#if there are light novels i hope they'd have some really good illustrations

[oumakokichi]

so with Ouma quickly becoming one of the most popular NDRV3 characters, do you think we'll see a spinoff with him ala the Komaeda/Nanami/Souda mangas or 2.5 or Kirigiri Sou? Or is Kodaka just kinda... done? Any predictions on what it would look like? :0

I’d say it’s a very realpossibility! Ouma not only scored #2 on the Japanese character poll, but alsois above and beyond the most popular ndrv3 character at the DR café.

Special café merchandise inJapan is often priced in secondhand stores according to character popularity,because people only pawn off merch from characters they didn’t particularlywant to get out of the gacha—this means that there’s a higher stock forcharacters who aren’t as popular, while merch from the super popular charactersis harder to come by and therefore the price is scaled accordingly.

The price for Ouma merch thelast time I checked was already ten timesas expensive as Tenko’s—he even outpriced Saihara’s merch by almost twiceas much, even though Saihara scored above him in the actual poll. This meansthat Ouma is very, very clearly popular with the Japanese fanbase, and alsothat his character sells very well (I myself would buy merch if only I had anyactual money to speak of or could afford to visit Japan).

I think considering all thisand the fact that he’s an incredibly interesting, complex character, itdefinitely wouldn’t be unheard of for him to get some kind of light novel,manga, or even perhaps a visual novel spinoff a la Kirigiri Sou. He and Amamiare perhaps the two most likely ndrv3 characters to receive such spinoffmaterial, in my opinion.

Though it’s true perhaps thatKodaka might want to keep some things in the catbox with Ouma, considering thenature of his character, I feel as if he also likes answering those thingsafter a set amount of time has passed. After all, relatively little was knownabout Junko until the release of dr0. Even the fact that her real talent wasSHSL Analysis was something dr1 didn’t allude to much or touch on at all. Sothe light novels helped clarify a lot of questions about Junko when she wassuch a huge mystery initially, even though they still didn’t answer everything.

With Ouma I wouldn’t besurprised if any side material was either a glimpse at his pre-game self andhis motivations for entering the killing game, or perhaps a look at ndrv3through Ouma’s own eyes. Either one would be fascinating.

If it were the former, I have afeeling quite a lot would touch on the fact that his objective was likely toend the killing game from the start; we would perhaps also get a lot moreclarification on what his actual pre-game personality was like, whether DICEhad any basis in reality or not, and what Ouma’s home life might have beenlike. There’s a lot of room to expand there, and considering how many theoriespeople are trying to piece together, I wouldn’t doubt Kodaka might want toprovide some solid answers sooner or later.

If it were the latter, well,there’s just as many questions about what really went on in Ouma’s head insidethe game. I’ve speculated and theorized here on this blog, and many others havedone the same on theirs, but it would definitely be nice to get some realconfirmation. I would love to see confirmation of Ouma’s actual talent, since I’mstill fairly certain it’s something along the lines of SHSL Chessmaster, but ifKodaka ever came out and said it was the truth, I’d be thrilled. And I’d loveto see more actual insight into Ouma’s mindset and the struggles he must havefaced having to lie to himself on such a regular basis even when he hated thekilling game so much.

These are just my predictionsanyway! I don’t know when or if these things will ever actually happen, but itwould definitely be fun to see, and I think if Kodaka is interested in makingthe most of people’s interest in the franchise right now, it would probably bethe wisest decision to touch on things about either Ouma or Amami in thespinoff materials—Tsumugi too, in my opinion, if he wants her to ever stopscoring last on the character polls, haha. Anyway, thank you for asking!

[jadelotusflower]

June 2021 Roundup

It's been a month of highs and lows. Every year my city holds a cabaret festival, and I've seen some truly amazing acts over the years - including Lea Salonga, Kristin Chenoweth, and Indina Menzel. This year's Artistic Director was the great Alan Cumming, and although due to covid he didn't quite get to curate the program he wanted to, the opening night Gala was still a highlight, as was Alan's DJ set at the pop-up Club Cumming afterwards, where there was much singing at the top of my lungs and dancing to pop anthems and theatre tunes. At one point Alan, dressed in a onesie and perched on the shoulders of a man wearing only sparkly short shorts, was carried around the dance floor while Circle of Life blared. Reader, I was delighted.

I was also able to see his solo show Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, which was hilarious and damn, he can sing!

As for the low, I was meant to fly to Sydney for the weekend to see Hamilton, a trip I have been looking forward to for almost a year, but had to be cancelled because of a covid outbreak and border closures. The tickets have been rescheduled, but I'm still kind of bummed about it (while completely appreciating the need for covid safety, especially when our vaccine rollout has been completely botched by our incompetent, corrupt federal government)

Anyway.

Reading

The Hundred and One Dalmations (Dodie Smith) - With all the bewilderment over Disney's Cruella, I decided to revisit the original novel which I first read as a kid. It's funny, I had very vivid memories of this book, or rather thought I did, particularly the scene where Roger and Anita have dinner at Cruella's house that fixed in my young mind as utterly disturbing with all this devil imagery and the implication Cruella was literally some kind of demon, which must have been either a) my overactive imagination or b) an illustration, because it's not as clear as I thought it was. The strangeness is there (food with too much pepper, Cruella's inability to keep warm, the walls painted blood red) but not the explicit demon imagery I had remembered. There is a part later in the book recounting the history of Hell Hall and the rumors of Cruella's ancestor streaking out of the place conjuring blue lightening, but clearly child me was reading far more into the book than was on the page.

But I still wish they'd gone with this version of Cruella's backstory, because to me an aristocratic, ink-drinking, heat-obsessed, possibly-demon spawn, high camp villain is more interesting and rings far more true than plucky punk against the establishment.

