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a-student-out-of-time · 2 years

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Chapter 3: The Worst of the Worst

Hello, everyone. Mod Bubbles here.

I have been asked by some friends of mine, following a few long rants about my least favorite element of this series: Chapter 3. Some of you may already know that these tend to be the weakest elements of any DR game, but it goes beyond just that.

I’m here to explain to you all why every Chapter 3 I’ve seen- DR1, SDR2, V3, DRA and SDRA2- is the worst. I’m also going to be ranking them, starting from the least bad, and explaining why, on every conceivable level, they don’t work.

First off, let me just start off by saying that, if you like these characters or sections of their respective games, more power to you. I am not judging you, I’m not attacking you and I’m glad you could get more enjoyment out of them than I did. This is simply me explaining why I don’t think they work, but why some work better than others. All of this is just my opinion.

Some of this will be me criticizing them for their objective writing problems, some of it will be personal taste reasons, but perhaps you’ll be interested in what I have to say. Without further ado, let’s get into it:

Least bad- SDR2 Chapter 3

Those of you who know who my favorite character is may be surprised to see this one as the least bad. To be clear, it’s still bad, but I think it’s probably the least bad out of them all.

The recurring problem with Chapter 3 is that every single one involves some degree of plot contrivance and character assassination. Someone inevitably gets turned into a parody of themselves or something stupid happens to make the plot possible. You have to take it with the territory when ranking them, as they all suffer from this problem.

The plot contrivance this time around is that of the Despair Disease, which causes anyone infected with it to radically shift personalities- Akane turns into a coward, Ibuki is gullible and Nagito is a liar and he almost fucking died to his disease. This is already ridiculous, but we could accept it as part of foreshadowing that they’re in a virtual world. But then it goes one step further.

MIkan takes it upon herself to help everyone who’s gotten sick, and in turn, she also contracts it. She doesn’t shift personalities, but inexplicably remembers everything about her past as an Ultimate Despair. Thus begins the character assassinations- literally and figuratively- of Mikan and Hiyoko.

As sad as it is to see Ibuki go, it at least serves the narrative, the trope being “Shoo out the clowns” for when things get serious. Her death is thematically appropriate, while Hiyoko is...barely an afterthought. Yeah, Mikan doesn’t even kill her for revenge, she’s literally just in the wrong place at the wrong time and just fucking dies.

As you may know, originally Fuyuhiko was supposed to die here, but the writers realized that it would’ve made Peko’s sacrifice pointless, so quickly rewrote it so that Hiyoko would die instead, a move that feels as cobbled-together as it sounds, especially with the lack of effort in finding her murder weapon. And all of those goes without saying, but it turns Mikan into a deranged lunatic, so why is this one the least bad?

Because, out of all the Chapter 3′s, this one is the most relevant to the story. While I don’t like the path they take with it, Mikan’s transformation is ultimately effective foreshadowing for the truth about Class 77 and why they’re in the simulation, as well as the horrifying levels of their devotion to Junko.

And unlike the others, Mikan wasn’t trying to escape. She was trying to carry on with the mission of resurrecting Junko and wanted to inflict despair on the others along the way. What makes this still a bad chapter is a single question: if the Despair Disease can make someone remember their past, why not use that as a way to make everyone remember?

The goal of the Ultimate Despairs in getting into the Neo World Program was to provide bodies for the Junko AI, so why not have them all remember and commit mass suicide? No handwave is given as to why they can’t, but either way, this one is at least the most relevant to the story. Let’s move on.

Bad- DRA Chapter 3

Again, this one is still bad, but it at least has a more sympathetic motivation. The culprit for this case, Kinji Uehara, is the Ultimate Priest and had a close bond with a large group of orphans under the care of the church. A pretty noble guy...who’s being exploited by the Mastermind to become a mole and to kill if there’s no murder, or else the kids get it.

Now, this is not a new development. We saw this with Sakura in DR1, but while she was noble enough to take her own life instead of sacrificing her dojo or her friends, Kinji unfortunately cracked under the pressure and chose to murder.

What makes this one worse that SDR2′s is how cruel Kinji’s actions are. See, Kinji is not a true Despair. Like I said, he’s just this game’s mole and has to feed info to the Mastermind, but in doing so, he’s trying to save a group of children he believes are in danger. That’s a questionable situation, but paints him in a sympathetic light.

But he loses sympathy points for the nature of the murders he commits: the deaths of Kanata and Kakeru. Not only are the two of them some of the nicest people in the cast, but the ways that he murders them are absolutely horrific- slitting Kakeru’s throat enough that he bleeds out, then electrocuting Kanata so badly that her internal organs were burned to a crisp.

Now, he’d explained that he targeted Kanata because she was always in the infirmary and thus she’d be an easy target. However, why did she need to die in such a needlessly cruel way? Why not give her an overdose of some kind of drug? Why did he feel the need to murder her with a giant blade at first, then place her into a situation that would guarantee an absolutely cruel and horrifying death? And after he’d already killed Kakeru?

What pushes it over the edge for me is the fact that Kinji had already fatally wounded Kakeru, and the man gave Kinji a dying request that he spare Kanata. What did Kinji have to say about it? That it was already too late. I’m sorry, but no. It was not too late. He went out of his way to continue with the murder plot he’d decided on because of the Sunk Cost Fallacy and doubled the body count for the sake of...I have no idea. Tradition?

Either way, he denied Kakeru his dying wish and still killed Kanata, despite already guaranteeing that he did as he was tasked to and killed someone.

And then he goes further and tries to attack both Rei and Tsurugi, just because they were out of their rooms at the time, and add them to the frame-up. Yet all this kind of thing does is leave more evidence for who the killer is every time it happens.

All of that is so utterly cruel and sadistic that it feels wildly out of character for someone like Kinji to do, even if he was under a lot of pressure at the time. It’s a worse level of character assassination, but one mitigated slightly by the fact that he does apologize and show genuine remorse by the end.

And I do have sympathy for him after it turns out the kids he was trying to save were dead all along. As horrific as his actions were, he at least had a noble ultimate goal...and that goal was ripped away from him long before he even realized. It’s tragic, cruel and unfair.

The same cannot be said for our next entry.

Very Bad- DR1 Chapter 3

This one is pretty infamous among the fandom and for good reason. Celeste engineers a complicated and frankly ridiculous plan that involves tricking Hifumi into killing Taka, creating the Robo-Justice suit to frame Hagakure and then killing Hifumi herself. All to claim the huge amount of reward money Monokuma had offered and live out her Goth Fantasy Life.

What sets it here is that the character assassination goes from unnecessary cruelty to outright stupidity. Celeste puts together this frankly ridiculous and elaborate plan, which would be bad enough given that she should be smarter than this, but it goes further. She does so much to push the narrative of the situation that it becomes blindingly obvious who the culprit is even before the first murder.

The Robo-Justice concept is just silly, and maybe that was the point, to be so shocking and baffling that it distracted everyone from all the other details, but Hina quickly points out that the suit is impossible to really move in. That immediately rules it out as even a red herring and turns it into more of a distraction.

Beyond that though, once again, another death is basically an afterthought. Because Taka and Hifumi are fighting over Alter Ego, she uses that as leverage to get Hifumi to help her, so he kills Taka and then she kills him, and Taka’s role in this chapter is so minimal that I can barely remember if he had any lines. And this was after the emotional gut-punch of Chapter 2, when he lost Mondo. Which leads to the other big problem with Chapter 3: sudden character development death syndrome, or SCDDS.

Likewise, this plan, like all Chapter 3′s, was far more elaborate and nonsensical than it needed to be, with so many moving parts and so many factors Celeste had to actively try and control that it became very obvious this was a conspiracy and thus no surprise that it was her.

Really, if she wanted to take advantage of their fight, why not kill one and frame the other? It would’ve been so much simpler, had less moving parts and been far more believable. She instead went with complexity over brevity and set a horrible standard the games could not break away from.

And why did she do it? She says it was to gain the money and live in a castle with vampire butlers. Nothing noble, just something flat-out selfish and stupid, if you take her words at face value. But if you don’t, there’s a lot of room to interpret what she says and she seems to show some degree of remorse or at least regret for what happened.

I hope you enjoyed that, because there’s no regret in the last two.

Terrible- V3 Chapter 3

And here’s a Chapter 3 so bad, it’s become a meme. I’ll admit, I was actually ready to name this one my favorite Chapter 3 of the series when I first saw it. I was impressed that they’d finally broken away from the formula and had to solve a single murder, in this case Angie in the locked art room. There was so much to explore there.

And then Tenko died and I realized this series really cannot break its own formula. Cue my disappointed sigh.

All of the same problems I had with the previous entry are here, but they’ve been ramped up to 11. Korekiyo pushes so hard to do the séance in a specific room, it’s hard not to suspect he’s up to something. Tenko’s sudden emotional speech to Himiko could not have telegraphed her death harder if the pinwheel ribbon tied to her head were replaced with a set of red flags. But now onto the murder plot itself.

“Haha seesaw effect funny yada yada,” let’s get to the real meat of the issue here. Kiyo purposefully arranged for a set of rooms to become traps that he could use during the séance he’d been pushing for, but he did so right outside the room Angie was doing her own creepy rituals in. And when she came in looking for a candle, he clubbed her with a piece of wood, carried her back to her room, murdered her and locked the room behind him.

Do you know what this means? If he hadn’t killed Tenko, Kiyo would’ve won. I’m serious, there was no way the group would’ve been able to fully pinpoint that he was the one who managed to kill Angie and he would’ve not only been able to escape, but guaranteed everyone else would’ve died.

And he reveals his goal by the end was to kill a bunch of girls to send to his dead sister. The obvious conclusion to draw is that he believed that he had to kill a girl during a séance, but since he shanked Angie with the gold katana and sent he believes he sent her to be with his sister at the end of the trial, that means he doesn’t believe that a séance is necessary.

Which ultimately means he went through with the infamous seesaw trap purely because he’d spent so much time setting it up and he didn’t want it to go to waste. That is the only explanation for why he didn’t just call it quits with Angie and let the rest of the trial play out.

And all of that is without even getting into the really grotesque rationale behind his actions: his sister, whom he was apparently in an incestuous relationship with and whose spirit he believes lives on inside of him. His sister was very sick and thus never really had any friends, and it’s likely Kiyo was the only constant presence in her life. There are also very uncomfortable implications that she may have abused him as well, pressuring him to live the life that she wanted, and none of it is really addressed.

And so, when she died, Kiyo was left alone and believed he could send her 100 friends in the afterlife. Thus, he’d gone around killing at least 90 women, given that he says he was close to his goal, before ending up in the Killing Game. While he’s disappointed, he’s satisfied he at least got close and creepily promised to watch over everyone like a ghost.

Really, it’s how shockingly dumb Kiyo’s actions are that bring this one down so far, although the incestuous serial killer angle really doesn’t help. Speaking of which, there really is no reason for it beyond Tsumugi wanting to live out her fantasies.

But as bad as this one is, it still manages to avoid being the worst of them all.

What the fuck?- SDRA2 Chapter 3

How do you get worse than V3's Chapter 3? You try to emulate it.

That’s no exaggeration. LINUJ has stated that his ideas for this chapter of SDRA2 changed after he saw V3′s, which gave him the inspiration for this part of the game. And while I know plenty of people really enjoyed this one, even considering it the best, I have to disagree completely.

Not only is this the worst Chapter 3 out of them all, this is honestly one of the worst pieces of media in anything Danganronpa-related that I’ve ever seen. I mean that genuinely, not out of anger, but out of disgust and disappointment.

