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allthemusic · 2 months ago

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Week ending: 15th May

Four songs! It's been a while! And all four of these are pleasingly varied, as a bonus - a sort of sample platter of different stuff that was going on in 1958, from the mainstream to the less mainstream, to the "wait, how did this chart, again?"

Wear My Ring Around Your Neck - Elvis Presley (peaked at Number 3)

No, I also do not know why the ring isn't around your finger. That seems like the obvious place to want somebody to wear your ring. But this song, nevertheless, is all about how much Elvis wants his love to wear his ring around their neck, as an engagement gift: Won't you wear my ring around your neck / To tell the world I'm your, by heck!

No, I didn't invent that slightly awkward "by heck", Elvis really is here mincing his oaths like somebody's grandmother. It's quaint, by modern standards, wholesome, but very much a product of its era. Similarly, the focus on getting engaged and married also feels like a slightly old-fashioned thing, and lines about how They say that goin' steady is not the proper thing / They say that we're too young to know the meaning of a ring feel like they're offering a glimpse into a social issue that we just don't have today. Apprently there was some concern in the 1950s about teenagers jumping too soon into getting engaged? Whereas I feel like nowadays, marriage is more of an afterthought, or is just a little less central of a goal for a relationship - certainly, we've not got songs about getting married young, in quite the same way.

As songs go, it's fine, with lots of guitar, piano and hand claps, which really seem to be shaping up as the sound of 1958. I don't know how many songs this year have involved clapping, but I feel like I've been mentioning it every other week. Which isn't a problem at all, I feel like there are very few songs that aren't livened up by a bit of clapping. And overall, here, the pace and energy does keep things fresh. Elvis and his backing singers are on fine form, and just in general, it's a perfectly enjoyable song. Maybe a little repetitive - I keep thinking it's finished and then there's another chorus! - but it doesn't drag, or get boring. So yeah, decent.

Tom Hark - Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes (2)

With a group name like this, you know you're in for something special, and so it was with a certain excitement that I hit play on this song, which I was pretty sure was fairly obscure. And we start, intriguingly, with a spoken section, men speaking in a south African language, money clattering onto a table and then suddenly pennywhistles, multiple, playing - wait a minute, don't I know this?

It turns out Tom Hark is a song with an improbably impressive afterlife. It started out as a South African kwela tune, kwela being a genre of street music, played mostly on pennywhistles, with jazz and skiffle influences, that developed in the 1950s. A certain Jack Lerole and his brother Elias made this particular version popular, and were playing in on the streets of Johannesburg when a record producer approached them about making it into a record, which then became a hit outside of South Africa when it was used in a 1958 BBC programme called The Killing Stones, all about diamond smuggling in South Africa, at which point a whole bunch of people seem to have covered it. Then, rather improbably, it was covered in 1980 by a ska punk band called the Piranhas, and from there it was picked up as a football chant, popular to the point where even I - somebody who has absolutely no interest in following football - instinctively knew the tune of this from I guess the school playground? Honestly, I have genuinely no idea where I learnt the Tom Hark tune, but it's a really simple, catchy one, and probably easy to fit lyrics to, so I can kind of see why it works. But yeah, I challenge you to name a less probable hit song!

I like it a lot. There's a cheeriness, the same sort of DIY vibe that you get with some skiffe songs, and like I said, it's simple, a sort of freewheeling tune that sounds particularly carefree and bright. There's something a bit cacophonic about all the penny whistles, which are played breathily, and it's got a sort of rough-around-the-edges charm to it all, held together as it is by a strummed guitar and sheer enthusiasm. It's exciting, possibly just because it's so different to just about everything else out there.

Amazingly, it wasn't even that bit a hit in South Africa itself. Jack Lerole, the brains behind the operation, seems to have gone on to have a fairly extensive musical career, but none of the musicians on the record were really remunerated for this hit, which is bizarre to me, given the success it's clearly gone on to have!

And yes, in case you were wondering, Tom Hark isn't a person. It's apparently a corruption of "tomahawk", the name chosen for the tomahawks that the Lerole brothers would carry around the streets of Johannesburg to protect themselves. The more you know!

Grand Coulee Dam - Lonnie Donegan (6)

And then, from the mean streets of Johannesburg, we're transported to the wilds of Washington state, with a song about the Grand Coulee Dam, a 1930s hydroelectric project on the Columbia River. If this strikes you as an unlikely subject for a song, you're not wrong, and the story of how it happened is kind of fascinating.

The song was originally written by Woody Guthrie in 1941. The dam, at this point, had been in construction for almost a decade, and was almost finished. And it had been pretty controversial, with various locals fighting for a lower dam. So when Woody arrives, he's hired by the local Bonneville Power Administration to write propaganda songs about the whole Columbia River for a documentary that was supposed to drum up support for greater federal regulation of hydropower, showing the benefits of hydroelectric dams more generally. Woody thus arrives, spends by all accounts quite a productive month travelling around and writing songs, inspired by the beautiful setting, only for the documentary to get delayed by World War II. In the end, Woody writes 17 songs, which is still a lot of songs to write about one river, but less than the proposed 26, and none of them see the light of day until 1949, well after the war is done.

Despite this, the song's lyrics definitely hint at World War II, or at least at the sort of patriotic context that Woody was writing in. It's never explicitly stated, after all, but this is a song that just drips in American pride, even from the opening lines, as the narrator sings about how a new wonder of the world now exists in Uncle Sam's fair land.

America, throughout, is a beautiful, wild country, and the song's depiction of nature is genuinely really beautiful. It's not overblown or overly sentimental, but there's something lovely in the description of how the Columbia River heads up the Canadian Rockies / Where the rippling waters glide, / Comes a-roaring down the canyon / For to meet that salty tide, or in the lines about the misty crystal glitter / Of the wild and windward spray.

It's the land that Woody loves the best, and he treats it with a real affection, but he never slips into pining after some idealised, unspoilt verison of it. This song is supposed to be propaganda for hydroelectric power, after all, and so we instead get a song that respects nature but also shows how dangerous it can be, describing how the Columbia River breaks up boats and kills sailors, leading them to dream of a dam. And finally, in 1933, it happens: Now Uncle Sam took up the challenge / In the year of thirty three / For the farmer and the factory / And all of you and me. Taming nature becomes a heroic act, a feat of modern engineering.

It's a decidedly gritty, industrial vision of America, with raw, hard work centred throughout . Even the river becomes a labourer, in the song, as the dam-builder declares river, while you're rambling / You can do some work for me. And so we finish up with a verse about everything that the newly dammed river can power, how now from Washington and Oregon / You can hear the factories hum / Making chrome and making manganese / And white aluminum. It's odd, in a way - I certainly can't think off the top of my head of any other song singing the praises of chrome and manganese - and it's very much a product of its 1940s origins, with other lines nodding to how planes built in the Pacific Northwest went on to be instrumental in the US war effort. There's a subtle recognition, in all this, at the contributions of the American working class, and the respect due to them - it's not bashing you over the head with it, but the love and pride for a decidedly non-glamourous part of the America is absolutely part of the song's appeal, at least for me.

So yeah, the song came out in 1949, and while it wasn't ever quite forgotten, it sounds like it was kept in the public consciousness thanks in no small part to Lonnie's cover, here. It's not a completely wild thing for him to have covered - he's always favoured American folk songs, but for Lonnie, a 1950s Glaswegian, to cover a song so rooted in one very specific American historical and regional context is still pretty odd, the more you think about it. Either way, Lonnie does do a good job. It's more of a narrative, lyric-focussed song than he usually goes for, and he sings it compellingly, painting this interesting, nuanced portrait of a dam that most British listeners have absolutely no reason to care about. But yeah, I think most of the reason this works is Woody Guthrie's writing, which is folksy and idealistic and just scratches a very specific itch. Good stuff!

Lollipop - The Mudlarks (2)

And so, finally, a British cover of an American song we've only just heard. I liked the Chordettes' version of this song, and to be honest, this version isn't very different, so a lot of the thigns I said then hold true here, too. It's a fun bit of throwaway catchiness, and as such, pretty enjoyable.

I have to say, I do think that this version isn't quite as good as the Chordettes', for a few key reasons. I liked the a cappella bits of the Chordettes' version, for example, with all the hand claps. Here, you don't get that, just a much heavier instrumental backing. Plus, the harmonies here are just that little bit less crisp, less complex. And worst of all, it's gone from being an all-female ensemble to a mixed one. One of the things I really liked about the Chordettes was their "girls giggling about boys" energy, and having men joining in loses some of that. Which is a shame, we really haven't had enough "girl groups" yet!

On the plus side, there is something very cool about the effects that the Mudlarks have included here, including a sort of echoey, layered effect on the introduction. It's delightfully trippy, and just that little bit weird - it's a subtle thing, but it's the sort of studio trick that we're hopefully going to see more and more of, going forward. They've kepy the "pop" sound, too, which is absolutely the correct decision, a real memorable bit of silliness.

On a side note, I was also charmed to find out that the Mudlarks, aside from having an excellent name, were a vocal group who originally became successful while they were all still working at a Luxton Vauxhall factory, and just sang in their breaks and off-time. What a fun origin story!

I feel like weeks like this are the best kind of week on this project. We had four songs, a mix of different origins, styles and vibes. We've had rock and roll from Elvis, the biggest star out there at this point, a bizarrely unlikely South African song that has since become a British football chant, a Glaswegian skiffle cover of a 1940s wartime propaganda song about a specific American hydroelectric dam, and a British knock-off cover of a particularly daft American bit of girl-group a cappella fluff. And literally all of it was entirely listenable. Two of the songs were definitely more interesting to me, though, and it'll be hard to decide between them. I think at the end of the day, Tom Hark is more interesting, and mjusically more significant, but if you have to pick one I enjoyed more, just on a gut level, it's probably Lonnie. Sorry!

Favourite song of the bunch: Grand Coulee Dam

#uk charts #1958 #elvis presley #elias & his zig-zag jive flutes #lonnie donegan #the mudlarks

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the-firebird69 · 4 months ago

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We have another game going on here and it is Toyota can't get the super car out there and they can't produce it and market it and people won't let them so as a kid car it would be the grandson in law of Yukio who's after our son and she is up for it.

we said the above mostly and the others a bit

Posieden and Goddess Wife

true a little. and we worked like hell this is what we get more work he says and hahah yes. we do it. this is greatness and yes the Rickshaw story is tue and the name aweful. steven shaw but we all had to endure it. and this is greatness.

