#because I thumbnailed all the stuff without a house reference I expected to need to fuck around with posing more but no!

[catzgam3rz]

Endlantis Ranboo Comic update (Because I like to make them and hopefully they aren't annoying?): 12/17 pages have been digitally sketched out! (and that includes the backgrounds!)

Tomorrow I should be able to start the lining of the backgrounds :D!

[fly-pow-bye]

ThunderCats Roar - “The Horror of Hook Mountain”

Co-Executive Producer: Victor Courtright

Supervising Producer: Nate Cash

Producer: Marly Halpern-Graser

Story by: Joan Ford

Teleplay by: Eric Knobel

Directed by: Jeremy Polgar

There is a horror in this one...but is it the episode itself?

Our journey begins with Tygra taking Lion-O on a hike for him to learn one of the many, many lessons he needs to learn to become a good Lord of the ThunderCats. One of them happens to be climbing the titular Hook Mountain, which is both terrifying and super cool according to Lion-O. Tygra had to admit that he is right with the latter, though not with the same definition of "cool".

Lion-O: Good thing we got our booties!

Don't worry, he means boots. Really really tiny boots that would not protect him from absolute zero, but boots nonetheless. Cold temperatures aren't the only danger, either, as this mountain has super avalanches, trick snow floors, and lethal stabby ice canyons! Yes, that is exactly how Tygra puts that last one; I could imagine he has to lower his vocabulary to a level Lion-O could understand, but it could be more for the sake of having a running gag where he constantly calls stalagmites "stab canyons."

Treading this mountain would require a leader that can trust his teammates, and, for Lion-O's lesson, Tygra decides to have him do the classic trust exercise. Even before Tygra could even explain what a trust exercise even is, Lion-O reveals that he does know and decides to fall so Tygra can catch him.

Unfortunately, he takes it too far by falling from a very high part of the mountain right on top of a bunch of hungry pterodactyls who just say "yum, yum, yum, yum", which he managed to climb off-screen with the power of cartoon logic. This episode definitely establishes which one of these guys is the straight man. We get to see Lion-O seemingly falling to his death, while Tygra rushes around, tiring himself out.

All of that just for this rather poorly drawn reaction with maybe a little too much attention on the booty. Here, I really do mean posterior! In the name of trust, he decides to trust Tygra's training on this leader stuff, and he starts climbing the mountain with a sentence that shows his confidence as a trusting leader.

In the middle of that sentence, we see Lion-O and Tygra struggling to get up the mountain, as even Lion-O realizes his little booties and cape aren't enough for him to survive the cold atmosphere. They do find a cabin, and Tygra, being the more down-to-Earth fellow, decides to ponder about whether they should trust. Of course, Lion-O decides to take out his Claw and shoot a grappling hook towards the door. Why didn't he just use the Claw Line to climb the mountain? They actually have Tygra ask that question, and Lion-O just shrugs. See kids, we know we're being stupid!

Lion-O sleeps on the snugly bear rug, kind of like, well, a cat. Tygra, without much hesitation, decides to sleep in the bed. It's almost as if Tygra knows he's being forced to do something that would most likely lead to him getting eaten by whatever creature owns this house by the script. He is tired, but still.

The next morning, we get a reason to use that classic "dun dun dun dun" cue, and surprisingly, they didn't even use it until now. They did not even use it for the minute long trust exercise gag! Okay, maybe it wasn't a minute long, but it felt that long. That "dun dun dun dun" was for the reveal that a yeti owns this cabin, and in what horrifying way is this yeti going to greet his unwanted guests?

Yeti: (singing) 1, 2, good morning to you!

It turns out that this yeti seems to be a nice guy, and actually likes having visitors around. He introduces himself as Snowman and also introduces his pet sabretoothed cat, Snowmeow! They also really like to people-watch any people that come to their home to sleep, which gives Tygra more of a reason to not trust them. There's a few more things here and there that could raise his suspicion, namely that aforementioned bear rug suggesting he may hunt, but that's the big one.

Speaking of that rug, Tygra tries to alert Lion-O about that suspicious guy who likes to stare at people, who is still resting on it. They decided to have the all important detail of Lion-O farting as soon as he gets up, complete with a fart cloud coming out of him, because...I have no idea.

