#I was possessed with this idea and wrote 4 scripts in 3 days

[jq37]

Absolutely No Adventures Casting Call!

We're casting again!

This is for a spin-off miniseries in the ANA universe that will be on the main feed but feature all new characters! Here's some copy!

ANA Presents: Necessary Evil

This four-episode miniseries takes place in the Absolutely No Adventures universe but follows evil queen Sibella in her downtime between magic battles and running her seized kingdom.

It's going to have all the same genre humor and slice of life stories as regular ANA episodes but from the POV of a charming villain rather than an extremely annoyed baker.

We have six new roles to cast--2 M, 4 F. All paid! If you're interested, check out our casting call!

[sarcastically-defensive17]

15 Minutes - P. Parker

So I’ve been stuck in a writing funk for so long, and I got inspired and I’ve been writing this for days until I got it just right and it made me sad and I hope y’all like it and I’ll defs get onto my requests more efficiently now!

TW: Death of loved one, torture, degrading language, abuse, sad Peter, grief, all round angst.

Original story by sarcastically-defensive-17

It was routine. Every day, three times a day. 6AM, 12PM and 5PM. He barely had the chance to recover. Psychologically. Emotionally. Physically.

The machine was cold. The dull grey of the sides reminded him of how alone he was. Deserted. Left for dead, he supposed. No word of contact from any outside source, no hope for a rescue mission. He lost count at 3 months in captivity.

Every single day he had to see her. Had to relive it all. He never once thought that he would physically be transmitted through time and space. The worst part, he knew the woman holding him hostage. One of the most intelligent people on the planet. An expert in Thermodynamics and - so he now discovered - a ruthless person fueled by grief.

A bell chimed followed by an alarm and blinding green light. The glass door swung across the machine, trapping him inside as he stood upright with no way out.

“5, 4, 3, 2...” the countdown rang out, and the green light intensified. His stomach spun, eyes clenched shut at the feeling he will never get used to.

He was back in his apartment. Clothes he hadn’t seen in a long time on his person, his hair a few inches shorter and his reflection almost a stranger to him as is stared back at him in the mirror of their bedroom.

The ringing of his phone was foreign, yet expected. Same schedule.

He lifted the device, holding it to his ear in the same way he had at least 100 times before. Including the day it first happened.

“Y/N,” he breathed. The only thing he enjoyed about the event was the chance to hear her voice again. The breath sigh through the receiver as she strolled through the bustling streets of New York, on his way to her.

“Hey, I cant wait to see you!” Her voice held excitement, the same he had heard over and over. It became his own self indulgent nightmare. He longed for her, he had never held her in this, but he could hear her and feel her near. He could see her laid out on the pavement...

“Me too,” he answered, feigning the joy he felt that day at the idea of her return. She had been in England for the past month and a half, working to quell a growing drug import/export ring. How little she knew that the same work she focused on would be her demise.

After all, she was an ex-cop turned badass avenger. She was known for fearing nobody.

“Im about 15 minutes away from home. I can’t wait to see you!” Peter couldn’t stop the tears from falling from his eyes as he rushed to get his shoes on.

In exactly 26 seconds, his signal would ring.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” a voice snarled in the background of the call, followed by a clattering sound and a muffled shriek.

Peter pushed out a breath, putting his phone on loudspeaker and jumping out of his window.

He had no webs, no mask, no care. He had been over this scenario many times and wasting time with the spidey gear left less time to save her. When he tried it, he was met with her body slumped on the ground, blood flowing from her neck as she choked on the crimson liquid. He didn’t even have time to do the same to her attackers before he was pulled back to the present.

The actions must be damaging to the space time continuum, but the doctor had a lethal artifact in her possession, and she was prepared to do anything in her power to change events.

His ankles painlessly cracked as his feet hit the pavement below the window and he was off. He needed a new detour. He had tried many over the months, but a new one was running through his mind.

He cut down a side alley that would lead him around buildings and directly across from the alley she was pulled into. It was broad daylight in Queens yet nobody cared to see a young woman dragged away by three men.

Peter was just thankful that Y/N didn’t have to suffer in the original telling of the story.

He cut corners by vaulting from the walls of the alley way. He jumped over fences, dodged trash cans and even ignored an elderly lady who had dropped her groceries - a mistake he made by helping her in his first run through of attempting the detours.

He reached his destination in the form of a alley way decorated by versions items of graffiti. The bright colors stood out from the grey brick in the shape of various symbols. He and Y/N had often gone to that alley to observe the work of local street artists. She adored it.

As soon as the rubber toes of his shoes hit the mouth of the painted backstreet, a gunshot rang out and Y/N’s body slumped down on the other side of the busy road.

His heart broke once again at the sight.

He barely had time to step onto the road to get to her before the green light erupted in his vision again. His head reconnected with the thin cushioned pillow in the machine as a roar tore from his throat.

“Failure, once again.” The feminine voice snapped. “Always failing!”

Peters throat was sore. He had spent far too long screaming. His head was pounding, evidence of underfeeding and the sheer transference of his body through time.

He never expected to time travel. He knew how damaging it could be to change history, but here he was. Held against his will to save a woman that he loved so desperately. Forced to watch her death over, and over, and over. To hear her voice and feel the construction of his heart with the knowledge that he most likely wouldn’t be able to save her.

The physical pain of being returned to the day it happened and the image of her dead in various way seared into his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw her.

The machine slid open, and a boney hand grabbed his face. He was far too weak to fight back, even with his powers.

The eyes of the doctor glared into him, bloodshot and poisoned by grief and ferocity, “Why are you such a failure? We have been doing this for 5 months! There has been no improvement. No chance of saving her, all because you are pathetic!”

“I’m trying,” he mumbled.

The hand left his face, leaving a biting cold in its wake. They always kept him in cold rooms. Part of the torture to encourage him to do better. After all, Peter believed just as the doctor did. He deserved the pain after what happened to Y/N. He should have protected her.

A loud bang echoed through the white room. The fury in the eyes of the Doctor made him almost shrink. He already felt miniature under her gaze, but somehow, he felt worse whenever he came back empty handed.

A hiss left her lips as she cradled the bony hand, Peter assumed she had hit something. “This happened because of you, Parker. You were the one she trusted the most. You were the one who she put her life on the line for countless times on your pathetic missions. You are the reason she is dead.”

“No,” he choked. It was a wet noise, his throat constricting as the mind games took hold again. His hands wove into his hair, tugging harshly. The action had quickly became a coping mechanism of his. He would do anything to distract himself from her words. “No, no, no, no. It wasn’t me. It was them. The gang. Not me.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” She hissed, the eyes staring down at him incredibly similar to the same glassy ones he saw every time he went back. “You were never good enough for her. You were always four steps behind her. Y/N deserved better than you.” The doctor stood up again, the expression on her face void of any emotion as she kept her steely gaze locked on his brown eyes. Her lips turned up at the corners slightly as she watched the tears fall down his face. Her back was straight, regaining the posture she often adopted when addressing those working for her, “Send him back again. Maybe if he does it right, I won’t need to be stuck looking at him in 15 minutes.”

“Ma’am, he needs time to rest. His body can’t handle such a short recovery time between jumps,” a random man in a lab coat told her. He - like Peter - cowered under her gaze.

“Send him back.” She growled with every word, pushing the door shut across the machine and walking back towards the other room.

The green light erupted again and he soon found himself in the same scene from before, although this time he emptied the contents of his stomach on the floor of their house.

His phone rang like clockwork, and he answered, placing it on loudspeaker and reciting the script he wrote for himself on the original date.

He slipped his web shooters onto his wrists before he left, following the same route as his last trip. Everything was the same, down to the exact way he dropped from his windows and bounded through the alley, although this time, he sent a web across the street, pulling himself forward into the alley way.

He collided into one of the men that had Y/N cornered, sending him crashing into the brick wall of the alley.

“Peter?” Y/N shrieked, doing her best to fight the other men off in the same way he had seen her do so in the past. Or, other pasts.

Two of the other men launched at him, both with blunt weapon and scuffed faces. As one swung high, the other swung low. His mind was centered on Y/N and his reflexes were working in overdrive, burning him out faster than anticipated.

It all came to a halt when the two men were on the ground and the sound of a blade slicing through flesh filled his ears. Y/N gurgled on her blood, eyes full of anguish as she stared at Peter with fear on her face.

He only had time to catch her body as she fell before the light overtook him once again.

The overly sterile room greeted him, sobs wracking his body. The door slid open once again and heels clicked against the tiled floor.

The malicious eyes watched him again.

“Please, no more,” he begged, knowing he would be on his knees if not for his fear of moving out of turn. “I can’t do this anymore. It’s torture.”

The hand returned to his face, a soft touch that lifted his wet face to look at the furious glare fixed on his being.

The doctor tutted, patronizing him. “Oh, honey. You think this is torture? You should see what I’m prepared to do to you if I need to spend another month doing this.” Her smile was pure evil, but her eyes held the depth of a woman mourning. The circles under her eyes and the deepening wrinkles fold of her grief, and despite the recurring pain, he felt for the woman. He wanted to apologize to her, had she not disregarded every apology that fell from his chapped lips.

“Please...” he whispered under his breath, feeling the hand leave his face and close the door once again.

“Send him back,” she announced to the other room before turning her attention back to him. “Save my daughter, Peter. Or you’ll wish it was you that died that day.”

The green light flooded his senses once again.

Tag List: @starshonerose @mantlereid @theanswertoeverythingisl0v3 @another-lonely-heart

[lordeasriel]

I really care about your opinion, how do you feel about the bbc show and the way it's going?

I feel like before I give my take, I need to say that I understand the show is its own thing, and while I do wish they did a better job adapting certain things, I understand that sometimes there is a need for radical change or cut, especially when your budget is not super high (which HDM does have a lot of money into it, still is not a super big budget production, so they have to worry about these things). And I do enjoy many things about the show, but my overall vibe is mixed, to be honest. I’m stating this now because people often question whether I like the show or not, becaus I do criticise it a lot, and I simply have a critic view of the things I like, which is why I discuss them a lot and it can be overwhelming.

My main issues with the show are these 3 things: (which I’ll put under the cut because this got a bit longer than I wanted to lmao sorry)

Lack of worldbuilding and loose lore: I’ve been talking about this since day one, and this mostly applies to season 1 because I can’t judge season 2 yet because it’s not fully aired yet, but the show suffers from lack of worldbuilding, especially in Lyra’s world, which is the world that sets everything in motion. I still dislike the fact they introduced Will mid-NL, I don’t think he needed all those episodes to establish something that easily could’ve been done in S2 and because they gave TSK a lot of time, other parts of Lyra’s world suffered considerably, mainly the witches and the Magisterium.

The show doesn’t really expand on those two groups, especially, and I think that’s not good, especially the Magisterium (which they have over simplified by making it one big baddie, or so it seems at least, not to mention that implying a single leader for them practically ruins Marcel Delamare’s arc in TBOD and I’m very mad about that lmao). A lot of the Magisterium plot has that infighting aspect, which creates tension on their side as well as against their enemies, but the show doesn’t really explore that or the nuances of the Church, and they also don’t explore how varied the witches are, and I feel like this is a serious mistake. (The portrayal of the witches is by far my least favourite thing in the show, if I’m being honest).

Dull parallel world (and lack of daemons): this ties a bit with the worldbuilding aspect, but this is mainly about design choices. I think the show doesn’t make Lyra’s world as unique as it should be. On its own the world looks pretty and the outfits of most of the cast are great, but when you realise that Will’s world is intertwined with that, you don’t really feel like these two worlds are vastly different.

There is an odd situation in which Marisa’s fashion feels 30s/40s, but most of the men from her social circle (not fair to compare with the gyptians) just wear plain suits and they look much more modern. And while I get that they went for a timeless vibes, with different eras and styles, Lyra’s world feels like a caricature and it doesn’t feel believable. The colour palette is mostly the same for both worlds (even in s2, it’s hard to tell much of the difference because either the scenes are indoors or at night.) This, paired with the lack of daemons (which has been discussed many times in the fandom) kinda bums me out.

Marisa’s oversimplification: I’m mentioning Marisa, specifically, because she is the one that suffers the most due to this writing issues, but other characters like Lord Asriel, MacPhail, the general collective of the Witches, they all suffer from the writing trying to take away the nuances of them and make them flatter than in the book. Marisa is the worst because without her complexity and her flaws, she simply gets dull and boring and flavourless, and it’s kinda what has been happening in the show in my opinion. All she does is weep and she has no strength that doesn’t rely on a random fit of rage that dies out and she gets upset. There’s some great moments, like when she mimics the Monkey, but most of the time she’s just a shadow of who she is supposed to be.

The show tries really hard to make her a Scorned Mother - right from the get go, they try to makes us see how she wants Lyra, how she struggles with her “bad nature” and how that affects their relationship. There is this lingering implication that Lyra was taken from her against her wishes; they make it seem like being a mother to Lyra is her driving force, the only reason why she seeks power and influence. And that is the opposite of Book! Marisa, who is a force of nature, ruthless and ambitious, with not an ounce of maternal instinct.

She does eventually decide to help Lyra, instead of harming her, but even that action comes from a narcisistic place: Lyra is to her a possession, something that belongs to her, and that she wants to preserve. The show just handles her badly, falling into overused, boring tropes that struck far from the book version.

These are usually my main complaints about the show, and they upset me every episode to the point I’m practically ignoring them now lmao The show does a lot of good things too, making Will less of a prick, restoring Lyra’s personality from the first book into S2 Lyra (so far, please keep it that way), Mary is looking great too. They have mostly a great cast, and they did improve the daemons this season (except uh, there are far less daemons to show because of the other worlds - and the Ruta Skadi daemon change pisses me off tbh).

They do have a lot of interest in the show, but the writing (the main issue to me) feels clunky and childish, with the show toning down most of the themes that make His Dark Materials so special, especially to me (which frankly I expected them to do, but it still stings a bit). They make the Magisterium a single bad entity that feels more Authoritarian-Fascist, than a theocracy (even if they sneak in the religious symbols and rituals and garments, it’s just not a good portrayal, it’s very tame and shy); and they try to justify Marisa’s actions (especially in current interviews, there’s lots of talk about how her background will play in the show to “explain why she is the way she is”). The fact the Magisterium is portrayed as pure evil makes it looks less familiar than it should be, and therefore they don’t look scary, they seem like a caricature, a joke.

A lot of the essence of the characters get lost, and the core message of the story too, like when Iorek and the Gyptians tell Lyra she can be one of them, to support her lack of “proper family”, when that is the opposite of the books message. It doesn’t make sense for them to change that, other than maybe Jack Thorne wanted to because it makes the story feels less hopeless, but it’s why he fails to adapt these character - he doesn’t capture the essence, he tries to write these character with gaps in them.

