#its cool and all but this is one of the quintessential monsters

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

On the left is the werewolf...do I actually need to explain what a werewolf is? Can be a wolf, a person, or a larger wolf person. Normal people, but with the constant undercurrent urge to go wild. Look, all the writers do is rant about "it could be evil or maybe not OR MAYBE SOMETIMES." because they, like me, know you know what this is.

A person-sized wind elemental that's invisible outside slight visual distortion like a heat haze. To the point that the early editions just had a blank space for thier picture! Issue is that we don't actually know anything about them on thier home plane, being invisible air in an endless sky. Like yeah, they're told to kill and steal when they're forced to be here, but we only really know two things about them. They would rather be home than here, and they hate these mages who keep forcing them to be here instead of home.

so yeah. werewolf or angry wind?

[thatdeadaquarius]

How about Benny in SAGAU? Like a continuation with Razor?? We do not talk about your growing found family 😤

Like, how would be his 'unluckiness'? Dya cancel it or you get pulled with his shenanigans? I feel like he might introduce you to his Dads no, we are still not going to talk about it 😤😤

A little scenario kept getting into my head when Benny applies Pyro and then Razor used his Electro and y'all got yer asses pounded on the ground 💀👌🏻and just taking care of each other's wounds 🥺🥺

You better be with him whenever he opens a chest so it wouldn't only spawn veggies, but decent weapon AND mora as well! You know, actual treasures, HOYO!!

BENNYYYYY ANOTHER ONE OF MY BOYSSS

This kid also arguably needs more parental supervision just bc of his sheer bad luck, poor kid

(i adore the headcanon that no matter the person's gender, he calls them dad lol)

Like,, hoyo cursed him and he's in a world with traps, monsters, fatui, MAGIC?? 💀 bro how is Benny still alive??!!

(LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY LOOK IN THIS GIF MY BOYS 🥺)

Okay but the fact that Benny calls so many ppl dad just proves his desire for parental/sibling affection 💔

Aight since u phrased this as a continuation of this post <3 RAZOR MY BOYYYY

That is what we shall do :) ! ! !

So ur running with the wolves still lol

Also ur symbol as the Creator reader is 🦄 or 🌈, bc ur gay and special, jk its bc elements i promise lol

Or even 😑 / 😶 for language reader shenanigans

♡

EDIT 4/11/24: HELLA forgot to say theres a sorta Part 3, its more focused on Razor living, rather than Benny tho fair warning!

Lupical for life bro

U r chillin with the pack now

Razor now has a sweet new digs, fits, and now a crazy amount of power

Bc ur just that great 💅

You have officially moved on to purchasing some leftover amenities/new furniture etc. for him and you :D

And while u could get some stuff in Springvale, like lanterns and soap and perfume and whatnot

Ur still not rlly getting furniture like a bedframe or some storage space, like a nightstand, from them

Which u dont need bc u still got an inventory

...but Razor definitely needs to store all his goodies somewhere that isnt up a tree or buried in a hole 😃

Yes, u did have to tell him to stop doing that.

So yall (u and Razor) are in Mondstadt a lot these days, and ur routine consists of grinding domains, hunting for food, hanging with cute Lupical puppies, playing giant tic-tac-toe w/ Andrius bc poor guy is pretty bored these days etc.

So you figured you run into ppl eventually, afterall you'd already re-met Lisa :)

(who at first was kind of taken aback to Razor having made a random adult friend in the woods, but after vibe checking her , and her vibe checking you, yall were cool, tho she did start reading these new lore books you didnt recognize called "Immortal They Return: A Series of Prophesies", she avoided ur questions abt it too..)

It was inevitable that after introducing you to Lisa, he'd gotten all excited at seeing two familiar figures hanging around Kathryne one day

THE BANDS GETTING BACK TOGETHER, ITS-

Fischl and Bennett !! :D the cutest adventurers in all of Mondstadt ! (besides Klee)

The two take one look at you and Razor and coming running

..

...

....well mostly Fischl,

Bennett got his boot laces tangled together somehow? And is kinda hopping his way over

Immediately the electro vision royalty launches into their quintessential speech (they/them fischl SUPREMACY)

And as u get introduced,

U watch the pyro boy hop and trip over while trying to untie the laces

And just as he's about to go down, and ur debating reaching out and supporting the poor guy bc geez this looks sm worse in person-

Bennett has finally gotten his shoes untied!

Even he looks shocked 💀

And he like, apruptly stops falling over too?

And walks over with no issue??

Theres even a few out of place cobblestones in his path which he sees and moves to avoid

You dont know who looks more shocked and kinda scared you, him, or Fischl/Oz or Razor

Fischl and Razor have stopped talking bc it was more distracting Bennett didnt fall 😭

..

...yall all just kinda,, stand in a circle of silence (well fly in oz's case)

Staring at Bennett.

(Even Katheryne looks impressed😭)

After a couple of shook seconds, Fischl is nearly yelling about some kind of curse being lifted?? , Razor is like, sniffing Bennett's immediate area for sus scents, Bennett is kicking rocks to see if any of them hit him anymore, and poor Oz is trying to calm them down

(none of the rocks hit Bennett btw, or anything valuable around him)

◇

So after that fiasco, u offer to take them around to the parts of Mondstadt they weren't allowed to go to w/o at least 1 adult :)

Theyre pumped and yall set off!

At first, Bennett hangs back, as Fischl and Razor throw themselves into monster battles yall encounter, as per what seems like a routine u assume bc of his bad luck

Eh, u figure while hes here, u might as well reveal u can make him stronger, u think he definitely needs the HP...

If there were any characters youd be worried about needing more power/HP in Mondstadt that u could level up besides Razor, itd be Bennett, hands down.

Between his adventuring, unnatural bad luck, and no parental supervision..

(even Klee seems better off than him, and shes like 7 💀)

Yeah, needless to say u were worried abt the guy

So he looks adorably fascinated <3, bc turns out they can see some of ur interface!

Mostly it looks like floating magical icons and that weird Teyvat language u saw in game, like that Abyss/ruins language u see all the time?

Bennett showed u his perspective in a sand drawing, hes actually pretty good at art wow

Razor couldnt rlly find the words to describe it before which is why u werent sure what they saw before now

And with that hes called into battle last by the others, mostly to apply pyro 🔥

and he fights at the edges to be further away from ppl u notice so he wont affect their luck..

aw Benny </3 :(

But as he draws his sword and ur getting ready trying to become a cheerleader for both Razor and Fischl but particularly Bennett,

He full on takes out 3 hilichurls at once 💀

...then with the dramatic down swing he does, he accidentally launches a rock right at the bigger hilichurl's foot..

...which trips him out of his axe swing...

...which makes it let go of the axe...

...which goes flying...

....breaks the last bit of the cryo abyss mage's shield bubble...

....

......

........and smacks it on the head too.

..fischl, oz, and razor halfway thru this insanity just like,, lower their weapons and stop to watch

Even the abyss mage is looking at Bennett surprised 😭😭

◇

Congratulations!

Bro, an achievement pops up-

"Lucky Day!!!"

Its little description says, "As Teyvat's God, you give the unluckiest person in Teyvat the luckiest day ever!"

💀

Bennett just sits down on the ground.

♤

(Same Benny because, this is where I lost it all, guys. All of that writing. Gone. Forever. I'm putting this here as both a gravestone for it, and a call out to tumblr. I'm not afraid of this website or its shitty admins, meet me in my dms for a real fight you fucks 🥊🥋🧍‍♂️you took what mattered to me, I'll take what matters to you, you god awful programmers. 🥲😐)

♤

And it just keeps happening like that for the rest of the day you guys are together.

Every chest Benny opens are way higher quality than they should be

Especially for him.

(also u have gotten so comfy from before when u were playing Genshin that u r physically struggling not to call him Benny, so when u do accidentally call him that, u try to apologize politely, but he just talks about finally having a nickname so giddy that u just stick with Benny, what a cutie)

Common chests, Razor/Fischl gets what u expect, you personally maybe get a little extra materials and money,

But Benny?

He opens a common chest and suddenly it's a secret Precious chest

The pyro boy honestly looks a little afraid

◇

You guys have a picnic later on for lunch together, partially bc Razor rlly wanted them to try ur food !! :D

Fischl and Benny were drooling over garlic salt, jesus- Teyvat's been deprived-

The blanket u used was a custom one u got made for Razor for his bday awhile back, all diff shades of purple and some silver wolf puppies and pawprints on it, 10/10 vv cute he loves it :)

(and also showed it off to his friends, Benny in particular looks smitten by it..)

◇

Fischl eventually gets herded by Oz back to Mondstadt bc of their parents wanting them back by dinner,

So u Razor and Benny r left to wander around :]

As u guys explore and get chests and talk,

U all begin to gather ingredients for dinner (not that u dont have an inventory but the boys dont wanna cut into ur supplies, the sweethearts)

... Benny slowly starts to find and accumulate foodstuffs

Those Phileano? mushrooms (the white toasty looking ones that r always on roofs or windmills?)

He finds at eye level on nearly any building u come across.

Crabs?

Benny currently has his shirt turned into a basket trying to contain them, and more are flocking to him lol

Snap dragons? Calla lilies?? Even violetgrass, those purple horsetails, lotus heads, and a few qingqin from Liyue somehow make it into his bag 💀

The real question to ask at this point is, when wasn't Bennett lucky today??

(wow never thought youd hear that one)

◇

So its a few weeks later, and Benny is like spending, every day with yall now lol

Ur getting dinner ready for u guys, and ur hopefully gonna make enough to leave leftovers for Lupical and Andrius,

So Razor has gone off to get some water to boil,

And Benny is climbing this huge tree to reach some eggs

And as he gets farther and farther up the tree away from you, he starts to slip more often 😬

Finally as he reaches the top, u realize after weeks without even a trip from him whenever hes around yall, why he wasnt unlucky-

...the closer he is to you, the luckier he is, and the farther Benny is-

He steps on a dead branch and it snaps :0 !!

Just as he falls, he screams and yells,

"DAD!!"

U push together some thick bushes and vines to catch him luckily

(lord knows u couldnt have caught him no matter how light he is, rip benny)

..Benny is okay, but he does go red in the face, and when u ask if he wants u to get one of his dads from the guild to check him over/make him feel better?

He says quickly "NO THANKS!"

Then Razor comes back like, "You call Lupical dad now?"

Benny: "What? No!"

You: "Do u see me as a, father figure, Bennett?"

Benny: "NO- more like I see u as a BOTHER figure bc ur always BOTHERING ME-"

Lol anyways jk

what a cutie tho,

(Ur Creator vibes made him feel vv at home in a way he hasnt felt before, so u got the honors early <3)

so ur a Dad™️ now (regardless of ur gender btw)

hope u like having a pack of puppies, a wolf spirit god, a wild wolf raised boy, and another wild but adventurer guild raised boy as ur family now 🤷‍♂️

Congratz U R THE FATHER LMAO

♧

You may or may not have also gotten onto Benny for charging straight into battle at other times, bc hes so used to bad luck happening anyway, apparently its canon he will just run in???

(to the point Grand Master VARKAS commented on it??!!)

U were pissed, bonked his head and everything-

He looked sufficiently chastised, but when u originally found out Fischl and Razor were nearby,

And u just hear snickering behind u as u bop him

(U bop them later too for that lol)

◇

Benny is also very good at treating injuries bc of this too apparantly,

So one time when you Razor and him were engaging with a couple hilichurls again on the way to Windrise,

Benny applied pyro, and bc u were standing father away than usual (there was an archer earlier u were dodging)

His bad luck crept in and when Razor went to charge up his wolf spirit electro ult-

...everyone went flying back.

...Including Benny and Razor 💀

You heard a really sick pop!

From Benny's shoulder :(

You quickly start pullin out the healing foods lol shove a fishstick in his mouth screaming IT HEALS like a crazed grandparent lmao

But Benny has already sighed and sat up, popping his arm back into place

🤢🤮

You^

While u do praise his healing??? skills,

U have found out thru him that apparently ur food also gives some pain killer effects

So u scold him and bop him on the head with some dango 🍡

For not waiting on u to help him lol

..

Which btw-

Any healing food u give him, he treats like the bandages many others give him, like Barbara, Katheryne, his guild dads, etc.

And holds onto them, rarely eating them

(Ur stuff preserves until needed bc its magical Creator powers surprise, surprise)

Benny feels like its a tangible piece of your care he can keep with him <3 sobs

"Well, since you're by my side, I guess I'm not that unlucky after all!"

proud of you son :')

♤

Ok so youve been getting Razor and u furnishings right

And youve been asking him what he wants to add to the caves digs ! :]

(U made a more fortified "front door" to the cave entrance, its also not that deep of a cave so there r only like 3 other "rooms" besides the main entrance area)

U improved both of u guys beds (tho razor will crash urs if he has a nightmare)

Along with some new outfits for him!

And so he has requested some stuff, but as time goes on,

Slowly, Razor goes from telling Benny about what new thing u added or telling his friend abt what he wants for the cave/himself,

To asking Benny what he wants bc he stays over so often 😭

(Youve gotten Benny factored into ur finances now lol, u gave him new clothes, new gear, amenities, etc. It also helps him bc he doesnt rlly have a main caretaker, so if he needs money he has to take commissions, which can be dangerous to him alone bc if u dont know, Benny's Adventuring Team only has him as the single member of it, plus thats not good if he is too sick or too injured to work, so a 2nd source of lowkey income is good for him <3 )

◇

U now have a coffee table as the dinner table (razor was used to sitting on the ground to eat so a high table felt weird to him)

And it has a few pillow chair thingys?

For you, Razor, Benny, and a guest aw 💘

Benny also originally wanted to help make smth for u guys as a house warming gift

but bc he would try to work on it away from ur influence, it would break everytime :(

Eventually u just coninvced the poor kid to help u pick out some nice rugs and stuff lol

He also has surprisingly good interior design tastes, huh, who knew?

