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boyfridged · 1 year

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Do you agree that Jason, as written by Winnick in UTRH and Lost Days, acts out of character post-resurrection if we take into account his post-crisis robin days? If yes, how would you have him act/react to stuff after he comes back from the dead?

tldr: i definitely agree. moreover, classism plays a huge role in it, and i don’t think that at this point the storyline could lose these implications, which makes trying to conceive what an “in character” (for robin jay) version of these events would be quite difficult.

let’s just start from saying that i don't think it's a secret that i don't really like winick in general. despite his work being mad interesting on a conceptual level (and style-wise, genuinely well written!), he has no love for the characters he writes about.

imo utrh shouldn't even ever make it into the mainstream batman timeline. i am aware that this is a radical opinion, but my take is that it would do best as an elseworld story (and in this version too it would need some tweaks here and there), because it made damage both to the mythos of batman and jason's legacy that can never be undone. the very premise of the story is so deeply disconnected from jay's original place in the narrative, and so classist at its roots, that there's not much room to truly fix it.

(i want to say, preemptively, that i am aware that there are people who read utrh as a story of a revolutionary and a victim – and they have the right to do so, but ngl, my view has always been that it was never written as that. utrh reinforces so many stereotypes that it overshadows the revenge tragedy spirit of it all.)

another disclaimer is that, to be honest, jay doesn't have a very consistent characterization even in his 80s run, and it also has some classist implications that ideally should be either erased or addressed in the text (that winick instead exaggerated and put at the very front of his storytelling.) starlin's writing is, at the end of the day and very much ironically, more sympathetic and gentler in evaluating jay (simply because at the time he would not get away with changes too blatant) but details such as jay saying that "all life is game" and his random nonchalant behaviour that has its origin in the very beginning of starlin’s run are already signs of it. some readers will trace jason's arrogance prevalent in his red hood era to these issues and say that his actions post-res are therefore a logical extension of his robin days, but i don't buy it. even if you want to lean into starlin-esque characterisation, if you consider the core problem of the garzonas plotline – which is power, jay shouldn’t look into the solution of anything in climbing to the top. and if he did, it would have to be written as a “becoming what you feared/hated most” kind of story, which i can see a certain appeal in (and which would at least acknowledge that it was not his initial personality), but which would go back to its classist assumption of cycles of violence and doomed fates.

so – how to make his post-res era more accurate to his post-crisis robin days (and least classist in the process)?

if we were to follow my fav iterations of his characterisation (barr’s detective comics and the ntt appearances) tbh I don’t think a lot would happen, because his personality is quite mild, and just so hopeful there that i wouldn’t expect any extreme actions from him – but then again, the circumstances that he finds himself in post-res, the trauma, and his sensitivity do warrant grief that should become a driving force in his life from now on. the question is, what to do with this grief as a plot device?

i know that plenty of jason fans hate this take but I actually think the concept of jason trying to be detached and cruel but being bad at it might be one of the least offensive to his 80s characterisation. it’s def not accurate to pre-52 canon (apart from countdown perhaps) but imo for jay to be authentic and nuanced he should be conflicted about his own actions. his overconfident behaviour should be a pose – just as his frantic acts in his origin story as robin were. (again, something that many readers don't take notice of – but reading the rest of collins' writing wherein jay quickly settles into being easy-going and even a bit shy is proof of it.)

these two points lead to the “no good deed” narrative that I often talk about - the reading that jason saw his intuitive and self-sacrificial kind tendencies as something that brought him pain and that never was quite efficient, and that post-res he intentionally tried training himself out of. there are some flashes of it here and there throughout the years of the red hood publishing history, but it never got a true spotlight. and if i were to write lost days, jason flinching at his own violence would be a focal point of the story.

moving on to utrh; i have spoken about it at length before but I think if he were written 1. with more political sensitivity 2. to have retained the same maturity re: the social order 3. to have the same idea of morality, he should have followed more of actual revolutionary tracks and the whole “drug lord” authoritarian figure schtick along with the idiotic idea of “controlling crime” would have to be thrown out of the window.

and, later on, forgiveness should play a big role in his story. he's so quick to forgive and justify everyone in his robin run – this is also why i reckon his team up with harvey in tfz was a wasted opportunity.

so, in conclusion – perhaps not that much would have to change re: his actions but definitely a lot should change regarding his emotional journey and his position. i would def throw out a lot of mindless violence and power posturing out of it though. and perhaps make him a bit more polite just for the sake of more consistency (this is not me taking a moral stance btw nor tone policing a fictional character. i just think it would be more faithful to his 80s writing unless you want to make him explicitly scared. and it would be funnier tbh.)

#i think i have written some about it on my old blog #but i'm too lazy to look it up and also i got a lot of hate because of that #i also had a longer post talking about how it can be fixed *now*#anyway i want to say.#i do enjoy jason acting feral i do.#and i do want to allow people to enjoy whatever they do #but you simply can't look at jason's characterisation post-res and lie and say it's not a classist caricature #so maybe i am judging people who don't see any problem with it a bit <3 #and despite my love for cyclic narratives #i do want better for him. and i do want him softer and more mild-mannered #not because i am tone policing people nor because i think anger is not warranted #but because i think it's clear that the source of it in his writing #is not anything revolutionary. it's the opposite #like idk make helena more full of rage or whatever #this was not jay's original place in the narrative.#it was the opposite actually. and i miss him so bad dear god i do:(#anyway i think it's hard to think of him post-res in character also because when i think of what is in-character #i also consider what (as i said) the place in the wider narrative was #and jay's death already ruined it mostly #for it to be regained he would have to start anew as a civilian OR as better batman in crime alley i think #sorry for so many tags.#this is such a delightful ask thank you <3 #dc #jason todd #jay.zip #jay.txt #outbox

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victoriousscarf · 3 years

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A really interesting article that pokes at some stuff I've been mulling over. Their logos/mythos split and how that doesn't just apply to religion or myths but modern day media and art criticism is especially good.

"In fact, the denial of mythos is everywhere in our culture, and it can partially explain why so much of our approach to everything artistic, challenging, or mysterious seems reductive, dull, and unimaginative."

"This rejection of imagery, symbolism, or any higher meaning that cannot be reduced to the literal, has become especially pervasive in contemporary art criticism.This is not to say that there isn’t still great art criticism; it’s just that the internet has led to a much greater volume of all criticism, and much of it is dominated by a worldview that seems to reject metaphor, symbolism, mood and tone, or at least render them secondary to “plot.” (By “plot” here I mean “the literal events that happen to the characters and no more,” ignoring the possibility that other aspects of the creation can comprise essential parts of our understanding)."

#the discussion of petscop reminds me a lot of what fandom was trying to do with wandavision too #lets just say i am very interested in mythos by this definition and think we need to make much more room for it #tho of course the reason usa pop culture has moved away from it is once again the fault of the evangelicals #that checks out #vs does a text post

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venteamocha · 3 years

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Hello! Sometimes I see you post stuff from IF blogs and I've recently started playing some IF games, which I've enjoyed so far. Do you have any IF stories you'd recommend in particular? I'm not attached to any particular genre and I don't need romance or a self-insert main character, (though I'm not opposed to either). Though, it's a definite plus if it's LGBTQ+ inclusive! I'm not really sure what the "cornerstones" are of IF so I'll take any and all recommendations haha

Oh god, I play so many IFs. So many. And it’s not even close to all of them, but I’m trying!!

Tbh IFs without romance seems to be very rare, I think because when I think IF I think Choice of Games, and those pretty much always have romance in them. At least, the most well known ones do. But a well done one without romance would be nice too!

Okay, this is a list of my favourites! They’re all LGBT+ inclusive, and most have gender selectable love interests, or at least ones that change gender depending on the gender and sexuality combination you pick. In no particular order, of course. Behind a cut because I’m gonna give them each a mini review. Because I haven’t done that yet.

(There are so many.)

Mind Blind: I absolutely love our big brother Nick, I love how witty and sharp so much of the dialogue is, I love how the MC clearly has a rather large handicap, but is still such an important person to so many people and not looked down on in the slightest. And when they are, we all know it’s because that person is a jerk! They’re not defined by what they aren’t, but what they are, and that’s a great message.

Shepherds of Haven: Part of why I love this one so much is I just love fantasy settings and this one just pulls it off so well. The cast is full of amazing characters, and I gotta say I die inside pretty regularly for not being able to afford the patreon content, lol. The author puts so much amazing stuff on there, and gives us so much great content in the game and through answers on tumblr, and you can tell this whole thing is just the best thing ever to them, and that makes it the best ever for us readers too!

The Wayhaven Chronicles: I’d be shot if I didn’t mention this one, the series that literally killed dashingdon when the book 3 demo dropped!! Again, another author that cares a lot and does their best to do right by their fans. We’ve been given drip after drip of these amazing characters backstories, and I just cannot wait for more! It’s definitely very romance centered, but the overall plotlines are also very good, and I have to say that no matter who I romance, I just feel like the group as a whole is a family. And that’s wonderful.

Speaker: I really like the lore. I really like the lore. I can’t wait until we get more of the overall plotline. Mostly I want my Speaker to get in deep trouble so Seb, Li and Seer (best sister ever) go off and beat the shit out of whatever is causing it. This probably says something about me, but what can I say, I thrive on angst and inflicting near death injuries on my OCs. Sometimes I even kill them, although all of this is offtopic. Or is it? I guess we’ll find out, although I doubt we’ll actually be able to kill off Speaker. And yes, I am definitely playing the Seb & Li poly route. I love them both so much.

Wilhelmina: I love vampires, ok? Ok? And this one is based off Dracula!! The OG!! And you can choose Drac’s gender!! Shit, sign me up forever!! Yeah, she might be literally killing my bff, torturing my fiancé and low key fucking with my mind, but vampires are hot!! Let me live! Or not. But yeah, this is a really well done retelling of the Dracula novel and I like how well it works as an IF. Did I mention I like vampires?? Especially when they get all monstery?? (This one has an MC with a set gender, as it’s based on an already existing literary figure. Mina can have a same sex relationship with dracula, if you make drac a female, or with Lucy, a female love interest.)

More Things in Heaven and Earth: Hi Nell!! First off, I gotta uncover a deep shame of mine. My family literally has a Shakespeare heirloom collection. As in, my greatgrandfather passed down through the family a collection of Shakespeare that was published in 1911. In ye olde englishe. I tried to read it when I was like 10 and was like what language is this?? What the fuck? What the fuck??? And ended up reading As You Like It, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and a little of Hamlet. Didn’t touch the rest of it. I only got into the other stories through trashy ya reimaginings. That said, this retelling of Hamlet inspired me to go read the whole of the original and now I have a lot of fears for these characters that I’m so much more attached to, oh god I hope my Ophelia has a happy ending. I hope Hamlet himself has a happy ending. The dialogue is so well done, everyone is engaging, and yeah it made me finish an old af book when nothing else did. (This one also has an MC with a set gender, female, for the same reason. However, there are two gender variable love interests, so you can very much play a bi or gay Ophelia if you so choose.)

Guenevere: I love King Arthur. All the myths. I have so many books based on the King Arthur mythos, oh dear god. I love pretty much every version of it. All the movie and tv shows too! I just can’t get enough of those knights. I could go on for paragraphs about how courtly love worked and how all the different social castes were, but I’ll try not to. This series lets you customize Guen as a character to an amazing degree, considering that she’s also based on an actual literary figure like the other two I mentioned above. It really feels like she becomes your own character, and yet she still exists within this world very very well. I worry quite a bit that the author might have bit off more than they can chew with the current book they’re working on, what I’ve seen of it looks absolutely massive in scale. What is out so far is a wonderful read though, full of drama and laughter and lots of chances to make the story your own.

Bastard of Camelot: Yep! Another King Arthur series! Sue me! This one lets you set Mordred’s gender though, so it’s more inclusive in that way. It is very interesting to play as one of the “bad guys” of the King Arthur mythos. You can play them as straight up evil, as good, or you know, a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Or they can just be a rude little shit. It’s got dragons too! You get a dragon pet! Dragons are cool. It can be a bit tough to play sometimes, since a lot of people dislike Mordred quite a lot because of prejudices. Hopefully this will change a bit later in the series if you’ve been a fairly good person up to that point. Gotta say though, as a warning, that Mordred is a product of incest. It’s not glossed over, and it does cause a lot of problems for them in the story.

God of the Red Mountain: I just love that this inspired me to read more chinese mythology tbh. There is just so much here! And it’s just such a good read. I wish I was better at describing things. The MC being a spirit that you can define, the whole setting, most of the love interests also being spirits, the massive amount of history and culture and lore, how it all fits together. It is such a well done story. I really wish it got more attention than it does. I still miss Big Sister. I still can’t wait to find out more about the foxes, and how we can heal our MC.

The Nameless: Another one that lets you play as something otherworldly. I love the lore behind this one, and I love all of the cast I’ve met. I kind of like that our MC isn’t loved right off the bat, that we’ll have to win over all of our love interests and even the other npcs. I’m up for the challenge! Everything I’ve read on the tumblr for these characters just makes me love them all more tbh. I love how much they’ve written for all of them! Most of all though, I love Oisein. All the art of them is just *chef kiss* and their personality is magical.

A Mage Reborn: This is a really recent one but!! Wow, it’s really well done! That cliffhanger!! Oof!! Not many books literally start with killing your MC off! That takes guts! I told the author this already, but I love the way they formatted this, the way it starts with the end, so to speak, and then fills it all out. It just made everything feel so poignant, how MC is literally looking back at all these moments in time in the last minutes they have before they die. Shit. That’s powerful. And there’s gonna be more??? Can’t wait for that angst. Give me that drama. Of course I picked the one who had me killed, that’s just how I am!

These are all just the COG type games, there are a few twine games with graphics I’d throw on here, but the list is long enough as it is and they feel like they’re in a different category to me. Maybe it’s just me?

#if #if recs #rivi's recs #interactive fiction #there are more than these that i like too!#these are just the ones i feel the strongest about #and as i said these don't include the itchio twine ones #there are amazing ones there too but that feels like it should be a separate post?#i'd put links but i think it won't show up anywhere if i do #because tumblr is A Site #i can pass them on though if needed

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snarktheater · 3 years

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Hey, d'you have any French book recs? I'm trying to work on my French, and rn I have downloaded one of my favourite book series' French translations, but I figured maybe books already written in French might work better? Also have you read the Ranger's Apprentice series? 1/2

RA's def flawed - the books' narration does like to point bright arrows at the protagonists' intelligence, and the last few books def have the tone of 'old white man trying to write feminism', although at least he's trying? - and it's aimed more to the younger side of YA, but it is still a very fun series, and I can ignore the flaws fairly easily, at least partly due to nostalgia? This rather long lol but I'm wordy.

I'll start with the second question: no, although every time the series is brought up I have to check the French title and go "oh, right, I've seen these books in stores". But I've never purchased or read them. It sounds like something I probably would have enjoyed as a teen but I just missed the mark, and these days I'm trying to drown myself in queer books, so that probably isn't happening.

As for your first question, geez, I haven’t read a French book in years, so this is gonna skew middle grade/YA, though that may not be so bad if the point is to learn the language. I will also say that as a result, these may read a little outdated.

I'll put it under a cut, even if Tumblr has become really bad with correctly displaying read mores. Sorry, mobile crowd.

It's also likely that old readers of the blog will have seen me talk about most of these. I don't feel like going through old posts.

One last thing: while I was curating this list I took the time to make a Goodreads shelf to keep track of those.

The Ewilan books by Pierre Bottero

(It's a testament to how long ago I read these books that these are not the covers of the edition I own, and I can't even find those on Google. I'm settling for a more recent cover anyway since it'll make it easier to find them, presumably)

There are at least three trilogies (that I know of) set in the same world.

The first trilogy is essentially an isekai (so, French girl lands in parallel fantasy world by accident) with elements of chosen one trope, though I find the execution makes it worth the while anyway.

The second trilogy is a direct sequel, so same protagonist but new threat, and the world gets expanded.

