#3E-News Media

[fumiko-matsubara]

Very self indulgent warm-up portraits of adult Chiba because the timeskip completely screwed him over and he deserves so much better.

An updated timeline

Like I said before, Chiba changed his hairstyle in high school because his bang-covered face was all over news media and he does NOT want to be recognized on the streets and get mobbed by aggressive journalists.

He cut it quite short at the start of the school year for the sake of people not putting two and two together.

He didn't mind the shorter bangs, parted or brushed down, but the significant lack of length at the back was bothering him. So he just allowed this hair to grow out over time. It settled to a wolfcut sorta and he maintained that length for a while, even by the time the former Class 3E students had gathered for their graduation trip.

Now. The blonde hair.

Chiba had no choice but to lose a bit of length when he made that very impulsive decision because his hair was surprisingly difficult to lift, and it took about 3-4 rounds of bleach to get that light shade of blonde.

And he ended up liking it too much.

So with the great sacrifice of his scalp and the once healthy texture of his hair, Chiba went to live the blond bitch life in college for a couple of years, down with his natural resting bitch face, that his mother would've gotten a heart-attack when he went back to visit if he hadn't told her beforehand 😭

In his final year of university, he was more or less forced to dye his hair back to its natural colour since his scalp isn't abnormally strong like Nakamura's and it desperately NEEDS resting.

Now, as for the band. All members of D.R.E.A.M. had been long planning to attend the same high school ever since Ayaka graduated and went to Kawadate. They wanted to keep the band going for as long as they all can, as it is more of a passion project than a side hobby. It had impacted each of their lives for the better and they wanted it to last.

The band had been the first time Chiba felt that there was a place for someone like him ever since he began hiding himself, and it served as the catalyst for his ongoing journey to gain back the confidence he had once lost.

Anyways. From hopping between shows, releasing music, selling CDs, and posting videos online - they had earned quite a lot throughout the years despite being an independent band, that even if the profit was evenly split between the members, none of them would have anything to worry about when unemployed for a while.

And that's when we have the graduation album!!

...where Chiba was yet again rejected from his job interview even though this particular company was quite low on employees. He had a feeling that it was always because of his face since the person interviewing him refuses to make eye contact, and that pisses him off. Talk about discrimination.

Thankfully, the always busy Hayami was free this time. It had been a while since they last saw each other and he really just wanted someone to rant to.

And he needed a favour.

Fast forward, you have Chiba deliberately stealing all the clients from the companies that rejected him because he's petty 😂

[amazingmsme]

3E? 🤨

Sorry this took forever, I was trying to finish my spiderverse fic while there was still hype lol. But this one was so much fun & it gave me the perfect excuse to write a self indulgent fic for the book I finished earlier this year, aka Night Film

(For those who don’t know, this was in regards to an obscure media ask game) So without further ado, here’s a quick lil fic for my new favorite trio!

Wet Blanket Attitude

Nora was already showered and in her pajamas by the time they made it back to Scot's town house. He offered Hopper a fresh change of clothes and he stripped right there in the living room, slipping on the baggy t-shirt and sweatpants. Scott shook his head and chuckled fondly as he made his way to the bathroom, following Hopper's lead and stripping down the hall before turning into the bathroom and shutting the door.

Even though the hot shower was exactly what he needed, he was exhausted and didn't want to stand any longer. He exited in less than 10 minutes, fully dressed in plaid pajama pants and an old graphic tee he got in high school that had really seen better days. Holes dotted the entirety of the shirt, allowing pale skin to peak through. He collapsed on the couch, sandwiched between the two goons he somehow came to adopt.

"Okay old man? You look tired," Hopper spoke up on his right. Scot turned to give him a severely unamused glare.

"Yeah Hop. I am tired. Exhausted in fact," he snapped. "Maybe next time don't leave your partner in the dust."

"Maybe next time you should keep up," he quipped back, cocky smirk and all. Scot rolled his eyes with a huff, sinking deeper into the cushions.

"Just shut up. What are we watching anyway?" he asked, pointing at the tv, the only light source in the dark room.

"I dunno, just some crap Nora turned on."

"Hey! It is not crap!" she interjected, defensive over her choice of shows. "It's Little Shop of Horrors!"

"A musical? After what I just went through? Absolutely not, you might as well just shoot me," Scot grumbled, snatching the remote straight out of her hand. She made a noise of complaint as it was ripped from her grasp. "What gives?"

"My house, my tv, I decide what we watch," Scot sassed, searching through the channel guide until he found something suitable, settling on reruns of King of the Hill. He relaxed as he listened to Dale's classic paranoid ranting and shivered slightly as a chill ran through his body.

He looked to his left when he felt a hand tap his shoulder and saw Nora holding up the edge of her blanket. "You cold?"

Scot shook his head and turned his attention back to the tv. "No thanks, I'm fine."

"But you look cold! Doesn't he look cold?" Nora asked Hopper for backup. He glanced at him from the corner of his eye, not really wanting to look away from the screen.

"Uh, sure," he agreed, because it was just easier to just go with whatever Nora was saying than trying to argue.

"I think the doctor's prescribing you a dose of my body heat," she said matter of factly. Scot furrowed his brows, but before he could question her, the blanket was thrown over him and she was pressed against his side. Scot let out a long, suffering sigh but let it happen, too tired to push her away. Besides, that would've been rude.

"Oh no, it's worse than I thought! Quick Hop, I think he needs a double dose!"

Hopper's lips quirked up in an amused smirk. He pressed the back of his hand to Scot's forehead and decided to play along. "You're right, he's freezing!"

"You two are ridiculous," he said, barely holding back a chuckle.

Nora scoffed, "Someone has to be." Scot looked at her, narrowing his eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you got a stick up your ass. You take things too seriously," Hopper chided in, still staring at the screen.

"Because this is a serious investigation!" he defended himself. "And I'd appreciate it if you two buckled down and treated it as such," he scolded.

"Hey, I'm the one who found the list of guest names! Which, you're welcome by the way," Hopper sassed.

"The polite thing to do would be to say thank you," Nora prompted. Scot merely scoffed in amusement.

"For what? Being a smart ass?"

"Okay, now you're being one," Hopper said, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "I think someone just lost their blanket privileges," he said matter of factly, yanking the blanket off of Scot, and consequently, Nora.

He tried to hide the shiver that coursed through his body when the cold air hit his skin. Nora lunged across his lap to try and wrestle the blanket back. "Hey, you can't punish me too!"

"Maybe you should sit in the middle then," Scot suggested.

"No way, everyone knows the sides are the best part of the couch!" she argued.

In their playful tussle, Nora happened to accidentally squeeze Hopper's thigh. He jerked away and barked out a laugh, hand flying up to cover his mouth. Nora's eyes lit up with mischief.

"Give me the blanket and I might go easy on you," she bargained.

Hopper glared at her and wrapped the blanket around him tighter. "Do your worst."

Nora didn't need to be told twice, immediately setting to work and going for his side. He twisted and bent over in an attempt to dislodge her hands, but her fingers already poked and prodded anywhere she could reach.

In the short time they'd known each other, neither Scot nor Nora had even heard him laugh. So it came as a shock to see him curl in a ball, hiding his face in the soft blanket. His long legs kicked out and flailed as Nora's hands slipped inside his fuzzy shield and skittered over his belly.

