#D&D didn't come up with these arbitrarily

[21st-century-minutiae]

Dungeons and Dragons is a popular twentieth century, early twenty-first century fantasy tabletop roleplaying game. Players play characters of a certain "classes" (which are essentially jobsets). There are a great deal of classes in D&D which focus on magical abilities in distinct manners. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks are all magic using classes, but they all play in different ways and have different explanations for their magic use, based off of different fantasy tropes.

Wizards in D&D are people who study magic, who put their time and education into mastering the arcane through scholastic achievement and direct experimentation.

Sorcerers in D&D are people with a magical bloodline, who have an inborn talent for the arcane. There is often an element of random chance involved, and lack of full control over their power.

Warlocks in D&D are people who have made a pinding pact with some magical being (like a demon, a devil, or an archfae), and in exchange for some contractual requirements, they are empowered with magic.

Because of the cultural dominance of D&D, these particular tropes and definitions have been codified in the popular mindset, even though there is no explicit definitional link between these particular words and these particular usages except in the game.

Wizard is an English word coming from "Wise" and the suffix "ard" (seen in Drunkard and Coward). It means a magic individual.

Sorcerer is an English word coming for the Latin "Sors" meaning "lot" (in the gambling sense, such as drawing lots) or "something determined by chance." It is a synonym for Wizard.

Warlock is an English word coming from the old English Waerloga, meaning traitor, scoundrel, or someone who works for the Devil. Waerloga, in turn, comes from "covenant" and "breaker" as in, a person who cheats on contracts. It has come to be a synonym for Wizard.

D&D differentiation is based on these etymological roots and has helped to codify the words in the language.

People who treat D&D's classes as like being in any way representative of fiction outside of D&D are my nemesis, I just saw a post that was like "remember the difference between a Sorcerer a Warlock and a Wizard is this" and treating like those words as if their very D&D specific meanings were like universally accepted I'm going to start taking hostages

[rassicas]

Hey, tried to reach you on CuriousCat but didn't hear back. Saw your work on the wiki with regards to Splatoon alphabets - we're dealing with a very similar problem with the uppercase 'Galarian' alphabet in Pokemon Sword/Shield/Scarlet Violet. Lots of gibberish, no 'valid' translations that we can see, lots of letter inconsistency (the F of GAME FREAK is an R for GALAR, fun stuff like that). Any advice on getting the 'true' alphabet out of this mess? Tried a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't seem to be working. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz06e1q9dnXo29q9SpxELO_eDGEd6S08iA3NbkNHb8g/edit?usp=sharing https://www.pokemonaaah.net/research/galarian/galarwords/ ^our work so far, plus a decent chunk of the in-game body of text

Yeah my curiouscat is just about abandoned, this is a better place to contact me. Funny thing, I am aware with your guy's deciphering work of the Galarian (on the second website linked)! I remember it coming up in conversation some time ago while working on the deciphering of Splatoon's scripts. But the doc is new for me, and looking through that...i mean this with as much praise and respect as possible, you guys are insane. in the trenches over here. my god. I see some the progress on the lowercase, we used similar methods in solving some parts of the inkling languages too. for the uppercase...Going through and seeing real world decoding techniques applied... for a fictional script that likely was implemented for the sake of design rather than as a thing with secret meaning/consistency, you guys already figured it out, but it doesn't work. My two cents is that Galarian could be something like Splatoon's "Bold Script". this script has many letters that kind of look like latin script, and is often used to write things in game that look like real english words. when trying to decipher it however, there was a similar problem to Galarian: same symbols would be used to mimic different letters, just too much inconsistency. For years, it and the Inkling language as a whole was assumed to be totally indecipherable.

(TOWER RECORDS HICOLOR) But then the "true" alphabet that the splatoon team was using internally was solved for, and...

most of these don't resemble their latin letter counterparts at all, and then a few seemingly random repeats. There's also some glyphs we've found that looked like they'd be part of the deciphered form of the script, but only appeared in limited contexts and ended up not being a part of the alphabet. I think those extra letters were arbitrarily assigned to symbol keys, but its kind of impossible to know which. (those rare letters, like the G in game freak/galar could fall under that category of being an "extra" letter in the font and not part of the main alphabet?)

The "true" alphabet of Galarian may be something like this: comprised of many letters that resemble the latin alphabet that in font form, are assigned seemingly arbitrarily across the alphabet. And then to make something readable to the viewers, those letters are hand picked or modified to mimic words. Why go through all the effort to do that instead of doing a simpler decode-able thing? no idea other than "looks cool" "don't want people to solve it too easily" or "conveys information to the player". The splatoon team does both in the same games in the same writing systems. One key difference between Galarian and Splatoon's scripts is that splatoon has multiple scripts used within the same game, vs SWSH sticking with the one script. a lot of the deciphering work for Splatoon has involved comparing matching lines of text between a solved and unsolved script. If you're interested in the history of the deciphering of the Inkling language... there's a video for that ;) Without such points of comparison, and if the only way the script is used is to mimic words and doesn't exist in large bodies of text, the "true" alphabet of uppercase Galarian may be just about impossible to solve. (this is the case for a couple Splatoon scripts, like the Deepsea scripts)

ofc i'm not the one that's combed through Galarian so i'm not gonna claim to be an expert on it, but that's my two cents as someone who has extensively rotted their brain deciphering fake video game writing.

[songmingisthighs]

Babes yk ur on a spreadsheet that’s going around rn ? Here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18bI1CPNpx3vncNjfL-FsKqdV-VBXFZNGbseii8sjJ_Y/htmlview#

thanks for letting me know booboo i could kiss you with toothless

i checked that out and i'm on it for the stupidest, most petulant reason ever like i laughed but then i thought about how sad it is that a whole ass person was so dedicated to make this list and i felt pity

i know who uses those EXACT SAME words against me and i can just say it's sad that people found the need to come at others who are just vibing here and that the people who defended me were reduced to "mindless idiots who follows someone because they can't think for themselves" bc i don't weaponize my followers, hell i can't even even weaponize my own dog. i post things and people want to listen to me, they defend me because they want to. it's called caring ?? empathy ??? not thinking that your followers are just non human things that boost your popularity ???

