angryphilosophercowboy

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Might be a weird idea, but here’s something that I think might work on that front— build it around a framing device where someone is trying to figure out why Harker, Mina, and the rest chased this Romanian nobleman all the way back to his homeland before killing him and is using stuff like, say, Harker’s diary entries to piece the story together.

In other words, not only do we get a mostly accurate adaptation of the story, but also an equally mostly accurate adaptation of the original book’s structure.

"Oh look, there's another Dracula movie coming out - 'Abraham's Boys' - I wonder what it's about..."

What It's About: After Jonathan Harker dies, Mina marries Van Helsing and --

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Wait, is that supposed to be an “Explicit Lyrics” sticker on the Misfits album or something? Because if it is, then what’re their songs on the show supposed to be— the radio edits?

Speaking of album covers these are the same image, to me

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Well, here’s a freebie idea for modern!Riot— an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran who’s using his music career as a coping mechanism for what he went through in the Middle East. His father, meanwhile, is pissed that Riot decided to “try and make it on MTV” as opposed to remaining in the military. Cue Riot basically giving his father a great big middle finger by cultivating an androgynous aesthetic like the music stars of the ‘80s.

Also zero chance Riots straight either in the cartoon or comic

agree! Riot's Hope is 100% coded as a coming out story, right down to him very pointedly having both male and female nude statues prominently displayed in his apartment during the scene where he reveals his actual backstory to jem. i read him as bisexual

with the comics it's a bit harder to really talk about Riot as a character because the Stingers show up literally AT the point that the comic is starting to fall apart because KT wants to push future stories in one way (more high-concept melodrama like Infinite) and Hasbro wanted to push in another (retreads of cartoon stories with "a tone closer to the movie" per interviews of the time) and you can kiiiiiiiiiiiinda tell that nobody really wanted to focus on the Stingers, because KT was very clearly more interested in the drama of Shana leaving the band and Pizzazz and Fox causing chaos. I read comics Riot as transmasc based on some old posts from Sophie Campbell saying she leans that way on him with the caveat that im not super sure where he falls in terms of attraction to anyone.

i rly wish the Stingers were given either more time or better stories. a backstory miniseries similar to the one that fleshed out the Misfits really should've done the heavy lifting for letting us actually get to know who this iteration of Riot actually is outside of his infatuation with Jem

not sure where i fall on Riot hcs for my singles club fics tho. gotta work through it by writing him some more tbh

tho i don't think either the comic or the cartoon ever did the concept of the Stingers justice, because the Stingers always get introduced at a point where there's a lot of creative compromises being made and the series is close to ending. it's one of the frustrating things about them

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Speaking as someone who spent his teen years hiking, anyone who gets themselves killed as a result of following an AI-made hiking route deserves a Darwin Award. Seriously, hiking trails exist for multiple reasons, and one of them is so that people don’t get lost.

This may be the worst use of LLMs anyone has attempted, ever. Up there with recognizing mushrooms.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

So, is this some kind of new iteration of the village common or something? Because this is the first I’ve heard of this sort of thing.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

And meanwhile, the news says that the world’s falling apart— snake-themed terrorists striking at major cities on a regular basis, evil giant alien robots that turn into everything from fighter jets to tape decks running amok, and ancient horrors that’re like what you’d get if you put Lovecraft in charge of a Godzilla movie coming out of the ground and doing things like turning people into zombies or bringing the Statue of Liberty to life.

Yeah, you’re pretty sure you won’t live to see thirty.

Okay, but can you imagine how insane the events of early Jem are from the view of the Starlight Girls?

Okay, you've landed yourself in a pretty nice situation with the Bentons. Mr. Benton and his daughters are alright, Mr. Benton owns a record label so sometimes you get to meet the acts he has signed and stuff, and Kimber lets you play around with her makeup and clothes (Aja and Shana are cool too). It's Mrs. Baily who's really running the show, but... it's nice. Then Mr. Benton dies, and everything kinda falls apart. Jerrica's barely out of uni and Kimber's barely out of high school, and Mr. Benton's been kinda letting house repairs slide, and Ashley is being SUCH a bitch about everything, and you're pretty sure that if one more thing in the house breaks, Jerrica's gonna call all your social workers and have you moved to another home, so you're all getting together to try and raise money by doing chores for the neighbors so you can bribe Jerrica with a new fridge (but Ashley is continuing to be a bitch).

Also something weird is going on at the record label, and Jerrica's signed a new act that's mostly her sisters but also this new chick? She's nice, but you don't like the way Rio looks at her.

Then the house burns down, and you're pretty sure that's it, it's back to being bounced around because you're too old to be adopted- And a guy who you later find out makes really wild movies with drag queens (seriously, the guy with the mansion is based off John Waters) lets you move in to a mansion that's the stakes for some kind of battle of the bands, and yay! Jem and the Holograms win in spite of Ashley Being A Bitch and now Starlight House is big enough that you don't even have to share rooms, which is AWESOME. Some of you still do, cause you've never slept alone before and it wasn't that long ago that some weirdo broke into your house and, y'know, burned it down. Less awesome is things get weird and awkward because Rio is so obviously cheating on Jerrica with Jem, and Jerrica's hardly ever around anymore, and you think maybe Jem lives in the mansion? But you're not sure, and Kimber, Aja, and Shana act like they've known her forever but you only started seeing her around after Jerrica signed her.

And you can't take Ba Nee to the mall anymore because she latches on to ANY man with red hair who walks within her line of sight, and she's a nice kid but good GOD is she dumber than a sack of hair. She's, like, one bad day away from ending up a face on a milk carton, and you're tempted to slip whoever takes her a fiver to take Ashley with him.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Yeah, this whole thing has “Bad Idea” written all over it for both the author and DriveThruRPG.

