Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Jabberwock! The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Haha, found a great bit about the Hodag:


The word hodag, according to the historian Kurt Kortenhof, originated as lumberjack slang for a grub hoe (a kind of heavy-duty hoe) or maddox (a kind of flat-faced pick ax). But by the time Shepard started working in the woods, the hodag had been transformed into a mythological monster that arose from cremated remains of oxen.

Oxen were commonly used as work animals in timber camps, and they had demanding lives. "Not only were these beasts of burden assigned the most difficult tasks of the trade," Kortenhof wrote, but they also "endured all the profanity the crass lumberjacks could dish out."

Because the oxen had absorbed the worst profanity during the lives, the demons that sprang from them had "vile and vengeful" souls, Kortenhof wrote.
Jabroniville
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Banshee

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

84) BANSHEE
Origin:
Folklore (Ireland)
Role: Predictor of Death
PL 3 (69)
STRENGTH
-- STAMINA -- AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 0 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Expertise (History) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 7 (+10)
Perception 3 (+5)

Advantages:
Startle

Powers:
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects) [30]
Protection 4 [4]
Flight 2 (8 mph) [4]
Insubstantial 4 [20]
Concealment 2 (Vision) [4]
Senses 4 (Precognition) (Flaws: Limited to Time of Death) [2]

Offense:
Unarmed +0 (-- Damage, DC 14)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +2 (DC 12), Parry +0 (DC 10), Toughness +4, Fortitude --, Will +5

Complications:
Motivation (Telling of Death)- The people of Ireland are given messages of impending or current doom by the keening cry of the Banshee.

Total: Abilities: -6 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 1 / Powers: 64 / Defenses: 3 (69)

-The most famous aspect of Irish folklore beyond the Leprechan is the Banshee ("Bean Side"= "Fairy Woman", sorta)- a herald of death, whose wailing cry is heard by the family of the soon to be departed. Visual descriptions vary, but most are quite pale and wear dresses. Most descriptions are of short women, though others are described as quite tall. There's... not really a lot TOO the myth- it's just kind of a thing that supposedly happened back in the day, but nobody sees them anymore. Despite that, they're ultra-famous, with numerous forms of media utilizing them- Marvel's Banshee is named after them (despite being male), one appeared in Gargoyles as a menacing monster, and more. The Roswell Conspiracies, a cool cartoon about aliens being hidden by a government agency, used them as a major race- being aliens ruled by Queen Mab, with their most notable member being the show's female lead. Being that it's a death-omen and a wailing friggin' ghost, they're usually seen as villains, but in Ireland they were largely perfunctory- nobody was HAPPY to see one, but they weren't evil or anything. It was like a text message, but a tiny keening woman instead of a "ding".
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Of course, for a certain era of people, banshees are most familiar from the utterly terrifying (to children of that era) banshee from Darby O'Gill and the Little People... Today, the Chroma Key doesn't hold up nearly as well as the forced perspective and matte painting shots, but still...
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by Jabroniville »

FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:54 am Of course, for a certain era of people, banshees are most familiar from the utterly terrifying (to children of that era) banshee from Darby O'Gill and the Little People... Today, the Chroma Key doesn't hold up nearly as well as the forced perspective and matte painting shots, but still...
Interesting- I never saw that one.

And with the Banshee, I am now officially DONE posting stuff for Monster in My Pocket! This was a fun set, though a bit long and in some cases requiring a lot of research and pretty same-y builds I’ve done in the past (Dungeons & Dragons plus Animal Builds). By the end, naturally, I was DYING to stat up/research some comic book goofs again.

I finished the set 2-3 days ahead of schedule, largely due to some simple builds or “just the description” stuff. But since the video game builds following it were more multi-character than I expected, I can use the time. SNK builds, starting with Art of Fighting, will commence on Nov. 1st, as stated.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by catsi563 »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:57 am
FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:54 am Of course, for a certain era of people, banshees are most familiar from the utterly terrifying (to children of that era) banshee from Darby O'Gill and the Little People... Today, the Chroma Key doesn't hold up nearly as well as the forced perspective and matte painting shots, but still...
Interesting- I never saw that one.

