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isaacthedruid · 3 years

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Please allow me to tell you about one of my favourite cartoons through this informal essay I did for school a couple of months back.

Gravity Falls and How it Did The Unimaginable

**SPOILERS... KINDA**

The 2010s saw the creation of some of the most iconic animated tv shows ever made, the likes of Adventure Time (2010), Steven Universe (2013), Over the Garden Wall (2014) and The Legend of Korra (2012). To explain why this era’s shows are so admirable is honestly rather difficult. Yet, there are many factors that can be taken into consideration when looking for an answer.

The past decade was very successful in perfecting their craft and utilizing the animated format to their favour, creating some of the wackiest and fascinating cartoons ever made. With the advancements made in both 2D and 3D animation for film, this bled into the world of TV as well.

To mention that 2010s cartoons have stunning visuals would be an understatement. Everything about the animation was beautiful; the strong colour palettes, the clean and imaginative character designs, the colourful and immersive backgrounds and especially the mesmerizing worlds that can be found within episodes that are half an hour.

This era’s cartoons also led to a massive shift in storytelling, writing longer-running stories that spread out across seasons while also swapping out episodic adventures for serialization. This heavily aided in the popularization of these shows, due to the rise of internet fandoms and dropping the taboo that cartoons were only for kids. Many shows acknowledged their older viewers by leaving clues and even puzzles to be solved by the theorists who have a large appearance on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr. As the shows progressed, their fandoms created many theories for what they believed might happen within their favourite series. The top three shows from this era all utilized these changes, being at the forefront of the shift and helping guide the creative vision of 2010s cartoons.

Often regarded as many people’s favourite cartoon, Gravity Falls presented one of the best mysteries of the decade with two seasons and only 40 episodes. Inspired by Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it’s considered as the kids’ version of these two iconic shows as this cartoon acts as many people’s first introduction to horror through bright colours and fun characters.

This series follows the adventures of Dipper and Mabel Pines, twins, who are sent to spend their summer with their great-uncle or Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon. This town is full of oddities like supernatural creatures, insane and eccentric inhabitants, and many puzzles. The Pines twins must adjust to the weirdness while uncovering the mysteries and protecting their new town.

While living in Gravity Falls, the twins are forced to work in the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap created by their Grunkle Stan that overcharges unlucky tourists, teaching about fake monsters despite there being real creatures all over town. On his first day in Oregon, Dipper accidentally came across a mysterious journal written by an unknown author that explains all the oddities to be found in this strange town. This book acts like an encyclopedic of the Weird for Dipper, an inquisitive 12-year-old kid who seeks answers.

Dipper is an extremely intelligent kid, his brain being far more developed than his body. He’s rather awkward and self-conscious as he often stumbles over his words or gets embarrassed trying to talk to girls. Despite this, the boy is an adventurer at heart who just wants to grow up and skip his upcoming teenage years.

While Mabel is quite the opposite in many ways, she is loud and has an in-your-face personality. Mabel is bouncy and fun, she is so excited to start high school. She is easily excitable and for the larger part of the series, she is in her boy-crazy phase. Mabel is a girly-girl as she likes all things; glitter, unicorns, rainbows, partying and crafting. Yet, she doesn’t often compare well with many of the other girls in town, they see her as weird and “too much”.

(In all fairness through, it is not too kind to either of the characters as their personalities are more complex than just awkward nerd and artsy girl-girly.)

Dipper and Mabel’s personalities are very different but somehow, they—along with their Gravity Falls family—manage to solve mysteries and save the town, multiple times.

Gravity Falls is an honestly genius series that completely changed the way cartoons were made. Originally when writing a series, you’d create a base of your story; characters, the universe and a basic plot. Yet, when creator, Alex Hirsch (who was in his early/mid-20)s and his small team first began constructing their show, they planned out everything they could possibly think of for the first season. Additionally, outlining some answers for their biggest mysteries that would be answered at the end of the series.

Despite being rated TV-Y7, this series really pushed the boundaries of kids’ television. From the teeth being ripped out of a deer’s mouth by a demon, rearranging the functions of every hole on a man’s face to an aggressive pop-rock sock puppet show that ended in a dramatic slow-motion scene of the puppets burning. Gravity Falls wasn’t afraid to get a little weird or creepy. Or create some genuine nightmare fuel.

From the beginning, Gravity Falls had built a mystery into its series, hiding secrets and clues all throughout the show. Most notably were the backwards-recorded message and cryptograms, using roughly nine different kinds, even creating two of their own.

The inclusion of cyphers and mysteries for fans to solve is possibly the reason why this series was so successful. As one of the first shows to do something like this, Gravity Falls used social media and internet fandoms to its advantage.

As mentioned earlier, cartoon fans have quite a presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. They create theories and share fun ideas about their favourite shows. Viewers of Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe were all included in their share of theory fun.

Sometimes, fan theories end up being correct but when you’re Gravity Falls creator, Alex Hirsch, you don’t just watch from the sidelines as your viewers figure out the biggest mystery of your show. No, you create a hoax to get your viewers off your trail and that is what he did. Around 2013, only halfway through the first season of the show, viewers had started to follow the clues, theorizing who was the author is Dipper’s mysterious journal.

Unfortunately for the Gravity Falls production crew, the viewers were right— for the sake of readers who have never seen the show, I will not mention who the author was as it would be the biggest spoiler.

In 2013, a supposed leaked image of a tv showing a younger version of the show’s crazy old man character, Old Man McGucket, writing in the infamous journal was uploaded anonymously (by Alex Hirsch) to 4Chan.

Despite the image only being on up for a few hours, it spread like wildfire. Much to the team’s success, theorists stopped searching for the answer to “who is the author” and just accepted the image of McGucket as the truth.

To further push the fake-out, three words were posted to Alex’s Twitter, “fuming right now.”

The tweet was deleted a few minutes later and fans genuinely believed that someone from the Gravity Falls team had leaked the most important part of the story.

While doing research, I came across a Reddit post from April 10th, 2013, the day after ‘leak,’ Alex’s tweet was uploaded. In this post, user, TheoDW uploaded an image of Alex’s tweet with the caption, “It seems that Hirsch got mad at last night’s leak. He already deleted this tweet.”

Seeing the reactions of these Redditors in 2013 is kind of weird and crazy to look at. “He has every right to be upset. Someone internally released a plot revealing screen shot of series breaking spoiler information,” a deleted Reddit account commented.

“This is Alex Hirsch’s biggest success by far, he spent a huge amount of time carefully planning out the series, and then in a moment someone releases a major spoiler. It would make anyone upset,” the user, Time_Loop commented.

“Seriously, this is a nightmare for a storyteller, and shows a breach of trust. I feel so bad for him–honestly, I hope whoever did the leak gets caught and appropriate action is taken. You don’t f–k with someone’s story like this. It’s unprofessional.” the user, lonelybeloved angrily commented.

In 2014, this ‘leak’ was finally disproven when viewers were given an episode on McGucket’s backstory and an amazing tweet from Alex Hirsch.

Alex had post an image of himself playfully pointing at a monitor with the supposed leaked picture with the caption, “1) Make hoax 2) Upload to 4Chan 3) Post angry tweet about "leak" 4) Delete tweet 5) Let internet do rest”

It is so interesting to look at these comments know that all of this was orchestrated by Alex.

I wish I had been old enough at the time to follow theories and fandom stuff like I do now with current cartoons but really looking at this from an outside perspective, this was insane!

The real author wasn’t revealed until 2015 and when viewers first got the answer to this biggest show on their screens, they must have freaked out!

Following the finale in 2016, a single frame of a stone version of Bill Cipher, the show’s villain, flashed in after the credits had finished.

Alex Hirsch and his team actually created a real-life statue of their villain for their viewers to find and on July 20th, 2016, the Cipher Hunt began.

By following clues, the Hunters found themselves all over the world; Russia, Japan and then travelling throughout the United States for the final 12 clues. When the hunt took them to Los Angeles, actor, Jason Ritter (voice of Dipper Pines, also a massive fan of the series) and Alex Hirsch’s twin sister, Ariel Hirsch (the inspiration for Mabel) joined in the fun helping the search.

Finally, the hunt ended on August 2nd when someone tweeted out an image of the found statue in Oregon, the same state in which the fictional town of Gravity Falls exists. The Cipher Hunt had ended but finding the statue wasn’t Alex’s goal for the scavenger hunt, it was about the journey and bringing together the viewers, more than having them actually find the statue.

Creating its own hoax, an international scavenger hunt and quite a bit of nightmare fuel, Gravity Falls was a show truly unlike any other.

The 2010s saw some of the strongest cartoons ever made, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe acting as the leaders for multiple different changes in the medium; storytelling, worldbuilding, interaction with viewers, utilizing social media, representation and further pushing music into the cartoon world. From what was created this past decade and what has already been released in 2020, I’m so excited to see what comes next.

I have another one of these which is on Steven Universe’s representation and music if you would like to see that too!!

#isaac rambles #long post #gravity falls #cartoons #cartoon review #dipper pines #alex hirsch #OH MY GOD I LOVE ALEX HIRSCH'S BRAIN!!!#disney #disney channel #disney cartoons

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

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(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

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yumeka36 · 4 years

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Thoughts on “Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2″

I binged all six episodes of the Frozen 2 making-of documentary series on Disney+ and wanted to share my thoughts:

- Probably my favorite scene is when the cast got to hear the orchestration of “Into the Unknown” for the first time. I loved how we got to hear the emphasizing of each instrument. Also sweet seeing how emotional Jen and Idina got when they heard it.

- I adored every scene that showed the voice actors recording their lines and singing. It’s nice to hear slightly different versions of all the songs. I especially loved the wholesomeness of the cast recording their respective lines for “Some Things Never Change,” and Kristen Bell’s touching recording of “The Next Right Thing.”

- Very interesting to know how much struggle they had with the concept of “Show Yourself.” I liked hearing the variations of the lyrics that Kristen came up with before settling on the song we have today. The fact that they spent so much time trying to get this song number right despite pressing deadlines shows how important they knew it would be for Elsa’s character.

- It was so, so interesting to see all the different facets of the animation process: the rigging, the effects, the sound directing, the lighting, the story boarding, the daily meetings, etc., Even if you’re not a Frozen fan, if you have any interest in the animation process, this documentary is a great watch.

- “See the Sky” was a nice song that gave a bit more character to the otherwise forgettable new characters like Matthias and the Northuldra, but it didn’t click at the test screenings unfortunately. Would have been nice to have had it as a deleted scene or on the deluxe soundtrack.

- Some people were disappointed that the deleted scenes like The Secret Room and Get This Right weren’t discussed at all in the documentary, but the reason for that is because it only covers the last year of the movie’s production. The deleted scenes included on the blu-ray release were probably scrapped earlier in production.

- I’ve always had trouble believing the leaks from a year ago that a supposed “original” ending for Frozen 2 was to have Elsa never get revived. As I discussed in a previous post, it just doesn’t add up. Now that I’ve seen the documentary, I'm even less convinced that this so-called original ending was even a thing because, in episode 4 when they’re about to show the test screening to the family audience, we see them working on footage of the actual ending we got of Elsa riding Nokk back to Arendelle and the Frohana hug. So if this “darker” ending did exist, it must have been even before this test screening when they barely had the story together, so I’d hardly call it a confirmed ending that was ever taken seriously. Of course, they could have purposely rearranged the footage to make it look that way, but I don’t think so. Everything else seemed pretty linear as they followed the crew in the final months of production, so no evidence that these scenes were out of place. At the most, whoever leaked that supposed ending probably saw an incomplete version of the movie before the ending was settled on (the documentary shows that they have screenings throughout production) and it got passed around through the grape vine and got interpreted as a spoiler of an actual original ending.

- I was really hoping I’d appear in episode 5 when they covered D23 Expo. They were filming people getting Jen, Chris, and Peter’s autographs, which was an event I participated in. When I met them, I showed them my backpack full of Frozen pins and Chris even took a picture of it! I thought that would be something interesting they’d want to include in the documentary. They showed some cosplayers, some people attending the expo from other countries, and a few other lucky random fans getting the autographs, but not me. Oh well.

- I was in the audience for the exclusive premiere of Frozen 2 clips at D23 Expo, so it was really cool seeing what the cast was doing behind the curtains at that time. Watching the voice actors perform “Some Things Never Change” live at that event was one of my expo highlights so it was so nice to see parts of it again.

- Loved the scenes showing how Elsa’s new dress came about. And of course, leading up to the orchestration of “Show Yourself.” Gave me the chills!