Random RPG Thought

So, uh, this went on sale on DriveThruRPG.com today and I gotta wonder what the people behind are thinking. No matter what it is, a significant portion of the gaming populace is gonna be real mad at you.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

If I had to guess, it’s because it served as a cornerstone for many peoples’ childhoods, may have been their first fandom, and it’s kind of hard to separate it from those positive experiences.

None of which I have, because I was a Lemony Snicket fan when I was that age and ASOUE probably holds up a lot better— seriously, name one other children’s series that have words like “austere”, “ersatz”, or “penultimate” in their books’ titles, or use words like “lachrymose”, “sham”, “ambidextrous”, “stiletto”, or “mycelium” in the actual text.

Also, hot take: Count Olaf is the superior villain to Voldemort. Seriously, the guy’s not only actively pursuing the kids wherever they go, but he usually gets there so far ahead of them that by the time the kids recognize him, he’s (presumably) been there long enough that pretty much everyone else has fallen for his disguise.

Somewhat off-topic for this blog, but just a thought I had given that occasionally Harry Potter themed posts show up my dash currently: I wonder why this is even a debate or discourse. That franchise is not even good at what it is supposed to be good at.

Of course, the author is a giant piece of shit too, but that does not matter when the story and world are trash as well. Like, Harry Potter as a franchise is not even good at its own genre - which you find out very quick if you read and watch other stuff.

Nothing has made me give less of a shit about Rowling's ancient brainfart or its attempted revival than realizing how bad it compares to things that are either in the same genre or genre-adjacent. (Weeb examples: Little Witch Academia, Mairimashita Iruma-kun!, Mashle: Magic & Muscles, etc.)

Yes, I, too, liked it when I was in elementary school. At its core, it is a story made with the quality standards of 8-year-olds with zero frame of reference in mind. You are supposed to grow up and past that.

I hope that new series flops and I never have to see a thing about it.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

And there’s also some of Dragon Ball floating around in there too, what with the ever-increasing number of transformations.

Star Wars and Winx Club are the same send tweet

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Azula: “How’s my mind like the eggs they served in the cafeteria this morning?” *beat* “They’re both scrambled!”

Doctor: “Well, it’s a step up from that ‘What’s the deal with army food?” routine she did at our last Talent Night.”

The thing I think that gets most mischaracterised about Azula in fandom is the fact that Azula, canonically, is really silly and thinks she's the funniest person in the world in the most earnest way possible.

Like sure, you have a different take on how Azula's mental illness manifests? That's fair, we don't have a lot of info on it or her psyche (within the show), you have a different take on how many friends she had and how much they liked/feared her? Alright, that's environmental and isn't even necessarily up to her. But if your Azula isn't cracking jokes and then laughing at them, that's not Azula. That's someone else.

[angryphilosophercowboy]

I wonder what happens when Friday the 13ths fall out of Camp Crystal Lake’s season— does Jason just take the year off?

I’ve been waiting since March to post this...

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Keep in mind that the last time she tried using her body (read: Citadel Station), it ended with it being destroyed. Because yeah, the first System Shock is basically you going around and screwing up her body from the inside— hence why she specifies it’s *her* corridors you’re running through.

" She doesn't need to use her body to get what she wants... She's got yours! "

Computer Gaming World n184 - November, 1999

[angryphilosophercowboy]

You’re blaming the wrong guy here— if anyone’s the culprit, it’d be the people at Hanna-Barbera. Disney, meanwhile, was making up for lost time with original live action stuff. Seriously, about the only animated projects that they did around that time that I can think of were “Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh”, “The Rescuers”, “Robin Hood”, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”, and “Pete’s Dragon” (with the last two being live action/animation hybrids).

Hanna-Barbera, meanwhile, spent most of the decade churning out Scooby-Doo spinoffs, Scooby-Doo clones, and bizarre things like a Three Stooges show where the Stooges were all cyborgs. No, I am not making that one up.

Me too, man 😞

[angryphilosophercowboy]

For sake of reference, things that I’ve had to research for some of my own works (categorized by fandom):

Chemical composition of white stage makeup and forensic photo identification (Batman: The Animated Series)

1980s space probes (Ben 10)

The structure of the British Army (an original work about paranormal investigators, with one of said investigators ex-military demolitions expert)

How long it takes to become a licensed psychotherapist in Britain (same original work as mentioned above)

Start and length of hay mowing season in Britain, the average weight of a 7-foot-tall woman, Welsh desserts, and the Manx language (again, same original work)

Submarine warfare (Gerry Anderson’s Stingray— for the record, I ended up junking all that research because submarine warfare is actually pretty dull)

Child labor laws, average pay rate of a morgue worker in Ohio, and accounts of people waking up in morgues (Danny Phantom)

This is why I read the reddit comments

[angryphilosophercowboy]

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

[angryphilosophercowboy]

If you want to see it to mock it, wait until it hits home video. In the meantime, save your money for Tron: Ares and Predator: Badlands, because those at least seem more interesting than yet another live action remake (and on a side note, you’d think that, by law of averages, at least one of these would turn out good).

"im going to see lilo and stitch tomorrow at the cinema so i can see how bad it is and laugh at it"

YOU ARE STILL GIVING THEM MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[angryphilosophercowboy]

Better question: how would Light handle Jessica Fletcher?

Columbo would have seen thru Kira’s bullshit right away. And after all we don’t even know his first name do we? That’s right, we don’t. The lieutenant is always prepared