Media Musin Mondays - Tumblr Posts

Footnote: recognize this? Or feel like more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles therein!

Media Marvel Monday, #1:

The Bittersweetness of Tri-arachnid

What can I say, I grew up practically obsessed with short, “artsy” games during the haydays of flash media. Didn’t really matter the website, but I found myself on Newgrounds for an almost embarrassing amount of my terminally online youth. Now, it made a great hub for unique pools or art and animation in general, but the games are what really drew me in, and I’ve considered Edmund McMillen to be something of a core-memory dispensing legend since I was roughly 8 or 9 years old. Ages before something like the Basement Collection would have been conceived, I had already played through a decent amount of the titles that would composite it together, back when they were just random titles you’d stumble across in a sea of indie nuggets.

What I’m trying to say is the dude’s work left a really big impact on me from a young age, and there are two particular works of his I always keep coming back to. The first is Coil, and the second is the topic of this specific post, originally released in 2006.

Even Tri-Arachnid’s title is something to be endeared. It’s to the point and accurate. You play as an actual, tripod arachnid, one of a species of adorable tripods, and perhaps, maybe even one of the last of a special kind.

At face value it’s a fairly challenging, but not very frustrating game, with some very hands on controls. The spider-like in question is moved through levels by manually guiding the legs, one at a time, to walk along, up, down, and around the map and its obstacles, grabbing and manipulating objects as needed to solve puzzles. You can additionally use the keyboard to adjust the arachnid’s balance and spin your own all-purpose silk ropes, which can be swung from, hold your things, or even be used to trap enemies within. The three-legs model and straightforward control scheme honestly makes it play pretty damn smoothly for its age by intentionally aiming for something other manual-physics-sim type of games aren’t really known for: simplicity. It’s actually a pretty fun and unique design for a playable creature, and I still don’t mind replaying the game through even for the one or two rockier levels. The concept design is also just what it needs to be, not too much, and certainly more than enough to get me invested into a other one of McMillen’s curious fictional ecosystems.

The particular Tri-arachnid we play as begins his story as one half of a mated pair of parents, each playing a part in watching their literal bundle of pride and joy, by which I mean their silk bound egg sac. Everything’s going great for the happy fella until some jerk bigger monster comes along with the audacity of needing to eat to survive, and picking the arachnid’s mate for its next meal. And the rest of the game thereafter follows our endangered tri-arachnid on the quest to reunite with his egg sac and to trek across a dangerous rockface, dive through caves, and even plunge through the belly of the beast itself in search for a better home, and therefore, a safer future for the dwindling species. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the whole thing is set to some amazingly memorable works from Tin Hat Trio.

You’d probably guess from an opening like that it’s… kind of a sad little game? And it is. The Tri-arachnid really can’t catch a break even after he’s recovered his young the first time. Yeah, first. You do become separated again, and have to deal with many manners of dangers and challenges. There’s even plenty of “stray” or orphaned little tri-arachnid larva scattered throughout the playable levels. Mechanically, they’re collectibles you can find to unlock sections out of the game’s bestiary and other bonus features. Story-wise, though, it’s pretty clear they’re yet another sign of the dire situation your kind has fallen into, and left to their own devices, probably don’t have a kind fate in store for them.

All that said, the central theme of this tale is not actually the bleakness of a dying species. It’s filled with hope and determination to salvage what remains. It’s about this funky little three-legged critter and what a massive and courageous heart he has, not just to find a haven for his own young, but to carry along all of the other little tripod grubs(?) he comes across without a moment’s hesitation. Its about how he expresses a whole swath of emotions we want to empathize with without a single word of dialogue. It’s about moving on from the tragedies behind him and his will to keep crawling, one leg over another, to reach a a brighter place. For all his hard work, I think the tri-arachnids may just be alright, in the end. At the very least, he’s fought hard to give them a beautiful opportunity. He succeeded, and I gotta be happy for him, even granting his uncertain path ahead.

Footnote: recognize this? Feel like more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing future rambles!

Media Marvel Monday, #2:

I Fucking Love “Red Sex”(Vessel)

Fascinatingly unique. Sinisterly sensual. Deeply unnerving to the core. Haunting, comforting.

How does this one specific song manage so well to exist as the seamless bridge between its own dissonant themes? This is not where you belong, but you are so very at home. Something is going extremely right in the most and absolutely wrong way. Rigidly paced, yet under-toned in an all but frantic, manic urgency. Dripping with the expressions of rapture and terror at the same time.

The audio equivalent of a wet nightmare, in my opinion.

Like, literally what is there not to say about this track? There’s media that lives rent free in your mind, and then there’s fucking “Red Sex.” Rex Sex doesn’t live as a tenant rent free in my head. It lives more like a kind of festering mold, a kitty-horrorshow-esque, fleshy growth on the apartment walls that you probably could never completely scrape off even if you wanted to. You feared it when it first came into your life, but oddly, it’s part of this place now in a way that’s almost comforting once you got used to it. From horrific novelty to a familiar, perhaps intimate muse.

