#even cooler when i can relate them to S-class novel

[morteisshipping]

Have been obsessed with Jupiter after knowing that Sung Hyunjae is designed after Greek God Zeus & have been watching BBC space documentaries, especially about Jupiter.

The more I watch BBC, the more I am convinced that Geunseo designed SHJ based on the planet Jupiter itself rather than Zeus the Greek God, bcs tell me why Jupiter's inward spiral and its scattering of materials in space is so freaking similar with how SHJ has been universe-hopping & making his own existence unstable?

Watch:

According to the video, apparently Jupiter is collapsing very very slowly and that's what makes its environment is so extreme. It has constant thunderstorms, its lightning is thousands of times hotter than what we find on earth. The storm is driven by the leftover energy it has since the beginning of its formation as a planet, so Jupiter is gradually releasing its own energy out, and by doing that, its existence is slowly collapsing.

Doesn't that sound familiar?

According to the scientists, even though Jupiter looks so big & intimidating, its real mass underneath all that storm should only be around just 30% of its appearance.

And not just that:

When it was first formed, Jupiter was so big and so powerful that it almost wreak havoc of the formation of our solar system by swallowing other planets into its gravitational pull; notably the inner planets, including our earth. Its gravitational pull had made Ceres and Mars barren bcs Jupiter had sucked their space materials into its orbit.

That is until Saturn is formed. As the second giant planet in the outer space, it also has a big gravitational pull and Jupiter is stuck into it too and fortunately, Jupiter stays there; letting the inner planets forms in peace. If Saturn is not there, Jupiter would've gone wilding, sucking everyone in with its gravitational pulls.

Saturn's & Jupiter's gravitational pullings against each other is called Primordial Dance. In that dance, Jupiter apparently throws out the most important ingredient that helps formed our planet earth: water.

I find this really interesting. The more I watch the documentaries, the more I am convinced that Geunseo designed his characters with Space in mind.

What else can you find?

[radioleary-blog]

Hef Tragedy Jam

Hugh Hefner died yesterday. When the news was announced, over fifty women said they were dismayed. No, wait...over fifty women said they were “Miss May”. Fifty more were Miss June, and, well, you get the picture. If you were lucky you got their pictures.

Few of you reading this are old enough to remember that Playboy magazine was about the only place you could see a naked woman, and I say that because there are probably few of you reading this, period. But hey, my column gets more readers than the average suicide note, statistically speaking. Although I’m trying to increase my readership, and the average suicide note is more of a stand-alone project. I bet if George Lucas ever wrote a suicide note, he’d follow it up with three prequel notes. Each successively worse than the last. People would be like, “Why did he have to ruin that original suicide note, which I loved, with those awful prequel-suicide notes? I don’t care why he got depressed, but clearly only a manic depressive could make such a desperate cry for help as introducing Jar-Jar Binks. If I ruined a billion dollar franchise by coming up with an offensive racist caricature like Jar-Jar Binks, I’d probably consider putting a lightsaber in my mouth too.”

I grew up with Playboy magazine, and my early knowledge of female physiology was less from a volume of Grey’s anatomy or sketches by DaVinci, and more from volumes of Playboy magazine. It was like a reference guide, one that you would hold up with one hand. In fact, the first time I had a girlfriend who got naked, I wondered where her staples were. Of course, today, I’m the one who should have his stomach stapled, but that’s another story. Ah, sweet irony!

I’m sure Hugh Hefner went to Heaven, but whatever gleaming Mansion in the sky awaits us, no matter how glorious, for Hugh Hefner it’s going to be a pretty big step down from the Playboy Mansion. It may actually be Seventh Heaven, but Hef has been living on Cloud Nine since 1956. But, hey, he’s already wearing a robe. You know when you see depictions of Heaven, everybody is always wearing white robes? That’s because they were wearing those white robes in the hospital when they died. And they make you wear those awful robes that don’t close in the back because that’s where your wings will come out when you get to Heaven. It’s all part of God’s plan. I bet you’ll still have that plastic wristband on too, St. Peter just scans it at the gate to let you in. <beep> “Cardiac arrest. You’re good. Check in at the registration desk. Have a valid photo ID ready.”

Hugh Hefner was such a consummate pussyhound, I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a deathbed conversion to radical Islam, just to get the 72 virgins in Heaven. God would be like - I mean “Allah” would be like, “Pretty tricky Hef, pretty tricky. But...technically it counts. You old horndog!” Of course, you know what Hugh Hefner calls 72 virgins? A slow Tuesday.

The Playboy Mansion was famous for its out-of-control parties, and the mansion had a natural cave-like grotto on the grounds where everyone would go to snort coke and have sex. I guess Hef was a lot like Bruce Wayne, a millionaire with a mansion and a cave. And didn’t they call Bruce Wayne a millionaire playboy? Hef was a Playboy millionaire. But the difference is, Hef would rather do coke and fuck super-models whereas Batman would rather do-good and fight super-villains. Plus, Batman slides down the Bat-pole, and crazy hot chicks slide down the Hef-pole. In other words, Hef was sane, and Batman was, well, not so much. Batman is basically a billionaire who just wants to hurt people and not get sued for it and pretend he’s a hero. Kind of like Trump.

The grotto cave on the grounds of the Playboy Mansion had a huge, heated Jacuzzi pool, where movie stars, rock and roll gods, and celebrity athletes were eagerly humped by groupies, star-fuckers, and aspiring playmates. Unprotected 1970’s sex was messier than Michael J. Fox eating an ice cream cone, so the pool was probably 60% water, 2% spilled cocaine, and 38% James Caan’s jizz. The lifeguard got syphilis just from giving mouth to mouth resuscitation. At least that was her story. But that was about the same time Grand Funk Railroad was in town, so who can say? I do think ‘grotto’ must be the Italian word for ‘gross’.

I hear some of the more politically correct crowd, or as they’re more commonly known, nitwits, complaining that Playboy exploited women. And I guess it was exploitation, in the same sense that Vogue magazine is exploiting the mostly-naked teenage anorexic girls slash super-models in their magazine. And I say slash because that’s what these girls often try to do to their wrists. Unlike Vogue magazine models, at least the Playboy women didn’t have eating disorders. They’re a lot less likely to stick their fingers down their throats. I’m not saying they’re any less likely to have something down their throats, but not their fingers.

Exploiting women. As if Hugh Hefner was hanging around the Newark bus station looking for a girl down on her luck and fresh off the turnip truck from Topeka. That sounds more like the plot of a 1930’s movie than the way his business empire was run. I think what Hef did was have his photography editors, both men and women, spend endless hours going through duffel bags of mail sent in by thousands of women from all around the country who wanted to pose for Playboy. The staff would narrow it down to probably a few dozen, and then get Hef’s opinion on who was not only the most beautiful, but who had the look that would be right to feature in the magazine. That’s exactly what the editors and publishers do at Elle, and Vogue, and every other magazine that holds up a particular brand of beauty as an ideal.

