#remake of my original post since i changed the dates and ages etc

[lavenderstobins]

robin introduces a house rule when her daughter's maybe four or five: movies after 7pm only, unless they're child-friendly. josie goes to bed at 7pm, so it isn't an issue, really.

the thing is, the rule carries through as she ages, but what robin, steve, eddie and nancy forgot to account for was that kids are smart.

josie, obviously, knows that they only watch films she's not allowed to watch after she's gone to bed. but she also knows that they operate on supposed dinosaur logic, which is if she sits very, very still, they will forget she's there.

it works... for a while.

because one night, they're watching scream, and they've just reached the reveal of who ghostface is. robin and nancy are tucked into an armchair together, and steve and eddie are lounging on the couch. eddie tucked up against steve's chest, says, "oh, stu and billy definitely have a lil something-something going on." they've definitely kissed"

"they've definitely kissed," robin agrees.

on the screen, billy stabs stu to sell their story, and eddie grins. "with tongue, yeah."

and josie, eight years old, far too young to understand any deeper concept of the conversation, pipes up, "why would he stab him if they've kissed?"

and eddie, who had forgotten she was there, yells, "JESUS FUCK!"

[tyrantisterror]

I did a four part series of trivia posts when ATOM Volume 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us! came out, and that was pretty fun!  You can see that set of trivia posts here if you’d like.  I thought it’d be fun to do another now that ATOM Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! is out - just one this time, because a lot of the trivia I talked about with Volume 1 still applies.

I’m gonna divide this into two sections: non-spoiler trivia, for things that really don’t give a lot of plot points away, and spoiler trivia, for things that DO give away major plot points.  I recommend not reading the spoiler trivia until after you’ve read Tyrantis Roams the Earth!, for obvious reasons, and will put the spoiler trivia under a cut.

Ok, let’s go!

- So if you read ATOM Volume 1, you probably noticed that the book is split not only into chapters, but “episodes,” which consist of four chapters a piece.  It’s kind of a nod to how the series owes a great deal of its DNA to various monster of the week shows, with Godzilla: the Series and The Godzilla Power Hour being obvious influences.  It also allowed me to pepper in some illustrations and cheesy b-movie style titles into each volume.

- The first “episode” of Volume 2, Tyrantis in Tokyo, pays explicit homage to the giant monster movies of Japan, perhaps even moreso than the chapters that came before it.  Given how much Japanese media influenced ATOM - from tokusatsu like the Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman franchises to anime like Digimon and Evangelion (hell, the title of this episode itself is a tip of the hat to Tenchi Muyo by way of one of its spinoffs) - it kind of felt obligatory that Tyrantis visit Japan and pay his respects.

- Tyrantis in Tokyo also fits in a tribute to another staple of Atomic Age pop culture: Rock and Roll.

- Kutulusca, the giant cephalopod that appears in Tyrantis in Tokyo, is one of the oldest kaiju in this series, dating back to the first iteration of Tyrantis’s story that I put to paper back in 2001 or so.  It’s changed a lot since then, but its fight with Tyrantis goes more or less the way it originally did.

- Old Meg, the giant placoderm/shark, and Nastadyne, the bipedal beetle, both owe their existence directly to Deviantart’s Godzilla fandom.  Old Meg originated as a dunkleosteus monster I submitted to a “create a Godzilla kaiju” contest held by Matt Frank, while Nastadyne is based on a Megalon redesign I made during the “redesign all the Godzilla kaiju” phase of DA’s kaiju fandom.

- The second episode, Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace, gets dark as we visit the USSR, which had enough REAL horror with atomic power in its history to make creature features seem a bit defanged by comparison.  It’s probably the episode with the strongest horror elements - ATOM’s always been influenced by Resident Evil, and this is probably where that influence shows the most strongly.

- It also features the first fully robotic mecha in the series, the mighty Herakoschei!  Its name is a combination of “Heracles” and “Koschei the Deathless,” with the former part being added by its Russian creators to make it seem a bit more international as they offer it to the U.N. in hopes of gaining aid for a very extreme kaiju problem they’ve developed.

- Most of Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace takes place in the Siberian Monster Zone.  Its name is a reference to the Lawless Monster Zone in Ultraman, which is such a cool fucking name I wish that I wish I could go back in time and steal it.

- The next episode, Tyrantis’s Revenge, is... full of spoilers, so we’ll move on for now.

- The penultimate episode, Tyrantis vs. the Martian Monsters, is a love letter to MANY different sci-fi stories that involve life on Mars, though the most prominent of them is of course The War of The Worlds (one of my top 3 favorite books) and its various adaptations.  From its tentacles sapient martians, the tripodal leader of the titular monsters whose name includes the word “ulla” which is uttered by said sapient martians, the plant monster made of red vines, the cylinder-shaped spacecraft the Martian monsters are sent to earth on, the copper-skinned stingray-esque flying martian who shoots lasers from its tail, and the fact that every chapter title in this episode is a quote from the book, the H.G. Wells influence is STRONG.

- The final episode, Invasion from Beyond!, is shamelessly inspired by Destroy All Monsters, although there’s a dash of “To Serve Men,” Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and The Day the Earth Stood Still mixed in as well.  It’s also sort of a tribute to my first “published” bit of a kaiju fiction - a rewrite of Destroy All Monsters that included EVERY Godzilla monster that had appeared at the time, which my middle school self wrote back in 2002 or so for Kaiju Headquarters, a kaiju fansite I’m not sure exists anymore.  Invasion from Beyond! is just as ambitious (but hopefully better executed) as my DAM Remake, with dozens upon dozens of different kaiju duking it out, earthlings vs. aliens.

- There were three different documents I made to outline the final battle of Invasion from Beyond!  It’s the largest episode of the series so far and more than half of it is that fucking fight.  My inner child is pleased, though, so hopefully you will be too.

Ok, that’s all I can share without spoilers.  READER BEWARE WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW THE CUT!

JUST MAKING SURE you know that SPOILERS will follow from here on out.  Read at your own peril!  YOU WERE WARNED!

(I’m gonna start with lighter ones just in case you scrolled too far and want to turn back)

- There’s a number of explicit Spielberg homages in ATOM Volume 2, from a “we need a bigger boat” joke during a chase with a giant shark to the fact that Invasion from Beyond! opens with a group of people flying to an island of monsters to review whether or not it should get more funding.

- When Tyrantis appears in the first chapter, I snuck in modified lyrics of The Godzilla Power Hour’s theme song.  “Up from the depths”... “several stories high”... “breathing fire”... “its head in the sky”... Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!

- The two rock bands in Tyrantis in Tokyo have real life inspirations ala Gwen Valentine, albeit a bit more muddled than hers.  The Cashews are inspired by The Peanuts (see what I did there), while The Thunder Lizards are a mix of The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper.  I wanted The Thunder Lizards to be more akin to the myth of a famous rock and roll band than the reality - less the real Beatles and more the Yellow Submarine cartoon version of them.

- The song The Thunder Lizards write for Tyrantis was written to fit the tune of “The Godzilla March” from Godzilla vs. Gigan, though ideally if someone made an actual song of it it would be its own song.  I got the idea from Over the Garden Wall, which used the Christmas song “O Holy Night” as a a starting point for “Come Wayward Souls.”

- Perry Martin, UNNO reporter and peer of Henry Robertson, is a nod to Raymond Burr, with his name being a combination of two of Burr’s most famous roles: Perry Mason, and Steve Martin from Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956).

- Dr. Rinko Tsuburaya is a few homages in one.  Her name comes from Rinko Kikuchi (who played Mako Mori in Pacific Rim), while her last name is obviously in homage of Eiji Tsuburaya.  Her being the daughter of an esteemed scientist is inspired by Emiko Yamane from the original Gojira.

- Nastadyne’s Burning Justice mode is named after a similar super mode from various Transformers cartoons, though it’s more directly inspired by the Shining/Burning Finger super move from G Gundam.

- Martians sending kaiju to different planets via shooting them out of cannons (with or without cylinder spaceships around them) is another War of the Worlds shoutout.  So is martians living on Venus after their homeworld was made uninhabitable, actually.

- Kurokame’s vocalizations are described as wails in explicit homage to Gamera.  His name can be translated as either “black tortoise” (a reference to the mythical guardian beast Genbu, which can also be construed as a Gamera reference thanks to Gamera: Advent of Irys implying Gamera and Genbu are one and the same) or a portmanteau of the Japanese words for crocodile and turtle - “crocturtle.”

- Burodon’s name is just a mangling of “burrow down.”  It also sounds vaguely like Baragon, who Burodon is loosely inspired by.  AND, since Burodon is sort of a knockoff/modified Baragon, that kinda makes him a reference to various monsters in Ultraman!

- The final battle of Tyrantis in Tokyo is sort of a hybrid of the finales of Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters.  

- The Japanese kaiju teaching Tyrantis the art of throwing rocks at your enemies is both a joke on the prominence of rock throwing in Japanese kaiju fights AND the tired trope of an American hero learning secret martial arts from a Japanese mentor ala Batman, Iron Fist, etc.  In this case, the secret martial art is throwing rocks at people.

- When introduced to Herakoschei and its pilot, we are told that the strain of piloting this early mecha is so intense that many pilots have died in the process, with the current one passing out on more than few occasions.  This is of course a Pacific Rim homage - sadly, no one invents drifting.

- Herakoschei’s design is a loose homage to Robby the Robot and Cherno Alpha, because big boxy robots are cool.

- The Writhing Flesh and ESPECIALLY Pathogen are both hugely influenced by Resident Evil and The Thing.  Giant body horror piles of raw flesh, tendrils, mismatched mouths and limbs may be a bit outside the main era of monster design ATOM homages, but they fit the themes and bring a nice contrast.

- I came up with Pathogen long before Corona but MAN it definitely feels different in 2021 to have a giant monster whose name is a synonym for disease driving other creatures crazy in a quarantine zone than it did when I plotted out the story in 2016.

- The chapter title “Hello, Old Foes” is a riff on “Goodbye, Old Friend”

- Minerva, the kaiju-fied clone of Dr. Lerna, is meant to be an homage to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which is a genuinely good giant monster flick.  I am sure many of you will also believe I included her because I’m a pervert whose into tall women, but you’d be wrong!  I included the seven foot tall Russian mecha pilot Ludmilla Portnova because I’m a pervert whose into tall women.  Minerva’s inclusion was just coincidental, I swear!

- Since Promythigor is a play on the archetypal ape kaiju to contrast Tyrantis as a play on the archetypal fire-breathing reptile kaiju, their fight has a lot of nods to King Kong movies.  Promythigor attempts the famous jaw-snap maneuver of Kong (with less success), J.C. Clark paraphrases the “brute force vs. a thinking animal” line from the King Kong vs. Godzilla American cut, and Tyrantis slides down a mountain to knock Promythigor off his feet in a reversal of Kong doing the same in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

- Tyrantis sliding down a mountain on his tail doubles as a Godzilla vs. Megalon homage.

- Though Promythigor is the archetypal Ape and Tyrantis the archetypal Fire-Breathing Reptile, I think it’s fun to note that in some ways, Promythigor is the Godzilla equivalent in their matchup, and Tyrantis the Kong.  Promythigor has a slight size advantage, was scarred by humans performing unethical weapons technology, and is associated with violent explosions.  Tyrantis is a good-at-heart prehistoric beast who humanized in part by his unlikely friendship with a human woman.

- Of course, in the context of the famous quote from the American cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, they remain in their archetypal lanes.  Promythigor is the more intelligent of the two (though not necessarily wiser), and Tyrantis is in many ways a brute reptile.  Their battle is a rebuttal of sorts to the assertion that Kong is the “better” animal because he is closer to human.  Promythigor’s near human creativity and emotions don’t make him the kinder/more benevolent monster, but instead fuel a very self-centered and destructive attitude that makes him the far more dangerous threat.  On the other hand, Tyrantis, who is less intelligent, limited in communication with others by his reptilian mindset and instincts, and simple in his thoughts and desires, is nonetheless a sweet creature that is easily dealt with when others consider his animal needs and mindset.  There’s a quote from Hellboy I love that probably sums up all of my writing thus far: “To be other than human does not mean the same as being less,” and that’s what the matchup between these two in particular tries to illustrate: the “less” human Tyrantis is nonetheless more benign than the “more” human Promythigor.

- Kraydi the psychic lizard began life as a soft sculpture I made of the Canyon Krayt Dragon from The Wildlife of Star Wars.  The sculpture didn’t look much like the illustration, but I liked how it came out, and so I made it an original monster named Kraydi (see what I did there).  Figuring out an explanation for that name in ATOM’s world was possibly the most difficult kaiju naming task in the series, but it worked out in the end.

- Kraydi and Promythigor having psychic powers is a result of my time on Godzilla fan forums in my middle school years.  Most of the forums had OC kaiju battle tournaments, and SO many of those kaiju had a wide array of beam weapons and psychic powers just to win the tournaments by beam-spamming and mind controlling their foes into oblivion.  There’s a special kind of rage you get when your original creation is beaten by “Fire Godzilla” because he has a genius level intellect and the power of unstoppable telekinesis.  Kraydi began as (and still is I suppose) my attempt to do a psychic kaiju well, while Promythigor’s villainy being tied to psychic powers being forced on him is sort of my passive aggressive commentary on people foisting powers on a monster without any real thematic reason for them.

- Henry Robertson and Dr. Praetorius chewing out the laziness of people giving kaiju completely unaltered names of mythic beasts will probably be seen as a jab at the Monsterverse and/or the numerous writers in the kaiju OC scene who do the same, but it’s ACTUALLY a jab at my past self, who had DOZENS of kaiju whose names were just Greek mythological figures verbatim.  There are dozens of kaiju named Hydra, Scylla, Charybdis, Chimera, etc., past me, try to make the names stand out!  Oh wait you did.  I mean, don’t pat yourself on the back too much, you still went with “Mothmanud” as a canon name and never came up with something better, but, like, good on ya for trying I guess.

