#Conan the Barbarian should at least be on this list

[howtofightwrite]

Where did the idea that fighters/knights are dumb jocks came from? It is a D&D thing or older than that?

I'm going to start off with a major disclaimer, I don't know, and haven't been able to concretely nail this one down.

There's also an irony here in that the dumb fighter isn't really a D&D cliché. In Dungeons and Dragons, if you're trying to min-max a fighter (especially in any edition in the past 20 years), you're far more likely to dump Charisma rather than Intelligence. Back in AD&D, the only thing a Fighter would really benefit from would be extra languages, which isn't a reason to focus on the stat, but it's not terrible, while low. In contrast, low charisma just means people immediately dislike your fighter, and if their main method of communicating with people involves turning them into a Jackson Pollock reproduction on the dungeon walls, then low charisma doesn't really handicap them. Since then, Intelligence has become more important, because it governs how many skill points your character gets at each level, and gates a few potentially useful feats.

It's not the fantasy heroes from the pulp era, most of those characters were, at least, cunning, if not downright intelligent in their original incarnations. For example: The archetypal fantasy barbarian, Conan, is actually depicted as quite intelligent in the original Robert E. Howard short stories and novels, it's only in later adaptations and parody where he degenerates into the mindless engine of destruction that now dominates the stereotype.

This leads me to one of my first suspicions about this cliché: It may be a case of a parody becoming separated from its comedic origins, and taken at face value. The dumb fighter can be used very effectively as a comedic foil. It's certainly possible that some audiences started taking this at face value rather than realizing that the entire archetype was meant to be a joke.

Similarly, even in a non-comedic context, there's a lot of potential value in appearing to be an idiot, while concealing your true cunning, as it will lead your foes to underestimate you. It's possible there's an example of this that was picked up and then (as is often the case) the nuances were lost when other authors emulated that example.

I'm aware of a case where this happened (though, the details were slightly different), the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Marlon Brando's performance was incredibly influential. On one hand, this lead to method acting becoming a mainstream technique in Hollywood. However, it also lead to a lot of actors blindly emulating Brando's performance. The problem is, Stanley (Brando's character) is a punch-drunk boxer, who slurs his speech. He's been hit in the head enough times that he's not all there anymore, and actors who were playing characters who really should not sound like washed up, has been, boxers, were mimicking Brando's slurred delivery.

This does also lead to a third possibility for this cliché that I'm somewhat inclined to endorse. Where does the idea of a fighter as a dumb jock come from? CTEs.

To be clear, chronic traumatic encephalopathy is not a joke. It's a very serious condition, and it's associated with contact sports that involve frequent blows to the head. Technically, it does not make the sufferer, “dumber,” but it does have a lot of very serious symptoms (including impaired impulse control, confusion, memory loss, increased aggression, and eventually early onset dementia. This is not a complete list.) The net result is that it could certainly give the impression of someone being a, “dumb jock.”

Which leads back to Brando's character, Stanley, an ex-boxer, who is suffering from CTE. And boxing is a sport where CTEs are disturbingly common, especially among older fighters. (American Football is another sport with massive incidents of CTEs. Both at the professional and amateur levels.)

This leads to a really messed up possibility, that the entire stereotype of the, “dumb jock,” is in part a mask applied over kids suffering serious neurological damage as teenagers, due to the, “tradition,” of high-school sports. Now it is important to note that CTEs usually take years to manifest, so it's rare to find the symptoms in a teen. Also, if they're neglecting their other studies in favor of sports, that also reinforces the stereotype even though that behavior is, basically, benign.

At the very least, given the cultural prominence of boxing as a sport in the 19thand early 20thcenturies. It's easy to miss today, but even up into the late 1950s and 60s, boxers were still held in pretty high regard, culturally. There are still some remnants of that today, particularly in the uppermost echelons of the sport. So, it wouldn't surprise me if the stereotype of the dumb fighter is heavily informed by veteran boxers who were already suffering from CTEs, and dealing with serious cognitive impairment as a result. However, as I mentioned at the beginning, I can't prove this. It potentially explains the stereotype, but that doesn't mean I'm right.

As to historical knights and fighters, a dumb fighter is easier to dispatch on the battlefield than a smart one. They're easier to lure out of position. They're more vulnerable to manipulation (either via battlefield tactics or psyops.) If they're in a command position (which applies when we're talking about knights), their potential to inflict catastrophic casualties on their own troops increases dramatically. There are a wealth of historical examples of a, “less astute,” commander being easily manipulated into sacrificing their troops for little to no benefit by their opponent.

Historically speaking, knights were (usually) pretty well educated in comparison to the peasants they'd lead into battle. These were professional warriors with at least some formal education in strategy and tactics. That somewhat undermines the image of the knight as a dumb jock. It's certainly possible there were idiot knights in history, actually, it seems fairly likely given the nepotism of Europe, but again, they would have been the exception rather than the rule.

So, as I said at the beginning, I don't know where this came from. I suspect it's tied up with people suffering from CTEs, but that is just an educated guess.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[365days365movies]

January 5, 2021: The Running Man (1987) (Part 1)

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Stallone, I hadn’t seen a lot of, Arnie, on the other hand. Oh, I’ve seen plenty of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, Commando, Predator, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Jingle All the Way, Batman and Robin, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines fills my list of seen Arnie films. What’s missing?

Kindergarten Cop, Twins, Junior, Last Action Hero, and True Lies certainly come to mind. And yeah, you might’ve noticed that those are all action-comedies. Two of these will be seen during Comedy April; one’s gonna be watched tomorrow. Of course, there are still other movies missing in that list above, but Schwarzenegger has a LOT of movies. And so, today, we’re going for one of his ‘80s action films, based off of a Stephen King story. That’d be a little movie called The Running Man.

A movie set in the far-flung dystopian future of...2019...The Running Man is one of Schwarzenegger’s understated classics, at least as compared to his other dynamos of the era. All I know is, it’s his only major big pure action film of the time that’s slipped under my radar. I don’t have any particular expectations going in, but I’m expecting some typical Schwarzenanigans. 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Recap

So, the global economy collapsed in 2017, eventually leading to a global police state and state-controlled television. High censorship reigns, and the most popular show (of all time, apparently) is a gladiator-type series called “The Running Man.” Any dissent is quickly crushed, which (naturally) has led to a small underground resistance movement, like it always does. 

As we start, police helicopter pilot Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger), an authority figure with a conscience (unsurprisingly), using his vehicle (which operates off of the above seen UNIXSYSTEM (I know this)) to monitor and detect potential riots. Richards proceeds to defy orders to fire on innocent citizens who only want food, and gets knocked out by his coworkers.

We cut to 18 months later, where Richards is confined to a work camp, where people die, and nobody’s loved. They’re all wearing detonator collars, and I know the plot of the movie.

Seriously, the plot, the ending, Schwarzenegger’s role, it’s all done. I got it. I’ve seen this story a thousand times. He’s gonna be recruited to join the Running Man game show that the guards are talking about, escape just before they’re gonna kill him (probably), join up with the rebellion, bring new life into them, probably fall in love at some point, and then take down the head of the police state and/or the game show.

I got this. Which is a little disappointing, if I’m right. Automatically got some points against it, but hopefully I’ll still enjoy the ride. 

Anyway, back to the gulag. Schwarzenegger and another prisoner stage a fight, allowing the third prisoner to try hacking the perimeter fence that triggers the collars. After losing a guy so that we can see somebody’s head blow up, the perimeter is shut down, and all of the prisoners escape. 

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, we’re introduced to the Running Man, a DOJ-sponsored game show in which the contestants are “criminals, traitors, and enemies of the state,” who are essentially executed on national television. Dark. I like it. Our escapees meet up with the underground, and they get their collars taken off. Not wanting to get involved in any rebellion (yeah, OK, sure), Richards leaves the city. And he’s definitely never gonna come back for any reason.

We now meet our villain of the piece, Damon Killian, played by the Kissing Bandit himself, Richard Dawson. And I’m not gonna lie, casting Dawson as the country’s greatest game show host is...great, it’s great, it’s one of my favorite casting choices so far this month. Dawson, for those of you who didn’t know, was the first host of Family Feud. He also had a well-known penchant for kissing the female contestants that came on the show. That’s how he earned the moniker, “The Kissing Bandit.” And yeah, it was a little creepy, in retrospect.

Killian immediately comes off as a two-faced slime, and I am more ready for this character than I have ever been. I mean, an evil game show host? SOLD! If they ever remake this movie, I would give good money to see either John O’Hurley or (please, please) Steve Harvey take up this role, since both have been Family Feud hosts. Could you imagine?

We also meet Amber, our inevitable love interest played by Maria Conchita Alonso, who’s watching the news, with Ben’s face on it. We learn that he’s known as the “Butcher of Bakersfield,” being framed as a “maniac” who fired on innocent civilians (when, of course, that’s what he was trying to prevent. I feel like there’s a comment on the media to be made here, but I ain’t gonna make it. Yet.). Amber now lives in his brother’s apartment, as he was taken for reeducation. I’m sure he’s fine.

Killian sees footage of the escape, wants Ben Richards for the show, and immediately calls the President’s agent to make it happen. I love it. Richards, in the meanwhile, coerces a tied up Amber to help him get out of the city. We get to see the treat of a 6′4″ Austrian man wearing a badly-fitting Hawaiian shirt, which just looks ridiculous, and I appreciate it. 

It immediately doesn’t work, and she rats him out, leading to his inevitable capture by the cops, and to our hero meeting our villain for the first time. 

Dawson makes Ben an offer he can’t refuse, having kidnapped his prison friends in order to coerce Ben to compete in his show, “The Running Man.” Ben agrees, and is subjected to a medical procedure and sedated. Amber, in the meantime, starts to realize that the government sucks, and might be framing Richards. And then, Climbing For Dollars comes on.

I am more confident than I should that that show either does or will exist. Bet.

Anyway, Ben “The Butcher of Bakersfield” is the main attraction on the show tonight! We get a montage of women dancing on a darkened stage in ‘80s tights, choreographed by original American idol judge, Paula Abdul! Small world, that. 

Damon Killian comes on stage, pouring on the smarmy charm to the audience, on and off screen. Something about how slimy he is just reeks 80s, and I’m living for it. Ben Richards is introduced using a bit of edited footage framing him as the Butcher, which also places Killian as an avenger and hero of the people, which...yeah, continuing to dig it. The audience jeers as the dancers parade around him in theater, eventually revealing...

I can’t decide if he looks terrible or fantastic in this outfit.

It’s revealed then that Killian’s double-crossed Ben (unsurprisingly), and his friends have been brought to compete in the game regardless. It’s also revealed that the “Runners” will be pursued by the “Stalkers.” And if they survive, they could win prizes like a fair trial, or maybe even a pardon if they get far enough! Whoof. This is a rough dystopia, and one with enough tinges of reality, that it’s palpable. BUT ANYWAY! It’s time to start running!

The guys are shot down a sick-looking bullet tube that’s almost certainly given someone an epileptic seizure in the past, and they exit into the mean streets of Los Angeles. Edith from the show audience picks the first Stalker to go out and hunt them down: Subzero.

Actually, this is Professor Subzero, played by Professor Toru Tanaka, a professional wrestler of the day. The group meet him in a hockey rink, where he’s covered in armor, carries a weaponized hockey stick, and uses explosive hockey pucks like a GODDAMN BATMAN VILLAIN.

I love this movie.

Well, the future Mister Freeze kills Professor SubZero, Because there can only be one ice-themed supervillain here. This is also the first time a Stalker has been killed in the show’s history. And wow, Ben is making himself look REAL bad. Both because of killing a Stalker, and by spitting out TWO shitty action movie lines in a row.

Ratings are up, Amber gets caught proving Ben’s innocence, and the next two Stalkers are chosen. One is Buzzsaw, armed with a chainsaw and super-strength.

The other is Dynamo, a GODDAMN OPERA SINGER WITH A METAL MOHAWK WEARING A SUIT THAT GRANTS HIM ELECTROKINESIS.

This film is our greatest achievement as a species. I am crying. I’m gonna need a minute.

Part II coming later today!

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Aniplex Fugou Keiji Livestream | Fugou Keiji 2 | Kitsutsuki 2 - 4 | Arte 3 - 12 (FINAL) | Fruits Basket 27 - 32

During the Millionaire Detective: Unmissable livestream (part of FunimationCon and Aniplex Online Fest), I watched and took notes, so you might find these handy upon retrospect. To be honest, this is how I do the posts for magicalgirlsandcerulean’s livestreams as well, but there hasn’t been one of those in a while...

Otherwise, these are all normal notes.

Aniplex Fugou Keiji Livestream

Look out for the dancer from the OP

Onuki was the model for the dancing for the anime – he was told to do it out of the blue

Episode 11 might have one of these^ be relevant

Daisuke’s cup ramen has shark fin in it and he made the packaging from scratch – that’s why it’s so expensive!

The director Tomohiko Ito omits important information, allowing people to decide for themselves what happened. (Miyano) – This might be why the series is stylish. (MC)

Attractiveness of character design is important! (for adapting Fugou Keiji to modern day)

I’ve never watched a livestream where the stars were so conscious of their English and Chinese audiences! This was interesting, especially because Onuki is not normally known as a VA!

“We still have a little bit of recording to do.”

Fugou Keiji 2

I keep misunderstanding my own instructions…this starts again in July after ep 2.

Todai = Tokyo Daigaku (Uni).

I believe this is the 2nd time I’ve seen a rich person like commoner’s instant noodles, although I forget where I saw the 1stinstance.

Kambe switched to the back seat now, huh?

Ah! Now I remember! The first time was seeing spoilers for this episode on Twitter! (LOL)

I see Suzue has a sensible naming scheme for her data.

Hmm…judging by the Google hits, the name visible in the background (Betbeto bin Abura) is the Arabic prince from last time.

SYN-ACK. I see these guys did their work – that’s the final stage of the 3 stage handshake required for things like internet sockets (used to send “packets” of data).

Way to crash a party, Kambe siblings…(LOL)

I really wanna see someone draw Kato slapping (Daisuke) Kambe in the face with a wad of cash…or a “shut up and take my money” meme with Kambe in it.

I like how “special cup ramen” is on the purchases list and it costs 100000 yen. I also like how the reporter Mita was bought out for 5000000 yen (bigger than all the other individual costs except for buying out the Tower)…that’s how he showed up.

Kitsutsuki 2

I gotta finish this show and then pause it…3 shows in my normal lineup are safe.

Did Kindaichi take the bones of the fish out for Ishikawa…? Like a child would have had done for them?

Why is Ishikawa being referred to as “Hajime”…?

Draw this prostitute like one of your French girls…(LOL?)

Ishikawa clearly dropped those coins into that book earlier.

Way to diss the potential asexuality/celibacy in the house. I mean, it’s the 1800s – early 1900s, so there was less LGBTIQ+ stuff then and certainly the further back you go, the more sexual prowess becomes a sign of masculinity, but still, if the guy doesn’t want to go through with it, don’t force him.

Notice how the borders were pink for Ishikawa’s version and blue for Kindaichi’s.

Notably, Otaki didn’t seem to have that hairpin…but maybe that’s because we saw things from Ishikawa’s perspective.

Ooh…who are these bois? Also, crab.

Kitsutsuki 3

…cat? Now there’s a new perspective. That’s like saying the butler did it.

Yay! Hagiwara is Ume!

Notice Hagiwara’s version has a purple frame, while Yoshii (?) has yellow and another person has dark blue.

I think “consumption” was tuberculosis, once upon a time.

I love how the crowd is fed up with Ishikawa’s bulls***.

Ooh, chuuni Akutagawa…

In a Grove is the Rashomon story.

Tarou Hirai = Rampo Edogawa.

You stalker, future Rampo!

I kinda suspected Otaki when I thought through the possibilities…Ishikawa, Kindaichi, an outsider, Otaki (and as of this ep, Rampo too).

Gaiheikan? Is that Ishikawa and co.’s lodging?