Uriel and Goddess Wife

And you would need parts of course and yeah you need parts and high performance parts aftermarket and standard parts and she says that's good enough. And all that stuff works for her it's a stellar car and she says you gotta get the C2 it's kind of that one but it's bigger and looks better and you might fit in it she says what they wanna do is take the prototype and that's something they don't want but they will do that and make the car and make you one in order for it to work. And she says we looked at the rickshaw that's what it is and it is of Japanese origin and they put some sort of small teeny carrot on it and it looks awfully familiar it's like two foot wide and 4 foot long and about 4 foot high and you sit down and the cover goes about three feet about three feet wide and it looked ridiculous but it works and yeah you're bearing down on the horse but there's only like one of you in it mostly and you would have something on the back in a counterbalance the weight and it requires a special harness anyways but you'd have to put a heavy duty one on and that's what this sounds like and it is Japanese almost the whole thing and Tommy F was keeping a secret and he is not planning on doing it and he says I might now I understand how it says you really shouldn't steal this stuff from Japan just in Japan the hand is used like the knife. And yes it looks like Tommy F might try and use Trump to transport it both of them and yeah we're Toyota this would be a Honda no it's the other way around

Yukio

nd real car he says a prototype nd electric the craze sort and good

Thor Freya

this is it and how can he afford it and they say it the g86 would be a wreck no. used nope. well ok used. and a prototype so that is odd and hrd to get

no we see it inherit it. and from whom mrs chen no. Honda she says no way ok they dont get me that and not shipped she smllles we shall see but no that wont do it.

Zig Zag

the cost is up there. Really the cost used is 7 about$12,000 minimum I was wondering what was before the G86 and it's not the supra it was a form of the Celica. That wheelbase is different and he's been in that car going about 120 miles an hour and here it is 2010 they still want money It is 101 inches and it's AC2 and they started with about 140 horsepower but you could get a model with about A180 horsepower and that's good enough because you changed the top end and you change the exhaust You'll end up with about 210 horsepower and 2 120 foot piles of torque which is about where you should be anyways and it will be AC2 to start which is actually what is in the image it's not AC1. This actually defines it more and they will try and get him the old Celica that Trevor had. And somebody was doing that last night. The car looks pretty cool back then some of these are not cheap but usually you can find these for not much money here's one for $7000 it's AGT and some high miles but it goes back pretty far too$7000 $5000 but he says that it will probably be built already and we think that that's not true but Tommy F would build it somehow and that's what he's saying he would do so he's wondering how the hell that would work these things sometimes go for $4000 it's a nice little car and my son and Dodger liked it it was fast zippy and you had four people in it and we would do that with the C2. Right now a lot of people are looking at that car and saying it's very hot and they want to grab it and use it as a prototype and copy it exactly to cause trouble.

JC and Mary got money to purchase the cart but did not buy it disassembled. And the idea would be to put the hull onto the chassis and they're they're very close the prototype is about 100 inches and it's about point 4 on top the Celica is about 100 inches in point three on top and you'd have to make up for it somehow and he says you put a fairing on or a fairing with a fender not a fender it's a that kind of truck and some supercars have those so people are wondering how he would afford it and how JC and Mary got the conversion done. And the top was lightweight and it was erasing carriage and it was new and it was for a different type of horse than the Japanese are used to but it went back to the original type horse which is smaller. Old enough it looks like the Vader but this is new and they're seeing that Tommy F took the place of Honda and that's actually what's going on so they wanna try and get it to him but that's not right it's a Toyota Celica so now you see what he's up to and what he says is it'll light them up at the right time and the max will use them as an excuse and Tommy F doesn't care about it and wants the tech. The video Youngblood is from this event and Trump is fighting over the spot and the car. How they plan to get into them is different because Tommy F modified the carriage at the Revolutionary War and you got the carriage in the first place and it was the one of a kind original and he took it using a similar method give it to Dave to try and blame him so our son and daughter see the game and it's a big game and it's dangerous and huge it still doesn't know how he's gonna afford it because it looks like a real supercar and it would be metal and it would still go kind of slow no if you didn't put a limiter on and you put the speed kit you would be a 200 horsepower it would go about 240 mph which is the speed of most super cars. And a son says that's exactly 2.3 times faster than he's allowed to go and it's true too we don't want him going over 90 ever they can't limit it to go that slow that's kind of true if you go about A110 the gas mile just still be pretty good. And there's some things Tommy F has the hull and he says he might use the G86 because it's a bigger motor and it's a heavier car and of course he puts a limiter on and he built the Ford GT to show people and he's talking about a bigger motor so he knows what he's trying to do and the question comes up again how am I supposed to buy something that looks like that and then drive into the parking lot wouldn't have nothing so let's turn into Asseville

It's a very hot car but if you look at it for a few minutes it's on the level of a Corvette roughly maybe even a little lower. It looks like a sports car

It does look awesome OK but a lot of new cars kind of look like this and there's a few sports cars that have a close look mostly the Corvette which is not that much money so it'd be like a Toyota version of the Corvette and they're probably trying to come out with it. But he doesn't have anywhere near enough money for AA Corvette and he'll be driving this around and he'll have no money. And a bunch of **** will be bothering him but we like him in this this would be nice and on the G86 is acceptable it's a sturdier frame is a little bigger and it fits right on for the most part it is the same size and things would have to be switched out no we wanted to keep it stock everything actually except for the hull and we checked in the dashboard will fit and it does fit nice it's something to look forward to OK

Thor Freya

You're gonna smile when you see why but you know why but still this is a **** **** car and it looks you're correct on the level of the Corvette which really if you put that chassis together it'd be the same speed and it would be nice and it would be fun to go to shows and things like that and to tell them it's AA kit and they'll get the phone number and Tommy F will be making them and he you know he might have you do it as a promotional and he knows who you are and there's a few shows they put on but you're saying if you could just go to car shows cracker Barrel he says that's probably good and he wants to be somebody there tommy if so he would put up a little stand with cards of yours and he smiles and says that's probably the best I've heard it and he'd like to win some contests sometimes you win a lot of money all you'd have to do is drive it around and Hera is lauging as Gilene and it is good he sys. hahah she wnts to drive around with him ok. and She had a Nissan but that is a Japanese company but it's not the company that would push it forwards that's what they're saying.

Posieden and Goddess Wife and yes we are Honda

and Yukio the mama from toyota is Hera's side

and Nissan and she Gilene had one and is covering her mouth lauging saw it recognized the style nd ahhaah wont stop laughing

Posiedon and goddess wife

and dont call me that Zues you fool you ahahah lol ahhaah lol this is fun ok i see it i am to be taken apart and transported to you this blows ahhha lol. and on mychassis and different body style. same company ok

Hera oh boy he says not so sure this would be too good and you suck but ok i will and you see and ok we seek approval need input good ok good honey

Zues

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pointreyesjournal · 1 year ago

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The Amnesiac : ep32

The Logger’s Dream

The only thing more repulsive to me than a tourist trap is a tourist trap gift shop. The Trees of Mystery gift shop is an overstuffed curio shop crammed with useless Sasquatch and Paul Bunyan themed crap. I am repulsed to the point of misbehavior so focus solely on reaching the ticket counter without causing a scene in front of my new girlfriend. The person working at the ticket counter is dull and mindless. River reminds me what we’re here on a fact finding mission when I recoil in horror at the entrance fee. “It’s a fucking walk in the the forest” I harp. “We have a gondola” the ticket counter attended reminds me. “Think of this as a lift ticket.” I pay the money begrudgingly, take my gondola ticket and head for the exit. I’m already in a bad mood when we start up the obnoxiously long zig-zagging ramp to reach the beginning of the trail.

“Fucking wheelchair accessible ramp. Can’t they just put a little staircase for ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of everyone else?”

“This looks fun Floody. Just relax. We’ll survive.”

“Bah.”

“Hey, you’re the one who led us here. Let’s not forget, this is not my idea.”

I keep stomping my way up the wheelchair ramp and avoid the entire existential discussion about who is leading who here. Maybe I physically experienced this moment in my recent past, but it is River’s spirit that is guiding this journey, I’m sure of that now. The intensity of my amnesia recalls this morning are far beyond my control, and River is the centerpiece in each of them. A part of her soul has clearly diverged from her physical being and implanted itself in my psyche. So I contend that she is now leading this journey of discovery, and I am merely the passenger. I keep the thought to myself as we soldier on.

The gift shop may have been chintzy, but the redwood forest is spectacular. There are only three places in the world with groves of thirty story tall redwoods, and this is one of them. This attraction should have been called Trees of Majesty, because there’s nothing mysterious here. We’re enveloped in the pure grandeur of these gigantic trees, some of the oldest and largest living organisms on earth. The path wends its way through the forest to a seemingly high point on the trail and a sign guides us to a spiral staircase. It is the Redwood Canopy Trail, a series of suspension bridges high in the treetops that allow the guests a birds-eye view of the forest below. The stairs up are a narrow circular affair that wrap around a tree trunk. The rope bridges are downright terrifying. I imagine Indian Jones standing at the other side of the bridge with a machete threatening to kill us all. If you’re prone to the heebie-jeebies, I would recommend against the canopy trail. But we love it! It’s just the kind of thrill we need to get refocused on our journey. We pass from treetop to treetop, one terrifying bridge at a time. By the time we descend back to the forest floor, we are glowing from the adventure and the adrenaline.

Just a short way down the trail we reach the gondola. We climb aboard the little pod and sit side by side facing downhill so we can see the gorgeous view as we ascend the mountain. River nuzzles against me and I hold her tight. We don’t say a word. I just hold her and enjoy the moment as we glide over the treetops. At the summit is a small platform with a grand pacific ocean view to the west. My bitterness about the entrance fee has evaporated. This was well worth the money.

