"It’s telling that Fullmetal Alchemist succeeds at being an anti-war story, when it stars a cast of what are largely war criminals, murderers, swindlers, and angsty teenagers." #anime #politics #Medium medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Are we only ever ourselves? Pantheon asks this beyond just the simple borders of a physical mind or body." #scifi #simulationtheory medium.com/theuglymonst...

The career of Cyberpunk steward Mike Pondsmith gets weird and fascinating when we travel away from Night City and into the decade between 1985 and 1995.

"...the film focuses on how different people deal with institutional and interpersonal racism and sexism within higher education." #BlackHistoryMonth #horror #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

Today is the birthday of writer, producer, and editor Dwayne McDuffie (Feb. 20, 1962-Feb. 21, 2011). #BlackHistoryMonth

"The reason this matters is the same reason tech companies are fighting hard to lobby for policies in favor of AI deregulation. It is in Disney’s interest to make AI-generated “art” as indistinguishable from human expression as possible." #AIslop #Marvel medium.com/theuglymonst...

"As your investment is at its peak at all fronts, The Ghorman Massacre becomes Horror, and a walloping of emotions." #StarWars medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...this book may as well have been my entire personality a few years back. I knew what would happen in the film, but that preparation still wasn’t enough to protect me from the emotional beatdown to come." #Hamnet medium.com/theuglymonst...

"The recording was titled “Man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams.” From there, it became a go-to sound effect for Warner Bros." #filmmaking medium.com/theuglymonst...

Clarifying and answering some of your questions about #grok doxxing me. Thank you @noelleperdue.bsky.social and @404media.co for reporting this story. Stay safe, my friends, and FUCK GROK 💚

"Eat the Reich is mechanically elegant, visually glorious, and thematically apropos. If you’ve never played a tabletop roleplaying game, start with this one." #GiftArticle #vampires #WWII medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Soul Calibur III is near and dear to my heart, as it gave me fond childhood memories to reminisce on while opening my eyes to its true qualities that stood the test of time in present day." #gaming medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...Pantheon’s implications that cruelty might be a factor of resource scarcity, and therefor subject to the human reality of scarcity, manufactured or not, reflect the potential of what would be a ‘competition-free’ world." #sciencefiction #Medium medium.com/theuglymonst...

"I think Avengers: Doomsday projects to be the most costly, calamitous mistake in major-market fiction in the last hundred years, and I kind of can’t wait to see how catastrophic this misstep is." #NoPaywall #movies medium.com/theuglymonst...

"The dialogue is tight and gripping. Not a single line is wasted, meticulously carrying multiple layers of in-universe information about characters’ history, relationships, and aspirations." #Sinners #horror #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

This seems like a good time to reiterate my stance on board games that contain AI art. From 2023: spacebiff.com/2023/12/12/a...

A helpful meme for the next time this comes around:

"Rather than as a showcase of skill, the bloody strike was originally treated as grotesque and horrifying. It disillusions the young men who dreamed of being samurai warriors." #violence #movies #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Wuthering Heights at times feels like a parody of the novel, while at other points it reads as fan fiction of it. There are even moments where you can almost forget that Brontë and her beloved book ever existed..." #MargotRobbie #JacobElordi #movies medium.com/theuglymonst...

My illustrations celebrating Nancy Drew entering the public domain

"Send Help often entertains, but it never enthrals. You can sense too much of the writers’ presence instead of the film’s." #movies #RachelMcAdams medium.com/theuglymonst...

Hello gamers I'm opening *emergency* graphic design commissions, to help me keep my healthcare due this friday. Flexible pricing, I'll do: -Title typography -Iconography -flyers Looking forl ow effort/stress (ie not suited for short turnarounds and big expectations), great for mockups and prototypes

"...colonialism doesn’t stop doing colonialism just because there’s no more people or places to colonize." #Avatar #philosophy medium.com/theuglymonst...

Inspired by Maki's massacre in the new JJK season, I looked into where the iconic samurai blood spray originated and the weird irony of Kurosawa films

"The ice cream man, real name Riccardus, is an eldritch creature who has latched onto this suburb like a parasite for the sole purpose of causing chaos." #indiecomics #Medium medium.com/theuglymonst...