- Dr. Praetorius takes his name from the evil mad scientis in Bride of Frankenstein, who basically has all the wicked traits that Universal’s Frankenstein downplayed in their take on Dr. Frankenstein.  Ironically, ATOM’s Dr. Praetorius is a bit less evil than his fellow mad scientists in ATOM.  I really like how his character turned out, he surprised me.

- Isaac Rossum, the pilot of the USA mecha Atomoton, is named for Isaac Aasimov, whose robot stories are to robot fiction what Lord of the Rings is to high fantasy.  His last name is a reference to Rossum’s Universal Robots, which is where the word “robot” came from.

- The unfortunate pilots of MechaTyrantis in ATOM Volumes 1 and 2 are all nods to Jurassic Park.  John Ludlow = John Hammond and Peter Ludlow, Ian Grant = Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, Dennis Dodgson = Dennis Nedry and Lewis Dodgson.

- A good way to pitch Invasion from Beyond! would be “what if the staff and monsters were able to fight back when the Kilaaks tried to take over Monsterland?”

- Ok, here’s a fun joke that no one will get but me because it requires a very specific chain of logic based on some obscure and loosely connected nerd bullshit.  There’s a rocker in ATOM’s universe named Sebastian Haff, right?  One of his songs, “Darling Let’s Shimmy,” is referenced right before a mothmanud larva emerges from the ground in both ATOM Vol. 1 and 2.  Ok, so, in the Bubba Hotep, an aging Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff claims he is actually the real Elvis Presley, having changed places with the real Sebastian Haff as a sort of Prince and the Pauper deal that went wrong.  Got that?  Ok, so, in UFO folklore, a common joke is the theory that Elvis didn’t die, but was rather abducted by aliens (or he actually WAS an alien the whole time - the whole “Elvis didn’t die, he just went home” joke in Men in Black is a good example of this).  Ok?  Ok.  So, in ATOM’s universe, we can surmise that their equivalent of Elvis, whose name is Sebastian Haff, WAS abducted by aliens, and that his song “Darling Let’s Shimmy” is subconsciously influenced by his repressed memories from his time aboard the Beyonder spaceships, which is why it accidentally awoke a Mothmanud larva in Volume 1.  There’s a lot of bullshit jokes I put into ATOM, but this is perhaps the bullshittiest of them all.

- One of the most common bits of feedback on ATOM Volume 1 I got was “I kept waiting for something to eat Brick Rockwell, he’s such an asshole.”  And I had to smile and go, “Oh, yeah, guess he never got his, huh?” the whole time without letting on that he was going to die here all along!

- Dr. Lerna and Brick Rockwell’s nature as foils to each other is probably most apparent in Invasion from Beyond!, where both are given fairly similar situations - a nonhuman approaches them with a solution to a global crisis - and react to it very differently.  I worry that some people may think they both made the same choice and got different results, and that that’s hypocrisy on my part, but I hope I wrote it so you can see how their choices and situations actually differ in key ways, and why their decisions, while similar on the surface, are ultimately very different, and thus result in almost opposite outcomes.

- So, when I planned out this book in 2016, I swear I didn’t know about the Orca from 2019′s Godzilla King of the Monsters.  Having the plot hang around Dr. Lerna deciding whether or not to use a sonic device to rouse all the kaiju to save the earth was not INTENDED to be a Monsterverse reference - it came about from me looking at Pathfinder’s take on kaiju, who are all explicitly influenceable by music, and thinking, “Oh, wow, music and songs DO have a major connection with kaiju in a lot of media, I should do something with that.”  Whem KOTM came out a few days after Volume 1 came out I realized I was kinda fucked here, because the comparison was definitely going to be made, but I’d also set this all up already and you can’t just change suddenly to avoid looking like a copy cat and make a good story, so... I dunno, I leaned into it a bit, but it is what it is.

- While most people will probably think they’re a reference to the Reptoids of UFO folklore, the Reptodites are more inspired by the Dinosapien of speculative evolution fame and, even morso, by the Reptites from Chrono Trigger.  Me wanting to avoid the “lizard people control the government” conspiracy theory trope is one of the main reasons why Reptodites have this non-interference clause with humanity.

- Lieutenant Gray is a bunch of different humanoid aliens rolled into one - a little Hopskinville goblin, a little classic gray, a little this one weird alien with five-fingered zygodactyl hands, etc.

- There’s some Beyonder Mecha in this volume that are basically kaiju-fied versions of the Flatwoods Monster.  The species that built them ALSO engineered the Mothmanuds, because connecting Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster is fun!

- Pleprah is, obviously, a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

- Tyrantis’s brush with death, in addition to being so very anime, was inspired by my dad outlining how mythic heroes often have to travel to the underworld/land of the dead before they can finish their journey.  It’s one of the plot points that I’ve had planned for this series since middle school.

- I’m sure some will view it as hackneyed and corny, but as a person who’s battled with depression for decades, having Tyrantis’s choice to live be the big heroic turn of the finale was very important to me.  Tyrantis incorporates elements of a lot of imaginary friends I made as a kid, and in many ways he’s kind of the face of my more positive side in my head.  He’s been telling me to choose to live for a while, and while maybe to an outsider it may seem hackneyed, it’s just... very Tyrantis.  He chooses life and kindness in the face of pain and struggle.  That’s Tyrantis.

- Tyrantis’s powered up form is called “Hyper Mode,” which is another Gundam reference.  Originally it was a lot gaudier and involved him turning gold like a fuckin’ Super Saiyan.  I opted for something a little more toned down here.  

- Also, speaking of KOTM references, I decided to make Hyper Mode Tyrantis’s final duel with Pathogen be a sort of foil to Burning Godzilla’s final bout with Ghidorah in KOTM.  Instead of ravaging the city, Hyper Tyrantis’s pulse of energy rejuvenates his fallen allies, and as a result he is “crowned” not out of fear for his supremacy in the wake of killing a powerful enemy, but in gratitude for his kindness.  See?  Leaning into it!

- And now I can finally reveal that Yamaneon is ATOM’s equivalent of The Monolith Monsters - that is, a kaiju that is also a mineral.  I took the “strange continuously growing rock” thing in a very different direction, though, as unlike The Monolith Monsters, Yamaneon is actually alive.

- At various points in the pre-writing process, either Promythigor, MechaTyrantis, or both were going to die fighting Pathogen.  I ultimately decided to let them both live, with MechaTyrantis even getting his flesh and blood body back, because I think it’s more interesting and thematically consistent that way.  They get a chance to heal their wounds by changing their ways.

- The Great Beyonder and Dorazor both almost didn’t make the cut, as I felt they didn’t have the same pull as villains that Pathogen, Promythigor, and MechaTyrantis did.  But then I thought that could actually be the gag - build them up as the final boss, only to have Pathogen take their crown.  I want to explore post-face turn Dorazor a bit more, though.  We’ll have to see about that in a later volume.

- Volumes 1 and 2 make up what I call “The Ballad of Tyrantis Arc” for ATOM.  I call it that because Tyrantis’s storyline in these two volumes was patterend after Chivalric ballads like Yvain the Knight of the Lion.  Tyrantis, a heroic warrior who is kind but dumb of ass, learns of strange goings on outside his home and investigates.  During his journey into the unknown he falls in love with a powerful woman, whose favor he tries to win.  Through happenstance he is separated from his love and, distraught, wanders around fighting various foes to prove his worth, before finally returning to his love a better hero.  Invasion from Beyond! could even be seen as a sort of Morte d’Artur, with Tyrantis and a bunch of other kaiju heroes (including Nastadyne and Kemlasulla, who are built up as Hero Kaiju of Another Story) take part in a huge battle that threatens their idealic kingdom (of monsters).

- Volume 2 isn’t the end of ATOM, but it’s designed to work as an ending if you want to tap out here.  As a reader I feel a definitive ending is important, but as a writer I’m always tempted to revisit my beloved characters, so I feel giving closure while leaving a few doors open for possible future adventures is a good compromise between these positions.  There will be more ATOM stories, some (but not all!) following Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna, but if you want to know that Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna get an ending and the resolution to their arcs such a thing promises, here you go.  An ending, if not THE END.

[ducktracy]

bob clampett’s porky

porky was the original star of warner brothers after rising to popularity as the stuttering sidekick of beans the cat. we’ll get to porky’s full history when we get to friz freleng, who created him, but today we’re going to talk about bob clampett and his porky. without bob clampett, porky wouldn’t be one of my favorite looney tunes characters to date.

bob clampett’s first directorial credit was co-directing with ub iwerks and chuck jones on 1937’s “porky and gabby”. in it, porky and gabby goat (porky’s hot tempered, surly goat sidekick who got kicked to the curb in 1937 and didn’t come back until 2018 in wabbit/new looney tunes) go camping and (predictably) experience a series of mishaps. porky and gabby is a good short for 1937, highly predictable and low budget, but still entertaining.

porky was a bit of a trouble spot for directors. he was hard to get down. how old is he? some shorts he’s shown with having a mother, working on his father’s farm, etc. what does he do? what are his motivations? everyone struggled to really give him a definitive personality. everyone except bob clampett.

1938-1939 is really when clampett began to solidify porky’s personality. the 1938-1939 title card for looney tunes actually donned a porky drawn by clampett. notice how big his eyes are and how symmetrical and circular he is. clampett was pretty well known for giving characters bigger eyes than other directors.

clampett’s “porky in wackyland” (1938) was a huge hit and is considered one of the greatest cartoons even today. in it, porky travels to darkest africa to find the only existing dodo bird left. he ends up in “wackyland”, population 100 nuts and a squirrel with a slogan expressing that “it CAN happen here”.

porky wanders through wackyland, befuddled and confused. porky finds the ever elusive dodo bird, who harasses him and leads him through all sorts of obstacles: slamming into doors, brick walls, etc. porky finally dons a disguise and bonks the dodo bird on the head with a mallet. he asks “are you really the last of the dodos?” to which the dodo haughtily replies “YES, i’m really the last of the dodos! ...AIN’T THAT RIGHT, FELLAS?”

out of nowhere, an armada of identical dodo birds swoop in around porky and scream in ear-splitting unison, “YEAH MAN! WOOOOOOOOOO!” topped with the trademark iris out.

clampett made porky to seem youthful. before, he was just a prop for impending doom to beat him down, but clampett wanted to change that. he made him cute, appear as a young adult, and give him a lot of naïveté. he was good-hearted, bad things still happened to him, but at least he had some sort of innocence and personality to him. of course, in the same sense, he could occasionally foster a temper, feel frustrated, etc. he wasn’t just a prop. he had emotions, both good and bad.

the black and white shorts are surprisingly entertaining, especially clampett’s. the low budget was rather constricting, but clampett didn’t let that stop him. shown below in 1939’s “porky’s picnic” is an expression that i just LOVE that comes completely out of nowhere.

it doesn’t even have a name, but you can feel it. clampett is renowned for his zaniness and over the top expressions, and we can see that trying to weasel its way out of its egg here.

1940 comes and clampett opens up the decade known as the golden age of cartoons with “porky’s last stand”, the first short released in the 40s.

this is a personal favorite of mine. porky and daffy work at a restaurant together, an angry customer demands he get a hamburger. daffy (you can already smell the trouble) promises he’ll fix him up a hamburger right away, but when he goes to retrieve the meat, he finds a sign left by “the mice” who have beat him to it. daffy, desperate, finds a little calf grazing on some grass and decides to kill it. he follows it into a barn muttering and strutting along happily (and daffily), and when he goes to pull the calf out from inside the barn by the tail, he’s met face to face with an angry bull instead.

basically the rest of the short turns into a prolonged bull chase with porky and daffy. it’s a good one though, with porky’s oblivion as to why daffy is so upset (asking if someone is there to see him and declaring “must be a salesman!”) and daffy’s wacky nature always landing them into trouble (including waving a red cloth and yelling “HEY FERDINAND!”)

i LOVE this porky here. he’s starting to look a bit similar to how he’d continue to look. his head is still a perfect circle, but his ears have gotten more pointed and his eyes don’t take up nearly as much room on his face. this is my favorite iteration of porky, i think it’s a great balance. he looks so charming and adorable, but he has a lot of potential for some great expressions too.

here we have “porky’s pooch” from 1941, what would kick off the charlie dog and porky series—charlie dog winding up on porky’s doorstep begging to be taken in, porky denying him entrance, and a wild goose chase between a dog trying to find a home and a stubborn, oblivious, easily gullible pig. porky is still comprised of mainly circles, but his eyes are certainly a lot bigger than the last picture. his ears are also standing straight up instead of at an angle.

1943’s “a corny concerto” is one of the first clampett shorts we see with porky in color. it’s also interesting to note that this is one of 3 appearances he makes together with bugs, the other 2 in frank tashlin’s “porky pig’s feat” (1943) and gerry chiniquy’s “dumb patrol” (1964).