And I don’t know any women who haven’t worn out the related links on their favorite porn sites jilling off to whatever their particular porn flavor might be, so who exactly are these people that still have a problem with Playboy? Because without Hefner’s decades of battles against governmental and religious censorship, there would be no porn sites. Hef made it possible to look at porn sites without pretending you go there for the articles. Without Playboy, people would still be saying, “Did you read that insightful article on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur? And that recently-found short story by J.D, Salinger?” “Why, yes. I particularly liked the profile of Jazz trumpeters from the post-bop era. And I did notice some delightful porn as well, between the articles, of course.”

The reason Hef could get away with putting in naked chicks is his magazine is because Playboy was a serious, respected literary magazine. The greatest writers of the day were in Playboy:

Ray Bradbury wrote original content for Playboy, and serialized Fahrenheit 451, which was coincidentally the exact temperature of how hot the playmates were.

The Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote for Playboy, and that cat was cool as hell. Beat, Jack, that is exactly what Playboy readers do.

Ian Fleming published short stories in Playboy, and the James Bond novel “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was published first in Playboy. We all know James Bond got enormous amounts of pussy. But compared to what Hef was getting, James Bond looks like a bible salesman with erectile disfunction. Or a guy who works in a comic book store. Think about that for a minute; the world’s sexiest pussyhound spy still gets less women than the guy who published the magazine his story is in. And Bond is fictional!

Roald Dahl wrote for them, too. The author of “Willie Wonka” writing for people who wonka their willies, sounds apropo.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote for them all the time, and that dude was cooler than Ice Nine. There’s a reference for ya!

Joseph Heller published a lost chapter of “Catch-22” in Playboy. I think the title Catch-22 might be the number of social diseases you’d get if you had sex in the grotto.

Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” started writing for Playboy in 1991. I would imagine one of her stories was called “The Handmaid’s Tail”.

Hunter S. Thompson. Gabriel García Márquez, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, they all wrote for Playboy. This magazine was the real deal, kids, it was smarter and cooler than absolutely anything you know today. You see, all of these stories were longer than 140 characters. Or even 280.

I actually learned quite a bit about culture from Playboy, between rounds, if you know what I mean. By middle school I could discuss the literary feud between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer in English class and sound like a friggin’ genius, I just couldn’t tell the teacher where I learned it. “Where did I learn that? Oh, you know. Around. Literary journals, and the like. At that building that has all the books. Yes, exactly, the library! That’s the one! I frequent that establishment, I‘ll have you know.” What was I gonna say? My father’s sock drawer?

The Playboy Interview was legendary, they were deep, involved discussions, frank and uncensored. Here are some of the people they interviewed: Salvador Dali, Patty Hearst, Groucho Marx, Ansel Adams, Stanley Kubrick, The Beatles, Albert Schweitzer, Buckminster Fuller, Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Abbie Hoffman, Tennessee Williams, Erica Jong, Allen Ginsberg, and Bertrand Russell. Then there are the so famous they’re known by just one name:  Fellini, Castro, Brando, Nehru, Sartre, Bowie, Nabokov, Hoffa, Carson, Antonioni, Mastroianni, Gleason, and Sinatra. And Playboy was woke, they interviewed Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alex Haley, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali,  Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, and Huey Newton. Holy shit, right?  Who do you see interviewed today? Kardashians? Ryan Gosling? Taylor Swift, but interrupted by Kanye West? This time we live in today has less culture than a petri dish.

Hef lived so long that most people today have no real idea how influential he was, what an important cultural icon he was, and that he somehow talked Marilyn Monroe into posing naked on the cover of the very first issue of his magazine way the hell back in 1956. That’s a dude with the Kavorka, big-time. And nobody was naked back in 1956. Not in this country. In 1956, people showered wearing a suit and tie, and apart from time shampooing, a smart fedora. They say people were more cultured back then because they went to art museums, bullshit, I think they only went to art museums to see the nudes in the oil paintings. You would too, and you know it, don’t even try to deny it. You’d say you were admiring the Titian, but you were really just admiring the Tit.

Nearly every issue, Playboy featured a very prominent celebrity with a well-established career and respected in her field who actually wanted people to see how beautiful she was without any clothes. Starting with Marilyn Monroe. And she was smoking hot, too, an icon in her absolute prime. Future historians will be more grateful for that photo shoot than they are for the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts. Where do you go from there, Playboy? Well, how about Farrah Fawcett, the biggest sex-symbol of the entire 1970’s! The list of gorgeous, talented, famous, successful women that wanted to pose for Playboy might be hard for you to imagine, as you live in an age where women pose in magazines like Maxim with their clothes on! And men today pay to see that? Wtf? Man, I can see women with their clothes on just about anywhere I go. I can see that in line at the deli counter, I don’t need to pay for it.

Here are just a few, a very few, of the already-famous women who chose to pose with no clothes:

Daryl Hannah. Olivia Munn. Kim Basinger. Charlize Theron. Drew Barrymore. Denise Richards (she had kids with Charlie Sheen, so posing for Playboy was comparatively a relatively sound decision). Shannen Doherty. Belinda Carlisle. Jayne Mansfield. Mariel Hemingway. Margaux Hemingway. Nastassja Kinski. Sharon Stone. Rosanna Arquette. Vanna White. Elle MacPherson. Brigitte Bardot. Uma Thurman. Kate Moss. The list is almost endless. I almost said bottomless, but being Playboy, “bottomless”  goes without saying.

Sure, the last decade and a half weren’t great for Hef, but who stays cool past the age of 75? Only Bob Dylan and Picasso. Hef couldn’t let it all go, and at the end it was pretty sad. It was like Sunset Boulevard with viagra. But I’ll miss the Hef of fifty years ago, that man was at the forefront of political movements, cultural progress, gay rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, and the right to take your goddamn clothes off if you feel like it.

This may be the first funeral where you should bring condoms. In lieu of flowers, please give blowjobs. So long, Hef. Thanks for the mammaries.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Cells at Work! 13 (FINAL) | Double Decker! 2 | Slime Datta Ken 1 | Run with the Wind 1 | Bakumatsu 1 | Zombieland Saga 1 | DakaIchi 1 | Radiant 1 | SSSS.Gridman 1

Warning for discussion of 18+, potentially triggery things within the DakaIchi discussion...and the nature of that show being a yaoi will tell you whether you want to read that discussion in the first place. (There are full stops and lines around it in case you want to dodge that particular part, since Radiant comes right after it.)

...Otherwise, have at it.

Cells at Work! 13 (FINAL)

Apparently “distal” just means your extremities…

For some reason, I already knew about the fact that you can die from losing one third of your blood…because I read a Tumblr post that was meant to be for action writers and it was about blood loss.

