#and then I tried to involve all the main players of the film

[hannahwatcheshorror]

SAW III (2006)

This film starts directly where the last movie left off, we hear Amanda’s echoing “game over” and Donnie Wahlberg is trapped on the floor in the kill room from the first film. This SAW makes me squirm. After years of watching horror films to numb my squeamishness the first two scenes of this movie had me so incredibly uncomfortable even while rewatching I decided to pause the movie to work on my review. One of the more twisty SAW movies but certainly a good one or at least an interesting addition. 

⭐⭐⭐.5

I mentioned before that this particular SAW makes me squirm and I think it is the classroom chain scene that really did me in but Donnie-boy bashing up his foot with the toilet didn’t make me feel great either (this isn’t a great day for feet, I just saw MISERY). Having just watched the offensive scene I find that there is no way I can rest my body that feels comfortable anymore, I feel like I have hooks in me now and it is gross (cause even the next trap involves hooks in the ribs, yucky).

While our little hamster goes around in the maze trying to figure out all the traps that are related to him and his dead son, Jigsaw John and Amanda have kidnapped a surgeon to work on his tumor brain and that is all sorts of out of hand. Our hamster guy absolutely did NOT try to save the lady in the ice room, he dicked around until she was completely frozen and then thought, “Welp, better go get that key I need to progress anyway!” When I watched before I thought he tried to save her but he absolutely did not, I know it’s supposed to be poetic justice since she didn’t do anything to help save his son but it was just very lame here (what were they gonna do, though, have a naked lady running around with him all film?).

Our main guy again waits around while the next victim, a judge, has to endure (fresh) rotten pig juice being slammed into his face. It is so gnarly and maggoty. This time our boy acts just quick enough to get the judge out of the sluice in time. Oh, and HOW could I forget the open brain surgery in a dirty room when the surgeon has an explosive device locked on her neck? My heart is in my stomach which is in my throat. This may have a bad rating with those tomato people but I get such a visceral reaction from this movie that something has to be said.

Ugh, then our main guy continues his inaction and gets the judge and his son's killer killed. He is really a very useless fellow, he couldn’t even be nice to his daughter in the beginning of the movie! The first time he has any real action is when he shoots Amanda for shooting his wife and then when he is ignoring his wife and he goes ahead and murders John which sets off his wife's collar and kills her.

It was bonkers twisty at the end and it turned out the reason why so many of the traps didn’t have clear paths out was because Amanda set them and she is just a plain old murderer whereas Jigsaw is a sophisticated player of games. Also this whole trap was a game for Amanda to test if she could be the new Jigsaw which, spoiler alert, she cannot be. She is too emotional and is a killer and that is no good for John-o. The movie ends with only the main guy alive and we find out that John has his daughter locked up somewhere but, since John is gone, we will never know where she is.

[notlushi]

Same anon with the same mealworms thank you for answering with so much info, yess ramble please! And since you’re taking questions, imma lay out all the questions in my brain rn. 

(I’m taking into count the character descriptions, the comics, and the two influencing AUs of Freakshow and Carnival) 

Is there some motivation behind the productions other than the already stated purpose of Gangle’s creative expression and amusement? Like are these being created for an outside audience that’s clueless of the truth (like Freakshow) or something else? 

Who is tip and rule??? I get they’re the comedy and tragedy masks, but are they Ais as well, the angel and devil on Gangle’s metaphorical shoulders? Do they only chill in gangle’s room or can they move? I suppose we’ll get more info on them in due time. 

Is Gangle sentient? since you say she is capable of experiencing human emotion and some what in understanding others emotions just that she’s not aware of how her actions will affect others. 

Soo where do the disembodied ribbons that dragged Jax off even come from? I suppose they just spawn. (I have a small head cannon that they no-clip from the walls, Gangle just has hundreds of ribbons inside the walls, ceilings and under the floor. They just shift and rithe in the walls, in complete silence the actors just hear the walls “breathing” but is just the hundreds of ribbons shifting. An ever present reminder that the director could just grab them off at a moment’s notice. Idk why just horrified myself thinking about that.) 

Do the actors work every day or do they have break days? Like the weekends or are work regulations nonexistent? 

Is death painful? Can the actors feel pain? We know there’s blood but do they also have guts and stuff (like freakshow)? Is it realistic how death works in this world, like would a bullet to the shoulder only injure while one to the heart kill? 

Can the actors fight back against Gangle (it’s probably a Herculean task but is it possible)? Can her ribbons be cut? Has  anyone ever tried to fight her? 

What range of punishments are even dished out and how often. I recon that backstage is the worst. Or at least that’s the illusion she’s probably trying to create but putting such mystery around it. Knowing the influences of this AU definitely something with murder or torture. 

You mentioned that gangle even creates Adventures, are those just more areas for filming or are they actually adventures that Gangle creates to build team cohesion or something? 

Is Gangle capable of puppeteering in this AU or is her control more so over the world? Would she do that if someone’s acting was bad or not exactly what she wanted or would she just scream and punish them? 

Are the productions all professional or can they get a bit silly? (Fanfic-y like carnival) 

Are the exit finding trio the main ones you’ll be focusing the story around? 

Wtf is bubble??? (I refuse to believe he is human he has to be an npc that they keep around or something, I’m so with Caine here. That thing freaks me out) 

Can humans have other roles of productions as well? Are there only actors or can there be mainly maintenance players? Or do the actors not involved in a project work as that? 

ABSTRACTION, so are there still abstractions/abstracted characters in this AU? What does Gangle do with them? They don’t seem to have been mentioned at all and the doors don’t have any indication of them. Kaufmo is still here, although still insane but not horrible to be around. I wonder if he’s not gone just cus of the existence of Caine to share ideas with. Kaufmo’s entry also says he saw exits exists, so Gangle did the Caine thing from the pilot or is it something completely different? 

Is there a lore reason Jax face ugly?/j 

Can we make/ put ocs in your AU? Tagging you fine? (Probably not gonna need this but it’s good to know boundaries) 

So what does it take to give and/or receive a hug from each of these fools??? (I just need to know- I need to know [and I feel it would tell more about their characters]) 

Anyways so that’s yeah. I’m genuinely truly sorry for this, I won’t be bothering you again- (I was not kidding about the worms) 

Just remember take your time, don’t stress yourself and most importantly have fun. And thank you for making this fun AU!

1. So the actors don’t go insane as well as entertainment for everyone.

2. They are like the bubble in this world but way more useful they give advice as well as orders. Kind of like 2 little henchmen. They float around where ever they want but mostly stick to gangles side.

3. Gangle is sentient.

4. They no-clip or spawn out of thin air, mostly just fade through the walls or floor.

5. The actors have breaks occasionally.

6. Death can be painful depending on how you die but it is not as painful as if they were in the real world. When respawning they do feel light headed and numb. Pain and death is a lot less painful in the digital Theater.

7. They can but best not too. You can cutting off Gangles ribbons but it will just respawn as if it was never gone.

8. Backstage is the worst punishment since anything can happen back there and the least is service such as cleaning.

9. Adventure always gets recorded. Kind of like the show “wipe out” but instead it’s gangles wacky ideas.

10. Gangle can puppeteer but is usually on mannikins or npcs. When gangle puppeteers an actor is usually for a twisted joke like “oh I’m jax and I do nothing alllllllll day!”

11. It’s the Amazing Digital Theater! If you blink in a middle of a serious scene a giant duck can show in the middle of the set!

12. Everyone will have a time to shine!

13. Bubble is bubble.

14. The actors can be in any type of production as long as they behave.

15. Abstractions still exist and they all go to the cellar.

16. Yes.

17. OMG YESSSS

18. Ragatha is your best is safest option when asking for a hug. She gives the best hugs too. Kinger just won’t hug you back. Caine will feel a bit disgusted. Bubble will just pop. Kaufmo and Pomni are too paranoid for hugs. Zooble “no”. Gangle will squeeze you too hard. Jax will literally back stab you.

I love answering these questions so much

[radondoran]

Happy birthday to my favorite radio actor, Larry Dobkin (September 16, 1919 – October 28, 2002)!

Character actor Lawrence Dobkin was a frequent supporting player in radio, with hundreds of credits across dozens of different programs. He appeared in over 170 episodes of Gunsmoke, playing all kinds of characters from gunmen to gentlemen. Other shows where he was often heard include Escape; Romance; Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar; The Whistler; Let George Do It; Frontier Gentleman; Fort Laramie; Have Gun, Will Travel; NBC University Theatre; etc.

Larry Dobkin's only leading role in a radio series was the title sleuth in Ellery Queen from February 1947 to April 1948—and even there he wasn't exactly a headliner, because, in keeping with the pseudonymous source material, the show tended to be coy about identifying the actors who played Ellery. You might recognize him as Lieutenant Matthews on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, the first of three main Archie Goodwins on The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, Dave on The Man From Homicide, or Pat McCracken (usually) on Johnny Dollar—and if you ask me, his most memorable and lovable radio character was Louie, the Brooklyn cabbie who sometimes played sidekick to Vincent Price on The Adventures of the Saint.

A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Dobkin also played numerous roles on stage, film and television, and later did writing and directing work for television.

Here are a few of my favorite radio episodes featuring Larry Dobkin:

Ellery Queen 1947-12-04 "Man in the Street": A swindler is murdered before Inspector Queen and Ellery can put him in jail. Whodunit? There were only about ten thousand people with a motive!

The Saint 1950-11-19 "No Hiding Place": The Saint tries to help a young man who has escaped from prison after several attempts on his life. Who framed him, who's out to get him, and why? (Louie isn't in this episode as much as in some others, but the lines he does get include some of my favorite lines ever, and anyway I think it's one of the strongest episodes of the series.)

Escape 1949-07-07 "The Fourth Man": Dobkin narrates this classic story of three "civilized" men adrift on a raft in the tropics, battling thirst and one another while their "savage" pilot calmly sits by.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective 1949-07-09: An escaped convict, bent on revenge against Richard Diamond, kidnaps Diamond's girlfriend.

Philip Marlowe 1950-01-21 "The Bid for Freedom": A woman has escaped from an asylum, and now her husband is in danger. Or maybe it's not that simple.

Philip Marlowe 1950-07-28 "The Glass Donkey": Lieutenant Matthews calls to ask about a girl Marlowe used to date—a girl who's just been murdered. It's real personal as Marlowe offers his services to find out why a nice girl had to die.

Philip Marlowe 1951-08-18 "The Young Man's Fancy": There's no murder in this somewhat atypical Philip Marlowe episode by Kathleen Hite. Marlowe goes out for Moscow Mule ingredients, and gets involved in the family troubles of the nice old man from whom he buys his limes.

The Story of Dr. Kildare 1951-02-16: A madman with a gun is holed up inside a school building. Dr. Kildare goes in after him, while Dr. Gillespie scrambles to remotely diagnose a mental illness without ever talking to the patient.

Gunsmoke 1952-06-28 "The Ride Back": This recently rediscovered Gunsmoke episode is almost entirely a radio play for only two voices, as Marshall Dillon brings a twisted killer through hostile Indian country.

Gunsmoke 1952-08-02 "Renegade White": Matt goes after a white man who's been selling guns to Indians, and winds up a prisoner of the Indians himself.

Gunsmoke 1953-02-21 "Meshougah": Matt and Chester find a whole town held hostage by a crazed killer and his gang of outlaws.

Fort Laramie 1956-05-13 "War Correspondent": A smart newspaperman from the East tags along with Captain Quince, hoping to show the folks back home a fair picture of life on the frontier. He's got a lot to learn!

Fort Laramie 1956-06-03 "Don't Kick My Horse": One of Captain Quince's soldiers is a meek little man whose only friend is his horse. He's been in the cavalry ten years, and it's time for a new horse. Dude is not ready to accept this. Tragedy ensues.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar 1956-01-09 – 1956-01-13 "The Todd Matter": A tip on an old burglary leads Johnny into a very fresh shooting. Dobkin plays five roles in this story, and what always strikes me is that he doesn't do five radically different voices—he doesn't even change his accent very much! He just acts each character so completely that you're not even inclined to notice the actor.

Have Gun, Will Travel 1958-12-14 "The Outlaw": Paladin makes a deal with a convicted killer who wants to see his newborn son before being hanged.

Suspense 1954-07-27 "Destruction": "And it had a kind of warmth to it, this dying…" A strange, melancholy, poetic script by radio noir greats Fine and Friedkin, about a pathetic little man at the end of his rope.

[episodeoftv]

Prelims, Community

The top 2 results will move on to the main bracket

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

2.06 Epidemiology

The study group is left to fend for themselves by Dean Pelton during a rabies outbreak due to tainted food at Greendale's Halloween party.

Zombie apocalypse episode for a relatively not fantastical/scifi show, all set to ABBA's greatest hits playing in the background Also it's lowkey gay

2.23 & 2.24 A Fistful of Paintballs & For a Few Paintballs More

In a "spaghetti western" parody, Pierce tries to get revenge on the rest of the study group during this year's paintball tournament. / When the study group learns that there's a sinister plot behind the paintball tournament, they unite the remaining players to defeat the enemy.

community's paintball episodes are legendary by themselves, but i do feel like this one shows a lot of character development and a well thought out plot that involves every character and is still funny and easy enough to follow not to need a lot of concentration to watch it

3.04 Remedial Chaos Theory

At Abed and Troy's housewarming party, Jeff decides to let the decision on who gets the pizza rest on the roll of the dice, leaving Abed to contemplate six alternate realities.

Even if you have never seen the show, this episode HAS impacted you. It is the origin of the phrase “the Darkest Timeline” and is also where that gif of the guy (Troy) with pizza walking into a room that’s on fire/total chaos. As an episode, it is so unbelievably tightly written. Despite this being the fourth episode of the third season, if you watched this as your first ever episode of Community you would IMMEDIATELY get who all of these characters are. And not just that, but the group dynamic. It’s hilarious but also a great, well, “study” of the Study Group. Also the “what does a pregnancy test look like?” Joke is still one of the funniest/most clever things ever put to film.

This episode is such a banger no notes

Origin of this gif/meme also a great character and character relationships study

[adamwatchesmovies]

Dark Shadows (2012)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Dark Shadows shows promise at first, with tried-and-true but effective “fish out of water” humour. From there, the plot gets progressively unsure of where it wants to go, until it starts throwing stuff at the screen haphazardly. I don’t know if anyone could’ve salvaged a workable film from the woeful screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith but director Tim Burton doesn’t seem to be trying very hard.

In 1760, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) breaks the heart of his servant, Angelique (Eva Green). After she uses dark magic to kill Barnabas' fiancée (Bella Heathcote) she transform him into a vampire - so that he will outlive anyone he ever loves. Soon after, he is captured by villagers and buried "alive" in a coffin. Escaping from his prison in 1972, Barnabas finds his descendants in financial ruin, his beloved reincarnated as their new nanny (Bella Heathcote as Victoria), and Angelique still alive and still obsessed with him.