(cough when benny stays over he usually stays in razors bed, but occasionally theyre both lonely had nightmares and ask to crash with u, i love these kids sm cough)

♧

Recently youve been visiting Benny in town even w/o Razor sometimes (rare as it is lol)

Mostly bc it seems like he needs the attention too <3

U gotta make sure hes eating real food okay

U dont want him to end up like u in ur world where u ate snacks for dinner when u were his age...

And Benny gets super hype about it every time, hes grabbing u by the arm, hauling u around to talk to ppl etc.

(Did i mention ur one of the few or not at all ppl who he can freely hold onto no matter the weather/situation bc his bad luck doesnt happen to you?? Oh no??? Well there u go :)

Most notably, to talk to the other Guild Dads™️

They deadass lowkey postured at you for an hour at you before giving in bc u seemed to be the only good luck charm the kid's ever gotten in his entire life 😭

They also r rlly happy someone is able to bc of his rlly bad luck willing to look out for him when they cant :)

♡

For his birthday, you guys all celebrated by doing a picnic again like when u first met them, and you made him a cake

Benny's face rlly said " :'D !! "

Later on, for presents, you got him a blanket matching Razor's !!

Shades of red, with some good luck symbols thruout to maybe make up for when ur not there, and puppies all over <3

And at the top, you yourself embroidered (attempted, so its kinda sloppy but still readable, its endearing you like to think)

"Benny's Adventure Team"

With your name, Razor, Fischl, and even Oz and Andrius lol, all embroidered (not by u bc u stabbed urself enough times making the title thx) as team members down below 👍

You also show him a copy of the book record Katheryne keeps of adventuring teams, telling him that you snuck into Mondstadt one day w/o him knowing and officially signed you guys together (the others agreed too ofc)

.

..

...

...Benny cried, straight up.

And just like held onto you for bascially the rest of the day ❤️

♡

MY HEART FOR MY BOYS FOREVER

♡

(you also may or may not have signed the corner with "love, dad" haha what)

♡

☆

I just want y'all to know.

I had like this whole thing ready to post.

Then tumblr decided it didn't like any of my writing, and deleted half of this post.

U probably saw the spot i marked where i lost it all :'/

I think it took an hour? Or at least 30 minutes to write.

Guess tumblr didn't like that I was adding so much in one go.

So now it's gone.

Doin smth ballsy bc in order to avoid that, ive just rewritten that lost half, and am just going to post it straight up rather than expecting it to save my draft 🥲

Those beautiful moments between Bennett and us, are gone forever. My memory isn't good enough to rewrite it all. ;-;

If you don't mind, I'll be crying somewhere over those lost Benny moments that I drafted on here and can no longer remember to add.

I guess that's tumblr's cruel way of telling me to go the extra mile and draft my bullshit on a literal Google Doc then come back here and deal with the formatting transition hell.

Thanks tumblr.

Appreciate the writing advice.

💔

(Fischl Voice) TIS I, WATERS OF THE SKY, IN THE NIGHT I SHINE UPON THEE, OH MOST HEAVENLY OF DIVINE BEINGS, FEAST YOUR EYES UPON MY OFFERINGS TO THINE BELOW!! COME ONE, COME ALL, FIND MY LABRYNTH'S RULES, AND REJOICE IF YE FIND THE TREASURE WITHIN!

(Oz translation: hey its aquarius here! I hope you gods enjoyed my writing! Feel free to check out my Masterpost/Writing Rules List if you guys ever wanna request something, including non-Sagau/Isekai stuff! :] )

Cheers,

🌒🌧🌊Aquarius♒️🌌🌘

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist

(^^^^

Hey not sure if yall will see this, but while this does have influences of Sagau/Isekai genshin, its still pretty just platonic genshin stuff, so let me know if thats not what u wanna be tagged for - just dm me!!)

[rpgsandbox]

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[amywarrel]

Loser Ranger is my new obsession

I did not expect to be particularly into Loser Ranger when the first episode aired. Sure, the prospect of an edgy super sentai show by the same author as The Quintessential Quintuplets is very funny to me and every time someone says “this is the X story of X media”, in this case the “The Boys of Anime” I instinctively remember all the dozens of times someone in the internet called anything “the Game of Thrones of whatever” or “the Dark Souls of insert video game genre here” and I roll my eyes. So I watched the first episode and then the second one and I kept going. My take on it at the time was that it was just an okay show. I liked the idea of an anime that harkens back to my childhood days watching Power Rangers on brazilian television, though I was never particularly a fan of super sentai and I entirely left it behind during adolescence, I was still a kid that watched kid’s shows. I liked the corny action and the stupid arguing when it came to deciding who gets to be which ranger when playing with other kids.

Subverting a structure where conventionally the good guys are fighting the monsters to make the monster be the good guys could just as well be nothing more than a gimmick. I mean, it is something, but it is not groundbreaking by any means. The anime also doesn’t look particularly good, though the OP is pretty fun. Was I surprised to see that the studio who created Arknights, the only actually good gacha game, was animating it? Sure. Does that mean jack-shit about the quality? No. Why am I even talking about this? Hey shut up it's my script.

All of this to say that things changed once I reached episode five, in the process thinking that the blonde girl called Hisui looks kinda cool and I wanted to see how the ongoing fight concluded so I read the manga, only to be immediately hit by that pathological girlfure looking cooler by the chapter, then proceeded to find out that after an okay introduction it has a good first arc then there is a HUGE quality spike with the School Life Arc and it doesn’t drop the ball after that (except for one little thing but we don’t talk about that), PLUS, now Hisui lives rent-free in my head.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Thirteen years ago a giant fortress appeared over Milky Way City in Japan. The residents of that fortress started invading the surface and humanity fought back, forming the Rangers and retaliating. Every Sunday they come to the ground and are fought by the Keepers — the five main Rangers — in a stadium, with an audience in a televised event. If it sounds dumb and artificial that’s because it is. The Invaders are shapeshifters who were forced by the Rangers to take on this acting role after their overlords, the Executives, were all defeated in the very first year of the war, thus making them slaves to a bunch of sociopathic celebrities.

Enter Footsoldier D, an invader who is fed up with their situation and decides he is going to take matters into his own hands and get revenge on all the Keepers. Things start spiraling out of control almost immediately though D doesn’t know it yet, as he meets two rangers called Suzukiri and Hibiki. One who offers to help him take down the big five by stealing their weapons and another who wants to change the Ranger association from the inside out as he believes humans and Invaders can coexist. One of the reasons why this manga eventually becomes so entertaining has its beginning here, as this is one of those stories where there are plots within plots, lies within lies and everyone has something in particular they want to protect or achieve even if that means coming into conflict with both sides of the war. After some shenanigans Footsoldier D takes Hibiki’s place to infiltrate the Ranger Association with both of them vying to do their best to achieve their goals first, having just exchanged places.

This is where it starts going from decent to good as the mysteries begin piling on pretty thick. What are the so-called Divine Artifacts — the Keeper’s weapons — and why do they not look like something that was constructed but organic? Why does Suzukuri want to collect them? Why is there another invader living inside Hibiki’s closet? Why do the Rangers have such a lackadaisical approach to their leader being a murderer? How is D ever going to have any shot at killing these monsters when we see so clearly how much more powerful they are and his training is so basic? You might be thinking that I’m dumb and that the answer is powerscaling, but this is actually the action manga with the least amount of powerscaling I have seen yet. Character’s stay at roughly the same power level they are introduced in for several arcs and only manage to get things done by being smart about it and working together. Every conflict going forward is going to be multiple chapters long and feature a dozen different characters that all bounce off of each other. Essentially everyone in this story would be dead by the end of the second arc if they didn’t fight in groups 90% of the time.

What I have been calling the good first arc is basically the chunin exam of this manga. When you join the Rangers you do so as a filthy colorless and have to train until you are eligible for a test. Judging the results of said test you will be assigned a squadron based on each Keeper’s color or remain a lowly colorless fuck.

The circumstances under which this plays out are actually very engaging. D is posing as Hibiki taking the test, which means there is a lot about the Rangers he doesn’t know and he has to be careful about not getting hurt as it would immediately expose him as an Invader. He has to take care of XX despite that not actually being his responsibility, except that he also has a big sister now which is the Pink Keeper herself. Under these circumstances he has to compete against people who have totally genuine reasons for wanting to become Rangers, such as Shion who wants to get revenge on the Invaders for killing his brother who was himself a Ranger, but since both of them want to join the Red Squadron and they are in the same test only one of them can pass despite both having perfectly understandable reasons for wanting it. All of this further escalates as characters who are all easily distinguishable betray each other for their own gain, giving a hint as to why this organization is so fucked to begin with when they advocate for so much competition between their new members, who then get involved in a real battle with one of the Executives who was supposed to be dead and before you know it one of the big bad raidbosses is dead by the end of the first arc — which ends in CHAPTER FIFTY ONE — and even manages to be kind of a badass while doing it?

Every issue the characters have to face feel like a massive undertaking that, if you get into the story like how I did, will really surprise you because you were likely expecting something different when the first few chapters establish a conflict that is entirely artificial and unchanging with a main character that is literally immortal as long as he doesn’t go against a Keeper face to face specifically while they are wielding a Divine Tool. The actual mechanics of the fight might seem underwhelming, with most of the cast only having access to a basic-ass weapon for a good while, but the dynamics of each step along the way not only keeps it entertaining in a moment-to-moment basis, but also quickly builds so much of it there is enough foreshadowing, unresolved beefs and characters to cycle through for a story of near epic proportions. There is some sort of twist happening every other chapter, there are always characters making unexpected decisions, convincing one another to form truces or just committing mistakes, sometimes doing nothing more than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the story goes forward it does a honestly very above average job of building on what came before. Though D is too dense to notice half of it and too prideful to admit the other half, he already gets everything he needs to start questioning his own goals and worldviews from this first arc, this is then brought to the forefront as the story pulls another twist, placing D not in the Red Battalion but in the Green one, bringing Kanon Hisui, the coolest motherfucker alive to the forefront. She is also my daughter. Look it up. It’s real.

I am infatuated by this character, everything she does for the story, her design and her personality. Through her, D is presented the harsh reality of a Battalion that is dedicated to dealing with the powerful Executives, which means that they are often being killed and replaced and the heroism necessary to walk through that to the other side, as well as the emotional damage and ruthlessness such an environment will instill. First we as the audience — but later D through his interactions with Hisui — get to understand that there is nothing inherently good or bad about any of these groups. That they are both made up of tyrants and their victims, people who were met with untimely tragedy, lost loved ones and parts of them along the way.

This arc takes place inside a school as an analogy to the lost youth and opportunities of everyone involved. Of the lives they were denied and will never get to live. Hisui is always wearing a middle-schooler uniform despite having no need for one as a way to maintain in the audience’s mind the fact that she doesn’t fit, that she is unwilling to let go of the concept of living the life she deserved despite that not being the material reality in front of her. D was quite literally bred for war and like the people who hate Invaders for the damage they caused them and their people, also hates the Rangers because of what the Keepers did to his peers which although fair, doesn’t take into account that he doesn’t know them. The Keepers aren’t the Rangers and the Rangers aren't humanity. They are both fighting in a makeshift war they were thrusted upon without their consent, are thematically brought closer by sharing in what was taken from them under the guise of a school life which is literally an in-universe dream; to then having to come to terms with the realization that they are one and the same; victims of a game played by rulers who are equally as vile, both of which should be dealt with. Geez, I wonder if the giant fucking chain casting its shadow over the city is meant to symbolize something.

Of course, they still hold slightly different allegiances, as D doesn’t let go of his plans to kill the Keepers but instead achieves a fuller understanding of his situation, and a lot of this is only going to get its payoff by the end of the next big arc, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Building upon the reaction of “Hey this guy wasn’t so bad after all” of the Blue Keeper’s conclusion, the manga now first gets you used to a character before revealing their identity as a Keeper, instilling in you the question of whether or not we should even be rooting for D to kill this guy. Sure, he still played a part in the oppressing of the Footsoldiers, but we don’t even know exactly what led to that to begin with. Also, we did actually kill Blue Keeper, but they just went ahead and substituted him. Gotta kill the fucker again.

Remember what I said about the constant escalating of circumstances? This is what I’m talking about. This structure makes it so that the next question the characters have to deal with both feel like the natural next thing to happen while also being just unpredictable enough to have all the twists it wants, and the answer to that question is laid upon so many conflicts with potential ramification that it manages to be, I kid you not, morally gray. Yes, the edgy manga from the author of the quintuplets harem is genuinely morally gray to an impressive extent—for what it is, not in the grand scheme of literature. Fucking bananas am I right? This is going to sound absurd, but I don’t think I have seen a more organically built-up shounen since Hunter x Hunter.

Something else that the School Life arc has over the previous one is that this time the actual mechanics of the conflict are a lot more interesting, likely as a result of having the benefit of working with previously established powers and characters. The premise of a job that constantly kills its workers and the existence of an alternate reality inside a building that breaks physical laws also feels very Chainsaw Man, which I appreciate as that is one of my favorites.

Just like the Footsoldiers back in the fortress, these characters now have a set of rules they have to obey, this time in order to keep the school world from constantly resetting. A premise that is particularly interesting once you consider that these are all people who didn’t get to lead a normal life and that their reaction isn’t to simply accept them but to find ways to work around those rules, their obedience being just a facade. In a literalization of the metaphor, fully giving in to the dream world signifies a character’s loss, which appeals to them precisely because it promises to right the wrongdoings of their past.

The story recognizes this with the students that criticize them after being released from the illusion because that was their way to cope with their own injustices. It is sensible enough to not treat these people as simply stupid, after all we spent a whole arc seeing the reasons that a dream like that could be appealing through Hisui’s perspective, but the arc concludes with the recognition that while the path they are choosing is the harder one, it is also the only one that gives them a chance of standing up for themselves, as the illusion was always a seductive lie. The antagonist is also an Executive with the body of a Ranger to approximate the two and remind you that they can be one and the same. As Hisui put’s it, “I’m sorry that your perfect world couldn’t exist”; as I’ve said before, there are tyrants on both sides; and as Steven Erikson once said, “The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.”

