#Love the similar composition and contrast between them. It kinda makes me think they are companion pictures

[ultramarine-spirit]

Oh, they look divine together

[thesquidgame]

Umbrella Academy Trailer Breakdown

Keep in mind that I wrote like 4 pages of this and then my computer deleted it by accident and I have now way to retrieve it, so this was originally much longer

The first two names that Five calls are Diego and Luther

Across the street there is a sign advertising Kiss Vampire

There is a 1963 movie called The Kiss of the Vampire that was released on september 11th 1963

It’s about a honeymooning couple who get drawn into a vampire cult

Fun

The soldiers appear to gun down one of their own men

Who is waving a red flag, which can stand for communism or socialism

The siblings look beaten and bruised when a nuke goes off

I don’t think that’s the end of the season though

I think it’s what Five sees that causes him to go further back and prevent it

The song playing is called “Here Comes the End” it’s a new song by Gerard fucking Way

The traditional netflix transition is turned into black and white

Five still looks freaked out

So I think Cha Cha pulled him back further in time

Cha Cha looks a lot older, so he’s probably been there for some time

It goes deeper into a store, then a sewing shop, then a bunch of cars outside of a house with police directing them

The record playing is Johann Sebastians Bach’s Chaconne

Chaconne is defined by the Oxford dictionary as: a composition in a series of varying sections in slow triple time, typically over a short repeated bass theme.

Which could weirdly enough describe the Hargreeves as well

Klaus has a cult, with a LOT of followers

As long as he doesn’t hurt them then I’m just glad he’s getting some love

His cult appears to be about him reassuring and comforting people who have lost loved ones

Allison appears to be in court, she’s sitting next to another man and woman, with a lot of white people who look pissed behind her

Luther is a boxer that I can’t tell if he’s hated or loved

Ben is so done with Klaus’ shit

Diego is in an asylum with Lila and I’m not happy

Vanya is in a car with a woman and a little kid

She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other at an angle that leads me to believe she has her hand on the woman’s knee

Five somehow rounded up the gang

Want to see what that was like

They are already SO done with Klaus’ cult it’s not even funny

Okay a little funny

Okay very funny

A minute in! (I already did this shit for an hour and a half and it was deleted so I’m so unenthusiastic but whatevs)

Diego has his hair cut and he’s in his outfit when they are going in to see the tv, and his outfit looks a little dirty so it’s probably a little later in the season

It looks like they are going to the place where Five was meant to assassinate the president

There are silhouettes of Five and Luther in the reflection

Diego is talking to Allison about how the whole thing revolves around the president’s assasination, and there’s a man in the background

Allison is holding the man from earliers hands while he’s in jail

Yay!

Her romantic subplot isn’t with her brother!

Five is looking at a zoomed-in image of a woman wearing a hijab or a scarf looking up at the sky in shock

Vanya is looking in fear at a tape with someone standing ominously in the background

It looks like at the beginning we think it’s nuclear bombs that destroy the earth (it’s probably something different in the end)

Diego is standing in some sort of control room

Five is sneaking through another room that looks to be in the same or a similar building

Another message or whatever for the three men that look like the musketeers grew up to be an Edward Scissorhands Scrooge

I wonder if the milkman’s milk is sour or if he just refills the milk with good milk every time he goes to murder somebody

The scorrges break into the asylum where DIego is at and starts shooting at him and Lila

They escape, because he’s Diego

Allison looks really beat up, by the “vacuum salesmen”

I know that line wasn’t meant to be funny, but it was really fucking funny

Halfway there… Again

Someone did a flip and-

HOLY FUCK

THe goldfish guy?!

This is some megamind shit!

Klaus’ cult is a happy cult :)

Diego and Lila have a budding romance

Someone gets blasted

Vanya looks really scared at the wheel of a car by the milk man

That was phrased horribly

Some jackass dodges one of Diego’s knives

This is kinda off topic

But there is such a harsh contrast between the characters moods in the instagram posts and in the trailer

For example, Allison looked super happy in the posts, but super pissed in the trailer

Klaus looked super pissed in the posts, but super happy in the trailer

Same thing goes for the rest of them, it completely contrasts

Klaus looks like he’s dancing while high in a liquor isle (you were doing so good baby, so good)

Klaus, Allison, and Vanya dancing in the foyer in something I can get behind

I love Vanya’s dancing

In every situation, it’s awkward, it’s nerdy, but it’s so good

It’s a Napolean Dynamite type situation

I’m not going to get into that interaction with Luther and Five, I don’t know

It looks like Luther and Five team up in this season and that is a nope from me

Ben shushes Klaus in front of a door title bureau and I don’t even know

LOL, a book meant for very dumb children

THis is a cute fight between Ben and KLaus

Stop trying to make Luther and Five happen, it’s not going to happen

I love it how Five asks Klaus

He’s not even like

As he here? In like a hopeful way

It’s more like, how many idiots do we have to deal with today

No, unfortunately ghosts can’t time travel

Are you kidding me?