I know I’m sounding a little hammy as hell about it by now, but I’m being completely genuine when I say this *song* has been and continues to be like nothing else I’ve ever heard and it has left an impression on me scarcely few musical pieces have been able to do so before, and I’m far from the only person carrying that sentiment. Though, maybe I should have stated off answering the elephant in the room for some among you.

“But what even IS Red Sex, actually?”

Red Sex is, literally speaking, the name of a titular track included in Vessel’s 2014 album, Punish, Honey. The second of Vessel’s published albums, the collection as whole is best described as it is a list of bass/synth driven instrumentals of the sorta industrial, sorta electronica genre. It’s a little hard to describe the vibe beyond “experimental” if you haven’t listened to them firsthand, which I highly recommend you doing so. Neat stuff in there all around, take a pick sometime;

But this is about Red Sex Specifically, and the legacy it’s really taken on much farther than its siblings. You may think from my talk of it so far it’s more of a hidden and obscure gem, but it’s actually cropped up in some pretty interesting places, and I swear it works amazingly seemingly with whatever you want to use it for if you know what you’re doing. Most who know the music usually find it through one of its biggest features. Just a few off the top of my head, with the obligatory note/warning that the content of some of them is uh,, “suitably graphic” for this kind of music and its description, very so:

- The Far Cry 5 baptism trailer

- THAT one specific Happy Meat Farms video

-Official trailer for The Handmaiden

- An impressively done Made in Abyss fan AMV

And do not even get me started about Vessel’s own official music video. I could go on for a whole separate analysis of that uncomfortably artsy WTF-weirdness on its own another day, and heck, I just might.

But good lord I just- this freaking song itself, man. Did I tell you I’m low (high) key obsessed with this piece? It just scratches brains in such a weird “psychological thriller” way, AND it’s such a banger. The beat, heartlessly, oppressively rigid, pairing with such a more free-flowing push and pull of synth melody… It takes me to the mental liminal spaces of something I’d say- disturbed but too intriguing to pull my eyes away from. And it does it in only a few short minutes. That’s something. I could summon commentary out of myself for probably each individual 30 seconds of it if you forced me to. I just can’t shut up about it. Go listen to Red Sex at least once in your life, for the same innocently morbid reasons you ride roller coasters and watch horror movies. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it is I think a powerful thing whatever it invokes to you.

If all that from my mouth isn’t enough of a take on Red Sex, here’s a couple other words on it I think have been said just as well from others:

“-my eyes are closed and the synth bass is fat as fuck and the weird, wonderful synth lead is causing waves in the environment while calling to me. And in my mind’s eye it is transformed into a cloud of smoke that has taken the form of the hand of some lady of the night. And that lady’s hand is making the ‘come on’ gesture in my direction. I mean, what am I supposed to do here??”

-Boston Hassle

“His warped sounds present a mucky atmosphere, with wailing synths and industrial drums churning out a challenging, but rewarding listen. Everything is slightly off, detuned as if on the verge of breaking, and it sounds right at home with the rest of Tri Angle’s forward-thinking output.”

-Complex Networks

The song can be the void that calls out to some. You are welcomed to plunge into it, at your own discretion.

Footnote: This look familiar? Or want more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles!

Media Marvel Monday, #3:

Covetous, it’s the Name of the Game

There’s a lot of reasons I love games you can finish in their entirety in 5-30 minute sit downs. Usually, they’re extremely affordable. They’ll typically run fine even on old garbage computers. They’ve very characteristic of host sites that make great breeding grounds for original and extremely creative forms of storytelling (newgrounds and Itchio come to mind. They’re often browser games that don’t make me have to go through any middlemen of downloads or extra set up. My diagnosed ADHD really likes that one in particular. You get going, you get the idea, you move on. (Or obsessively gnaw over it here and there for the next few years until you make sure you’ve introduced it to everyun who cares to listen, heh~)

It’s the kind of format that may have a low barrier to entry (relative to game design as a whole) but what it really strains a creator for, what it demands out of them in return, if it wants to be seen and remembered out of a sea of other 3 minute indie titles, is a remarkable craftiness at presenting its “gist” well. Where content’s quantity is lacking, quality better not be damned.

Few things to me are more impressive than an artist of any medium being able to show off just how little room they need to knock it out of the park with a premise. You may guess this might also be what I love so much about flipnote animation, about short stories and creepypastas the same. Have no doubt it’ll be a recurring theme in this series.

Now, of all the works to spotlight after this sort of introduction, where does Covetous exactly slot in, and why? For one, it’s as short and bare bones as a finished narrative can get. The controls are limited to arrow/WASD keys, the soundtrack a minimal and repetitive handful of notes, and the visuals boiled down to a vague and pixelated art style. Short game too. Two possible endings, and you can easily get through both of them in about the time it takes to eat lunch. Getting through Covetous feels a little less like gameplay and a lot more like progressing through a tone poem, and that has to do with the background of how this golden nugget came to be.

