#either way it’s kind of hilariously delightful. and ridiculous. I have many conflicting feelings

[sailforvalinor]

I know I talked about this already but I started thinking about it again suddenly and it stands reiterating: MY PILOT. IS IN LOVE WITH MY SHIP. Like I don’t think you’re hearing me. MY PILOT IS IN LOVE WITH MY SHIP. AND THE SHIP. SHE LOVES HIM BACK???

[smokeybrand]

I Am No Jedi

With season two of Mando over and the entire series in the can, for now, i was still on a pretty high Star Wars kick. Since i have Disney+, and time before WandaVision starts, i figure I'd ride this wave right into another Star Wars show i didn’t have the opportunity to actually get into deep; Star Wars: Rebels. Now, i have REALLY mixed feeling about this show. It’s an odd watch for me because of the conflict between the parts that are clone wars-y and the original content being presented. I kind of hate it when Ahsoka, Vader, Maul, or Thrawn aren’t onscreen but, at the same time, there are some really standout episodes. The Honorable Ones and The Forgotten Droid immediately come to mind. Unlike Clone Wars, however, which is a whole ass masterpiece of storytelling and character development, Rebels feels incredibly flaccid, overall. Still, i did like some things therein. Others, not so much...

The Things I liked

This show is gorgeous, man. The character models are lovely, this soundtrack is one of the best in the entire franchise, and the animation is head-and-shoulders above the first last season of Clone Wars. By that i mean season six. This thing ain’t got sh*t on season seven. Not even a little bit. Even so, this how is f*cking stunning to see. Everything about this aesthetic is just chef kiss levels of kino, as the kids would say.

All things Ahsoka. Look, its no secret i adore Ms. Tano but she really comes into her own with Rebels. You get to see that wisdom she gleaned during the Clone Wars on full display, even if she isn’t a proper Jedi anymore. Watching her reunite with Rex was wonderful but watching her fight Vader? That was hard. That was really hard. That episode, Twilight of the Apprentice, is easily some of the finest Disney Star Wars produced to date. It’s up there with Mando and the seventh season of the Clone Wars, for sure, and is the best episode of Rebels, itself, hands down.

Vader.

Maul in Rebels was exceptional. I enjoyed his turn in Clone Wars, of course, but his relationship with Ezra and his growth over the course of this series was exquisite. I was stunned by how much i liked Maul because, admittedly, i didn’t see the allure. I came to Clone Wars late so watching Maul blossom was a surprise. Seeing that continued evolution through Rebels was a real treat. That last duel with Obi-Wan? F*cking tragic. Beautifully tragic.

The Inquisitors. I like the whole concept of the Inquisitors but, specifically, The Grand Inquisitor and the Seventh Sister are decidedly the superior of the lot. I really enjoyed Grand and felt like his character was a little short-changed but Seventh Sister came along and picked up that slack only a few episodes later. Thanks to Rebels, i got other amazing characters like Second Sister in Jedi Fallen Order, The High Inquisitors in

F*cking Thrawn, man. I knew this dude was the dude from the Thrawn trilogy sequel books and never expected him to actually be canonized. Seeing my favorite blue sociopath show up in season four was a real gas, giving him proper credence as a threat going forward in the canon Disney mythos. The revelation that Ahsoka’s whole mission in her Mando appearance, was just to find a lead on this dude, was one of the biggest geek-outs i ever had for Disney Star Wars and it was Rebels that set all of it up.

Speaking of canonization, Rebels mad Darth Bane a thing and i will forever be grateful of that fact. Darth Bane is a huge deal in the canon and Filoni sneaking his legitimacy into the new lore, right under Kathleen Kennedy’s hating ass sabotage, was genius. I heard that he wanted to do the same for Darth Nihilus, Darth Traya, and Darth Scion, but that script was rejected. I imagine Darth Kennedy didn’t care for the Bane slip and put the kibosh on all other lore.

I actually like a lot of the additional lore. The Bendu, those temples, the mega-weapon on Malachor, The Veil; All of it enriches and expands upon the new canon. It gives it more life, more potential. and i love potential in storytelling. Makes for a ton of different, wonderful, possibilities.

Look, i just really like the Bendu. That motherf*cker is hilarious.

I really did enjoy Hera and Sabine. Those two ladies were a delight. I’ glad they were added t the lore because, particularly Sabine, there is a wealth of potential for them going forward. Hell, we’ve already seen the return of Hera in Star Wars: Squadrons and, with Mando going full anthology, i would be hard pressed not to think that Sabine will have her turn as the titular Mandalorian in a few seasons.

Not going to lie, seeing Zeb in this show was pretty dope. As a Star Wars geek, i knew that the Lasat were basically prototype Wookies that were cast aside. It’s dope seeing that design getting a second wind onscreen and a prominent role in the main cast. Plus, i mean, Zeb is actually a pretty chill character, himself.

The Things I didn’t

What the f*ck are these lightsabers, man? They're supposed to reflect the original concept of the weapons from one of the first Star Wars draft scripts, which is cool in a geek sense, but corny as sh*t in practice. These things look anemic, as f*ck, man.

It’s ridiculous to me that the crew of the Ghost are so goddamn pivotal to the fledgling Rebellion. These assholes cannot be this important, even with all of the plot armor. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to believe that they were the ones who retrieved the B-Wing, founded the first Rebel base, and stole Phoenix Nest from the Empire? Word?

