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megashadowdragon · 3 years

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Metryllis' Paladin Problems: Valentines by Volume

source : www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/ey7s5b/metryllis_paladin_problems_valentines_by_volume/Commentary:

Just in time for the Month of Love. It’s something horrible!

I guess this is more of a Kiara’s Paladin Problems strip, but I’m on a roll with that “M” theme linking them all together.

Kiara's opening lines were inspired by lyrics from The Rocky Horror Picture Show track "Don't Dream It, Be It". Astolfo speaks for himself.

There’s a reason why only certain Servants (if any) are allowed to accompany you in Singularities/EoRs/Lostbelts. Some would resolve them too easily!

Yes, in addition to being a Prince and a Duke, Astolfo was a King of Lombardy as well!

Like the overview of Durandal’s ownership in a previous comic, Astolfo’s telling of his sordid saga is mostly without embellishments. It only omits that he only became friends with Giocondo (Jocundo, in some translations) when he heard that he was a man whose beauty rivaled his own. To see if the rumors were true, he invited him to his kingdom in Lombardy (Astolfo’s brother had recently died, leaving him to inherit it), but when Giocondo arrived, he was bedraggled and sallow. Astolfo’s would-be competition had recently chanced upon his wife in the arms of another man (a crucifix was involved). Later, through a crack in his guest room, Giocondo spied Astolfo’s queen having an affair with the aforementioned dwarf. And you know the rest. Oh, except the part where Astolfo and Giocondo gave Fiammetta and her third lover their blessing and a large dowry with which they could wed each other. Also, the little wrinkle that the entire tale might be completely fictitious. Even more so than usual, I mean.

Rodomonte, having had his fiancé choose Mandricardo over him, languishes in an inn and bemoans the supposed promiscuity of women, the innkeeper kindly tells him the story of Astolfo’s thousand THOT march to make him feel better. Ariosto, the writer, prefaces the story assuring the reader that it is nonsense and also very offensive and can be skipped. Not that this stopped me.

Of course, this allegedly improbably tale is told a few cantos before Astolfo goes to Hell, Heaven, Eden, and the Moon. Which actually happens. So the milli-mistress misadventure could have also been true.

It’s charming either way, I find. Astolfo is such a ridiculous character that people can just attribute all sorts of deranged deeds to his ledger and they’d suddenly become plausible by association.

After the story is told, some of the bar’s partrons agree with the sentiment that they must be wary of womanly wantonness. Others, surprisingly, side with the women and claim that men are just as likely to be unfaithful and they shouldn’t hold it against each other too brutally if infidelity should occur.

I must stress that whether you believe Astolfo’s story is about letting your freak flag fly or waving away loyalty lapses in non-open relationships, Ariosto has strong moral ideals on romance (even while putting Charlemagne’s own…wanderings…into consideration) to buoy all this crudeness. If not modern, then very far-reaching ones.

Bradamante and Ruggiero’s love, for how much trouble it gets them in and how Ariosto might have been playing to the vanity of his patrons (who believed themselves descended from the pair), is comprehensively portrayed as a very good and very beautiful thing in a tale rife with the mad and the macabre.

The hollowness of Ruggiero’s partially enchanted affair with Alcina regresses his reputable countenance into that of a placid imbecile who’s almost plantlike even before he’s turned into an actual tree.

Roland’s pursuit over a woman who does not love him, transforms him into a monster.

Doralice so swiftly switching affections for Mandricardo to his killer, Ruggiero is depicted negatively.

Paladin Rinaldo, a married man and Bradamante’s brother, temporarily redeems himself for his own pursuit of Angelica by leading the reinforcements he’d collected (a task he was penalized with by a disappointed Charlemagne) to save Paris, his king, and his fellow knights during a terrible siege. Then he greedily goes out to pursue Angelica again, this time under the pretense that he’s actually hunting down Gradasso and the stolen Durandal. He is repaid for his deception by a gorgon attack (yes, really) and his lack of effort in actually finding his purported targets leads to him missing the climactic 3-on-3 duel wherein Roland, Oliver, and Brandimart are grievously harmed by the blade he was supposed to retrieve.

But although Ariosto prizes Love and Loyalty, he’s as mentioned previously, very fond of Mercy. Princess Genevra of Scotland is accused of fornication and is to be sentenced to death. While she is eventually revealed to be innocent, that is a moot point for Rinaldo and her fiancé Ariodantes. Had she been guilty, the two of them would have still viewed her punishment as far too harsh and would have rushed to save her regardless. And they’d have succeeded in that scenario just the same.

Angelica, so frequently accosted and made captive, finds a man of sincere affection in the humble Medoro.

Proud Marfisa, finding the hamlet of the tyrant Marganor’s discarded and dishonored women, might have mocked them for allowing themselves to be victims, for not being as mighty, rich, and unstoppable as she. Instead, the glib cruelty of the Amazons and the vulnerable magnificence of Bradamante & Ruggiero’s bond have made her more worldly and considerate, and she stages a rebellion to not just punish Marganor but to reinstate his mistresses as full citizens of their home village worthy of sympathy, protection, and perhaps even true love rather than leave them ostracized for being made targets for wickedness they had little hope of defying on their own.

By the by, I hope you got a good laugh out of this comic. Cheers

#fgo #fate grand order #astolfo #rider of black #fate astolfo #fate rider of black #fgo astolfo #orojuice #kiara sessyoin #kiara sesshouin #fgo kiara #fate kiara #meltryllis #fgo comic #fgo fancomic #fate grand order comic #fate/grand order

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zelskzerker · 3 years

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Mangadex went down so I read alot 1/7

Lets review a bunch of isekai and related stuff I binged because mangadex went down. The scale will be a single thumbs up to a single thumbs down in terms of how much I would consider recommending it in general.

