#I should design some aliens I've been lacking in weird creatures

[drawbudd]

ah yes, the two sides of the spectrum: designing aliens that are anthropomorphic or look almost exactly like humans with a few changes (my SO) or striving to create world's most incomprehensible creature that blurs the lines between alive and not (me)

[coprolite-posting]

Thinking about that one "how the US would do a kaiju" post and. I feel like NOPE might count? Like, I've seen at least @/bogleech compare it to the genre, and i can see the similarities- Jean Jacket is a critter, decently big, and brings ruin- while generally existing as an allegory in such (but still being, textually, A Creature)*. But I'd feel gravely remiss not to specify it's specifically a "Black (US)American kaiju" rather than a "general (US)American" one, out of respect for the creator(s) and also just. The film itself. You could maybe do an essay- or at least a short diatribe- about comparing/contrasting the scale of the film's events with more common genre standards and come up with some statement about how if atrocities befall a sufficiently minority (or directly marginalized) subset of the population, structures of power don't tend to like. Care. But I'm probably not going to write it because I'm white, kind of stupid, and- most crucially- don't have any sources on hand beyond "just watch the movie haha." Also? I'm sure something along those lines has already been written somewhere, come on.

One thing maybe-original I can say about NOPE is that a lot of people seem to assume Jean Jacket is an Actual Alien, or at least describe it as such, when I don't remember that ever being confirmed one way or another in the film? I guess it could've come from a director interview or something somewhere. Personally, if that isn't the case, it seems weird to insist on such a thing, when a) a lot of the latter half of the movie is dedicated to subverting and deconstructing the tropey "UFO alien spaceship" buildup, and b) there are plenty of terrestrial animals that have some similarity to the creature design, if not we're direct inspirations; guys like jellyfish and sea angles and maybe even rays if you Absolutely Need a vertebrate example for some reason. Despite living in a pretty dry biome in the film, Jean Jacket is pretty "marine animal"-coded to me. Besides waiting for something to drift into your mouth, sucking shit up is just kind of the default eating strategy down there! I know for a fact there was intent to portray the species as having existed "alongside" humans for a very long time**; I don't think a terrestrial origin is particularly outlandish, especially considering a creature that a) seems to lack or almost lack hard parts, and b) disintegrates upon death (more or less, from what I recall), wouldn't fossilize well.

*I should specify that the discussion is more around the "Godzilla represents nuclear warfare"-type filmography than the "giant monsters are really cool" concept. Anyone can do the latter, and probably already has. Hollywood has Pacific Rim, which I guess with the aliens at the end, you could say something about fears of colonization befalling the imperial core in a sort of role-reversal scenario, but you can say that about a lot of Hollywood sci-fi and adjacent cinema. Maybe even most of it, to be honest. (...I haven't watched the second one, and I've heard it isn't as good.)

**I think the design/behavior and worldbuilding/character reactions imply this well enough on their own, but I believe there was also a snippet of an interview somewhere that mentioned something along those lines. Not necessarily part of the work itself, I suppose, but outside context can enrich interpretation.

[decepti-thots]

Oh my god please discuss the sliding scale of personhood autobot vs decepticon in the Bay movies it sounds genuinely fascinating

Okay. So. Full disclaimer, it's been a while since I sat down and dedicatedly rewatched Bayverse- I keep meaning to and then getting confronted with the slap in the face that is actually having to do it, so. This is by necessity going to talk only in broad strokes, plus you should take it with a pinch of salt or ten since my memory is a crapshoot tbh. But hey ho!

The Decepticons are interesting because they move quite freely, depending on the character, film and even moment, between a wider range of 'is this a person?' compared to the Autobots. The Autobots have two main modes: people that are mostly comparable to humans (however flat and uncared for by the narrative) and beloved, domesticated animal (again: the boy and his car-dog thing, this is mostly just Bee's role).

The Decepticons might include depictions of them as, in any given film: a person who is thoroughly Othered from human people in some capacity, a monster, also some kind of domesticated pet or creature (spoiler: that's Wheelie), or something pretending to be a person. Let's go over some of why that is, and how Bayverse creates such a stark contrast between the two factions as compared to something like G1.

