#old and modern anime have differences of pacing and all

[randomnameless]

I recently watched some TV and happened on Amazon's Fallout tv show -

I never played the games but I think ultimately it didn't matter that much since the series is pretty self-explanatory, but what I really liked is how the heroine, despite being backstabbed, betrayed and insulted for like, the majority of her time "outside" in the post apocalyptic world where people excuse this sort of behaviour as "doing whatever it takes to survive", she still remains the kind of person who upholds, whenever she can, the values from her sheltered life (lol) in a peaceful community of mutual aid and refuses - unless necessary - to behave like the people who mistreated her.

There's a scene where someone, who used her as a bait to lure a giant mutated fish, forced her to drink radioactive water and I think it's implied had her indulge in cannibalism, sells her to people who traffic human organs in exchange for some medicine - the heroine survives but when she sees her former captor on the ground, on death's door because of the lack of medicine, she still gives him some, because she still believe in the rule she was taught, to not inflict on someone the things you wouldn't want to be inflicted on yourself.

And I liked how this positive/naive way - at odds with the general atmosphere from this "post nuclear world" - is portrayed with shady group of people whom you are led to believe engage in human experimentations and want to keep a secret at all costs... but when the heroine discovers this secret and is found out, the shady group of people, far from executing her... just throw her out of their community, and give her food/drinks to survive outside.

Ultimately, when she meets the person who is the reason why she had to live her "shelter/vault" and venture outside, because that person kidnapped her father and killed people living in her vault - instead of killing her or planting a bomb in the, uh, thing she was supposed to exchange for her father, again, asks her to please return her dad in exchange for the "thing she brought".

Of course plot happens - but where I expected some "I had some life experiences and now I'm #badass and #jaded and #sweareverytenwordstoshowhowbadassibecame", I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't the case.

Maybe it's just the first season and it'll change later on.

And I compared this to the few episodes of some random indian tv show where we follow two policemen dealing with terrorists setting bombs -

In true "early 2000" shows, the officers don't hesitate to, uh, break the protocol and use force to interrogate people - to the point of, when they have to interrogate a grandpa suspected of money laundering, they pick his grandson at school and bring him to the warehouse where grandpa is being interrogated, which makes grandpa talk, of course because the policemen brought grandson as a thinly veiled threat... - and I thought we were back in the era of "gritty" antiheroes who do "bad stuff" but for the "greater good" so they get a pass -

I still don't know if the writers intended to convey this message, but karma striked back when, one of the policeman has to corner a terrorist who, in turn, uses a kid as a hostage.

Of course, being a "nice" person, he puts the kid's safety above his own, much like the grandpa who talked to protect his grandkid, and the terrorist got what he wanted - the policeman was killed, much like the policeman got his intel after threatening grandpa - and didn't kill the kid afterwards.

If you use a kid as a hostage, what makes you think the same thing can't happen to you?

Coupled with the fact that his operation to arrest/corner the terrorists was mounted "outside" of the proper regulations and organisations, because they wanted to strike fast - meant they had no backup and ultimately ended up in a mess, with the death of one of the two policemen and the terrorist escaping - and this is a valid point that is, well, brought out by the female lead to which the surviving policeman has nothing to reply, because she's right.

(I keep my expectations low for the next episodes because of experience)

Anyways, watching those two series really lampshaded that I'm too old for the #dark and #gritty and #realism, and I'm maybe not the only one.

Being kind/nice hero is always harder than becoming dark/jaded antihero, but hey, at the end of the day, if you complain about murdered babies when you already murdered some, are you fighting for the "greater good" or are you just a hypocrite?

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

THERE'S A CASTLE ON THE HILL, AS THE STORY GOES...

As promised, some initial thoughts on the things I loved about seeing this show. Spoiler free, since most of us haven't gotten to see it yet, and under the cut since I do wax a bit poetic...

Cinderella’s Castle is, in a strange way, an exercise in irony. The show is a retelling of an ancient story that is beloved and recited throughout so many cultures, and yet somehow feels completely fresh. The modern take on glam-punk lighting, a score infused with styles from 80s synth to anime, a high fantasy set with the costumes to match, the spirit of Jim Henson lingering through both the puppets and some larger and intangible vibe, a script combining that Starkid humor and Hatchetfield darkness with a whole different style of speaking… all of these beautifully executed elements melted together into something that I’ve never before seen. To take a tale as old as time and make it unique is no easy feat, but Starkid did so with magic and charm to spare.

Like any good Starkid show, Cinderella’s Castle is relentlessly dynamic: fun and tragic and exciting and just-plain-silly, with many twists and turns and character moments will make you gasp or cheer just as often as you laugh. It simply rollicks. The story clicks right along, especially in act 2, but the characters are so distinct and fun that I found myself almost wishing the Langs had sacrificed their plotting and pace just to spend more time hanging with every single member of this ensemble of personalities.

And that’s also a tribute to the actors themselves. Jeff is David Bowie reborn as the impish and fabulous narrator. Jon and Joey bring Hop A Lot and Crumb to life with so much charm and presence that they practically had the audience eating out of their hands from the very first second. Like, seriously, you will not believe how invested you will immediately become in these talking animals. Kim’s Fairy Queen is as radiant and terrible as promised; her portrayal of immortal inhuman power compels and commands and stands fully distinct from the Lords in Black. Lauren and Mariah are delightfully disgusting as the vile but deeply lovable troll step-sisters; you can feel the fun they’re having practically radiating off of them. Curt’s Tadius is dryly funny and put-upon, but also provides a vitally grounding and centering presence in the larger-than-life world of the Lands That Are. His big scene with Bryce is probably my favorite part of the whole show. James Tolbert is nothing short of an absolute STAR as the Prince, stealing scene after scene after scene with ease and charm and more jokes about genitalia than I think any of us expected. Angela once again displays a completely different facet of her never-ending range, exuding such elegance and control even in trollish filth that I do fear that the kids on the internet are going to start calling her “mother” with greatly increasing frequency. "Facade" was an absolute highlight of the night. And of course Bryce anchors, propels, and heightens every scene she’s in with such apparent ease you forget she’s been rehearsing for weeks and isn’t simply Ella herself. Ella is this world’s bruised, brave, and angry heart, and you will absolutely root for her every step of the way as she wrestles with who she is and learns what it means to claim her own power.

This was Starkid’s biggest budgeted show to date, and you could tell. This group of Michigan Wolverines and friends have accomplished incredible things since the Very Potter days of a single door and some cardboard columns, and I’m so proud of how far they’ve come. And yet Cinderella’s Castle, the fifteenth musical in the fifteenth year, still retains some of that core Starkid magic that I’ve always believed boils down to love. You can so often see that love emanating from the performers on a Starkid stage: love for the show, for their friends, for their craft, for the audience’s energy pushing them through. And the sense of love and support and community radiating from the audience is just as palpable. The man sitting behind me last night was at his first ever Starkid show, and afterwards he remarked in awe how that was the best audience he’d ever been in. And all that love isn’t unearned—it is built and it is nourished by a proud history of creativity, of song and of dance and of laughter and tears. And Cinderella’s Castle, I think, is going to prove an installment worthy of both Starkid’s past and future.

Starkid family, Bogs Hollow grants thee Starlight.

[storytellingbadger]

Walking With Dinosaurs 2025: “we think our audience is stupid”

This is not a complimentary review. Beware of misery and spoilers.

In short, all issues circle back to the programme not trusting the audience to get it. Same as a lot of modern film. Explain the joke. Screw nuance. Show your workings. Give an excruciatingly big, face-scrunching wink! It’s dumbed down, not simplified. There’s a cavernous difference.

Let’s get visuals out of the way. Obviously, they’re not groundbreaking. But I’m not going to linger on CGI quality - to me, that’s a secondary issue to pacing/plot/legibility/accuracy/entertainment/etc. That’s just lack of budget. I hope. So put that to the side while the bigger problems take centre stage.

I wasn’t expecting it to be a perfect replica. The original came out in 1999. New facts, new discoveries, new shebang. But if you’re going to base your appeal on it being a sequel of the OG dinosaur documentary, you need to pay at least a token gesture of respect. But it has sod all to do with the old one, aside from the title. Not in format, not in series layout, not in scripting. Not even an updated rendition of the iconic intro.

Missed chance for easy brownie points.

Speaking of format. Personally, I’m really, really not a fan of the modern day dig site cutaways. Not because I don’t want to see that - I bloody do, I want to see every bit of it. I want to see these talented, dedicated humans teach me something new, leave me in awe. Give me a whole programme of that! But I despair of it here on 2 big points.

1: it irretrievably breaks the pacing—and immersion

The beauty of the original was that it was immersive from start to finish. The lack of stop-start means you can get invested in the animals. There weren’t cutaways to dusty dig sites and intelligent people standing around a fossil, pointing and nodding for the camera’s benefit. You saw a dinosaur story based on modern science, and the script/story/visuals trusted you to follow without handholding or storyboarding. What starts as charming in the 2025 rendition becomes quickly irritating.

2: why show dinosaurs when we can kill time with sod all

The real life cutaways are set up to eat time rather than showcase exciting discoveries or professionals at the top of their game. Take Spinosaurus teeth. Conical. Wiggly fish-stabbers. Cool. All that needs in the script is something like a “At first glance, Spinosaurus teeth might not be fearsome bone-crushers like Tyrannosaurus Rex, or flesh-shearing blades like Carcharodontosaurus—but they’re perfectly adapted for snaring their elusive prey.“ Or something similar written by a documentary expert. Cut to Sobek hunting Onchopristis. Ta da. Instead we get a whole modern section of paleontologists finding a tooth, talking about how crocodilian it is, but then never actually explaining why that shape is efficient at catching and holding slippery, thrashing prey. Even if they had, instead of showing the facts at work with the dinosaurs, the palaeontologists are filmed talking about it instead.

Masterclass of tell, don’t show.

These are clever, specialised experts who know their shit. If you insist on cutting to them every 5 minutes, let them tell us something new, not force the poor buggers to give a paint by numbers stilted lecture.

Why not do as many other modern BBC nature documentaries have done, and have the nature documentary on first, then a “behind the scenes” feature with all the real-life work at the end? Instead of this clunky, tedious Frankenstein effort of people trying to look dramatic flying a drone or pretending it never occurred to them before this exact moment that Spinosaurus’s sail may have been used in threat displays. It’s insulting to the audience and the palaeontologists.

Somehow making a dinosaur dig site boring is quite the achievement, I suppose.

The “treating the audience like morons” theme pervades the entire script. It’s stunted and prescriptive, despite Bertie Carvel’s seemingly sincere efforts in making it compelling. Constantly telling the audience what to think instead of setting the scene, dropping facts and trusting us to have the grey matter to understand.

The original was refreshingly bereft of faux theatricality. It wasn’t overtly contrived or exaggerated. Never mind the dinosaur liberties taken in the new one (baby Triceratops dodging a biting Tyrannosaurus on repeat like a Marvel movie because “she’s nimble?” Give me strength.) And god help the eye-rolling cliches, fuck me. I dread to think how many times the line “but danger is never far away” gets used. Could be a good drinking game.

To be clear, I am not a paleontologist. I like dinosaurs, I’ve watched a lot of documentaries and read some books and papers. I’m a sad, wet enthusiast, nothing respectable. But there’s nothing here that made me sit up and go “holy shit.” There’s material in here presented as ground breaking that I recognise from 2011’s Planet Dinosaur, for god’s sake.

Ultimately, this isn’t a sequel to Walking With Dinosaurs. It’s not even an homage. It’s a “that’ll do” dinosaur programme making convenient use of an iconic title. It would’ve been better off standing alone rather than piggybacking off the original, in which it disappointingly falls off the wagon and just looks silly for the effort.

Worth a watch? Sure, if you’re really keen and starved for paleocontent. Easily better than Dinosaur Fight Club or whatever “is Megalodon still alive” bollocks occasionally eating air time. A worthy successor to the Walking With Dinosaurs mantle? Let’s cutaway to my workings…

…

No.

[officialaemondtargaryen]

From Her Knees

❝either we're smoking, or we're drinking, or we're at each other's throats. ❞

Summary: You're in a toxic relationship with Aegon.

Pairing: Modern Aegon Targaryen x Unnamed Female Character (no Y/N)

Word Count: ~1.5 k

Author’s Note: This is a rewrite of an old fic for a different character, but it fits Aegon so well that I had to write it for him. I hope that you enjoy it! As always your support through a reblog or comment is appreciated!