…Huh? Was this a blood transfusion? That would explain why these new RBCs are so clueless about our RBC. Update: Yup, guessed it.

Come to think of it, there’s a WBC Nendoroid and a Platelet one but no RBC. That’s a bit disappointing…

The WBCs using that wobbly stick thing in the background are amusing, eheh.

Anyways, that was fun, even if I did get used to the routine of RBC getting lost and WBC fighting antigens in the end. See you next time!

Double Decker! 2

We’re now properly in the fall season, and of course now that the first drop’s out of the way, we’re starting with the best show this season (at least for the moment).

So does that mean if we’re NEETs we’re not paying for these detectives…? Is this an incentive for people to pay their taxes (LOL)…? (Okay, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Sheesh.)

DD Partners…? Sounds…uh, partnery, considering what DD stands for.

Why is Travis blinking so much when he’s apologising…?

Snarky narrator is fun. I thought it was Kirill during ep 1 (or at least, it was for a bit), but now this narrator’s talking too much in 3rd person for it to be true. Maybe…it’s future Kirill. *collective facepalms from the peanut gallery* Or maybe it’s Kirill and a narrator, and Kirill will then break the 4th wall somewhere.

Now that’s monkeying around…LOL. *gets pelted by tomatoes* Oh c’mon, can’t I get in a decent joke around here?!

Well, as much as the can thing Doug does to Kirill is tropey for anime, I gotta admit this ain’t monkey busin-eh? You want me to stop with the jokes? Aw. Fine then, I’ll stop…

There’s something utterly relatable about having gone down the path of your dreams, only for it not to work out. In fact, I think I’m going down that path right now and I need to decide where to head next. That’s why I’m watching this episode right now – to make sure I don’t regret my future, by focussing on the present with a good anime.

According to this link to Google Books I got when I googled “ignis” and “desperatio” together, this might have something to do with a Panegyric of the Saints…something to do with hell, worms, fire and despair…? Uh, wuh? Am I just investigating this the wrong way?

Sanctus Bridge? As in “sanctuary”? Wow, that’s…ironic.

The rabbit police mascot…you can see it on Deana’s dashboard, LOL. Plus the bird police mascot that goes with it.

The name shots you get of these criminals aren’t nearly as good as “dick suck” (sic) in Kekkai Sensen, but they’re pretty close. Plus they actually do have correct Japanese translations, unlike “dick suck” (LOL).

Seriously, what’s up with Doug’s head prodding? Is it to stop him from trichotillomania (which is the pulling out of hair)? I can see it getting vaguely annoying when the excitement of a new season wears off…

The CGI is kind of awkward in this. You’d need to stare at it for a bit to realise it’s CGI and it’s not the worst effort I’ve seen (*grumbles* Tsukigakirei *grumble*) but it’s still pretty bad…

Oh! Those doors! Is Doug’s car…a DeLorean? (dramatic piano SFX in background)

Was it just me, or did Kirill’s face go funny for a second as he was moping about how he didn’t get to do anything…?

“Let me be your Double Decker!” – That’s what he says as a double decker bus goes by…clever wordplay, huh?

“One is poverty. The other is class.” – Okay, my studies tell me that’s pretty much impossible. Even in social situations, you have a clear leader and subordinates. Poverty is fine and dandy in regards to giving the boot – heck, that’s why things like the Millenium Development Goals exist (or rather, existed in that case, since those were replaced in 2015) – but class? That’s a bit of a difficult one, unless you want to resort to hardline socialist methods, Marxist methods…or communist ones. Not that any of those are bad, it’s just that I happen to like capitalism,even with its flaws and no matter what imbalances it causes to others. It’s just that not having capitalism would mean everyone’s equal, but then everyone’s worse off as a result…because if everyone has the same stuff, no one is different and no one is diverse enough to make anyone special. Get what I mean?

I think this episode sold me even more on the show, the premise…the everything. Except maybe that “I want to get rid of class” part.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 1

I just memorise this show as “Slime Datta Ken”, so if you’re wondering what that is…now you know.

What was that opening segment for, man…? This is just a boring isekai intro.

I’m laughing! He values his computer over his life? As much as I know I’m attached to my computer, you should prioritise 1) getting Mikami an ambulance, 2) stopping the blood flow or 3) just getting Mikami to preserve his own life. Not that I’ve ever been in a life or death scenario, but that’s common sense, even if it’s a bit nihilistic or unrealistic.

Seriously, there’s currently no pull but how intriguing these unexplained “acquisition” scenes are. Like seriously. Those effects are cool and somewhat intriguing in the same way as Juuni Taisen was.

The picture of a flower…where did it come from? A child? Hmm, interesting way to express such a though process.

The CGI of the reveal was actually really good. Like, Houseki no Kuni good!

Actually, this is very Houseki no Kuni. Reestablishing what it is that makes humans human and what causes a creature to live and all that.

I never knew a slime could be this expressive…

“I see you have guts.” – That’s probably something you shouldn’t say to a slime, LOL.

Oh! This reminds me of a writing piece I had to do one time where you had to tell a tale from a monster’s perspective and make them sympathetic. I wrote about a dragon, so there’s something nostalgic about this.

There really isn’t a lot of movement in this show. Not that I mind it – Juuni Taisen I used to love a bunch and that was based off a novel, but this is an LN-based show…the level of writing in this show is clearly from the LN camp, for one thing. How it got such great production values, however, is another question entirely…

The slime and dragon friendship that just formed made me wanna go “ET!”, just because the gesture they did to seal said friendship did kind of look like that, haha.

Mechasoft Doors MX…hey, I am getting my fix of anime OSs this season after all! Just…not in Gridman yet. Update: There are zero OSs in Gridman, not in episode 1 at least...

Oh wow! That fight scene was so darned cool! It makes me wanna see more already! And the fact he (I already know from promo material the slime’s name is Rimuru) uses his slime form and human form interchangeably…that’s even cooler!

The font down the bottom and up the top of the next episode box appears to say “Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken” (due to the frequency of one of the symbols that appears to be an S, then you do the same for E and you realise it works…then you realise the text is just stylised romaji). There are zeroes and ones on the left and right sides, which might correlate to Rimuru’s “analysis voice”…whatever that may be. Anyways, I’m pretty confident this’ll be something for my lineup, but it’s too early for judgement calls. It’s a keeper…for now.

Run with the Wind 1

Now here’s a show I didn’t expect to follow going in…I picked it up merely on ANN recs.

I’m laughing like a maniac! As much as it was a compelling opening, after the dude arrives on his bike and asks “Do you like running?” to a thief, I lost it. For some reason, I find it almost so unrealistic it became hilarious, in a stupid sort of way. Or maybe I just have a really bad sense of humour. Who knows?

That one guy running in the back in the OP is basically me every time I’m meant to do something physical. Even going up three floors via stairs gets me out of breath though and I live a fairly sedentary lifestyle, so I ain’t a good comparison.