That seems like Justin and Robert’s real life chemistry,  lol

The sign behind Ben’s head isn’t actually a real place

Someone got PISSED at Luther

I’m betting it was Vanya

The second she saw him she was like

Hey asshole, remember the years of abuse you put me through and how you hurt me more when I was hurt?

Guess what bitch, that came back to haunt you

But then again? How were you supposed to know that you’re actions had consequences

Boo-hoo

Look! It’s Allison’s boyfriend again!

It looks like Allison and Klaus are together in time, and when Five popped in they were like wut

Baby Pogo. No.

Yay! Diego beats the shit out of 66% of the scrooges

Ax child ax child ax child

Who beat up Luther I’ll shake his hand

Flippity flip flip flippity

Why in there the giant beams of light hurting Allison HASN’T SHE BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH

I AM 10000000% here for the tiki hut

I heard a rumor that you punched yourself in the face

Young Reginald

NO NO NO

This is a really important detail

11/22/63 is a Stephen King novel

11/22/63 is a novel about

A TIME TRAVELER WHO GOES BACK IN TIME TO STOP THE KENNEDY ASSASINATION

THE SAME PLOT

Here’s the wikipedia page, Gerard knows what he’s doing

[rhydium]

Info dumbo about the StarFinite story?

aright u asked for it anon GET READY [cracks knuckles] this is gonna be long so obligatory cut in 3, 2........

...1!

so the uh, the au! the story!! w/e yall wanna call it! full disclaimer, i only began working on this whole thing a while ago, but it's totally taken over my fukn brain. like, we're talking big hyperfixation hrs. am i cringe for being this invested in my own content? yes? cool i do not Care >:3€

i should also throw it out there real quick that i am kin w/ infinite, n this is actually one of my two canons (both of which are my own aus lmfao wow). i didn't go into it expecting it to be but sfsfsgdfs here we are ig!! for that reason it's got extra importance to me n this definitely contributes to the euphoria i get from it!! it's a lil odd writing ur own canon,,? but i kinda just go w/ the flow!

the au n, the story that i will start Eventually, revolves around infinite n starline (obvi) n it's honestly just ... the tl;dr is big healing momence n, what's this? uh oh sisters !!! they are falling in love 😳😳😳

uhhhh so infinite is an android, made by eggman. that's like, the most notable canon divergence here! super important context to have. i've got a whole big theory on the possibility of sega originally intending infinite to be an artificial being (which i explored in the works for my Other canon too), stemming from not only the scene in forces wherein infinite comments on sonic's "data", but a line of dialogue from tails in one of the last stages of the game where he Literally Says "so this is where eggman built infinite". that ... i mean. that contrasts w/ episode shadow pretty hard don't it?? would explain why that dlc was so rushed, n the comic too. ANYWAY adsfsfs um that's a seperate ramblepost. yeah!!!

they are also agender n use they/them (primarily) as well as he/him!! so i'll be refering to them w/ those pronouns!

after the war, infinite is taken in by the resistance n, instead of being dismantled, they're basically given a chance to rehabilitate themselves. it's agreed that they won't be reprogrammed, as despite the potential risks, it feels wrong to do so; like a violation of their free will, individuality n thinking. if infinite is to be a good person, it's not gonna be bc other ppl recreated their entire personality, it's gonna be bc it's what they themselves truly want. robot ethics idk man!! u can't tell me that sonic n co wouldn't offer this to infinite if they offered it to metal in IDW,,,, i am Standing By This!!!

it's, yknow, a bit rocky, at first. infinite has to really fight the urge to return to eggman (something they already tried once, before the resistance found them; they were cast out). it's a struggle against what they were built to do, against giving into unhealthy familiarity over facing a, while healthier, unfamiliarity. new faces, a new life, turning their back on their mission n creator, it's like, a lot.

they work for/with the sonic crew, rebuilding the world they tore down as deemed fitting justice, being closely monitored for a bit as a natural precaution. as it becomes apparent infinite truly no longer has any ambition to harm others (they don't have much ambition for anything, really), they're then granted more freedom, n start taking on more important missions!! it at least gives them something to do, keeps them occupied. they have issues with dissociation, unreality, whether they're truly a real person bc, well, android. feeling purposeless, n a lack of worth, especially. a need to prove themselves. heavy stuff. i'll kinda go into that a bit more in a sec. their work grounds them, if only temporarily.

n soooooo... IDW comic stuff happens. metal virus time. starline gets kicked out of the empire.

now, as the comics are ongoing, n as this is already an au, there's gonna be divergence, n i must admit i haven't planned out all that yet. there's a lot i have to consider!! infinite being w the resistance/restoration is a big game changer ... tho i Do believe that they were absent, likely on a far out mission during most of the chaos. eggman doesn't know abt them, nor does starline or anyone else other than the sonic crew; n some civilians that recognise them.

