#just make the pretty impractical fantasy armor you are ALLOWED

[tempestclerics]

i like chainmailling and am glad i picked it up BUT at the same time think i will probably spend a lot of time making pretty small pieces because it still takes a while even though it's not tedious BUT at the same time there's an evil little voice in my head that's like. well but you can't use it for anything. you should learn to make riveted mail it would be more historically accurate and usable for sca combat. it can't take that much more time. i am hitting this little voice with a stick btw

#sola said #me @ myself literally chill out it's okay to just make crafts for the sake of them being pretty #just make the pretty impractical fantasy armor you are ALLOWED #and also. i do not own an anvil and it would be both comical and irresponsible to attempt to acquire or regularly use one #but it would be so cool and also more useful from an experimental archeology standpoint-- [I AM BONKED BY A PADDED WEAPON] #sola stitched

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Light Novel Review - Sexiled Vol. 1

When J-Novel Club announced that they would be releasing Ameko Kaeruda’s light novel Sexiled: My Sexist Part Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up with a Mythical Sorceress! I remember seeing some backlash on Twitter for the main title and cover art of the Sorceress, Laplace, exposing a solid third of breasts in a tight black dress. However, I dug a bit deeper into the work (because it is my job to do so) and was very excited at the prospective plot of women kicking ass, kissing girls, and fighting the patriarchy. After reading Sexiled, I am thrilled to say that my expectations were not only met, but exceeded by the length of a massive and impractical anime sword. This book is an excellent work of feminist literature and one of the best light novels I have ever read.

As the long title suggests, the story begins when Tanya Artemiciov, a prodigious mage, is fired from her adventuring party by its leader Ryan. The slimy, sexist, and cowardly antagonist of the book. Outraged, Tanya sets out to the wasteland to blow off steam in a spectacular and curse-riddled manner, when she accidentally releases Laplace, an ancient sorceress sealed away for centuries. After besting Laplace, the two women agree to form a party to enact sweet revenge against Ryan and take down the patriarchal society while they are at it.The story is not subtle at all with its mean themes. From the start, it is clear to the reader that sexist ideas dominate this society. Everything in the story, from the comments men make, “us men are just naturally better equipped for the job” to the oversexualized garments female adventurers are forced to wear, trace back to sexism. Great credit must be given to Kaeruda here, as the examples and instances of sexism are all taken from reality. The scores of female applicants to the mage’s school being docked mirrors last year’s scandals of Tokyo Medical School. Female adventurers are paid less and expected to retire early to start families, reflected the treatment of women in the corporate world. A full comparative list would easily take up half this review.

Not only are so many issues of sexism identified and explored in the light novel, but they are also each confronted by the heroes. Sexiled’s world and characters are typical of a power fantasy series. The protagonist is leagues stronger than anyone else, and the world has game-like qualities, with classes and levels. However, unlike the typical annoying male protagonist whose best defining character trait is “exists,” the women in Sexiled use their incredible powers to obliterate the oppressive systems. It is a pure indulgence to read, as there are few experiences more satisfying than reading descriptions of god-tier characters destroy selfish, egotistical, and demeaning men.

The sexist setting is the main focus of the story, which makes some of the plotlines predictable. However, there is a surprising amount of nuance in some of the issues presented. Tanya has lived her whole lives in this society and is thus blinded to the harsh reality and unfair circumstances around her. One of my favorite moments sees the women discussing armor and how revealing and sexual clothing is demeaning when forced, and empowering when chosen:

“‘Um, Laplace? You forgot to cover up your, uh… chest area.’ Hmm? Why should I?’ ‘Well, weren’t you saying we don’t need to show skin?’ ‘Correct–we don’t need to. But in this case, I want to.’”

Unfortunately, the plot is a bit monotonous. The one-note that is it, powerful women using magic to fight against sexism, is a superb one, but I would have liked to see a bit of variety or actions taken by women that were not solely motivated by men. It is disappointing to see that all the actions taken are in response to the atrocities of society, especially considering how feminist the book is. The points, while important, are merely the blemishes on a masterful work of art and culture. Sexiled remains one of the most engaging, fun, and relevant visual novels on the market.

Speaking of light novels, I have to mention and praise the prose in Sexiled. Usually, the writing in light novels is tolerable at best, and agonizing at worst. However, Kaeruda and the English translator Molly Lee, have done the unthinkable, crafting a light novel that is not only easy but enjoyable to read. Everything from the wonderful descriptions, entertaining dialogue, clever references, and wondrous use of profanity are highly polished and well crafted. A particular favorite of mine is Tanya’s incantation for the spell explosion, “From twilight, I summon the ultimate f***ing destruction! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; heed my call and unleash your f***ing might! F*** this s***!” Sexiled has become the new bar for light novel localizations! A complete side note, Lee is also translating Seven Sea’s English adaption of the Adachi and Shimamura light novels, which gives me such hope for that series. Before I sing any more praises of Lee and Kaeruda, I should talk about the characters.

