Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

the spider in the mirror

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For over a year, a spider lived inside our car’s driver-side mirror.

I suppose it might not have been the same spider the entire time. It might have been an entire intergenerational spider-family.

I’m sure that the spider (or spiders) lived there, somewhere in the gears that adjusted the tilt of the mirror, rather than paying an occasional visit, because of their omnipresent web.

It didn’t matter if the previous web had been whipped off by Wellington’s world-famous wind, rained off by Wellington’s prodigious mid-day and all-night storms, or just gradually worn away over the course of a drive on the highway. By the next time I left the house via car, the web would be back in full force.

Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay

I brushed the web away the first few times I noticed it, until it dawned on me that the same spider must be deliberately spinning it again and again. At first I was a little bit grossed out. Eek, a spider! Lurking right outside my power window!

Yet, what was that spider going to do to me? The mirror was controlled electronically from inside the car. The web didn’t especially obscure the mirror, and at high speeds it quickly dissolved. I had never actually seen the spider, even when brushing off its web early on in its residence. It had found an apparently cozy little artificial burrow that would protect it from predators. Apparently it was eating decently enough on the bugs that would get tangled in the mirror itself, though I never saw any evidence of those, either.

All I knew was that there was a fresh web on the mirror every time I get in the car.

(I suppose there might have been some amount of spider-leavings going on behind the mirror, but I assumed that between the rain and the occasional electronic adjustment it was effectively self-cleaning. Either that, or we had a very tidy spider. No, I don’t want to consider the alternative. Moving on…)

This grew to be part of my daily landscape in Wellington. I saw my family every day. I ran into the same parents at school pickup. I chatted with the same cashiers every weekend at the supermarket. And, every time I arrived at my driver’s side door I would note that the web had been recast from the last time I saw it.

Then, disaster struck. Not all at once, mind you, but a disastrous chain of events began to unspool. [Read more…] about the spider in the mirror

The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

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The first email list I ever joined was about Dungeons & Dragons.

I’m always surprised when I remember this.

Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay

I wasn’t all that into D&D as a newly-minted teenager. I had never even played it. To that point I only knew it by the lingering reputation of its satanic panic and because that one stereotypical metalhead in my 8th grade class played it.

Yet, I had recently made the connection that the finite worlds of video game RPGs like Final Fantasy could be emulated in Dungeons & Dragons.

Between obsessions with comic books and music, I begged for a set of the core trio of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books as a gift, and spent spare moments imagining the worlds that could be built with them while trying to understand exactly how ThAC0 worked.

Thus, early in my days on AOL, I joined a D&D email list.

I fucking tormented them with my terrible ideas. I wanted panthers with wings a a playable race because I had made them up in a fantasy story I was writing. I wanted every character from Final Fantasy 3(/VI) as a playable class because that was my doorway into D&D.

I’m not sure if I got kicked off or if I wandered away dejected when no one liked my ideas. I never did wind up playing much D&D.

If you were on that mailing list: I’m sorry. I now fully understand the pain of having to occupy the same internet as the entire world of overeager teenagers.

I’ve fallen back in love with Dungeons & Dragons again over 25 years later for some of the same reasons I was enamored with it in the first place: it’s a vast storytelling system that is infinitely extensible and invitingly hackable. Any character or creature or setting you can imagine is just a fistful of stats away from fully existing in your campaign world.

The toy of Mon*Star was the perfect scale to swat a G.I. Joe out of battle as if he was kicking a puppy.

I love that. I’ve always loved that! I was the kid who always wished all of his toys could be the same scale so they could inhabit the same worlds as each other. Even if they weren’t that wasn’t going to stop me from having my Super Friends Wonder Woman team up with my G.I. Joes to fight Mon*Star from Silverhawks.

That D&D mailing list was a small window into the world of extending and hacking D&D at the time. There were also 3rd party D&D products, although you’d be forgiven if you never got to them because there were so many official D&D materials to choose from it felt like you could never even see them all, let alone own them all.

