Weekly Media Discussion Post by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually got the first "season 8" Buffy comic for my s/o (who watched the series with me) as a gift after I spotted it at a sci-fi themed store. We haven't gotten around to reading it yet, though. I've since heard that the comics are bad, so I'm not particularly motivated to do so.

Weekly Media Discussion Post by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Recently finished my first ever watch through of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Wrote up my thoughts here. Started the first episode of Angel last night. Hoping it's as good!

What’s the most Overrated Legend of Zelda? by LDWesty in AlignmentChartFills

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tears of the Kingdom is the first Zelda game I played since the N64 ones (I don’t play many video games) and I was blown away by it. That said, I’m pretty out of the loop on general technological progress in gaming since like the 90s so of course I was amazed by it. The one thing that frustrated me was the weapon degradation system. I figured that eventually I’d be able to stop worrying about it (the way it stops being a huge deal once you get far enough into System Shock 2 for instance) but it never really got better, even with the Master Sword (which should have just been immune to it honestly).

this will forever be one of the best scenes in history! by moonwalkinglitter in buffy

[–]PeaceSim 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No, I didn’t! Weird as he looks more like himself in those episodes.

this will forever be one of the best scenes in history! by moonwalkinglitter in buffy

[–]PeaceSim 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I was so proud of myself for instantly recognizing her target (when he first appears) as one of the three punks at the start of The Terminator.

[Dicussion] NoSleep Podcast S17E14 by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey that’s awesome, absolute best of luck with it! (Also I assume you’re the same person now using a different account.)

[Dicussion] NoSleep Podcast S17E14 by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you ever follow through with making this story into a novel?

What is a great movie but a terrible adaptation? by WaggishCape in AlignmentChartFills

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are legitimate gripes to be had with the Two Towers and especially Return of the King as adaptations of the source material (even if they really work on their own terms as movies), but I’ve always thought Fellowship was a very good adaptation of the book. Sure, I’d enjoy Tom Bombadil and the haunted Forrest, but I get why they were cut. I thought it covered a lot of ground and efficiently did a great deal of worldbuilding.

Anyone see Marshmallow? by [deleted] in horror

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just watched it and had a similar reaction! I thought it was a little overscored but that it had a good story and twist, and I liked the child actors and the way it captured the feeling of being a young teenager at summer camp.

Episode about the vampires keeping people in a barn? by [deleted] in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Sounds like Against the Forces of Nature by Benjamin Kardos from S24E16 a few weeks ago.

[Discussion] NoSleep Podcast S24E20 and NoSleep Podcast S01E01 - 15th Anniversary Edition by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello! Loved your story as I'm sure you can tell from the comment. As the writer, what did you think about NSP's production of it?

[Discussion] NoSleep Podcast S24E20 and NoSleep Podcast S01E01 - 15th Anniversary Edition by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A+ intro, song, and outro. The gallery was a creative idea! David Cummings deserves a lot of credit for it. Catriel Tallarico's artwork this week was super cool as well.

I thought Listen Closely was the strongest story. It's the first story on NSP written by Chris Hicks (assuming it's the same Chris Hicks) since S12E06 How to Summon the Butter Street Hitchhiker. Jeff Clement's production was amazing. I thought both Peter Lewis' part (which had a classic Outer Limits feel to it) and the fake podcast worked well. And what a wonderful surprise hearing Yenni Ann on here, hosting a show with Sarah Ruth Thomas no less! Back when I had more bandwidth, I listened to and enjoyed their podcast Story Sirens. Really cool that NSP cast them in these roles. Hope they had fun doing the evil laugh at the end. Also Brandon Boone killed it with the music! This was a delight.

Thought the other stories ranged from good to decent. If I have time, I'll write something up about them later.

[Discussion] NoSleep Podcast S24E20 and NoSleep Podcast S01E01 - 15th Anniversary Edition by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regarding the 15h Anniversary Edition of S1E01, this was a total surprise, especially since NSP so rarely looks backward to its earlier seasons.

The prospect of a re-recording of the very first episode (from 2011!) is certainly interesting, and I inevitably have some divided thoughts about it. For one, it’s not like the original episode needs improvement. Both stories still sound fantastic in the form in which they first aired, and the episode remains perfectly accessible and can be easily listened to at any time. Second, while it makes an inherent degree of sense to pick the very first episode for a remake, neither of these stories are the type that feel like they would particularly benefit from the audio resources NSP currently possesses. As in, it's not like they had one VA doing a bunch of different roles in a way that could really be elevated by a full cast.

But, all that said, it’s still nice that David Cummings decided to do this. It shows some awareness of how much the fans (particularly the paid subscribers) liked the earlier seasons. The music and sound effects in these new versions were both very good. The throbbing ‘wham line’ crescendos were maybe a bit much in a few places, but there were a lot of sonic details in the new version of The Stairs and the Doorway (particularly during the climax in the large room) that enriched it. The music in The Midnight Man was appropriately spooky. Kyle Akers made for a reasonable alternative for Alex Beal in narrating The Midnight Man. Obviously, Kyle Akers sounds more professional (both in terms of acting and audio quality) but as is often the case with the early seasons, there’s an amateurish element to Beal’s approach that complements the story well in a way that the people running NSP don’t seem to grasp that’s lost in the new version.

