#couldnt decide which image to use again v-v

[iwander12]

Ahhhh i just had some silly dreams...

First i got stuck in an elevator with my older sister... and then suddenly she was Tuddrussel from Time Squad and I was Otto and then Tuddrussel's ex wife (I cant remember her name right now sorry!) showed up and i just stood awkwardly in this elevator that didnt function but kept going up and down as they argued.

Finally we got out, said bye to his ex dropping her off at her apartment and we went home. Not to the spaceship or anything but just a normal ass house. In the living room I organized my stack of comic books and notebooks.

I decided to check out the rest of the house. There was a little basement hall with 4 doors. I looked in Tuddrussel's room, it had Demon Slayer merch on the floor and the walls were colorful. I went to the next door and it was a light blue room with two beds and a closet i recognized from when I was a child- causing me to realize I was dreaming. At this point I wondered where Larry was.

Im not too sure what happened afterwards, its all a blur, but at some point I was sitting on a couch with larry and some people outside were screaming "DESTROY THE KIDS!!!!!!". Suddenly at my window view, the Sector V tree from KND showed up, then was blown up. So was the Empire State Building. I did not care.

I woke up briefly and went back to sleep.

This time I had a Pizza Tower dream? I don't know much about Pizza Tower, but I guess this was supposed to be like those crossover images. It was crossing over with a burger. Something was trying to vacuum up a fusion of Pepino and the Noise. They tried running away but it was no use. Marlon Random from LBP3 was there too but he managed to get away. Then he said "Meow."

Pepino-Noise getting sucked up caused reality to shift and history to change. And also he was irrelevant now v.v

For some reason it became an episode of Billy and Mandy, but the evil con carne characters were also there. They were in a dark world where the land had turned into neon green water, and the two casts of characters sat on giant burgers without a giant bun. Theirs had a giant tomato on it. Alongside them were also groups of 3 generic minor characters also sitting on giant burgers, no tomato and a giant sea monster.

This sea monster gave everyone a task (which... hardly makes sense): They have to correctly identify why each other was delicious and why they had come here if they were a real person, and if they were correct they would be spared. N Gin from Crash Bandicoot started to make shit up out of anxiety, but then I realized he wasnt an Evil Con Carne character and smited him from existence as the true god of this universe.

I now realized this was a dream again and was really entertained by this premise! xD I made them argue... Skarr was the one to start bullshitting, Hector said he wouldn't be tasty and the monster should eat everyone else, Ghastly plead insanity for the others so the monster would ignore them, Billy talked about being hungry too I think, Mandy pointed out this game was dumb and the monster should just eat everyone, and Grim... didnt say anything. He was probably amused.

As soon as I woke up I came to write this down, right here right now! Hello!

I feel like I should make a comic about the Billy and Mandy part, that would be fun...

There was also some other events i couldnt fit in here because i dont know what or when they happened... Like Tuddrussel, his ex and I (Otto) went to go look at a gross cafeteria and we almost got blown up because it had gas or something. It be that way

hamburger....

[yourfavewillkillyou]

ness from earthbound can and will kill you!

[pynkhues]

do you have advice on how to be more of a critical thinker/ tips on how to analyse shows?? bc i love yours but god i couldnt do it even if you paid me, i've got no skills

Oh gosh, thank you, anon! And I highly doubt you have no skills! All of this stuff is both learnt (I watch a truly shocking amount of movies, haha) and something that I genuinely think comes naturally to us as a species. I think humans like stories. I think we see that in historic - particularly Indigenous - traditions of oral storytelling, I think we see that in fairytales and fables, in modern films and TV - - hell, I even think it with tabloids (like, fuck, I kind of love that glossy magazines can build a story out of a celebrity getting a coffee from Starbucks [Not with her BOYFRIEND?? They’re clearly on the rocks, etc etc etc])

With that in mind, I think really learning how to unpack a story comes down to a pretty simple question.

Why? 

When it comes to storytelling (and life tbh), everything is a choice that somebody has made - whether that be a writing choice, an acting choice, a costume choice, an art department choice. Somebody has sat down and decided that something looks, sounds, feels the way that it does, and they’ll have a reason for it. Stories aren’t made by accident - they’re the result of a lot of work done by a lot of people - so feel empowered to ask that story questions - interrogate it - really ask it why, because somebody’s work and reasoning is generally behind it (and in my experience - those people love that you notice and want to engage with it, even when you have an opinion that might deviate from their intention).

