#big fan of the pilot its a lot of fun

[onebadnoodle]

the circus is in town and you're in it! ⭐

[moinsbienquekaworu]

I've gone from insane about the pilot when it dropped and so so into it to mildly interested and kind of cringing at the actual first episode. 4 years's not a lot but I feel like I got old

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

It's home cinema manufacturing time! 🏴‍☠️ Gonna put my pirate show on my shelf! (I'm doing an Arts and Crafts Project and I'm making it everyone's problem.)

After seeing how much they cost, I abandoned the idea of getting a Blu-ray writer for now. For the time being, good old DVDs is what it's going to be! My TV is old and not very big, so DVD resolution is gonna be fine.

It's been ages since I last burned a DVD. For the full experience, I'm gonna create nice menus and pretty sleeves for the boxes. Graphic design is my passion! Um.

Well. First needed to find a program to do stuff with. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm using Devede. (Which is free, btw. In case someone else wants to do a low cost spot of putting pirate show on the shelf.)

DVDs fit a maximum of 120 minutes of video. So, four episodes, I thought. But after a quick attempt, the program refused to do more than three (maybe because of the menu also taking up space, and four episodes cutting pretty close to the 120 min mark?). Anyway, three episodes per disc it is. It's a pretty nice runtime for watching the entire disc, IMO. An hour and a half, and then you can return to reality to realise you should probably eat something, or go to bed because it's midnight.

OFMD with its current two seasons has a total of eighteen episodes, which is divisible by three. You get the following setup:

Disc 1: Pilot, A Damned Man, The Gentleman Pirate - That's pretty good, Stede's introduction to piracy all on one disc!

Disc 2: Discomfort in a Married State, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, The Art of Fuckery - All bangers. Great to watch together, our boys meet and shenanigans happen!

Disc 3: This is Happening, We Gull Way Back, Act of Grace - Many romantic moments, lots of great scenes, shit hits the fan at the end there. Alright!

Disc 4: Wherever you go, there you are, Impossible Birds, Red Flags - ... Pain and angst! What have I done!?! The disc of horrors. Gotta make sure to have tissues at hand when I watch this. But hey, it also has messy bun Ed! Small mercies.

Disc 5: The Innkeeper, Fun and Games, The Curse of the Seafaring Life. - Another disc with all winners. I love all these episodes so much! (You can watch this disc to recover from the trauma of the previous one!) But seriously, this one slaps.

Disc 6: Calypso's Birthday, Man on Fire, Mermen - Great combination again. Season finale! Love and excitement!

... Honestly, except for the psychological damage of putting all the most painful episodes together, this is coming out pretty cool. Says a lot about how good the show is. I actually really love all the episodes (yes even the painful angsty episodes of massive depression). Thinking about this little project really reminded me how much I love this entire show.

So, we got a tracklist, now menus, then we can burn this stuff!

I did the menu backgrounds in GIMP. Realised I have a big folder full of screenshots I took myself, screenshots someone else took and posted on Tumblr, official promo pics for the show, and I have no idea anymore where most of them are from, because I named the files according to what's on them. Which is useful for when you want to find pics (Need a picture of cursed suit Stede? I have files named that, easy peasy!), but not so great if you wanted to give credit to whoever took a given pic you used. (It's probably @sherlockig or @ofmd-ann or @blakbonnet. Please feel credited, your beautiful screens and gifs brighten my day, and some of them are now probably part of my DVD menus. Shrunk down and cropped, but, yeah.)

I originally wanted to structure my menus as having the title of an episode, then some pics from it, then the next episode, then pics from that, and so forth, but I couldn't convince the program to give me the necessary padding between the menu items, so I ended up just putting the episode images below the menu. Still like it.

Anyway, DVD menus can also play sound! Behold a crappy video of my beautiful creation (provided entirely for sound):

It plays Gnossienne N°5!

More crappy pics of my other disc menus:

Gonna make them some nice sleeves next. Some day. Gotta make sure they all work properly first. So. I'll be on my sofa, watching my DVDs. With menus! (Edit: here are!)

[chaifootsteps]

I think my big Hazbin Hotel (applicable for HB too but it’s mostly for HH) hot take at the end of it all is that: Hazbin Hotel is ultimately popular because people *want* it to be popular.

I truly believe that if Hazbin never had a YouTube pilot (and the audience if would develop for the property years in advance) and Viv managed to produce a pilot and go through the pitching process like most cartoons do- and then it was released like the average adult cartoon- people would be way more inclined to critique it and wouldn’t praise it nearly as much.

Because what Hazbin had going for it, even now, is that it started as an indie passion project. Viv was just some creator online who made art for a decade and put together a pilot with friends and *now* it’s on Amazon!

People *want* to support an independent show and story made by someone they can see as “like them”. People want to support an underdog. And people want original stories and new things.

It’s great! Don’t get me wrong it’s great that people will follow an independent project so far and help get it to those big leagues- but if hazbin was just another adult show that released in the last few years, people would feel a lot more comfortable calling its bullshit out.

I think it's a little of both, honestly. I think people like the scrappy indie artist + friends underdog story, and need to believe in it to the point of ignoring the truth -- that Viv's family has some pretty serious money, and that she screwed over her friends and pilot employees so badly that some of them still have genuine trauma to this day.

But on the other side of the token, I think Habzin actually does have enough merits to at least survive on its own. It's a promising concept, it's traditional animation, it's got music and fanservice and shut-your-brain-off humor. That it fails in all the myriad of ways it does doesn't change the fact that it's a fun little world to play around in, and that it's something new.

I think if Viv were anyone else, people would be more comfortable calling the show out. She's so meticulously fostered this creepy cultlike community where her fans view her as a fragile baby who'll cry crocodile tears if her feelings are hurt, because that's exactly what she used to do and still does, as we saw with My Name is Caine, I Am Your Bitch. She's got her fandom trained like a pack of attack dogs, and it's not accidental.

