joshua macdougall

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 9 – Everything Old is New Again

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I want to use my local library, specifically, I want to walk to my local library, which is only about a ten-minute walk away, and write these on my laptop at the library. I had planned to work on it Monday through Friday, but one thing after another kept happening, so I ended up skipping a week. The theme of this one is in the title, as I’m rereading The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, released last April, I’m playing games that I played in the Xbox 360 era on my PC, and in AEW, a lot of the men’s feuds seem to be continuing to mixed results.

Books – The Incandescent Reread and Blood for the Unyding Throne Release

The urge to re-read The Incandescent by Emily Tesh from earlier this year took over me about a week ago, and I just finished it again. That may be my favorite book of the year, even more so than The Devils by Joe Abercrombie, who is one of my favorite authors. I don’t often describe a book as beautiful, but to me, that is a beautiful book. Particularly this time around I find Dr. Walden’s meeting with Nikki Conway just heartbreaking. A teenager, barely an adult, is thinking of turning down a great opportunity to be the support system to her friend, who, like her, has no support system in a world where money can determine everything you have in life. Through this conversation, Dr. Walden has to kind of reassess the privilege she has had, which the character of Laura Kenning pointed out before she lost her job. It’s honestly such a great take on the British magical boarding school; it’s going to end up being one of my favorite books ever.

The terminology of academia may seem like an obstructing wall of jargon—and sometimes, perhaps, it is—but far more often than that, it is a set of keys. You cannot understand the forces you are dealing with, still less wield them meaningfully yourself, unless you have the words to set around them. The language of power is the handle on the knife.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

A certain podcast was quoted on the back. 👀

— No Page Unturned Podcast (@nopageunturned.bsky.social) 2025-10-29T21:31:39.628Z

The hardcover for Blood of the Undying Throne came out this Tuesday and I didn’t want to say anything about it when it was on my advance reader copy but the official copy has a quote from my podcast No Page Unturned on the GeeklyInc podcast network. If you don’t know, often praise for the previous book of a series will be quoted on the next one from various sources who talk about it. I didn’t know this was happening and was quite shocked in a good way to see this. It means a lot.

Games – Xbox 360 Games Come Back Around and God of War (2018)

It seems, without realizing it, I’ve wandered back to my Xbox 360 era with the games I’m playing recently. I already mentioned Mass Effect: Legendary Edition in the last volume. Still, I’ve been crafting a private list on my Backlogged of my personal best 100 games of all time, and I came about to a discussion with my friend Hiro about how Batman: Arkham Asylum is essentially a Metroidvania. So that discussion has me playing it, to see where in 2025 it falls on my list, and it holds up amazingly well, especially the combat system, considering how many games have taken it and evolved it since then. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on my Steam Deck, but its sequel, Arkham City, does, so I’m also playing that on there bit by bit when I am lounging on the couch, taking a break from reading, or lying in bed in the morning. It’s also October, so I installed the Dead Space remake from last year onto my desktop. That’s another Xbox 360 era game I played a lot. Now that I think about it, weirdly, the last year has been filled with throwbacks to the 360 days.

  • Almost a year ago the first Red Dead Redemption came out on PC.
  • Sega put out that remake/remaster of Sonic Generations that added Shadow content.
  • Valve updated Half-Life 2 last November for the 20th Anniversary and put it out for free.
  • Dead Rising came out with that Deluxe Remaster last September.
  • Castle Crashers put out new DLC and updated all the art for that game.
  • Oblivion received a remaster earlier this year.
  • Gears of War Reloaded was released for the Playstation and PC.
  • A new version of Ninja Gaiden II was released called Ninja Gaiden II Black

All of this brings me to say, where the fuck is a new Peggle?! Also Capcom, make vanilla Street Fighter 4 on Steam playable again, thanks. Back to the subject of my 100 greatest games list, I don’t know where they fell on the list, but Batman: Arkham Asylum and God of War (2018) were, I believe, close together, so somehow playing Arkham Asylum led me to installing God of War and sinking my teeth into it once again, and deep.

Oh, wait, I remember now. I was listening to a gaming podcast where one cast membner said they haven’t replayed the new God of War games because they’re only fun when Kratos is fully kitted out, which I fundamentally disagree with. After playing twenty-two hours of the PC version, I vehemently disagree with this. It’s still amazing how good that axe feels in it, when you swing, when you throw, when you bring it back to your hand. The incredible feeling of it never goes away, even after seven years, three if you’re talking Ragnarok. When our family received money for our possessions in our house that were lost in the fire in 2017, I, on a whim, bought a PlayStation 4 Pro and God of War (2018). In a weird way, those two purchases for a time represented all the systems and games I lost in the fire, which was not a small amount, going back to my childhood.

Wrestling – AEW Forbidden Door to Full Gear.

AEW Wrestledream was great, but I think I missed my moment, personally, to write about it when I skipped writing about it last week. The only comment I will make is that I didn’t love the main event so much that Samoa Joe versus Hangman Page shouldn’t have been a main event, but I also am not Darby’s biggest fan. I’m sure what is coming out of it will be great, but I’m going to be perfectly honest, Samoa Joe v. Hangman and Darby Allin v. Jon Moxley really didn’t need to continue.