First of all, this trial is too long. I can accept that trials would need to go on for a while in these circumstances, but six hours? SIX HOURS?! And most of that time is spent with Kanade arguing with Syobai over small, petty details.

Second, perhaps the worst in terms of sheer, unmitigated plot contrivances. There is so much that goes on here that can only be explained with either heavy-handed exposition or handwaves of “Fuck you, she’s smart” or “fuck you, I’m lucky.” What do I mean by that? The biggest is the crux of why this trial famously has two blackeneds.

When Kanade and Hibiki (in her puppet state) murder Setsuka, they stab her with such synchronized timing, milliseconds apart, that Monocrow can’t even decide which happened first. And this was never addressed or shown at any point beforehand, just vaguely referenced here and there.

This is different from something like Nagito relying on his luck in Chapter 5. Nagito’s luck had been established countless times by then and he used it to his advantage to make Chiaki the blackened, with his goal being to kill the others and allow her to go free. If there had been similar scenes with Kanade and Hibiki demonstrating their synchronization, even just one or two, I would’ve been more willing to believe it.

Likewise, another element of Kanade’s murder plot is that she’s apparently good at throwing. I’m a bit more lenient toward this one, as I recall there might’ve been a scene where she was throwing darts and Hibiki was like “She’s the best at darts!” It’s not much, but it’s better.

My issue is that these are cases of tell, don’t show. You can’t expect me to believe a detail about character that hadn’t been demonstrated until that point simply because I’m informed and not shown how it works. Nagito’s luck at least has rules, while the synchronicity with the twins seems even more ridiculous by comparison.

That then brings us to the murderess herself, Kanade, who manages to be both a ridiculous genius and completely incompetent at the same time. She describes herself as a perfectionist and makes sure to think about every detail of her plan beforehand, from timetables to which handbooks they need, every shot she needs to make, every tool they need, etc.

And yet she leaves behind a bottle of antibiotics. One that proves to be a crucial piece of evidence in incriminating her. If she were really meticulous, she could’ve taken stock of everything she’d brought her medical kit beforehand and then checked to see if she had it all before they left. But she didn’t, and it’s even acknowledged that it was a stupid mistake.

Add to that the pins that they needed that also got them incriminated. Where did they come from? The bags Hibiki stuffed into her shirt to pad her chest and make herself look like Kanade, which contained Setsuka’s disembodied hands. Which...yeah, let’s get this out of the way too.

This chapter also relies far, far too much on shock value. Setsuka’s death is absolutely horrifying and works in the moment, but things like Kanade’s reveal of being a serial killer, while foreshadowed decently, are only really effective on a first viewing. The more you think about it, the less it actually makes sense and the more it hurts both her image and the logic of her plot.

And I’m going to be genuine about this: this chapter is also guilty of serial killer glorification. It doesn’t matter if it frames her in a negative light or paints it as horrific, this was LINUJ trying to make her as shocking and horrific as possible, but also making her into a genius who gets everything she wants at the expense of all the people she’d hurt. The narration goes out of its way to refer to Kanade as a genius multiple times. And the fact that she was the second most popular character in a poll really shows what I’m talking about.

To be clear, I don’t like how much focus Genocider Syo gets in the canon games, especially with how they’re played for comic relief more than anything. However, the difference is that Toko actually has a character that grows and develops beyond Syo, Syo doesn’t actually kill any of the main characters (still highly questionable but given how desperate the Tragedy is, I can accept that) and it’s made pretty clear in UDG that even she has some humanity in her. Syo has a sense of decency and compassion, shared with Toko, that grants her some humanity. That is not the case with Kanade, who is a monster through and through.

Toko and Syo are capable of unconditional love toward Byakuya, one that I can be certain would not turn murderous or cruel, even if Byakuya is not the kind of guy to go for. Kanade, by contrast, is not capable of unconditional love; she’s an incestuous, manipulative, stalking, psychopathic control-freak.

Additionally, Kanade’s death isn’t true justice, it’s her getting to die with a smile on her face knowing that she ruined countless lives and has her sister die with her too. Which then brings me to my biggest point of contention and the conclusion of the objective section of this analysis. I will now start shouting, so prepare yourself.

Fuck this chapter and what it did to Hibiki. She was the biggest victim in all of this, even worse than Setsuka. At least Setsuka wasn’t aware of what was happening and died before she was chopped into pieces. Meanwhile, Hibiki not only learns that she’s partially responsible for it, she gets next to no sympathy from the rest of the cast for what happened, then learns her serial killer sister has been killing and torturing people her whole life to isolate her. And then gets to learn Kanade killed their parents before being dragged off to their double execution, screaming for help the whole time.

And this was after a ton of character growth and development I was far more interested in and impressed with. When I saw this chapter play out, I didn’t see a tragedy with her or an engaging villain, I saw a frustrating shock-baity twist that left me disgusted, confused and annoyed. Two great characters died to glorify another shitty repetition of the serial killer plot beat, and somehow Kanade is the one who gets all the attention and all the popularity.

And let’s get something clear here: Kanade, this amazing mega super genius who killed 60 people and never got caught? She left crucial evidence behind, evidence that she brought herself and didn’t bother to fully clean up. Do you know who didn’t accidentally leave evidence behind in his first ever murder? Leon. He was smart enough to use a lint roller to clean up any traces of his hair and threw his bloody shirt in the furnace. He only got caught because Sayaka wrote his name where she couldn’t see it and the shirt arm burned off in a way he couldn’t control.

Let me repeat that: IN HIS FIRST EVER MURDER, FREAKING LEON WAS SMARTER AND MORE CAREFUL THAN KANADE, A *SERIAL KILLER.*

Even Kirumi’s situation, where she lost a piece of her glove that proved vital in incriminating her, she lost it in the pool at a time she couldn’t get to it. That was bad luck. With Kanade, it was sheer incompetence.

I wouldn’t be making such a big deal about this if it wasn’t one of the key pieces of evidence that got her found out. And to make matters worse, she was actually planning on framing Iroha. Iroha. A girl whose only real method of attack is crying and pushing someone off a balcony. Did she seriously think anyone would buy that she not only killed Setsuka, but dismembered her and set her body up in a weird way?

Not that it matters, since her attempt at framing Iroha- knocking her out with spiked coffee- failed because she doesn’t even like coffee. This girl is not as meticulous or careful as she thinks she is.

And no, I’m not going to say that all of this is retroactively justified by Sora having Divine Luck and that’s why all of this happened. That reveal coming at the end does not justify any of this by any means. Please do not use “Fuck you, I’m lucky” in place of “Fuck you, I’m smart.” Nagito playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets and winning is not the same as Kanade being incompetent and Sora having a gut feeling that it’s not over yet.

If you want to showcase a character being clever, you show them getting around difficult situations or fooling someone within the confines of established rules. You don’t just let them get away with whatever’s convenient for the moment.

But do you want to know what the worst aspect of this Chapter 3 is? I could maybe overlook all the other details- all of them- if this weren’t the case.

It’s how completely irrelevant this chapter is in the greater story.

Say what you will about the others, at least they feel like they’re part of a larger narrative- DR1′s was another motive, SDR2′s was as well and foreshadowed the Ultimate Despair twist, V3 was part of a reality show and was written by a creep with an incest fetish, and even DRA’s felt more in line with the story. But SDRA2′s? It feels like a completely separate story shoved in the middle of the existing one.

Kanade has no connection to the Voids or Mikado, not to Utsuro, not to the Despairs, not to any outside groups, not to Hope’s Peak, not even the Tragedy itself plays any role in her character. All she wants is to control Hibiki, and she only did all this because she was losing that control.

When you peel away all the shock value, Kanade is ultimately, like every serial killer out there, a painfully flat and boring character with shitty motivations to be a shitty human being. Her entire personality revolves around her creepy obsession with Hibiki; there is nothing deeper there, and LINUJ has even said that Kanade would’ve killed herself if Hibiki died. I don’t find someone like that very appealing nor interesting.

I don’t think I would mind all of this as much if she didn’t feel so completely disconnected from everything else in SDRA2, but she is and it is very apparent when you actually look at the story as a whole. Not even Mikado knew she was a serial killer and brought her in just because she had a vague connection to Tsurugi.

And what happens after the reveal of his girl who’s committed 60 murders? Who brutally butchered their friend, burned her letter and dragged another off to a horrible, unfair end with her and got everything she really wanted? Not much.

I can name about three things: Hibiki’s puppet state foreshadowing Yuki’s transformation, the implication that more time had passed than they’d realized and her burning Setsuka’s note. The latter is the only piece of the story that actually feels like it connects this chapter to the others. But after Kanade and Hibiki are gone, they’re barely even mentioned and it’s clear how little impact they had.

There’s also Iroha being revealed as a Void at the end of the Chapter, but that has nothing to do with Kanade and it really could’ve been placed anywhere, or even just left out entirely. Again, I question what the purpose of its inclusion is, especially since Chapter 4 could’ve done it much better.

Now, one could argue that the relevance of this scene has more to do with themes about trust and sowing mistrust among the group. However, I feel that that’s more of an overarching narrative of any DR story, and one that Chapter 4 does substantially better with its exploration of Nikei as a major player, especially in the wake of Setsuka helping him, and us knowing Iroha is a void and wanting her to admit it so the group can work together.

The problem with this argument is that, for the most part, the concrete events of Chapter 3 are not followed-up on or carry over in a significant way like the reveal of the Voids or the virtual world. Kanade being a serial killer, in and of itself, feels largely like a tacked-on addition to the story, since, you know, it is.

What this means is that this is the only chapter 3 where you can skip it and miss basically nothing. Think about that: 1/6th of SDRA2- a full 16%- is completely irrelevant to the overarching story, all for the sake of emulating the worst part of V3. Granted, I don’t know how much better LINUJ’s original plan would’ve been, but I have my doubts it could be worse.

Ultimately, that’s why I find this chapter 3 to be the worst of them all: all the existing issues, but with the addition of too much shock value, serial killer glorification, Hibiki’s absolutely horrific SCDDS for the sake of a double execution, and just the fact that you can skip this entire chapter and miss nothing vital. I can’t even say that last part about any of the others, and that is unforgivable.

To anyone who genuinely wants to write anything DR-related, all I ask is that we retire the tropes of Chapter 3. Maybe then we can have some that are genuinely good.

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stampstamp · 1 year

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Finished re-reading F*shigi Y*gi part 1 and the first and final arcs still spark joy so I'll keep my collection but volumes 9-11 were so frustrating that I'm gonna roast them a little under the cut (and be a bit critical of other aspects that don't hold up 30 years on)

Major spoilers and references to SA in the series under the cut! (And it's a super long rant!)

The dip in quality from 9 onwards was such a shame! The plot just turns into various enemies trying to rape the 15-year-old protagonist for three volumes! Not to be a pearl clutcher but Watase says the target demographic is middle school - junior high students and there's just a whole arc where:

It's implied that Nakago raped Miaka. It's later revealed he didn't manage to penetrate her and everyone is like 'oh phew! 😄' and her traumatic nightmares about her memories of him stripping her and pinning her down before she fainted just stop. 🤦

Also, in the author note alongside that part Watase comments that things are getting dark but points out that we've just learned that Yui didn't actually get raped by strangers so it's not all bad. Mate, your protagonist is being assaulted?? We can't take much solace in that revelation right now!

Then there's a bit where Amiboshi climbs on top of her while she's sleeping naked and kisses her without her consent (his parents had drugged her).

