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#this year is 12 years since the release so where is the sequel
aroacehanzawa · 1 year
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mary h.how many bsd novels are there i thought it was just the agency aku one and the dazai one but theres more apparently?? how many different bsd spin offs are there i am so confused
OHHHH BOYS. BESTIE YOU ARE NOT READY. THERE ARE SO MANY. and i know this because i own every single novel that has an english release (i'm linking all the ones that do):
Osamu Dazai's Entrance Exam - this is the one with the Azure Messenger, infamously adapted into the present day in the middle of season 1 when it's actually set 2 years in the past as Dazai's entrance exam into the ADA.
The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency - what the title says, currently being adapted in the beginning of season 4. The novel also includes a short story set the day before Atsushi's entrance exam about the ADA planning what his exam should be.
Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era - this is one of the Dazai ones, about his time in the mafia with Ango and Oda, adapted in the beginning of season 2.
Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen - another Dazai one, the one (poorly) adapted at the beginning of season 3, about how Chuuya joined the mafia. Has a currently ongoing manga adaptation.
Storm Bringer - sequel to Fifteen, longest of all the novels by far, set when Dazai and Chuuya are 16 and we find out more about Chuuya's origin story. And so much more, it really is a thicc novel.
55 Minutes - the second longest novel after Storm Bringer yet the least talked about (despite how much it elaborates on skill singularities and the nature of abilities). It's a self-contained story of the ADA going to solve a case on an artificial island off the coast of Yokohama, featuring two new ability users H. G. Wells and Jules Verne (hence a relatively sci-fi heavy novel and i wrote a 2k+ word essay analysing all the science behind it lmao)
Dead Apple - novelisation of the movie with some extra scenes and more elaboration on some details in the movie. Also has an ongoing manga adaptation with official english release.
BEAST - this is the Akutagawa in the ADA and Atsushi in the PM one, with a completed manga adaptation (also released in english) as well as a live-action movie that came out last year.
Gaiden (Another Story): Ayatsuji Yukito vs. Kyogoku Natsuhiko - the novel has no english release yet, but it's a spin-off about different ability users and i think Ango is the only recurring character from the main series there. There is an ongoing manga adaptation which does have an official english release.
The Day I Picked Up Dazai - i don't think this one is formally released yet as it was a bonus novel given out at the screening of the BEAST movie. It's divided into Side A and Side B and i haven't read this one yet but i believe it's about how Dazai and Oda first met, where each side follows the other's perspective. There's a completed fan-translation of both sides by @popopretty.
Kunikida and Katai's Magnificent Days - this is a really sweet short story about Kunikida and Katai's friendship and i have no idea where the official version is from but there is a fan-translation of it you can read here.
In addition to BEAST and Gaiden there is also Wan! which is the super cute casual chibi spin-off manga with no stakes and no angst and only vibes, it is still ongoing and has an official english release. Some of the chapters were adapted into the Wan! anime series with 12 episodes (they are shorter episodes of 10 min each) and it is literally free therapy and will give you a year's worth of serotonin!!
There is also the bsd anthology series, which are side stories written and illustrated by different mangakas, there is no official english release that i know of but you can find fan-translations of some of the side stories here and there online.
We also have bsd mayoi or Tales of the Lost, the mobile gacha game which also includes a high school AU storyline (bsd gakuen)!
Other than these, there are also several stage plays, although it's harder to find content on these in english since they are only performed in Japan.
Bsd fans are truly the most well-fed fans of all time sometimes i forget how much content we have and still we keep getting more, it's unreal
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meimi-haneoka · 1 year
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Clear Card Trivia 1 ~ Literary and musical references/mentions in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card
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Hello everyone! The end of the Clear Card manga is very near, so I thought it was about time to start writing the long list of posts I'm going to release in the upcoming months, since it's almost time to wrap everything up and it would be nice to look back and not only analyze the plot but also trivia and themes/topics discussed (openly or not) in these almost 7 years of serialization of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc.
Today we talk about the several literary and musical references spread across the different CCS Clear Card media. The references are quite a lot and I find it so very fitting for a story that features books so much, both under a positive and negative light. Books have a life-saving role, being the only thing young Akiho could cling to, to survive mentally till the arrival of Kaito in her life and the subsequent removal from her abusive family, but for a twist of fate, a spell under the guise of a book is also what was about to destroy her soul forever when said book got filled up with magic. The very first time Akiho's inner book gets set off is precisely in Fujitaka's library. Moreover, a fictional world existing into a forbidden book called Alice in Clockland is also where Kaito sends everyone in the climax of the story. In that fictional world, it is said that books record the memories and feelings of people. And after recording them, that same book can rewrite them. Books are literally an essential element of the plot of Clear Card Arc.
In my list I will take in consideration both the anime and the manga, with a special section for the now-defunct Happiness Memories mobile game! The references are ordered basing on their impact or importance within the plot, and include all the info we have till chapter 72. I might update this post if we get more literary references in the very last chapters of the arc. I will probably not be able to talk in depth about all the possible double meanings and connections of these stories to the real Clear Card plot, as I haven't read most of these books or I'm still in the process of reading them, but I have looked at summaries on Wikipedia, so hopefully I'll be able to feature at least a part of the interesting connections. Anyone who knows these stories or songs in depth is welcome to give more insight!
Soooo, ready to dive in?
1) Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There / Lewis Carrol
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Of course the first reference featured in this list couldn't be other than this one! The whole Clear Card arc is heavily based on the Alice In Wonderland narrative, but particularly in the sequel "Through the Looking-Glass". The very first mentions of "Alice-related" stuff is as early as chapter 12, when Sakura and Tomoyo visit Akiho's home and they check out her huge library: here Akiho shows them her book "Alice in Clockland" for the first time. Tomoyo spots the resemblance with the title of the best-known novel, but Akiho says that the book she's holding wasn't written by the author of Alice in Wonderland, and although the language it's written in is composed by runes, she was taught how to read it. Later on we discover that the more she progresses reading this book, the more it gets connected to recurring dreams she's having, with an "Alice" as the main character who experiences all sorts of adventures (unbeknownst to her, she's dreaming about Sakura's adventures with the Clear Cards). Akiho sometimes shares these dreams with Kaito and he always listens attentively, commenting that it'd be good if Alice acquired "more and more skills". We also see Rika (through Sakura) giving away to Akiho one of her Alice picture books, and the girl is definitely thrilled and moved by the kind gesture of who is basically a stranger to her.
Moreover, in chapter 38 & 39, Kaito shrinks Sakura in order to prompt her to create a Card, and sends her down a hole carved in a tree, calling her "Alice". Sakura also created the Shade card supposedly basing it on the Jabberwock featured in Through The Looking Glass. The whole situation prompts Kaito to remember about his first face-to-face meeting with Akiho, which he says happened in a garden fit for Alice in Wonderland. The whole scenery Sakura witnesses in the strange world she's sent to is very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland/Through the looking Glass, with her being so little and the talking flowers. Of course, the biggest reference to Through the Looking Glass is the whole Alice in Clockland play, in its first version based on Akiho's beloved book with the same title (Naoko initially called the play "The Two Alice", but then decided to change it at last minute, in a twist of fate). Both "before" and "after" the rewriting of memories operated by Momo's book, we not only have an Alice in this story, but also a Cat (which will have a key role) and a Red Queen. Another notable similarity is how Alice, in Through the Looking Glass, crosses "the wood where things have no names", forgetting her own name for a short time while crossing that forest in the company of a fawn. In Alice in Clockland, the Red Queen completely forgot her name once she entered Clockland, in both versions of the play, before and after the rewriting. Akiho/Red Queen regains her memories by lifting the dark veil covering her face, while Sakura/Red Queen regains her memories thanks to Alice telling her the truth about what happened.
Furthermore, the fact that later in the climax Sakura and Akiho are turned into twins by the forbidden magic activated by Kaito might be considered a reference to the famous twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee (although, that's also commonly known as one of CLAMP's obsessions 😂). One more reference is represented by the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass, who can remember events that will happen in the future, and while Sakura can do that herself to a certain degree, certainly this character is better represented by Lilie, Akiho's mother, who could see so much of the future ahead and tried to reach Sakura in her dreams to inform her of an important truth. It is also to be noted that the White Queen's daughter in Through the Looking Glass is named.....Lily.
2) Ten Nights of Dreams (夢十夜) / Natsume Sōseki
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"Ten Nights of Dreams" is a collection of short pieces by Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki, where he narrates 10 mysterious dreams set in various time periods, including his own. The book gets featured for the first time in chapter 10 / volume 3 of the manga, and episode n. 6 of the anime. In this scene, Sakura and Akiho are each reading a portion from the 7th dream, the one where the dreamer finds himself on a ship, among strangers, not knowing where the ship is headed to or when he'll see land again. The tone of this dream, like the rest of them, is pretty dark, as the dreamer is extremely discouraged and decides to throw himself into the sea, regretting it when it's already too late. This book gets directly mentioned again in chapter 58 of the manga, when Naoko reflects on the fact that even the tenth night told in the collection is a dream, because there's no point where the storyteller wakes up. This leads her to think how scary it would be to have a dream you can't wake up from, and this will become for her one of the sources of inspiration for the scenario of the school play. When the teacher talked about this book to her students back in chapter 10, she stated "this collection features plenty of mysterious stories, but depending on the person, they could also be considered 'scary' ". I feel like this is exactly how Clear Card Arc could be described too, especially from the POV of the Japanese readers, that I've witnessed these past couple of years on social media. I wonder if this wasn't a way for CLAMP to tip the readers off regarding the thematics and tone that Clear Card would take halfway through. Moreover, the teacher mentions "foretelling dreams" in relation to this book, and that prompts Sakura to consider if the dream she's constantly seeing with the Mysterious Cloaked Figure could be a foretelling dream too.
3) Momo / Michael Ende
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"Momo" is a fantasy novel written by German writer Michael Ende (the same of The Neverending Story), and it gets featured in chapter 39 of Clear Card, while Kaito is having a flashback of his first face-to-face meeting with Akiho. At the moment of Kaito's arrival in the rose garden, Akiho was reading a book, and when she's asked about its content by Kaito himself, the girl tells him of a story that is unequivocally that of "Momo": a little girl battles some so-called "time thieves". Akiho seems to love that story, as she has read it many times.
Although it might seem just an easter egg at the level of the Cthulhu books that I will mention later, the presence of the "Momo" novel here is completely different and very significant to the main story of Clear Card. First of all, its complete German title translates in English to "Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people". As we all know, this sequel of the Cardcaptor Sakura series deals heavily with the theme of time, and Kaito is strictly related to that theme, as he's the major "player" of that element, using magic to stop it or especially to rewind it. In "Momo", the "time-thieves" (also called Men in Grey) are some kind of paranormal parasites with the goal of stealing the time of humans. They appear to people offering to save their time in some so-called "Timesaving Banks", urging them to spare time by dropping any activity that supposedly "wastes time" like relaxing, playing, enjoying things, with the goal of having that time returned back with interests later. But that time saved in the bank is actually stolen and consumed by the Men in Grey for their own survival. Human feelings such as love are a hindrance for them, and they avoid at all costs to form any bond with anyone. Momo is a mysterious little girl, beloved by everyone in her town as she seems to be able to solve anyone's problems or afflictions just by listening and talking to them. She will eventually take on the task of defeating the Men in Grey. Ende's novel is a critique to consumerism in the modern society and how hectic our lives have become, where time is everything and we often never use it for what really matters the most: making us happy. Momo was published in 1973 but its thematics are super relevant even today.
Aside from the easy connection of the topic of time to what Kaito does (although in a more benign way, in our case), "Momo" is also how Akiho chose to name her beloved bunny plushie, who, unbeknownst to her, is actually the magical Guardian of the Book of Time. We don't know when exactly that naming happened, as of chapter 72, but the fact that one of the most treasured and beloved existences in Akiho's life was named "Momo" - the same as the title of the book Akiho was reading when she met Kaito for the first time - suggests hitsuzen is strongly at work here. Akiho might have named Momo after she met Kaito, and to show how important that meeting was to her, she chose to name her after an element that was strictly connected to that meeting. And if she named her so before meeting Kaito, then it shows just how fateful their meeting was. She named one important existence after a beloved book, and precisely when she was reading that same book, she had her first meeting with another important person in her life. The one she will love the most.
It is also to be noted that in "Momo", the time is consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of smoking cigars made out of dried hour-lilies' petals, which are pink flowers representing time itself. Again, a feature of lily flowers, which connects us once more to Lilie.