@reddlist, joey, or whoever you are, you're not a vigilante, you're not in ateez's lore where you need to expose people you arbitrarily decide deserve certain labels which sounds very problematic, borderlining on putting a hitlist, when you're the biggest problem amongst all the name plastered there for making this... i wouldn't say exposé so... petty, kindergarten i-hate-u >:( list ? bc fr last time i made a list of people who i don't like was in 2nd grade or smth. you know full well this list could sway some people's views and honestly this seem like defamation with the way you describe the purpose of the list and if you didn't thought of it then by god you're an idiot. you're airing out personal feelings and specific situations as if those are generally applicable. if that list is supposed to simply to "warn" people's tendencies, put forth the people who had issues with me and those other users or those who brought up the issues stated so everyone may know if there are specific context or situation that finalized your judgment. i think that sounds very much fair since what you wanna do is simply warn people right ???

imagine putting your dedication into something more productive bc like lmao look at this

the title is giving koreaboo tbh and it's not just because it's so unserious

mY fRIeNdS tOLd mE ThiS HaPpeNed So i mUSt sELflESslY MAke a LonG LiSt oF WhY pEoPLe nEEd tO bE AWArE

some people really do like disturbing peace and thank fuck i'm a bitch with too much time and the personality of an ingrown hair in a knee 🤪🤪🤪

and ps you bringjng up jesus for an ungodly purpose gives the biggest ick of all

[eisforeidolon]

... And inevitably destiel did not become canon again, just like we said it wouldn't. And castiel was not even mentioned by anyone on the show once either.

Any logical heller should have realized by now that it was never going to be a thing.

One would hope that they'd accept the reality and just move on instead of believing in false expectations and made up narratives.

The ending was pretty much same to SPN's original ending. The ending that they thought was meddled by the Evil CW. What did TW change? Now this time it is John x Mary love feast, Sam off-screen living his life so we can focus on Dean, Bobby and Impala appearing, Jack coming back as God, and no mention of Cas again.

It's just ridiculous but sad at the same time. And those heller blogs who led other destihellers on was trash, pure and simple. Any logical person would stop following these ppl who constantly have been proven to be liars. Goob definitely should be ashamed of himself for his delusions as well as demeaning his fans.

Well, the problem is that there really isn't such a thing as logical hellers. I think expecting D/C to be canon in the SPNiverse is fundamentally absurd given ... everything ... about that relationship and those characters. However, even most D/C shippers aren't so divorced from logic as to have been sitting with baited breath last night expecting TW to make it canon.

It's not logical to think Jensen, who has been clear so many times I've lost count that he doesn't see the ship as a thing - at all and especially not from Dean's end? Including post 15x18? Would include it in a show he's making. Logic would tell you if Jensen had actually changed his mind about it and was actually oh-so-mad about the SPN finale because it didn't include Castiel? He wouldn't have had Dean stand there doing nothing but looking like he'd been slapped in the face with a week old dead fish when Castiel was blathering on at him. He wouldn't continue insistently referring to their relationship as brotherly in panels.

But even if we take Jensen out of the equation? We're talking about a show focused on different characters entirely - it isn't even really about Dean. Logic would tell you that no even halfway competent storyteller would waste precious screen time to arbitrarily shove two characters from another show (only there as a framing device to tie the universes together) into a romantic relationship. Especially two characters whose relationship had zero aspects of romance outside of the imaginations of shippers fixating on random colors and similar nonsensical shit. That the hellers expectations were even more illogical, that TW's main storyline itself just existed to create more of those nothingburger "parallels" to ... somehow ... lead to D/C? It made no sense to claim SPN was telling a secret hidden story that just couldn't be main text for reasons when Dean and Castiel were actually onscreen every week, but to claim Jensen specifically made a whole other show about John & Mary to tell that story and STILL decided to not actually tell said story directly instead of using secret signals through the colors of their shirts? That's fucking crazy.

It's completely absurd and yeah, there is some element of genuine concern there. The D/C prophets like Goob have insisted the comet is coming tomorrow so many goddamn times now, to no avail. And each time? Even though SPN is over? The whole thing just resets within a few days to start over again because they're that desperate to believe they haven't invested so much time, energy, and vitriol into something that doesn't exist and will never actually happen. They have to win. It'll happen. Next time, next time for real. That turtleneck looked kinda gay, don't you think it's a sign? [sigh.]

[mmoxie]

So, the first character I want to hype up is one that's lived in my drafts for well over a year. You know how sometimes you only get to a concept through venting? This was one of those, and I just kept adding more and more layers to her by venting over and over.

y'all remember dustforce?

Here's the short version: Retail as an industry is a relationship between cheerful rich people, cheerful people with non-retail jobs, and serving as an intermediary, the most beleaguered, miserable, irate, arbitrarily punished class of people still capable of just barely affording an apartment.

This character is one of those intermediaries, and she answers a simple question- what if you were so goddamn angry at your job that you started breathing literal fire?

In I Promise You I Have Given Up, a short story that exists in the Google Notes app on my phone, we meet Dani. Dani wakes up every morning, throws on an apron with a nametag attached, and watches the building she's in try to burn itself down for ten hours. Somehow, it's always her fault. She's gone through the stages of grief about it, or so she thinks.

She's about to roll the odometer.

She doesn't notice as she slides through denial, promising herself that she's fine, she's fucking fine, alright, as her boss rearranges her schedule without warning, as she cuts her own lunch short because nobody else could cover her position for one earth hour, because someone took a jar of pickles all the way to the children's clothing section and smashed it open on the carpet and now it's her problem,

And then she's asked a simple question, while she's doing a little sweeping outside. She doesn't smoke, so she doesn't get smoke breaks, but if she takes a broom with her, she can have a little peace and quiet and while looking busy.

