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gascon-en-exil · 5 years

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Lords and their Knights: When FE Chivalry Goes Gay

@mwritesink prompted me to write about my favorite tropes in FE and how they evolved over the course of the series. I already crossed a few others off in an earlier post, but this one is a particular favorite of mine where M/M romance in this series is concerned and one I felt had enough examples to constitute a piece of its own. Let it not be said that this is merely the gay variation on the well-worn heterosexual romance trope of a lady and her knight (ex. Eirika/Seth), because negotiating the fundamental power imbalance in this type of relationship takes on different dimensions when both parties are male. I draw a closer comparison to courtly love, which in the traditional sense is also socially transgressive (being adulterous) and not consummated via marriage or other public means...which in FE terms means an S support and possibly a eugenics baby. A vassal in love with his lord rather than his lord’s wife is not only cutting the female intermediary out of what can already be a very homoromatic scenario, but it’s directly tangling together a kind of martial romantic love and ideas about what knighthood/vassalage even is or ought to be - two topics FE loves to explore. I’ve therefore compiled a few of the most notable examples of this trope across the series to talk about in more detail, because if one is willing to be liberal with subtext there’s surprisingly quite a few to pick from.

(And yeah, this is also in part because I like hot rich men who take orders, and this series already has plenty of gay or otherwise ambiguously non-straight mages, thieves, archers, and their ilk without my help.)

The Sad Gay Knight: Quan/Finn

This one I’ve talked about before in a fair amount of depth, from my hopes for how a Genealogy remake will treat Finn to speculation on just what Quan got out of this relationship besides a devoted retainer and (we may assume) a nice piece of ass. The summary here is that Finn’s love for Quan supersedes anything he’s shown to feel for any of the various women he can hook up with and quite frankly astonishes in its ramifications for the future of Leonster and Thracia as a whole. It’s poignant, adulterous (but Ethlyn’s probably ok with it?), and messy as all hell once you factor in whatever’s up with Glade and whatever Lachesis wasn’t feeling about the whole situation. It is also, naturally, very sad; Finn loses his lord when he’s only around eighteen, and with their kingdom collapsing around him and the entire continent consumed by war he dedicates the next twenty years of his life to raising Quan’s son to be the king Quan himself had wanted to be. And for all his labor he apparently derives no lasting satisfaction, spending his epilogue wandering around the Yied desert and at last returning only to (possibly) pen the history he’s helped to make.

Finn is the embodiment of knighthood loyal unto and beyond death, and that paired with all the romantic and erotic subtext surrounding the two of them - Finn as Quan’s treasured favorite, his catatonia after Yied, the obsessive polishing of the brave lance that Quan gave to him, his inability to satisfy women in some vague way - makes them the defining example of this trope in Fire Emblem. I look forward to seeing how remakes will handle them; Finn’s presentation in Heroes is definitely cause for hope there. As for the issue of yet another story in media of gay men beset by tragedy and death, I did draw up a long headcanon on the technically crack pairing of Diarmuid/Tristan that specifically plays into the lord and knight trope while also allowing Finn a chance to pass his experiences on to a later, happier generation. IS is free to take notes, just saying.

Pretty Blond Twinks and the Men Who Love Them: Perceval/Elffin and their lasting influence

Moving on from Jugdral, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been sleeping on the original gay Elibean duo. Before Raven and Lucius (but chronologically after, because these games are out of order) there was another feminine young man with long blond hair beloved of a severe-looking warrior. Binding Blade gives us the bard Elffin, who in another life was Etruria’s Prince Mildain and Perceval’s liege. The Knight General takes Mildain’s alleged accidental death about as well as Finn takes the death of his lord and lady; he turns grim and humorless, and without a dying dream to guide him he follows the command of the corrupt revolutionary faction of Etruria with little protest. It takes learning that Mildain is alive and in Roy’s army for Perceval to drop the halfhearted Camus routine and switch sides, and the strength of his fealty not to his nation or even to his king but to the prince he’d thought dead is absolutely touching in the moment not to mention incredibly useful since the guy is one of FE6′s best units.