The third one is centered around a supporting characters from the previous books, and the first couple of books in it are more her backstory than a continuation, though the third one concludes both that trilogy and advances the story of the other books as well.

Notably these books have a really fun magic system where the characters "draw" things into existence. It's just stuck with me for some reason.

A bunch of stuff by Erik L'Homme

I have read a lot of this man's books, starting with Le Livre des Etoiles.

They also skew towards the young end of YA, arguably middle grade, I never bothered to figure out where to draw the line. They're coincidentally also using the premise of a parallel world to our own (and yes, connected to France again, the French are just as susceptible of writing about their homeland), but interestingly are set from the point of view of characters native to the parallel world.

It also has a very unique magic system, this one based on a mix of a runic alphabet and sort-of poetry. I'll also say specifically for these books that the characters stuck with me way more than others on this list, which is worth mentioning.

This trilogy is my favorite by Erik L'Homme, but I'll also mention Les Maîtres des brisants, which is a fantasy space opera with a pirate steampunk(?) vibe. I think it's steampunk. I could be mistaken. But it's in that vein. It's also middle grade, in my opinion not as good, but it could just be that it came out when I was older.

Another one is Phaenomen, which was a deliberate attempt at skewing older (though still YA). This one is set in our (then-)modern world and centers a group of teens who happen to have supernatural powers. I guess the best way to describe it is a superhero thriller? If you take "superhero" in the sense of "people with individualized powers", since they don't really do a lot of heroing.

...I really need to brush up on genre terminology, don't I.

The Ji series by Pierre Grimbert

This one is actually adult fantasy, though it definitely falls under "probably outdated". It is very straight, for starters, and I'd have to give it another read to give a more critical reading of how it handles race (it attempts to do it, and is well meaning, but I'm not sure it survives the test of time & scrutiny, basically).

If I haven't lost you already, the premise is this: a few generations ago, a weird man named Nol gathered emissaries from each nation of the world and took them to a trip to the titular Ji island. Nobody knows what went down here, but now in the present day, someone is trying to kill off all descendants from those emissaries, who are as a result forced to team up and figure out what's going on.

I'm not going to spoil past that, though I will say it has (surprise) a really unique magic system! I guess you can start to piece together what my younger self was interested in. Which, admittedly, I still am.

Once again, this one also has a strong cast of characters, helped by rich world building and the premise forcing the characters to come from many different cultures (though, again, I can't vouch for the handling of race because it's been too long).

The first series is complete by itself, though it has two sequel series as well, each focusing on the next generation in these families. Because yes, of course they all pair up and have kids. Like I said: very straight.

A whole lot of books by Jean-Louis Fetjaine

OFetjaine is a historian, and I guess he's really interested in Arthurian mythos especially, because he loves it so much he's written two separate high fantasy retellings of them! I'm not criticizing, mind you, we all need a hobby.

The former, the Elves trilogy (pictures above) is very traditional high fantasy. Elves, dwarves, orcs, a world which is definitely fictionalized with a pan-Celtic vibe to it. The holy grail and excalibur are around, but they're relics possessed by the elves and dwarves with very different powers than usual. Et cetera.

Fetjaine also really loves his elves (as the titles might imply), and while they're not exactly Tolkien elves, there's a similar vibe to them. If you like Tolkien and his elf boner, you'll probably like this too. And conversely, if that turns you off, these books probably also won't work for you.

This series also has a prequel trilogy, centered around the backstory of one of the main characters. I...honestly don't remember too much about it, but I liked it, so, there you go, I guess.

I said Fetjaine did it twice. The other series is the Merlin duology, which, as the title implies, is a retelling of Merlin's story. Note that Merlin is also in the other trilogy, but it's a different Merlin; like I said, completely different continuities and stories.

This one is historical fantasy, so it's set in actual Great Britain, and Fetjaine attempts to connect Arthur to a "real" historical figure...but, you know, Merlin is also half-elf and elves totally exist in Brocéliande, so, you know. History.

Okay, that's probably enough fantasy, let me give some classics too.

L'Arbre des possibles et autres histoires - Bernard Werber

Bernard Werber is a pretty seminal author of French sci-fi and I should probably be embarrassed that the only book of his that I read was for school, but, it is a really good one, so I'll include it anyway.

It's a novella collection, and when I say "sci-fi" I want to make it clear that it's very old school science fiction. It's more Frankenstein or Black Mirror than Star Trek, what we in French call the anticipation genre of science fiction: you take one piece of technology or cultural norm and project it into the future.

It has a pretty wide range of topics and tones, so it's bound to have some better than others. My personal faves were Du pain et des jeux, where football (non-American) has evolved into basically a wargame, and Tel maître, tel lion, where any animal is considered acceptable as a pet, no matter how absurd it is to keep as a pet. They're both on a comedic end, but there's more heartfelt stuff too.

L'Ecume des Jours - Boris Vian

(no cover because I can't find the one I have, and the ones I find are ugly)

This book is surrealist. Like, literally a part of the surrealist movement. It features things such as a lilypad growing inside a woman's lungs (and, as you well know, lilypads double in size every day, wink wink), the protagonist's apartment becoming larger and smaller to go with his mood and current financial situation, and more that I can't even recall at the moment because remembering this book is like trying to remember having an aneurysm.

It is also really, really fun and touching. Oh, and it has a pretty solid movie adaptation, starring Audrey Tautou, who I think an international audience would probably recognize from Amelie or the Da Vinci Code movie.

I don't really know what else to say. It's a really cool read!

Le Roi se meurt - Eugène Ionesco

Ionesco is somewhat famous worldwide so I wasn't even sure to include him here. He's a playwright who wrote in the "Theater of the Absurd" movement, and this play is part of that.

The premise of this play is that the King (of an unnamed land) is dying, and the land is dying with him. I don't really know what else to say. It's theater of the absurd. It kind of has to be experienced (the published version works fine, btw, no need to track down an actual performance, in my humble opinion).

The Plague - Albert Camus

You've probably heard of this one, and if you haven't, let me tell you about a guy called Carlos Maza

youtube

I'm honestly more including this book out of a sense of duty. The other three are books I genuinely liked and happen to be classics. This book was an awful read. But, um. It's kind of relevant now in a way it wasn't (or didn't feel, anyway) back in 2008 or 2009, when I read it. And I don't just mean because of our own plague, since Camus's plague is pretty famously an allegory for fascism, which my teenage self sneered at, and my adult self really regrets every feeling that way.

Okay, finally, some more lighthearted stuff, we gotta talk about the Belgian and French art of bande dessinée. How is it different from comic books or manga? Functionally, it isn't. It really comes down more to what gets published in the Belgian-French industry compared to the American comics industry, which is dominated by superheroes, or the Japanese manga industry, which, while I'm less familiar with it, I know has some big genre trends as well that are completely separate.

The Lanfeust series - Arleston and Tarquin

This is a YA mega-series, and I can't recommend all of it because I've lost track of the franchise's growth. Also note that I say "YA", but in this case it means something very different from an American understanding of YA. These books are pretty full of sex.

No, when I say YA I mean it has that level of maturity, for better or worse. The original series (Lanfeust de Troy) is high fantasy in a world where everyone has an individual magical ability but two characters find out they're gifted with an absolute power to make anything happen, and while it gets dark at times, it's still very lighthearted throughout, and the humor is...well, I think it's best described as teen boy humor. And it has a tendency to objectify its female characters, as you'll quickly parse out from the one cover I used here or if you browse more covers.

But still, it holds a special place in my heart, I guess. And on my shelves.

The sequel series, Lanfeust des Etoiles, turns it into a space opera, and goes a little overboard with the pop culture reference at times, though overall still maintains that balance of serious/at times dark story and lighthearted comedy.

After that the franchise is utter chaos to me, and I've lost track. I know there was another sequel series, which I dropped partway through, and a spinoff that retold part of the original series from the PoV of the main love interest (in the period of time she spent away from the main group). There was a comedy spin-off about the troll species unique to this world, a prequel series, probably more I don't even know exist.

Les Démons d'Alexia

Something I can probably be a little less ashamed of including here.

Some backstory here. The Editions Dupuis are a giant of the Belgian bande dessinée industry, and for many, many years I was subscribed to their weekly magazine. That magazine was (mostly) made up of excerpts from the various books that the éditions were publishing at the time; those that were made of comic strips would usually get a couple pages of individual scripts, while the ongoing narratives got cut into episodes that were a few pages long (out of a typical 48 page count for a single BD album). Among those were this series.

For the first few volumes, I wasn't super into this series, probably because I was a little too young and smack dab in the middle of my "trying to be one of the boys" phase. But around book 3 I got really invested, to the point where I own the second half of the series because I had canceled by subscription by then but still wanted to know more.

Alexia is an exorcist with unusual talents, but little control, who's introduced to a group that specializes in researching paranormal phenomena, solving cases that involve the paranormal, that kinda stuff.

As a result of the premise, the series has a pretty slow start since it has to build up mystery around the source of Alexia's powers, but once it gets going and we get to what is essentially the series' main conflict, it gets really interesting.

Plus, witches. I'm a simple gay who likes strong protagonists and witches.

Murena

There was a point where my mtyhology nerdery led me to look for more stuff about the historical cultures that created them, and so I'd be super into stuff set in ancient Rome (I'd say "or Greece or Egypt" but let's face it, it was almost always Rome).

Murena is a series set just before the start of Emperor Nero's rule. You know, the one who was emperor when Rome burned, and according to urban legend either caused the fire or played the fiddle while it did (note: "fiddle" is a very English saying, it's usually the lyre in other languages). He probably didn't, it probably was propaganda, but he was a) a Roman Emperor, none of whom were particularly stellar guys and b) mean to Christians, who eventually got to rewrite history. So he's got a bad rep.

The series goes for a very historical take on events, albeit fictionalized (the protagonist and main PoV, the titular Lucius Murena, is himself fictional) and attempts to humanize the people involved in those events. Each book also includes some of the sources used to justify how events and characters are depicted, which is a nice touch.

It's also divided in subseries called "cycles" (books 1-4, 5-8 and the ongoing one starts at 9). I stopped after 9, though I think it's mostly a case of not going to bookstores often anymore. Plus it took four years between 9 and 10, and again between 10 and 11. But the first eight books made for a pretty solid story that honestly felt somewhat concluded as is, so it's a good place to start.

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metvmorqhoses · 3 years

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I saw your original answer to my reply and wondered why you deleted it and responded with a much shorter and perhaps untrue response. I only say untrue as you said, "I find the concept and need of sharing spiritual beliefs outside ourselves one of the lowest aspects of human culture tbh." which could be true but I'm not sure you really believe it. If only because if people never shared their beliefs there would never be mythology. Part 2 coming.

Part 2: As for what captured my interest in your blog, I originally found it by searching up Apollo and Artemis relations, and found your input on the mythos interesting. You may publish my questions as you wish or reply to me via messenger. Either is fine. Peace for now.

*** *** ***

actually my two answers meant pretty much the same, i merely rephrased in a form that, after a bit of thought, felt truer to what i wanted to share. i now see that probably my second version could be easier to misunderstand and rather obscure, as short sentences often are.

you asked at the same time a really personal and a tragically hard philosophical question, moreover to someone who focused her studies precisely on those subjects and that is therefore inclined to delve deeper.

when you ask me about my "beliefs" or "religion", i am wildly tempted to ask you in return what "spiritual beliefs" and "religion" even are. what i intend for them is probably hardly similar to anything you might intend for them, as i think should happen to anyone with real spiritual sentiments anyway. how can you even begin to understand what i think, if we don't even agree about what we are talking about? a settled, static, scientific definition of human religious impulses to this day is yet to be found. in this field, scientifically speaking, everything is a matter of opinions, and on a personal level... well, obviously it should be even more so.

and so to answer you i both needed a dissertation and to do exactly what i truly dislike, wearing the intimate as a plume of the hat.

it's actually funny you mentioned mythology anyhow. you see, there's a huge difference between the making of a religion, the dynamism, the life of it (indeed a form of sharing, but fundamentally a process that, in my opinion, was principally an artistic act at its truest core), and in people ruminating on the same "artistic products that long ago somehow turned into something more and that belonged to someone else" over and over again, marrying a cookie-cutter version of them and obsessing over it, declaiming truths their different minds and cultures have twisted or anyway could hardly understand without scholar-level education (let alone feel, as something like that should be felt), ending up not even really knowing what their religions are even truly about, wearing them as badges of honor, fighting over them as one fights over a football match, weaponizing them to support agendas and propaganda... you know, the usual stuff.

at some point in history religions ceased to be a matter of that resided in the individual hearts of hearts, becoming an easily sold product for the multitudes. the majority of religions are a masses-ready to consume echoes of other people’s emotions and dreams - and those are intimate things, unspeakable and unsheareable, at least not as one can share a sentiment about a netflix show or the weather.

religion started to be so simplified in classical times and, funnily enough, those were the times in which also people actually began to question the existence of godhood (socrates, plato). but even they weren’t participating to their own religions anymore, they were merely retelling, and academically, what the ancients had created.

mythology, ancient religions (that actually are still our major religions today by the way), are believed to have started as stories, orally told. a creative act, that then became a higher form of art and maybe a higher form of sentiment. what came first, the art or the belief the art was true? what came first, the gods or the poetry about them? the religious sentiment or the artistic sentiment? the answer might appear simple, but we have evidence that it’s hardly so.

this is the anthropological dilemma and it serves me (along with this academic premise), to answer your question, because no, the sharing i was talking about wasn’t the artistic sharing of poetry on aoidoses’ lips, nor i am against artistic impulses and their consequential sharing (even if, as a writer, art often feels too personal to be shared precisely as faith is), or the making of spirituality in the cradle of human culture, i am not against the making of religions and therefore mythologies, i am against feasting over their remains, wearing their corpses. i am against the appropriation of emotions that are probably felt too easily and to shallowly by the most, because it’s easier than truly feel, and alone, facing bravely the existential dread that has followed us as a species since the beginning. i am against the influence that parents have on children regarding spiritual beliefs. i’m against wearing our own souls outside ourselves as flags, as labels. i am against the need to affirm ourselves stating our religious truths against the other, or only approving who share ours. the list goes on and on.

and yes, i do think that the world would have been better off (and still would be) if we had the social custom of not sharing such things, not sharing ourselves so much, too much i dare say, and automatically, to whomever asks. i do think it is “one of the lowest aspects of human culture”, this need of overexposure, the normalization of sharing a thing so personal as a spiritual belief. and as normally as one would share one’s age or nationality, discussing it with a bit of timidity and a bit of temper as one discusses politics. it’s not the same thing. i find it repulsive.

i definitely didn’t answer you with something untrue by any means. i wonder why you thought it in the first place tbh. i was perhaps just trying to avoid a dissertation on why i wasn’t going to answer you, a dissertation that actually turned out very incomplete and that means very little in the face of the vastness of what i think on the matter.

i hope i clarified your doubts.

#minaim-blog #if you believe anything believe i always speak my mind on this blog #asks/replies #one and one thousand stories lis told #mythology #classicism

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inspector-montoya-fox · 4 years

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here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game

before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*

Story:

References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.

Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.

Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...

Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.

Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.

Gameplay:

Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.

Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.

Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.

Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?

Legacy:

The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.

Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.

Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.

Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.

Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.

Conclusion:

i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.

#yOu'Re rEaLLy pEttY ! sOrRy hAd tO UnFoLLoW #i think i covered everything #THIS IS AN AMAZING ESSAY #this is the crown jewel of my time on tumblr #i love myself so much #sly cooper #anyone who even remotely comes for me because of this WILL get blocked #the birds really think i care about my rep on this fucking hellsite #HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

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letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

Truffle Hunter.

As Pig snuffles its way up Letterboxd’s best of 2021 ranks, Mitchell Beaupre hunts down writer-director Michael Sarnoski for a chat about some of the finer creative points of his Nicolas Cage-starring meditation on cookery and grief.

