#a lot of scenes from the beginning are reused in different contexts later

[skyllion-uwu]

I think it's interesting how compared to the movie, it takes a LONG time for Patrick Bateman to kill anybody on page. He makes mentions to killing and his thoughts of murdering everyone around him, but it takes a THIRD of the book before he kills Al. Compared to the movie where Patrick kills him close to the beginning after the business card scene, the book is a lot slower and more interested in immersing you in Patrick's head while the movie is kinda like "here you go, you're here for murder!"

[laurellerual]

why do you think/say gendrya has all the tropes of the romance genre???? also, do you think jonrya will or could happen?

Romance tropes in Gendry and Arya relationship

The Family: Baratheon and Stark have a tragic love story (which we later find out isn't quite like that, but that's how it's told to begin with).

The love interest meet the father first and the mother second: Gendry meet Lord Eddard and Lady Stonheart.

The first meeting: the boy intervenes to protect the protagonist from bullies.

The hidden identity: the protagonist is disguised as a boy, only the love interest realizes the deception.

Forced coexistence: these two would never have met if it hadn't been for fate (the author) that forced them to embark on a journey together and have only each other to count on. And don't tell me Hot pie etc, … because Arya doesn't confide everything she does to her other supporting cast. She only have this relationship of trust with Gendry.

The protagonist goes to save her love interest: when Gendry is captured by the Mountain.

The children: Weasel is adopted and rescued by them. In the hierarchical dynamic that is established in this improvised pack the two take on the role of mom and dad.

Flirty banters: too many to write here.

Boy sees girl in a dress for the first time: Acorn Hall.

The two are too young to write them in a context of more explicit romantic tension so: rolling on the floor for no reason, tickling and ripped dress.

Insurmountable conflict: class difference

The love interest protects the protagonist from unwanted sexual attention.

Feelings begin to change: 'you are not my brother'

Everyone notices their dynamic except them: See the Brotherhood who gave Arya Lem as a chaperon.

Song that is sung to them and is clearly inspired by their situation: 'My featherbed'.

Innocent jealousy: Edric and Bella.

Misunderstanding at the end of Act II; the obstacles that have accumulated explode: conversation in the forge 'can you be a blacksmith for my brother', 'too lowborn to be kin to mylady high', 'I don't even care about you'.

Premature separation without a good bye: Arya is kidnapped by the Hound on her way to Riverrun (not too far from where Lyanna was abducted, probably on her way to Riverrun for Brandon and Cat's wedding).

The love interest waits parked in the last place where the protagonist has left a clear sign of her presence: (the bloodstain on the floor of the Crossroad inn). He's protecting the children like Arya would have want.

I'm sure that if I thought about it more I would find others too, but for now the list seems exhaustive enough. ASOIAF is not a romance story and Arya and Gendry are too young to play too much into that. Yet the writer decided to dedicate a lot of otherwise useless scenes to this relationship. Something have to happen in Act III to give them closure.

Jonrya

Despite all this I think Jon x Arya is not an unreasonable prediction. I admit that on first reading I had interpreted their relationship as entirely platonic.

When I found out about the 1993 outline I was surprised. The fact that Martin didn't take well to that being leaked is suspicious. Rereading the books after reading the outline it seems clear that he has reused and recycled several points and concepts that make it difficult for me not to consider Jonrya as a possible future.

Then the fandom worked its magic: there's a lot of well-argued meta in the Jonrya side of tumblr. So even if I prefer Gendrya to Jonrya I don't think the latter can be totally excluded until we read ADOS, that is never.

[maddilynmuse]

Nanowrimo Experience

This year I tried Nanowrimo…

As a total rebel lmao. I thought about trying to get through Book 2 and brought it up to my writing group to be met with a unanimous and resounding “FINISH BOOK 1!”

Well, I could try to argue with that, but naaaah…

So I aimed to edit more or less an hour or two a day instead, though ngl some days I more or less just used writing word count because I had to make scenes from scratch due to playing the Cupid shuffle with mu plot structure until it resembled something good.

Most notably, well, I had a scene from near the end that I really liked. Problem was, at this point that scene was a relic of sorts, no longer serving much purpose. So I looked at the parts I liked about it: a cool sea monster fight/introduction, and getting to show off Gayle (my amnesiac water magic user) being a fucking nerd… and maybe a few more things I can’t tell y’all because spoilers >:3c

So I was like, “hey, showing Gayle having an interest in books and history is good character set up actually” and moved that scene earlier, and while I had to change the context, I still got my sea monster fight later, just in a different place. Ngl not as fond of the new one, but maybe that’s nostalgia. I’d clung to the prior scene through quite a few drafts.

Of course, that meant I had to change parts of the beginning/middle of the book to accommodate, but that was honestly easier than expected. The harder part was basically rewriting, like… uh. Not exactly the last parts of the book, but a majority of the lead up and plot twists.

Also…

Guess who found out em-dashes DON’T have space on each side lskhcjlajdlal

Yeah I was doing them:

Like — this

When they should’ve been:

Like—this

That was a loooooot of cleanup ^^’ in retrospect, I maybe could’ve left it. I’m sure some people might’ve said it was artificial padding, but honestly I just thought they worked that way for some reason??? This thing got longer than expected anyways lol. Still on the shorter end for the average fantasy novel, but oh goodness many words.

But yeah. I am a lot happier with it now, though still a bit unsure about the ending. My previous editor(s) didn’t seem to like it much, but, well…

I’mma risk sounding pretentious but hold with me lol.

I don’t think they understood it.

Like, I really don’t. Long story short, well, it might’ve been a genre mis-match. I didn’t realize at the time, but the pair I had editing it don’t actually work in fantasy most of the time, and seemed to have problems with, y’know… magic showing up.

At the time I thought it was a me thing, but my beta readers who do like fantasy are picking up on things they never seemed satisfied with.

I won’t say they were awful. They did help me find some other relics/artifacts of previous drafts that I left scattered nonsensically all over the place, and do think they caught a few things that I had gotten so used to that I forgot to explain them—like character walking on roofs because the roofs are flat and connected and serve as makeshift pathways when storms and floods occur.

But yeah. Takeaways?

Iiiiiii need to plot better and also need to stop changing the plot midway through writing.

Em dashes work: like—this

Make sure your editors work in your genre

Kill darlings, but also if you really like something, figure out why and take those aspects and reuse them

And hey… gotta find a system that works for you. Not every day was equal. Some days I was chomping at the bit to put in the New Scenes, some days I basically just edited grammar, and some days I didn’t feel up to actually working on the manuscript (particularly the days I was feeling most critical of it and myself) but instead used that time to take a step back and figure out what I needed to work on next.

If you’ve read this, well, thank you. ^w^ I’m just rambling, feeling like a gramma on the porch with youngsters coming by aljxlalhdlaljs.

But hey, sometimes you just wanna talk

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Not sure if this your areas, but do you have any tips for incorporating literary allusions/intertexual references into your writing? (By the way, I've been going through your writing posts and they've been a big help!)

I’m going to scream; I was almost ready to post this and then Tumblr stole everything.

Okay. Let’s try this again.

This is something I wish I was better at. I’d like to be a writer people recognize as well-read from my writing. That’s probably pretentious, but I am not free of pretension, and it’s something I desire.

There’s a lot of ways to do intertextuality. In fact, you’re definitely doing it unintentionally, because every piece of media is a product of the environment it was formed in, and the environment it was formed in is heavily shaped by the media the creator was exposed to. Your pool of references, but also your understanding of narrative structure, of characters, of storytelling, of literary devices, of everything, will be shaped by the things you’ve read and watched.

But the major, obvious, intentional categories you’re probably asking about here are:

Retellings/adaptations/pastiches/etc.: Taking the original story and/or characters and reusing it to say something different. YuuMori isn’t saying the same thing about life or fiction or people or the world or religion or anything that the original Sherlock Holmes stories did, for example.

Quotation: Taking a specific line or moment and language and reusing it to say recall a moment/scene to recontextualize it. Most people in a Western or Christian culture would likely recognize, “Let there be light,” from Genesis and ideas of beginnings and newness and godliness and goodness and acts of creation.

Comparison/Reference: I kind of made up this term because I can’t think of what it’s called. This is the kind of thing where someone else refers to a character as Icarus, for example, verbally or in narrative. It’s not retelling or quoting anything, just leveraging a known story as shorthand to describe something else.

Basically, intertextually is generally used to recontextualize...something. Either the original work, or the work you're writing and leaning on something commonly known and understood to twist what's happening in a new light.

Knowing your audience is vital to doing this correctly. If it's vital to understand the reference to understand your writing, your audience needs to be someone who likely understands it. If it's not vital but adds Extra Meaning, you can get away with things less known to your audience who will delight if they do know it, or delight once they stumble upon the original, or delight if they come back to your work later after learning of the original.