Binding Blade doesn’t give anyone but Roy and his harem paired endings, but there’s still a fair bit to be gleaned from their support lines, both what is in them and what isn’t. Perceval and Elffin each have supports with women, but nothing remotely romantic - Perceval’s support with Larum is particularly amusing since he clarifies that her, ahem, dancing does nothing for him. Also worth noting is that neither of them can support with Clarine, even though one would think they’d make fine romantic choices for her given their statuses and physical resemblances to her beloved brother. Their own support line is quietly intimate. Elffin has changed since his near-death experience, and Perceval is still struggling to accept that their relationship can’t be as it was, that in fact for the time being they can’t now be a knight and his prince. Perceval also frets over Elffin’s refusal to see his father the king, and he later extracts a promise from Elffin to come home to Etruria after he’s done traveling the world as a bard, in one of the series’s several instances of writing what sounds like a marriage proposal in ambiguous terms. Per Elffin’s ending, he’s only gone for a few months after the war, so their promised reunion isn’t long delayed. I’m interested to see what a remake would add to their relationship, because as it stands Perceval/Elffin has an established romance arc that deserves a paired ending or at the very least more suggestive epilogues.

Further compounding their underrated signficance, it’s not too difficult to trace a line from Perceval/Elffin to a number of other M/M pairings in the two later GBA games and in Tellius that present some variation on this theme:

As mentioned above, Raven/Lucius is physically similar and performs a nearly identical gameplay function, with the pretty blond waif again responsible for recruiting his surly but protective boyfriend from the ranks of the enemy.

Gerik/Joshua meanwhile borrows the character of the end of their support line and turns it into a genuine paired ending, with a prince incognito recruiting a swordsman to come work for him. They being who they are however, it’s all handled a bit rougher, with Gerik being impressed by Joshua’s “swagger.” Take that as you will.

Ike/Soren may be the defining seme/uke dynamic in Tellius’s overflowing fount of queer subtext, but Tibarn/Reyson smashes that trope together with this one and FE’s power couple unit archetype plus a dash of whatever the avian equivalent of furries is for wholly unique results. Although both of them are technically royalty, only Reyson is a prince by heredity whereas Tibarn presumably became king of Phoenicis by beating the crap out of any rival contenders as most laguz prefer to do. One can therefore read shades of a courtly relationship in Tibarn’s decision to zealously take up the cause of justice for the Serenes massacre in Reyson’s place. Combine this with Reyson’s characteristic edge that even Tibarn is forced to rein in at times and their relationship comes off as surprisingly more egalitarian than the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, and blond waif dancer + premade OP unit with ludicrous physical stats and movement again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the conflict of the Tellius games Zelgius -> Sephiran explores what would happen if a gay Camus archetype chose instead to dedicate himself to an antagonistic lord. Sure, you can still recruit Sephiran via a convoluted and unintuitive process, but Zelgius is doomed no matter what.

They Can Say It, But They Can’t Do It: Awakening and Fates

Ugh. If I must....

I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence toward FE13 dragging the series into open acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is a thing that exists, handled as it was with a lot of explicit homoerotic denial and an assortment of cheap gay panic jokes and...whatever the hell Victor and Vincent are supposed to be. Chrom/Frederick, hot though it may potentially be in fanon, is one of those jokes, making a parody out of a knight enamored of his lord and leaving it to mean absolutely nothing since Awakening’s relationship endgame is invariably S supports for time traveling eugenics babies. FE has taken cracks at the overly dedicated knight before - see just about everything involving Kieran from Tellius, up to and including his overzealous devotion to his superior officer - but Awakening plumbs the depths of Frederick expecting Chrom’s nude image to raise the army’s morale. Just..what do you even say to that, apart from the awkward sputtering that comprises most of their support line?

FE14, for all its stumbling steps toward something less completely offensive, fares little better in this particular regard. Leo/Niles is a deeply troubled albeit thought-provoking callback to the subtextual lord/knight relationship, one where it’s hard to imagine them finding a healthy way to navigate the power differential. Then there’s Ryoma/Saizo. It’s nothing special in localization, but the never-localized festival DLC involves Saizo’s ardent desire to warm Ryoma’s clothing in his cleavage. That sounds like absolutely normal behavior for a servant and not a rehash of Frederick’s shenanigans, uh huh. Fates may indeed be said to be slightly better about playing palpable homoerotic tension for drama rather than comedy...but only slightly.

