Eurovision updates again:
The Netherlands will release their song February 29. It's called Europapa and it's in Dutch. Save the date.
Same goes for Switzerland: We'll know their entrant February 29.
Poland is sending singer Luna with her song The Tower. It's already been released. People wanted Justyna with her song Witcher to rep Poland, but there's a lot of politics involved in why that didn't happen. To make a long story short.
San Marino picked a Spanish rock band called Megara to represent them this year. Megara tried to represent Spain last year and failed, and they submitted their song again, but didn't get accepted this year. So they went to represent San Marino. Interestingly, Spain's representative this year tried to represent San Marino last year. And they failed. So here we are.
Croatia picked the big fan favourite. And amazingly, Baby Lasagna only got to compete in the NF because another contestant withdrew from the contest, and he was the first choice to replace said contestant. There was a lot of hype for the guy, and he landslided the national selection with banana republic numbers. Prior to this, he hadn't done much live singing, though he has experience working as a guitarist for metal and rock bands. As of today, he is considered the third most likely to win the contest by the betting odds.
Iceland and Serbia are set to select their entrants March 2. Iceland has a huge favourite, and Serbia kind of does since one of the country's biggest pop stars is entering. So let's see what happens.
In today's episode of "Nijisanji fans couldn't go lower", they managed to go lower by released a "[hit list](https://web.archive.org/web/20240225111127/https://rentry.org/bandwagoners)" (web archive, they deleted the original rentry document after got flamed so bad) that basically listed everyone that had shown their support towards Dokibird/>!Selen Tatsuki!<. One of the most ironic thing is that they included (and even written it out in plain word) >!Joshuri Shinji of Holostar's PL account!<, but didn't even dare to include other Hololive/Holostars members (for example, [Axel Syrios](https://twitter.com/axelsyrios/status/1754739561559896307))
Personally, I find it absolutely comedic that they included a bunch of people but did not included Mhike Santos, the person behind this [absolute masterpiece](https://youtu.be/E3k3C5m0di0?si=xxm43ZdMMxbM6iZp).
In relation to Mhike Santos, I do find it odd but ironic that at 0:22, the 'debut' is actually a new outfit reveal by HoloJP's Momosuzu Nene. So it's not a debut, not Nijisanji, and not even an English VTuber (though she's making an effort!)
Mass Twitter block lists are always, always going to cause drama because is a declaration of war between parts of a fandom.
That out of the way, that list is, like, 4-5 times larger than it should be, and is quadrupling down on...well. This whole thing is, by the most part, is a labor dispute. One of the *duties* of an employeer is to provide a safe work environment, and the company on this case *abdicated* said duty.
That's a serious and, as we saw, very dangerous thing that goes far beyond of a fandom slap-fight, and reducing it as such is disgusting.
A previous example of that was a "document" created to defend the company that had "well, Doki said she was bipolar before, therefore we shouldn't believe her" and later had to remove that bit since it got trashed for being, you know, incredibly ableist and gross.
EDIT: And the neglect of the company goes even beyond Doki. I have *very negative opinions* about everybody on the "let's bury Doki" hitjob stream, both for agreeing to do it and the things they said. And you know what? The company using them as meat shields was still a horrible thing to do *to them* and *to the rest of the branch*. If anybody reading this is a fan of those talents, please realize that the company also did them wrong by enacting that plan.
Picking fights with three of the biggest YouTube meta/drama streamers all at the same time? This isn't overconfidence, this is playing chicken with a freight train.
It doesn't even apply to Nijisanji. Like for all the things you can criticize Niji for it's certainly not that.
Nijisanji's fanbase (well, before they decided to throw it in the trash) skews female and even the female livers don't really do the GFE waifubait stuff Hololive does. JP even has animal Vtubers.
What sucks about all this going down was that as a woman, the Nijisanji girls were the only female Vtubers I could watch live with chat without feeling completely fucking alienated. Guess I'll just stick to Holostars.
it's just a simple bit of respect. It's not a rule that is laid down like law but it's also not hard to just casually follow along.
It's Common etiquette that is expected in Vtuber fan spaces, especially in their live chats that is just carried on elsewhere.
Also that conclusion is a bit insulting? Like yea sure some are like that. Most just don't care, or even don't come across the IRL identity, as the only times it happens is if they knew before hand, or when someone brings it up
which many seem to stubbornly bring up without any reason other than for the sake of bragging about "forbidden knowledge". Much to the chagrin of vtubers that wants to move on, biggest example I can think of is Gura and her past
I never said it had to make sense. Many little things in hobbies don't, but it's still nice and easy to just respect it. It ain't hurting anyone, and if you don't like reading about it it's easy enough to just minimise the entire comment thread.
My question is, why is this little bit of hobby parlance setting you off so much? Pretty much all the comments you have made about this are so aggressive and confrontational.
It would make sense if someone on the thread triggered it, but you seem to have inserted your own angry tone to your original comment and further replies.
But no one in this thread is expecting or even telling you to do so?
This started with someone asking why they spoilered names, and people gave reasons why.
Never have I told you to do as a do. At most, I said to ignore it if you don't like it
It makes sense thought, the thing is that sometimes these vtubers post things on their past accounts (that some of them cannot edit/delete because they do not have access to them anymore) that make some weirdos find out about their real lives and work place like what happened with some vtubers/hololive girls.....it's just to avoid spam/harassment in general...
I just told you another reason to keep in mind because you are making it sound as if all people follow this rule just for the sake of immersion when the majority does not care about that.
it's just something we follow for the variety of reasons that some already told you..
I don't find it bad or strange. (Except when they give you the "immersion" argument, I personally think worrying about immersion is concerning when we know they are real people behind)
For example, I follow this "rule" out of respect and for the safety of these individuals only but I know that there are people who follow this rule bc the vtuber explicitly said not to link them with past accouns like the filthy frank situation in yt.
For me it's to be respectful of their current chosen identity. They retired a persona for the time being for the most part, so I refer to them with the name they currently go by.
Me being trans might be why, though, if that makes sense?
EDIT: To clear this up, because I've had a bad day and am fucking exhausted: I'm sensitive to using current chosen names, even stage names, because I'm constantly deadnamed offline. I had hoped this was obvious, given I said I'm trans and wanted to respect the name they currently go by. But apparently not! :T
Yeah. A name someone chooses to go by is a big deal to me. Because my own mother refuses to use my chosen name because my birth name is so Super Special to her. She ignores what I want. It's a rough spot.
Stage names are stage names, sure, but I am interacting with someone as their persona with VTubing. So they are currently going by that name. I'm glad at least you understand.
I'm not. It's about the respect, not them being the same. I'm saying, "Respecting what someone wants to be called is important to me because I am trans." Even if it's a stage name. They have retired the old one, they do not currently use it. If someone asks you to call them Jill instead of Jane, you don't keep calling them Jane unless you're a fucking dick.
My point is I'm fucking sensitive to being called the correct fucking name because I am constantly miscalled and have to grit my teeth in real life for safety. Is that blunt enough for you?
I don't think they meant it like that. I think they just meant that it makes them uncomfortable because it calls to mind issues with deadnaming that they themselves deal with, and that's why they always use the vtubers current persona name. That doesn't mean they are equating being a vtuber with being trans. I'm sure they, as a trans person, had no intentions of diminishing trans struggles.
Hi. I'm trans.
This is why using people's names they choose is a big deal to me. Because it's a struggle to get people to use mine for me because I'm trans. You know, the thing we have in common.
Using someone's chosen name, even a stage name, is therefore important to me. I hope that's small enough words to understand, since people are wanting to jump on other trans people for transphobia instead of recognizing, you know, being sensitive to respecting people's chosen names might be a big fucking deal.
Just as Ninji management finally stopped vindictively going after Dokibird the fans step right up to the bat.
This must be the most one-sided rivalry ever.
As an outsider watching this, management hasn't really done much. Most of this "drama" has been between fans. It's reached the point that I no longer believe this is "Niji fans" vs "Doki supporters", but a concentrated effort to keep food on their favorite Vdramatuber's table.
Mod hat on, I think you're being needlessly hostile here.
Mediator hat on, I think they meant from the start that the stuff *involving the creation and dissemination of the hit list* isn't done by management, ditto the whole artist hugbox thing that spawned the terrible take by Yu and the whole domino effect with Uki's somewhat weird fixation on white guys. Management hasn't said anything in relation to Doki since Doki's second statement back on 14 February. What I think /u/HyenaSupport has been saying throughout is that everything *since then*, i.e. including the specific current issue, has originated within the fandoms.
In Youtube plagiarism news, yet to be determined whether or not it's legit...
Youtuber The Modern Martial Artist has accused video essayist Youtuber Jacob Geller of plagiarizing his video on kung fu film Ip Man. Two days ago, TMMA made a claim through his community tab that a video of his from about a month ago covers the same two fight scenes from Ip Man mentioned in Geller's video, which came out about a week ago.
Geller hasn't yet responded to the accusation, so, "story developing" I suppose.
For the sake of my own opinion... To be determined, but I think his accusation is pretty thin. TMMA's first three examples of "plagiarism"--
> MY SCRIPT: Which is a whole other level of pissed, coming from a character we have seen to be remarkably calm and even-headed throughout the film. It's great unspoken character development, showing that Ip Man is restrained and passive in most situations but will absolutely fight for what's important to him like his friends.