Meanwhile, Soi disguises herself as Miaka and tries to seduce Tamahome. I know it's a product of it's time but ughh the way Tamahome almost getting raped is handled so differently to scenes where Miaka is assaulted - it's awful. And there's also a 'gag' parody page where it replicates the scene where Tamahome found Miaka after she's been assaulted by Nakago but makes it look like one of the gay characters had raped Tamahome.

After his comrades have failed to take her virginity and stop her from summoning Suzaku, Tomo, who Watase confirms is gay, also tries to rape Miaka. 😑

In the last volume, Watase shares the ideas that there wasn't space for and they were so good 🥲 maybe you could have removed one of the SA scenes or one of the twenty times Miaka or Tamahome breaks it off and runs away to protect the other?

I used to like the author notes but this time they kept rubbing me the wrong way. Watase would say things like 'too bad we HAVE to spank our tiny terrier puppy to discipline it 🫤' or share racist travelogues about trips to China.

But it's kind of funny that in the author notes, Watase hinted at shipping Tamahome and Nakago 😂 never really gushed about how much she loved Tamahome/Miaka as a ship though. I quite like Keisuke/Tamahome as a ship - they got on well.

I was thinking about ranting about how Nuriko is handled but that's hard because 1. 90s 2. Another culture 3. Watase later came out as X gender so the offensive character notes were probably well intentioned and might be regretted now? 4. The translators had to do the usual thing of deciding which pronouns the character that's almost certainly trans would use, while also translating jokes that implied Nuriko is simply crossdressing for funsies and deciphering whatever the hell happened in vol 8 where Nuriko decided to be cis and in love with Miaka for a chapter or two.

I started shipping Tasuki and Nuriko this time and I was delighted to see 20 whole fics on AO3 but almost all of them misgender Nuriko. Maybe the anime subbers used different pronouns or Nuriko's backstory was different in the anime? Watase said someone did a Tasuki/Nuriko doujin and they wanted to read it. Same!

I used to think I wasn't attached to most of the Suzaku warriors beyond Tasuki because I'd re-read the first few volumes way more times than the rest but Watase really didn't give the others much to say or do! 😬 I feel sorry for the fans of Mitsukake(?) Apparently there were lots of Hotohori fans but I always found him creepy; despite his gentle actions, he never seemed to listen to Miaka's wishes. Yandere behaviour. Lucky for me he wasn't in it much (I also feel sorry for his fans lmao)

Forgot how much character death there was towards the end. It's impressive that Watase included characters from the Genbu and Byakko arcs decades before they were written IRL. I don't think I'll read those since FY suggests they ended badly? I wonder if much was retconned.

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rue-bennett · 2 years

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I think Hillbilly Elegy was worse than Woman In The Window cause of the implications it caused but Woman was pretty bad and not in a campy fun way like most bad thrillers

This is exactly how I feel. Hillbilly Elegy wasn't that bad of a movie if it was just a movie. It was like. Not good. But it was okay and decent enough to watch. And I like trying to separate politics and actors' personal lives and film criticism and theory from movies bc I think it's just less enjoyable. BUT. Fuck JD Vance and fuck that movie because it just became his running card and I can't believe so many people went for it. It fucking sucks.

But yeah. TWITW could've at least been fun campy bad but it was just bad. Feels played out and almost becomes a parody of itself.

#asks #anonymous

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nihilnovisubsole · 2 years

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Bit unusual question, but would you happen to have any noir movie recs? I'm trying to write a short story with that vibe, but most of my cinema language is born out indie or post 90s movies

that's not unusual at all. in fact, it's kind of funny, because if my memory serves, someone asked me the same question here almost ten years ago. i'm sure i gave them a serviceable answer the first time, but frankly, that far back, i have no idea where it is. [besides, you know how it goes. you wouldn't encourage anyone to go digging through whatever nonsense you were posting way back when.]

movies i have seen at least once and remember well: the big sleep, the maltese falcon, sunset boulevard, dark passage, vertigo

movies i haven't watched all the way through or don't remember well, but the Film Community™ considers them noir classics: laura, this gun for hire, the original nightmare alley, notorious, mildred pierce, gilda, the third man, key largo, the postman always rings twice, out of the past

even movies that sit slightly to the left of noir can show you some interesting things about the environment it developed in. german expressionism can be tough if you're not really cool with old movies, but its dramatic angles and lighting paved the way for noir's visual style. a lot of those filmmakers came to hollywood in the thirties and forties, for obvious reasons, and they brought their techniques with them. it was also a great time for psychological thrillers, like rebecca or gaslight, that may not have fit the stereotypical noir setting. in a way, it's funny that noir has become such high art, because many of its most distinctive elements came from trying to be cheap. those crime thrillers often had a low budget and fast turnaround, like the pulp magazine stories that they were based on.

the thing i always say about writing stories in that genre is that it's easy to capture the language, but more important to capture the heart. a lot of people can mimic the "dick hardboiled and legs woman" prose style or throw in venetian blinds - at some point, it becomes self-parody. i think noir really lives in loneliness, disillusionment, social criticism, desperation, or bad luck. it's weary, damaged lovers looking for someone who understands them, or trying to do the right thing in the face of a corrupt system. its villains either hide behind causes or find the concept of having one boring. the wrong people get punished. if you feel strongly about any of those things, you'll do great.

#asks #anon #writing #noir

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years

Text

#5: The One With Astruc's Self-Insert

In my introductory post, I said the main inspiration for this blog was @hypocrisyofandrewdobson. For those who don't know, Andrew Dobson is an infamous webcomic artist known for drawing webcomics that tend to demonize people he's come across in public or people who disagree with him online (either critical of his art or his political views), while portraying himself as the victim or wise man calling them out on their differing beliefs.

If you want to learn more about this guy who I consider to be far worse than Astruc, check out the blog in question. And no, I don't know why he draws himself as a blue bear.

Why am I talking about this? It's one thing for some schmuck on the internet to use his work to respond to criticism, but the creator of a popular animated series dedicating an entire episode to attacking his critics and trying to get others to feel bad for him is another story.

The second episode of Miraculous Ladybug's third season, “Animaestro” served as a wake-up call for fans (myself included) to make them realize how immature Astruc could be. The plot centers around the premiere of a movie about Ladybug and Cat Noir directed by Thomas Astruc, who voices himself in the original French dub.

And this isn't just a brief cameo like what Stan Lee did in the MCU. Astruc is the Akumatized person this episode, so there's naturally a lot of focus on him. Throughout the first half of the episode, Astruc portrays himself as this timid man who nobody recognizes or respects, like this idiot who doesn't know what animation is.

Doorman: This is a private event, sir.

Astruc: Huh? Excuse me? I'm Thomas Astruc, the movie director.

Doorman: You filmed Cat Noir and Ladybug? What are they like in real life?

Astruc: Er, it's an animated movie. It's all cartoon characters. We don't actually film anyone. See, there's this whole team that draw the chara—

Doorman: Whatever. Who would want to see Ladybug and Cat Noir as cartoon characters?

Get it? Wasn't that meta joke hilarious? This is how much I was laughing:

youtube

And Astruc continues to get about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield when he interacts with other characters like Jagged Stone and Chloe.

Jagged Stone: Ladybug is one of my best buds! I can't wait to see her movie!

Astruc: Well I—I'm the director, so actually it's more my movie, so to speak.

Jagged Stone: Oh, so you're the one who created the story?

Astruc: Well, technically the screen writers wrote the story, inspired by Ladybug's exploits.

Jagged Stone: Oh, okay. So you did all the drawings?

Thomas: No, no. The animators do all the drawings.

Jagged Stone: So what do you do then?

(Later on...)

Chloe: So you're the one responsible for this movie?

Astruc: Yes, yes! Exactly! That's me!

Chloe: Then you were the one who left Queen Bee out of the trailer. You're lame, utterly lame.

I can't believe Astruc had a scene where he interacted with Chloe and didn't insult her at all.

The episode is determined to make the audience feel bad for Astruc. Nobody respects him and what he does. Isn't that saaaaaad? Nobody cares about animated film directors like Walt Disney or Tex Avery anyway. Not even these stupid children understand how hard Astruc works.

Several Children: Ladybug! Where's Ladybug?

Astruc: Hey there, kids!

Teacher: Ladybug isn't here children. We came here to meet the director of the movie. Children: (frowning in disappointment) Aww.

(Astruc looks visibly disappointed.)

Way to insult your primary demographic, Astruc. I thought you said kids have a better understanding of these stories when people criticized the writing of a certain episode (It's that scene in “Puppeteer 2” if you're curious/don't value your sanity).

It's almost like you're using that as an excuse to half-ass your work while still getting to claim this show is so groundbreaking.

In case you can't tell, “Animaestro” is one of those episodes. The ones where the showrunners decide to dedicate an entire episode to attacking critics of the show in a blunt fashion. Whenever a show addresses criticism, they either create an obvious strawman character to parrot the opinions of fans who don't like their work, or have someone defend the show and insult the critics directly.

youtube

The problem isn't that they're ignoring criticism. It's their show, and they aren't obligated to listen to critics or fans who don't like the direction the show is taking. On the other hand, they aren't obligated to fight back like this and treat their audience like crap. Any show that does something like the three clips I showed you usually comes off as petty and immature because they dedicate so much time to insulting the critics.

Even during the Akuma fight, Astruc has to call out Ladybug for having problems with his movie in-universe, obviously representing critics of the show Astruc claims have no right to criticize the show while it's still airing.

Ladybug: What's with that trailer too? I am not scared of cats, at all.

Astruc/Animaestro: You haven't even seen the movie and you're already slamming it?

Cat Noir: He does have a point, you know.

Ladybug: I wasn't slamming it. It's called constructive criticism!

Yeah, how dare Ladybug be angry that this movie is portraying her as a powerless coward dependent on Cat Noir as opposed to a confident and brave superhero. She just doesn't understand the genius of Thomas Astruc!

And of course the character Astruc claims is “perfect” is the one to take his side.

And that's another problem with this episode, the metatextual references. Before he gets akumatized, Astuc says he spent three years of his life working on his movie. I get that time in this show is weird (we somehow had episodes taking place on the first day of school, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and the first day of Summer), but how did Astruc's self-insert work on a movie based on a superhero who has only been active for a year? Meta-wise, it's an obvious reference to the scorn Astruc has gotten from fans after working so hard on his show, but the only people who would get that reference are the ones who are aware of Astruc's reputation online.

Self-Insert aside, I actually think the titular Animaestro is one of the more visually impressive Akumas featured on the show. Animaestro takes on several forms based off several different forms and eras of animation, like flash, anime, rubber hose, and they all stand out. Granted, some of them are obvious parodies of other characters like Goku or Sailor Moon, but the actual Akuma fight is fun to watch. According to the Mexican Miraculous Ladybug Twitter account, this episode took two and a half years to create, and it shows. It's too bad the story behind it is completely insufferable, almost like the cartoon equidistant to Pixels.

But then comes the part that honestly makes the episode worth it, mainly for how unintentionally hilarious it is. Do you want to know what Animaestro's weakness is? Do you really want to know?

Animaestro is physically incapable of moving unless someone is watching him. I am not making this up.

Ladybug and Cat Noir literally defeat Animaestro by getting everyone to stop paying attention to him.

I could make so many jokes with this, but I can guarantee you're already thinking of something just as good, if not better, than whatever I write.

And there's the end where Astruc gives Marinette his ticket to the movie, which prompts Marinette to kiss up to him for no real reason.