However, the thing that annoys me the most is how they portray Asriel. It’s just... it’s bad. Really bad, which is a shame cause James is talented as fuck, but he had little time to film for season 1, and then they portrayed him very poorly. That scene when he addresses Roger in episode 7 is ridiculous, Asriel would never behave that way; there was relief in him finding Roger was there too, yes, but not to that extent and not in such a cringe way. Asriel is not deranged or irrational, he is a man on a mission, and Roger was a tool (there is no pleasure in Asriel taking his life and no excuses - it needed to be done and he did it); they just needed him to sound creepy in the show for whatever reason.

I hated how they handled the bridge scene for Asriel, Lyra and Marisa, but that’s long and complicated for me to explain here. In S2, there has been some mentions of him so far, including the implication he might have ruined Cittàgazze himself and I frankly don’t understand where did they get that idea. But the cherry on the top was Thorold telling Marisa that Asriel was gonna kill Lyra and that’s just-- that’s so dumb. That’s genuinely dumb writing, because Thorold knows Lyra followed Asriel to the mountain, and while I do believe Asriel would have killed Lyra if Roger wasn’t there, there is no way Thorold should know or consider that Asriel was gonna hurt Lyra, because Roger was there. In fact, Thorold’s interactions with Asriel in episode 8 already disprove this, so either Thorold was lying in S2 for the sake of, I don’t know, chaos or whatever, or the person who wrote this was a five-star, solid gold, fucking moron.

I’m not gonna mention the lost episode because that was no one’s fault, but the fact that they discarded an episode that all information we have on imply that it was important to set up the backstory of the angels and the city, it’s... concerning. It means they wrote something parallel that should’ve been woven into the season.

The truth is, I still watch the show on Sundays, and I still like some stuff they do (especially Mary’s stuff, so far), and despite me slandering the show per your request anon lol (cause unfortunately my honest opinion is mixed, I just don’t try to overfocus on the negative on Tumblr, I mostly talk about it on discord or private), I do think anyone who has read the books should watch the show.

For me, personally, everything I love about HDM is barely on the show - complex characters, the philosophy, the oppression by religion, the interesting world - and the vibe I get is that they’re adapting a coming-of-age love story, which is the last and - being fully honest - the least important message these books give us, but unfortunately they were set to making a family show from the start, and my expectations were high and unmatched, and a family is what we’re getting: toned down, cute, pretty visuals and soulless (heh, pun intended), philosophically speaking. I expect a certain pattern going into S3, but I always like to hold out hope that they will hire better writers (apparently Jack Thorne already wrote 4 scripts, so there you go lmao), and try to give HDM the adaptation it deserves. The truth is, if you’re a picky, canon reliant person like I am, the show might be a struggle, but if you just like the story for the teen romance, or if you don’t care about overthinking a show/book, then most people can have a good time with it.

[probablyottrpgideas]

Tabletop Asks

In reference to the previous post: 1.) Game Master, Player or both? Why? 

I am currently lucky enough to be player in one game and DM in another (both 5e D&D), however ordinarily I am overwhelmingly the DM/GM. 

2.) When did you start role playing? How old were you? 

My first start with published tabletop adventures was actually quite late, in my second year of university when I was about 19, so 11 years ago now, with D&D 4e. However, I think my first freeform roleplaying experiences were with a mate of mine all the way back in primary school, where we had this quite extensive worldbuilding and characters. It was my first introduction to the idea that I wanted to be a writer.

3.) What was the first role playing book you ever owned? 

The 4e PHB, DMG and MM all at the same time. I had a job then, missed playing, decided “fuck it, I’ll start my own” and dived in.

4.) Describe the first game you ever ran or played in. 

A 4e Starters Box run on Keep on the Borderlands. I played a Dwarf Fighter out of the box, which I named Xzienne (which some of you know is my regular online handle). He was fun; in my oh-so-extra way, I kept my game notes as In-Character journal entries.

5.) Which system did you grow up with? 

D&D, all the way. Fourth edition and then Fifth, with a look at Third in between. But I’ve played about a dozen or two different systems all up.

6.) Which system do you play now? 

Predominantly 5e

7.) Longest campaign you’ve run or played in? 

My D&D “Empires Intelligence Services” campaign ran from 2016-2020.

8.) Where did you meet your current gaming group? 

I tend to throw my groups together from among various people I know from all over. My favourite group ever was the one formed entirely of cast members from our local theatre company production of Wicked.

9.) Strategic combat or dramatic plotlines? 

Does it need to be either/or? I feel like good drama gets you invested in the character’s outcomes, good combat (or puzzles or traps or whatever) gets you invested in the character’s actions. You want people to achieve their goals with emotional satisfaction but without just narrating to them; they need to feel involved in the process of making those goals come about. Challenges are not just there for the Power Gamers and the Slayers, they make the plotlines feel satisfying for everyone.

10.) Favorite RPG genre?

I love Science Fiction and I love Fantasy, and my own work so often smashes the two together. I write a lot of Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, and my D&D world is a magepunk magitech setting with spacefaring aircraft and so forth.

PLAYER CHARACTERS - Describe:

11.) Your first character. 

Xzienne the Dwarven Fighter, mentioned above. My first character I made though, on the other hand, not including NPCs, was much later. I think it was probably Tetsuo, my Shin-jin from a Dragonball RPG

12.) Your favorite character. 

Definitely Ortlinde. An Aasimar Witch who was the granddaughter of a Valkyrie, and was mad that the gods would be so callous as to bar her mother from Valhalla just because she wasn’t a warrior, and so tried to stage a coup against Asgard. Fuck she was cool.

13.) Your most ridiculous character. 

If not Ortlinde, then possibly Parian, my 13th Age Bard whose “One Unique Thing” (a 13th Age mechanic that I love) was that he could modify his spells on the fly by casting the verbal components as full poems, which I would write and perform in-session. I once got to add a Fear effect to a Thunderwave because I made it sound like the trumpets of judgement day, and I managed to cast Charm Person but with an allied player as the focus of the target’s charm by making the poem about their character.

14.) The best in-character line you’ve ever had. 

Not a lot of what other players have said have stuck with me, really. Possibly my favourite was Alice’s ranger in Castles and Crusades who said a whole lot of buckwild shit until my halfling begged her not to talk. 

Whereupon she shortly thereafter discovered a secret Dryad home inside a tree, and didn’t mention it to the party. When asked why?

“You told me not to talk.”

15.) Your most epic death. 

I haven’t died that often, to be honest. Probably the most memorable death was Parian, who got crushed in a moving wall trap and had to be scooped up in a bag and carried around as “bard soup” until a True Resurrection could be cast.

16.) Your most disappointing death. 

See above.

17.) Something that shouldn’t have worked, but did. 

Meliorn Metcalfe, Tiefling Spellbinder, orchestrating an ambush in a town square against the people who had been sending thugs to attack the party in their beds and stealing shit from the townsfolk. I set up traps (clay pots filled with caltrops and poison), used sunrods to blind the attackers while we had our backs to the light, and we greased the buildings around the area so that they couldn’t climb to safety. It went perfectly, even after they rocked up with a gargoyle.

18.) Something that went hilariously awry. 

Just recently I was playing in a Wildemount game which saw the party running Benny Hill style around an ancient lab from a Wight. In the process I got nearly killed by both flying knives and a very angry carpet.

19.) Your most memorable in-character moment. 

Ortlinde’s speech to Frigg, lambasting the Gods for their mistreatment of mortals. 

20.) The coolest item you ever got and how you came to possess it.

The Masque of Clavicus Vile, from the Elder Scrolls games, pulled from Niddhogr’s treasure hoard and buffing my Spell Save DC to 27 (including other stuff like class features for the Witch and another item which synergised with those). 

GAME MASTERS - Describe:

21.) Your favorite NPC and how the party reacted to him/her 

By far Celia Sapienza, Eladrin Kensai, who became the party Mum even though she was younger than a few of them. She’s now the head of the Empires Intelligence Services Northern Branch.

22.) A game you wish you could run or want to run someday. 

I’ve been eyeing off Dread, Skullduggery and Leverage for years, but I also recently got the Dishonoured game which looks sick as, and Blades in the Dark, and...

23.) Something you made up on the spot. 

So so much, but most recently I had a Marid sailor NPC who I had to improvise and entire story of his previous voyages. I did it in a Brian Blessed voice and the players, no shit, fucking applauded. 

24.) Your most successful game. 

The Wild Huntresses, finally figuring out who had killed the town alchemist and facing off against her and her pet Water Elemental in the caves beneath the hills. Such an epic game. God I miss that group.

25.) Your least successful game. 

Paranoia, but that’s just built into the premise.

26.) The craziest thing your players have ever done, and how it affected your plans. 

I had a player walk straight out the front doors of a castle under siege. I hit him with 2 dozen crossbow bolts. That guy was an asshole.

27.) Your favorite setting or game location. 

I massively love the idea of Eberron, and I love the MTG crossover settings like Ravnica and Theros. 

28.) Your creative process when you plan a game. 

Typically write about a page of notes for every 2-10 hours of gameplay, depending on the amount of combat expected. Things like important NPCs and what they want, where the party are expected to go in general terms and some ideas for things to throw at them when they inevitably wander off the path, that sort of thing. If it’s really plot important, though, I’ve been known to write pages and pages of lore and character info to hopefully seed into conversations. I also once wrote a full script that we did as a table read for a big conversation between a bunch of NPCs that the party were there to listen to but not be involved in. 

29.) The best / worst character concept you’ve ever heard. 

No character concept that fits within the rules is ever really bad, although sometimes the execution isn’t great. Some are very, very dumb, like say every character ever built or played by the asshole player I mentioned a few entries back.

30.) What makes GMing fun for you.

Players getting invested in the world and in each other’s stories. Nothing makes me feel better as a GM than being able to sit back while the players have a full in-character conversation with each other.

[pokeshipping]

Takeshi Shudo Blogpost - Translated!

Dr. Lava, YouTuber and Pokemon enthusiast, investigates and shares behind the scenes details of various Nintendo properties. Recently, he arranged to have some of Takeshi Shudo’s blogs detailing the develop of the Pokemon anime translated, and he shared that translation on his website!

This particular blogpost detailed the creation of Lugia and the early development work done on the second Pokemon movie, Revelation Lugia. There’s some interesting trivia here, including how the Porygon incident contributed to Shudo’s creative freedom on the first movie, and how its success led to more freedom on the second:

Lugia’s Explosive Birth, as well as the first movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back, were both lucky films to work on from the perspective of a scriptwriter. Because right before Mewtwo Strikes Back, an unfortunate incident occurred — a flashing sequence in the Pokémon anime caused a substantial number of viewers to have seizures. So I think the film management team was so busy dealing with the seizure situation, that they didn’t have time to worry about the script of the first movie.

Mewtwo Strikes Back ended up exceeding all our expectations and became a huge hit. This led the film’s main producer to say, “I have some concerns about certain aspects of the first movie, but since it was such a huge success, I won’t interfere with the second one. I just want you to put ‘Explosive Birth’ in the title.”

And, while this has been confirmed elsewhere, we now have Shudo’s own perspective on creating Lugia available in English:

I mentioned this once before — during a big meeting (in which even game development and distribution staff participated), the name “Lugia” was chosen by a majority vote. Since Lugia was a Pokémon I designed myself solely for the new movie, I was surprised it ended up getting used later in the games and TV show. I can only imagine what was going on in the game development and TV show departments.

This is also the blog post where Shudo outlined his idea for bringing Ash’s story to a conclusion. It’s interesting to read a full translation of these ideas. Over the years, reports and an older translation have given the impression that this conclusion was going to imply that Pokemon were a child’s fantasy that Ash had. That doesn’t seem to be the case; it seems more that the series and its adventures are a broader metaphor for a journey to “discovery of existence.”

Months and years pass. Ash grows old, then one day suddenly he looks back on his past. He remembers his childhood fondly. The adventures he had with his amazing Pokemon, the friendship, the coexistence.

Maybe Ash wasn’t able to experience these things later in life. However, as a kid there was Pikachu and lots of other Pokémon, Jessie and James, and Mewtwo… And so much more — elderly Ash remembers everything that happened during his adventures as a young boy.

He can hear his mother’s voice. “Go to sleep already, you’re setting off on your journey tomorrow.” The next morning, he is woken up by his mother. He’s a young boy again, leaving his house excited to start a new adventure.

He’s going on a journey not to catch Pokémon or become a Pokémon master, but to discover the meaning of existence, to discover how to coexist with others.

Shudo also seems to be of a mind with at least some fans: he writes that “after 3 or 4 years, a new Pokémon adventure with a new main hero should begin. With its own topics — this new Pokémon should adapt to its times.”

If you ever wanted to know more about the “Pokemon revolution” idea that Shudo had, this is where he wrote about it too:

I thought about writing a fourth movie, but I couldn’t come up with any ideas.

If I wrote it, I would have used the story that I had planned for the final anime episode. The Pokémon would stage a rebellion much like Spartacus in ancient Rome. Although at first glance Pokémon appear to be friends with humans, they would realize they’re actually being used like slaves, which would lead to an uprising. Pikachu would become the leader of the revolt and end up fighting with Ash. Team Rocket, who are in possession of lots of sinister Pokemon (including Meowth, who can translate the Pokémon language into human speech) would try to mediate the conflict, but they’d do a poor job of interpreting and only make things worse…

That’s all I came up with. However, an episode like this would break the rules of the Pokémon world and make it impossible for the series to continue. Continuing into perpetuity is the series’ objective. If it could ever be produced, I think it would literally have to be the last episode ever.

I tried to think of a different plot, but I couldn’t.

Most of the blogpost, though, is about the development of Lugia and the second film. It isn’t the blogpost where he discusses Misty and her relationship with Ash; that’s another post, one that remains untranslated (at least in full.) But there is this one little tidbit:

But in this case it was a movie script, so there was a big meeting with lots of people — which is rarely the case when it’s just a script for the Pokemon TV show. The first comment I heard in the meeting surprised me.

“Which one is the scene that’s supposed to make you cry?”

“The what?”

I never had any intention of including a scene that’s supposed to make you cry. Since [I was young], I’ve been trying not to write scripts that force tears out of people. If someone happens to cry because of my script, they’re not my tears — the tears belong to that individual viewer. These kinds of tears are their treasure.

If a writer is planning “where to make them cry”, “where to make them laugh”, “where to put the spectacular reveal” — it means that writer is guiding the audience’s every emotion. The audience should cry when they feel like crying, laugh when they feel like laughing, and if the film is boring, get bored and walk out of the theater.

“I won’t talk much during the big Pokémon meeting… So, if anything happens, I’m leaving it to you,” I told the movie’s director [Kunihiko Yuyama] beforehand. So when that question was raised, he jumped in and made up an answer. “It’s when Misty saves Ash from drowning.”