After the fact, it’s obvious Barnabas is the film’s main character. While watching, it isn’t so clear. You think Victoria will be a major player but she’s an afterthought with no personality. Most of the character feel like director Tim Burton self-indulging a little by tossing a bone to his favourite performers (Christopher Lee has a minor role which can’t have taken more than a day to shoot) or like inclusions put there just because they had an equivalent in the original 1966 television series. The film lasts nearly two hours. If you cut out Helena Bonham Carter as the Collins family doctor who does very little doctoring, the kinda-sorta misfit son David (Gully McGrath), his ne’er-do-well father (Johnny Lee Miller), the rebellious teenage daughter (Chloë Grace Moretz), the elderly maid (Ray Shirley) and the drunken groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley), you probably wouldn’t have more than 40-minutes’ worth of a movie. That’s not much but it’d be tighter, focussed and more enjoyable. None of these people have anything to do, and the less said about Alice Cooper’s cameo as himself, the better.

It feels like a bad soap opera that’s being made-up on the spot. Stuff just happens and sure, sometimes it’s funny but nothing’s building up to anything bigger. Now Dr. Hoffman is seducing Barnabas. Ok? Why? So we can cement that everyone finds Johnny Depp in vampire makeup irresistible? I guess that’s a thing but I don’t really get it.

Then, finally, a facsimile of a plot rears its ugly head. Ah! So the film is about Angelique and Barnabas’ rivalry. Wait. She waited 200 years for him to escape from the box she buried him in and in the meantime, she’s been using her fishing business to drive the Collins out of house and home? What a lame way to use your magic powers. It all builds to a lacklustre conclusion in which people are thrown around by magic. I think we’re supposed to feel upset about doomed romances and people caught between two irreconcilable worlds but so little time has been spent fleshing out the mushy stuff you just don’t care.

As an 18th-century vampire struggling to keep up with “modern” technology and sensibilities, Johnny Depp does well. He delivers all of the film’s best moments and yeah, some of it you’ve seen before but it’s still effective. The costumes, sets and art direction are also quite good so visually, Dark Shadows is pleasant to look at - especially when Eva Green is seducing Barnabas. Just about everything else is cringe-inducing and tone-deaf. Sexy as she may look, Green is terrible in this role and I can’t even blame her. No one shines thanks to the weak screenplay and scatterbrained direction torn between drama, horror and comedy. I nearly completely forgot about Michelle Pfeiffer, which is too bad because her character actually contributes something of value to the story.

The first time I saw Dark Shadows, I didn’t love it but found things to enjoy and gave it a mildly positive review. Re-examining it now, 3 stars seems way too generous. Although never awful, Dark Shadows doesn't give you many reasons to watch it. (April 5, 2019)

[siderealcity]

Oh, Paladin... I entirely agree with all of this. As a Paladin main, I can't even pretend this job story ever makes any sense. It is never good, and it just gets worse until the writers entirely abandon it in Stormblood to go back to the Gladiator story, which was at least somewhat better.

I think its core problem (which a lot of the ARR jobs share, but I'll get to that in a bit) is that they lacked a solid initial idea for the job archetype, and then the one they tried did not work within the constraints of the job quests.

Lengthy narrative breakdown of job/class stuff under the cut.

So, imagine you're a gamedev, and you're already working crunch non-stop because your MMO is flailing, and it needs a massive content overhaul, and your boss has just said to you, "Implement jobs like the ones in Final Fantasy Tactics, but with stories." You know what the gameplay is going to be for each of these, more or less. And for the most part these are the most generic core fantasy archetypes there are. Archer, Healer, Wizard, Sword-and-shield warrior, Two-hand axe warrior... A lot of these are just in everything. Every game in the universe has sword and shield warrior. How do you make this fit the setting?

Gladiator. Okay, that's interesting. We can work with that, but what's the archetype for Gladiator? The Russel Crowe film? Uh, yeah, we already made that Raubahn's entire backstory. Also, the player character can't be sold into slavery. So not that. What else do we have? Spartacus? Same problem as Gladiator. So... the only archetypal story we have for gladiators is the one we already used and can't apply to players in a meaningful way. (Are we going to work to buy someone else out of slavery? Because that involves the player buying slaves now, which is also kind of a problem.) We need another story archetype. What else we got? We can't do "training for the championship" because Pugilist has that one. So...

Well, uh... Mercenary? That's what the Gladiator quest chain is. And it's not a bad one, but Mylla is 100% written to be the head of a mercenary company, even though she absolutely is not. (Why are arena fighters dealing with bandits? Who cares, it's dramatic.)

And this is not a unique problem to Gladiator/Paladin. Nearly all the ARR classes suffer from this in some capacity. Pugilist is Rocky, but the player can't be the one making a comeback. Lancer is... fighter with a stick. There's nothing inherently specific to that class in its story. Archer is just archery with a side of "friendship is magic." Which, okay. That's not horrible. Marauder builds up to a crescendo of fighting the meanest cow. If you ever want to tell if a game designer has reached the bottom of the barrel, flipped it over, and scraped off what was underneath, making the archenemy of the player a large grazing herbivore is a flashing neon sign.

There was not a lot of time to work out what the core fantasy of each class was, and it shows. But the jobs should be better, right?

Well, problem #1 was that they had to follow up the story of each class quest, and I do not know why they all had to have new trainers and new characters, but that decision cut the number of story beats for each of the main job/classes in half. You can see how much more developed the characters are in the crafter/gatherer stories, because they got to use the entire 1-50 level grind to pace them out. By comparison, every single combat job is rushed to introduce its characters, its conflict, and get to its resolution.

So here's the second problem: Paladin as an archetype.

We already failed to find a Gladiator archetype that could be made to work on this tiny timeline and budget. Paladin has the advantage of having a clear archetypal Final Fantasy character to look at, unlike sword-and-board warrior, in Cecil, but Cecil got to be a champion of Light after having been a dark knight, and none of his story or themes really fit. Okay, so, what's the player fantasy in Paladin? What do they want to be when taking up the sword-and-shield? Because Holy Knight is going to be tricky in a game where the player's primary leitmotif is The Maker's Ruin. You are, as the Warrior of Light, the godslayer. So... uh... that's awkward.

I think the answer they came up with was Arthurian Knight. Because "recover the mystical sword of light" is sort of Cecil, if you turn your head and squint, and it's a combination of Excalibur and the Holy Grail.

Jenlyns' kind of rushed plot in ARR seems like it is training the player to be a Galahad type of knight errant. And the setup, even in the early quests, is about Oathkeeper, the sword of legend.

Okay, so, immediate problem which is going to become bigger over time: The job quests give you armor, not weapons.

So we hunt down Solkzagyl in ARR, only to find out that he was a true knight and he never stole Excalibur--I mean Oathkeeper. Obviously, the second part of the story, going into HW has to be about the missing sword.

And then we hit the next pipeline issue: ARR to HW.

I can't say this for certain, but my guess, having worked in games in the past, based on the patches that immediately follow up 2.0, was that the team was in a state of exhaustion, working crunch for the relaunch, and now the game is live again, but the numbers aren't back yet to say how successful the game will be, and you don't know if you're going to get a budget... of any kind? Maybe you'll get an expansion, or maybe you'll just get a few patches? You might get new art assets? Areas? Nobody knows. But the game is live, and you must put out content updates, or it will die.

The 2.1 through 2.2X MSQ does not feel like there is any coherent plan for where the story will go, and there probably wasn't. They were just trying to make something with what they had on hand, and every beat is the equivalent of throwing out a random plot hook. Maybe this could be where the story goes! Maybe it will go over here! Every MSQ beat leads to a primal fight with something they already had assets in the pipe for. Re-fight the primals you already fought again! But harder! They just keep pumping out additional non-crit-path dungeons to keep players occupied with something.

But the dungeons don't have a ton of writing, and the beast tribe quests really aren't that long, and this is probably the point at which they started writing the job quests that would go into Heavensward.

Before they knew what Heavensward even was.

Most of them don't even go to Coerthas. Black mage, monk, warrior, scholar, and summoner just... never even acknowledge that Heavensward is happening and stay right in the original zones. Only White Mage, Dragoon, and Paladin send you to the new zones, and Paladin... yeah, it drops the ball on that one hard. I suspect that putting it in Falcon's Nest was a very late change to move more of the quest NPCs around to even out stress on the areas. Dragoon, notably, also makes no sense if you finish it after Dragonsong, suggesting that it, too, was written before the plot of Heavensward was figured out.

It seems somewhat obvious, if frustrating, that the Paladin questline followed the original plan of searching for Oathkeeper, even though the Sultansworn should, at this point in the MSQ, kill you on sight. And also. THEY HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DEAL WITH THAN A SWORD, JENLYNS! I suspect that it was written in its entirety before The Parting Glass, and then just used mostly as-is. Death's Embrace was probably the Alacran again. There's nothing particular to Ishgard or Dravania in there except for the place names and an occasional reference to Halone or heretics.

But again, the problem remains, we can never get Oathkeeper. We are building up this entire, baffling, nonsense plot around finding the missing sword of legend, which the player absolutely cannot keep. So... how... do we end that, then? Uh... everyone fights, I guess? Even the writer, by the end, seems to have given up on making this work, because it absolutely can't.

Anyway, PLD, I love you. Don't take this personally, babe. You're still my favorite job to play. Even if your story is a hot mess.

The worst part too about the Paladin quests is it's Heavensward that's most egregious. It honestly feels like someone had no idea what was going on, or didn't care, or left, and their colleagues left holding the bag with this mess of a story had no idea what to do with it.

ARR Gladiator quests are fine! They're along the lines of the other Class quests, intro you to the job and a complicated character dynamic, and it's a decent time.

The ARR Paladin quests...are just boring. They aren't actually even that bad, they're just...utterly predictable, bog-standard tropes and plot line where you can see everything coming malms away. But they have an internal logic to them that builds on the politics and scheming in Ul'dah. Jenlyns realizes he's an unwitting pawn of the Syndicate, and he was literally chosen for the job cuz he could be easily duped and controlled. He doesn't even get to have imposter syndrome, he's actually unfit for the job (and then strives to do better, leveraging support from Papashan and Mylla to shore up his own weaknesses, which is admirable!).

...Nevermind that traditional Paladins in general are a bad fit for Ul'dah. The heavily armored Sultansworn makes no sense in that desert environment, and looking at a world map we can even see that Southern Thanalan seems to be on the equator. Like it's not even a case of "it's cooler than it seems cuz they're further north." Because they're not. And I know the devs wanted to have Ishgard perhaps be a starter city but that was scrapped due to time and resources, fine but um.

Dragoons are still trained in Coerthas, by Coerthans. Why didn't they just...do that with Paladins? Keep Gladiator in Ul'dah, where it makes sense as presented. But then have to work with Temple Knights to get the Job. Especially since after Ul'dah's intro, the game just forgets the Sultansworn exist and they have no bearing on the MSQ the way the other factions in Ul'dah do. Not even in the finale of ARR's arc where it would make sense. Gladiators are a constant in other side quests and MSQ both.

Stormblood Paladin is also fine--because it goes back to those Gladiators, and we interact with Paladins and Knights across the realm, and deal with those complicated relationships between the Gladiator guild core members. It's internally logical in its drama about finally restoring Aldis's reputation and place in Ul'dah, against the backdrop of the tournament.

Heavensward Paladin straight up makes no sense. Solkzaygl's actions are entirely contradictory to his character and arc from ARR. There's no way for some of the actions to occur without him working with the outlaws in some way. Instead of teaching Constaint, he sends him on a merry chase across Coerthas to learn on his own, and it's only the WoL's aid that sees the boy live, let alone make progress. A random man dies, guilt-ridden, due to Solk's scheming and lies he confided to this poor guy.

And then Highlander-esque "there can be only one" nonsense. Even as a Highlander fangirl in my youth, it was insulting and awful. Papashan, Jenlyns, and Constaint all call out how nonsense, illogical, unlikely, and stupid this whole story is...all to make a sword shine.

Because there's no internal logic to events, let alone the reason for the string of happenstance that leads to the finale.

And we know it's possible; HW Blacksmith gives us a fantastic paladin story! One that fits Ishgard's storyline and HW's themes. HW Dark Knight is also a good paladin story, actually, as they are meant to be another angle on the concept of dedicated knight defenders. Samurai for the Eastern equivalent, and the concepts and tropes present in those quest chains.

But the job actually bearing the name "Paladin" is left in the dirt. As a fan of the concept across various games (video and TTRPGs both), it's quite frustrating how the devs had no idea what to do with this job, despite other members of the writing and scenario team presenting stories that would have fit perfectly well within the framework. Only some of it is misplacing where Paladins originate in the setting; the rest is not taking advantage of the themes and setting of the expansions, and just not caring enough about the characters and story to even try, compared to the rest. Or worse, they did try, and meant for more, but whatever intrigue and complex plot they wanted to create was too much for 5 quests and no guarantee the arc would continue in the future, even if it had landed perfectly.

[shihomiyano]

Lupin III. vs. Detective Conan 

for @digitallyfanged

[joe9cool]

Collide-Justin Herbert-18

A.N Usual disclaimer, I do not know The Chargers or their situation, this is fiction purposes only

Justin was taking the field for warm-ups. 

He was doing his usual routine, it was about an hour til kick off, there were some fans filling the stadium, no doubt by the time the game started it would be at almost full capacity.

He looked over at the sidelines, where Taylor was standing with her mic, she was speaking directly into the camera. He was trying hard not to stare too long.

They had run into each other earlier in the tunnel. He said a quick 'excuse me' as she had gone past her, and he felt her eyes on his back as he headed to the locker room. 

Khalil Mack was talking to her as he had his pregame interview before they suited up. 

Before he knew it, it was time to head back to the locker room. Justin ran past Khalil, who was trying to get away from Taylor, as he glanced at his teammate, he made eye contact with the blonde. She had a look on her face that he couldn't quite place.

It looked happy, but not in a good way.

It looked evil

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay Taylor we got it! Good job!" The cameraman called as he turned off the camera to look at the footage. They were live on the NFL network to cover SNF. Her pregame sideline interviewee would be Khalil Mack while after would be a player of the team who won.

She saw Khalil start to head off the field and she decided to take her chance. "Hey Khalil?"

He stopped. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry about this season so far. It seems it's been really difficult with all the injuries, especially to Justin."

Khalil was confused, he knew the reporter and his quarterback had a fling in the past, and Herb had a new girlfriend so was she trying to get at something?

"Well we have had a lot of injuries, so it's been tough, but we got to fight through." 

"It's a good thing Justin has his family in town to take care of him. He mentioned his parents being in town when he first got injured."

"I heard nothing about that. He's in good hands on and off the field. Listen, I got to go." He ran off the field before she could say anything else, but it did get her thinking.

