alyssa @alyssa@cat.family

a feature film #DecRecs

Strange Magic is a computer-animated jukebox musical fantasy romance film starring among others Alan Cumming as some kind of insect creature and Evan Rachel Wood as a rather fighty fairy princess with great fashion. It was a flop with critics and witch audiences, who all have bad taste apparently.

there is a charming little imp, very fun songs, a swordflirtation, and an amusingly ineffective fungus-based surveillance network. A very tall chef is into shark storage.

and for my actually-for-today #DecRecs , I offer... another TV anime.

Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight is a TV anime (and an anime film) set in an all-girls musical theatre training school, directed by Tomohiro Furukawa, who came up under and has collaborated extensively with Kunihiko Ikuhara. Like Ikuni's work, it makes extensive use of surreal, highly stylized elements, although it's more transparent than Ikuni's stuff. Also like much of Ikuni's stuff it's very lesbian.

It is very good although I really need to get around to actually finishing it. For a bit more background on Ikuhara, Furukawa, and the Takarazuka Revue (which the show is in part a critique of), I additionally recommend the (spoiler-free) post tumblr person canmom wrote up in advance of showing some people the TV anime.

also there's a giraffe that understands things.

Having forgotten to post any #DecRecs yesterday I will endeavor to post two today. My first is a TV anime:

Mawaru Penguindrum is a 24-episode anime created by Ikuni (Kunihiko Ikuhara, also known for Revolutionary Girl Utena, Yuri Kuma Arashi, and Sarazanmai, as well as his work as series director on half of Sailor Moon). I cannot offer a cogent analysis of its thematic and symbolic content, as it frankly went over my head. It tells a surreal and compelling story centering around two brothers and their terminally ill sister, and a penguin hat of mysterious origin and mysterious powers. It concerns fate and family and familial guilt and other things I did not pick up on or do not remember.

very rude of this word game to incorrectly tell me that seax is not a word

A novel #DecRecs for today:

Fable of the Swan, by Jenna Katerin Moran (whom you may know from her RPGs Nobilis, Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, Glitch, among others), is a novel told by a girl who has lost herself and seen the True Thing. It is the story of her loss and her glimpses and her few moments redeemed in the radiance of the swan. It is an explanation of why and how she must unfold herself into a leviathan of burnished brass and gleaming chrome, why she must swim out into the void and fight with he Death—the lord of Death's Dominion, the first of the Riders, the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy is he named. It is perhaps my very favorite work of fiction.

I must offer the content warning that reading it reliably induces minor dissociative episodes in me and leaves me temporarily unable to believe in the reality of the world. I have intentionally reread it more than once knowing this.

I don’t normally recommend things but I’ll give #DecRecs a try. to start: I’ll recommend the tabletop role-playing game Strike!

It’s a very charming setting-neutral (but action-focused) game that was perhaps the first of the games that decided to combine a D&D-4e-inspired but streamlined tactical combat mini game and combine it with a rules-light core system for situations where that doesn’t apply (or isn’t warranted). Its core rules are centered around simple d6 rolls and learning new skills by trying unskilled rolls. Its combat system has some very delightful class designs, such as the class that’s about playing two different characters and a very cool take on three variations of the classic “Vancian” magician. Its bipartite class/role system also means you can satisfy almost any sort of role in the team with any class.

It is available at https://www.strikerpg.com/ or https://jimbozig.itch.io/strike

addendum: thanks piggo

thanks glitch-soc for the doodling feature. i forget who did that but thank you.

«If it’s ever too much. If you’re ever doing something and it’s just too much. Even if you’ve already started doing it. Even if it doesn’t seem there’s anything you can do but to do it. If it’s ever too much, you can stop.»
—The Night-Bird's Feather, by Jenna Katerin Moran

that said, my beloved @sigmaleph did point out that the argument misquoted the usual claim about the quality of the film and that the correctly-phrased property ("greatest mafia movie ever made") invalidates the argument

this is, to be clear, good

peeps on tumblr are out there making reverse ontological arguments about screenplays for fictional films

downside of having a literally earth-shaking event to open the next session of my strike! campaign with: absolutely zero clue what the players will try to do in the rest of the session.