i'm not 100% sure of Exactly when it happens, but i think it's just after bad guys, that infinite is sent to locate n bring in starline. it doesn't prove too difficult. there's a whole, starline realising "oh fuck it's you???", some bickering n, the two don't hit it off right away. they're both kinda like. not mentally stable ddgddgdds,,,

so uh. starline ends up essentially going thru the same sorta shit as infinite. careful watch, rebuilding, all that jazz, making sure he can be trusted. he's like... very very lost, quite like infinite is. the world has kinda calmed down, in the meanwhile.

it's at this point i'm gonna go ahead n drop a bit of a ramble i subjected my friends to a while ago, to articulate the way i see the two, n their dynamic together!! i was considering making this it's own post a while ago!

analysing their characters a bit... let's look at starline. Like. so we have this, in bad guys, which SENT ME tbfh;

i feel like it's the moment that triggers starline onto the path he is rn canonically,,, he's clearly like. rly mad n bitter. the core of this?? he wants his work n his efforts to be acknowledged.

he's big angry. still kind of in denial at this stage. he has himself obsessed w/ the idea of making eggman see him as Worthy, that if he just tries hard enough, that'll happen. he's dependent on eggman's validation, n i mean, it's no surprise; he's followed him a Long Time by the sounds of it.

then in the recent issue, hold the fuck up, bc we got, This;

god. my god it's all comin together now homies. this???? this right here??? it is the CLASSIC "i have to do this to prove i'm strong n powerful n smart n worthy n should be respected please Give Me Acknowledgement" ..... n who else is Like That? can u see where im going w/ this?

i think most ppl are aware of infinite's character being extremely indicative of self worth/esteem issues n the need to prove themself, right?? the extreme adversity, repulsion, perhaps even fear toward the idea of being weak. the compulsion to prove otherwise, to show their strength, to become powerful, to conquer to make a point. their theme exudes this same energy as their behaviour in-game; an aggressive attitude, trying to assert themself, while if u rly listen...? the lyrics are actually really sad in places. it reeks of cover up, although composition wise, a v interesting thing to note is a lot of the more telling lyrics are prominent while some of the affirming ones are in the background. indicative of a desire to have their true feelings be heard but caught in a vicious loop?

okay okay that's yet Another different analysis. AHEM.

not to get deep on main (oh who the hell am i kidding that's the point of this entire thing) but i think starline has issues w/ his worth in a similar way to infinite. they both seem to have this need to Prove something, whether it's to others or themselves, n get caught in a toxic spiral of doing worse n worse things for Some kind of validation or acknowledgement. they'll go to really big lengths chasing that, n both of them ultimately sought validation in the wrong place n wrong way.

this is a big part of my starfinite dynamic,, n so, what happens, as they get closer n open up??? we have them BOTH realising together that they don't have to do fuck all to prove anything to anyone. they don't need to do all this to show they're strong n smart n worth something, not to anyone else OR themselves. they're enough as they are. they bond over that shared feeling that they have to do xyz, to prove themselves, n that desire to just finally be acknowledged n appreciated n help each other thru it. to help each other understand that other ppls approval, or lack thereof, doesn't define them, their strength, intelligence, and worthiness.

i feel like they have an interesting parallel between them in like... the above could be taken as a general analysis, but to go more in depth on this au specifically?? ...

starline followed eggman for presumably a long time n it no doubt left him feeling a heavy and deep regret for all that time wasted n spent on an unhealthy path. infinite kinda teaches him that what matters is what he's doing Now n also reminds him that if none of it happened, starline wouldn't have learnt a lot of the serious skills he has. n while starline still feels bad, he also realises himself that, he likely never would have crossed infinite's path if none of it happened. for that reason, he wouldn't take it back.

infinite has only been recently made, on the other hand. they haven't really existed long, yet, but so far their experiences haven't been very positive n it can be .... discouraging. starline sorta, shows infinite their limited experiences w/ the world are a very tiny fraction of what's out there, n things can absolutely change, yes, including for the better; that's the essence of life, a neverending, constant flow of change.

it's a big tale of moving on n letting go, honestly; made easier as they're doing it together. n as they heal n grow, well... these bitches gay. sfshshdgds like, ig that's putting it p bluntly but!! they start to trust each other, understand each other more. as they get to truly know who the other is, they both start developing The Feelings. they're both pretty oblivious n the reveal is totally unknown so far!! yeah, i know, bummer. i suck. boo. adafsfsds however i can say there will be lots of content in the making!! if that soothes the soul! i've got of ideas i hope to bring to life.

ofc there's still a lot of more specific things i haven't covered here so! if y'all want more juice hmu w/ more focused questions but !! this is the overview n i hope it was a decent read now that gave some uhhh! Cool Insight! yea!!! ✌

[suga-kookiemonster]

P1 I really hope this next album is more of a fun turn up kind album and I don’t mean this as hate either ive actually been a fan since the wings era! And I love the way the boys have grown I love it they have become story tellers and there about telling a message and not hiding the good and the bad of what they do! But for me personally and again no hate sometimes honestly I do get a little bored of the fake love black swan type vibe especially as somebody who speaks Korean...

not that the albums haven’t been good..obv lol ! but they all follow the same theme of the dark I’m trying to find myself/love myself/ understand myself situation and though that is beautiful! I kind of wish there was more of a mix.But songs that might sound sexy or sound fun but really are sad or dark lyrically it’s hard for someone like me to vibe out bc I naturally translate if that makes sense?

