#i love the site gimmicks but always just watch others play

[thewonderousjaysky]

APRIL FOOLS GIMMICK THAT WORKS ON MOBILE??????? I'm not getting left out of the shenanigans this year?????? I'm so excited I never get to actively participate in these things bc I never touch the desktop version T.T

This makes me very happy

[miraculouscontent]

Askplosion #12 1/4:

.:Asks Referring to Previous Miraculous Posts:.

Anonymous said:

I think that story with Delmar, Sabrina and Alya is only type of Alya demonization you accept.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Absolutely.

I also accept “demonization” for like--comedic purposes. For example, if they had Alya be all in on the love square and all no Marinette you’re not allowed to give up on Adrien if it’s Lukanette endgame and Alya’s (and possibly the rest of the girl squad) “demonization” is for the sake of their dramatic reactions to the mere idea that Marinette would be both not into Adrien anymore and also into someone else.

I just think the idea of turning things on its head by making the people around Marinette the subject of jokes instead of it being Marinette herself.

Anonymous said:

Alya going "Need Some Help?" reminds me of Karma and Nagisa from Assassination Classroom(I said it right this time!). Obviously Alya is Karma and Sabrina is Nagisa(and now Karma's jazzy motif is playing in my head). And Delmar is probably(and by probably I mean almost fucking definitely) Kayano. For real though, I didn't even know Delmar's name until I read that ask/response now. I mean, like, that's how forgettable and underutilized he was. And no, Ms. Bustier isn't worthy of being Koro-sensei.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Still not familiar with Assassination Classroom so I will let the other anons who are familiar with the series silently judge for themselves. ;P

As for Delmar, don’t feel bad; his name actually isn’t mentioned in the special to my knowledge, and it was a tweet that confirmed his name.

Anonymous said:

Oh yeah, the "Astruc gets hit with a washboard" was SUPPOSED to be a shout-out to Koro-Sensei Quest, in which Karma gets hit with a washboard(don't ask where it came from or where they go when they hit the ground, the world may never know) every time he acts like a smug-ass little bitch. You know, like Astruc. Often, the washboard will ricochet off his head and hit a red button, which then opens up a pit which Karma then falls in. In other words, Karma getting Karma! If only Astruc could too.

(the post this anon is referring to)

khfjdgdg ahhh, yeah, thanks for explaining! I’ve always said that I’m not very media-savvy so sometimes I don’t know about more popular shows.

Anonymous said:

Eventually Salty Decadent Court

(the post this anon is referring to)

lol we just slowly upgrade our way through the salt ranks

Anonymous said:

I was thinking about your edit of Desperada, and how I would definitely love to edit the ATLA finale to cut out Kat/aang and Mai/ko stuff lol.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Oh yeah, that’d be amazing! I imagine it’d be difficult, but not impossible. Sometimes it might be better to sacrifice good shots or move scenes around for the sake of making things cohesive.

Anonymous said:

Kagami when adrien its back from NY: I'm sorry adrien, but I have feelings for two blueberries, we have to broke up

Adrien: eh? Broke up? We were dating?

(the post this anon is referring to)

I like how this ask doesn’t specify whether the joke is that Adrien might’ve just been way too “friendly” with Kagami and gave her the impression that they were dating, or a joke on the fact that the show itself doesn’t specify that they’re dating, or both.

A+ 10/10

Anonymous said:

If Adrien does get akumatised because of jealousy about Marinette, I hope someone (Kagami would be great) points out that Marinette was never akumatised for that reason even though she had waaay more scenarios that could have turned out that way. So don't blame yourself, Marinette!! (I also hope Kagami yells at anyone else *cough*Alya*cough* who tries to blame Marinette.

(the “Didn’t Need Burrow” that this anon is referring to)

We just want someone unambiguously on Marinette’s side, is that too much to ask?

Anonymous said:

"It's difficult to animate" hasn't stopped others before (Lord Shen, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, etc). You may do it as a hobby, but this are professionals who should have done more than the bare minimun.

(the post this anon is referring to)

I agree. I’m just trying to keep things like budget in mind. A bunch of free-flowing clothing is fine but I’m basically like--okay, but you don’t NEED the stuff that would hamper the budget to make things look good.

Anonymous said:

I don't know why, but I'm picturing Ladybug confronting Chat Noir after he gets back from New York like a mother scolding her teenage daughter for sneaking out at night.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Honestly? Accurate.

Anonymous said:

Clara Nightengale: I sensed Marinette was in trouble, so I came to this school on the doub-- Jagged Stone: It's okay, I already got her.

(the post this anon is referring to)

jdhgdjkfgkjfg Jagged and Clara walking down the street together all cool, Jagged still having Marinette slung over his shoulder, and everyone watching is just, “??????”

passivedecept said:

Honestly

After reading your last bit i feel cheated that Jagged isnt included more

But it may be better that he isnt like luka's dad.

Can you imagion?

Luka: dad. I like someone.

Jagged: who?

Luka: a real nice and talented girl name marinette and- who are you calling?

Jagged: penny because we need a place for your wedding STAT!

Because i firmly believe if jagged had a son who was dating marinette he would do everything to get mari as his daughter in law.

Okay that was it. Love every fic and small bit you make. And i was wondering if you had your own fav. Like. What have your written so far that you like the best yourself?

(the post this anon is referring to)

Do you mean it’d be better because love square is endgame so it’d be messy? Because otherwise, not gonna lie, Jagged meddling and being super supportive sounds fun. :P I’m not here for love square meddling but Lukanette meddling is cute because both parties would be mutually aware of it and also be into it.

As for my favorite fic I’ve written? That’s probably too tough to answer, ahaha. For sure, it’s something Lukanette-based, but I know that doesn’t narrow it down much at all. It would also probably be one of my fix-its/canon divergences because I’m crazy for multiverse/alternate timeline stuff (I hate time travel, but I’m all about multiverse, I adore that stuff).

Anonymous said:

In one of your Didn't Need Burrow masterposts, when someone said that Marinette and Adrien had kids and a hamster who'll get Miraculouses, I somehow misread that as "the kids as well as the hamster itself will all get Miraculouses".

(the post this anon is referring to)

I’m sure at least one of my anons would snap back at that with a joke like, “well, with the standards set for who gets a miraculous, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

rogueinthedigitalworld said:

Would like to pop in for a second to say that yes, Maribat *did* start out as a spite ship, because the original creator was a heavy Adrien salter and wanted someone to replace him… and chose Damian Wayne, for some reason. Since then, Marinette has been shipped with all the Robins (and from I can tell, they’re all warped into actuallynice!Adrien with two gimmicks added from the *actual* characters). I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting something, but that’s the gist of it.

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you for the response! Yeah, I didn’t know if it was like Spider-man and Ladybug - which I don’t think is a spite ship but I might be wrong - so I didn’t want to say that it was a spite ship without being sure (and obviously, some shippers of it could be just genuine shippers, who knows).

Anonymous said:

Okay, but seriously, when I first joined the ml fandom I was so confused about the maribat. I'm not really a big fan of either romance or comics (except for sandman lol) so I kind of filtered them out but it's kind of an experience tbh. I'm pretty sure it started on tumblr though- everyone sites it as the ozmav au

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you for the extra clarification, anon! Yeah, I have that ship blacklisted (so I don’t see it around) but not really out of hatred for it; I tend to blacklist names/people/ships that I’m either indifferent to or don’t like (I immediately blacklist people who write angst, people who cross tag, and people who do onesided-Lukanette and don’t tag it that, even if it’s just one offense; I don’t play games, lol, if anyone does something I don’t like, I filter it out because I filter everything).