1943 was an interesting year for clampett, it was really when his shorts started to be up and running. he had taken over for tex avery who had left the studio in 1941, and thus clampett got access to iconic animators such as rod scribner and bob mckimson (who would take over for clampett).

here we can see porky looking a lot more like how he’ll continue to look through the years. his head weight isn’t as evenly distributed, instead of being a perfect circle on top of a mass of cheeks, the cheeks and his head sort of connect instead of piling on top of each other. his ears are smaller and less prominent, and bluntly speaking he’s a bit uglier too LOL. i like porky’s ambiguity, he can be REALLY cute and also REALLY ugly. i really like that though. maybe he’s getting wrinkly with age? 🤔

1944 gives us “tick tock tuckered”, a remake of one of clampett’s first cartoons, “porky’s badtime story” (1937). remember gabby goat? you should because he’s at the beginning of this post. since he’s currently in cartoon purgatory at this point, daffy decides to take over in gabby’s place instead.

clampett is known for making daffy live up to his name (which we’ll cover later), but in this short he shows some of his curmudgeon tendencies (lightning striking an umbrella to which he declares “EGADS, I MUST HAVE ENEMIES!”) porky is still mild mannered porky, trying to tell daffy what to do so they don’t make too much noise sneaking late into work, insisting that opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck, etc. this screenshot he’s definitely back to his “cute” stage, his head seems to be more circular again and his eyes are moderately sized.

then we have 1946’s “baby bottleneck”, one of clampett’s last shorts. i love this short so much. porky takes over as the stork and is in charge of delivering babies to expecting mothers across the world, with daffy as his assistant.

this cartoon just shows how flexible and malleable porky’s character is. he’s orderly and tries to get the job done, hard working and committed. he politely asks daffy to sit on an egg and “hatch it out” so they can find out who the expecting mother is. daffy agrees... until he doesn’t, randomly refuses out of nowhere, and walks away singing.

unexpectedly, porky, who was just smiling and batting his eyes at daffy is now grabbing him by his neck, demanding him to sit on the egg, and pushing and fighting and even throwing him to the ground to just sit on that damn egg. it’s rare that we see porky lose his temper since he’s so well known for being the straightman character, so when he DOES get angry it packs such a punch. porky barrels after daffy, not giving up his pursuit, until they both end up running on the conveyer belt that burps, swaddles, and delivers babies to their mothers. porky and daffy end up being merged into a hilariously disturbing baby, with daffy’s head and torso and porky’s stubby legs sticking out of a diaper.

finally, we reach “kitty kornered” (1946), clampett’s last short with porky. a pesky group of cats lock porky out of his house (one of which is a prototype sylvester) and he tries and tries again to get ownership of his house again. another great porky cartoon: he’s extremely gullible (believing the cats who claim that they’re aliens who are invading his house and that he should leave immediately) but at the same time runs for a gun and tries to shoot them, angrily protesting “I’M BEGINNING TO HATE PUSSYCATS!”, etc. the short ends with porky being kicked out of his house one last time.

he turns to the audience and asks “pardon me, but does anyone in the audience know somebody who knows somebody who has a house to rent?” (albeit with a lot more stuttering). i think this is an appropriate end to clampett’s porky. it’s almost as if he’s asking if there are any other directors who could take him under his wing, to give him a new home.

this is a bit discombobulated and disconnected, but i’m hoping that the pictures make up for what my words do not, how you can see his development physically (and hopefully emotionally too). i never expected to like porky, he bored me as a kid and i never thought twice about him, but now i like him more than i do bugs, and it’s all thanks to clampett. he gave porky a wide range, with looks and scenarios. he could be sweet and innocent one second and angry and bitter the next with absolutely no warning. even in a predictable plot you still didn’t know what he would do. he’s a very endearing character and has a ton of funny lines. he’s very hard to dislike.

i hope this was informative! the best way to see for yourself is to watch these shorts yourself and to get a feel for them. studying screenshots and analyses is helpful, but it’s truly something else when seeing everything in motion with sound, dialogue, etc. THANK YOU for sticking with me and i hope you enjoyed this!

[t-citurnity-moved]

HEY TALK ABOUT YOUR LOVES

Ohohohoho.

My thoughts are more or less about the boys, BUT I feel like I also need to provide context because this series has been such a huge part of my life.

So, therefore, let's start at the beginning.

GOD THIS GOT SO LONG AND I AM SO SORRY BUT I HAVE A LOT OF THOTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I have been part of the fanbase (not gonna say fandom, because that implies I'm active at all in the d//m//c "community" when I absolutely am not) since before 2010. That's 10+ years of enjoyment in this series. 10+ years I've been holding onto my feelings because I wasn't sure if it was right to love fictional characters. I still wrote and roleplayed with other people who were also in the fanbase, because... well, writing OC / Canon at the time was the closest anyone could get to saying "I want to date this character and not be judged." (But we all know that even then, if the OC wasn't written a specific way then they'd be considered a sue / stu; don't even get me started there.)

I fell in love with Dante first. He was the main character up until Nero starred in D//M//C4! So why wouldn't I love him? The first piece of media in which I really broke into the series was the anime and that's only because I really loved anime at the time (now not so much, mostly because I don't have attention span, etc). And boy... ohoho boy. I loved him even more. I think it's partly because that was my first real look into the series that I love D//M//C2 so much, because I'm more inclined toward the ""edgy"" side of Dante; wacky wahoo pizza man is cool and all, but I also love retrospective Dante who's a bit serious. Doesn't mean he's not the same Dante, because he absolutely is. But I hate how the fanbase portrays him sometimes. (The same fanbase that hates D//M//C2 and probably hates the reboot too, BUT I'LL TOUCH UPON THAT IN A MOMENT.)

The fact that Dante can be a serious person when he needs to be (or even if he's like... killed his brother several times and is therefore entering into a depressive state because who tf wouldn't) seems lost on a lot of people and it makes me sad. Because when I first really started branching into the fandom, I was (and still am) the same way... I just feel like 2Dante and Anime Dante are just... more relatable? So I lean toward them more than anything because I can understand them more? Because I too have depression and struggle with it? (By no means am I saying that 4/5 Dante don't have depression, I just think at that point he deals with it differently. I have a lot of headcanon there and that in and of itself is a whole ass different discussion. I also think discovering that Nero is Vergil's son / his nephew also helps him handle his depression as well, because "wow... at least I still have some part of Vergil left, even if it is only his kid" plays a bit role in how Dante recovers, BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT I THINK.)

I even think 3Dante has some level of depression going on, even thouh that's the start of the series and it doesn't really start going downhill until after those events. I mean, losing his mother at a young age and also thinking he lost Vergil until, SURPRISE SURPRISE, Vergil invites him to a "bash" which is really just some ploy to gain power? I just think at that point, it's manageable for him; he doesn't struggle with it nearly as much as he does in 2 + Anime.  That being said, the fact that he's so """wacky wahoo""" also leads me to conclusion that, even if it is "manageable," he does still struggle at times and I feel probably overwhelms him at times, so he tries to manage BY being upbeat about things. Which, anyone who has depression knows, is so fucking difficult to do. The fact that Dante can keep going despite all this shit going on in his life makes ME feel like I can keep going.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON VERGIL AND HIS PROBLEMS. Dude just wanted to be protected and loved.

Actually, LET ME get started on that. Because I have a lot of thots.

Vergil grew up believing their mother chose Dante over him. That she didn't try to save him. That Dante was more important to her than he was. He grew up with this inferiority complex because he didn't know WHY their mother never came to save him. He also grew up thinking he wasn't strong enough to save HER. That's why he actively sought out power, while believing humans were "weak." That's why he manifested this hatred for being half-human. Because he couldn't save his family and, for a long time, he was led to believe his mother didn't care for him nearly as much as she cared for Dante (IE. "saving" Dante, but not Vergil).

Vergil's thirst for power is just misdirected feelings toward his family. He should've been mad at demons for attacking them in the first place, but because he grew up believing what he did, it became hatred toward humans instead. That's why he hated Dante, too. In reality, I don't think he really "hates" Dante, just feels severely inferior (which he veils by """having""" a superiority complex instead of the opposite, which he actually has). I think he just had a lot of conflicted emotions that he was never able to work through. Which is why I love the idea that he and Dante, post-D//M//C5 could reconcile at some point. Because neither of them really hated each other, they just had conflicting viewpoints due to one event that go thrown out of proportion somewhere along the way. Vergil just wanted what Dante had, which he perceived as the love of their mother, because she "chose" to save Dante instead of him. In reality, she tried to go after Vergil too, but simply didn't survive. Vergil was entirely unaware of this, so obviously he'd be upset. It's the crux of all his problems.

Vergil HIMSELF even theorises what would happen if they switched places that day! He wonders what would happen if he and Dante's lives were swapped! (Which, TBH, would be a pretty neat AU, heheheheh.) Legit! "If our positions were switched... would I have your life? And you mine?" DUDE WANTED TO KNOW!!! He wanted to know what it was like to BE Dante, to be LOVED, to be PROTECTED by the ONE PERSON they had in their lives at the time! They only had their mother, so OF COURSE Vergil would be upset due to the circumstances! HE JUST WANTED TO BE PROTECTED AND LOVED.

3Vergil doesn't show much of this side of him, because he's just angry and going through a lot and he JUST wanted to be powerful enough that no one could hurt him any more. He would NEVER say this, but dude....... You cannot convince me this dude just wanted to be powerful to keep himself safe. To feel like he finally would've had enough power to protect the people he loves AND himself. He just didn't want to be hurt again. This is, by NO MEANS, an excuse for his actions. It's an explanation. His actions shouldn't be excused because of his ~ f e e l i n g s ~, but I firmly believe that post-D//M//C5, he could redeem himself for these actions. For everything he's done, he can realise it's wrong. He can grow to be a better person. He can reconcile with Dante and even be a good father to Nero. He can be better and I want to believe that he WOULD be better. After everything V went through, discovering that he doesn't really want to be the person he used to, Vergil can change and be better.

OOFIES. This has gone on long, BUT I STILL HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THE REBOOT BOYS THAT I STRUGGLE TO PUT INTO WORDS, SO BEAR WITH ME IF THIS SEEMS STUPID OR GARBLED.

Context for the reboot: It's basically a remake of the series that got poor reception because people struggle to accept change. :) I will not debate this and anyone who wants to come at me can eat my socks.

Dante 2.0, like original Dante, HAS PROBLEMS. He's an edgy punk bitch who has problems and he's so ugly I love him.

This dude went his entire life struggling with his identity as someone "human." At one point, he was so convinced he didn't have a heart that he ripped open his own chest to see if he did. Yeah. Dude has issues. But it's ok, because in game, he legitimately sets aside his own issues with people to save humanity. Dude's got such BDE.

People hate him, but I feel like they fail to realise what the hell he's been through. He's been through just as much shit as original Dante. Same goes for Vergil 2.0. These boys have been through SO MUCH, but people don't see that because "Nooo!! You can't just remake the series!!!" Meanwhile I'm like "hehe handsome nephilim boys go brrr."

I literally cannot begin to explain the amount of hate people have for the reboot and it makes me sad, because... like.... y'all.... don't realise... these dudes... went through so much shit..... and yeah... I get it... remake bad, original good, but dude.... my dude.... my bro.... you do not have to hate it that much.... calm down, it's just a video game....

My dude Dante grew up in the system because the foster homes and shit he got placed in were run by demons!!! So he'd lash out at them!!! He was violent because demons suck!! They killed his mom and enslaved his dad!!! Imagine!!! Being surprised by that!!! When you know what he went through!!! Damn, couldn't be me!!!

Vergil went through some shit too!!! Like!!! Yeah, he was adopted into a rich family and lived a pretty cushy life, but fact of the matter is!!! Their parents died and they had their memories WIPED when they were kids!!! Imagine!!! The distraught!!! When he (since he found out who he was long before Dante did) realised what had happened!!! When he remembered!! When he discovered he wasn't human!! My dude founded a whole ass group of demon hunting hactivists because he knew demons sucked and wanted to make the world a better place. It wasn't until after Mundus (big stinky demon man) died that he started realising how frail humans could be and decided to be an asshole about it.

I'm so sad that there will never be any more about the reboot, because fans decided to be assholes about it. I'm so sad that we'll never learn more about what happened to those boys. I'm so sad that we'll never be able to see whether they reconcile or even have the opportunity to.

Alas, I have to rely on heavy headcanon and personal re-write of the story to fix canon instead. :<

[justanotherskamstan]

My thoughts and ranking of on SKAM remakes so far

The special thing about the series SKAM as a whole was that it was authentic and a real reflection on teenage lives of Norwegians. The show creates extremely special moments with valuable lessons for everyone through a diverse, age-appropriate cast and shows that its creator, Julie Andem, did understand what the market was missing in terms of teen-drama shows. The show had a huge impact on the lives of its young actors and many viewers, creating a worldwide phenomenon, especially during its 3rd season run featuring the character Isak. The storytelling process of each season changes, because there is a different main character in each one, and the season tells their story and the stories of others through the main character’s perspective. Quite a unique thing to do, because most of the time teen shows feel like how the adult writers think teenagers would like/do, however, SKAM was very honest about the reality of teenagers and how it is not this perfect, pinky, beautiful world where everyone ends up happily ever after. The acting talent of the cast at such a young age was extraordinary, so kudos to Ms.Andem for creating this great melting pot of talented actors, amazing writers and a creative director to form this almost-perfect show. The show is not perfect, and with many pointing out the “problematic” aspects of certain characters, however, I feel like that adds to the realness of everything, since there are no perfect people in this world, especially at the age of making mistake and learning from them. The success of the show has spawned 7 international remakes so far, and I am going to rank them from my favorite to least favorite (most likely to rewatch willingly) with an accompanying analysis of the pros and cons of each. The order in which I watched them was SKAM Austin, OG SKAM, SKAM Italia, Druck, SKAM France, and then I live watched SKAM NL, SKAM Espana, WTFock and the current season of Druck along of SKAM Italia season 2. These are my thoughts and opinions, so please if you agree or disagree, don’t hate!