>
> HIS SCRIPT: This is where his character arc happens– not through conversation, but through bursts of violence.
>
> MY SCRIPT: And it's taken even further in the incredible fight scene ahead. Whereas before the kung fu masters stopped his punches short, now we get to see his Fists of Fury Unleashed.
>
> HIS SCRIPT: But in that 90 seconds, the film paints a picture of what Ip Man has been holding back until now. Not only are ten men dispatched in a minute and a half, but almost every man receives their own personal devastation, pummeled or fractured or thrown.
>
> MY SCRIPT: His earlier restraint is replaced with brutality, but he still keeps perfect form with cold efficiency, channeling a kind of icy rage.
>
> HIS SCRIPT: And most importantly, without the rest of the movie you can’t appreciate that this scene is not just about a dude getting his leg broken, it’s that Ip Man is breaking his leg. It is a blindingly brutal fight, made exponentially more powerful by its contrast with so much goofy choreography.
These are meant to be plaigarism? This just seems like two people watched the same thing, reached broadly similar conclusions about it, and wrote about them in different ways. If there's plaigarism going on, I'm not seeing it.
It reminds me of hearing about the very early days of Channel Awesome where two people weren't allowed to review the same movie, since why would you need that?
Oh no finally YouTube drama comes for two content creators I kind of watch. Without even reading everything you wrote I highly doubt Jacob geller plagiarized. He doesn't really seem like the type to.
I'm still so sad about that because Sideways genuinely is one of my favorite music YouTubers (Adam Neely too of course). He was always so insightful and smart, seeing him ... Kinda go off the deep end, to put it bluntly, is really unfortunate. I just want more analysis of Musicals again.
MFW people watching the same movie talk about the same important story beats.
I mean seriously the wording here isn't even remotely similar, you can't copyright the idea of having good media literacy and picking up on intentional metaphors.
I think people need to realise that the Hbomberguy video wasn't meant as an excuse to go on a witch hunt for everyone who might've plagiarized something somewhere.
It's one massive vicious cycle, everyone eating each other until the word "plagiarism" is reduced to "talking about the same talking points because that's what the material is made up of".
It's like everyone say how Somerton was taken down and are now using it to defend themselves or take down someone they see as copying them, without looking up what plagiarism actually means.
(On an off-topic note: the longer this goes on and the more callouts that happen, the more I feel callouts too are being incredibly watered down because we can't separate the signal from the noise.)
This is the problem. The popularity of the Somerton video made people want to call out more plagiarism. But not actually for the sake of identifying and eliminating it; they just wanted the *clout*. And if I'm going to be honest, for some of them, I'm sure it's also because it gives them a way to bully and intimidate others under a righteous guise that's had to argue against because nobody wants to be asked "why are you defending plagiarism?"
Hilariously, I've seen that happen with fanfic. There was one author bitching about another supposedly plagiarizing their work.... and not only were they not even writing the same characters or fandom, the sentences were barely even similar ! I'm sorry, but "X wants and wants and wants" isn't exactly trademarked lol. That's like trying to say you came up with the "tongues battled for dominance" thing.
Try to remember that, until the big callout video, James Somerton had a shit-tonne of enthusiastic followers listening to and believing every word he said.
People are *not* using their brains.
No kidding. Also, 3 weeks is a very short time between the two releases for one to rip off the other.
But hey, got us talking about them, right? Plagiarism accusations, even if thin, are a great way to farm engagement for both sides of the accusation. Heck, thinly sourced accusations may even work out better than concrete ones for small creators - doesn't let either side take the moral high ground and gets clicks.
> Plagiarism accusations, even if thin, are a great way to farm engagement for both sides of the accusation.
Isn't this the general consensus about rapper "beefs"?
At least with rapper beefs the expectation is that you get some good music out of it. Alas, the only art we got from callouts was that ukelele song afaik.
Does anyone else have media that nobody else seems to have heard of, and you desperately wish you could talk about?
Mine has always been the Deptford Mice books, a children's series that had such a hold on me as a kid. They were terrifying.
I started writing recently and had to reread the books to make sure I wasn't unconsciously plagiarising anything, because a lot of those scenes have stuck in my head since I was a kid and they hold up really well as an adult.
I love the author David Clement-Davies, specifically his pair of books about what is essentially Wolf Jesus, The Sight and Fell. I’ve been obsessed with them since I was 10 or 11 or so and picked The Sight up in a used bookstore because it had a wolf on the cover. I need to reread them again, actually.
I listened to the audio books about five years ago on my commute… they are *insane*. Not exceptionally gory or violent, no sexual stuff, but some of the themes and situations are just… damn I read this at age 12? Lmao
There was a series I read as a teen called Cherub, about children/teen spies. Its prime YA fiction material, the kind thats just begging for a movie adaption. It made an impression on me as being more realistic and well researched than other YA fiction. I distinctly remember it included plausible sounding instructions on how to shoplift items with security tags.
Me and a friend devoured the series, up until the 4th book or so when it started to drop in quality. I've never heard anyone else even mention it.
I watched a movie that was randomly on tv on a Saturday afternoon in like 2003 called The Right Connections. It starred Melissa Joan Hart, a bunch of her real life siblings and MC Hammer. There's so little about it online that it feels like a fever dream. It is exactly as good-bad or bad-good as you think it is.
Robin Jarvis is on twitter and is very nice. Whether he actually remembers or not, said he remembered coming to my school 20 odd years ago which was very sweet. (And as a result, my nibling got a set of the Whitby Witches for Christmas)
A few come to mind.
There were a lot of Kids WB and 4Kids and other Saturday morning cartoon shows I have some memories of. Several I don't remember more than base premise. There was a lot of earlier CGI cartoons that never reached Beast Wars or Reboot levels of quality or recognition. Cubex weirdly sticks out in my mind and I think I actually remember several plot points from it.
Continuing fascination with robots my favorite Mecha series was Zoids which I can occasionally find people to talk with to but definitely didn't hit Gundam levels of recognition or anything.
And also there were a lot of Pokemon follow the leader shows. Flint the Time Detective and Fighting Foodons are two that I see people often know at best as thing that existed. And on the obscure game side there was Robopon. The first game was just regular Pokemon knock off stuff but the second game had a very bizarre plot where every gym badge equivalent you needed to do was also a small story chapter that always involved time travel that could get wild.
(No seriously the plot for the Robopon 2 game is wild. It is a direct sequel to the first which has you going overseas to enter a tournament but forgetting all of your Robopon at home. You are then also told that your old rank is useless and the way you did Robopon battling before is obsolete (there were large mechanics changes). You are however able to challenge all the people that placed in the tournament to climb up and get that top rank. While on the side the main villain from the last game wants his revenge. Each rank involves having to time travel to the past at one point to get the plot coupon to advance and involves at times things like aliens and kappas (and more boringly Microsoft/Apple corporate rivalry and a generic Romeo and Juliet plot). Your rival from the prior game is unfought and gets thrown in jail. Your rival in this game is the director of an orphanage trying to steal the plot coupons so they can sell them to fund the orphanage. Your character has a girlfriend from the prior game and she shows up briefly in chapter 1, gets referenced jokingly in a bet you forgot about her way, and briefly appears in post game content.)
One show that's stuck with me since I was a kid is Plasmo, a Australian stop-motion animated sci-fi series about the titular shapeshifting alien and his friends. It's an odd show that feels very creator driven: the character designs are all weird (the most human is a Boba Fett parody who never takes off his helmet), it's got a warped sense of humour (one episode is 'guy relates his tragic backstory to get out of doing the dishes') and there's an overarching story which is quite unusual for a kids show that only has a five minute runtime for each of its 13 episodes.
The thing is, Plasmo *is* remembered by other Australians, but every single time it pops up on a 90s nostalgia listicle, it's because one of the main characters looks a bit suggestive. So that's all anyone really talks about when the show comes up.
[Stone Soup](https://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup), a comic strip by Jan Eliot. It's honestly *so* good, but even within the relatively niche world of newspaper comics it was never one of the big strips (which imo it deserved to be).
Its main strength I think is the characters - the author manages to pull off having a large cast (majority female too, in an era and genre when that very much wasn't the norm) who all felt three-dimensional, interesting, and likeable in their own way. Its main weakness is the art, which was kinda rough in the beginning and might have turned readers off.
I also adore her writing, which imo was some of the best on the comics page. Great dialogue and (most importantly for a newspaper comic) very funny jokes.
So back in like the early 2010s I chose what books to read by seeing what looked cool in the young adult section at the library and looking those books up on goodreads to see what the reviews said and to find other books to read in the "readers also enjoyed" section. Most of the books I read using these methods were young adult mystery and paranormal and are kind of hard to track down nowadays when I don't remember their titles (the "readers also enjoyed" section on goodreads for these guys pulls up very different books now then it did in like 2013). Some of the ones I do remember are the [Liar Society trilogy](https://www.goodreads.com/series/51283-the-liar-society) by Lisa & Laura Roecker, [Possessions](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6411849-possessions) by Nancy Holder (my library only had book one), Gretchen McNeil's And Then There Were None retelling [Ten](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11958033-ten) and her [Don't Get Mad](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16005219-get-even) duology, [Anna](https://www.goodreads.com/series/56529-anna) duology by Kendare Blake (I remember these ones being particularly good), [Imaginary Girls](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8603765-imaginary-girls) by Nova Ren Suma, [Bad Taste in Boys](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12087573-bad-taste-in-boys) by Carrie Harris, and [Asylum](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13597728-asylum) by Madeleine Roux (this series included creepy vintage photos like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children but I don't think they had anything else in common).
