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angellurgy2 · 10 months ago

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Hiveship

hii! this is the 1st and 2nd chapter of my new story, as a little show of whats to come when i make it a full-length book.

cw for bug rape but like, its also just an introduction to deeper non/sexual ways the bugs will destroy this girl's soul. you'll see!

i'd appreciate if people checked this out/gassed it up because i've worked reallyyy hard on this for a bit ^-^

CHAPTER 1

A live wire sparks as loretta reaches a gloved claw inside the open electrical box, her digits blunted by her heavily plated and padded, alabaster white cosmonaut suit. she roots around the active electricity, scraping out chunks of the greenish-brown sludge growing in its crevices- the same mysterious viscous slime that’s been popping up in parts across her starship over and over the past few weeks. her theories ranged from an excremetal expulsion of an unidentified space object, to some disgraceful cosmonaut’s trash finding its way into her ship’s vents.

she clicks the button for the analyzing tool of her protective visor, closely examining the fluid. long thin wires splay across all sections of the large junction, leaving burning hot indents in the thick substances that feel like way too much of a fire risk. looking at the wires, spread out in patterned parallels like gigantic spider-webs, an anxious tinge of fear strikes her. don’t fall in, don’t get caught- robots don’t need any more prey. not that you’re prey. you aren’t.

she flicks her visor back off, worried her sweat might fog up the the visor, and continues swiping the rest of the gunk into a bin.

all clean, she fixes the fuses back into place before immediately making her way back over to the equipment corridor to hang up her suit. on the way she passes vibrant posters of mechanical cross-section diagrams, detailed anatomy drawings of every variety of species she could scavenge, and historical propaganda posters. it was a nice splash of existence inside a clinical minimalist coating.

lounging in the cabin suite on her sofa, she flips her state-provided entertainment console to the galactic news. on-screen a suited, pristine looking woman takes the centre stage behind a stretched out desk. her voice is calm and analytical, with a hint of soft sympathy that can’t be hidden no matter how hard of a professional facade they must put on.

“News from the pandora planets have finally reached the internal core, revealing devastating effects of the latest assault campaign from the exoskeletal hives, multiple colonies’ messengers have reported complete razing of ground and sub-ground infrastructure, with several not appearing for the census at all. the URSS military and all commune bioships have retreated back to pantheon-V for rehabitation before a pandora counter-takeover can be attempted.”

Loretta shudders. the exoskeletals have been advancing deeper into URSS territory much faster than ever before, the fact that the state hasn’t been able to put a stop to it—and that the threat has only gotten more aggressive—makes sweat begin to pour down her head. if she was doing a term with the forces or part of a commune science crew she’d probably be worried for her life right now. thankfully, her ship was currently flying safely in one of the middle systems, relaxing in orbit of an abandoned desert world after recently coming back from a call of excursion to the outer worlds. she always enjoyed the quiet of minimal space travel and the utter lack of civilization when she gazed down upon a world, so this has been her favourite spot to reside for a long while. from the cabin module’s glass wall she can see such stark vistas of sandy mountain ranges, demarcating the most beautiful fields of gigantic outstretching spiny cactus.

with a loud buzz the tv automatically switches to the nightly Sallite news segment, where they broadcast the most important of state propaganda to every television set at 8pm local time. with an exasperated sigh she turns the volume all the way down to 1, takes off her grey tank, and throws herself into her cushioney bed. a switch on the wall next to the alloy headboard turns on the room’s surround sound to a soft pitter of forested rainfall, and she falls asleep in a matter of seconds.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Loretta awakes to the foreign sound of a sloppy wriggling near the floor by the end of her bed. jerking upright, she quickly slides into the suit boots she had laid at the side of her bed, strapping them tight, and moves to examine the intruder.

a pulsating green slime slides itself across the floor, leaving a small trail of slightly transparent lime goo behind it. loretta kneels to look at it closer. she could swear it’s looking right back at her- though without any obvious eyes or features of its own. it excretes another loud squelching sound and fires off a copper-smelling mist around it, some of which sprays directly into loretta’s face causing her to wince and tear up at the dense cloud of smell. she reflexively slams her booted heel down into the creature, stomping through its gelatinous body.

she attempts to swiftly scrape the thing off her heel,, but the flattened slime spreads to encase her entire boot before she can even look down at it. when she does, she sees sticky lime green half-translucent goo coating the suit metal like adhesive, excreting a slight burning odour. loretta throws her leg around trying to eject the subject, but only manages to trip over herself, tumbling to the thick panelled floor with a resounding thud.

on her back she watches with wide terrified eyes as the slime continues to slowly expand up her limb. it should be stretching itself out fully by now, but it seems to have an infinite amount of mass to express over her. some kind of anomalous entity from deep space? but how would it have gotten this deep into the middle systems? a new wormhole would’ve been reported immediately, and the nearest systems are all too well-inhabited. the gears turn in her head, clearly rusted over, struggling to think of a potential scientific hypothesis. by the time she breaks out of her clouded monologue and thinks to stop analyzing, the slime has already subsumed her entire left leg, grasping spreading tiny green tendrils grappling for the next part, which is fully uncovered by the comforting protection of the URSS engineer corps. she struggles to force herself away by clawing into the floor, but the slime seems to have extra weight to pin her leg down. such a little creature, overpowering her so easily- it must be alien. she doesn’t stop struggling even if it pins her utterly. if she could just get to the corner and grab her piece she could-

her scrabbling eyes find themselves staring at the cabin’s ceiling vent. a thick bile-like grey sludge seeps down from the cracks, forcing her to hurry. loretta shoves her hand into the green slime against her better judgement, trying to peel it off like one of her mother’s gelatin molds. her hands try to slide underneath it but they find themselves struggling to push against an unmovable solid, far away from the gravyesque consistency it had before. then she feels her legs, or rather, feels the lack of feeling of her legs. when she tries to move them, she cant even muster a shake, lower half pinned to the floor, not even pins or needles remaining. it doesn’t stop her relentless pushing and attempts to pull herself out by her arms, but she might as well be an amputee at this point. like one of those UOA prisoners of war from back in the day, laser neutered to be nothing but working hands for the Authority’s machines.

unable to get away from the oncoming deluge, lorreta realizes it must be relent or die. and so she does, shutting her eyes tight and curling her lips inward together like the anti-parasitites’ studies have taught her. though this wasn’t the typical annalidesque parasite commonly found in the outer cosmos, or a parasite at all for all she knows, it’s the best her dizzy mind can handle. and as she feels the sludge’s drip touch down on her estrogenated skin, it succeeds in helping stop it from flowing inside her eyes. she can feel it coat the skin tight, like a face mask but smelling of wood and suffocating and lively probing at her pores, blocking her vision black with its opaque body.

the sludge now dispensed, loretta senses a chance and attempts to pry the mask off of her. blindly groping for a free spot by her neck and sliding her unkempt nails under it and into the disgusting goo. it feels like a cadaver from anatomy class under her fingers, diving into the fat and peeling away the outer layer. but this corpse has undergone rigor mortis, and loretta’s attempts to peel it off go only slightly better than with the green thing, lifting an inch before it slaps itself back on even tighter. her second attempt goes even worse, her arms starting to feel numb and anaesthetized. she lifts her arms to fight but she cant feel the texture of what she touches anymore, and then the viral limpness travels to the rest of her motor function, and they flop uselessly at her sides. no part of her body responding to her brains frenzied orders to move, the most she can do is flail inside.

she pictures Andromeda-ZE in her mind’s eye, emotionally travelling to the place she spent most her childhood. she’s running through the market, the most well-known place in the capital, excitedly waving at family friends and commune teachers like she’s a kid again, so happy, so free, so ignorant. red and yellow and orange colours shine bright on the market stalls, sand and wood structures stand beautifully tall around her, everything is even more beautiful than it was when she was young. the wind on her cheeks as she runs makes her glow with a safety she doesn’t feel in the atmospheric void in space. not far ahead she spots her unit hut, and ramps up her speed. in a minute of invigorating sprint, she makes it to the large aspen door, knocking 5 times. she hears several light footsteps trot up and bounces with excitement. the door slowly creeps open…

and a hulking nurse bug towers over her. its mandibles chitter, the egg sack on its back wiggles, and its claws rub together in front of its chest. she looks into the creature’s eyes and sees a thousand mirrors staring back at her. she screams muffled into the slime gag, jolting away from the colour behind her eyelids, and back into the void in front of them. instead of trying to push inside like loretta assumed, the sludge begins to creep into the part of her eye socket above her lids, pushing with prying hair-like digits. her heart cramps, and she can feel her heavy perspiration being immediately absorbed by the material the second it drips. she doesn’t want to close her eyes, doesn’t want to see the bugs that close again- the spindling inner legs, the slimey chitin, vision of swarms of exoskeletals charging her squad flash through her, all she wants to do is scream but all it does is wear out the last muscles she can work. but she can’t stop, she wails banshily, reverberating in her own skulll. and then she can’t manage to hold her eyes open any longer.

the jointed arthropod returns, fully subsuming her soul.

“it’s okay, sweet darling Lore, we are here now” it speaks in her mothers voice. sweet and soothing.

CHAPTER 2

loretta wakes up in a stasis vat, her body floating in air like oil. green biofluid drenches her skin, manufactured nutrients flooding her organs, keeping her fed and stable. she smiles, thinking back to her first spacewalk, bounding into the open cosmos with footless steps. she kicks her foot up, sending herself into an airy backflip. her mouth opens on its own and takes in a load of the fluid. it tastes like the earth pineapples her mothers would trade for on her birthdays. she has to figure out what this is when she’s out of here. and by the looks of her motor functions, she’ll be out of this in no time.

* * *

she awakes groggily inside of another vat. there’s no more fluid, but something similar sticks to every inch of her skin. the walls of steel have turned into a coffinesque cocoon, fleshy and aboreal brown and wriggling with her movements. yet as she attempts to push herself backwards, her hands still find themselves scraping cold metal. she sees how some light manages to seep through the cracks of the chitinous chamber, and prods at the squishy folds where the tiny glowing rays strike, poking through an inch or two of foreign flesh before her fingertips feel air. bio vat? or some sort of.. metamorphosis chamber? she can’t remember how she got here, or when she signed up for such a procedure. she needs to find someone before she gets stuck. she lifts her moist lips to one of the little holes and screams out a plea for help. she manages to fit another finger out, and begins trying to spread open the breach when she’s stopped by someone’s cold fingers pulling hers. one of the scientists, or guards?

the person outside pulls on loretta’s hand hard and she feels her light body raise up to the roof of her confines. despite her reaching the walls, they keep going, tugging forcing painful friction between her bare limbs and the meaty hide. in a few short, supernatural pulls she is burst through the sac entirely, getting to see chunks of what appears to be sinew and slime splattering the surroundings as she flies through antigravital space and crashes hard into a familiar wall.

