#It’s technically a kid’s fantasy series but I have no idea how nobody else has ever heard of it or why it’s not more popular it’s awesome

[random-chaos-and-stuff]

Silly Game Time: Who are the protagonists of two stories you really enjoy? (could be from any media: movies, shows, novels, games, comics, etc.) (yes, OCs count) AND which of them is better with animals?

You know what? I’m feeling particularly dragony today, so I’m going with Lady Trent from A Natural History of Dragons, and Princess Cimorene from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. And though I love Cimorene a lot, and do think she’d be good with animals, Lady Trent wins, as she is a naturalist and has to actively care for and study the dragons she has, as well as the fact that she loved animals when she was younger too, and with all the time she puts into her work I feel like she would have to be good with animals. It’s shown in the books too that she’s overall pretty good with animals, especially the dragons she studies.

[shihalyfie]

Takeru’s character song “Focus”

I alluded to this in a prior post (and, to be a bit honest about it, was a little concerned about how it would be received), but I had some friends ask about what I meant about this, so I decided to go more into detail with it! This is also partially in light of the occasion of the Best Partner albums also becoming a topic of interest again, so it feels like a good time as ever!

02 was a pretty prolific time for merchandising and side material as far as the franchise goes, and one of the many things that came out of it was the “Best Partner” series of character song albums (a whole 36 songs for all 12 Adventure and 02 kids plus their partners!). Of these, Takeru’s song “Focus” has been a particular topic of interest for many in the fanbase to its suspiciously loaded language and the fact that, well...it comes off as a romantic song, which is very unusual in a series that infamously didn’t touch on the topic of romance very much in terms of the actual series. Speculation has constantly abounded on what it’s supposed to imply, why it’s written this way, and what it could possibly mean...

But if you look at it closely? It’s probably not meant to be romantic, and it most likely refers to Patamon.

One thing that I do need to point out is context. Many who have been cynical about the song’s alleged romantic implications have generally put forth the idea that the music department was technically separate from the anime staff, so it’s possible that the music staff wanted to bait or provoke fanservice without much connection from the anime production. It is, undoubtedly, true that the music department isn’t necessarily fully tied in with the anime department, and has been fully willing to indulge in questionably-canon silliness (while 02′s Christmas Fantasy is certainly in-character, its placement in actual canon timeline has to be finagled with because of what we know about 02′s actual Christmas, and Tamers’s Christmas Illusion is far more comedic than the series itself actually permits), and, exacerbating this further is the fact that Hikari has her own extremely romantically loaded song, Reflection, which is often submitted as evidence that Focus must be made in the same vein, but tends to omit the fact that the album it comes from (Girls Festival) needs to be taken with a very heavy grain of salt given that it’s a notorious fanservice album that deliberately plays up the “maiden-like” characteristics of all of the girls involved for the sake of, ah, a certain subsection of the audience. (It was also made in 2002, long after 02′s production had ended.)

The notable thing about the Best Partner albums is that all of the material on it is extremely in-character, and this is especially notable because the song lyrics are significantly more obviously relevant to each character in 02 and their relationship with their partner than even the original Adventure character songs were (with said Adventure character songs often toeing into rather vague glosses that are only tangentially relevant to each character, and Mimi’s song on there pretty blatantly being an AiM single shoved onto the album for the sake of being called a Mimi song). Moreover, Focus isn’t just written by some random lyricist they grabbed for it, but regular Digimon lyricist Yamada Hiroshi himself, who was very involved in the anime production in terms of writing 02′s inserts Break up! and Beat Hit!, and, considering everything this series is about, you’d imagine he’d probably have been given some kind of details about what to do with Takeru’s representative song. It would be quite strange if, for some reason, Takeru’s song were the only one to go really off the rails about shipping bait instead of being, well, actually about his character arc. 

I should emphasize that the fact that this song is so commonly read as romantic persists in Japan as well, so whether it was via mishap or not, undeniably, the way the lyrics are phrased definitely make the romantic reading a very reasonable one to pull. The language in the song is extremely “loaded”, and, if it weren’t for the unique circumstances I’m about to describe, most reasonable people can’t really be blamed for taking it this way. However, I will say that all of the most common English translations of various parts of the songs have tended to assume the romantic interpretation as well, and have thus followed up with it by definitively translating it in ways that make it near impossible to read otherwise. So what I’m saying here is that I don’t think it was unreasonable for people to have taken the romantic interpretation, and I don’t particularly intend to blame or criticize the translators who handled this song for also taking it this way, but I also want to make clear that this is not the only way to read the song, and that there’s a very high possibility that this wasn’t the case to begin with.

(Also, since I mentioned Yamada Hiroshi earlier: it’s actually not all that uncommon for him to use heavily-loaded language like this in songs he’s written for the series -- refer to Beat Hit! -- it’s just that people haven’t traditionally taken them as shipping because the context and identity of the songs’ topic matters were so obvious that there wasn’t much need to do speculation about it.)

Let’s take a look into all of the parts of the song that have been traditionally taken as romantic:

"We were together since we were little”

One thing that’s interesting about how this line is phrased in Japanese is that it doesn’t actually specify who was little. And, obviously, if you’re talking about a relationship between humans, you’d think that childhood friends would grow up together, so you’d default to “we”...but, actually, the Japanese text doesn’t rule out the possibility of reading this as “since I was little”. Which means that, yes, Patamon isn’t out of the ruling here -- because, indeed, they met when Takeru was young.

In fact, this actually is a line that arguably should rule out anyone else, especially including the most common speculated topic for this song, Hikari -- because he and Hikari weren’t actually that close during Adventure, and their time “together” was relatively short compared to the rest of the adventure. Remember that the Adventure kids weren’t very close to each other after the events of the series, and Hikari and Takeru didn’t keep close contact between Adventure and 02 -- contrast Patamon being close to Takeru during the entirety of the series, and, bar their periods of disconnect between Adventure and 02, you could say that he’s been the closest to Takeru since this time, especially since Yamato hadn’t been able to be as present for him as he’d wanted.

"Running, rolling around, and always laughing"

Again, this is a line that practically excludes nearly anyone else from consideration. Nobody ever did this with Takeru in Adventure but Patamon, especially since Takeru was trying to present himself as a well-behaved kid in the presence of his elders, and it’s entirely possible he wouldn’t have been willing to do this with anyone else but the outwardly childish Patamon. It definitely would not have been Hikari, who was arguably even more reserved than him during this time.

“It would have been better if I hadn’t realized”/“I have a lot of things I want to tell you, but I can’t really say it”/“I can’t ask that”

Sentiments like “I can’t admit it”, or difficulty with accepting one’s own feelings, is usually associated with developing romantic feelings for another person and being touchy about admitting them, but the thing is that this is intended to be a representative character song, and Takeru is actually abysmally bad at admitting anything in general. And yes, that includes not being able to be straightforward with Patamon himself about parsing his trauma over his death.

Takeru was never able to have a straightforward conversation with even Patamon about the whole issue, because of his nasty habit of never opening up about his problems and never being honest about them. That’s why Iori had to be the one to take matters into his own hands and go out of his way to understand Takeru, because Takeru sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to work through this on his own, or even with Patamon.

“I can’t get you off my mind”

This one’s actually a stock phrase in Japanese that can refer to “being interested” in someone (romantically), but can also refer to something just not really being able to leave your head in general (from being bothered by it, or being very worried). So yes, this could mean anything from a romantic fixation...to simply being constantly worried and concerned about one’s welfare.

“You were always crying”

As far as people around Takeru’s periphery who apparently cried a lot goes, there aren’t a lot! The description doesn’t seem to fit Hikari much, either (she had her moments, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d imagine this kind of extreme descriptor for). Hm, but there is someone who might fit that description...

Certainly, enough that Takeru would remember.

(By the way, Patamon gets sent on the verge of tears in the middle of his own solo song...)

"The door that I couldn't reach that day, no matter how far I stretched out"

Very important part here: that day. There was a very important “day” that seems to be on Takeru’s mind here. What’s repeatedly referred to in 02 as one of the most traumatic and impactful days of Takeru’s life?

Incidentally, Takeru and Patamon’s duet song for this album also just so happens to use “opening door” imagery...

“You’re now standing in the light”

That use of “light” is usually submitted as evidence that it’s referring to Hikari via a pun on her name, but, well, “light” does happen to just mean “light”, after all (and it’s used in many contexts that don’t necessarily have to refer to Hikari in 02 itself). And, well...

Pretty apt description there, no?

"We were always being protected"

It could refer to Hikari, or anyone else Takeru was with during Adventure, but remember that Patamon was always the slowest to evolve (especially given the many circumstances that happened with him in Adventure that kept him unable to actively join the fight effectively for a very, very long time), and Takeru himself also had a pretty nasty complex about holding everyone back.

So, in conclusion...

Despite how loaded the language is, in the end, it’s probably meant to be a song about Takeru handling his trauma regarding Patamon very poorly at the time of 02. Which is, well, what his character arc in 02 was about, so it tracks, doesn’t it?

Bear in mind that, again, this is basically “one readable interpretation of it”, which I also personally happen to back very strongly because I think the evidence simply tracks too much given context -- the details described in the song rule out almost every other candidate that would be relevant to Takeru’s character arc, also happen to describe the events of Adventure too well, and certainly would track much better with everything else in this particular album series mostly being relevant to everyone’s character as reflected in 02. Song lyrics are song lyrics, and interpretation might be in the eyes of the beholder...but, you know, food for thought.

[bondsmagii]

This is definitely one of the… wilder stories here, but as always, I suppose people will believe what they will. 

This will unfortunately require some backstory, but I guess you could say the long and the short of it is that I played at being God, and it. Well. Kind of sucked, actually.

So, the backstory. I’ll try to keep it brief. I grew up in a small country village about forty-five minutes away from Belfast, Ireland. There wasn’t much going on there, as you could imagine – just a standard rural Irish town, where the most exciting thing that might happen in a week was old Farmer Joe getting a new tractor or something. Anyway, I’m not sure how many of you know about Ireland’s rather troubled past, but for the most part I missed all that. I was born around the time things were finally settling down, and while my earlier memories are filled with bomb scares and low-flying helicopters and gunshots in the night, the distant sound of shouting and the acrid smell of smoke burning a little too close for comfort, by the time I hit my teenage years most of it had wrapped up. Of course, there was the occasional scare here and there, and I’m not saying my friends and I didn’t go out looking for trouble once we were old enough, but it wasn’t the same. I’m not saying that out of a sense of, I don’t know, regret or annoyance or anything. Now I’m older, I’m not so enamoured by the idea of that much violence. I’m just saying it wasn’t really a patch on the kind of violence that used to happened there – the kind of violence that fascinated my friends and I so much. It sounds bad, but really we were just kids being kids. Little boys everywhere play at war games. It just so happened that the war we were playing had happened in our own country. It’s difficult not to be obsessed, when you see the reflection of history on the faces of every generation around you. Even slightly older siblings would know all about it – it wasn’t something you asked your grandfather, distant war stories over some vague European country that you’ve only seen on a map in your Geography classroom. This was our street corners, our high streets, the road outside the house. Here the grass verge at the side of the road where the bodies were dumped; there the lay-by where over a dozen people were blown to pieces. It was awful, but we were children. We were enamoured.

Anyway. The only violence we got really involved in was the summer rioting that happened yearly, like clockwork. It sounds like a joke, but that’s how it goes. You don’t need to know the details, but suffice to say in mid-July every year, the city would light up like we were back in the 1970s. Localised, of course, and still nowhere near as drastic as it used to be, but enough to get a taste. Petrol bombs. Police lines. Armoured cars. Water cannons. Unrestrained summer fun, you could say. But that’s for a bit later.

I’m a writer. I have been since I was four years old. Generally speaking I’m a horror writer, but I’ve branched into historical fiction a fair bit over the years. Living in Ireland, growing up how I did, it was inevitable that I would develop a fascination for Irish history. I was always a very curious child, my head in books, chasing up stories that would keep me awake at night. I never knew any boundaries. I would go after answers with military precision, asking questions, going places I shouldn’t. Dangerous for anyone, of course, but in a country like mine, where crossing the road could quite literally lead to your murder? It was reckless. I was reckless. But that’s the thing about being that age. You think you’re invincible. You think you can do anything.

