#there was something in particular about mermaid swamp that made it memorable but i have to play it again its been years

[red-dyed-sarumane]

what are some cool games u have played? dont matter if u mentioned before. tell me again tell me again :D

uhh hmm.

well okami is my all time favorite the art & the music & the message/story are all just incredible theres not a single time ive finished it i havent cried. i absolutely adore ryoshima coast ive spent so many hours just running around there to listen to music. which fun fact for u i only know about this game bc in about 6th grade i picked up okamiden bc i thought the little doggy was cute & was like fine i'll play as this boy if i get a cool dog and u cannot imagine how excited i was to find out u DID play as the little dog. i was SOOOOO obsessed literally my exact thoughts were 'if issun is ammy's celestial envoy then i am going to be chibis' i have a metric fuck ton of fan art i did at the time bc i thought it was quote "the epic-est game for ds ever" also cried every time i finished it. i was 13 so i didnt know what "being down bad" was but do know i was as obsessed with kurow as i was with d-ne later and now tenshi not a single irl friend was unaware i was in love with him. also fun fact for u bc at the same time i was also getting super into vocaloid i was so convinced my vocap name would end up as chibiP to the point i named myself that in pkmn x chibiP after chibiterasu of course. please enjoy my banger old art which is not even a fraction of my output

yume nikki is my next favorite game specifically the og that changed my brain chemistry as a kid. i adore that game so much its hard to put it into words. its just so unlike anything else. there is absolutely nothing in the game that can directly harm u theres no real health meter theres no way to die during the main play the absolute worst that will ever happen is u get stuck or woken up. in a horror game. which is already just amazing. and the whole horror aspect just plays on something i dont think is often done as well in many other things. ur alone. u wander and wander thru worlds that loop and connect and seemingly have nothing to do with each other. theres no dialogue; talking to npcs just gets u a noise or animation at best. ur entirely alone with just urself. its all dreams so u know everything is of madotsuki's own creation, another layer to the all u have is urself feeling. the art is just unusual i cant even say any of it on its own is in anyway scary. the whole thing shouldnt be scary and yet every time i start wandering in a world i cant help but feel unease. amazing 10/10 no other game will ever have what this gave me.

everyone knows i play pkmn the best is still pmd sky that also rewired my brain i still cant play it without crying.

its been a long time since i was really just playing it as the chapters released & got translated but 1bitheart is so so so important to me too. i dont kin for multiple reasons but if i did nanashi would be my first choice. like- without saying that to her i got my one irl friend to play once & when she saw how nanashi was she turned to me and went "this is just you" hes very important to me even now. absolutely loved the whole friendship sim & the story & its twists & the endings & their implications left me in shambles at 1 am on a school night. my fave charas are nanashi enri & saaya btw. i should replay this.

i also love the etrian odyssey series i love the character portraits (esp with the more recent games' color customization) i LOVE the dungeon art & i think all the monster designs are so cool. adore the whole make ur own map aspect keeps me so entertained to take a step & look around & chart all the walls & path ways. unfortunately i fucking suck at every single one i am not very good at strategy games so i end up stuck at or before the 3rd stratum. but thats okay its still fun to me.

the other one i'll talk about at length is spirit of the north another game i loved the art of. u play as a fox & get a partner spirit fox & i just love it SOOOO much. its also a game with 0 dialogue but theres A Lot going on it if u care to follow along & explore & dig into details & the game play is also pretty fun to me. this is the one game i started learning the speedrun btw thats also a very fun way to play it but ABSOLUTELY play it as intended first it has so much to offer

aaaand special mentions to omori, oneshot, witch's house, mermaid swamp, corpse party, & limbus company

[sohannabarberaesque]

“Underwater America with Peter Potamus” (episode 19: A remote spring in central Florida, Wally Gator guest hosting)

[In a rather interesting twist for this series, it’s decided to have Wally Gator, a native Florida boy himself, host this particular episode instead of Peter Potamus. Especially considering that such happens to be set in a milieu such as is dear to the heart of that Swingin’ Alligator in the Swamp--the springs of central Florida. And a particularly remote one, at that. But at any rate, let us proceed with the episode ...]

WALLY GATOR, rather proud to take over hosting duties for at least one week: Well, isn’t it interesting, don’t you know, to be given hosting duties for this week’s episode. Which sits just fine with Peter Potamus....

PETER POTAMUS: And that’s not a bad idea there, Wally, considering where we’re doing our diving party this week!