HISSSSSSSTHH

innumerous spindly brown limbs bringing fading memories of phasmid anatomy charts stretch out across the polished floor and walls now brutally scattered with keepsake and furniture debris, looking like abstract blobs in loretta’s slime coated vision. blobs which are constantly being absorbed upwards into the air by twitchy movements. loretta grasps at the wall behind her, pulling herself away from the enormous creature.

slamming into the far wall, she attempts to reach for where her dresser should be, where her trusty sidearm should be awaiting its imminent retrieval. then she remembers the lack of gravity.

it was a stupid idea to make a grav switch so accessible. she never even uses it, and humans are the only creature out in this abyss who are weak to its pull. stupid stupid stupid. she tries to look for it in the debris but can’t make it out through all the other white and grey blobs.

in the room, a few brown splotches stand out, utterly foreign to the ship’s shade-based palette. she stares closer, and even more seem to appear. the black space where the open door leads to dark corriders begins spewing them out en masse until at least two dozen of them scatter across the floors walls and ceiling of the cabin, staring right back into her with beady pinpricked eyes.

a bug pounces, its thin limbs pinning loretta hard. the hair on its tarsi scrape across her bare arms jolting goosebumps up her entire body. its membranal underside presses up close, making her shake with unease as its squishy segmented body rubs against her and coats her with an inky discharge well familiar to her after multiple campaigns.

click, click, click, click. clinking mandibles together, like a hungry and petulant child. antennae rub against her ears, just then noticing their dulling by a xenotic wax substance. yet the vile hissing of a group of specially angered freaks still deafens.

searing pain transports into her flesh. she screams but a sludgey backup in her windpipe stops everything but the vibration. loretta looks down at the thick brown apical claw stuck inches deep in her side. a gaping void begins a slow seeping of crimson. another of the blobs quickly dashes into her view, bursting into definition as it pops up at the wound’s side. the same black liquid that drapes over her skin begins to leak out of its open mouth-thing, mixing and diluting the blood until the cut is naught but a thick black wall subsuming a portion of her outer thigh.

she looks forward again as a twinge of neck pain insults her for forgetting herself, and sees the first roach reaching its body upwards. a yonic hole in its abdomen begins to slowly invert, while a large black tendril reaches out of the now-extremity and fluidly twirls itself around loretta’s leg, dripping ichor all the way.

she’d never gotten this close to one of the breeders before, to the point she didn’t even recognize their exotype until now. as far as she knew, they stayed deep inside the tunneled grounds of the hive worlds, fucking like lagomorphs to appease their queens and ever-outbreed the URSS’s onslaughts. and yet, here they are.

the appendage flicks into loretta’s belly, proding at and pushing inside her navel cavity. it feels almost like she’s being licked by a pet dog, or it would if it wasn’t by a fucking bug. the creature tries to push forward past the inch-deep space and is swiftly yanked back in turn, reaching the end of its rope. loretta sighs. if they can’t even reach her then the worst they could probably do is-

the tentacle prods at a lower place before a concept can reach her nerves. a deserted, forgotten plateau, a space too human for her to accept. sliding over a smooth ravine, wet shocks drive up her legs. coiling atrocity digs into her malleable dirt like the hills in pandora. she screams like she imagines it must. though the terror speaks in soft, writhing texture, and not pain. pandora and i, sister bodies- desecrated in twain.

she turns her head to the room’s one window. beyond the hexagonal plasteel frame, one of the last things held up through the chaos, halcyon skies stretch out for infinity- vistas of beautiful achromatic calm broken only by dots of terrestrial colour. an anaerobic dead zone, where nothing except calm would subsume her. devour her. she yearns to feel that cold blanket take her now. she dreams of the window bursting open, space gaining pressure the glass wasn’t ready for, and ripping them all out with it. she dreams of mom bursting through the door gun in hand. she dreams of simply disappearing from all being.

from above her head slithers another pair of mandible and trio of forceps, digging into her budding chest. a sparse pink miasma sprays across her vision, and she’s stumbled out of her wonder by a furious coughing fit rising in her trachea, and finally taking off some of the adhesive coating her throat alongside it. she tries to look back outside and the claws digging deeper just force her gaze right back. her eyes glaze over with water and, unable to wipe the sleeves away, it drowns her. it fills her mouth until her muscles strain, spread taught like an epithelial fingertrap. she cant help but cough more, painfully clenching on the foreign object sliding deeper inside using her windpipe as a transistor to her weak points.

beige meat squishes up against her face, phantom sensations of a man’s stomach thrusting. it should never have been able to get more evil than that. how did they put human’s cruelty into animals, was it taught? more inches of squishish meat force the thought from her shrouded head. her tears taste like ink. maybe they like it that way.

Lorettas’s hull stretches with fullness and terror. she cant see it, but she can feel it bulging her front extremitously. it feels like the two tendrils will soon meet in the middle. she shudders in fear and feels them swirl inside her as punishment.

she feels a slight relent, and her thoughts finally losing their haze. the creatures in front of her thrust backwards through the air, and the twisting coiling tentacles whorl their way out like a pullcord. again she has to feel the thing climb her hole, leaving a painful space where there used to be nothing, unable to go back to nothing. it is ashamed and sobbing in it’s own. what a bipolar old lady you are, where is your rage?

his voice forces itself inside of her. look what you’ve done. ruined and irreparable. you must’ve loved it. you and your little bug fascination. maybe if you didn’t spend your time with abominations, you wouldn’t have become one.

she screams back. it’s not too late, i don’t love them. he’ll never control me again, i’ve carved so much into the world, i won’t let myself be belittled. you’re smart, they’re miniscule- a surprise assault shows their utter lack of strength. i’ll kill them all if i have to. i’ll prove it, i will.

she tries to open her eyes again and sees, stained by pink clouds floating in her sclera, a huge mutated insectoid towering behind the others. a large dynastinaen horn displays ignorant ideas of its strength above its excitedly quivering mandibles. or perhaps the exoskeletals have no need for concepts of pride or egotism. perhaps hive mentality’s destroyal of the individual will always grant them an advantage. no thought of the victim- evil little creatures. no different than the evil of the Authority. no different than-

two blunt black mandibles thrust into her chest. the wind is crushed from her body before she can realize what’s happening. she is too dazed to look at the impact. her deflated cadaver is thrusted into the air, and carried,

her vision bobs up and down as swift twig limbs drag her forth without thought. station windows fly past her, blobs vaguely looking like her favourite posters lay scattered and sliced in pieces, slime staining them irreparable as it coats the floor. does their cruelty know no limits? was the destruction of her ship and her spirit not enough? the destruction of her people? will anything sway their pure evil? she wants to cry, but she’s already using all the tears her body can muster.

black begins to gorge itself on the halls, the chunky whirring of automatic doors blares in her ears drowning out the chattering sounds of dozens of limbs. the hydraulics were a deeply familiar sound, one she had always cherished hearing. it felt like a reminder of the spacecraft’s life, always interacting to her existence, responding in kind noise whenever loretta’d root around fixing her insides. it was a comforting relationship, wonderful in its unconditionality.

now, her beautiful partner screamed red with anger. they destroyed her entrance too. the airlocks outer seal is burst open with what could fairly be assumed to be anti-ship cannons, if not for the claw marks and acid tainting it all. she looks through the inner seal, into the void where death surely awaits, her body has been so painfully torn and remade, that she can’t make herself put up a single limb to fight at the end. she imagines a blaster in her hand, and clenches its handle tight. then she opens her eyes, and her fingers havent moved an inch.

then her face meets cold surface, jagged. then the green drapes grab onto her skin again. then her blood mixes with the green and turns the colour to the same rust she smelled in the air at the start. then she feels the perfectly held-at-average air of her beloved spaceship turn into cold freezing anguish of the outside. then she feels her body turn to nothing. then, she feels nothing at all.

#puppy writing #uhm #rbs encouraged #i needddd attention chat #but yeah um id appreciate ppl letting me know what they think too!!

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shewokeonmywillytil · 2 months ago

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Chapter One - Are You Ready to Start the Show?

short summary: non-linear plotline involving the introduction and the beginning of william and henry's relationship. it's about as healthy as you expect.

warnings: n/a

word count: ~2.6k words (2,598 words, to be exact!)

extra notes: i'd like to thank mod dogg for editing the dialogue and various other friends who offered me writing advice throughout the development of this chapter. i'd also like to thank you guys for your patience!

July 10th, 1955 - 11:43 PM - Big John’s Tavern

A young marine, still in uniform and fresh into his post-deployment phase, was effortlessly adjusting to the civilian lifestyle. His cheeks flushed feverishly as his head tilted into the passionate kiss he exchanged with another man who was possessively cornering him against the brick wall. The marine sniveled as he reinforced his grip on the other man's cheap purple jumper through hesitated, labored breaths. He leaned forward to kiss him again. Then again. And again. Eventually, they both pulled away to share a look that read nothing but shock and devotion. Before another kiss was shared between them, the marine panicked as he pushed the stranger away from him and ran out of the door, never to be seen inside the bar again.

The stranger stands alone in the empty bar. He stares at the wooden floor and begins to constantly lick at his dry lips as a look of realization passes in his eyes. It wasn't just the faint taste of rum and coke or the remnants of the cigarettes the marine smoked that he was missing. He dug into his right pocket, pulling out a crumpled cigarette pack to pull one of the cancerous sticks out with trembling hands. He took a sharp breath and held it between his slightly yellow teeth, tightly closing his eyes for a few seconds as it burned. It was plastic-wrapped with tears. As he strikes a match he found in his other pocket against the bar table, he swallows something rough in his throat and holds the flame to the end of the cigarette. He took a long drag from it.

He immediately had to sit down on one of the stools, coughing the inhaled smoke while clutching his chest. A new feeling of desperate longing weighed heavily against it, squeezing it to the point he felt suffocated and unable to function. The nicotine and tobacco running through his veins did nothing to soothe his nerves. He couldn't ignore it. Suddenly, he was seven again. He overheard the terrible news about his parents while eavesdropping on the conversation in the downstairs parlor. Similar to that night, he hugged himself tightly as he began to sob quietly. He was convinced that he was dying. His world was ending again.

July 10th, 1955 - 0936 - Charleston International Airport

In time, when tears didn't completely obscure his vision, the stranger's eyebrows furrowed deeply as he angrily grabbed the folded-up piece of paper in his pocket. He couldn't pinpoint the visceral emotion that he was feeling, but at least he had a name to blame on his vulnerable state, along with a wasted cigarette he barely smoked: Henry Emily.

The rows of polyester recliner chairs in the cramped space dedicated to the airport’s lounge were mostly unoccupied. Its visitors preferred to flock near the lounge’s dedicated bar that served watered-down cocktails and overpriced vending machine snacks to anyone willing to pay for them. Currently, a small group of marines slowly huddled around the bar to hurriedly order drinks whilst holding their military identification cards towards the bartender's face for the slight chance of redeeming a discount. The outlier from the group kept to himself in the corner of the lounge. He was covering the flame produced from his zippo while lighting his cigarette, glancing down at the two-inch television set that was attached to his chair's armrest.

The only thing playing at the moment was a broadcast of last night’s football game. He didn't care for football. He didn't even care for sports. However, the young private was willing to take any form of civilian entertainment considering he had just landed from an eighteen-hour flight from Korea. He rested his face on a propped fist as he watched the players dash across the small screen with lidded eyes. Cigarette ash landed on his ironed-out uniform, which mildly ruined his outward appearance of being the physical embodiment of those cardboard cutouts of a masculine, attractive marine outside of recruitment offices. If he had it his way, the young private would easily fade into obscurity while his peers went on about their lives. Being naturally quiet and reserved, this was such a common occurrence in his social life that he was convinced that his role as a wallflower was essential for the natural order of things.

However, things were going to be different this time, whether he liked it or not. A peculiar sight snapped him out of his dissociative state, causing him to turn his head to figure out where it came from. Its owner looked to be an eccentric character with his Technicolor clothing of nearly every color somehow finding a way to compliment his piercing brown eyes and dark brown mullet that barely fell past the collarbone. The highlight of his appearance was his smile. It seemed so practiced and approachable that it gave the impression that he'd go for the neck if one wasn't too careful. This is when the private realized that the stranger had been silently observing him while he had been absently watching television for a few minutes, which unnerved him. Both men were in an unintentional staring contest until the stranger began to talk.

“You must travel a lot," admired the stranger, whose natural English accent poked through certain syllables. “Lucky duck.”

"Lucky?” The private repeated incredulously.

“Of course! You know, I’ve always wanted to travel, never had the chance for it, but you must’ve gone everywhere.” The stranger explained with a slight chuckle as he leaned further in his chair. He crossed one leg over the other as he pulled out a cigarette to hold between his teeth.

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly a vacation,” The private scoffed politely. “You try being stuck in the trenches of some foreign country for 20 months. Lucky duck…” He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms to look at a random spot on the wall silently. The stranger looked understanding, allowing a brief moment of silence for the tension in the air to dissipate as he lit his cigarette with a lighter he pulled out of his left pocket from his yellow trousers.