There no stakes to this show. Like, i get that our principals had a lot of plot armor in Clone Wars, i never once felt like Ahsoka, Kenobi, or Anakin were ever in real danger, but there were certain episodes where i thought, for sure, their characters would be totally crippled somehow. Not with Rebels. I don’t expect any of these motherf*ckers to have even a semblance of lasting bruises. Kanan literally dies and nothing of importance was lost. Like, i know this is Ezra’s show but goddamn.

Speaking of Ezra, i hate this kid. I don’t know if that’s by design, like Filoni did with Ahsoka in the first few seasons of Clone Wars, but i grew to love her. She’s literally my second favorite character in the entire mythos, after Vader. Ezra did not grow on me. At all. I hate that so many lore altering events surrounded this dipsh*t. Kid ain’t even all that powerful in the force. I’m pretty certain that Ahsoka is stronger than Ezra is but he gets to be the one to “discover” the Veil of the Force. Like, bro, for real? You telling me Anakin, Yoda, or even f*cking Luke missed out on this sh*t? Word?

This show feels a lot like Avatar The Last Air Bender but worse. I had a whole ass emotional connection to the characters in that show. It broke my heart to see Azula having that meltdown. I did feel that same agony in Rebels, but it was for Ahsoka. When Vader looked up and you heard Anakin’s voice through the filter? “Ahsoka.” F*ck, that broke me. It was like watching Spider-Man getting dusted in Infinity War. I never felt that way about any of the ghost crew. Never. Not when Kanan died. Not when Ezra disappeared. Never.

The best parts of this show, of the actual, Rebels, canon, is either leftovers from Clone Wars or Legends content. Bane, Thrawn, Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, the Emperor, even f*cking Hondo; All characters that existed before Rebels. Outside of the Inquisitors, Rebels added nothing of worth to the canon. It’s effectively a non-show. I mean, The Veil might be a thing eventually. We’ll see. That motherf*cker is a whole ass retconning mcguffin if I've ever seen one.

It’s weird to say, but nothing about this show feels of consequence. I know, for a fact, there are certain aspects Rebels added to the lore that will be vital to the overall canon but it doesn’t feel like that, you know? It feels like this was a detour, a frolic of, like, three or four episodes but holds no bearing to the grander scheme playing out. Sh*t’s ridiculous because Clone Wars felt like a whole ass problem, Rogue One gave us a legit catharsis, and Mando outdid everything Disney ever made while setting up an entire new age. F*ck, man, even the sequel trilogy gave us Kylo Ren. Rebels feels like Star Wars: The Filler Show and i kind of hate it.

[nellied-reviews]

Discomforts, Pains and Irregularities Re-listen

Hello! I hope you're safe and well, wherever you are right now, and looking after yourself as best you can. It's a weird time to be alive, certainly. Fortunately, there is in this life one thing we can rely on: Douglas Eiffel will forever be a dumbass. I've hit episode 3 in my Wolf 359 re-listen, and boy, did this one cheer me up. So, without further ado:

Discomforts, Pains and Irregularities

In which Hilbert and Hera make a great but also terrifying team, Eiffel will do anything to avoid his physical exam, and Mink-oH MY GOD YOU WERE BEING SERIOUS?!

I feel, off the bat, like this episode is different to the previous two in a really good, productive way. It's a subtle thing, but it's something I definitely noticed this time round; Discomforts, Pains and Irregularities just works differently to the first two episodes. Where they were a sort of slice-of-life affair and a then a straight-up sitcom, this episode is more of a comedy horror movie; where the conflict in the first two episodes was between Eiffel and the rest of the crew, here we get our first external threat; where the plot, in the first two episodes, revolved around mundane, small things like radio broadcasts and toothpaste, the plot here's about a mutant space plant monster. It's a neat way of setting certain genre expectations and helping us triangulate, roughly, what we can and can't expect from the show, establishing a couple of constants (we're probably not going to get an episode, for example, with absolutely no comedy), but also a range of different tones the show can play with (sitcom, B-movie horror, weird sci-fi)

That said, it's not obvious from the beginning of the episode that we've stumbled into a horror movie. At first, when Eiffel starts his log sounding so very defeated, it seems like we're being set up for an episode about Eiffel trying to dodge a physical exam. Which you could get a whole, pretty decent episode out of it, for sure -  it would probably end up following a very similar template to Little Revolución. Step 1: have Eiffel do something ridiculous. Step 2: escalate things. Step 3: Eiffel is defeated. Solid, right? So when Hera announced that physicals are coming up, it feels like there's a predictable way that this going to play out. Not bad, per se. But we can see where it might be going.

We do get the fun twist of Hera cooperating with Hilbert, and sounding surprisingly chipper about the whole affair. And I guess that makes sense? She doesn't have physical body in the same way as Eiffel and Minkowski do, after all, so she's not getting a physical, and I can totally see her making the most of it to troll Eiffel, or indulge in some Schadenfreude. Or perhaps she's just helping Hilbert because it’s her job. Who knows? Either way, it's nice, if a little bittersweet, to see Hera and Hilbert working as a team again and trusting each other; after season 1, we don't see so much of that, for obvious, murder-y reasons.

I also have to wonder, at this point, why Hilbert is running these physicals? He says it's to stop disease spreading, but surely the Hephaestus, a closed system with three actual people living there, has got to be disease-free, right? The only thing I can think is that this is actually part of his work on Eiffel, a convenient excuse to take samples and see how the Decima is doing. Which makes an already terrifying prospect even more frightening. I guess he also has to collect samples for Minkowski, to maintain his cover? Or - a more alarming thought that I kind of wish I hadn't had - he might also be taking measurements and samples in preparation for giving her Decima, should Eiffel go the way of Lambert and the last crew. Cheery stuff, you know?