Depending on how Clear Card will end, and whether Sakura will be able to regain all the memories and the time lost with them, beating the Forbidden Magic activated by Kaito, we might even draw another reference - how Ende's Momo is able to give the stolen time back to the people of her town.
4) "Tsuki ga kirei desu ne" (月が綺麗ですね) / Natsume Sōseki + "Kaze no nai yoru ga boku wo semetogameru" (風のない夜が僕を責めとがめる) / SPARKS GO GO
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In chapter 48 of the manga, Akiho, unable to sleep after waking up from an unsettling dream, heads to the garden of her home in the middle of the night. And there surprisingly she finds Kaito, also awake and staring intently at the full moon. In a magical and emotional scene, illuminated by the full moon and prompted by feelings of worry for Kaito's pale complexion - too pale for his own good, Akiho tells him "Can we talk a little bit longer? Because...the moon is really beautiful".
At first, these can seem totally normal words of admiration for the full moon illuminating the two. But actually in this scene, Akiho has just covertly confessed to Kaito that she loves him. Many of you probably already know, but in Japan there's a little story that takes us back again to the famous novelist Natsume Soseki who seems to influence Clear Card so much (he'll get another mention later in this post). There's no actual written evidence of this, so Japanese people tend to consider this as some folklore tale, but when Soseki worked as an English teacher, he allegedly corrected one of his students who translated too literally the English phrase "I love you" in Japanese. He supposedly said "that's too direct, Japanese people don't express such phrase so directly. You should use 月が綺麗ですね (tsuki ga kirei desu ne, 'The moon is beautiful, right?') instead". And that's how the myth of expressing "I love you" in Japanese with "the moon is beautiful, right?" was born. It is very poetic, romantic and subtle so there's no doubt its popularity is really high and used in all kinds of media even today. And, I have to say, it fits romantic, shy and bookworm Akiho to a T. But how can we be sure that Akiho was really-really meaning that? It's because of the quotation marks on the original Japanese script. Akiho was deliberately quoting a source. And her face right afterwards, eyes cast down and red as a tomato, is the final proof of her intention. We still don't know, 24 chapters later, if Kaito's surprised face meant he understood what she was secretly meaning, or not.
However, I have a second source for this particular line from Akiho. One day I was searching on the internet, wanting to know more about this popular phrase, exactly as she worded it (it's slightly different from the classic one) and I stumbled upon the song "Kaze ga nai yoru ga boku wo seme togameru" (The windless night is reproving me) by Sparks Go Go. It's a love song from 1993, and the very first verse features the very same line Akiho said, worded exactly as she did. When I started to translate the lyrics, I was shocked. The lyrics actually fit perfectly the scene in the garden under the moonlight and what was going on between Kaito and Akiho in that moment, so much that it really makes me wonder if Ohkawa wasn't trying to make a double reference here:
Since the moon is beautiful I'll invite you for a stroll outside Tonight it's a bit chilly So wear one more layer of clothing I'm stammering And for some reason I suddenly realize All the feelings I've kept inside till now The windless night is reproving me Even though you're telling me A funny thing that happened to you today Tonight it's a bit different than usual My heart is twinkling Our footsteps echo softly As if I'm about to realize something All the feelings I've kept inside till now The windless night is reproving me The windless night is gently inviting me
As you can see, it's almost a precise description of that scene, with the mention of the stroll at night under the moonlight, the talk and the hidden feelings that are being conveyed in that moment.
I'll conclude this paragraph with something that I usually always mention when I tell people about the "moon is beautiful" 's hidden meaning in relation to Clear Card's storyline, because I think it's highly related. There are several ways to respond "I love you too" to a love confession made in that fashion. And one of the most popular ones that gets associated so much to this phrase (despite not coming from the same author but actually another one, Japanese novelist Shimei Futabatei who lived in the same period of Soseki) is 死んでもいいわ (shinde mo ii wa), which literally translates in English to "I can die happy" or "I can die for you" (you already know where I'm going with this one, right?). Apparently, Futabatei decided to translate in Japanese as shinde mo ii wa the Russian word Ваша present in a passage of the book "Asya" by Ivan S. Turgenev. The word Ваша actually literally translates in English as "yours", and the scene showed a woman deeply committing to her love, but since this is the same period as Soseki, the Japanese novelist used an indirect way to express it. I've read that the choice of shinde mo ii wa is tightly connected to the context of the original story, where a woman of low social status (an illegitimate daughter of a Russian landowner) and a man of higher class fell in love, but kept it hidden for most of the story. Back in those times, such relationship was frowned upon by society and so, indulging in that love could also be seen as the death of someone's life in society. In that sense, that "I would die for you" expresses the spirit of abnegation and complete dedication that such profound love inspires. Now, back to Clear Card, consider who's literally sacrificing himself for Akiho, and draw your conclusions.......
5) Liber Ivonis, Celaeno Fragments / H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth
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When Akiho visits Sakura's home in ch. 26 in order to learn how to cook from her, Sakura also brings her to visit her father's small library. In a very excited way, Akiho recognizes some books of her interest and she asks Sakura if she can take them. Those books are, in order of appearance, "Liber Ivonis" and "Celaeno Fragments" (there's a small typo on the book's title, due to the ambivalence of R/L in Japanese) which are two books featured in the Cthulhu Mythos created by US writer H. P. Lovecraft. Both books seems to be grimoires about occult topics and dark magic spells. It is very likely that the two books are merely easter eggs (they had no influence whatsoever on the plot) or a covertly way from CLAMP to let us know that Akiho was acquainted with magical books.
6) Buying Mittens (手袋を買いに) / Nankichi Niimi
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"Buying Mittens" from Japanese author Nankichi Niimi is the book Sakura and Akiho are asked to read to the children of the hospital in episode 19 of the Clear Card anime. The story features a baby fox going on a journey to a nearby village to buy mittens to warm its cold paws in the rigid snowy winter. The story revolves around the themes of trust in other human beings. Although the mother fox advised her little one to be careful of human beings, because if they found out it was a fox, something terrible would've happened, the little fox actually finds out humans are not all the same, and the human being selling the mittens wasn't actually harmful at all.
See, when this episode was released in May 2018, I remember it got a lot of criticism for being a "wasted episode" and not bringing the plot forward at all. But I had already understood back then that this was actually a very symbolic episode for one of the major thematics of Clear Card, which would've shown its full importance only later on the story: how much we can trust other people, especially when we don't know them and they are having seemingly hostile behaviors. I knew the anime staff chose to feature this book for a precise reason. With hindsight, from the manga storyline POV, this is absolutely connecting to how Sakura had her trust tested multiple times in the entire arc, not only towards Kaito who had the most ambiguous behaviors, but also her loved ones, starting from Syaoran himself - who stole her cards in the very beginning and even lied to her, hiding an important truth for her sake; but also Yukito, for a moment, when he activated the Moon barrier all of a sudden, scaring even Kero and Suppi; or how inevitably Sakura's trust in Akiho was also put under pressure once she found out that Kaito was a magician and so inevitably she had to question the reliability of a person very close to him. Trust, trust in your beloved people and even more deciding to trust someone you don't know well is of utmost importance in this arc. If Kaito the magician is, in Buying Mittens, the human known for hurting and hunting and killing foxes, Sakura is the little fox who has to make the important decision of whether she can trust him or not, especially when she's in a moment of vulnerability (in the story the little fox shows the fox paw instead of the human hand to the hatter, who recognizes it as a fox but actually doesn't hurt it at all).
When Sakura found out about Kaito being a magician, she made a careful and delicate decision: she decided to trust Akiho and indirectly to trust Kaito too, avoiding to jump to conclusions and to ruin Akiho and Kaito's relationship by questioning her friend about Kaito's nature. And despite acting in shady ways for the entire arc, and sometimes being just misunderstood - leading everyone to believe he intended to hurt Sakura, in the end we found out that none of that has ever been Kaito's intention from the very beginning.
As repeatedly told by Nanase Ohkawa of CLAMP in Twitter Spaces, Sakura trusts her loved ones, and that actually represents her strength to believe that she will always be ok and everything will eventually be alright.
At the end of the Buying Mittens story, on its way back to his mother, the little fox hears a human mother singing a lullaby to her baby, and the fox draws a parallel to its own mother. Thanks to that, while being cuddled by the mother fox later, the baby fox says "maybe humans are good, after all". Motherhood and mother's love is definitely another thematic common to Clear Card and Buying Mittens, but also finding something that wholesome in common between the two species (humans and foxes) is the key to trust that there can be something good to be found even in "the other" that seems so scary and oppositive in the beginning. I'm certain that will also be a huge theme that will lead Sakura to help Akiho and Kaito in the very end of this climax.
7) Night on The Galactic Railroad / Kenji Miyazawa
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"Night on The Galactic Railroad" is the title of the book Yukito is reading to the children of the hospital in episode 19 of the Clear Card anime.
8) "Oborozukiyo" (朧月夜)
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"Oborozukiyo" is a Japanese folk song that gets featured in chapter 9 of the manga and episode 6 of the anime. Tomoyo and Akiho sing together this song in 2 different occasions between manga and anime: in the manga they sing it at the hanami in front of group of school friends, while in the anime it is a song that Tomoyo suggests to Akiho to sing together, and at the end of the performance she offers Akiho to join the choir later. The song is also featured in the Clear Card soundtrack album.
9) Special references appearing in the mobile game Happiness Memories:
Botchan / Natsume Sōseki
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Natsume Soseki gets mentioned again in the Happiness Memories game when Akiho, in one of the photostories (the one focused on the study of English, with Syaoran reiterating his love to Sakura in English without her knowing what he meant ❤️) tells Sakura she's looking for the English version of some books, namely Night On The Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (already mentioned above) and Botchan by Natsume Soseki. Apparently, Kaito suggested her to find those books and read them in English, since she's still having some difficulties with Japanese language. Akiho doesn't initially remember the titles of those books, so Syaoran intervenes and tries to help.
The Wandering Lake / Sven Hedin
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"The Wandering Lake" is a book written by swedish geographer Sven Hedin. This one gets seemingly mentioned during one of the photostories set during the old anime arcs, where Syaoran gets invited to the Kinomoto home and bakes a cake with Fujitaka and Sakura (I don't really know much of the details because I never got this card 💦) While they wait for it to bake, Fujitaka and Syaoran talk about their favorite subject, archeology! And Fujitaka apparently makes references to this book (he supposedly mentions the lake name, Lop Nur) while explaining his love for archeology.
And I believe that's all for this first installment of "Clear Card Trivia"!! I hope you enjoyed it and maybe that it surprised you too, for some reference that you didn't catch before today! My love for this story is infinite, for all the reading "layers" it provides us with, and one of those is composed by all the literary references featured in it, since books are really so important in this arc. Knowing all these little quotes and references makes me appreciate CLAMP's efforts to build this arc as something deeper and more meaningful.
As I said in the beginning, I intend to update this post in case something else comes up in the handful of chapters that are left! See you next time, what will I feature? I have looooots I want to talk about!!
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popculturebuffet · 1 month
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Here Comes Garfield: The Fantastic Funnies (A Comission For Emma Fici)
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Hello all you happy people! And welcome one and all to Here Comes Garfield, my look at all things garfield. For the rest of the year this feature will mostly be a look at the 11 garfield specials, minus babes and bullets which I covered previously, as well as his appearence in Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue for last 420.
So for those just joining us: I'm a lifelong comic strip nerd, ever since my dear Aunt Paula gave me her spare copy of the Indespensible Calvin and Hobbes in the 3rd grade. From there I slowly glommed on to other strips over the years: From FoxTrot, to Doonesbury, to Get Fuzzy to Zits to Cul De Sac, to recent faviorites like Pheobe and Her Unicorn, Crabgrass, the Steenz version of Heart and the City, and Breaking Cat News, which i'm wrapping a huge retrospective of soon, and whose place this retrospective is taking on my friend Emma's Patreon slot.
I love talking about this fine art, fitting your best work in just 4 panels, all the wonderful characters many simply don't know exist, all the weird shit that happens.. it's good stuff. So naturally I also gained a love for specials based on them. And while I loved the Peanuts ones and will climb THAT massive mountain someday, as a tween.. my faviorites were Garfield's and it's how I fell in love with the fat cat, the cool cat the nobody's cool cat.
