Category Archives: Week in Review

Spring 2024 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been another productive week on my end, as I’ve reduced my outstanding Current Projects to less than a dozen essays and other features, with my article buffer now encompassing more than a month’s worth of drafts. I’ve matched that productivity with a fair portion of off-the-books anime viewing, as we munched through more of Gundam’s supplementary Universal Century projects, as well as anime films both venerable and vestigial. Having watched so many of the early Toei films, I’m now looking to round out my ‘80s animation education, while also likely taking a break from Gundam to watch some other outstanding series; I haven’t quite decided yet, but Nadia, Mononoke, VOTOMS, and Moribito are all high on my list. Anyway, I’ll catch you all up on that when I get to it, but for now let’s break down my latest animated escapades!

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Spring 2024 – Week 3 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. This week I come to you in a state of shame and disgrace, as I have to admit I mostly sorta liked an Uwe Boll movie. I know, one of the chief cinematic punching bags of the ‘00s actually entertained me – although truly, my increasing appreciation of his oeuvre can likely be ascribed as much to the ensuing degradation of Hollywood action movies as to the quality of Boll’s own films. The era of full greenscreen has essentially destroyed Hollywood’s capacity to create an action movie, and the streamers are if anything even worse – films like Jungle Cruise, Red Notice, and The Grey Man all testify to the death of the traditional action vehicle. Anyway, that aside, I’ve mostly been enjoying the fresh spring air while channeling my natural instincts into the anxiety attacks of my poor goblin cleric, which has been an altogether liberating experience. Let’s burn down the week’s features in the latest Week in Review!

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Spring 2024 – Week 2 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. It seems like spring is actually getting off its ass and into some sort of motion at this point, as we’ve finally escaped the chills and showers of early April. I’m thus looking forward to sneaking in a run sometime this afternoon, but in the meantime I’m happy to report that both our film viewings and tabletop adventures are proceeding smoothly.

I’m attempting to maintain a somewhat tricky balance in our current campaign, as I’m both the most comfortable speaking entirely in-character, but also aware of my necessity as a player who actually pushes the party towards their next objectives, rather than simply riffing or waiting for something to happen. As such, I need to be mindful of making sure neither my characterization nor mechanical prodding becomes too overbearing; I’m leading from the back here, but working to make sure Tilly (my nervous goblin cleric) doesn’t overwhelm either the personalities or agency of my allies. D&D is often a process of attempting to construct a coherent fantasy drama out of potentially incompatible base materials, but with a full campaign as DM at my back, I’m doing whatever I can to make sure this one succeeds, and that we collectively embrace a greater degree of in-character drama than ever before. Also, films! Let’s get to those!

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Spring 2024 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Spring has apparently sprung at this point, though you wouldn’t know it by the grim, cloud-haunted spectacle outside my window. Still, even if we can’t measure the season in beautiful spring days, we at least have the inexorable march of anime production to help us keep the time. Apparently Tsutomu Mizushima’s got another original show this season, which may well raise me from my slumber to the point of actually watching an airing production. And beyond that, I’m also beginning my fashionably late consumption of recent favorites, with Frieren and Delicious in Dungeon currently at the top of my list.

After watching through Zeta, ZZ, Char’s Counterattack, 08th MS Team, G Gundam, War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, and Unicorn, I’m feeling a little Gundamed out at the moment, so I’m looking forward to balancing things with some fantasy – and of course, if you all have suggestions regarding classics I’ve missed, I’m always looking for new favorites. Anyway, that about covers my anime state of the union, so let’s press onward to the film screenings!

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Winter 2024 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am floating on air, as the second session of our third formal DnD campaign ended up sprawling into a seven-hour extravaganza of dynamic roleplaying and haunted house exploration. After two campaigns where the drama was almost entirely provoked by external narrative elements, my group has finally reached the point of in-character confidence for us to spend an hour or so figuring out if our rogue is constantly lying to us, and another hour building up my poor goblin Tilly’s confidence enough to serve as an effective cleric. As you all know, I believe engaging character writing is the heart of emotionally resonant storytelling, and so at last achieving the improv confidence necessary to truly have the party members lead the action has been a thrilling revelation. We’re bickering, revealing our histories, setting up long-term character growth arcs – it’s all that crunchy stuff that I love so much in fiction, here executed on the fly as we beat on ghosts and vampires. Anyway, that was the highlight of my week, but we also ran through some films as well! Let’s run ‘em down!