Paving the Way for an OT3: The Deliverance

This is, incidentally, yet another reason to appreciate Echoes for doing so much to redeem the 3DS games in the realm of (male) queer content. Yes, there’s a large and unaddressed divide between the openly gay and very modern Leon and the heavily subtextual faux-historical queerness of the Deliverance, but taken independently the two presentations work for what they’re each separately aiming to be. Among Clive’s gay entourage are not one but two men who’d dearly love to be the knight to his lord, and Forsyth’s strong desire to put Clive on a pedestal evokes the earlier spoofs of this kind of relationship precisely because Forsyth is that kind of vassal, the kind that would read Ribald Tales of the Faith War and cry like a heavily erect virgin bottom getting his first taste of dick at the brief interludes of tender manly love between Quan and Finn. He’s played for comedy just as much as Kieran or Frederick are, and yet Echoes comes across as less down on the concept as a whole for several reasons, being that

1) Python’s snark over Forsyth’s attraction to both Clive and Lukas is genuinely funny, much more so than when it’s the object of these affections quietly groaning his way through them,

2) Lukas is also there, and his desire to be Clive’s beloved knight is not played for comedy at all but is allowed to be unrealistic and unsatisfying because Clive will never get it,

3) everyone wants to screw Clive for some reason, not just his subordinates but also his sister and the estranged BFF who dies in his arms...and the guy is shown to be unworthy of all of them, and

4) all the characters involved are allowed other avenues for romantic attraction outside of a lord who’s just not that into them. Forsyth has Python, Lukas has both of them as friends and possibly more later, Clair has Gray (...at least he’s not her brother?), and Fernand has a bad rebound that goes to hell in the manner of Zelgius and Sephiran but at least ends with him getting to reconcile with his former friend before he dies.

The setup for the Deliverance’s overarching queerness is a bit strange as it rests on all these characters somehow finding Clive attractive, but nonetheless it makes for an unexpected and refreshing critique of the lord and knight trope, given a situation where the lord just isn’t that into it and in fact doesn’t seem to realize that he can be into it. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t a particularly good dynamic for a stable and lasting relationship, and that as hot as it can be it takes more than impassioned one-way devotion to make it work in the long term.

The good news if you’re into this kind of relationship like I am is that it’s a trope with some life in it yet. Echoes came at it strong, and prerelease information on Three Houses suggests a few possibilities for this dynamic in that game. I’m especially keeping my eye on Dimitri and Dedue, whose relationship appears to contain echoes of the original duo of Quan and Finn. I highly doubt there will be anything on the level of S supports acknowledging this type of attraction, but I’ll settle for some suggestive A supports.

#Fire Emblem

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 7 years

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(Armed Girls Machiavellism 1)

I was doubtful about this one because I could never get what was so offputting about it. Maybe I’ll figure it out while I watch.

…bear?

I bet he’s just a hand to hand brawler, that Nomura.

I appreciate the correct English, but “WARNING! Knock out 40+” sounds like a bunch of dot points…or a really bad brand of sunscreen, LOL.

Okay, I know anime has weird names, but “Kirukiru Amo” is a whole ‘nother level of weird. Then again, there’s weirder names out there (like Zolbe from Saiki Kusuo, but he seems to be a bit of a stereotype).

Hey wait, I thought I’d heard of Tenkai Goken (Great Five Swords) before, and it turns out I have! Touken Ranbu’s Juzumaru is one, so is Mikazuki and so is Oodenta (TR’s Oodenta is drawn by the same guy who did character designs for Kiznaiver, to boot)!

You gotta admit the colours in this really pop in a modern sort of way, unlike the somewhat plain Sagrada Reset.

See? Fudo really is a hand to hand brawler! (Then again, I knew that from the ANN stuff, LOL. Sorry I didn’t warn you about that.)

I half expect the pink stuff to be either transformation goo or makeup applying goo.

When I scoped out the show, the first impression shot that put me off was this one (the one just after the OP). Then again, I was intrigued by how empowering it was for the girls the first time I saw it, and I was put off by it the second time (because I scoped it out twice by looking at the manga website). I think it was Fudo’s face that did it for me, which is a bad sign going forward.

Isn’t it “co-educational”, rather than “co-existence”? Or is that just a very bad pun on the show’s part? Update: It is a bad pun, one on the word kyousei (correct/coexist, different kanji for each).

This is what definitely makes it offputting – the ecchi part. I really shouldn’t have wanted to watch this show, eh?

Nipple wrestling is a thing?! (wut.)

Take out the leg she’s standing on. Then again, if you went for that leg, she’d kick you with her other one…eh, I’m not good at strategy, y’know?

I know this is a battle anime, but since it’s a school anime too, shouldn’t Fudo get that thing disinfected?

Seriously, this show can never decide if it’s one or two parts of Rin’s mask they need on her face at one given time. On that note, I don’t think I’m coming back to this show. While it’s middle-of-the-road in some ways, it’s downright disturbing in others, including the bear.

(Love Tyrant 1)

I can’t remember why I picked some of these up…I was wandering around ANN a lot since I had a bunch of things due before the spring season started…

Well, that’s new. A show that made me cringe before anything really happened.

