#but people are being VERY unreasonable about it when it comes to sonic 3

[sonknuxadow]

its so frustrating how a lot of scu fans cant handle other sonic fans not having the exact same taste in sonic media that they do. like i feel like you can say something negative about literally any other sonic media on here and people generally wouldnt care that much but the second you say anything less than positive about the movies people start getting all weird about it and trying to argue with you ive had it happen to me and seen it happen to others as well .... like the sonic franchise is very big and has many different media types and writing styles not everyone is going to uncritically love everything. get over it ? im not trying to be mean but idk what else to tell you

[witchyfoxelf]

2022 in review, part 3: tv/webseries first watches

just as it says on the tin, here are my top 5 tv & webseries first watches this year. i counted anything where i watched a full season that i hadn’t seen before.

1. star trek: strange new worlds, season 1 (2022)

this has been that Thing they were Gonna Make Eventually and it was gonna be So Good, but given the amount of production time between season 2 of discovery and it actually starting to air it kind of stopped being something real? and it had all that time for expectations to build up in my subconscious, so that by the time it was actually Happening and trailers were starting to come out i kind of like… got super nervous about how much i was actually looking forward to it?

the more trailers i saw and the more i read about what the people involved wanted the show to be, the more excited & nervous i got, and then the pilot dropped and it just blasted me right in the part of my brain where star trek lives, and holy shit if it keeps being this good it might end up going down as the best star trek series ever?

like, it’s only been one season, i’m trying my best to manage expectations but clearly i am kind of failing at that, so uh yeah, that’s more or less where i’m at with it.

2. dimension 20: fantasy high (2018-19) & sophomore year (2019-20)

this became the default Thing We Watched for months, and i’m sure we’ll pivot back to it at some point because it’s just so damn good. i kind of don’t mind that inertia has us currently binging star trek because picard season 3 drops in february, and no matter how much i can’t stand the creative direction of that series i want my mate to have as much context as possible when we get to it.

anyway, though. dimension 20 is unreasonably good. i’m so excited there are so many seasons of it we haven’t touched yet, and i just still think it’s so wild that you can get something this good out of “a bunch of funny people sit around and play d&d.” it’s so unreasonably awesome.

3. sonic prime, season 1 (2022)

this show is having its cake and eating it in the most wild ways. like, it’s doing that whole sliders thing where sonic is jumping around to different parts of the multiverse where all of his friends are completely different, but in spite of that it’s thematically being so much about how much those friends mean to him? and how much he wants them back? and i just fucking love that every time he ends up in a new dimension, literally his first priority is “i’ve got to find tails.”

this show gets it on a level that i didn’t think something that was so very interested in being Cool could actually get it? like, i just kind of go into most sonic projects not expecting them to care about the same things i care about, so when they do it’s just this amazingly wonderful surprise and yeah sonic prime is very much that.

4. star trek: discovery, season 4 (2021-22)

i am so unbelievably glad that this show eventually became This. i really don’t like what this show was in season 1, but it’s come such a long way and it’s basically unrecognizable now. let’s fly.

5. wednesday, season 1 (2022)

oh, you have a series about my favorite goth girl with an incredible cast, incredible visuals & music, and a mystery plot for me? you shouldn’t have!

[timetraveller29]

The Nearest Intersection

A Doctor Who fanfiction for #WhouffleWeek2020

Day 3 - Misunderstanding / Bad timing

Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Clara

“Travelling with you made me feel really special... Thank you for making me feel special.”

“Thank you for exactly the same.”

These words bounced around Clara’s mind as she studied the black device in her hands. She turned it over and over, examining it, remembering.

Her living room was empty and still. She sat on the right side of the sofa, leaning on a pillow. It had a wet spot right under her cheek.

She sighed deeply.

Her eyelids sparkled with teardrops, and she didn’t care enough to dry them yet. They kept fluttering upwards so she could see the blank space ahead of her, an empty cuboidal area. She had rearranged the furniture a week ago, just to feel a sense of control, but somehow had ended up with a wide space in that very same spot...

It was where the Doctor would park his TARDIS when he came around.

Why did she leave it empty? Out of hope?