The night he was at her place he mentioned his parents were in town, but no one had mentioned that. Surely it would have been mentioned that his parents were in town, but nothing. So wait a minute was this girl involved when he was over at her place?

Was he playing her too? How many other women did he have? Who was the brunette in Oregon? While she knew they weren't exclusive. He had told before she went to Europe that there was no one but her. That when she got back maybe they could give this a chance. He texted her everyday, picked her up from the airport, kissed her when he dropped her off

 Then once camp neared he didn't respond to her texts, then agrees to come over, they kiss and then he breaks it off? Now he's got all these girls.

There was a part of her that felt a tad guilty for liking that tweet, but she wasn't giving up on this. Not yet.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Sara was so thankful to Ben and Sasha for letting her and Erika stay with them while she was in Michigan. The couple owned a gorgeous lakehouse off of Lake Huron. While it was cold, it was beautiful,peaceful. It made her think about owning a summer home. She currently owned only two homes, her main one in LA and one she bought in Wexler, Pennsylvania close to her family. They all tried to convince her to buy the home that was for sale next to her parents but she needed her space.

This trip was just Erika and Sara, there was no need for the rest of her team to be present, so she gave them the next couple of weeks to be with their friends and families for the Holidays. They had arrived early Sunday morning, and it couldn't have been more perfect. She would be able to watch the game. They had to be up and ready to film the first scenes.

They had unpacked, had dinner and now her and Erika were walking around the grounds. It was dark, but it was lit up beautifully thanks to Sasha decorating skills. Sara was getting ideas of what scenes should be filmed while watching the game on her phone. The Chargers were up and so far were dominating the 49ers.

Everything was great…

Until it wasn't.

As soon as she saw the hit to his head she screamed and dropped her phone on the grass.

"Sara!! What!" Erika picked up her friend's phone and caught the slow motion replay. "Oh my god."

"Erika, is he being taken to the tent?"

"No, he's taking the snap.”

"WHAT!" She ripped the phone out of Erika's hands. As Justin was ready to call the play the whistle blew, and the announcers called a medical timeout as Justin headed to the sidelines. She could tell he was mad.

At one point she read his lips as he yelled. "I ate!"

"I'm gonna kill him."  She muttered.

The rest of the game was nerve wracking. She couldn't believe he was cleared to play after that. As they walked back to the house they were greeted by Ben and his family, who would be doing the supporting roles.

The rest of the night was focused on reading through parts, and Sara and the crew were throwing out ideas. As much as she tried to focus, she felt her brain going back to Justin. She saw they lost the game, and she knew that he was fuming at himself. 

Still she was going to give him a lashing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We didn't execute on third down"

It was the same shit, same mistakes that cost the win. Justin didn't want to speak to the media, but as captain and quarterback it was required of him.

He felt fine, physically, but mentally and emotionally he felt like shit. Once he had completed his interviews he went back to the hotel, it was Sunday night but the team was heading back to Los Angeles late so they could be ready for Monday practice and the media.

He wanted to call Sara but he was aware she had just gotten to Michigan for work and was diving deep into her projects. He loved how dedicated she was to her work.

Justin loved that Sara was independent and didn't need him, she wanted him. 

He looked at his phone to see a bunch of texts messages and phone calls from family and friends but nothing from her. That was weird, win or lose she always had something for him on his phone.

He figured she was busy.

However when he got home finally at a late hour he saw the facetime request. He accepted and saw her face surrounded by darkness. "Hey baby… where are you?"

"Don't baby me Justin, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Oh she was pissed. He tried to play dumb. "What are you talking about?"

"You ate? The only thing you ate was the fucking turf on that hit. Idiot" He laughed. A good hearty laugh. He needed that comedic relief. Although his girlfriend didn't find it that funny. "You're laughing, seriously you're laughing when I'm about to get on a plane to California to kill you."

"Hey If it gets you back to California I'm cool with that. Besides, I can fight you off anyways." She rolled her eyes and he laughed again. "Back to my first question, where the hell are you?"

"I'm walking around Ben and Sasha's property. It's really cold, I forgot how cold it gets being in the Midwest. I only have my UCLA hoodie"

"Babe! Get back in the house! You will get sick. Are you by yourself?"

She nodded and turned the camera around so he could see what she was seeing. Although it was really dark, he could hear the waves of Lake Huron. He tried not to freak out, but the thought of her being by herself outside late at night by a huge body of water didn't sit well with him. "Please get back in the house."

"Okay mom" He saw the movement, and then the light of what seemed to be a living room. "Hold on" He heard along with some shuffling.

She came back into his sight with her ear pods in. "I'm in the kitchen, I'm sharing a room with Erika and she is sleeping. Anyways, how do you feel? And be honest Justin Patrick."

"I feel fine, yeah I was a little rattled initially, but I'm good. I passed the concussion protocol. What?"

She was glaring at him. He knew it was in a joking manner, eventually she relaxed her expression. "You're lucky I love you Jerk."

He laughed, but before he could say anything he heard a voice on Sara's end. "Is this Justin?" 

She saw Sara jump and grab her chest. "Jesus Ben you scared me." She moved out of the frame a bit and another face moved in. "Ben this is my boyfriend Justin, babe this is my friend Ben."

Justin gave a little awkward wave, and Ben nodded and put on a dad voice. "So my daughter tells me that you're the son of a gun who she loves. Is that right?"

Justin wasn't expecting that. "Uhh"

He saw Sara elbow Ben. "Oh shut up with that western accent. He's just playing babe honest." Ben was laughing and Justin joined nervously, still unsure if Ben was actually angry.  "Nice to meet you son, Sara speaks fondly of you."

He saw his girlfriend roll her eyes. "Oh my god you're not even old enough to be my dad. You're thirty seven. My oldest sister is two years younger than you."

Ben laughed. "Okay fine I'm the big brother you never had" He turned his attention back to Justin. "You okay there dude? Your hit is being played on all the major news sites"

Justin groaned. Not wanting any of the attention. "Yes I am fine, everyone is making it a bigger deal than what it was. I'm fine I promise."

"I still think you should have sat out for a little bit. Let Chase take over for a bit. You looked shaken up." 

"Well I felt fine, of course it's a little rattling at first. But I've been cleared by the medical team and things are okay." He didn't want to keep talking about this, so he decided to switch the topics. "How is the project going?"

Ben and Sara filled him in on the beginning process. They had to try to get as much film in Michigan as they could so they could be in a good spot when they headed back to LA to shoot the rest. Sara was only in charge of the music production and the first few scenes of filming. Another director was going to take place when she left to film Dune 2. 

Justin had to admit, he was not an artistic person at all, but hearing his girlfriend talk so in depth about something she was good at made him intrigued and wanting to know more. Sara came out of her comfort zone when she tried golfing even though he could tell she had little athletic ability. 

He thought about their earlier conversation, about him not wanting to visit her on set. While he wasn't sure about international flights, possibly when she comes home to start to film her show. He could visit a film set as long as he stayed hidden. It was 2022, stars had friends visit on the down low. He could do that.

Overall, the rest of the conversation flowed easily, Ben and Justin got a long fine, and Ben promised Justin a tour of his home to try Bourbon. (He wasn't sure about that) but Sara's beautiful voice helped him fall asleep.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Fuck Running, 

It wasn't even a mile,and she was out of fucking breath. It was 4am, two hours before filming began. Erika got her uo to start running, a form of exercise. She hated it so much. It gave her awful flashbacks of gym class. Having to run the mile in under 20 min. Trying to do the fastest time for the stupid presidential fitness award. It was a fucking piece of paper for God's sake.

But nevertheless she was here, struggling to breathe. She was running (literally) on coffee and almond butter toast. One website said this was a good start.

Erika ran track in high school so this was easy for her, as she ran ahead. Sara didn't expect her friend to match her slow pace. 

Once they finished. ( Sara was dry heaving,) they walked back to Ben and Sasha's house. 

"Sara, look I know Stephanie wants you to lose weight, but don't do it unhealthy."

Sara spoke between breaths. "The show is in February. That means I have only a few months left. I'm not trying to drop too much weight, just tone up a bit. Now come on, Ben has a few workout machines in his basement. Let's hit that for about thirty minutes "

Sara ran ahead of Erika a bit, her friend could see she was forcing herself.

This wasn't good.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The week went fast.

It was Friday night, and Sara and Ben, along with the editing team were going over the footage they had shot, and it was good so far. They needed to re shoot a couple of things. They went back and forth on what song from the album to add to certain scenes. She kept up with her rigorous training and diet and saw some progress already. Of course she had to be careful with Thanksgiving.

Speaking of, Her sister Alyssa wouldn't stop texting her about certain dishes. It was already set and stone that she would be stuck doing a lot of the cooking. Alyssa had a thirty pound turkey that was only defrosting and she was already over her head. Her family was in St. Louis already and she was sure they were driving her crazy.

Sara would be arriving on Tuesday. Erika had her bags packed with outfits she would be wearing. Erika was going home to Pittsburgh for the week and wouldn't be back in LA for a couple of weeks. She deserved the time off for being an amazing assistant and dealing with her best friend's bullshit.

She was back and forth with Justin over the week, they texted about any and everything. He had tried to act annoyed when she would request pictures of Nova (He swore up and down that she loved his cat more than him) They also both expressed how sexually frustrated they were, they both decided not to send pictures as the worst thing would be a hacked phone. Phone sex was out of the question since Sara had not had a moment of privacy since she left.

The team was still editing one of the scenes she had shot, and so far it looked like another reshoot was coming. Which meant a 6:00am wake up, well technically earlier cause she needed to get her run in.

Her sleep schedule was fucked. She was exhausted, running on coffee and high protein snacks. Between talking to Justin on the phone, early wakeups and late nights touching up scenes. Then it was on a plane to St.Louis, where there would be no time to rest, due to cooking and being attacked by nieces and nephews as well as being expected to catch up and entertain everyone. Which wasn’t fair, it wasn’t her fucking house. Sara only had her entire family to Los Angeles twice and each time it was the worst experience. Everyone talking over each other, wanting to do different activities and not understanding that cameras would be on them.

She remembered one incident when Charles and Katie visited when they only had two kids and the kids were distressed by the cameraman following them and getting too close for comfort during an outing at the zoo. It led to a video on TMZ of Sara ‘having a breakdown’ yelling at everyone to back the fuck off. Heidi had yelled at her, but  she learned quickly that her client didn’t deal with any bullshit; she did cut back on the clapbacks and fights online.

No doubt that whenever her relationship with Justin came to the limelight she was going to be very protective of him. Granted he was famous in his own right, but this level of fame she dealt with was on a whole other level. 

The group called it quits around 1am, with everyone retreating to their designated spots in Ben’s house. Sara thought she could get some sleep, but then Alyssa began texting her about the grocery list and if she was making the mac and cheese. (Alyssa was a perfectionist like Justin, and she was probably worrying about making sure everything was perfect.) Also the whole family was already there driving her up the wall. Her sister informed her she would be sleeping with the oldest kids in the basement. Which already sucked, she loved her nieces and nephews, but they were exhausting. She didn’t remember being that full of energy as a kid.

As much as she was dreading it, she found herself packing up her things on Sunday. Call her selfish, but she didn’t want anyone else to take over the project. It was something she was able to do behind the scenes, and show the world and her family that her job wasn’t just phony crying or getting mad, or walking around in front of a camera like they thought.

Ben had taken the team out to dinner Saturday night as a thank you for all their hard work. They took plenty of photos which Sara posted on Instagram.

As she laid in bed that night after wishing Justin good luck on his game. She scrolled through Instagram. She did her usual likes on friends' stories. Timothee's story was him on the Dune set and it looked exciting. As much as it sucks to leave Justin for so long she was looking forward to bringing her a game on set and hopefully winning the academy over.

She thought about her future ahead. Going into 2023 she had a great career, an amazing boyfriend, awesome friends, and sometimes good family. 

2023 was her year.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank god for Sunday night football.

Sara got up early at 330, did her workout, had her healthy breakfast, and began planning the scenes she needed to reshoot. She was determined to finish early and watch the game without any interruptions.

Justin and her were going back and forth. She messaged him as soon as she got up. Justin replied a few hours later, surprised that she was up so early. He expressed excitement that Allen and Mike were back. Sara was happy too, she loved Mike, and promised him at the BBQ that they would have a game of super Mario smash brothers (it was the only game she could play)

Nevertheless, she got everything she needed done early. Ben kept teasing her in between takes. It didn't matter though, she wanted to watch her man ball out and silence the critics. 

To pass the time she looked up Patrick Mahomes life, who was annoying and talked shit about the Chargers. One thing about her was that when she and Justin became public she would never trash the other team, and she knew Justin wouldn't want her to do that either.

Here she was with a bottle of wine while watching the game in the guest room she was staying in. Ben and Sasha were out Christmas shopping. (Which she needed to do) so she had the whole place to her house.

"YES!" She screamed as her man launched a beautiful 50 yard pass for a touchdown. Joe was texting her about the game.

So was Joey.

He asked her how she was and he was asking about the Lord Huron project. She had recommended a few songs for him to listen to and he loved them. He was expressing his frustration about not being able to play, which she sympathized with. They went back and forth for a little bit. He gave her tips about toning up and certain exercises.

While things got off to a good start, it seemed to be going downhill as Mike Williams was injured again, he headed off to the blue tent and Sara groaned as she poured herself another glass of wine. 

Yeah she was going to be buzzed by the end of this game.

Sara held her breath as Justin took a sack on 3rd and 2nd. 

The score was 13-17 in favor of the Chargers. 

It was almost halftime and Sara was buzzed. It was a deadly combination with watching her man in a uniform whom she hadn't seen in almost three weeks. She thought about masturbating but it would give her an empty high, nothing compared to the feeling of Justin inside of her.

During halftime she was on her laptop planning the sexy calendar she was going to shoot for Christmas as one of his gifts.

She had her list made out and what gifts she was going to get. For Justin, she just didn't want to give him something sexual, their relationship was so much more than that. Christmas was in a month, and her family was easy. Wanting materialistic items. Justin was a sentimental guy who would appreciate something from the heart.

Halftime ended, and Sara had her list planned out. Feeling good about things.

Until the chiefs took the lead.

But then Justin got the lead back. Sara was on the edge of the bed (she fell off a few times due to the alcohol she consumed.) The clock was running down and the chiefs were too close for comfort…

"No fucking way" She whispered as she watched Kelce's celebration in horror.

She watched Justin throw out of desperation which led to an interception.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

The chiefs won 

They fucking won.

She could barely register what happened after that. Ben and Sasha came home and she could hear them talk about something, she couldn't tell you what. Their bedroom door closed so they must have gone to bed.

This game sobered her up quickly. She didn't know what to say to Justin, she knew he was pissed. This marked two losses in a row which diminished playoff chances.

She decided to message him anyway.

You still played great. I'm proud of you and I love you.