And different cultures, different generations, different subcultures, different...everything, have different reference pools. I, for example, would almost certainly not recognize a reference to a telenovela. But there’s a lot of people who would. But a lot of people wouldn’t recognize me saying, “See you Space Cowboy...” They might not need to, depending on the context, but knowing what I’m referencing might add something.

Now for a practical example to discuss. This is a story I outlined in college, and it’s the most obnoxious, up-its-own-ass English Major of things. I outlined this entire thing, and then never wrote even 1k words because I’d outlined it and that meant death.

As you can see, each chapter is named after Classic Literature. The conceit was that the protagonist was a college freshman taking a broad literature introduction course and would read each of these one week (do not talk to me about what monstrous professor would assign Great Expectations to be read and discussed in one week, the first week of classes) in his semester, and the events and themes of the literature would be reflected in the plot of the chapter!

Cool!

Except there’s a lot that can go wrong here. Easily. First, how long are the goddamn chapters going to be if they’re trying to cover that much stuff? Second, many of these have wildly different themes and statements about nature. How does White People Ableism The Secret Garden match with African American community and liberation in Their Eyes Were Watching God? What do you even do with that that’s not a surface-level analysis of the work?

So, you’re going to want to be choosy about your references. Too many can start conflicting with each other and muddle what you’re trying to do. What are you trying to say? Make sure the references you’re using and the way you’re using them will facilitate that. If you want a lot, you might confine it to one character--and then it begins to say something about that character instead.

All of this is to say, I think the main points to consider are:

How are you incorporating the intertextuality?

What are you trying to say by using it?

Who is your audience and are the references you’re choosing appropriate for them?

Why have you selected this vehicle to say this thing?

(Also, thank you for sending this, it was fun to write up, and I’m glad you enjoy my posts about this)

[themightyaliendwarf]

TPN s02e06

Okay, let’s talk about this... episode. There is a one big thing that we need to mention, but we will get there when we get there. So let’s just start from the beginning: 

1. I’m happy that they didn’t just include Norman in the updated OP - we could see the lambda kids in there too, so that’s a nice touch.

2. Many people already mentioned Norman only calling Emma even though Ray is also standing there. I’m going to point that out too because there is no way that he would just ignore his best friend like that. But we all know why CloverWorks wrote this scene like that - because they just copied it from the manga. Now, I think that somebody forgot that in the manga, Ray isn’t present during that scene. I’m very disappointed with this moment in the anime because it just makes Norman look really bad. Actually, let’s say it, current anime-Norman is kinda an asshole.

3. Onto the big one. Do you know why the reunion scene doesn’t work even though they used dialogue from the manga? Because the context is weaker, it happened too fast, the characters don’t show emotions and they barely move. Look at this page from the manga, please:

You can see the movement, the emotion and with enough imagination, you can even hear this scene. It’s just a still drawing and yet it’s very impactful... and then comes the anime. A medium that can use image, sound and movement... how could they make this scene so flat? Where did the energy go? Okay, to be fair, I should assume that Emma was just hungry (because apparently our geniuses are not so genius after all), and that’s why her reaction was so weak. But Norman has no excuse here. 

Look at how soft he looks here. Look at how his expression changes after finding out about Emma’s ear, and how he later comes back to this soft expression after Emma’s carefree answer. Anime, you messed up. 

4. Speaking of messing up

That’s how you slap Norman. Or actually, you slap him even harder because anime-one is an asshole. ALSO, that line makes little sense without Goldy Pond. 

5. And then they just left this place. No problems, nobody is caring about two dead demons (and also those dying demon babies, I guess). Also, nobody noticed six or seven humans just standing there. 

6. Also, I find it hilarious that lambda kids just disappear after this scene. No questions ask, no ‘hello’ or shaking heads. No reaction for the ‘boss man’ getting slapped. Of course, that doesn’t happen because it didn’t happen in the manga. Not like we were supposed to get some anime only content, right? 

7. But on the bright side, the music is good. I like how they reuse OST from season 1, but the new one is also pretty good. 

8. Are we going to ask how, where and when they developed that drug? Not like I care or expect the answer. Not like it was an actually powerful reveal in the manga, because it showed how Norman’s team isn’t THAT different from people from lambda, right? 

9. And then Norman just leaves. You know, like an asshole. He could somehow help his FAMILY since he saw that they live in dirty and all... but nope. He just left. 

10. The conversation between Emma and Ray in chapters 122-123 is easily one of the most important and best moments from The Promised Neverland. It shows how much they both grew and that despite their differences they are able to work together because they believe in each other. Now, I am happy that they didn’t speed this conversation too much, but it wasn’t good either. 

As I’ve mentioned before, the expressions are weaker, there is barely any movement, the context isn’t there - Ray and Emma didn’t visible grew closer together. They just want you to think that they did. Emma’s struggle also makes less sense. Why? She didn’t experience the cruelty of Goldy Pond, we didn’t see her travel around the demon world (that also kinda applies to the manga, but they at least tried to show it there) and most importantly - she doesn’t know about the alternative option. Sure, we know about the entrance to the Human World, but they don’t seem to be that keen on reaching it. Seven Walls on the other hand... yep, they were working towards that goal and they knew that they could reach them. Here it’s just: “Norman, buddy, I don’t like it and I have no alternative”. That’s not a conflict, that’s a child whining. You are making Emma a whining child! In the manga it wasn’t that easy to side with just one character because of their views made sense. Here you have an asshole, crybaby and a helping NPC - good job, ClowerWorks. 

11. Well, at least Emma understand that here she has no alternative and Ray’s words of encouragement were actually really good. But that’s mostly due to a wonderful voice acting 

12. Boss Man Norman doesn’t work. There was no build up (from the beginning it’s just Norman, not mysterious Minerva 2.0), lambda crew didn’t react when he got slapped and he looks too young - I know that Demizu said that she made him look like that kinda by accident, but it really works. It shows how different he is from the boy we knew before. 

13. I’ve actually liked the Emma’s line about how she hopes that Lambda crew isn’t doing what it’s doing just to get a revenge. Pity that we only have a few good moments like that. 

To sum up, this episode could be good if not for the previous ones. But it would still require a lot of changes. For now I stick with my 5/10 rating for this season, buuuuut I think it might actually fall to 4/10 very soon :/ 

[yume-x-hanabi]

Writer Meta Meme

I decided to do all the questions on this meme :)

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

My current project is Concubinage, my gaiwin arranged marriage AU. It started as a random, entirely self-indulgent idea, but it has since grown into an actual project. Progress is good, I’ve managed to do bi-monthly updates and I have 30k in my drafts so far.

What I love the most about it is that, since it’s an AU, I’m pretty free to do whatever I want. I don’t have to be too careful of timelines and so on. Plus, in this AU, Gaius and Wingul are able to get closer than they otherwise would, due to the different circumstances. They have their own trials, but it’s different than in the canon timeline.

Another current project is Tales of Xillia Week, but I didn’t get much inspiration for it so I think I’m gonna do meta/headcanon posts more than fics ^^;

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

I’m looking forward to getting to the part where it’s just domestic fluff haha. It’ll take a while to reach that point though.

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Not just one scene ig, but I’ve been wanting to write one-shots showing how the Chimeriad survived, and... haven’t gotten around to planning it. So it’s pretty low on my project list tbh.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

I have... a few, but they’re all spoilers for future chapters XD;;

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

I don’t... really identify with characters. I mean, they’re pretty different than me in personality, life and circumstances...

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

I love writing Gaius and Wingul of course, but Agria’s probably the most fun. She’s completely unrestrained, which makes her pretty easy and fun to let loose XD

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Exposition and worldbuilding XD

I can’t help it, I always need to develop the setting...

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Yes. I would love it if more people wrote gaiwin XD

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

I used to be more of a ficlet writer, but I’m currently doing well with a longfic XD

As for the rest, it varies. I like to plot and outline a bit, but it’s often rather loose and I let inspiration guide me.

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Wait for inspiration time, energy and motivation to align.

11. What do you envy in other writers?

Those who update super long fics every week. How do you do it????

12. Do you want your writing to be famous?

Naah, I’m fine in my corner of fandom. Though I wouldn’t say no to a few more readers, if only to know that the ship still sails xD

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

Yep, I post on AO3. And all projects are meant to be posted one day, but some aren’t simply because they aren’t finished.

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

The beginning, usually, but I might change it

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Tags are easy. Titles and summaries are hard, and I always end up with something boring but heh, as long as they get the meaning across...

16. Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?)

It was last year, but I tried first person pov with my Agria fic, because that fits her well. I’d like to try poetry, maybe.

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

I have no idea tbh. When I write, I like to imagine what my readers will think (especially like when I write funny scenes, I hope they’ll make people laugh), but idk if it’s exactly like I think.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

In Concubinage, I considered adding a plotline where Arst met an ex and had to deal with complicated feelings about it -- being reminded how it was to be in a loving relationship vs political marriage, craving intimacy like he used to have with said ex, etc. I ended up scrapping the idea though.