Well, she had left the other side of the sofa empty too, hadn’t she? That hardly meant she had hope of Danny ever returning…

But one person had returned unexpectedly: Missy.

Well, not in person. She was dead, after all. However, she had left Clara something, a kind of gift. She hated to think that somewhere Missy had some cronies still carrying out her work, but the fact of the matter was, the package didn’t have any explosives, she had checked.

All it had was this vortex manipulator. And there was a message.

Set to meet the Doctor at the nearest intersection of space-time, it said. In case he tries to leave you behind. No need to thank me. – Missy x

It was suspicious to say the least. But Clara couldn’t help but see it as a sign.

Sure, Missy was a murderous evil witch of a person, but she was the one who had united her with the Doctor in the first place. Whatever her motivations were, she wouldn’t have met him without her help. And, after more than a month of not seeing the Doctor, she had to admit she had underestimated just how much it would hurt.

She stared at the vortex manipulator again, dark and otherworldly and dangerous.

But wasn’t travelling to worlds of the past and the future essentially just that? It's what she needed the most… A nice dark sky, an otherworldly foe, a dangerous mission… if only to put herself in reckless risk of death! She wouldn't mind!

She needed to stop thinking about this.

Putting the vortex manipulator in a drawer, out of sight, she began to wipe her eyes on her sleeves. She was being unreasonably weak. Where was the Clara that used to be so strong, confident, and put together? She coughed out a laugh. This was unhealthy. It was like she could almost hear the TARDIS materialise right now…

It became louder and louder, then shuddered to silence.

She looked up.

No. She had to be dreaming.

The door opened and a man walked out. Long, brown coat. Stuck-up hair. Rather young.

She stared. Maybe, if she didn't react, the vision would fade away.

"Oh!" The Doctor put a hand to his crest of hair, and looked around, tongue behind his teeth. "Sorry! I must have steered it wrong… Um, terribly sorry, but where am I?"

She still said nothing.

He squinted. "Do I know you? I could swear I've seen that face…" He pulled out his silver sonic and began bleeping it in short bursts, pointing it in her vague direction. "Doesn't seem to be..." He left the sentence unfinished and waved his hand in front of her face, grinning an adorable grin.

"Hello!" he said, light and cheery.

Clara closed her eyes. Nope. Not real.

She opened them.

"You're really here?" she said tentatively, trying hard to hold herself back.

"Yup! In the flesh! So you know me, then? From the future, I'm guessing?"

"I…" she bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah. I'm Clara Oswald."

"Clara Oswald! Lovely to meet you, Clara! Sorry to intrude and everything… the TARDIS detected an alien presence in this area but, well, that's pretty standard if you're one of my companions. I suspect your Doctor's already on the case."

She frowned. "Could that be an alien device you picked up or an actual alien?"

"Either of them could trip up the TARDIS, to be honest. I like to be surprised." He lighted his sonic again and scanned the room. "Whatever it is… it's probably a misunderstanding. I hate to get in the way, especially my own. I'll get out of your skin…" And he was just about to turn back when he spotted something. The wet cushion. The red nose.

He softened. His next words were so delicately-worded Clara's resolve melted. "Unless… you want some help? I'm the Doctor too, you know. And I can be your Doctor… if you want me to be."

She sniffed once, facing her lap. Then she looked at the Doctor, steady. Here was a Time Lord, at her service, boyish, enthusiastic, and helpful… her heart soared. Of course she wanted him there!

He must have recognised the sentiment because he crouched on the carpet at her feet and looked into her eyes.

"Clara," he breathed. "I know I can be… an idiot. I always have been. And if it's me that made you cry then I want to tell you that that's never my intention. I… I do that a lot, however. I know I've ruined lives and I've made people suffer." The self loathing was so evident Clara couldn't bear it. A final tear fell off her cheek. "But Clara, you should know that I care about you, wherever I am right now. I know myself. I try to protect my companions. I tell myself I'm good at it… but I'm not.

"And I'm only telling you this because you deserve to know: I regret it. Every one of my friends I've had to leave behind or who had to leave me behind, I regret it, I always do. And I hope you can forgive the Doctor, whatever he's done. Whatever I've done. Because you're so much better than I am, than the Doctor will ever be."