Legend

Chapters 1-51 Pretty straight forward in most aspects. For the best. Nothing crazy bad or good happening, making it surprisingly straight forward for an isekai. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC is given a super magic body and the knowledge of ancient magic. Which he promptly uses to create a griffon buddy. Gets a THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER for just being a nice, believable stay in a world, but I have read some stuff that really has interesting sparks the way this doesnt. MC is brutal at times and General Princess is cute. They make a good pair for each other. Although there are no ecchi situations, that artist really knows how to slide in the lewds, whether its mid combat flourishes or pre chapter artwork.

The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated

All Chapters

Truly is revolting. A resounding THUMBS DOWN. Apparently this was just an advertisement manga, which means that its intentionally incomplete and unsatisfying. Ontop of that, the sketchy artwork was generally rough and got worse to look at the more it went on. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time he has a grimoire that lets him summon stuff he draws. The power isn’t used that much though or in that creative of ways. Characters didn’t really leave an impact except maybe the elf little sister that is stubborn yet knows she is incompotent and recruits a dragon out of stubbornness.

Minotaur’s Sweetheart

Chapters 1-16

So what if a minotaur accidentally seduced the adventurer that was assigned to kill him? This is a good romance manga deserving a THUMBS UP because the pure-hearted minotaur boy and the unmarriageable adventurer girl actually develop a relationship and progress as people. The manga is ultimately about monsters and humans interacting and is fresh due to having a plot that evolves the situation a lot beyond the initial setup of the manga.

Moon-led Journey Across Another World

Chapters 1-64

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time the god of the new world calls the MC ugly and banishes him to the edge of the world to die off. In order to help out the MC, the god of our world (Tsukuyomi) gives him a bit of power. The MC is funny to watch once you realize that he is an incredibly cautious pureboy and expecting every common street thug to potentially end him but in reality he is a god-rivaling cataclysm himself and never realizes. He is so powerful that he recruits the blue haired mist dragon, Tomoe, and accidentally turns her into a weeaboo. Tomoe can read minds and access pocket space with her mist ontop of her sick weeaboo katana skills. She really shines as the most mature person in the story, gaining information that no one else in the story has and carefully withholding it from the MC in order to protect his innocence. She is a DAMN good tomboyish waifu and sarashii is a blessing. Other main girl is yandere spider, Mio, which has shockingly good and well conveyed bouts of emotion. She has an extremely rare “can’t cook at all” joke that is explained due to her “eat literally anything” nature. In terms of plot, the MC hates the god of the world he is in and pretty much plans to do everything she doesn’t want him to. Which means mingling with humans, and eventually, god slaying/usurption. Odd think about this manga is that it’s heavily Japanese-inspired. That may sound odd because its a manga, but generally isekai are most medieval/western skinned than this one which leans in on Japanese mythos. Just look at the god of our world in the manga.

THUMBS UP.

The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~

Chapter 1-10 So lets set up this genre here. This is a part of the “reincarnation” genre, which is a spinoff of isekai. They generally depict a very capable mage who reincarnates themselves into the future of their own world. At which point they realize that although they were pretty strong in their day, they are now practically a god in the deteriorated modern day. This genre will hereby be indicated by [Insert reincarnation startup here]. For this manga in specific, [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC could only use lightning magic and was the best at it but failed the gene gacha then [Insert reincarnation startup here] and he fails gene gacha again but is still the walking thunder god. These kinds of manga are always precious when the MC can walk through the world and see the fruits of their past labor. Specifically through Merlin, the MC’s adopted demon daughter who has grown up to be his heritor and bridge human/demon relationships. Truly adorable and heart warming. Lacks a bit of spice from themeing or ongoing plot due to its short length however. THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me

Chapters 1-17.1

THUMBS UP. This is an oneshota manga where shota is a chad with incredibly good tastes. A really good ecchi manga with a light hearted story featuring Haru(the shota) knight that joins Karen’s(the oneesan) knight crew. As with all good romance manga, the main plot isn’t romance. Knight shenanigins are always happening, with a big (and lewd) bad entering recently. Top tier variation on the lewds, even including a princess loli in on the fun. Must read for all oneshota fans.

Lonely Attack on A Different World

Chapter 1-91

[Insert isekai startup forma de classroom here] but this time the MC gets leftover garbage skills and has to learn to survive. Learning to survive thus makes him the most op and he can magic trick his way out of literally anything. Strong start as the whole classroom first tries to get their footing, but after the starting arc is done this manga starts spinning it’s wheels. The manga is kinda lacking in themes, overarching plot and end goals, so stuff just happens to make this a sort of slice of life trap room escape manga. Magic “just works” in this universe so its not very dramatic when the MC pulls out a new trick out of his bag of million tricks. Just kinda stagnates too much for my liking. THUMB IN THE BOTTOM CORNER.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Chapters 1-34

Rentt Faina, the MC, is a good guy with no talent who aspires to be a legendary adventurer. But then he gets turned into a skeleton, giving the chance to evolve his way to greatness, kinda like in Spider isekai or Dragon isekai. The MC is most like Goblin Slayer in his serious and knowledgeable approach to the world, how characters that know him revere him. End goal so far is just him seeing how far he can evolve as he comes across other vampires and vampire hunters. Really want to see him go to the top. Fuckin great art. Girls drawn perfect. Like the hat on the guild girl, but nothing beats the witch Lorraine. THUMBS UP.

Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan

Chapters 1-13

THUMB IN UPPER CORNER. Pretty funny comedy about a lord of a poor land who wants to be a stereotypical evil lord but can only use healing magic. Therefore he bumbles his way into accepting a heretical cult nun, beast men who hate humans, etc. All the girls are to crazy for him to want to sex them(weak. give the assassin nun your babies). Most interesting parts are aforementioned nun, his fujoshi assistant, and the MC’s willingness to use his power to commit heretical and immoral warcrimes.