WALLY GATOR, picking up on the background: But at any rate, what’s particularly interesting is that Florida has so many freshwater springs of what geologists call “first magnitude”--having a flow rate of at least 100 cubic feet per second. Or some 64 million gallons of water a day ... which, as Peter himself once explained over breakfast, means having to seriously keep your mask on lest the discharge from a vent hole knock it off your face without warning!

MILDEW WOLF, adding some snark: Admittedly, not the best sort of scenario to happen while diving out here!

[At any rate, the scene shifts to the idyll, if it could be called so, of Weeki Wachee Springs, itself something of a Florida legend even with Walt Disney World still under construction whence this series is set, i.e., in 1970. We can find Our Intrepid Divers posing beside the column topped with a pair of their underwater performers in the adaggio pose, as well as taking in a performance by the Weeki Wachee Mermaids troupe in the underwater amphitheater.]

WALLY GATOR, narrating over much this scene: First stop, so as to get a feel for the experience--Weeki Wachee Springs. And whoever said it was impossible to actually perform underwater, to begin with? [We can see at least two instances of their Mermaids taking air from submerged hoses embedded inside the spring’s performance area during the performance.]

PETER POTAMUS, bemused to be “on the sidelines” for once: If you ask me, those Mermaids certainly have something that could melt a diver’s heart for once!

BREEZLY BRUIN, essentially seconding that: What could be so unusual a performance than to act underwater?!

[So, back on the road across Florida towards Ocala and Silver Springs; here, too, the crowd is sought to prime themselves up for What Lies Ahead.]

WALLY GATOR, obviously taking Floridian pride: Next stop--the legendary Silver Springs, outside of Ocala, don’t you know ... I suppose you still recall Sea Hunt ... this is where the show’s underwater scenes were filmed. Not to mention underwater scenes for quite a few other films and TV shows.... [We find Our Intrepid Crew on one of the Glass-Bottom Boats behind the legendary excursion around the spring, and the cruise’s narration can be heard explaining all. Including pointing out the underwater sets used in production of Sea Hunt--as well as an impromptu underwater ballet performance, scored to the inevitably cheesy stock music underscoring all, in the dock area as the vessel returns.]

And you thought Weeki Wachee was the king of underwater performance...

[At some roadside picnic area, perhaps getting the audience warmed up heading into the mid-show commercial break--]

It just so happens that yours truly, along with Peter Potamus “himself”, stumbled across this particular spring which was itself infamous for a rather infamously cheesy underwater horror film whose underwater scenes were made there, don’t you know. So cheesy, in fact--and so isolated the spring--that such was chosen for the dive this week. Which we’ll get into following the break.

(source of image)

[Whence we return from the break, we go directly into that exceptionally legendary of underwater horror film scenes Z-movie department: That from The Return of the Aunt of Big Betta (In Schlock-O-Rama!) in which the title character goes into some seriously silly dive routines which aren’t quite Weeki Wachee to frighten some diver types supposedly searching for Remnants of a Lost Underwater Civilisation in that particular spring, as if she actually resided in that very spring ... but as Wally Gator “himself” explains in the overriding narration--]

Now who among us isn’t secretly fond of weekend late-night horror film fests as deal in especially awful examples of the genre ... such as The Return of the Aunt of Big Betta, whose memorable(?) underwater scene is now playing. [Thus the action shifts to the road heading towards the spring, with Peter Potamus driving and Wally riding shotgun to give directions] As a matter of fact, heading out of Silver Springs, yours truly was called in to ride shotgun to give directions to the spring at hand, [and we can see the rest of the crew nervously twiddling their thumbs and wondering where they were heading next in the van] ... and after driving about six miles on a rough dirt road in what would be “the middle of nowhere” for Florida, we found the spring at last!

[The scene switches to setting up camp, getting dinner prepared, getting a campfire going, even Hokey Wolf running the bicycle-frame air pump for refilling the SCUBA tanks for the dive ahead, trying not to look nervous about it yet having to know when to take the air gauge off as the tank was full ...]

And so the day begins--a slightly humid sort of day for late spring, which is par for the course in these parts of Florida, even with the spring waters being a constant 73 degrees [confirmed by Squiddly Diddly taking temperature in the waters just inside the shallows of the spring ahead of the dive] ... which goes into a safety briefing from Peter explaining how first-magnitude spring vent holes can release such air that can knock a diver’s mask off one’s face rather quickly, requiring all the more an especially snug fitting close to the face [and we can see the masks being tightened close to the face before the descent ... and once the descent gets underway ...]