Clara's eyes wandered over his face, trying to see where he was coming from, where his pain was… she couldn't figure it out. He was a mystery to her.

"It's just that, for a Time Lord, you'd think he wouldn't have such bad timing," she remarked. "Always zipping in when I'm busy and zipping off when I need him. You're the only one who's got it right!"

"Well," he said, tilting his head. "At least that's some consolation. Score one for me, zero for him, then?" He smirked at her.

She laughed.

Oh, he was the Doctor!

Clara tilted her head as well, finding herself to be cheerful for the first time in ages. She exhaled, overcome with a fondness that she couldn't quite express, that called her to do something, make something… ooh!

"I wonder if you'd like a soufflé, Doctor?"

"A soufflé? Is that what I eat these days?"

She chuckled, remembering the fish fingers and custard he would one day have.

"Let's just say they've left such an impression on you, you sometimes call me the Soufflé Girl. So, if you're up for it, I could bake you one right away. Or you could keep wondering why that is...."

"Oh, a tantalising offer! Well, then, so long as you're not trying to poison me and take some kind preemptive revenge, Allons-y!"

"Does that happen often?" she teased, standing up to lead the way to the kitchen.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe," he said, his voice fading as he followed her out of the room, launching right into one of his stories. Clara's laughter could be heard, bouncing off the walls.

The TARDIS stood right in the same spot where it had always stood and yet never stood before.

And, in front of it, a certain drawer's outline glowed and dimmed, a bright blue.

It was a clever backup functionality, really, to send a warning beacon straight towards the TARDIS. It had pinpointed the time machine through the time vortex, and found it right there…

… At the nearest intersection.

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Black Panther

Time for an Afrofuturistic paradise!

Ohhhh, the meteor hit before humans came along. That makes so much more sense. Here I was misremembering that it landed in the backyards of these five tribes, and I was really confused that a meteor with a seemingly infinite supply of vibranium didn’t destroy everything for hundreds of miles. This makes much more sense.

The black sand hologram things are so much cooler than regular floating image holograms.

Hahahaha, okay, T’Challa freezing is adorable.

There are some great sibling and mom moments in this movie. Ramonda only had to see T’Challa’s face to know Shuri was flipping him off behind her back. Bahaha.

They did an amazing job on Wakanda. It’s Incredible to look at. From the city to the landscapes to the waterfall to the traditions of the different tribes. This whole movie has such an incredible atmosphere to it. This is the level of personality and culture I wish they’d given Asgard.

So I’ve seen critiques that question the wisdom of having a ritual combat to determine rule in such an advanced country. I think those critiques are missing the point. Wakanda’s flaw, aside from having a policy of isolationism at all costs, is clinging too hard to ceremony and tradition. It’s probably been many generations since they actually viewed the ritual combat as more than a token of respect to past tradition, but they didn’t actually delegitimize it in law, which is how Killmonger is able to take advantage of the situation.

The ancestral plane is beautiful.

“It’s hard for a good man to be king.” I desperately need Thor and T’Challa to interact. Have drinks and talk about the struggles of being king and having fathers who hid horrible truths.

So will T’Challa marry Nakia now that he’s come to agree with her politics?

Wakabi is kind of unreasonable. To turn on T’Challa for failing to bring Klaue back on his first attempt? Come on. T’Chaka failed to retrieve him for three decades, and you expect T’Challa to do it in one day? You are a bad friend.

Please let Peter and Shuri interact! They both love memes and “old” movies!

The whole suit fitting into the necklace strains credulity a bit. As does Tony’s bleeding edge armor. But I guess conservation of mass went out the window when Steve easy-baked from a sickly 90-pound kid to a 240-pound muscle-bound hunk, so it’s a bit late to start complaining.

*innocently* “For research purposes.”

Tolkien white guys!

Heck yes Okoye fight scene! Check out this gorgeous one-er!

Ohhhh it’s a vibranium car. So it breaks apart differently than a normal car would. I can accept the way Okoye and Nakia survive that crash better now. That was an important detail.

I, having two brothers, have never called either of them “Brother” to their faces in my life, nor have I ever heard anyone do this in real life, and yet I love when siblings do this in fiction. Brodinsons and royal house of Wakanda, please never change.