P3 so it kind of throws off the mood! Like V singularity I could not find the song itself as sexy as a lot of the fandom because I can translate the lyrics in my brain does it automatically! So I’m like 🤦🏽‍♀️ Staph just enjoy the thirst Lol I don’t know I just think it would be a good mix because we haven’t gotten a fire, or 21st century girl kinda song in a hot minuteP3 I know this is a sensitive subject so I won’t really get into it but I think Bh is also partially taken advantage of this

P4 this very sad and unfortunate situation so that way the boys can tour two albums next year since inevitably we don’t know what 2022 could have in store for the boys... and I just personally think a more upbeat and fun album that genuinely translate that way LOL would be a good contrast to such a heavy album like seven.. Either way I’ll support them bc I love them but I’m sure a very unpopular opinion this particular album wasn’t really one of my favorites! I actually preferred Persona and

P5 Persona and would have preferred that mixed with a couple heavier songs from this album I think it would’ve been a good mixture of vibes ! However I know the boys don’t have full control they have more control than a lot of other groups but they say it all the time that their label plays a very large part still in the over all come back theme and everything like that so I’m sure that’s also a part of the continuity of everything

i hear you and understand what you’re saying, but sorry, i simply don’t agree 🤷🏽‍♀️songs can be considered sexy due to the composition of the songs themselves, and it doesn’t have to be because of the lyrics. this is one of the facets of the r&b genre, and singularity is an r&b song, point blank, period. while often about sex, r&b is also often about heartbreak and similar dark themes, so singularity’s lyrics are actually perfect for the genre! tae’s pain isn’t sexy, but his smooth voice and the dragging beat are. 

as for albums, i tend to gravitate towards darker themes anyways. but imo i liked persona a lot, but 7 was much better. yes it has dark elements, but i disagree that the whole thing is dark and there aren’t any “fun” songs, because once you hit filter, literally the rest of the album is full of “fun” songs. for me, the difference between this album and persona (you could sort of make this argument as well with the difference between ly: her and ly: tear--though her was a beautiful album) is that it is much more cohesive as a body of work. one of the things that annoys me about western music today is that artists make albums full of singles and don’t bother to make an album, you know? the work doesn’t say anything as a whole, like it used to. so no, i don’t want a “fun” album if it doesn’t say anything. go go is one of my favorite songs, but i don’t want a whole album of go go lol.  persona felt a little disjointed and single-y to me, but imo 7 deserves a grammy 🤷🏽‍♀️

[mrfirefoxgym]

Another glimpse of hell - mean (and some not-so-mean) nicknames on the Chinese gymternet TAKE 2.

DISCLAIMER:

1. Do not read this if you are easily offended by mean names, satirical jokes or dark humour.

2. The Chinese gymternet culture, and its internet culture as a whole, is very different from the ones on tumblr. Partly due to its insularity, certain terms used in the Chinese gymternet could come across to you as too rude or brass or unacceptable. However, please also take into account the difference in the cultural aspect as well. As a common dweller in the Chinese gymternet community, I can promise that 95% of the satirical teasings or mean names created by the Chinese has no derogatory intention. The truly degrading, racist or sexist nicknames have also been filtered out by me, so rest assured.

So now, if you are ready, please read on:

——————————————–The line to hell——————————————-

A. Foundation Course Chapter 2

1. 美x~; Pretty x~; adj. 

Right. So you call someone a pretty something. But it also could mean “pretty” aka fugly something. No one knows if you are genuine about it, and so after awhile the expression took on a warped connotation. Both fans and haters use it. Decipher its true meaning before replying anyone on the forum!

E.g. Pretty ___ fell two times on beam today, made my day!

2. 水x~；Watery x~; adj. 

In Chinese terms, if you “inject water” into something, you will make it less substantial, less genuine, less real and less deserving. So if someone are “watery”, people are inferring that she or he is overscored and undeserving of his credentials. Some fans nonetheless use it on their beloved ones as friendly teasing or a show of humility. 

3. xoP - noun. 