Once you go diving in one of these springs ... it’s almost another world that plenty of divers can relate to!

[Much in the way of diving down--and discovery--to be had in this particular spring, which happens to generate some amazing clarity because of its First Magnitude status. And which the camera work of Squiddly Diddly captures rather amazingly, even close to the bottom--which is, rather amazingly, sandy with bits of eelgrass lining the bottom here and there; we can see many of our party taking off their fins and caressing their feet against the luxuriant eelgrass, with the inevitable reaction of such feeling oh so wonderful....]

Doesn’t eelgrass actually feel so soft, so wonderfully ticklish on the bare feet--almost as if this was something of the height of such an interesting dive as this?

[Which it is ... even as the intrepids make their ascent, some even willing to let the discharging water from the vent holes tickle against their bodies, with an almost gently hilarious sensation ensuing. At any rate, heading into the break towards the end of the show and--] 

PETER POTAMUS, back to his accustomed role: May I just extend my thanks to Wally Gator there for hosting this week--as well as for actually locating this rather peculiar spring, besides! ‘Cause, after all, we seek to show that the diving experience can be a rather fascinating one in the company of great friends such as these ... which will be even more interesting over the next couple weeks, as we take some time in a real diver’s paradise, otherwise known as the Florida Keys, for some interesting diving experiences you wouldn’t want to miss ... so, until then, keep diving ...

@warnerarchive​ @joey-gatorman​

[rosiewitchescottage]

I'm just sick of these wall to wall Live Action remakes of classic cartoons.

They did Cinderella and they did Jungle Book and Pete's Dragon. OK. Can't say I'm exactly a fan. I'll still stick to the classic originals. But they weren't bad. And at the time, they were a novelty.

What I'll say for 'Pete's Dragon', in particular is that the first Pete's Dragon does get sidelined. And the remake brings attention back to it. It's a very sweet little movie. And the two versions can be enjoyed in their own ways.

I'd welcome them giving this treatment to The Black Cauldron. The original books are fantastic, and whilst the movie is enjoyable, they could improve on it.

But no. Because that isn't what this is about. They do it with classics that are already super popular. So they don't need to put the effort into building the characters and their stories up.

Diversity, when it's a seamless partner to a great story and memorable characters. It's a good thing. It embraces the variety of humanity and our host of cultures.

The Princess and the Frog. I love it! It's one of my favourites of the later classics.

Setting it in the Cajun swamps, it works. The characters, the music, the way it all fits into the world in which it lives. All spot on.

And to me, the biggest point. They rehabilitate a Brother's Grimm story, that annoys the heck out of me.

Tiana is a million miles from the original spoiled brat princess, a girl that not only has to be forced to keep a promise she made to a frog, and only does so with ill grace.

But she doesn't even have to improve her attitude for the Prince to fall in Love with her.

Prince Naveen falls for Tiana and we know exactly why. She and he are right for each other.

I'd applaud Disney to the rafters and beyond, if they used their remakes to tell other versions of the stories used for the originals.

Cinderella for example - There are at least hundreds, and probably more versions of this tale across the world. They didn't need to tell Charles Perrault's version again.

There are oodles more versions in Europe alone. And then still more when you go further, a Chinese Cinderella, Indian Cinderella etc, etc

Snow White - Soviet cinema has a cartoon of their Russian version of the story. Where she stays in the home of seven hunters. It's on Youtube and it's gorgeous. There are loads of other versions that Disney could use too.

Now we get to mermaids. This isn't just about Ariel being played by a black actress. At least it shouldn't be.

It's about Disney being lazy and expecting the black community to be satisfied with an already well loved, white character just being turned black.

No. Mermaids don't have to only be white. And they aren't just found in European cultures either.

I've looked up mermaids across the world. And whilst not every version of the part sea creature, part human trope would work as a Disney character. I'm darn sure there has to be something that they can use.

Mami Wata from across Africa sounds like a contender.

A mermaid of colour that's in her own world and with her own identity.

Let Ariel remain as the pale skinned red head from the sea around Denmark.

Give us a darker skinned lady of the sea that's a character of her own. There's room of more than one Disney mermaid surely?

I watched the trailer and thought it looked really good before I noticed the like to dislike ratio. Well, this is depressing.