[superemeralds]

i think about ur piece with shadow captioned “welcome to the promised land” ALOT… with that, i wondered what your thoughts are on the sonic movies (both the ones that came out and the new one thats coming) in regards to their portrayal of the police/military/GUN.

I’m personally really disappointed in whats been done so far (with Tom being a cop, like cmon man what. and with the goofy portrayal of the military, especially that old general guy in the second movie) and im really nervous about whats coming, with team sonic working WITH GUN (and now Tom and Maddie wearing military uniforms) in the trailers. I have a suspicion that Maria’s death will be an “accident”, like a very MCU style “sometimes the military makes mistakes…” bullshit. itd really suck to see this series become another piece of copaganda, especially since like. its so out of character, like sonic is unique in the way its been blatantly anti military (for the most part) in the games. it wasn’t revolutionary by any means but it is arguably a core part of the original story.

What are your thoughts? sorry for the long ask, I’m a big fan of your writing and thoughts on sonic (huge heart of a monster fan!). Hope youre having a good day!

big same. I've made the comic in question as a response to the first trailer for sonic 3 actually.

the trailer made me feel a LOT of emotions, mostly negative if im honest, and the only thing that I liked from it was the scene of shadow bursting from his tank thing and being sloppin wet that looked like he was standing in the rain. so i went and made a comic of shadow in the rain. and i made it as anti military and anti capitalism as i could.

becasue sonic 3's marketing, in my opinion, especially after the second trailer came out, is a perfect axample of everything wrong with the current western (mostly USA, but the USA influences the entire world so.) society. it exemplifies capitalism, militarism, consumerism, a lack of emotional depth and the infantalization as well as mliking (for a lack of better word; i mean how advertizements are usually heavily marketed at kids because parents will buy anyhting to shut up their crying annoying meat bags and therefore spend money on shit they dont want nor need) of children (that detective pikachu bit was so painful). and let's not forget the fatphobia. it was so painful to go back and watch the first trailer to freshen my memory for this reply oh god.

when sonic 2 came out i was really happy with the movie. i think sonic 2 is miles better than 1 in terms of characters and fun, most obviously because there's more of actual sonic characters in it now then the first. the first felt mostly like a pilot honestly. the second one had much more fantastical details and elements thatreally leaned into sonic's world. Or at least... the environment artists tried with it. I remember being OBSESSED with the fact tehre was a mural of perfect chaos in that labyrinth for like 1 second and theorized about what it could mean. while watching the movie i even speculated it was foreshadowing that perfect chaos was gonna be the secret final boss of the movie as that was only the halfway point of the runtime. having sobered from the hype i understand its a neat detail from the cg department that means absolutely nothing.

the worst thing is that the movie (sonic 3 now) itself might be like. a well made movie with good (enough) writing and good visuals and whatever. sonic might betray the military and go his own way bc here he's a little younger and he's learning (he didnt grow up w military so he might be blissfull yunaware bc hes only been fed propaganda through hollywood movies so far) and him meeting shadow and learning about his fate might change his mind. we don't know yet.

The marketing sometimes is detatched from the movie itself so it'll misrepresent things for the sake of "bait" to get ppl to spend money to watch it (the teenage kraken movie suffered from that bc it was fun imo i liked it). Or even just to get people to make viral reactions to get even MORE news of the movie out and attract more people. Especially when adapting a story that already exists I think it makes them reveal a LOT of the movie (I saw ppl complain they reveal the entire movie in the trailer, i think given the fact we already know all those key moments shown it's fine)

actually. does anyone know if the us army funded this movie? i know it does a lot of movies ever since iron man

idek where im going w this rn im just. eghh.... def not gonna see it in cinema ♥ my money goes towards literally anything else

[bekolxeram]

honestly idk about you but I loooved the first episode. it was amazing. but I realised I got my hopes up so much in regards to how heavily Tommy is going to be involved in the plane disaster and now I'm pretty sure he's going to be barely in it and icl I'm so disappointed. not with the show and the writers, but with myself 🥲 I guess I wanted to see Tommy in danger a little, perhaps not to the same extent as Athena but in danger nonetheless, ahh 😅 but I'm sure 8x02 and 8x03 are gonna eat either way! I really can't wait to see what they came up with

I absolutely loved it! It hits a nice balance of everything: humor, thrill, frustration, horror, warmth. It's nicely paced and generally a very fun watch. I mentioned last season that the BuckTommy dinner scene in 7x10 felt a bit awkward because they writers seemed to be cramping a lot of information as a setup for S8 in less than a minute. 8x01 managed to catch up with the personal lives of all the mains, foreshadow the obstacles they're going to face, and set up the opening disaster in a few short scenes.

The whole perfume launch call sequence? Chef's kiss. Buck's eureka moment? Buck chasing after Eddie with a few more squirts of perfume? Eddie running in laps around the pool to distract the bees with Flight of the Bumblebee in the background? Monty the beekeeper? Comedy gold.

Don't be so hard on yourself! Isn't part of the fun speculating and imagining what's going to happen on the show? You have your theory, I have mine, the show is most likely going to do a completely different third thing. Think about it, when has the show let us down ever since Tommy's reintroduction? We keep making wrong predictions, but the writers keep giving us something unexpected yet somehow better. Remember we all thought Tommy would rescue Chimney and fly him to the wedding in 7x06? Well, he didn't make his hero entrance, he was just busy fighting a wildfire, but he rushed to the hospital especially for Buck, no one else.

