Web Crush Wednesdays: Dungeons, Dice, & Everything Nice

My obsession with Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t seem to be going away. Playing it is so much fun, and there’s so many great D&D stories told in various podcasts and webshows, that I just can’t stop watching and listening and looking for more. I especially try to look for shows featuring female DMs and female players since most popular D&D productions, such as The Adventure Zone and even Critical Role, are male-dominated. And so today, I want to tell you about about a cool and funny all-women D&D actual play podcast: Dungeons, Dice, & Everything Nice.

Some spoilers below.

Trailer Tuesdays: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

I’ve always loved the movie Jumanji, although I’m definitely aware of its problems. And as always, I’m an eternal optimist when it comes to reboots—but I’ve already got a few concerns about this one.

Londinium Calling? Let It Go to Voicemail: a Legend of the Sword Review

From nothing comes a plot… j/k there’s still “nothing”. (via Art of VFX)

As soon as I read the title for Alyssa Rosenberg’s movie review in The Washington Post, I knew I had to watch King Arthur: Legend of the Sword as soon as I could. Rosenberg’s title is “It took awhile, but I found a movie worse than Batman v. Superman”: like, come on, how could I not be pulled in by that? Now, I may not have seen Batman v. Superman unlike some unfortunate souls on this blog, but I still know a bad movie when I see it, and hoo boy, is Legend of the Sword some shit. Unlike Rosenberg, I’m not willing to write the entire movie off as being not worth anyone’s time—though I do agree with her on many of her points. Parts of Legend of the Sword are exactly the schlocky “thinks of itself too highly” moments that make a lot of popular movies great and fun to watch. Still, the rest of it is a convoluted mess that “thinks of itself too highly” in the worst possible pompous British way imaginable; both sides are constantly duking it out in a street brawl that never quite gets a definitive victor.

Spoilers below.

Lady Geek Girl Reviews: What We Do in the Shadows

I recently had the pleasure of watching the movie What We Do in the Shadows, a mockumentary about four vampires who live together in a flat in New Zealand. The mockumentary spoofs a lot of classic vampire stories that have become cliché over the past several years. The best part about this movie is it takes normal mundane things and applies it to vampires. The four vampires have house meetings, argue over who is supposed to do the dishes, and struggle with getting dressed when they can’t see their own reflection.

The movie begins by explaining that a documentary film crew was given permission to follow around four vampires. We are then introduced to Viago, Vladislav, Deacon, and Petyr. Viago, Vladislav, and Deacon have all maintained their human appearances, but Petyr, who is 8,000 years old, looks more like the vampire from Nosferatu and acts more animalistic than the others. We see the vampires deal with being centuries old and trying to adapt to modern day life. Each night the three go out (Petyr doesn’t leave the house anymore) to find people to feed on. They also often clash with a group of werewolves who dislike swearing. The three attempt to get into clubs, but struggle with the fact that they need to be invited in by the bouncer or else they won’t be able to enter.

(image via horrorfreaknews.com)

This is definitely one of the best vampire spoofs that I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy. However, the movie is very much focused on men and male characters with very little attention given to the female characters. When the female characters are present, they critique the tropes that are more typical of vampire stories, but these critiques are so brief that they’re sadly not very effective. 

Fire Emblem’s Bright Future: A Divine Light or Burning Pile of Trash?

I’ve finally taken the time to sit down and watch the Fire Emblem Direct that aired on the 18^th. While I’m excited for the proposed game coming out for the Switch in 2018 (about which no details have been given yet), and I’ll probably enjoy Fire Emblem Warriors with the same undevoted, “it’s good for killing some time” mindset that I did Hyrule Warriors, I find myself conflicted on the other two titles that were brought up during the event. Both Fire Emblem: Echoes and Fire Emblem: Heroes are beautiful games that will probably be fun and enjoyable. However, with both of them, I fear that the series may be slipping back into some tropes that we really should be past in 2017.

(via Siliconera)

Rogue One: Many Bothans Died to Bring Us This Movie

“So this proves that, if you whine about a plot hole enough, Lucasfilm will eventually make a movie to fill it,” my friend said to me as the Rogue One credits began to roll. She had a point; while Rogue One was an enjoyable movie, if asked what it added to the franchise, the only hard and fast answer is “an explanation as to why the Empire’s superweapon had such an easily exploitable weak spot”. Ultimately, while Rogue One was a good movie with many strong emotional beats, it never quite made it to great.

Spoilers for everything below the jump!