Wow. Blatant parody much.

I’m with Seiji re: Guri. The “wait a minute” though? Do they have that on all TV stations in Japan? Plus, ANN says Guri’s a fujoshi…which is vaguely disturbing when she randomly picks the PM and House Speaker…at least pick someone who’ll cause less impact on the world at large and not play that for comedy!!!

Okay…ooooooookkkkkkkkkkayyyyyyyyyyyyyy…not only Gainaxing, but fanservice galore…I think I learnt my lesson from Armed Girls. I’m getting out of here.

(Warau Salesman New 1)

Why do I have this on my list? ANN says it does its job competently, and while I’m not completely a sucker for monkey’s paw stories, seeing another 60s manga revived as an anime…is one odd choice after another for the industry, so hey, why not. Plus it was made by one of the Fujios, which makes it somewhat culturally relevant.

The artstyle might seem outdated, but it’s living up to its premise – there seems to be an uneasy feeling laced throughout the show.

Comic Sans, get out.

Hyper realistic artwork in an anime like this is always a “should that even be there????” factor. It works in the show’s favour though.

I think the intro is fine once per episode or at the start of each episode if the episode is about 5 – 10 minutes long. For a full length, you want to go ???? (in a bad way) at it. It’s different animation, sure, but it’s the same intro text, and that’s bad.

LOL, she looks like Fujiko Mine now. It must be no coinicidence, since it comes from the Lupin III era.

This is strangely well produced for an anime of a time gone by, but it reminds me of a show that creeped me out, updated, mature and Japan-ified. (For reference, this is the show I got creeped out by – Death By Chocolate, which is the one where a girl eats chocolate with a bug egg in it and turns into a bug herself …ugh.) So I’m gonna drop it. (As another reference, I wrote a transformation story – do you remember Melting Chocolate, back in the day? – that may have taken its inspiration from Death by Chocolate.)

(Alice to Zouroku 1)

Apparently the sci-fi part of this is good, so I hope it can live up to expectations.

Alright, I admit I completely forgot this was a double-length first ep. SGRS managed to pull it off (and in a sense, so did Kado), but anything that squanders its chances with such an opportunity is a waste in most senses of the word.

Oh great, this looks like Denpa Kyoushi. Not a good sign.

…giant arms?

Okay, whose idea was it to turn all the cars into CG blocks? It works on just one car or a bunch of cars, but if you do it on the waffle thing (that’s on the side of the road) too, it starts to look clunky.

Faim Mart (sic), LOL. Obviously Family Mart.

Does this count as breaking and entering…?

The more I look at these CGI cars, the more I’m led to believe this is some Very Bad Anime, but the chase scene is actually thrilling to a small degree, so it’s obviously not.

I like this old man already. Meanwhile, I still don’t like Very Bad CGI.

Asahi and Yonaga (yo can mean “night” while asa can mean “day”), LOL.

Kensaku means “search” (as in, kensaku no engin is “search engine”).

Zoroku is the one element that makes this stand out. I mean, I laughed way too hard at him pushing the girl (Sana, right?) down.

It’s this season’s ACCA, LOL.

Okay, that’s a breach of privacy I don’t like. However, unless you’re a psychic, you can’t follow that example…

Xiaochi means “snack” in Chinese.

“I hate crooked stuff.” - So then why’d you work with the yakuza, Zoroku?

The flowers look real! Is that the true power of CG? (Actually, I take that back. Kado’s cube is better than that.)

Phlox. Doesn’t quite look like what its animated version looks like.

Alice to Zoroku has potential, but almost non-existent themes, no real sense of suspense in its action scene and horridly bad CGI. The only real good point is Zoroku, so I’m going to drop it.

Update: I watched this in bits and pieces because I had my mind on other things, but apparently there’s dust on Sanae’s stuff and Zoroku said Sanae was on a school trip? This is one of the times I’ll have to disagree with whoever said that, because I do not recall that one speck.

(Twin Angel Break 1)

I apologise in advance for if I call this Twin Angels Break instead of Twin Angel Break, because there seems to be no particular set name this show is called in that regard. Plus, you already know I’m a fan of magical girls – last time there was a show that could have gone into circulation (Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R), it didn’t make it but considering how brutal I am with my decisions for simulcast commentary these days, this one might just make it! Update: There were actually a few shows after Komugi that could’ve made it, with Flip Flappers notably making it but Magical Girl Raising Project not making it. It’s just that I consider Flip Flappers an Alice in Wonderland show more than a magical girl one.