Anonymous said:

Your images of Luka and Marinette kissing are so super kyute! What program do you use to render them?

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you! I made them myself!

The program I use is MikuMikuDance, using an edited version of the shader “GreenerShader 1.14″

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Chapter three! I already skimmed through it and just. Holy fuck I’m falling in love with this series all over again, and this is just the opening arc, how the hell is this so good??? I’m genuinely just in awe and fuck is it making it hard to decide where to have a cut-off point for this chapter. I suppose we’ll just have to see what fate decides.

(Also, the temptation to just paste in all of the last three pages of the chapter is so incredibly strong, you don’t understand.)

[No. 3 - Entrance Exam]

We start off with some exposition: UA’s hero course is designed to give students all they need to go pro, and is the toughest and most popular hero course in the country, with only a 1 in 300 acceptance rate. Discounting the four slots that are recommendation students, that’s 36 slots a year, which is about…

Yeah. That’s a lotta applications, and that’s just for the hero course! 

Several alumni are mentioned: All Might, who declined the people’s choice award; Endeavor, who’s stopped more crimes than anyone else in recorded history; and Best Jeanist, who’s won the Best Jeanist award eight years running. (One of these things is not like the other~ One of these things just doesn’t belong~) The exposition suggests that graduating from UA is basically a requirement for becoming a great hero - something which we’ll learn soon enough isn’t quite true.

But yeah, Endeavor with the record for crime handling, even above All Might. Quite the impressive hero, though that face…

Not precisely reassuring.

So yeah, Izuku here mentions the date of the exam - February 26th. I figure that this has to be a Sunday, for the simple fact that Japan has a slightly different school schedule than us. Most notably: Japanese schools (some of them, anyways) have 5.5 day school weeks. Yes, that means the first half of Saturday can still be a school day. 

While I couldn’t confirm for sure whether this is more common among the higher end schools, I feel like a school like UA, with its ‘Plus Ultra’ motto, would definitely be a school to have a half-day (or even a full day) on Saturdays, and since they also have to accomodate for middle schools that have Saturday morning classes, I figure that it would make the most sense for UA to schedule this exam on a Sunday. 

The benefits of this, as we’ve already seen, is that we can then narrow down the timeline for the rest of the series, just based on that single, confirmed date. We know from the last chapter that the Sludge Villain had to happen on a Thursday or Friday of the first week of school (April 14th/15th), with the first training session two days later (the 16th/17th). But what this also gives us is when Izuku’s first year of UA starts, AND the possible years it could start on. 

Since we see the glowing baby is in a modern hospital, we can assume that’s correlated to about our times. Give it a few generations, and we can guess that we’re in the 2200s or 2300s for the current era. Based on that assumption, we get the following years that have February 26th on a Sunday:

23rd century potential years: 2204, 2209, 2215, 2226, 2232, 2237, 2243, 2254, 2260, 2265, 2271, 2282, 2288, 2293, 2299

24th century potential years: 2310, 2316, 2321, 2327, 2338, 2344, 2349, 2355, 2366, 2372, 2377, 2383, 2394, 2400

As a side note, when I got into the series, my brain weirdly latched onto the idea that this had to all be happening in the year 2317. I don’t know why I decided on that number, but that’s what I rolled with, and hilariously I could be RIGHT about the year the current manga arc is happening in, provided Izuku’s first year is in 2316. Sometimes you just know, ya know? I know at least one other friend made these calcs independently of me and chose to run with 2237, which is totally valid! Probably makes more sense to be in the 2200s, but there’s room depending on how much time one thinks has passed.

As for when Izuku’s high school school year starts, we know that Japanese schools start on the second Monday of April. Since we don’t know if this is a leap year or not, we’ll end up with two dates, but that’s fine!

Feb 26 (Sun) -> Feb 27 (Mon) -> March (6/5, 13/12, 20/19, 27/26) -> April (3/2, 10/9)

Therefore, Izuku’s first day of classes (not counting the orientation, which I’ve seen a few other timelines assume is on the Sunday before classes start) is April 10th (or the 9th if a leap year)! I know this is all in the future from this chapter, but still, I wanted to share this at some point and figured now was as good a time as always.

Math!

Sorry, I’ve just wanted to share this math I did for a while now, I put a lot of work into it and I am very proud of it. Let’s get back to the chapter.

So Izuku lives a 40 minute train ride away from UA, and has made it just in time for the exam. Apparently, this is only the practical portion? Or well, that’s the part that gets focused on in this chapter, with no mention of the paper exam. I would imagine they’d be the same day, though? But I suppose one can do whatever they like with it.

He’s standing there looking at the school, thinking about how he didn’t have a chance to test the power, while the other students head in-

Excuse me, Toga?? I know that hairstyle is just a bit off, but… ???

...right, anyways. Izuku is wondering whether the hair really did anything (also, it was apparently sour, which, ew.) Katsuki comes up behind him and tells him to move aside.

Truly a flattering image. Izuku panics a bit and greets him, but Katsuki just walks by without another word or gesture, leaving Izuku confused as he watches him head on into the building. The narrative notes that since the villain incident, Katsuki hadn’t bothered Izuku, while the unnamed characters in the background apparently recognize Katsuki from the ‘sludge’ incident (well, not shocked how the fandom held onto that name). 

Izuku notes that he’s gotta stop flinching instinctively, and then tries to hype himself up, noting that it’s not like before, and think about the past ten months while taking a wobbly step forward- and then tripping over himself.

I’m sorry Izuku just has so many fantastic faces in this chapter I am crying trying to limit myself to just a few. But yeah, that little derp as he realizes what’s happening is adorable, especially while Ochako gently sets him back on his feet. She mentions that it’s her quirk, and apologizes for using it, but that it’s a bad omen to trip and fall. (I wonder if that gets played with again during later parts of the series… will have to check to see.)

While Izuku freaks out over talking to a girl, Ochako notes that the exam is nerve-wracking, and then heads off while wishing both of them luck as Izuku stares after. 

This fucking kid. I love him so much. His flustered excitement gets him some weird looks from the others still outside.

We transition to a new character (Present Mic) who immediately shows off his performative side by calling for a ‘hey!’ which… is met with silence from the crowd. He doesn’t let this throw him off, instead letting them know that he’ll present the guidelines for the practical, followed with a ‘YEAH!’ that gets met with an even heavier silence.

Izuku and Katsuki are seated next to each other, with Izuku descending right into excited muttering over Present Mic and how he listens to his radio show every week. Also with the assumption that all the UA teachers are pro heroes, which I mean, true, but still. Katsuki tells Izuku to shut up.

Present Mic explains the test: ten minute long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’, with the applicants split among seven arenas, labelled ‘A’ through ‘G’. With more than 10k applicants total, that’s about…

Yeah, more than 1500 per arena. Fucking hell, no wonder the robots deplete so quickly in only a few minutes. Also of interest:

“Bring along whatever you want.” So technically, if Izuku were able to procure the tech and training to handle the robots, there would be nothing keeping him from getting into UA quirkless… though I imagine any kid who gets in mostly on tech probably gets side-eyed… though if said kid made their OWN tech, they might also get an offer from the Support department.

(AU where Mei accidentally took the heroics exam and got a shitload of points, but she ended up taking the offer for Support instead despite setting the record for most points in said exam. Katsuki forever wants to fight her. Izuku and her are good friends.)

