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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 10 days ago

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Alright I got two trials to do and ironically enough both are from the same game. Yeah as much as I love some of the characters from it, I do have to unfortunately agree that SDRA2 is easily the weakest of the games here as it does have 2 dogshit chapters, 2 extremely flawed chapters and 1 okay chapter. Sucks because there was a lot of potiential but LINUJ fumbled in so many areas that it really lets the whole game down.

A2-6 is the grand finale for not just SDRA2 but for the Another series as a whole, and as such there is a lot riding on it. Does it get it right? The fact its the 3rd member of my unholy trio of SDRA2 bad cases isn't a good sign though I will admit compared to A2-3 and A2-4 its nowhere NEARLY as bad and it has the potentinal to be great. It does have really strong points to it but there are some areas it doesn't do well at all.

The biggest issue is a issue all Chapter 6s suffer from which is the fact the chapter becomes a lore/info dump as you try to get up to speed with the information given. But SDRA2 takes this to the extreme as its not just a lore dump, its a lore tsunami and one that can overwhemble you extremely quickly. Its extremely common for pepople to miss or forgot certain details because you are bombarded with so much information it kinda borders on sensory overload. This is because due to having two dud chapters, LINUJ realised he had a ton of infomation that didn't get parted and needs it all to come out, and so it comes out like this. Had A2-3 not been a emulation of 3-3, and A2-4 not have as much information muddled with due to last minute changes, while there would still be a lot of infodumping, tis a Chapter 6 after all, it wouldn't be to the point when you might feel physical pain.

But let's explore some of these info. Firstly the reveal of Mikado as an AI is quite an obvious twist once you realise the Utsuroshima Killing Game is a virtual reality, and he does have quite the creepy design as he has all glicthed effects and looks like he's some Missingno-like monster masquading as a human. AI villains can be quite terrifying especially with the rise of new advanced AI in modern society, its becoming a increasing fear, heck people say the most likely cause for human extinction is the rise of a super-intelligent AI. But with Mikado, you get that he is a creation of hubrus bordering on Brutus from the Fleetway Sonic comes. If you don't know, the Fleetway Sonic Comics is a UK Sonic series similar to Archie, but more focused on the canon classic series rather then introducing OCs all the time. And one of the arcs is when Dr. Robotnik creates a second in command called Brutus which is not only a highly advanced Badnik but also possesses his mind so he's as smart as him. But he also inherits Robotnik's ambition and thus eventually rebels against him, but is destroyed by Robotnik in the end. AI Mikado gives me similar vibes since due to being a Alter Ego, he is exactly like his creator, which is why I roll my eyes whenever people say Real Mikado is a cinnimon roll and its just the AI who's evil. No real Mikado is as evil as AI Mikado its just the latter had the power to do what the former could not.

One thing that's often said about AI is that they have zero imagination and can only reproduce what's been given to them. This is very much true to Mikado as not only is his plan a mismash of all the various other schemes from both canon and the first Another game, but he even loses in the same way as his creator did; he underestimated his own creation. And his defeat is really glorious as yeah he's the only villian you actually feel like you won over, as the others had all the cards on their tables and only gave up due to their own idealogy wanting defeat or the lack of disappointing to the audience, Mikado is none of that and while it might take years for the SDRA2 Dub to reach Chapter 6 (The 6 hour slogfest and Eli's vocal chords in A2-3 take priority) I do hope Swords of Sword gives a stellar performance which if his other roles have breakdowns would give us some indication.

The big twist I'm mixed on is the fact everyone in the SDRA2 cast is of different ages. Now while I do like a cast where nobody is the same age, this isn't foreshadowed in any way, and it killed nobody to ask what the year was? Shinji not being used to the tech on the 3rd island was a bit of a hint but he's also not the smartest so it could be easy to dismiss. Like for example having Hibiki ask Setsuka who her favourite music artists are and when Setsuka mentions them, Hibiki then follows up by asking if she likes old music artists or something, only for Setsuka to be confused as they are recent. Or have Koroko be amazed with the high technology of the place. Like I'm not even sure if the age thing was something LINUJ had in mind from the start or if he did it at the last second to fire nuclear missiles at various ships as so many ships got destroyed by this twist.

Iroha I'm 100% sure ONLY lived and survived because she's LINUJ's favourite, and is one of the worst examples of a Creator's Pet out there. Like Iroha in most Askblogs is quite decent but that's because she had this magic thing called character development happen to her, whereas in canon she really is a self-centred brat who only cares about her own survival and is a pure dead weight. ESPECIALLY when you consider that LINUJ often likes his villains to be killed off in karmatic way so personal attachment I believe was the only thing that spared Iroha. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if Iroha was meant to die early on but LINUJ didn't have it in him to kill her and even made her a Void at the last minute just so he could have her mean something. Because with the other Void members I was able to more or less get them right but Iroha completely took me off guard and not in a good way.

Now with Tsurugi's regression, while I like most people hate it, I can understand why. A big reason why Tsurugi in Another 1 was even having self-reflection and considering his actions was because of his relationship with Yuki. I don't think I need to understate enough that when compared to literally every other protag-rival relationship we have had, Yuki and Tsurugi have the most positive interactions with each other. I believe that had Yuki not been a fake personality and survived the killing game, Tsurugi would have kept working on his character development and become a better person overall. But nope, A-6 when we get to it, completely broke Tsurugi and for that we have gotten back to stage one. Plus having to chase down a bunch of people who worship the guy who mindfucked you so badly, Tsurugi's rage can be understood. Just because I understand it, doesn't mean I like it because it feels like LINUJ just wanted some unnecessary drama for the sake of it and because Syobai was gonna work with the heroes, and Iroha is...Iroha, someone else aside from Mikado was required to be a antagonistic force and Tsurugi fit the bill.

And yet despite this Ryohei Seki somehow manages to be even fucking worse. I won't go into details because I really want more people to watch Danganronpa The After, but all I will say is that Ryohei is Tsurugi turned up to eleven as he does actions that even Tsurugi wouldn't dream of doing, and my hatred for that police officer is on par of your hatred to Nikei.

I didn't really know what to think of Yuki as I didn't like how he was behaving throughout the game, but seeing as this whole thing is a trauma simulator to him, it makes sense why he wouldn't be mentally okay by the end. It is good he escapes in Akane's body in the end and its very open ended how he would go but I suspect we are gonna get a Onmake Story which addresses this at some point, but LINUJ has said that its left to the player to decide if the new person is Yuki, Sora or a fusion of them both; Yura? Yeah that works Yura. Yuki's body being stripped down to a brain I feel was only done so that we can have a way for Sora to die because if Yuki still had his body then this drama would never happen. It does a good job of highlighting how evil Mikado is but still there were other ways that could be done to reason why Sora wouldn't make it out.

The scene with Yoruko trying to forgive on Yuki's behalf since he wasn't there at the time, I can see why people would be angry about it, but this just shows I feel its very wishy-washy about whenever Sora is meant to be her own person or if she's tied to Akane Taira. Mikado blames Sora for all the crimes that Akane has done, even though she wasn't even alive when that happened. And the fact Sora has to die to "atone" is proof that LINUJ probably views Akane's and Sora's crimes as one and the same, as its the same logic why Akane didn't live in A-6 despite that being originally the plan because LINUJ believed she didn't deserve to live even though she's seen the error of her ways and said sorry.

I do like how ultimately Syobai turns out to just be very business focused and only care about either the value of life or how much he's getting paid as those are the only truths in life whenever people can lie about everything else. In the first few chapters Syobai goes AFK because he knows the world is fake so everyone will be fine, but I think at some point he realises all might not be as it seems when he finally wakes up for A2-3 and especially in A2-4 when Nikei says that everyone will live if they die in the virtual world, since Syobai knows as a Void, Nikei is most likely lying. Sora and Syobai don't exactly get off the right foot seeing as Syobai stabbed Sora in the prologue, but as the game progresses, the two do begin to understand each other and its also Syobai who really pushes the idea Sora might be Akane when he kidnaps her and strips her down to show a massive Monokuma shaped scar Sora has on her torso, in the same place where Akane was attacked in A-6 when she tried to defend Rei. And its why when Sora realises who she is and that she has Divine Luck, its Syobai she entrusts to help her with the plan to fuck over Mikado.

But just remember people it could have been worse since Syobai originally had Yuri's personality. Yeah...I don't think I need to say anymore then that no, do I? Same goes for Yoruko being a lot more deranged and psychotic.

I don't have much to say about Yoruko then you do, but I will say I'm unsure if the Soruko romantic subtext is translation fluff or part of the original text. Given how LGBTQ rights are in South Korea, I would be doubtful if it was intentional, but that's the thing about fiction. If certain interactions between two characters can read off like they are into each other, you can do it like that and really Sora and Yoruko's relationship doesn't change much if they are close friends or if they have feelings for each other.

Rei is someone who still stuns me even exists since she's a complete antithesis to LINUJ's philosophy on that humans can never change their nature, as while she's not as bad as Byakuya was in Another 1, she does learn how to grow and develop as a person and by SDRA2, she has ascended into elite girlboss territory. Her callout to Tsurugi is well deserved and it gets even better in Funeral where Rei really turns up the sharp tongue to eleven as she roasts Tsurugi so badly that after she leaves, he has a mental breakdown and decides to take a leave of absence. While Rei was drunk at the time, this makes it even better since they say alcohol is nature's truth serum and so what Rei was wailing at Tsurugi for, was things she always thought about him but held back out of professionism but now its unrestricted. The fact she also ends her friendship there, also shows how Tsurugi's actions have well and truely isolated her.

Before we get onto the beauty that is Sora I need to bring up the bad endings since you didn't. Yes SDRA2 has TWO bad endings and both of them are triggered at different points. At one point in the trial, Mikado pulls a Enchantress and traps everyone into their own personal paradises so they cannot stop him. For Sora, her fantasy is that the Killing Game never happened, everyone is alive and everyone is happy with each other. She has a choice whenever to stay in this dream world, or whenever to realise this isn't real and wake up. If she wakes up, the game continues but if she prefers to stay in the dream world, we get our first bad ending when Mikado succeeds in stealing Divine Luck as he escapes in Akane's body, causes everyone in the Kisagari Foundation to just instantly die, and goes off to do who knows what else. And given how Mikado is as a person, I think he would just kill the human race or only leave a small population alive to torment as he pleases ala AM style.