River produces a little square of Ghirardelli dark chocolate and a water bottle for us to share. We sit at the edge of the summit platform, resting our feet by dangling them off of the side and enjoying the view over the forest to the pacific ocean. It’s a nice moment of relaxation since we’ve been going seemingly non-stop since daybreak. We strategize the day ahead. It’s only another ten or so miles until we reach Crescent City, the northern-most city in California, and that seems like a great place to stop for the day. Even though we haven’t made a lot of miles today, we have experienced a lot of things with the discovery of the Fern Canyon and the Paul Bunyan statues providing new clues about my amnesia journey. Rather than barrel ahead, it is better to stop, analyze the remaining drawings, and think about our next steps.

This is bliss, and it is with some sense of irony when I tell you that I could have never imagined myself in this position, considering that at some point in the past thirty days I’ve already been in this exact position! What I’m saying is that falling in love with River is a complete surprise and something that, before two weeks ago, I never could have imagined. But there again, prior to two weeks ago there is a huge block of time missing from my memory, so there’s a lot happening that I never could have imagined. It is my paradoxical reality.

We depart. The gondola ride back down the hill feels as though we’re flying a hang glider down into the forest. It’s tranquil and immersive. My motorcycle boots aren’t exactly the greatest hiking boots (or even walking shoes for that matter) that have ever been made, so I welcome the downhill path toward the exit. We pass many more great trees and as we’re nearing the exit of the park we reach an area called The Trail of Tall Tales. It’s an area with dozens of large wood statues and carvings that perpetuate the fairy tales of Sasquatch and Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox Babe. It’s charming and quaint and silly, and is certainly situated near the end of the tour so that children will be enamored with the story enough to ask for more goodies in the gift shop. We’re walking hand in hand enjoying the trail when we both are stopped in our tracks at the sight of a face carved into the base of a fallen giant redwood. It’s a woman’s face. It is the exact wooden face that I drew in chalk on the back of the fourth drawing. What we thought was River’s face rendered in redwood is in fact the carving called Paul Bunyan’s Girlfriend … a.k.a. The Loggers Dream.

We are both shocked and astonished, but it doesn’t elicit a painful extraction of memories because fortunately for me, we are already holding hands. River keeps her grasp firmly against mine, and I close my eyes.

“You’re here again River. Standing across from the statue.Once again your soul stands here beside me.”

I open my eyes and we both stand staring at the statue in amazement.

“We need to get to a hotel, so we can look at the drawings again. There has to be more clues” River tells me. And I agree. Our path through the Trees of Mystery ends here, it’s time to ride into town, have a nice meal and wrap our heads around this mystery.

#amnesiac #first person narrative #romance novels

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onlinevapeshop2 · 2 years ago

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dreamwreaver · 1 year ago

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And this is my argument to any and everyone who said Chloe was never intended to be the true bee holder. Like bruh, products take r and d and TIME. You're telling me zag sunk a bunch of money into making merch of a character's hero persona if the intent wasnt to keep them as that hero?

No, I call bs on that. Zag is a lot of things but business minded ranks among the top. He will produce what sells well and when Queen Bee came out, despite how she got her start she was POPULAR. Her merch was selling like hotcakes. Do you know just the fashion doll alone is both a bit harder to find and usually sells for more than the vesperia doll? Vesperia gets left in clearance in major box stores yet somehow she was the true holder?

We know Jeremy likes Chloe, I believe in one interview way back he said he though Chloe should end up with adrien because the latter needed someone in his life who could teach him to have a spine. But the extent to which there is so little vesperia merch even just beyond the zag store stuff is really surprising. Just as a quick rundown of the queen bee merch that came out in the... 2 years she was the official bee holder;

A ten inch fashion doll

A five and a half inch action figure

A kids Halloween costume

A queen bee dress up accessory pack which included a mask scrunchie and I believe a spinning top

An action figure which might have hinted at her Astro design since it came with a wing attachment

A feature as a Burger King toy

Tons of QB clothing

This is a non comprehensive list. But it doesn't make any sense go Zag, knowing as far back as beginning that Chloe wasn't supposed to be keeping that miraculous, would go through all those contracts for that merchandise. Also you'd think if they'd had zoe in the pipeline this whole time there would have been a huge rollout for her merch the moment her debut episodes went global. But there was a noticeable lack for the longest time

Hell, she didn't even get zag official merch for her version of the comb until THIS YEAR. You're telling me the true holder of this miraculous didn't have merch for cosplay purposes available for over a year since her original introduction?

No, I don't buy it. I don't know a whole lot about retail marketing and development but I do know that if you have a change up like that you want to sell stuff for you have it ready to go before the reveal, not months to years after it.

Speaking of Zag's store, I just looked at the Zoe/Chloe section and they only have six things that have Zoe involved in it while Chloe has over 20+ items

https://www.zag-store.com/collections/queen-bee

YEAH

#mlb #clearly one of them is more marketable #miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #zoe lee #she was never planned to exist and we know it #that guy was just salty Chloe was so popular

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adamwatchesmovies · 3 years ago

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The Thief and the Cobbler - The Recobbled Cut (2013)

The history of The Thief and the Cobbler is long and heartbreaking. In short, it was an impossibly ambitious animated film whose troubled production went on for so long it was never finished. Eventually picked up, pieced together as best as possible, and then released by two separate studios, the versions we've seen are heavily compromised. Nonetheless, Richard Williams' original vision captured the minds of many. In 2013, a painstakingly reconstructed fan edit dubbed "The Recobbled Cut" - the closest we’ll ever get to the director’s intention - emerged. Though still incomplete, this glimpse at what could've been is breathtaking.

Golden City is kept safe thanks to three magical golden balls atop King Nod’s tallest minaret. When a thief steals the balls, all seems lost. Hope rests in the hands of Princess Yum-Yum (Sara Crowe) and the cobbler Tack (a silent role) while the scheming Grand Vizier Zig Zag (Vincent Price) sees the disaster as an opportunity.

A simple summary of this film’s plot does not do it justice. This is an unusual film you cannot forget. The visuals are a cross between Persian miniature paintings and the works of M.C. Escher. As characters run through corridors, you’ll be blown away at the amazing use of perspective, the crispness of the lines, and painstaking amount of detail. It’s so beautiful it’s overwhelming. The sheer amount of long, unbroken shots, the way every scene had to be painstakingly choreographed and developed, the brilliant way perspective is skewed to show off the lush background and the brilliantly designed characters… The Thief and the Cobbler is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It uses the medium of animation like no one else ever had - and it was all done by hand.

This picture's unconventional choices make it a fascinating watch. When was the last time you saw a film whose two leads had no dialogue - outside of the silent era? Sounds weird for the sake of being weird? Maybe, but it allows the story to focus on body language, facial expressions, and color to convey to you what is happening. You haven’t seen slapstick done this well since the Looney Tunes' golden years.

Based on this glimpse of what might've been, did we miss out on “the greatest animated film of all time”? Not quite. The visuals are spectacular. The story? just ok. Some scenes last too long and the way the villains are introduced means the stakes don't feel as high as they could. It’s easy to get mad at Allied Filmmakers and Miramax for releasing butchered versions of this artistic vision, but you also can’t blame them. This film is so strange, so unusual, and was taking so long to produce anyone would worry. A 30+ year obsession like this one almost certainly saw scenes that were previously “finished” scrapped entirely because the character designs were tweaked or a new stylistic choice was made down the line. Looking at it from today's standpoint, I don’t think this project would have ever gotten finished no matter how much money Richard Williams would've managed to raise.

If you love animation or movies with interesting backstories (so basically, ones where everything goes wrong), it's worth digging up this version of The Thief and the Cobbler. Usually, I’d criticize a film for demanding the audience “do homework” to enjoy themselves. This case is so wild you gobble up every testimony, date, and name like a hungry wolf inside a chicken coop. This “Recobbled Cut” might just be the most important fan edit ever made. (Recobbled Cut, June 10, 2016)

#TheThiefandtheCobbler #RecobbledCut #movies #films #MovieReviews #FilmReviews #RichardWilliams #MargaretFrench #VincentPrice #animated movies #ANimatedFilms

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ecofinisher · 3 years ago

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Stuff I noticed at Snow Queen Fire & Ice and Miraculous Ladybug 😀

I just had to. Even if it is a waste of time. 😅I've done one a long while ago between Miraculous and Monster Buster Club. This one had to be done as well, all just because of those small, little spirits 🥺😥

To be clear, I’m not comparing it to what is better and whatnot. I’m comparing the similarities between the two. The spirits there made me think of the kwamis? Funny I didn't pay attention to it at first xD But then the fun part came......Three times I have watched the movie and I suddenly began to think......Hmm Gerda has the creation powers like Ladybug and Rollan destruction......Holy brick! They could be the lovesquare as well if they had added more romance into it 😂 How did I not see? (It's because you saw Kristanna mixed with Hansanna you nut)

So where do I start? Well just to summarize the shows for those who don’t know one/both of them:

Short info about both, if unfamiliar:

Miraculous Ladybug is a French animated TV show, that debuted in 2015 and is set in the modern metropole Paris and is focused on the lives of the clumsy Marinette Dupain-Cheng and the famous teeny-model Adrien Agreste. Both wield special magical jewelry, which is called a “Miraculous” which they use to transform into the superheroes “Ladybug and Cat Noir” The two don’t know each other’s identity, but funnily Adrien has a huge crush on Ladybug and in the civilian life he sees her as just a friend, while Marinette is obsessed with Adrien and sees Cat Noir only as his trustful crime-fight partner. Both students are around 14 years old in the show.

As superheroes they fight villains, that were akumatized by Hawk Moth. (He owns the butterfly miraculous, with which he can create supervillains by sending an akuma (Butterfly jinxed by Hawk Moth’s magic) and Hawk Moth’s miraculous sends people’s negative feelings such as anger, sadness and disappointment and uses his akumas to follow them and akumatize them and they’re transformed by Hawk Moth into a specific-themed supervillain.

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice (Release year: 2016)

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice is the third installment of the Russian franchise "The Snow Queen" It consisted currently out of 4 movies, an upcoming 5th installment, and a pre-school TV show. The first movie came out in 2012 and was also the studio's very first movie.