Both the main characters in Sexiled are lovely. Tanya is confident, powerful, kind, and a hilarious drunk. She seamlessly transitions between ruthlessness in battle to loving and compassionate when speaking to her friends. However, she never loses the sharp wit that helps her stay refreshing and hilarious. While I adore her, I am entirely entrenched by Laplace, who also goes by some fantastic pseudonyms, including “the Wicked Dragonwhore” and “Stone Cold Stunner.” She has an immense amount of self-confidence and an irresistible bravado. She is also very playful and enjoys teasing Tanya. The interactions between these two make for some of the best moments in the volumes:

“‘That look on your face says you think I’m nothing more than a human-shaped balloon.’ ‘Damn right!’ ‘Wow… I wish you would’ve at least tried to deny it…” They are perfect together.

Many of the female side characters have equally precise and detailed treatments. Nadine Amaryllis, a low-level healer that joins the girls’ party, is likable and has a comprehensive and dramatic backstory that functions as one of the work’s best reveals. Additionally, the minor villain, Katherine Foxxi, is one of the more dynamic characters. She starts blind to the sexism in her world but slowly changes throughout the novel. Unfortunately, Foxxi is also the focal point for one of the book’s only bad sequences. I would not be surprised to see a full redemption story or maybe an anti-hero persona for her in future volumes. However, the male villains are decidedly shallow. In fact, there is not a single half-decent, or even well-intentioned man present in the story. I do not mind, but it is a bit suspect. Other light novels have had similar villains and themes while still allowing for nuance and avoiding stereotyping an entire demographic.

The yuri elements in Sexiled are pretty minimal. Most of the story focuses on the women’s’ quest for revenge and their fight against the patriarchy, leaving little room for romance. There are a few light service moments where Laplace kisses Tanya, such as when she unlocks the mage’s full potential, but other than that, there is no physical contact. However, the strong bonds between the characters are apparent, and they all share a few touching scenes before the final chapters. A particular favorite of mine is Laplace using magic to make Nadine fly. There are also clear indications that the characters have multiple targets for their affections. Both Laplace and Tanya are implied to have interest in Nadine, as well as each other, thus sewing seeds for future romantic plots. While subtle, intense romantic relationships are present, and they add to the story while never distracting readers from it, which is a massive plus.

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kick Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! is an absolute must-read. The detailed and phenomenal writing is matched beautifully with strong female characters, hilarious dialogue, and exceptionally satisfying moments. It manages to expose the flaws of our society while providing an escape for those who suffer because of them. It does not make any profound or unique statements but allows the reader to revel in its indulgences. Sexiled is a spectacular masterpiece of fantasy and feminism that far outpaces other works in its genre and medium. This book is easily a new obsession of mine, and I cannot wait for the English release of volume two.

Ratings: Story – 10 Characters – 9 LGBTQ – 3 Lewd – 2 Final – 9

You can purchase Sexiled digitally now on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2J14WCj

Review copy provided by J-Novel Club

#yuri #reviews #lgbt #lgbtq #femnism #feminist #sexiled #queer #manga #light novel #anime #literature #wlw #fantasy #gay #lesbians

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

roddy plays fire emblem: three houses - prologue

all I know about this game I learned from twitter. I don’t know much of anything about this game. but I’ll tell you what I know about the characters anyway.

I’m only doing characters who I can distinctly recall off the top of my head. I’m not looking up anyone’s names because there are so many characters in this game.

Byleth - the player character. a teacher at this academy, despite not being much older than the oldest students here. game devs are cowards who couldn’t believe that lady Byleth could be Big Sexy in proper armor and instead they gave her fuckin....thigh-highs and lace and a titty window and a belly-button window ma’am your organs are there, you can’t expose that. my disdain for impractical lady armor is outweighed by my desire to play as the girl whenever possible, so like, I’ll play Lady Byleth, but I just won’t be happy about it. 

Jeralt - Byleth’s dad? I think it’s Jeralt? There’s some other guy who looks a lot like the guy who I think is Byleth’s dad so I can’t actually tell you if I got the name right. he’s a mercenary. I don’t know why he and his kid are hired at a fuckin....church academy? but they are. he raised Byleth basically as a feral child and he doesn’t even know how old they are? even though his wife died in childbirth and I think he talks about how long ago that was? or something? there’s something about him not knowing how old his own kid is. Dad what the hell.