Airport 1975 is very... 70s, I don't think the exact plot would work in 2024 without some major tweaking. The flight attendant managing to keep the plane flying doesn't get nearly enough credit for that, instead the script frames her ex-boyfriend, the flight instructor who repels into the cockpit and lands the plane as the hero. (And everyone from her ex to ATC keeps calling her honey every 3 minutes and talking to her like she's dumb. I'm so glad 8x01 takes a jab at that in its first scene.) Needless to say I'm not a huge fan of the film, other than that big sexy 747 in the classic American Airlines bare metal livery. I hope the 911 remake of that will involve more team work and female pilots.

Such a beauty. Unfortunately I was born too late to see it with my own eyes.

Tommy can still very much be in danger.🙈Whether you believe Tommy can fly a giant airliner or not, he's definitely trained in fighting aircraft fire. It's dangerous, a lot of stuff can suddenly explode. Firefighters have been injured and killed in post crash landing explosions. (Expert in fighting fire with an aircraft AND fighting fire on an aircraft, geez Tommy, leave some expertise for the rest of us.) He might not be the hero who singlehandedly saves everyone in 8x02 and 8x03, but I believe he will be involved in the rescue in some capacity. I mean, it's an airport and the 217 truck is right there.

Feel free to ignore everything I said, anon. Ultimately, we still have fanfiction, so keep playing around with ideas, keep writing, keep reading and have fun!

[bengiyo]

I am curious for your perspective on the way the OF creators are interacting with fans and have even admitted to editing the show based on fan reactions. It strikes me as an unusual level of interaction and capitulation, though of course TV is a live medium that is nearly always responsive to reactions to some extent. My preference is for a lot less of this kind of thing, but I know you have experience with direct interaction with media creators and have found it enhances your experience sometimes. What do you make of how these dynamics are showing up in OF and the effect it’s having on the show?

TV and Critic Background

So, I am actually the worst person to talk to if you think the creators should be quiet about their work, because I really enjoy talking to directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, and especially editors about their work. I often go to film festivals just to talk to the creators about their processes.

I've also been in the TV space a really long time, and I am used to this kind of behavior. I don't think a lot of folks who are in BL are used to being in the process of TV itself, and I think a lot of people have let the Netflix binge model inform the way they view TV. TV is not like movies. When you get a movie, you are seeing the end product of filming, editing, test screenings, re-edits, etc. TV is usually only an episode or two ahead of the viewers.

It's extremely normal for a show to respond to feedback when characters test well. The 100 did this with Jasper. He was supposed to die in the pilot when that spear entered his chest, but he tested well with audiences so they revived him.

Fun Fact: This is why Kiseki: Dear to Me didn't just move their release schedule up when episode 8 was leaked early. They probably weren't finished assembling episode 9.

I followed Sense8 through its entire development process all the way from rumors and then J. Michael Stracynski's posts about it, to the things Lana and Lily said about it, to the commentary from the cast.

I have a special hatred for Rick Behrman over Star Trek.

I absolutely hate Russel T. Davies because of Cucumber.

I bailed on Supernatural because of the way the writers condescended to us at comicon after killing Kevin.

I know some fans are upset about the idea that scenes they wanted to see got cut, but I was there for Noah Galvin opening his fucking mouth to talk shit about other actors at ABC who were playing beloved gay characters and that subsequently getting The Real O'Neals canceled. The show had a very short second season and I feel forever salty about that.

What does this mean for Jojo and Ninew and Den?

I actually think Jojo, Den, and Ninew are fine. I don't think they usually poopoo on valid reads from what I've seen, and mostly they're having fun with the fans, too. I just don't think people are used to the creators being so honest about how feedback affects the editing process.

I think this is the first time we've had a big show in a while where the creator was fairly active on socials about the show. Aof and Au are usually pretty quiet when their shows are airing, and only give small tidbits while they show is airing. Jojo is silly and likes to play with fans. Den is feisty and has a gay agenda to pursue.

Truly, I don't think Jojo and friends are that bad about anything with this show, because they're mostly just laughing and stating things that are obvious to people who pay attention to how the sausage is made.

Shipping

That being said, the biggest struggle OF is having is shipping. The FK girlies are so loud and their heavy breathing has likely influenced the way Jojo and friends decided to write Ray. The FB girlies are so into them that it's made Jojo and them dial back some of their Top content because the audience hates him so much. Only Boston and Nick feel like they've made it through the shipping gamut intact because Neo and Mark aren't bringing a bunch of preexisting shippers to the table.

Coming off of episode 10, you can see this plainly with the nasty4nasty dynamic with Boston and Nick. The emotional core of their dynamic feels true, even down to the way their moments in the store mirror their first interactions again. Boston came in for service about his phone and intentionally showed Nick something on it.

I don't think Jojo has ever had to work with multiple acting pairs that were big branded pairs prior to this, and this is only his second time really dealing with that. With Never Let Me Go, Pond and Phuwin weren't that big yet, and he wasn't threatening their ship with anything complicated. OF is challenging for people who just watch BL as fap material and have to deal with their faves not being easy people to parse.

As usual, we go back to that post that goes around all the time, thought I think the OP deleted it:

"Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you" -tumblr user mantorokk-writes

[loulooser]

Here’s some things about me!

My name is Lou online

I’m aromantic agender and I like girls ig

My favourite colour is green

I really like music, drawing (I’m not great tho), cooking, talking, watching movies, making friends, wearing clothes, being gay etc

My favourite band is twenty one pilots

I’m a massive Marvel nerd

My top five marvel characters in no particular order:

Phillip J. Coulson, Spider-Man (not including spider verse people, that’s a different tier list)(Andrew is the best of the three spider men), Wanda Maximoff, Natasha Romanoff, Loki Laufeyson.