This is…pretty obviously a commercial…maybe I should take my excitement back…

The only sister school scheme I know that requires grades requires average grades, so I guess I can’t really talk (since I’ve never been on exchange anyway…?).

LOL, selfies. Thought they’d gone out of style at least a half year ago. Even dabbing’s more recent than selfies…

I can feel the yuri…

I feel Yuki’s reveal as a crossdresser was unnecessary.

Those “women” are from a series I was going to watch (Twin Angel Twinkle Paradise). Dangit spoilers – stealth sequels hurt the self-esteem if you don’t remember they’re coming. (I was aware this was a stealth sequel from ANN, but then I forgot about it because I’ve been churning out about 4 premiere entries a day…)

4 cups?! I couldn’t eat that much if I tried! I can almost finish a whole bag of chips on my own though (not the oven-baked, potato-mush-in-middle sort, the other sort).

Shamisenist? Is that a thing? However, this guy’s so camp, it’s hilarious.

Zundar, is that you? LOL, jks.

Why does this hedgehog have non-kawaii eyes? (LOL.)

Gratuitous shaking of the butt means it’s one for the yuri crowd…no wonder it’s a pachinko ad…

Wait, so Miruku is a girl?!

“What is the Tamagawa River?” - I ask the same question Meguru did, John.

How could you not tell, Meguru?! It’s kinda obvious, right? I love magical girls, but this is the sin of all magical girl shows, built into the format.

Welp, it seems like this one gets an OK from me. It’s not particularly groundbreaking, but the flail and naginata bit seems promising. However, the thing about magical girl shows is that they often don’t fare well under the simulcast commentary format so it may not stay on forever.

(Tsukigakirei 1)

Apparently this is decent…but if it’s only decent, I may just shove it aside…Update: Promo material says male protag likes Osamu Dazai, and after Bungou, danggggggg I’m thirsty for more Dazai, LOL.

Already I cringe at the bad CGI…

There was live action in the OP of Kado but this one seems even more out of place with it.

There’s that one guy with pink hair who wouldn’t look out of place in a different anime, but here he stands out since I already know how uptight Japanese schools can be with their rules (it’s a common topic during Japanese study, y’know?).

It says dai dai dai boshuu (basically, they’re trying reallllllll hard to get people to join through words alone) but the bottom line on the bo seems to be a little too long. There’s also the fact someone accidentally wrote “dog” instead of one of the dais, since “dog” and “big” (in this case big = dai) are only one stroke’s difference, but that extra stroke was rubbed out. Either way, there is an error in the recruitment statement, so the typo reflects that…I listened to it again, and the “dog” thing was indeed the case.

Thank you Dazai for such sage advice in describing teenage romance. (semi-sarcastic)

Okay, who describes water as tasty? Unless you’ve flavoured your water, I just don’t see why. Water is flavourless, y’know?

I live close to a shopping centre, so I see people I know working there sometimes and it’s awkward in that sort of way - Tsukigakirei just captured that feeling perfectly.

I left the volume on after checking the dog joke and gosh, that piano music is gorgeous. I’d love to hear this show’s OST when I can.

People in Western countries use Facebook these days, but it’s the same gig, right?

Watching that hand in the corner working that phone…it’s an odd angle.

Taiko no Tetsujin is a play on Taiko no Tatsujin. That’s where the lil’ drum in Osu comes from, and heck, it’s real similar to Osu.

I never quite understood that thing where girls have to go to the bathroom together…maybe it’s because I was raised to be independent? Or because I’m antisocial? Or even both? I get it if they want to chat, but otherwise nope.

I consulted Aozora Bunko, and apparently that line exists in that story.

Yudemen.

The only real supergroups I know are Swedish House Mafia (kinda sorta, they were only real big stars after SHM took off) and Apparatjik (because Coldplay).

“You should read all kinds of books,” LOL.

There was one background with one door and light streaming in that was so lifelike…that took my breath away…

So, despite its awkwardness, this one seems intent on being brutally honest and that’s admirable. It’s a keeper.

(Boku no Hero Academia 15)

It’s interesting to note in the final shot of the OP, Shouto wears a navy suit that looks a lot like his sport uniform. However, Bakugou is clearly wearing his hero outfit and so is everyone else.

Interesting to note All Might’s blood stain stays on the side of his face when he speaks after it spurts out of his mouth. However, that attempt at humour didn’t quite work for me.

“…until the day of.” – The day of…what? The subs didn’t finish the sentence, even though it’s obvious from the context what it’s referring to.

