THE PROBLEM WITH LOVECRAFT: A lot of controversy was had (mostly on Twitter) over the last few weeks with the release of Evil Hat Productions’ Fate of Cthulhu, a new table-top RPG integrating the systems of Evil Hat’s Fate Core and the Lovecraft mythos. Evil Hat proudly declared that it was bucking tropes of other Lovecraft-inspired games––mainly how it addresses Lovecraft’s prejudices head-on and it doesn’t include sanity meters for its players––and that, for some reason, made a lot of people upset. Andrew talks about the subsequent furor while D. Bethel shows up as our resident Lovecraft scholar.
*Show image is a screenshot of Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley from the 1970 film, The Dunwich Horror.
Evil Hat tweets about how Fate of Cthulhu bends the traditional Lovecraftian gaming experience:
There are no sanity rules in Fate of Cthulhu. We don't require anyone to play or perform mental illness. (If you choose to, we have guidance on how to do it respectfully.) Instead your PC gains Corruption, a potent, alluring slice of the Elder Gods' power.https://t.co/v0F853zsM0pic.twitter.com/13tLqmE3wR
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2016): Where D. Bethel discusses the Lovecraft revisionist novella, The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle.
“Starting By Starting” (03 January 2020): Where D. Bethel talks about Frogwares’ Lovecraftian adventure game, The Sinking City, which also openly addressed and push against Lovecraft’s racism.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew talks about becoming enraptured by the first episode of the new CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Picard while D. Bethel enjoys the poignant but strange end to a creative team’s long run on Batman with the DC Comics’ Black Label series, Batman: Last Knight on Earth by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew dives in to Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky after another patch while D. Bethel relays his experience going to see Kevin Smith present his newest film––Jay and Silent Bob Reboot––as part of a traveling tour for the movie when it came to Sacramento.
Shortcast 58 – “Quite Easily Done” (08 June 2018): Where Dan and Andrew discuss the thorough documentary on the history of game developer, Bethesday, produced by NoClip.
“Plants Having Sex” (05 April 2019): Where Andrew first talked about playing No Man’s Sky.
“Reverent Irreverence” (17 May 2019): Where Andrew talks about his experience seeing What We Left Behind––a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary––live with a Q&A.
“Threadnaught” (13 September 2019): Where Andrew talks about his experience with No Man’s Sky after a previous big update to the game.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
NEW WHO: Series 12 of Doctor Who started up on New Year’s Day. With three weeks gone and now three episodes in, our Who-loving hosts sit down to talk about it (mostly just the first two episodes SPOILER WARNING for “Spyfall, Part 1” and “Spyfall, Part 2”).
IS THE FORCE STILL WITH US?: This week, Andrew and D. Bethel talk not about Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (although there are things that amount to SPOILERS for both The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian in this episode, so be warned). Instead, they talk about what comes next. An article from NME, it was reported that the next Star Wars saga will be set during the “High Republic” era of the canon, predating all nine numbered movies by 400 years. Andrew and D. Bethel talk about this development––and about Star Wars in general––and even get into a fight about an IP that neither are particularly passionate about.
“The Boyfriend Demographic” (20 Dec. 2019): Where Andrew and D. Bethel talk about the hype leading up to the release of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker and the surprisingly negative critical response pre-release.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew and D. Bethel start the new year with some things they have only light knowledge of and experience with. Andrew starts watching Netflix’s The Witcher and only briefly plays Haemimont Games’ Surviving Mars. D. Bethel has fun playing detective in the disgusting Lovecraftian world of Frogwares’ The Sinking City.
Silva, Kyrun. “2019: Reigniting Geekdom.” A Website [ , ] For All Intents and Purposes. 31 Dec. 2019.
RELEVANT EPISODES:
“Episode 44 – Man Band” (10 April 2015): Where Andrew shared his experiences with another, more terrestrial-focused, city simulation game, Cities: Skylines.
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2017): Where D. Bethel talked about other Lovecraftian revisionist literature with Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom.
