Golden Sky Stories: Actual Play, "The Little Shrine in the Forest"

"Not that I care or whatever, but this is the story about me, the most important character in the story, and how I, OK, with the help of some other animal spirits, saved the world- make that a town- OK, a strawberry patch. And made a young girl's life better. Not that that's important to me you see. Because I'm a cat. And I just do what I want, just because." Mako, the black cat

This last weekend, at a small "Not going to Pacificon or Celesticon" NonCon, A one-off game of Golden Sky Stories happened, with five players who had never played GSS before, and a GM who had hadn't run a game in years.. This is the story of what happened, as related by Mako. The Most Important Character in the Game.

Golden Sky Stories is a game rather different from other role playing games. Rather than wandering dungeons, slaying monsters or the like, the players take the role f minor animal spirits who help the people in a small rural town in Japan. They help with minor crises, that are still quite important to the people involved. This is best described as a slice-of-life supernatural story, in the vein of Japanese anime such as Natsumi's Book of Friends, Totoro, Kamichu, Pon Poko, and Gingitsune. The emphasis is not on violence, but on solving minor problems in a heartwarming fashion.

( Part 1: Character Creation )

Next: the first Scene! Rivalries will be enacted! Shrimp and strawberries will be eaten! Rocks will be thrown!

Ju8st to get you through that lousy Wednesday, here's a couple of vids from some bands I'm listening to these days. They can be classified as Indy, but only just- they don't meet the "must be tedious" qualifation. In fact, all of these are pretty peppy, as befitting a Wednesday.

( Let the Music Begin! )

And that's that. Now back to your dull trudge through Wednesday Afternoon.

...is not the sincerest form of flattery.

Ever Tomorrow
By: JL Jones: Writer/Colorist/Cover Artist/Inker; Marlon de Rivera: Penciler/Concepts/Letterer/Webmaster


Let's consider those webcomics where despite whatever other merits they have, one singular flaw overshadows any other merits the comic may have. Let us consider comics that are following in the footsteps of other, more popular comics, a little too closely, shall we say.

For example, if one has a neo-historical (Or well, neo-18th century) steampunk (OK, granted: clockpunk) comic featuring a heroine who is a blond, long-haired, glasses-wearing girl mechanic with an affinity for music and her name ISN'T Agatha Clay, then well...maybe you need to rethink some details because somebody else got there firstest with the mostest.


See what I mean?

Yes, yes, I know the objections the creators may raise, and they don't really matter. You may point out that this comic has magic, a mage's guild, and flying sailing ships, and I will concede that the dour mage and the idealistic noble's sun while themselves rather cliched, are entertaining. In fact I will also note that yes you do indeed seem to be concentrating both more on real-world style politics, and also the difficulties a woman might face in becoming a mechanist in a very sexist world. I will even concede that the dialogue is nicely written, and the artwork is clean and mostly well drawn, though I notice some anatomic peculiarities here and there (why do people always have trouble with arms?). Hell I even admit that the story could be quite interesting to me, as I'm a fan of stories set in that era far more so than Victorian ones.



See, I WANT to like this webcomic. But still, still, still...it doesn't matter.

Look, the bottom line is that in the webcomics biz the 10,000 pound steam-gorilla is Girl Genius. So even if the resemblance is accidental, even if the reaction of the artist and writer is "What? She looks like who again?" The reaction of most readers is going to be that this webcomic is deliberately imitating Girl Genius when it comes to first look, well before they realize it's set in an alternative 1700s, has magic, or well, anything.

So the moral of this story is that indeed, "Look and feel" is important, and one has to be careful to distinguish one's comic from the competition.

Reliquary, by "The Sooz"


Reliquary is a fairly new webcomic that seems to have interesting potential. In a fantasy world that vaguely resembles the Middle East, Alcolla is a 12 year-old acolyte who has apparently been brought back from the dead after a mine accident, and being the first person ever to do so, is now being hailed as a gift from God.  She on the other hand wants to be normal, and her new power to take the form of a supernatural being (I'm reluctant to say angel) doesn't excite her as much as it does her friends.  And there are also hints that her resurrection may have more to do with the actions of the local abbot and his assistant a talented healer, even as the higher church authorities take in interest in what her power can do to combat a plague of "demonseeds".

Positives:

This comic is very well drawn.  The characters look distinctive, seem to have decent centers of balance, and there's nothing particularly awkward about the art. Hakelda in particular looks wonderful: scarred like someone who engages in combat should be, and yet cheerful and open in manner.

Here Hakelda talks to Alcolla after fighting a demonseed:

Placing it in a pseudo-Middle Eastern local is a plus. I shouldn't have to say that merely not making the setting pseudo-medieval Europe is a plus, but well, by doing so right there Reliquary has distinguished itself from 95% of the other fantasy comics out there.