The designs are the most obvious thing to point to here. People often deride Bayverse's designs as universally incomprehensible, but this elides the fact that the Decepticon designs are very clearly intended to be more incomprehensible visually. They are often more alien, less humanoid or humanlike, and less conventionally appealing than the Autobots. Indeed, I've said before that I tend to prefer the Decepticon designs in Bayverse because they lean much further into the aesthetic of noise and weirdness, and this makes it feel more like a choice; but that's not a neutral coincidence! They are designed in ways that adhere to common wisdom about what makes a character design 'appealing' or 'unappealing', what is used to present characters as 'relatable' or 'not relatable' inhuman characters to an audience of humans with certain assumed biases.

Compare 2007 Optimus and Bee to Megatron and Starscream, for example:

Broadly speaking, OP and Bee, even with all the over-engineered noise of their designs, have clear, recognisable faces that draw your attention to the eyes. Optimus' design sits as the most humanlike, with Bee's divergence from standard human faces primarily drawing attention to his muteness (which we discussed previously) with the 'gag' where his mouth might be.

Starscream, meanwhile, is more obviously inhuman by a wide margin. He has a bird face- he is explicitly animalistic! Why doesn't Starscream mirror his G1 design even a little when OP and Bee do? Partly it's because one goal of the design choices here are to make the Decepticons seem monstrous in a way which more clearly delineates the two sides than the G1 designs do. Megatron is not nearly so specific in what he evokes, but looking at him side by side with the Autobot designs, you can see how it carries over. He is broadly humanoid but lacks a lot of the definition that gives Bee and OP a more humanlike apperance, in part due to how his being monochrome makes him seem less clearly in possession of a humanlike anatomy (Bee has pecs!), plus his eyes are small and set far apart in a way that evokes certain types of animal skull. And like. He's got "horns", haha. THAT TOO. Not subtle.

But Megatron and Starscream are both shown to be intelligent, of course. They speak, they communicate, they are not shown as beasts even as their designs evoke a more monstrous affect to distance them from our human baseline. They possess some degree of personhood in how they are presented (it makes for better central villains!). But it's a personhood a few steps further removed from human personhood than, say, Optimus'. The Decepticons have (scary, inhuman) people among them- but they are not exclusively, or even mostly, made up of people the way the Autobots tend to be presented.

Moving along the line. Another Decepticon is Wheelie, who is shown in a similar way to how Bumblebee is- like a kind of super-pet, the fantasy of having a cool robot who's smart enough to communicate with you but who is still, well, your pet. His design is obviously very far from humanlike, though as he's intended to be endearing (theoretically) rather than menacing, his design more like a harmless spindly bug than a 'monster'. Bigger eyes in a deeply inhuman face: that's not a person, that's a pet that can talk to you, the movie says! Imagine, a dog that humps your leg and makes really awful sex jokes. What a dream.

He arguably follows on from a template that Frenzy established the movie before, where Frenzy was presented like his undomesticated equivalent in this uncomfortable analogy. Their designs evoke similarly inhuman vibes, where the influence is insectoid and therefore unpleasant but not super menacing. Compare the slapstick way violence against Frenzy is framed versus how even unsympathetic characters like Starscream tend to be shown in fights- it's implicitly just not violence being done against a person as opposed to like... a cockroach that learned to talk. Again: he's visually further than any Autobot from human by a significant degree, and he exists on a different narrative level than Decepticons like Megatron. In universe, no difference; but to the audience there sure is.

Then we have the ones that are just... monsters of a very beastly variety. I'd argue Barricade in the 2007 movie fits this despite ostensibly talking and showing humanlike intelligence; he speaks very differently to like, Megatron, for example, all brusque repetition that doesn't evoke someone who's done more than memorize the question, and throughout his big 2007 setpiece he's then basically treated like a predatory animal; largely silent beyond his couple memetic lines, seeming too intelligent for his form at times when we see him in alt (his alt mode being so prominent in creating paranoia really mirrors the idea of an animal stalking its prey IMO, and how scared we are when animals seem to display uncanny-to-us intelligence and thought). Barricade is not a person to be fought, he's a hunting dog let loose, the framing suggests, and the goal is to put him down before he tears out your throat. He's a good example, I think, of a single character moving between modes within a single film. He has a brief moment of personhood (for gag purposes) but easily reverts to that predator-animal template. Decepticons can be wild animals too, then.