And then we have the neutral ending and honestly this is quite funny. Again Sora is given another choice in the Class Trial where she has to choose whenever she wants to be with Yuki or Utsuro, if she chooses Yuki the game carries on but if she chooses Utsuro, then... Tsurugi wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, implying that the entire events of SDRA2 was a terrible nightmare he had. Its...kinda funny in a way that everyone was some fucked up dream Tsurugi had, and it also explains why Void are so irredeemable as due to Tsurugi's philosophy, his subconcious isn't gonna to create sympathatic villians now is it? I can relate since I tend to have incredibly deep dreams that sometimes have their own lore within them yet for all the characters to be all for naught when I wake up. Its a good thing this isn't the canon ending because I think the Another community wouldn't like it if it was all just a dream.

Again you go over Sora very well so I don't have a lot to add to her. Given how I realised Sora might have died back in A2-4 if inital plans were right, it makes me wonder if it was a good thing she lived or not. I personally think sparing Sora is the right decision since she does add a lot to the latter half of the game, and the fact is yeah when she gets Divine Luck she turns the tables on Mikado. I am NOT looking forward to when the dub does AA because for some reason my keyboard doesn't want to know how to do it as I keep getting sticky key alerts whenever I try to use it, which makes the minigame much harder then usual. Granted Mikado's is like Asrial's final battle where you literally cannot lose, but when say the Otonokoji's, Nikei's and Iroha's AA's come up I wonder if I will get a Game Over not because I suck at the game but because I'm fighting back against my own computer.

Like think its bad enough for you? Imagine doing it on a computer that likes throw alerts up EVERYTIME you press a command on that minigame which makes it so if you don't respond in time to take damage.

All Danganronpa endings are bittersweet but I tend find that with the canon games its more on the sweet side as while yes people died and the world sucks, the survivors have the hope and determination to carry on. Whereas the Another games are really more on the bitter side as yes people live but it comes at a steep cost.

A2-6 is a okay conclusion as it wraps up everything nicely but I just feel if we didn't have two dud chapters where more hints to some of the twists could be effectively foreshadowed, it could be even better. As it revealed some interesting stuff, made Mikado to be such a threatening villain and the fact there is TWO BAD ENDINGS if you fuck up at any point in the Class Trial is proof the stakes cannot be higher so when you do win against Mikado, and actually win because he really does 100% lose here and no see it coming, it feels so satisfying. As currently I feel the only thing holding it back is how not only does it throw too much information at you, to the point its extremely common for people to forget some Another lore as a result due to how rapid-fire it goes for you "here's one plot twist" "and another" "and another" "and another" Like as weirdly fitting as it is, its not good for the player, but also how its not fully voiced yet. The latter will eventually be fixed hopefully, but the former will not.

And with that we only have one case left in this game...and its the very first one, which is isn't a good look at this game.

//Okay, I'll go through these points one by one.

//In case I didn't make it obvious, I think if there's one thing I can credit SDRA2 on, it's that while it had a very middling runtime at best, it starts well and ends well. Yes, I agree that we cover a lot of information in the final trial, but it's information that I'm actually interested in instead of being pointless waffling for most of the time. It didn't bore me, nor did I ever tune out when Mikado was yapping about stuff. It kept me engaged the whole time, so I don't dislike this trial or this ending.

//One of the main reasons I find Mikado underwhelming is precisely because of how derivative and predictable his character feels. While the idea of him being an AI villain in a virtual reality setting has potential, it’s not explored in a way that makes him stand out. Instead, his plan comes off as a patchwork of tropes and schemes we've already seen in the Danganronpa series and the first Another game.

//Even his defeat, while satisfying in the sense that it feels like a true victory for the cast, doesn’t redeem his character for me. His downfall mirrors his creator’s in a way that feels like poetic justice, and I do like that, but it doesn't justify the countless hours I sat through starring a boring antagonist who doesn't do shit for the first half of the game.

//I get why the age twist feels sudden, but I think that’s what makes it work. While more foreshadowing could’ve made it smoother, the lack of obvious clues reinforces how deeply the characters were conditioned not to question their reality. Subtle hints, like Shinji’s discomfort with tech, are there but aren’t meant to give the twist away.

//It’s not meant to be a predictable or comforting reveal. It’s meant to challenge our perceptions, just as the characters’ own are shattered. And even with that said, it's not like it changes the plot TOO much, so what's the problem?

//As for Iroha, like I said, it's fun to see just how self-centered and lame she is one she drops all the pretenses, but yeah, I don't like the fact that she probably only survived because she's LINUJ's blorbo. Her overall contributions to the plot were fairly minimal, and even Nikei would have made a more compelling survivor than she would.

//When you put it like that, and how Tsurugi and Yuki generally had a good relationship in Another 1, then yeah, I get how the twist with Utsuro could have broken Tsurugi, but they're equally as chummy throughout that trial as well, and Tsurugi is genuinely super concerned for Yuki's safety, even though he doesn't technically know him. For me personally, I still feel like that's not an excuse because that one incident doesn't justify abandoning every other human principal that Tsurugi has, especially one that makes him willingly send Teruya to his death and act nonchalant about the fact that someone who genuinely saved him in the past is dead. Really makes him come across as an egotistical dickwad and little else.

//And I'm curious to hear how you think the thing with Yuki and his brain could have been done better, because I think it was fine?

//In regards to Sora being responsible for all of Akane's crimes, I've seen cases like this in the past, but as for the points, I have two things to say:

//Firstly, Sora is not an Alter Ego, as Mikado confirms here. She is based on Akane Taira, but is not Akane Taira herself. And even if she was, the stuff that happens between AI Mikado and real Mikado clearly proves that the two are indistinct of each other, even though Mikado directly copies his real self's personality and aspirations.

//Mikado himself states in the game that Sora isn't an Alter Ego. She's an algorithm that exists as part of the Neo World program, and she's based on Akane Taira instead of being a direct brain scan upload of her.

//And secondly, I am actually glad that Akane Taira didn't survive the first Danganronpa Another, as much as I love her. The fact that the last thing she did was sacrifice herself for Rei and betray Utsuro really showed that she'd come around, and that the students trust and faith really meant something and got through to her. More on that with A-6 though.

//Speaking of which though, I never quite understood why it was that Sora had that scar. I know she's a recreation of Akane from the ground up, but while I think the reason might be LINUJ changing his ideas later down the line, why would Mikado think "Oh, she has a scar. I'll add that too I guess?"

//With the stuff about Soruko, ultimately, it's not going to bother me too much if Sora and Yoruko are confirmed to remain friends, or if they don't have a romantic connection, because that's very uncommon in DR games, and when it does happen *COUGHNAEZONOKAIMAKISATSUHIKOUTSUKANECOUGH* it doesn't normally end well.

//But in the translation, as I said in the analysis, Mikado genuinely says this:

//And Yoruko's response is this:

//That, plus the fact that when she tells Sora that she wants to say one last thing to her, but retracts, waiting to tell her when they reunite, she's blushing.

//And that's enough for me, honestly. I doubt the translators changed the original dialogue THAT much, and even if its platonic love, that's kind of how their relationship is through most of the game anyway, so...

//And yeah, spoiler warning for if I ever do a Dangancember or other sort of countdown for the series where I rank my Top 24 Another/Another 2 characters, but expect Rei Mekaru to be in the Top 2 at least.

//And yeah, as I said in the analysis itself, Rei's rant, and all the stuff that Tsurugi goes through in this final chapter is largely why the Kisaragi Foundation are less heavy-handed in Survivor, and why Tsurugi treats his employees like actual people. Because regardless of how far he's fallen, Tsurugi's will to protect people is and always has been genuine. Being the villain of his own story is something that he cannot take emotionally, so in Survivor, while he's still problematic, it's because of these experiences that he's willing to be lenient with his allies, and not jump at the chance to take out Akane T. despite the fact that he still very much dislikes her.

//Just another part of why redemption is the key theme of Survivor. And one day, I might go through all the characters and how I symboize that idea through them.

//Also, I'm sorry that I didn't bring up the Bad Endings, but to explain why I didn't, it's because I never actually got them on my first playthrough of SDRA2. I didn't really even know they existed at first, and just did what I thought was correct, so for the longest time, I didn't even know they existed.

//But what I will say is that as sudden as it sounds, and I like the fact that you said everyone in the Kisaragi Foundation just instantly dies, the idea of a post-SDRA2 story similar to the plot of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is REALLY interesting for some reason.

//As for the neutral ending, if I know Danganronpa fans, yeah, they really don't take kindly to "none of this is real" twists.

//Gives Tsumugi and V3 the side-eye.

//But yeah, that's all I have to say. I have always loved the fact that Sora and Akane's stories end so similarly, and how they parallel each other, and how Sora is more of a manifestation of Akane's guilt and her desire to try again rather than her villainy.

//But okay, I've decided, Sora and Akane are interchangeably numbers 2 and 1 on my ranking, and Rei is 3. Sorry for that, I just spoiled a potential future ranking.

//Looking forward to seeing you cover the next few trials, because the Top 10 is a real doozy, let me tell you.

-Mod

#mod

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softness-and-shattering · 8 months ago

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About the Mean Girls musical movie

I know Ive had conversations before about the cultural context stuff, that it seems like the message was not as effective as the first movie when the stuff its talking about, how girls are wrong whatever they do and everything is up for criticism and filming, and you have to pretend to be sweet and kind fairy princesses instead of being allowed to be human. And Id have to go back and find those posts to see what I do and dont agree with now. Because I just saw the movie. And honestly, I liked it. A lot of the visuals were really fun and interesting, which I think is impressive in a movie that mostly takes place inside of a high school. Regina more than once looks like she's in a music video, and that works because shes so hyped, its like she lives in a reality where not only do people break into song, but she's always in a music video. She really sells the character, self-assured and in charge and perfectly manipulative, and even when she's being vulnerable you're like, but is this another deception? She's more villainous in this version, and by the end maybe more human as well. (also the costuming is phenomenal, that Halloween angel dress?? The entire Halloween Someone Get Hurts sequence might be my favourite. )

Also Renee Rapp, who plays Regina, is just incredibly hot. She also played Regina on Broadway so it makes sense she has the character down. Thats not film critique thats my personal admiration. Its almost a little silly with the "oh no Regina is gaining weight she cant fit her clothes" because she looks amazing. [Edit: She's also obviously - I was gonna say she seems older than the other "teens" but actually she's 24, so Im having a moment of feeling old. And she's actually the same age as Auli'i Cravalho who is a lot younger in my mind because holy shit Moana came out EIGHT years ago?? Angourie Rice/Cady is 23, Jaquel Spivy/Damian is 26, Avantika/Karen is 19, thats more the age I thought they were but not the cast seems to be mostly 23-26. Its so weird when times moves the same for people while your image of them in your head stays the same. So Rapp isn't older she's just a bit bigger (neutral/positive). And she's been playing the role for a long time. And Im allowed to find her hot because she's a goddamn adult and so am I. This paragraph is not critique it is me blogging on my blog. Now Im annoyed at myself for Caveats of Fear but Im gonna stop dwelling on that now.]

