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My friend, who is also into Submas, absolutely, positively can't just say the words "All Aboard!", and instead will do a properly loud and drawn out boarding call.

Even sitting less than a foot away from me in an enclosed space.

Every time.

...

Notably if I didn't have crippling social anxiety I would probably be doing it too ...

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So I was looking at Volo's Character art for no real reason (I was judging his stupid Arceus cosplay) and I noticed that he has a listed height! And they've done us a solid by drawing the MC standing right next to him for a size comparison! This, of course, means that using those two as a benchmark (because the MC stands by everyone at least once, giving some more good height comparisons) you could theoretically calculate the height of almost any character in P:LA...

I, of course, only cared about Ingo...

Here's my shoddily cobbled together mock-up.

Please note, I'm using an online calculator to convert cm to feet and inches. My calculations are NOT exact.

Each box is 19cm. Ingo is shown to be about a head taller than the MC(with slouch) so that's where his head is here, considering his legs are a bit spread and his knees bent. That puts him at about 5' even (again, with slouch)

If he stood straight without slouching, he would be somewhere between 5'2"-5'4".

Ingo is a short King! And by extension so is Emmet!

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Watching the chaos happening with Pokemas and the twins, and how glaringly unsubtle they're being, and I'm just sitting back here thinking,

On one hand, if this is leading up to Ingo falling, then that implies PLA is in the same universe as masters, not the main Canon, and BW & B2W2 Ingo and Emmet are completely okay and fine and nothing bad ever happens.

On the other hand, this might also finally confirm the horrible idea that Ingo never gets home, and I can't deal with that in any version of events.

If this isn't leading up to anything to do with Warden Ingo then they're just being A*Holes to be A*Holes aren't they?

Put that Train Man back where it came from or so help me!!

But actually what I want more than anything is for Ingo to run into Irida, Adaman, Akari, or Rei in a random event conversation and they just greet each other normally, implying Hisui has happened somewhere off camera and already been resolved.

That would be just so funny to me.

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Writing- Dialogue Tone Tests

When Writing anything, anything at all, one of the things I consider the hardest to get right is the Dialogue. I'm always worried about if what I, or my characters are saying actually fits the Tone I'm going for.

So here's some fun Tests you can use for that!

(Notably I didn't come up with the one to test Romance Dialogue, but I can't remember where I saw that one originally)

Romance: Imagine Danny DeVito saying the line. Is it creepy or weird now? It's bad writing.

Serious/Dramatic: Imagine Nicholas Cage saying the line. Does it sound completely ridiculous now? It's bad writing.

Comedy: Imagine Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime/Eeyore) saying the line. Is it no longer funny? It's bad writing.

Horror: Imagine Goofy playing the character saying the line. Is it still scary? If not it's bad writing.

Want to test it?

Romance-

Bad line: "I don't like sand, it's rough, and coarse, and gets into everything"

Good line: "You have bewitched me, body and Soul"

Serious/Dramatic-

Bad line: "And not just the men, but the women, and the children too!"

Good Line: "Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you uh ask me to do murder, for money."

Comedy-

Bad Line: "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."

Good Line: "I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife!"

Horror-

Bad Line: "They’re eating her, and then they’re gonna eat me! Oh my Gooooo[sh]!!!"

Good Line: "Vampires, real vampires, didn't nibble on the necks of nubile young virgins. They tore people to pieces and sucked the blood out of the chunks."

You can use these on movies too!

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Spooky Fun fact for you:

Did you know that In Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" there are TWO headless horsemen? Brom Bones, obviously, and the real one.

Don't believe me? Check this out!

So when animating all the characters in Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Disney team made sure to animate each individual character as either Right or Left handed specifically.

Ichabod is consistently Right handed throughout the entire picture.

While Katrina van Tassel is Consistently Left Handed.

There's only one point where Katrina is drawn Right Handed, when she is writing, but seeing as we are watching her hands as she does this, it's clear the animators chose to show her writing in a way so that it wouldn't obscure the words.

Everyone else is either right or left handed specifically.

All, that is, except Brom Bones, who is specifically drawn to be Ambidextrous.

From his first appearance he is punching open things with his left hand, and maneuvering things with his right. He tosses things with both arms, and handles knives with both hands.