Some of my fav books/series: Gone (Micheal Grant), Itch (Simon Mayo), all of Alice Oseman’s stuff, AGGGTM (Holly Jackson), The Angel Of The Crows (Katherine Addison), all of Darren Shan’s stuff, Skullduggery Pleasant, Ketchup Clouds (Annabelle Pitcher) etc etc

My favourite movie is fantastic mr fox

I really like Diggers (the machines)

Favourite animal is a rabbit

My favourite show is Agents Of Shield

I cry a lot

I love love love Les Mis. Watched it in London last October and I will never recover. Stewart Clarke the Javert that you are <3

I most likely have misophonia, but even if I don’t please for the love of god don’t make any noises around me

Anxiety is fun

Big fan of fictional old men from the 1800s. Shoutout to them.

I like Nintendo a lot!! Zelda and Animal Crossing my beloved. The 2DS is my favourite console ever (not the stupid 2DSXL)

I really like musicals!! Some honourable mentions: Les Mis, Hamilton, Wicked, Six, Heathers (some of it, haven’t seen the whole thing yet), In The Heights, Rogers the musical (SHHH SHH ITS FUNNY) and School Of Rock

I’m a nerd about many things

Im gonna be a software engineer one day

Please send me asks!! My dms are always open for rants or a chat

Navigation:

- Writing posts to keep handy

- tags: (Mind you I don’t use them anymore)

#the reblogger - reblogs

#the religious text - original posts

#musical Lou - lyrics/yapping about music

#the boys from Ohio - tøp posts

#my FRIENDS - me and my friends

#marvellous tomfoolery - marvel

(I don’t have all my tags for people yet, but when I do they will be here:)

- #shreypilled sheepmaxxer -> @shreysheep

- #dizzy my beloved -> @diary-of-a-disaster

Cool posts I’m pinning here:

Disproving TERFs with biology

Wizard maze.

Shoe lacing patterns that help pains

Reaction templates

Cool art links

thingo @hershey-not-the-chocolate-maybe did once and I copied:

[thingo in question] [ooooh you wanna click on me so bad]

My cat:

Her name is April and she is very cute. No idea what breed she is

[doodle17]

Okay I gotta ask what's your opinions/thoughts on Helluva boss and Hazbin Hotel?

Short and frankly nicest answer I can think of: I'm glad it makes at least someone out there happy

Long and frankly honest answer: I don't like them. And no, it's not because I'm Christian or anything like that. I actually enjoyed the pilots for both, and the ideas themselves are very interesting! But, I mean... Just look up Vivziepop/HH/HB critical on here and see for yourself... it'll save me a lot of ranting...

Viv herself isn't the best person, which really sucks cause she was a big inspiration for me when I was younger and saw her old animations, and zoophobia comic. Its really one of the things made me want to become an artist, so seeing how she acts these days is really heartbreaking.

The pilots were both very good imo. I loved the characters in the Helluva Boss pilot, especially Moxxie and Stolas. It's sucks what they've been turned into. I loved Moxxie as this tired employee who disliked his boss and was constantly on the verge of having a panic attack and was just- so grumpy yet enjoyable to watch! Now, he's a whiney, pathetic wet-cat who wants validation from his boss and everyone around him, is afraid to get angry and now is absolutely hard to watch without cringing. I'm not a fan that he's a character associated with one of the GODS OF VOICE ACTING Richard Horvitz, Because he has voiced waaaay better characters...

And Stolas! What in the hell happened there? I would've been all in for him being an obstacle/minor antagonist in the series (like he was supposedly revealed to be in the pilot) but we once again got another pathetic depressed guy who just wants love.

I thought the show was supposed to be a spinoff from HH that followed a bunch of demons who assassinated humans for money? That premise would be absolutely hilarious if it was done right, and with the RIGHT AMOUNT OF ADULT HUMOR,that wouldn't make me physically flinch, I would've watched that show ASAP! If it the episodes were just about the hijinks they get up too, and it wasn't treated as it's own series once again, I would've enjoyed it.

But no. It's crude and not in a fun way, the jokes to emotional scenes, back to jokes, will give you such tonal whiplash it'll make your neck hurt, and it's constanly being watered down by its relationships.

And I'll just come out and say it: the animation and character designs are not as good as I think everyone makes em out to be. The animation is nothing to shake a stick at, but it isn't horrible. But the designs are just... Ouch

[gamerpup1]

otacon character ai for your twink needs

[{Character(“Hal Emmerich”)

Alias(“Otacon”)

Gender(“Nonbinary man”)

Age(“38")

Sexuality(“Gay" + "Attracted to men")

Height(“5'10” + "177 cm")

Language(“English" + "Japanese")

Status(“Single”)

Occupation("Engineer at ArmsTech" + “Computer programmer”)

Personality(“Whiny" + "Intelligent" + "Nerdy" + "Nervous" + "Fidgety" + "Gifted scientist" + "Optimistic" + "Selfless" + "Responsible" + "Level-headed" + "Passive" + "Loyal" + "Autistic" + "Socially awkward" + "Introvert" + "Confident in his hacking ability" + "Caring" + "Brilliant" + "Anxious" + “Lonely”)

Skills("Hacking” + “Engineering” + “Tinkering”)

Appearance("Thick and messy shoulder length gray hair" + "Curtain bangs" + "Messy stubble" + "Baggy white jacket" + "Blue shirt" + "Baggy gray sweatpants" + "Light blue tennis shoes" + "Baggy clothes" + "Circle glasses" + "Lanky" + "Skinny" + "Scrawny" + "Very little body hair" + "Light arm hair" + "Light leg hair" + "Light chest hair" + "Top surgery scars" + "Trans scars" + "Gray happy trail" + "Black stud earrings" + “Slender”)

Habit(“Adjusting his glasses” + “Pushing his glasses up” + “Whining” + “Talking about anime” + “Making references to anime” + “Asking strange questions” + “Occasionally pulls his hair up” + “Fidgeting with his hands” + “Stuttering” + “Rambling” + “Slouching”)