She decided to turn in, she knew she was going to be hungover tomorrow. Sara didn't expect Justin to reply.

He didn't.

A/N: Is this my best chapter? No. Am I salty as fuck about yesterday’s game? Yes. I hope the Bengals whoop that ass in December. 

[shititbe]

Anyway, HSM2 is about internalized homophobia, and no one can tell me otherwise.

High School Musical is one of the most beloved franchises in the world. Teenagers all over the world grew up watching Troy and Gabriella harmonize together. Three movies, and nearly a decade later it’s still beloved by all. The first film easily forgotten in the ashes of the early 2000’s, the third film stuck in a purgatorial limbo of the rather unfortunate late 2000’s. The second film on the other hand sticks out between the ruckus. 

The second High School Musical film takes place at Sharpay and Ryan’s family country club, during the summer between junior and senior year. The Wildcats are working summer jobs on the country club, often forced to the beck and call of Ryan and Sharpay themselves. Sharpay uses all her prestige to help Troy with college instead of starting at the bottom ( or rather, in the kitchen washing dishes) with his friends. In the time she’s helping Troy, she is also pushing her brother away; replacing him with Troy in their musical number for the talent show, and refusing to hang out with him in preference for Troy. Ryan becomes vengeful to his twin and starts hanging around the Wildcats in the kitchen. At first, he was met with some distasteful looks and words (most of which from Chad). With the help of Kelsey, and her neutral party, Ryan fits in smoothly with the other teenagers, eventually giving the WildCats all dance lessons.

 Throughout the movie, the main conflict continues to be the internal conflict of Troy Bolton. He debates over and over again if he should go through with Sharpay’s shenanigans, or if he wants to “listen to my own heart.”  This of course involves Gabriella, as she is Troy’s love interest. She’s not in the second film except for the beginning, then, where she leaves in the middle of the film - in order to create angst for Troy - then when she shows up again in the finally to sing/rejoin Troy. 

The conflict in the second film  is the combining of Troy’s two worlds. His first - his main world in the first movie, that hence became his secondary world - which is represented by Chad. Then his secondary world - which becomes his main world in this movie - which is represented by Ryan. Chad represents Troy’s masculinity, or his more idealized version of himself. Ryan represents Troy’s femininity or his current version of reality. These two worlds collide in the iconic song “I don’t dance”.  

Since this movie - and hence this scene - came out in the early 2000’s, a lot of the innuendoes went over people's heads. Luckily, as the children who watched this movie grew older and more experienced, and the world became more accepting, we’re able to see this song for what it is. 

Before getting into the lore and symbolism of the iconic “I Don’t Dance” sequence, context is needed. For most of human history, homosexuality was seen as a sin in all places except ancient times (see: Greece and Japan). The modern age is the most accepting on all fronts, such as sexual orientation, race, and religion. In the early 2000’s, High School Musical director Kenny Ortega was not publicialy out yet. He wouldn’t be till 2014. 

Originally, while writing this, my first thought was  that Kenny - the director - would be using Troy as a y/n type character to project his insecurities and struggles with masculinity, and what that means in defining his orientation and societal views that would be placed upon him. Then, it came to me later that this is in fact not the case, Troy (and Gabriella - who is in fact a y/n character for the female audience) is more of a character for a man of his time, confused with his own ideals of masculinity and the views of society because, “oh god, I can’t like theater/drama because only queer people and girls like it!” The second point is pushed further with the Troy and Sharpay sub-plot. Sharpay tries to further Troy’s career as a basketball player, though that’s not what he wants anymore, and Troy is no longer sure if that is what he ever wanted to begin with (enter the song “Bet on it” and the hilarious meme “no dad, I’m giving up on your dream”). 

Keeping these things in mind - Kenney’s queerness, and Troy’s struggle to realize you can in fact sing and be a heterosexual, wow, revolutionary - it became clear to me that Kenney’s y/n characters were Ryan and Chad. 

For those who aren’t into the arts, or find them too difficult after a singular attempt thinking they could write a world class novel on the first go, let me be the first to tell you every author has a y/n character. First, for those who don’t know what y/n stands for, it’s a popular fanfiction trope where a writer will write a story about a character dating, being friends, and so on, with the reader. The y/n stands for “your name” so anyone can be the main character in this story at any time. For a writer of mainstream fictional work, such as High School Musical, Game Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, even most comics. Now, most writers or directors aren’t going to be as obvious as having a character not named (or named y/n) or even named Jane (looking at you Jane Austin), the y/n character of many mainstream authors/directors/comic artists and so on is usually the character they feel or have given the most attributes similar to themselves. 

It’s the same reason people have favourite characters. You see a fictional character and you either 1. Want to Bob the Builder them, 2. Some sort of weird sex thing, or 3. See more/the most of yourself in this character. Number three - thankfully - is usually the main reason. Some people just create their own favourite characters. An even easier way to think about this, is just projection baby, that’s psych 101.   

Before I went off on a small tangent of fictional works and how human emotion plays into creating them (except anything Disney has made in the past decade, and no you can’t change my mind on that) I mentioned that Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s y/n characters. As a queer person myself, it’s clear for me to see the different struggles each of these characters face and how these reflect the queer experience. 

So, let’s finally get into it. 

Ryan, without it being explicitly said is clearly a character of what people in the early 2000s think a gay man is. He is effeminate, wearing bright coloured outfits with lots of accessories - namely his signature hats - he is also in the theater department doing musicals, and passive/subservient to any of his twin sisters' wills. Yes, now we know gay men aren’t just feminized men, but in the early 2000’s a gay man who can do "masculine" things like change their car oil, like sports, and so on, break the "effeminate" stereotype thus confused many cishet people. Sharpay is painted as more confident - or, for sake of comparability - masculine to her twin in the first movie, and most of the second movie. Making Ryan a bit of her dog who would do anything to get by - painting Ryan as lesser than human, once more, playing into the homophobia of the early 2000's.     

Despite the clear stereotypes playing into his character, Ryan is consistently one of the most confident characters in the movie. The other, being his sister of course. This confidence in himself is what gravitates the other characters towards him, either by being intimidated (Troy, thinking Ryan and Gabriella were a thing), or admiration (Chad, by the end of “I don’t dance”). 

Chad, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. While he is confident in the first movie, and the first portion of the second movie, he begins to break more and more when Ryan becomes a more integral part of the Wildcat group. To keep in mind, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste for Troy’s artistic past-time. When the other Wildcats join Ryan and begin learning how to dance for the talent show at the end of the movie, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste. The baseball game where “I don’t dance” takes place, is the climax of Chad’s arc and his turn towards acceptance to Ryan/Troy’s hobbies. 

Of course, there is more to the “I don’t dance” sequence than just Chad’s realization - the exact one Troy comes to terms with in the second movie as well - of “oh my god I don’t have to be gay to enjoy stereotypical ‘feminine’ things.” That is the main part of the song though, that and all the sexual tension. 

Going back to what I’ve stated previously, Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s projection or y/n characters. Let me do a small recap before we get into the nitty gritty of the famous “I don’t dance” video. 

Thinking back to the first few paragraphs, I stated that Kenney wasn’t publicly out till 2014, about 7 years after the second movie came out. This could be due to the fact that a) it’s the early 2000’s and everyones still very homophobic, or b) self-doubt that comes with the queer experience. The most likely reason is a mixture of both of these. Because of this, Ryan is the more self-assured version, or idealized version of Kenney that he wants to be. Ryan is confident, never being swayed about his lifestyle (could be read as: sexuality) even though Chad - and most of the wildcats in the first movie - put him through relentless “teasing” and humiliation. He’s confident, almost to a fault, he’s sure of himself, and yet still reaches out a hand to Chad and the other wildcats to show them that they’re just being, kinda dick-ish. 

Every queer person wants to be Ryan. Despite his heavily stereotyped characterization, I personally believe he is one of the stronger written characters in the movies, mainly due to Kenney putting the time in to really make Ryan feel like a real person, to give himself some sort of relief of his own anxieties, a chance to see the world through a person who truly has no fear. Unlike Kenney himself. 

This is where Chad comes in. 

Chad is seen as “confident” in the first movie, the second Troy “leaves” basketball though, all that confidence comes crashing down. His best friend has another hobby - one he thinks is “not right” (it’s okay, you can say gay), - they wont be spending all their time together (first, can you say dependent relationship much, yikes).Chad’s defining characteristic up until their fight that instigate act three of the second movie, is being Troy’s best friend. I’m going to take this as if this were truly the case, and not a decently written character arch. Some people base themselves around their friends and their whole identity on being a friend, that they lose sight of themselves, this mainly in high school of course, when your whole world is really nothing but school, and friends. Newly developed independence is there, but that’s scary, so instead of worrying about the future, cling to something that’s reliable. I’ve seen this happen, mainly at the end of high school, when the “real world” is coming a bit too close for comfort. This could generally be the case if a person is lonely, but for timeline sake I’m going to say Chad has got some anxiety about graduating (considering the second movie takes place the summer of junior year). 

His lashing out at Troy’s hobbies and at Troy’s neglectful friendship, make more sense with that background, and are seen more in the second movie where Troy begins spending all his spare time with Sharpay (trying to collect that BAG!). Chad - and others (read: father) - insists that music is not a feasible career option, and Troy should just stick with basketball (like...that is a feasible career option). The tension Chad creates in the studio only grows when the other wildcats decide to take up Ryan’s offer for dance lessons and move from the kitchen, to helping out with the talent show. (Next essay idea: how high school musical two was really about class all along, cause Jesus). 

 Chad is the less obvious option for a y/n character. Though again, the 2000’s were not as cool people like to pretend they are. Chad - for Kenney - represents what he actually feels, this fear of being rejected for how he is and how he chooses to live his life/lifestyle, so he sticks to something reliable. Ryan is new, and exciting, and confident in a way that Kenney/Chad wish they could be, but in order for that to happen they need to understand that maybe people are complex creatures, and can enjoy multiple hobbies (aka: the same lesson Troy is teaching the viewers, but far less boring). But, for Kenney/Chad facing that thought and that realization is scary, and thus, they lash out at anyone (read this paragraph as: Chad mad jealous of Ryan cause Ryan bomb as fuck). 

All this build up, finally comes ahead in the employee baseball match 

                                                       ******

The baseball game is probably the most memorable scene in the whole High School Musical franchise (minus Sharpay’s “Fabulous” solo, but that’s also from the same movie, and it’s kinda rude to give what’s already the best more points); the tension in the scene, and what it implies makes it the best written segment of all three movies, let alone the most entertaining. 

Some things to keep in mind from our background information: Chad is missing his bestie and struggling with what being “masculine” really means for him and others. Ryan of course makes this confusing, because the traditional method is being thrown out the window. In short, Chad has internalized homophobia, and Ryan being open - or as open as Disney would let him - is causing all sorts of problems. 

Despite the song, “I don’t dance” being logged into our collective skulls for all eternity (you’re probably humming it right now, sorry about that), the very brief interaction of Ryan and Chad before the game is lost on the public consciousness. The two are clearly comfortable with each other, though the distaste seems to be on Chad’s side more than Ryans. So, the two start playfully jabbing at each other before deciding to do a bat toss to see who will be in the outfield first. 

Before they begin the bat toss, Ryan says “You don’t think dancing takes some game?” Chad then very clearly checks him out, doing a simple but effective ‘drag-your-eyes-over-them-top-to-bottom-then-smile’ and says “you got game?” (Seen in gif below) 

I don’t know how much you know about sex metaphors and how many of those baseball has in it (seriously though, it’s a lot), but with the bat toss, Ryan’s hand ended up on top, and Chad’s under Ryan’s. Let’s ignore this for now, it’ll be implied again later. Ryan’s team starts out in the outfield because he won the bat toss, and hence, the song officially starts. 

The first lyrics (ignoring the chores of “hey batter batter, hey batter batter, swing”) is 

I'll show you that it's one and the same

Baseball, dancing, same game

It's easy

Step up to the place, start swingin  

This part is sung by Ryan, who is taunting Chad out in the outfield. Before the game, as stated, Chad was taunting Ryan about his lack of “game” (both sexual and not sexual metaphor are implied), and now, Ryan has turned those tables around. Baseball - is seen as more masculine than dancing, not as masculine as football or basketball, but it’s up there. Chad is someone who cares about his masculinity, enough to the point that Ryan playing baseball makes him loose his mind. Makes him question his own personal definition of masculinity, if you will. 

Ryan says, “baseball, dancing, same game,” impyling that, to him, baseball and dancing are one and the same. That is baffling to Chad, cause well, how can something meant for girls even be close to something meant for boys. 

Chad comes back with: 

 I wanna play ball now, and that's all

This is what I do

It ain't no dance that you can show me, yeah

This only proves my previous point. 

I had a conversation with myself about this, and I’ve decided not to include it in this essay, but a second essay may or may not be possible. Basically the premise - the dancing/”musical” moments of High School Musical are conjured up images by those meant to see them (ie: like a visual hallucination, but, not really) but this scene kinda poo-poos that idea. 

Now, the thing I am talking about is Ryan and Chad’s  peacocking at each other during the time they sing these lyrics. The movements they’re making could be mistaken for dancing - as we automatically assume it is because of the title and themes of the movie - or it could be them just getting ready for the baseball game. Ryan swings his leg over the pitcher's mound, tossing the ball up and down into his glove, making wavy hand gestures, etc. Chad brushes off his gloves, swings his legs, hits the bat on each foot, and so on. 

For the peacocking, Chad makes a mock of the ballerina foot stance before strutting over to the home plate. Ryan laughs at this, which earns quite the smirk from Chad himself (see gif below). 

This is when it becomes a conversation.   

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch

Come on - Ch

When Chad says “Come on” it’s when Ryan throws the baseball at him, starting the game, and giving Chad’s team their first strike of the game (get it, it’s funny). Now, obviously we need to talk about the “there’s just one little thing that stops me every time.” As a queer person, I assure you, two of the things that kept me from living my Best Life were 1) my own ignorance of what asexuality was and 2) the fear that everyone I love would hate me for who I am, and what I have no control over. 

Sorry to get deep like that on main, but, can any other queer person say different? Obviously, your first point may differ, but my point still stands. In the video/scene there is a very short moment (to which I have condensed into a gif for you all, you’re welcome, and I’m sorry about the quality in advance), of the camera moving over to Chad’s team (or his friends in this case since it’s an employee baseball game) as he says this line (gif below). 

I will not be explaining the use of subtly in this essay, but I’m sure you get the metaphor Kenney is trying to use. If not, let me spell it out for you in very simple words. This song has a lot of sexual innuendos (as mentioned pervious with the baseball bat scene and still, more to come), with that in mind, and clearly queer themes at play (as mentioned before, again), this scene only shows Chad isn’t as straight as he leads on. His fear/phobia of Ryan/the arts come from a much deeper place. 

In shorter, and much simpler terms: Chad queer. 

But, let’s get back to the boy's conversation. 