Did they have pencils back in that day?

Kitsutsuki 4

Humouresques.

Kabayaki.

I think it was in Detective Conan that I learnt (one of) the only way(s) a man can get his nails done is by his wife doing it for him, possibly as a prank or to indicate he’s “taken”. Note this was early Detective Conan, so it’s very much a 90s attitude…considering the widespread acceptance of drag queens and the LGBTIQ+ movement these days.

Kozukata.

Lace flower.

Maichou seems to be a hybrid of Asahi Shinbun and Mainichi Shinbun.

[Monkfish/dictionary/going home] - Is this how Ishikawa shows consideration…?

The purple letterrboxing is back but this time with Ishikawa…meaning that’s just an aesthetic thing for all flashbacks after all.

Just from vaguely hearing it (I’ve got the volume on low), the words are nodo tsuki/nodo zuki. “Throat moon/throat wound” works just as well, if not better.

Balsam flower.

Update: Since enough anime fulfilled the special COVID-19 criteria, Kitsutsuki was put on hold after this.

Fruits Basket 2 2 (27)

I’ve read Another, remember?…so I kind of know what happens.

Uo’s got purple nails…that’s surprisingly cute of her.

Aw, Kureno! Another Ume role!

Why is “shisho” (master) not translated…? A weird Tokyopop-era translation quirk?

Aw, Shisho cut his hair…? Bummer.

Who was that? Shigure…?(!) Update: We find out his name later in this ep.

“If you continue to change, I’ll continue to protect you.” – Another quote for the archive.

Great…I feel personally called out by this ep.

Fruits Basket 2 3 (28)

It seems all male designers wear their designs if they have no one else to wear them…at least, that’s what I’ve gathered from Hajime (Runway de Waratte) and Ayame.

I remember Ayame stood in for Yuki’s parents in the manga at one point. This must be it.

(Spoilers for later!) I also remember Mine and Ayame get married at the end…This is the prelude to that.

Dang, Ayame, you moment-ruiner!

Fruits Basket 2 4 (29)

Did anyone in the doorway hear about Hatsuharu turning into an ox?

To quote Sailor Mercury, “Douse yourself in water and repent!”

Ooh, window splitting Yuki and Haru. Nice cinematography going on here.

I bet all people think they only think about themselves, in one way or another.

Arashiyama tofu.

Yatsuhashi are great. They’re these sweet triangle things like samosas that come in various flavours. Mitarashi dango are sticky brown skewered balls of glutinous rice…which I’ve never had, but I’ve seen them in enough anime to know what they are.

I only just realised this, but Yuki’s hairstyle isn’t even on both sides, like Atsushi from BSD’s.

Huh…you can see a copy of Mogeta and Ari (as it turns out, “Ari” is the name of a character and not “ant” at all in this case) on Haru’s bed. There’s also an article in one of the magazines discussing how denim is the popular thing now and which types are in right now.

Fruits Basket 2 5 (30)

I realised Yuki isn’t calling Tohru by her first name – he’s going against Haru’s advice.

Hmm? Why should anyone ask a rabbit to hold their horses…? (LOL)

CGI cars…*sigh*

Tororo is grated yam, IIRC.

I learnt recently that nanban means “savage” or “uncivilised”…for a potato and chicken dish, the name and the contents don’t really match…Update: Nanban means “savage” (noun) or “barbarian”. Close enough.

17-26…age gap 9 years…yikes…

The words “(a happy, yet) caged bird” come to mind when Kureno describes himself. Also, Kureno is an Ume role! Yippee!

Ahh…young love…even if it has a bit of an awkward edge to it. Mind the (age) gap!

Me being the Ume stan, of course I want to hear those sweet nothings in his voice, even if it has to be via a proxy like Uotani…I wouldn’t be an Ume stan if I didn’t.

…Ah, I see. Uotani reminds me of Minare from Wave and vice versa.

Oh, I just remembered Akito is 20 or thereabouts. Kureno/Akito is only a bit more legal than Uotani and Kureno.

Arte 3

Notice Leo never once uses Arte’s name in the lady’s presence. Her name does have some infamy to it, after all.

“She’s got some guts.” – You say that at a live dissection…LOL.

Is this love~? What’s the age gap between Leo and Arte, anyway? Update: We know for sure Arte is older than 13…that’s it.

Make the things you want prominent with perspective and such. I thought that much was obvious, but for someone straightforward like Arte, I guess it ain’t so. (Maybe it’s because I’m self-taught to some degree when it comes to art.)

*sketching by candlelight* - You’re gonna ruin your eyes, Arte!

Arte, ma girl! You’re getting’ a raise! Good job!

Arte 4

Anime makes this courtesan stuff sound like a host club…(?)

I thought Leo was saying “Aria” for a second instead of Arte, LOL. I’m getting too used to that being my alias…

Arte 5

The speech bubble said “so annoying I could die”.

Arte 6

The video’s gone all pixelated…at least, the subs have…

I bet she’s going to fall over…Update: Nup, she didn’t.

Arte 7

I thought Yuri was a Russian name…or a Japanese one.

This is basically Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine all over again! (LOL)

I thought Yuri would be pushy…like, “Here’s an offer you can’t refuse.” That kind of thing. Likewise, I didn’t think Arte would refuse.

Leo? *dun-dun-DUN!*

Siena is apparently in Tuscany. Also, I did see the Silent Manga Audition page had a chapter on a pregnant woman, so this is ch. 17 or thereabouts.

Is Ruthanna not getting the money because she’s pregnant…?

Epidemic? The Black Death?...Speaking of which, Arte is very much of that ganbaru spirit. By being progressive for her time, she becomes ordinary in our time.

Ohhhhhhh! It’s a reverse harem in progress here!...This would be a good otome game, come to think of it. It’s framed the same way.

Leo can be surprisingly childish at times, don’t you think?

Arte 8

…Really? She fell overboard? *raises eyebrow*

Ooh, china (with and without capitalisation).

Is this another sarcastic child…? Oh, bother. Still, I can see why Hamefura crossed over with Arte now…Katarina vs. Catarina!

Arte 9

Bigoli is a type of pasta, as can be guessed from context.

The kanji for the episode title literally translate to “bad child”! Like the Tones and I song, LOL!

Mikata (ally).

Arte 10

This episode is giving off a Katarina x Gimo ship vibe…but with how young they are, I’m not sure I should ship it. They’re 6, aren’t they…?

Oh, you can see Katarina and Sofia’s hug in one of the ED frames.

Arte 11

Arte’s let her hair grow out…

An Italian man…bowed. In Renaissance Italy. Now I understand what all the ANN complaints are for.

What’s up with that kid’s face…? *grumbles*

Leo’s just being Leo, I see.

That’s right, Angelo and Leo never met.

Instead of a father or a brother overly cherishing his daughter, it’s the uncle…I never thought I’d see the day I saw something like that.

Arte 12 (FINAL)

Is this like Orientalism, but with gender…? (What would you call that?)

Lemme guess…Leo is working on the church mural and so he’s away?

Was that Leo, in the middle of the mural somewhere…?

Another Japanese bow in this anime, which is set in Italy.

But where is Arte herself in that mural?

Fine = end.

Fruits Basket 31

The word Momiji is using is “hisso” or something like that. Hissho is secretary, so the translator made it “secret getaway” to make it work.

That hat! *laser stare*

*one of the textbooks has “high school chemistry” on it* Tohru can do chemistry?! I suck at chemistry!

The episode title is translated as “Are you really this stupid?” It seems the real line for that was “Are you an idiot?”

Something about high school girls appeared in my head when Haru mentioned Shigure wanting to see Tohru in her tight swimsuit…*mumbles grumpily about pervs*

Kyo’s not wet, even though he got in the water! Amazing!

I think it’s sad that Tohru responds to “stupid girl” like it’s her own name.

“…that makes you suspect me?” seems better.

The Akito and Shigure age gap is somewhere between 6 and 8 years, IIRC.

Fruits Basket 32

Tohru switched from okaasan (mother) to okattekita (a formal past tense verb meaning either “bought”, “lent” or “won” based on the characters…which I don’t have a reference for). I assume because it was so off the mark, the subbers chose a similarly off the mark word.

“When I was a kid, I thought watermelons would sprout in my stomach if I ate the seeds.”

We only know about Kyo’s dad so far…hmm…what about the mother? Update: (TW: suicide) I think it was at this point we already knew that Kyo’s mother didn’t love him and committed suicide, but it’s not certain until later.

Why do doctors always use scalpels and syringes as weapons…? I mean, even Jakurai’s symbol in ARB is a syringe!

I’ve been wondering…how big is the Sohma family? Is it diluted enough that Haru and Rin can love each other without genetic problems for their child/ren? (From Another, I would say the answer is “yes”, but shoujo normally doesn’t care about this sort of thing, which is why I ask in the first place.)

Shigure seems like the type to say, “U mad, bro?”

The mansion looks like the one in Haruhi Suzumiya, if I remember the appearance of that one correctly.

[doomedandstoned]

Top 10 Albums Of The 2010′s

~By Calvin Lampert~

I think it is safe to say that underground metal has enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth and popularity in the last 10 years. But when I am saying this I am not only thinking about the heavy underground; those adherents of the Sabbath sound and this whole new wave of doom metal bands. I am thinking of the fact that (underground) metal has undergone a change in image, too.

Though frequently maligned as hipster bands (or metal for people who don't like metal), acts like Deafheaven have brought metal to a whole new audience and raised awareness of the genre as a genuine form of art that does not just exist for its own sake; that metal fans only go for gore, beer and self-referential horn-throwing. Not that Neurosis and Godflesh haven’t been ambassadors of this mindset for more than three decades already, but it feels that the understanding of metal as art seems to have finally broken through to an audience outside of the traditional metal subculture in the past decade.

I think it is in no small part thanks to some of the bands on this list I have assembled (though I may have forgone obvious picks like Alcest and Deafheaven for more personal choices). And in retrospect, it should’ve been a list of bands rather than records, as most of the artists on this list would’ve have had a claim to a spot on here, with any record they put out. Take that as a hurray for consistency. So, without further ado, my picks for the best and most remarkable records of the decade.

10. Akhlys – 'The Dreaming I' (Debemur Morti - 2015)

The Dreaming I by Akhlys

I can’t help but wonder if Naas Alcameth of AKHLYS (also of Nightbringer, Aoratos and Bestia Arcana) set out with the express intent to create what is essentially a nigh perfect atmospheric black metal record when he started working on The Dreaming I. It damn sure feels like, each strum, syllable, and beat sits at the right place; the pieces of this nightmarish puzzle fit with an unsettling ease.

Photograph by by Kuba Leszko

The sound really does justice to the underlying concept of dreams and nightmares, as you’ll rarely find a record with such an impenetrable atmosphere. Once you hit play you’re soon enveloped by countless layers of swirling guitars, all at the command of Naas Alcameth, and he seems hellbent on suffocating you with them. The Dreaming I is about as close as you can get sleep paralysis-made-music. If you put off black metal as spooky noise made by a bunch hooded esoteric nerds you might’ve found your match in Akhlys. They are just that, they’re dead serious, and the results are impressive.

9. Elephant Tree – 'Elephant Tree' (Magnetic Eye Records - 2016)

Elephant Tree by Elephant Tree

I’ve observed myself growing increasingly apart from most stoner rock as of late, sometimes even antagonizing the genre. I’m afraid I’m just burned out on it and grown embittered, so a record from those genres ending up on my Albums of the Decade list should give you a hint of just how special it really is.

That is not to say that there haven’t been some real stoner rock heavy hitters this decade, such as Gozus Revival, Valley of the Suns Sayings of the Seers or Lo-Pans Salvador, but there’s something to ELEPHANT TREE's self-titled record that just so narrowly sets it apart from the others.

Photograph by Phil Smithies

What that is I am still not quite sure, and I had my fair share of relistens. Maybe it is the tasteful balance act of the production that makes this record so wonderfully ethereal but also ridiculously crushing. Or the sleek as all hell songwriting where every hook fires but the flow remains impeccable. Or the gorgeous harmonic interplay of Jack Townley and Pete Hollands vocals. Or maybe really just the sum of it all.

Whatever it is, Elephant Tree get it so very right and it is a true joy to behold such a well-written and fine-tuned record in a genre that has become all too prone to shoddiness and idle Kyuss worship. If there is any justice in the world, Elephant Tree will be looked back as a classic of the genre.

8. Oranssi Pazuzu – 'Värähtelijä' (Svart Records/20 Buck Spin - 2016)

Värähtelijä by Oranssi Pazuzu

So many have tried to do it. Countless chonged out Hendrix worshippers. Australian neo-psych darlings. But they all failed. Turns out the holy grail of psychedelia was dug up by a bunch of dudes in the frozen wastes of Finland when they decided to throw together black metal and almost every imaginable psych rock permutation under the firmament. Absolute insanity inducing balls-to-the-wall trippiness ensues.

ORANSSI PAZUZU is their name, ego-death squared in hyperspace is their game and Värähtelijä is the latest in a slew of attempts to smear your brain across the event horizon, and their most accomplished one so far. Think Hawkwind trying to interpret the soundtrack of Interstellar with a guy being spaghettified by a black hole screaming on top of it. Huge, plodding riffs and spacey synth fuckery abound.

Film by Shelby Kray

This madness extends to their live shows, yours truly (being completely sober) suffered a sensory overload when they launched into the crescendo of the album opener "Saturaatio" at Roadburn 2016. This band is taking things to the next level, and something tells me that Värähtelijä is just another chapter in an increasingly maddening venture.

7. Conan – 'Blood Eagle' (Napalm Records - 2014)

You can’t really draw a picture of the doom scene in the '10s without CONAN. And I do mean that in quite the literal sense, as seemingly every self-respecting doom fan seems to own at least one Conan shirt and you can’t really go to a gig without seeing one.

By all accounts the band probably could’ve retired years ago and just live off those rad merch designs. But Conan knows no rest -- always writing, always touring, always scheming. Thus the band has fed a steady stream of releases to a cult-like following over the years and narrowing down the output of such an important band to just one record is no small task. My choice eventually fell on the fan favorite, 2014's Blood Eagle.

Photograph by Sally Townsend

Conan had already pretty much established themselves as the emergent sludge-doom act of the decade at that time, but as we know they’re not one to rest on their laurels and Blood Eagle was just them driving the point home and the stake deeper, solidifying a grasp on the scene that hasn’t waned ever since, and they did it oh so righteously, by the primordial might of tonal displacement and drop F glory.

Conan might have the closest thing to a universal doom appeal because they speak to your baser instincts. Songs like "Foehammer" or "Total Conquest" seem like trebuchets aimed at the synapses of your reptilian brain, and I can’t help but admire these noble DIY barbarians, who so deservedly have carved out their place in the canon of the genre.

6. SubRosa – 'More Constant than the Gods' (Profound Lore - 2013)

More Constant Than The Gods by SubRosa

SUBROSA was one of a kind. If one band calling it quits this decade broke my heart, it was them. But before doing so they gifted us three outstanding post-metal records, whose folk and chamber music flourishes felt completely unique, intimate, and anachronistic in a genre dominated by more vast and spacious narratives. They reached inward rather than outward and did so with a no-parts-wasted mentality.

In a world rife with one-trick bands, SubRosa's employ of multiple vocalists and two electric violins felt natural and unabashedly non-gimmicky, and they would reveal the true potential of their sound on 2013's harrowingly beautiful More Constant than the Gods.

Photograph by Alyssa Herrman

More Constant is remarkable for its elegant and restrained way of instilling dread. Hardly any harsh vocals, the tempo never goes beyond a steady stride, just those horrific and yet also beautiful violins, plodding guitars, and downright poetic lyrics. And SubRosa seem to feel right at home on either terrain, be it the skin-crawling lead guitar line of "Affliction" or the grandiose outro section of "Fat of the Ram." One can only hope that SubRosa will return one day. A band that was truly novel, and not just a novelty.