Also, another thing I love is how Katsuki just told Izuku to shut up a moment ago, and then:

He’s the one to initiate conversation on the details of the test, basically agreeing on the reasoning behind dividing up the students between arenas. Katsuki is annoyed at not being able to crush Izuku, which has Izuku awkwardly silent. 

Also mini-Mic.

Poor, poor Mic. He just wants audience participation. Anyways, he continues on to explain the points system, with the help of cute little Mario-themed silhouettes. There are three kinds of faux villains, with different points awarded for defeating each based on their difficulty levels. Also, attacking other examinees is prohibited!

A student (cough Tenya) raises their hand to ask a question, going on to note that the handout sheet appears to have four varieties of villain, and that such a blatant error (if it is one) reflects poorly on Japan’s top academy. He then spins around and points at Izuku, calling him out for his muttering and how distracting he’s been, and that ‘if this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!’ 

Is that… Mineta seated behind Izuku? I can’t find another panel that disproves that theory, so. Whelp. If you ever for some reason want to have Izuku accidentally deal with the grape early, he’s right there. 

Anyways, Present Mic brings the convo back to the initial question/comment, noting that the fourth villain is worth zero points, and is more of an obstacle. He then brings up Super Mario Brothers, the old retro game, and compares the Zero Pointer to a thwomp. There’s one per site, serving as a gimmick that’ll rampage in close quarters. Tenya thanks Mic and apologizes for the interruption. 

And so we get our final words from Present Mic:

??? either he's referencing the original guy (which I think would be a misquote because I doubt OG Nap ever noted anything like that) or some French hero or the like who took on the name.

Discord offered this to me while putting together the post:

So there you have it. Tentatively confirmed.

Those EYES man, dude’s got the Rinnegan going on.

Honestly, I have to end on this panel just because of that last line from Present Mic. Like, look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the exact point to end on. 

The discord’s takeaway from this:

[overobsessedfanboy23]

Punch Out Wii Boxers Ranked

Thought I’d give my opinion on this since I’ve already expressed biases towards/against certain characters. I will be including Donkey Kong and Doc Louis but not Little Mac (because he is the objective best). The list will go from 15: the worst, to 1: the best. Before I start, I’d like to say that all of these characters are good, well-crafted characters, it really just comes down to personal bias who you prefer. And with that, let’s get started:

15. King Hippo

King Hippo is barely a character. Everything he “says” (there are apparently translations) just boils down to being hungry and he has no personality outside of that. I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care about him. His fight is also pretty boring all things considered. The contender fight is pitifully easy once you know what you’re doing and his title defense fight can go on for a long time and get very monotonous. At least his music’s kinda cool.

14. Super Macho Man

As someone who lives in America, I hate Macho Man with a burning passion. It’s not because I’m “patriotic,” it’s actually kind of the opposite. I’m not offended by his stereotype because it’s mean, I’m annoyed by his stereotype because it’s accurate. I deal with people like this on the daily: in the news. His catchphrases are obnoxious (except sometimes when they’re cut off. That’s kinda funny, admittedly) and he’s egotistical even compared to some of the others. He’s the type of person I actually want to punch in the face so I thank Punch Out for giving me that opportunity but I still hate the character. His match is fine. It’s a bit too easy in both contender and title defense compared to Soda and Bull but hey, at least they tried. His music’s alright.

13. Donkey Kong

Don’t get me wrong, I love Donkey Kong’s inclusion in this game. I think it’s amazing that Nintendo made a match for one of their most famous characters and the fight against him is very unique and challenging to win by KO. That being said, I never really played Donkey Kong so I don’t really have the connection to this character that others do. So yeah, great cameo, not one of my favourite fighters.

12. Bald Bull

Sorry, Bald Bull fans, but I’m not the biggest fan of this raging lunatic. In fact, he kinda creeps me out. People make jokes about Great Tiger being a furry (which he is), but Bald Bull straight up acts like a bull to the point of literally assaulting the poor referee. It’s kind of gross. To that same point, he is also completely shameless about his horrid anger issues which is personally not fun to watch. I get that he was driven mad by the paparazzi (or whatever that cutscene was trying to convey) but it’s still pretty over the top. I’m also not a big fan of his fights. It’s not too terribly difficult in contender mode (except the stupid bull charge) but it’s downright ridiculous in title defense. I firmly believe that his title defense match is the hardest in the entire game, yes even more difficult than TD Soda and TD Sandman. I cannot express with words how much I despise the star punch gimmick. Getting the star punches is frame perfect, making it feel like luck, and getting hit once makes you lose them all. And you need those stars to even knock him down. Seems a bit extreme for the middle fight in the world circuit, doesn’t it?! I was at this fight for hours and was over the moon when I finally managed to beat him. Also, his music kinda sucks. However, I put him over Macho Man because despite everything I just said, I don’t actually hate Bald Bull. I hate his fights but I don’t hate him personally like I do with obnoxious american.

11. Soda Popinski

Oh boy, Drunk Man. I don’t really see many reasons to like him but not any to hate him either, apart from his stupidly difficult fight, that is. I actually find it pretty easy in Contender. There’s a lot of strategies to knock him down really fast and his pattern is pretty basic. As for title defense, did they really need to make it that ridiculously hard? Yeah, there are tricks to make it easier and he has a set pattern but getting into the rhythm of that pattern is incredibly difficult and one slight mistake sets you back to two stun punches. It’s beyond frustrating. And yet the game deems him and Bald Bull to be easier than Macho Man. Why? As a character, Soda is just kinda there for me. It’s fun to make jokes about his steroid soda at least. Also, his music is for some reason one of my favourites tracks in the game. It’s just so epic.

10. Bear Hugger

Alright, now we’re onto the characters I actually like. Bear Hugger is a fun character. He’s one of the more exaggerated stereotypes though I can’t really say for sure whether this one is accurate or not but I’m guessing the maple syrup and hockey stuff at the very least is. I also love the squirrel. It’s implemented into the fight kind of oddly, but it makes his title defense fight pretty enjoyable. It’s a difficult fight but not one I’ve lost recently. The contender fight is fun too, it’s definitely one where I get to spam a ton of star punches. His music is good too. Not much to say on Bear Hugger, he’s fun but I like the other characters more.

9. Disco Kid

Kinda sad that the Wii version only introduced one new character to the roster but at least it was a fun character. Disco Kid’s matches are not a challenge. Contender mode, title defense, he’s one of the easiest fights in the game. He makes up for that by being incredibly over the top flamboyant and cocky, this time in a fun way. I like that he dances throughout his whole fight, I think it’s cool when every little aspect of someone’s match ties into who the character is. Disco Kid is a flamboyant dancer and that is perfectly shown through his mannerisms in the fights. I especially love how in Title Defense, he’s not really bitter or determined to beat Mac he’s just like, “Oh a dance club? This is cool, might as well work this stuff into my boxing routine.” It’s pretty excellent. I’m not a huge fan of disco, but his theme music is pretty good.

8. Aran Ryan

If there’s one thing I’ve seen since joining this site, it’s a lot of Aran Ryan. People on here really love this guy and even many of the YouTubers I’ve seen play this game say he is one of if not their favourite character in the game. Personally, I think he’s a little overrated. However, I do still like him and see why other people like him. He’s sort of a “love to hate” kind of character with him being a complete psycho that’s probably a sadist and a masochist considering how he seems to enjoy being punched and beating the hell out of everyone. It’s fun in a twisted way. His fights are also both pretty fun. Everyone really likes the cheating aspect and yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous that he can literally bring in a weapon and get away with it. However, it also makes his fight stand out from the others. He’s so horrible that he’s just fun to beat up. It’s also the only world circuit fight in title defense that I don’t hate with every fibre of my being. So yeah, fun character, with excellent music might I add.