Mineta’s “person” thing is something used to relieve stress – you write the kanji for “person” on your hand (which only needs two strokes) and then you eat it (figuratively speaking).

Ooh. Shouto’s made a real pretty ice sculpture.

Oh. Koseiteki literally, but “Quirky” in English translation. Nice one, subbers. (The title for the next ep is affected by this particular grammar snarl – which I don’t really know how to explain myself – affecting the word for Quirk (kosei). Literally speaking, the title for the next ep is something along the lines of “Everyone’s Good With [Their Own] Quirks, Aren’t They?”)

(Tsugumomo 1)

I wasn’t part of the anime scene in 2007, so I wonder how that’ll impact my view on the show.

Oh man, OP debut queue. It’s kinda hard to keep up with…

I get why people make that eye-shaped window thing, but I’m not a fan of it visuals-wise.

Oh gosh. Why can’t harem protags keep their hands to themselves? Plus, that hand movement Kazuya makes doesn’t make sense if you’re reaching out for the girl (Kiriha, that was her name, right?).

The more I sigh, the more I want to get out of here. I can’t handle 1) jokes about…a man’s area, 2) jokes about peeking at panties and 3) jokes about groping girls, among other things (which have all been ticked off!), so this show has one last chance to prove itself before it gets a bad score and a kick out.

Yeahhhhhhhh. I get why you’re doing that, but...out in the open, you look like a perv, Kazuya.

Don’t say you’re dead when you’re falling…*sigh*

Dang that battle made me change my opinion fast. Good fight scene. Now tone down the harem parts and we have ourselves a deal.

Dang that “Ya-kun, I’ve drawn a bath!” thing reminds me exactly of Masamune-kun’s Revenge. Or Fuuka. Whichever one it was last season with the dude with the multiple sisters who lounge around in their underwear…*rolls eyes*

When Kiriha showed up in bed I half expected either 1) “PERVERT!” *shaking screen* or 2) “YIKES! Why is she in my bed?!” *shaking screen*. If either of those happened, I never registered it (mercifully) because I had the volume off, but luckily the screen didn’t shake...Okay, he screamed. I’m getting outta this cliché fest, see ya.

#simulcast commentary #Boku no Hero Academia 2 #armed girl's machiavellism #love tyrant #tsugumomo #tsuki ga kirei #warau salesman new #alice to zouroku #twin angel break #Chesarka watches Boku no Hero Academia #boku no hero academia #Chesarka watches Tsukigakirei

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2peasinapodme-blog · 7 years

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Living like locals in Portland, OR – Our 2-week Experiment

Our families and friends don’t understand why we want to move to Oregon. Why would we want to give up all the comforts of the Midwest to pack up and move halfway across the country? To that I say, why wouldn’t we?

Well, to all the naysayers, maybe this will change their minds…

So on this, the second of our investigative, fact-finding missions to Portland, I will keep an ongoing account of our explorations, so all can see the reasons why we’re so enamored with this weird and wonderful place.

First of all, the fun begins before you even land at PDX. If you’re heading east to west, you will want to reserve a window seat on the left side of the plane, so you can take full advantage of the awe-inspiring views of Mt. Hood, its peak capped in snow regardless of the season. At 11,250 feet of elevation, it sits almost eye level as you make your final descent into PDX.

But don’t worry if you can’t secure a seat on the left side — the views of the winding Columbia river from the right aren’t too bad either.

Another benefit of flying into Portland is the proximity of the airport to town. To be honest, that was one of the features, among many others, that originally attracted us to Portland…we wanted to have easy access to an international airport. And in Portland, depending on where you live or where you’re staying, you can be there in 15-25 minutes.

As soon as we arrived at our destination, our home base for the next two weeks (a million thank yous, HM!), we bee-lined for a late lunch at the brick-and-mortar outpost of Op Wurst Sausage Bar on SE Division St. (they also have a stand at Pine Street Market). Owned and operated by the meat-centric brains behind Portland’s acclaimed Olympia Provisions, I knew their butchery expertise would shine through in their encased meats (i.e. sausages). I opted for their Daily Dog special, a “BLT,” and a local amber ale. Turns out, the so-called Daily Dog wasn’t a dog at all; it was, in fact, a BLT sandwich — and a very good one at that. With plenty of excellent quality bacon and homemade garlic aoli that was so good I wanted to take a bath in it, it was definitely a winner…even if it wasn’t the sausage I was expecting (and I was awfully curious to see how they were going to stuff bacon, lettuce and tomato into a sausage casing).