Astruc: Sorry, I guess you don't know who I am either.

Marinette: Of course do. You're Thomas Astruc, the movie director!

Astruc: She recognized me. Somebody actually recognized me!

Nothing happened to make her change her opinion on the Ladybug movie, she didn't really say anything to him earlier in the episode that connects to this exchange, and outside of a few lines Animaestro said, she doesn't even know why he got akumatized (even though ironically she and Chloe accidentally contributed to it because of the awful subplot involving Kagami I talked about last time). If anything, it comes off less like she actually appreciates Astruc's work, and more like she's stroking his ego just to keep him from getting akumatized again.

So yeah, this episode is awful, and the fact that it came out right after the controversial “Chameleon” only proved to show what kind of direction the show was taking this season.

But honestly, even if Astruc still wanted to make about how he doesn't get enough respect the episode could have potentially. All he had to do was make a simple change: Instead of making it about validation for Astruc as a creator, make it about validation for animation in general.

It's a common misconception that animation is only used for shows and movies aimed at children, so the episode could reflect it. Instead of the huge turnout where several celebrities appear at the premiere, instead, the turnout could be a lot smaller, with the media dismissing it as some stupid kiddie flick. Instead of getting akumatized because he gets humiliated in public/getting no respect from anyone else, Astruc gets akumatized because he sees the audience didn't go wild for the movie after the premiere. All he can hear them say is that it's just “kids stuff”.

So when Astruc is Animaestro, he goes on about how important animation is. How it's helped produce propaganda since World War II. How it helped improve special effects in big blockbusters. How the medium is used to create movies that simply can't be filmed on a physical set.

After defeating Animaestro, Ladybug shows up to talk to him. She had seen the movie earlier, and actually enjoyed it. She had a few problems with the story, but they were just minor nitpicks and inaccuracies Astruc wouldn't know about, and she was blown away by the animation. She tells Astruc not to be deterred by his critics, and continue to do what he does. As a designer in her civilian life, Ladybug knows the joy creating brings her, and both she and Astruc want to spread that joy through their work.

Back at the premiere, Astruc thinks about what Ladybug said to him when he sees some kids reenacting a scene from the movie. Astruc walks over to them and asks what they thought of the movie. They said they loved it and how energetic it was. When he tells them he is the director, the kids' faces light up and they say they want to do what he does when they grow up, bringing a smile to Astruc's face.

Isn't that a much more humble approach instead of what we got? It would have helped Astruc come across as more sympathetic, especially with animation fans. But instead, we got an entire episode of Astruc whining about how misunderstood he is.

And you know the footage used for the movie at the beginning? Remember that, because I have a huge rant about it saved for a later post.

For now, here’s an example of a creator appearing in his work done right.

youtube

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

Note

OK, I know this will probably be painful, and I may be a bad mutual for asking but...would you be willing to identify what, in your opinion are the bottom five worst Shadow adaptations, and give a detailed breakdown of why they were so lousy?

Oh christ, okay. I don't think you're gonna get as much of a detailed breakdown for these compared to some of the others, because I take more issue with adaptations that do have good qualities but also big or deep problems to talk about.

For example, I can't include Garth Ennis's Shadow in this list because the comic has a lot of strong points to it, despite a deeply, deeply detestable take on The Shadow's character, where as the rest of the Dynamite run doesn't reach neither the lows or highs of his run. Likewise, Andy Helfer's run has a couple or a couple dozen moments every issue that make me want to tear something to shreds in frustration, but it's also at many points a really good comic with great art and some occasionally very inspired writing. Really, I'd just be repeating myself talking about what I hate in those.

But, fine, let's list some of the others.

I think I'm just gonna have to get the elephant in the room out of the way here, and address that I won't be including Si Spurrier's 2017 Dynamite mini in this list, and I think at least some of you might be angry it's not Number 1 by default. I'm doing this because I intend to one day really revisit it, think about it and it's reception and what it was trying to do, and talk about it on it's own, now that it's been 5 years and everyone has moved on and we can maybe talk about it without kneejerk hatred driving everyone nuts (your mileage may vary on how warranted it was).

I'm also not going to be talking about James Patterson's new novel, because I haven't read it. It seems to be considered a forgettable potboiler by mainstream critics and a resounding failure by everyone who likes the character whether they've read the book or not, and frankly I don't have it in me to learn what the fuzz was about anytime soon, I got my hands way too full as is.

And I won't be including the Batman x Shadow crossovers here, because again, they do have a lot of virtues that put them far ahead of some of the really worst Shadow media, and I've talked enough about how badly I think they mangled The Shadow, which is really the big problem I have with them (well, that and Tim Sale blatantly copying a Michael Kaluta cover, that was really shitty). I don't really hate them anymore, I just get tired and frustrated thinking about parts of them, I said my piece as is. Really, my frustration over this comic is what inspired me to start writing about The Shadow here, so I guess in a way I do owe it at least that much.

5: Archie Comics's Shadow

I think some of you might be wondering why this isn't ranked higher, but to be honest, I don't actually harbor any hatred towards this. I mean, I have to include it, but I find it kinda silly that some people even today actually care about the existence of this comic enough to hate it.

For fans back then? Oh yeah, obviously, but this dropped to such instantaneous backlash that it never really got to live past 6 issues. Really, everything wrong about it can be understood immediately from the covers, and I've actually read the comic in it's entirety to see if there was anything worth taking. I found only a couple of things of note but, no, this really is just a painfully mediocre superhero comic that happens to have a couple of Shadow names in it. If anything, it gets too much credit.

The actual contents of what it is are never going to justify it's reputation, but the existence of it and the disproportionate response to it is the funniest and most enduring legacy it could ever ask for. This whole comic is The Shadow's version of Spongebob's embarassing Christmas photo.

4: David Liss's The Shadow Now

This is another "The Shadow as an immortal in modern times" comic and I think you may have noticed the pattern with those by now. I may revisit this eventually and I do have some moments from it saved for reference, but overall: It sucks, and it doesn't even suck in a way that lets me talk much about it, it's a diet version of Chaykin's Shadow. If Archie's Shadow is a generic mediocre superhero comic wearing The Shadow's name, this is a generic crime story playing beats from movie. The Shadow is an asshole and not even a grandiose or sinister one, he just feels like a sleazy douche in a costume. The art is a 50/50 coin toss between appropriately moody and "Google images with a filter on them", I don't remember anything about the plot other than Khan had a bomb again and he had a daughter, and there were new versions of the agents and the Harry stand-in turned evil and Lamont shacked up with Margo's descendant which, uh, no. I don't really hate this but I really have nothing nice to say about this comic other than Colton Worley's art is nice sometimes. I can't really muster anything else to say here.

3: Invisible Avenger

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZ...

...uuh, wha-

Yeah, I remember nothing about this one other than it's painfully boring and nothing about it, nothing at all, works in the slightest and I drift off to sleep even now trying to give this a rewatch. To be honest pretty much every other Shadow serial not starred by Victor Jory sucks and I don't really have anything to say about them, this one is just the worst of the lot. I dearly wish there was a good Shadow tv series but, if it was going to be like this pilot? Good riddance.

2: Harlan Ellison's The New York Review of Bird

This isn't really a Shadow story as much as it's a Harlan Ellison story that happens to feature The Shadow, but man am I glad that Ellison's "Dragon Shadows" was canned, because holy shit what a goddamn nightmare Harlan Ellison writing The Shadow for real could have been, going purely by the one time he ever touched the character. New York Review of Bird is a purely farcical parody story that wears real, real thin even before "Uncle Kent" shows up, and we get to see in it what is by far the most detestable and irredeemable take on The Shadow ever put on print, and not even in a critique or deconstructive way or anything that could be remotely worth discussing.

I don't hold any particular affection for Harlan Ellison and his writing (despite liking some of it) and I've come to notice the major red flag that is finding someone who looks up to Harlan Ellison in any capacity as a person, and this story in particular really feels like Ellison aggressively trying to channel his jackass tendencies through every line, just him being nasty because he built a personal brand on being nasty. The only reason this isn't Number One is because it's a very short story that saw zero influence or reputation, and thus it only exists as a brief mention in The Shadow wiki, and a brief mention is all it really calls for.

1: Howard Chaykin's Blood & Judgment

I'm guessing most of you already knew this one was in the top spot before I started writing.

I would actually rather not write a big piece on Blood & Judgment, because I think (or at least I hope) it's influence on The Shadow has waned a lot over the years and I would prefer to draw it the least amount of attention possible, but if I HAVE to talk about this, I guess I'd rather just vomit this out of my circuits now instead of giving it it's own post.

I would prefer to use a less unpleasant image on my blog, but if I'm going to talk about this comic, there's no image to better convey it than this drawing of macho asshole Cranston holding a sexualized mannequin at gunpoint. By leaps and bounds, Blood & Judgment is the most misogynistic Shadow story I've ever read. It's ironic that Chaykin justified the rampant misogyny he gave The Shadow with the idea that this is just a man from the 30s would act like, when he admits in the same breath that he never even touched the stories, and he wrote a story more sexist and demeaning to it's female characters than anything, literally anything, written in the Shadow pulps. It's almost impressive even.

I'll paste some segments from Randy Raynaldo's review

In Flagg, he intended to present his own point of view on American society while keeping his work tongue in cheek and acessible. But this vision dimmed, and Flagg had become a vehicle by which Chaykin could play out fetishes and portray gratuitous and stylish violence.

In The Shadow, stripped of the political and social veneer which was supposed to make Flagg unique, Chaykin's sensibilities and excesses become disturbingly apparent. For all of his liberal posturing, Chaykin's work demonstrates zero difference from the same kind of mentality exploited and made popular by similarly violent popular culture icons like Dirty Harry and Death Wish.

More than half a dozen individuals are indiscriminately and violently murdered in the first issue. Although the victims are characters who played major roles in the myth of The Shadow, we feel little sympathy for them, even for those of us who knew these characters at the outset. Who dies is unimportant, it's how they die that is the fascination.

Chaykin uses sexual decadence as a means by which to establish villains, and undercuts this device by making the protagonists as promiscuous as the villains. For all of Chaykin's seemingly liberal leanings, he demonstrates very little sensitivity in his portrayal of women.

Because everything works on rules of three, this comic also follows the pattern with other works mentioned here, as this isn't Howard Chaykin writing The Shadow: it's The Shadow reimagined as a Howard Chaykin character. He looks and acts exactly like Reuben Flagg and the typical macho protagonist of Chaykin's other works, he's a cynical sleaze with an entirely new origin who half-assedly dons a garb to machine gun people, and I already wrote a separate piece on why the machineguns are kind of emblematic of everything wrong with this take.

I understand that Chaykin has, or used to have, a big following of sorts, and I've tried to wrap my head around this for years, but I genuinely still don't get why Shadow fans stomach this comic unless they happen to be Chaykin fans first and foremost, I really don't. Everything, fucking everything Shadow fans hate about modern depictions of the character can be traced right back to this. The parts that stuck and changed the character for the worse, like him being defined as an immortal, bloodthirsty warmonger who got all his skills and powers from a magic city in Tibet, or Lamont Cranston being a coward who fears and hates the Shadow, or his agents being expendable slaves, stuff that has been ingrained into the mythos through this and the Alec Baldwin movie and other comics, to the point that people now think of it as the norm, that it's the baseline of what The Shadow is, and I hate it, I genuinely fucking hate it,

I hate it so much that it's a big part of the reason why I created this blog and why I want so badly to get to write The Shadow, because I plainly couldn't stand not having ways to tell people that this is all wrong, that this is actively shooting down the character's odds for success, and that they are missing out on something really great, because the well has been tainted with garbage that won't go away and everytime I read the words Shambala in a Shadow comic, even an otherwise good or great one, I get just a wee bit cross.