I was about fourteen or fifteen, at the height of this obsession. I believe I was fifteen when I wrote this particular story, but it’s difficult to say. It was part of a series, and I was going back and forth on it and other projects for many years. Here we finally get to the point of the whole story: I had developed an obsession with Irish history, as I said, and specifically the more “modern” history – from 1916 onwards, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, all that. I was fascinated by the Irish struggle for freedom, and while age and hindsight has lessened my… enthusiasm for the violence, I do maintain a strong opinion towards the whole thing, which is not the point here so I won’t get into it. What I’m trying to say is that my stories reflected this enthusiasm, and were undoubtedly glorifying in nature, and also at that age I was more concerned with living the fantasy than doing the research, so it was all very self-indulgent. I’m sure anyone who wrote at that age knows what I mean.

My main character… well. I’m sure you know what to expect. He was—well. Me, really. In the way of all main characters at that age, and perhaps a little even as we get older, there’s a piece of us inside all our main characters. Sometimes a little piece, other times just a cooler and more badass version of yourself. Michael was that for me. I suppose that must is obvious; I wasn’t even trying to be subtle. My name is of course Miceál, which for those of you keeping track is the Irish form of Michael. I’m just grateful that I didn’t go as far as to give him my last name, too, but everything else was there. He looked like me, he held the same views and beliefs as me, he acted like me – or at least, he acted in the ways I liked to think I’d act, or how I imagined acting later that night in the shower, reliving the scenario again. He was the best kind of self-insert character, indulgent and fun and a good friend to me. I poured a lot of myself into him. I poured everything into him. He was a constant companion, something that became ever more important to me as my real life—well, went to shit. To put it mildly. I would sit in my room writing my stories, and Michael would go out there and fight the good fight, killing and bombing for good old Ireland, and then I’d shut my computer down and go to sleep feeling just a little better than otherwise.

I’m not afraid to say that I can be obsessive. I like to get into the heads of my characters; I like to know them as well as I know everything. Yes, Michael was me, but he was also a version of me who had done things I have never done. Sometimes I would try to imagine myself as him; wonder what it was like to see through his eyes. Wonder what a me who had done that would look like. Wonder what he would do in a situation. I asked myself that a few times; a lot of times. What would Michael do? I could have put that shit on a wristband. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I’ve always been a bit of a method writer like that. It was normal, until it wasn’t.

I first saw Michael on a hot July day, in Belfast. What we call the rioting season had come around; my friends and I were there to take advantage. Just at the sidelines, mind you – nobody wants to get a face full of water cannon, even on the hottest of days. Michael was in the thick of it though. Of course he was. I’d written him to be that way.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. At first I thought I must be seeing things, but the more I looked the more I realised he looked exactly like me. Only he was a little taller, a little fitter, and his hair looked different. His clothing was different, too; perhaps a couple of decades out of date, but looking at him I saw his clothing didn’t remain consistent. The changes were subtle – material, tone – but I noticed. Looking back, I assume it’s because I never did give a specific date for his story to occur in. Well, wherever he was from he was there now, throwing rocks with the best of them, skipping from stone to stone and hurling them at police lines with an easy swing that could only come from years of practise. When we had all finally cleaned out the area – soldiers coming, a helicopter, the kind of trouble you don’t want to toy with – I managed to catch up with him. He was talking to my friends. They noticed we were both there, but didn’t seem to realise we were two different people. The whole time we were all talking, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Michael. I tried, because I knew how obvious I was being, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t work him out. I couldn’t even trust that’s what I was seeing. And the whole time, Michael watched me back. I knew the look in his eyes. It was his smug little, I know something you don’t know look. Of course I knew it. I had made him like that. I had given him that look.

I didn’t see him for some time after that. Believe it or not, I put it out of my head. I mean, come on. It was probably some other guy that my friends knew. We were in Belfast enough, and Michael isn’t exactly an uncommon name. I put it out of my mind, but I was sure that sometimes, I saw him. I was sure I’d see him in Belfast, ducking down side streets or leaning in close conversation with someone I couldn’t make out. He was always watching me. Sometimes I’d feel eyes on me and know it was him, but when I looked around I wouldn’t spot him. On some occasions – and these were always the worst – I would feel his eyes behind my own. Like he was on the inside looking out, moving independently in there, a set of eyes swivelling around over my own. It happened most often when I was trying to write his story. As you can imagine, I was nervous to do so. The more I thought I saw him, the less I wanted to write, but I didn’t think that was a good idea either. I didn’t know what to do.

It was a sunny weekend just before school started back after summer that I finally resolved to do something about it. I didn’t even feel stupid as I booted up my old Windows 95 desktop and opened Word. Michael’s story was there, in 12-point font as I always wrote then, plenty of enthusiasm but a lot less technical skill. My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment, and then I typed.

Hello?

Nothing, of course. I deleted the word, wondering what I had expected. Feeling a little stupid now, I tried to think about where to go with the story. It was difficult to write now I had some kind of real person to assign to it all – what were the ethics here? How could I—

I won’t get into that. It would be a philosophical essay all of its own. I sat for a while wondering what to write, and then it hit me that the story had changed. The words Michael had spoken, in the paragraph that I had left off – they were no longer the words I had written. I forget what the original words were now, but they were something relatively simple; some response to another character, and I remember that another name was mentioned in it – the name of Michael’s in-universe best friend, Eamon. Now that name was gone, and the rest of the text had changed, too. Now the writing read something different entirely.

I thought you wanted to know?

I lied earlier. I said that age and experience and perhaps some more emotional maturity had led me to turn away from the kind of violence that fascinated me so much then, and I have no doubt that under normal circumstances it would have done. I had somewhat of a speed run, however; I turned my back on it because

I’m getting ahead of myself.

I had often wondered what it would be like to do what Michael did, of course. To kill and risk death for a cause, to face down prison, torture, exile. I had wondered what it would be like to commit those acts; how easy or difficult it would be to pull a trigger or push a detonator. I liked to think, in my foolish, idealistic teenage mind, that if it came down to it I could. Of course, I was in the very privileged position to not have to actually answer that question.

Michael, on the other hand, knew. And Michael was, if not me, than a product of me. Could it be possible that he could show me?

I ignored the message for several days. I didn’t know what to think. Truth be told I thought I was going mad. School started again and I got so busy that I almost, almost forgot about it – and then I opened the document by mistake one day, got into reading it over, laughing at my brilliant comebacks, you know how it is. And there it was again.

I thought you wanted to know?

Yes, I remember thinking. It stunned me – I remember that. I didn’t want to mess with this kind of stuff – I’ve always been a huge believer in the paranormal, always been cautious when it comes to fucking with that kind of stuff. I believe that magic like this, it requires intent. It needs you to be sure. It knows how you feel, true in your heart. So even when I ignored it again, even when I deleted the words and re-wrote whatever the original had been, even as I didn’t reply… I knew in my heart that my question had been heard by something. I could feel Michael’s eyes on me again, though now I wondered if it was Michael’s eyes, or something else entirely. It felt like a weight. Have you ever been in an old, old place, where you can practically feel the people who lived and died there; reach out and touch them? It felt like that. Like the weight of history was pressing down on me. I didn’t fall asleep easily that night, but when I did sleep was dark and endless.

I don’t know how long I spent in that state. In reality it was only seven hours; I woke up with my alarm. In that time period, wherever I was – because I was not living – I seemed to witness a hundred different lives. Over the course of Michael’s story I had him do all kinds of things; live all kinds of situations. I deleted things, changed others, added things in. I wrote what would now be called alternate universes. In that night I experienced them all. I know how it feels now. I know how it feels to pull a trigger; to watch the spray of someone’s life splatter a wall or a windscreen or the screaming backseat passengers of a car. I know how it feels to push the button, the one that sends a charge surging down a wire or flickering out over my head in an invisible wave of death, notifying the bomb, detonating the explosives. I know how it feels to sit in a hotel bar across a border, listening to the news, sipping a drink and feeling my heart beat in my chest as I add more numbers to the tally, more blood to my hands. I know how it feels to be shot, to be beaten, to watch a friend die, to kill someone who used to be – who still is, despite everything – a friend. I know how it feels to cough blood into my hands, onto the ground; to grip a wound that won’t stop bleeding; the blinding flash of an explosive detonating too soon and how the whole world seems to roar and how there’s a difference between the thud and slap of wet mud hitting the ground and the warmer, denser rain of something that used to be human. For days, weeks, years – I walked in Michael’s shoes, I lived his life, I committed every act.

I felt his pain. His fear. This hellish world that he lived in, created to kill and die and lose and fear, over and over. To meet his God and to finally, finally ask – why?

And what could I say? Because I wanted to know?

Well. Now I do.

[adultswim2021]

Welcome to Eltingville: “Bring Me the Head of Boba Fett” | February 26, 2002 - 4:00 AM | Special

Lots of personal baggage to unpack on this one, so please forgive what will surely read as a personal blog post:

Welcome to Eltingville was the first of Adult Swim’s “failed pilots” which aired as a special. It’s failed in the sense that it didn’t get picked up, presumably for being too expensive. It originally aired as a stealth premiere at 4:00AM on Monday night/Tuesday morning, I’m assuming to fulfill a contractual agreement. It had a “for real” advertised premiere on March 3rd, which is what you’ll find cited on various web sources.

It’s time I confess something here: I didn’t like this show the first time around. The early 2000s was a time when “nerd” culture was being clumsily embraced as a novelty. People suddenly started gravitating towards movies and shows about nerds, all usually portrayed in a cutesy and toothless way. Yes, I was too blinded by my own shunning of this trend to realize that this show was the antithesis of that. And yes, I was unfamiliar with the original comics that these were based on, which probably would have blown my mind if I was aware of them in the 90s. Hell, I would have shunned a Dan Pussey cartoon if I weren’t already in love with Dan Clowes comics.

Was it all overblown in my own head? Well, I can only come up with two examples to illustrate my distaste for “nerds stuff”, so yes, it probably was. First, Super Nerds, which was a 2000 pilot staring Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn as two nerds who worked at a comic book store. I was sold on it by a friend as being the best sitcom he’d ever seen in his life. I also loved Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn. But good lord, did I hate that show, a lot. The more mainstream example is the Comedy Central show Beat the Geeks, a trivia game show where normal people compete against experts (or geeks) in certain fields (usually popular culture related). The promos showed the geeks in question strutting around and ironically looking cool and triumphant. These promos were so profoundly unfunny to me that I found it insane and offensive when the whole “geek” angle seemed to hook other members of my family. “there’s this game show where guys have to compete... against GEEKS! haw haw!” I can still hear my dad’s voice echo in my head. I still hate it!

I also didn’t relate to traditionally geeky things, like superhero comics, science fiction/fantasy, etc. I hated all of that stuff, and I still mostly do (did I go through a multiple year phase in my early 30s where I tried to force myself to like super hero comics? Yes! I did! It didn’t particularly take). I am absolutely a comedy nerd, though, which is a much MUCH lonelier pursuit.

Hell, the comedy nerd isn’t even an archetype on TV shows; Freaks and Geeks came fairly close, but those guys also liked sci-fi and role-playing games and stuff. Square Pegs also had a comedy nerd character. There was that episode of Undeclared where Martin Starr is boring the rest of the cast by trying to explain that Freddy Got Fingered was an intelligent anti-comedy (the closest I’ve ever seen myself be portrayed on screen). All of these shows lasted one season, making the comedy nerd character the most potent poison since (NOTE TO SELF: google FAMOUS FICTIONAL POISONS, please pick a cool non-nerdy one [leave note-to-self in write-up if coming up with one is impossible {will come off as intentional meta-humor (everyone will love this)}]).

