#like they are going to release a normal dvd thing for this right???

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Okay I thought Loki S1 Steelbook going for £40 in CEX was a-lot, but DW 2024 S1 steelbook already being listed online at £59.99?! What the fuck?!

[a-student-out-of-time]

The Post-Tragedy Horrors of Despair Time

Hello everyone, Mod Bubbles here!

This Halloween, I decided to do something a little different. Rather than a dedicated post or song parody, I've decided to share a worldbuilding analysis. A pretty fortuitous one, since we've recently completed Chapter 2 of Despair Time.

I'm sure it's no exaggeration to say that DT is a pretty dark fangan, especially within its own context. I wouldn't say it's as grimdark and nihilistic as some people are convinced it is, but there's some elements to it that I feel are worth analyzing going forward.

See, it's been established that DT is set within the Hope's Peak continuity. This would mean that the canon games sans V3 (and if you want to have fun with it, other fangans like the Another series) have all happened here.

According to a Q&A, DT is set around 70-80 years after the end of the Tragedy, so if you wanted to estimate based on in-universe dates (such as Makoto's Hope's Peak brochure saying 2010 in the earliest version of the game but 2014 in a re-release), that would put it sometime around 2080 to the mid-2090s. Veronika backs this up in Chapter 2, when she mentions the Tragedy happened "almost a century ago."

Why do I bring all this up? Because if you looked at DT, you'd probably never guess it was that deep in the future. I know I didn't at first. And this is all by design, but it goes beyond simple cosmetic details. Allow me to explain to you why this is probably the darkest timeline that could've happened after Class 78's victory over Ultimate Despair.

___________________________________________________

Modern Stagnancy

So if we look at the obvious, the world of DT looks pretty much identical to our own, which should be a good thing. When you consider that this is set after The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History- an event that saw societal collapse, wars happen for the sake of destruction, massive pollution, rampant murder, and countless killing games- then it almost seems utopian.

Cities have long since been rebuilt, the skies are clear, there are functional trains, movies, celebrities, schools, music, art, Ted-Talks, the internet, all the trappings of normality. And that's really the problem.

Once the recovery efforts were underway, the goal of those in power was to rebuild things exactly as they used to be. Bear in mind, the world looks like our modern day, yet this is set deep into the late 21st century. In that context, the world almost seems stunted in its growth or even that it's regressed, given that CDs and DVDs are used rather than USBs or digital downloads.

Not only that, but this extends to societal attitudes as well. Nico was the victim of bullying over their status as an enby by everyone who knew, including their own father. It's almost the 22nd century and anti-LGBTQ bigotry like this still exists.

In that context, it feels less like the world is recovering and more that it's been stuck in its pre-Tragedy status quo, right down to continuing the Ultimates program that contributed to The Tragedy in the first place. And who would be motivated to do that?

2. Hope's Peak And Their Kin Are Stronger Than Ever

Probably one of the most contentious aspects of DR3's ending is that, after everything the people in charge of it were responsible for- exploiting their students, covering up crimes, human experimentation- Hope's Peak Academy was rebuilt by the survivors, now with Makoto as headmaster.

Now, one could make the argument that Makoto is a better example of hope and thus better suited to lead the school to follow its stated ideals than the Steering Committee ever was. That very well may be true, but as they also proved, nobody stays in charge forever. And now, because of his decision, Hope's Peak isn't contained to Japan.

There now exist Hope's Peak branches in every major country on Earth, with two in the United States. Teruko and co. are students of the East Coast Division's 27th class, meaning that one opened almost thirty years ago. This would also mean that Japan's Hope's Peak would have seen over 150 classes since its inception.

I bring all this up because, as has been made very clear by canon, Hope's Peak is a terrible place even in concept. When you remove the idyllic aspect of fostering talent and guaranteeing its students are set for life, the truth is that ultimates are stunted in their development. They're only encouraged to excel in their particular field, whether they really want to or not.

In addition, Hope's Peak has always quietly held this belief that only people with talent hold any worth; those without talent are just "ticks" who leech off the success of their betters. Characters like Byakuya and Nagito echo those very same sentiments, this extreme elitism that encourages people to view the "99%" as inherently inferior.

Even if you wanted to say Makoto managed to undo that idea, can we really say this divide would never come up again? No matter how many years pass or how many divisions of Hope's Peak are set up across the world? That seems really far-fetched to me.

Consider Min's bonus video. As she explains, she was never scouted by the school. Instead, America's Hope's Peak announced something called the Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students, where eligible high school students would be allowed to take a test, the best of whom would be admitted to the school when they graduated. The catch is that they had 12 years to prepare. Min, who was only 5 at the time, wasn't initially going to participate, but then the founder of a company called XF-Ture Tech approached her family- who was quite poor- and wanted to sponsor her in exchange for her participation.

She spent her entire life preparing for that test. And when she passed, she realized it was all really just an experiment to create their ideal version of the Ultimate Student. She even doubted that she was the best in terms of raw score, just that she met their desired expectations by cutting out everything else in her life for that test.

It also extends beyond just Hope's Peak itself. Those with power and influence now hold a strangle hold over the most vulnerable people out there, as we can see with the Lacroix family.

Rose wanted to help her family out of their financial limitations using her painting skills and her photographic memory, which lead to her becoming an art forger. However, at 15, she was found out and her family faced tens of millions in fines. This would've been the end, but then they were bailed out by a billionaire named Richard Spurling, founder of the Spurling Foundation. In exchange for clearing her charges, Rose had to sign a contract that meant she doesn't own the rights to anything she paints.

She hates what her life has become, where she can only ever really paint things at the whims of the Foundation because it was the only way her family could survive that mountain of debt. The exploitation there is undeniable.

No matter where you look, there's still exploitation and experiment abound with the school, corporations and the wealthy. And if you think the Spurling Foundation sounds bad here, they're implied to be responsible for something much worse.

Which is also brings us to Xander. See, there's a curious detail when we first meet him in the prologue:

And I agree. Xander being the Ultimate Rebel really doesn't fit him, as he's better described as the "Ultimate Revolutionary." Except there's no chance Hope's Peak would call him that, instead paying lip service to the idea in a digestible format to still support the status quo.

Xander is an activist who works to oppose corruption, but the ones who benefit from corruption wouldn't want him to flaunt that. It's a subtle but very clever detail that shows those in power still maintain a hold even over their beloved Ultimates.

They probably had no issue throwing the obviously corrupt under the bus to save their own hides, and raised Xander up with a quasi-supportive title. It gives them a chance to look like they're supporting what he's doing while still tying an element of a "rebellious child" to his image with the name.

Had Xander survived, he had a good reason to want to bring them down, especially the Spurlings.

3. Illness and Poverty

Xander's bonus video clued us in on what I believe is one of the most important parts of DT's continuity: the fate of the town of Chariton, implied to be where he lived. It seemed to be a small town, home to a couple hundred or a couple thousand people, where the only hospital for miles was "dinky, understaffed" and barely able to handle a minor flu outbreak. They were completely unprepared for what became known as the Chariton Incident.

When he was around 14, the town was hit by a disease that caused those infected to decay from the outside in; their limbs would stop working before their organs did, meaning they would just lay there and feel themselves slowly dying. So many died that nobody was left to move the bodies, so they were left where they fell, rotting in the summer heat.

The cause of this outbreak? A contaminated river that served as the town's water source. Chariton was an impoverished community, where people had no money to treat their water, get medicine from a nearby city or to even move out. It's also implied, based on Xander's anger, that Duke Spurling was partially responsible and that he got off the hook, which may be what drove Xander to become the Ultimate Rebel. Especially when you consider he's the only surviving member of his family.

Duke Spurling is, as the named implies and Dev has confirmed, the younger brother of Richard Spurling. The money and influence needed to get his brother off the hook is the very same that has the Lacroix family under his thumb.

So as we can see, Chariton was a major event in DT's canon. Not only does it showcase corruption, it also showcases understated but still prominent problems in the post-Tragedy U.S. If you pay attention, you'll also notice Teruko, Min, and Rose mention poverty playing a role in their lives.

As we can see, poverty plays a major role in their lives, and that extends beyond a personal level. Chariton's poverty is why the incident happened at all, and a big reason is because it's also an example of a medical desert.

"Medical desert" is a term used to describe regions whose population has inadequate access to healthcare. This can be all healthcare in general or in specialties such as dental care or pharmaceuticals. This is an especially prominent problem in rural areas, but it can affect urban ones too.

If that sounds implausible to you, today it's believed that around 30 million Americans- over 1% of the population- live over an hour from a hospital. Can you imagine how bad the problem is in a world after The Tragedy? All the damage to infrastructure, established institutions, the economy, and the population? I doubt Chariton was the first to see something this bad.

Ace's execution gives us more clues. In the Death By Illness section, there are several newspaper clippings on the wall, most of which are readable. One flashes on screen saying "Unexplained Illness Kills Thousands," which I believe is another reference to Chariton (why else would it flash on screen?), but there's more as well:

"More people are dying of cancer than ever before"

"Flu season claims thousands of lives"

"Falling rates of survival for hospitalized patients"

"Antibiotic-resistant infections a growing threat in this hospital"

One is harder to read, but I believe it mentions Chronic Kidney Disease being tied to an early death

Now, the interesting thing is that most of these are modern headlines, and they can be pretty misleading. The cancer one is actually based on the fact that more people are living longer lives, thus are reaching ages where they develop cancer due to their cell infrastructure breaking down naturally. It doesn't mean there's more cancer cases overall across all ages.

The only one that's not true is the falling rates one. Which suggests that not only was it Chariton, but healthcare infrastructure in general after the Tragedy seems to be a mess.

See, I was assuming that these articles are identical to what we see today. But it's also possible that the cancer one is now literally true, and it could be because The Tragedy was rife with this kind of horror. We know that terrorism, coups and wars happened for no reason other than to spread despair across the world.

Could you imagine how many nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons were used? How many diseases and hazardous materials were seeded into the environment? If it's unsafe to drink tap water after a serious hurricane or earthquake, how bad is the problem when contamination is the goal?

And this doesn't even touch on how disturbingly easy it would be to spread long-term illnesses such as HIV or CJD in contaminated food and medical supplies. Some diseases have latency periods that last decades, meaning they could still be killing people even by the time DRDT is set.

Antibiotic resistance is also a very real and serious problem. Even today, some strains have become immune to even the strongest antibiotics available. This has given rise to Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci or VREs, which are immune to basically every medication we can throw at them.

Now, it's still possible to deal with them, such as with naturally antimicrobial metals or experimental treatments such as CRISPR and Phage Therapy, but in a world that saw such a massive hit to everything? I'm certain antibiotic-resistance bacteria have become much more serious, potentially resulting in epidemics over the years.

And when these things happen, it's always the poor who suffer the most.

4. Lethal Repetition

Now we come to the most obvious example, something highlighted by the same reveal that DT is set nearly a century into the future:

Veronika, who provided us with information on the effects the Tragedy still has, apparently has never heard about The Killing School Life.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that most of the Killing Games in DR were pretty secluded and motivated. SDR2 was only broadcast to Future Foundation with the goal to allow Junko to escape into the real world, for example. However, DR1's Killing School Life was broadcast globally as a means to break humanity's hope by showing the Ultimates slaughtering each other. Instead, Makoto and co. managed to reinvigorate the world's hope and played a pivotal role in ending the Tragedy.

...And yet Veronika apparently hasn't heard any of it.

Now, there's two possibilities here, neither of which are good:

One is that the Mastermind has removed their knowledge of previous killing games, specifically. Now, I actually consider this an unlikely explanation because, not only does Teruko seem to vaguely remember the Killing School Life happened, but what's the goal in doing so for the participants?

The canon games all had solid reasons why the other masterminds erased the participants' memories: the revelation that they'd been killing their friends, the fact that their past identities were supposed to be undone to save them, even the fact that they weren't even who they were supposed to be in V3.

But what's the purpose of suppressing the memories of the Killing School Life in the participants themselves? Especially since this game is also apparently being broadcast to the outside world, although we only have MonoTV's word on that. Is it to undermine everything the survivors achieved or to get the participants not to consider the same strategies?

The other, more plausible explanation to me is that the mastermind isn't the one who erased their memories. The outside world did.

It's possible that, in the decades since the Tragedy and the drive to return things to the status quo, knowledge of the Killing School Life has been suppressed. It would be so easy to blame Makoto's decision to rebuild the school, but it's just as plausible that his attempts to genuinely reform the school were undone over the years.

Corporations and those that came after had a vested reason to improve their own reputations, and why would they allow their connection to the Tragedy to remain public knowledge? The entire thing began as a revolution of lower classes against the rich before it became a whirlwind of mindless violence.