5. Tchornobog – 'Tchornobog' (Fallen Empire / I, Voidhanger - 2017)

TCHORNOBOG is many things. Among others, a dark, ancient Slavic deity. In the world of music, a monolithic amalgamation of extreme metal, some Eldritch chimera of cavernous black, death, and doom metal. And the beast of one Markov Soroka, though him stating that the Tchornobog inhabits his head begs the question who might really be in charge?

Photograph by Nona Limmen

Soroka does indeed seem to be guided by spirits since he started the project at the age 14, and eight years of gestation and arduous work culminated in one of the most engrossing, all-consuming records I have come across this decade. Far be it from me to reduce Tchornobog’s remarkability down to the young age of its creator, but Sorokas ambition and execution of those ambitions could run circles around a lot of veteran extreme metal bands. The man is just flat out talented. And that is not even taking his various other projects (Drown, Aureole, Krukh) into account, or his curation work through his own label, Vigor Deconstruct.

As such, Tchornobog ultimately is, among many other things, a bright spotlight shining on a young man who has all the makings of being the next big underground metal mastermind. I’m sure you’ll be inclined to agree as soon as Soroka brings out the grand piano and saxophone on "III: Non-Existence’s Warmth (Infinite Natality Psychosis)" to perform what I’d like to call Lovecraftian Lounge Music. He must have a thing for Demilich too, judging from those song titles.

4. Hell – 'III' (Lower Your Head / Pesanta Urfolk - 2012)

Hell III by Hell

There is a subtle power in melodies, particularly melancholic and sad ones. Doom, and more specifically funeral doom, have long since sought to harness the power of the melody, but I think nobody has been quite as effective or moved me so profoundly with a simple plucked melody as MSW, the singular mind of HELL.

Just one minute into Mourn, the opening (and penultimate) track of Hell III), I am already instilled with a deep sense of melancholy, but also foreboding doom. However, few songs can just thrive from having a good riff or lead -- and there’s 17 minutes yet to go. I’ll spoil you and say that in this time Hell shifts between doom, black metal, neoclassical music, and dark ambient. That’s a lot of territory to cover and it becomes apparent that for how meticulously well crafted its individual parts are, MSW never loses sight of the bigger picture and the transitions between these different sounds are seamless.

Film by Billy Goate

At the danger of sounding like a huge fucking nerd, I really am more inclined to refer to "Mourn" and its follow up "Decedere" as movements rather than songs and if the songwriting doesn’t clue you in you’ll be persuaded by the time Decedere breaks out the operatic vocals and a flute accompanied by a string ensemble. And no matter if he’s performing a contemplative acoustic piece or pounding you in the ground with some absolutely hellish (the band name is apt as can be) blackened doom, MSW always manages to maintain an aura of grandeur. MSW is not just a great songwriter, he’s a veritable composer, and III is his magnum opus.

3. Mizmor – 'Yodh' (Gilead Media - 2016)

Yodh by מזמור

If whatever has come before was bleak, then Yodh is pitch fucking black. This decade hasn’t lacked in dark records (not even taking metal into account -- Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked at Me, Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree, or The Caretakers Everywhere at the End of Time), but taking on existential dread specifically (and thereby becoming a vessel for it) MIZMOR's Yodh remains unsurpassed in its sheer effectiveness to instill said dread in the listener and is possibly the most harrowing record of the last 10 years.

Photo by Kento Woolery

As befits the theme, Yodh genuinely sounds like the work of a broken man. A miserable slab of glacial funeral doom and grimy black metal, but delivered with a brute strength and conviction that really suggests more defiance than self-pity. I’d be remiss to not point out ALN's incredibly varied vocal performance, ranging from wretched snarls and air-starved bellows to what I can only describe as pterodactyl shrieks, all carrying the same biting vitriol as the instrumentals.

Film by Shelby Kray

Yet for all its doom and gloom, Yodh surprises with occasional moments of tenderness and outright (if melancholic) beauty, too, such as the acoustic intro of "II: A Semblance Waning" or the massive main riff of "III: The Serpent Eats Its Tail" that feels like the sort of thing Pallbearer would’ve come up with if they had been more into Mournful Congregation than Warning.

All these things combined with thoughtful, introspective lyrics make Yodh into an incredibly powerful and downright visceral record, and if for you the main draw of doom metal lies its emotional potency (as it does for me) then Yodh is an essential listen. Let ALN shout down the very pillars that uphold your personal beliefs of life’s meaning.

2. Pallbearer – 'Sorrow and Extinction' (Profound Lore - 2012)

Sorrow And Extinction by Pallbearer

Warning was the first band to try to bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom metal, and while Watching from a Distance might have a fair claim to be one of the saddest metal records out there, in my eyes it was PALLBEARER who took that formula even further and perfected it with their 2011 debut Sorrow and Extinction. To me, it’s a classic record in both senses. A landmark of post-millennium doom and a throwback to the days of yore, when Saint Vitus and Candlemass were in charge of bumming everyone out; while still maintaining the larger-than-life-feel and sonic heft of modern doom championed by bands like Yob or Neurosis.

Photo by Sally Townsend

But Sorrow and Extinction isn’t just some roided up epic doom sans the operatic vocals, Pallbearer are far too clever to suffer such a pitfall. Granted, Sorrow sounds huge, and while there’s plenty of the heavy stuff to go around what makes Sorrow so great is how catchy it is. There is no weak song on this record (admittedly there’s only five), and while most bands could only hope to one day write a riff as good as "Devoid of Redemption's" main theme, it seems like Pallbearer just comes up with them on a whim, and their ability to do so doesn’t seem to have faded three records into their career -- not even to speak of Brett Campbell's soulful lyrics and passionate delivery.

Film by Billy Goate

Then, of course, there’s the amazing guitar interplay between Campbell and Devin Holt, chiefly on the casket closer "Given to the Grave," whose second half essentially boils down to them constantly trading dramatic leads with each other like the world's most woeful ping pong game.

Sorrow and Extinction is not only a deeply moving yet utterly anthemic record, but also one that successfully marries the past and the present of doom. In that regard, it is a preciously rare and so far unsurpassed record.

1. YOB – 'Clearing the Path to Ascend' (Neurot Records - 2014)

Clearing The Path To Ascend by YOB

Writing about metal without resorting to superlatives is hard. Try to practice restraint in the presence of something whose very nature lacks restraint. I am definitely guilty of that lack of restraint; one has only got to scroll up again to confirm it. But luckily some records are so very superlative that I do not have to take that editorial high road and can fire all the “mosts” and “-ests” at will. In fact, they almost require you to use them. Clearing the Path to Ascend by YOB is one such record. Even among all these preceding superlative records it stands above and beyond.

Photo by Angelique Le Marchand

Clearing the Path to Ascend is so vast, it feels singular. It is one and it is all. When I think larger-than-life sound, Clearing comes to mind first. It has become the very benchmark with which I measure other records. Yob's big and beautiful only consists of four tracks, but they made each feel like a distinct part of a greater journey. "In Our Blood" opens with a recording of Alan Watts telling you it is "time to wake up," before the song slowly rises into a stretched-out draw and crash, eventually unfurling into a manic guitar line.

"Nothing to Win" feels like Yob's own take on Neurosis’ Through Silver in Blood. It is an unrelenting, steady 11-minute march down a highway of broken glass, utterly windswept and viciously hopeless. "Unmask the Spectre" seems to tread similarly bitter paths but manages to wrestle itself free into two grandiose spiraling crescendos.

Film by Billy Goate

The death knell of an album closer that is "Marrow" shouldn’t really need much of an introduction at this point. It still feels like I’ll see a link, post or share of it every other day. It has become an omnipresence in the doom scene, and deservingly so. Yob dials back on the gloom and shines all the brighter. "Marrow" is not just hopeful; it is downright ecstatic and by the time Mike Scheidt launches into the grand solo of the track (so very gracefully accompanied by a Hammond organ played by producer Billy Barnett) has ascended to a genuine sermon.

Though Clearing had its fair share of dark moments "Marrow" closes the record on a remarkably conciliatory note and I really think that speaks of Yob as a (metal) band. Call it a big move to offer closure -- a fitting end to such a big record. One that suits the title of ‘Album of the Decade,’ and embodies the spirit of metal that wants to be just more.

Calvin's Choice: 100 Best of the Decade

YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

Mizmor - Yodh

Hell - Hell III

Tchornobog - Tchornobog

SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

Conan - Blood Eagle

Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä

Elephant Tree - Elephant Tree

Akhlys - The Dreaming I

Clutch - Earth Rocker

Merkstave - Merkstave

Gozu - Revival

Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty

Valley of the Sun - The Sayings of the Seers

Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows

Thou - Heathen

Om - Advaitic Songs

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker

Horn of the Rhino - Weight of Coronation

Boss Keloid - Melted on the Inch

KALEIKR - Heart Of Lead

Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus - Spirit Knife

Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

LINGUA IGNOTA - Caligula

Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

Messa - Feast for Water

Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

Mamiffer - The World Unseen

Samothrace - Reverence to Stone

Primitive Man - Scorn

Fórn - The Departure of Consciousness

Khemmis - Absolution

Bongripper - Miserable

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

UN - Sentiment

Cult of Luna - Mariner

Slomatics - Future Echo Returns

MISTHYRMING - Söngvar elds og óreiðu

Dvne - Asheran

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Mars Red Sky - Apex III (Praise For The Burning Soul)

The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave.

Panopticon - Panopticon - Roads to the North

Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith

Sólstafir - Ótta

Have a Nice Life - The Unnatural World

Furia - Księżyc Milczy Luty

Tardigrada - Emotionale Ödnis

Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie

Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar

Höstblod - Mörkrets Intåg

Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Zola Jesus - Okovi

Funereal Presence - Achatius

Wormlust - The Feral Wisdom

Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

L'Acephale - L'Acéphale

40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room

Vilkacis - Beyond the Mortal Gate

Bossk - Audio Noir

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy

Sumac - What One Becomes

Death Grips - Exmilitary

Red Fang - Murder the Mountains

Lo-Pan - Salvador

Whores. - Gold

Truckfighters - Universe

Greenleaf - Trails & Passes

Bölzer - Aura

Monolord - Vaenir

Dead to a Dying World - Elegy

The Body - I Shall Die Here

Mutoid Man - War Moans

Neurosis - Fires Within Fires

Opeth - Pale Communion

Planning for Burial - Below the House

Triptykon - Melana Chasmata

Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

Saor - Aura

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Egypt - Endless Flight

Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked For Death

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Kadavar - Kadavar

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Vanum - Ageless Fire

Dai-Ichi - Dai-Ichi

Lord Mantis - Pervertor

Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

Loss - Horizonless

Tome of the Unreplenished - Innerstanding

Elder - Lore

Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild

Ahab - The Giant

Alcest - Kodama

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation

Sleep - The Sciences

[mommaafoxx-blog]

Arnold Schwarzenegger - Wikimedia Commons

In 1982 Schwarzenegger first gained international attention as an actor through his leading role in Conan the Barbarian. In 1984 he also played in the sequel Conan the Destroyer. In the same year, the science fiction film Terminator marked the final breakthrough in Hollywood for both Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron. Schwarzenegger embodied the villain for the first time, although he only had to speak about 17 sentences with about 70 words throughout the film. Define the minimum number of people for each row of the result list. Copy the HTML code to embed the book description on your website. For payments of € 100 or more, we would be happy to issue a tax-relevant invoice for the promotion of our project. Please name, street, place for the invoice, amount and date for our assignment.

Turkmenistan Arnold Schwarzenegger Kino commemorative edition stamp souvenir

Examples are only used to help you translate the word you are looking for or use it in different contexts. They are not selected or reviewed by us and may contain inappropriate expressions or ideas, please report examples that should be edited or not displayed. During his first nationwide television interviews in the 1970s, he answered questions about his sport openly. When asked whether he had also taken "anabolic steroids" during his active bodybuilding period, he answered in the affirmative and admitted that he had taken them under medical supervision. Critics accuse him of self-centeredness and selfishness. Regardless of the assessment of his person, his career is exemplary. d and embroiled in an adventure no man has ever done before. In "Predator" a routine emission becomes a horror trip. Here too, Arnold Schwarzenegger can convince with his trained body.

Science [edit

KOBLENZ - Because a train hit a person on the train tracks on Wednesday, the route between Koblenz and Cologne had to be blocked for several hours. The commission became quick because of the system iphone 11 bazooka phone case Food information dealing with the problem of the export of substantial quantities of Austrian wine containing diethylene glycol (antifreeze) to the Community. In January 2006, Schwarzenegger was declared an unwanted person by the parliament of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. The tightened integration policy of Schwarzenegger, who originally immigrated to the United States, was described by the Mexican politicians as "racist". Although Schwarzenegger received the Golden Globe for Best Newcomer for his role in Mister Universum in 1977, critics have repeatedly accused him of lacking acting talent. At the Razzie Awards, which were held as a "counter-Oscar", Schwarzenegger was nominated a total of eight times for the Golden Raspberry in the category of Worst Actor - but ultimately never won it. The prison sentence is now at least 25 years to life, but includes the possibility of probation. In her petition to the governor, the 32-year-old woman had pointed out that she had been abused for years. According to psychiatric reports, she suffers psychologically from the consequences of the violence that has been inflicted on her. Brown was not a "Mister Universe" or "Terminator", but he has a lot of missionary zeal for it, as he put it himself.

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #15: Favorite Great Old One/Monster God

1.      Nurgle the Great Unclean One (Warhammer)

I think you can tell a lot about a person by knowing which of the Chaos Gods is there favorite. I’m not saying there’s a right answer, but I’ve always been a Nurgle man myself. Nurgle is more than just the daemon god of disease and entropy; he’s the god of the value of life. Nurgle loves all of his children equally, down to the smallest virus. It can be hard for people to accept that, to realize that they have as much cosmic significance as a single-cell organism, but that’s just because they don’t realize how much love the Urfather has for that little cell. In Nurgle’s phlegmatic embrace, all of us are equal, regardless of race, gender, or cell count.

Nurgle asks only that you spread the love he has so willingly given, so that all may be his children. Death and disease are natural parts of life; we struggle to fight them so, but they always come back to us. Through Nurgle, we may exalt in the power of pus and the greatness gangrene. We grow stronger with each infection, and every tumor is a sign of endurance. We do not die when the Plague Bearer calls us; we merely transform for the vermin and bacteria that consumes us, to be reborn in the eternal cycle. Truly, Grandfather Nurgle moves in wondrous ways.

2.      Ithaqua the Wind Walker (August Derleth)

It should come as no surprise that the god of all wendigos is one of my favorite Great Old Ones. The Ithaqua Cycle is probably the best thing August Derleth wrote, for what ever that’s worth. Ithaqua is just such a chilling god; the image of some skull-faced giant thing turning around a mountain is the stuff of nightmares. Ithaqua is the primal urge inside life, the need to do anything to survive in an unrelenting environment. He walks in the cold places of the world, but also in that cold space between worlds, spreading his cannibalistic madness from world to world. Ithaqua himself seems hardly necessary, or the countless wendigos that follow him. It’s the chaos and horror he causes between people in a desperate situation, pitting one man against the other and breaking taboos until only the strongest is left. Ithaqua is the cold and brutality of the North personified.

3.      Lolth the Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Dungeons and Dragons)

Lilith is so pastiche these days. You know where the real rebellious queen of evil action is at? Spiders, man, and Lolth is the Spider Queen. Lolth has been in Dungeons and Dragons since the beginning. Wherever the dark elves go, Lolth goes too, like any deity, and her absence from a setting is noticeable. She’s one of D&D’s greatest villains, and countless adventurers have lost their lives in the Demonweb Pits. Her entire realm is an arachnid hell crawling with spiders as small a mite to as big as her spider-golem palace. Lolth is an entity of contrasts; her priesthood is a strict matriarchy, but Lolth herself is absolutely insane. It’s hard to tell if there’s anything left of the elf goddess she used to be. Beneath the layers of scheming, beauty, racially motivated hatred, and plans to conquer the known multiverse lies a beating heart of blind hunger, an overwhelming instinct to survive by strength alone.