In a time when audiences know too many specific plot details of films months before they’re even released, the idea of a surprise sensation feels like a fleeting memory. Yet that’s exactly how one could describe Pig, the debut feature from director Michael Sarnoski. With minimal pre-release buzz and no flashy festival premiere, Pig is a film whose status has been created through sheer quality alone.

This is a true word-of-mouth smash, hailed by critics as one of the best films of the year, as well as quickly earning itself a high placement on our Top 50 of 2021. Jacob Knight praises the film as “an existential rumination regarding how people find meaning in a mostly meaningless world”, while Muriel declares it “the most unexpectedly wholesome movie I’ve seen in forever”. Not bad for a first feature.

Written by Sarnoski, from a story he developed with co-producer Vanessa Block, Pig opens on Rob (Nicolas Cage), a loner isolated in the woods with his truffle pig. Rob makes his living selling truffles to the eager and ambitious Amir (Alex Wolff), but when two people break into Rob’s home and steal his animal companion, he must do whatever it takes to be reunited with his only friend.

A rough day deserves a decent vin rouge.

While that setup led many to give Sarnoski’s film the moniker “John Wick with a pig” when the trailer dropped, the story ends up charting a course away from genre thrills and towards something else entirely. Pig is an exploration of grief, loneliness and compassion, featuring one of the finest performances of Nicolas Cage’s illustrious career.

Raised in Milwaukee, Sarnoski and co-producer Block met in college before working together on the documentary short The Testimony, which focused on the largest rape tribunal in the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That film made it onto the shortlist for the 2016 Oscars, putting the two of them on a path that would lead to their breakthrough opportunity with Pig.

Sarnoski spoke with us about the origins of Pig, the long-term impacts of loss in his own life, the joy of hand-cranked pasta and Bruce Springsteen.

Congratulations on the film! How has it felt seeing this outpouring of love coming for your first feature? Michael Sarnoski: It’s been amazing. Everyone who made this movie felt for themselves that it was special, and we all put a lot of care into it. We also knew that it was a risk, a strange film we figured would hit right for some people, but then plenty of others would think it was boring and weird. We’ve been very pleasantly surprised that it’s a small minority of people who feel that way.

What was the seed of the story that would eventually sprout to become Pig? I had this image in my head of an old man in the woods with his truffle pig. There was something sweet and tragic about that. Then I began asking questions about who this guy is and why he’s out there alone in the woods. What’s his backstory? It all evolved from there.

While the first act inhabits that “John Wick with a pig” space that people were perhaps expecting from the trailer, the story then takes a swerve and becomes a somber, thoughtful character study. Could you speak about navigating that unique arc with your storytelling? We never set out to try and subvert that John Wick sort of genre. We knew that we were playing with that lone-cowboy idea of a film and some of those tropes, but we never wanted to poke fun at that or switch people’s expectations in some sense by choosing Nic to star. We never wanted to “surprise” people by making a quiet Nic Cage movie. It was always just about these characters, what this story is, what we’re trying to explore. I think if we had tried to be subversive it would have come off as hokey.

Silence plays a key part in the film, as so much is being said in those spaces between the dialogue and action. How did you want to utilize the impact of saying more with silence? From early on, we always knew it was going to be a very silent film, and that followed all the way through the edit. Some of us wanted that opening to start out the way it’s done in the movie, where it’s totally silent and the music only comes in at the very end, while others were worried that people would get bored with it. The argument against that was that if they’re going to get bored with that, then they’re going to get bored with the rest of the movie. So, we might as well just lean into it, and let them know what it’s going to be.

From there we gauged how we wanted to approach the silence throughout. There’s some beautiful music in the film that Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein did an incredible job with that allowed us to bring this beauty and splendor into the scenes. But there were also a lot of really quiet moments where we wanted the audience to be focused on the faces of the characters, and really be feeling the space and letting the sounds of the forest, or wherever we were, come across.

Nicolas Cage, his knife skills, and cinematographer Patrick Scola.

Along with the faces, you focus a lot on hands in the film. Whether it’s in scenes of violence or making food, there’s a real emphasis on what hands are capable of. Where did the inspiration for that come from? Nic was very into the idea of conveying artistry through your hands. He spent a lot of time with local chefs to try and get the vibe of how they moved and how they worked. He was always practicing knife skills in his room. I was constantly waiting for the AD to come up and tell me that we can’t use Nic today because he cut off a finger, but thankfully that never happened. Nic really sold that emphasis on the hands. Those shots could have felt empty if it wasn’t for him. I still am surprised watching some of the little hand choices he made.

I remember there was one shot where we didn’t get it on the day. So, we set it up with his stand-in, and just had him wearing his gloves. We all watched it, and it just wasn’t the same. Nic agreed, and so we reset the entire thing just to get that one shot with his hands in there instead. It was totally worth it. He’s an incredible actor, and it comes through every part of him.

Cage is an actor with an almost otherworldly mythos about him, which allows people to sometimes forget what a tremendous performer he’s always been. What was your experience in building a relationship with him, not just as an actor, but also as a human being? I only have positive things to say. That’s not just a gimmick. From the moment he read the script, he was interested, and he really responded to the character. He was committed to bringing the script to life, and was extremely respectful towards everyone on set. He had no reason to respect me. I’m a first-time director. He could have been a total diva. He could have been whatever he wanted to be, and we still would have paid him and been happy with his performance.

He was very kind, and maybe some of this came from the character, but he was also kind of somber and quiet in general on set. At the same time, he can also be very playful and sweet, even though he was trying to remain in the mood of the character. He set the tone, in a way, for the whole crew. A crew could easily look at a first time director and decide to just slack off and scrape by, because I wouldn’t have even known the difference. The fact that Nic treated me and the material with such respect really trickled down, and was so valuable to the film.

We shot the whole thing in twenty days, so if there had been any weak link with someone not doing their job or not being totally on top of it, we would have been screwed. I credit a lot of that to Nic, and him treating this with an incredible amount of professionalism. I think that’s where a big part of his long career comes from. He’s an incredible actor, but he also takes the art form seriously, treating it as both an artist and as this being his job, knowing that you have to do both in order to get what you need across.

Do you have a favorite Nicolas Cage performance? Other than Pig, of course. There are so many incredible ones. I really love Moonstruck. I saw that a couple of years ago, right before we officially cast him, when I was going through some of his ones that I hadn’t seen. Part of it I think is because I’m half-Italian, and I felt like it was showing me a side of my life that I never realized because my Italian family is on the east coast, and we moved out to Wisconsin when I was very young. I never got to be a part of that kind of thick Italian family, and seeing that on screen gave me a taste of what that would have been like. I loved him in that role. He was the perfect balance of sincere and sentimental, and also over the top when he needed to be.

Grub’s up.

Speaking of being Italian, Pig gets deep into the transformative power of food, and of the right meal. Has food always been an important part of your life? Definitely. I’ve never worked in restaurants. The closest thing was when I worked at a snack bar at a summer camp, which was very fun and also kind of a nightmare in its own way. I think most of the importance of food for me came from when my grandma lived with us. It was after my dad passed away, when I was a little kid, and she became this sort of old Italian cook in the house who was using food as this language of love and also as a sort of control. It had a lot wrapped up in it, this sense that we’re going to have family dinners to prove that everything is fine.

I think any Italian family is that way, but especially in that situation, having that presence come into the house when I was a kid, it made food quite charged for me. It was both a form of bonding and love, but also that control. That was very important to me. As I got older she taught me how to cook some things, and I became interested in that. I had a lot of friends who were great cooks and taught me how to do different things. I’m not an amazing cook, but I love cooking.

I love that act of making something that’s about to disappear. I think if you can be okay with that, and put a lot of time and care into that, it’s kind of a therapeutic thing to do. Accepting transience is a big part of cooking.

What’s your favorite dish to cook? I would say over the pandemic I really got into making lasagne. I had my grandma’s old hand-crank pasta maker, so I was enjoying making my own pasta and lasagne with that. I don’t know if I could pick one favorite dish, but that is definitely one that contributed quite a bit to putting on the Covid pounds.

Rob (Cage) and Amir (Alex Wolff) discuss their business relationship.

There’s a scene in the film where Rob and Amir go to a restaurant and Rob has a conversation with the chef there, who used to work for him, about the idea of losing our sense of identity when we give up on our dreams in order to fill this role that society expects of us. Is that something that you personally connected with? Yeah, people ask me a lot about what I think of the high-end cuisine world, and I have to say that I wasn’t trying to solely express that this world is garbage and phony. I was looking at it as another kind of art form. Any time you have an art form that combines someone’s personal passion with some sort of economy there are going to be conflicts to navigate. Whether you’re a painter, director, writer, whatever, those are going to be things you have to juggle. How true to yourself are you going to stay?

For myself, I’ve definitely found that when I try to focus on doing something that I care about, that’s kind of all I have control over and that’s what I should focus on. Pig was that for me. This isn’t the kind of script that you write where you’re expecting a big payday. It’s this weird movie that for some reason really means something to me.

The scene climaxes with Rob saying the line, “We don’t get a lot of things to really care about”. What about this movie exemplifies the things that you really care about in your life? It’s so many things, and even more things came from going through the process of actually making it and falling in love with Portland. It’s become even more than what it was initially intended to be. I mentioned earlier that my dad passed away when I was a kid, and the most personal aspect of the film for me was exploring that idea of what grief does to us long-term.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve been watching how my family members changed the way they interact with the world and built their perception of the world around some aspect of grief. It’s not those immediate effects of shock or sadness. It’s how those things ingrain into your worldview. I became much more conscious of how I was doing that in my own life. That was the deepest, most general thing that I was bringing to it, and that I was exploring personally through the film.

As far as specific things that I care about, I think I have all the classic things. I care about my family, and my friends. I care about the world, which is why this year has been so devastating. I don’t have one single pig. I think we all have a few different pigs in our lives.

Director Michael Sarnoski on the set of ‘Pig’.

Another scene that really stands out is the one in which Rob returns to his old home and sits with this young boy, having a conversation about a persimmon tree that used to be there. Talk to me about the significance of that moment for Rob. One of the things I love about that scene is that it seems so simple, kind of quiet and basic, but it’s getting into a lot of different things. I will say one thing about that scene. That was the first scene that we shot on the first day of filming. That kid was great, but filming with a child on your first day of your first feature was very much a moment of wondering what I had gotten myself into.

That scene does a few things. I won’t get into spoiler territory, but for starters he’s going back to his old house, so it’s his first attempt to really look at his past in the face, and to acknowledge that. I like that in that moment this is also one of the first times that we hear him speak romantically of food, because those things are very tethered to each other.

We get both the sense that there was a past, a personal path that he left behind, but intricately involved in that was how he interacted with food and his art. It’s the first time that we hear him acknowledge who he was in a way that’s okay. He tells the kid his name, and he’s acknowledging his identity that he’s been trying to hide from or ignore. Through doing that, it’s engaging with his passions and how that tethers everything together. I also thought it was cute explaining what persimmons were to a little kid.

I’ve got to ask you about the use of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ in a very meaningful moment. What made that the perfect song choice for that scene? Obviously, who’s singing it is very meaningful. I liked that song, though, because it’s different from the sappy direction we could have gone with that moment. There’s something very passionate about ‘I’m On Fire’, of course, and it’s a pretty sexual song. It’s really charged, but it also has this kind of ethereal quality to it that’s seductive in a non-sexual way. It washes over you, and it feels very mystical. This sounds so “film talk”-y, but I liked that meeting of that transcendent, abstract feeling with that immediate sense of passion and love and obsession.

Finally, what’s the film that made you want to become a filmmaker? Probably Sam Raimi, his first Spider-Man movie. That was the first time I realized what directors do. I had a very strong association with Spider-Man growing up as a comic-book fan, and I was seeing how someone was filtering their own understanding of this character. Raimi coming from his horror background and being into the nitty gritty filmmaking with practical effects and everything, I got this understanding of how a director touches a film and shapes it.

Related content

Steve’s list of pigs in film

Melissa’s list of films featuring food, chefs, bakers, restaurants, cooking, hospitality, hotels, wineries, grocers

Rachel West discovers Nicolas Cage is her most-watched actor of all time

Letterboxd’s Official Top 50 of 2021—Jack Moulton’s list

Follow Mitchell on Letterboxd

‘Pig’ is currently in US cinemas via NEON, and available to buy/rent on digital.

#nicolas cage #pig #pig film #neon #neonrated #neon rated #nic cage #cooking films #cookery film #films about chefs #truffles #truffle pig #truffle hunter #letterboxd #filmmaker

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planesofduality · 4 years

Text

The Story Behind Solas with Dragon Age Lead Writer Patrick Weekes - Dialogue Wheel (Part 2 of 3)

Full video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFx1nCdZFjw&t=1s

Part one here

Time: 12:16

When it comes the characterization of a character that you’ve already been give at least some sort of name to. We know that this character is some sort of trickster god - when you were trying to develop and make him some a stand-alone character, did you ever have to rely on what the mythos already established of this particular kind of eighth-seat god that maybe a lot people hadn’t heard a lot about?

Well, I think, like we talked about before, one of the great things about the Dragon Age universe is everything that you learn in a codex entry is something that someone else heard in a story and wrote it down somewhere and you’re reading half of the book. So the good news on that is anything we wanted to do with Fen’Harel, there was so little and what was in there was already so sketchy that we had all the freedom we needed to play with him.

That turned out to be a nice thing because I think if we had someone that was completely by-the-books, already established, their character already given, it would feel like more of a letdown to write that as a character or you would have to play against type, you’d have to do something completely different to show he wasn’t just what the stories wrote about him. And, you know, in some ways that is both liberating but also disappointing to people who might have liked the original stories. This was a fun experience of getting to fill in some of the gaps.

The only thing I think we had to struggle against is that anyone who hears “trickster” or anyone who hears “oh, he’s chaotic and unpredictable” it feels like there is a natural urge to go to “He’s Loki in the Avengers. He’s the guy who’s gonna make large grand-standing plans.” Or, you know, “He’s the Riddler, who’s gonna leave clues to test you.” We had to get away from that: “Let’s tone that back a little bit, let’s not have him be the Jack Nicholson Joker version of the Dread Wolf.”

That’s quite a quote.

You got Dorian as a large, grandiose , extravagant figure and it would have been easy to have him go that way. It was fortunate that we had Dorian as the mage who had the larger-than-life persona already to make Solas be the quiet one.

Time: 15:21

Was there ever an instance where you were really pushed with giving some indicators to the player that Solas may have some connection to this going through the gameplay? Because you do see a lot statues of Fen’Harel. There’s many instances of where you’re discussing it, you’re traveling through those lands. Where do you walk that line, how do you walk that line, or do you just completely disregard it whatsoever?

The goal we had is we wanted the very careful players, the very sensitive players, who were playing attention and watching every scene with Solas to know that something was up and to want more answers and then go to “OH MAN” as soon as the stinger after the credits rolled. But we wanted most players to just go “Oh, okay, he’s like ‘Fade nerd.’ He’s like ‘hippie guy.’”

The other thing we wanted was everyone on their second playthrough, as soon as they talked to Solas to be like “Oh, man, he’s just saying it. He just flat-out said it right there and I missed it completely the first time!” I think we called it the “inevitable in retrospect”- or the “slap the forehead on the second playthrough” style of writing, where we wanted people to see that the most interesting thing about the trickster god is he’s not actually that great of a liar - He is almost telling you a lot of the time. And, you know, some of the tragedy is it that you never had the chance to actually ask, “Wait -are you Fen’harel?”

Time: 17:13

We talked about leaving breadcrumbs, what that meant. Now the big turn, the big scene at the ending: How did this come about, were you really involved in that sort of process and are you happy with it?

Oh, I’m absolutely happy with it. It went through several iterations,. Mike was hugely involved. The writing was definitely done by Dave; it was a huge crit path moment. He had me give a look at the Solas voice, I think I looked at it, I don’t think I actually changed a single word in the final one.

