By Gary Larson
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/12/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
03/12/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2019
ACROSS
1 “We burger as
good as we
pancake” chain
5 Ring-shaped reef
10 www code
14 The “M” of MSG
15 Greek played by
Anthony Quinn
16 Badly damaged
Asian sea
17 *Wall-hidden
sliding portal
19 Food truck snack
20 Prepared
(oneself), as for a
difficult task
21 Planned with little
detail
23 Thanksgiving Day
Parade sponsor
25 Pedaled in a
triathlon
26 Trowel wielder
29 Remove the rind
from
32 Letter-routing
abbr.
33 “The Bathers”
painter
35 Suppositions
38 Feb. follower
39 *Serve, as stew
40 Old Prizm maker
41 Sports drink suffix
42 Wedding venues
43 Back in the day
44 Writer
Hemingway
46 Like craft shows
47 Sean who played
a hobbit
49 Reef explorer’s
gear
52 Split, as the loot
55 Oyster season,
so they say
59 “Would __ to
you?”
60 Together, and a
hint to both parts
of the answers to
starred clues
62 Above
63 Gladden
64 “My treat”
65 Wood cutters
66 Meal with matzo
67 “Downton Abbey”
employee
DOWN
1 Rascals
2 Laugh-a-minute
3 __ and for all
4 Critters hunted
in a 2016 mobile
app
5 Ancient Mexican
6 Hot spiced drink
7 “__ y Plata”:
Montana motto
8 Wall St. deals
9 Small songbird
10 McDaniel of
“Gone With the
Wind”
11 *Fixture on a
ceiling rail
12 Papier-__
13 Frank __ Wright
18 Panache
22 Movie critic
Roger
24 Broad-brimmed
beach bonnets
26 Cry from a crib
27 Just barely
28 *Google Maps
option
30 American-born
Jordanian queen
31 Name of 12
popes
33 Really anger
34 Appraisal amts.
36 Professional
charges
37 PlayStation
maker
39 “__ Boy”: Irish
song
43 Narrow window
45 Mississippi and
Missouri
46 “It’s __!”: nursery
cry
47 Pablo’s parting
48 Thriller writer
Daniel
50 Minos’
kingdom
51 “Raw” pigment
53 Applications
54 Heap
56 Singer Turner
57 Port on many
TVs
58 Start of a flower
61 Family man
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NEW MEDIA NOTEBOOK
NINTENDO
I often joke when I’m going
through a rough patch that
upcoming Nintendo releases
are the only thing keeping
me going. Yeah sure — there’s
plenty of music, movies and
life, I guess, that make the
daily slog worth it, but what if I
never got to play “Super Smash
Bros. Ultimate”? That was the
light at the end of the tunnel
that was last fall semester,
much like the wait for “The
Legend of Zelda: Breath of
the Wild” kept me grounded
senior year of high school. If
a new “Animal Crossing” or
“Kirby” game is announced, I
whisper to myself, “goddamn
it, they’ve done it again.” The
next handful of months or even
years will have the promise of
(insert new Nintendo game)
forever tucked away in the
back of my mind. It’s the carrot
on a never-extending stick.
So
when
“Pokémon Sword”
and
“Pokémon
Shield”
were
announced
a
few
weeks
ago,
I
swore
silently
under my breath.
The
nondescript
release
date
of
Late
2019
can’t
come soon enough.
And
despite
my
doubts about Game
Freak
making
a
main
series
“Pokémon”
game
for a home video
game console, the
proverbial
hype
train has left the
station.
I
have
made it abundantly
clear to my friends
and Twitter that I
would die for that
monkey.
During
our
spring break road
trip my girlfriend
and I spent a good
chunk
of
time
discussing “Sword”
and
“Shield”
speculations
and
theories.
In
the
excitement of the
announcement,
I
even
bought
“Pokémon
Ultra
Sun” to play on
the trip to scratch
the itch. I haven’t
gotten that far, but
something
about
starting
a
new
game
makes
me
fall in love with
the series all over
again. The debate
over which starter
to choose was as
back-and-forth
as it was when
I booted up my
first
“Pokémon”
game more than
a decade ago. My
Safari app is now
overpopulated
with
Bulbapedia
tabs
about
the
Alola region.