So the official rules of artistic gymnastics are written in the Code of Point (CoP). Some fans, however, like to invent their own rules (or twisting the meaning of existing rules) on judging a routine. As such, people would say that so-and-so have invented their own xOP to judge routines. One particular notorious member in the Chinese gymternet community has the ID lldtt06, and hence whatever he says, people will reply:

“Oh wow Mdm6 is judging routines based on his 6oP again!”. 

(some famous rules of 6oP include - there should be deduction whenever one does shap to pak because its so “trite”, and many others lmao)

4. 烟花 - fireworks - noun.

Used to describe gymnasts who just can’t finish a routine without falling. The Chinese gymternet sometimes use the term “explode” to describe routines with falls (e.g. Seda’s beam exploded again!). So for those who routinely fall in their routine, they are called fireworks. Also used to describe routines that fail spectacularly. 

e.g. “The beam routines of Seda are one hell of a firework performance, simply stellar - I’m in awe!”

———————————————————————————————————–

B. Country related mean terms: (used only to describe radical fans)

HOW DO PEOPLE CALL TEAM AMERICA?

池塘 - pond - noun.

Many think that certain American gymnasts are overscored. A pond has lots of water. Now look at the second bullet point in the foundation chapter - Do you get it now?

HOW DO PEOPLE CALL THE (RADICAL) FANS OF TEAM AMERICA?

蝌蚪 - tadpole - noun.

Originally used to mock Liukin’s fans because Liukin’s nickname is froggy (if you remember from my last post!), the term has been expanded to embody all die-hard/radical American fans.

莲子 - lotus seed - noun.

You know, lotus grows from pond and produces lotus seed. Yep.

HOW DO PEOPLE CALL THE (RADICAL) FANS OF TEAM RUSSIA?

鹅粪 - Goose poo - noun.

A pun of 俄粉, or Rus Fans. This term though has been picked up by Russian fans themselves as self-teasing, so its no longer a mean nickname…kind of.

Ruslut - noun.

Only the meanest Russian haters use this. Most people who use this are radical American fans so Russian fans often retaliate by calling them Uslut back.

HOW DO PEOPLE CALL THE (RADICAL) FANS OF TEAM ROMANIA?

火葬粉/火苗 - Cremnator/Little flames (Though I think kindling is a better translation, meaning wise)

So in my last episode I talked about this Bulimar set a cremation spell on Team Romania thing, so I guess it isn’t surprising that its die-hard fans are being called “flames/kindlings”?

HOW DO PEOPLE CALL THE (RADICAL) FANS OF TEAM CHINA?

好粉丝/宙国粉 - “Great” fans, Fans of team universe

I’ve talked about this last time so just revision here lol.

———————————————————————————————————–

C. Gymnasts related nicknames (some are not mean at all because I run out of mean nicknames lmao)

1. Daria Spiridonova - 累女士 - Mdm Tiresome

Back in 2014 when Spi first proved her worth Chinese fans had been calling her “the new love”, which is a proof of her popularity back then. Then in 2016 the sentiment took a turn for the worse as people realized that while she can only do bars (and that her bars isn’t even the best in the team), she kept getting selected over others (like Kapitonova and Skrypnik, at least in 2016) even in team competitions. So people started saying things like “Isn’t that super tiring for her teammate coz she can only do one event and will explode on all others”. Eventually people started to call her Mdm Tiresome - someone who drains the shit out of her teammate. 

2. Brenna Dowell - 嘟嘟鸡 - Dodo Chicken

Dowell’s nickname is just realllllllly unfortunate lol, because its not her fault at all. So basically a forum member named lldt06 (inventor of 6oP, remember?) is a superrrrrrr radical fan of hers and kept saying things like “she deserve a WC bars gold”, “BEST bar composition in the worlddddddd”, “excellent AAer”, which have some truth in them but are still boosty nonetheless and didn’t sit well with many. So in 2015 when Dowell did badly for bars in Worlds many people were like “WHERES THE WORLD CHAMPION? I ONLY SEE A DODO CHICKEN.” and bamm the nickname stayed. Tbh the term dodo chicken doesn’t mean anything in Chinese. I think its the combination between the first syllable of her last name and Wild Chicken, the term for newbies/noobs as explained in my last post. 

3. Lin Li - 慌姐 - Sister Panic

So Lin Li is a member of China’s National Team in the 2004 squad. She is actually amazing on bars but just doesn’t have the mental tenacity to do well in major competition. She always seems to be rushing through her routines which lead to mistakes after mistakes, so after a while ppl just called Sister Panic for short. 

4. The pines of 4 season 春松，夏松，秋松，冬松

So like Chunsong’s literal translation is Spring Pine, and so 3 other gymnasts were bestowed the nickname of Summer Pine, Autumn Pine and Winter Pine respectively lmao. These are NOT mean nicknames.

So Autumn Pine was first to be invented and she is Flavia Saraiva. People started to call her Autumn Pine ever since 2014′s YOG because of how tiny she was - just like Chunsong. They are also great on beam as well and competed in the same beam finals before. At the same time though she is also different from Chunsong in many way so people called her Autumn Pine to highlight the similarity and contrast. 