I also have... two or three possible ways things can play out in a much later plotpoint, and I think I’m pretty sure of which way I’ll go already, but the other possibilities exist. Maybe I’ll make a post about all abandoned plotlines one day...

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

“And, but, and, but...” XD;

Also characters often find themselves doing something before they knew it...

My style is probably pretty repetitive. I’m not a native speaker, and I feel limited sometimes...

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

Concubinage is the result of watching too many sageuk and  taiga drama. No I’m not sorry.

When writing AU, I always like to include “cameo” of the original storyline (for example, as the plot of a book, or treating the canon games as a fractured dimension in Chimeriad Live AU’s, etc)

In Fractured Lives, I try to alternate Wingul and Gaius’ pov. It’s probably gonna bite me in the ass when some plot points work better in one pov but the chapter requires the other. I’ll probably have to come up with some fillers or something...

I have extensive headcanon about Auj Oule’s geography, history etc, which pops up in a lot of (planned) fics. Even if it’s different fics/AU’s (ex. Concubinage vs my pre-game gaiwin project vs the Wingul fic I was writing for the big bang), I reuse the same settings and OC’s. Most of those aren’t written/posted yet so it’s pretty self-contained for now, but if I ever get to completing those projects I hope it won’t be too confusing to readers who don’t follow all the stories...

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

If I had the art skills, I’d love to turn some of them into comics ;A;

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

Sometimes. Usually because I need to refresh my memory before writing a new chapter XD

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

That project to write the whole pre-game Gaius & Wingul history, that’s something I’ve been wanting since forever. Well, I originally wanted to read it, but since no one’s gonna do it, I started thinking I should write it. It’s gonna be a huge project though...

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

I honestly have no idea. I do sense a difference in that it’s much easier for me to just write now; I guess habit helps. But I have no idea if style changed or anything lol.

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Filling the tag with my OTP XD

[spacezeta]

Devlog - Tidying up animations!

Hey! It’s been a while since an update… oops. But as always things are still moving along and it’s going GREAT

(I know that sounds sarcastic but it’s actually not)

Now that most of the core stuff is done, I’ve finally started ironing out the kinks and bits of the game, seeing what needs fixing and whatnot, so I started going over the cutscenes and hoo boy the quality of the initial animations compared to later scenes is just... not good. There’s a few months difference between when I first started doing the animations and now, and, well, my animation skills have improved quite a bit since then. So let’s talk animations!

Since there’s such a stark difference in quality between scenes, I’m trying to stop myself from redoing everything from the beginning trying to achieve perfection (because then I’d be stuck in a never ending cycle of perfectionism), so I’m sticking to just fixing up some stuff. I did have to redo one scene though, mostly because that had been the sort of thing that’d been taking too long to make so I’d ended up convincing myself that it was fine, when it was not fine, and watching it again after time has passed just made me go ‘ew no’. So I redid that and I’m actually real happy with it now!

Also I’m finally putting that Theater Acting degree to good use, all that character/body work whew who knew*

*...because for me to start an animation I have to actually act it out first in real life to see how it’s gonna go I wish I could do motion capture *cries in a corner*

So here are a couple of lessons I learned:

Humans don’t move that fluidly! More short bursts of movement! Otherwise your animation looks like it’s in slow motion underwater! I had to speed up and make some changes to a bunch of animations because of this.

A person doesn’t sit completely still, so shake that body up... a little. Just to make the character feel alive. Also, breathing.

When moving the eyes from one place to another, or when you move your head, you blink. Try shifting your eyes from one side to the other without blinking and see if it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. (At least mine does, whoops) So blink when moving the eyesight!

(This one is a bit more technical) When moving a bone, have the movements of the different axes (plural of axis, who knew) start and end at different times from each other, it makes the animation look less robotic.

Here’s a super short video of a scene that still needs fixing (because giffing it didn’t work)! It still kinda looks like it’s in slow motion so I’ll have to fix that soon

I really, really don’t want to spend too much time fixing animations that already took too long to make in the first place, so I might need to let some things slide. Though I already know I’m gonna have do redo the intro scene because that was done so long ago it’s probably A Giant Mess.

And since we’re talking animations and cutscenes, let me just talk about the experience of dealing with scenes with no dialogue vs. with dialogue:

There’s gonna be no voice acting, unfortunately, so that means the dialogue is gonna get delivered via text à la visual novel style. That means I can’t have a very dynamic scene with moving characters all over like I’m used to dealing in theater, so I have to come up with a scene that’s gonna be interrupted constantly according to the player’s input (or it might not get interrupted at all if the player just skips all dialogue).

For this I took inspiration from the Yakuza series which, for those that aren’t familiar with it, has several scenes (mostly side mission stuff) with no voiced over dialogue, only via text just like what I’m doing now. So most of these scenes are comprised of the characters standing around, with occasional ‘stock’ animations playing along specific dialogue lines. These animations get reused in different settings, contexts, lines and characters.

So what I got from Yakuza was the concept of reusable animations! But since I’m dealing in a smaller scope, length, number of characters and number of scenes in this game, I have the freedom to make more reusable animations per scene and per character. So characters don’t have to stand still in front of each other... much. I mean, there’s still a bit of standing and talking, but at least they move around a little bit more. A little.

No dialogue scenes were a lot more fun to make and implement though! Which actually leaves me a little queasy since for my next project I’m planning to lean a lot more on story and dialogue... ooh boy. Imma have to get a good tool for implementing cutscenes for that... also a lot of planning.

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 15x04

BEWARE! SPOILERS AHEAD!

That was… pretty dark. And unexpected. Unexpectedly dark. I mean I liked the episode for the most part, but it also felt like somebody kicked me. Several times. The actual monster-of-the-week part is… there. It gets interesting in the way that it responds to the characters and the other plot of the episode, Chuck and Becky. Of course Supernatural has long since given up to be pretend there is a fourth wall, so we are meant to see the interactions between Chuck and Becky as those of the Supernatural writers vs the audience. And I really can’t think of any other show that is as self-aware as Supernatural is and who puts that in the actual text of the show. Apart from the paranoid feeling that the creators of Supernatural read all of our Tumblrs, Twitters, etc, it feels much more like a dialogue between creator and audience. But unlike Chuck I would say that the actual creators of Supernatural do listen and care about what the fans have to say. Just like last week’s episode break up between Dean and Cas made me hopeful about their ending, this week’s darker elements made me hopeful about the show’s end. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Where we are now is not where we will end.

But, as always, let’s take a closer look.

“You don’t have children, do you?”

So, let’s start with talking about the atomic monsters of the episode, family Whitman. The Superwiki suggested that the title of the episode might refer to the nuclear family the episode centers around. They are monsters in their own way, not just because Billy was turned into a vampire, but because of the things his parents to do for him. Sam is self-aware enough to admit that they would have done the same for Jack (and for each other) and we have the situation from 14x20 mirrored here in this episode. A child kneeling in front of Dean, waiting to be executed because they turned into a monster. The outcome of course is different; Dean couldn’t kill his own son, couldn’t kill Jack. And I admit I was surprised to see this ending here. I was sure Sam and Dean would have found a different way to deal with Billy, despite him being okay to die, not wanting to kill anybody else. It felt a lot like the black and white morality we saw in the early seasons, where a monster was just that, a monster, with no way to change or redeem themselves. We might come back to this scene later this season: a loved one that asks to be killed, that became a monster, someone who thinks this is the only way to deal with this situation. The outcome though might be different.

Which actually brings us to Sam’s vision at the beginning. I admit at first I thought we saw one of Chuck’s drafts coming to live, reusing an old plotline (Sam’s demon blood addiction). I don’t think this is a vision (because why would Benny be suddenly alive again?) but rather a presentation of Sam’s worst fears. He feels responsible for Rowena’s death and is reminded of everyone else that died because of him (like Jessica). He still feels unclean, still feels he can become evil. Benny wasn’t originally there, Jensen added the character because he liked him so much. But thematically it makes sense: Sam had always been jealous about Benny, so in a dream were his worst nightmares come true of course not only did he turn bad (and killed people he loved like Jody and Bobby) but Dean would abandoned him for Benny. (This is to me another proof that this is not a vision of the future, otherwise the producers would have told Jensen Benny can’t come back for this scene)

And speaking about the future. Sam feels pretty hopeless at the moment. When they started to investigate the case he felt isolated from the normal world, from the seemingly normal family, that is unaware of the horrors Sam and Dean have to deal with every day (while ironically the family was living in their very own horror movie). Sam has given up his dream of living a normal life; “we don’t get normal”. Again, this might mean we get the exact opposite at the show’s end. Supernatural has always played with the idea of the Apple Pie Life, and we saw both Sam and Dean trying to have one and failing at it. In the last seasons however we saw a more balanced approach: they can have a home (the bunker), they can have a family (Cas, Jack, Mary etc), and can still be hunters. Now however their family is either dead or moved on.