The only semi-redeeming aspects I can think of for this comic is one or two cool moments, like when The Shadow hijacks a concert using his Devil's Whisper or when he tames dogs with a stare. Just breadcrumbs of "not garbage" amidst an ocean of anything but. I hate that talking about why I hate this comic in-length can almost feel like I'm still enticing people to check it out of curiosity, but if you wanna do that, fine, just know this: The worst part of Blood & Judgment, even if you don't care at all about what it did to The Shadow, is that it's boring.

It is a deeply boring comic. If you like Howard Chaykin to begin with, you'll probably like this okay (although even Chaykin fans told me that this is his weakest work and that even he seems to agree). If you don't, I plain don't see what you could get out of this.

The comic itself is just nothing. It's the comic book equivalent of a pre-schooler trying to get a reaction by swearing. It has nothing whatsoever other than half-assed attempts at shock value. The plot isn't there, the ideas are stale, the dialogue is needlessly oblique and comprised entirely of unfinished sentences, interrupted conversations and one-liners without build-up. The characters are all unlikable and uninteresting stooges with no personality, or joyless cartoons. There's no heart or emotion or logic, and it isn't even funny enough to succeed as just an outrageous exercise in 80s excess. There's nothing in here.

I get "why" it was popular enough at the time, a rising star creator penning a modern revival of an old character based on controversy that pissed off the old fans, it's an old story that still gets repeated today. But manufactured controversy is not a replacement for storytelling and it rarely ever exists to benefit the people who actually want to enjoy the stories, it only benefits those for the crude benefit of those who want to sell you something out of the controversy.

I guess they got their money's worth back then.

------------------------------------------------

Phew, okay, I did it, I finally vomited out a piece on Blood & Judgment and some others, allright, let's put this piece of negativity behind us now.

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #shadow comics #shadow films #dc comics

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shenanigans-and-imagines · 3 years

Note

How do you feel about Star Trek TOS vs reboot films? Not the plot, that’s... a different topic, but the casting and characterization.

Yeah, I can go on for...a while about the plots of the first two films. Alrighty then, main crew.

Captain James T. Kirk as played by Chris Pine

Not my Captain. This Kirk is what parodies have made him out to be. This is somebody who only understood the surface level of Kirk and thought Zap Brannigan was an accurate interpretation. The Captain Kirk I know respects women, listens to his officers, and would literally die for every single member of his crew. I understand this is a different timeline or whatever, but it’s obvious from the first movie that they’re trying to get everyone back in their original place. Chris Pine is fine with the character he is given, but it took me seeing him in Wonder Woman to finally understand his appeal. Do not like.

Spock as played by Zachary Quinto

He did a fine job. Spock is so prevalent in pop culture that you have to actively try to sabotage his characterization. Quinto is a fine actor and he got a lot of nuances of Nimoy’s performance down. I will say I don’t like how emotional he is in the first movie. I understand he’s going through a hard time and he lost his planet, but even before then the appeal of watching Spock is seeing how his attachment to the Enterprise and it’s crew allows him to be more human. I would have liked to have seen a clearer difference between the Spock at the start of the first film and the end. Having him be more detached would do that. Also, THE SPOCK I KNOW WOULD NEVER DATE A STUDENT, SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK ABRAMS????

Doctor Leonard McCoy as played by Karl Urban

Karl Urban does the greatest job interpreting McCoy and I will take no criticism. It’s clear from every scene he’s in that he loves McCoy and adores DeForest Kelley. My number one complaint is there is not nearly enough of him in the first two films. He finally, finally gets his time to shine in Star Trek: Beyond, and we get to actually see him and Spock work off each other which was always my favorite dynamic in the show. McCoy is part of the trio for a reason, and it pains me that we didn’t get more of the trio dynamic in the films. No complaints from me about his interpretation, McCoy is the best in every universe.

Lt. Nyota Uhura as played by Zoe Saldana

Zoe Saldana is so good, I wished Hollywood would give her more to do. Her Uhura is not as warm as her Original Trilogy counterpart, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We can see she’s ambitious and doesn’t take bullshit, which is an interpretation I can vibe with. Again though, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why this same ambitious, intelligent young woman would date her teacher. Serious, WHAT THE FUCK ABRAMS??? They never develop the relationship that far, and it feels almost like an excuse to give her something to do rather than expand on her character or Spock’s. If anything, it undermines both characters and especially Uhura. Basically, I like this interpretation in theory, but in practice it didn’t work until Star Trek: Beyond.

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott as played by Simon Pegg

I will watch Simon Pegg is basically anything and that is a fact. I like his Scotty and get a lot of enjoyment from him as a character. My one gripe is he’s a bit too much of a joke. While Scotty was certainly funny in the show, he wasn’t really the butt of the joke. The joke was more about just how much he loved the Enterprise, and we don’t really see that in the films. I also would have liked to have seen more of his dedication to the crew as a whole. He was one of the most vocally loyal to it and Kirk specifically. There wasn’t a lot of that in the movies at all, so I can’t put it all on Scotty, but it’s the most pronounced with his character. Good Simon Pegg performance, not great character interpretation.

Lt. Hikaru Sulu

Love it, no complaints. John Cho fought hard to get this role and his dedication shows. He’s a bit more straight laced than the show, but that’s not a bad thing. We still get his love of sword and dry wit, so wins all around. I would have liked to see more of his plants though, but that may just be me.

Ensign Pavel Chekov

RIP Anton Yelchin. I cannot emphasis what a talent we lost with his death. I love the enthusiasm he brings to Chekov. Every scene he’s in is just fantastic. I would have liked more Russian jokes, but understandable that they cut them. Nothing to complain about here.

#star trek #the clone wars #star trek: tos #star trek: aos #james t. kirk #captain kirk #spock #leonard mccoy #doctor mccoy #uhura #nyota uhura #scotty #sulu #ensign chekov #pavel chekov

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davidmann95 · 3 years

Note

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

* Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.

#Justice League #Zack Snyder #Superman #Batman #DCEU #Opinion

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blazehedgehog · 3 years

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Are you finished with Rockstar, or just Grand Theft Auto?

Maybe both, I dunno. I feel really, really burned by GTA5 and how it became so deeply subservient to GTA Online. The little bit I've played of GTA Online at launch was bizarre and not fun. Rockstar funneling ALL new content in to that, including enough story content to rival or even exceed the singleplayer, really gets my blood up. Especially because everything I've ever heard of GTA Online is that it's a nightmare hellscape full of unstoppable hackers constantly running rampant.

I liked the act of playing GTA5 but there's no doubt that older GTAs were a lot better in a lot of ways, at least structurally. Since finishing GTA5, I've gone back and played GTA3 to completion again and it's amazing how that game just says "Here is an objective. Complete it in any way you have means."

The example I always use is that there's a mobster exiting a strip club and you have to kill him. The game doesn't care how he dies, just that he dies. Maybe you snipe him from a block away, maybe you barricade the alley where he's parked and blow up his car with a few grenades, or maybe he leads you on a car chase around the city.

GTA4 and especially GTA5 don't have those moments. They have setpieces. You drive to a location, you watch a cutscene, you follow the checkpoint markers, do what the text tells you to do, and listen to the dialog. The whole open-ended nature that these games were founded on has been almost erased in favor of being more "cinematic." And when that's good, I guess it's fine, but I can't help but feel like we've lost something intrinsic to why people originally cared about these games. I mean, it's a series called "Grand Theft Auto," where the most basic act was stealing the cars you wanted to drive, and more often than not GTA5 refuses to progress if you aren't driving the specific vehicle provided for the mission.

And especially now, with what the Hitman games have shown us as far as providing a space where you can tackle a single assassination from hundreds of different angles, GTA's insistence on locking you down to doing things because "that's what the story says to do" feels archaic. GTA3 may be a deeply old looking game and have ancient, clumsy controls, but mechanically it feels way more contemporary than GTA5 does.

And then there's the story. People have praised Rockstar so much for these "crime dramas" and as time goes on I just don't feel it. San Andreas was great as a snapshot of the early 90's. Though I haven't played it, I assume Vice City is similarly remembered for being a snapshot of the 80's.

GTA4 and GTA5 feel deeply unrewarding, especially in their endings. Like, great, GTA5 took The Sopranos and smushed it together with, I dunno, Reservoir Dogs and Fargo, I guess? It doesn't really do anything for me. Especially not when it's set in a world where you have advertisements for beer called "Piss Water" and airports where their greatest joke is "Runway 69." It's still trying to be a parody... of the thing GTA is trying to do for serious.

And the ending of GTA5! The last few missions feel like a slap in the face. I won't spoil too much, but you get an option of one of several endings and all of them are bad. The canonical ending basically spells out that these characters learned nothing, changed nothing about themselves, and only just barely moved laterally in their lives. The whole game's story was completely pointless. That's part of why I felt so burned, because I expected DLC to give better epilogues to these guys, and then GTA Online came in and wrecked shop.

These kinds of decisions have earned Rockstar sweeping critical acclaim, and one starts to get this kind of... I dunno, vibe, from Rockstar, where they feel like they have to make these big indulgent cinematic "prestige" games. You felt this with GTA4, where the controls were a sluggish, slippery, laggy mess because they wanted to make sure you "felt every step Niko Bellic takes." Until you drive more than 15mph in a Sedan and struggle to bank around turns because you might as well be steering an ocean liner.

Hearing how people turned on Red Dead Redemption 2 reminds me a lot of how I now feel about GTA4. They made a game that when viewed from certain angles could almost be described as bad on purpose. They wanted to make it slow, and laborious, and clumsy because "that's just what being a cowboy really was, maaaaan. We're making a statement about technology. It's important."

GTA6 could bring me back if it's a significantly new direction for the series, but it sounds like the probably-true rumors about that game triple down on GTA Online, something I deeply, deeply will never care about. I do not want a Grand Theft Auto live services game where I'm expected to complete missions with a squad of randos. I can count the number of online games that have hooked me on one hand. (Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead 2, Splatoon, and Fortnite. Full stop. And those first two were almost exclusively with friends only.)

But I just don't care. I don't care about GTA Online, I don't care about RDR2, I don't care about GTA6, I don't care about about Rockstar anymore. I feels like they fell off the deep end of loving the smell of their own farts (which mostly just smell like money, at this point).

They have lost me.

#questions #anonymous #rockstar games #gta5 #gta6 #gta online #red dead redemption screenshots

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uncloseted · 2 years

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sam levison or wtv his name is weird.. he found the girl who plays faye on watching one of her porn vids.. and almost made minka kelly get fully naked and have a whole sex scene w alexa demie until she had to put her foot down and say something. mans is weird and needs to get fired he has done tons of other things

I've always felt like this is kind of a weird take. Euphoria is an HBO show. HBO is a channel that has always been known for gratuitous nudity and violence in its shows, and Euphoria is no exception to that pattern. There's definitely a larger conversation to be had about whether that kind of nudity is necessary for HBO shows and whether on the whole, it's a good thing or a bad thing for society, but I feel like if you're okay with the nudity in Westworld or Game of Thrones (that is often way more graphic and violent), you have to be okay with Euphoria, too.