The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness

Chapters 1-11

Art average, don’t come to this one for spectacle. It’s strength is in the subertfuge that it’s recently-necromanced-back-to-life MC goes through to get his Master killed and to later, probably, evolve into a vampire. MC isn’t evil though, just wants to survive. Main girl on cover was born and raised to hunt vampires but has a compassionate heart. Obviously she goes easy on and relates to MC. Story is still kinda in it’s first arc so the overall trajectory of the story is a bit hard to gauge and not quite satisfying enough by its own right. Probably a thumb up with more chapters but for now THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman

Chapters 1-38

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time.... uh... THUMB SIDEWAYS. Usually I am patient, but 31 chapters with no goal and just barely plot? Wow. Saving grace is uh... I guess the world of “other isekai people existed but they sucked because they didn’t level uncap like MC” could go somewhere but. I take it back, lowering this one to a THUMB DOWN.

The Invincible Sage in the Second World.

Chapters 1-12

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time a pro mmo player in a game called “Broken Balance Online.” Guess what his class, the sage class, was considered in the game? Not far along enough to really pop off but it isn’t horrible. MC is moderately cautious to a healthy degree which is actually rare in most isekai. THUMB IN BOTTOM LEFT CORNER.

The Dark Queen and I Strike Back

Chapters 1-29.5

Although technically an isekai, no isekai startup here. This a battle manga with a big mystery on the backdrop of a war. That is to say, the MC gets teleported to a world to kill the demons but he ends up defending them from the humans with all he’s got. Of special note is the complete seriousness of this manga that whiplashes into debauchery like tentacles, the above cover, oneshota, and even really dark jokes in some of the omake. That tonal lash effect will be either make or break, and it is a HUGE make for me. I love when a single piece can have both absolute serious scenes and utterly lighthearted and fluffy ones. Or in this case utterly lewd ones. May the average-human-amount-of-perverted MC one day slam some demon lord loli. THUMBS UP.

Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

Chapters 1-24

THUMB SIDEWAYS. Has the feeling of a nerfed slime isekai. Nerfed in all ways except romance. Art surprisingly good.

#Legend #The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated #Minotaur’s Sweetheart #Moon-led Journey Across Another World #The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~#Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me #Lonely Attack on A Different World #The Unwanted Undead Adventurer #Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan #The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness #The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman #The Invincible Sage in the Second World.#The Dark Queen and I Strike Back #Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

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pervocracy · 5 years

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One opinion about almost every episode of Doctor Who that I’ve watched

spoilers, although they’re mostly from like 2005

An Unearthly Child: Whoa, they nailed the theme song right from the get-go!

Rose: The Doctor’s speech about feeling the Earth turning under his feet was chilling, and I think about it a lot in moments later in the series when he’s being goofy and casual.

The End of the World: They spent a lot of money on this one--costumes, effects, even licensed music--to prove to everyone that This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Doctor Who.

The Unquiet Dead: I realize saying “every myth is actually aliens” is kind of the Brand, but this one came off particularly strongly “we wrote a Victorian ghost story but then the boss said it had to be aliens so okay, fine, they’re fuckin’... alien ghosts.”

Aliens of London: “Being the Doctor’s companion will completely destroy your life” is a surprisingly grim running theme in the series. Every companion eventually brings grief to their friends and families, in one way or another.

World War Three: Rose returning to the TARDIS as a conscious decision, bags packed and ready for adventure, is adorable. The show implies that certain people are just made to be companions to the Doctor, and Rose is one of them.

Dalek: It was an interesting choice to introduce the Dalek as sympathetic and pitiful, and at the same time one of the most brutal killers on the show. And at the same time, it’s still a ridiculous-looking thing with a toilet plunger for an arm.

The Long Game: Hey! That’s Simon Pegg! He looks weird with blond hair! Hi Simon Pegg! I’m waving at the TV!

Father’s Day: I only watched this one once. Couldn’t deal with the feelings.

The Empty Child: Stephen Moffat was so good when he wasn’t allowed to take over the whole show so he actually had to write stories with endings!

The Doctor Dances: And what a glorious ending it is! Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES!

Boom Town: The Doctor’s dinner with the Slitheen, and their cold deconstruction of each other’s brutality, is one hell of a scene considering the silliness of the setup.

Bad Wolf: Today on Shit You Did Not Expect: a... The Weakest Link crossover? Really? Really. They play The Weakest Link with a penis-headed robot who blasts people with her laser eyes. And then they’re on Big Brother! Hey! My dad worked on that! I don’t think he was actually part of this episode though.

The Parting of the Ways: Rose doesn’t look or act like she’d make a fearsome demigod. Which makes it much more powerful when she does.

The Christmas Invasion: “Who is this weird new guy? I’ll never get used to him being the Doctor!” -me, for about 5 seconds before falling completely and permanently in love with Ten

New Earth: This one is so much fun! Rose and the Doctor are so adorably playful with each other, and then they get to do some incredibly goofy bodyswap acting, and then even Cassandra gets to have a sweet, humanity-affirming ending.

Tooth and Claw: So you’ve got a Scottish actor who normally fakes an English accent, pretending to be faking a Scottish accent, then pretending to forget to fake a Scottish accent and “slipping” into an English accent again. Meanwhile I can’t even speak with a Massachusetts accent and I was born here.

School Reunion: “I couldn’t bear to watch you grow old and die” is a bullshit excuse for ditching a companion, coming from a guy whose entire personality essentially-dies every time he has a contract dispute or “creative differences.”

The Girl in the Fireplace: “Every time I travel through the time portals, several years pass for Reinette. Too bad I have no pattern recognition abilities!”

Rise of the Cybermen: I’m glad Mickey finally gets an episode where he’s not just a barely-wanted tagalong. He was on the verge of becoming the Xander Harris of this show.