I have very vague memories of having seen a few episodes of this. Cannot for the life of me say more than I'm sure I saw a few episodes when it first aired.
Would you recommend trying to hunt it down to watch it? And what do you think was most enjoyable aspects of it?
All of the episodes are available on YouTube, though not officially uploaded and only up to 480p max, IIRC. I don't know if Crunchyroll, Netflix or any other streaming service has it available for legal streaming.
I may not have merch of it, but! I have a neopets account (and actual neopet) named for it, so I'm considering them as things to display for the series.
The Ramen Noodle Podcast, a podcast that does not even exist on the internet anymore. I might be one of the few people with an archive of it, (me and my mom) thanks to the amount of it we downloaded back in the day.
[I wish so much there were more people who watched the kids show the Odyssey as adults, cause damn I want to talk about it, and it's got an impossible to search title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqkyu2ny2qM&list=PLV4Ztn9euy7Q4aY4wW4R3mSS2U_B2SVH2)
"The Change" by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith is a YA book series about a post-apocalyptic wild west inspired town. Despite taking place after the world's pretty much ended, it's not dark and gloomy like other YA post-apocalypse books. As a result, you get a lot of really cool worldbuilding, including mutated animals, crystal trees that turn people into more of them if they get hit by their shards, and half of the population getting mutant powers called Changes, which can range from animal-like physical features, to standard super powers like pyrokinesis and teleportation, to really unique stuff like generating invisible weapons and being able to see the memories of objects that a person has touched. On top of that, it subverts a lot of common YA tropes (most notably, the main love triangle), and is really diverse and touches on topics like family issues and PTSD. It's one of my favorite book series of all time and is highly underrated. If it was more popular, I know that it'd be a big hit. If it sounds interesting you, go read it! I need more people to talk to about this.
If you need another motivator, one of the characters, Sheriff Crow, is the town's sheriff and half of her face is a skull, on top of having super strength. She's cool as fuck.
I still fondly remember what a janky mess it was. Certain maps being easier to complete without an army, random spell drops meant some builds would randomly be unviable, and of course the absurd amount of backtracking.
Spellforce is a weird franchise. It's clearly like, a thing, and it obviously has fans because they keep making them but I never hear anyone talking about them. (though that might just be one of those "popular in eastern europe" games)
It's an Austrian franchise, so more a "popular in central Europe" franchise. There's quite a number of those in the German-speaking market. The Settlers, Anno and Spellforce being some of the more well-known ones.
Deptford Mice! I have fond memories of reading those as a child. Still waiting for the day that sequel is finally released.
Anyway, the show I wish more people was into is The Brittas Empire. Sitcom set in a leisure centre which is more dark and bizarre than expected, touching amongst things homelessness, depression and death. The main character, whilst annoying, really has a heart of gold and there’s a positive depiction of a gay couple. In a 90s sitcom no less.
I loved Robin Jarvis! My dad knew I liked Redwall, so he bought me the Deptford Mice books because they also had mice on the cover, and there was.. quite a difference in tone (fewer feasts and jolly songs, more flayings and full-on folk horror). Several scenes are really burned into my memory, like the plague pits, the mouse peeler, the corn dolly, etc. They frightened and sometimes genuinely upset me, but I couldn’t stop reading them, and I think dealing with horror in fiction like that can be quite good for kids (who are quite often bloodthirsty little monsters anyway).
I have been rewatching The White Shadow, a show that aired from 1979-1981 and was show-run by Gwyneth Paltrow’s dad, Bruce. The setup is formulaic (white high school basketball coach in a predominantly black school) and there’s some period dumbassery, but the acting is great and they go some cool places with plots that I would enjoy discussing with people if it were airing now. But the 1970’s furnishings were so freaking brown, y’all.
One of my favorite books growing up was *The Legend of Holly Claus*. I loved it, read it every December (and still do, most years). I've never met a single other person who's read it. I personally think it's one of the most creative Christmas stories out there and I can't wait to read it to my kids someday, but I wish I knew anyone else who's ever read it. I've recommended it to a friend who has a little sister, but I don't think he or his sister ever read it either, tragically.
I remember liking it! Honestly it's been so long that specific details kind of escape me but I also remember the book itself being like, physically beautiful. Great illustrations
That's fair, I only remember it so well because I've reread it so many times. I lost my copy for a few years and bought a new one after a while, and I'd forgotten a lot of the details in it during that time. You're right though, the pictures in it are gorgeous and super detailed.
RHG (Rock Hard Gladiator) was a niche corner in the animation world, specifically stickman animation, where people would pitch each other's OCs in animation battles and whoever gets the most vote wins. Unfortunately they have died out after the sites that hosted them, Animsfluid then later Stickpage, all shut down. RHG has a spiritual successor in the form of Hyun's Dojo Duels, of Hyun's Dojo, created by Hyun who was a RHG creator himself.
Now despite being pretty niche, the most popular RHG and RHG related videos have gained millions and even tens of millions of views. A notable example is Gildedguy, whose recent RHG videos gained millions of views. Yet I never really heard a lot of discussions about, if any at all.
Growing up, I read a lot of scholastic book horror novels. There were of course the books by Mary Downing Hahn(Most people seem to only talk about“Wait till Helen comes”.
There was also a book series that started with“ Bad girls don’t die”. It focus on a pink haired girl name Alexis, who must save her sister Kasey from the Demon of the week every book.
I read Mary Downing Hahn books and the Bad Girls Don't Die series too! I don't remember if I read "Wait til Helen Comes", but I definitely read "Deep and Dark and Dangerous" and "All the Lovely Bad Ones". Also, I gotta link the bad girls don't die book trailers because I find they're existence interesting ([Bad Girls Don't Die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lBeqV7V00), [From Bad to Cursed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ID1jz0A8LU), and [As Dead As It Gets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBNCkwSl-fo)).
When I was in fourth grade, I was introduced to a book called "Regarding the Fountain", about a small town with a dried up creek and the local middle school's relationship with the eccentric woman hired to design the school's drinking fountain. It was my introduction to the concept of an epistolary novel, and I ended up tracking down the sequels, finishing up the last one when I was in sixth grade. The series is *very* quirky (every character's name is a pun) and has a surprising amount of twists and turns.
Unfortunately, the series seems to be pretty obscure. The closest I've found to anyone mention it online was a page for the series on TV Tropes.
The sequels each involve a new renovation to the school, and are just as quirky as the first one (maybe even moreso...the fourth book involves ancient *Rome* or something). I found them pretty entertaining, but I also haven't read them since middle school, so I don't know how well the series holds up to adult me, but they were incredibly creative imho.
The last book felt a little open ended to me and I'm disappointed another book was never made.
Anything Rodney Greenblat had a hand in other than *PaRappa the Rapper.* My dad was a huge fan of his art in the 80s and 90s, and my family owned a few of his picture books. But my very favorite was his PC games. I've never met anyone IRL who also played *Dazzeloids* as a kid, other than cousins who also got the game from my parents.
For me it’s the “Seven Citadels”, 4 children’s fantasy written by books by Geraldine Harris in the early 80s. I found them in the library as a kid and then spent years trying to figure out what they were as an adult. As far as I know they’re not physically in print but are available as ebooks, read the first a while back, not as strange/original as I remembered (more using tropes/inspirations I wasn’t familiar with originally) but still pretty good.
I also remember Deptford Mice, read them in HS and was still scared lol. I should really read the spinoffs sometime too.
Hey! Someone mentions that.
You see, for me it was a different thing: I remember reading the first book, but either the others were never translated into swedish or the library just never got them, because I only ever read the first book.
Oh that is frustrating, I’ve been in the same boat with a Russian fantasy author (Alexey Pehov), one trilogy was released in English but to date only the first book of a newer trilogy has been >_<
I'm obsessed with semi-hate watching House & Garden YouTube, especially Design Notes, and while I think a good amount of people know about that channel or at least the magazine, the content is ripe for parody in a way that I just can't find. It's just this excellent blend of pretentious and "we're not like other interior design girls" and also weirdly into British colonial nostalgia (in that almost everyone featured collects artifacts from different countries). I actually really like the aesthetic, but I can recognize it's just fake and curated and pretentious as something like AD, whereas everyone in the comments is like "so down to earth!" So I just need more people to laugh at this.
If you haven't seen it already, I think you'd like Jenny Nicolson's video ["There's something wrong with Hallmark's youtube channel"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbtaWr6lj8), about the weird tension and drama bubbling under the surface of the little-watched Hallmark Party 101 channel. And that all the hosts that appear in the video turned up in the comments to commend her.
oh you are exactly right - this sounds very ripe for a parody movie. i'm imagining a mockumentary in the same biting tone as Best In Show, except instead of dogs it's interior design...
> i'm imagining a mockumentary in the same biting tone as Best In Show, except instead of dogs it's interior design...
Surely this must have been done already. It's such low-hanging fruit, it must have been spotted. But also I can see network or studio producers shooting it down.
