Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 Episode 3 – Ruets: Review & Power Ranking

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Welcome to my review and power rankings of the third episode of Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 – Ruets, a two-queen team-up lip sync challenge.

This Canadian cast continued to shine as a memorable group of queens. This episode put the spotlight on some of the funniest ones in the bunch.

The mini-challenge to dress as drag kings so they could flirt with Brooke Lynn Hytes was hilarious enough that it could’ve merited an entire maxi-challenge. It also allowed a few of the quit-witted comedy queens to finally make their mark, including Vivian Vanderpuss playing an absolutely absurd character as an Australian tradie.

That gave Vivian the power to pair up queens for the “Ruets” challenge, where each pair had a day to choreograph a lip sync to one of RuPaul’s duets.

Once again, this subtle twist on a regular Drag Race challenge shows off the smarts of the Canada’s Drag Race production team. Fans love a head-to-head lip sync smackdown enough that they’re now being inserted as regular-season episodes to produce meme-able moments. Yet, lip syncing on the spot to a song for the first time isn’t actually a “real world” situation for a drag queen. Giving a pair of queens time to plan and present an act together is a surprisingly organic way to show off what the queens bring to a live show in real life.

That means we should have seen drag excellence from any of these queens who can turn it out live in a club! But, that came with the extra challenge of teamwork. Everyone did their best to join forces, but some of their efforts were much more successful than others.

Oh, and Vanessa “Miss Vanjie” Mateo was a guest judge, for some reason.

(The reason mostly being that the “duets” theme played on her showmance with Brooke, as well as her appearance being an unspoken promo for her 24 Hours of Love reality show and her upcoming run on All Star Shore without mentioning either by name.)

It felt like several of the less-visible queens got plot development, including Vivian and Giséle. The runway was universally strong, with some stunning looks. And, the lip sync was a solid, emotional performance. I really love this cast of artists and the eliminations are already getting difficult.

That leaves us with nine deserving queens with a few break-out stars and a tight middle of the pack, which includes a few big shifts from my Episode Two power rankings!

If you want to watch Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 outside of Canada and the UK you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the US you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see the US Franchise.)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best Queen (of the North) win!

[Read more…] about Canada’s Drag Race Season 3 Episode 3 – Ruets: Review & Power Ranking

Krisis Returns to a Random Circuit 42! – Podcast Appearance

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This week I made my return to Circuit 42 alongside co-hosts Ian and Sandra Soapbox for a completely random episode where we followed the conversation wherever it flowed.

We discussed the changing nature of Peter Parker’s geekdom through the ages, Drag Race local blackouts, macabre kid media, fan-casting Stranger Things women into their next roles, Mara Jade, Equus, the Aquaman 2006 CW pilot, fandom vs. standom, and much more!

Ian and the Circuit 42 crew are a consistently kind and thoughtful group, and they are such massive fans of so much cool geek stuff! It’s always a pleasure to drop in for another episode. Keep up with the gang on their Facebook page or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

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It’s time, y’all – Drag Race has circled the globe and crossed the equator to make it to my stomping grounds with RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, featuring 10 queens from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand! That means it’s time for a new pre-season Power Ranking!

I won’t beat around the bush: anyone who watched Drag Race Down Under Season 1 knows it was a rough spot for the franchise. The queens were delightful (except for the unrepentant racist), but the production quality was wobbly and the elimination order was wonky. A production favorite came back only to be completely ignored and another was carried to the finale despite flatlining in the back half of the competition.

RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under Season 2 - Preseason Promo

Luckily, totally awesome Kiwi queen Kita Mean brought the crown home to our shores (or, more accurately, kept it here, since due to pandemic restrictions in Australia the show was shot in Auckland while NZ was COVID-free). That helped to make up for all of the intended guest stars who were trapped in Australia as well as Ru and Michelle not getting many(/any?) Down Under jokes.

All of that is behind us now. We’re back with another season of Down Under queens starting this weekend (again, shot in NZ!). While we won’t know if this production will be a shit-show or “sweet as,” today we can dig into the cast of 10 amazing drag performers to rank their chances at walking away with a crown.