Narrative arcs that deal with the lost youth and what-could-have-been scenarios tend to get me because I relate to that shit hard. I didn’t get a chance to live my adolescence the way I wanted because I hadn’t even come into my own identity as a woman, and that disconnect kept me from acting the way I wanted while also making me feel that the things I actually did were fake because I was simply going along with the preconceived notion that we are we and that they are they. Just like the students in this arc, I have had to accept that while there is solace to be found in basking in the idealized youth I could have had, I can’t refuse the material reality that that simply isn’t going to happen and any amount of time I spend longing for it is stopping me from actually getting shit done in the life I do have. The blending of themes and technicality of this arc is simply marvelous.

I am particularly fond of Hisui’s message that there are no requirements for heroism, you simply have to take that first step. Not because I believe in the idea of a hero we were taught about when we were kids, but because no matter what happens, nothing will ever change if you don’t take that first step to begin with.

I have briefly talked about how a lot of anime and manga focus their themes in an attitude the story is advocating for in my Sonny Boy analysis and it is actually kind of funny how many similar things I got from these two wildly different stories. If you don’t remember or haven’t watched it, the first episode of that show also takes place in a school that defies physics, has laws that can be enforced by the people living in it, ends with a character taking that first step and the rest of the story is, in a gross oversimplification of it, about everyone else trying to catch up to her.

Also, the fuck do you mean this arc is only 18 chapters long? Each of them is so dense I was under the impression it lasted for about 30.

Everything I just talked about proceeds to permeate the next big arc, that of the Invaders Rights Association, or IRA for short. A long arc that simultaneously feels like a bunch of shounen bullshit and a natural development going forward. We spent the whole series with a wronged Footsoldier, having met Hibiki all the way in the beginning who thinks they can coexist, so it stands to reason that that could eventually take a front seat in one of the story’s arcs. This arc is going to complete the change in worldview D has been going through all along, because as it expectedly turns out, the IRA is a villainous association born out of a genuine desire that was then bastardized.

D’s World Domination plot isn’t exactly a world domination, he’s thinking about it more in the lines of freedom. World domination is simply the ideal that was instilled into him from the moment he was born. Prideful though he may be, this man spent the first section of the story having to learn that he can’t get shit done alone, then using other people to achieve those things, and now he is going to learn that there are people willing to help him even if they find out who he really is. We know for a fact he didn’t fight just for his own sake back in the school.

There has always been a meta element to Loser Ranger as it deals with the existence of heroes from super sentai, has a super sentai show in-universe and the Keepers are just celebrities. In the IRA arc that then becomes part of the core conflict, building to some revelations that evidently will be properly explored in the next big arc as it has been doing so far. It isn’t as if the meta aspects are mindblowingly awesome, but they serve as an interesting way to frame this section of the story that keeps it fresh. I am particularly fond of the “This has been foreshadowed” gag.

I find that all of the big arcs so far are memorable because of this combination of framing and setting: starting with a classic exam arc in an underground base where the protagonist has to survive to reach the surface of the human world, to a more intimate character exploration in a school environment and now arriving at a meta narrative in a big castle, filled with cameras, TV broadcasts, YouTube livestreams and a VHS tape or two. Every arc has a distinct look and feel to it while still being brought together by the same narrative conflicts.

Shaking up the narrative structure by taking advantage of the fact D had to work from the shadows and rely on subterfuge all this time, the IRA arc introduces a group that actually has enough power to expose the Keepers as the liars they are and go face to face against them following that. It seems to me that this author is very smart about when to bring things into focus. Usukubo, for instance, was introduced all the way in the beginning, but did pretty much nothing in the second arc while Hisui became a main character. That is then balanced by having their positions switched in the IRA arc as Usukubo’s character is fully unveiled and Hisui spends half the arc bidding her time. Having someone we know serve as a stand-in for the audience inside the IRA eases the friction of suddenly introducing so many new characters. There are plenty of secondary and tertiary characters from past arcs who are weaved into the story again, these not requiring that much page time to have a role to play as we already know them and a flashback here and there is all that is necessary to give us more context into their backgrounds. Pink Ranger’s in particular is the stand-out as it gives us a reason to care, has that one panel in particular of her body falling back in a splash of blood that hits when you turn the page and sets Hibiki in an unexpected path.

Since you have read it this far I am assuming you care about what I have to say, so allow me to go on a brief tangent to give you some writing advice: if you come up with a structure, don’t overuse it, and if you have to, then come up with ways to keep it fresh. There are a lot of flashback sequences in Loser Ranger, but they come in different kinds. Some are interrupted by D saying he doesn’t care, some are kept very short, some are broken up in more than one part and the bigger ones are reserved for moments where they provide much needed specific information and only when they directly relate to what is going on. The immediate outcome isn’t always the same either, these flashbacks don’t always happen right in the last moment of a fight nor are they all preceded by the central character of those scenes dying. In essence, there are reasons why structures used in a bunch of different stories work, but don’t just throw a sad backstory in at the precise moment a character is going to be defeated every single time. It will get boring fast.

Thematically, I don’t have that much to say about the IRA arc, and frankly I don’t think the arc was shooting for that. The most emotionally interesting the series has been to me so far was with the School Life arc and I would argue that is very much by design. That does not mean that the IRA arc is lacking, as it is the most action-filled and violent arc so far and rescues a lot of scenes from previous chapters, making it feel as if we have really come a long way.

Just like it has been the case for the past arcs, a lot is established around this arc that we are yet to see the ramifications of. There is for sure more to be said about the Suzukiri Clan, the Neo-Rangers weren’t created just for the sake of it, the horrifying inventions of the Yellow Battalion haven’t been fully explained yet and the new position the Red Keeper is in is the “storm” the narration said D had unleashed — which unfortunately is something I don’t like, the first big narrative gripe I have with the story so far is this, as I don’t buy it at all that the Ranger Association wouldn’t have checked for his body, but hey, a single big issue in 139 chapters is a great relation.

So as to not end on a low note, let me conclude. Negi Haruba wrote a harem manga about quintuplets, made a ton of money (conjecture), then decided it was about time to cook up a killer action series. I am not nearly as much of a manga reader as I am an anime watcher, so I can’t say much on how it relates to the overall state of shounen manga, but I would bet that Loser Ranger is going to feel like a breath of fresh air to most people, whether or not you like it as much as I did notwithstanding. The very beginning is kinda mid, I know, but if anything of what I said sounds interesting to you, then hang in there, give it a couple more chapters. The artwork is sleek, it’s super bingeable, it’s slowly getting more violent with each arc (I hope it gets way more), the plot can be a case study with how organic it is and I need to get  a Hisui tattoo.

[pond---scum]

Eight shows to get to know you :) I was tagged by @thetideseternaltune

I’ve taken the ‘getting to know me’ part to heart - I don’t even follow tags for all these shows on tumblr. They are not necessarily my favourite right now, nor are they the shows I write/read fanfic for.

In no particular order:

Numb3rs - I grew up without a tv, so numb3rs was the first show I really picked out for myself, and I started watching it when I was ~15. It’s the only show I’ve ever gone out and bought every season of for myself. It’s just a really solid monster of the week detective show, with subtle and charming characters who are not too closely involved in the plots they investigate. Which is exactly my jam. One of my friends watched Numb3rs and chatted with me briefly about it, but I’ve otherwise never fangirled over it with anyone. Even though I still count it as one of my favourite shows of all time 15 years down the track. I’ve actually never read fanfic for Numb3rs, and I know next to nothing about the making of. I wouldn’t recognise the names of the actors or any of the showrunners, which is actually my ideal media consumption experience xD 

Buffy - First show I ever watched while surrounded by people who are obsessed with the show, and I had an excellent time with it. It was interesting because all my friends were teenagers when they watched it for the first time, but I was in my early twenties, and it was really interesting to see where my experiences of the show diverged from theirs. I don’t usually read Buffy fanfic, and some of my Buffy opinions are pretty controversial :P I think seasons 4-6 are the best, and I love Riley which seems to really bother some of my friends xD

Fallet - This show is a fucking fever dream. It took me a whole episode to work out that it was a comedy, it had some real ‘Douglas Adams’ vibes at the end, which was fun. It’s a murder mystery set in sweden that uses a mix of swedish and english, and it is best described as ‘kooky.’ My only IRL friend who watched it (after much nagging) did so while slightly feverish with covid. They seemed to have a good time, but I would not recommend doing this xD It’s wild enough without the delirium.

Vera - the quintessential ‘slow moving, episodic, british murder mystery.’ Vera is awesome (especially in the early seasons) for just being really fucking good. My favourite thing about this show is the leading lady - Vera is a grumpy, frumpy, middle aged woman without a maternal bone in her body. I am so sick of women needing to be kind and selfless to be a protagonist.

VGHS - now for something completely different! It’s a show made by a youtube special effects guy about a high school where you learn to play videogames. And it made me cry. A death notification set to an in-universe laugh track? Sign me up! It’s mostly super goofy, and the main character is way less interesting than all his friends, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Probably the closest thing to a pure comedy I will watch, but it makes it oddly poignant moments all the sweeter. Also, 10/10 ending. I don’t read fanfic of it either, and these days I’m waaay too old for the characters personally. I definitely had a bit of a thing for the main character’s gf tho. Ngl.

Shetland - I do this thing where I avoid looking at fan content for a show if I’m enjoying it on its own merits, because I want to experience it without the brain rot. Kinda weird, but it works for me. Shetland is funny because I could immediately see a pairing I wanted to explore, but I waited years for the show to go downhill before I let myself open ao3. Luckily, I think they caught up with the books, and changed hands around season 4ish, because the quality nosedived and I have read and written so many things for Jimmy/Duncan, and do not intend to stop xD I actually haven’t had the heart to watch the latest season, because I don’t think I’ll enjoy it all that much. Cool theme song though! And everyone should watch the early short seasons.

Capitani - I hate the hays code. And not just because of the moralising and the homophobia - it makes storytelling predictable. The impact it continues to have on all english speaking media is never more obvious than when you watch something from another part of the world and are completely blindsided by the emotional arc. Capitani fucking killed me. I’ve read that Capitani is Luxembourg’s only globally successful media product. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wasn’t sure if Luxembourg was a country or a city before I watched it, so it’s probably not far from the truth. I now have a fun little rap song in Luxembourgish on my spotify playlist! It won my heart forever when they set up a joke and completed it four episodes later without any call backs. Imagine having that much faith in your audience! I would read the shit out of fanfiction of the fucked up love story between Capitani and Karla, but unfortunately, there is none :(

MASH - My ex step father owned every season of MASH on DVD, and when I was 14 my friend and I would rush to my house to watch them while having sit-up competitions. I don’t know why this was a fun activity for two 14 year old girls, but I have so many fond memories of this time. It was the first tv show I ever watched sequentially, and the first show I ever watched start to finish. It was also the reason I beat all the boys in my class when we had to do those fitness tests in PE! xD I’m personally a bigger fan of the show post-season 3 when they had the big tone shift. While there are definitely funny scenes, the image in my head when someone mentions MASH is always Charles smashing up his record player. So while it’s famous as a comedy, that’s not really how I remember it. I keep meaning to go look up the show on ao3, because I am sooo curious about what the common pairings are, and what kind of tone the fics take.

I had a lot of fun with this :) Thanks for tagging me! I’m way too shy to tag eight people, but would love to hear about the viewing past of: @republicofgaypirates @galadriel1010 @leliesblou @scullyverse @justplainsalty

[raikorambles]

MINOR TOTK SPOILERS

Let’s talk about the Master Sword Problem.

BOTW and TOTK basically split fandom down the middle, garnering new fans and making changes not all old-timers agreed with. The biggest victim of this, I believe, is the Master Sword.

Narratively, it’s own of the most important items in the franchise. BOTW actually diverted from this, making the sword not very highlighted and found through player’s own exploration-but it was present in all the memories and pre calamity cutscenes that made the player think it was important. However, in BOTW, the sword is also considerably disappointing by most standards. It’s still breakable, fine, in the name of balance for the game (10 minute recharge felt like forever sometimes, but I like that it made me use other weapons.) But in its base form it only did 30 damage, which doesn’t hold a candle to the health pools of late game enemies even if it’s just a one-handed blade. IMO it also felt a bit too fragile. However, it was still pretty cool seeing that you could have the most iconic blade in the series at your disposal, and it had a super-powered form that doubled its capabilities but only activating around a fraction of the enemies in the game.

I get that it was in the name of making you swap weapons every now and again, even with the charge time, but as someone who grew up playing the older games where the master sword was the quintessential weapon, I was still kinda bummed at how weak it was compared to weapons like many of the two handed swords or swords with damage buffers on them that already made them far superior to the master sword. Thankfully at least, DLC let us upgrade the sword to keep it at 60 24/7.

Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t have this. You are stuck with the 30 damage master sword, now with (what people say/I believe) less durability than it was in the first game even in base form. The purpose of this is to make you rely on the fuse mechanic, but that’s a problem I’ll get to later.

Yes, the sword still feels rather weak, but TOTK also holds the sword as a VERY LARGE PART of the narrative (ifykyk). Factoring in what the sword means and what the characters in the STORY of the game went through to allow the sword to even be usable, it feels like a very important and significant item. This is a thing in all zelda’s featuring the sword. And in most past Zelda’s, there was a legitimate payoff! Some games made it do more damage than the starter/base sword did (killing enemies in fewer hits) or it served some mechanic significance, like in TP where it let link swap in and out of wolf form. In TOTK, this payoff is barely felt.

It still does 30 damage, but won’t break like the owner weapons. It has a super powered state, but again, only against a fraction of enemies in the world. At least in BOTW, guardians were a massive problem and the sword was basically the guardian slayer 3000. But to me the kicker is that you have to use the fuse mechanic to get the sword to even be viable. Even through DLC, BOTW made the master sword a very viable late-game weapon.

I LOVE the fuse mechanic, i love the special arrows and the rocket shields and what not, but I hate that it’s so shoehorned into the regular combat system. Regular weapons, like soldier gear, have been “decayed.” They break like glass and do negligible damage. Fuse SOLVES this problem by letting you combine anything to effectively stack your weapon’s power. And I love doing this. Having an item and going “hm, fuse?” and making it a good makeshift weapon is a great feeling. But that’s exactly what it feels like, a MAKESHIFT weapon.