Even further along that axis is something like Revenge of the Fallen's Devastator. That's just a big scary monster, y'all! Look at it! RotF as a film is not interested at all in the implications that this is a combiner, let's be real, so we will also put that to one side and not come up with some bullshit about how 'maybe it's because he's a combiner', like let's be real guys, RotF isn't bothering with that thematic stuff. It's RotF, that movie is so goddamn dumb. Anyway. So this:

This is a monster, not a person; that face is a maw, not a face. Proportions are all weird and truly animal-like too. A speechless, destructive monster who exists less as a person to fight and more a natural disaster to resist; and another type of Decepticon that will not find an Autobot counterpart, because Autobots are people bar a couple domesticated exceptions, but Decepticons go all over the conceptual map, with this as an extreme!

And the whole idea that a Decepticon that is not a person might be mistaken for one is of course then used for horror at one point. When we see Alice the pretender, the fear comes from how convincingly she apes being what she is not: a human yes, but also a thinking, feeling person of any description. Her true form is partly creepy for having a bunch of unnecessarily humanlike features warped into something grotesque, and does not speak after she's revealed I think. My point is that the scary part of Alice is that idea of mimicry that can't be detected, and oh boy oh boy is there some fucking subtext to that scene we could read into it. By the way. Remember how there's an implicit dick joke and oh god RotF is a godawful film I hate it so much. I know you all know this, but I do. ANYWAY. I think she'll round out our trip down the 'scale' for now.

The above is in no way comprehensive (and leans real heavily on the first two films- there's actually potentially some interesting stuff about how Megatron, specifically, changes in how he is framed going on, and arguably becomes at one point the only truly personified Decepticon character). I haven't even found a place to get into how yes, the reproductive cycle stuff theoretically applies to all Cybertronians but is only ever shown when the Decepticons are doing it, and is notoriously weirdly animalistic and visceral; they have like, egg sacs, they have a very organic but very inhuman and upsetting life cycle thing going on with their babies and all. This is extremely scattershot! And missing stuff and possibly at points a bit off base because again, I'm running off my memory here. But I hope it shows a bit of how and why the spectrum of 'person or not' is a much broader question for bayverse Decepticons than Autobots, and how it often skews further to the 'not' side by a wide margin.

And it's also very all over the place in terms of the resulting implications. Some of it has its roots in very charged stuff; some of it could be read a multitude of ways! Where the Bee post is more clearly a matter of 'here is how casual ableist assumptions play out in Hollywood blockbusters without thinking', this is a wild combo of everything from 'here's how they reverse engineered transmisogyny' to 'here's why cannon fodder in dumb action flicks is designed like this so often'... but there, assumptions about 'appealing character design' are not politically neutral. (Take the old 'bigger eyes are always the more appealing option!' thing, that's a culturally specific assumption that has all sorts of follow on discussions about orientalism, for example.) The whole thing tends back towards something reactionary at basically every turn, though the 'what' might vary.

But ultimately I think the takeaway is: the bayverse films set you against the Decepticons not through obvious ideology- I doubt anyone got a coherent idea of their aims or anything out of the movies- but by sliding the scale down to 'not human' in many ways and letting our brains fill in the rest.

[tremendouskoalachild]

Star Wars (1977) #02: Six Against the Galaxy

Roy Thomas, May 10 1977

What's not to love about this cover? Obi-Wan's red (pink?) "lightsabre". Luke straight up shooting a guy. The colors. The poses. The creatures. The mug (do seedy bars serve drinks in mugs??). And of course, "LUKE SKYWALKER STRIKES BACK!"

Also lol at wookieepedia throwing shade

The second page graces us with a majestic unconscious Luke, who even looks like a teen for once:

The scene in Ben's home - rather uncharitably referred to as a hovel by the narration - plays out in a different order of events from the final film - first Leia's message, then a discussion of Ben's past. I'm actually not sure why they ended up switching them - Artoo's message seems like the obvious place to start a conversation and Leia's mention of Ben's clone wars history is a good segue into the rest of the revelations.