Of course, as a good leader who is following Tygra's lessons, he decides to blindly trust this man and his wild cat. Lion-O does get horrified by the snow cat, but only because this cat is nude. This is an obvious joke on how this bipedal cat is reacting to a regular cat. One interesting reference that pops up from this is that he pulls out a spare outfit, and it happens to be an outfit with an abdominal opening like the original Lion-O's.

Tygra is none too happy about this blind trusting, and tries to literally carry Lion-O out of the house.

Namely, as soon as he reaches for the door, a bunch of steel bars pop out of nowhere.

Snowman: You're not going a-ny-where!

It's here where one might expect the obvious twist: that this guy is probably Mumm-Ra in another one of his many disguises. But no, he has a different reason to trap them. As a spider crawls out of his fur just to make him seem more gross, another way to get people to believe Tygra's side of the story, he tells them that it isn't safe out there, because of...

Snowman: The Sparkle-Maw!

I'm certainly sparing the readers all of the wacky close-ups this episode has, because there's a ton of them. In this episode, they outnumber the "dun dun dun duns", which is kind of an accomplishment. He then talks a little history about this Sparkle-Maw, including how it is able to camouflage itself, and that it ate all of his friends. He slowly looks at the one photo of his blizzard buds with tears in his eyes, only to be interrupted by a smoke alarm.

Snowman: Oopsy-poopsy! Bacon's burning! (throws possibly only picture of his friends out of frame, presumably breaking it)

Wow, everyone just doesn't really respect their fallen friends in this series, do they? Whether it be Jaga just shrugging off the destruction of his planet with a "oh, everything splodes someday!", or Snowman just throwing away what is probably a sentimental photo. I get that they're trying to subvert our expectations, but it does take a bit of weight from this.

Tygra doesn't believe him, because, even in this weird world where pterodactyls still exist, there seems to be a man for every type of animal, and the unicorns roam free, he just knows the Sparkle-Maw isn't a real creature. Knowing Lion-O must see through this as well, he tells him to use the Sword of Omens, but Lion-O doesn't want his friends eaten by that Sparkle-Maw, and decides, as a good leader, that he will trust everything this man says. Tygra tries to clarify he didn't mean blindly trust, but the smell of pterodactyl bacon just can't be resisted.

A long time seemingly passes, with Tygra writing in his journal about how unbearable it is that he still hasn't figured out Snowman's horrible plan as he stares at him passing along a ball of yarn with the two other cats in the room, Lion-O included in that. There's a lot of jokes about how they're cats, and they're not particularly cringe-worthy.

That long time turns out to be 375...unbearable...minutes, and I could just imagine Tygra actually counting the seconds in his second, scratching a number with his claws on the wall, as Snowman, his pet, and his other guest remains blissfully unaware. Either Tygra is gradually going nuts, or he's reacting like anyone should when almost everything else seems to add up to a Hansel and Gretel situation. Then again, he did climb into a stranger's bed, he can't be that sensible.

Tygra does get an idea based on Snowman's love of playing games: a game of Thunderian Picture Guess. It's like Pictionary, minus any royalties to Mattel. Since Snowmeow can't talk, and Snowman seems to only see everything as the Sparkle-Maw, Tygra draws something he really wanted Lion-O to say: "lightning purr shovel." At least, that was one of Lion-O's guesses.

Lion-O eventually gets the right answer, "thunder thunder thunder thundercats hoe", which ends up causing the sword to shine through the cabin and right into the Cat's Lair's disco ball. We got to see what they were doing throughout the episode: watching an apparently boring cooking show that only Panthro was interested in. I was kind of worried this would lead nowhere, as if a ThunderCats Roar could fail if they're merely bored. However, they do decide to go after it anyway, though it's suggested that WilyKit is just going with it because the show was just so boring. It's a little more justified than a similar scene in one of the earlier episodes.

Lion-O and Tygra look out the window, and Tygra uses this as proof that there's no Sparkle-Maw out there, as he just sees the ThunderCats in their Thunder Tank, and a bunch of spiders that came out of nowhere.