The MASTER SWORD is supposed to be the damn BLADE OF EVIL’S BANE. AND YOU HAVE TO STRAP A ROCK OR ANOTHER SWORD OR SOME MONSTER HORN TO IT FOR IT DO GOOD DAMAGE???

This isn’t inherently a bad thing, despite how worked up I sound, I like the premise from a gameplay perspective. However, this is the MASTER goddamn SWORD we’re talking about. Combined with its plot significance, I was if not more disappointed with what it is in TOTK. I feel it could be implemented in a way that does justice to both the narrative and the gameplay, like being a strong one handed sword but you have to have high or max hearts for it to do high damage. This would both encourage properly preparing for battles (cooking) while still making you use other swords through the cool down. I wouldn’t even mind bringing back trials of the sword.

The Master Sword suffers a LOT from narrative to gameplay dissonance because the story surrounding the series and these individual games feel as if the master sword is the weapon link SHOULD be using. but it’s just. kinda shitty. Anyone else feel the same way?

[greatwyrmgold]

Okay, that's an idiosyncratic assortment of dragons, but I can't say that if I made a list like this it wouldn't be even more idiosyncratic. The one question I have is, why did you leave out half of D&D's true dragons? I get not adding obscure ones from the Draconomicon or other sourcebooks, but what about white dragons, or most of the metallic ones? (You got the most important one, though.)

Limiting this list to dragons which I recognize and know/remember well enough to form a coherent opinion about:

Explanations below the cut.

Gold Dragon: When I, a dragon-obsessed middle schooler, first laid eyes on the gold dragon in the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual, I was entranced.

It blends elements from East Asian and European dragons, plus some unique touches of its own, into something which felt unique yet quintessentially Draconic. It can breathe fire, it can breathe underwater, it has ocean palaces and can assume human form, its toxic breath saps the strength from your limbs, it has borderline divine supernatural abilities, its wings blot out the sun.

I cannot evaluate this objectively, nor do I want to. It's a core memory.

Kaido: A much more recent dragon who I wrote a whole post about. (Which I bumped up the queue specifically for your convenience. Come to think of it, Kaido hits a lot of the same beats as the gold dragon. He's a really well-designed dragon who happens to sorta fit the gold-dragon-shaped hole some semi-anonymous WotC artist carved in my heart. (I assume it was done by one of the 25 artists credited here, but Baator if I know which one.)

Prehistoric Dragon: A sufficiently plausible yet distinct dragon, exactly what the project calls for.

Tohru: She's simultaneously a fun, silly maid and an absurdly powerful engine of destruction. I believe the technical term is "gap moe"? Also, I watched the first season of Dragon Maid in an early phase of anime-fan-ness. It feels weird to call something I watched as an adult "nostalgic," but I've been an adult for a while.

Toothless: I was growing out of the target demographic for this kind of movie when it aired, and I'm really not a cat person, and Toothless is mostly a basic-bitch European dragon with a nicer personality. But I recognize that Toothless is very good at being something I am personally not interested in.

Seath: Cool design, neat story, and ties directly into the lore for Dark Souls dragons.

Dragon Tales dragons: Ranked based on the vibes I get when I try to remember the long-lost years of the early oughts.

Gaping Dragon: It's ranked this high purely for how unique its design is. It's a withered husk of a dragon that knows only hunger, and its entire body was reshaped to feast more efficiently.

Tiamat (D&D): Not even close to a faithful interpretation of her namesake, but cool nonetheless. Her design works a lot better whenever WotC rolls back the sourcebooks that include new types of true dragons, reducing it to the basic ten. I wonder what she'd be like if she had a head for every variety of evil true dragon ever published in an official D&D product...?

Slifer the Executive Producer: Cool design. I watched the Battle City arc before I really got into dragons, so the endless coils were unique. Even now, the double mouths make it stand out among the countless other winged serpents. (The forelimbs don't hurt, either.) More importantly, Slifer's unique card-game gimmick lead to the most memorable Duel Monsters game in the entire anime.

Beowulf's dragon: We've gotta respect the classics. This nameless dragon is probably the most recent common inspiration of all fire-breathing dragons in the world, including my top five dragons Sabertoothwalrus decided to include.

Tiki: East Asia's dragons are more like benevolent gods than the scary animals or demonic beings of Europe's folklore. Tiki fits this role straightforwardly, despite her design evoking European dragons. That's neat! It's also neat that her immortality lets her show up in multiple games set millennia apart. I hope we get one so far in the setting's timeline that she becomes old even by dragon standards, like Bantu or...um...some of the evil dragons from earlier games? Okay, yeah, manakete mostly exist to be immortal magical maidens, but it's still possible that Fire Emblem could include an immortal magical crone.

Shenron: Pure presentation. Shenron is a bog-standard East Asian divine dragon, but he's an impressive divine dragon. To commune with him, you need to gather seven magical orbs scattered across the globe. Summoning him darkens the sky with stormclouds. His body stretches eternally, constantly in motion. His growls are like thunder, his eyes like fire. The Dragon Balls lose their mythic luster over time, but Shenron doesn't (mostly because his appearances for the most mundane wishes are kept brief).

Black dragon: Out of the chromatic dragons, its design is the most iconic. It's a creature of death and decay, living in stinking swamps, and its head looks like a monstrous ox skull.

Red Death: Ecologically, the most interesting dragon on this list. Design-wise, it's trying to be a weird version of a European dragon instead of being something novel.

Zippleback: The two heads that contribute differently to fire-breathing are the most interesting dragon concept in the original HTTYD film, the only one I have clear memories of. If I cared enough to rate the other HTTYD dragons, they'd probably be somewhere in D-tier.

Blue dragon: It's not just a dragon. It has a distinctive horn on its face, and its habitat and habits are just remarkable enough to stick around in my memory. Though I think some brass dragon traits might have slipped in there...?

Devon & Cornwall: As an adult, I recognize that two bickering sibling heads who need to learn to get along are not that original, and that Devon and Cornwall are in fact a pretty bad example of that trope. But I didn't recognize either of those when I saw Quest for Camelot as a kid, and it's one of the DVDs my brother and I played a lot on long car trips. And their song is also bad, but it's catchily bad, at least if you watched it at the right age.

Blue Eyes White Dragon: If Kaiba didn't love his three special pieces of cardboard enough to keep printing Duel Monsters cards that made it better, BEWD would not have made C tier. But there are a lot of cards that do neat stuff with BEWD, so I can overlook how bland it looks and how it has no more depth than an ace of spades.

Dragon (Shrek): The one Shrek movie my family had on DVD was Shrek 2, which barely features Dragon. But I like what I remember about her, and the guardian monster falling in love with the animal sidekick is a good bit.

Nicol Bolas: I never engaged with the narrative-fiction side of Magic: the Gathering enough to get more than a rough sketch of who Nicol Bolas is. There's a lot about him that sounds neat, but a lot of it also sounds like it could get annoying if it was written poorly.

Momonosuke: I'm about a third of the way through the Wano Country arc. At the moment, Momonosuke not only feels like a glorified extra, but he's barely spent any time as a dragon. He's just a kid who's theoretically important to conflicts he has barely played any part in. I'm only rating him this high because I expect both of those things to change in the next hundred chapters. He's got basically the same Devil Fruit as Kaido, after all.

Green dragon: Mid. Its visual design is more or less tied with red dragons for the most generic of D&D's true dragon starter set, and while its habitat has the potential to set it apart, it has a ton of overlap with the black dragon. I'd rate different editions' green dragons differently depending on how well they distinguish themselves from black dragons, and 3.5's are perhaps the worst in that regard.

Porunga: Okay, he's unique. You can see some similarities with Shenron, such that he's clearly the same kind of being. But since he's the dragon of an alien world, he looks alien. Barely like a dragon at all. He's unique. I just...don't...like it. I don't like the design. It's "alien" by way of humanity, and it's kind of ugly.

Red dragon (Dungeon Meshi): It stands out from similar dragons by virtue of not having wings (flight being a rare draconic trait in Dungeon Meshi) and the ways its corpse is used.

Scorchio: It's kinda cute, and I remember liking it as a kid, but I really do not now. But it's not like Neopets was supposed to appeal to thirty-year-olds.

Game of Thrones dragons: Drogon clings to the bottom of C-tier because he does stuff. He has a distinct identity. The others, not so much. At best, they're "the dragon X human character(s) rode".

Saphira: By far the hardest to rate. My first impulse was to put it in F-tier due to association with the first book I was ever embarrassed to have liked when I was younger, but Saphira herself isn't that bad. The psychic-dragon-riders thing is derivative, but it's uncommon, and it was really neat when I read it. Her personality and interactions with Eragon also make her way more interesting than anything below C-tier. I gave Devon and Cornwall a boost for nostalgia, so I guess I should do the same for Saphira. Even if I have to dig through a thicker layer of cringe to find the nostalgia.

Mountain dragon: My least favorite dragon from the documentary. It looks bland, combining a stock European dragon with the blandest characteristics of modern reptiles.

Super Shenron: I had complicated feelings about the Super Dragon Balls, back when Team Four Star was posting enough that I cared about the Dragon Ball franchise. By now, though, they've collapsed into simpler feelings. Super Shenron and the Super Dragon Balls could have been cool, but nearly every time they had to make a decision about them, the most obvious and least interesting option was chosen. It's true for their visual design, for their abilities and story utility, for their goddamn names. On the bright side, the first time it was summoned looked cool.

White dragon (not included): Its head-crest makes it a bit more distinctive than green or red dragons, but not much. And its personality isn't much better; it's closer to a dumb animal than D&D's other true dragons, but that makes it more like generic European dragons.

Winged Dragon of Ra: In terms of visual design, it's a mess. This is appropriate, because its mechanics and plot utility are also messy. It does whatever the plot needs it to to make the Battle City climax work the way it's supposed to.

Red dragon (D&D): The most boilerplate generic true dragon in D&D. I admit that D&D needed a boilerplate generic European dragon in the mix, but that doesn't make the dragon itself any better. It's the template which other dragons distinguish themselves from.

Red-Eyes Black Dragon: I do not remember much about this card.

Harry Potter dragons: Derivative, like most things in Harry Potter. Also tainted by association with JK Rowling. Norbert (or Norwegian ridgebacks in general) might have made low C-tier, though.

Banshee: Tainted by association with a disgustingly mid film. The design was kinda neat, I guess.

13: Tainted by disappointment. I was excited for the Straw Hats to fight dragons, but the first one went down like a chump, and also that's the only dragon on the island if you don't count Momonosuke. Boo!

based on a real conversation I had with my brother just now. which means you can do the dragon tier list

[madscarypod]

Bonus Ep Recap: Spooky Season

Hello all. Rina and I share our picks for Spooky Season. These are not in rank order, ya'll.

Millie’s List The Stuff (1985) written and directed by Larry Cohen This movie is chock full of super fun satire. Way ahead of its time - it digs into the stronghold of viral marketing; our obsession with food and our want to fill the void w/a sweet treat, corporations selling their souls to make a buck. Well done Mr. Cohen. Also, if you have Michael Moriarity in your movie it’s gonna be a banger. 1 million corns up. Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1988) Directed by James Signorelli Written by Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, herself), John Paragon, and Sam Egan This movie is right up there with Beetlejuice for me but doesn’t get the same love. It has a lot of the same funny scary energy. Some really great jump scares, gooey monsters, and family drama. Not to mention Elvira is iconic - strong, beautiful and hilarious with some classic ditz. Gotta love her. Also 1 million corns up. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui Written by Joss Whedon This movie was life changing. Not only was it all the spooky things I love but I was introduced to one of the greatest female superheroes ever. I love the show but this movie has a special place in my heart. I love the early 90’s campiness of it. The love and reverence paid to the valley girl archetype and there’s some really classic Paul Ruebens post-Pee Wee that’s just the best. Rautger Hauer is both menacing and hilarious. All the corns. Babadook (2014); written and directed by Jennifer Kent Ok, like legit I haven’t been this scared since The Ring. I couldn’t sleep for days/maybe weeks after this movie. If you’re afraid of the dark - which I am - this is going to hit you like nothing else. Also, it’s also a “real” movie w/proper themes. It’s a wonderful play on the parent child relationship, especially parents w/neurodiverse kiddos. Amazing. All the corns, as well. The Color out of Space (2019); story by HG Wells directed by Richard Stanley You’ve already heard me talk about my love of this movie. It’s just great. Really gross. Really irreverent. Very scary. It has a lot to say and I’m here for it. You can never go wrong with a Nicholas Cage film. He sells the whole thing. All the corns facing up.

Rina’s List I was initially thinking of the quintessential fall horror movies that remind you of Halloween and the harvest and things like that. For that vibe, my list looked like this: Halloween, Sleepy Hollow, Pumpkinhead, Children of the Corn, Wicker Man. The Pale Blue Eye (2022) would be an honorable mention here (but ultimately a letdown). But I didn’t really feel like my heart was in that list. Although I fucking love Sleepy Hollow, and I definitely watched the Pumpkinhead series too much as a kid (shoutout to it ALWAYS being on on SciFi channel), what I really like to watch when the leaves start to turn and the days start to get shorter are movies that have a classic spooky vibe. What I mean by that is like movies that are foggy, and the character is basically alone. Maybe there’s a cool old creaky mansion (no longer in its prime/spendor), or a remote cabin. There are definitely scenes of the protagonist walking through a crunchy yard, or sparse, foggy woods.