"Is there a reason the display at the front is full of holes?"

Not- god forbid- "Did you know we're selling a lot at the front?"

Not- could you imagine- "Hey, Dani! Your display is really moving product! You're gonna need a refill up there, great job!"

Not- what a world- "Were you able to check on the front display today? I know you keep pretty busy, but it's selling down."

None of those, but is there a reason? That it's full of holes?

Dani considers this for a long moment. Her shoulders are still smoothly rocking, sweeping a rut into the concrete. She feels a quiet peace for a moment, and then... nausea. Heartburn, even. Head for the first aid kit, it's time for a shot of pepto, she thinks.

She opens her mouth to reply to that offending question, and the only thing that comes out is a pressurized blast of eradicating fire. In an instant, there is no boss. There is no question.

For the briefest moment, she was the angriest human being on the face of the earth- and it came out of her, after months and months of suppressing it.

She was relieved at first- a great pressure actually had gone out of her- but then she was terrified. She had just literally reduced her boss to a thin cloud of loose carbon and reeking, atomized effluence. There weren't even bones left.

Was that good or bad? Could she... pretend she didn't know what happened?

Probably not. And she should probably just tender her two weeks' notice before anyone figures anything out. Move across state lines. Get a different job, maybe even change her name.

This flashpoint puts Dani in a strange position. She absolutely doesn't want to hurt people- but what does it mean? Can she be pressurized to that point again? Should she live her life avoiding it, or should she try and... get out of retail by going public and teaching seminars on how to become a dragon?

But her world, as it turns out, is full of small, cumulative injustices. The endless reminders that you aren't good enough, that you didn't do enough. That if the company could make a machine that mashed you into paste, and that paste sold for more than it cost to pay you, they'd be ushering you into the fucking machine!

There will be a follow-up post that talks about Dani in a more objective way, but this post exists so I can link back to it as a primer for her character.

[redphienix]

I like super

*remembers the backwards way in which Roshi was handled, yet again, as a completely irredeemable pervert for 'humor' without the veil of 'it was a different time and an emphasis on 'harmless' is implied as we like joking about this' to hide behind because they didn't want to confront the fact the source material had moved on and that- regardless of that- THEY could have moved on and just referenced the trait in infinitely better ways (that the prior source material often did) by just having him reading naughty magazines during important events or something like come the fuck on the answer to using his character well was right there but no have him become debilitatingly horny because a girl was there and try desperately to recreate the 'Haha, he's just a harmless sex pest old man it's fine :D' tone ignoring how that tone evolved into 'He's bossed around by Launch and watches stretching vhs tapes all day' and then- embarrassingly- make a mini arc around him training himself to stop getting a boner at the drop of a hat and portray this as a cool growing moment right after the writers themselves showed their inability to grow- great job*

*remembers the multiple flanderizations of Goku that lean into the fanon interpretation of him as a complete dumbass who doesn't /really/ care about anyone- doesn't know what kissing is- doesn't comprehend anything beyond 'Me Fight :D' and how the fandom ran with this and made 10 billion jokes about how goku just fucks and fights and doesn't care about chichi*

*remembers the weird episodes dedicated to blackmailing Gohan into appearing in a scandalous situation where it looks like he's cheating on Videl like what was the point, I guess it's not terrible? But why? Felt like 3rd wheel romance high school stuff in retrospect it just feels weird to exist*

*remembers how lost in the weeds of power scaling the writers got where they had guns and bullets and small lasers determine events like dude- you have a wealth of fantasy to play with, a million concepts for how underhanded villains like Freezy Pop could win unfairly, and you went "IDK, a small gun." THINK man, sit down and THINK and use whatever you come up with in the story instead*

*remembers how mad people got at back tingles. I'm not, actually, kinda just made sense to me because it's an alt universe where they haven't found super saiyan yet- teach them some basics and reveal how to scratch that itch- it's silly but I dig it, anyways the fandom got big mad*

*remembers how Jiren is pretty dog shit as a villain in a series dedicated to making fun or worthwhile villain concepts even during fucking one off episodes in OG dragon ball, he's just "I'm the strongest" and that's it and he's the FINALE. This same series had Hit who was vastly more interesting as 'an assassin who is won over by the dedicated fighting spirit of his target' that was far more compelling and it's still lax compared to prior villains*

*remembers how super arbitrarily re-styled dragon ball away from portraying blood or reasonable battle damage in the 'fighting with battle damage' series and like it's fine- there's still some- but what a weird step almost as if to PG-ify a series that routinely just did its thing*

it's pretty good :) Don't like talking about it with people much though for some reason :)

[gement]

I broke down and started an actual character build... which immediately turned into three and was actually a mental RP of a live character roll-up session with my usual group, which I think had some useful advice on how to guide that and also was a HELL of a lot of fun. tl;dr I have accidentally generated a villain trio who are ready to assassinate God with extreme prejudice.

And eat Him, obviously.

(Apologies, I did not come up with formal names.)

Cellophane

Ethos 4, Pathos 5, Logos 6

Undercooked, Roving Members, Polycephalous [* pick]

Art of Emulation

Cellophane is kind of poorly-drawn, sparsely-haired, and Moomin-like. Xir formal name probably includes "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" even though Aristotle didn't actually write that as the others keep telling xem. Xir pushmi-pullyu paws-wandering-off bullshit is fucking terrifying.

Smiles

Ethos 5, Pathos 3, Logos 7

Vile Venom (Necrotic), Striking Mien (Trustworthy), Wicked Weapon (Teeth)

Art of Conveyance [* pick]

You would think that a snake as thick as a human arm, with enormous teeth dripping black venom and capable of chewing concrete, who just casually blipped out of nowhere to coil comfortably just behind your ankle, would freak you out. You'd think that. He seems so nice, though. It's probably the cravat.