"The ice cream man, real name Riccardus, is an eldritch creature who has latched onto this suburb like a parasite for the sole purpose of causing chaos." #indiecomics #Medium medium.com/theuglymonst...

"While technically a horror game, and one with plenty of surprisingly frightful moments, the game leans more toward a psychological thriller." #GiftArticle #indiegame medium.com/theuglymonst...

"When we start to see more mediocre stuff by marginalized writers writing in non-European setting, then we will have arrived. It’s not when the best can get published, it’s when the mediocre could get published." #booksky #BlackHistoryMonth #writing

I often question the logistics of dungeon ecology. #ttrpg #dnd #rpg #meme #ttrpgsky #ttrpgcommunity

"You wanna know a secret? The Ugly Monster is named after two of my favorite deep-cut things from Star Wars..." #NoPaywall #28YearsLater #WonderMan #DnD medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Broadly speaking, Send Help’s biggest drawback comes down to its writing, which also speaks broadly, ensuring these characters aren’t nearly well-rounded enough to resonate." #RachelMcAdams #Medium medium.com/theuglymonst...

"The use of the word ‘enlightenment’ is particularly intriguing. Enlightenment refers to a period which brought great scientific innovation, while simultaneously entrenching existing inequalities." #Arcane #philosophy medium.com/theuglymonst...

"The simple fact that Del Toro took something as simple as a pat on the head and made you cry is evidence of the auteur’s craftmanship behind the camera." #Frankenstein #filmmaking medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Dispatch doesn’t waste a single second. High stakes, top-notch comedy, and a poignant plot make the game memorable. Characters feel authentic, flawed, and are easy to care about… even if most of them were once villains." #gaming medium.com/theuglymonst...

"As for the art, [Batman: The Dark Knight Returns] is probably the best use of Frank Miller’s rough yet stylized artwork outside of Sin City." #retro #comics #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall." -As You Like It #ShakespeareSunday

"If all of this sounds like I have a grudge against heavy TTRPGs, it’s because I have a grudge against heavy TTRPGs. #DungeonsAndDragons medium.com/theuglymonst...

"Soul Calibur III takes a curious approach with its enemy AI... They’re either complete pushovers you can easily bully around, or cheap input-reading bastards that react perfectly to your every move." #gaming #FightingGames medium.com/theuglymonst...

"‘Nickel Boys’ draws our attention to the structural inequality baked into the very fabric of American society." #BlackHistoryMonth #movies #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

And this: "In the end, Heated Rivalry didn’t become a phenomenon because it was loud. It became one because it was honest." What a great summation!

"Kurosawa would have wanted audiences to cringe away from the brutality of the blood spray, to feel sickened by the violence." #Medium #movies #FilmMaking medium.com/theuglymonst...

Not only is it a poor showing from anybody creating material for DnD (or really any TTRPG tbh) to use AI generated content, writing a promotion for said AI generated content is a great indicator to *not* care about those promos. Either they know what's in the content, or they simply don't care.

"I think a profitable and interesting question to keep in mind as we look at these is: what’s the story, here?" #AvengersDoomsday #MarketingStrategy #NoPaywall medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...you see glimpses of the couple they could have become if they were not in the situation that they were in..." #anime medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...the ideal romance centers on a heroine who is intelligent, humorous, and independent, with the narrative focused on unfolding a love relationship that seems impossible but ends in a traditional happy ending." #TrueCrime #ValentinesDay2026 medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...in Ilya and Shane, we get something rare: a love story that doesn’t punish its characters for feeling too much." #HeatedRivalry #ValentinesDay #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

nobody posted the clip anywhere so i went and dug the whole episode up

"...I have a few suggestions for those of you who don’t have a sweetheart to take on a lavish dinner date followed by experimental carnal activities." #comics #ValentinesDay #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

"...the real benefit of Nick Payne’s intelligently composed screenplay is that it dresses up many of We Live in Time’s clichés and rather basic scenes." #ValentinesDay #movies #GiftArticle medium.com/theuglymonst...

We know that romantasy is here and now and everywhere... but where and when did the genre start? #booksky #romantasy