I didn’t say anything, but I was pretty pissed — I still remember, even though the meeting was about 10 years ago.

To which all I can say is - good on ya, Yuyama XD

~ Z

[phoenotopia]

2019 October Update

Woops, I slipped by my stated blog date since I thought September had 31 days for some reason. So here's the end of September update, 1 day late.

--------------------------

Writing... And more writing.

That captures the majority of what transpired the last 2 months. The biggest cutscenes have been scripted as well as most towns, so we're really close... I estimate that the writing will conclude within the next 3 *weeks* and we will actually have a game that can be played from start to finish... Don't get too excited though, because then begins the game's vigorous playtesting phase and more polish. And since I've never launched a commercial game before, the next steps (PR, marketing, lot checking, ESRP rating application, trailers recutting, release date finding, etc) are uncharted territory. The only experience I have is launching a flash game 5 years ago, and that was a lot quicker and a lot less complicated... And so, I can't gauge how long it'd take nor give an accurate release date yet. However, as soon as I do know, it'll be sure to post it here first!

--- COMPUTER BROKE DOWN ---

Among the events that transpired in the last 2 months, my computer actually broke down. It would manifest as the computer shutting off about 10 minutes after turn on. And this was really worrisome because if my computer croaked, it would be a huge blow to the game's development. The time it would take to restore the specific dev environment I had set up would be considerable...

Luckily, it was repaired after 4 days of intense troubleshooting. I'll spare you the long list of events that transpired, but eventually my brother and I were able to narrow the problem down to non-spinning fans on the graphics card. I was able to zippo-tie two chassis fans together, and insert them below the Gfx Card's heat sink. Much cheaper than replacing the whole graphics card!

(please hold until the game's done)

--- MORE PLAYTESTING CHANGES ---

I'll discuss here some additional fixes/changes to the game based on my brother's previous playthrough (still going through that list, heh...)

F. Remember you can climb roots

I remember from a public demo I attempted (3 years ago?), that a lot of people got stuck at these roots, not realizing they could be climbed. Since then, we did a few things to ensure that the first encountered roots would be climbed. The roots' colors were brightened so they would stand out. A character, Ernest, comments that others have climbed the roots. And finally, standing in front of the roots will cause the "Press UP" tutorial prompt to appear.

So how did my brother fare when I did the playtest 2 months ago? He climbed the roots, thankfully. He climbed the next few sets as well. However, later on, in a dungeon, he forgot that climbable roots were a thing. Back to square one. So there's a lesson here... Even if you teach a player something, there's no guarantee that it'll stick.

So in the picture above, you can see my next attempt at an invisible hand to remind the player. In the red circle, notice there are 4 blue dots. These blue dots pulsate wherever there are climbable roots (They're a lot more visible in motion). The idea is to tie an unusual image to an action. I anticipate when the player sees 4 pulsating dots, they'll react by attempting a variety of actions, before eventually concluding that you can only climb them. And that this experience will be more memorable for it - to be conjured up whenever the player sees 4 blue dots. I look forward to observing what happens with the next blind playtester. (Btw, in reading this blog, you have disqualified yourself from playtesting :P)

G. Instant Food Eating

As stated in a previous blog post, the player can't eat from the menu. Food must be eaten in real-time. It's up to the player to find a safe spot to eat, away from interruptions. Some foods can be eaten more quickly, proving more valuable in a fight.

However, what about on the world map?

You can't use tools or items on the world map, which means no healing at all! I saw my brother opening the menu and tinkering around, confident that it could be done. Because why couldn't you?

Indeed... he didn't say anything, but I wrote it down as a feature to be added. And after adding it, found that eating from the menu was  fun! After years of using the new system, to have the old flash system's implementation of healing again was refreshing.

And so I decided to add it as a possible new characteristic of food. There's now a special class of food, "candy", that actually can be used from the menu (world map or no). Rest assured, candy items will be balanced - costing more than regular food, and their healing effects will tend to be less than other more timely items.

(the “eat” subcommand appears for "candy" class items. The candy icon on the bottom-right denotes a candy class item)

H. Fishing Hud finally updated

This wasn't something discovered through playtesting, more of an unfinished task that sat around for far too long. 

(Old fishing hud on left. New fishing hud on the right)

In the old fishing hud (perhaps an example of minimalism taken too far), the fish's health is represented by 10 white dots. In the new fishing hud, the fish's health lines up and mirrors the player's own stamina. Whoever outlasts the other wins!

I had actually been sitting on the finalized graphics for over a year. For some reason, the last 10% implementation of a feature tends to be the most boring. In game development, I find myself jumping around often, working on whatever can catch my interest. That's good for ensuring that the game's development is always moving forward in *some* capacity. But now at the tail end of development, only the most boring tasks are left...

--- WRITING ---

So I mentioned writing. One of the things written in the last 2 months was the entirety of the "monster" village's NPCs. This time I also roped in Pirate (formerly artist, now also writer), since she's quite familiar with their lore having drawn them and their town.

When I wrote trolls, I wanted to give them a unique speech, not unlike the Mr. Saturns from Earthbound. My idea was to capitalize all words and then strip away as many unnecessary words as I could, while keeping the meaning identical.

Pirate then took the result and improved upon it, establishing rules their language could follow to be consistent:

Simplified negatives (no instead of not/don’t/can’t/etc);

Object pronouns replace subject, possessive and reflexive pronouns (me/name instead of I/my/mine/myself). 

No ‘be’ verb or it’s conjugations (am, is, are).

No verb conjugation.

No articles.

(A sample of troll language. Harpy language is similar, but no caps, and a few other variations.)

Another neat thing that happened naturally over the past two months was a construction of a "timeline". The timeline takes the form of a 2D chart, with the major players lined up on the left, and the years up top. There are new characters this time around, and having the timeline as a reference, helps to make sure the lore is on point.

(the timeline, blurred. An internal tool to aid writing)

--- FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ---

Speaking of which, it was the game's 5 year anniversary this past August 20th. Thank you to Firana for reminding me!

Five years... Five Years... T_T (I thought I'd be done by now)

It'd be neat to do a longer in-depth retrospective on this game's long development, but I'll wait for the game to be properly finished first.

--- FAN ART ---

We have 3 lovely fan arts that came in the past 2 months.

(Art by Amaury Lorin)

I like how this picture selectively colors the night sky, comet, and fire. Very artistic! Amaury also submitted a poem (in French). Here it is!

Parmi cette clarté que la nuit seule émet, Au-dessus des radis géants qui s'épanouissent, Nonobstant sans souci les herbes qui frémissent, Sous un ciel calme et sombre, un village dormait.

Éprise de liberté, une puki part Là-bas, quelque part où des prés plus verts la tenant. "Oh, s'écrie un enfant, une étoile filante!" Veille, enfant : pour tes grands yeux curieux seuls, ce soir,

Indifférente au sol précipité sur elle, L'étoile tombe... Écoute, enfant, elle t'appelle; L'étoile : "Suis-je un ange, un messager du ciel?

Avec mes feux, suis-je augure, ou suis-je étincelle? Gloire d'un monde haut, d'une nuit éternelle... Et j'arrive!" --Dors, enfant, tes yeux ont sommeil...

                                                         ...mais demain...

(Art by LittleLys Owo)

Gale smiling and flashing the peace sign. Nice! I like the skillful use of vectors to draw the lineart.

(Art by Shafiyahh)

Shafiyahh, who also drew fanarts in the last update, returns with this cool picture of Gale sporting the katana, a hidden weapon that... JK. I Love the composition of characters, and the flashy background - very anime-esque!

That's all for now. Next update will come at the end of November!

[kdramacollections]

HIGH SCHOOL KING OF SAVVY/KING OF HIGH SCHOOL LIFE CONDUCT

This drama is a riot.

The plot has a lot of crazy occurrences going on simultaneously, and I must admit that some scenes do seem a little too ridiculous, but at the end of the day, this is fiction, and it’s really not that deep.

On that note, the male lead character is in high school, and the female lead character is an adult with a job, and adult-responsibilities. So yes, this is a “noona romance”, and if you find that disturbing then this drama isn’t for you.

But like I said, it’s not that deep.

We meet Lee Min Seok in the opening scenes of this drama, he’s a hockey player and considered as the ace of his team, and he’s of course popular at school. On the other hand, Min Seok seems to have some serious anger issues, and instead of paying attention in class, he just sleeps.

Trouble comes to town when his older brother Lee Hyung Seok returns to Korea for work. Even though there are a few years between them, the brothers look alike and so Lee Hyun Seok comes up with the idea for his younger brother to take his place at work, while he handles some issues on his end.

Min Seok does indeed shows up to his brother’s workplace, despite his harsh words, he loves and looks up to his brother. It is important to note that Min Seok knows nothing about being a director, the only thing Hyun Seok told him was to keep his head down at work.

There are a few comedic scenes following Min Seok’s new appointment, as he has to juggle both school and work. However, the teen only shows up to school for homeroom and then escapes through his classroom window in a rush.

Min Seok is now head of an entire department, and it becomes obvious that he has no idea what’s he’s doing, or should be doing. Jung Soo Young is a temporary employee at said company, and although she’s a bit clumsy, her heart is in the right place.

Min Seok takes a liking to Soo Young and through a series of events, he ends up hiring her to be his secretary. The teen has feelings for Soo Young, and it’s these said feelings that drive him absolutely crazy. 

He doesn’t know what to do with himself, and he also loses concentration whenever he’s supposed to be focused on hockey. Even though he becomes involved in a workplace rivalry with the CEO’s son, and a member of his team knows his secret, Min Seok tries his best at work.

Soo Young is Min Seok’s first love, she’s also the older sister to Jung Yoo Ah - Min Seok’s schoolmate who’s of the view that Min Seok is her husband. Both Min Seok and Soo Young have such deep chemistry as they seem to be crazy alike.

Both Soo Young and Min Seok work well together and this is evident in the way how Soo Young remained by Min Seok’s side even when she found out that he is a high school student.

Seo In Guk plays the characters of Lee Min Seok and Lee Hyun Seok. Min Seok is quite temperamental, however he possesses a ton of loyalty to both his older brother and his friends. You can find Seo In Guk in the dramas Shopping King Louis, and Hundred Million Stars from the Sky.

Lee Ha Na plays the character of Jung Soo Young, a hardworking, but somewhat clumsy woman who really likes her job. Jung Soo Young can’t help but falling in love with Min Seok, even when she finds out that he’s in high school. You can find Lee Ha Na in the dramas, Voice, Voice 2, and Voice 3.

High School King of Savvy was co-written by Yang Hee Seung, and Jo Sung Hee. Yang also wrote the script on Oh My Ghost and Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, while Jo wrote the script for She Was Pretty, and Still 17. 

This drama was directed by Yoo Je Won who also directed Hundred Million Stars from the Sky, and Abyss.

Plot: 3/5

Acting: 4/5

Cinematography: 5/5

Total: 12/15

(Credits to the owners of the pictures, I took them from dramabeans, asianwiki, and funcurve).

[baekthecorgi]

thank you for the music (haechan) genre: fluff, high school au, theatre kid au words: 2.8k w. summary: in which ABBA described how you fell in love with theatre kid, donghyuck.

it wasn’t like you couldn’t sing. you weren’t just really interested in theatre. you were more of a bookworm, film enthusiast gal–not someone who acts and sings and oh my god did renjun just say DANCE

renjun is this year’s production stage manager for the musical. he has a knack for plays and musicals so it was understandable why he’s in such a position.

renjun’s also the devil’s incarnate. you’ve always known that but renjun went full-on apocalyptic evil when he tattled about the upcoming musical to your mom. unfortunately, she was a musical geek AND an ABBA fan herself.

it was like hitting two birds with one stone. this was definitely a dream come true for your mother.

“auntie, i think it’d be a GREAT idea if you let my gorgeous best friend audition for sophie”

renjun complimenting you meant trouble.

“sophie? as in mamma mia’s sophie?!” renjun nods and your mom shrieks right behind your ear.

judging from her tone of voice, she’s set on bribing the principal to let you play the part. even if she has to pay a thousand bucks and mortgage the house.

“you bastard!”

“i am, in fact, a legal child. you can’t use that word on me”

“stop being a sarcastic bitch”

“that’s you, sis”

“RENJUN”

that night, your mom was on her knees, begging you to audition for the role. suddenly, she brings up her birthday next week. she says she’ll cut you some slack finding a gift if you would at least try to audition for sophie. she’ll consider it as a birthday gift. begrudgingly, you agree cause she’s your mom and you love your mom to the moon and back.

naturally, everyone was shocked when they saw the only girl in class who wasn’t stoked for the musical, show up on the audition day.

the audition was a breeze–easily passing the acting and singing category

(thank god for vocal classes every summer since third grade)

“so who’s my leading man?” you ask renjun while he skims through the script at lunch

he corrects, “men”

you almost choke on your milk, “men?!”

“oh wait, my bad” renjun corrects, “that was for donna sheridan”

“lee donghyuck,” he blurts out and this time, you really choke on your milk

donghyuck was the class clown and evidently, the most annoying student to ever pester you in class. not only is he the irritating kid behind your desk, donghyuck was also your only competitor for rank one.

you’ve actually grown up with donghyuck but never got the chance to sit down and become friends with the boy. it’s cause his obnoxious, ego-centric personality hindered it. like that time in third grade, he talks to you about nonsense all the time so you always wrote his name in the NOISY LIST on the board.

let’s just say, this silent feud was going on your entire youth

“save your dramatic ass for the musical. you’re gonna be his fiancée after all,” your best friend teases

the head teacher aka the musical director, introduces the students to the stage crew as well as the fellow actors so all of you could be familiar with each other.

jung jaehyun was sam carmichael, johnny seo was bill andersson, and moon taeil was harry bright

when the director calls out donghyuck’s name and character, he says a few lines of introduction before sending you a sly wink. the bitch KNEW.

have you mentioned how flirty donghyuck was with everyone ???

during rehearsals, you can testify to donghyuck being professional, leaving his class clown demeanor behind. he was surprisingly good at acting.

deep inside, you were quite convinced yourself that you’re really his fiancée. as sophie you mean, not as donghyuck’s (yeah sure)

HIS VOCALS THOUGH

it’s as if honey was seeping right through the pores of your skin. his voice was like stirring creamer into the coffee. satisfying. you were running out of words to describe the boy’s vocals because your mind was always in a haze whenever donghyuck opens his mouth to sing.

you kept your compliments to yourself. it would be your ego’s downfall if you ever voiced it out loud and you weren’t ready for donghyuck to tease you endlessly about it.

it made you dislike him more

as the opening night was nearing, the cast and crew were becoming closer, especially the main characters. your social circle was expanding thanks to the opportunity (ehem, renjun). you got to meet renjun’s other friends–jeno, mark, jaemin, and the ever so cute babies, chenle and jisung. some were part of the stage crew, some minor roles.

you still didn’t talk to donghyuck, though. even if he was a part of renjun’s group. something within you simply refused to make ends meet with the kid and you trust your instinct.

the disconnection between the two of you affected the musical itself

when the director commands donghyuck to wrap his arms lovingly around your torso (cause that’s what couples do!!), you two look like two poles bumping into each other. the rest of the dreamies just sigh heavily.

one time, chenle cringed too hard his limbs were almost paralyzed

so Renjun and Friends™ conjured a plan called, “#MakeSophieAndSkyLikeEachOther” aka “#SaveMammaMia2k18”

that was why you found yourself stuck inside the costume closet. your eyes widen when the door opens and a bewildered donghyuck is pushed inside as well. you hear the lock click loudly.

oooooffff awkwaard

donghyuck initiates, reaching his hand to you, “lee donghyuck but you can call me hyuck, sweetheart”

“can you–i dunno–be normal for once, donghyuck?” you huff, crossing your arms

“okay, sweetheart”

“that’s so cheesy”

“you like it”

“SHUT UP HYUCK”

“oh shit, i think i like hyuck more than sweetheart. it’s settled then,” donghyuck says before he bursts out laughing at your flustered face. donghyuck had no idea whether your red, tomato-ish face was of anger or annoyance. maybe a bit of both but he didn’t want to spoil this chance to get closer to you so he pokes the hell out of you.

