#her design is also interesting shes very creepy in how realistic she looks. when dolls for kids are. obviously

[svankmajerbaby]

im so curious about that m3gan movie. of course i love the inherent uncanniness of dolls used to maximum creepy effect and especially when it applies to some sort of commentary of the way we depict and conceptualize childhood and children themselves But. i also really do not enjoy when the line between doll and robot is blurred, for some reason?? they obviously have a lot of things in common, robots and toys, in a sense, but i also think that theyre fundamentally different in the way theyre used and the social functions they have...... and besides theres the fact that robots are just not something that kids really interact with, unless its a tamagotchi or one of those hopping doggies......

[demethinkstoomuch]

Deme Rates Villagers, Part 4: Birds

Disclaimer: Images are from the wiki, all good dogs, my ratings are mainly just there because “Deme gives her abstract thoughts on villagers” is hardly a catchy thing. 

Let’s get to the birbs! Are there borbs? No, not really, Animal Crossing birbs have a pretty straightfoward and uniform shape, they are most likely not borbs.

Ace

Another villager time forgot! Without seeing a clear shot of his eyes (they’re not perma-closed), a big element of his design is sadly lost on me. Otherwise, he’s pretty cute. Nothing fancy, but cute.

2 (Hidden Eyes) /5

Admiral

Eyebrows. Angry. Eyebrows! 

...What’s with his stomach not being the same color as the underside of his face, though? It makes them feel disconnected, which honestly loses some of the appeal for me. On the other hand, angry eyebrows for a grumpy bird. 

Eyebrows... /10

Anchovy

To be honest, I don’t know what to make of Anchovy. On the one hand: I like his simple, bird-like color scheme. I like his square eyebrows... But his expression, his pupils so very, very tiny... Kinda weirds me out. Which, spoiler, is going to be a thing with the birds. Not good eyes, the birds. But once I started looking at other screenshots, with his beak a bit more closed, I came to like his look of mild surprise, in a sort of flickering fondness.

A decent bird, perfectly cromulent. 

I don’t know but it swings between 4-6/10

Flash

Oh man, look at this bird! It’s a crying shame he hasn’t returned since the gamecube days, what with his little swirly little hair-feather, sleepy rectangle eyes, and jaunty little hat, and a cute blue coloring. We are robbed of his revival, and I, for one, will weep for this little bird.

Blue Bird Lamentation / 10

Jacob

What is it with these birds and looking tremendously surprised by existence? Jacob is apparently sort of Brazil-inspired, which is an odd choice of country to make into a charmingly tropical bird, but alright. He and Pave can enjoy carnivale festivale together.

6 /10

Jacques

Look at this fantastic little hipster! He has a beard even if it’s absurd for a bird to have a beard! Blond eyebrows! The green beanie! If he’s come out before the existence of Smug, I’d say he’s a cute little lumberjack, but smug officially marks him as a proud resident of... Maybe Portland, but I’m thinking Seattle. Walks around in the rain, goes hiking in the woods on the weekends, sure, but during the week he goes to an independent coffee shop that does artisanal, free-trade coffee. He used to go to Starbucks, but then they got mainstream. Do hipsters of a certain type play the harmonica? Well, they do now because he is one and he does. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong. You can’t, can you? He’s so wonderfully a thing. Also, he’s got nice eyes, good, big pupils, and does a nice job tying his beanie color into the rest of his design. A good, good boy.

He would only accept a rating if it was ironic. I have no way of telling if my ratings are ironic or if they’ve looped back to being semi-sincere or if they’re just dumb gags and that’s not irony, you guys, so let the fact that he’s a serious contender for my New Horizons goals list be enough.

Jay

He’s really more of a swallow than a jay, looking at his coloring. Specifically, he’s got the red head and blue body and white underside of a Lesser Striped Swallow. So, now you know. That’s a plus for me, though not a super powerful one, and his eyes have that sort of strange staring quality I noted about Anchovy, but the eyebrows are less good. A rather run-of-the-mill bird.

He’s wearing a 6, however, so 6/10.

Jitters

Oh god that is unsettling. The dark-ringed eyes that are just the wrong sort of wide and staring... I feel like he’s seen Things. I don’t want him to show me Things. (What is funny is that I feel like, given the opportunity, I would probably loop back around and love his thousand-yard, sleepless, burnt-out stare. But I haven’t, so it creeps me out.)