Druck (1 completed season, and 1 currently airing, future unsure)

Season 1 of Druck focuses on Hannah Jung (Eva) and her relationships with her boyfriend Jonas (Jonas) and her new group of friends, while season 2’s main character is Mia (Noora). There were many that ranks this remake as one of their least favorite, I think because it started airing during the same time frame as SKAM Italia (the most popular remake domestically and internationally) and SKAM Austin, so many did not give it a proper chance. The chemistry between Hannah and Jonas have got to be the best in all the remakes, particularly during the final episode of the season, when they eventually part ways to truly find out what they want before they could consider rekindling. The ways Jonas cried during that scene and the way they touched their noses together, weirdly enough made it very intimate without needing anything too risqué. The dynamic of Hannah’s girl squad was very well executed, as their respective personalities complimented each other’s well. Hannah’s father is probably the funniest SKAM parent character of all the remakes, since he is just slightly awkward enough and old-person enough to be funny without cringing. Druck is one of the remakes that stick pretty close to the original, but changes the characters, plot points, etc. just enough to make it their own without compromising on the SKAM framework. Besides Hannah, the standouts to me where Mia and girl Sam. Mia is an extremely beautiful, caring, but strong-minded character, but differs from the OG Noora in the fact that Mia is bisexual and her character’s actions in season 2 would not be something that Noora would be caught doing, even if it is in the name of protecting her friend. Girl Sam is completely different from OG Chris, as she is very sex-positive, funny, outgoing, and a character unique enough that I haven’t encountered anyone similar in all of the remakes. Mia and Sam are some of the best versions of their characters. Alex (William) is probably everyone’s least favorite William remake because he is so cold during the first season (and “looks like he’s married with kids”), which led to many complaints from viewers about how unrealistic it would be for Mia to fall for Alex in the second season, since she never really responded well to his advances in the first. However, so far into the second season their dynamic seems to have improved and the way the writers go about getting these two together have been very different from the OG. Let’s just wait and see where it takes us. But so far there have been noticeable improvements in the releasing of clips and the characters’ social media activity. During season 1, one of the weakest link of Druck was the real-time social media aspect, as there were irregular posts and the characters did not interact with one another very much. I think that the writers have listened to their audience and upped their social media game, and a noticeable example of this was a text between the girl squad about their respective careers after school which perfectly showcased the race, class dynamics of Germany. The first season was also extremely short compared to the other versions, and so far for season 2, every clip released has been a decent length, so good on them for improving on that. Also, the soundtrack of Druck is my favorite of all the remakes, as their spotify playlist have become my place to find new music. Also, the diversity of their casting is great, Amira, Sam, and Toilet-Sam are all POC, and Amira especially shows authentically how a hijab-wearing teenage girl in Germany is because she is one. 

The biggest issue I have with Druck has got to be the character of Kiki (Vilde). She has expressed ideas of Islamophobia, racism, and has a general aggressiveness to her. In the OG, after Vilde learns her lesson near the end of the first season, her attitude improves for the better, but Kiki has gotten worse in season 2, even though she got what she wanted, which was to get together with Alex. In the first episode her remark about how both Sams are black and named Sam was micro-aggression at its finest, but in season 2 she shows her temper when she exploded on Mia for being concerned about her diet/workout/drug-use. Even though she later apologized to Mia with an expensive gift, I think it would be hard for her to truly redeem herself in the eyes of the audience. The actress’s performance is not bad, but I question the reasoning behind the writer’s decision to make this character act this way, which maybe answered later in the season. Another concern I have about Druck is how its future going to be like. As the girl squad is in their final year of high school, and when they graduate in spring there would probably go off into different universities/jobs. Season 2 ends in March of 2019, so the odds of fitting in a Matteo (Isak) and a Amira (Sana) season before they all graduate seem impossible. The long hiatus between season 1 and 2 contributed to that especially, since they had to fail Alex’s character for German class so he could stay behind for a year to complete Mia story arc. Another minor complaint I’ve heard from many German-speaking viewers is that the language they speak seem very weird to native speakers, this is not really an issue for me as I rely solely on English subtitles to comprehend their conversations, but it has been noted. I’m very excited to see where this takes us, but hopefully they can make it work and renew for other seasons since season 2 has brought in a huge spike in viewership. 

2. WTFock (1 completed season, and renewed for a second)

The newest baby of the SKAM remakes family, and a surprising favorite of mine. Season 1 focuses on Jana (Eva) and her boyfriend Jens (Jonas), and follow the storyline of OG season 1 pretty closely. Also another underdog remake in my personal opinion, airing at the same time as SKAM Italia season 2 and the OG SKAM’s bloopers. The most special thing about WTFock is that even though it sticks pretty closely to the OG, its original scenes that is added changes the storyline ever so slightly so that it avoids the errors of previous remakes, which I think is very smart. An example of this is in the OG and several remakes, the character of William apologizes to Vilde in exchange for a date with Noora, however, in WTFock, Zoe (Noora) prompts Senne (William) to apologize to Amber (Vilde) on his own by sort of teasing/mocking his intelligence in an original scene. Many viewers called the OG version “blackmailing” and “manipulation”, so by changing that ever so slightly it gives it a different feel. Another positive change made to the storyline of Robbe’s (Isak) character is that in the OG, he tells Eva that the reason behind his decision to ruin her relationship with his best-friend is that he has feelings for her. However, in WTFock, Robbe confesses to Jana that he feels left out and jealous of the amount of time Jens spends with her, which is much more truthful than Isak’s reasoning. Jana’s mom is my favorite mom character in SKAM, since she is very sweet and caring, even though her job may make her physically and sometimes emotionally distant from her only child. Their mother and daughter bond was strengthened, for me at least, in the scene where it was revealed that Jana’s dad is dead, with the scene itself being very quiet but emotionally captivating at the same time. The best character to come out of WTFock is Zoe in my opinion. Her version of Noora is much more sarcastic, has very quick wit, strong-minded but also very soft towards those that she cares about. The dynamics of this girl squad is great, despite the fact that certain crucial scenes like the party scene was missing Yasmina (Sana), their bond blossomed very nicely. Especially the close friendship between Yasmina and Zoe has its groundwork laid out well, which would help make Zoe’s season more understandable. Also, Zoe’s connection with Senne in this remake is one of the most obvious one early on, as the inclusion of some original scenes in the last two episodes make it abundantly clear, as oppose to other remakes which usually wait till season 2 to build on their relationship further. Out of all the remakes, I can see that this one is the most wholesome, and easiest to like due to changes to make it “less problematic”. Also, their social media posts, especially Zoe’s is very aesthetically pleasing, and they are very interactive with one another on there. 

I think the casting of WTFock in general is great, everyone looks age-appropriate, even Senne, who’s actor is actually 22 according to wikipedia. I loved that Jana has braces, and even though they are usually considered ugly, she is still very confident and beautiful with them on. However, there is only 2 POC in the entire cast, not necessary the most diverse cast out of the remakes. I also don’t really like the idea of the only black character, Keisha (original character), befriending Jana and inviting her to a party, only to offer her drugs. I know it is a scene used to help us see Jana’s aversion to drug-use, which affects her relationship with Jens greatly, but did they really have to have the only black character be that type of character. I personally don’t feel like reinforcing bad stereotypes about black people is the greatest thing to do in this inclusive teen series. Maybe her character would have more screen time in season 2 with better character development. Also, the Mexican-themed party where Jana and Luka (P-Chris) kiss is really cultural appropriation at its finest. The beautiful scene where these two characters, whom I greatly ship together, is kind of destroyed by the huge sombrero hanging off of Luka’s neck. Maybe next season the writers can think of better themes for parties that don’t really include taking another culture and not really giving it the respect it deserves. Another problem I have is with the character of Jens himself, and how popular of a character he is compared to the other characters on social media, even though some of the things he says to Jana are very troubling. In the scene where Jana and Jens are talking on a bench by a lake/ocean, Jens mentions Jana’s drinking and comparing it to his choice to smoke weed. For his character to use his girlfriend’s choice to drink alcohol against her, and use it as leverage to justify his decision to skip out on the planned dinner with her mom to smoke weed and lying to her about who he was with seems much more questionable than the OG’s excuse. It was surprising to me how his character has the most Instagram followers out of everyone in the cast, most possibly because he is very good-looking, but still it is quite odd to see a character say very troubling things to be the most followed. Also, the decision for them to have a breakup sex scene I feel like was unnecessary for this remake, as unlike some other Eva and Jonas versions, their relationship seems less physical so it was kind of awkward for them to do that since they haven’t been doing that as much throughout the season. Another minor complaint is with the music choices. I have greatly enjoyed many songs from the WTFock spotify playlist, but the sheer number of them are so many that sometimes it detracts from the scenes that it is included with. Out of all the remakes, I think WTFock have used the most number of songs in just the first season, so maybe they can scale back on that a bit, quality over quantity. Despite not being the international fandom’s favorite remake, WTFock has achieved major success domestically, reaching 3 million views just from being an online series and got a spot to air on TV. The show runners have created the very good framework to expand into the next season, and with a few fixes here and there, I think this remake could get even better. I hope some of the casts’ interests could be incorporated into their characters next season, for example the actor who plays Luka does parkour, maybe we could get a scene where he showcases his skills to impress Jana. WTFock is the remake that has the very high chance of being renewed further. Also, this remake has got to be the show that says its name within the show the most out of any I’ve watch, maybe not say WTFock every episode, cause I’m pretty sure anytime I watch a movie or show where a character says the name of the film/show, my mind goes “Roll credits”, but that’s a personal thing. 

3. Tie- SKAM NL (1 completed season, and renewed for a second) and SKAM Italia (2 completed season, and completed filming for a third)

For me personally both SKAM NL and SKAM Italia have some great qualities to it, however, these remakes have some major issues that is harder for me to get passed. Had they been slightly different, these remakes would probably be at the top of my ranking. 

SKAM NL:

SKAM NL is one of the newer remakes to come out this year, and it did not disappoint. Season 1 is focused on Isa (Eva) and her storyline similar to that of the OG. The best thing going for SKAM NL is the casting choices. This cast is the most diverse out of all the remakes, Kes (Jonas), Imaan (Sana), Liv (Noora) etc. are all POC. This is the first remake to have a biracial Noorhelm, with the first biracial couple being Emma and Yann from SKAM France. There are so many great characters in SKAM NL, many which differ from the OG’s personalities. Even the pilot episode, which most remakes have copied exactly like the OG, was made very different in NL with Gijs (P-Chris) coming to introduce himself to Isa instead of her trying to find someone with a similar name, and for Isa to be entranced by Liv’s singing before they talk about Olivia (Ingrid) calling Isa a slut. The actress who plays Isa interpreted her role very different from any other version of Eva, which I think makes her the standout for NL. She’s fiercely herself in a way that the other Evas weren’t, and her confrontation scene with Olivia is one of the best, because instead of them both breaking down to tears, Isa makes the remark of something similar to “He (Kes) got both of us here, and look at us now.” which hit me as I came to greatly appreciate her version of the character. Another character which surprised me was Engel (Vilde). Her soft, sweet, and all thing pink personality was somewhat in line with the OG, but in the scene where the girls fought Gijs’ girlfriend, it was Engel who was one of the most proactive participants of the fight. She is one of the most naive Vildes, sometimes a little too naive, but her conversation with Isa on the street where she says something along the lines of “I admire you for who you are, but then you were not who I thought you were.” gave her character more depth than some other Vildes had. In general, all of the performances were great, and the soundtrack is excellent. The song accompanying Noah’s (William) first entrance was iconic and was stuck in my head for a few days. 

Because SKAM NL airs on TV as well as is released online, the amount of time for each episode have been an issue for me. Especially during the necessarily longer clips like the one where Isa confronts Kes after the news leaked about her kiss with Gijs, the scene was too short and didn’t give the audience enough time to process what the two were saying to each other and the emotional impact it has on their relationship before Kes stormed off with his skateboard and Isa was left alone. If the show had been online series only, I think the show itself could afford to be a bit longer and would have more success since its air time on TV was making it compete directly with one of the most popular shows in the Netherlands. In general, SKAM NL has been a very good series for me up until the season 1 finale, which had some moments where I really questioned the decisions made by the writers. First, the Isa and Kes breakup scene, where all they did was have sex. I know that their relationship is quite physical, so the scene did not feel weird, but afterwards they did not speak to each other much about their relationship and the impact their choices had to its ultimate doom. The breakup conversation to me is more important than the sex scene because it shows the character’s maturity in that they realize both of them have done wrong and should fix themselves before they can reunite. The cinematography for all of the series are great, but like SKAM NL I need Kes and Isa to talk more about their relationship ending. I think this directly links with the whole TV time slot problem that I mentioned before. It was very disappointing for me to see that the character of Imaan was not very prevalent in the show, not showing up to the final party. I know what it was mentioned the actress had personal issues that made her unavailable for filming, but I hope that come next season her character is more incorporated in the show, since her entrance scene is one of the best Sana introduction in all of the remakes. Another character whom I questioned the choices his character made in the finale was Noah. His character is wildly different from OG William, he’s the cool, artsy, weed-smooking type, which I really liked since it is so unique. However, in the final party when he apologized to Engel about insulting her, he also slipped Liv a note (which we did not get to see what was in it) in front of her friends. I know that most of the William characters only apologized to get Noora to agree on a date, making them have an ulterior motive, but Noah’s apology seem the most sincere out of all of them. I’m not quite sure how the writers are going to take on this characters and his relationship with Liv next season, but I hope they somehow justify his poor apology somewhat. Because I like their relationship’s dynamics, especially after that banter about “If you can count, don’t count on it” and the book head tap thing, but now I’m questioning myself for liking his character a bit. I appreciate that after a text was released where Janna (Chris) made a rape joke, the show-runners saw that the viewers didn’t like it and pulled it from the show, as they are displaying that they listen to their audience. Despite not being a complete success domestically, I feel like many international viewers loved SKAM NL’s changes to the OG, making it their favorite remake, for good reasons. I hope they improve on some of the issues from the first season and I can’t wait to see where Liv and Noah take us. 