Like - - okay, lets look at an example. 

Beth wears a lot of floral, and her house is decorated with a lot of floral, which means that at least one person has made that choice. Probably a writer, who likely wrote it into a script at some point. Great! Likely though - that writer wrote it into that script, and a costume team and art department / set dressers ran with it and then doubled down on it, so now we have multiple creatives making an active creative choice to decorate Beth and Beth’s life in floral. 

Why would they do that? What do floral prints mean? 

Well, floral is culturally and socially something that is very feminine, and often heavily associated with beauty and motherhood (gosh, just think of any sort of mother’s day card or promotion). Flowers are also something that can represent a blossoming (which I think you could genuinely argue with Beth), and certain flowers represent very specific things - like lilies (innocence), daisies (youth), roses (love) or poppies (death) - none of the latter are relevant in this situation, but you get the gist. 

Beth dresses in a range of floral, which implies they’re going for a broader association with it - unlike, say, American Beauty, which used recurring rose imagery to directly contradict the idea of ‘love’ - which takes us back to the original point - femininity, beauty and motherhood, and they use it to draw a very stark parallel to the life it is that Beth’s actually living. She’s wearing floral when she’s arguing with FBI agents, or as a costume with other mothers. It’s being used to amplify the contrast between what it is she’s doing and the image that she wants to project to the world / arguably the woman that she is. 

What I’m getting at, is that if you notice an image, or an item that’s recurring, just let yourself think about it. 

So let’s try again.

Let’s think about Beth’s bourbon, or Rio’s gun. 

These are two items that the writers keep putting in front of us, which means that they mean something to them, and therefore the characters and the story. 

Why? 

Well, season one establishes that Beth drinks bourbon usually after a long day, when she’s criming with the girls, when she’s just really fucking done. This is reiterated in season two, and then it’s something that Rio learns about her, orders her, and deliberately leaves her when he takes back her money. 

Season one told us that bourbon is what Beth drinks when she’s at her rawest and her most vulnerable. Rio knowing that narratively, is telling us that Rio knows Beth. 

Like I said in an earlier post, Rio’s gun has a lot of weight to it, and is typically accompanied with a shift in narrative tension. So why would that be? Well, the gun is dangerous. It represents Rio at his most dangerous. If it represents Rio at his most dangerous, it means that it generally also represents Rio at his most powerful, so you can infer from that that the gun is symbolic of power, which particularly comes into play when he gives it to Beth in 1.10 and again in 2.13. Rio’s giving Beth power which she gives back to him in 2.01, and seizes and then actually gives to Turner in 2.13 (which is very interesting to me generally, haha). 

So yeah! I guess asking a story why, and paying attention to recurring imagery - both physical and more symbolic, is probably my biggest recommendation of where to start. If you notice an image repeating too, and don’t know what it means, feel empowered to google it too! There’s no shame in that. I’ve done that plenty of times, haha, because we can’t all be across everything after all. ;-)

Otherwise, I’d really suggest listening to podcasts or interviews, and watching things that help to break down stories and creative and story-business process. 

In particular, I really love TheNerdWriter and Lindsay Ellis on YouTube, I also watch/listen to a lot of interviews with writers and directors through things like The Hollywood Reporter roundtables, and podcasts like Australian Screenwriters, Scriptnotes, How Did This Get Made (which is v funny). I’m also going to do a shameless plug here, haha, and say that I have a very-amateur podcast (full disclaimer - our audio quality can be not-great) with a friend too called Lady Parts which is about genre films, but particularly about roles and representations of women in those genre films.

There are also some pretty amazing books out there too. An entry-level one is Film Art (which is unfortunately a bit expensive!) but is an incredible resource full of screencaps and script pages which helps to break down choices and storytelling and imagery, and Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer (who wrote Annihilation!) which is more about writing, but is an incredible resource for understanding story generally. 

I hope that’s a helpful start, anon! And if anyone has any other tips, you should leave ‘em in the comments :-)

[worangetravellertravels]

The Worst Poison of them All

(Be warned of the following before reading my story: In here I’ll be dealing with a customer who wants poison... to end their life. How I’ll act while trying to help is not the only way to act. I’m pretty sure there are many better ways to do it. This one is from a sleazy but with moral poison seller... seek help from better people than me.)

I know my job isn't exactly the most honorable in the world, but I somewhat try to make up for it...