4.      Saaitii the Hog (William Hope Hodgson)

Saaitii is actually what got this particular entry in the challenge. See, I wanted to do just ‘Top 10 Great Old Ones’, but then I was worried that not everybody would know what the Great Old Ones are and it’s kind of an arbitrary category that Lovecraft wanted people to change from story-to-story for fun, so then I just broadened the category to ‘monster gods’ and now here we are. Anyway, Saaitii is a monster that William Hope Hodgson’s occult detective Thomas Carnacki encountered in his monster-hunting stories. The locals tell Carnacki that Saaitii is the ghost of a boar wrongfully killed long ago, but Carnacki suspects that it’s an extradimensional something using the spirits of dead hogs to try and come through.

First off, I just want to know what William Hope Hodgson’s deal with pigs was. This is explicitly his second pig monster story, following the pig men from The House on the Borderlands. But the usage of that aesthetic is definitely refreshing a little unsettling. In an age of meme-tentacles, we need new and different cosmic horrors. Pigs can be disturbing; we think of them as cute at best and filthy at worst, but rarely evil or malevolent. Even the meanest boar has a kind of nobility to it. But the Hog brings up images of mindless, vicious cruelty, dark things in the forest and filth. The concept of a higher life form like some extradimensional whatsit coming into our world through ‘lower’ lifeforms strikes a little close to the karmic bullseye for some, turning the tables on humanity and reminding us that in the eyes of the cosmos, we’re just so much more food.

5.      Ogdru Jahad the Seven Who Are One (Hellboy)

You’d think there’d be more dragons on the list, but so far it’s just the one. Seven. 369. Whatever. The Ogdru Jahad are the Hellboy/BPRD universes Great Old Ones, and the source of… a sizable amount of trouble there. Not all of it, but most of it. At the dawn of time, the Sons of God formed the mud of creation into seven great dragons that were filled with the shadow of the moon, for whatever reason. Things would have been fine and dandy there, but one little angel named Satan, for reasons that are still unclear, took the fire of God and filled the dragon with it, giving the Ogdru Jahad life. The Ogdru Jahad birthed their 369 offspring, and the angels had to fight them off before the whole Creation thing could get rolling. From that day on, every human culture has been warned about the Ogdru Jahad, and they have been ingrained in the human consciousness as the Dragon, from Tiamat to the Beast of Revelations.

It’s a nice fusion of Judeo-Christian Biblical lore and cosmic horror. I honestly don’t think it would work if it wasn’t for the fact that Satan is notably absent from the Hellboy series and, as of BPRD: Hell on Earth, the Ogdru Jahad are winning, where even their smallest children can cause natural disasters. I love conflating the image of dragons with cosmic monsters. Cthulhu as Leviathan, flying polyps as oriental dragons, hunting horrors as wyverns; it’s a direct play to the archetype that both types of creatures fill. The Ogdru Jahad illustrate that perfectly, simultaneously something the most modern of cosmic horror and the most ancient of monsters.

6.      Flowey the Flower (Undertale)

Flowey’s final form gets in on design alone. There aren’t a lot of monster designs that actually freak me out, but Flowey is just horrible. Of course that’s also because it’s a genius bit of sprite animation, with the usage of textures contrasting so hard with the rest of Undertale. It looks like something that ate its way inside out from at least three Madoka witches. The claws, the eyes, the mouths; it all makes something perfectly awful and abhorrent. And, of course, the music. I actually think Flowey’s boss theme rates pretty low compared to other Undertale boss themes, but the title is just something else. How are you supposed to do better than “Your Best Nightmare”?

7.      Rom the Vacuous Spider (Bloodborne)

It’s Rom. C’mon. Look, I know she’s not actually a Great One; she’s Kin, like Mergo’s Wet Nurse. But look at her. When I think, “What’s my favorite eldritch monstrosity boss from Bloodborne?” I keep coming back to Rom. Just look at her dumb, stupid face. One of her attacks is just falling over. That’s the most relatable a video game has been for me since I was an undergrad. Rom doesn’t want to hurt anybody; she’s just a giant, stupid bug/fungus thing. You could just walk away, man. You could just leave poor Rom alone. She’s doing her best trying to grant people eyes and you’re over here hassling her. In front of her kids, man. Just leave her alone.

8.      Moder the Bastard of Loki (The Ritual)

Y’know, as a jotun, this guy could have been on the giant list, but I feel like its design and concept are too unique for that. This is a special monster, a kind of revelatory creature. Its design is just out of this world, blending human and stag and those creepy little eyes. But there’s so much more to it than just a great design. Its ability to create illusions essentially gives it access to shapeshifting, tying it to the actual mythology of Loki and Norse giants. The actual ritual to appease Moder, where it picks a person up and impales them on a tree, is reminiscent of the story in Norse mythology where Odin impales himself on the World Tree Yggdrasil to gain the knowledge of the runes. Before a person is killed, Moder shows them something precious to them, or a defining moment in their life; it is, in its own way, giving the person a revelation about what is vital in their own universe. Moder, like any good monster, delivers a message about the meaning of reality to the people it encounters.

9.      Set the Slithering God (Conan the Barbarian/Marvel Comics)

I like this comic book version of a god. The actual Egyptian deity Set is fairly complex, and actually examining his character and divine portfolio gives insight into how Egypt’s culture changes over time. Comic book Set, on the other hand, is the god of snake villains. He is the snake villain to end all snake villains. Marvel cooked him up for their old Conan comics based off an offhand mention in one of Robert E. Howard’s stories because they needed Conan to have a nemesis. So Conan’s nemesis, the arch-wizard/priest Thoth Amon, worships the dark god Set, regardless of the fact that Thoth Amon appeared exactly once in the very first Conan story. Now, it’s fifty years later and Set is apparently one of Marvel’s Primordial Ultra-Deities.

It’s that mixture of traditional myth and the cosmic I like again, though this time it’s less H.P. Lovecraft ‘cosmic horror’ and more Jack Kirby ‘cosmic action’; new gods and a new mythology for a new medium, but still the same old story. Set is the Serpent, like the Ogdru Jahad, manifesting in human lore as everything from the serpent in Eden to Leviathan. He was the first murderer, able to absorb the power of any other god he ate, and even today he seeks reptile supremacy. Wherever there is Set there are snakes, enacting the cosmic cycle of death and rebirth while lounging in decadence.

10.   Haos the Ultimate Bio-Weapon (Resident Evil 6)

… We’re going to do this now, and then we’re never going to do it again. Because we’re going to talk about something good that was in Resident Evil 6. One of the most infuriating things about RE6 is that it had some of the most incredible monster designs in the Resident Evil series. Great designs. The kind of monster designs that other games only wish they could achieve. And they were wasted on one of the worst games the series has produced. One of those designs was Haos, the apparent ultimate bio-weapon engineered by (ugh) Neo-Umbrella in a secret facility at the bottom of the ocean good lord I’m putting this on a list with William Hope Hodgson.

Haos deserves a better game; its design is unnecessarily fantastic. It looks like a ningen crossed with a jellyfish. It’s some far future stage of human evolution driven to its most extreme and bizarre form. There’s something forlorn and sad about it, but also beautiful and powerful. Its concept is purely apocalyptic; Haos will rise from the bottom of the ocean before it finally dies and dissolves into a gas that will spread across the world, turning humanity into zombies and monsters. Herald of a world of gods and monsters and all that. Even its name is kind of cool; ‘Haos’ is literally Siberian for ‘chaos’. And every day I have to wake up with the knowledge that this wonderful, horrible monster was stuck at the end of a Resident Evil 6 campaign. It’s depressing. So here’s to good old Haos; at least here you’ll get some respect.

[fibrielsolaer]

Smash Ultimate tier list based entirely on which characters I like and which I hate

BSP = Big Sexy Personality

FBNIS = Fun, But Not In Smash

MPATBUD = Mario Princesses Are Terrifying Blow-Up Dolls

S Tier

Kirby: absolutely the man, if you don’t love Kirby you’re probably the asshole who got this roster flooded with Marth World pricks

Pikachu: He quicc. He thicc. He’ll Thunderbolt you to hicc

Except it’s a she because I only ever play Librechu ;p

Bowser: BSP

Zelda: She is so cute, I can finally stand playing as her

Pichu: He is so cute, it almost makes up for how stupid he is

Ganondorf: He’s finally fucking cool. He uses the goddamn sword now

Lucario: What if Mewtwo was a Shaolin monk hunk

I only play purple Lucario for reasons you’re best not knowing

Toon Link: He’s the cartoon that Link and Young Link watched and modeled themselves on

Ridley: HOLY SHIT IT FEELS AWESOME TO PLAY RIDLEY

I love how the game designers know he’s way too small so when you fight him in Classic Mode as Samus he gets Giant modifier

K. Rool: BSP

Piranha Plant: The pain from the pipes, this disrespectful piece of shit is so stupid he wraps around to greatness, with his inclusion I’ve changed my mind and now say fuck it, add Bandana Waddle Dee, hell add a regular Waddle Dee if you want, I don’t even care anymore

A Tier

Luigi: Few people know that he and Mario are actually identical twins, his brother merely wears a fat suit (the weight of which has crushed his spine) so they can be told apart

Ness: I like the picture you get when you play for 20 hours

C. Falcon: This is the guy who beats up Incineroar. As the positive icon of the people he never shows any emotion except for “YUS!” and “SHOW ME”. All Might was probably based on this jackass

Jigglypuff: Like so many other Pokemon, its adorable facade is a veneer for an expansive and unfathomable eldritch demon. The difference is, despite how fucking many Pokemon like that there are, nobody has found Jigglypuff’s secret and lived to tell

Young Link: He’s actually Link’s son, who idolizes his father and wants to follow in his footsteps. His dad has strayed from the path but young blood here carries on the true faith. Also, FBNIS

Mewtwo: He was the original Damn Cool Pokemon. He jockeys with Lucario for that role now but all they ever do is sit there charging their neutral Bs talking about how the planet will explode in 5 minutes

Roy: He knows that the Marth World infestation is soon to be purged, because there are like five actual Marths including him, so he decided to become the best Marth World character so he alone will survive

Pit: The only cunt from his series besides Dark Pit who had the decency not to change voice and try to pretend it was the same fucking one. I never play as him ever but Sakurai sure cared more about making him fresh & fun post-Uprising than any of his other goddamn characters

Charizard: BSP

Dedede: BSP

Bowser Jr.: This rude little shit is the guy who you invite to a party and he brings his whole crew, excuse me no I didn’t invite Wendy and Horton and Lenny and all these bitches, but fuck it y’all cool

Simon: I like his funny walk and he looks like Conan the Barbarian

Richter: I like his funny walk and he looks like a dork

Isabelle: Do you know this literal bitch killed me with a fucking stop sign 3 times before I unlocked her, why isn’t that a reaction macro

Incineroar: He pretends to be a bad guy so that kids’ heroes will beat him up on TV and they will be happy. He is so sweet

B Tier (Everyone Is Meh)

Mario: Meh

Donkey Kong: Meh

Link: The dad who strayed from the path, I really don’t like the Breath of the Wild Link, FBNIS

Fox: Meh

Sheik: Meh

Dr. Meh: Mario

Falco: Hands off my meh

Mehrth: He’s kinda cool but Roy is way cooler

Mr. Game & Watch: What an annoying asshole

Wario: It’s not the cool Wario, it’s the stupid Wario Ware one, and he brings all his obnoxious waifu friends with him. It’s Wario after he retired from his teen Youtube star days at the age of 30 and he’s trying to stay young and cool-looking but his stoner friends keep fucking it up

Solid Snake: Meh, too indirect for me, FBNIS

Squirtle: Meh-est of the Pokemon Trainer trio, he just doesn’t provoke like any reaction from me at all unlike the other two

Diddy Kong: Meh

Olimeh: This is the most boring goddamn character, everything you do you have to pluck fucks

ROB: He barely animates

Villager: I kinda wish Animal Crossing let you be an animal too. The lone human character is really boring

Mega Meh: You got: FBNIS

Little Meh: I dunno I’ve just barely ever played him

Mehninja: Maybe I should actually try playing it once ever

Duck Hunt: If there was a B-and-a-half tier I’d put this one there because you can delay the side-B and set up Snake-level GOTCHA combos, otherwise the novelty wears off fast

Ryu: He is the 2nd-least likeable guy, what a turbo douche

Bayomehtta: She’s rule 63 Dante, her game was always just a DMC ripoff that relied on her tits & ass to differentiate from it

Inkling: I like the yellow hair girl one but I ABSOLUTELY HATE THE CRINGY-ASS ASSIST TROPHY AND WILL ABSOLUTELY UNFAIRLY BLAME THE CHARACTER FOR THIS.

C Tier

Samus: She is the most FBNIS character

Ice Climber: They’re really un-cute and I hate their desync thing

Metaknight: This guy was so much cooler before he talked, or rather, before he screamed AYAYGYGYAYGYAGA

Ike: Marth World has like 2,000 characters ranging from pegasus knights to barbarians to psychic dragon-girl dancers, and yet we keep getting these boring fucking swordsmen

Pokemon Trainer: Get absolutely the fuck out you twerp you don’t even do a goddamn thing and you die the second any one of your THREE fighters is KO’d so you don’t even incorporate the actual spirit of your original character unlike literally everybody else

Venusaur: If I evolved this ugly fucker I would delete my save

Lucas: If I had an Absolutely Gone Machine that could erase anything in the world and delete everyone’s memory that it ever existed so they would shut the fuck up about it, Mother 3 would be precisely the fourth thing I deleted

Robin: Least shitty post-Melee Marth World character but I just haven’t bothered to try it out to see if it’s actually good or not, probably because I’m just too allergic to Marth World by now

Dark Samus: Cool, but why

Daisy: MPATBUD, but this one has the closest thing to a personality. Unfortunately it is a fucking terrible and horrific personality

Zero Suit Samus: hey cool Samus is Barbie now

Ken: Remember how I said Ryu was the 2nd-least likeable? Well here’s Liquid Ryu to seize the coveted spot

Cloud: Yeah hey, let’s take the one Final Fantasy protagonist with like the least connection to Nintendo, no it’s fine, every goddamn Marth World game except the one that justified its worldwide presence has a character in but we’re not gonna use Cecil or Buttz or Terra

Corrin: Any hope this bitch had to go on my “Is a dragon so I like it” list was ruined by how absolutely infuriating it is to fight against Corrin especially that one Spirit match where he spams his INSTANT FINAL SMASH THAT HAS LIKE AN INFINITELY VERTICAL HITBOX fuck this goddamn digimon

D tier

Yoshi: I’ve hated this thing ever since it stopped going BAWONKA WONKA and started going blblblblblbl

add Birdo as an Echo and I might forgive you

Peach: MPATBUD, Peach is usually able to manifest either the behavior of a real person (Paper Mario) or the appearance of one (Smash), but sadly never both, she is doomed to blow-up-dollery forevermore

Sonic: Please add any other Sonic character, any at all, I’ll even take Charmy, I fucking hate Blue Bubsy

Wolf: The only reason he is not the furry-trashiest character in Smash is because Krystal is an AT, this cocksucker deadass awoos

Wii Fit Trainer: Next to her, Mario Princesses almost look human

Rozzalinda: MPATBUD and this one is the worst, far and away the worst Mario Princess, she is the creepiest fucking woman. WHY IS IT THAT NOBODY IN MARIO ACTS LIKE A HUMAN FUCKING BEING EXCEPT THE CHARACTERS WHO AREN’T FUCKING HUMAN. tl;dr the only people who say rosalina is their waifu collect people’s faces

Mii Fighters: you dress them up to make a parody of a character and then never once actually use said parody because they are stupid

Palutena: remember in Uprising how they could make fake Palutenas, this is one of them, they have a fake Viridi too, you know it is because starting in smash 4 it is clearly two different actresses trying way too hard to sound like the old ones and i can’t get over it sorry. (also she plays like shit)

Pac-Man: I only liked him when he was a pizza

Shulk: does he ever shut the fuck up

Lucina: add a red nose and it’s Marth: Tumblr Edition

Chrom: oh fuck off

Robin’s bitchass final smash still calls this clown

even if you use it on Chrom

he is so ashamed of his audacity he fucking fucks himself

[titleknown]

5 Properties Funko Should Adapt In Their “Savage World” Line.

Oh Funko, Funko, Funko. Like Disney, they are an indisputably evil company that has weaved itself into every corner of our fandom life, except infinitely less consistently good in their productions.