Then not long after that people discovered Morgan Hurd and they were like “oh my! isn’t she like a clone of Chunsong?”, so people started to call her Xiasong, or Summer Pine. 

Lastly is the winter pine. People actually couldn’t find a good fit for it for a long time but they also felt it’s incomplete without a winter pine. Then one day someone posted this photo of a young Melnikova (the same photo as below) and people were like “WINTER PINE IS SUPPOSED TO BE FAIR AND LIGHT COZ ITS WINTER, SHE LOOKS ABITTTT LIKE CHUNSONG, MELNIKOVA WILL BE WINTER PINE”. And that’s it LMAO. Personally I don’t find Melnikova to resemble Chunsong, but whatever lol everything is cool as long as we have the four pines. 

5. The Zoo (Russia’s WC team 2010) (Not mean)

Most members of Russia’s 2010 WAG team at the Worlds have animal related nicknames. The nicknames started off as mean nicknames as they are donned by Russian haters that “Russian team is like a zoo”, but eventually even the fans themselves began calling the team #TeamZoo, so they are no longer mean anymore. 

Mustafina - 母狮 - lioness - Phonic translation

Dementyeva - 德猴 - Monkey - Because she’s kinda goofy like a monkey lol

Nabieva - 河马 - Hippo - Because she must have an animal related nickname as Mus has one and people found her to resemble a hippo somehow lmao

Afanasyeva - 鳄鱼 - Crocodile - She was fierce as a crocodile on floor and I think some of her facial features (being fierce and glaring and all) reminds some like a crocodile. 

BUT HERE IS THE MEAN BUT ALSO NOT SO MEAN PART

Semenyeva is STRIPPED of a animal related nickname because Russian haters didn’t hate her enough to don her a nickname LMAO.  She was listed as a RESERVE FOR NICKNAME. Until now she doesn’t have an animal related nickname and its so fortunate and sad at the same time. 

Now I hope that you have enjoyed reading this second episode lmao, I think I’m really running out of nicknames so there shouldn’t be an 3rd episode sadly…. Still, hope it has made you laugh!

[stompsite]

Why Horror Is Scarier With Weapons

Hey, folks. This is the script for my first video. I think I changed a few things here or there during the process of recording, but it should be pretty close. I've never done this before, so I'm kinda nervous, but I hope you enjoy it!

Our favorite games are often the ones that made us feel these really cool, powerful things. How’d you feel when you met your first Colossus or saw Rapture for the first time? I think the best games stick with us because everything about them, from mechanics to presentation, is all about crafting that perfect, powerful moment.

I’ve played so many games that fail to deliver that perfect moment because they’re focused on just one facet of the game, prioritizing one element or idea at the expense of all others.

But then there’s horror.

Horror is, in a way, the perfect genre. Practically every other genre is named after its mechanics--strategy, simulation, shooter, and so on--but horror, in contrast, is all about the experience. Everything in a horror game, from mechanics to sound to presentation, is all about crafting one specific emotion. What emotion is a role-playing game trying to create? I couldn’t tell you, but when I’m playing a horror game, I know that every part is working towards the same goal. This is what makes horror such a fascinating experience.

The problem, of course, is that horror, like comedy, is difficult to pull off because it’s so subjective. We’re all impacted by different things. Not only that, but each person’s personal understanding of ‘horror’ is different.

When Amnesia: The Dark Descent hit in 2010, it was a sensation. I can’t think of many people who didn’t love it. A tremendous improvement on Frictional’s previous work, Amnesia was a chart topper that didn’t just blow minds, it almost singlehandedly kickstarted the YouTube gaming boom and inspired a thousand clones. It was THE game that everyone wanted make videos about, showing themselves freaking out at the game’s many terrors.

In the game’s heyday, one key bit of praise stuck out to me. Practically everyone I knew said the same thing:

“It’s scary because you can’t fight back.”

Something about this has never sat right with me. Six years later, here I am, still thinking about that statement, and it feels just as wrong to me as the time I first heard it. Something about this just doesn’t work for me. As I think about all the horror games that have actually scared me, every single one of them featured a degree of combat.

Before we get started, though, let’s talk about what horror means.

Many people describe horror as that feeling of creeping dread before they see something bad happen. That’s a very powerful emotion, and I totally get the appeal, but there’s just one problem: that’s not horror, that’s a different emotion entirely. That’s terror. Terror is the gradually growing worry that something isn’t right, that chill down your spine as uncertainty grips you. Terror is worrying that you’re about to confront a monster.

Horror is confronting the monster.

If terror is the tense build-up, horror is the payoff. “Horror,” as a genre, then, is a combination of terror and horror. It’s a genre made up of these two complementary emotions, themselves composites of emotions like anxiety and disgust. When someone says they want “true horror” but refers to the creeping dread, what they want is terror, but terror and horror are two halves of the same whole. You can’t have one without the other.