Austin Breed is a prop and background designer who’s dabbled about in sketch artistry, animation, and pixel/flash art games. Covetous was released on July 18th, 2010 as his personal entry into the Ludum Mini-Dare 20. For context, you can basically think of Ludum Dare as the indie game developer equivalent of those little writers’ boot camp events and competitions- an online jamboree that challenges programmers to scratch-bake entire games within a single weekend, centered around a chosen theme. And the theme selected for the Mini-Dare 20 was greed.

That’s the main tone of this poem alright, but it’s not the only one, and it’s not in the way you’re thinking for sure. This tale is about the greed of a parasite. Of a cancer. It doesn’t yearn but for one primitive wish.

"I never desired wealth or status. Just existence."

The story’s unsettling approach on the concept of greed is hinted at from the title right out. To “greed” is to crave more than what you already have without being filled. “covetousness” is more specific: a desire to take what someone else has for yourself. What does it look like to covet existence? Breed’s answer comes inspired from a little bit of medical nightmare fuel wrapped in a healthy dose of body horror.

You may have heard of the term “parasitic” or vestigial twin before. Take two siblings in the womb, they develop conjoined in a way where one survives and grows fine, but the other one kind of gets stunted as a hanger-on clump of extra meat that can’t survive on its own, but it’s not in any way really conscious.

Fetus in Fetu describes a complication on another level of rarity where the embryotic parasitic twin becomes absorbed into the host body, and it remains enveloped in their tissues or organs, possibly for years before its ever even detected. In such cases the partially formed twin is more comparable to a tumor than an actual, living fetus, usually first mistaken for cysts or malignant teratomas when they cause problems for their host. The phenomenon is freaky enough on the face of the matter, and Covetous takes the concept to a further leap of disturbing.

Players begin the game upon a single line of text, delivered to them by our arguably villainous protagonist:

"By some kind of miracle, I was given another chance of life."

They are immediately treated to the graphic of their play area: the pixel body of a smiling human. A few curious taps of the arrow keys will lead to figuring out that you play as a single flashing pixel, with the goal of moving towards the few green pixels within reach, apparently consuming them. The next line from our character elaborates.

"I was the forgotten cell, left to die in the flesh of my brother."

The first sequence of play repeats, except now our single red/white pixel has grown into a larger clump, with much more "food" around to eat. And again, and again, each time with the narrator giving another card of its thoughts, and eventually showing the human's face turning into that of a frown. The confirmation could not be clear enough that you are playing as an intelligent Fetus in Fetu teratoma, aware of its circumstances and bitterly envious of its healthy sibling's survival. It's like Cain and Abel meeting the aesthetic of the Alien franchise and the utterly raw dialogue, overwhelming flashes and sirens, and medical inspiration only coalesque together to make the brief experience one that has kept its players up at night and unable to forget what they just saw.

The creature's own tale ultimately ends in one of two ways, determined by the player in a timed button-mashing final scene. This is the point where I would REALLY recommend playing Covetous for yourself, especially because I would hate to spoil something you can churn through in literally less time than it takes to read this far anyway, but major epilepsy/sensitivity warning as well, there is a lot of bright flashing and unpleasant audio involved near the end.

In the first ending, the protagonist violently erupts through the body of his brother, killing him and taking its first breath of life beyond the prison of its host. In the second, curiously, the creature seems to give up the effort and allows itself to shrivel and die instead, the final thought reading:

"In the end, I couldn't do it. I couldn't put myself to steal from another what was once stolen from me."

I love this hidden gem for scaring the shit out of me when I was younger. It was creative, unique, but most of all, it was effective in getting across exactly what it wanted to even with it's 48 hour production. There's what I wanna call a media marvel.

Footnote: recognize this post? Or wanting more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles there on!

Media Marvel Monday, #4:

Kitty Horrorshow’s 000000FF0000 REALLY Doesn’t Want You to Play It

Some games let you be a hero. Some of them let you be a villain. Some of them, an ultimate badass, and some of them, a Joe-Shmoe who’s way in over his head. Nevertheless, a general assumption we all hop in with, for the most part, is hopefully that the new game we’ve booted up is going to treat us as a player first, and whatever role it wants to hand over second.

Some games have a different idea in mind. Some games, in fact, seemingly don’t want to be opened in the first place. “000000FF0000” does not treat you as a player in its world, no. It treats you as an interloper.

And I’m not saying this in a “oh it’s really hard to beat! It hates the player!” kind of way. Like most of Kitty Horrorshow’s work, it’s about as difficult to progress through as any 5 minute walking simulator. The hardest part of playing this for most is actually just to start it up, if you would believe it. Let me explain.

When “000000FF0000” is downloaded onto a computer, it arrives in the form of a metaphorical onion of gibberish-titled junk files loaded within gibberish-titled junk files, meaning that you are demanded to do a kind of “find the needle in the haystack” trial/error search for the one specific executable zip that actually will let you boot the real game up. It personally took me about 15 minutes of combing through branches and layers of dead ends until I literally had to look up a guide on how to find and run this game.