While younger me did like garfield as a strip, especially that one arc where Garfield gets caught in a window blind and it conttinues to suck in an escalating number of people
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Truly the "Snoopy's Awkward Nephew" of Garifield comics. Pure art. But while I liked it, it was watching the specials on the DVD garfield as himself that sucked me into the character. The DVD"s were released around the time of the first movie and releases of Garfiled and Friends to cash in and they certainly got my money. 12 specials, all ranging from excellent to watchable, and all wil lbe covered this year.
However before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story: See while Here Comes Garfield was Garfield's first SPECIAL.. it wasn't his first apperance in animation. Two years before that Garfield lept onto screens and into the inky depths of animation with a short but scene stealing apperance in the 1980 special the Fantastic Funnies, an apperance I honestly didn't even know existed till recently, but is such a weird and important piece of garfield history I had to cover it and Emma was on board to comission it.
So what exactly IS the fantastic funnies you may ask. Well i'll tell you.. you may ask. The Fantastic Funnies was a sequel to the earlier special The Fabulous Funnies, a celebration of comic strips interviewing various creators and including a live action on animated bit with Rob Reiner. I haven't seen it but if there's enough intrest I might cover it. The special was a hit for NBC, with CBS regretting having passed over the idea when animation maestro and peantus producer Lee Mendelson suggested it. After they remembered he'd pitched it and they'd been stupid at all of course, as is the executive way. They called dibs on the next time.
The next time was 12 years and an animated series that didn't do so good later, and CBS was front and center for the Fantastic Funnies, taking the concept but spiffing it up: this time the interviews were, with two exceptions, each accompanied by an animated short, there was an animated bit to start it off, and we also got a few musical numbers and live performances from the broadway cast of annie.. well two of the broadway cast of annie bu tthat's still more of the broadway cast of annie than has been on this blog so touche Fabulous Funnies, touche. It's the most 70's thing to come out of 1980 and i'll be covering the whole thing under the cut.
Fantastic Funnies is hosted by Loni Anderson, who at the time was on CBS' hit WKRP in Cincinatti.. and what i've seen of it is excellent. She hasn't really done anything else i've seen, but she seems nice enough.
This makes it awkward as hosting wise she feels shoved into the special. The script she's given feels awkward, with her only genuine enthuasim coming from Barney Google. I honestly wish I could be as jazzed about Barney Google and his go go gooogly eyes as Loni Anderson apparently was in 1980. I AM that jazzed about Snoopy's awkard teenage nephew
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But it's not the same alas.
I can't even blame her as anderson was already frustrated with her pay for the series she did do and would demand more from the network leading to a brief exit from WKRP. I can't be too hard on her for not giving a fuck about an extra gig they saddled her with she didn't ask for with a script written by a block of wood on several pounds of qualudes. She did her best under the circumstances.
The circumstances also include getting animated as a cartoon, lucky, and getting to introduce a panel of various comic strip all stars of the time.
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Okay so going row by row, with the strips self titled unless otherwise stated.
Front Row: Charlie Brown and Lucy (Peanuts), Nipper (Wee Pals), Dennis the Menace (US Comic), Nancy and Sluggo and Little Orphan Annie. Second Row: Blondie and Dagwood, Dick Tracey, Barney Google (Snuffy Smith), Alley Oop and Prince Valiant
Third Row: Pogo, Tumbleweeds, miss Peach, B.C., Beetle Bailey
Back row: Michael Doonesbury (Doonesbury), Broom Hilda, Drabble, Cathy and Hagar the Horrible
And in their own section because dogs apparently don't get bleacher seats at Walden, where I assume this is taking place as the only college out of these strips, we also get the dogs and one very special cat in their own section.
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So Snoopy, Daisy (Blondie), Fred Basset and Garfield who are all about to throw down when Lonnie announces they have to get back to the human world for the show. But before that a song they all prepared, and it was at this point in the special I had to ask myself the tough question:
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I still don't know. But yes the song is like living in a living nightmare and I don't care for it. It's thankfully short and Broomhilda takes them all to the real world. But that's a story for another day
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Sadly not that day.
For now the special settles int' it's formula: Lonnie introduces a cartoonist, they talk about how their strip came to be, we get an animated segment about it. The only exceptions to the last part are Wee Pals, which instead has it's creator voice over one of his strips directly and Prince Valliant, who gets jack shit.
It was at this point I also realized a bit of an issue. While I mentioned my love of comic strips.. most of the ones I adore come from the late 70's onward, with Doonesbury and Peanuts being the big exceptions. I don't have anything against strips from before that time, I've read what I could of Pogo and want to read more and Krazy Kat is still well loved for a reason. I've also recently gained an appreceation of popeye thanks to Randy Millholand's take on the franchise.
The thing is I started devouring every comic strip I coudl in the 2000's. It was a great time for that as every strip got at least ONE collection, so even if you didn't read the newspapers, you could get a sample of a wide range of strips in book form. Boondocks even got a hilarious title out of it for it's first book.
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So I got to sample a wide range of strips, many of which I still read today: Get Fuzzy, Zits Pooch Cafe, For Better or For Worse, Baldo, La Cucaracha, Cul De Sac, Lio, Luann, Rudy Park, Adam@Home. Many strips I first found in collection and binged later. Sadly this went down in the 2010's but thankfully the kids comics boom has meant many newer strips have gotten collections. It's why I have collections for heart of the city and crabgrass on my shelf.
But as you may of noticed... most of those either started in the 2000's or in the 90's. Most of the kings features based strips simply didn't get collections and thus I didnt' notice them.. and by the time I could i'd mostly heard of them by reputation as dinosaurs that would go on till the heat death of the universe via various legacy artists who wouldn't really change a thing.
And I do GET why: a lot of these legacy strips.. are ran by family members who want to honor the legacy and may simply not feel comfortable altering the strip too much. I'm not asking that dagwood suddenly become a t-rex... i'd love that, but I get i'm not everyone's target audience. Not every strip can be Pooch Cafe and go entirley off the rails AND still be every bit the strip it always was AND be good
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It's hard. So I do have some sympathy. It's not limitless: while I get not doing so say in the 2000's when handing your strip off to another cartoonist, let alone your DAD'S strip wasn't a thing unless they were going to stay the course, in the 2020's and late 2010's we've had a bunch of great reboots and soft reboots of legacy strips: Randy Millholand of Something Positive fame did such a fantastic job on popeye sundays he got a weekly slot with olive and popeye, giving other creators the chance to do their own olive oyl strip basically alongside his. Mark Tatulli got tired of doing heart of the city (Lio both continues and slaps hard) and rather than phone it in or end it, handed it over to the talented Steenz, whose work on the strip is both something entirley diffrent but something entirely fresh and fun with some tight continuity. Olivia James made people care about Nancy for the first time in decades and has a nice dry wit. And while Henry Barjas keeps the soapy stylings of gil thorpe and hasn't changed as much as his contemporaries he still isn't afraid to shake things up having Gil go through a divorce, get two new assitant coaches, a third assitant coach who was once his arch nemisis and making the teen cast far more diverse including trans and non binary characters, being one of the few creators to do so in comic stripery.
While I don't want you going after these old men, and please for the love of god DO NOT GO AFTER THESE MEN. I do not want that. I may gripe, but these seem like decent guys just ones who won't evolve and have no reason to. I'm just outlining why maybe i'd rather read strips that keep growing with age or have fresh new voices rather than "Dagwood still hasn't left the 1950's and when theyt ry to it's embarassing for everyone involved. "
I.. didn't mean for this to turn into a screed on legacy comics that never really changed but it makes it all the more special tha ta lot of these creation stories for these comics still fascinated me.
The big standout was Wee Pals, a strip I hadn't heard of as it ended in 2002. Wee Pals was created by Morrie Turner, a cartoonist and protege of Charles Schultz who bemoaned the lack of black characters in the newspapers. Charles told him why not make one, and Wee Pals came about, with Turner diversifying the cast to drum up intrest creating one of the more diverse casts in earlier comic strips as a result. Nowadays it's a tad quaint, but I can't fault the man for trying to make comic strips less white and i'm glad I know this pioneer exist. I'm also mildly annoyed his strip wasn't animated, as it was one of the funneist present, with our heroes talking about one's pet chameleon.
There were other intresting stories too: Cathy Guthwise based Cathy on her own life, just changing Cathy's job from cartoonist to "whatervers funnier". Broom Hilda, a strip about a wtich, was something his creator tried pitching as an add character first. IT's small stuff but it always fascinates me how a strip comes about.
The only outright hilarous one is Johnny Hart, who kept trying to sell a caveman character, his friends asked him to put up or shut up so in his words "He drank 4 beers and the caveman slowly came into focus." He just.. outright got hammered to fuck because that was a normal thing in 1980 and created a classic comic strip out of it that later became obessed with jesus. Amazing.
The interviews are neat and while I may not like these strips I respect their creators.. and the creator of Hagar for putting on a viking helmet. Good stuff.
As for the animated segmets.. their eh. Like I said most of these strips are pretty gag a day and it seems like the shorts just flat out animated a strip. Which can work as it does for the raeson we're all here, garfield will come soon I promise, but for the most part it just dosen't land for me
In two cases they just flat out take bits from pre existing specails: For Doonesbury they take a bit of Joanie at the daycare.
For those less drenched in the deep and complex lore of doonesbury as the werido who has a ton of print books and bought digitals of strips he already had and books he already bought years ago just to have a copy on kindle: Joanie Caucuss was once a house wife, who got tired of it and her husband clinton and hitched the first ride she could away from his sexist ass. That ride happened to be with strip lead Mike and his best friend and revolutinary Mark on a motorcycle trip to find america. They took her back with them, she joined them at their commune, and soon got a job in daycare while trying to become a law student, which is the status quo the special used. Soon after she'd become a law student, head to berkley, find the love of her life and a long LONG list of other stuff up to present day where she works as a campaign manager on occasion during her alleged retirement.
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It's not a bad bhit, but I get the sense they wanted to pick the least political thing they could.. yet weirdly DIDN'T go with the musical number or the dinner the group have. Or you know just accept doonesbury is political and include frank discussions of the 60's in this special.
For Peanuts, they just include an animated bit of snoopy singing suppertime from your a good man charlie brown. It's new animation far as I can tell, as the bit wasn't in any of the specials and they woudlnt' adapt the musical till the mid 80s. It's fine I just question why they didn't recycle anything from the specials.
Finally Cathy is from it's special, but fits, with her "wanting to have it all". A very cathy joke and frankly had I not found out she has three specails, i would not have been able to tell.
As for the other material either recycled from the fabulous funnies or made for this special, i'm going in no paticular order.
Beetle Bailey: Beetle runs away from sarge to try and get out of doing the obstacle course
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Hagar the horrible has a trite bit about his wife telling him to take out the garbage VIKINGS DON'T DO THAT. YOU SO SILLY HAGAR.
Dennis the Menace keeps drawing out bed time because kids do that, even immortal children who aren't all that menacing.
By now your starting to get what a mountain it was to climb this special: short interview, unfunny skit, short interview unfunny skit, rinse repeat, toss away my sanity. I TRY to be positive on this blog, try not to be a dickhead.. but this special is so damn boring half the time. The interviews are kinda neat but the animated bits are just.. so lame.
So as a break let's talk what else the special did to fill time. Loni Anderson sang the radio themes to Popeye and Little Orphan Annie. IN the former's case.. that's all you gets. No adventure, no high seas just her singing the popeye theme. We dont' even get a musical number from the popeye movie because it hadn't happene dyet. I want to hear bluto say i'm mean over and ove rand over again. I"m that desperate.
Annie DOES get the cast of the broadway show, a huge hit then and forever, to do two numbers, both iconic and both well performed: The first is I dont' Need Anything But YOu, the cute duet between Annie and Warbucks, and then of course Tommorow best sung by bill the cat.
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But the kid they use here does pretty good herself. They have it sung at the only playground in budget for some reason, but they did their best.
We also get a truly batshit bumber about peopl eneeding their funnies, from reading them as they go down the fire pole to IN A MOVING CAR. Yes even serial murderers need their funnies as they mow down pedestrians. It's nature's way. I do relate to tha tboost you get from reading them every day, I do so and I have to use three diffrent sites: one for andrews mcmeel, one for king features, and one for the webbcomic kevin and kell. So I get it. Three's also a closing number I ran away form.
The final non torture bit is Johnny Fever from WKRP. Due to a news strike he's tasked iwth reading the comics and drmatically reads flash gordon. Howard Hessman is hilarous as always, the bit is fucking great, and it woke me up after several strip adaptions put me to sleep. good stuff.