But what makes
“Pokémon”
the
Nintendo
series
dearest
to
my
heart, more so than sprawling
odyssey of a “Zelda” game or
the platforming precision of a
“Mario” game?
For years I had just accepted
video games as a man’s realm,
to be played and enjoyed and
talked about at recess fields by
boys and boys only. The rare
girl who played video games
was essentially one of the boys.
When my parents gave my sister
and me a Wii for Christmas, I
was the one who spent hours
glued to the thing, my sister
only occasionally stopping by
for a round of dog frisbee on
“Wii Sports Resort.” Yes, this
notion of gendering activities
is extremely backwards, and I
resent myself for buying into
it for so many years, but this is
what I grew up thinking. Video
games were a boy’s space.
So why did I always feel
an
unexplained
connection
with
female
video
game
characters? Why did I always
pick Rosalina, Toadette or
the pink Shy Guy in “Mario
Kart”? The easy explanation
to which I chalked it down was
one offered by a YouTuber I
used to watch: He reasoned
to his group of friends that he
created a female character in
“Grand Theft Auto V Online”
because he would rather look
at a girl than a dude for the
truckload of hours he would
pour into the game. Sound
enough reasoning for 13-year-
old me, who still subscribed
to the gender binary and had
never met a queer person in her
life!
Still,
even
then
this
explanation
was
not
comforting. Even though I
always chose or created a
female player character when I
was given the option, I would
never want to be seen playing
that game because I was afraid
someone would make fun of me
or ask why I was playing as a
girl. It’s a bit sad to think now,
but this virtual shame was
perhaps the first manifestation
of my transgender identity.
And that’s why I found such
refuge in “Pokémon.” Each
of the core games was made
for handhelds (the Game Boy
Advance, for example) and
offered me my own private little
adventure, not displayed to my
family on the living room TV,
only shown to those I wanted
to show — pocket monsters on
my pocket console. My first
“Pokémon” generation was the
fourth, and oh, was it vital.
“Diamond,” I sing my song of
love to thee. There’s a common
phrase found in the openings
of all the earlier “Pokémon”
games which is essentially
the character select screen:
“Are you a boy? Or are you a
girl?” The girl in “Diamond”
is canonically named Dawn,
whose flowing scarf and pink
aesthetic I immediately found
the perfect projection of my
inward self.
I’d still get teased whenever
I battled or traded with my
school friends and they saw a
pixelated girl pop up on their
DS screen, but from “Diamond”
onward I always responded
“Girl” to the given generation’s
Professor when they asked.
And while “Pokémon” isn’t
explicitly
a
queer
friendly
game, it has never condemned
the legions of queer fans whose
experience with “Pokémon”
is whatever they make of it. It
didn’t matter if it was Hoenn
or Unova; every NPC would
always refer to me as my
chosen name (Emily initially
made the rounds) and gender
me correctly. Hell, that’s better
than the real world — their
batting average is way lower
than
“Pokémon”’s
perfect
record.
It wasn’t until the sixth
generation of “Pokémon” that I
started to realize my constant
choosing of female protagonists
was more than an aesthetic
decision.
With
“Pokémon
Y” Game Freak introduced
player customization, and I
was ecstatic. My character
could actually wear multiple
cute dresses as opposed to the
real me who could only dream
when online window shopping.
“Y” was also the first time I
tapped C-a-s-s-i-e into the
touch screen keyboard. With
these two aspects however,
my shame playing as a girl
grew even greater. I constantly
played the game with my 3DS
gripped tight close to my chest.
It’s a bit of a coincidence
too that the sixth generation
had two of the most explicit
references to trans identity.
Well, not references exactly,
more
coincidences
really,
but the beauty of “Pokémon”
is that I can believe them
to
be
references
and
not
immediately be told I’m wrong.
And plus, at least some one at
Game Freak has to be down
for the cause. First, we have
Sylveon, a Fairy-type evolution
of first generation pokémon
Eevee, whose colors match the
colors of the trans flag to the
T, and has become the icon for
trans gamers across the globe
to trojan horse their transness
through phone wallpapers and
Redbubble stickers.