Many horror movie directors use these two emotions to powerful effect. Alien spends a long time building up the terror before Ripley’s horrific confrontation at the end. Halloween runs for over an hour before Michael Myers attacks. Good horror spends a lot of time setting up the actual horrific experience.

But Halloween and Alien both run less than two hours. What about games?

The expectation is that games will last more than two hours. The audience expects a sixty dollar purchase to last a great deal longer than a twelve dollar movie ticket, and games have historically lasted significantly longer than films. Not only that, but the key to a game’s success is variety--you can’t do the same thing over and over with no payoff. All setup, no joke.

To put it another way, one cannot simply scale up the length of things. A great movie can go for a nice 60/40 split, 55 minutes of terror amplified by 35 minutes of horror. That same 60/40 split won’t work for a 40 hour game. 24 hours of terror followed by 16 hours of horror just won’t work. It gets exhausting. The least frightening horror games try to be nothing but terror with just a few seconds of horror, if anything. The pacing has to change.

Some games, like Alan Wake, take the episodic approach; each level is its own self-contained narrative, with its own distinct beats. Other games, especially open world titles, run the gamut of emotion; STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl has elements of horror, but it also features adrenaline-pumping action, melancholy, loneliness, disappointment, and so on.

For a video game to work, you need terror, then horror, then more terror, followed by more horror. The game becomes a roller coaster, with crests and troughs where appropriate. This keeps the game interesting without being exhausted; it keeps players interested while leaving them engaged. Scare players, sure, and then let them confront something horrifying, but tone it back down after that, give them room to breathe, let them start over.

Make sure it’s different every time, too--Resident Evil 4’s power comes from the variety of its encounter design. The emotional beats are similar, the roller coaster has its ups and down, but each up is a new up, and each down is a new down, and that’s why it works where so many other horror games fail.

Whether you have combat or not, based on every horror game I’ve played, length alone dictates that variety and phases of both terror and horror are required to create a complete package; you can’t simply stretch out the same emotion over a longer period of time.

This brings us to the first flaw in the “no-weapons” horror game argument’s armor. A great deal of these sorts of games try to hang on to that single emotion of terror too long--they want you to feel a state of constant, never-ending dread. The problem is that it’s exhausting; it’s why, I think, so many people want to laugh about it on YouTube. It’s hard to take that kind of fear at face value; it’s much easier to turn it into a comedy routine.

But even when weaponless horror games balance the ebb of terror and flow of horror flawlessly, they still lose my interest, and it’s because there’s no way to fight back.

Here’s the idea behind a weaponless horror game: vulnerability generates fear. If you can’t fight back, you’re more vulnerable, and therefore you are more scared. By reducing your options to simply run or hide, a horror game should be much scarier than one where you have a gun. It’s a catchy argument, and an easy one to take at face value, but there’s just one problem: it’s bogus.

The first mistaken assumption at play here is that fewer options make games scarier. The weaponless horror game strips the experience down. It’s all about terror and the only way of solving a problem is either run or hide.

The problem with that assumption is this: the key to great horror is uncertainty. Horror, especially in games, works when it’s dynamic. Something happens, which leads to a new action, but then a complication arises. Instead of mere escalation, a good horror experience is a series of actions followed by consequences that change our understanding of the situation.

Until Dawn has a wonderful misdirect about a character which leads to a discovery that complicates our understanding of the game. We thought we had to deal with one thing one way, but now we have to deal with something else in a completely different way. It still escalates, but not in a linear way. Until Dawn works because variety fuels interest.

The second, even more mistaken assumption of the “weapons aren’t scary” argument is that having a gun makes you feel safe. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Guns add variety to the game and capitalize on a key component of the adrenaline rush that fuels fear: the audience’s urge to fight.

Players with guns have to balance the desire between fight and flight. A weaponless horror game can only offer the player flight.

Not only that, but guns are not empowering. Sure, you could give the player a Frank West-sized arsenal and send him off to fight all the monsters you want, and it would be fun.

Even when the weapon is powerful, like the Smartgun in Aliens, it still serves the vital purpose of keeping the pacing interesting. One moment you’re scared, the next you feel relief as you start killing monsters. All too soon, the gun’s over, and you’re left with memories of that brief empowerment.

Pretty soon, you start to miss it. All you have now is a measly pistol. Fat lot of good that’ll do you. It’s okay to have moments without terror in a horror game. It’s okay to have moments of hope, because terror is that much stronger when your hope is snatched away. Moments of power accentuate moments of fear.

But weapons, especially guns, aren’t always means of power. There is no better foil in a horror game than a gun.