Resume from the first two movies is the young girl Gerda, which lost her parents to the Snow Queen makes her way through the entire snow lands to find her younger brother Kai, which was kidnapped y the north wind. With help of Orm, Snow Queen's servant she makes her way up to the Palast and defeats her, saving her brother and waking up Orm's eyes to a "better world" The sequel is focused on Orm's continuation, which makes a promise to never lie again and this promise made a reflection of himself come to life and appear near him, when he had no idea, what to do with life issues. The more he began to create white lies and bigger lies, the more life his reflection gained until he was able to get out to the real world. The reflection, which calls itself "The Snow King" tricks Orm and leads a fight against Troll warriors by sending his ice-made minions. Gerda was the last warrior to enter and make it to the main hall of the palace to miss Orm, which was fading away due to Snow King's existence and he pretends to be an injured Orm, which is warmly embraced by the girl, but then gets frozen by him, not realizing she had fallen into a trap. When things were over for everyone and the bad guys had won, Orm figured out how he would make everything okay by confessing his mistakes, which erased Snow King from existence and unfroze all warriors and friends again, which were angered at the naive troll.

This is lowkey spoiler-free. I didn't want to go into much detail here, but I would suggest you watch these movies, mostly no. 2 and 3, which are really worth seeing. As well you can see the first and see how much the studio had improved since the first up to the 2 and 3 one.

The Fire and Ice one, I'm supposed to be talking about happens a few years later, Gerda and Kai left the orphanage to go live on their own and make money to be able to at least be able to eat. Their last visit didn't make any profit and they took a ride with an old friend of theirs Alfida (The Robber girl) to pass the night by Orm, their troll friend, which had matured and was responsible to babysit the triplets of his cousin. On said night, a Spanish boy named Rollan shows up by his doorstep and is introduced to the visitors as a friend he met shortly. After the dinner ended in a disaster Kai and Gerda split and Rollan followed Gerda to give her rights, then bonded with her from being looking for his mother as well and introduces her to a map with an artifact called "The Wishing Stone" which grants any wish. Gerda agrees in tagging along and together they make it to survive the dangerous tomb encountering the wishing stone. Fact is the wishing stone was something else and this is where the powers of the Snow Queen and the Fire Demon were kept and due to Gerda and Rollan's touch on the stone, it had awakened the spirits, getting the two infected with the powers of said villains. Soon as they find out with Orm what happened, they need to get back to the tomb to retrieve the powers before the north star rises and makes their transformation complete, which means both would lose their soul/bodies to the villain. .

Random info:

1. The most popular franchise of the studio aka knowns for:

Miraculous is mostly know to be addressed as a ZAG animation product, but other known studios have worked on it as well such as SAMG Animation, TOEI and Method Animation.

Currently, the most popular series produced in France.

The Snow Queen 3 is the overall fifth movie released by Wizart Animation and was on its release the studio's best-grossing movie so far. Currently, the studio's filmography contains about 8 released movies (Counting with Secret Magic Control Agency in 2021), Two televisions shows and at the moment three movies are announced to be released.

Currently, the franchise is the most popular one in Russia, which is also where it was produced.

The similarities I noticed:

The spirits

Coal (Up) and Snowflake (Down) (Left Side)

Plagg (Up) and Tikki (Down)(Right Side)

Tikki and Snowflake have female pronouns. Both are shown to be "feminine", kind, lovable, and correct. They're a spirit of creation.

Plagg and Coal have male pronouns. Both are shown to be "male". cunning and curious. They're a spirit of destruction.

All four are able to use their powers on their own. They don't need to be with their holder to be capable of.

Differences:

- Plagg and Tikki are able to communicate verbally with each other and with humans.

-Coal and Snowflake can't speak, they usually use body language and mimic. Also, they do noises like laughing, groaning, speaking, and such.

- According to Tikki, her species (Kwami) don't fall in love/can't fall in love.

- Snowflake and Coal are shown to be romantically interested in each other. They're shown flirting and having little date-like moments, as they're away from their "owners"

- Coal is able to multiplicate. It's unknown if he's able to do it in command or only if he falls or is hit.

The "Alter egos"

Marinette is the face behind Ladybug and Adrien wears the mask of Cat Noir.

Gerda is possessed with the ice-powers of the Snow Queen and Rollan wields the fire-power of the Fire Demon.

Gerda and Marinette share the creation ability, while Adrien and Rollan are responsible for the destruction. They're each other's opposites.

Differences: Gerda and Rollan are aware of each other's identity and recognize each other's faces, despite small differences. Adrien and Marinette don't know each other's hero identity and weirdly have minor differences in their looks.

Marinette and Adrien's personality as heroes is quite different from their civilian ones, while Gerda and Rollan's don't seem any different.

It's unknown if, during the time Rollan and Gerda are under possession, their personalities are slightly altered by the villains or not. Rollan is shown to get quickly tempered with Gerda's friend, when it comes to their mishap, which usually turns into arguments.

The Yin-Yang effect

Power of creation and destruction

Marinette = Ladybug miraculous, the red earrings / Power of Luck (Creation)

Adrien = Black Cat Miraculous, the black ring / Power of Misfortune (Destruction)

Gerda = Ice (Creation) (The ice-blue shape on the crystal)

Rollan = Fire (Destruction) (The red shape on the crystal)

Character A bickers often with character B.

Ladybug with Cat Noir. Most of the moments Ladybug feels annoyed at Cat Noir's puns and flirt attempts during their missions. She had her rude moments, but deep inside her, she adores him. With Adrien's she's currently befriended, but has a huge crush, nearly an obsession with the blonde, which sometimes makes her double life harder and under pressure, she has taken choices, which led to ungood consequences.

Gerda with Rollan. Rollan's seems more relaxed with pressuring into retrieving the powers back, unlike Gerda. Rollan's easy tempter with Orm, when he's blamed for his issues annoys her as well. Gerda has shown interest in Rollan since the night she has met him and they bonded over the night when heading to the forbidden Tomb. Rollan has shown interest in her as well, but not as much as her.

"Buttmonkey Sidekick"

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Cat Noir - Thrown around by villains at billboards, yeeted by his own dad at the fricking Eiffel tower, sometimes risked his life to protect Ladybug and get wrapped up into odd situations.

Rollan suffered a few nutshots (One by himself as well), survived a very dangerous tomb, had his head frozen by Gerda accidentally, managed to step-dance in the middle of a shoot-out without getting hit by a bullet, accidentally (Or not) uses firepower with help of his butt. (Sounds ridiculous? There' the picture 😂) Press R for respect.

Naturally handsome boys.

Cat Noir and Rollan.

With and without "masks".

Don't think before acting

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Characters look the same

Gerda and Ladybug

Gerda has additional makeup on her face.

Characters look differently with their alter egos

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir has a wilder hairstyle and has cat-like eyes.

Rollan has a different skin tone, a fire-like shaped hairstyle, which he can put on fire and his eyes are slightly red-brownish.

The brains

Ladybug and Gerda.

The muscle

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Falling into the darkness

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir lets an akuma take over him and turn him into Chat Blanc, which destroys the entire world in an alternate universe.

Rollan lets the Fire Demon take over his body at the retrieval of the power and nearly commits genocide of entire kingdom.

Tall boy, smoll girl

Cat Noir to Ladybug

Rollan to Gerda

"Lovesquare"

Cat Noir has a crush on Ladybug. Ladybug doesn't. She has a crush on Adrien, which is Cat Noir's alter ego, which she's not aware of. Adrien sees Marinette as a friend only and has no idea, she and Ladybug are the same person although they look the same.

Gerda is attracted to Rollan since the first time she saw him. Rollan begins to feel attracted to Gerda with the time she's around him.

Rollan and Gerda are aware of each other because they were given the powers in the same place.

Marinette and Adrien were confirmed to be canon and should end up in the 5th season, eventually.

Rollan and Gerda should be considered canon at the end of the 4th part, due to the ending credits showing them share a kiss.

Power font:

Ladybug & Cat Noir: "Magic jewelry" (Miraculouses)

Rollan & Gerda: The wishing stone

Difference:

The wishing stone takes away after 24 hours of control over the power wielders and turns them into the slave of Snow Queen and the Fire Demon. The characters' real person is gone for good.

#how to waste your time #random thoughts #miraculousladybug #miraculous #ladybug and chat noir #chat noir #miraculous season 4 #snow queen #snow queen 3 #the snow queen #снᴇжнᴀя коᴘолᴇвᴀ #снᴇжнᴀя коᴘолᴇвᴀ 3 #снᴇжнᴀя коᴘолᴇвᴀ 3 огонь и лед #snow queen 3 fire and ice

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bonjour-rainycity · 4 years ago

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Spring(ish) Cleaning -- Jalice Secret Santa 2020

@jalicenetwork

Pairing: Jasper/Alice

Summary: It’s that time of the year again, and Jasper doesn’t take it quite as seriously as Alice would like. Fluff! Domestic life!

Disclaimer: I’m not making any money from this nor do I own anything recognizable.

Word count: 1280

Warnings: None

A/n HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! And happy Secret Santa, @alice-cullen-is-an-angel :) I hope you like it <3

“Jasper Whitlock Hale, you get back here right now!”

Jasper squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath before setting his book down on the table. From in front of the TV, Emmett chortles. “Busted.”

With quick movement, Jasper pushes his brother’s head to the floor, then darts up the stairs, dodging Emmett’s retaliatory shove with a full second to spare.

Feeling Alice’s frustration, Jasper puts on what he hopes is a charming smile and hurries up the stairs to their room. “Yes, my love?”

Alice rolls her eyes at her husband’s faked innocence. “You said you were just getting a book.”

The edges of Jasper’s lips twitch. “And I did.”

“You’ve been gone forty-five minutes!”

Jasper rubs the back of his neck with a scarred hand, sheepish. “Well, then I settled down with the book and it got really good, so—”

Alice skips forward and jumps to place a kiss on his nose. “The book will still be here when we’re done.”

Jasper sighs, wanting to put up just a little more of a fight, even though he knows he’s already lost. “The closet will still be here when the book’s done, so…” He trails off under his wife’s death glare.

