AH Cultural Descriptions
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"Rocky" William Balboa was a eccentric, somewhat mentally unstable professor of natural history at the San Antone Peoples Museum, famous for his involvement in the discovery of a number of prehistoric mammal fossils. His friend, Theodore "Bullwinkle" Jones wrote his biography, with the aforementioned mildly self congratulatory title. Though it never sold especially well in the first 10 years following its release, its tales of interactions with the then less than democratic central committee of the Texan ASSR made it a mildly popular political commentary in the late 2010's. Eventually it was added to the list of heritige novels for said ASSR following the political liberalisation of the early 2020's.
"Damn the infantry! Someone take that ridge!"
Wow, so much effort. I can't believe you still had enough energy to post this masterpiece.
A theatre play about the misadventures of the so-called "Death Korps of Krieg" in the US-Confederate war.
First a little historical background. The Confederacy came out of the US civil war with a bad case of swollen egos, believing that it had achieved a smashing victory over the
Yankees, when in reality it had just barely managed to persuade the US that it would be too costly to continue the war. The post-war years would be increasingly hard, as the economy suffered from mismanagement and potential allies where alienated one after by other by arrogance and unrealistic demands. And so the stage was set for a rematch and a US-Confederate war was set, despite de US being reluctant to get involved in any way with their problematic neighbour, the Confederacy wanted war (hopefully a short and victorious one) and war they got.
The war would be somewhat short or at least not very long, and would be victorious, but for the US. Well, kind of, considering that the US ended up with the headaches of running ex-Confederate territories, something that they very much wished not to. The performance of the Confederate army would be much discussed and the subject of books, plays, movies and etc, being a "poor army with a rich army's ego" it would provide plenty of material for curious tales, mockery, and sheer astonishment at some of their antics.
We're talking about things like the various "Death Corps", units made up from volunteers willing to source their own weapons and uniforms and march "up north", basically local clubs going to war after a drinking night, they were played up as fearsome patriotic militias by official propaganda. In reality they had overly dramatic titles, uneven weaponry made up of scraps, private acquisitions and prototypes (sometimes taken to war by their own designers), colourful and impractical uniforms, and they managed to be a headache to both their own side and the enemy, "Pity the poor devils that will capture and have to manage this lot" a regular army officer remarked in his diary.
But the subject of this play, the "Death Korps of Krieg"?
It was small, essentially five guys united by a hard drinking night and their descent from the small community of German immigrants in the Confederacy, they went to war under the simple motto of "Krieg!" (War! Shouted in a faux-Prussian mood after too much whiskey and a little brandy too.), and they ended up serving as orderlies in the army of Virginia's meetings, without many weapons of their own and in an army without much to spare they spent the war fetching refreshments and moving the awkward and heavy terrain models that their generals loved so much.
The play is somewhat sympathetic and does a good job of showing the delusions of bellicose nationalism as the characters watch the tragedy of war unfold and realise how foolish and naive they were, as they move yet another heavy model ridge and grumble about cleaning up after yet another careless infantry officer.
Star Citizen's Two-Seater Fighter Problem
A 1998 inquiry by the US Senate about the Star Citizen, the first fighter jet specifically designed for combat in space. Introduced at first as the greatest military invention since the Eisenmann (an exoskeleton developed by the German Empire in the 1960s), the Star Citizen had many mechanical problems, which resulted in the death of two pilots. This led to an inquiry by the senate and the subsequent interruption of the production. Later developments would lead to improvements and the birth of the successful Star Shark.
Power Girl by Gail Simone vol 6: The End
The last volume of the Power Girl comic series. It was something else, but what did you ever expect from someone who is best known for her work in comics on DC's Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Dynamite Entertainment's Red Sonja, and for being the longest running female writer on Wonder Woman to date?
Death of the Koopa King: A Super Mario Story
If you're not going to even try, don't post.
New rule proposal: low effort posts get ignored and won't get to add a prompt.
The final episode in the 2019 Netflix anthology series Nintendo Stories which was seen as Nintendo’s attempt at making a gritty reboot of its most popular characters.
In this particular episode, King Koopa, the monster who’s long ruled the sewers of Mario World sees his empire crumble due to the influence of the Mario Brothers, who have used their magic to defeat him and return the World to Peach and Daisy, the rightful rulers of the realm. However, Koopa puts up a good last fight, nearly killing Mario after making an extremely potent mushroom that nearly causes his heart to explode. However, Koopa himself is destroyed by Yoshi spitting an atomic shell at him and Koopa dies though his son, remains in exile.
The show was not renewed and while it was a hit in terms of viewership, critics were lukewarm towards it, saying it lacked the fun of Mario games.
Doctor Tongue’s Evil House of Pancakes
So what is considered low effort now? Not trying to be a jerk, and I think I get what you mean, but what’s an example of low effort?