This year we are hosting a variety of looks back at 2019 as hosts and friends-of-the-show offer up the things that defined the year for them. Today we hear from indie comic creator, friend-of-the-show, and Con Artists co-host, KyrunSilva (from Taurus Comics), talk about what 2019 meant to him.
2019 was an interesting year of nerd and geek culture for me. The year came with a lot of highs and lows, but for the sake of this retrospective I’ve decided to stick with the highs. This year brought a lot of change for me and my family when it came to our geekdom. I continued to find that my love for comics keeps changing; in a sense, I was reintroduced to a medium that had been almost forgotten to me for awhile and my childhood dreams finally were able to come true and assemble.
INDIE COMICS
Though it started in 2018, in 2019 I really started to notice that my love for comics had started to shift. This year I noticed my tastes for books going away from the mainstream things that Marvel and DC brought to the table and turning more towards indie publishers. This change solidified in the trimming of my saver list at my local comic book shop. Where once I had fifteen to twenty books that my shop saved for me each month, I now maybe five are saved.
A sampling of Taurus Comics characters: (clockwise from top left) Starcore, Malik from Shaman’s Destiny, Xob the Lightning Wielder, and Ruby. Art by Michael Dorman (lines) and Anthony D. Lee (colors).
Part of this is the ability to watch Marvel and DC’s characters on the big and small screen. The ability to regularly see the Flash, X-Men, and others took away a bit for my need to read their ongoing comic book exploits. The major reason, though, is that I’m so engrossed in the indie comic book culture. I know and follow so many amazing creators that I want to support and buy their books as much as possible. This has left me with little funds to support big name publishers.
I enjoy indie books so much that I find myself supporting and advocating for them when someone asks me about comics; I even mention indie books before I mention any from the big publishers. With books that range from standard superherolore to horrorcomics to anything and everything else, the indie community truly has something for everyone. Yes, you will find some duds here and there, but overall the indie community produces hit after hit at every turn.
ANIME
2019 also brought back an old friend to me and my family: anime.
Though I have been watching anime since the ’80s and ’90s, I haven’t been able to appreciate all the available books, shows, and movies. With comic books, sports, and family obligations, I just haven’t been able to watch anime like I had before. That seemed to change in 2019, not just for me but for my family.
It actually started with the series One Punch Man. My oldest son had been watching the series before any of us and asked if we could watch it while we ate dinner one night. From that point on, my family was hooked. My wife, my 3 boys and I watched One Punch Man every week when new episodes came out. But we had a problem, we had binged all the episodes and the next season wasn’t out yet. We needed a fix and fast.
(R-L) One Punch Man, My Hero Academia, Naruto, and Demon Slayer Source: (L-R) Viz Media, Funimation, Viz Media, Aniplex of America.
In came My Hero Academia, and it blew our minds. The action, the storylines, the character development. It was everything we had wanted and more. So, again as a family, we started binging another series.
But that wasn’t enough for us.
My wife and other son started watching Naruto and it’s 600+ episodes and I started getting into the series, Demon Slayer. Anime had become so important to us, we started contemplating if we should dress up as anime characters for Halloween––that is still up in the air. However, it is nice to have something that we all enjoy, something that we can talk about and look forward to as a family of fans.
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Avengers: Endgame was not only a milestone for 2019, but for the last ten years of Marvel movies. Source: Marvel Studios
“AVENGERS…..ASSEMBLE!” Those two words, exclaimed by Chris Evans playing Captain America in Avengers: Endgame was the highlight of 2019 for me.
As the culmination of 10 years of Marvel movies, I’m sure I’m not the only person to think this was one of the highlights of 2019, but for me it was a dream that 13 year old Kyrun never would have imagined possible. The idea that theatres would be packed to see a comic book movie was unthinkable in the ’80s and ’90s, but today it’s the norm. With what Marvel has done we almost expect them to be massive hits.
‘Nuff Said. Source: Marvel Studios
Endgame also brought an end to an era. Seeing these heroes come to life and die was like watching a friend leave. I’m not going to lie, I shed a couple tears during Endgame the first few times I saw it. I for sure screamed and cheered when Cap wielded Mjolnir. I cheered when Thanos was defeated. I was there when Iron Man first donned his suit on the big screen in 2008, and I’ll be there for whatever they bring in the future.