In the Headless Horseman song he repeatedly switches arms in his demonstrations. He even switches pointing arms from the beginning of the song to the end.

Now let's look over at old HH.

The first time Ichabod encounters him is in the cemetery, and we get this excellent pan up and dramatic shot.

Note, the sword is in his right hand.

Also that is not a pumpkin.

Ichabod runs, and the Headless Horseman gives chase, the entire time his sword arm remains on his Right.

Part way through Ichabod loses the Horseman for a hot minute by falling down a short cliff.

He eventually gets back on the road, spots the bridge, only to get jump-scared by the Horseman lunging out of the woods in front of him.

Ichabod, of course, turns and runs again, and the Horseman gives chase again, but this time he's changing sword arms every other shot.

And once Ichabod reaches the bridge he lobs his Jack-o'-lantern using his left arm.

That is not at all what he was holding earlier.

Also, if I was attempting to throw something, and I intended it to hit, I would definitely use my dominant arm for that. You know, the one you also use as your sword arm?

Unless you're ambidextrous.

Just saying.

So with that all laid out, I want to throw out a couple more things that support this.

1) Ichabod is shown to be completely alone in the graveyard moments before the First Horseman shows up. He even looks at the entire thing multiple times before having a laughing fit with his horse. Additionally, it's so quiet that Ichabod's laughter is echoing off everything. The sound design actively changes so there's nothing but the echoing sound of his laughter. No music, nothing. You don't hear the Horseman until he laughs too, and by then he's right behind Ichabod.

2) The way they draw the object the Horseman is holding in his first appearance vs. At the bridge is completely different. I mentioned this above, but the first object is dark, barely lit, and almost Smaller than the Horseman's hand. That is a skull. The one at the bridge is a jack-o'-lantern, well lit, not even the same shape, massive, and spitting flames. Both are pretty intimidating, but why bother drawing two different ones? It can't be something only Ichabod sees either, because he definitely sees the pumpkin at the end, and again, it's shooting flames. Imagine it's a skull all you want, I doubt he'd downplay the supposed hellfire spewing out.

3) Ichabod falls down two cliff faces in the first part of the chase. The first one he goes down and the Horseman jumps the entire cliff to go after him, not even breaking his gallop. The second cliff however, the horseman doesn't even attempt to follow Ichabod, instead letting him get away for a good amount of time. The horseman was literally right next to Ichabod and chose not to follow him. Why? If there was only one horsemen (Brom) and you were Ok jumping a cliff to keep up the chase once, why break off the second time? Why bother possibly losing Ichabod to go the long way around just so you can jump-scare him in front of the bridge?

A flesh and blood horseman would have followed, but an actual spectre? No. Why?

Because the Bottom of that cliff crashes straight into running water.

Folklore of the time stated that things such as Spirits and the Unholy couldn't cross running water (hence why crossing the bridge meant safe haven). So an actual ghostly horseman would be physically incapable of following Ichabod down the second cliff (metaphysically speaking).

In Conclusion, Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a lot spookier than you probably thought, and the animators really did an excellent job.

Thank you for coming to my T.E.D. talk.

[off-color-darkrai]

I was walking on a rather remote beach when I came upon this Whip eel drying up in the sun. These are intertidal eels that can actually handle themselves out of water for a bit, but it’s not normal for them to be fully exposed in direct sunlight like this. The tide was at least six hours from coming in and I felt like this eel was in distress, so I made the decision to dig him out and return to the ocean. His body was too delicate to be simply pulled from the hole without injury, so I got to digging.

This endeavor took about 40 minutes as the eel was quite long and difficult to excavate. Also had to continually refill my temporary eel pond to keep him from drying out entirely while I worked.

If you are an eel aficionado like myself, please enjoy this silly little video of the relocation process set to some jaunty royalty-free disco music.

[off-color-darkrai]

Just a quick PSA for all those Pokemon Fans and Fanfiction writers out there:

Ghetsis last name isn't Harmonia.

It's Gropius.

He's Ghetsis Gropius on most paperwork (because they don't include middle names usually).

He's trying to take over Unova with the last name Gropius.

Servants would call him Master Gropius.

He's even less cool than he wants you to think he is.

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Happy Spooky Season Ladies and Gents!