Aaaaaaaaaaah! / 10

Joe

This bird is too small and dark for me to really see, but that might be a nice purple. Look, some villagers from the foggy shores of the past just cannot merit comment.

-/10

Lucha

I wonder why Nintendo keeps looking at luchadors and going “You know what this needs to be? A bird.” This is clearly Hawlucha’s little brother, and the effect could be more dramatic or detailed, but it does rather get the job done! 

Lucha Libre / 10

Madame Rosa

Well, well, well, a villager with a form of address in their name! How interesting! I like her face, what little of it we can see, and I think her color is appealing. She looks suitably fancy. Honestly, another villager it is a shame to lose.

Admiral Gets To Come Back And That’s Fine But Why Not Rosa? / Villagers Who Didn’t Get Amiibo Cards

Medli

So, here we are. The first of the Amiibo specials! This one is obviously meant to be Medli from Wind Waker, and as an emulation, she’s cute, but please, understand... It’s creepy when fur or feathers or something on an animal character goes for that fair-toned flesh look. The naked mole rat look, except not on a naked mole rat. It’s creepy when custom ponies do it, it’s very creepy when Animal Crossing villagers do it. Please stop.

No Seriously I think about this every time I wanna make a pony of a specific fictional character and then I shudder in deep distaste / Please For the Love of All That Is Good And Holy, Stop. Let Them Have Fur! Or feathers!

Midge

Awwwwwwwwwww! Midge is so cute! Look at those cute little swirls on her cheeks! Her precious little tadpole eyes! She’s a pretty, rosy sort of pink, too. I approve, even if honestly there is no rhyme or reason to her, she is just cute. 

(@ o’  v o’ @) / 10

Otis

Who is this guy, and what do I think about him? He looks... Like a bird. That covers that, I think.

-/10

Peck

Peck has a nice Java Sparrow look to him, though not entirely. The eyebrows are such a bright red that I don’t quite dig it, but I have to admit, he is a cute. Not my favorite vaguely Java-Sparrow-y person, though. That will always be Azami!

Drives Safely / 10

Piper

Man, Piper just does not have cute eyes, this image is a lie. She’s got half-circle eyes that make her look kind of bored. And given that she has so little detail, she really needed cute eyes to make me pleased.

3/10, an actual rating that isn’t just me giving a numerical shrug.

Robin

Robin’s pretty rockin’. I like the subtle blush, assuming that’s not a trick of this one screenshot. The little bit of blue “hair” up on his head ties together his tail and.  Shame his stomach’s not red all the way down. Commit, Animal Crossing designers! Commit! 

Rockin’ Robin: Tweet / Tweet Tweet 

Shoukichi

Oh man, it’s a little daruma doll bird! That’s so good! Look at him, he got his wish I guess! Not much else to say, save that I am sad no one has seen him again. I wish he’d come back one day.

One Eye / Two, for that unfilled wish.

Sparro

This is a pretty cute sparrow. You know what he could use? Bigger eyes. I feel the eyes have been an issue with the birds, and I intend to solve this puzzle. ...I think, considering my reactions, it is that they have big round bobble-heads, and so need a big eye to not look weird. Anyway, I appreciate the big dark rings, but not the weird little blush. He looks like he had a little beard, also good.

W(hy is there a missing W?) / Z

Twiggy

Twiggy sure is. The blue on the cheeks and the tail is nicely tied, and I like the very dark stripes on the legs. I have no particular other feeling, but these are good eyes.

5/10, the rating that is me giving a numerical shrug.

Twirp

Oh, I see Nintendo once considered the matter of bird eyes. And making their pupils ginormous. I see. Hm. Well, I guess I do like it better That said, I have no idea what is going on with this creature. Is it meant to evoke a shaved head? Is this creature naked? He looks very naked. Look, just. I respect your saying farewell to me, Twirp. Goodbye.

??????? / 10

The birds have some fun motifs, and we’re seeing a lot of realistic-ish birds, which is fun, but I think we’ll definitely have more enthusiasm-inducing species. Not new time, though. Next time is cows and bulls, and my expectations are low.