That’s already a welcoming sign, I’m sure.

Once you have successfully ignored this first attempt to keep your intrusion at bay, you are greeted with a small, low res maze, an unpleasant cacophony of sound, and a very upfront message.

“I don’t want you here.”

The walls and textures of this maze brighten and darken from vivid reds to pitch grays. The barrage of visuals and sound is unrelenting, and the curious second half of this sentence is given as “-but I need you here.” Before the player finds themselves in on a platform. Surrounded in glitching reds and broken textures at every angle, an idol of some massive, bird-headed figure crouches motionless at the center. Its imposing and mysterious appearance resembles the mental imagery of a cowering, or weeping god. The entire game also has this “corrupted” feeling to it, being stylistically glitchy and never really letting up on how it seems to groan and rumble for no reason than the fact that it’s running. It sounds… painful, almost.

Garsh, what a vibe

“Shooting” the statue seems to be the only option for progression, earning a series of cries and the abrupt transportation of the player to a new kind of maze. There’s no real end or exit here. You just wander around the suspended pathways while your surroundings continue to glitch into something out of hell and more garbled, manic text cards blink over the screen. Eventually, the madness reaches its climax as grotesquely deformed, red figures begin floating ominously around the area, honing in on the player. From this point, the window abruptly closes itself and sends you back to your desktop screen (a very classic way for KHS’s games to end themselves).

Effectively, it behaves like a sort of cursed media experience you’d read about in a random creepypasta somewhere, minus the whole specter coming out of the screen or possessing the player part, thankfully. Just another short but spicy work of KHS’s that I enjoyed and I think really flies under the radar compared to her other titles. I would love to hear some further thoughts or theorizing about this head scratcher, about how it came to be or what the bird creature possibly symbolizes. But that’s the prattle for now!

Footnote: Psst, This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I am rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles under this handle from here on!

Media Marvel Monday, #5:

The Sweetest Co-Op I’ve Ever Played Solo, Unravel 2

Ever look through the bargain bin or the used game/movie sections while shopping in your youth, and come across an actual masterpiece? Wonderful experience, especially if you didn’t even know you basically found a diamond ring rifling through the sloppy seconds section. It’s why I love thrift thing so much, not just because I’m a cheap ass, but because finding the hidden gems pennies on the dollar is its own fun kind of scavenger hunt.

And on that note, this one time I was looking through the heavy discount section of the E-shop, and let me tell you,

I found something absolutely beautiful, and even better, it’s a charming ditty you can enjoy with a dear friend, or a special someone if you're looking for a good couch co-op recommendation on short notice, Valentine's day being tomorrow and all ;)

I.... freaking love this game, so much. Everything about it. Playing it, looking at it, keeping the soundtrack in my ears as I meditate or draft things such as this out...

The game follows as the spiritual successor of the first Unravel, an atmospheric, side scrolling, puzzle-platformer that had you navigate a voiceless narrative through control of a "Yarny" (which, in this setting are like lil whimsical fellas made entirely of yarn) through beautiful natural landscapes and an underlying story of love, memories, and adventure. Which each step Yarny takes, his own thread spools out behind him, and puzzle-solving through the level sections revolves around creative uses of this trailing string, whether by use of a lasso to climb heights, to swing over gaps, building tightrope trampolines, pulleys, and a number of other ways of interacting with the world. This builds with and upon the smooth physics in action to bring players an engaging and varied way of progressing without being overly complicated. Though some of the challenges can have their moments of frustration, the game is overall a relaxing and visually more artistic than mechanical experience.

All of this carries over into Unravel's sequel, but now with the added spice of two Yarnies in the spotlight, tethered both physically and seemingly spiritually to each other. From the moment they find each other, a spark forms from their connection, and they share a journey to chase that spark as it brings light back to a world with some growing shadows.

Though you can play through the entire game solo for no less satisfaction and no more difficulty with the puzzles (I did, and I was almost tearing up in delight when I reached the final credits), the soul of a thoughtfully crafted, local co-op experience shines through all of Unravel 2.

Something I also rabidly love about the sequel is that you're actually allowed to customize the look of the yarnys' bodies and color! Not only that, but there's a handful of emotes available to really help your little dudes come to life (Media Marvels is all about the joy from the finer details after all). How many co-ops do YOU have where you and the other player's little creature can hold hands and stare into each other's lil yarn eyes after getting through a tough challenge??

I got so attached to my own pair over my first playthrough that I couldn't help myself but go for a trip to the craft store and, well,

More pics of my sons here, but legit, yarnys are pretty fun and easy to make it turns out.

I seriously don't want to understate the beauty of this game, though. The soundtrack is phenomenal, some literally theater worthy stuff at times, and draws a lot of inspiration from Scandinavian folk sounds, which, I shouldn't even have to really explain how that pairs so well with visuals like this

If this all sounds even remotely interesting to you, it's available on PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. The switch's version does take a hit to the graphics, but it's not one that I minded much. Also cool how you can do co-op with a pal with one joycon each, no huge need to have two sets. Anyway, I can't stand by this recommendation much harder. I think I'll close this out with a simple Happy early Valentines Day.