[Someone has already inquired how the cravat holds its shape. It is tucked into his little suit jacket. Obviously. No, the jacket does not have arms, but in a masterwork of tailoring, it does have a tasteful hint of a suggestion of shoulders.]

Mem'ry

Ethos 4, Pathos 7, Logos 4 [* reroll]

Amphibious, Copious Fluids (Slippery), Chameleonic [* swap]

Art of Multiplicity

Mem'ry's dreams of Broadway stardom were dashed just because she's a 50cm high octopus from a deicidal cult. Her ability to multiply into arbitrarily long coordinated chorus lines, flashing threat displays and twirling her legs in unison while kicking ass, is pretty impressive as long as she doesn't freak out and start inking everything. (Do not remind her.)

[Octopus doesn't mean Mem'ry can use Dexterous or Hundred-Handed or those other things, she just looks fancy. Until the day we get bored and switch some out.]

Build Experience Notes

[*] not rolled or not first roll

I found the idea of actually picking a character completely overwhelming for a game this silly when I didn't have a plan to play it and constraints spur creativity, so I picked up my dice... but I knew "take the first thing you roll" would also just piss me off. So I pretended there were three of us, which was basically what you recommended anyway, and this is what happened:

Basically, we used the dice in conjunction with the Roger Rabbit rule to say "We will find a way to obey the dice as often as we can make it funny."

Third person rerolled Facets because we looked at the three and said we had too similar a set of stats. We also would have swapped around or manually adjusted immediately if someone strongly preferred playing "the [whatever] one" because stats are a PITA and less of a creative thing.

We rolled one trait at a time, and every time there was a duplicate, the person who already had the trait had the option to keep it or cross it off and let the new roller have it. (I know we could also decide to duplicate them, but meh. More interesting to spread out the powers.) This allowed a lot of flexibility and horse-trading while still giving the dice significant control of what came into play. That "keep or pass" mechanic was great.

We marked ? for all those 6X blanks on the table, but mostly chose to reroll them because making up new ones sounded like work. One on the last round of Traits seemed like a good chance to allow a swap and manual pick where the character concepts were really coming together. Keeping a couple of those 6X slots free if you don't think of really great things to do with them would both prompt "invent your own trait" and leave space for other wildcard mechanics that players like me come up with.

I did sensible little "only if it was funny" tweaks like crossing out the 3 Mien options that didn't make sense for Smiles, but still actually rolled between the other 3 and DANG, I was not expecting to end up with the 1/3 chance of the absurd Trustworthy option. This character is ridiculous. Thanks, dice!

Other thoughts

I saw you talking about another set of traits and that frankly just sounds like more to keep track of. Let's be horrible little animals and go eat God already.

With my schedule being The Way That It Is lately, I don't know when I'll be able to pull together a complete and playable version of Eat God, so I'm hoping this will sustain interest until that time comes. This document contains the complete character creation rules, more or less, incorporating reader feedback from the previous thread.

For those who've expressed interest in giving the character creation rules a spin, well, here you go!

For those just joining us (and anyone who's been following this blog all along but has somehow managed to miss every single previous post), Eat God is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play as a bunch of small muppety critters who are – as the title suggests – on a mission to kill and eat God. Its inspirations include... well, I'm going to let y'all work that out for yourselves.

As always, comments, criticisms, and bizarre rants welcome, though I can't promise I'll be able to respond in any timely fashion.

[adiduck]

...Jedi left the Republic you say? :D

(Thank you for this ask game, which is invariably SUPER COOL)

For this game, and thank you to @frostbitebakery for also asking for this one :D :

They did indeed! Set-up for this one is longer than what I have for the plot itself, LOL

This is my take on "the Jedi left the Republic early", which I think is a plot I've seen around more and more often recently. I'm not entirely sure WHY the Jedi finally decided to leave in this 'verse, but they absolutely did a year or two after TPM--broke their millennium-old treaty with the Republic for space on Coruscant and a government stipend in exchange for their service to the Republic specifically and left.

Now, Chancellor Palpatine has to adapt suddenly. He's got this clone army already in the works, and a millennium-old Sith plot to move forward. He heaves a great big sigh, mutters something incomprehensible about how annoying Jedi are, and gives the order to change the clone curriculum--no more are Jedi mystical figures of old who will lead the clones to victory. Now, they are unreliable, dangerous space wizards who abandoned the Republic in their time of need, and upon appearing will inevitably meddle and get people killed. Shoot on sight, don't feel bad about it. No need for that chip, the clones are never going to get close enough to the Jedi to need nudging to kill them. Conditioning will do.

Except, there are already a few clones who have been made, and who have started to hear the stories of the Jedi. And clones, of course, have perfect memories. So while the old stories are now taboo, they still KNOW them, and they whisper them to their brothers at lights out, in the spaces between cameras, in the few spots in their lives where the clones are not observed. The Jedi take on a shade in clone psyche that Palpatine didn't expect--not enemy number one, but... tricksters in the mythological sense. Most of the time if you see a Jedi, it's a harbinger; shit is about to hit the fan. But sometimes, sometimes, the Jedi might decide completely arbitrarily to help--

We come, then, to the actual story. Commander Cody and a company of men under his command are flying past a planet when they are hit with an EMP. They crash, and would have died, except there happens to be a Jedi who was also caught in the pulse--one Obi-Wan Kenobi--who fared better on the landing becuase he's a... mystical space wizard, and who couldn't just LEAVE THEM THERE TO DIE--

This unlikely group comes to an uneasy truce. They will work together to a) find and disable that EMP, and then b) either fix one of the ships to get them all off the planet or find a way to contact help for a pick-up, whichever turns out to be easier. The clones just have to sort of... hope this is one of the times the Jedi is feeling helpful.

And maybe, maybe, for all he KNOWS he should remain on his guard, Cody starts to... trust Obi-Wan. Just a bit.

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Blossom³”

Written by: Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: Benjamin P. Carow, Caitlin Vanarsdale

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Three times the trouble.