- So many emotions at the wrap party when they were about to show the complete movie to the full filmmaking team and their families (Peter’s reaction especially).

- I’ve read some complaints about the fact that they had to make changes to the film based on the children’s feedback from the family test screening - that this somehow made the movie worse off. But it makes sense that they’d have to balance it between appealing to kids and adults. That’s what makes Disney movies so successful. Getting feedback that kids got confused or bored and then changing things up is necessary for a family movie, it’s nothing to fault them for. They had to make it so that both kids and adults could follow the story - they had to find a compromise between what they want (as adults) and what a large portion of their audience (kids) will enjoy. Some things were a bit confusing for the little ones, so they had to simplify. Nothing wrong with that since the success of every great Disney animated film rides on their appeal to the widest variety of audiences.

- Of course, it would have been awesome to see even more behind-the-scenes stuff. Like, from even earlier in the movie’s development, or know what was going on the few meetings they didn’t allow the documentary filming to take place. But honestly, I’m just grateful we got this. This is very unprecedented behind-the-scenes content from Disney that we didn’t have to get, but we did, and I’m happy about that!

- And wow, I have even more respect for Jen Lee and the team now that I’ve seen in detail the amount of work and stress they went through to deliver this movie. Sure, it’s not perfect, but making a perfect, or even just a great movie, when you have to coordinate so many different facets and get hundreds of people on the same page under such immense pressure is nearly impossible. With all those hurdles they had, I think they ended up doing a dang good job.

- Now I’m also a bit more sympathetic when they shy away from talking about Frozen 3, lol. But what’s interesting is that I attended a live Q&A session the other day with some of the Frozen filmmakers/animators, and they once again had to answer a question about Frozen 3. Rather than say, “ask me in a year” like Chris and Jen have been saying, Chris said “ask me in six months” (since it’s been six months since Frozen 2′s release). The fact that he’s keeping true to his original time of “a year” is interesting, lol. Time to count down the months!

Also, for those of you following my Frozen 2 writing project, I’m almost done. Just a little more edits, proofreading, and cleanup and it’ll be good to go! Look for the complete version within the next few days!

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen2 #disney frozen #into the unknown #disney plus #disney+

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pseud0knots · 4 years

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Please tell me about shatterstar's Childhood

oh my god anon okay I’m assuming in context of what I’ve recently posted you want like... my version of events rather than what’s canon but just in case I hope you know that there’s basically zero canon material that actually describes his childhood/young adulthood beyond “I was a warrior born” or whatever the fuck. if you want to know about that idk go on the fucken... marvel wiki page or something

also--I hate that I have to put this out here and I doubt anyone would actually do this but just in case--I have spent like 1 million hours thinking about this because I have brain disorders and it is very close to my heart so please do not A) use this in fics, etc without letting me know/getting my permission in advance or B) reblog this post

anyways. this is a can of worms so I’m going to do a cheeky lil

first we have to get something out of the way: I hate the “shatterstar’s his own grandpa” paradox. I am sorry if this angers people but it makes me mad so I ignore it. the reason it bothers me is because it means alison blaire essentially married her grandson, which is A) weird and B) bad from a genetics perspective.

in my version of canon ‘star IS the biological child of longshot and dazzler but longshot wasn’t cloned using ‘star’s DNA because..... oh god... another whole separate post can be made about this but... in my head, on mojoworld the way genetic engineering works is not really the same as it is here. here genetic engineering generally means taking an existing genome and inserting or deleting genes. this is how they make, for example, animals that glow, or confer pesticide resistance to plants.

but on mojoworld I think the way they genetically engineer is more like... the way we mechanically engineer. like the entire organism is built from the ground up. there’s a master genetic blueprint which is essentially the “minimal genome” required for a functioning humanoid. this was created by study of Earth humans by arize and the other genetic engineers. they can then go in and customize by adding elements to the genome that code for the signals/building blocks that control things like height, strength, hair color, eye color, having hollow bones etc. so in my head longshot was sort of... designed with ‘star as the inspiration, but not directly cloned. that wouldn’t even make sense anyways because A) different hair color and B) LONGSHOT HAS 3 FINGERS ON EACH HAND and shatterstar has 4!! thats NOT HOW CLONES WOULD WORK!!!!

(side note, the concept of a minimal functional genome is a real thing in biology! some scientists have taken a bacterium that already has a small genome and reduced it to the minimum size required for viability. here is a wikipedia article on it and here is the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5447.2165) which I can explain in more detail because I took a class on synthetic biology which this technically falls under and I had to read this paper very closely).

fuck I’ve written 4 paragraphs and not even talked about his childhood yet. I am so sorry. anyways. so the way I think they raise the gladiators on mojoworld is they create them in batches of 5 to 10 identical copies of a certain “model”, place each copy in a different “class” with a set of 2-3 mentors/teachers, and train them to fight until they are 13 or 14. until this time the only names they have are the names that identify the “model”--like for shatterstar that would be gaveedra-seven where the model identifier is “gaveedra” and he is (in the lore that I have come up with) the 7th of 8 total.

the reason they create multiples and put them in different classes is each mentor is going to have a slightly different style of teaching which is going to work better for some and worse for others, so it allows them to have more mass production while increasing the chances of creating a truly great champion. it’s classic nature versus nurture--the genetic engineers create your nature, but you don’t end up exactly the same as others of your model. maybe you get an edge, maybe you don’t.

another thing that happens is different mentors believe in different ways of raising the kids in their care. shatterstar specifically was raised in a class where there was absolutely zero emotional development at all and no attachments allowed beyond fighting alliances. that’s not the case in all classes, and it also had the effect of making him somewhat of an outsider even within the other gladiators as he got older.

at 13 or 14--and yes I realize this is very fucked up but dude its fucking mojoworld idk what you expected--they start participating in fights. the first ones aren’t to the death and they’re as teams and they’re not usually televised they’re more like high school sports games that are attended by scouts (here, they’re “sponsors”--I think that’s a canonical term but I honestly can’t remember) and if you get sponsored you leave your class and join a new “team” that’s really just a bunch of people who all have the same sponsorship. this is where things can get interesting because they’ve all been raised with slightly different fighting styles but more importantly, slightly different degrees of Personhood.

also at this point I should mention that by this time, there are usually only 2, maybe 3 of each model left. either they died or were recognized as not having talent so they were sent to eventually fulfill other roles in the network. in ‘star’s case there was just him and gaveedra-five. once you get to the stage where you’re sponsored and you’re actually fighting to the death one of the first people you’ll fight is any remaining members of your model group.

by the time you’re the only one left of your group, you’re also eligible to earn a stage name. this usually happens if you have a particularly epic fight with a lot of viewers, you win and the commentators will typically say something like “Let’s give this crowd a real name to cheer!” and they’ll have a few candidate names and they’ll kind of just pick one. AUGH I actually have this scene written out in story form but its too long so I think I’ll save it.... :)

after you get a name you also get a cool outfit and usually some kind of mark or tattoo that serves as a brand. this brings me to another important point--shatterstar inherited the X-gene from alison and therefore he IS a mutant. his mutation is the swords vibration thing and the glowing eye. the star mark is a tattoo and teleportation is benjamin russell’s mutation (how he fits into all this is... for another post). basically after he got his name the costuming department guys were like “hey your eye glows, you look like the Legendary Warrior of Old, Longshot, we’re gonna pattern your look after him” so they gave him the star tattoo and the outfit that’s literally inverse colors of longshot’s.

also this brings me to another aside: you’re probably wondering “if he’s the biological kid of longshot and alison how are there 8 gaveedras?” when the genetic engineers got a hold on him as a baby they were like Sick! free baby! free genetic material! thats our job done for us! so they cloned him (in the traditional sense) and made 7 copies. this was also to kind of conceal his identity as technically being from outside mojoworld, which would make him stick out and thus be a target. they DID edit out the x-gene in the other gaveedra models though. this wasn’t a problem for ‘star because his mutation didn’t manifest until he was already sponsored.

I think that’s .... pretty much it for macroscopic lore on what it was like to be a kid gladiator on mojoworld. now let me give you some Tidbits of his life specifically:

like I said he was raised in a particularly cold and ruthless class. the mentors that raised him are like well-known by everyone to produce some of the best warriors but also there’s discourse on mojoworld because some people say perfectly emotionless killing machines aren’t as fun to watch. when he was sponsored there were 4-5 others in the same sponsorship and they were like Theres Something Wrong With You LOL

they speak earth languages on mojoworld because they’re imitating the broadcasts they (the spineless ones) used to hear from earth. however, most of the lower-class as well as almost all arena fighters and other television personalities speak cadre or other languages which are native to the planet. the stage names are all vaguely in english, but the gladiators don’t really understand them at first.

shatterstar got his name before he got the glowing eye, and when he learned what stars are, and saw his eye as a little star, he was like wow :) this is Me :) which is why that name is so important to him. it’s also one of the first things that wholly belonged to him.

(you can’t see stars on mojoworld because of light pollution and also because it’s a pocket dimension and there just aren’t that many stars to see)

I hate to bring up the s**ley miniseries but I do think it would be interesting to have him have a sort of ... mentor/first friend, similar to the concept of gringrave but they were NOT in a relationship. it was more like... another kid who was a year or so older than him got a soft spot for him and helped him not be so clueless. she didn’t make as much progress as xforce did, obviously. but they were.... something like friends.

unfortunately she was used by spiral to get shatterstar to murder the first rebel guy who tried to get him out of there. then she got switched sponsors (this can happen) and he had to kill her, and he was like well I will simply never develop any kind of attachment to anyone ever again.

he almost didn’t make it out of the first training session with his sponsorship group (this is semi-canon--there’s a reference when he’s teaching terry to swordfight to almost not surviving the first time he was in a gladiator class or whatever it was).

the closest he ever came to losing was the day he got the name. that’s why the crowds loved it so much.

the double-bladed sword was a gimmick weapon but when he got his mutation they realized it works way better if there’s resonance between two parallel blades so they redesigned it as an actual weapon.

(forgot this but I feel like I should include it) at 17 he escaped the arenas and joined the cadre alliance. two years later he came to earth and joined xforce.

I think that’s going to have to be it for now because it’s literally almost midnight and I have work tomorrow and I did NOT intend to stay up this late but I did. thank you for this opportunity anon :) feel free to ask me any other questions and also I realize a lot of this probably makes no fucking sense and that’s because I am not a writer or anything I’m just a biochemist with brain problems that cause me to obsess over stupid shit

#answered #shatterstar #GHKDJFDKHGRJ I KNOW THERES SOMETHING WRONG W/ ME THAT THIS FEELS LIKE EXPOSING MY SOUL....#Anonymous #long post #NSCU #<-thats my new tag since other people have asked about this #it stands for nadine shatterstar cinematic universe

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 3 years

Text

The Goonies: Facets of Filmmaking

From the get go, The Goonies seemed destined for success.

Everything seemed perfectly in place: director Richard Donner (of Superman and The Omen fame) producer Stephen Spielberg (director of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and the Indiana Jones films), screenwriter Chris Columbus, (also worked on Gremlins) and Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment. With all of these talented people, a great script, and a production studio that had a decent record under its belt already, The Goonies was a surefire win.

And a win it was.

But it didn’t come without its challenges.

The film The Goonies was originally conceived by Stephen Spielberg as the basic idea of: “What would bored kids get up to on a rainy day?” After pitching the idea to screenwriter Chris Columbus (who had wrote the script to the film Gremlins, which Spielberg had also produced), the script was written with the obvious conclusion: search for pirate treasure, of course. It was a traditionally Spielbergian ‘high concept’ movie, for sure, but oddly enough, The Goon Kids, as it was then called, didn’t end up a Spielberg film after all.

After a string of successes already beginning throughout the ‘80s, with E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones films, and The Color Purple, on top of being the producer for many other films, Spielberg, originally the director for the project, passed off the reins to established director Richard Donner instead.

None were more surprised than Donner himself.

“My first thoughts were, ‘why me?’ Because it was Steven Spielberg who made the best movies for kids and for dreaming in the world. So, why are you giving this to me? He said because he was busy doing something else and he thought I was as big a kid as he was and he gave it to me.”

In a way, it made perfect sense: Donner was already used to big-budget films with huge setpieces and soundstages. On the other hand, he wasn’t terribly experienced with working with children.