Footnote: Psst, This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I am rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles under this handle from now on!

Media Marvel Monday, #6:

It Feels Good to Be Bad, and Why The Overlord is The Perfect Playable Villain

Anime fans, I absolutely love you, but sit down, this is about a video game series from the late 2000s. One I really don’t remember how I got into exactly… I sort of think I rented Overlord 2 once upon a time on a whim.. Know I never saw any ads for it though, and barely anyone talks about it much these days. So, gotta do what I gotta do! Trust me though I actually think we have some common ground here you might be interested in.

And you others out there, I see you, disney fans exclusively fixated on the villains of every classic, y’all who main Bowser and King Boo in Mario Kart, everyone one of you eccentrics who can’t stop spilling your heart out for Megamind at any chance you get, who unironically throw it back to hits like “When You’re Evil” and root on that feral madman who wants to watch the (fictional) world burn. You guys are MY kinda people, okay?

And can anyone really blame us for how damn FUN the role of evil can look? By which I mean the outfits, the energy, the vibes, and the simple joy of fucking some shit up and climbing atop the world, perish all who stand in the way. You want me to love your villains, you need to engrave three words about them in my mind: Determination, aesthetic, and Badass. These are not the best villains in writing period, but I personally find them the best suited for the shoes of a non-heroic protagonist. THIS is what you want to sell when you’re pitching “play the monster” as your game premise. This is the first piece of what makes Overlord and its sequel shine true to form.

But on the second note, why do so many of us enjoy this anyway? Minor guess, but this is not actually pulling the wings off of an ant sadism, don’t get it twisted. This is more.. the innocent, childish glee of stomping around a cardboard city and pretending to be godzilla. This is only love of "evil" as performance, just the other side of the same indulgent coin that loves for the power fantasies of Batman and Rambo. Authors who love villians, or at least understand and love the impact a villain can really have on a memorable work, write great villains. So, no need to even consider feeling weird about it, and definitely a reminder: nothing to judge or take wrong. But something else I think this comes from is an oft overlooked angle of humor. That is the other piece right there, my friends- a dark kind of humor that only a bad guy would have any position of self awareness or cynicism to make work. To give easy example, Puss in Boots, so many agree, is a great case lately of seeing a revived flocking back to love for what I’m talking about here. Complex, multidimensional villains are freaking awesome. Villains with humanity and sympathetic glints rock. That’s just good writing when done competently, but it’s something so caught onto these days that we’re at the point where an unapologetic monster is the retro subversion rather than the rule exception anymore. Like you CAN’T tell me Jack Horner was not a hilarious, well-received breath of fresh air.

The Overlord series, in a nutshell, unironically lets you be Jack Horner, and win.

(Note: The following is specifically going to pertain to my personal favorite of the franschise: Overlord II. You’ll have to trust my anecdotal word that the first game is still really good, but not entirely necessary to enjoy its sequel.)

To sum up the meat of the setting, it basically follows your stereotropical fantasy world, with elves and gnomes and all of that fun jazz, but it does so in a "Shrek" sense. It's a whimsical and epic world that is to put it bluntly, unapologetically fucking ugly. Unicorns are bloodthirsty terrors, gnomes are on level with nuissance pests, and elves are portrayed as obnoxious caricatures of tree-hugging hippies. Humans have a powerful civilization going that takes the Roman Empire as its on the nose inspiration, but most people of the world are shown as bigoted, self-interested, and sheeplike. There is maybe one character I can name from Overlord 2 that isn't a POS in some respect.

But you're sure as hell not playing to be that person, lmfao. You play as an unnamed beast of a man referred to as the Fourth Overlord. See, there's somewhat of a cycle to the world that follows the usual script of the fantasy paint by number- the dance between good, and the stubborn evil that keeps somehow rising to power every generation or two because of plot reasons. Your guy, he's the son of the third overlord, dude from the first game, and that fella sure checked off all of the "Sauron-esque dark lord" boxes and then some. Long story short, he had a solid run of world domination, and then met an untimely oopsie one day that left him more or less trapped in Hell. So, role's open, you've been an evil little demon child since basically birth, time to put on your big boy cape and show the world you got what it takes to carry the legacy on.

My, unspeakable monsters do grow up so fast 🥺❤

So, you got your goal in order, but the question is, how does someone take up the mantle of building an empire of darkness? A little help , of course, because what the hell would a true Overlord be without

MINIONS!

Those banana bitches from Despicable Me don't have shit on these hysterical hellspawns. Years before pop culture was saturated with those yellow pill dudes, Overlord had already come up with the exact same concept, but done fucking right. They're rowdy and crude. They're whacky and wild. They are DUMB as rocks, but masochistically loyal to their master. And they are the scrungly lovechild of Gremlins and Pikmin, so obviously, the complete package as far as little funny henchmen go. They come in four different variants with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Most of the gameplay revolves around commanding hordes of these fellas and utilizing a mix of puzzle-strategy thinking and action-rpg antics. What's even better is that your central hub and seat of power rests in a super kickass upside down tower in The Netherworld. The demons got some good real estate tastes.