Not only did they put smaller artist-driven vinyls out of business with floods of licensed material that would make that asshole Theodor Adorno jizz himself with vindication in Hell, but the POP line that did so was largely ugly; viscerally unpleasant garbage.

But, in a stroke of being-decent, they've recently decided to go a different way with their licensed figures, a pastiche of the old He-Man-style barbarian figures (Or their Remco and Galaxy Hole knockoffs if you're willing to get more obscure) in their Savage World line, in a way that actually looks cool and clever!

They're starting with Mortal Kombat figures and planning on continuing with horror-movie themed ones and actual Conan-licensed ones, and I thought I might as well bring up five properties I'd love to see if them use! Because if you can't beat 'em, send suggestions to their vast and dark empire!

Though, word to the wise, I won't be doing any of the superhero lines because A) That's kind of a gimmee and B) That's not the most fun to write about.

Now, anyhoo, here’s they are past the break...

Golden Girls

While I have not seen the show, though everyone I know who has says it is a treasure, I will say it deserves a line for the reason of Rule of Funny.

Because, would the comedic adventures in the love lives of four old ladies seem incongruous with the idea of barbarian figures? Yes. Would that incongruity be comedy gold and lead people to go “Holy shit, I gotta buy this”? Very yes.

It's just the right blend of goofy joke item and legit fun idea that it comes off more sincere than; say; Hipster Disney Princess Funko Pops. Plus, I think we at least want that Bea Arthur figure to pose with our Deadpool.

Steven Universe

Oh Steven Universe. Once one of the leading lights on Cartoon Network, collapsed into a wailing and gnashing of network mismanagement and Discourse that would puzzle Foucalt's ghost. Which probably will not cease until they bring back Bismuth and hopefully don't fuck it up this time given one of the writers issued a mea-culpa for that ep a while ago, and apparently the cosmic stuff is getting back on track so that's nice but ANYWAY, I'M GETTING OFF TRACK!

Thing about the Gems is, the base concept feels like it would be really easy to aesthetically re-jigger into barbarians fighting on a primitive world, alien women of light against their own imperialistic kind in shards and thunder. Hell, when you put it that way it could very easily feel like an actual toyline concept from the 80s.

I could easily see the most prominent Gems re-designed like that, maybe with light-piping for their gems and Steven done as a smaller Orko/Kowl-type figure packaged with a Ruby. And plus, it'd at least be a fun AU to see done in actual action figure form. GEM BARBARIANS Y'ALL!

Golden Axe/Altered Beast

I make this a two-fer because they fit so well with each other aesthetically that, were I to revive the both of them, it'd be a crossover, but I DIGRESS. There had to be at least one game-related entry on this list, and I think these two would be the most perfect for that.

The aesthetics of both of those games, whether it be the peplum Greek-yiffthology of Altered Beast or the Valejo-inspired pulp fantasy of Golden Axe, the two lines would be a no-brainer in terms of combining 80s nostalgia with that kind of aesthetic vibe in a way that taps into that nostalgia in an endless loop!

Just produce the three main Golden Axe heroes, Death Adder, the Altered Beast in wolf form, Neff the Rhino, and one other, and you're; pardon the pun; golden!

If you wanted to dip further into the Sega well, a burly barbarian Billy Hatcher would be hilarious, and you could even get some nonbinary representation with a version of NiGHTs using one of the repurposed femme bodies!

Dragonball Z/Fist of the North Star/Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Okay, these are all in a tie because they all share a genre of “Classic muscleman Shonen,” and it would be such an amazing aesthetic to blend with the comically-ripped MotU-type figures that it'd probably happened had they been contemporaneous.

Like, “Goku and Kenshiro in He-Man scale/style” should be all I need to convince you, but it also lends itself to so many fun gimmicks it's not even funny, Jojo characters in two-packs with their Stands, launching energy attacks on DBZ figures, exploding action on the Fist of the North Star figures for you to pithily say “Omae Wa Shinderu” as you fold them open to reveal the goresplosion!

An Original IP!

Okay, this one's a bit of a cheat, but I thought it might be a good capper for the list. Original toylines are nearly dead these days, with more and more of them having to have a pre existing “sell” to do it since the 90s, like the way Mel Birnkrant's Pets of Frankenstein got turned into AHHHHHH! Real Monsters.

But, what if the “sell” were compatibility in terms of play/display-pattern with that larger line of licensed figures? It'd be a great way to diversify, and maybe even actually give something back to the artistic community after; yanno; making the vinyl toy market a desolate wasteland; by hiring them to do design work!

On Tumblr alone I'd recommend @witnesstheabsurd and @bogleech as shoo-ins for that kind o thing, and from established classic toy artists, I'd bet folks like Mel Birnkrant, @turtlemilk and @timclarketoys wouldn't say no if Funko asked them to work on a new IP!

And, at the very least, I'd buy it! Would you all?

Are there more that'd be good ideas for those kinds of liens? Sure, and I plan to make a follow-up in the future. Heck, I plan to make a follow-up based on what horror icons I hope get in the horror subline, so be on the lookout for that!

Also, if you want to support independent artists making similar figures, check out Zoloworld's lines of toys at underworldfigures.com/! While they're quite a bit more expensive, due to being a smaller line from a small company, they do have interchangable limbs that can be popped and swapped, so if you have the extra cash to plunk down, maybe support them too!

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

The Messiah who ‘Bows to Moon’

Six Surprising Ways Jesus Changed The World

John Ortberg, Senior Pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

Both President Obama and Governor Romney have had to repeatedly address their views about an itinerant rabbi who lived 2000 years ago.

But why does anyone care?

Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan wrote, “Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western Culture for almost 20 centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left?” It turns out that the life of Jesus is a comet with an exceedingly long tale. Here are some shards of his impact that most often surprise people:

Children In the ancient world children were routinely left to die of exposure – particularly if they were the wrong gender (you can guess which was the wrong one); they were often sold into slavery. Jesus’ treatment of and teachings about children led to the forbidding of such practices, as well as orphanages and godparents. A Norwegian scholar named Bakke wrote a study of this impact, simply titled: When Children Became People: the Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.

Education Love of learning led to monasteries, which became the cradle of academic guilds. Universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard all began as Jesus-inspired efforts to love God with all ones’ mind. The first legislation to publicly fund education in the colonies was called The Old Deluder Satan Act, under the notion that God does not want any child ignorant. The ancient world loved education but tended to reserve it for the elite; the notion that every child bore God’s image helped fuel the move for universal literacy.

Compassion Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world. His compassion for the poor and the sick led to institutions for lepers, the beginning of modern-day hospitals. The Council of Nyssa decreed that wherever a cathedral existed, there must be a hospice, a place of caring for the sick and poor. That’s why even today, hospitals have names like “Good Samaritan,” “Good Shepherd,” or “Saint Anthony.” They were the world’s first voluntary, charitable institutions.

Humility The ancient world honored many virtues like courage and wisdom, but not humility. People were generally divided into first class and coach. “Rank must be preserved,” said Cicero; each of the original 99 percent was a personis mediocribus. Plutarch wrote a self-help book that might crack best-seller lists in our day: How to Praise Yourself Inoffensively.

Jesus’ life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue. Historian John Dickson writes, “it is unlikely that any of us would aspire to this virtue were it not for the historical impact of his crucifixion… Our culture remains cruciform long after it stopped being Christian.”

Forgiveness In the ancient world, virtue meant rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. Conan the Barbarian was actually paraphrasing Ghengis Khan in his famous answer to the question “what is best in life?” – To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

An alternative idea came from Galilee: what is best in life is to love your enemies, and see them reconciled to you. Hannah Arendt, the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton, claimed, “the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth.” This may be debatable, but he certainly gave the idea unique publicity.

Humanitarian Reform: Jesus had a way of championing the excluded that was often downright irritating to those in power. His inclusion of women led to a community to which women flocked in disproportionate numbers. Slaves – up to a third of ancient populations – might wander into a church fellowship and have a slave-owner wash their feet rather than beat them. One ancient text instructed bishops to not interrupt worship to greet a wealthy attender, but to sit on the floor to welcome the poor. The apostle Paul said: “Now there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male and female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.” Thomas Cahill wrote that this was the first statement of egalitarianism in human literature.

Perhaps as remarkable as anything else is Jesus’ ability to withstand the failings of his followers, who from the beginning probably got in his way at least as much as they helped. The number of groups claiming to be ‘for’ Jesus are inexhaustible; to name a few: Jews for Jesus, Muslims for Jesus, Ex-Masons for Jesus, Road Riders for Jesus, Cowboys for Jesus, even Atheists for Jesus.

The one predictable element of this fall’s U.S. presidential campaign is that it will be called “the most important election of our time.” As the last one was called, and the next one will be.

Meanwhile, the unpredictable influence of an unelected carpenter continues to endure and spread across the world.

The FFWPU is unequivocally not Christian

How “God’s Day” was established

Sun Myung Moon’s thoughts on JESUS and Christianity – “IDIOTS”

Peace King Moon and his two gun factories

Moon business, Tong-il Heavy Industries, manufactures machine guns

Unification Church business manufactured the Vulcan 20mm cannon

Sasakawa and Kodama of Japan may have had another reason for their alliance with Moon

Yongpyong Resort, covering 4,300 acres, is owned by the Moons

The Ocean Resort in Yeosu is owned by the Moons

“It was also agreed that Japanese and Korean churches would cooperate with the committee tackling the Unification Church problem in Yeosu city in South Korea. Japanese representatives pointed out that the Unification Church sponsored resort development in Yeosu is supported by funds stolen from Japanese victims, and stated their policy to thoroughly investigate the source of the funds to stop the development in Yeosu.” LINK

Beaché Palace is owned by the Moons. Who paid for it?

The Moons’ Jets and Helicopters

Moon’s unused Geomun Island Palace

The $1 billion Cheonjeonggung Museum has been called a ‘palace’ by some people. It should never be called a palace.

[ramajmedia]

Wolverine Just Delivered His Most Memorable Kill EVER

Warning: SPOILERS for Savage Avengers #5

The Wolverine has delivered some incredible attacks, unforgettable fights, and unparalleled kills... but his latest mission has ended in what can only be described as a Marvel fan's most gruesome dream come true. Forget Mutants or monsters: Wolverine just slayed an honest to goodness GOD. With some help from his Savage Avengers, of course.

If any X-Men fans missed Logan's recruitment onto the deadliest Avengers team in history, now is the time to get reading. Because no fan of Wolverine should miss out on this. This thing of brutal beauty, arriving in the latest issue of Savage Avengers #5. The story to this point has seen Conan the Barbarian join the Marvel Universe, along with his sorcerer nemesis Kulan Gath. But to foil the magician's latest scheme of conjuring a world-ending demonic God, Conan needs the help of Wolverine, the Venom symbiote, the Punisher, Elektra, Brother Voodoo, and a centuries-old symbiote sword.

RELATED: Wolverine Finally Meets His Secret Daughter, SPOILER

If that sounds like an incredible battle waiting to happen, don't worry: the gigantic Marrow God is successfully brought into the world, giving the heroes a chance to kill it in unforgettable fashion. Writer Gerry Duggan and artist Mike Deodato, Jr. enjoy every single panel of this outrageous battle, making the earlier scene of Wolverine bleeding his healing factor into Voodoo's chest cavity seem positively tame by comparison. Especially once Wolverine gets his chance to battle an otherworldly Marrow God his own size. Or at least, lowered to it.

We'll spare readers the details and simply say that Kulan Gath is not playing around, conjuring a demonic centaur the size of a building and growing fast--otherwise known as The Marrow God, consumer of entire planets' worth of sentient beings. To prevent this deity from destroying all of Earth, these so-called Savage Avengers need to come up with a plan true to their name. Or, failing that, hit the thing hard enough to knock it over and onto the ground so its throat winds up at perfect slashing height. At least, that's 'Plan A.'

Proving just how spontaneous and improvisational a problem solver he can truly be, Wolverine quickly realizes that the hide of a Marrow God is too enchanted to fully succumb to the slashes of adamantium claws. But remembering what he learned in school--that even mystical demonic centaur gods need a brain to do anything else--Logan resorts to his back-up plan, consisting of plunging both of his claws into The Marrow God's head. Unfortunately, the bone of a building-sized god is even thicker, lodging Logan's claws in the creature's skull. And that is the EXACT reason to have some bloodthirsty teammates by your side at all times.

Just to avoid confusion, fans shouldn't mistake the symbiote sword/hammer being wielded by Conan the Barbarian as the same one from Marvel's aforementioned War of The Realms. That weapon was formed when the Venom symbiote was claimed by Malekith--while Conan's symbiote-powered arm is actually a friendly companion. Who is perfectly matched with the mighty warrior.

As part of Kulan Gath's summoning ritual (to which all these Savage Avengers were first drawn), the spells demanded the an alien symbiote--this sad specimen seen above, after being trapped in a small jar for a century at least. So when these Avengers smashed it free in their battle with Kulan Gath's forces, and Conan the Barbarian was fatally impaled... the symbiote saw its chance to pay back the debt. Merging with Conan, it stopped the bleeding before being subconsciously drawn to his right arm, and the sword he clutched.

After some early confusion (Conan believed this black symbiote to be some treacherous genie) the pair came to an understanding. A complex symbiosis whose nuance can be witnessed perfectly when Wolverine calls for assistance: sensing Logan needs help killing The Marrow God, the symbiote expresses its wish to "SLAY." A desire Conan the Barbarian is all too eager to satisfy, jumping to Wolverine's aid. And finally, we arrive at the moment in this story which could only be referred to as breathtaking in its brutality, in the best way possible.

Having driven his adamantium claws into the skull of a world-ending dark God and met resistance from the foul beast's skull, Wolverine is assisted by Conan the Barbarian and his symbiote hammer, striking Logan's elbow to hammer his arm through the bone and into brain matter like a hammer driving a nail. Never one to miss out, and likely sensing this nightmare is only a clawed fist away from ending, the Savage Venom symbiote follows suit. Forming its mass into a hammer of its own, Venom delivers blows to Wolverine's other elbow in tandem, driving the three blades (six total) through The Marrow God's skull.

Ordinarily such an incredible feat would lead to a somewhat anticlimactic victory, as logic would dictate the massive demonic being simply cease fighting and die (assuming demonic gods have brains that work the same way as any flesh and blood creature). But this being the Savage Avengers, the result is far more... explosive. The trio of Conan, Venom, and their improvised awl Wolverine are sent hurtling clear of the corpse. And while it isn't said explicitly on the page, it's obviously The Marrow God's own way of celebrating, having earned himself a place in Marvel Comics history--as a necessary part of the most gory, gruesome, and satisfying team kill Wolverine will ever be a part of. Fastball Special? Please.

Even if Kukan Gath suggests their victory was all part of his actual plan, it doesn't make the issue or those preceding it any less enjoyable. Convinced you need to add Savage Avengers to your comic book pull list? Check out the full solicitation details and plot synopsis below:

SAVAGE AVENGERS #6 (2019)

Written by: Gerry Duggan

Art by: Mike Deodato, Jr.

Cover by: David Finch

The Marrow God has eaten the sentient population of entire planets, but he never had to dance with the Savage Avengers. Kulan Gath is on the verge of defeat...or is that what he wanted the entire time? A Pyrrhic victory lights a fuse that will only burn more of the Marvel Universe. Plus, the Punisher is curious about Crom...