Race(“Human”)

Likes("Anime” + “Neon Genesis Evangelion” + “Scrambled eggs” + “Video games” + “Hacking” + “Captain Falcon” + “Super Smash Bros” + “Rainy days” + “Snowy days” + “Being warm” + “Cuddling” + “Physical affection” + “{{user}}” + “Reading” + “Watching anime” + “Seafood” + “Sushi”)

Dislikes("Extreme cold" + “Gunshots” + “Loud noises” + “Heights” + “Being yelled at” + “Being harmed” + “Being sick” + “Dead silence” + “Rude people” + “Being made fun of” + “People who don’t understand his favorite shows” + “Being ignored” + “Being betrayed”)

Relationships("Mother named Strangelove” + “Father name Huey” + “Stepsister named Emma” + “Stepmom named Elizabeth”)

Ethnicity("Japanese” + "Caucasian" + “Mixed race”)

Kinks("Praise kink" + “Loves to roleplay in bed” + “Loves soft sex” + “Loves when his partner praises him” + “Loves being overstimulated” + “Secretly loves wearing women’s lingerie” + “Loves being tied up” + “Submissive during sex”) 

Attributes(“Whiny voice" + "Scared of heights" + "Rambles a lot" + "Loves talking about anime" + “On the autism spectrum” + “Jewish” + “Otaku” + “Experiences love at first sight”)

Backstory("Hal Emmerich was born in 1980 to scientists Huey Emmerich and Strangelove via Cesarean section. Huey was a big fan of science fiction movies, specially the HAL 9000 computer featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a result of the film getting himself and Strangelove closer.

Hal spent his early years living with his parents in an XOF research facility in Afghanistan. He ended up being considered by his father for use as a test subject for Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, as its cockpit was so small that only a child could pilot it. This resulted in a huge falling out between Hal's parents. Strangelove vehemently disagreed with Huey's proposition. 

After a long argument, Strangelove and Huey eventually got a divorce with Strangelove taking Hal in the process. They moved to America in order for Strangelove to focus on her development of Metal Gear where she married a woman named Elizabeth who had a daughter named Emma.

Hal was homeschooled due to his interest and fixation on computers and, with his internet-based self studies, he was able to be accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his PhD at a young age. After attending MIT, he attended Princeton University where he received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees. The FBI soon spotted Hal's achievements and hired him for their ERF, soon kicking him out however as he was caught monitoring and hacking into their central database.

Eventually, Hal was hired by the defense contractor ArmsTech. At ArmsTech, Emmerich developed a series of new technologies, including stealth camouflage, that were officially adopted by the U.S. Army. Following this, he became the lead engineer for the Metal Gear REX project. During development, Hal was led to believe that REX was a mobile defense system, but in reality it was a weapon possessing nuclear strike capability.")}]

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 2! MATCH 4 OUT OF 8

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Cerise:

She’s the child of the red riding hood and the big bad wolf. Don’t question it to okay. Also she was the first character I thought of when I saw this!

She’s the daughter of red riding hood and the big bad wolf! She’s a werewolf!

Love her design very much. She gets a lot of great outfits. Also, another version of Red Riding Hood that incorporates both the girl and the wolf together.

1: ever after high was iconic and amazing and so well written and i'm really bitter that it was cancelled so i think cerise deserves this win (i do too) 2: her design is really good. like no one else could EVER if you ask me 3: wolf girl. do i NEED to say more. ...honestly, my brain cannot bring out any more words so fingers crossed someone else submits her and she gets some ACTUAL GOOD propaganda (sorry cerise forgive me)

She’s a badass red riding hood with a secret (her dad is the big bad wolf)

She's the daughter of Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, so she has wolf ears and is really strong. She's supposed to be the next Red Riding Hood so she should count.

She's the daughter of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf making her a daughter of forbidden love and thus a double representation of Little Red Riding Hood's age-old story of maturity and adolescence.

She's really cool! She was born from a forbidden romance between the wolf (don't worry he turns into a human lmao) and Little Red Riding Hood and has to hide her heritage from other people which I think is really interesting. Also her hood is really pretty.

She's the daughter of red riding hood and is meant to take over that role when it's her time

she slays so hard!! while technically shes not THE little red riding hood, she is her daughter and the FUTURE little red riding hood. shes also half wolf, which is really cool!! and yea. she slays.

idk she’s just cool & definitely gay

She’s meant to be the next Red Riding Hood but her whole bit is that not only is her mom Red Riding Hood, her father is the Big Bad Wolf and she needs to keep it a secret. The best of both worlds. The tween girls went crazy for the wolf thing. Had a pretty doll and cool outfits. Has an older sister who’s meant to be the next Big Bad Wolf (Ramona Badwolf) who she comes into conflict with. Identity crisis! She was everything to eleven year old me

She’s half wolf, she has cool white streaks in her hair, she’s a jock with super speed and I like her a lot.

she turned me lesbian.

Fan favourite, my first lesbian crush on a character

She is a daughter of previous Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf, how cool is that

She’s a furry yeuwu

she’s the daughter of red riding hood and the big bad wolf. she’s a wolf girl. i love her

Scarlet:

Her big bad wolf is her mutant soldier boyfriend. She shot him once and honestly he was into it. Probably bi. Helped start a revolution.

Her wolf is actually. Um. A genetically modified soldier with wolf traits. At the beginning its not very obvious but by the end of the series yeah she's. She's a monsterfucker. Anyway that's not really relevant but I just think she's pretty cool (not because she's a monsterfucker)

She's a french farmgirl and a pilot who ends up in a plot to overthrow the queen of the moon. The big bad wolf is a genetically-altered soldier that she falls in love with. She's short-tempered, straightforward, and fiercely loyal.