[archandbillwiseguys]

Toy Story 4: Pixar Pulls Strings

June 20, 2019

Toy Story 4 **** Rating: G Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes Stars: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale Writers: Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom Director: Josh Cooley

Bill: My feelings about Toy Story 4 could not be more mixed: It’s extremely well-produced and it’s nice to see these characters again — yet I sort of wish it had never been made.

Arch: I know how you feel. I’m not bowled over by it, and some of it dragged. But I wouldn’t criticize it. I came away feeling the movie is just a solid, safe bet. It’s not very creative. I supposed you could say it advances the story of the first three films, but it’s an easy way for Disney to program what’s in theaters. You can’t argue with Tom Hanks voicing that character Woody, and I suppose it sort of answers the question “What happens to toys when they become antiques?”

Bill: True, but that question was actually answered in Toy Story 2, when a collector wanted to put Woody on display.

Arch: I guess you’re right.

Bill: There’s one stroke of brilliance in Toy Story 4, and that’s the introduction of Forky, a toy made by a little girl out of a spork and pipe cleaners.

Arch: Yes! And he’s voiced by Tony Hale. I’m glad to see him building on that great character he created on Veep.

Bill: Not to mention Buster on Arrested Development.

Arch: I noticed that in Toy Story 4 they play Forky up and play Buzz Lightyear down.

Bill: It’s a testament to how real these characters became in the first three films that I spent much of Toy Story 4 feeling bad for Buzz. He’s really pushed back into a supporting role. We see more of Bo Peep than we do of Buzz, and even the scenes he’s in are for the most part tangential to the plot — or plots, actually, since this film has four or five storylines. It very much plays like it was written by committee — you can almost imagine being in the writers’ room: “Let’s have Woody ride a zip line”…”Yeah, and we’ll have a wild chase through a carnival.” No one is really concerned with a story arc. Which is unfortunate, because the one thing you could always count on in a Pixar film was a nice, clean narrative.  

Arch: Still, there’s continuity. For example, I noticed that they still use the voices of dead people. Don Rickles was in there, and he’s been gone for two years!

Bill: I was surprised to hear Don — and I noticed the film is dedicated to him. There are lots of voice cameos that go by so quickly the only way you’ll know about them is to wait around for the credits. There’s Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner and Betty White and Bill Hader and Carol Burnett. Some of them get just one line. It smacks of a marketing gimmick — they can have all those celebs go on TV and talk about the film.

Arch: I did like Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby, a creepy talking doll who has nefarious plans for Woody. And Keanu Reeves is fun as a Canadian stunt driver toy. Plus Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are delightful as a couple of plush carnival prizes.

Bill: I predict they will be the next spin-off.

Arch: I must say as fantastic as the animation was in the earlier Toy Story films, the computer animation in this one seems even more advanced.

Bill: There’s a scene where the toys are walking behind a display case in an antique store, and there are cobwebs floating around above their heads. It is absolutely haunting.

Arch: The way the characters move and talk is as realistic as can be.

Bill: Well, as real as walking, talking toys can be!

Arch: True.

Bill: Of course, back in 1995 Woody and Buzz were designed for ease of animation — just like Walt Disney made Mickey Mouse all circles, so he’d be easy to draw over and over. Now, in Toy Story 4, some of the newer characters are so meticulously detailed the old guys almost seem like they’re from a different movie.

Arch: There are some real scares in Toy Story 4. Gabby Gabby is already creepy, but then she’s got these henchmen who are hideous ventriloquist dummies.

Bill: They are terrifying! I just might end up with nightmares about those guys. The way they drag their feet and their heads hang off to one side. Argh!

Arch: Old guys like us will notice they look like demented Charlie McCarthies.

Bill: Ventriloquist dummies are always terrifying in the movies. Remember Magic with Anthony Hopkins and the dummy who orders him around? I feel like Gabby Gabby’s name is a throwback to The Great Gabbo, where Erich Von Stroheim plays a mad ventriloquist.

Arch: There’ s also a reference to The Shining thrown in, which is kind of fun. But you know, the toys climbing around and going on adventures dragged a little for me. It was the same old thing.