That nickname “Shindo” puzzles me. I can’t think of a kanji combo that would result in wordplay with the characters for “god” and “child” using the name “Takashi Sugiyama”, but I guess maybe we’ll find out in a later episode…?

Thank…uh, goodness for the censorship on Musa…

Musa speaks unusually politely (because I noticed he used “gozonji desu” at one point, which is a keigo variant for “shitteiru”). Maybe it’s because they barely know each other that there’s keigo being flung about. That seems reasonable, at least.

There’s something authentic about this sense of camaraderie. I can tell because my extended family is huge, so gatherings are often like this but multiplied in scale.

“Tsuru no Yu” – Technically that translates to “Crane’s Bath”…”Public Bath” is the place’s purpose.

I was wondering why we’d somehow reverted to not having 10 dudes, but then they show this is actually Haiji’s perspective of the event from the start of the episode and show the scar on his knee. That’s gotta be important for later.

…and Haiji left his towel, LOL.

I still laugh every time I see Haiji’s stupid face (the one he makes when he asks “Do you like running?”).

I’ve associated the slurring of words like “yakusoku-ssu” to be for smol bishies like Yumoto, so having Haiji use it is a bit of whiplash. Then again, apparently that slurring is only used by men to assert their masculinity as far as I know…so, uh, yeah.

Actually…I’ve been wondering. How long are courses at this uni? Where I am, being a straight literature major is 3 years (assuming you also do other stuff that fulfils a straight Arts degree). Also, Fune wo Amu (by the same creator) is about a dude making a dictionary…hmm, so the creator really likes books.

Wait, as far as my short term memory operates, most of these guys at Chikuseisou do arts majors, aside from the law student and the smoker (who does engineering). They do literature or sociology, mostly. So if that’s correct…the author also likes sociology. I’ve been thinking about doing some sociology myself, it would really complement what I know about international studies.

As explained by Kyra, chiku – sei – sou. The sei means blue/green and the chiku means bamboo. Switching the two and reading them differently gives you “Aotake”.

Rent’s $300? Must be cheap, eh?

Also see Kyra’s post for information about the food-based suicide note.

The Kanto Gogakuren refers to this manga, Sakigake!! Otokojuku. It’s basically Again!!, but with more Fist of the North Star-style dudes.

Hmm…turns out you can refer to this show as KazeTsuyo. That’s going to make me confuse it with SekaTsuyo, though…(SekaTsuyo = Wanna Be the Strongest in the World!) Also, it turns out the character for “Kakeru” in this case means “to run” (normally it means “to dash” with a kanji normally used for flying). Wait…did I ever mention how much this show’s aesthetic visuals always look as if they’re a Powerpoint theme (see images below)? They do look like that, don’t they?

I still have no idea why Kakeru has a bad case of resting b**** face, but…uh yeah, forget I said that. The sound direction in this show’s really nice. It really takes advantage of quiet moment to insert natural sounds.

I think if you go “yes!” when Haiji says “I’m going to win over all the dudes”, then you’re sold on the show. I did go “yes”, just without speaking. You know those feelings you only get in your gut and heart? Yeah, like that.

Huh? I noticed a dude called Bruce Chiou is in the credits and he’s definitely on RErideD this season too…

Out of this one, Slime Datta Ken and Double Decker it’s ranked last, but this show’s still a pretty strong addition to the seasonal lineup. Only time will tell if I kick it out or not…

Bakumatsu 1

The only experience I have with this era in anime is Bakumatsu Rock, I think…and that means I don’t know much about it.

Actually…considering the OP, scratch that. I know a bunch because of Touken Ranbu and other similar historical shows.

A…boob window? On a man? I get the black skintight vest is meant to be sexy, but I can’t see the point of that diamond…it’s just something extra for the animators and the illustrators to deal with.

C’mon. Can we not have Dudes Swishing Their Swords at the 4th Wall as something meant to hype up the audience? It’s a cliché, almost as bad as the running scenes you often get in OPs and EDs…Seriously, I can’t believe I’m getting mad at 10 dudes swinging their swords like this (specifically I’m getting mad because they were all in succession – doesn’t matter if it was in time to the music or not).

Okay, who transplanted WWI into this? I know that’s the point of the show, but the sepia really sold the idea of “this is meant to be Old-Timey Wimey Stuff and whoever’s meant to be watching is meant to be a history buff so they can spot the difference”.

Part of the ep title is “Mou Ichido no Bakumatsu”, so a better translation is “The Bakumatsu (Era) – Again!”

Wait, I thought Kondo was meant to look hotter than this (especially because he had what appears to be a coin – or an old-timey family crest – on his head). The frumpy mouth doesn’t sell the goods, yo.

Somehow…I knew Katsura would have glasses. He has them in Bakumatsu Rock. But is it historically accurate to have glasses in the Bakumatsu era, though?

Come to think of it…something that controls time would be pretty hard to destroy, no?

I think I read on ANN that swords being too big to draw in ship quarters is accurate. Hmm.

If this is such an important treasure…then why not have more padlocks on it? Or more guards closer to it (although those guys probably ran away)? Or some other protection around it? Couldn’t this supposed Yoshinobu-sama fight for himself?...Then again, I think this is just a case of overthinking. (insert MST3K mantra here)

Puh-lease. As much as I want a kunoichi (lady ninja) in my shows, don’t make them Naruto run. That’s one of my pet peeves…

Uh…Hagi? That’s probably it, considering there’s a river in the show.

Kakesoba.

Kamaboko.

Tanuki soba.

Well, there’s something to be said about being able to steal Shinsengumi jackets while the men are eating noodles. At least it didn’t involve knocking them out though (weak LOL).

Okay…why do the Shinsengumi look like waiters now? As much as I like a dude in a waiter suit, if I wanted a waiter, I’d go to a fancy French restaurant…

I feel like I’m being clubbed over the head with themes in this show. C’mon, have more tact than that.

There’s basically no chemistry between these guys (Katsura and Shinsaku). How did they meet?

Wait, so Darker Blue is Sakamoto if Green is Katsura and Red is Shinsaku? Sakamoto (Ryouma) is the redhead in Bakumatsu Rock, isn’t he? Okay then. But who’s White?

Seriously, Shinsaku. Learn from the kunoichi and stay quiet and stealthy. I don’t need another shonen hero…

Oh man, Toshizou is normally one of the Shinsengumi I like best (or at least I recognise his name more) out of these kinds of shows. If he has Perma-Scowl, I can’t possibly like this version.

Oh goodness. Souji’s a friggin’ sadist. Come to think of it though, I think this (Okita) Souji looks like the one from Gintama.

Why does Toshizou sound a frigton like any given Touken Ranbu sword…?