These must be those Sparkle-Maws Snowman was talking about. He tells Snowman that he should trust him and his teammates, and he eventually decides to let him free, telling him that he's going to miss him. Lion-O valiantly runs forward...far away from the Sparkle-Maws, leaving everyone else to do all the dirty work. From what I've seen in the original, this isn't too far off so far.

We get our higher-budget fight scene here, and I'd put it somewhere in the middle. The animation is above-average, and while there's not as many clever uses of weapons as, say, Boggy Ben, it's doesn't feel like an afterthought either. It's also not one-sided, as the Sparkle-Maws manage to trap them with their big claws.

Thankfully, Lion-O seemingly running away turns out to be a strategy that ties in with one of the first jokes in the episode. Here's a hint: it's almost as long, and it's kind of silly. Also, the Snowman eventually joins the fight, too, getting over his fears and trapping one of the Sparkle-Maws with his net gun. That seems like a good bit of progression with his character, though there might be more to it than that.

In the end, Lion-O reveals that Tygra messing up big time has led him to learn the importance of trust, and Tygra just kind of accepts it. Honestly, the real lesson should have been that Tygra shouldn't have been so prejudiced against yetis, but maybe leaving that unstated is a good thing.

Most importantly, Lion-O gets to celebrate that they defeated the Sparkle-Maws. Sure, he was talking about THE Sparkle-Maw rather than a bunch of them, those spiders didn't really have any camouflage abilities, and those spiders didn't really have anything sparkling on them nor did they have particularly big mouths, but maybe that was just him embellishing the monster...right?

Pretty much every episode of ThunderCats Roar ended in a way where everything went back to normal, and this episode is an outlier. It's strange because there's no other episode that ends like this yet. One will see what I mean.

How does it stack up?

I didn't really have too much to say about this episode, but not much to complain about, either. Well, except for maybe the overuse of exaggerated, but that's kind of the norm for the series.

I'm going to put this whole episode in the middle. Not great, not terrible. Three cats.

Next, this show with messy animation gets literally messy!

← Lost Sword 🐈 ThunderSlobs →

[ego-centrick-moved]

EGO MAYHEM THEORIES: II

THIS IS PART II. CLICK HERE FOR PART I.

OK FUCKERS LET’S FIRST COVER SOME STUFF:

Jack posted a photo to his instagram with red lights shining on his face as he wore chases shirt and marvin's mask was spotted in the back

he livestreamed some fortnight and @lisasepticsuperplier spotted marvin’s mask hanging on the whiteboard. @maggiemaemoo also noticed and pointed out when he went on a “pee break” the mask went missing. this same mask was on the whiteboard in his new “am i colorblind” video.

it’s important to note that the red lights were in every video between chapter one and the colorblind video.

RGB lights/lens flares in most thumbnails.

he wore a black shirt in every video up until today (5/9) where he switched it out for chases shirt in “try to fall asleep” and a fairly normal tee in “am i colorblind”

i don't think “am i colorblind” is important to our theories at all, i actually think for once we got a normal video? besides the mask, nothing off happens the whole video and there’s no red lights. did jack go back to sleep?

CHAPTER 4: “IT WAS ALL CONNECTED”

"you see a man in front of you. this man looks strange, not like any man you have seen before. suddenly, you realize you were looking in a mirror..."

by this point we know all of the intros are connected/parallel events having to do with jack/the egos. this intro doesn’t end with “stories untold.” it’s likely the case because in game, we learn what the characters “untold” story is- and we start to uncover jacks. 

all of his egos have a similar likeness to jack, so he could be referring to coming face to face with any of them. i think, however, this is more of a “i don’t recognize myself” statement. jack has lost his memories, he hasn’t been himself and his subconscious knows. that’s why he doesn’t recognize the man in the mirror, why it looks strange to him. mirrors have been a common theme over time regarding anti/broken!jack, and mirrors were also involved in the second video this day.

i really think jack did a good job choosing stories untold to be The Game(tm) where all this shit goes down. there’s a lot of very obvious connections you can make with jack/the ego’s stories and this game, and i enjoy it a lot. i took some notes while watching the video, it would take to long to expand on them individually so i'll just share this screenshot. it’s a lil messy:

now let’s jump to that ending. i’m still reeling from it; wig evaporated. 

i still have NO SOLID IDEA what he could’ve been referring to. does he remember everything or just some things? does he blame schneep or anti? does he remember who everyone is again? SO MANY QUESTIONS! gif credit

@fear-is-nameless pointed out he looks directly at the camera, not through it. almost as if he's talking to someone. i think he’s either talking to us, or talking to schneep/chase considering (i think) they were the ones trying to get him to wake up to begin with. 