Bill: What bothers me about Toy Story 4 is what you were getting at earlier: Yes, it advances the story, but I feel like it advances the story the way The Godfather Part III did. The sense seems to be: Let’s take these iconic characters and shoehorn them into a plot. Toy Story 3 was so perfectly constructed there were no loose ends to tie up. The writers had to go all they way back to Toy Story 2 to find an unresolved element: Whatever happened to Bo Peep? Everything about this film is pretty perfect, but it’s sort of like going to a class reunion when you really said all your goodbyes last time.

Arch: Interesting you should say that. I went to my 50th class reunion five years ago, and now they’re having another one. The 55th. But I’m not gonna go. I had my big reunion.

Bill: We should brace ourselves for Toy Story 5, which will be like you having to go to your 60th reunion. 

Arch: What do you think? Will Forky become the new lead in the series? It’ll be interesting to see if Woody returns. Tom Hanks is our Henry Fonda.

Bill: Whatever they do, you know the execution will be first-rate. And I must add that the folks at Pixar do know how to plug into your sentimental side, even when you’re trying to resist it. There was exactly one point in Toy Story 4 when I found myself tearing up — toward the end, when we encounter a little girl who’s lost at a carnival.

Arch: Oh, yes.

Bill: We have never seen her before, and narratively she simply serves as a handy resolution to a problem. But that scene — the lighting, the character design, the sheer emotion of the writing — it’s what stuck with me when the movie was over. It just shows the power of good storytelling, even in its briefest form.

Arch: And it’s significant that it’s the one part of the movie we feel like we’ve never seen before. It was a real child in peril, and they played it just right.

Bill: Despite all my complaints, I’d recommend Toy Story 4 to anyone who loved the first three films. Go ahead, capitulate to your Disney Overlords.

Arch: All Hail Mickey!

[myaekingheart]

I've been slacking on documenting these but I figure now is as good a time as any so here goes.

I don't remember what night this was from, I think this was about a week or so ago, but I dreamed that my boyfriend and I were horseback riding through the woods, probably the imaginary forest I envisioned as the woods in Galma while writing my Narnia fanfic. I was on this horse that looked like Spirit but it was a female and she was named Appaloosa. I feel like there was perhaps some sort of tragedy or battle that ensued, something like that, because I remember extending my arm out to my horse and screaming her name as if we were being separated but that part's hazy and it's been a while so I don't totally remember.

The rest of these dreams are from this past week.

I think this one was from Tuesday or Wednesday night. It wasn't anything too special except that I was in my apartment and somehow a mouse had gotten in and was running around on the floor and I remember panicking and screaming, having no idea what the fuck to do, climbing on furniture like a scared little bitch. I was basically being incredibly pathetic and cliche about it but then again at the same time, I unfortunately can't think of anything else I'd do in such a situation.

This was Thursday night, I think. I remember walking up this dark, cement stairwell with a group of some other people, I don't exactly remember who. There was a door immediately at the top of the stairs and when we entered through it, we were in this very small and tall room the likes of which reminded me of an indoor tennis court, but only in construction. The design/decor itself was very, very different. The walls were a vivid blue with fake clouds projected onto them, and immediately upon entering we were met with a very narrow strip of fake shore made of very yellow sand (the same shade as cornmeal) backed up by an indoor tidal pool. The water of the tidal pool was roughly the same color as the walls, maybe a little lighter, and was completely opaque so that when you stepped in, you couldn't see a single thing under the surface with you. I remember wading into the water alongside the cast of what I presume was some cheap Beethoven knockoff, and as I stood there in the tidal pool staring up at the weird sky-projected walls and fake beach, there was a Golden Retriever swimming beside me. This was honestly perhaps the most comforting thing about this dream, the dog was, and I think that was the whole reason why I thought the other people were the cast of some bizarre Beethoven knockoff-- I remember hearing a man who looked like the father in the movie (and by extension, one of my uncles) utter that line from the movie "We're not really dog people." I don't know, it was really bizarre and made no sense but it didn't stop there. I was floating nearer and further to the shore at the mercy of the currents when I discovered sitting near the water in a fold-out beach chair was none other than Christopher Lloyd. He was watching us swim and such and it was during this time that I realized that as I floated, I had zero control over when and where I went and in my right hand I was holding my beloved childhood doll. I called her Baby Doll and she was a plush toy with a plastic head and painted on features-- to anyone else, she would probably be considered creepy, especially with how tattered she is after so many years of wear and tear. I still hold her very close to my heart, though, which made it all the worse when I floated back toward the shore only for Christopher Lloyd to reach out, snatch the doll from me, and twist her little head as if he planned to twist it off her body. I fought the current and scrambled my way up to him, furious, and started cursing him out I think, and said something along the lines of "Go get the Delorean so I can go back in time and stop you from doing that!" The more I think about it now, the more I realize I should've, if I didn't, say something about shoving my foot up his ass at 88mph. Not that I personally have anything against Christopher Lloyd, of course, I think he's great and I'd love to meet him someday, just the dream version of him was being a total dick and I couldn't believe he would do such a thing. Later on in the dream, there was something about Pop figures-- I was sitting in a living room, though I can't remember if it was my own or that of my house up north or that of my grandparent's old house but I was sitting on the floor going through stacks of boxes of Pop figures and I remember opening one that was the Delorean-- just the Delorean, nothing else, but it was very cartoon-y like it came out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or something. I already have a Pop figure Delorean that came with my Marty McFly and apparently this was just the same in the dream because I remember thinking to myself that this one I had just unboxed was absolute crap in quality compared to the other one, and then I think I said this out loud perhaps in the direction of Christopher Lloyd like maybe it was from him? I can't remember. I just know I held a lot of contempt for him in my dream and was very salty about practically everything that had happened.