Rhea - the lady pope of The Church, but not a cool ladypope like Leliana Dragon Age. I saw someone compare her outfit/hair to Ghetsis from Pokemon and I sent that meme to Wolf and Liam asking if they could confirm or deny and they told me that’s an insult to her but Ghetsis is slime of the earth so relatively, we still don’t know. I don’t trust her because I don’t trust quasi-historical-inspired-setting fantasy church leaders, except for Leliana/Vivienne/Cassandra.

Seteth - green hair? all the church people have green hair are they related? is it magic? I think it’s magic, Byleth’s hair is sometimes green. he’s like the Hot Dad but since he’s not your dad you can romance him. I don’t know if I trust his goatee but one of my friends retweets a lot of art of him and I trust her so maybe I trust him? he’s on thin ice.

Flayan? Flayn? Flyann? I’m calling her Flan like the custard but I know there’s a Y in there somewhere right? - more green hair, so a church person I guess. I have no idea how old she is because this is anime and she could be anywhere from 12 to an ancient dragon person because I know this series has some of those. maybe Seteth’s daughter?? I get that vibe??

Sothis - the ancient dragon person who looks like a 12 year old girl. more green hair. I couldn’t tell her and Flan apart for a while.

BLACK EAGLES

why aren’t they the Red Eagles? they’re red. the other two are blue and yellow. who named these guys. what the fuck.

Edelgard - every time I see the pokemon Eldegoss in SwSh I think of her. leader of the BE. controversial. very controversial. doesn’t like the Church. I can handle this, I romanced Anders in my first playthrough of DA2 which was my first time playing any Dragon Age game, controversial and Church-hating is like.... sometimes you just gotta blow up a fantasy church, you know? I get it. even if I don’t end up agreeing with her, like, I get it, I guess. she didn’t always have white hair but something happened. there sure is a lot of magic hair color shit in this game. I think Dmitri is her stepbrother.

Hubert - Edelgard’s right-hand man. vampire jokes for days. I’m gonna cut myself on that edge....the edge of his cheekbones they are Sharp. I don’t buy that this guy is a teenager. I don’t know whether he’s actually tall or people just play that up because it’s funny to draw him Tall and Looming behind Edelgard.

Ferdinand von Aegir - I AM FERDINAND VON AEGIR!!!!!!!!

Dorothea - she’s the opera singer one, right? if I got the name wrong, I’m talking about the pretty opera singer one with the hat that’s kinda like a beret. she’s my favorite because I’m gay and she’s very pretty and looks very sweet. she’s like the only one of the Eagles who’s a commoner I think? I don’t know why she’s here but okay. I like her. I would like to kiss her.

GOLDEN DEER

Claude - that’s not his real name. leader of the GD. he’s an archer and he has a big fuckoff dragon wyvern. his mother is from whatever country this game is set in but his dad isn’t and lots of people are rude and racist to him for it. he seems kinda chill but also suspicious of everyone which honestly I get it. also he might poison people? I trust him and I’m sure he has good reason to do it. I support him.

Hilda - Claude’s right-hand lady. pink hair anime girl with a giant fuckoff axe. I thought I knew more about her than that but nope that’s all I’ve got. has an older brother.

Lorenz - purple haired anime boy. look at his post-timeskip haircut this boy is Gay and there’s nothing anyone can tell me that would change my mind. needs to be smacked with some good ol’ Character Development to grow past being a pretentious noble prick but he’s pretty cool once that happens. one of the artists I follow who turned overnight into a FE3H twitter for like six months is a big Lorenz stan so I think I could be biased toward him already but that’s just How It Be when you’re coming into this via osmosis.

BLUE LIONS

Dmitri - leader of the Blue Lions but everyone calls him a boar. gets absolutely hammered by Bad Times in the timeskip and comes back with an eyepatch and absolutely feral and unhinged. murdered a bunch of people? Dimi You Can’t Just Go Around Murdering People. 30-50 feral hogs in a big fuzzy mantle. very unfortunate that he’s being forced to do Leader Shit and just wasn’t allowed to be chill and relax and get to work through his issues instead of getting more of them and going feral.

Dedue - you cannot convince me that this man is not a 30-year-old father of two. how is he a student. get out of here. you’re wrong and you’re lying. who did these character designs. I think out of almost everyone here, he is the guy who Does Not Deserve All Of This but fate has been a dick to him. everyone he loves got murdered by I think Dmitri’s countrymen but now Dedue is Dmitri’s right-hand-man which I do not understand. He deserves better both in-game and also from the writers because they just kind of write him out post-timeskip I hear. just free this man from whatever the fuck is going on in his life and the game. I still don’t believe you that he’s of any age to be a student.