A low, rumbling chuckle escaped the stranger’s throat. “Lucky or not, you must have done some good for your country, sir,” The stranger saluted the private, which was followed by a once-over. The private was unsure if the gesture was genuine or mocking. “I'm sure you'll be in the history books, Emily.” The private’s last name was read aloud slowly as the stranger’s eyes followed the yellow embroidered letters against the rectangular leather patch on the uniform’s right breast.

“Private Emily." The private corrected him by emphasizing his rank with a noticeable growl in his tone. The stranger paused for a few seconds as his face fell with eyes that studied the private’s now stiff posture. He didn't look intimidated, however. Just amused. Emily’s thick eyebrows furrowed as the stranger’s cackle cut through the commotion of the lounge for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry,” the stranger said through his laughter. When he noticed Emily’s furious expression, he suppressed his hysterics through a forced fit of coughing. He hit his chest a few times as he cleared his throat and straightened himself up in his chair. “I’m sorry, I do apologize. I should know better than to offend someone in uniform” Emily noticed the stranger trying to fight back a smile and simply turned his entire body away from him to look at the bar with crossed arms. It was getting increasingly busy with more marines huddling around the area to hound the poor bartender for another round of beers.

“Drink?" The stranger offered out of the blue.

“... Drink?" Emily echoed.

“Yes, drink. Would you like to have a drink with me?” The stranger clarified as he paused to take a moment to study Emily’s expression as he flicked the excess cigarette ash away from him. “Somewhere more intimate, of course."

Emily’s response was a pregnant pause. He looked exceptionally conflicted, silently loathing the idea of dedicating more time towards an individual he found to be mildly infuriating. The stranger’s subtle smile grew as he silently acknowledged the private’s hesitation. He could tell he couldn't explicitly tell him no out of being polite.

“I… I can't.” Emily mumbled.

“You can't?" The stranger tilted his head for a second.

“‘Fraid so."

"Why not?”

Emily internally began to choose his words carefully. “I…. I’d probably be a bore. I’m a lightweight, horrible at small talk…” Emily insisted, stumbling over his words, noticing the stranger smiled at him with eyes that showed that he was just getting more interested in him. He had to think of a quick alibi to get out of the situation.

“I have to be home soon, anyway. My mother and all…”

“Yes, your mother," the stranger nodded sagely, standing up with a sigh. “What a shame. It could've been my treat." Even in his brief disappointment, he was still smiling.

Emily stubbed out the cigarette he wasted on the ashtray with a guilty expression. “Let's make it a date. I'm going to a tavern with friends tonight. Perhaps we can set up a time to meet there.” The stranger looked towards nothing in particular before smiling. “I'd like that." He sat down next to the private, who pulled out a piece of paper. The stranger handed him a ballpoint pen to write his name and phone number on it. Once he finished, the stranger glanced over the note quietly.

“It's official then, Mr. Private Henry Emily."

“You don't have to call me that… at the tavern, I mean." Emily scratched behind his head.

“Of course. You’re off the clock, I get it." The stranger chuckled again. The private smiled for a few seconds as he simply stared at the stranger. He couldn't help being charmed by him.

“Thank you," Emily smiled. “Mr…"

“Afton.” The stranger completed his statement politely. “But you can call me William. Mr. Afton was my father."

"Thank you, William.” Emily corrected himself, silently wondering why his cheeks began to grow hot. William simply nodded.

"A pleasure.”

July 11th, 1955 - 2:35 AM - The Emily Household

For the past three hours, Henry could not sleep.

He had been silently studying the scattered, textured pattern of the popcorn ceiling. He noticed how it changed dramatically when the occasional passing car introduced a light traveling through his window’s blinds for only a few seconds. The clock ticked quietly in the background as Henry rolled over on his side, sinking into the cheap, twin-sized mattress of his bed to let out a sigh he had no idea that he'd been holding for a while. His eyes were plastic-wrapped with tears as prolonged rage was growing in his stomach. He hated how the entire night at the tavern unexpectedly ended after his feelings got the better of him. He longed for the attention of a man he didn't particularly like.

William was infuriating. He was the human embodiment of a mosquito bite that would only heal if you stopped scratching it, but you can't. Henry had never kissed another human being before, but he was convinced that William was an abysmal kisser. In fact, William was horrible at most things. He had no reason to crave his presence.

He rolled over to his other side.

Up to this point, he was comfortable sleeping in his empty room that was a part of his childhood home that had been frozen to time ever since he enlisted from the military. He was happy with eating with his parents at dinnertime, spending the rest of the night reading a book and going to sleep with nothing but his thoughts to accompany him. Henry was content with this life up until last night. He blinked furiously to try and keep the tears burning his eyes from rolling down his face. Henry sniffled. The young man whimpered as tears began to stain the fabric of his light blue pillow case. There was a pain that stung terribly in his chest. He wanted to curl up in a ball and die. It would've been a kinder fate compared to his current emotions. How pathetic.

The sound of the landline in the kitchen pulled him back into reality. He quickly climbed out of bed and ran towards the kitchen, as he didn't want to risk waking his parents up. The phone didn't have a chance to ring again as Henry picked up the receiver and held it to his ear, speaking in a strained whisper.

“Hello?"

“Oh, so now you answer." It was William.

“Now…? I was asleep. It's…” he let the air linger as he glanced at the cat-shaped clock in the kitchen. "... two in the morn—”

"I am aware.” His tone wasn't nearly as bright compared to a couple of hours ago. It was just ice cold. Henry paused, twirling the curling receiving cord nervously with his index finger.

“Listen. I know you're upset over what happened last night. I shouldn't have left you there like that. I'm sorry.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. The silence was deafening to the point Henry could only hear his heart rate accelerate and his throat close as he waited for a response. William finally broke the silence with a forced laugh.

“I’m sorry," He was always condescending, but now there was venom in his words. “You’re sorry? Is that supposed to make me feel better? Everything is just fine and dandy?”

"Well, no, but I figured—”

"I figured a man whose job is to be loyal to his country would know better than to treat a friend like that.”

"I was scared!" Henry raised his voice, before looking around the kitchen. “I was scared. I never felt that way before.” He repeated in a hushed tone.

"So you leave me high and dry because you were skittish.”

"William. Please.”

"No,” William took a short pause. Henry could hear him take a swig from a glass bottle. "You are pathetic, do you know that? I probably felt the same way that you did and you left me there. You left me there all alone.”

His voice was breaking. Henry stood there, holding the receiver to his ear with both of his hands as he breathed heavily. Both men were on the verge of tears. He blinked a few times, sniffling.

"I-I’m sorry, I don't know… I…I want this to work out. I want to be your friend," Henry wiped a few tears from his eyes. William didn't say anything. “I need to have a friend in my life. The other guys don't give a fuck about me. You made me feel special. I need you in my life…. I need you.”

William didn't speak. He sounded choked up on the phone. There was a long moment of silence, tension growing in the air as their relationship, undefined at the moment, was on the line.

"I…. It's fine. You can make it up to me, right?" William sniffled.

“Yes, absolutely." Henry's eyes widened for a few seconds out of slight desperation.

“Then it's settled. We can try again… you can try again,” William clarified after a brief pause. "I… tolerate your presence. It'd be a waste to let this friendship end after a simple mistake."

Henry could hear his smile through the phone. Although the air was still tense, the thought of pleasing his friend made him feel comforted.

“Thank you. Maybe we can discuss plans in the morning?"

“Sure, let's sleep on it. Good night, Henry."

“Good night."

#fnaf #fnaf au #woke willy #william afton #henry emily #willry #fnaf fanfic #fanfic #mod paradise #mod dogg #kinda weak towards the end but its fine

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starmendotnet · 11 months ago

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RETURN OF THE EARTHBOUND FUNKTASTIC GAMEPLAY SUMMER

Hello everyone! It is with GREAT ENTHUSIASM that we would like to announce the:

But first… what IS a Funktastic Gameplay Summer?

Us Starmen.Netters are bringing back a long-beloved sitewide tradition! The Earthbound Funktastic Gameplay Summer is an event that dates back to 2001, wherein the community collectively plays through EarthBound over the course of several “Gameplay Points” (GPPs). Everyone is encouraged to play along, and our team of stream hosts will be broadcasting their own gameplay on the StarmanClub Twitch channel. In addition, we will be celebrating MOTHER’s 35th and Earthbound’s 30th anniversary!

Maybe it’s been a minute since you’ve returned to the game. Maybe you’ve never played before! The idea is to get fans, new and old, engaging with Earthbound. With introduction out of the way, let’s move on to the deets:

THE SUBMISSIONS

An integral part of Starmen history is fan submissions, where the community creates fanart about the stream events, and just EB in general. As per usual, here are the categories:

Categories!

Writing: Stories, poems, theories… if you wrote it, it belongs here! Handart: Charcoal, paintings, sculptures… if you made it with your hands, it belongs here! Compart: Digital illustrations, 3D models, pixel art… if you made it with a computer, it belongs here! AudioViz: Music, videos, fangames… if it pertains to audio/visuals, it belongs here!

Prizes!

Winners will receive shiny badges on the forum to show off their mastery of Earthbound funk, as well as forum ranks and avatars!

Of course, opening up the floor to fanworks doesn’t come without its fair share of ground rules. Don’t worry though, it’s pretty simple stuff.

Rules!

Submissions must be related to Earthbound/the Funktastic Gameplay streams

If your submission contains content that would require a trigger warning (violence, sensitive subject matters, etc.) please put it in a spoiler box with a warning.

You may submit as many pieces to one category as you like, but only one can place

You may submit to as many categories as you like

Any submission must’ve been made for this event. No previous works!

THE STREAM SCHEDULE

Keep an eye out in our Event forum for the schedule drop, but livestreams won't be the only thing we've got going on!

THE ADDITIONAL EVENTS

If you can’t catch the streams, don’t worry! The streams are only a small part of our summer programming. In addition, there will be other events to keep the party goin’! These being:

Eagleland Scrapbook (July 15th – August 24th):

Get your cameras out and your bug spray on! This summer, we’re running a collaborative photo book! At the end of the event, your photos will be assembled into a digital booklet for your viewing pleasure. So, where to start? Well, we’re limiting subjects to four categories; birds, flora, fungi, and insects.

A couple notes; you’re more than free to submit multiple photos if you’d like, and there is no judgment on the quality of the photos. Just try your best to keep the camera as focused on the subject as possible. The event ends on August 24th, so get snapping! And most of all, have fun!

EB No Natsumatsuri (August 1st – August 24th):

Our highly calibrated MoonWatch Radar indicates that activity coming from the Annual Gift Man’s base is already approaching usual December levels, and climbing! That can only mean EB no Matsuri has come early, and that can only mean one thing: time to prepare a feast for the Gift Man’s arrival! The beloved Starmen.Net tradition returns, but in a brand new form! Instead of gift giving, we would like to encourage everyone to come up with or find a MOTHER-series themed recipe, make it, and share the recipe and pictures of your delicious dish with everyone! It’s a virtual potluck, and everyone’s invited. (Can’t think of what to make? Make Your Favorite Food, of course, whatever it is!)

And now for our final announcement at this time… prepare yourselves for something very special!

A NEW AND EXCITING OPPORTUNITY

This message is brought to you by PorcBanc™

The savvy investors over at PorcBanc™ have very graciously offered all Starmen.Net members EXCLUSIVE and PRIVILEGED access to a cutting edge, Earthbound-themed surprise to our Funktastic Gameplay Summer events! A special surprise will be released to the public on July 21st, 2024. Be sure to stay tuned for more details on all your favourite Starmen.Net media channels! Remember folks:

“With PorcBanc™, we guarantee profits HAM over fist!”

Guarantees or promises made by PorcBanc and its affiliated subsidiaries are intended for marketing purposes only and do not hold any legal value.

