kara dennison Archives - Sartorial Geek

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch – Which Is the “True Ending”?

By Kara Dennison December 31, 2018

Surprise! There’s a whole new Black Mirror to ruin your sleep and make you question your entire existence. And this time, you steer.

If you have not experienced Bandersnatch, I suggest that you run back over to Netflix and do so. If you’ve not explored it to your satisfaction, I suggest you run and do so. But if you’re as done as you plan to be, read on. Because we’ve got a lot to cover today.

Bandersnatch is Black Mirror’s second stand-alone episode, the first being Jon Hamm starrer White Christmas. Granted, Black Mirror is an anthology series, so all episodes stand alone save for some world-building ties. But Bandersnatch is very much its own beast: more movie than episode, more game than movie.

MST3K Is Our Road Map to Successful Reboots

By Kara Dennison December 3, 2018

It’s a Turkey Day miracle! Mystery Science Theater 3000 returned to Netflix this Thanksgiving with the six-episode series “The Gauntlet.” Challenged to a riffing marathon by the Mads at Moon 13, Jonah and the ‘bots take on six films. Mac & Me, Killer Fish, and more create the basis of a “binge made to be binge watched” spectacular.

As with last season, the tenants of the Satellite of Love mail it. Maybe it’s the firm, slightly silly hand of show creator Joel Hodgson. Maybe it’s the talented cast who themselves grew up on the unique series. But whatever the reason, MST3K retains a special honor: it is one of the few revivals to just plain get it right.

On Fandom, Burgers, and Collab Cafés

By Kara Dennison November 19, 2018

There’s one major point about me that my Crunchyroll readers and co-workers may know that others might not: I love collab cafés. I love them, I want to go to one, and I’m always slightly angry when I think about the fact that America doesn’t do them.

I’m sure someday I’ll go to Japan. And when I do, there will be at least six different collab cafés running at once. So I will get to do one . . . probably. In the meantime, my friend Ginger found me a very close second in Illinois. Not only did it scratch that very weird itch, it helped me isolate just why I love this ridiculous conceit and why I feel we need it over here.

What Is Deltarune Trying to Tell Us About Undertale?

By Kara Dennison November 5, 2018

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Deltarune. Yes, real ones. All the way to the end of Chapter 1. If you don’t want spoilers, file this one away for later.

If you’re anything like me, you spent a significant portion of Halloween delving into the depths of Deltarune. The surprise game, released as a “survey” on the official game Twitter, introduces both familiar and familiar-looking characters. Along with a new story and more JRPG-esque game mechanics, it was… a lot to take in, to say the least.

Add to this the fact that it’s only Chapter 1, and we’re assured of a lot of weirdness ahead.

On Geek and Sport

By Kara Dennison October 22, 2018

So, full disclosure. I’m not huge into sports. It’s not a conscious decision — not nowadays, at least. As a teen, back when I still believed you could be Geek and nothing else, it was a choice. But as an adult, I’m largely not into it because my state has no major teams.

I do notice, though, that there is a mentality among some fans that Sports Ain’t Okay. More than that, the fans actually deserve a good mocking whenever possible. There are a few “safe” sports for fans: wrestling and roller derby are okay, and have a lot of visible fan interaction. But if you want to be into one of the Big Four sports, there’s at least a small chance you will be torn down hard.

I was aware of, but not keyed into, this mentality until I heard a major podcaster go there.

Can We Be Unspoiled in 2018? Apparently.

By Kara Dennison October 8, 2018

A little bit of Kara History: I was a young teen just as Geocities was getting underway. You know, the version with “neighborhoods” and 4-digit addresses? I had three of those. One was dedicated to a fan site for Robin Williams, who was — and remains — my absolute fave. At the time there was no such thing as “official sites” for celebrities, so I did my best to create a repository of knowledge for fans until such time as this happened.

This ended up including whatever news I could find on upcoming film and TV projects, and boy was that rough. There was no such thing as social media, and the concept of an “online marketing campaign” was still to come, so early entertainment news was a lot of dead ends and guessing. The number of “Development Hell” entries there were on my page was staggering, likely because we hadn’t learned yet that “I’d like to do this someday” doesn’t count as a business deal. And on top of that, the concept of an official website for a film was downright novel.

The Storytelling Gold of One-Sheet RPGs

By Kara Dennison September 24, 2018

If you’re into tabletop RPGs, you have probably encountered the work of Grant Howitt — whether you know it or not. He’s the creator of the one-page wonder Honey Heist, which has been taking the gaming world by storm from Critical Role to your buddy’s after-work hangout. He’s got plenty of others up his sleeve: Pride and Extreme Prejudice, Big Gay Orcs, and the recent street racing raccoon epic Crash Pandas.

I’ll admit that when Honey Heist first landed, I considered it cute as a Twitter post but unfeasible beyond that. I was wrong. And I was happy to be wrong.

Why My Standards for Interactive Horror Are Now Impossibly High

By Kara Dennison August 27, 2018

I love. Love love. Love love love. Interactive entertainment. I love escape rooms, I love ARGs, I love crazy theatre experiments. It’s the closest you can get to safely living all your weird daydreams, and the more I see, the more I want.

That’s how I fell into following YouTuber Nick Nocturne. His Night Mind channel pieces apart everything from Wham City’s experimental Adult Swim vids to indie-created horror series — but his focus is absolutely on the latter.

Future Vision: What’s Next for Steven Universe? (Spoilers)

By Kara Dennison July 30, 2018

NOTE: This post has big, big spoilers for every episode of Steven Universe all the way up to the most recent episode, “Legs from Here to Homeworld.” If you haven’t caught up to your space rock soap opera, I highly encourage you to do so before proceeding with this post.

Unpacking Our Emotional Baggage with “Psychonauts”

By Kara Dennison July 16, 2018

*Arrives 12 years late with Starbucks* Hey, have you guys heard about Psychonauts? It’s pretty awesome.

So yeah, I’m extremely late to the game (in more ways than one) when it comes to playing this piece of work from Double Fine. If you’re as behind as I was, I’ll just say you have no idea what you’re missing.