So what does this mean for DT? This is more hypothesizing on my part, but I'd say this could tell us a lot about the potential motivations for this very killing game. Could it be someone trying to remind the world about this event and how we got here? Is it more retribution against the wealthy? Is it someone who was inspired by Junko to slaughter her friends? Or is it something else entirely? And what role does Teruko have if someone involved is so hellbent on trying to kill her?

For now, we can only speculate. But I can tell you that, based on what we've seen here, DT is probably the darkest future we could've gotten out of the canon series.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

[actualhumancryptid]

I couldn’t do my romantic comedy (re)watch without wlw romantic comedy Imagine Me & You (2005). I still love this film so much. Though I’m willing to own that my love for it might not be because it is the best romantic comedy ever made. It’s scoring probable extra points for.

a) the era.

b) the happy ending.

c) the fact that even the very few inappropriate or obnoxious straight characters still have relatively positive reactions. Nobody is massively homophobic. The inappropriate male friend may be awful, asking Luce out and disrespecting her ‘no’ and her identity. But he’s never aggressive. Is his behaviour funny and whimsical? No. But given actual reality (and the shit in the bawdy comedies that had started hitting the market), still better.

Basically. It keeps things light. Or tries to.

d) extra points for not being fucking historical or Arthouse and just a normal romantic comedy that, again, isn’t trying to do anything deeper than every other hetero romantic comedy.

e) extra points for not being a teen comedy. So many lgbt romantic comedies are teen comedies these days.

f) It came out on general release (for a very short time where I live). I didn’t have to go to a film festival to see it. I didn’t have to buy an American DVD to see it. I didn’t have to download it from LiveJournal. I saw it in my local suburban cinema. In the shopping centre my grandma buys groceries in. (It was 2005. Cinemas were still king).

But obviously it is one movie. It’s very white. And a hetero marriage has to be broken up for the wlw to get together.

Of course there were other great movies at the time (and earlier) about queer women. Some of them better movies. Indies or ‘foreign’/non-English movies. But I’m A Cheerleader (1999). Show Me Love/Fucking Amal (1998). Bound (1996). Saving Face (2004). D.E.B.S (2004).

But I think what makes Imagine Me & You something special to me, is that it made me feel like we were the same as everybody else. After growing up choking on all the cheesy cis het romantic comedies, we got our own cheesy one. And obviously LGBTQ cinema has done lots of exciting stuff since then. Stuff that has actually became big enough that non queer folk even watch it. Even stuff with wlw (though we continue to get fucked there a lot of the time). And it’s important to remember that, commercially, Imagine Me & You was a flop. This is surely why nobody decided to go out and make another mainstream wlw romantic comedy any time directly after. To watch it today I had to get it through ‘creative’ means, because there is currently no legal way to watch it in Australia. It is massively forgotten outside our wlw enclave.

I think we definitely put it on a pedestal. It’s just a cheesy romcom, and if it didn’t have two women falling in love I doubt I would clock it as one of my favourites in the genre. But it does and I do.

I am sure I haven’t finished thinking about this. But anyway, this is what I have right now.

[thefinalcinderella]

Tsurune: Irodori no Issha Episode 13 - Summer Memories

Yeah I totally planned to release this during the summer...all according to plan

Also I’m still trying to figure out how to upload the audio dramas...should I upload it to google drive or mega? In a zip file? Give me suggestions below

Nanao, Seiya, Ryouhei, Kaito: Let’s work hard together!

Kaito: There’s so few people!

Seiya: Well, it is a self-study day after all

Nanao: The girls are all taking the day off as well

Seiya: Takigawa-san isn’t here because of shrine duties. And Tommy-sensei will come in the afternoon.

Ryouhei: Oh...how’s Minato?

Seiya: His fever went down, but we can’t say that he’s back to normal

Nanao: Is today the third day? We’ve been working hard this whole summer.

Kaito: Isn’t he impatient to draw a bow soon?

Seiya: He tried to come, but we forcibly sent him back to his room. He said he’s going to properly sleep, but...

Kaito: Then, should we begin practicing?

Seiya: No, we have a big job to do today before Tommy-sensei can come.

Kaito: W-What kind of big job

Seiya: Cleaning the boys’ changing room!

Nanao, Ryouhei, Kaito: Geh!

Nanao: Wow~ we really made a big mess, haven’t we

Ryouhei: We had tournaments, joint practices, training camps, Nationals, so we couldn’t really clean~

Seiya: Everyone cleans the kyudojo together, but the boys and girls are in charge of their own changing rooms.

Seiya: This is a perfect opportunity, so let’s clean this place up and welcome the new semester with a good feeling

Ryouhei: Wow, look at this. It’s all worn out~

Seiya: That’s Minato’s rubber bow.

Kaito: He used it that much?

Nanao: He’s really tenacious

Minato: He even endured Takigawa-san’s high-handedness. I think he accomplished it really well

Kaito: Masa-san was no match for a “bow fanatic”

Seiya: Mmm? Some kind of note? Yugake, custom made, outer border, leather cord...

Ryouhei: Oh, that! That’s mine...

Nanao: Were you going to replace your yugake?

Kaito: Didn’t you just buy one? 

Ryouhei: No, I...I just wanted to get stronger quickly so I won’t slow everyone down. I thought I’d improve if I changed my yugake.

Seiya: But, you didn’t buy it?

Ryouhei: Yeah. I know the only thing I can do is to work hard

Nanao: There are no shortcuts in learning. And in the same way, there’s no kindou in kyudo~*

Seiya: Now I found a DVD behind the shelves. Whose is this?

Ryouhei: ?

Ryouhei: “Beginner’s Guide to Yoga”?

Kaito: Whose DVD is this? Who is the one who secretly doing yoga?

Nanao: Now that I think about it, I saw Kacchan secretly putting a DVD in his bag once

Kaito: Ugh...

Kaito: Well, you see... I was looking up things about dantian breathing and found out that it’s similar to how you breathe in yoga, so I thought I’d watch it for some reference. What’s wrong with that?

Ryouhei: That’s so cool!

Seiya: So, was it helpful?

Kaito: They say that natural and correct breathing can create a regular, balanced mental state. Masa-san said the same thing before

Seiya: So, is this shamen uchiokoshi book yours too?

Kaito: No, that’s not mine

Nanao: I guess it’s mine?

Ryouhei: No way, Nanao, you also became obsessed with shamen?

Nanao: No, rather than admiring it, it’s more that I want to deepen my knowledge of kyudo.

Nanao: I want to know why there are other schools. Once I knew that, I might know more about shoumen uchiokoshi than I do now

Kaito: Hmm

Seiya: Book learning and actual practice. Both are important

Nanao: Yeah. I didn’t plan on focusing so much on kyudo in my high school life, though

Ryouhei: It kinda feels like all of us

Kaito: Are total “bow maniacs.”

Nanao: Yep

Minato: Sorry, I’m late...

Everyone: Minato!

Minato: I’m fine now. My fever dropped a while ago. So I’m okay!

Seiya: Kaito, Ryouhei. Hold Minato down

Kaito and Ryouhei: Got it

Minato: Fweh!?

Nanao: Okay, Minato. Turn right around and go back to your bed

Seiya: I'll lock the door and go, so you guys go ahead

Nanao: Roger that, president!

Minato: But I just came here!?

Kaito: You’re recovering! Don’t push yourself

Nanao: No one’s a bigger “bow maniac” than Minato

Minato: I haven’t drawn a bow for three days...

Ryouhei: You’re gonna be fine. The target won’t run away

Seiya: You can come right away after your fever is down

Kaito: You’re so obsessive...

[boa-h]

【Roronoa Zoro】 Small Town Summer

*first fic of the year wooooo!

00

Summers in the small town always felt like the sky had turned into a heater fan. Cicadas cried like a newborn baby and mosquitoes flew in swarms. A girl could be seen sitting in the unpaved streets, her pretty dress now painted with mud and dirt. In front of her, stands a boy with naturally green hair, “Ha! You lost again!” He laughs. A cry that did not belong to the cicadas echoed throughout the street, the girl continued to wipe her endless tears despite her dirty hands, “That wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair!!” She cried.

01

You and Zoro have lived across the street from each other ever since you were born. With your families being friends, you two hang out very often — basically every day. However, you two are nothing alike, naturally, girls and boys are different. You like to play with your dolls and play house while he watches his Ultraman DVDs on the square block they call a TV. But kids are more energetic, therefore energy needs to be drained by running and playing outside.

Zoro’s kick that landed on your stomach was the start of everything, your loud cries were everything the neighborhood heard that night. Challenges became a normal thing between you and him, with competitiveness engraved in your bones, you never wanted to lose, but you always do. You can’t run faster than him, can’t lift more weights than him, and you’re even shorter.

Years passed slower than ever in the first decade of your life. You can barely remember anything in kindergarten. But you do remember that you and Zoro were in the same class for elementary school. His grades aren’t the best, at least below average of the class. But then again, surprisingly, elementary school had a lot of smart students. Then came junior high school, you two were no longer in the same class, but it was a time where you grew a tad bit taller than Zoro. Grades and height were the two things you surpassed him at.

In high school, coincidentally, the two of you are distributed into the same class once again. Understanding the fact that you and Zoro have known each other since childhood, the teacher arranged for you to be deskmates. If this was elementary school, you would rather move to another class than to sit next to him, this troublemaker could do anything to make you cry. But as years passed, his temper had calmed down a bit, at least he wouldn’t go looking for trouble again, and you were grateful for that. Being deskmates with Zoro wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, on the contrary, you were glad that you had someone you knew as your deskmate, it somehow made everything easier.

02

When did things start to change? You ask yourself that. He was caring a little too much about you, and you were caring a little too much about him. As you lay with him on his bed, playing on the GameBoy consoles, he asked: “Are you going abroad?”

Your fingers paused on the gaming console, ghosting over the button as if you’re trying to decide on your next move. Your brain now fogged with the question Zoro asked, you closed the console and sat up with a sigh.

Going abroad was a rare opportunity during the time, your grades were the only thing that supported this opportunity, along with the family savings that were barely enough. But your parents wanted you to go abroad, they think you could have a much brighter future there.

“Maybe.” You replied, looking back at him, and he nodded. “What about you, what are you going to do without me?” You joked, “I know you can’t live without me.”

Zoro didn’t deny like you thought he would, “I’m going to do sports. Kendo, perhaps.”

Time flew by like a monster with wings, the College Entrance Exam soon released their scores. The grade you got was what everyone expected, not the best in the state but enough for you to go abroad. The sun was setting and your parents hummed in the kitchen as they prepared for a feast. You look outside the window, Zoro’s house was right there, and you suddenly wondered how he was doing.

A knock was heard on the door, your thoughts were cut off and you rushed to the door. It was Zoro. The sunset rested on his tanned skin and the chilly breeze blew through his short hair.

“How did you do?” Was the first thing he asked.

“Wasn’t bad, good enough to go abroad.”

His shoulders suddenly dropped, “Oh, I see.”

“How did you do?” You returned his question.

“I tried pretty hard, it wasn’t a bad score for me. I got admitted to a decent sports university.” He paused, “Are you really going away?”

“I mean, I would stay, but…” You played with your fingers, thinking for a reasonable answer, but still just shrugged in the end.

Zoro nodded in understanding. “When.”

“As soon as break starts.”

He nodded again.

04

The night before your flight, you asked Zoro out for dinner. It was a popular barbecue restaurant in the center of the city, people chatting and cars honking filled the night air. Maybe because it was too busy, the waiter surprisingly didn’t check Zoro’s ID when he asked for two bottles of beer.

“Surely you’ll get a good beating if your dad finds out about this.” You snickered.

“Tsk, don’t pretend to be innocent, you did steal those money from your parents, didn’t you?” He gestured to the money in your purse that you planned to use to pay for the meal.

“What do you mean “steal.” These are already mine, I just took out a few bills. Plus, it’s me who’s treating you tonight, don't complain.”

Zoro stuffed the meat inside his mouth with his chopsticks before raising both of his arms up in a surrender position, “Ight, whatever you say.”

You didn’t drink during the meal, but strangely you felt a bit drunk too, maybe because the grill was spreading too much heat around, but you felt really happy that night, even when the embarrassing moments of your childhood came out of the mouth of the person sitting in front of you. You couldn’t help but to think back to the sky that was always blue, and the days that always passed too slow.

In front of your house, you two stood on the front steps without a word.

Zoro opened his mouth but paused, he probably changed his mind on what he was about to say.

“I have practice tomorrow, so I won’t be able to send you off.” He says, “Have a safe trip, though.”

You nodded at his words, but didn’t reply.

As he was walking away, he paused in his steps and turned around. The corner of his eyes were a little red, maybe he was holding back tears just like you are as well. “If you ever come back to visit, I’ll be here.”