And second, how could we
forget the benevolent Beauty
Nova, a female NPC trainer with
a bit of dialogue mentioning
she was a “Black Belt” (a
hulking Karate expert class
of trainer) “a mere half year
ago.” Beauty Nova’s dialogue
opened itself to debate, with
some fans insisting it was
just a mistranslation from the
original Japanese. Personally,
I’ll have whatever estrogen
she’s having.
I’ll say it again: “Pokémon”
is what you make of it. For me,
not only is each “Pokémon”
game an incredible journey
where I lovingly watch these
weird little creatures evolve
into a super effective Elite
Four-squashing squad, but it
was the first space where I
could truly be myself without
obstruction.
In the Photos app on my
phone
there
is
an
album
called “fairy type trash” full
of selfies and trans memes,
inspired by our trans icons
Sylveon and Gen VII starter
Popplio (I mean, just look at
her evolutionary line). The
album primarily exists as a
timeline to visualize my own
progress, my own evolution,
but instead of Exp. Points and
Rare Candies all it takes is a
little bit of hormones and a
lot of confident, unapologetic
pride in the girl I truly am.
Gamer girl: ‘Pokémon’
taught me about myself
CASSANDRA MANSUETTI
Senior Arts Editor
The Widow
Episodes One through Four
Amazon Prime Video
TV REVIEW
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
In an age where captivating,
thrilling TV has somehow become
dime a dozen, “The Widow” offers
little of note to make it stand out in
this crowded field. “The Widow”
features legendary actress Kate
Beckinsale (“Farming”) making
her debut as a lead for a TV series,
but is let down by pretty much
everything.
Beckinsale plays Georgia, a
widow who lost her husband in
a plane crash in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo a few years
ago. However, while catching an
off-hand news update at a hospital
after a minor injury, she notices
someone who looks suspiciously
like her presumed-dead husband.
A little too suspiciously like
her presumed-dead husband.
Intrigued, she travels off to the
Congo to investigate further,
becoming entangled in a web of
individuals including the husband
of the accused bomber who bought
the plane down. Other characters
are brought in and out, mostly to
explain the plane crash mystery
(even Charles Dance (“Game of
Thrones”) is roped in as pretty
much just a guy with an epic voice).
“The
Widow”
frequently
switches back and forth in time,
and while that in and of itself isn’t
necessarily distracting, the writers
don’t quite pull off the timeline
shifts well enough to prevent
the multitude of storylines from
blurring together. Moreover, the
pacing and storytelling suffers,
going much slower than it could
have gone. Entire sequences could
have been stitched together instead
of constantly switching back and
forth, creating a disorienting effect.
Beckinsale and most of the cast
deliver at minimum satisfactory
performances. Even the dialogue
isn’t terrible, but the storytelling
is what detracts from all of it. Even
a couple episodes in, viewers are
unlikely to develop an emotional
attachment to any of the characters,
even those with more intriguing
storylines. Moreover, the DRC is
little more than an exotic prop,
with
annoyingly
paternalistic
undertones
permeating
several
scenes. A few characters are given
a semblance of a backstory. Some
even give some social commentary
about their country’s history and
the havoc colonialism has wreaked
on it. However, in a cruel twist of
irony just like real life, their words
are largely ignored in favor of the
“main story.”
Tension is never really built
in a meaningful way until
the end of each episode. But
given the continuous manner
in which many viewers of the
show will watch it, even those
cliff-hangers aren’t all that
satisfying. The writers bury and
stomp any semblance of “show
not tell,” with exposition taking
up too many scenes. Georgia’s
relationship with her husband is
as generic Hallmark show as you
can get, and her massive quest is
never given more than a superficial
raison-d’être.
All in all, the question I kept
asking myself throughout the
first few episodes was “why…..?”
Why should I care about these
characters? Why aren’t the people
of the country the show is set
in given any depth? Why am I
watching this?
‘The Widow’ is a thriller
with hardly any thrills
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor
6 — Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com