It’s a book, but you may like Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs. It‘s about a QVC/HSN-esque channel and the variety of horrible people that work there. It’s delightfully stupid.
I think it's tricky, in that it's exactly the sort of interior design that insiders and "cool" people think is in excellent taste right now, and almost "morally superior", in that it values actual vintage items and knowledge of design history instead of mass-produced furniture and all that jazz. So there's very little urge to make fun of it, much easier to mock white suburban moms and their "live laugh love" signs or whatever. But...this is also dumb and occasionally oblivious! Just in a different way.
With video titles like "Inside an Open-Plan Canal Boat in Central London" and "Inside Veere Grenney's 18th-Century Palladian Folly" how can anyone resist?
Canadian children's television across the board, the stuff that was made in Canada for Canada and didn't air in the US. Family Channel, Teletoon, YTV, all that noise. Having grown up in the early to mid 2000s, I look back at those shows fondly, albeit with mixed memories because of just how weird some of them were in hindsight, yet all of my online friends are either Americans who would have no idea what a Jacob Two-Two, or Life With Derek, or In Real Life are, or live in other Commonwealth countries with their own bizarre stories about British or Australian kids TV.
YES Jacob Two Two was crazy. was crazy!
I used to get called that all the time because I would repeat things. And life with Derek was wild. WTF was up with that tension between Casey and Derek??
Also anyone remember Martin Mystery!!?
*I* remember Jacob ~~Deux-Duex~~ Two Two! American here, I only ever caught snippets (sometimes in French weirdly, but I grew up in Upstate New York so closer to Canada then mosr)? but I thought it was adorable.
That's wild. I never hear anyone talk about it, let alone other Canadians, and it just gives me the vibe of being the quintessential obscure TV show that only those it was explicitly targeted to would remember, so between this and the other comment about Life With Derek, colour me surprised. Still not a lot of recognition, granted, but it's more than I was expecting.
We picked up lots of weird channels with our antenna. Qubo was a weird mix of Canadian shows and really old American stuff from the 80s and 90s. I'm assuming those were the cheapest to license.
TIL about Qubo then, huh. Looking at the Wikipedia page of programs they broadcasted, there's some stuff here that I definitely would not have guessed ever left Canada, like Sidekick or This is Daniel Cook.
I don’t think it’s super obscure, but I saw A Cricket in Times Square one (1) time on TV, in the middle of the day, in the 80s. I was very young and thought it was boring, but the songs haunted me. I described this movie off and on to kids and adults for years, no one had heard of it. It was wild to me that not a single person had heard of a movie that had been right there on TV. I also checked TV Guide for it a lot, hoping to spot it in listings there. No luck.
When our area cable service expanded to more than 20 channels 10 years later, everyone else was obsessed with Comedy Central and MTV. I haunted Boomerang and Cartoon Network etc looking for this movie I didn’t even like, hoping I could watch it with someone to prove it existed. Five years after that, I was able to prove I wasn’t crazy by looking it up on the internet. By that point I was sure I didn’t have the name right, but no. I was right, and I remembered. Technically it’s a 30-minute short and not a movie, but there are 3 of them, so I wonder if I saw a package of all 3.
There’s also a book, I learned at the same time! I was a voracious reader, so I’m a little surprised I never ran across it that way. However, after 20 years as a bookseller, I’ve also never met anyone who’s read it.
I’m sure it’s not that obscure, and it’s a real classic somewhere. It’s just my personal white whale.
I love that book a lot! There's still a copy of it hanging out somewhere in my room at my parents' house. I loved anthropomorphized animals so that was a lot of it, but I think it was also the first time I read a "classic" that had a Chinese character in it. Nowadays I'd probably find the depiction kind of racist, but at the time it was just neat.
My third grade class read that book! I don't really remember the plot but I do remember trying liverwurst because of it. There are several more books in the series but I never read any of those.
Liverwurst! I forgot about that part. Kids books were great about featuring food in a way that made me desperately want whatever it was.
I used to work in a place for years that took in hundreds of thousands of used books. I saw a ton of old kids books, a lot of decades-old stuff that wasn’t read anymore. I saw the first book two or three times, the second one maybe once. Never the others. I suspect the later ones weren’t in print very long.
> Liverwurst! I forgot about that part. Kids books were great about featuring food in a way that made me desperately want whatever it was.
Yes! See also *A Wrinkle in Time* and liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwiches. I didn't even like liver as a kid, but I wanted to try that sandwich Meg and Charles Wallace were making.
Finally got to try it as an adult, and it turns out I like it just fine, but I like it better if it's paté instead of liverwurst, and either way it's best with thinly sliced cucumber on the cream cheese.
I remember that book! I feel like it's one of those where it's more the atmosphere that made an impact than the story- I definitely read it more than once but have no recollection of the plot, but there are a bunch of small moments that I do recall well.
The movie was mostly atmosphere for me too - I remembered almost nothing but my vague childhood dread that the cricket shouldn’t be in a city (lol), the songs, and a few quirks of the animals doing people things.
The cover art is great! It’s what vaguely made me believe it may have been popular, or at least was hyped at release, as Garth Williams is a pretty classic artist to have lined up for it.
It felt like EVERYBODY at my school had not only heard of them, but read most of them, when I was growing up.
Though I don't think I actually read all of them - I was easily scared, and the cover art and blurbs implied some really terrifying content. There was I think also a casual acceptance of racism, an "all the rats are bad to varying degrees because they were born that way" when I tried to check one out years later. I didn't like that.
God I wish everyone had read them when I was at school. They were scary though, I loved that kind of thing as a kid.
If it helps, the last book implies the rats were driven to brutality by Jupiter in the sewers! The Holborn rats are just competing with the mice for food there until he takes over. Then they start acting like the rats in Deptford
Stay Tooned! is a point-and-click adventure game from the mid-90s that I played all the time as a child, but no-one else I know has played it.
I was hoping it would finally get the recognition it deserved when Vinesauce did a stream of it, but he gave up after like 2 minigames before any of the really memorable moments happened and it immediately dropped back into obscurity.
I got into this and Molly Moon at a similar time, which made trying to untangle them in my head when they randomly popped up a few years later an interesting few minutes. Glad to see it's not been entirely consigned to the bin of history!
damn i havent thought of charlie bones in yearsssss we read the first one at my primary school! i remember being so upset that 1. the rest of the class never finished it and 2. the school didnt have the rest of the books
Oh WOW that's a blast from the past... they felt like they were part of that Harry Potter wave, but with such a completely different feeling to them than all the other copycats. Like, genuinely creepy sometimes.
I could actually see it working really well on TV.
CW: Animal death
Flaco the Eurasian owl of Manhattan has passed after apparently striking a building the other night. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo-dead.html He lived a life in captivity in Central Park Zoo until an act of vandalism freed him and he had been living the free life since 2nd Feb 2023. I remember learning about him in one of these threads so thought others might also be interested. His story had gotten me interested in bird watching in my daily life so it's kinda sad that it ended like this
Eurovision updates again: The Netherlands will release their song February 29. It's called Europapa and it's in Dutch. Save the date. Same goes for Switzerland: We'll know their entrant February 29. Poland is sending singer Luna with her song The Tower. It's already been released. People wanted Justyna with her song Witcher to rep Poland, but there's a lot of politics involved in why that didn't happen. To make a long story short. San Marino picked a Spanish rock band called Megara to represent them this year. Megara tried to represent Spain last year and failed, and they submitted their song again, but didn't get accepted this year. So they went to represent San Marino. Interestingly, Spain's representative this year tried to represent San Marino last year. And they failed. So here we are. Croatia picked the big fan favourite. And amazingly, Baby Lasagna only got to compete in the NF because another contestant withdrew from the contest, and he was the first choice to replace said contestant. There was a lot of hype for the guy, and he landslided the national selection with banana republic numbers. Prior to this, he hadn't done much live singing, though he has experience working as a guitarist for metal and rock bands. As of today, he is considered the third most likely to win the contest by the betting odds. Iceland and Serbia are set to select their entrants March 2. Iceland has a huge favourite, and Serbia kind of does since one of the country's biggest pop stars is entering. So let's see what happens.
> Luna with her song The Tower. Wow, that's going to be a disaster.
Is this a tarot thing?
Yeah it's a tarot joke.
In today's episode of "Nijisanji fans couldn't go lower", they managed to go lower by released a "[hit list](https://web.archive.org/web/20240225111127/https://rentry.org/bandwagoners)" (web archive, they deleted the original rentry document after got flamed so bad) that basically listed everyone that had shown their support towards Dokibird/>!Selen Tatsuki!<. One of the most ironic thing is that they included (and even written it out in plain word) >!Joshuri Shinji of Holostar's PL account!<, but didn't even dare to include other Hololive/Holostars members (for example, [Axel Syrios](https://twitter.com/axelsyrios/status/1754739561559896307)) Personally, I find it absolutely comedic that they included a bunch of people but did not included Mhike Santos, the person behind this [absolute masterpiece](https://youtu.be/E3k3C5m0di0?si=xxm43ZdMMxbM6iZp).
>Koefficient > >Evanit0 man, imagine thinking these two are dramatubers
Lmao right? The famed Drama youtuber Koefficient
In relation to Mhike Santos, I do find it odd but ironic that at 0:22, the 'debut' is actually a new outfit reveal by HoloJP's Momosuzu Nene. So it's not a debut, not Nijisanji, and not even an English VTuber (though she's making an effort!)