Thankfully, instead of leaving him with the project on his own, Spielberg stayed on as producer, even directing a few scenes in the final film. The pair worked together fairly closely, with their combined talents having a marked influence on the film from their blended styles. However, despite this seemingly ‘dream team’ combination of directors working on the combination of Spielberg’s idea and Chris Columbus’s script, there were still plenty of challenges throughout production, some of them where the cast was concerned.

By necessity, production had to begin by breaking the well known rule: “Never work with animals or children.” Already a successful director, Donner found himself challenged by the unique experience of trying to wrangle the young cast to focus on the movie that had to be made.

The main cast was almost entirely newcomers: Kerri Green and Josh Brolin were making their onscreen debuts with The Goonies, and the others weren’t much more experienced. Sean Astin, although coming from a Hollywood background, was relatively new to acting at the time, as were Jeff Cohen and Martha Plimpton. Ke Huy Quan, having just previously starred in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, had relatively little experience as well, with Corey Feldman having the biggest portfolio of the young cast, having previously appeared in Gremlins, as well as multiple commercials and television episodes.

The inexperience, as well as the youth, showed throughout production, with Donner worn thin by the antics of a high-energy cast of children.

“The annoying thing was the lack of discipline, and that was also what was great because it meant that they weren’t professionals. What came out of them was instinct and that was beautiful. But because it was instinct they didn’t have the discipline of a professional actor, a trained actor who knew that on that line or that move they were going to scratch themselves or drink a Coke or eat a slice of pizza, so every time you would make cuts to match, they were all over the place. Never on the same marks. But the reason they weren’t is because they were functioning on their instincts, and their instincts at that moment told them to go there and not there. I just had to figure my way around it, but it drove me nuts.”

The other members of the cast included Anne Ramsey as Mama Fratelli, and Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi as Francis and Jake Fratelli, and, most memorably, NFL defensive end John Matuszak as Sloth, underneath several hours worth of makeup and prosthetics.

There was more to the assembly of The Goonies than just the cast, however.

The Goonies came at a time before CGI was widely implemented in special effects films: meaning that the effects on screen were shot with real sets and props. While most of the shots hold up (once they deleted the octopus sequence), there is one prop, one set, that far outshines every other (admittedly impressive) effect in the film:

One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship.

The famous pirate ship that is the main set piece for the climax of the film was constructed on the Warner Brothers lot, on soundstage 16, the only stage big enough for not only the ship, but the cave and 2.3 million gallons of water that the ship was sitting in. The ship took approximately six months to build, and the surrounding cave waas no less a chore to create, with plaster rocks reaching up to the top of the soundstage.

All the hard work paid off, evidenced by both the reactions of fans everywhere and the reactions of the kids themselves when they first laid eyes on the ship (Donner wanted to capture the expressions on the first take, and the kids were not permitted to see the ship beforehand. The take used in the film is the second take.). Unfortunately, once shooting wrapped, the pirate ship was destroyed when no one would take it, and one of Hollywood’s most iconic sets and props was lost forever.

For the most part, besides the usual hiccups present in filmmaking, the production of The Goonies went off fairly smoothly, and after five months of shooting (followed by more months of dubbing), The Goonies wrapped. On June 7th, it was released in theaters, becoming one of the top ten highest grossing films of the year.

As time went by, The Goonies truly proved to never say die, with more generations of fans being added to it’s already impressive roster. There have been documentaries, reunions, script readings, and, above all, requests for a sequel in the thirty-five years since it’s original release, with no signs of it’s popularity dropping off. Currently, The Goonies is fondly remembered as one of the best known and best loved films of the 1980s, full of iconic moments and quotable lines that have continued to live in the public consciousness in the years following its debut.

In short:

The Goonies seemed destined for greatness from the start, and it certainly followed through. Whether a sequel is ever made or not, no matter what, the original will continue to be loved and treasured for generations to come: as long as audiences remember how, for just a short while, to think like a kid.

It’s almost time to close on our analysis of The Goonies. Join me next time as we take one last look at this classic film: combining the facts with the feelings for a sum-up. Stay tuned, and thanks so much for reading! I hope to see you in the next article.

#The Goonies #The Goonies 1985 #1985 #80s #Film #Movies #Adventure #Comedy #Family #PG #Sean Astin #Josh Brolin #Jeff Cohen #Corey Feldman #Kerri Green #Martha Plimpton #Ke Huy Quan #Richard Donner

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theparanormalperiodical · 4 years

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The REAL Story Behind Sinister (2012), And The 11 Scariest Pagan Gods That You Don’t Want To Bump Into

It’s damn near impossible to find a really good horror film.

No, I mean a really good horror film.

You know, where the plot is winding, and unravels oh so gently until it snaps us back into its web, leaving us tied up in the lair of a monster as it inches closer and closer towards us.

Most horror films simply don’t make the cut.

But in recent years, there is one that does just that, twisting together an incredible plot, a truly terrifying monster, and the subtleties of gore that have you promising yourself you will never purchase a lawn mower again:

Sinister (2012).

That being said, this story of an unforgiving Pagan god and the innocent families that stumble across his path shouldn’t be shaking you to your core - it’s the real, historic legends that inspired this film.

Bughuul/Bagul is based on 3 Pagan gods, bringing the events behind the camera outside of our TV screen. But the thing is, it turns out Moloch, Baal, and Tlaloc are far from the only holy entities you don’t want to cross paths with.

Bughuul might just be more real than you’d like to think.

What Happens In Sinister (2012) And Sinister 2 (2015)?

Before Bughuul was conjured up from the darkest corners of our nightmares, and before Ellison Oswalt - the main character in the film - even signed the lease on his new house, was an idea.

Sure, the real Pagan gods inspiring Bughuul might be enough to keep you awake at night, but C Robert Cargill, the writer of the film, was inspired by something else at first:

It was a nightmare after watching The Ring (2002).

From here the fundamental building block of the plot was set in place: a supernatural entity spreads itself via films that need to be created and then passed on. The thing is, this being doesn’t channel as much sympathy as we all harboured for Samara.

The starring role of the Super 8 movies in this flick is taken by a far more terrifying being that doesn’t stick to such a rigorous time scale.

Our story follows a true-crime writer attempting to uncover an unsolved murder case to propel himself back to his former fame. But his distant family and obvious alcoholism are about to be the least of his problems when he accidentally unleashes a Pagan god.

You can’t find a Citizens Advice leaflet on that.

The tale begins when the author, Ellison Oswalt, moves into a new home. The thing is, he has a nasty habit of picking houses nearby to the cases he researches - only this time, he’s shacked up in the house where a whole family was murdered in the backyard and the youngest child went missing.

Nothing creepy here, right?

Oh, there’s a box in the attic with a Super 8 film projector and reels of film which display the murder of several families in their own horrific way.

*Inhale*

*Exhale*

Our new favourite true crime writer decides to team up with a lovable police deputy who does some digging around the murders. He discovers these murders took place from the 1960s up to present day, and occurred across the entire US. But what connected these murders - aside from that creepy figure in the background of the clips and the symbols - is that a child from each family went missing after the murder.

One quick Skype call to an esteemed occult professor later, and hey presto he’s realised he’s encountered a Babylonian deity known as Bughuul. But you can call him the Eater of Children, a nickname that caught on when they discovered he likes to consume the souls of children.

In case you can’t do the maths, Bughuul likes to have families murdered, and spare a child as a light snack post-murder.

Throughout this process of unveiling the truth of Bughuul, the paranormal activity begins. The steady climb in the supernatural peaks however when he hears the projector running in the attic. He checks out the situation, and realises all of the missing kids are enjoying a movie night - think less Netflix, more bloodthirsty Pagan god - when Bughuul rocks up via an unnecessary jumpscare.

Oswalt then makes the executive decision to burn the film and projector, and then swap this murder house for his previous residency.

Three cheers for common sense!

The thing is, Oswalt didn’t do his reading on basic horror movie monsters - ghosts haunt places, demons haunt people.

(Rooky error.)

Unfortunately Oswalt learns this when he’s mid-unpack of his old house. The professor then gives him a ring and lets him know that it's images of Bughuul that serve as a gateway for the deity to enter our mortal world. But it’s when kids come into contact with the image that they can be possessed.

That’s right - it’s the kids that do the murdering, the filming, and then the pissing off with Bughuul.

Shortly after this bulb lights up, our lovable deputy also gets on the blower, and lets him know that each family that was murdered did the exact same thing:

They realised their new home was haunted by some presence, shacked up at a new location where there were no Super 8 movies included in the rent, and then were killed by their child.

Yep - our favourite true crime writer has only gone and set off the exact chain of events he attempted to investigate.

(Rooky error.)

Just as he realises he’s been played by the B-man, he passes out. He’s just been poisoned by his daughter. He wakes up moments before being slaughtered with an axe.

The film ends with the child being carried away by Bughuul and teleported into the film with him.

Sinister 2 picks up the plotline several years later, following around the lovable police officer as he takes matters into his own hands; he attempts to destroy the houses that continue Bughuul’s spread across America.

But in this film, we actually get a behind-the-scenes view of Bughuul’s process of encroaching on children. And it turns out the possession is actually peer pressure from the missing children - but instead of trying a cigarette outside the back of the local Lidl, you’re being forced to murder your family in your very own brutal way.

And if this exclusive preview into our favourite Pagan deity wasn’t enough, Bughuul also upskills and learns to utilise a radio to spread his message.

*Deletes BBC Sounds App*

So - Who Is Bughuul?

Found footage is a difficult genre to break into.

Bughuul, however crashes into it, reviving the boring clips that dragged The Blair Witch Project into horror movie infamy and sent the Paranormal Activity viewers to sleep.

Sinister plays with the horror genre in a whole new way, using silent, grainy Super 8 movies to leave the viewers convinced they might awaken a long dead spirit by listening to their favourite murder mystery podcast.

But the visual horror - whether of the gory deaths we witness or of Bughuul himself - confines the movie to the streaming platform you chose that evening.

It’s the unnervingly real concept of Bughuul which allows the events concerning Oswalt to haunt us on a whole new level.

In the film we are told that Bughuul is a Babylonian deity - a Pagan or early Christian demon, if you will - who can possess children, is transmitted through images, likes to murder entire families, and then make do with a child’s soul.

You know, the basic stuff.

Whilst the finer details of Bughuul is not mapped out in theology, the fundamental building block of the body horror in this movie - that of sacrifice in horrific ways - has been practiced throughout history and devoted to 3 specific Pagan gods that the writers drew inspiration from.

And the first is called Moloch.

This Canaanite god was associated with many things, including agriculture and fertility, and sacrifice and fire, all of which are firmly represented in the movie. Whether it's the films’ focus on children, or its the spontaneous combustion of the Super 8 movies and the victims that do not conduct his bidding, Baghuul directly mirrors this entity.

Well, maybe ‘mirrors’ isn’t the right word.

Baghuul has the lookbook of a modern horror monster, from the Slender Man inspired suit to the smokey eye only a 13 year old could pull off. Moloch, on the other hand, is often depicted as a Bronze statue of a humanoid bull sitting down.

And it’s his statue form which lets you in on his preferred method of worship:

The statue would be heated with fire, and victims thrown in as a form of fiery sacrifice.

In fact, in both the 1920s and later in 1962, it was discovered via excavations of the ancient Carthaginian civilisations that both young people and animals were often the most popular victims, forging a link between the youth we saw on our TV screens, and the ashes left in the urns that were found.

This link was even addressed by the writers of the second film, with the promotional poster claiming Bughuul was the brother of this brutal god - but this isn’t the first time Moloch has appeared on the big screen.

Remember that episode in Buffy, you know, the one about online safety cause you won’t run into a paedophile but a glorified demon that wants to become a physical beast and wreak havoc on the world and is going to use you as a source of power?

Yeah, that’s the one.

In fact, Buffy stuck to the same premise, claiming Moloch was unleashed when an ancient text was scanned into a library system.

Sinister had less broody vampires, though.

Our next contender for coulda-been-Bughuul is Baal, a demon which has actually featured in a few other horror flicks of his own, so far. The Rite featured this ancient god who focused his attention on fertility, just like Moloch.

And, just like Moloch, archaeological evidence of sacrifices was discovered, but in a region of Egypt from which he was worshipped.

Amongst the sacrificed infants found was a collection of animals and prostitutes. Even the ancient texts detailing their powers and premise suggests a sibling-like link: Baal Hammon was worshipped by the Carthage people as a supreme god, just like the former entity, and instead of bearing the body of a bull, he appears as a ram.