Warnings: alcohol use, language, p in v intercourse, oral (m receiving), mentions of previous domestic abuse, they are so bad for each other.

“You don’t do anything, Aegon!”

That was true.

The words she screamed at him usually were. He knew that, of course. That’s why it pissed him off so much. She was always right and she rubbed it in his face every single time. He had been home less than an hour after the shittiest day and she was already gunning for him.

“When am I ever here?” He spat. “I’m never fucking here! And when I am here, I have to listen to you bitch, and moan, and complain, and I’m fucking sick of it!”

That was also true.

He was almost always working; bearing the cross of being his father's son, forced to live a life he despised. It was exhausting, and draining, and all he wanted to do was come home and rest for the few short hours that he had before he had to get up and do it all over again. She’d never let him, though.

“Oh, you’re sick of it? Boo-fucking-hoo, Aegon,” she threw her hands up in the air. “What are you going to do? Leave? You tried that before, remember? It didn’t work.”

She was right again. How many times had they broken up? They had probably been separated more times than they had actually been together. He broke up with her the night before over something equally as futile, and yet, here he was again.

He just couldn’t stay away.

“You’re such a fuckin’ bitch!” He yelled. “You know that?” 

Yeah, she knew. She always had been and he always knew it. Yet, he stayed, she stayed. The two couldn’t stay away from each other.

They were moths to a flame.

He threw the door open, marching outside to the balcony, cigarette already lit and beer bottle in his hand. He slammed the door behind him, but she didn’t flinch. She was used to slamming doors, used to him in her face. Their screaming fits turned into fist fights almost every single time.

“Yeah, well fuck you,” she mumbled.

She poured herself a drink, swallowing the warm liquid quickly; it burned the whole way down. His silhouette danced along half-opened blinds as he paced back and forth on the balcony. Through the thin glass of the door she could hear him talking to himself; talking himself through hypothetical arguments while waving his hands in the air as he rehearsed. She didn’t even know why she was mad anymore. That’s how it was most nights. Something so small would trigger one of them, and then one sarcastic remark after the other and they were fighting again. The only time they ever got along was when they were both drunk, high, and fucking like animals on the closest surface available.

He was contemplating leaving again. Contemplating grabbing the keys, getting in the car, and spending the night in the gutter of some bar. This relationship was toxic. It always had been. His family begged him to stay away from her; the ‘narcissistic bitch’ they called her. Told him she was no good for him and that all she did was use him for money and sex. No matter how many times he tried to tell them that wasn’t true, they still wouldn’t believe him.

She didn’t want or need money. She didn’t want or need the sex. Hell, she barely wanted him. She could do so much better, they both knew it. She was beautiful and smart, and had everything going for her. Why she was sucked into this black hole of a fling, he would never know, and at times that made him feel even worse; knowing that she- in all of her holier-than-thou attitude and narcissistic personality disorder- she was still the prize of the two of them. He was just some cubicle junkie who only amounted to anything because of his last name, not because he cared.

Not because he was good at anything.

He came back inside when he was done smoking his cigarette and feeling sorry for himself. She was sitting at the table waiting for him. That was it, that was all it took; either he left or it was going to be World War III. He knew it by that shrewd look in her eye. The one that said, ‘you say one word to me, and I’m going to hurl this bottle of Jack Daniels at your fucking head’. He pulled the keys from the counter and started making his way back towards the door.

“Where the fuck are you going?” She asked him, standing up from her seat at the table and placing her hands on her hips.

He rolled his eyes and stopped. He really, really didn’t want to argue with her. He was tired, his muscles were sore, and he was so fed up with her shit. When he turned to face her, he sighed internally. She looked so cute standing there like that. Like at any moment she could just jump on him and claw his eyes out.

He hated crazy, but he loved her crazy.

“Well?” She drew out after not getting an answer the first time.

She was really trying to start something, and Aegon was caught in a cross hair; if he answered her, they fought. If he didn’t answer her, they still fought. If he left, they’d fight when he came back. Either way, there was going to be a fight.

“I’m getting the fuck out of here!” He yelled, knowing that everyone in their apartment complex could hear him. “Away from you and you’re fuckin’ voice that’s like nails on a goddamned chalkboard.”

All he had to do was say ‘I’m leaving’. He didn’t have to add the comment about her voice. But back-handed remarks were his thing, and he really couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it really mattered.

“Oh my voice is like nails on a chalkboard, huh?” She replied. “You aren’t saying that when you’re asking me to scream for you in bed! And trust me, the only reason I would be screaming is in laughter because your dick is so fucking small!”

She was in his face now, not intimidated at all by the way his eyes darkened. His fists were balled. He had hit her before a few times, and he always felt bad about it. But Gods, she was so annoying.

“What are you going to do? Hit me?” She egged on.

He was seriously thinking about it. Shut her up for the rest of the night. She might even pack her bags and stay with someone else for a few weeks. But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. Instead he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into him, crashing his lips on to hers. It didn’t take long at all for her to wrap her legs and arms around him.

They wasted no time; Aegon pushed her up against the wall, unbuttoned his jeans, pulled her panties to the side, and spit in his hand to wet the tip of his cock before he pushed himself into her. She gasped, fistfuls of his hair. Her mouth hung open as he pounded into her, slamming her up against the wall with each thrust. Her heavy moaning in his ear only added to the built up frustration that he needed to take out on her. She nibbled at his ear lobe, sending a shiver down his spine.

“I fuckin’ hate you,” he groaned in between thrusts.

Aegon pulled out of her and forced her down to her knees, shoving his wet cock into her mouth. She sucked the taste of herself off of him with pleasure before he pulled himself out and slapped the tip against her cheek, exploding on her face. He stood there for a minute, riding out the climax as she licked the dripping seed from his shaft. Then, she looked up at him from her knees; the sticky white liquid covering her face as she smiled. 

This was why he couldn’t stay away.

She stood up, adjusting her clothes, and wiped the semen off of her face with the t-shirt she had pulled off of him. Aegon fixed his pants and plopped down on the couch.

“Grab me another beer, would you?” He asked after a yawn.

She resisted the urge to laugh out loud. “Get your own fucking beer.”

“You’re so ungrateful!” He replied.

“I’m ungrateful?” She started. “I fucking cook your meals, wash your fucking clothes, do your fucking dishes! And what do you do? Nothing!”

She suddenly realized why she was mad at him in the first place.

“Here we go again,” He replied with a groan. “For the last time, I’m never fucking here!”

[deadtiredghost]

Tmnt facts that are canon cause i said so:

All Leo's are sci-fi fans of varying degrees of old sci-fi series/movies

But MM!Leo thinks the old movies are old and thus has no major franchise to obsess over, he is just big into any of the more modern movies of the genre: I'm thinking Interstellar, Blade Runner, idk many more. And then he started watching Final Space and eventually got into Futurama.

But he still would think the other Leo's are old and a bit lame for enjoying old anime so much.

All the Donnie's and Leo's are the musical fans, but that doesn't mean that Raph and Mikey can't enjoy a musical too! Especially 2003!Raph who grew up watching shit like high school musical and teen beach movie with Leo and Donnie.

The 2003 boys all teamed up to sit on Mikey and tape Mikey's mouth shut cause he would dramatically and badly sing the songs otherwise.

2018 crew are hard into Hamilton of course while 2012 have a knock off version of it that flopped but Mikey loves.

2003 have a musical version of Lost Boys and Faries that could possibly be comparable with some rap songs and some emotional ballads.

Bayverse and MM have batman while 2018 have a weird mixture of some irl media and some really obvious knock offs. 2012 has Wingnut and Silber sentry as comics to replace Marvel and DC in their universe and we all know how 2003 is on superheroes.

All the Mikey's are naturally talented at drawing apart from 2012 who's skills apparently just got transferred to literally every single one of his siblings.

2012!Mikey's writing looks like chickenscratch and his drawings are chaotic in an abstract art kinda way, while 12!Leo can draw anime, 12!Karai is decent at drawing anything reallt, 12!Donnie preffers skatching items and backgrounds rather than people and 12!Raph is the one who does art the most in the fam.

The 1987 turtles are stuck in 1987 and have been since 1987. They like crossovers for the change of pace but 87!Raph and 87!Donnie very much dislike how other turtles have treated them in the past so take any and ever chance to fuck with their alternates in retaliation, feigning innocence well enough that they keep getting away with blatantly insulting their iterations to their face.

Leo is the tea drinker in the family across iterations but most of the iterations don't drink coffee - rottmnt gets into coffee wars (sans Leo and Splinter) but other than that 2007!Donnie and Bayverse!Raph are the only rabid coffee drinkers.

most of the Donnies drink energy drinks if they want a caffeine boost - the nonbinaries and their Monster especially.

The MM kids aren't allowed coffee because Splinter read a watched of child-raising YouTube videos and banned it. Of course that doesn't stop them from sneaking out. MM!Donnie is trying to convince him to allow coffee while MM!Raph just sneaks in his energy drinks.

2003!Casey was convinced the turtles were adults for at LEAST the first month into their friendship.

The ampunt Mikey wears stickers is directly proportional to the amount of leeway Splinter gives him - with the used-to-be-human Splinters being more strict on not personalising his weapon while the used-to-be-rat Splinters such as MM gives the go ahead.

The outlines of this rule are 03!Splinter and 18!Splinter of course who have entirely different ways of handling their adhd child.

And then there is bayverse!Splinter who said fuck the stickers, yes of course my 15-year-old children can have tattoos.

(And yes I firmly believe they were 15 in the first movie, and I attribute their tattoos to Splinter not really seeing the harm in it, or caring much as long as it won't hurt them.)

18!Leo is biologically the eldest but no one knows this apart from Draxum who will never tell at this point. Splinter aged them based on size.

On the other hand, 03!Leo is the biological youngest but only Donnie knows this (science shit to find it out) and will never tell anyone because he found out that 03!Mikey hatched first and that information can never be allowed to get to the turtle in question.

2012 Casey is transfem but doesn't know it yet and 2018 Casey is what 12!Casey will look like at 20.

All Donnie's watch anime and all Mikey's watch horror movies - despite how much they may or may not scream at the horror movies.

07!Mikey sells art online and 07!Leo becomes a language tutor in their 20's. Ironic as 12!Raph attempts to sell art online but becomes too emotionally attached to his work and 12!Donnie attempts to tutor for a time but is a terrible teacher.

Leo is a basketball or baseball fan, Raph likes wrestling and basketball, Donnie will partake in basketball or volleyball and Mikey prefers dancing but is open to playing anything... just not watching.

Splinter always watched the tennis, becuase his grandmother did. Leo likes to put it on but doesn't like playing it.

Mikey will forever be confused why the others enjoy watching sport. This stemms from when he was 12 and trying to watch his cartoons and Splinter would always take control of the TV during the Olympics. Mikey is still very salty and has an agenda against the Olympics and any other big sports match on their communal TV.

All the Leo's before 2012 just didnt use the Internet or any electronics as a kid and thus struggles with electronics massively.

Conversely 2012 and 2018 Leo were both on tumblr as kids and read fanfic about Space Heros and Jupiter Jim respectively.

And in addition: Donnie was on the Internet far too much as a kid.

(12!Donnie will never tell but 12!Mikey befriending Chris Bradford on Facebook hit a bit too close to home.)

After Don, Raph is the best at mechanics, other than 18!Raph who is kinda shit at them.

Splinter taught all of the turtles first aid but Raph and Mikey are patched up the most by the other two, which leads to the other two being more confident and skilled at first aid.

Leo's first aid experience is very much similar to an army medic, using improvisation based on his prior knowledge without any of the proper hospital procedure while Donnie's is much more based on his research into medicine and thus much more clinical.

The outliers are the 18!kids cause Donnie finds biological shit kinda disgusting unless he HAS to do it.

And then there is the 87!turtles who don't really get hurt for longer than an episode's run time. Despite this every single one of them are able to accurately and skillfully carry out any medical procedure should the need arise becuase cartoon logic and convenience. It is a skill they have and its usually 87!Donnie ordering them about while 87!Raph plays nurse.

Mikey and Raph spray paint together sometimes in all iterations other than 87.

87!Mikey and 87!Leo have never kmowingly committed a crime.