That’s just me overthinking things, though. What we actually get, as the episode gets going, is a panicky, nervous Eiffel desperately bullshitting Hilbert to get the good doctor off his tail. Which is so very relatable. I feel you, Eiffel. 

It didn't escape my attention, here, that Eiffel mentions a recent power outage. It's another sign that things were going wrong in the Hephaestus from the very beginning - something we won't get confirmed until Pan-Pan, I think?

It also didn't escape my attention, on a more immediate note, that Hilbert used up all of the water doing radiation experiments in the greenhouse. Which I bet is totally fine and totally didn't create the plant monster in the first place. Nope. Nuh-uh. No foreshadowing here.

In any case, Eiffel's ruse works, and then we get Eiffel and Hera just bantering for a bit, which is always a delight. Hera gets all sniffy (pun unintentional) about Eiffel's personal hygiene, Eiffel lobs a "you don't even have a nose anyway" back at her, she leans hard into her "well you're a feeble, puny human" shtick. It's fun, and I can totally buy that this might be a conversation they have had many times before. I don't know, I just really love their friendship, okay?

What I also love, when Minkowski calls to ask for help with the plant monster, is that Eiffel just straight-up assumes that she's also trying to get out of her physical. Like... has he met Minkowkski?! And yes, okay, technically she was in the greenhouses trying to avoid Hilbert. But the fact that now, when she is quite obviously not kidding, Eiffel decides to shrug it off? Genius. I love it. So very dumb.

Then, of course, we meet the plant monster, which is honestly one of my favourite things about this podcast. It's just so out-there! After two more slice-of-life episodes, it's delightfully weird, but also puts us firmly in the realm of soft science fiction. Like, there's no pretending, with a mutant plant monster, that this is going to be gritty, realistic, hard science fiction, and I kind of love that? Certainly, setting aside question like "is this scientifically plausible?" lets the show do all sorts of wacky, fun things that just make for a more engaging story. Mutant plant monsters are in the same cheesy B-movie vein as the Dear Listeners, super-soldier-creating viruses and mind control machines, and Wolf 359 is 100% better off for it.

Minkowski doesn't share my enthusiasm for the plant monster, sadly. She goes straight in with a flamethrower. Ah, Commander. Never change.

Eiffel still doesn't believe that it's real, even as he goes down to check on Minkowski, which is kind of hilarious, especially because it's such a tropey horror movie set-up. For such a pop-culture-savvy dude, he really dropped the ball on this one. But it's nice to see him and Minkowski bonding over being mutually freaked out by the thing. After two episodes of Minkowski being mad at Eiffel for various offences, it's cool that they're working together here, even if it takes the joint threat of Hilbert's physicals and a plant monster to get them there.

It's also here that the podcast format works so well, because without a visual on the monster, it's so much more frightening. Seriously, I bet all of our mental images of this thing are way more frightening than anything a TV show could give us, based just on Eiffel and Minkowski screaming.

Either way, we cut away pretty quickly after that, and the episode ends with Eiffel informing us smugly that the plant monster is still out there, but that, as a consequence of the ongoing monster situation, they have at least postponed physicals. It's a fun way to end the episode, anticlimactic in the funniest possible way, focusing on the dumb, mundane stuff and just dropping the plant mutant... for now. It leaves room for future stories featuring our resident not-so-horrifying monster (hello, Minkowski Commanding!). But honestly, it'd still be funny if the plant monster was never brought up again, and just hung round like the proverbial, vine-strewn elephant in the room. Which it kind of does, for a while, at least until Season 2.

It also works, I think, because this episode isn't really about how the crew would defeat a plant monster. Instead, the question the episode asks is just "How do the crew react when something really weird happens?" And the answer we get is something we'll see again and again: Minkowski goes on the warpath and tries to kill it with fire, while Eiffel is a bit more chill about things, possibly unwisely so. It feels like the blueprint for a whole lot of future disagreements where Minkowski generally leans towards more violent solutions, while Eiffel is a little more pacifistic, repping Team What's-Wrong-With-Handcuffs etc.

So yup. At the end of the day, like most of the early episodes, this one’s pretty heavy on the comedy. But it also establishes a bunch of new things that the show can do, and puts our protagonists into a totally new, strange situation, just to see how they react, paving the way for all sorts of future weirdness. Not bad, right?

Also, because it bears repeating, mutant space plant monster. 

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Hera getting snarky about Eiffel's body odour bwahahahahahahaha

That noise is terrifying and will haunt my nightmares

Also, why did Eiffel record his physical six months ago? What could he possibly have been planning on doing with that recording??

"Tell him to go... ffffrequencies!"

Ewwwww spinal fluid samples

"Let's get this - oH MY GOD YOU WERE BEING SERIOUS" 

"For God's sake, help me kill this thing!" "With what? Harsh language?" "With napalm, you moron!"

[bluering8]

for the dnd meme, i'm gonna send you the same prompt someone else sent me: prime numbers!

2. Your favouritecharacter that someone else has played.

My favourite character was probably Pax! Her player is nolonger around because Reasons, but I still love Pax. She was hilarious and anabsolute delight, top-quality belligerent homeless drunkard with more arms (four)than brain cells.

Favourite character who is still active is maybe… Glitz??That’s a really hard choice because I particularly love the entire Navarenegroup, the Glitz-Levin-Aradi trio is super fun for me to watch interacting becausetheir personalities bounce off each other in really entertaining ways.