And with the Banshee, I am now officially DONE posting stuff for Monster in My Pocket! This was a fun set, though a bit long and in some cases requiring a lot of research and pretty same-y builds I’ve done in the past (Dungeons & Dragons plus Animal Builds). By the end, naturally, I was DYING to stat up/research some comic book goofs again.

I finished the set 2-3 days ahead of schedule, largely due to some simple builds or “just the description” stuff. But since the video game builds following it were more multi-character than I expected, I can use the time. SNK builds, starting with Art of Fighting, will commence on Nov. 1st, as stated.
I did and the wail they used for it was down right terrifying including at least one shot where they do a fast closeup that's a hard jump scare. Darby o gill was a fun movie featuring a very young Sean Connery pre bond and had some great Irish mythos attached to it.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Oh, and a happy birthday to you, Jab!
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by catsi563 »

Happy Birfday jab!!
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Thanks :)! Though it’s only my Facebook Birthday - I tricked their site when I made an account, lol.
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Ralph Breaks the Internet

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
Image
Image
Image

I mean, I could use pictures of the MAIN CHARACTER

.. but WHY?


RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET (2018):[/i]
Written by:
Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Jim Reardon, Pamela Ribon, Josie Trinidad

-Curiously, the first official sequel to the Disney Animated Canon of the modern Renaissance (initially something always nixed by John Lasseter, who felt it was damaging the Disney brand) was a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, not the mega-mash Frozen. This was deemed to be because of the storytelling properties that Ralph allowed for. In the end, the picture was a big series of pop culture references so up-to-date and modern that I fear the film will be the subject of mockery even a couple of years from now, when any number of the things it references will be gone.

The story this time is that their Merged Arcade Universe has been... boring, to Vanellope. Not wanting to disappoint her best friend Ralph, she tries to deal with her desire for Something More (omg, she IS a Disney Princess!!), while he attempts to reassure her. But his attempt goes awry when it results in the Sugar Rush arcade cabinet being broken. With the replacement part too hard to find, the game will be unplugged and removed, leaving the characters homeless! And so... we go on a "Fetch Quest". Ralph & Vanellope discover that the owner of the arcade has installed Wi-Fi, allowing them to go to the INTERNET!... and what follows is almost entirely pop culture gags- they see birds "tweeting" for Twitter, see the Antivirus companies installing literal walls to block viruses, and visit a literal eBay among countless "Avatars"- images representing internet websurfers.

And, of course, we see what the trailers advertised- they fall into a Disney-themed site full of Marvel, Star Wars and Disney characters, with Vanellope famously meeting all of the Disney Princesses, giving the iconic characters "comfy", toyetic makeovers to sell dolls (which I totally didn't buy all of) and playing off of their various stereotypes (Pocahontas's hair is constantly flying about as if there's wind; Cinderella breaks her glass slipper and nearly guts Vanellope). This scene, and the follow-up in the climax where they use dress-making powers and certain magic abilities (Pocahontas summons wind; Elsa ice; etc.), are the real highlights of the film, drawing the best reaction, being both FanFiccy (ALL THE PRINCESSES INTERACT!) and self-parodying. The fact that all the living and working Princess Voice Actresses played their parts (which is presumably why Belle, voiced by 60+ Paige O'Hara, is so quiet) only makes it better.

The quest goes a bit stupid immediately, as they foolishly spend too much money on the wheel... and thus the rest of the movie is now about MAKING MONEY. And TRENDING. Because they find some website where likes for videos get turned into cash. This is all just an Excuse Plot by this point, and is honestly a bit dumb and against the point- the only real effect it has is more Pop Culture Gags (Ralph becomes a "meme"), and Ralph having his feelings hurt by nasty comments (most of which are kind of dumb- you'd need to show the REAL vulgarity of the internet to make this truly effect). The internet popularity-themed character Yesss scarcely effects the plot aside from giving Ralph the money- I don't even remember anything she said beyond "Never read the comments".