7. Glass Joe

Here’s another favourite here on Tumblr. To be honest, the fact that people on here liked Aran Ryan didn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it seemed perfectly in character. However, it did surprise me to see how many people liked Glass Joe. I thought he was kind of underrated before but now I see that he’s getting the love he deserves. I love how even though Glass Joe is in every way a french stereotype, he also directly defies the stereotype of the french being quick to surrender. He lost one hundred times and still didn’t give up, becoming determined to defeat Little Mac after earning the headgear. It’s unironically really admirable. Glass Joe’s fights are never a challenge. Contender, title defense, champion’s mode, motion controls, he’s always kind of a joke. However, he is meant to be a tutorial fight for new players and this game gets much more challenging as it goes on, so it’s understandable. They did do a good job at making him more challenging in title defense, but it was still pretty easy at least in my opinion.

6. Von Kaiser

Von Kaiser’s a little underrated in this fandom. Maybe I’m speaking from bias, since I have so many headcanons about him but I really do think he’s a good character. He is just as much of a coward as Glass Joe and isn’t a much better fighter (his contender and title defense fights are both incredibly simple) yet Von Kaiser has a significantly better record than the rest of the minor circuit and even Bear Hugger, with 23 wins and 13 losses. He must’ve gotten those wins from somewhere and I doubt they were all from Glass Joe. That combined with the fact that Kaiser is the oldest boxer in the game (42) makes me think he was once a great boxer but has now passed his prime and refuses to give up, sort of like Glass Joe, but a little more tragic. Regardless, it’s fun to speculate. And I feel kinda bad for Von Kaiser, I mean the dude gets beat up by kids and basically goes mad after being beaten by a seventeen year old boxing newbie. Also, his music is pretty intense despite the fact that he’s treated like a joke by the game. Like Glass Joe, they did do a good job of making Kaiser more difficult in title defense by giving him a one hit KO and plenty of fake outs, though I don’t particularly struggle with either of those.

5. Sandman

Sandman is scary as hell. None of the other boxers really intimidate me, even the one with ridiculously difficult fights, but Sandman is a different story. Everyone else in the game has some kind of silly quirk even when they are serious but this guy is deadly serious about boxing. I mean, they introduce him by showing him beat the shit out of everyone you just faced before, some of which the player may have struggled with. It’s a great introduction for a final boss. His fight in contender is certainly the hardest in that mode and while I didn’t struggle with his title defense fight as much as TD Soda and TD Bull, it was still incredibly hard to beat. And unlike TD Soda and TD Bull, he actually has final boss vibes, so he does deserve his rank (unlike some other characters). Similar to Aran Ryan, his fight also requires the player to be more on offense, at least in my experience.

#4 Doc Louis

Doc Louis is severely underrated in this fandom and just in general. I love how encouraging he is to Little Mac even when he loses repeatedly, I love his silly tips that more often than not are cheesy dad jokes or puns. He’s just a good wholesome dad that loves his chocolate. I love him. Sadly, I have not played Doc Louis’s Punch Out so I don’t really have a perspective on how the fight is apart from videos online but it does look pretty fun, and it’s freaking Doc Louis. How can you not love him?

#3 Piston Hondo

This guy is also kind of underrated, maybe because he’s a bit vanilla? I don’t know, but apart from Sandman, he is undoubtedly the most serious about boxing. It’s actually a bit scary. I mean, this dude can catch a sword in his bare hands and outrun the bullet train, he could easily become champion after Little Mac retires. In fact, for me at least, his title defense fight is the most challenging fight in the major circuit for me. Yes, harder than Bear Hugger and Great Tiger. Those fake outs and speedy Hondo Rushes kept getting me. So yeah, very dedicated to boxing. He’s also just very respectable in general, keeping a calm demeanor throughout the fight and even bowing to show respect. He also doesn’t laugh at you when you get knocked down like literally everyone else does. (Apart from Don, but he still taunts you by asking if you want more.) Yeah, he gloats, but he’s a good sport. It’s nice to see someone who plays fair amongst a crowd of cheaters.

#2 Don Flamenco

Yet another character I’m surprised doesn’t get more attention in this fandom. I dunno, maybe my opinions are just weird. That being said, Don Flamenco was always going to be one of my favourites as he is the only foreign speaker in this entire game I can understand without subtitles. Though even if you don’t know spanish, Don’s character is still very clear and very amazing. Like, I’m sorry, but his contender intro is the best sequence in the entire game. You know immediately what he’s all about and it’s just so beautifully over the top to see this try hard dance his way into the ring with a rose. Actually, “beautifully over the top” is a great description for Don Flamenco in general. He hits every note of the “Spanish man” stereotype in the first few seconds you see him: being a bullfighter, getting all the girls, dancing the flamenco, and just being handsome in general. I don’t know if that last one is an actual stereotype but it’s undeniably true. And none of that is a bad thing. He is a positive figure, if a little cocky, and all of these things that the game could make fun of him for (the NES version certainly does), are actually shown in a positive light. I’m not too fond of bullfighting being shown in that light but it is very popular in Spain so… eh. Also, I do like that Don Flamenco fights like a bullfighter in the ring, baiting you into “charging” or attacking before countering. It’s a nice detail. However, it does make the fight a little too easy. In contender mode, even without doing the infinite, I barely have any trouble with him. He’s easy to get stars off of, his attacks are not that hard to dodge or counter, and if you do the infinite combo, you can destroy him in seconds. In title defense, he is more difficult for sure, but he’s the easiest fight title defense fight in the major circuit. That being said, holy cow is he amazing in title defense as well. He was already over the top in contender but in title defense, after one loss might I add, he acts like it’s the end of the world and becomes completely emo. This could’ve been completely obnoxious or stupid but in my opinion, it makes him very entertaining. He’s just so fun to watch in general, I love his epic music, and I love this angsty telenovela character. Amo al personaje Don Flamenco. El es tan entretenido y guapo. Necesita más amor. Because I mentioned that I know spanish earlier and the first first thing people always ask me is to speak some so there you go. Onto number one.

1. Great Tiger

If you’ve seen my other stuff here on Tumblr, you probably knew this was coming. My very first post on Tumblr, as well as the second, was about Great Tiger and I have tons of pictures of him in my likes. I guess I just have a thing for charming arrogant divas. Seriously, while he’s not as over the top as someone like Disco Kid or Don Flamenco, Great Tiger is a total diva and kind of a show off. He’s always using his clones to glorify himself or taunt you, which would normally be annoying but for some reason, it’s not in his case. And it’s not because I don’t know what he’s saying, the inflection in his voice makes it clear enough that he’s trash talking (and I’ve looked up translations). It’s because Great Tiger has a sort of cold determination, like he is ready to destroy you first, glorify himself after, probably the reason he doesn’t have a taunt, unlike nearly everyone else in the game. He is completely focused on the match and very cool-headed as well. He’s very respectable, even when he’s literally telling you to go drink your mother’s milk. On a side note, I looked up those translations as a kid and I still can’t get over the fact that that is something he actually says. Like, what on earth Nintendo? Still, it’s kinda funny to me. Anyways, I love Great Tiger’s fights. His contender form is fun and I love that intermission scene where he switches places with Doc, showing what a likeable douche he is but his title defense form is my favourite in the game. I really love the magical element, what can I say? The flashing jewel is like a game of Simon put to boxing, I love that he teleports all over the place, the Magic Rush is gorgeous bullshit, and the fight keeps me on my toes but not to the point of being impossibly hard. It’s also fun to experiment with certain elements of the fight, because it can be incredibly varied depending on what you do. just really fun. Whether I do the special knockout or play through the whole fight, I have a fun time fighting Great Tiger. It also helps that his music is spectacular, my favourite in the game. I dunno, those bongos just feel so good on the ears. Great Tiger is also just really interesting in general, and I feel like there’s a lot of unanswered questions about him. How does he have magic? (I know the NES version has an explanation for this but the Wii version does not and is substantially different.) What is the extent of his abilities? Is the jewel the source of his power? It seemed to be directly linked to his corporeal clones in title defense. Is he even of this world? I don’t know, but damn it’s fun to speculate on. I’d love a story just about his backstory, how he got his magic, how he became a boxer, I care about that stuff. So yeah, Great Tiger is the most interesting character in this game, and that’s why he’s my favourite. (I also low-key crush on him, but that’s subjective :)