And speaking of Cas. Dean, unlike Sam, is more optimistic, falsely believing Chuck is gone and can no longer control them. He says they are free to move on, echoing Cas’s words of moving on, though in a different context. I think that Dean mostly puts on a brave face for Sam; they can’t both be feeling hopeless at the same time, right? But losing Mary, Jack and Cas will leave its trace on Dean as well. He might misinterpret the Cas situation, thinking that now that Cas is free from Chuck’s influence the first thing he does is to leave them. However, as Cas told Dean, he has always been free when it came to his feelings towards the Winchesters. He chose them as his family, that was not Chuck. Right now though he also thinks it is better for everyone to be separated. Dean has to realize that is entirely up to him now to get Cas back.

“It’s awful! Horrible. It’s hopeless.”

Just when we thought we couldn’t hate Chuck anymore he gives us 3000 reasons more (see, I can make Endgame references as well). Through Chuck we meet a character that I honestly didn’t think we would see again (I guess the final season is the opportunity to bring back every character): Becky. Becky had always been the stand-in for the fans, and not a very flattering one. The show has since then done some damage control. Charlie was a very positive image of someone who is a fan (and I would love for ‘our’ Charlie to meet this improved Becky) and so were the girls doing the Supernatural musical. It is ok to be a fan, to be passionate about something. And Becky represent now a different kind of fan: a grown up married woman with children, who dedicates her little free time to her hobby. There is nothing pathetic about her, the show doesn’t make fun of her or portrays her as a psycho. Becky has grown and is at peace with herself. Just like Amara is by the way. And Chuck is used to control the women in his life, be it his sister or his ex-girlfriend, he needs them to boost up his ego. He no longer has power over Amara, but poor Becky is helpless (and I really really hope she gets her revenge).

Becky in this episode functions at the voice of fans. It is interesting that she is neither dependent on Chuck or worships him and his work, but instead she took the thing that she loves and made it her own. She writes (and we acknowledge that fanfiction is writing as well), she creates. It doesn’t matter to her that Chuck stopped writing the Supernatural books or that he dismisses her own work. She isn’t even afraid to tell him off, to criticize his work. Her commentary on his first draft is pretty much a commentary on the episode itself: the stakes are too low, there is no classic rock, nobody even mentions Cas etc. And that is yet another thing: Becky seems to have changed from a Wincest shipper to a Team Free Wil fan. The message here is pretty clear: this is no longer a show just about two brothers and it hasn’t been for a long time. And more so, what the fans are invested in are the characters, not so much the story. We care about Sam, Dean, Cas, Jack, Mary etc. and because we care, the story gets interesting, not the other way around.

Concerning Chuck’s new dark end, there was also something interesting Chuck said: that he knows the ending but doesn’t know how to get there yet. At Chuck being Chuck means he will bend the story in whatever way he can to get, no matter if it makes sense or not. Which is pretty much what the showrunners on Game of Thrones did, a show which ending Chuck thought was great (spoiler: it wasn’t). Chuck also think that the fact that the dark ending is making Becky feel something is a good sign, which yeah… not so much. Of course a story is supposed to make you feel something, and as a Supernatural fans we are familiar with some angst. However a story ending should not make you feel angry or disappointed. In the best way it should always feel that what you see is the natural conclusion of the story you have read/seen, no matter the genre. Supernatural has long since stopped being a tragedy, a dark and hopeless ending seems no longer fitting. But again, as this is where we are now this won’t be where we will end. Chuck is the villain, therefore his ending should not be what we actually get to see.

Also, it is interesting that Becky mentioned that Chuck channelled Sam and Dean’s story. He pretty much wrote down what he saw, unlike Becky who created her own stories. And now Chuck admits that he no longer has this connection: he can no longer see what Sam and Dean are doing (thanks to his weakened status), so at the very moment they are free.

Looking forward to next week. Until then my lovelies <3

[adreamer4lone]

Iberis Song Analysis

For the English viewers who have no clue what is going on. [WARNING], really long and detailed analysis. Also my first, so read the tl;dr if you don’t want to spend your time reading an essay. It’s also much longer than you might think. tl;dr(Too long; didn’t read)- The boy who’s seen as the protagonist of the song, is having an internal struggle, having difficulties being indifferent while preserving his sense of self. Throughout the song, he’s trying to figure out answers about himself. He deals with having to grow up and fit with society. This leads to multiple conflicts with himself and his ideals, all while dealing with a mixed storm of emotions and feelings which causes him to become more confused about himself. He does eventually find his answers. I’m going to point out some details in the mv and other small things:

-The same high school setting is used in all of Caphat’s songs which can be seen from the similar uniform styles of other song protagonists and how some of the scenes are reused in other songs. -In one particular scene at 1:41, the mc of the story says something, but there is little to no context as to what he says due to no lyrics or text. He’s wearing a tired expression with a fake smile. No, he doesn’t die here, it’s metaphorical for losing himself. -There are also scenes where there are strings of black text that appear in a classroom. Which represent the cluttered thoughts and confusion that resides in his mind. -Throughout the entire story, a lot of the scenes have the panels being flipped upside down, more so in the chorus sections. In my opinion, this is to represent the boy’s world constantly turning upside down in his confusion. -The parts where his face is covered with a black squiggle could represent his indifference/blindness towards himself.-The entire song’s perspective is the boy talking about himself and talking to himself. In the song, it is visible that he talks and refers to a different persona of himself. There are two main personas that represent him. I believe they are the side of him that is indifferent and his true self behind his indifference. In the first and second chorus, the one that is falling is his true self and the one that is looking at himself fall is his indifferent self. His true self is falling down because he is losing his sense of true self. -A way to look at it from a story perspective is that each chorus and the lyrics that come before it represent the beginning-middle-end. The first part (B) is his true self explaining his situation then asking his indifferent side to save himself. He first extends his arm to his other self. The second part (M) is where he tries to grasp his true self (metaphorically speaking but literally shown in the mv) but fails. The third part (E) is where he grasps himself but in a different way. I’ll talk about the last few scenes at the end of the lyric analysis. -The author’s note says that “Everyone is looking for a heart.” According to google translate that is. I prefer Ikhwan-san EQ-01’s translation/rewording -“Everyone is finding their own heart.” This further reinstates the idea of how he’s trying to change his indifference and finding his sense of self. Now on to the lyric analysis, this includes the English translations from Ikhwan-san EQ-01’s eng subtitles: -“イベリス ”, or “Iberis” in the language of flowers symbolizes indifference. Today, I’m a step closer to become an adult I understand the religion and its content -Adulthood is kind of a “religion” in the sense that children/teens worship the idealisms of becoming what they view as independent and free without fully understanding what being an adult means. He’s stating that he grows closer to being an adult and grasps what it means to be one. It’s dramatic in the yes-man classroom, I can’t laugh -People who are a “yes-man” are those that easily comply with their superiors. I have three interpretations of this: 1. He isn’t allowed to express himself in the situation. 2. Before the teacher arrives the students are being a bit “dramatic” and rowdy, but he’s unable to converse and “laugh” with them. 3. He views the situation with everyone is being a “yes-man” as “dramatic. He finds this amusing but knows he can’t express it. I like number 3, but I feel like his indifference is supposed to be represented in the phrase so 2 might be more accurate.) The day I lost everything but my heart -This probably means that he’s losing himself, his ideals, hopes, and beliefs that he once held onto, except the feelings that his heart gives him I search for everyone Revived in the “16th” reality -I talked with some people and came up with 16 representing age, and already said that he’s in a high school setting. He might be trying to find those who live their life meaningfully around his age to learn from them and refill what he has lost. Even if the nonsensical me was rewarded, if the coward me dies, then I won’t even need absurdity, reason and all logic -If the cowardly side of him were to disappear, then he wouldn’t need to overthink everything. He doesn’t need to be rewarded to feel motivated in himself. “Please” Put a curse on me, just for a moment So we won’t hate and smile to each other -He doesn’t want to feel anything towards the part of him he dislikes, he wants to be indifferent to aspects of himself. “You’re such a ‘lonely’ hypocrite” What’s correct? What’s incorrect? What, you don’t know? -He knows that he’s being contradictory as to what he wants for himself, but he ends up questioning what’s right and wrong. This causes him to pressure himself into finding answers. Cancel the spell, just for a moment So that the crowd of lost youngsters will shout -“Cancel the spell” refers to the “curse”. It seems like he wants to let out his emotions, or “shout” could be him shouting at himself, wanting to save himself/be saved. I think it’s the latter, due to this being said at the final part of the chorus where he can be seen falling even deeper. The reality escape, the young boy’s eyes -It means that reality is fleeing from his sight as he’s losses himself I won’t let you throw away my heart -He won’t let him lose himself I want to enjoy the human emotions and live “Yeah, yeah, don’t talk nonsense” -He’s pushing himself further down for desiring to live his life. After I sleep, will you listen to me? Then, will you cry together with me? -He wants to listen and comfort himself Let’s imitate the unidentified emotion Turn round and round -He’s struggling to understand his emotions, creating more confusion. This is also represented in the mv as the world around him becomes more disoriented. Don’t educate me A farce performance. In the moral of majority rule, the rampaging sentimental rotted away. -He doesn’t want his flaws to be pointed out because he knows he’s being ridiculous with himself. He used to be quite a sentimental child, but the majority around him don’t express their sentiments freely. This caused him to conform to the norm. I’ve no hope, but I live the tomorrow I’ve no reason, but I breathe again -He lives without anything to push him forward. I wonder what kind of picture will I see on my last moment -He wonders what he’ll see when he dies. Therefore,I’m opposing them many times too So I won’t be broken by other people -Because he’s already living without reason, he’s fighting society’s ideals so that he won’t lose himself. Society would be the “them”, but I also believe that “them” and “therefore” can refer to different things. “I can’t understand” “whos there?”-He doesn’t understand himself I don’t know, I want to know The result is “paraappaapaa” <- a weird part -For me, this required more speculation as I couldn’t find context in the song as to what “paraappaapaa” could be referring to. I later came up with this, he wants to find the answers, but the more he looks the more confusing it gets.“Paraappaapaa” is just a filler answer, it means nothing. The subtitled video by Ikhwan-san EQ-01, says in the description that the sound might be representing a trumpet. The general symbolism of a trumpet is involved with military conflict. If it is the sound of a trumpet, then the “result” could be pertaining to more conflict, which does make sense. The brainwashing and the reference book Eyes of the spectators -I believe the “eyes of the spectators” still refers to society “the brainwashing and the reference book” refer to social conformity and the rules that people refer to in order to fit in. In order to not be tainted any further I’m waiting for “life” and “punchline” My non-fiction, last siren -For him not to be pressured into society’s standards, he waits for something crucial to happen in his reality, his final calling. I don’t want to get hurt but I have to get hurt -He doesn’t like the feeling of pain but he has to deal with it I look like a living knack -Talked with some people again, the literal translation of ”'生きるコツ'らしい” says-“Has a talent for living, it seems”.“I look like a living knack” is another way of rephrasing but it just seemed so confusing to me. Unless my sources were wrong, but I trust their translation work. I would reword it to this, “It seems I have a “talent for living”“ which makes it easier for me to understand its meaning. He believes he has the capacity to deal with the pain. “If I rely on my pain, I’ll feel good?” It shouldn’t be like that. -He asks himself if he’ll eventually be rewarded if he depends on his pain. He knows that’s not how his life should be. As if writing the “answer” I’m a little bit scared, I don’t think I can return Thus, I’m deleting the life -He’s stating he’s scared once he finds his answer, thinking that he won’t be able to go back. He’s wasting the life he has by being afraid to move forward. 削 means to cut, so I believe cutting is a better word to use than deleting. I would rephrase it as: Thus, I’m cutting my life, for better understanding. “Let’s dance at the line of defense until we ‘regret’ it” “You’re so irritating, shut up for a little while.” -His other persona tells him that he should play safe until it’s too late to change stance, and so he tells himself to stop putting such thoughts in his head. “Our justice is in which locker?” Save this imperfect me -He’s trying to find his peace, and he wants to be saved. “Please” Put a curse on me, just for a moment So we won’t hate and smile to each other -A repeat of the first chorus. “You’re such a ‘lonely’ hypocrite” But that’s fine too, why don’t you know that? -He deprecates himself by calling hypocrite, then questions why he doesn’t understand it’s ok to be one. Cancel the spell, just for a moment So I won’t lose the “truth” -He doesn’t want to lose his answers by ignoring himself, the truth lies within him. I won’t let anyone steal my identity I won’t let you throw away my heart -He won’t let other people take away who he is, and he won’t let him lose himself. -As I promised, the scene where he chokes himself is given context with the last lyrics. He’s claiming what is his, choking himself is to signify that he’s trying to control himself. You can look at choking yourself as trying to gain a sense that you’re in control of your life in a rather extreme way. Afterward, a scene comes up with the black string of text revealing himself standing in the middle of the room with the same white blood splat as the scene in 1:41, although the room is upside down. This might be to represent that his initial confusion was cleared, but his world did not change back to what it originally was. This is probably due to how he forcefully took himself back, and his world still being upside down is supposed to show that he still has errors in his reasoning. This is just my analysis and lots of things have room for different interpretations, especially with the story becoming more difficult to grasp as it progresses. - http://eq01jrmesubs.blogspot.com/2018/09/hatsune-miku-iberis-englishmalay.html <- English translations 

[obstinaterixatrix]

what’s kind of funny if I’m gonna draw comparisons between shows that are completely different with practically zero point of comparison IS that good place & build use flashbacks the most effectively I’ve seen in a show. like, obv very differently, since tgp uses flashbacks to give us context by showing us scenes we haven’t seen before but the characters themselves are remembering while build uses flashback footage from the actual show. it was a little clunky in the beginning when build was reusing A Certain Scene like five times, but now it’s like.... ok in the most recent episode there were flashbacks, and they all lasted for less than a second, and they mostly were from the character’s pov, which was! really interesting to notice! I have to rewatch to see if they just reused footage for one of them or if they actually, like, shot a specific angle to use later. anyway effective flashbacks and montages are really nice but a lot of folks don’t use ‘em right! too much filler when we only need context

[connorcarter32]

Hauntology and Nostalgia

Provocations:

Consider how these themes are applies to practises and how art remakes are prominent in contemporary art and design.

Emotional investment.

Melancholy for something that has passed and is no longer happening now.

Particular works have a nostalgic quality, usually when they are repeated or if it was observed during childhood.

Clip showed from 'Lala land', it's a rejuvenation of pre modern musical with its colour and historical context.

Nostalgia: homesickness or a sentimental yearning for a past period.

Disney remakes preying on this phenomenon. A good representation of its value.

Repurposing and remix are good examples of adaptation of nostalgia.

The keep calm poster is an example of nostalgia within British culture and how it has been reused for it's original purpose in market crashes.

In psychology we usually amend our memories to make ourselves seem superior.

Nostalgia is very prevalent in political policies.

Svetlana Boym, theorist who wrote 'the future of nostalgia' "nostalgia is a longing for a place, but actually it is a yearning for a different time". I disagree with this statement, as I find the euphoria comes from the place entirely, and it can be recreated with the correct conditions in my own experience.

Hauntology: as much about our relationship with the past. A binding of memories to your present self.

David Lowery's 'A ghost Story' has a good example, focusing on ideas of being and memories.

Personally disagree with 'stranger things' being hauntological and more nostalgic, as the time period is extremely fetishised. It preys on general audiences yearning for the past, that they have some semblance of control over in their mind; perhaps offering comfort, or peace of mind.

Hauntology has a more theoretical angle, rather then deconstructing the past it focuses on the pasts effect on the present.

Jacques Derrida "it incorporates the notion of non-origin in which the present is neither present nor past".

Jonas Mekas - Lithuanian American filmmaker, who believes a merging of the past and present (hauntology) is beneficial in film works, as its unclear where any piece of life goes together. In a sense, there is order in disorder.

Mark Fisher on electronic music believes that the genre no longer sounds like it has a sense of the future. "Anything recorded I the 2000's could have been recorded in the 1990's.

Sounds that once had a sense of the future now have a sense of the past (seen within synth music and such).

Mark Fisher’s Belief that electronic music sounds less of the future now then it once did, is very reminiscent of what we now consider genres such as ‘synth wave’, which focuses on retro themes, much unlike electronic music’s intended purpose. This has inspired the development of my own scores within screencraft, as our aestheticism is one of the 60′s. that coupled with the genre of sci-fi makes synthesised music a perfect reference for creating my own music for the film. At first I began looking at genre’s like ‘dream wave’, since our film has a light-hearted tone, and the euphoric nostalgic tone of the genre would work well. During production I decided not to use this, as a sense of euphoria was already apparent in the visuals and sound design, therefore music of this calibre would be wasted. 

Piece inspired by dream wave, specifically the work of  Kenji Yamamoto in ‘Metroid’

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gPdpLFvNVroa1mB8Uz__pViz3W7ZjqG7

This piece went unused as the film already touches on its nostalgic, euphoric feeling, stemming from the enthralling, yet familiar nature of video game music. Furthermore the dramatic nature of the synth choir and the drastic melodies is out of place in the world of the film (as mentioned from peer feedback). 