Sticking to his roots, Mike ordered the house made Italian sausage with grilled peppers and onions. He gave it high marks for its respectable fennel-spiked flavor (any Italian sausage worth its weight must be long on the fennel), and that’s saying a lot from a guy who has sampled quite a few Italian sausages in his lifetime! And please don’t overlook their fries which are quite good, especially with a side of the aforementioned garlic aoli for dipping.

After lunch, we decided to check out the local Fred Meyer grocery store to pick up a few staples for the kitchen. I don’t have a lot to say about Fred Meyer except that I don’t need to go back any time soon. A cross between a meh grocery, a pharmacy and a Target, it offers a bit of this and a bit of that and specializes in absolutely nothing. It’s like one of those restaurants that advertises that they have gyros, pizza, fried chicken and sushi. Really? Why don’t you stick to one thing and do it well.

Returning back to the house, we unloaded the groceries, still full from lunch, and realized that we probably wouldn’t want or need dinner after all. We both agreed it would be a wine and cheese night in our pajamas instead.

Day 2: Up at a reasonable hour (which is never a guarantee when traveling from east to west and factoring in the backward time change), we were anxious to hit one of Portland’s innumerable coffee establishments. And since it was just up the street, we started with Stumptown’s flagship coffee shop on SE Division. Set in a small, unassuming storefront on a mostly residential block, its hard to comprehend that that is where it all began for the now nationally recognized coffee roaster. But we all know that size doesn’t matter, and there was no doubt that they know their way around a cup of java. I ordered the decaf mocha (as always) and Mike the latte. Completely sublime. Enough said.

Refueled and ready to go, we spent the morning scouting neighborhoods and feeling our way around the city until it was time to make the daunting decision of where we would choose for lunch. Based on proximity to where we were at the time, we opted for Lardo on 12th and Washington. In case you didn’t know, there’s a sandwich war going on in Portland, and it’s dog eat dog. Many name the front runners as Lardo, Bunk and Meat Cheese Bread. We plan to try all three while we’re here and make our own assessment, so we started with Lardo. It wasn’t an easy task to select just two items from their inspired menu, but we finally agreed on splitting the Italian Cubano and the Korean Pork Shoulder. Regardless of which you choose, I don’t think you could possibly go wrong here (the chicken meatball bahn mi is rumored to be unreal). Both our choices were flavor-packed stacks of goodness, but we both agreed that the Korean pork number stole the show. The tender and tasty pork paired with crunchy kimchi and Sriracha mayo got a double thumbs up. And the magic doesn’t end with the ‘wiches — don’t miss their garlic parmesan fries sprinkles with sea salt and rosemary!

The afternoon consisted of more house-hunting and a trip to Blue Star Doughnuts (recommended by the more discerning critics over the more well-known Voodoo Doughnuts — but I’m personally still, and always will be, a Krispy Kreme devotee). Then, being just close enough to cocktail hour (it’s 5:00 somewhere), we decided to head back to our neighborhood and to The Woodsman Tavern which happens to be next door to Stumptown Coffee, where we started our day eight hours earlier.

Over cocktails — an expertly prepared Manhattan for Mike and a delicious local rose for me — we devised a plan for the next day. After consulting the weather chart, Mike said smugly, “Hey, you wanna go to the coast tomorrow?” And, of course I replied, “Absolutely!” Because, why not?

Once again too full and too lazy to make dinner, we ordered a small pizza and called it a night, excited to get an early start the next day.

Day 3: Bright and early, we were on our way to get our first glimpse of the Oregon coast. Undaunted by overcast skies, we grabbed a coffee to go (even the Starbucks cups are cooler out here!) and set the GPS for the town of Tillamook. As we headed west on Route 6 with Portland in the rearview mirror, the clouds began to dissipate and the sun broke through, just as the forecast had promised.

The first thing I noticed was that we were out of Portland proper in no time and with relative ease. Within minutes, the shopping malls and local commerce were replaced by hilly terrain and ridiculously scenic rolling farmlands. We’re definitely not in flatland Illinois any more! We wound through the verdant Tillamook Mountains, awed by the mischievous clouds playing hide and seek between the dips and crevices of the hills.

In just over an hour, we arrived in Tillamook. Most notable for its cheese production, Tillamook also enjoys an enviable position on the Tillamook Bay.

As we descended out of the mountains and approached the town, we noticed one consistent and overiding theme — dairy farms. And where there are dairy farms, there are cows. Brown ones, tawny ones, black-and-white ones — all lazily munching on grass in the picture-perfect valley with the mountains providing shelter on all sides. I think there must be no better place to be a cow.