On that note, though I originally liked the musical quite a lot, the significant fatphobia in it soured it for me. And Im happy to say in the musical movie, they changed or omitted those lines. I was waiting to cringe and they just sang something else. So that was great. I think the only fat character was Damian (why does that suddenly look like a vampire name?) - Jaquel Spivy - and he seemed comfy and cool, no self deprecating fat jokes or anything. Generally the lines/jokes that were uncomfortable or a bit bigoted have been changed. Though there isnt any disability rep, and theres a random character the burn book claims puts alcohol in her inhaler, like a 3 second joke.

And the big thing is that a lot of the meanness is shown in montages of vertical video and comments - no-brand tiktok obviously - and I think thats pretty realistic, and also in the original theme of not being mean to peoples faces but talking all kinds of shit behind their backs. And I think the montage format is effective in mimicking that endless scroll eyes glazing over stuck in the doom scroll/stuck in the spectacle. The music was good. I really liked how they overlaid the Spring Fling/thematic music with the math competition. If anything, Cady is not as good of a character, her Plastic switch is basically overnight, the scene with Aaron at the party is still kinda of awkward, she doesnt get as much room to breathe, while almost everyone else comes off really well. Heck even the candy cane/glen coco guy did well, I was actually suprised at how differently and yet excellently the actors acted their lines, compared both to the previous movie and the musical. Auli'i is fantastic, scary Janis is *scary*. And I simultaneously want to be her best friend. (It certainly helps that her art is augmented with embroidery and she's carrying embroidery hoops in multiple scenes. Fiber arts my loves.)

When I first saw a trailer my thoughts were "ugh we dont need another movie of this," but I think Ive changed my mind. Its similar enough and different enough that for me its a good adaptation. Also - I almost forgot to say - Janis gets a girlfriend for Spring Fling. Its not a plot point, we're just montaging getting ready and Janis goes to pick her up (in the lavender suit), and Damian is taking photos with two other sapphic couples. And he gets a crush/admirer who again, is just there to be there and doesnt interfere with the main story. I might change my mind again once its had time to settle in my thoughts, but initial impression is that its a fun movie I would watch again. Maybe we want the social commentary to be more incisive than it is, and in the end it is entertainment that needs to not be too boring to hold peoples shortening attention spans. (also neutral). Maybe thats wishing for it to be a movie that its not trying to be, and thats always a recipe for disappointment and also not great or fair analysis. What a fantastic line to end on*.

#mine #review #mean girls the musical the movie #whats the tag?#mean girls 2024 #that seems to be it.#Also the actress for Karen is Avantika I kinda thought that was a Matt Mercer invented name. I guess not.#I should also say it was the recent episode of This Ends At Prom that made me think it would be worth watching because they quite liked it #and their opinions might've influenced mine #I dont remember if there was anything in particular though #Other than Renee Rapp having played the part hundreds of times and therefore doing such a good job.#mm and Cady being a bit outshadowed by the others

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 24 days ago

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I already see it, now that MOANA 2 looks to make around $140-150m for the 3-day weekend take, $200m+ for the 5-day, and plenty more worldwide overall... It's kicking some serious ass, for sure, much like how INSIDE OUT 2 did for Pixar earlier this year.

Like I said, I already see it...

That's it, no more original movies ever again! Especially if ELIO flops! They'll just convert more failed Disney+ shows into sequels!

Once again, no panic buttons here. Only "let's assess" buttons, lol.

Yes, it's true that MOANA 2 was an up-conversion from a Disney+ series, and apparently they crunched the living heck out of the animators/crew because that decision to change things happened way too late in the game... And they're being rewarded at the box office for it, though reviews aren't spectacular and an Oscar nom ain't likely. I wouldn't be surprised if that MUFASA thing has more of a shot at this rate than MOANA 2 does, which I don't think it really has to begin with - it did, however, begin life as a movie from the ground up. If Barry Jenkins somehow pulled it off and people like it, who the hell knows lol. I have no interest, myself.

Back on track, I really do think that something went down at WDAS after WISH imploded at the box office, and Disney themselves did a panic button-pressing because heaven forbid they didn't have a new WDAS movie ready for Thanksgiving 2024. Heck, WISH being a centennial celebration might've been a panic button move in its own way. But yeah, the MOANA 2 situation seemed like this to me: Delay an original, take this MOANA Disney+ series that was showing some promise, quickly make that a movie instead of giving the studio a more reasonable spring 2025 release date to work towards, have our first genuine box office hit since FROZEN II- Anyways...

There's only one Disney+ WDAS show left, and that's TIANA, which to my knowledge is to remain a show.

Even though the streaming bubble has burst and such, but yeah, it still looks to be a show and could probably debut any time next year. From what I understand, it's a Burbank-Vancouver production much like MOANA 2 was, and is aiming for a stylized look in its visuals. More SPIDER-VERSE than actual 2D animation, apparently.

Disney announced TIANA, alongside MOANA: THE SERIES, IWAJU, ZOOTOPIA+, and BAYMAX! in December 2020. Back when these companies convinced themselves that these streaming services were the future. But times have changed, and I feel a lot of MOANA 2 becoming a thing had to do with just how damn popular the original 2016 movie is year after year on streaming services. I'm sure they wanted to do a movie sequel for some time, and that desire probably just grew over the years. I don't think THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG sees that kinda traction on streaming, unless I'm mistaken. Tiana and her world have indeed held on well after the 2009 film's so-so performance ($267m against an $105m budget, 2 1/2x, really didn't seem to be to Disney's liking), the film has a theme park attraction now, but I don't know if it's all enough to make Disney switch gears on TIANA. They could, they may not.

And if they did... I can only hope that such a switch doesn't happen months away from release, yet again. That seemed to be a Jennifer Lee (and John Lasseter) specialty, just micromanaging the hell out of these movies during the finalizing process. No more "lock the picture and go", that's been a thing of the faaaaaar past. I wonder if current leader Jared Bush does the same as Lee and Lasseter, or refrains from that and makes production go smoother. Work out perceived problems very early on, not while the movie itself is being animated, lit, finalized, scored even.

I do not know. I think we get a taste of how Bush runs things when that 2026 movie comes out. MOANA 2 really did seem like a real stopgap production, and a very rushed one at that. The original FROZEN was reportedly such a production, too. Apparently WDAS had nothing for 2013 and hastily put ANNA AND THE SNOW QUEEN, a project halted in early 2010, back in the works to make that date. And eventually retitled it to FROZEN. Supposedly it was in a "development" race w/ KING OF THE ELVES to get that fall 2013 slot. Perhaps the best example of a sort-of "stopgap" film in terms of Disney animated films is none other than... DUMBO! Belted out on a relatively shoestring budget by a B-team within two years, at a time when World War II really made a dent in the Disney studio's armor. They needed something economical out while the "A-team" was still hard at work on BAMBI, which wouldn't be released for another year... In addition to all its other delays. You know, BAMBI was originally supposed to be the second-ever Disney animated feature after SNOW WHITE? Work began on it in 1936, one year before SNOW WHITE's world premiere, but due to so many complications, PINOCCHIO and FANTASIA eventually pulled ahead of it and came out first... BAMBI wouldn't be released until 1942, as the studio's fifth all-animated feature, sixth overall if we're counting hybrid THE RELUCTANT DRAGON.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so there are some tweets floating around that are all like "Disney's just gonna movie-ify more D+ shows" and "No more originals".

Again, TIANA's the only WDAS-made Disney+ series left as far as I know. If that even gets turned into a feature.

And... I've said it before. You don't get sequels without originals, and the wells eventually run dry. Even the other big-time animation studios know this...

WDAS has sequelized most of their 2010s output, and likely won't touch the pre-CGI stuff. Disney Pictures instead just remakes those. No animated legacy sequels to the classics. Though could you imagine how much moolah Disney would make if they got a great 2D unit together and made a true LION KING sequel? That would make *serious* bucks... But that would never happen, lol. And would cause headaches amongst some as to what counts and what doesn't, if it were to ignore the Disneytoon sequels and such.

I know some of us get upset when the slate seems rather sequel-heavy, and in the case of both WDAS and Pixar... It kinda does seem that way, not gonna lie.

WDAS has ZOOTOPIA 2 next year, FROZEN III in 2027, and FROZEN IV sometime thereafter. No word on what the 2026 original is, and I'm pretty sure they'll keep an original slotted for 2026. The studio doesn't really do two movies a year like Pixar's been doing, save for 2016 packing both ZOOTOPIA and MOANA, and 2021 - because of COVID - serving up RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON and ENCANTO... If they did that, I think they'd have more originals to balance out sequels. So in a way, I get it. It seems like a looong wait for something original, as the years go by. Well, that's what we have other animation studios for. If Disney's not bringing an original movie in a calendar year from either of their studios, then look to someone else. This year, we did get non-sequel movies like TRANSFORMERS ONE and THE WILD ROBOT, some streaming stuff like ORION AND THE DARK and ULTRAMAN RISING. Most of those maybe based on books or IPs or whatever, but weren't sequels to anything.

As frustrating as that is for Disney fans, it's not like the 1960s and 1970s, where the waits between a new Disney animated feature would be like 3-4 years. And you didn't have the classic ones on any home media formats, unless you somehow had access to film prints of them.

The other thing is, "original movies" this, "original movies" that... When it seems like most of the internet wasn't too fond of... The majority of the original movies both WDAS and Pixar had put out over the past four years. Suppose ZOOTOPIA 2 next year blows all of those movies out of the water and is a bona fide high quality home run... Then I think it will boil down to what I always think it boils down to, when it comes to armchair purveyors of animated family film excellence... It ain't the lack of originals, or the lack of specific devices/tropes these people want in their animated movies...

They just want good storytelling, however they may define that.

Fwiw, I liked a lot of those so-called "mid" originals. Pixar I think let out some entertaining films like ONWARD and LUCA, and I absolutely loved TURNING RED, and ELEMENTAL has some great stuff in it. On the WDAS end, I found RAYA to be a fun film and ENCANTO has moments of greatness, I see a better film trapped under STRANGE WORLD's Koeingsegg pacing and undercooked story. WISH was really the only animated Disney release of the 2020s to really leave me with little, but I didn't straight up dislike it.

That's all a discussion for another day, really. MOANA 2 is said to be an obvious patchy job from said purveyors, but I heard at least two ovations at my cinema job, audiences coming out of it very satisfied, lots of families taking photos with the cardboard lobby displays too. It seems like they really dug it... I won't be surprised if this thing legs it all the way to $500-600m domestically alone, and get the big billion worldwide...

Anyways, I'm waiting patiently for WDAS to announce what the 2026 movie is. That'll be three years since the release of WISH...