Electronic theme:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rsXRmoOFE0rhTBADhz9eLXywtyg5ENY1

The sense of nostalgia in this piece is apparent in its wispy, ethereal tone. Furthermore the simplicity and lack of layers makes it seem more familiar, like most traditional sci-fi soundtracks. I also find that the electronic sounds I produced are also reminiscent of the past, relating back to its nostalgic aura and Mark Fisher’s beliefs. 

This piece we decided to use in the final film, however peer feedback deduced that at times it could seem quite sinister, so some amendments are still required, however I am much more content with the feeling this piece produces, rather than the others. 

Hauntology and Nostalgia Cont-

Concept of future nostalgia: Present in Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’, since you are not; as a viewer nostalgic for the beginning, since it’s quite dowry, instead you are nostalgic for the scenes or the end of the story, shown before the end. 

Term nostalgia coined by Roman soldiers, when they were sent to new lands and found a longing for home. Research has shown it’s not just a yearning for home, but a romanticised past.

British propaganda is not shy on this topic, i.e. Take back control, send them back, all past pronouns. 

Examples of nostalgia and hauntology in film disciplines.

We still shoot on film, which is inherently a nostalgic medium, however in a lot of instances it’s used to idolise a period of the past, since it’s iconographic of the historical context.

Forming an argument for non-nostalgia.  

Film is more a portrayal than a romanticism. Just because it’s being shown dosen’t mean it’s good.

Sometimes used for homage, you may not miss it, but enjoy it. Film more relevant to hauntology.

Film being nostalgic implies anything of the past is nostalgic.

Currently there is a choice of digital too, which is much more accessible, demonstrating a lack of demand for an ode to the past.

Hauntology Cont:

Technological determination: belief in future technology solving modern problems I.E. the common consensus on climate change.

The return of vinyl records, craving the return of imperfections, despite past technologies attempts to remove them.

Animorphic lens, similar to fish eye, makes images pop out, but blurs the edges. "Ultra close up lens". Used in 'John Wick' to capture action at a mid range with a close up effect. (For practical reference).

Hauntology is idealised by ghosts, something that can have an impact from the past. It's more of a practical response then nostalgia, since it discusses how something has influenced someone, not the act itself.

Derrida is a very iconic theorist amongst academics, due to his work on hauntology. Later in life he discusses social issues around christmas, and ethics of animals and consumption. Most known for post-structualism. Looking at a wider sense of social life and challenging its structures. 'Spectres of Marx' is his most accomplished publication, being made after the loss of his friend. One sentence is mentioned about hauntology, but mainly focuses on mourning, especially in 'Hamlet' misquoting "time is out of joint." The period of mourning is what created the ghost, time is our own application, and anything that comes from it is from deep within man.

"Film is a time based media", we can capture a moment in time for whatever need. Ghosts create a problematic issue in the timeline, it portrays the past through the filmmaker, for a medium bein used in the future.

Films including a dead cast or crew, are momentarily revived in that moment of time while watching.

Hauntology is a play on ontology, the study of being (referenced in 'me, myself and I' blog).

Epistemology, related moreso to our knowledge and what is learned. Considering how a child would be sired. That act of consideration and tension.

When co-prescence is removed, a phantom is replaced. Communication is done indirectly, therefore as a ghost.

[toomanyskeletons]

do all the oc asks ALL of them for AT LEAST two of your ocs (evil laughter)

“evil”

you act as if talking extensively about my ocs does not bring me joy (i’ll only do two probably bc i do have some asks from other people so i’ll have to do those with other ocs, and i’ll try to stick to the same two for the most part.

or three. maybe three.)

anyway let’s begin

1. if they had a tumblr, what would they post about?

Sam: hmm i think probably some blog like. Mostly trans positivity posts with scattered posts abt how much she loves her gf

Amelia: considering her popularity status she’d run some blog like. U kno the blogs tumblr celebrities run i guess? So like. Reblogging a few general funny posts and answering select asks while getting like 200 every day.

 2. what’s their favourite colour?

 Sam: she likes blue :o like. Light blues. Also she keeps her hair dyed light blue as well

Amelia: purple. Honestly idk much more i can say about this.

 3. What makes them laugh?

 Sam: shitty puns and memes, mostly. The type of person who laughs out loud when u just say ‘egg’. She’s probably still into ‘xD tacos’ random humour.

Amelia: the polar opposite of sam in this regard. Laughs at intellectual humor. Like. rich fancy people. I know it exists but i cant think of any specific examples. Politely laughs at things people say are funny but she does not find them actually funny.

 4. If they had one day left to live, how would they spend it?

 Sam: “lmao dw i’ll probably just go to hell anyway” wait no context is important. She’s like. Actually how do i make this not sound bad rip. Uh. basically she is a business partner of lucifer who is actually p chill but that’s another story

Anyway that means like. If she dies she’ll probably just come back as a ghost or a higher tier demon.

O fuk now i really wanna draw that

Amelia: panicking and trying to find a way to not die. She had things she wants to do and a public record to maintain and jeez  i just realised how much ames has changed compared the the first universe she was in. i mean YEAH completely different life experiences but rip

 5. Do they have any annoying habits?

 -this is really subjective bc of what different people consider annoying but

Sam: people say she laughs too much. That is not her annoying habit is, her annoying habit is tellling lucifer when people say that so lucifer can like. Ban them from reincarnation or put a curse on them or something like that. Also sometimes when she cant be bothered to go that extra step she might go into the past and become that person’s grandmother.

...that second one isnt really an annoying habit to most people but to the one guy who has to help keep control of time, it is a very annoying habit and what makes up like half of his job doings.

 Amelia: sometimes goes very over the top with things. One time she stole a magic book by becoming a security guard at the place where it was kept and then took the book and ran. So like, instead of doing things illegally, she did it also illegally and got a month’s pay from it as well.

I guess she’s like. Extra™

 6. What’s their favourite movie genre?

I s2fg i have mentioned this sometime in one of the long texts i have written involving these characters but i cant remember so

Sam: tbh probably more realistic/contemporary stuff, rom-coms, slice of life, coming of age etc. Like. her life is a science fiction/fantasy movie she’s a time traveler working with the dark lord lucifer ffs. Also she’d probably get annoyed on tiny details while watching historical stuff like

“That never happened”

“Sam it’s fiction, it’s a movie, how would they have known that”

“Well maybe they didn’t know it but it’s still fucking annoying”

 Amelia: probably similar to sam, her life is fuckin busy and always people and she’s famous so like. Escape from her life is to indulge in the normal things.

 Just as a side note this does take place in a modern-ish fantasy world so idk what fantasy movies would be considered there but. They exist. I’ll work this out sooner or later

 Also bonus character bc its fucking funny - Zeph: zephyr likes horror movies. She also likes to watch horror movies with her brother. Her brother does not share her same passion for horror movies. He has a certain threshold before he has to flee the room and cuddle someone. This is mostly why zeph likes horror movies. She is pretty picky with what she considers ‘good’ and spends most of her time making fun of horror movies.

And, like the rest of us, secretly freaks out when she is alone at night and hears a sound outside. But for significantly less long because she knows exactly how to make fun of it.

 7. What are their religious beliefs?

 Alright i might not (read: will not currently) answer this bc i’m still working out how to handle religion in this, bc basically there is historical evidence for how the world was created. But obviously that’s not the only component to religion?

Another point would be that actually i still havent got around to creating any religions yet.i still gotta get around to getting down a more detailed history of the world first but i am planning it

 8. What’s their current job (if they have one)?

Yes BITCH i have been WAITIGN for a question like this

 Sam: basically she made a deal with lucifer and runs many errands for them. But also they helped her a LOT when they helped her escape a shitty transphobic environment and also the two became best friends? So i mean she doesn’t get paid but that takes up a lot of her time

Also she, at one stage, becomes part of this thing called the council which i haven’t quite worked out how they work in this universe yet. Theyre a bunch of strong magic people who work in coordination with the Champion (more on this below) to put down rules about magic. Theyre a reused concept from this story i made when i was like. 10. So the idea does need some reworking.

 Amelia: amelia is the champion, which is basically the title given to the person who wins at a big magic competition. Its a p big job, lots of publicity and pr and often regretted by the people who do end up getting there

(like? This one guy? He was kinda like “oh yeah sounds fun” and then he fucking won and he was like “lmao i’ll lose next year” and then he kept the position for 7 years and after that got so fucking sick of it he faked his assassination and became a reclusive mysterious millionaire)

Anyway she enjoys it for the first while until there is a real threat of her being assassinated unlike the aforementioned dude

But she enjoys being around people to an extent, and like. She enjoys making people happy, so

 9. How do they react to confrontation?

 Sam: similar way to what i described before. Like. jsut the little things. Cursing them with the help of lucifer, becoming their grandmother, you know. The usual ways people deal with confrontation.

Amelia: curiosity, further questioning, keeping calm, kinda just. Being chill about it. She wants to make herself a better person, in general, and if someone is deliberately being a confrontational asshole she prefers to just state her point calmly.

