September 2024 – Page 2 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Solo Liminal Horror Part Two

You can purchase Liminal Horror here
You can purchase Jeansen’s Machines here
You can download the Liminal Horror Solo Starter here

Read the previous chapter here

Scene #4 – (Confrontation 1/8)

Random: Deal with a difficulty – Something fails or breaks
Exploration scene: slippery, wet, flood
Skill test: setting-specific
Circumstance: Involves a puzzle, logic
The GM asks you to: Mention the weather or atmospheric conditions

When Cristian gets to the front door, the rain is coming down in heavy sheets. He slams it behind him, feeling water drip onto the floor mat. The only thing that makes sense is to strip the soaked clothes off and change into what he brought. Sopping wet clothes remain piled on the tiled bathroom floor. Waves of exhaustion spill over him, the day’s events catching up. Without looking at his phone, Cristian can’t tell if it’s still daytime or night as the sky is thick with black, rain-bloated clouds. He decides to sleep, hoping that some of this will make more sense when he wakes up. Maybe he’s having a nightmare right now.

PopCult Podcast – Beetlejuice/Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

With Tim Burton’s latest opening in theaters, we decided to take a look back. The first is a classic, his second feature which introduced us to the ghost with the most. The second is YA novel adaptation from 2016 that is heavy on the CG and exposition.

TV Review – Batman: The Caped Crusader

Batman: The Caped Crusader (2024)
Written by Jase Ricci, Bruce Timm, Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Adamma Ebo, Adanne Ebo, Hailey Gross, and Marc Bernardin
Directed by Christina Sotta, Matt Peters, and Christopher Berkeley

Does the world need another Batman adaptation? Probably not, but that won’t stop Warner Discovery from pumping it out to make money. Thankfully, this animated series is helmed by the legendary Bruce Timm, the showrunner responsible for Batman: The Animated Series, a program that redefined superhero media on television. He brings that same moodiness and sense of place to this series, which follows Batman in an alternate 1940s/50s noir setting. With writers like Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker onboard, that means you’re in for a show that focuses on Batman’s detective work and surprised me by making it more about the characters than big action set pieces.

Comic Book Review – X-Men: Inferno Prologue Omnibus

X-Men: Inferno Prologue Omnibus (2021)
Reprints X-Factor #27-32, X-Factor Annual #3, Uncanny X-Men #228-238, X-Men Annual #12, New Mutants #62-70, New Mutants Annual #4, Marvel Age Annual #4, and Marvel Fanfare #40
Written by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Tom DeFalco, Walter Simonson, and Mark Gruenwald
Art by Marc Silvestri, Walter Simonson, Rick Leonardi, Jon J. Muth, Bo Hampton, Bret Blevins, Terry Shoemaker, June Brigman, Arthur Adams, Steve Lightle, Tom Artis, Paris Cullins, Ron Lim, John Buscema, and Craig Hamilton

The X-Men are dead. At least, that’s what the world believes in Chris Claremont’s landmark run. The Fall of the Mutants storyline ended with the team dying and secretly being resurrected by the goddess Roma. These are not the X-Men from the animated series or the films but a roster not referenced in contemporary comics or media adaptations. Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, and Rogue are here – standards that we associate with the team over the decades. But there’s also pre-ninja Psylocke, Cyclops’s brother Havok, pop star Dazzler, and Mojoverse refugee Longshot. Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops’s wife & a dead ringer for Jean Grey, is there too. More on them later, as this collection begins with X-Factor.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn: The Victory Academy Part Four

Read our previous chapter here.

[Begin a Session: Seemingly unrelated situations are shown to be connected]
Thread: Coup at the Academy & Time Cops on Patrol
Oracle: Initiate Bond

Aiden Bell attends a midnight meeting with Police Commissioner Jeremiah Maxwell at Forge City Central Police HQ. They will further develop their secret plans for the EOD (Enhanced Operations Division), the task force that the Victory Academy will funnel super-humans into. Maxwell greets Bell with a firm handshake, almost an attack, a check to see which man is stronger. Bell half smiles, half grimaces, and squeezes back until Maxwell relents.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Solo Liminal Horror Part One

You can purchase Liminal Horror here
You can purchase Jeansen’s Machines here
You can download the Liminal Horror Solo Starter here

Liminal Horror is a game born out of a long series of deviations and hacks that started with the OSR game Into the Odd. Elements of that game were combined with rules-light fantasy RPG Knave which created Cairn. Cairn has become an all-purpose foundation for several other systems – Tunnel Goons, Eco Mofos, Into the Grasslands, and more. Liminal Horror is a modern horror system using these mechanics that lends itself to SCP-style stories, but it is not limited to that subset of horror.

Summer 2024 Digest

Features
Patron Pick – Shanghai Noon [Bekah]
Patron Pick – Federer: Twelve Final Days [Matt]
Patron Pick – The Way [Bekah]
Patron Pick – Enter the Void [Matt]

September 2024 Posting Schedule

This is a sparser month for films as we’re focusing in on the work of Bela Tarr. I also wanted a lighter month without taking the whole thing off. I’m really looking forward into diving into Tarr’s work and have a couple books I’ll be reading after watching to help provide more context.

Film Series
[Bela Tarr: Masterworks Sep 12 thru 30]
Damnation, Satantango, Werckmeister Harmonies, The Turin Horse

TV Reviews
Sep 8 – Batman: The Caped Crusader Season One
Sep 22 – Northern Exposure Season Four
Sep 29 – Ripley

Comic Book Reviews
Sep 7 – X-Men: Inferno Prologue Omnibus
Sep 14 – X-Men: Inferno Omnibus
Sept 21 – X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume One
Sept 28 – X-Men: Days of Future Present and X-tinction Agenda

Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews & Actual Play
Sept 4, 11, 15 – Liminal Horror Solo
Sept 7, 14, 21, 28 – Supersworn: Victory Academy

Podcast Episodes
Sep 1 – Kinds of Kindness/The Teacher’s Lounge
Sep 8 – Beetlejuice/Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Sep 15 – Rebel Ridge/Evil Does Not Exist
Sep 22 – His Three Daughters/Cuckoo
Sep 29 – Green Border/Didi

PopCult Podcast – Kinds of Kindness/The Teachers’ Lounge

Two tense new releases are our focus in this episode. Yorgos Lanthimos delivers a triptych of tales about twisted versions of love. A teacher in Germany becomes caught in the drama of thefts in her school and decides to record who is doing it.