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Winter 2024 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am riding high on the success of our new campaign’s first session, wherein I took on the guise of Tilly The Goblin With Anxiety, and became fast… well, acquaintances at least with my party of a swashbuckler, mad scientist, and Dandelion From The Witcher. Having already completed two campaigns with this group, our confidence in executing in-character drama has never been higher; compared to actually serving as dungeon master, simply staying in character during the session feels totally effortless, and I’m thus looking forward to more directly party-driven drama in the sessions to come. And alongside that, I have of course continued with our regularly scheduled film and anime screenings, munching through some light One Piece adventures while also completing Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. I’m frankly not quite sure where to go at this point in our Gundam journey; I suppose Gundam Unicorn would be the next natural step? Anyway, I’ll figure that out myself, while you all enjoy my latest week in films!

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Winter 2024 – Week 11 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. This has been an altogether productive week on my end, as my screening crew accompanied a fresh pile of films with a run through Netflix’s recent Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation, which I’m frankly embarrassed to admit I actually quite enjoyed. Aside from that, my regular DnD group are now gearing up for our third shared campaign, wherein I’ll be stepping back from dungeon mastering to once again participate as a player character. That’s frankly more than fine by me; DMing was an absurd amount of work, and I’m looking forward to taking a break from writing several novels’ worth of narrative-sculpting and quest design to instead portray exactly one character: a goblin cleric with anxiety. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about all that after our first session on Monday, but for now, let’s break down a fresh week in film and television!

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Winter 2024 – Week 10 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! It’s been a thoroughly productive week on my end, as our regular film viewings were accompanied by maybe fifty episodes of rapid-fire anime viewing, continuing our gallant charge through the extended Gundam universe. Unfortunately, that impressive episode total was only made possible because what we were watching wasn’t terribly interesting; as it turns out, it’s pretty easy to burn through anime when you only have to pay a quarter of a mind’s attention to it. Nonetheless, it feels immensely satisfying to again be making such rapid progress on this grand project, and I’m eager to continue on with the esteemed Char’s Counterattack. But for now, let’s explore the fruits of our labors, as we chart a course through the Universal Century and beyond!

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Winter 2024 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I am riding high on the conclusion of various personal projects, which most notably include my entire goddamn DnD campaign. That’s right, we finally toppled the scions of hell this monday, and my players all seemed to have a pretty good time of it! With no future adventures left to balance, the inspirations and “sure, I’ll allow it”s flew freely, allowing for some truly preposterous setpieces and combo attacks. With a final battle set atop an actively crumbling helltower against essentially the devil himself, the session certainly didn’t lack for spectacle – and I also made sure everyone had a suitably satisfying epilogue, tying romance, family reunions, and future ambitions into our requisite post-credits sequence.

Anyway, my pride in my courageous party members aside, this has also been a plenty productive week in terms of media viewing. I’ve now charged about two-thirds of the way through ZZ Gundam, and accompanied that with both a healthy selection of films and the recently released Hazbin Hotel miniseries. Let’s run down some new features in the latest Week in Review!

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Winter 2024 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week in film screenings was defined by an unexpected themed project, owing to the recent dumping of basically the entire Snyderverse onto Netflix. That’s right, we watched some goddamn superheroes, munching through, if not the majority, at least a generous selection of the various Justice League-adjacent film productions. The picture that emerged was of a franchise in disarray, tonally at war with itself owing to the obvious contrast between Snyder’s preferences and Marvel’s template, forever juggling its need to appeal to a superhero-fatigued general audience with its dedication to a more angular, ‘90s-reminiscent era of comic drama. You know I like an interesting failure, so let’s dive right into Zack Snyder’s doomed empire!

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