I said the other day I kind of miss when AEW only had four pay-per-views, and that’s not completely true. The truth is, the spacing for Forbidden Door to All Out (or vice versa with All In mixed in) to WrestleDream to Full Gear to World’s End is kind of a mess as there are so few weeks in between those to build feuds. It doesn’t help that sometimes a Dynamite after a PPV can be the real end of the feud, with Dynamite acting as a sort of fallout for the final match of the feud on PPV. Neither do the specials like Blood & Guts, Ring of Honor PPVs, Grand Slam, Anniversary episodes thrown in the bunch there. It’s all kinda messy. I say this, when in fact I’m not unhappy, really, with AEW at all right now, but it does feel like the late summer to fall to winter lineup needs some sprucing up especially when you compare it to Revolution to All In.

Personally, I think World’s End is a cursed pay-per-view. The first one was not only boring but represented a lot of what was wrong with MJF’s first title reign and his vision for AEW. The second one, even with the Continental Classic finals, was tarnished by Jon Moxley’s terrible idea for a four-way with AEW top guys at the time, where the Death Riders just made them look like idiots, and then Adam Copeland returned to make them look even more like idiots. Throw it in the bin, put WrestleDream in that spot on the calendar, have the C2 finals there, and move Full Gear up by maybe a week or two to give space between it and WrestleDream. You can have whatever special TV episodes you want, like Blood & Guts, Grand Slam in NY, etc, between All Out and Full Gear when WrestleDream would originally take place. Forbidden Door would maybe benefit and be seen as more special if it were biennial. That’s one solution to the too-tight schedule that is AEW’s late August to December, but I’m sure Tony could come up with a different or better plan if he tried, perhaps.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol.5 – SAVE the World Championship

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

My first late edition. Most of this was written enough to release it on Wednesday, but I was struggling to find the words to express my feelings about Undertale‘s 10th Anniversary without sharing too much or getting wordy, but still making it feel personal. I don’t think I nailed exactly how I feel, but I did the best I could.

Games – Undertale 10th Anniversary

This year is Undertale’s 10th Anniversary, Toby Fox has been celebrating it with Fangamer in their first of a couple of streams with some unique things inserted into the game that have the fandom going wild and putting every detail under a microscope. I haven’t had time to watch the whole stream, but I have taken in a lot of what Toby Fox has had to say about it. I usually write most of these on the weekend or at least have a lot written in my head before I login to my WordPress account, but I’ve been struggling to articulate what this game means to me without going insane with the word count here. 2018 was a rough year for my family and me after a house fire destroyed our home and nearly all our personal possessions, but my community of friends, both online and offline, had my back and were kind enough to raise money so I could get back some of what I lost, including a Nintendo Switch. The kindness of people and that Nintendo Switch, which I still own, got me through what was one of the lowest points of my life. The games that I bought and played that year mean a lot to me, and Undertale was one of those games.

The only information I knew about the game was not to kill the monsters if I wanted to see the full story, and I didn’t listen. I can still picture myself sitting on the floor because I didn’t own a chair, my back against my mattress, and the rented bed frame the homeowner’s insurance got for us in the rental home we were going to be in for a year while the house had to be rebuilt. I had killed Toriel because I didn’t realize I could spare the bosses, too, and I felt so awful about it when Flowey the Flower reminded me I could actually reset the game, so I did, and then didn’t play the game for another three months. I don’t remember which song, but it was hearing a song from near the endgame that got me back into it, and then it blew my mind when Flowey called me out for resetting the game after killing Toriel so much. I stayed up all night in bed, doing the entire pacifist run to ungodly hours. Something about the situation I was in, the friends and family that supported me, and that finale of the pacifist run that just opened the floodgates when I played it. I’ve never teared up at really sad moments in stories. It’s those moments of triumph, overcoming overwhelming odds, when hope returns, that really gets me emotional, like when Gandalf arrives with the Rohirrim at the Battle of Helm’s Deep. That moment at the end of the game still gets to me. Just hearing “Hopes and Dreams” to “SAVE the World” to “His Theme” brings me back to the moments lying in bed thinking of everything I’ve been through from November 2017 to November 2018. The game will always be very special to me for that. It is a game about our connections to other people, and connections were very important to me in that year. Happy 10th Anniversary, Undertale.

Wrestling – Post- AEW All Out ‘25

Here is the thing about AEW pay-per-views, I haven’t watched one without my friends since Revolution 2020 and since then there have been maybe four of them that have been bad vibes, AEW All Out 2020 due to Matt Hardy getting concussed and them continuing the match, Double or Nothing 2022 because CM Punk winning the world title felt like the worst call you could make, World’s End 2023 because it might have been the only AEW PPV I would call boring, and World’s End 2024 because Adam Copeland was the least exciting return to take on the Death Riders after a weird fourway main event that made everyone in it look dumb as hell. All Out 2025 started out weird with Christian and Copeland vs. FTR in what I would describe as a main event of WWE Raw in 2019. In other words, this match fucking sucked, and I am so ready for Copeland to retire. I’ll sacrifice Christian retiring to not get more of this bullshit. I don’t care if he’s retiring or their history, I don’t want to see references to John Cena, Defender, and Best Friend to Sex Trafficking Vince McMahon on an AEW show, get the fuck outta here. The entire layout of this match screamed WWE-produced, and I was not here for it. It was not a great start for the show, but luckily, it was the worst match on the show. Even the Hurt Syndicate, which I do not give a fuck about, nor do I want to see MVP wrestle, gave us something better by at least losing to Ricochet’s new faction, The Demand.