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cowedeakamatsu · 2 months ago

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Ahem Ahem. Welcome everyone to yet another cowede peptalk about themselves cos... lets face it i have an issue. (part 3)

So! like i said my mental health got a bit better, my libido is back motherfuckers, theorically all should be way better! Welllll my libido did came back... but a biiiiiit too strong. As in insanely too strong, and it came back with a looooot of frustration build up, and a overflowed ego that I feel like I have to flex or else i'll re-despair over self confidence and go back to being dark cowede (and big shotout once again to the "close to cowede gang" @plaindanganplain and stoopid name cos during those 2 months i was half depressed half flirty over everything, and complained cooooonstantly. and now ? i'm half flirty half a total bitch, which is probably just as hard to deal with but the thing is im the fucking best so i dont care~) and with that frustration, came frustration conscerning this whole shebang of 1 person vs multiple (harem) once again, @makoto-naegi-stud-and-friends @plaindangan and even the good @carnyreborn if they have good memory know its a thing i always tried, because while im absolutely NOT into the whole alpha thing, i have a strong kink for feeling loved, and... look X aint the only person I had to do multiple person for even though i fucking HATE IT (heck even in my first RPS (without the erotic) back in da good ol days, i found myself planning those monster hunter type / scooby doo esque quests about solving a mystery then tracking what will be a good fun creative stuff to fight (it wasnt dnd, we didnt even really had rules, just a setup universe all our character evolved in, it was on skype and factually ive never been happier) and I had to develop all those side characters and keep track of everything only for a KEY ELEMENT given to 2 other players not being disponible because while the quest was going on those 2 decided to NOT play their part and literaly go in a private room to erp instead ? and for those who say "yeah but thats what a gm does" know i wasnt a gm. I helped create the plot and all but there was no real gm just a bunch of people co writting a cool fun story half stolen on kingdom hearts character because i'm a fucking fanboy. ) and this kinda stuff happened on repeat for other a year. and when i got into erp ? a gooood chunk of them was for absolute assholes who asked the world and gave minimum effort. So anyway i kinda became allergic to doing multiple chars, i hate it, when im super horny im down for anything, but even this i have NO FUN doing at all. BUT since i did sooooo many I developed a desire to be "the center" of those harems. and i already asked all of the affordmention goats to try one erp harem style with a character of my choice (no surprise if it was very often shuichi, kokichi sometime) annnnd well none of them really worked. for carny it was a time and disponibility issue. for plain, well it did kinda work but i ended up overcomplicating things and then I felt bad for it so i sabotaged it, and with the last one well, i jumped to an episodic 1 V 1 formula, cos since the plain accident i feel easily bad for overworking people. back on our subject : X. so what happens is, im back in the game, after 2 month of not responding to our last rp i respond, i try to make my answer fit all their kink especially cos, its at that point a 1 on 1. aaaand they say afterward that they dont want to continue it. OK im in the cowede isnt depressed anymore mood, so its annoying and frustrating cause i know that in Z point in time youll guilt trip me into making another new thing that will be even mooooore focus on X's because they dont want to continue our older stuff but dont want to create a new one but dont want to not have a harem. So i decide "ill just be like "ok" and will come back later. (part final comming soon)

#cowede talks #cowede rants

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bleue-flora · 11 months ago

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20 Questions For Writers

One as tagged by @x-i-l-verify and I’m a sucker for answering questions. :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

7 (and since it’s not many I’m going to color code them) - Wow that’s actually crazy, can’t believe it’s only been a little over a year since I first posted.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

129,165 - Yo, I’ve written a couple novels worth in words let’s go!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Dream SMP. (though I have a real angsty fic idea for MCU’s Loki that I’ve considered doing…)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

(Poor B is for Betrayal is at a disadvantage with only coming out this week lol)

Crow’s Nest

Which makes sense since it is the longest finished work and the most diverse in content, but it’s pretty wild since it’s only been since October. (I’m going to try and not assume it’s just because of all of the co-author, @midnight-fangirl01’s readers lol<3 :)…)

Dreamcatcher

Which I am probably the most proud of as far as my individual work, especially because the concept is really fun to explore. Hoping to finish the sequel soon but we’ll see.

Good Cop ‘Bad’ Cop

This is the shortest non-one shot by like half, so it’s interesting that it ranks higher. I do make some kinda cool graphics for it so I’m glad people like it. Not gonna lie though, a combination of positive feedback and projecting has made it go much farther than the one shot I had originally planned. And since I usually do a lot of planning for stuff it’s no wonder that I have non idea what I’m doing lol. :)

Misery Loves Another Idiot With A Jukebox Where His Soul Should Be (Or umm Misery for short)

(Every time I have to type that out I wonder why the heck I made the title so long, I means its perfect but also you can’t even do a good acronym because that’d still be long…) To be fair the kudo count is really close between Dreamcatcher, Good Cop ‘Bad Cop and this one, which is interesting…

Back in the day, when I first posted this as my blooper reel I did not expect people to like it this much, but I’m glad I’m not alone in my affinity for torture box madness. >:D I still can’t decide which is more unhinged the hopscotch or the crucifixion… like my mental health this year was suffering for real… lol

If The Crown Fits, Wear It

I mean c!Techno should always rank top 5 so it makes sense. ;) As someone who doesn’t love to read one oneshots because I get too attached and sad when it ends, I can’t say I’m overly surprised at its ranking. But also still surprised. Regardless,it was really healing for me and I’m glad it seems to have been for others too.

(Ok though for real my first fic Hell in a Box being the lowest makes me kinda sad not gonna lie. Like it’s true that I think I’ve certainly gotten better at writing, which is actually why I edited it this summer, but it is the one that started it all and while it’s not my favorite work at his point it does have some really cool scenes and holds a special place in my heart.……)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always. Every one. They took the time to make me smile so the least I can do is share the love or fun. Especially when I spend a maddening amount of time on specific details it makes me so happy when someone noticed and enjoyed. <3 :)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Yes. Oh wait lol I mean technically it would be Misery since there is both no ending and it’s more so a complication so technically it probably won’t get one. But if we are talking a finished work with an actual ending then probably Dreamcatcher I guess, because it’s kinda a sad realization, though technically it would have been Crow’s Nest if not for the co-author spoiling my plans lol >;)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I mean easily Crow’s Nest… I mean the ‘epilogue’ is like 13,000 words so that’s how you know it’s good. ;D

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

No not really. And honeslty my self esteem is low enough I’d probably quick if did. :) I did receive a hurtful but also wild accusation (from what I discovered to be a bot) that Good Cop ‘Bad’ Cop was written by AI, which is funny because honestly that fic is really uniquely formatted with literal nutrition facts I designed at the end, like heh? An AI doesn’t come up with this.

9. Do you write smut?

Nope. And I do not read it either. In fact, I originally thought that all fanfiction was smut but after reading my first one that was recommended by a friend I was pleased to discover there is plenty of fanfiction that isn’t.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Haven’t yet? But I wouldn’t be the most opposed to it…

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, someone is translating Crow’s Nest into Russian, which is pretty cool.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes with @midnight-fangirl01 and it was pretty fun. Though the short timeline and time difference made it difficult as well as my canon compliance extremism. But overall, I think we made a really good pair and I certainly got some new writing skills. It is by far the longest fic I have worked on so I’m pretty proud of it and certainly couldn’t have pulled something like it off without her.

14. What‘s your all-time favorite ship?

Umm I don’t really do ships, but Drunz is one that is cute, and I always try and keep my fics kinda open and up for interpretation for anyone who does ship them. I think in general my opinion on their relationship doesn’t change much on whether they are platonic or not.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I intend to finish everything I post whether it’s how I planned or less so, because it makes me sad when works are unfinished, and I like closure, however sad or open-ended it is. At the moment I’m struggling with Good Cop ‘Bad’ Cop because my writing is based on projection and spurs of creativity so I guess I’ve struggled to project onto c!Bad recently. I will say I actually wrote most of the end the other day, so worse case scenario I just post it, but I do have ideas for chapters before then. It’s just whether or not I get inspired to.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I’d say despite generally disliking writing it, character/actual person sounding dialogue. Also my detailed descriptions that help you visualize the scene.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Probably pacing, like I don’t seem to cover a lot of ground in my fics. And for the Dreamcatcher sequel I’ve been struggling a lot with exposition.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If you mean because the character speaks it then yes that’s fine I love character accuracy but there should be translations. Otherwise it ruins my immersion and it’s rude to make me switch screens on my phone and get blinded by the light just so I can translate. Like lots of people don’t translate for Ranboo and it’s really annoying.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dream SMP.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

How dare you ask be to choose between my babies! XD lol… I mean… I don’t know Misery is the most fun to write because I get to just be unhinged and I can stop or start wherever I want. Crow’s Nest is the one I’m probably the most proud of since it look a lot of lost sleep, research of characters I hadn’t done yet and we basically wrote it in a month and that just blows my mind. But I don’t know my favorite? Maybe Dreamcatcher I guess…

Hmmm tagging: @midnight-fangirl01 @elmhat @catsandgoodbooks @mistythedritten @draconixiaa @swordfright @the-final-sif … umm I don’t know I have no wifi so trying to figure out people to tag is hard but if you’re a writer and you see this consider yourself tagged and feel free to participate I’d love to see your answers. <3 <3

#ok I may have added more details then I should have but I can’t help it :)#thanks for tagging me this was fun<3 <3 loved your answers too wow you’ve written a lot I’m impressed #dsmp fanfic #I’m such a baby in the fanfiction world but y’all have made me feel so welcome <3 <3 :)#writers things #ao3 writer #ao3 author #ao3 fanfic #shall we play a game?

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otakween · 1 year ago

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Digimon Tamers: Battle of Adventurers

Eh...gotta be honest, I found this pretty underwhelming. It had its moments, don't get me wrong, but the plot felt pretty generic and the ending was rushed. Still had fun, but the emotional investment was lacking.

Notes:

Reddit told me to watch this after episode 18, so I got the timing a little off, but I felt like it'd be good to watch prior to the digiworld episodes. The only timeline wonkiness is that this takes place before Culumon's kidnapping, which I've already seen, but that's fine.

In another moment of ~fate~ the movie begins with Guilmon dying of heat (not literally lol) and it was "feels like 101" where I am today so...can relate.

I was a pretty sheltered kid, so IDK how I would react to my parents making me travel by myself at 10...not that I'm against that, I just know 10 year old me woulda been a big crybaby about it.

Kinda weird that they gave us 2 title screens for this, one of which was just ripped from the TV show. The whole vibe was kind of a mixed bag in this, sometimes the animation felt pretty much the same quality as the show and sometimes it felt like they were stepping it up, not super consistent.