An interesting way the game lets you decide exactly what sort of evil tyrant you'd like to be is in the implementation of an interesting sort of "morality", or, immorality system. Picture the usual sort of "this route, that route" karma mechanic, but instead of a sliding scale between good and evil, your optional values are domination vs destruction. The gist is on the tin, and if either option is leaned into completely, it does effect the epilogue cutscene. If you prefer to control your unwilling subjects through magical coercion, keep your impulse control in check, and play a more cold and clever Overlord, you'll be running down the domination route. The effect on gameplay this has is that it generally specializes your dark magical skills into minion buffs and being able to turn your weakest enemies into mindless slaves for your side. The destruction route, on the other hand, is for those who want to go full chaotic evil and isn't afraid to get their hands very, very dirty. The spells along the destruction tree are good at exactly what you think they're good at, and if you really want to FC this style for the ending, you may find fights a little easier at the cost of really kneecapping your ability to easily farm certain resources. Quite hard to extort villages after you've burned them all to the ground with no survivors, after all. Despite the absolutely unserious overtones that Overlord 2 treats itself with, there is actually a story to experience (With a fun twist-antagonist to boot), and it was hardly a thoughtless project. The soundtrack is earnestly one of my favorites of playstation titles, and while the worldbuilding is a cynical kind, it's very consistent to itself and actually thought out a lot more of itself than it lets off at the surface level. I can't help but dream of a world where it got enough lasting popularity to make a modern remake possible, because it would have been lovely to see the concept art's vision given a better justice than the limits of the time.

Overlord has always been something of 'the Shrek of old Playstation games' to me. It was tongue-in-cheek subversive while simultaneously celebrating the heart of the genre. I think it could have been well remembered by more if it had gotten better luck back in the day, that is, if you can look past the elements of it that didn't hold up as well as it did twenty years ago. Most I remember being the low hanging fatphobia fruit that the humor style had a bit of a fixation on for a lot of the story, and perhaps the canonical harem situation but... it's practically a moot point in the context to the fact that this is still the same game where it is physically impossible to progress past the tutorial level through any other means besides clubbing a group of baby seals to death. It was T-rated edgy, but it didn't forget that really, it was about silly fun and the "Jack Horner" kind of absurdity of it all at the end of a day.

Uh,

so, the weekly media and creature brain dumps have been on a very unofficial hiatus lately. Kinda ironic and weird since I referred to them in my bio and I really did wanna continue both series no matter the engagement. Long story short, busy boring adult and job stuff, writer’s block, and some conflicted decisions about Media Mondays and Creacher Fridays.

But I think I came to a few ultimate changes I feel good about.

First off, I’m changing and being a bit more forward about the scheduling for the “weekly writes”. As much as I hate to break the alliteration, I think a bi-weekly posting quota would be a lot more sustainable and enjoyable in the long run. Maybe even with the goal of breaking both up into seasons if they get to a long enough point. If anyone cares to know they’re also rigidly scheduled to go up at 3:59 pm on their designated days, Eastern time.

I’m also set on changing the name of Media Marvel Mondays. The intention of “marvel” in the title was to give off a similar vibe as “pondering my orb”. Like, hey, here’s a thing that I’m rotating in my mind and I’d love to spit some exposure and praise to because it left a string impression on me once. Well, the search and tag things do something predictably different when you go looking for stuff with both the words “media” and “marvel” in them. I think my alternative has a better ring and distinction to it. From here on the Monday rambles are gonna be coined as

Media Musin’ Mondays

With the updated tag(s) to mention of course.

No change to Creacher Feature Friday, but I will continue the hiatus on that one for a little bit longer because it has gotten very out of sync with the media series. I’d like to catch its sibling up in the meanwhile and prepare to drop a more proper introduction for me self in the means while ;)

This is still a pretty fresh and moist page and I’m having good fun in watching some of its roots find something to sink into.

Edit: holy crap, happy 100th post, blog

（・◇・）/~~~

Media Musin’ Monday, #7:

Screw You, Nickalodeon: Making Fiends Deserved Better

I have no idea how anyone could seriously believe that the entertainment industrial complex™ even tries anymore to hold the illusion of a just or meritocratic realm. No holds barred, I have my issues with about every company still clinging like barnacles to the tragic, sinking ship that cable TV has become, but if you want me to point to a network that’s given me an entire skeleton of bones to pick by this point, and I’m underlining Nickelodeon in red at the top of my list.

It’s not because they host some bad shows, no. It’s not a sour grapes reaction to the untimely end of some of my favorite shows either, and though the entire rotten apple situation with creators like Dan Schneider and Butch Hartman certainly added to barrel’s spoilage, I would still feel every bit of my disdain for Nick’s tv group for the one cardinal sin they have committed again and again and again to ad nauseum- their ongoing phase of running a talent slaughterhouse.