For this most haunting part of the year may I give you a darling set of twins in their halloween best.

Truth be told I just really wanted to draw Emmet and Ingo in halloween costumes based on their partner pokemon. I like how Emmet's turned out better I'll admit, but I think that;'s because I fumbled the colors on Ingo's costume.

Eelektross is obviously and Eel but he's also a lamprey so I thought making Emmet a Vampire would match the theming. Ingo is kind of just generically a ghost, since Chandelure is a ghost type.

And! if by chance you wanted a shirt of these two fabulous gentleman, I can now say that is an option! Along with a whole other variety of apparel and mech on my store here- MaddSellsThings

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A verrry stupid gif for your viewing pleasure.

Yes I know it's bad, but I thought it was funny.

[off-color-darkrai]

Here's one side of the argument, which is valid, and here's mine ...

1)Those aren't age indicators, they're exhaustion/stress lines

Here's Piers, canonically Marnie's brother, and unless there's some freaky fifteen to twenty year age gap between these siblings is not middle aged. Half his hair is canonically grey, thin everything, and he has permanent eye bags.

Here's Molayne, Sophocles' older cousin, Alolan Elite Four member, and canonically not middle aged. He also has permanent eye bags and little fat on his face (or anywhere else). Yes those are eye bags, not the bottom of his glasses, they're noted in the concept art. He also has forehead creases, but they're behind his glasses, so you have to see his model at an angle.

This is Guzma, leader of team skull, and canonically not middle aged. He very recently wanted to be a trial captain, and Hala calls him young man. He has eye bags for days and forehead creases because those are used to display furrowed brows. His hair is canonically partially white and there's no proof either way if he does it or not(given the variety of pokemon cast hair colors... Probably not).

And finally here's Helena from pokemon masters. Yes she's someone you can(could?) find and fight. I don't know what her whole deal is, and I don't think I want to.

Now scroll up to find the non edited picture of Ingo, compare him to these fine folks, and tell me he doesn't need a good nap.

2) Hisuian's shave with knives

I never said Ingo couldn't shave, I said it was hard. You ever try shaving with a hand made knife for the first time? Gaeric's skills may be on point, but Ingo just crashed in from the 21st century, where we have nice amenities like safety razors and shaving cream we don't have to mix ourselves and mirrors (lack of mirrors is a big sticking point here, because mirrors had to be manufactured using a Mercury and tin coating on glass at the time, so it would be unlikely the pearl clan would have one.)

Odds are Ingo had someone else do his shaving for him, but since he's not stomping out to the clan every day to stay clean shaven, he ends up with a little goatee.

I can hate it all I want, it's a nasty little thing and deserves to be shaved.

3) His official art

See above for eyebags and eyebrow creases. Hair line means little when some men go bald in their twenties, and some men never do. I personally enjoy the theory that Sneasler accidentally groomed it off.

4) Outside Factors

It is mentioned that people believe Ingo came from the rift, even if he himself doesn't. For that to be true the rift had to have been there before Ingo's arrival. We know that Volo opened the rift, but the Frenzies didn't start until the Player showed up. Therefore, logically, if the rift was open before Ingo arrived, then either he hasn't been in Hisui for very long, or Volo opened up the rift when he was an angsty teenager and then just left it alone for several years without doing anything. Which would be funny, but hard to believe.

Personally I don't think Volo has the patience for that.

But the point I'm making is, either of these could be true, and until Nintendo gets off their backsides and confirms either way we'll never know.

Nintendo gets on that!

I Knew it! I knew it was just the goatee and terrible sleep schedule!

Look at him! Look at my boy! Call him and old man now Melli!

Context:

So I went on a texting rant to a friend about how Ingo in PLA isn't actually as old as people make him out to be, and how there's no possible way he could have been in Hisui longer than two years at Maximum (not even getting into that the concept art has two X's because of course that's how they're going to put the years, it's a mystery! Those X's can be any number including zero, come on people) and how he just looks old because his hair is naturally silver, he can't shave easily, and he is a New Yorker who has been robbed of caffeine and forced to sleep on the ground surrounded by things that are constantly trying to kill him...

Well anyway my friend didn't answer because they were probably asleep, but I took the liberty of grabbing Ingo's official art and a shot of his in game model and giving him a shave and getting him a full night's sleep in an actual bed to get rid of those eye bags.