The show felt all uphill from there for me. The return of Eddie Kingston, Mark Briscoe getting a victory over MJF, and Riho having a great showing against Mercedes, showing some ego against the TBS Champion, that I greatly enjoyed so much that I’d love for them to run it back. The three-way match between Okada, Takeshita, and Mascara Dorada, if not for the main event, might have been my match of the night. I hope we get Takeshita vs. Dorada, Okada vs. Dorada, and of course, Takeshita vs. Okada sooner than later. Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin’s Coffin Match was the kind of violence I desired after the high-octane match for the Unified Title, but I was pretty surprised to see Darby lose his first coffin match in AEW. I’ve been championing how great Kris Statlander is since she joined AEW in late 2019, and I was hooting and hollering when she did Chuck Taylor’s seatbelt pin to win the AEW Women’s World Championship against Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter, and Thekla. I recalled at that moment when Wheeler Yuta pinned Chuck Taylor with that same pin while Orange Cassidy was on commentary and Orange just saying, with sadness in his voice, “Chuck taught him that pin.” Speaking of Orange Cassidy, it was greatly hinted at that his return would be this Wednesday in a segment during the show, which added to the hype for me. Finally, the ladder match for the tag titles was insane, terrifying, and awesome. AEW could have pulled the trigger on giving Jetspeed the belts, or return them to the Young Bucks, but I was glad we’re continuing with Brodido, who were equally insane, terrifying, and awesome in this match.

Finally, the main event. I’ll never get tired of seeing Hangman Adam Page being the top babyface, the guy, the man, the world champ, and backing it up in one of my favorite matches of the year against TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher. I had no doubt going into it that Hangman was going to win, but the match gave me just that small amount of doubt that made this even more exciting. Kyle Fletcher is definitely going to be World Champion sooner than later, probably via beating Will Ospreay two years from now, but the chemistry between Fletcher and Hangman was top-notch. The poetry of Fletcher not getting the Tiger Driver ‘98 off, but Hangman Page being able to do Swerve’s Big Pressure was chef’s kiss. This is on my list of matches I am going to rewatch from this year, the first chance I get.

Books – Summer Reading Slump

It’s officially autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I’m hoping my summer reading slump isn’t turning into a Fall one. Something about this year has been making it difficult to sit down and lose myself in reading like usual. I’m not reading any slower,r but carving out less time to read than I usually do. It honestly feels like a reflection of current events. I want to read more. I’m not enjoying reading any less. Hopefully, now that summer is over, I will get back into the reading swing.

I realized in the writing of this that I’m not taking my own advice. People who find out I read a lot of books often ask me how, and I often give the advice I first read in Stephen King’s book On Writing, you have to choose to. If you want to read a lot of books, you have to make the time in whatever part of the day you can, waiting in line, on the toilet, right before bed, right when you wake up, while eating breakfast, etc. Writing is this way, too. You can’t just wait for the perfect time or wait to be inspired you have to take the time by force and use it.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 4 – Blood, Silk, and Builds

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Books – Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

Now that I’ve gotten the Silksong obsession out of my system, I am going to spend the time between now and the end of September catching up on some books I’ve been meaning to finish, including ones mentioned here, and starting the sequel to last year’s Blood of the Old Kings (which the first book is out on paperback now if you want to pick it up yourself). I have my copy of Blood for the Undying Throne, but I haven’t started yet. I’m literally planning to sit down and start it as soon as I finish this book, but what I expect is more of the mystery of how the Empire in the book got its iron grip over this world, and more resistance against it. The Bleeding Empire series so far somehow feels like a throwback to the late eighties – early nineties style of fantasy books, and also a breath of fresh air. One of my cohosts of No Page Unturned, our book podcast, said they can’t wait for me to read this book, as the new country they go to will remind me of Jorat in The Name of All Things by Jenn Lyons, which is one of my favorite books.

Just a little plug, we did do an interview with the author and the translator, who were both a joy to talk to, and I learned a lot about translations and other subjects from them. If you want to check it out.

Games – More Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2 1.0 announced.

I have been positively obsessed with Hollow Knight: Silksong. As of writing this, I have done everything to do in the base game one hundred percent, except for one optional boss I missed in the middle part of the game, which I didn’t know was available. I have every mask, every skill, every tool, every crest, and beat the final boss literally like thirty minutes ago. This is definitely one of my top Metroidvanias of all time, and might be one of my favorite games ever. There was only one boss that I became frustrated with after completing Act I, but it always felt like it was on my part rather than the design of the boss itself. I don’t know if others are the same or different, but the patterns of bosses often take me multiple times to catch up, I think perhaps due to my not-so-great eyesight. Like, first try, I’ll see oh this attack causes this attack to pop out, oh I can pogo that I didn’t know that, or I can deflect this attack and get under them, and so forth. The last last boss definitely tested me a lot, and it took quite some time for me to finally beat them, and even then, I think I just barely squeaked by. When I beat them, I didn’t go, “Oh, I’m so glad it’s over.” I wanted to try again and see if I could do it better with different tools and different crests. No such luck so far, but like I said, I just beat it not that long ago.