With that in mind, here's my list of (fairly recent?) movie recs for the remainder of the Spooky Szn, in no particular order: The Witch (2015) - Robert Eggers’ full-length writer/directorial debut (sticking to our writer/director theme accidentally?) Also known as the V-Vitch. Maybe the ultimate harvest season, New England, spooky tale? It’s got it all: the unforgiving, remote wilderness; crops failing mysteriously; heavy religious overtones; creepy (and annoying) twins; virginal teen daughter; “is mommy crazy?”; goat. “Similar but different” bonus pick: Stoker (2013); also coming-of-age, teen girl story? The Awakening (2011) This movie is moody as hell! Fog; beautiful manicured grounds; cronchy piles of leaves; spooky boarding school; hollywood hunk Dominic West taking a bath; creepy lil kids; ominous warning from an old lady character; ghost hunting! “Similar but different” bonus pick: The Others (2001); also a story about a woman with a husband who went to (a different) war and wants to protect children? Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) I like this version over the 1973 original – it's a whole different vibe. This one is more, “parents not listening to the kid,” and the original is more, “is mommy crazy?” This one is set at a beautiful, old, Rhode Island mansion. Spooky groundskeeper; precocious little girl; new stepmom vying for approval; preoccupied dad; things going missing; things going bump in the night. “Similar but different” bonus pick: Silent House (2011); also a story where a woman is fixing up an old house to sell it? Deerskin (2019) Guy buys a deerskin jacket and goes off the rails. It was way too much money and he threw in a camcorder. “Similar but different” bonus pick: Creep Crimson Peak (2015) Gorgeous movie, saturated with color. The costumes, the house, the mysterious family secret. A little bit more of a late autumn/early winter movie but it fits the mood.“Similar but different” bonus picks: The Haunting (controversial hot/bad take: I prefer the 1999 over the 1963); also a movie set at a beautiful, haunted house with a dark and dangerous past?

Honorable mention: Not a Movie → The Haunting of Hill House Dishonorable mention: Sucked and was bad → The Lodge We asked ChatGPT to participate, as well. Here's what it said:

Then we were like - hit us w/a bonus.

Nailed it. Honestly, these are all just good. For any season. So, happy watching!

Have a rec? Add it up in our comments.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Footnotes on foes: Eldrazi

Hey DMs, do you need an unfeeling aberrant force to threaten your campaign world at various scales but don’t want to use mindflayers? Bored of lovecraftian knockoffs threatening to drown reality in abstract but unspecified “madness”? Well have I got the monster for you friends, It’s the Eldrazi: an unknowable and all consuming horde that’s here to reduce your setting to nothingness.

I’ve always had a fondness for the Eldrazi after they originally debued in magic the gathering, alien beings that sap all life from their surroundings and seem to have no other aims beyond the total and complete obliteration of whatever world they happen to dwell on. (plus they have a super cool look, and in the end isn’t that what matters?)

Eldrazi have a lot of mystery surrounding them, but in trying to puzzle them out I came up with my own headcanon that was too good not to use.  Below the cut I’ll go into detail on how I think the eldrazi function, and how you can best use them in your campaigns.

TLDR: The eldrazi are the great decomposers of the multiverse, reducing dead worlds down into their base components, and then into dust to be reabsorbed by the cosmic cycles of the astral sea. A perfectly natural process, but one that can go catastrophically wrong should the eldrazi be drawn to a world that has not yet died as they often are by witless dabblers or disruptions to those same astral currents. When they end up on a world they’re not supposed to be they end up creating wastelands, fighting against nature like an infection.  

While they’re scattered about many regions of the astral sea where stagnation looms, the eldrazi mainly occupy a region of the multiverse known as the dead realms, a cosmic landfill where realities decay into one another and the faceless horrors can do their work.

It is important to note that the eldrazi are not a species, or in many ways actual organisms: Each eldrazi brood (differentiated by trends in their alien anatomy and what they transmute material into) is the intrusion of a singular will into the cosmos with its own aims, which constructs its bodies from the errant energies of whatever world it happens to interface with. This makes communication with the eldrazi highly difficult, especially for those who encounter them without prior knowledge, as the will that pilots an eldrazi brood experiences the whole of the brood at once, many bodies at once, many dimensions at once. Even the most intelligent and independent members of a brood are merely hands in comparison with the greater body, able to exert a greater tactile degree of control but not actively conscious.

This alien existence extends to their anatomy: resembling summoned or illusory creatures, the body of an individual Eldrazi lacks blood or organs, and is instead a notional matter primarily used to store the magical potential they sap out of the worlds they digest. When an eldrazi dies they do not rot, instead they erode, the magic that composes their being leaking back into the laylines they siphoned dry.  Such transference can cause surges of wild magic proportional to the size and number of the brood slain.

This lack of a physiognomy extends to how Eldrazi seem to “breed”, budding like fungus or grotesquely merging to form larger bodies, which amounts to the prime entity behind the brood splitting up its focus for multiple tasks.  Sometimes the entity needs to actively participate in its act of decomposition, in which case the brood begins draining all it can, growing all it can, and then merging together into an eldrazi titan. These entities can lay waste to landscapes but also think in ways the disparate brood could do nothing about.

Eldrazi have a strange relationship with magic, in that their singular goal seems to be to extract the magical/living/quintessential essence out of dead worlds, meaning they become very adept at reading and manipulating systems that are built upon these primal currents. Eldrazi broods spread along a plane’s laylines like mushrooms along a rotten branch, sapping at its nutrients till the line goes dead and the landscape with it. This infection can even spread to enchantments, curses, and magical constructs, bringing them into a titan’s influence and even providing a seedbed for the growth of more eldrazi.

Very little of this information is well known by planear scholars, and even less of it is understood by those who might encounter stray eldrazi that’ve ended up scattered on their worlds. What most understand is that the Eldrazi show up following great magical disasters, create a wasteland wherever they go, and seem to have an innate ability to overcome and subvert magical defences. Most are content simply to hunt them on sight, and the prime eldrazi seem more than content to let their stray buds be culled while they focus on the real task of eating worlds.

Adventure Hooks:

High in the mountains there’s said to be the wreck of some kind of flying ship, that locals say they saw hurtling through the sky decades ago only to crash somewhere amid the peaks. The ship is in fact a spelljammer, and salvaging its helm might just be the first step in the party setting off on their first cosmic adventure. All is not well though, as when they begin exploring the high cliffs and isolated valley, they find ship and much of the surrounding landscape has been turned into a spiralling labyrinth of giant bismuth crystals, the haunt of a few eldrazi the jammer crew picked up while fleeing a dying world that ended up scuttling them in the end. 

Powerful spikes of magic draw the eldrazi across the planes, so after the mid-campaign villain attempts their apotheosis and fails miserably, not only to the party have to deal with whatever threat that unleashed, but increasing numbers of sightings of horrifying entities skulking about the countryside near the villain’s old lair. This gives the party a chance to re-explore an old dungeon, finding its corridors warped and its chambers filled with dust. 

Desperate to impress their supervisor by summoning a rare creature from the outer planes, a group of arcane grad students at the local magical college have unwittingly ended up snagging an eldrazi away from its brood, and are intent on studying it. For its part, the eldrazi seems oddly complacent, but is infact exerting its flesh warping influence on the students and the animals surrounding their lab. The party first gets involved tracking drown grotesque chimeras of ratswarms and stray beats, which invariably lead them through the increasingly organic sewers and up into the lab, where the eldrazi has broken containment.   Not all the students are accounted for, and while some got away with benign abnormalities, others have been incorporated into the brood, and will seek new places to take root.

Also, while there’s no official stats for eldrazi, a lot of great creators have already taken the challenge upon themselves, so I encourage you to go out and find some of their work.

[metalandmagi]

Winter 2021 Anime Worth Watching!

Since 2020 basically sacrificed itself to give us the most stacked anime season of all time, I’m currently buried under the weight of almost 20 shows airing per week. So for anyone who’s looking for some anime to watch this winter, here’s some first impressions! I’m speed running my list this time by only talking about the new shows...because otherwise this would be my great American novel. 

If anyone’s interested, I have master lists for both 2020 anime and 2019 anime, because there’s no shortage of fun things to find. 

New Shows!

And before anyone asks, So I’m A Spider, So What? isn’t on here, because CG spiders freak me out.

Cells At Work Code Black: This...less comedic spin off of Cells At Work (made by a different studio) takes the wholesome concept of Osmosis Jones meets cute anime girls and turns it on its head. In this much more depressing version, we follow a rookie red blood cell who works in the body of an overly stressed, alcoholic smoker who puts every strain on the body imaginable. I love Red Blood Cell AA2153 and his co-workers, but man am I glad we get the regular Cells At Work airing this season too, because I need something fun and uplifting after seeing my sweet son go through hell every episode. 

*Heaven’s Design Team: Have you ever wondered how God came up with some of the weird ass animals that live on this planet? Like, what’s the deal with giraffes? And why can’t we have dragons and flying horses? Well this is a comedy about the engineers and designers in heaven creating the new animals that are going to inhabit the Earth. That’s it, that’s the show. It’s kind of in the same vein as Cells At Work, having comedy blend with a surprising amount of educational information. If you want something light and funny, this is the show for you (though I don’t think it needs to have full length episodes). I’m just hoping there’s an episode about how the hell the platypus was created. Also it’s the only new one available on Crunchyroll.

Horimiya: A romantic comedy about a girl named Hori who fits the image of a perfect queen bee and a quiet bespectacled boy named Miyamura who never makes an impression at school. When the two meet by chance outside of the classroom, we see that Hori is practically raising a younger brother by herself, and Miyamura is actually a sweet guy who happens to be covered in tattoos and piercings. This show is an exercise in breaking down the images people have of others in their minds, and it’s a concept that really hits home in a fun and meaningful way. Honestly, this has become one of my immediate favorites. The characters have great chemistry, and I can’t wait to see more of them!

Monster Incidents (Kemono Jihen): When big shot Tokyo detective Inugami is called to a rural town to investigate a series of strange animal deaths, he finds a mysterious boy with the nickname Dorotabo who has been shunned by the other children in town. As the detective gets closer to Dorotabo, he discovers that there may be more...inhuman secrets to the boy than he realizes...and Dorotabo discovers that Inugami has some secrets of his own. This is a hard show to sell without spoiling the first episode, but it had twists and turns that kept me engaged from start to finish. I’m really interested to see where the plot goes, because I thought this was going to be something totally different just from the PV and series summary. If it plays its cards right, this could be a great paranormal detective show!

Wonder Egg Priority: A psychological drama about a girl named Ai who starts having dreams about a mysterious egg that promises to give her what she wants most in the world...a true friend. Before long, she begins to see how the dream world and reality are tied together, and trippy antics ensue. It’s hard to say more without spoiling anything, but I had to go back and add this one in because I made the mistake of thinking it was an OVA when it’s actually a full series. And what a series it’s starting out to be. This anime has all the psychological discomfort of a Satoshi Kon product with the beauty and style of something from Kyoani (even though it’s made by Clover Works). It’s really one of those anime you just have to see to understand.

Sk8-∞ (Skate the infinity): An original skateboarding anime from Bones, featuring a typical sports anime protagonist who takes a new transfer student who has never skateboarded in his life under his wing. Together they compete in dangerous races and take the skating community by storm. The character designs rival Appare Ranman’s in outlandish creativity, and I can smell the main characters’ ship dynamic a mile away (considering they’re exactly the same as the protagonists from Robihachi). If you’re looking for some wild and crazy fun with top notch skateboarding animation, don’t skip this!

2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu (Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club): Yes, it’s another volleyball anime. And no, it’s not just a clone of Haikyu. This story follows Yuni Kuroba, a physically built but emotionally weak teenager who finds out his childhood friend Hajime is moving back to their hometown for high school. Yuni discovers Hajime has become an exceptional volleyball player and they join their school’s volleyball club hoping to turn the unknown team into a rising star. If anything, this anime is much more like Stars Align or Free, where the sport is a backdrop for letting the characters explore their personal problems. Or at least it seems that way after the first episode. I went into this show ready to throw it in the trash because how could anything compete against my beloved Haikyu, but I found myself really enjoying the dynamics of the main duo and I’m curious to see what the rest of the team is like.

And speaking of sports anime rip-offs…..I can’t believe I’m including this but…

Skate Leading Stars: The show where the animators clearly wanted to design another throw away idol anime but saw how popular Yuri On Ice was so they decided to make whatever the hell this show is instead. It revolves around a fictional team sport called skate leading, and we follow the world’s most insufferable main character, a former figure skater named Kensei who wants to return to the ice and join his school’s skate leading team after he finds out his childhood rival is going to compete in the sport. Look, this show is just trashy enough to get a certain type of audience hooked, and it mainly has to do with the best boy of the winter season, Hayato Sasugai, the aspiring team “coach” who pulled most of us into watching this show with his punk appearance, snide comments and smug personality. He’s basically the lovechild of Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima in a high school sports anime setting. The show treats itself with the perfect amount of sincerity to get away with being absolutely ridiculous most of the time without making you feel like you’re watching it from a dumpster...like Try Knights. You will know after one episode whether this show is for you. All I can say is, Hayato is worth the watch, and I haven’t seen any 3D animation used for the skating scenes (yet) so that’s a win for me. 

Honorable mention:

Jobless Reincarnation ( Mushoku Tensei): Yet another isekai where the main character is hit by a car (big surprise) and gets reincarnated into a fantasy world...but he happens to remember his previous life and narrates himself growing up as a jaded adult. I’m only including this because it looked amazing animation wise, and I love the opening where getting hit by a car and dying is actually traumatic. And I love the protagonist’s parents (who are retired adventurers who just want to bang all the time). But honestly...the main character is the fucking worst, and I don’t know if I want to keep watching it because of how creepy and weird he is. Like...he’s the hit on your fantasy mom as a baby kind of creepy and weird. But for anyone who wants a cool looking isekai that had an amazing PV, it’s worth checking out. 

Continuing Series!

Because the real gold of the season is in all the established anime getting their next seasons, I’m just going to list some of the things that are also amazing and definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already (because I’ve already talked about most of them at some point and don’t know what else to say).

Attack On Titan season 4

The Promised Neverland season 2

Beastars season 2

Log Horizon season 3

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime season 2

Re: Zero season 2 (second cour)

Dr. Stone season 2

Cells at Work season 2

Osomatsu-san season 3 (second cour)

Higurashi New (second cour)

Jujutsu Kaisen (second cour) 

Not to mention all the shows I don’t watch that everyone else loves...like World Trigger (which I have seen quite a bit of, but long shounen shows are too much for me now) Quintessential Quintuplets, and Non Non Biyori. 