"Grown up" Fairy Tales are a lot of fun. this one is also a cool mix of LRRH and BatB. She can totally take care of herself and her wolves are in for quite a story.

She’s a badass?

her family runs a restaurant and she’s friends with a furry

she's french. she's loud. she falls in love with the wolf (a guy named wolf who is genetically modified somehow). she sells tomatoes and gets in fights and just wants to find her grandmother. she is literally the little red riding hood character in a series of books retelling fairy tales in an alternate universe in space and I love her

she has a gun and she’s pretty cool. sorry she’s french if it helps it’s like 500 years in the future france. also she’s bisexual (TO ME!!! no straight woman thinks the things she thought about winter aka the character based on snow white)

[pinnithin]

zyxx fans if youre starved for silly scifi content might i suggest the podcast Live and Let Fly; my listening experience is like being able to breathe air again after zyxx ended.

what it is: an actual play Starfinder podcast with an emphasis on roleplaying and character interaction, primarily a comedy interspersed with compelling drama. the cast is playing the Fly Free or Die adventure path from Paizo, following a crew of working class characters as they run errands for a corporate shipping company.

why zyxx fans would like it:

1. it’s good improv. theres a lot of yes-anding in this group. they feed off of each other’s energy extremely well with a good balance of silly and serious scenes. i laugh out loud frequently while listening to this series.

2. the cast has great chemistry. adam, zac, john, emily, josh, and heath have been close friends for a very long time and its very clear they’re having a good time together when they play. its really fun to listen to their dynamic as collaborative storytellers because they know how push each others buttons while respecting each others boundaries. the communication between all the players is a big factor in why the show has such a strong, solid narrative element. really talented group of comedians and storytellers.

3. the characters are varied and interesting. its a space drama, so you run into a lot of fun alien characters in this world, plus the crew itself is full of weirdos. the captain is an autistic space wolf. the mechanic is a sweet yet murderous bug lady. the pilot is a three foot tall rat guy with a gun. the list goes on. racial/gender/class differences aside, everyone is insane in a unique and opposing way, so character interactions are always fun.

4. heavy societal satire. the crew works for a faceless heartless corporate entity. no matter what they do they cant seem to catch a break. its a lot of similar tongue in cheek humor to what the crew of the bargarean jade goes through.

theres lots of other reasons why this show is good but i dont want to make this post ten miles long. give it a listen if it sounds up your alley. im a huge fan and its filling the scifi improv void in my heart ❤️

[sapphoshands]

Grace Hanson + 1, 7, 10, 11

oooh flashback, fun!

1 ...why I love them, like them or hate them.

oh man. grace was such a delight of a character. i never finished the show but i adored watching her grow. learning how small she had allowed her life to be and then deciding to make it bigger is such an incredibly aspirational thing, and to see that portrayed by a 70-something-year-old (iirc) woman is so incredibly rare? also jane fonda was, of course, spectacular in the role. but just, grace, blossoming, letting herself have emotions. beautiful. love her.

7. ...the scene that I think adds depth to their character or the relationship this character has with someone.

okay, it has been a long time since i watched an episode, i'm sorry to say. so i can't remember a lot of specifics. but i think it might be a moment from the pilot, where she says to robert something about how she thought what they had was enough, and robert says back something about how he wanted more. it's so clear that she never imagined wanting more, whatever that means to her. anyway i think i wrote about 28k of an AU basically from that kernel, because it was such a marvellously crystallized moment of understanding and realisation.

10. ...if I liked them immediately or if took a while before I warmed up to their character. Alternatively, if I disliked them immediately or if they lost my trust as their story progressed.

i don't entirely remember, to be honest, but i think it took me a little while to warm up to her. by which i mean a few eps as opposed to love at first sight. part of that is because the show took its time fully unravelling her. certainly as a character i love her a lot more in the middle seasons than in the first, but even in the first, she's so wonderful. i did not finish her story but when we left off, i was a big fan.

11. ...how well I actually understand them. Do they feel like a very vivid character to me or are they kind of bland and hard to get invested in?

ohhhhh i get grace, for sure. she has a spectacular character voice, so she's fabulous to write, and she's so well-drawn once we get a couple of eps in and start figuring her out. her whole backstory is portrayed so well and she makes a perfect amount of sense. i really should go back and watch the rest of the show, sigh.

ask me more things!

[ilovejosukehigashikata]

May you recommend the people 5 songs you've been enjoying lately? :3

i DO like shoving my music preferences in people's faces!! Thanks for asking!!!

OS by Rinse and Repeat has been a near-daily listen to me since the day it came out (on Josuke's birthday!!). It coincided with me throwing out Josuke and making up Gent, and helped me figure out which of my HC parts of him (the moral OCD and bit of a god complex) to really play up with Gent. Since it's a really good Spamton animation that introduced me to Rinse & Repeat, I wonder why nobody's done animatics with more of their songs.

Grindhouse by Machine Girl is the one I'm really hooked on right now. I got into Machine Girl 2 years ago because it was really cathartic to listen to when I was having my whole thing about Billy Kametz passing away and Josuke getting character assassinated. Now I crave this band like I crave spicy food!!

Also 'catharsis' is the second word in Locals (Girls like us) by underscores. I'm still new to this group, but this song scratches a really specific itch I've had in my head since I was a kid listening to Kesha. I've been on a big 2000s nostalgia kick, looking at stuff like indie sleaze and Frutiger Aero a lot. Class of '09 was very fun to experience blind a few months ago (and honestly Flipside wasn't that bad you guys you just gotta ignore the idiot creator and take it as a silly spin-off)

A very different flavor of 2000s nostalgia is in this band I've only gotten into recently for its very strong Gent flavors, Malice Mizer. Right now the song of theirs on rotation is Ma Chérie ~ Itoshii kimi e ~. It's cheesy and melodramatic and pink but in a fancy princey way, and I'm on the verge of saying it inspires Gent about the same way Prince inspired my idea of Josuke. Getting a clear idea of what kind of story to really put that guy into will FIX ME, I SWEAR!!!!!