Ta-da!

[off-color-darkrai]

I Knew it! I knew it was just the goatee and terrible sleep schedule!

Look at him! Look at my boy! Call him and old man now Melli!

Context:

So I went on a texting rant to a friend about how Ingo in PLA isn't actually as old as people make him out to be, and how there's no possible way he could have been in Hisui longer than two years at Maximum (not even getting into that the concept art has two X's because of course that's how they're going to put the years, it's a mystery! Those X's can be any number including zero, come on people) and how he just looks old because his hair is naturally silver, he can't shave easily (you try using a knife when you used a razor your whole life), and he is a New Yorker who has been robbed of caffeine and forced to sleep on the ground surrounded by things that are constantly trying to kill him...

Well anyway my friend didn't answer because they were probably asleep, but I took the liberty of grabbing Ingo's official art and a shot of his in game model and giving him a shave and getting him a full night's sleep in an actual bed to get rid of those eye bags.

Ta-da!

PS: Don't fight me on this, you're not going to convince me that the twins deserve to be separated any longer than they have to be. You can have your opinion and I can have mine.

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Tom Sawyer Island should Not be turned into a cars ride...

So this is basically a continuation of a previous post about Splash Mountain's rethemeing so if you want to see that first, check it out here

Anyway here's the rest.

The 'Splash Mountain' debacle is still an ongoing conversation topic in my friend group, and it was brought to my attention that D23 still stinks and they're doing more stupid, planning on redesigning Tom Sawyer Island for Cars...

Cars? CARS?! IN Frontier land?!?!

Have you lost what little thought you had in your skulls?!?

No, just, no.

I do agree Tom Sawyer Island needs work, but not cars. No, not after you just spent millions of dollars draining, patching, refurbishing, and refilling the 'rivers of the America's'. No.

They should retheme the island to be Tiana themed... Let me explain...

What people want from a princess and the frog locale isn't a ride, it's a restaurant! A jazzy Cajun restaurant that looks like the movie. So build Tiana's Palace (I learned recently it was palace, not place) on one side of Tom Sawyer Island, near the water, so at night you can light it up and people can hear the jazz music. If you position it right you can even make sure it's in the sightline from Fantasy land, keeping immersion up.

Now, this'll make some people upset, but make the restaurant basically reservation only. Tom Sawyer Island is sizeable, but not built for massive lines like that. It also means they can monitor safety better. The check in kiosk would be on the mainland, and you would be taken over to the restaurant on one of the rafts. This would also be how you leave the restaurant, or you can exit to the rest of the island.

That's right, I mentioned the rest of the island!

Tom Sawyer Island in it's current iteration is mostly used by parents for the parents to take a break from the rest of the park, while the kids can run around and explore in a contained, relatively safe environment. And honestly, fair.

So right outside Tiana's Palace they should build a small New Orleans style street, with false overhead balconies for shade, and a lot of chairs and tables. There should be a vendor for some of the easier/smaller/snackier food items found in the actual restaurant, like bennies or fried gator bits(sorry lewis) or small cups of gumbo. None of the buildings would be actual shops, mostly there for Disney's various storage or maintenance purposes, but there should be some kiosks like at the bazaar in adventure land and some that sell items specific to the island (the kiosks would also cut down on rambunctious kids running through stores willy nilly) Access to the rest of the Island besides the restaurant would come from the other raft, and (if they can manage it) the building of a dock for the Liberty Belle, which would also make the Liberty Belle more popular, and give better wheelchair access, as well as another evacuation point in case of emergency.

What about the kids? Well, with the rest of the island pretty much leave it as is, with a couple minor rethemes, but replace the fort with Mama Oddies Boat(make the cliff it's on look like the tree) and fix up the playground. They can even make it slightly interactive if they want. Sneak a few light changing things and voice lines in there!

Finally, if they do all this, keep the island open until a little after dark, so people can really appreciate the lights and the music.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk... But seriously, I might post a thing about how a brother bear ride would play out later, and update this with some sketches, who's to say.

[off-color-darkrai]

NOTE: This is MY arbitrary opinion. You don't have to agree with it. You can, but you don't have to.

So, I grew up going to Disney World and Disneyland, it was a fundamental part of my childhood.