Yet despite sharing both a ritualistic and physical approach with Moloch, it’s Baal’s backstory that brings us even closer to Baghuul.

Too close.

Legend has it Baal was considered more powerful than his father, suggesting children overpowering their own family is a vital premise of this god.

Our final contender for Baghuul-but-without-the-eyeliner is Tlaloc. And, once again, this entity is just like the previous gods, but belongs on the other side of the globe.

This Aztec god is the god of rain, water and fertility, and despite his rather more peaceful and popular worship today, historically things have been a little, uh, sacrificey.

The remains of war captives have been found near his statues, but this only hints towards his association with death; it is said that he was essentially the destination in the afterlife for those that died from a variety of ailments.

And one of these ailments was child sacrifices.

Think back to the Sinister movies for a second.

In the short Super 8 films we see Bughuul make cameo appearances (like Stan Lee in Marvel films, only he’s a wholesome old man and isn't going to gobble up Hugh Jackman’s soul when the credits roll). This suggests that Baghuul not only enjoys a hobby of snacking on innocent children, but also takes pleasure from the sacrifices of the other family members, and appears at their time of death.

Unfortunately, according to historic worship, Tlaloc prefers his sacrifices a little more niche than just dead parents. Typically he likes his sacrifices to have their hearts extracted from the corpses, and collected in a bowl by the temple.

If you thought Sinister was grotesque, be thankful you didn’t witness a 7 year old stabbing their mother in the chest with a cheese knife.

The 11 Other Terrifying Gods You Don’t Want To Encounter In Your Attic

Paganism is an incredible thing.

It’s a religion that puts the believer at the centre of a huge selection of gods, demons, and deities to choose from. Even modern paganism doesn’t follow any rules.

Simply choose an entity, and get worshippin’!

But there is a downside.

We already know that three Pagan gods are enough to have you avoiding your 5 year old nephew at the next family dinner. But unfortunately, Moloch, Baal, and Tlaloc are far from the only deities that will make you left eye twitch when you see so much as a polaroid camera for fear Bughuul might have taken a #vintage selfie.

There’s 11 more terrifying deities that you don’t want to know about but I’m going to tell you about anyway!

(Yay.)

#1 Chinnamasta

Self-sacrifice and sexual restraint sounds like values we should all practice, but when a Hindu goddess tells you to do it - and she has no head - you might be more reluctant to listen to her wise words.

The legend claims that a group of Hindu gods and demons churned the ocean in order to extract an elixir of immortality. Chinnamasta took a sip, swallowed the entire share for the demons, and chopped her own head off to prevent them from reclaiming it.

An alternative version tells a different story: Chinnasmasta and her crew were bathing too long and realised they were hungry. So, she satiated their hunger by decapitating her own head and allowing her attendants to drink the blood spurting from her neck.

And so, her image is immortalised by three fountains of blood coming out of her neck, and her attendants gulping back the liquid.

Casual.

#2 Pan

As well as being one of the most famous gods to date, this Greek deity is also one of the oldest. And whilst he he is the god of nice, wholesome things like cosy forests and flocks of cute animals, he would be deemed a sex offender today.

Pan would try and have sex with anything - yes, anything - that moved. And when one of these things tried to run away, such as the nymph Syrinx, he chased her down, and then turned her into a pan flute.

And when another nymph also turned him down, he had her murdered by his minions.

Fact is, you can choose which gods you can believe in, but the real horror in the world - sexual predators - will always exist.

#3 - Ishtar

Most gods are known for their brutal acts, whether in the name of justice, or for selfish purposes. The thing is, this goddess has a thing for gore.

And rightly so.

Having been raped by a gardener as she slept underneath the shade of his tree, she got her vengeance by punishing the Earth. She made the rivers flow with blood, she tormented the planet with storms, and she cast disease over our lands.

And similar to the gods already mentioned, she too has a habit of sacrifice. But she doesn’t want people to be sacrificed to her - she prefers to do her own sacrificing of her own lovers.

#4 - Cronus

Next up is the leader of the Titans. But his attempt to eat his own children to prevent them from completing a prophecy and overthrowing him doesn’t get a mention here - it’s what he did to his father.

He scythed off his genitals.

And if that wasn’t enough, he then chucked ‘em into the sea, spawning the goddess Aphrodite.

#5 - Teutates, Esus, and Taranis

Christianity’s got Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. Paganism on the other hand has its own trio. But these guys rely on routine human sacrifice. But what really sets them apart is that each individual god has their own preferred murder method.

Teutates likes to drown his victims headfirst in ale, Esus likes to have his sacrifices stabbed, hung from trees, and left to bleed out, and Taranis likes wickerwork figures that are set alight to contain his victims in a fiery death a la Nicholas Cage.

Squad goals?

#6 - Tezcatlipoca

The second Aztec god to feature in this post continues the trend of these deities preferring bodily organs. But this deity sets itself apart by craving a far slower ritual that culminates in a sacrifice.

A priest would select a prisoner who was to impersonate the god. Luxurious shenanigans would ensue, including 4 maidens dedicated to his every need. Unfortunately, his needs wouldn’t last too long.

He would have a year of this god-like life, walk up the steps of a temple, and have his heart ripped out.

#7 - Huehueteotl

He was the god of death, hot, and cold. And he liked his sacrifices to have experienced all three at the same time, apparently.

The process of sacrifice would include drugging the victim, roasting them alive, ripping out their heart, and then burning the remains again.

According to other accounts, the victim could simply be drugged, and then dragged with hooks to platforms for the ritual. And then the heart would be cut out and tossed into the fire. And then the rest of the bodies would follow.

Your choice, I guess.

#8 - Toci

Life must’ve been hard back then.

You know, the constant fear that you - yes, you - might be the next victim to be tossed to the flames of fiery sacrifice, or an organ of your deity’s choice was to be placed into what can only be described as a ritualistic olive bowl.

But at least you’d have an inkling of what’s to come. The worshippers of Toci weren’t quite so lucky.

Toci was the goddess of healing and a patron of midwives and healers. But rather than wanting to celebrate life in all of its glory, she actually preferred dead people as gifts.

And so, women were dressed as the goddess, told they were going to see the local ruler, climb the temple, and be met with a priest with a knife. The unlucky woman would be beheaded, her heart removed, and skin flayed.

The priest would complete the ritual - yep, it doesn’t end there - by wearing the skin of the victim.

#9 - Chac

When we discuss sacrifice in the name of a god, it is often assumed that the act took place many years ago, and that the traces of the murders have long since decayed and disappeared from our world. But it turns out that you can actually visit the location of 2 wells in Chichen Itza where sacrifices took place in the name of Chac, the Mayan god of rain, water, and lightning.

But aside from casting storms over his worshippers, he encouraged human sacrifice.

And so, his worshippers obliged by tossing their young children into their wells; they believed Chac resided at the bottom of sinkholes, and wanted their human sacrifices to be as close as possible to him to ensure safe delivery.

According to the film’s lore, Baghuul lives inside of the images, and uses the pictures, the films, and any other form of media as a gateway to our realm.

In that case, God only knows what this article may have unleashed.

Traumatised? Afraid to turn the light out and turn in for fear of hearing Bughuul filming his YouTube outro in your attic? The you might as well check out my other articles in the mean time…

And while you’re there, why not hit follow and see a new real ghost story everyday?

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kiss-my-freckle · 5 years

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Something new. It’ll be easier, but a lot longer, and end up random as fuck.

Episode 7x9

Orion Relocation Services. They kill the innocent to service the criminal. Liz in her Ruin deleted scene. “I don’t have a home without you.” The “Sold” sign in front of the house reminds me of Takoma Park. Taking photographs for that new wall space. The photo Liz has of Katarina with her face blown out. Husband is supposed to be retiring. Same with Fakerina. She was out of the game. They pulled her in just to set her up. Orion clients hardly knew the neighbors. Like Liz with Fakerina across the hall. “As we say at Orion, Good Luck. Wherever fate takes you.” Again, bringing fate into it. Arrows and angels. The hunter. Silver linings. Stark’s treatment didn’t work for a reason. They didn’t get that lead from Aram for a reason. Fate at work. Pharma-Karma’s a bitch. A saran wrap smothering that reminds me of Liz in 5x8. And her dialogue at the end of 6x22. “Like I can feel every breath. I’m not used to that.”

Liz calling Agnes “Munchkin.” The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Transitional object is usually a physical object which takes the place of the mother-child bond. I’m bringing this up because it makes me think of Liz’s fulcrum bunny. Agnes won’t go anywhere without that bugged up Barbie. One of two things is gonna happen. Either Fakerina will use it to track Liz and Agnes, or Red and Liz will use it to trap Fakerina. That’s my prediction for the Barbie. I still have Agnes’ pink glitter shoes in mind. I also believe Red’s “Never underestimate the power of glitter” dialogue will come in when this happens. Whatever way they play it. Especially when they continue to make mention to “underestimating” Fakerina. Berdy is upset about the Barbie. Without those ears on Liz, they depend on getting intel from Ilya, and they’re no longer one step ahead of Red. Berdy refers to Liz as “the daughter.” Quack doctor speaking of two women: “Your friend” and “Katarina Rostova.” One is looking for the other.

Red speaks to Liz as if he suspects she’s assisting Fakerina. There’s only one way she’d know about Steinhil. Liz was on the phone with Red at the time she gave him this intel. Unless Red or Liz contacted the team, no one would know but Liz and Red. Process of elimination, but it appears Red is now dumb. He states Ilya is like a brother to him. Sounds like something Katarina would say about her childhood friend. Red shows concern for Liz, but I don’t understand how he can rely on protective service when they have no idea what the woman looks like. Another mention to ghost stories. Assassins, traitors. Sounds like Rederina. A traitor to Russia and the US. Definitely a killer. 86 bodies, not including the ones overseas. Criminals hiding in plain sight. Just like Rederina. Murder becomes central to the exchange of identities. For Orion, they kill the innocent, criminals then take their identities. Rederina falls in parallel. Real Red was already dead. She took his identity. For Fakerina, she fell in parallel with the innnocent to protect the criminal Katarina was. Red wasn’t involved. Confirmed through Dom and Ilya conversation. The harder Ilya fights, he surrenders. He surrenders quite a bit, which tells me he’s fighting like hell not to tell. This feels much like Orchard and the Braxton recall. The real Rostova wouldn’t need these memories, she would remember them herself. Confirmation Katarina is an imposter.

“Fellas, gals, non-binary pals ....” A Rederina bit. So obvious. Rostova dinner in the dark. Graffiti on the walls. One bit says “Tom-Tom.” I’ll go back at some point, slow it down to see if I can read more. “In food, our eyes betray us. With visual cues. With predisposed expectations ...” Past experiences. Memory isn’t like a video recorder. Predisposed to assume every male you see was born male. Liz dining with Red in the dark is perfect. Dining without prejudice. Dining on pure flavor. Basically, Liz would be tasting Red’s soul so long as she didn’t hear his manly voice. If only her eyes and ears didn’t deceive her. Katarina Rostova was never seen or heard from again. Raymond Reddington was. Liz’s mother spent half her life in the dark. Liz profiled her mother’s ghost in The Freelancer. They show this through the end of Ruin. Dinner in the dark, quite perfect for mother-daughter Rostova. “Plus one” speaks to parent and child in parent-child stories. Like this one.

“Her father helped get us out of Russia, but it wasn’t enough. She needed to disappear. Needed a plan.” Ilya’s dialogue coincides with Dom’s story. He got rid of the bodies and got into America. But for Katarina, it wasn’t so easy. Fakerina demanding to know about “that” plan because she knows nothing about it. She wasn’t there. She didn’t even know Red is an imposter. That’s why she asked Ilya “how?” More proof she’s an imposter. Fakerina speaks as if she’s the real Katarina. In doing so, she basically deceives Ilya into revealing more. She wants to know who this plan involved. Again, she would know if she were the real Katarina, and believe when I say she didn’t have her memory manipulated. The straws people will grasp because they refuse to accept the truth. That’s why they immediately throw Katarina into the belief that another man became Raymond. She has absolutely no idea that Ilya already answered her question - in full. Only three were involved: Ilya, Katarina, and Dr. Koehler. Katarina arranged the surgery because she’s the one who got the surgery. Koehler is dead and Frank Bloom is Ilya. There’s no remembering the man who impersonated Reddington because no man did. A woman did. Fakerina acting as the real deal no longer has a hold on Ilya. Quack doctor states Ilya has a different memory because they reached an answer he shouldn’t reveal. He basically shifted to Belgrade and refused to answer her question. She pushes anyway, hoping to get Red’s real identity. Real Katarina would know his identity already. She arranged the surgery. More proof she’s an imposter. They basically pull the same with Ilya as they did with Liz in Braxton’s recall. Quack doctor wants to pull him out because of his physical symptoms.