“You promised we would do this last April. It’s now January first. You know how the humans say—‘new year, new me’, well I say, ‘new year, new clothes’, and new clothes need space so we have to get rid of old clothes. Now sit.” With a measure of strength incongruent for her size, Alice shoves Jasper onto the bed, where he obedient sits with a resigned chuckle. It’s true. He had been putting this off for over nine months. He just hates going through their entire wardrobe—an achingly tedious task that takes hours due to his wife’s love for fashion. Back in the mid-1900s, they only had to do this once every five years or so—clothes weren’t produced as quickly, then, so it really slowed Alice down. Now, she has no limits, and it definitely shows in the size of a walk-in-closet that’s bigger than their actual bedroom, and three storage units scattered across the United States’ northern boarder. So now, Jasper’s least favorite chore occurs at least every eighteen months.

Wonderful.

Alice disappears in the closet and returns within a millisecond, clutching a thick grey button up from Jasper’s section, holding it up for him to see.

“Keep.”

Alice scoffs and quirks an eyebrow, raising the button-up into the light as if that would help Jasper see it through her eyes. “It’s six years old, Jazz.”

Jasper bites back a smile. The shirt is in excellent condition, but the disdain emanating from Alice when she declared the shirt’s age means it clearly has to go. Jasper shrugs, unaffected by parting with the shirt. “Donate, then.”

His wife smiles approvingly, tosses it into a pile, and returns with a nearly identical shirt in deep blue. Though, since this one is only from November, he’s allowed to keep it.

They continue like this for hours, the ‘donate’ pile growing ever larger due to Alice’s strict criteria for keeping an item in their rotation. While Jasper doesn’t enjoy this task, he basks in the one-on-one time with Alice, and mentally chides himself for putting this off for so long. It’s nice, being in their shared space, acting as a husband and wife would. Cleaning out a closet feels very normal, almost human.

He notices Alice taking longer than usual to return with the next item of clothing, and pushes off the bed to investigate. Her emotions hint at amusement, and he’s definitely intrigued. She hears—and mentally sees—him coming, and quickly hides something behind her back, moving to toss it in to the depths of the closet. He’s faster than her though, and locks a hand around her wrist, halting her movement.

“What have you got there?”

Alice gives him his second death glare of the day, though the amusement hasn’t faded. “Nothing. It’s none of your business.”

Jasper raises an eyebrow, slowly snaking his other arm around her back to pull her against him, taking her other wrist in his free hand. He pauses momentarily to enjoy her sharp intake of breath, then continues in his scrutiny. “If it’s in my closet, I’m pretty sure it’s my business.”

“Well, this specific thing isn’t,” Alice shoots back, quite obviously fighting a smile.

He acts on instinct alone, not even giving her second-sight warning before he switches his grip of her wrists to one hand and squeezes lightly, forcing her to drop the object into his free—and waiting—hand. She lunges forward, intending to steal the object back and make a run for it, but Jasper uses his grip to keep her steady, holding the object high out of her reach for both of them to see.

And he dissolves into laughter.

Alice takes advantage of his distraction and extracts herself from his loosened grip, snatching the gaudy hat and holding it in her crossed arms.

“Wha-what is that thing,” Jasper sputters, reaching for the hat. Alice takes a step back, shaking her head resolutely. “No, c’mon, please,” he chortles, raising his hands in mock-surrender. “I’ll be nice, I promise.”

Despite her expression that clearly says she doesn’t believe him, Alice hands back the hat, biting her lip against embarrassed laughter of her own.

Jasper straightens, examining the hat with forced seriousness. “It’s interesting.”

“I got it in Milan,” Alice defends, despite knowing that it won’t help her case against Jasper. Rosalie, maybe, but not her fashion-safe husband. “It’s couture, actually.” At his stuttering laugh of disbelief, Alice nearly stamps her foot. “You just wouldn’t get it!”

“You’re right,” Jasper grins, radiating pure mischief. “I don’t get it. I think it might help if I could see it on.”

“Ohhhh no,” Alice warns, taking a step back. “I’m not giving you any more ammo.”

“Alice,” he coaxes, grinning wickedly. “I’m just a student of fashion trying to better understand the trends of the time. An expert such as yourself wouldn’t deprive me of that, right?”

She knows she won’t win if she’s trapped like this. He’s already got the plan worked out in his mind—back her into a corner and simply take the hat, putting it on her head. So, she tries for her only other option.

She makes a run for it.

Her visions allow her to dodge the arm he throws out in an attempt to stop her, and she makes it into the bedroom. But then he switches to acting on instinct, and it’s all over.

They end up tangled on the bed, laughing wildly as he wrestles the hat from her grip. All too soon he’s won, and he places a soft kiss on her lips before settling the hat firmly on her head, much to her obvious annoyance.

He fights hard to not laugh, but it’s a losing battle.

The hat is somehow as large as a five-tiered cake, which looks absolutely comical on Alice’s four-foot-eleven frame. The extra-wide brim extends way past Alice’s shoulders, plunging the majority of her face into darkness. The hat is a fierce lime green, with bells made of ribbon zig-zagging up to the very top of the hat, upon which, sits an intricate design reminiscent of a bird’s nest.

“You’re beautiful,” he tries, his voice wavering with barely-restrained laughter.

“Donate,” she says firmly, gritting her teeth.

Jasper shakes his head, grinning as he tilts the brim back to see Alice’s less-than amused expression. He fully loses it then, burying his head in the crook of her neck as he shakes with laughter. “Keep.”

A/n Once again, Happy New Year everyone! My requests are open so send me a message if there’s anything you’d like for me to write :) And if you have a moment, it would mean the world to me if you checked out my masterlist! You are all loved, you are strong, and I’m here if you need me <3.

#jalicesecretsanta20 #jalicenetwork #jalice #jalice network #jalice 2020 #alice cullen #jasper cullen #jasper hale #jasper whitlock hale #alice x jasper #jasper x alice #twilight #jalice fluff #jalice domestic life #twilight fanfiction #twilight renaissance #twilight gapfiller #jalice fanfiction

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stdio2020 · 4 years ago

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Rosi Braidotti “Posthuman Knowledge”

In this lecture Braidottie establishes that the critique of the universal begins not with the postmodernist thinkers but is established and follows parallels to the idea of humanism itself. She confronts the ongoing fixation with defining the term ‘human’ as a process of definition by negation e.g. to be human is to be man. man is not woman, man is not animal, man is not nature. And that really the term only serves to index an axis of power.

Braidotti postulates a kind of convergence she describes as the Posthuman Convergence Phenomenon: Which is the meeting of post humanism (the critique of man) and post anthropocentrism (the critique of the Anthropos, the idea of species supremacy in which aside from all sociological variables the species grants itself access to every living organism and body)

these two ideas run parallels but don't necessarily intertwine until the convergence which can be seen as a set of interrelations that zig zag, plateau. a nomadic set of events that are carried by the two main events that characterize historicity; the fourth industrial revolution, the knowledge economy AKA cognitive capitalism and on the other hand the sixth extinction, the death of the species, and of the planet.

“These two events are happening simultaneously, it is not as though we have climate change on Monday and AI and synthetic biology on Tuesday. How do we think about this simultaneity of boom and bust on this scale, multi scale or multi dimensional is the Post Human challenge. It is causing a great deal of panic on the one hand and excitement on the other. These are really the best of times and the worst of times”

^^This relates to by previous writing about the confusion and contradiction in expression throughout by work caught between optimism and cynicism, irony and sincerity

How to think about such dissonant almost opposite events demands skills of endurance, of imagination, and of transversal connectivity. Transversality is the key term here, you need to draw lines across events that are not at all parallels. the future is in the transversality of almost everything.

We now need to look at these two phenomena, look at the chain of socialogical, theoretical, political effects that they are causing and draw a course of navigation that provides something productive, propositional to offer. In saying ‘we’ is unitary, we needs to be grounded according to the politics of imminence, grounded in feminism, politics of locations, anti racism, anti facism, indigenous epistemology, perspectives. These are ways that we can ground ourselves against universalism without falling into Relevatism. ‘We’ is not one in the same but ‘we’ are all in the posthuman convergence together. Perspectivsm requires your own analysis of your point of entry.

Lets do away with the Anthropocene, it has become an Anthropos meme, gone berserk. It is too fluid and misses the point of the convergence effect, that we not only need to pay attention to the extinction, the end, but also the incredible period of growth and amazing scientific revolutions with all the consequences that it entails.

“Swinging moods is an element of the Anthropocentric landscape. An imaginary disaster that the Hollywood machine pumps out. There is really money in extinction, money in catastrophe. and it is always the same template; White man, dog, rifle, pickup truck. This is a format that codes the social imagining of disaster that prevents us from looking forward at all the other elements of a complex effective landscape.” We cant do much with the Anthropocene but we take note of the mood, the anxiety, the fear. The melancholia, the “why bother”

Enter the discussion via a critique of the necro political character of cognitive capitalism. The wealth disparity at a time like this causes an enormous ammount of problems, but lets not be sentimental about this, lets take stock of the contradictions of the fourth industrial resolution and the sixth extinction. We owe it to our intelligence to celebrate our technological advancements.

COGNITIVE CAPITALISM

Cognitive and bio-genetic advanced capitalism and media and information technologies. Capital today = the informational power of living matter itself, its immanent qualities and self organizing capabilities. Profits generated from scientific and economic comprehension of all that lives. re. ‘Bio-piracy’(Shiva, 1997) a system that profits from all living this (this includes death, the necro political) - amongst this, great things are happening, the post human convergence and critical thinking is about this oscillating of ‘yes but’

The posthuman is an indicator of our historicity, and also a navigational tool (as Deleuze would say, a conceptual persona) that helps us illuminate what is happening to us, where we are at. Foucault’s question “what kind of subjects are we becoming?”

Posthuman scholarship has a tremendous focus on the non academic, the aesthetic, design and media for knowledge production.

The queer, feminist, racial, postcolonial, film, art, subaltern studies do the work of exposing the connection between rationality and violence, reason and exclusion. Theses are ways of showing the knowledge that is being produced by the voices of the excluded.

The critical posthumanities no longer assume that the knowing subject is homo universalis nor Anthropos but rather a complex embodied and embedded non unitary but relational affective transversal subjects collaboratively linked to a material web of human and non human agents.

Collaborative morality is the ethics we get from Spinoza. Great introductory research into the kinds of scholarship that is born out of posthumanist thought

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bbwoulfc · 4 years ago

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ML NY Special Review

Finally finished my review on the ML NY Special and it’s going to be a long review, I won’t lie. I will be breaking this down in two sections. First section will be focused through the perspective as a professional (animation industry) and the second section through the perspective as a viewer and ML fan.

