#I used to love the Wacky Races. Especial

[physalian]

8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work

Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels, remakes, and remake-quels over the past… 15 years? There’s a few stand-outs for sure. I hear Dune Part 2 stuck the landing. Everyone who likes John Wick also likes those sequels. Spiderverse 2 also stuck the landing.

These are less tips and more fundamental pieces of your story that may or may not factor in because every work is different, and this is coming from an audience’s perspective. Maybe some of these will be the flaws you just couldn’t put your finger on before. And, of course, these are all my opinions, for sequels and later seasons that just didn’t work for me.

1. Your vague lore becomes a gimmick

The Force, this mysterious entity that needs no further explanation… is now quantifiable with midichlorians.

In The 100, the little chip that contains the “reincarnation” of the Commanders is now the central plot to their season 6 “invasion of the bodysnatchers” villains.

In The Vampire Diaries, the existence of the “emotion switch” is explicitly disputed as even existing in the earlier seasons, then becomes a very real and physical plot point one can toggle on and off.

I love hard magic systems. I love soft magic systems, too. These two are not evolutions of each other and doing so will ruin your magic system. People fell in love with the hard magic because they liked the rules, the rules made sense, and everything you wrote fit within those rules. Don’t get wacky and suddenly start inventing new rules that break your old ones.

People fell in love with the soft magic because it needed no rules, the magic made sense without overtaking the story or creating plot holes for why it didn’t just save the day. Don’t give your audience everything they never needed to know and impose limitations that didn’t need to be there.

Solving the mystery will never be as satisfying as whatever the reader came up with in their mind. Satisfaction is the death of desire.

2. The established theme becomes un-established

I talked about this point already in this post about theme so the abridged version here: If your story has major themes you’ve set out to explore, like “the dichotomy of good and evil” and you abandon that theme either for a contradictory one, or no theme at all, your sequel will feel less polished and meaningful than its predecessor, because the new story doesn’t have as much (if anything) to say, while the original did.

Jurassic Park is a fantastic, stellar example. First movie is about the folly of human arrogance and the inherent disaster and hubris in thinking one can control forces of nature for superficial gains. The sequels, and then sequel series, never returns to this theme (and also stops remembering that dinosaurs are animals, not generic movie monsters). JP wasn’t just scary because ahhh big scary reptiles. JP was scary because the story is an easily preventable tragedy, and yes the dinosaurs are eating people, but the people only have other people to blame. Dinosaurs are just hungry, frightened animals.

Or, the most obvious example in Pixar’s history: Cars to Cars 2.

3. You focus on the wrong elements based on ‘fan feedback’

We love fans. Fans make us money. Fans do not know what they want out of a sequel. Fans will never know what they want out of a sequel, nor will studios know how to interpret those wants. Ask Star Wars. Heck, ask the last 8 books out of the Percy Jackson universe.

Going back to Cars 2 (and why I loathe the concept of comedic relief characters, truly), Disney saw dollar signs with how popular Mater was, so, logically, they gave fans more Mater. They gave us more car gimmicks, they expanded the lore that no one asked for. They did try to give us new pretty racing venues and new cool characters. The writers really did try, but some random Suit decided a car spy thriller was better and this is what we got.

The elements your sequel focuses on could be points 1 or 2, based on reception. If your audience universally hates a character for legitimate reasons, maybe listen, but if your audience is at war with itself over superficial BS like whether or not she’s a female character, or POC, ignore them and write the character you set out to write. Maybe their arc wasn’t finished yet, and they had a really cool story that never got told.

This could be side-characters, or a specific location/pocket of worldbuilding that really resonated, a romantic subplot, whatever. Point is, careening off your plan without considering the consequences doesn’t usually end well.

4. You don’t focus on the ‘right’ elements

I don’t think anyone out there will happily sit down and enjoy the entirety of Thor: The Dark World.  The only reasons I would watch that movie now are because a couple of the jokes are funny, and the whole bit in the middle with Thor and Loki. Why wasn’t this the whole movie? No one cares about the lore, but people really loved Loki, especially when there wasn’t much about him in the MCU at the time, and taking a villain fresh off his big hit with the first Avengers and throwing him in a reluctant “enemy of my enemy” plot for this entire movie would have been amazing.

Loki also refuses to stay dead because he’s too popular, thus we get a cyclical and frustrating arc where he only has development when the producers demand so they can make maximum profit off his character, but back then, in phase 2 world, the mystery around Loki was what made him so compelling and the drama around those two on screen was really good! They bounced so well off each other, they both had very different strengths and perspectives, both had real grievances to air, and in that movie, they *both* lost their mother. It’s not even that it’s a bad sequel, it’s just a plain bad movie.

The movie exists to keep establishing the Infinity Stones with the red one and I can’t remember what the red one does at this point, but it could have so easily done both. The powers that be should have known their strongest elements were Thor and Loki and their relationship, and run with it.

This isn’t “give into the demands of fans who want more Loki” it’s being smart enough to look at your own work and suss out what you think the most intriguing elements are and which have the most room and potential to grow (and also test audiences and beta readers to tell you the ugly truth). Sequels should feel more like natural continuations of the original story, not shameless cash grabs.

5. You walk back character development for ~drama~

As in, characters who got together at the end of book 1 suddenly start fighting because the “will they/won’t they” was the juiciest dynamic of their relationship and you don’t know how to write a compelling, happy couple. Or a character who overcame their snobbery, cowardice, grizzled nature, or phobia suddenly has it again because, again, that was the most compelling part of their character and you don’t know who they are without it.

To be honest, yeah, the buildup of a relationship does tend to be more entertaining in media, but that’s also because solid, respectful, healthy relationships in media are a rarity. Season 1 of Outlander remains the best, in part because of the rapid growth of the main love interest’s relationship. Every season after, they’re already married, already together, and occasionally dealing with baby shenanigans, and it’s them against the world and, yeah, I got bored.

There’s just so much you can do with a freshly established relationship: Those two are a *team* now. The drama and intrigue no longer comes from them against each other, it’s them together against a new antagonist and their different approaches to solving a problem. They can and should still have distinct personalities and perspectives on whatever story you throw them into.

6. It’s the same exact story, just Bigger

I have been sitting on a “how to scale power” post for months now because I’m still not sure on reception but here’s a little bit on what I mean.

Original: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy New York

Sequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the planet

Threequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the galaxy

You knew it wasn’t going to happen the first time, you absolutely know it won’t happen on a bigger scale. Usually, when this happens, plot holes abound. You end up deleting or forgetting about characters’ convenient powers and abilities, deleting or forgetting about established relationships and new ground gained with side characters and entities, and deleting or forgetting about stakes, themes, and actually growing your characters like this isn’t the exact same story, just Bigger.

How many Bond movies are there? Thirty-something? I know some are very, very good and some are not at all good. They’re all Bond movies. People keep watching them because they’re formulaic, but there’s also been seven Bond actors and the movies aren’t one long, continuous, self-referential story about this poor, poor man who has the worst luck in the universe. These sequels aren’t “this but bigger” it’s usually “this, but different”, which is almost always better.

“This, but different now” will demand a different skillset from your hero, different rules to play by, different expectations, and different stakes. It does not just demand your hero learn to punch harder.

Example: Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 does have more influence than Tai Lung, yes. He’s got a whole city and his backstory is further-reaching, but he’s objectively worse in close combat—so he doesn’t fistfight Po. He has cannons, very dangerous cannons, cannons designed to be so strong that kung fu doesn’t matter. Thus, he’s not necessarily “bigger” he’s just “different” and his whole story demands new perspective.

The differences between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are numerous, but the latter relies on “but bigger” and the former went in a whole new direction, while still staying faithful to the themes of the original.

7. It undermines the original by awakening a new problem too soon

I’ve already complained about the mere existence of Heroes of Olympus elsewhere because everything Luke fought and died for only bought that world about a month of peace before the gods came and ripped it all away for More Story.

I’ve also complained that the Star Wars Sequels were always going to spit in the face of a character’s six-movie legacy to bring balance to the Force by just going… nah. Ancient prophecy? Only bought us about 30 years of peace.

Whether it’s too soon, or it’s too closely related to the original, your audience is going to feel a little put-off when they realize how inconsequential this sequel makes the original, particularly in TV shows that run too many seasons and can’t keep upping the ante, like Supernatural.