They came trough my door near the end of the day. When people are leaving to their houses to rest for another day. They couldnt even talk, they were shaking, waving their money and pointing at the back. I made my usual introductory schtick (for this type of job, you need to amuse yourself).

WELCOME YOUNG ONE! To Mr. Rat’s Poison Paradise: Alleyway with the best and most effective poisons in this side of the black market. We have poison for small people, big people, old people and animals of all kind. Poisons dont distinguish race, gender, etnicity nor how good or bad the victim or you just/evil revenge is. So please tell me which one do you need and you can move on with your life.

At that point their face got paler, starting shaking more and suddenly... fell on their knees and began a gross sobbing... oh no, It’s one of “those customers”, I mean no disrespect to the person but... I’m getting no monetary profict for what’s about to happen... *sigh* but what can ya do.

“Listen... fella. (if fella is not a gender neutral term i tried ok?)” - I try to sound paternal, but how paternal can a sleazy poison seller sound? - “I’m sorry but I can’t really sell you anything if ya wanna use it on yourself. I deal easy revenges, not easy giver uppers ya know?”

They continue to sob... And continue to explain.

“I’m not really a good guy as you can imagine... but I’m not a heartless monster even with the ocupation I have. Pretty cowardly from me to say I guess, but it’s like the people that say “how can you eat cows?” and the best response you can get is “because I won’t see it” I can easily deal poisons because I know they will be use in someone I don’t know... while here I’m seeing you sobbing because you’re scared. You don’t wanna do this don’t you?” - They kept sobbing... but slightly shaked their head to say “no” - “*sigh* I suspected that... would it help you talking to me about what lead you to get to this “brilliant idea”? I have no right to judge people so lay your tragic sorrows on old Mr. Rat”

Between sobs I heard their troubles. Nothing new or unusual really, always the same familiar sob story: family abuse, social ineptitude, bad relationships. It’s not that these issues aren’t important... is that after so many years listening to stuff like this they feel so... “normal”? then again when you stop to think about it... thinking of them as “normal” is really disgusting.. I guess more to add to my own shame. At least they seemed to be free of physical abuse, substance abuse or... self abuse...

What I’ve know seing “this” happen trough the years I’ve worked here, (and yes “this” is sadly a regular occurence) is that the people who come here most of the time if they REALLY want the poison for “that”, they would buy it with no hesitation and even some relief... sad i know. But a lot are like the sobbing mess in front of me... they just need someone to talk to... I usually provide the ear to their issues and to different degrees they accept or decline. After listening I do my best to calm the situation... probably with some sappy or cliche stuff, I know, not very honest of me... old habits die hard I guess. In this case? Notice I haven’t told you what their problem was... would this response paint you the image for who would it work?

“Okay... you’re clearly in the wrong shop young one. You dont need poison, you need and ANTIDOTE, cause all you have told me clearly paints that the poison you have inside you is “self hatred” you think you’re irredemable, unchangeable and that to not be a burden you need to drink proper poison. When what you need is the antidote of “self love”... sadly we’re out of those here, but I’m sure your fmaily or a close person in your life has a way for you to find it. Or maybe you can search for it? Sadly can’t help beyond that...”

Trust me is a coincidence if it fits you. It’s like horoscopes... you just gotta know what to say.

Eventually they stopped sobbing and the colour returned to their faces, they thanked me and offered me the money they had for the original poison “HELL NO! GIVE YOUR STINKING MONEY A REAL USE!” I yelled, they yelp a bit scared and I got a bit flustered “I mean, this talk is what a regular person should do... and I’m below regular so URGH!”

They hugged me... it lasted more seconds than usual... I considered that my tip.

Before they left I gave them a card, it was for the suicide hotline of the town, address and everything “Don’t just stay with my pathetic pet talk fella, go here and talk to them. I can’t force you... but trust me, you NEED this. Now scram! I have actual costumers to tend to”

They smiled... I smiled back. And just like that they were gone.

I could tell you either that I never saw them again or how by a conntribance I did see them in the way of recovery... in reality that doesn’t matter if you ask me... just remember to do your best in what you do k?

NOW SCRAM! I have a life to continue on.

Notes:

> After strings of negative stories I decide to make positive story > Word for today is “poison” > F***!

Did the best I could anyway so no regrets.