Hopper was leaning against Scot's shoulder, laughing loudly right by his ear. Maybe if he wasn't so tired, he'd let it slide; after all, the kid could stand to lighten up, but this was too much noise for Scot's liking. Not to mention Nora was laying across his lap in order to reach her giggly victim. So Scot was quite literally trapped in the middle of a tickle fight with no foreseeable escape... If he wasn't careful, this could end badly.

"It's pretty late and we all had a rough day, so I think I'm gonna head off to bed," he spoke up above the loud laughter as he tried to worm his way out of the prison he found himself in. "Just try to laugh a little quieter," he teased Hopper, shooting him a wink.

"What? No, you can't leave!" Nora protested. "C'mon, just stay 'til the end of this episode!" she pleaded, not letting him get up from the couch.

He looked up in disbelief. "Nora, the episode just started," he said in a deadpan tone. She giggled, but not as much as Hopper was from her nails skittering over his neck.

"So? It gives us the perfect amount of time!" she chirped. Scot narrowed his eyes, giving her a skeptical look.

"To do what?" he dared to ask.

"To do this!" she exclaimed, catching him completely off guard by tickling up his ribs. He choked out a laugh before he could stop himself, his entire body going tense.

“N-Noraha! What’re you-“

“Tickle fight! Duh!” she mocked, hands never ceasing their work. Scot thrashed and tried to crawl off the couch, only for her to grab his ankle and pull him back.

“Nohoho! It’s too lahahate for thihihis!” he protested through his laughter. He snorted rather loudly when she dug under his arms to tickle his pits, turning bright red from embarrassment.

“Aww that’s so cute! I didn’t know you snort when you laugh!” she cooed. Scot yanked the blanket from Hopper’s lap to hide his blushing face and hopefully muffle his giggle fit. Nora had no trouble skittering about his torso, looking to Hopper for help. “Aren’t you gonna help? I mean, this opportunity doesn’t come along every day.”

Hopper’s amused smirk quickly morphed into a downright sinister grin as he made a show of cracking his knuckles. Scot shook his head, but the endless stream of laughter spilling from his lips did nothing to deter him.

“Well then, I’d be an idiot to pass up on something like this,” he teased, grabbing his legs in a headlock. Scot’s eyes widened and his thrashing doubled.

“No! Cohome on guys, l-let’s just gohoho to bed! W-we ahahall had aha long dahahay!” he tried reasoning with them.

“Yeah, and this is a great way to unwind! I mean, just imagine how happy and relaxed you’ll be when we get through! Think of it like therapy,” Nora rambled on, playfully pinching up and down his sides.

“Thihihis ihis nowhere near theheherapy!” Scot argued, but the wide smile on his face said otherwise. He’d never admit it, especially not to them, but it kinda felt good to laugh so much after an absolute shit day.

But then Hopper started scratching underneath his toes, and Scot immediately vetoed that fleeting thought.

Of course they didn’t plan on tickling him for the entire duration of the episode, only for about halfway through. (Which was still too long in Scot’s opinion.)

As soon as they granted mercy and let him go, he flopped against the back of the couch, face still pink and panting for breath.

“You two are downright cruel. Never do that again,” he ordered.

“Nah, I think it should be a regular thing. Doctor’s orders to cure that wet blanket attitude of yours,” Nora teased, looking rather smug. Scot groaned.

“I’m not even a wet blanket. If anyone here classified as one it’s Ponyboy over there,” he said, weakly gesturing to Hopper.

“Huh?” he asked, looking just as clueless as Nora.

“The Outsiders? Stay gold, Ponyboy?” he questioned, waiting for the reference to click. When it didn’t, he sighed and sat up.

“They don’t make you kids read any good books in school these days,” he complained, mostly to himself. He finally stood up and stretched, his back popping loudly.

“And just because I’m heading off to bed now doesn’t mean I’ll let you off the hook for that little stunt. I’ll cash in my revenge tomorrow, so beware,” he warned, already walking down the hall to his room.

The two watched him leave, sitting in silence until Nora spoke up.

“You think he’ll actually do it?”

“Nah. He’s all bark, no bite. We got nothin’ to worry about,” Hopper insisted.

Oh how wrong they were.

[makeshiftcoop]

Misfits - Core Tapes (or my first attempt at game blogging)

Disclaimer: I will update this text with some frequency, and it will be fixed here. I know it's a mess right now, sorry!

So, for a while, im kind of making a game.

Something that can mix my obsession growing up with comics and the newfound success of media that deals with powers and mutations and subverts the "Marvel Style".

So, Misfits is my Post-OSR-Resistance attempt to that. Inspired by stuff that i like from the OSR and Post-OSR corners of the ttrpg designsphere (like Bastionland, Mothership, Songbird 3e, Eco Mofos and Lost Bay), by things from Rowan, Rook and Decard and they Resistance games, and by a myriad of other influences on rules lite games like 24XX, Offworlders, Lumen and etc etc etc

I expect to post more about it here soon but, for now, those are the bones of Misfit. I have to shout it to the void before making other stuff. Hope someone enjoys it's initial vibe:

1. MISFITS MUGSHOTS (Character sheet):

Stats (1 point each and assign 5. No Stat can get to 6):

- Body (Physical experiences, agility, strength, throwing punches, jumping between buildings) 

- Vibe (Social experiences, charisma, etiquette, flirting, bluffing) 

- Weird (Unreal experiences, spirit, soul, sixth sense, your PWRZ, searching metaphysical insight, harming extracorporeal entities)

- Brains (Intellectual experiences, logical thinking, riddle solving, not falling for bullshit)

Moodboard: Pick a few and expand on it's vibe (coming soon, but it's basically a style section. it's important to look cool and pretty) 

Stuff: Important stuff to use or carry around. Things that cause harm have a stress die attached. Other stuff can be used contextually to gain an extra die, success on a action, clear stress, etc.

PWRZ: Cool powers. They usually have a stress (damage) tier, a flavor description and a mechanical effect. (Pick a passive PWR and one for each weird point) 

- Passive

- D4 

- D6

- D8

- D12 

- D20 

Quirk (Some different mechanics of the Mugshot):

2. ACTING

- When attempting an action with uncertain outcomes or where complications could be interesting, roll d6s with the most approriate stat (I think as ways of doing or feeling things).

- Always roll at least one dice. If in advantage or disadvantage add or subtract dice as seem fitting. If disadvantaged below zero, start to roll and pick the worst.

- Stats are meant to be flexible and open to creative problem solving.

- Misfits can throw a knife with their Body, their Brains or even with their Weird after using the knife for years, getting attached and naming it Poco.

- Stuff and people can have complex relations with Stats (seeing status as ways of feeling) that may allow creative interpretations.

- Nothing just fails. Something always happen in the world.

- If an action is too complex to be solved with a single roll or take space and time to develop it's a PLAN. A complexity will be defined in a CLOCK format between 4 and 12 segments, where the Misfit will be able to act to advance those segments until completion. Failing in actions related to the PLAN can start an opposite clock with consequences, expand it's segments or even collapse the entire PLAN with approriate (and possible disastrous) consequences (I see PLANS as a way of extending actions into sequences, helping to streamline the play and also raising the stakes. It's a way I enjoy to play especially solo)

3. DICE RESULTS:

1-3: A failure. But more than that, an outcome that didn't met the expectations. Some complications arrived, the competition was fiercer than it looked like, the stakes are now higher, the context changed. Stress can be suffered. 

4-5: A success with complications. A twist, new element or context can enter the situation as well.