Kung Fu Panda once again because these two movies are amazing. Shen is completely unrelated to Tai Lung. He’s not threatening the Valley of Peace or Shifu or Oogway or anything the heroes fought for in the original. He’s brand new.

My yearning to see these two on screen together to just watch them verbally spat over both being bratty children disappointed by their parents is unquantifiable. This movie is a damn near perfect sequel. Somebody write me fanfic with these two throwing hands over their drastically different perspectives on kung fu.

8. It’s so divorced from the original that it can barely even be called a sequel

Otherwise known as seasons 5 and 6 of Lost. Otherwise known as: This show was on a sci-fi trajectory and something catastrophic happened to cause a dramatic hairpin turn off that path and into pseudo-biblical territory. Why did it all end in a church? I’m not joking, they did actually abandon The Plan while in a mach 1 nosedive.

I also have a post I’ve been sitting on about how to handle faith in fiction, so I’ll say this: The premise of Lost was the trials and escapades of a group of 48 strangers trying to survive and find rescue off a mysterious island with some creepy, sciency shenanigans going on once they discover that the island isn’t actually uninhabited.

Season 6 is about finding “candidates” to replace the island’s Discount Jesus who serves as the ambassador-protector of the island, who is also immortal until he’s not, and the island becomes a kind of purgatory where they all actually did die in the crash and were just waiting to… die again and go to heaven. Spoiler Alert.

This is also otherwise known as: Oh sh*t, Warner Bros wants more Supernatural? But we wrapped it up so nicely with Sam and Adam in the box with Lucifer. I tried to watch one of those YouTube compilations of Cas’ funny moments because I haven’t seen every episode, and the misery on these actors’ faces as the compilation advanced through the seasons, all the joy and wit sucked from their performances, was just tragic.

I get it. Writers can’t control when the Powers That Be demand More Story so they can run their workhorse into the ground until it stops bleeding money, but if you aren’t controlled by said powers, either take it all back to basics, like Cars 3, or just stop.

—

Sometimes taking your established characters and throwing them into a completely unrecognizable story works, but those unrecongizable stories work that much harder to at least keep the characters' development and progression satisfying and familiar. See this post about timeskips that take generational gaps between the original and the sequel, and still deliver on a satisfying continuation.

TLDR: Sequels are hard and it’s never just one detail that makes them difficult to pull off. They will always be compared to their predecessors, always with the expectations to be as good as or surpass the original, when the original had no such competition. There’s also audience expectations for how they think the story, lore, and relationships should progress. Most faults of sequels, in my opinion, lie in straying too far from the fundamentals of the original without understanding why those fundamentals were so important to the original’s success.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools #writing a book #writing #writeblr #sequels #kung fu panda

[mamawasatesttube]

So, I'm not a writer, but I am very curious 👀 What do you look for in a fic that features Kon? 👀 What kind of things do you want Kon to do, or experience? 👀 What characteristics of Kon do you absolutely wanna see? 👀 What characteristics of Kon you didn't like but want to see adressed in a fic? 👀 When you're writing, what are three major things about Kon that you MUST INCLUDE NO MATTER WHAT? 👀👀👀 Sorry about the many questions!!!!!

OHHHH this is such a good question okay okay okay. let's see.

what do i look for? primarily, kon having an actual character voice. that's the lowest bar to clear (and yet already takes out... a good chunk of the fics ive seen in the kon character tag 😭😭). he needs to be silly, geeky, deeply kind, earnest, etc. not every fic featuring him will necessarily get into the way he's also existentially lonely and has a Lot of sadness and self-esteem issues (esp after rex leech's roller coaster incident. this has been on my mind today. ough. his self-image never recovered after that one!) but by GOD does he have his issues, so if its a fic going into emotions i want it to do right by his. will def admit thats smth im incredibly picky about.

as for stuff i want him doing? honestly i am here for so much!! i want soft simple character studies. i want action showcasing how fucking powerful ttk can be, especially with a dose of creativity to its use. i want wacky yj space adventures. i want good good whump and hurt/comfort. i want him getting swept off his feet. you could sell me on almost any plot if it's well-written.

re: characteristics... i don't really split them up quite like that, i think! he's a well-rounded character, and that includes both strengths and flaws. ideally, a good fic will include both of these and represent them fairly (like, he's not perfect by any means, and he can do stupid things and struggle with personal issues, but on the other hand very few things tick me off more than portrayals where he's just completely incompetent and dumb as a rock, lmao).

BUT REGARDING MY OWN WRITING. ohhohoohoohooho three things i ALWAYS have to include? a) geek-ass loser (affectionate). i think it is SO endearing and also very humanizing as a quality that he's a trekkie/wendy fan/star wars nerd/etc. b) mixed-race metaphors. they may not be overt depending on the piece but the "child of two worlds that doesn't quite fit into either" thing is Deeply intentional. and c) HES A JUGGERNAUT!!!! i firmly believe adult fully realized kon (a kryptonian, with full kryptonian powers, WITH TTK) is a force of fucking nature. i like this so much and i specifically also always like it when he is at any given moment about 0.4 seconds from freaking the fuck out about how it's Too much strength.

to me, kon is a character made of some very delicious contradictions. he's so painfully human and yet grapples hard with his own personhood and humanity. he's a kryptonian and an alien but he's a child of earth. he's terrified of his own power. he wants nothing more than to protect everyone he loves (and everyone he doesn't love, too). he's always ready to crack a joke or make a silly reference, but he is deeply sad and spent so much of his early life suicidal. he contains multitudes. (and this isn't even getting into my hcs on his gender/sexuality crisis! ksjdhf)

i feel like a gripe i often find myself having when looking for kon fics is that he often gets slotted into the role of "emotional support boyfriend with no personality or role of his own" though, which i guess is why "does he have a distinct character voice?" is my first litmus test for whether i'd want to keep reading or not.

a good kon fic will embrace all his contradictions, i think. (a good fic for any character, really, should show them as well-rounded and three-dimensional.) and i for one love his Problems and Issues, bc man, it's a very fun space to play in! <3

#thank you this was fun to answer!! ive been ruminating on it for a good chunk of the day tbh! #kon #rimi talks #answers #thefantasmarex

[livgr3]

Roundtable: Across the Universe (2007) dir. Julie Taymor

Across the Universe transforms thirty-three popular songs by The Beatles into a wacky musical odyssey that explores the highs and lows of youth counterculture movements in 1960s US and Britain. With major characters named Jude, Lucy, and Prudence who all have obvious namesakes from within the Beatles' discography, the lyrics and perspective of the bands' music informs the characters' attitudes and circumstances throughout the film. Though it's unclear whether the Beatles exist in the films' universe, which seems to be an imagined caricature of the 60s, its certain that Taymor believes their music captures the essence of the sixties, as the (mostly white and well-off) characters sorrowfully sing their way through the turmoil of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement....

At times, this film relies on cinematic narrative expectations, and at others, the film feels like a two-hour long Beatles music video. Some creative risks are taken, such as an LSD-sequence or a highly choreographed interpretation of the military drafting process during the Vietnam War. Though the film is fun when it indulges in its wackiness, I found that it was stuck between following a narrative structure and subverting it, causing it to feel unsatisfying, disjointed and generally underdeveloped.

With this in mind, there's a lot of small characters and storylines that make the film a bit difficult to summarize. Here's a synopsis from Google:

When young British worker Jude (Jim Sturgess) sets sail for the United States in search of his father, he ends up meeting carefree college student Max (Joe Anderson) and his lovely sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), along with a cast of eccentric characters. As Jude and Lucy fall for each other, their relationship is threatened by the social upheaval that accompanies the Vietnam War.

Social Aspects Through Song

The "social aspects" of Across the Universe are conveyed through the films' songs in a way that is incredibly on-the-nose and un-subtle. In fact, nothing about this film is subtle. For instance, when unemployed artist Jude is upset with his booked and busy girlfriend for being too involved in the anti-war movement, he shows up at the nonprofit and starts singing "You say you want a revolution..." In another sequence, Max prepares to be screened for military service, and giant Uncle Sam posters come to life and start singing "I want you."

With such un-nuanced recreations of political events, I am unsure of what exactly this film is trying to say about the 1960s' political and social revolutions from a 2007 vantage point. On the contrary, perhaps the film is attempting to create an "objective" yet campy and fun retelling of 60s history with a focus on the youth, without deliberately trying to "say" anything new at all. With this non-argumentative lens, the film seems blissfully unaware of its own shortcomings, such as the unresolved sexism of its two male leads, or the surface-level characterization of Lucy and the heavily apparent absence of the second-wave feminist movement.