You squeezed out a smile that was even uglier than a frown, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

05

Summer was as hot as always in the small town. A walk from the newly built train station to back home wasn’t such a long walk but it felt exhausting. A lot of things have changed since the last time you’ve seen this small town. You hurriedly drop off your luggage and greet your parents before walking out of the house again.

A high school class reunion was suggested by someone in the class so here you are, rushing to the restaurant, being late already as your flight was delayed. The delicious smell of food entered your nostrils when you stepped inside the restaurant that was filled with nostalgia, you remember coming here often with friends during high school, it’s a very popular restaurant in the small town, and it still is.

“Sorry I’m late!” You apologized to everyone at the table, your friends’ eyes showed happiness and surprise to your sudden appearance.

“Oh my! I didn’t think you would make it today!” Nami exclaimed as she hurried you over to sit by her side. “Sorry we started without you!”

“Oh no, don’t be sorry.” You laughed, “It’s nice to see everyone.”

You noticed that not everyone was here, including the boy who used to live across from you, maybe some couldn’t make it after all. But the ones who are here greeted you happily, glad that you were here.

“Zoro said he would come after practice today,” Usopp took out his phone to check if he received any new messages, “Well, it is rush hour, a drive from the city to here could take some time.”

“The city?” You ask.

“Yeah, you didn’t know?” Nami cut in.

“No, we sort of lost contact with each other.” You chuckled awkwardly.

It is true, iphones weren’t a thing yet when you left, you had to get a new inserted card, losing your original phone number, plus the fee that came with international calls, you rarely made any calls, aside from perhaps your parents a few times a year. They were the ones who told you about the class reunion.

It turned out that Zoro was a pretty successful swordsman now, having competitions here and there, has a winning strike and has only been defeated by a man named Dracule Mihawk.

“Sorry I’m late!” A familiar voice called out as the restaurant door slammed open, revealing a certain mosshead.

“Oh, Zoro!” Usopp waved.

“Zoro!” His friends cheered.

The man standing in front of you is now taller than before, still with tanned skin and green hair. Sweat ran down his forehead as he caught up with his breath, a few red bumps protruded from his muscular arms, bitten by mosquitoes, you presume.

His gaze locked with yours the moment he sat eyes on the table.

“Oh, you’re back too.” He says.

“What do you mean, of course I am!”

The other people snickered.

“Aright guys, let’s get some more food now that more of our friends are here!” Luffy cheered.

06

Night was silent as you and Zoro walked back to the same old street you guys always walk back to.

“You’re staying in town tonight?” You asked him.

“I always lived in town.” He looked back in confusion, “Where else did you think I was gonna go.”

“I thought you moved to the city.”

He remained silent until you reached your doorstep, “I told you I was going to be here if you ever visit again.”

You were stunned by his words, “I didn’t think you were serious. I mean, your job is in the city now, so I didn’t think…”

You two stood in silence once more, he didn’t say anything. It was you who broke the silence, “Hey, have you ever thought of… I mean,” You struggled with your words, “Have you ever, perhaps, liked me? You know, not in a friendly way, but more of a romantic kind of way?” You asked.

“Huh?! Who would ever like—” Was his immediate response, as if the denial was carved into his bones.

You opened your mouth but nothing came out, that was stupid of you to ask that, it would’ve been a nice summer if you didn’t. You wanted to slap yourself, now your friendship is probably ruined, and he probably doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. “Sorry, I don’t think I should’ve asked that.” You apologized, turning away from him to reach for the doorknob.

“That wasn’t what I meant.” He grabbed your wrist. “What I wanted to say was that I was, and still am, desperately in love with you, okay? I didn’t know how to tell you, after all it was me who made you cry so many times when we were younger. I didn’t know if you would return my feelings. I was a coward, I didn’t want to know the truth.”

You stared into his eyes, realizing he probably did mean what he said, your eyes began to water. You left for so many years and he didn’t even give you a hug, then proceeded to talk about this nonsense that makes you want to cry. Zoro, seeing that you’re not replying to him, thought you still didn’t believe what he just said, so he brought your hand to his chest.

“Feel my heartbeat then, it’s much more sincere than me.”

[marshmallowgoop]

Mixing an Old Anime Dub with HD Footage

How I'm trying to mix every episode of the old FUNimation English dub of Detective Conan/Case Closed with the new remastered footage currently being released on Blu-ray in Germany.

This is less of a tutorial and more of a, "I-don't-really-know-what-I'm-doing-but-this-is-my-process" sort of thing. I welcome suggestions for improvements! Many thanks go to Fabre on the Detective Conan EN Community Discord server for getting me here at all; my earlier method of mixing, requiring me to cut the audio a bajillion times, is definitely not recommended.

Since I just posted a clip from Episode 76—thank you for the warm response!—I'll demo here with Episode 77! It's the start of a Heiji case!

Programs

Every program I use is free (though some have paid options available). These programs are:

MakeMKV, for ripping Blu-rays and DVDs

HandBrake, for ripping DVDs and compressing files

BeHappy, for audio conversion

DaVinci Resolve, for video editing

Subtitle Edit, for exactly what it says on the tin

Getting the Materials

To rip the Detektiv Conan Blu-rays, I use MakeMKV. (Note that the file size will be very large.) I also try to use MakeMKV to rip the FUNimation Case Closed DVDs, but there can be struggles. With Seasons 4 and 5 of the Viridian Collection, for example, not all episodes would rip without a lot of finagling. In that situation, it's easier to use HandBrake instead, making sure to select a FLAC codec for lossless compression of the audio.

Audio Conversion

With Detective Conan, the Case Closed DVDs have an audio "framerate" of 24 FPS, but the Detektiv Conan Blu-rays have an FPS of 23.976. They've gotta match for easy mixing. The way I fix the discrepancy is to convert the FUNi audio to 23.976 FPS, which can be done with BeHappy:

I use WAV Writer for a lossless conversion, and I've learned to select the "Normalize to 100%" option because I've had strangely low audio levels otherwise (as can sadly be heard in my Episode 76 clip).

(Also, one of my biggest struggles with BeHappy was how to even get the job going. So, putting it out there for anyone else who might need it: to get the conversion started, you gotta click that "Enqueue" button on the bottom right. It is indeed a button!)

I use FFAudioSource, and with the "Configure..." button on the far right of that, I can select the stream index to convert. (For many of the FUNimation volumes, Stream Index 1 is English stereo, Stream Index 2 is Japanese stereo, and Stream Index 3 is English surround sound.)

My mixing process involves lining up the Japanese audio of the FUNimation DVD with the Japanese audio from the German Blu-ray; then, I copy any movements or cuts to the English audio. So, I convert both the English and Japanese audio tracks from the FUNimation DVD.

But this is unnecessary. You can also line up the dub with the Blu-ray audio directly. I just don't trust myself to do that because they're not going to match up exactly due to the different languages.

Resolve can also have trouble importing the audio from my Blu-rays, so I BeHappy that audio as well, just making sure not to select the "TimeStretch" option.

Video Editing

The mixing isn't too complicated. Like I said above, it's about matching the Japanese audio tracks of the DVD and the Blu-ray. I solo the Japanese audio track from the Blu-ray, mark the starting point of a sound, and then I repeat the process with the Japanese audio track from the DVD and line up the markers (and solo both Japanese audio tracks together to make sure they're properly synced). Anything changed on the Japanese audio track from the DVD is copied to the English audio track(s).

Rinse and repeat. Timings generally need to be checked at transition points: the opening, doors, ending, post-credits, next-episode previews, and "Next Conan's Hint" segments. The Blu-rays also have blank sponsor screens and end-card jokes that aren't included on the DVDs, and I fill these spaces by either editing in the English version of the song that plays during the sponsor screen, or by simply copying the Japanese audio from the Blu-ray for content that wasn't dubbed.

There are some more nitty-gritty details involved with openings. For OP 1, I edit in the full English version of the song from Episode 1, while for OP 2, which wasn't dubbed (with OP 1 played instead on the DVDs), I use AI vocal isolation to isolate the audio of Shinichi's opening speech and edit that with the Japanese song. For OP 3, no full English version of "Nazo" exists, so I just kind of have to awkwardly splice in the Japanese version at the end during the sponsor screen.

Of course, this is a lot of extra effort that even the German Blu-rays don't do for the German dub. Songs and intros are entirely left in Japanese there, vastly simplifying this work. But I definitely want to preserve the English songs. And also, I love making things harder for myself.

Subtitles

Finally, I'm all about subtitles! Some of the FUNimation volumes include English dub subtitles, which I like to include on my final mix.

To extract them from the DVD, I use Subtitle Edit. I go to File -> Import -> Subtitle from video file...

The file does have to be an .mkv, which can be made with MakeMKV or HandBrake.

Once I select the file (in this case Episode 77), I use these settings to OCR the subtitles:

I make sure to have "Prompt for unknown words" checked because OCR (Optical Character Recognition) isn't a perfect process and may make mistakes.

"How's it goin (TM)" is pretty great, though, ngl.

I run through the OCR and fix anything that's needed. Since the FUNimation subtitles are a little hard to read, I also try to quality check them thoroughly for errors—though, I usually do that after the next step, which is timing the subtitles to the remastered mix.

Much like the BeHappy process, I want to start by changing the framerate of the subtitles from 24 FPS to 23.976 FPS. This can be done by going to Synchronization -> Change frame rate...

After that, I can attach the remastered video file and time much like I did with the video editing. I go to Synchronization -> Adjust all times (show earlier/later)... and click the "Selected and subsequent lines" option at all of the transition places that need adjusting. It definitely helps to have the waveform on when timing.

I also like to attach Crunchyroll subtitles for the more literal translation of the original Japanese script. The .ass files can be found here. Crunchyroll subtitles are timed very closely to the Blu-rays; all that needs to be done is a second or so of delay at the start. I also OCR the German subtitles from the Blu-ray and use those to time the Crunchyroll subs, but it's just as effective to use the waveform and/or your ear to time them.

And speaking of Crunchyroll subs, I like to copy their formatting for my OCR'd subs. To do this, I first need to export the Crunchyroll styles, which can be done by opening the Crunchyroll subtitle file in Subtitle Edit and clicking the big "A" by the checkmark for "Advanced Sub Station Alpha styles."

The following menu will pop up, and from there, I just have to click the "Export" button to save the styles.

After that, I have to change the .srt file of the OCR'd subs into an .ass file by opening that file and selecting "Advanced Sub Station Alpha (.ass)" on the "Format" drop-down menu.

Then, I again click the big "A" by the checkmark for "Advanced Sub Station Alpha styles" and hit the "Import..." button on the menu to import the Crunchyroll styles. I delete the original "Default" style afterwards and rename the Crunchyroll default from "Default 2" to "Default."

And that's basically it! There are some things I kind of glossed over; for example, I have to assign buses in video editing to get all the different audio tracks the way I want, and I do have to add subtitle lines to the English dub subs to get subs for things that weren't on DVD. But this is the basic process of preparing the video and subtitles.

Compression

The last step is compressing with HandBrake. I wind up with ginormous file sizes after exporting from Resolve, and it's nice to get something smaller. Plus, with HandBrake, I can also attach all my subtitle files to the video.

To do so, I just need to pop over to the "Subtitle" tab and select "Import Subtitle" on the "Tracks" drop-down menu.

The subs can even be named. I keep mine soft so that they can be toggled on or off, but they can certainly be burned in, too, if that's preferred.

Compression settings are utterly beyond me, unfortunately; my file sizes are still ginormous even after HandBraking. But there are several presets on the program that can be used.

And that's really the whole process!

Note that I use the German Blu-rays, despite their shortcoming of the name boxes being edited in a way that can't be turned off, because there are no other Blu-ray releases of this remastered material at the moment. Maybe one day I'll write a post about all the Detective Conan available on BD—it's surprisingly little!—but this is it for now!

Thanks for reading!

[deramin2]

How to edit captions with your video track

Why: I like making edits of my favorite series, but I hate redo captioning. But I also know quality captions are vital to some viewers (I also use them). To me adding captions is the bare minimum for release, but also hearing all the words and timing them or even re-timing existing captions is very hard with my disabilities and this has been a barrier to me releasing edits. But no more!

DaVinci Resolve lets you add a SubRip (SRT) subtitle track to any video and then edit it at the same time as the video. It also counts as an edit for the Go To Previous/Next Edit button. Con: You can't use the button to jump to big cuts in the video. Pro: You can now easily jump to the an existing timing for someone starting to talk.

DaVinci Resolve:

DaVinci Resolve is a professional video editor with widespread industry use that also has a no-strings-attached perpetual free version. It's got a ton of features in the free version that will more than cover basic editing. It's relatively easy to use (basic tutorials help). If you need more advanced tools you can upgrade to a full license. They don't pester you about it in the free version unless you try to use the advanced tools. I would already recommend using this program to anyone looking to get into video editing.