3. Your favouriteside quest.

I don’t think we really… do side quests… Numenera iskind of like Side Quests: the RPG, the whole point of it is that you’resupposed to explore and get distracted by random shit and race off in twentydifferent directions at once.

5. Favourite NPC.

Ssenofyn Srelthyn Syntysus! Ssen’s hilarious to me because he’sso consistently deadpan in the face of wacky shenanigans and questionablesocial skills. He cares only for science and it’s delightful. It also means he’sreally good at the job of Being A Party NPC: all he wants is for the party tokeep running around and exploring, so he’s content to stand in the backgroundand only help out when asked. He lets the PCs do all the Fun Stuff, and it makes sense for his character that he’d act that way.

7. Your favouritedowntime activity.

We don’t really… do downtime either… I mean, we could do downtime, but I’m a veryimpatient man and want lots of things to be happening at all times. Okay, wejust jumped out of a plane after encountering/rescuing a new PC and there’snothing immediately important happening, this would be a really good time torelax and take stock and have some RP where we get to know our new teammateright? Well, we could do that, or wecould investigate this weird space lego in a nearby pond let’s do thatinstead!!

11. How often do youplay and how often would you ideally like to play?

We play pretty irregularly? Mostly as a side-effect of wowthere are so many different time zones and conflicting schedules at play here.We’ve switched to play-by-post rather than having actual sessions, which has helpeda lot with the scheduling issues, but we still don’t play very often. I’m like68% sure we’re maybe on hiatus until the new books come out?

13. Introduce yourcurrent party.

There are three!

Draolis party: Tom Sideways (Charming Jack who Works theBack Alleys), useless layabout on a quest to locate a gun which fires weird timebullets and also an occasional pawn in his crime lord brother’s scheming; Aeli(Clever Glint who Crafts Illusions), a con artist who got herself involved inOracle’s political shenanigans; Styx (Ultraterrestrial Glaive who IntegratesWeaponry), a boisterous adventurer from the Timelands who found herselfstranded in the Ninth World by accident and is seeking to repair her worldlineshifter; Oracle (NPC), an overdramatic “””terrorist””” who likes to yell aboutpolitics a lot.

Navarene party: Enodyne (Perceptive Nano who Abides inCrystal), an imperious supervillain with a mysterious backstory; Levin (WeirdNano who Rides the Lightning), Aeon Priest, mom friend, and also an avidknitter; Glitz (Manipulative Jack who Possesses a Shard of the Sun), a fancyboy who wears impractical shoes and is super Extra at all times; Aradi (GuardedSeeker who Manipulates Force), a Gaian who is just here to explore ancientruins and doesn’t know why these strange people keep talking to her like shetolerates them.

Techhunter party: Mote (Mystical Jack who Fuses Mind andMachine), a space ape from space on a quest to find her lost god; Flux Dynamo(Mercurial Glaive who Employs Magnetism), who is ADHD as hell and loves spaceso much you guys so much; Ssenofyn(NPC), who is just here to do science.

17. What are somehouse rules that your group has?

Anyone who draws an art gets an experience point, AKA therule which lets Hap advance at approximately the ten times the rate of everyoneelse put together (I’m not deliberately spamming art specifically for the purposeof XP gain, I’m just Like This). The GM insists this is fine.

The new books are gonna be introducing Player Intrusionsalso, which presumably is gonna mean players get to spend an XP to make goodthings happen to themselves. The GM’s said that if there’s no mechanism to letplayers make bad things happen tothemselves they’ll houserule it in just for me, which on the one hand I feelkind of offended but on the other hand shit yes time to shoot myself repeatedlyin the foot!! I promise to use this power responsibly and only cause disastersfor myself so I don’t ruin the game for other people. On the gripping hand thisshould go some way to correcting the ridiculous amount of XP I’ve accidentallyaccumulated with my constant fanart, so it all balances out in the end I guess.

19. Do you or yourparty have any dice superstitions?

Nope! Except that back when we were using physical diceinstead of a dicebot Jack’s dice hated them, which was less superstition andmore objective fact because one time we had a session while they were visitingme and they borrowed a set of my dice and suddenly they could make non-shittyrolls.

23. Do you usepremade modules or original campaigns?

Mostly original stuff I think? Don’t look at me, I only haveaccess to the character-creation books, I don’t know how much of what goes on is canon and how much the GM makes up on the spot. Fortunately all my characters areeither foreigners or complete idiots so my relative ignorance of the NinthWorld doesn’t matter super much.

29. Do you prefer RPheavy sessions or combat sessions?

As a GM? RP sessions, mostly because the game I’m GMing usesa ridiculously ruleslite system so there’s not really anything interesting youcan do with combat. This might change if I ever get organised enough to runsomething with more than a single page of rules. But also, when the players are RPing and treating their PCs like characters instead of sticks to solve problems with, that’s super super pleasing for me because it feels like they’re enjoying themselves and getting engaged with what’s going on.

31. What is yourfavourite class? Favourite race?

My favourite type is jack! They seem to be, like… the bestset up for interacting with the world in the way I want to interact with it. Ilike having the variety in what I can do and I’m not super bothered by the lackof high-powered/specialised skills. It looks like the new book’s going to bemaking jacks their own Thing instead of just being a nonspecialised mishmash ofall the other character types so iunno, we’ll see how that one shakes out.

