Wis[s]e Words – Page 29 – Ceci N'est pas Un Blog

Crisis on Captive Earth

Published on July 3, 2023Leave a comment

Logo for Crisis on Captive Earth

I was feeling nostalgic and rooting through my comics long boxes this weekend, when I came across Secret Origins #2, with the origin of the Blue Beetle, back when there were only two. My eye fell on a sentence in the letters page where it was claimed Blue Beetle “would play a role in the upcoming Crisis on Captive Earth“. Huh? Crisis on Captive Earth? Never heard of it? Turns out it was intended to be the next big event crossover after Crisis on Infinite Earths, to be published in 1986. Tom Brevoort has the details:

CRISIS ON CAPTIVE EARTH had been put together under the oversight of editor Bob Greenberger. It was intended to have been plotted by Paul Levitz, scripted by Len Wein, penciled by Jerry Ordway and inked by Karl Kesel. By November of 1985, this creative team had worked out their proposed storyline in enough detail for Greenberger to circulate this memo throughout editorial, in order to inform everybody what the story was going to be about and to set up the necessary character usages and tie-ins.

From the original proposal pages Tom has included, this looks interesting but a bit weak, not very well worked out. It lacks the edge and menace of the original Crisis. There are also a lot of loose ends that would’ve needed tightening if this was to be published. This is also clear from the response of DC’s then editorial and creative staff, as shown in a second article. From the responses it was clear there was little enthusiasm for this new crossover series. What we would get instead was the less ambitious Legends series, which would launch a revamped Justice League series as well as John Ostrander/Kim Yale’s Suicide Squad. For a little bit more about , the wonderful Dc in the 80s blog has a small article, which mentions:

Per Amazing Heroes #62 (January 1, 1985) which served as their 1985 Preview issue, this story was originally envisioned to take place in a twelve-issue maxi-series by Paul Levitz, Len Wein, and Jerry Ordway. Legends would only run six issues, and would feature Wein, as well as John Ostrander and John Byrne in the creators’ chairs… and it’s finished product may have only matched the scrapped maxis in when it would start hitting store shelves.

I love this sort of what might have been. This may not be as famous as e.g. the Alan Moore Twilight proposal, but still interesting to see what DC staff were trying to come up with after Crisis.

Thighs Point of View — Atelier Ryza — First Impressions

Published on July 2, 2023Leave a comment

It’s good to see that the most important element of the Ryza no Atelier games has been kept:

Not the first nor the last shot of Ryza's firmly squished thights

I think I recognise this first episode as basically the game’s tutorial mission, from when Kiara streamed it a few years ago. A good idea to get all the setup out of the way, even if it did take a double length episode to do so. The plot so far is simple. Ryza is a farmer’s daughter with no interest in taking up the family farm. She has two friends, Lent, a muscular himbo and Tao, a weedy bespectacled book worm. She drags them into an adventure leaving their home island to explore the mainland, something that’s taboo and end up rescuing a visiting merchant’s daughter before being rescued themselves by the merchant’s ad-hoc bodyguards. One of which turns out an alchemist, which leaves a deep impression on Ryza and by the end of the episode all three friends have become the duo’s apprentices.

Equal opportunity fan service as Lent is introduced penis bones first too

The story is okay, the animation is decent and there’s a lot of emphasis on Ryza’s thighs and other physical attributes. This is an adaptation that knows why people played this game. It is somewhat equal opportunity fan service however. The first shot we see of Lent is also focused entirely on his waist, penis bones and all. I liked this first episode but do hope they tone down the fan service a tad.

A Darker, Edgier Bang Dreams? — First Impressions

Published on July 2, 2023Leave a comment

It sure looks like it from the first three episodes. Bang Dream! It’s Mygo!!!!! opens with a band dramatically breaking up, against a backdrop of a suitably moody rainy night. The fallout of that breakup is present in all three episodes released so far, leaving psychological scars on its ex-members. Previous seasons of Bang Dream did not shy away from intra band conflicts, but those were mostly misunderstandings that could be resolved quickly, people acting with the best of intentions making mistakes. Here however there seems to be an actual villain if we take the opening scene at face value, something that the third episode, seen from the point of view of Tomori,who was hurt bad by the breakup, seems to confirm. To the point that when Anon asks her to start a band with her, she runs away.

Throughout these first three issues Tomori, the silver haired girl in the clip below, comes across as neurodivergent. You can see that on display in the background of this clip, in a wonderful bit of what Jo Walton calls incluing. As pink haired protagonist Anon talks to her class mates on her first day at school, she notices they all have guitars and everybody’s in a band. While she hasa talk about it with her three class mates, in the background Tomori is quietly ordering the magnets on the chalk board to be in the proper order.

At that point Anon and Tomori had already met once, as Anon found her collecting pebbles on the school ground, the first clue that Tomori is a bit different from most girls. Later, when they run into each other again and Anon gets a little scrape on her knee, Tomori offers her a bandaid with a penguin picture on it. When Anon is politely interested, it awakes Tomori’s hyper fixation as she starts explaining about the type of penguin it shows and how she collects these. Again, something very recognisably neurodivergent. There’s of course no real diagnosis given for her, but that third episode, which is literally from her point of view, does show that Tomori is aware she’s different and sometimes struggles with it. I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad for her after watching this. She seems such a lovely but easily hurt girl. Fortunately Anon at least is aware enough to pick up on her moods and kind enough to help her. I like what Bang Dreams is doing with this.

I also like the lack of characters from the previous series. So easy to put a lot of cameos in here, but that would’ve have stifled the series. It’s enough to just have the references and the occassional off screen cameo.

Dumbest motherfucker in the world

Published on July 1, 2023Leave a comment

Twitter has been completely dead today and it turns out it’s self inflicted. According to the world’s dumbest motherfucker:

To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:

– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day

No clue how to run a website he paid the GDP of a medium sized country for. All because the dude wants to be a shit poster so badly and has no talent for it. Gladly would trade any of the billionaires on that Titanic sub for this dude.

A Titanic blunder

Published on June 21, 2023Leave a comment

To be blunt, I hold the people wanting to take a submarine to the wreck of the Titanic in the same contempt as I hold those wanting to climb Everest: wreckless irresponsible thrill seekers whose hubris causes others to suffer from it. Die doing either, you’re neither hero nor victim, just another fool taking unnecessary risks to pretend to be anything other than yet another tourist.

That said, if I was a billionaire and I was so egocentric and vain as to want to visit the Titanic, I still would not pay 250,000 dollars to be strapped in a short metal dildo only openable from the outside and steered over bluetooth by a dodgy Logitech fake X-box controller. Spent a quarter of a million bucks to die in something I couldn’t stretch my legs out in, having my last piss be in a bucket shared with four other billionaires, you wouldn’t catch me doing that.

If you still believed in the myth of the hypercompetent self made billionaire this surely drives the nail in it. That much money and you don’t have the sense to demand your submersible is built from better stuff than can be found off the selves at Target?