We had versions where after the main plot it was actually going to be a full plot where you the player went and were actually present when Solas confronts Mythal. We had a part where we said, “Wow that’s too big, a lot of players are gonna miss that, we’ll make it a DLC.” So it was gonna be a separate DLC where that happened. At one point we said “No, this is too big, we actually - let’s cut it and address it next game.” So it was going to be this thing that we pushed off into some future content.

I am really happy with what we went with, because, I think, you know, for my money, that short, little Marvel-style, after-the-credits stinger is what we needed. We needed something so that everyone who was paying attention and everyone who was really invested could go “oh my god!” And go, “Okay, so, just in case you were wondering, we’re not done, we have more stories to tell, and we are confident enough in what we are doing that we are willing to throw that ball.” That stinger is essentially us throwing a football to future us, trusting that we are going to catch it. Because, you know, at the end, we had that level of confidence. We felt that we had that level of confidence, we felt we made a really good game. Dave led an amazing team of writers, and I’m really touched that he has the confidence to believe that I’ll be able to carry that on for him.

Time: 19:49

When we spoke to Dave, one of the big moments that he mentioned, was when he created kind of a long-term idea for what’s going to happen in the Dragon Age universe. And to hear him say it, he mentioned that what he originally wanted for Dragon Age: Inquisition couldn’t happen - it was far too big - it wouldn’t work. And you guys had talked about taking that concept, finishing Inquisition somewhere in the middle of that concept arc, and then using at least an influence or something like that to affect the franchise going forward. Speaking with you now, as someone who has taken up the reins, do you know what I’m talking about? Am I talking crazy? Where do you see it going?

Um…

Reasonably - of what you can say on this.

So here’s the last scene of the next game… (laughs). I think there’s an extent to which no plan really survives contact with the audience when it comes to video games. We look at how fans react, we look at what hit, what rang true with everyone. You know, it’s funny, having people react angrily actually isn’t as bad as having people ignore things sometimes. Having people react angrily means they were definitely emotionally engaged, so you know you hit something there. Whereas having fans go, “I don’t know, fine, I guess, whatever” and move on means, “Okay, I don’t know if that’s what we want to go back to. We didn’t actually get anything from them there, they didn’t actually remember that later.” So that’s a phase that comes after every game we ship. We look at what hit, what missed, and where we want to go from there.

Now that said, Dave’s future plan is, I think, fantastic, epic, and heartbreaking. Our plan is to use that as our starting point. To look at where we want to go, what we want to do, and it will not be - and I, you know, Dave and I have talked about this - it will not be the story that Dave would tell if he were still here as lead writer. Because it could never be that. We can get into that when we talk about Cole a little bit, but if I tried to do that I would just be doing a bad impersonation of Dave Gaider and no one is ever going to be as good at that as Dave is. My goal going forward is to, as lead, put my own spin on that process, put my own spin on the plots going forward, on the thematic elements, while keeping those same thematic elements that we had. Because, I think, what Dave has set in motion in three games, countless DLCs and expansions, is something that can endure: The idea that no choice is ever really that easy and that the great events always stem from human-understandable motivations.

So, that is where I think where we are going to go, as vaguely as I can say.

Time: 23:30

Speaking of specifically to Solas: His continuation of the story. Adding that little “Marvel moment” at the end - what do you think that did for the crit path and the overall arc of the story that players experienced in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Do you think they would have been more satisfied if there was a DLC or is that just us gamers complaining because we can’t get everything we want right away?

Well, I think you want to leave people wanting more. “Man I wish you guys had done more” is a better problem to have than “Man I wish you guys had done less.” So, I think, looking at it from inside the studio, we didn’t have the resources to do much more than we did. So it was never going to be the big moment right then anyway. From my perspective, the reason I’m really happy we have it is, like I said, I thought it was a vote of confidence. The team is still the Dragon Age team and it is still the writers and designers who did everything else, who made such wonderful characters and were responsible for such fantastic plots.

Time 25:10

Well, again, looking at that in its completion, it’s good to see that even a character that needed to give you a stinger in your estimation didn’t take away, I guess, from the overall story you were trying to tell.

Well, thank you. Yeah it was obviously the moment we were building toward, but again, the goal was even if we didn’t have that stringer, he was still an interesting enough character that people would have not felt cheated that he was in the party.

Part 3

#solas #patrick weekes #patrick weekes interview #dragon age #dragon age: in #dragon age lore #da4 #dragon age 4 #dread wolf rises #dread wolf #the dread wolf rises #fen'harel #solas x lavellan #part two

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bestworstcase · 4 years

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what are some of your eldritch horror inspirations?

oh hm lets see

in no particular order:

my first introduction to the genre was actually a kim possible fanfic series? i remember reading it as a teen and being like woah

the discworld series to an extent? pratchett’s riffs on the genre are excellent, in particular those from later novels in the series eg the summoning dark. (thud! was actually my first discworld novel for some baffling reason and i spent the whole book like “i have no idea what’s going on but i love this” skjdffklshsdk). this has also definitely had an impact on my lean into the more humanist or optimistic end of the scale

gideon the ninth is not eldritch horror per se but hot damn if it doesn’t have some glorious imagery.

annihilation (the book much moreso than the film, though the film has some nice visuals too). i keep meaning to read the other books in the trilogy but haven’t got around to it yet. the crawler hoo boy 👀👀👀

a pretty large assortment of books and short stories and plays actually. probably too many to list really; not all of them are eldritch horror themselves but anything with the right atmosphere or aesthetic or lore tends to work its way into my brain as an inspiration for my own particular blend of eldritch horror and dark fantasy; as a random selection off the top of my head, poe’s entire oeuvre, the road, the bacchae, euripedes in general actually, pretty much anything that was inspired by the year without a summer lmao, the dragonoak trilogy and sam farren’s work in general... magical realism anything, marisol comes to mind in particular just for its extra closeness to theatre of the absurd...

this one is a bit silly and honestly mostly just because it’s the Queen Hyperfixation and i will find a way to connect it to every single one of my other interests somehow, but alice’s adventures in wonderland, through the looking glass, and the hunting of the snark have all had a pretty marked influence on my development as a writer and have absolutely contributed to how i approach eldritch horror tropes in my own writing; and also nonsense literature is basically absurdist eldritch horror for children.

(especially the hunting of the snark, tbh. like go read it now if you haven’t before; it’s a treat and it’s gay and boojums are 100% just your classic eldritch abomination presented through a light-heartedly witty, child-friendly lens.)

relatedly: i love the american mcgee alice games. they riff on some aiw-related tropes that irritate me but idc that much because the atmosphere and aesthetic is just. so good and the gameplay is fun

relatedly again: a blade so black and the subsequent books in the trilogy (one of which isn’t due out until next year i’m suffering) do some really great stuff with nightmares as creatures that are empowered by humanity’s fears and, esp in the second book, the weird mystery of wonderland itself. and is just a neat urban fantasy take on alice in wonderland in general.

pathygen’s work and especially strings has been a big source of inspiration for me in the last, like, eight or nine months since we met. read it.

adhd distractibility has me stalling out in the middle of season 3 of the magnus archives but. yknow. it’s my jam 👌

like, theatre of the absurd and theatre of cruelty? in particular i recall a production of waiting for godot which i saw in college that leaned very hard into a horror-esque reading of the play and that was kind of a game-changer for my own creative outlook; in general these forms of theatre and the experiences they seek to evoke and the narratives they center share a lot of emotional overlap with the experience of good eldritch horror and, like aiw, have had a significant influence on my writing generally.

darkest dungeon is really fun and has a great aesthetic and strikes exactly the right balance between bleak and hopeful. the crimson court dlc especially was a total game-changer for how i think about vampires because holy shit

it’s not eldritch horror per se but subnautica is like. its ability to provoke dread is second only to the trial of blindness in hellblade (which is also def an inspiration, though again not eldritch horror per se. the enemy designs are really good tho) and the creature designs and lore are super cool and it does an excellent job of of getting across that... feeling of being insignificant in a vast uncaring cosmos (or in this case: ocean planet infected with virulent water-borne bacteria) and that’s enough to make it like, eldritch horror-adjacent in my mind.

tyranny is? another odd one in that it isn’t eldritch horror by any stretch of the imagination but idk. there’s something about the lore surrounding the archons and the spires + oldwalls that speaks to me and i love that so much of it is simply left unexplained. not in a way that feels half-assed or like the lore wasn’t well thought out, but rather in a way that truly gets across the feeling of an ancient civilization whose culture and magic/technology have decayed and been suppressed to the point of being completely lost by the time of the game; that’s a hard balance to strike and it’s totally my jam.

my gf got me into pathologic and i am veeeery slowly playing my way through the original game rn and holy shit. holy shit. the atmosphere and the slowly unfolding lore and increasingly bizarre plague itself and the despair and the grind it’s all so good.

i still need to actually play bloodborne, it’s been on my list forever, but every image and video i’ve ever seen is. hoo boy. hoooooo boy.

and honestly??? growing up as a very non-spiritual person in an evangelical family i think definitely predisposed me toward this genre because, idk. god as presented by evangelical christians is an eldritch abomination and i don’t have the spiritual inclination to convince me otherwise. so that’s something i draw from a bit as well lol

also as a final note i think it’s v important when talking about eldritch/cosmic/lovecraftian horror and inspirations thereof to say that hp lovecraft (and many of the contemporaries of his who participated in the expanded/shared universe we now call the cthulhu mythos) was virulently racist and xenophobic and this absolutely had an impact on his creative work. they codified this genre and that means that racism and xenophobia is kind of baked in to a lot of the basic tropes and they must be very rigorously, very critically evaluated when we use them to create new fiction.

#there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the way this post is structured sorry #it's all stream of conscious Things That Inspire Me #also this is not exhaustive i know there's stuff i'm forgetting but i have drawn a blank #Anonymous

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timegears-moved · 4 years

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☕️ mmmm pokemon games specifically (not including spinoffs)

sorry this is late im terrible with actually answering asks. ill do this generation by generation. also this ended up very long because i have a lot of thoughts about pkmn.

gen one: okay so right off the bat im gonna say that i have a massive soft spot for gen one, considering blue was the first game i ever played. i do have a degree of nostalgia towards it which is why i can never be truly be harsh on these games. i know they're a mess of glitches and mechanics that make no fucking sense (seriously FUCK psychic types and everything they stand for) but it has a certain charm to it.

but even as a "kanto apologist" (which damien calls me) i can absolutely agree that the pandering is fucking abysmal. they're trying cater to a demographic who hasn't cared about pokemon in years and aren't going to pick up a new game just because charizard is in it. by doing this it feels like they're alienating the people who actually care, like "yeah ur support is nice but we want the genwunners to like us more than anything.

also on the topic of pandering is that their pandering is so half-assed too. all of this gen one content and not one shred of love for my boys victreebel or cloyster? bro i hate it here.

gen two: i dont really have that much to say here tbh. i have no fond memories of it at all considering i only played through gold once right before hgss came out. i can say that i appreciate all of the bullshit from gen one that it fixed but i have issues with johto as a region that ill elaborate on when i talk about the remakes.

gen three: honestly i never cared much for this gen. i played it quite a bit growing up but it's always been whatever for me. a lot of it just feels kind of.....bland for me. i really don't know what to say because it leaves me feeling conflicted. there's nothing bad about these games that sticks out like a sore thumb but they just don't do it for me, ya know?

i do appreciate frlg for shedding a much better light on kanto though.

gen four: okay so i'll fully admit that the sinnoh games are my childhood faves and are still my faves now but im not letting nostalgia completely cloud my judgement on this.

honestly? i think pokemon peaked with platinum. dp had their problems for sure and some of those still carried over to platinum but the scale in which platinum told its story feels so much grander than any pokemon game that came before or after it. i absolute adore the sinnoh mythos and i only want dp remakes just so it can get expanded upon, i could care less about any actually gameplay from it. ive said this before but you cannot make the god of pokemon and not do anything with it.

as for hgss, i have very mixed feelings about this one but not in the same way gen 3 made me feel because i do have genuine problems here. ive talked before about them but i just cannot stress how bad the level and pokemon distributions are. how the fuck can you make brand new pokemon for your johto region and not put them in fucking johto?

like these games are fine ig. i never cared about the walking pokemon mechanic but it literally feels like people only praise this game as the best because of that one thing that has no bearing on the actual game itself. you can like these games all you want, i still enjoy parts of them myself, but calling them the best is a huge reach.

gen five: right off the bat im gonna say that i do love the gen five games so nobody thinks im being overly critical or anything. i love the aesthetic of these games, i ADORE the pokemon here and they're some of the most fun pokemon games to play through. it's the story and characters (with the exception of n i will absolutely give credit where it is die there) that throw me for a loop.

i feel like whenever i praise the story or characters im just following the crowd here. i don't know if im just very stupid (i definitely am very stupid) or what but none of it felt as powerful as people claim it is for me personally. maybe i should just pay more attention but i honestly don't know. im definitely not saying theyre bad or anything i just in all hobestly dont get the (very sudden) hype.

uhhh i can't say much about bw2 because i haven't beaten it since it came out but i remember liking hugh and it made iris a champion so i remember them being good on those two things alone.

gen six: hohohohoho here we go. tbh i don't even know what i can say about xy that hasn't already been said. like gen one might be a huge mess looking back on it but at least it had character. xy introduced a few pokemon that i really liked and some amazing shiny hunting methods that should definitely return but that's the most i can say in terms of praise.

i dont think pokemon has ever gotten this boring before, and that's speaking as someone who clocked over 300 hours into my x save file. nothing has life (which in hindsight is ironic considering xerneas is the god of life) and i hate the way mega evolution was handled so much. i really don't know what else to say because everyone has already said what i want to but i think this has been pokemon's lowest point so far.

oras once again made hoenn complicated for me. they made hoenn somewhat interesting for me in a way that didnt capture me in the originals. i don't think they're stellar but ive seen people call these the worst ones and....why. i get that the originals are special to a lot of people and that they feel like oras did them injustice but honestly i would oras over the originals because they're just more fun for me.

gen seven: it made popplio. 10/10.

okay so i can understand why the very slow start and unskippable long cutscenes threw a lot of people off but i just don't understand so much of the hate it around other things. again i see people proclaiming it as the worst and you can see it as that from a gameplay element, but the story fucking slapped ass and i don't think amybody can or should deny that. maybe i just feel very passionately about them because they're very personal for me in helping me through a rough time in my life but i just also dont see why everybody is so mad at these games sometimes.

the fact that sm mean so much to me makes usum's entire existence hurt so much more. like wow i love abuse apologism: the game thank you sooooo much gamefreak! /s

aside from ultra wormhole jumping, my baby dusk lycanroc and the new ultra beasts i dont care for anything new usum brought. it feels like it back peddled so much by completely ruining lillie's character by attempting to make lusamine likable when the damage from the first games was already done. i hate usum they're the only pokemon games i can state that i hate. i don't know how you can take sm's well-done albeit flawed blueprints, take out everything that was good and only leave stuff that either doesn't matter or is actively harmful.

also let's go pikachu and eevee exist too idrc

gen eight: ive already spoken my piece on swsh but im gonna be more clear here. i dont think swsh is inherently bad and i can still have fun with them. i dont think the issue here lies with the cut pokedex. i could honestly care less about that and i always figured we would get to this point. the issue lies with nintendo and tpci pushing for yearly releases, forcing the devs to make yearly subpar games. i can think of so many ways they can remedy this situation: taking longer times between releases, hiring more staff at gamefreak or even splitting developments for different projects between multiple different studios. i hope that the reported low moral at gamefreak at swsh's releases is enough of a wake up call for change but that could just be me being optimistic.

i am SO sorry this ended up as long as it is but i have a lot of opinions and not enpugh willpower to keep my mouth shut

#asks #ty for the ask!#jasper tag #long post #also im on mobile so i cant put a read more 😔

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stereogeekspodcast · 3 years

Text

[Transcript] Season 1, Episode 4. We’ve Been Busy With… Julie and the Phantoms, Star Trek: Discovery, and More

What are we enjoying when we aren't working? Mon's been busy with a few DC Comics, listening to the audiobook of One to Watch, catching up with Holiday Baking shows, and recapping Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 for Show Snob. Ron has been listening to a 12 Monkeys podcast and EK Johnston's Queen's Peril. She's also been watching Julie and the Phantoms as well as recapping The Mandalorian Season 2 for Show Snob.