Perhaps the most questionable of this films missteps, though, is its treatment of race through song. The film's secondary cast features a queer Vietnamese female character, Prudence, who randomly disappears from the film a third of the way in. Then there is Jo-Jo. When it is revealed to the characters that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the film cuts to Jo-Jo, a Black man, singing at a bar, only to reveal that his sad song is actually about Sadie, the woman who left him. While social issues of race clearly loom over the characters' heads, the film employs the powers of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" rhetoric to wash over any nuance pertaining to the topic. This is especially interesting since this rhetoric within actual hippie circles in the 1960s proved to be a clear failure.

Musical Memories and Genre-bending

On the changing force of pop music within the movie musical format, Mira writes: "In assessing what pop songs bring to the musical, we must consider, firstly, that a song's meaning is conveyed not only through melody, rhythm, and lyrics: engaging with an audience's memories, viewpoints, and personal background can be powerful in unleashing meaning as well" (24). In this sense, I think Across the Universe transforms its musical source material and plays with audience's familiarity with its songs in a really fun and effective way.

The film's opening is a really great example of how it blends the audiences' diverging associations of a classic Hollywood musical versus a classic rock music video. These two juxtaposing numbers comprise the opening:

Within this introduction, we are already hit with three different musical styles: the Beatles' contemplative ballads through Jude, a more intense female rock voice, and a more classical "musical theatre" style through Lucy. However, all of the songs sung are by the same artist. In this way, the film often plays around with the melodies, keys, tempos, etc. of the original Beatles' songs in order to suit which character is singing a given song. I think this is a really clever way of making similar-sounding music feel dynamic enough to remain interesting for the span of a two-hour film while also serving practical narrative functions. The songs of the Beatles are also transformed to song like other artists or sub-genres of 60s rock and roll. For example, the character Sadie's songs are reminiscent of rock stars like Stevie Nicks or Janis Joplin, while Jo-Jo's skilled guitar playing is inspired by the likes of Jimi Hendrix. In this way, the film pays homage to several icons of the era, despite only using actual music created by one band of the time.

#oxyfilmmusical #@theuncannyprofessoro #disguisedmusical #Youtube

[sc-intothedarknightofthesoul]

For the character opinion bingo: Azwel!

OH BOY!

Part of me wishes there were extra slots on this bingo card that are along the lines of "I'm supposed to hate this fucker's guts for what he did in canon, but I end up going feral for him anyway."

He sort of reminds me of a Disney villain from the Renaissance era and why I loved them so much growing up (they even gave us a Disney death in Libra of Soul dammit!).

I'll admit that Azwel's design is wacky and over the top and I was put off by it at first (doesn't help that the thing he wears as his lower robes are a stuff of nightmares to draw), but it works for the reason that it perfectly describes who he is and what he represents: He's flamboyant, he believes himself an authority, "a shining ray of light" to the masses if you will, he knows exactly what to say to you, he worked hard to get the power that has.

But he also represents the uglier side of humanity as well, he's unhinged as hell, the type that believes he's untouchable, one that doesn't believe himself nor anyone else to be human anymore despite his obsessive love for the human race.

To the common folk who don't know him and his followers alike, he's like a God lending a helping hand to aid them in their darkest hours or, to Raphael in a sense, an ally that wants nothing in return.

But to us, the Conduit, Grøh, Amy and the Aval Organization, he's a sadistic and manipulative liar that sheds croc tears to the suffering of others when the reality of the matter is, he enjoys it a bit too much.

Not to mention his outfit kinda does look like a unique take on what men in 16th Century Germany from certain social classes wore in the day, especially with the big flowy coats and tight leggings, surprisingly enough.

One headcanon I have for Azwel is that, according to his Soul Chronicle and the Museum, he comes from a family line of plague doctors (which wouldn't doubt it'll have repercussions in and of itself if his parents are the type that are part of a social class that pressures one to look good at all costs and/or are emotionally neglectful) and at one point in his life, he contracted a disease from one of the patients he helped his father take care of that ended up affecting his limbs for a good while (this event is what he credits to as one of the reasons he's putting so much time and research into saving the human race, which can be found in an entry in the Weapon section of the Museum of all places) and part of why I believe he walks a little funny after he was cured (could also be him trying to work around his outfit, or I could just be reaching and he could very well be just like that).

But would that justify anything that he's done? FUCK NO. It's why the Conduit's big fight with him in Ostrheinsburg Castle and then the Astral Chaos felt cathartic! You can't mess with people for so long and not expect to get your ass handed to you with all amounts of prejudice.

If I had to give my thoughts about death feeling like a slap on the wrist to the guy and have him come back as the Scholar of the Future, your guess is as good as mine, but I thought it'd be funny to use this clip (Volume Warning):

#soul calibur #ask game #character bingo #azwel #I love how this was the first ask I get #XD #laikaflash

[transingthoseformers]

Cybertronian culture must have things that have complicated and wacky origins. Like, in humans the love heart symbol comes from an extinct flower that was used as an aphrodisiac (and it's extinct for that reason yeah). the words nachos and nazis come from the same root word, same origin as the name Iggy. We're Still fuzzy about the origin of fuck. The color orange is named after the fruit, before it was just called Yellowred. Some english words are Exactly the same as they were in latin. There is a mountain whose name when fully translated is just Mountain four times.

They Have to have glyphs with weird origins or that evolved from inside jokes, especially since the great Cybertronian war happened i mean I'm just correct. So many glyphs had to have entered their vocabulary that come from different alien languages with little to no translation. Glyphs that evolved and gained innuendo solely through translation errors and misspellings. Glyphs that come from a pun about extinct animals and long forgotten races among the stars. Glyphs that originally referred to some long forgotten dude who's been offline since the original predacons were alive.

#transformers #tf worldbuilding? #cybertronian language #linguistics #i am a NERD for linguistic drift and word erosion #Look up Calques and loanwords pleaseeeee #mmmMmmmMmm i forget how much i love linguistics sometimes #i wonder so much about how the translation of the transformers' names work in universe(s)

[exp123mon]

Moar Digimon Frontier

17 - Blizzarmon - Blow the Snow, Call the Glaciers! -Arbormon napping at the bottom of the sea. I wonder if his quirk is a reference to some Japanese thing or if the writers just thought this callous monster villain being like "brush your teeth kids!" would be funny. -Everybody's still gliding along on the raft and nearly get themselves… iced hehehehe. -During the looking-for-Toucanmon montage there's a Dukemon casually thrown in there. That's so funny. "omg Dukemon!! One of the Holy Knights!" "Oh no that's my cousin I just stock the shelves in this armoury." -All you need is the power of VIDEO GAMES!! I love Tomoki he's my fave character I think. Him trying to trade his hat and shoes for the Digivices was cute. It's sad when he cries (god that sounds so stupid lol) when Nanomon's fiddling with the Digivice. I mean, that feeling of being a small kid totally out of your depth and trying SO HARD to do something right or useful or stop something bad but it's just not working out no matter what. Poor kid. -CURRY EATING CONTEST!! I love how they actually brought this back around later in the episode. Honestly this entire ep felt really cohesive and well-written. Every time I see an anime curry I want to eat curry though haha. -Blizzarmon is really cool, this is the first time I've seen it (outside of the OP) -Love Koji and Takuya beating Petaldramon with literal sticks and pipes lol. It was also good that they HELPED Tomoki in the fight after getting their Digivices again, but didn't overshadow him or take away his victory. -Good episode. I like it.

18 - Choo-Choo! The Fierce Trailmon Race -Digimon Frontier suddenly becomes Wacky Races lol. Nice seeing all the Trailmon again. -Izumi you literally just ate 30 servings of curry the day before WHY ARE YOU HUNGRY NOW haha. -OMG EBIBURGAMON AAAAAAAAAA My third favourite species after Mummymon and Tokomon. LITTLE BURGER MONSTERS. I literally just finished my first sketches of my Burgamon OCs last night too. Burgers burgers burgas. oh my goshness -This was a super goofy episode (in a good way). Not much to say since the bulk of the events were just race shenanigans and danger, but it was pretty entertaining. -WAIT OMG THE PRIZE IS GOING TO THE HAMBURGER VILLAGE OMG OMG OMG MORE BURGAMON YES YES YES!!