Welcome to Eltingville is about four friends who have created The Eltingville Comc Book, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Role-Playing Club. They’ve presumably been together for a long time when this episode starts, and we see the dynamics of the club right away, the main thing being the constant petty bickering that quickly becomes violent and destructive. They’re all gigantic jerks who presumably only hang with each other because nobody else will. The main conflict of this show has to do with Bill, the Stan of the group, and Josh, the Cartman, who eventually come to blows over a rare Boba Fett doll-- I mean, figure. The first half of the show is a pretty good introduction to the would-be-series, with the guys playing a D&D style role-playing game and then getting into a full-fledged fist-fight over a VHS compilation of nude scenes that turns out to be a recording of the Hair Bear Bunch. The second half is an adaptation of the comic story “Bring Me The Head of Boba Fett”. Had I thought of it I might have read the entire run of Eltingville Club comics before reviewing this. Unfortunately it was a bit of an afterthought so I just read the first two stories, including the Boba Fett one. For the record, I own the Eltingville book, and definitely read and loved the two-issue series that serves as the ending of the Eltingville comics. It’s all those comics in the middle I still need to get to.

The show is very funny and it looks beautiful. According to the few interviews that I’ve found regarding the show (including a page of text found in the Eltingville book, which precedes a section showing off some of the character design sheets), there really wasn’t much reason given for the show not getting picked up. The show definitely looked better than anything else on Adult Swim, so the whole “too expensive” thing seems like as good an assumption as any. Apparently Dorkin spread himself too thin working on this, attempting to design/draw every little thing seen on screen. I actually wondered that while watching the show, because his art style is faithfully preserved here, which is great! The episode ends the same way the comic story does, with Bill & Josh in a trivia-off, competing over the buying rights for a 12 inch Boba Fett action figure at their local comic shop. With every rewatch of this show I confront one basic thing about myself, and it’s how much of the trivia I’ve picked up since the last rewatch. Bill & Josh’s trivia-off is a flurry of questions regarding all kinds of geek garbage, and the few years between viewings of this results in me knowing a few more answers. But, I have the internet, and can usually get hold of a movie or TV show or comic book almost instantly. It’s important to not lose sight that these kids (especially in the comics) are either high-school or college-aged and they learned all of this shit in an era when the internet wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today. The original comic is set firmly in 1994, and when there’s a dispute over a question Josh runs home to get a large Godzilla reference book to prove that he’s correct. This changed in the pilot to Josh losing on a technicality with a slip-of-the-tongue; attributing a famous catchphrase to a fellow club-member who had adopted it for himself (the comic actually SEEMS to set this up, but doesn’t go in that direction at all, which is weird when you read it AFTER watching this special. I think that means the cartoon improved on that idea).

Wikipedia makes no mention of this stealth broadcast. It would SEEM to make more sense that it aired Monday morning following late night Sunday, but Adult Swim ended at 1AM back in these days, making early Monday morning still technically “out of bounds”. In fact, I very nearly “corrected” the air date to reflect this, but a quick google search for “Welcome to Eltingville” + “4AM” yielded this message board thread where we can see in real time that early Tuesday morning is indeed correct. So, if you’re ever arguing over a 12 inch Boba Fett feel free to uses this trivia in your trivia off.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hi! Your analysis of GK is so great. In a past few weeks I read almost all of the chapter ramblings and so many times your predictions and observations were spot on.

I became intrigued by Ogata's character the most and your posts helped to structure the info about his place in the story. 

Even though we have zero info about his motivation for being in all this mess, I kinda think of him as an agent of chaos. Ogata played with the idea of killing Asirpa at least twice (although in Karafuto arc I think he had some kind of breakdown because of Asirpa's similarity to Yuusaku) which means at least twice he was ready to give up on gold. 

And that made me think that maybe Noda, plot wise, building him up to be the one who will destroy the gold or do something that no one can get it? Ogata's behavior mostly leans toward destruction so it would be logical for him to play the Joker of the series (Heath Ledger's Joker who could burn a ton of money just to show he dgaf)? 

Sorry for such a long ask and for my grammar, my English is not very good. Can't wait to read some more of your ramblings. 

Thank you for enjoying my analysis and welcome among those who’re intrigued by Ogata!

Please, don’t worry about your English, I’m not English speaker myself so really, I know how hard it is to write in a foreign language.

On another note I have to admit that, as I already said, I strongly disagree with the 99% of the cases in which the fandom refers to Ogata as a chaotic character, agent of chaos and so on so it’s up to you if you feel like continuing to read this reply.

If you do let’s get a bit into technicalities.

When nowadays you define a character a “chaotic one”?

When he fits the “chaotic character alignment”.

What’s a character alignment?

Originally in RPG it was a convenient shorthand for a given character's moral/ethical outlook on life, the universe and everything.

On the moral axis you have Good, Neutral, and Evil. Good focuses on improving others' well-being; Evil focuses on the self, even at the expense of others; and Neutral an intermediate position that either doesn't care or seeks balance between the two ends.

On the Ethical axis: Lawful, Neutral, and, of course, Chaotic. Lawful represents honor and obedience to the law; Chaotic leans toward personal freedom, without regards to the law; and Neutral is again an intermediate position that either doesn't care or seeks balance between the two ends.

You pair those 6 variants and get 9 possible alignments.

In the Chaotic case you get:

- Chaotic good: better example is Robin Hood, a thief (therefore chaotic because he doesn’t respect the law) who steals to the rich to give to the poor (therefore good). Doesn’t respect the law but he clearly does it for a morally good ending.

- Chaotic evil: better example the Joker in many of its versions. He is a criminal (so obviously chaotic) who commits any sort of crime either at the expenses of others or in order of having fun at hurting others (so evil).

- Chaotic neutral: they do what they want but they aren’t out to hurt or save anyone. They just want to do what they want. It’s a bit hard to find a character fitting for them. Some suggest Lupin III because, although he steals (so again he’s chaotic), he doesn’t aim to hurt anyone nor to help anyone but himself  (and this would make him neutral... though in Lupin’s case it’s a bit more complicate than that). Occasionally you can fit in this trope fantastic creatures (Gods, kenders, creatures from the mythologies or from a fantasy setting) that just don’t respect the law because... they’re written/drawn like that and don’t really have a motive for their own actions beyond that’s in their own nature... nature that the author created as such for fictional purposes.

Note that using those axis is good for oversimplified analysis or oversimplified characters and not for realistic characters like the ones of “Golden Kamuy” who’re neither good nor evil nor completely chaotic albeit hardly lawful but they are a huge mix of all that... like many real people are.

So back to GK... since no one in this story is respecting the law, if we really want to stuck people on the ethical axis EVERYONE falls on the chaotic alignment, starting with the convicts, who of course don’t respect law, to Tsurumi, who’s a rebel officer and going through Wilk and Kiro and Sofia (partisans/revolutionaries) and Sugimoto himself who’s hunting people, fighting the 7th (although we know the 7th is rebelling, since they’re still legally in charge, they still represent the law).

In this sense Ogata is also chaotic like everyone else and this is the only case in which I’m willing to acknowledge him as such, because, like everyone else, he’s not respecting the law but doing what he decided he needs to do to reach his goal.

But a part of the fandom use the term chaotic merely to imply he’s here to wreak havoc merely because he has fun doing others miserable.

This is not being chaotic, this is being evil, the poorly characterized evil who has no real motive for the things he does beyond that he’s evil and all his backstory is just an excuse, not a motive.

This would make Ogata an even poorly written character than Ueji, who’s a chaotic evil but whose backstory explains why he went insane and started to find fun in other’s people misery.

Ogata’s backstory doesn’t explain that, it explains his obsession for his father, for his approbation, for him to come back to him and his mother, for him to fit in a family OF HIS OWN CHOSING.

So, I’m not saying Noda can’t make Ogata be in the story wreaking havoc for the fun of it, just that if that’s the case Ogata is a poorly written character because he lacks a motive for his actions.

For Ogata to be well written, all his actions need to be possible to be explained according to his motive.

Noda for example has recently explained WHY Wilk changed, WHY Kiro killed him, WHY Tsurumi is obsessed with Wilk, WHY the Ainu slaughtered each other, WHY Wilk lost his face and ended up in Abashiri.

And once you know the reasons why all those people did X you might criticize them for their choices, because they might feel like stupid or immoral choices but they make sense in that setting.

So why Ogata tried killing Asirpa?

Why not?

We don’t know for which motive Ogata is in the gold hunt. We don’t know if he wants the gold. What if he’s in the gold hunt for a reason that’s not tied to the gold?

He was in a rebel group way before he knew Sugimoto or Asirpa existed.

Is he allied with Central or is he moved by a personal grudge?

We don’t know.

Does he too believe finding the gold would be evil so he wants either to find the gold and hide it some other place or for nobody to find the gold?

We don’t know.

Did he allied with Kiro because he has ties with the Ainu or with some other partisan/revolutionary force?

We don’t know.

Is he merely trying to avoid the Central will sweep away the 7th once they steal the info on where the gold is from Tsurumi? Does he not want a Civil War in Hokkaido? Is he keeping some sort of promise?

We don’t know.

But Ogata can have tons of motives to be in this gold hunt (though I bet his motive is tied to his father so maybe does he want to prove something to him even if the guy is dead? Or avenge him in some way? Or himself because Tsurumi tricked him into thinking his father could love him when this clearly would never be the case? Those things are motives that can move his actions but that aren’t tied to him gaining the gold.

If that’s the case ‘finding the gold’ might not be his ultimate goal, his ultimate goal might be, for example, STOPPING TSURUMI FROM FINDING IT.

This doesn’t make him a chaotic character, it makes him Tsurumi’s antagonist/adversary/enemy.

In this case, if he can’t find it and move it away, killing Asirpa so that Tsurumi won’t get any clue from her, is a good way to accomplish his goal.

Still, even if he were to be interested in the gold, killing Asirpa would still be a good way to prevent others from finding it before him.

Asirpa isn’t going to tell him the key to the code, this was made clear in Karafuto when she kept on stalling even though she had no idea Ogata shoot her father.

Ogata has made clear he is not the type to torture a kid to get an info because he didn’t try to beat Asirpa to force her to talk. If she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want to.

But Asirpa can give that info to others. To avoid this Tsurumi planned to jail her in an underground room.

Ogata has no basement to hide her.

If he can’t get the info himself, the only way to prevent others to get it is to kill Asirpa.

What’s more, Ogata might have grown to believe he doesn’t need Asirpa to find the gold. Maybe he thinks he can figure out the key on his own, or maybe, since he was with Asirpa when she remembered the key, he has figured the key was tied to the meaning of Wilk’s name, “Wolf”, had tried using “Horkey”, the Ainu way to say “Wolf” on the skins Hijikata had and has assumed that was the whole key.

Killing an Asirpa who won’t cooperate with him, is no big deal to him because, unless he’s willing to torture her (psychologically like Tsurumi is doing, or physically) she’s of no use to him.

If she joins Hijikata she might share the info with him but she’ll also stop Hijikata from taking him back.

If she’s carried to Tsurumi, Ogata knows Tsurumi will force her to talk which is precisely what Tsurumi has done.

In short, since he can’t get the info she has while others can, the only way for him not to end up with a huge disadvantage is to kill her.

The fact her death will throw into chaos his adversaries doesn’t mean him longing for chaos, means just that he knows if you create chaos in the enemy forces this will work at your advantage. It’s basic war strategy, nothing more

“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.” [Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”]

So no, if the idea is that Ogata is chaotic because he’s here to create chaos for the sake of creating chaos, I’m not embracing it in the slightest.

Of course this doesn’t mean I’m necessarily right, just that this is my view on him. I’m not Noda, I can, of course, be wrong.

Thank you for your ask!

[degenerate-perturbation]

Ultimate Good Omens Fic Recommendations

I read the entire AO3 archive. I started sometime in November 2018 and read all the way back to 1999. I did not read every story, but I tried. Here are my recommendations.

(Most Good Omens fic is very good, which is why I bothered to read the entire archive instead of just scrolling through the first few pages, despairing, and giving up, which is what I usually do when I read fanfiction. So if your fic is not here, congratulations! I probably still read it and liked it but this post is already very long.)