Anyways, hope you enjoyed my list, it was kinda long, but I have a lot of opinions on this game and this is a good place to put it.

[zippityzap]

My Top Ten Favourite Moments in Sonic Games

The past 30 years the Sonic series has had a lot of memorable moments, too many to list fully, so in celebration of my recent follower milestone, today I’ll be presenting and explaining my personal top ten favourite moments. I would like to emphasise that this list is very subject and is highly influenced by my personal experiences with the Sonic series. It’s not intended to be objective by any means, and I would love to hear what moments you guys would put on your own lists! Additionally, this list is only for things from the games, in the future I’ll make another list for other Sonic media

Without further ado, let’s get started!

10) City Escape’s GUN truck

Interesting set pieces and small scripted moments in levels have been a staple in the Sonic series since the beginning. Sure, they’re not always challenging from a game-play standpoint, but they’re always an entertaining spectacle. One of the most ionic of these moments (and one of my personal favourites) is being chased by the GUN truck. City Escape is already a highly memorable level from the get-go, but the truck sequence is the cherry on top. An additional shout-out to both of the Generations versions of the level for not only bringing it back but changing it up just enough to surprise you and keep you on your toes!

9) Escaping Null Space

Forces is one of those games that I would describe as a truly mixed bag. Yeah, there are a lot of things about the game that kinda sucked or were disappointing, but when it hit a high, BOY did it hit. While I agree with many people that having the Null Space portion of this level actually have gameplay in it would’ve made this moment impact a little harder, I’m just in love with that transition from the silence of null space to the bombastic chorus of Fist Bump. I thought it was a really exciting moment that hypes you up for the rest of the level.

8) Sonic Heroes’ opening cinematic

Heroes was my first 3D Sonic game, and consequently it was my introduction to a lot of things that are staples for the Sonic series. Vocal themes, an extended cast and their interpersonal relationships, story routes that connect to each other. These are some of my favourite things about the Sonic series, so even if some aspects of the game aren’t that great, I could never ever hate or even dislike Heroes. I feel like the opening cinematic to Heroes (the one with the theme song as the music) is the aspect of Heroes that really encapsulates those feelings best. I must’ve spent hours as a kid letting it play over and over again singing along to it.

7) Shadow the Hedgehog (2004) title screen cinematic

Before you laugh, here is where I must remind you that this list is extremely subjective and highly influenced by my personal experiences and memories. Ok now imagine this: you are a 7-8 year old kid, and your experience with media that isn’t mainstream radio or educational children’s tv shows is fairly limited. You’re getting deep into the Sonic series for the first time thanks to playing Heroes and seeing some of the cartoons and you’re interested to know more about the series. You visit Sonic Central, the official site at the time, and they have a music player with a variety of songs from the games. One of the songs it plays is I Am (All of Me). I won’t lie, I was a little blown away because I’d never really heard anything like it before, so I go to find out more about the game it’s from and I come across that opening cinematic.

I think it’s very, very, easy as an adult to laugh at the Shadow the Hedgehog game and it’s… direction, but adult me was not the target audience of that game, kid me was. Say what you want but the effect that game was going for I think is something that just hits best with sheltered little kids, and I’d be curious if anyone else had a similar experience.

6) The ending of Sonic and the Black Knight

I won’t go into too much detail on this one, since this is very much a fan favourite moment and many others have gone into detail about why it’s so great. Black Knight is certainly one of the games that captures Sonic’s character the best, and his words at the end of the game certainly encapsulate this. Followed by the amazing credits theme of Live Life, the ending of Black Knight is certainly one of the most emotional moments in the series.

5) Sonic Generation’s credits

Anniversary games can be a bit of a controversial subject for the Sonic fandom; 06 was one of the games released for the 15th anniversary while Forces is often considered to be a 25th anniversary game. I think Generations really achieved the feeling and the specialness of a celebratory event though. It’s one of my favourite Sonic games and the whole game is full of brilliant moments but I feel the credits really evoke the celebration vibe: a Sonic 1-esque music melody as the credits song, showing footage from the original games each stage is from, and the cherry on top: a ‘Happy Birthday’ message to Sonic recorded from fans who attended the 2011 Sonic Boom and Summer of Sonic conventions. It genuinely warms my heart every time I finish the game.

4) Metropolis Capital City level

Forces gets another representation on this list! Honestly, I believe the parts of Forces that were exciting, such as this, really demonstrate my opinion that Forces had a lot of potential to be a really good game. But I digress, this was my favourite level from Forces because it shows how fun of a villain Infinite could be. The way that Infinite follows you for most of the stage and uses illusions to fuck around with the stage itself? That’s really fun, and it’s not just stage gimmicks for the sake of having a gimmick, it ties into the powers of the villain and makes the player feel involved in a way because Infinite is messing around with you specifically and is having to make to think on your toes. Granted, part of makes this stage stand out so much in a good way is because it’s so different from the rest of the game and it takes you by surprise, so maybe the impact wouldn’t be as hard hitting if this sort of design was used more in the game, but c’mon when you have a villain who’s powers are illusion-based, the sky’s the limit!

3) Sonic Unleashed’s opening cutscene

Can you believe this game came out over a decade ago and the opening cutscene still looks this stunning?! Depending on who you ask, some might even argue that this cutscene has yet to be topped, and honestly, I’m in that camp. Not only is the rendering beautiful and the choreography of the action exciting, but this scene does a wonderful job of setting up for the viewer regardless of how much prior experience they have with the series who Sonic and Dr. Eggman are, as well as setting up the events of the game. I recall being very happy when I heard the animation team for this cutscene would also be handling the animation for the movie.

2) Beating Sonic Unleashed for the first time

So, this is another pretty personal one. I played Unleashed for the first time a few years ago and it is in my opinion, one of the most difficult Sonic games. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes for completely bullshit reasons. My first ever run of Eggmanland was around 40 minutes long and apparently that’s considered a pretty decent time for your first go, but christ it was a nightmare to finish (looking at you, that one section where you have to platform on pipes without a drop-shadow). The following boss sections weren’t much easier- I don’t rage much with video games, I tend to whisper swears under my breath at most but that part where you’re running on the Gaia Colossus had me screaming in anger every time I lost a life.