The REAL story of the movie, however, is Vanellope discovering the game Slaughter Race, and falling in love with how hardcore it is. She & Ralph meet Shank (Gal Gadot) and her band of renegade warriors that heavily parody Grand Theft Auto but even more outlandish (with sharks, creepy clowns, and more), and she decides she wants to be a part of it, leaving Ralph and the arcade for good. This leads to Ralph getting upset, and his feelings of loneliness and clinginess overwhelm him, causing him to set off a VIRUS in Slaughter Race which manifests as a clingy, desperate "Ralph Monster" (comprised of thousands of Ralphs) that nearly destroys (um, "wrecks") the entire internet. And so Ralph needs to learn to let his best friend go, and that and the Princesses saves the day. And so the friends part, meeting up every few weeks.

Personally, I felt the movie REALLY suffered from a lot of weak points, the chief one being the whole "Let's parody MODERN TIMES!" stuff that will be dated immediately. 90% of the jokes felt like "YOU KNOW THAT CURRENT THING!?! THIS IS THAT THING!!", which fell really flat most of the time. It amused the audience in the theater where I watched the movie, but I feel like in five years it will be mostly meaningless. The fact that one of the coolest aspects of the original, the Shared Video Game Universe, was completely glossed over quickly and they left it behind to do internet stuff (until the "Oh My Disney!" sequence), was disappointing. The ugly realities of doing "Real Live Fan-Fiction" reared their ugly heads here, as they walked away from any potential Mario, Sonic, Street Fighter, etc.-related stuff, because they don't OWN those characters, so why focus on them instead of their own properties?

Felix & Calhoun, MAJOR CHARACTERS in the first movie, are reduced to a mere cameo, raising the Sugar Rush kids off-camera for a while and getting maybe two minutes of screen-time. Man, did Jane Lynch & Jack McBrayer's careers just vanish, or what? And ultimately, I just wasn't "feeling it" with the overall plot- Ralph & Vanellope spent the whole first movie finding each other, so now the sequel involves her leaving him behind and him being upset about it and his insecurity nearly leads to armageddon? It's meant to be bittersweet, but it feels like "Half-Assed Pixar" in the end.

The Princess scene was a classic, as was Vanellope using their advice, stare into her own reflection, and suddenly find the will to sing A Place Called Slaughter Race about her dreams and desires. Though I found the song itself a bit weak. And the final bit, literally "Wreck-Rolling" the audience who wanted to see Frozen II highlights, was classic. All in all, the movie ends up a positive, but with enough that annoyed me that I don't really feel the need to see it again... unless I wanna see the Princess scenes again.

Reception & Cultural Impact:
-The movie did rather well in theaters, but notably was the least well-grossing movie of the past several, doing about $100 million less business than either Moana or Big Hero Six, and half what Zootopia and Frozen did. Granted, this adds up to about $550 million worldwide, because Disney. The movie was mostly received positively, with the self-parodying Princess scenes being by far the most well-liked part. Really, the toys they produced for that stuck around the longest, and the whole thing felt largely forgotten afterwards.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by Ares »

It's just weird how WIR2 undermines the whole story of the first film. The first film was about the concept of "identity", about figuring out who you are, how you interact with people, how you communicate with each other and figuring out your obligations to other people.

Ralph has a very important obligation to his game, but he feels undervalued because he gets treated as the bad guy for doing his job. But he doesn't communicate that well and the other members of the game don't pick up on his issues, so he almost breaks the game trying to get the recognition he wants.

Turbo breaks two games because he wants to be in the spotlight, and steals someone else's identity in order to get what he wants. Turbo is selfish to the point of not caring about others, while Ralph realizes his choices have consequences, and does his best to fix things.

In the second film . . . Venelope basically does exactly what Turbo does, only it gets treated as a good thing. And Ralph is treated as being in the wrong for voicing any concerns, and is portrayed as being insecure and having a fragile ego when he should be rightly pissed that someone he went the extra mile for basically abandons him for a cooler friend and repeats the mistakes he made . . . only she gets rewarded for it.

Combine that with all of the useless pop culture references and time wasting, Ralph getting Endgame: Thor levels of emasculation and idiot ball holding, this is probably one of the biggest examples of "Unnecessary Sequels" out there.

Seeing Star Wars, Marvel and Disney characters in the same film was cool tho. It reminded me of whenever I play Disney Infinity with my nieces. I'd love to see more of that kind of thing. Heck, a movie just about the Disney Princesses hanging out would be fun.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Dragon! Troll! Banshee! Wreck It Ralph 2!)