My Absolute Top Favorites

Deus Ex Machina by clockwork_spider -  Angels really aren't the most sentimental bunch, so when Crowley was escorted back to Hell, Aziraphale's initial reaction was to do nothing. But let it be known that God moves in ineffable ways.

Tryst On a Hot Church Roof by Macdicilla -  Crowley has some fantasies. Aziraphale encourages him to explore them and not to be embarrassed. Neither of them can really take roleplay seriously but they still have a good time.

Re-Recalled by Jennistar -  Halfway through an argument, Aziraphale gets accidentally discorporated and doesn't come back. Crowley does the sensible thing and panics.

The love that dare not speak its name by Lunasong365, sous_le_saule  -  London, late nineteenth century. Aziraphale finds that time moves slowly while waiting for Crowley to wake up. Meeting Oscar Wilde should break the monotony. But perhaps it will bring more of a change than the angel anticipated…

Safe Haven by JAMoczo -  A remix of Prodigal Son: January 1945; Aziraphale has a crisis of Faith.

(The rest below the cut, in convenient categories)

General

Five Things That Never Happened To Aziraphale by imperfectcircle - Five things.

Down to the Earth with Violence by Daegaer -  Crowley and Aziraphale meet after the end of the world.

Coming to an Arrangement by Daegaer  - The long, slow path to the Arrangement.

Act of Redemption by copperbadge -  After the world failed to end, Crowley got depressed.

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot by xylodemon -  In which Crowley starts over. Again, and again, and again.

A Few Conversations, Which are Mostly Related to Christmas by xylodemon - In which there is cocoa, conversation, and more Christmas cheer than Crowley think is strictly necessary.

The Ghost and A. J. Crowley by Argyle -  A heartwarming tale of grisly ghost plants and fearsome floral apparitions. Has Crowley finally met his match? Will Aziraphale come to the rescue? And just how difficult is it to remove dirt stains from white carpet?

Five Meetings (Steps in the Fall and Rise to Grace) by icarus_chained -  GO Noir AU. Bad things are brewing in the City of Angels, and one tired ex-cop is stuck in the middle of it.

How to Make Friends and Influence Flora aka Radio Four Never Mentioned This by WinterEyes -  The Fear of Crowley isn't all it's cracked up to be

Suntne Angeli? by Macdicilla -  Adam answers the question of whether angels need to eat and drink, and accidentally creates a major change in the (pants) fabric of reality.

Field Agents by Lunasong365, sous_le_saule -  How did ‘Human’ Resources (both Demonic and Angelic) recruit Crawly and Aziraphale to be field agents? Is it a coincidence that they both found themselves back on Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden?

The Devil Went Down to Georgia by ImprobableDreams900 -  Now Crowley went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal, cause he was in a bind and way behind and he was willing to make a deal.

Major Failings by irisbleufic -  It was quick and messy, the sort of thing that took you off-guard no matter how many beheadings, torture stints, and vivisections you'd seen otherwise. Actually, Crowley wasn't certain how many of any of those he'd actually seen. He tended to lower his eyes or look away at the last second. This was also a major failing in a demon.

Pre-Relationship

Gavotte by bunnyfication -  Crowley sleeps a decade or a few, and suddenly Aziraphale is dressing fashionably? And asking him to a dance at a club with a "select clientele"? Clearly something is amiss.

Something About Flamingos by Plumbeo -  Aziraphale and Crowley have a petty, stupid, pointless fight. After four days of not talking to each other, the angel decides to break the silence - in an equally stupid way.

it giveth light unto all in the house (the let's have some wine remix) by pocky_slash -  There's loving Crowley the way he loves their waiter at the café and the ducks in St. James Park and linzer tarts and there's—well.

growing season by ghostsoldier - In which Aziraphale kills plants, and Crowley is a generous sort of demon.

Afternoons and Espresso Spoons by Kirathaune

Home by LysanderandHermia - Crowley has a realization, and it's about the angel drooling on the couch while he sleeps.

Sweet Dreams, Angel! by sous_le_saule -  Aziraphale’s never been able to sleep. Crowley takes up the challenge.

Be Ye Therefore Merciful by AmberDiceless -  Crowley does something utterly unexpected, and Aziraphale must face an opponent who cannot be thwarted.

Saunter by Aria -  There is nothing to do but feel out of sorts, disjointed and slightly askew from the world, and watch as Aziraphale absently eats the apple, the world's hundred millionth apple, symbolic of nothing at all.

They Get Together In These Ones

And when he falls by torch -  There are many ways to celebrate having avoided the apocalypse.

The Member of the Wedding by Aja - Crowley comes to a realization.

Survivors' Guilt / For All the World by irisbleufic -  It was a dark and stormy night, and nobody was enjoying it.

Goodbody by copperbadge -  Aziraphael's new body is causing some problems.

Sunday (Or the First Day Of the Rest of Their Lives) by pollitt -  Sunday at the park

Under Cover by bliumchik -  There's a new little problem in Tadfield...

An Excellent Long-Term Solution by Beth H (bethbethbeth) - In which Hell seems more forgiving than Heaven, Aziraphale seems to have got himself into a bit of a pickle, and Crowley seems to have come up with the perfect solution, almost all on his own.

Firebird: III. Finale by htebazytook -  "In the background Crowley and Aziraphale met on the tops of buses, and in art galleries, and at concerts, compared notes, and smiled."

Old Fashioned by htebazytook -  Hell has changed.

Very Complicated Solitaire by htebazytook

Ordinary People (The Anything But Ordinary Remix) by cimorene  -  Crowley has started to take a proprietary interest in Aziraphale's bookshop.

The Speck in the London Eye by Vulgarweed -  A hot dame, a missing youth, a quirky consultant—and much much more than meets the eye at stake. Private Investigator A.J. Crowley just might be in over his head this time.

TwoFish by Grindylowe -  A love story about angels and demons. Also, fish.  

Snowy Evenings by htebazytook -  Five times Crowley couldn't stand the snow, and one time he could.

A Peculiar Sensation by Elvendork -  It happens at the Ritz: Aziraphale comes to a startling realistion, but takes it in his stride remarkably well.

As Above, So Below by JenTheSweetie - Crowley and Aziraphale talk, drink, complete paperwork, drink, fall asleep with abandon, drink, and do other stuff (maybe). And drink.

Modern Love by punkfaery -  Crowley, Aziraphale, and a series of religious buildings.

A Backwards Proposal by HoloXam -  An encounter with a bride-to-be puts an idea in Aziraphale's head. Crowley doesn't react very well.

Post-Relationship

Recall by busaikko -  RECALL: 1. To ask or order to return; 2. To summon back to awareness; 3. To remember; recollect.

That Subtle Knot by apple_pi -  I wonder. Does an angel get his wings when the bell is set off by a demon?

Never Mind the Gravitation by Argyle -  Sure, there's life on Mars. But Crowley can hardly call it living.

Flamingos by Interrobam -  "Las Vegas, Crowley had always maintained, was technically Aziraphale's fault." Crowley and Aziraphale go to Las Vegas, contemplate the history of civilization and the meaning of existence.

Snapshots by mirawonderfulstar -  Five photographs on the wall of Aziraphale’s shop.

A Resort By Any Other Name by TheLifeOfEmm -  Or in which Crowley and Aziraphale go on holiday, but have a bit of trouble with the weather.

Hell's Bells (Wedding Bells) by Macdicilla -  Hell finds out that Aziraphale and Crowley are together, and eventually Heaven does too. Hell sends its [unwelcome] congratulations.

Categorization by SleepsWithCoyotes -  Crowley calls 'em like he sees 'em.

Black Dog by HoloXam -  In which Crowley feels bad and Aziraphale makes tea.

The Flame No Dampness Dulls by mirawonderfulstar -     Aziraphale doesn't understand why Crowley's spent the last two months trying to seduce him when the demon hasn't ever shown any interest in sex.

heaven is a place where nothing ever happens by Contra -  After the end of the world, there comes a new morning.

These Ones Have Sex

Lethe For Two by SleepsWithCoyotes -  A visit from the Angel of Oblivion sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it?

Monday, Half Past Four by TruckThat -  Crowley decides that almost any course of action is justified if it manages to distract him from the fact that it's been nearly two days and so far nothing else is going wrong.

The Reason for the Season by Vulgarweed -  Adam and Pepper, now married with children of their own, worry that their kids might be losing some of the magic of the season. Adam calls in a little favour from some old friends - with a nice little bonus that's in it for them.

No Such Thing by irisbleufic -  "You mean [Agnes] was trying to reassure us the whole time that the world wasn't, in fact, going to end?"

Historical

Casual as Birds by apple_pi -  Aziraphale and Crowley in London, 1944.

New Day (The Dreaming of You Remix) by Daegaer -  Ettore dreams of friendship and love.

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Argyle - The Devil has all the best tunes. (London, 1940)

Theatrical Sins: A Play in Three Acts by Aria -  "What did you do?" Crowley asked in horror, the first time he saw Aziraphale after sleeping away most of the nineteenth century.

Natural Laws by Argyle -  Every object in the Universe attracts every other object. (Lincolnshire, 1665)

Species, Origins by bliumchik -  A prehistoric chat.

Lessons in Falling by Argyle -  You never forget how. (London, 1866/1899)

The Visible Universe by Argyle -  It was not a remarkable day. (England, 1928)

How Crowley Saved Christmas by such_heights -  It was 1842, and Aziraphale really didn’t want to do it.

Letters by inabathrobe for miss_narla -  Aziraphale and Crowley burn letters and bridges.

Myths Will Be Myths by palavreado -  Aziraphale says goodbye to an old friend.

On Transmutation (and Tortoises) by Vermin_Disciple -  c. 1859. In which Aziraphale reads the latest bestseller, and he and Crowley take a trip to the Galapagos.  

i wanted to hurt you but the victory is that i could not stomach it by gyzym

Three Times Aziraphale Was Almost Too Much Of A Bastard To Be Worth Liking by feverbeats -  They have to stop meeting like this.

Safe Haven by JAMoczo -  A remix of Prodigal Son: January 1945; Aziraphale has a crisis of Faith.

In der H'lle by Copinggoggles -  Snapshot in the trenches.

Hell Is Empty by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication) -  Crowley goes to investigate this Inquisition he supposedly helped to start and finds Aziraphale instead.

And All The Devils Are Here by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication) -  Aziraphale is taken in by the Inquisition for witchcraft and finds help from an unexpected source.

The Widening Gyre by Vulgarweed -  In the spring of 1916, some in London and Dublin were fighting a war on two fronts. Three, if you include the heart. (Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of it.)

Bacchanalia by furchte_die_schildkrote -  The first time Crowley was kissed by an angel, Aziraphale had wine on his breath, a nearly full moon hung in the sky, and Rome was burning.

Carmina Burana by Lunasong365 - Carmina Burana has been described as: Profane. Sensual. Irreverent. Satirical of religion.So why was its source text discovered in a monastery?

The Fourteenth Century by Elsinore_and_Inverness -  An Angel, a Demon and the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages

“O Serpent heart… Fiend Angelical, Dove Feather Raven” -William Shakespeare (R&J, 3.2.74-76) by Elsinore_and_Inverness -  'There are no sonnets immortalizing a demon with eyes like the sun. This is probably just as well.'

Don't Mind You Under My Skin by 50artists -  Five times that Crowley tempted Aziraphale (with mixed success), and one time Aziraphale tempted him.

Biblical

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Daegaer

Over the Face of all the Earth by Daegaer - The Tower of Babel seemed like a good idea at the time . . .

Father of Nations by Daegaer -  Crowley and Aziraphale keep having dealings with the same family.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Apple by Argyle -  In which one thing leads to another, and the Garden awakens.

build me a city, call it jerusalem by gyzym -  Man begets man begets The Tales of Men, and there's nothing godly in that; Those Above and Them Below haven't any need for the stories humans have been hungry for since the snake and the Angel with the flaming sword.

for I am come to send fire on the earth by tomato_greens -  The worst of it was that Crowley had already received a commendation, gleaming, from Below.