BUT when I finally beat the difficult sections? Felt like finally cracking your back after feeling stiff all day. Like taking the first sip of water after a walk on a hot day. The relief and satisfaction I felt was indescribable and slowly winding down while Dear My Friend plays as the credits theme was blissful. I don’t play difficult games that often so Unleashed is one of very few games that I have this sort of memory with.

1) Watching my dad get the good ending of Sonic 1

Here’s a small amount of backstory for this pick. My dad got his first job at 19 and he used his first pay-check to purchase the then newly released Sega Mega Drive. He had a lot of games for the console including Sonic the Hedgehog. He kept the console and games in good condition, and they were still perfectly playable by the time his first child was born (aka me!). Sonic 1 was the first video game I can remember playing at roughly 2-3 years old. I wasn’t good enough to get past Green Hill Act 3 but I loved watching my dad play through the game.

I’ll admit; his playstyle’s a little odd, he avoids speed when he can and instead, he likes to search for as many rings and extra lives as possible, but it was so enjoyable to watch nonetheless. The best bit was whenever he would manage to get all the chaos emeralds in a playthrough and be able to get the good ending. Sure, the only difference between the good and bad endings is just some flowers, but it was nice to see him be happy that he was able to achieve that ending.

And that’s the end of my list! Upon looking over it I realise most of it is either openings or endings to games…oops. I suppose they tend to be parts of games that get special attention during development since they bookend the journey. When I get around to making the second list, I’m sure it’ll have more variety, and as I said before, I’d be very interested in hearing what everyone else’s favourite moments are!

[stormtodoroki]

Love Sparks

Pairing: Kaminari Denki x Reader

Soulmate AU

Warnings: None

P.O.V: Reader's

Word Count: 2,644

The knowledge about how and when Quirks came along goes far beyond my family's history, at least I think. My name is Aizawa, (f/n) and I am preparing for my UA entrance exam, thankfully my mother has allowed me to come to Japan from America for schooling. She mentioned something about being able to meet my grandparents as well as my biological father, if I get the chance. She hasn't told me much about him, every time I'd ask her she'd get really mad and tell me not to ask again, but I was persistent, I just had to know. But that's not the only thing I had to know, not only are quirks a fascinating part of our lives but so is the way we find our forever person, our body's receive a shock that courses through our bodies when we make skin to skin contact with our soulmate. 

I stood at the main gates and took a few deep breaths, this was it, the beginning of my future, if I passed this entrance exam I will officially be a hero student at UA High. As I took my steps over the threshold and moved closer to the designated building I let out a shaky breath I didn't realize I was holding. What if my quirk might not be good enough to get through? What if someone has a similar quirk and they have better control over it than I do? I stopped walking all together and was about to turn around when someone crashed into me. 

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING YOU DAMN EXTRA! STAY OUTTA MY WAY."

I looked up to see what I could only describe as an angry porcupine, his face contorted with rage if I looked at him close enough I'd probably see steam coming out of his ears. I let out a quick apology and nodded, he tsked and walked away grumbling, boy I would hate to be in the same testing area as him, I'm just grateful that I didn't say anything back to him.  I shook my head clear and walked into the building, looking for my number I sat next to a kid who looked like he was in the wrong place, he dressed a bit too formal. I wonder if he's going to take the exam in that? 

I took a quick glance around and gulp, there's a lot of kids here, I knew how prestigious the school was and how low the acceptance rate was, but this was just insane. My attention was soon directed to the front  where- oh my gosh it's the Pro-hero Present Mic., he's giving us the run down for the practical? This should be good. 

Present Mic. walked to the middle of the stage, he turned to all of us and screamed,

"Welcome to today's live performance. Everybody say, hey!"

We were all silent. You could hear crickets chirping. 

"Well, that's cool, my examinee listeners! I'm here to present the guidelines of your practical, are you ready, there was silence, yet again as he screamed, "YEAH! "

Listening to Present Mic. screaming and talking loud like he always does began to give me a headache, rubbing my temples I tried to focus on what he was saying. A few rows or so away, I heard what sounded like muttering, I quietly turned and looked towards it, there was a boy with unruly green hair next to, I can't believe it… it's the angry porcupine from earlier who knocked into me. Though he didn't seem too happy to be next to the green haired boy.

"This is how the test will go, my listeners! You'll be experiencing 10-minute-long "mock cityscape maneuvers"! Bring along whatever you want! After this presentation, each head to your assigned testing location."

"Is that so kids from the same middle school can't help each other out?"

I heard from the duo behind me, shaking my head clear I was happy that I didn't know anyone from Japan so it'd be easier for me to take the test and not worry about  any of my friends who were also trying to get into UA, all I have to do is worry about myself. 

"Each site is filled with 3 kinds of faux villains, points are rewarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels!! Use your quirks to disable, these faux villains and earn points! That's your goal, listeners! Of course, playing the anti-hero and attacking other examinees is prohibited!"

I noticed during this part of Present Mics. explanation, the boy dressed in formal attire next to me was twitching in his seat, he waited for Present Mic. to finish talking before he up abruptly stood up with his hand and paper in the air.

"Excuse me, but if I may ask a question?!"

Oh boy, this ought to be great… 

"There appear to be no fewer than 4 varieties of faux, the one on this handout, such a bland, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for you. Japan's top academy we're all here today in the hopes of being molded into model heroes."

He then turned and pointed to Green Bean. 

"And you with the curly hair, you've been muttering this whole time, it's distracting if this is some sort of game to you then please leave immediately! "

He muttered, sorry and put his hands to his mouth, I covered my mouth with my hand and fought back a giggle. 

"Alright, alright, examinee 7111 nice catch thanks, but the 4th faux villain variety gets you zero points this more of an obstacle, have you all played Super Mario Brothers, the old retro games?"

"It's kind of like a thwomp! Only one at each site, a "gimmick" that will rampage around in close quarters."

I heard quiet murmurs about the zero pointer all around me and just shook my head in pity, clearly this is a decoy. Yes, there may be a zero pointer but it's more likely to be the biggest one there is otherwise there'd be more stationed at each site. They expect us not to worry about said faux villain, yet it'll probably be the most important one in the whole exam, I'll have to keep an eye out for it. 

"Thank you, sir, I apologize for the interruption!"

With that the formal guy next to me took a bow and sat back down. 

"That's all for me, I'll leave my listeners  with our school motto, the great hero Napoleon Bonaparte once said, 'true heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life!' plus ultra!! Break a leg everyone! "

With that everyone got up from their spots and filed out in search of where they were to go.  As I looked around the battle center I was sent to a breathed out a sigh of relief, neither the formal dude or the hot head were in sight. I looked around for the green bean to ask him what the hot head had shoved up his butt, but to my dismay he wasn't assigned to my battle center either.  Looking around I see people meditating and conversing with each other, I don't need to do either. I began walking towards the front of the crowd marveling at the city front before me. I looked around and saw Present Mic. on top of a platform and smiled up at him and waved, like a buffoon he looked and and pointed to himself in confusion then waved back before pointing to the city urgently. 

I took that as my cue to go so I took a deep breath and ran in, I made in about 10 feet into the city before I heard him call out. 

"What are you waiting for?! There are no timers in real battles! Begin!"

I knew if I turned around I'd see all the kids running towards me so I decided to get some air coverage. Sticking my arms and hands out to my sides I shot up into the air leaving a trail of water spiraling down below me. I landed on a high rise and looked around the city, seeing a 1 pointer and a 2 pointer approaching I summoned a ball of water into my hands and contorted it into a spear. 