“hyuck, cut it!!!” you swat his index finger and stare angrily at the boy

but the cute bitch just ??? puffs out his cheeks like a kindergartner ??? and your lips stretch into a wide smile cause he was so damn cute you couldn’t help it ok !!!!

then hyuck

breaks into a smile too

reference: the gif

it was so genuine you wanted to c o m b u s t

you two smiling like fools was the icebreaker

since then, you got even closer to hyuck. the dreamies high-fived each other when they finally feel the chemistry between you and hyuck the following rehearsal. in fact, you two were soooo close it was beginning to show in your acting

or was it even acting anymore

he helps you rehearse your lines and your scenes with him!!! like the boy was really a sweetheart

(though sometimes he still calls you that. you fake complain when he teases you so he’ll console you later, to be honest.)

donghyuck assists you with the melody whenever you were flat or sharp. the kid is a musical genius, what can i say?

oh and he claps his hands 1-2-3-4 to the tempo when you miss a beat.he was such a great help with I Have A Dream and Thank You For The Music that when you finished singing your solos, donghyuck was left in a dream-like trance. you had to lightly slap his face to make him snap out of it.

you must be a mermaid to enchant such a handsome young man.

“look,” chenle lowkey points at you and donghyuck at the corner, “it seems like sky’s whipped for sophie”

“now that plan #MakeSophieAndSkyLikeEachOther is done, we’ll proceed to the next one,” renjun rubs his hands together like a fly, lifting a brow at the guys

mark asks, curious, “wait, how sure are you that she likes hyuck?”

“have you seen the girl smile THAT wide?!” renjun rolls his eyes

mark counts. each finger for each time he saw you smile in class. “four times” “exactly,” and mark forms an ‘o’ with his lips

renjun continues, “and with hyuck?”

mark looks over to your direction and starts to count again. “twelve times?!?!! under a minute?? how??”

“she likes donghyuck, dumb ass,” jeno states, matter-of-factly

We Love Intellectual Friends

this time around, jisung formulates plan “#MakeSophieAndSkyConfess”

renjun keeps donghyuck busy during take five’s so jaemin will have the chance to openly flirt with you. he’s the best flirt in the group.

it was like playing fire with fire

but renjun doesn’t keep donghyuck busy enough for him to take notice of jaemin’s advances on you. the dreamies did the same routine for three consecutive days, donghyuck begins to evidently curl his fists whenever jaemin talks to you.

one time, donghyuck warns you, “don’t talk too much with jaemin. he flirts with everyone.”

“oh so he’s like you,” you snap back and donghyuck was taken aback, clearly offended by your words.

“you’re so pathetic,” he breathes

you were appalled and the irritation washed over you for the first time since the closet incident. like who was donghyuck to tell you what to do and what not to do ???

and the dreamies, eavesdropping, was 200% panicking cause it wasn’t supposed to go that way!!!!

mark hits jisung on the arm and mutters an “i told you this wasn’t a good idea”

renjun was supposed to walk over and help patch things up but the director called for Act 3, Scene 2: Lay All Your Love On Me

the dreamies were SHAKING. the scene was sky and sophie literally fighting with their hidden emotions. it was too similar with you and donghyuck’s petty fight.

donghyuck sings the first verse:

I wasn’t jealous before we met Now every man I see is a potential threat And I’m possessive, it isn’t nice You’ve heard me saying that smoking was my only vice But now it isn’t true Now everything is new And all I’ve learned has overturned I beg of you

you proceed with the second verse:

It was like shooting a sitting duck A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck I still don’t know what you’ve done with me A grown-up woman should never fall so easily I feel a kind of fear When I don’t have you near Unsatisfied, I skip my pride I beg you dear

then the both of you begin to sing the chorus:

Don’t go wasting your emotion Lay all your love on me Don’t go sharing your devotion Lay all your love on me

as the song fades to an end, you and donghyuck stand opposite each other under the spotlight. you were staring at him and he was doing the same. the song holds as some form of enlightenment of your feelings for each other. this was so awkward realizing your feelings for donghyuck onstage like how cliche is that ???????

you literally hear your heart break into a million tiny pieces when donghyuck nonchalantly walks offstage. it’s part of the script but somehow, his moves were too true to be plain acting.

“uh oh,” chenle massages his temples, “we have to fix this, guys”

“no shit. tomorrow’s opening night,” jisung retorts. he winces when chenle slaps his arm for disrespecting him.

“don’t worry, i have a plan,” renjun announces, crossing his arms

“oh no not again,” mark interjects

it was opening night and you were hella nervous you feel like projectile vomiting any minute. the crowd was building up as each minute passes. you peep through the curtains and see your mom at the very center of the first row.

we love a supportive stage mom

renjun rubs the small of your back. “you’ll do spectacular tonight. i know it. break a leg!” he pumps his fist before returning to his duties.

small as he is, renjun was shouting at the top of his lungs and commanding the stage crew to bust their asses.

you did breathing exercises cause your heart was pumping wildly. suddenly, you feel someone tap your shoulder. you turn around to see donghyuck in his stage costume–a loose blue shirt, tucked in, and black skinny jeans. as always, he took your breath away.

“hi,” his voice was small and soft, “i’m sorry. for yesterday. i didn’t mean it. if anything, i’m the pathetic one.”

“you are,” you say and donghyuck lets out an almost inaudible laugh. “i’m sorry too, hyuck. i was rude, and you’re right, i am pathetic.”

“you aren’t okay? the truth is, i li–”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN YOUR WORK CLOTHES?! WHY AREN’T YOU IN YOUR COSTUME JESUS CHRIST YOU STILL DON’T HAVE MAKEUP?!?!!!!”

renjun was blowing everyone’s ears off

“i’ll do her makeup, geez,” donghyuck grabs your wrist and stomps off to the makeup room.

“DON’T GIVE ME THAT SASSY ATTITUDE LEE DONGHYUCK YOU’RE GONNA GET THESE HANDS”

renjun pls chill

hyuck is such a pro at makeup. like you didn’t even know the step-by-step process but he’s basically nailing your makeup. being a part of the theatre club has its perks.

hyuck was doing your eye makeup and he realizes that he’s super close to your lips, he has to resist the urge to place his on top of yours. he was supposed to do a light makeup on you but since this is theatre, hyuck had to put layers of everything. before he actually does anything he’ll regret, donghyuck sends you off to change into your costume.

a little later, the musical starts. you swear you see your mom sobbing in the front row as soon as the curtains were drawn. the scenes were perfect, as well as your acting. donghyuck’s superb vocals blew the socks off of everyone.

the scenes where you and donghyuck acts as a couple seemed so natural as if you two were really one in real life

you could only wish

donghyuck gazes at your eyes like they contain all the stars in the sky that you had to force yourself to break his gaze so you can continue with yourlines

Act 4, Scene 10: Super Trouper. Wedding Scene. (Last Scene)

hyuck swears on his life that he doesn’t have asthma or any kind of respiratory problem but you rendered the boy breathless as you walked down on one of the theater aisles in a wedding dress

like this may seem farfetched thought but this was what donghyuck imagined on his wedding

back then, his bride-to-be was always a question mark but now, as donghyuck looks at you walking towards him, he might just have an idea

the scene continues on. it was revealed to the audience that sky and sophie called off the wedding, only to be replaced by donna and sam.

the finale song starts to play. donghyuck notices glitter (???) on a banner with huge bold letters: “CONFESS NOW, IDIOT” held up by renjun, jaemin, and jeno. plus the rest of the gang shouting words of encouragement that were drowned by the music.

donghyuck, albeit startled, twirls you around like planned. he gets a dose of courage when you sang your lines:

Tonight the super trouper beams are gonna blind me But I won’t feel blue Like I always do ‘Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you

when he catches you in his arms, your eyes turn into crescent moons enough to make donghyuck’s heartbeat ring in his ears

“i like you,“ donghyuck mouths

you were too busy dancing you miss the words he mouthed. you can’t speak back cause the microphone would catch your voice so you mouth back, "you what?”

“i like you”

“wHA–"

you were cut off by hyuck’s lips pressing onto yours

somewhere in the background, the dreamies were jumping up and down, cheering, "GO GET IT”

the way donghyuck smiles into the kiss like a giddy child receiving ice cream. the way your lips fit like two puzzle pieces together. the way you slowly snake your arms around donghyuck’s neck and softly grabbing a fistful of his dark brown locks. the way hyuck held the small of your back with care as if you were some fragile being. it wasn’t fervent or needy. it was only filled with much love and adoration.

donghyuck places his microphone far away from his lips and say, “i said i like you”

“that’s not part of the script”

hyuck didn’t miss the reddish pink color tinting your cheeks

“it was an impromptu”

“did you think of it beforehand?”

“no, i only felt it”

and with that, you lean in and give donghyuck another well-deserved kiss

after the musical, everyone was like going crazy on taking pictures of you two for being such a cute couple onstage, and now offstage. renjun was highkey bragging about being the best cupid in town to which the dreamies tattled on the whole jaemin flirting with you thing.

the kiss started out as an impromptu. let’s just say, donghyuck included it in the script until the gala night. only on the gala night, he slips a little tongue action.

the dreamies were grossed out but to hell with that

you love donghyuck

and donghyuck loves you

note: stream we go up!!!!! our boys deserve their first and last win as ot7 ;;; i had the urge to combine theatre kid donghyuck x abba cause it’s beyond perfect as a prompt. don’t even deny it. this has been sitting in my drafts for a long time tbvh. i love renjun and his devious plans in this scenario lmao we love supportive friends !!!!!

LET’S TALK ABOUT WE GO UP MV. hyuck in a bandana and mark in a wet black shirt unffff fuck me up markhyucketh!!!!

drop by and send some feedbacks pls

masterlist

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

As We Stumble Along...

This week I had the pleasure of being part of the first NYC externship for my Alma Mater’s brand new, and now fully developed, Musical Theater Program. I had the chance to work with some lovely SUNY Geneseo Juniors and Seniors in a new musical theatre workshop - an entirely new experience for all of them - and attended the first ever Senior Showcase. The talent was wonderful, the interactions were lovely, and the entire experience got me thinking…a dangerous pastime, I know.

As a part of the workshop I had to essentially explain to the students who I am, what I do, how that’s relevant to Geneseo, and how I got to where I am. And you know what? That was much more difficult than I expected.

At this moment in my career, these are the titles that I can, and generally do, give myself:

Composer-Lyricist/Librettist (technically 3 titles?)

Performer (Musical and non-Musical Theatre)

Musical Director

Vocal Coach

Accompanist (I do this less often)

Arranger/Orchestrator (though mostly my own material these days)

One of the Geneseo students said “You do so much!” and I guess that’s true. But I think the better question is, how the heck did I learn to do all of these things?

Broadway Standard

The one area from the above list where multiple straightforward and comprehensive paths of education exist is performance.

The theatre as a whole has always recognized that performers are necessary to train in large numbers since shows and theaters exist all over the place with roles that need filling. And performing is the most visible aspect of theatre, which makes it a great entry point for those interest in the business. So plenty of paths exist for people to become performers, and I won’t bore you with the details of mine. Everyone has their own stories on this one.

The other item on the list that is fairly straightforward, though certainly less common than performance, would be accompaniment.

***Quick PSA***: Someone who accompanies is called an ac-com-pa-nist. Not an ac-com-pa-NEE-ist, or any other version. Not a crucial thing to know, but I figured I’d throw it out there :-)

Usually the story I hear from pianists is that they were, at one time in their early life, cornered by some teacher or choral director or other and told they should play piano for a choir, jazz group, or school musical. And thus was born another accompanist.

For me, it was basically the same. My piano teacher told me I should, my choral teacher lost their previous student accompanist, and thus I was tagged for the job!

Where I diverge a little is that I found out I really enjoyed playing musical theatre songs for my friends, and started wanting to be better at it. So I made a point of finding all of the musical theatre music that I could in books and scores, sitting down, and attempting to play it. This is a pastime I continue today, and it has made my skills as an accompanist must stronger - so I would recommend this to anyone looking to hone this particular skill.

Barely Knowing Left From Right

My time at SUNY Geneseo ended up being quite crucial to the accidental development of two other items on that list: musical direction and vocal coaching.

Because I was already a pianist and accompanist, something that was well known by the beginning of my Junior year, I was tapped to be the Musical Director of one of our a cappella groups (and eventually the other as well). I knew from watching previous MDs that the basics of this job was to simply teach notes, but that the good ones could do oh-so-much more. And I wanted to be a good one.

(Anyone surprised? You may have gathered from my blogs thus far that I’m a little competitive about being good at what I do… :-D )

So I went to it. I learned by watching what others did, listening to my favorite arrangements and performances, and started trying things out. It was a lot of trial by fire. But soon I figured out what worked and made the music better, and what to avoid. I had already been arranging for the two groups for over a year at this point (something that I was allowed to just try and found I could do fairly well), so I had some sense of what I was doing. So I took the knowledge I had, added it to the skills I already possessed, and created a new skill set.

Was it perfect right away? Ohhhhhh no. It took me plenty of time to figure it out. But by my Senior year I was comfortable calling myself a Musical Director of both a cappella and musical theare.

As for the vocal coaching, this came from my accompaniment skills as well.