19 - Save the Burgamon! Tomoki's Pure Heart -THE LITTLE BURGER VILLAGE. A shame it's under siege from the get-go. It would've been nice to see all the little burgers being happy… -Chamelemon is here! Another Digimon I've never see outside of the official artwork. -Bruh this episode is just… so good, so funny. The mother Burgamon fainting all the time, the little baby Torikaraballmon. Everybody taking HAMBURGERS so seriously. Peak Digimon tbh. Just a silly fun time. -Okay so Takaya's burgers sound good to me?? What's the issue??? Especially the second one. Kimchi, curry and chorizo? Sounds tasty AF. sounds of copious notes being taken Koji however should never be left alone in a kitchen. -Honestly I can't think of anything to else say I just really liked this episode. It was fun and silly. AND BURGAMON WAS THERE.

20 - The Mysterious Warrior Lurking the Darkness - Duskmon! -Arbormon: I will do whatever I can to be useful to Cherubimon. spends at least several days tormenting a tiny village because he wants burgers -Mercuremon makes the worst mistake a villain can make and LOUDLY MONOLOGUES HIS PLAN OHOHOHOHOHO! …and Duskmon hears, ooo. -Cherubimon's first real appearance. And he can smell Mercuremon's BS a mile away haha. -Trailmon can just decide not to follow tracks. Makes sense since they're autonomous. It probably sounds horrifying to Japanese viewers by my English arse is like "yeah makes sense the train would just. not go where it's supposed to" -Aww, the whole scene with Pipismon and Bokomon being encouraged to be the one to fill in the book's blank pages was nice! -Aaand Arbormon shows up again. We get our first mass simultaneous beast Spirit evolution, but even that can't quite cut it against Petaldramon at first. In the end the kids overcome him and give him the option of surrndering only for Duskmon to show up and destroy him. It was only a matter of time before this happened haha. -Duskmon has a really cool design Just all the eyes all over, looks nice and freaky. -I'm getting close to the halfway point! I'm really interested to see where it's gonna go from here given there's still quite a bit remaining.

21 - The Five Warriors Annihilated!? The Terrifying Power of Darkness! -Well now that's a title. -Unsurprisingly, Duskmon wipes the floor with the kids, so they flee. -Some nice moments and scenes here, especially the one between Izumi and Junpei. -Takuya comes up with an AMAZING PLAN that will DEFINITELY NOT WORK. And Koji is not having it. I really like their relationship. -Duskmon seems to recognise Koji somehow. I actually figured a while ago Duskmon is probably related to Koji somehow, maybe like a lost older brother or something. Y'know. Light and Darkness and all that. Plus Koji has that "secret" or whatever. -THAT ENDING THO. The Darkness Terminal bit and Takuya solemnly gets on the train. That was actually a pretty haunting moment. Really felt like a metaphorical death. I know Digimon gets dark sometimes for a ids show but no way they'd literally kill off a 10 year old like that lol. There was some nice atmosphere and animation this episode.

#not art #digimon frontier #frontier watching

[gamersonthego]

GOTG Review: Astria Ascending

This is the next game in my Backlog Roulette series, where each month I spin a wheel to randomly select a game on my massive backlog that I must play (though not necessarily to completion). These wheel spins occur on the monthly preview episodes I co-host with my friends on The Casual Hour podcast.

There’s a phenomena about robots you’ve probably heard of before. It’s called the uncanny valley. The idea is the closer a robot looks and acts like a human, the more its inaccuracies are scrutinized and criticized by real humans. The reasons could be myriad — it could be the way it looks or sounds or moves or something else entirely — but the important thing is that it’s not…right. Astria Ascending lives in its own uncanny valley. But it’s not one of being human, rather, it’s one of being a JRPG classic.  

There’s another saying famous saying: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” Astria Ascending certainly looks like a great JRPG, its Vanillaware-like character design is striking, with a number of unique races from the beastly feline Arktans to the angular and serpent-esque Zeft. The art direction in general is often a sight to behold. The hub area especially has a real electricity about it, with many gorgeous structures. 

It swims like a great JRPG as well. Opening the menu reveals a wave of systems and mechanics. Each of the eight party members has their own starting class, equipment type, skill tree and abilities. Combat sees you use four of your party members at any one time, though you can swap out members mid-battle for strategic advantages. There are a suite of buffs and debuffs that can be applied to your team or to enemies. There’s a summon system. There’s even a Bravely Default-style system that lets you spend resources for more powerful attacks in a single turn. 

And hey, it even quacks like an RPG classic. The premise is undeniably cool: The world is protected by a faction of eight demigods, people from around the world who were drafted into service and given incredible power, but also given just a few short years to live. And the current group — your playable characters — are just three months away from a pretty permanent retirement as they work to protect the world fully knowing they won’t be around to see the fruits of their effort. The writing and voice acting (both in Japanese and English) are well done. And musically, composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who has contributed to Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim does solid work here as well.

But unfortunately, looking, swimming and quacking like a great JRPG is not enough to make you one. And it’s in the details where Astria Ascending falls.

Ulan, seen here waving her arms like some kind of wacky inflatable tube man.

The game looks beautiful…in stills. Characters’ idle animations are so fast and so wild they become distracting. Walking and running animations are awkward too. There’s a real “Live 2D” look to everything going on here that just is devoid of personality. Battles don’t fare much better as animations and effects for spells and attacks are weak and flat. It’s such a bummer seeing cool characters move in such lifeless ways. 

Astria Ascending does have a wide array or systems though…too big of an array, in fact. You start the game with your full party of eight, which means you have eight classes, each with their own massive skill tree to attend to. And before you can unlock much of anything on one of these trees, you’re given additional access to a choice of three upgraded job classes per character that open up a second full skill tree. And later you’re given sub jobs and support jobs, which create even more headaches. I love tinkering with character builds, but this is just too much. Oh, and those upgraded job choices are permanent, so you better be happy with your picks. 

This skill tree is fine, but when every one of the eight characters has two of these each (and most of the things on it are flat stat buffs), it becomes both overwhelming and monotonous.

And all of this mechanics and systems just end up making the game’s many, many fights long and tedious, often with little reward. It got to the point where I turned the difficulty down to its lowest setting just to mercifully pick up the pace. 

When you’re not fighting, you’re walking around incredibly simple and bland Metroidvania-like environments. The structure feels a lot like Vanillaware’s Muramasa: The Demon Blade, where dungeons are made up of 2D side-scrolling rooms that can branch off in multiple directions. But each of Muramasa’s screens are visually distinct and built for dynamic platforming and action combat. Astria Ascending’s rooms all look the same and you mostly just hop around to solve the most basic of puzzles. 

Every dungeon ends up looking this spartan, with identical room connecting to identical room. It's easy to get lost.

And as for the quacking part, while the premise is cool, half the game is spent going back and forth among everyone’s hometowns, solving very similar problems before going back to the main hub to report in. It feels less like a grand adventure or unravelling a mystery and more like running errands with no payoff.

The music is also CONSTANT. There are no quiet moments. There is very little up or down. The tracks are fine, but they're implemented so poorly. They're just always there, sometimes drowning out the voice acting. And those voices, while nice performances, sound awfully similar (especially for the female English voices), and since the camera is almost always zoomed out, it can be quite difficult to know who’s talking.

The speech bubbles are also of little assistance when it comes to knowing who's speaking.

At this point, I suppose it’s clear that I didn’t like Astria Ascending, but I do find it to be an interesting case study for what makes a JRPG good or bad. Astria Ascending pretty strictly follows the formula of classic JRPG design, but while it hits the right notes and plays them in the right order, there’s just no soul to this music. Even if developer Artisan Studios addressed all of the issues I listed above, I’m still not sure the game would be good. Because it would still be missing a thousand little details that even I can’t so easily put my finger on. 

Astria Ascending is not a bad game, not in a technical sense anyway. It’s just one that lacks heart and passion. It’s a photocopy, an amalgamation of good things from other games without the understanding of what those good things mean or how they should interact.

It’s uncanny. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

#game review #backlog roulette #nintendo switch #astria ascending

[flowerboycaleb]

oOoooOOooo happy halloween!!!! there was a lot of rlly cool stuff that dropped this month. namely the new Sufjan Stevens and Sampha albums. both instantly became some of my favs of the year so far. especiallyyyy Sufjan.