Mikey looks up to Leo most out of his siblings, and Leo would look up to Mikey in turn if he could get over the jealousy towards his youngest brother.

There is not a single itteration where Leo doesn't sometimes kinda wish he could be more like Mikey - he has never voiced these feelings and hates that he feels this jealousy.

If you wake Leo up from sleeping he will be alert, a bit grumpy about it, but will never turn you away. He rarely gets a full good night's sleep anyways, ans becuase of this he is prime target to bother when he is awake... up until they turn 14 where Leo gets into the habit of pretending to be asleep so Mikey doesn't bother him and starts meditating until he falls asleep.

The prior headcannon excludes rottmnt and mutant mayhem.

Mikey starts bothering Donnie more and joins him in the lab late at night a lot.

If you dare to disturb Raph's beauty sleep you will get a pillow to the face and a shouting to at the least.

Everyone of the turtles loves Kung Fu Panda or whatever similar movie exists in their world. They won't admit it but its because Poe reminds them of Mikey.

Raph maintains that he doesn't like physical contact much to get out of hugging the sweaty humans in his life. He is actually fairly chill with hugs he just hates the feeling of sweat on his scales so much, and learnt that the hard way when Casey brought him in for a hug after a fight and he shoved him off and blustered a bit. But any of his siblings hugging him is fine, he only ever shoves them off out of annoyance.

Donnie is the least huggy turtle, but he will sometimes lean his full body weight on April - which is fine in most iterations but some cannot handle the weight, I'm looking at Bayverse.

If Mikey were a human he would be a borderline nudist when home and everyone who lived with him would complain about it.

Like [insert hair covering here] and a fluffy dressing gown from when he was 9 wrapped around the waist if you're lucky.

[marieracingteam]

Till then I will forever miss you – sv5

Sebastian Vettel x reader

word count: 1588

summary: In which Sebastian Vettel knew he couldn’t be friends with his ex-partner until he got his priorities straight.

The news about Sebastian Vettel’s retirement was out and everywhere. His video has already been shared more than a million times in the few days it has been out. So he guessed anyone with a minor interest in the sport knew who he was and what the future looked like to him now.

Or at least what they imagine his future would look like.

The reality is that not even Sebastian knew what life had in store for him.

He was a divorced thirty-something, with three daughters who lived away from him most of the year and an apartment that made him feel like a caged animal. He had 4 world championships and a full passport, but he also had 35 years behind him in which he felt that he had achieved nothing in his personal life.

He could try and blame his fast-paced professional life for his half-hearted personal life, but he couldn't deny that he was mostly to blame for his failed marriage to a wonderful woman, his poor parenting of wonderful daughters who adored him, and his too-modern home in a city he hated.

Since his divorce, he had dedicated all his energy to racing and fast cars, but he quickly discovered that his heart wasn't in it either. So he obviously knew that he should retire and leave that seat free for someone whose heart was at the wheel.

The worst thing was that Sebastian knew where his heart was, he just didn't know how to get to it. It just had been lost since 2015.

Without it, he had been floundering ever since. He had moved, he had pursued a different lifestyle, he had gotten married, he had even changed teams trying to find it, but he always knocked on the wrong doors only. The truth was that the closest he had been to happiness had been when his daughters were born, but by then he was no longer the man he wanted his daughters to learn from.

But now, he thought. Now he was free of the chains to which he had bound himself. Now he was finally starting to realize his mistakes and taking the right steps to correct them. Now he was ready to be the man he wanted to be, for himself and, most importantly, for his daughters.

After the last race of the season, Sebastian took the first flight to his native Germany and completely left behind his past life and the mistakes he had carried in it.

He bought a house in the country as he had always dreamed of and painted rooms with children's motifs for small beds and toys. He adopted a dog as his psychologist had recommended. And he dusted off the old cell phone that he always carried with him.

It was a long shot and he knew it, but it was the only thing he could think of to find peace and happiness.

In those long eight years, there was a good chance that she had changed her number or blocked him. Maybe she too had gotten married and had a life away from him, probably better than the one he could offer her.

Maybe she had forgotten him. Maybe he should have forgotten her.

But there was no chance, however remote, that he could live in a world in which she did not occupy his thoughts at all hours. He'd been a stupid kid when he'd let her get away thinking he could do it.

He had promised her father that he would do right by her and that is what he had tried to do all his life since he met her in school. His problem had been thinking that he was doing it when he let her go so that she could find happiness away from his chaotic life when she wanted to start a family and he could only think about lifting the championship cup with the red team.

He had been a fool thinking a trophy could give him more than a life with her and even more so for believing that she could be happier away from him.

And all for what? To end up forming a family far from hers? To have his heart searching for something that he knew he would only find with her? He was a fool and he had paid for it by being miserable for the next few years, thinking that his repentance was not enough to deserve her back.

Now, something about him had changed, although he wasn't sure what at the moment. He knew now. It had been the robbery he suffered during one of the Grand Prix he raced in which he lost the photo he kept of her in her wallet. He had hundreds more hidden in his house, but that one was special. That had been a gift from her after graduating from school, a photo that her parents had taken of them to remember their last day as classmates, and that she had wanted him to have to remember her if they were not classmates at high school.

Losing that photo had been the last blow he needed to get her life back in order. When he retrieved the empty wallet he could only kneel on the ground and cry for the life he had lost. And when he found it after hours looking for it in all the garbage containers in the city he knew to do something, even if it was for nothing.

Less than a year later he was a different man. What remained to be known is whether she was also a different woman. And what that meant to them.

After breaking up their relationship, they both accepted that they couldn’t be friends. Not when they knew what it felt like to be more. Not when they had never been friends.

Since they were six years old they had been best friends, lovers, confidants, each other's other half... but never friends. Now they were nothing, not even acquaintances who follow each other’s lives on social media. Despite having let her be free to find happiness elsewhere, Sebastian knew that he couldn't bear to see her happy away from him.

He thought he was sacrificing himself for her when in reality he had just condemned them both.

However, now he wanted to change it and his only asset was that old phone that he had kept as his most precious possession.

The only number still saved there was the one he used to call at all hours and that he still had memorized.

By the fourth ring, Sebastian was convinced he had lost his last hope. But she had always told him that a fifth championship awaited her. And there was no better victory in his eyes than that fifth tone that she cut to make way for the voice that always accompanied him.

“Hello?” she whispered in German.

“Hello” he whispered back and he felt like coming finally home “I didn't know if you had changed your phone number”

“I did” she confessed “but I kept the phone in case you ever called”.

Sebastian completely forgot the paper he held tremblingly in his hand with everything he wanted to say written down when he heard her.

“You did?” he dared to ask.

“Of course,” she said “who could I not?”

“I didn’t hope you would wait” It was difficult to hear her with her racing heartbeat in his ears, but Sebastian did his best to memorize every one of her words.

“I have always waited for your love, Sebastian”

At that he couldn’t hold any longer the tears that begged to break free from his eyes. A sob left his mouth. What had he condemned them to when he chose for her?

“Everything's fine. We have a lot to tell each other, it's fine. It was difficult for me, but I understood why you did it. It wasn't our time, we didn't know how to align our dreams. But I felt your love in your sacrifice. Everything is alright.”

Sebastian could only nod even if he knew she couldn't see him. Words could not come out of his mouth with his body paralyzed in the only chair he had for now in his new living room. That photo that she almost lost on her knee staring at him.

“I’m back” he gathered the strength to say.

“I know” he answered.

“I came back for you” was his time to confess.

She laughed timidly at that and more tears escaped his eyes. “I know”.

“Can I see you?” he begged.

There was a lot he hadn't asked. He didn't know anything about what his life had been like in those eight years, so he didn't even know if he could ask that question. But he had to do it now that he had worked up the courage to do it.

“Sebastian... I also tried to look for you elsewhere” she whispered again, probably afraid of what those words could mean for both of them.

“I don’t care, liebe. There's nothing you can say that will make me love you less”.

“I have my two boys with me till next month” she said.

“I have my daughters with me next week for a month too”.

She laughed again and he knew she also felt it. He knew that she felt that everything was fine now, that everything was finally falling into place.

They will be fine.

[franki-lew-yo]

Chicken Run 2 things I did really like:

It's a fun and small nod to irl chicken farming, but I like that the pen the chickens are kept in in Funtime Farms is an indoor pen. That's how modern poultry gets by on the "free range" excuse.

Genuinely appreciate how much and how well this movie states Ginger's awesomeness through Rocky or other people. It's not too distracting and it's earned. She is the iron chicken and it's a good way to hype up the character without telling you rather than showing you. God. I love Ginger.

Nick and Fetcher needed more scenes with Molly because them being attached and joining in just to save their "niece" is adorable and a great expanse on their characters. Good.

Rocky was a great dad and way better written than the original but still very much Rocky. That's how you do a 'wrote a potentially problematic love interest 20 years ago now here's them updated for modern ''wokeness' standards,' PIXAR. I liked him being both a hinderence and an accessory to Ginger. Shows why and what I like about them as a couple. I especially like how, without even showing you, that Rocky was the one to tell Molly what she needed to know but did not expand on just how traumatized Ginger really is from her ordeal. That's both in character and a believable thing a parent would do when their kid is simply prodding about their past, rather than directly asking their parent. Also, given it's Rocky and he already didn't have a perfect sitch going on as a circus animal, he probably didn't hype it up as perfect but more or less leaned into how adventurous he and Ginger were.

Ginger and Molly and their whole plot of not understanding each other was fine. Ginger being an overprotective parent who never wants to leave the island now and is enforcing her flock never to leave works better here than in contrived direct to video movies like Lion King 2 or Little Mermaid 2. The annoying thing about these kinds of stories is, simply put, the audience is screaming at the parent to just better communicate with their kids, especially when it's not like Ginger is too haunted to talk about the farm to other characters. What was needed, I think, was real establishment that Molly knows her mom escaped from a farm but doesn't truly know what a farm is and what would happen to her on one. Maybe also have it clear that Ginger is so set on being a "free chicken" she refuses to even talk about her past with Molly- somehow thinking that her old life before was beneath what she is now, even though she was the one who escaped from it and was always worth the lifestyle she deserves. Would be a great call forward to Ginger's slight (understandable) apathy for chickens outside her flock that would come full circle to her being the character she always is and is best at. Over all I liked her, Rocky and Molly a lot. I just wished I could have heard Julia Sawahla instead.

Pacing actually moved decently for once for a modern animated kids film. That's impressive, especially for a sequel.

Mrs. Tweedy saying she "gave Ginger everything a hen could ask for" was really illuminating for her character. Really, much as I wish this wasn't the same character, I love Mrs. Tweedy wanting revenge on Ginger. On a chicken. Her dialogue revealing that she thought the life she gave the chickens on her old farm was "good" for them tells you so much about her and how she sees herself as a good farmer only if she's a successful farmer.

Haha the ending shot is perfect.

Okay one thing about this movie- this may be actually be a bad thing depending on your diet choices -this movie makes me actually really hungry for chicken and chicken nuggets. This whole franchise isn't inherently vegetarian or trying to be anti meat, granted, but that is the take away from the character's perspective given that they are the chickens. To put this a different way: the first movie makes eating chicken really unappetizing from the beginning with the "roll call" scene and the pies the chickens would potentially turn into, over the top as it is, also unpleasant. You definitely don't get anything close to the "roll call" scene in this film. A chicken does die but it's all so offscreen it has no impact, so when she's cartoonishly instantly turned into nuggets that Mrs. Tweedy eats, you don't feel anything...you kind of wanna eat the nuggets. Apologies to any chickens reading that. Here, have some happy chickens to counteract the pain:

[coldbrewghoul]

Finding Your Style

or what to do when you reach a point where you don't love your art

TL;DR: Study the basics, study different art styles, experiment with technique/mediums, don't prioritize consistency over growth!

How One Creates a Unique Style

Whether we realize it or not the style we draw in is usually a combination of styles from artists we admire. There can be a lot of pressure online to be Unique and a lot of misunderstanding about what counts as plagiarism. The truth is, everyone’s style was influenced by other artist(s) and accepting that allows you to be active in your style's development and mix your inspirations together to create Your Unique Style.

When One Used to Like Their Art, but Now... Not So Much

This usually happens when you reach a "Growth Plateau." Especially if you do art professionally there's a lot of pressure to be consistent which can prevent you from trying new things or updating your style. Boxing yourself in and not allowing yourself to keep developing new art techniques can actually lead to art block or feeling like art has become a chore.