Back to my cycle of torment, and we have a Blondie cartoon and one of the few animated bits in the specail that was intresting. And unintetionally hilarous as Blondie gets dagwood THIS haircrime done to him.
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What makes it funny is that not only is this haircut too much even for the 70's, but Blondie LOVES it, as do the kids.. despite all three of them having never updated their styles. Granted Blondie's hair game is timeless, so I get her point but it's just a .. weird plot to pick for blondie.
Naturallyt his being blondie instead of forcusing on the problem of "his wife wants him to try a hair cut that makes him not feel himself" it's in part him worried tha this friends and co workers will laugh. I mean they will, it's as if Luke Skywalkers hair started to eat into his brain, but that shoudln't be your takeaway and him washing it out while Blondie's alseep solves nothing and isn't funny. "Haha he can't be honest with his wife and she's going to later cite this incident to thier marriage counclier". Granted I would ENTIRELY read Dagwood's hair causing a divorce between them, but i'm not sure that's an arc Blondie readers want. I do wnat reprints of golden age blondie as it apparently involved Dagwood having to get disinherited to marry blondie, getting drunk, and other soap opera stuff more intresting than Dagwood trying to single white female mark hamill. Huh now THAT'S a Disney + series i'd watch. get on it disney
The other really fun one is Marmaduke. This one's just kidna fucked up. Marmaduke want sto go sleep in the same bed with the kids, which can somehow fit all three and is adorable so I don't get why not, but the dad tries to make him go outside because that was the thing with dogs. It hasn't aged terribly with charlie brown because snoopy clearly likes having his own pad and the inside is larger than most mansions, let alone the brown house
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And when the whole thing burned down in one of the more sobering strips in the series run
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Charlie Brown dutifully helped him plan his new house
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Honestly I could talk about Snoopy's house burning down all day but it's not what you came for. You came to hear me tell you how it relates to Marmaduke. My point is Marmaduke just has a regular ass Dog House, and just wants to sleep in bed. I get this was normal at the time, it used to be the norm that dogs woudln't sleep in bed.. but my Dog YOshi curls up on my mom' sbed every night and maddie, my other dog , only dosen't when she's not on her own bed restfully asleep as she is as I type this. what i'm saying is maybe just maybe forcing dogs to live outside at night was cruel jackassery and maybe letting the big old dog curl up at the foot of the bed or, if he prefers tucked in while old man bastard can sleep outside and think about his life choices. Also i'm shocked this wasn't the plot of either marmaduke movie. It's so perfect. One man's journey to be a better dog owner .. or Marmaduke repeadely hitting him in the nuts with a tennis ball machine and other various objects. I"m not picky. Also i'm not touching either of those films unless someone pays me the 15 dollars it'd take to comissoin it. I'll review plenty of garbage on my own time, but I have limits. Pete Davidson is very much a hard and fast one. Owen Wilson is fine though. We love owen in this house.. but even he can' save cgi marmaduke and we all know that.
Pogo also takes a bit from the then upcoming film I go Pogo.. a guy I don't know tries to take two passing critters for a ride using the old shell game.. only to have put something under every one. i'ts a nice joke and it works well, and the gorgeous claymation. Given it's both election based and based on a comic i'd like to know better, me reviewing that .. would still be 15 if anyone wants it but far less of my own personal hell. But i'm more likely to do that one on my own. Fun fact: pogo's election storyline's inspired bloom counties, which I will be covering this year or at the very least the 1984 one.
BC has some bit with a turtle. It sure does exist
Broom Hilda asks who the fairest in the land is and her mirror calls her second. She responds by breaking it. This bit.. was actually funny. I'm not sure Broom Hilda would be for me as it's main gag seems to be "Gee isn't a woman chasing men against their will funny" which
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Same other way around or with non binary folks. But I did like this and her horning in on mike's close up
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She looks like she's about to hit on him but adorably so and he looks just.. so done with it as he always is. I mean.. I can't have turned out worse than Mike's actual first marriage. his second is pretty ballin though.
Mama has her Son say that life is a song.. onlyf or her to sing about him neglecting him. Get it because guilt tripping is funny! This is apparently most of what Mama is.
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Finally before our main event we have tumbleweeds with sexual harassment as some lady refuses to let tumbleweeds go. And that's not me being lazy that's his actual name. Though to it's creator's credit he retired rather than let it become "a zombie strip", so good on him.
Okay now for what you all came to see
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Also garfield
Garfield's first aniamted special was MOSTLY worth the pilgramage here. While ti's only a few strips repeated, it's fascinating for just how diffrent it is from Here comes Garfield a few years later.
For starters the Fantastic Funnies used an early design for our faviorite cat, not the iconic entirely weird by this point earliest garfield but one more in between, not quite upright yet, but not nearly as realistic as day 1 garfield.
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To the classic peanuts team of Mendelson and Mendez's credit they did a wondreful job, likely why they were chosen to produce the specials till the companies backing peanuts asked them to stop helping out rival specails, and this version of garfield heavily resembles what he was like in the strip this frame is based on
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It's also telling how fast Jim Davis was evolving the special that by the time it aired Garfield had already changed his look up a bit, if still not fully to his more classic 80s look.
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It's not a HUGE change, just a little thinner, with the bigger change being in how he sit's/stands
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It's just a testament to how slowly but surely the character evolved in apperance over his first decade or so and part of what makes this intreresting: while the specials help chart this evolution, and helped cause it as Jim needed to draw Garfield with SKinnier legs for the opening dance number of here comes garfield, it's nice to have this bit of his evolution frozen in amber.
The voices behind the characters are intresting: to my shock Thom Huge ALWASY voiced john and basically only stopped doing it when he retired. Thom did voices for commericals and was an old frat brother of Jim Davis who Davis asked for help with this special. While the producers would recast huge for Here Comes Garfield, he sent them a tape and became THE voice of john in the same way Lorenzo Music became THE voice of garfield.
WHile that's weird enough... what makes this special stand out besides the earlier designs... is Garfield's Voice. It's not Lorenzo Music, who would DEFINE the character in my eyes and is THE garfield, no question, though Frank Welker and Bill Murray are admirable.. but Radio DJ and voice guy Scott Beach.
Beach is take is intresting as both Murray and Welker clearly take from Music, while Beach largely does his own thing. Instead of the dry, sarcastic bored tone Lorenzo perfected, Beach has that but it sounds more like Jean Shepard'ss narration in a christmas story. Shepard isn't bad but his voice for Garfield is less relaxed, mor ebooming and confident. It dosen't COMPLETELY fit and makes the short feel a tad weird.. but it's also hard to judge the voice as, like I said EVERY voice after took cues from Music. he left the perfect blueprint. The fact Chris Pratt isn't that dry, sarcastic , laid back voice the character has been defined by hasn't helped his case voicing the character at the time of this review. Beach does a good job, but he just didn't quite fit and it's hard to compare a 2 minute performance with dozens of hours worth of material from Music. Beach did a decent job, but he just wasn't the right guy for the part, simple as that. his voice just didn't fit Garfield's give no fuck nature that well.
Finally we have the specific strips adapted. nd the garfield wiki was a huge help here. Seriously fan wikis can have a bad rap but many are done by dedicated people who save me a LOT of work and do a lot of through research> Kudos guys, thanks for your help. So the wiki has each strip adapted. Excluding the "I have feet? " one we have
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Not bad choices: they get all the garfiled bases: he dosen't like catching mice, likes food and Jon weight shames him a lot. Simple, quick and well done.
Overall the garfield shorts for this special are excellent. It's a short bit but it gets the character down and it's easy to see why, despite being the new kid on the block at only two years old at the time, garfield's the one who go ta specail out of the deal.
Now does he make the specail worth watching?
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I mean if you like comic strip history like me, you'll get something out of it. There's a bit on the inductees into the hall of fame, but even then it's a long slog of interviews that are fairly short and shorts that are both short and tedious. The good bit here or there cannot save this.
Other than Garfield .. there really isn't much to write home about for the casual viewer or if your a fan of Peanuts and Doonesbury like I am, as both bits can be found elswhere. It's easier to either fast forward to the bit with a comic you like or find the garfield bits in their own little video, of which there are plenty. I'm glad I reviewed the special.. but it just hasn't aged well and probably wasn't that fun to begin with. Even as much as I ranted about how much I didn't know the strips.. i'ts still presented so dryly even if it had strips I liked more in it, it'd still be a bit of a slog. There's just not enough genuinely good stuff or loveable nonsense to keep this afloat. Skip the special but DO check out the early garfield stuff. It's brilliant.
Next Time: The first proper special as Garfield must save Odie from the pound.. after he grooves to Lou Rawls a bit. As is nature's way. Thanks for reading.
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syrupyy · 10 months
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comic studio: one year in
so, wow! comic studio is officially one year old as of last week. in that year, i've learned a lot about running websites, and i feel like it'd be fun to write a post going over how i feel about it, as well as showcasing my plans for the future of the site
the original concept
as you probably already know, comic studio is the sequel to cookie comic creator, with the aim of bringing easy sprite comic making to every fandom instead of just cookie run. so, how'd that go?
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cookie run is still on top
i guess i can't say i'm surprised that cookie run continues to be the most popular comic maker, especially since i now even have a community of cookie run fans outside of the comic creator - see: my youtube channel - but i will say that i expected one of two things to happen when i released the site: (A.) the site would blow up and everybody would be talking about it (which happened in the cookie run fandom in late 2021), or (B.) the site would flop and literally nobody would use it...
interestingly, i was wrong - for the past 7 or 8 months, comic studio has been floating in this weird in-between, where a bunch of fandoms have small, thriving comic creator communities, but almost none of them as well-known as cookie run comic studio. exceeeeeept...
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alphabet lore actually gets more visitors
i'm gonna be real with you, i didn't watch alphabet lore until about a month after the studio for it blew up. i had heard about the series from various random viral tweets, but the studio was almost entirely the doing of some 16 year old british kid named Jackmoo101...
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i don't know how or why it happened, but in october of 2022, the alphabet lore comic studio started getting tens of thousands of users, and at this point (as far as i can tell) is the biggest alphabet lore fan community on the internet. believe me, i checked - the amino is dead, the subreddit has like 12 active users - and yet, comic studio sees thousands of alphabet lore comics per week
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interestingly, despite getting less views, cookie run comic studio is still far ahead when it comes to the amount of comics posted to the site; this is because a lot of the users of alphabet lore comic studio are under 13, so they're not actually allowed to make an account. in the future, i plan to add a Youtube Kids-style mode where users under 13 can make an account and post comics, just without features like comments and messages that could be used to harm them
what about other fandoms?
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while a couple other comic studios have seen moderate success (Friday Night Funkin Comic Studio is #8 and was retweeted by a huge FNF news account when it came out; My Singing Monsters Comic Studio has captured a solid 20% of the fandom for that game; Pizza Tower Comic Studio has been slowly rising up the ranks), i'm sorta starting to notice a pattern: most fandoms that are mostly run by adults don't really see the point of comic studio. all my non-cookie run friends have said at some point "your site is cool but i don't use it because i don't have any ideas", or "meh, the danganronpa studio you made is just OK, i'd rather use photoshop." and why shouldn't they? they're old enough, they know how to work an actual good image editor... the only major benefit comic studio provides to them is easy access to sprites, which doesn't come up on google - if you want PNGs of the south park characters, you'll go to the south park wiki, not the south park comic studio. and again, i totally understand that, i just feel like that's something i should work on
the genshin impact tiktok incident
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in june of last year, some random tiktok account made a video about the genshin impact comic studio that got several hundred thousand views, 50k+ likes, and a metric ton of bookmarks. thousands of genshin fans flocked to the site, and for 3 days the genshin fandom on comic studio was lively... until, all of them left at once. why? well, this goes into why i run cookie run comic studio/creator in such a specific and perfectionist manner: people care a lot about how good it feels to use something, and if you don't have both quality and quantity of sprites, they're not gonna stick around
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the problem with the genshin comic studio is that there's no good assets to be found - the only official 2d art of the characters emoting are the chibi LINE sticker packs that they occasionally release, and there's only like 4 expressions for like half the characters. other than that, the only other tab is the one with expressionless cutouts of all the models - who can really tell a story with that?
so, it's not a surprise that comic studio failed in the genshin fandom at large. unlike cookie run where i was able to both provide easy access to sprites that previously weren't cut out and also provide a compelling storytelling/guide-making/question-answering/etc. platform, a lot of other fandoms just... don't have anything nearly as useful or interesting to provide. so, what can i do?