I won’t deny, I will be criticizing a few things and really give large opinionated thoughts; I’m sure it will piss people off, but I’m gonna be honest and I don’t give a damn. I’ve been here since the beginning and I’m gonna go all out. It wouldn’t be the first time I pissed people off.

Again, keep in mind these are my views/opinions as a professional and as a viewer/fan. If you can’t handle some of the strong opinions that will come from this review, then keep moving on. Don’t waste your time if you can’t handle certain characters or subjects being discussed in a different light.

If you wish to continue, then click the “keep reading” option.

As an animator, this is one of my favorite things to do with animated shows or movies. I absolutely love breaking things down and giving opinions on the whys, whats, and hows. Never do I aim to prove my opinions right. My goal is to simply make you think and consider. And if you don’t agree then that’s completely fine. That’s how it works.

Now, the NY Special has definitely exceeded the quality than what I expected. I absolutely love SAMG as a company. I think this is by far one of the best that SAMG has produced for Miraculous as a whole. Even better than the origin episodes. The lighting is probably the best I’ve seen in a 3D animated tv series, by far. It was stunning and gorgeous and worked well with the given mood that was set throughout the hour of the special. I would say there are two scenes in particular that I felt were the best lit scenes.

The first scene is definitely near the beginning when the class landed in NY and where traveling in the bus. They stopped either at the hotel or museum and the shot was the buses in front of the large building where you have the other city buildings around it. That shot was gorgeous; the orange hues falling on top of the buildings and gaining that purple and blue shadows was great. It’s honestly one of my favorite complementary color schemes to use when lighting most scenes in animation. It helps achieve a nice balance when setting mood but also to get a nice glance at the shapes of the models in the scene. Perfection.

As for the second scene, I would have to say it was the moment Adrien left and Marinette was biking to chase after him and she fell. That moment the scene focused on Marinette on the ground and in the rain spoke many volumes. The color tone of the scene was perfect and captured the common traits used in many shows and films to further drive the sense of sadness and overall emotional effect; using the traditional trait of rain made the scene work and stand out during the struggles that Marinette was dealing with.

The rain in general was outstanding on it’s own. Liquids in animation are tough, not an easy thing to do. The way the rain was animated was probably the best rain I’ve seen in most 3D animated tv series. I will even say it beats the rain from the origin episodes which is amazing because it shows the growth alone that SAMG has come from since the first season of the series.

They create stunning quality work and by far are the best of the best from all the companies that ZAG uses or had used for the show. I won’t lie, I still can’t fathom how Jeremy/ZAG could let such a company go but Jeremy isn’t the greatest with the money, so it’s not a shocker. It definitely shows that man doesn’t know how to properly run a company and treat a show. I honestly blame him for pretty much the entire outcome of the series and that’s my god honest opinionated truth as a professional.

The pacing of the special I felt was good, though I do think it would have been nice to have had an extra 30 minutes to help flow areas a bit better or more, but I can understand the time constraints, especially after hearing about how Thomas stated that the special was going to be two hours originally. And I will be honest, I wouldn’t have minded that. I think it would have been fantastic to have had a longer span episode special, but I understand a lot of the struggles that no doubt the team had endured.

Overall, some issues, but 10 out of 10 on animation and quality output.

Now the second section; viewing through the eyes as a viewer and fan.

As a fan of ML, I will not beat around the bush, I truly believe this special was disappointing plot wise. And I don’t blame Thomas and his team for the issue. As stated previously, my anger and frustration is more on Jeremy/ZAG for everything that has come from ML as a show and especially the result of the NY special.

My biggest issue with the special was the focal point: Adrinette.

How many damn times must I hear, “they’re meant for each other” or “aren’t they perfect together” and so forth. I get it. You can adore Adrientte but I don’t need it shoved down my throat every five minutes. I don’t give an ounce of care that Adrien and Marinette are endgame and that they’re “soulmates”. The romance between those two means absolutely nothing to me. It was cute and fun in the beginning when the series first started, but I’m tired of it. I don’t care about the love square. I don’t care about the “soulmate” trope when in reality anyone can be someone’s soulmate with the right care. That was no doubt the biggest issue for me in the entire special.

In my opinion, it would have been perfect if it wasn’t Adrinette centric. This was the best moment to show Marinette is improving herself but it had to become fan service because god forbid it felt like they needed to please the Adrinette shippers that their ship is still valid. If we’re judging this based off the season 3 finale, I won’t lie, this special fit better as a season 2 finale or mid season 3 than the end of season 3.

I’m seriously more disappointed that the special wasn’t more on Marinette and herself as a character. They were in New York, another strong hub for fashion. This was a perfect opportunity to explore more of her interests as a fashion designer and maybe meeting some new people. Who knows, maybe even Jagged Stone as an international rock star. But overall it was a lost opportunity to expand more on her for the sake of shipping.

I think it would have also been cool to see her and Chat Noir maybe learn some methods/training from the US heroes and get a glimpse into a world of heroism that is different in cultures and circumstances. Which honestly made sense to me how US heroes didn’t care about identity because Ladybug and Chat Noir have magical based items that are no doubt more powerful and outside sources that I’m sure would be willing to destroy to obtain it.

Another problem I had was how I felt we were robbed without having Kagami and Luka go to New York. Or if anything, more with Luka than Kagami. I love Kagami with all my being, but I doubt her mother would let her go to New York. But imagine Luka being there. We could have had a flipping jam session between Luka and Jess. I felt we were cheated, it would have been amazing to see two incredible guitarists jam it out and two people who have a passion for music find a friend in each other. I would have given anything to have had that moment.

Though in general I would have enjoyed anything else if it just wasn’t Adrinette centric. I’m positive everyone in the fandom is on the same page that they’re “soulmates” but there’s more that can be done than a damn ship that has followers that attack and annoy anyone who doesn’t ship them. Because, god forbid, Adrien and Marinette apparently aren’t allowed to be happy with others. I swear, half the fandom (hardcore adrinette shippers) treat Adrien more as an object than the ML characters themselves.

Nothing against the ship, but it’s just not for me and that’s okay. I simply can’t relate to Adrien as a romantic choice of a character. When Luka came into existence, I was in awe. I found a character I could relate too because I was as close to similarity than any other character in a show before. And that’s something I’ve noticed with this fandom, hating characters because to them they’re nothing but boring.

Fans need to understand that one will not understand everything in a show, especially characters. Just because you hate a character and find them boring doesn’t mean they’re terribly written. You as a viewer simply can’t relate to them and that’s completely fine. There will always be some who can relate and understand while others don’t, but that shouldn’t be a reason to argue against people who love a certain character.

And I’m being serious, I enjoyed the 30 seconds of Kagami and Luka with their love interests more than the hour of Adrinette. It’s just overall sad. There is so much potential that could have been the special focus wise but felt it was there to show why Adrinette is “superior” when it’s really not. They’re only one of many ships that are equally good. It comes down to how it’s portrayed and done.

However, since I know we’re stuck with Adrinette no matter what, I’m going to end this review with this as a food for thought but again, this is a simple opinion.

There was one thing that stood out and caught myself and some of my friends in a ML server attention. In the NY special there were strong moments that revolved around bikes. So, out of curiosity, I searched for symbolism meanings about bikes during the server’s conversation and it might hint to what might happen or what might come in the future of the show.

The bike symbolizes the moving circle of life.

Seeing a bicycle is a hint that you will reach somewhere. This could either be your motivation or your future plan. Cycling refers to the different moods that a person feels. Bicycles are also related to the ups and downs of life. For instance, riding a bicycle gives you both smooth edges and rough pebbles on your journey. The smooth edges are related to the happy times of your life and the rough pebbles denote the challenges of life.

So, if we want to use this to break down ML, this in a way, represents Lukanette and Adrinette. Luka are the smooth edges in Marinette’s journey. He’s the one that calms her, helps her think things through, focuses on what Marinette wants to do rather tell her what she should do. Never once does he tell her to do this or do that, but simply asks her what it is she wants. Luka, is pretty much her guide. The happy times as Marinette where she appears happiest without the burdens and overwhelming stress of her other life. Whereas Adrien is the rough pebbles in her journey, the challenges to properly talk with the one she views as a love interest or simply to build that perfect friendship/relationship. Yes, they’re friends, but they’re not as strong as friends like Marinette and Alya or Adrien and Nino. Adrien is a challenge in her life and always will be until she learns to let go and mature.

The other moment that stood out with the bike was the moment Marinette was pressured to chase after Adrien to get him to stay. She chases after him on a bike but falls off in the end.

Falling off the Bicycle: This indicates that you are losing your self-confidence.

Spend time with your loved ones and take suggestions from the experienced people. Join a course on building your personality and motivation. Do things that interest you the most and this will surely help to bring back your confidence level. This indicates a frenzied lifestyle and the need to slow down.

This here makes me believe that Luka is the “experienced people” in Marinette’s life. Other than Kagami, Luka is the only mature one in Marinette’s life in her friend group. He’s one of the biggest motivators in Marinette’s life as of recent. Putting her interests at heart that have helped her build her confidence. We know Marinette has a frenzied lifestyle with everything that she has on her shoulders as well as her passions. And Luka is one of the very few, if not, only one in her friend group that can calm Marinette and help her slow down and simply relax.

I know Adrinette is endgame, but I won’t deny when I say if there was anything that ML could do, is that they make Adrigami and Lukanette endgame. So many shows always pair the two main characters, always. If there is any message that I would have loved to see come from a show like ML, it would simply be “Your first love/crush will not always be the one and that’s okay. That your first crush/love could be the greatest friendship you ever have. And the second chances in your life are just as valuable as the first and may be even better for you.”

Fans might hate Kagami and Luka, but as far as I’m concerned from everything I’ve watched since the beginning, the only reason you’re getting your Adrinette in the end is all because of Luka. If it weren’t for him majority of the time, y’all wouldn’t have half of your love square moments. So, Luka is the true MVP in my book. Because unlike many of the others, he doesn’t put pressure on Marinette and that’s what Marinette doesn’t need right now, more pressure.