And Find for Herself a Place to Rest by tomato_greens -  So long as you avoided the thorns, it was a nice tree.

Another One Bites the Dust by diefiend -  Crowley and Aziraphale and the Crucifixion.

Other Characters

Revisited and Riding Out by Patrick Phelan

Of Woman Born by slythwolf -  A brief biography of Adam's biological mother.

Pennies From Heaven (Pound Notes From Hell) by Ineffabilitea -  Warlock just wants to feel special again.

Forgotten, As A Dream by Clodius Pulcher (Clodia) -  "They'll be back. They're never far away..." Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, aged eleven and a half, dreams red. Or rather, Red.

Good Help is Hard to Find, or The Hazards of Reading Prophecy by Fleur Rochard (fleurrochard), somnolentblue -  Wherein Aziraphale hires a shop assistant.

Love Me Tender by tomato_greens -  Bright lights and ice cream: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except when it doesn't.

Memory Yields by Interrobam -  The thing about being destined to bring about the apocalypse when you're eleven was that no one quite made plans for how you were supposed to go about the rest of your life.

The Morning After the Morning After the End of the World by Aegialia -  Anathema moves on and figures herself out.

In which Adam challenges Crowley to a drinking contest and it is a terrible idea by Macdicilla -  It is a rather foolish thing to set a bet with the devil, or even with a devil, unless you have an ace—or better yet, all the aces in the deck—up your sleeve.

Anything by LoveChilde -  About ten years after the world didn’t end, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild meets an angel. Or maybe just a harmless homosexual. They have tea.

Forgive Those Who Trespass by JAMoczo -  Crowley and Shadwell share Madame Tracy and Aziraphale for a week. God help us all.

Crossovers

The Nice and Accurate Adventures of Aziraphale in Ankh-Morpork by Glinda -  All truly good second-hand bookshops are really genteel black-holes that have learned how to read.

Bargain Breakfast by Daegaer -  Crowley gets a suspicious sort of customer.

The Corsair of Carcosa by Vulgarweed -  Aziraphale gets his hands on a rare copy of the play The King in Yellow. Reading and its consequences ensue.

[latter-day-saint-nick]

Here‘s a list of all the books with queer protagonists I’ve read this year. While I do actively seek those out, there are several books on here that I didn’t know had queer themes when I picked them up from the library and then I was pleasantly surprised by lesbians. I‘ll avoid spoilers except when discussing trigger warnings.

 Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Neo, a South African teenager, is obsessed with music of any kind. Her love of music brings her together with the singer of a local band and they have a passionate relationship that they must keep secret. The descriptions of Neo‘s life and her tendency to hear music in everything are beautiful and dynamic. The author included a list of the songs Neo is listening to throughout the book, so I was introduced to a lot of cool music from South Africa and other places. TW: Corrective rape and Bury Your Gays. This is a book by a queer (albeit white British, rather than black South African) author writing about a very real problem that exists within our communities, so it feels different to when a cishet author kills off a queer character just for shock value. I still can‘t help feeling that he could have made the same point without having the character die – just have her be injured. Still, I loved pretty much everything else about the book, so it gets a tentative recommendation from me.

The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb

25-year-old opera student Kathleen tries to cope with the constant pain in her feet, nightmares about having her tongue cut out, and desperate yearning for the sea. With the help of her girlfriend Harry she delves into her family history to uncover the secret of a curse spanning generations of women. What’s nice about this book is that Kathleen and Harry’s relationship is accepted by all their family and friends without question, so if you want to read a nice wlw fantasy story with no homophobia, this one’s for you. TW: Some discussion of suicide, but nothing too graphic.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

A teenage lesbian is sent to conversion therapy by her religious aunt. This is basically a coming-of-age story as the title character comes to terms with her identity and the death of her parents. It’s considered an important work of LGBT YA literature, so I really wanted to like it more than I did. Most of the first half of the novel deals with Cameron’s everyday life in her small town in Montana, which was, to be honest, rather boring to me. The pace of the story picks up a bit once she gets sent to conversion therapy, but even then it’s slower and less eventful than I would have liked. But since it is a popular book, that’s probably just me. I did like that the two best friends she makes at the therapy camp are a disabled girl and an indigenous boy, two types of people that are not often represented in queer fiction, so that’s something. TW: Conversion therapy and self-harm.

Proud by Juno Dawson

This is a collection of poems and stories about queerness aimed at a YA audience, and each one is a pure delight! These stories detail moments of joy and pride that make you feel happy and hopeful about being queer. They include a high school retelling of Pride and Prejudice with lesbians, a nonbinary kid and his D&D group on a quest to disrupt the gender binary at their school, a magical phoenix leading a Chinese girl to find love, and gay penguins. All stories, poems and illustrations are by queer writers and artists. Seriously, I cannot recommend this collection enough!

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

An Irish magical realist story about three girls who perform a spell to find things that they have lost. The spell appears to have wider consequences than they expected, bringing to light things that should have stayed lost. This book has three narrators, two of whom are wlw. It treads a nice line between fantasy and reality, and has some pretty good plot twists. Also, there’s a crossword at the end, which is awesome. More books should come with crosswords.

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

A space opera trilogy set in the distant future about the embodiment of a ship’s AI who seeks revenge against the ruler of a colonialist empire who destroyed her ship and killed her beloved captain. This is not beginner’s sci-fi, as it is very complex and intricate, but if you’re fine with a bit of a heavier read, you’ll be rewarded with some very interesting concepts. What makes this series queer is that the Raadch empire has no concept of gender and uses female pronouns for everyone. This makes every romantic relationship queer by default, whether we are aware of the characters’ sexes or not. I found it particularly enjoyable when Breq, the protagonist, tried to communicate in different languages that have gendered pronouns, which she had to navigate carefully in order not to offend people. She tries to look for outward clues of gender, such as hairstyles, chest size, facial hair or Adam’s apples, but even then often gets it wrong, because these things are not always consistent. That is just a great depiction of how arbitrary ideas of binary sexual characteristics tend to be. Also, I guess technically Breq is aroace, but since she’s not human, I’m not sure if she can be considered the best representation, though she is a very likeable character that I enjoyed following.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

These books are a lot of fun! They’re historical adventure stories with a bit of fantasy thrown in, featuring disaster bisexual Henry Montague, his snarky aroace sister Felicity and his best friend Percy whom he is secretly in love with. In the first book, the three teenagers are sent on a tour of Europe for various reasons, but they quickly abandon the planned route when they get embroiled in a plot involving theft and alchemy. The second book details Felicity’s further attempts to become a doctor, which leads her to reunite with an old friend and chase a tale of fantastical creatures.

The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Technically I read this one late last year, but whatever. I just wanted to put it on the list to have an excuse to talk about it. It’s about two Jewish siblings with magic powers who are recruited during World War II to take part in a secret project to fight the Nazis. Both siblings turn out to be queer: the brother is gay and demisexual, while the sister is bisexual, and they each have a love interest. This book is an independent prequel to The Girl with the Red Balloon, which takes place in East Berlin during the time of the Wall, and is just as good, albeit not as gay.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

This book tends to be classified as fantasy, because it takes place in an alternate, Latin-American-inspired world, with a distinct history, culture and religion, but there’s no magic at all, so I’m not sure it counts. But I digress. The country of Medio is built on classism and acute xenophobia. But by hiding her status as an illegal immigrant, Daniela, a girl from a poor background, manages to rise to the top of her class at her elite finishing school and become the first wife of one of the most powerful young men in the country. But her new comfortable status is threatened when she is pressured to join a group of rebels who fight for equality. At the same time, she also finds herself falling for her husband’s second wife. Obviously, this book’s political message is very topical, but beyond that, it’s just a very good story, with a well fleshed-out fictional world and great characters. This is the first in a series, with the sequel, We Unleash the Merciless Storm, coming out in February.

All Out: The No Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell

A very nice collection of short stories about various queer teenagers in different historical settings, from a medieval monastery to an American suburb on New Year’s Eve in 1999. Most of the stories are realist, but there are a few ghosts and witches to be found in-between. What I found particularly notable about this book is that it featured several asexual characters, which you don’t often see in collections like this. I definitely recommend it.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

This is a thoughtful, heart-warming life story about a woman growing up during the civil war in Nigeria. After Ijeoma, a Christian Igbo girl, is sent away from home, she finds her first love in Amina, a Muslim Hausa. Even after they are found out and separated, Ijeoma doesn’t quite understand what’s so shameful about their love. Still, as she grows older, she attempts to fit into a heteronormative society while also connecting with the things and people that make her happy. TW: Homophobic violence, including an attack on a gay nightclub. The novel makes up for this by having a remarkably happy ending.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

A young man in Victorian London finds a mysterious watch on his pillow, with no idea how it got there. This sets into motion a strange series of events, which leads him to a lonely Japanese watchmaker, to whom he finds himself increasingly drawn. This is an unusual novel that treads the line between historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi. Most of the characters are morally grey and have complex motivations, but are still likable. I just really enjoy stories that take place in this time period, particularly when they are this thoughtfully written and don’t just take the prejudices of the past for granted.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

A YA book about a transgender teenager, written by a transgender author. After her mother decides that she is not safe in her hometown anymore, high school senior Amanda moves in with her dad in a town where nobody knows her and she can try to go stealth. But even as she is making friends and experiencing romance for the first time, she constantly worries about what will happen if her secret comes out. It’s a fairly standard story about being transgender, really, but as it comes from a trans author, it feels a lot more personal and less voyeuristic than these stories tend to be when coming from a cisgender perspective. Amanda is a sympathetic and compelling character. TW: This book deals with a number of upsetting themes, including transphobic violence, being forcibly outed and suicide. There is a flashback to Amanda’s pre-transition suicide attempt, which I found particularly triggering. I also wish she could have come out on her own terms, instead of being outed in front of the whole school by someone she thought she could trust. It is still a pretty good book, but it can be very upsetting at times.

As I Descended by Robin Talley

A loose retelling of Macbeth that takes place in a boarding school in Virginia and involves two queer couples. The supernatural elements of the play are amplified in a wonderfully creepy way, and the characters are complex and realistic, so you understand their motivations, even when they do bad things. TW: Out of the five queer characters in the novel, three die, two of them by suicide.

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss and EG Keller

A charming picture book about the Vice President’s pet bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny and wants to hop around at his side for the rest of his life. This book was written as a screw you to Mike Pence, but even so it is a genuinely nice kid’s book that deals with homosexuality and marriage equality in a way that is appropriate for young children. The illustrations are incredibly cute as well.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

A very strange, surreal tale about four people (most of whom are queer in some way) exploring a magical city that you can enter in your dreams by sleeping with someone who has been there before. I wanted to like this one more than I did, because I really love Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books for children. But while some of the dreamlike imagery is cool and pretty, I found a lot of it weirdly uncomfortable, along with the frequent sex scenes.

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

15-year-old Julia is home for the summer at her parents’ ancestral mansion in Scotland and gets involved with a plot about theft, disappearance and possibly murder. She also has her first crushes – on a man working at her parents’ estate and a young Traveller girl, respectively. This is a prequel to Code Name Verity, which has the same protagonist, though her bisexuality isn’t really alluded to in that, which is why I’ve kept it off the list, even though it is an excellent book. The Pearl Thief is pretty good as well, though it is a bit strange to read after you’ve already read Verity and know that this carefree teenage character is going to grow up to be a spy in World War II and be tortured in a Nazi prison. Do read both books, though. They are great.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

A young scientist falls in love with the wife of the man she’s having an affair with. There’s speculation about quantum mechanics and interconnectedness, all wrapped in very poetic language. To be perfectly honest, I really didn’t get it, so I have no idea what any of it means. But at least the main character is bisexual and polyamorous (and possibly genderfluid – I’m not sure).