6: Success. Clean success, the narrative moves forward as intended 

More than one 6: Critical success. More stress dealt, more favorable circumstances, sunshine and rainbows.

4. STRESS:

A track that goes to 10 that stores all the Misfit's misfortunes. Everytime you receive stress from any source unless your PWRZ (be it physical harm, a very embarassing interaction or mental overload from a paracausal entity) fill the track and roll a D10. If the result goes under the current stress value, the Misfit suffer a Strike. A concrete manifestation of consequences related to one of the stats. 4 Strikes and you are OUT. If the stress comes from your PWRZ you just fill the track withou rolling for strikes. Your PWRZ themselves can't take you out but they will make you frail.

5. HURTING THINGS (AND GETTING HURT) 

- The combat is dynamic, focused on player facing rolls. 

- The Misfits always go first, unless taken unprepared. 

- Enemies attacks come with results of Failures or Success with complications. 

- The turn goes on in Vibe order. Any action can be attempted. Failing actions in combat usually leaves the Freak exposed to being hurt. 

- Foes have particular behaviors as described on UNEASY THINGS (future zine with threats). When the resistence of a foe hits 0 it's dead. Most will not fight until that point. But some will.

6. THE EVERYDAY AND THE SANDBOX (It's in a new post!):

- What you do?

- Conspiracies and Happenings (to gain Fame)

- Spend FAME to create PLANS and make your Happenings, Factions and know more Faces

- PLANS: Complex actions that require time and multiple efforts (Flirting, Making Friends, Organizing a Party, Creating a Bowling Club, Investigating a Murder, etc)

- MESSY SCENES!: Complex moments with big stakes that deserve narrative spotlight. Like: A Chase, Fighting Big Things, Fucking, Karaoking, Dueling,

- The game can be played with as many complexities as wanted. Some PLANS and MESSY SCENES can be easily diluted to one rolling, simple combat or just roleplaying without dice. But i think those are nice procedures to Solo play and also for some types of Group Play, easing players into narrative control within their MESSY SCENES and framing clearly objectives with the PLANS

7. FAME (you guessed right, coming soon): 

- Solving Conspiracies and helping FACES out in Happenings grants FAME. 

- FAMOUS Misfits can really alter the Everyday, starting factions, throwing up legendary ragers, becoming marketable capers or even starting an revolution. 

8. CREDIT/GETTING STUFF

- Misfits always have enough to get by. Some start with a little more, as can be seen by their Mugshot or Moodboard.

- Credit is abstracted in 6 tiers that follow the PWRZ tiers and can be used to buy stuff, define "loot" and payments.

-Acquiring things that are into your credit tier is mundane and simple. Everything above your credit tier requires either some valuable stuff or you will be In Debt

- While In Debt you can't buy nothing above the misfit tier, and have to get some loot to sell, win some reward for a happening, or go to The Board and find some Job

-To change your Credit tier you don'thave to hoard riches, but get known. The only way to upgrade your credit tier is investing Fame.

TIERS: 1. Misfit/simple (resources with no die value. worthless in trading/selling) 2. Working class (D4) 3. Degree haver (D6) 4. Up and coming (D8) 5. Money mover (D12) 6. Filth rich (D20)

9. WRONGDOING - Every Misfit has already beem accused of some kind of wrongdoing. It can be true or it can be made up. Fact is, a Misfit can't really stay put and live a normal life cause they already have been stripped of the normality.

10. PATH - Also a future exploration here, but the idea is having another layer of personality and a goal beyond "live life, make friends, fight the system" for Misfits. My idea here is to eventually get to something like Beats from The Heart, turning Paths as ways of getting more powerful:

An exploratory list of Paths: - Hedonist - Communitary - Explorer - Revolutionary

[dropintomanga]

Off to Anime NYC 2023

It's that time of year again. Off to another Anime NYC this weekend.

Unfortunately, I'm going through some stuff physically, so I probably will not be attending everything I want to see and WILL NOT be attending evening panels despite there being some good stuff happening.

Things I will check out are:

Friday, November 17, 2023

2:30pm - VIZ Media Panel (note: I've been reading Undead Unluck and enjoying the hell of out it. I'm happy Yoshifumi Tozuka will be coming.)

4:30pm - Autism in the Anime Fan Community

Saturday, November 18, 2023

2:00pm - Yen Press Panel

3:15pm - Dark Horse Manga

5:15pm - The Ancient Magus' Bride Live Drawing with Kore Yamazaki (might skip this one)

Sunday, November 19, 2023

12:30pm - The Ancient Magus' Bride Talk Session (this might be more my cup of tea than the drawing because it's Kore Yamazaki and her editor)

1:30pm - Star Fruit Books - New Licenses

Oh yeah, I'm cosplaying as Ada Wong from Resident Evil 4 (2023). I loved Separate Ways and the game is my 2023 Game of the Year.

I might be hanging around the Riichi Nomi mahjong gaming area in Hall 3E as well and checking out various things that catch my eye.

If any of you are going to the convention, I hope you guys have fun! I'm not sure we'll meet up, but enjoy the experience!

[sharmin123]

TubeTrivia AI Review | Create Viral Video Quiz Builder In Minutes

Welcome to the TubeTrivia AI Review blog post. The biggest thing happening in social media right now is “QUIZ VIDEOS”World’s 1st & ONLY A.I. App. TubeTrivia AI  Simple “Quiz Video” Strategy is Generating Millions of Views,  3E Formula + Latest AI Tech Pulls In 100k visitors/month, NEW A.I. Hack That’s Blowing Up the Internet. NEW Traffic Strategy: 100s of Viral Quiz Videos in Minutes (No Ads,…

[karmaiso]

📌

[blog is still under construction until further notice.]

this blog is dedicated to archiving official (mainly visual) content from the assassination classroom/ansatsu kyoushitsu series.

mod's pronouns are kit/kits/kitself.

all posts that are solely archival are tagged #assclass archives.

each character is tagged in the format #firstname lastname (ex. #nagisa shiota, #karma akabane, #yuuma isogai)

art and visual content (including videos) is tagged with #art. text-only content is tagged with #text. english-translated content is tagged with #translation. music/audio is tagged with #audio. other kinds of media are tagged with #misc (and may later be tagged more specifically should the need arise).

informational/update posts are tagged with #kunugigaokannouncement.

due to tumblr's 30 tag limit, content that contains too many characters to tag individually will be tagged with #3e and/or #group. most of the affected posts are graphics containing the full class 3-e.*

while this blog is titled after a pairing name, all archive posts will be kept completely separate from romantic contexts. all posts that mention/discuss pairings are tagged #seishunship for blacklisting purposes.

credit is given wherever necessary. content provided to tumblr will be reblogged to this blog rather than reposted. if content was posted on a different site, there will be a link to the original source. if any attributions are missing, please notify the blog as soon as possible and it will happily be added.

any post updates will be edited into the original post rather than added as reblogs (ex. corrected attribution, additional content missed on the first upload). make sure to open the original post link for the most updated information.

if you happen to have any content not currently available on this blog, feel free to submit it! it would be greatly appreciated.

any questions/suggestions/requests can be sent through the ask box as well.

official sources include the anime twitter and anime website.

some blogs that have similar archival content (though not all in one place) include akabanekarmakun (screenshots of cards from the now-defunct mobile game), irraydiance and blazardragon (translations).

blog is currently running on a queue of content already posted to tumblr, scheduled to post once per day. if the queue runs empty, it will simply stay inactive unless new content is found/posted, but it will not be deactivated (as that would defeat the purpose).

thank you!