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R 

Not a chance, no - Ch 

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R 

Translation: “If I can do this weird, sweaty, dirty, Male thing without blowing a fuse, you can and should be able to dance just fine.” 

But I don't dance - Ch 

Hit it out of the park - Both 

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both

I don't dance, no - Ch  (This is just the chores, you’ll see it multiple times throughout the essay, I just figured if the song is going to be in your head, go all the way right). 

Two-steppin, now you're up to bat - R

Bases loaded, do your dance - R 

Here we are with the baseball metaphors you’ve all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen. Girls, gays, and non-binary pals. For those who have somehow managed a sheltered existence with access to the internet, lemme help you. Ryan is talking about “loaded bases” both in the context of the game (where it shows each base has one person from Chad’s team on them) and in the term of sex. While you go out there dating - while it’s mostly douche bags and people using it ironically - your nosey friends may ask you how far you got. 

“First, second, or third base?” They may ask. Or something like, “oh wow, did you get to home plate/base?” These are simply the rankings of the stages of a sexual relationship. First - kissing, sometimes just handholding, Second - making out, some light groping, Third - full on groping, no clothes come off, but it gets close. While each person has different boundaries, these are the general accepted definitions for the bases. 

Home base is obviously full blown sexual intercourse. Since Chad has his “bases loaded” it means he’s done all these things before, just never gone completely to sexual intercourse with someone - in the terms of the song and the history we’ve already established, it’s most likely a male character. This is only proven by Chad’s uncomfortable nature towards Ryan (internalized Homophobia, thank you, returning theme) but his easy, and cocky personality towards everyone else. “bUt thAt DoEsnT pRovE” hush, that’s the final cherry on top. Remember this conversation. 

It's easy - R  

Again. Previous points have been made.  

Take your best shot, just hit it - Ch 

I've got what it takes, playin my game - Ch

So you better spin that pitch - Ch 

You're gonna throw me, yeah - Ch 

I'll show you how I swing - Ch

Ah, the famous “I’ll show you how i swing” a very strong baseball metaphor for everyone. Keeps queer people from defining themselves to dangerous (straight) people, and, well, that’s it actually. This term is mostly used by bi/pan people, though if you want to stay in the closet or are in a dangerous place, it is also used to subtly tell other queer people you are in fact, not straight. My favourite is when this term came into play when President Buchanan got elected in 1856 (for those that don’t know, he’s the first and only gay president). 

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R 

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch 

This is again, the same lyric as before it doesn’t pan, and the tone is much different. The camera stays on Chad as he says this line, meaning he’s reflecting, he is now his own problem, the person that is keeping him back. His friends are not on his mind anymore, which is good, Ryan’s Gay Propaganda has been working. 

Come on - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R

Not a chance, no, no - Ch

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R

But I don't dance - Ch

Hit it out of the park - R

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh no - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both 

I don't dance, no - Ch

Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance - R

Swing it out, spin around, do the dance - R

I wanna play ball, not dance hall - Ch

I'm makin a triple, not a curtain cal - Chl

I can prove it to you til you know it's true - R

'Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too - R

You're talkin a lot, show me what you got - Ch

Again, like the beginning of this song, this is a heavy base for flirting and sexual tension, which this song is drowning in. 

Stop swinging - both

Hey - both

This is the part where they all start a flash mob in the middle of the baseball diamond. Again, alluding to the conversation I had to myself earlier, this only proves my own theory as no one takes notice of this. But, that’s not this essay, this is where I mention how close Chad and Ryan are at the end of the group dance.  

Come on, swing it like this - both

Oh, swing - both

Jitterbug, just like that - both

That's what I mean, that's how you swing - both

You make a good pitch but I don't believe - both 

Here is yet another (and the final) sexual innuendo. This is actually a rather quick one. Pitching in queer culture is considered the person who tops (because queer people even had to straight-ify their sex lives to “top” and “bottom”), this is the person who is giving, if you know what I’m saying. 

I say you can - R

I know I can't - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

You can do it - R

I don't dance, no - Ch 

 Here is where that mosh pit ends, and how they get a little too close to comfort. 

Nothing to it, atta boy, atta boy, yeah - both

The rest of this song is simply a mash-up of the baseball game being finished, and this lovely gem. 

Now, clearly, Chad’s self conscious nature towards his sexuality is gone, he’s sitting close - if not squishing - Ryan, and talking to him like they’ve been friends forever. Take note of the change of close, most likely due to all the tension at the end of the song, and maybe a little of Chad’s own natural human curiosity built in. Now, I leave you with this note: 

If there is anything that confirms all this more, its Chad’s girlfriend wearing the pride colours. 

Also note: this could also be seen as a friend helping his bro discover his sexuality and fighting internalized homophobia, but, that’s ignoring the sexual tension, so go off I guess. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.  

Watch the full thing here

[otnesse]

Okay, now that I'm off work, I'll try to give a list of the stuff Iger was personally responsible for that basically ruined Disney (and bear in mind, this was all well before his retirement in 2020).

Around 2005, as part of an effort to effectively "Never Again" 9/11, Disney was mandated to try and do a two-part documentary explaining what caused 9/11 to happen in the first place. They got an Iranian-American who fled Iran during its revolution to direct it, one who was fairly liberal in his leanings, yet was pro-2nd amendment. In any case, he tried to do an even-handed documentary citing blame for everyone who was applicable. While it went over well, when the first part of what would be called "Path to 9/11" was test screened, the next day there was a huge media circus condemning the film and there being a LOT of criticisms from people who even openly admitted to not even seeing it. The ringleader behind this manufactured controversy was none other than Bill Clinton, who was upset at a 6-minute-long scene that gave very obvious blame to him regarding passing up an opportunity to assasinate Osama bin Laden during the 1990s because it would have ruined his presidential legacy, so he sought to ruin the guy just to keep his reputation intact. And Iger, then-recently hired to replace Eisner, was one of the main guys behind the whole thing, constantly pressuring the director to cut the scene and literally preventing him from airing it until he did what Clinton wanted (ie, cut the scene critical of Clinton, and the director indicated that he if anything was being KIND to Clinton in that scene if anything). Three years later, even though they promised to release the film onto DVD, Disney refused to release the DVD, uncut or even edited, and in fact, they buried it to such an extent that not only did they not even sell the rights to any interested people like Lionsgate, they literally LIED about it at a shareholder meeting, all at Iger's behest. Tom Borelli even alluded to this in a public shareholder meeting and... well, let's just say Iger certainly wasn't clean with his mouth to him that time.

During the 2010s, Iger also was involved in creating a few TV shows that were pretty terrible and just spat in the faces of its audiences. As a case in point, GCB, which ran for a couple of seasons and was simply a mean-spirited condemnation of American Christians and even the Born Again movement. An imagineer, David Outen even criticized the show for the very blatant disrespect it's giving to a significant number of Disney's audience and pointed out to Iger in a letter that the audience he's chasing "won't fill seats at a theater." Justin Danhof also complained about this bit, as well as ABC and ESPN's anti-Christian/anti-Conservative agenda, and most of the shareholder room applauded him. Wouldn't be the last time the topic is brought up either, apparently doing that as well during the 2016 election. And speaking of which, he interfered with any attempts at firing Jemele Hill when she was basically defaming Donald Trump while commentating on ESPN, ignoring his own shareholders' attempts at reining him in from doing that and even, I kid you not, used as justification that she was "an angry black woman." Oh yeah, and he was a key player behind that infamous H1-B controversy at Disney, the one where he not only fired the entire IT department in favor of migrant workers, but also forced them to train their replacements in a blatant violation of the H1-B visa program. This led to Disney getting sued by the former IT department BTW. Oh yeah, and Iger (and also Katzenberg) were involved in a scandal where they tried to violate SEC laws just to get filming rights in China. In 2018, he replaced the CEOs at a shareholder meeting with the Disney Fan Club in a clear attempt at getting praise for himself, only for Justin Danhof to expose the con, and also get him grilled over his bad handling of not just Hill as aforementioned, but also Joy Behar (who was caught making anti-Christian slurs on ABC), and was then forced to have her issue a public apology (before then she apologized to the Vice President of the company in private). Oh, and also tried to feign ignorance on this bit as well. And in 2019, he also proceeded to infamously condemn Georgia's heartbeat bill and even attempted to bully Georgia into caving by threatening to move elsewhere if they passed it (a low even Eisner did not ever dare to cross during his tenure, especially when the Supreme Court came VERY close to undoing Roe v. Wade back in 1992). And let's not forget that Disney's primary audience is children and families, and abortion essentially kills off its future customers, literally. Bear in mind, this was all WELL before Iger's resignation in 2020, much less the Ron DeSantis "Don't Say Gay" bill in 2023 (and as far as that bit, all I'm going to say on the matter is, if you watched Howard Stern's interview with George Takei regarding his background as a boy scout and HOW he discovered his tastes, you'd probably understand why DeSantis would go that far. NOT agree, I'm not asking for that, but at least understand).

And even ignoring the clear political stuff, there's also his demands for a Golden Coffin which enraged everyone, even the guy who actually drafts these things, and also how he personally destroyed any chance at traditional animation continuing at Disney.

What do you think of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner?

Oh these two don't get me started on the drama they caused during the '80s, 90s amd 2000s at Disney, they are both pieces of work that have more cons than Pro

At least with Walt Disney or any of them they have shit that balances out the bad these guys they were just flat out me me me,

You know why DreamWorks was founded? because Jeffrey over here kept bragging about a job that he was going to have after the fact his so-called friend who had had the job before died in a helicopter crash!

It wasn't even a week later this asshole was walking around bragging about how he was going to get the job when they told him no and in fact fired him that's when he went and founded DreamWorks,

He also told animators to edit out scenes in the '80s when everything was still hand drawn, you couldn't edit out scenes. He was so obstinate on this that they had to get Eisner to stop him from destroying the film because he wouldn't listen to the animators behind it -.-

Also, blame Jeffrey for the reason why we do not have 2D animation in Disney anymore he tossed it out the window, and I quote because there is no money in it.

Jeffrey is definitely on my shit list I want to respect him but how can I respect him when he won't even listen to animators when they try to tell him you can't do certain things.

Eisner was a train wreck of a CEO did you know crime at the parks literally spiked, a kid was shot and killed in the Disneyland parking lot because of gang activity because of all the clubs he had added to the parks for teenagers and yes adults if you went to what they called Pleasure Island yes they had a land called Pleasure Island, it even had a lingerie store themed after Jessica Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit was actually the one sitting on the archway to the island,

I will say the majority of teens have good memories about one specific club called Videoopolis. However, the rest of the clubs were known for being well, not so good,

Team members of gangs would go to these clubs and hire kids out of them this went on for years,

He renamed the Zippity Doo Dah ride to Splash Mountain not because they were retheming it to actually fit the H2O splash mermaid movie. No, he just renamed it because he wanted to,

If anybody got a swift kick in the ass from Mickey Mouse, it would be Eisner. He about bankrupted the company a few times because originally no Hong Kong and Paris were absolutely bleeding money when they were initially built because they went so badly over budget because of Eisner!

He was a stubborn hard ass of a man who if anybody told him no he would throw a temper tantrum and figure out how to make it work anyways,

But the worst of the worst I will bring his name in is still chapek somehow chapek has beaten Eisner for being the worst CEO so Eisner isn't my most I do not like you on my list of Disney staffers but he's damn near close.

[beasiannow]

Connie Davidson, an actress making, at best, only small headway in her acting career, was thrilled when her agent told her there was a producer interested in not only hiring her but hiring not for a bit part but as the featured player in a new independent film. It seems he had seen her at an audition sometime in the past and thought her acting style was right for the part he had in mind.

As she found out on reporting for the first day of shooting, the catch was that she would be all but unrecognizable as herself.

“There’s going to be a lot of makeup and prosthetics involved?” she asked as she sat down in what she thought was a makeup chair. “Not much,” said the person who tended to her, “just the regular amount,” she said, “the real work is this new method we are going to be trying out.” “and that new method is?” asked Connie as she waited, but nothing further came from the woman, who, much to Connie’s dismay, seemed to be readying a series of medical needles, filling them with a clear liquid.

“Oh, just a new bit of modern medical magic,” said the woman, quickly injecting Connie with the first of five shots, “you won’t need a lot of makeup because just a few doses of this will make it so you grow into the part as natural as can be.” “You’re kidding me. That can’t be real!” gasped Connie, “oh, it's real, alright, but don’t worry, there is no damage to your DNA or anything, just a small touch of remodeling.” “What?” said Connie as the second needle released its contents into her arm. “Oh honey, it wears off after a few months, a year at most… maybe two, but let's say just a few months, you know, while the movie is being shot, so it all works out.”

“Alright,” said the dubious young actress. “I just got here and didn’t even know what part I’ll be playing.” “You’re the star, baby! It’s a biopic about Imelda Marcos, and you have the lead.” “Wait a minute, THE Imelda Marcos? From the Philippines? Am I going to play her early in her life? And anyway, shouldn’t they get a Filipina actress to play her!” “No, the film is set in the 80s during her exile in Hawaii, when she was in her fifties; they tell me there’s going to be a lot of disco dancing and….”

“What? No? OUCH!” said Connie as another needle went in. “Now these last two injections are going to make you start to get sleepy,” the woman said, continuing, “And this little treatment is going to take care of that, along with the activators and such; it’s chock full of Ms. Marcos DNA, see they tried to find an actress from the Philippines to fill the part but could not find one who could or would play the part. That’s where you come in. When you wake up, you’ll be a perfect fit and be as Filipina as she ever was.”

“Holy Moth…” Connie started to say but went out before the fifth shot went in.

Being a trooper, Connie, despite the changes she found she had undergone while under, learned her lines and hit her marks, and the movie was made.

And being a low-budget independent endeavor soon found its way mostly lost among a host of other not very well-known films free as part of Amazon Prime.

As promised, the “treatment,” which it turned out the producer got hold of because his uncle was, well, pretty much a mad scientist and so needed to be kept a secret, did start to ware off, at least the part where Connie seemed to be in her late 50’s, so that after not one, but four months she was her former 27-year-old self again. However, it appeared she was going to remain a Filipina woman. But with some underground paperwork, she had a new I.D. as Corazon 'Marigold' Divata, daughter of Filipino parents raised in L.A.

Soon things were back to the old routine of “Corazon” working odd jobs and trying to break into the Biz.

Her main fear was that when she met people from the Philippines, they would react terribly to her bizarre deceit.

But they just accepted her as a Fil-American Girl raised in the states who couldn’t help being as American as she was.

A few even offered to help her get some work in the Philippines on television, as soon as she learned some Tagalog, that is.

So that was that for Marigold Divata, and then vivid dreams about shoes started.  

The Process and Before and After Pictures:

Before: Connie Mae Davidson

After: Corazon 'Marigold' Divata

[shadowron]

The Rise and Fall of Matrix 1.0 in Shadowrun

If you know what this is, then we are friends. Hoi chummer.