An event™ by PorcBanc™

#earthbound #fanart #EBFGPS #funfest #summer #MOTHER 2 #forum events

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basslinegrave · 6 months ago

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sonic 3 spoilers (longer - very long thoughts)

just thoughts about something that i would add to the movie

1) i fully expected sonic to take the photo of shadow and maria and later give it to him, since he destroyed everything else and it would be nice like "hey i held onto this for you, might be important" i think it would be a nice way to connect them in an even stronger way. it felt like the rivals to friends was rushed, though shadow seemed to be depicted as more youthful here, i still feel like he would need something more to get through him (but then he def felt something already when he hit tom so it wasnt like a sudden switch or anything)

2) maybe i wasnt paying full attention but robotniks last words came kinda out of nowhere, i really expected them to show at least a little bit of the times stone cared for him. like have him go through the realization and let him feel it on screen a bit longer. maybe he had a moment of thought but i dont remember that. (also it was good but kinda silly in retrospect he really broadcasted it to the whole world 0 shame 😭 just imagining bot from the first movie seeing his future self say that. hed explode)

i would add like 10-20 mins to the movie for this. just let the characters stop for a moment and feel. but then, its a sonic movie. the audience is 5 year olds. it doesnt matter. but i still felt like a lot has been cut or missing? - then again, i need to rewatch it/watch the original to see the original pacing and wording of things. perhaps some things got lost in translation or whatever. i also couldnt concentrate cause someone kept fucking talking over the movie. but what wasnt shown just wasnt shown. also for shadow idk i thought they would go for some brooding scene in the vibe of spiderverse introductions but it went all action but ig they made up for it later i loved the scenes with maria and the stargazing (back when i was into sonadow stargazing was my fave trope for them. stars in general. so this was beautiful. shadow as a falling/fallen star too and in this case it applied to both him and sonic)

3) more music. again this might be just the case of the dubbed version but i felt a severe lack of music? and to me personally the live and learn part felt extremely weak, the orchestral version or whatever it was is nice but here it wasnt hype enough for me. idk, again, maybe the og will feel different but you know. if more of the scenes were treated music wise like the dance ones id be more hyped, i dont like when they use a song but only like 4 seconds of it and stuff. to compare it with an example of what i loved it would definitely be deadpool - the opening fucking slayed and also the like a prayer part. that shit went hard as hell and i didnt even like dp3 that much.

but overall i feel like the pacing was so much better in this one than the second movie and it felt like they actually gave more screentime to the nonhuman characters this time

- this is more critical but there were also parts that i loved and like overall the movie was good, i liked the story, i liked what they did with shadow (i wish they stretched out the tokyo part longer though, that was dope), loved what they did with him and maria, the movie felt balanced enough (but i felt that way about 2 and then on rewatch it was noticeable how many useless human scenes there were so that might change), the gun agents were walking the thin line of being too annoying but it was doable, i loved what they did with walters! also i like wade as a character but this was just enough (people were Groaning when he got on screen lmfao) same applies to the others but i was surprised that was it. so silly

however i still enjoyed 2 more. but this might just be the case of "im super tired, quite depressed, i dont care about anything rn, some ppl fucked me over today and i dont feel good, the vibe is off, i cant hear half of the movie, im too hot and got low bp and keep hearing my heartbeat louder than anything else, and i didnt get a happy ending" rather than "movie bad"

when they revealed shadow in 2 i was jumping off of my seat and gripping the one in front of me. this post creds reveal here was like "oh! okay nice" (<- expected this so 0 surprise or anything)

also for 2 i went in with low expectations and got peak. for 3 i expected better than 2. so i failed myself there

i wish i could say i enjoyed this even more than the 2nd movie. i wish i got back from the cinema just typing out jumbled words and screams on social media like after the 2nd. i got out of this one like "i have to pretend i loved this greatly like i had to do with the fnaf movie" but this was at least better than the fnaf movie to me lmao

fucking sonic prime got more reactions out of me than this movie and i wanted to enjoy it so bad. anyway i need meds or something i ran out of D3 its also that speaking thru me

#sonic #sonic 3 #sonic 3 spoilers #sonic movie 3 #sonic movie 3 spoilers #this one is a bit more spoiler heavy #ok i added more so much more spoiler heavy #and long.

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onenettvchannel · 6 months ago

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LATE-BREAKING FLASH REPORT: 'Ankama Animations' will soon wrap the upcoming 5th and Final Season of 'Wakfu', pre-production and crowdfunding are in the works [#K5NewsFMExclusive]

(Written by Rhayniel Saldasal Calimpong / Freelance Online Media Reporter of ONC and News Writer & Presenter of OneNETnews)

ROUBAIX, FRANCE -- French entertainment company 'Ankama Animations' recently announced that the long-awaited 5th season of 'Wakfu' will actually mark the end in France. It was reported last Wednesday night (December 18th, 2024 -- France local time) during the company's event of "Ankama Showtime" at the online video game broadcaster 'Twitch', the said animated series is finishing its run with a climactic 26-episode finale.

The decision to make a 5th Season is due to the fact that Season 4 has been so successful that most people thought it was going to be the last season and received astonished ratings, so people wanted an absolute proper ending for one more season. 'Wakfu' premiered at the end of October 2008, and has been a flagship of French animation ever since, chronicling the adventures of the Brotherhood of the Tofu. In this upcoming season, viewers will get to see the early stages of Yugo Sharm and Prncs. Amalia Sheran Sharm's marriage, along with the introduction of a new, enigmatic antagonist.

This development was further detailed in an online press briefing by 'XyaLe7111', Ankama's Transmedia Manager said in part: "Wakfu (Season 5) will be the last season. It is the conclusion of 16 years of animated adventures with the Brotherhood of the Tofu. [The last] 26 episodes will tell the story of the early days of Yugo Sharm and Amalia Sheran Sharm's marriage and introduce a new narrative arc and a new antagonist. Well, not really a new antagonist, but I won't reveal everything just yet!", she noted in French dialect.

As previously reported by DWFH-FM 97.7mhz's K5 News FM: Dumaguete during the Annecy Festival in mid-June 2024, Season 5 has been greenlit in collaboration with France Télévisions, alongside FranceTVSlash and France 4.

The involvement of the public broadcaster helps maintain a legacy that has significantly impacted animated storytelling in France. As previously noted, it was unexpectedly decided not to air the full 4th Season on France 4. Instead, the episodes will be released first on the 'Ankama Launcher', the Okoo app, and the France TV website, as they went beyond the intended demographic for national kids and teens TV.

Ankama will soon be funding all the production costs to the public broadcaster, and reaching to fans all over the globe, including the Philippines, by running a Kickstarter for February 2025. Pre-production will soon get underway as writing for the final new season has been initiated. As of yet, no official release date is announced, but based on the show's creator 'Anthony Roux', per the X Network tweeted post (formerly Twitter), Wakfu (Season 5) could premiere as early as 2027.

The focus of crowdfunding by Ankama mirrors the fact that the animation company strives to make a season for its Wakfunian fans, bringing this saga to a befitting end after 16 years of captivating people who were in part for its history the animated cartoon community.

PHOTO COURTESY for REPRESENTATION: Anthony Roux via X Network PHOTO

SOURCE: *https://animotaku.fr/actualite/wakfu-saison-5-pourrait-finalement-voir-le-jour/ *https://animotaku.fr/actualite/ankama-francetv-wakfu-saison-5/ *https://www.francebleu.fr/emissions/fier-de-ceux-qui-font-bouger-le-nord-et-le-pas-de-calais/ankama-une-histoire-de-reussite-a-roubaix-entre-jeu-video-et-manga-5817751 *https://www.krozmotion.com/en/2024/06/wakfu-season-5-confirmed-new-adventures-for-yugo-and-amalia/ *https://forum.waven-game.com/en/41-news/6274-ankama-show-time-join-us-december-18th *https://youtube.com/shorts/xUtjUvxG1PM *https://twitch.tv/videos/2330830270 *https://x.com/AnkamaAnim/status/1869445371602034974 and *https://x.com/Totankama/status/1870535781682659652

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

#flash report #late breaking #roubaix #france #wakfu #wakfu spoilers #saison 5 #season 5 #the final season #kickstarter #developments #fyp #awareness #ankama #cartoon #exclusive #first and exclusive #OneNETnews

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letsplaydcttrpg · 10 months ago

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Wheel of Destruction pt. 1 - The Adventure Begins!

See here for the introduction!

(A quick note: This module is written as if the player is using Batman as their character. I'll be swapping Nightwing's name in for Batman as I transcribe story segments, but I want to still share the module as unedited as possible; please forgive any weirdness like references to a cape or anything like that.)

See below for the full text to see why we're playing Hangman with the Joker!

"Yes, it's the Wheel of Destruction! The new game show where you, the audience, can play to save Gotham's most cherished landmarks." This announcement is greeted with synthetic-sounding wheezes and screams. The camera pans out to an ecstatically clapping crowd. Each member of the audience is a robot with an [sic] blank metal face. They jerk in spasmodic parodies of glee each time the 'Applause' sign flashes brilliantly above them. "What will it be tonight? Gotham Tower? The new First Avenue Bridge? Well, you'll know soon 'cause here's your host, the old funster himself, The Joker!" The Joker glides from behind a crimson curtain, accompanied by two leggy, masked chorines. The electronic audience goes up for grabs. Some of the machines literally fall out of their seats. The Joker holds up a green-gloved hand, his accustomed leer widening. "Why thank you, thank you. You're too kind...too kind." He pauses and stares at his two assistants. "Ah, my dears, not being coy, are we? Come now." He reaches out with both hands and snatches the masks off the girls, revealing two brooding, bearded faces. The robot audience goes wild, fizzling and popping its appreciation. "Oh, dear," the Joker says with mock dismay. "That was a mistake. Well, on with the game. Our first contestant, if you please!" A side curtain goes up, a turntable whirs and spins, and there is Commissioner Gordon, bound and gagged. To his left and right are two wheels, one depicts six Gotham landmarks, and the other shows six different forms of destruction. "Wellll...shall I explain how we play our little game? I'll ask Commissioner Gordon to give me ten letters. Those letters might help you figure out a secret clue phrase, the clue to which of these six landmarks I plan to destroy." The Joker gestures grandly at the wheel with the pictured landmarks. "After he sees where those ten letters fit in the clue phrase, if at all, I'll roll the giant ten-sided die to see how many extra letters he gets. If he's clever, he'll get lots of letters from the phrase, and you should be able to figure out my target. "And the prize? Why, you'll have a clue to my target for tonight. You see, I will destroy a famous Gotham landmark, unless you pay me $1 million in cash. Fail to do so and one of these," the Joker says, pointing again to the wheel with the landmarks pictured, "will experience one of these." He gestures at the wheel adorned with explosions, fire, and other ghastly destructions. "Of course, there's always the chance that the Batman or some other meddling fool with try to stop me. But that's part of the fun too! So, shall we play?" "Tonight's phrase, please." The curtain behind the Joker rises and the camera reveal the blank letters of the clue phrase.

Time for some hangman! The clue phrase is 13 letters. We get 10 letter choices from Gordon, and 1d10 extra letters. Our die roll gets us an additional *click-clack* 6!

The Joker turns to the camera for a disturbing close-up. "There's your clue, dear Gotham. And now, I have work to do...unless you broadcast your willingness to pay me. Just announce over the radio, within the next 30 minutes, that you have my $1 million." "And folks, don't forget to tune in tomorrow night!" The sickly-sweet, piano music swells, its light frivolity out-of-place. Then, suddenly, the screen goes blank.

Next up: Solving the Joker's clue, and choosing our next steps!

#dc ttrpg #wheel of destruction #dc comics #polls #puzzles

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warsamongthestars · 1 year ago

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There's several reasons I separate TBB and TCWs Bad Batch. Quite a few of them are micro, cos I'm analytical as hell and the little details set me off.

How bout two big things? Two, in your face, things.