Back to dinner in the dark. Blakiston's fish owl. They prey on fish.

"Owls live within the darkness, which includes magic, mystery, and ancient knowledge. Related to the night is the moon, which owls are also connected to. It becomes a symbol of the feminine and fertility, with the moon's cycles of renewal. Even the mythology relates owl to this wisdom and femininity.”

“Owls have great wisdom and insight, and can see beyond the illusions in life. They encourage you to look at all situations with a keen eye, and not to take everything as it appears. ... The owl spirit animal usually symbolizes death, but it can also mean a great change will come into your life.”

Katarina Rostova is an illusion. A figment of the collective imagination.

I’m not sure if I heard this correctly, but I think he mentioned the all-seeing eye. OMG, I love Red’s love for animals. I find it interesting how Red mentions Liz’s loss of Tom. Looking forward, not back. Reminds me of their Caretaker scene, 3x16. Again, Red makes me question if he suspects Liz working with Fakerina. Reminding us that all this suitcase shit started with Tom Keen. "Unfortunately, the last person I would want to find Ilya is the person I need help from to find him." Basically, Red doesn’t want Liz to find Ilya. But he needs her help to find him. If Fakerina drives any wedge between Red and Liz, it won’t be her playing the mother card. It’ll be Liz learning Red isn’t Ilya Koslov. Red questions Liz about Morozov. Only two reasons she’d know that name. Either she was threatened, or she’s working with Fakerina.

Dom said the Reddington ruse didn't work, it only angered those who already want Katarina dead. Ilya responded that she is dead. Because she is. She died when she became Raymond. Dom stated, “Nonsense.” Because she’s not dead to the Directive. They basically want a body. Neville Townsend is at the top of a very long list of people who want her dead. Likely why they call it the Townsend Directive. Perhaps that very long list coincides with the blacklist. Her enemies taken down number by number. A theory George on fb has on the blacklist itself. Anyway, Neville likely runs the bounty. That's why I believe he'll hit #1 or #2 on the blacklist. Red is the real Rostova, he’ll wannna shut it down. Dom is worried they'll find Masha. this coincides with Katarina’s dialogues in Cape May. So long as she drew breath, her daughter would be hunted and killed. One of the many contradictions in this woman’s character. For Dom, this was definitely all about Masha. Ilya tells Dom they should tell Raymond. Dom states, "We are not telling HIM anything." Ilya then replies, "I know how you feel, but Reddington deserves to know what we have done."

"I know how you feel..." Excommunication right there.

Why .. why does Reddington deserve to know Because he is a part of this You are protecting him I made a promise

He pledged his life and a promise is a promise. But he didn’t wanna betray this woman. He cared about her, just not as much as he cared about Rostova. His tears are proof. I think he and Fakerina may have had a past relationship. It comes off that way. Fakerina refers to him as “love.”

"And don't worry, she'll be safe with me. I'm a lot tougher than I look." Agnes is definitely in danger. Dom saying they were supposed to confirm Katarina died when they only confirmed she's very much alive. The entire point of informing Raymond. He's the real Rostova and they just made it worse for his daughter. Exacerbated his need to build a criminal empire to keep her safe. They'll be hunting her down, hoping to use her as leverage. Fakerina interrogates Ilya to the point of seizure. She wants Red’s identity. Ilya can’t give it, Red is the real Rostova. Quack doctor pulls him out of the extraction. Same basic thing Orchard said to Braxton. You can't get the truth if he's dead.

Back to the Orion agent. She tells her client she has a good feeling about this next chapter for her. The client responds, it can't get any worse. Same concept Red said to Patrick. It can get worse. And it will for Liz. Woman tries to escape her pos man. Kate telling Liz to walk away before it’s too late. The client speaks of having nothing but painful memories. Exactly what Liz is going to have. Back to Liz's deleted scene in Ruin. "I don't have a home without you." Her home will be filled with nothing but painful memories because of her love for Tom Keen. Back to my earlier statement, about the way Orion kills. It can't get any worse. Saran wrap suffocating the woman as Liz was suffocated in 5x8. Garvey's men and the carpet, now men with carpet preparing to roll up a body for Orion. What does the agent say next? "You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." Back to Brimley. Like being impaled by a unicorn. I believe Agnes is next to get the blade. The saran wrap, the knife. Add in the guns. Basic 5x8 repeat, only it’s Agnes.

Liz, oh Liz. With her gun on Fakerina. The entire point. She has to choose what her mother chose 30 years ago. To choose Raymond and kill off Katarina. In doing so, she’ll truly come face-to-face with losing Raymond. Because he’s her mother. I just hope Liz chooses wisely. So here’s the thing. Fakerina is now in the same position as Garvey was. She has enough intel to destroy Raymond in learning he’s an imposter, but her life depends on ending the Directive. She has Townsend’s first name, so it’s all about getting to him. Getting to him will lead to uncover every player. This cannot happen. If Fakerina gets what she needs, Red will die because he’s the real Rostova. Red speaks of hope, which has me a bit worried. That’s exactly what he spoke about when Liz betrayed him in S6. He let his hopes convince him. Shit is definitely gonna drop. Soon. Let’s hope Liz has the patience to get those answers from Red. If not, she’s going to use Fakerina to get them. And if she does, Fakerina will likely get what she needs. If that happens, I believe the Townsend Directive will be the final big bad, and it will kill Red. Given what Fakerina has already done, Liz could choose either way.

Like I said, random and long. But I didn’t wanna forget anything.

#Rederina #Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2

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blubberquark · 5 years

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Seven Types of Game Devs And The Games They Make

The Computer Science Student

The computer science student had to write a game for class in the fourth semester. The game must demonstrate OOP design and programming concepts, and solid grasp of C++.

This game is written not to be fun to play, but to demonstrate your skill to the professors - or to their poor assistants who have to read the code and grade the accompanying term paper. The core loop of the game is usually quite simple, but there are many loosely connected mechanics in there that barely don’t really fit. For example, whatever the core gameplay is, there could be birds in the sky doing some kind of AI swarm behaviour, there could be physics-enabled rocks on the floor, there could be a complicated level and unit editor with a custom XML-based format, and all kinds of weird shaders and particle effects.

And with all this tech infrastructure and OOP, there are just two types of enemies. That’s just barely enough to show you understand how inheritance works in C++.

The core gameplay is usually bad. Un-ergonomic controls, unresponsive game feel, flashy yet impractical 3D GUI widgets make it hard to play - but not actually difficult to beat, just unpleasant. The colours are washed-out, and everything moves a bit too slow. There is no overarching design, the moment-to-moment gameplay is not engaging, and the goal feels like an afterthought.

But that’s ok. It is to be expected. The professors are CS professors. They (or rather their assistants) don’t grade the game based on whether the units are balanced, whether the graphics are legible, or whether the game is any fun at all. They grade on understanding and correctly applying what you learned in class, documentation, integration of third-party libraries or given base code, and correct implementation of an algorithm based on a textbook.

The CS student usually writes a tower defense game, a platformer, or a SHMUP. After writing two or three games like this, he usually graduates without ever having gotten better at game design.

The After-Hours Developer

The after hours programmer has a day job doing backend business logic stuff for a B2B company you never heard of.

This kind of game is a labour of love.Screenshots might not look impressive at first glance. There is a lot going on, and the graphics look a bit wonky. But this game is not written to demonstrate mastery of programming techniques and ability to integrate third-party content, tools and libraries. This game was made, and continues to be developed, because it is fun to program and to design.

There is a clear core loop, and it is fun and engaging. The graphics are simple and functional, but some of them are still placeholder art. This game will never be finished, thus there will always be place-holders as long as the code gets ahead of the art. There is no XML or cloud-based savegame in there just because that is the kind of thing would look impressive in a list of features.

More than features, this games focuses on content and little flourishes. This game has dozens of skills, enemies, weapons, crafting recipes, biomes, and quests. NPCs and enemies interact with each other. There is a day-night cycle and a progression system.

While the CS student game is about showing off as many tech/code features as possible, this kind of programmer game is about showing off content and game design elements and having fun adding all this stuff to the game.

This game will be finished when the dev gets bored with adding new stuff. Only then, he’ll plan to add a beginning and an ending to the game within the next six months, and go over the art to make it look coherent. The six months turn into two years.

The after-hours developer often makes RPGs, metroidvanias, or rogue-like games. These genres have a set of core mechanics (e.g. combat, loot, experience, jumping) and opportunity for a bunch of mechanics built around the core (e.g. pets, crafting, conversation trees, quest-giving NPCs, achievements, shops/trading, inventory management, collecting trinkets, skill trees, or combo attacks).

The First-Time Game Jammer

The first-time game jammer wants to make his first game for an upcoming game jam. He knows many languages, but he does a lot of machine learning with torch7 for his day job, so he has decided to use LÖVE2D or pico-8 to make a simple game.

This guy has no training in digital art, game design, or game feel. But the he has a working knowledge of high-school maths, physics, and logic. So he can write his own physics engine, but doesn’t know about animation or cartoon physics. He doesn’t waste time writing a physics engine though. He just puts graphics on the screen. These graphics are abstract and drawn in mspaint. The numbers behind everything are in plain sight. Actions are either triggered by clicking on extradiegetic buttons or by bumping into things.

The resulting game is often not very kinetic or action-oriented. In this case, it often has a modal/stateful UI, or a turn-based economy. If it is action-oriented, it could be a simple platformer based around one core mechanic and not many variations on it. Maybe it’s a novel twist on Pong or Tetris.

The first-time game jammer successfully finished his first game jam by already knowing how to program in Lua, copying a proven game genre and not bothering to learn any new tools during the limited jamming time. Instead, he wrote the code to create every level by hand, in separate .lua files, using GNU EMACS.

The Solo Graphic Designer

The graphic designer has a skill set and approach opposite to those of the two programmers described above. He is about as good at writing code as the programmer is at drawing images in mspaint. The graphic designer knows all about the principles of animation, but has no idea how to code a simple loop to simulate how a tennis ball falls down and bounces off walls or the ground. He used to work in a team with coders, but this time he wants to make his own game based on his own creative vision.

The graphic designer knows all about animation tools, 3D modelling, composition. He has a graphic tablet and he can draw. He knows all about light and shade and gestalt psychology, but he can’t write a shader to save his life.

Naturally, the graphic designer plays to his strengths and uses a game engine with an IDE and a visual level editor, like Unity3D, Construct, or GameMaker.

The graphic designer makes a successful game by doing the opposite of what the coder does, because he does it well. The screenshots look good, and his game gets shared on Twitter. He struggles writing the code to aim a projectile at the cursor in a twin-stick shooter, but we live in a world of Asset Stores and StackOverflow.

The resulting game is a genre-mixing thingy full of set pieces, cut scenes, and visual-novel-style conversations. The actual gameplay is walking around and finding keys for locks, but it’s cleverly recontextualised with a #deep theme and boy does it look pretty.

The Engine Coder

The engine coder is like the CS student on steroids. He has nothing to prove. He knows his C++. He lives in a shack in Alaska, and pushes code to GitHub over a satellite connection. He also knows his Lua, C#, Python, and Haskell. The engine coder writes a physics engine, particle system, dialogue engine, planning-based mob AI, savegame system, a network layer and GUI widget library.

He has written five simple demos for the engine: A first-person walking simulator, a third-person platformer, a very pretty glowing orb swarm shader thingy, a non-interactive simulation of a flock of sheep grazing and a pack of wolves occasionally coming in to cull the herd with advanced predator AI, and a game where you fly a spaceship through space.

Somebody comments in the forums that it’s hard to even write Pong or Tetris in the engine. The Engine Coder is more concerned with optimising batched rendering and automatically switching LoD in the BSP tree so you can land on planets in space without loading screens.

The Overeager Schoolboy

The schoolboy has an idea for a game. He saves his money to buy Game Maker (or RPG Maker) and tells his all friends about his amazing idea. Then he makes a post about it on tumblr. Then he makes a sideblog about the game and posts there too, tagged #game development.

Unfortunately, the schoolboy is 15, and while he is talented, he doesn’t really know how to program or draw. He’s good at math, and he can draw with a pencil. Unfortunately, he wants to learn digital art, level design, and programming all in one go. He already knows all the characters for his game, and he writes posts about each of them individually, with pencilled concept art and flavourful lore.

