Trailer Tuesdays: Equestria Girls

Okay, so I know this isn’t hot off the presses or anything, but I bring this up for one reason and one reason only: I’m going to watch this pony-tastic movie with my brother and I wanted to know what I was getting into. I can’t say that I’m particularly surprised by what I’m seeing, but I’m still not happy.

Equestria Girls, which I mentioned earlier in this post, seems to be taking the route that I expressly didn’t want it to take. Which is to say it’s a complete rip-off of Monster High. If you haven’t experienced Monster High, allow me to briefly explain that it is perhaps the most vapid, shallow show in existence, enveloping all possible tropes about pre-teen girls. For My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show that seems to pride itself on breaking free of that damaging marketing chokehold, the lack of integrity in following Monster High’s footsteps is astounding. But let’s see what we’re dealing with here.

Twilight Sparkle is for some reason made to go to the human world and discover the magic of friendship there too, I’m guessing. I have no idea why else she would bother going, or why else she would be made to go. Somehow I feel like the movie won’t really explain this either. When she arrives (magically clothed), she’s horrified by her new form, but gets used to it quickly enough to walk around and attend high school, because that’s where every good girl’s show takes place. That’s where we meet our tropes: the boyfriend and the popular bitch, both of whom seem to have the personality of a cardboard cutout. Why is the boyfriend drawn towards Twilight? Because she’s purple? It seems as good a reason as any, seeing as I didn’t see any other purple humanoids in the trailer. And why is the popular girl such a bitch? Because what else would a popular, pretty girl be? It’s absolutely necessary in any good show for pre-teen girls to set up the dichotomy between the nice smart girl and the bitchy popular girl. Yes, absolutely.

I can tell you the plot right now: Twilight finds the counterparts to her pony friends, they learn the friendship magic, Twilight becomes prom queen, and then she goes home after having learned the important lesson that friendship is magic… which she should have already known. Bitchy popular girl probably learns said ‘magic’ too and becomes friends with Twilight at the very end.

Though the main draw of this film is definitely to see your favorite characters transformed into more relatable human girls and boys, I have to say that I’m really disappointed in the designs. In my post that I mentioned before, I remarked that I hoped that their designs would change, but they didn’t, to my chagrin. Even worse, in looking through all the background characters, I didn’t find a single female character who wasn’t wearing a skirt or impossibly proportioned.

And why is Spike a dog? Couldn’t that be considered borderline racist?

MLP is supposed to celebrate diversity and it’s silently understood that while the ponies don’t have many biological differences between them—they’re horses, after all—their personalities are enough to bridge that gap. However, when adapting to humanity, which has thousands and thousands of different body types, it is irresponsible to only stick with one. This move will make manufacturing the dolls easier, and oh, there will be dolls, but it presents the message to young girls that there is one standard of beauty, one way they should look. What a terrible message!

The one good thing I can say about Equestria Girls is that they decided to make it a film and not a show. At least a film is easy to forget after a while, and I’m sure that this movie will be quickly forgotten.

The Good, The Bad, and Then There’s Sony: An E3 Summary

Just as soon as it started, E3 has come to an end, leaving us with fantastical highs and long side-glances of apprehension. But what was good and what was bad? Certainly I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ll give my opinion on the games that I think should be watched with much interest.

Unfortunately, my fears about Microsoft and the Xbox One were not alleviated, but neither were they exacerbated. It seemed like there was a general sense of hopelessness about the whole conference, and really, not too much stuck out to me. At least nothing that made me want to buy the damned Xbox One. Though the controversies I brought up last time weren’t exactly mentioned, they were more than content to make some new ones. During a play demo of the upcoming re-vamp of Mortal Kombat, one of the female developers, who was losing the match (playing a fighting game on a touch pad against someone using an arcade stick isn’t exactly a fair playing field), was told to “just let it happen” because “it [would] be over soon”. Something I absolutely do not watch game expos for is rapey side-comments about women losing games. It was gross, and it was clear that the developer wasn’t having any fun—which, when people already don’t like your system, is not the best way to go. All around, Microsoft came off as extremely unsupportive of their female playerbase. No one is amused.