A well-designed weapon in a horror game complicates the decision-making process. It encourages you to come out of your hiding place, makes you question whether you should really flee. In a weaponless horror game, your options are clear. Having a gun makes you ask “can I take him?” followed by “but what happens if I can’t?” and “what if firing this gun alerts other monsters to my presence?” A well-designed weapon in a horror game isn’t an answer, it’s a host of questions. It’s a what-if generator.

A well-designed weapon in a horror game not only introduces uncertainty, it gets you into trouble. Consider the scariest moment in Alien: Dallas enters the Nostromo’s duct system to flush the Alien out, but the Alien takes him by surprise, and Dallas disappears. It’s a moment that only happened because the crew had flamethrowers and thought they could take the alien on.

It’s important to note that the crew was not emboldened by having the weapon; the flamethrower was not an implement of relief. It simply encouraged them to make a decision that cost them Dallas’ life.

Alien: Isolation, a direct game sequel to the film, starts off rough, but most people agree that it comes into its own after you get through the medical wing--or, put another way--most people seem to think the flamethrower makes or breaks the game, which makes perfect sense. Prior to the introduction of the flamethrower, any encounter with the alien is a simple case of run or hide, and the pesky Alien is programmed to always be somewhere nearby, so there’s no escaping for long.

The flamethrower grants you some breathing room, because it can cause the Alien to run away, if only for a moment. This enhances the emotional pacing of the game. Having a flamethrower also means you’re more likely to take risks, like Dallas did, which put you in far more vulnerable positions than you would be if you didn’t have a gun.

But then it does something else.

The early game is not particularly scary, because it’s a case of either hide or you die. Instead of fear for my first few hours, I felt amusement. Aww nuts, he caught me again. Ha ha.

Once I got the flamethrower, however, not only was I taking stupid risks, but I was constantly worrying about ammo. I was taking chances to get more, or I was panicking because I only had 100 ammo and I’d have felt a lot safer with 400.

It’s irrational, sure, that I felt more afraid with 100 flamethrower fuel than with 0, but having the gun meant worrying about inventory. Alien: Isolation was so much scarier when I had to keep an eye on my fuel gauge, when I had to worry about whether or not I could scare the alien off as my tank was running low. Stressing about my inventory made the game just that much scarier.

As if that weren’t enough, sometimes guns complicate situations because you can’t use them. One of my favorite moments in Aliens is when the crew descends into the alien nest but can’t use the guns they have. There’s this unique anxiety generated by knowing that the guns you have will only make things worse.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is one of my favorite horror games because one of the levels gives you a gun, but you’re told not to use it, because you don’t have enough ammo to fight off everyone who arrives after hearing a gunshot. You have a gun, but now you’re terrified of accidentally pulling the trigger and calling down a horde of eldritch monsters on your head. The scariest thing in the level is the gun in your hand.

That’s what guns add to horror, but they have one other benefit.

In games, death means very little. It’s not really death, it’s a means of resetting a fail state.

Try, fail, die, try again.

Horror doesn’t work when you’re not in mortal jeopardy, and if you die frequently, then things aren’t so scary. Likewise, if a situation is predictable, then it loses any sense of risk.

I played a bit of SOMA on a friend’s account and found it boring because it was clear when the designers wanted me to be fearful as opposed to when they didn’t. The opening is creepy, sure, but it’s so blatantly artificial that a momentary startle is easily forgotten. You can stride with confidence through a level.

Having a weapon introduces a system of risk and reward. Instead of walking with confidence through an unconvincing haunted house, a weapon might help keep deaths at bay, reducing the frequency of death, and, as a result, preserving the intensity of the moment.

Losing resources like ammunition, which you wouldn’t have in a weaponless horror game, can make death sting that much more; early on in Alien: Isolation, death simply meant a do-over. Later, when the flamethrower meant it happened less, it mattered more, and the penalty was losing out on that brief bit of luck when you’d found that extra tank of fuel.

So yes, absolutely, weapons can make you confident, but that’s fine, because it makes horror that much better. Confidence leads to far more dramatic decisions. Weapons introduce uncertainty into your decision-making process, and then they complicate everything by giving you more things to worry about. They keep death from becoming rote; if anything, they give it weight. Weapons, especially guns, absolutely make horror games scarier.

I don’t expect you to agree with me, but I do hope I’ve given you some food for thought. Are there resources other than ammo that can be used? Do weaponless horror games really need to be so stale? How can a player be encouraged to make more interesting decisions than simply run and hide?

A weaponless horror game is often a simple one, a game where the only viable choice is to distance yourself from the act of play. Simply hiding in a corner, motionless, waiting for a monster to leave is not as dynamic as searching for ammo or trying to take out a bad guy so others won’t notice. There is no risk-taking. There is little uncertainty. A weaponless horror game relies on jump scares and waiting for jump scares to happen. A weapon means you might approach a monster and suffer the consequences. You might shoot at the monster with your only bullet and miss. Weapons benefit horror because they add variety to the horror experience; they broaden the emotional pacing of the game.