Pokemon Go and Cosplay Shaming

I didn't say much about Pokemon go when it first came out because I was busy writing Dragon Hand. It was quite an explosion, Pokemon Go is everywhere, everybody is playing it, it's even causing real world controversy which is actually a welcome change in the news from the usual election coverage. The biggest problem seems to be that cemetaries are upset with people coming in to play and not respecting the graves. I remember in college people throwing tailgate parties in the cemetary on game day, and one local cemetary hosts haunted tours at Halloween, but god forbid Pokemon cause any disrespect.Where else do we find Ghastly? Seriously I get it, but on the other hand some are embracing it, like the Colonie Mall in Albany NY which actually made a real world poke gym around the analog to the virtual location, or the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY which has six poke stops that they drop lures at for patrons to play around. Sadly the wave seems to be wearing down, but I know exactly why, the same eight pokemon keep appearing. No matter where you go, it seems like half the time it's Rattata, Pidgey, Weedle, Spearow, Caterpie, Eevee, Venonat, and Zubat, in roughly that order. At first it's fun to catch these and evolve them, but then you get enough for your pokedex and you're like, okay enough where's my Squirtle and Pikachu? The game's algorithm needs to get adjusted so that when you've completed evolutions for your pokedex new pokemon should be rotated in. I know Squirtles, Bulbasaurs, and Paras are in my neighborhood, but then why do the basic ones show up so much more often? I've caught over fifty and half are not evolved, so if the unevolved ones could just show up more often, I'd be happy, but enough with birds, bugs and rats please.One last note on Pokemon, the Magikarp; I came across an Asian legend that when a fish swims upstream it seeks the Dragon Gate and becomes a dragon when it passes through, the Magikarp is that fish and the difficulty of evolving it into Gyrados is meant to represent the difficulty of that journey. OGs know how hard it was to evolve the Magikarp ~20 levels with only splash, so the 400 candy requirement is the new way of teaching patience. And for anyone wondering about candy, the original game had a rare item called rare candy that leveled up Pokemon and they decided to pay tribute to that.

Now on to something sad, cosplay shaming. Last week a girl known as Bella Sparkles cosplayed as Harley Quinn and a troll decided to caption the picture "when you eat the whole Suicide Squad" just because she was extra curvy. Many fans came out in support of her, some even going too far with death threats against the troll, which is bad, don't sink to their level. But this is a big deal to me because Bella was actually cute and while objectively I would say she wasn't skinny, she still carried herself well and looked good and she should be praised for her effort because she really did make a beautiful Harley in my opinion and I hate when cosplayers like her get crap like this. When I was a kid, my mom, my sister, and just about everybody else had me convinced no girl was going to like me because I was a nerd and being interested in video games and anime would me undateable, maybe even unlovable. Now that I have seen the new geek culture, I am aware that there are plenty of hot nerd girls and probably one for me out there. But in the meantime, I have really low self-esteem and confidence because for years I thought I was alone. I know the pain these cosplayers must feel when they get crap like that and I know that it can be so discouraging that it can make some of them crawl back where they came from, which is sad. It's not just an irrational fear either, not long ago I met a cosplayer who told me she used to do Black Cat but because guys kept trying to grab her, she decided to crossplay as a male character and hide her feminine features to keep guys attention off of her. People, mostly guys, need to understand how special these girls are that they actually take the time to look at our nerdy stuff, find a sexy character and have enough admiration to dress up as the character and they don't even get paid for it, in fact most of them spend a lot making the costumes and paying for admission to the cons. They deserve respect because if they don't get it, they will stop. I don't want that, I want the girls out there doing what they do. I know they don't do it for me, fine, do it for yourself, you should. Even when you do something for others, you should try as often to enjoy it yourself as well. I wrote 7th Moon for myself and I want fans to enjoy it, I don't like people telling me my book is crap and I shouldn't be writing. Cosplayers go through the same thing. When I sell my books at a con, I enjoy watching cosplayers go by, I especially enjoy the sexy ones, yes even the plus size ones, especially the plus size ones. They make me feel not alone, and I want to take this time to say to any such girls, you're not alone. Don't let the haters get you down, you do have fans, and you are beautiful in your own way and nobody has the right to take that away from you.