‧₊˚✧ BEST SONG OF THE MONTH ✧˚₊‧ "Shit Talk" - Sufjan Stevens

◇ featured on Javelin - Sufjan Stevens ◇ genres: chamber folk, indie folk

The new Sufjan Stevens album has a hold on me that no other album this year has. If I was bolder every entry on this month's list would be from it, but I have decided to trim it down to just one. "Shit Talk" is one of the best songs Sufjan has ever made. Its over 8 minutes long and everything about it just feels so ... cathartic. I'll probably dig into the lyrics and stuff when this album shows up on my year-end list, but god this song destroys me. Please give this album a listen.

"Tantor" - Danny Brown

◇ featured on Quaranta - Danny Brown (not yet released) ◇ genres: hardcore hip hop, experimental hip hop

Danny Brown's long awaited Quaranta album is finally official. This lead single is, in my opinion, a return to form for the rapper. It has the frenetic energy of his best work with some interesting production throughout. Very great lead single for the record and I'm excited to hear more. My only complaint are the weird samples at the end. This song could definitely do without Star Wars and The Office soundbites.

"Space Race" - Geese

◇ featured on 4D Country - Geese ◇ genres: art rock, southern rock

Geese released a little followup EP to their phenomenal last album 3D Country and the material on it is on par with the album's tracks. This track is a great showcase of all of their strong points. Wacky, southern rock twinged instrumentation paired with unique vocals that make for a very unique experience. I highly recommend listening to the album as well as this EP. Amazing stuff.

"What If You Hypnotise Me?" - Sampha

◇ featured on Lahai - Sampha ◇ genre: uk bass, alternative r&b

As is expected, Sampha's long awaited sophomore album is filled to the brim with gorgeous songs. My love for the album grows the more I listen to it. This track is especially captivating. The ascending piano mixed with Sampha's incredible vocals leading into the great feature from Léa Sen. Oooh, this song is just amazing.

"We Looked Like Giants" - Car Seat Headrest

◇ genre: indie rock

Car Seat Headrest redeem themselves by finally releasing a good cover after their abysmal covers EP from a few years ago. Their rendition of the Death Cab for Cutie original is pretty straightforward, but very enjoyable. This is the most cohesive the band has sounded in a long time. With a new live album on the way in December, it looks like they're ramping up for a followup and, if this track is any indication of whats next, I'm very excited.

"Shame on Us" - Robbie Robertson

◇ featured on Killers of the Flower Moon - Robbie Robertson ◇ genre: film score

One of Robbie Robertson's biggest achievements, alongside his work with The Band and Bob Dylan, were his frequent collaborations with Martin Scorsese. This final collaboration might be the strongest of them yet. The soundtrack is so rich with detail. Robertson had dabbled in Native American music before and you can tell he put it all into this soundtrack. This cut was my favorite, but I highly recommend going and seeing the film itself. It is an incredible experience and Robertson's soundtrack is used incredibly well. He will be very missed.

"Hell" - Sleater-Kinney

◇ featured on Little Rope - Sleater-Kinney (not yet released) ◇ genre: indie rock

Admittedly, I haven't listened to Sleater-Kinney's recent output yet. I'm only familiar with their work up to 2005's The Woods. I was apprehensive about this new single at first. The opening felt very bland and just like a lot of standard indie rock nowadays. I quickly forgave all that once that classic Sleater-Kinney burst of noise came in on the chorus.

#my favorite songs of the month #2023 #music #rateyourmusic #sufjan stevens #danny brown #geese #sampha #car seat headrest #robbie robertson #sleater kinney

[pridepages]

Gallows Humor: The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride

I just finished The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride by Hayli Thomson. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

In a time is love isn’t love and pride is sliding closer to protest than parade, I wanted to have a month where I immersed myself in queer joy. So what better time to read Hayli Thomson’s The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride? The novel was pitched as the tale of an aspiring funny girl who finds herself in the wacky situation of being chosen as a finalist for a diversity internship at SNL...but hasn’t come out to anyone yet. The tone felt absurd: funny ha-ha.

That is...not what I got.

Our heroine, Taylor, is an open wound. From tearing up a defaced Ghostbusters reboot poster because of a slur to ripping into herself in self-disgust for masturbating to Fried Green Tomatoes, every page of this novel howls with her pain. 

Which isn’t to say there aren’t jokes. Describing her questioning period, Taylor snarks “my sexuality was still Amelia Earhart-themed--I had no idea where it was going to end up.” The experience of falling in love was watching her crush play a Salem witch and feeling her “phantom touch...reaching all the way to the back row of the theater and strangling the lingering breath of heteronormativity right out of me.” 

Spot the pattern in her jokes? they’re perfect examples of gallows humor: jokes used as a defense mechanism because everything is so horrible that the only way to cope with the pain is to find something absurd to numb the pain. There’s a reason old-fashioned anesthetic was called ‘laughing gas.’

Rather than being notable for its humor, novel’s at its sharpest, its most viscerally impactful, when Taylor speaks directly about her suffering.

When she yearns for romance “self-loathing took me by the throat.” Describing her experience of being closeted, she says she’s “constantly tearing at the seams...If you’re lucky, you get a few miserable, desolate moments to pull yourself back together...You hope that the seam won’t split further. You hope everybody will buy what you’re selling--that you’re totally fine.” But she isn’t simply hiding from homophobia. She’s also busy internalizing it: “soaking in shame and self-hatred for so long that my heart had turned prune-y...Hating myself for who I was and who I loved was the only was I knew how to adapt...Shaming myself was the only way I could grip the seawalls without floating away.”

If the reader is hoping for some relief when Taylor finally, inevitably, comes out...well, prepare for disappointment. This is no Love, Simon fantasy. Her experience is closer to what most of us find in the beginning...especially if we live in a less accepting environment:

“Coming out wasn’t quite sugary sweet. It tasted like lemon icing when you’d been expecting vanilla. It felt like racing toward a crossing and skidding to a stop at the exact moment the walk signal turned red--you had no choice but to pause and watch the traffic move around you. But there was the promise of that green light to come, and that just had to be enough.”

In a way, Thomson’s brutal honesty makes this novel a timely wake-up call to that person who thinks that being gay in 2023 is ‘no big deal.’ The kind of read you hand to the ignorant friend who rolls their eyes at the idea that we ‘need a whole month’ to ‘celebrate what we do in the bedroom.’ 

But me? Even if it’s naive, I think I’d rather step off that gallows and immerse myself in unfettered joy. Even if--for now--it’s just a fantasy.

#the comedienne’s guide to pride #hayli thomson #wlw #sapphic #lesbian #lgbt reads #queer lit

[dykesynthezoid]

ooo 3, 13, and 14 👀

let’s gooooo

I tried to edit this down but it’s still extremely long. I’m not sorry

3. Screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Oh but there’s so many. So, so many. Truly an unending amount.

A somewhat funny but overwhelmingly bizarre take I’ve seen is that when fandom has a female character they don’t like, they just decide to claim she’s homophobic??? Lmao?? Like they’re both so invested in all their gay ships and also hate her so much for not being 100% accommodating to everyone else at all times that their solution is to claim that. She must be the token straight who’s also a homophobe.

It’s always the same type of female character too btw. “Katara is homophobic” “Nancy Wheeler is homophobic” “Sam is homophobic” literally people hate women SO MUCH and the shit they have to come up with to justify it can be honestly fascinating. People will see a girl who has been even slightly bossy or headstrong or complicated once in their fucking lives and decide she’s the most evil bitch to ever exist. Like get over yoursellllffff!!! It’s SO embarassing for them

13. Worst blorbofication

Any blorbofication that 1. completely sandpapers any interesting flaws or nuance, 2. entirely invents positive or sympathetic traits that the character does not actually possess; these treats are frequently stolen from other characters within the same media, but who are in some way marginalized and therefore fans ~just can’t put their finger on it, but they don’t like them as much as their blorbo for some reason… But here’s all the character traits they stole from them and gave to their blorbo to make the blorbo seem cooler, of course

(Bro people will literally see a female character or a character of color with an interesting trait and go “YOINK!” and just slap it onto their boring white guy blorbo)

I would say an example of the first type, though, is Terry Silver. I don’t think it’s strange at all to feel affection for his character or be fascinated by him. I mean, look at him. There’s some wacky shit going on there, how can you not be fascinated? I do think it’s strange to build up a thing in your head where he’s always the victim, nothing is really his fault, he can’t be blamed, poor poor Terry he’s so sad and lonely, etc. Like idk maybe he wouldn’t be so lonely if he weren’t Terrible To Be Around because he actively enjoys hurting people. And I like that about him! I like that he’s so campily evil!!!