SRT Subtitles

The SRT subtitle standard is a type of text file that includes subtitles with timings and no formatting. They can be stored separately from a video file or embedded into certain files like MP4s. This is what you'll get if you download captions from YouTube (some YouTube downloaders embed them in the video, some don't). DVD rippers usually have several options. You want an SRT file. And there are websites that host fan-made or fan ripped subtitles for less officially obtained material. You can also make your own SRT file with timings within DaVinci Resolve or with an SRT editor. You can also use this to improve on official captions while making your edit.

A pro feature of DaVinci is it can do machine captioning and then you clean it up. You can also do this for free using YouTube by privately uploading the video, letting it auto-caption, and then editing the captions. You MUST edit machine captions. They are not accurate enough on their own to be accessible. But they can be a step in helping you get it done.

Extracting Embedded SRTs

DaVinci needs an SRT file to import captions. It doesn't seem to extract embedded SRT files from MP4s. Fortunately, it's very easy to extract them.

Subtitle Edit is an open source subtitle editor. It's a great tool if you're making your subtitles from scratch or editing existing ones.

For our purposes, simply open the video with the embedded subtitle track. Click save. Save the SRT file with a useful name somewhere convenient. I recommend using the same name as video it goes with in the same folder.

Adding a Subtitle Track to DaVinci

Rev Tutorial with text and video

Open your project in DaVinci Resolve. Add your SRT file to the bin.

Under "File" select "Import" then "Subtitle."

Or click the Import Media button and add it as normal.

From the bin, select your video and subtitles. Right-click them and select "Create New Timeline Using Selected Clips".

You should now have a timeline where the video and captions are reunited and can be edited together.

Editing the Subtitles

You can now move around the subtitles like any text overlay, including making them longer or shorter. If you click a subtitle you can edit the text and exact timing using numbers. Or edit the timing visually using the timeline. The Go To Previous/Next Edit button can now help you skip to a timing someone else made for you which is usually good enough for a fan cut, making your job easier. From the Edit view you can see the audio track visualizer along with the captions for a perfect cut.

Putting Your Tracks Together

If you're making a compilations, where's where things start to suck. The subtitles are not brought along when you next your clips. They will play over the video, but they won't export to an SRT video or be embedded. You're going to have to manually copy them. But at least now they're the correct length and you have them synced up. I would highly recommend you start your subtitles right at the beginning of the clip or put a fake one in to delete later.

Add your Timelines to a new timeline as usual.

Go to the timeline of the first clip.

With the clip at the beginning, right click the seeker bar and click the select to right button on the circular menu.

Use CTRL + left click to deselect the video/audio tracks. Copy the subtitle track.

Go to the combined timeline. Go to the start of your clip.

Paste the subtitles. You may have to add a subtitle track.

Copy the subtitles from the next clip.

Go to the combined timeline and move to the start of the that clip. Paste the new set in.

Rename your subtitle tracks with the language they're in or type.

Export

Go to the deliver tab. Choose the file name and location. If you're posting to YouTube, render as a single clip, and export to MP4. Under the Subtitle Settings, select "Export Subtitle", Format "As a separate file", and Export As "SRT Without Formatting". Select the subtitle tracks you want to export with the video.

Add to Render Queue. Then render the clips over on the right.

Uploading to YouTube

Upload the video as normal. At the Video Elements step, add subtitles. Select upload file, then with timings. Your subtitles should show up on the timeline and you can check they're correct and fix anything last minute. Do this for each language you add. Continue uploading as normal.

Conclusion

That's my process for adding existing subtitles to my videos. I've wanted something like this for ages so I was super pleased to learn Davinci Resolve has it. I hope this encourages other clip makers with some access to pre-made captions to use them for their videos. It's easy, free, and can even help speed up the editing process. It makes your videos much more accessible and creates a transcript that's searchable and timestamped for easy navigation and quote copying. I really recommend working this into your process so more fans who need captions can share in your work.

[cocamalfeta]

https://www.tumblr.com/peachjagiya/756255264340082688/hey-speak-yourself-osaka-2019-how-you-doin?source=share

What do you mean here by saying they didn't interact in these concerts? I know 2019 was crazy with hybe restricting their interactions even in concert. If I'm not wrong Jungkook also had an accident near Tae's place near this time. Any particular thoughts about this?

Anon, if you know Hybe was restricting their interactions in concerts around that time, then you know everything already. I don't have time to check notes now or the vids, but I think the timeline was sth like this.

Those 2019 concerts took place early July. There was a Tkk account covering Tkk moments in both days, with a running total time of about maybe 10 min. or even less of interactions? I think for starters that's very telling. Besides that content, I'd usually read the fans comments, and they were pointing out too sth was off between them.

First, we had Jimin posting that Tkk pic sitting next to each other on the plane, like everything is ok, right? Then when the first day concert takes place I found out it was going to be turned into a DVD release, so it makes sense there was zero interactions between them.

Second night, In my view was Jk trying to do silly things to make Tae laugh, but it looks like he wasn't having it. Like, all members had to slide this massive sledge down, in pairs, but Tae just pushed Jk to slide down on his own --maybe he was saying to Hybe "you want us to be separated right, then so be it" (Sth like this)

Then you have Jk meddling with Taejin fanservice, I think Jin was a bit annoyed and so he poured the water all over him (I also think Jin tried to signal Tae to move but he wouldn't listen --but I'd have to check that again).

So, taking that pic of Jk sitting over Tae's lap on his own at backstage, without considering the context, is very misleading. You'd think that was normal for them then, but the pic got so famous because it wasn't exactly a normal thing at the time.

For more context on this time, I like to read @esthariv posts, but you'd need a strong heart to read all that. Those concerts took place just before the summer break, when Jungkook spent his time on his own in Seoul and went to meet Mijoo the tattoist and then had the accident a bit later, around Sept. or Nov.

Around this time it trended the hashtag "taekookisoverparty" too. That moment was when Jungkook overall stopped doing fanservice with Jm, but dates would vary according to fans.

But I think you can say this time was a transitional period to start showing more of their relationship in public, thus the significance of that pic.

The car accident would be a way to signal that Jungkook was being anxious of losing Tae definitely, that was why he'd take the decision to abandon doing fanservice with Jm. All this is what I took from @esthariv --I wasn't here to witness it first hand-- but as I said before I like the way she writes on these things. It makes sense to me.

I haven't check all details but then you get an idea.

[spacecadet-ticklesinspace]

Feel Good Tickles

Summary: Peter 2 and 3 spend some quality time together ❤️

Peter 3 jumped as a whooshing sound filled his living room. However, when he turned and saw a familiar orange portal forming, his face changed into a grin. It grew even bigger when he saw his older brother step through.

Peter 3 ran to him. "Two!"

The oldest had a second to brace himself for impact before his arms were full of Peter 3. "Hey bud, it's good too see you."

The taller Spiderman pulled back to look at him. "Why are you so early? We aren't meeting for another hour."

"Have you checked the time Three?"

"No."

Two held up his phone. "It's already 2:10."

Peter 3's eyes widened. "What!"

"I just came to make sure you were okay. Is everything good?"

By now, the tallest of the trio was frantically moving things around. "I know I put it somewhere."

Two smiled as he stepped forward. "Need a hand?"

Three moved to the couch. "Can you call---wait! We wouldn't hear it anyway."

Peter 2 cocked his head. "Hear what Pete?"

Three ran his fingers through his hair. "My phone. I was hoping you could call it but it's dead."

The oldest Peter quickly scanned the room. "What were you working on Pete?"

"A new organization system for my DVDs. Normally I keep them in order of release date but I wanted to categorize them based upon lead actors and actresses instead," Peter 3 explained as he sifted through another pile. "I find that I get stuck on trying to remember a certain movie based upon who was in it so I thought this would make them easier to locate."

"That's actually really smart," Peter 2 replied as he picked up a random DVD. "You've got an extensive collection."

"Thanks man." Three held up his phone. "Found it! Now why didn't my alarm go off?"

"You said it was dead."

Peter 3 brought the heel of his palm to his forehead. "You're right. I ment to charge it too but on my way to get my charger . . ."

Peter 2 gestured to the living room.

Peter 3 nodded. "Yeah."

The oldest chuckled and moved to sit beside his brother. "It's alright, happens to the best of us."

"I'm sorry I was late Two. I genuinely wasn't paying attention to the time."

"It's okay Three. Like I said, it happens."

As he talked, Peter 3 continued moving DVDs into piles. "You'd think I'd be better at time management by now."

After watching for a bit, Peter 2 was able to differentiate the piles. He placed the one in his hands into the correct pile. "Would you like any help?"

"Nah, I've got---." Pete 3 froze. "Oh wait! Our hang out day!"

Two smiled. "We can wait until you're finished."

Peter 3 moved to his knees. "No! We already made plans!"

"But don't you need to finish this?"

"Yes but . . ."

Two could tell Three was on the road to a meltdown. He wanted to hang out with Two, but he couldn't leave a task undone.

The oldest held open his arms. "Hey, need a hug?"

After a brief hesitation, Peter 3 crawled over to his older brother and let himself be wrapped in a hug. The muscles in his shoulders and back slowly began to slowly relax.

"There we go," Peter 2 soothed.

Three sniffed. "Thank you."

"Of course Button, I'm happy to help."

"Some special day this turned out to be."

Peter 2 was about to explain how it was okay and they could still make today special, but then a mischievous thought crossed his mind.

To keep his intentions as secret as possible, Peter 2 kept his arms wrapped around Peter 3. He then slowly slid his hand down his brother's back to rub comforting circles before sliding to one of his sides. Completely oblivious to his brothers intentions, Peter 3 stayed curled into his older brother's hold.

Ever so carefully, Two's fingers "accidentally" squeezed Peter 3's side.

The tallest Peter jumped. "Ah! Two!"

Peter 2 pulled his hand back. "Sorry."

Peter 3 pouted as he snuggled back into the hold.

The oldest Peter rubbed circles into Peter 3's back until he was relaxed again. Once the middle brother's attention was diverted, Two let his fingers "accidentally" brush his side again.

A hand circled his wrist. "Two."

"I wasn't doing anything."

Peter 3 squinted at his brother.

"It was an accident I swehear!"

"Ha! Yohou giggled! That meheans yohou're lying!"

"Ihi giggleheled because yohou look soho cute."

The tallest of the trio growled. "No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!" Peter 2's hand slipped free of the hold to attack Peter 3's side. "See?"

Meanwhile, Peter 3 curled into the most adorable ball of giggles from the light attack.

"Aww, whose a pweciouws wittwe baby?"

Three shoved Peter 2's chest. "Knohock ihit ohoff!"

"But I can't!" The oldest used his other arm to keep Peter 3 in place. "Yowre juwst tow pwecious."

The blush on the middle brother's face grew darker. "Ihi'm nohot! That's Unoho!"

Peter 2's hand moved to Peter 3's stomach. "So just because yohou're older than him you stohopped being adorable?"

Three squeaked.

"Yehep, you're cute too."

Peter 3 was slowly but surely turning into a puddle of giggles in his older brother's lap. His face and neck were a vibrant shade red as he squirmed. "Meanihie!"

"How am I aha meanie? I got yohour tummy. He's your favorite!"

The tallest Peter buried his face into Two's shoulder.

"Ahaw." The oldest paused his tickles long enough to ruffle his younger brother's hair. "Ihis someone bashful?"

Peter 3 turned to smirk at Peter 2. "Ihis that ahall you gohot?"

Peter 2 lifted his hand. "Oho, those are fighting wohords."

Three sqwaked as the oldest's hand wormed into his most sensitive rib. "NAAAAHAHA!"

"Gootchie goo bahaby brohother."

Peter 3 snorted. "TWOHO!"

After a few more moments of friendly torture, tthe oldest Peter finally let Three's rib go. He then wrapped his younger brother in a firm hug.

"Thank you," Three whispered.

"Of course, I love you Button."

"I lohove you too Dos."

Peter 2 nudged his brother. "Do you want to finish your DVD organization?"

Three shook his head and tightened his hug. "I wanna cuddle."

The oldest Peter chuckled and tightened his own hug.

He was okay with that too.

[theretirementstory]

Bonjour et bienvenue. It is 8c and cloudy,the sun has only just risen and it looks as if we will see some rain today.

This was my view for two days this week as I was in hospital in Nancy. I was on the fourth floor, with a terrific view, or it would have been if the weather had been brighter.