However, Microsoft did have a couple good games at their showing. The ones I’m most excited for are Sunset Overdrive, a Borderlands-esque shooter which takes place in a futuristic setting that almost reminds me of Jet Set Radio, and Titanfall. People are already getting excited over Titanfall for two reasons: it’s developed by a sect of people that left the Call of Duty camp (people who were the good part of that camp, some would argue) so it’s clear they already know their way around the genre—and it stars a non-sexualized female in a position of power. Unfortunately, from the gameplay it doesn’t seem as though she will be a playable character, but I’m happy that she’s there, at least. In such a male-dominated genre, baby steps are definitely the safe method to integration, but we’ll see if it’s more than just a novelty in the coming years.

E3 Has Me Shivering With Antici……Pation

Those winds are blowing again, my friends. The winds of a new generation carrying with them the remnants of fanboy and fangirl tears alike as brave gamers prepare their wallets for the blow that they’ll inevitably receive. Tomorrow, once more the doors of E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, will metaphorically open to the public and we’ll see what these big name developers have been hiding up their sleeves.

Already this year things are a little bit different, and drama already arisen. First off, and most notable in my eyes, is that Nintendo isn’t going to be holding a conference in earnest. Certainly, they’re still going to have a presence with a Nintendo Direct panel—a more general panel encompassing more than just the new system—going on Tuesday and a panel dealing with the newest Pokémon games, X and Y, happening later on in the same day. However, I don’t know if it speaks more about Nintendo itself or its competitors that they don’t feel as though it would be worth it to hold a panel as normal.

If you’ve had your toes in the water of the gaming world at all in the past few weeks, you probably already know the other drama. Word’s out: no one is really overly impressed with the Xbox One. Especially with its lack of backwards compatibility, need to be hooked up to the internet more often than any gaming system, save for PC, should, and the seeming vendetta against used games and sharing games in general. The viral advertising against Microsoft concerning this, legitimate or not, hasn’t helped matters much either. Of course, words are cheap and for many, waiting until the One was shown at E3 would be Microsoft’s defining moment. However, it’s rumored that due to the widespread unfavorable opinion on the console (as well as an assumed inability to dispute said opinion) Microsoft has canceled their post-show media roundtable. As much as I’m side-eying the company right now, I sincerely hope that this isn’t true. Not only would this look poorly on the company and the system, it would also be confirming my worries that this system is not something worth investing in. And with titles like Banjo Kazooie: Grunty Land and Mirror’s Edge 2 tempting my spending, I’d really like there to be something redeeming about the One.

To the surprise of no one, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for any news about Dragon Age III: Inquisition and The Last of Us, but more than that, I’ll be looking especially hard for how this new era of games is going to present their characters. Of course, there’s still going to be our Halo’s and other series that have long since overstayed their welcome, but with the current release of Remember Me—an action adventure game staring a (hopefully) un-sexualized female character—and even the past release of the new Tomb Raider, I maintain the hope that females will overcome their tropes and companies will create more and more diverse characters that do more than just look pretty. (Although other aspects of the industry are continuously still trying to ignore that half the gaming audience is, indeed, female, which is a little disheartening.) With games such as Bayonetta 2 being listed—despite there being no confirmation if the title will actually make it to the E3 showroom—I think this is a good sign for progress on that front. It’s impossible to know for sure, however.

For Once Can We Have Nice Things?

If you’re interested in looking at the state of the union, so to speak, you can watch the IGN stream here or the YouTube stream here. E3 starts tomorrow, Monday the tenth, at 9AM PST (Noon EST), so to make sure you hit the video streams you want, make sure to check out the schedule. I’ll be liveblogging on my tumblr (tagged “E3pocalypse ’13), so feel free to drop me a message telling me your opinion, or simply leave me a comment here.

Fanfiction Fridays: An Unexpected Reward

This foreboding trek of mine all started with a conversation I had with Ace a couple days ago. It was an innocent conversation, an innocent question with undertones far more sinister than I could possibly fathom.