Numenera doesn’t really doraces the way DND does races. You get races, but they’re in place ofdescriptors rather than a separate trait. I ain’t give a shit about function orbuilding a mechanically-optimised character, if you tell me I can either pick aspecies trait or a character trait I’ll pick the character trait. So I guess Iprefer the default “race” (which is… not necessarily human, Mote’s a spaceape but she still counts as the default mechanically) because then I can picksomething else interesting to have going on. I did super enjoy playing an ArtificiallyIntelligent character one time, but the GM let me pick two descriptors so I wasAI/Mad and honestly if I could’ve only picked one, Mad all the way.

[aion-rsa]

Solar Opposites Season 2 Review (Spoiler-Free)

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This Solar Opposites review contains no spoilers.

The aliens of Solar Opposites are like a classic sitcom family, sort of. They try to learn a lesson at the end of each episode, but they’re also opportunistic jerks with access to all manner of overpowered sci-fi technology, so the path to learning is always paved with a lot of human corpses They’re also very stupid aliens, so all they usually end up learning is that they’re stuck together on Earth. But they love each other …maybe? Kind of.

In contrast with Solar Opposites’ creators Mike McMahan and Justin Roiland’s other show, Rick and Morty, which takes a modern approach of being big on character development that carries over from episode to episode, Solar Opposites riffs on the classic multicamera sitcom formula (e.g., Cheers, Taxi,or, most fittingly, Seinfeld), which emphasizes self-contained episodes that introduce and resolve a conflict within a half-hour packed with jokes you don’t need any prior knowledge to get. The alien family of Korvo (Justin Roiland), Terry (Thomas Middleditch), Jesse (Mary Mack), Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone), and The Pupa (Sagan McMahan) remain brilliant vessels to carry us through these kinds of stories because they’re such colossal screw-ups it only makes sense they manage to stumble into a problem of their own creation every episode, only to “resolve” it in the most destructive way possible.

If you’ve seen the first season of Solar Opposites and this all sounds familiar, that’s because, yes, to an extent, season two is more of the same, but I don’t view that as a negative at all. I gave the first season a perfect score because whatever flaws it had were negligible in what was overall such a strong, surprising, and hilarious season. Season two basically just takes the season one formula and goes bigger.

The premiere season saw the aliens wreaking havoc mostly within their own neighborhood. This time they’re ruining everything in different countries, bending the laws of nature, and even briefly threatening the fate of the entire planet. The first season was also gleefully ultraviolent and profane and that feels like it’s only been upped as well. There’s a charming, honest simplicity to how freely and gratuitously the unbleeped F-bombs drop in this show and season two only gets more charming and more honest. The violence also reaches inspired heights of grotesquery; two episodes in, Solar Opposites whips out one of its grossest and goriest ever sight gags, but it’s so bizarre and fluidly animated, one can’t help but be impressed.

Furthermore, Solar Opposites gets to have its sitcom plot cake and eat its continuity too (did that make sense?) with the return of an antagonist whose arc develops in a way I can 100% guarantee you will not be able to guess. And then, of course, there’s the return of The Wall, Yumyulack’s massive terrarium of imprisoned humans he’s shrunk down with a shrink ray. The Wall was the most obvious breakout success of the inaugural season; everyone who saw it found themselves engrossed and surprisingly moved by the serialized, dramatic (though still in many ways ridiculous) plot running in concurrent contrast to the aliens’ one-off shenanigans.

In season two, The Wall continues to be an amazing storytelling tool for Solar Opposites, allowing it to borrow and riff on tropes from more dramatic genres. Perhaps the only “weakness” with it this time is that it isn’t able to recapture the surprise of the first-season reveal of an entire Wall-centric episode. But the goings-on in The Wall continue to surprise and delight regardless with engrossing, satisfying, hilarious, and creative plot developments that absolutely work as an evolution of the tiny people civilization premise, taking it in directions vastly unique to what we got last season.

The second season of Solar Opposites is a lot like the first except bigger, crazier, and funnier. If you didn’t get it the first time, season two isn’t going to do anything for you either. But if you’re a fan of stupid aliens cursing, making obscure pop culture references, and fucking up our home planet, you’ll be grinning almost constantly through all eight of these new episodes. And, yes, everything to do with The Wall still rocks, too.

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The first season got out a 5 out of 5 because it was so confident and creative, with precious few weaknesses I could point to. Season two is the same, but better.

The post Solar Opposites Season 2 Review (Spoiler-Free) appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[smokeybrandreviews]

I Am No Jedi

With season two of Mando over and the entire series in the can, for now, i was still on a pretty high Star Wars kick. Since i have Disney+, and time before WandaVision starts, i figure I'd ride this wave right into another Star Wars show i didn’t have the opportunity to actually get into deep; Star Wars: Rebels. Now, i have REALLY mixed feeling about this show. It’s an odd watch for me because of the conflict between the parts that are clone wars-y and the original content being presented. I kind of hate it when Ahsoka, Vader, Maul, or Thrawn aren’t onscreen but, at the same time, there are some really standout episodes. The Honorable Ones and The Forgotten Droid immediately come to mind. Unlike Clone Wars, however, which is a whole ass masterpiece of storytelling and character development, Rebels feels incredibly flaccid, overall. Still, i did like some things therein. Others, not so much...

The Things I liked

This show is gorgeous, man. The character models are lovely, this soundtrack is one of the best in the entire franchise, and the animation is head-and-shoulders above the first last season of Clone Wars. By that i mean season six. This thing ain’t got sh*t on season seven. Not even a little bit. Even so, this how is f*cking stunning to see. Everything about this aesthetic is just chef kiss levels of kino, as the kids would say.