First one isn't so bad. "There's two different shows by two different writing and two different broadcasters, they're going to have obvious canonical differences based on the paperwork and contracts alone, but because it still irrevocably alters the story and characters, no matter where that alteration came from, it is still two different canons that aren't going to fit nicely if at all."

Okay maybe it is complicated, but that's real world shit for you. Clone Wars was a Cartoon Network production, the recent stuff has been Disney--and frankly, Cartoon Network has better quality and taste (HELL YEAH STEVEN UNIVERSE!)

THe second one goes into the show. Some proper in-story analysis, to tell you were the break is at.

The Bad Batch arrived on Anaxes after dealing with an Insurrection on Yalbec Prime. They brag about it, they talk about it, its important to their introduction. Its important enough that a lot of fanfics and fanstuff talk about how it happened.

It was an insurrection. Insurrections are defined as "An uprising against an authority or government".

And they didn't describe just any group conducting an insurrection--they describe Yalbecs, so the inhabitants of Yalbec Prime. And then they describing killing the Queen of the Yalbecs, so the primary ruler of Yalbec Prime, planet of Yalbecs. Of which Tech comes in to say, that hte stinger of the queen is a Delicacy on some planets.

... Do you know how nasty of a picture that paints?

Based only on the simplest information given and what we know; because they're Republic Troopers--we can assume that Yalbec Prime was a Republic world. (We weren't told otherwise, so the assumption must be the most correct answer at this time.)

So, the Yalbecs were rebelling. (Because why would they attack the inhabitants unless they were the insurrection being put down?)

Using this minimum information.

THe Yalbecs and their queen, were rebelling against Republic Authority (we don't know if it was in favor of the Seppratists, it could be that they wanted Neutrality too).

If we can assume the reason, its probably because folks eat their damn Queen (a very good reason to rebel if you rely on a ant or bee like hierarchy and the queen is also your mother--given the implications that yalbecs are insectoids and that there were queen pheromones).

The Bad Batch are called in to put down the Insurrection, which we can assume they did, based on the fact that they're alive and intact.

... So.

The TBB Show wants to tell me that... The Bad Batch don't want to follow orders to eliminate insurrectionists and that's why they left the Empire?

Based on the above, they absolutely would follow those orders. Enthusiastically, with bragging rights.

One could make the argument that ECho set them straight, and that'd be a good story and start. TBBshow didn't do that, and regulated Echo to the bitching corner and then just kicked him out entirely--so you might have that idea, but the Show certainly didn't.

The darker argument is that the TBB would put down a society of insectoids, but not humanoids--and that... leaves a rather nasty set of implications, given the multi-sentient species of the Galaxy. I'd love to think that's not the case, but if TBBshow insists it, then we have to take it as the case for the Batch on the TBBshow.

When you're writing, what you show or say to or for the audience will be taken as fact by the audience for the show played. While we can give interpretation and imagination for things you don't say, it will always come down to what you've Shown and what've you Told, and what the conflict between the two is.

If you don't show it, or don't talk about it, and don't leave room for interpretation, then it didn't happen.

( One can argue that the TBB show does leave room... Via the holes its poked in itself. I've never seen so many pockets filled with absolutely nothing. )

And when you show contradiction without just cause, you risk breaking the flow of the story, and thus breaking the suspension of disbelief... And that's when the Audience enmass starts leaving and cursing.

While you cannot predict who's suspension is broken at any given time, what you can control is the flow of the story and its beats.

What is said and what is shown, are important, because Theatre / TV show stories are entirely made by what is Said and what is Shown.

Lastly, as for "What is canon".

... The TBB Show has different writers to the Clone Wars, which in turn had different writers from the Star Wars Prequel Films, which in turn had different writers for the Original Star Wars.

Of course none of it but the OG is canon.

Its all just an Argument about what enhances the story of your personal Canon and who is telling the story.

#star wars #the clone wars #the bad batch #star wars the clone wars #star wars the bad batch #analysis #critical analysis #constructive and deconstructive

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basicrowan · 6 days ago

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Anime-nia

I have always enjoyed anime, but I've rarely ever had the opportunity to stick with a show watch it from beginning to end. Up to now my exposure to anime has mostly been limited to the shows and movies that cross over from Japanese broadcast to American audiences. Dragonball Z was a big one for me while I was in college.

My introduction to anime was Akira, a movie I saw at 13 and was definitely too young to be watching. It was rented from a local video store, and I think I must have watched it three times before returning it. That anime, the film adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's incredible manga, is a formative memory for me because it changed the way that I think about what animation. Keep in mind, this was when I was a kid at the very end of the 1980s. To most people back then, animation was Saturday morning cartoons and musical adaptations of fairy tales with talking animals courtesy of Disney. I grew up on those, and I still love them, but the point is the vast majority of animation at the time was for kids. The idea of animated shows or movies for an adult audience was just starting to emerge. Akira, blew everything I thought I knew about animation. It's also incredibly violent with some other mature content, and my parents hated it. That didn't hurt.

Since then I've watched a lot more anime, but not nearly as much as serious fans. For the most part that's because it was kind of hard to find until a couple of things happened. The biggest of which was the Internet (back when it used to be capitalized as a proper noun) and the other was Netflix. Love the company or hate it (and there are plenty of good reasons on both sides of that), it made it possible to explore content like anime in a way than might not have been available otherwise. Now my wife and I have both found shows we like through Crunchyroll. I know that Crunchyroll has detractors with some fair criticisms, but it does have a lot to offer and gives a casual fan like me an opportunity to get caught up on some of the greats.

All of which is to say art in this post will be very anime-centric. Enjoy.

Say that again. Mirajane dares you

Fairy Tail is, if not my favorite anime series of all time, pretty close to it. Through eight seasons I grew to love the characters and their adventures. I haven't seen season 9 yet. I was waiting for the subtitled version to be made available. It is a great found family story, which turns out to be something that resonates with me for some reason. It also has a fun mix of goofy humor, and emotional depth. When my kids were very small I would watch episodes of Fairy Tail on my tablet while waiting for them to go sleep. The moment Mirajane unleashes the power she's been suppressing for years is one of my favorites in the entire series.

INUYASHA!

I'm getting to this one pretty late. Inuyasha was first broadcast in 2000. Even so, it holds up very well, even though there are some dated elements, such as the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original broadcast and the animation is all hand drawn and painted. That last is more a point in its favor. While it is more of an Isekai story, it still has elements of found family, goofy humor, and emotional depth that I liked about Fairy Tail. I have become similarly hooked to this one.

KAGOME!

Despite the name of the show, I think of Kagome as the main character of Inuyasha. I really enjoy her spirit, and her growth throughout the show from tentative fish out of water, to confident...not exactly a warrior, but coming into her own as a very capable young woman who is at home with powers she didn't know she had. The will they / won't they between her and Inuyasha is fun, too.

Lookout everyone, it's undead priestess Kikyo!

Wow. I really like Inuyasha. This is Kikyo, the priestess Inuyasha fell in love with, before they were tricked into fighting each other by the demon Naraku. She is a very interesting, complex character that I am still figuring out.

My new favorite poison loving gremlin

There are too many good things for me to say about The Apothecary Diaries than I could possibly fit here. That's not true. I probably could, but you'd probably get bored with it by the four or five thousandth paragraph and click over to something else. This is Maomao. Watch the show.

A multitude of Maomao's

More Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries. The show itself presents as a mystery of the week with Maomao solving each one through a combination of observation and encyclopedic knowledge of plants, poisons, and various traditional medicines. She is an apprentice apothecary who is abducted into the rear palace of the forbidden city of Imperial China, where she enters the service of the current emperor's favorite concubine. The show offers court intrigue and is an exploration of the role of women at the time, and how they navigated and survived a system that saw them as useful, but ultimately disposable. The writing is phenomenal, with some of the most well developed and authentic portrayals of women you will find in anime.

Maomao and...pretty boy...

The other character here is Jinshi, a pivotal character and love interest for Maomao. The anime is based on a series of light novels in Japan written by Natsu Hyuuga. An interesting thing about the writer and these characters is Hyuuga has gone on record saying she hates the character of Jinshi. She introduced him as a side character, but the fanbase latched onto him so completely she's been forced to keep him going. A good example of how the characters you create can take on a life of their own.

Komi wants you to be her friend...sign her book...

This last entry is now what I think of as my favorite anime and manga to date. Like Fairy Tail this is one I can go back to over and over again. The main character, Komi, is afflicted with extreme social anxiety and a communication disorder that makes it very difficult for her to talk with people. Another student at her high school, Tadano, is very gifted when it comes to reading people and interpreting expression, body language, and non-verbal queues. He is able to forge a connection with Komi, becomes her first (and best) friend, and promises to help her achieve her goal of making 100 friends. Along the way they not only meet a host of quirky, fun characters for Komi to befriend, but a lovely, slow-burn romance develops between the two of them. The anime is great, and I can't recommend it highly enough, but the manga is almost complete, and is a must read for any fan of the slice-of-life genre. The story touches on themes of found family (again), friendship, first loves, and some things that don't start with 'F' like overcoming obstacles, self acceptance, and the quiet strength of perseverance.

Komi brings up one question though, and maybe someone out there has the answer. Komi Can't Communicate, Jujutsu Kaizen, My Hero Academia, just to name a few...why are so many Japanese high schools in anime so freaking weird?

#drawing #sketchbook #cartooning #adrawingaday #sketches #anime fanart #inuyasha #the apothecary diaries #komi can't communicate #fairy tail

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sapphic-agent · 2 years ago

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Something I've noticed about the Sports Festival (and something I've not seen most fics address either) is that it plays far too big of a role in determining someone's chances as a future hero (because of the connections and public image it brings) based entirely on appearances rather than actual capability. The big example of this IMO is Yaoyorozu; there's the whole issue with just how much she gets fucked over in the narrative, but the scary part is that the Sports Festival-and her being made out to be completely useless as far as the audience is concerned-actually provides an in-universe explanation for why she's never able to perform to her potential; because she's not being allowed to on the basis she's supposedly incapable.

Very astute observation!

I definitely agree that it does way too much to determine a student's future. This is their first introduction to the world of heroics and it's not only showcasing them to actual pros (and urging said pros to scrutinize them), but broadcasting them nationally. First years especially are at a major disadvantage; at this point they've only been in school for a few weeks if that. They haven't gotten a chance to learn anything yet. Having it done at the end of their first year at least makes more sense as it would show what they're actually learning from UA (provided that UA is doing its job, which it isn't most of the time).

Even if they do better in the next years, first impressions are the only impressions. Everyone's going to focus more on what that student did in their first year because it's the year of their debut. Not to mention internships; it's just pros cherry picking the flashiest quirk from a bunch of kids that have barely begun to learn about heroics.

UA really does make a lot of questionable decisions

#ua critical #bnha criticism #mha critical #sports festival arc #sports festival arc critical

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greatwyrmgold · 5 months ago

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Medalist Adaptation Analysis: Primacy Bias

[<Space and Time]

Now that I've gotten that surprisingly long yet mostly relevant digression out of the way, I can start analyzing the actual series. Today I'll compare the first chapter and episode of of Medalist, which conveniently start and end at the same point.

I wanted to cover the whole chapter/episode in one go. It would be convenient for several reasons, not the least of which being that they have the same title. (In Japanese, anyway; the official translation of "Hyōjō no Tensai" varies slightly between manga and anime.) But I had a lot to say, so this post only covers the first few scenes—the opening moments, and our introduction to the main characters.

Opening Moments

The first page of a manga, first minute of an anime, or first moments of any media are absolutely crucial. Cynical folks have gone so far as to claim that people make their judgement about an entire experience in the first seconds, and while I don't think that's true, I do think those moments can make or break a narrative.

The first moments set the tone for the entire work moving forward. It sets expectations, gives the audience context for whatever happens next. A good writer uses this time to establish its central characters, themes, and/or conflicts, ideally also giving the audience a reason to continue reading/watching/whatever. A bad writer squanders this time, giving the audience a skewed perspective of what the story is about and why they should care.