@no-strings-puppet pulled together the whispers that you can listen to slowed here, slowed and reversed here.

@damienisverygood made a transcript of the whispers, i have a hard time hearing it so i cant rly confirm for 100% that this is accurate, but definitely worth noting.

@monochromemedic had a really interesting theory about schneeps involvement in it all, it’s definitely worth taking a peek at.

@booperdoopcr has a theory that really got me thinking as well.

i really do think someone has been “pulling the strings,” choosing what jack can remember and locking away whatever memories either a, hurt him or b, doesn’t serve their agenda. it’s hard to tell if it’s anti who’s in control of what jack knows or if it’s our doctor. 

i don’t think schneep is evil or malevolent. if he’s keeping jack from remembering it’s for jacks health or the well-being of the other egos/himself. it’s an outdated theory that anti thrives off of attention (i can’t remember but i think jack said that wasn’t quite the case) so it would make sense for henrick to lock away memories that involved anti, it would also explain why jack doesn’t remember him (considering he was corrupted last time we saw him). the thing that doesn’t quite add up with this theory is why schneep was so frazzled to see jack playing his role, when he knew jack didn’t remember him or really know what he was doing. schneep looked scared when confronting jack, he knew something was wrong. overnightwatch happened after schneep left for “vacation,” yet jack seems to forget about that too. i don’t dismiss this theory completely, it just leaves a lot of questions.

anti, however, would benefit from jack having amnesia about him. if he doesn’t know who anti is and doesn’t know there’s something fishy going on, he can’t stop it. it would make sense for anti to make jack forget schneep, considering he tried to save him. it also could’ve just been a casualty of trying to get jack to forget everything regarding the glitch demon himself. it would also make sense for schneep to be frazzled in this case when confronting jack, because he likely didn’t know who he was talking to. he recognized jack, but he didn’t know jack. if that makes any sense.

i stand strongly by my theory that memory-lacking jack is just a puppet of antis, being controlled by him without really knowing. schneep has experience with anti, he was likely afraid of the unknown possibilities that stirred around confronting an unstable, unknowing puppet!jack. i honestly believe schneep came back to try to save jack. after he confronted puppet!jack, i think he started some sort of therapy to get him to remember, and had chases help. (like a parallel to the dr. alex/mom and james in the game ya feel?)

@chronically-illustrated pointed out that all of the endings could be a bit of interpretation of what happened to jack over the years. James Ation had a hard time interpreting reality so the truth manifested in complicated and symbolic ways. the outros could’ve symbolized jack’s memories coming back to him/events that have been actively happening. 

we see jack “wake up” periodically (i think the jack that remembers is conscious, just locked away, being tortured and watching everything unfold) , leaving hints and cries for help littered here and there. they almost ALWAYS get removed though, seemingly by anti trying to get things back under control. the tags on the DDLC playthroughs that got deleted (canyouhearme, i remember what happened), the entire overnightwatch stream getting deleted (seemingly from memory as well), the random tags showing up on posts only to get deleted later (the sos in morse code). anti doesn’t want jack catching on, he deletes all signs of him he can and all of jacks cries for help while simultaneously taunting us and fucking with us (like overnightwatch as whole). thanks to @fear-is-nameless for reminding me about the tags on DDLC.

no traditional outro or intro

CHECK PLEASE

this video just seemed very off. i don’t have a lot to say about it, but i’ll let my notes sum it up:

i don’t really know what to make of it, other than it’s suspicious as all hell. the red light was in this video as well. 

he mentioned magic 6 times, made a blood/knife/threatening comment about 5 times, and got injured/burned twice. 

that mirror speech was all fine until he said “you got this- we got this.”  i just don't trust like that.

if anything, i think this just helps solidify the idea that memory vacant jack is just a puppet of antis. it might also reveal that anti’s whole plan is to become one with jack and be the foreman (host).