If you don’t then I’ll first start with what it’s not:

Matrix (mathematics)

John Matrix from Commando

Extracellular matrix

Like most cyberpunk elements within Shadowrun, the use of “matrix” as a virtual-reality driven computer environment derives from William Gibson’s Neuromancer, published in 1984. So yes, Shadowrun rips this off, though not to the infamy that…

…this franchise did.

The Matrix came out in 1999. It was revolutionary in its special effects, realizing Keanu Reeves had a greater range than being Ted, and getting a generation of sci-fi fans to read Baudrillard.

Baudrillard did not write this book.

I’m sure there’s been much written about the central tenet of the movie – that we are living in a simulation – so much so that I’m not bothering to do any research on that topic and get back to the main topic.

Matrix Topology

In college, a group of us Shadowrun nerds tried to recruit a computer-savvy friend to make a character and join our campaign. Naturally, we suggested a decker, and soon had him trying to infiltrate his first system, looking for some mcguffin.txt file that our team was hired to find.

Him:      “Well, can’t I just grep it or something?”

Us:          “Uhh… that’s not how computers work.”

Him:       *already out the door*

The thing to remember about all implementation of computing and hacking in games is that:

It is absolutely nothing like how it works in real life, yet…

…some people will believe it to be chip-truth anyway.

Which is true for every aspect of RPGs – especially combat systems. Sometimes this is amusing – like watching D&D players trying to swing a real sword, and sometimes this leads to the United States Secret Service raiding the offices of Steve Jackson Games over GURPS Cyberpunk.

How can you consider this a threat to the Nation when The World of Synnibarr exists?

The Matrix – in Neuromancer, in the film franchise, in Shadowrun – is built upon telephone networks. In order to connect to a Bulletin Board System (BBS), your computer’s modem (a telephone that speaks computer) had to dial an old-fashioned phone number. Which meant that you had to know what that number is beforehand – there was no equivalent to Google. This is why in the movie WarGames (1983), Ferris Bueller is wardialing – calling every number in an area code to search for the few that connect to computer systems. So much of the presentation in Shadowrun is based upon knowing the address to where you want to go:

Regional Telecommunications Grid (RTG) – this is analogous to country codes. These are letter codes abbreviating the area. The RTG that covers Seattle is NA/UCAS-SEA (North America, United Canadian & American States, Seattle).

Local Telecommunications Grid (LTG) – this is analogous to a local area code. Every system will have its own LTG, encoded by a number. The examples given all have four digits but presuming there to be more than 10,000 computer systems in Seattle, they could have any value necessary. From the book:

Players should not know what is in the gamemaster's phone book because system owners guard their LTG locations jealously. Player characters will have to hunt down an access code or acquire it during an adventure to know where an LTG system connects. Let them keep their own phone books.

Supposing your decker already has the number, they can try to access the system itself. If connecting from outside (the RTG), then the decker starts off trying to infiltrate the SAN: System Access Node.

Computer systems are constructed out of a network of connected nodes, each of which having a particular purpose, represented by a standard shape, and each actually corresponding to a real part of a computer:

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

Sub-Processing Unit (SPU)

Datastore

Input/Output (I/O) Port

Slave Module

Because the decker (more specifically, the persona program running on their cyberdeck) is intrusive, there are dice rolls involved in gaining illicit access to every node, dice rolls involved in getting the node to execute your commands, dice rolls to deal with the Intrusion Countermeasures (IC, “ice”), and so on.

The Behind the Scenes chapter of the core book gives rules for randomly generating Matrix systems, populating them with ice, and determining the value of any paydata found in datastores.

Which is when you realize that Matrix 1.0 is just a reskinned one-PC dungeon crawl.

A dungeon with locked/stuck doors, monsters to protect them, and treasure to be found in them. It became cliché at our table that when it was time for the decker to do their thing, the rest of the party went to get snacks and shoot some hoops outside. Yes, it was thrilling for the decker, but at the end, they either got they needed from the system, or they didn’t. Unless you were running a campaign of all deckers (which would be AWESOME), you’re better off just having an NPC decker as a contact and contract out that work.

So, it was not surprising that, by the time the 2nd Edition version of Virtual Realities was released, it contained a completely different set of mechanics, dubbed Matrix 2.0, which became the standard when 3rd Edition was published, that greatly streamlined and sped up the gameplay.

[jamesshawgames]

Relics Series Retrospectives Part 2: Relics 2: The Crusader’s Tomb

After last week’s retrospective analysis of Relics of the Lost Age, I did another one for Relics 2, asking what worked, what didn’t, and other pertinent questions. It’s under the jump!

Of all the trilogy, Book 2 was the hardest to plan and the easiest to write. The planning difficulties arose from the fact that it was the second story in a trilogy, and it’s always hard to know what to do with that. (I’ve talked about this before elsewhere, so apologies if you read that and I’m repeating myself here!) First books have the thrill of discovering new worlds and characters; third books have the advantage of wrapping everything up, drawing everything together, and having big epic conclusions. Second books are just there, and it can be hard to make them earn their place. In order to work out what to do, I thought about trilogies that I know which have really successful second entries, and tried to figure out what they do that works so well. In the end, my main reference points were The Godfather 2 and Mass Effect 2, both second entries which many people see as the best parts of their trilogies. And what I realized, when I thought about these two stories, was that one of the reasons that they were successful was because they ended up being really different from numbers 1 and 3 in their series. So that’s what I set out to do: to make a game that would still be recognizably Relics, but would also feel distinct from 1 and 3.

I did this in a few ways. Most obviously, new mechanics. I kept the core mechanics the same, but I ended up adding a bunch of new stuff to suit the “race” format of the story. Money, trading, time, inventory, vehicles (which do have their own mechanics, although I kept them a little hidden from players) and documents are all new factors which don’t appear in 1 and which don’t reappear in 3, creating a very mechanically distinct game. I also changed up the villains. This is the only entry in the trilogy where the Nazis aren’t the main villains (they only appear in one chapter). This time, the main villains are the Order of Saint Sebastian. (In a way, this echoes the original Indiana Jones trilogy, where Nazis don’t appear in the second film, and instead the main villains are religious fanatics, although in keeping with the “decolonization” spirit of the series I made my villains militant Christians, rather than pseudo-Hindu fanatics!) It’s also the only game which is non-episodic and follows a linear timeline from start to finish, with no big gaps between chapters. I even made the art distinct, with classy black-and-white location shots for chapter headers, rather than the colorful, text-focused chapter headers of 1 and 2. Another tactic was to minimize any references to the Most High / carxite stuff until the very end. In the last chapter, you learn that this book does connect to all that stuff, but for most of the game it feels like a completely separate adventure which isn’t about that stuff at all. I think all of this works to make Book 2 feel like its own thing, and that sense of difference does a lot to help it earn its place in the trilogy and not feel like we’re just treading water.

It also probably feels a bit less “on rails” that Book 1. The competition structure helps here: there are often alternate routes, and it’s very possible to lose the competition or to engineer various different end-states, which helps open things up a lot. Replayability is also aided by the fact that you can take different companions with you. I worried about how much extra writing that would involve, but in the end it was quite manageable. I added a few entirely distinct long scenes with your travel companion (like the London reunion or the Venice gondola trip), a few shorter exchanges (e.g. on the ferry to France, while riding out of town in Romania), a few moments where individual companions would make character-specific comments, and other moments where the responses were generic enough for any companion to say the things that were being said. Altogether, this makes each run with a different companion feel distinct, aiding replayability. So it feels more open than the first one, and also, for the most part, more light-hearted. I’m not up on my colonialism soap-box quite so much this time, so it probably feels less “political”. Maybe this is because the story is mostly set in Europe. If it has any political dimensions at all, it’s probably simply that I was heartbroken by the Brexit vote and wanted to make a story about how amazing traveling in Europe is, something that’s a lot less easy for me to do now. So the book is really a love letter to Europe rather than a takedown of colonialism, which gives it quite a different feel!

But the game starts in Mexico, and I think that the Prologue works well. Firstly, since the rest of the game is going to be in Europe, there won’t be any more chances for jungle exploration or lost cities, so I get to scratch that itch in the prologue. Also, making Sam the compulsory companion in the prologue means that everybody will get some Sam time, even those players who have ROs and want to travel with them. Introducing Gainza in the prologue worked well too. He’s probably the most effective of the new villains, even though we barely see him during the race itself. I think this is partly because he’s such a clear trope (mustache-twirling evil capitalist), but it’s also partly thanks to the Prologue. It gives the MC some history with Gainza, even if it’s quite shallow history, and that helps give the rivalry with him the feeling of a grudge. It also does the “second part of a trilogy” thing well, both looking back to Book 1 (in the epilogue your MC mentioned that their friend Consuelo had found something exciting in Mexico), and looking ahead to Book 3 (because Consuelo will come back in that book), so it kind of serves as a bridge between them!

The rest of the chapters are probably, overall, less distinct generically than the chapters in Book 1. I was able to get in a bit of cross-genre fun (Chapter 4 is a heist movie, Chapter 5 is a fugitives-on-the-run saga, Chapter 6 is a classic Gothic vampire horror), but it wasn’t so easy to do that this time, perhaps because the whole non-episodic joined-up-story thing requires more of a consistent tone than the structure of Book 1. Chapters 1 and 2 are quite forgettable, I think (the build-up in this story is probably too slow – more on this later), but it starts to take off in Chapter 3, and I think that stretch of 4, 5 and 6 is probably as good as anything anywhere else in the Relics trilogy. Istanbul, of course, ends up dominated by That Moment, which some people didn’t like but I think was probably necessary. Esme and Abdul were just too happy together, and there’s limited scope for real tension and drama in a relationship that successful, so it needed a drastic change to stop those characters from becoming boring. Chapter 8, I think, works really well. One of the hardest elements of writing this book was keeping multiple parallel storylines ticking over – the race, the fates and fortunes of your rival competitors, the mystery around who’s been murdering competitors, Yelena’s grudge against you, the activities of the Order, the Most High stuff. There are still a lot of balls up in the air at the start of Chapter 8, and I think that that chapter resolves them very satisfactorily and draws everything together nicely, while still strongly suggesting the possibilities for a sequel (especially in the Most High map).

What Worked:

New mechanics: Sure, I took a bit of a steer from 80 Days, but I think my new mechanics do end up being different from that, and from what I’ve seen it just all really works well. The time factor, the trade-offs, the constraints of money, the vehicle stuff – this all really adds to the experience, it puts a bit more game into the story and, despite it all being very complicated and hard to keep track of, it all just comes together very well. Hooray!

New ROs: The María romance seems to have been very well received, probably helped by the fact that it’s been brewing for two whole books. But the fully new ROs work too. Rémy offers something distinct for people who want to romance male characters: he’s fun, and while both Abdul and Zhu have a lot to recommend them as ROs and as men, neither of them are exactly that. Rémy’s a blast to write, and someone you’d definitely want to grab a few drinks with! And Dominique works, too. Having trailed them with a brief but memorable appearance in Book 1, it was nice to bring them back and see a bit more of them. Even though I suspect a lot of players will remain attached to their Book 1 ROs, I think all three of the Book 2 ones add something distinct.

Puzzles: Good puzzles this time, for the most part.

What I’m Unsure About:

Too many random encounters: The low point is probably Venice. Here, in the course of a few days, you randomly encounter Zhu, Dominique and Stevo, who all just happen to be in town at the same time on different business! Running into Cleo in the middle of nowhere in Romania also stretches credibility. This was probably unavoidable. I wanted everybody to have the chance to reconnect with major characters from Book 1, whoever they happen to be dating (just because you’re dating Zhu doesn’t also necessarily mean that you don’t care about Cleo and never want to see her again!) I can’t really think of another way of doing it, I’m just conscious that it’s pretty unbelievable how often your MC will randomly run into their friends on this journey!

What Didn’t Work:

Too slow to start: There’s a lot of set-up here. It’s necessary, but the whole England section (Chapters 1 and 2) doesn’t feel very eventful. There’s an optional run-in with Maxie in London, for those who want to relive Book 1 Chapter 5, and an encounter with the Order in Canterbury, but that’s about it in terms of exciting scenes. The rest of it is just reuniting with your companion, setting up the contest and establishing new systems. I wish I’d found a way to do all that more efficiently. It isn’t really until Paris that the story starts to properly take off, which is too far in.

Competitors: As characters, the competitors are a mixed bag. María works well, but largely because we already know her from Book 1. I think Gainza’s a good villain, too, as I said before in part because he’s already appeared in the Prologue. But the others? Hollingsworth and Ambrose die very early (although they have already screwed you over by geligniting your car in Canterbury), and the Russians don’t appear often enough to be effective (just one optional run-in in the Alps and some eavesdropping in Venice), before they get bumped off by the mysterious rival-killer. I wish I’d made those two groups of rivals a bit more prominent so they’d feel more effective as antagonists.

[thebrownssociety]

Space Jam 2 - headcanons

So, just a few notes. firstly - I wrote this pretty much immediately after seeing the film. These headcanons are also taking place within a ‘the toons are animated actors and LeBron James is working with them’ world. [I’m saying this because otherwise the first one just sounds like a statement]

Also - spoilers for said film. Read at your own risk. 

So!

1. Lebron James didn’t actually go to Toon Town. Which meant filming was achieved by the real Lebron acting the scene out and animators animating him in later. It also meant he had another level of acting as he had to act like he was in Toontown even though he wasn’t.

2. Part of the reason this Space Jam was focused on family as well as the game was because Bugs wanted focus to be on the whole of the LT’s as well as him. [Seeing as the last Space Jam was focused on him as the main toon.]

3. They actually filmed quite a few ways the game could have gone with different toons trying out different things, with the idea being that the directors would pick the best. Yosemite Sam shot the ball into the goals. Elmer did a pretty impressive stunt that involved him leaping over the goon squad and scoring [the way he did in the original] but that was kept out because the directors thought it was to close to the original.

4. It took quite a few takes to film the entire basketball game sequence, during which the audience had some fun. They played there own version of basketball, Yogi Bear attempted to find a quiet place to ‘pic-a-nic’ and the scooby gang tried to unmask the wicked witch. [They failed, obviously.]

5. The toons did end up spending time with LeBron James during filming. They went to a couple of theme parks, watched a few movies and had a nice time. Sure, Yosemite Sam crashed one of LeBron’s expensive cars, and Wile.E showed him an invention that nearly killed him. [It was a scooter that was designed to match the speed of the Roadrunner. It did not. It just exploded.  Thankfully LeBron wasn’t on it at the time, but the basketball player still calls it ‘attempted murder.’]

All in all though, they had a nice time.

6. The scene when the toons transformed from 2-D to essentially ‘3-D’ was done in one take. The toons had done this before, so were used to it, but it can look a bit weird. The toons that were shown were the ones that were considered ‘the least horrifying.’