All things Ahsoka. Look, its no secret i adore Ms. Tano but she really comes into her own with Rebels. You get to see that wisdom she gleaned during the Clone Wars on full display, even if she isn’t a proper Jedi anymore. Watching her reunite with Rex was wonderful but watching her fight Vader? That was hard. That was really hard. That episode, Twilight of the Apprentice, is easily some of the finest Disney Star Wars produced to date. It’s up there with Mando and the seventh season of the Clone Wars, for sure, and is the best episode of Rebels, itself, hands down.

Vader.

Maul in Rebels was exceptional. I enjoyed his turn in Clone Wars, of course, but his relationship with Ezra and his growth over the course of this series was exquisite. I was stunned by how much i liked Maul because, admittedly, i didn’t see the allure. I came to Clone Wars late so watching Maul blossom was a surprise. Seeing that continued evolution through Rebels was a real treat. That last duel with Obi-Wan? F*cking tragic. Beautifully tragic.

The Inquisitors. I like the whole concept of the Inquisitors but, specifically, The Grand Inquisitor and the Seventh Sister are decidedly the superior of the lot. I really enjoyed Grand and felt like his character was a little short-changed but Seventh Sister came along and picked up that slack only a few episodes later. Thanks to Rebels, i got other amazing characters like Second Sister in Jedi Fallen Order, The High Inquisitors in

F*cking Thrawn, man. I knew this dude was the dude from the Thrawn trilogy sequel books and never expected him to actually be canonized. Seeing my favorite blue sociopath show up in season four was a real gas, giving him proper credence as a threat going forward in the canon Disney mythos. The revelation that Ahsoka’s whole mission in her Mando appearance, was just to find a lead on this dude, was one of the biggest geek-outs i ever had for Disney Star Wars and it was Rebels that set all of it up.

Speaking of canonization, Rebels mad Darth Bane a thing and i will forever be grateful of that fact. Darth Bane is a huge deal in the canon and Filoni sneaking his legitimacy into the new lore, right under Kathleen Kennedy’s hating ass sabotage, was genius. I heard that he wanted to do the same for Darth Nihilus, Darth Traya, and Darth Scion, but that script was rejected. I imagine Darth Kennedy didn’t care for the Bane slip and put the kibosh on all other lore.

I actually like a lot of the additional lore. The Bendu, those temples, the mega-weapon on Malachor, The Veil; All of it enriches and expands upon the new canon. It gives it more life, more potential. and i love potential in storytelling. Makes for a ton of different, wonderful, possibilities.

Look, i just really like the Bendu. That motherf*cker is hilarious.

I really did enjoy Hera and Sabine. Those two ladies were a delight. I’ glad they were added t the lore because, particularly Sabine, there is a wealth of potential for them going forward. Hell, we’ve already seen the return of Hera in Star Wars: Squadrons and, with Mando going full anthology, i would be hard pressed not to think that Sabine will have her turn as the titular Mandalorian in a few seasons.

Not going to lie, seeing Zeb in this show was pretty dope. As a Star Wars geek, i knew that the Lasat were basically prototype Wookies that were cast aside. It’s dope seeing that design getting a second wind onscreen and a prominent role in the main cast. Plus, i mean, Zeb is actually a pretty chill character, himself.

The Things I didn’t

What the f*ck are these lightsabers, man? They're supposed to reflect the original concept of the weapons from one of the first Star Wars draft scripts, which is cool in a geek sense, but corny as sh*t in practice. These things look anemic, as f*ck, man.

It’s ridiculous to me that the crew of the Ghost are so goddamn pivotal to the fledgling Rebellion. These assholes cannot be this important, even with all of the plot armor. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to believe that they were the ones who retrieved the B-Wing, founded the first Rebel base, and stole Phoenix Nest from the Empire? Word?

There no stakes to this show. Like, i get that our principals had a lot of plot armor in Clone Wars, i never once felt like Ahsoka, Kenobi, or Anakin were ever in real danger, but there were certain episodes where i thought, for sure, their characters would be totally crippled somehow. Not with Rebels. I don’t expect any of these motherf*ckers to have even a semblance of lasting bruises. Kanan literally dies and nothing of importance was lost. Like, i know this is Ezra’s show but goddamn.

Speaking of Ezra, i hate this kid. I don’t know if that’s by design, like Filoni did with Ahsoka in the first few seasons of Clone Wars, but i grew to love her. She’s literally my second favorite character in the entire mythos, after Vader. Ezra did not grow on me. At all. I hate that so many lore altering events surrounded this dipsh*t. Kid ain’t even all that powerful in the force. I’m pretty certain that Ahsoka is stronger than Ezra is but he gets to be the one to “discover” the Veil of the Force. Like, bro, for real? You telling me Anakin, Yoda, or even f*cking Luke missed out on this sh*t? Word?

This show feels a lot like Avatar The Last Air Bender but worse. I had a whole ass emotional connection to the characters in that show. It broke my heart to see Azula having that meltdown. I did feel that same agony in Rebels, but it was for Ahsoka. When Vader looked up and you heard Anakin’s voice through the filter? “Ahsoka.” F*ck, that broke me. It was like watching Spider-Man getting dusted in Infinity War. I never felt that way about any of the ghost crew. Never. Not when Kanan died. Not when Ezra disappeared. Never.