We passed through the town of Tillamook and skirted around the bay to the tiny oceanfront hamlet of Cape Meares, where we parked the car and headed straight to the beach for our first glimpse of the Oregon coast.

No, it did not disappoint. My first impression, aside from its obvious natural beauty: you truly feel as if you’re at the end of the earth. (And if the tsunami evacuation signs are any indication, maybe you are.)

Also, I was expecting a rockier coastline, so the exceptionally wide, sandy beach was a bit of a surprise. Strewn with the sculptural carcasses of enormous petrified trees that had washed ashore in one storm or another, it was truly a thing of incomparable beauty.

I easily could have stayed all day, breathing in the fresh sea air and walking the beach, but our stomachs had other plans and lunch was calling. So, we returned to the car reluctantly, but knowing that we would return again very soon…as Oregon residents.

Heading back through the town of Tillamook, we arrived at The Fish Peddler in Bayside, a casual restaurant, market and oyster processing facility that prepares hundreds of oysters a day for their local clientele and for shipment all over the country.

Unfortunately, they don’t offer an outside patio or a view of the bay — which is a shame since we were lucky to be there on a gorgeous day — but the food more than makes up for that minor deficit. (Our car, on the other hand, had a lovely view of the bay from the parking lot – below.)

We started with a cup of their clam chowder – always a good way to assess the real worth of a seafood restaurant. They passed with flying colors. It was properly thick and creamy without being pasty or cloying. With an unexpected hint of bacon, it was truly outstanding.

We followed the soup with a half dozen of their raw oyster shooters – my first Pacific oysters. They were nice-sized and very fresh, but too cold for my preference. I suggest removing them from the bed of shaved ice, allowing them sit for a few minutes to come to room temp. I also prefer mine still in the shell. Served in plastic cups, I missed the “liquor” that typically collects in the shells and provides the delicious briny flavor.

Their baked oysters, which are available in a half dozen different preparations, were truly inspired. We chose their Kilchis style, named for a neighboring cove a half mile away, which exploded with flavor from the pesto, Parmesan and hot sauce. Outstanding!

Baked oysters with pesto, parm and hot sauce – The Fish Peddler, Tillamook, OR

The tuna melt was one of the best I’ve ever had. Upon arrival, it idn’t look like much, but the flavor made up for anything lost in its presentation. Let’s be honest, on paper, a tuna melt doesn’t make any sense — warm mayo-based tuna salad and cheese. Who pairs fish and cheese? It sounds terrible by any estimation. But somehow it works. And this one excelled in every sense. Made with locally caught and smoked tuna and Tilamook cheddar from around he corner, it was sublime.

Mike’s oyster po’boy was equally outstanding. The plump oysters were lightly dredged in flavorful herb breadcrumbs and quick fried. And the homemade tartar sauce was flecked with minced dill pickle, just the way it should be.

After lunch, we headed back through Tillamook, stopping in at the cheese factory, of course — an impressive facility indeed. Milk from the local dairy farms is turned into cheese or ice cream within 24 hours. And every day they churn out 170,000 pounds of cheese, keeping the cows and the factory very busy!

Then, we were off to the town of Oceanside and the coastal lighthouse at Cape Meares State Park. Built in the late 1800s, the lighthouse has since been decommissioned and its once vital function replaced by satellite navigation. But it remains a worthy tourist draw. (The free guided tour of the lighthouse was very informative and worth the time.)

If not for the lighthouse itself, then certainly go for the massive views of the Oregon coastline and a visit to the odd 8-armed Octopus Tree. With a 46-foot circumference and more than 105 feet in height, the 250+-year-old tree remains a mystery. Was it shaped by Mother Nature or by Indian hands? We’ll probably never know, but it’s a thing of beauty and curiosity nonetheless.

Seeing that it was nearly 4:00 pm, we decided to begin our return trip to Portland. Retracing our steps past the bay and back through the Tillamook Mountains, we made the trip in about an hour and a half, not bad for Friday at rush hour. Back at the house, we decided to kick back with some cocktails and a jigsaw puzzle. Later, we prepared some cavatelli with fresh tomato and basil sauce and watched Narcos. Maybe tomorrow we’ll actually venture out for dinner. Maybe.

Highlight of the day…

Day-by-Day in PDX Living like locals in Portland, OR - Our 2-week Experiment Our families and friends don't understand why we want to move to Oregon.

#2 weeks in Portland #Lardo Portland #Op Wurst Portland #Oregon coast #PDX #Portland OR #Stumptown Coffee Roasters #The Fish Peddler #The Woodsman Tavern #Tillamook OR

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