I don’t want to go into detail about the story or the ending, but I do think I love the story and the characters more than the first game. Hornet’s dialogue is so good, and her interaction with the characters nails what I think her character’s voice and personality based on what we knew of her from the first game. Without spoiling the ending, I do think Team Cherry isn’t done with this franchise or Hornet, and I am looking forward to what they do next. The story of difficulty continues to be a discussion, and I’m firmly in the camp of, just like the FromSoftware games, that difficulty options should be in the games, especially accessibility options. Easier modes should be an option, but if you are able to, normal mode should at least be tried, even if you go through the game on easy mode first. That being said, I am forty now and definitely have had to take breaks from Silksong to rest my hands so they didn’t hurt later, and anyone with accessibility issues should be able to enjoy a game like this with the options available.

Anyway, I had to open my big mouth. I believe I mentioned it here, but as soon as I said Silksong was going to be my game of the year, a Nintendo Direct aired shortly afterward and announced that Supergiant’s Hades 2 was coming out of early access and into 1.0 on September 25th. That’s just next Thursday already, after Silksong has just come out on the 4th! That’s absolutely crazy, but I don’t think personally it’s going to topple Silksong or Donkey Kong Bananza from my top 2 games simply because, quite frankly, I don’t really care for roguelike games in general. There are only two I’ve liked, Hades and Dead Cells, and Hades 2 is about to become the third, most likely. Meanwhile, Metroidvanias and 3D Platformers are some of my all-time favorite genres, but my heart is open to Hades 2 being number one.

I meant to mention this last year, but some games had to get their releases out of the way when Silksong came out, and to be honest, some of them I had not heard of before it was reported about their delays. The one that stood out to me was called Demonschool, sort of Persona 1–2 meets Fire Emblem kind of deal. I think it looks really cool and just wanted to give it some love since they had to delay til November.

Wrestling – AEW All Out 2025

AEW’s All Out is this weekend, and I am excited, as 95% of the time, AEW pay-per-views are outstanding, with the occasional, but I won’t deny the build for some of the show has been a little wonky. I feel bad for Wardlow who was injured on his return and was penned in to get the AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Championship match against Hangman on the PPV, but as someone who was down on Wardlow after Double or Nothing 2022 the guy is a TV defense at beast. I much prefer the idea of TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher challenging Hangman as a fun parallel to last year’s Jack Perry (TNT) vs. Bryan Danielson (World) match. Not only that, but I’ve liked that they played with the history of Hangman at All Out by bringing up his championship match against Chris Jericho at the first All Out. Honestly, it only occurred to me this week, but the list of top heels available right now to challenge Hangman seems kind of thin, almost to a point I understand why they didn’t pull the plug on MJF’s contract for a world title match, but it doesn’t change how I feel about how dogshit that angle was before Forbidden Door.

Likewise, the build to this four-way for Toni Storm’s AEW Women’s World Heavyweight Championship has been kinda thin, especially for Toni Storm. However, women’s fourways in AEW have a long history of overdelivering, and it is another parallel to how Toni Storm won the title for the first time at All Out 2022, which also included Jamie Hayter. I’m always rooting for my girl and Long Island’s own Kris Statlander, but I am not quite sure if this is how I want her to win, nor am I too keen on her turning heel again and joining the Death Riders. Her face turn last year was badly done, but it felt like she was gaining momentum as a face after facing Mercedes Mone twice for the TBS Title in some outstanding matches from both of them, then they spent months of Kris trying to find some resolution with Willow Nightingale that never went anywhere. So, it’s not like the heel turn wouldn’t turn out well, it’s more like I feel like they’ve wasted the potential of what they were building with her as a face the past year, after an unnecessary face turn. I’d almost be more excited if it turned out Jamie Hayter was the one turning heel and joining the Death Riders, as she is hard-hitting and has a lot of history with Toni Storm. Just in general, I’d like them to do more with Statlander and Willow for the next year.

I’ll have more on All Out in next week’s post, but I will tell you that I have absolutely not given a shit about this Cope and Christian reunion against FTR. Christian is the only person in this match that I care for. Cope has been so uninteresting since his return at last year’s World’s End, and while much more entertaining as heels FTR still only does so much for me. If this match is the main, I’m going to be annoyed as either of the world champions are much more deserving, although I do prefer it being Hangman vs. Fletcher, we’ll see what happens.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 2 – The Ryan, The Joe, and the Bandido

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Before we jump straight into it, I will say while this will focus on my main hobbies, Books, Games, and Wrestling, I do have other interests that I will comment on from time to time, like TTRPGs, Music, NBA, and Anime in much shorter comments at the end, but very briefly.

Books – An Anthony Ryan double-whammy, The Feeding and Born of an Iron Storm

I’m delving into two Anthony Ryan books recently that could not be more different. I’m still early in The Feeding, and I purposely didn’t read the description, so I have no idea what the Feeding actually is, but from what I surmise, this is a post-Zombie-like apocalypse set behind what may be the last human settlement fortified by walls that keep out the feeders. The remains of humankind seem desperately low on resources, but are trying to survive. They send out people to trade with other remaining settlements to trade for supplies, which hasn’t been going well. I can feel the desperation of everyone living in the settlement and the rising tension of hearing the people who go outside the walls not coming back with supplies. The horror of the feeders has not quite hit yet, but the way the setup for the plot is going, it looks like the main character, Layla, will be going out into the remains of the world soon. I’m looking forward to it.

