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Bringing back blogging like it's 2008

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Do Spoilers Spoil?

Essays, Not Rants! 235: Do Spoilers Spoil?   Darth Vader has Luke Skywalker on the ropes, cornered, defenseless, and missing a hand. But rather than killing the Rebel, Vader offers for Luke to join him. Luke refuses. Undeterred, Vader throws doubt on those Luke trusts and utters one of the most famous lines in cinema:   “No, I am your father.”   It’s shattering, throwing everything Luke knows into disarray. But Luke doesn’t join Vader, choosing instead to cast himself into the abyss below.   Als

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Sorry Nate, There’s No Princess In This Castle

Essays, Not Rants! 159: Sorry Nate, There’s No Princess In This Castle   Let’s talk about damsels, because the idea of the damsel in distress goes way back and ‘cuz damseling female characters (especially in video games) kinda has to stop.   So what is a damsel in distress? Anita Sarkeesian succinctly describes it as This has been a staple of video games since very early on. In Super Mario Bros, Mario quests to save Princess Peach. This wasn’t necessarily bad, but it becomes a problem when the

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Just So We're Clear, Rey Is The Best

Essays, Not Rants! 197: Just So We’re Clear, Rey Is The Best   Rey, of The Force Awakens, is one of those characters I really like. Not just one those who I think’s really cool (Captain Marvel, Han Solo, Aragorn), but the ones who, for me, go beyond that (Iron Man, Nathan Drake): Rey’s one of those characters who I don’t just really like, but the sort I wanna be.   So what is it about Rey’s that captured my imagination (and everyone else’s)? What makes her so special?   Obviously, spoilers for F

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Showing, Not Telling

Essays, Not Rants! 361: Showing, Not Telling   There’s this saying in writing that you should show, not tell; that is instead of telling the audience about how John is smart, write a scene where we get to see that John is smart. That way the audience can see how smart John is and think to themselves "Wow, John is smart." Idea is because the audience drew their own conclusion (rather than being told such) it’ll resonate more.   A similar rule of thumb applies to video games, except instead of jus

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Movies/Stories About Being Biracial/Mixed

So I'm mixed. Dad's Singaporean Chinese, Mom's Norwegian America, I put Sino-Nordic on forms.   Growing up, there weren't many stories about what that's like (getting teased/bullied for being white/foreign in Singapore, then being teased/bullied for being Asian/foreign in the US) and the weird navigation of identity that comes with it that I'm only now really starting to explore.   Now, I'm curious, what stories are out there that deal with this? I'm interested in compiling a list (a cursory goo

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Stepping Away

Essays, Not Rants! 286: Stepping Away   Ed Skrein – the dude who played Ajax in Deadpool — made headlines recently. Not for taking a role but rather for stepping down from one. See, he was tapped to be in the reboot adaption of Heckboy. But the character he was slated to play, Major Ben Daimio, is Japanese-American in the comics, and Ed Skrein is decidedly, er, white. Upon finding out that his casting would be whitewashing, Skrein stepped down from the role in order to not be part of that machin

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This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, JEB!

Essays, Not Rants! 189: This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, JEB!   I don’t really talk about politics on this blog…ever. Well, aside from, y’know, the historical or entries on diversity or women in fiction. But every now and then something shows up that’s nonpartisan enough but still related enough to what I usually write about for a good discussion.   An interview with Jeb Bush (Or JEB) has been making the rounds lately, wherein he’s asked who his favorite superhero is. This alone is worth n

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Kid Stuff

Essays, Not Rants! 214: Kid Stuff   You ever go back and check out a story you liked as a kid? Sometimes this means realizing how insufferable some cartoons were, but other times you end up rereading Prisoner of Azkaban and realize that holy ###### that’s a special book.   Which brings up an important thing about children’s stories. Namely, what is a story for kids? Is Star Wars a children’s story? It was one of my favorite stories as a kid and that seems like a decent barometer for what counts

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Wise Old Masters

Essays, Not Rants! 242: Wise Old Masters   I have a very clear memory of being ten or eleven and watching Cartoon Network. I didn’t have cable growing up, so this was at a hotel or someone else’s place. I’d left Singapore and was in that whole growing-up-on-a-ship phase of my life.   Anyway.   Johnny Bravo was on, and for some reason or other the titular character had to learn some martial art or another. So he goes to a dojo, meets the guy, and asks him to teach him “the secrets of the East.”  

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With Regards To Capes

Essays Not Rants! 066: With Regards to Capes   In Man Of Steel Superman has lost his usual red underwear. Well, more he never has it in the first place in this adaption. It's no wonder why, no one, not even Batman, wears their underwear outside anymore.   That said, Superman still has his cape, something that's seemingly as much an artifact as the underwear thing. Yes, Thor and Loki both have capes, but they're demigods. Batman's cape is explained away as serving not only the effect he creates b

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Can Art Be Fun?