Listen to the episode on Anchor. Read Mon's recaps of Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 here. Read Ron's recaps of The Mandalorian Season 2 here.

[Continuum by Audionautix plays]

Ron: Hello and welcome to Episode Four of Stereo Geeks. I'm Ron.

Mon: And I’m Mon.

Aside from our day jobs as marketers, and night jobs writing the occasional feature or story about pop culture, what have we been busy with?

So I've been catching up with my usual comic book titles. I follow Batman, Red Hood: Outlaw and Nightwing. I haven't really kept up with any other titles per se. I read comics in small doses; they get frustrating after a while or predictable. And I would say that that's also the case with just these three titles.

With Batman, we just had a huge change in his arc. There was the ‘Joker War’, which has brought about a huge change in his circumstances. Batman now no longer has access to his immense wealth. And he has to hide from the Wayne Manor; the Batcave. Let's just say that he's downsizing. So let's see how he goes.

He's living in a world that's post-Joker. But is the Joker gone? It’s a huge question. Have you been reading any Batman titles?

Ron: I've been catching up with the Batman title. And I think the last one that I read was #102. Last I saw, the Joker War was over and Batman was in dire straits financially.

I'm actually enjoying this direction for the character. I haven't really taken to Batman's characterization in the Rebirth comics. I thought he was staid. He was boring. He was very one-dimensional. We discussed a lot of this in our opening episode about Batman's worst enemy. Please check that out when you have time.

I like where this is going. I think it's changing the way we see Batman.

Mon: Well, I hope there's more character development because the action is definitely boring.

And the other title on my pull list is Nightwing. Nightwing is back to being Dick Grayson. Yes, after 20 issues of being Ric Grayson, he now has his memory back and his family back and he’s snatched the Nightwing mantle away from Detective Alphonse Sapienza. He's abandoned the rest of the Nightwings.

Honestly that was wrapped up in one page, which is a bit disappointing. I really like those characters. I'm glad Dick Grayson is back to being himself because as much as the Ric storyline had potential, they never really went anywhere with it. I'm happy that Bea is sticking around because she seems to be a good influence on him. Nice down to earth character. Will she be more than a love interest? Probably not.

But I am really looking forward to reading these stories again. What are your thoughts on Dick being back?

Ron: Definitely, definitely relieved at the return of Dick Grayson. The Ric Grayson idea worked for maybe two issues. And after that it fell off the wagon. I liked the other Nightwings. I liked how Ric worked with them. I'm really disappointed that they've been discarded so quickly. And I'm really hoping that they actually do come back some way and work with Nightwing, because those are really good characters. We got a lot of backstory from them. And they were working to save the city of Blüdhaven. So I don't feel like they should be left behind like this.

Aside from that, I do really like Bea. There were a few too many moments in the last few issues where they tried to pit Bea against Barbara. I mean, really? Really, in 2020?

What I would really like to see now is how does Bea fit into the Bat-family. She knows everything about Dick Grayson. I want to see her interact with the rest of the family.

Mon: And the last comic book title on my list is Red Hood: Outlaw. I'm actually speechless when it comes to Red Hood. Ron here is the one who introduced me to Jason Todd/ Red Hood. I knew about the character; read about the character. I wasn't interested in reading him that much. But then, you know, somebody here is a fan. But the last few issues have been awful. This final volume before the changing of the guard have been honestly atrocious.

I have wanted to hit Jason in the face… tear up my comic book. Because the art is awful. The characterizations are awful. I'm just not going to go into what happened. It's definitely gone off the deep end. I'm really hoping he gets back to being a readable, relatable character. From issue #51 there's a new team taking it over, so here's hoping.

Ron: I have to agree about Red Hood. I love this character. I have no idea why? Because his solo runs, his team books, they're not good. There are moments of characterization that made me want to read more about Jason and his problems. But overall, his story is so repetitive and so bland.

This last arc has been unmemorable. I don't know what they're doing with it. I don't know where they're going with it. And Jason has not changed in any way.

Mon: I feel like with Jason, he's always stuck in place. And I'm hoping that the new creative team can actually flesh him out more.

Ron: Yeah, it's about time.

So, moving on to what I've been busy with. I have been listening to the 12 Monkeys podcast called, Word of the Witnesses. It's a podcast hosted by two ladies; huge fans of the show. And their very many friends who have all been brought in to the wonderful world of 12 Monkeys. Now, we are talking about the TV show created by Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett. We are not talking about the movie.

However, the show was based on the film. The first season follows the storyline of the film fairly closely. But from the second season onwards, it moves away from that. And it grows.

Mon, you and I started watching the show when it first came out in 2015. We were hooked. We love time travel, so this was definitely up our alley. But the second season was amazing. And then there was a huge break because our lives completely changed. So, we couldn't get to seasons three and four till this year. I managed to watch those two seasons just before the pandemic hit. And then once the pandemic did happen, it was a bit difficult to watch a show about a pandemic. But I’ve been trying to get back into the show again, and I just re-watched the whole thing.

And I still wanted more of the show, so I found this podcast. It's been really enjoyable listening to it. I went through all 53 episodes within a month; no regrets.

I really enjoyed how the hosts went into the mythos of the show. They made so many connections between the various time travel concepts in the show. They found all these Easter eggs that I probably would have missed had I not been re-watching it. And they made connections that I really hadn't even seen before.

But what I also enjoyed was all the theorizing about what certain elements in the show meant. They managed to bring on Terry Matalas and a couple of the writers on the show for interviews. And at one point they did mention that the hosts had found connections that even they hadn't thought of.

It was an enjoyable podcast listen to; it was very engaging. I found that, during the pandemic, I really need to hear conversations. So, for me listening to a podcast where it's a whole bunch of people just talking to each other has been really, really calming. And it's a show that I love, and a bunch of people talking about it with as much love for it as I have, so I've really enjoyed listening to it.

Mon: Well, I haven't heard the podcast myself, but we re-watched the final season of 12 Monkeys together and I felt that you were able to make a lot more connections, A) because you re-watched the entire show just prior to me watching the final season. But also because you'd been listening to the Word of the Witnesses, who gave you all the tidbits and Easter Eggs which would then enhance our watching experience.

I really like how nowadays fans can create content about properties that they really, really love. And it really augments the viewers’ experience.

Ron: Yes, the way that they the way that they spoke about the show. And there were times when during the episodes, they would actually get super emotional because they were so invested in the characters and invested in their journeys. And you could see how much thought had gone into making every part of this show meaningful. And then when they brought on the creators who were also talking about it, you could feel that palpable sense of love for this product, which was often very difficult to create because of budgetary issues. You could just feel it, and it makes you love this show even more.

Mon: Yes, 12 Monkeys was definitely a show that went under the radar for a lot of people. So I'm glad that there's a podcast which is getting the word out there.

So as we talk about things we’ve been listening to, one of our favorite things is audiobooks. And I recently got my hands on a slightly weird one, for me anyway. This is an audiobook of One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London. I heard about this book on NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour. It's another podcast. So I finally requested it from our library.

The story is about plus-size fashion blogger, Bea, and she joins this show which is the equivalent of The Bachelorette, it's called Main Squeeze. She's basically the main squeeze and there are all these 20-odd gentlemen are vying for her affections.

Now, because she's a plus-size person, especially a plus-size woman, she faces situations and comments which the regular Main Squeeze participants won't have faced. And I found that very interesting. We are not used to seeing that many plus-size characters, especially plus-size women, leading romantic or genre properties. And while romance novels and romance stories are really not something that I enjoy, I found that some of the themes—the fatphobic themes—that she faces, they were very relevant and echoed reality. It's actually a tough book to sometimes get through. It's not always happy.

I mean, it's a romance novel, so we can assume that there is going to be a happy ending, we don't know. Because it doesn't seem like it for the longest time. And I'm still in two minds about the ending. Some people may like it, some people may have wanted something different for her. But yeah, give it a shot. If you are looking for something with a different kind of character as a protagonist.

Ron: I’m intrigued. What made you want to read this book? Because a romance story is not up your alley, even if it does have a plus-size character as the lead.

Mon: I think I was just looking for something which may echo a reality which doesn't get represented enough in pop culture. And especially when it comes to plus-size characters, they're usually, you know, sidekicks or completely invisible. So, I really want to see how they approached this topic. I wouldn't say they got everything right. But, the best thing about NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour is that when they recommend something in their ‘What’s Making Me Happy This Week’ section, you are taken in by the enthusiasm of the person pitching this particular product. So that's why I thought, ‘okay, let me give this a shot’. I do think that this is a refreshingly new approach. And it touched on the fact that reality TV at the end of the day is still curated reality. And it's something that you and I have talked about.

Ron: Speaking of audiobooks, I have just been listening to Queen’s Peril by EK Johnston. This is a follow up to Johnston's first book about Padmé Naberrie—aka Queen Amidala, later on, Senator Amidala—Queen’s Shadow.

I love this book so much. I enjoyed Queen’s Shadow a lot. Spending time with Padmé is always amazing. As much as we love the prequels, and yes, we do love the prequels—fight us—Padmé didn’t really get a great ending. So, any stories that give us more of Padmé’s political life, we are definitely up for it.

This book follows Padmé in her early days of becoming Queen of Naboo. She's very young. She's got all these new ideas of how she wants to run the world. And we also get to know a lot about her handmaidens. What I love is that there is some queer content which always makes me happy. I did not expect that, especially in a Star Wars book. But it was so good.

Padmé is a girl. She's a teenager. She's also a queen. She is so smart. She is so witty, she is just amazing. And what I also love about this book is that it ties into The Phantom Menace. But it gives us a whole new perspective. Because you know what's happening and you've got that context, so that enriches the entire experience. I just loved every single moment of this book.

Mon: Yeah, I remember haranguing you to get this book because I loved it so, so much. With Queen’s Shadow, I felt like the author EK Johnston was perhaps a little bit more restrained; it was her first foray into the huge Star Wars universe. I can imagine that there were quite a few studio hands involved. But here in Queen’s Peril, my goodness, it's fluid writing. She knows these characters and she really wants to build up the world that they live in. Every character that we meet has their own arc, they’re fleshed out; you understand their motivations. It's just brilliant to read. And reading about how Padmé and Captain Panaka create her band of bodyguards was so much fun. Each one has their own talents, their abilities, they know their weaknesses, but more than anything, the emphasis put on the sacrifice that they make, I really loved reading about that.

Because these side characters, you know, you can’t just forget about them. ‘Ah, she died because she was a decoy for Queen Amidala’. No, it means a lot to Amidala who these people are. I had so much fun being back in this world from this perspective.

And what I also found funny is that they're still a gaggle of teen girls. They're going to get up to stuff; they're going to be naughty. There’s so much personality given to Padmé and the rest. I really hope that EK Johnston is able to write some more. Let's get back in there with Padmé and the girls.

Ron: Absolutely. She so brilliantly captures this connection that Padmé has with her handmaidens. And you know what I really loved about this, which is also one of the reasons why I loved Queen’s Shadow—I love the politics.

I know a lot of people found the politics in the prequels very difficult to understand. It wasn't very difficult. You just need to have a brain.

Mon: I will never understand people's argument against the politics in the prequels. He was literally echoing what was happening in the news.

Ron: Exactly. So I loved Queen’s Shadow because of that. We get so much insight into how the Senate works, why there’s so much infighting and why certain things just don't get done. And we get to see more of that here. We also get a few hints about how Palpatine gets to rise. And you understand how Padmé has to think on her feet. Because there are so many things that are out of her control, but she needs to keep the peace. So yes, this was such an enjoyable read. I cannot wait for the third part of this trilogy.

Mon: And now on to one of my guilty pleasures. I absolutely and utterly love watching baking shows, cake shows. Anything to do with food, and usually desserts. So, on the Food Network channels, every season, they pretty much have a whole host of themed cooking shows. Since it's the winter and there's so many holidays coming up, we have the Holiday Baking Championship and we have Holiday Wars, which are both different kinds of baking shows.

This year, the formats have changed quite a bit from the previous ones, especially for Holiday Wars. I find it a little less compelling. I feel like it's a little all over the place. I don't know why.

Holiday Baking Championship have a giant table where everybody has to sit at an awkward angle to talk to the contestant. I just keep watching them with their sprained necks and worry about that instead of enjoying the food. But I did notice that the cast of participants looks a lot more diverse than usual. So that's been a long time coming and I hope it is a mainstay.

Aside from that I've caught one episode of Buddy vs. Christmas. Buddy is the Cake Boss in America. And he used to have this competition with fellow cake competitor Duff. But this year, it seems like he is competing on a weekly basis against different cake makers.

The format seems to be that every week they have a theme related to Christmas and they make competing giant displays. I mean, the displays are huge and works of art; works of architectural brilliance and technological brilliance. I do hope that they eat it, but I doubt it. But I have enjoyed seeing what comes out of it.

And ,I hear that we’re in for a new season of Sugar Rush on Netflix, which is so much fun. We really enjoyed the previous season and it seems like they've been trying to get more celebrity guests so let's see who they have this year.

Ron: Yes, nothing like sitting back on a weekend and just watching a baking show. And then we feel like we’re experts on why somebody’s got soggy cake and why somebody else's cake collapsed. Yeah, that's definitely fun.

Speaking of watching things, I have just marathon-watched Julie and the Phantoms. Okay, I thought I was gonna watch a movie. And I decided on Julie and the Phantoms because I've been hearing so much about it. But it turns out that this is actually a TV show. And in 10 episodes the first season wrapped. I really enjoyed this show. It was so much fun.

Mon: Okay, you have to tell me what this show is about. I’ve not heard of it.

Ron: Julie and the Phantoms is about this young girl Julie, played by Madison Reyes, in her very first role. Wow. And she's lost her mother. It's been a year and she's still struggling. One of the things that brought her and her mother together was their love of music. She used to play the piano and she used to sing and now she can't do that because it just reminds her of her mom. So at a crucial moment when she is losing her spot in her music class, three ghosts turn up.

Mon: What?

Ron: These three ghosts died in 1995. And they used to be a band. It actually opens with them. So I'm looking at the screen, looking at 1995 and thinking, ‘oh, that's five years ago’. No, no, it was 25 years ago! It was 25 years ago… Feel old yet?

So, 25 years later, these three members of this band land up in Julie's mother's studio. And they rekindle her love for music and bring her closer to her mom's memory.

At the same time, the three ghosts need to figure out what their unfinished business is because why else are they here? There's a lot of music, there's a lot of singing, there's a lot of dancing; there are so many sweet moments. There are some really, really heartbreaking moments as well. Because the three boys, they died when they were 17. So they've left family behind. And they need to come to terms with that as well.

Of course, Julie and her loss is palpable in every moment that she plays a song. But for the most part, it's quite light, it's quite jovial. There are some laugh out loud moments that I really enjoyed. It's a really, really sweet TV show.

And I really am hoping that there's going to be a second season, because it ends on a cliff-hanger. There's plenty of room for them to grow.

I also love the fact that there are some queer characters in this show. It's not overstated, it's there, it's quite obvious. But it's really sweet. Because two of the band members, they realize that their fellow band member has fallen for a ghost. And they're just like, ‘oh, you have a crush on this ghost friend, that's why you're late for practice’. That's it, even though they're from 1995. So, I was like, oh, that's a relief. So yeah, it was really sweet.

One of the things that I found quite interesting, which I have been noticing in content for young people, is that, when we were growing up, content that was made for us which featured straight couples, generally the boy would not dance. It was this weird thing that would always bother me. You'd have the girl who was always, you know, happily dancing. But the boys? Oh, no, no, they don't do that. But you don't see that now that much. Especially not in this show. Everybody was dancing quite happily. Gay, straight, whatever. So that was really fun!

I love that Julie is a young girl of color, which is still a rarity in pop culture nowadays. Madison Reyes is a really good singer. She has an amazing voice. She dances very well. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this child.