The contents of the message are also somewhat different from the movie, and omit or change quite a bit from the fourth draft of the screenplay as well:

So in this version, Bail's name is still Antillies (not even Antilles) and Ben served the Old Republic, not him specifically as she says in the film. In the script the Rebellion is also explicitly referred to as the Alliance to restore the Republic (unlike the films, which use the terms Rebel Alliance and Rebellion). I don't really know what to make of Ben being called both a general and commander in the same context but whatever. Interesting that the iconic line "you're my only hope" is a later change - still, there is some inconsistency with the first issue:

I find it kinda funny how "the Force" is always in quotation marks. No version of the screenplay I've seen does this so I'll just assume it's all Mr. Thomas.

The discovery of the destroyed sandcrawler plays out like in the film. Afterwards we get Luke shouting for Aunt Beru and Uncle Ben:

Roy Thomas did write Spider-Man comics and it's cute so I'll forgive it. Let's say that Luke is in a lot of distress and just received lots of weird information about his heritage and maybe his comic version sees Ben as more of an uncle figure than Owen at this point idk

I'll also highlight this panel just because Luke's pretty in it:

In the cantina we finally get the fight promised by the cover. The alien who seems to have a problem with Luke (I don't want to call the character Ponda Baba as he lacks both the soulfull eyes and mandibles) says his line from the script (which is apparently still an actual quote as seen in the novelization, though I don't see how it relates to what is said/growled in the movie. Maybe Aqualish or whatever language is spoken here just has a unique transcribing system I guess). The rest of his lines seem to originate in this comic though. I also enjoy the "we have the death sentence on 12 systems", which differs from both the fourth draft and final film. They're besties ❤.

Yeah Ben just bisected those two. Alright.

Next, Chewbacca makes his appearance! I'm not sure why the narration feels the need to insult his looks though.

The bartender seems to be less enthusiastic about his snitching than in the film or script. The line interesting me here is the one about Han obviously not having a lightsaber - why is that obvious? Sure he's a loser but that's just mean. And why couldn't Chewie be the one slicing people up.

This might be a longshot but I've been fascinated by the third draft and the idea that "laser-swords" are much more common. Maybe this scene is a holdover from that?

Next we get the Greedo scene. His death is beautiful (the colors? the shading? the exploding lines? the pose?) and the fact that Han has his blaster in full view seems to imply he's just an insanely quick draw. 10/10 no notes.

Han's next scene is not quite as cool - in fact, it's the horrible deleted Jabba scene that never should have existed. I'll take it though, just for the awful early Jabba design.

I mean just looks at this yellow otter-walrus thing with terrible fashion sense. I'm pretty sure it's physically impossible to feel threatened by him.

I also greatly enjoy this interpretation of star destroyers. Why can't they fly like this in the films...

The banter inside the ship is pretty much word for word movie dialogue. I do love this 3PO pose:

And the final panel is honestly amazing!

Though that ship definitely needs greebling.

Closing remarks: this issue is kind of light on weird He-Man Luke. His incredible expressions make up for it though.

[retphienix]

I'm not sure if I should make this the finale post or not to be honest because I plan on playing some of the DLCs soon, so I'll make this a 'light' finale post because I'm sure I've said more than enough through my playthrough.

Morrowind genuinely surprised me. I heard all the oldguard TES fans saying it's way different and some claiming it was miles better.

Specifically I remember when Oblivion came out I heard from somewhere that Oblivion was just "dumbed down Morrowind" and kid me was like "What the heck are you talking about, Oblivion is the best game in the world (right now)???"

But man, they weren't wrong, but that's hardly what I'd point at in Morrowind in comparison.

Then again my memory of Oblivion is all rose tinted nostalgia and half memories.

What Morrowind is to me today is a fantastic fantasy game with some really interesting lore, a villain I love, a world that feels alien, troubled, imperfect and intriguing, and a gameplay cycle that felt really satisfying to me from the very start to roughly level 20 or so.

I REALLY like how pitiful and overwhelmed I felt at the start of this game- it felt fucking awesome to me and I know for some that's a weird statement and others it's the most obvious thing in the world but man is it true.

Level 1 in Morrowind as a newbie who doesn't know up from down is like waking up in the woods naked with the sound of hungry wolves all around you.

It's brutal, and exciting- every little victory- a potion, a new dagger, a new piece of armor- feels like the world to you.

I LOVED the early game in Morrowind, more than I ever liked it in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Skyrim, or Fallout 4 (yeah I'm looping the bethesda engine NV in).