The best parts of this show, of the actual, Rebels, canon, is either leftovers from Clone Wars or Legends content. Bane, Thrawn, Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, the Emperor, even f*cking Hondo; All characters that existed before Rebels. Outside of the Inquisitors, Rebels added nothing of worth to the canon. It’s effectively a non-show. I mean, The Veil might be a thing eventually. We’ll see. That motherf*cker is a whole ass retconning mcguffin if I've ever seen one.

It’s weird to say, but nothing about this show feels of consequence. I know, for a fact, there are certain aspects Rebels added to the lore that will be vital to the overall canon but it doesn’t feel like that, you know? It feels like this was a detour, a frolic of, like, three or four episodes but holds no bearing to the grander scheme playing out. Sh*t’s ridiculous because Clone Wars felt like a whole ass problem, Rogue One gave us a legit catharsis, and Mando outdid everything Disney ever made while setting up an entire new age. F*ck, man, even the sequel trilogy gave us Kylo Ren. Rebels feels like Star Wars: The Filler Show and i kind of hate it.

[sage-nebula]

oohhh, pokemon games or your personal pokeverse for the meme?

OOOOH, this is going to be really hard, since there are so many characters that I’m sure I’m going to forget some, but I will try! Also, these two things are kind of one in the same for me, because I adapt the games to my personal ‘verse as they come out. So like, for me, even if they’re technically not, the Red and Green we see in the Gen VII games would be, in my ‘verse, my versions of Red and Green. (And Leaf is also there, but she was drawn to the Aether Foundation because she was curious about Ultra Beasts . . . oh Leaf, what did you get yourself into?)

But hmmm, okay, let’s see---

Zinnia --- MY GIRL, MY LOVE, THE LEGEND, THE LOREKEEPER. BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAMES HANDS DOWN, 500/10, BEAUTIFUL, FANTASTIC, ASTOUNDING, A++++, WHY DOES NINTENDO KEEP TREATING HER LIKE DIRT, I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND.Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I love Zinnia. Okay? I really love Zinnia a lot. She’s hands down easily my favorite character across the games, period, and I am beyond salty that Pokémon Generations denied her an episode. Like, honestly, my salt for this exceeds even my salt that they used Blair instead of Lea in the B2W2 shot, and that’s saying something. (Even if it just barely surpasses it. Just barely.) I love everything about Zinnia. I love that she has the best Trainer Class in all of the games (LOREKEEPER, how cool is that?!). I love that she comes from what is heavily implied to be an aboriginal race of people in the Hoenn region, that this is just a part of her character but does not define her (and that this is even lampshaded, with this exchange:STEVEN: “You’re the---!”ZINNIA: “The Draconid, yup. But you can just call me Zinnia.”This is after she has introduced herself, so Steven really has no excuse---and Zinnia calls him on it in a way that feels completely natural and flows with the script. Love it. I love her sass, and her snark. I love her determination. I love that she knows she has to sacrifice herself and she tries to look for another way, suggests that the others come up with another way, but when she sees that there isn’t she does what must be done anyway because she knows she has to. And I relate to her, too, in her grief over Aster; Shiloh died shortly after the ORAS games came out (they released in November of 2014, and Shiloh died in my arms on 9 January 2015), and so I was playing the Delta Episode right around that same time. Zinnia’s speech about the original Aster hit me hard, becuase that is exactly how I felt about Shiloh, right down to:“We were always together, in good times and in bad. I loved her . . . I loved her with everything I had, but . . . I still lost her.”Word for word, that’s how I felt about Shiloh. Her grief, her desire to do anything to see Aster again---I empathize, oh so deeply.I love Zinnia. I love everything about Zinnia. Fandom hates her, but of course they do, fandom always hates my faves. But I love her. I just wish Nintendo could show her the same amount of love. //salty4life

Leaf Tyler --- I am always, always, always going to have a soft spot for Leaf, the girl who I honest to goodness wish had been in the original Kanto games (and she was originally going to be, but it was either a time issue or a cartridge space issue or both that kept her out), the girl that I know eight-year-old me would have latched onto with a grip so tight you’d think she had rigor mortis on top of being frozen solid. I’ve of course fleshed her out far beyond anything Game Freak has done, but I love every bit of this girl that I’ve created.She’s whip-smart, she’s incredibly determined, she’s headstrong when it comes to what she wants and what she chases after. She doesn’t let the criticisms or condemnations of anyone get her down (and boy have there been a lot of those given her insistent belief in legendaries that the rest of Kanto---or at least her home town of Pallet---scoffs at). She’s incredibly passionate about what she loves and nothing, not even eldritch abominations or legendaries that can and will kill her, will frighten her away from her goal. She is a myth hunter who is determined to be a lorekeeper in her own right (even if not in the same way Zinnia is), and she chronicles everything she knows in extensive journals. Professor Oak probably suggests at one point that she try her hand at being a professor herself in an effort to get her to settle down, but nah. Nah. There are ruins to be spelunked, there are eldritch abominations to chase. She’s not stopping for anything.Professor Oak just sighs.