I’d insert some appropriate Kiwi slang in here, but I’ve been locked in my house for half the time I’ve lived here so I don’t know any.

Now, let’s get to ranking the queens!

My rank is not a comment on their quality as drag artists, but on how far I see them making it on Drag Race based on the trends and tropes of the show as witnessed from over 25 Ru-hosted seasons. These are all outstanding performers, but being a great drag artist doesn’t always translate to doing well on Drag Race.

I have deliberately stayed away from any spoilers about this season, so my ranking is purely off of the vibe I get from queens from their two-minute “Meet The Queens” videos and their social media.

Finally, I’ll disclaim ahead of time that, while I haven’t met any of them or seen them perform, I am obviously going to be biased toward the Kiwi queens. I’ll try not to let it affect my rankings, but let’s face it: this is as close as I’ll ever come to participating in a NZ-vs-AUS rugby rivalry.

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best (antipodean) drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: The Midnight Ball, GrymWyrd Tales, & TheoryCraft character journals!

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Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay

It’s time to don your armor, because I’m back with another weekly review of Dungeons & Dragons and 5e-Compatible projects on Kickstarter – including the very ooky Midnight Ball and GrymWyrd Tales!

I’ve now covered every D&D project on Kickstarter for a whole month. In that time, I’ve figured out some things – including that it’s no fun to scour a campaign page only to discover it’s poorly-planned, badly-edited, unreadable in layout, or even covertly racist – and to then write about it.

I don’t want to punch down on first-time creators or highlight creators whose work I’d never endorse.

Starting with this post, I’m no longer reviewing every new project on Kickstarter each week – only the ones that look interesting to me or that I think are worth recommending!

This week there’s just five new projects, of which I review three below:

Also new on Kickstarter this week are:

For projects with a scope that extends beyond being a single adventure or specific topic like “wands”, I review them based on the 9-point criteria I established in “What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?”

Want to catch up on other currently-running campaigns? Here are all of the other 24 campaigns currently-running on Kickstarter, all of which I’ve covered in depth on past posts in this series.

Do you have an upcoming 5e-Compatible Kickstarter project? I’d be happy to check out your sample pages, give you comments on your planned campaign page, or highlight your project in a future post. Just leave me a comment below or reach out to me @CrushingComics on Twitter. [Read more…] about D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: The Midnight Ball, GrymWyrd Tales, & TheoryCraft character journals!

Music Monday: “Feeling So” – Shea Coulée

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I am a sucker for any song that uses layers of instrumental riffs to emphasize an insistent, galloping, every-quarter-note rhythm, and Shea Coulée’s “Feeling So” does that in the best possible way.

Every time I listened to “Feeling So,” the first thought that pops into my head is “wow, this is like an update of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears For Fears.” Every single time I think it is a new thought, and I am impressed with myself for noticing the reference, and then after a minute I think, “Hold on, surely this has occurred to me before…”

I think the the thing the two songs have in common is how they layer different instruments with slightly differing rhythms to achieve the net effect of emphasizing every beat. In “Rule The World,” it’s the way the insistent bassline marries to the back-and-forth step of the synth, later topped with the peal of of guitar picking from the intro.

“Feeling So” is built the same way. It has an opening synth riff that continues burbling in the background like a melodic fountain. It has the same driving gallop of bass. And, it has that same step-and-repeat of passing synth chords.

The difference is how “Feeling So” later breaks that that rhythm. When the staccato chords of the pre-chorus interrupt the bassline it feels like a change in temperature – as if we’re on the verge of a shock. But, the song eases us back into the familiar gallop with the reintroduction of the bubbling synth in the background of the next section.

I think it’s the continuous rhythm, break, and return that has encoded this song into my brain so deeply, tempering my neural pathways with every repeat of the cycle.

Also that it really does song like an update of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” with a hint of the sunny disposition of Madonna’s “Cherish” – and that’s a sonic lineage that I cannot resist.