*note: there are some pictures that contain the perfect amount of characters to fit in the 30 tag limit, but these posts are then unable to be tagged with the #group and/or #korosensei tags. should i completely forego tagging full class pics with each individual character, or should i tag as many as possible? i'm open to feedback about this specifically.

[talenlee]

3E: The Scariest Thing About The Lich

Welcome once again to a spoooky post about stuff that’s in D&D! That’s right, it’s time to once again look at an older, historical edition of D&D that may just be serving as my excuse to look back to the early 00s and late 1990s and consider what tabletop gaming thought of as normal and cool, and go ‘wow that’s messed uuup’! But this time with a spooooky twist!

We’re going to talk about liches!

In the simplest way of describing it, a lich is an undead kind of boss monster, where the body you deal with can be killed, but as long as a special item is not destroyed, the lich reconstitutes shortly. You might recognise it as a bit like a Dracula story, where a vampire is killed but returns to life very conveniently if the proper ritual isn’t done to deal with it. This particular idea is pretty cool, where you can tell a story where, yes, violence is needed to claim power from the oppressor, but the actual resolution of the problem is not just stopping with the act of violence.

In D&D, typically, liches are spellcasters, wizards that get so good at spellcasting, and so invested in becoming good at spellcasting, that they eventually do a magical ritual to stick their soul in an object. This object is then the thing that needs destroying to kill the lich. That object, as one of the most important things in the world, needs to be kept safe, and thus creates a set of incentives and expressions for the lich. Do you put the object somewhere near you, so you can keep an eye on it and defend it? Do you put it somewhere remote, so anyone who kills you will have no chance to find it before you come back to life and exact punishment? Can you make it a puzzle? Is it emotionally important to you?

Liches did exist in earlier editions of course, but for me, historically, they seem most significantly part of 3rd edition. Particularly, for some inexplicable reason, the 3rd edition description of Liches included instructions for becoming one, and made it a process that sounded both annoying and attainable. Liches weren’t a monster category any more in that edition but rather something that, if you wanted, you could become, because it was just another way of being. Oh, sure, you might have to be evil and give up some magical objects, but the idea of becoming a lich and spending resources to do it was right there in the 3e monster book. Don’t ask how it interacted with level adjustment though, that was goofy.

Part of the thing with liches, at least as you might know the term these days, is that even though the idea they work from isn’t exactly new or anything, this idea of the lich as someone who has stored their soul in an object for longevity seems to link back to the D&D representation of it. It’s not an idea unheard of — you probably heard of The Painting of Dorian Grey, right? — but these days, the idea of a powerful wizard who stores their soul somewhere has that same connection to the idea of a lich, seemingly thanks to D&D. The word, referring to an undead wizard who’s hard to kill specifically ties back to D&D, and the modern media that grows out of that love of D&D stuff brings it along.

That’s probably why Arthas, the character from World of Warcraft and possibly one of the most widely-known undead villains of modern media, is known as The Lich King – it wasn’t like that term was meaningful without the background of D&D. There’s a villain in the TV series Adventure Time that is known as just ‘The Lich,’ and that term is treated with seriousness enough that it supports itself. There’s another mainstream media example, but it’s related to Harry Potter and quite frankly, I don’t care.

None of that, though, is the scariest thing about Liches. The idea of a D&D thing spreading into the general culture, the horror of what they represent distorting and pressing itself onto an entire genre of media? That’s just cultural exchange. It’s not even like the lich itself represents something particularly worrying, like a racist stereotype, right?

Right?

Alright, well, there is the origin of the term used for these soul storage devices liches use. You might notice, if you’re a keen reader, that I didn’t use the word ‘phylactery’ once so far. This is because this is the term where things get uncomfortable about liches.

There’s always an uncomfortable place to come from when I start talking about ‘Jewish stuff.’ This is because there are some Jewish things that are cultural and some that are religious and some thing at are straight up lies from people like my family about what they ‘really’ mean by things. When I say ‘phylacteries are a Jewish thing,’ understand that that’s a phrase that comes with some caveats and some specifics, some of which I’m not really equipped to explain as an expert.

Specifically, if you’re an expert on this kind of terminology, you might know that largely, they’re not called phylacteries. They’re called tefillin, which refers to small black leather boxes, with leather straps, which hold particular verses of the Torah. They’re used for prayers, and that’s all you need for a general overview before we start getting into discussions of who and who doesn’t use them and why. You know, the first paragraph of Wikipedia stuff. You should check them out, they’re interesting.

Anyway, the thing is, these things are sometimes referred to as phylacteries – it’s a Greek term, and it’s used in the new testament, and in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906, at least, Phylacteries and Tefillin were treated as synonyms. I understand these days the more common term is Tefillin, which may relate to there being a mainstream modern culture of speaking Hebrew, as opposed to using more ‘Christian’ words.

Anyway, point is, this is not a word that was kicking around widely. You had to be a bit of a dork to know what they were, and know this specific term. You had to be, say, a heavily invested Jehovah’s Witness mythology nerd, who read a lot and didn’t really regard other faiths and their rituals as being acceptable in public spaces. You know, you had to be a person like Gary Gygax.

I don’t think Gary Gygax specifically went: Ah! I need a term for these undead wizards, time to dig around and find something that shows Jewish people what I think of their tefillin. I think he looked around for obscure words that fit the needs and didn’t think twice about what it meant when he used a Jewish religious observance term for his Evil Wizard Soul Storage Box.

Kinda sucks though. Maybe we don’t call them that any more, eh? It’s not like the word has any use in English aside from these two spots.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[synergymarine]

𝐍𝐨 𝐏𝐏𝐄 𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐘𝐄 With physical duties done and all safe in the Day Room, Captain R.Ananth Fernando and his crew on the DAIWAN KALON brought in the New Year with a fancy dress competition, with much creativity and fun.     As pictured, the winners were Oilers Bryan Gayares and Plaridel Relloso - respectively formidable Spider-Man opponent Venom and Spartan warrior-king Leonidas - together with DC Rencel Laserna as super-villain the Joker, and many others came close with well-known cartoon, film and other media characters, with 3E San Pedro Jetmar showing great improvisation with a kettle for a magic lamp.     There was good cheer at this gathering, with Chief Cook Joffer De Asis proudly in his very own costume in having produced a sumptuous feast which was hugely enjoyed by all.   Well done to all competitors and indeed to the whole company on board the DAIWAN KALON for giving 2022 such a send-off and 2023 such a welcome.

[worldspotlightnews]

Iranian media claims naval forces warned US Navy aircraft against entering its airspace

Iranian media on Sunday reported that the country’s naval forces had warned off a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft from entering Iran’s airspace over the Sea of Oman.  Per the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, a U.S. Navy EP-3E was about to enter Iran’s airspace over the Sea of Oman when Iranian naval forces “gave the plane a warning and blocked its unauthorized entry.”  FILE: An U.S. Navy…

[sugarfortia]

I am by no means saying that I think marijuana is a good thing, to me it is mostly a neutral topic. But I do take great interest in the topic of legalization in the U.S., since it is technically on-par in harmfulness with alcohol.