Additionally, our "artistic eye" and our art abilities do not always grow at the same pace. This means you may look at your art and see errors or not like the style, but don't have the knowledge to change it.

Let's Get Started!

Both creative issues can be fixed the same way!

Go Back To The Basics:

While most basic art exercises can be a bit boring, it's really important to have a good foundation for your art to grow from. Even if your art style is rubber hose cartoons, don't ignore studying realism or the basics! Knowing how something is rendered realistically helps make sure your cartoon art style doesn't enter Uncanny Valley territory. And if you already have that foundation, it's still a good idea to refresh and see if there's any room for improvement.

For anatomy try gestures, figure drawing, or body part studies - there's a lot of great YouTube videos. You can also do line and shading exercises, studying different light types and sources - I usually use Pinterest tutorials to practice with.

Do “Recreation Exercises”:

Find a style you like and try to recreate it as accurately as possible. These practices aren’t meant to be shared or claimed as one’s own - it's for private learning purposes only. While there may be some controversy about this learning method on the internet, this is a very normal and common exercise done in art school. Usually it's done with art by the "Old Masters" but if you want to practice something more modern guilt-free you can find an artist that posts tutorials on how to draw in their style.

Afterwards, try mixing and matching what you practiced recreating into a new style. For example, the nose from one artist, the eyes or proportions from another. The more you make each element of your art inspired by a different artist the less derivative of one artist's work it will be. Keep mixing it up, adjusting to your liking, until eventually you have your own Unique Style that you're comfortable with.

If you already have a style and you just want to grow it further, doing this exercise should allow you to see what about your own style you're unhappy with and adjust.

Try Different Techniques or Mediums:

If you're a predominantly digital artist this can either mean breaking out the sketchbook with some good ole graphite, finding a painting tutorial, or even just testing out different brush sets. Basically, whatever it is your comfortable doing while creating art do something different. Instead of clean lines, try messy sketch lines. Instead of cell shading, try soft shading or crosshatching. Play with proportions! Anime, realism, cartoons, and comic book styles all teach different proportions for bodies and faces so have fun changing up whatever proportions you're used to using. Get out of your comfort zone and try new stuff!

The main way to develop your art style or get over a growth plateau is to take risks and adjust your style until you find something satisfying.

If you do art professionally or publicly it can be easy to get stuck in doing art the same way every time, prioritizing consistency over growth. Even if you don't change how you do your commissions because you're worried about it affecting your business you can still explore your personal art. Even if you have a queue of commissions it's very important in preventing art block to do art for yourself as well, both for your artistic growth and mental state.

[echantedtoon]

Demonstober Day 29 Werewolf

In folklore, a werewolf[a] (from Old English werwulf 'man-wolf'), or occasionally lycanthrope[b] (from Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος, lykánthrōpos, 'wolf-human'), is an individual who can shape-shift into a wolf (or especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or the occasional scratch from another werewolf), with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon.[c] 

(Genya and Y/n are both 20 for this so slightly aged up Genya.)

Tagging: @lavenderdropp @six-eyed-samurai @trancylovecraft @shadyd3ar @cherrysuzaku

@nousija @mspurpl3

Remember if you want to be added to the spooktober taglist lemme know

You really should've just stayed home tonight but no. You just HAD to go to that party. You just HAD to offer to stay late to help clean up. You just HAD to decide to walk home to save money. And you just HAD to decide to take the short cut through the woods home to save you time. Well now you were lost in a stupid costume from the party and stranded in the dark!

The moon shined red as blood tonight as shadows moved.

Quiet night. Unholy night of beasts. Feasting their sights upon the stray women who dare stay out at night when the full moon rises, lighting the pathway for the beasts to claim their prey. Gnashing teeth, snarling fangs waiting to take a bite into innocent flesh where the terrible claws miss. Waiting to snatch you away down into their dark abyss never to return. She was none what so ever concerned about traveling alone tonight. She had better places to be and anyone who dared be foolish enough to tangle with the night would never be heard from again. One look at it would deter most creatures away. But hier business was not with them.

You shivered in the wind that picked up clutching your phone and the small bouquet of flowers closer as you rubbed your shoulders in a vain attempt to bring what limited warmth you had back to your body.

Partially through what was left of the limited moonlight, you passed by some wild trees that made your stomach flip but it came a different feeling.

The feeling of being watched.

It didn't start out that way. At first it was just an aspect in the back of your mind you brushed of as paranoia of the manor's old ghost stories echoing in your mind. The feeling first came around when the sun had just started to set and it wasn't strong enough to warrant anything more than a two second thought and hand waving them off. However thing's changed. The sun soon disappeared over the horizon to be kissed good night by it's counterpart, the moon, and the walking woman was glad that it was a full moon, for it brought moonlight strong enough for you to see the pathway as your feet continued to walk. With it came the feeling but tenfold. You've only felt this way before back at Zephyr University whenever someone wanted to get your attention, that same feeling also returned with the feeling of being followed, but every time your head snapped over your shoulder towards the Darkness behind you....

There would be nothing.

Literally nothing. Nothing but the cold wind starting to pick up. You brushed it off as just your paranoia getting the better of you and you set your jaw against the wind. There was nothing there anyways so what did you have to worry about?

You shivered letting shaking your head. It's just shadows in the dark and your mind playing tricks on you. It urged you to walk faster and faster. 

"Come on, Y/n." You thought to yourself with a shake of your head and a deep inhale. "You're just being irrational is all. You need to get your barrings and figure out what to do with a clear head."

It was probably just an animal. Yeah. The world was full of animals so they must've been a deer. Footsteps fast approached you from behind as you walk. Just a deer. A very BIG deer! You picked up the pace walking and walking soon turning to sprinting with the fast footsteps right behind you following you through the dark forest until you got to a clearing. You ran until you made to the middle of it before sharply stopping and snapping around- 

Only to be met with nothing.

Your lungs heaved as you stared at the dark trees behind you with nothing but limited moonlight and shadows. You heaved at the silence other than the rustling of wind through the leaves. Nothing was behind you. No footsteps. Nothing was chasing you. Just..Nothing was there. You inhaled before giving a large sigh of relief before turning around.

And your shriek echoed throughout the night as you were met with shattered blue and yellow eyes.

A. GIANT. FIGURE. WAS. STARING. AT. YOU!!!

A beast of large dark furred mass. Riding up high with the height of a bear, two yellow eyes gazing down at you as another shriek called out into the night.

She didn't hesitate for a moment. Not even a second. Not when the woman turned around and RAN.

Every runner knows that the first warning sign of danger is a sense of dread, a feeling of impending doom. You are about to run away from a monster. But how do you prepare for this? Y/n had always hated dark forests with its lumbering tall trees. It was a place where she felt fear. The dark teased like taunting bullies, each sway of a branch creaking it's maniacal glee and every whistle the wind whipped by your ears whistled their sick pleasure in watching her panicked state of mind. THUD, THUD, THUD!! Went the sounds of her heels against the GROUND ground and curling tree roots, like spiderwebs under her feet, ready to snag her and make her join the abyss any moment. The darkness caged you in with the mockery of noises, a canopy of night shrouding the way out. But for now you only knew one thing.

RUN.

Your body felt light, only being able to feel every time your feet slapped against the ground which would surely be sore later, but you didn't care. You could be hurting for the next ten years for all you cared! Please gods just let you get away! Your eyes darted around for any signs of escape only being shown endless darkness instead. Your only hope was to get back to Taylor! Or to get back to the manor! A place you could at least take refuge. Your arm were partially extended in front of you, to push and swipe down any bush, branches, and other plants in your way as you ran, other hand holding up your dress in a vain attempt to keep from tripping. Stumbling and half tripping over large tree roots and clumps of grass in your wake, but still making good distance. Until the burning in your lungs threatened to make you drop, and you were forced to start slowly down step by step until you were hugging the side of a tree for life, your arms desperately gripping the rough bark until the imprints were deep in your palm and your knuckles were deep white, forcing your body to step around the tree until you reached it's front and you hid yourself behind it from the direction you just ran from. Your back hit the hard tree and your head tilted towards the heavens, hands clutching your pounding heart. And there was silence other than the mockery of wind and branch creaks. Your throat and lungs were on fire. Your heart pounded almost painfully in your chest. And you did not dare move in fear of seeing that-...that-....MONSTER somewhere behind you.

That-....That wasn't real r-r-right? It COULDN'T be real! It was just a figment of your imagination projected by your fear! T-That must've been the case!...But then..How were you able to make contact with it if it was just a hallucination? You felt your hand make contact with that thing's grip and you felt the struggle you gave. You stood there, shaking harder than a tree in a tsunami in dead of winter. Other than the gasps of air your body forced you to make, you dared not make a sound. Not a noise. The whole time you stayed perfectly still as ever so slowly your heart rate decreased the longer the silence went on and the longer nothing appeared. Slowly your lungs and throat's fire extinguished with the help of the cold wind you swallowed, and what was left behind was just a dull soreness. The rapid beating of your heart calmed slowly until it was just a little above what it would normally be beating. Your eyes slowly regained focus from the sheer panic. And your body calmed down but not your mind. Your mind still raced in fear from what you just saw and you stared straight up at the creaking branches of the tree you hid behind. The panic still clear and making you do nothing but listen in anticipation, like a rabbit hiding from a pursuing fox. But still...nothing but silence. And when your eyes slowly looked to the right and your face followed until your cheek and side of the face was pressed against the rough tree bark awaiting for any sounds, but nothing still came.

It was a stupid decision...A bad one really but-..

You slowly scraped your back against the back of the tree slowly inching your way to the side of the tree, and ever so slowly, poked your head out. Not all the way. Just enough to look out at the direction you ran from and saw...nothing. Nothing but darkness and trees. And that made you pause. There was...nothing? Nothing at all? Slowly you pushed your head fully out to see better, and took your time grazing your eyesight around the darkness, straining your eyes in the limited light that seeped between the leaves and branches. Quietly listening for anything running after you, but still nothing came. ...You-..You must've lost whatever that was. You exhaled a shaky sigh of relief and slumped back against the tree. Eyes closing as a wave of relief washed over your tired body.

''What am I doing!? Don't just stand there like an idiot!! RUN!!''

You listened to your inner voice, you turned on your heels and began running again taking the opportunity given to you by the gods. You didn't care if you got lost this time, you only cared about living. And so through the darkness the abyss had to offer, you again ran. Not which direction you were heading. Not sure who you'd run into or if you got more lost, but you were darned determined to not be eaten tonight by anyone! Not today demons! Or..zombie.OR WHATEVER THE HECK THAT WAS! You only did what you did before. Your heels clicked against the ground which would surely be sore later, but you didn't care. Your f/c eyes darted around for any signs of escape only being shown endless darkness instead. Your arms were partially extended in front of you, to push and swipe down any bush, branches, and other plants in your way as you ran. Stumbling and half tripping over large tree roots and clumps of grass in your wake, but still making good distance. Until the burning in your lungs threatened to make you drop, and this time the roots claiming your feet snagged onto a particularly large root, and a few feet you went tumbling.

Your screams of tumbling over a few feet were cut short as it felt like you hit every single root, rock, and hard spot on your way down. Pain exploded everywhere your body made contact with the ground until finally with a final thud, your body fell hard onto soft grass. Knocking the air out of your lungs and you gasping for air on your side. Your body was in pain from everywhere your body hit the ground and you were sure it would leave bruises and scratches later. You coughed and gasped for air, lungs burning but you nearly stopped breathing again when load ghost like moaning came from up the path that was DEFINITELY NOT wind making your body feel like it was dipped in ice as your heartbeats sore. No. Not more of them. Not again! Adrenaline kicked in now as your body wobbled and felt so light, not to mention hurt, as you forced yourself to stand and start walk-running away, swaying as you still gasped for air but your panicked state didn't care about the pain or anything as you somehow quickly got your balance back and started running through the dark. The sounds and darkness of the forest blocked almost all moonlight as you blindly ran to try and get away from the giant demons, to keep from being eaten. You ran...and ran...and ran blindly in the dark with your hands in front of you. Branches and other plants hitting your legs and face as you did, the sounds of the things behind you disappearing as you kept running. At one point you had the brilliant idea to look behind you to see if anything was following you-

"AH!"