“papa” sounds a lot like anti in the closing scene lmao. i don’t think there’s much to read into, its just something funny. if he is a puppet i wonder if he sees anti as dad?

there IS a traditional outro/intro

TRY TO FALL ASLEEP

i hate this man. i absolutely despise him. im kidding i love him and his creativity and torture knows no bounds. this mother fuck really did this to us.

before even watching the video, i knew we were NOT in the clear, after jack seemingly “waking up” yesterday and then this video? i love hate him. 

here are my general notes on the video. i added lines to make it easier to read cos this was a Lot:

i take the notes during my first watch through so i'm sorry for the meaningless comments/reactions throughout. 

let’s break this down a lil bit. the video starts off weird. there’s no normal intro, and the red lights are there- just dim (this was brought to my attention from this post by @markired), “jack” fades in through static. 

@lizziebirb made this gif where you can see marvins mask show through the static:

then that creepy grin is back as he introduces the game. he stares directly at us as he makes his “speech” about going to sleep. when he makes the comment “when you drift off, that’s when the fun begins,” i half expected to hear anti’s laugh. bone-chilling to say the least.

the character in the game is someone who just went through an accident of some kind, and memory loss is mentioned (another parallel?). jack glosses over that, and instead focuses on brain damage. now hear me out; what if jack doesn’t want to remember? what if he wants to stay asleep because he’s afraid? i feel like due to the theme of the last game egos aside, he normally would’ve pointed it out or made a connection? i could be wrong, im just thinking out loud.

he also, out of place, brought up “why are all these people in my house” which reminded me a lot of a post he reblogged a few days ago.

he says “i don't know if i need a mask” (referring to gas masks in game) but that line stuck out to me, due to the fact two egos have masks and one of them even popped up in this video. the other ego (jbm) we haven't heard almost anything from since this all started. 

i found a lot in the TV snow. we see marvin, JJ, and a hidden message. ill link the post with all the pictures here, but i would like to highlight a few screenshots in specific.

in this one, jack’s webcam seems to glitch out when marvin pops up. i don't know if that was something that messed up in the rendering of the video, but it honestly reminds me a lot like the glitches that popped up during the antipocalypse days. with the way the color fades and there seems to be hints of color over his face. i wonder if there’s a second image there we just can’t see?

and then there was this:

i traced over the words, but that’s all i saw. i’ve seen people claim it says “you need to wake up” but i just... don’t see that. it would make sense, but i never see the end of this sentence and i very clearly see an “A” in the 3rd word, so it doesn’t say “need”. it could say “you have to flee,” considering that is the next word we see after this. if that’s the case, who is he fleeing from and why? 

it could ALSO be someone telling jack he HAS to wake up. like they’re telling him he doesn’t have a choice, he can't just keep acting like things didn’t happen and put off confronting his memories/his egos. after waking up yesterday, and then this video today, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’s deliberately trying to fall back asleep.

we also see JJ. but why? this is the only time i see him, and as far as i know jack doesn’t even reference him in this video, unlike how he referenced marvin with the abundance of magic-related comments. what’s the significance of JJ being in this video/making an appearance?

he also makes a face worth mentioning after reading the phrase “loose lips spit sekrits.” (i’m p sure it’s spelt that way because in dreams it’s common for things to be a little off, especially words. it wasn’t a typo by the developers, it was deliberate). this face goes entirely full screen and only lasts for about a second. it could be for comedic effect because he thought it was a typo, but it could also be a certain someone throwing some shade, yanno? someone's been slipping us hints, “spitting sekrits,” and another someone is probably not very thrilled about it.

he then makes a comment about “revive” due to the word being on a podium. he picks up a fuse and says, “can the doctor revive me after this” (as JJ pops up on screen) which could be a direct reference to schneep “reviving” jack- or at least his attempts to.

fear was a big theme in this video, he repeated that he “wasn’t afraid” many times even though he was very obviously afraid. i wonder who he was trying to convince he wasn’t afraid? who are we even watching in this video, and who are they trying to prove something to? he breaks the fourth wall towards the end and tells us “no fear, im repeating it so you guys remember it.” does he want us to have no fear, is it important that we aren’t afraid? or is he trying to convince us/whoever he really isn’t afraid, just cautious for our sake? 

there were about 5 mentions of magic i caught throughout this video.