The Age of Steel: Noel Clarke’s “I’m two people” acting is so good! You can see whether he’s Mickey or Ricky in each shot with a glance, just from his facial expression.

The Idiot’s Lantern: ahahaha look at their hair in this episode

The Impossible Planet: I’m glad they came back to the Ood later, because it’s rather unpleasant how the Doctor in this one kinda shrugs off “so these people are keeping slaves, what’re you gonna do, cultural differences and all that.”

The Satan Pit: Making literal Satan the bad guy here is adorable. It’s like something you’d see on 60s Star Trek, but no, it’s happening in our modern CGI-enhanced post-irony Golden Age Of TV world. A man in a spacesuit is yelling at a giant red devil that just growls back at him and it’s all very serious drama. I love this show.

Love & Monsters: This is the one where a girl gets turned into a paving slab but then her boyfriend announces that it’s okay because they’re still having sex. Yeah. That happened.

Fear Her: I think this one’s mostly filler

Army of Ghosts: There’s just way too much going on here. We’ve got ghosts and Cybermen and Torchwood and Daleks and a parallel universe and... anyway I think the concept of using those flimsy paper 3D glasses as a magical item is kind of adorable.

Doomsday: ROSE! ROSE NO! COME BACK! ROOOSE!!!

The Runaway Bride: Catherine Tate is so good! I’m so glad they brought her back!

Smith and Jones: I love that Martha immediately distinguishes herself as a potential companion by being excited instead of terrified that they’ve been teleported to the moon. She doesn’t even know how they have air, but she’s already like “sweet! an Adventure!”

The Shakespeare Code: By theater nerds, for theater nerds, probably insufferable to everyone else, but theater nerds have long been comfortable with that.

Gridlock: It feels a little too Socially Responsible how the Doctor and Martha are immediately and violently anti-drug. This world has patches that bring you magical joy with no apparent side effects, and instead of being curious about it the way they usually are about future technology, they just go straight to “SAY NOPE TO DOPE, KIDS!!!”

Daleks in Manhattan: Having Daleks use the old-school pepperpot design and robot-screamy-voices in the modern series is like putting nipples and a codpiece on the Batsuit in The Dark Knight. Which is to say, it’s brilliant and I love it.

Evolution of the Daleks: too much plot, I’m sleepy

The Lazarus Experiment: I cannot believe multiple adults saw the wig Mark Gatiss wears in this episode and agreed that would be okay.

42: I really like these self-contained episodes that don’t set up any big arcs or prophesies or personal dramas. There’s just a ticking clock, a mystery, a spaceship, and a whole lot of running up and down hallways whilst shouting.

Human Nature: Hey, it’s Jojen Reed as an uncanny psychic child! And Viserys Targaryen as a sadistic upper-class brat!

The Family of Blood: Man, the Doctor really dicked Martha over with this one. “You’re going to be a domestic servant, because you’re black! And I’m going to turn myself into an old-timey racist who doesn’t know who you are! And yet somehow you’re supposed to be in charge of making sure I carry out all my plans!”

Blink: This is a perfect episode of television.

Utopia:💖😍🥰😘 jack harkness i love you 😘🥰😍💖

The Sound of Drums: “Menacing goofiness” is a strange place for an actor to aim, but damn if John Simm doesn’t hit it.

Last of the Time Lords: “I’ve been traveling around the world, fomenting resistance and spreading hope... in the idea that the Doctor is magic and can fix everything by himself. That’s what resistance to fascism is, right? Just throwing all your resources in with a different all-powerful authority-father-savior figure?”

Voyage of the Damned: Giving the Doctor a one-off temporary companion, and expecting people to care about her as much as Rose or Martha, doesn’t really work. “Oh no, she’s dying. Not whatserface. Oh no.”

Partners in Crime: I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who doesn’t have any kind of psychosexuromantic entanglement with him, but is really just a friend. I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who’s (by actors’ ages, at least) older than him. ...Oh shit, is it bad that these are the same one?

The Fires of Pompeii: “I wish we could save the people of Pompeii, but I am powerless to change this part of history... oh wait, no, I’ll save this one random family on a whim. Guess I could change history after all! Sorry, other 20,000 people who are still getting volcanoed to death!”

Planet of the Ood: “The companion is the Doctor’s conscience” is always true, but Donna really owns it. She spares no time for pretending that “oh but what if the Ood are supposed to be slaves” is an interesting argument.

The Sontaren Strategem: Another one of those “too much plot for me” episodes. I’m a simple man; just give me a monster and a hallway to run down.

The Poison Sky: ditto

The Doctor’s Daughter: It’s weird that they got married in real life. Like, their actual age difference is within the half-plus-seven rule, and she wasn’t even really his daughter daughter on the show, but, like, it’s still a little tiny bit weird.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: I guess if I read Agatha Christie books I would understand some of these references?

Silence in the Library: Holy shit, this one is scary. I don’t hide behind the couch often watching Doctor Who, but... “Hey, who turned out the lights?”

Forest of the Dead: River’s speech about “when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives” is self-indulgent Stephen Moffat hooey and a blatant repeat from “The Doctor Dances” but I’ve got goosebumps anyway.

Midnight: Wow. You don’t really expect to be using the phrase “a gut-punch of an episode” about the same series that was just playing Detective Funtimes With Agatha Christie, but this was a gut-punch of an episode.

Turn Left: I’ve rewatched a lot of these, but I couldn’t watch this one more than once because I felt so sad about Wilfred. Something in his performance is just wrenching.

The Stolen Earth: I couldn’t watch this one more than once because it’s hard to summon up the energy to follow the “let’s throw everything that’s ever happened onto the show into this stew” plotline.

Journey’s End: HOW DARE YOU DO DONNA LIKE THAT. HOW DARE YOU.