(I’m sure someone on that listserv owned them all. They probably hated me.)

Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons has increasingly realized the sheer power of that infinite extensibility. In 2000, Wizards of the Coast released the 3rd Edition of D&D and, alongside it, the concept of the D20 System and the Open Gaming License (OGL).

Simply put, the D20 System meant you could expand on the established rules of D&D with your own products bearing the D&D logo, but you could not supplant the need for a core rulebook

The accompanying Open Gaming License meant you could use, change, or omit any of the rules and mechanics of D&D with the brand and lore filed off like a forgotten serial number.

This freed Wizards of the Coast from having to produce disposable, low-profit books of adventures to keep their players glued to their tables. Any company could produce a derivative work to offer to D&D players via the D20 system, which could be as minor as a few new monsters, or via the OGL, which could be an entire gaming world and system that just happened to use D&D mechanics. That means you could officially use D&D rules for a modern day setting, or a sci-fi story – not only at your home table, but in a published work.

Fast forward to the present day and the current 5th Edition of D&D – 5e, for short, which has been in play since 2014. [Read more…] about The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

Music Monday: “Slow Song” – The Knocks with Dragonette

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When I listen to “Slow Song” by The Knocks with Dragonette I feel instant nostalgia.

Have you ever felt that? Maybe not, because I just made it up. Or, at least, I’ve made up my particular use for it. People have coined the term to explain the effect of technology on memory or how to live in the moment.

I mean something different. I’m trying to describe the sensation of encountering something new that makes you feel nostalgic for a certain time or place, even if that new thing does not connect to or embody that memory.

I suppose it is something like déjà vu, which eternally asks the question: Do you really have a fleeting memory of having experienced this moment before, or is it a random misfiring neuron in your temporal lobe?

Yet, my experience with “Sad Song” is different. It wasn’t a fleeting feeling the first time I listened – a passing recognition. It’s a persistent tugging on the strings of my memory. It’s a certain lack of gravity in my stomach. It’s my skin remembering being newer and softer. It’s sudden tears in the corner of my eyes.

A lot of music trades in nostalgia. Even when a song doesn’t use an outright sample of a prior song, sometimes it can evoke an older track just through a certain leap of melody or the timbre of an instrument.

At first I thought that was what I was getting from “Sad Song.” The bass has that certain woody sound to it. And, I’ve been a fan of Dragonette for years – I own every one of her songs. Maybe it was just her voice? No. It wasn’t that. This doesn’t sound like any particular period of music I’m connected to. Dragonette’s voice is smoother and more legato here than her typically prickly delivery.

Slow Song - The Knocks with Dragonette featuring Aquaria

It’s something about the combination of the lyrics and the video.

In the second verse, Dragonette wistfully croons, “Oh, I got ways of losing you baby. I’m faster than whatever you’re chasing.

Something about that line utterly breaks my heart. It feels like the flipside of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own.” It’s about pursuing something you want and thinking that the person you want – the person you love and need – is right beside you, only to turn to realize they’ve outpaced you and are disappearing into the horizon like a setting sun.

I’m gonna play you
Play you right until the tracks done
Play you however many times I want
I’ll play you like a slow song

I’ll keep you spinning
Spinning circles till the groove’s gone
And fade it out just like a setting sun
I’ll play you like a slow song

She was always faster than whatever you’ve been chasing. You thought she was moving at your speed, but she was really running circles around you, circles and circles again until you weren’t sure if it was her spinning or you.

And then, one day, the groove is gone, and so is she. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was convenience. But it’s over now.

Was that the instant nostalgia? The feeling of that perfectly described fading connection between two friends or lovers? [Read more…] about Music Monday: “Slow Song” – The Knocks with Dragonette

Updated: Ms. Marvel Guide – a Kamala Khan Reading Order!

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I’m excited to announced the public release of my Ms. Marvel Guide – a complete collecting guide and reading order to Kamala Khan, now the star of her own Disney+ show!