"Battle of Adventurers" is a pretty uninspired title. I feel like they could have either put something about Okinawa or the v-pet virus in the title instead so it would stand out a bit more...

Speaking of the V-Pet, I thought it was super charming with its crappy CGI lol. I totally would have fell for it in 2001. Kinda hard to believe that literally everyone downloaded it though (doctors, pilots, etc.) Or was it more like that one U2 album that was automatically distributed to everyone?

Guilmon begging to get out of the suitcase was stressful! How did he not suffocate? D: (do digimon even need to breathe?)

They really did the movie-only character (Minami) dirty this time. She had to be re-traumatized about her dead dog so many times! Just felt cruel...

All of the Okinawa cultural stuff was fun, especially the Okinawa-inspired digimon. If Digimon Go was a thing, you know they'd be region specific.

When Ruki's mom was like "oh, it's so comfortable flying on the plane!" I was like "okay, rich." That's the only explanation because flying economy is always a bad time.

Although a lot of the character animation was kinda meh, the battle animation is where this movie really shined. It was like little pockets of hype and there was a really good variety of enemy digimon. I was especially excited to see Anomalocarimon cuz it's been a minute and there was a lot of attention to detail with his bit.

Siesamon's design was really pretty, but I don't like his resting angry face. I wish they would have made his face more emotive because it kind of diminished some emotional moments...

There was one scene where it showed some buildings blowing up (because of the virus) and one of them suspiciously looked like a power plant...hopefully I'm wrong cuz oof...

Loved Mephismon's design, but with Gulfmon they did that thing that they did with VenomVamdemon where he has a second face by his crotch area...don't like that (although he is a centaur, so not technically his crotch)

There were some legit scary moments in this! The car crash scene was pretty violent and Minami screaming as she ran from the lasers also felt pretty intense for a kid's movie. (I haven't peeked at the dub yet, wondering if anything was cut)

I thought the final battle was weak as heck. Phase 1 took like 2 seconds and then phase 2 just felt kinda arbitrary like we were going through the motions. We did get a new attack though (trinity something or other). It felt kind of weird for them to just show that without any acknowledgement, but oh well. I'm sure it'll come back at some point. I was a little disappointed tbh because I thought they were doing some sort of 3-way jogress fusion

The shot with 3D MegaloGrowmon and 2D Rapidmon and Taomon was a glorious 2000s moment

IDK why but it gave me Power Rangers vibes

Yeah so this felt pretty disposable, they tried to kind of tie things to Digimon Adventure with Omegamon and Apocalymon, but the connection was pretty vague and forced. I rather Tamers just be separate without the callbacks

While I'm a big fan of short runtimes, I do wonder if this one could have benefitted from being a little longer, just to let things breath more

#Digimon Tamers: Battle of Adventurers #digimon tamers #digimon #movie

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ditzydreamsss · 3 months ago

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hello everyone

im gonna rate judge slash talk about every game i have on my phone becauseeeeeeeeeeeeee im procrastinating

1: Cookie Run Kingdom i first downloaded it around the time the sonic event was ending. but i took a really long break then came back so my team isnt as strong as it could've been :[

2: Cookierun: Tower of Advantures ngl i played it for an hour when it first came out and i've been afraid of the storage it'll take up ever since. (i havent opened it in a while=needs BIIIIIIIG update)

3: Cookiezrun Puzzle World im on level 312

4: Good Pizza, Great Pizza I forgot this game existed. i played it SO MUCH when i was camping with a lot of people this one time and completely forgot about it after

5: 2048 ngl this game is probably why i almost failed science last year (was playing unblocked version of this on my chromebook & wasnt paying attention)

6: Orbia another game i played a lot during that camping trip with a heck ton of people. stats (for mountains) progress: 9.7% (level 196) fails: 867 play time: 3h 59min dashes in a row: 80

7: Roblox i play creatures of sonaria. thats about it (also adopt me for nostalgia's sake also if you ignore everything ever it's a pretty chill game :D)

8: Titian Uprising the httyd game. its fun ig im stuck right now tho

9: Animal crossing pocket camp why do i have this i havent even opened the app once

10: Dash Tag yes i played animal jam for years before im semi-quitted atm i play this when i have nothing else to play

11: 좀비고 (Zombie Highschool) first school life game i played. i havent tried the magic high school one yet. i stick to School Life cause the 판정 for hits in wonky and i rage quit multiple times

12: Flappy Dragon i forget this exists half of the time. chill game

Now entering: rhythm games category

13: Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage i hate this game sm i'd give it a 10/10 (theres been touch issues. its probably my phone though)

14: Arcaea interesting gaming experience. i suck at it

15: Phigros PHIGROS IS SO FUN AND I LOVE IT SM ITS SO ENTERTANING AND FUN ALL THE TIME THE NOTES GO WHOOSH AND BOOM AND SWOOP AND

16: Lanota I love it a lot but i havent played much cause i dont have the paid version

17: Paradigm: Reboot bro why are there notes coming from sideways WTF BRO WHY ARE THERE NOTES COMING FROM THE FUCKING CEILING

18: Voez i only played Cereberus in there. it's good game. combination of phigros and rizline kinda

19: Milthm wtf is going on where are did the judgement line (bubbles??) go what what what

20: Deemo i like the story :D its really chill. if you like piano music and also rhythm games then go play this.

21: Rizline i love it sm. i dont have full version :(

22: P.Muse my eyes died (flashing lights warning if you ever play this)

23: RhythmStar i have it just cause i like the remixed classical music into more rhythm game-y hyper music. gameplay is boring asf

24: KALPA havent touched it yet

25: Gadvia also havent touched it yet

26: MUSYNX also also havent touched it yet

gj, you escaped the rhythm gaming area!

27: Pokemon Quest it's chill. frustrating at times. i like pokemon. pokemon is my childhood. i love pokemon. i miss ketchup pack.

28: pokemon go when im outside. me when i touch grass (LIE. I WALK AROUND MY TINY APARTMENT IN CIRCLES)

29: Finch great self-care app! if you ever need a place to rant, that's the place.

30: Voidpet Garden i love the lil critters

31: I Love Hue when i have nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do

32: Tap Tap Fish i needed an afk game.

33: Bricky Boy repetitive, but if you need a quick game then yeah.

34: Zen Koi 2 very chill fish game.

35: Cardcaptor Sakura: Memory Key so. i also grew up on ccs (not as much as pokemon however. nothing can live up to what pokemon was to me.) so i was really hyped and happy when it was announced there would be a ccs game after the fandom being dead for 2ish 3ish years. my opinion? if you don't know cardcaptor sakura, you probably 99% wouldn't play it. but then again, it is early.

36: D....d..... Duolingo p..plea.....please......... dont burn my house down

#ditzy ramble corner #ditzy's rhythm gaming corner

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slytherinshua · 3 months ago

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HELLO!!!!

so ive been dead for a couple weeks (okay im sorry but school is kicking my ass)

BUTTTT IM BACK!!!!

And SO ARE YOU!!!

zanna pls the hao fic 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

idk whether to cry or kick my feet bc wTFFFF

how are you so g o o d (you obviously worked super hard and thats so cool of you)

ALSO

CINEMA PARADISE AND 19.99 CB!!!!!!

okay so i heard good so bad right? amazing song. 10/10 and thEn i watched the mcountdown kill the romeo performance and immediately went wHOA because why did that song hIT SO HARD LIKE?!?!??! Cinema paradise is such a ricky era (to me) bc his aura was off the roof he was so super noticable (even though he was worried bc of the hair dyeing :( he still stood out so much!) Also hao was so super good zb1 keeps getting better!!

OKAY NOW LISTEN

IM NOT THE BIGGEST ONEDOOR AROUND HERE OKAY BUT IVE LISTENED TO THEIR ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY AND WATCHED ALL THEIR PERSONAL CONTENT AND CAN I JUST SAY DANGEROUS AND NICE GUY ARE SO GOOD LIKE BND NEVER MISSES WHAT THE HECK

Taesans line in dangerous had me actually pulling out my earphones bc wtf why was that so good i was h o o k e d the secomd that song started and then nice guy was just also really good like?!?!?!? H O W do you slay that hard like whoa

ANYWAY HI ZANNA I MISSED YOUUUUUU

im glad you're out of your mini slump!!! (i have so many ideas and i want to write but i have no t i m e!!! i dont like school 😐)

-🌱 (bc you said youd miss this <3)

im sorry i rambled on a bit but yeah !!!

HI HAFS OMG!!!! omg it has been a while but dw i understand :((( school is out to get us all istg im so tired and its only the beginning of the year... AND LIKE I THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY W THAT WRITERS BLOCK HOLY SHIT LIKE I COULD NOT FUNCTION WITHOUT MY DELUSIONS BEING MY ESCAPE 😭😭😭😭😭😭

BUT AAAA IM GLAD U LIKED IT <333333 thank you ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ ugh i remember like before i even properly stanned zb1 i was thinking about which members would fit studio ghibli boys and let me see if i can remember all the pairings.... honestly i think these ranged from most accurate (first 4-5) to zanna is running out of ghibli boys to assign

zhang hao as seiji

i think i had taerae as tombo back then but now i feel like it fits gyuvin more :((

NOW RICKY AS HOWL CAUSE WHO ELSE WOULD HE BE

and yujin as sho!!! cause look theyre literally the same skdfjksd could 100% see yujin in an arrietty storyline to me hes just the embodiment of teen youth like coming of age stories rly fit him so well

gunwook as pazu bcuz i have to satisfy my childhood crush and my current crush (also they look the same fight me)

honestly jiwoong as jiro???

taerae as asbel now (literally i don't remember anything about asbel but they look kinda similar so we're going w it)

hanbin as ashitaka bcuz i just think theyre both hot like that 🤕🤕🤕

which leaves matthew as sosuke cause i haven't watched the boy and the heron yet so idk whether that might fit better but yeah... BUT TELL ME WHY THEY KINDA HAVE SIMILAR VIBES ANYWAY SO??

now can we also appreciate how i tried to match the pics as close as i could thank you thank you anyway enough abt zb1 and ghibli boys

YES CINEMA PARADISE WAS SO GOOD!!! good so bad literally their best title track to date AND SAME W BND. i think nice guy is their best to date and ive seen a lot of ppl who like dangerous more than nice guy which is valid i also love dangerous BUT IMO NICE GUY IS PERFECT AND BETTER THAN DANGEROUS???? 👹👹👹

ricky will always stand out no matter what !!!!! even tho his hair was plain it still drew attention to him like the contrast of black hair to his skin is crazy and he looks like a whole prince (when does he ever not) BUT OMG HAO IN THE MV WRECKED ME SOOOO HARD like i think good so bad mv is the reason why hao is #2 in zb1 ranking for me rn skdfjskdfs ALSO CAN WE TALK ABT PURPLE GUNWOOK CAUSE NO IM STILL NOT OVER PURPLE GUNWOOK even tho hes had it for a while now i still look at it and then die skdfjksdhfks

IF THERES ONE THING BONEDO WILL DO ITS RELEASE BANGERS EVERY TIME!!! i swear they always stay true to their sound and concept and i LOVE that about them. every song feels SO boynextdoor but at the same time they try different sounds and tell different stories with each song. i also just adore their storytelling in their mvs and songs its so good every time!!!! and im excited to see what they release next bcuz it seems theyre doing a youth concept now that theyre done their falling in love trilogy

awwww nooo i hope u find time soon 👹 it can be so hard to find time to write sometimes istg.... but you'll manage i believe in u !!! KSDJFKSD I DID MISS IT OMG

#inbox　　❀˖°#moots　　❀˖°#hafs　　❀˖°

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callipraxia · 1 year ago

Text

Well, folks, here it is. The ATOTS review. It...really could not have been done together with the NWHS review, that was a silly idea. Here is a link to a Google doc with the previous S2 reviews arranged in chronological order, if you want to catch up on those (not sure many people saw the second part of the NWHS review) and don't want to deal with wading through tags and reblogs of reblogs and such. That said...