Even more unfortunately, our schoolboy is hazy on how big the game is actually going to be, and what core mechanic the game should be based around.

After designing sprite sheets and portraits for ten characters you could add to your party, plus the Big Bad End Boss, he realises that he has no idea how to get there, or how to make the first level. He starts over with another set of tools and engine, but he doesn’t limit his scope.

In an overdramatic post two months later, he apologises to the people who were excited to play the game when it’s done. A week later he deletes the tumblr. He never releases a playable demo. He never gets constructive feedback from game developers.

The Game Designer’s Game Designer

The game designer’s game designer is not exactly a household name, but he has done this for a while. While you have never heard of him, the people who made the games you like have. All your favourite games journalists also have. Through this connection, many concepts have trickled down into the games you play and the way your friends talk to you about games they like.

The game designer’s game designer has been going at this for a while. When he started, there was no way to learn game design, so he probably studied maths, psychology, computer science, industrial design, or music theory.

The games fall outside of genres, and not just in the sense of mixing two genres together. They are sometimes outside of established genres, or they are clearly inside the tradition of RTS, rogue-likes or clicker games, but they feel like something completely new.

The games of the game designer’s game designer are sometimes released for free, out of the blue, and sometimes commissioned for museums and multimedia art festivals. Some of them are about philosophy, but they don’t merely mention philosophical concepts, or use them to prop up a game mechanic (cloning and transporters, anyone?). They explore concepts like “the shortness of life” or “capitalism” or “being one with the world” or “unfriendly AI” through game mechanics.

But they also explore gameplay tropes like “inventory management“ or “unidentified magic items“ or “unit pathfinding“.

Sometimes bursts of multiple games are released within weeks, after years of radio silence. Should you ever meet the game designer’s game designer, you tell him that you got a lot out of the textbook he wrote, but you feel guilty that you never played one of his games. So you lie and tell him you did.

#game design #video games #game development #jokes #listicle

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fijiwatermist · 5 years

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Why doesn't Google come up with a totally free video editor?

from OpenShot Studios

It records a video file that can be edited with the video software. Our video editor supports almost all video and audio multimedia formats as well as codecs and image formats. Unlike other editors that only support a certain group of formats, you don't need an additional conversion tool for this editor to edit the desired file. Our video editor belongs to the category of non-linear video editors. This means that unlike most editors where one scene alternates the other, in our editor every edit object can be placed anywhere and be of any size. Below are the top 10 music download websites. If you want to spice up your images, use the "VSDC Free Video Editor" to access a wide range of effects and filters, such as automatic contrast, sharpness and color temperature. This becomes problematic because of intellectual property rights, which are often tied to musical compositions. Musicians and artists who find your music through a video will need license fees to use their music. Using the music without permission becomes even more problematic with some videos. If you want a free and legitimate way to use the music, you can consider available royalty-free options. the other mentioned programs from Magix, Sony, etc offer the possibility of generating masks and making video composites such as After Effects or Blender. And I would have hoped now that there is a function in a video program that cuts together the "difference" of the two pictures or films, that is, what is additional in the second film, "paints" into the first film. Video editing at a professional level no longer requires large investments.

VSDC Free Video Editor allows you to create differently shaped masks that hide, blur or highlight certain elements in your video.

Free tool that supports multiple video formats and it helps users allows you to create custom videos with various visual and audio effects.

The aim of the platform is to make it easy for everyone without training or experience to be appealing within minutes Creating video content.

Video editing is an art in itself.

The technology allows marketing teams to focus on the story and the narrative while relying on the system to do the hard work. Save your finished clips with the "VSDC Free Video Editor" in all relevant video formats from AVI to MP4 to WMV.

In addition to virus scans, each download is manually checked for you by our editorial team. You can use the software free of charge - but you have to expect functional restrictions compared to the full version. You get advertising freedom and more speed with the paid premium license, which you can buy on the developer's website. Editing video and audio files is more flexible and convenient. Deleting and restoring deleted areas is now possible not only using the wizard, but also in the timeline bar. Blender is an outsider on this list. The open source freeware for Windows, Mac and Linux specializes in 3D modeling and animation and is an undisputed champion in these areas. The free version watermarks the edited clips. A particularly powerful video editor that should also serve demanding users. Unfortunately, the free version watermarks, saves on the range of functions and switches advertising. This editor overlays videos and photos at the touch of a button with an extensive selection of appealing and varied effects.

#best free video editing software for youtube

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romana73 · 6 years

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REYLO VS BALDIOS

Post written by ME. The animated gifs and pictures shown, however, AREN’T MINE and DON’T BELONG TO ME IN ANY WAY. Sorry for my mistakes, but English isn’t my first language

"I'll destroy her...and you...and all of it" (Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie) I read much worry ‘cause at end of movie and book "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The last Jedi ", Kylo Ren has decided and declared he wants to destroy Rey... who could read Episode VIII script said, at movie’s end, Rey and Kylo are described as" enemies with complications". In book, after explosion caused by their struggle for possession of Anakin’s old lightsaber, Kylo wakes up surprised to be alive. He discovers Rey has awakened before him and he understands she hasn’t killed him and... he blames her. Kylo thinks Rey was wrong and decision didn’t kill him would have destroyed her. He would have destroyed Rey. This is perfectly in line with Kylo’s character. Unlike Anakin who fell into Dark Side for FEAR OF LOSING LOVE, his wife Padmé, Kylo REFUSES any kind of feeling. Commenting on Finn’s escape, a former First Order soldier who, at the beginning of "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Kylo observes:

“How capable are your soldiers, General?”

“I won't have you question my methods”

“They're obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army”

(Kylo Ren and General Hux, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" movie)

Joke about Clones isn’t just a reference to Star Wars prequels. In Star Wars. Episode II, it’s explained clones are PROGRAMMED to war, to take orders, without disobeying or posing moral dilemmas. In this perspective, we also understand some parts of this dialogue between Kylo and Rey, in "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie:

“Why did you hate your father? Do you have something? A cowl, or something you could put on? Why did you hate your father? Give me an honest answer. You had a father who loved you; he gave a damn about you!”

“I didn't hate him”

[...]

“No? Your parents threw you away like garbage”

“They didn't”

“They did, but you can't stop needing them. It's your greatest weakness. Looking for them everywhere, in Han Solo, and now in Skywalker [...]”

“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be.”

(Rey and Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie)

Kylo was TEACHING Rey to have less possible feelings ‘cause, for Kylo, HAVE FEELINGS means having WEAK POINTS. ‘Cause this, Kylo becomes enraged when he realizes Rey might feel something for him: ‘cause it means he hasn’t taught anything to her, ‘cause HE has become Rey's WEAK POINT, 'cause he’s in DANGER, since he could REPLACE Rey and this would be an OBSTACLE to accomplish what he proposes ... to explain all this and to reassure those who believe Ben Solo/Kylo Ren CAN’T REDEEM HIMSELF, ‘cause he killed his father Han, he chose Dark Side in full awareness, etc... I decided to propose parallels between Reylo and old robotic cartoon "Baldios". Comprised of 34 episodes, Baldios was produced in 1980 by Ashi Production. Unfortunately, cartoon was too modern for that time and, due to poor audience, it was interrupted abruptly, leaving without end Earth’s story and LOVE STORY between MARIN, male protagonist and APHRODIA, Marin’s BIG ENEMY. Fortunately, in 1981, Toei Animation produced "Baldios. The Movie" animated movie, which represents story’s end:

Story is this: getting too close to sun, contaminated by radiation, Saul 1 planet (S1) is dying. Sea and vegetation have disappeared. The air is unbreathable and population is forced to live underground, but even this solution begins to no longer work, due to lack of resources. S1 EMPEROR is called to make a decision, mediating between two groups in struggle: scientists, led by Professor Reigan who found a solution, able to make living S1 again, but they need time to study it and implement it. Military, led by Theo Gattler, commander of Aldebaran’s army, S1 militias, wish instead to take away S1 population and colonize a second habitable planet, Earth. Battle also ends with Marin Reigan, a pilot, Reigan’son who, in front of room hosting the meeting, clashes with soldier Miran and two of his friends. To sedate spirits, arrived Aphrodia, Miran's elder sister and head of Gattler's guards, as well as his beloved. Affected by girl, Marin doesn’t realize he has lost his identification card, collected by Aphrodia. Gattler proposes to Aphrodia and Miran a decisive solution to win dispute: murder Emperor and all scientists. Aphrodia is responsible for Emperor’s murder, in whose room he drops Marin’s ID card so he’s to be blamed for murder. Miran and his men will instead take care of killing scientists. Plan’s first part is fine: Aphrodia kills Emperor, dropping Marin badge on floor, while Gattler declares himself Dictator, electing Aphrodia as ARMY’S SUPREME COMMANDER. Miran goes to scientists' lab and, showing Marin's card, he informs Professor Reigan his son is accused of murdering Emperor. Knowing Marin is innocent, Reigan reacts to defend him. Miran prepares to shoot, but Marin arrives to save his father. Miran tries to kill man again, but Marin throws a piece of iron into his neck, killing him. Aphrodia arrives, to whom dead brother’s sight breaks her heart. Learning Marin was who killed her brother, Aphrodia swears she will never forgive him and she will take her revenge. Marin answers he will never forgive her. Marin and his father try to escape, but man is killed by military. Marin takes his spaceship and tries to stop Gattler's mother ship from leaving S1, but Aphrodia arrives trying to kill him. In battle, Marin's ship is sucked into a vortex temporal space. Marin crashes on Moon where he’s picked up by the Blue Fixers, a special team at United Nations terrestrial service, which take him to their base on Earth. At beginning, Marin was met with suspicion and treated as a prisoner, interrogated and incarcerated. Only beautiful Jamie Oshino and Professor Era Quinstein, base scientist, seem to believe him. Upon forces of Gattler and Aphrodia’s arrival, who have decided to conquer and colonize Earth, everything changes. Marin’s knowledge and his skills in battle make him win trust of Blue Fixers and Jonathan Bannister, base’s head. Marin accepts to stand on Terrans side against Aldebaran. Meanwhile, despite battles and hatred, Aphrodia begins to feels something for Marin, but... In a flashback we learn as children, Aphrodia and Miran lost their parents in a tragic car accident. Gattler has come to their rescue. He has adopted and educated them. A Baldios. The Movie’s scene suggests, having become ADULT, Aphrodia was ABUSED by Gattler, although this is NEVER explicitly said:

Kylo Ren was MANIPOLATED and CORROTTED by Supreme Leader Snoke, who took him to Dark Side:

In closing theme of each episode of Baldios cartoon series, Marin and Aphrodia hold hands, watching sunset over sea:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey offers her hand to Kylo and he ACCEPT TO TAKE IT:

In first cartoon’s episode, Marin notices Aphrodia is a beautiful woman, despite always wearing glasses, uniform and wear hair hidden under military hat:

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Rey remains disoriented when Kylo removes his mask, revealing to be a normal boy:

In cartoon’s first episode, Aphrodia declares: "Emotional alterations lead to unpredictable mistakes ..." (Aphrodia 1x01 Baldios)

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, when Snoke informs Kylo that BB8 is on ship of Han Solo, his father and Kylo will have to kill him, he answers: "He means nothing to me" "Even you, Master of the Knights of Ren, have never faced such a test" "By the grace of your training I will not be seduced " (Kylo Ren and Snoke, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” movie)

Marin and Aphrodia flee from Gattler. Arrived on Earth, exhausted, they faint on a lighthouse’s floor. Aphrodia recovers first and she tries to KILL Marin, still unconscious, but she can’t do it:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fight over Anakin's lightsaber possession. Fight causes explosion of spaceship on which they are and throws Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren to opposite sides of Throne Room. They falled unconscious. Rey recovers first and flees, LEAVING IN LIFE Kylo Ren:

Awakening, Marin leads Aphrodia to base, where she’s imprisoned and brutally interrogated. Marin disagrees, but his friends remind him how many terrestrials Aphrodia deliberately killed, including their families. In end, Marin blocks interrogation, bringing Aphrodia to doctor who, reluctantly, cares her:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Kylo Ren brings Rey in Snoke’s presence, who interrogates her in a brutal way:

In "Baldios. The Movie ", Gattler incites Aphrodia to KILL Marin: "Come on, Aphrodia, it's your time! You take your revenge for your brother! Isn’t it true you fought until now for this moment? " (Gattiger to Aphrodia, Baldios the film)