There has been “a hotline” to my phone, friends and relatives contacting me to find out how I am. On Friday afternoon my doorbell rang, there was my neighbour asking how I was and telling me if I needed anything just to let them know. I had messaged my Finnish friend to tell her I was home, again the offer of help was forthcoming and as I had been given lots of paperwork (some duplicated) she is going to come down to help me sort it out. Anie said her family are returning to Indonesia and that she will be back at home later today. Monique and her daughter have been messaging to see how I am and I am wondering if I will see Pauline sometime soon.

A friend in the UK told me I was a “true warrior” and a “tough cookie” blimey I don’t think that I am!

I had a video call with “The Daddy” and my gorgeous grandchildren. My granddaughter can be a bit of a chatterbox but oh my grandson what a noisy little chap he is turning into. He was chattering in such a loud voice, with so much spewing from his mouth, he really sounded as if someone/something was being told off. He only stopped when I said his name, yes it was a different voice but where was the person? When he saw me on the phone I was rewarded with a lovely smile.

“The Paralegal” received some very good news this week, but more on that later in the month. What I will tell you is that the electrician has been to his house and has installed the additional sockets and downlights. The plasterer came out to give a quote and is starting work this coming week, so finally things are moving in the right direction. I don’t know if he has chosen the paint colour for his lounge and bedroom but then it will just be another couple of purchases and he will be moving in. The laminate flooring that he purchased, originally to put inside storage cupboards, is going to be utilised in his hallway. It is all exciting stuff.

It is 12 years today since Mum left us here and went to join Dad. It isn’t a sad day as it was a blessed release for her and her family. She would have been the first to admit that she had had a good life, having attained more than her three score years and ten. As with most people there were very rocky patches but she travelled (to places I have never been) and she saw her two grandchildren, so she had a lot to be thankful for.

I had the “mega” video call with my friends in Bristol, yesterday. It was lovely to see them and I hope that I really didn’t look like a “beached whale” as I was reclining in my chair.

I went out for my first 20 minute walk yesterday and I am going to go out again today. I was going to call and get some bread at the supermarket but I am sure I can manage without it until tomorrow .

I was very pleased this week when the package, which was posted in the UK on the 5 December, finally arrived. I now have my new RNLI calendar as well as two Xmas cards. A disappointment happened though when I decided to start to watch the DVD box set of “Black Sails”, for only the second time, and found that the first disc stuck and stuttered half way through. I decided to try and clean the disc (the DVD player is just quite recent) unfortunately I am unsure where I have put the head cleaner! Oh well I will try another dvd and see if that is ok to play.

I wanted to try to find a poem which summed up this time of year. Unfortunately, January is normally snowy and finger numbing but here it is unseasonably mild and although we have had rain it isn’t incessant.

So I will bid you a good day.

Until the next time……..

[kaoarika]

I have been on a downspiral regarding a certain old fandom and my mind is full of things that I still cannot comprehend these days.

One of them could be applied to "why don't you (and by you, I mean, obviously myself) deep dive into the anime again", when my problems with it is that the art quality is all over the place (there are episodes where they use some kind of "air spray" filter that looks hideous in some of them... like, man, that SURE was a choice or whatever), I wasn't too much of a fan to some of the changes they did to it (and I feel some of these changes also influenced the original author in some way or another... look, I don't have proof, but I also don't have doubts about it), and I feel like an A+ star (at the time) seiyuu cast couldn't save it that much (too wasted talent is what I mean... I mean, they had this famous singer making a cameo-like voice... how much that cost, lmao... but apparrently? they gave the character a normal VA in another appearance which SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE FROM THE VERY START?! but I'm confused because "apparently" they did the voice of the character in the Drama CD adaptation... but... an old post I looked at suggested they were cast again since they were invited for the web radio program the anime had?)

(and you think me being all "but Udlu shouldn't have been so artsy" is a very new complaint about anime adaptations of stuff that i like...)

But also, like, diving deep into the manga is probably going to bring bittersweet feels I have about it that are TOO subjective and others that I say, "man, the author shouldn't have done this in the first place, lmao" (also the quality of those scanlation from the long far away years of the late 2000s and early 2010s is... too much, lmao). I swear I have objective opinions that looking back I'm disappointed in the author's choices (and got boosted by the anime staff! maybe for worse!), but I have... man, too many subjective/bittersweet feelings about it that I feel they cloud the good from the bad.

(and one of the subjective is about shipping... if you know me from years, YEARS ago, you may know why... it's dumb... it's silly...)

I kinda want to look for the anime's DVD covers but there's a whole issue aside that is "hey, do you remember there was a time that in Japan, home media companies released two versions of the anime series in video and they, for some reason???? they had TWO different covers for the retail edition AND the rental one??" and for ANOTHER different reason? the "first season" of the anime has one of the most space-wasteful "limited edition" DVD releases I have ever seen... and they ALSO have two different covers ASIDE from the "box" itself???? and it's too fsfkkfdkfgfh.

(I wanted to write a whole post aside which basic gist was, look, I bought this other series in DVD in second hand because, FOR my luck, it's not exactly 'too popular' nor too expensive these days, and while the BD Box set from 4 years ago is RIGHT there -although not exactly too cheap either-... the DVDs also contain goodies the BD box set DOESN'T and I WANTED THEM more. BUT, I had to be VERY careful to get the "for sale" ones, because the rental ones ALSO used the same cover, but they don't have the box? thing? and some of these didn't have their obi -or their sellers didn't specifically mention which one was and the pictures they provided were too medium quality I can't-... you get me? And these were six volumes in total of a 12 eps long series, no... what? almost 40 volumes of the one I'm referring here in this whole post first and foremost.... of a series of almost 80 eps)

Also, also, finding users that were into the anime and/or manga and look at what content they had is also kinda hard... it's an anime series from the early 2010s... how many of them are still online and/or abandoned their blogs? (which ones didn't block me, as well, lmao) I already feel a little embarrassed of liking and reblogging some of their REALLY old stuff, I mean...the tumblr tags do not help me here, lol.

I sometimes feel like I want to talk about this series deeply from another perspective, now that I am so distant from the time it finished in the early 2010s... but I feel like I would be too subjective as well (pointing the one paragraph where I mention all my feels about shipping in this series), but I also don't know who ELSE to talk about it these days. It DOES have many goods, but looking back it also had its (objectively) bad stuff.

[predoom]

peteisacreep

Friday, November 26th, 2004

Subject: its a dangerous bussiness walking out your front door Time: 2:09 am. ive been thinking so much about mortality lately. i dont know why. skip this if you are looking for pictures of boys in mario suits. i have been having a hard time of dealing with things on a daily basis. just the most normal decisions seem like so much to me. like i imagine a car crash and then what if you had made the decision to not get in the car or walk. like its always there but not really. i need a scarf and a hood to keep these thoughts quiet inside my head. right now they are telling on splotched eyes. its embarrassing. ive been having dream night after night of dying alone. it is the worst thing i can think of right this second. god. i hope i get it together. i hope everybody does.

EDIT: the glue isnt even dry on the pity party invitations. but i mean "die alone" in the sense of that is what happens to anyone, at least anyone who isnt clutching the hand of the person that loves them at that moment.

there is gonna be an accompanying portion on the back of the new cd--- i dont know know how to explain it... but its definitely going to address alot of this.

123luv ++++: 97 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Wednesday, November 17th, 2004

Subject: after the party theres the hotel lobby Time: 4:16 pm. yeahyeahyeah. we're becoming so l.a. psyche! anyway. i dont have much to say except the weather is radical here. after our chicago metro show on dec 29- we're gonna have an after party and prescreen the release the bats dvd- maybe youll hear about it and stop by. youll laugh. youll cry.

laterskater ++++: 113 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004

Subject: booyah Time: 5:47 pm. ++++: 183 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Friday, October 15th, 2004

Subject: fuck your friends page, cause i said so Time: 12:08 am. ++++: 239 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Thursday, March 18th, 2004

Subject: all the failures die starryeyed Time: 7:18 pm. it`s funny by the time you realize who your real friends are you don`t have any. i`m sorry. please call me. ++++: 69 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Tuesday, February 10th, 2004

Subject: for the record Time: 3:55 am. 1. playing atari reminds me of you 2. i want our feet to look the same for some reason ++++: 22 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004

Subject: so this is sorry. Time: 1:11 pm. we leave on tour today. i don't want to talk about that too much. i just wanted to say to all my friends both really old and ones that i have just met, that i am sorry that i have been such a shitty friend lately. my time is totally consumed and i have not been returning calls or emails or whatever. this is my apology. so thank you for being there, i know i don't deserve it often- when this is all over i hope we still know eachother.

peterabbit ++++: 20 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Friday, December 19th, 2003

Subject: back in bussiness. Time: 9:06 pm. good thing hell is open on christmas. ++++: 32 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Tuesday, November 25th, 2003

Subject: the pity party is officially over. Time: 11:29 pm. i am single if you wanna hang out, bros and stellas.

also, i am moving to another journal at some point so the drama in this stupid one can stop. ++++: 38 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Saturday, November 22nd, 2003

Subject: I.C. you are feeling Drake Time: 1:35 pm. you know how it goes. its been awhile. i hate the fucking drama everywhere. yet somehow i feel pretty attached to it. the west coast was rad. we're making our way back. i think i may be spending thanksgiving on a plane. more for me to complain about. my throats hurting pretty badly and i have van neck from sleeping in it last night. on a positive note i got "my life with morrissey" this documentary on hardcore morrissey fans (bring on the freaks). i'm hoping i might see myself hahaha. tommy two tone might jump on this tour for a minute, you know "jenny 8675309" haha how good?

it can't get much better/worse.

call me up on my cellular phone just to see how i'm doing. it would make my day. ++++: 25 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Friday, November 14th, 2003

Subject: i want my funeral to be a party. play all the hits and dance the night away. Time: 8:14 pm. morrisey.tupac.love,love will tear us apart, yes it will. unbroken. it doesn't go the way you think it does, nothing ever does. mountain drives. scars and middle fingers. club food, club stomachaches. phonecalls that feel first kiss good. northern california nights, southern california hearts. tonight is all about we miss you.

we miss you. ++++: 23 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Monday, November 10th, 2003

Subject: paris hilton sex tape Time: 6:51 pm. it's so weird to be homeless. to throw the dirtiest pillow into the corner of rooms just to get by. i never write in here anymore. i don't really feel the need to anymore for some reason. words feel stuck behind my tongue and my hand. i feel ashamed of how words make me feel and sometimes i want to stay asleep forever.

maybe i'll stop by here again soon.

peter ++++: 7 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Thursday, October 30th, 2003

Subject: pretty boys for secret girls. Time: 11:28 am. so i have been staying up late nights lately. i sometimes want to move where nobody knows my name.

you wanna hold hands and makeout? i think that would make me feel better. ++++: 9 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Friday, October 24th, 2003

Subject: i think hell might have frozen over. Time: 12:11 am. my band just signed to Island/Defjam ++++: 18 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Tuesday, October 14th, 2003

Subject: you only hurt the ones you love Time: 12:17 pm. read: i am having a good time with myself. the drama bites hard, and wood floors are harder. but this is the time of my life. thanks- see you soon. buy me halloween stuff and i will love you forever.

there is a world waiting for us to live in it. ++++: 2 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Sunday, October 5th, 2003

Subject: real good friends, i bet i bet Time: 7:01 pm. saw lots of things lately. shows. friends. i'd go into depth but i am too lazy. i am also tired of defending myself against rumours. so believe them if you want or don't, i understand i bring drama on myself. i understand i put my life under a microscope. i am trying to not let this get to me. sorry i am so bad at calling everybody back, sometimes its harder to not be homesick when you hear someones voice. love peter ++++: 10 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Wednesday, October 1st, 2003

Subject: still making awkward look cool. Time: 5:04 pm. hows this for overdramatic and anonymous: sometimes you need to be sung to sleep. but sometimes you know you can't ever go home to something again.

borrowed and blue, thinking of you. ++++: 3 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Friday, September 26th, 2003

Subject: so just to explain.. Time: 11:34 am. i tried to leave the house to see you. but i couldn't cause i don't fit in anywhere anymore, except out on the road. so i went back to sleep instead.

"i thought you hated girls, like you were on some MC5 shit or something."

"nah, it's not girls, i hate everyone." ++++: 3 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Subject: drag my corpse through the suburbs and show them what they're missing Time: 1:22 am. i have taken to wearing red makeup around my eyes to make myself look washed out and tired.

maybe it will help me get some sleep. ++++: 2 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

Thursday, September 25th, 2003

Subject: i know it is belated but we love you back Time: 11:35 am. happy birthday morgan. ++++: 1 think i'm a creep - what are you thinking?.