3D will change EVERYTHING
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(early development screenshot)
currently, there's no good one-size-fits-all solution to pose and take pictures of character models. source filmmaker/blender/etc. are way too hard to learn, mikumikudance usually requires you to go through and translate random japanese sites to download models, and vrchat requires you to get together a bunch of friends to act it out
this is where comic studio will come in (once i finish the feature): every studio will now be able to upload 3d models, hopefully in most popular formats, and have them converted to work with comic studio out of the box - creating an entirely new kind of 3D comic that has never been nearly as doable. and because there is no competition in that market, i genuinely believe that this update will someday 10x the size of comic studio - once people find out about it, everyone's gonna want to mess around with the studio for their favorite game or series, at least once - and at that point, all i gotta do is keep as many of those people around as i can
speaking of people sticking around, the other big problem with comic studio is that a lot of people just don't have ideas. especially older users just, don't know what to do with it - i'm even guilty of this, in that a majority of the update comics i used to make for cookie comic creator were ripoffs of various old, forgotten meme comics. so, what's my plan to solve this? well, i hate to say it, but...
yeah, it's AI
(design mockup example)
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2024 update: i no longer plan to go through with this idea. the original text is provided below, but know that i have since changed my mind
i plan to add an optional feature where you can type in a prompt for a comic, like "Write a comic with GingerBrave and Cream Unicorn Cookie where they get ice cream together" and the machine will just... do it for you i have experimented with this in the past, and now that ChatGPT has made a lot of accessible LLMs pop up i plan to take advantage of that. with that said: i will never involve ai-generated art, ai voices, etc. because those are inherently harmful and are not worth supporting i won't add the feature until i can ensure that user input is NOT being used to train any models without their consent, and i will make sure all AI-generated comics are tagged properly so that anyone who doesn't want to interact can just block it out i personally see AI as a tool to help humans and little else, at least in its current state - and adding AI prompting to comic studio is an extension of that. it's just a way to quickly get an idea out; either to get a quick laugh out of you or your friends, or to set down a starting line for you to make your own comic out of. i think this will be a good thing if i do it right; if you have any feedback or questions, feel free to send them my way! i try to listen to everyone, even if i don't always take their suggestions
more help needed
the last thing i can do to help improve comic studio right now is to announce that i'm looking for moderators! if you're an active user on the site, have a discord account and want to help keep the streets of Comic Studio safe, apply here!
as of today, i've also finally finished the site translations into Spanish and Korean (!) i've been putting off asking for new translations until the whole site was translated so that i wouldn't have to immediately ask anyone for more later, but now that it's done i'm finally accepting help - if you know any other languages and want to see comic studio translated into them, send me a message - either on discord, or on here, or comic studio if you don't have any of that. together, i hope we can make the site accessible to everybody
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closing thoughts
i still can't believe it's been a whole year already... what is my life? thank you to everyone who's supported me and my creation, and i hope to keep serving you well into the future. if you haven't seen already, the anniversary update is out now, which adds a bunch of social features that people have been requesting for a long time - tagging for comics and user-submitted sprites, comic reposting, and the ability to organize your comics into series. i hope you'll check it out!
-syrupyy
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prototypelq · 4 months
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video game ask let's gooooo
5. Game(s) coming out that you’re looking forward to
12. A character you particularly like in the game you’re currently playing (or any other game really)
13. Quick, name the first song from a game that comes to mind
20. A boss you think is really cool
22. A game ending that’s really stuck with you
26. Realism or stylized?
Thank you for the gaming ask my beloved mutual! )))
5. That's a really tough one. While I do follow gaming news, I am not so attentive to actual game releases. Mostly because I have never really played on a 'current' platform. I have been using consoles for gaming most of my life, I played on x360 up to 2017, then I got a ps4, which was/is my most go-to platform till this year. This year was a change for me, because I finally surrendered to pirating at the beginning of the year, and played through a number of awesome low-spec indies that way. Though, I have been very lucky to get a new pc recently, and oh boy is this a big change for me. It's still crazy to think this machine can run something more than pixelart now xD (no disrespect to low-spec games in this house allowed, the more accessible the game the better, weak hardware optimisation my beloved)
I have also found a way to get past the payment blocks and have bought all those games I pirated, that was a big weight off my shoulders) So, uh, yeah. I don't follow releases. I would have said Alan Wake 2 is you asked earlier this year tho, CONTROL had me transform into a Sam Lake devoted follower xD I'll gladly watch a letsplay of it sometime soon, before I catch any spoilers. All the other game series I'm interested in are either on hiatus (Darksiders when), or the latest entry made me lose interest (Horizon 2. I love the world, so I'll follow the series anyway, but the story of the sequel is a mess I didn't like at all, and it doubled down on this new direction too). That was a long and roundabout way of saying I don't really look up to any new games currently, lol.
12. Currently - Lohse from the DOS2. This game has an extensive player character creator, however, you could play as basically one of the companions of the game, with full custom story and questline. And Lohse is a Very special case, as my dear bard woman is currently posessed)
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The game has some amazing moments, where it will throw you a persuasion check to 'prevent you from throttling a character because the demon inside you didn't like them' for example. Funnily enough, in this moment in particular, if you succeed on the first check (which is hard to do early-game), if will throw you Another one with other stats to use. And Another. There's three persuasion checks in succession here, which is normally literally impossible to do, unless you mod the game to hell and leave the balance there as I did, and STILL this is the only option the dialogue will leave for you. Lohse becomes uncontrollable after this, and your other party members have to subdue her.
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It's incredible, amazing time, 10/10. Other origin characters are great too, but I think this fourth-wall-meddling makes Lohse simply the best origin character to play as.
I also greatly enjoyed playing as Delsin Rowe in Infamous Second Son, I love that game, it's super fun and has great style, plus Delsin is adorable. He's a bit punk, he is witty, he is a geek, an artist and his grafitti-drawing mechanic is adorable.
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Also Death from Darksiders 2. His parkour is superb, his abilities are super cool, he has an amazing horse, and he is Literally Death Rider Of The Apocalypse.
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13. First song that comes to mind would be Bound Together, since I mentioned it a lot the last few asks...excluding that one, Subhuman + BTL, and Black Dog for the fun of it, All Is Soft Inside which was featured for a virtual concert of AURORA in Sky: Children of the Light (adorable game, which will hopefully come out sometime on pc, mutuals I would hold your hands in that game so. much.)
20. A really cool boss. Sorry King Cerberus and Vergil, you are cool by definition. The first that comes to mind is the Guardian fight from the Darksiders 2, which is honestly the most badass fight in the series. THAT MUSIC HITS SO HARD. And that finish animation, oh my, pure epic.
22. A game ending that’s really stuck with you. ooops already did a too-long and roudabout post about that one xD
26. Realism or stylized? Stylized anytime. Realism is honestly kind of boring, though I admit sometimes seeing your fave very detailed is cool. For example, dmc5 Dante design is my favourite out of them all, because it is finally (kind-of) down-to-earth. The game is about fighting demons and being cool about it, but the story is of human struggle and issues, and the character design finally reflects that. And I do enjoy the Impressive hair physics in Horizon games, but that's it for realism. Stylized is literally better in every possible way: it makes the design more flexible - it can be expressive or constrained, depending on your direction; it is cheaper to produce and easier to optimize and easier to run. Plus 'realism' is a forever-outdated style. Games that were considered 'realistic' in 90s, 00s and 10s don't look so realistic to us now. Even Delsin Rowe I mentioned above - he looks great, the motion capture and animation for the game looks awesome, but his face is kind of baby-smooth and the pupils of every character in the game are just a bit too-wide, it makes them all look like they all collectively had some hallucinogens xD. Meanwhile, stylised games can never go out of style, as they are the ones dictating it. Beyond Good and Evil still looks good, Fables look good, Psychonauts does too, etc. These games always exist in the state they were meant to be viewed in, while realistic games are always reaching for the not-really-but-sort-of unattainable standards, which change with time and available technology.
Stylized is Always. Better. In. Every. Way. Also make games optimized again and lower the hardware reqs. I swear, it's like every new title requires you to buy an entire basement full of rocket-science multi-computers, each with a videocard which name will make the math-lovers cry.
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kevinsreviewcatalogue · 3 months
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Review: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Rated PG for action/violence, rude humor/language, and some scary moments
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<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/12/review-puss-in-boots-last-wish-2022.html>
Score: 5 out of 5
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a movie I missed last year, which made it kind of annoying to hear so many people praising it to the heavens as one of the best animated films in years, not least of all because I'm the kind of guy who does not like spoilers. Flying down to Florida just in time to share a house with three little kids over Christmas break gave me the perfect opportunity to check it out, and the only thing I'm disappointed about is not seeing it sooner. It doesn't reinvent the wheel or have any pretensions of being a particularly revelatory movie, but it's still an outstandingly well-put-together one in everything from the animation to the characters to the humor to the mayhem. Putting it side-by-side with Shrek, the film that put DreamWorks Animation in the spotlight and which this one is a sequel to a spinoff of, shows just how much the studio has evolved in the twenty-plus years since then, going from mischievous, Looney Tunes-esque pop culture spoofs with barbs aimed directly at Disney to a kind of family-friendly, character-driven adventure comedy that's clearly inspired by the Mouse but still has enough unique style and dramatic edge to stand out. I don't really have much to add to the conversation on this one except to say that it's easily one of the best films that DreamWorks has ever made, especially given what I thought of the movie they released just eight months before this, and one that I expect to stick around as a classic just like Shrek itself.
Set in a fantasy/fairy-tale version of Spain, our eponymous protagonist is an intelligent cat who has exploited his nine lives to become an adventurer who doesn't fear death... at least, not until he loses his eighth life thanks to his carelessness fighting a monster attacking a town. Suddenly, he no longer feels so invincible, especially once he encounters a mysterious wolf bounty hunter who seeks to claim his ninth and final life after watching him squander his previous eight. Going into retirement in an elderly cat lady's home after burying his sword and gear, Puss is dragged back to the world of adventure when Goldilocks, the thuggish leader of the Three Bears Crime Family (guess who her "enforcers" are), seeks to hire him to find the Wishing Star, a magical rock that would grant one wish to whoever discovers it -- and she won't take no for an answer. Puss decides that this star is his key to regaining his nine lives, and with help from an old flame named Kitty Softpaws, he sets out to find it himself, staying one step ahead of Goldilocks, the evil businessman "Big" Jack Horner who wants it for his own ends, and of course, the Wolf.
The look of the film is one of the most immediately striking things about it. While it's not the first film to use cel shading to make computer animation emulate the look of hand-drawn animation while being distinct from both (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Mitchells vs. the Machines did something similar recently), it's going for a different set of influences than those films, its look instead resembling a mix of the fairy tale artwork that the Shrek movies have always spoofed and anime in the action scenes. The settings feel lifted almost from a highly stylized painting or storybook, while the action looks downright sublime, the film's characters doing battle, chasing one another, and facing various treacherous foes on their quest for the Wishing Star in all manner of awesome ways. Even as cats, Puss and Kitty came across as credible and cool adventure heroes, especially with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek Pinault leaning heavily into their live-action screen personas, Banderas playing Puss as a riff on Zorro where the only real "parody" element comes from his species and Hayek playing Kitty as the cool femme fatale who has history with the hero that they'll inevitably have to settle. Florence Pugh was hilarious doing her best gender-flipped Ray Winstone impression as Goldilocks, especially with the real Winstone himself voicing one of the three bears (alongside Olivia Colman and Samson Kayo), while John Mulaney made Horner into an absolute bastard who I couldn't wait to see get his well-deserved comeuppance. At first glance, with three separate groups of characters all racing for the Wishing Star, this film can feel sprawling, and yet it always manages to tie these three stories together in a way that feels organic.
The key to doing this was the Wolf. From the moment we're introduced to him, he's presented as a metaphorical representation of death itself, an impossibly skilled fighter who trounces and nearly kills Puss in their first encounter and who is seemingly unstoppable from that point onward, every meeting he has with Puss feeling like it could be their last. The film's comedy stops dead cold whenever the whistling announcing his arrival starts up, Wagner Moura's performance lending him an almost demonic menace without going over-the-top into cackling supervillainy. He is one of the best villains I've seen in any animated film in a long while, a no-nonsense monster whose evil combines the most terrifying elements of an unstoppable force of nature and somebody who hates you personally, the closest thing that a family film could come to an outright slasher movie villain. There have been many jokes made about this film having one of the most realistic depictions of a panic attack in any animated film, but watching it, it was no joke: I understood immediately how this guy completely disarmed Puss' suave, arrogant demeanor and left him a trembling wreck running for his life. The Wolf wasn't just scary, he was a perfect villain for Puss, a representation of how his wasted life is finally catching up with him, and watching Puss reach a place where he can finally confront the Wolf and turn the tables on him was immeasurably satisfying.