no traditional outro/intro

i’ll add more as the days go on, but in another two days (if there’s still ego stuff goin on) i’ll make another one. :D if you have any theories to add lmk by tagging me, messaging them to me, or just replying here ! i’ll throw them in where/if they fit and tag you. thanks for all the positive responses on my first theory post, i hope this one is as helpful. :D

Tags (im sorry): @jacksoopticboop @jacksepticeye-protection-squad @lum1natrix @puppet-master-anti @kasper-the-ghost @septicjacks @mrcamillaa @hufflepufftrax @rogue-of-broken-time  @marielgum @markired

[thewadapan]

I made a full 13-episode animated web series with Plotagon.

Creator’s Commentary

I was just messing around and then this happened.

I stumbled upon Plotagon via Aris Martinian’s Worm Abridged series, itself a derivative work based on Wildbow’s epic web serial Worm. Impressed by the software’s results, I downloaded it on a whim. The editor soon draws you into its fast and intuitive user interface and before long I had a draft of what would become “I Hate You”.

Having seen Aris Martinian’s work on Worm Abridged and Satan’s Threads, I really wasn’t expecting to produce anything on that level of quality. Instead I saw it more as an outlet - and indeed, the themes of Are You Happy are representative of the kind of headspace I’ve been in. Most literally, a recent falling out inspired the rough outline of episode one.

I’ve gone on a bit of a kick lately in terms of using restrictive programs to tell stories. Plotagon’s plot editor is almost the antithesis of Marvel: Create Your Own (an online comic editor I used to create “Everything Is Red Now”) in that using it doesn’t feel like deliberate self-harm. Making stuff with Plotagon is actually a lot of fun.

The “movie script” aspect of the editor is inspired and you can hit play at any point to see what you’ve got so far. Sure, there are restrictions - you can only have two characters in a scene, you often have next to no control over camera angles, there aren’t really enough actions (and, to a lesser extent, expressions) to choose from, strange intonation can often ruin the delivery of lines, and most of the program’s assets must be purchased via microtransactions. It’s far from a perfect experience, and yet at the same time I can’t get mad at Plotagon. There’s an infectious, self-aware excitement to be found throughout the developers’ promotional videos, and you can’t help but share that excitement at times.

Plotagon includes its own video-sharing service, which seems to mostly be used by middle-schoolers as a strange kind of social network. I left that aspect of the program alone, choosing instead to render my videos directly to mp4 and thumbnails as animated GIFs (features which feels almost too convenient for this program, but I’m not complaining).

I also chose to ignore the “record your own dialogue” feature and the optional subtitles. A theme I was going for was that these characters struggle to communicate, and the stilted auto-generated dialogue played into that. However, that same awkward delivery ended up making a fair few jokes fall flat. In hindsight I probably should’ve just changed the jokes.

Plotagon gives you a few characters to start off - four teenagers and two adults in an even gender split, plus Santa. The two adults are Ms. Green, who I forgot to utilise, and Mr. Hernandez. The teenagers are Jessica, Samir, Lizzie, and Scott (the guy Mr. Hernandez picks a fight with in episode two). It also provides “Chris the custom character” as the only editable example.

I messed around in the character editor and created Katia and Philippe, and later made Detective Raymond and the devil (who I dubbed “Literally The Devil”) as the plot demanded. It’s only now that I realise I gave Philippe the same t-shirt and footwear as Chris - oh well. I’m also not really sure why I gave Katia red eyes like LTD.

I’d planned to give Raymond some kind of uniform, but everything good was locked. His strange outfit ended up informing his character.

Literally The Devil was male at first, basically by default. I soon decided to avoid the traditional slick-hair-and-a-suit look in favour of a fiery haircut and casual clothing. Their t-shirt, which reads “Speak up against bullying!” was chosen on sight. Trying to find a combination of lower-body clothing that worked with this t-shirt proved difficult, and the decision to make LTD female was cemented when I realised that the red skirt looked far better than the other options (although how this turned out at the bus stop was unfortunate). Lizzie clearly had problems with authority, and I liked the idea that she identified with the devil on some level. I guess LTD’s design is just a manifestation of that.