All of the actors are overage, there's an intimacy coordinator on the set for all potentially intimate or sensitive scenes, and sex scenes are removed if the actors deem them unnecessary. In the TV industry, those last two points are huge. Intimacy coordinators are still pretty new, and for most productions, if it's in the script, you're doing it, regardless of how you feel about it. I feel like it's important to note that nobody who's actually worked on the show has anything bad to say about Sam, and many of them have publicly talked about how much they like working with him. Usually, when there's tension behind the scenes, actors will either just not talk about the person they have tension with, or they'll make a pointed, "no comment comment" that suggests there's drama but they're not going to talk about it.

In terms of the Minka/Alexa scene, it wasn't meant to be a sex scene. Minka said that, "[Sam] thought it would be more interesting if my dress fell to the ground," (instead of just having Maddy unzip it) and that, "I said, 'I’d love to do this scene, but I think we can keep my dress on. [Sam] was like, ‘OK!’ He didn’t even hesitate. And he shot a beautiful scene and got exactly what he wanted." That really doesn't sound all that weird to me. He thought it would be a more visually interesting and charged scene if the dress dropped, Minka said she wasn't comfortable with it, and so they changed how the scene was filmed. There wasn't even an argument about it.

Sydney Sweeney's comments about Sam Levinson are similarly positive- "There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here. He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it.' I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me."

In terms of the Chloe Cherry thing, both Chloe and Sam say that she was scouted to audition for the show on Instagram because he thought she was funny. And about the Euphoria porn parody, she said, "it was funny because I made that probably five months after I was cast on the show," and that, "it’s funny the way people are reacting to it, like 'She was discovered off a porn parody.' And I’m like, 'No, no, no, that was literally just something I made for my OnlyFans forever ago, and now everyone’s finding it.'”

But also... it was a good call. Chloe Cherry is really funny, and I think she's perfect for the character of Faye. And I kind of think it's cool that he took her seriously enough as a comedic performer to cast her in her first non-adult role despite the backlash that would inevitably get. And even if he had found her through an adult film she did, what's the real accusation here? That he's weird because he's watched porn before, like 95% of all men in the US? That he's weird because he saw a porn performer and saw her as an actual person with the potential to do other jobs in the entertainment industry?

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely things to criticize about Sam Levinson. The way Barbie Ferreira's character Kat has been treated is concerning, especially in the context of the rumors that she and Sam are on bad terms. I just don't think he's done anything that would warrant firing him from the show he creates, directs, writes, and produces.

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repentantsky · 3 years

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5 Companies That Have Too Much Hype Around Them

Look, we all love our favorite games with a passion, and to an extent that’s fine, but when that passion becomes obsession and that obsession becomes forgetting our own moral compass for the sake of entertainment, it does feel like it’s gone too far. It’s one thing to love what a company releases, it’s completely another to ignore every problem they’ve ever had. Not all of the companies on this list have done horribly un-ethical things, but they’ve at least been anti-consumer, and the fact that people don’t question that enough has led to them sometimes, making horrible mistakes. I am RepentantSky, I love making lists that trash on things that are popular, and these are 5 companies, that have too much hype around them.

5. Nintendo

Already I can hear people getting angry, and in a way I get it. Nintendo is for many people the place where they either begin to play games, or the place they go to keep on playing them when everything else let’s them down, and of course, they put an end to the flipping video game crash of 1983, and no one else will ever be able to claim that from them. That’s all wonderful, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be critical of them. I’ve talked about a number of things they’ve done wrong before, so let me quickly run down the list of some of their anti-consumer practices. They, charge too much for remasters and ports, they don’t drop prices in games, they used to charge for fixing Joy-Cons and now completely deny it’s a problem for legal reasons, despite everyone pretty much having experienced drift, they haven’t been good at getting stock for their items in at least 20 years, and oh yeah, they sell all the content for a remake for $115 on the 3DS, the system and the fans that helped them get by while the Wii U was massively underperforming, all while handing owners of the, at the time, unproven Switch, free content. Nintendo has a tendency to still think like a toy company, and they even used that idea to present the Nintendo Entertainment System as a toy instead of a console when they first game to the West with it, but they aren’t a toy company, their a gaming company that also sells toys, just like everyone else. I get they’ve done amazing things, I own over 150 physical handheld games from them, and a ton of digital games besides, but when they start charging twice what they are worth for SD cards, while releasing games that absolutely won’t fit on the limited space of the Switch, and they simply don’t care when costumers complain, it’s time to at least question their motives.

4. Bethesda

Boy I used to really rip on this company back when I posted lists on Facebook, but I haven’t done it in a while, so let’s do it again. Bethesda has absolutely spent at least the last 10 years lying to people, Todd Howard, has become famous for it, but I think I might have been the only person who wasn’t shocked when Fallout 76 was the disaster that it was. There were so many things wrong with that game, that I don’t even have time to go over every little thing, but lying, you know the thing that will get another company on this list very soon, was a big thing they did with the game. They promised at one point that they weren’t ever going to charge for items in the game that gave in-game benefits, and they did, allowing ammo and other items to be bought with real money for a time, they promised new, specialized servers if you paid for a yearly service that was way too expensive, and that wasn’t true because people found proof of things missing from what would have been a freshly made, private server, and there’s no excuse for that, games in early access do that correctly, and they aren’t, at least supposedly, even finished yet. I wish I could say that’s all they’ve done, but they also bullied an indie developer over their game Prey, a game they may have bullied the original developer for so they could get cheaper, but we’ll never know because they refused to comment on that when asked, they also refused to update their outdated game engine for years, which caused something they spent over a decade fixing, games releasing with glitches, some of them game breaking. Yet somehow, they have such a fan base that those who love their games will claim the glitches are just part of the charm. That kind of fierce loyalty led to Fallout 76, and even though we make jokes about it even now, the horse DLC from way back in the day, was an indication of everything they’ve done, including trying to charge for mods made for free, meant to be consumed for free, twice. Bethesda is a bad company and they do not care.

3. Activision/Blizzard

You know one of the worst things Nintendo does that I didn’t really mention directly in the first entry, is limit the amount of time a product is available, instead of just letting it be there for consumption as long as it’s selling (that was what the toy company reference was about if it wasn’t clear). However, Activision/Blizzard are the Kings of doing this, as they not only limited things while they were in control of Destiny 2 to the point where you pretty much had to use real money to get everything, and never mind everything else they did to it, because we’d be here all day going through it all, but they also don’t support games as a service titles long enough for dedicated fans. Crash Team Racing Nitro fueled, is a prime example of this. People weren’t done with that game, and when fans thought for even a split second that an update was going to come to fix an issue, their hype (mine to) was so explosive, it was almost like we were getting a new game, but then nothing happened, because they didn’t care. A lot of companies that do yearly release titles as a service have this problem and nothing exemplified that more for Activision, than Skylanders, a series originally made off the back of Spyro, who didn’t even wait for a year to release new games, as technically between October 21st and November 20th of the year the first game came out, they released three of them, and I’m not even kidding. Two of them, were mobile games! You might have thought I was going to go after Call of Duty, for this, but that horse has been beaten to ground, somehow, more than Skylanders was. They also, for whatever reason, released each expansion on different generations console generations, at different months throughout Fall, like somehow the season of Fall, they needed a release every month, if not two, and so off they went. I didn’t even get into Blizzard, but all I need to say is “Blitzchung” and all the memories will likely come flooding back. There’s also the fact that in two separate years, after gaining massive profits, they dropped hundreds of employees, and hired more than they’d let go, but I guess that doesn’t really matter to some of you, because when they did it this year, with so little warning, most employees found out via the news articles about it, but we all made such a little stink this time around, it didn’t create any media buzz, so I guess that doesn’t matter, you’d all rather play flipping World of Warcraft, like better MMO’s don’t exist.

2. CD Projekt Red

I know this one comes off a little more fresh in the mind, and they technically only lied about one game, but man, what a series of lies it was. Also, let’s be honest, one major game, does not a great developer always make. CDPR’s previous two Witcher games did exactly what the author of the books thought they would, and that was almost nothing in terms of making a serious impact, and the reason is, they are kind of bad. They aren’t the worst games out there, but there is a good reason why The Witcher 1 and 2 haven’t been ported and/or remastered, despite how important they are to the story of Witcher 3, and that’s because they both suck. Cyperpunk 2077, was in a lot of ways, them just going back to being the developer they were before, the BIG ONE happened. They lied about nearly everything in regards to the game, including how the main platforms where consumers were going to buy it, were actually running well. I made those references to Witcher 1 and 2 for a reason, although if I’m being honest, they actually look better than Cyberpunk did on day 0, and that’s completely unacceptable. The budget for CDPR was basically nothing for Witcher 1 and 2 combined to what Cyberpunk got, but they were so focused on the PC versions because PC ran the game better, somehow (like maybe because they didn’t try with consoles) and they missed glitches that were so bad, the game felt like it was still in beta, if not alpha upon release. The fact that they’ve only released eleven games in twenty-three years, and only two of them didn’t have The Witcher on them, should have told us all we need to know, and yet the game, even after returns, which was another massive screw-job that led to Cyberpunk being removed from the PlayStation store, still sold Sixteen million units, all because of hype, and because apparently, some people don’t care if they’re lied to. Do you want to know what the other game they released is besides a Witcher title? It was flipping Saints Row 2, a fun game, but also one that’s too goofy for it’s own good, and yet suddenly makes Cyberpunk’s release, make sense, because it was all a massive joke, and a parody of good, well running, open world games. CDPR needs to seriously do something, anything different, and never release a game in this poor of a state ever again.

1. Ubisoft

I put Ubisoft at number one for a damn good reason, and that reason is, that everyone seems to hate the company, but loves their games, and I don’t know why. They haven’t been the overall worst company on this list, although they are pretty bad, but the major problem they have, and have had for at least a decade is that none of their games have any identity, they are literally all the same game, with different coats of paint. Sure, an occasional gem sneaks through like Assassin’s Creed IV, but all of the rest of their games have the same visual style (although ACII does seem to be the base for which they create their art let’s be honest), the shooting mechanics they have in all the games that have guns, all feel exactly the same, which is something even Call of Duty manages to avoid most years (guess I took a shot at them anyways) and yet somehow, someway, I keep seeing people getting excited for their releases, and it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, they throw a celebrity actor in from time to time, and the artistic style they use does look pretty cool, but everything is always the same with them, every single time, no matter what it is, and they still keep making money. It doesn’t really make sense either, because a lot of developers do make games that are very similar feeling, see the Life is Strange team or much as well all loved them, Telltale Games, but at least those titles told extremely interesting stories, and developed their mechanics at least a little, which is something most companies do just on principal, but not Ubisoft. They throw out a few Tom Clancy games every time they talk about what their releasing, the Trials and AC games are still mostly a yearly experience, and I’ll say it again, their entire list of releases since at least 2013, the year the previous generation kicked off, have pretty much all been the same. It would be nice if they made more games like Child of Light, but despite the fact that their games will likely never be as popular as Call of Duty, they keep churning out same-y shooters hoping that one day, maybe just one day, they’ll create their own CoD, and it’s just not gonna happen. The saddest part of all is that when they announce something different, something fans have wanted for years, we get The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, which was literally delayed because fans said they wouldn’t buy it unless some actual effort was put into making it, why is this company so popular that it can keep doing this, someone please explain it to me.

And that’s my list, can you think of any other companies that are too hyped? Let me know in the notes below, hit me up with a follow if you like my content, and give me a reblog, I’d really appreciate it. Have a wonderful life!