So there’s just some of all the anime airing this season. Hopefully, someone can find something they like. Here’s to a great year...well, of anime at least...

[fluorescentbrains]

Wait I’m screaming I’m looking through the comments on that post and someone said: “it’s not Jewish because angels don’t have free will in Judaism” as if it’s not a pretty big point in the show that angels don’t have free will and the one angel who does develop it is viewed as a weirdo by the other angels. Also a lot of people who are speaking on Islam despite clearly knowing nothing about it?

The fact that people are getting mad at you is insane to me I’m not sure if they ever called Chuck the Abrahamic god and I don’t think Islam is ever mentioned but he is canonically the god of both the Jewish and Christian faiths in the show it’s not your fault it’s that way you didn’t write the show

“Based on some second hand impressions from tumblr and maybe a cursory google search I can say definitively that this fantasy show is 100% Protestant you upset me, a Catholic, by implicating my faith under the term abrahamic so I’m going to get all up on your post about it and most importantly what I personally dislike about the show’s writing that you could have no affect on instead of making my own post even though I’m severely derailing your post with my religious discourse. Christmas is a more important holiday to me than Easter and I’ve never so much as read the Bible. I’m just going off of my own interpretation of my faith which [though very valid in reality] is SO MUCH more valid than anyone else’s interpretation or experience, especially the Catholics on the spn writing team, who I doubt are real Catholics”

everyone on your post sounds Quite A Bit Like That; it’s absolutely absurd. (Going so far as to minimize real people’s faith bc you didn’t like their fantasy show is particularly cruel imo and people are doing that to the Jewish creator of the show)

Making any flavor of post about religion when it wasn’t initially about that is wrong; supernatural’s incooperation of highly fictionalized and (yes, anyone can admit, often bastardized) religious elements doesn’t make supernatural posts inherently religious debates like if you want to accuse Eric kripke of being a secret Christian because he made up some nonsense about demons for a plot point in his monster hunting show where no monster adheres to its traditional qualities very well at least don’t do it on a joak post about homophobia against destiel

the religious lore in spn is definitely something worth having Discussions and Conversations about but I always wanna push back when people are like “this is a CHRISTIAN show” like i get that to you spn is something you don’t want to be associated with because it has So Many Problems but it’s actually kind of a huge pop culture phenomenon so… maybe I don’t want to cede it entirely to a christian lens? especially when many of the creators are in fact not christian?? lmao people actually did used to post and meta about jewishnatural so this thing where we take it for granted that it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything non-christian is recent…

my interpretation of spn is that it started out as mostly a pure Cool Monster Show and then eventually the writers started playing in the space of “vaguely modern Christian mythology” (modern being a very key word here—many of the most quintessentially christian lore elements we are used to were developed rather late in the history of the religion and have scant or ambiguous support in the original texts). but what does the show actually SAY with that mythology?? well, a lot of conflicting and frequently offensive things… but occasionally very interesting things as well.

also funny you mention catholic vs protestant discourse because I feel like I remember there being Drama at one point bc people were saying “spn is catholic” and some people were like “no it’s actually protestant” 🙈

I wish I could find any word from eric kripke where he talks about how his jewish identity did or didn’t inform his writing. I think it could be really interesting, even if the answer is “no, I wasn’t thinking about judaism whatsoever.” like that in and of itself would be interesting. it doesn’t seem like it’s something he talks about much—all I could find was an interview about the boys where he talked about how he uses superheroes as a way to write about eugenics and fascism, because times have changed since they were created (by jewish comic book writers).

anyways I find it interesting that tumblr media analysts consider the cultural identity (or gender identity or sexual identity) of creators to be Very Important in basically all cases except when they’re jewish. I’m not necessarily saying it’s good that we rely so much on identity politics in this space (we could stand to move away from that!!) but the absence of consideration for jewishness is quite striking to me. people will go off writing meta about how xyz media is “promoting christian ideology” or whatever and thinking they’re really saying something and not even be aware that the creator/writer was, in fact, jewish, and considering how THAT might affect their analysis (I’m talking about the Star Wars sequels lmao). I think it really speaks to the uncertainty people have about how to even conceptualize jewish people as part of their social justice framework

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Space Invader

Debut: Space Invaders

Can you believe it? We have covered so many iconic enemies on this blog, but perhaps not the most iconic video-game enemy of them all! Sure, the Pac-Man Ghosts, the Minecraft Creeper, Plugg, they’re all pretty high up there, but when you think about it the Space Invader has to take the cake! How many video-game enemies have their own emoji? 👾

Heck, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say this creature is synonymous with the very concept of Video-Games! This is the kind of little guy who would flash on your television screen as you play a computer game with a little joystick with one big red button on it. This is the kind of little guy who I would print on a T-Shirt and Beanie to prove to the world that, yes I game! I can press buttons! I know that Super Mario Bros. 2 was originally called Doki Doki Panic because the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was deemed too difficult for America!

The Space Invader’s sprites are so ingrained in our memories that we don’t often think about the aliens on the actual arcade game’s art, huh? Well this is a perfectly good Alien Monster! A furry man like the Wookiees from Star Trek, but dark and ominous with harsh red lighting! This guy definitely looks like he’s got some invading to do! 

I say this design isn’t too well-known, but apparently it is iconic enough to get its own figma! Wow! You can really see the fur in this one- without a doubt, this is a mammal! I bet it has six teats under there. 

But if you ask me, there is just no beating the look of the sprite! It’s vague enough to leave a lot to the imagination, but there’s plenty here to love! The little dot eyes and the insectoid antennae! the little arms/mandibles/alien tentacles (if you’re feeling spicy)- a mammal this certainly is not! This is an absolutely ideal Little Guy, a computer creature to blow up on your screen. We’re so accustomed to seeing it that I think we all forget how Awesome this is! And look at how it jumps for joy! 

Do you know what we aren’t accustomed enough to, in my opinion? It’s the other aliens from Space Invaders! The middle alien is quintessential of course, but they can’t Space Invade alone! They need the help of their friends! The Squid invader hangs out at the top of the screen, perhaps because they are the smallest and most vulnerable of the three. How thoughtful!

And the Octopus invader! This image is smaller than the last one but trust me when I say they are wider! And they have two, count ‘em, two, pixels for their eyes, so I interpret them as having closed eyes and being dozy or a little sleepy because that is cute. They hang out at the bottom because they are the best defense! 

Now hold on! If the big and little invaders are confirmed to be Squids and Octopuses, what the heck is the medium invader? The answer is: Crab! It was a crab hiding under our noses all along! This was all apparently confirmed through a 40th anniversary interview revealing original concept art, but do you know what? I’m not a fan! And you know we love any and all crabs here, but I think the sprite is quite fun in its mystery, plus it is very un-crablike! Only four limbs, without distinct claws? And don’t get me even get me started on the lack of eyestalks! This isn’t amateur hour! So I continue to headcanon the medium invader as something not-crab. You can’t control my life, Toshihiro Nishikado!

Also, this concept art for Octopus really looks like a jellyfish, which got me thinking: there are a lot of Japanese aliens that are just vague jellyfish/cephalapod monsters huh? 

It’s almost the default there compared to the typical gray alien, and if you ask me it is way better! Meeting another sentient race and finding out they are like humans but grey and with big eyes? Snore! Meeting another sentient race and finding out they are talking jellyfish people? Awooga! This is also the second time we have used Pretty Cure and Rhythm Heaven as examples in the same paragraph, but probably not the last? There’s definitely more examples of this trope I can’t think of, so Please send us any funny jellyfish aliens you have. I’m begging you.

Er... anyway! The last member of the Invader Crew is the UFO, and I wasn’t sure to count them but why the heck not? They are presumably just a flying saucer, which don’t get me wrong is always fun, but what if they are also a creature with many eyes? You can’t say for sure!

Actually, when I said they were the last member two sentences ago, I lied! This is Shapeshifting Cuttlefish, from Space Invaders Part II! First of all, what a name! Second of all, this doesn’t look like a cuttlefish in the slightest! But it is very funny and looks like an emoji with feet, so I forgive it. Plus, they have the special property of splitting into a smaller guy when you shoot them! Cool! 

The Cuttlefish’s concept art is even weirder! This DEFINITELY isn’t a cuttlefish! It is more like... a little man with hair. I mean, I love it! But what the heck? 

While Space Invaders (1978), was definitely “groundbreaking” or “influential” or whatever, let’s not kid ourselves- their most important role was in Pixels (2015), also known as The Movie Where Josh Gad Breeds With Q*Bert! What do they do in this movie? I assume they invade! I will no longer discuss Pixels (2015).

In conclusion: all the Invaders are great friends, and they love to hang out in rows of eleven and move slowly downwards and sideways, while doing their little dances. Don’t interrupt them! They’re having a good time! 

[mh-stein-twins-au]

"Who's the Evil Twin?"

Frankie lol.

Well if you consider the most popular ghouls at school as evil.

While both Victor and Frankie share similar interest some times like learning, make up and science they have a lot of different interest which stems from their place in the high social hierarchy.

Frankie is the nice popular girl, a Cher from Clueless type character. Her style reflects that preppy academia look from Heathers and Clueless. She is more out going and likes to talk to various types of people because she has a lot of social mobility with her status of "freinds with Cleo". Her status means that she has to try everything at least once to get a better understanding of her enviroment, even if she doesn't realize its partly influenced by this hierarchy. Main hobbys include fearleading/sports, school politics, crafting, talking to and about cute boys and helping out others. Her friends also influence her interest, shes still at that stage where she wants to do what others are doing to improve friendship and that can put her into pretty rough spots at times but luckly she has scary dog privlages when with her brother.

Victor is the loner goth/alt kid that seems to be up to no good, right? While he looks the part to be the next Johnny Spirit, tall, brooding, intimidating. He has the right scars in all the right places (a big one over his left eye and several on his arms and back), inheriting his fathers temper and distaste for the social hierarchy made him the quintessential bad boy. Yet he doesn't act like it, in fact he did not act like a part of the school at all for the first year of high school. Only on campus when he has to and gone once the bell strikes 3pm gave him this air of mystery to him. A lot of ghouls were simply unable to comprend how Frankie was even related to him much less them being friends. He gave Frankies friends quite the shock when he answered the door when it was Frankies first time hosting the Sleep over. Nobody knows what he likes, except for Frankie. If you as her what he likes she would say, "He loves to get out and look at things, nature, animals, even Normies. He like to see the action unfold with out him being involved. He's a very private person but once you get to know him he's a true friend." Eventually as his friend you find out he spends his social time in the normie sphere, he often had no time with monsters. His main hobbies are going to Hot Topic with Claire, art, hanging out with his pets and alt fashion.

Note: Goth does not make you an outsider at monster high just that Victor is just that scary to monsters.

Even with the social divide Frankie and Victor are the best of friends and will always lend eachother a hand.

Hey you made it to the end. Here a bonus dialog

"Normie movies"

Clawd: Hey guys want to go watch the new normie boovie this weekend

(All the mansters agree)

Victor: Cool is it the new Carrie movie. The original gave me chills

Deuce: Dude whos Carrie?

Victor: (・_・)?

Heath: Bro if its scary for the Victor Stein. It must be worth watching.

[ladyloveandjustice]

The Westing Game Chapter 21

The Fourth Bomb

In a wacky misunderstanding, Theo thinks Alice is the bomber and tries to blackmail her with the info so he can borrow her bike (Yes, really. Go big or go home is Theo’s motto) but of course Alice thinks he means he knows ANGELA is the bomber.

And in what might be the most touching moment in the book so far, Alice responds to this by setting off a bomb and writing a thing indicating that she is the bomber in order to throw all suspicion off Angela. She eve loses her trademark braid in the process.

It really is incredibly sweet. Alice is very caustic toward her sister, but this isn’t the first time she’s indicated she’s ride-or-die when it comes down to it (she got rid of the evidence for Angela and warned her not to say anything to the lawyer), and it’s also a very lovely response to Angela’s early sacrifice- where she took the bomb she made to her face rather than have it explode to her sisters. But while Angela’s sacrifice was spur-of-the-moment motivated by guilt and panic as well as love (not that it makes it less meaningful), Alice’s is one she planned out and considered. She had time to consider the consequences. She knew that Angela willingly put herself in this position. But she still chose to take the fall anyway, and set off a bomb after seeing what the same thing did to her sister’s face.

She already feels meaningless to her family in general, and maybe on the surface she feels her standing (with her mother in particular) can’t get any lower. “I’m already the troublemaker, I’m already the unwanted one, I have nothing to lose, but Angela would lose everything” was how she convinced herself. (in addition to being aware as a minor she wouldn’t be punished as harshly, smart girl that she is).

But it’s also clear that Alice DOES long for her mother’s love and approval, and I think she also had to contend with a deep fear that after this action, there’d be no going back for them, that she’d doomed herself to be the ‘bad one’ forever. Yet she still did it.

And the loss of her braid is of course, incredibly significant. Angela said earlier that the braid is her “crutch”- she bases a lot of her personality around it. It was her excuse to spend time with her mother and now her excuse to spend time with Flora, it’s the trademark thing people can pull on and she can then she gets excuse to kick them and get in fights and form connections, it’s how she gets attention and relationships for herself without exposing her own vulnerability. But she sacrificed what little that makes her stand out, what little social currency she has to protect the same sister who she envies for being in the spotlight- because that bond is more important than her jealousy and her need for attention. Just like her sister sacrificed one of the things that bring her adulation- her looks- to protect her. Love is more important than those petty things.

Alice is forced to talk to Judge Ford afterwards and, sharp as ever, Ford guesses that she’s protecting Angela.  This quote especially gets me:

The judge was astounded (…). Angela could not be the bomber, that sweet, pretty thing. Thing? Is that how she regarded the young woman, as a thing? And what had she ever said to her except “I hear you’re getting married, Angela” or “You’re so pretty, Angela”. Had anyone ever asked about her ideas, her hopes, her plans? If I had been treated like that, I’d have used dynamite, not fireworks; no, I would have just walked and kept on going. But Angela was different.