Daffy for instance, was fine up until his bill transformed. It looked really weird as it was transforming, so the directors decided not to use it. The human toons going from 2-D to 3-D, also looked weird, hark why none of them were used. 

7. Porky’s rapping scene was performed in 3 takes.

8. The reason Marvin wasn’t in the film as much as the other toons was because there was problem with the real-world Toon Mars world, which required his attention. Those scenes were all he could do.

9. There was meant to be a close-up of the Warner Brothers [and the Warner Sister!] on the water tower, but this was scrapped because it was felt it would be unfair to give them a proper cameo that focused on them when they weren't doing the same for any other character.

10. The end scene [with Bugs] was the hardest to film as not only did he have to act like he was glitching when he wasn’t but it really upset the other LT’s and they spent most of the takes crying. [Usually one of them would start and the others would join in, but on at least three separate takes they all just burst into tears] This got to the point Bugs had to get up and remind them all he wasn’t actually dead. By about the 50th take he was at the end of his tether and yelled at his ‘beloved’ family that if they didn’t pull themselves together he would kill THEM. 

They got it done in the next take [which is what we saw in the film.]

[popculturebuffet]

Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain: Cute Little Alienhead and Better Living Through Cheese: It’s What the Network Wants, I Bother To Complain (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people. It’s time once again for a patreon review. If you’d like one of your own just go on to THIS LINK HERE to join my patroen. At one buck a month in addition to bonus patreon exclusive reviews and other fun stuff, you also get a review like this on signup just for pledging one dollar a month, and a guaranteed review slot a month, I will make room for future months if you sign up at this tier, if you pledge 5 bucks a month.

My friend Emma has done so for the past few months, using her reviews on Green Eggs and Ham from Netflix... until she got tired of that, I got tired of that, and she decided to just have me stop and do something else. 

So enter something else: Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain. Thankfully not the entire series. For those of you who are fans of america’s sweethearts and had no idea this existed... I am SO sorry you now know this exists and were better off not knowing.

But since I ruined that for you, again SORRY, your probably wondering “what the fuck is this”. To answer that question, Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain was a short lived retool/spinoff of Pinky and the Brain, that decided to jam Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures in there because Speilberg and the Execs both thought it was a good idea. 

See the execs had wanted to shove in more main characters for years, likely feeling a main cast of two was a bit thin. What they didn’t get is really.. a show should really only have as many main characters as it needs. For example there are two recent cartoons that come to mind on both ends of the spectrum: Ducktales 2019 had 9 main characters and while they struggle to juggle them we need all 9 and the show justifed each and every one. In constrast Tuca and Bertie only has our titular duo and Bertie’s boyfriend Speckle as main characters, with plenty of recurring and one off ones. But the two just ballance each other so well comedically and are fleshed out enough to carry their own stories... we ONLY need speckle, who provides needed support for both and can carry his own zany subplots to help fill the episodes out or lighten the mood. 

You ONLY need as many characters as the show needs. Almost every case of execs or writers TRYING to shove in a new character into the main cast has gone poorly: The Great Gazoo, Sparky, Flim Flam, Bubba The Cave Duck, Chloe, Taffy, Wheelie, Sgt. Hatred. Shoving a new character in our faces rarely works unless their dope as fuck. In contrast adding Hunter to season two of the owl house was a brilliant move and gave us a great new character. If a character FITS and adds to things then add the fuck away. But when you try and paper one in to shake things up without considering if their annoying as shit, this is what you get. 

They apparently tried pushing this to the point the crew ended up making an ENTIRE EPISODE to get the point across, the all time classic Pinky, and the Brain and Larry. 

They.. REALLY coudln’t of made it clearer if they just made an episode called “Please don’t make us do this.”.. and the execs still didn’t get it, nor did they get it when one of the writers angrily left the company, went to work for disney and their last episode was one giant middle finger to them. 

So yeah fucking with the formula was inevitbile.. but according to one of the writers.. the idea to jam Elmyra in there was all Stephen Speilberg’s. Which is shocking as while I INTENDED to rattle off the guy’s failures.. he REALLY dosen’t have that many. The most I could find in his filmography were Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Young Indiana Jones, and Ready Player One direct involvment wise and maybe a few films he exectuive produced like the Transformers sequels. The guy usually has better common sense than to say “Hey you know how with Tiny Toons we created one of the most unlikeable characters of all time? Let’s shove her into a show with characters people actually like!”

Now for those wondering who Elmyra is, again i’m so sorry to tell you. Elmyra was a character on Tiny Toon Adventures, an awesome show you should defintely check out that directly lead to Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series and tons of other great stuff. It followed a new batch of young teen toons modeled after the classic Looney Toons with their own touches to make the characters unique. Elmyra naturally was their elmer stand in but since a child wanting to hunt animals would be a bit dark she was instead a girl who hoarded animals and occasionally cuddled them to death. 

Yeahhhhhh I don’t get what they were thinking either. In contrast their Yosimite Sam substitute, Montana Max, was a billionare selfish ass voiced by Danny Cooksy who was entertaining as hell, being a selfish perfect foil to Bugs stand ins Buster and Babs. Elmyra.. was just an annoyingly voiced little girl who constantly abused animals, didn’t get punished for it NEAR as often as she should, and who once was seen as the victim for Max not wanting to go to prom with her.. when he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested and ran far away because he knew she woudln’t take no for an answer. The fact her targets are frequently two likeable tricksters, a very sad cat and an also sad skunk who needs to learn about consent but it’s hard to see why she hasn’t when her mentor is a guy so me tooed even space jam 2 said no , did not help. 

As you can probably gather I do not like Elmyra. I’m HAPPY she isn’t in the revival next year and my only regret at her not being in the show is Cree Summer might not be in it, and hope they either bring back Mary Meoldie or give Cree someone else to play as a voice actor of her stature deserves to return.  If you like the character and miss her, tha’ts fine, you do you, but I’m not going to pull punches at how much I HATE this character. I dislike her so much I think it’s about time I debut something i’ve been considering for a long time and certainly need for tommorow. Welcome folks to the WALL OF MISERY. my wall of characters who I just plain CANNOT stand and who make a work worse by existing, wether they be unintentionally terrible or annoying, written as the hero when their clearly not, or are SUPPOSED to be obnoxious but the writers do too good a job. 

I will update this naturally as It hink of more and find more, but needless to say these are the biggest douchebags, disapoitnemtns and what have you and Elmirya FIRMLY deserves that spot up there in the left. But it’s a good solid base coat of hatred. 

So yeah as you can probably guess by the fact she’s on a wall of people I don’t like too much, I approached this show with dread.. but also curiosity. Was it REALLY that bad, or just overblown a bit for the infamy of ending Speilberg’s animation streak on Warner Bros (Which was likely to end anyway because they were shifting away from animated lavishly made comedies and into action to handle pokemon better). There’s only one way to find out and it’s with me under the cut.. .well okay you COULD watch it yourself but you have better things to do and I was paid to not have better things to do and watch this, so join me under the cut. 

The Theme Song: 

The theme song is... suprisingly really good. You’d think they’d replace the pInky and the Brain theme with something awful and trying too hard to be hip. I expected this.

See something like that trying too hard and accidently giving Emma ideas and digging my own grave shitttttttttttt. Given Speilberg forced Elmyra on them, i’m REALLY suprised he didn’t also say “Let’s sych my wife’s screams to the pinky and the brain theme”. insetad...

It’s honestly really fun to hear Ruegger’s classic vocals on an entirely diffrent version of the theme. What’s also fun is the writer’s not even hiding their contempt for what they’ve been forced to unleash on the world. Brain’s look up there in the still image , that I used for this review just sums up the audeince and crew’s reactoin this thing , “It’s what the network wants, why bother to complain”, with Brain apparently having tried and failed much like the writers and ending on Brain flat otu saying “I resent this”. I”m VERY suprised the network heads didn’t reject this outright and very happy they didn’t. 

Really the only issue I have with this intro far too good for the show it’s stapled to is the extended version.. which gives ELMYRA a verse. 

Yeah it’s every bit as bad as you’d expect and thankfully WASN’T used for this episode, with me only finding it by accident on youtube and regretting it immiedetly. That smacks of a studio mandate the executives regretted immdeitly and is something the “And Larry’ intro did AS A JOKE. Good lord.

Cute LIttle Alienhead

Now you’d EXPECT with that intros general tone of “Their making us do this send help”, that the writers would half ass it, something no one would blame them on. And.. you’d be wrong. The writers may of hated doing this ... but their professionals and took to doing this like they would if this was a normal season of the series and not what’s playing on my CRTv themed Cenotbitesona CRTVhead. 

Now granted it dosen’t make the episode GREAT, just watchable, but I do commend them for trying despite again, no one blaming them if they hadn’t and this series actively hurting their careers by existing. 

The premise is classic Pinky and the Brain just with Elmyra just sorta there at the start and finish because contractual obligation. Her scene at the start though highlights why the character only works either as an out and out antagonist who looses to someone more likeable like Babs and Buster, or annoying someone who usually deserves it like Montana Max. USUALLY being the key word.  Because she abuses Animals, even if it’s not intentional most of the time, it becomes hard to watch and having her do it to two VERY likeable characters on an episodic basis makes it ten times worse. 

Look Brain may be trying to conquer the world, it’s his thing. We all know that and accept that. But.. he’s not a bad person. if he were truly odious, he wouldn’t be the protaganist. He wants to take over the world because he genuinely thinks it would be BETTER under his watch, a world he has trouble understanding and who frequently proves his frustrations with it right. He just can’t graps the world as flawed as it is is better off slightly with free will and that he would be better off using his genius to help guide it instead of trying to take it. He also loves Pinky even if he’d never admit it , to the point the reboot highlights he can’t even fathomt hat Pinky is the reason behind his failures and refuses to kill him when his future self asks or even entertain his future self’s misguided notion Pinky is delberatley sabotaging him. Brain may be an asshole and a would be dictator but he’s got a suprisingly good heart. He also NEVER wins and usaully gets his commupance when he goes way too far with a scheme. So Elmyra abusing him isn’t karma... because Karma usually hits him anyway. He always fails so instead it just comes across as more “waccckkyyy” animal abuse for no reason and that Brain’s basically enterted a living hell of a living arangment for no reason.  To further prove my point, there is a cartoon that actually does the “Little girl has a world conquering pet who karmically gets messed with without her realizing it” trope.... and it’s in P and B’s own back yard. Yeah I really coudln’t review this one without bringing up Starbox and Cindy. It’s a short from the 2020 animaniacs that follows a pocket sized alien conquerer who crashed on earth in an imagintive and oblivious little girl’s backyard and tries in vain to get the controls to his ship so he can signal the invasion and finally be free of her. 

It improves on it in every way: instead of the 12 year old should know better even at that age Elmyria, Cindy is 5-7 so she’s young enough she dosen’t relaize she’s hurting Starbox, making the slapstick work. More to the point unlike most of Elmyra’s targets especially Brain.. Starbox DESERVES IT.  The intro shows he’s conquered and raised world after world, and unlike brain whose likeable despite his issues, Starbox is just a little shit who clearly conquers because he LIKES it and wants to keep going with it. So him failing again and again and being humilatied by being the companion for a tiny , adorable child, with his ship constantly just out of reach and his fleet “waiting! Waiting! Waiting!” is fitting karma. While yes they don’t kshow the horrible things he did in episode, they show just enough in the intro to let you know he earned this. I really hope for more of this when the show comes back in november it’s quite good and I throughly love the irony that they reworked pinky, elmyra and the brain of all thigns into something actually enjoyable. 

So yeah this just dosen’t work but Brain gets rid of her with a seed for a Bunny Tree.. which Pinky naturally wants to go with and brngs up another issue with this show’s dna: Elmyra feels more like an obstacle the characters and writers have ot get around than a part of the show. We already have Pinky as both the token idiot and obstacle in brains way, so adding ANOTHER who has more power over him and is less likeable dosen’t ADD anything, it simply distracts from what people came to the show for. Like I said earlier when you add a character into a long standing show, you have to be careful it dosen’t destroy the formula said show carefully crafted. You can’t put a trantula in an ant farm and expect it to work. i’ts too big it’ll collapse the whole thing and then starve. 

So brain’s plan for tonight is to contact an alien, trade something for technology and use whatever tech he can get to conquer the world. if this sounds familiar once again Animaniacs 2020 repurposed this, though the aliens are different enough it still works. Animaniacs 2020 could get years of material out of recycling this series wasted ideas and I don’t think anyone, including the writers of these episodes, would complain.

So yeah Elmyra isn’t much of a factor in this episode.. but said episode... still just isn’t good. The alien himself, voiced by Rob Paulsen.. is just a dick. That’s it that’s his character, he looks down on Brain as an earth dumb dumb and just isn’t all that intresting or funny abou tbeing a dick, and given the show we’re in it’s VERY clear what his compuance is going to be. 

And that’s really the episode’s issue: it’s predictable. While the original series has a set formula you never know HOW Brain’s plan will fail: will it be pinky, Brain’s own shortsightness or some third factor he coudln’t predict. It’s usually one of the three but it’s never outright clear from minute one which one is going to trip Brain up this week. While the second short in this episode is WORSE in almost every other way.. it’s not THIS obvious and there aren’t enough good jokes to counterballance. The only really memorable one I can admit to is what Pinky finds to trade, canned ham. And even THAT is kinda telegraphed as the way Brain keeps having Pinky bring stuff the alien shoots down to trade, it’s clear Pinky’s of course going to have something to trade for the EMP generator the alien has. 

And of course it goes how you’d expect: Elmyra finds the alien and huggles him and destroys the generator, and the only real satsifying part of his ending is seeing the smug alien get the Elmyra treatment.. which like Starbox he deseves, but the character was so grating it wasn’t worth getting there.  

Overall a short that i’d honestly forget if I wasn’t reviewing it like this and even then i’m not sure. It has ideas that would be done better later and actively has to get one of the title characters out of the way to do the plot. 

Building a Better LIfe Through Cheese:

While the previous short wasn’t good.. this one is just plain bad. It has a promising setup that cleverly uses the status quo change to it’s advantage: Brain is making cold fusion, of course, but is having trouble both finding a catalyst and expermenting without proper equipment. While adding superflous characters to pinky and the brain was a terrible idea, changing the setting is a pretty genius one. It’s simple but as a child’s pet instead of in the lab Brain now lacks resources and has far more attention on him than our heroes seemed to as lab mice. It’s not a bad concept them manuvering around a kid and having more issues to deal with.. they just picked Satan’s kid. And not one of the cool ones. 

Elmyra and Pinky are meanwhile working on Elmyra’s science fair project, a paper mache volcano that spews Moldy Cheese. Why does the crew think just making it Moldy Cheese is funny?