Anyway, look at this piece of text from my sociology textbook:

"In the early 1900s, an influx of immigrants began entering the country from Mexico. These newcomers took up residence in White communities, spoke a different language, and began competing for jobs and resources. They used marijuana more frequently than most Americans. Police and others began to circulate rumors regarding the substance’s link to violence and immorality. Newspapers and lawmakers spoke about the “Marijuana Menace” and the “evil weed,” and articles and images began to portray it as a corrupting force on America’s youth. Beginning in 1916, state after state began passing laws prohibiting marijuana use, and in 1937 Congress passed a federal law banning it (White 2012). Penalties for its usage increased over time, spiking during the War on Drugs, with racially and ethnically disparate applications. But more recently, as discussed in the introduction, marijuana is once again seen as an important medical treatment and an acceptable recreational pursuit. What changed this time?"

And sure enough, according to Britannica (quick google search):

"Aided by an eager news media—and such propaganda films as Reefer Madness (1936)—Anslinger eventually oversaw the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937, which effectively made the drug illegal across the United States."

I know this is probably common knowledge but who was going to tell me.

(The textbook is Introduction to Sociology 3e from Openstax.)

[tommosupport]

We get some asks from time to time about where to get data from. Of course, we want to preface this by saying that you need proper context in order to be able to use the data fully and build on it. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of platforms available for you to use - we’ve added caveats where necessary.

1.       Kworb (http://kworb.net) 

a.   Provides realtime iTunes chart updates for both singles and albums, as well as iTunes popularity updates for both singles and albums. You can sort by country or get worldwide data, and the platform also offers some data on YouTube and other metrics, such as Artist Popularity.

b.   Drawbacks: Keep in mind that even though it’s realtime, there is a lag in Kworb’s data nonetheless. Popularity is updated only every four hours or so. iTunes charts will update more regularly, but will lag behind what people may already be able to see in their own iTunes stores.

2.       DigitalSalesData (http://digitalsalesdata.com) 

a.   This website used to be able to provide you with the sales numbers for singles on iTunes charts.

b.   Drawbacks: It no longer gives accurate data, because this is no longer included in the iTunes Store API. Nonetheless, it does give you an indication of the market as a whole in a country – are the margins to get into the Top 10 close or not, and what’s the sales velocity like? Keep in mind that these numbers therefore should be interpreted, and not just blankly copied or taken as reflective of the actual sales numbers.

3.   Chartmetric (http://chartmetric.com) 

a.   Probably one of the most elaborate websites that lets you collect many KPIs from various platforms – TikTok, Shazam, Spotify, AppleMusic, YouTube, etc. They have over 25 different data sources.  It also shows you things like fan conversion rate (the ratio of monthly listeners vs artist followers on Spotify, for example), and lets you sort playlists on whether they are editorial, personalized or both. They provide data on trends and give you updates in percentages as well when it comes to relative change in subscribers, views, etc. There’s a separate section on social insights, too. They also developed their own cross-platform index which is a useful tool to see if an artist is able to really create a robust fan foundation across all various social platforms. Chartmetric regularly publishes interesting pieces on their latest finds and data analysis. Reading them will help you understand the data they offer, and will let you know how to interpret it all.

b.   Drawbacks: You can only follow up to 5 tracks/items and get email notifications for the free version. And most importantly, you need to actually put in some work to understand how you can interpret their data points. Otherwise it can be overwhelming, or you may just copy-paste the numbers without contextualizing them, which isn’t going to help anyone. It’s great for trends, but you need to be able to identify those and explain them, supported by the numbers. You also don’t have as much insight into radio on the free platform.

4.   Songstats

a.   Similar to Chartmetric, SongStats offers data on an artist and their discography, using various inputs (Spotify, Beatport, AppleMusic, Deezer, Shazam, SoundCloud, Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, TraxSource, 1001 Tracklists, YouTube, iTunes). It can also provide you with an overview of the top current playlists where any music by Louis is playlisted. You can customise what data inputs you want to see.

b.   Drawbacks: The data they provide for the free version is very limited, and while they do provide some analytics for free – those are all cumulative data. For example, they’ll say Defenceless is on 114 playlists and has a reach of 2,04M. This is in total, across time. It is not always current, so again you have to be very careful with reading the data they give you in analytics, and how you need to interpret it. It also depends per input source. iTunes & AppleMusic do offer a distinction between current or total/cumulative.

5.   Soundcharts (http://soundcharts.com) 

a.   Similar to Chartmetric and Songstats (more like Songstats in how it’s formatted, but more like Chartmetric in the data it lets you see). Very useful specifically if you want to see a breakdown of radio play per country.

b.   Drawbacks: This is only free for two weeks, then plans start at 41$ a month. Moreover, again, be careful in how you interpret data. They don’t properly account for syndicated shows, and they use a questionable metric to track audiences. It also makes no distinction between internet/terrestrial radio. (There’s a difference, because internet radio is traditionally not counted for charting, whereas airplay on ‘terrestrial’ radio does count if radio is tracked for charting purposes like in the US). When you look at e.g. radio play, make sure to use the function to filter out plays shorter than 30 seconds!

6.   SpotifyCharts (http://spotifycharts.com) 

a.   The official site of Spotify that updates on Viral and Top 200 playlists. You may find that there’s a difference between the numbers shown here and on an artist’s own profile. It’s because these numbers have been audited extra carefully to filter out any sort of artificial inflation or fraudulent streaming activities. These update daily around 3PM EST, usually a bit earlier than the song specific numbers.

b.   Drawbacks: While they do update daily, the time thereof is incredibly irregular.

7.   Chartmasters (http://chartmasters.org) 

a.   A site that allows you to quickly see an artist’s overall Spotify streams in a table. You can sort based on popular songs or on discography.

b.   Drawback: You need an account and only get to use it 3 times a day. Make sure you use them wisely.

8.   Billboard (http://billboard.com) 

a.   Billboard offers a variety of charts – aside from the most well known Hot 100 and Album 200 (and the Social 50 in the past). It also used to offer artist-specific overviews of peak chart positions.

b.   Drawbacks: We said ‘used to’, because they technically still offer it – you just need to have a paid subscription to be able to access that data, as well as the other charts they have. Think of split-out charts on digital download sales or streaming, as well as radio airplay or genre-specific charts.

9.   NextBigSound (http://nextbigsound.com) 

a.   NBS is monitored and used by Nielsen to compile the Social 50 for Billboard. It provides you a good overview of social media clout and activity. It also gives margins as to whether or not an artist’s activity and engagement are on par with what you’d expect of an artist what x amount of followers, for example. Also unique: It gives you insights in Pandora. Pandora is part of SiriusXM, as well as its own streaming service and is therefore influential in US radio play as well.

b.   Drawbacks: It only tracks a limited amount of data sources (Facebook, Pandora, Twitter, Wikipedia), and used to provide more insights as to e.g. gender & country demographics. It no longer will do that, unless you have access to an artist’s AMP on Pandora.

10.   Radio Airplay Chart UK (http://ukairplaychart.com/)

a.   Gives you an overview of Top 40 songs being played on UK radio. You can also choose whether you want a rolling overview or see last chart week.

b.   Drawbacks: It doesn’t tell you how often a song needs to be played and if this is based on audience or amount of plays (or when songs were most often played)

11.   AllAccess (http://allaccess.com) 

a.   This is the database that is most often used by radio in the US to find new songs to play and to track radioplay across the country. It’s also a great platform to keep updated with the latest changes in terms of program directors or hosts at particular radio stations (which is useful when requesting). It will show you when a song was played and how often, and the estimated audience that was reached. All these things factor in airplay charting, so it’s nice to have a breakdown of it. It’ll also tell you which radio stations are giving support.

b.   Drawbacks: You need to have an existing account with them and you need to know how to navigate their platform, which can be quite tricky. Moreover, they use the callsigns of radio stations, which can further complicate finding the data you need, because you’re most likely not going to be familiar with those.