Queer Africa by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin

A collection of short stories by queer African writers, discussing themes like love, sex, marriage, family and homophobia. The attitudes towards queerness in these different countries varies. In many of them, homosexuality is illegal, even though same-sex relationships used to be respected before the interference of Western colonialism. In any case, these stories are an interesting and oftentimes beautiful examination of queerness from a non-Western point of view, some joyous and some tragic. TW: The second to last story is about incest.

[aion-rsa]

Flash Gordon’s Original Ending Revealed

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Following our enlightening Flash Gordon 40th anniversary interview with the film’s director, Mike Hodges, we got to have an in-depth conversation with author John Walsh. Titan Books published Walsh’s exhaustive coffee table book Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film last November. It was a labor of love for Walsh that delves into the making of the movie and celebrates its enduring appeal.

Walsh is a Trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, and was also behind the BBC’s critically acclaimed documentary series Sofa Surfers, which explored childhood homelessness, and the BAFTA-nominated film My Life: Karate Kids, which tackled issues of bullying among disabled children.

Den of Geek: You’ve been involved with preserving the legacy of the late Ray Harryhausen, and your first book through Titan was about some of his work. You first met him at film school in the 80s?

John Walsh: That’s right. I was BBC Young Filmmaker of the Year when I was 15. I was offered a place in London Film School when I was doing my A-levels and they sort of scooped me up. At the end of your first year you do a 16mm documentary film. I found Ray Harryhausen‘s name in the London telephone directory. I asked my parents for permission to use the phone, as you did in those days. My mom said “Ring after six when it’s cheaper.” So I rang him up and said “I’m making a film about your life and work” and he was very gracious about it. 

I went to see him. I’d done some very basic animation as a youngster but was fascinated by all his creatures and everything else. We stayed in touch over the years. He asked me to become a trustee of his foundation, so I’ve been helping to look after the vast collection, which is the largest of its kind outside of the Walt Disney Company. His daughter, Vanessa Harryhausen, and I run it with one member of paid staff. Then I did the book – Harryhausen: The Lost Movies.

At what point did you decide that Flash Gordon was next for the John Walsh treatment?

The Lost Movies was stories about films that we think we know but hadn’t been told. Titan are very good at making books on our favorite films – like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth – and those films which maybe we liked on VHS but weren’t successful when they came out theatrically. I was just thinking, gosh, no one has done a Flash Gordon book yet.

It took about eight months to get Universal Pictures and King Features, who were the rights holders for the Flash Gordon character, and Studio Canal, who now own the physical asset of that 1980 film, to come together and put a deal together. 

What happened after the deal was done?

I thought “they’ll give me all their photos because there’ll be a gazillion photos in the archive” – I got the shock of my life when there were no photos or any assets worth putting into a book! I was like “oh no, what have I done?” I drank from the poison chalice to some extent, because I thought that the work had finished when we got the rights, and it had really just started. 

Universal Pictures had some of the publicity photos, but not enough to put into a book like this. Nothing ‘behind the scenes’. I went begging around the world asking fans and different people, “please may I have your pictures if I credit you in the book?” A big part of the introduction of the book ended up being the story of how the assets had been dispersed or thrown away. The film cost three times what Star Wars cost. It cost somewhere in the region of $35 million. The idea that nobody kept any of the assets from it, the original artworks for the paintings, for the posters – gone. The models, gone. The costumes were mostly gone. 

A rare behind the scenes look at the making of Flash Gordon

It kept me up at night. I was genuinely quite worried about whether we’d get enough high quality images that would be good enough, but ultimately I got everything I wanted. I even managed to get a high quality unpublished image of Queen from 1980 for a publicity round they did in Japan. Virtually every page has something unseen, never before published, recently found.

It was around the clock. Sometimes it took 20 or 30 hours just to get one image. It was pretty all labor intensive. The easiest part was speaking to the people like the actors, but another problem existed there as well. If you take the Star Wars universe as a comparison, the various actors and filmmakers speak so regularly that you can pretty much find a consensus on how things happened and where they happened. But on this, [lead actor] Sam Jones – naughty, naughty Sam Jones! –  lovely Sam Jones, and Brian Blessed…

Brian tends to be quite creative, doesn’t he? Every time he tells a story there’s a new spin on it.

Mike [Hodges, director], told me “It’s not true what Brian says in your book that he directed one of the fight sequences.” He said “I love Brian dearly but there’s no way he directed one of the fight sequences. I was there every day and I never would have allowed him to do that. It’s just not what happened.” So between Brian and Sam, they’ve kind of filled in the gaps. As actors often do, they will inflate their parts! 

Some other bits are true. Sam did get stitches, and Dino [De Laurentiis, producer] was ready to kill someone. Two days before principal photography, there’s the lead actor getting stitches in his face. 

When I was researching the film for our piece, I couldn’t really establish how much of Sam’s audio had been replaced in post-production.

Some of Sam’s dialogue is in there! Some has been voiced on top of his voice, and some is a completely different actor in different places. If you were to cut together the different sounds and hear them all together, they sound higher and then lower.

There isn’t actually a record of who the actors are, not because anyone is trying to create conspiracy around it all, it’s just that’s one of the many assets of the film that were tossed aside. It’s more than one [other voice] Mike told me.

That’s new information to me. I knew that there was one other; I didn’t know there was more than one!

It’s more than one, and it’s Sam as well. There are at least three voices that make up Sam’s dialogue. There’s kind of a little Frankenstein’s Monster of dialogue in most places for Sam.

Do you remember the first time you watched Flash Gordon? 

Yes, it was a good movie at the time. I loved anything with science fiction! I’ll tell you what I was disappointed by: there were no robots. To me, if it had a robot in it I was like, “that’s it, I’m there, I want to buy the robot from that film.” So, I was kind of disappointed. There are no robots. 

I was obsessed with the Superman movie and how the flying sequences were created at the time. When this film came out, I thought “this is going to be better than Superman, it’s got hundreds of people flying.” But the flying sequences aren’t as sophisticated in this as they are in Superman, so my first time seeing Flash Gordon was tinged with a kind of geek boy technical disappointment about some of those aspects, and no robots. I haven’t told anyone that.

When researching the book, what ended up being the most surprising revelation?

There were two big moments. The first was when I discovered there had been an entirely different film planned – and we got the artwork, it’s in the book. Then, I found out that the film was supposed to have an entirely different ending. 

Where the film ends now, at the wedding crashing, that was the start of a new major sequence that was going to involve Ming turning into fabulous creatures and fighting Flash, the Hawkmen and the Arboria Tree Men. It all had to be cut. Literally, the pages were pulled. They were like “no time for that, haven’t got time for that.” They had the money for it, but no time.

At the back of my book are all of those scenes, and in some cases photos of scenes they shot that were cut because they couldn’t complete the effects for them, and then comprehensive storyboards with major characters like Lion Man, who was going to accompany Flash Gordon throughout the film like a Chewbacca character.

Wasn’t Lion Man in the cartoons as well as the serial? 

Yes. We got the original artwork from when Dino was going to make the film for Paramount Pictures. It shows Lion Man as part of this fantasy concept poster.

Flash Gordon concept art featuring Lion Man

When I talked to Mike last year, he still seemed somewhat baffled that he was the one who was chosen to take over from Nicolas Roeg as director. Do you think that Nic’s original vision would have worked on screen if Dino had just gone along with it?

No. For tax purposes it was very difficult to get a director in from America to do a picture, particularly in the late 70s. It was a big tax kerfuffle. British directors who’ve done major Hollywood films would have included Alan Parker, maybe John Boorman, Ridley Scott. Nic Roeg and Mike Hodges were the right fit, even though they hadn’t done special effects films.

Roeg’s version couldn’t have worked because the content was adult in tone, and also he came up with some concepts that were outside of the comic strip that would have made it much more adult-themed as well. For an audience to have followed it and enjoyed it and for the film to have had a chance to make back it’s $35 million, I think he was right to pull the plug on the Nic Roeg version. It needed to be a film that had a much broader base to make that money back. There were two sequels planned!

And Mike was originally brought in as an option for the second film.

Yes, that’s right. It was Roeg who suggested him, because he knew Mike and thought Mike would be a good fit. Mike had just been sacked from Omen II so he was suddenly available at the point when Dino parted company with Nic. It wasn’t a marriage of convenience, he was the right fit. 

Dino did this thing where if he liked your face, then you got the part or you got the work. It wasn’t about having a pretty face or anything, it was if he thought your face was sympathetic. It’s kind of an Italian superstition that you can kind of trust a man by his face. Dino wouldn’t get on an airplane if he looked at the pilot and didn’t like their face.

Wow.

Your natural instincts are often right. Dino’s were often right. He said to Mike, “I like-a your face Mike, and that’s why I chose you for this-a film.” Doing a very credible Italian accent there! I interviewed [Dino’s wife] Martha extensively for the book – she said Dino would have liked my face.

We’ve heard so many myths and legends about the Flash Gordon sequels. It seems like everyone you talk to has heard a rumor about what the story would have been. Has your own research revealed any new sequel information? 

Dino had great, great plans. Dino’s plan was to buy Pinewood Studios and to film three Flash Gordons back to back. That’s ambitious by any movie standard, isn’t it? 

Brian Blessed first put me on the trail of what the second film would have been about – it was going to be Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars – based on the second cinema serial. In that, Flash Gordon meets the Clay Men and other people on Mars where Ming has set up base. 

Flash Gordon storyboards

40 years on, what do you think the enduring appeal of the movie is?

Flash Gordon has survived the critique of not having state of the art special effects. It’s a much more fun film to get into than Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek: The Motion Picture – two comparable big budget films of the era – as they’re kind of heavy going. 

This film was also perceived to be a Christmas film, it premiered at Christmas and received it’s TV premiere in 1983 on the BBC at Christmas. So for most people, it has a special Christmas vibe and a happy vibe about it. It looks like a Christmas ornament. 

It’s separate from other science fiction films of the time, it went in the opposite direction: rock score, kind of camp humor, brighter lit with more colors. There isn’t another film you could compare it with, except Barbarella from the 60s.

Recently, it’s come into criticism for its racial stereotyping – Ming playing effectively as a Chinese Fu Manchu character.

Yes, the BBFC has added a warning to the film now. Has the problematic nature of Ming’s portrayal changed the way you view the film?

For me it hasn’t, because when Max von Sydow played the part he didn’t have a darkening of his skin. That’s his natural facial pallor. The accent he chose is English – he decided to speak it as an English officer or an English monarch. There’s quite a kind of clash of cultures there. The facial makeup and the costume itself is definitely Red China from 1936, as Alex Raymond had envisaged. 

But I think it’s quite right the film should have a warning. I don’t think the film should be stopped, or that he should be pixelated out. I think Dino and Mike Hodges chose the best actors from the time to play these roles. You needed people who had played hard roles in films before. If they remake Flash Gordon, then I’ll be quite happy to see someone of Southeast Asian origin in the role of Ming. I think that would be spectacular.

There are levels to which this works and doesn’t work. The more extreme argument is “you wouldn’t cast a serial killer as a killer would you?” Well no, because if you’re casting for Dennis Nielsen you cast a good actor. David Tennant happens to be Scottish. I’m sorry he’s not a serial killer in real life.

That we know of, John.

That we know of. You can never trust actors, you know? Never leave them on their own in a room. But yes, I think where it’s possible and where it’s practical, it’s respectful.

Have you made any decisions about what you would like to do next, now we’ve had your take on Harryhausen, and Flash Gordon?

I’m literally in the process of delivering a manuscript for my next book. It comes out in September!

I will definitely check it out. Thank you, you’ve been brilliant.

Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film is available now from Titan Books. You can check out John’s The Official Story of the Film Podcast right here.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Subscribe to Den of Geek magazine for FREE right here!

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[tumblunni]

Also it still makes me Super Sad to know they were at one point considering giving Viera a similar remake to the Mithra and having them be a both genders race with like.. actual normal people and it being the player’s choice if you wanted to wear sexy armour or not. Seriously i hate ‘they are sexy race’ as a concept for a ‘culture’, it’s like finding the planet of everyone has the same job in some star wars thing, except the creepy version...