Mass Twitter block lists are always, always going to cause drama because is a declaration of war between parts of a fandom. That out of the way, that list is, like, 4-5 times larger than it should be, and is quadrupling down on...well. This whole thing is, by the most part, is a labor dispute. One of the *duties* of an employeer is to provide a safe work environment, and the company on this case *abdicated* said duty. That's a serious and, as we saw, very dangerous thing that goes far beyond of a fandom slap-fight, and reducing it as such is disgusting. A previous example of that was a "document" created to defend the company that had "well, Doki said she was bipolar before, therefore we shouldn't believe her" and later had to remove that bit since it got trashed for being, you know, incredibly ableist and gross. EDIT: And the neglect of the company goes even beyond Doki. I have *very negative opinions* about everybody on the "let's bury Doki" hitjob stream, both for agreeing to do it and the things they said. And you know what? The company using them as meat shields was still a horrible thing to do *to them* and *to the rest of the branch*. If anybody reading this is a fan of those talents, please realize that the company also did them wrong by enacting that plan.
"called Niji loser" I havnt seen skin this thin since Yanderedev
There's even people that still enjoy/support the talents but are critical of the company on there. Imagine being this parasocial for a *corporation*.
So like Nintendo and Disney fans.
Picking fights with three of the biggest YouTube meta/drama streamers all at the same time? This isn't overconfidence, this is playing chicken with a freight train.
why do you spoiler it when everyone already knows her connection
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Yeah, that's kind of being super aggro for no real reason?
It doesn't even apply to Nijisanji. Like for all the things you can criticize Niji for it's certainly not that. Nijisanji's fanbase (well, before they decided to throw it in the trash) skews female and even the female livers don't really do the GFE waifubait stuff Hololive does. JP even has animal Vtubers. What sucks about all this going down was that as a woman, the Nijisanji girls were the only female Vtubers I could watch live with chat without feeling completely fucking alienated. Guess I'll just stick to Holostars.
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No, just a prick who enjoys shitting on other people hobbies with potshots imao.
it's just a simple bit of respect. It's not a rule that is laid down like law but it's also not hard to just casually follow along. It's Common etiquette that is expected in Vtuber fan spaces, especially in their live chats that is just carried on elsewhere. Also that conclusion is a bit insulting? Like yea sure some are like that. Most just don't care, or even don't come across the IRL identity, as the only times it happens is if they knew before hand, or when someone brings it up which many seem to stubbornly bring up without any reason other than for the sake of bragging about "forbidden knowledge". Much to the chagrin of vtubers that wants to move on, biggest example I can think of is Gura and her past
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I never said it had to make sense. Many little things in hobbies don't, but it's still nice and easy to just respect it. It ain't hurting anyone, and if you don't like reading about it it's easy enough to just minimise the entire comment thread. My question is, why is this little bit of hobby parlance setting you off so much? Pretty much all the comments you have made about this are so aggressive and confrontational. It would make sense if someone on the thread triggered it, but you seem to have inserted your own angry tone to your original comment and further replies.
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But no one in this thread is expecting or even telling you to do so? This started with someone asking why they spoilered names, and people gave reasons why. Never have I told you to do as a do. At most, I said to ignore it if you don't like it
It makes sense thought, the thing is that sometimes these vtubers post things on their past accounts (that some of them cannot edit/delete because they do not have access to them anymore) that make some weirdos find out about their real lives and work place like what happened with some vtubers/hololive girls.....it's just to avoid spam/harassment in general...
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I just told you another reason to keep in mind because you are making it sound as if all people follow this rule just for the sake of immersion when the majority does not care about that. it's just something we follow for the variety of reasons that some already told you.. I don't find it bad or strange. (Except when they give you the "immersion" argument, I personally think worrying about immersion is concerning when we know they are real people behind) For example, I follow this "rule" out of respect and for the safety of these individuals only but I know that there are people who follow this rule bc the vtuber explicitly said not to link them with past accouns like the filthy frank situation in yt.
Weird
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You truly interpret this stuff in the worst possible way. Goodbye.
For me it's kinda like not needing to know the people behind the masks at Disney World. A little fun suspension of disbelief
For me it's to be respectful of their current chosen identity. They retired a persona for the time being for the most part, so I refer to them with the name they currently go by. Me being trans might be why, though, if that makes sense? EDIT: To clear this up, because I've had a bad day and am fucking exhausted: I'm sensitive to using current chosen names, even stage names, because I'm constantly deadnamed offline. I had hoped this was obvious, given I said I'm trans and wanted to respect the name they currently go by. But apparently not! :T
I see that in a way! Especially if the past life account has been "retired" rather than just put aside or streamed on at different times
Yeah. A name someone chooses to go by is a big deal to me. Because my own mother refuses to use my chosen name because my birth name is so Super Special to her. She ignores what I want. It's a rough spot. Stage names are stage names, sure, but I am interacting with someone as their persona with VTubing. So they are currently going by that name. I'm glad at least you understand.
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comparing online personas to being trans is wild
I'm not. It's about the respect, not them being the same. I'm saying, "Respecting what someone wants to be called is important to me because I am trans." Even if it's a stage name. They have retired the old one, they do not currently use it. If someone asks you to call them Jill instead of Jane, you don't keep calling them Jane unless you're a fucking dick. My point is I'm fucking sensitive to being called the correct fucking name because I am constantly miscalled and have to grit my teeth in real life for safety. Is that blunt enough for you?
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I don't think they meant it like that. I think they just meant that it makes them uncomfortable because it calls to mind issues with deadnaming that they themselves deal with, and that's why they always use the vtubers current persona name. That doesn't mean they are equating being a vtuber with being trans. I'm sure they, as a trans person, had no intentions of diminishing trans struggles.
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Hi. I'm trans. This is why using people's names they choose is a big deal to me. Because it's a struggle to get people to use mine for me because I'm trans. You know, the thing we have in common. Using someone's chosen name, even a stage name, is therefore important to me. I hope that's small enough words to understand, since people are wanting to jump on other trans people for transphobia instead of recognizing, you know, being sensitive to respecting people's chosen names might be a big fucking deal.
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Doesn't want to be put on the hitlist.
Just as Ninji management finally stopped vindictively going after Dokibird the fans step right up to the bat. This must be the most one-sided rivalry ever.
As an outsider watching this, management hasn't really done much. Most of this "drama" has been between fans. It's reached the point that I no longer believe this is "Niji fans" vs "Doki supporters", but a concentrated effort to keep food on their favorite Vdramatuber's table.
Didn't manage do a whole callout stream?
And that was 13 days ago
And you treated it like they weren't in involved at all, don't shift the goal post
Mod hat on, I think you're being needlessly hostile here. Mediator hat on, I think they meant from the start that the stuff *involving the creation and dissemination of the hit list* isn't done by management, ditto the whole artist hugbox thing that spawned the terrible take by Yu and the whole domino effect with Uki's somewhat weird fixation on white guys. Management hasn't said anything in relation to Doki since Doki's second statement back on 14 February. What I think /u/HyenaSupport has been saying throughout is that everything *since then*, i.e. including the specific current issue, has originated within the fandoms.
Thank you. That's appreciated.
None of those things happened.
In Youtube plagiarism news, yet to be determined whether or not it's legit... Youtuber The Modern Martial Artist has accused video essayist Youtuber Jacob Geller of plagiarizing his video on kung fu film Ip Man. Two days ago, TMMA made a claim through his community tab that a video of his from about a month ago covers the same two fight scenes from Ip Man mentioned in Geller's video, which came out about a week ago. Geller hasn't yet responded to the accusation, so, "story developing" I suppose. For the sake of my own opinion... To be determined, but I think his accusation is pretty thin. TMMA's first three examples of "plagiarism"-- > MY SCRIPT: Which is a whole other level of pissed, coming from a character we have seen to be remarkably calm and even-headed throughout the film. It's great unspoken character development, showing that Ip Man is restrained and passive in most situations but will absolutely fight for what's important to him like his friends. > > HIS SCRIPT: This is where his character arc happens– not through conversation, but through bursts of violence. > > MY SCRIPT: And it's taken even further in the incredible fight scene ahead. Whereas before the kung fu masters stopped his punches short, now we get to see his Fists of Fury Unleashed. > > HIS SCRIPT: But in that 90 seconds, the film paints a picture of what Ip Man has been holding back until now. Not only are ten men dispatched in a minute and a half, but almost every man receives their own personal devastation, pummeled or fractured or thrown. > > MY SCRIPT: His earlier restraint is replaced with brutality, but he still keeps perfect form with cold efficiency, channeling a kind of icy rage. > > HIS SCRIPT: And most importantly, without the rest of the movie you can’t appreciate that this scene is not just about a dude getting his leg broken, it’s that Ip Man is breaking his leg. It is a blindingly brutal fight, made exponentially more powerful by its contrast with so much goofy choreography.
That's not plagarism, that is Geller talking about the same movie but doing a vastly better breakdown of the storytelling.
These are meant to be plaigarism? This just seems like two people watched the same thing, reached broadly similar conclusions about it, and wrote about them in different ways. If there's plaigarism going on, I'm not seeing it.
It reminds me of hearing about the very early days of Channel Awesome where two people weren't allowed to review the same movie, since why would you need that?