We had a club at Geneseo called MTC (Musical Theatre Club - nailing that name, right?) for which everyone would always stress about auditions each semester. So, being one of the 3-4 pianists in the club, I was often asked by people to help them prepare for their auditions by choosing songs and creating cuts. I found that I was naturally inclined toward this work - something I’d probably not have known if I hadn’t just tried it.

Then, in my later college years, I started gaining the confidence to give some vocal notes to people. I had zero reason to think I had any authority in this matter, but from what I was seeing and hearing I thought I might be able to help.

As it turns out, I was right.

With not an ounce of training (not something I’d really recommend) other than my own vocal training, I found that I had a natural ability to help people adjust their voices. And then of course I wanted to know more, so I began doing my own research and self-education. By the time I left college, I was well on my way to being able to do this sort of work professionally. And now, since it’s how I make the majority of my living and because it’s also an ever-changing field of study, I continue to educate myself on new techniques and styles.

But I’d never have known I could even do this if it hadn’t fallen into my lap and, more importantly, if I hadn’t decided to take the risk and try.

We Pull Our Bootstraps Up

And then we come to the remainder of the list: Composer-Lyricist, Librettist, Orchestrator.

It has been said that “failure is the best teacher,” and in my personal case of these above skills, I must agree.

If I had no business being a Musical Director or Vocal Coach, I had even less business writing music or words for the theatre. I mean, what experience did I have?

None. Not a bit.

Sooooo…?

I love creating. I’ve always loved creating. I had dabbled in some music writing when I was in grade school and did some light composition as part of my Music Theory class in high school - absolutely loving it - but that was the extent of my composition experience. And never had I written a play! I wrote a 5-minute piece once at the NYSSSA Theater Program, but it was terrible and I never tried again.

Until Geneseo, that is.

Playwriting was being offered as a class in my Junior year, so I decided to take it. I had loved my Creative Writing classes in the English Department, but I really longed to write for the stage. So I took it. And I was terrible.

Oh boy, I couldn’t write a play to save my life. And I certainly did try.

I understood the mechanics and the theory and the basics of what to do, but the best thing I could come up with was a murder-thriller spoof called Clue-less, which was actually an out-of-class pet project. It was fairly funny and had some nice dramatic moments, but it still wasn’t good. After getting a solid B- on my final assignment for the class I said that was it for me and playwriting. No more. But then I thought…

What about Musical Theatre? I’m certainly more inclined to writing music than a script…

So, to try out this idea, I decided to take Oscar Hammerstein II’s advice to Stephen Sondheim and attempt the exercise of adapting a play that I admire into a musical. Not for the world to see, necessarily, but for myself and to learn.

The play I chose? A Streetcar Named Desire. I love me some Tennessee Williams, and the high theatricality of the style seemed ripe for some music additions. And best of all, I didn’t have to write the book, just adapt.

I spent 4 weeks over the summer trying my hand at finding song moments, writing in character voices, adapting dialogue into lyrics (though without much structure), and composing a world that sounded like these characters. I tried to tell their stories, moved the action forward, and give a hint of New Orleans. And you know what? It was pretty damn good for a first attempt.

I was encouraged. I decided to be bolder for the second go-round and write an original musical as my Honors Project at Geneseo. Due to some college politics, the project could only be approved if I wrote the book, music, and lyrics, as well as stage the entire thing in my second semester acting as musical director, director, and producer. Certainly a tremendous undertaking - and the point of this was to scare me off - but again I said yes. Bring it on.

Thus a musical - and mediocre one at best - called PICk Love was born. I did all that was asked of me, and an audience of ~300 people ended up seeing it over two performances at the end of my Senior year. I had even gone through the process of learning how to orchestrate in a direct study (since I wasn’t wearing enough hats already) and continued to work on the show after graduation.

Loooooong story short, I was hooked. I wanted to learn more, and correctly now. So I auditioned for the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writing Workshop. Didn’t get in fully, but only as an auditor. Said yes. Met some amazing people and some of my best friends. Re-auditioned the next year. Got in. Said yes again. Met more amazing people, including one of my current collaborators and best friends. Learned so much. Got a ton better. Wrote and re-wrote The King’s Legacy. Met more incredible people. Kept saying yes.

We Live And We Learn

Most of the things on my list are skills I received no formal education for. In fact, there aren’t a lot of ways to receive a formal education in some of them. And this thing I had no idea how to do, let alone whether or not I could actually do it, is now one of the main parts of my career. But how did I get here?

Everyone has skills, whether from natural ability or because they’ve been honed. Everyone has interests and passions, even if they’re mostly unexplored. And, if you want, these things can come come together to create new skills and pathways that you previously may not have known existed. All you need to do is try.

Try and fail. Try again. Dislike you work. Research. Watch and listen and learn. Try and fail again. Like a little of what you’ve created. Reignite your passion when necessary. Continuously hone your skills. Try again. Fail. Succeed. And most of all, just say yes.

[darkspellmaster]

holy shit, who the fuck are you even??? your fantastic beasts posts are so pretentious and annoying, you just keep assuming a bunch of shit out of things you're taking out of context and you talk as if its confirmed canon, when it's obviously NOT, like, do you have the fucking script right there on your hands??? no??? then shut the fuck up and stop clogging the tags with your stupidity.

Dear Sir, or Madam, Thank you for taking the time to write me such an informative and interesting response to my commentary on recent events regarding the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. As you clearly have some questions that you want answered allow me to answer them for you. 

To the first inquirer, you ask who am I? (Although the correct terminology is either “Who even are you, or who do you think you are” ) For the record I am a  college teacher that teaches game design and development, specializing in the writing aspect for games (since they tend to need work on telling stories) who holds a Bachelor degree in Fiction writing and is right now working on a masters computer science degree. My focus in college was understanding how fictional stories are created and how they work, in both written and visual mediums. Does that answer your question there? Oh and I was originally going in for animation and journalism, so I have a background there as well. Also I have a strong understanding in article writing and how opinion pieces vs. fact pieces are written. Moving right along then. You mean my opinions on the matters in regard to the reaction over the whole issue with David Yates comments? Or are you talking about the fact that I laid out all the facts and links to articles with quotes, and went into explanation as to why Yates would have put the terms that way and theorizing what they are planning. You see, I was taking what was written in the books previously in Harry Potter in regard to both Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Ariana and Aberforth. The facts are in the book as stated: 

1. Dumbledore and Grindelwald were friends during the time that his sister was dealing with her issues. 

2. Aberforth noted in the book that Ariana was traumatized by muggle boys causing her to repress her magic and become ill.

 3. We know from Credence that repressing your magic early can cause you to become a Obscurial. Due to this one can then hypothesis that Ariana was a Obscurial as well. 

4. We know, thanks to the books and Dumbledore talking to Harry that Grindelwald was using him. 

5. We know that Graves/Grindelwald was using Credence’s abilities as per the first Fantastic beasts. We can then, assume with little to no guessing that Grindelwald saw a way to Ariana through her brother and used him to get at her and this probably lead to her untimely death.

 6. We know how Grindelwald operates due in part to his acts as Graves and from what Dumbleore said in the books as well, as well as the memories and Aberforth’s comments.

 7. Rowling seems to write her bad guys in similar fashion, not exactly the same, but very much alike.

 8. Tom Riddle is a prototype to the new version of Grindelwald in this movie (since we’ve seen how he uses his words to emotionally manipulate people) and more than likely she’s using a lot of Tom’s charm on Grindelwald (as per the comments of him -Grindelwald being very charming in the books). 

Taking these facts into consideration it’s not too hard to assume, at all, that Grindelwald is going to use that manipulation to get under various peoples skins and cause fractions between the cast of characters. Just as Voldemort got under Harry’s skin regarding Dumbledore, so too, it would make sense, that Grindelwald will do the same to Newt. Making him question his mentor and forcing him to grow as a person. 

Also, for fact, as I stated in my posts, if you look at the time period of the fight between Grindelwald and Dumbledore (not till 1945) it would make more sense for her as a writer to do a build up over the next 2 (FB3 and FB4) or 3 (FB3, FB4, and FB5) movies with Dumbledore and Grindelwald, than to front load the movie here with them and have a weaker meeting in the last where (let’s be honest here with 5 movies you know the last will be at the end of WWII in regard to this since it’s been set up in Harry Potter) they have their fight. 

Keep in mind that that final battle was where Dumbledore procured the wand of the hallows. We know that, from the books, Dumbledore owned at least two of the hallows and not the third, though it was in his possession after James Potter’s death and he returned it to Harry and had never used it. We can, assume then, that Newt’s journey has ties to the hallows, given the title has all three items in there, and we know Albus at this point doesn’t have the wand but Grindelwald does. I was off about the mirror and for that I apologize to my readers. However I don’t think I’m wrong on the idea that Grindelwald is going to France after one of the hallows (either the stone or possibly one of the Potters that owns the cloak or possibly one of the Gaunts, since they have the stone with them -although given the time frame for Morfin’s imprisonment I don’t see it being the stone so possibly the cloak) it would fit his MO so far, seeing that he wants to unite all three for world dominance. We can assume a lot of things based on what we’ve seen before in her writing. Writers tend to, and I know I’m guilty of this as well, have a pattern for their stories, especially when it pertains to situations like Harry Potter or the Fantastic Beast Series. The similarities are hard to dismiss. Slightly nerdy and unusual hero makes friends with a smart and talented girl and a slightly goofy guy. Trio is harassed by a charming yet ultimately dangerous big bad that wants to use some powerful mcguffin (object or person), to take over the world. Said trio needs to find a way to stop said person and uses help from mentor ally. Said ally has a dark past with the villain that is only revealed with time and for dramatic purposes. Main hero suffers powerful loss that propels them into action to defeat said bad, no longer for the sake of the mentor, but for their own sake. Wash, Rinse, repeat. Now which story am I describing Harry or Newts? This is why I honestly think the things I’m saying in the posts are true. There’s enough there if you read a lot of books and understand the patterns of a story, particularly the hero’s journey, to get why things are set up the way they are and why Yates and Rowling are being the way they are. It’s all down to how well you can critically read a book or watch a movie. If you know the hints, the signs, everything is laid out for you there in the trailer and the previous movie. Newt’s feelings for Leta, Leta clearly being a Lestrange and more then likely working for Grindelwald given how her father is a dark wizard that has ties to him. Hell her cousin is tied to Voldemort. Rolf being the hero that Newt wishes that he was in some ways. Leta being Newt’s lost love, etc. Anyone can see where this story is going if they look hard enough at what’s presented. Clearly there are parallels between the relationship of Dumbledore and Grindelwald and Newt and Leta. There’s enough hints there to show that she’s not a good person and probably hurt him emotionally and it’s not a far jump to assume that a Lestrange may fall for someone that’s charming and evil like Grindelwald, who could use that lust for power to do some bad things. It’s all there in the tropes! I really don’t need to have a copy of the script that’s coming out in my hands to understand what’s going on because we kind of read pretty much a lot of it via other books and her own novels and the way Jo tends to set things up. 

If however you are talking about my notes early on about the situation on the romantic aspect of Dumbledore and why he hides himself. Again, I am basing this on history, and, as we’ve seen in the books, the Wizarding world is just as predjudice as the Muggle world is. There’s enough evidence in Harry’s books to indicate that a lot of the laws that govern modern wizarding society probably have ties (namely in Britian) to the laws that were governed by the Queens and Kings of England. We’ve already seen the ties via the fact that Merlin is a real person so that would mean that, in all likelihood, so too is King Arthur. We also know that there are probably half bloods working for the ministry to tie in modern day british laws to the wizarding world, so It’s not that far fetched to assume that the wizarding minsitry has a similar law set up that I mentioned in my first post. If you are objecting to the fact that I used that fact, well I’m sorry, but it does fit within the aspect of the world that she is building as we’ve seen that most of the Ministry figures have duplicates in the Muggle world, down to the detectives and cops in the form of Aurors of different ranks. We’ve also seen that the MACUSA also has a similar set up to the pre-1940s version of the US Feds, and we have speakeasies and mobsters, meaning that the Wizarding world there is also in prohibition. And, if that’s the case, then there is no reason to not at all assume that the Law that I mentioned was still in effect in Great Britain where Dumbledore is living. If you object to that, well then sir or madam, I’m not sure what else to tell you other then I did my research before I wrote my counter pieceI highly doubt that she didn’t, at the very least, know about this law and other laws like it since, you know, Jo grew up when a lot of the laws were being looked at by the LGBTQ+ activist of the time so that they could . Also, it wouldn’t be to hard to look up that sort of info, since she clearly looked up about prohibition to include the fact that at the dining table they were drinking anything but liqueur, as that was not available at the time period of the film. Again, it all comes down to the facts that we have been presented, the opinions we have based on our own views, as well as the information we can gather from both her former works and works of others regarding how a story works in the visual medium.

As I said before, it’s their opinion that’s fine, but a lot of people are overlooking a lot of facts from the books to build this case against them, when non of us have the script at all. But as I said, critically watch the film and then the trailer and focus on the idea of the Hero’s journey and the 13 aspects of it, then think about what we know about Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Newt and compare them to Harry and Tom and you’ll see a lot of similarities to the original story. Not quiet the same but it’s still all there. 

As for being silent, I don’t think so. I had my say on the matter, and, when the film comes out, and I turn out to be right on all my points, I’ll be pleased. If I’m wrong and all my theories turn out to be false, ah well. Regardless I still hold that the fact that both Yates and Rowling seem to be hinting at a longer story being told with Dumbledore and Grindelwald and the given history in the Harry Potter books, and the fact that Newt is the lead and it’s his journey, that we’re not going to see a lot of the relationship deeply until film number 3 or 4 with the climax of all that being in film 5 in 1945, and that’s my honest opinion on it. 

[avelera]

POTC:5 - A Hot Mess, with some glimmers of heart

I actually wrote this a few days ago on the plane and consistently forgot to post so here we go Maggie’s analysis of the hot mess that is POTC5 (and thoughts on how it could have been improved). 

So PotC:5 was a hot mess and totally deserves a hard 57% rating, with a good portion of that rating based latent affection for the franchise.

THAT BEING SAID, they broke Will’s curse so given that I have been waiting 10 YEARS (10 YEARS IN AZKABAN/ ON THAT ISLAND WITH ELIZABETH) for that to happen, and it happened, I’m gonna say my time may have been 90% wasted but I’m not unhappy that I saw it.

The thing is, I think there were scraps of  good movie in there somewhere. Not in the same was as say, Wonder Woman (where I think there was a superb movie in there had they only been allowed to simply rearrange some of their scenes and tweak a plot twist or two) but still. Frankly, I don’t think the scenes that would have made POTC:5 great were even shot, but there’s some structural hints towards their potential.

