Knick Knacks

My premiere for @worldwideslash 2026! This is a fan trailer for Thunderbolt Fantasy season 4 using the Bryce Miller and Alloy Tracks remix of "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" by Journey, which is fitting for an arc that pulls the cast in so many different directions. "How do I tell a coherent story using half a dozen lines of canon dialogue while showcasing my favorite moments?" was a fun vidding challenge.

Content warnings: Quick cuts, flashing, lights, blood, puppet violence, S3 spoilers.

We hold all Earth to plunder -    All Time and Space as well - Too wonder-stale to wonder    At each new miracle; Till in the mid-illusion    Of Godhood ‘neath our hand, Falls multiple confusion    On all we did or planned -        The mighty works we planned.

We only in Creation    (How much luckier bridge and rail!) Abide the twin-damnation -    To fail and know we fail. Yet we - by which sole token    We know we once were Gods - Take shame in being broken    However great the odds -        The Burden or the Odds.

The last 15ish years have seen so much ink spilled on the Vanillish line, on gen 1 designs, etc etc, but I think it bears repeating how easy it is for a Mons game to stick to charismatic animals like mammals and birds and dinosaurs and pets. And pokemon does have that (we have, what, six cat lines? more if you count regional meowths) but it also makes sure to add, like. A crinoid. A bagworm. A bell. Creepy humanoid mushrooms, a sand castle, a big iceberg.

「キメラ」 by 熊野プラン | Twitter

current considerations are:

Subnautica Below Zero - pros include that I greatly enjoyed the first game. cons include that the first game glitched in a way that completely locked my save out of finishing the plot, and I'm wary the second game might have similar issues.

Pathologic 2 - after some degree of research determined that this is a more natural place to start the series than 1, because video game numbering is an exercise in insanity. otoh, I think... a challenging game, right? and I'm like kind of a little bit in burnout. so maybe the wrong time.

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild???? I've somehow never played this but 50% of games released since are based on it, right? does it still hold up. this is the one I most want to crowdsource opinions on. could be a good burnout game? does it hold up? I have never played a singular zelda in my life.

So, yesterday I read Magic The Gathering: The Visual Guide by Jay Anelli, published in 2020? 2022? Not sure.

Anyways. last night I was talking with some folks on Discord who are more knowledgeable than me about MtG, and we were discussing how a bunch of Planes exist to play around with certain subgenres and aesthetics of fantasy. And also that several of them brush against SF genres.

And so was wondering if they're ever gonna do a Plane for the Sword-And-Planet genre. And it occurred to me, today that, well. You could probably do something with John Carter being a Planeswalker?

Rath was a parasitic plane "orbitting" around the main plane, Dominaria, and home of the story's heroes. It was a barren, red wasteland made of nanomachine Flowstone ruled over by a dictatorial mad scientist, Volrath, and what little habitable lands were ruled by hardscrable and often mutated peoples abducted from other planes, with minions of Volrath's stronghold locked in constant warfare with rebel camps. It was very sci-fi adjacent, beginning and ending with skyship battles around portals and featuring shapeshifters, brainwashing, parasites, and all kinds of dimensional weirdness. It was also a creation of the Phyrexians, another deeply sci-fi culture; it's like how in sword-in-planet stories, it always turns out that there's a way more advanced and more typically SF race pulling the strings.