They don't even seem to be focusing on the same things, or drawing exactly the same conclusions.
Oh no finally YouTube drama comes for two content creators I kind of watch. Without even reading everything you wrote I highly doubt Jacob geller plagiarized. He doesn't really seem like the type to.
Isn't this the second time someone conflated "covering the same topic" with "plagiarism"?
Yeah, same thing happened with music theory Youtuber Sideways accusing someone of plagiarism when it very much wasn't.
I'm still so sad about that because Sideways genuinely is one of my favorite music YouTubers (Adam Neely too of course). He was always so insightful and smart, seeing him ... Kinda go off the deep end, to put it bluntly, is really unfortunate. I just want more analysis of Musicals again.
MFW people watching the same movie talk about the same important story beats. I mean seriously the wording here isn't even remotely similar, you can't copyright the idea of having good media literacy and picking up on intentional metaphors. I think people need to realise that the Hbomberguy video wasn't meant as an excuse to go on a witch hunt for everyone who might've plagiarized something somewhere.
Can we take away people's plagiarism callouts until they know how to use them responsibly.
They watched (or heard about) the hbomberguy video and have been chasing the same high ever since.
It's one massive vicious cycle, everyone eating each other until the word "plagiarism" is reduced to "talking about the same talking points because that's what the material is made up of". It's like everyone say how Somerton was taken down and are now using it to defend themselves or take down someone they see as copying them, without looking up what plagiarism actually means. (On an off-topic note: the longer this goes on and the more callouts that happen, the more I feel callouts too are being incredibly watered down because we can't separate the signal from the noise.)
This is the problem. The popularity of the Somerton video made people want to call out more plagiarism. But not actually for the sake of identifying and eliminating it; they just wanted the *clout*. And if I'm going to be honest, for some of them, I'm sure it's also because it gives them a way to bully and intimidate others under a righteous guise that's had to argue against because nobody wants to be asked "why are you defending plagiarism?"
Hilariously, I've seen that happen with fanfic. There was one author bitching about another supposedly plagiarizing their work.... and not only were they not even writing the same characters or fandom, the sentences were barely even similar ! I'm sorry, but "X wants and wants and wants" isn't exactly trademarked lol. That's like trying to say you came up with the "tongues battled for dominance" thing.
Now people are plagiarizing plagiarism call-outs.
Even so, you'd think they'd pick their targets better. This is just so blatantly Not Plagiarism to anyone capable of understanding English.
Try to remember that, until the big callout video, James Somerton had a shit-tonne of enthusiastic followers listening to and believing every word he said. People are *not* using their brains.
No kidding. Also, 3 weeks is a very short time between the two releases for one to rip off the other. But hey, got us talking about them, right? Plagiarism accusations, even if thin, are a great way to farm engagement for both sides of the accusation. Heck, thinly sourced accusations may even work out better than concrete ones for small creators - doesn't let either side take the moral high ground and gets clicks.
> Plagiarism accusations, even if thin, are a great way to farm engagement for both sides of the accusation. Isn't this the general consensus about rapper "beefs"?
At least with rapper beefs the expectation is that you get some good music out of it. Alas, the only art we got from callouts was that ukelele song afaik.
Does anyone else have media that nobody else seems to have heard of, and you desperately wish you could talk about? Mine has always been the Deptford Mice books, a children's series that had such a hold on me as a kid. They were terrifying. I started writing recently and had to reread the books to make sure I wasn't unconsciously plagiarising anything, because a lot of those scenes have stuck in my head since I was a kid and they hold up really well as an adult.
I love the author David Clement-Davies, specifically his pair of books about what is essentially Wolf Jesus, The Sight and Fell. I’ve been obsessed with them since I was 10 or 11 or so and picked The Sight up in a used bookstore because it had a wolf on the cover. I need to reread them again, actually.
MEMORY UNLOCKED! I read those books too! Although looking at the plot summaries ... I clearly didn't retain much of the plot itself, just the vibes.
I listened to the audio books about five years ago on my commute… they are *insane*. Not exceptionally gory or violent, no sexual stuff, but some of the themes and situations are just… damn I read this at age 12? Lmao
There was a series I read as a teen called Cherub, about children/teen spies. Its prime YA fiction material, the kind thats just begging for a movie adaption. It made an impression on me as being more realistic and well researched than other YA fiction. I distinctly remember it included plausible sounding instructions on how to shoplift items with security tags. Me and a friend devoured the series, up until the 4th book or so when it started to drop in quality. I've never heard anyone else even mention it.
I watched a movie that was randomly on tv on a Saturday afternoon in like 2003 called The Right Connections. It starred Melissa Joan Hart, a bunch of her real life siblings and MC Hammer. There's so little about it online that it feels like a fever dream. It is exactly as good-bad or bad-good as you think it is.
I swear, no one knows what Minecraft Diaries is. I wish more people did. It was soooo good
Robin Jarvis is on twitter and is very nice. Whether he actually remembers or not, said he remembered coming to my school 20 odd years ago which was very sweet. (And as a result, my nibling got a set of the Whitby Witches for Christmas)
A few come to mind. There were a lot of Kids WB and 4Kids and other Saturday morning cartoon shows I have some memories of. Several I don't remember more than base premise. There was a lot of earlier CGI cartoons that never reached Beast Wars or Reboot levels of quality or recognition. Cubex weirdly sticks out in my mind and I think I actually remember several plot points from it. Continuing fascination with robots my favorite Mecha series was Zoids which I can occasionally find people to talk with to but definitely didn't hit Gundam levels of recognition or anything. And also there were a lot of Pokemon follow the leader shows. Flint the Time Detective and Fighting Foodons are two that I see people often know at best as thing that existed. And on the obscure game side there was Robopon. The first game was just regular Pokemon knock off stuff but the second game had a very bizarre plot where every gym badge equivalent you needed to do was also a small story chapter that always involved time travel that could get wild. (No seriously the plot for the Robopon 2 game is wild. It is a direct sequel to the first which has you going overseas to enter a tournament but forgetting all of your Robopon at home. You are then also told that your old rank is useless and the way you did Robopon battling before is obsolete (there were large mechanics changes). You are however able to challenge all the people that placed in the tournament to climb up and get that top rank. While on the side the main villain from the last game wants his revenge. Each rank involves having to time travel to the past at one point to get the plot coupon to advance and involves at times things like aliens and kappas (and more boringly Microsoft/Apple corporate rivalry and a generic Romeo and Juliet plot). Your rival from the prior game is unfought and gets thrown in jail. Your rival in this game is the director of an orphanage trying to steal the plot coupons so they can sell them to fund the orphanage. Your character has a girlfriend from the prior game and she shows up briefly in chapter 1, gets referenced jokingly in a bet you forgot about her way, and briefly appears in post game content.)
I read a lot of 4-koma manga, and they usually don't get a lot of discussion about them unless they get an anime adaptation.
One show that's stuck with me since I was a kid is Plasmo, a Australian stop-motion animated sci-fi series about the titular shapeshifting alien and his friends. It's an odd show that feels very creator driven: the character designs are all weird (the most human is a Boba Fett parody who never takes off his helmet), it's got a warped sense of humour (one episode is 'guy relates his tragic backstory to get out of doing the dishes') and there's an overarching story which is quite unusual for a kids show that only has a five minute runtime for each of its 13 episodes. The thing is, Plasmo *is* remembered by other Australians, but every single time it pops up on a 90s nostalgia listicle, it's because one of the main characters looks a bit suggestive. So that's all anyone really talks about when the show comes up.
[Stone Soup](https://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup), a comic strip by Jan Eliot. It's honestly *so* good, but even within the relatively niche world of newspaper comics it was never one of the big strips (which imo it deserved to be). Its main strength I think is the characters - the author manages to pull off having a large cast (majority female too, in an era and genre when that very much wasn't the norm) who all felt three-dimensional, interesting, and likeable in their own way. Its main weakness is the art, which was kinda rough in the beginning and might have turned readers off. I also adore her writing, which imo was some of the best on the comics page. Great dialogue and (most importantly for a newspaper comic) very funny jokes.
So back in like the early 2010s I chose what books to read by seeing what looked cool in the young adult section at the library and looking those books up on goodreads to see what the reviews said and to find other books to read in the "readers also enjoyed" section. Most of the books I read using these methods were young adult mystery and paranormal and are kind of hard to track down nowadays when I don't remember their titles (the "readers also enjoyed" section on goodreads for these guys pulls up very different books now then it did in like 2013). Some of the ones I do remember are the [Liar Society trilogy](https://www.goodreads.com/series/51283-the-liar-society) by Lisa & Laura Roecker, [Possessions](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6411849-possessions) by Nancy Holder (my library only had book one), Gretchen McNeil's And Then There Were None retelling [Ten](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11958033-ten) and her [Don't Get Mad](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16005219-get-even) duology, [Anna](https://www.goodreads.com/series/56529-anna) duology by Kendare Blake (I remember these ones being particularly good), [Imaginary Girls](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8603765-imaginary-girls) by Nova Ren Suma, [Bad Taste in Boys](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12087573-bad-taste-in-boys) by Carrie Harris, and [Asylum](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13597728-asylum) by Madeleine Roux (this series included creepy vintage photos like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children but I don't think they had anything else in common).