The Next Doctor: Hey! That’s not Matt Smith! I thought it was gonna be Matt Smith.

Planet of the Dead: The Doctor without a permanent companion is always an uncomfortable dynamic. Both because he needs a conscience/foil/audience-surrogate, and because otherwise we have to go through the “the Doctor is the perfect boyfriend who always breaks your heart” narrative all over again every damn episode.

The Waters of Mars: I like when the Doctor isn’t a good person. When he gets all arrogant and inhuman and at moments even sinister, that’s far more interesting than when he’s a straightforward hero.

The End of Time: Look, I loved David Tennant’s run on this show. He’s my favorite Doctor and my imaginary boyfriend. If there’s anyone I don’t mind watching get a bit self-indulgent, it’s Ten. But even from this perspective, I think it was not a good idea to let him spend a half hour dying while crying piteously and also somehow touring his entire history on the show. It really was not.

The Eleventh Hour: This feels like the first episode of an entirely new show. There’s very little in characters or plotlines (or writers or producers) connecting it to anything that happened before. The sense of a fresh start is nice, but this literally is not the same show I enjoyed before.

The Beast Below: Oh. It’s a space whale. That’s cool I guess. This show is okay and everything, but there’s no way I would have really gotten into it if I’d started watching here.

Victory of the Daleks: Upon reading the Wikipedia summary of this episode, I realized that I had, in fact, watched it.

The Time of Angels: “Blink” was, as I said, perfect. But not because the Angels are the greatest enemy ever devised; they’re creepy and all, but most of the fun in “Blink” comes from the meticulously satisfying construction of the time loops. Taking that element out, and just making the Angels into generic boogeymen, was a terrible idea.

Flesh and Stone: Oh god, there’s so many mediocre Eleven episodes. Don’t get me wrong, Matt Smith is great. I don’t blame him. But I’m just not feeling the energy to go through every one of these damn things anymore.

[...]

Let’s Kill Hitler: This is the one that finally defeated me. I wasn’t really offended, just... tired. Things had gotten so wrapped up in complicated portentous chosen-savior-of-everything plots and we couldn’t have even one episode anymore that was just a normal time travel adventure. I think about halfway through here, I gave up on Doctor Who.

Oh well. There’s still time to come back to it if I want. And we’ll always have “Blink.”

#doctor who #long post #looooooong post #longest post

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the-desolated-quill · 4 years

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Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2019

Congratulations! You’ve made it through another year! You’ve faced many obstacles and overcome many adversaries to arrive here, at the dawn of a new decade. So as we prepare to leave the 2010s and make our way into the 2020s, lets take a look back at the challenges and hardships of 2019. And by challenges and hardships, I of course mean shitty fiction and media.

Yes, it’s time for yet another edition of Quill’s Swill, where we mark the absolute worst stories that the industry had to offer over the past year and proceed to tear them to shreds. Think of it as like voiding your bowels before the New Year.

As always remember that this is my personal, subjective opinion. If you happen to like any of the things on this list, that’s fine. More power to you. Go make your own list. Also bear in mind I haven’t seen everything 2019 has to offer due to various other commitments. So as much as I really, really want to, I can’t put Avengers Endgame on here. I know what happens. It sounds fucking terrible, but I haven’t seen the film, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to put it on the list, even though it would most definitely deserve it.

...

Seriously, read the synopsis of Endgame on Wikipedia some time. It’s like fanfic written by a nine year old. It’s truly shocking. And now it’s the highest grossing movie of all time? Give me strength.

All In A Row

Don’t you just hate it when you’re expected to parent your autistic child? Like actually show love and care and consideration to your offspring. Look at him, expecting you to treat him like a human being. Selfish bastard! If only there was a play that explored the horrors of having to be a decent person to your own flesh and blood and how objectively awful it is. If you’re one of those people, then the play All In A Row will be right up your street.

Premiering on the 14th February at Southwark Playhouse in London, All In A Row was a total shitshow to say the least. The playwright, Alex Oates, claimed to have ten years of experience working with autistic children, which you wouldn’t have believed if you saw the play as the autistic child at the centre of the play, Lawrence, seemed more like a wild animal than a person. In fact two of the main characters compare him to a dog. And if you thought this wasn’t dehumanising enough, Lawrence isn’t even a child. He’s a puppet. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

All In A Row seems to place all of the blame for the family’s predicament on the autistic child, who’s presented as barely functional, bordering on bestial. There’s no effort to really make an emotional connection with Lawrence (how can you? He’s a puppet!) as the play instead focuses on how this kid has effectively ruined this family’s life because of his autism and aggressive behaviour. Speaking as someone on the autism spectrum, I can say quite confidently that this play is fucking despicable. Badly written, badly conceived, insulting and downright mean spirited. I wouldn’t want Oates looking after my autistic children, that’s for damn sure.

Anthem

EA is back and this time they’re dragging the critical darling that is BioWare down with them.

Anthem was a desperate attempt to jump aboard the ‘live service’ bandwagon, trying to replicate the success of other video games like Overwatch, Destiny and Warframe. They failed spectacularly. The game itself had more bugs than A Bug’s Life, loot drops were often stingy and unrewarding, loading times were farcically long, and the story and worldbuilding was fucking pitiful. Oh yeah, and if you played it on PS4, there was a good chance it could permanently damage it. Thankfully I have a uni friend with an Xbox One and they allowed me to play the game on that. It was a crushing disappointment, especially coming fresh off the heels of Mass Effect Andromeda, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire back in 2017.