It was last night's dream that had the greatest effect on me, though. It was perhaps the most vivid and unnerving out of all of them and it has had me dazed and uncomfortable for the entire day. The beginning is hazy, but I remember slowly waking up in my own bed and I think I found out through a bunch of panicked and heartbroken facebook posts that one of my cousins had died. One cousin in particular, who just recently had, like, his millionth surgery. Okay, so it wasn't nearly that much but he's had a lot of surgeries for a persistent health issue in the past few years. But anyways, I stirred awake to find a bunch of facebook posts that he had died, they were all incredibly emotional and I swear I must've had a panic attack in my dream, I could feel my heart race in my chest and my stomach churn, I couldn't believe something like that was happening. Nothing felt real and yet everything felt a little too real. I remember being on the phone with my mom, who was totally hysterical just freaking the fuck out. I think one of the worst things about this dream, though, was after I got ready in a complete haze, I remember being in a dimly lit room, very tunnel-visioned but I could tell there were medium-tone wood accents everywhere and I knew we were in a church. I was standing before an open coffin lit by candles on tall, black, spindly candleholders and in that coffin was the lifeless body of my cousin, eyes closed and hands folded on his chest like all stereotypical dead people lay. I remember feeling panicked and terrified, something was rising in my throat at the sight of it. It was the same sort of horror I felt when my grandpa died and I was there in the same room as his dead body for four hours straight, except this had a different tone of eerieness to it because unlike my grandpa who was realistically dead with eyes wide open and a mouth that refused to shut, this was polished death. This was a young man lying in a suit in a coffin looking peaceful but cold and lifeless. I hesitated before reaching in and taking his cold, dead hand and everything went dizzy. I've never touched a dead body before-- I've always been far too scared to-- so I don't know why I felt tempted to take his hand in mine for a split second but it was too much to handle. Everything was too much to handle. It was just all so bizarre and discomforting, and so insanely realistic. I remember I kept waking up to check the clock, fearing I was going to miss my alarm and oversleep, and every time I woke up, I kept reminding myself "Oh shit, right, my cousin's dead" as if reality and subconsicousness were overlapping. The minute I woke up for real, I was so freaked out about it that I scoured facebook and instagram and any other social media outlet I have family on for proof that what I dreamed was a complete lie, that my cousin wasn't really dead. I'm not even very close to him, we don't speak much but we have some similar interests and I remember playing with him at my aunt and uncle's house frequently as a little kid. Regardless of how infrequently we may speak now, though, I know that if he ever was to die, I would be heartbroken and certainly upset about it. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that nightmare all day, though. It's been haunting me, I've been in such a creeped out daze. It also didn't help that Cellar Door by Escape the Fate kept playing on my playlist today, which is already one of those songs that makes me feel very intense things when I hear it, especially the repeated line "It's so wrong." Yeah, didn't help my case here at all. I don't know, it was just all really intense and I wish it had never happened in the first place because it was quite frankly probably one of the worst dreams-- no, nightmares-- I've ever had in my entire life.