One Punch Man

So there's this big show that's new to Toonami but already has legions of fans saying its hero is better than Goku. I'm talking about One Punch Man. If you don't know it is a superhero parody about a superhero so powerful he's actually gotten bored because he can end every fight in one punch. The first episode kind of wrings out every last drop of that initial premise as he takes on three or four different foes and makes quick work of all of them. It's actually quite funny but doesn't leave a lot of potential, the viewer getting as bored as the hero Saitama. However, there are more tropes to mine starting with the sidekick, Genos, a cyborg who logically should be stronger than Saitama, but somehow isn't. The running gag which continues to be hilarious long after it should is that Saitama simply decided to become a superhero one day and trained by doing "one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten kilometer run every day!"and within three years he has become the indestructable pinnacle of human fitness, even though he doesn't look it. It's funny because he doesn't look particularly muscular and yet he can overcome cyborgs and genetically engineered mutants like their inflatable punching bags. Each one comes at him as fierce as can be and Saitama doesn't care. Genos is the only one who gets it and has chosen to become his disciple. Most believe Genos is the superior, and it would appear that way except that in their first battle together against Mosquito Girl, Genos was bested while Saitama stepped in and took her out with one punch. Siatama can be a tool, but unlike everybody else, he's got the goods to back it up. In time Saitama finds a new challenge, public relations. He has saved the world on a daily basis but nobody knows who he is so he has to go on a journey to make a name for himself, because, well, he really has nothing better to do.

Now, out here in the real world, we have a problem because now fans keep asking who's stronger, Saitam or Goku. I say that depends, because clearly Saitama exists under a special set of circumstances which makes him superhuman. I remember once doing one hundred push-ups and one hundred sit-us every day, and unless it's te squats and the running that somehow magically completes the formula for superhuman, it's not enough to come close to Saitama. Now if we stay in his world and subscribe to the law that Saitama is unbeatable, then yes, he would beat Goku. However, based on what I've seen in every other anime, the second Saitama steps out of his universe and faces the laws of any other anime, Goku will totally kill him. Still, even though One Punch Man is preposterous, as the author of the similar parody Superfrenemies, I see it as a respectable rival for turning the superhero genre on its head and saying "WTF really?"

Sharknado the 4th Awakens and 2Lava2Lantula

This is a bit late, got held up by Camp NaNoWriMo and Suicide Squad, but still too big to be ignored.