Anyway just let him be a fucked up little weirdo!! It’s what makes him interesting!! He’s literally a psycho biddy mixed with a byronic hero in the shape of the campiest gay villains imaginable, love and cherish him as he is.

19. That one thing you see in fics all the time

Hmm. Okay. So. I have a couple of these; one I truly dislike and another I just tend to note and go “hmm, interesting.” Let’s start with the more controversial one.

So. There’s such a thing in TKK and CK as canon-typical racism, right? It’s a reality that exists in both. And I think it would be wrong to expect any author, regardless of race, to just wholly ignore that, because again, it’s a reality of the story (and of the real world).

However. Would it be nice if people could let you know when the story is going to be full of slurs? Yeah, I think it would.

I understand why and how those are things that end up needing to be touched on. I don’t think authors should have to censor themselves in that aspect. But also; there’s such a flippancy, in how sooo many ck and tkk authors approach using those things in their stories. And I think it’s really fucking easy to be flippant, right, if it doesn’t affect you, if you’re not a part of the race that’s being targeted, and especially if you’re white. Of course it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

I also think people seem to genuinely somehow forget that someone could read what they’ve written and be triggered by it. Like. As if; in particular; Asian people don’t exist or wouldn’t be reading their stories??? It’s very strange. And it’s so easy to put in a little warning! It’s so easy! And why wouldn’t people be sensitive about something like that, when fandom racism can be so rampant on a broader scale?

And you could say oh, well people should expect that content because it’s in the source material. But like… we all regularly tag and warn for things as milquetoast as say, underage drinking. Which is also in the source material. So I’m really not getting how popping a quick content warning for canon-typical racism is so difficult.

(I also think some people genuinely seem to forget; or don’t care; about the history and trauma that comes attached to certain derogatory terms and slurs. “J*p” should not be something you are just throwing into your fic for fun. You need to have really thought about why you’re putting it there, the purpose it’s serving, what you’re saying about the character who says it).

On a slightly lighter note! Something I see all the time in Lawrusso fics (and sometimes other M/M fics with Daniel as well) is people just sort of struggling to figure out what to do with Amanda. And I’m not trying to condemn that, at least not altogether.

And I certainly prefer the current trend of her being supportive and finding any developments hilarious to the earlier portrayals of her just being the villain for no reason. But also, just leaving her in the wingwoman position and not bothering to add any dimension there can leave her very flat, and it’s a position female characters get put in often in regards to M/M ships.

One solution is of course in going the poly route, because it usually necessitates at least a little bit of rumination on Amanda’s perspective. But even then there’s no guarantee people add any dimension to her.

And of course; we’re speaking in trends here. This isn’t an issue of individual preference, or a pursuit in lambasting anyone on their personal work; it’s a discussion of something much larger.

I don’t think Amanda should somehow have to be an extremely nuanced focal point in every M/M Daniel fic (that’s just not possible, for one, lmao). But when people do choose to include her in a major way, I think it’s good to stop and consider how you can add a little depth or nuance. I mean, I’ve had to struggle with that myself, and I’m never really sure if I’ve succeeded or not. But I thought about it, and I kept it in mind, and I think even that can make a difference.

I myself often go the divorce route in writing her; although it. Usually doesn’t even have anything to do with what Daniel and Johnny are doing? It’s just that I think Amanda deserves to be with someone who’s not obsessed with karate. And I like Damanda, and I love Daniel, but like. Idk man! It’s a whole lot! And I think anyone could get tired of it. She quite literally did not sign up for that. And if you think her being Daniel’s wife puts her under some kind of obligation to always be understanding and always take his side and never question him; well. Ew, frankly. Just because Daniel also deserves support doesn’t mean she has to be on the same page as him or she’s a bad wife.

She’s literally her own person!! Let her be her own person!!!

(Literally I wish I could pay for her and Carmen to just go on a long fucking vacation. Let them have a fucking break and have mind-blowing gay sex away from all the karate nonsense and their identities as partners and mothers. What if they were just two hot perimenopausal women with complex inner lives and complicated pasts experiencing life together on a beach in Cabo. Y’know. And they could have a time together that’s about them, they’re the point, they haven’t somehow been relegated to a background pairing. And also there’s the gay sex).

(I think I got off track. What was I talking about? Oh, right.)

I think how quickly my mind will shove Daniel and Johnny out of way the moment Amanda and Carmen appear IS #feminism tbh. Like they might as well not exist to me when Amanda and Carmen are onscreen together, or when a story’s supposed to be about them. Daniel who? I’ve never heard of him. Also I think people should write long, beautiful Carmanda fics and then tag Lawrusso just bc they appear in the background for five seconds. I think it would be hilarious.

#some of these Should Not be controversial opinions but they do seem to be! #basically just me complaining about fandom misogyny and racism for a while #cobra kai #asks

[clowningachievement]

😶 + Out of all the rogues who do you work best with? Who would be the least easiest? Who's betrayed you the most bit you still work with them?

Sort of a three in one but I'll let you have it, you little scamp you.

Best with? I mean typically the ones who are too crazy to be coherent make the bestest lackies. Pyg, Zsasz, Croc a time or two. Typically you just promise them their little favorite fetish and they're happy to help, even if it does cost a few of my more normal goons. Clayface enjoys a good role, not particularly picky who throws it his way. --But if you mean on more equal footing, I think Scarecrow and perhaps Hatter tend to match my speed best, and often are willing to overlook our... Personal differences if it means hurting that silly little bat. Least easy are Oswald and Ol' Bacon Face, of course. Oswald is a little know-it-all prick who's barely a cut above the average mobster but thinks his bird theming and dwarfism makes him special. He tends to think I'm his pet loon when are in teams, and his Napoleon complex has him always stomping all over everyone else's ideas! Twoface at least has a charming half-a-face and a decent aesthetic! But he is awfully prone to attempting to shoot, stab, or beat me, none of which I mind particularly but do make it hard to foster a professional relationship. Not to mention how he isn't as wacky as even Ozzie is, especially once he got over the 2 kick. For some reason he mostly enjoys practical, sensible crimes with a net gain and a clear exit stratagey. Pussy.

Ivy gets a special mention for this category, as any time I approach her for a team-up she attempts to kill me! Haven't attempted that one since Harley stopped being around to calm her down enough to listen. Freezie-pops gets a less special mention as he just turns me into an ice block every time I'm in his sight line, if he can.

The reward for most betrayals and subsequent team-ups goes to, of course, my dear Riddler. He's just such a cute little egomaniacal mad man that it's hard to resist! I mean it's always a race for us to get what we have out of the partnership before the other blows it up, and we both find one another incredibly annoying for almost identical reasons. Ah, but our shared love of pageantry, his tendency for gadgetry, and my thorough knowledge of the Bat and his tendencies, and our mutual deviousness does make us a force to be reckoned with those few brief moments of synergy... Before Bats inevitably pushes one of us into stabbing the other.

#asks #long post #A REAL long one #That's what you get for squishing three into one ask naughty naughty little grey man

[allsassnoclass]

Hi hazel!! I hope u had a nice day! Could u give me some book recs? Also, what wip are u most excited to finish atm?

hi annie!

So. book recs. I unfortunately would say i'm not as big of a reader as I would like to be, but I can throw some recs out there!

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, and the subsequent Dreamer Trilogy that followed: I know that you've read this but for anyone else hanging out right now, trc is by far my favorite book series, and Stiefvater is my favorite writer. I absolutely love the way that she creates atmosphere in her books, I love her wonderfully lovable and flawed characters, and I adore her use of figurative language. The Raven Cycle has big found family vibes, magic, mystery, and romance. I love it.

I also recommend The Scorpio Races, once again by Maggie Stiefvater. This one is very vibey as well, and has to do with people racing very dangerous mythical horses on a stormy northern island in november.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune was very charming! Not the most polished book in the world, but I personally really enjoyed reading about a 40 year old case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth visiting a very unique orphanage, getting to know the magical children there, and continuously crushing hard on their caretaker.