It sounds hyperbolic, but I’d call it a fair observation: Spongebob is widely aknowledged as legitimately both the best and the worst thing to happen to this corner of kid’s media, hands down, but I don’t blame the little yellow guy one bit. He’s only another victim to the mess, and as much as I would love to go on a whole dossier spiel of the history of Nickalodeon from the 90s “golden age” to a full list of the dozens of shows and creators their execs have royally fucked over in the name of chasing the ratings dragon… for one, that’s been done a hundred times by other people at this point, and much better than I could. For two, that would take all freaking day. Just off the top of any cartoon savvy person’s head you’d vaguely recall the assassination of Legend of Korra, El Tigre, or Invader Zim, but that can is filled with so many “blink and you’ll miss it” smaller shows that were barely given two steps out of the starting gate, it pads down an entire TVTropes article on the subject. Dozens of them, shows that Nick all but basically set up for failure before quietly shipping them to the peaceful farm upstate- by which I mean shuffled off to inconsistent time blocks and lower priority channels so they could burn out their final approved episodes in hospice. Nicktoons alone garnered a hell of a reputation for exactly what I’m talking about, but that’s show biz, or… something.

Their worst and probably most audacious offense of all? Let me tell you about the fate of the charming world of a little girl who made fiends.

There’s no better place to talk about the end than the beginning.

Making Fiends, I mean, the original Making Fiends was a series of flash-animated shorts among a handful of other early 2000s web cartoons made by Amy Winfrey.

✨ Just, in case you didn’t recognize or feel something for that name, Amy Winfrey is one of the utter beasts of cartoons in general, not purely kids’ media. Songwriter, directing, animation, screenwriting, voice acting… you name a part of the process, and she’s probably dipped her toe in there at some point. Professionally, she broke into the industry contributing work to earliest season of South Park, and while she personally is most known for and associated with Making Fiends, the likely most prominent body of work she’s been a part of would be Bojack Horseman, wherein she’s credited as a director for many of its strongest episodes, including (but not limited to):

- “Free Churro”

- “The Telescope”

- "Sunk Cost and All That"

- “The View from Halfway Down”

- Amy Winfrey and her spouse (Peter Merryman) making a cameo appearance in the BJH episode “sunk cost and all that”

And even before all of that, she’s been at this animation stuff since the 90s and it shows in a loaded up portfolio of accolades and projects, both professional and personal.

The relevance of this information is to help put in some perspective to just how rotten of a deal she comparatively got with Nickelodeon, when one of those passion creations got a chance to join the network’s airing list.

But to sum up the idea of the web series proper, it independently released 24 short episodes in total, each centered around the antics of two girls engaged in both a completely one sided friendship and nemesis-ship. The show’s namesake refers to the single action the evil little Vendetta is most known for- creating a variety of servant monsters, many of which she uses to secure her rule over the port town of Clamburg, and all its inhabitants. Charlotte, on the other hand, is the quintessential “children’s show” character: near inhumanly kind, cheerful, and naive. So much so that she’s oblivious to her “best friend’s” near daily attempts to murder her, or the fact that she, you know, despises her.

In 2006, Nickelodeon took an interest in Winfrey’s toon and the prospect of adapting it into a TV series, reportedly because a daughter of a studio employee was a huge fan.

And fun fact btw, this was actually the first time that Nick did this approach of turning an indie web animation into one of their shows, but it certainly wasn’t the last if you remember this was also the origin of Breadwinners.

And as far as the audience was concerned, it was quite the successful transition! The TV version pretty much kept all of the major beats and vibes of the original, with polished animation, the same voice actors, and some stylistic upgrades to the art/environmental designs. For a brief time, it was the highest rated thing on its release channel too. Someone I don’t quite recall the name of once endearingly referred to the show as “baby’s first grimdark” and I adore how fitting of a summary that is. It sports a charmingly unique art style, memorable soundtrack, and I can swear to y’all, the humor aged like a fine wine.

“Why don’t you pretend to be dead?”

“:) ok!”

*slam*

(Also, sidenote, the entire series is still up on your tube, in HD, completely free to watch!)

So, if it’s such a neat little show, then why on earth does barely a soul seem to remember it existing? And even fewer scare who recall knowing about the show during its 2008 release?

Because Nickelodeon Studios, without hyperbole, set this show up for failure at every single turn before it even got a fighting chance.

People know of some shows that Nick treated like garbage, but this one they treated like absolute shit for reasons I can’t fathom.

Making Fiends, for one, never actually saw the light of day on the main network channel, as per the original plans. It was actually instead delegated over to Nick’s sister channel, Nicktoons, by a last minute decision.

Nicktoons, fyi, was not carried by most cable packages. I obviously lived on it as a kid, and it was functionally to Nick what I remember Boomerang being to Carton Network- the cable block where reruns of much older but loved shows were shoveled off to once they finished their days on the main channel.

Second, it was quietly premiered with barely a couple farts of advertising, too. I remember maybe seeing one preview as a kid, on Nicktoons.