From this, we get a fairly simple moral that largely boils down to a celebration of living life to the fullest rather than either wasting it on hedonism or remaining stuck in an idealized past. It's nothing revolutionary, but not only is it exactly the kind of thing that the fairy tales this movie is sending up have long embraced, it's well-told enough that I fully bought into it. If the original Shrek was a deconstructive parody of fairy tales that sent up their moral messages while offering a few of its own, then this film serves largely as a more faithful, straightforward throwback to them, amped up with a swashbuckling action/adventure plot and some jokes for the parents but otherwise falling squarely within the modern, post-Kung Fu Panda DreamWorks wheelhouse.
The Bottom Line
It's a very straightforward movie once you get past the stylish animation, but hardly to a fault, as it's still a riotous, heartfelt, and just plain awesome ride that delivers exactly where it counts and doesn't overstay its welcome. Easily one of the best family films of the last ten years.
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magpiefngrl · 9 months
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mid-year book freak out tag
Let's talk about books! Thanks for tagging me @bloody-wonder ❤️😘
1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023?
I've read 48 books till now but nothing leaps to mind as The Best. Like a novel that knocked me out, you know? If I had to choose one, I'd say Seven Summer Nights, a romance by Harper Fox, because I adored the first half and because it's the only book so far that gave me a book hangover.
2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023?
The 2nd novel of Alexis Hall's trilogy, How To Blow It With A Billionaire, was delightful. Judging by the title I'd braced myself for angst, but instead 90-95% of the book was Arden and Caspian falling in love and getting closer (until the last chapter and the inevitable heartbreak). It is one of the most skillful, heartwarming and sexy relationship progressions I've read.
3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To?
This has been on my sights since 2021 but still haven't got around to it: She Who Became The Sun.
4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023?
There's nothing that I'm truly impatient about. The first that comes to mind is KJ Charles's A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel.
Also, A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. I can't say I was blown away by the first two novels, but I have a feeling the ship in this one is my kind of ship.
I'm curious for a lot of books, but not eagerly anticipating them.
5. Biggest Disappointment?
Oh boy. I left a long review on GR about it and I still cry bitter tears about how let down I was by Alexis Hall's third installment of his Billionaire series. Like I said above, I really enjoyed the second book. It ended in heartbreak but I assumed we'd see the pairing work their way through their issues together and end up HEA. What I did NOT expect was that they'd be apart for most of the novel, only getting together at 90%. I don't want to be (even more) spoilery so I'll say nothing more. Just that this book had the promise of being truly spectacular and it turned out all over the place, and it hurts.
6. Biggest Surprise?
The Lodestar of Ys by Amy Rae Durreson, a short novel I got because a GR pal left an enthusiastic review and said that it was available for free. I don't know the author and mostly read it for research and was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. The writing is solid, the worldbuilding fascinating, the rivalry between the ship is realistic and convincing as is their growing attraction to each other. Good smut, which isn't normally the case with pub romance. Becomes a tad too cute for my tastes towards the end, but still a great read. And free!
7. Favorite New Author?
No one stands out. I guess Amy Rae Durreson (see above) is a new to me author that made me go and check out her other books, so let's go with her.
Oh I'm also really enjoying The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi so her too.
8. Newest Favorite Character?
Bucky Iain from The Scottish Boy, I guess?
9. Newest Fictional Crush?
No one. How weak has my reading year been??
💕Best Ship💕
Richard and Alec from Swordspoint. I refuse to read the sequels where they (I think?) break up. NOPE.
10. Book That Made You Cry?
I cry pretty easily and I'm sure I cried at a novel this year (if not more) but for the life of me I can't remember which.
11. Book That Made You Happy?
I had the most fun during my reread of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. Gods, what I wouldn't give for more authors having so much fun with their stories.
12. Favorite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year?
I watched the final season of BBC's The Dark Materials early this year. It makes me happy to have such a great adaptation of one of my fave series of all times.
13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year?
I haven't written a lot of reviews this year. In the past there were times when I'd write long essays; now I'm all for short and sweet. Can't be arsed for more tbh. Unless I disliked the book and I need to rant.
14. Most Beautiful Cover?
I mostly read ebooks and I rarely notice covers. I did, however, notice the stunning cover of A Taste of Gold and Iron, which turned out to be a book I hated, so I'm even more distrustful of covers now.
15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year?
I have a bunch of unfinished series to complete (see 2023 reading goals), so that's my first goal. My second target is reading some of the dozens of unread books I own (both on the shelves and my ereader). I do need to finish Checkmate, this is getting ridiculous, but I keep getting distracted by romance.
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Overall, it hasn't been a spectacular year. I've read a LOT--esp in June I couldn't stop reading--but I've reread a few series to complete them, which ranged from meh (The Nikolai trilogy and Darker Shades of Magic) to flawed-but-interesting (The Dreamer trilogy) to seriously uneven (the Billionaire series). Early in the year I finished JS&MN and Spinning Silver which were great, but they feel a long time away and nothing amazing has come since. Idk. Some of my reads were unusual and made an impression, but can't say I enjoyed them fully. The most satisfying books these past few months have been a few romance novels. Fingers crossed for a more exciting second half of 2023.
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follow me on goodreads!
2022 mid year book tag
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tagging: @lettersbyelise @tackytigerfic @julcheninred @lqtraintracks @shealwaysreads @the-starryknight @wolfpants @violetclarity
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2023 Gaming Wrap-Up
   Welcome back to what is apparently a yearly tradition on this blog: the Gaming Wrap-Up! As we drag ourselves to the end of 2023, it’s always good to take a look back at the last 12 months and try to figure out just what was going on there. And well, this year…kinda sucked. It had a lot going on - it was stressful and exhausting at best for so many of us, but there’s always a bit of good within the bad (for example, on a more personal note, this was the year where I actually got a few of my articles purchased by publishers! Now I can, by definition, call myself a professional writer! Go me!), and video games are always an excellent escape from reality.   2023 had loads of great game releases, including some highly-anticipated sequels and remakes, while the business side of the gaming world had a fair few blunders and foot-shooting (Unity, anyone?). Before the end of the year, let’s all take a moment to remember all the highlights of the gaming world of 2023 - enjoy!
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JANUARY-MARCH    Let’s get started with a bit of the old and a bit of the new - a pair of high-quality remakes of some classic survival horror games, Dead Space and Resident Evil 4, set a new bar for gaming remakes, with RE4 even being nominated for GOTY! Meanwhile, Pizza Tower took the indie genre by storm with its deranged animations and surprisingly catchy music, and Hi-Fi Rush ambushed us with a sneaky release and some toe-tapping rhythmic combat.   Fans of classic Nintendo games had a bit of a sad start to the year however, with the announcement that Nintendo would be completely shutting down all online services for the 3DS and Wii U, basically pulling the life support plug on the two platforms for good. Additionally, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) continues its streak of rough years; with X-Box, Sony and Nintendo all foregoing attendance, this years’ E3 was announced to be cancelled. With a rise in developers and publishers preferring digital and social media announcements over live shows thanks to the impact of COVID, could this be signalling the end of live gaming conventions like E3?
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APRIL-JUNE    Moving on, 2023 also saw the release of some particularly exciting sequels - Dead Island 2 finally released after 9 years in development hell while The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom blew its GOTY-winning predecessor out of the water. Street Fighter 6 brought in Metro City veterans and newcomers alike, and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor continued the tale of Cal Kestis in his battle against the Empire in a galaxy far, far away.   From the small screen to the big screen, The Super Mario Bros. Movie joined the small-but-growing ranks of video game movie adaptations that are actually good, thanks to staying true to the games’ actual identity instead of trying to turn it into something else like so many other game-to-film adaptations. E3’s cancellation also wasn’t enough to stop the Summer Games Fest from being held, featuring a mix of live and digital shows and announcements. Also, this year was quite the mixed bag for game publishing companies - Embracer Group, a publisher for major development teams such as Gearbox Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics, went under some massive structural changes due to a major deal falling through, and was just one of many publishers that underwent huge changes in 2023.
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JULY-SEPTEMBER    The latter half of the year didn’t see quite as many major game releases, but it was certainly a case of quality over quantity - Baldur’s Gate 3, an absolute narrative feat, practically overtook the entire second half of the year for both those familiar with the series or D&D and players entering the Forgotten Realms for the first time. Oh, and Starfield was released too.   Meanwhile, a cornerstone of video game voice acting, Charles Martinet, retired from voicing the Mario bros. Having provided the iconic voices of Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi since 1994, Charles still works as a global ambassador for Nintendo in conventions across the world, while the superstar voice role would be taken over by Kevin Afghani later in the year.   Back in the business side of the gaming world, Unity - the group behind one of the most prominent game development engines in the industry - completely shot themselves in the foot this year as they announced an incredibly oppressive retroactive licensing fee to begin next year. This new fee would mean that every single developer that had ever used their engine would need to pay Unity for every copy of their game that has ever sold, even from before the fee took effect. Naturally, everyone disliked this, especially within the indie game community. The sheer amount of backlash caused Unity to rework the agreement to be “less aggressive”, but their reputation is beyond saving now.
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OCTOBER-DECEMBER    2023 looks to be closing off with a bang - in yet another major simultaneous release, October 20th saw Spider-Man 2 expand the urban playground of everyone’s favourite web-slinging duo while Super Mario Bros. Wonder brought Nintendo’s flagship franchise in a fresh new direction. Meanwhile, another highly anticipated sequel, Alan Wake II, spun a terrifying new narrative just in time for Hallowe’en.   Of course, the biggest talking point for the end of the year was the Game Awards! Baldur’s Gate 3 beat out some incredibly tough competition for Game of the Year and swept the rest of the awards alongside Alan Wake II; a handful of exciting new games were announced, including a sequel to the classic World of Goo and a vampire-hunting action adventure starring Marvel’s Blade; and we learned that the Call of Duty developers can’t take a joke. However, the biggest announcement arrived just before the awards, bringing the entire gaming community together for one of the most anticipated sequels in video game history (besides Half-Life 3): Grand Theft Auto VI. Set for a 2025 release, 12 years after its predecessor, GTA6 returns to the sunburnt beaches of Vice City, introducing a modern Bonnie & Clyde as its’ pair of playable protagonists Lucia and Jason. 
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LOOKING FORWARD    So, aside from the GTA fans that are probably cryogenically freezing themselves until 2025, what are your plans for next year now that 2023 is nearly over? There’s plenty of other games to look forward to - Star Wars and Marvel fans will be getting another exciting set of games with Star Wars Outlaws putting players in the shoes of the galaxy’s next big name in the galactic underworld, while Wolverine will be hacking and slashing his way through the neon-lit Madripoor. Taking our hands off the controller for a moment, a handful of other games will be taking their turn on the silver screen with a promising-looking Fallout streaming series and a somewhat more sketchy-looking Borderlands film. Can’t be any worse than the Halo series, right…right?
   I mentioned in last years’ wrap-up that 2023’s E3 is hopefully back on track, which has aged a bit poorly; well, there’s no need to worry about that this time as next year’s E3 has already been cancelled. At least that means saving on tickets, but is the age of big gaming conventions coming to a close? Time will tell, especially depending on if Summer Games Fest is still in the works. Maybe things are switching to a more digital-based platform for game announcements - as someone not fond of crowds, that suits me just fine.
   But, hey, that’s not until next year. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this look back at the gaming world of 2023, and I look forward to seeing you all again in 2024!   Happy holidays!
An Aussie Button-Masher
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Kaiju Week in Review (December 4-10, 2022)
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GigaBash's Godzilla DLC is now available, and they defied expectations (well, my expectations) by offering a lineup of Heisei Godzilla, Kiryu, Showa Gigan, and Destoroyah. I can't offer any insights into how they play, since I haven't had time to delve into this game, but they certainly look great.