The decision to do thirteen episodes (the typical length of a “run” of TV) including a three-part finale was made at some point after episode seven, with the death of Mr. Hernandez death serving as a springboard for the rest of the story. Indeed, it isn’t until episode four that we get some kind of explicit continuity. The title of the finale, “The Agenda”, and its inconsistent numbering are a reference to the three-part Season 2 finale of Beast Wars: Transformers of all things.

Three episodes of the series end with the line “bye Felicia(s)”, and another three end with “well shit”. There’s a parallel where Lizzie expresses disappointment in an authority figure using the latter phrase in her first and last episodes - Jessica’s use of the phrase in episode six is less disappointed and more surprised.

“White-Hat Hacking” is, incidentally, my least favourite episode of the series. Most background music is available under the editor’s “music” category, but some falls under “sound” for some reason. Once a sound is played, it cannot be stopped manually - this means that the “pirate ditty” I wanted to use for Jessica needed to play for a set length of time and I needed to stall in order to get Raymond’s entrance right. This basically resulted in a bunch of low-effort jokes existing purely to support another low-effort joke - someone getting arrested for piracy.

Other episodes I rate poorly include episode three, “What Are We Learning Today?”, and episode nine, “Ever Get Tired Of Movies?”. Episode three is barely thirty seconds long and consists of maybe two jokes, and the “well shit” line doesn’t really work in the moment.

Episode nine, on the other hand, is the third-longest. With Jessica and Lizzie both under arrest I knew I was planning a breakout, so I grabbed two random characters I’d thrown together in the editor and sat them down on a sofa. I guess I find the idea of people watching a movie together occasionally weird, because it’s a kind of social interaction without social interaction (I suppose that’s why it’s such a popular choice for first dates), so I decided to use that as the basis of Katia’s insecurities. I’m not really happy with how her relationship with Philippe came across, and I think that’s mostly down to eccentricities in intonation and animation. The first draft of “Ever Get Tired of Movies?” was even less funny than the final draft, which says a lot. Still, it provides an interesting change of pace - the fact that Katia and Philippe’s flaws aren’t as blatant as those of the rest of the cast helps cement them as worthwhile additions in my opinion.

I’m probably happiest with how episode seven, “The Faculty Bathroom”, turned out. Jessica’s monologue in episode six opened the door for a single-character episode, and something about the idea of showing Mr. Hernandez on his forty-five minute smoke break appealed to me. Only one bathroom is available freely, one which clearly belongs in a house, but most people often perceive their teachers as living in their schools and I like the idea that, on some level, Mr. Hernandez lives in this bathroom.

We’ve all had teachers who are nice enough people but who are terrible at their jobs, and Mr. Hernandez falls squarely into that category. We don’t even know he’s a teacher until his second appearance, because in his first he’s too busy getting advice from a man dressed as Santa.

A friend of mine suggested that Santa should quote Genghis Khan in “What is the Meaning of Life?”, and this quote ended up informing his behaviour in the rest of the series. I knew from the start that this man wasn’t really Santa, and I like the juxtaposition between who he is and how he presents himself.

I didn’t set out to have a particular “protagonist” in this series, but Lizzie settled into that role and I ran with it as best as I could. The final episode, in my opinion, struck a good balance between humour and offbeat drama. I’d kept the weirdness firmly rooted in reality until that point, which makes LTD’s introduction all the more surprising. Incidentally, the sound effects used for the transitions to and from the green room were: “death beam”, “arrow hit”, “bone crack”, “fart”, “crash”, “soda can opening” and “swoosh”.

Several people commented on the abruptness of the ending, saying that it lacked closure. Does LTD actually exist? Does hell? I’d say no, but it doesn’t really matter either way. I see the finale as being about Lizzie recognising that her life isn’t going in a direction she likes and deciding to change that, and I guess that was enough for me.

I picked the title Are You Happy mostly on a whim - LTD asks Lizzie this question in the finale, and I think almost everyone in the show is unhappy about something or other. Bo Burnham has a song under the same title, but that wasn’t an intentional link. If I had to pick an overall theme for the series, I’d probably choose Precious Kid’s “Jaded”, not least because it includes the question “are you happy” in its lyrics.

Plotagon remains on my taskbar for now, unopened. People have asked if I plan to make any more. Probably not, but you never know.