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is a very moving story about grief and friendship and enduring. It's the kind of book that made me sit and chew on it for a bit afterwards.

I just started it so this can't be a full endorsement, but The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is very intriguing and enjoyable so far. I'm biased because I eat up anything to do with circus, even (probably especially) if they are magic circuses. I'm really excited to see where it goes, and I love the mystery and atmosphere of it so far!

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz is another book that made me sit and chew on it afterwards. It's an absolutely beautiful coming of age/love story

Switching tone from the rest of the list, the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett are so wacky and enjoyable and funny while offering great social commentary and a unique fantasy world with zany characters. I recently read Guards! Guards! and thoroughly enjoyed it

As for your other question, I don't really have one at the moment? I haven't worked on my wips for more than a sentence or two at a time since summer started it feels like, and none of my current ones feel like they're anywhere close to being finished because of that. i'm also focusing on the prompts i got from the follower milestone celebration, so everything has kind of been put on pause. that being said, at some incredibly distant point of the future, i will weep tears of joy when i finish unmute

sleepover weekend

#ask #annie #ijustdontlikepeople #i know those are horrible descriptions of the books but i gotta try to be concise #i also threw kind of a lot on there because i feel like you're pretty well read? so i you could very well have already read all of these #as for the wip question.... yikes. that's all i've got for that #anyway thanks for asking!

[taiblogcomics]

Pilots in the US Air Farce

Hey there, electrokinesis. Well, like I said at both the beginning and end of our look at Slapstick, we're doing a look at two different six-issue series focusing on toon physics. I was way into the concept, like, half a year back when I decided to review these. And this might be the darker of the two, fair warning! It is a Garth Ennis comic, after all. Yeah, that Garth Ennis. I normally do not like his work, but given that this isn't actually about superheroes, it's a lot easier to stomach. This is a good comic, I promise! But if it's not about superheroes, what is it, then?

Well, here's the cover:

Yeah~ This is about Hanna-Barbera characters. We're reinterpreting these beloved cartoon characters into modern, more realistic times, with a realistic art style! This seems ripe for disaster, but I promise you this goes somewhere very interesting and not as straightforward as I'm pretending with this description. So, rather than further coyness, let's get you familiar with these characters, if you've somehow avoided contact with two of the most iconic cartoon villains in, like, the last half a century or so~

The titular duo, Dick Dastardly and his sidekick doggo Muttley, got their start in Wacky Races, where their typical role was to get an early lead and then attempt to cheat and set traps to maintain that advantage. They can't simply continue and win, they're the villains, so they have to cheat. Dick really loved being a transparently evil villain. Not that he was a world-conquering monster or torturer or anything, the man just wanted to win some races. And he was really committed to his bit at doing everything in the most underhanded way he could think of.

Muttley, meanwhile, was his dog sidekick. Known best for his signature raspy giggle, Muttley didn't otherwise speak too clearly. Not that he couldn't speak at all, but usually it was some vaguely understandable muttering. And if it wasn't Dick's own overconfidence in his plans doing them in, it'd probably be because he pushed his abuse of Muttley too far or just Muttley messing with him for his own amusement. Kind of a disfunctional relationship, honestly, but what do you expect? They're the villains!

After Wacky Races, they went on to menace other Hanna-Barbera characters, particularly the likes of Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo. They also got their own spinoff, which is pretty good for a pair of villains who lost continuously! And that spinoff, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, is essentially the basis of this comic, which I promise we're gonna get to by the next paragraph. In fact, this one's almost used up, so let's dip in and see how you take that whole concept and bring it into modern realism~

So we start in the Middle Eastern country of Unliklistan, which we only see from a distance. Instead, we're hearing a radio broadcast where they're about to switch on their first atomic reactor. You can see the huge cooling tower and everything, it's the biggest building on the map. Before it starts, one reporter questions the active scientist (one Professor Dubious by name) whether the use of Unstablium-239 is a good idea. He will hear no protest, and activates the reactor. We are then treated to a massive explosion for page 2~

Four days later, we're joined in a United States Air Force jet piloted by Lt. Col. Richard Atcherly and his co-pilot Captain Dudley Muller, better known by their callsigns "Dick" and "Mutt", which I will also be using. Dick is annoyed for several reasons, not the least of which is that Mutt has brought his dog in the jet with them. Mutt reasons that low-level recon won't require the oxygen, and Dick tells him to expect the unexpected. Especially since a lot of these nations are unfriendly to begin with, and Unliklistan even more so, since the entire nation is currently irratiated following that explosion.

To that end, Mutt suddenly has a bogey on his radar. It's exactly what they've been sent to find: a surveillance drone that lost contact after investigating the explosion. And suddenly it's behind them. The pair catch a glimpse of it as it passes. It's a standard unmanned aircraft, labelled "War Pig One" on its side, and spewing a huge cloud behind it. But not a black cloud of potential engine failure. No, it's weird rainbow cloud filled with cartoon symbol swearing and other such iconography. The drone passes over them, bathing their jet in its cartoon discharge.

Dick tries to swing the jet around to follow it, but as he does so, the throttle turns into a cartoon steering wheel with an old-timey horn attached and detatches in his hands. Much like the Slapstick series before it, the cartoon objects are in a different artstyle to contrast them from the real world around them. Coloured outlines, a different kind of shading, the works. Anyway, with the steering wheel now disconnected from the aircraft, they start plunging to the ground. Mutt's eyes bug out of his head in shock, and I mean horrifically, hanging from the optic nerves and everything.

Dick yells at him to eject, and Mutt hits a button on his console, which has changed into just a single big red button. This launches them out of the jet--through the glass of their cockpit, at the end of enormous cartoon springs. They parachute to safety, and since I can see their parachutes, they're okay. Indeed, what we see next is Dick waking up in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. There's a few doctors surrounding him, letting him know that he's in a German air force base and that he's fine. Like, no trace of even any radiation sickness fine. Dick passes out again, asking vaguely where Mutt is.

Next time Dick comes to, he's being interrogated by a couple of secret agent types. They never say what organisation they work for, but they've got sunglasses, brown trenchcoats, and badges clipped to said trenchcoats. You know the type. Given they're in Germany, I'm gonna guess CIA? Anyway, while they're argumentative with Dick, they do tell him Mutt is being held in a different facility, which the wording "held" raises alarm bells for Dick. He demands more information, but they're leading the investigation, and show him a picture of the drone War Pig One.

He recognises it, stating his mission was to destroy it, which raises the suspicions of the first agent (we'll learn his name is Perkins in a few pages, let's go with that). Perkins states that the drone has been spotted in numerous locations over the Middle East and Europe since, and Dick remarks that it should've run out of fuel days ago. Perkins' partner, Nixon, tells him that it passed over their car that afternoon, and Perkins suddenly begins getting more erratic, shouting "you fool" and similar jargon, even accusing Dick of getting "wascally". Hey, is Hanna-Barbera allowed to reference Looney Tunes? Is that okay??

Dick asks if the drone was still spraying its bizarre cloud of stuff, and despite Perkins protesting not to give Dick information, Nixon confirms that they got a huge bath of the grawlix-filled mist. Dick notes to Nixon that this is when their aircraft started going out of control, then demands more information, such as where Mutt is and what exactly was being discharged from War Pig One. Perkins dives off the deep end, spewing almost as much gibberish as the drone was, until Nixon basically has to haul him away as he begins spouting cartoon cliche phrases.

Our comic ends with time having continued to pass since then. It's night and Dick's either asleep or just fading into it, when suddenly a voice calls out to him from the darkness--a voice he recognises. It's Mutt, and he's come to see him. He's escaped the other facility and is planning to have them both sneak out, but first he needs Dick to promise him to not over-react or panic when he turns on the light and shows him what happened. Dick does so, but immediately begins screaming when he catches sight of Mutt: he's fused with his dog, transforming him into a realistic anthro dog-man. As seen on the cover, so maybe this isn't as shocking to the readers as it is for Dick~

An intriguing premise to start with, eh? Of particular note, note how our titular protagonists aren't villains to start out with. (I mean, within the context of the comic; there's a lot we could argue about the US military, but this is neither the time nor place~) The clever among you can probably see where this is leading, but it's definitely the ride there that's the interesting part. As such, that's where we're headed the next few weeks~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

[project1939]

100+ Films of 1952

Film number 105: Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair 

Release date: July 11th, 1952. 