Adrien and Marinette might be endgame, but those two need people outside of their classmates because everyone is too tunnel vision. Luka and Kagami are the only ones that will help Adrien and Marinette mature, cause those two will not be able to do it themselves. So, if you want your Adrinette, you’re gonna have to suffer through Lukanette and Adrigami.

#ml #ml spoilers #ml ny special #ml ny special spoilers #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug and chat noir #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #kagami tsuguri #adrinette #adrienette #lukanette #adrigami #bbwoulf opinions #bbwoulf's review

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algernoninwonderland · 4 years ago

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It’s been three seasons and I’m still not sure what Miraculous wants to be about

TL:DR: Every single one of Miraculous’s themes, and there are so many of them the show wants to tackle, is dealt with in the most superficial fashion, making none of them stand out. By trying to be a show about lots and lots of different things all at once without a strong focus on its meagre overarching plot, it ends up being a directionless mess.

Is it a cartoon about love? Sure, if it’s romantic, one-sided, bordering-obsession love, I guess. That’s only one flavour of love but sure, let’s roll with that… Except the directors and writers are so afraid that the audience will lose interest in it that they have characters say “look how in love they are” about our main duo all the time. Showing Marinette blushing and stuttering and Chat Noir doing his, err, thing, had gotten stale. The writers and directors have understood that problem but haven’t come up with anything new, it would seem.

It’s a show about the hardships of growing up, right? But before the New York Special, none of the characters outside of Adrien were allowed to feel down for more than a minute without being akumatised or inspirational music and uplifting music popping up instead of letting the scenes carry any emotional weight. Plus, the characters can only achieve so much growth before the episode hits its magical reset button, and it often feels like the characters change to fit the plot instead of following any kind of progression (or regression, for that matter).

A show about school life, then? This isn’t a slice of life anime, most of the secondary cast is too one-dimensional for it to work anyway, most episodes take place when our heroes aren’t in school, Marinette and Adrien’s friends have been demoted to glorified Adrienette shippers as the show went on and that’s a shame because Alya was really cool when she was something other than that and the mouthpiece for most superhero titbits. The classroom drama is too caricatural to be compelling, even for its target audience of schoolchildren.

Could it be a show about family? Parents are mostly out of the picture in most cartoons, otherwise they’d get in the way of all the adventuring. Miraculous has the occasional “that one family member comes for one episode and is never talked about ever again” episode but that family member is turned into the Monster of the Week. Confrontation, all the time. It could be dealt with in a way that could resound with the viewers emotionally, but no, have dumb sound effects, forced accents and Kung-Food, that’ll do the trick. Oh, and we get crumbs of “Adrien loves his dad who is mostly Bad but still cares about him... Or does he?”. Man, the Adrien side of the show is the one they created with the more effort, didn’t they?

Is it a show about life in Paris? I made a whole post about how Paris doesn’t work as a space in Miraculous, and yeah, sure, it’s a nice commercial for tourism, shows us a bunch of iconic buildings and monuments, but that’s just neat and doesn’t feel very intimate.

Surely it’s a show about heroism? There are snippets of that, but heroism as envisioned in Miraculous is mostly “fighting the bad guys when they manifest themselves, our heroes tried to track them down that one time but we were afraid we’d run out of plot so that ended up leading nowhere”. That’s simplistic, even for a cartoon aimed at children. Even the Instagram pages showed more of the daily lives of its heroes, the smaller, less spectacular and yet meaningful acts of heroism they did. Superman saves the cat from time to time, and it feels just as emotional as him punching the baddies if not more so.

In an interview with the Times Magazine in 2000, Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame had this to say about television, and I think this quote resonates pretty well with Miraculous:

"Television touches on an issue then dances away from it and never comes back to it. So it has the illusion of having a strong point of view, but the real point of view of television is that nothing matters, because it's going to be replaced in the next millisecond by something different, and then replaced again and again.

The thing is, Miraculous has a plot. Well, if you want to get into details, it has a shoestring for a plot in 90% of its episodes instead of a narrative thread, or rather, there is a narrative thread but it’s buried so deep within most episodes you need a degree in archaeology to be able to dig it up. Still, it could make these themes it dances around an inherent part of the narrative.

The showrunners and producers just seem to have forgotten that running a show doesn’t mean “making an episode and then another and then another still” but “ensuring that there’s a sense of direction to it all that makes the show as a whole more gratifying to watch.”

It’s an entirely directionless franchise as a whole, not just the show, but that’s on ZAG. There were these comics that may or not be canon, and now a manga for some obscure reason (money, the reason is that ZAG is after profit first and foremost and does everything it can to rake in as much money as possible before it goes bankrupt).

#ml critical #ml writers salt #ml canon salt #ml #miraculous #in which i try and stay true to my word and not just post in the ml salt tag

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ashenpages · 4 years ago

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Current Fic Ideas & Emoji Voting Key

Quick disclaimer that I’m a romance writer in all aspects of the term, so most of my fics will contain mature content. Engage at your own risk, you know the rules, you’re responsible for curating your own experience of the internet, blah blah blah. This post serves as a current mock up of fic ideas I’m either actively working on or considering working on next. You can drop me an ask about any of them, or just vote via the emoji combo I’ve assigned them.

Voting lets me know you’re excited about an idea and makes it more likely I’ll actually work on it. You can vote anytime, there’re no deadlines or winner announcements, just me gauging your interest by what I see in my ask box most often.

You can also ask me about the original stuff I’m working on currently. The current WIPs are Medusa centric and the emoji for them is: 🐍

- Lupin: 🤑🤠💍 These are all oneshot ideas, between 5-15K each. If you want to vote for a specific idea, send me the emojis and the number of the idea.

Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon always play rock-paper-scissors after a big heist to decide who’ll give the group a striptease, and who will get showered with money. Based on a piece of fanart that is basically this sequence of events in a 4koma (except in their version Jigen loses and in mine, it’s Goemon). (written, just needs editing)

Zenigata cuffs Lupin four times, and Lupin steals his heart. Very NSFW conclusion. Zenigata is the most caring lover you’ll ever find. Lupin is as thirsty as usual and twice as intense. (written, just needs editing)

Jigen protects Lupin from poison darts during a treasure hunt in an Aztec temple, and Lupin nurses him back to help--forcibly, since Jigen is a horrible patient. Born from my desire to spoil Jigen and talk about what ridiculous domestic husbands these two are. (WIP)

Born from the idea that Goemon and Zenigata probably couldn’t be an item, my brain decided to come up with how I could write for them. Goemon’s teaching an ikebana class as part of his training, and Zenigata shows up as a student on forced recreational leave for his health from the ICPO. Zenigata wins the samurai’s heart through flowers. But what happens when Lupin and Jigen find out? (Only good sexy things, I promise. These beans are in a healthy polycule--be gay, do crimes)

Trans!Lupin and Trans!Jigen premise: Jigen cares for Lupin after the master thief has top surgery, since Jigen has Been There and Done That. Caring, sweet, and a little sexy. Lupin is a much better patient than Jigen.

- Sonic Vampire Novelist Coffee Shop AU: 📚☕💐

Shadow is an immortal vampire who has seen the world change for the worse too many times. These days it feels like he only lives for his coffee dates with Rouge, another immortal who loves each new era they encounter, warts and all. He has to admit that the book series she got him into speaks to him, at least. If someone in this era can understand him without meeting him, it can’t all be bad. But he hardly expected the goofy blue barista at the new coffee place to understand him the way those books do.

This is a novel length romcom romp with some big feelings about what it means to watch as things change, grow, and die. Expect lots of Big gothic feelings from this one, emotionally charged kissing, and overly-adoring sex. But also expect shenanigans from everyone in the coffee shop, which include Rouge, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and more.

- Sonic Blazamy: 💖🌸💎

Amy Rose has been in love with Sonic for a while.

Or has she?

When the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver are trapped as the fuel sources for Doctor Eggman’s newest evil scheme, Amy teams up with Blaze, Rouge, and Cream to save them. With Sonic out of the picture and Amy fulfilling his role, was she ever really in love with him? Or did she just want to be like him?

This is a novel length epic romance with lots of competent women and lots of romantic Blazamy content. Expect flowery hopes and dreams, badass self-actualization, and glancing hand touches that give way to cuddly and sweet sex.

- Persona 5: 🗡🍛☕

After bringing down the Metaverse twice, Ryuji didn’t think graduating high school and figuring out what to do with his life would be so hard. Akira’s back in town, and the gang’s more-or-less all in Tokyo, but everyone else seems to have a plan while Ryuji just floats. How’s he supposed to change the world when he’s not a phantom thief anymore?

This is a novel length fic that addresses how powerless one can feel being just one person in the face of all the corrupted systems and bigotry the world has to offer. It’s about holding on to what you believe in, working through the doubt, and fighting your way to a better tomorrow with the power you do have. The whole gang is queer, featured relationships being Mako x Ann, Ryuji x Akira, Futaba & Yusuke as platonic life partners. Akira is polyamorous and omnisexual, Futaba’s asexual and aromantic while Yusuke is demisexual and very romantic, Makoto’s a lesbian, Ann and Ryuji are bi, and Haru’s pansexual, demisexual, and aromantic. They’re one giant band of queer Phantom Thieves, and even if they’re not really doing the Metaverse thing anymore, they’re still gonna save the world!

Also, I’m gonna make Makoto not a cop. That super didn’t age well. Zenkichi and his boss can work on making them better/abolishing them for other better organizations.

- Hades Game: ❤️‍🔥💀

Oneshot. I just really need to elaborate on the threesome you can have with them in-game, okay? Healthy and canon poly relationships are so few and far between, so often I have to do a ton of groundwork to explain why it’s working in the fic, but NOT WITH THESE KIDS!

Get ready for Meg helping Zag and Than be better at expressing their feelings, lots of kissing, and probably pegging.

- Castlevania Animation Trevor/Sypha/Alucard: 🧛🏰🛌

Castlevania gave Alucard a threesome last season, and I just really need S4 to give me him being taken care of by his partners. They’re probably not going to give it to me, so I’ll need to do it myself. This is just an everybody loves Alucard oneshot, with the gang’s signature banter (to an extent), Sypha being sexy, and Trever being remarkably sincere. This fic is gonna feel like that Ann Hathaway picture with Trevor kissing Alucard and Sypha holding the end of Trevor’s whip while she leans her head on Alucard’s shoulder adoringly.