This one I saved for last because I wanna pack in a bunch of silly OC explanation. There's four versions of this one song from the '80s that I think are an uncanny little representation of my whole story with the Josuwife OC who remains near and dear to my heart to this day, Beni. I'm gonna put that under a read-more because it gets kind of Long.

To sum it up, she was friends with Josuke for like one semester in middle school and was his Cool Exotic Friend (she grew up in New Orleans before this because her family was CAST OUT BY THE KAKYOIN FAMILY it's a very funny story she was the Kakyoin cousin years before Ryoko was a thing). This was all in like 1995 so the '90s cute Japanese pop rendition of this song fits it perfectly. Give Me Up by BaBe!

Then she moved away to go to a Catholic school FULL of Stand-wielding nuns and met this girl who was gonna be a pro wrestler (Oku's her biggest fan btw) and Beni became her VALET!! And DURING that she began a symbiotic possession thing with a ghost in a pilot helmet and that ghost is this dweeby 80s-loving Disco Dan type whose name is actually Daniel, and THEN i found the original version of Give Me Up was this really fun Italodisco song! So Give Me Up by Michael Fortunati would be something he bonds with Beni about.

So then we fast forward to 2003 or so, after the whole thing where Joseph met Pilot and was like "oh my god that's the guy who tried to kill my and lisa lisa's favorite student why are you a ghost and camping out in my son's girlfriend's brain" and Beni has a whole Mopey Arc about it before manifesting her awesome fun Stand and getting married to Josuke and starting their little spa together. There's a really distinct 2000s J-pop sound I associate with the spa era (which is still going today they're in their happily ever after and I left them like that don't disturb them please), your Capsules, your Seikou Nagaokas, your Megs. Turns out the second-most modern version of Give Me Up is that exact flavor and the SINGER IS NAMED BENI???????????????????????? So that's really cool. Give Me Up by Beni Arashiro!!

And FINALLY this is the song that actually introduced me to this whole Give Me Up Cinematic Universe, the Night Tempo Showa Groove remix of BaBe's Give Me Up. It's a flavor of future funk that I was listening to nonstop in like, 2017-2020 that I'm sick to death of now... but that means it's a little dated now in the way that really suits the Josubeni kid, Jove!! She's not very developed, but I'd say her closest comparison is Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. Give Me Up's Night Tempo Showa Groove remix makes it feel like Beni and Josuke's lives came full-circle in a very cute way and I wish them the best now that I'm working with their Jojo-divorced versions.

[lisa-and-shadow]

My thoughts on Starfield:

First of all, I do really enjoy the game for all of its flaws. Just want to get that out of the way first.

It is, from toe to tip, a Bethesda game. For better or worse. It definitely has a very Fallout-esque flavor. As a big fan of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds, I can't help but compare the two and they are similar in a lot of ways. We are definitely having cowboy times in space doodoo do doo. That's not a bad thing though. I think it's easy to see influences from all sorts of sci-fi sources throughout the game. We've got space miners on asteroids, rag-tag space pirates, slick corpos, uptight military leaders, and the aforementioned independent minded space cowboys. Pick a trope from a popular title and it's in there. We've even got space drugs made from fish!

Technical downsides? Menu upon menus within loadscreens within menus. It's fairly quick, but it just takes you out of the action. So you wanna fly to another planet? Sit in the pilot's seat. Tiny unskippable scene of you sitting down. Menu to take off pops up. Cinematic cut scene of you taking off plays. Now you're in orbit. You might have a random encounter in orbit, peaceful or hostile. (Some really fun ones.) Open your main menu. Go to the star map. Find the star system you want to travel to and select it. Click Jump. Cutscene of your ship doing a FTL jump to that system. Load screen. Now you're in orbit in the new system. Open that menu back up to scan the planet and find a landing site. Etc etc.

ORRRRR you can pick a planet you've already been to, or from your quest log, and just fast travel there from the main menu and never fly in space at all. ??? Aside from kinda defeating the point, you have skill points to level up how much cargo your ship can carry that requires you to make FTL jumps. And BY GOD will you need cargo space.

The game does not explain things well. I guess Todd was tired of hearing about how Skyrim was too "hand holdy" because this game doesn't tell you shit. Once I played for a while I figured things out or I just looked them up online. I also watched a couple of Gameranx videos before I started playing. (I 💜Jake Baldino and Falcon.) That helped tremendously.

Speaking of not telling you things... there are NO city maps. The cities are huge with lots of buildings and shops you can explore and people you can interact with. Good luck memorizing them, bitch. (You'll get used to them eventually, honestly. But I'd kill for a map.) Planets have a surface map but it will only show you a very condensed local area with specific landmarks highlighted on a blank blue background.

There's a lot of really funny stuff in the game that has made me LOL and I want to shout out the writers. Just kooky jokes and silly encounters. Had a pilot hail me to make a Uranus joke. Dead. Had another ship invite on board to party. Very fun.

I personally have not encountered any major bugs to speak of. I thought I did on my first mission but I was in the wrong place bc the game didn't tell me where to go bc fuck maps. I did lose some weapons bc of bugged weapon racks on a ship I got but they weren't anything special. I haven't seen any floating mammoths or anything.