Truth be told I was planning to change the story to reflect more on Yuri’s response to my response yesterday... but then decided against it and made it a general lesson in helping others no matter the negativity you are/can be to the world... “even a monster can have something beautiful” if you will ;)

Now read the story again but listening to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TwwiLAk4GM (Live at Grillby’s, Undertale Jazz remixes, the whole album)

[maskcftlalli]

OKAY so I have a lot of followers who aren’t fighting game characters or just don’t know much about Street Fighter as a whole, i’ve done one of these before for my other SF muse, Alex (which i’ll reblog from his old archived blog), so this isn’t an entirely new thing to me. This has been sitting in my drafts so i decided to just NOW finish it. yay me.

Ne.calli is a character who has very little in-game information on him, but i’ve dug deep enough to get a good amount of info on him so that i can write him better, he’s also had more information about him released since i started writing for him last year so I feel that now’s a good time to write a summary on who he is as a character! Side note: Even if Ne.calli has only appeared in one stre.et fig.hter title as of this moment, I’ll be going over a few characters from previous games as well as going over the SF timeline, since it’s super wonky if you’re just getting into Stre.et Fig.hter. So without further delay, let’s get started!!

Alright, so first of all, I want to clarify something for all of you. Although it IS the most recent installment of Street Fighter, Street fighter V is NOT the latest part in the SF storyline. In fact, SFV takes place between Street Fighter IV (4 years after) and Street fighter III (4-5 years before). don’t quote me on the years because theyre just estimates.

Necalli is a character we’re introduced to as an in-human creature with one sole purpose in life; to consume the souls of strong warriors.

Here’s some trivia to know about him before we get into his role in street fighter v:

He’s associated with the ground/earth and is alluded to being a ‘mud man’ type creature, but it is unknown as to what he actually is as of right now. His birthday is January 11th, so he’s a capricorn, which again is associated with the earth/ground. Necalli’s command grab (my url), Mask of tlalli, is another thing that alludes to him being associated with the earth. Tlalli means ‘Earth’. Necalli emits a dark aura that corrupts people around him unconsciously. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it and seems to be completely unaware of it. this aura could possibly be used to draw out evil power like the Satsui no Hado.

If someone were to ever witness Necalli consuming someone, they would immediately become paralyzed with fear, it doesn’t matter who it is. They would find themselves unable to move due to the shock of how brutal he consumes people.

Necalli is an arrogant misanthrope and hates people. He sees humans (primarily strong ones) as food, bothersome food at that. He also absolutely despises machinery.

As i said earlier, Necalli emits a dark aura that corrupts people around him. What that means is that slowly, people become corrupted by the aura and turn into soul devouring creatures like he is (albeit not biologically, one would assume). The process becomes quicker the longer someone is around him.

and finally, Necalli can speak fairly well. He just fumbles over his words and stutters a bit.

Now, onto his story mode!!

His character story in-game plays out like a prophecy, told by a character only known as the ‘Warrior Prophet’, who i’ll be referring to as ‘WP’. (pictured below)

WP basically explains that Necalli walks during a plane of time known as the ‘Hour of the battle’, which later on in the general story, seems to allude to a time when the world is in ‘a great crisis’.

The WP also explains “to witness Necalli is to know that you are a true and strong warrior”, implying that Necalli, despite wanting to consume “everything”, only limits himself to beings that are powerful.

He also tells us that Necalli consumes warriors’ souls so that they can nourish him to his satiety, which makes sense seeing the way Necalli actually consumes people... Essentially, he absorbs them. (see below)

Necalli is capable of doing the image above because of the fact that his body is comprised of a slime like substance, but we’ll go over that a bit later.

As I was saying, WP basically explains a prophecy of the next ‘Hour of the battle’, which involves Necalli going after three fighters in SFV. These three fighters are Ry.u, Dhal.sim, and M.Bis.on. 

Necalli goes after these three in particular because of the fact that they’re three of the canonically strongest characters in terms of the power they wield. However, Necalli’s only going after Ry.u due to the fact that he contains an evil power known as the Satsui no Hado (You know the character Aku.ma? That’s the power he wields, it’s an evil power that yearns for nothing but death.), and Necalli is willing to do ANYTHING to get his jaws around it. He goes after Dhal.sim due to the fact that he wields fire of the god of fire, Agni. Finally, he goes after M. Bi.son because of his Psycho Power (A type of energy that basically kills your soul and thrives on negative emotion. Any negative emotion feeds Psycho Power and makes it grow stronger.).