Now, Born of an Iron Storm, I’m much further in. Ryan is so good at jumping straight back into where he leaves off in the previous book, and this follow-up to A Tide of Black Steel jumps right into it. I won’t spoil what happens, but my favorite, I don’t know what you would call it, a trope, concept, recurring story idea? Anyway, I love it in a fantasy book with multiple Point of View characters is when the branches of the story start all separate but then as the series goes on the branches begin to converge like for example a side character of one POV character in the first book has something happen to them only to end up in POV chapters of another character in second book. This is starting to emerge in Born of an Iron Storm and I’m loving it.

My review for Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is out now, so be sure to check it out. Automatic Noodle Review – Robots, Rights, and Restaurant

Games – Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, plus others.

I have never played a Shinobi game ever, but I saw the art style for this game and saw someone describe the combat as made for people who love fighting games, and I had to have it. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is so much fun. The combat is simple but has the capacity for a ton of combos that only expand as you play through the story, unlock new abilities, and buy new attacks. The platforming is not as complex as the game it’s going to be compared to the most, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, but still robust enough for in between bouts of combat. To 100% it you’ll definitely have to revisit stages as you gain abilities, but the different fights and stages you reach with those new abilities feel worth revisiting earlier stages. The bosses are so much fun, challenging the first time and fun to just destroy when you figure out their patterns the second time, especially as you learn to juggle and chain combos. I’m a sucker for skins, so having multiple colors for Joe Musashi rules, but in my opinion, every game that has skins should count how many they have and add four or five more. Once more, I have to say the art, the backgrounds, the details of the characters, and the music are outstanding. This is a great game to play right before Silksong comes out. I want to take my time with it, but I also want to beat it before Hollow Knight: Silksong comes out, since I know that will completely take over my brain.

There are some other games I’ve been playing alongside Shinobi. I tried the Lost Soul Aside demo and did not care for it. It looks pretty, but the gameplay feels floaty, and the combat is not for me. I’m nearing the end of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I find this game difficult to talk about. I like it a lot, especially the combat, but I find the characters and story kind of flat and sometimes frustrating. It’s wild to say I both feel like this is one of the best games of the year and also largely overrated. It has a lot of flaws, I feel like they aren’t acknowledged, but also the game rules. It’s a bit of a conundrum for me. Thanks to getting a new PC, I’m finally playing DOOM: The Dark Ages. Between the gameplay involving the shield, the weapons, and the melee, like the flair, the game is so much fun, but who told id Software that we wanted more story from DOOM? I’m enjoying it, but it’s a bit much, and the story is not why anyone plays DOOM. Lastly, so many games deemed as cozy usually are not in fact cozy at all, especially ones that simulate labor. Tiny Bookshop, however, is actually cozy. You drive a bookmobile to a location, you suggest books to customers, you buy more books to sell, you decorate your bookmobile. I play it a lot before bed and it is fact, quite cozy.

Wrestling – Bandido vs. Hechicero is must see.

Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor was last Friday, unfortunately, during my D&D game, so I did not get to see most of it live, but our session did end just in time to see the first half of Bandido vs. Hechicero for the Ring of Honor Men’s World Heavyweight Title. I knew it was going to be great, but I was sure that before the show, they had wrestled one-on-one before this, which was incorrect. Coming into it, I had no doubt of the outcome, but Hechicero did a great job of countering Bandido’s offense in the early parts of the match that sold the idea of him and his manager, Don Callis, having the champion scouted out.

Despite Hechicero’s size, Bandido was able to show impressive feats of strength against his opponent and, combined with his agility, displayed technical prowess to counter the submissions and holds Hechicero was more of an expert in. Likewise, despite his larger size and focus on technical wrestling, Hechicero was not intimidated by Bandido’s high-flying maneuvers. There is a sequence where the challenger ducks and weaves out of Bandido’s handspring backflip, only to be caught in a hurricanrana that he immediately flips out from and onto his feet. Spots like this resulted in Bandido not only needing to escalate his offense, but also the amount of risks he needed to take to retain his title. The crowd didn’t like it when Bandido returned the favor, beginning to pull on Hechicero’s mask, but I do believe in babyfaces who sometimes reach a limit of what they’ll take from their heel opponents. The suplex on the barricade was genuinely brutal (positive), and a lot of Bandido’s offense that led to the ending was like fuck-yous in wrestling move form. In the end, this is definitely one of my matches of the year, and I believe I loved it more than the match with Konosuke Takeshita, which was also amazing and worth seeking out.

Due to a problem with the stream on Ring of Honor’s website, Tony decided to put the show up for free on YouTube so you can check out the match for yourself, which I have time-stamped here.

AEW Dynamite was great, AEW Collision was good, yeah yeah yeah. What I want to end this with is this week on AEW Dynamite, I was hooting and hollering for one reason and one reason only, The AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Champion Hangman Adam Page reunited with his former tag team partner and faction member of the Elite, another former world champion, the Best Bout Machine himself, Kenny Omega. That’s all I thought about all episode UNTIL they announced they’d be reuniting not just in a segment but in a match that airs TODAY on AEW Dynamite. Insert more hooting and hollering.