If that katana is symbolic…Toshizou must be hecka masculine, LEL. (Note: A “LEL” is not quite a LOL, it’s mostly done in jest. If anything, it’s probably about half a LOL.)

If that blonde ain’t Abe no Seimei, Yoshinobu-sama or some other important historical figure I know the name of, I’m eating my hat! (Not that I’m wearing one, it’s a figure of speech.)

I like Sakamoto’s face here, but man, I get distracted by the man candy below it…(i.e. his abs and bare chest, LOL. What did you think I was referring to?)

Oh great. (sarcastic) Sanada Yukimura almost always has that silly helmet, ever since Sengoku Musou I’ve pretty much tried to run away from it. I’d recognise it anywhere.

Who had the grand idea of letting Sanada keep his horse, anyway?

Okay, as much as I like making snarky comments, I made one too many here, methinks. Time for the drop pile.

Zombieland Saga 1

I read spoilers just a little bit, so I know the main twist is “zombie idols that sing death metal” already. If you didn’t want to know that at this point…sorry.

Whoa! They killed their protag off the bat? Not that I didn’t know that wouldn’t happen (already knew it would), but that’s gutsy. Truck-kun, go back to your darn isekai shows already.

Okay, I know this is a schoolgirl, but can we not with Sakura’s Schoolgirl Run for Dainty Ladies? This is a zombie show, dangit. Run properly. Can we also not with the boob jiggle?

Well, that’s one way to defeat a police officer (or get yourself arrested): Spade to the Brain.

Otsumami appears to be the name for the squid in Kotaro’s pocket.

You can’t see Kotaro’s eyes, even behind those sunnies…hmm…

Wow. Miyano sounds like he’s having such fun voicing Kotaro, y’know?

From the flyer: “They are coming soon from the underground...” Yup, that’s right, alright. Zombies have already come from the underground.

Tae’s credited under ????. They’re still holding out on us!

It seems like a pretty good keeper, provided you can keep up with who’s who.

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DakaIchi 1

Yep, the BL anime. Thought I’d never try one? Think again.

As much as I do think I’d want to be hugged by Takato, his face…makes him look like he came out of Junjou Romantica…? Uhh…awkward.

Please don’t let this be a work full of sadism and BDSM. I’m not that kinky, y’know…?

Uh, if you ever knew “boundaries”, Azumaya, that would be great. Thanks.

LOL, what a way to win a dude over. $10! That is cheap for a star.

I’m still wondering if this all constitutes “assault” or some other illegal business. I mean, Takato agreed to everything under the influence of a bunch of drinks.

LOL, the director’s shirt says “concentration”. As in, “focus on the stuff you’re doing”.

Hey wait, how does anyone pull off a kabedon on an operation curtain?!

Uh…maybe it’s just my inexperience with the genre, but…what the heck was that scene with the feathers?

Dangit, Yaoi Hands. If I weren’t so aware of you already, you wouldn’t be breaking the immersion of this show!!!

Random Dance Ending? I so did not expect that, I’m laughing as a result.

Uhh…I cannot believe I did that. I watched an episode of a yaoi anime and coveredit without it ruining my pride! To think I watched 18+ shoujo ai before 18+ shonen ai is really something I cannot get my head around, though…not that I will ever tell you which shoujo ai show I watched. So…uh, it was actually pretty decent aside from the “I don’t get what the heck this scene is meant to be” bits which are probably staples of the genre.

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Radiant 1

Uhh…why do I feel like I’m watching Deltora Quest for the 3rd time? Not that Deltora Quest is bad, it’s just too stereotypically high fantasy.

Mahoutsukai. Literally “mage”, but could be “wizard” or “sorcerer” if you went with it loosely. Then again, the French word for sorcerer must be pretty close to the English one which should be enough of a guide for translators, right?

Eh? It’s an…elephant –cow? What is this, Avatar  the Last Airbender? (half-snarking)

I think as the show goes along, its comedic timing is actually getting…better. That’s something, huh?

The show’s just a tiny bit too heavy-handed with its themes of racism or whatever sorcerers stand for. Then again, this is a shonen show. It’s allowed to be this way.

Geez, stylised English really is the order of the day for anime these days, huh? Lessee here…Alma’s…uh, Observatory, I think it says…?

Uh…all this talk about grimoires is giving me bad flashbacks…bad, screamy flashbacks involving a certain Asta…

I just noticed Alma gets referred to that way by Seth. Are these two not related, even though they share the same house (?) and hair colour?

Oh great. (sarcastic) Toilet humour. One of my worst enemies, aside from fanservice…

What’s up with the bat (?)? It knd of seems to be Alma’s…

Hey, I…think I know this kind of story too well. It’s going to eventually end, after a long run, with an adult Seth and that girl from one of the key visuals together…or something. Shonen are weird like that. They always end with a happily ever after and an adult protagonist, or the “the adventure just keeps happening!” sort of thing…y’know?

The plural of Nemesis is “Nemeses”, but it seems the book Seth read said “Nemesis’ Egg”. So the plural is the same as the singular in this case.

Huh? They chose to put both fancily-written French and then Japanese under it, as a homage to the French origins of this work? Huh, interesting.

Tommy’s saying “Gyaaaaah!” not “Yaaaaaaah!” - there’s a difference between those two, y’know?

SSSS.Gridman 1

As a self-professed fan of heroes who never actually got into tokusatsu because I keep missing Power Rangers when it airs on local TV stations, this and Garo are filling in a genre space I never really had until I started wandering tokusatsu wikis...which was before the live-action Power Rangers came out, methinks.

Why do I feel like I’ve seen this font (the one “SSSS.Gridman” is written in)? I thought it was a Calvin Harris music video, since I have a few downloaded legally (due to a CD I found in one particular library), but Harris’s font is slightly different to this one…Well, after some experimentation, it seems to be Arial with extra kerning.

“Amnesiac” is starting to become an anime trope in itself…

Seven-Two-One, LOL.

Ahh, children in puberty. Can’t tell whether relationships are romantic or just platonic. (wistful)

If Utsumi isn’t the goth dude from earlier, I’m eating my hat! (Not that I’m wearing one right-oh, I’ve used this joke before, haven’t I?)

…dangit, now I have to eat my metaphorical hat. By the by, I thought Utsumi was an Ume sort of character (as in, the type who would usually get voiced by Yuichiro Umehara), but no, it was Soma Saito.

The girl with the purple hair reminds me of the Administrator (or whatever her name is, the AI) from Yakusoku no Nanayamatsuri.

Regardless of whether the scene was with volume or not, that awkward pause between Shinjo, Utsumi and Hibiki went just a weeny bit too long…

When Takarada approached Utsumi and Hibiki, the colours of her earphones and eyes really popped!

They seem to treat memory loss as something minor, like a cold. It’s a bit awkward, I think.