Not every episode of PPG 2016 starts with an action scene, but this happens to be one of them. We get introduced to a brand new villain named Duplikate, who has the power to duplicate things with her super-suit. Despite not having any other weapons, she's able to rob a bank. She then uses her duplication powers to make a black-and-white clone of the bank, which she just as easily robs.

A minor question: shouldn't be money bags also be black-and-white? If she brought her own bags, would any store accept black-and-white Benjamins? With her personality, I can see her robbing banks just for the fun of it, but it would have been nice to have that come up at one point. In fact, the black-and-white never comes up in the episode beyond the visuals and the lack of "who should I shoot first" cliches.

The Powerpuff Girls suddenly show up to stop her, and Blossom decides to do a multiplication pun for the other two to groan at. Blossom decides to do one of her plans. Her track record doesn't seem to be very good, but I'd imagine this would be a fool-proof plan...

...get a bunch of cars and throw them at her! Buttercup really wants to crush and mangle this villain's bones with at least 10 tons of rubber and steel, but thankfully for Duplikate, the plot, and the censors, someone has to stop her from doing that. Blossom tells Bubbles and Buttercup that the plan didn't call for blue coupes! This starts a theme: Blossom being arbitrarily annoying about something.

While Blossom and the other two are arguing, Duplikate duplicates the cars many times, crushing Bubbles and Buttercup with the duplicated amount of weight. I can’t knock the episode for not being creative with her abilities. She then runs off to have a date with a copy machine, saying that she'll do this again sometime. We can only imagine what that's like.

Blossom says she hates sequels, I can't really blame her after watching most of this, and uses her ice breath to make her slip and fall. This activates her powers, shooting a beam at Blossom that pushes her into the pile of coupes. Buttercup manages to find Blossom, and Bubbles manages to find Blossom twice. Uh oh!

There's now three Blossoms, Blossom 2 and 3 being black-and-white like all of the non-money-related clones. How can we tell the difference between 2 and 3? It never becomes important, so it does not matter. The Professor shows up to say that as long as his number of daughters is a prime number, everything is a-okay. He then leaves for the rest of the episode, making me wonder why they even bother having him around.

Buttercup: Three times the Blossom can only equal one thing...

...three more times the animators can forget to draw Blossom's ponytail? I can see that. Buttercup already has every reason to hate the idea of three Blossoms, but Bubbles needs a little more convincing. I mean, Bubbles doesn't have to worry about those chores now that the Blossoms can do them all. No need to program those perfect robots this time.

Oh, look at the door, it's someone offering free puppy adoptions. Blossom, being the responsible of the three, decides to say no and shut the door right in the guy's face, him visibly sobbing at her uncharacteristic rudeness. This instantly makes Bubbles agree with Buttercup that this is a nightmare. According to a writer's commentary on his Twitter, her actually having a reason would have been too justified for Bubbles. It really explains a lot that "too justified" is considered a reason to cut a joke in this show.

Bubbles: When will this nightmare end?

If that one blog post is right, it will not be too long, Bubbles. As Bubbles' jaw is still dropped at this, all three Blossoms get a call from the Mayor...

...that Pot-Head is on the loose again. His name is actually Infernus, but I misheard them calling him "Pot-Head" in his first appearance, and that name stuck with me ever since. He's apparently a villain made for Kaiju-esque mindless destruction, because that's something the Powerpuff Girls don't normally have to deal with. Sadly true in the reboot.

After Blossom does a “steampunk” joke for the other Blossoms to praise and the other two to groan at once again, they go in to attack him. They all use ice breath on Pot-Head's flames, and they start beating him up. Bubbles and Buttercup attempt to join in...

...but not before flexing their muscles and saying how they're going to clobber this monster. One of the major points of the Powerpuff Girls is that these cutesy little girls are still powerful enough to conquer any enemy that faces them. Scenes like this just spit in the face of that.

The flexing distracted the camera from focusing on the three Blossoms, and, as we all know, being off-camera seems to amplify their powers beyond "can get taken down by glitter and crayons". Buttercup seems completely offended when Blossom was able to take care of the monster by herself and two other Blossoms.

The Blossoms and Bubbles and Buttercup decide to split.

Buttercup: We'll be a duo so dynamic, there will be a bunch of movies based on us!

If you didn't get the reference, cue the obvious Batman TV show transition parody...

...to Crazy Jerry’s Discount Costumes. This is a subtle hint that the Powerpuff Girls are poor, alongside with the Professor’s "side jobs". Does he even have a regular job? I guess he could be a scientist, but that seems to be more of a hobby for him.

Bubbles questions why they would need new costumes. It's for the toys, of course, but Buttercup has a different reason: to give them secret identities. Judging by the villains and even some friends seemingly crashing through the Powerpuff home every now and again, that should be more of a concern, but they do a different running joke with that.

Meanwhile, at the Powerpuff home, it seems like all the Blossoms are happy with each other, so here's the obligatory "having clones is not such a great thing" scene. The other two Blossoms drink all of her milk, clean everything, and, while Blossom is going to read "The Girl With The Dragon Sticker", they do something completely expected.

Blossom 2 or 3: Oh, you mean when they reveal they were on Earth the entire time?!

Does Blossom regularly spoil books to people who she knows has yet to read them? Even Blossom has to deal with Blossom being uncharacteristically unlikable in this episode! I almost wish we could see Duplikate's date with the copy machine.

Instead, we get to see her plans after that date: to rob that same bank again and again. Well, she was not kidding about wanting to do this again sometime. She also has a tank, which she also stole, leading to more proof to the "I'm just robbing banks for fun" theory. After the Blossoms show up, she reveals that can even use her powers on herself. There doesn't seem to be any limit to that ability; she's either too smart or too stupid to realize she can probably cause a grey goo scenario just by herself. Can't decide which.

I could decide that with the next scene, though. Blossom has to think of a plan along with the other Blossoms, but, unlike that time they took down Pot-Head, none of them can agree on what plan to use! Ultimately, the other Blossoms do a plan to figure out that plan.