Music I’m currently listening to: The Beaches’ new album No Hard Feelings, just came out and I’m really digging it, especially the single Last Girls at the Party and Did I Say Too Much

Anime I’m watching: I must confess that I love romance anime, and Season 2 of My Dress-Up Darling is escalating the rising romantic tension between Marin and Gojo so sweetly and nicely. I really want to watch The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity, but goddamn, a Netflix subscription is so expensive now. I don’t regret canceling it a year ago, but letting the money go when I had an active subscription was easier than joining now at the current price point. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

After Zelda, Superheroes Were My Gateway To Fantasy.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

After the news of celebrated writer and artist Darwyn Cooke’s passing, I picked my copy of Absolute DC: New Frontier and absorbed Cooke’s love letter to the Silver Age of the DC Universe.

It’s massive scale and the enormous cast of diverse characters combined with the lingering thoughts about Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World reminded me that after The Legend of Zelda it was superhero comics that opened the gateway for my love for fantasy.

The similarities between the two are surprisingly plentiful. Just to name a few:

  • Garish costumes.
  • Systems of magic.
  • Unusual names and codenames.
  • The use of symbology.
  • Enhanced or enchanted armor, weapons, and items.
  • Prophecy and legends influencing the protagonists.
  • History, mythology, and continuity that dates back before a current story but has a lingering effect.
  • Multi-faceted heroes and villains that walk the moral line.
  • Archetypal heroes and villains that serve as both characters and symbols for their cause.
  • Conflicts on the micro scale within close knits groups,
  • Macro scale conflicts that put universes in jeopardy,
  • and those in-group conflicts affecting the chance of success of resolving those universal threats.
  • War: The consequences of war, the threat of war, and the aftermath of war.
  • Death: Heroes, villains, love interests, and side characters all dying and in some cases, coming back.

Superhero comics do have the advantage of being broad enough in storytelling that it can encompass many genres including fantasy. A majority of DC’s magic users, including Etrigan, John Constantine, Dr. Fate, Swamp Thing, Alan Scott, and oh, I don’t know, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman all either dip their toes or fully submerge themselves into fantasy.

What it comes down to is world building. If you can understand the chaos that is the worlds of Marvel and DC then remembering the houses on Game of Thrones isn’t that difficult. What’s different is that for Marvel and DC the rules are always changing. What most fantasy tends to do is either established the rules early on or establish the rules and break them early on to create conflict. This is because eventually those fantasy stories are going to end. Comic book companies are in the business of keeping their stories running for as long as they sell. Thus their characters have to change overtime but not necessarily evolve.

Plus, most series of fantasy novels are written by one creator while superhero comics is a ever-spinning turnstile of different writers and artists. Their environment, purpose, supporting cast, powers, appearance, and even their history could change from one writer to another. Elements that stem from roots in fantasy could not longer be in fashion. Now, their powers, equipment, cast, or origin may not be science fiction in nature.

This can be frustrating to the reader which could not be more apparent with the recent developments in [spoilers] DC Universe Rebirth and the first issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers. Change is acceptable in a fantasy novel, especially a series with no previous history (real world history that is) but not so with most superhero comics considering their long history dating back to World War II. Even new superheroes have this struggle because by the time you establish a new character in an ongoing over a certain amount of issues any change you make is going to met with resistance from your readers.

That and the price is why I made the jump. I was frustrated by bad writing of characters I loved and the ever increasing price of comics versus the price of books made the switch easy. Fantasy novels have stayed relatively the same price, they have a more complete story, no other bad writer is coming in and fucking up what the good writer has done, there are no editorial mandates to fit within a big event happening in another series, and  the story is self-contained.

Still, I may never hace found fantasy without superhero comics.

Writing A Novel Vs. Writing A D&D Campaign.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

I’ve set a deadline for myself. By the time I turn 31 on April 23rd my novel will be finished. I am talking final draft, not the first draft, as I only have five chapters to finish editing.

At the same time, I’ve become the Dungeon Master for my D&D group. Writing and developing a D&D campaign, at least, I thought would be simple compared to writing a novel. I thought since worldbuilding is so much fun, that it would be a walk in a park. Oh ho, no. It is a very different beast entirely. I wouldn’t say it is more difficult but it is difficult because it is different.

Unless you plan a whole campaign before you start there are no second drafts i D&D. You write what you need and move on. Most of it is improvised anyway especially minor NPC (Non-Player Character) names like the merchant or regular at the tavern your players decide to get into a fight with.

With the characters in your novel, you have complete control over their actions, personalities, and decisions. In D&D, the players are the characters and you have little to no control over them unless you want to make a boring campaign. On the other hand, it takes a lot more pressure off you to write good protagonists. That’s up to the players.

The world of a novel, especially fantasy, can be more organic. The rules are looser. With D&D, there are so many rules. You have to keep track of them for your players, your NPC’s, and the monsters they fight.On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner

On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner monologues to worry about. A D&D campaign, in fact, can be a lot more vague since the Dungeon Master isn’t the sole storyteller. The players can and will change the story. This can be both frustrating and freeing.

With a novel, though, unless you are a published author, it’s all on you. You have to sit down and write your story first draft then second draft then third draft then final draft. A D&D campaign is vaguer. You have to take into account how long a session takes, everyone’s plans for the week, what level the characters are at, and where they may want to go.