Utsumi, kid. If you think computers from the 70s and 80s are huge, you should see server rooms! Those computers are huge! Not to mention, the first computers filled up entire rooms (just like servers do). Even portable server units are about a good 160 cm tall with wheels…oh, you don’t want to hear me prattle on about this? Okay, moving on.

“This really is a pile of junk, huh?” I had to go back and check someone hadn’t skipped a word – they did skip the word, in fact.

T-This is what Trigger have held out on us for? A monster like this looks terrible in CGI, man. Even if it is one of the better efforts. I mean, the eyes don’t even look in the same direction…

Why does Utsumi refer to the computer as “Junk”?

The Ultra series? Y’mean Ultraman?

Let’s just say…Gridman looks much better than the kaiju here.

They didn’t even dispose of the kaiju head properly, LOL.

I feel like the battle didn’t quite get my blood boiling. (Probably because I was grumbling too hard at the kaiju and the parts where the execution got a little too silly.) I’ll put it on hold and see if it gets better in a few episodes, but I’m not holding my breath. Since this is Trigger, it could pull off some great stuff if it tried…it’s just this seemed a little soulless in comparison to everything else I’ve seen them do. Or maybe my increased consumption of anime this year has left me jaded...

[entergamingxp]

a brief history of orcs in video games • Eurogamer.net

When we first meet the young orc warchief Thrall in Warcraft 3, he’s just woken from a nightmare; visions of orc and human armies clashing on a battlefield as the sky burns above them.

“Like fools, we clung to the old hatreds,” a voiceover laments. It’s rendered stunningly, this battle, in an early progenitor of Blizzard’s now-renowned cinematics. But unlike in the previous two games, there’s no glory to it. The morally simplistic battles of old are chronicled in the language of regret. Old triumph is revised as cyclical folly.

Thrall wakes from his vision and jolts up in bed. We can see terror on his face at first, and then… sorrow. And just like that, Warcraft’s orcs are given something they’d never really had previously:

A chance to be people.

As far as I knew at 10 years old, no-one had ‘invented’ orcs. They just were. Like giants, fairies, or dragons. I’d fought them in HeroQuest, all protruding lower canines and piercing red eyes, brandishing meat cleavers and falchions above their heads. I’d defended castles from them in the Dungeons & Dragons board game DragonStrike. I’d even controlled orcish warriors and catapults and giant snapping turtles in Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness. I didn’t have the language for it at the time, but I’d placed orcs in the realm of folklore, a part of our collective storytelling public domain. That is, until my Year Five teacher jokingly called a story I’d written a ‘Tolkien rip-off’ and lent me her personal, faded hardcover of The Hobbit. It was, I thought at the time, even cooler than C.S Lewis. It had bigger battles. Dragons. Gollum. And a lot more orcs.

Orcs.

Evil. Disposable. Generally up for a party but will probably end up killing each other. Disposable. Bad at tactics but too numerous for it to really matter. Disposable. Just good enough at fighting to make our heroes look cool, but never good enough to pose a real threat.

Disposable.

This isn’t what makes them endearing, and enduring, though. Sure, they’re often hilarious. Mostly fearless. But they’re also perpetual outsiders. Sometimes, like Warhammer 40,000’s Goff Rockers and Blizzard’s mohawked trolls, they’re punks. Fantasy’s counterculture. Scrappy. Resourceful. All DIY aesthetics and painted banners. Backs against the wall, grog held high in the air with one hand, and a long, gnarled, green middle finger on the other.

The first level of Warcraft 3’s prologue starts with a line of text on a loading screen. A single line that grants Thrall, and by extension the Horde, more agency than the previous two games combined.

“Somewhere in the Arathi Highlands, Thrall, the young warchief of the orcish Horde, wakes from his troubling dream.”

His troubling dream. Imagine that. Thrall is troubled. Not angry. Not vengeful. Not somewhere on the spectrum between recently having finished killing humans and planning out which humans to kill next. But troubled. When he speaks to the prophet Medivh in the following cutscene, his voice is measured. A tone of resolute contemplation, in sharp contrast to the ornery Fozzy Bear gargles that delivered the old game’s orcish text scrolls.

Playing the Warcraft strategy trilogy in order today, this change seems sudden. Jarring, even though it had been in the works for a while. The character Thrall was conceived for the adventure game Warcraft: Lord of the Clans. The ill-fated, darkly comedic project imagined the warchief as a sardonic, wise-cracking Guybrush Threepwood type. Very different from what we’d eventually see in Warcraft 3, sure, but also much different from any orc in the series before. The first human we meet in the game – Thrall’s jailer – is cruel and clumsy, a stark contrast to noble imperialism present in previous depictions of the Alliance. By the time of Lord of The Clans, the orcs have been corralled to reservations, made slaves after their defeat by humans. For the first time in a mainstream fantasy game series, orcs are portrayed as victims, not aggressors. Even the name, Thrall, evokes servitude and chains.

Despite its eventual cancellation 18 months into development, the story of Lord of the Clans would later be retold and canonised in a novel with a much more contemplative tone, released a year before Warcraft 3’s release. In that same year, 2001, another Warcraft novel named Of Blood and Honour reimagined the orcs in similar ways. But we wouldn’t see these new orcs in action until Thrall first stepped out of that tent.

Early depictions of noble orcs are about as common as beardless dwarves. The odds were stacked against them from the start, really. The world ‘orc’ is believed, by some, to have been derived by Tolkien from the English epic Beowulf. It appears in the poem as ‘orcneas’ – an evil tribe, condemned by god. Another possible corollary – and one Tolkien would likely have been familiar with – was the Saxon term for the Norman invaders. Here, ‘orc’ means ‘demons’ or ‘foreigners’. The link becomes even more apparent when you consider – as the historical novelist Kate Sedley asserts in Tintern Treasure – that the Anglo-Saxons called our world, as a place between heaven and hell, Middle Earth. A Middle Earth they tried to defend against ‘orcs’ at the Battle of Hastings.

How much of this history was actually relevant to Tolkien is unclear, though. In a letter to Scottish novelist and Lord of the Rings proofreader Naomi Mitchison, the author writes: “the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc ‘demon’, but only because of its phonetic suitability.”

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920.

Pour one out for the green-skinned lads, othered from conception by an etymological whim. They didn’t fare much better in terms of appearance. George MacDonald’s 1872 fairytale The Princess and the Goblin – a childhood favourite of Tolkien’s – is widely credited with inspiring the author in the creation of his own goblins and orcs. MacDonald’s story describes them as a “subterranean” race, “called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins.”

“Not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form.”

Which doesn’t differ all that much from Tolkien’s own, uh – let’s say antiquated for now, though back to this later – description of orcs.

“… they are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”

It’s also worth clarifying here that to Tolkien, ‘orcs’ and ‘goblins’ are the same thing. The divisions in size and hierarchy between goblins and orcs is something fantasy has iterated on since. Don’t tell an orc that, though.

