Vampire 1, 2, and 3. But Damien isn’t all that he seems. He’s a man who cares a lot about his clothes and about being able to do the things he likes, but he’s also afraid of horror movies.

He enjoys the gothic pastime of strolling through graveyards because he feels it allows him to celebrate life.

And, if you compliment his clothes on your first date with him, he’ll talk about how important it is to him to be able to pick from a closet of period specific clothing—including binders.

Trans characters are often overlooked in media, so this tidbit of information that confirms Damien as trans while also not making a big deal out of it is a huge victory for the dating sim genre, which is often written off as shallow and there only to provide fan-service.

Damien isn’t the only character in the game doing his part for representation.

Craig, Hugo, and Mat make the cast ethnically diverse, making room for Asian-American, Latinx-American, and Black-American representation.

Mat represents how a person who likes people but has social anxiety acts in social settings.

Hugo represents the intellectuals who also enjoy “base” things like wrestling.

Brian represents how always trying to please someone else can backfire and make them think you’re competing with them instead—leading to an entire debacle over both people thinking the other one hates them. He also is an example of an overweight and active character—counteracting the stereotype that being overweight is a result of laziness rather than genetic disposition.

Joseph represents tolerant religious practice and how to be a cool youth pastor.

But it goes even further than that.

Craig, the dad who seems to be successful at everything he touches, is actually representing what high functioning anxiety looks like.

And Robert, the seemingly unfazeable bad boy of the dad group has some self-destructive tendencies that he doesn’t want to admit to himself. This realization is very difficult to get to, however, as if the player sleeps with Robert either of the times Robert tries to avoid the subject, he will discard the player as someone who is only interested in him superficially and can’t be trusted.

It’s worth noting that all of the dads have different familial make ups as well. Some have lost their past spouses like Dadsona has. Others have separated from their partners amicably. Others never had a partner to begin with, and still others may still be involved with their crumbling marriages.

What I’m trying to say, is this is a wonderful story in which you act as a real father figure to your remarkable photography major of a daughter, and also meet some other remarkable fathers along the way. Go play Dream Daddy and let it wash away your beefs with dating sims.