Things like what Megatoon posted that don't even try to describe the prompt or hint at an alternate timeline.
An animated show that ran on Adult Swim from 2001 to 2003, centered around the titular Evil House of Pancakes run by the failed supervillain Dr Tongue. It is most widely remembered for its now infamous first season, in which Dr Tongue attempted to conquer the World Trade Center, a plotline that was quickly dropped after the September 11th attacks.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
An unreleased collaborative music track by American singers Madonna and Michael Jackson, detailing the traumas of fame and love in the spotlight, using a fictional hotel as a metaphor for their mental health. This was an uptempo jazzy tune that was known for having no chorus, and rumors suggest that American singer Diana Ross contributed to the song via background vocals, but that is not confirmed. The introduction consisting of a minute-long whistle that threatens to overwhelm soft saxophone music in the background has recently gone viral on Tiktok.
You Wrote A Hundred Letters
A memorable ad campaign put out by the Terry Sanford campaign in 1964, talking about how now President Henry Cabot Lodge, would read any letter from a citizen that came across his desk. Of course this was impossible, and Sanford used this ad to show that Lodge was out of touch and didn’t listen to the American people.
Sanford himself saw his campaign as one of moderates who were for reasonable civil rights for all, diplomacy over military action, and a war against poverty that would help all people across the nation, claiming poverty was what caused the anger and division in America, where as Lodge put the blame more on individual initiative.
Elephunk: A compilation.
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Elephunk the Funky Elephant was the titular mascot of the Elephunk games, a series of rythm games from the late 90s and early 2000s. Notable for being one of the first rythm games to bring liscensed music to home consoles and the initial popularity of its mascot, who even appeared on MTV. The franchise fell off in the mid-aughts, with the deathknell being the abysmally recieved 'Elephunk Zero', which reimagined the character as a freedom fighter in a dark and gritty dystopian world. After more than a decade of inactivity, the franchise returned in 2020 with Elephunk: a Compilation, a collection of the popular games bundled together and remastered. It was noted as one of the first 'lockdown hits' of the pandemic.
The Revenge of Ea-Nasir
A 2007 movie starring Adam Baldwin and Arnold Vosloo. The action take place in an abandoned copper mine in the Middle Eat, where unscrupulous miners accidentally awaken the spirit of Ea-Nasir...
Reviewers described the movie as "clunky and unimaginative". even so, it did make a nice packet...
The Kingdom of the Horse
The Kingdom of the Horse is a literature series released somewhere in the early 1950s with illustrations done by C. Reginald Dalby (who is also known for illustrating the Railway Series from 1948 to 1956). It is about a kingdom filled with horses that happen to speak due to a wizard granting the horses the brains of humans. The concept behind this was rather arbitrary, but the writing and illustrations are really decent. It lasted for six books. However, there is a reboot of this literature series that came out in the 2000s.
Pixar: Going Independent
A 1975 sci-fi dark comedy novella by British author and screenwriter Douglas Adams. It follows the adventures of a robot named P.I.X.A.R. - for Programmable Intelligent eXploration And Robotics - being sent by his creators - an advanced, galaxy-spanning alien civilization - to Earth to advance its people to the standards of its kind. However - due to the vague and overly-zealous commands by its masters - P.I.X.A.R. ends up devastating human civilization through disease, fertility crises, and destruction of intelligensia. After the race takes over, the remaining humans attempt to rise up, but are instead are captured, converted and brainwashed into the alien's kind.
A precursor to Adams' later work - this novella is considered a brutal satire of British colonialism and genocide of indigenous peoples in the New World and Oceania. Some critics have also interpreted the novella as a political hit-piece against the Wallace Administration and its nuclear war crimes in Chile and Syria.
AYE! It's Folly Goin' Oun Falla!!
A precursor to Adams' later work - this novella is considered a brutal satire of British colonialism and genocide of indigenous peoples in the New World and Oceania. Some critics have also interpreted the novella as a political hit-piece against the Wallace Administration and its nuclear war crimes in Chile and Syria.
AYE! It's Folly Goin' Oun Falla!!
The catchphrase of Donald “Bluey” McQueen, the Australian batsman to British adventurer Evelyn Cockburn-Hilbert in the joint ABC/BBC co-production “The Blunder Down Under” which tells the story of Cockburn-Hilbert and his crews journeys to find lost relics across the British Empire and beyond. The phrase itself is Australasian slang for “Hey, it’s a folly to go on fella” said in a comical ocker manner.
The show itself was a parody of adventure shows released in the 50s and was produced from 1979 until 1984. It was popular throughout the British Empire and the United States where it remained a cult classic shown as filler on National Educational Television.
England Was My City
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