A Tale of Two Stans

1) And now here we are. A Tale of Two Stans. Aka, the episode that proves you can break the “writing rules” if you’re good enough, since an info-dump like this would normally be a no-no, and yet…well, here we go:

2) Aww, tiny Ford. Why would there be a boarded up stash of mesoamerican gold in New Jersey? Did you also do that thing Dipper does where sometimes he doesn’t really know what a big word means? Possible reference to the whole mesoamerican salamander thing?

3) Oh, Ford did kinda make it into the opening sequence, didn’t he? Last picture to fall on the stack before the title card of the Mystery Crew. Kinda fitting, given that despite being very important from here on out, he still holds himself a bit aloof from most of the cast for the majority of that time.

4) I know why the writers had to include that awkward “brother!” line (so people catching up would remember, “oh, yeah, Stan said that this person was the Author of the Journals and his brother…and then the camera revealed he meant twin brother,” and so they could avoid calling Ford anything for a little while), but it was just…awkward. We see in flashbacks that Stan did sometimes call him “Stanford,” so I have to wonder if anyone would have noticed had Stan gotten halfway through the word and then gotten socked in the jaw. Or heck, even just called him “Ford” - though I’ve gathered that enough of the fandom had already guessed there were twins and one was called Stanley by this point that they might have actually said “wait, what?” upon Stan bringing forth “his” rarely-heard second syllable at the sight of his brother.

5) …And then you see that however clubby they were in the flashback, something has clearly gone Very Wrong in the interim. Or would that be apparent to someone viewing this in isolation, I wonder? Stan’s repeatedly remarked that he’s been working on his project for thirty years, and Powers had previously implied that the machine did…something…thirty years ago in “Scaryoke.” Perhaps someone thought Mr. Mysterious Man With No Name was just very, very confused…and then got to the rest of the episode.

…Though once you’ve seen the rest of the series and especially if you’ve spent far, far too much of your life dissecting Ford’s character on a molecular level, it is noteworthy in its way that all he did was punch Stan. Does he have a bit of a “do not shoot people who closely resemble relatives” policy? Considering the things we know about the multiverse, such a policy could probably have gotten him killed fifteen times over even assuming he didn’t stumble into a parallel Earth where the Shapeshifter had escaped, eaten Stan, and set up shop just to wait for the person it *really* wanted to kill to come back….

Hm. If the Shapeshifter stayed in one form for long enough, would it age the way that form would? I have no idea, my brain is wandering off on tangents again. Anyway, back to the episode.

6) I am…unsure what to make of the fact Ford a) instantly recognized this individual as ‘his’ Stan, despite being aware of others existing, b) immediately figured out Stan is responsible for the portal restarting, without even checking to see if there are other people in the room, implying he isn’t altogether surprised that Stan would do this, and c) gets mad about it and launches into an argument as though picking right back up where he left off thirty years ago. And Stan goes straight from…all kind of emotions to sarcasm “some kind of…sci-fi sideburn dimension?”) with just as little hesitation.

7) “Just because you’re family.” Dang, this makes Stan’s outburst at the end of the episode that much more painful to think about.

8) “Stan, you didn’t tell me there were children down here.” That…would have been one of the upsides of giving the guy time to say…much of anything before you started yelling, Ford. Just saying.

9) Oh gosh, poor Dipper. Just…poor Dipper.

10) “Also maybe the entire U.S. government.” “The WHAT?!” That…was some pretty impressive lede-burying, Stan.

11) “Okay, it’s all right.” There’s Ford, never wanting to admit he’s completely lost control of the situation (I might not have noticed this, but happen to have reread the Ford essay of doom this morning)

12) Gotta compliment the animators on the scene where Ford (completely unaware he’s doing so) drops the bombshell that he’s not Stanley. The camera isn’t really focused on Stan in particular, but he has an utterly “oh [redacted] this is gonna go over like a lead balloon” expression on his face even before Mabel says his name is Stanford.

13) You know Stan was deliberately crafting his retelling of his childhood, focusing on the boat and how they were always a team and etc. Of course, we know from later sections that Stan isn’t necessarily telling the kids everything he remembers (he may not have narrated the scene with Crampelter to them, for instance) but his wording in the speaking bits are clearly trying to remind Ford of “good times.”

14) If you look closely, when Stan jumps into the science fair picture, Ford momentarily looks…something. An expression of consternation is observable. Considering what he later says to Dipper about how being a twin’s a very claustrophobic experience, and the fact they both get called to the office when only one of them was wanted…yeah, I’m going with the theory that Ford wasn’t quite as happy as Stan might have liked to think for a while before the Incident proved the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the beach scene, Tiny Ford muses on whether there is a place where “freaks like me” fit in. I think this sums up a subtle but important difference in the characters: Ford wanted to find a place in society that would accept him, while Stan’s goal was just to get away from it and find a place where neither of them would need acceptance anymore. Which makes it interesting that Ford’s sometimes perceived as the ‘loner’ twin - Ford himself might want to think that, but truth is, he’s wanted to be amongst people since he was a small child, he just couldn’t figure out their social behaviors well enough to remotely compensate for having an unusual physical feature. On one hand, he can function much better when he’s truly on his own than Stan can, but on the other, one reason why Bill might have found Stan harder to manipulate is because of how very exclusive the list of people with opinions Stan actually cares about seems to be. He’s much more comfortable being an outsider…just so long as he has that little group of people on his side. Without them, however…not so much.

15) Why on Earth did the receptionist call “Pines twins” instead of just one of them? Was it just assumed Stan would show up whether called or not (if only out of confusion), or just a habit of everyone treating them as so much of a unit that even the school staff had to remind itself “oh, yeah, this isn’t actually some ‘person with two personalities’ deal, they’re separate people who are in fact capable of walking down hallways independently.”

16) Oh gosh, I just now noticed that the ears are drawn just as…blank things, and now I can’t unsee it.

17) Hi, Principal Guy? I hate you. Just for the record. I think Caryn might agree with me; blink and you’ll miss it, but she clearly gives the guy some kind of Look when he gets to that “and his name’s Stanley” bit, and it could be interpreted as a glare.

(18) Seriously, this...the school sections just anger me for very specific reasons...not least of which is how, er, close to accurate it kinda is in some ways, regardless of how far off it is in others. I have relatives in the same age range as the Stans. One of them once had a teacher snidely remark that he’d pull the hood of his sweater up over his head, too, if he was as ugly as her; he then punished her for said rule infraction by making her walk home after school in the rain. The guy was eventually made to apologize to her very unimpressed and irate mother, but the fact remains – he felt perfectly comfortable saying that out loud to a student’s face in the seventies, just as Ford is the only person in the room here who seems to fully realize ‘wait, that was...not really so much a compliment to me as a setup for insulting Stan, and that’s kinda messed up from both directions.’ Now, I work in education, so I know the system is still seriously screwed up in lots of ways...but at least there would be a reasonable expectation of negative consequences for anyone who said something like that to a student or parent these days.)

19) Setting, briefly, aside how much I’d like to kick the principal character and then give him a lengthy lecture on why he sucks as an educator on every possible front...his remarks about Stan potentially not finishing high school are the reason why I’ve always favored the timeline which puts this in the second half of their junior year of high school instead of their senior year. If it was senior year, after all, then Stan could have continued to coast on Ford’s papers for the rest of the term, or – in the extremely unlikely event Ford just went straight to college without passing Go or collecting 200 diplomas or anything like that – just the school handwaving him through. It only makes sense if he had at least a solid, not-started semester left to fail spectacularly in, and a year left seems more reasonable.

20) This would, however, mean that Filbrick did not kick one of his kids out a couple of months before the kid was eighteen (which still would have been a deplorable thing to do), but a sixteen-year-old. So yeah, kicks and lectures to Filbrick, too.

21) Stan, you’re breaking my heart here. How. Many. Times. In this review set have I mentioned that you’d solve a lot more of your problems if you just told people what they were instead of being defensive and making attempts at jokes and just generally deflecting the situation. I mean, you probably weren’t going to get the outcome you wanted even if you had communicated, but you might have not, y’know, gotten disowned as a teenager, thrown out on the street, and left to fend for yourself and therefore almost inevitably slip into a life of crime.

22) If Stan didn’t intentionally smash the thing, he...probably shouldn’t have phrased the lead-up to the Science Fair Incident that way in his voice-over.

23) it’s kind of interesting to note how far back Stan’s tendency to talk to inanimate objects goes - one assumes he was projecting Ford onto the Journals when he would seemingly monologue to those, but who was he really talking to when he told the machine it was “all your fault!” Thinking back on what I said in my “Little Gift Shop of Horrors” reviews…his attempts to dissociate Ford’s academic giftedness from his base personality, his inability to communicate…it’s tempting to wonder if he’s kind of speaking to Ford when he’s ranting at the machine, too. He might not realize it consciously - would probably go to any lengths to avoid recognizing the fact, actually - but….

24) A lot of people have commented on how stupid the college admissions board bit is (how it’s extremely implausible that they wouldn’t at least look over the work he put into the thing, how they give their school a bad name being rude, etc.), but have an extra point from me: why was an asterfladjik perpetual motion machine being kept right out in the open with the other science fair projects, anyway? For all we know, Crampelter did the majority of the damage in the interim just for spite or something. Or Blendin, or...get the picture? The irresponsibility of whoever was in charge of the exhibits is probably at least as much to blame as anyone else for things going awry there.