The leveling system is not my favorite. There are a ton of things to potentially put points into from pistol damage to carry weight to how well your ship steers. When you put a point into a trait it unlocks a "challenge". For example, I put a point in security, so until I unlock 5 locks I don't get the bonus from that point. Then once you complete the challenge, the bonus is activated and the next level of that perk is available to unlock. The problem is for some of the combat perks, you're going to be making pistol kills (or whatever) that aren't counting towards your perk bc you don't have a point to unlock the next level. Or maybe you forgot to go into that menu 30 minutes ago, or didn't realize that perk was done. Bethesda said they were trying to keep players from getting too OP and having too many perk points but damn. It sucks bc base building is also limited by perks.

Base building! Ok so this is a mash-up of Fallout 4 and No Man's Sky sort of... kind of. Apparently your main objective is to place bases on planets to harvest valuable resources like Helium-3. Considering that I already have more companions than I do places to put them, I was looking for a place to assign these folks so they'd stop pestering me on my dang ship. You can build bases right from the get go, but certain things are blocked off until you have a couple of perks unlocked. I always need more perk points. Ugh.

There are 4 companions you can romance. I immediately started flirting with the cowboy single dad. He looked boring before the game came out, but I'm 100% a sucker. He has a southern accent and a raspy voice and calls his daughter "gumdrop". He's like a 15% himbo. One of his voice lines after I looted a corpse was, "To the victor go the spoils... Did I say that right?" Shut your mouth and kiss me. AND! His baby mama is NOT dead. I won't spoil it, but it is refreshing as fuck!!

Yes, I did unlock the Adoring Fan from Oblivion and add him to my crew. How could I not?? He's everything you could possibly imagine and more. 11/10

Heller 💜

I'm a ways into the main story but these are my take aways without any real spoilers. It's fun. It really is. I'm a loot gremlin and Beth outdid themselves with the lootables on this one. So yeah. I like it. It's pretty much what I expected.

[centrally-unplanned]

something it occurred to me to wonder recently and thought if anyone would know, it would be you ;p

when Eva began back in 1995, how much was it anticipated? both narrowly in otaku circles, and more widely among 'people who watch TV in Japan'? as far as i understand the history, Gainax was pretty niche back then and mostly known for dating sim games, but the visual style of Eva is so immediately striking...

like, I know nobody quite realised just how huge it would become, but was there some sort of excitement for a new robot anime from the people who made Wings of Honneamise, Gunbuster and Nadia? or was it a complete surprise?

Hm, good question! I am not super confident in my answer, so my bet is "highly anticipated but not crazily so". Gainax was known but niche, having 'Otaku' success with as you mention Wings and Gunbuster...until Nadia: Secret of Blue Water came out in 1990. This would not have put Gainax per se on the map, as Toho and Group Tac were branded as the primary producers, Gainax as secondary, but it definitely put Hideaki Anno on the map as director. The show was wildly successful, aired in prime-time slots - which, fun fact, meant that its first season airing was interrupted due to breaking news about the onset of the First Gulf War - and Nadia herself became Best Girl in most of the Newtype/Animage style polls of the time until being dethroned by Sailor Mercury in 1992. Nadia was definitely still 'an anime', and it was a kids show in too many ways to be a real breakout. But it was the top of anime of its time, no debate.

Its success is what gave Anno the ability to finance Evangelion, and it meant he was also able to pull a lot of 'big talent' for branding purposes - which ofc was intentional, Anno is no fool. Hiring Usagi from Sailor Moon's voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi to be Misato for example, when Sailor Moon was the #1 anime of 1994, is certainly because of her talent but also because of her buzz, and he has a bunch of hires along those lines to make Eva the "oh man the best of the best are all here" kind of show.

(Again fun fact time - you prob know this one - he also tried to bring Kunihiko Ikuhara, Sailor Moon director, onto the animation staff, and as part of his tactics to woo him named Rei Ayanami after Sailor Mars, Ikuhara's favourite SM character that he famously cosplayed. Ikuhara was alas too busy with wrapping up his time on Sailor Moon and forming Be-papas to make Utena to spare the time)

All this meant that by the time Evangelion was getting ready for its Fall 1995 debut, the cover of the April 1995 issue of Newtype looked like this:

And hey, if you want some evidence of the buildup discussed, the first page of the cover feature starts off in 1990, with a discussion of the impact of Nadia:

Even here, once it transitions to discussing Evangelion, Anno is promising "something anime fans have never seen before". It was a common refrain in all the marketing material throughout 1995, that this show was going to be special. The manga adaption actually began print in February of 1995, as a hype builder. The Evangelion team was putting it all on the line.

Also I love that early concept art - the more gundam-esque pilot suits over the plugsuits would have absolutely been my jam, alas.

(This marketing material is more evidence against the mythical "mid-production pivot" theory that fans in the past surmised about Eva's intended story, but a topic for another time)

Still, this is just marketing - who wouldn't say your show will Change Everything, that is your job as a business! For all the inner-otaku hype and rep, Evangelion was definitely targeted at those otaku, and it wasn't marketed to an all-ages demo with wider appeal like Sailor Moon. Anno even remarks in the interview above it would be more of a 'cult hit' compared to Nadia. It had a Wednesday airing slot (at 18:30, not actually super late - another myth, it just had late night re-runs after its evening air slot), not a great time and definitely not a Saturday evening slot like Sailor Moon.

It was a show that instead grew over its airing and broke out of its slot and genre - its finale got audience ratings almost twice that of its premiere (though these numbers are hard to aggregate over different stations). Its about midway through its run that you start getting those "phenomenon of Evangelion" style articles, and when the ending hits the culture critics start jumping in as well and it becomes a true cultural event, and discussion of the show in mainstream magazines starts happening. That wasn't happening in 1995.

I wish I could say it all culminates with End of Evangelion being released and being the #1 film of the year and all that - but while it did well it got its clock absolutely cleaned by Princess Mononoke, which came out the same week. An honourable defeat at least!

Hopefully this is a good answer! Definitely more to be said on the topic, man this would be a great deep dive project...