Respect Primacy Bias.

Both versions of Medalist start on the same note, with narration and a televised broadcast of figure-skating being watched by a child in a dark room. The girl is obscured by darkness, framing, and her blankie, but it's still clearly Inori if you pay attention.

Though the anime gives you more than one shot of half her face. Possibly because manga readers can stare at that one panel for minutes on end if they're confused by who that's supposed to be, while anime is temporally-locked.

The main difference is that in the manga, we just see small images of figure skaters in general.

Meanwhile, the anime gives us a mini-program from a single skater who is clearly Hikaru Kamisaki.

The reason for this change is pretty obvious. The anime desperately wants to show off the skating animations, which are no doubt a primary selling point of the anime. Thirty seconds of one skater skating does that a lot better than a few disconnected long shots of distant skaters and close-ups of ice skates.

Also, if this anime doesn't have 3D models somewhere in its figure skating workflow I'll eat my hat. I assume the primary reason for using Hikaru instead of some faceless skaters with different color schemes is probably the relative difficulty of making a new nameless skater character design and model and so forth instead of using one they already had.

Whatever the intent, this has the effect of implying that Hikaru's performance specifically got Inori interested in figure skating, not a more general fascination with the sport.

I'm sure Inori/Hikaru shipping was a thing before the anime, but this opening throws fuel on that fire.

It's a change, but not really a problem, and primary bias or no, I've spent just about long enough talking about how the first 76 seconds of the anime adapts the three pages the manga. The narration is a bit different, but I'm not sure if that's an adaptational change or just different ways of translating fundamentally the same text.

Tsukasa

The anime skips six pages of Tsukasa introduction. In the manga, we see a brief moment at the end of his ice dancing career, then a few pages of chatting with Yoichi Kago and Yoh. There are a few notable things about these conversations, one of them being this one panel.

[Me after spending a few years failing to get job interviews with my bio degree]

Anyways, this section also establishes a lot of details of Tsukasa's background and ice-skating careers. Nothing that the anime doesn't cover at some point or another, but the manga puts it up front so you have a better idea of what's going through Tsukasa's head.

It also introduces the Kago family, who only showed up in episode 6 of the anime. I get why the anime cut their introduction, they're not plot-relevant for a while, but it felt weird for such important characters to just not be mentioned for several episodes. Yoichi practically treats Tsukasa like a bonus son, and he doesn't so much as text or call him? This is the 2020's, even Yoh has a smartphone!

It's also manga!Tsukasa's first interaction with a child, and it's positive. He gets down to Yoh's level to respond to her questions, gives her a complete answer instead of talking down to her, and spins her around a little for fun.

Keep this in mind when anime!Tsukasa has his first interaction with a child.

More significantly, that sequence establishes Tsukasa's pride. He's willing to accept some assistance from the Kagos, but just taking money so he can skate is a bridge too far. Which is immediately juxtaposed with the extreme difficulty of pro-level figure skating. Depending on your perspective, this either makes Tsukasa's refusal more sympathetic ("even if I had accepted everything you offered I might not have made it"), or makes Tsukasa's pride even more apparent (he thought he could make it where so many others failed).

But the anime skips all of that, replacing it with nine seconds of graceful skating to establish that he's a pretty good skater, and a moment of clock-checking that gives the "a small child runs into Tsukasa" gag a little breathing room.

Speaking of which:

Okay, so, let's start with a compliment. Adding that low-angle shot emphasizes how huge Tsukasa seems to this child better than a caption explaining that that's why this nameless child freaked out.

But on the other hand, the anime's restraint in drawing Tsukasa's tears makes them a lot harder to see (especially since they're only in frame for a couple seconds, including the rotating frame transition which helps emphasize Tsukasa's height). This makes Tsukasa seem angry rather than in pain, which isn't helped by the anime lingering on the sobbing child after the "at least say sorry" bit.

Both Tsukasas watch the kids at this point and starts reminiscing on his late start, with some subtle dialogue differences that might imply different things about Tsukasa's character if it's not just translation jank.

In the anime, this does a passable job of replacing the pages of exposition about professional skating in Japan. It drops a lot of the detail in favor of brevity, but a lot of the detail comes back later. Anyways, if a double-length first episode wasn't on the table, that exposition was the right thing to cut.

Though the anime includes the second set of children hitting Tsukasa, and rotates him 180 degrees so they can make it a nut-shot gag. So I can't give them full marks for adaptational efficiency.

Locker Room Talk

In the manga, the scene in the locker room(?) starts with Tsukasa talking to himself. But the details are considerably different.

The manga states that Tsukasa is familiar with this place, while the anime suggests he only came here for a job interview. This absurd jank is probably the anime's attempt to backfill Tsukasa's skating-job-hunter status. It's fine, I guess, but it also implies that Tsukasa is from some other part of Japan and doesn't hang out around here, which isn't true.

Anyways, that's not important. What's important is that Tsukasa and Inori are about to meet for the first time!

Unlike the nameless crashing girl, Tsukasa was drawn scary in the original manga. But between the way that crashing girl was handled and the lack of red-glowing eyes, it seems like manga!Tsukasa is just being scary on accident again, while anime!Tsukasa is angry again.

It doesn't help that anime!Tsukasa intentionally looms over Inori for a moment, while manga!Tsukasa crouches down to her level while saying hi. M!Tsukasa seems like he's trying to be cordial in his rebuke, while A!Tsukasa seems like he's trying to terrify the poor little girl.

And it keeps going. When A!Tsukasa crouches, he also visibly steps forward, making it feel less like "getting down to Inori's level" and more like "invading Inori's personal space". M!Tsukasa keeps smiling until Inori refuses to answer his first question, while A!Tsukasa's expression is a dark-eyed grimace throughout. Also, when M!Tsukasa grimaces at Inori, it's goofy.

Again, the anime refusing to stylize A!Tsukasa's expressions as much as the manga did makes him seem meaner than his manga counterpart. I get why they did that; such exaggerated shifts in aesthetic come across as weirder and more extreme in anime than they are in manga. But it has the effect of hardening Tsukasa.

And that effect is exaggerated by what I'd consider unforced errors. The places where the creative directors interpreted the manga drawings in ways that made Tsukasa seem more sinister. The tweaks they made to the "choreography" to make Tsukasa seem more overbearing. The sound—sound effects, score, and especially Takeo Otsuka's vocal performance—which exacerbate the aggression in the visuals.

And while I've deliberately de-emphasized dialogue differences, a first-time Anglophone watcher isn't gonna have anything to compare Tsukasa's dialogue to, and the subs make him sound more aggressive than the manga.

Also, that little caption. Personal Grudge > Sense of Justice. (or possibly "over"? same idea either way) Combined with another stylized angy-face, it takes the wind out of Tsukasa's sails. It's another way Tsurumaikada (Medalist's mangaka) deliberately makes Tsukasa less threatening, makes his rage seem more ephemeral. It's extremely tell-don't-show and would be a lot jankier in animation, but its exclusion continues to make anime!Tsukasa seem nastier than his manga counterpart.

I'm spending so much time on this one series of small changes for two reasons. First, no force in the universe can compel me to write a concise Tumblr post. Second, when I watched this sequence for the first time, I found Tsukasa incredibly unappealing! I called him cop-brained, which I consider a serious insult. I recognized that this was probably not an accurate reflection of how Tsukasa would act in the future, but it still made me wonder why one of the series's protagonists would be introduced that way.

Turns out, he wasn't. Not only were several pages of introduction cut, the anime makes Tsukasa an incrementally meaner dude in a dozen different ways.

Anyways, the chase after this is pretty faithful to the manga, aside from the more consistent (and less expressive) artstyle. Also the anime makes it feel like Tsukasa lost track of Inori and kept chasing her for a block or two, which makes him seem more aggressive again and makes me wonder why Inori felt she needed to scale a building to get away. But the manga made it feel like Inori climbed most of a building in the time it took for Tsukasa to round a corner, and she's supposed to be athletic but not that athletic, so. Whatever. I've made my point.

Inori (eventually)

Okay, before I get into Inori's introduction, I'd like to contrast Inori brandishing worms at Tsukasa in the two mediums.

There are a lot of differences, from a wildly different frame to the familiar removal of the manga's aesthetic shifts, but I mostly think this panel was funny and want to show anime-onlies what they're missing.

Anyways. Inori. We're four minutes/21 pages in, and while we've technically seen Inori, we haven't really been introduced to her yet. We saw a pretty static shot of her watching TV, we saw her freaked out by a big and possibly aggressive dude, and we saw her sobbing when she thought she killed him. Nothing remarkable yet.

This is Inori's introduction.

And yet, I'm still complaining about small changes that make Tsukasa meaner. This is a dialogue thing, but the sentence structure is different enough that I'm comfortable calling it a likely adaptational change.

Manga!Tsukasa seems more confused than irritated. Anime!Tsukasa seems to understand what's going on and actively dislike it. And I'm already primed to assume Tsukasa is being a stubborn jerk about this situation because of the slightly jerkier way he treated Inori when they initially met. First impressions matter!

Okay, that's enough about Tsukasa.

The bit where Inori explains that her mom won't let her skate so she practices on her own is recognizably the same in both anime and manga, but cut a bit short in the former. Manga!Inori goes on a ramble about how following the book helped her fall less and practicing on her own and...

Meanwhile, in the anime Tsukasa butts in right away. Which is fine, he doesn't actually interrupt her, but it it cuts out a smidge of character work. I'm less conflicted about the page or so of trivia between Tsukasa handing Inori the phone numbers and Inori asking what club he works at, even though some of it is interesting.

Apparently a lot of prefectures have one skating club per rink, but Nagoya has more clubs than rinks. Inconvenient for them, but handy for Tsurumaikada.

Anyways, the anime adds a line where Tsukasa says Inori wouldn't want him for a coach. Manga!Tsukasa gets cut off by his alarm right after saying that he isn't one, and is a bit less laconic while leaving. Minor stuff. End scene.

Oh, since I keep ragging on the anime for not exaggerating expressions or shifting art style as much as the manga, I figured I should point out one time they did do those things. A little.

Conclusion

2,200 words, and I only got to the first six minutes of the anime and 27 pages of the manga. But I only took this long because of how important first impressions are.

Inori's first scenes are preserved pretty well! She loses a little texture from the inevitable cuts (turning a 69-page manga chapter into a 22-minute anime episode isn't easy!), but the only serious change was implying that she was inspired by Hikaru specifically, not a bunch of figure skaters of which Hikaru was merely the most distinguished.

Tsukasa doesn't fare so well. Cuts were inevitable, but almost all of Tsukasa's initial character development hit the cutting room floor. No diving into his history, no conversation with the Kagos, no discussion of the career problems a second-rate figure skater encounters. It skips to the part where Tsukasa small children skate into him while he's standing still. And also makes his reaction less sympathetic. And carries that pattern through his first interactions with Inori.

Now that I've got the context, I'm kinda pissed that they did Tsukasa dirty like that. It doesn't seem like it was intentional, I don't think director Yasutaka Yamamoto hates Tsukasa or anything. But it feels like whenever the anime staff had to make a decision, they picked the one that made him seem less nice.

[Sand the Edges>]

#medalist #adaptation #manga #anime #tsukasa akeuraji #characterization #medalist adaptation analysis

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dani171 · 10 months ago

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Blog Post #2

What is the fine line between government and media?

Media and the government over the years have created a relationship that many believe has crossed a line. The government is easing its way into our media each and every day. Many view this as a positive thing as we are being informed about many important events however others like me feel as though this is just one more thing the government just has to control. This gives the government the opportunity to change the media narrative. In one of our readings for this week, we hear about this being done about race "For more than 250 years the nation's news media, no matter how politically liberal, conservative or radical, no matter what class they purported to represent, reminded the press of its white population."(Gonzales & Torres, 2013 ). We can only imagine who was behind the scenes making the media push this narrative rather than allowing it to speak about the nation's other half.