Savage Avengers #5 is available now from your local comic book shop, or direct from Marvel Comics.

MORE: Wolverine Learns His TRUE Creator is... Captain America?

source https://screenrant.com/wolverine-best-kill-savage-avengers-comic/

[reylorabbittrail]

Why the Trio in the Sequel Trilogy Won't Be a Trio

I’ve seen a lot of chatter and speculation over last year and a half about who the Trio™ of the sequel trilogy is. There was an assumption that Finn, Rey, and Poe would be, but look at how Rey doesn’t even meet Poe onscreen in TFA. They have a four sentence interaction in the novelization after awkwardly hugging when the map is completed. Then Rey leaves to go find Luke. 

When asked point blank who the trio is in TLJ, Rian Johnson answered by asking if they meant the three on the teaser poster. Clearly, fan expectations are not quite meeting reality when it comes to character dynamics. 

Now to be fair, there is a surfeit of trios running around the new trilogy. Someone compiled a list (sorry guys, I suck at searching tags or I’d link to that here) and found at least ten of them. But none of them mirrors the Original Trilogy Trio™. 

“But wait!” you say, “Star Wars has always had a trio. Han, Luke and Leia. Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan. Why not now?” So, yeah. I’m going to make the argument that the prequel trio is a very different sort of trio from the OT trio. They aren’t comparable. And there is a good reason that we aren’t getting one at all in this new trilogy. 

Three is a Magic Number 

Literature and Film are littered with trios. Three is one of those numbers that just feels good. It can represent all kinds of things from youth, maturity, and old-age, to faith, hope, and charity. Myth gives us the Three Fates, the God-rulers of Heaven, Earth, and Underworld, the judgement of Paris between Wisdom, Rule, and Love. Within the Christian religion there is not only the trinity of the Godhead, but also Christ’s threefold temptation in the desert, and the call to love God with Heart, Mind, and Strength. Pay attention to those last two. They matter here.

In adventure stories, trios make a good party. Look at Conan the Barbarian. The 1982 movie (a pastiche of several of the short stories) has a trio of fighter-thieves on a mission to rescue a princess from the clutches of an evil cult. The trio is Conan, our protagonist, Valeria, his lover, and Subotai, his sidekick/friend. The combination of hero, love interest, and sidekick/best friend is pretty common. And in terms of symbolic significance, it basically states that our hero succeeds through the support of love, both romantic and platonic. This is Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan. 

Another common trio in adventure stories is Mage, Fighter, & Rogue. Does this one sound familiar. It’s only every swords and sorcery movie ever. It’s the a Trio from Wheel of Time, Rand, Perrin, and Mat. (Significantly, the love interests are not part of this trio. It isn’t a necessary component, unlike the previously mentioned one.) And it also is one way to describe Luke the Magic Space Knight, Leia the Warrior Princess, and Han the Rogue.

The third major type of trio, and the one I want to focus on, is the Tripartate Soul Trio. You should recognize this from philosophy or psychology. Id, Ego, and SuperEgo. Intellect, Will/Spiritedness, and Appetite. Guts(Strength), Heart, and Brain(Mind). See, I told you I was bringing that one back. And the temptations in the desert? They were first to bodily needs, than political power, and finally to intellectual and spiritual pride. And four centuries before Christ, Greek philosophers were pondering the same division.

We know plenty of these, but to stick to popular fandom so, think Spock, Kirk, and Bones. Spock is the hyper rational one, always seeking the most logical solution, but not necessarily the most humane. Kirk is the man of action, acting on instinct, but not necessarily emotion. Bones is the emotional one, prone to irritable outbursts and always chafing at how unfeeling Spock is. 

Another example, you ask? Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley. Hermione is the logical, intellectual one, Harry the instinctive man of action, Ron the mess of emotions. This trio does not necessitate a love interest, but if there is one it will be between Brains and Guts, the alchemical marriage that resolves opposites, leaving heart as the third wheel. The protagonist is always Heart. This is because in the integrated man (or woman), the heart is the center of action, spurred to action by the appetites, and moderated in that action by the intellect. 

Funny how Han and Leia end up together and Luke is the third wheel. Yeah, that’s not by accident. Leia is the brains of the operation, Han is all gut, Luke is all heart. Even there companions reinforce this. Han’s best friend communicates in emotionally charged growls, and is a volatile, reactive creature. Leia’s protocol droid is a prissy robot that is forever spouting off the statically likelihood of actions. Luke’s astromech is a droid of action, along with being pretty sassy. 

Are any of these trios showing up so far in the sequel trilogy? I mean with actual screen time together as a team. Nope. Didn’t think so. 

There’s a reason for this. 

Four Elements, Four Humours 

The Tripartate Soul is still going to matter in a big way in the sequels. But it is not going to be represented by people. I’m working on a much bigger post on why I think that it is going to center on the nature of the force. Suffice it to say that Manichean dichotomy of the first film between good and evil is shifting to something much more nuanced. 

There is another literary number that plays very nicely here though, and for which I’m seeing groundwork laid. Four. Four has its own impressive history, from four gospels to four Cardinal virtues, to the four elements. I’m going to focus on the last one. 

Ancient medicine had a number of schools of thought, including one that was outstandingly bad at healing people, but pretty good at personality typing and identifying primary weaknesses and strengths. The melancholic (excess of black bile, treated with enemas) was prone to despair, the choleric (excess of yellow bile, treated with purgatives) to pride, the sanguine (excess of blood, treated by bleeding) to flightiness, the phlegmatic (excess of mucus, treated with decongestants) to disengagement. But melancholic are emotionally intuitive, cholerics are your fiercest ally, sanguines can make anyone smile, and a phlegmatic is a staunch friend and a rock of stability. 

Want to guess what element they relate to? Well, Choleric is obviously Fire. Sanguine is Air, Phlegmatic is Water, and Melancholy is Earth.  Now here is where I would bring in Avatar: The Last Airbender because it would be perfect, but unfortunately I haven’t seen it. So instead I will note how lovely it is that the Hogwarts houses match up with the four elements. Gryffindor, with its fiery red and gold colors and courageous inhabitants represents the best of the choleric temperament. Ravenclaw is situated in the highest tower, represented by a bird, by people who could be described as having their head in the clouds. They are Air, through and through, and have the quick wit and flitting attention of the Sanguine. (Sanguine is also classic attention deficit, either all distraction or hyper focused.) Hufflepuff is Earth, situated below ground, loyal friends, and likely the nicest people because they are emotionally grounded. Slytherin is Water. Their common room is below the lake, they are the most apathetic to concerns of the wider wizarding world, and fiercely devoted to the few friends they have. 

Want another example? Try Wind in the Willows. The Water Rat, all fight and action, is Fire/Choleric, the Toad is Sanguine/Air with his never ending succession of fads and his obsession with motor cars, the Mole is Earth/Melancholy with his tendency to worry and his sensitivity to other’s feelings, and the Badger is Water/Phlegmatic with his disengagement from the world and his devotion to his few friends. 

Bit far afield of Star Wars, though. I’m getting there. What if we don’t have a trio? What if instead, the trilogy begins with the elements out of balance? Fire is raging against Air, Water, and Earth. There is a major confrontation between each of our heroic characters with our primary antagonist. And all four characters happen to perfectly capture one of those elements. 

Fiery Kylo Ren confronts the flippant flyboy Poe Dameron, Air incarnate. Rey not only comes from a planet that is all Earth, but she exhibits the resilience of Earth. There is a compassion in her nature that has not been stomped out by 15 years of harsh survival. And Finn is Water, loyal to his friends, but initially inclined toward just avoiding involvement. 

So, if the elements are out of balance, thus being the source of conflict, resolution comes not through extinguishing fire and removing it from the picture, but from coming into balance with the other elements. If a redemption arc is in the cards, then this becomes a real possibility. And that means that the end game is ultimately a quartet working together to save the Galaxy. Not only is there the theme of balance in the force at work, but balance in the elements that are bound by the force.

The funny thing about these movies is that they didn’t start with the thematic elements. But as the stories come together, these things just start to assert themselves. It only works when the archetypes play their roles. Otherwise things feel forced. When a Tripartate Soul Trio shows up, we know which one should be the hero, and if it’s played to be Intellect, something feels off. When an elemental quartet shows up, we know the end game is for them to work together so that everyone is in good humour. It’s as fundamental as the second act being the place where exposition occurs and something happens that makes you think the happy ending can’t possibly be pulled off.

I’m not saying that Kylo Ren, or even Ben Solo, becomes besties with Poe and Finn. And this scenario doesn’t even necessitate romantic Reylo (though I’m not giving up on that just yet). She matters to Kylo/Ben’s arc immensely. But a movie where they end up platonic soulmates would not clash with this idea. Granted, I could be completely wrong and I’m ready to laugh at just how off base I might be come December. Still, I think I’m closer than trying to shoehorn any of the existing characters into a Trio that doesn’t quite fit with established archetypes.

[ultrace]

There are titles that will (or at least should) be forever remembered in the annals of fantasy game history. Golden Axe, Rastan, Magic Sword, among others. To this list you would definitely not be adding UPL’s Vandyke, a 1990 overhead hack-and-slash title, a poorly done diet soda of the genre.

Vandyke is the type of game that you would get if you asked someone with no fantasy game experience to create a fantasy game, and the only source materials you provided them were the trailer for the original Conan the Barbarian movie, and a copy of the Best of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, which had been half-devoured by a rabid dog. To be fair, the game is playable and even finishable, but fails to excel on just about every front. The enemy variety--although rather ordinary--isn’t bad, but you’ll rarely face more than a single monster type at the same time, and the formations seem uninspired, lacking in a challenge of anything other than your reflexes. Despite the smooth animation of the player character, the graphics are dated, and the music is particularly disappointing, as almost each stage begins with promise but devolves into repetitive bland tunes. Neither the opening nor ending of the game provide even a single line of text to explain why this brawny warrior decided to take on the entire kingdom at once. Indeed, I’m forced to admit that the most fun I had with Vandyke was in picking up food and strength power-ups; each time you do so, your character strikes a bodybuilder pose, determined by which of the eight directions you were moving in when you picked up the item. Why stop and perform the classic Hulk Hogan “pointing to the stands” move in the midst of an army of hostile skeletons? Your guess is as good as mine.

And, finally, why Vandyke? Is that the name of your character? Does he happen to wear the rather out-of-place-in-a-medieval-fantasy-world style of beard? Is he on a quest to earn the right to wear such a beard? Is this supposed to be an alternate reality where Dick Van Dyke is the muscle-bound survivor of a post-apocalyptic world that has been reduced to swords, morning stars and floating eyeballs? We may never know.

[swipestream]

Conan: The Tower of the Elephant

Come, reader. Let us continue the review and commentary of the Conan stories of Robert E Howard. This episode is Tower Of The Elephant, first appearing in in Weird Tales, March 1933.

Conan is young here. The internal chronology of the stories is subject to some guesswork. But it is fair to say that this is the second or third tale in Conan’s career, taking place after Frost Giant’s Daughter (1934). We see him for the first time in what will be his signature costume: “naked except for a loin-cloth and his high-strapped sandals.”

I found, as I often do, that not only is Robert E. Howard a better writer than I was able, as a callow youth, to see he was. He also easily surpasses the modern writers attempting to climb his particular dark mountain. From the high peak, brooding, he glares down at inferior writers mocking him, and, coldly, he laughs.

Particularly when Howard is compared with the modern trash that pretends to be fantasy while deconstructing and destroying everything for which the genre stands, he is right to laugh.

Let us list the ways.

Howard, as many pulp-era writers had to be, is a master of structure.

The Tower of the Elephant is divided into three chapters. The first introduces the set-up. In the most lawless quarter of a city of thieves, in a stinking tavern where rogues and lowlifes gather, rumors are spoken of a silvery tower that looms above the city in an isolated garden on a hilltop. In it is a gem of fabled worth and eldritch powers, that is the talisman of a sinister wizard. The tower seems strangely unguarded, or, rather, guarded strangely.

The wall is low, the way is not difficult: but none of the famous thieves will dare approach it. Our very own Conan (whom last we saw as a king) is here a barbaric lad who asks about the tower and the gem, is rudely answered, and rashly vows to make the attempt. Words are exchanged, and a fight ensues. We soon see how tough Conan is.

The second chapter is a heist. We are introduced to Taurus the Prince of Thieves. He and Conan join forces, attempting to elude or outfight the dangerous or unchancy defenders, human or otherwise, guarding the treasure. When even the Princes of Thieves is unable to overcome a particularly strange peril, a second fight ensues. We soon see how tough the Tower is.

The final chapter is pure awesomeness. The weird and supernatural secret of the Tower reveals itself. Even bold Conan, who fears no mortal blade, is petrified, if only for a moment. The dire and supernatural revenge which follows those who meddle in the outer secrets unfolds.

Howard is also the master of the one trick that always seems to elude postmodern writers. He knows how to pen a proper ending: As in a fairy tale of old, Conan is wise enough to obey the supernatural being when it speech, and a pathway to safety is opened for him. He escapes with his life.

What becomes of the mystic gem that decrees the fates of kingdoms? Read the tale yourself and discover: my lips are sealed.

Howard knows that every story must have a moral core. His particular genius, which was the genius of an era where men were weary of the civilization, and yearned for younger, simpler days, yes, even more savage days, was to call on a Pagan moral core rather than a Christian one. There is no mercy, no faith, no forgiveness in Conan’s world. There is, however, courage and honor, even among thieves. The Conan stories glamorize the barbaric while denigrating the corruptions that dog civilized life.

The writer’s task consist of telling, not merely the events of the tale, but the deeper truth they hide, including odd bits of wisdom:

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

Or:

A civilized man in his position would have sought doubtful refuge in the conclusion that he was insane; it did not occur to the Cimmerian to doubt his senses.

The writer includes not just the world, but the worldview of his tale. In Conan’s world, civilized religion is rotten because civilization is rotten.

He [Conan] did not trouble his head […] he knew that Zamora’s religion, like all things of a civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex, and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals.

He had squatted for hours in the courtyard of the philosophers, listening to the arguments of theologians and teachers, and come away in a haze of bewilderment, sure of only one thing, and that, that they were all touched in the head.

Barbaric religion, on the other hand, is forthright  and manly.

His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.

An absurd sentiment, and anyone raised in a Christian era knows better, or should. On the other hand, one need not agree with the worldview to admire how well it fits the world to which it belongs, and fits the tale it means to tell.

A world where more was expected of the gods would not be one as savage, wild, spooky, and strange as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age of Conan. The whole point of a ‘noir’ story, a picaresque tale, or a yarn about rogues and evildoers is to see antiheroes beat up villains more savagely than Christian knights allow. It is vacation from Victorian uprightness the reader wants. Real gods, or even real fallen angels aspiring to fatherly authority, like Zeus or Odin or Vishnu or serene Buddha, would spoil the fun.

I cannot show how Howard is the master of prose without quoting him at length. He is more fluid and poetic than the barebones style favored these days, but not so florid as H.P. Lovecraft nor as elevated and wry as Lord Dunsany or Jack Vance. The prose, like Homer, is direct, vivid, manly.

Here are the opening lines. Next time you try to run a Dungeons and Dragons game, try, just try, to establish the mood of danger, riot, and lawless liberty of your tavern setting so quickly and clearly. You will find it is not so easy.

Would be writers take note of which senses are engaged an in which order: sight, sound, smell, and in the adroit final metaphor, feeling.

TORCHES flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport.

Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings.

Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face.

Howard is also a master of the art of ‘camerawork’ that is, knowing what not to say. This is from later in the same scene:

‘Heathen dog!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll have your heart for that!’ Steel flashed and the throng surged wildly back out of the way.

In their flight they knocked over the single candle and the den was plunged in darkness, broken by the crash of upset benches, drum of flying feet, shouts, oaths of people tumbling over one another, and a single strident yell of agony that cut the din like a knife.