There’s a fascinating theme in this book about being marginalized, and the different ways these marginalized people both are pitted against each other and can overlook even each other while also finding connections and comradery with each other… I think I’ll have to wait until the end to fully get my thesis on the whole thing together, but I really find it interesting and appreciate it. Ford’s struggles as a black woman, Alice being overlooked for not performing femininity (thus envious of Angela despite knowing how shitty she has it), Angela being boxed because everyone wants to mold her as the perfect feminine ideal (thus feeling envious of Alice despite knowing how shitty she has it), Sun feeling out of place as a Chinese immigrant, Hoo knowing he’s looked down upon as a Chinese-American (yet still not considering the pain of his own wife), Chris struggling as a disabled kid, many people who are financially disadvantaged and/or feeling limited to the role of caretaker, Sydelle feeling overlooked in general and appropriating others’ struggles in her bizarre quest to get noticed- it’s all very interesting and pretty deftly handled, especially considering the time period the book was written in. 

And our antagonist is quintessential exploitative Rich White Man (obsessed with American Exceptionalism to boot), though it’s casually mentioned he’s the son of immigrants, an identity he seems to have actively shed, going so far as to change his name (if that’s why he changed it), so there’s even complexity there.

But the thing with Ford here is an interesting demonstration of that. Despite being smart and socially aware and having an even more fraught history of being dismissed and belittled, she didn’t give much thought to Angela and subconsciously went along with the same objectification everyone else does, putting her on a pedestal. (There’s a lot to be said about how Angela’s veneration and perceived “purity” by the others might interact with her whiteness, and how Ford realizing she bought into that narrative subconsciously might feel to her as a black woman, but I’m not really the person to discuss that. Anyway!)

The other important development here is that Alice also finally confesses that she saw Westing the night of his murder but mentions that the Westing she saw didn’t look dead, but asleep and like a wax dummy. This sets off alarm bells for both me and Ford.

So, I think its safe to say my earlier theory Sam Westing isn’t dead is probably true. What of the corpse that was present at the will-reading? I think people would have noticed it was a wax dummy, but a disguised corpse from his coroner friend still makes some sense. So where is Westing now? Considering Barney Northup doesn’t exist, could he be Barney?

But speaking of Westing, if we need further confirmation the man is the scum of the earth, he’s a union buster and he fired Sandy for trying to organize one in the paper plant.

We also learn Ford’s backstory with Westing at last: Her parents were household staff at Westing’s mansion and she grew up there as a result. She played chess with Westing frequently as a child, but not only would he brag and take pride in beating a goddamn pre-teen, he mocked her with racialized insults. She never won, but Westing ended up financing her education (that’s the ‘debt’ she owes him). She believes he did this to get a judge he could control, but has refused to play along, removing herself from any case involving him.

I can’t help but think Westing would have known Ford wouldn’t play ball, though. So he may have had another motive for sending her to school. It could be something even more sinister. Or… in his own twisted way, did he actually like her? He obviously realized she was incredibly intelligent during those matches, even if he sadistically enjoyed mocking her, enough to know she’d do well with an education. Did he play chess with her so much not just because he enjoyed tormenting her, but enjoyed her as a person as well? It obviously does not excuse what a racist sadistic shithead he is, and I’m not saying he’s secretly nice- just that it could be he was incapable of relating to anyone in a healthy way. I actually think sending Ford to school could have just been an extension of his desire to torment her AND the only way he knew that would guarantee he remained important in her life. He didn’t ever plan to cash in on her debt, but knew it would kill her just to BE in his debt, and got pleasure out of that alone. He probably just thought it was funny and it was also a way to guarantee he’d live in her head rent free- and because deep down he knew she was a cool kid, he also wanted that. He didn’t want her to forget him, maybe, which is sick! But much more interesting than simply “he wanted a judge he could manipulate”.

But it’s also worth noting this is Ford’s (perhaps) final chance to win against Westing in the ultimate chess match. And I can’t help but think he is well aware how smart she is, so he invited her here specifically because he knew she could be his undoing, the one who unravels everything. So- if we go with the ‘Westing is seeking atonement’ theory- did he invite her to give her that satisfaction of finally beating him, like he always knew deep down she could? Because he WANTS to be beaten, to be found out and knows she deserves to be the one after all the hell he put her through? Or in the ‘Westing is still a complete monster’ theory- is his intention to torment her one last time, to show her she can’t win against him? (if it is, I think he may well find he’s gravely mistaken there).

I don’t think Westing can truly achieve “redemption” with this “game”, nor am I one to easily believe the Ultimate Shitty Capitalist can change easily, but if one thing can shake someone’s worldview and make them reevaluate how they live their life, the death of their child WOULD be a big one. So “this will actually be Westing’s weird twisted attempt at atonement” is a possibility I just can’t stop thinking about. If it is, it’s kind of funny and incredible he can’t stop being manipulative and traumatizing even when he decides he wants to do something good.

On top of all that, Angela and Sydelle get more clues and finally figure out the ‘America the Beautiful’ connection. God, so much to chew on this chapter! I really fear for these last nine chapters. I might end up writing a novel longer than the actual novel analyzing and recapping them if I’m not careful. But that’s how you know it’s a compelling story, so hats off to Ellen Raskin!

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Star Wars and the Space Opera

In 1941, a writer by the name of Wilson Tucker coined the term: ‘Space Opera’, used to describe what he called the “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn”.  This derogatory term followed in the footsteps of words like ‘Soap Opera’, a familiar term used even today, and ‘Horse Opera’ a less-used word referring to a cheap western.

However, in the years following this initial term creation, the words ‘Space Opera’ soon became associated with a different connotation.

Today, well, we’d probably call it ‘Soft Science Fiction’.

The term ‘Space Opera’ as we know it now refers to a story set in an unfamiliar galaxy, full of space faring civilizations with access to wonderful technology that isn’t terribly important to the story. Space Operas are epics, action/adventure stories spanning solar systems and galaxies, full of political intrigue, romance, huge space battles, sprawling empires and planets, and larger-than-life heroes and villains playing out the age-old good vs. evil conflict.

The total opposite of hard science fiction, Space Operas are concerned with characters and stories, rather than how the warp-drive works.  In the years since its original examples in the days of Buck Rogers, the term has lost nearly all of its negative connotations.  No longer looked down on, many writers and moviemakers have come to embrace the Space Opera.  Science fiction author Brian Aldiss even wrote a poem describing the steps that every self-respecting Space Opera must take in order to be an example of it’s subgenre:

The world must be in peril.

There must be a quest,

And a man or woman to meet the mighty hour.

That man or woman must confront aliens and exotic creatures.

Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher.

Blood must rain down the palace steps,

And ships launch out into the louring dark.

There must be a woman or man fairer than the skies,

And a villain darker than a Black Hole.

And all must come right in the end.

There have been plenty of Space Operas in recent media history, ranging from the Dune novels to television shows like Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek.  However, easily the best known and most recognizable example of a Space Opera ever created is obvious: George Lucas’s science fiction epic from 1977: Star Wars.

Star Wars was more than a film.  Like Star Trek, it was a cultural phenomenon, sweeping the world immediately and paving the way for stories like it to find success in the future, as stories either inspired by it or intending to cash in on it were created in the years following.  While hailed as the start of a renaissance of Science Fiction in film, it was more accurately the start of the Space Opera in modern popular culture.  While set in space, the film states its scale firmly from its opening words: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Star Wars wasn’t concerned with telling a story about science or logic.  It was a story about heroic rebels rising up and fighting back against an evil empire.  It was about big H heroes, Cool Starships, and Saving the World.  Star Wars was the shift in connotations for the Space Opera.  It was Star Wars’s thouroughly ‘space fantasy’  nature that changed the term ‘Space Opera’ from an insult to simply a genre.  

As such a game-changer, it bears some discussion.

Star Wars was the template used in countless science-fiction films after it, whether outright copied by films like Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin or spoofed in films like Spaceballs, creating a series of characters, scenarios, locations, and technology that has inspired multiple stories since it’s release over forty years ago.

The fact that Star Wars has become such a codifier of Space Operas makes a lot of sense, considering that it almost follows Aldiss’s poem to the letter.  While it does put an entertaining, fresh spin on a lot of fantasy and science fiction conventions, it doesn’t stray from those conventions.  In fact, it embraces them.

Hence our discussion.

Today, we’re going to be analyzing the 1977 film Star Wars in the context of the Space Opera, using Brian Aldiss’s poetic criteria above to analyze how George Lucas, whether knowingly or not, managed to create the perfect Space Opera, starting with, of course, point number one:

The world must be in peril.

To start, let’s look at the opening crawl.  Spoilers below!

It is a period of civil war. Rebel

spaceships, striking from a hidden

base, have won their first victory

against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed

to steal secret plans to the Empire’s

ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an

armored space station with enough

power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents,

Princess Leia races home aboard her

starship, custodian of the stolen plans

that can save her people and restore

freedom to the galaxy….

The story of Star Wars begins in an era of galactic unrest.  The evil Galactic Empire rules with an iron, tyrannical fist over the planets under it, squashing attempts at resistance, but stubbornly, the Rebellion fights on.  However, even their attempts are hopeless in the face of this new weapon: the Death Star.

The stakes for the story are established immediately.  By introducing the idea of a weapon powerful enough to destroy a planet, the audience, themselves only confined to one planet, immediately understand the threat that this weapon holds.  Billions of people extinguished in one shot, and the people with the only hope to stop them are on the run, in danger.

It looks grim for the galaxy.

At the beginning of Star Wars, it’s the End of the World as We Know It, and it’s not just an idle threat.  The Death Star is fully operational, and we see its effects as it destroys the homeworld of Princess Leia, Alderaan.  Billions of people are destroyed instantly, and the weapon won’t stop there.  

The galaxy is definitely in peril, and in order to prevent its destruction, the heroes must obliterate the weapon first, which, of course, answers our next line:

There must be a quest.

The quest is twofold.  The immediate quest is a small-scale one, a quest as old as fairy tales: rescue the Princess.

After Princess Leia is captured by the Empire, she sends the plans for the Death Star, and a message pleading for help, in a droid, R2-D2, trying to get them to an old Jedi Master, (The Mentor and Wizard of the story) Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Unfortunately, the droid (along with fellow robot, C-3PO) end up in the hands of farmboy Luke Skywalker.  Luke, recognizing the name, takes them to the Jedi, and ends up whisked away, determined to rescue Leia.  As he finds out more and more, the second part of the quest, the larger one, becomes clear:  Destroy the Death Star.

In order to prevent the destruction of the Rebellion, Luke must go on a journey, traveling through interesting places, all while learning the secrets of the Jedi: a power known as the Force.  Throughout this journey, he learns and grows, becoming better equipped to complete his quest along the way.  As Luke passes through criminal-infested cantinas, the Death Star itself, and the Rebel base on Yavin 4, he gains new understanding and perspective, all while focusing on his main goal: Rescue the Princess.

This version of The Quest storyline falls under the ‘Overcoming the Monster’ quest, a single-minded one focused on the end goal of the story.  Rather than focusing on a series of smaller quests that tie into the large one, the story of Star Wars revolves around the final act, with the characters pushing to Rescue the Princess and destroy the Death Star.  It’s concise, simple, but solid enough to work, propelled forward by the characters in the narrative.

The Quest directly overlaps with the famous Hero’s Journey narrative, seen in countless stories on the page and screen.  The combination thereof gives us a story where the focus is on the Hero’s growth and development as Luke finds his destiny, reacting to events pushing him forward, all while striving towards the end goal of the story.  It’s a very compelling narrative, traditionally done as a fantasy story, which naturally makes it perfect for the standard Space Opera story.

Which brings us to our next point:

And a man or woman to meet the mighty hour.

Of course, the man of the hour in Star Wars is farmboy Luke Skywalker, whisked up seemingly by accident into this world of Jedi, Evil Empires and Rebellions.  As with most Space Opera/Epic heroes, he isn’t terribly complex.  There are no moral struggles for Luke Skywalker, he knows what he has to do, and with determination, he strives for it.

In many ways, Luke Skywalker is the quintessential Hero archetype.  When we first meet him, (stage 1 of the Hero’s Journey), he is living on a desert farm that he desperately wants to get away from.  He craves adventure, excitement, and information about the father he never knew, constantly badgering his aunt and uncle for a chance to leave the planet Tatooine.

Luke is a big H hero, good and pure, bent on achieving his goal.  He’s an archetype, as old as stories themselves: the Ideal Hero, determined to finish the quest, stop the villain, and rescue the princess.  He’s new to the galaxy at large, serving also as the audience surrogate as the other characters explain and teach him about the more mysterious elements of the galaxy, but he proves a quick learner, also able to (clumsily at first) wield the powerful Force to assist him in his quest.  He even inherits the lightsaber (the science fiction equivalent of a sword) of his father, further adding to his Knight in Shining Armor role in the story.

Despite his good qualities, Luke isn’t perfect.  He’s inexperienced, and naive.  He’s a good shot with a blaster, and a better pilot, but he has problems with patience and anger, and has to be reigned in by other members of the cast.  He also doesn’t always get along with everyone else on his team, as evidenced by his arguments with reluctant partner and Lancer Han Solo.

Oddly enough, Luke’s motivation to start this journey is mixed.  While it would seem like he must want to Jump at the Call, when initially offered the chance for this adventure, Luke turns it down, citing his aunt and uncle as reasons not to go.  Unfortunately, the Empire, in search of the droid in Luke’s possession, burn down his homestead, killing his aunt and uncle in the process.  With nothing left of his home and family, Luke embarks on the adventure he seems to have always wanted, being pushed into the role of unexpected Hero.

While initially starting the story in a role akin to The Load, it doesn’t take long for Luke to go through some Character Development to rise to his full potential.  When dragged into the belly of the beast, trapped within the Death Star where Princess Leia is being held, it is Luke who assembles a plan, convincing the pilot who brought them, Han, and his copilot, Chewbacca, to assist him in rescuing Leia and escaping the Death Star.  Later on, it is Luke who exploits the Fatal Flaw of the Death Star design, destroying the weapon and saving the galaxy (for now).