If someone asked me if I was going to take my own kids there if I had any... I'd likely say No.

You heard me, no.

Disney has been scrambling for a while now, story wise, imagination wise, (if I have to see another shitty live action remake of an originally good movie remade to be terrible to appeal to modern audiences I'm going to hurl). It's like they're embarrassed to be related to pre 2015 Disney.

Disney is acting like a stereotypical emo teen freaking out about back when they weren't annoying and lame, and trying to seem cool now by trying to destroy everything that people used to like about them. They've added and upgraded rides and lands before, test-track has been upgraded at least twice, Animal Kingdom had the expedition Everest ride added and Avatar land, etc. but all of these updates were either simply updates, or were pretty spaced out.

What Disney is doing with it's parks right now is wildly different.

They're clearing out multiple classic rides at multiple parks on the same time table, for what? They've already removed almost all of the original rides from Hollywood Studios, and they're threatening to take out the rest, not to mention they forgot the park's theme in their push to add a bunch of rides from newer franchises that keep breaking down.

Does anyone remember that Hollywood Studios was supposed to show off how movies were made? It had a backlot tour, a stunt show, the rides were themed around sound stages, they had art of animation where you sometimes got to see some of the newer movies in the works. They had an amazing playground based on 'honey I shrunk the kid's. Couldn't we have tied galaxies edge in using the sound stage entrance scheme? Who thought it was a good idea to cut the Indiana Jones stunt show's run? Personally I'd love to watch a Marvel stunt show.

Epcot was supposed to celebrate humanity, future world divided into natural innovation and technological innovation, while the rest of Epcot celebrated world culture and diversity. Epcot is doing better than a lot of the other lands/kingdoms, but I have no clue why Guardians of the Galaxy is right next to Mission Space and not in Hollywood Studios or something. Again, Marvel Stunt show people, come on.

Animal Kingdom is about to lose Dinoland USA right as they finally got to live up to the promise of having existing animals, extinct animals, and imaginary animals (which they're supposed to have had since the beginning, if you'll notice the dragon on the signage and the dragon head on one of the ticket kiosks). I'm all for the Pacific islands, south America area, I just don't like them removing the dinosaurs for it.

And last, but not least... Magic Kingdom... Oh boy Magic Kingdom... Why is Tom Sawyer Island becoming Car's themed? Why did you take the country songs out of country bear jamboree? Why are you going to retheme big thunder mountain? Why isn't Tiana's bayou a sit down river ride and restaurant while splash mountain is about Brother Bear? Why did you ruin the flow of Haunted Mansion's in ride story by putting the hat box ghost in the foyer before the sayance instead of at the top of the stairs by constance? Why must you shit on my childhood? Why are you like this?!

I'm not going to shell out the massive amount of money I would have to shell out to go to Disney to ride a bunch of rides I have no nostalgia for, full of brand new perpetually broken animatronics, for new age Disney movies, half of which suck because the writing is trash that my imaginary kids could write better than. You're shocked you're losing money? Gee, I wonder why.

If they chill out and calm the fat down and stop over charging and trying to get rid of anything that happened or was created before 2015, maybe I'll reconsider. For now they're just pitiful, (and way too expensive).

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Emmet got to go on a Train!

He got to ride the Narrow gage Railroad from Durango Colorado to Silverton.

It was Verrry fun!

[off-color-darkrai]

The 2020 Deaths of Vic Sage comics were... Something... Not really sure what.

But! If there's one kinda hilarious thing they gave us, it was the idea that the Question, normal, non-superpowered, TV personality Vic Sage the Question, is also the other half of a timeless Eldritch duo.

That is just... So funny to me? That DC said 'yeah, let's write a comic where the Question is part of an Eldritch entity duo that embodies the concept of human morality and identity and is beyond all time and space, but also Vic is 100% human 100% of the time.' No powers, no abilities, no explanations!

I can't help imagining the JLU Question having the same problem XD

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What happens to me and probably many artists

[off-color-darkrai]

I decided to design some Robotech T-shirts! They're for Robotech: the New Generation (because that was the first one I saw) and I haven't gotten to Scott or Rand yet, but I have everyone else!

As usual I'm including a link to my shop if you want any of the designs on anything (help I'm poor🥲)