FOCUS TESTING!

Thankfully, they just say it in unison, no random choirs here. The other Blossoms leave to do a focus testing gag, leaving Blossom to be blasted away by one of the Duplikate's tanks.

The Mayor, realizing “The Blossompuff Girls” aren’t up to it, decide to light the ButterBubbs signal. That was the original title for the episode, by the way; Blossom's so smart, she should be associated with something more mathematic, after all. I mean, it's not like the toughest fighter should be the mathlete, right? I would not complain if that never come up again, because it shouldn't.

The ButterBubbs signal brings out Bubbles and Buttercup, in new costumes they clearly got out of the clearance section of that store. It doesn't look anything like the costumes they pointed out earlier; maybe they were too justified. They decide to use their trusty utility belts...

...specifically, to start whipping them around, and start shouting "gooly gooly gooly" as they comically run, not fly, towards Duplikate. Even Robin’s treatment in Teen Titans Go had more dignity than this. There was some commentary on this scene, and I'm not nearly that delighted to say that "because the storyboarder thought it was funny" theory was correct.

They immediately get blasted by one of the Duplikate's tanks. That's pretty much the end of the Batman parody, didn't that seem like something with a point? Well, there is one point: with just Blossoms, nothing can be done. With just Bubbles and Buttercup, nothing can be done. Only with each Powerpuff Girls' dynamic working with each other can they defeat this villain, with Blossom's planning, Bubbles' randomness, and Buttercup's...randomness.

Yeah, they don't give Buttercup a distinct reason to fight, minus those small hints of bloodthirst in the beginning of the episode. It's another episode where Bubbles and Buttercup are essentially one character. Probably should have expected that out of an episode involving duplicates.

She decides to go with the two-phase "randomly flying around and confuse the clones" plan, but only after one of the tanks blows up her giant scroll that she apparently brought over. Phase two is their usual plan to just stay in one position while all five Duplikates have their tank aimed at them. They do a twist on this plan: they actually fly away the split second they fire. If only they can do that more often.

The intended message was to show that all three Puffs needed to work together, but it seems more like it's better to not have Blossom do any plans. It was apparently the lesson in Monkey Love, too! The Powerpuff Girls are able to send her to jail...via having her being arrested by the police. Yeah, bashing people into jail just isn't fitting of the messages.

Blossom: I guess it all worked out!

Buttercup: Yup, and absolutely zero loose ends!

Bubbles: Totally, right, Blossoms?

All of them: Oh...

I was worried they were not going to bring this up. If this episode suddenly ended with Buttercup saying "I’ll go get the shovel", I would have loved that. I'm glad to know that was intended reference to a previous episode.

Instead, the other Blossoms just get stuck in that same focus testing gag from earlier, because they couldn't decide on how to reference Multiplicity. No, really. They have the same scene twice, and nobody realized they mispelt "guidelines". What a surprise.

Does the title fit?

Apparently, Blossom isn’t the one into math according to this reboot, but I’m going to ignore that and say “very yes.”

How does it stack up?

Cloning episodes usually end up being cliched messes even in good cartoons, and this one is no exception. This isn’t even the best cloning episode of the reboot; unlike The Trouble With Bubbles, this doesn’t get a high Neutral because of missed potential. This one's more of a neutral neutral. Not disgusting enough, it does have a decent villain.

Next, I will never do a reference to that particular slogan.

← Worship ☆ Mojo The Great →

[youspoketome]

Ten Essential non-Christmas Christmas songs

I was a subscriber to Alternative Press magazine for quite a while. Even when I wasn't a subscriber, we would get them in at work and I would read them there or buy them and read them at home. The point is, I read a lot of AP for a long time. And I bring that up because one of my favorite features in AP was always the "10 Essential..." somethings on the last page, where they would come up with a topic and then write a quick blurb about what they thought were the 10 essential whatever the topic was. All that to say, I've decided to steal that format here. If I think of other topics I may revisit it, but I make no promises.

I find in my life I come into contact with two groups of people who have very strong feelings about Christmas music. There are the people who hate all of it all the time no matter what, and the people who listen to it in July. Both of these groups are wrong. Christmas music is great... Between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. People who blanket hate it all are being stupid and just haven't given the right albums a chance (Actually, ten essential Christmas albums might be a decent topic someday), and people who listen to it outside that window are just doing it wrong. But there are some songs you can listen to outside the Christmas Music Window that can still count as Christmas songs. And the haters can't hate them arbitrarily, because these are songs that weren't necessarily written as Christmas songs and were released on normal albums, but still work as Christmas songs. (So, sorry Stryper's Reason For The Season, you showed up on a Christmas themed single before you showed up on the re-release of THE YELLOW AND BLACK ATTACK, so you don't count.)

So without further ado: here are my ten essential non-Christmas song Christmas songs.

Have It All - Ace Troubleshooter (from THE MADNESS OF THE CROWDS)

This one is almost cheating. I think my brother had a roommate in college who was friends with the guys (and girl at that point) in Ace Troubleshooter, and so I ended up with a copy of their first self-released album BACK IN THE SHOOTIN' MATCH. That album has some laughably bad songs on it such as "Chilly Minnesota" and a terrible cover of the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes," so I never gave them a second thought even after they signed to Tooth & Nail. But years later I heard "Have It All" on a T&N Christmas compilation and was shocked by how good it was. It was so good that when I found a copy of the album it was from for a dollar I snatched it up. Unfortunately, the rest of the album was just blah, and that is literally the only song on it I ever listen to (and even that, only during the Christmas Music Window.)

If I Was Santa Claus - Atmosphere (from LUCY FORD: THE ATMOSPHERE EPS)

Slug's talk of what he would do if he were Santa Claus is an easy way to consider this a Christmas song, but it's Ant's use of what sounds like a music box rendition of "O Holy Night" that makes "If I Was Santa Claus" not only a Christmas song, but an incredible song.