Sylvain - the redhead. childhood friends with Dmitri and someone else but I don’t remember who. The Horny Guy. may just automatically be recruited by Lady Byleth to their class, betraying his country and his oldest friends because he saw a belly-button window. just y’know. sometimes it be like that. 

FELIX - he’s the other childhood friend. I don’t know shit about him.

OTHER STUDENTS WHOSE NAMES I CAN RECALL BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE AND IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE YOU CAN RECRUIT ALMOST EVERYONE TO ANYWHERE ELSE

Caspar (artist?), Linhardt, Bernadetta (Bernie, my brain keeps just swapping her and Dorothea around because they both have these long regal names but I don’t think they’re actually anything at all alike), Petra, Leonie, Marianne,

ASHEN WOLVES

they’re not really a house they’re just a bunch of people who live in the fucking basement and I think it’s the church’s fault.

Yuri - the other purple-haired anime boy. got kicked out of war crimes academy somehow. declared himself the leader of the basement people and they were just like “hey sure cool I guess”. 

Someone who’s a friend of I think Hilda’s older brother - not even a student or someone who needs to be living in the basement, he’s just down here for tax fraud? debt evasion? again, it be like that.

THE PLOT

matchmaking simulator. Byleth plays matchmaker for all of their students by setting them up into the most healthy friendships/relationships that are as ambiguously gay as the COWARDS writing this game will allow. I know there are a few, but it’s mostly a few Byleth romances, so. that.

also Byleth makes the other professors’ jobs easier by poaching all their students so that they only have to teach like two people while Byleth has everyone in their class. recruit the students by giving them gifts and having tea with them. eat lunch like five times a day trying to hang out with everyone. go fishing. go fishing some more. the game limits your amount of bait per month because otherwise this will be a fishing simulator. I know this specifically because I asked Wolf and Liam if I could just fish infinitely forever and they told me no. I was upset. the day that the game starts is 4/20. I know this because Wolf made a meme about it and that’s what started our long conversation about the game that established nothing.

immediately after everyone graduates, Byleth goes into a fucking coma for five years and wakes up and the five-year reunion is interrupted by a war between the three houses. -rimshot- also there might be some greater threat called the Flame Emperor or some shit but I know fuckall about that. mostly I just know everyone’s despair as they are forced to kill their friends who they didn’t manage to recruit.

I’ve never played a Fire Emblem before and I’ve never known what a tactic is in any RPG I’ve ever played. this is going to be fantastic.

#roddy plays fe3h

[ladybuvelle]

// Also, I need to get real for a second. Normally things like this don’t bother me so much, or I just don’t want to get involved because I’m stressed enough. However.

If you feel the need to dictate how a woman should look, act, behave, think, present herself based on your personal tastes, that makes me pretty damn uncomfortable. Even if said woman is a work of fiction, it doesn’t matter. It’s one thing to have a fantasy. I can understand and even respect having fantasies and fetishes and all that. But if you’re like “her boobs are too big/small”, “she’s not tall/short enough”, “her face is too pretty/not pretty enough”, “she’s too passive/too mean”, “she’s too skinny/fat”, “she should act more like ___”...

Women go through this shit every. day. We are, often constantly, told how we should ‘improve’ ourselves in order to appeal to a certain demographic. Be it the standards of what men find attractive or even what other women feel we should all look like (because yes, women can also be misogynistic).

If you can’t appreciate a real woman or even a female fictional character for who she is or how she was designed, if your main criticism is her nose is too big or she wears revealing clothing or her armor is impractical or she should step on people because you think that would be hot: stop it. There’s a line between what you’re into and what you should actually say about people.

Women are allowed to be motherly, caring, soft. They are allowed to be hard, strong, fierce. Just like men can be adventurous and daring, guys can also be romantic and submissive. These traits don’t make any one person better than another. Women, people, can be whatever the fuck they want to be. You don’t get to decide that us being kind or caring is a weakness. Can you have preferences? Sure! But I really think it’s unhealthy to state your preferences as absolutes.

People aren’t sex toys. We don’t exist for one singular purpose or state of mind. We have lives. Wants and needs and different emotional states.

If you treat a character, person, or general gender/sex as existing for your own personal wank material or character progression or whatever, I can’t follow you. It’s one thing if the character you’re roleplaying has these sort of tendencies. It’s another if you, yourself, believe it’s ok to think that way.