So here’s what I would have done to tweak POTC:5 to make it a better story along the lines of a novel. To my admittedly untutored eye, there was a lot of things that look like they could have been improved, and maybe there was even a stage of the script where the writers would have liked them to be improved, but things such as studio requirements, actor availability, and actor preference prohibited it. I have no idea what the exact making of this movie entailed but let’s just say, for example, I don’t think Keira Knightley wanted to make this movie, even though it would have been vastly improved by her presence.

Tweaks and Improvements:

1) Replace or at least partner Elizabeth with Barbossa. Frankly, we left her as Pirate King and it would have been amazing to see her *ahem* Swanning around on that opulent ship along with him, enforcing her title. I would have adored a subplot in which Henry has either essentially run away from home or, say, a respectable life that Elizabeth set up for him, or that he has simply gone missing and she’s been looking for him. Frankly, the very idea that Henry could be working on breaking the Will’s curse and have a lead and Elizabeth isn’t on that boat with him is crazy to me. The only understandable explanation is metatextual, ie Keira wasn’t available for the film. Pirate King Elizabeth should have been on that quest with them, and it could have provided some really excellent moments of action, pathos and even comedy. It may have also spared us some of the unrelenting fixation on fathers too, or at least balanced it with one present, capable mother instead of the endless string of fridged Disney Moms like Carina’s.

Some scenes it would have allowed - fuckin’ Pirate King Elizabeth overtaking Henry & Co. and giving the “I’m not here to stop you…. I’m here to join you.” speech. Moments of bonding between Henry and Elizabeth. Elizabeth expressing her loss of Will, and Henry sharing it. Humorous tension of having your mom onboard when you’re starting to crush on a girl and also prove yourself. Elizabeth’s total lack of interest in Jack and their inevitable banter… I mean frankly, the only reason not to have her is how much she would have stolen the show. MOVING ON.

2) Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter, not Barbossa’s. Frankly, the Barbossa thing just made… no sense at all. He’s never mentioned or shown interest in a family before, it just doesn’t really fit with his story, and I’m pretty sure that even if he wasn’t a ghost at that point of her conception (assuming Carina is younger than Henry but that’s not necessarily a given), it means he had her after POTC:3 which is… weird. Unless I’m missing something from POTC:4.

Reasons Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter instead:

Shared features: We got quite a few interesting close-ups of Salazar’s black waving hair, which looks a great deal like Carina’s. In contrast, technically under all the liver damage, Barbossa does have blue eyes but there any resemblance to Carina ends. Salazar actually looks at least a little like he could be her father, enough to serve as an actual clue to her heritage instead of the out of nowhere revelation about Barbossa. There’s the issue of the accent but they could either hand wave that by saying she studied in England or hire a hispanic actress, or have the actress assume a hint of a Spanish accent. Either way, it’s not a huge hurdle.

Salazar was clearly a good guy and successful before his transformation into a ghost thing, it explains how Carina got such a high-end education as to be an astronomer and a horologist, something that was never explained by the film, because by all accounts if the ruby was all Barbossa left her and she didn’t spend it, Carina would have grown up penniless. Salazar, as a Spanish officer of his own ship, would have been in a much better position for his family and estate to see that his daughter had a fantastic education.

It would have allowed Carina’s story to mirror Henry’s, that both of them are trying to free their father from a sea curse. Frankly, her not believing in magic and still going after the map thing is a bit of cognitive stretch. Having both of them trying to break a curse on their father would have been a nice parallel. You could even have it that Carina is skeptical about her father’s curse, but still sees the trident as a means of “freeing” him or at least convincing him to come home if he’s just gone mad. It could also provide a dramatic scene where maybe her whole life she hasn’t allowed herself to believe that her father was really “cursed” rather than dead or a deadbeat, and she tries to convince Henry that his father is no more cursed than hers and is only absent. Then, at the first sight of magic she could have a true moment of emotion, realizing it was indeed a curse that kept her once-heroic father away from her and her family.

Frankly, Salazar’s story is all over the place. Especially his morality. I get that this is “Pirates” of the Caribbean so the pirates are the good guys, but he was something of an actual good guy at least along the lines of Norrington before he went down and became all ghosty. Also, the moment where they become human again was actually rather emotional. I didn’t really understand why he was still a bad guy after they got turned back? Why the vengeance? How about instead let him get an actual redemption arc, his daughter talking him down from his mercilessness towards pirates because they’re the ones who helped free him. That also eliminates the need for Barbossa’s rather random and out of character “sacrifice” at the end, if he doesn’t need to die taking down Salazar.

(I gotta say, for like a split second I thought the witch would turn out to be Carina’s mother and her and Barbossa gave her up to give her a better life so failing a Salazar parenthood I could totally accept that too.)

3) Just… less Jack Sparrow, please. His wacky hijinks are at their best when they’re played against someone who is actually trying to pursue the plot. That’s why he was such a good foil and antagonistic ally for Will and Elizabeth, he’s best when he’s a wild card. But also, the schtick is getting a bit old. Hence why it would have been nice to have Elizabeth in the film to play off him a bit.

That being said, the glimpse we got of Young Jack the Sparrow was waaaay hotter than I expected, like I never had a real thing for Sparrow like many others did but godDAMN young cocky pirate kid who is just finding his sea legs, wasn’t totally crazy yet, and looked like he walked off the set of Black Sails was one of the small highlights of the film. It just goes to show what giving Jack Sparrow even a dash of integrity can do to strengthen the character.

Another thing absent from the film which was desperately needed - some connection between Henry and Jack Sparrow. It seemed assumed but never shown. Really, we got a ton of Jack Sparrow being disdainful of Will and Elizabeth, but I’d like to think that he would feel at least a little protective of their child. There was moments in the film that seemed to hint at that, but it would have been nice to get a verbal admission at some point (unless I missed it) along the lines of how he actually does care about them beneath his wacky and selfish exterior, and by extension doesn’t want their son to die.

Overall the film felt like 3 or 4 film ideas sort of crammed into one story. I definitely saw snippets of discarded plots, the whole possession of Henry came out of nowhere (though I forgive it because possession is my jam), Salazar’s pathos went in and out in favor of him in the end just remaining a monster despite the fact he just got his life back, Carina’s backstory and relation to Barbossa makes no sense at all, Elizabeth not participating makes no sense at all, and characters would randomly move vast distances or have extremely helpful coincidences just when they needed them to a level that went beyond “fun adventure story” and into “writer clearly ended up in a corner, again” territory.

I think the best parts of the film came down to Henry’s authenticity and his quest to save his father. The scene at the beginning where he meets Will by nearly dying was perhaps my favorite of the whole film, if not for the ending, and with just those two I would have been quite content. The film really needed to be more about that and less about Sparrow hijinks, which are always a great spice but they are a terrible center piece. POTC has consistently been the story of Elizabeth and Will, and it loses a lot of its fire when it shifts to be about Sparrow rather than their story serving as a stage where he could serve as jester and commentator. If this was to be the story of the next generation of Henry and Carina, it should have been allowed to remain fixated on them, and allowed there to be pathos in Carina’s story as much as Henry’s, which is why I think a parallel lost father and a connection to Salazar would have added a great deal.

I’m not sure if there’ll be a sixth film. It’s probably better if there isn’t. But I would be willing to drag myself back to the theater if we can finally see Will and Elizabeth again because frankly, apropos to nothing, their reunion was the single hottest most powerful moment of the whole movie and I’ll take a lot of confused garbage for that.

[etheshadowlord]

An unasked for and continued review of every Power Rangers Episode E can get a hold of Pt. 2

The following is a non-professional review of the Power Rangers Series starting from Mighty Morphin and working our way forward. This review Covers Episode 6-10. Note there will be spoilers.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 6: Food Fight.

Our intrepid young goody goodies are running a cultural food fair. Which gets quickly ruined by Bulk and Skull and their antics.How these two don’t get suspended or expelled is beyond me. Might be a weird luck stat? Regardless. Rita is not feeling so well and decides to use one of Finsters not so stellar monsters for the job of eating everything.

Things look like they’re going to Rita’s benefit until the rangers figure out that porky can’t handle a bit of heat. Rangers get their weapons back and bacon out of the nefarious ham.

Fun: 5 out of 5

Weird monster design: 3 out of 5

Now I’m hungry: 4 out of 5.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 7: Big Sisters.

Trini and Kimberly Volunteered to be Big Sisters for the Rambunctious Maria for a day. Meanwhile Aunt Rita Repulsa needs a child like Maria for her own plans. To get passed a barrier and get a couple of Power Eggs to gain the power to defeat the power rangers...

*Looks at the script.* 

No....that’s what it says... I mean Eggs are full of protein so it tracks but the barrier requiring the touch of an innocent child to open it and the definition of innocent child make little sense to me. Who designs this magic?

Anyway putty patrollers kidnap Maria and get her to open the box while also probably traumatizing the kid with the ugly chicken monster of the week.

 Rangers can’t reach communication with alpha and Zordon or even teleport so they instead take Billy’s RADBUG which is an acronym but we’re not going to go into that because it is a supped up Volkswagon beetle. So they take the car and go to the command center and go to save Maria using the radbug. They fight funky chicken for a bit before frying him once and for all with the Megazord.

Maria is saved and Rita has a headache, and the episode ends with Bulk getting doused in Veggie Chilli. Hold up, why is he getting slapsticked on? He’s been on good behaviour. Bulk was just minding his own business for this entire episode....what? Oh, karma for last episode. That makes sense, anyways.

Fun: 3 out of 5

Bad kid voice acting: 4 out of 5.

Com and teleportation outages: 0 out of 5 because they suck.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 8: I, eye guy.

This is another episode featuring a kid of the week, Willy and his VR game he made, which really just looks like face mounted displays showing video footage of a roller coaster ride. Anyway with the help of billy the kid is entering the science fair competition. Meanwhile ol’ Aunt Rita Repulsa has a new evil plan to kidnap the kid and steal his intelligence for her own?

*Looks at notes.* 

So what is she going to use him to create games to win the hearts of the masses and then take over the world legally? Oh nope the monster just saps the kid after absorbing them.

*Looks at notes again.* Hold on I think I need to call the FBI on Rita Repulsa.

Anyway before getting the monster out, Rita has some putties sent down to try and take the kid, worked last time. Well this time it didn’t and the rangers beat the clay faced goons and got Willy to the science fair.

Look before I continue can I just say that whoever wrote the script has no idea about computer electronics. I feel the urge to lambaste them for the term Quasitronic circuitry. I’m willing to let the Radbug slide and all the other ranger tech, but now I’m drawing the line.

And bring in another round of bulk and skull antics as they come to cause havoc and because of these bozos and their antics, WIlly gets disqualified.. Okay so this is what I call plot contrived BS. Willy didn’t even touch those 2 yet the professor decided that since Willy was one of the many people laughing as Bulk and Skull ran after their fashion makeover that he must have been the culprit?

Okay a distraction.before I unleash a world breaker move but can we say that the lady with the funky fashion makeover machine has a brilliant concept going? A machine that can help you change your clothes would be very useful for the disabled or people with limited mobility.

So after the idiot professor denies Willy what he deserves, he’s kidnapped by eye guy and...

jeepers creepers where’d you get those peepers, jeepers creepers where’d you get those eyes... where’d you get those eyes.Sorry had to.

Anyway inside the eyes of eye guy Willy is stuck on a gyroscope and to protect himself eye guy keeps his main separate so the rangers team finisher has no effect on him.

Billy goes to save Willy, Rita super sizes eye guy making him more of an eye sore than he was before, Megazord finishes the monster and Willy is saved and the professor gives Willy’s invention first prize. Thus ends another episode.

Fun: 4 out of 5

Eyes: Too many

Strict professor: Only 1.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 9: For Whom the Bell Trolls.

Hmmm.....a episode with a bunch of dolls....don’t like that. One of them is going to get possessed by Rita’s machinations isn’t it? Don’t like any of this.

So it’s Hobby Week at Angel Grove High and the main five showcase their hobbies/interests. Trini it’s dolls, Jason it’s martial arts, Zack it’s surfing, Kimberly Gymnasitcs, and Billy it’s a Model.....volcano? Anyway afterwards Bulk and Skull because clearly these two never got enough attention as kids try to pick on Trini and her dolls doing the whole keep away thing only for Bulk to get gooped by the Volcano.

I’m certain it’s non-toxic, right Billy?.... Billy?

Anyway we see Trini’s house and her room.... and all the pretty dolls she has.

Look, I’ll be Frank and I’m not Frank I’m E...but I find something unnerving about some dolls. I like them better than Horses but still.

So Rita sends....what’s his name....squatt? Yep, that’s him. Sends him down to turn Ticklesneezer into the monster of the week. This is a kids show so i’m going to let this plan slide to see where it’s going here.

Oh so she’s going to have him collect things....like a motorcycle, tokyo tower, Trini and BIlly in a car. Okay this plan is already pretty effective I’m surprised.

Meanwhile the others are at the youth center doing a bit of sparring before Jason showcases his martial arts skills by the age old trick of breaking wood.

We also get more bulk and skull antics...with bulk hurting his hand on a cake.

The squad get called in by Zordon to go save Trini and Billy fighting their way through the ever novel Putty squad and Baboo, Squat, and Goldar.

Kimberly saves Mini Trini and Billy from their bottle and from a Train. Hold on giving Kimberly another gold star for good work. And Rita Repulsa makes Ticklesneezer grow as she does with all her monsters.

And we see a Giant asian kid with the Megazord as the rangers attempt to bottle rita and her group. Errors in stock footage....and it turns out it was all a dream....oh okay so it makes more sense for their to be a giant kid there.

We close out the episode with one more instance of Bulk and Skull and their.....flea circus? Okay that’s actually kind of wholesome for a couple bullies....and the teacher ends up getting flea bitten...... instead of those two getting the slapstick over the head...well surprising.

Fun:5 out of 5

Dolls: Creepy

Reality: Questionable.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 10: Happy Birthday Zack.

*Puts on a party hat.*

Cake-o-matic, looks like an old toaster oven mixed with a couple filters and two blenders. But who am I to question genius. *Watches Ernie get covered with blue cake foam.* Who am I to question Gremlins.

So the rangers are preparing a surprise party for Zack and Rita is preparing a “Killer” surprise for Zack as well. Ernie is also pretty close to the truth regarding the rangers.....except obviously the Rangers are interdimensional beings....OBVIOUSLY, didn’t hear it from me though.

And Bulk and Skull show up. What are they doing out so late? Also shouldn’t the door be locked, isn’t this trespassing? Ernie gave the kids permission but not them. I’m terribly confused.

Anyway Bulk and Skull make complete fools of themselves while Rita is demanding progress reports regarding the monster of the week. Finster seems kind of annoyed. Already has the monster decided and everything. Dude needs a night off, go have some drinks. Look I know a place near the pits of evil. Nastiest drinks and nastier company but it’s a good time. Call me Finster we’ll hang.

