LET ME BUY MY TICKETS. Seriously though. Looks fantastic; seems to be what oughta be the next step for the story (and character) to take. And, yeah. Well. Time to wait. ...nooooooo
Essays, Not Rants! 283: Characters Like Poetry I talk about characters a lot on this blog. Okay, this blog’s been around long enough that you could say I talk about anything a lot. But that’s not the point. The point is characters. Like how in Crazy Rich Asians there aren’t really characters so much as vague ciphers used to progress a not-really-there plot, or how The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and Mass Effect created such realized characters that you could easily imagine spending ti
Hey, checking in with you folks because I like you guys and this blog is a nice place to ramble. Life's been busy. Did the BrickFair thing this year, which was a lotta fun. I edited Episode 4 of The Invincible Osiris Jackson, which you should totally
, especially if you're a fan of Kingdom Hearts. I'm officially a proper Supervisor at The LEGO Store. Which means I'm responsible and stuff. I get a nice amount of latitude with what I do so I've room to figure out new ways to do stuff and a
Essays, Not Rants! 345: A New Origin Captain Marvel’s new series, The Life of Captain Marvel, sees Carol taking some time to reassess. In the aftermath of infighting with Tony Stark and some other less than great events, she goes to her family’s summer home in Maine to spend some time with her mom and injured brother. There’s a lot of self-reflection, some reveals of family secrets... and a Kree hunter after, presumably, Carol. Because who else? The Kree hunter closes in on the Danvers house
Essays, Not Rants! 132: Yet To Do it Again I’ve only played The Last of Us once. Well, only played it through all the way once. I started a New Game+ about a year ago, but still haven’t finished it. It’s odd, I know, considering how much I write about it (plus two final papers and counting). Oh, I play the multiplayer every now and then and I do look up cutscenes for reference, I just haven’t played it through again. Don’t get me wrong, I want to; it’s just a big commitment. Not time-wise (t
Essays, Not Rants! 224: Regarding Movies About Two Superheroes Fighting Each Other If you were to put 2016’s blockbusters in a museum, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War ought to be displayed next to each other. They’re the sort of movies that, when looked at together, take on a whole new dimension. Because one is far more successful than the other. To understand why Civil War succeeds, you don’t have to look much better than at how BvS fails. Both movies have
Essays, Not Rants! 340: Spidey’s New York Narratives are a two way street. What you bring to them is what you get out of them. So let’s talk Spider-Man, the video game (again). Spider-Man, of course, takes place in New York. Because, well, duh. Now, I happen to live in New York and have lived here for most of the past six years. I went to college at NYU Gallatin down in the Village and lived in a semi-lousy apartment (okay, pretty lousy, it was a six floor walkup and there was no sink in t
So I saw The Dark Knight Rises at the midnight showing last night (er, this morning?). Went with some friends and though we weren't quite as elaborate as The Avengers, we just dressed to the nines like rich Gothamites. Though that would probably make me the guy that Batman forcibly extradited from Hong Kong in The Dark Knight...and then gets burnt alive on a pile of money... Ah well. How was it? Dude. Just dude. This is how you end a trilogy. Not really gonna say much else about it, haha
I'm tired. It's been a long day (woke up at 4 in Atlanta, hopped on a plane, started work at 1, got home past 10) and there's some serious scthuff going down. Todays' entry is rambling and a little more charged than I'd like for BZP. You can read it on Essays, Not Rants' website if you're so inclined. In any case, hug someone. Love somebody. There's more to this world than hate.
Today was my first day of class at New York University. I graduated from high school back in 2009. Since then, well, army, heart disease, Singapore, blah blah blah. But hey! I'm a college kid now! In New York City! At NYU's Galltin School of Individualized Study! Let's hope my education gap doesn't make me suck!
Essays, Not Rants! 358: KH3: GOTY 2008ish As I continue to play Kingdom Hearts III while balancing all these newfound adult responsibilities that have sprung up since Kingdom Hearts II came out thirteen years ago, I’m struck over and over again by how much of a flashback the game is. Not just in the way that it makes me feel like a teenager again, but in how it embodies a game design ethos that’s been eschewed by a more contemporary zeitgeist. For example: Invisible walls. Virtual game spa
Essays, Not Rants! 127: The Gutsy Ending I feel like Edge of Tomorrow has been out long enough that it’s safe to talk about the ending. And honestly, I feel like I could have discussed the ending much closer to when it came out because, well, it kinda just was. There wasn’t a big shocker at the ending, no moment that left you going “woah.” Edge of Tomorrow ends with breaking the loop, as one would expect from a movie that’s essentially Groundhog Day with aliens and guns. But unlike Groundhog
Essays, Not Rants! 356: Colonialism… IN SPACE! While replaying Mass Effect: Andromeda I’m struck by one particular element of its central narrative: Colonialism. The game’s story sees a bunch of pioneers from the Milky Way, the Andromeda Initiative, arriving in the Andromeda Galaxy, ready to explore and set up a new life and all that. Turns out, their chosen chunk of Andromeda — the Heleus Cluster — is already inhabited, by the native angara and the invading kett. If the Initiative is to set u
Essays, Not Rants! 332: Of Movie Subscriptions As I said last week, I have a real soft spot for not-great movies. I’ve also really enjoyed having a MoviePass in no small part because it alleviates me of some measure of financial responsibility for poor choices. The subscription nature of the service means that it’s not gonna cost more to watch a silly movie in addition to something I do really wanna see. And now with the service going sideways, I’m really gonna miss it. It is an odd sorta id
Essays, Not Rants! 265: Book Listening I’ve been a huge Trevor Noah fan since he showed up on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and started ragging on misconceptions of contemporary Africa by comparing it to the rural US. I found his stand-up special, African American, on Netflix and was delighted to hear him cracking jokes about growing up mixed. Though mine was in no way identical, there was enough familiarity there to really connect. Also, he’s funny. So I was one of the five people who was really k
Essays, Not Rants! 335: Watch This Web Series Back in February I got hired to direct a web series. Which is a pretty cool sentence to get to type. The web series, The Invincible Osiris Jackson, is quite easily described as a nerdy, gay romance. The showrunner and I both used Scott Pilgrim vs The World as a big touchstone for the series, both in its integration of video game tropes into film, and also its tone of both comedy and earnestness. After spending a couple months casting, finding a c
I mentioned last entry that I was doing NaNo. I'm a glutton for punishment and seem to only be able to really put words on the page when threatened by an arbitrary deadline that hangs over my head like a blunted Sword of Damocles. I'm rewriting a novel into something that should hopefully be fit for consumption by some dear friends who've offered to give it a read.
But in the meantime.
Over the summer a short story I wrote got sold! It found a home at Khoreo Magazine, a lovely press th