It didn’t help that EA’s reputation was in tatters thanks to the lootbox controversy of Star Wars Battlefront II and having to try and win back the trust of fans, but worse still reports began to service of what went on behind the scenes at BioWare during the game’s development. Apparently the game’s story and mechanics kept changing every other day as the creative directors and writers didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of game they wanted to make, and the developers were often forced to work obscenely long work hours in abusive crunch periods to get the game finished for launch. It got so bad that, according to an article on Kotaku, some members of the team had to leave for weeks or even months at a time to recover from ‘stress casualties.’

To think this was the same company that gave us Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Knights Of The Old Republic. Thank God that Obsidian Entertainment is there to pick up the slack on the RPG front because I think it’s safe to assume that BioWare won’t be around for much longer at this rate.

The Lion King (2019 remake)

Here we go. Yet another live action remake of a Disney classic. Excpet it’s not live action, is it? Well... it’s live action in the sense that Dinosaur was live action (remember that film? Don’t worry if you don’t. No one does). Real locations but CGI characters. Millions of dollars spent on cutting edge tech to create photo realistic animals... and the film ends up duller than a bowl of porridge that really likes trainspotting.

It’s not just the fact that The Lion King remake is yet another soulless cash grab from the House of Mouse, it’s also the fact that it’s done really badly that upsets me. The Lion King works as an animated film. Bright colourful images, over the top song and dance sequences and vibrant character designs. As a ‘live action’ film, it just looks awkward and stilted. None of the animals are very expressive, leaving it up to the poor voice actors to carry the film, and to cap it all off the CGI isn’t even all that convincing in my opinion. At no point did I look at Simba and go ‘oh yeah, he looks like a real lion.’ It’s so obviously fake. In fact it reminds me of those early 00s movies like Cats & Dogs or Stuart Little where you see the jaws of the talking animals moving up and down like some messed up ventriloquist act or something. And here’s me thinking cinema has evolved past this.

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds

Remember Peter Harness? That guy who wrote that Doctor Who episode about the moon being an egg? Yeah, he’s back and he’s doing an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds. And guess what! It’s fucking ghastly! :D

The three part BBC mini-series was without a doubt some of the worst telly I think I’ve ever seen. It’s staggering how clueless Harness is as a writer. For starters he managed to achieve the impossible and somehow made a Martian invasion of Earth boring. I didn’t even think it was possible, but somehow he pulled it off. Then he sucks all tension out of the story by revealing the ultimate fate of the Martians at the beginning of the second episode, so now any threat or danger has been chucked out of the window because we know that the main female protagonist Amy at least would survive. And then finally he takes a massive dump over the source material by having humanity weaponise typhoid to kill the red weed rather than just having the Martians die of the common cold like in the book. Because God forbid us Brits should be presented as anything other than heroic and dignified.

So what we’re left with is a poorly realised allegory with ineffectual horror tropes full of OTT progressive posturing in a pathetic attempt to make Harness and the BBC look more liberal than they actually are. There’s no effort to really explore the themes of imperialism and colonialism outside of casual lip service, and we barely get a glimpse of the dark side of humanity. Everyone is presented as flawed, but basically awesome or, in the case of Rafe Spall’s character, utterly gormless. Our TV license fees help fund this shit, you know?!

And if you think this was bad, just wait till New Year’s Day where we’ll get to see Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ butcher Dracula. Can we stop giving these beloved literary icons to these hacks please?

Glass

I liked Split. It wasn’t an amazing movie, but it was entertaining with some good ideas, a great performance from James McAvoy and was a true return to form for M Night Shyamalan. That being said, I wasn’t keen on the idea of it taking place in the same universe as Unbreakable. I feared it would be a step too far and we’d end up having something like... well, something like Glass.

On paper, Glass isn’t a bad idea. The idea of superpowers being a delusion is legitimately intriguing and could have been a great post-modern deconstruction of the superhero genre. Except Shyamalan never actually does anything with it. The first act drags on and on with absolutely nothing happening, none of the characters really grow or change over the course of the film, Bruce Willis in particular is basically only here for an extended cameo as his character does pretty much nothing for the majority of the film, and then the entire film is undermined by that stupid Shyamalan twist. Turns out superhumans are real and there’s a big cover up. Oh great! So not only does it render the entire film pointless, it also undoes what made Unbreakable and Split so good. They’re no longer people capable of extraordinary feats via rational means. They’re just superhuman. They can do anything. Sigh.

Shyamalan... maybe it’s time to give up the director’s chair, yeah?

Cats

Oh come on! Don’t act surprised! Did you honestly think I wouldn’t put Cats on this list?!

Cats, without a doubt, is the worst film of the decade and, yes, the CGI is terrible. Not only are there these sub-human cat mutants running around, we also have mice and cockroaches with child faces, James Corden coughing up furballs, Taylor Swift trying to give the furries in the audience boners, Idris Elba looking disturbingly underdressed and Rebel Wilson being... well... Rebel Wilson. It’s a disaster of a film. And really, should we even be surprised? We all knew this was going to suck. And no it’s not because of the CGI. I thought the CGI in Pokemon: Detective Pikachu was creepy as well, but at least it had a decent script and good performances to back it up. No the reason why Cats sucked is because... it’s Cats. It’s always been that bad. No amount of ‘advanced fur technology’ was going to change that. It was still going to be a confused, plotless mess with one dimensional characters and bad songs.

The only consolation I had was that I didn’t waste money buying a ticket. A friend of mine snuck me into the premiere and we watched it in the projector room. The plan was to make fun of it and have a laugh, but we didn’t even do that because honestly there’s nothing to really make fun. There’s only so many times you can take the piss out of the CGI and honestly the film was just boring more than anything else. It doesn’t even have the distinction of being so bad it’s good like Sharknado or Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. It’s just bad, period.

I just hope we don’t see something similar happen to Starlight Express. Just think. Anthropomorphic, singing trains on roller skates. Shudder.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Finally we have yet another cynical cash grab from Disney.