But Aphrodia kills Gattler himself:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Snoke incites Kylo Ren to KILL Rey:

“My worthy apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader. Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve; Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training, and fulfill your destiny”

(Snoke to Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie)

But Kylo Ren kills Snoke in order to save Rey:

To escape from Blue Fixers' base, Aphrodia takes Jamie hostage. Marin, Oliver and Roy arrive in order to save Jamie: "Aphrodia, let go of Jamie, please. I know you well, I know you would not be able to do it ... " "…but please! Do not make me laugh! What is it, do you think you allow me to be touched by your COMPASSION? " "Heard? In that witch hasn’t been humanity left" (Marin, Aphrodia and Oliver, Baldios, the Movie)

In a deleted scene from "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, but reported in TFA novel, Snoke accuses Kylo to feel COMPASSION for Rey: The Supreme Leader's voice was flat. "You have COMPASSION for her." "No-never. Compassion? For an enemy of the Order? " (Snoke and Kylo Ren talking about Rey, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" novel)

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey tells Luke there isn’t LIGHT in Kylo Ren:

In "Baldios. The Movie ", Aphrodia asks for a DUEL with laser guns with Marin, to kill him and avenge his brother. Marin accepts and, before starting, he says to Aphrodia: "Perhaps, Aphrodia, if you hadn’t chosen to go wrong way, things between us would have been very different" (Marin to Aphrodia, Baldios, The Movie)

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fight a DUEL :

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi", with a broken heart, Rey looks at Ben Solo/Kylo Ren to replace Snoke as First Order SUPREME LEADER and she asks him DON’T TO DO THAT :

In "Baldios. The Movie", Aphrodia is badly wounded and exhausted, so Marin SCOOPS HER IN HIS ARMS and he take her on beach:

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Kylo Ren captures Rey, he falls asleep her and he SCOOPS HER IN HIS ARMS, take her on his spaceship:

#aphrodia #baldios #ben solo #gattler #kylo ren #Marin Reigan #parallels #rey #reylo #snoke #star wars

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tigerlover16-analysis · 6 years

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Dragon Ball Super: Episode 5 Review

Ok, so, yeah. I'm pretty late with this one and I'm sorry about that. I don't want to get into it too much, but basically things have been kind of hectic since last week, especially the last few days with my dog having a rough time after giving birth. I did have most of this review written for a bit, but then due to a computer screw up most of it got deleted so my enthusiasm to write took a bit of a hit there. I'll start writing the episode 6 review straight away and that should be up on Sunday as scheduled barring any extraneous circumstances.

Anyway, enough wasting time, I've done enough of that. Let's talk about episode 5 of Dragon Ball Super.

The episode picks up where the previous one left off, with Beerus arriving on King Kai's world to meet with Goku. After King Kai's attempts to keep Goku hidden fail, Beerus questions Goku about the identity of the Super Saiyan God. When Goku is unable to give him an answer, Beerus decides to go to Earth to question Vegeta instead, which King Kai worries might lead to Beerus blowing the planet up out of annoyance. But before Beerus can take off, Goku suddenly challenges him to a sparring match.

Episode 5 is a pretty important episode in terms of the Battle of Gods saga and Super as a whole. Though previous episodes had featured brief action scenes, this was the first episode to feature a significant fight between two characters. For a franchise famous for it's action scenes, this makes it a pretty big deal.

Which makes it all the more tragic that they kind of screwed the pooch on it.

Brief history lesson, Dragon Ball Super was announced close to the release of the Resurrection F movie, and was intended to capitalize on the movies hype and serve as a replacement series for Dragon Ball Kai.

And unfortunately, while the series has a more than capable team of animators, writers and other production staff, Toei really rushed the show's pre-production to get it out straight after Kai ended. Some estimate that it only had about two months of pre-production, a far cry from the roughly six months that many ongoing battle Shonen series usually require.

The result was that only the first 3 or 4 episodes were finished before Super started airing properly, and the animators were rushing to get episode 5 and everything after it out on time. Which lead to the fighting portion of episode 5 featuring weak direction, some moments of awkward movement, and a lot of laughably rough art in places.

Yeah... this isn’t even the worst of it.

Naturally this lead to wide-scale mockery across the internet, with many declaring the show a disgrace and the episode to have the worst animation in all of Dragon Ball. Which, I'll discuss that bit in a minute, but needless to say it was truly concerning and did a lot to dampen people's excitement for a new Dragon Ball series.

Not unfairly, of course. Dragon Ball is one of the biggest and most popular anime franchises of all time and a cornerstone of pop culture. It really deserved a lot better from it's production and visuals than what we were given here.

Especially since, as I've said, the show's animators are more than capable of producing good stuff. A good number of them are veterans from Z, including this episodes supervisor, Naoki Tate, who is probably one of the most talented animators working at Toei (Oh, and side note, I'd like to redact my statement that he was the animation supervisor on episode 2. He worked on the episode, but episode 2 was supervised by Osamu Ishikawa. My bad, I don't know how i screwed that one up).

It's made even more tragic by how Tate got thrown under the bus by a large portion of the fandom, when really it was none of the animators fault how this episode turned out. They only had a few weeks to produce it, and under such pressure the production just fell apart, and yet Tate was lambasted as a hack by much of the fandom for two years thanks to this episode, and things only really started to look up for him after episode 110.

There's not a lot I can say about the animation itself. We have a lot of rough art, with several still shots of characters looking blatantly unfinished. Some of the movement is repetitive and the framing of the fight isn't very exciting.

There's moments of decent animation, I like the way the grass on King Kai's planet is blown clean off by the force of SS3 Goku's punches being blocked by Beerus, and there's a nice bit of fluid movement at one point where Beerus flips over Goku as he tried to land several consecutive hits on him right before Goku blasts a decently rendered kamehameha through King Kai's planet... fluid movement which is unfortunately obscured by a poor post-processed aura effect, which is a recurring issue all throughout Super.

But the decent bits of movement and the consistent art outside of the fighting segment don't really save the bulk of the action from being a let down. I could go a lot more into detail, but I'm not a genius when it comes to talking about the animation process, I prefer talking about writing.

That being said, was this really the worst looking episode in all of Dragon Ball?

... No. No, not at all. There's been worse animated products in Dragon Ball before, and there are worse looking episodes of Super later on (And God, is that depressing to say...). This was a bad looking episode and there's certainly some stuff that's laughable coming from a modern series for one of the most famous and lucrative anime franchises in the world, there's no denying that.

But between the memes and bad press, and the in-betweens people float around as examples of how horrid it looks when anyone who actually understands animation knows that's not how it works, I think people have overblown it's supposed abysmal quality out of proportion a bit.

Now that's not me defending the episodes animation, it is rough and blatantly unfinished in a lot of places, it deserves criticism even if I think it's only fair to be mindful of the conditions the animators themselves were in.

We can certainly be critical of whatever stupid higher ups at Toei decided it was a-okay to rush the series into production so suddenly, especially since it had a horrible ripple effect that left Super with a troubled production right into it's final saga, even though things did improve greatly over time.

But at the same time, I don't think it's really fair to lambast this episode as one of the worst things to ever happen to Dragon Ball as some people did early on, because, honestly outside of those animation issues... the episode is perfectly fine.

Seriously, writing wise this episode was well put together. The interaction between all of the characters at the beginning was perfectly fine, no one was really written badly, and there were a few good jokes. Especially in the dub which improves the dialogue a bit. King Kai's Japanese voice still sounds off, but again, dub fixes that and it's not the end of the world.

And for what the episode was intended to be, it was well constructed writing wise. Having the first encounter and fight between Goku and Beerus extended to a full episode rather than the less than ten minutes scene from the movie was a good move, since we needed a lengthier action scene at this point.

And the way the fight was written was perfectly fine, with Goku trying to fight Beerus as both a super saiyan and then super saiyan 2. The animation and overall bland direction undermines the tension unfortunately, but on paper this wasn't a bad way to go at all. And it does still sell the point of what this encounter was meant to do: Establish that Beerus is so far beyond Goku at even the peak of his current level of power that he can slap him around without anything close to real effort, and thus raise concern for what's going to happen to the earth.

On that note, big props to Sean's voice acting as Goku towards the end there. He really sells Goku's desperation and concern for everyone. With all the complaints about Goku in Super supposedly being a lot less mature and more reckless than before, moments like this show that Goku can in fact take things seriously when he needs to.

Heck, considering he challenged Beerus straight after the God said he might destroy the earth if he was annoyed and he was immediately thinking of ways to beat Beerus after being knocked down, it seems likely that his challenge to fight him was actually an attempt by Goku to keep him from doing any damage and it just looked like him just being careless to King Kai and Gregory. That's how I interpret it anyway.

From a storytelling POV, there's honestly nothing offensive about episode 5, it mostly did what it needed to. Sure, it's mostly just the same stuff we saw in the movie but extended... but hey, it's an adaptation, that's kinda what we should expect. And again, not everyone saw the movie so this isn't as huge an issue as a lot of people think.

If this episode had been graced with better animation, I'd honestly call it good. Maybe not great unless said animation was REALLY good, but really I can't think of anything worth complaining about and it's paced well enough.

It's just that... well, the animation IS a big issue. When your episode is centered around a fight, then that fight needs to be handled well or the whole thing ends up kind of a flop. In an episode that's mostly building up the plot and dialogue heavy, bad or inconsistent animation can be easily ignored so long as the writing is up to par, in my opinion.

Heck, episodes with fights that aren't exceptionally well animated can still be good or even great if the writing and story content is good enough. It helps if both elements are good and working in harmony, but good writing in a story trumps all other aspects.

But this episode? The content we got was alright, but there wasn't really anything exceptional here that particularly makes up for the animation issues, unless you're someone that really, REALLY loves Beerus and enjoys seeing him slap Goku around.

The end result of how this episode turned out is that it's just kind of dull. It has a few good moments, but it kind of drags in the middle because of the subpar animation, and while there's nothing about it outside of the animation that's especially awful (Though if you're an animation student you're likely to be balling your eyes out by the end) it's also not that memorable, at least not for good reasons.

If I'm being fair, I can actually enjoy this episode if I'm in the right mindset, I found it mostly fine AS I was watching it on DVD multiple times in preparation for this review. So I think if you go into it with low expectations, it's somewhat harmless and easy to get through while you're waiting for the next episode, which has more worthwhile content.

That's not a ringing endorsement of course, but for an episode like this it's the best praise I think anyone could give it, really.

I should mention that the Japanese Blu-ray collection for Super did include some handy clean ups for the episode. It doesn't fix most of the movement, the storyboaring or such, but it does clean up a lot of the iffy art so that it looks...

... better. Still not great, and there's plenty of shots that still look off and some that look like they weren't fixed, but the episode is a bit less of an eyesore now so that probably helped my enjoyment a little since it's the Blu-Ray versions the dub airings and DVD collections use. It's more of a quick patchwork job than fixing the issues though, I wish they'd done a bit more, but whatever. Too late to complain now.

Episode 5 is not a good episode. It is a testament to how poorly managed Dragon Ball Super's production was at the beginning, and would unfortunately result in further troubles for the series over the course of it's lifespan, both in animation and writing. The episode could have been pretty good, but ends up as a missed opportunity and is a bit of a red flag for anyone just getting into the show.

I cannot defend Toei's management for rushing the show's production, that was careless and I'm glad there seems to be a restructuring going on right now and that Toei overall seems to be taking better care with future Dragon Ball products, like the upcoming movie. All signs seem to be pointing that we'll be seeing better productions for future Dragon Ball series to come.

That does not make what happened here excusable though. People have a right to complain about the animation and production issues Super faced at this point and further on in the series, and while I don't feel negatively of the show overall, I still feel that things should have turned out better than they did. Episode 5 will always serve as a constant reminder of how things can go wrong behind the scenes of a popular series.

But that said, just because mistakes like this happen doesn't mean it's the end of the world. For all the issues it still faced, Super would still see huge leaps made in improving it's animation and storytelling later on, which would include many of the best looking episodes in the entire Dragon Ball canon. It was, and still is, possible for Toei to learn from the mistakes they made with the series at this point and do better going forward.

And I hope that by the time the next Dragon Ball series rolls around, we'll see a positive result from that. In the end, I suppose failure can have it's benefits as a learning experience.