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collegeburnoutsuperstar · 3 years

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2021 Book Recommendations

Way back in March 2020, at the very start of quarantine I did a little quarantine-read book rec list. We are now in 2021 and we are still in quarantine, so here’s an updated book rec post to help you through a socially distanced winter break and holiday season.

Non-Fiction:

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name | Audre Lorde | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | Zami provides a detailed look into Lorde’s life growing up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s as a young, poor, lesbian, black woman. Discussion focuses primarily on racism, poverty, and sexuality. | Trigger/Content Warnings: rape, suicide\suicide attempts, death, racism, abortion, mentions of cancer, mentions of abuse, sex.

Redefining Realness | Janet Mock | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | “This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experiences to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: underage prostitution, transphobia, bullying.

An Autobiography | Angela Y. Davis | Adult | Memoir | A story of racism, discrimination, imprisonment, and Communism; “the author, a political activist, reflects upon the people and incidents that have influenced her life and commitment to global liberation of the oppressed” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: racism, murder, violence, police brutality.

Before Night Falls | Reinaldo Arenas | Adult | Memoir | LGBTQ | “Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba, his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Fidel Castro, and his life in revolutionary Cuba as a homosexual. Very quickly, the Castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was final imprisoned” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: underage sexual experiences with other minors, statutory rape, bestiality, incest, graphic descriptions of sex, suicide attempts, mentions of suicide, mentions of AIDs, homophobia.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | Adult | “Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local ‘powhitetrash’. At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age-- and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Year later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned” (Goodreads).

Notes of a Native Son | James Baldwin | Adult | Essay Collection | “Written during the 1940s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatriates of the time” (Amazon).

Contemporary Fiction:

Alex in Wonderland | Simon James Green | Young Adult | Romance | LGBTQ | “ In the town of Newsands, painfully shy Alex is abandoned by his two best friends for the summer. But he unexpectedly lands a part-time job at Wonderland, a run-down amusement arcade on the seafront, where he gets to know the other teen misfits who work there. Alex starts to come out of his shell, and even starts to develop feelings for co-worker Ben... who, as Alex's bad luck would have it, has a girlfriend. Then as debtors close in on Wonderland and mysterious, threatening notes start to appear, Alex and his new friends take it on themselves to save their declining employer. But, like everything in Wonderland, nothing is quite what it seems” (Goodreads).

Red, White & Royal Blue | Casey McQuiston | New Adult | Romance | LGBTQ | First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of United States President Ellen Claremont, finds himself back in the public eye after a confrontation with his nemesis, His Royal Highness Prince Henry, at a royal wedding. The only way to save American/British relations from crumbling: Create a fake friendship between Alex and Henry. But what happens when this fake friendship becomes something more? How will these two young men go down in history?

Fifty Shames of Earl Gray | Fanny Merkin | Adult | Parody/Humor | Very Heterosexual | “ Young, arrogant, tycoon Earl Grey seduces the naïve coed Anna Steal with his overpowering good looks and staggering amounts of money, but will she be able to get past his fifty shames, including shopping at Walmart on Saturdays, bondage with handcuffs, and his love of BDSM (Bards, Dragons, Sorcery, and Magick)? Or will his dark secrets and constant smirking drive her over the edge?” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: the is a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey...

Historical Fiction:

Water Music | T. Coraghessan Boyle | Adult | Adventure | “Set in the late eighteenth century, Water Music follows the wild adventures of Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, and Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer, through London’s seamy gutters and Scotland’s scenic highlands to their grand meeting in the heart of darkest Africa. There they join forces and wend their hilarious way to the source of the Niger” (Goodreads).

The Island of the Day Before | Umberto Eco | Adult | Italian Literature | “After a violent storm in the South Pacific in the year 1643, Roberto della Griva finds himself shipwrecked-on a ship. Swept from the Amaryllis, he has managed to pull himself aboard the Daphne, anchored in the bay of a beautiful island. The ship is fully provisioned, he discovers, but the crew is missing. As Roberto explores the different cabinets in the hold, he remembers chapters from his youth: Ferrante, his imaginary evil brother; the siege of Casale, that meaningless chess move in the Thirty Years' War in which he lost his father and his illusions; and the lessons given him on Reasons of State, fencing, the writing of love letters, and blasphemy. In this fascinating, lyrical tale, Umberto Eco tells of a young dreamer searching for love and meaning; and of a most amazing old Jesuit who, with his clocks and maps, has plumbed the secrets of longitudes, the four moons of Jupiter, and the Flood” (Goodreads).

Brethren [Raised by Wolves series 1] | W. A. Hoffman | Adult | Adventure/Buccaneers | LGBTQ | “John Williams, the Viscount of Marsdale, libertine, duelist, dilettante, haphazard philanthropist and philosopher, is asked by his estranged father to start a plantation in Jamaica in 1667. He doesn’t realize that he is going to the right island for the wrong reasons until he meets buccaneers and learns he has for more in common with the wild Brethren of the Coast than he does with the nobility of Christendom. Still, he questions joining them and leaving his title and the plantation behind until her meets Gaston the Ghoul, a mysterious French buccaneer who is purportedly mad. He quickly decides that the freedom of buccaneer life [...] [is] better than anything he could ever inherit” (Goodreads). Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, mentions of rape, mentions of death, mentions of torture, mentions of abuse, mentions of incest, slavery, discussions of mental illness at a time when it is not really understood, descriptions of sex, alcohol use.

Captive Prince [The Captive Prince Trilogy 1] | C. S. Pacat | Adult | Historical-inspired Fiction | LGBTQ [more in later books] | Prince Damianos of Akielos finds himself captured and stripped of his true identity when someone close to the Prince makes a move for the throne. Part of the plot: ship the captured Prince to the enemy nation of Vere as a pleasure slave. In Vere, Damianos takes on a new identity, or else he would immediately be put to death by his new master, the Prince of Vere. Damianos quickly discovers that his capture and enslavement is not just an isolated incident, but is in fact part of a much larger plot that will drastically change the futures of both Akielos and Vere. | Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, torture, slavery/pleasure slaves [partially set within a culture that uses slaves], death, pedophilia, mentions of rape, descriptions of sex, suicide [in the second book]. DISCLAIMER: This trilogy has an enemies-to-lovers subplot, but it is in no way romanticizing slavery, rape, or violence. The romance subplot does not start until the characters undergo massive amounts of character growth and development.

11/22/63 | Stephen King | Adult | Time Travel | Thriller | Jake Epping, a thirty-five year old high school teacher English teacher and GED teacher from Maine embarks on a world-changing mission after a trip to the storeroom of his friend Al’s diner. Within the storeroom, Al has been hiding a secret, a secret that is objectively better than anything else that could’ve been hidden in a diner storeroom. Al has a portal to 1958. The mission: try to stop the Kennedy Assassination. Just remember, the current timeline may just be the best one. | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, racism, domestic abuse, political assassination.

Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy:

The Rage of Dragons | Evan Winter | High Fantasy | “The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost two hundred years. Their society has been billt around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine. Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He is going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn’t get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He’ll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him” (Goodreads).

The Binding | Bridget Collins | Historical Fantasy | LGBTQ | While suffering from a mysterious illness, Emmett Farmer is sent away from his family to apprentice at a bookbinder’s workshop. But Emmett has been taught to hate books his whole life, they are dangerous and shameful. But under the instruction of the book binder, Emmett learns the secrets that books hold and uncovers a past that he didn’t even know he had. | Trigger/Content Warnings: homophobia, death, suicide, allusions to rape.

The House in the Cerulean Sea | T.J. Klune | Suitable for all ages | Urban Fantasy | LGBTQ | Don’t you wish you were here? Forty year old Linus Baker lives a lonesome, drear life. For seventeen years, Mr. Baker has worked as a case worker at the Department In Charge Of Magical Youth where he monitors the treatment of magical children in government-sanctioned orphanages. In a break from his usual routine, Mr. Baker is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management and is assigned a highly classified and possibly dangerous case. He is sent to the Marsyas Island Orphanage where he meets the six dangerous children; a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, a green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist, along with their caretaker Arthur Parnassus. At the the end of his stay, Mr. Baker must make a decision: Should he follow the rules, or protect a family?

Wolfsong [The Green Creak Series 1] | T.J. Klune | Paranormal/Shifter Romance | LGBTQ | “Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left. Ox was sixteen when he met a boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane. Ox was seventeen when he found out they boy’s secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega. Ox was twenty-three when murder can to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces. It’s been three years since that fateful day-- and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, death, age-gap romance.

The City of Dreaming Books | Walter Moers | German Fantasy | Absurd Fantasy | “Optimus Yarnspinner, a young writer, inherits from his beloved godfather an unpublished short story by an unknown author. His search for the author’s identity takes him to Bookholm-- the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating sent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink. Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, largely takes place in underground tunnels, illustrations can be unsettling.

Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings | The Harvard Lampoon, Henry N. Beard, Douglas C. Kenney | NOT AT ALL FOR CHILDREN | Parody/Humor | Adventure | “A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a little, furry ‘hero’ named Frito, ready-- or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf-- to undertake the one mission which can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elfmaidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul-kiss the unwary to death-- these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: drug/alcohol use.

Dune | Frank Herbert | Science Fiction/Science Fantasy | “Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the ‘spice’ melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for. When house Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, drug use.

The Magicians [The Magicians Trilogy 1] | Lev Grossman | Urban/Portal Fantasy | “Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: drug/alcohol abuse, depression, death, rape [in book 2].

Mo Dao Zu Shi | Mo Xiang Tong Xiu | Wuxia/Chinese Fantasy | LGBTQ | “As the grandmaster who founded demonic cultivation, Wei WuXian roamed the world in his wanton ways, hated by millions for the chaos he created. In the end, he was backstabbed by his dearest shidi and killed by powerful clans that combined to overpower him. He incarnates into the body of a lunatic who was abandoned by his clan and is later, unwillingly, taken away by a famous cultivator among the sects-- Lan WanJi, his archenemy. This marks the start of a thrilling yet hilarious journey of attacking monsters, solving mysteries, and raising children[...] Along the way, Wei WuXian slowly realizes that Lan WanJi, a seemingly haughty and indifferent poker-face, holds more feelings for Wei WuXian than he is letting on” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: suicide, death, murder, violence, incest, rape (I think), abuse, abusive families.

The Eye of the World [The Wheel of Time series 1] | Robert Jordan | Epic Fantasy | Adventure | “The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time. The Wheel of Time Turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. When The Two-Rivers is attacked by Trollocs-- a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts-- five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence.

The Lies of Locke Lamora [Gentleman Bastard Series 1] | Scott Lynch | Heist Fantasy | “An Orphan’s life is harsh-- and often short-- in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game-- or die trying” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, torture.

The Name of the Wind [The Kingkiller Chronicle 1] | Patrick Rothfuss | Epic Fantasy | “My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths my moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me” (The Name of the Wind). | Trigger/Content Warnings: death, violence, abuse, book three still doesn’t have a release date.

Trick [Foolish Kingdoms 1] | Natalia Jaster | Fantasy Romance | LGBTQ | “There is only one rule amongst his kind: A jester doesn’t lie. In the Kingdom of Spring, Poet is renowned. He’s young and pretty, a lover of men and women, he performs for the court, kisses like a scoundrel, and mocks with a silver tongue. Yet allow him this: It’s only the most cunning, most manipulative soul who can play the fool. For Poet guards a secret. One the Crown would shackle him for. One that he’ll risk everything to protect. Alas, it will take more than clever words to deceive Princess Briar. Convinced that he’s juggling lies as well as verse, this righteous nuisance of a girl is determined to expose him. But not all falsehoods are fiendish. Poet’s secret is delicate, binding the jester to the princess in an unlikely alliance, and kindling a breathless attraction, as alluring as it is forbidden” (Goodreads).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K. Dick | Science Fiction | “It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard’s assignment-- find them and then ‘retire’ them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn’t want to be found out” (Goodreads).