I confess I didn’t exactly go into The Rise Of Skywalker with an open mind. I was never all that keen on a sequel trilogy in the first place, and neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi ever convinced me otherwise. Admittedly they weren’t bad movies. Just derivative and painfully uninspired, and I was expecting more of the same for Episode IX. What I got instead was quite possibly the worst Star Wars film since Attack Of The Clones. Yes, it’s that bad.

This film is very poorly made, filled with plot contrivances and logic holes galore. I lost count of the number of times the protagonists got into a dangerous situation because of Rey constantly wandering off like a confused toddler lost in a shopping mall. Oh and we finally find out who her parents were and it was quite a twist, but only because it was really stupid. Of course we didn’t see it coming because nobody would have guessed it would be something that moronic. I feel JJ Abrams’ stupid ‘mystery box’ philosophy is to blame for this. It’s derailed countless franchises before such as Lost and Cloverfield, and now Abrams has fucked up Star Wars because he’s obsessed with mystery for the sake of mystery and Disney are so lazy that they couldn’t be bothered to plan an actual trilogy out properly beforehand. Instead they just wing it, making it up as they go along, which led to Rian Johnson ‘subverting our expectations’ and left Abrams desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

In fact a lot of The Rise Of Skywalker seemed designed specifically to appease people of both sides of the wide chasm The Last Jedi had created. The roles of characters of colour like Finn and Rose were significantly reduced, Poe and Finn don’t end up together because of homophobia, but we do see two women kiss in the background of one two second shot that could easily be cut out when they release the film in China, Kylo Ren gets his stupid redemption even though he hasn’t fucking earned it, Lando Calrissian shows up for no fucking reason, Rey is given ‘flaws’ relating to her parentage in order to combat those accusing her of being a Mary Sue, but they’re the boring kind of flaws that don’t have any real impact on her character, and that ghastly ship Reylo is made canon even though it makes no sodding sense in the context of this movie, let alone the whole trilogy. They even go to the trouble of baiting us with a FinnRey romance before pulling the rug out from under us. Then, just to add insult to injury, the film retroactively ends up making the entire original trilogy completely pointless. All because Disney wanted more dollars to put in their Scrooge McDuck money bin.

The Rise Of Skywalker, and indeed the entire sequel trilogy, should serve as a cautionary tale against the dangers of hype and nostalgia. The reason The Force Awakens was successful wasn’t because it was a good movie (because lets be brutally honest here, it really fucking wasn’t). It was because it gave gullible Star Wars fans warm fuzzies because it reminded them of A New Hope whilst tempting them with the vague promise that things might get more interesting later on. And when that didn’t materialise, quelle surprise, the fanbase didn’t take it very well. I would love to think that this will serve as an important lesson for the future when people go and see Disney movies, but who am I kidding? I guarantee at some point we’re going to get Episodes X, XI and XII and we’ll have to go through this sorry process all over again.

So there we have it. The worst of 2019. May they rot forever in Satan’s rectum or wherever it is stories go to die. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Yes it’s the Quill Seal Of Approval Awards! The best of the best! Who shall win? The suspense is killing me! Ooooh, I can’t wait! You’ll be there tomorrow, won’t you? Of course you will. How could you not?

#quill's swill #quill's swill 2019 #worst of the year #review #opinion

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svtfoefan1976-blog · 6 years

Text

Globgore. “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”, “Quixotic” and other points revisited.

Now, after Divide and Conquer it is the hiatus. Which we don’t know yet how long it will be.

Time to stop and rethink over the facts. Specially now that we know there will be a new player at the table on Season 4.

From here

Glossaryck: Globgore

Star: Yes, Glossaryck, we know

Glossaryck: No, no, no, Eclipsa’s monster love Globgore! She’s going off to be with him, I’ve been trying to tell you for months! Anyway, see you around!

[Marco falls]

Star: Is his voice different?

Off topic: Yes, it is different.

And now, the new player: Globgore. Eclipsa’s monster love.

From here

Joining 400+ year spoilers: the Romance symbol to the foundation work of Modern Romance

I wrote about some elements of Romeo and Juliet before, but in another scenario, without thinking on Eclipsa’s Monster Love. Why?

Because I simply forgot that he could also be alive.

Because I’m stupid on not thinking of such an obvious scenario.

All reasons above and any other the readers can include.

Surely, Eclipsa and Globgore symbolize much better the concept of rival families in Romeo and Juliet than any other couple in Star vs the Forces of Evil.

And just like I wrote about Star, they pass through the same themes of the romance:

Fate - Cristalized because of her love being considered “unnatural”.

Chance - Eclipsa only got free by chance, because of a deal Queen Moon decided to do with her to kill Toffee.

Duality - Besides we’ve seen her the whole season 3, we can’t still state if Eclipsa is good or bad. She is at least a rule bender. Globgore’s behavior and Eclipsa’s reaction to it will determine at which shade she can be stated.

Time - 300 years cristalized may be very symbolical

Rivalry - The clear rivalry between Mewmen and Monsters.

Love - “Well, when a queen and a monster love each other very much...”

And for Star, with Queen Moon disappeared, she may need to deal with the hard reality of being (acting) Queen - assuming this will be her role when Season 4 starts. Like what happens in Part 2 of Don Quixote de La Mancha. In fact, she needs to face even internal threats...

From here

Star: Sir Muscleton?

Sir Muscleton: What’s up baby girl?

Star: What did you... what did you call me?

Sir Muscleton: I think I called youuuuuuu... baby girl.

[Star fires at Sir Muscleton, immediately after he finishes this sentence.]

Star: Yes, Sir Dashing of Muscleton isn’t gonna be able to help us. Marco? What have you got?

In a similar way Quixote faced, as the whole adventure in part 2 was an idea to mock him and Sancho Panza all the time. Curiously, on Don Quixote, the squire / knight hierarchy evolves to a strong friendship, as shown in the end of the romance. As Star and Marco are trying to evolve their friendship, (I hope) this probably will happen with them too.