SKAM Italia:

The golden standard of remakes, also the most popular domestically and internationally, set the bar high for remakes after it. The beautiful cinematography from season 1, along with the best acting performances from all of the remakes from Eva (Eva) and Martino (Isak). SKAM Italia has no many things going for it, the dynamics of the relationships, the girl squad and performances make it the “best remake” in many viewers’ opinions, also its IMBD score is also the highest out of all of the remakes, just a bit lower than OG SKAM. I would say that this remake is the most mature/risqué remake of them all. The inclusion of nudity in Eva and Gio (Jonas) sex scene make it much more passionate and stands out from others. Their relationship as a whole is quite a bit different from others, in the fact that Gio is like Eva’ best friend and boyfriend, as he understands her very well, even knowing where she will be without her telling him. In general, the couples of SKAM Italia have very good chemistry with one another, even Eleonora (Noora) and Eduardo (William), who have only shared a few scenes together, yet have palpable chemistry on screen. As season  3 have been confirmed as Eleonora’s, it would be very interesting to see their dynamics for full episodes instead of a few clips. Season 1 of SKAM Italia many consider even better than OG, I really don’t like saying anything is better than the original, but I will say that certain aspects of it is better, but not as a whole season. Season 2 has garnered critical acclaim, as the performances of Martino and Nico (Even) are very good. They hit many of the same points the OG did, like the underwater pool kiss, Nico having his mental breakdown leading to him running naked around the city, Martino’s home problems. However, I loved that in this remake, Martino and his mom somewhat made up, despite the fact that she can be a somewhat absentee parent, she ultimately loves her son and accepts him for who he is.  This season also creates this great bond between the boys of the boy squad, especially Gio and Martino, with Gio being the supportive friend Martino needed during some of his lowest points.

The biggest issue I have, and I think many would agree, is that SKAM Italia’s casting is very strange to say the least. A smaller aspect of it is that most of the cast is in their 20s, with Edoardo’s actor being 27, and most of them look their age, it is quite strange to see the actors looking like older college students playing high school roles. But since most of them are more experienced actors, I don’t think that the age makes a huge difference in the overall series. However, the casting choice for Sana (Sana) on the other hand is my biggest gripe. The actress who plays this character is not a Muslim person, nor is she a POC. The SKAM Italia cast is like all white people, which some may say “no one wants a POC character thrown in for no reason” but since SKAM is a reflection of teenagers in a diverse environment, especially set in Rome, one of the most popular cities in Europe, there is no excuse for not casting POC. The reason why OG Sana was authentic is because she playings parts of herself in the role, as a young Muslim hijab-wearing women in Oslo, and her experiences with discrimination/racism. As a white person who is not Muslim, I don’t really know how that Italian Sana is going to accurately portray the experiences of a young Muslim hijab-wearing women in Rome without having experienced it firsthand. I read somewhere that the actress is learning Arabic and reading the Quran to prepare for her season (don’t know if this is factual), but I hope that if (when) her season comes she can do the role some justice. It’s just kind of hard to get excited for the season where you know that its not going to be truly authentic. My biggest annoyance with season 2 is the cinematography. Compared to season 1, season 2 happens a lot at night, so many things happen in the dark or very dim lighting, making really hard to see what the hell is going on in certain scenes. I had to turn my screen brightness to the highest point to decipher what was happening sometimes. I know it is a metaphor for Martino’s turbulent situation and what not, but if I can’t even see that well what is happening in each scene, then Martino’s great performance has gone to waste. There were quite a few scandals over the run of season 2, like Nico saying the n-word during a scene. I agree that the viewers where justified in being mad at that, but for the director and the actors to try and justify their decision to include this scene was really troubling. The director of SKAM Italia is a very problematic person, in that he doesn’t admit that he’s wrong for casting Sana or the n-word scene, trying to justify his mistakes is just something I don’t want to see from someone who has the creative control of such a good series. Even some of the texts shared between the boy squad is really uncomfortable, as they sort of fat shame Federica (Chris), even though she invited them to her birthday party. The soundtrack is pretty good, but not my favorite, as I don’t really know much about some of the songs they have chosen. Overall, I can’t wait for season 3 to air, as I know it would be good. But for season 4, I’m not sure what to expect. There are some major issues for me with SKAM Italia, but I will continue to watch it until either I can’t stand the director’s decisions anymore or the dark scenes officially get too dark for me to see what’s going on. 

4. SKAM Espana (1 completed season, and renewed for a second)

The remake with the most changes to its name, SKAM Espana is surprising us viewers left and right with its twists and turns. My thing with this remake is that some of the changes I loved and some were did not agree with me. I was shocked that this remake was renewed for another season even before the first episode aired, as the first clip introducing Alejandro (William) garnered many international viewers’ interest.The main for season 1 is Eva (Eva), who is quite a unique Eva in her own right. She is the one Eva who cries the most often, and is more vulnerable compared to the OG. She doesn’t raise her opinion on things because she doesn’t want to lose her boyfriend, who she suspects has been lying to her. Her boyfriend Jorge (Jonas) is similar to other Jonas but instead of doing drugs behind her back, he was making her a really bad fake ID so that they can drink/club together. I don’t necessarily feel as much chemistry between them as compared to Druck’s or SKAM Italia’s version, so I am very grateful that they spared us the breakup sex scene and instead just had these two talk it out with one another. The scene was beautiful, starting with the barrier in between them and shooting at an angle where they look/feel separated, as opposed to the beginning of the season where they were stuck to the hip. Nora (Noora) and Eva’s friendship is very precious, as Nora stuck by Eva’s side when no one else would. She was the most supportive friend in the group and her interactions with Alejandro have been quite entertaining, with the last clip of them talking on a bench, her showing her jealousy really cute. The most beautiful change this version made was for Lucas (Isak) to come out to Eva that he is gay, instead of being exposed by his internet history by the Evas and Nooras of other remakes. The scene was touching, and the actors stepped up to the plate with his performance of a teen coming out of the closet. I loved that the finale scene was Eva spending her birthday with her girlfriends enjoying themselves, being the happy teenager that she deserves to be. 

Many people have an issue with SKAM Espana’s casting, and I kind of agree but for a different aspect of it. A lot of people say that the cast look really young, but since Nora’s actress is 16 and Alejandro’s actor is 18, I don’t really see a huge problem as long as their acting skills are good. However, the cast is really white, not as bad as SKAM Italia, but besides Amira (Sana), there are no other POC. Spain is a very diverse country, so to be so not diverse in casting is very disappointing. Also, the character of Cris (Chris) in this version is a very pretty, popular, skinny bisexual girl, very unlike the OG. My favorite remakes of this character have brought their own unique twists to the character, along with the funny aspects of the OG, like Druck’s Sam or SKAM Austin’s Jo, so for SKAM Espana’s Chris to be a regular pretty girl who kisses both boys and girls and is not interested in a relationship, I expected more out of her character, and hopefully I will see more in season 2. I kind of liked the twist of Lara (original character) being Chris’s girlfriend instead of some random girl Eva didn’t know. But the way the show handle the news being leaked by Viri (Vilde) and how the girl squad, besides Nora, kind of abandoned Eva afterwards is not what I wanted out of the situation and kind of ruined their group dynamics for me. Especially the way Amira, who was suspicious of something between Eva and Ines (Ingrid), tried goading Eva into telling her the story in a game of truth and dare. Also, how she treated Eva when the news hit and left her after saying “I asked you and you didn’t tell me”, even though Amira herself should know best how horrible it is to be ostracized by your peers. The cyberbullying instagram account spread across the school is a very different approach, but to suddenly one day after weeks of harassment, just by Viri posting a photo of Christian kissing another girl, everyone in school started to feel bad for Eva. I don’t really believe that is how it would have happened in real life, and also, Viri never truly redeemed herself after the leakage for me, as she was judging and seeing Eva in pain and still did nothing until things got way out of hand. After that happened everyone’s friends again, like if I was Eva I wouldn’t be so quick to accept these people back into my life after what they have done. Also, Eva accusing Lucas of being the leak and liking Jorge, especially after he came out to only her was a very low blow. Her apology wasn’t really adequate, but hey, if Lucas is okay with it then I guess we’re good. The ending didn’t feel right as it left a few questions unanswered and probably won’t answer it ever, like who was behind that instagram account that posted photos of Eva accusing her of being a prostitute and nasty stuff. The two more minor things that I really don’t get is the herpes/STDs and the cats. Alejandro giving Viri herpes is an important lesson for girls about protection and safe sex, but every time I see Alejandro on screen I see him with this blob of herpes thing on his lip, so does Viri. I know the actor who plays Alejandro is a model in real life, and he’s very handsome, but once you see someone with herpes, you really can’t unsee the herpes. Also, the crown for most confusing/weirdest SKAM scene I’ve ever seen is for SKAM Espana’s cat scene with Eva and Jorge. I was sat there thinking what the hell is this, what does any of this mean, like what am I watching. The soundtrack is ok, not great but not bad, I somewhat appreciate sentiment of including of a slower Spanish song during the fight scene, but it kind of killed the vibe of the scene for me. I am going to watch season 2, as there is potential for this remake to be better, but I’m not sure how they are going to go about it, since they have not announced who is going to be the main character for season 2 yet. The performances so far have been good for such young/inexperienced actors. 

5. SKAM France (2 completed seasons, completed filming for the third and fourth seasons)

Everyone says this remake is like the copy and paste version of OG SKAM, and I have to largely agree. Season 1 and 2 have been very cut and dry, not interesting to say the least. The main thing going for this remake is its potential for improvement for the next seasons. As there is a new director for seasons 3 and 4, and I have read somewhere that since France was the first remake, they were forced to follow the OG very closely so they could get the rights to it (cannot confirm if this is factual). What I appreciate most about SKAM France is the chemistry between Manon (Noora) and Charles (William), as they are a couple in real life, their performances show much passion and love for one another. The breakout star to me is Daphne (Vilde), as she is the classiest Vilde, the perfect combination of sweet, kind and also naivety. She is the one character out of the OG 4 that I hope gets her own season to explore her story further. Also, Emma’s (Eva) performance did improve between seasons 1 and 2, which is kind of ironic cause she’s funnier to me in the season that she’s not the main character. Also, the casting for SKAM France I think had diversity in mind, since Yann (Jonas), Imane (Sana) and Alex (P-Chris) are all POC. Besides the fact that the actors for Charles and Alex are really hot, I’m running out of positive things to say about SKAM France. 

The thing I think is the thing going against it the most is the filming schedule of this remake. Seasons 1 and 2 were filmed within about a month, and so did seasons 3 and 4. I think that is not enough time to film all of the necessary scenes and make them good. It is hard to take in audience feedback after you have already wrapped up filming months ago. Also, since the show is aired on TV, it runs into the same issue for me as SKAM NL, which is that due to the strict TV time slots, it cuts out important moments from the OG that builds the feel of authenticity and cuts things very short, especially the scene where in the OG Noora played the guitar and sang for William, which I wished the French version did, because the actress who plays Manon can sing. For me, in season 1, when Yann threw his skateboard to the floor I sort of bursted out laughing, which now thinking about it, it really wasn’t funny, but to me at the time the scene made no sense. Why are you throwing your skateboard on the ground, there are more ways to show anger/frustration, physical violence is not really necessary. Also, I am slightly concerned about season 3, as the actor who plays Lucas (Isak) hasn’t really done much of anything throughout the series. I hope that he is capable of taking on such an emotionally damaged character who has gone through and is going to be put through a lot in his season. I will watch SKAM France, but not likely to rewatch it in full. I like certain scenes, but those I can catch the clips of without having to watch an entire episode. I think this remake has a great potential to be renewed for more seasons outside of the OG 4, so here’s to hopping they put all of their creative juices together and make something original for Daphne’s journey. 

6. SKAM Austin (1 completed season, and renewed for a second)

The first SKAM series I watched and did not hold up over a second rewatch. It is not a bad show by any means, compared to other US teen shows this is probably one of the most realistic ones (compared to stuff like Riverdale), but as someone who lived in Austin and went through a Texas high school this show falls very short of reality. The thing I liked most about the show was the confrontation scene where Grace (Noora) says “Move!” to Daniel (William), that was iconic and I rewatched that scene several times. The best thing to come out of SKAM Austin is Jo (Chris), she’s a funny, unique, charismatic Latina and I honestly have met people just like her, so I loved seeing a character that resembles real people. A YouTuber that I watched said something along the lines of SKAM Austin guys aren’t that hot, and compared to their European counterparts, they aren’t really. But as someone who’s been through high school here, let’s just say the pickings are slim, and you got the best ones out of it. Also, Shay (Isak) is a very interesting character and I hope to see where her season goes, if they get renewed. Don’t know too much about her, but I liked how Grace discovered that she was already out as a lesbian to Tyler (original character), it is more believable than checking the person’s browser history. Another nice touch was Jo (P-Chris) and Megan having hooked up before, giving it more of a backstory, but that really wasn’t explained further than their discussion on the bowling date, which pretty much went no where. 