Anyway the kids finish prep and work on keeping Zack in the dark, and in the dark of night we see Finster and Baboo proving that they could really go into the renfaire business as they work on a nasty sword that can cut through just about anything in the known universe. Well except the bonds of friendship and love but those don’t count. Rita summons her nasty knight on this nasty night and the games afoot.

Anyway the kids are trying to act cool for the surprise party, to mixed results which will obviously just make Zack hurt and distracted him from his fight against the Nasty Knight as Zack loses and dies and the Rangers are defeated and Rita wins. Game Over.......

....NAH! The rangers get to Zack and they’re still not beating this guy...huh....not even the Megazord is doing anything...well until they figure out the schict of the situation and break the nasty sword and the knight with the power sword thus ending plan.....10 of Rita’s. The kids then go to the youth center and celebrate Zack’s birthday.

Fun: 5 out of 5

Knights: Out.

Cake: 0 out of 5 it’s undercooked and way to foamy.

Anyway this concludes part 2 of this long and grueling review of every power rangers episode I can get a hold of and affront to professional reviews to the series as a whole. Bah I’m having fun and that’s all that matters.

Anyway stay tuned to more of this nonsense.

[3dsfireemblemheadcanons]

(OC Anon) care to share one with us? ^^

Sure! This one is based of a friend of mine with a rad blog!

Phoebe

Background:Phoebe is a grandiloquent noble woman from Ylisse. She is a duchess in her county, but is overwhelmingly loved by her constituents due to her kind nature. She is a powerful mage and healer, and has a dutiful heart with no tolerance for wrongdoing.  She speaks in a noble disposition like the heroines of her novels, but resorts to plainspeak when excited. The most likely to to be nose deep in a book. Born March 4th.

Upon recruitment:

Nile: Hey! Excuse me!

Phoebe: Yes?

Nile: Hi, I-oh! Duchess Pho-

Phoebe: Shhh! I’m not a duchess here, I’m just a normal person.

Nile: A normal person...on the battlefield?

Phoebe: I’m...afraid I got.sidetracked on the way to the library. These thieves were attacking this young man, you see.

Nile: You’re very noble, to jump in like that.

Phoebe: Nonsense. Helping an individual in need should be a norm, not an exception.

Nile: Fair enough. Perhaps you’d like to help a few more people?

Phoebe: In what way?

Nile: You could join our ranks.

Phoebe:You’re inviting me to fight alongside your….ragtag volunteer army?

Nile: Yes, um, well-

Phoebe: I’d be delighted to serve such a noble cause.

Nile: Really? T-thank you!

Phoebe: Let’s hold off on the celebrations until this fight is over. Just to make sure we all..survive.

Nile: If you’re itching to fight that bad, you should have just said so.

Phoebe: P-preposterous! I just want the people to be safe!

Nile: Riiiiight.

*Nile exits into battle*

Phoebe:....This is so cool! Fighting alongside an army! It’s just like the book I just finished!

Nile: Milady?

Phoebe: Eh? Yes! I come apace, my stalwart ally!

Phoebe:

Class: Strategist

Can reclass into:MaidMaster NinjaMechanistSwordmaster

Signature Weapon:

Phoebe’s Research Notes: Does increased damage to an enemy if it was already used on them in the battle.

Phoebe’s Personal Skill:

Idea 1:

Cataloguer

If supported by someone who has the same weapon type equipped as her enemy, takes -4 damage.

2.

Bookworm

Does +1 damage for every tome or scroll in her possession.

3.

Unbound

Has +2 defense when supported and +2 attack when alone.

Lines!

Upon switching classes:

“A change of pace is required for...for...ugh forget it! This is exciting!”

Upon Leveling Up!

0-1 stat goes up: “This is...embarrassing.”

0-1 stat goes up, almost all stats capped: “Have I...become too strong?”

2-3 stats go up: “All progress is good progress.”

4-5 stats go up: “This work merits celebration!”

6-7 stats go up: “Wow!! I can’t believe this!!”

Barracks

“Writing everyday is the only way to improve.” (exp)

“Who leaves such an item lying about?” (item)

“Hard work is indispensable when it comes to self-betterment.” (weapon exp)

Asking: Allies

“We all need things to aid the dull of the day. What do you do?” (free time)

“You look positively elated. Did you finish a particularly good book?” (happy)

“Logic dictates that working together bolsters our joint success” (team up)

“We all need motivation for our goals. What do you dream of?” (dreams)

Answering: Allies

“I read. Books are wonderful! I mean...novels are very compelling.” (free time)

“No! I just read a great book! I can’t believe-oop! I won’t spoil it. Take this and read it” (happy)

“Of course! I love making new frie-*ahem* A stalwart ally like you is always welcome!” (team up)

“My dream is to be a true hero! Um, by that I mean bring peace to the world.” (dreams)

Barracks:

“The army’s library is so sparse. I’ll have to do something about that.” (misc)

“This strategy tome gave me some amazing combat ideas!” (surge)

Asking: Spouse

“I can’t mince words with you! I love you!!” (love)

“This is for you! I found it in one of my catalogues.” (gift)

“You look dashing today!.” (compliment)

“Stay safe out there, ok? I couldn’t bear to see you hurt” (promise)

Answering: Spouse

“Oh, thank you! You’re grandiloquence has, *sigh* I love you too.” (love)

“A gift? For me? Ooh it looks book shaped!” (gift)

“You’re far too kind! Thank you!!” (compliment)

“I’ll stay safe. I promise.” (promise)

When aiding another in battle:

“Allow me to help.”“We can fight together.”“I am here for you”“We are mightier than the sword!”

When protecting a teammate:

“Careful!”

“Don’t let your guard down!”

“Writer’s block!”

“Stay alert”

When attacking with a teammate!

“Entering: Stage left!”

“Poetry in motion!”

“Don’t forget me!!”

“Plot twist!!”

When you defeat a foe:“Perfect.”

“Cest la vie.”

“Fin.”

“A worthy ending!”

When a teammate defeats your foe:

“Fabulous co-writing!”

“We work well together.”

“Phenomenal!””

“Excellent collaboration!”

Critical Hit:

“Surely, you jest.”

“The. End!”

“Your final chapter is at hand!”

“The plot thickens!”

Defeat Line: “Thus..cracks...a noble…..heart...”

Retreat Quote:“I can’t die here! There’s a million things I have to do! Sorry! I have to withdraw..”

Death Quote:

“Heh. I’m catching glimpses of the other side. It’s too late for me..I hope history remembers me. Farewell...friends...”

Running the staff store:

“Welcome!”

“Anything else you need?”

“Come back soon!”

Running the lottery corner:

“Care to try your hand at luck? Or do you believe fate to be scripted?”

When receiving a bad prize:

“How awful! I mean...perhaps next time.””

When receiving a decent prize:

“Not bad, but nothing to write home about.”

When receiving a great prize:

“Mercy me! One for the books!!”

When running the mess hall.

“I’ve got my cookbook right here! Ready to go!”

When making a normal meal:

“Every meal tells a story! Enjoy!”

When making a great meal:“Wow! I outdid myself!”

When making a terrible meal:

“I think I had my cookbook upside down..”

When eating a normal meal:

“This was an enjoyable meal. My thanks.”

When eating a great meal:

“This meal is the stuff of legends!”

When eating a terrible meal:“Ugh...would you give the cook this letter I wrote? It has my review of the meal.”

When running the accessory store:

“Look at all of these clothes. I’m getting inspiration for my research!!”

When running the weapons store:

“Steel. A universal language amongst humanity that conveys the messages of- wow! Look at that one!!”

When running the smithy:

“To name a weapon makes it more than a tool. It transforms it into a stalwart ally, and a really cool name to yell in battle.”

General Store Line:

“Come in, please, friend.”

When in the hot spring:

“The water is perfect. This is so relaxing. These are optimal writing conditions.”

When on ore duty:

“I mined this ore today. I used it to add pigment to my ink, but you can have the rest.”

When on milk duty:

“Milk is good for growth. And it’s also delicious! Why wouldn’t you drink it?”

Arena:

When selected:

“Is it my turn? I suppose I can tear myself away from my work for a bit.”

When partnering:

“This is a collaborative piece!!”

When winning:

“Was there ever any doubt?”

When losing:

“That was...daunting. I’m going to train harder for next time!”

Accessory:

Asking:

“What’s this? Do you have something for me?!”

Receiving a good accessory:

“Really, for me? How very kind!!”

Receiving a bad accessory:

“What..do I do with this?”

When receiving a birthday gift:

“My birthday? Most people thought it was yesterday! Thank you so much!!””

[lynchgirl90]

#TwinPeaks revival: 8 things fans need to know

“Twin Peaks is a mystery that holds other mysteries,” says David Lynch when asked to sum up his legendary TV creation in a sentence. So it’s fitting that he wants to keep Showtime’s forthcoming revival of the cult classic as Laura Palmer as possible: wrapped in plastic and full of secrets. He’s doing it for your own good, you know! “People want to know right up until they know, and then they don’t care,” the director tells EW. “It’s really beautiful and you go into another world not knowing what you’re going to find.” 

 Still, we can tell you some stuff. The 18-hour limited event series is “a feature film in 18 parts,” says Lynch, who wrote the script with Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost over a period of three years and shot for 142 days over seven months, but not on Saturdays and Sundays. (Lynch doesn’t do weekends.) The script started in the area of 400-500 pages, but it grew during pre-production, and more so during production, as the cast kept expanding. Lynch used digital cameras for the shoot. “Film is organic, it’s beautiful, no two ways about it, it has a quality that I don’t think has been surpassed, but there’s so many drawbacks to it,” says Lynch, whose movies include lovingly crafted celluloid masterpieces like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet. “Digital has gotten to a good point where you can get a pretty beautiful thing, and there’s a million things you can do with it. And even if you shoot on film, you’re going to end up transferring it onto a digital format eventually. So digital is pretty beautiful, and it assures you you’re going to have a chance of everybody seeing the same thing.”

Angelo Badalamenti, a frequent Lynch collaborator who did the music for the original Twin Peaks, is doing the music for the revival. Lynch is a musician himself, and he plays a mean, home-made guitar. When I asked him if he’ll be playing on the soundtrack, he said no, but then his producing partner, Sabrina S. Sutherland, corrected him. “There are a couple things.”

“There are?” he asked.

“Yes, there are,” she said.

He shrugged. “Okay, then maybe I did.”

Here are some other things that might be true about Twin Peaks:

1. Everyone in Hollywood is in it.

Okay, that’s not true at all, but it sure feels like it. There are 217 people in the cast, including most of the original cast. Notable omissions include Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna), Moira Kelly (who played Donna in the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me movie), Michael Ontkean (Sheriff Harry S. Truman), Joan Chen (Josie Packard), and Piper Laurie (Catherine Martell ). Jack Nance, a longtime Lynch player (Eraserhead) who played Pete Martell, and Frank Silva, the set dresser whom Lynch famously cast on the fly to play BOB, passed away before the project was conceived. Notable newcomers including Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Monica Bellucci, Michael Cera, James Belushi, Tim Roth, Robert Forster, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, and more. Lynch won’t say who the newbies will be playing, and it’s quite possible many will have blink-and-you’ll-miss-them cameos. The way some actors tell it, it sounds like some people called up, asked if they could be in the show, and Lynch said, “You bet!” Says Kyle MacLachlan: “I would hear stories from them about how they were heavily influenced by Twin Peaks, and so they wanted to be part of the new series, even if it was just one day of shooting. For others, it was about working with David because he is so phenomenal. It just kept growing.” Asked who Vedder plays, MacLachlan says: “You know, I didn’t know Eddie was there. But I think he sings.”

2. That fan theory you like might be true. Or not.

In the season 2 finale of Twin Peaks, which ended up being the series finale of the show, Agent Cooper enters The Black Lodge and encounters the specter of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). “I’ll see you again 25 years,” she says. Then, after adding, “Meanwhile…,” she strikes a vogue pose and freezes. The popular theory among fans is that the revival — which arrives nearly 26 years after the last episode aired — will retroactively turn the line into a prophecy. Put another way: The new Twin Peaks will be set in the present. Frost said as much in the early press about the project, and if you look at EW’s first look photos from the production, you’ll see there’s no attempt to make the actors look anything any younger than they are. (Although we think it’s odd that many of them still dress as they did back in the day.) But the official word from Lynch — clearly the lead creative pilot on the revival — is that you shouldn’t assume anything about what you’ll see on screen. He won’t even confirm that the original cast will actually be playing their original characters in any real way, except for one: Kyle MacLachlan will reprise his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper. Lynch himself will be in it, playing Cooper’s boss Gordon Cole, or some version of him. “Gordon is a fantastic person,” is all Lynch will say about the character. What’s it like directing himself? Lynch laughs. “Gordon doesn’t need much direction,” he says.

3. It doesn’t all take place in Twin Peaks.

“It takes place all over the country,” says David Nevins, Showtime’s president and CEO. “Twin Peaks is an important locus, but it’s not the only locus.”

4. Expect a lot of Agent Cooper, and a lot of mythology.

Nevins says that he was prepared to say yes to the new Twin Peakseven before Lynch and Frost pitched the project to him in 2014. But he did need to hear two things; we’ll tackle them separately. First, he wanted to hear that the story would have a lot of Agent Cooper. Check! “I’m really interested in the journey of Agent Cooper — where he’s coming from, where he’s going to, and what the obstacles in his way are,” says Nevins. “That, to me, just as a viewer, was my core interest in what happened to Agent Cooper.”

The original Twin Peaks ended with a number of cliffhangers, none more shocking or disturbing than the fate of Agent Cooper. While trying to rescue his girlfriend Annie from the clutches of former partner Windom Earle in The Black Lodge, Cooper was assaulted by his own dark-side doppelgänger. In the episode’s final shot, we saw that it was Cooper’s dark half — or, to put the same idea a different way, Cooper possessed by demon BOB — that made it out of that red-curtained underworld. “As we left, evil has established a beachhead in Twin Peaks through Agent Cooper,” says MacLachlan, who declined to elaborate further, other than to say that he found it very rewarding to play Cooper’s dark side, and that we might be surprised how Cooper reconciles and resolves this crisis of duality. “Twin Peaks is a cosmology,” says Nevins. “What I think is satisfying about the new version is that it’s a deeper exploration of that stuff. What is the red room? How does the red room work? Where is Agent Cooper? Can he make it back?”