Her quixotic dreams may face another reality checks, even stronger than in Monster Bash, Divide and Conquer episodes. And she will probably spend time trying to find her mother.

So curiously the fundamental Romance of all history (Romeo and Juliet) and the Foundation Stone of modern romances (Don Quixote de La Mancha) are converging in a single story. In a similar way as traditional magical girls animes (like Sailor Moon) and modern society issues (prejudice being the most evident, but not the only one - as we can take from Sir Muscleton’s inappropriate behavior).

Will Globgore go for revenge?

That’s a good question. The best answer I have is: I don’t know.

If Star vs the Forces of Evil crew wants to keep the 3-way fight to the end, there is an important part missing: the monsters. As from Is Another Mystery, the ones who could were leaving Mewni.

From here

To stablish their return to fight against Mewmen, they would need a leader.

On the actual status quo, the most probable ones would be Toffee - who is presumably dead - Mina or Globgore - who will be released by Eclipsa from his crystal prision. I hope that creepy Ludo from Ludo, where art thou? is just in the process to reconnect himself to the love he never had from his family.

I don’t feel like Globgore would be an immediate threat. Reinforcing the immediate.

In the first moments, I wouldn’t be surprised if he focused on being a good father for Meteora.

But, do you remember St. Olga’s ceiling?

From here

Daron’s crew recently started to give coordinates (latitude and longitude) for a scavenger hunt which gives for the first one who arrives and follow their instructions a card set with 13 queens (the exact number of different cards for each suit in card games, like poker) and two pictures: one from the season 3 poster and the other is this, which I poorly extracted from this Youtube video on the link.

The monsters drawn in the center of this poster are extremely similar to the ones pictured in St. Olga’s ceiling. If not the same but with greater level of detail.

Would this mean that Globgore has the power to invoke an army of monsters or is such a powerful monster that could destroy them?

I really don’t know, but I think that he will only go for revenge if and only if attacked by Mewmen.

Unfortunately, watching the Queen of Darkness and her Monster love throughout Mewni won’t bring Mewmen good memories because of all what was created around their figures and what her daughter just recently did... So that must be taken into account.

Another possibility, that fits one - or even two - prophecy(ies) statement(s) would be if Mewmen and monsters fought together for the sake of saving Mewni from a common enemy and Globgore would be the general of the monsters’ army. This fits both the bond interpretation (Eclipsa and Globgore) and the peace interpretation (Star and Marco).

Now, let’s speculate how would an enemy would react when finding the following situation:

The queen is missing.

The acting queen renounced to her main symbol of power: the wand.

The acting queen may have an image of being impulsive and follow her “gut feelings”.

The enemy could potencially see the acting queen as weak and prepare his / her forces to attack. And if the enemy would be Globgore, he would also have access to additional magic throughout the wand power.

But this fight would be similar to the Season 3 finale, only including an army to make the stakes higher. And for the good of the concept of Evil, not evil that surrounds the whole show, it wouldn’t be nice to Globgore to be a villain next season. I’m willing to bet that Globgore not only won’t be a villain, but may become one of the symbols of the peace between Mewmen and monsters, as this would fit most the Evil, not evil concept and the prophecy from St. Olga’s.

So, would this mean Toffee’s ressurection or Mina Loveberry going totally rogue, attacking the kingdom to “restore order” under her command, as it was hinted on Starstruck.

From here

Mina: What these little ants lack is a ruler. And guess who's gonna give 'em one? [touches Star's nose] Bink. Now, [to everyone] kneel before your new ruler.

Well, with Eclipsa having the wand, watching Meteora and Globgore free would just complete the scenario for Mina Loveberry to claim that her past “mud sister” is do nut. Or for her doctor to appear as something that doesn’t come only from her immagination, but being the real puppeteer and the main villain, the one who would unite Mewmen and Monsters in the prophecy. And this brings us to the moment Star met Mina.

From here

Fighting for donuts in the garbage.

This way Star and Mina would fight to get which other is nuts in a destroyed Mewni. The garbage itself.

“Romeo must die”? I think it’s Juliet’s time. Final call.

Before analysing which could be the weakest links to go for revenge, we must take in account “Romeo and Juliet” end. I started analysing it on a past post, but now we have another element.

Extracted from this video

If Star died on Toffee, it was Marco’s time on Conquer.

So, in the romance, there’s only left Juliet’s final death.

But it will be Romeo the main target. Let’s try to explain this.

As I stated before, enemies may think the acting queen is weak and will try to attack.

Assuming that it will be of public knowledge that Star’s love interest is Marco - as Tom already knows about Starco kiss, from Marco himself, and taking Tom’s attitude in the end of Conquer TomStar may end soon - and that Marco is not magic himself, he may be seen as the weakest link to catch the acting queen.

But there’s something that only the viewers - and Janna - know about magic and Marco.

From here

That he is able to use the wand. One more reason to Eclipsa and Globgore not to side the villains. This way, the wand could be used again by Marco as a last resort to defeat the villain, because as Jackie said in Bon Bon the Birthday Clown and Tom reinforced in Conquer, even after the most catastrophic and ridiculous failure, he never gives up.

But to Marco to use the wand, Star should be incapable to do so. Or dead. It would be really the last resort.

But if Globgore becomes the villain, would Eclipsa side with her love or would she break up with him and, again team with Star to stop his threat? After we have seen with Meteora, it is very probable that, in the end, she would team with Star.

Until Season 4 starts, this is only speculation.

Next time, I hope to revisit the Evil, not evil concept, including what makes us humans interesting and contradictory: imperfection.

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #star vs las fuerzas del mal #star vs as forças do mal #globgore #Glossaryck puppeteer #poker arc #new player

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