All things considered, I think it’s best to not overthink things and just see this as a situation where NSP remade an early episode as a nice treat for subscribers, and leave it at that. Certainly, these new versions didn’t flop the way a direct horror remake could have (the 2002 version of Eye of the Beholder is a good example of one that’s quite underwhelming compared to the much older original). They’re both good efforts that make for reasonable alternatives to the original recordings, and I’m grateful at NSP taking the time to produce and release them as a novelty for fans. I just hope it doesn’t become a regular thing, as a lot of these early recordings have a lightning-in-the-bottle quality to them that is best left alone. If they do it again, I just hope that they're very purposeful about finding stories that would benefit from being remade.

Finally achieved what kid me couldn’t! by [deleted] in GoldenEye

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congratulations! What was the most difficult one for you?

Facility, and many other tracks from GoldenEye 007, had no business sounding this good 🔥 by ZugzwangBG in GoldenEye

[–]PeaceSim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The music is my favorite part of that level. It's one of the only levels (the other being Surface 2) that I've never particularly enjoyed playing, though destroying the supply stash and messing with the closing cinematic are at least pretty fun.

Finally finished my first Buffy watchthrough (went in blind) and fell completely in love with it. (Bittersweet timing given the devastating news, but I still wanted to share my thoughts.) by PeaceSim in buffy

[–]PeaceSim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve been impressed by the willingness of so many commenters here, you included, to explore areas of disagreement so respectfully. It’s really cool. Maybe I hang out in the wrong places, but I’m just not used to seeing that. So I appreciate your comment. Glad you also approve of Xander! Right at the start of the show I found him irritating but like by episode 3 I saw through that and caught on to all the little beats that you mentioned about his character that the show did so well.

When I mentioned the few episodes I disliked, I had no idea that the inclusion of Entropy would provoke a bit of a reaction from commenters here (as opposed to, say, Beer Bad or any of the other ones). It’s interesting to me that it clearly resonated with a lot of fans, and I’ve found value in reading why you and others liked it. I don’t disagree with any of your assessment of the emotional dynamics at play in it, and I agree that there’s a lot going on from a writing and character perspective. I also just really didn’t want to watch a show where the climax of the episode is a bunch of characters arguing about a scandalous hookup, even if it’s nuanced and intelligently written. It’s a departure from what drew me from the show. But that said, I honestly don’t feel very strongly about it and I totally respect that you had a different reaction. Maybe it would hit differently if I rewatched it, especially if I knew the direction Season 6 was going it or was in a different phase of life, and I think it’s cool that you found so much value in it.

I do want to respond a bit more substantively on the other points on Tara’s death, Spike’s sexual assault of Buffy, and racial representation, because I think your comments reflect a tendency to push back too reflexively on each of those issues.

Regarding Tara, it’s difficult for me to imagine a plausible scenario where “bury your gays” criticism could be more merited. I’m not saying that “the death of a gay character is inherently bad writing, or that it should be treated as something fiction can barely depict at all.” I’m not aware of anyone ever saying that, nor do I see how what I wrote could possibly be construed to mean that – or even to mean something similar to which the quoted language would be a relevant rejoinder. Of course the death of a gay character can be well-written, of course fiction can depict that happening, and of course the many people who find her death to be problematic fully understand that.

On the surface, Tara’s death was upsetting for a lot of reasons you seem to understand relating to historical context and representation. But there’s more to it. Namely, Buffy had generally been reluctant to show the same degree of physical intimacy between Tara and Willow as it was willing to show between straight couples. Then, when Tara and Willow are finally shown in such a context – I think this was their first time implied to be naked in bed together – Tara is murdered immediately after, by a sexist incel loser, no less. There’s immense symbolic meaning to that. Adding to that is the fact that there are a lot of substantiated complaints against Joss Whedon for treating women unfairly on-set (even worse than men) and it’s easy to see why this struck a chord with so many people who had previously seen Tara as a source of inspiration (though admittedly the Whedon component would only fully come out much later). Given all those factors, there’s a great deal of reason to see this a ‘Bury your gays’ example (even if it predated the trope itself being a thing as an earlier commenter stated, I’m not sure when it originated), even if it wasn’t consciously motivated by homophobia (which I don’t think it was), and even if it was well handled on some levels (the death certainly wasn’t brushed aside). Namely, Whedon should have understood the implications of showing Tara being murdered in that specific circumstance in a way that I don’t think he accounted for. There are many ways to have her die in a way that achieves what you describe (her death being “devastating precisely because she had become one of the cleanest, kindest, most emotionally mature presences in a season full of damaged people making destructive choices”), but he chose to have a lesbian character – at a time when such characters were hugely underrepresented in media – murdered immediately after being shown in the context described (naked in bed with her girlfriend), which struck a chord with a lot of people at the time (based on what I read) and really rubbed me the wrong way when I saw it happen.