It's Always Christmas At My House - Huntingtons (from SPLIT with Darlington)

I think this release probably slipped by a lot of casual Huntingtons fans. It wasn't released by Tooth & Nail and I never saw it in any stores. The only reason I have it is because they were selling it at a show when I saw them shortly after they released it. Which is a shame, because it's got some really great jams on it, both by the Huntingtons and on the Darlington half. The Christmas song here (which was saved from obscurity by a T&N Christmas comp) is kind of a tribute to violators if the CMW.

12.23.95 - Jimmy Eat World (From CLARITY)

Is it weird to you that I only own CLARITY as a burnt copy with a ridiculous "I heart punk" quarter machine sticker on it? Because it's weird to me. CLARITY is such an amazing album. "12.23.95" isn't even the best song on it (Actually it isn't even their best Christmas song. Jimmy Eat World are the only band that has been able to turn"Last Christmas" into a genuinely good song.), but it may be the best of all of the non-Christmas Christmas songs.

D**k in a box - The Lonely Island (from INCREDIBAD)

It counts!

A Stick, A Carrot, & String - mewithoutYou (from IT'S ALL CRAZY! IT'S ALL FALSE! IT'S ALL A DREAM! IT'S ALRIGHT)

A song that is so obviously about the Christmas story , and I never even thought of it as a Christmas song until Dustin Kensrue covered it for the re-release of his Christmas album, THIS GOOD NIGHT IS STILL EVERYWHERE.

Jamie's Kisses - Pep Squad (from NO DOY!)

I do not actually own NO DOY! and never did. The only Pep Squad songs I ever had were on 4 or 5 T&N come comps I had. This is another song I never thought of as a Christmas song for years. Every year my cousin makes a mix of new Christmas songs called "Red, White & Twisted." Having learned he was doing this shortly after buying Twisted Sister's A TWISTED CHRISTMAS (and knowing he started making these mixes in the late 90's), I just assumed he meant twisted as in not normal. It took me years before I was listening to TOOTH & NAIL ROCK SAMPLER VOL. 1 and picked out the line "Jamie's kisses are like candy cane on Christmas. Jamie's kisses are all red and white and twisted." Christmas song.

In Like A Lion (Always Winter) - Relient K (from APATHETIC EP)

Another almost cheater. This one was written for a "songs inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia" compilation, but didn't make the cut. Instead it ended up on the APATHETIC EP, which came out right on the cusp of Relient K becoming not embarrassing. I listened to it at work at the time, but didn't own it until it showed up on the Relient K Christmas album LET IT SNOW BABY, LET IT REINDEER. I would end up acquiring the APATHETIC EP sometime after that.

A Holiday Song (Happy Holidays) - Starflyer 59 (from THE FASHION FOCUS)

This one has everything you would want from a Starflyer Christmas song: a sweet guitar line, mumble/crooned vocals, organ interjections, and jingle bells chiming throughout. THE FASHION FOCUS was the album where SF59 lost a lot of the fuzz from their earlier albums (and renditions of actual Christmas songs), but their shoegaze brilliance was far from over.

The Night Santa Went Crazy - "Weird Al" Yankovic (From BAD HAIR DAY)

And of course we finish with murder. Lots and lots of bloody reindeer deaths and nervous breakdowns. Pure delirious, chaotic fun that was exactly what I was looking for in a new original Christmas song as a 13-year-old and hasn't gotten stale to this day.

[thekimspoblog]

"Too inhumane for even an animal"? Buddy how many animal carcasses have you disposed of? I assure you, Howard could have done worse.

Also I'm seriously. Jimmy and Kim probably should have confronted him one last time after Chuck's death, given him one final chance to back off from the Sandpiper settlement with honor. But still... if he didn't understand why he was hated, then that was a sin in and of itself. DO NOT. UNDERESTIMATE. THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. Both Jimmy and Kim had been screaming in his face for the past 2 seasons about how Howard was living in a little bubble and needed to pull his head out of his ass. Sure, there's no way he could have known the specifics of the Gus-Lalo-Mike conflict. But if Howard wasn't such a privileged jackass, he would have come to terms a long time ago with the fact that it's possible to be violently killed, at pretty much any time or place, for no reason whatsoever. There is no justice; welcome to Earth.

And one of these days, I'll write out the full Torts101 practice exam, untangling the "But For" cause from the "Actual Cause" of why he was in that fucking apartment that night. But I'd just like to point out that he didn't need to be there. He didn't need to passive aggressively congratulate them on screwing him over. He could have just kindly fucked off and avoided them like the plague. If he wasn't a misogynist who could never appreciate Kim's criminal mastermind, he would have had the good sense to be scared of them and their den long before Salamanca showed up.

Just- Just- Just I'M SORRY! HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN DOMINGO? Innocent kid in his 20-somethings, used to work at a furniture store, associate of Nacho? Walt agonized for a whole 5 seconds about breaking the sixth commandment, then realized Domingo had grabbed a weapon for self-defense and choked him with a bike lock? BODY DISSOVLED IN ACID?? THAT DOMINGO???

The Breaking Bad "Cinematic Universe" kills off brown people in gruesome, unceremonious fashions all the time. But you stick ONE PIECE OF WONDERBREAD IN THE FRIDGE and suddenly it's a Nile River of crocodile tears!

I mean I can half understand why Kim got hysterical. Even if murdering your boss is objectively cool (and also that's not what fucking happened) you get your murder-cherry popped and you're bound to feel some type of way about it. Especially if you knew this jerk for 10 years beforehand. But why was the audience upset? Howard was being groomed from Season 1 to be the perfect sacrificial scapegoat. Just sympathetic enough to say, "well he made his own bed... or rather his own concrete in this case".