And by the same token, for all the issues it has with it's visuals, this episode in of itself was far from the worst thing ever and I do not believe it sabotaged the first arc as a whole. It was nothing special and a real mess, but I can look past it in the long run. Though I appreciate if it's flaws are just too great for some people to look past, I can't hate it as a whole package.

My final grade for the original version of the episode in Japanese would be a D. For the somewhat corrected version with the dub, I'll be as generous as I possibly can and give it a C-

Boy, that was a trip. I'm not sure if I feel completely comfortable with how this review came out, but honestly I should have gotten this out a while ago and I just want to be done with it, so I hope you can all forgive me if I didn't get my point across very well or if I just spent too much time badgering on about stupid platitudes. I might come back and edit it in the future after I've gotten the next review done and I've had some more time to clear my thoughts on this one. But for now, hope I gave you something to think about.

#dragon ball super #dbs #dragon ball super review #dragon ball super episode 5 #dbs reviews

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clockworkgal · 4 years

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I just finished Naruto Shippuden and I do not know what to do with my life anymore.

I started watching the original Naruto series with 220 episodes when I was a freshman in college and started the 500-episode Shippuden a few months after the pandemic has started and finished it on my third year in college. Basically the start-to-finish ride of the entire Naruto series was done in over two years but for me, it was more than that.

(This is starting to sound so dramatic wtf. Here's a Naruto swing for an emotional flashback.)

Looking back, the first time I have ever seen the series was when I was in elementary. Naruto—being the most popular anime during that time, was aired on national television. Being a child with watching TV shows as a hobby and having a television that can only view one channel, I was forced to watch whatever ABS-CBN had to offer every morning, Naruto being one of them.

In seventh grade, I had a printed picture of Team 7 safely kept on my clear book (which I still have until now) and of course, several pictures of Sasuke because duh obviously, I had a crush on him.

I remembered borrowing a CD tape of the original Naruto series and watching the Chunin exam arc over and over especially the Naruto vs. Gaara part where Gaara suddenly had a change of heart because aside from experiencing talk no jutsu, he was severely hit on the head by Konoha's most hard-headed and unpredictable ninja. It knocked the senses out of him and changed him into a better person. (He changes literally everyone whom he talks to tho. The power he has ugh)

Earlier in high school, I've heard a rumor from my boy classmates about Itachi killing his clan to protect the village. I was already outdated with the series because ABS-CBN was very inconsistent when it comes to anime 🙄 and I only watched what was being aired it was like reading the second installment of a book without reading the first. I was confused and clueless and have 0% understanding on what was going on and what the current arc was about.

In 11th grade, my classmate gave me a copy of Naruto Shippuden episodes from 200-300. She was about to delete it when I told her I wanted a copy. I was taking scraps from people just so I can watch the series (hard times skskskks). She then told me it's okay if I haven't seen the first episode and assured me I can still understand the plot because of multiple flashbacks in most of its episodes. I was convinced but unfortunately, the flashbacks did not help me understand what was happening.

The 2 TB flash drive I had that time later got infected with virus. The worst part was that, it wasn't even mine but my uncle's. Hard times, indeed.

Moving forward, now that I have finally finished the series from episode 1 till the last episode, I'd like to give this anime series a 100/10 ratings for the following reasons.

1. Plot Build-up

Who says animes with long episodes are boring?

Well, some of its fillers were kinda meh, but the point is I love how the series had one goal from the beginning and you watch the characters grow and their desire for that goal intensifies along with their progress. Not just the characters but the plot itself. The entire series might be intimidating and can trigger the laziness in you when you look at it in numbers but the hundred-long episodes of training and missions contribute to the excitement and build-up of the plot.

2. Amazing arcs and fight scenes

My gif says it all.

3. Heartfelt Characters and tragic/ sad backstories

I can't remember how many times I've cried in this series. I have grown attached to these characters and I get sad seeing them suffer.

4. Inspiring

There are so many life lessons I have learned in this anime alone that I can never learn from anyone given that I am an introvert and don't go out much. Naruto himself is such an inspiration to push your boundaries and do more to achieve your dreams. I feel like years from now, I will be quoting Naruto when I graduate from college.

5. Amazing Friendships

I hated Naruto for chasing a friend who didn't consider him as one and I totally agree that Shikamaru was more of a best friend to Naruto than Sasuke but we do not get to decide on that. After watching their final fight, I realized that Sasuke was indeed his best friend. Of course, Shikamaru was there through his ups and downs and supported him along the way making him a great friend. Although Sasuke wasn't there physically and they rarely had a heartfelt talk when they were still in Team 7, they know each other's soul so well that even without words, they understand each other's hearts. And that I think is what love really is. When you are able to see each other's soul without saying much and when you still consider someone special even if you get nothing from them in return. The two of them are indeed kindred spirits and I love this scene so much I can't help but cry.

I have so many things to say but I think this is all for now. I love Naruto and he has been part of my childhood and my teenage years as well as adult life and kept me sane during this pandemic—in short, Naruto has been part of my existence and seeing him get married, have a family on his own and become Hokage made me so happy it's like seeing a friend achieve his dreams.

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brianna-lei · 7 years

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Anonymous Butterfly Soup asks, batch 6

IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE BIG TOBLERONE I’M ALIVE

Being covered by a big gaming news site was one of my fantasies, so I’m elated this happened. The article is here, for anyone curious!

More asks under the cut!!

A note before I start -- if you submitted a bug, I saw it!! Thank you for reporting them!

Yes, she did! Her Facebook profile pic is her posing in front of a store at the mall, and you can see Jun’s reflection taking the pic in the store window

Akarsha didn’t realize, but Noelle totally heard it. Noelle kind of had a sense of what was up already, but actually hearing it worried her. She was debating whether or not to intervene when Min showed up.

On a small note, Min trying to cheer Akarsha up slightly improved Noelle’s opinion of Min (even though Min and Akarsha almost end up fist fighting again afterward).

Min plays video games too, imagine them playing Team Fortress 2 and later Overwatch together... Diya, Min, and Noelle have all seen some basic anime like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh, but Akarsha’s the only real hardcore anime fan. I’m glad she met “Sakura”, “Yuki”, and Ester through the baseball club, because now she has weeb friends to talk about that stuff too.

(Ester is less obvious about liking anime than “Sakura” and “Yuki”, but you can still tell by her outfit’s style. Lowkey but not lowkey enough)

I can totally relate to all of them, but I’d say Diya!

Yes, they grow close over the course of the year and Noelle has to try really hard not to cry LMAO They still keep in touch afterward.

Yep, they both feel this huge gulf between themselves and their parents due to cultural differences. Many Asian immigrant parents are extremely conservative so it feels like they’re on a completely different wavelength from you, and at the same time they have complete power over you. It’s kind of a bad feeling.

...Also, shadowing their faces saved me the work of drawing their different facial expressions.

Min was actually out of town when the fire happened, so Diya had to call her and tell her what happened :( Diya (and eventually Min) sleeps on Noelle’s couch for a bit. Noelle and Akarsha aren’t living together at the time and Noelle has the nicer/cleaner apartment

It sounds really miserable, but they’re ok in the end

Noelle's passion is math and science, so she definitely ends up doing something in STEM that she likes, just not what her parents were expecting. Akarsha is similar and becomes a software engineer -- They’re actually both naturally interested in those subjects, which says a lot about how bad the parental pressure really is.

I like to think Diya and Min actually manage to break into minor league baseball and eventually MLB

Most of my outfit inspiration comes from my tumblr/twitter feeds. I wish I could recommend you fashion blogs, but I’m not following any?! They’re all just fandom mutuals who randomly reblog cool clothes sometimes.

I used to have trouble deciding what clothes characters should wear, so every time I see an image of a cool outfit I save it for reference. After doing this since high school I now have...uh...

And those are just the unorganized ones, the ones i have in folders are like...

Now if I’m stumped for what a character should wear, I just browse these massive folders for inspiration. I can actually pinpoint the omocat jacket that gave me the idea for Min’s:

I thought, “it should be a warning: high voltage sign on the back!”, and then I just went on Google images and looked them up.

Sorry if this isn’t helpful!

I don’t think Min really minds, but The Squad is even better! Deke squad

Yeah, Akarsha’s parents wouldn’t approve either. Out of the main four, Diya is actually the only one whose parents are fine with it

Ooh thank you this is an awesome compliment to receive!!

I REALLY want to make merch some day! I’ve never made physical merch before and I’m a bit intimidated not knowing where to start/how to handle shipping, so it may take a while, though :(

I didn’t give anyone last names and I doubt I ever will, sorry! Feel free to give them your own if you want

This was intentional, but at the same time I can’t believe everyone IMMEDIATELY noticed. You guys are so in tune with 4/20

Diya and Akarsha are Indian, Min-seo is Korean, Noelle is Taiwanese, Chryssa is black, Liz is…mostly Irish, I think? “Sakura” is Pakistani, “Yuki” is Filipino. I’ve heard a lot of guesses for Ester, but she’s half black and half Chinese!

i got u son!!

Thank you, I really love hearing this because the feeling that this narrative was missing was what made me want to make this game in the first place!

you might feel a bit more sympathetic to min when you reach her part of the story! Your mileage may vary, though

If you want to make a game like Butterfly Soup, try the program Renpy! It doesn’t require programming experience to use and there’s a lot of guides online on how to use it. My NUMBER ONE BIG ADVICE IS MAKE A REALLY, REALLY SMALL GAME FIRST. My first game, Pom Gets Wi-Fi, was only 30-45 minutes long. If you make it any bigger than that, you almost guaranteed will never finish it. The dream game that you want to make is probably longer than that, so don’t make your dream game first! That’s kind of why I was so alarmed when Pom Gets Wi-Fi took off -- I’m very proud of that game and still love it, but it was like my test for the games I dreamed of making like Butterfly Soup. (Also, 17 is a great age to start making games, good for you!) Other stuff I’ve learned: Programming: I mostly learned super specific things that can’t be easily applied to other situations. If you want to know how I did a specific thing in Renpy, message me!

Writing: If you’re struggling to write something, it might be for a good reason. Maybe the scene is unnecessary or boring, your mental image of the scene doesn’t translate well to the format of your work, or the character motivations aren’t convincing enough. Deleting a scene altogether isn’t defeat, sometimes it’s the best path forward! Give up more!

Artwise: Drawing for non-pixel art games takes FOREVER. The sheer amount of time it’d take to draw all the characters and backgrounds was so demoralizing that I found myself procrastinating because I didn’t want to tackle it. Not only did I have a large cast of characters (9 in the baseball club alone), but because of flashbacks, I had to draw half of them again as kids!

To anyone thinking about making a game by themselves, SERIOUSLY consider making it a pixel art game. If you’re that set on making a non-pixel art game, SEVERELY limit the number of characters and backgrounds you have to draw!! I’m begging u...learn from my mistakes...

You’re welcome!!! :>

I loved USC! The Interactive Media major was cool and fun -- I met a lot of good friends through the program! It was probably the best few years of my life.

Unfortunately...I felt like it did nothing to prepare me for finding a job. There are very few classes for aspiring game artists and game writers. There wasn’t a single professor who worked as an artist at a triple A studio while I was there, and only one who was a major writer. I get that you gotta be self motivated, but I wish I had someone in the faculty I felt comfortable discussing my career path with. Some of the professors had clear favorite students and if you weren’t one of them, they’d make very little effort to reach out to you or interact with you. I know I'm introverted, but I never got this feeling with my general elective classes -- I had plenty of chances to talk to my writing professor, architecture lab professor, art teacher, etc., yet I came out of a lot of my Interactive Media classes wondering if my professors even remembered me.

If you want to be a game designer or maybe a writer, and are really focused/outgoing with your professors, it could be the major for you, but if you want to be a game artist I’m not sure it’s the best place to be.

I was actually crazy stressed out when it came out, so nope! It’s happening this weekend

I was super nervous right after it came out because I was worried people wouldn’t like it! I put a lot into it, and actually teared up writing parts of it, so it was a ridiculous relief to see that people were touched by it. I’m really happy now and really want to make a sequel. Also, I’m beyond grateful to my friends/mutuals/fans spreading the word and tweeting/posting about the game and making fancontent ;~; I really owe everything to them! A few people wondered about how I was holding up attention-wise, and actually...as a fanartist I sort of thrive on this, haha. Also, this is much less intense than when I released Pom Gets Wi-Fi. For perspective, it took Butterfly Soup a week to reach the number of downloads Pom got in one day.

Good!!! You’re welcome!

you’re welcome!!!

#Butterfly Soup #briANSWER #ask #my post

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