Your foot once again got caught on something. You screamed as your body went tumbling head over heels down a hill in the dark. Your already sore and hurt body becoming even more so as you rolled and rolled and rolled until you finally came to a stop at the bottom of it onto your back, with your body facing the sky. Your vision swam and your head spun as you stared up dizzily at the sky as your vision slowly went around and around and around until it focused. And you gave a cough as your burning lungs heaved against your chest. Your heart feeling as if it'll explode any moment it was beating so fast, you couldn't stop it! You just sat there gasping and panting and clutching your chest. Your brain felt foggy. No...No. Don't black out now! Get up! COME ON GET UP!! Muscles burnt. Barely able to breath. The dirt and grass felt stinging cold and burnt your skin as you turned on your side to weakly lay on your stomach, your face gasping the sweet scent of grasses for a moment as you laid there for a sweet few silent seconds, before you allowed yourself to look up and you stopped..gasping heavily and staring at what was before you.

A pair of feet.

Slowly you looked up at where the feet were attached to crouched legs and the legs were attached to a torso. You looked up higher and higher until you were inches away from a pair of yellow eyes. And you froze.

The moonlight shown down from the sky and illuminated the face of a-..Man. You blinked as a man's face looked right back at you with a curious expression and tilt of his head. He looked early twenties and had a scar running across his left cheek over part of his nose. He suddenly leaned forward causing you to help and scramble back away from him as he sniffed around the air.

What the heck?!

He also paused as you scrambled back and you both stared at one another. It was then that you noticed something else. A pair of fluffy black ears sprouted from the top of his head that twitched. A giant bushy black tail swaying side to side with the next tilt of his head. What in the-  Was another person out here lost in the woods wearing a costume? He stood there for a long time before his face turned a pink and he looked at the side lightly.

"Um...D-Does this mean you accepted me now?"

You stared at him for a while before blinking. "What?"

"W-Well we were playing chase, and I-I caught up-..You were-..." He suddenly looked very very guilty. "W-Were you not p-playing hard to get?"

"I-...What in the world are you talking about?"

He blinked finally looking back to you. "It's full moon." He said gesturing to the moon in the sky. "Once a moon we always go out to find life partners. How come you don't know that?"

...You slowly stood up still incredibly confused about what this man was trying to say. "I have no idea what you're talking about about. Or why you're running around in that ridiculous costume."

"Costume?"

"Yeah. Costume." You reached up and shocked him when you pulled off the headband that still had your fake wolf ears from your costume still attached to it. He looked absolutely shocked as you held it up to him. "It's Halloween. Everyone dresses up for it."

"I-..I-..." He sputtered in a panic looking between your headband and you clearly shocked and panicked. Before he finally gulped. "Oh no... Sanemi's going to kill me when he finds out. W-W-Why are you running around in the woods wearing that?!"

"I was taking a shortcut but I got lost then you showed up and chased me through the woods."

"I'm sorry!" Immediately his face busted out red again. "I thought you were BEAUTIFUL and no other shewolf had bothered to give me the time of day so when you didn't try to attack me and ran off I thought you were just playing chase and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop! Time out!" You held up your hands to stop the word vomit coming out from his mouth and blinked. "First of all why would you think me running away in terror was me 'playing' and secondly what the heck are you talking about?"

"Im..a werewolf." You only stared at him before he gave a kicked puppy whine and grabbed his ears pulling them down in worry. "This is bad. This is bad. Now a human knows about me and I'm still single. I mess up everything. Sanemi is going to kill me and think I'm still a wimp-"

You stopped listening after he said 'werewolf'. Werewolf?...This guy who was having a midlife crises was a vicious man eating werewolf? There wasn't anything even remotely monstrous about him! Well other than those ears and the tail and his black and yellow eyes and his black claws and those fangs- OK! He DID look monstrous but he didn't look like that stereotypical werewolf you've seen in movies and books. You jumped when you noticed that he had stopped the second round of word vomit and looked at you hopefully. 

Face red and ears back tail wagging like a storm. "I-...I have a solution. W-Will you please be my partner?"

You blinked. "Will you be my partner?"

"YES!" You jumped as he suddenly grabbed your shoulders with a bright red face. "I accept! I-ILL be a good husband I swear! I can't wait for you to meet my family!" With a cute smile he looked relieved. "They'll love you too! I promise."

What..just happened?

[zanysmurf]

what's your opinion abt the reboot homegirl??

this is going to be a very boring answer. at least for the time being. so basically i watched the first ten episodes in french before it came out in the us. no subtitles so i was just following along. then i didn't check it out again until last year. i kind of want to pick random english dub eps back up when i'm bored but the ones i watched from s1 were. fine? i've seen some jokey episodes because his character is fun and shitty. i like brainy. he has one of the few voices in the english dub that weren't at all offputting to me so far. the character animation can be fun. smurfs in disguise is awful but i already knew that and i'm not going to watch in english. don't have a lot of opinions really.

maybe this is premature given how much i've seen but it's like. too fast-paced at points. as slow as smurfs 1981 can be for some, it usually does not have that problem. their goal in the pitch bible was to aim for the 5-10 year old demographic with "enough self-aware humor that adults can giggle too", but. idk it kind of makes me feel old. i've laughed at a few things dgmw but smurfs 1981 didn't necessarily need self-aware humor to make me laugh.

as a reboot its goal is obviously "What if we did a cartoon but right this time" as in, way more in-line with the comics or peyo's original vision sans the smurfy grove girls existing. to get the elephant out of the room, i am not really a fan of the comics. i may read them for certain plots and characters if i'm curious. this doesn't mean i can't like ntob, i'm just bringing it up anyway for the sake of perspective

80s smurfs is kind of in its own secluded box. it was very popular internationally and still makes a lot of money i'm sure— by 'secluded', i mean aesthetically, writing-wise, etc. it was something that got messy and frustrating behind the scenes very quickly, largely due to it being a western production. the creative differences could've probably went on forever. peyo and co.'s later comic adaptions (the baby smurf, the smurflings, few stories in schtroumpf magazine etc.) failed to capture what made the hb cartoon work because at the end of the day it was something else and peyo loathed it. smurfs 2021 doesn't have the western problem and i in no way view it as hb smurfs adjacent because nearly nothing about it is relevant aside from the la la song, the use of "my little smurfs", clumsy being prominent in the first season, w/e else.

similar to the la movies and stlv, it's like. frankensteined from cartoon and comic canon. the models and the girls are based on lost village (note that in every modern movie clumsy's design was based on 1981's), but the english dub is doing its own thing entirely. character relationships are either new or taken straight from the comics. despite the bible being like "woah look who's back on tv" there's no denying it's going in its own direction as much as possible, hence 'a new touch of blue' being its tagline before it came out. it's not aiming to bank on the nostalgia of 80s adults or anyone who just happens to prefer the old cartoon, so comparing the two one to one as "Smurfs 1981.... 2!!!" feels. Wrong. stressful, even. i haven't seen anything from season 2 but i've heard it's even more like the comics and that again was the main goal from the beginning. season 3 is going to start airing in the us later this month and i haven't heard much about that as i wrote the bulk of this answer last year (sorry)

the only time i tend to compare the two is when i see an episode synopsis and go "oh smurfs 1981 did this". the "wild faking a sprain" episode for instance. it's an observation. the 80s show went on for nearly ten years and these are 40 years apart. if they want to re-do plots or mix and match elements from it, it's Fine. it's hard to do a completely original plot even with a more comic-based modern portrayal of these characters.

one thing I will say is i wish characters that were near exclusive to the 1981 canon got more of a chance in the comics and the new show. i was very excited when the pitch bible was shared and baby was revealed to be a part of the cast. after going several movies without him he finally came back in something watchable. he's the only one to truly survive the post-hb years. puppy or the smurflings? grandpa? nanny??? when was the last time you saw them in the comics? forever ago. i've assumed this is an attempt to focus on the more iconic characters or to respect peyo all these years later, but the fact of the matter is those characters outlived him and had potential. as a side note i actually really wish scruple had made the transition from cartoon to comics but that never happened. they added a niece and nephew for gargamel in the new cartoon and it's like. ok whatever as far as i'm aware i do not care about this

the thing is i've already come to terms that i might not like ntob as much as i hoped i would when it was first announced and the pitch bible looked promising. i feel like i exhausted any possible complaints back then (ie. wishing interesting/complex elements from smurfs 1981 weren't ignored in favor of 'complex' stuff i find much less interesting) or any gripes i may have had with stlv.

[avionvadion]

For me personally, I'm somewhere in the middle with it, leaning towards the negative.

I understand what Disney is trying to do. I rewatched the movie a few times as research for my own fic rewrites. Snow White is a product of its time. The pacing is awful, it focuses too much on the wrong things and there are plenty of plot holes. (Seriously, why couldn't Queen Grimhilde just turn Snow White old? That would've accomplished her goals much easier. I genuinely wonder if Diana Wynne Jones had a similar thought, since something like that happened in the Howl's Moving Castle novel.) Snow White, while being fine at her core, needs to be fleshed out more to be a compelling protagonist in a modern movie.

It's understandable as to why. It's one of the first feature length animated movies, so they never fully worked out the kinks with it yet. Hell, I remember hearing from a few different places that Walt wanted to give the prince more screen time, but couldn't because he wasn't confident enough to animate a realistically, attractive human guy yet.

But on the flip side, they are still issues nevertheless. The story is in need of a massive overhaul in order for it to work for modern audiences.

However, the way Disney's going about it is not it. Vil is actually pretty close to how I imagine a modern Snow White to be like. (I would say Neige. Since I think Neige is a one dimensional and bland character in the canon, despite being the Snow White analog, I don't think he's the best example. Maybe if he had an actual personality outside of looking pretty and just being a piece of cardboard for Vil to sneer at.) He's adaptable, considerate and hardworking, wanting to help others become their best selves. He also lacks some of Snow White's glaring issues like her extreme naivety and lack of smarts. (Seriously, why did she let in the Evil Queen into the cottage, especially when she was told not to multiple times and the birds attacked her?) By that same token, he's not perfect and is super flawed. He's domineering, harsh, overly critical, impulsive, judgemental and sometimes is very cruel without meaning too.

Do something like that. Keep the heart of the character, but flesh her out more and make her more flawed and human. Not transform her into a girl boss! There is a strength in being kind in the face of adversity. Hell, she's pretty badass for being a 14 year old who was able to quickly gather herself after she was almost murdered. I wouldn't be able to do that as an adult.

That's not the movie's only issue. The CGI drawves in the movie look super creepy and uncanny valley. They should've used live action little people for those roles.

Frankly, Mirror Mirror looks like it'll be the better Snow White adaptation. (Seriously, go watch that if you haven't. It's actually really good.)

About Snow White, here’s a link to a super in depth character analysis: https://www.tumblr.com/darkspellmaster/179160919595/some-thoughts-regarding-the-disney-princesses-and

I wouldn’t necessarily say her being naive is a glaring issue. She is, as you said, just fourteen years old. She is a child. It’s not abnormal for kids to be naive- even those who are abused.

Snow is a lonely child who wants affection (having lost her bio mom and then later her father) and was holding onto the hope that her step-mother loved her, even if just a little bit, despite the harsh treatment, because sometimes that’s just how it goes, sadly. The truth can be staring you in the face, but you’re so desperate for affection from those that are supposed to love you that you ignore all the signs otherwise. She’s a child, one who is grieving the loss of her father and trying to fill the hole in her heart with the love of her step-mother, love she is painfully denied.

Snow isn’t unintelligent either. She cleaned the dwarves house as a BARGAINING CHIP to convince them to let her to stay. Snow may be trusting, but she isn’t stupid.

“I know! We’ll clean this house and surprise them! Maybe then they’ll let me stay?”

Snow has nowhere to go, she learned her step-mother (who she so dearly hoped held some tiny amount of love for her) is out to take her life, and while she isn’t one of my favorite princesses she is far from unintelligent. She was raised as a scullery maid, one of the hardest jobs someone can have. Cleaning is the one thing she KNOWS how to do. She’s taking advantage of that fact to win herself somewhere safe to stay.

And, being a scullery maid, she knows not to judge by appearances because she likely worked with a LOT of not pretty/very hideous people. (The analysis I linked goes into depth about this. Scullery maids had it ROUGH.)