Because I constantly felt like I was punching up at a behemoth but I was getting away with it from time to time until I started to feel more on par with the behemoth, and eventually I overcame and hit end game and really became the behemoth and that was fun in its own right.

But I've been "mega end game god" in like 900 dang games at this point, it's always fun! And feeling like I earned it (like here) makes it feel better! But the journey often beats it and Morrowind's journey was so fun to me.

But yeah, beat the main quest. I did a lot in this game, and barely scratched the surface.

Beating it immediately made me think of how fun it would be to challenge myself to beat it- or another objective- right from the start without dumping hundreds of hours into leveling because that early game is a treat.

About the only things I didn't fully love were most of the quest designs showing their age.

Nothing super egregious, but there really was a lot of extremely simple "fetch thing" "Kill thing" "Walk to place" quests that didn't hold additional story value to make up for it.

Not to say simple is bad, but to say having a LOT of my playtime being killing various creatures for no real story reason beyond being asked to makes some actions feel pointless and like busy-work.

There were also quests that DID tie story in, which was really nice to see- things like inter-guild relations becoming a thing for some quests, or some quests having consequences further down the quest chain depending on how you completed it, and of course (as implied) some quests having multiple solutions with some of those solutions being interesting in how you find out about them.

I mean I think it's really neat how the fighter's guild has like 4 quest givers and if you blindly follow them you'll be doing all kinds of questionable stuff with questionable end goals, but if you talk to each of them you'll find that one of them is much more trustworthy and honorable than the rest, and it becomes a common loop to be sent on a quest for the FG and swing by him to ask if the quest sounds legit- AND MANY AREN'T! AND HE OFFERS ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S COOL AND LET'S YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING TOO LOYAL AND FORGETTING YOUR MORALS BECAUSE YOU ARE "JUST PLAYING A GAME" BUT REWARDS YOU FOR QUESTIONING THAT LOYALTY AND SEEKING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS! THAT'S AWESOME! Though the solution almost always being "just talk to the good guy before you do the quest" was slightly lacking, but such a cool idea.

But there wasn't a ton of this, but there also wasn't not a lot of this- it was an idea they clearly considered playing with and did when they could- I just wish there were both more and that it was used more on the menial tasks you're asked to do as well. I'm a sucker for multiple solutions is all, and consequences appearing later and altering how events play out or quests line up is always cool and I think it only happens a couple times in some guild quests if I'm not mistaken-

But again, I didn't do much in the grand scheme of things lol.

A TON of time invested and still, a metric fuckton to do including 100% of both expansions lol.

So- Morrowind. I really like this game :)

I think it's my favorite TES game, though I might change my mind whenever I revisit TES4, but I can at least say it's my favorite early game BY FAR and PROBABLY my favorite TES game.

I wonder if I can get buff enough to kill Dagoth Ur with like potion abuse. I haven't looked into it, all I know about him (and I knew before this gameplay also, I was just attacking out of curiosity) is that phase 2 rapidly regens health at like 2 billion a second or something, so you have to one shot him if at all possible.

Also I knew that he was supposed to be weaker depending on how many ash vampires you killed, but that that wasn't properly implemented (and I don't think the morrowind code patch bothers fixing it?).

Anywho- great game. I've been playing a lot of good games lately now that I think of it. I mean most of this blog is me playing good games, but I feel like, and I could be mistaken, but I feel like there was a stint there where I was playing "complicated" games and "games I don't enjoy but want to see the merit of so I'm being a sourpuss while I play".

Now I feel like the last 10 dang games were strictly good and or great. Can't say that's a bad thing :)

If you haven't ever played Morrowind before but you're familiar with say Skyrim, I'd honestly say give it a look. A look first- because it's a thick game to begin and you might be able to discern it's not for you based off a look- but a look none the less.

It's Skyrim with more RPG nonsense going on and a more brutal "rags to riches" hero story for your protag. Might be up your alley as much as it ended up being up mine :)

So up next is EITHER an entirely different game with some ocassional Morrowind posts as I touch on the expansions, or more direct Morrowind content as I emphasize the expansions until I finish them, but I'm leaning towards the former.

I think beating the main quest has earned Vaksten the Idiot a short break.