Klaue is so obnoxious.

Oh wow, I never noticed that they stuck those comms devices behind their ears.

Killmonger’s armor with the chestplate thing looks like some of the armor in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Awesome.

I keep imagining an AU in which Asgard and Wakanda do regular trade and have embassies. Wakanda has vibranium and millennia of experience working with it, Asgard has magic and other types of advancements. It’d be an amazing alliance, and they could’ve had it for centuries without telling anyone else on Earth.

Seriously Wakabi, you’re being a jerk.

So basically, Killmonger is Hamlet. More on that later, but he just killed Ophelia. Also, the reveal that he’s the main villain, not Klaue, is the midpoint/turning point of this movie. It’s getting to the point where I don’t have to check the progress to recognize these moments. The MCU gets criticism for being formulaic, but if the formula is simply following the 3-act structure, it still leaves plenty of room for variety, so I fail to see the problem.

N’Jobu is a scary extremist. Nakia is the one with the right philosophy. But T’Chaka did not need to use lethal force. He had super strength and a vibranium suit. He could’ve subdued his brother and brought him in. Instead, he killed him and left his nephew to find the body. T’Chaka is a lot like Odin. I do think both became better men than they were in the early days of thei rrule, but they did nothing to correct some of their biggest mistakes. Instead, they buried them. How exactly did they expect their sons to do better jobs ruling without all the facts?

I really like that Killmonger and T’Challa both held their father’s bodies the same way and cried over them. Super important parallelism.

Hmm, vibranium is vulnerable to sonic weaponry. That’s really good to know. This stuff is a bit too versatile and powerful; it needs a weakness.

It’s super weird that Killmonger’s (American) name is Eric Stephens. There was an Eric Stephens in my grad program, and he sat in the cubicle next to me. 

There’s some interesting stuff about group identity in this movie. Tribe identity (the five tribes in Wakanda), national identity, racial identity, and humanity at large. Nakia wants to help humanity at large. The Jabari are the most tribal. The other four tribes are about their identity as Wakandans over their tribes. N’Jakada, who grew up in the US, surrounded by gang violence and police brutality, with a father who wanted to militarize the entire African Diaspora and was killed for that, effectively making him a martyr and proving him right in the eyes of his son, is about racial identity to a fascist degree. N’Jakada has legitimate concerns, and his backstory is tragic and unjust, but his solutions are evil. Getting what he wants (assuming enough people outside Wakanda, where loyalty to the throne is somewhat mandated, would even go along with his world conquest plan) would come at the expense of the soul of the people he claims he’s fighting for.

The upside-down shot of N’Jakada taking the throne is chilling and excellent.

Conquerors or conquered are not the only two options here, Wakabi. But that attitude is self-fulfilling prophecy.

M’Baku is awesome.

T’Challa’s second trip to the ancestral plane is when he really figures out what his priorities are and what he’s fighting for. He realizes what he wants Wakanda to be under his rule. He’s been fairly passive and lacking in his own ideology up until now. Now his heart is really in it. He’s become the Black Panther and a king, so now he just has to fight to reclaim those actual titles from a mad warlord.

“All that challenge shit is over. I’m the king now.” Yeah, N’Jakada has no respect for their traditions, he only exploited them.

“Your heart is so full of hatred! You are not fit to be a king!” Yesss! Choose what Wakanda stands for, don’t just hand your loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it. It’s pretty notable, though, that Okoye only withdraws loyalty to N’Jakada when she sees that T’Challa is alive. Because the challenge is ongoing, she is free to choose the king she wants. She never broke her oath.

Heck yeah, warrior princess!

Oh hey, her gauntlets totally do the same thing to N’Jakada’s suit that the rails on the trains do.

Aaaah the truth comes out. “You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much. You will destroy the world, Wakanda included.” “The world took everything away from me! I’m gonna make sure we’re even!” N’Jakada pretty much just admitted he’s the villain.

And the Jabari claim their identity as Wakandans. Woohoo!

Hehe, the rhino loves his mama.