If the main villain of your novel is in a certain building of course your protagonist is going to wind up confronting him. Not necessarily so in D&D. The players might decide to burn that building down, as we decided to do in my friend’s campaign, instead of confronting the main baddie of that particular storyline who had story beats for us to follow.

It’s much easier, at least for me, to communicate through writing then it is through speaking. Therefore, theater of the mind is much more difficult to work with. I don’t need extensive maps for my novel because I can convey a scene with as many words as I need but with D&D, if they’re going into a dungeon I am definitely going to need a map because there is a lot to remember.On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over

On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over certain room if they’re not important to the story. Not so with D&D. My player may end up exploring every room of a castle and I need some kind of description, however short, for all of them.

The antagonists has to be one of the most difficult parts. Well, really, anything that involves balancing the game versus telling a good story is what is so difficult. A villain can’t be so overpowered that it is an obvious party kill but he can’t be so underpowered that any threat he makes, plot-wise, goes unappreciated or unconcerned. Same goes for just about any encounter or plot element of your campaign.

However, a D&D is more accepting of aspects you try to eliminate from your writing when it comes to a novel. Your players are inhabiting archetypes, so giving their characters typical archetypal stories is fine. Tropes, cliches, and parody is welcomed rather then eliminated in later drafts.

Plus, though novels don’t have to do this either, a D&D campaign can be silly and less serious. If you tell a good story in your campaign, you get validation every session by the joy your players are having A novel takes much longer to get that validation.

A friend, fellow writer, and former Dungeon Master himself tells me being a DM will likely make me a better writer. I can see where that stems from but what I get out of it now is combining my love for storytelling and worldbuilding with friends who I love to be around.

Should Book Readers Watch Game of Thrones’ Sixth Season?

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 1 Comment

On April 24th, for the first time since the show premiered, readers of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series will be completely in the dark about the fate of Westeros and its characters.

Martin recently announced that The Winds of Winter is not finished nor will it be in time for release before the premier of season six. As far as whether the next season will spoil the books Martin answers “Maybe. Yes and No.”

Season five saw the biggest divergence of the stories yet with the death of major characters that still live on within the books. Not only that but budgetary and time restraints has certain characters from the books completely absent from the show. So no, their stories will not be spoiled.

The bottom line is that all the most beloved characters will have their stories spoiled for readers of the series. That includes Tyrion, Jaime, and Cersei Lannister, Arya, Sansa, and Bran Stark (Maybe Rickon too?), Daenerys, her dragons, and all of Meereen. The Greyjoys, the Martells, the Boltons, the Baratheons, the Tyrells, the Night’s Watch, the Brothers Without Banners, The Wildlings, and even the Others will all have their stories spoiled. The amount of characters free of being spoiled is negligent compared to this amount.

Readers are then left with a decision, to continue or stop watching Game of Thrones. With HBO looking to renew Game of Thrones for up to eight seasons that leaves those on the fence with some math to consider. It is likely that within those three years The Winds of Winter will be released, but what of the final book in the series A Dream of Spring? That might likely not be released until after the series has ended, based on the time the sixth book has taken to release.

So are you, dear A Song of Ice and Fire readers, able to resist not only spoilers for three years as the show airs but also five years and change for the release of the next two books?

Let’s be clear, A Song of Ice and Fire has a huge audience but the show’s is even larger. It’s not simply a series you watch but a social event that you discuss. To avoid spoilers for five years plus may ostracise you socially unless you fill that void by talking about other shows, events, and sports that take up pop culture. That’s an extreme view of it, you may go about your life avoiding spoilers all the times like it’s no big deal. It’s not like Game of Thrones is always publically discussed

It’s not like Game of Thrones is always publically discussed, covered constantly by the media, or posted about across social media. It’s not as if HBO releases a string of trailers and preview for seasons that recap the previous ones while discussing upcoming ones. It’s not as if the amount of spoilers released between the time of the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser and the time of its release are any indication of the difficulty it will be avoiding spoilers.

That’s one year. One year between the teaser and the release of Episode VII. In that time, it had two localized trailers, an international trailer, a teaser, and television footage. It’s actually quite remarkable how we collectively agreed as a fandom not to spoil the movie for each other.  Can your recall Game of Thrones viewers

Can you recall Game of Thrones viewers being that kind? Were you one of those who lorded over your knowledge from the book to your friends? Did you record their reactions to the Red Wedding? Do you think they may be petty enough to get their revenge? Seeing videos of people reading books while their friends cackle in the background doesn’t sound as exciting.

Still, this may be an opportunity for the showrunners to completely diverge from the direction of the books. They may have no choice with the elimination and death of certain characters. HBO may get their wish, in the end, to have a season nine happen giving Martin more time to release the next two books. Even less likely, but not impossible, is Martin may have A Dream of Spring better planned out in his head as he envisioned the series ending after three books, then five, and now seven (and even contemplated an eighth book.)

No matter the outcome, some spoilers are inevitable. You’ll have to decide if you will remain unsullied or not from them.

 

A Muppet Family Christmas Blew My Mind As A Kid.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Still my absolute favorite Christmas special. When I was a kid and saw it the first time I couldn’t believe. This was before  I ever saw comic book crossovers, Flintstones Meet the Jetsons, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? so when the Muppets walk into Emily Bear’s farmhouse and meet Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock I had a lot of questions.