Guide to Ms. Marvel – Kamala Khan

I originally launched my Ms. Marvel Guide to Patrons on 11 December, 2017 as part of several “Marvel Legacy” character spin-offs from existing guides.

At the time, we were only midway through G. Willow Wilson’s second volume of Ms. Marvel, launched in 2015 in the wake of Secret Wars. Since then, Kamala had another ongoing written by Saladin Ahmed, plus a mini-event centered entirely around her with Outlawed.

Now, the guide is now fully updated with all of Kamala Khan’s series, collections, and appearances announced through the present day – plus links to read digitally on Marvel Unlimited! That includes the new series of thick digest-sized paperbacks that collect the entire G. Willow Wilson run in five volumes.

Unlike many older Marvel heroes, Ms. Marvel’s series have existed entirely in what I refer to as “the trade era” – meaning that Marvel collected all of them into trade paperback collections after their release as individual issues.

Does that mean that every in-continuity Kamala Khan story is collected? Not quite. Last month, Kamala garnered her own Marvel Unlimited Infinite Comic. It was written by the author of her last mini-series, Samira Ahmed, so it has a certain ring of authenticity to it that many digital one-shots don’t. However, this new line of Infinite Comics launched in September 2021, and so far none of them have been collected physically. (You also cannot read them on a web browser; they are for app-users only.)

That still leaves you with over 88 issues of Kamala-starring titles to read, plus all of her appearances in All-New All-Different Avengers and Champions.

What are you waiting for? Dig into reading Kamala Khan’s adventures in the Marvel Universe today with my Ms. Marvel Guide.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 5 – Draguation Speeches: recap & power ranking!

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Welcome to my recap of the fifth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Draguation Speeches, a challenge that mashes up comedy with inspiration and a touch of personal branding.

This is a fascinating challenge because there is nothing quintessentially “drag” about it, yet it is perfectly representative of the direction of the show in 2022.RuPauls Drag Race All Stars Season 7 Episode 05 - Draguation Speeches Raja Jaida Essence Hall Yvie Oddly Jinkx Monsoon The Vivienne

Drag Race constantly finds new peaks of cultural influence, and with that higher profile all of its contestants have a higher profile than ever before.

Drag Race winners used to compete to score a club tour sponsored by Absolut Vodka.

Now, winning queens are getting the opportunity to appear on stage at the Emmy awards, walk the runway for Fenty and other fashion brands, and attend the Met Gala. Peppermint, the only Season 9 finalist to not yet have her own crown, just hosted the GLAAD Awards!

Of this cast of winners, five host ongoing podcasts (Jinkx hosts two!), Raja has hosted Fashion Photo RuView for almost a decade, Viv has anchored several Netflix YouTube shows, Monét had her own talk show, Jinkx has written and produced multiple one- and two-woman shows, and Shea has appeared in multiple features in Vogue – among many other appearances and accolades.

That’s the genius of this challenge. Draguation Speeches are not about a skill critical to the foundations of your drag, but the skill of translating your drag into different contexts. A drag queen should be giving a commencement speech! A show that started as an (even-more) queer spin on Project Runway is now a public-facing finishing school that turns former bar queens and Instagram influencers into in-demand LGBTQAI+ spokespeople.

If no Drag Race queen has been invited to receive an honorary degree and deliver a commencement address, it’s only a matter of time.

(Actually, Sasha Velour delivered a commencement address to The Center for Cartoon Studies’ class of 2020!)

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Drag Race challenge without the added requirement of making Ru laugh! Which queens manage to be both inspiring and hilarious? As it turns out, Ru and I are split on the decision. Read on to find out about our disagreement. Plus, at the end of the recap I’ll update my Episode 4 power rankings to show where the queens stand after another week of Legendary Legend badges. (Want to skip right to the power rankings? Go for it!)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen… win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 5 – Draguation Speeches: recap & power ranking!