The civil war in Wakanda is what the Asgard storyline in Ragnarok was missing. Hela just slaughtering everyone and generally being ludicrously OP is not interesting, but if a significant portion of the people had sided with her and there was a battle for the soul of Asgard? That would’ve been amazing, and I wouldn’t have just been impatient to get back to trash planet shenanigans.

It’s a shame N’Jakada dies. He’s a Loki caliber villain, and they could’ve given him a redemption arc or something.

Okay, weirdly, one of the details I like the most about the capital of Wakanda is that the ground doesn’t appear to be paved anywhere.

So if Bucky is White Wolf, does that mean he’s going to be in future Black Panther movies? Yes please?

Black Panther is very good, but I don’t think it makes it into my top five MCU movies. T’Challa needs more development. He’s too passive for too much of the movie. Shuri and Okoye are much more interesting characters and have much more personality than him, and the same goes for M’Baku and N’Jakada. Hopefully they’ll do more with T’Challa in future installments. A big part of what makes the Marvel movies so great in general is their compelling leads, but this movie didn’t make me as invested in T’Challa as a person as it made me invested in his country and the people around him. I want to be as invested in T’Challa as I am in characters like Thor, Peter Parker, Tony, Steve, the Guardians, Scott, and Stephen, characters like Frank, Matt, Luke, and Jessica. I think what would have gone a long way towards solving this problem would have been if he’d actually been a staunch defender of the traditional isolationist view, only to learn over the course of the movie that Nakia is right. Isolationism breeds xenophobia and over-inflates national pride, creating people like N’Jakada. Much better to embrace other countries and cultures and help each other grow. As it is, it seems like T’Challa goes along with the isolationist thing because that’s how they’ve always done it, but he doesn’t seem remotely passionate about it, and that’s to the detriment of his character.

Now, the Hamlet thing. It occurred to me the first time I saw this in theaters that N’Jakada is essentially Hamlet. His father was killed by his uncle, who is on the throne, and his quest for vengeance gets everyone around him including his lover and friends killed, and ultimately he dies too. Then a benevolent king takes the throne, having learned from this conflict.

[akiamekosaysstuff]

Game Grumps Live: Salt Lake City (Review)

My siblings and I got the extraordinary opportunity to see Game Grumps Live! In Salt Lake City on July 15, 2017, at Rockwell @The Complex. We had general admission seating. Here are my thoughts and recommendations!

(Note: This post contains pics but they are bad pics. My apologies. My phone’s focus could not keep up with the frenzy.)

Show Rundown:

They started off with Vernon coming on-stage and greeting the crowd....

...and picking an audience member who is “So good at Super Mario Bros. they could play it with their eyes closed” to...play it with their eyes closed.

(Vernon placing a Sonic hat over the lucky participant’s eyes so he can’t see.)

He then asked the crowd to shout instructions (Mainly “JUMP!”) at the participant at the right times. This made for 10 minutes of amusing intro to hype us up. BUT THEN...VERNON LED US IN THE “HEY I’M GRUMP” INTRO...AND THEN THERE WAS A DEAFENING ROAR…

(The blur here is a perfect representation of the chaos that ensued) ...Arin and Dan EXPLODED ONTO THE STAGE AND THERE WAS NO MERCY FROM THE CROWD.

(Seriously though it’s hard to get good pics when you’re short and the crowd has no chill.) The Game Grumps were on the scene and gave us a hearty hello!

(*Hushed screaming* THERRRE THEY ARRRRRREEEE) The bulk part of the show was an interactive Mario Party 10 game. Arin picked Peach (of course) and Dan picked Yoshi. They then split the crowd into two and had the crowd pick players 3 and 4. 3 picked Waluigi, and 4 (my team) picked Toad.