Young Adult Science-Fiction & Fantasy:

Cemetery Boys | Aiden Thomas | Urban Fantasy | Romance | LGBTQ | “Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: transphobia, dead-naming.

In Other Lands | Sarah Rees Brennan | Urban/Portal Fantasy | LGBTQ | “The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border—unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and—best of all as far as Elliot is concerned—mermaids. Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands. It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world” (Goodreads).

The Fascinators | Andrew Eliopulos | Urban Fantasy | LGBTQ | “Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school's magic club—to see him through to graduation. But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs. With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart—and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix” (Goodreads).

Things Not Seen | Andrew Clements | Science Fiction | Realistic Fiction | “Bobby Philips is an average fifteen-year-old boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can’t see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming. Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby’s new condition; even his dad the physicist can’t figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He’s a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She’s blind, and Bobby can’t resist talking to her, trusting her. But people are starting to wonder where Bobby is. Bobby knows that his invisibility could have dangerous consequences for his family and that time is running out. He has to find out how to be seen again before it’s too late” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: Car accident.

Howl’s Moving Castle [Howl’s Moving Castle series 1] | Diana Wynne Jones | Fantasy | Portal Fantasy | Adventure | “Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl --and herself-- than first meets the eye” (Goodreads).

Castle in the Air [Howl’s Moving Castle series 2] | Diana Wynne Jones | Fantasy | Adventure | “In which a humble young carpet merchant wins, then loses, the princess of his dreams. Far to the south of the land of Ingary, in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, there lived in the city of Zanzib a young and not very prosperous carpet dealer named Abdullah who loved to spend his time daydreaming. He was content with his life and his daydreams until, one day, a stranger sold him a magic carpet. That very night, the carpet flew him to an enchanted garden. There, he met and fell in love with the beauteous princess Flower-in-the-Night, only to have her snatched away, right under his very nose, by a wicked djinn. With only his magic carpet and his wits to help him, Abdullah sets off to rescue his princess” (Goodreads).

A Wizard of Earthsea [Earthsea Cycle 1] | Ursula K. Le Guin | Fantasy | “Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance” (Goodreads).

Middle-Grade/Children’s Fiction:

Island of the Aunts | Eva Ibbotson | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “When the kindly old aunts decide that they need help caring for creatures who live on their hidden island, they know that adults can’t be trusted. What they need are a few special children who can keep a secret-- a secret as big as a magical island. And what better way to get children who can keep really big secrets, than to kidnap them! (After all, some children just plain need to be kidnapped.)” (Goodreads).

Ruby Holler | Sharon Creech | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | Adventure | “Brother and sister Dallas and Florida are the ‘trouble twins.’ In their short thirteen years, they’ve passed through countless foster homes, only to return to their dreary orphanage, Boxton Creek Home. Run by the Trepids, a greedy and strict couple, Boxton Creek seems impossible to escape. When Mr. Trepid informs the twins that they’ll be helping old Tiller and Sairy Morey go on separate adventures, Dallas and Florida are suspicious. As the twins adjust to the natural beauty of the outdoors, help the Tillers prepare for their adventures, and foil a robbery, their ultimate search for freedom leads them home to Ruby Holler” (Goodreads).

The Westing Game | Ellen Raskin | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | Mystery | “A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger --and a possible murderer-- to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead... but that won’t stop him for playing one last game!” (Goodreads).

Midnight for Charlie Bone [The Children of the Red King series 1] | Jenny Nimmo | Middle-Grade | Urban Fantasy | “Charlie Bone has a special gift-- he can hear people in photographs talking! The fabulous powers of the Red King were passed down through his descendants, after turning up quite unexpectedly, in someone who had no idea where they came from. This is what happened to Charlie Bone, and to some of the children he met behind the grim, gray walls of Bloor’s Academy. His scheming aunts decide to send him to Bloor’s Academy, a school for geniuses where he uses his gifts to discover the truth despite all the dangers that lie ahead” (Goodreads). | Trigger/Content Warnings: abusive family situations (mental and emotional), bullying, some parts can be creepy/spooky.

The Maze of Bones [The 39 Clues series 1 ] | Rick Riordan (the series is written by several different authors) | Middle-Grade | Mystery | Adventure | Action | “When their beloved aunt --matriarch of the world’s most powerful family-- dies, orphaned siblings Amy and Dan Cahill compete with less honorable Cahill descendants in a race around the world to find cryptic clues to a mysterious fortune” (Goodreads). Trigger/Content Warnings: Death, house fire, dead parents, abusive family.

The Doll People | Ann M. Martin | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “Annabelle Doll is 8 years old --and has been for over 100 years. Nothing much has changed in the dollhouse during that time, except for the fact that 45 years ago, Annabelle’s Auntie Sarah disappeared from the dollhouse without a trace. After all this time, restless Annabelle is becoming more and more curious about her aunt’s fate. And when she discovers Auntie Sarah’s old diary, she becomes positively driven. Her cautious family tries to discourage her, but Annabelle won’t be stopped, even though she risks Permanent Doll State, in which she could turn into a regular, nonliving doll. And when the ‘Real Pink Plastic’ Funcraft family moves in next door, the Doll family’s world is turned upside down --in more ways than one!” (Goodreads). | Content Waring: It’s living dolls, this is off-putting to many people.

Bud, Not Buddy | Christopher Paul Curtis | Middle-Grade | Historical Fiction | Realistic Fiction | “It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him: He has his own suitcase full of special things. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him --not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself” (Goodreads).

The Thief Lord | Cornelia Funke | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | Mystery | “Two orphaned children are on the run, hiding among the crumbling canals and misty alleyways of the city of Venice. Befriended by a gang of street children and their mysterious leader, the Thief Lord, they shelter in an old, disused cinema. On their trail is a bungling detective, obsessed with disguises and the health of his pet tortoises. But a greater threat to the boys’ new-found freedom is something from a forgotten past --a beautiful magical treasure with the power to spin time itself” (Goodreads).

Igraine the Brave | Cornelia Funke | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Adventure | “Igraine dreams of being a famous knight like her great-grandfather, but castle life is boring. Until the nephew of the baroness-next-door plans to capture the castle for their singing spell books. At the moment of the siege, her parents mistakenly turn themselves into pigs. Aided by a Gentle Giant and a sorrowful Knight, Igraine must by brave, and save the day --and the books” (Goodreads).

Valley of the Dinosaurs [Magic Tree House series 1] | Mary Pope Osborne | Children’s Literature | Science Fiction (time travel) | “Eight-year-old Jack and his little sister, Annie, are playing in the woods during their summer holiday, when they find a mysterious tree house full of books. But these are no ordinary books... And this is no ordinary tree house... Jack and Annie get more than they had bargained for when Jack opens a book about dinosaurs and wishes he could see them for real. They end up in prehistoric times with Pteranodons, Triceratops and a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex! How will they get home again? The race is on!” (Goodreads).

Frindle | Andrew Clements | Middle-Grade | Realistic Fiction | “Is Nick Allen a troublemaker? He really just likes to liven things up at school --and he’s always had plenty of great ideas. When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he’s got the inspiration for his best plan ever...the frindle. Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle? Things begin innocently enough as Nick gets his friends to use the new word. Then other people in town start saying frindle. Soon the school is in an uproar, and Nick has become a local hero. His teacher wants Nick to put an end to all this nonsense, but the funny this is frindle doesn’t belong to Nick anymore. The new word is spreading across the country, and there’s nothing Nick can do to stop it” (Goodreads).

Knights of the Kitchen Table [Time Warp Trio series 1] | Jon Scieszka | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Time Travel | “Magician Uncle Joe’s birthday present entitle ‘The Book’ swirls green mist and grants pal Fred’s wish to ‘see knights and all that stuff for real’, sending Sir Joe the Magnificent, Sir Fred the Awesome, and Sir Same the Unusual to King Arthur’s castle opposing the Black Knight, grossly smelly giant Bleob, and fire-breathing leather-winged iron-clawed green dragon Smaug. Fred plays tag and wields a baseball bat. Sam cleverly politicks. Joseph, Arthur tricks with cards. But Merlin has ‘The Book’ to get home” (Goodreads).

Over Sea, Under Stone [The Dark Is Rising series 1] | Susan Cooper | Middle-Grade | Fantasy | Arthurian Inspired | “On holiday in Cornwall, the three Drew children discover an ancient map in the attic of the house that they are staying in. They know immediately that it is special. It is even more than that --the key to finding a grail, a source of power to fight the forces of evil known as the Dark. And in searching for it themselves, the Drews put their very lives in peril” (Goodreads).

Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery [Bunnicula series 1] | Deborah Howe | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Mystery | “BEWARE THE HARE! Is he or isn’t he a vampire? Before it’s too late, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household: a suspicious-looking bunny with unusual habits...and fangs!” (Goodreads).

Howliday Inn [Bunnicula series 2] | James Howe | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Mystery | “Not a great place to visit, and you wouldn’t want to live there. The Monroes have gone on vacation, leaving Harold and Chester at Chateau Bow-Wow --not exactly a four-star hotel. On the animals’ very first night there, the silence is pierced by a peculiar wake-up call --an unearthly howl that makes Chester observe that the place should be called Howliday Inn. But the mysterious cries in the night (Chester is convinced there are werewolves afoot) are just the beginning of the frightening goings-on. Soon animals start disappearing, and there are whispers of murder. Is checkout time at Chateau Bow-Wow going to come earlier than Harold and Chester anticipated?” (Goodreads).

Peter Pan | J.M. Barrie | Children’s Literature | Fantasy | Adventure | “The mischievous boy who refuses to grow up, lands in the Darling’s proper middle-class home to look for his shadow. He befriends Wendy, John and Michael and teaches them to fly (with a little help from fairy dust). He and Tinker Bell whisk them off to Never-land where they encounter the Red Indians [Native Never-landers], the Little Lost Boys, pirates and the dastardly Captain Hook” (Goodreads). | Content Warnings: use of the terms “Red Indians” and “Indians” (and probably other racist terms, I can’t remember though).

Owl Moon | Jane Yolen | Picture Book | Realistic Fiction | “Late one winter night a little girl and her father go owling. The trees stand still as statues and the world is silent as a dream. Whoo-whoo-whoo, the father calls to the mysterious nighttime bird. But there is no answer. Wordlessly the two companions walk along, for when you go owling you don’t need words. You don’t need anything but hope. Sometimes there isn’t an owl, but sometimes there is” (Goodreads).

Kiana’s Iditarod | Shelley Gill | Picture Book | Fiction | Educational | “Kiana is no ordinary dog. Born and bred to race, she leads her team of huskies on a journey unlike any other. The Iditarod --known traditionally as Alaska’s ‘Last Great Race’-- spans 1,049 icy miles from Anchorage to Nome. From the treacherous terrain to the bitter, blowing winds, the trail is full of obstacles Kiana and her team must overcome in order to reach the finish line. Along the way, they encounter pacts of wild wolves, a mighty moose, and other dog-sled teams fighting for first place. Can Kiana summon the strength of her team and lead them to victory? Author Shelley Gill brings her firsthand experience as the fifth woman to complete the Iditarod race to this crackling adventure story” (Amazon).

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