[madelinemccoolname]

i was inspired by a youtube video, so introducing

Magnet's Media Mreviews

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-mars-stered and Fast and the Furious (2001)

So lets start by addressing the elephant in the room. Neither of these are kids movies and one of them isn't even a movie. this is because I want to transition this series from "maddie wants to review a whole series" and transition it to "hey this is something I've consumed recently, here are my thoughts formatted like a casual review" both because the serious reviews are harder to write, and because I like writing and like sharing my opinions on things but I've made both too scary in my mind. so yeah not just movies, lets review an xbox 360 game.

Red Faction Guerrilla was an xbox 360 generation open world third person shooter about doing revolution on mars. The remake is the same, though prettier. I realize this is an awkward review to start this relaunched series with, if i said that was intentional would you believe me? the game mostly revolves around the player as mason lastname (no relation) doing odd jobs for the Red Faction, blow up a building, blow up a lot of buildings, blow up a guy... most of this game is blowing something up for somebody. This is because at the time of release, red faction guerrilla was showing off some extremely cool destructible environment and building technology, and they knew what they had was cool and satisfying enough to build a whole game around. This leads to a game that plays well, side quests that lead into story progress that lead into side quests, satisfying gameplay loops, and one of the only games I know that looks worse than it is to play. Sure it has problems, its a ps360 open world game set on a desert planet, it comes with problems, but satisfying gameplay isn't one of them.

On the subject of problems, the story might as well not exist, the music is unmemorable, there are maybe 6 high quality cut scenes in the game and most of them have to do with a racist, native martian scavengers that the game sets up for a long time and then it turns out to be a jingoist caricature of a vague "native" culture that probably should've been cut. the weapons never get as crazy as you'd hope, mostly just different rocket launchers and normal guns, moving around without a car is a pain, the game penalizes you if a civilian npc dies in the same zip code but game good so 7/10

memorable bits: big hammer, dust gun, the terrible propaganda billboards, jenkins the old man that lets you blow stuff up in his car, the call of duty modern warfare missions right at the end, the sequel

fast and the furious

oh my god I'm so much more comfortable talking about a movie. the fast and the furious is a movie about a guy named brian trying to be a guy with a fast car named brian, he wants to get in with another group with vin deasil's character dom, but uh oh, brian's actually a cop, is he going to choose being a cop or being a racer, watch the movie to find out what he chooses just forget about the sequels.

Speaking of forgetting about sequels, what is this plot? so dom and his gang are stealing tvs and dvd players and selling them on the street, and brian is trying to get in with them, to see if they're doing it, in addition to illegal street racing, which they're also doing but that's not a good enough crime. So then brian has to get closer and closer to dom, while examining other racers to see if they did it, and getting close to dom's group while hiding from them also. And the big race "Race Wars" is going on and they wanna win the big race and its actually not that important despite this being a car movie. It's almost notable in how un-notable this "undercover cop who might defect" plot is, except theres also 10 sequels??? and a spinoff? like what do we need to know, where the one guy gets his ADD meds? how many gangs is he going undercover for? you'd think they'd recognize him after a point. or oh shit wait maybe the next movie is about completely different characters and they're all just car movies. anyway I got distracted but the movie's boring 5/10

memorable bits: racism, sexism, homophobia, uh dom's shitty friend who's homophobic and is also dating dom's sister which you'd think he would have a problem with, race wars, brian's shitty cop handler that sucks, the snoozer of a climax, brian maybe dying at the end

[blogger360ncislarules]

On a brief break from filming season 4 of The Chosen, creator Dallas Jenkins agreed to a Zoom call with Deadline to discuss his new berth on The CW and the success of his series about the life of Jesus. He’s dressed the part: Jenkins is wearing a T-shirt that reads My Rabbi Walks on Water, one of several items that he’s now peddling through the show’s merch website.

Like he really needs the money from selling Chosen-inspired coffee cups and hoodies. What began as a crowdsourcing project on the Angel Studios app has turned into a global hit with over 110 million viewers in 175 countries, with plans to make The Chosen available in 600 languages. The series has generated 6.5 million followers across social media, made $35 million at box office in special-event theatrical releases and has spawned best-selling books, DVDs, graphic novels, and yes — walking on water tees.

In June, The CW followed Peacock, Netflix, Roku and BYUtv by picking up the first three seasons of the drama that stars Jonathan Roumie as the King of Kings. (After any theatrical release, the Angel Studios app and The Chosen app still have global exclusive rights in the first window for all existing and future seasons). The second season finale airs Oct. 27 on The CW, and the season 3 finale will on Christmas Eve.

DEADLINE Do you have a favorite statistic that you like to quote when speaking about the success of The Chosen?

DALLAS JENKINS I really do try to avoid caring about the stats because it can distract me from the work that I have to do. I [appreciate the] fact that the show is on The CW, that the show was in the top 10 on Amazon Prime, that the show is easy to watch on these platforms where you normally wouldn’t see a show like ours, and that there are so many people who are watching who aren’t traditional believers. Those are my favorite things. And when I saw The Chosen right next to Cocaine Bear on Amazon’s list, I think that was one of my most proud moments.

DEADLINE The Chosen can now be found on multiple platforms, including The CW. You’ve got that relatively new worldwide distribution deal with Lionsgate. Do you feel like an official member of Hollywood now?

JENKINS I don’t think I’ll ever feel like an official member of Hollywood, but it is great to partner with Hollywood companies on what they do best. There are some things we do that they can’t do, and there are some codes that we’ve cracked that haven’t necessarily been cracked before. We want to get into areas that we wouldn’t normally be able to go, service areas that Hollywood studios might not normally reach or audiences that they might not normally reach. When nitro meets glycerin, the best of both worlds combined! I love having my foot in both waters.

DEADLINE You got an interim agreement to film the fourth season. How were you able to achieve that?

JENKINS Like anyone else, you agree to the SAG terms that the AMPTP currently isn’t agreeing to. We had to do it. We had two weeks left of filming. We wanted to make sure that we could finish and we were happy to tell the world that we agreed to their terms. And when we were the only game in town, quite literally for a period of time, it increased our exposure and awareness around the world. As an independent it made it easier for us to come to this agreement with SAG.

DEADLINE What are your thoughts about the ongoing strike?

JENKINS I understand the struggle from both sides. I’m a creator, so obviously I understand the desire to be rewarded for your work when it’s more successful. I also understand the perspective of someone whose job it is to find financing for future seasons. It is an extraordinarily difficult time. Financing and income are not the same as they were five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It is not as easy as it seems and we can see from our show — which is one of the most viewed shows in the world — it is still difficult to monetize. So there are parts of this dispute that I understand from both sides. I think it’s important that we try hard to put ourselves in the other’s shoes and to see if there’s a way that we can find a middle ground that benefits everybody.

DEADLINE Did I read correctly on a Wikipedia page that you got the epiphany for this series while mowing your lawn? Was that correct?

JENKINS It’s a little bit of a mix. When I was mowing the lawn, I got the idea to tell stories from my own experience and from my own faith, believing that would actually be more appealing to a wider audience, that I was trying too hard to kind of thread the needle. That’s what happened when I was mowing the lawn. The concept for the show came when I was making a short film for my church on my friend’s farm in Illinois. I was coming off of my biggest career failure, not knowing if I would ever make another project again. I was binge watching The Wire on HBO and I came up with the idea for the Jesus show. The Wire is a terrific show. It shows the sociopolitical dynamics, the people on the street, the people in the mayor’s office, the people in the police department. It’s similar to what happened in first century Galilee. There’s political, sociopolitical, religious divisions, and then there are people on the ground. The Chosen explores all of that, the relationships and the divisions. The Wire had a big influence.

DEADLINE Do you have a bible, so to speak, for the whole entire run of the show?

JENKINS Yes, we have a Bible, literally, for the show, but we also have a lowercase bible. We have plotted out the seven seasons. We’re not one of those shows that’s going to wander around. We’re going to last as long as the ratings are decent right now. If you are watching on The CW, as people are wrapping up season two heading into season three. They should know that when we started, we knew where we were going. We knew how this would end. We thinking the seventh season now. I just finished the writing season five because we know where the story goes and allows us the freedom to play within those boundaries. So yeah, we do have this plotted out, just not all of the scripts are written just yet.

DEADLINE When will the crucifixion occur?

JENKINS Season six and the resurrection will occur in season seven. Spoiler alert!

DEADLINE Do you have a writer’s room? Or are you it?

JENKINS There are two other writers. Three of us write every episode. We have a virtual and literal writer’s room that has served us well for these first four seasons and will not change over the next three.

DEADLINE With success comes the requisite criticism and how you have taken liberties with the story. How do you respond to that?

JENKINS We make no secret of the fact and are proud to say we are not the Bible. We are a TV show. Throughout Hollywood’s existence, there have been movies and television shows made about historical figures. There are some people who believe that Jesus and the disciples are the only ones who should never have a movie or TV show made about them. We disagree and so we are not begging people to watch it. If there are people who are uncomfortable with seeing anything that isn’t directly from scripture, we’re cool with that and you don’t have to watch the show. We do believe that what we are portraying, even when it’s not from scripture, is plausible historically and spiritually and culturally accurate. And so as long as we are not violating the character and intentions of Jesus and the gospels, we believe that we have freedom to explore what their lives would’ve been like. That has allowed people who aren’t traditional believers or who don’t read the Bible to appreciate these stories and perhaps want to know more.

DEADLINE Do you have a set list of dos and don’ts? Like, I won’t approach this the way, say, Mel Gibson would?

JENKINS Well, we certainly don’t want to do anything that contradicts the messenger themes of the Bible, but otherwise we don’t really have a lot of rules. We don’t show a white King James version of a speaking Jesus. We don’t want this to feel formal or presented. We’re obsessed with trying to be as authentic as possible, as human as possible. I do think that because of previous Jesus stories, particularly The Passion of the Christ or even some of the ones that aren’t very good or are very boring, the existence of these does give us a certain freedom to break out. When we get to the crucifixion, I don’t have to make it a bloodbath because Mel did it better than I ever could. If I just showed the faces of the disciples watching the crucifixion, that will be emotionally and spiritually devastating. Because Mel already did it, I believe I have more tools at my disposal than Mel did because I’ll have done multiple seasons of this. I’m not trying to compete with anybody else.

DEADLINE You don’t have a lot of competition in this space. There’s not a lot of people like you making this content. Does that mean the bar is low when it comes to appealing to the viewers?

JENKINS I think that we sometimes do benefit from the fact that there is not a lot of content out there that speaks to people of faith. Maybe we get some bonus points for that. That said, we have seen over and over again that audiences that don’t traditionally consider this type of entertainment are moved and loving the show as a historical drama. So you are not required to be a Christian to watch this show. It allows us to stand out even in these arenas that are outside of the faith space. When you’re on Amazon, Peacock, Netflix, and The CW and there’s nothing else like it, people will go, ‘oh, this is different. This is unique.’ I want art to have diversity. So I think that that does help us.

DEADLINE The reaction by some people to your Lionsgate deal was interesting. One person even said that you pulled a Judas. Do you think there’s a fear among your biggest fans that you’re becoming part of the Hollywood machine?

JENKINS I think it’s a legitimate concern that if a Hollywood studio ever has influence over our content, that it would be dangerous and could potentially impact the accuracy or authenticity of the stories that we’re telling. They’ve seen it before. There is a segment of the audience that feels like they’ve been burned in the past. That said, anyone who believes that a distributor helping get this content out to more people is a bad or dangerous thing, is being ignorant and selfish. Anyone who believes that this content is actually good should be cheering for the fact that Lionsgate is our partner. They’re getting this content into areas where it might not normally be. I have no ears for anyone who believes spreading this show out to the world is somehow a bad thing.

[kaythefloppa]

Part 2 of the review is under the cut! Beware of spoilers!

Again, I will re-iterate: This specific animation feels on par with an actual theatrical release (or hell, even some of those polished Disney direct-to-DVD movies in the 2000s like Lion King 3 or Bambi II). It is beautiful to look at.

The only animals that can take down a blue whale are Orcas, but beyond that, yes size does matter when it comes to a blue whale's low mortality rate.

I really find it sweet how this show casually has Chris naming animal friends. The show initially set it up as being Martin's "thing" and presenting Chris doing it as a rarity, but now they just have it as the "new normal" where he can name animals without Martin's influence. The very next episode does a juxtaposition of this where the entire crew goes around naming animals as the plot, but it's not a bad juxtaposition at all.

Also, I really like the idea of them naming baby animals in the language of their region. Maybe it's because I've spent too much time in the Lion King fandom but I find that really unique. (And context: Mambiky means "Jump" in Malgasy).