 10. Do they have a criminal record?

 Sam: you know? Probably? She kills a bunch of assholes where it’s required, but also she legally doesn’t exist? So? Idk? She’s been arrested a few times, but considering there is no information on her existence at all-

*shrugs* idfk how the law works.

 Amelia: well, technically, no, she only did illegal things last universe and had a pretty fancy upbringing this universe, so there was no reason for her to do the illegals and also like. Public image and stuff. She worries a lot about public image.

 11. What’s their favourite plant?

 Another thing which i feel i have mentioned somewhere but idfk where

 Sam: likes hydrangeas. They’re pretty.

Amelia: can i just say. It is definitely not catnip. Actually. Maybe? Like. she had some pretty fuckin negative experiences with catnip where she destroyed reality for like a solid five seconds by accident and went to purgatory, but also she made two life friends out of it, so? Maybe catnip after all.

 12. Can they play any instruments?

 Sam: “does the kazoo count”

Amelia: nope

 But because this was boring, i’m going to do a special guest feature from her half brother ryan who is a semi-popular youtube vlogger/musician-y dude. or . whatever this world’s equivalent of youtube is. Uh. metube. Yotube. I’ll think about it.

 Ryan: he plays the guitar and sings and he’s damn fucking good at it and he knows it. Also he shares the same combination of forgetting how to outlet his anger in healthy ways + poor impulse control which means that about once every six months he has to buy a new guitar because he couldn’t get that song right and he hit the guitar against the floor.

(his dad is a writer and also an archangel,and one time he couldn’t work out how to start off a scene right so he exploded his laptop and had to use a typewriter for the four weeks while his other archangel buddy was fixing it - i’m getting off topic here)

 13. What are they proudest of?

 Sam: i guess just. Her life in general? Like. she’s survived up to this point, she’s doin shit, maybe not the shit she expected to be doing or the shit she imagined she’d be doing but she’s still doin it. Like. fuck you life. I survived. And she’s proud of that.

Amelia: that one time when she managed to keep her champion title the first time? And also when she made friends with the guy who she thought was a girl and also dead who turned out to be not a girl and alive and also was the champion for seven years rememebr that guy yeah that’s this guy. Anyway she made friends with him after settling some differences. And also when she stopped a whole organisation from murdering her yeah that was good too.

 14. What’s their biggest insecurity?

 Sam: okay this is Definitely Not Me Projecting here (hint: it’s me projecting) but she hates being seen as masculine at all and is very insecure when people refer to her or see her as masculine? Like if u call her butch She Will Cry and also why would you do that bc her and her girlfriend are femme as heck

Amelia: public image public image public image public image

Like. she doesn’t want to look bad, or like a bad public leader, but also, she just wants to do her own thing, u kno?

 15. What do they most often dream about?

Like. literally dream or daydream?

 Sam: probably. Mostly happy stuff. Plus random occasional vivid recollections of tramatic experiences.

Amelia: honestly who the fuck knows (i’d answer this properly but I am Almost Out O f Time)

 So yes almost out of time but thank you so much and doing this has inspired me to just completely rework my first book to make it more interesting

I know that sounds bad btu its not i promise i love oyu

(also there was a bunch of different formatting like italcs etc that was lost when icopied from here to docs sorry)

[satelliteofmstielove]

K16 City on Fire

                                                    Roasted turkey

General notes

         …So. Hey. Remember when I used to make these, like, a long time ago? It’s been over a year since I worked on the guide, for various reasons involving school and reboot junk and other stuff, but mostly school and reboot junk. I won’t go into details because who cares. Let’s just move on and watch an episode of MST3K.

          This episode features a little more fan club talk, and not much else worth noting here. Let’s get to the watching. Guess who finally learned how to embed hyperlinks? Onward!

PS note: This movie contains quite a bit of unpleasant imagery, including a lot of people getting burnt throughout, a couple of distressed/dead animals, and a short surgery scene which begins about 1:17:30. Just thought I’d note it here for people who’d want to be warned.

Prologue

The Mads get a letter from the Mad Scientists League, an organization that will crop up in one form or another in various episodes down the line, such as Mitchell [512] and Girl in Gold Boots [1002]. Sometimes it’s called something different, but the idea is the same. Here, as in later mentions, they’re not really sure if the Mads’ brand of evil is really mad or scientific enough to qualify as mad science.

The official unofficial episode guide on Satellite News says that the comment Larry makes about Ken Keller has something do with a local university president, I think. I read it a long time ago and don’t really remember. I tried to go back and verify, but uh, I can’t get www.mst3kinfo.com to work for me. Is that just me or are other people having that problem? Did something happen to it that I haven’t heard about? (I haven’t been very active in the fandom for, like, more than a year, so I’m a little out of the loop about a lot of stuff.)

What kind of job do you think Larry had at the Pentagon? Do you think the “worked for two weeks, paid for two years” thing was actually part of the gig, or something he engineered for himself? Questions for the ages.

Apparently now the Mads get all of their research money from the MSL. I wonder what happened to all the money Clay won in Vegas a few episodes back. Guess they blew it all on who-knows-what already, which would not be surprising. Is Gizmonics as a whole funded by the MSL? In a previous episode, it sounded like the Mads had to meet some kind of standard for Gizmonics in order to work there, so maybe that’s related to the…look, I know it doesn’t matter, and the guys didn’t think any of this through when they made it up. They just threw it together 45 minutes before they taped the episode, not worrying how it fit together in the world. Which is totally fine. I just like to see if I can make it make sense, despite that. Coherence is not required in the MST universe, but it’s kind of amusing when you find it. At least to me.

Sounds like Larry’s already kinda bored with the “worst movie ever” experiment. I think Joel and the bots might be on the same page.

Uh, is Gizmonics not considered the private sector? Do they have government funding? If so, how the heck do they swing that? I realize the pork goes pretty far in this country, but thinly-veiled mad science seems like it would be pushing even that. They must have some kind of in with a senator or something. Maybe one is a Gizmonics alumni- politics would be a nice place to continue practicing evil.

Fruit inspection is apparently their only other option for a job. Ouch.

Clay, at least, seems to think the MSL doesn’t consider them mad enough because their experiment is too cutesy. I wonder if that’s what it said in the report. Personally, I wouldn’t really consider their movie selection cute, but I guess in comparison to the truly grade Z garbage that would come later, like Manos or Red Zone Cuba, I can see what they mean.

Huh, it heads straight into the movie without showing the S.O.L. first, without even the doorway sequence. I don’t think that’s happened before.

Movie pt. 1

Am I crazy, or do the theater seats look extra tiny and crowded together this time?

I like Servo’s wrestling-announcer-style reading of the title card at 3:58.

At 6:02- I can’t be the only one who automatically responds “McCloud.”

Crow sounds concerned about the smoothie (or whatever that’s supposed to be) at 6:30. He also mentions the many camera edits. Why does that scene have so many of those?

Josh interrupts Joel again at 6:56. I haven’t been keeping a count, but that’s gotta be at least 6 or 7 times over the course of the series.

At 14: 39, TV23 shows the time and temperature. Is that 6:15 AM or PM? Based on the 32° temperature, I’d guess morning, assuming this aired in March or April.

A transcript of the French that begins at 15:23, at least as well as my two years of high school French can tell: “Monsieur Pierre. Pas maintenant. Non, uh, après le mois demain à trois heures. Non, something something. Something bien something? Au revoir.”, which translates to “Mr. Pierre. Not now. No, uh, after the month, tomorrow at 3 o’clock. No, something something. Something good something? Goodbye.” You guys probably understood most of that without help, but still, there it is. (The après le mois could have actually been rapidement, meaning quickly, but I thought the former made slightly more sense in context. Or not. I don’t know, really.)

At 17:46, Tom mentions nude Shelley Winters photos in Joel’s room, and Joel shushes him. Sounds like maybe he has something to hide.

Joel and the bots keep predicting that maintenance guy will turn out to be a psycho. I can’t remember if they were reviewing part of the movies before using them by this point in the show’s run or not. They might have seen farther into the movie previously and know what’s going to happen. Let’s watch.

Man, it’s like 20 minutes into the movie and they’re still introducing whole new swaths of characters. Were people supposed to take notes while watching? Also, seriously? The city on fire is on fire because some dumb kids threw a cigarette? That’s…kinda disappointing. I was sort of hoping for gigantic explosion, and I’m not even usually a gigantic explosion kind of person.

Crow’s distressed about Mickey Mouse burning to death at 20:54.

Crow comment at 21:07 about same movies kinda sums up my feelings, as well.

The boys do a classic Lassie type sketch at 22:00.

There’s another interruption problem at 22:43, this time with Joel interrupting Josh. Afterwards, he asks Josh what he was going to say, and then says he was glad he interrupted him once he hears the riff. Burn. Crow/Trace even comments on it.