I’m glad that Julie is getting her SKAM on, but to be honest with you, I would have rather had a different person at the creative control for this show. Because there are a lot of plot holes/things that don’t make sense, which shows that whoever wrote it doesn’t really know much about Texas high schools or American teenagers in general. Football season ends in December-ish, depending on whether your team makes it to the playoffs and advances further to state or not. So football practice in May is not believable, cause summer camp for football players start during the summer holidays. I know we all kind of enjoy the cliche of Americans playing football, but honestly, if you do it, please do it right. The dance team, which also makes no sense to me. The girls’ parents make monthly payments to pay for trips to competitions, uniforms, training camps, etc. Once you quit, your parents would know pretty soon that you’re not on the team, so I’m quite surprised that Megan’s (Eva) parents kept paying hundreds of dollars for something she wasn’t doing anymore. And creating a new dance team takes more than just 5 students, there is the coach, the assistant coach, all of the costume, performance training, etc. And so for Zoya (Sana) to want to join a dance team, aka the girls who perform at football games, is very odd to me because their uniforms are not conservative. The premise them getting together with football guys so they get to perform at the games and be more popular is ludicrous, because the people putting football game performances together are the band director, cheer director and the dance team director, not the football players themselves. Maybe if you wanted to be more popular, then yes, getting with football guys will get you there, but they can’t really help your dance team recruit people. In my high school with over 2 thousand students, there was only 1 hijab-wearing girl, and we had a few classes together. Let’s just say I went to high school in a more conservative part of Texas and I have never seen the girl been treated badly or been ostracized for her religion, and Austin is a much more liberal and diverse city. Since in the school here you go from elementary to high school with pretty much the same people, most of these kids have known each other for years if they hadn’t moved from the school district, so it is hard for me to believe that these girls (beside Grace) have never met each other before. I wish that had picked something else to kind of get the girls together, since anyone who’s been through high school knows this is unrealistic. I also wish they had done something else to show Zoya being discriminated against, cause I am really tired of the dumb blond cliche. I also never got the idea for a regional/city SKAM, cause usually the remakes are SKAM (country name), and so had it been SKAM USA, I won’t have griped on so much, but since it has Austin in the name, I am disappointed it did not capture the authentic feel of a Texas public high school. Some of the actors are not from Texas, so you can kind of pick up their West/East Coast accents, not the biggest problem, but noticeable if you are from here. The use of slang words were kind of all over the place, just because teens say “Lit” a lot doesn’t mean you should incorporate it into every scene, this feels like how an adult would use teen slang, very awkward placement. Also, I am not sure why there weren’t many more trendy things if they were going for the authenticity. No whip and nae nae, no the floor is lava, no flipping a half full water bottle to make it stand straight, and no dabbing. I mean, the best American high school has to offer is not incorporated. Since the show is on Facebook, I know they have to use Facebook products, but seriously, no teen uses Facebook to connect with friends, they do it for the older family members to message them, and maybe see a few racist/homophobic posts made by them. The actors are young and inexperienced, so I can kind of get not having their performances be the best of the best, but Megan is not good at all. I’m sorry, but her performance was the weak link in this whole thing, and her and Marlon are the most annoying couple of all SKAM, and that’s including Vilde and Magnus from the OG, who were sucking faces 24/7. Their relationship was pretty shitty and I was not rooting for either of them, especially after I found out that Marlon was a drug dealer and Megan still stayed with him. All they did was smush and argue, with not good chemistry or emotions from Megan. Marlon is pretty delusional in that he thinks his music is 1) good, 2) something he can live off of. Also, the car wash breakup sex scene is so overdone at this point. Has anyone ever been to a car wash, it doesn’t last that long, so all that passionate smushing probably lasted for a maximum of 3 minutes in real life. The bowling date was weird in that there was no one else there besides them, so did 4 teenagers rent out an entire bowling alley for a double date? The actors are teenagers from Texas for the most part, so I am kind of shocked that they didn’t tell Julie and the writers about how they would act in school to add to the realism. I am very thankful that watching this series led me to discovering SKAM universe, but I am sort of not the most excited for season 2, since having watched how great all of the remakes are, it’s very hard to compete. I don’t know how the show is going to go on after season 2, since Daniel is graduating in May/June, so after that is Grace going to London with him? Because of the long hiatus, the show has 2 more seasons after season 2 to do if they want to do it the OG way, and there’s like one year left on the clock to do so, but like the show only produces one season a year, so I’m not sure how it’s going to work out. Wishing them the best, hope they get renewed so they can improve. When season 2 comes, I may watch it just to see if anything’s improved.

Notes and observations about the way different remakes handle the actors social media: 

It was really interesting to see SKAM NL and SKAM Espana come out at the same time, yet have such different approach to the actors’ social media usage. SKAM Espana actors all have their social media on private and they don’t really post anything, according to what I’ve heard. But SKAM NL cast have public social media, and they comment and like stuff if they are tagged on it. SKAM Austin, SKAM Italia, and SKAM France cast also have public social media. Some of the SKAM Italia cast will also answer questions about the show if you DM them, which is pretty cool. On the flip side, Druck and WTFock’s cast is have private Instagrams. But weirdly enough I have seen some of the WTFock cast like stuff on Twitter, along with their director, which is cool since they know what their audience is responding to. The actor who plays Alex on Druck, Chris Veres, posts Instagram lives where he answered questions about the show, but for the rest of the cast they are pretty irregular with social media usage. 

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with me, and what things you thought I overlooked in my evaluation of each remake. I’m open to hear your thoughts as well, but please don’t diss one remake/version for another. We all love different things. Sorry for the long essay length, I got so into it and spent 5 hours typing my thoughts it, it may not be very cohesive, but it pretty summarizes my thoughts on each remake and the reasoning behind it. 

[kusunokihime-a]

     [ So this is a long time coming: basically my thoughts on this blog, and...honestly what to do with it. Before anyone (if anyone) panics, I’m not leaving. I’m just...well, conflicted. About a lot of things. So this is gonna be me rambling about my options, feelings, and just...idek. If you wanna know what’s up with me and my sucky activity lately, um...give this a read? No idea how long it’ll be - I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. In short...I’m considering a hiatus, or maybe remaking, or...maybe both? Maybe neither? Hence being, as said...conflicted. ]

     I’ve had my misgivings about the blog overall for a while now. I think, in part, I’ve tried spreading myself too thin. I’ve had this blog for over two years now, and granted while a lot has changed...I still have pages that aren’t finished. I have muses that have never had a single ask or thread. At times I wonder if I have too many, if I have too few, or maybe I should go back to my roots and have the blog JUST be Ryū’s again.

     But I don’t want that. I don’t think I don’t want that? Some days I’m so frustrated with various things I want to drop everything. Other days I want to do even MORE. 

     ...I’m getting ahead of myself. And yes, this is mostly me talking to myself. I think better when I write things down, and...honestly, I need some major self-reflection. If you don’t want to get into my “personal” life, then uh...skip ahead a bit. I dunno. I just feel like it’s vital to understand where this is coming from.

     Basically for at least the last...we’ll say four months...my mental health (while it’s always been very poor) has gotten...exponentially worse. Especially worrying given that I have NO mental health care, and never have. Basically a lot of “real life” issues have been popping up, escalating, and bogging me down until I’m at the lowest I’ve been in...a very long time. I’d wager the last...more than ten years? It’s just that all these bad things have happened or gotten worse this year, and all at about the same time.

     Which makes doing ANYTHING, let alone something like running an RP blog...very difficult. I know I put on a very happy, positive face...and while that’s a lie, per se...it also covers up a LOT. I realize no one likes to bring the negative of their life onto their blogs. And a lot of us have a LOT we’re dealing with. I just...am not sure how much longer I can keep this up.

     ...especially given that, again, I can’t afford any kind of help. Therapy, medication, ANYTHING. I’ve been fighting a very off-kilter brain all my life without anything to aid it. I’ll be blunt: it’s a miracle I’ve lived this long. And part of the reason I HAVE, is because of the friendships I’ve built here. Some have been lost, some are newly started, but...a lot about this blog has kept me afloat.

     Which, getting back on track, is why it’s so...distressing to me that I’m slipping here. Things aren’t how they were, and I’m not sure how to fix them. I dunno if it’s purely my slipping mental state (very believable), or if something actually DOES need to change here.

     Granted, there are things here that frustrate me. I have a good number of mutuals, and despite having open posts rather often, especially over the past month or so, I have interactions with a very small percentage of that...and even less of that is something steady. Don’t get me wrong: I ADORE everyone who writes with me. And to those who don’t, I’m not angry. I just feel like...I need to clean things out. Narrow my focus. To be frank, it’s...disheartening to see how many people I follow/follow me, and how many reach out. Granted, I don’t go to others’ inboxes willy nilly, but...I’ve put out a LOT of inbox calls. A LOT. And despite some people I’ve not interacted with being online when they’re posted...it’s always the same (lovely) people. Like...what else can I do? Hence feeling like maybe I need to remake, get the cobwebs dusted out. Start over with a fresh slate and maybe not feel so...bogged down. Maybe be a lot more selective about who I follow, and just stick with the people who have put in the effort, y’know?

     As I said earlier, I have muses that never get touched, either. Granted, it may be due to their origins (as all of the muses I have in mind are OCs). And though a few people have at least hinted they’d like to interact...there’s little to show for it. Which is, at the very least, partly my fault. But I guess I also feel like I should cut those muses if they’re not going to be written with. Which...sucks, cuz ALL of my OCs have YEARS of planning put into them. I’ve been writing/planning/RPing ALAS since 2012. And yet those like the twins, and Hinode, Ayame and Higure feel very...unwanted. Which I can understand: not everyone is gonna like every muse. Hinode’s technically the only one who hasn’t had any playtime. But the rest are still significantly beneath the canons, and those like Ryū and Reika. So I wonder if another way to clean house is to just...either cut muses entirely, or...move them to some kind of side page? idek at this point.

     My blog just feels very...disorganized, which drives me UP the wall. And yet I also lack the energy and the drive to finish it up: especially given that I’m not sure what to do with some of it. Keep it, cut it, change it...I dunno. And that’s both frustrating and anxiety-inducing.

     ...I dunno. I have some drafts and owed things I’ve been staring at for ages, and I just...can’t seem to think up a response. I dunno how to get my mojo back. I dunno if a hiatus would help? I’m not even sure it would last: I spend a lot of my free time here, and don’t have many other hobbies to fill that slot. But at the same time I’ve spent that time staring at owed things and wondering what the heck to write. Which means I’m not really doing it anyway.

     And then there’s my sideblogs. Several of which are very important to me (my art blog, drabble blog, nightwalkcrs, etc). If I remade, I’d have to move them all over, and all their content...which I can do with a queue but gods that’d still take ages to go through everything. Especially since some is from date-specific challenges. And the drabble blog’s got SO many posts @~@ Granted, some of the sideblogs I need to cull anyway.

     ...I’m just...feel like a chicken running amok with my head chopped off. I dunno where to start, what to do...I owe drabbles from the giveaway from over a month ago, and I still can’t think of what to write. (If any of you want something else...let me know, because I feel awful). I’ve been here almost three years, two of which are on this blog (and like eight months on the first, which...let’s not go there). I don’t want to lose what I have here. I don’t want to LEAVE. But I feel like if I don’ t change something, I’m gonna reach a point where I have no other choice but than to just dump everything.

     I dunno if a hiatus would work. I dunno if it’s worth remaking. But something’s gotta give, and I dunno what’ll be first: me, or the blog.

[verziehenone]

Video games ... what a past time.  So much time is spent on them, I can’t even imagine how many hours I have enjoyed building and breaking worlds, meeting and killing people, and just having the time of my life (lives) in virtual worlds.

Probably the first game I ever played was Tetris on the Gameboy.  The original Gameboy.  That bulky off-white thing that took 4 AA’s that seemed like nothing could keep it down.  Could probably have built a house outta those things.  And the battery life was pretty solid too! 

But soon I graduated to Mario, which was not awful on Gameboy.  Then came the big one: Pokemon.  Around then I upgraded to a Gameboy Pocket  The foldy one.  It went from a monochrome brown and green thing to a nice gray with black and white shades.  Terrific clarity! 

Then the Gameboy Color happened.  But before we get there ...

My first console was an Atari.  Good times on that thing.  Pitfall, some space game, and a few others that were equally blocky and terrifically entertaining in a way that many games just don’t capture now. 

Then was my Nintendo.  I think it was because I traded/sold my Atari at a garage sale or something, and boom, I was the proud owner of a Nintendo.  Eventually got me one of those sweet Duck Hunt guns (let’s be honest, that was basically the only game anyone used it on), and a few great games.  Zelda, a few Marios (Mario 3 will forever be amazing, but Mario 2 had it’s charm.) 

I did some swaparoos (involving a mountain bike and another Atari) but came back to the Nintendo.  That said, this was all around the time that friends of mine had the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo, and I was stuck with the lame-o OG Nintendo.  I even remember one time convincing my parents to spring for renting a Sega Genesis from Family Video (or whatever it was called) and using that Sega Channel (or whatever) to stream Mortal Kombat and another fighting game or two.  Don’t tell my parents, lots-o-blood.

Back to the portables.  Gameboy Color was a revolution.  Sure, Pokemon in color was amazing.  Any game (Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Mario, etc) but really, it was Pokemon.  And the reason they were amazing-er on the Gameboy Color?  It was backlit.  And that made ALL the difference at night.  No more huddling around a little nightlight or gripping a flashlight in my mouth to try to catch one more ‘mon, or just one more fight, one more ...

I had a Gamegear for a bit, which was the Sega competitor to the Gameboy.  Glorious color gaming, 8 AA batteries, big ole screen, but the games (other than Sonic I think) just weren’t there.  So I got rid of it, and eventually the glory of the Gameboy Advance happened.  The one with the big ole screen, that Super Mario was friggin’ amazing on.  And naturally, Pokemon again was amazing.  I eventually got me the next Gameboy (SP) the next foldy one, which was the last one before the 3DS (I think), which I never got (though I’d love one).

Console-wise, for the remainder of my pre-college life I was always a generation behind.  Everyone had the GameCube when I finally got an N64 (but don’t cry too hard, GoldenEye was worth the wait).  I finally got a PS1 in time for everyone to tell me how amazing the PS2 was.  This isn’t a sob story, just the result of growing up in a family where if I wanted a console, I had to buy it with my money.  So I did, and I was just more patient.  Though I was friends with people who had the latest and greatest.  At one point I had the 3 main consoles, (a generation late): the PS2, the GameCube, and the Dreamcast.  I felt like the toast of the land.  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Crazy Taxi, Super Mario Sunshine, I had it all.  Good times.