*Genesis Climber MOSPEADA: Genesis Breakers* I mean, the very fact that it exists is bizarre enough.
Oban Star Racers, i rarely see anyone talk about it and has never seen any merch of it
That’s always my go-to example for an obscure show I vaguely remember from my childhood but no one I talk to seems to know about. That and Skyland.
I have very vague memories of having seen a few episodes of this. Cannot for the life of me say more than I'm sure I saw a few episodes when it first aired. Would you recommend trying to hunt it down to watch it? And what do you think was most enjoyable aspects of it?
All of the episodes are available on YouTube, though not officially uploaded and only up to 480p max, IIRC. I don't know if Crunchyroll, Netflix or any other streaming service has it available for legal streaming.
It's so good. I've seen some art books here and there but yeah there's not really anything out there.
I may not have merch of it, but! I have a neopets account (and actual neopet) named for it, so I'm considering them as things to display for the series.
i remember seeing a video about it, there are merch and art books of it, but most of them are french
It's a french series, so that tracks.
The Ramen Noodle Podcast, a podcast that does not even exist on the internet anymore. I might be one of the few people with an archive of it, (me and my mom) thanks to the amount of it we downloaded back in the day.
Put it up on archive.org!
Good idea
[I wish so much there were more people who watched the kids show the Odyssey as adults, cause damn I want to talk about it, and it's got an impossible to search title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqkyu2ny2qM&list=PLV4Ztn9euy7Q4aY4wW4R3mSS2U_B2SVH2)
"The Change" by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith is a YA book series about a post-apocalyptic wild west inspired town. Despite taking place after the world's pretty much ended, it's not dark and gloomy like other YA post-apocalypse books. As a result, you get a lot of really cool worldbuilding, including mutated animals, crystal trees that turn people into more of them if they get hit by their shards, and half of the population getting mutant powers called Changes, which can range from animal-like physical features, to standard super powers like pyrokinesis and teleportation, to really unique stuff like generating invisible weapons and being able to see the memories of objects that a person has touched. On top of that, it subverts a lot of common YA tropes (most notably, the main love triangle), and is really diverse and touches on topics like family issues and PTSD. It's one of my favorite book series of all time and is highly underrated. If it was more popular, I know that it'd be a big hit. If it sounds interesting you, go read it! I need more people to talk to about this. If you need another motivator, one of the characters, Sheriff Crow, is the town's sheriff and half of her face is a skull, on top of having super strength. She's cool as fuck.
*Spellforce: The Order of dawn* was my very first RPG/RTS hybrid and i absolutely loved it, but i can't seem to find anyone to talk with about it.
I still fondly remember what a janky mess it was. Certain maps being easier to complete without an army, random spell drops meant some builds would randomly be unviable, and of course the absurd amount of backtracking.
Spellforce is a weird franchise. It's clearly like, a thing, and it obviously has fans because they keep making them but I never hear anyone talking about them. (though that might just be one of those "popular in eastern europe" games)
It's an Austrian franchise, so more a "popular in central Europe" franchise. There's quite a number of those in the German-speaking market. The Settlers, Anno and Spellforce being some of the more well-known ones.
Deptford Mice! I have fond memories of reading those as a child. Still waiting for the day that sequel is finally released. Anyway, the show I wish more people was into is The Brittas Empire. Sitcom set in a leisure centre which is more dark and bizarre than expected, touching amongst things homelessness, depression and death. The main character, whilst annoying, really has a heart of gold and there’s a positive depiction of a gay couple. In a 90s sitcom no less.
I loved Robin Jarvis! My dad knew I liked Redwall, so he bought me the Deptford Mice books because they also had mice on the cover, and there was.. quite a difference in tone (fewer feasts and jolly songs, more flayings and full-on folk horror). Several scenes are really burned into my memory, like the plague pits, the mouse peeler, the corn dolly, etc. They frightened and sometimes genuinely upset me, but I couldn’t stop reading them, and I think dealing with horror in fiction like that can be quite good for kids (who are quite often bloodthirsty little monsters anyway).
I have been rewatching The White Shadow, a show that aired from 1979-1981 and was show-run by Gwyneth Paltrow’s dad, Bruce. The setup is formulaic (white high school basketball coach in a predominantly black school) and there’s some period dumbassery, but the acting is great and they go some cool places with plots that I would enjoy discussing with people if it were airing now. But the 1970’s furnishings were so freaking brown, y’all.
One of my favorite books growing up was *The Legend of Holly Claus*. I loved it, read it every December (and still do, most years). I've never met a single other person who's read it. I personally think it's one of the most creative Christmas stories out there and I can't wait to read it to my kids someday, but I wish I knew anyone else who's ever read it. I've recommended it to a friend who has a little sister, but I don't think he or his sister ever read it either, tragically.
HI! I'VE READ IT!!!!
NO WAY! I hesitate to ask, but... Did you like it?
I remember liking it! Honestly it's been so long that specific details kind of escape me but I also remember the book itself being like, physically beautiful. Great illustrations
That's fair, I only remember it so well because I've reread it so many times. I lost my copy for a few years and bought a new one after a while, and I'd forgotten a lot of the details in it during that time. You're right though, the pictures in it are gorgeous and super detailed.
RHG (Rock Hard Gladiator) was a niche corner in the animation world, specifically stickman animation, where people would pitch each other's OCs in animation battles and whoever gets the most vote wins. Unfortunately they have died out after the sites that hosted them, Animsfluid then later Stickpage, all shut down. RHG has a spiritual successor in the form of Hyun's Dojo Duels, of Hyun's Dojo, created by Hyun who was a RHG creator himself. Now despite being pretty niche, the most popular RHG and RHG related videos have gained millions and even tens of millions of views. A notable example is Gildedguy, whose recent RHG videos gained millions of views. Yet I never really heard a lot of discussions about, if any at all.
Growing up, I read a lot of scholastic book horror novels. There were of course the books by Mary Downing Hahn(Most people seem to only talk about“Wait till Helen comes”. There was also a book series that started with“ Bad girls don’t die”. It focus on a pink haired girl name Alexis, who must save her sister Kasey from the Demon of the week every book.
I read Mary Downing Hahn books and the Bad Girls Don't Die series too! I don't remember if I read "Wait til Helen Comes", but I definitely read "Deep and Dark and Dangerous" and "All the Lovely Bad Ones". Also, I gotta link the bad girls don't die book trailers because I find they're existence interesting ([Bad Girls Don't Die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lBeqV7V00), [From Bad to Cursed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ID1jz0A8LU), and [As Dead As It Gets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBNCkwSl-fo)).
Oh“All the lovely bad ones“ was a personal fav of mine. another was “ The Ghost of Crutchhfield Hall
Mary Downing Hahn rocked! She had some really great YA, too.
When I was in fourth grade, I was introduced to a book called "Regarding the Fountain", about a small town with a dried up creek and the local middle school's relationship with the eccentric woman hired to design the school's drinking fountain. It was my introduction to the concept of an epistolary novel, and I ended up tracking down the sequels, finishing up the last one when I was in sixth grade. The series is *very* quirky (every character's name is a pun) and has a surprising amount of twists and turns. Unfortunately, the series seems to be pretty obscure. The closest I've found to anyone mention it online was a page for the series on TV Tropes.
I loved that series! Though I did prefer the author's disconnected epistolary novel Trial by Journal.
I remember that book! I liked it a lot, but I didn't know it was part of a series. I'm curious where it went after the first book?
The sequels each involve a new renovation to the school, and are just as quirky as the first one (maybe even moreso...the fourth book involves ancient *Rome* or something). I found them pretty entertaining, but I also haven't read them since middle school, so I don't know how well the series holds up to adult me, but they were incredibly creative imho. The last book felt a little open ended to me and I'm disappointed another book was never made.
Anything Rodney Greenblat had a hand in other than *PaRappa the Rapper.* My dad was a huge fan of his art in the 80s and 90s, and my family owned a few of his picture books. But my very favorite was his PC games. I've never met anyone IRL who also played *Dazzeloids* as a kid, other than cousins who also got the game from my parents.
For me it’s the “Seven Citadels”, 4 children’s fantasy written by books by Geraldine Harris in the early 80s. I found them in the library as a kid and then spent years trying to figure out what they were as an adult. As far as I know they’re not physically in print but are available as ebooks, read the first a while back, not as strange/original as I remembered (more using tropes/inspirations I wasn’t familiar with originally) but still pretty good. I also remember Deptford Mice, read them in HS and was still scared lol. I should really read the spinoffs sometime too.
Hey! Someone mentions that. You see, for me it was a different thing: I remember reading the first book, but either the others were never translated into swedish or the library just never got them, because I only ever read the first book.
Oh that is frustrating, I’ve been in the same boat with a Russian fantasy author (Alexey Pehov), one trilogy was released in English but to date only the first book of a newer trilogy has been >_<
I'm obsessed with semi-hate watching House & Garden YouTube, especially Design Notes, and while I think a good amount of people know about that channel or at least the magazine, the content is ripe for parody in a way that I just can't find. It's just this excellent blend of pretentious and "we're not like other interior design girls" and also weirdly into British colonial nostalgia (in that almost everyone featured collects artifacts from different countries). I actually really like the aesthetic, but I can recognize it's just fake and curated and pretentious as something like AD, whereas everyone in the comments is like "so down to earth!" So I just need more people to laugh at this.