“Are there any Twilight/50 Shades of Grey crossover fics?”

As someone who has read the entire trilogy of 50 Shades and has a small grasp on the events of Twilight, I had an idea of what I would be in for. However, until reading what would spawn from a union of the two, it would be impossible to say just how terrible it would get.

I Wish I Could Quit You

And honestly, readers, I want to tell you that I found the most sexually explicit, vile, terribly written fic I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I want to link you to a debauched story about how Anastasia Steele met Edward and became a vampire so that they along with Christian and Bella could have a BDSM foursome with bloodplay and probably something about werewolves on the side, but I can’t. It brings me great pain to say this: everything went better than expected.

Save for around five fics—three of which were in languages that I had no way of checking the sincerity of—the authors of all the 50 Shades crossover fics seem to have realized just how ridiculous not only the original novel was, but also the idea of forcing the rules of their universe onto any other universe. It’s an extreme case of ‘don’t cross the streams’, but damned if some people did it anyway. What did they get for their efforts? For my efforts? Well, I don’t know about them, but what I got were three hilarious parody fics. I’m sharing them all with you guys today because, to my great displeasure, they all managed to finish their experiment in one chapter.

The first one that caught my eye, and this may be giving away my highbrow sense of humor here, was the more-aptly-titled-than-I-thought Fifty Farts of Darker by Teresa Greyjoy. Rejoice, Game of Thrones fandom! You’re the first victim!

Taking the place of the unwitting Anastasia and the ever-stoic Christian are Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryeon and instead of BDSM we have… well, you can probably guess the kink from the title. Aside from the sheer absurdity of this crossover, what I love most about this is how perfectly Lyanna reflects Anastasia. Clearly Teresa Greyjoy has read the books enough to create a perfect replica of Miss Steele in the Stark woman. It’s also more engaging than the original 50 Shades, somehow. If Teresa wanted to continue writing this story, prime piece of literary real estate that it is, I would gladly read on. I might die from laughing, though.

This second one grabbed my attention from the simple “what the fuck” factor caused by the series chosen to crossover with. While Eighty Four Shades of Grey may give the impression of the kink du jour being age, instead it relates to the fandom. What I’m saying is that firebird377 crossed 50 Shades with 1984. If there was a series I would least expect to be ravished by the shades of grey, it would be this one. However, the result is hilarious and ends exactly how you would want it to and expect it to (given that you’ve read Orwell’s original novel).

But how could I be content with just these two treasures when I finally came across what I had been searching for all along? Yes, The Unlikely Meeting by giselle-lx combines the characters of the two series, making a statement in the meantime that maybe these protagonists really aren’t all that different in the end. As opposed to the other two fics, this one almost word for word replicates the first chapter of the original 50 Shades, but while exploiting its inherent ridiculousness, it also pokes fun at the stupid tropes that seem to be present in every paranormal young adult fiction these days. I think my favorite exchange in this fic is the following:

“Lie back on the desk, Miss Stolen,” he commanded, and his fingers fumbled for his steel grey tie.

“Why?” I murmured, but my Goddess was already telling me in a Goddessy way, to do it.

“Because,” he muttered, “if I don’t start to have sex with you now, there will be too much plot.”

Isn’t that just perfect? I am terribly disappointed that giselle-lx didn’t continue on with the parody, but my life will be forever changed with the parts they did gift the internet.

Perhaps I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but if I can put off losing the remaining faith in humanity that I somehow have just that much longer, I may as well take that opportunity. Don’t think my search stops here, though! I will find that terribad crossover fic yet! Even if it kills me. (If you know of one, please, by all means, link me to it in the comments.)

Yes, I’m Still Searching. Don’t Look At Me Like That.