From here, the orc’s first mainstream appearance in tabletop roleplaying was in the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons ‘White Box Set’. Borrowing many Tolkienian tropes, orcs appear here as evil and warlike, harboring an intense dislike for sunlight. Relatable. They feature again in the original 1977 Monster Manual (the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in D&D), where several orc ‘tribes’ are listed. This dodgy correlation between low intelligence, aggressive creatures and tribal societies was rife in traditional fantasy, and one of the major tropes Warcraft 3 would later grapple with. For now though, orcs were firmly disposable minions of darkness.

The 1977 Monster Manual.

Even in the 1977 Monster Manual, though, orcs are missing one of their most famous traits: they’re still not green. Tolkien’s were described as “swart” and “sallow”. The Monster Manual describes them as “brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen”. For popular codification of orcs’ now-ubiquitous green colouring, we have to look to another tabletop game.

The (widely considered to be apocryphal) story goes like this. Someone at Games Workshop in the 80s is painting their orcish army, but runs out of the obviously correct purple paint halfway through. Frustrated, but feeling resourceful, they reach for the same grass-green a colleague has been using to base their dwarves, and lovingly slather each orcish muscle and jutting jaw with it. Everyone who sees the army the next day agrees: that’s orcs, baby. And so, the greenskins are born.

Warhammer Armies 1988.

True or not (and likely not), Warhammer does seem to be the turning point for green orcs to become the norm, although they wouldn’t be called ‘Greenskins’ just yet. Warhammer’s collected horde of orcs, goblins and other related lads are still referred to as ‘Goblinoids’ all the way through their first army book in 1988, up to the 4th edition Orcs and Goblins. Despite the absence of the term ‘greenskins’ however, Games Workshop’s orcs are, primarily, uniformly green from 1988 onwards.

While Games Workshop’s Space Orks, introduced in 1987’s Rogue Trader ruleset, continued in the tradition of warlike, generally unsympathetic orcish depictions, the first edition of Shadowrun, published in 1989, was a little more nuanced. The ‘Ork Mercenary’ class features the following description:

“He is coarse and rough and of limited sensibilities, but he does function in society. He is not a psychotic killer as some Humanis cultists claim. He’s just making a living doing what he does best.”

Shadowrun’s Ork Mercenary.

Despite a few early attempts, such as Shadowrun’s, to grant the orcs some humanity, they largely remained the same one-note villains. As the developers have confirmed, it’s Tolkien and Games Workshop’s orcs that Warcraft: Orcs and Humans drew the most inspiration from.

Thanks to the influence of D&D, however, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was a long way off from being the first game to feature orcs – even setting aside games that use the D&D or Warhammer licence. 1980’s Rogue (of roguelike fame), 1985’s Bard’s Tale, and 1987’s Megami Tensei all feature a variation on either Tolkein’s antagonists, or their D&D adaption. Megami Tensei is especially notable, as the orcs it features serve the demon Orcus: the historical Latin god of the underworld, and another speculated etymological origin.

Orcs also make an appearance in Elder Scrolls: Arena, developed around the same time as Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, though released a year later. It wouldn’t be until Morrowind, however, that the Orsimer were made playable. Their in-game description is as follows:

“These sophisticated barbarian beast peoples of the Wrothgarian and Dragontail Mountains are noted for their unshakeable courage in war and their unflinching endurance of hardships. Orc warriors in heavy armor are among the finest front-line troops in the Empire. Most Imperial citizens regard Orc society as rough and cruel, but there is much to admire in their fierce tribal loyalties and generous equality of rank and respect among the sexes.”

The trope of Orcs being accepted into society only once having proved their worth to humans as foot soldiers is one we’ll look at a little later, too.

Writing for Waypoint, Rowan Kaiser describes Warcraft 3’s orc campaign as dealing with “the conflicts between moderation and radicalism, revenge and forgiveness, and dying for freedom or living to fight another day, with Thrall serving as as a cross between Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr.” Kaiser is largely – and rightfully – critical of Blizzard’s lacking POC representation, but his identification of Warcraft 3 as an outlier even within the studio’s own catalogue shows just how different – in video games, at least – its orcish story felt at the time.

While World of Warcraft would continue the story Warcraft 3 established – occasionally relying on various strains of demonic corruption to allow the orcs to fill in their archaic role as destructive antagonists – a few other games popped up afterward that featured the greenskins in a starring role.

Cyanide Studio’s Of Orcs and Men, and spin-off Styx titles, all featured orcs and goblins as playable characters. In Cyanide’s universe, orcs and goblins are persecuted and enslaved by an expansionist human empire. “It’s not easy being a Greenskin on this fucking continent,” the narrator tells us in the introduction. A similar history of slavery is present in Divinity: Original Sin – although no orcs appear in its sequel.

Of Orcs and Men.

And then we come to Shadow of Mordor, right back to Tolkien’s orcs, 12 years after Thrall woke from his nightmare and set out to unite his people.

As a lover of both orcs and procedural storytelling, the Nemesis system – Mordor’s AI memory that has orcs building up personal vendettas against the player over tens of hours of play – is still my favourite mechanic in recent memory. Orcs are more than just fodder in Monolith’s open-world – they’re the crux around which the whole game revolves.

They are the stars of the show, and yet, are strangely absent from its story in any meaningful sense. With the Nemesis system, Tolkien’s orcs were granted a digital facsimile of more agency than they’d ever had before. With it, they were confined back in chains forged from the old tropes. Writing for Paste, Austin Walker observed how the wraith Celebrimbor’s description of the orcs as “vile, savage beasts” was, in effect “imperialism dressed up as spirited determination”.

The sequel, Shadow of War, expanded its protagonist’s skillset to grant the ability to mentally enslave the orcish denizens of Mordor. For some critics, the game rewarding you for breaking the spirits of orcs like “brood mares and racing horses” was the line past which they no longer felt comfortable playing. Cameron Kunzelman, writing for Polygon, grants that Celebrimbor’s heel turn does attempt to critique his cruelty towards the orcs – but the game’s mechanics are still too firmly rooted in rewarding the player for the same cruelty to make this critique effective.

“Whether you buy the real-world race implications of the depictions of orcs or not, the logic of real-world racism is clearly being referenced in how Celebrimbor justifies the enslavement of orcs and trolls,” says Kunzelman, “he sees them as half-people at best, and above all understands them as a resource to be harnessed in competition with his enemy.”

At the start of this piece, I suggested that we might look at orcs as the fantasy genre’s counterculture. Perpetual outsiders, misunderstood by the haughty, self-righteous realms of men. This is where things get uncomfortable, though. If orcs are portrayed as evil, an abomination, or – in Tolkien’s case – a twisted, ugly mockery of a fey, beautiful and noble race, – what does that say about outsiders?