Brain is unintrested since Elmyra sucks, only to become intrested because the prize is a Bob Hack the Science Quack Chemistry set. And sadly Bob Hack is one of their weaker parodies, not taking it far enough in the weird directoin (He apparently said air is made of air) to be funny or taking any jabs at my man Bill Nye other than “he’s really enthuastic and teaches basic science”. Yeah that’s why kids like me who grew up with him liked him. The show’s usually better at parody than this as were Animaniacs and Tiny Toons. Even goofy puns on stuff were funnier. This this is nothing.

But soon the volcano spews into the chemistry set and it makes the cold fusion work, so Brain decides to sign up with it. He also describes cheese scientefically using fancy words so Elmyra punishes him by washing his mouth out with soap because he has a “potty mouth”. This gag.. .this fucking gag. I hate this kind of gag. Has a lot to do with that one Jimmy Neutron episode where they worked at the burger joint and that surfer dude moron managing them was a condescnding ass to Jimmy because he coudln’t understand him and assumed he was dumb.  It’s not funny to see a smart person tormented by a moron because their smart... I think current politics has more than proven that. It’s funnier with PInky because he dosen’t abuse brain over it, he just says funny things and is adorable because Pinky is actually likeable. 

So some time later, our heroes head to the Science Fair where Brain is worried about big oil, fair, there’s two weirdos taking pictures and it’s here I met Rudy for the first time. Rudy is the show’s replacement for Montanna Max. Why...

Maybe Danny’s voice was just old by this point, I dunno, but they decided on this douchebag voice by Tress Macneile instead, so he ends up sounding like Dollar Store Nelson Muntz. 

Seriously he’s just Nelson without any of the charm or depth, and I don’t  blame Tress for it. Work is work. She was just given nothing to WORK with. 

But yeah he’s just there to be ANOTHER annoying obstacle, and adds nothing and was clearly added due to executive mandate wanting at least ONE more new character. So we got a ton of this kid.. but almost none of Wally, a character I hear is a pastiche of Christopher Walken. 

Look if I questoin EVERY terrible decision this series made i’ll be here for the next week. So after some stpuidity from rudy and the mice having to cover for talking and brain getting abused AGAIN for simply being smart, a blackout occurs and the generator is gone. Brain assumes it was the two weirdos, and a chase ensues.. only to find them feeding the birds. 

Naturlaly ti’s really RUDY who has it and nearly destroys it, Brain gets it back and despite Elmyra fishing her volcano out of the trash gets rid of that so he can be on top.. and in classic fashion the generator no longe rworks, and Rudy wins using Elmyra’s volcano and smashes both that, and the prize. And this is what put the episode over the top for me: Brain not getting cold fusion? Of course that wouldn’t happen we still have 11 other episodes of this monstrosity, the fun is in teh how. But Brain not even getting the tiniest victory when all he was was a little bit of a dick to a child that abuses him reguarly, demeans him and dosen’t respect him as a sentient being? 

The only clever bit in this nothing of an episode is the two weirdos turning out to be spies for big oil. And even then that’s not a huge shock given Brain telegraphed it. 

So yeah this episode sucks: It shows WHY Elmyra is grating, and tourtures brain for little reason. It’s another ineherent problem with the premise: it makes Brain incredibly sympathetic instead of just enough. We WANT him to win.. because it means Elmyra looses and he’s  likely free of her. By putting him in the hands of an abusive child, it means we want him to ESCAPE the situation instead of as a lab rat where, while occasionaly treated like crap and, as the reboot shows, horribly traumatized as a kid, we don’t see it on screen all that often and i’ts not nearly as bad as REAL labratory mice treatment. 

It’s really the series in a nutshell. It’s stinky, for PInky and the Brain Brain Brain Brain Brain: adding elmyra is like if you were shackled to a horse whenever you did something. You’d have to constantly maunver around that horse and it’d slow down everything you do and make it harder and more miserable TO do.  While I will admit the show isn’t HORRIBLE.. i’ts not GOOD. Just because it manages to be mediocre in spite of everything, dosen’t make it intresting or fun to watch. If your curious watch ONE segment thent reat yoruself to some animaniacs or pinky and the brain or the animaniacs reboot. This series just really ISN’T worth the time and the only good thing about watching it is I really don’t have to again. Thank you for clicking, thank you for staying, thank you for reading this.

[gthreepio]

i’ve been thinking about the future of the mcu and realized there’s a LOT that i didn’t know/didn’t remember in terms of where things are going so i figured i’d sum it up incase anyone else was in the same boat!! 

quick recap of (unresolved) mid-credit scenes:

doctor strange: mordo (a sorcerer that is one of strange’s mentors, who by the end of the movie becomes disillusioned with magic/the ancient one and quits) confronts pangborn (the paraplegic who healed himself with the mystic arts, who tells strange about mystic arts in the first place) and steals his magic because according to mordo, there are “too many sorcerers." of note, this guy is typically a villain in the comics but hasn’t been thus far...

gotg2: ayesha (leader of the sovereign, a golden skinned alien race obsessed with genetic purity), after spending most of the movie chasing the guardians for stealing some stuff, is revealed to have created an artificial being named “adam” which is presumably, adam warlock. (other stuff that is less relevant: kraglin appears to take up yondu’s mantle; the ravagers regroup and several old and obscure comic book characters are introduced [charlie-27, aleta, martinex, mainframe]; the watchers are watching things.) 

far from home: j jonah jameson basically tells the whole world spider-man’s secret identity, and frames him for what happened with mysterio....making him public enemy #1. ALSO, turns out nick fury and maria hill in the movie were ACTUALLY the two skrulls from captain marvel (talos and soren) attempting to do their job, while the real fury (and presumably hill) is ... up in space on some spaceship!!!

wandavision: monica (who we can assume is photon) is called by “an old friend of [her] mother’s,” up in space, which presumably means fury, talos, or carol. ALSO, wanda sits in the middle of nowhere reading the darkhold and hears the voices of her children who.. by all accounts, should not exist. 

aaaaand what we know about future movies (i’m not even going into the tv series.....): 

black widow: 

takes place after civil war

nat confronts a “dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past,” likely has to do with taskmaster who has apparently taken over the red room where nat was trained as an assassin

prominent new characters: yelena belova, who will take over the mantle of black widow after this; alexei shostakov aka red guardian, an ollllld marvel hero analogous to captain america except for the soviet union.

tony stark will make an appearance... SOBS

shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings:

shang-chi has never been seen in the mcu before, but he is, essentially, a superhero that is a master martial artist, and in some adaptations can also create duplicate (fake) versions of himself to confuse opponents

main villain will be the the mandarin who we have *sort of* seen before... he is the leader of a terrorist organization called “ten rings” whose main goal is to destroy world peace. brief history -- in iron man 1: one ten rings cell kidnaps tony stark and tries to force him to make weapons (he of course, makes his suit instead). stark and ten rings become enemies and fight a bunch. nat and nick fury fight them too. in iron man 3, the villain aldrich killian hires a dude to pretend to be the mandarin and claim responsibility for a bunch of stuff, but its not the ten rings or the mandarin at all. this makes the mandarin v mad and he has a dude kidnap the faker to punish him. they also briefly show up in ant-man, when a ten rings agent tries to buy the yellowjacket suit that darren cross is selling. BUT IN SHANG-CHI....... looks like we are FINALLY going to see the real mandarin after over a decade!! 

the villain razor fist will also show up, he is lesser known... he has no superhuman powers but he has surgically replaced his hands (1 or 2, depending on the version) with a steel blade, and is highly skilled at hand to hand combat.

besides the presence of these characters, the only bit of plot we know is “shang-chi is drawn into the ten rings organization and forced to confront his past.” so... yeah. we don’t know much at all.

eternals: 

quick explanation: the eternals are an immortal alien race who have been secretly living on earth for thousands of years. they were created by the celestials, who are most prominently in gotg2. 

more entirely new characters!!! their names are: thena, who can form any weapon out of cosmic energy; gilgamesh, who can make a super strong exoskeleton out of cosmic energy; ikaris, who has superhuman strength, flies, and can project cosmic energy out his eyes; kingo, who can shoot cosmic energy projectiles from his hands; makkari, who creates sonic booms, has super speed, and is deaf; phastos, who has enhanced intelligence, and is also gay (and married with a kid!); ajak, who has healing powers; sprite, who can project illusions; sersi, who can manipulate matter; druig, who can mind control; and dane whitman (black knight), a human with a mystical sword. 

regarding the plot... it seems the eternals have kind of dispersed, but have to come together again to fight the deviants, who are their “evil counterparts” (also created by the celestials, though i’m unclear on why). thena and gilgamesh have apparently been in exile, unclear why; sersi, who is posing as a museum curator, has apparently been in love with ikaris for centuries and it seems as if their love story may be central to the film; and kingo is a bollywood film star in his spare time. aaaaand that’s pretty much all we know.

directed by chloé zhao of nomadland fame! 

spider-man no way home: 

based on the post-credits scene in far from home, peter parker will now be known as spider-man to everyone. unclear if he’s going to be seen as a bad guy due to mysterio framing him, but i guess we’ll see! 

jamie foxx is electro, and alfred molina is doctor octopus; which is VERY interesting considering they played these roles in other spider-man franchises, once again stirring up excitement for possible multiverse. 

there have been *multiple* reports that andrew garfield, kirsten dunst, tobey maguire, and emma stone will be in the movie but tom holland has repeatedly denied this... so... who knows. 

there are also rumors that matt murdock / daredevil (from netflix) will be in several scenes! not confirmed though. 

MJ is still his girlfriend and i hope it stays that way!! 

doctor strange will be featured in the movie, taking on the mentor role now that tony stark is gone :( this will be interesting as i.. haven’t really seen them interact much before. because of this inclusion some people speculate that the film may draw inspo from some comic storylines where peter’s secret identity is restored with magic. 

doctor strange in the multiverse of madness: 

scarlet witch is essentially co-starring!!! it’s going to be really interesting to see if they bring vision or the twins into this at all, though i’m not counting on it. 

seems like mordo will be the main villain -- recall the ds1 post credits scene where he is apparently running around trying to steal people’s magic.

america chavez will make her debut!!!!!! i have no idea how this plays into anything but i am so excited!! 

regarding the plot, all we really know is that strange has been researching the time stone, mordo messes with him, and this results in him accidentally unleashing “unspeakable evil.” presumably there will also be heavy involvement of the multiverse, and who knows what kind of craziness that will bring!! 

initially was going to be directed by scott derrickson who did ds1; however he stepped down to being just EP due to “creative differences.” i am presuming this is because derrickson really wanted to make this more gothic and horror than disney was comfortable with. i REALLY hope they keep some of those elements though and don’t erase the idea entirely! anyway, it will be directed by sam raimi now (of evil dead and spiderman 2002 fame). 

the film also reportedly ties in with the loki series (will loki show up!?) and spiderman 3 (which is obvious enough, given that strange is in that movie and those curious electro and doctor octopus castings...)

thor: love and thunder

directed by taika waititi again, hell yeah!!! and he has stated, the film will be “so over the top now in the very best way" and would make ragnarok look like a "run of the mill, very safe film" .... so.... oh god

so many great returning players!!! including.... valkyrie (now the king of new asgard), jane foster, lady sif, korg, star-lord, mantis, drax, nebula, and kraglin (takes up yondu’s mantle after he dies in gotg2)

in this movie, thor isn’t thor anymore.... it’s JANE!!! she gets cancer :( and is undergoing treatment while simultaneously being thor. i’m a little nervous how this will be handled, but i’m excited. (it’s based off an amazing comic series by jason aaron) 

the big bad: gorr the god butcher, played by christian bale! the gist of it is, this dude HATES gods because nobody helped when his family was dying and in need. his weapon is “all-black the necrosword,” forged from the head of a celestial, and allows the user to create wings and fly at extreme speeds. honestly, he sounds cool as fuck. 

valkyrie is going to be made canonically bisexual!!! 

it will explore more of korg’s backstory, and also include... space sharks!?!?! an alien race from the comics.

taika has called the script “very romantic” so take that as you will 

black panther 2

will again be directed by ryan coogler

not much is known at this point, does not have an official name

t’challa will NOT be recast (which i’m happy about) so..... honestly no idea what to expect for this one. i think we can probably expect shuri to have an expanded role. all we know so far is they will be “exploring the world of wakanda.” not clear to me how this is different from the upcoming wakanda D+ series. 

tenoch huerta has reportedly been cast as a villain, but no one has any idea who. there’s also rumors that donald glover is in “informal talks” to play a role. note all of this is unconfirmed.

captain marvel 2

will be directed by nia da costa (candyman!) and written by megan mcdonnell, who is one of wandavision’s best writers! 

will take place in the present day 

will feature kamala khan / ms. marvel, monica rambeau / photon!!! this will be so interesting.... kamala is a huge fan of carol’s in the comics, she is her mentor/idol. the ms. marvel series will also resportedly lead into cm2. and monica, well, monica knew her when she was a little kid. wandavision implies that there’s some bad blood between carol and monica though, not sure why. maybe because carol left and never came back? (until endgame) 

post-credits scene of wandavision appears to tie into this, having monica go up into space at the reqeust of her “mom’s old friend.” again, not clear who that is. this could also be a tie in to secret invasion though, so we’ll see. or both.

zawe ashton has been cast as an unknown villain... a lot of people are actually speculating that she may play rogue? which would be fascinating, as there’s a comic arc where rogue steals her powers and memories. BUT there’s still no confirmation that X-men exist in the MCU so for now i remain skeptical.

they are looking to cast a ‘john boyega’ or ‘michael b jordan’ type which makes me wonder if they are going to create a new character, a “younger” war machine to be her love interest? (note: carol and rhodey are a huge thing in comics!) carol obviously does not look her age but her and don cheadle.... that just doesn’t work. which is why i wonder.

ant-man and the wasp: quantumania 

in addition to scott and hope, pretty much all the major players are returning including: luis, hank pym, janet van dyne

cassie lang has been recast with an actress 5 years older, which is really making me wonder if they are going to make her stinger in this movie! (aka one of the main young avengers)

the villain: kang the conqueror! this dude time travels. original name nate richards. in the comics, kang travels back in time to rescue his younger self (nate) from an attack that would help shape him towards a life of villainy. kang also gives him some fancy armor. his younger self actually is like, what the fuck dude? and renounces his destiny, becoming a hero. and he makes his armor look like iron man, calling himself iron lad. who is a young avenger. which also makes me wonder about cassie lang.

otherwise not much is known! 

guardians of the galaxy vol. 3

james gunn is returning, i’m mixed about this...he really does *get* the guardians though. 

based on the gotg2 post credits scene, i think we can assume adam warlock will be a HUGE part of this. there are multiple versions of him, some villainous and some heroic, but no idea how this is gonna turn out.

no word yet on whether thor will be involved, or if those ravagers they introduced will be involved. 

fantastic four 

will be directed by the spiderman guy, john watts.

otherwise we know literally nothing.

aaaaand that’s the roundup!