I began to run and jump the rooftops closer to the faux villains and replicated the spear before throwing them both at each bot, taking them down. As the bots were falling I hopped onto them and used my water to slide down to the ground. Looking around them I did a double check to make sure nobody made it this far and accidentally got crushed by a giant falling robot. After seeing it was clear I decided to make way to the center on food, as I began to jog I heard a scream from behind me. I turned to look and saw a 3 pointer ready to crush a girl with pink hair and what appears to be horns? I looked closer and saw her foot was stuck and she was trying to get out without using her quirk on herself. I definitely wouldn't make it to her by running, so I had to muster up my energy and use my quirk from afar, something I'm not too good at. 

"Hey! Close your eyes!"

The girl looked at me and nodded, I then stood next to one of the fallen faux villain bots and took a stray piece in a ball of water I expanded to its size, quickly I released the piece and expanded the water ball more until it was the size of the bot. I hurled the ball of water at the bot and encased it in my water ball before throwing the water ball into the air, it disappeared from the center and past the clouds. 

"Okay, I may have been a little too extreme… "

I muttered to myself, as I walked over to the girl and helped free her. 

"You good?"

She nodded and thanked me. 

"Don't mention it, just go get some more points for yourself. I'd hate for you not to be able to get in because you were stuck and couldn't stop thanking someone who saved you."

After taking down a few more bots and saving a few people I estimate that I have around 35 points right now which means I should be in good standing. I was so lost in thought that I bumped into someone, they sent a shock through me and I froze for a second before shaking my arm. 

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hit you with my quirk are you okay?" 

'What? Wait? He hit me with his quirk?'

I cleared my head and looked at him in confusion, that wasn't just the electric shock that goes through your body when you meet your soulmate? 

"Oh…  uh. Don't worry about it. I'm all good."

'Lies, why would I be alright? You know damn well it wasn't your quirk.'

He gave me a look of uncertainty and smiled. 

"Hi, I'm Kaminari Denki. Nice to meet you uh…  what's your name?"

I scoffed internally, 'really? That's how you're gonna ask me my name? Dude just how dense are you?'

"F/n L/n. Crap, sorry. L/N, F/N. Nice to meet you as well Kaminari. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go and rack up more points so if you don't mind I'll just be o-"

Kaminari cut me off by yelling. 

"That's a zero pointer! No way! That thing is huge!"

Looking up I saw what he was talking about, I smirked. 

"U.A. definitely lives up to its prestigious name. I am impressed. Wow. This zero pointer is glorious."

Kaminari looked at me like I was insane, as if I somehow sparked a fire in him he puffed out his chest in glee and smirked. 

"All the more reason for me to prove my strength. Stand back L/N I'm gonna light this bot up."

I blinked in surprise as he ran towards the bot and he charged up- no way, he wasn't kidding. Large amounts of electricity sprayed out of his hands to the bot, it froze in place for a few moments with electricity spazzing all around the bots frame, but it didn't go down. Kaminari turned to me and gave me a thumbs up and a dumb look on his face. 

"Kaminari you fool! You fried your brain with that foolish attack!"

The bot soon was out of its shocked state and raised it's foot ready to pummel the poor dunce. I quickly mustered up my strength and formed a water ball and sent it at Kaminari, once he was inside I whipped it at me. Kaminari and the water ball collided into me just as the bot stomped down where Kaminari was seconds before. I stood up and slapped Kaminari, feeling another jolt of electricity surge through me. 

'Awh hell. This fool is my soulmate and he's too dense to realize it's not his quirk.'

I turned to the bot and watched it moved closer before turning back to Kaminari. 

"After this exam you're taking me out for ice cream for saving your fried ass not only once but twice."

I turned back to the bot and sent two water balls towards the next spots where it would step, not satisfied with the ground I sent more until the bot stepped and sunk a few feet. 

"Yes! It worked!"

I happily then made a few water spears and threw them at the bot before I took a deep breath in, closed my eyes and concentrated on a tiny ball of water in my hands, I needed to focus all my energy if I wanted to make this work. I slowly enlarged the ball in my hand and listened as it started to crackle and pop, taking another deep breath I slowly opened my eyes and smirked before shrinking the softball sized water ball and throwing it at the exposed part of the bot. Once it was a foot from contacting the bot I spread my arms out enlarging the crackling ball and watched as it downed the bot. 

I looked to Kaminari and sighed. I need to get him somewhere safe until this wears off, if I leave him here he'll be an easy target for the other bots. I'm pretty sure there's five minutes left meaning I can still get a few more points if I hurry up. I took some gummies out of my pocket and threw them in my mouth, I'm lucky we were allowed to bring things in that would help us, otherwise I'd have been out for the count when I helped that pink girl.  I led Kaminari to a safe area and smirked as a three pointer came out of the alley next to us, I jumped up with my water and formed water around my wrist as I plummeted down and punched the bot. It went down just as Present Mic. screeched. 

"It's all over! Good job everybody! 

Within moments Recovery Girl was by my side looking at Kaminari, she shook her head and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Kaminari blinked and looked around in a state of confusion before looking at me. 

"Come on Kaminari, you owe me an ice cream."

I poked his cheek and was sent another shock of electricity, which he definitely would have felt as all and leaned into his ear. 

"After all we are soulmates, and I just saved your butt."

I gave the shocked boy a knowing smile and grasped his hand and began leasing him away towards the exit. If we both somehow get into the hero course this was going to be one exciting year...

A/N: this is AU prompt was brought upon you thanks to the bnha discord server. You can find other works by member of the discord here:

https://liliesoftherain.tumblr.com/post/614256302090223616/mha-x-reader-discord-prompt-masterlist

[judesstfrancis]

Hope you don’t mind me asking but you are well versed in horror films. What would you recommend as a good place to start for someone who is not comfortable with demons or jumpscares? (Ghosts are fine but there’s something about demons that really unsettle me for some reason) thanks!!!

I don’t mind at all!! honestly I love answering questions like these, I grew up with horror so I love helping other people figure out what they might like.

before I start, I do wanna note that jumpscares have a very broad, kinda vague definition. it really all depends on your personal sensitivity! so while some of these movies have scenes that are technically labeled as jumpscares, they may not actually read like that onscreen. a good resource I think is wheresthejump.com, and I’ll be providing links for each movie that has a profile on the website. regardless, I’ll make sure to only rec movies that I don’t consider to have blatant jumpscares and that only have minor jumpscare ratings on the site. and bc I’ll be linking you to the profiles directly, you’ll be able to decide for yourself if it’s something you want to actually consume. the profiles will both describe what the jumpscares are, how major or minor they are, and the exact time stamps they occur at. if the movie doesn’t have a profile on the website, u should ostensibly be safe!

here we go!

my personal first introduction to horror was the lost boys (1987) and I cannot recommend it enough. really classic 80s horror, vampires, extremely Gender and extremely Homosexual Subtext. a young boy and his family move to santa carla and his older brother accidentally gets turned into a vampire bc he’s trying to impress the local hot boys! he’s technically trying to impress literally the only woman his age in the movie, but look. the vampire men look Like That, he was trying to impress the local hot boys. (no profile on wheresthejump)