Fuck me, remember Tortuga? They chopped his head off and made him into a turtle bomb! How's that for inhumane? And don't give me that "Tortuga and Domingo were in The Game. Howard wasn't" crap! The Game isn't real! "The Game" is a rhetorical device gangsters use to arbitrarily move the goalposts, on who it's acceptable to murder and who it isn't. And you know who else does that? The courts! And you know what both systems have in common? The legacy of white supremacy as manifested through economic inequality. If your logic is that Howard didn't deserve to die because he wasn't a criminal, then that's (A) the opposite of what two TV shows just spent hours telling us, (B) circular logic, (C) says some fucked up things about your politics IRL, and (D) please don't talk to me.

god. it is so deeply tragic divorced from the posts about being a silly meth lab ghost. howard knew Nothing about what jimmy was involved with, he didn't Know why jimmy and kim were trying to ruin his life, he didn't Know what was waiting for him when he went to their apartment. he went there and ended up stuffed into a fridge and buried under a meth lab, forgotten and unloved. his body was treated like junk that had to be taken to the curb, handled by strangers who knew nothing about him or how he ended up here. he rotted silently under concrete next to his killer, stripped of his belongings and his identity. no one was there to memorialize him. respect him. i think we make content about howard's ghost being in the lab and interacting with others because the reality is so depressing: he died alone, afraid, surrounded by enemies and strangers, and was interred so impersonally. he was a human with a fate and burial too inhumane for even an animal.

[cidthecoatrack-blog]

Then I shall!

Produced by Guilermo del Toro, so that's a very strong place to start.

Not part of any pre-existing franchise, no sequels - is just an excellent standalone movie

About the Day of the Dead, but is not stereotypical. Treats it as a folk tale, incredibly well done.

The casting is on effing point. The lead is Diego Luna (excellent), female lead is Zoe Seldana (and you get to hear her sing!), other big strong dumb but big-hearted lead is Channing Tatum (perfect casting). The rest of the cast is freaking star-studded. Ice Cube, Ron Perlman, Hector Elizondo (probably recognize him from Princess Diaries), Danny Trejo, Placido FUCKING Domingo (yeah, the opera singer), Gabriel Iglesias, Cheech Marin, and a whole host of other Hispanic actors.

Animated, and by GOD is it gorgeous. Watch the scene of Manolo standing in the rain. The animation of the rain on him is BREATHTAKING

So many DIFFERENT animation styles. Yes, it's all computer animated, but to give you a nesting doll of flavor: A) "humans" who are telling/hearing the story, B) wooden puppets (a majority of what we see) - THE WOOD ANIMATION IS STUNNING, C) The Dead (beautifully artistic skeletons), D) the dieties (La Muerta, Xibalba, and the Candle Maker), E) don't forget the bandits and Chakal (also puppets, but made grotesque/have metal parts)

There is SO MUCH DETAIL in the way these characters are animated. Just little details they didn't HAVE to do, but they did anyway. Like how Xibalba has skulls for pupils. Or how the wooden puppets move LIKE WOODEN PUPPETS. Or (personal favorite) how the dead are skeletons with the bones just floating near enough (no tissue and all), and then they PLAY ON THAT and let the dead just arbitrarily detach their heads, arms, etc.

THE MESSAGING. OH MY GOD THE MESSAGING. You know how Turning Red and Encanto smacked us all in the face with "dealing with family trauma"? Yeah, this movie was a decade ahead of its time. Manolo's father wants him to be a bullfighter, as is the family tradition, and he is a GREAT bullfighter, but he wants to perform music instead. When he goes to the Land of the Remembered and meets his ancestors, he finds that no small number of his ancestors regretted being a bullfighter! (They all died fighting bulls). One very specifically wishes he could have been an opera singer. And Manolo's major conflict at the end? Fighting all the bulls that his family had slain, and ends up winning by APOLOGIZING to the bulls (with a freaking BEAUTIFUL song). And just EVERY single storyline has things with that much positivty. Even Xibalba, the evil villain god, who is also in love with La Muerta (and her him!), learns his lesson and apologizes (genuinely!) to La Muerta.

Let us not forget Maria, the female lead. The two male leads are competing for her (ugh, stereotypical, I know), but they are all childhood friends first and foremost. Maria is sent off to become "a Lady", and when she comes back, they literally comment on how "normal" she looks. Now, these are the animated, exaggerated wooden puppets, and she has what I'm pretty sure is a literal pencil for a waist, so I can't really claim "body positivity" here. But they don't play up how beautiful she is. And MAN is she independent. She does NOT put up with ANY toxic crap from her father, from Manolo and Joaquín, from the village, from anyone. And ultimately SHE is the one who leads the town to victory against the bandits (because one of the running jokes is the ridiculous list of skills she picked up becoming "a Lady". Like swordfighting. And kung fu.)

And HOT DAMN the comedy in this movie is *chef's kiss*. "Frosted" churros anyone? The priest turning into a luchadore. The nuns always speaking in musical chorus. "I immediately regret this decision!" Almost everything the grandma says and does. Very self-aware of the tropes they could play on and just chucking them right back at the audience as jokes. Splendid.

AND THE MUSIC. Most of the songs are covers, but beautifully done in music and style that fits the characters and themes of the movie. "I Can't Help Falling in Love" is downright unfair in how beautiful it is. "I Will Wait" covered in Mariachi style is fantastic. Manolo singing "Creep" is also very apropos and well-done. There are two original songs: "I Love You Too Much" and "No Matter Where You Are". Both SLAP, but there's additional fun: "No Matter Where You Are" is originally by the band Us the Duo. They literally sung this song AS THEIR WEDDING VOWS. AT THEIR WEDDING. WHERE THEY PREMIERED THIS SONG. And it's just this amazingly uplifting, positive, happy, beautiful song. (Personal bias: my wife and I love this song so much that it was our first dance at OUR wedding.) And yes, they play it after Manolo and Maria get married (sorry for the spoilers for the decade-old movie).

I could literally keep going on, but I'll leave it at that

So just so y'all know, The Book of Life (2014) is a fucking MASTERPIECE, is CRIMINALLY underrated, and should have won EVERY GODDAMN AWARD.