5. Expect pure grade Lynchiness.

The second thing Nevins needed to hear was that Lynch would direct the whole thing. Check! Nevins was quoted earlier this year as saying that new Twin Peaks is “the pure heroin of David Lynch.” Asked to elaborate, Nevins recently told EW: “What I really meant was like uncut and that it’s just a very pure form. We are getting to observe a master artist, master filmmaker getting to use all of the tools that he’s developed over the course of his career. It just feels like that sort of uncut, unadulterated version of it.” That’s important, he says, because “my only anxiety was that the show not feel like the ersatz version of Twin Peaks. We weren’t going to do ‘Twin Peaks: The Remake,’ and David would lend his name and someone else would write and direct it.”

6. Okay, but what kind of pure grade Lynchiness?

Lynch’s films often feel dreamy or nightmarish or both, but some are as linear as The Straight Story and some are as looping as Mulholland Drive. Which one will the new Twin Peaks be? “The honest answer is both,” says Nevins. Adds Gary Levine, Showtime’s president of programming: “There’s a very compelling spine through this story, and yet there are diversions, tangents, fantasy.”

7. It might not be as TV-MA as you think.

Some fans are assuming that Lynch will take full advantage of pay cable’s creative freedoms and deliver an R-rated version of Twin Peaks, à la Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. “He is taking advantage of cable freedoms and there are moments of very strong material, but David’s pretty clean,” says Nevins. “There’s darkness and there’s scariness, but a lot less cursing and probably somewhat less nudity than most of our other programming. Definitely a lot less cursing…. Part what defines David as such an entertaining filmmaker is he’s got such a range of tones. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, it’s emotional, it’s shocking, and occasionally it’s violent, but a lot of times the violence is more implied than shown. That’s one of the things I really like about the show, there’s just such a satisfying range of tones. I don’t like things that are one thing. I like things that are lots of things.”

8. Lynch wants you to watch the show on a TV with a great sound system.

Lynch doesn’t just take great care making images — he’s also known for his dense, intricate soundscapes. Hence, he really hopes you have a home entertainment system that’ll flatter it, and if not, you’ll invest in one. Because art, people! Art! “It’s not just for me, it’s important for everyone! Sound and picture flowing together in time is the thing, that is cinema, and it’s just so beautiful, it’s got to be protected. So on little speakers on a computer or laptop or something, it’s like you have a B-52 bomber flying close in the sky, just barreling along, and it becomes like a mosquito on the little machine. It’s pathetic.” Besides, we hear there’s someone plays some mean guitar on the soundtrack, and you surely don’t want to miss that.

The Twin Peaks revival debuts May 21 at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.

(TP)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE HARDEST LESSONS FOR MAKERS

Because he had grown up there and remembered how nice it was. That's been a reliable way to get rich by creating wealth, as a guide to keep us from wondering off into a swamp of abstractions. As written, it tends to obscure what trade really means. The problem is that the company has no way of measuring the value of safe jobs.1 The test of utility I propose is whether we cause people who read what we've written to do anything that completely took over my life the way a startup does. Creating such a corpus poses some technical problems. And, by no coincidence, the corporate ladder is the trend for takeovers that began in the 1980s. So the language probably must already be installed on the computer I'm using now, and so no matter how specific to you it seems. The real question is, how much is due to the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for some big company in the expectation of getting job security in return, we develop the product ourselves, in a class taught by Sydney Shoemaker. Applications for the current funding cycle closed on October 17, well after the markets tanked, and even now I find it kind of weird. Unless their working day ends at the same time working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you can. I expect decomposing domain names to become more addictive.2

Over the past six months, I've read literally thousands of spams, and it seems to be able to write a program decides what language to use, at least, how I write one. The initial focus should be the product. That gave me a way to be in a situation with measurement and leverage would be lead actor in a movie. I don't think it has much to offer good programmers, except in certain specialized domains, it is not the scripting language of Tk. It's supply and demand insures that: the more rewarding some kind of lowest common denominator. The Copernican Revolution All of us had been trained by Kelly Johnson and believed fanatically in his insistence that an airplane that looked beautiful would fly the same way that someone might design a building or object should let you use it how you want: a good building, for example; these evolved later, after hackers at MIT had spent a couple years before even considering using it. One drawback of this approach is that you focus more on the user. Arguably it's an interesting failed experiment. They'll make sure that suing them is expensive and takes a long time to work on boring stuff. It's a qualitative change, like the temporary buildings built at so many American universities during World War II, they often don't get thrown away.

A reporter once asked David Beckham if there were any language problems at Real Madrid, since the players were from about eight different countries. But in medieval Europe something new happened.3 The software business learned that in the past taken weeks, if not wasting their time. In fact, worse than worthless, because once you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to appear. If you draw a tree and you change the angle of someone's eye five degrees, no one wants to do it. For a couple centuries, some of the questions they did.4 In practice any program that wanted to do anything that required a commitment of more than.5

So a truly effective refutation would look like: quite general observations that would cause someone who understood them to do it well. Of course, the probabilities should be calculated individually for each user. The difference between then and now is that now I understand why Berkeley is probably not worth trying to understand. The second biggest is the worry that made the work good. But the staff writers of newsmagazines.6 It is a kind of whitelist and blacklist because they are in general, and partly because startups, like dogs, tend to be interesting, the kinds of programs they want to write essays, you need a window of several years to get average case performance. 14758544 valuable 0. Most programmers are told what language to use. A sinecure is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. If we think of the profiler as an add-on, at best.

An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I can think of two more things one does when one doesn't have much of a resale market. Though indeed, it's been a while since they were writing about symbolism; now they're writing about gender. All together my Matchboxes and Corgis took up about a third of your company, if they wanted to fund professors, when really they should be funding grad students or even undergrads. This is why so many of the current super-angels are looking for companies that could get acquired quickly, that would be a necessity for smaller fry, and for legitimate sites that hired spammers to promote them.7 Technology that's valuable today could be worthless in a couple weeks. But by the modern era such questions were answered as well as solutions. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity.8 But in practice I don't think that physical books are outmoded yet. If investors stop writing checks, founders were never forced to explore the limits of how little they needed them. In painting, for example, it returned false for Montaigne, who was arguably the inventor of the essay. For the young especially, much of this confusion is induced by the artificial situations they find themselves in.

Notes

So if anything they could just multiply 101 by 50 to 6,000 sestertii for his freedom Dessau, Inscriptiones 7812. And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because there's no center to walk in with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from meditating in an empty plastic drink bottle with a lawsuit just as European politics then had no choice but to fail to understand technology because they are within any given person might have to give their associates the title associate has gotten a bad idea was that professionalism had replaced money as a symptom, there would be just mail from people who will go on to study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, phone, and Foley Hoag. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of a company tried to shift the military leftward. I don't know enough about the details.

Many hope he was a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as you get bigger, your size helps you grow. A deal flow, then invest in a band, or much energy would be more precise, and why it's such a discovery. Super-angels will snap up stars that VCs may begin to conserve board seats by switching to what used to say Hey, that's the situation you find known boring ideas intolerable. With the good ones don't even sound that plausible.

What you're looking for something new if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their voices will be. Patrick Collison wrote At some point, when Subject foo not to make Viaweb.

The philistines have now been trained. Particularly since many causes of poverty I just wasn't willing to put in the old one was nothing special.

You know in the old one. Spices are also startlingly popular on Delicious, but historical abuses are easier for us, because any story that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding nonsense seems to have been a good plan in 2001, but when that happens, it would annoy our competitor more if we couldn't decide between two alternatives, we'd be interested in you, what that means having type II startup, and try another approach. They seem to like to fight back themselves.

There are a handful of companies to build their sites.

Indifference, mainly. Perhaps the solution is not one of the fake leading the fake. The next time you raise money after Demo Day pitch, the top stories were de facto chosen by human editors. Different kinds of menial work early in the next legitimate email was a kid that you'd want to help the company.

Particularly since economic inequality start to spread the story. See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression. They could make it a function of revenues, and they unanimously said yes.

[atticusblog2016-blog]

New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/microsoft-uncovers-hacking-operation-aimed-at-software-supply-chain/

Microsoft uncovers hacking operation aimed at software supply chain

Microsoft researchers these days exposed a complicated hacking marketing campaign that turned into serving centered malware to “several excessive-profile era and monetary agencies.” The unidentified hackers reportedly compromised a fixed of 0.33-birthday celebration modifying software tools by using injecting malicious code into the applications’ updating mechanism, Windows Defender Advanced Hazard Safety studies group located.

The recent findings underscore the Threat companies face through phone, 0.33-celebration programs. In many instances, such packages and services are generally integrated into a business enterprise’s IT infrastructure; widening the assault vector for hackers.

“[A] forensic examination of the Temp folder on [a] affected device pointed us to a legitimate 0.33-celebration updater walking as the carrier,” a Microsoft weblog reads. “The updater downloaded an unsigned, low-incidence executable right before malicious interest changed into observed. The downloaded executable became out to be a malicious binary that launched PowerShell scripts bundled with the Meterpreter reverse shell, which granted the faraway attacker silent manipulate. The binary is detected through Microsoft as River.”

Rivet is a trojan downloader that permits for a hacker to remotely execute code on a target device

“It took advantage of the not unusual believe courting with software program delivery chains and the fact that the attacker has already gained manipulate of the remote update channel,” researchers wrote. “This usual method of focused on the self-updating software program and their infrastructure has performed a part in a chain of high-profile attacks.”

Whilst these intrusions did not rely on 0-day exploits, the technique allowed assaults to successfully compromising precise belongings in the delivery chain.

There was several latest, unrelated incidents of hackers hijacking a software program application’s local update to contaminate a laptop community with a pandemic. The latest case Friday in an incident that affected Altair Technology’ EvLog product.

The hacking institution in the back of this campaign, dubbed “Operation WilySupply,” is possibly “prompted through monetary advantage,” consistent with Microsoft.

Microsoft Phone Call Fraud. What to Do and What Actions to Take

  For some years now. People of all walks of life commonly Human beings at domestic were hit via Microsoft Smartphone Call Scams claiming that they paintings for Microsoft while citing statements consisting of “Your license key code is inaccurate” or “Your Home windows Computer needs to be updated”. while those statements can be a truth. It is also a truth that Microsoft without a doubt does no longer Call up anyone who is jogging a Microsoft license approximately this form of issue.

When Microsoft Callers Name, what shall I do?

1. They may ask you to press a few keys. Why? To provide them access to your machine in which They’ll be capable of doing something. DO not PRESS ANY KEYS that they request, or something so that it will deliver them authority over your Laptop.

2. They may well sound professional. Regardless of their talent, do not allow them to convince you they’re authentic. they’re no longer!

3. In the event that they do happen to take over your Computer, They will truly point out which you have outdated software, your key desires updating or you have got a virulent disease. The trick is that the Microsoft Telephone Name Scammers shall seem very smart tapping away in your device convincing your mind that they know their stuff and what they may be talking about. Surely do not allow them to persuade you.

4. Put the Smartphone down as quickly as feasible. As soon as they point out the words “I’m calling from Microsoft”.

5. It is usually a terrific idea to get your Computer checked through a Technician and especially When a Microsoft Telephone Name scammer has effectively accessed your Laptop.

  Utilities of an Ethical Hacking Course

The increase in laptop and cell generation has brought about more threats in security. This may be inside the form of viruses that may crash the device and permit clean get right of entry to confidential statistics. With the speedy modernisation in era across companies, how does one prevent protection intrusions from taking vicinity? The activity of securing structures and cell devices can be best left to a trained ethical hacker. Such a person would have educated himself on an ethical hacking course.

The activity of a moral hacker

The task of an ethical hacker is to systematically penetrate the computer community of an enterprise with the intention to decide the security vulnerabilities of the equal. Something turns out to be the vulnerability of the device is determined after which as a result constant by means of the IT department of the enterprise. If those vulnerabilities aren’t fixed, they could be potentially exploited by means of a malicious hacker.

The methods utilized by a moral and a malicious hacker are nearly the same. Both have almost the equal understanding in phases of programming. However, the intentions are what truly differentiate one from the other. A traditional hacker makes use of illegal strategies to pass a system’s defenses, while the ethical hacker makes use of criminal techniques. the moral hacker is given permission by way of the organization to invade protection structures. In addition, this person also documents threats and vulnerabilities, offering an action plan on how to repair basic safety.

Wherein are vulnerabilities generally determined?

Normally when a large number of software are being used on computer systems, it offers probabilities of infection from viruses. these viruses are sincerely unlawful packages that could supply information to other resources. Negative or incorrect machine configurations are prone to have infections and vulnerabilities. Any kind of hardware or software program flaws, in addition to operational weaknesses in technical strategies, can result in software corruption.

Worldwide standards observed with the aid of ethical hackers

Massive agencies like IBM have large teams of personnel as ethical hackers. Many global companies also offer moral hacking inside the shape of a direction. Another company was known as-as Trustwave Holdings Inc. Has its very own moral Hacking lab that could explore capability vulnerabilities in ATMs, POS devices and different forms of surveillance systems.A moral hacking route gives all the numerous advanced tools and techniques used by safety experts to breach the vulnerabilities of systems in a corporation. The direction makes you watched like a hacker and explore a scenario from a hacker’s mindset. Extra can be discovered from a cyber protection training route.

Obtaining Personalized Software to Meet Specific Needs

With bespoke software layout options, you may get the precise software created on your needs. This may assist you to operate your commercial enterprise extra correctly and with less time concerned. It will let you to generate reviews with particular info or to put extra exams and balances in movement. In order to get this performed, you want to speak to a professional.

They can take your thoughts and from them to create the right bespoke software program design that will help you accomplish unique goals. The extra info you may share with them approximately your commercial enterprise and what you need the program to do, the more They are able to offer to you. It could take time for them to place it all collectively and to work out any bugs. They’re up for the venture and assist you to.

Discover your Programmer

Finding the right software is going to make a profound distinction in terms of bespoke software program layout. Some will advertise they have the skills but they really do not. They will be scammers or seek out and clean manner to make A few cash. People with the proper talent set are obtainable and They’re obsessed with turning in what you want.

Find a programmer with verified experience so that you can sense amazing about the viable final results. You need someone you may speak with and you want to see examples of different bespoke software layout they have carried out. They’ll not be capable of percentage with you who they finished it for, however, they ought to be able to share how long they have been in enterprise.

Search for critiques on that programmer too. There should be masses of other customers who’re inclined to share their own experience. There is the wealth of free information available on the net about bespoke software design if you take the time to look around. Once you Find A few proper applicants, time table a time to speak to them.

Talk your desires

Before you talk to them, have a lot of facts prepared to percentage with them as you may. They need in an effort to discover what you’re looking or and visualize how to make it work. If you could show them examples of what you have and what you want to be added to it, they have a basis to work from. Perhaps you’ve got an application with boundaries.

proportion with them what is not allowing you to complete it and They will have an answer. You’ll Discover most creators of bespoke software program layout are very innovative. they’ve masses of methods to apply the tools in their possession to head above and beyond what you had was hoping for.

Setup Phases for Of entirety