Studio: Universal

Genre: comedy serial 

Director: Charles Barton 

Producer: Leonard Goldstein 

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride 

Plot Summary: Ma and Pa’s daughter Rosie dreams of going to college, but due to the fact that Pa never has a job, the family can’t afford it. Determined to help their daughter, Ma plans on winning prize money for her jam making and bread baking at the upcoming Fair, while Pa enters a horse race. 

My Rating (out of five stars): ***¼  

I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Universal cranked out 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies in the 1940s and 50s, and it was an immensely successful franchise. The folksy charm of the characters and the top-notch performances of the leads drew audiences in for years. Sometimes serials can be obviously cheap and thrown together without much thought, but many of the films in this series feel higher in quality. This edition was deftly executed and worked perfectly well for what it was trying to be-a simple film without any lofty ambitions.  

The Good: 

Percy Kilbride as Pa. His performance as Pa is so well crafted and amusing, it doomed his career to a specific stereotype that he unfortunately grew to loathe. But his dry line deliveries dripping with his character’s laziness are brilliant. You can’t help but love the guy. 

Marjorie Main as Ma. If there is any example of a superstar character actress, it is Main. She put in so many memorable comedic performances in so many films, that she is still instantly recognizable to any Classical Hollywood aficionado. She’s a walking talking masterclass of comedic acting. 

The general depth of character actors throughout the film. Virtually all the surrounding adults in the film are recognizable themselves as consistently working character actors. They add to the comedy and folksiness, boosting the quality of the movie. 

The plot was lean and efficient. At 78 minutes, every scene had a purpose in tying the plot together. 

There were some surprisingly good special effects with horses- both a scene where Ma got trapped on a wagon with a runaway horse and the final sequence of the harness racing at the fair. The rear projection used was pretty damn good, and the editing between stunt actors and the main cast was smooth. For a film of this budget, I was impressed. 

This is just a movie that is good for what it is- a well-made comedy serial. 

The fact that going to college was an aim for the daughter Rosie. I read enough sickeningly sexist articles and opinions in 1952 about women going to college, so I appreciated that even though this is a rural environment, Rosie got to have some educational ambition.  

There were a couple of more sentimental heartwarming moments that felt especially sweet because they were not stretched to the point of shameless sap. A scene where Pa spoke in church and the gesture a local lady made at the end are the best examples of this. 

The Bad: 

The “Indians.” This was the most horrible cringy stuff in the film, and I would cut it out in an instant. Pa has two stupid lazy “Indian” friends who are even more inept than he is. They are obviously played by white men, which is gross in its own right. But I just hated every minute of it. 

There was a “comedy” moment near the end where animals were getting sick because they ate bread Ma threw out that had cement powder in it. Seeing animals suffering is NOT my idea of comedy. 

The famous 15 children of Ma and Pa have absolutely no character. They are mostly just a mob of unruly kids. I don’t think they all even had names! In some ways this worked for some of the comedy, but it was just weird to have the kids virtually only be a gag with no character. Rosie did have more of a fleshed-out character, but she was still very one dimensional. 

Sometimes the situations the Kettles find themselves in are too wacky and unrealistic... BUT this doesn’t totally detract from the goofy fun of everything. I just occasionally got annoyed at some of the implausibility of things. 

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #ma and pa kettle

[quibliography]

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Synopsis:  This novel is about the relationships that develop between a failed bank robber and an unlikely group of hostages from a nearby open house. Eight strangers didn't realize how attending an open house that day would change them. Although, really, who has an open house on New Year's Eve?? Zara, a wealthy bank director, is there just to secretly observe how ordinary people live. Roger and Anna-Lena, an older married couple, are there as house flippers, a hobby that sustains their fragile relationship. Julia and Ro, soon-to-be parents, are there to find their first family home if they could ever agree on something. They all think they're there for an apartment, but under the pressures of a hostage situation with such an impossible group of people, they realize something even greater.

My Quibs: I was not prepared for the style of a Fredrik Backman book. A thick helping of wacky characters that conceal a small but very serious acknowledgement about humanity. He has a frenetic style, going from one POV to another very quickly. With so many characters to juggle, my brain was racing to keep up with whose story I was reading. And not only does Backman keep a light-hearted and zippy tone, but his characters do too. You have the rambling real estate agent, the snippy bank director, the squabbling young couple. It comes off initially as a comedy. ...except then there's also suicide. One especially important one that connects a lot of the characters. And between these two levels, I got severe whiplash. That's not to say I don't love a dark comedy, but I dunno, the Swedish sense of humor (or is it just Backman?) is really steep. A high high and a really low low - I just don't have the emotional wingspan to stretch between both these points. In the end, I had to pick one over the other. And since it's also a locked door mystery, there was a lot more space to enjoy it as a comedy. A story about a bunch of bumbling misfit strangers who help each other out in the middle of a strange and unfortunate situation.

And just as a minor footnote comment. I need a glossary of interpreted Swedish terms. I had so many questions like "What and why is a cashless bank?" and "What does 'Hows tricks' mean and why is it funny?" and "What's with all the jokes about Stockholmers?". I think a decent chunk of the book was lost in translation.

Should you read it? If you've read other Backman novels and enjoyed them.

Similar reads? I'm not entirely sure I know any. If anything, this has made me think that I need to broaden my repertoire of modern European novels - besides British, I mean.

(Spoiler Alert!) There's really only one secret in the whole of the novel and that's the identity of the bank robber. And chasing that thread really diminishes the theme of Backman's story about humans and our connections to each other. This might be repetitive of what I said earlier but when part of my brain is trying to decipher who the bank robber is and how they managed to escape the apartment, I'm distracted from connecting to the cast of characters. Whom are *also* focused on the identity of the bank robber, both in obscuring it and revealing it. And when we finally do get the reveal that the robber is a her and not a him, I did a real double take and had to flip back in the book to check that I hadn't mistaken things earlier. But no, Backman does a full deceit, using all kinds of male terms and then just slaps us with a "AHA! But she's actually female!". Which is not subtle and not cool. I give a tiiiny benefit of the doubt that this could be a loss in translation. Maybe Swedish is more lose with their pronouns and there wasn't a better way to communicate genderlessness in English? Dunno...

I do give a little credit as to the reveal of her escape. Backman dropped really random and dismiss-able bread crumbs, like "Oh, you know those neighbors were always squabbling and just couldn't stand to live together anymore". Then no more mention of the neighbor. That Estelle once received a key from a man in the elevator, but nothing else really about this man. It was a bit rushed, but it wasn't faster than the pacing of the rest of the book.

What did you think of Anxious People?

#anxious people #fredrik backman

[luhalalusce]

re: my d&d campaign, my players are gonna partecipate in a dakar-like race, mixed with mad max and wacky races. They're still a bunch of sessions away from the big race, but i've been working really hard on how to make it interesting and challenging, especially since d&d isn't exactly the best system for fast-action paced stuff. The moment you roll initiative time slows down soooo much (people tend to forget that big battles tend to last less than a minute in game, since every round is 6 seconds).

So far what I got is a worthy bunch of opponents. I love making characters and some of them are established npc (players don't fully trust them... So that's gonna be really interesting). Others were met on the road. There is also a team that is linked to a player's backstory and that's gonna be extra on the nose because the team captain has a weapon that said player asked for many moons ago. One team might be a bunch of kobolds in a trenchcoat.

So one challenge is definitely gonna be contestants being really aggressive on the road (or asking for an alliance and then betraying the players 😏 if they don't betray me first). I'm working on the mechanics to quicken the pace, but I think that's doable and exciting to play. I also need to work on how to make the terrain interesting and part of the encounter, especially because of the movement mechanic.

The other main challenge that needs a lot of work is each waypoint, because just registering passage is boring. The obvious solution is putting the waypoints in dangerous locations, but 1) what kind of dangerous locations? 2) I also need to remember that multiple teams at different times must be able to pass through them, so a monster encounter that people can kill off kind of defeats the purpose (though it might be interesting because the players would basically help every other team by paving the way). Anyway this is where I should go ham with ideas, but I'm creatively stuck.

I also need to keep in mind that skill checks challenges are a thing that I can use to my advantage 🤔

Last thing I need to work out is how to keep track of how well npc are doing in the race, since I don't want my players to take the first place for granted, by virtue of being the protagonists. Sometimes failure can be fun as well.

#yes i remember that taz did something similar but i don't want to think about that