#psa #ooc #nsfw-ish #just for mentions of stuff #stuff like this REALLY bothers me #I don't exist for people to tell me how I should look or act #nor does Sona #nor does any other character #if you're going to treat a fictional character that way #then how can I expect you to treat me? #especially if she's a woman and you're acting in a very misogynist way

[mst3kproject]

Goliath and the Vampires

Like Colossus and the Headhunters or Hercules against the Moon Men, this was originally a Maciste movie.  Exactly why the folks at Wild East Productions decided to call the hero Goliath when they dubbed it into English, I have no idea.  Goliath was the bad guy, who got his ass whooped by a kid who threw a rock at him – even Bert I. Gordon knew that. But Goliath it is, so let's see what this movie has to offer.

Well, it's got Gordon Scott, the hero of Danger! Death Ray. It has large men in small skirts, soldiers getting thrown into barrels of water, a super-strong invulnerable guy who lifts heavy stuff and escapes prison by bending the bars, and an over-long sandstorm.. basically everything a sword-and-sandals movie needs to qualify for the Satellite of Love treatment.

As for the actual plot: our brawny protagonist comes home from a hard day of saving drowning children, only to find his village under attack by Vikings dressed as Mongols (watch the movie, you'll see what I mean).  Goliath arrives too late to do anything but watch the bodies smolder, but he vows to follow the raiders to their homeland of Salmonak and save his girlfriend Julia from their clutches. Salmonak turns out to be a desert kingdom rather more Arabian than The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, and its people, from the meanest beggar to the Sultan himself, are slaves of the vampire Cobrak!  Cobrak seeks to conquer the world with an army of the undead, but now that they've got Goliath on their side, perhaps the people of Salmonak can at last overthrow their literally bloodthirsty tyrant.

The... Viking Mongols?  Mongol Vikings?  I'm gonna call them Monglings. Most of them are undead, but we're not allowed to find that out until the movie's almost over, so they wear helmets to hide their semi-skeletal faces.  These helmets are among thr most ridiculous pieces of so-called 'armor' I have ever seen on a screen. The men wearing them look like they're trying to cosplay a particularly impractical Final Fantasy character.  I don't feel up to describing these things, so I'm going to have to show you.

That is a ridiculous note to begin a movie on.  One of the top reasons I really hope this one gets into Shadowrama someday is because I would dearly love to see Crow and Servo try to move around while wearing those.

There's a lot to make fun of in Goliath and the Vampires. Besides those stupid helmets, there are the random dance numbers, one of which features a woman with spikes on her nipples, shimmying to what sounds like surf movie music.  There's the dried-up husks of the vampire victims, propped against the walls or stacked up like lumber.  The name 'Salmonak', which sounds like a yearly publication to predict what the fishing will be like.  The bit where the Vizier meets his sudden and untimely end in a booby trap.  The climactic fight between Goliath and his stunt double (this would be my choice for the stinger).  My favourite potential running joke, though, is the fact that Goliath seems like he's constantly trying to escape from the movie.

At the beginning, he vows to go to Salmonak and rescue the women the Monglings have kidnapped – particularly Julia, his fiancee (Maciste movies seem to have assigned him girlfriends, wives, parents, and siblings willy-nilly, without any sort of regard for continuity).  We never find out how he got to the island when no ships that pass that way ever return, but once he's there he meets the Sultan's son Kurtik.  Kurtik wants help to defeat Cobrak, but Goliath has no interest in this.  Having freed the rest of the women from a slave market, he just wants to get Julia back and go.  In trying to do so, he ends up in chains in the palace dungeon, looking like he may need Kurtik’s rebellion after all... but he still wants no part of it.  He breaks out by knocking some columns down, grabs Julia, and runs, only to get lost in the desert and forced to rejoin Kurtik and his Blue Men.  Sorry, Goliath.  You're not allowed to leave the movie until you've liberated Salmonak.  Those are the rules.

Blue Men? I hear you say.  What's up with that? I don't know.  The name is at least accurate, since they are blue, and they don't appear to have any women.  Are they humans who paint themselves with woad, like the ancient Picts?  Are they some kind of underground desert elf sort of creature?  The movie never tells us.

It never tells us exactly what Cobrak is, either.  The movie is called Goliath and the Vampires, and when Cobrak's face is revealed at the end he does look appropriately pale and toothy.  He and his undead slaves appear to subsist on human blood, yet the zombies walk around in daylight without so much as tanning their pasty white midriffs, and the movie implies that Cobrak created them through a combination of hypnosis and chemistry rather than by biting them.  A drug is also able to bring the drained victims back to life, which is definitely not how vampires normally work.  Some of Cobrak's powers are also, at the very least, untraditional for a vampire.  He appears in a cloud of red smoke whenever his name is mentioned, for example (this is the coolest-looking thing in the movie) and seems able to materialize and dematerialize at will.