25) Stan cost “our family” potential millions. Not “your brother.” “Our family.” The Pines tendency toward groupthink really isn’t just a Stan and Mabel thing, they all have it to some degree – unless, of course, one interprets things as uncharitably as possible, in which case Filbrick and Stan might both use “our family” and “this family” as a cover for “me,” to make a totally selfish objective look better….

Yeah, I know I say I have fun doing it, and I do – but too much character analysis can…kinda start to get to you after a while. Become involuntary. Prompt you to put forward these possibilities in public, as if you were still in English 400-something…Engage with caution, kids.

26) Pity Stan didn’t actually, y’know, go into sales. He managed to a) come up with a convincing-looking product as a teenager with no resources, b) presumably talk his way into an opportunity to pitch it to TV, and c) actually sell what looks like a decent number of fake clothes cleaners and shoddy pitchforks. And then just. Keep. doing it. Over and over again (the map showing glimpses of his travels indicates he got into horse racing at some point, doubtless losing his shirt as one generally eventually does when gambling, and…we probably don’t even want to know why he was being chased by guys with machetes outside the country, do we, but apparently he was also hawking lousy tennis rackets in his twenties along with the previously-viewed StanVac.). In a legit sales job, he might well have done all right for himself….

Except, of course, for it being…tricky to get a job outside of manual labor/something in a plant or mill without a diploma, and, perhaps even more importantly…Stan being Stan. His personality would render him utterly unsuited to joining a sewing plant or a cotton mill, at the very least, even if he’d been so inclined (I don’t know much about meat-packing plants or anything like that, but three generations of my family worked in the same sewing plant; decent living, but you had to have social skills more advanced than any of the Pineses demonstrated to flourish in such an environment, and of course you’d never get rich at it), and possibly for working closely with others/in a subordinate position at all. Despite his lack of self-esteem, Stan does not take orders especially well; we see when he tries and fails to call Ford for help (and then lies about it to the kids) that he’s proud as well as touchy and someone who just fundamentally…struggles to stay within the lines dictated by normal society, really. Perhaps it’s a mental illness or other mental issue (his shoplifting could well be indicative of a compulsive tendency as well as his depression and possible Issues post-homelessness, and when his behavior is looked at as a whole, I imagine it would be quite easy to make a case for him as someone with one of the major personality disorders, especially given his extreme emotional volatility. He could also reasonably be interpreted as having ADHD, with an emphasis on the poor-impulse-control aspect. Most likely, there’s more than one thing a psychiatrist could put a label on going on with him, really), but one gets the impression that Stan just…cannot help himself, or at least finds it extremely difficult to do so. Independent business probably really was his best option, all things considered - though under better circumstances, it might have consisted of something like “eventually taking over the business from the old man” or some joint venture with one of his brothers, not, er, endless con games and dodgy product sales.

27) I do not wish to recall how much time I spent trying to google “universities that were viewed as always second-choice schools in the seventies” and similar terms, trying to pin down where Backupsmore might be/what it might be vaguely based on.

28) It’s also interesting to contemplate…sure, a kid might want to go to CalTech, and, for whatever reason, might not manage. This does not mean said kid could not still get into a really excellent school which could just as easily be someone else’s first choice…which, frankly, it’s hinted Backupsmore…might have been, looked at from a more objective perspective than Ford’s? Perhaps it didn’t have the good publicity of some others, but Ford seems to have flourished there both academically and (by his standards) socially. That’s where he met Fiddleford, someone he considers even brighter than himself. They had a DDMD group, and this resulted in him noting in the Journal that he had ‘friends’, plural. He made rapid progress in his studies and wrote a nationally-ranked doctoral thesis in at least one of the hard sciences at an age when a lot of folks are still working on undergraduate (we’re never given an exact number, but based on a combination of him noting that he is “in his thirties” six years after arriving in Gravity Falls and a lot of googling about how long standard programs in various areas last, I’m…guessing that to be as far ahead as he says he was, he was probably around 23-24. At most.). This is where he also apparently, for reasons unknown, a) participated in a competition to invent mind control devices for a politician and b) even knew that was what the competition was for, which was…interesting (in a fic, I made this a plot point by saying the people who sponsored that program were from the same government agency as Powers and Trigger). It’s understandable why he might be bitter about having a golden opportunity to go to The Very Best snatched away almost as soon as it was presented to him, but it doesn’t seem like Backupsmore was really all that bad of a school. The dorms comment…I never lived in a dorm, but my understanding is that it’s quite common for them to have these sorts of problems, even at good schools. Just one of those “communal living” things, particularly when the residents are at one of those ages where a lot of them are not much invested in keeping their environments clean and tidy.

29) Tea club represent! (I am…quite enthusiastic on the subject of hot tea, so I notice when characters have it. Especially when they are Americans, as this can imply that some thought was put into the decision to draw that instead of a coffee cup)

30) “Just…going to ignore that.” Oh, gosh, poor Dipper. It’s funny - if you just watched this episode, you’d walk away with the impression Mabel and Ford were going to get along fabulously while Ford thought “...what is wrong with that one?” about Dipper. But for Gompers, I guess….

31) Just saying…Fiddleford apparently had a pretty nice house. Unless, of course, the implication is that he, Emma-May, and Tate were literally living in the garage and that the house belonged to someone else, but this seems unlikely. He also seems to have had some business going on his own already, plus whatever Emma-May might have brought in (I’ve written her as a schoolteacher before, and there’s no reason, really, why she shouldn’t be in much any profession one might wish to place her in. It was 1980. Everybody was on the Pill and women were allowed to have private bank accounts even after marriage. Maybe she was the breadwinner, I’m just noting that Fiddleford hardly seems to have been a starving visionary, one way or another)

32) I love the implication that Ford didn’t bother with comments like “hello” or “this is Stanford,” but just sprang “multi-dimensional meta-vortex” on Fiddleford in the first sentence…and Fiddleford just instantly did the calculations in his head to determine it “mathematically feasible” without missing a beat.

33) In the field of detail work - it could be interpreted differently at the time, but we see Fiddleford being a little sloppy with where he put his feet, and them both looking grim just before launching the dummy - all in keeping with the eventual reveals that they were both extremely sleep-deprived and had just had a nasty quarrel the night before.

34) Hate to say it, Stan, but…frame of mind your brother was in at the time, I wouldn’t have entirely ruled out biting under the right circumstances.

35) Stan is the quickest man on two feet with a snappy comeback. Not always to his benefit, but guess you gotta work with the skills you have.

36) Ford, on one hand, you’re quite right - Stan really does have no idea what you’re up against. He exists, at this point, 90% in the mundane world, where things are…usually not as dramatic as they are in yours. Out of context, it sounds like you’re just complaining that you have dangerous enemies; Stan’s response to the mailman a few days earlier was to grab a baseball bat on the assumption that anyone who knocked on his door would be an enemy, so that much, he gets completely. On the other hand, Stan is also right - you really do have no idea what he’s been through. Heck, you both robbed the United States government and he’s the only one who got caught for it; I highly doubt you’d been to any prison (at least at this point), much less a South American prison in the seventies, and things were going pretty well for you until…well, frankly, they hadn’t been going all that well for the past two years, but you didn’t realize it until much more recently. On yet another hand, though, Stan - you looked concerned a mere scene ago that Ford might be going off the deep end, and you were kinda right about that. Man answered the door rambling about people stealing his eyes, and he just handed you some tatty, ragged-looking handwritten book that he’d glued a silhouette of his own hand onto like some kind of grade school art project, all while rambling about how you had to take it to the ends of the Earth to prevent terrible destruction. If you know about Bill, of course, this is all perfectly logical…but without that knowledge, Ford doesn’t look like someone being insensitive here, he looks like someone suffering from severe paranoid delusions, possibly having some kind of psychotic episode. Either way, it’s quite obvious there’s something…Very Wrong.

But then we get back to the theme, boys: communication. Do some of that sometime, won’t you? I mean, you’ve tried everything else, you might as well give this a shot, yeah?

(In real terms, though…this scene is one of the painfully realistic ones. Neither party is thinking straight; for various reasons, neither party may be capable of thinking straight for a sustained amount of time. As an adult who’s seen some Stuff, Stan realizes that there is something…wrong…here…but even leaving aside how frightening it would be to find a relative in that state, and how much you’d try to deny it was as bad as it was by analogizing it to Caryn on a caffeine overdose, this is just Not Something Stan Is Remotely Equipped To Deal With, and wouldn’t really be equipped to deal with even if he didn’t have so many issues of his own. We don’t know how long he’s been traveling, but traveling will wear you out quick enough, and we know the state Ford was in. Neither of them was in anything like any condition to control his temper well even if either had had a better track record than they do, and so, you’ve got two people with anger issues who are playing with incomplete decks here, and who have a lot of personal history…one starts talking over the other, they’re exchanging shots now instead of actually discussing the issue, then next thing you know…yeah. I’ve never actually had it come to blows, but I’ve had a lot of arguments with relatives which played out depressingly similarly, where you’re trying to make a point and the other person jumps in with something else and next thing you know, neither of you is talking about the original subject at all anymore, you’re yelling about something seemingly unrelated. Or possibly even two totally different subjects at once, even though both of you think you’re on the same topic. That’s always…fun….)

37) I know I was defending Backupsmore a few items ago, but, uh…they didn’t have a single lab safety class in there, Ford? And/or they let you in the lab after you failed one in epic fashion? Cause everything about this screams “I never read the lab safety rules in my life!”

38) I also have to wonder if…more than just errors that are attributable to Ford being bad at lab safety was at work here, though. Fiddleford put half a foot over the safety line and got sucked in; Stan ran over it and almost to the base of the thing without it affecting him even as Ford, in the same moments, a) could throw a book hard enough to overcome the gravity suspension but b) could not stop himself from going through the Portal.

39) “That’ll be 99 cents.” Ways You Know This Was Set Before I Was Born….

40) Y’know, I never realized it, but…Lazy Susan changed the course of history. Stan presumably would have either left the store without buying anything or (it is Stan, after all) tried to punch Ma Duskerton in the face before running out the door with the loaf of bread in question if Susan hadn’t happened to mistake him for Ford…and then Toby and Blubbs started telling stories about the “mysterious science guy”’s reputation…and next thing you know, Stan has created the basic idea for the Mystery Shack out of pure desperation. If that hadn’t happened, then nothing else in canon could have proceeded to happen: Stan would probably be dead or permanently in prison by now, Ford would have mysteriously disappeared without a trace when the Northwest Realty people finally came to knock down the door to demand overdue mortgage payments, and Dipper and Mabel would never have come to town. Aside from issues of prophecy and destiny and all that, there’s also just how it’s implied this is the first time Dipper’s had friends…basically ever. They both do a lot of personal growth over that summer, especially him, which they wouldn’t have had otherwise. All because of Lazy Susan, of all people.