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An extremely special collection of Godziban episodes are out on Blu-ray and DVD. The main attractions are two all-new specials ("The Greatest Monsters on Earth" and "Mothra vs. Bagan"), starring the imposing lineup above, plus the entire Destroy All Monsters cast. Extended versions of the season 1 episodes "Son of Minilla", and "The Godzilla Who Came on Christmas Eve!" are also present, and the Blu-ray adds on the Godzilla Fest 2020 special episodes "The Xilien Who Turned Red" and "Lullaby of the Skies" and a behind-the-scenes featurette. Both formats come with a sizable booklet too. They're pricey, as is typically for Japanese home video, so as eager as I am to watch Bagan get pulverized by a couple of moths, I'll probably wait for someone to rip the Blu-ray.
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Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King! #3 is mostly Ghidorah doing Ghidorah things (although this might be the first time he's burned down Westminster, good for him). King Caesar can't wake up soon enough. This issue also plays a bit with All Hail the King's status as an unplanned sequel. In #2, Cedric questioned why King Caesar didn't intervene when Godzilla was on the brink of destroying the world in the original comic. The Shobijin have many abilities, but breaking the fourth wall isn't one of them, so they gave a vague answer about destiny, and it's just adding to the friction between him and Karen, a member of the family who can communicate with the shisa. Interested to see where they're going with this.
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Tickets for the U.S. limited release (January 11/12) of Shin Ultraman are now live. Since Fathom primarily books at Regal, Cinemark, and AMC theaters, Fandango should allow you to see most anywhere it's playing near you. I will be dragging as many people as I can to the subtitled showing.
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Mill Creek has issued the 1992 animated series Ultraman Kids: 3,000 Light Years in Search of Mother on DVD. I know nothing about it, and those designs are powerfully unsettling... but it's never even been subtitled before, so good on them?
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Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning the millionth Godzilla crossover with a mobile game, but The Ants: Underground Kingdom is an unusual pick—it's a strategy game where you run an ant colony. These are clearly special ants, since the teaser shows them giving Godzilla a boost after King Ghidorah knocks him down. (I'd rather see him take on the ants from THEM! though.) The collaboration runs from December 16 to January 14.
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italeean · 1 year
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Top 22 of 2022 Tag Game
Thanks @otomiya-tickles and @myreygn for the tag!!
Since it's my first year, everything should count as new to me, so I'll also put "older" fandoms and ships
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Part 1: Fandom Faves
01 - Favorite Fandoms of the Year
Genshin Impact, Haikyuu, Bungo Stray Dogs, Kuroko no Basket, Boku no Hero Academia, Yuukoku no Moriarty
02 - Favorite Ships of the Year
Genshin Impact - Xiaother, Kazuscara, Cynari, Kavetham ❤️ BSD - Shin Soukoku, Ranpoe ❤️ Haikyuu - Bokuaka, Kuroken, Kurotsukki, Yakulev ❤️ BNHA - Todobaku, Tododeku ❤️ Yuukoku no Moriarty - Sherliam
03 - Favorite Anime/TV Show of the Year
Yuukoku no Moriarty, Gakuen Babysitters, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, Dahmer
04 - Favorite Movie of the Year
MHA World Heroes Mission
05 - Favorite Character of the Year
BSD - Akutagawa ❤️ BNHA - Dabi and Todoroki (can't decide) ❤️ Genshin Impact - Tighnari and Scaramouche (can't decide again) ❤️ Haikyuu - Kuroo ❤️ Yuukoku no Moriarty - William ❤️ Free! Iwatobi Swim Club - Ikuya
06 - Favorite Soundtrack of the Year
Ruu's Song from Genshin Impact (it was the first time I cried for a videogame)
07 - Favorite Book/Manga/Comic of the Year
Uno, Nessuno, Centomila (One, No one, 100 Thousand) by Pirandello ❤️ Il Gatto che insegnava ad essere Felici (The Cat that taught how to be happy) ❤️ Boku no Hero Academia
08 - Favorite Game of the Year
Genshin Impact obviously
09 - Highlights of the Year
Welp... time to sound sappy ig 🫣 Making an account here and meeting all those new amazing friends
Part 2: Community Review
10 - Favorite Tumblr Moments of 2022
Squealing Santa and Tickletober!! I've seen and I'm seeing so many amazing works!! It makes me feel like a kid in a candy store 😻
11 - Favorite Fanart of the Year
Aaaahh too many to choose 😵‍💫 I'd say this one, this one, this one, this one (a gift for me), this one (another gift), this one and this one (gift for my first milestone
12 - Favorite Fic of the Year
AGAIN!! Too manyyy 😵 I'll go with this one (it's so good and the fact that it was written for me makes it even more special) and this one (AAAAAAAAHHH SO CUTE)
13 - Favorite Ask Game of the Year
Probably the one I'll host in a few days 😅
14 - My Top Achievements as a Writer
Probably my milestones for this year and managing to balance my writing time study time, chores time and free time
15 - My own Best Fic of the Year
If I consider the notes, I'd have to say this one, but if it comes to personal taste I'm choosing this one with no doubts
16 - My most Underappreciated Fic of the Year
I don't really have one... honestly I'm not that well-known as a writer and all my fic received more love and appreciation than I could've ever asked for!!
17 - A Post of Mine that got more Popularity than Expected
This one. It's not exactly a conventional pairing (OBVIOUSLY PLATONIC) but it got really appreciated and it made me pleasantly surprised and extremely happy ^_^
18 - Something I Changed on My Blog since This Year
It's my first year here, so I don't have anything 😅
Part 3: Next Year
19 - Something I didn't post This Year but I'd like to post Next Year
Some sequels for some of my drabbles (from my drabble event)
20 - Goals for Next Year
Keeping a constant writing schedule and showing as much appreciation as possible to the other talented creators around here
21 - 2023 Releases I look forward the Most
Attack on Titan, the new season of BNHA, Genshin updates and THE FINAL MOVIE OF FREE! (pls where are you?? 😭💔)
Part 4: Spreading Love
22 - Shoutouts to People who made my 2022 a Better Year
@jettori my first friend around here!! Having you through this journey is a gift I still don't think I deserve 🥹
@fanfic-chan @rattypattyy @kaerichan-yatta @tickles-and-cuddles @tickly-floof @xsezzie MY LITTLE GREMLINS!! I LOVE YOU ALL SOOO MUCH <333
@mai-mei well... you've "officially adopted" me so I'll say it directly 😹 BEST. BIG. SISTER. EVER.
@wertzunge always so sweet and supportive 💙🥹 I think you understood that I almost see you as a big brother
@myreygn there's only a true sweetheart among us and it's you. PERIOD. ❤️‍🔥
@xiaosstepstool I'll never get tired of saying this: BEST. MOM. FRIEND. (Who's actually a baby in denial) ✨️🍡
@eliasiis the one who's not in charge LITTLE KID... You're truly a sunshine, always brighting my days 💛
@otomiya-tickles @skribblz @intheticklecloset Not only did I experience the emotion of having three of my idols notice and appreciate my work, but I also got the chance of talking to you without being an anon!! It was so much nicer and you all are three amazing people that I'll always carry in my heart
@intheheartofarainbow @kaaveh @simplysmilingdrew @fresh-thomato @vampirecorset @leeviathaaaan @rand0m-s1nner @lovinglyroses Thank you all so much for existing and being part of my life. You're all so precious ❤️🥹
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lonnson · 9 months
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mid-year reading update 📚
I've read 21 books so far this year, which is not too bad, and I love talking about books, so here we go
1. Best book you've read so far: I've started reading the Last Kingdom books this year and the whole series is a new all-time favourite, but my favourite out of the seven books I've read so far in the series has got to be Sword Song
2. Best sequel you've read so far: to no one's surprise, this goes to The Pale Horseman
3. New release you haven't read yet but want to: The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec. I'm in my old norse/Viking Age reading era (do you see a trend here yet? 😅) and this one sounds promising. It's about two women in tenth century Norway and the cover is stunning, which was enough to convince me that I want to read it.
4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year? HOOO BOY! THE COLOR OF REVENGE by Cornelia Funke!!! More like the most anticipated release of my life. The Inkheart trilogy are literally my favourite books of all time, I've been a die-hard fan since I was eleven years old, I have a tattoo inspired by this book series, I am an enternal simp for the Piper (who is unfortunately already dead, but still). More Dustfinger content in the year of 2023?!! AAHHHH!!! I am both extremely excited and absolutely terrified. I'll literally be plunged into a major existential crisis if this book isn't good. I am already afraid of the person I become when this book is out.
5. Biggest Disappointment: It's a tie between A Wilderness of Stars by Shae Ernshaw, which was just absurd to a point where I couldn't believe what I was reading, and The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden, a gothic mystery that was dreadfully un-mysterious and fell completely flat at the end.
6. Biggest Surprise: oh no, it's The Last Kingdom again. I expected to like the books but I didn't expect them to be so good. They had me laughing out loud and tear up and fly through them.
7. Favorite new author: not a new author overall, but a new author for me: T. Kingfisher. I read Nettle & Bone and really enjoyed it (more standalone fantasy please!). Definitely want to read Thornhedge later this year.
8. Newest Fictional Crush: Finan (he's just as awesome in the books as he is in the show)
9. Newest Favorite Character: Osferth! I was honestly so pleasantly surprised at how much more backstory the books gave him. Also Uhtred, he's iconic and his inner thoughts about Christians SEND me.
10. Book that made you cry: no tears so far this year :(( I did tear up tho when Uhtred, Finan & Osferth met for the first time just because I'm so damn attached to them
11. A Book that made you happy: Love Will Tear Us Apart by C.K. McDonnell. It's the third book in the Stranger Times trilogy and these books are just hilarious.
12. Favorite Adaptation: *🥁🥁🥁* THE LAST KINGDOM
13. Prettiest Cover: this is my favourite question ✨ I love judging books by their cover and Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries definitely takes the cake. It's STUNNING
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14. A book you need to read before the end of the year: A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft, Red Rising by Pierce Brown, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
If anyone wants to do this tag too, please do! I'd love to hear what you guys are reading :D
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gacmediadaily · 5 months
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Destined at Christmas is a fan favorite from 2022, and since its release, fans have been clamoring for a sequel.
Great American Family is very responsive to feedback, which is one reason why Destined 2:  Christmas Once More is in the 2023 holiday lineup.
In the first movie, Kim and Theo meet while shopping on Black Friday, but they lose each other and must use the few clues they have to try to reconnect.   Their lives nearly intersect several times during the movie, but the timing is off just enough that they keep missing each other.  After a while, this becomes tedious, over-exaggerated, and highly unlikely.
The timing in the sequel is much better.  Theo plans to propose, but the opportune moment keeps eluding him.  First, Kim announces big news from work, and Theo doesn't want to overshadow her moment.  The next time he attempts to propose, Kim is exhausted from babysitting and falls asleep.  Losing the engagement ring throws a monkey wrench into his third shot.  Kim isn't home when he tries a fourth time.  Finally, he's separated from her on the Christmas train ride and misses his opportunity yet again.
Despite all of these failed attempts, the viewer doesn't feel frustrated because the delays are understandable and not herniated like they were in the first movie.
Fans have gotten so attached to Theo and Kim that they are already asking for a third installment that focuses on the wedding and a fourth movie that celebrates the Halls having children.
Will Great American Family continue Theo's and Kim's story in 2024?  We'll have to wait and see. Destined 3:�� A Christmas Wedding sounds like a good idea to me.  They could keep "missing each other" on the wedding planning.  A Destined 4 movie could revolve around Kim not finding the right time to tell Theo she's pregnant.  This could work!
The Countdown to Christmas Calendar Is Back!
Everyone loves the Countdown to Christmas calendar featured in Destined at Christmas and its sequel.  In 2022, Amazon sold out after viewers found the item online and snatched them all!
As Kim unpacks Christmas decorations, she is delighted to find the calendar again.
Fans can't help but point out, however, that the calendar counts UP to the 25th and not DOWN to one day before Christmas.
This wall calendar is selling rapidly again in 2023.  If you haven't already ordered yours, you better grab one before they are gone.  You can find it here:   
So Much to Love About Destined 2:  Christmas Once More
Did you know that Theo's daughter, Ashley, is Casey Elliott's real-life daughter, Eve?  This precocious 10-year-old is very entertaining.  Her facial expressions, mature comments, and comedic antics are delivered perfectly and land well.
One of my favorite scenes is the one when Ashley is sent to bed and told to say her prayers.  She ends her prayer with, "In Jesus' name, amen."  What a statement of faith!  Most networks avoid any reference to Jesus.  In rare cases, "God" might be mentioned, but in such a generic way that it could represent any religion.  I LOVE that Great American Family is bold enough to speak the Name that is above every name!