Mon: Well, you’ve always been a fan of musicals. I'm so happy that they keep making these good ones nowadays.

Ron: It was so much fun. And the second season could possibly expand on the mythos that you've already learned in this season. But it was great. It was light. We need something light right now. And that's exactly what we needed.

Mon: Okay, so now on to our weekly favorites. I've been recapping Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 at Show Snob. This has got to be my favorite season, so far. It is so exciting; so fun. It starts off with Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, she lands in the future and she's all alone. The rest of the crew haven't arrived. When she's reunited with her crew, how does everyone deal with being in the new future? What does the future look like? What's their new mission? Is there a mission? It's been incredible.

I think the creators feel like they’ve finally been able to shed the constraints of being a prequel to the original Star Trek show. Now they can just do whatever they want, create as many different worlds and characters that they want. It's been fun. It's really been exciting. I love the Easter eggs and throwbacks, there are so many of them! We've watched seven episodes so far, which is kind of partway through, and I think they've found their feet.

One thing I'd say about this season is that it's been a little bit more chaotic. I feel like they have a lot of loose threads which are only now trying to get streamlined. There’s also been a lot of characters introduced, we see them for an episode or a few scenes, then they disappear. So it's a little bit bittersweet. I'm hoping for it to get better and better.

Ron: Yes, the cast of Discovery has increased a great deal in this season. And I do like the additions of Adira, Gray, and Book. They're great. They're fun.

But the crew of Discovery itself, we get to see a bit more of them from time to time, which is also quite nice because we've seen them in the background. Especially the Bridge crew; they're always there, a lot of them are Canadians, so, we’ve got our eye on them. But, now we're actually getting to know a little bit more about their personalities and how they work.

Of course, it's all against the background of them being completely displaced from everything that they know and love. So that does change the dynamic between the characters, and also how they feel about their new existence.

I love Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham, I've loved her since the first episode. She is so great. I feel like I meet a friend every week when I see her. I'm so fascinated by her direction. She's somebody who was introduced to us in the very first episode as a logical Vulcan who believed so strongly in the Starfleet way of life. And then it all changed because she may have been brought up as a Vulcan, but she was still human. And the moment she got an opportunity to make a difference and get revenge, basically, for the death of her parents, she took that chance, and it changed the way the Federation worked.

Every season, she’s been a fish out to water, trying to fit in. By the end of the second season, she found her home with Discovery, and once again she's been displaced from them. She's still looking for another way to connect with these people whom she does love, but there's a rift between them. And it's not her fault and it's not their fault. But it's just the circumstances that Michael always finds herself in. She's just a great compelling character. I think, after B'Elanna Torres, Michael Burnham would probably be my second favorite; she's just amazing.

Mon: One of the bolder moves by the creators in this season has been changing up the Federation. We're not going to go too much into that—no spoilers here. But I have to say that it makes for a compelling story.

We are so used to Star Trek properties really coasting on the idea of utopia. But there's more to it. There's more to the world and I think that, in 2020, when we are faced with the realities of what people are really like. I'm not entirely sure a beatific view of the future is practical. But let's hope that Discovery finds some kind of utopia eventually.

Ron: Yes, because Star Trek has always been about hope, and Discovery has often struggled with that kind of hope. The first season was all about war. The second season was a little bit more hopeful. This season, it's there but they’re struggling to find it.

They're in a position now to actually bring in some kind of hope. We're seeing that from time to time in the episodes that we've seen so far. But, it's a very different kind of Star Trek from previous iterations. I would say that it's quite dark from time to time.

Mon: It's dark but it's not melancholic, and there is an underlying theme of hope and positivity and optimism, which I assume, by the end of the season, will come to fruition.

Ron: Absolutely. And another show that we've been watching on the regs is The Mandalorian Season 2.

The first season had its ups and downs. There were some really good episodes; there were some poor episodes. We found the first episode to be a little bit turgid. The second season has been far more accomplished.

From the first episode of the second season onwards the editing has been much tighter, the storylines have been more engaging. Even for the episodes that were a bit slower in terms of plot there was still enough there to keep you interested in what was happening.

I think one of the things that people will definitely love about this season is how it's connected to the rest of the Star Wars universe, not just the films, but also the animated shows, as well as the books, maybe even the video games, we don't know yet. There has been some speculation but nothing has been nothing has yet been confirmed. So stay tuned on that.

We've been enjoying it. Baby Yoda has had some moments. He does seem to be doing things that aren't always very good. I don't know how I feel about him; he's adorable. He's adorable. But some of the things that he does… his actions are a bit questionable at times, even though he is Baby Yoda.

Mando himself hasn't really seen much growth this season. I felt like in the first season, you know, he started off as a bounty hunter. He found Baby Yoda and then it changed how he felt about his job and his mission. He no longer just wanted Beskar for the heck of it. He had a person to protect, and it changed his way of life.

This season, as fun as it is to watch him and Baby Yoda go from planet to planet, and from more ridiculous circumstances to others. Mando himself really hasn't changed much from the start of this season. So, I feel like the last few episodes will have some work wrapping that up.

Mon: I know that Mando has really stagnated in his characterization, but it's been such an adventure. Each episode has been an adventure on a new planet. And it's shown how Mando and the Child have connected more. It’s expanded the universe of the live-action show, and I’ve enjoyed that much more than if we were forced to watch Mando grow in some contrived or inauthentic fashion.

Honestly, this feels like a Star Wars show mainly because you never know what you’ll spot or who you’ll spot from other properties. So I'm probably in the minority here, but I really don't mind that he's like, ‘I'm on a quest; I’m on a quest, I'm on a quest’. Literally his only refrain for the first three episodes—he's moved on from saying that, at least.

Because as a character, he's so cool. Like, even when you watched Jango Fett and Boba Fett. These helmeted creatures, you don't really care about who they are as people. They just looked so cool. And a lot of the characterization, their arcs, their motivations, they come through despite that, it comes through in their actions. I really liked how they've brought in different aspects of the universe.

I kind of wish they wouldn't tell us in advance. Like, stop promoting and sending us news. Let us be surprised from time to time. And that was what used to be the mainstay of any Star Wars property. I don't know why, ever since Disney's taken over, they just tell us everything. No, we need to be surprised as fans. Ah, anyway. But the show, the cinematography is outstanding. It really feels like Star Wars and some of the direction… it's like, nothing has changed in the best way possible.

Ron: Shut out to Bryce Dallas Howard, and Carl Weathers; their episodes were just so good. So good.

Those were Star Wars episodes. It felt like we'd never left this universe from 1977. It was just such an enjoyable experience. You could see that these directors had grown up with these properties, they love these properties so much that their vision was what a fan would make. It was so much fun.

But for me, Mando’s lack of growth wasn't really bothering me that much until ‘Chapter 13’, where I was like, ‘what's he gonna do after this?’. Like, there needs to be more to this character. I think he's working as an audience stand-in a bit too much this season. Whereas in season one, you couldn't help but question some of his motives and everything that he did you were always on tenterhooks about what his next action was.

I like that he’s firmly a good guy now. But he's dangerously close to becoming a boring, good guy.

Mon: Well, I hope that's not the case and that Mando does get some growth. I'd like to see where his relationship with the Child eventually goes. There's only so much you can do with a little green puppet.

Ron: Baby Yoda is so cute that literally everybody is just gonna watch the show because it's the Baby Yoda show. He's really adorable as I said. But there are some moments where I feel like Mando now needs to start parenting. You can't just have Baby Yoda around, you need to do something about it because there have been moments where you're like, ‘Mando, watch your son!’

I guess that's the kind of growth that I do want to see. And I feel like that may happen in the next few episodes because all this while, he was on a very specific quest, and all the episodes that we’ve seen so far… Him having to planet hop was basically because he needed to finish this quest and there was something always waylaying him.

But, it's been great watching these characters from the Expanded Universe turn up, they fit in beautifully. I have to say a special shout out to Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth. I have no idea why, but this guy was amazing. I have seen Timothy Olyphant in other stuff but, oh my god, he was really good. I really enjoyed watching him.

And all the special guests who've been turning up have been doing a great job.

Despite our enjoyment of the show, there have been some controversies around the actors in the show. So, do be aware of that when you're watching it. It does tend to suck out some of the joy in watching this season because it has been really good. These characters are amazing. But pop culture doesn't exist in a vacuum, and we need to recognize that.

Having said that, as fans of the franchise, The Mandalorian Season 2 is doing the work to not only engage with us, but to entice new fans who may just be watching this show or may have just come in through the sequel trilogy to watch and read more of this Expanded Universe.

I've really enjoyed the episodic nature of this season, probably more than the previous season. One of the difficulties that sequels have is that they want to be bigger and better. This season seems to have gone in the other direction, and it works.

Mon: Yeah, despite introducing more characters. They have limited arcs, relevant arcs, and they drive the plot forward, and that's what's important. At the end of the day it's a great fan experience and what more could we ask for?

Ron: Tell us what you've been watching and share any recommendations that you may have.

Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]

Ron: We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!

Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.

[Continuum by Audionautix plays]

Transcription by Otter.ai and Mon.

#star trek: discovery #the mandalorian #star wars #padme amidala #julie and the phantoms #holiday baking #food network #batman #nightwing #red hood #12 Monkeys

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thejackalsden · 4 years

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Alright - much as I didn’t want to do this, there are some changes coming to the MultiMuse as of today. Those are found UNDER the cut due to length of the post. If you don’t read it and wonder why something’s different, well then there’s no excuse.

The purpose of this post, however, for the part easily visible; I AM ON HIATUS. I’m dealing with...well, a lot. Some of it I don’t even know how to explain without being on a tirade, but just know, I’m on HIATUS until possibly sometime in July. We’ll see. Maybe sooner, maybe the end of this month, I legitimately do not know, I’m afraid.

Onto the less fun bits.

Regarding my muses there are changes hitting almost all of them.

Axel/Lea from Kingdom Hearts

Until @aeternai is ready, he is in an indefinite frozen state. I’m open to discuss writing with him, but it will be very, very few and far between. His mental state to write in, is rough. He will not actively be displayed on the blog, as he is not an actively available muse.

Gladiolus Amicitia from Final Fantasy XV

Another not often used Muse. He will be available as necessary for interactions in threads already happening; I.E. making guest appearances in my other muse’s FFXV verses. He is not available for shipping. I have tried, and he does not conform readily to any ship. There is one hidden on the blog for him, but unless prompted, it will not make an appearance, and instead will be side mentions and vague. Maybe an occasional drabble. All in all, he will make small appearances, nothing major, and is not available for most interactions. Will not actively be displayed on the blog.

Lunafreya Nox Fleuret from Final Fantasy XV

Similar to Gladio, she will make guest appearances where needed. Very rare, must be explicitly asked for before interactions. She is tied heavily to Cloud’s FFXV verse, so there will be side mentions. Will not be actively displayed on the blog.

Loki Laufeyson, a MCU & Mythos Hybrid

Due to the lack of interest for him, but the strength of the muse, he is still available. However; he will not interact with female muses. It is nothing personal as a mun, just how the muse works and has been developed over the years. No readily displayed on the Blog, but feel free to ask for him, he’ll still show up in the rules.

Lúcio Correia dos Santos from Overwatch

MY FROGGY BOI - He is obviously not going anywhere. I adore Lucio, I would love to write more as him, but he does fall under the secondary muse for this blog; due to the fact he is very selective at times. Feel free to ask for him, though!

Gabriel ‘Reaper’ Reyes from Overwatch

I thought I could maintain him on this blog, but due to the mental space that muse puts me in, both Gabriel & Reaper, I will be removing him from the blog. The old content from him will remain in place, but please don’t expect anything new for him, nor will he be accessible through Asks. Anything from here on regarding him, will be deleted, I’m just cannot write him.

Subject Delta from Bioshock

Due to there being no interest, he will be removed from the blog, loathe as I am to say that. I adore him as a muse, there just isn’t much I can do with him, I fear. He may make a reappearance in the future.

Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda Franchise

She has not formally been announced or introduced, however she will remain on the blog for use. I need to get her pages up still, but they are coming I assure you. I think she’ll be based more out of Ocarina of Time, or she’s going to be removed from any timeline and have remnants of each of her reincarnations. One of the two, we will see - that way any Zelda game is fair game, providing I do my research...

Angela ‘Mercy’ Ziegler from Overwatch

Has...admittedly mutated. Angie is a MAIN muse on this blog now. She has multiple verses; Overwatch, Apex Legends, FFXIV (Tied heavily with my Cloud’s), and a FFXV verse that ties in heavily with the Crownsguard, my Gladio, & my Luna. Do not hesitate for anything regarding this Muse. She is always awake; though if you’re looking for instant ships, sadly keep looking. Her main ships take priority; found in both @countrywestern‘s McCree, @grimesucker (She loves her trash boy okay?), and @zestirix (Ignis most definitely, I think Ardyn too, still working on that one) - but those ships will take priority. I’m not against shipping (Give this woman love damn it, let her love you) but it takes chemistry and a connection with the muns as well.

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII

Ah, my sassy trash son. Another MAIN muse on this blog. However he is single ship with @griefandpunishment‘s Squall (If you don’t like reading Strifehart, I recommend unfollowing because these two get stupidly mushy sometimes) - the ship has been 5 or so years in the making (if not more, I legitimately don’t know how long it’s been) but all ships aside from this will be either platonic, or enemies at this rate. However, he also has multiple verses; VIII, XIV (Tied heavily with both Angela’s and Squall’s), XV - ties in heavily with my Lunafreya, and more! Feel free to ask for the sassy medic, though I assure you he has no interest, sexually or romantically, in any other muse besides a certain moody gunblader. Sorry.

Neova Lerouxisx, an Original Character

My baby is shifting to a Main muse. I have put too much work into her to have her sit idly. I’m going to try and get some interactions going on her, so we’ll see. There isn’t a universe she can’t fit in to - and she readily has verses for most Final Fantasy’s, Apex, Overwatch, LoZ (Tentatively) and more! Just ask, please!

Now to end with some FAQs regarding my decision, to nip in the ass any questions that may crop up. Some of them deal with questions I’ve dealt with from when I had anon on, others I’ve had asked to my face SO moving on.

Anubis, why are you doing this?

My blog, admittedly, is a mess. I have all this muse for certain ones - even more than what’s upon this blog - but I have found myself craving something....more. One offs are fine, but I thoroughly enjoy my threads that have heft and length - as if you couldn’t tell. That is easiest to achieve, and maintain, with 3 core muses I have chosen. I never have an issue with any of those three, and it’s easier for everyone involved. Plus it makes it so no one is waiting months for a reply from one of my lesser used or the ones I struggle to maintain, like Reaper.

Why are you removing -insert muse-?!

Short answer? My blog, my sanity, I do what I want. Long answer? Please see above and reread as many times as needed for it to stick, thank you.

I have caught grief since I started this blog; I know some adore the muses here, and some don’t. I cannot, realistically, keep putting myself in dangerous headspaces to write. Not with what I’m dealing with IRL. I have since stopped trying to appease the masses, and am shifting this wholly to my entertainment.

Lawl, it’s just writing, who cares?

As a writer who takes pride in what they do, and how they write, and to whom characterization means everything; how dare, first off. If you are a writer who doesn’t care, you are not a writer worth my time anyways. Elitist? Perhaps.

Or perhaps I know what I’m willing to put up with, and what I expect out of my writing partners - especially knowing what I put in for their replies. It’s the least I could ask for, this understanding.

Why is Cloud single ship?

Why does Cloud do anything Cloud does, let’s be real. He has a genuine connection with that Squall. They have been together for years and apparently gravitated back together. I get along amazingly with that mun, I can ping ideas off them any given day - and they understand my molasses speed some days ^^’ It’s why I’m beyond comfortable wrapping Cloud in a bow and handing him to her.

Plus, Cloud licked Squall so, y’know, it’s his.