Ghibli Month: Howl’s Moving Castle (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

Tsunderin: Another unfortunate thing this film also does is put Sophie on a pedestal, and not just because she’s the protagonist. There’s no denying that Sophie is a rather good female character. The problem arises when every other female character is not so good. The Witch of the Waste is a good antagonist until it’s discovered that she doesn’t really have a motivation behind her actions, or at least not one strong enough to keep her from falling in cahoots with Sophie’s gang in the second half of the film and becoming a plot device rather than a character. And though Madame Suliman has the motivation of duty driving her actions, again there’s no real strength there because the audience never sees her again after that one scene. We never have the chance to put together whether or not she orchestrated any of these attacks against Sophie to punish Howl for his insubordination. All she leaves is an imposing image and a threat that boils down to just, “you better help me, Howl. >:(”

Ghibli Month: Howl’s Moving Castle (Part 1)

Tsunderin: Within the Ghibli library, I would argue that there’s a specific trifecta of films that stand out as the Ghibli films to the general, movie-going American audience. There’s the breakthrough hit, Princess Mononoke, the award winner, Spirited Away, and the one everyone loves, Howl’s Moving Castle. Seeing as we’ve already discussed two of them, I think it’s pretty obvious which one is the topic of today’s discussion. (That and it’s also the title of the article. Duh.)

While this film perpetuates much of what audiences have come to love about Miyazaki’s directorial style, it also takes many risks with its script, one of the most looked over or ignored being that this movie is based on another person’s work. Author Diana Wynne Jones penned the original Howl’s Moving Castle in 1986, but to fans of Jones’s work, Miyazaki’s Howl is only sibling by name and nothing else. We’ll get into that later, however.

For now, let’s start at the charming little hat shop in a stereotypical, adorable European town—in Jones’s novel, the setting is the imaginary kingdom of Ingary, which I can only assume looks just about the same—where our protagonist, Sophie, works. Sophie, finding herself unexciting and bland, especially in comparison with her more vibrant sisters, has resigned herself to living a quiet life of solitude and hatting, until she is suddenly scooped up into a political and magical plot by the womanizing sorcerer, Howl. Well, it doesn’t start out that bad, but he does rescue her from some of the henchmen belonging to the nefarious Witch of the Waste before dropping her off back at home. Unfortunately, the Witch is madly in love (lust?) with Howl and also extremely jealous. Taking Sophie’s five minute interaction with the sorcerer as competition, the Witch curses Sophie to live in the body of a ninety-year-old woman for the rest of her life.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Imagine Your OTP

It seems like I’m always late to the party with these things. That is to say, this is another webcrush that has reached its end of its regularly scheduled life.

With the birth of the internet, fans of certain things were finally able to congregate together and support each other though more organized gathering places such as forums, chat rooms, and writing hubs like Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net. Needless to say, thanks to places like this, fanfiction became one of the most numerous, and infamous, mediums on the web. Being a fanfiction author myself, there’s nothing I like better than seeing other people’s takes on characters and the plethora of creative ideas that weave themselves through the authors words. AUs, family problems, medical issues: I love all of them. Yet sometimes when I finally put pen to paper myself I face a very serious issue: I have no fucking clue what to write about. That’s where this site comes in.

Perhaps it’s a little bit catered to my endlessly shipping heart, but the Imagine Your OTP Tumblr has provided me with more prompts and more bursts of creativity than anything else has in a long while. As advertised in the title, this Tumblr offers a large array of reader-submitted prompts with a theoretical pairing (or OT3, depending on the prompt) being placed in a number of situations. Yet, perhaps contrary to what one would guess, not all the prompts are romantic and not all the prompts hold a Disney style ending. The prompts can range from simple scenarios such as “Person A and Person B are treasure hunters” or “live in an apartment together and Person A hates Person B’s cat” to more involved ones containing socio-political intrigue. And for every “Person A has an awesome time with Person B” there’s a “Person A ends up killing / dying with Person B” to follow it up. As to be expected though, many of the prompts are romantic in nature varying from adorable fluff to NSFW smut, but luckily all the posts are tagged for your convenience so you can merely skip these if they’re not your cup of tea.