Since he didn't name the mom, I will: Mihira (meaning "Sing" in Malagasy)

Maybe it's because I hyper fixate on the flash games too much which resulted in me caring way more about the disc colors than I should, but it is so aesthetically pleasing that these discs are blue and green to match their animals' colors and users (I forgot to mention this in Part 1 but the Anaconda Disc should've been green dammit)

I am slowly warming up to these new suits. I'm not even kidding. I like how goofy they are. And once again, this is the same episode where the fucking Wild Pony Suit was in a callback, so of course I'm going to praise these suits.

She plottin'

Those Zachbots get mangled by the enemy literally once a week and yet they're strong enough to chuck this big-ass turtle into the beach?? Also, what happened to that Tortuga disruptor blast, that would be very useful right now.

Also also, the Tortuga can swim. This is the equivalent of throwing a crocodile into the river with the intent to kill it, hoping it won't bite you or swim away to safety.

I did the math. They spent a full minute and 10 seconds focusing on this model of the Earth completely deteriorating. When I first asked, I kept asking myself "What is the point?" I've seen this episode almost four times - Knowing how it ends, I think this episode would have shot itself in the foot if they didn't include this scene. More on that later, but yeah, it is a good scene.

Fun fact: This is the exact reason why Indris are endangered. And for a species that literally cannot evolve anywhere else that, is a keystone species of the very habitat they have gone to evolve in, that is the last thing they need. I'm surprised the episode didn't mention that, but that's just me.

Legitimate question here: Where the fuck is Rex?

No really, where the fuck is he? He's usually the one who mans the pavers while Paisley overviews. We saw him literally just 2 episodes ago. In a vacuum, it makes little sense, but is equally as minute of an issue. But once again, if you know how this episode ends, it becomes a major plot-hole. If they resolve this in a future episode, ideally in the next batch of episodes, fine I'll lay off but there is no reason for him to not be here.

Notice Zach and Paisley's differing reactions to the Kratts telling them to fuck off. This will come into play later, but it is a decent example of a set-up to a pay-off, (again, can only be noticed from a retrospective view). And I think it does help said pay-off.

I know that Zach has tried to kill the bros before multiple times, as with all the other villains but I can't be the only one who was shocked at how the Zachbots almost SLICED CHRIS IN HALF on a kids' show. I actually yelled "oh shit!" a this!

God this is such an asspull it's not even funny...

1. SINCE F**KING WHEN?!?!?!

2. "Theoretically"

BULLSHIT!!!

ZACH HAS LITERALLY DONE THE EXACT SAME THING BECAUSE IT WAS A FLAW. A BUG. NOT A FEATURE. A BUG. THAT HE FOUND OUT. AND EXPLOITED. THAT YOU NEVER FIXED. I REPEAT. BULL. FUCKING. SHIT.

3. If you could do this now, what stopped you from doing it at ANY point in the series??

4. What the fuck happened to the Creature Souvenir collection? All Chris could've done was tell Jimmy to reverse teleport shed anaconda skin back to the HQ and save it for later.

5. What are the point of the gloves if you can hit the rewind button on the suit? Since the animal's DNA apparently doesn't mean jackshit here???

6. Did it not occur to you that maybe Zach, who has done this countless of times before for years on end, would probably be able to undo what you plan on doing, because that's EXACTLY what he does!

7. WHY IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE??? THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE OF THE RING CHIP WAS TO PREVENT THIS. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG WHICH THIS DOES.

This is the woman who invented time travel, I'm being selfish by expecting basic fucking logic to dictate this situation.

So there's a Blue Crab Power Suit now?? Don't you think that would've been more effective, especially since this is the beach?? Will we ever get a blue crab episode?? Does anything mean anything anymore????

Still better than the Mountain Goat Suit.

We stan a self-aware queen (also, replace this image with Dr. Frankenstein and his monster with the same dialogue, you will get the EXACT same effect).

S7 please stop giving me reasons to slander Aviva, it hurts me more than it hurts you.

Petition to have Chris be the new villain in Kung Fu Panda 5, the Chameleon ain't got shit on him.

THis show can be hilariously badass when it needs to be.

And here is a huge contender for the best scene in the entire damn show. These 2 octopuses go out of their way to save Chris from the Zachbot. It's one of those things that is so random that it you wind up liking it so much because of what it does.

Also, I think there was a missed opportunity for Chris to activate Octopus Power here.

I like how polite she was in asking them to leave. At first glance, it's odd and funny, but just wait. We're reaching the home stretch here.

Once again, this is another juxtaposition and one that is so cleverly written. Paisley is obsessed with order, believing nature to be messy and in need of "correction" through building. Her entire belief system being deconstructed by seeing the coral reef being built naturally and seeing its beauty is an amazing bit of dramatic irony that surprises me even for this show. It's an interesting study on the character.. (though the fact that up until this point she's been painfully underutilized, makes previous episodes.. feel kinda downy).

This is another interesting step. Most villain redemptions (well written ones at least) focus on the villain regretting their past actions and acknowledging them to be in the wrong. Whilst that step is (unfortunately) kinda missing in this episode, it showcases something equally enthralling. They change for the better out of a specific concern for the future. As in, "If I stop doing X, then this bad thing will not happen because it should not happen." I don't often see that enough in most shows, so once again, this is a very ingenuitive take on the character. If I sound like a parrot, it's only because this particular moment of the episode is the beginning of the trajectory change for the entire fucking show, so I have to focus on it and how it's written specifically so we can get to the elephant in the room.

There is nothing - Absolutely nothing that prepared me for this moment. I was in sheer denial the whole time, waiting for the catch. I thought it was going to be a fake-out like the one in the Christmas special, or just the villain surrendering for the episode. I was fully ready for a twist. Only to realize that this WAS the twist. They pushed themselves into a corner they can't back out of.

Paisly Paver, is one of the good guys now.

Now, here's the question on everybody's minds? Is this change permanent? I mean, despite Wild Kratts's strong continuity, they do hit the reset button a lot when it comes to some things. Well, in an article by Martin Kratt, he says in a non-spoilery way,

“There is a surprise at the end of the special. I can't tell you too much. But there's a really interesting twist that happens with one of the show's villains in Our Blue and Green World that will change that villain’s arc for the rest of the series.”

....which means that this isn't a fluke or an April Fools' joke (which a few people, myself included initially thought). This is an honest to god change for the show.

How do I feel about it? Well... on one level, I think it could've been done really better. Like, give Paisley more appearances of her as a villain. That way we get used to her being one of the status quo villains. I took count. She has only appeared in 6 episodes of the show, half of which were solo appearances, the other half were team-ups with the villains. That's... weirdly enough far too few appearances for us to treat her as one of our main villains. The writers do seem to understand that making a villain too villainous for too long has the risk of their character crossing the moral event horizon which would shoot themselves in the foot if they ever thought about redeeming such a character. However, on the other side of things, we at least need to recognize our villain as a villain for a redemption to not be jarring, so the underutilization of Paisley brings this down.

Additionally, there's the absence of Rex and the implication it has. He's for some reason not there during Paisley's redemption and has very little to do with the creation of "Blue and Green World" at the end. Does that imply that he is still a villain? That he's not gonna get redeemed? Beyond Dabio, he’s the only villain I would’ve actually expected to get a redemption arc. Paisley and Rex have some of the healthiest relationships out of all the villains, arguably all of the characters. I don’t like the idea that Paisley will just abandon Rex and their entire business in favor of the enemy and this resulting in him them having to fight or worse - him potentially being written off the show. In a future episode that continues to delve into Paisley’s heel-face, turn, they need to resolve the loose ends in regards to that dynamic.

Also, still bummed that my Donita x Paisley ship has gone down the drain along with any chance of them teaming up. Again, if they were going to redeem her, they could’ve at least done that as one final hurrah for the character before doing it. At best, we’ll probably see an episode of them facing off which will remedy the blow a little bit.

But, with all things said and done, the execution is still okay. The way they give Paisley a heel-face turn doesn’t seem all that forced and her first incentive is to do the exact opposite of what she set out to do. Build, to help animals, not harm them. And the set-up they do is pretty clever. She’s less outwardly shitty about it as Zach is, she grills him sometimes, and the purpose of the “rock” scene comes very much into play, tying the plot together in a neat little bow.

And again, the fact that they had the balls to do this and to follow through on it, earns a lot of my respect.

I get that it’s standard for villain redemptions to come with a wardrobe change but this is ridiculous. The colors do not match AT. ALL. I really hope they don’t make this her permanent look, or make Rex’s new wardrobe change anything like this (if he gets one).

Wait... so are they narrating or talking directly to the audience? It feels like I'm watching an episode of Go Diego Go lmao.

I was going to question how the fuck Blue and Green World was allowed to be authorized and made, especially with Paisley's track record, but then I remembered that the Kratts own a goddamn flying turtle and other inventory and shit. Getting the funds for this must have been the equivalent of purchasing glasses for the eclipse!

Tumblr will not let me upload anymore images so some notes:

Some Wild Kratts kids from the earlier seasons! Obviously we can't hear them speak because their VAs are grown up now but it's still nice seeing them again.

Ignoring how allowing a bunch of kids to fully interact with wildlife without major adult supervision can go hilariously wrong here, (gotta suspend my disbelief), this is such a great way of showing how construction can be done without going at the expense of wildlife or sacred places in general. It's a message that I think should be pushed way more!

An instrumental reprise of the musical number without any singing!! Glory be!!!

The closer involves whale tagging. Very exciting.

CONCLUSION:

CONS:

Paisley's redemption missing a few fundamental details (INCLUDING REX BEING THERE WHAT THE FUCK).

The lack of a climax. Like, the trailers hyped it up as this big special and the climax is not a big battle but just one villain saying "nope, no more" and another just fucking off. Maybe it's to subvert our expectations but you could've worked around this!

Paisley's wardrobe change.

Aviva once again having to be dumbed down for the sake of the plot... *sigh.*

PROS:

It still felt big. It felt like a bigger episode with bigger stakes [sorta] and bigger characterization than your regular episode. I'm of the opinion that S7 is the most experimental of the lot so far, because they spent 2 years working out their scripts and animations, and they knew that a section of the fanbase would be waiting so they decided to play by their strengths, but take more risks with it, do things outside of the show's comfort zone to lead it to new heights. It's "out there." This episode is a perfect example of that and for as many times as it misses, it also hits too. I like the animals, I like the suits, the animation, the themes, the morals, the writing, the characters, the settings, the education. On some level, it's everything I've been expecting for in S7.

They definitely raised the bar this season with this special. I'd argue that it's one of the best episodes of the season so far, one of the best two-parters and arguably the best episode of the series. Now that isn't a final verdict, there are several others I like far more, but I would call this the most respectable well-conceived story of the show, and it raised my expectations here. Initially I was worried this episode would potentially lead to the show's downfall but after analyzing it, I think I see good things for Wild Kratts from here on out.

Final Ranking: 8.9/10.

Wild Kratts - Our Blue and Green World: Part 1: Review [Spoilers]

Welp, here it is, the Wild Kratts TV movie (not to be confused with the feature film they've been teasing us with since 2021). There's been a lot of hype around this special and season, especially with how much the latter was being hyped up during the hiatus. Let's see if the blue and green bros were able to deliver: Spoilers under the cut

Well, this is certainly an attention grabber!

This entire live action intro is shot and edited like an animated Wild Kratts episode, it's glorious.

Woah, intro change!

They said the thing! They said the thing!

HELP THIS IS SO RELATABLE. Also, THE BOYS ARE FIGHTING

Lmao I don't think they do it very often, but using animals/nature in their insults is very creative.

Also, whooping crane episode when?

This entire song is mercifully short. Like most character sung songs in Wild Kratts, it's not good, but this at least is clever in its lyrics and its visuals. It feels like a Disney reference at best and I am content with that. I also ADORED seeing the Draco and Walrus Suit return again. It's arguably the best musical number in the series. No, that is not saying a lot.

MARTIN WHY ARE YOU THE ONE WHO'S MIFFED YOU NEARLY MUFASA'D YOUR LITTLE BROTHER

CHRIS WHY ARE YOU MILDLY INCONVENIENCED YOU GOT ACRAPHOBIA FALLING FROM THAT HEIGHT

When I first saw the clip, I thought that they were going somewhere with this, like they'd activate Peacock Powers at the end when they recognized the compatibility and blue and green. But nope. Wasted potential is an understatement.

Also, where the fuck are they right now? In a previous shot there was Target the Chameleon, implying that they've been to Madagascar, but that is an Indian peafowl, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't live in Madagascar. Were they just having an off-day? These animals have little to nothing to do with the plot when they really shouldn't have, so I don't see why they couldn't have just shown a projector image or something.

Remember when I joked about the Wild Pony Power Suit returning in S7.... fuck you Apollo.

Man, they are eating it up with the animation here. It's hard to tell with screengrabs but man, is it fluid.