Tho also these more ‘sexy race’ designs for them still work MILES better than FF12 when they have sexualized dudes too! Apparantly this concept evolved into (ugh) the Au’Ra, so you can kinda see here how they decided to go ‘nah, extra buff power fantasy dudes and even more over the top fanservice women that also look 12′ instead of like.. fanservice kind of muscly man, at least... :( srsly he looks like that sexy armour guy they censored in that spinoff game or that sexy armour they censored for Ringabel yet nobody seemed to care and instead whined about 1 singular additional belt being added on the sexy costume for girls T_T why do the worst of the worst internet douchebros always throw a fit at the slightest bit of equal ass for all??

wow this ended up going into a big ol lol image heavy post so lets have a cut!

also this sexualized lady armour at least has a different and visually interesting design, and they were thinking of more hairstyles too! like the FF12 viera were even more bad for how they all looked like the same person in 1-3 minor variants of the same xenomorph lookin metal thong atrocity. (and like.. one robe model for npcs that somehow managed to still sexualize a robe?? wtf?? leav whit mag alon)

Another beta viera design that just appeals to me a lot, somehow! I think its the interesting idea of having a fully furred head and then just a quiff of human hair on the top, it feels more like an actual animal man instead of a human in cosplay. Same for the idea of them having big black cute button eyes!

Also look at these other really cool designs for different beast races, even stuff thats not based on anything we’ve ever seen before It’s hard to believe that the Au’ra were even conceived as a ‘beast race’ concept, like holy fuck it should be illegal to throw out 47 Actual Designs and just go with Human Again But More Fanservice...

also they made this april fools thing as a fake Au’Ra reveal and like... it doesnt say much good about your designers when this could legit pass as real like the joke here is apaprantly just that Sexy Bangaa looks ugly, not that having a race with a monsterish man and a sexy lady is a dumb idea, cos they just went ahead and did it anyway...

the au’ra concept art shows pretty much EXACTLY the same ‘sexy bangaa’ principle and I’m glad they at least fuckin toned it down to the man having AN ACTUAL HUMAN FACE, even if its also a lazy fuckin design change. i’d be so fuckin mad if we got a legit cool only-nonhumanoid-race-in-the-game and it was men only!

also like Wow, I am actually getting excited about just the same super tiny demure unfitting lady to a massive man except Less Sexualized And More Magical/Ethereal ...unless that isnt meant to be a dragon familiar but actually another design for the men or something, that’d be going WAY too far! XD

Hello Welcome To Bottom Of The Barrel With Bunni, wouldnt it have been nice if the weird succubus-y ladies like.. looked in their 20s or something i am actually advocating for big fanservice titties cos it would be 99% less disturbing than the same damn camera angles on a ‘childish’ design... also seriously 99% normal fanservice lady with bigass actual monster horns on top would be better than same thing sans the horns

oh sorry they do have ‘horns’ but they look like fuckin this

and i fuckin can’t even.. i jsut fuckin... they don’t even let us have THE MOST BASIC TINY BEASTIE THINGS! why does it bug me so much that male au ra get to have black schelera along with the black horns like even this super minimal actual dragon trait isn’t allowed?? even when removing it makes no sense?? even when its supposed to be a nationality indicator in-universe cos you put a really nice amount of worldbuilding into each ‘race’ having actually two races of sun and moon based designs. which are EXACTLY THE FUCKIN SAME FOR FEMALE AU’RA, seriously why not just make horn colour an option in the editor then... actually is this a thing that has ever existed in any real world country, is there a place where men have [visual trait] and women don’t? I mean aside from like.. cultural or religious outfits, where only one gender’s is different to the west but its not like the west is default anyway lol. But seriously imagine EYE COLOUR! Imagine if blue eyes only happened to american men and like.. american women couldn’t have blonde hair and all looked identical to.. I dunno.. west indian women. Just a whole country where dudes have all the abstract concept of ‘race’ and the women don’t. That’s how nonsense it seems when you make a fantasy species where only the women look human!

tho also i’m still pissed off too that the human nationality thing actually comes with a different body build (FOR DUDES AT LEAST) and different hairstyles and starting outfit, instead of only a colour change. it stands out a lot that they only did this for their first attempt at the concept. also it makes male au-ra make even less sense cos you can already have a muscle human and an even more muscle human who has a dumb ogre face and also elf men are muscular somehow and you kinda only have miquote if you wanna be a skinny dude.. or even just an average dude...

also it kinda sucks that you can’t turn off or choose anything about the weirdly complicated scale patterns on their neck and upper arms only. like why is that even there except to be like ‘hey we did the bare minimum to be considered a dragon’...

ALSO LIKE EVEN MORE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL I would have STILL been happier if we got this fuckin terrible fanservice lady design but she at least had ears and claws as well as we-say-its-horns-but-it-looks-like-cute-hair-decs. like seriously throw me a fuckin bone here, give them SOMETHING to justify the ‘beast race’ category... also did i mention that its really fuckin stupid how they did the worldbuilding too? these guys are meant to be nomads and warriors yet the women look like this. its just.. never explained. its just that all the Lore applies to the dudes and the women are just for ~cyooooot anime girl who does the stubborn kiddy pose with her tits hanging out~ (SERIOUSLY THEIR ANIMATION SET IS REALLY CHILDLIKE AND ITS SO CREEPY! theyre like the sex appeal of miquote with the lalafell animations...)

seriously holy shit looking at this pic makes them it look like dads taking their daughters to soccer practise like seriously fuckin christ

and ALSO on top of fuckin everything else we get to see they even had designs for the same creepy loli fanservice ladies but if they had Some Sort Of Actual Unique Features and Cool Aesthetic Choice like wtf you even abanded like 40 cool horn designs and just gave them plain gross triangles in only one of two colour choices... T_T also like.. that loli lady at least gets to wear an actual gothic lolita fashion style, and i love the aesthetic of armor plates hanging as accessories on a non armour outfit. Do they jingle like windchimes? or does this mean Au’ra were meant to be fully scaled below the neck, so this kinda IS a skimpy outfit but you cant tell? XD

Also l kinda like this aesthetic of this other equally lame and super humanoid design with overly sexualized females. Like i dunno if this is just shading but if they actually had this colourscheme it would be super distinctive! And it reminds me of amarant’s trance form, The Amazing Battle Banana Hammock. Even if it also suffers from the same problem of technically showing a man in a skimpy costume but like his design is supposed to be monsterous and badass instead so it still doesnt deliver the same as the female equivelant. The top left version could kinda be a fanservice guy but like.. only if he was naked like that? like drawing someone in a style that’s supermodel body shape and has giant boob outlines and super sexualized poses and doesn’t look monsterous despite being a monster and ET CETERA, that’s what we mean about a character design being sexualized rather than just sexy. If you put some pants to cover this guy’s impressive bulge then he’d just be another scary boss guy. I mean Ifrit is a nearly naked guy with horns in every damn game but he’s very VERY rarely sexualized! The FFXV version is like the first damn time, except when we had a female version of him. It sucks cos ifreeta has a pretty damn cool design but still its really weird how she’s so much more humanoid and has attention drawn to her having boobs in a way they never did with ifrit’s constantly-on-display pecs and loincloth... Man why is it so hard to explain these weird nuances of how people draw ‘topless monster’ characters like this? its like they go out of their way to try and backpedal on the fact they made a topless guy. he can show more skin but its supposed to be less appealing by the artist, thus its less offensive cos it isnt boxing a character into this one sexualized role while the plot says ‘no, they’re a monster, honest!’ YKNOW?? god am i making ANY sense here? XD

nakey man, not meant to be arousing to audience

nakey lady, suddenly just because she’s ‘the lady version’ she looks like this

the same nakey man, redesigned, this time indeed meant to be just as sexy

and like it sucks that there aren’t many good examples of nakey ladies who ARENT meant to be arousing in this series cos I mean that lady ifrit design is so much more sexualized despite being in a chibi art style game for kids?? this was really not the right time or place!

Also it sucks that ‘is nakey’ is a common trait of monster man characters, because well there’s been an established history of dudes being topless and you’re not meant to be aroused. So then whenever they try and make ‘monster man race’ they go for a topless dude and are like ‘then the woman needs to be topless too!’ except the only way they can draw them is sexy??? except its like a false premise to begin with, you can totally make a beast race that isn’t topless, you guys! or even a beast race that isn’t buff, so you don’t need to be all ‘what’s the female equivelant of buff? oh yeah, sexy!’. or, yknow, just draw a buff woman. it could work... or like just have neither and make a beast creature that’s supposed to be cute or mysterious or comical or whatever.

completely random moment of interjection to say that nu mou are pretty neat

Actually, FFTA’s version of the ivalice races was pretty good about this, aside from the dumb thing of ‘theyre all male except viera, and just coincidentally viera are the only humanoid and sexualized race’. (Tho it was funny that somehow they accidentally made all humans male only too??)

Also another reason the Au’ra’s version of fanservice bothers me more than the simple option to wear a bikini as both genders for every other race: like none of them are DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP to be ‘they are all biologically born in an idealized supermodel shape and also look twenty years younger than they really are and also all culturally do j-pop poses for fuckin everything’. Even if you picked the sexy catgirls and catboys race you can choose to play a perfectly covered up version of either. And none of their animation sets or voice lines were inherantly fanservicey. Thats kinda what bugs me more than the Au’ra’s designs, its that they’re all ~uguuu senpai~ anime fanservice lady poses and squeaky voices even if you make their design not sexualized in the customizer. Even tho like.. at least a character in full armour doing j-pop poses is kinda funny/cute, so that’s one consolation. But couldnt you have just made them simple emotes for all the characters instead? I WANNA SEE IDOL ROEGADYN OMG :D

ANYWAY UHH BACK ON TOPIC

we almost got a dreadlocks hairstyle? That looks cool

ok.. okay.. I’m done Okay I’m Done sorry i just saw these concept art pics and got really fuckin wistful for what we could have had...

[archiveofolives]

#FantasyNovember: Top 5 Favourite Fantasy Characters (a meme 😳)

lol ladies and gentlemen (and those who have yet to make up your minds), may i present my favorite emoji, the ovo. i legit have no idea what it’s called but it represents my mood so keenly

anyway YEAH @logarithmicpanda tagged me (i’m tagging you all especially @foxyrebelle but tag me back so i can read!) more than 24h ago but traffic has been horrendous of late and work has been worky so i’m just now getting to this. i won’t go with my default answers bc panda did this with books and accepting the challenge, imma do the same so in no particular order:

1. jean tannen from the gentlemen bastards sequence by scott lynch. i just really love that he’s the point man?? like that’s probably not even the right term for it but in inception, jgl is the point man of the team and like literally he makes leo’s plans work and that’s jean for me. he’s the brawn, he’s the backup, he’s the sounding wall, and the best part is he wiggles that he’s the protector and that was actually the first thing that i really loved about him bc i love those archetypes, on top of the fact that he’s fat and big and soft and HE READS and i also love that he’s technically not the main character?? it’s the whole feeling that non-main characters don’t get as much love so w/e (i went into the sequence with locke in my mind bc of gen and locke cole from ff6 but jean just won me over)

2. sophos from the queen’s thief series by megan whalen turner. i’m just gonna paste smth from tvtropes which i wholeheartedly agree with. it’s under the trope took a level in badass: “In the fourth book, Sophos doesn’t take a level in badass, he takes several. Then he rips them to pieces with his bare hands, gnaws on them, and uses them as fuel with which to fire even more badass.” which i wholeheartedly agree with. i’d always had my eye on him since the first book bc he was presented as this insignificant, reluctant (i have a really huge soft spot for reluctant characters) tag along and then LO AND BEHOLD HE’S ACTUALLY HELLA IMPORTANT and the journey that he took from book 1 to book 4 is just 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼. like i would always love gen, my champion whiner, but sophos’ development–from this meek nobody to a calculating risk-taker with too much heart than he knows what to do with (and i love that he didn’t come through unscathed but he totally rose to the occasion, man!)–is just smth else entirely

3. jesper fahey from six of crows and crooked kingdom by leigh bardugo. it’s actually a toss up between him and nina zenik (whose kevin wada art is also my aesthetic goddamn) but i think i liked him more consistently throughout the books? but i never really adored him as much as i adored nina but ANYWAY YEAH HIM. i really liked that he was a character with a LOT of obvious flaws but then he keeps trying to make up for them and that makes him endearing to me? also i appreciate his choice of weapon, his brand of humor (he has some of my more loved lines), i do agree that he is attractive AND i’m totally into his ship with wylan. what do they call it, wysper? it had better be wysper. people might be wondering why my favorite character isn’t wylan but the thing is that he’s already a bit like sophos to me? and i want someone different.