12.   SpotonTrack (http://spotontrack.com) 

a.   Sends you daily reports of Spotify and AppleMusic tracking data for a song. Useful for playlist updates!

b.   Drawbacks: Only lets you track one song for two weeks in the free trial, after that you’ll have to pay for the service. You could technically also monitor radioplay, but this is not available for free trial users.

13.   RadioMonitor (http://radiomonitor.com) 

a.   This site shows you radio charts around the world, but can also provide aggregate data for particular regions.

b.   Drawbacks: Only useful once a song has started charting in airplay Top 10s.

14.   WARM Music (https://warmmusic.net/) 

a.   Allows you to track radio play starting from 3E per month

b.    Drawbacks: Not sure how accurate their data is, though they monitor over 28000 stations around the world. When using the free trial from time to time, it always seemed somewhat limited and not in step with what other sites would say (i.e., currently it says Defenceless was only played 49 times in total over the past two weeks. We know this is not correct.). 

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - The Absolute Best!

After doing the least best this series has done, it's time for a much, much harder list to put together: the absolute best episodes of DuckTales 2017. I am not going to lie: this was hard to put together. Anyone could guess that based on how I once planned to have this list alongside the worst list and that did not happen. I can also see myself forgetting about other really good episodes of this show. However, after days of pondering, I believe I have a good list here.

Same rules as the last list.

It has to be an episode of DuckTales 2017. No shorts, even if the shorts combined can make up a full episode.

With this list, I have to say something bad about each of these episodes. Not necessarily the worst part of the episode, but a bad part nonetheless. These are going to be more nitpicky, but it is only fair to prove the constant that there is no such thing as a perfect piece of media and it is a decent challenge for me.

This is my opinion and my opinion alone. There are episodes I didn't like as much that a lot of people did. The last list should be a huge hint at that.

Alright, let's begin.

10. Jaw$!

I mentioned this episode in my Least Best as the better example of the show establishing the relationship between Lena and Magica De Spell. It establishes Magica De Spell better than either of the episodes that featured her before this one. One was a tease put in the very last minute of the episode to show how Lena is going to be far more important than the "cool new goth girl", and the other was the Terra-Firmians episode that used her as a way to improve what would otherwise be a not-so-good filler episode. This one is a far better example, and it's not just because a money-shark is a lot more interesting and threatening than a bunch of cutesy rock creatures.

It also has a B-plot about Scrooge's Board of Directors scheduling an interview to improve his PR, and hilarity ensues when Scrooge has to defend his zillionaire antics when a shark made of his own fortune is causing havoc throughout the town. Glomgold also makes an appearance during this, which only makes it better. Along with some neat Jaws references along the way, this is not an episode to miss.

Bad thing: They really did not want to mention the obvious plot hole of the kids being able to go into the money bin. This was long before F.O.W.L. began their plans against Scrooge or even the 87 cent problem, but still, one would think this would be one of the most highly secure places at Killmotor Hill considering all of his enemies. Considering I didn't particularly love the Impossibin episode, as much as I love the idea of it, it might be for the best.

9. The First Adventure!

Going from an arc from season 1 to an arc from season 3, though some may argue the F.O.W.L. arc has been happening since season 1. Anyway, this is an episode that brings back the younger Donald and younger Della that was first seen in "Last Christmas!" in their first adventure with their Uncle Scrooge. It's very interesting to see the similarities between their first adventure with Scrooge and the first adventure with Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Even though this does give good development to the arc, arguably even bigger characters in this episode are Bradford Buzzard and Black Heron, as this episode details the origins of the Fiendish Organization of World Larceny. Their antics throughout this episode are very entertaining, with the plot toying with the dynamic of the more chaotic evil Heron and the more lawful evil Buzzard. With all it all ties together, I had to put the First Adventure on this list.

Bad thing: The sense of time in this episode is odd. We get a title card showing that it's the 60's in the opening scene, and yet there is very little suggestion of any passing of time between the opening scene and the scenes that I assumed took place in the 80's.

8. Quack Pack!

It would be too easy to just put in episodes that are important to any of the various story arcs that went throughout this series, so here's an episode that could be taken out of the series without harming anything. However, it is still a very memorable episode of the show, where the cast of characters have to be in this weird sitcom. There's also a mystery element, as there is a culprit to why these characters are in this sitcom world.

I really like the whole meta element, with the characters picking apart all not only the clichés in sitcoms, but sitcom production as well. I also really appreciated the "special guest", another sitcom staple, being a character from a different Disney Afternoon show with some great references to it. Quack Pack turns out to be the antithesis of the show it was named after; it's not dated, it's really funny, and it realistically portrays how freaked out these characters would be if they saw those weird hairless apes.

Bad thing: I wish they did more with the concept of this world being made up by someone who was locked away from the world since 1990. Maybe not references to the era of Disney that gave us "Gotta Be Gettin' Goofy", but more jokes about how the 90's were different from now. They kind of ignore this, as if they only mentioned 1990 because of the DuckTales movie they were referencing.

7. Last Christmas!

Wait, a Christmas episode in a Top 10? I have my reasons for including this one. It's not just because the idea is pretty great, as it uses the very tale that inspired Scrooge's entire character in the first place. Obviously, we already had one of the best cartoon renditions of A Christmas Carol, and this episode does not try to recreate that. Instead, we get a different tale, mostly featuring Scrooge and Jiminy Cricket, er, the ghost of Christmas Past, going back to the past to experience a good Christmas party. If only we can do the same, like Dewey accidentally does in the episode.

This was also the first time we also got to see a young version of Donald, who, in this episode, is voiced by none other than the late, great Russi Taylor. It was almost like having one of the siblings from the old show interact with one of the new ones. This is also the first time we got to see and hear her outside of a painting, and it's heartbreaking and yet understandable when we get to the scene where Dewey has to say goodbye. It's a good scene, and they weren't afraid to even throw in a joke that does not ruin the moment.

Bad thing: No, episode, this is the Scrooge they were looking for. Were they trying to make it seem like Scrooge was always a hero and not a miser who would deserve getting three ghosts to visit him with that line? I don’t buy it.

6. The Ballad of Duke Baloney!

Got to pay some respect to Scrooge's arch-rival with an episode that really shows off his character, which is a bit ironic as this is an episode about him getting amnesia and getting a brand new, at least to us, persona named Duke Baloney. Amnesia episodes tend to be a dime-a-dozen, and anyone could predict this new persona is not going to last, but the way this episode develops is actually much more interesting. This is the episode for Glomgold character development, with dream sequences, flashbacks, and a great scene in the ending that takes place in a storm that he may or may not have made up in his head. I may not have given a lot of his episodes high-rated reviews, but this is easily not only one of his best appearances, but one of the best episodes of DuckTales 2017.

Bad thing: The dream sequence really subtly implies that Duke Baloney is about to become Glomgold again. How? By having him outright say "this gold, it's GLOOMING onto me!" ...okay, I'll admit, that was a stretch for a bad thing, but with a dream sequence with subtleties, that took me out of it.