It’s obvious she was uncomfortable by the old woman, but the hag feigned having a weak heart but because of her experiences she gave the benefit of the doubt. (You ask why Snow let her in, but do you really think she’d just let an old woman have a heart attack or stroke without trying to help??? The birds may have been sus of the hag but wild animals are still wild animals. Snow can only communicate through song, she likely thought they were just trying to cause mischief or were being jealous at the attention she was giving to the old woman. It’s yet another show of Snow being kind and doing her best not to judge someone she doesn’t yet know.) How was Snow supposed to guess the apple was poisoned??? She didn’t see the queen brew the evil potion. She didn’t even know the hag WAS the Evil Queen.

There are issues, yes, but not in her naivety or “lack of smarts”. Snow White did the best she could in the situation she was in with the talents she had and the experiences she was given.

Also, I will have to argue about Neige not being naive. Vil makes it VERY obvious he doesn’t like Neige, but Neige blatantly ignores it despite Vil reprimanding him time and again. He has this ideal of Vil in his head and projects it onto the real Vil, and thus does not suspect that the apple juice is poisoned. Heck, he doesn’t suspect bad of anyone- or even realize he’s being badmouthed.

Neige is just as much as Snow White as Snow White is Neige. But whereas Snow White grew up working as a scullery maid and thus was taught not to judge others by appearance, Neige instead projects an ideal onto Vil because he (like Snow White who craves love and affection) wants so badly to be friends with him.

One could make a modern Snow White. Could even give Florian (Prince Buckethead!) more screen time and personality. Do more with the relationship between the Evil Queen who hates her step-daughter and Snow who wants so badly to be loved by her step-mother that she ignores all the red flags.

But don’t erase what made the character who she is in the process.

Also, Disney needs to read up on Miner’s Lung. There’s a reason why the dwarves don’t clean and their house is so dusty. Snow cleaned the house as a bargaining chip to let her stay, as the house was so badly messy because the dwarves are MINERS who literally mine all day (first few lyrics of Heigh-ho) from dawn to dusk, and then spend (what is likely) a couple hours WALKING back home. They’re too tired to clean and inhale even MORE dust, and they are absolutely NOT going to let some lady they don’t know who barged into their home boss them into cleaning.

(Like. What even. What even were the new lyrics to the remake of that song. Disney, do you have any idea what you’re writing or what the plot of the original was??? The implied background stories???)

The remake is just. So bad. In so so so so so many ways.

Disney needs to STOP with the live-actions already.

[reelvibes91]

Batman: Caped Crusader Review

Batman has probably the deepest rogues gallery in all of comics. Oftentimes, when depicted on screen, the focus has been on a core few. With Batman: Caped Crusader, we step away from that and get some focus put on different characters. How does Caped Crusader stack up against other iterations of character?

This version of events is unique in various ways. Taking Batman back to a 40s Mafia setting was a nice touch. One that particularly helped lend to the investigative aspects of the character. It relies on good old-fashioned detective work instead of relying on modern technology.

The Batman/Bruce Wayne dynamic was handled well. Hamish Linklater has the task of living up to prior talent, and he does a great job. This is a Batman who feels more vulnerable and wants to keep in touch with his human side. It has always been his allies that ground him, and this version really allows the relationships Batman has form organically. He has to establish those links over time and knows full well these tasks can't be accomplished on his own.

There can't be a discussion about a Batman series without the villains. Here, we treated to a wide array of villains. Two standouts immediately are Firefly and Harley Quinn. The episode featuring Firefly was the most visually stunning of the entire series. By far, I stand out in that regard. Why Harley worked so well is the changes made to her origin story. This far into the characters' existence, it was a refreshing take and one that kept the fundamentals of the character in tact.

The only real issue of the series is a general lack of pacing. Some episodes hit very hard, and others were just the middle of the road. That is the hard part of trying to tell a complete story within a 25-minute episode. There really is no room for the additional subplots and working out enough growth for everyone. Catwoman and Onomatopoeia were the weakest links in terms of the villains because their presence does not matter to the overall plot development. Catwoman is all stuff we have seen before, and with the Onomatopoeia stuff, it felt completely like a filler episode.

The writing on this show was very well thought and executed with the mafia and overall look and feel. There is so much potential for future seasons of this show to capitalize on villains who need redemption. The potential and ceiling for this series are limitless because we know they are willing to make changes to classic villains. This show did in a way that elevates the character and does not take away why we love them. That is the key to enhancing any long-standing character. Make them your own and find a way to set yourself apart from other versions.

One last thing is that this show really proved why animation is much easier than live action. Live action takes on creating certain aspects of characters, which have translated to some ridiculous looks. Here, they were able to finesse together some new looks and new styles and blend them all together. Some of these scenes and new looks likely would not have created the same atmosphere in live action. That's not to say stop doing live action but more to say use animation to do things that are harder to create in live action. It was stunning to see some of this come to life the way it did. It feels the same way across all animation that has excelled at telling rich and deep stories.

[mizho-babe]

ive had a few drinks

im gonna say it. it's probably a popular opinion (as popular as an opinion could be in a very small fandom?) but. i'm also willing to argue if you disagree because i feel very strongly about it.

(long rant below)

Jun Chichibu was a fucking horrible character. Like, I'm not talking about his actual character (though he does suck), I'm talking about his existence in the manga.

All major plot beats in Karakuridoji Ultimo are foreshadowed—Rune’s descent into darkness, Akitsu, Ume, and Kiyose becoming dôji masters, Dunstan establishing that the Funeral isn’t about fighting to the death but about changing hearts, Vice beginning to question his role as the embodiment of ultimate evil, the 30th-century timeline. Even plot points that were never followed up (Yamato’s father, anyone??) were at least introduced early on.

But not Jun. Even considering the series’ rushed pacing and messy storytelling, the sheer lack of development for Jun makes no sense. (yes I'm aware most of the other doji masters didn't get much screentime either, but Jun stands out because he’s positioned as a major wildcard and an integral figure in Vice’s story). I legitimately believe Takei was pressured into creating him because idk, maybe the haters didn't like K as Vice's master (to which I say, fuck you K is the best) , or maybe editors wanted Takei to throw in another plot twist to keep the momentum going, because of his abrupt introduction more than halfway through the series.

But let's say he was part of the grand KDU plan. Jun's character still just. does not work. On multiple levels.

I like re-reading this retrospective of KDU by Joi Massat because they bring up so many good points about how the series is a (sometimes problematic) mess, and, particularly, about how Jun is such a head scratcher. One observation I particularly loved is how KDU tried to (keyword: tried lol) present philosophical discussions on good and evil while simultaneously attempting to subvert them and modernize these debates for the 21st century. Consider Yamato—reckless, often idiotic, yet also a ruthless former bandit leader—being chosen as Ultimate Good’s master. His foil, Murayama, with his stereotypical '80s shonen hero chara design and literally carrying around old Shonen Jump issues, representing the "old type" of anime protagonist.

What's so hilariously surprising about the Ultimate Evil's master? K is a spineless loser. He's not a mustache-twirling evil mastermind. He’s unemployed, cowardly, and relies on his grandma’s allowance, leaving Vice completely in control.

This dynamic perfectly sets up Vice’s character arc. While Yamato teaches Ultimo about the complexities and boundaries of good—since Ulti has a dangerously obsessive yandere streak—Vice lacks that guidance entirely. He is already at the extreme, killing indiscriminately and sowing chaos. Over time, as Ulti begins to restrain himself under the weight of his own morality, while Vice keeps pushing himself further, they realize that their paths are simply leading them into each other’s roles—trapped in a cycle, damned to become their opposite.

So. What is the point of introducing Jun?

Jun is, in many ways, a repeat of K. Like K, he is a privileged yet powerless individual whose dangerous tendencies are overlooked—K due to his pathetic nature, Jun because his wealthy parents cover up his dangerous threats at school. The difference? Jun’s heart is filled with pure malice, similar to Vice's soul.

But, what's the point of that? He doesn't really introduce any new ideas about evil. Both K and Jun's characters say that those who are considered 'losers' / incels have the potential to drive a lot of evil in our society (which honestly, galaxy brain Takei bc that's a timely message). But he could've delivered that same message with the K/Vice duo, with K being totally hapless and Vice taking advantage of him to drive everything to ruin.

I believe that Jun’s introduction actively weakened Vice’s arc. Vice already had a journey of his own. As I mentioned, he wasn’t bound by anything—by the end, this becomes even more extreme when he gains the ability to literally steal any Noh, making him virtually unstoppable. But then Vice admits that after all the stealing he’s done, he’s stopped enjoying being evil because he’s learned so much about everyone and everything through this newfound power.

Jun derails that, turning Vice’s development into something that hinges on an external force rather than his own realizations. Instead of allowing Vice to arrive at his own conclusions, the series introduces Jun as a shortcut—a character whose sole function is to be an even more extreme, uncontrollable version of Vice’s ideology, that's supposed to...turn off Vice to......being....evil? Nah.

It would have been far more compelling to see Vice’s journey unfold naturally—learning about different perspectives on evil with his teammates, reflecting on Dr. Shakujii’s words ("killing others is killing yourself"), achieving his Back From the Dark second form after feeding off Ume’s righteous fury, seeing Rune’s jealousy stem from his timeless love for Yamato, AND on top of all of this, his own developing bond with K, the most useless individual but who, for some reason, poses surprising moments of insight that catch Vice off guard because of how obvious they are to even what's supposed to be a lowlife, but aren't accessible to Vice because of his nature. That would have made for a powerful arc.

Instead, we waste time watching this stupid kid run around in his underwear, shooting people with a crossbow

okay i'm done

[borbi-edits]

Thoughts while re-watching Princess Charm School

-Blair OPENS AND CLOSES the cafe. Dang, girl. That's a long shift. And she still comes home with a smile and dances with her sister. You know girl is exhausted but doesn't want her family to know how much pressure she feels to support them.

-I still think the fairies are kind of pointless, sorry.

-The school is for both princesses and lady royals, and we see other lady royals beside Blair, but the lottery is just for one girl. Where to the other lady royals come from? Minor noble families maybe? Could be an opportunity for some fun world building.

-I forgot how integral the dog is to the plot. He's precious (and OLD).

-Dame Devin might be evil but her eyes are really pretty.

-I've said this before but I love the girl's coordinating dresses after coronation.

-I really vibe with the boys wearing pink plaid vests under their suits.

-For some reason I thought the more fast paced dance Blair an Nicholas was something they improvised. But Devin and Privet don't bat an eye, and and Privet says they did a good job after, so I guess it was actually an official part of the dance (which explains how they all knew the moves). I like to think they incorporate modern and more traditional elements from their country's history.

-I've seen people claim Blair is sixteen; I don't know where that came from, but Dame Devin specifically says the princess died seventeen years ago. And I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure it's mentioned that the baby princess was a year old at the time of the crash, making Blair 18 in the movie. This also fits in with my previous assumptions/theories that PCS is essentially a modern finishing school that eligible girls go to after high school. I would imagine high school graduation is an entry requirement. (Clearly, Portia cheated her way or had some help.) Maybe girls who go to certain fancy prep schools but aren't royal are eligible to be lady royals at the school?

-The first person Blair mentions after being crowned is Headmistress Privet. She knows if it weren't for her, she never would have lasted as long as the school, and thus never found out she was princess. IDK I just think it's sweet that she immediately tries to spread the teachings of her mentor. 

-The way Blair does not hesitate to put the no doubt priceless, MAGICAL, historically relevant tiara on her little sister is so precious. I will never stop loving their family dynamic. And she says everything is perfect--now that her mom and sister are there. STAHP I'm not crying you're crying.

-"State of the art digital classroom" (a lecture hall with some laptops in it). That and the cafe having computer stations (with computers and not just wifi) is very 2010s and I'm here for it.

-Isla and Hadley are really good friends. They didn't even get upset when they thought they'd lost their opportunity to be princesses--they assured Blair it was okay. (They even seemed a little relieved--I think they have different aspirations for life. (Man, I wish this was a 20 part anime miniseries so we could dive into everyone's personalities deeper.))

-I forgot how bad the transition screens are, yikes. But very 2000s Barbie movie.

[stemmmm]

Stem's thoughts on Harvest Moon: Back to Nature

This game is the first to boast a set of mechanics that I think are the most easily recognizable as how modern farming sims work. It’s the first to have cooking, a detailed tool-upgrading process, a mine…  All prior games have been leading up to this!