Whitlea “Lea” Fiona Fair --- How could I not mention my girl Lea? Lea, like Leaf, is rather headstrong and determined---but she’s always determined about all the wrong things (well, usually). This is a girl who sees life as a giant adventure and, if it isn’t, then she will make it one. She hates sitting still. She eats nachos for breakfast. She legitimately traded her Pokédex for a special Zelda edition DS Lite because she wanted to play Spirit Tracks, and she has forbidden Bianca from telling Cheren because Cheren will tell Professor Juniper and then Lea will get in trouble. She’s being followed around by a Victini she calls Thing because Thing imprinted on her, thinking she’s its mom, because she accidentally woke it up in Liberty Tower. She has dubbed N “Captain Unova” because he never understands any references. The only books she reads are comic books, she loves sports and games, won’t tolerate it at all if you fuck with her friends and, as of the latest chapter, is feeling seriously conflicted over this whole “pokémon liberation” dealio.Basically, Lea is a helluva lot of fun to write and, since I know all of Reversi even if I haven’t written it, I know all about her character development and think it’s great. I love Lea. I’ll always love Lea. And I still think she has the best design out of any of the female protags, hands down.

Mortimer “Morty” Matsuba --- I’m never going to ever stop loving Morty. Morty is a character I always loved due to his design, but I really fleshed out his character when writing liveblog drabbles of SoulSIlver back in the day, and I absolutely love him for being the deadpan snarker straight man to Eusine’s . . . Eusine. But even as he is a deadpan snarker who legitimately believes Eusine will get himself arrested one day, he still loves Eusine with all his heart and will always bail him out of whatever trouble (or prison) he gets himself into. (He would just rather Eusine not get himself into that trouble / prison in the first place.)

Eusine Minaki --- And of course I can’t mention Morty without mentioning Eusine. Again, I fleshed Eusine out a lot, and bouncing him off Morty was so easy, their banter came so naturally. So much of it was childish bickering despite the two of them being adults, but that’s what happens when you’re childhood best friends. As energetic and ridiculous as Eusine can be at times, however, he has a serious side to him as well that I like, and I took Lyra stealing his dream from him a lot more seriously than the game did. I like to think my version was better, even if it would definitely need a re-write now.

Gladion --- Gladion was a character I knew was going to be a fave from the moment I saw him, and while I still think that his development was rushed and poorly written in-game (and while my version of Gladion is far more temperamental, heh), I still adore him and his incredible theme music oh so much. The way Gladion reacted to the abuse Lusamine doled out on him is very similar to how I’ve reacted to the abuse I’ve gone through in my life, and so I find Gladion to be a pretty relatable character---including and especially when it comes to his scathing sarcasm, because damn. I can in fact be that way at times if someone aggravates me. There have been times when I’ve taken no hostages, I can freely admit that.

N Harmonia --- I love so much about N. He’s such a complex character, and perhaps one of the most complex characters Game Freak has written into their games---which is why it makes me sad that fandom tends to focus on only one or two of his traits and ignore all the rest. N is many things; he’s an older teenager / young adult who was abused and sheltered for pretty much his entire life, but he’s also an older teenager / young adult who was raised to believe that he is a King and a Chosen One and acts accordingly. N is one of those characters that is very difficult to write correctly, but I think he’s brilliant all the same. I love him. (And the fact that he is just as headstrong, blunt, and passionate as Lea makes them delightful to bounce off one another, let me tell you.)

Brendan James Anderson --- Brendan, son of Petalburg City’s Gym Leader Norman, is as surly and salty as they come, and I love him for it. He’s absolutely that moody teenager who is salty about anything and everything, and while some of his woes are understandable (e.g. he didn’t want to move to Hoenn, he’s salty at his dad for separating from his mom over work, et cetera), the truth is that he will complain endlessly about stupid things as well, and he damn well knows it. He likes writing poetry and reading, which is why he named his mudkip Moby Dick . . . aaand his mudkip appreciates this about as much as you would expect, so. Brendan complains about their vitriolic best buds relationship frequently (especially as Moby, once a swampert, routinely bucks him off mid-Surf and sends him careening into the ocean). I love writing Brendan because, personally, I find the fact that he is perhaps even saltier than the oceans that surround Hoenn to be hilarious. His complaining isn’t whining so much as it is just bitching, and sometimes you just need a salty af protagonist to get you through. (Also, it makes for a nice contrast with his cheerful neighbor, May Birch.)

Iris de Nadder --- A DRAGON PRINCESS, I love Iris, I love her so much, and I wish we got to see more of her in the original Black / White games, though I do love what we do get to see. I love how she protects Bianca after the incident in Castelia City, and though I definitely upped that scene in Reversi (wherein she flat out kicks the shit out of the Plasma grunts assaulting Bianca, mocks them for getting their asses kicked by a twelve-year-old girl, and sends them packing), I do still love what we see originally. I see Iris as being unwilling to take anyone’s shit, but also generally being upbeat and friendly, because honestly, a human’s life is too short to spend being prickly and unpleasant. Dragons? They live ages. But humans? Practically babies from birth to death in a dragon’s eyes. Iris only has a human lifespan, so she’s gonna live it to the fullest and encourage others to do the same. She’ll encourage others to be their best selves while being her best self, and I think that’s awesome.

Karen Noir --- Finally, the last spot will probably have to go to Karen of Johto’s Elite Four. Not only does she spout the truest words in any Pokémon game (that you should battle with the pokémon you like), but I love how I fleshed her out with regards to her relationships with Morty and Eusine. (Basically, she was Morty’s rival in childhood, but Eusine felt that Karen was stealing his BFF, so he and Karen actually have a rivalry in which Karen mostly just makes fun of him and Eusine gets angry, and meanwhile Morty just honestly doesn’t want to know what’s going on, he just wants the yelling to stop.) Plus, I mean, she’s a total badass and has a houndoom named Lilith that can and will fuck everyone up, so. I love her.

This is super long but I always have a lot of Pokémon feelings, so. It’s to be expected, I suppose!!