“Kinda-sorta-people, who aren’t worthy of even the most basic moral considerations, like the right to exist,” writes the sci-fi and fantasy author N.K Jemisin in a 2013 blog post The Unbearable Baggage of Orcing. “Only way to deal with them is to control them utterly a la slavery, or wipe them all out. Huh. Sounds familiar.”

I found the N.K Jemisin quote – and an erudite and comprehensive argument to why the history of orcs is inexorable from British imperial racism – in a two part essay by game designer and cultural consultant James Mendez Hodes called Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth. In the piece, Mendez Hodes traces Tolkien’s inspiration for the orcs back to Attila the Hun and the Mongols, through the sinophobic ‘Yellow Peril’. It’s a compelling and thoroughly researched argument to why we shouldn’t downplay the significance of Tolkien’s description of his orcs as “degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types” – and why even the term ‘degraded’ has roots in harmful, nonsensical race-science.

Even the idea of a warrior ‘race’, argues Mendez Hodes, is deeply rooted in the British Imperial concept of ‘Martial Races’. A designation created by the British Raj after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, to identify warlike ‘castes’ from which to recruit for service in the colonial army. The British colonial powers viewed such peoples as:

“… strong, tough, savage. Born into violent, warlike cultures. Raised to prize military prowess above all other pursuits. Naturally inclined to raid their neighbors or, when no neighbors can be found, to fight amongst themselves. Stubborn and simple-minded, despite all their martial skill. Easily controlled by more graceful, cerebral people…”

Which might sound familiar, if you’ve been paying attention.

“I learned of orcs when a friend showed me Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1996, then was disappointed they didn’t look like jacked badasses in illustrations from Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons,” Mendez Hodes tells me over email.

“When Blizzard Entertainment announced Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, I lit up. A story about an orc named Thrall who grew up in bondage to European humans, but rises to become warchief of the Horde? This tiny Filipino was here for it. I was sad they cancelled it, but thrilled when Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos picked up on Thrall’s story.”

While the first two games villainised the orcs, Mendez Hodes tells me Warcraft 3 “made Horde species feel like people with voices and cultures”.

Their design, unfortunately, was still rooted to those old noble savage and martial race tropes.

“If I tried to list all the Indigenous, Asian and African stereotypes and misrepresentations on the Horde unit and spell lists – or their antecedents and descendants in the Diablo series, for that matter – we’d be here all night. For instance, there’s a good deal of the Horde in Diablo’s kindest and most offensive character, Carl Lumbly and Erica Luttrell’s Witch Doctor.

“The problem with positive stereotypes is that when you’re starving for any positive representation at all, they’re intoxicating…”

Mendez Hodes brings up Grom Hellscream’s redemption arc in Warcraft 3 as “proof that evil is a choice and not a racial trait for orcs, [it] resonates with all the times I’ve felt tempted to embody a stereotype to seize a momentary advantage in a hostile world”.

“So many of our first heroes were queer-coded and disabled villains, stereotypical karate guys, jive-talking gangsters and criminals. Sometimes we were too young to know the ways they hurt us. Other times we knew – because even if we didn’t at first, the other kids made sure we found out – but we took them into our hearts like they were wayward relatives. If nothing else, unconscious bias ensured we felt the Horde were our own.”

I ask Mendez Hodes if he feels Warcraft 3’s sea change was a positive step, all things considered.

“I’m glad Warcraft 3 happened. I think we needed to move through that phase, to iterate on it, to get where I want orcs to go. “

Mendez Hodes learned a lot from Warcraft 3, he says. The relationship between fantasy and culture. How to maintain the cognitive dissonance necessary to recognise the same work can both help, and harm, his cause and identity.

“Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna make coffee and play Reforged, and fall in love with Thrall and all my problematic faves all over again.”

At the end of Mendez Hodes’ essay, he sets out some thoughts on reclaiming orcs from Tolkien’s legacy by humanising and personifying them across fiction, role playing and video games. I wanted to end this one on a positive note, so I spoke to some creators that have been doing just that.

Developer Bitter Berries describes Salting the Earth as a modern-fantasy that takes place in a post civil-war world, focusing on sex-positive LGBT+ themes, and femininity: friendship, motherhood and sisterhood.

“Orcs are often portrayed as ugly, muscle-headed and patriarchal in mainstream media,” Bitter Berries tells me over email.

“And at the same time, women with tall and muscular builds were more likely put in the minor roles of villains, perhaps due to their appearances being the opposite of mainstream’s understanding of femininity.”

Salting the Earth’s universe is populated by Orogans – borrowed from ‘Orog’, Forgotten Realm’s taller, smarter Underdark orcs.

“The project attempted to subvert the usual tropes, giving the physically dominant women more complex personalities and a variety of roles, and to make them ‘sexy’. Personally, quirky and powerful women really appeal to me.

“Instead of primitivism, the culture of the orcs in the game was inspired by me and my friends’ South East Asian cultures. While racism isn’t the main theme, there’s a hierarchy within the orcs in the game based on the colour of their skin.”

Salting the Earth.

Tusks is a visual novel where the players joins a band of queer orcs at a festival and travels together through what creator Mitch Alexander describes as a “semi-mythical Scotland”.

“Most of the ideas that are explored with relation to orcish life in the game – community, history, found family, sexuality, power, social status – are also massively relevant to queer people, and they’re derived from my experiences as a queer man.”

Alexander came up with the concept for Tusks while playing Skyrim as an Orsimer who, he figured, was trying to unite Orsimer throughout the land, to come together and build their own “wee queer orc stronghold”.

Alexander also wanted to reflect his home country in the game.

“Orcs make a very good stand-in for things like folklore and myth about faeries, selkies, goblins and elves in Scotland, as though these creatures may be in some way synonymous or related to the orcs from Tusks.”

Tusks.

When thinking about the history of orcs, Alexander considered not just portrayals of race, but also gender and sexuality.

“There’s a lot you have to reckon with if you want to reduce the amount of harmful tropes being employed in depicting orcs… they’re often described or depicted in racist, imperialist or essentialist ways that feel like it’s been written by some 19th Century British head-size-measurer. There are few depictions of orc women in the media, and when they are, they’re conventionally attractive human women who are green; the only consideration of queerness you get in orc worldbuilding tends to be one-off jokes.”

Tusks, says Alexander, was an opportunity for him to explore themes like found family, community, polyamory, sexuality and power dynamics. As much as it allowed him to subvert orcs, it presented a chance to use orcs to challenge how we think about things in our own lives. With so many people made to feel inhuman, or monstrous, Alexander says, it can be useful for artists to play with and reclaim these ideas for themselves.

“If we’re interested in worldbuilding and having something interesting to say in our media, it’s a hard sell to then claim the way we depict and portray non-humans doesn’t really matter or isn’t worth exploring.”

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/a-brief-history-of-orcs-in-video-games-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-brief-history-of-orcs-in-video-games-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – April 27, 2018

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

Archive

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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