Sexualized Saturdays: What It Means to Be a Girl in Lumberjanes

I have been reading Lumberjanes for a while now. For those unfamiliar with the comic, it follows a group of girls at a camp who keep getting involved in supernatural shenanigans. I love it so much. However, it’s been difficult for me to identify exactly why I love it so, aside from the obvious—the diversity of female characters and celebration of their friendships. But why do I love these characters? What’s so special about the representation of girls in Lumberjanes? I was talking about this with some of our other writers the other night and they helped me realize just how unique this comic is in its portrayal of girls, in how it avoids common misogynistic tropes, and in how it celebrates all the different ways to be a girl.

Some little spoilers for the comic series below.

Where No Man Has Gone: Women in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

gif via fanpop

For a long time, I thought Star Trek: The Next Generation was the end-all and be-all of all Star Trek reboots. Sure, it’s a bit campy at times, but who doesn’t love Captain Jean-Luc Picard saving the day with his wits and idealism? I grew up watching the show. But now that I’m older and marginally wiser, I see re-runs of TNG and I cringe a bit. Sure, Picard is as intrepid as ever, but many of the primary female characters are shoehorned into tired stereotypes. The moment you start googling TNG, you open a Pandora’s Box of sexism from the whole production crew. It seems like despite whatever other role they play, women in Star Trek are first and foremost sex objects. This even bleeds into today’s film reboot of Enterprise, where a sexy female co-star strips down to her sexy underwear in both of the movies. For a show about a wagon train to the stars, set in an idealistic post-scarcity future that was revolutionary in so many other ways, it’s deeply disappointing. And then I started watching Deep Space Nine, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that DS9 does a much better job with its female characters. 

Spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after the jump.

AGDQ, Female Speedrunners, and Reasons Why Their Visibility Is Nearing Supersonic

Last Sunday, in the wee hours of the morning with the sounds of Nobuo Uematsu’s score to FFIV lingering in the ears of watchers and participants alike, another AGDQ came to a close. AGDQ (Awesome Games Done Quick) is a yearly charity, alongside its sister event Summer Games Done Quick, that brings together a part of the gaming community that, perhaps, isn’t as popular as some others. These gatherings, while raising money all in the name of good causes, display one of the more technical arts of gaming, speedrunning. If you’re unfamiliar, speedrunning is both when players complete the game at astonishing speeds, and when players have taken it upon themselves to learn where the game is unstable, utilizing glitches to complete the game faster than a normal player could ever hope to achieve (such as beating Yoshi’s Island for the SNES in around three minutes).

Having hit an emotional low, I spent most of last week laying on my couch watching the events and marveling at all this ridiculous shit that I would never have the patience to learn and remembering my own speedrunning dreams.

In addition to adoring this game, I used to be able to run it super fast. Ah, memories…
(via kazucrash @ Tumblr)

On Saturday, watching on and off (because there’s only so much Twitch I can take in a day), something shook me from my haze. I didn’t notice anything strange about AeonFrodo’s 200cc run of Mario Kart 8 at first—except that I didn’t expect that Mario Kart would have been speedrun, especially not 8 because I’m terrible at it and, of course, that means no one else could possibly be good at it either. Suddenly, the announcer read a donation for three hundred dollars that ended with “here’s a hundred dollars for every lady who’s had a run at this marathon”. I squinted at the screen—only three lady runners? Out of the 100+ scheduled showings? Sure enough, though, this was the case, which left me, and many other women gamers, wondering: where are all the lady speedrunners at?

Everything’s Coming Up Peachy

(Art by demyx100 @ DeviantArt)

Nintendo fans and fans of underdogs alike were able to have their cake and eat it too when the popular gaming company announced that 2013 was officially the “Year of Luigi”. The year, which stretched into 2014, celebrated Mario’s oft-overlooked younger brother by giving him a slew of new games and generally showing the green mustachio a lot more love than he’s probably had in decades. Now that the plumber’s party has died down, some people are wondering “what’s next?” Well, wonder no more! Fans of the Mushroom Kingdom and its inhabitants have quickly decided that this year’s festivities will feature much more royal clientele. Yes, 2015 is slated to be the “Year of Peach”.

Though at the moment the Year of Peach is entirely unofficial and driven by fan input—seemingly inspired in no small part by the efforts of Tumblr user nintendopoe—there is some really good reasoning for it. In fact, it’s the same exact reasoning behind the Year of Luigi: 2013 happened to be the 30^th anniversary of Luigi’s first appearance (Mario Bros.) and now 2015 is the 30^th anniversary of Princess Peach’s first appearance (Super Mario Bros.) as well. I wouldn’t argue that every character deserves a special year dedicated to them. I think we can all do without the “Year of Toad”, for example, despite how much people seem to love Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. However, Peach is such an integral part of the universe (what would Mario be doing if not saving her? Or Bowser, for that matter?) that it would most certainly be a shame for Nintendo to let this chance slide.