Throughout his Hero’s Journey, Luke inevitably fulfills the next part of our criteria:

That man or woman must confront aliens and exotic creatures.

While most of the characters are examples of Human Aliens, not all of the beings in this galaxy are.  Good Space Operas tend to have interesting aliens to populate the planets the characters travel to, further spicing up the environment.

For Star Wars, one need look no further than the cantina sequence in Mos Eisley.  The scene is filled with odd looking creatures, some of which even assault Luke.  Earlier on, there are the Jawas, a species of scavengers who are responsible for C-3PO and R2-D2 ending up in the hands of Luke in the first place.  But both of these examples are minor in comparison with the token alien of the team: Chewbacca.

Chewbacca is Han Solo’s copilot, and a Wookiee.  Large, furry, and unintelligible, Chewbacca’s contribution is invaluable, being the decoy prisoner, and the Big Guy of the team.  The Bruiser with a Soft Center Mr. Fixit, Chewbacca is presented as more than an alien, but a character who happens to be a different species as the rest of the cast.  He serves as a constant reminder of the ‘otherness’ of the galaxy, a constantly present ‘exotic’ creature to drive home the Space Opera atmosphere.  As the co-pilot and mechanic, it is also part of Chewbacca’s job to keep the iconic Millennium Falcon running, and fly her when Han is needed in the gun turrets.

Speaking of the ships:

Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher.

The galaxy is a big place.  In order to move the plot forward, the characters need to get around, fast.  Unfortunately, space is so large that characters would likely die of old age before reaching anywhere interesting, so a faster method must be developed.

The problem of slow space travel has long been ‘fixed’ in science fiction stories since the ‘60s, with Star Trek’s warp drive being a prime example.  In Star Wars, a similar idea is used: that of the hyperdrive.

In order to get anywhere, the ships in Star Wars travel faster than light, enabling them to hop from location to location speedily, as well as engage in high-speed chases and dogfights.  Indeed, it is due to this that the Death Star is such a threat.  Being able to travel quickly, it could destroy multiple planets that much faster.

Using the hyperdrive, the Millennium Falcon is able to travel from Tatooine to the ruins of Alderaan, to Yavin 4 quickly, adding to the urgency and allowing the characters to keep moving.  As useful an invention the hyperdrive is, though, there’s more to the use of speed in space than just travel.

Star Wars ends, not with a sword fight or shootout, but with a dogfight.

The battle of the Death Star is a tense action sequence making up the climax of the film, reliant entirely on the forces of the Empire (flying TIE fighters) versus the Rebels (flying X-Wings and Y-Wings).  The fast pace and high stakes combine to make a tense ride, and an unforgettable ending.  Neither the Death Star trench run, nor the escape from Tatooine would be possible without the Handwave to physics, but in a Space Opera, it doesn’t matter.

All of this talk about stakes leads us right into the next line:

Blood must rain down the palace steps,

Victory does not come without a price.

Throughout Star Wars, lives are lost.  Owen and Beru, Luke’s Aunt and Uncle, are the first notable victims, although the death toll is surprisingly high.  Princess Leia’s entire planet is wiped out with one blow.  Obi-Wan Kenobi is killed, sacrificing himself to allow Luke and the others to escape the Death Star.  And the final Death Star trench run ends with a victory for the Rebel Alliance, but only after all but three of their ships (and pilots) are killed.  These deaths are not without purpose within the narrative, demonstrating the severity of the Empire’s threat, as well as serving as reminders that more peoples’ lives are at stake.  These horrible events push our heroes on, forcing them to always consider the cost as friends are lost.

There may not be a palace, but there certainly is bloodshed.

And ships launch out into the louring dark.

Spaceships, like mentioned above, are absolutely essential to the quintessential Space Opera.  They are beyond forms of transportation, they are characters in their own right.  From the Empire’s menacing Star Destroyer to Han Solo’s beat up freighter, each ship has its own unique look and ‘personality’.

Star Wars coded it’s ships in a very specific way.  The Empire’s ships are shiny and sharp.  They are grim and foreboding, all greys and blacks, well-put-together and dangerous looking.  From the tiny TIE fighters to the imposing Star Destroyers, the Empire’s fleet is both foreboding and numerous, a frightening force pitted against the small Rebel Alliance.

The Rebellion ships, on the other hand, look a bit different.  From the Tantive IV vessel to the tiny X-Wings, the ships of the good guys look a little more worn down, a ragtag assembly of ships that are utilized to the best of the Rebel’s ability to fight the Empire.  The X and Y-Wings are small but fast, evocative of our own fighter planes, bringing home the imagery of the space-dogfight.

But no ship says ‘personality’ like the Millennium Falcon.

The Millennium Falcon is, to quote Luke Skywalker, a ‘piece of junk’.  She looks awkward, clumsy, cobbled together, and at times, she doesn’t seem to work all that well.  The ship is easily recognizable, with a unique design, and she seems to have a personality of her own.  A faithful ship, despite her flaws, the Millennium Falcon is fast, very fast, and maneuverable.  It is her speed that makes Obi-Wan and Luke choose to hire Han and Chewbacca to pilot them, as the Falcon turns out to be quite a match for TIE fighters, and is able to outrun the Empire’s forces.  It is Han and Chewbacca flying this trusty hunk of junk in for a last-minute rescue that enables Luke to destroy the Death Star, cementing the Millennium Falcon as a ‘Hero’ ship.  In fact, it’s the Falcon’s speed that made a lot of the rescuing possible.  Speaking of which:

There must be a woman or man fairer than the skies,

This one depends on how attractive you find Han Solo, but in the story proper, the ‘fairer than the skies’ part seems to land to Princess Leia, the Damsel in Distress who is the one giving the quest in the first place.  However, Leia is a subversion of the typical Damsel and Quest Giver character, as being a leader in a Rebellion, she is no stranger to battle, and once rescued, takes charge, and gets in on the action.  Leia is beautiful, and it is remarked upon by Luke, but her royal station and her position as a prisoner does not stop her from being a Royal Who Actually Does Something, and is quick to take up a weapon to help fight her way out of the Death Star.  In the end, she is the beautiful Quest Giver, but Damsel in Distress?  Only slightly.

But we can’t talk about heroes, quests and battles without talking about the other side.

And a villain darker than a Black Hole.

Every Epic story needs a villain, and the bigger, the better.  The Dreaded Evil Overlord is a staple of the Space Opera genre, the very epitome of villainy.  In the case of Star Wars, thankfully, the villain bases are covered.

Besides the overarching evil that is the Empire in general, there are specific villains in the story for our heroes to overcome.  Grand Moff Tarkin, a cunning, proud military leader, is in charge of the Death Star.  He orders the destruction of Alderaan, and is a cold-blooded killer, also willing to terminate the captive Princess Leia.  He presses in on the Rebel Base with the Death Star, intending to wipe them out, and it is his pride and arrogance that keeps him from being concerned about his superweapon’s fatal flaw.

Despite how horrible Tarkin is, he is not our villain ‘darker than a Black Hole’.  That would be, of course, Darth Vader.

Darth Vader has long been heralded as one of the greatest villains of all time, and with good reason.  With an iconic, unique look (dressed head to foot in black armor, with a mask obscuring his face), Darth Vader, much like the rest of the Empire, is unquestionably evil, the epitome of darkness to contrast with Luke’s light.  Despite the fact that Tarkin commands the Death Star, Darth Vader’s power is greater.

Like Obi-Wan, Darth Vader is also a Force user, but one who uses its power for evil.  It is Darth Vader who tortures Leia for information (which she resists), and Darth Vader who strikes down Obi-Wan in the Death Star.  He is a foreboding enemy, and his skill with the Force, the lightsaber, and as a pilot is a triple threat to the Rebels.  He also plays a large part in the Death Star trench battle, picking off many Rebel pilots and nearly finishing Luke off as well.  Only Han Solo’s last-minute entry into the battle stops him, sending Vader careening off into the galaxy, defeated, but not destroyed.

Unlike most variations of the villains of Space Operas, Vader does not stick close to his base.  He ventures out, actively hunting down and destroying the Rebels.  He commands his officers, but seems to answer to the Emperor himself, setting up the idea that he may not be the Evil Overlord he seems to be (revealed to be the case in later films).  Darth Vader is incredibly dangerous, however, cunning and powerful, and it is telling that, at the end, he is not destroyed with the Death Star, but merely taken out of action for the time being, indicating that he will return.

But although Darth Vader isn’t entirely vanquished, the day is still won.

And all must come right in the end.

Although Luke’s family is gone, Leia’s planet destroyed, Obi-Wan dead, most of the Rebel Fleet destroyed, and Darth Vader still out there, there is still a Happy Ending.  The Death Star has been demolished, proving that the Empire is not invincible, and Grand Moff Tarkin has gone with it.  The Rebel Alliance survives to fight another day.  Luke Skywalker has found his destiny and become a hero, pulling together his band to do so.  Han Solo managed to find a selfless side, joining the fight as well.  Leia has been rescued and can return to helping lead the Rebellion’s fight against the Empire for the future.  There is a New Hope for the galaxy.

Star Wars, like most Space Operas, is an idealistic story.  The villains are defeated, the heroes are triumphant.  Good wins over evil.  It’s a good ending, a happy ending, well-earned by our heroes.

The ending doesn’t feel saccharine, either.  It is a hard-won victory, and many lives have been lost.  It is an against-all-odds victory, one not without cost, but thanks to the courage and sacrifice of people who believe in freedom, the Rebellion has a fighting chance, and the Empire is that much closer to destruction.  It’s a Happy Ending, and more importantly, it’s the right ending, perfectly matching the tone and characters of the rest of the film.

Star Wars is not about how the hyperdrive works, or the technology required to build the Death Star.  It’s not about how humanity contends with it’s own creations, or how we live in a technologically advanced society.  In fact, it’s not really about ‘humanity’ at all.  It’s just about people.

Star Wars is a fantasy epic set against a backdrop of stars, set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.  It’s about good vs. evil, about the defeat of tyranny.  It’s about a heroic farm boy, a rogue smuggler, and a brave princess.  It’s about heroes and villains, magic and battles.  It’s a fairy tale.

All of the above comes together to make Star Wars the definitive Space Opera.  Every point is perfect, every element in place, so much so that it seems paint-by-numbers.  But it’s not.

Star Wars relies on tropes that are almost as old as stories themselves, but it all feels fresh and new.  By developing interesting worlds, compelling characters, and a moving conflict, Star Wars managed to rise above the standard, taking the term ‘Space Opera’ and turning it into a defining subgenre, rather than an insult.

Star Wars single handedly changed a genre thanks to its earnest storytelling and characters, proving definitively that Tropes Are Not Bad, and that any story, no matter how ‘old’ it is, can still be made something fresh and beloved.

Don’t forget that the ask box is always open for anything from suggestions and discussion ideas to questions and conversations!  Thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope to see you guys in the next article.

[stewblog]

LUCA

“Luca” is a wonderful, instantly charming film that hopefully also is a sign of films to come from Pixar.

It’s not a bold statement to declare a Pixar movie excellent. If anything, it’s exceedingly rare to do anything but. With very few genuine misfires in their catalog (looking at you, “Monster’s University”), even Pixar’s lesser films are often better than some of the best material offered by rival animation houses. But “Luca” manages to stand out even among the top tier of Pixar’s work, in part because it feels somewhat outside of the studio’s typical box.

Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a sea monster living beneath the ocean surface with his family near the quiet fishing town of Portorosso, Italy. He spends his days tending to his herd of fish and pestering his parents with questions about life above the water. He’s never had the guts to go up there, though, until Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) shows Luca that there’s a whole world of cool, human stuff to be discovered. So naturally, having also learned he can assume the visual appearance of a human outside the water, Luca sets out to…get a Vespa. Alberto convinces Luca that the only proper way for them to see the world is on the seat of that quintessential Italian scooter, and the only way they can earn enough money for one is by winning the annual swimming/pasta eating/cycling triathlon held every summer in Portorosso.

There are, of course, the expected “hide your real identity at all costs” hijinks and plenty of fish (sea monster?) out of water awkwardness, but on the whole the stakes driving “Luca” narratively are refreshingly low. There’s no arch villain. No one’s life or livelihood is at stake. Nor does it have the sort of existential stakes that have dominated so many of Pixar’s films. At worst, Luca and Alberto will have their true identities revealed and they won’t get the Vespa they dream of.

It’s a refreshing change of pace and focus. Pixar has succeeded so thoroughly over the years because of the studio’s commitment to crafting characters and scenarios that actually carry dramatic and thematic weight. But it had begun to feel as though there was a mandate pushing stories to continually build up to events that hinged on life and death (sometimes literally, in the case of “Coco” and “Soul”), leaving little room to explore smaller, quieter realities. “Luca” takes a much needed step back and simply allows these characters to exist in the moment.

What struck me most about this more laid-back approach was how much it felt inspired by the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki. For those unfamiliar, Miyazaki’s films - while frequently steeped in fantastical elements - take a significant amount of time to breathe and allow the viewer to soak in the ambiance and energy of a given locale or scene. His films are often as much about what goes on in between the points of dialogue and action as anything else. And while “Luca” never takes quite such significant breaks as a typical Miyazki film, the intent is the same. Director Enrico Casarosa wants you to smell the seaside air, feel the sun beaming down and practically taste the pasta and pesto.

While not always replicating Miyazaki’s work in form, Casarosa evokes it very much in spirit, clearly drawing from the likes of “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” “Ponyo” and “Porco Rosso.” It’s an incredibly sweet natured film that focuses its energy on friendships and emphasizes the importance of being true to yourself, no matter what others might think of who you are. You may be surprised to find you’re not actually alone after all.

The animation is, unsurprisingly, wonderful though I was delighted to see some outside influences creeping into the expected Pixar house style, namely that of Aardman Animation (“Wallace & Gromit,” “Chicken Run”). And I also simply cannot say enough wonderful things about Dan Roemer’s delightful musical score.

Even if “Luca” doesn’t signal the start of a tonal change for Pixar, what it accomplishes on its own is more than enough to have it stand out as one of the studio’s best films.