5. The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!

I called this episode "the best episode of the series so far" when I reviewed it, a pretty late episode in a season with lots of good episodes, I would say that's a good sign that this one was going to be a shoo-in for at least the Top 10. What I love most about this episode is that it gives a little more humanity to the legendary Scrooge McDuck. Sure, this was shown a bit in "Woo-oo!" and "Mount Never-Rest!", but I felt this episodes was one of the best examples of that. Throughout this episode, he sees himself as this legendary figure, as everyone sees him, and he ends up failing to live up to those impossible standards by crashing in a plane in a way where they may not survive.

Much like Quack Pack, there's no traditional villain like Glomgold or Magica. Eventually, this leads to Scrooge finally bringing up his biggest failure: his loss of the Spear of Selene and a certain relative that was piloting it, and it is one of the biggest emotional moments of the series, both in and out of universe. It's one of the most important episodes in the series, and it is also one of the best.

Bad thing: The Last Crash of the Sunchaser is a neat title, but it doesn't really fit the episode. The Sunchaser will certainly crash again. At most, maybe it could be referring to Scrooge crashing down to the lowest point he gets to in the series, but that's not the Sunchaser's fault.

4. Moonvasion!

My big hot take: the season 2 finale, the best of the season finales in my opinion, is not the best episode of the series. However, it is very close. It's actually kind of funny; I had plenty of criticism against the build-up to his finale, especially the Louie Inc. plot that led to an episode that was just kind of lackluster to me, and of all the, some alien commander from the Moon who thinks the Earth revolved around his "planet" wasn't exactly as threatening as an all powerful witch or the scheming businessman who knew Scrooge's every move. Okay, when I put it like that, the alien does sound more threatening, but trust me, even Bradford had his moments.

The biggest thing about this episode is the sheer scale of it. It really did feel like every major player in the series had a part in this, from Scrooge and the nephews, to Dijon and Amunet, to the new Darkwing Duck, to Donald and Della, to even the Greek pantheon! Oh, and Glomgold, too, in what may be his finest moment in the series! It really does feel like a finale for the series, and I say this even if I felt The Last Adventure was a great one as well.

Bad thing: In hindsight, this would have been a good time for the Terries and Fermies to come back. They're in the earth! That episode wasn't bad because of them.

3. Let's Get Dangerous!

I'll tell you a secret: I did not watch Darkwing Duck as a kid. It was just DuckTales '87, and even then, I did not remember a lot of episodes of that. This show was made for people who did not grow up with DuckTales '87, because they were not even alive. Though there are parts of this episode that can be appreciated by those who were familiar with the heroes of the Disney Afternoon, I will still say this episode works very well as its own superhero movie. That is what it is, really!

This special is the true continuation of another episode, though we saw this defictionalized-within-the-fiction Darkwing Duck in the Moonvasion, and it may as well be a pilot for a Darkwing Duck reboot that spins off from this show, with its villains, its origin stories, its sidekicks, and its memorable catchphrases. It all works very well. Who knows where the new Darkwing Duck reboot will go, though I would at least imagine that they would eventually get to certain Darkwing-related plot threads that never got resolved.

Bad thing: Outside of using a few cliche moments to extend the episode that end rather predictably, in the attempt to make Darkwing Duck as cool as he wants to be, the regular cast essentially become jobbers in their own show.

2. What Ever Happened To Della Duck?!

It's the question everyone wanted to know ever since Dewey said the last line in the first episode: what ever happened to Della Duck? This is one of the more artsy episodes of the show, focusing on one duck on what she assumes is a barren moon until she finds a monster that seems to do nothing but impede on her quest to get someone to save her. It does heavily expand from there, to the point where we get to see some more new characters, one who I thought was going to be way more important than the other. I decided to call that guy "General Not Penumbra", and that name could still be fitting as an insult.

This episode would be made or broken by how good Della is, and this is a very good episode for her first voiced debut as an adult. We did get to see her in the IDW comics, but this episode is where her character is developed. Throughout the episode, she has elements of her kids and especially her brother Donald. While there are future episodes that develop her further as a mother who wants to make up for all of those years she missed, one of the biggest defining moments is right in this episode, where she sings a version of the Capcom game's famous moon theme. An amazing episode all around.

Bad thing: Do I have to? Uh, flares do not work on the Moon? No, seriously, I can't think of anything worse than that.

Honorable mentions from each season:

The Shadow War! - An excellent way to end Season 1 that would only be topped by the Moonvasion.

Nightmare on Killmotor Hill! - A dream episode that really works with the concept, especially how Lena is the one involved with it.

Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice! - This is an action packed episode where Launchpad really shines.

And now, #1:

1. The Duck Knight Returns!

Yes, I decided to put the prequel episode to Let's Get Dangerous as higher than the big Darkwing Duck episode, and part of this may be a little bias on my part. While it was not the very original intention of it, Fly Pow Bye started as a project to review a reboot, so of course an episode about Darkwing Duck, a fictional show within the fiction, getting a dark and gritty reboot would be right up my alley. We have Launchpad, a Darkwing Duck superfan, reacting to how they're going to ruin Darkwing Duck. We got the conflict between what the big studio execs wanted Darkwing Duck to be and Dewey's version of it. Finally, we have the conflict between Jim Starling, an obvious reference to original Darkwing Duck voice actor Jim Cummings who is even voiced by him, and his replacement, who appears to be some guy named Drake Mallard.

A lot of these plots converge in very interesting ways, with plenty of twists. Drake Mallard, the guy Launchpad was trying to replace with the original, turns out to be very worthy of the role by also being a superfan! Dewey's version has dancers, just like that Batdance music video! Okay, maybe that last one isn't that great, but it does not overstay its welcome. And, of course, Jim Starling ends up causing a huge cliffhanger that, despite the show being over, we will still be hanging from. We can only wonder what was going to come next, but I do not have to wonder what the best episode of DuckTales 2017 is.

Bad thing: I can't really think of a bad thing for this episode, but I can say that it is odd that there's no real transition from "TV character" to "real hero". It does help that it's not the TV actor that ends up becoming Darkwing, but "fanboy of TV character turning into a real hero" is just as much of a leap, even with an incompetent hero like Darkwing. I would also consider the show never following up on this episode's cliffhanger a bad thing, but that's not this episode's fault.

How does the whole show stack up?

It is an excellent modern take on the Disney Ducks. Opinions may vary on how this will compare with the original, since it is very much a modern take, with a different style of humor than the one from the original or the one in the original comics. Anyone who loves shows like Gravity Falls will be right at home here. Any fan of the original comics or the original cartoon may balk at some of the creative decisions made with the characters, but I would say it pays some good respect to them.

Oh, and before anyone asks, no, I am not going to give a rating for the whole series. I've already imposed a 10 image limit on myself, and since I grade on a relative scale, the average is always, in theory, going to be in the middle. It's a good show, that's what you're going to get from me.

And that's it for DuckTales 2017. Hurrah for Disney and Clan McDuck. Bye.

← The Least Best! 🦆 n/a →

[gwendeeagain]

OCs in fanfiction (and KK)

I don’t think OC-centric/self-insert fics are cringey. I just think that people don’t necessarily read fanfic for original characters. 

I mean, why do you read fanfic? To see the existing characters you already know and love. It’s simple to dive back into a world of familiarity. Original content means you need to make space in our brains for new information, which can be exhausting. 

My first OC-centric fic and I end up introducing 29 of them at once. Wild. Here’s some stuff I’ve thought about while writing KK:

The outsider perspective is really, really, really fun to write and we should all take advantage of it. We all have stray errant thoughts while engaging in canon (eg. imagine what a passer-by would think if they saw that haha) and this is the BEST time to take advantage of this! Honestly, the most entertaining part of KK for me was critiquing canon events. I picked the fights I wanted to, thought “what would I say if I was there?” and said it, and just parodied everything.