Uh, the boy in the striped shirt, Gerald or whatever his name is…to quote the Star Wars: Episode 1 RiffTrax, is it okay to say this kid sucks?

Crow thinks the movie is getting too scary as they leave the theater. He used to be quite a bit more sensitive early on, didn’t he? He still had his moments later in the series, though, like in Being from Another Planet [405] when he’s afraid of the basement.

Host Segment 1

The bots are doing something potentially suspicious with a telescope as we enter the bridge.

Joel brings up their supplies, saying somebody’s been overusing the oil. I don’t want to point fingers, but I’d guess it was Tom, seems like something he’d do. Then again, Crow has said in the past that WD-40 was his favorite lubricant, so maybe…

The bots aren’t listening to him, though- they’re trying to get their prank going. It’s surprising that Joel still falls for some of these by now, but I guess he’s not known for being really aware of his surroundings.

Servo was definitely the less innocent one if the first couple of seasons of the show. Crow had moments but Tom made his babe obsession a part of his personality.

Joel not only falls for the telescope eye ring prank, he rubs his eye all over it to be sure it gets on there really well. I’m sure they had to do that for the episode to make sure you could see it on camera, but it makes Joel look like he doesn’t know how to use a telescope. Maybe it’s just a weird telescope.

One thing I always liked about the bots- especially in the first few seasons but really throughout the show’s run- is how they don’t know so many basic things but still know details about, for instance, 1960s ad campaigns for cigarettes. It gives the impression that they have random parts of encyclopedias in their memory banks, which is probably true. I always felt like Joel probably dumped as much info as he could think of into the bots when he built them, but he couldn’t think of everything important at once, so they’ve got big holes in their knowledge base. For the purpose Joel built them for, it makes sense and works pretty well.

Poor Joel. He’s not the butt of the joke that often, at least not without getting back in some way.

Movie pt. 2

Crow’s confused at first by Joel’s comment about cattiness at 32:39.

At 37:55, Joel starts talking about seeing Orville Redenbacher get into a fistfight with his nephew at a party. I have no idea if this is true (though I doubt it) but maybe that eventually became the inspiration for the Orville Popcorn sketch in Godzilla vs. Megalon [212]. Odd how a weird little idea like that could stick around for so long.

Hm, I guess I did get my gigantic explosion after all. But somehow it still doesn’t fill the gaps in my heart…Actually that was really horrific. Geez.

Not important, but does anyone else think the psycho guy looks kinda like Peter Davison?

Joel laugh at 44:47, and a pretty enthusiastic one.

Huh, that movie section was unusually short.

Host Segment 2

Joel’s got an invention, which may have been inspired by the movie- Hell in a Handbag. This one, like many KTMA era inventions, will be reused in Season 1, in The Mad Monster [103].

Servo is not impressed by Crow’s flirting techniques with pretending-to-be-a-woman Joel and demonstrates his own. What is it with him and mangoes?

Joel got really into his part there for a second. Maybe he should have been in drag more often on the show, since, like, everyone else was. Actually maybe that was just all Mike.

Why would Joel program a thug algorithm into the bots? When did he ever think he’d need that? Maybe that explains what happens at the pinball machine in The Girl in Lovers Lane [509]. Also, I like how they can apparently just rummage through their own programming and find old stuff. Cool.

Joel seems to find the bots’ thug mode pretty funny. Maybe that’s why he programmed it into them.

Crow’s scared of the Hell-in-a-Handbag. Poor baby hahah. The way Joel grabs his neck affectionately afterwards is really cute, though. Joel says it was all in retaliation for the telescope prank earlier, but Servo didn’t seem phased, so really only Crow got punished. Crow’s also the only one who apologizes. Crow is always cute, but he’s extra cute in these old episodes. I just really love Crow, you guys.

Movie pt. 3

It’s called the Manson Refinery? That’s fitting, I suppose, with all the people it’s killed.

Crow falls right over backwards at 53:58. He and then Servo say they feel woozy. Understandable given the content of the scene. Ugh. But in reality, Trace was probably having trouble with the puppet. He has said in interviews that the KTMA Crow handled “like a T-square.”

At 56:18, Tom calls someone onscreen a “boinkus”? Doinkus, maybe?

Geez, nobody in this entire city has heard of stop, drop, and roll.

Host Segment 3

Joel and the bots do a little march/call and response thing. They’re having a little bit of trouble staying on beat, though (and on pitch). I like the song, though.

Joel’s jumpsuit is pretty fitted in the butt area. Just in case, you know, you were interested in knowing that.

They run down the hall with Cambot at Movie Sign. I’ve already forgotten if they’ve done that before in KTMA (that’s what happens when you go a year without working on your episode guide). They did it once or twice in the show proper, though not with the bots.

Movie pt. 4

Wow, seriously? First all the burning people, now surgery close-ups? How much pointlessly gross stuff is this movie going to include?

Also, dead bird shot, just to be sure everyone is sad. Why didn’t that kid just let the bird OUT OF THE CAGE? It can fly! That would at least give it a better chance.

And now the psycho’s comeuppance is getting anti-climatically crushed by a falling fire escape, and Shelley Winters dies too for no good reason? I haven’t even had anything to say about the riffers during this segment because stupid crap keeps happening in this movie.

Tom comments on how they killed off Shelley Winters in a stupid way, but the doctor guy somehow survives all the fire. I agree. This movie is stupid.

That’s the ending? THAT’S THE ENDING? Sappy music and romance and whatever, the city was on fire but hey it got put out (OFFSCREEN) so it’s all fine? Who cares about the thousands of victims and the millions in property damage? Not us, we’re kissing! Wow. Thanks for that, movie.

Crow gets excited about the name “McCrow” in the end credits at 1:37:22.

At 1:38:00, Servo begs to leave. At first Crow says they need to stay for the credits, but then agrees that they should go.

Servo also says goodbye to the audience as he leaves the theater.

Conclusion

Gypsy’s on deck for this segment, and Joel asks her where she’s been. Apparently “bumping into newsletters”. I wonder if she’s the one who printed them off.

Looks like back then you got a certificate for joining the fan club. I wonder if anyone out there still has theirs. Probably at least a few do.

I like Gypsy’s “ooh, aah” at the fan club membership card.

Crow tells the fans to keep more drawings coming. I guess he likes those.

Mr. Crow of Beverly Hills is still credited with the hair designs for the show.

Thoughts on the Movie

          A more accurate name for this movie would be Oil Refinery and Area Around a Hospital on Fire, since most of the city is never actually on fire. Not that I’d want to see it, but with a title like City on Fire you kind of expect to see a whole city on fire. All I’m saying is our expectations were mismanaged. Also, what was the point of burning the house earlier in the movie? Just to give us a fake-out? “Hah, you thought the fire was going to be earlier in the movie but instead, it was later in the movie!” You really got us there, guys.

          But jokes asides, this film mostly disgusted me. Does anyone want to watch long sequences of people getting burned alive? Do they like watching people endure terror and pain? It could be the filmmakers were just trying to underscore the dire situation, but it seems more like a sick fascination with showing suffering and death. I guess that’s common in movies and TV, in various forms, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. I talked about this a little in the entry for SST: Death Flight [K13], but it applies here again- pointless destruction of things and lives just doesn’t make good entertainment for me. Maybe a good disaster movie is about people overcoming and surviving in the face of horrible circumstances outside of their control. Certainly that’s not the case here. This movie becomes more a parade of lurid and gruesome imagery than anything else. No thank you. I guess maybe that’s why it wasn’t successful, hm.

          On a lighter note of criticism, did every friggin’ TV movie in the ‘70s have to be about 800 different people? Seriously, that’s SST: Death Flight, Superdome, San Francisco International, this movie- ok, I guess Stranded in Space wasn’t. Or Code Name Diamond Head. Or Mitchell. But those are sci-fi, spy, and cop movies, respectively, while the others are disaster/action/um, airport genre. Whatever. Point is, you do not need 437 different protagonists. Stop putting in 437 different protagonists.

          There’s not much else to say about this movie, I guess. The plot starts out confusing but converges and becomes somewhat less so as it goes along (though that's partially because several plot threads just drop off the map). Most of the acting is decent, some of the characters actually seem kind of interesting. Not every part of it sucks. Unfortunately, any of that mildly good stuff is buried in a pile of rubble and burnt bodies.

Review

          Despite my distaste for the movie, this was a funny episode. I laughed out loud many times and had a hard time picking a favorite riff (though I did pick one- Crow: That’ll wake the dog up.) The guys are really starting to get good at this. Even with the slower pace of the improv riffing, it doesn’t really feel empty like some of the older eps do. That may have something to do with a more action-filled movie, too, but the jokes are definitely improving. While the movie is not as watchable, funny-wise I’d call this as good an episode as SST: Death Flight, which I previously called the best KTMA ep. Nice job, guys.