Strangely Accurate

Imagine Your OTP is, at its core, a distillation of the larger fanfiction sites, or writing sites in general, where only the most basic of ideas are being shared with not attempt at convincing anyone that certain characters need to take the anonymous roles of A and B (or even C). Even if you’re not using it to stoke a writing muse, it’s still plenty fun just to browse through, to see all the different and creative ideas that have be submitted over time. Hopefully though, if you’re going through a rough patch in your writing or it simply feels like there’s too much and nothing at all to write about, this site can help you out the way it has helped me in the past.

Manga Mondays: Trigun

Coming off the high that is Anime Boston, I’ve gotten a refresher of sorts of why I enjoy anime—also why I dislike it and the culture that comes along with it, but mostly why I like it. Reminders of the anime that started this long-lived affair (it was Panda! Go Panda, by the way), and the anime and manga that have kept these fires stoked. One such anime/manga also started my adoration for complicated villains. I’m honestly surprised that no one has tackled this behemoth of a story yet. So, today let’s take this opportunity to look at my favorite swirling vortex of feels, The Humanoid Typhoon, and his life as told through Trigun.

Ghibli Month: The Cat Returns

MadameAce: Hello, Ace here, and welcome to yet another installment of Ghibli Month. I have some bad news though. Rin is unfortunately not here for this review, so you’re stuck with just me today. I know; it makes me sad too.

Anyway, The Cat Returns centers on highschooler Haru, a shy girl with little no self-confidence. She’s a klutz who never wakes up on time, is always late for school, constantly trips over her own two feet, and is laughed at and picked on by the other students, including her best friend. Her life gets much harder when one day she saves a cat about to be run over by a truck—breaking her friend’s lacrosse stick in the process. While Haru is catching her breath on the side of the road, the cat in question stands up on his hind legs, brushes himself off, and calmly thanks Haru for saving him. It turns out that he is Prince Lune from the Cat Kingdom. Later that night, on entourage of cats make their way to Haru’s house. Among them is their king, who wants to thank Haru personally. The cats give Haru a piece of paper that has a list of all the marvelous cat gifts they want to bestow upon her for saving their prince. The cats have vowed to not stop until Haru is perfectly happy, regardless of her feelings on the matter.

Trailer Tuesdays: Animal Crossing—New Leaf

I know this slot is usually used for upcoming movies and new seasons of popular television shows, but this week I’ve decided to use it for my own devious plans. Well, okay, it’s more like to pimp out the game that I’m super excited for.

After getting completely shafted at last year’s E3—don’t think we’ve forgotten or forgiven, Nintendo—the Animal Crossing fandom was sitting on the edge of their seats, foaming at the mouth for any mention of the long-awaited title. Or at least a goddamned release date. Many months we waited patiently (which is a relative term, I realize) and as the days passed, more and more information finally came to the surface. With the release date finally nearing—June ninth: two more weeks, only two more weeks—I feel that I can take a little time on this blog to gush about this game that I feel like I’ve been waiting for my entire life.

I love Animal Crossing. Seriously, it’s about my favorite game series (right under Dragon Age and Mass Effect) and why not? It combines the decorating/hoarding of The Sims and combines it with cutesy graphics and an easy-to-use interface. Its mechanics are simple to understand, so much so that my eighty-six year old grandmother, who is convinced that all video games everywhere are too high-tech for her, adores this particular game and plays it whenever she gets the chance. For a group of animals that follow the same six-ish base personalities, it’s strangely easy to get attached to them. (Some, instead, may be easy to hate and thus drive you to force them out of your town.)

Even though so much information has already been released, this trailer in particular does a rather good job at giving a brief synopsis of what a newcomer to the series can expect. Fishing, bug catching, swimming (a feature new to this game!), shopping, clubbing: truly you can spend hours, days meandering through your town and still find something entertaining to do.

I have to admit that I really hate the voiceover, though. Could you find someone to sound any more bored? I don’t think so. But, that’s just me being picky.

If this sort of game seems interesting to you, check out some of the sites talking about it! If you already have a 3DS, I’d highly recommend picking it up, even if you wait until the price drops. Or, you can be like me and just give Nintendo all your money for the 3DS bundle pack. Needless to say, when that glorious day arrives I’ll be glad to finally get my hands on the next game in this series I love.