Speaking of perspectives, the reason I started off with so many OCs was to emulate the background chatter effect. Personally, I shy away from OC fics because I think they’re tiring. My brain is running on 1% and I don’t have space for new people. I wanted to write something where someone could understand the story without having to keep track of who anyone was, you know? Honestly? I think my biggest achievement there was a comment from someone who didn’t even watch assclass and still read along. She left a comment saying she didn’t even know who was a canon character and who wasn’t. I screamed.

(My second biggest achievement was a really long and detailed hate comment which I kinda want to print out and frame on my wall tbh). I don’t think I necessarily wrote a controversial fic but I don’t expect it to be everyone’s cup of tea especially since I rib on canon a lot. It’s pretty much anti-3E propaganda - and don’t get me wrong, I love those kids! But I think rewatching it as an adult basically had me cynical about every single thing that happens in the show. And it was a fic from the perspective of the antagonists, after all,

I ended up picking favorites and a few of my OCs became more prominent/got more screen time. That’s pretty much inevitable? I started with inane background chatter where you could substitute any name from any dialogue and it would still make sense. I thought that would be the recurring vibe for the fic, but to make it more fun for myself, I gave my OCs little backstories! It was like finding your own easter eggs. (Person A mentions they like coffee, and a few chapters later they mention again that they like coffee. I’m laughing to myself writing these little things down, and then their characters got away from me to become real people. That’s pretty much how all my writing goes tbh).

I think an important note about writing OC fics is putting canon first. Back to the point: why do we read fanfic? For the pre-existing universe. In the end in any fic you’re still looking out for your fav canon character, right? Seeing if they somehow have a cameo in the background even if they’re not in the tags. I feel like canon content is an important appeal in OC-centric fics because, well, without it, it’s just original fiction. I mean it didn’t really affect KK much because it was already very canon-centric. 

Another thing: Plot foremost, original characters later, if that makes sense. The point I’m trying to make is no one is probably more attached to your OC(s) than you are. Imagine delving into OC introspection in chapter 2 when nobody knows who OC is. The back button is right there. Nope! Plot first, because an exciting plot and a twist on canon keeps people invested. You’re probably not going to bat an eye at the names of a few passers-by if something cool is happening in the foreground. Then hit them with OC emotions when they’re in too deep with the plot to run away. Hah! 

Not quite related to OCs, but this was my trash experimental fic and I ended up mixing in and messing about with so many chapters. There’d be an abrupt switch of narration. Some highlights are two whole chapters of just a single person monologuing (16/17), some nice somber non-chronological angst (30), that whole soclal media chapter (35). Fun times.

Anyways! Those were just some thoughts i had writing Kunugigaoka Knows, or as abbreviated KK.

[talenlee]

August 2023 Wrapup

Kinda flew by there, or maybe it’s just that when a semester is firing, then I start breaking my weeks into more and more tightly managed little snippets. I think I’m going to have to change when I have snacks, any way, it’s time to get talking about all the great articles I wrote this week and youuuuu didn’t read yet!

First up, we have a months’ worth of articles talking about everything in the world through the medium of talking about Games:

The Game, my favourite example of games as art and games’ requirement of consent (really)

Hit The Silk, which incentivises you to lie separately instead of making rules about lying together

Dangeresque, The Roomisode Triungulate, which is me and Fox just playing a videogame together and delighting in how it makes our millenial brains go ‘oh hey, the old thing!’

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, where I talk about the way that the parser based text adventure game represents a distinct game form, at least in the hands of a really, really good writer

Then there’s the articles for this month’s Story Pile:

Inside Job, one of my favourite cartoons because one of my OC’s girlfriend is basically in it

Nona the Ninth, as I continue my descent into Being Locked Tomb Trash

Lie To Me, a story based on laundering the opinion of a guy who lies a lot, but you know, maybe that’s the point

My Master Has No Tail, which I love a lot and also is an anime about theatre and queerness and like, I could put it in almost any theme month this year, I swear

I also did Werewolf Week, where I talk about different ways to handle werewolves in 3e D&D, 4e D&D, and how I use them in Cobrin’Seil, my own setting. I also talk about how the Breaking Baddiverse represents a paratextual playground for media commentary. And then, more, I talk about The Locked Tomb and about how it deceives you about what a soul does and doesn’t work.

There’s articles about building gimmicks, which is mostly a compilation of videos from other magicians, and a few audio posts as I experiment with what ten minutes of spoken audio feels like compared to a thousand words of written text. I feel like audio is easier to do but also like I’m kind of short-changing you. The audio between Fox and me about My Master Has No Tail is conversational, that feels okay – but I also feel a little selfconscious about asking you to spend ten minutes listening to a micropodcast about Oppenheimer and The Foxes of Hydesville.

Foxes of Hydesville, by the way? Killer final line.

This month, a month in which I got thinking about deceit and conniving and constructions of attention control, was what got me thinking about a horror movie with one of the most perfect final lines of all time. Yeah, it was just that final line that made me think ‘wait, that’d be great on a shirt,’ and then got me thinking about how I could use that design somehow. Bonus, this design is built on a technique I learned in other designs that won’t show up until later.

You can get this sticker or shirt design here!

It’s a new semester! This year, I’m doing two classes: One on videogame critique, and one on online persona. I know I’ve gotten very twitchy right now about the term ‘content’ because my students are using it to describe literally anything. I mean I feel on one level that’s because ‘content’ to me still feels like a thing that fills a container, and it deliberately fails to appreciate that you’re not the one shaping the container. I guess I dislike it because it speaks of a lack of a point of view. But where was I,

Oh yes! I also it seems had a very creative month in prototyping – there’s more work on Bloodwork, I released a print-and-play game I want to go back and revise to make it more Star-Trekky, and I also belted out engines for a Sonic The Hedgehog fan game, a game about moonshiner werewolves I might be consigning to a superior for use in a generative media project, and I have an engine for a wrestling game. I feel very busy.

What’s more this month has featured daily hours of work on the hardest thing in the world, a literature review. A literature review is how you try and convince an arbitary reader from a distant location that you know what you’re talking about by referring to every idea you’re ever going to use in one giant document and every time I open mine I feel like I should have a little cry. But this month I have been assiduously working on it, every day, to try and put words into it, because that’s the only way it’s going to get big and strong and healthy. But man nothing puts you in your place the same way as looking at a document that’s meant to answer and why should we listen to you and realise that even with all the work on it I’ve done, I still don’t have a good answer. I mean I know what I’m talking about, but how am I going to prove that to people? I still have the lingering memory of talking about when I presented my work product as a teacher asked ‘well, why are all the board game boards square? Is that something?’ because she was trying very hard to contribute in a space where I didn’t realise I was talking to someone who didn’t understand me.

Anyway, that’s just anxiety talking, good thing I’ve got nothing adding pressure to that.

I don’t know why I’ve been so creative this month. I fear it’s part of my brain leaping away at the idea of putting work into a particular space, like I’m somehow trying to grab a bar of soap then chasing it as it squeezes away. Did Moonshiners happen because my brain found it the most convenient way to express that idea at this moment or did it happen because it felt easier to devise a whole new game and currency card game system rather than try to explain what I mean by silo’d out design thinking?

Onward, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!