Is minority or ethnic media still being erased today?

Minorities were constantly being silenced going back a couple years. This unfortunately includes the erasing of the media in which they created in hopes of being heard then and now years later. One of the readings tells that unfortunately they were always being pushed aside which is not ever ethnical. "The editors and journalist of this "other" press were often ignored, disdained or persecuted while they were alive; many of this newspapers and broadcasts were never archived..."(Gonzales & Tores, 2013). Now when you think of our current times you can probably name a decent amount of ethic news sources however when you consider the quality, the exposure and the representation is it really enough.

Should Marx's opinions be considered if he is not knowledgeable on modern times?

Marx's was one of the first philosophers in regard to technology and he is who is introduced in one of our readings. Because he was one of the first and therefore from the past it should be a conservation if his work should still be considered to take in and use. I believe that after reading about how he believed"...humans can change society. Therefore, society and the media are open for change and contain the possibility of a better future."( . His work should aboustibly be conisdered. Marx shows to be open minded and aware of social change it should also be noted that he "...stressed the importance of the concept of the social."(Fuchs,2014)

What does the concept of sublation do for society?

In our introduction with Marx we also learn about Georg Willhelm Friedrich who is a Germen philosopher. Together these two had a process in which would be used in case of tension between opposing poles. This process was sublation, and although our reading described it as rather difficult it "...helps us to understand how change happens."(Fuchs,2014) Society is a constant changing environment and for us to change and proceed as a a society we need tensions and conversations. Which is what the concept of sublation does for us. it guides us through change.

FUCHS, C. (2014). Social Media: A critical introduction. SAGE PUBLICATIONS.

González, & Torres. (2012). News for all the people: The epic story of race and the American media.

#wgst320f24

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vinylspinning · 5 months ago

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The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl, August 18, 1967 (2023)

Jimi Hendrix had to move to England to become a rock star ...

America's deeply segregated music industry (which of course reflected its deeply segregated society) had already shown what happened to black rock 'n' roll artists (Little Richard, Chuck Berry, etc.) who dared "corrupt" America's white youth with a mere glimpse of racial integration.

Mind you, it's not that Britain was any less racist; it was simply caught by surprise long enough for rock's ruling aristocracy (The Beatles, The Who, etc.) to champion Hendrix's revolutionary talents when he took Swinging London by storm.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience's full-length debut, Are You Experienced?, landed in English record stores in May of 1967, but with no U.S. release confirmed as yet, it was the Monterey Pop Festival, in June, that effectively introduced Hendrix to his own countrymen.

And then the Experience -- Hendrix, bassist Noel Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell -- embarked on a U.S. tour opening for ... The Monkees!

When that unlikely pairing quickly proved impractical, the power trio started picking up ad hoc gigs ahead of their album's now confirmed American release on August 23, and that's why the 17th found them opening for The Mamas and the Papas at the Hollywood Bowl.

And while the so-called Summer of Love was already cruising towards Autumn, it's fair to say that most of the 18,000 people who purchased $2.50 tickets to the show were "straight" pop music consumers with no idea what was in store.

Chances are they left the show just as oblivious, confused, even traumatized by what they had witnessed, but those of us with subsequent decades of, erm ... "experience" in all things Jimi Hendrix can try to put ourselves in their shoes with this restored radio broadcast.

After the local morning jock's cheesy introduction (the kind of thing Frank Zappa and would satirize for years to come), the Experience tried to win over the audience by covering that summer's unofficial international anthem: The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band."

Later in the set, Hendrix and his henchmen would also sprinkle electrifying renditions of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" (where Jimi's rhythm guitar vamps are a revelation) and The Troggs' "Wild Thing" amidst their as-yet-unreleased originals.

These included a clam-filled "The Wind Cries Mary" (either Jimi's mic went dead a few times, or he forgot the lyrics), and combustible hard rockers, "Fire," "Foxey Lady," and "Purple Haze" -- all of which battled substandard amplification and recording quality to convey their inimitable power.

But at least the poor recording fidelity also silenced the occasional boos that allegedly emanated from the shell-shocked audience, much of which was ill-equipped to process deep blues cuts like Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" and Robert Petway's "Catfish Blues."

They also had little precedent for Jimi's supernatural guitar heroics, brazen sexuality, and larger-than-life showmanship -- all of which would define and inspire the classic rock concert experience for the ensuing decade and beyond.

So keep this big picture longview in mind when approaching Hollywood Bowl, August 18, 1967, or else you'll likely be disappointed by one of the more understated, un-explosive Jimi Hendrix live albums you're ever likely to hear.

In other words, this one's for the diehard collectors.

More Jimi Hendrix: “Purple Haze,” Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold as Love, Band of Gypsys, Electric Ladyland, The Cry of Love, Blues, First Rays of the New Rising Sun, South Saturn Delta, Valleys of Neptune, Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show.

#Jimi Hendrix #the jimi hendrix experience #classic rock #guitar hero #power trio #mitch mitchell #noel redding #the mamas and the papas #montery pop #summer of love #the beatles #howlin' wolf #albert king #bob dylan #the troggs #the monkees #frank zappa

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scooby-review · 9 months ago

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The New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 1 - 4

No iteration of Scooby Doo lasts too long, with the longest running series being Mystery Incorporated, Be Cool Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? all with fifty-two episodes.

The New Scooby Doo Movies is no different, lasting a total of two seasons with a total of twenty four episodes, just one less than Where are You?

This series makes two huge and notable changes from its predecessor. Firstly, the episodes are doubled, now forty two minutes in length. Secondly, every episode features a guest star, rotating through a slew of celebrities and fictional characters, this selection being bizarre to say the least.

Airing in 1972, just two years after Where are You? the show followed a cycle of reruns of the original series! Cartoons like Scooby Doo are built on the image of reruns! They are easy to pick up, they are entirely episodic and need no introduction, one can simply understand the structure, the characters, and therefore, less episodes can be made, and they can be aired in any order. Despite this iteration adding an additional twenty four episodes to this possible cycle of reruns, as far as I can tell, CBS opted instead to air reruns of Where are You? instead, doing so until their contract ended and the franchise shifted networks, although I’m not certain on this - finding information about broadcasting habits in the 70s isn’t easy!

Other than the two major changes, the show's formula remains the same, following the five original members of the gang solving mysteries!

1. Ghastly Ghost Town

At the time of writing this, I have pretty much finished watching season one, and I regret to report, I pretty much hate this iteration of the franchise. I’ll try my best to provide a nuanced look into the episodes, but this is a warning that I don’t love this series, for a myriad of reasons!

Ghastly Ghost Town follows the gang meeting The Three Stooges, aiding them in solving the mystery of who is scaring away customers at their ghost town theme park.

Weirdly, this episode feels very different to the rest of this season, almost leaning on being a parody of what is to come despite being the first episode.

For starters, the intro to this show is amazing, maybe even better than Where are Yous! It opens on such an eerie vibe that doesn’t even match all that well to the tone of the show, before growing into this more vibrant sounding and appearing intro! There’s two versions of it that are aired, this coming as a result of copyright disputes with certain celebrities or characters in the show, therefore, a version cutting out many characters is used when the show airs now.

In fact, the aforementioned copyright issues came from the Addams estate, of course owning the Addams Family. This has led to the episode being scarcely available, most notably only on two region exclusive VHS tapes, which I couldn't find being sold anywhere. However, as of around a week ago, the entire series was dropped onto Max, where this episode is inexplicably present.

The three stooges were a vaudeville act, best known for their short films, composed of Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine. Although some aspects of their slapstick style is still present here, the characters were heavily toned down for the show, with Moe’s character being changed drastically from a malicious bully to a pretty nice guy. By the time the episode aired, the actors were all either retired or had passed away.

I don’t love the three stooges, the closest thing I’d seen to them before watching this was Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, who I honestly love, but I just didn’t care about these guys - I had no reason to. Also, I imagine for fans of the three stooges this couldn’t have been all that great either, given the characters toned down personalities. Yet, every episode acts like you know these people, sometimes they are shown throughout the episode to be unique and interesting, but here they feel like devices for gags, completely void of any interesting character or personality.

Like I mentioned before, this episode almost feels like a parody of the show, a weird concept given it’s the first episode in this series, but it almost appears reflective on its past, making fun of how serious Where are You? felt. For example, in one scene early on Daphne grabs onto Fred’s arm, it’s a detail that feels like it’s commenting on the idea of them being romantically paired, something never even hinted at in Where are You, yet, I assume fans had already gravitated to the concept. It’s as if it’s making fun of itself, poking holes in the original’s formula but having nothing of substance to do or say, made all the more baffling by the fact that nothing like this happens again. It just feels different, something only emphasised by a later scene where we see the writers have given Fred a new character trait! He’s a misogynist now! It’s done in a “I hate my wife!” kind of way, he jokes about women talking lots, it’s very of its time and something now seen as a parody in on of itself, yet, we again don’t see this new character quirk return. Every other episode removes this from him, placing him back into a blank slate once more!

As for this episode's villains… I think the best way to explain it is that I had to search who the monster was three quarters of the way through. Given the episode’s ghost town location, we see the villains of the Gunslinger and Geronimo, a cowboy and Native American respectively. This, of course, falls into every single stereotype you’d expect it to. Both villains are statues, amusements placed around the park that have seemingly come to life.

I think the gunslinger is the more active villain here anyway, and therefore, the better one. This episode has a particular stand out scene where Scooby has a duel with him, and it rules, there’s a reason it appears in the intro! It’s perfectly crafted and one of the best scenes in the entire season!

The villain’s just don’t take an active role in the episode, and as we shall see in future episodes, this is not a one off occurrence. This, in my opinion only emphasises New Movies weakest element: that run time. Nothing of use is done with the extra time, it instead just highlights that many of these characters are frail, that Daphne and Fred really haven’t got much going on yet, and it grows egregious with how long scenes can drag on for and how little is done with the time it has. My hope was that the mysteries would be given actual depth, a chance to be the focal point, but no. I truly cannot explain what this extra time is spent doing, and in many episodes, segments are cut down or omitted completely in modern reruns. The pacing here is dreadful, these episodes are truly a drag to get through, and it dilutes any positive and interesting aspects.

There’s a lot going on here, and yet, hardly any of it works, it’s a poor start and one of my least favourite episodes of the entire franchise let alone the show itself!

Also, there’s a scene where Scooby has the tiniest waist. That’s all!

2. The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair

Growing up I had the Scooby-Doo meets Batman VHS tape, and I would watch it fairly frequently, and while I couldn’t remember much, I did remember enjoying it! Alongside the Harlem Globetrotters DVD, this is all the experience I’ve had with

This episode features Batman, Robin, The Penguin and Joker, the former pair aiding the gang in solving a mystery of a plane crash and clown toys stuffed with counterfeit money.

Despite liking this one a whole lot more than the previous episode, it’s still just okay to me, it suffers from similar pacing issues that plagues this series, but it manages to still be entertaining a good chunk of the time.

I think the best way I could describe this episode is convoluted, which is a whole lot better than boring, but if I was given a few more words, boring would eventually end up there. It sucks because this one could be great, but it’s padded to hell, it’s again a victim of the runtime. I think that without the long middle section of this episode, the gang attempt to thwart The Joker and Penguin, which I described in my notes as a “Scooby-Doo episode maker”, where they use a myriad of traps, all with the classic shows aesthetic. Like, it’s fine, but it’s too long without any substance, which could be said for the entire episode. So many aspects here I enjoy, but it’s all too long, every scene feels like it could be shaved in time, it’s so frustrating.

The voice actors here are particularly fun, with Cassey Casem, the voice of Shaggy, voicing Robin, their voices just similar enough for you to tell, but Robin feels like he’s secretly Shaggy here, a more well put together Shaggy. I also really enjoyed Larry Storch as the Joker, who I felt had an air of Mason Verger to him. And in a similar vein, I really enjoyed Batman’s dialogue, he talks so matter of factly.