So, that’s my 2019. It was a great year. There are more I could have mentioned, but I felt these were the biggest ones for me.
Sacramento native, Kyrun Silva, broke onto the comic creation scene in 2015 launching his first independent title, Shaman’s Destiny. 2017 saw the beginning of Taurus Comics, a new solo small press line dedicated to the many worlds Kyrun is bringing to life, including Shaman’s Destiny, Xob the Lightning Wielder, Ruby From Planet Oz, Pathfinders, Starcore, Donner Lane, and more to come.Kyrun has also been the co-host to the spin-off podcast, Con Artists, with D. Bethel.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: As 2019 hurries to a close, our hosts kick up their feet and just chat about the things they’re doing to occupy their time until the new year rolls around. They talk about everything from the winter Steam sale, to finishing Outer Wilds (no spoilers!), to Lovecraftian tabletop games (Fate of Cthulhu), video games (The Sinking City), and novels (Winter Tide), to developing for web browsers, to––of course––Doctor Who and Star Wars.
RELEVANT LINKS:
“Weird World News“––a module for Fate Core by friend-of-the-show, André La Roche.
La Roche, André. “Spotlight: The Joke’s On Us.” A Website [ , ] For All Intents and Purposes, 27 October 2019––André’s critical look at one of the most divisive movies of the year.
“Shortcast 03 – Interview with André La Roche” (31 December 2014): When we actually had friend-of-the-show, André La Roche, on to talk about writing for tabletop games, thus becoming a friend-of-the-show.
“Episode 89 – High-Five Forever” (25 March 2016): Where D. Bethel talked about the revisionist Lovecraftian story, The Ballad of Black Tom.
“Shortcast 77 – Smash Talk” (14 December 2018): Where our hosts talk about Series 11 of Doctor Who, which introduced the world to Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor.
“End-Of-Year-Cast #001 – #WIN” (28 December 2018): Where our hosts go over the things that defined 2018 for them.
“Plants Having Sex” (05 April 2019): Where Andrew first talks about playing No Man’s Sky.
“Threadnaught” (13 September 2019): Where Andrew talks about the big No Man’s Sky update, No Man’s Sky Beyond.
“Tile Pile” (22 November 2019): Where D. Bethel discussed his first impressions of Outer Wilds.
“Universe of Nonsense” (06 December 2019): Where the trailer (and release date) for Series 12 of Doctor Who was discussed.
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
EXPECTING THE EXPECTED: On the day this podcast episode releases, so too does the newest cinematic installment of the main Star Wars series with Star Wars – Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. But Andrew and D. aren’t here to talk about the movie––they haven’t seen it yet. Instead, they’re here to talk about the talk about the movie, specifically the rather surprising amount of negative reviews coming from––not internet trolls––professional film reviewers. It leads to a multi-faceted conversation about expectations, fandom, and even the changing landscape of cinema narratives.
Shortcast 61 – All-New, All-Same (29 June 2018): Where D. and Andrew talk about Lucasfilm putting their “A Star Wars Story” series on on hold after the failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story in theaters (possibly due to the meddling of internet jerkbags).
Empty Justice (01 March 2019): Where Andrew and D. document the attempted review bombing (and Rotten Tomatoes‘ subsequent change in review policy) of Captain Marvel.
WEEK IN GEEK(kind of): It turned out to be an accidental Week in Geek episode as D. Bethel talks about his disappointment with Valve Corporation’s sidelining of Campo Santo’s Firewatch followup, In the Valley of Gods. On the opposite side of breaking news, Andrew finally gets around to watching Star Trek: Discovery and kind of unabashedly loves it.
Shortcast 78 – Pat Riot (21 Dec. 2018): Where Andrew gives his impressions on the first season of
Increasingly Without a Difference (04 Jan. 2019): Where D. Bethel relays his excitement to play Campo Santo’s followup to Firewatch, In the Valley of Gods (before it got cancelled).
INFO:
Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode.