This is the first console release that I had no idea even existed. In hindsight, it explained why I kept running into game screenshots that looked like they were from a certain game but definitely weren’t whenever I went on random google-images sprees, because this is a straight up asset flip. It’s impossible to play this without comparing it to Harvest Moon 64, the console release that came out not even a year prior. Going in, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to assess this game without comparing it heavily to the remakes that came after it, considering Friends of Mineral Town was the first HM series game that I personally owned and I played it to death, but that proved to not be a problem at all, thanks to its relationship with HM64. 

To be clear, this game is absolutely on par with 64. Just in terms of things I liked about that game, this one has more events with NPCs, they’re easier to catch, they’re relatively spaced out to fill the full three years you’re expected to play (rather than only triggering based on friendship levels alone), the gameplay in general runs smoothly and naturally, and the addition of some new decorative assets on top of the old ones makes it look so much nicer while still maintaining the crunchy, old art style. The only thing I really hesitate to say is better than 64 is the pacing, but I’ll get to that. First, I need to go over the gameplay.

The new

It’s hard to say that the game is mechanically too different from 64, other than the inventory and the fences. Do fences finally work as advertised? Well, yes and no, but it’s at least better than when the fences were the thing summoning wild animals in the first place. 

The way fences function is most changed by the fact that the wild dog has finally gained corporeal form. After 6PM, if you’re on your farm and have animals out, the dog can come to visit and won’t really attack your animals, but it will bark at them and scare them. Your only solution at this point is to wack that thing with a hammer or other farming implement until it skitters off, or if your dog is well trained, he can help you fight the beast off as well. 

The effects of the beast (making your animals unhappy) can be prevented in several ways. Of course, there’s always leaving your animals inside, the time honored tradition that it is (and my personal choice). Alternatively you could put your animals inside a fence. Issue here is that the dog can absolutely bark through the fence, so it kind of does nothing to help you. However, if the fence is two posts thick all the way around, the dog can no longer reach your animals, so in that sense, the fences finally work! It takes up way more space and way more resources though, plus the fact that fence posts rot over time. You can’t really use rocks to compensate because the wild dog walks right over them. The final option is to just not be outside past 6PM. If you’re not there to see it, the wild dog does not exist. I rarely played days that long anyways, so I could have left my animals out all the time with no fences and no problems, but then you run into the issue that your field is massive and it’s way too easy to lose track of your animals. 

Oh, and there’s one other detail that I almost forgot– you don’t need to leave the animals out overnight anymore anyways. They finally eat during the day, at least my chickens did, and they were the only animals I bothered to put out because it was as easy as picking them up in my hands to put them back away. I love not fighting livestock hitboxes.

Inventory-wise, this game gives you a myriad of options for carrying things. Firstly, there’s your rucksack which you’re able to buy a larger version of, so you can carry more on your person. Then there’s a basket you can buy which allows you to pick things up in bulk, but not have access to them, so it’s kind of like a shipping bin that you carry around, except you still have to dump it in the shipping bin later, unlike the horse’s saddlebag which IS just a mobile shipping bin. I never got to use the saddlebag because it’s something you get with an adult horse, and despite my best efforts, Barley decided my horse didn’t love me enough and took it away from me. :( My horse loved me a lot though. In the end, my rucksack was big enough and my growing operation was small enough that I never even saw a real need for the basket or saddlebags. Maybe I would if there was any urgency to ship things before 5PM, but things won’t rot in the shipping bin here, so you’re free to take all the time that you need. I actually encourage taking your time, there’s three whole in-game years that you’re expected to play, after all.

In terms of other new additions, there’s now a fish pond on your farm, kind of like GBC2 had, but a little better. This time it’s not just for storing fish (something that’s much less of a concern when you can ship things any time of day), but you’re also able to breed and grow them. The store in town sells fish food that you can use to breed more fish, and just leaving fish in the pond over time will make them grow larger.

You can also finally cook things, rather than just buy meals or collect useless recipes. You have to upgrade your house to get access to a kitchen and then buy the utensils elsewhere, but once you’ve done that, you can make anything in the game and unlock new recipes by either being told them by someone in town or just trying things out for yourself! You cook by choosing both the ingredients and utensils, meaning you can make entirely different things while still using the same ingredient! Cooked meals make for fantastic gifts, and as a result, there’s a whole new feature that I love built around giving you the ability to cook new things, which is the shopping channel on your TV.

Every Saturday after you’ve upgraded your house, the shopping channel will sell items for your house at random. They’re mostly cooking utensils, but there's also a power berry in the rotation. Nothing’s cheap, so it’s a good way to keep the player working and making more money. This is one of my favorite new things, as it gives you more reason to engage with your TV, and it forces you to pay attention to what day of the week it is in game even more than usual. Having one day where you can do something as opposed to various days that you can’t (days certain stores are closed, for example) does so much for making the days seem different and makes you look forward to the next week on a regular basis, as opposed to only looking forward to town festivals which are less frequent and more varied in terms of quality. To buy things, you have to run down to the inn which has the only working phone in town– a charming little reminder that this game is set in a rural town in the 20th century, back when everyone wasn’t so easily connected and it was normal to only have four channels on your TV. Hell, back when it was normal to have cable.

Anyways, on the topic of buying things, while stores in SNES and 64 mostly had you walk up to an item on a shelf to select it and purchase it, this game still has that function, but it far more heavily leans on menus for just about everything aside from a few items in the general store, like the fish food, inventory items, and some cooking ingredients. The most bizarre shopping experience comes when you try to upgrade your house, where you’re forced to follow the very specific order of chicken coop upgrade, to first house upgrade, to barn, to second house, to hothouse for growing crops in any season. It’s kind of weird and confusing the first time you run into it, because it’s easy to imagine something went wrong or that you need to do something else to unlock your house upgrade, but I imagine this was the result of a couple of things. For one, having multiple tiers of upgrades on your house may have been a little strange to implement with their menuing system– I know that the way things worked in 64 was also very confusing and unclear, and in that game, all of it was presented to you the whole time. For two, this game is… really easy as an adult with a functional brain, so it’s a decent way to keep you working on stuff and bar you from having your house upgraded to maximum before the end of year one (which I still did anyways).

Getting all those upgrades takes a lot of wood, so it’s important early on to make sure you have a good ax. Tool upgrades now expand on 64’s leveling up mechanic by requiring you to gain experience with the tools and then take the tools along with a type of mined ore to the blacksmith who will upgrade that tool for a fee, which very nearly brings us to the way that upgrades are most commonly handled in farming sims to this day! It also gives purpose to the cave/mine, which has been a feature in nearly every console release up to this point but was never really fleshed out. Speaking of which, compared to 64, the mine is now available year round rather than just in winter. Instead, there’s a secret mine in the middle of the mountain lake full of higher quality ore that unlocks in winter. There’s no winter crops once again, so as long as you’ve got enough cash saved up, the lake mine makes winter the perfect time to upgrade all your tools, because as long as the tool is leveled up enough, you can skip straight to later upgrades.

The old

What’s truly the same as 64, or at least negligibly different, are the general mechanics for growing crops, caring for animals, and building relationships with people. The town– while arranged differently and with the addition of a specialized chicken store, a general store fusing the 64 bakery and seed shops, and a blacksmith –is generally about the same size as it was in 64, if you take into account all the offshoot areas that weren’t quite based inside the town-proper. Areas like the beach, woods, hot springs, goddess pond, mountain, and summit are all still here and generally serve the same purpose. It’s occupied by generally the same people as well, though only in appearance.

Even the number of festivals is almost exactly the same, though the subjects and contents are different. While there are a couple more minigames incorporated with the festivals here, I would say this game loses out in terms of the town having a sense of culture and life, in that none of the festivals have anything to do with personal beliefs or spirituality in any way other than the goddess festival, which is established as a dying cultural practice, and maybe the music festival which takes place in the church, and that’s it. However, the game actually has something of a narrative defense in this regard: the town pastor isn’t a religious man, which is kind of bizarre but it does track with everything else going on. Religion doesn’t really exist in this town, so rituals wouldn’t really exist either. I do still find the lack of distinct culture disappointing compared to 64, which was brimming with it, but it’s a small nitpick.

Another nitpick I have, one much more tangible, is that it lets you walk behind walls and buildings, which would be one thing if this was played at a straight-on viewing angle and with controls that easily mapped to that, but much like in 64, the camera is set at an isometric 45 degree angle which game controllers are not really designed for. If you walk behind something, a goofy arrow appears above your head to show where you’re at, but it’s still not clear enough that I didn’t regularly run into trouble just trying to go through doors. There aren’t a ton that are an issue, only two that I can think of off the top of my head, but one of those two is the entrance to your own bedroom after you’ve fully upgraded your house. Your bedroom is the place that you have to go to save your game and move time forward, it’s mandatory to go through this door every single day. 

What are you farming for?

The game opens with a flashback to your childhood…. If you’re playing as a boy. If you’re playing the version released later where you play as a girl, the story is completely different. This is the first entry in the series where you can marry men! But I didn’t play the girl version, so everything I share about the story will have to do with the original, boy version. There, in your memories, you were visiting your grandfather in the country who was too busy with work to play with you, so instead you met a girl who lived in the town and played with her the whole time you were there. Before you left, you promised to see each other again. 

In the current day, your grandfather has died and you’ve been given the option to take over his farm, though the townspeople are hesitant about having someone new in town. As a compromise, you’ll be able to take care of the farm for three years, and as long as you can bring the farm back to its former glory and get along with the townsfolk by then, you’ll be allowed to stay living there! But if you don’t use the land and don’t make any friends, you’re out.

This comes across as a really harsh ultimatum, especially if you don’t know what that “former glory” means, but what it actually translates to is “farm…. At all”. Just ship a couple things, and you’ve basically covered the farming requirements. The harder requirement is to make friends with the people in town, though if you aren’t managing to do that, you’ve missed out on the entire point of the game. In this iteration of the Harvest Moon series, your goal isn’t to farm for crops… but for cutscenes.

Much like 64, every marriageable person has special cutscenes associated with how close the two of you are, and additional cutscenes involving them and their romantic rival. There are also cutscenes to do with the various people in town, as a general story progresses over your three years there. Beyond the familiar mechanics, you’ll see some familiar faces, as every character is reused from 64, just a little to the left. Their families and careers are slightly different, as are the people they date and marry, thus bringing an entirely different story to the table. For example, instead of Lillia’s husband being Basil, a man who brings her loneliness because he leaves for half a year, her husband Rod isn’t present in the game at all, having gone off on a long journey to find a cure for her illness, something she didn’t ask him to do and is pretty peeved about. There’s also the little girl May, who instead of having a working father who’s so busy that she never gets to see him, was abandoned by her mother and lives with her grandfather.

Unlike 64, a lot of these relationship cutscenes, both for you and for your rivals, are slightly less dependent on your relationships with everyone. Instead, to fill out the three years of gameplay, they’re based on time passing. While it’s generally possible to get married as quickly as possible, your rivals will never get married until year three. To fill out all that time, there are a lot more cutscenes that don’t have to do with romance, and a lot more sidequests given to you.

Every marriageable character and rival has a sort of side quest of varying levels of difficulty which gives you a decent bump in their friendship. By varying levels of difficulty I mean it can go from just telling Gray “yes, you can spend a day or two working on my farm in a way that doesn’t inhibit my ability to do anything,” and then in return he weeds your entire field. Or it can be like Ann who needs you to bring her three eggs every single day for a full week without missing a single day or the whole thing ends, and your only reward other than friendship is to get the payment you would have gotten for the eggs anyways.

Probably the most famous example of these quests is Cliff’s, due to the fact that he will leave the town if it isn’t completed, and because it’s so important to his character that it was the only one of these side quests included in either of this game’s remakes. He’s a wanderer, depressed, without a job and without anywhere to go. For his quest, you’re approached by Duke from the winery at some time in fall, asking if you can help with the year’s harvest. If you can bring along a friend to help, that would be great too. The only person you can invite is Cliff, and if you fail to do that, he’ll be gone by the end of the year. What isn’t included in the remakes is the “minigame” you have to do every day of the week that you’re hired, where you walk up to all the grape vines and click on them until you finally pick up some grapes with zero visual feedback. It’s not the hardest quest, but it is certainly the most tedious, and the most punishing if you fail to get Cliff on board.