The first half of this episode is mixed. While it feels like the brothers are incredibly stubborn, it also does make sense for them to be this fixated on their favorites. So I can totally buy this. It could've been insufferable to watch, but it wasn't.

As if YOU haven't spied on them since the first time your dorito-headed ass showed up on screen

Did you find that funny? Because not only do they do a similar joke like that later on, but they follow through on that joke in the most unexpected way you will shit your pants when you first ingest it.

Oh my god if they make a Creature Power Suit off of that bird, I will take back any diss I've made, that is so beautiful.

Good to know that Aviva put the button near the chest and not near the back.

Maybe it's just me but this is kinda pushing it. Chris is literally getting his organs crushed, I think that should matter more than A) being right or B) trying to get 2 people to stop fighting.

I'm loving the callback and what this leads up to but ew, all this does is remind me about how ugly bright the color pallatte in S6. Really glad they fixed it in S7.

HELL FUCKING YES

This episode finds really unique ways of showing how the two different biomes are interconnected. It's like Rainforest Stew's (very brilliantly handled) message only to a larger degree. Kids can learn a lot from this.

I fucking love this episode, man.

Honestly, the way they write Paisley in the first half of the episode is very in-line with her character. Most shows that do what this episode does has them be out-of-character as a set-up, but here, she's just roasting the fuck out of Zach. Once again, recontextualized entirely in the climax.

HOW THE FUCK DID HE GET TO MADAGASCAR FROM THE GODDAMN AMAZON IN ONE AFTERNOON THAT IS LIKE MORE THAN 1,000 MILES AWAY?? ARE ANACONDAS THAT FAST?????

Also, INDRIS!!!!! :D

I was frankly expecting this to horribly backfire but spoilers, it doesn't. This actually winds up working. Common Aviva W.

To be continued.... will the blue and green rivalry end? Will one prove superior over another? And will they be able to stop Zach and Paisley and save the planet earth? And will this change the adventures of the Wild Kratts team forever? Stay tuned for part 2!

Pros:

The live action segments.

The animation of the earth's model.

The musical number not being ass.

Paisely's catty behavior.

The Anaconda Suit.

The inventive ways they show how the stability of the Earth is complex. There are a lot of ways it functions and thus a lot of ways it needs to survive

The comedy.

Cons:

The villains do not do anything until the second half of this episode. In fact, they're left completely in the backdrop. I expected them to make their prescence known and for Aviva to invent the discs to get them together for the SAKE of fighting the villains. But no. It makes the stakes feel hollow, which is the opposite of what they should be gunning for in an hour long special that they hype the shit out of.

CONCLUSION:

It was an "okay" set-up. It did live up to some of the hype it had, but not all of it. Honestly if it wasn't for the second half of this episode, this movie would be mediocre or slightly above average, but no. They do pick themselves off the ground and... they do jump the shark. But we'll get to that next time

[greensparty]

Talking with Ondi Timoner

When I read the news about the Oscar Shortlist of Best Documentary Features it made me quite happy to see one particular documentarian on the list, which is made up of 15 documentaries released in 2022 that will be whittled down to 5 nominees when the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 24. It was a really strong year for docs and I was glad to see Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song and the David Bowie doc Moonage Daydream make the list, but I was elated to see Last Flight Home from director Ondi Timoner. She is one of the great documentary filmmakers of our time. Hands down! I was so blown away by her 2004 years-in-the-making doc Dig! about the friendship and rivalry between indie rock bands The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre after I saw it in the movie theater that I actually reached out to her via her website and she got back to me. I sent her my short film Musician For Hire, which had some similar themes as Dig!, and she gave me some great feedback and we later met up at the Dig! DVD Party in NYC. We have met a few times since and stayed in touch. Since Dig! she has made several fascinating docs such as Join Us about escapees from a cult and We Live in Public about an early dot-com pioneer. Now she has made her most deeply personal film yet. 

In early 2021, following some hospitalizations Ondi’s father Eli (the founder of Air Florida), made a decision to end his life under California’s End of Life Option Act. Leading up to Eli’s final days, Ondi documented her family’s time with him in his home. Ondi’s mother Elissa and her siblings Rachel and David bond with their father in his final weeks and the doc looks at his extraordinary life. It is shot cinema verite style. For me, I definitely got choked up more than a few times while watching it. The documentary premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and has played multiple festivals before MTV Documentary Films released it in Fall 2022. I recently caught up with Ondi via Zoom.

movie poster (with young Ondi in the blue jacket)

OT: What’d you think of the film?

Me: It was amazing. It hit really close to home for me, obviously this is the story of your family and father, but there were many things that hit close to home for me and I got choked up many times throughout the film. But I have nothing but respect for you in telling the story in the way that you did. Not just saying this, but sometimes you see films that just go beyond being a film or a documentary and are more of a life experience, and this is very much one of them. 

OT: Yeah, I feel like it’s more of a spiritual experience from the way people react to it. It affects people so deeply. I had no idea that sharing something so personal would be so affecting. But it’s obviously a beautiful thing. I worried at the premiere what the result would be of putting my family on display in their most vulnerable moments. But the result is it tends to really heal people in a lot of ways. Even if they cry, a lot of people call them tears of joy, that there is a catharsis that occurs that is different than watching a normal film. I’ve just never had feedback for anything in my life for anything I’ve ever made. I don’t know if I ever will again. It’s kind of its own experience really.

Me: Prior to the beginning of 2021 when this documentary begins, did you sit down with your family and discuss making a documentary about this? Or were you filming for the family and then much later thought it would make a good documentary?

OT: I was filming this for the family, that’s exactly right. I was filming it for myself, because when Dad said he wanted to die, that came as complete shock to all of us because he had been such a tenacious and positive person his whole life, despite the stroke. He always rooted for all of us, he never complained. But the idea of it, I mean of course everyone dies, but we never expected for him to elect for that. We didn’t even know there was a law for that, he was just electing for that because he realized he was going to have to go to a facility. That was where he relied on quality of life, because everything he loved was in his house with my Mom and being around the family. That is what kept him going. So when he made that call and decided that he needed to die, I panicked and decided I needed to film. As you can tell in the film I started recording audio right away. I went to see a therapist because I was so concerned that I was trying to mediate the experience or that I was trying to distance myself or that I’d be hurting my family. I thought this must be a terrible idea, but I just felt such an impulse to film. And I had no intention, Eric, of ever making a film. I was always going to make a scripted film about Dad. When you look at the footage or maybe you remember, you see papers on the bed - that’s the script I had written about Dad and that I’ve been working on for years. Because the only archival footage I have of Dad and the airline is about fifteen minutes worth of footage. So people my whole career that told me “wow, your Dad has such an extraordinary story” and it was always my dream to tell his story, but I always believed I’d tell it with a scripted film. So anyways, the therapist, I told “I feel like I have to set up cameras and film my Dad’s final days” and she said “if you feel like you should film, you should film”. So I called my Dad and he said “I instinctively know you’re on the right track”. I didn’t even know what track I was on, but I was on a track that he knew more than I did. He never had us turn the cameras off. I honestly felt like the presence of cameras felt like a relief to me. It allowed me to focus on his care and it allowed me to know that I wouldn’t forget him. That I wouldn’t forget his voice and his personality. It was like a safety blanket or something. More than anything it made pure presence possible. As opposed to taking presence away. I don’t think that would’ve been the case if I knew I was making a film probably. But I also set up that nest camera - you saw that’s a surveillance camera in the scene when Gigi (his granddaughter) comes. I set that up because I didn’t want to focus on the filmmaking process or the process of documenting. I just wanted it to be seamless and visible as possible. So what I did was I set up cameras all around and what I did was I would move them or operated them when other people were with Dad, otherwise I would just turn them on and be with Dad and take care of him. Those were the most beautiful days of my life in a lot of ways. I felt like that was just an absolutely sacred space in that room. I know that Dad was really so happy and at peace to know that we were supporting his decision. That set the tone for the room. He was kind, he was funny with everyone who walked in the room. I didn’t realize that until I started watching the footage when my sister asked me to make a memorial video after Dad died. 

Me: It’s such a beautiful thing that you have all this footage of grandkids, friends of the family, everyone with your Dad.

OT: You know, when my sister asked me to make this memorial video it was only about two weeks after Dad died. I could not believe the footage. I was blown away. She just said “you have footage of Dad, don’t you? Can you just cut five minutes of footage?” and five weeks later we had a thirty-two minute memorial video. I didn’t even leave the room. Dad was alive inside the Avid and I could laugh and cry with him. And I started noticing all of these incredible arcs. I kind of went from daughter to filmmaker in those weeks. I just went - oh my God! There is so much here of all of this incredible transformational material. I knew as we went through it that it was deeply profound, but I didn’t know until I watched the footage that every single person in that room had changed. I so busy as his daughter, trying to host people and make sure these zooms happened. More than anything, I tried to get Dad to realize that he gave us everything because he thought he was a failure and gave us nothing. So I had different goals and trying to get my Mom to face it. I was just caught up in the family. But as a filmmaker I could watch all I wanted in the Avid and I couldn’t stop cutting. After the memorial a lot of the people on the zoom memorial felt like their feelings about death had changed. So I realized this footage was really valuable to people and I realized this is something we all go through. And so I just kept editing after that. And of course my Dad’s arc in realizing he had measured his life wrong and thought that success was based on money and stature. He thought he was a failure and in fact he was a massive success because he had gained all of our love and devotion. He had everyone’s love he had ever touched in his life. That was what really put it over the top for me to share this footage. For me, for you, for all of the people out there to feel like they have shortcomings, this is an invitation to let go.

Ondi Timoner

Me: I have nothing but respect and admiration for you in being able to compartmentalize and say “I’m going to be here for my father and my family” but then put on your filmmaker hat and be setting up the camera and the microphone at the same time. On that note, you mentioned the scripted film of your Dad, prior to his final years, had you thought about doing a film about your father’s life?

OT: I started writing it eight years ago. I wrote the first draft. But I told a producer who reminded me recently that when I won at Sundance for Dig! in 2004, a producer asked, then, what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to make a scripted film about my father. I sort of pitched them the story then. But it wasn’t until I cracked my foot and I was off my feet for a month. In that month I would call Dad everyday and I’d just talk to him and interview him basically and just go through newspaper articles and everything and I put the first draft of the script together then, which I still dream to make. I would love to do it. The whole experience of sharing this emotional film and audiences telling me a lot about their own experiences has influenced the script for me. I need to do another rewrite on it, but it’d definitely my dream project. 

Me: Looking at your filmography, I feel like the through line in all your films is these extremely multi-layered intriguing subjects, i.e. Anton Newcombe, Josh Harris, Russell Brand, Robert Mapplethorpe - whether you like them or not, you’re just fully engaged with what they’re doing. Is that your priority when you’re deciding a film project to take on?

OT: What I care about is telling the story of people I care about who do what they do against all odds, who change the rules along the way. Most of my characters are extremely flawed as you know and I don’t shy away from those flaws. My father is by far the least flawed of all of them of what I call the Impossible Visionaries. But he is also, in fact, he’s my Original Impossible Visionary. He takes on the impossible and he’s not going to take no for an answer. That’s what he did, that’s how he built the airline, that’s how it became the fastest growing airline in the world, that’s how he stayed positive against all odds through his life and kept creating and creating happiness around him and joy for all of us. And being there for us. And to recover from the stroke as much as he did with such positivity. I really hope to make the scripted film because that really brings the 1970s and 1980s part of his life alive. It was a crazy time in aviation and Dad put deregulation through congress and he worked hard to make the skies open to all people no matter how much money you had or how old you were. He had senior citizens and students flying for eighteen dollars. They were called Pleasure Fares and he would offer students a massive discount to fly around. Things like that. My whole life, he’s inspired me to be who I am.

Me: Some of my favorite filmmakers are the ones who dabble in both narrative and documentary. You did the narrative film Mapplethorpe. In addition to your father’s scripted film, do you have plans for more narrative storytelling?

OT: No plans beyond this one, but I’m open. You never know what happens in this world. With Mapplethorpe, it was invited to premiere at Sundance and that was the Director’s Cut. It was on Hulu and now I have to figure out what happened to it, because that’s the complete version, that’s the script that I wrote.

Me: The timing of this interview is incredible because it was just announced that your new documentary The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution is premiering at South By Southwest in March. Congrats and not to jinx anything, but best of luck during awards season with Last Flight Home as well.

OT: Thank you! Well, my Dad is definitely my favorite leading man of all. He’s quite an inspiring character and his wisdom is captured in that footage. I think that’s his gift to me and now it’s his gift to the world.

me with Ondi at the Dig! DVD Release Party in NYC on 4/11/2005

For info on Last Flight Home: https://www.interloperfilms.com/lastflighthome

For info on Ondi Timoner: https://www.interloperfilms.com/about-ondi