- Devil May Cry Nico/Lady/Trish: 💋✨😈

Nico’s gay, okay? Like really, really gay. And Lady’s bi and not into men who make her pay bills, but very into women who make amazing guns for her and demonesses with hearts who fight by her side. Trish is ace, but loves people and is pretty attached to Lady at this point. Plus it’s cute when Lady blushes and says nice things like they’re insults. I don’t have super solid ideas for them yet, and I envision these more like a polycule where Lady’s with Nico and with Trish but they’re not with each other more than seeing it as a threesome, but who knows what might happen. This is probably 1-2 oneshots depending on ideas, but might turn into a series of oneshots if people are interested (or I can’t control myself and inspiration strikes).

- Post FMA:B Blind Roy & No Alchemy Ed: 👀👑🙏

This is actually an old novel-length fic I wrote ages ago and didn’t post that didn’t turn out well because I was new to writing sex when I first wrote it. The plot is good, and is all about Roy learning to work with his blindness to reclaim his ambition of being Fuhrer and changing the system to something that actually cares for its people. He and Ed reconnect, fall into bed, and both set about working through their respective traumas about being “useless” having lost their sight/alchemy. They go to Xing as an ambassadorial party to offer Amestris’s collaboration on Al and May’s Alkahestry experiments--and uncover a plot that might threaten both kingdoms.

- Age of Calamity continuity Mipha x Revali: 🦚🐟💘

The first time Revali noticed Mipha, it was in the heat of battle. She stole his mark, taking them down with a flurry of quick blows from her spear. Violence rained from her like water--and then she healed him on her way to her next battle. No questions, no conditions, just pure kindness. The usual need to measure himself against those around him was quiet in her wake. And Revali couldn’t understand it. But how to get to know more about her? A fish and bird may fall in love, but where would they live?

This fic could be a oneshot or novel length depending on how far down the hole I fall. I need it to cover time, but it could be done in linked vignettes or with actually covering events in detail. I may elect to do a oneshot just to get it done and out of my system faster. So much fic to write, so little time.

Expect trans!Revali, polyamorous Zoras, scary competent Mipha, songbird Revali, love confessions that are made up entirely of berating Link for not loving Mipha the way she wants him to, and breaking these characters a little outside of their assigned roles in BotW and Age of Calamity. Background Link x Zelda, and Urbosa x Zelda’s Mom.

- Epic desert romance about Urbosa and Zelda’s mom: 🏜🏝⚡

I just think Urbosa should kiss women and Zelda’s mom should get more development and maybe a name or something. Also, lightning imagery/metaphors/play.

It also went way over my head that Riju wasn’t Urbosa’s daughter the first time I played BotW, so now I want to write about the Gerudo queen who refused to produce an heir. The Gerudo are fascinating and have a very interesting cutlure, but I think it could be examined from a nonbinary perspective that rejected pregnancy and wanting to find a husband. Not in like a hateful way, but in a way that examines if that’s really right for everyone. There’s that shop in town that sells Voe armor, after all. Maybe finding a husband and having children isn’t something you have to do if you don’t want to. And Urbosa really doesn’t want to.

#sonic the hedgehog #Lupin III #persona 5 #Devil May Cry #Hades Game #Castlevania #fma #Breath of the Wild #age of calamity

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the-firebird69 · 1 year ago

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Custom 600HP Widebody De Tomaso Pantera Meets Ford GT

youtube

This car is selling like hotcakes and he looked at some prices and they're ridiculous $100,000 for a 1971 is ridiculous and the people were selling them forgot about it and some of them are old ads and truthfully they are pulling them off because they didn't know where Pantera was from guess I thought someone copied it and the other one is Lamborghini that's also from the Bradley GT and people are pulling theirs down too it's the opposite of what we said but some people are getting rid of him because it's too much of a hassle and it's going on now that all these people are doing that right now it's around the same year and they know the history selling for about 12 million dollars and the Pantera are pulled but one is up for auction for $120 million dollars these ladies went out and about 10 each and they're oxygenating them off tomorrow all of them are in the auction house and they want a lot of money some people say they might 1 to 2 billion dollars each because they're all Pantera and that's a lot of money these days for people to have as cash and they make the money good there's other people who are selling them and they're the first run they made only $20,000 and they have like 10 of them and those will sell for about 10 billion dollars and people can't stand it are Bradley GT kit was priced at $245,000 with our chassis that we turned into a mid engine people are offering US $10 million to be in the front of the line and we're accepting and we're putting them at the front of the line we are issuing them tomorrow will be one of the first produced and sold not that we're rushing a group of them and we're getting more offers now and it will be named something different and that's true people have to figure out what the name is it's kind of simple it's our son and daughter's new company but in Spanish and they do that globally for cars and it's almost the same as it's French Canadian name and that's how you say it too now we're moving out and we're selling these and sort of like a Ford motor company thing to do or a Chevrolet or GM and were GM and he's Chevy. There's a lot of stuff to do but these cars are extremely hot it's out of control people are going to Disney world here in Orlando and Disneyland there is part of a crown they think it looks like part of hers and it might be and it's part of the what they're calling a tiara and it goes around the whole thing and there's another tiara that hooks in with that one and it makes a full crown. We are all laughing because he says I don't wear that I don't want to wear that silly thing it must be a ton and we look at it when we smile because we know he's serious she doesn't say the same thing because she grew up differently but she doesn't want to wear it either yeah she says the same thing you look like an idiot with that on your head we know what it's for it's for protection from race and things and you put things under it to protect you and it goes down on your head more than it shows in the coronation and it's supposed to divert the current that's why it has lines and you put it on something and it goes to the ground and they knew about the monsters that's why they had them they didn't like where did it either but they had to and it looks ridiculous

Thor Freya

Looks like a pin cushion with metal around it but it works that way they tested it too on test subjects nowadays it's a human interface for send me a semiautonoid robots or fully autonomous robots

Zig Zag

Olympus

#Youtube

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tswiftdaily · 5 years ago

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Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift Reaches For New Heights of Personal and Musical Liberation on ‘Lover’

Her epic seventh album is all about big moods, dreamy Eighties throwbacks and evolutionary freedom

By the time “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” arrives on Lover, her seventh and most epic album, Taylor Swift has entered uncharted territory. For one thing, it’s the 17th song here, and none of her previous albums have run more than 16 tracks. (Lover actually contains 18.) More importantly, it’s not about being 16 or 22 or even her not-insignificant current age, 29. It’s about being six or seven, and walking home from school in the snow: “Lost my gloves / You give me one / Wanna hang out? / Sounds like fun.” There’s no beat, no banjo, no metaphors or coded messages. There is, instead, deconstructed steel drum, horn and cooing voices — Animal Collective as interpreted by hip-hop-savvy pop-producers-of-the-moment Louis Bell and Frank Dukes, the song’s co-writers. It’s like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a long turbulent journey through outer (and, naturally, inner) space culminates in the sudden appearance of a planet-sized fetus. For two and a half minutes, Swift regresses past all the drama and heartache she’s cataloged since her teen years to curl up in a weird little pocket of beauty. Swift has always been vulnerable, of course. And just as obviously, that vulnerability has been her strength. Female pop stars since Madonna have been expected to constantly reinvent themselves, lest it seem like they’re aging — an impossible standard that vexed Swift contemporaries like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. In sharing her actual feelings about relationships chronicled by the tabloids — and parrying the entire internet’s judgements of those feelings — Swift helped open up a space for Ariana Grande to directly address Sean, Pete, and Malcolm on “Thank U, Next” (to name one glorious example). When Swift went pop, that wasn’t so much a transformation as an annexation of new territory. Grande might’ve picked up something here, too, with her triumphant embrace of hip-hop-style surprise drops. If Ariana, Billie, Halsey and others seem so effortlessly themselves, it’s in part because Swift worked so hard at speaking her truth and smiting her enemies. Lover is, fittingly, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But nevertheless it feels like an epiphany: free and unhurried, governed by no one concept or outlook, it represents Swift at her most liberated, enjoying a bit of the freedom she won for her cohort. Made mainly in collaboration with Jack Antonoff, female songwriting ally nonpareil, the album’s dominant sound is sleekly updated Eighties pop-rock. In a bonus making-of track destined for a Target edition of the album, Swift tells Antonoff she wants a “dreamy guitar-y throwback, but not camp throwback” sound for the title track, and that’s pretty much the vibe. (Think recent Carly Rae Jepsen, if she made actual hits.) Swift loads “Paper Rings” up with a “1-2-3-4,” a “hey! ho!” and a key change for a jittery bit of Cars-meets-Eddie Money-meets-Go-Go’s delight. On the terrific “Cruel Summer,” written with Antonoff and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent), she tells a simple tale of tortured love in under three minutes of pure pleasure, with what sounds like a smattering of talk box. When she sings “Out the window / I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” there’s no question you’re supposed to picture John Cusack in Say Anything.

Swift adjusts her frame of reference as needed. She claims to be “In my feelings more than Drake” in “I Forgot That You Existed,” a pro forma, post-trop-house declaration of her “indifference” to the haters. Thankfully, that’s mainly it for the sassy, winking Swift. Instead, she mostly goes for the big moods. “False God” is as minor-key and seductive as anything by the Weeknd, with a chorus, well — I’ll just leave this here: “Religion’s on your lips / Even if it’s a false god / We’d still worship / We must just get away with it / The altar is my hips.” She zags into oblique political commentary with “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” a high school parable where she sees “high fives between bad guys” and delivers “O! K!” interjections in her best cheerleader voice. Like Euphoria,the HBO teensploitation extravaganza, it’s dark, melodramatic and, against all odds, perfect.

There’s plenty more fodder for the Swifties, haters, and bloggers here. Leo takes a proverbial volleyball to the face on “The Man,” a usefully blunt indictment of double standards, and the dub-inflected “London Boy” counts all the ways she “fancies” her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. “Soon You’ll Get Better” was recorded with Dixie Chicks, but giving the country-radio exiles a feature isn’t the point — the song is note-perfect ballad for Swift’s mother, whose cancer returned earlier this year. Whatever there is to be read into these songs, they are for one person and one person alone: Taylor Swift. Finally.

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