There's obviously a plot going on: there's been no definitive sign that Alcolla's resurrection is man-made rather than heavenly, but there's some subtle indications that people involved have a different knowledge of events than the public.  Likewise, we just seem to be starting to get exposure to what seem to be some of the interesting ongoing events.

Negatives:

Honestly, the little jokes and comments the writer puts below the comics aren't nearly as funny as he thinks they are, and distract a bit from the impact of the comic. But that's just me.

The website design, while spare and functional (and the black background adds to the effect) really needs more information on it. While I can understand the artist being terse and wanting to have people focus on the comic, I shouldn't have to look for her name on Facebook of all places.  Also some information of the background, or at least inspirations and information on the artist's progress would be nice.

(Edit: Looking for names on Facebook proved to be even more problematic since I got the wrong person)

Conclusion:

Nice artwork, potentially interesting story; I recommend giving it a look.

While I was reading the book "Court of the Sky", several thoughts crystallized which explained why I don't care for Steampunk. That is, there are specific steampunk stories that I enjoy, such as Girl Genius and Laputa, but there's some things that have been really bugging me about the genre at large, without my really being able to conceptualize them until recently.

It bothers me that a lot of steampunk seems to celebrate the worst elements of Victorian society. Ethnocentricism, Classism, Colonialism, for a start. About the only "ism" that Steampunk doesn't celebrate is sexism, and that in a weird way where the trappings of sexism are highly evident, but the actual sexist attitudes are only lightly touched upon. 

I also have a minor issue with maintaining suspension of disbelief when Steampunk mirrors Victorian society, even in circumstances such as a radically different geography or history. But that's a problem I have with a lot of fantasy fiction, not just Steampunk.  Also, some stories have taken various approaches to avoid both of these problem, such as "Girl Genius", but both of these problems appear to be common in the Steampunk genre. The second issue frankly is minor, but the fact that much of Steampunk seems to be even more reactionary than standard science fiction, and deliberately so, frankly bothers me.  The obsession with velvet, goggles and gears, just seems to be breezing over some really unpleasant context.

Caged from a discussion on worst movie endings, this is a bit specialized: what movie adaption took a great ending to a book, and screwed it up? That is, at what point did you gape at the movie and scream "WRONG!"

For me? There's so MANY candidates, but for the one that made the worst impression, the one that made me realize that the studio just didn't care about the authors idea, we'll have to go back about thirty years or more. Back to a film I saw in school. Back to a grade school English project.

Back to "My Side of the Mountain".

<lj-cut text="The book was cool!">

The resourceful Sam Gribley runs away from home to live on a mountainside his family owns. In the process we get detailed descriptions of how he survives, and in the process learns independence, makes a house out of a tree stump, and tames a pet falcon named Frightful. In the end, his parents visit him, and decide to move out to the mountain with him. It's a great example of a kid developing independence, and parents accepting his decisions.


<lj-cut text="The movie though...">
A hunter shoots Frightful the hawk, and Sam decides to abandon his camp and go back home.

I mean seriously....what the FUCK!? Was Paramount so afraid of lawsuits from the parents of kids who would also go out in the wilderness, that they had to completely reverse the meaning of the movie? The book has adults accepting the kid's counterculture ways, and adapting to it; the movie has the kid abandoning his independent ways and returning to civilization.


So basically, we had an inspiring book turned into a depressing movie that was one more step in making me the cynic I am today. Bummer.

My, that was a LONG movie. I was dehydrated going into the film, which turned out to be a good thing; in spite of the headache and weak legs, I was able to sit through the whole thing without having to make a bathroom break.

As for the film....there was a long sex scene with Malin Akerman. And oh yeah, there were some explosions and stuff. And umm...Malin Akerman....
( Spoilers for the film )

Overall, the film seemed stately, took it's material very, almost too seriously, and in many cases, repeated dialogue from the comic word-for word. The pacing was slow because a lot of information had to be imparted, and it had to cover a period of decades. I think really, this was about as faithful an adaptation as possible. Also, the design work was quite beautiful. So overall, I would give this film a definite "worth seeing in the theaters" grade.

I like Latin Jazz, and I like electronica, and I like music that fuses different styles that really shouldn't go together. I also like music And happy day, here we have Senor Coconut..

Senor Coconut's (real name Uwe Schmidt) used to do standard electronic music under the band name of Atom Heart. Feed up with the seriousness of the European electronic scene, he moved Chile, and shortly released an album of latin jazz renditions of classic Kraftwek songs. In his latest project, "Atom™ presents: Around the world with Señor Coconut and his Orchestra" he expands his repertoire to include pop songs from bands like the Eurthmics, Trio, and Deep Purple.


Yes, his mosic is very kitchy, and he may be considered a novelty act. But his music treads the fine line between parody and tribute, and he translates the tunes of into engaging lating jazz so expertly that even between laughing, I find myself dancing.


( Here's some examples: )