41) 1982. Bread costs 99 cents per loaf. And they all just forked over fifteen dollars apiece. That was rather good money in those days, no wonder Stan’s eyes did that thing upon seeing it presented to him.

41) Oh, Lazy Susan also inspired “Mr. Mystery”? Dang, Susan, you are surprisingly important!

42) I’ve noted it before, but I’ll note it again: look at the surroundings of Stan’s mirror in the aging montage. At first, we see a bunch of papers about Stan himself. Next shot, still a lot of papers about Stan/his business, but he’s also taped a picture of himself and Ford as small children to the wall beside it - motivation, I suppose. Then in the final shot, he’s replaced his own “Employee of the ‘Month’ plaque with one declaring Soos the Employee of the Year, and where the picture of himself and Ford was, there’s now a framed photograph of Dipper and Mabel on the fishing trip. I’ll be the first to point out his occasionally questionable motives and ethics and multitude of character flaws, but credit where credit is due: man built a life for himself through genuine work (hey, making up tall tales is a valid job, what else do you call what authors do?)...and then was prepared to throw it all out the window, as he *had* to know that there were going to be…issues…with having killed off his original identity if he really did get Ford back/when Ford got back and saw the length of ‘his’ alleged rap sheet for the past thirty years. He had some personal motivations, of course (he felt guilty about what had happened; he wanted the relationship they’d had as children back; etc), but considering how much he had to lose by 2012, it’s hard not to give Stan some credit when deciding whether or not he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing.

43) “The town. My family. Your parents. Even you kids.” Ah, this is why I assumed that Stan was just airbrushed out of the family’s collective memory after his disownment and that nobody knew he was really Stanley all those years - he lumps ‘your parents’ and ‘you kids’ together as distinct units, implying that ‘my family’ would mean his own parents and presumably the twins’ grandfather. Also, I find Ford’s expression very difficult to interpret here.

44) And then there’s one of those moments when it’s hinted that Dipper and Stan are a lot more alike than either of them might be fully comfortable with - as soon as he’s heard the story, Dipper instantly apologizes for his…actually extremely reasonable doubts and anger in the first part of the episode. It’s not just that even Stan would have trouble believing a tale as tall as the truth of his life: it’s that Stan never told them a tale to begin with, which just left them to draw their own conclusions. I…really can’t think of a sensible interpretation Dipper could have reached other than “this guy is a murdering identity thief who isn’t related to me at all and…even if he doesn’t want to end the world, this is still probably not good, whatever he’s doing” with the evidence he had at the time, especially after the conversation in “Scaryoke” where Stan ‘fessed up to lying about the town and promised that was the end of it. It would, to some extent, be fair to be a bit upset with Stan about this even after learning the truth…but he isn’t. It really was for the family, then? Oh, ok, we’re good.

45) I know the random utility of the totem pole is a bit contrived, but I’ll give ‘em their due: we did see in “Scaryoke” that Stan had security cameras showing the exterior of the property on monitors in the lab, so that’s actually a reasonably sensible place for some electronics to have been after all, I guess.

46) Ford admittedly did a decent enough improv job right up until he fumbled the technology, but it was a good thing Powers and Trigger were a bit dazed and confused - otherwise, they…might have noticed that his “very real report” was actually a picture of Mabel, outlined in flames and apparently laughing maniacally beneath a caption of ‘what hath science wrought?!’, considering it was in plain view of everyone for several shots there.

47) I just realized that the timeline I established once means I almost certainly wrote three novels where Ford is stuck in his just-left-the-Portal outfit: aka, high-collared black rags that make him look a bit like a vampire that’s recently been in a knife fight. I’m…sure this did wonders for him all the times it would have helped him out to be perceived as a Respectable Sort Of Person We Should Listen To….

48) Anyone else really, really want to know what they were talking about for…at least a while, considering it was sunset (but still very much not dark at all) when Soos left the porch and full dark with stars out when it cut to the infamous mirror conversation? Especially since the fact that they were still talking fairly civilly - even joking - at that point meant that the previous conversation…probably was actually going reasonably well, or at least as well as could be expected, all things considered?

Well, there. I did it. A Tale of Two Stans, a full reaction. It only took the entire day….

....Eh, worth it.

#gravity falls #gravity falls characters #gravity falls season 2 #rewatch #a tale of two stans #gravity falls analysis #overanalyzing #overanalyzing the text

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angel-gidget · 7 months ago

Text

Facets of YJ: Rebirth's Gemworld

It occurs to me that if I ever want to write more post-YJ Rebirth stuff (as I’ve been meaning to do for the past couple years), I need to work out for myself what Amethyst’s canon with YJ is. It isn’t consistent in-universe, but I’m kind a cool with that. I would rather have multiple interesting yet somewhat contradictory canons than a hard-set bad canon.

But for my own story, I need to be somewhat decisive. And to recall what I’m working with… I need to re-read Young Justice Rebirth.

So here are some thoughts from taking a crack at Volume 1: Gemworld.

———

I know a lot of people in my feed were complaining about this title as it was running, but tbh, I’m kinda impressed by it. There’s a lot of world-building going on and some good emotional moments too. Could there be more? Sure. But the book is fun and doesn’t detest its own audience which is more than I can say for YJ: Dark Crisis.

I’m aware it’s not a popular opinion, though. Lots of people were very aghast at a lot of creative choices.

Gemworld Tidbit #1. Kon's time in the Gemworld. I think one big thing that ticked ppl of was that Kon had acquired a “wife” and “kid” while on Gemworld, but I thought the story line was by turns hilarious (for his teammates reactions) and sweet. The actual explanation that he was just pretending to be her husband to keep her safe from Opal’s guards was cute.

(And tbh, if it turned out that there was some unexplored UST between him and Lophi, heck. I’d be down to explore it. If DC is moving away from Kon/Cassie as a ship, then why not give this a whirl?)

(We see you giving Kon that sexy-intense-gaze-through-limply-hanging-bangs, Patrick Gleason. We appreciate.)

It also gives us one more member of YJ who’s now familiar with Gemworld, and from a very different perspective. Kon knows what it's like to live as a commoner in the bad part of town on Gemworld. Yet, he knows Amethyst by her reputation, and respects her for it. I like this tidbit.

Incorporate into personal fic canon? Yeah, probably.

I also love that the fricken… blend of his shirt is the thing that outs him to Carnelian.

For those of us who remember Carnelian from OG Amethyst, he really is that materialistic and obsessed with the technology of Earth. This whole panel is so freaking in-character, I cackled.

Gemworld Tidbit #2: The Gemworld is divided into “lighter houses” and “darker houses.” The darker houses are officially under Dark Opal, but the Lighter houses are supposed to be free and less oppressive, though Amy’s toung-lashing fights with the council of fellow “lighter houses” implies it ain’t that cut n’ dry.

I can see how it’s useful for conveying info quickly… but eh. The OG showed that while it boiled down to Opal vs. Everyone else, most houses were bullied into serving him and some were just more resistant than others.

Incorporate into personal fic canon? Probably nah.

I’m not really clear why Dark Opal sent a posse of minions to Metropolis to just… go fight Superman. Even after a re-read, I’m still hazy on that bit. Maybe Superman had a lil’ dimension hopping adventure off-panel and effed up some of Opal’s evil schemes? And Dark Opal just… collected kryponite hoping supes would show up again to receive his vengeance? But then he got impatient so he launched a FULL SCALE INVASION OF METROPOLIS? Okay. Yeah. He would. Mystery solved. Next.

Gemworld Tidbit Major Chonk of Info #3. Amy’s relationship with the Houses. So, in OG Amethyst, most the the houses genuinely WANT Amy to defeat Dark Opal. Her parents were major figureheads—and they died fighting him so bravely—but the rest of them have been beaten down into subservience. So Amy’s arrival heralds a renewed attempt at overthrowing the Big Bad, and they welcome her for it.

But in YJ Rebirth, they are so cowed by Opal’s influence, that the majority actually resent Amy for making waves.

She is also NOT the default leader. Like at all. Only head of her house, and even then, the council is debating banishing her from “The Gem” aka Gemworld once she’s out of the room. And at the end… they backstab her by actually doing so. Unannounced.

Incorporate into personal fic canon? I think I gotta. I like the OG dynamic better, but this is pretty darn plot relevant. Need to at least consider it.

Gemworld Tidbit #4. Ride-or-Die Turquoise and Backstabbing Emerald.

So OG Turquoise was v loyal indeed. It was a *bit* more complicated than "besties" in the 80's series, but it works as dynamic for them here.

As for Emerald... We only see ONE ruler of House Emerald here. OG had a Lady Mother and 3 princesses, all with very different narratives. The youngest sister was Amy's *actual* bestie. The next oldest was her friend. The eldest died before Amy could ever meet her, and the mom... went bonkers, died, resurrected, and became part of Amy's rogues gallery, going by the name of Fire Jade.

I'm thinking this is her. Bonus complications if Amy and her youngest daughter are *still* ultra-close friends.

Incorporate into personal fic canon? Yes.

(And tacking on so many details that aren't actually there.)

Gemworld Tidbit #5. Topaz is Dark Opal's minion.

So one of the invaders of Metropolis calls himself "Topaz" right before Tim kicks his ass.

The original Topaz? A lovable and bodacious prince that was always doing his best. And his best included opposing his sister, the elder heir to Topaz keep and the *actual* supporter of Dark Opal.

Incorporate into personal fic canon? Not as-is. Maybe make him tragically mind-whammied or something. But the real Prince Topas is loyal to House Amethyst, even if he's figured out that actually dating Amy is a terrible idea.

And that brings us to...

Gemworld Tidbit #6. No mention of Age-fluctuation. Anywhere.

OG Amethyst would have Amy shift from young teen to young adult, and even have that be a major plot point a la SHAZAM.

I get why it's gone. It removes a lot of writing headaches. But it does mean I would need to figure out some of her relationships from scratch.

Did she and Topaz still flirt? Did they break up for similar reasons? (I imply this is the case in Nurturing Camaraderie. That he mistook her for older/thought their age gap wasn't a big deal, and then ducked out when he realized he was wrong, very similar to what originally happened.)

Incorporate into personal fic canon? Yes. But Imma gonna overthink it to death.

Is Turquoise older than her? How much older? Is Emmy younger than her still? How much younger. What about Carnelian?

Gemworld Tidbit #7. sCiEnce NOT magic.

...

Incorporate into personal fic canon? No. Fuck this whole panel.

I signed on for some magic in my magical girl fantasy, dagnabbit.

Might have more thoughts later. But for now... yeah.

#young justice #young just us #amy winston #amethyst princess of gemworld #amethyst #princess amethyst #gidgeblog #yeah now i need sleep

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