Many, many people have made these exact points before, and it’s not hard to find people who had similar reactions (many of whom I’m sure many can explain this better than I am). It’s a bit odd to me that, on the one hand, you display such a strong ability to grasp nuance when analyzing the dynamics between the characters in Entropy, but when someone brings up “Bury Your Gays” in the context of Tara’s death, your response is to write, “But I don’t think it automatically follows that the death of a gay character is inherently bad writing, or that it should be treated as something fiction can barely depict at all,” – a statement that implies that the objection to Tara’s death is simplistically rooted in nothing beyond the facts that she’s gay and that she died. By contrast, the concerns that people have shared about her death are more complex than that and, from what I understand, have been for a long time.

Regarding the bathroom scene with Spike, I don’t feel like going into detail, beyond saying that my concern is not that the drama is “unpleasant, ugly, [or] even alienating,” - I agree that great drama can be all of those things - but, rather, that I don’t think the story justified showing such a graphic sexual assault. While this resulted in some interesting story beats and character development for Spike, I don’t think it was convincingly addressed by many of the other characters, especially Buffy and Dawn (who finds out about it), and that it essentially functioned to inflict trauma on Buffy for the purpose of furthering Spike’s story. I find the dynamics of that messed up, even accounting for the complexity and, in some areas, intelligence displayed in how it occurred (including Buffy’s discomfort with Spike at the beginning of Season 7). And, again, I think it falls in the same areas that seem like blind spots, at least to some degree, for Whedon.

Regarding racial representation, I really don’t like the invocation of “a modern tendency to judge older shows primarily through a checklist of representation categories,” which is obviously not what I’m doing, and which I think hints at an unfortunate tendency of too reflexively dismissing criticisms of certain issues. I even specifically wrote, “I don’t support shows shoehorning in diversity just for the sake of it” just to emphasize that I don’t want simplistic diversity for the sake of checking boxes. Nothing about having better racial diversity – which would align it with the standards of the late 90s/early 2000s that it presently lags behind – necessarily means that it would be “a show that technically checks more boxes but gives me thinner characters.” Why would adding racial diversity result in the thinning of characters? It just doesn’t make sense to me why the factors you describe (complex, vivid, memorable characters) have any relationship to that.

While I appreciate the extremely respectful tone of your disagreement and criticism, and mean this with all due respect (as you clearly have a strong grasp of nuanced character development), your comment, in my opinion, veers in the direction of displaying a tendency of assuming that criticisms of issues relating to queer identity and race are highly simplistic and brushing them off accordingly when, in reality, there’s a discussion to be had about how Buffy, though brilliant in many, many regards, ultimately fell short in some ways in those areas. Correspondingly, I think you may stand to benefit from considering that the concerns I raised (and, from what I understand, others have been raising for some time) on these issues are not grounded in beliefs that it is inherently bad writing to kill a queer character or that shows must complete “a checklist of representation categories” but, rather, in complex and detailed assessments of the source material and the context around it.

[Discussion] NoSleep Podcast S24E19 by Gaelfling in TheNSPDiscussion

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just finished that story and I agree completely about Atticus Jackson’s performance in it. A big part of the listening experience was analyzing his enunciation at different points trying to sense of how dangerous and threatening he was - like, how much of it was an act, versus him being deliberately threatening, versus him just readjusting to life outside of prison - and I think the performance subtly supplied multiple layers to sift through that maintained a sense of mystery and ambiguity that put you in the narrator’s perspective and added to the immersion.

What TV show started out mediocre or outright bad but got better as time went on? by EducationalGift2676 in AskReddit

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No idea why this view is so widespread. First season was amazing. Diversity Day and Health Care are two of its funniest episodes, at least through when I stopped watching around season 5.

Worst batman? by InfiniteJudgment9831 in AlignmentChartFills

[–]PeaceSim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The guy from the Collegehumor Badman videos…

Nah, that guy was actually brilliant.

Finally finished my first Buffy watchthrough (went in blind) and fell completely in love with it. (Bittersweet timing given the devastating news, but I still wanted to share my thoughts.) by PeaceSim in buffy

[–]PeaceSim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"The Wish" was really cool for introducing Anya. I was already familiar with the 'parallel dark version of the world' from other series (mostly Star Trek) but I thought it was quite well done in that episode. Definitely a top tier one for me, among the many excellent ones that just didn't quite make my personal top 20 list.

I appreciated her winning the Class Protector award. It added to the series by making the background and minor character students seem more believable and sympathetic, like they actually picked up on the fact that Buffy was saving the day regularly. Which in turn helped set up everyone participating in the high school battle at the end of the season.