He's also a shapeshifter, able to assume Goliath's form and apparently his strength and indestructibility as well, in order to be a match for him in the final fight.  Or maybe he was already super-strong and indestructible – he's one of those villains who mostly just stands around wearing a spiky costume, so it's hard to say.  This development does tend to make one wonder why, if Cobrak can do that, he's holed up in a Fortress of Doom somewhere instead of assassinating the Sultan, assuming his form, and ruling that way.  I mean, that's what I would do if I had shapeshifting powers.

The fight itself, however, is hilarious.  It has no artistry or choreography to it whatsoever, it's just two nearly-identical guys in miniskirts pretending to beat the shit out of each other,  Most of the time it looks like two teenagers in a parking lot, trying to put each other in headlocks.  It's a fight between guys who have no idea how to fight.

With only one really weird exception, the characters are all tropes: we have a Hero, a Damsel, a Cute Kid, a Dark Lord, a Femmy Fattily (as Crow would say), and so forth.  The opening, in which Goliath saves the Cute Kid from drowning, establishes our hero as Good And Noble, and that's about all we ever get.  Cobrak is merely aloof and evil, like Sauron or – for a more MST3K sort of example – the Organization Known as Q. Things like his goals and the source of his funding are at best unclear.  Cobrak's flunky, Astra, has the obligatory subplot where she betrays her evil master because the hero saved her life, and gets a spear through the middle for it.

Goliath's fiancee, Julia, spends most of the movie being kidnapped.  She's kidnapped by the Monglings at the beginning, and then sub-kidnapped by their leader, who has decided she's the best one in the batch.  He takes her to a tavern, where she is re-kidnapped by Astra, who turns her over to the Sultan.  Goliath rescues her, but then Astra kidnaps her again and gives her to Cobrak, who drains her dry – thus allowing her corpse to be de-kidnapped by Goliath, who takes her to Kurtik, whose alchemy can revive her.  Never once in all of this does she try to take her fate into her own hands, and she ends up being one of the more egregious Sexy Lamps I've seen outside of a Gill-Man movie.  As Roger Ebert said of Liv Tyler's character in Stealing Beauty, “she exists primarily to stir lust in the loins of the men.”

The aforementioned only exception to this cast of stock characters is the commander of the Monglings, whose name, we learn, is Amal.  He is played by actor and ballet dancer Vanoye Aikens, who as far as I can tell is the only black actor in the movie.  When we meet the Monglings at the beginning, Amal is the only one not wearing a helmet, and thus serves as the human face of this attacking force. After the Monglings leave, a survivor complains to Goliath that the raiders are inhuman and barbaric, and at this point I was wincing, prepared for an avalanche of early 60's racism.  The fact that we then move on to an Arabian Nights Fantasy Land populated by distinctly non-Arabic actors didn't help any.

However, we do later learn a little more about Amal as a person, some of which is surprising.  For one thing, he's just as terrified of Cobrak as any of the captured women are of him. For another, he considers himself crafty, thinking he can get away with keeping the prettiest girls for himself and making deals with the rebels – but he actually shows up to his conspiracy meeting drunk and it turns out that Astra already knows exactly what he does with his spare time.  In a movie peopled largely with bigger-than-life archetypes, Amal is surprisingly ordinary.  He’s a Dumb Thug and a Petty Traitor, but never quite the stereotype of either.

Of course he dies, but it's a pretty entertaining death.  I've never seen somebody go that far out of their way to be a railing kill.

Goliath and the Vampires is sometimes slow, and it can be a little hard to tell what's going on when, say, multiple groups of characters are all wandering around lost in the same foggy swamp. But it's not so bad that it isn't any fun, and would be a good evening's entertainment for MSTies or just for people who enjoy Maciste movies.  Even when it does drag a bit, you'll be rewarded for sitting through the slow stuff with something deliciously silly.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #goliath and the vampires #my cheese steak #60s

[cravitus426]

armchair science rambles - plasmaguns and pigs

tl;dr plasma is not laser beams and it needs ammo to function

also star wars plasma is (obviously) a bad representation

something i’ve put some thought into recently (read: a few weeks ago in a discord argument) was plasma weaponry, and specifically i was picking at some lore for a weapon from the extended Aliens universe, the M78 PIG

now the PIG is a phased plasma infantry gun and what this means is it’s basically a rocket launcher shaped plasma gun that makes the target stop existing fairly quickly

now my specific conundrum with the PIG to start with was ‘what does it look like when firing’ - and so i figured i’d go to the next best source for phased plasma guns in a james cameron film, the terminator franchise

now as we can see that’s not your typical halo lightball of pain, and it’s more like a laserbeam - closer to star wars, in fact, but regardless i was met with skepticism from my peers as to the kind of plasma the PIG would be blasting at tanks from a kilometer out and figured a halo style bolt made more sense