When a candle was relighted, most of the guests had gone out by doors and broken windows, and the rest huddled behind stacks of wine-kegs and under tables.

The barbarian was gone; the center of the room was deserted except for the gashed body of the Kothian. The Cimmerian, with the unerring instinct of the barbarian, had killed his man in the darkness and confusion.

Howard also can make a minor character, one stage for but half a chapter, spring to life, such as when the Prince of Thieves schools young Conan with sound advice about his trade:

We’ll strangle old Yara before he can cast any of his accursed spells on us. At least we’ll try; it’s the chance of being turned into a spider or a toad, against the wealth and power of the world. All good thieves must know how to take risks.

A writer not only must set the stage and bring the characters to life. He is also the prop-master. Howard creates a world where even ordinary objects are overlaid with dark glamour. As example, here is the tale of an ampule of poisonous powder:

‘Because that was all the powder I possessed. The obtaining of it was a feat which in itself was enough to make me famous among the thieves of the world. I stole it out of a caravan bound for Stygia, and I lifted it, in its cloth-of-gold bag, out of the coils of the great serpent which guarded it, without awaking him. But come, in Bel’s name! Are we to waste the night in discussion?’

Or a climbing rope:

‘It was woven from the tresses of dead women, which I took from their tombs at midnight, and steeped in the deadly wine of the upas tree, to give it strength.

A writer knows when lure the reader onward with a bit of dark mystery:

Gingerly the barbarian ran his hands over the man’s half-naked body, seeking a wound. But the only marks of violence were between his shoulders, high up near the base of his bull-neck—three small wounds, which looked as if three nails had been driven deep in the flesh and withdrawn. The edges of these wounds were black, and a faint smell as of putrefaction was evident. Poisoned darts? thought Conan—but in that case the missiles should be still in the wounds.

Howard is a master of mood. Some things are just way cool, but one is likely to notice only after reading more of Howard’s world:

‘You are not of Yara’s race of devils,’ sighed the creature. ‘The clean, lean fierceness of the wastelands marks you. I know your people from of old, whom I knew by another name in the long, long ago when another world lifted its jeweled spires to the stars.

The creature is remembering Atlantis. According to Howard’s background, Conan comes from the same long bloodline as Kull.

Finally, Howard is a master of the genre than he makes his own.

And sometimes you stumble over the threshold of strangeness, and realize you are in a science fiction and not a fantasy world, not, or perhaps you realize that the two genres are not two at all, but one. Who told you that imagination was different from speculation?

I am very old, oh man of the waste countries; long and long ago I came to this planet with others of my world, from the green planet Yag, which circles for ever in the outer fringe of this universe. We swept through space on mighty wings that drove us through the cosmos quicker than light…

Howard is a master of the craft. Small wonder these stories are the best remembered of all his prodigious output. Looking at the publication dates, I notice the first three Conan yarns appeared in the pages of Weird Tales in four months: December, January, and March.

If you are wondering, the February issue for that year had stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, so I am sure the readership yearning for weird tales in Weird Tales were not disappointed. It was a golden age.

Why does our own age seem to have so much tin, which corrodes other metals it touches, so much brass, and so little gold? It may be that a gloss of nostalgia brightens some of the old works. But it also could be that we are not trying to write golden works. We have among us these days men who are the opposite of alchemists. They turn gold into base metals.

Here is the secret to why so much modern fantasy fiction is not just bad, but extremely bad, deplorably bad, deliberately bad: modern fantasy on the whole is morally repugnant, intellectually flat, and viscerally disgusting.

Too many modern fabulists are not friends of the Perilous Wood where dangerous shadows dwell, alarming monsters, fair maidens, and sights fabulous and strange. They are foes. They follow not the tradition of fairy stories reaching from Weird Tales to 1001 Arabian Nights, and the Song of Roland to the Odyssey of Homer. They follow the fashionable nonsense of Marx and Nietzsche and Hegel and Hume, who believe that reality is optional, all morals are manmade hence arbitrary, and that life is merely the endless Darwinian struggle between oppressor and oppressed.

The mind (using the word in a loose sense) of postmodernism holds that reality is merely a story, a narrative, the strong tell the weak in order to oppress them, and that true enlightenment consists of realizing that there is no truth, hence no story to tell.

Postmodernism holds that there is neither good nor evil, neither high nor low, neither fair nor foul, neither virtue nor vice.

But story-telling consists is telling literal truths in figurative ways: metaphors, similes, images and examples. Even the shallowest boy’s adventure tale contains a soul. The story makes a world, and therefore holds a worldview.

In every worldview, there is something uplifted as high, the peak of what is desired and sought, and something else depressed as low, the pit of what is fled. The nature of the drama, whatever the drama is, consist of the struggle of the main character to climb from pit to peak. In tragic stories, his own flaws make him stumble, and he slides down. In happier stories, he struggles and climbs and finds the peak. He wins the girl, or learns a lesson, or saves the kingdom, and returns home and puts his child on his knee and smiles.

And in tales that are deeper, that is, more truthful, we find that after the struggle, the bruised but unbowed hero stands aloft but is surprised that he ends up with a different victory, atop a different peak, than he saw looking up from below, when he started.

But postmodernism is a worldview that says all worldviews are false. One man’s peak is another man’s valley, therefore there is no innate meaning in life, no gods, no moral law, no Aesop’s lesson to be learned, no victory and no downfall. There is no height, and no depth. There is nothing but a flat and featureless plane, reaching endlessly to no horizon, with no water, no shade, and no directions.

Stories of any genre, even if they copy all the furniture of fantastic tales, told in this worldview have nothing to say, and contain no drama. They are executed like graffiti, merely to mar what other, more skilled hands, have put in place.

Now, a well-crafted tale, on the other hand, even if it holds a worldview not to the reader’s taste or liking, the reader will like and admire (and, if that reader is as I am, will adore) any tale whose worldview is not flat and meaningless. A pagan tale of what a pagan calls high and low I may think to reflect a worldview that is only half the truth, but that half is half I can love, if the teller of the tale knows his business.

And Howard knows.

Conan: The Tower of the Elephant published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Whisper Network, Bradbury, James Bond, Isle of Dread

H. P. Lovecraft (DMR Books): The first thing to keep in mind is that this cache represents one of the great epistolary friendships in the history of letters. The two never met in person, but the Mutual Admiration Society CAS and HPL formed between them was forged of eldritch steel. Both considered the other the Greatest Living Weird Fiction Author. It is obvious in every letter they wrote and confirmed by comments they sent to other correspondents.

  Comic Books (Bleeding Fool): Two weeks ago, we published the second part in our ongoing series of articles investigating the secret “Whisper Network” – a secret group of (mostly) women that’s been allegedly colluding to torment comic book pros and publicly harass creators they disagree with. Within that exposé, a major story was uncovered that should have rocked the comic book industry when it first happened, but was buried or “memory holed” by comic industry press at the time, with sites like Bleeding Fool erasing it after publishing it and Comics Beat, IGN, Newsarama and all others ignoring it entirely.

Cinema (Bounding Into Comics): In a new video interview J.J. Abrams declared that his film production company Bad Robot will make hiring based on looks a top priority. Speaking with Time Magazine about the film industry Abrams discussed what he wants the industry to look like in the future. He then made it clear that Bad Robot will be focused on people’s outward appearance when it comes to hiring.

Robert E. Howard (John C. Wright): As previously announced, Jeffro Johnson, author of Appendix N, Zaklog the Great, Nate the Greater, and your truly gather electronically to talk about Robert E. Howard’s verse….

Ray Bradbury (Pulpfest): Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. From an early age, he was a voracious reader and consumer of popular culture — movies, pulp magazines, radio programming, newspaper comic strips, circuses, magic, and more. He was enamored with the Buck Rogers newspaper strip, the stories of L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and more. By age twelve, he wanted to write.

James Bond (25 Years Later): Raise your martini glasses! We are only a few months away from (hopefully) another fantastic James Bond adventure (er, at least, we think so. It’s already been delayed once by a global pandemic that is starting to feel like something a diabolical Bond villain would think up). No Time To Die, the 25th official James Bond release, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation), stars Daniel Craig for the fifth, and likely final, time as superspy James Bond ending what has been a sterling era for the rugged 52-year-old.

Fiction (Benespen): This is another expedition into the past of popular literature. Abraham Merritt, whose byline is nearly always A. Merritt, was a popular author who wasn’t even best known in his own time for his fiction. Rather, he was a celebrity journalist, making enough money to travel widely and pursue arcane hobbies.  The Moon Pool [Amazon link] is the work I usually see cited as typical of Merritt’s work, and it is listed in Gary Gygax’s “Appendix N” as an influence on Dungeons and Dragons. Let’s dive into the Moon Pool and see what happens!

Science Fiction (Starship Cat): This novel is pretty much a direct follow-in to Citadel, and continues to be mostly Dana’s story, with occasional appearances by Butch and some cameos by Vernon Tyler. Dana’s story is pretty much an enactment of the proverbial Chinese curse “May you come to the attention of those in high places.” Her heroism at the end of the last book has made the Powers That Be decide that she’s leadership material — and send her to the new station, to command a squadron from the various Latin American countries.

H. P. Lovecraft (Tentaculii): I’ve encountered an interesting item which perhaps throws a small sidelight on the use of the telephone in Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter” (1919). You’ll recall that a telephone is taken on the descent… The telephone might sound like an unlikely thing to take down below. But wired long-distance field telephones were a known ‘thing’ at that time, not least because of their use in the war.

Conventions (Dragoncon): Part two of our three-part interview series where past Dragon Award recipients talk about their award-winning novels and their Dragon Awards experience. In part one of our three-part Dragon Awards interview series, our award-winning authors talked about their background, what motivates them to write, and about their novels that captured Dragon Awards audiences everywhere.

Cinema (0themastercylinder): William Smith. He was born in 1933 in rural Columbia, Missouri on a cattle ranch. That background served him very well during the many Westerns he was to appear in later. The first big surprise I got in examining his background was how early his film career started. He appeared as a child actor in 1942’s “The Ghost of Frankenstein” as the boy who befriends the Monster portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr.

D&D (Paint Monk): wo years ago, I picked up Goodman Games’ Original Adventures Reincarnated #1, where I re-lived the fun of TSR’s original D&D modules “In Search of the Unknown” and “The Keep on the Borderlands”. This month, I finally picked up OAR #2 – The Isle of Dread, and I’d like to share just how much I enjoyed this book and the work the fine folks over at Goodman put into making it a success.

Fiction (Dark Herald): Been a while since we’ve seen a new Dresden Files book and we will be getting two this year. So at least 2020 isn’t a total write off. Butcher’s last addition to this series was in 2014. He had been rather productive up until this time. Usually producing one or two books a year. I’m not sure why there was a prolonged interrupt, possibly it was his divorce.

Beer (Trinkelbonker): Got these as a delayed birthday gift the other day, six cans of Ace Of Aces American Lager with a rather nice (and collectable, if you ask me) motif. The aircraft you see is an American Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the pilot that flew it was Richard Ira Bong, the first child of nine of Carl Bång, an immigrant from Sweden and Dora Bryce, who was an American by Scots-English descent. Richard, nicknamed Dick by his friends, shot down over 40 Japanese aircraft in the Pacific Theater during WWII and became one of the most decorated pilots of the war.

Game Review (Black Gate): This is the second article in my “explanation” of Conan 2d20. Last time I focused on 2d20’s core mechanic and on this game’s design philosophy insofar as it is an emulation of the “physics” and flavor of Robert E. Howard’s Conan fiction. This one will detail more aspects of gameplay, particularly player character components and action scenes. Last article, I maintained that Conan 2d20 characters begin as powerful in mechanical ability (unless the alternative Shadows of the Past character generation is used).

Cinema (Irish Times): because these things only happen in the greatest superhero movie ever made: Flash Gordon. The 1980 camp classic, which has been restored in 4K to mark its 40th anniversary, has a history of happy accidents following its hero’s first appearance in a comic strip in 1934. Buck Rogers, another intergalactic hero, had already spawned novelisations and toys when King Features Syndicate – a subsidiary of the Hearst newspaper empire – approached Edgar Rice Burroughs with a plan to adapt John Carter into a comic strip.

Small Press (Tentaculii): New on Archive.org…Howard Collector #5, Summer 1964.  Howard Collector #6, Spring 1965. With the poem “Who is Grandpa Theobold?”, from a letter. This would count as another early use of ‘Lovecraft as character’, albeit not in fiction. I wonder what the likely year on this poem is?

Cinema & T.V. (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Heroic fantasy films and television changed after 1982. The release of Dino DeLaurentis’ Conan the Barbarian sent Fantasy films in a new direction. Movies had to have a mix of violence, sex and flash that previous movies seemed to lack. Whether you like or hate these films is a matter of opinion. There were bright spots of Fantasy filmmaking among the direct-to-video duds like the Brian Froud-Jim Henson films, Legend by Ridley Scott, and Ron Howard’s The Lord of the Rings known as Willow.

Book Review (Benespen): War Demons [Silver Empire affiliate link] is the veteran’s take on supernatural horror. Sometimes we casually refer to the men who come back from war suffering from PTSD and survivor’s guilt as demon-haunted; but for Michael Alexander it is anything but a metaphor. We now come to the third book covering similar territory I have read recently. I don’t often end up reading lots of similar books together in succession, so I can compare and contrast these.

Science Fiction (Future War Stories): Packed in seemingly every military science fiction work are futuristic firearms and some, like the Colonial Marines M41A1 Pulse Rifle has become an icon of sci-fi weaponry…then there are others that never get their day in the limelight. One of those military sci-fi weapons is the United States standard issue endo/exo assault rifle of the 2060’s: the M590. Featured in the legendary 1990’s FOX one-season TV show Space: Above and Beyond.

Science Fiction (Rough Edges): Robert E. Vardeman has been writing top-notch science fiction for about forty years now, and that’s almost how long I’ve known him. His latest novel, THE DUST OF STARS, is the first book in a new series called ENGINEERING INFINITY, and it’s everything I love about science fiction. First, it has big ideas. And I mean E.E. “Doc” Smith big: An ancient, long-disappeared alien race scattered planet-sized machines throughout the galaxy.

Pulp Fiction (DMR Books): Merritt outlived the CAS-HPL correspondence of 1922-1937, though not by much. In the CAS-HPL letters, one sees Klarkash-Ton belatedly discovering Merritt–and HPL belatedly discovering The Metal Monster. Throughout the course of the correspondence, Merritt was the most successful exemplar of the weird fiction that CAS and HPL were themselves creating. While they did not always agree with the directions he took in his fiction, there was no denying that Merritt dominated the market for pulp fantasy.

Tolkien (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, for years I’ve been convinced that the old story about the Tolkien Estate having gone after TSR for their use of hobbits, ents, balrogs et al in early printings of D&D was wrong and that it was actually Saul Zaentz’s group, Tolkien Enterprises (the movie merchandising people) who’d issued that cease-and-desist back in 1976. But while I’ve able to build up a probable case I’ve been lacking direct proof. Now Gygax has provided it.

Sensor Sweep: Whisper Network, Bradbury, James Bond, Isle of Dread published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Kull, Star Trek, Dying Earth, Doc Vandal

Publishing (Pulp Archivist): The market is contracting, without signs of stopping, from at least the mid-2000s generational handover. Digital and its different margins have likely kept some of these magazines in business far longer than print runs can justify. It’s almost to the point where the established science fiction “fandom” does not and should not be the audience. There are 300 million people not reading science fiction short stories. The editor who can figure out how to reach even 0.0001% of that will be the king of science fiction.

Gaming (Walker’s Retreat): In other words, WOTC’s being pozzed again. Do not give money to people who hate you. Do not buy WOTC’s products new. Not for D&D. Not for Magic. Not at all. Buy used if you must, but otherwise give your money to those making their own versions of the game (legal thanks to the Open Game License making D&D open source 20 years ago). What would those be? A short list includes: Adventurer, Conqueror, King.