Until!  The summer before college.  I had a few bucks put aside and wanted me a real gaming PC.  The one I had prior to that was a hand-me-down from my Youth Pastor that played StarCraft on it ... barely.  So this one, a big $600 beast, and I found myself loving the major boost in power that my Athlon something something gave me over the Pentium 2 I had prior.  Unreal Tournament was brilliant and I enjoyed so many great gaming experiences on that machine.  And Civilization 3 stole far far too many nights and days ... I spent hours and hours playing that.

Then college came!  And a credit card!  And I built a new computer!  And it was fast and had a pair of 17″ CRT monitors (I upgraded to 17″ widescreen LCDs) and it was glorious.  (GeForce 8800 GTS baby).  I did so much more gaming.  Eventually even got around to World of Warcraft, though I did enjoy plenty of non-PC gaming with pals on a variety of systems.

I played World of Warcraft heavily throughout college, spending 4-5 hours a night usually (still had a solid GPA and 2 part time jobs and a girlfriend, so I wasn’t a total loser) and it was wonderful.  I remember at one point I even played another MMO in my off time, and it was stupid and glorious and ridiculous.  I spent my non-PC gaming time playing a lot of the PS2 games I hadn’t beaten or just enjoyed like Final Fantasy 10 and Star Ocean and so on.  Big into RPGs.  I even got a PSP during that time for the Star Ocean 1 and 2 remakes and I still wish I had kept it, to be honest.

After college I was living with a roomie (from college) who I played World of Warcraft with, but also enjoyed the Nintendo Wii and PS3 he had.  We did a lot of great gaming on those systems, though I did a lot more PS3 than Wii stuff.  Rock Band became a past time for us (and I got quite good at Expert guitar, could play huge chunks of some songs with my eyes closed) and he was great a bass.  Stoke 3 live on!  And did I mention Fallout 3?  Ohhh man.  It never changes.

So I decided to buy an Xbox 360.  I never had an Xbox (though I did a little Halo in my time) I just decided that I wanted a console and should get one he didn’t have.  I also very much missed Fight Night (a boxing game) and wanted to play that again.  But the eventually I moved out and was on my lonesome and didn’t have a Blu-Ray player.  And have always been a Playstation guy.  So I sold the Xbox 360 and bought a Playstation 3. 

Until I got my bigscreen TV I didn’t do a ton of Playstation gaming, instead mostly doing PC (mostly World of Warcraft) gaming.  I did do a game here and there of other things but nothing memorable.

But, one day I powered down my computer, went to work, and came home only to find ... no power.  No response at all.  The reason this matters is I had just decided to come back to playing World of Warcraft (after a break that my then-girlfriend convinced me would save our relationship, because video games were our only problem -- nope), and was bummed I couldn’t.  I didn’t have the money to fix it so I returned to console gaming and enjoyed a lot of then-newer hits like Dragon Age: Origins, Darksiders 1, Dante’s Inferno, the Assassin’s Creed games, and a host of others that escape me.  I tend to not do a lot of shooters on console, preferring them on PC.  GameFly helped me fly through games pretty quickly so I was able to save quite a bit of money by not buying all of them.

A few months later I was living with a new friend and decided to research how to fix my computer, and found it was much cheaper than expected.  So I got a new motherboard and some new ram and was up and running in time to enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new MMO.  It was amazing and super super fun leveling and the story was great ... until you hit max level like you ran into a wall.  So then I got into Skyrim and a few other games, working my way through the different PC games I had missed out on (like Mass Effect 1-3, Dragon Age 2, and some others). 

Living with some new friends I was introduced to other games I’d never heard of or played, like Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, and

Time moves on again and I decided to swap out some newer parts and make my machine more future-proof, since I had a baby on the way and would never have money again until a bit later.  I also used some of my birthday money and Christmas money on a PS4.  So I was set.  Like a rockstar.  A rockstar who enjoyed Madden and Grand Theft Auto V and so on.  And Far Cry and Crysis and Wolfenstein and not World of Warcraft.  I had been done for a long time.  Partly due to time and partly due to money and partly due to a lack of interest.

Skipping around a bit to the present, I’m still and always will be a gamer.  I still don’t have a 3DS, as much as I’d love to have one for Pokemon, but I have a PS4 and my wife has a Switch, and my PC is still gettin’ love when it gets a bit outta date.  Never going to have a bleeding edge waste-of-money PC but I will always strive to be caught up to play the latest games.

I am back into World of Warcraft again, playing with a prior roommate and some other really great guys, and it’s being managed much more carefully than before.  Outside of that, I’ve been playing Uncharted 4, Overwatch, Diablo 3, Civilization 6 (Oh my gosh I love Civ) and a smattering of others.  I still have my Gameboy SP with Pokemon Red and Yellow and Gold (I think).  I also had a Playstation Vita briefly but decided it just wasn’t for me.

I have a long list of games I want to play so I won’t list them all.  (Yes I will, because this is my blog).  In no particular order:

Stardew Valley (In progress)

Mad Max (In progress)

Bloodborne (In progress)

Dark Souls 3

Torment: Tides of Numenara

Wasteland 2

Pillars of Eternity

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Dying Light

Doom

Watch Dogs 2

Dishonored 2

Final Fantasy 15

Nioh

Persona 5

Horizon Zero Dawn

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Red Dead Redemption 2

Injustice 2

I’m a gamer at my core and a good gaming experience is something so hard to communicate to those who haven’t found a game that tickles their fancy.  But when a person finds that game that challenges them in the right way, entertains them or entrances them, and they just can’t put it down ... that’s just the best.  (And in this post I’m not talking board games or mobile phone games, those are entirely different posts).

This really just scratches the surface of my gaming time, thoughts, and philosophy about games.  I have so many thoughts and ideas, so many memories and experiences, and so many terrific games that I loved and can’t wait to try ... it’s just a matter of the same thing it always was: Making sure that it is always secondary to real life, real people, and the stuff that really matters.  Otherwise... game on.

[dippedanddripped]

Brand has changed a lot in the digital age, from complete ownership by the company establishing the brand, now to complete ownership by consumers who engage with the brand. Consumers may start with that initial brand message but ultimately embrace it unexpected ways which ultimately do define the brand. In other words, you can want your brand to stand for something, but it won’t if the people you’re targeting don’t buy into that. JCPenney and Ron Johnson’s attempt to remake the chain appeal to a younger, hipper audience are a now-classic example of how it’s always consumers who win when it comes to who ultimately gets to define your brand.

Since the time when consumers firmly took the reins from companies over who gets to define the brand, there has been the additional complication of Millennials, who want more from their brands than just values or attributes. They want their brands to stand for something. At the same time, their willingness to engage with brands has shifted away from passively consuming advertising to wanting to interact more directly – and they prefer to do that primarily through digital channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Brands now have to operate in this interactive space. To-date, most of them haven’t figured that out, and the old tools of brand and marketing haven’t served them well in navigating the shift. But in the end it’s not about the tools so much as redefining how those tools are used.

The Term “Persona” Has Baggage

Today In:

Business

In marketing, the term “persona” has been so overused that if it comes up in conversation today it is more likely to be met with groans than with enthusiasm. It was originally applied to consumer segments, as a mechanism for bringing life to what was ultimately a collection of averaged attributes. This was helpful in turning a pile of data into something that people could relate to, but I think part of its downfall was that it created a false sense that the company “knew” its customers, because “Look, my customer segmentations have names and jobs and pretty stock photo images attached to them, so I must know exactly who they are!”

The problem is that averages (even in carefully crafted customer segmentations) hide a lot of variability. I might fit most of the profile attributes of a soccer mom, but if you called me that I would laugh at you. “Soccer mom” was initially most useful to car companies looking to sell minivans – which in turn became such a shortcut way to identify a soccer mom that it became a self-reinforcing attribute.

Me, on the other hand – I would rather die than own a minivan and am proud of the fact that I have nearly finished navigating my kids’ non-driving years having never owned one. If you tried to target me based on the assumption that I followed all of the attributes of a soccer mom, rather than just “most” of them, you would be demonstrating to me your actual lack of understanding of me and your total irrelevancy to my life and needs. When brands operate by assuming that the persona is the segment, they lose because there are just too many places where you can get it wrong, and with the attention span of today’s consumers, if you get it wrong even once, that may be the only chance a consumer gives you.

When it comes to brand, though, persona is not total garbage – if we can get past the baggage associated with how it was used in the past. “Persona” in customer segmentation was trying to put one face on something that actually represented a large group of unique individuals. That was always doomed to fail. Brand, though, should be clean and concise and cohesive – and should only represent one thing. One company, one brand. And therefore, one face.

But wait, you say. It may be one brand, but it is represented by many different people. In retail, there are potentially millions of store associates out there representing the brand every day – before we even start bringing marketing people into play. So how do you reconcile one face against all of these faces?

One Face, Many Voices

Yes it’s true that store associates are a varied group and hopefully bring their own personalities to the brand in a way that is authentic to both themselves and the brand. I would distinguish that by thinking about “one face but many voices”. I’ll come back to that in a couple paragraphs.

But let’s go back to the idea that Millennials (and, let’s face it, Gen Z and increasingly a growing number of older generations that have given in to the social media void). They want to engage with brands in digital channels first. And they are very adept at blocking or ignoring any of the traditional forms of “interruption media” where brands historically had their chance to make a case for consumers to get to know them.

Digital – especially social media – is the great leveler when it comes to brand. Unless you want to confuse customers, you pretty much only get one social profile for your whole company. And your social profile is the same size and is fighting for consumer attention with the same exact set of tools as anybody else (sometimes juiced by ad dollars, but again – easily ignored). When I talk to small retailers bemoaning how to compete against Amazon, my first question is, what are you doing on social media? Because the smallest small business looks exactly the same size as Amazon does on Facebook – the dimensions of your profile page are the same. What you get surfaced in a post is the same size.

You get one profile page for your brand. That’s it. Yes, brands often establish other accounts, sometimes for corporate giving, sometimes for recruiting, things that focus on different aspects of what the company is trying to accomplish. But when it comes to the flagship, “who are we and what do we stand for” brand communication, you get one page. One face. I haven’t seen any company try to avoid that flagship brand profile by giving over all brand communication to a bunch of individuals like “Jane Smith23, brand ambassador”. There is one brand and one face to that brand.

I have seen companies actually try to shut down all those thousands or millions of brand representatives that exist in stores or within corporate headquarters. I’ve seen them try to force everything back to the corporate message, trying to silence voices so that they don’t accidentally do something that is not “on brand” (or worse, embarrassing, offensive, or illegal). I understand the impulses that drive those behaviors – Taco Bell Nachos guy, anyone? But even though you pretty much have no choice but to fire a guy who posts pictures of himself allegedly peeing on a plate of nachos in what appears to be the restaurant’s kitchen or food storage area, there’s also a recognition that this one employee is (hopefully) not representative of the brand as a whole. There is definitely lack of judgment at play, whether just at the individual employee level, or at the level of the manager who hired him, but that’s different than an overall brand statement.

Over time, brands are getting better at working with this one face/many voices model. Walmart once experimented with a social profile of an alleged employee (some people suspected it was all made up) named Kevin. Kevin was supposed to offer insights into life as a Walmart employee (I would link to it but the profile is lost to the depths of Google, in part swamped by the fact that Walmart has a director of communications now who is also – coincidentally? – named Kevin). Kevin’s profile was one early attempt at providing a way for employees to both be themselves and a brand ambassador (no matter how cringeworthy and PR-washed his profile was).

The pendulum has swung far since then, with the most recent public attempt coming from Macy’s. The company created “Style Crew”, a way for employees to use both their own social savvy and the fact that they work for Macy’s in order to make some extra coin. Individual voices, supported by a brand.

A Brand Face, Not A Bland Face

This progress is all good. Brands should not be stifling the voices of their most passionate advocates – namely, the people who decided to tie their own economic fate to that of the company they represent. Employees. But all that progress has happened on the “many voices” side of the equation, not on the “one face” side.

When you look at brands’ social profiles, they are as corporate lawyer sanitized as you can get. Offend no one. Say nothing of meaning or import. Drive as relentlessly positive, sanitized message as possible. And then, if you’re not stuffing that feed full of posts exhorting how awesome your company is, you’d better be stuffing that feed full of products and promotions, because otherwise, why are we paying this social media intern anyway?

This is the state of brands’ faces. In the place where consumers are most likely to find them, brands are doing the least to get their attention. If Facebook is a cocktail party where everyone is chatting and joking and getting to know each other, your brand is “that guy” – the one going around talking about how awesome he is, and by the way do you want to buy some stuff from me?

The level of blandness is so bad, that when KFC – who has a natural, in-built brand persona in the Colonel, which they have been using to great effect – actually went viral and made news for unfollowing everyone on Twitter except for eleven people: six guys named Herb and the five former Spice girls, a reference to KFC’s recipe of “eleven herbs and spices”. And then they one-upped their own game, by rewarding the guy who first spotted it (the portrait they sent is truly awesome).

Personality is Effectively Free

What does KFC have that everyone else seems to lack? You guessed it: personality. Now, personality will only take you so far. At some point you have to execute on the promises made by that personality. If KFC is fun and edgy online, but then you go to a KFC restaurant and have a horrible experience, I would consider that a wasted opportunity. But guess what? That opportunity cost them the price of a social media intern (and the cost of a fantastically horrible painting, but that’s still way less than the equivalent spend on ad words required to get the same exposure).

And that’s the point. Other than the cost of a social media jockey, personality costs nothing to execute. It does require a strong brand to serve as a compass for both what is going to resonate and what is appropriate. And it requires some people who have been steeped in what the brand stands for enough that they can both come up with brilliant ideas like eleven “Herbs and Spices”, and also interact with others spontaneously on social media – as Wendy’s does very well.