And I guess, not keeping either of these in mind, Nick then abruptly pulled the plug on the whole thing, citing the tried and true “low ratings” explanation and leaving it at that.

Not counting years of post-cancelation reruns, the show actively ran from October 4, 2008, to November 1, 2008.

That is roughly a month between premiere and the end production date.

One season. Six entire episodes.

Seven whole additional completed scripts abandoned on the table.

Yeah.

I’m a touch salty about it still.

And with the shutting down of the Nicktoons network social media in 2018, any additional acknowledgment of the show from Nickelodoen themselves has kind of vanished to my knowledge. Like, it’s almost no wonder you already had to be part of the cult following to know about it, when Nick has been quiet about the calf they sent to auction since. Worst part is, they still hogged the rights to the show instead of idk, wild idea, giving it back over to Winfrey. I can only imagine people get away with entire reuploads of the series under the otherwise very IP protective Nick’s nose as another display of how low and bastardly those execs really view Making Fiends.

And that sucks! Wow! But I guess in a “be happy it happened, not sad it ended” way, I’m kind of glad for the fact that we can still enjoy and pass around the show that we did get to experience at all, rather than see it fade into true lost media territory.

Even today, about 16 whole years later, I know for a fact there are still plenty of other fans that remember and cherish the splash this tiny show made in that big, brutal pond. So, in that manner, you can’t truly call Making Fiends dead and gone.

A bittersweet story to think about, and only one of many down a long list, but ultimately one I’m happy to be able to tell at all.

Even if all the while still raising a giant middle finger to the network for the ending.

Scarlet’s side things would love suggestions!

Hey mutuals, new followers, etc. if you’re not aware, I have a couple little sorta-biweekly-series of rambles on my blog. Long story short, interesting real world species on Fridays, and on Mondays, little nuggets of media that have bored into my brain.

Media Musins and Creacher Features have been continuing their lil slump for a while now. It’s not that I haven’t been writing for the other-Friday posts, but I’m trying to get caught up with the Monday ones so they can be at the same number. Granted, I’ve been very busy with this latest fandom possession and an animation I started a little bit back. Work’s been a drain as well, and while I get around to clearing my plate better, and finishing up my current drafts, I wanted to take a moment to remind you all that I am gladly accepting topic suggestions/requests for either side of the coin!

Replies or notes to this post would be a fine spot, but don’t be afraid that my ask-box will bite either. I love hearing from others and even small pointers are a great source of inspo to get somewhere from the start again.

There’s not really any strict barring around what could fly for Creacher Feature suggestions- other than a strong preference for unique animal species and that you not submit a topic I’ve already gone over before. Check the list on my pinned post or the sorting tag for examples and what’s already been done

As for Media Musings, the general “aim” I have been going for is short and sweet. Steering away from long novellas, movies, and series in favor of giving the spotlight to the works that wowed us by being little gems among stones. Your favorite art game you remember playing as a child. A short story that haunted you for years. That song that made you shut the world off and out to get lost in its own corner. Larger media is not unwelcome wholly, especially if it has a more indie or underrated quality to it. Ditto on reviewing examples. I may drag my feet a step or two on the execution, but I will be listening as I keep sowing these grounds.

Honest Moment, Semi-Big Announcement: No More Media Musin’ Mondays (in name only)

I just haven’t been able to get out of the block of finishing my drafts backlog for so long. I started wondering what my problem was but like,, it’s not actual block. I’ve been dumping media takes left and right, proving I can do long posts for fandoms and throw in pointers to underrated little nuggets at the same time. In fact I feel like I’ve been doing plenty of that for the past couple months just in absence of formally including it as part of some weekly or bi-weekly series quota. Juggling regular posting, the creature fridays, and a project like that as a hobby of love just wasn’t as realistic as I’ve been pretending it to be

and honestly, this has been the status of this blog for a good while now since I started getting so back into Invader Zim and devoting a ton of analytical writing energy there. I still think I can find it in me in the future to get Creature feature fridays back on the tracks, and don’t think any of this is in relation to it just because MM’M was supposed to originally be its sister “thing”. If anything this kind of frees me up a lot to focus on that as the only bi-weekly write up, while letting the media takes of all kinds keep coming through as they’ve been.

Unrelated reason but still one the same, no one looks at or really followed those mini writes anyway. And that’s totally expected and no real one’s fault. Most of those were posted to my old blog, which is still stuck in the glitched-or-shadow-banned purgatory of being outside the reach of the already broken search functions of this hellsite. And I had virtually no presence here whatsoever back when I started those even then. I’m just ready to kind of get this self-imposed weight off my chest and keep moving ahead with what seems to work for now. You wanna know what I think about specific fictions, feel free to drop an ask or just search by fandom specific tags on my blog. You wanna encourage me to keep barfing about some specific game or character or analysis I’ve already touched on, you feed these brain worms and just see what might pop out and surprise you one day. We’re here for the fun of it at the end of everything, ye?

Peace to you, side “series” ✌️