4. lee scoresby from his dark materials by philip pullman. YEAH I CAN LIKE SOMEONE WITH UNQUESTIONABLE MORALS altho that may not entirely be the case with lee, actually. HENIWAY, iorek was actually my first favorite character in hdm! purely on account of the fact that he’s a talking bear BUT i fell in love with lee’s charm, his swag, his sharpness and i just love that he’s this warm-hearted old cowboy who has an airship (and the only one who does! and the story of how he started flying is also the beeest) and loves lyra and supports her and he just makes me want to be a better person. like the perfect response to not all men is “yeah, lee scoresby wouldn’t.”

5. remus lupin from harry potter by j.k. rowling. LOL true story: while i was trying to come up with this list, i was supposed to end with jonathan strange from jonathan strange and mr. norrell which i’d read ages ago but i don’t read much fantasy these days until i remembered that hp is fantasy XD anyway, legit the first thing i loved about remus was the fact that he was so Done. like he was this old guy (i thought he was old bc of his hair) who just wanted to sleep but then these meddling kids came in and then the dementors so that leaves him no choice but to get up and do all the work around here bc who else would? but then i realized that this wasn’t a guy i’d heard much about (funny story, i know there’s a guy named lupin somewhere in the hp series but remember how inattentive i am to details?) which instantly made him refreshing and interesting to me bc i felt like he was someone i could properly get to know, finally? kinda weird. but yeah, it started from there and then everything followed through; i liked that he was a competent wizard and a good teacher and the mystery behind his illness was definitely another bonus until i learned that he was a werewolf and not just any werewolf but like, the werewolf everyone’s talking about? and that was disappointing but more towards myself and how predictable i’ve become even to myself -_- a lot of my favorite characters have smth to do with wolves see :|||

special mention goes to cloud strife WHO IS MY SON and loki who is a piece of shit i’ve encountered in many forms so i didn’t want to put him up there bc of that lol

[flauntpage]

50 Hot Takes for the Philadelphia Sports Fan: Part Four

Yeah man.

You know what time it is.

It’s time for the hottest takes in the Delaware Valley, and I’ve gotta be honest with you – these stories have been doing a lot better than I thought they would. If something ain’t broke, then it doesn’t need fixing, as Bert Lance once said. That’s why I’ve decided to come up with 50 more hot takes for you, the Philadelphia sports fan, since parts one, two, and three obviously were not enough.

Before we begin, I’d like to share a part of a recent email from a Crossing Broad reader, an email which served as the inspiration for this story:

It was an uplifting message for me, and with the resulting energy and motivation I came up another list of takes for y’all:

The Allen Iverson/Tyronn Lue stepover is the most overrated sequence in all of Philly sports. The Sixers went on to lose that series 4-1, yet here we are celebrating that moment like it was the Brandon Graham strip sack.

If given a choice between Taco Bell and Chipotle, I’m eating at Taco Bell.

The hatred for “chain restaurants” is misguided. If you’re suburban white trash, like me, you find comfort and familiarity in spots like Olive Garden or the Texas Roadhouse simply because you grew up absent of independent and unique restaurants.

103.7 in South Jersey plays better music than WMMR.

Old Town Road is a horrible song.

All millennials and Generation Z members should have their bank accounts frozen and assets seized until they have seen the following movies: Half Baked, Black Sheep, Happy Gilmore, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

“They” say that the millennial generation includes anybody who was born after 1980, which is technically true, but also off-base. If you were born before 1985, you have so much more in common with Generation X. You probably didn’t have a cell phone until college, you actually called your friends on a landline and said hello to their parents, and you entered the work force right before the economy went to shit. Most millennials, as stereotyped by others, were graduating college and high school during the recession, which impacted their ability to find jobs and affordable living. Older millennials like myself were lucky to have just missed that.

The “celebrity” scene at Philly sporting events is totally lame. It’s typically M Night Shyamalan, a shitty local rapper, and then 3-5 current or former Philly athletes.

I don’t trust people who dislike dogs. How could anybody possibly dislike dogs?

If you bring your dog to the dog park, you can’t just stare at your phone the entire time. You have to spend at least five seconds paying attention. Try to notice when your pooch takes a huge dump right in front of you.

People who throw trash out of their window while driving are the biggest scumbags on the planet.

“Price point” is an annoying term. You can just say “price” and it means virtually the same thing. It’s generally understood that prices change based on market fluctuations and typical bargaining.

Nobody gives a fuck about your fantasy football team.

Furthermore, if you’re watching the Eagles game with friends and family, don’t talk about your fantasy football team. Only talk about the Birds.

99 times out of 100, the person who cuts you off at the South Philly sports complex is a middle-aged white guy, 10 year old son in the passenger seat of his oversized gas guzzler of a truck, and he feels like he’s entitled to just jump in line wherever he wants. These people are total assholes.

If given a choice between Natty Lite and an IPA, I’m choosing Natty Lite.

If I’m forced to drink an IPA, I guess I’m going with the New England variety. West Coast IPA tastes like hoppy pinecone butthole.

The best brewery in our region is Hidden Sands, down in Egg Harbor Township. Excellent variety, great taproom, lots of interesting tastes with frequent rotation on the menu.

The second best brewery in our region is Evil Genius, for a lot of the reasons I listed above.

The most overrated brewery in our region is Tired Hands.

“Party school” rankings are dumb. Most big state schools have a party scene. What nobody ever talks about is substance abuse at high-ranking academic institutions, where the stress to perform relative to your peers results in people just drinking themselves into oblivion with regularity.

I like NBC Sports Philadelphia’s new studio. Maybe the anchor desk could be bigger.

Some people didn’t “get” my Jersey Shore column. It wasn’t an anti-shore column; I was telling people to take the occasional weekend and go somewhere else, see something different.

Y’all always say “who cares about Skip Bayless?” but click on those stories whenever we write them.

One of my biggest professional failures was being rejected for a Q/A story with Joe Cordell, of Cordell and Cordell. I exchanged some emails with his PR guy but was unable to get Joe on the phone.

Philadelphia doesn’t need any more bars or restaurants. Or snooty pizza places.

There are a lot of poorly run city agencies, but the Department of Revenue is the worst. It takes four weeks for any payment to clear, the web portal doesn’t work, and nobody on the phone has any idea what they’re doing.

I’d rather eat at Donkey’s than any cheesesteak place in the city.

A hot dog is not a sandwich because the bun is comprised of one piece of bread. If a hot dog bun was sliced into two halves, then it would be a sandwich.

“Is a hot dog a sandwich?” may be the dumbest debate ever.

Dunkin Donuts is better than Starbucks. Starbucks blows.

I can’t get down with the boat shoes and no socks look.

I kind of want to unionize Crossing Broad employees, just to see how Kyle responds.

It’s pointless to respond to a post or tweet with “nobody cares.” If you don’t care, then don’t respond.

Penn State fans should run James Franklin out of town. He doesn’t have what it takes to get you guys to the college football playoff.

People need to stop painting Penn State fans and alumni as Sandusky enablers or “pedos” or “cultists” or whatever. Yes, there was a portion of the community that seemed to handle the scandal poorly, but the vast majority of PSU people I know approached that topic with the required discretion and seriousness.

I hope Manny Diaz goes 0-12 this year and gets fired. I understand that the Miami situation was unexpected, and that his dream job opened up under unique circumstances, but he made a commitment to Temple and he should have kept his commitment.

When Josh Harris and David Blitzer sell their stake in Crystal Palace, they should purchase the Philadelphia Union from Jay Sugarman. Whatever $$$ amount it takes. Adding the Union to the Sixers/Devils/Blue Coats/Prudential Center portfolio would make a lot of sense geographically and from a growth potential standpoint.

Do you ever notice how sports radio callers are either incredibly stupid or incredibly smart? There never seems to a be a middle ground; they either make really good points or totally horrendous points.

Regarding the above, I feel like the smartest radio callers are dialing up Glen and Ray on the weekends, or queuing up for the Sixers post game show with Devon on 97.5.

People on Twitter talked a ton of shit about the Fanatic’s “Fantasy Fest,” which took place in August, but I think it’s a good idea. I’ve never actually been there, but what’s wrong with putting together an event where all of the radio personalities and listeners can get together? Just seems like a big party atmosphere to me. Shrug.

Changing poop diapers isn’t a big deal at all. The baby is only eating breast milk and formula, so the poop is consistent and sterile, or at least that’s what the pediatrician said.

Having a designated hitter in one league but not the other is laughably stupid. Baseball has some of the worst rules on the planet, but “baseball is fine” according to you curmudgeons.

The Yankees forcing their players to shave is incredibly corny. If they drafted me I’d refuse to play for them for that reason alone, then grow my beard like Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill out of spite.

If you don’t like soccer, just say you don’t like it. You don’t have to bend over backwards explaining why it’s a “communist” sport or “un-American” or for “liberal hipster pussies” or whatever.

Street hockey is underrated as a neighborhood game for kids. You just need sticks and a ball, then use backpacks or other items for the goalposts or buy a cheap pop-up net.

The Wells Fargo Center upgrades were badly needed. It feels like a 25 year old building with 75 years of use.

Temple needs to get out of the Linc and go somewhere else. Anywhere else.

College Gameday on Independence Mall was one of the most underrated Philly sports moments of all time. It brought a tear to my eye. A tear of joy.

David Lee Roth people need to get the fuck over themselves. Both Van Halen and Van Hagar dropped great music for us to listen to. Life is way too short to sit here complaining about Sammy’s time in the band.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

-Kinker

The post 50 Hot Takes for the Philadelphia Sports Fan: Part Four appeared first on Crossing Broad.

50 Hot Takes for the Philadelphia Sports Fan: Part Four published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[jkl-fff]

Going to save these for book recommendations.

#A Natural History of Dragons is such a fun series about this woman writing an autobiography about her life studying dragons #In a world where they evolved naturally. Not a magical world. But a world where dragons are just another kind of animal. #And she’s super fascinated with them and studies them and has to deal with people stealing her work or messing with it and government stuff #And it’s a really well written series. It’s kind of set in the past. Also she’s a well written woman. She’s written like a person. #Like she’s actually shown having her period and stuff and being annoyed by it getting in the way of her work and all that. #And she’s really determined and stubborn and smart but sometimes makes dumb decisions in the name of research (as most do)

#And then the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Oh my. It’s a really fun four book series following princess Cimorene #She’s strong and stubborn and smart and does NOT want to be a princess and deal with anyone’s bullshit #So she runs off to go live with dragons and work for one. And she ends up getting caught in several magical adventures and stuff #It’s technically a kid’s fantasy series but I have no idea how nobody else has ever heard of it or why it’s not more popular it’s awesome

Silly Game Time: Who are the protagonists of two stories you really enjoy? (could be from any media: movies, shows, novels, games, comics, etc.) (yes, OCs count) AND which of them is better with animals?

You know what? I’m feeling particularly dragony today, so I’m going with Lady Trent from A Natural History of Dragons, and Princess Cimorene from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. And though I love Cimorene a lot, and do think she’d be good with animals, Lady Trent wins, as she is a naturalist and has to actively care for and study the dragons she has, as well as the fact that she loved animals when she was younger too, and with all the time she puts into her work I feel like she would have to be good with animals. It’s shown in the books too that she’s overall pretty good with animals, especially the dragons she studies.