Smith clearly had Facts About Dalmations to share, and she does really craft a wonderful animal-based story that the Disney animated film is largely faithful to. Key differences include: Roger's occupation (he doesn't have to pay tax because he wiped out government debt somehow?!?), Pongo's mate and the puppy's mother is called Missis, Perdita is another dalmation who acts as a kind of doggie wet nurse, Roger and Anita both have Nannies who come to live with them (Nanny Butler and Nanny Cook), Cruella is married to a furrier (who changed his last name to de Vil). Also odd, on her first description Cruella is described as having "dark skin" but later in the novel her "white face" is mentioned, so I'm chalking it up to 50's descriptors not having the same meanings they do today.

The Duke and I (Julia Quinn) - After being just whelmed by the tv series, I wasn't really planning on reading the books, but I saw this on the top picks shelf at the library and damn, the top picks shelf is irresistible. This is very much Daphne's book (and I had known each in the series dealt with the different sibling) so many of the characters and much of the plot of the show is absent, as are some of the more baffling elements of the show like the Diamond of the First Water nonsense, which I always thought was a strange character choice in that it stacks the deck for Daphne when her character arc is better served as somewhat of an underdog (in her third season, the kind of girl who is liked but not adored), and the Prince subplot which was always far too OTT even for soapy regency romance.

It's a breezy, fun read (that scene excepted), even if the misunderstandings are contrived and I'm never going to take "I'll never have kids because I hate my dad" as a credible romantic obstacle deserving of so much angst.

Faeries (Brian Froud and Alan Lee) - A lovingly detailed and illustrated compendium of Faerie and its inhabitants, drawing from a range of European (but primarily Celtic) folklore and mythology. Froud was a conceptual designer on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and the link is clear in the art as well as the focus on faeries as mysterious but oftimes sinister beings, where human encounters with them rarely end well. Lee has illustrated several publications of Tolkien's novels, and was a lead concept artists for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, and there is a touch of Middle Earth here as well, or rather the common inspiration of the old world. A useful resource for my novel!

Watching

The Handmaid's Tale (season 4, episodes 4-8) SPOILERS - So when I last wrote about this show in the Roundup, I was complaining it wasn't going anywhere. Well, I'm happy to be wrong because they finally changed things up with June finally escaping to Canada. That part of the plot following the survivors and their trauma has always been far more compelling than Gilead, and so it was a welcome development even if I side-eye some of the choices (none of these characters is seeing an actual licensed therapist why?).

This show has always been difficult to watch given the subject matter, and that has not changed after the shift in power dynamics. I will give the show credit for showing a broad range of trauma responses, from Moira wanting to move on and not let it consume her, to June, a ball of rage and revenge on a downward spiral, to Emily, trying to follow Moira's path but being drawn to June's, to Luke, trying his best but utterly unequipped to deal with what is happening.

But it is very hard to watch June go down this path - raping her husband (I concede the show perhaps didn't intend for it to be rape, but that's what is on screen and framing it as just "taking away Luke's agency" doesn't change that), wishing death on Serena's unborn child, and orchestrating Fred's brutal murder by particulation, then holding her own daughter still covered in his blood and it getting smeared on Nicole's face (an unsubtle metaphor in a series full of unsubtle metaphors).

There are interesting questions being asked of the viewer, and the show (perhaps rightly) not giving any answers. I can certainly appreciate the catharsis of Fred getting what he deserves even if I personally find the manner of it horrifying, but where is the line between justice and revenge, is revenge the only option when justice is denied, when does a trauma release become cyclical violence/abuse - the show is, for now, letting the viewer decide.

Soul (dir. Pete Docter and Kemp Powers) - In a world full of remakes/reboots/sequels, Pixar is perhaps the lone segment under the Disney umbrella committed to original content. However, there does seem to be a Pixar formula at work directed to precision tugging the heart strings, and some of the film feels like well-trod ground. On the other hand, it's hard to criticise the risk of centering a kids film around the existential crisis of a middle aged man, even with the requisite cutesy elements (and of course, the uncomfortable pattern of yet another film where the black lead character spends a great deal of the runtime in non-human form - herein, an amorphous blob or a cat). But the animation is stunning, it successfully did tug my heart strings, and the design of the Great Before and the Jerrys is original and fun.

RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under - Drag Race is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, since I generally don't watch reality shows, and this is something I really enjoy even if I'm not invested in the fandom (which like many fandoms can be very yikes). This year it was time for the Australian/New Zealand (Aotearoa) queens to show their stuff, although it's been met with mixed reactions. Covid restrictions didn't allow for guest judges, relegating them to mere cameos via video calls, and its clear that Ru and Michelle really don't quite get all the cultural nuances - Aussie judge Rhys Nicholson was however always delightful. But it wouldn't be Australia without a racism scandal, with the great disappointment of the two queens of colour eliminated first, and one queen having done blackface in the recent past yet making it all the way to the top four.

In the end, the only viable and deserving winner was last Kiwi standing Kita Mean, and it was pure joy to see her get crowned. I do hope they fix the bugs and indeed do another season to better showcase AU/NZ talent.

Writing

A far more productive month - to try and get out of my writing funk I had a goal to try and write every day, even if it was only 100 words. While I didn't quite achieve a consecutive month, I did get a pretty good average, at least got something posted and two others nearly there.

The Lady of the Lake - 2441 words, Chapter 4 posted.

Against the Dying of the Light - 2745 words

Turn Your Face to the Sun - 1752 words.

Here I Go Again - 1144 words

Total words this month: 8082

Total words this year: 35,551