#Out of the Den #About Anubis #{ This is kind of important won't lie #Some muses leaving #some shifting to single ship #some shifting on priority #It's a mess I tell you #But for my sanity it's gonna happen }

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kryptsune · 5 years

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🌼Good morning everyone and a happy Tuesday to you all! I had a lot of people ask me about my Outertale on Discord. That beat out pretty much all the other options on the poll so here we go! This is one of the larger ones because I had a lot of fun putting some of my favorite sci-fi concepts into this. I am a huge SG1 fan so you can definitely see that reflected. I admittedly am the fantasy genre girl so any ideas are welcome! I just liked the idea that the monsters in this were more than just typical monsters. DO NOT REPOST MY WORK WITHOUT MY PERMISSION IT IS NOT FOR YOUR USE. IF YOU LIKE MY WORK PLEASE REBLOG INSTEAD! It helps me so much! It makes such a difference.💙If you want more of these just let me know! It’s the only way I can gauge interest! Outertale Alternate “Nicknames” Info: Sans: Nova- Nova is the trickster though he is mostly associated with that of Loki. Loki is described specifically as “Playful, malicious ( ok maybe not that one), helpful, and nihilistic.” He helps others in a kind of goofy over the top way. He just doesn’t take much seriously. Nova is one of the youngest. He acts very childish at times coming to question how long he has been among the pantheon. Some argue his many centuries gave him a nihilistic outlook on life or that he is too young to understand the true ways of the world. Not to say that Nova can’t be serious but he is pretty laid back. It’s one of the reasons unlike the others he doesn’t really keep his cultural ties in his design. He should have more Norse in it but nah… varsity jackets are cozy right? I mean he is wearing star shorts for star’s sake. When asked about his job he mentions, “Hey, there kiddo. Nice of ya to drop by. Been up to? Heh well got a “new” job which is pretty cool. Not as cool as Pollux but I help arrange stars. Ya know, like the ones you see in the sky you can make pictures out of? I think you humans call em… constellations. One time I made this giant whoopee cushion one. Then I lost ma job. Got a second chance though. Andromeda’s constantly watchin me. hehe no harm done though.” Both Pollux and Nova refer to each other as brothers but it is unclear if they are biologically related. Their abilities and strengths are nearly opposite and their mythos even more so. Papyrus: Pollux- The presumed older brother of Nova. Pollux is associated with Egyptology specifically wisdom. Pollux tends to be the opposite of Nova in that he takes his job very seriously. Once on earth, he was known as Thoth gracing humanity with a mechanical and architectural knowledge that astounded the world. His mind and intellect put him at the forefront of innovation making him one of Capricorn’s best and most trusted advisors. He enjoys testing the mental prowess of others using puzzles and riddles of his own design. Unlike canon Pap, Pollux cares more about balance in life. Something his younger brother seems to lack. Not all work and not all play. He is kind, helpful, and willing to give advice to anyone that is looking for it. To the little human Frisk, he is a good mentor and teacher. (Pollux has made it his pastime to create a series of challenges to prove a humans worth. If they pass then they are able to speak/ see them. No one has managed to prove themselves.) Undyne: Andromeda- Andromeda is not different from canon Undyne as she embodies the Mayan mythology. She is most closely associated with the feathered serpent Quetzalcóatl. A deity of wind and rain. Also known as life-giver. Though Andromeda tends to harken back to her more aggressive roots she has a deep respect for the King and acts as his guard. Just like Pollux she too acts as an advisor, though more on matters of security than strategy or mechanics. Such a position is where she first met Elara and to this day the two are inseparable sharing their very different cultures. Her favorite kind of anime to watch are mech-based. Alphys: Elara- Very similar to canon Alphys just as this version of Undyne is. Alphys is based on Sukuna-Biko-Na (少名毘古那) or the Shinto god of medicine and rain. Elara is still very much a scientist and one that has a unique fascination with living things. Everything from the planets, to humans, animals, and plant life. She particularly enjoys spending time in her private greenhouse creating and taking care of all of the plant life. Before the monsters were forced to leave their place among the humans she was able to collect all the DNA of the plants and animals on the planet. They are stored in a kind of ark in which to preserve them if anything threatens their existence. Elara is very traditional in her work as her medicines are derived from her magic as well as herbal substances. She is very curious however as she is not allowed to interact with the progress of humanity but rather watches from afar. This is where her love of anime takes hold. Her favorites are ones like Sailor Moon or any type of magical girl anime. She will sit with Andromeda and watch them for hours. Her demeanor is very shy at first but once she opens up she will be a friend for life. Asgore: Capricorn- The head of the cosmic pantheon he is the King as he is in the original. He is associated with Celtic mythos though he has taken on many pantheon roles in his lifetime. Ambisagrus, a god of thunder and lightning, Ancestor God, Sky God, God of Wind, Rain & Hail is what he is based on. One such role is that of Zeus whose main symbol is that of lightning and thunder. Just like the Zeus of mythology Capricorn is constantly debating his involvement with humanity. Whether that be to stop their technological advances or aiding in their lives. A large portion of his time was spent with his subjects not so much his wife Aurora who is the jealous type. Capricorn is not a ruthless leader but he does know that sometimes hard decisions must be made. Just like UT Asgore, he is kind and benevolent, however, he has a temper if you make him angry enough. His magical abilities lean more toward lighting then fire but he has that ability as well. He tasked Elara to watch over human development should a problem arise. Toriel: Aurora- The Queen to Capricorn she is known to be easily jealous. It would explain why Zeus wife Hera also shares these traits. Her Gaelic deity tie is that of Arianrhod a goddess of the moon and stars. She creates life from the stars she creates sometimes causing them to take a form of their own. They are almost like living constellations. Some say that the Queen made such life to combat her own loneliness which her Son and Husband spent time away. In addition to the stars, she is also known for being a loving mother and caregiver. In her time on earth, she used to watch over and protect children and their families. Aurora though previously jealous of her simple in the universe has come to accept and embrace it. She is kind but rather overprotective. Anyone that forsakes life will feel her wrath. Muffet: Umbra- Umbra is associated with Hindu mythology as a goddess of wealth and prosperity. Though earthly riches do not concern Umbra she still has a taste for the fine silks and gold that she once had on earth. A little about the goddess that she represents: Lakshmi’s name comes from the Sanskrit word laksya, meaning an aim or goal. She is the goddess of wealth and prosperity, both material and spiritual. Unlike UT Muffet, Umbra also focuses on spiritual wealth. Peace of mind. She is ever the optimist even when things do not turn out to go her way. In times of need, she is called those in the struggles of self-worth trying to bring them into a different understanding. There have been many a time when Umbra calms Capricorns quick and rash judgments, much to Aurora’s displeasure. Just as with the rest of the pantheon she is kind and helpful even with her yearning to return to the people she so loved before they were forced to the outskirts of the galaxy. Grillby: Helio- Helio derived from the sun is my OT Grillby. He out of all the characters could care less about either being a deity or an observer. He is known to be at a middle ground. He would rather live his days running a social establishment but during his time on earth, he was known for his magic. Originally he was the right hand of Capricorn being depicted as a war deity for his fiery nature. He was the general of grand armies. His armor is something he hung up long ago but if called into court he will wear it once again. Its design is very reminiscent of Roman centurions. Though depictions of him are curious since his name back then was referred to as Merlin. He was best known for his magic and alchemy and the concoctions he made during a period of time far lacking in imagination. Just like Nova, Helio tended to interfere far too often in the affairs of man though noble in purpose. He tends to be outcast among the pantheon for his past conduct but he is content in his lab mixing crazy concoctions. Everything from love potions to disguises. His forte is all about alchemy and magic. Asriel: Azicree (Azi)- Azicree or Azi for short is the Crown Prince. By monster standards Azi is still very young, however, he has lived for far longer than any human can fathom. His mother used to shelter him until he begged for his father to let him prove himself. He still acts like a child always curious and desiring some form of exploration. Much to Capricorns dismay Azi enjoys spending time with Nova and the two become pranksters in general. He tends to not do as he is told, which is why they are in this mess in the first place. His reckless behavior had him appearing to a human that begged for his salvation. The matters of life and death are ones that are not to be messed with. Those that do find their souls being tainted for all eternity turning them into something other than just a monster. 9X is an example of such tampering. Azi does learn his lesson and begins to try and shape up to be a worthy successor to his father if such a thing ever did come to pass. He studies off of all those he knows especially Pollux who is more than happy to share such knowledge. His associations are nonexistent since he was born after the times of gods. His abilities seem to be mimic based. He is able to learn about abilities and use them at will. It is rare that monsters have children and as such Azi is the little prodigy child even though there are many times he just wants to be a kid. He makes friends with Frisk very quickly and learns a lot from the human visitor. Gaster: 9X (I can’t even)- 9x (can be pronounced NYX or Nine-X) is the Gaster of this universe. He is Capricorns pantheon counterpart. In essence the Hades to his Zeus. He is the monster that everyone thinks about when darkness takes hold. He is the one that associates with apocalyptic events such as Ragnarok. He is however not evil by any stretch of the imagination. He would be better suited to be called a god of chaos. He tends to reject the laws placed upon the rest of the pantheon regardless of repercussions. It’s speculated that both Pollux and Nova were a part of him and crafted into the monsters that are known today. Nova being his more devious side which Pollux is more his intellect and drive. He has been locked away for a very long time in a prison aptly named Tartarus. His abilities are space and time-oriented very similar to Nova which makes him difficult to imprison. He, of course, has been in his cell for quite some time and it is unclear if he actually has had a change of heart or using it as a manipulation tactic. The only one he speaks with on occasion is Azi wanting to learn more about this planet they all used to call home. It is information that the others tend to not speak of. His father more so as he is afraid it will instill a yearning in his son. 9X’s genius is on par with his godly abilities such as creating artificial intelligence. Something that is not considered life. He uses Azi as a template for this new program… FLOWEY- F- Friendly L- Life-like O- Operating system W- With E- Earthbound Y- Yearning F.L.O.W.E.Y was created by 9x and Nova with Azi as a template. He is a charismatic AI who was originally created as a helper as well as to teach the Prince about their planet of origin. Unfortunately, Flowey does not have the same reservations about disobeying his father as Azi does. Even going so far as to integrate with key and vital systems in The Capital. Flowey is not evil he just is driven to be the best help he can without regards to any type of consequences. He also feels abandoned by Nova as he was not only his creator but also his closest friend. It was why he was made. To be a companion and friend. He helps Frisk meet and learns more about their existence. He acts like a companion. However, when Frisk becomes friends with Azi Flowey’s AI goes haywire. He begins to feel emotions he is not technically allowed to such as jealousy. This causes him to try and eliminate those threatening him which in this case would be all the monsters. Eventually, Azi attempts to program himself into the interface changing its initial programming. Some of Flowey’s previous versions: Blookie: Nebula Riverperson: Omni Gerson: Quasar The Ursas: Ursa Major/Minor Greater Dog/ Lesser Dog: Canis Major/Minor Character Origin/Mythos: Sans- Norse (Trickster) Papyrus- Egyptian Undyne- Mayan Alphys- Japanese (shinto) Asgore- Celtic Toriel- Celtic Muffet- Hindu Grillby- Medieval (Merlin) Asriel- Celtic through lineage Gaster- Greek/Roman Blookie- Western Guard dogs- Constellations (Native American) Riverperson- Greek (Charon) Gerson- Chinese (Divination/ wisdom) Background and Context: A long time ago there lived beings of great power. They could bend space and time with a simple thought and bring life to their creations. These were the gods. Ones of great benevolence but also great and terrifying power. Humanity, a primitive race just starting to understand life itself, became their focus. At first, their interaction was very rare only occasionally appearing to help but as time went on those interactions became more drastic. Their assistance and knowledge were seen as godlike to these humans. They would bring gifts and offerings to their new deities in hopes that they would look favorably upon them. That they would impart their wisdom and magic if they were pleased. In time this became more and more of a tradition. A religion built upon pleasing these deities so that their lives would be far improved but this became a conundrum for the beings. Some remained benevolent and helpful while others become greedy and wrathful. The power began to go to their minds corrupting their souls. These instances were written down in variation by the humans making up grandiose stories of fiery chariots and jealous gods. Thus mythology came into being for humanity. A way to explain the things in which they did not understand. As with each religion and deity, the monsters each became associated with a specific culture or mythos. Some being pinnacles of their pantheon and others being lesser deities molded to suit a specific task. These monsters rarely interacted with ones of their own kind but as power shifted some of them took on roles of others. One monster could have been the god of war in Greek mythos but end up also as the god of thunder in Norse. There were no limitations to their influence. One such “deity” was that of the trickster. A monster that tended to be rather childish in his ambitions jumping from pantheon to pantheon looking to lighten up his other “deities” stern demeanors. The monsters began to pull away leaving their presences in name only and occasional help but this was short-lived. It caused problems, war, destruction, and feuding powers sadly began to use their civilizations as almost pawns. Their meddling almost destroyed that which they wanted to originally protect. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The “gods” faded from existence only being remembered in myths and legends. The great prophecy of the Norse. The architectural marvels of the Egyptians. Now they reside in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. They spread out among the stars but a group of them resided in a Capital of sorts. A station at the edge of the Universe. One which no human could ever reach. The Humans Impressions: When the monsters left the humans to their own devices they worship continued long after. Eventually the magic and the miracles that had once been performed faded into history. The monsters were all but forgotten unless mentioned in mythology or scary stories. The humans never harbored any animosity toward them since they no longer believed in their existence in any form. They only understand what their ancestors depicted them as. The monsters as well don’t really have anything against humans either. All in all, they just go about their jobs and enjoy the universe, helping from time to time discreetly if need be but never showing their faces. Main Plot Synop: The plot to Outertale is very simple as it is more based around the world than it is the actual plot. It is very similar to that of the regular UT timeline with some notable differences. Once the humans reach an age of technological advancement they begin to spread out and search the stars. Some of them encounter monsters which they mistake for aliens (hilarious enough. I mean Jerry looks like an alien.) They begin to build colonies living more and more outside the reach of their own galaxy. Humans, however, tend to turn on their own creating factions within the space colonies. Some more prosperous than others. Frisk’s colony was one such beast being cut off from the other colonies as a drifter. Unfortunately, Frisk’s family was nearly non-existent and being stuck on a space colony was little to be desired. After seeing a streak of fire slamming into the outskirts of the colony. Frisk decides to investigate. They have always been the curious type disobeying orders and questioning everything. The colonies outer and more dangerous regions became their playground finding old pieces of technology. Eventually, they stumble upon a crashed ship. One that It seems too damaged to be used but it’s nothing like they have ever seen before. Everyone else on the colony considers it to be cursed. The strange runic language is confusing but Frisk finds that there is one lone computer onboard that seems to still function. It flickers with a bright yellow light showing an almost pixelated Flower with a =) face on the screen. Over the next few days, Frisk returns to decipher the runes with the help of their new friend which they find out is called Flowey. It is a project that the curious human enjoys and for once it is nice to have a friend. Eventually, the runes are deciphered claiming some sort of teleportation capability. Once Frisk is close enough the system fires up on its own sending the human straight to the monster Capital on the farthest reaches of the universe. A place that no human has ever been. The rest of the story is an exploration of this new environment. Frisk befriends the monsters who don’t attack first. They actually mostly want to engage with the human showing off their ability a little bit. A part of them misses the previous worship. Nova seems to take a particular interest in this new human especially when they befriend Azi. They work to help shut Flowey down only for Azi to impart his knowledge on the interface helping it understand. Frisk has nothing to return to so they stay with the monster and become Azi’s human tutor so that one day maybe the monsters can return and live side by side the humans once again. Both Azi and Frisk are almost like siblings coined the star children.

#sans #undertale #outertale #friskys multiverse #Nova #outertale sans #outertale cast #undertale universe #undertale au #Sans variation #space #space aesthetic #galaxies #concepts #friskys outertale #my art #lore building #world building #I do love outertale so I had to make my own version!

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lizzytheauthor · 4 years

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I started writing a short story to try and warm up for my book. Idk, I read somewhere that it’s important for creative people to warm up. So here’s a little mini story I’ll be updating as I write my book.