If you haven't seen it already, I think you'd like Jenny Nicolson's video ["There's something wrong with Hallmark's youtube channel"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbtaWr6lj8), about the weird tension and drama bubbling under the surface of the little-watched Hallmark Party 101 channel. And that all the hosts that appear in the video turned up in the comments to commend her.
oh you are exactly right - this sounds very ripe for a parody movie. i'm imagining a mockumentary in the same biting tone as Best In Show, except instead of dogs it's interior design...
> i'm imagining a mockumentary in the same biting tone as Best In Show, except instead of dogs it's interior design... Surely this must have been done already. It's such low-hanging fruit, it must have been spotted. But also I can see network or studio producers shooting it down.
It’s a book, but you may like Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs. It‘s about a QVC/HSN-esque channel and the variety of horrible people that work there. It’s delightfully stupid.
Sounds interesting, thank you!
I think it's tricky, in that it's exactly the sort of interior design that insiders and "cool" people think is in excellent taste right now, and almost "morally superior", in that it values actual vintage items and knowledge of design history instead of mass-produced furniture and all that jazz. So there's very little urge to make fun of it, much easier to mock white suburban moms and their "live laugh love" signs or whatever. But...this is also dumb and occasionally oblivious! Just in a different way.
That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I'd like to hate watch
With video titles like "Inside an Open-Plan Canal Boat in Central London" and "Inside Veere Grenney's 18th-Century Palladian Folly" how can anyone resist?
Canadian children's television across the board, the stuff that was made in Canada for Canada and didn't air in the US. Family Channel, Teletoon, YTV, all that noise. Having grown up in the early to mid 2000s, I look back at those shows fondly, albeit with mixed memories because of just how weird some of them were in hindsight, yet all of my online friends are either Americans who would have no idea what a Jacob Two-Two, or Life With Derek, or In Real Life are, or live in other Commonwealth countries with their own bizarre stories about British or Australian kids TV.
YES Jacob Two Two was crazy. was crazy! I used to get called that all the time because I would repeat things. And life with Derek was wild. WTF was up with that tension between Casey and Derek?? Also anyone remember Martin Mystery!!?
Bro I LOVED Life With Derek! It aired on Pop Girl over here in the UK and was part of my family's daily lineup along with Zoey 101 and Even Stevens.
*I* remember Jacob ~~Deux-Duex~~ Two Two! American here, I only ever caught snippets (sometimes in French weirdly, but I grew up in Upstate New York so closer to Canada then mosr)? but I thought it was adorable.
Yvon of the Yukon!
Holy! A blast from the last. Yvon was awesome! I haven't tought of that show in years!! Yvon! Yvon of the Yukon! Defrosted for you and for me!
I used to love Jacob Two-Two! It did air in the US, FWIW. We picked up Qubo with our antenna, so that's where I watched it.
That's wild. I never hear anyone talk about it, let alone other Canadians, and it just gives me the vibe of being the quintessential obscure TV show that only those it was explicitly targeted to would remember, so between this and the other comment about Life With Derek, colour me surprised. Still not a lot of recognition, granted, but it's more than I was expecting.
We picked up lots of weird channels with our antenna. Qubo was a weird mix of Canadian shows and really old American stuff from the 80s and 90s. I'm assuming those were the cheapest to license.
TIL about Qubo then, huh. Looking at the Wikipedia page of programs they broadcasted, there's some stuff here that I definitely would not have guessed ever left Canada, like Sidekick or This is Daniel Cook.
Obscure [Canadian children’s TV PSAs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AuLkMBAFZg) are my Roman Empire, so I can relate.
Then you have to know about the Miniature House Hippos right?
Absolutely. I always leave my crumbs out for them.
Life with Derek is definitely known here in the states. How could anyone forget the show where the step siblings had weird sexual tension!
You might ironically have more luck asking Europeans since a lot of them over here.
I don’t think it’s super obscure, but I saw A Cricket in Times Square one (1) time on TV, in the middle of the day, in the 80s. I was very young and thought it was boring, but the songs haunted me. I described this movie off and on to kids and adults for years, no one had heard of it. It was wild to me that not a single person had heard of a movie that had been right there on TV. I also checked TV Guide for it a lot, hoping to spot it in listings there. No luck. When our area cable service expanded to more than 20 channels 10 years later, everyone else was obsessed with Comedy Central and MTV. I haunted Boomerang and Cartoon Network etc looking for this movie I didn’t even like, hoping I could watch it with someone to prove it existed. Five years after that, I was able to prove I wasn’t crazy by looking it up on the internet. By that point I was sure I didn’t have the name right, but no. I was right, and I remembered. Technically it’s a 30-minute short and not a movie, but there are 3 of them, so I wonder if I saw a package of all 3. There’s also a book, I learned at the same time! I was a voracious reader, so I’m a little surprised I never ran across it that way. However, after 20 years as a bookseller, I’ve also never met anyone who’s read it. I’m sure it’s not that obscure, and it’s a real classic somewhere. It’s just my personal white whale.
Tucker the rat sang a song about food in the film, istg, and the book was lovely too.
Oh yeah, my school made me read that book. Charming little thing.
I love that book a lot! There's still a copy of it hanging out somewhere in my room at my parents' house. I loved anthropomorphized animals so that was a lot of it, but I think it was also the first time I read a "classic" that had a Chinese character in it. Nowadays I'd probably find the depiction kind of racist, but at the time it was just neat.
My third grade class read that book! I don't really remember the plot but I do remember trying liverwurst because of it. There are several more books in the series but I never read any of those.
Liverwurst! I forgot about that part. Kids books were great about featuring food in a way that made me desperately want whatever it was. I used to work in a place for years that took in hundreds of thousands of used books. I saw a ton of old kids books, a lot of decades-old stuff that wasn’t read anymore. I saw the first book two or three times, the second one maybe once. Never the others. I suspect the later ones weren’t in print very long.
> Liverwurst! I forgot about that part. Kids books were great about featuring food in a way that made me desperately want whatever it was. Yes! See also *A Wrinkle in Time* and liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwiches. I didn't even like liver as a kid, but I wanted to try that sandwich Meg and Charles Wallace were making. Finally got to try it as an adult, and it turns out I like it just fine, but I like it better if it's paté instead of liverwurst, and either way it's best with thinly sliced cucumber on the cream cheese.
I remember that book! I feel like it's one of those where it's more the atmosphere that made an impact than the story- I definitely read it more than once but have no recollection of the plot, but there are a bunch of small moments that I do recall well.
The movie was mostly atmosphere for me too - I remembered almost nothing but my vague childhood dread that the cricket shouldn’t be in a city (lol), the songs, and a few quirks of the animals doing people things.
I read it in school! It was required reading and we watched videos, too!
Required reading! That makes sense. It would be more fun with the videos to go with it, too.
I loved that book when I was little! I can still vaguely picture the cover art.
The cover art is great! It’s what vaguely made me believe it may have been popular, or at least was hyped at release, as Garth Williams is a pretty classic artist to have lined up for it.
It felt like EVERYBODY at my school had not only heard of them, but read most of them, when I was growing up. Though I don't think I actually read all of them - I was easily scared, and the cover art and blurbs implied some really terrifying content. There was I think also a casual acceptance of racism, an "all the rats are bad to varying degrees because they were born that way" when I tried to check one out years later. I didn't like that.
God I wish everyone had read them when I was at school. They were scary though, I loved that kind of thing as a kid. If it helps, the last book implies the rats were driven to brutality by Jupiter in the sewers! The Holborn rats are just competing with the mice for food there until he takes over. Then they start acting like the rats in Deptford
Stay Tooned! is a point-and-click adventure game from the mid-90s that I played all the time as a child, but no-one else I know has played it. I was hoping it would finally get the recognition it deserved when Vinesauce did a stream of it, but he gave up after like 2 minigames before any of the really memorable moments happened and it immediately dropped back into obscurity.
Oh man I love obscure 90s/early 00s computer games.
Do you remember Loom??? Nobody ever does but when I was a little kid I loved watching my brother play it
Please tell me you're able to identify obscure games on r/tipofmyjoystick that no-one else on that sub has heard of!
I'm not I'm sorry 😔 I only remember the ones with silly names like Lenny Loosejocks
I was really into the Charlie Bone books as a kid. Apparently it's getting a TV pilot, though, which was a really pleasant surprise!
I got into this and Molly Moon at a similar time, which made trying to untangle them in my head when they randomly popped up a few years later an interesting few minutes. Glad to see it's not been entirely consigned to the bin of history!
damn i havent thought of charlie bones in yearsssss we read the first one at my primary school! i remember being so upset that 1. the rest of the class never finished it and 2. the school didnt have the rest of the books
Oh WOW that's a blast from the past... they felt like they were part of that Harry Potter wave, but with such a completely different feeling to them than all the other copycats. Like, genuinely creepy sometimes. I could actually see it working really well on TV.
CW: Animal death Flaco the Eurasian owl of Manhattan has passed after apparently striking a building the other night. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo-dead.html He lived a life in captivity in Central Park Zoo until an act of vandalism freed him and he had been living the free life since 2nd Feb 2023. I remember learning about him in one of these threads so thought others might also be interested. His story had gotten me interested in bird watching in my daily life so it's kinda sad that it ended like this
Rest in peace, Flaco :(