i agreed to disagree and then we escalated from applying the visuals from two different movies of the same tech from the same director to justifying why the PIG would probably fire a long beamlike bolt of plasma, which then took me into the pseudoscience behind how the PIG probably works

now the PIG itself is in two components as the AvP wiki (or if you want to get to the root, the colonial marine tech manual) says, covering the launcher and the powerpack; within these two components, we know that there is a laser, a magnetic coil, and a feed of cadmium telluride pellets plus a power source - that black shiny material in solar panels, i believe

now at first glance you may make the mistake of thinking that vaporized pellets are fed into the plasmagun, which is simply incorrect and, upon further consideration, impractical, unfeasible, and is in fact the main reason i’m making this post to begin with - but more on that in a moment

now the rough idea i have with the PIG is that during it’s firing cycle it charges or uses the laser to then vaporize the cadmium telluride pellets fed into the weapon, causing them to vaporize, becoming a gas, and subsequently become ionized - becoming plasma, in other words

after the laser rapidly heats the pellet, the ionized gas which has shed it’s electtrons is then rapidly discharged by the magnetic coil in a focused beam or bolt towards the target, and the projectile has such power or focus that even up to a kilometer away the single pellet of material is enough to punch through the rear armor of a heavy tank - that’s how i’d imagine the PIG works, at least

now when in flight certain things would happen to this bolt of plasma, especially once it leaves the magnetic field generated by the magnetic coils of the PIG - the least of which is a dispersion and cooling over long distances

plasma is still hot gas, after all, and gas wants to expand outward rather than be compressed into a space, which is then all the more reason for a rapid beamlike discharge because the faster that gas goes to the target the less time it has to expand and weaken

a contemporary example of what this could look like in action, as far as videogames go, would be XCOM 2 - that aside, however, the important part of this post is the material used to make plasma in the first place, and with the PIG that’s pellets of cadmium telluride

games always tote plasma as this super high end energy weapon, uses energy cells, batteries - power to fire, but that’s simply not the case

plasma is a state of matter, and like any other solid, liquid, or gas, there’s different kinds of matter that can become plasma, and not all plasma will perform the same nor be equally fit for the task

take lighting, for example - we use neon to generate plasma, which is what neon signs are all about; it’s already a gas, just needs electricity to hit that glow, and it doesn’t have to be super dense to make all that light

if you tried to use, say, argon for example, you’d have twice as much density, twice as much mass, and twice as much weight as the same amount of neon which then makes it more impractical to use as a light source - and that’s not considering the difference in energy required to make argon hit plasma versus neon

this said, it’s not too important at that level whereas things get a bit more complex when you want to use plasma as a weapon

take star wars and it’s tibanna fueled blasters, for example

here we have the typical stormtrooper blaster - the classic e11, courtesy of google and wookieepedia

in the event that you were unaware, star wars blasters take one of two things to function, those being power and tibanna gas which i’d guess is converted into plasma by adding energy from the powerpack

now as far as star wars goes there seems to be enough tibanna in there for all the shots you’d ever need in the field, never seem to need reloading - come to think of it have you ever seen a clone trooper load his weapon outside of republic commando’s blaster rifle, or the animated clone wars?

regardless what i’m getting at is star wars somehow packs enough tibanna in there and enough energy to create large, relatively slow, and lethal bolts of plasma in combat and without the need to ever really reload

star wars is basically science fantasy, but realistically speaking that gas would have to be of exceptionally low density to be packed in there at large quantities with little weight impact, and the more you pack the higher the pressure rises - and the higher that pressure is, the more you risk by dropping or damaging the weapon

imagine that every storm trooper carried a propane tank in their weapon, and imagine what would happen if one of them tripped and sprung a leak in that tiny super pressurized tank

not pretty for mister stormie

as far as the theoretical density of this material goes it’s definitely heavier than air otherwise it’d be swirling around cloud city, a population center whose primary export seems to be tibanna gas mined from the gas giant of bespin

for reference, oxygen’s density is around 1.4 grams, nitrogen is a little lighter, and CO2 i believe is around 2.25 (around the neighborhood of propane); therefore, tibanna if below the human-breathable atmosphere layer on bespin would have a higher density and as a result be heavier per unit than propane, which then makes it more unwieldy; that said, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the projectile

aside from the weight and safety issues that would arise with packing so much material into such a tiny space there’s also the matter of weapon effectiveness to consider; for example, neon gas would be inferior to theoretical tibanna because it’s ligher or less dense than the atmosphere it’d usually travel through; a somewhat fitting example would be like trying to throw an air-filled ball through the water - the projectile, less dense than the volume it’s traveling through, will bleed off more energy trying to get through and will actually be pulled up in this case due to basic buoyancy