Theo and Ashley have an annual tradition--the 12 Days of Christmas--where they anonymously gift someone a special gift for 12 straight days.  It's a wonderful reminder that it's better to give than to receive.   
What's Next for Shae Robins and Casey Elliott?
According to IMDb, a new movie titled Passport to Love starring Shae Robins is in post-production, and it is written by Brittany Wiscombe--the same writer credited for both Destined movies.  There is no indication yet regarding what network will air Passport to Love, but maybe Great American Family will acquire the rights to it.
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Shae Robins has been married since 2013 to musician Brad Robins from Gentri.  The two have a daughter, Sadie Jane, who was born in June 2021.
As for Casey Elliott, no upcoming movies are listed for him, but maybe he's too busy.  He is currently touring with the gentlemen trio group, Gentri, along with Robins' husband. Those who are familiar with his vocal talents are suggesting that Great American Family produce a movie in which Elliott's character sings.
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Gentri recently released a Christmas album called Season of Light.
Let Great American Family Know What You Think!
Great American Family wants to hear from you!  Be sure to share your review of Destined 2:  Christmas Once More on their website here.  You can also let them know if you'd like to see more future movies about Theo and Kim.
If you haven't had the opportunity to watch Destined 2, you can check out the trailer below.
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#GreatAmericanChristmas #Destined2ChristmasOnceMoreReview SHARE
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lunarblue21 · 1 year
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As someone who grew up with and loved and adored The Land Before Time (1988) and experienced quite a few of its sequels, too, it's amazing how similar the Ice Age series became to it as well - meaning sequels wise. Though in my opinion, Ice Age (2002) is leaps and bounds better than Land Before Time (1988) though I do deeply love BOTH of their original movies.
Both The Land Before Time and Ice Age (2002)'s original movies are gritty and dark, with a sense of "realism" grounding their events with migrations underpinning the journeys of the original narratives and with a greater xenofictional factor since in IA1, the Ice Age megafauna are treated like majestic creatures who growl and rumble (see Manny and Diego mostly) like they might've done so and with the threat of humans being a major conflict factor within IA1 itself with Manny's choice to return baby Roshan despite the knowledge that in doing so, the child has a chance to become a hunter one day.
However, just like its predecessor The Land Before Time, when it came for Ice Age to get continuations, the realistic underpinnings of IA1 were thrown out the window as its series went Lighter and Softer, just like Land Before Time before it.
And yes, in one of The Land Before Time's many direct-to-DVD/VHS sequels, aliens and an asteroid and end of the world themes (like Ice Age's much reviled IA5) become major plot points!
The Land Before Time sequel where Littlefoot reunites with his father involves Longnecks pushing back the sky to save everyone (because of a solar eclipse which was treated in-universe as an "end of the world" event) and the Stone of Cold Fire teased alien dinosaurs. .-. It was around those sequels that I put away keeping up with the TLBT sequels though when I was young I enjoyed them and it saddens me the Ice Age sequels followed the same route.
My hopes for the Ice Age sequels, even as a young (12/13 year old) child was that they'd buck the trend and remain dark and xenofictional and not devolve into silly Lighter and Softer-ness and Dense and Wackier plots like The Land Before Time did years before. In short, the Ice Age sequels deserved better - they deserved to not basically become a modern, theatrically-released "Land Before Time" sequels-redux!
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montdargent · 9 months
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mid-year book freak out tag
thank you @pinkasrenzo for tagging me (? maybe accidentally? was it just a mention who knows)
1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023? The wee free men, by Terry Pratchett: witches, scottish fairies and a coming of age story set in the discworld universe. what's not to like? officially my new favourite discworld series
2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023? A hat full of sky, by Terry Pratchett: these are just excuses to talk about the tiffany aching series tbh. also granny weatherwax is back, so that's easy money
3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To? Deadly ever after (Rivers of London graphic novels), by Ben Aaronovitch: the rivers of london novels, novellas and short stories are not enough. i need to inhale these graphic novels too. i can't wait for chaotic river goddess twins shanenigans!
4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023? The deep sky, by Yume Kitasei: not many anticipated releases for that time, but it was reccomanded to me and the synopsis sounds right up my alley
5. Biggest Disappointment? Leave the world behind, by Rumaan Alam: a cool premise but incredibly boring execution and not my preferred writing style. a disappointment mostly because it was so amped up
6. Biggest Surprise? No exit, by Taylor Adams: i'm not usually into thrillers, so i didn't have particularly high expectations. but it was really good at building tension, delivered a satisfying ending and had a badass final girl that was easy to root for
7. Favorite New Author? Alison Bechdel: read "Fun home" because a friend of mine wanted to show me the musical and fell in love with it. i can already tell why her works are considered queer classics and i plan to read everything i can find by her
8. Newest Favorite Character? Tiffany Aching: see point 2. most children protagonists fall a bit flat for me or they have at least a couple of moments where their actions or internal monologue feel just unauthentic. and then an adult british cis man writes a smart, lonely, strange little girl and he makes me feel like he knew my child-self better than most family members. and that's why i love terry pratchett (among many things) and why i would die and kill for tiffany aching. she is the one true heir of esme weatherwax and i can't wait to read more of her
9. Newest Fictional Crush? Jordan Baker (from The chosen and the beautiful by Nghi Vo): what can i say, i could never resist a bisexual brunette who was too smart for anyone's good and falls a bit in love with everyone <3
💕Best Ship💕 Blue/Hamal (from Taproot by Keezy Young): just some cute friends-to-lovers fluff with plants and ghosts. honourable mentions are: the extremely toxic polycule from tcatb. that's for new ships, but i have to mention peter/beverly: they're still the best power couple in the greater metropolitan london area (i know i cheated and said three but i can't choose)
10. Book That Made You Cry? I'm glad my mom died, by Jeanette McCurdy: a very tough read, especially with the audiobook narrated by the author herself with all the emotion she puts into the reading. not for the faint of heart, but the pain is absolutely worth it
11. Book That Made You Happy? The fey and the furious (Rivers of London graphic novels) by Ben Aaronovitch: it's a comic version of a series i love, about fairies and drag racing. the pun in the title! i was smiling ear to ear the whole time
12. Favorite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year? Nimona (2023): i just finsihed rewatching it and i will do it again. i was obsessed with the gn at 18 and i'm obsessed with the movie now. between this and she-ra nd stevenson just owns my ass at this point. even with all the changes from the original, it still captures the spirit of it beautifully, with all the added layers of how the author changed and grew since then. i love it with my whole queer heart <3
13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year? i don't write reviews anymore, but maybe i should start again just for myself
14. Most Beautiful Cover? The priory of the orange tree, by Samantha Shannon: colour scheme? on point. lettering? beautiful. a dragon? fuck yeah
15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year? ideally i'll complete my reading challenge, but for now i just hope i finish the ones i already started, so "One hundred years of solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez "Cemetery boys" by Aiden Thomas and "Circe" by Madeline Miller
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quoteablebooks · 9 months
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1. Best Book - A Psalm for the Wild Built/Spinning Silver I technically read A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers for the first time last year so even though it is my favorite that I read this year, I feel like that’s cheating. Of the books that I read for the first time this year, my favorite novel was Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik 2. Best Sequel - A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers This didn’t touch me the same way that A Psalm for the Wild Built did, but I still loved everything about A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. While I have heard some criticism, which I understand, it is still a five star read that I see myself going back to again and again.  3. New Releases I Still Need to Read - Warrior Girl Unearthed - Angeline Boulley Firekeeper's Daughter was one of my favorite reads of last year and I am currently rereading it now. This follows Daunis’s twin cousins and set ten years after the events of Firekeeper’s Daughter. I cannot wait to see what characters Boulley makes me fall in love with next and how much I will learn from characters so unlike myself.  4. Most Anticipated Release For The Second Half Of The Year - Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao While Iron Widow is a rather decisive novel, I really loved it and the cliff hanger was the reason that I usually wait for series to finish before I stop them. I have already pre-ordered this novel and cannot wait to get my hands on it  5. Biggest Disappointment - Circe - Madeline Miller Circe was not a bad book by any means, but after all the hype I was expecting more from the story. I do plan to reread it in a couple years now that I have better expectations, I can see liking it a lot more.  6. Biggest Surprise - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern I was excepting this novel to not live up to the hype because I had hardly heard a bad word against it, but it lived up to the praise in every way and I loved my time in this world. Again, I can see why it doesn’t fit for some people, but give me a red scarf and tell me where the circus is stopping next.  7. New Favorite Author - Becky Chambers While I read Chambers for the first time last year, reading a second novel from her solidified that I enjoy her optimism and writing. I bought like five other books from them in hopes of getting those good vibes again.  8. Newest Fictional Crush - Gus Everett - Beach Read by Emily Henry A broody writer who has a lake house? Sign me up! Aside from that, Gus felt like a real person and unfolded himself to January in a realistic way that just made me want to hug that man.  9. Newest Favorite Fictional Character - Celia Bowen - The Night Circus I just think we would get along really well as friends. Also, a friend with that type of magic is a good friend to have  10. Made Me Cry/Made Me Happy - The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy Megan Bannen/Beach Read - Emily Henry  The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy too me by surprise and I sobbed through the last third of that novel. It felt earned, but I wasn’t expecting it since so many people stated that it was a “cozy” fantasy and it did not feel cozy to me. 
Beach Read was just everything I wanted at the time I wanted it. January and Gus were complex and their chemistry was believable.  11. Most Beautiful Book - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab While I read it digitally from the library, I got an illustrated anniversary edition for my shelves. I have a lot of other beautiful books, but I haven’t read them yet so they don’t count in my opinion,  12. Books I Still Need To Read This Year - Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe Empire of Pain is a rather large novel and as a non-fiction, that is rather intimidating. However, I’ve almost hit my reading goal for the year so I will be able to start this and take as much time as I need. 
How has your reading been going this year? What are your answers to this questions? Let me know!
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ismahanescorner · 11 months
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These Violent Delights | Book Review
Author: Chloe Gong
Series: These Violent Delights
Genre: YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Release Date: 17/11/2020
Rating: 2/5 🌟🌟
Synopsis:
The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.
A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.
But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns—and grudges—aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.
Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Descendant of the Crane, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai, with rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.
Review:
Okay y’all! Strap in for a long-winded review, that’s mostly me ranting about how much I hate hype!!!  So we all know the hype that surrounded this book around its release. I fell for it!! and all the pretty aesthetically pleasing edits and fanart. ffs I got the book; and the sequel, before I even finished the 1st!! 🥴😩
Anyways, I started this book back in March 2022 and it was going fine. I dropped it for another read around chapter 10/12, cuz it wasn’t gripping me like the girlies said it would. I picked it up again a few weeks later, and read up to chapter 16, then stopped again! That time around, I shelved as restart cuz I felt I wasn’t giving it all the attention it deserves so I can enjoy it fully like all the girlies did!!!  Well, fast-forward to this weekend! I got the audio on Libby and I restarted it. Again, I liked the first few chapters, then got bored outta my mind once I hit the tens chapters! Literally, from chapter 13 to 28, I tried my hardest to actively listen and not to let my inner monologue take over! All I could think about was: “damn! this! this! was marvellous to y’all?” “I’m boooooredddd!!” “how am I gonna explain the 2 star I’ll rate this book?”  Honestly, I’m so disappointed, because I didn’t hate this book (per se), I just feel fooled by the hype! 
Now, onto the actual review! This book had sooo much potential! Unfortunately, the execution fell short! The setting, the characters, the plot, they are all very intriguing and make for a great mystery or a romantic suspense novel. However, this was marketed as a fantasy!! Why??  It offered a good commentary on capitalism and colonialism, but even those parts were neither cohesive, nor coherent, nor did they mesh-in well with the plot!  Honestly, this novel woulda been much better if it was 150 pages shorter and didn’t rattle on and on all throughout the middle chapters. The first few chapters did averagely well setting up the plot and the last few also did averagely well as a closure; but those middle chapters just bored me outta my mind. Where was the editor?? So much of this book was unnecessary!  Another thing I really didn’t like was the reveal in the epilogue! I had hope that maybe the sequel is gonna be different and I’ll actually enjoy it. However, that final reveal makes it very clear that book two is gonna be just like book one. The only difference will be Roma hating (rightfully holding a grudge against) Juliette!  I’m just soooo disappointed! but since I own the sequel I’ll probably be reading it!
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