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Pretty much all of whY Ares and you said, really. Though I'll add that I didn't even enjoy the princess scenes, and really disliked the princess rescue sequence. Of everything, the only part Inliked was the musical end credits scene at the end. You can't go wrong with Imagine Dragons.

Bit sad that the funnest part of this movie for me was when it ended, eh?

Besides all those weird messages and jokes it tries to get across, there's a to of weird implications in this movie on the likes of Toy Story. Sapient video game characters, website avatars, viruses, that can just leave their games/websites/etc. at will if they really wanted too? It's shocking that what Venelope, Ralph, and Turbo did isn't way more common.

Where the neck happens to their code when a game is unplugged? It seems that they can just exist indefinitely outside their original homes with no risk aside from mortality.
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Re: Banshee

Post by HalloweenJack »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:15 am

-The most famous aspect of Irish folklore beyond the Leprechan is the Banshee ("Bean Side"= "Fairy Woman", sorta)- a herald of death, whose wailing cry is heard by the family of the soon to be departed. Visual descriptions vary, but most are quite pale and wear dresses. Most descriptions are of short women, though others are described as quite tall. There's... not really a lot TOO the myth- it's just kind of a thing that supposedly happened back in the day, but nobody sees them anymore. Despite that, they're ultra-famous, with numerous forms of media utilizing them- Marvel's Banshee is named after them (despite being male), one appeared in Gargoyles as a menacing monster, and more. The Roswell Conspiracies, a cool cartoon about aliens being hidden by a government agency, used them as a major race- being aliens ruled by Queen Mab, with their most notable member being the show's female lead. Being that it's a death-omen and a wailing friggin' ghost, they're usually seen as villains, but in Ireland they were largely perfunctory- nobody was HAPPY to see one, but they weren't evil or anything. It was like a text message, but a tiny keening woman instead of a "ding".

and there's always the Banshee in Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Scared the hell out of me as a kid.
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Re: Banshee

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:15 am
84) BANSHEE

. Visual descriptions vary, but most are quite pale and wear dresses.
Helped by the fact that that describes pretty much all Irish women anyway
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (The Jersey Devil! Dragon! Troll! Banshee!)

Post by Woodclaw »

Ares wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:51 pm It's just weird how WIR2 undermines the whole story of the first film. The first film was about the concept of "identity", about figuring out who you are, how you interact with people, how you communicate with each other and figuring out your obligations to other people.

Ralph has a very important obligation to his game, but he feels undervalued because he gets treated as the bad guy for doing his job. But he doesn't communicate that well and the other members of the game don't pick up on his issues, so he almost breaks the game trying to get the recognition he wants.

Turbo breaks two games because he wants to be in the spotlight, and steals someone else's identity in order to get what he wants. Turbo is selfish to the point of not caring about others, while Ralph realizes his choices have consequences, and does his best to fix things.

In the second film . . . Venelope basically does exactly what Turbo does, only it gets treated as a good thing. And Ralph is treated as being in the wrong for voicing any concerns, and is portrayed as being insecure and having a fragile ego when he should be rightly pissed that someone he went the extra mile for basically abandons him for a cooler friend and repeats the mistakes he made . . . only she gets rewarded for it.

Combine that with all of the useless pop culture references and time wasting, Ralph getting Endgame: Thor levels of emasculation and idiot ball holding, this is probably one of the biggest examples of "Unnecessary Sequels" out there.

Seeing Star Wars, Marvel and Disney characters in the same film was cool tho. It reminded me of whenever I play Disney Infinity with my nieces. I'd love to see more of that kind of thing. Heck, a movie just about the Disney Princesses hanging out would be fun.
While I generally agree with what Ares said, I think that a few elements might be seen from a slightly different perspective.
The first movie was absolutely about figuring out your place in the world, how to communicate with others in a meaningful way and how your action influence others... which in my book is called growing up. In my eyes, Ralph was a sort of childish character that had to grow and Vanellope was, for better or worse, part of that process. By taking care and helping her, Ralph has to, for the first time, consider how his actions change the world and this, in the end, brings him back to his roots, but now he's much more well-adjusted and happy. The second movie pretty much start from the same premise, but now it's Vanellope's turn... and she blows it spectacularly.