replace ball with neon plasma and water with air and you get the effect of a brief flash of light sort of just slowing down and dispersing like a cloud of smoke being pulled upwards

tibanna at least has the precedent of being heavier than air, allowing it to at least not get screwed by buoyancy - but then there’s it’s low speed to consider, how sluggishly it travels through the air compared to the ‘primitive’ slugthrowers

considering then the low speed and presumably low or at least workable-and-light-even-with-pistols density/weight of the blasters you would think that they wouldn’t hit hard, and would get the bulk of their power out of the heat transferred to the target

and then you get this

there have been others to apply hard calculations to this but you can’t even get that kind of flinging force from bullets short of the big stuff

force equals mass times acceleration and tibanna seemed like it had neither of those on it’s side but apparently it has one of those in stupid high quantity

it’s definitely not speed, which then implies it’s got to be the mass - and that then retroactively implies the blasters are all stupid heavy now

however this then ignores the inherent thermal energy of the blaster bolt - i guess in theory you could impart enough energy so rapidly that it does fling tr8r to the ground like anakin’s arms and legs, but if you’ve got that kind of energy at your disposal why not just use straight up lasers

and none of that fake laser stuff turbolasers perpetuate

continuing on, the low mass and speed of a blaster would logically limit it’s range stupidly, as the plasma would slow and disperse as it would not have the inertia necessary to continue to carve through the air to the target, regardless of super high heat per shot

however if the bolt gets even a bit of it’s power from the density, the mass of the projectile, then despite the implications it has for the weight and handling of the weapons, the density would make the actual bolts far more feasible

so in review now with delusions of realism applied to star wars blasters tibanna would have to be of high density and contained at hazardous pressures within the weapon to have the power and capacity demonstrated in the films - or otherwise be contained at high pressure and gain the bulk of it’s killing power by being superheated to a point where it can fling stormtroopers around like windu beats droids

i mean it’s plasma so the latter is kind of the point, but only to an extent

there are other things to consider when using a gas such as tibanna as your plasma reaction mass

for example, what kind of material and how much of that material are you using to store it, what is the state of that material in extreme conditions, how do you refill that in the field - and that last one makes me picture world war two flamethrower incidents, except with more laserbeams to accompany the big backpack gas tanks

oh tibanna’s volatile too isn’t it that just makes it even better

now, going back to aliens and the PIG, instead of tibanna we have cadmium telluride pellets - solid at room temperature, used already in solar panels, density of somewhere above five grams per centimeter i believe

comparing the solid to a gas, in a few points:

you don’t have to worry about pressure containment because it won’t explode if you trip; transportation is then a non issue, and while you would need to use magazines you don’t have to use a pressurized tank to refill the gun, nor would you have to worry about containing a mini superdense propane tank in your weapon

you have a more solid grasp on ammo expenditure and reloading is a risk free operation compared to connecting tubes and watching meters

you don’t need to mine gas giants to feed the gun

the solid is inherently usable in cold environments because the weapon was meant to take a solid in the first place, whereas gas may condense into liquid or even freeze into a solid, both of which would be relatively unusable for a gun meant for gas

both the solid and the gas would require energy, and while in theory the solid would need more to jump to plasma it’d be much safer and practical i’d say to use it over natural state gas which introduces inherent risks and design constraints to begin with

i do want to go back to density and force but those are subject to specific materials involved - that said, solids i think would be more effective as plasma because they would inherently be hotter as plasma

in simpler terms

which one of these is solid at room temperature

the block of iron, or the block of neon

the winner will inherently require more energy to become a gas and then even more to become a plasma, which would then increase the potential lethality through proximity alone, not even considering the mass, speed, or force of the projectile

so basically plasma is not a pure energy weapon type and it requires ammo - plasma is a state of matter, and you need mass of some kind for it

out of the masses you could use for plasma, gas in my opinion would be the inferior choice due to inferior power offered and complicated storage

solids in comparison seem to be inherently better suited as the ammunition

oh and i did forget to mention that storing vaporized solids is a stupid thing because you’d have to constantly heat them which then turns them into a gas but even worse as far as resources and safety goes

imagine if your star wars blaster had a constant superheater on with your volatile super pressurized mini propane tank that you’re already trying to heat to shoot plasma at people

that’s the kind of thing you’d be carrying around

i think that’s about it for this ramble, at least for now

now the real surprise will be if someone actually reads this

tl;dr plasma is not laser beams and it needs ammo to function

also star wars plasma is (obviously) a bad representation

#rambles #textwall #aliens #colonial marines #armchair science #star wars #plasma #blasters