They had hype chants all prepared for us (“WA-LU-I-GI” *THREE CLAPS* and “GO TOAD”) and told us to hype and cheer as much as possible. They played the game and at each mini game they brought up audience members to play for their respective teams, each time asking their names and asking them for silly hype phrases (Like “What’s your favorite pasta?”) or insults to the other team. There was also dabbing and occasional shenanigans from Dan and Arin. (One of my favorite moments was Dan doing some ridiculous dance/posing at the crowd. Arin asked “What the f*** are you doing, Dan?” and Dan responded with “I”m appealing to the crowd! For Star Points!” XD <3 )

At the conclusion of the game, TEAM TOAD WON!! GO TOAD!!!!! *Deafening roar*

Afterwards they opened it up for questions for about 20 min. (The game went kind of long.) Then they had to bid us goodbye!! Sad!! :(

Thoughts:

I was SUPER hyped to see these guys. Like, really really hyped. It’s still surreal to me that I saw them in person, but at the same time, it’s like “OMG I know these guys.” Mostly, I’m just really glad I got to see them.

The show was fun, but halfway through I realized something: I wasn’t laughing.

Sure, I was cheering and screaming along with everyone else, but I didn’t feel like I was witnessing a live episode of Game Grumps like I had expected. It felt more like a sporting event than a comedy show. It was only really fun if you were one of the people picked to go on stage with the Grumps. Once I realized this I was really disappointed that this was all I had come to see, and hoped in vain that they would play another game afterward. This is more disappointing when you consider how these guys really are very talented performers and improv artists. I paid to go see them and I didn’t get much of that at all. Mostly people just trying to soak in their 3 minutes of fame. (Which admittedly I’d have done too.) I’ve heard that they’ve played Mario Maker at other shows and I really wish they’d have done that instead. I would recommend that if you are ho-hum about going to see them live that you definitely keep this in consideration. (Also, bring earplugs to protect your hearing.)

The Q&A was actually a bit more enjoyable in some aspects, even though I didn’t get a chance to ask a question. I was surprised that the questions asked were pretty quality. (They said at the start, No “Can I get a selfie/hug?” questions, and only one person asked a “Monkey” question, like “Can you say/do X.”) I’ll go over notable questions in a later section. I don’t regret going to see them, but I’m still disappointed I didn’t get exactly what I thought I paid for. (And drove 6 hours and paid for a hotel for.) If you’re a huge fan though, I probably don’t have to tell you that it’s worth it anyway. :)

The Venue:

I will be issuing a complaint with The Complex. We stood in line in 100+ degree weather for over an hour (on top of the hours we’d already spent wandering the outdoor mall) with the comfort that we would soon be in an air conditioned building...except it wasn’t. I had confirmed with The Complex ahead of time that seats would definitely be put out, but I had not at all expected or thought to ask about the air conditioning. It shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect an event venue to be able to cool their crowd, right? I’m not sure if it’s the unexpectedly hot temperatures, the fact that the smoke patio door was open the whole time, or a crowd larger than expected, but it it was sweltering in there and I found myself using my hand fan the entire time, and it wasn’t much help. I do not find this acceptable and I would not consider going to an event there again for this reason. (At least not in the summer, jeez.)

BONUS: Notable Questions and Answers!

Will we ever have an episode of “Dad Grumps”? After a roaring audience chant of “A-VI, A-VI”, Dan said Avi (his dad) has been warming up a little more to the idea of being on the show in some capacity. He doesn’t want to be on camera but he *may* consider doing a podcast interview similar to the interview Dan did with his grandma.

Are the Grumps ever going to finish “A Link Between Worlds?”

They are apparently waiting on a custom controller being built for Dan’s enormous thumbs. They are hoping this will happen, though.

Will there ever be a three-way Game Grumps episode featuring Jontron?

There was a loud roar at this question, mostly “YEEEAH!” BUT there were definitely some audible “Boos.” They have considered it in the past but after...recent events…(Google it if you don’t know)...it’s leaning toward a strong “No.” I got the impression that this wasn’t an outright “No,” but my guess is it’s going to be hard to see how Jon’s reputation erodes or blows over in the next few years.

Has Arin taught Dan how to draw yet? This is a reference to “Super Mario Galaxy: Part 69″ where Dan mentioned how he couldn’t draw and Arin mentioned how he could possibly teach him. They said this has not happened as of yet. The crowd then proceeded to chant “DOODLE DUDES,” and Arin, surprised, said that having Dan on an episode of Doodle Doods could possibly happen, and if it does, we have Salt Lake to thank for it. :)

That’s it for now! Please let me know if you find my review useful, helpful, entertaining, or if you were also there, accurate. :) Thanks!