“So, wait, Fozzie’s mom knows Doc? Does that mean…” I didn’t have time to process when carolers soon showed up at the Farmhouse door. The Sesame Street gang? Wait, THEY  ALL KNOW EACHOTHER? Even as a kid I remember thinking “Oh yeah, Kermit is on Sesame Street. That makes sense he’d know them.”

So the Muppets and Sesame Street are all together with Doc and Sprocket. Does that mean Fraggles are part of this world too? Soon enough, Kermit and his nephew Robin meet the Fraggle gang. Then they all meet to carol at the end. All my favorite characters together at Christmas? All this needed for me as a kid was the Ninja Turtles and I would have passed out.

Before fanboy was even a word. Before Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Doctor Who, or anything else I currently am obsessed with it was Jim Henson’s creations, Disney movies, and Ninja Turtles.

I still watch this every year.

You Should Watch Jessica Jones Even If You’re Suffering From Superhero Fatigue.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Jessica Jones, the second Netflix series leading up to The Defenders premiered on Friday, November 20th, starring Krysten Ritter as a super-powered private detective with a penchant for drinking whiskey, swearing, barging in without asking, and wearing the same jeans, boots, and leather jacket throughout the thirteen episodes.

She’s complicated and she’s not alone. She’s rounded out with a slew of side characters with their own complications and what may be Marvel’s most compelling and scariest villain.

That’s right. David Tennant, who might be yours and is my favorite iteration of the Doctor from Doctor Who take Zebediah Killgrave a.k.a. The Purple Man and makes your skin crawl with his mind controlling powers. He’s a killer, a rapist, and under it all he believes he’s the nice guy with impeccable taste.  Like any good villain, he believes he’s doing the ring thing but what makes Tennant’s Killgrave interesting is that he’s clueless to what right and wrong are. He’s been using his powers for so long he’s only figured out now as an adult that getting what you want all the time isn’t as satisfying as earning it. He’s a petulant child in a man’s body who can control minds. This has made him a complete and utter monster.

Luke Cage, on the other hand, I can’t get enough of. When is the Luke Cage series premiering? Not until after Daredevil season two? Jesus, I can’t wait that long. Mike Colter’s Cage complements Jessica Jones’ brash, blunt and snarky attitude with a quiet stoicism. While Jessica says exactly what she wants when she wants to Luke says  so much with his body language that he can be careful with his word choice. I need that Luke Cage series now.

Luke Cage and Jessica Jones romance, relationship, fling or whatever you want to call it played well. You want it to happen. You want to find out if you’re in the know about his character if this takes place before Cage gets his powers or after. Then when you find out he does, you want Cage and Jones to get together but it gets complicated. These complications are part of the story without overtaking Jessica’s plot. Their relationship is part of Jessica’s life. That part of her life does not consume the entire story. It remains just a part and the series is better off for it.

Jessica’s line, speaking about her powers, about not hiding them but not advertising them either perfectly sums up the approach to powers in this street level. There’s no complicated retelling of her backstory. We just get bits and pieces of it as the story moves forward which is how exposition should be delivered. Over food, Jessica says she got her powers in an accident and Luke explains he got it in an experiment. Done and done. Killgrave’s origins are used as a motivating factor for his behavior, but he’s not constantly bringing it up.

The cast is filled out by Trish “Patsy” Walker, Jeri Hogarth, Will Simpson, Hope Schlottman, and Malcolm Ducasse all going through their own stories that spread out to introduce minor characters and wind up interconnected with Jessica’s. Not every character makes out of this first season alive. Jessica Jones has a high body and two deaths, in particular, are incredibly troubling, choice wise.

Do you remember Ben Urich in Daredevil’s first season? One of the best non-superhero characters in the Marvel Universe played by the brilliant actor Vondie Curtis-Hall and they killed him off. A waste and one of the biggest missteps of Daredevil’s first season. As a result, it is a bit strange that Jessica Jones has a similarly grizzled old black man, a detective this time, killed off for not a fucking good reason whatsoever. Played by Clarke Peters, whose character Lester Freamon on The Wire was one of the best, should have been a mainstay, just like Ben Urich, but is used as a plot device to further Will Simpson’s subplot involving a different kind of morality in regards to how Killgrave should be handled. Again, what a fucking waste.

Speaking of more waste, why does Marvel kill off all of its villains? Is it trying to tell us in the “real world” the only choice when dealing with these kinds of characters is death? That’s ridiculous. Obadiah Stane, Laufey, Whiplash, Red Skull, Malekith, Baron Von Strucker, Yellowjacket, Ronan the Accuser, Dr. Arnim Zola, Ultron, Alexander Pierce, John Garret, Daniel Whitehall, Jiaying, and now Zebediah Stane have all been killed off. For a company trying to build a cinematic universe that’s going to last for years killing off all your villains isn’t going to work well moving forward.

That being said, I’ll take season one of Daredevil and Jessica Jones over The Avengers: Age of Ultron any day. Jessica Jones is a mish-mash of the superhero genre, detective noir, and horror. It has mental health issues, relationship issues, knock-down drag-out fight scenes, women’s issues, drug issues, alcoholism, superheroes, supervillains, superpowers, sex, love, and most importantly of all complex characters and stories. What are you doing reading this? Go watch it now.