Sharknado is the ultimate series of one-upmanship. Seriously, you think they can not possibly go farther than they did the last time and then they do, they find some way to go even further beyond than you ever imagined was humanly possible. Sharknado the 4th Awakens starts with a Star Wars style scroll to bring home the title tribute, catching us up as there has been a five year time jump during which our hero Fin Sheppard has been raising his son alone after April was injured and believed to be killed by falling space debris. The past five years have been peaceful because Astro-X has created a weather regulating technology that prevents tornadoes and therefore prevents sharknadoes. However, the technology is based around water based tornadoes and fails when a sand based tornado forms in Las Vegas hitting his casino that features an aquarium filled with sharks which seemed like a good idea at the time. It happens to hit when Finn, his older son played by Cody Lindley, and his cousin, Gemini, the obligatory hot chick in a bikini top, are visiting from Kansas. The Sandnado chases the Sheppards across the desert where it takes on boulders and becomes a Bouldernado with sharks that have rocks embedded in their hide. They reach Texas where they arm themselves at a chainsaw shop run by Dog the Bounty Hunter and the cast of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yes, seriously, Leatherface, and I mean the original actor from the original movie, takes a chainsaw to massacre sharks in Texas, and in case you're slow, his sister says "It just ain't Texas without a chainsaw massacre!" So good you can taste it! But wait there's more! At the same time, we find out April isn't dead, her father, played by Gary Busey, took her away from the hospital after they pulled the plug and rebuilt her as an upgraded cyborg represented by nothing more than an electric belt around her waist that now sustains her life while also giving her super powers and allow her to save her daughter and father-in-law, the latter played by David Hasselhoff who had been rescued from the moon by Astro-X and is now testing mech suits for fighting Sharknadoes. They try to reunite with Finn who is now headed to Kansas to get Gil. While in Kansas, he gets a chainsaw sword(YES!) and the Sharknado, which has become a cownado after pickign up cows from local farms, picks up his house and drops them all in Chicago on top of a witch of a mayor, who had said something along the lines of "I'll get you and your little chainsaw too!" her legs stick out under the house and they actually comment that "We aeren't in Kansas anymore!" Somewhere along the line it they attempt to stop the Sharknado by electrifying it and setting it on fire, making it a Lightningnado and a Firenado, although I forgot the order, then it hits a nuclear power plant becoming a Nuclearnado with glowing radioactive sharks. Honestly, the person I most fear for in this movie is Al Roker, who playing himself, actually had to describe all and name all of those variants of tornado and seems to be at risk of losing his credentials with the National Weather Service. Everything comes together at Niagra Falls where April is reunited with Finn and his father plans to use his mech suit to stop the Sharknado with assistance from two women played by his former baywatch costars and when the Sharknado catches up with them they run away in slow motion(dear God YES!) Hoff gets eaten alive in one bite by a shark as does Finn's daugther and older son, forcing Finn to use the mech suit himself to stop the Sharknado with help from April who has a swiss army knife of chainsaws and lasers in her prosthetic hand and rocket thrusters in her feet, and Finn ends up being eaten by a shark too(this is his third time being eaten by a shark BTW). Then comes the coupe de grace of Sharknado 4, the sharks that at the Sheppard family eat each other, whle and alive and are inturn eaten by a whale, then little Gil uses his mini-chainsaw(because all the Shappards get a chainsaw, semper paratus) to cut open the sharks and reveal the entire family is still alive! BUT WAIT, THERE'S STILL MORE! Finn is clinging to life and Hoff has to perform CPR and in desperation they try to defribrillate him using April's power belt and two small sharks as paddles! And then the Eiffel Tower lands with Nova standing on it and Finn responds "This isn't over yet." Extend the WTF meter for Sharknado 5 because this one broke it!

That was the good, now for the bad. Among the cameos in Sharknado 4 was Steve Gutenberg talking about "spiders in Fort Lauderdale" which can only mean one thing 2Lava2Lantula, the sequel to last year's Lavalantula, the heir apparent to Sharknado. There was a lot of promise to live up to and unlike Sharknado, the hype was not real. Lavalantula was about fire breathing giant spiders in Los Angeles, now it's in Fort Lauderdale where Gutenberg's stepdaughter is taking a break from school where she's majoring in geology, which happens to be the critical science need to locate the subterranean spider queen. The suspense of the first film is gone now, as everyone is prepared with liquid nitrogen guns and Gutenberg's only new contribution is to grumble in a bad impersonation of Vin Diesel. It's not bad by SyFy standards, it's just that it could have stepped up it's game more like Sharknado did and it didn't, so I don't know if they'll try again, but I know I don't really care.

Suicide Squad

I've had a few things to talk about since I just finished my book, Foreworld Saga: Dragon Hand which should be up in the next few days, but since all the critics are giving Suicide Squad bad reviews, I thought I'd put that on the top of my to do list.