In the prophecy, Necalli succeeds in devouring all three, however... This was prophecized, and thus didn’t show the outcome of Necalli’s current battle against the WP, who was expecting Necalli to show up sooner or later for his soul.

Necalli ends up defeating the WP and devouring him... But it was almost as though the WP allowed himself to be consumed, possibly in an attempt to prevent the future prophecy from happening.

We then see Necalli meeting up with Ry.u and Dhal.sim as he does in the Cinematic story, albeit in a more human looking appearance, possibly due to the WP attempting to weaken Necalli.

Despite the change to his outward appearance, Necalli retains all his previous powers and abilities, which include:

Super-human strength

Liquification ( see below, left is his old form, right is his current one )

Immense lower body strength (allows him to jump long distances and withstand falling from long heights.)

His V-Trigger transformation (Causes his dreads to become undone, and his hair to glow brightly and fly around wildly, along with increasing his strength and other physical abilities

Also the ability to use claw-based attacks with blunt fingernails.

Necalli also has the ability to speak multiple different languages with ease, however he has difficulty speaking, which results in a notable, and rather inconsistent stutter (which many claim are due to the souls he eats, but that’s incorrect. His profile states that he just has trouble speaking.), which causes him to say things like ‘Devour-our-our’, or ‘Power-wer-wer’. He’s proven to able to speak full, fluid sentences however, so his stutter is inconstant as i’ve stated.

Another ability Necalli has is one that he unconsciously uses without realizing. His dark aura causes people around him to slowly become corrupt, and eventually turn into creatures that hunt for strong warriors’ souls just like he does. Just being around him causes the effect to start, however if he touches you, it’s implied that the corruption speeds up slightly.

With how big and bad Necalli seems to be, you’d think he’d be the villain of SFV, right? Well... That’s what capc.om hyped him up to be.

In the cinematic story we first see a cutscene with Cha.rlie Na.sh (known in game by his last name) encountering Necalli, disguised as a sheep.

He then assumes his normal form then proceeds to try and devour Na.sh, before a flash of light ‘saves’ him, and causes him to wake up, showing that it was only a dream. 

A bit later Necalli encounters Ry.u and Dhal.sim as he was prophecized, he defeats Ry.u, then is challenged by Dhal.sim who beats him. Afterwards the sun is blocked by one of few objects known as ‘The black moons’, Necalli hesitates for a moment before crying ‘Getepe!’ to the sky, and showing Ry.u a vision of who caused it (at least, it’s heavily implied that Necalli was the one who showed Ry.u the culprit behind the black moons, which was none other that M. Bi.son.). Necalli then liquefies himself and melts into the ground, leaving Ry.u and Dhal.sim be. Later on Necalli goes after M. Bi.son at the Shada.loo (Evil organization in SF)  base, but loses to him. Bi.sons associate, F.A.N.G, attempts to poison Necalli for his disrespect (Since F.A.N.G has the ability to secrete poison from his hands and create it in his body.), Necalli leaps back to Bi.sons amusement, and melts down and flees.

Necalli doesn’t leave the base but instead tracks down Na.sh and Ra.shid (and Ra.shid’s butler, Azam), who’re also there to try and stop Bi.son, and proceeds to chase them out of the base. He fails in consuming any of them and roars in anger as they take off in Karins helicopter.

Necalli appears later on near the end of the story mode, he battles Ry.u at Karin’s estate, and Ry.u shows that he’s overcome the satsui no hado, so Necalli can no longer devour him, since he harnessed ‘the power of nothing’, which renders Ry.u stronger, but unable to consume at the same time. Necalli then questions why he couldnt consume ry.u, before dhal.sim teleports to the estate and tells him. Necalli melts into the ground, disappointed at the truth, and we don’t see him again in the cinematic story.

Necalli appears in both Bal.rog (Known internationally as ‘Boxer) and Aku.ma’s (Gou.ki in japan) story modes. Necalli attempts to devour Bal.rog, but fails. In Aku.ma’s story mode, Necalli actually succeeds in devouring Aku.ma

However, it doesn’t last long before Aku.ma unleashes his full power and rips Necalli to pieces

Don’t worry! He isn’t dead, Necalli’s made of slime, remember?

Currently in SFV’s story, this is the last time we’ve seen Necalli, but i’m sure we’ll see him again soon.

I’ll update this as more information is given, but for now, this is it! Thank you for reading!!