Now, part of the reason things don't work out all that well is that the main plot (fixing Sugar Rush) has very little to do with Vanellope and its dragged on and on and on with bouts of complete stupidity. In many ways, it was the usual "comedy of errors" movie (a genre I usually find irritating at best) with the main characters dropped in an unfamiliar situation and cornered in stupid and easily avoidable problem by their own mistakes.
Granted some of the following gags are funny to watch... once. This is probably the big problem of the entire scenario: distance and lasting power. Most of the first movie gags were based around tropes and characters from the late 80s and early 90s, so the writers had the distance to write them with a grain of salt. The second movie works on being as on point as possible, making most situations barely memes.

Okay, back to the main characters.
In general, the plot of Vanellope is nothing new: like Ralph she has to grow up, but while the big lug had to do it within the confines of the old country (the arcade), she has the chance to run around and see a slice of the world, which of course looks way more exciting than the old place. Once again this is the age-old trope of "City vs Country", but the problem is context. While the entire movie tried to sell us the idea that no player would miss Vanellope, since she was just one of many characters in a game with a pretty hefty and constantly changing rooster (whereas Turbo and Ralph were big names in their respective games), the entire idea of her moving away pretty much contradicts the established mythos: if the code of a "missing character" can be integrated in a new game, why did they do it more often in the arcade?
The idea that Ralph being so afraid of changes, now that his life has reached a nice balance, does make a certain sense, but the way it's implemented undermines his character development so far. Ralph seems completely unable to properly communicate with... almost everybody (which was one of the big points of the first movie), but the thing goes both ways. Vanellope is equally unable to communicate, but in the opposite direction: if Ralph doesn't know how to say things, Vanellope doesn't know how to listen... and she doesn't learn. This is probably the cardinal sin of this movie. While other movies (chief among them Back to the Future) showed that you can write a great story without having the main character going through a significant amount of development, there must be a sense of agency to his/her actions. Here Vanellope pretty much bounces around looking for a hole shaped like her and, when she finds it, she literally shows the middle finger to the entire universe and jumps in. I swear, what this really reminds me is the classic "murder hobo" mentality of certain players, who force the GM to fit the entire plot around them so they can show the world how awesome they are. As far as I'm concerned, Vanellope should get down on her knees and thank the universe for the Ralph virus/monster, because the only real reason nobody gave a fuck about what she did was it. By the end of the movie, Ralph was on a guilt trip because of the monster and everyone else was too busy fixing the collateral damage.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie in the theaters, but I really don't think I would watch it again, whereas I would glady rewatch Zootopia several times.
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Re: Banshee

Post by Thorpocalypse »

HalloweenJack wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:50 pm
Jabroniville wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:15 am
-The most famous aspect of Irish folklore beyond the Leprechan is the Banshee ("Bean Side"= "Fairy Woman", sorta)- a herald of death, whose wailing cry is heard by the family of the soon to be departed. Visual descriptions vary, but most are quite pale and wear dresses. Most descriptions are of short women, though others are described as quite tall. There's... not really a lot TOO the myth- it's just kind of a thing that supposedly happened back in the day, but nobody sees them anymore. Despite that, they're ultra-famous, with numerous forms of media utilizing them- Marvel's Banshee is named after them (despite being male), one appeared in Gargoyles as a menacing monster, and more. The Roswell Conspiracies, a cool cartoon about aliens being hidden by a government agency, used them as a major race- being aliens ruled by Queen Mab, with their most notable member being the show's female lead. Being that it's a death-omen and a wailing friggin' ghost, they're usually seen as villains, but in Ireland they were largely perfunctory- nobody was HAPPY to see one, but they weren't evil or anything. It was like a text message, but a tiny keening woman instead of a "ding".
and there's always the Banshee in Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Scared the hell out of me as a kid.
Same here. Actually I was kinda creeped out by the whole movie. Kept checking our cabinets for little people for weeks after seeing that.

But then again, The Borrowers kinda freaked me out too...

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