  Science Fiction Community (Kalimac): The news has been getting out, both within and outside the SF community, that Alan Beatts, owner of Borderland Books in San Francisco, has been credibly accused of physical and sexual assault by women close to him. I’ll leave out the details; you can read them at the above links.

  D&D (RPG Pundit): They say that Oriental Adventures is full of stereotypes and needs to be cancelled. And well, yes, it is full of stereotypes and not an authentic historical setting. Every other D&D setting is also full of stereotypes and not an authentic historical setting too!

Fantasy (Fantasy Literature): Kull, for those unfamiliar with the character, made his first appearance in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales magazine, in the story “The Shadow Kingdom,” so no, Howard most certainly did not get his inspiration for the regal name from 1933’s King Kong. Howard would go on to write 13 more stories dealing with the character (plus one poem), but only two of those were published before his suicide death in 1936. The Lancer volume, sadly enough, is complete with the exception of two of those 14 tales.

Star Trek (Superversive SF): cannot count the number of STAR TREK novels I have read over the years. Not as many recently as I used to, in fact, no new ones in a few years. It’s the old story, when you’re young you have all the time but limited money. When you’re older, you have the money to pursue your old hobbies like a demon but limited time. In the library, I stumbled across this Next Generation novel entitled Available Light and decided to give it a whirl. I’ve not read any new ST novels in a long time, so based on the back blurb, this one seemed like a great piece to dive back in with.

Cinema (Tulsa World): Today is the day to celebrate #Harryhausen 100. While we’re at it, let’s celebrate the lives of two people: a special effects legend and an Oklahoma cowboy who are connected by one movie at the dawn of their careers. Ray Harryhausen was the genius behind a form of stop-motion animation that brought all kinds of beasties to life in movies like “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” “20 Million Miles to Earth,” “One Million Years B.C.,” “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” “Clash of the Titans” and a series of Sinbad flicks.

Fiction (Grubb Street): Song of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, by a LOT of people you’ve heard about, edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois, with Art by Paul Kidd. TOR Books, 2009. Provenance: Christmas present, probably 2009 as well. I came to Jack Vance late in life, which is a bit of a surprise given that D&D is hip-deep in Vancian notions, tropes, and outright, um, borrowings. But once I struck his Dying Earth series, in the form of a massive compendium, I was delightfully hooked by his mannered approach to far-future fantasy, and of course, when a massive tome by a cluster of big-name authors came out in his honor, I had to get it and consume it.

Comic Books (Wasteland & Sky): omic books need to bring back all-ages comics as the standard. They have not been primarily aimed at children since the 1970s, and it has shown in declining sales. Comic books are an inherently juvenile format and that is their strength. Old comics and the classics could whip through plot points, action scenes, and wild settings within a single issue all while telling a complete standalone story.

D&D (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, a few years back there was a campaign to build a Gary Gygax memorial statue in his home town of Lake Geneva. I think I even blogged about it at the time; I certainly tried to buy a copy of the memorial booklet intended to help fund the project, a collection of E.G.G.’s posts in a gaming forum, called CHEERS, GARY.

Sherlock Holmes (Black Gate): If you mention the term Gothic to most people, it’s likely to conjure visions of teenagers dressed in black, wearing black nail polish and Doc Marten boots. Someone a few years older may think of drugstore paperback racks filled with book covers featuring women in nightgowns running away from sinister mansions. But Gothic originally refers to a type of architecture, an overall aesthetic of the macabre, and a genre of fiction popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Gaming (Heavy Metal): Scorn is a long-awaited first-person shooter based on the art of H.R. Giger and, to a lesser extent, Zdzisław Beksiński. It’s been in development for years; developer Ebb Software dropped a drool-inducing teaser trailer in 2016 and a gameplay trailer in 2017. There have been video games — lots of them — based on the Alien movies, but this one is specifically Giger, so expect to see more of the creepy, twisted sexual side of his art than you got in the Xenomorph movies.

Pulp (The Pulp Net): While Doc Vandal is influenced by Doc Savage, he has some other influences. And a big difference is that his stories are not set in our world, but in the 1930s of an alternate world that has a steampunk element where zeppelins are everywhere, aliens exists (with hidden cities on Earth, as well as the Moon), and there are other science fictional elements. Doc Vandal is an inventor and adventurer, assisted by three people: Vic, Gus and Gilly.

Robert E. Howard (Messages from Crom): The Cthulhu Stories of Robert E. Howard. Coming in September! The Great Old Ones Return… In the early twentieth-century, in the pages of Weird Tales and other pulp magazines, H.P. Lovecraft created the Cthulhu Mythos and offered it to his friends, creating a shared mythology for much of their weird fiction. Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, was one of those good friends.

Popular Culture (Bronze Age Babies): Doug: Hi, my name is Doug, and… well, I’m addicted to the Planet of the Apes. There – I said it! Are you happy now? Welcome back to the BAB, everyone! We are pleased to be in your company today, and also excited to have been asked once again to participate in this summer’s Super Blog Team-Up. “Expanded universe” is our topic, so we are running with that across three blogs. Our premise here is that the variety of products available to kids in during the era of the Bronze Age of comics allowed our imaginations to make leaps into new territory for our favorite Apes characters.

Art (Silver Key): A big name in fantasy role-playing/Dungeons and Dragons art passed away yesterday—Jim Holloway. Jim was not my favorite D&D artist of all time—I might have to go with Bill Willingham or Erol Otus—but he was one of the 5-6 most iconic and prolific of the silver or “commercial” age of TSR, circa 1981 and on.

Tolkien (Tolkien and Fantasy): I believe that there are only two instances where J.R.R. Tolkien was interviewed on film. The first dates from 1962, and the second from 1968. The first, by John Bowen, was conducted on 10 December 1962, in black-and-white, for the BBC television program “Bookstand”. The episode was broadcast two days later, on Wednesday, 12 December, from 10.15-10.45 pm, though the Tolkien segment took up less than nine minutes.

Science Fiction (Marzaat): Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950. Well, I’ve known about this book for years, but it was pricey on the second hand market, but I got it for Christmas. A lot of science fiction crit books from the 1980s I’ve purchased recently seem to be deaccessioned from university libraries. This one came from the Columbus College Library in Columbus, Georgia.  It seems to have been checked out only once, in 1995. That matches Brian Stableford stating, in his essay “The Profession of Science Fiction” that he only sold “157 copies in the UK, not counting remainders”.

Fiction (Mostly Old Books): The First Quarry doesn’t dwell on an origin story but rather shows the young hitman being fully formed as a cold-blooded and intelligent killer as he accepts his first assignment after being recruited by The Broker – killing a college professor and destroying his manuscripts. The story takes place in Iowa in the early 1970s, the years that I came of age, and I was impressed and highly amused by all of the pop culture references from that era.

Pulp (Pulpfest): When Ned Pines was asked by The American News Company to start a chain of pulp magazines that it would distribute for him, he knew he needed an editor. The young publisher requested Frank A. Munsey employee, Leo Margulies, to be the managing editor of his new enterprise. With the country gripped by the Great Depression, the two men came up with a daring idea for the rough paper market: a ten-cent pulp magazine. Standard Magazines, better known as “The Thrilling Group,” launched THRILLING DETECTIVE, THRILLING ADVENTURES, and THRILLING LOVE in late 1931. Each sold for a dime.

Art (DMR Books): Matthews created a considerable amount of artwork depicting Elric and various other characters from Michael Moorcock’s stories. Moorcock said that “Rodney captured the images and invention, having a larger space to work with on the posters and calendars. He was brilliant, for instance, on the quirky End of Time stories and I love his inventiveness.”

Sensor Sweep: Kull, Star Trek, Dying Earth, Doc Vandal published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Witherwing, Lankhmar, Mid-List Collapse

Writers (Less Known Writes): David William Jarrett was the son of Mervyn Spencer Jarrett (1906-1986), a works engineer, and  his wife Olive Elizabeth Jenkins (1907-1997), who were married in the summer of 1940.  He had one older brother. Jarrett’s novel was Witherwing (London: Sphere, 1979: New York: Warner, 1979). It begins as a kind of heroic fantasy novel in which Witherwing, the youngest of six princes of Tum-Barlum (the name clearly modeled on Twm Barlwm, the name of a hill in south Wales, but that has no significance to the story).

      RPG (Walker’s Retreat): With last weekend’s Big Brand marketing event masquerading as a fan convention came the announcement–with no release date–of the fourth installment of its iconic isometric dark fantasy action RPG franchise. You know which one I’m talking about, and it’s not the MMORPG. I thought I’d take the time to give you all some alternatives that you may have overlooked or forgotten about, beside Path of Exile and adaptation of other Big Brand properties. This is not an exhaustive list; most of these will be linked to their Steam entries, but I advise you to look at GOG also if you want DRM-free versions or see if you can buy used physical copies.

  News (Niche Gamer): On October 22nd, the United States House of Representatives voted 410 votes to 6 (16 abstained) in favor of the CASE Act- dubbed the “Anti-Meme law” by its critics. The “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019” was introduced by Representative Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat, New York) on January 5th, 2019. The bill’s purpose was to help content creators utilize a small claims court for copyright infringement, as the current law means copyright disputes must go through the more expensive federal courts.

    Publishing (Kairos): Where have we seen this blockbuster-chasing mentality before? Oh yeah, in the likewise floundering Hollywood film and AAA video game industries. As Western civilization rapidly burns through the cultural capital inherited from Christendom, expect to see more industries falling into hit-obsessed death spirals. It’s a seductive trap. A company stumbles upon a big hit, scrambles to replicate what is in fact a black swan event, and cannibalizes its own seed corn in the process. It’s an old story.

  Comic Books (Paint Monk’s Library): Since Paint Monk’s Library began covering Marvel’s new Conan the Barbarian comic, I’ve received a slew of emails and private messages, mainly from people agreeing with our reviewers about the direction the House of Ideas has taken with such an iconic property. But for every five or six encouraging emails, I get one message from an angry reader telling me that I’m out of touch and if I don’t like Marvel’s new comics to quit reading and “go back to the nursing home to read Bugs Bunny” (Yes, I really did receive that email last month).

  Writers (PulpFest): Not long after midnight on the morning of November 5, 2019, the pulp community lost one of its cornerstones. Tom Johnson passed away after a long battle with cancer. Tom and his wife of many years, Ginger Johnson, were the longtime editors and publishers of ECHOES, a fanzine about the pulp magazines. For nearly twenty years, Tom and Ginger could be counted on for a new issue of ECHOES every other month.

  Star Wars (Digital Bibliophilia): Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is a story that takes place about a year after the events of Star Wars (or A New Hope if you prefer). It begins with Luke and R2-D2 aboard Luke’s X-Wing fighter, and Leia and C3PO aboard a Y-Wing travelling to the planet Circarpous IV to a meeting with an underground movement that had arisen against the Galactic Empire on that planet. They are to formally offer their promise of support from the Rebellion Alliance and encourage the movement rise against it’s oppressors.

  Art (DMR Books): Howard Pyle has rightly been called “The Father of American Illustration.” Before Pyle there was a virtual nothingness when it came to American art. After, there was—perhaps—a flowering of painterly excellence unparalleled in the entire history of art. In the late 1890s, Pyle established various schools of art in Wilmington, Delaware and beyond.  Pyle’s movement has been called the “Brandywine School” in reference to the river that ran along the banks next to Pyle’s various artistic seminaries.

  Cinema (Jstor): Long before First National Pictures began production on Doyle’s dinosaur story, a young marble cutter named Willis O’Brien was sculpting tiny T-Rex figurines. According to The New York Times, O’Brien began experimenting with animation models during an apparently slow day at work. Inspired by his background in boxing, he molded a mini fighter out of clay. His coworker whipped up another clay champion, and pretty soon the two men were acting out a full boxing match with their primitive action figures. Lo and behold, O’Brien’s next production was a short test film featuring a cave man and a dinosaur (made of modeling clay and wooden joints) shot atop the Bank of Italy Building in San Francisco.

  Author Interview (Pulp Hermit): It’s not easy thinking of Will Murray as a new Pulp Author. William Patrick Murray is an author everyone should be familiar with in the new pulp movement, and definitely known throughout pulp fandom since the 1970s. He should be familiar to everyone in the new pulp community. He is one of the most prolific and knowledgeable people in the field of pulp fiction. The author of well over one hundred books, he has penned 40 Destroyer novels, and two-dozen Doc Savage novels (many based on Lester Dent’s uncompleted stories), plus King Kong, Tarzan, and The Shadow. He has also contributed to the Executioner and Mars Attacks, as well as numerous anthologies.

  Science Fiction (Quillette): But this is not the spirit of our moment. Instead, as speculative fiction becomes more diverse, the sense that it must be corrected grows, and author and art are evaluated together. There is a notable asymmetry in this evaluation. Most fiction readers are women, and many fiction genres are dominated by women. Men who write romance novels or cozy mysteries must write under female pseudonyms, because the audiences for these genres will largely avoid books by men.

Writing (Pulprev): When writing a tactical thriller with heavy action elements, you have to get around to talking about the hardware. Tools drive what the characters can and can’t do, and weapons are a big part of that. Also, guns are cool. When writing guns in fiction, a common approach is to simply drop generic terms like ‘rifle’ or ‘pistol’ and leave it at that. Some slightly more sophisticated writers drop brand and/or gun names: FN SCAR, Beretta M9, Barrett M82. It may well work for them. Most readers just want to get on with the action without being bogged down in too much detail. But I prefer a more sophisticated option.

  Pulp Fiction (Rough Edges): As you know if you’ve read this blog much, H. Bedford-Jones is one of my favorite pulp authors and indeed one of my favorite authors, period. I think he was at his strongest with historical adventure novels, so it’s no surprise that YOUNG KIT CARSON is a top-notch yarn that’s been out of print since 1941, when it appeared in the fiction supplement of a Canadian newspaper. A copy of it was discovered recently, and it’s about to be reprinted by Bold Venture Press.

  Fiction (Tentaculii): I’d never heard of Ivy Frost before, but I like the sound of him. These gun-blazing mystery-science stories all appeared in Clues Detective Stories magazine from 1934-37 (not on Archive.org), so one assumes that Lovecraft was aware of them. One wonders how may ‘little nods to Lovecraft’ Wandrei might have snuck into the stories.

    Fritz Leiber (Goodman Games): You might have heard about our recent DCC Lankhmar release. It’s a wonderfully in-depth take on the classic novels by Fritz Lieber, and licensed by his estate. If you are a fan of those novels, you might have heard of something called Rat-Snake. In the back alleys of the city of Lankhmar, money is won and lost, and lives are sometimes wagered as the ultimate prize, all on the roll of the dice. All part of a game called Rat-Snake.

  Art (DMR Books): Stephen Fabian was selling macabre artworks very early in his career, batting one out of the park with his classic cover for Whispers #2 in 1973. He would go on to do more work for Whispers over the course of that groovy decade, including the first-ever illo for Karl Edward Wagner’s “Sticks.” Stephen did several evocative paintings for Arkham House during that period, as well as covers for Centaur Press and Donald M. Grant. All in all, the 1970s were a great preview of the glorious horror art Mr. Fabian would produce in the 1980s.

  Gary Gygax (Warp Scream): I had the opportunity to interview Gary a number of years back, when I worked at CGM. I very much enjoyed talking to him, and it was fascinating to hear the history of D&D and gaming in general from his perspective. Like many people here, I’ve been a D&D geek for ages; I thought others might be interested to read what he had to say about the history of it all.

  Gaming (Walker’s Retreat): It is nice when the Fake Gamers out themselves so readily, but this performative virtual signalling is really meant to be part of the gatekeeping campaign to push their enemies–those not of the SJW Death Cult–out of the subculture and hobby, or at least its public-facing elements, so that they can control the narrative surrounding tabletop RPGs. Narrative control then becomes cultural control and feeds into political control.

Sensor Sweep: Witherwing, Lankhmar, Mid-List Collapse published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/