It’s also probably not a coincidence that Wendy’s, like KFC, has a natural “persona” in the Wendy mascot. The company has not chosen to leverage her in that way (though consumers have), probably out of respect for the real Wendy, but that still works out just fine. It’s not about what Wendy’s wants in that regard, it’s about how consumers connect. As a new generation embraces the Wendy’s brand, a generation that is unfamiliar with the real Wendy’s backstory, then the brand has a mascot ready-made to come to life in digital spaces.

What If You Don’t Have a Natural Mascot?

Companies that don’t already have a built-in mascot don’t necessarily need to run out and gin one up. The face of a brand doesn’t need to have a literal face to resonate with consumers. The first place to focus is on brand values, and what those values imply about a personality. In other words, what kind of person would share these values?

There are other questions to ask, and things to think about, in creating a brand personality. And that will be my focus in this month’s series of articles. How do you define a brand personality? What is that personality’s values and passions? If your brand was a person, who would they be?

It wasn’t that long ago that these questions would’ve been scoffed at by anyone but the fluffiest of fluffy marketing people. In the age of digital, however, they are questions that could very well be the difference between customer relevancy and bankruptcy. And that’s not fluffy at all.

[jamiekturner]

Elegant Fonts That You Should Include in Your Designs

If you didn’t already know this, I’ll say it. Elegant fonts are trending lately among designers and people who like good typography.

You will see them used in lots of logos, social media images and site hero sections. Some of these elegant fonts can be a bit artistic, while other elegant fonts can be used for more sober designs.

Nevertheless, they all look good and can be used successfully in modern designs.

Below you will find a selection of some of the best typefaces you can currently get.

Brayden

Brayden Family is an elegant font that includes 3 weights on script fonts + 1 Sans serif font to create a beautiful combination. It includes initial and terminal forms in all the weights of the script font.

Controlling with Contextual Swashes makes it easier to change turning on and off the initial and terminal forms. This font is Great for Logos, Lettering, Clothing Design, Poster, Label, Quotes, etc.

Blenda

Blenda Script is a free experimental elegant font inspired by Lobster font, a bold vintage script. It can be used for various purposes. Such as news, posters, logos, badges etc.

Distorted Fashion

Roicamonta

Roicamonta font looks very feminine and delicate. Perfect fit for invitations, greeting cards and other printing where soft and elegant writing is required.

Bleakerst

Bleakerst is a free version ( Free for Personal / Commercial use ) from Sortdecai Cursive Script with wild style.

Banthers

Construthinvism

Valkyrie

Valkyrie is a new type family designed in 2013 mostly for top fashion brands and designers. This is a serif set of fonts based on thick and bold parts with geometrical elements in a modern style.

With more than 186 glyphs per font (including punctuation marks and accented glyphs) for a total of 12 elegant fonts, Valkyrie has been created to emphasize all kind of fashionable and luxury projects from photos to videos or branding & visual identity.

Badhead

Badhead is a fresh looking elegant font, perfect for branding, greeting cards, logotypes, or any design with a strong and elegant touch. Mix alternate characters to add an attractive message to your work.

246 glyphs and alternate character included with opentype features. Stylistic alternates, Ornament, Swash and more. You can access all those alternate characters by using OpenType savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign.

Break

Break is modern and elegant font family that contains five weights from Bold to ExtraLight, Uppercase, Lowercase, Numerics and symbols, could be use in variety of projects.

Ditasweet

Ditasweet contains more than 400 symbols including numbers, glyphs, ligatures and accents. It might be used in any European language and also in Russian, of course.

Bear & Loupe

Bear & Loupe is a font family of 3 faces absolutely free for personal and commercial use! Outstanding hand written style will perfectly fit for headlines of all sizes, print graphics, logos, badges, t-shirts and other designs.

Glamor

GLAMOR is new chic & modern free type family with a set of 24 elegant fonts, from light to bold, with more than 200 unique characters per font. All fonts are now available in OTF & TTF formats.

This type can be used for personal or professional projects such as online/offline magazines and/or books, posters, photography, websites, branding & identity, TV spots and much more.

Wisdom

Wisdom Script was originally designed for Woods of Wisdom, a 50 part poster series on bad advice.

Metropolis

Metropolis comes from the the industrial movement of the 1920’s where skyscrapers where born. “Using a double line technique, I wanted to create my own Art Deco style font that represented this era. The result is a bold, bumptious typeface with a stolidly calm disposition.”

Roselina Script

Roselina Script has a contemporary calligraphy, with a vintage feel, style calligraphy with moving baseline and elegant touch. This elegant font features 417+ glyphs and 183 alternate characters, including initial and terminal letters, alternates, ligatures and multiple language support.

Cylburn

Cylburn is a semi-connected script structurally based on Roundhand but written with a pointed brush and restrained tension that separate it from its traditional roots.

Clicker Script

Clicker Script finds its inspiration from RCA Records Stereo Action Series from the 1960’s. This signature elegant yet slightly bouncy script truly sings, and lends a happy go lucky flavor to any design.

Lavanderia

Based on lettering found on Laundromat windows of San Francisco’s Mission District, Lavanderia features numerous opentype features and three weights.

Lovelo

Lovelo free font is remake of the original Lovelo Inline – designed by Renzler Design, Vienna, Austria.

Valencia

Monastic

Brotherhood

Braxton

Abrakatebra

Geomanist

geomanist has a contemporary sans design, clean and elegant, with a combination of geometric shapes and humanistic beat.

Moon

Akzidenz-Grotesk

First released by the Berthold Type Foundry back in 1896, this may very well be the most beautiful typeface ever designed. After being re-developed in the 1950s with multiple weights and variants, Akzidenz influenced a lot of other fonts, such as the infamous Helvetica, as well as Adrian Frutiger’s Univers.

However, neither of the two have the elegance and detail of this one. The strength comes from the neutrality, and the fact that it doesn’t dominate severely over the other elements, thus giving you a lot of freedom, as well as versatility.

New Baskerville

This is one of the best serif typefaces you can get. It isn’t particularly showy, but is full of confidence, and it’s known as a transitional serif typeface, originally designed by John Baskerville in 1757 in Birmingham. The transitional typeface sits between the old-styled typefaces by William Caslon, as well as the modern ones from the likes of Bodoni and Didot.

Many versions were made since then by a lot of type foundries, and the New Baskerville is one of them. The way that the italic and roman versions are used, both individually and together, is stunning.

DIN 1451

Designed for the Deutsches Institut fur Normung (or German Institute for Standardization), back in 1931, the font looks, and behaves, like it has been made today. It has all principles of the Bauhaus, and hasn’t dated a single day.

It is a condensed font, which creates a strong mass which may turn into a shape when used as a text, and it also has a beautiful rounded detail, making it feel like it was designed for the modern age. These two things make it a beauty to use.

Franklin Gothic

Made by Morris Fuller Benton back in 1902, Franklin Gothic is a reflection of what America would become – bold, confident and expressive. It is simply American, through and through.

The bold version comes with a powerful blackness, and the font has more character than other sans serif fonts. It looks stunning, especially next to a more sensitive font. A good example is Fabien Baron’s work for Vogue Italia, back in the late 1980s.

HTF Didot

This is a revival font, which is similar to Bodoni. However, the particular cut is something that gets really close to perfection. It was originally created for the Harper’s Bazaar magazine in the 1980s, for the Fabien Baron mentioned earlier.

It feels exactly like a fashion font, it is beautiful without any special effort, yet crafted and honed. However, being so delicate makes it tricky to use. You should handle it with care, and if you do, you get a truly beautiful font.

Sabon

Jan Tshichold, a pioneer of graphic design, was active in what is possibly the most influential period when graphic design history is concerned. He worked in England between 1947 and 1949, and he looked over hundreds of paperbacks for Penguin Books being redesigned.

Even though most graphic designers aren’t exactly good type designers, Jan is an exception. Having created a couple of fonts, the 1966 Sabon serif is his most popular one. It is based on the Garamond typeface, and the roman, italic and bold weights are all the same width, making it unique.

Ending thoughts on elegant fonts

All of these elegant fonts are stunning, and you can very well use them to add elegance to any of your designs. Go ahead and work with one of them or go all out and use a combination.

If you liked this article with elegant fonts, you should check out these as well:

Download These Fonts Free For Commercial Use

Retro Fonts: Free Vintage Fonts To Download

Best Thin Fonts: Free Light Fonts To Download

The post Elegant Fonts That You Should Include in Your Designs appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/elegant-fonts/

[lcforshort-blog]

Youth

+ Grew up in the Ida B. Wells Housing Projects.                                               

-Read “Our America” if you want a day by day experience of my  past                neighborhood.” Most of the kids photographed in the book graduated with me from the 8th grade.            

- I witnessed most if not all the things covered in the book based on my own personal experience. (Deaths, Drug deals, Fights, Prostitution, Guns, etc.)     

- Growing up in this environment forced me to age quicker(Mentally) than most.    

- Most of my friends that are still healthy and alive from my youth have decided to go down certain routes I can’t associate myself with any longer. “I really wish it wasn’t this way”.   

-There is also a movie based on the book “Our America”, I forgot the name of the movie though.      

+  Doo Little East and West: Kindergarten through 8th Grade                                 

- Never received an A for “good conduct”.                                                          

- Scored the highest on the Reading Comprehension and Math portions on the ISAT in 5th and 8th grade. (That’s when I was the “smart one out of the group” I guess. The 100 dollar prize was nice too.)          

 - Placed 2nd place in the district of Chicago science fair but I couldn’t                     move on to the Regional or National’s competition due to me being hospitalized ( My friend decided to split because he thought my idea was foolish prior to the placement of my project).         

-It was very interesting being friends with students that my teachers labeled as the “bad kids” and the “good kids”. I believe all of us were just misunderstood by professionals that were not passionate about their careers.    

 -My 4th-grade teacher taught me how to play chess and solve math problems 4 years ahead of my grade level since my mom kept track of the school buses that came to and from the school during the early mornings of the day before the rest of the kids showed up.                 

-Random: Got into a fight for sticking up for a student that was getting bullied. My course of action was to punch “the bullier:, (Yes, I made up that word) in the face to make him stop. It worked!        

-Became a victim of gun violence during the summer before high school.   

+ High School School 

Freshman Year: I was angry my mom forced me to attend a school because of the proximity away from home and my cousins attended the school as well. College wasn’t on my mind and my health was getting worse.                                                                                     

 - Sophomore Year: Got hospitalized and found myself. It’s crazy what almost an entire year can do to a young adolescent with access to the internet and numerous books. Thanks to my doctors and nurses, I was able to learn more than my entire educational experience and create a plan for myself and my future. I also formed a new found appreciation for learning and the internet. Literally, in today’s age, you can teach yourself anything. 

-Repeated Sophomore Year: I had a totally new mindset after being                   discharged. I was able to learn about life outside of my community from a hospital bed and I knew what I had to produce to gain the goals I had set for myself. (I Became involved in the National Environmental Club, Math Club, Chess club, and Robotics Team(My favorite. GO! TEAM1850!). I also secured a 4.5 GPA(unweighted of course). 

-Junior  Year: During this year, I experienced the tragic death of my father.          Watching a loved one past away while dealing with dementia is something          I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  Got accepted in the national honor’s          society, met Magic Johnson, had dinner with the family that own’s the dodgers, became Team Captain of the robotics team, Team Captain of the programming fraction of the robotics club, President of the National               Environmental club and Second board of the chess team. Increased my             ACT score by 14 points and got the second highest overall score in my grade. Lastly, I secured another all A’s semester. 

-Senior Year:  Secured yet another all A’s semester. After grinding and gaining attention from the principal and school staff, my original sophomore year GPA (1.1) was excused due to a petition that my teachers created by stating my medical issues I encountered that year and the progress I showed after I got healthier. One thing they did not know is that by becoming more healthier did help improve my performance but overall the lessons and wisdom gained from my year in the hospital really made me care about why I was in school in the first place. I like to think that GOD placed me in this situation for me to work on myself and mind to later be a better use for those that were and still are around me. I got accepted into my number one choice, Morehouse college with a half-tuition scholarship for Business Administration but that still was not enough money for me to attend. I decided to go with Computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(My major changed a lot but my interest in coding did not). 

-All in all, I learned a lot and I am thankful for all that I had to go through. There is this quote that I still follow to this day that I heard in 2013 before my first semester in college. “Man Can Not Remake Himself Without Suffering. He is still the marble and the sculptor.”-Author, Unknown. 

College: I may make a longer post about this experience in the future but I am not ready just yet. It was already hard to condense my middle school and high school experiences and leaving out information. (I may write a book one day, “Kanye Shrug”). Instead, I will just list some highlights(Bad and Good) below. 

Freshman year: This year was full of fun and trouble. Also a lot of situations in which I had to ask GOD for guidance. I gained some great friends and it was good to be in an environment that I didn’t have to be so tense for the first time in my life. Also, I  lost like 25 - 35 pounds(I may explain how at a later date, lol.)

Sophomore-Senior(Extra Semester): 

+Found the love of my life. I still wonder why she fell for me when I came off as the typical Chicago boy from the hood but aye we are currently 3 years into the game. Not bad for my first girlfriend/ future wife.                                                    + Numerous Organizational Accomplishments.                                                      +Became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. TAU Chapter                        -HARDKNOCK, SPR16, Anchor                                                                          +I could have graduated on time but I decided to use my last semester to gain the appropriate GPA before applying for grad school and leading my fraternity in the right direction upon our centennial year as Chapter president. I successfully accomplished both of my goals of my extra semester. 

I have more to look forward to and I am glad to finally express these thoughts about my past in a productive manner to really focus on my future.