Suicide Squad is a good movie, but it helps if you know who's in it and where they fit in the DC universe. The thing is these are all villains that made their first appearances causing trouble for all the  superheros, but they were so cool, we, the fans got a soft spot for them and want to see them redeemed. DC decided that the way to redeem these bad boys and girls was to put them together on the Suicide Squad, a group run by government agent Amanda Waller, who is frankly the worst one of all. She is cold as ice, but she gets the job done. As for the others, the first character we are introduced to is Deadshot, the most accurate marksman in the world who works as a hitman. He goes to prison for a $2 million job, but he's sympathetic because he has a daughter and he does it all for her. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, we have El Diablo, a pyrokinetic who became a powerful criminal who lost his temper and killed his family one night, then gave himself up tot he authorities, because what's the point of having all the power in the world if it cost you the only thing that matters? El Diablo is really the best part of the story, he exemplifies what it's all about, a bad guy trying to be good. WHat sets him apart from everyone is he has already sought the path of redemption, the others have to be forced to do the right thing, he actually wants to do the right thing. Then there's Killer Croc who is familiar to fans from the 90's when he was on the animated series alot, he's an unfortunate situation, he was born with atavistic hyperkeratosis, so he's actually part crocodile for no reason other than a random genetic defect, and he became a monster inside to match what people treated him like on the outside, but his story is downplayed to the point that the only time that he's important is when he swims through a flooded subway. Then there's Captain Boomerang and Slipknot who are pretty worthless, especially Slipknot, who is introduced last and only lasts long enough to die trying to get away proving the nano bombs in ther necks are for real. This group is held together by Colonel Rick Flagg and Katana who are not bad guys but get stuck working with them anyway. Katana is another obscure character, she takes her name from the Soul Stealer, a sword that killed her husband and trapped his soul and then she used it to avenge him by killing the guy who ordered his death in the first place, and now she still uses it to fight and kill whoever Flagg orders her to. Rick is not so much a superhero as the model soldier that Captain America could have been if he had just been a good soldier instead of a scienc experiment. Rick's problem is that Waller had him bring in the last member of the Suicide Squad, her special pet, The Enchantress, and he fell in love with her. The Enchantress is most definitely the most powerful one in the group, so much that she becomes the antagonist of the movie. The Enchantress is actually two people, archaeologist Dr. June Moon(because her parents hate her, apparently) and an extradimensional goddess who possesses her, but has a weakness, a heart that is seperated from her body that allows Waller to control her. What Waller doesn't count on is Enchantress releasing her brother who helps set her free and they terrorize Midway City. Relly she want to take over the world, she picks this city for one reason only, because it's where Waller is and she can start by taking revenge on her and reclaiming her heart so she can be free.

No, I did not forget about Harley Quinn, it's just that she deserves her own section. Harely is the Joker's girlfriend, introduced in the 90's animated series. Usually when comics get adapted, anything new added in for the adaptation is not recognized by the original creator and it's ignored, but Harley was unique. The Joker had a plan to pop out of a cake to ambush some police officers, but the showrunners wanted to have a girl pop out of the cake and gave him a minion tailor made just for this. That gilr was Harley Quinn and took on a life of her own, developing a bizzarre backstory in which she was actually a doctor treating the Joker at Arkham Asylum, but fell in love with him and became the Bonnie to his Clyde. She got put in the comics and has a rabid following, leading to the true purpose of Suicide Squad, redeeming Harley Quinn. This is her first time on the big screen and this is a critical point in Harley's development, because when Harley joins the Suicide Squad, we see she has potential for good, which creates a very special situation in which she gets to play hero with the good guys, the very same good guys that she used to try to kill and put her in prison in the first place. This movie doesn't show that future very well, but fans know that now that she has been introduced, she's in play for any future films. The truth is Harley is actually a very sweet character, the example of "loyal to a fault" her fault being that her loyalty was to a bad man who taught her to do bad things. She, like many of the squad, does the wrong thing for the right reasons. Throughout the movie she shows she has a good heart and loves the people in her life, but the Joker corrupted her, and while she still is motivated to do right by those she cares about, she has lost her moral compass beyond that sense of loyalty, so if you get on her bad side, you are so screwed. She spends a lot of the fight scenes using just a baseball bat, infrequently using a revolver that has a barrel with alernating "LOVE" and "HATE" engravings. She can be a badass, but you have to respect the purity of her motivation. Margot Robbie does a great job playing her, portraying her personality, and her unique accent, which has not been shown well in promotions, do not believe the previews, when she says "Puddin" and "Mr. J." she has the accent down pat.

Ultimately this movie is about showing the best in the worst of us, and sometimes the worst in the best of us. Don't trust the critics, go see the movie and judge for yourself, you'll be glad you did.