“Introducing, Loriana of the Flames! Who hails from….uh….redacted? A crowd favorite, and has a whopping 20 kills. Versus, Chaatuuroona! Who hails from UGC 2885. This terrifying creature has a massive 399 kils under its belt, and is looking for the 400th. Welcome our fighters to the arena the only way you know how!”

I hate that announcer. So pretentious.

“Kate, hey, I got you some, uh.” Cera stares at the thing in her hand, “I think it’s food.”

“Uh. Thanks? I’m not eating that though.” She stares at the thing in her hand, then looks at me and shrugs. Shoving it into her mouth, “You’re just in time for the next fight, if you’re quite done stuffing your face.”

She tries to talk, but it’s utterly incomprehensible due to her not chewing nor swallowing her food. Amazing.

I return my attention to the arena. I guess being a gladiator has its perks, this is a better view than from the stands. A knight walks out, not entirely strange, but still odd. They are wearing a cape that splits halfway down, and they are wielding a sword that is charred black, and looks like its coiled until the tip where the two halves fuse. All in all, kind of underwhelming. The uh, other one is an interesting fighter. It has a bulbous sort of body, with 6 legs, and it comes into a torso that has 2 arms? A long neck followed by the head of what I can only assume a dragon mixed with a pitbull would look like. I feel bad for the knight, the creature stands about four times taller than them.

The audience cheers as the battle begins, Chaat starts by charging the knight. Looks like we’re really showcasing the intelligence of the universes here. Loriana deftly rolls out of the way and jumps up, they slice Chaat in half. That was fast. The crowd gasps, and loriana back steps several times. Chaat forms the two halves into two new creatures. What is this greek mythos crap?

Chaatuuroona lets out a roar, and loriana immediately rolls forward. Not a second too soon, as a lightning bold strikes where they were. They try to close the distance between the chaat on the left, occasionally pausing before doing more acrobatics. Lightning striking each spot they pause at. Maybe this wasn’t such an unfair fight after all.

“Yo!” Cera shouts as food sprays everywhere. Or at least, I hope it’s food. “This knight is rad!”

At least she’s enjoying herself.

Loriana jumps up again, but this time they are two handing the sword. As they slash down, the sword ignites into flames, that’s a fun trick. They are a little shy of the distance they needed though, cause they just hit the ground in front of the creature. The creature on the right is now breathing in, I’m guessing for a breath attack.

“WHOA!” Cera lets out.

I turn back to the other creature and loriana, to see that the creature is immersed in flames, a trail of fire leading back to loriana reveals that they intended to fall short. Interesting fighting style, I can see why they are in that fighting tier. They wave their off hand in some kind of fashion, and as the other creature lets out its breath, energy is released and sent towards loriana. All that hand waving must be magical, cause when the energy dissipates, loriana is standing unscathed. Some more handwaving and 3 bursts of light erupt from their hand, engulfing the remaining creature in flames as well. In a matter of moments, both halves lay on the ground, burnt to a crisp.

The crowd is satisfied with this, as they let out a thunderous applause.

“Congratulations Loriana on your twenty first kill!” the announcer pauses and says quieter, “Or is that twenty second.”

Loriana takes off their helmet, revealing a human-ish face. The only deviation being pale scales on the neck, cheeks, and nose. They have feminine features, and shoulder length dark purple hair. “Yoooooooooooooo!” Cera says again. “I dunno who they are but I’m gay!”

Eloquent as always.

Some members of the crowd throw bouquets out, or other signs of affection. Loriana grabs some blue roses off the ground, and returns to the stadium wall as a cleaning crew comes out to prep the field for the next fight.

At this point, I don’t even know how many days we’ve been here. I don’t even know what a day is here. I guess this is more fun than being stuck in school, learning about junk I don’t care about. Cera is definitely enjoying herself.

“Oh! Kate! Up next is a new person!!” she points at the schedule on the wall. Somehow she has a much better grasp on the written language here than me.

“It’s...That’s just gibberish.” I concede.

“No! Look, here. You see that symbol? That represents…Hey! Are you listening?” she pokes my shoulder.

“Not even slightly”

“Well, anyway, up next is some human named Nere, and he’s up against Uraeseus.” she continues reading as she’s talking.

“Uraeseus, that sounds familiar.”

“It should! Uraeseus is a class E fighter, there’s only like, 10 of those.”

“What class are we again?” honestly, I don’t even remember what the classes are, but I’m guessing we aren’t that.

Cera thinks for a moment, “I don’t reme-OH! We are class C.” she points at the board, “We’re up in 5 fights!”

I assume it has the class of the fighter next to their name on the board, but I’m not going to bother learning how to read when I have a girlfriend to do that for me.

The field is cleared, and the announcer beings again, “Welcome welcome! Let us welcome a new challenger!” the crowd goes absolutely bonkers, they love fresh blood. “His name is Nere but he comes from afar! Timeline 14 is what he calls home. Versus the one, the only, Uraeseus! Needing no introduction, this titan is prepared for anything the human can throw at him!”

More crowd noise. Who even comes to see this? Why are we here?

Nere comes out first. He is some average height dude with brown hair and glasses. His clothes look like they’re from the dark ages. Reminding me somewhat of a monk. He better have some pretty good tricks up his sleeve to fight Uraeseus.

He sits down in the sand, and starts reading his book. Wait, where did he get a book? I swear he wasn’t holding one a second ago. Was it under his robe?

Uraeseus enters the field. A massive 20 feet in height, a cyclops appears. I remember some rumors now, how his skin is made out of the strongest metal in our universe, how his eyeball shoots lasers, how he was discovered alone on a planet with only skeletons for company. Should be a fast fight, I’m interested in learning how Uraeseus fights.

Nere continues sitting on the ground. Not even looking up from his book. Is he even really reading it? It looks like he just jumped half the book.

The announcer starts, “Uh, you can begin when ready?”

Nere looks up, slightly confused, “It’s already over though?”

What. I look over to Urae-

“What happened??” cera says, as I hear the crowd gasp.

Sure enough, Uraeseus lies on the ground, diced up like some honeydew at a boring party. I look back to Nere but he’s already gone. That’s a human? I don’t buy it.

The announcers voice is slightly disturbed, “I, uh. N-nere is the winner!”

Instead of applause, the crowd just lets out confused murmurs. I can’t even think about what happened. I swear I didn’t see him move. How did he kill one of the strongest fighters we have?

A clap on my should rips me back to reality.

“How was that?” a male voice asks.

I turn and see Nere.

“Uh, wha-Huh?” is all I can let out.

“HOLY FUCK.” Cera elegantly shouts, “PLEASE Don’t scare me like that!”

“Apologies…?” Nere makes it seems as if he’s expecting our names.

“Kate, and this is my girlfriend Cera.” I clarify, “You, are from Earth? You’re human?”

“I’m...from An Earth. I’m a type of human, yes.” He thinks very carefully about his words. “We are from the same timeline, and I am mostly normal.”

That sounds fake as shit. “That sounds fake as shit!” Cera says.

He lets out a sigh, “Look, you remember Sydney, right?”

Cera immediately blurts out, “Nope!”

“Sydney Farrow?” I ask.

“The very one,” Nere turns his focus to me, “She told me to come rescue you. So I’m here. I just need to figure out where ‘here’ is. As soon as I figure that out, I can get us back home.”

#my writing #super space gladiators #the weird spacing is cause i copied it from my writing program :/#sorry

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nautiscarader · 4 years

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2019 in animation - very selected summary

So, I dunno if anyone’s noticed, but this year was crazy strong when it comes to animation, both in terms of amount and quality of it. No matter what type you liked - traditional...

...3D...

...cell-shaded...

...hyper-realistic...

- oh, wait, wait, no, my mistake, that’s clearly live-action.

Anyway, no matter what type of animation is your favourite, this year gave you something. and I’m gonna go chronologically, listing those that I have been able to see. Keep in mind, day only has 24 hours, so I couldn’t see every new season or premiere (for example, I had no interest in OK KO, or She-Ra). Some spoilers below. And Gifs. LOTS OF gifs.

In January: we were still riding on the Spiderverse bandwagon from last year,, which culminated with an Oscar in February. And though as I’ve said, the movie would have worked better imho as a, say, Netflix series, as only two of the spider-people were properly fleshed out, I have to admit, it was a well-earned prize.

Then we were hit by the finale of Steven Universe, and while some complained about the another redemption of cosmic regime, it was an incredibly satisfying ending to a great cartoon... so much so that a whole movie and an epilogue series was made.

plus, it had a segment animated by James Baxter, so it’s automatic win..

January also blessed us with a reboot of another old-forgotten property, Carmen Sandiego, with her second season arriving in October. And it proved that reboots do make sense, but only if you actually do something with it. The story was fresh, creative, and yet, similar in its serialised form to capture the imagination of viewers. Also, grappling hooks for the win.

February was the month of dragons. Not only we got the conclusion of How to Train Your Dragon franchise, but Netlfix gave us second season of The Dragon Prince. While I still consider HTTYD 1 as the best movie of the franchise, as it cleverly told the story of a conflict without any obvious villain, HTTYD 3 was a satisfying conclusion, strengthened by the Homecoming special in November.

TDP S2 on the other hand, did everything season 1 did, except better. For once, the studio finally broke their piggy bank and bought a new graphics card, so the choppy 15FPS animation of S1 is gone. The story got darker, more mature, yet whimsical, and it only made us hungry for more. Luckily, S3 was just around the corner.

March gave us season 2 of Craig of the Creek. I have to admit, I missed out on this cartoon in 2018, and it was a humongous mistake. CotC is quite possibly the most wholesome cartoon out there, telling amazing story about a boy, his friends, and his family, glorifying the mundane adventures in the creek to truly epic proportions. The family is especially important part, I do not remember a cartoon where bonds between family members were as well written as here. Definitely a must-watch if you have missed it as well.

On 8th of March, the International Women’s day, DC Superhero Girls 2019, aka My Little Pony But Humans And With Superpowers, started, and it was a blast. Creator. Lauren Faust, has once again proven that whatever she touches turns into gold. The shorts were funny, clever, and changed just enough of the DC universe to feel familiar, yet show us new, interesting scenarios.

In April, Missing Link had its premiere, showing that traditional, stop motion animation not only has place in modern times, but it can deliver spectacular scenes, though of course, we expected nothing less of studio Laika.

In May, one of Disney’s long-running series, Star vs The Forces of Evil had its finale, and that brings us to the first screech of the list. Many people complained about the direction the show has taken, some claiming it has gone off-track in S3, some saying it was S4 that dropped the quality. Some, like me, saw nothing wrong with it, but the finale let people dissatisfied. If anything, it was too short, and definitely could use an epilogue movie that would tie some of the remaining plot threads in something bigger than one single pan-shot.

Rest in piece, laser puppies

Wait, they’re alive? Well, then... rest in piece, Hekapoo and her puppies.

This month also presented a first contender for this Summer’s line-up, Twelve Forever. The cartoon took us into wild, bizarre land of imagination, and offered quite a few very mature lessons about growing up and acknowledging one’s responsibilities. It also provided much needed representation, both in terms of colour and sexuality.

Sadly, amidst scandals with its creator, the show was canned, though it’s also Netflix’s fault for not marketing it enough.

A-and maybe the show was just a tad too... creepy....

Also somewhere in May some Games might have been lost and some Thrones burned, but no one cares about it anymore. i think it was popular for a while, though.

However, 12 Forever was just a start. June gave us Amphibia, my personal top-bingeable cartoon of the year. Disney has hit a jackpot, giving us an incredibly creative fantasy show with rich mythology and enough emotional conflict to create fantastic storytelling. The only slight complain was the scheduling, as episodes aired daily, meaning the season was over by the end of the month. But honestly, the amount of humour and adventures with Anne in the forg world we got compensates that thousandfold. Book 2, coming in 2020, can only makes thing more interesting.

Going for a hat-trick, in August we got the premiere of a cartoon that I was betting would be my personal favourite, Infinity Train... Until I learned of its schedule, even weirder than Amphibia’s. While Amphibia took a right turn, and gave us 20 episodes, a perfect amount for both plot and filler stories, Infinity Train... turned out to be a mini-series with just ten episodes, airing daily, two per night. And that, in my opinion, was a fatal mistake. Not only we now know that the story is not over, as Season 2 arrives in January, but the short episodes and its density gave very little time to leave an impact on us. If it was at least spaced out, then maybe I wouldn’t be so judgemental, but for me it was a blow that deflated the balloon I was clinging to since 2016 pilot. Still, there is more to come, and the story was more than interesting, so we’ll see if I get used to the pocket mini-story arcs.

September. Remember Steven Universe? That cartoon that ended? SIKE, HAVE A TV MOVIE. And by gods, old and new, what a phenomenal movie it was. A musical telling its own, contained story of betrayal, trust and finding yourself, based on Rebecca Sugar’s mis-adventure with a phone that reset itself... I have seen this movie at least ten times, and its OST is one I come back to constantly on Spotify. The songs are amazing, catchy, incredibly-well written, deep, and, as usual, send very adult messages about growing up and finding one’s identity, which SU was already famous for. Must watch.

Continuing the theme of reboots that actually make sense, Ducktales finished its second season after duck-bombs in March and May, with a heart-breaking story of Della Duck and humongous finale, extending DT’s universe to other Disney Afternoon shows. Season 3 promises even more, and DT is a golden standard of making a reboot that stays faithful to a more than half-a-century old material, while adding enough material to keep things fresh and funny for modern audience. What I’m saying is, Disney could really learn from Disney (pictured below).

But while some things start, some have to finish. October saw the end of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show that has taken Internet by the storm in 2010 and...

...okay, cringy brony things aside, this was a clever re-imagining of the decades-old property, and its popularity, especially amongst the people outside the target demography is a proof of its quality. The ending was perfectly serviceable, nothing that stood out, in my opinion, but it definitely didn’t disappoint either. MLP FiM will live in history as the cartoon about pastel tiny horses that made adult men cry and gave them enough passion to create years of of visual crack. And porn. Lots of porn.

November: Just In case if one season of human and elf adventures was enough, The Dragon Prince Season 3 arrived in November, and it provided a thrilling conclusion to its first smaller story arc. Though I wish the season was longer, and it dived into the history of Elves’ and Humans’ animosities, I would be lying if I said I didn’t binge-watch it all in one sitting, gripping my chair.

Do you like Green Eggs and Ham? Yes, yes, I do, Sam-I-am. Question: how do you take a classic poem, made purposefully of limited vocabulary, and turn it into a thirteen episode series with a beginning, middle, and end? The answer: You add bunch of weird stuff and the mother of all complicated backstories... at least by the original’s standards. And here’s the thing: this is the first Dr Seuss’ adaption where it works. Somehow the writers were able to stretch each verse of the famous poem into a surprisingly emotional story about friendship, losing and restoring hope, as well as following your dreams. Plus, it gave us Fargo-esque team of Bad Guys. Come on.

And just in time for Christmas season, we were blessed with Klaus, a clear contender for a Christmas classic in my opinion. This STUNNINGLY beautiful traditionally animated original Netflix movie is a very, very clever reinterpretation of St. Nick’s mythos, telling a deep, and very realistic story of greed and selfishness, and how can one turn their life around by changing their life, one present at a time.

We’re about to end the year, so HOW ABOUT SOME EMOTIONAL TRAUMA, KIDS? Yes, Steven Universe Future is here, and from the looks of it, Steven’s problems are just beginning, since they mature with him. The show’s too real, man. However, it also provided much needed levity, giving us a familiar taste. Nothing more to say, as the show is still airing, and it will surely give us more emotional moments.

And that’s a wrap for 2019. As I’ve said, it is not exhaustive by any means, and from the looks of it, 2020 is gonna be as packed as its prequel. So yeah, the world might be on fire, but at least we got some nice cartoon to binge-watch.

Happy new year everyone! At least I have time until 6th of January when the first episode of Infinity Train Season two arriWHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S OUT ALREADY

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