Essays, Not Rants! 180: Can Art Be Fun?   I’m still reading a bunch and my current book, Extra Lives, is essentially critical theory on video games as literature. This divide between what makes something ‘art’ is something I’m kinda big on, so it’s a fascinating read. There’s one thing that Tom Bissell says which struck me: that because video games must be, by nature, fun, they’re seen as being less artistic or literary than other mediums.   Which, well, kinda has a point. When was the last time

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#AsianCowboy

Essays, Not Rants! 234: #AsianCowboy   I was vaguely aware of the casting for the new Magnificent Seven when it was first announced, but more so for the fact that it reminded me that I really needed to watch The Seven Samurai (which I still haven’t…)   Anyway, since then trailers for the new Magnificent Seven have been released and there’s been a little bit of buzz around it and reviews have been coming out. What’s most caught my attention — and what makes me really wanna see it — is actor Byung

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So You're Saying You'll Give Me Money If I Let You Electrocute Me?

So Monday and Tuesday night I took part in a study wherein I was put in an MRI and sometimes given mild shocks while watching a screen.   For money.   Woo science! I have no clue what they were studying and may have dozed off once or twice (staying up till 4 writing an essay on Ulysses will do that to ya), but hey! Science! And money! Not the first time I've done this. Well, the MRI is new (least for sciencing), but the shocks and studies aren't. Hey, gotta pay for them Legos somehow. And booze.

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The Elusiveness of Fun

Essays, Not Rants! 217: The Elusiveness of Fun   What is fun?   No, not what’s fun to do, what does “fun” mean? Johan Huizinga, a Dutch guy that wrote a lot about play and what play means, said in his Homo Ludens that “this last-named element, the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation.” He goes on to lament that there’s, to his knowledge, no direct translation in a Western language that really captures what “fun” is (and if you check Wiktionary, you’ll find the transla

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I Liked The Mass Effect 3 Ending

I'm not sure why there's this vague sense of anger/disappointment I get emanating from the internet (besides the fact that it's, yanno, the internet).         I understand that some things remain consistent no matter your choices, and to that, well, it's certainly different. But it's an ending and, well, I guess it ended the way it had/ought to.   And now, a rant on why the ending made sense   Control is a big theme of the third game. The Illusive Man trying to gain control, Reapers trying to ga

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Feels Like It

Essays, Not Rants! 116: Feels Like It   Ever played Star Wars? No, not Force Unlesahed or Rogue Squadron, we’re talking the Star Wars game, the original 1983 arcade game from Atari. It’s not the most complex game out there. In lieu of sprites the game uses crude vector graphics to give you an outline of TIE Fighters (that shoot fireballs), laser turrets, and the classic trench run. Using the yoke you fly through space, attack TIE Fighters and dodge obstacles. Like the Millennium Falcon, the game

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The Problem With Narrative Sidequests

Essays, Not Rants! 268: The Problem With Narrative Sidequests   One of the most striking features of the planet Elaaden is a huge derelict Remnant ship. Sticking out broken over the desert planet, the ship could hold answers for the mystery of the old killer robots that populate Mass Effect: Andromeda. The latest game in the Mass Effect video game series has a strong focus one exploration, namely that titular distant galaxy. There’s so much to see, so much to find out.   But I still haven’t gone

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Diversity in Middle-earth

Essays, Not Rants! 295: Diversity in Middle-earth   The Lord of The Rings is at once both one of my favorite books and one of my favorite film trilogies. And I don't really feel the need to write another sentence justifying that.   In any case, I reacted with some consternation upon finding out the Amazon was, having attained the rights to Tolkien’s world, developing a new series set in Middle-earth. On the one hand, we get to return to that world. On the other, it's hard to top Peter Jackson’s

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Why Science Fiction Is Not A Genre

Essays, Not Rants! 003: Why Science Fiction Is Not A Genre     Walk into any book store and you’ll find them sorted into categories. You’ve got your Fiction, Children’s, Military History, Home and Garden, Romance, Young Adult, the odd shelf titled ‘Young Adult Paranormal Romance’, and, of course, Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s fairly obvious where books go, works of Fiction goes in fiction, kids’ books go in Children’s, non-fiction goes with its topic, and so on.   Now, a work of fiction, whe

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Order, and Narrative Thereof

Essays, Not Rants! 215: Order, and Narrative Thereof   I’m one of those people who will respect you less if you pick an album to play, and then play it on shuffle. See, there’s a deliberate rhyme and reason for the order of songs on an album.   U2’s War needs “Surrender” to be its penultimate song. After an album about war, violence, and fighting for hope, we have a song about giving up which leads into “40,” an adaption of the Bible’s Psalm 40. It’s crucial that the album ends there, in that s

That Teaser

Essays, Not Rants! 141: That Teaser I saw The Phantom Menace for my eighth birthday. It wasn’t the first Star Wars film I saw, nor was it the first I saw in theaters (I have the vague recollection of seeing A New Hope when it was rereleased in Singapore). But it was a new Star Wars movie and I loved it unaware of its flaws.   A teaser for the new new Star Wars dropped yesterday and I am so freaking excited.   First off, it’s a new Star Wars, which, has had me pumped for quite some time. But se

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