A few particular moments are great in this one, such as where Fred chokes out this masked individual in a scrap-yard, Shaggy and Scooby nearly getting crushed to death and the way the episode transitions using the bat insignia. The final act is pretty enjoyable too, where I especially love the fake-out villains.

Throughout the episode, we are led to believe that The Penguin and Joker are the villain’s, but no, it’s instead the hooded individual we see early on who’s been masterminding everything this whole time, being the sweet old lady we meet early on, Mrs Baker. I love this twist even if the actual design of the villain is whatever, the purple colour scheme is great, but they really have nothing else going for them. It’s not a great sign when different places list different costumes and villains for an episode, but this entire series sees this happening, with nobody entirely agreeing on who counts and who doesn’t. Generally, this comes down to the uninspired designs, and their lack of a presence within the episode. Take the previous episode for example, where some sources list a cactus costume we see as one of the villains, while others don’t, and in this episode it is disputed whether or not the Penguin and Joker’s disguises, The Living Skeletons, are separate villains or just alternate costumes they wear. Despite every episode having a villain, they aren’t always the monster’s we see in Where are You, instead they can be anything, but their designs are frequently dull, lacking much flair or character, a hooded individual is boring when done like this, we see this disguise for such a short period of time that it’s never something you’ll remember looking back on the episode. Focus now is shifted to the guest cast, which means an episode can be made or broken based on who appears, while the mystery is placed on the backburner. Although Where are You never truly put effort into making an interesting mystery, the difference is the length of time we spend in the mystery and the villain’s opposite them! Everything here feels so uninspired and drear, and although there are some seriously egregious examples later on, reused sounds such as the phantom's (Where are You, episode 3) laugh are seen in this episode, and it removes any personality that the character’s could have had.

Moving on to the living skeletons, they’re just fine. They act as disguises for the Joker and Penguin, they do their job fine being basic horror archetypes, and I enjoy the cheeky grins they both share.

This episode is notable for having the first female culprit also!

Overall, this is simply a fine episode, it could be good if it were shorter, but the guests here are enjoyable to watch, there’s a reason Scooby-Doo and Batman are still crossing over to this day, both in several movies and even more recently in a comic run.

3. Wednesday is Missing

Despite this episode having what is one of the worst Scooby-Doo villains, I kind of like this one!

Wednesday is Missing follows the gang becoming house sitters for the Adams Family while Morticia and Gomez go on their second honeymoon, an already tense situation that’s only exacerbated by Wednesday’s sudden disappearance.

Much like the previous episode, the guest stars are what make it, the Scooby gang just fit so seamlessly into this world, it makes watching it a delight, seeing how they interact with different characters and aspects of the Addams Family’s life. I love this episode so much because it’s the characters entering the world of the Addams Family, they’re driving along and stop by their house, and for me, that’s so much more interesting than them driving into the fictional ghost town theme park the three stooges have. In fact, my favourite episodes in this show tend to be ones where the gang enter the world of the guest stars, or the guest stars join in on a mystery, effectively planting themselves into the world of Scooby-Doo.

To skate past the worst of this episode, I hate the villain. He’s a giant vulture, piloted by a group of old housekeepers. The villain is so dull, and it’s so frustrating to have a villain like this in the episode that takes place inside the gothic house of the Addams Family. Alongside that, a little nitpick I have is that the Addams Family are described as being TV characters by Shaggy, which just opens a whole can of worms as to what that means and what the gang are doing here if that's the case.

Mostly, I enjoy this episode because of the way the two worlds interact, it feels like a crossover more so than a guest starring episode, and therefore, it feels so special. I’m not the biggest Addams Family fan - I have vague memories of seeing the 1964 show on TV as a child, I’ve seen the first movie and a production of the musical - yet the styles blend perfectly, the character’s reactions write themselves. The house acts as a more fantastical Where are You setting, it’s a huge gothic manor house that oozes with style, every room unveils a new horror.

The mystery doesn’t settle into the episode until just over halfway, and truthfully, the mystery is just a vehicle to get the gang searching through more of the house, to push them into new horrors that the family lives inside of every day. They surround themselves in the unusual and supernatural that the gang always attempts to explain.

Every character here radiates with personality, everything so fully realised, it’s a shame there isn’t another episode with these characters! There’s a few guests who appear more than once, and I would have loved to see more of them!

This episode is so fun because of the atmosphere it creates. Truthfully, it’s just as long and drawn out as the previous two episodes and I can’t confidently say it does much different other than appealing to my tastes better! Sure, I love the dynamic between the gang and Batman and Robin, but here we get to see the characters in the world of the Addams Family too - I think that aids in my enjoyment!

4. The Frickert Fracas

I think this episode is one of the most tedious in the show, it’s a shame given how much I usually enjoy both a farm setting and a scarecrow as a villain! Yet here nothing flows, every second feels doubled, every scene too long with no substance to back it up. It’s not bad, it’s just dull, it pushed me into a state of boredom, which is maybe worse than some episodes in the series I outright disliked.

We follow the gang as they drive guest star Jonathan Winters to his friend's farm, but on the way they find two people attempting to steal the formula to her secret rooster enlarging drug.

I don’t love Jonathan Winters as the guest star, he’s playing a very specific style of character here, and that character is certainly one that is defined and clear, you always know how he will act. However, he talks so slowly and his dialogue never worked for me, but I think that comes down to personal taste. In real life, he was a jack of all trades, being a comedian, actor, author, TV host and artist, although he’s probably best known for his work as an actor.

He’s mostly paired with Scooby and Shaggy here - often the single guests will be paired off with a set of characters for the majority of the episode - which is where I start to have a few problems. The scene in the barn stands out to me as especially egregious, it’s tedious and not that funny, with later reruns cutting out sections of the episode to streamline it. This is something that can be seen across several episodes!

The villain here is fine! Something I hoped going into these was that the extra length would be used to flesh out the mysteries, but these villains and mysteries almost always feel miles weaker than anything coming out of Where are You. Here we hardly see the villain until halfway through anyway, a common trope within these episodes, before that we usually sit through a series of gags and jokes surrounding the guest meeting the gang, an extended set up for the final twenty minutes.

This scarecrow has a mostly brown and tan design, he has a jacket, a hat, the usual scarecrow attire, however, his face is a powder blue, it stands out starkly against everything else, and not in a positive way. As a design, the blue face just feels out of place, it clashes so poorly with all the other colours and it’s the only hint of blue in the design, it truly is just curious as to why this colour was used, because sure, it stands out, but in no way does it do so positively.

I really have nothing else to add on this one! Very whatever episode.

Episodes Ranked:

Wednesday is Missing

The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair

The Frickert Fracas

Ghastly Ghost Town

Villains Ranked:

The Scarecrow

Gunslinger

Living Skeletons

Hooded Man

Vulture

Geronimo

Previous Review: Every Scooby Doo Where are You Episode Ranked

Next Review: New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 5 - 8

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justinspoliticalcorner · 1 year ago

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Hunter Walker at TPM:

A dispute raging inside the “Stew Peters Network” ended up in a federal court in Florida last month. The ongoing case has exposed drama between a group of far right media personalities, complete with alleged text messages and emails that show the inner workings of a company that has peddled conspiracy theories, anti-gay hate speech, racism, and antisemitism, while still maintaining connections with more mainstream Republicans. In many ways, the trouble began — as so many things have in the modern far right — with the coronavirus pandemic.

The company’s namesake, Stew Peters, is an internet personality whose eponymous show and associated social media posts have, in just the past two days alone, suggested immigrants are “retarded cannibals,” declared “Jewish Zionist infiltration in our government” is “our enemy,” and attacked “queer perverts” who he said needed to be “brought to heel” for creating “Weimar conditions” that “must be met with Weimar solutions.” Peters, who has amassed six figure followings on the social networks Gab and Telegram along with an audience of over eighty thousand on former President Trump’s “Truth Social” platform, has shared his stage with neo-Nazi leader Nick Fuentes. Yet Peters’ evident extremism, which has included airing blatantly antisemitic cartoon caricatures in the introduction to his broadcasts, has also not stopped him from drawing established Republicans as guests on his show, including Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has been credited with appearances in six episodes, and multiple current GOP congressional candidates.

While a blend of right wing politics and hate speech is a core part of Peters’ brand, COVID conspiracy theories are what provided him some of his strongest social media momentum. Specifically, Peters gained prominence with the 2022 documentary “Died Suddenly,” which focused on what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation described as “the evidence-free claim that COVID vaccines are causing sudden deaths in people around the world.” Peters was among the producers of the approximately hour long movie. It mixed jump cuts and archival footage — including images of 9/11, the moon landing, and bigfoot — along with interviews and easily contradicted claims to argue the vaccines are part of a population control plot engineered by the “global elite.” “Died Suddenly” concludes with onscreen text urging viewers to “let us never forget what they have done.” “If you are quiet, or apathetic, or complacent you have to stand before God and you have to answer for that,” Peters warned the audience.

[...]

The lawsuit was first reported on last month by Angry White Men, a site dedicated to “tracking white supremacy.” However, the internal correspondence from Peters’ company and other case documents are being reported here at TPM for the first time. Along with feuds and alleged malfeasance in Peters’ inner circle, the documents — including some which were unsealed due to TPM reporting — shed light on the financial model that fringe far right broadcasters use to build their business. The suit paints a picture of an extremist media empire driven by clicks, commercials from a company selling gold bars to people paranoid about the “next crisis,” and audience donations. It also reveals how heavily Peters relied on outsiders to create much of the content that aired under his brand name.

[...] Starting in 2014, Peters went on to work as a bounty hunter in Minnesota where he experienced some initial social media success posting videos of apprehensions and taped rants. However, this venture was not without its own issues. By 2020, Peters began posting a political radio show on the Facebook page where he shared bounty hunting exploits. The following year, according to the Daily Beast, Peters was arrested after a scene at his home. The incident reportedly led Peters to express fears about the future of his law enforcement-adjacent career, and his bounty hunting videos ultimately tapered off. As Peters increasingly focused on political content, it was the “Died Suddenly” documentary that helped Peters, as Mother Jones put it, “hit his stride.”

“Died Suddenly” was produced by Peters, filmmakers Matt Skow and Nicholas Stumphauzer, who directed the movie, Edward Szall, and Lauren Witzke. It was presented by the “Stew Peters Network,” which is essentially a subscription-based website and series of social media pages that host Peters’ show and affiliated broadcasts. Szall and Witzke are partners in the production company TLM Global, which is short for “Truth & Light Media.” Like Peters, Szall and Witzke, who was previously an executive producer for Peters’ network, have their own connections to both GOP politics and the more extreme far right. Witzke, who could not be reached for comment on this story, was the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware in 2020. After winning the Republican primary in that race, Witzke cheerfully accepted tweeted congratulations from Fuentes, the prominent neo Nazi activist and broadcaster. Before losing in the general election, Witzke conducted an interview with the website VDare, which has consistently hosted white nationalist and antisemitic content. In that conversation, Witzke indicated she was more concerned about immigration than being branded a racist.

“Died Suddenly” wasn’t the only product of the partnership between Peters, Witzke, and Szall that, according to court documents, began in October 2021. Since then, the pair also worked with Peters on the documentary “These Little Ones,” which focused on a narrative about “elite pedophilia” with echoes of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory. They also produced two movies under the “Watch The Water” banner that were credited with originating a conspiracy theory that COVID was caused by snake venom in drinking water. Two other videos made through the partnership suggest world leaders and scientists are involved in a Satanic plot and that Americans are being enslaved by taxes, narratives that are more extreme versions of the concerns about globalists and elites that hint at antisemitic tropes and have increasingly become part of the Republican playbook. Along with producing these documentaries, Witzke and Szall also hosted their own biweekly broadcast, “Crosstalk News” on Peters’ network.

The Fokiss v. TLM Global lawsuit exposes the inner workings and internal fights within far-right extremist Stew Peters’s media empire.