What you realize pretty quickly as you get on with the game is that the original prompt that you came back to this town to see your childhood friend again really isn’t relevant to anything. None of the girls indicate anything about that to you until the very end of the game, if you got married. What’s going on in the town really has nothing to do with you, and that’s fine. Everyone’s lives are rich and vibrant, and often pretty tragic, and it’s very fun to get deeper into the stories and get a peek into some of the town lore. There is one plotline in particular that overtakes the entire narrative, and it reveals to you what happens when you don’t manage to make friends with everyone in the town. It turns out the town is hesitant to let new people in because it’s full of bigots.

The real story

There are two characters depicted as being a different race than the town at large. One of them is Won, who is portrayed as a con artist and scammer, and appears to be Chinese. He’s introduced when the cop in town comes by one morning to warn you of a suspicious person spotted in town, and Won appears on your farm shortly after. I don’t know exactly how that storyline ends, because I didn’t report him on account of not being a fucking snitch, but Won occasionally sells an assortment of items inside the inn and sometimes comes to your door to sell very useful things like a vase and dog ball.

The other character, Kai, is the only dark skinned character in both this game and in 64, where he worked for the winery and came across as… suspiciously servile. In this game, he shows up in the summertime to sell food at the shack on the beach, and has gained the reputation of a heartbreaker, which has made nearly every man in the town absolutely despise him. At first you might get where they’re coming from, because his demeanor is pretty snarky and smug, but to me it pretty quickly came across that he only acted that way as a defense mechanism, because there are only so many ways you can manage people constantly attacking you for no reason and holding yourself as superior to them isn’t a bad choice. It’s obvious how deeply in the wrong the town is in one of the first events you can get after Kai shows up, where he gets cornered in the inn– the only place he’s able to stay while he’s in town –by at least three different men and you’re given the option to either pick a side or call the whole thing stupid, which it really is and Kai agrees.

The two who hate him most are Duke and Rick. Duke is an alcoholic with notorious anger issues. You can learn much later that his problem is that his daughter allegedly left town due to Kai’s influence (I imagine because he made her realize this town sucks). Meanwhile, Rick hates Kai because his sister Popuri is crazy about him and Rick probably fears for the same result. Popuri is a seemingly cheerful and somewhat childish girl who wants to be helpful. Her family runs a poultry business together, but she was never taught or allowed to do any work, which leads to a bounty of frustrations in her life. To make matters worse, her brother seems to be very possessive and is controlling over who she gets to hang out with, particularly when it comes to her hanging around Kai. The way both Duke and Rick behave gives off the impression that their frustrations with Kai have nothing to do with anything Kai has done, and everything to do with the fact that they’re miserable people to be around. 

As you follow the story of Kai and Popuri, you learn everything about the culture problem in the town, the double-standards of acceptance that let you get away with defending Kai while he continues to get teamed up on, and you choose whether or not you want to help Kai and Popuri escape from it (albeit temporarily, they both come back every summer). To be clear, I loved this storyline. The experience of helping the two of them, though on a heavily controlled course, made me feel like I was actually making a difference in characters' lives. And the resulting lack of Popuri’s presence in town afterwards made things feel tangibly different than they were before. Farming sims seldom have interpersonal conflicts that go this deep, and it really enhances the story! I know I spoiled the whole thing here, but in all fairness, I’ve known how this story ends for decades and still had a wonderful time going through the motions. It’s more about the experience than the destination for sure.

My critiques

To beat the game is extremely low-stakes and slow-paced. You’ve got a lot of time to see everything the game has to offer, and just about all of that comes from having good relationships with the NPCs. The problem with this is that if you’re competent with the mechanics, getting through the game can be a total slog. Part of this is because it loads pretty slowly, but there also isn’t very much to do with your time. Since you need a lot of money to get animals, and a ton of money to upgrade your house enough to get married since that’s locked behind other farm upgrades, you do need to do a little bit of farming, but I personally never even touched more than a quarter of my field between crops and grass for animal feed. The ending requirements didn’t ask me to ship that many crops, so I didn’t. I just grew what I needed, and after a certain point, the amount I needed was “nothing”, so I stopped gardening.

Lack of requirement to do so wasn’t the only reason, though. I enjoy farming mechanics, so I would have done it if I wasn’t trying to focus my time elsewhere– on getting story events. By the later points of year two and three, that’s all I was after, and while they are locked by your relationships with the characters, I’d already gotten them as high as I reasonably needed them. I just had to wait for time to pass at that point, and I was getting impatient. The way cutscenes are locked off in this game is that they’ll see you’ve reached the relationship threshold, and then wait until a certain time-marker has passed. Once you’ve met both of those, it’s just about being in the right place at the right time. By and large, the time-marker is the turn of the new year, so everything fires off in a frenzy on the first day of spring that you go into town. I think my record was triggering four cutscenes in sequence by walking in and outside of the poultry farm area a couple times. 

Fortunately, the events for Kai and Popuri were locked until summer, when Kai would come to visit, so it wasn’t truly everything happening as soon as spring came up, but still, fall and winter usually had absolutely nothing going on. To make matters worse, once year three rolls around, chances are that you’ve gotten all the relationships filled and all of your progression finished, so it’s just a waiting game to get everyones’ weddings to trigger and then truly be done with story content until you’re evaluated at the end of the year.

This is where we loop back to the fact that I wasn’t farming. If my relationships with everyone were filled and I wasn’t doing anything on my farm, what was I doing? Sleeping. For months at a time. Just to get through things quicker. In year three, I got all the marriage cutscenes I could (one wouldn’t trigger, don’t know why but I had to just give up on it), and then went to bed until the end of the year. My last manual save was dated “Summer 9, year 3”, meaning I slept through three entire seasons to get to the end of the game.

And for what reward? I mentioned previously that this is low-stakes. Technically, all of the games prior to this are low-stakes as well– the requirements to simply not lose your farm are generally pretty relaxed. It’s the variety of “good” endings or praise that you get which often require a frankly obscene amount of work. There are many good endings to be had, but only one bad one. Not the case here! There are different endings for if you didn’t grow enough crops, ship enough things, or make any friends and therefore are kicked out of the town, but if you did manage all three (which is hard NOT to do), there is only one ending you get where the town gathers to tell you you’re welcome to stay in town and congratulate you on your hard work. Even Kai shows up! It’s a nice bit of fanfare but… do I deserve it? It’s on me for playing the game this way of course, but after just sleeping through almost a whole year, I don’t really feel like I earned any praise. The other reward is that you’re allowed to keep playing the save file, but why would I want to do that? I’ve already done everything there was to do.

Conclusion

The first half of this game is my dream Harvest Moon. I sincerely don't understand why FoMT was remade and not this, since this is by far the better game. The fact that the town feels like it has an actual narrative (centered primarily around Kai) is really enjoyable and I feel like there’s a lot of value gained out of each cutscene, and every new bit of dialogue is a joy. In particular, the quantity and variety of quests gave me a lot to do in the downtime between cutscenes. The remakes should have added more of those, not removed them almost entirely. I’m sick to death of Mineral Town because of how much I've played FoMT, so the fact that I enjoyed this so much says a lot about the quality of the game.

That aside, three years is too much time to pass through for how much content there is here. Two and a half would have been manageable, but I understand that the only reason that was the cutoff in SNES was because there literally wasn't anything to do in fall or winter. I enjoyed the lack of goals required to get a good ending because I was so fatigued by the intense grind of the prior games, but the game was so easy that I mostly ran out of things to do for fixing my farm in only year one, and I really just spent year two scrambling around for cutscenes which I didn't really need to even try doing, because I got swamped with them at the start of spring. Maybe if I was a child and worse at playing video games, three years would be okay, but if I was a child, I wouldn’t have made it to year 2 because I wouldn't have the attention span or memory to keep me going. I know this because that’s exactly what happened when I played FoMT.

I suppose how I’d recommend playing the game is to play until you’re satisfied (which will probably be by the end of summer year 2) and then watch or look up the endings. That is assuming you care about the endings at all, which you may not because there isn’t terribly much to them. I do sincerely recommend this game, I think it’s great to play, but you’re almost certainly going to be bored with it and have experienced the vast majority of what it has to offer well before you reach the end of it.

A closing thought in reference to my journey playing all these games in sequence:  there’s a chance, just going by my prior knowledge of the later games which I mostly have not played, that this is actually going to be the peak of this series in terms of both ease of play and quality of narrative. I’m sure there will be games with more interesting stories, and maybe a later game that feels better to play, but my bet is none of them hit both as well as this one did.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Dracula. By Bram Stoker. Dover Thrift Edition, 2000 (originally 1897).

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: Gorhic, horror

Series: N/A

Summary: When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: disturbing imagery, blood, animal cruelty, racism

OVERVIEW: This was my book club's pick for June 2024. I've read Dracula before, but it was a while ago, so I loved having the opportunity to revisit an old favorite. It reminded me not only why Dracula was so influential, but why I fell in love with Gothic storytelling in the first place. It gets 4.5 stars from me for no other reason than it being a classic that I adore.

WRITING: Stoker's writing is interesting in that it makes use of a lot of scientific language, blending it with the supernatural to create an atmosphere that is sometimes dark and ancient, sometimes modern and philosophical. I love the way Stoker blends these modes and champions characters who are smart and have an open mind (though that openness is lacking when it comes to things like gender and racial dynamics).

I also appreciated the way Stoker tries to differentiate between character voices. Though not every character sounds unique, there is a difference in how Mina writes versus how Dr. Seward writes versus how Van Helsing speaks. It makes the book as a whole feel more polyvocal, which in turn enhances the sense that the story is made from pieces of diaries and newspaper excerpts.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows a number of English characters as they try to defeat a powerful vampire known as Count Dracula. The story is told from a number of perspectives in the form of diary entries and occasional newspaper clippings and memoranda, all of which detail the strange occurrences surrounding the Count.

This book is less of a spooky horror and more of a classic Gothic novel. That isn't to say that there aren't some disturbing images, but if you go in expecting a lot of blood, gore, and jumpscares, you might be disappointed. Instead what we have is the gradual realization that there is a vampire in England, and after some bizarre occurrences and a tragic death, our protagonists team up to defeat the monstrous Count once and for all.

I love the Gothic flavor of this plot and the way Stoker plays with folk belief and superstition in the age of science and advancing medical knowledge. I also just generally love Stoker's descriptions and some of the absolute weirdness that pervades the novel, from fly-eating lunatics to bats and wolves acting unlike themselves.

If I had any criticism, I would say that there are places where the pace seems a bit slow, but I don't know if it's slow because Stoker actually wrote it that way or my perception is off because I'm familiar with the story.

TL;DR: Dracula is a classic and influential novel for a reason. With evocative supernatural imagery, a clever multivovalic narration style, and a Gothic flavor that is sure to delight lovers of the genre, this book stands out and is worthy of its place in vampire lore.

CHARACTERS: There are a lot of characters in this book, so I'll try to keep things brief.

Jonathan Harker, our first narrator, is relatable as an average working class man who gets caught up in the world of the supernatural. He seems rather brave and sweet, as evidenced by his devotion to his wife, Mina, and his heart always seems to be in the right place.

Dr. Seward, the head of a psychiatric institution, is sympathetic in that he has to watch the girl he loves suffer. I really did feel bad for him and admired the way he stepped up to lend his expertise, even though the situation has little to do with him personally.

Mina, Jonathan's wife, is just so great. Everyone seems to adore her and I love that her intelligence is constantly praised. Stoker isn't without bias, however; there are numerous instances when Mina is said to have the "brain of a man" or is described as a woman in opposition to a man. The gender essentialism is sure to make some readers uncomfortable, but it's not particularly surprising given the date of this novel.

Characters who do not get POV sections are still charming in their own ways. I liked that Van Helsing was eager to assist people he didn't know and constantly championed having an open mind. Renfield was interesting and his fly-eating helped create some nice parallels with vampirism itself. Lucy, who has a couple of POV sections, sounded sweet and it's a shame that so many adaptations portray her as overly sexual when in reality, she's a victim who just wants to make people happy.

Most of my criticisms regarding character lay with weird gender politics and racial prejudice. I've already described the gender stuff in my discussion of Mina above. The racial dynamics, while not overwhelming, are present enough to be noticeable. Stoker describes a number of Romani and Romaniam peoples as superstitious, which in itself might not sound horrible, but does play into some negative stereotypes. Again, these dynamics are not so present that they distract from the main storyline, but they are on the fringes and shape the way we understand Stoker's world.