I also have to rec scream (1996) bc it is my absolute favorite horror film. this movie is like a really classic teen slasher but, and I’m sure u already know what I’m about to say if you’ve followed this blog for more than 24 hours, it is full of incredible twists. absolutely deconstructed the entire slasher subgenre and is the reason the Film Nerd Who Knows Everything About Horror trope was popularized. it absolutely does not take itself seriously and there’s a lot of outside references to other horror projects the director was involved in and honestly that’s what makes it genius. it thinks its a joke! it treats itself like a joke, but it’s not. also sidney prescott is like THE horror franchise frontwoman, thank u miss neve campbell (wheresthejump profile)

okay other recs that I’m hopefully gonna not talk as long about since I’m trying not to make this Super Long:

us (2019) everything jordan peele has ever done, horror wise, is a masterpiece. the man simply knows what he’s doing. this one has a family vacation gone wrong, dopplegangers, and an overall amazing narrative. (wheresthejump profile)

van helsing (2004) this may perhaps be way too cheesy to label as a horror movie but look I love it and it’s been a favorite of mine for a very long time so I’m including it. hugh jackman plays van helsing! real fun vampire hunting. (wheresthejump profile)

when a stranger calls (1979) the call is coming from inside the house! your classic babysitter horror but like. it was the Blueprint for classic babysitter horror, u know? absolutely amazing, one of my favorites. (wheresthejump profile)

the raven (2012) one of my favorite movies, even outside of horror! it’s actually labeled as a crime mystery/thriller but we all know how I feel about thrillers being horror. also it’s a serial killer so like. horror film. anyway it’s based on edgar allan poe and he has to help solve murders based on his own stories! really neat premise! (no profile on wheresthejump)

coraline (2009) technically marketed as a fantasy kid’s film but look shit is SCARY. I watched it for the first time when I was 18 and I was spooked. really cool kinda adventure-y thing where she finds a portal to an alternate universe and hangs out with her Other Family and has fun initially but then things get Weird. (no profile on wheresthejump)

don’t look under the bed (1999) this shit was apparently so scary that disney had to take it off the air for a Very Long Time after it was first released on the channel. what happens when u forget your imaginary friends? apparently boogeymen! one of my absolute favorite movies in the entire world, I was always so excited when it actually was on tv (no profile on wheresthejump)

lady in white (1988) ghosts! this one’s just really neat. narrated story about a little boy in the 60s who sees a murder and gets haunted afterwards. but like in a cool way!! he helps the ghosts it's neat (no profile on wheresthejump) (no demons)

the frighteners (1996) another favorite of mine that I just love to death. this one’s part comedy! michael j fox gets into a car accident that kills his wife and can talk to spirits after that so he makes friends with them to stage hauntings and scam people out of money by pretending to get rid of them. things get wild tho when he finds an evil ghost pretending to be the grim reaper that is actually the ghost of a serial killer from however long ago and is now marking victims to kill them later. (no profile on wheresthejump) (evil spirits but no demons, it is very clear that he is just a regular, human serial murderer turned ghost)

hope this was helpful! I tried to give a good little sample mix of some of my favorites that weren’t Too Gross and didn’t rely on just blaring loud music and shoving a scary picture in your face for no reason. overall I’d say probably creature features and slashers might be your best bet for avoiding jumpscares and demonic narratives? older movies as well will rely on jumpscares less so that’s something to keep in mind. if you’re ever unsure, make sure to use wheresthejump.com for descriptions/time stamps/ratings of jumpscares and check out doesthedogdie.com as well! doesthedogdie originated to warn about animal death in horror, but it has a wide array of phobias and potential triggers that it tracks too, so it’s good for a number of things.

also delving into horror that’s marketed for kids slaps. there’s a lot less possibility that it’s gonna be gross just for the sake of it and those usually don’t have jumpscares. they’re also a lot more creative! it’s why I added coraline and don’t look under the bed to the list, I truly just think horror that’s marketed for children is amazing bc it doesn’t have the ability to rely on tired, cheap gimmicks to get their scares. I hope this doesn’t come off as me being like patronizing or anything bc I truly am being genuine, like as a fan of the genre I just love children’s horror. I recommend that everyone checks it out bc it is absolutely unparalleled, so like definitely delve into that a little, too.

[allisonswrittenwords]

Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!

Better late than never, being that it is Valentine’s Day weekend and all.

When I was trying to think of what I wanted to write about for Valentine’s Day, needing the obligatory holiday post and all, I thought about things I liked as a kid that represented love.  Before Valentine’s Day parties at school, I was a kid who was home most days, watching cartoons and playing with my brother. One thing we enjoyed together as little kids was listening to Teddy Ruxpin tell us stories.  Before we could read the books, we would look at the pictures while Teddy told the story.  I had seven book-and-tape sets – there were so many more – 39 in the storybook series, as well as cassettes in the Answer Box and Picture Show) – and one of those sets was about love.  Specifically, the love between a main character and a one-off character.

Grubby’s Romance is the seventh adventure book-and-tape set in The World of Teddy Ruxpin series.  The story was also adapted into an episode the animated The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, which pulled its episodes directly from the cassette tape stories.  That episode aired as the seventh episode of season one.

“A Most Unusual Experience”

I’ll take “Reviews of Allison’s Written Words for $500, Alex.”

I can make jokes, it’s my site!

Anyway, this story tells of the time that Teddy Ruxpin, Grubby, and Newton Gimmick had a most unusual experience, involving Gimmick’s newly invented “Portable Reducing Machine.”  This more portable device operates much like Gimmick’s larger shrinking machine (using The First Crystal, Imagination, which helps shrink and grow the characters), but as the name says, is portable and can be taken along for a journey.

The trio is off to find clues about the other six crystals (Honesty, Trust, Bravery, Friendship, Freedom, and The Black Box) from The Hard to Find City to make it work properly, so they fire up the Airship and prepare to head off in search of those clues.

However, someone else is quite interested in their adventure: Tweeg.  And he’s annoyed with Gimmick’s success as an inventor (man, Tweeg must be a terrible inventor!).  And the arrival of Gimmick’s two new friends has caused some consternation with Tweeg, who finds them to be an interference.

He sends L.B. The Bounder to “get rid of” Teddy, Grubby, and Newton.

L.B., curious about the device sitting there out in the open, presses the red button on the Portable Reducing Machine, shrinking the trio – and the Airship – down to a very tiny size!  Tweeg is thrilled about this, believing the trio to have disappeared.

Of course, the type of day to fly the Airship is perfect when it is normal size, but when it is super tiny and you’re contending with gale force winds, you’re going to run into some problems.  Like a “leaf in the wind,” the group is blown into a forest, far away from Newton Gimmick’s home.

The group encounters The Snail, and after asking for his help in locating Newton’s house, decide to go with him to the Annual Spring Dance (he’s late, as usual).  The Snail suggests asking the butterflies for help in locating home (the bees are too difficult to ask), and the group arrives at the dance.

Everyone in the forest was there, and that’s when Grubby spots her…

“I Get A Glimpse Of You Out of the Corner Of My Eye…”

Grubby sings a song about his encounter with the love at first sight, spotted from across the room, a Caterpillar named Karen. Despite his reservations about dancing with her, he does.  For the next few days, he spends so much time about Karen, as Newton and Teddy figure out a way to get back home.  Theirs is a love equated to the twinkle of an eye.

But as fast as they fall in love, Karen begins to behave strangely, building a shell around herself as Grubby watches with sadness.  Karen can’t stop herself, and explains that she knows it is what she is supposed to do, and Grubby, beside himself with this, waits for days by the shell.  Newton and Teddy discuss this, and Teddy realizes that Karen built a cocoon around herself, as she is a caterpillar and is about to become a butterfly.

By the time Teddy and Newton get to Grubby to tell him this fact, Karen has already emerged from her cocoon.  And much to Grubby’s delight, she is something equally amazing to him.

A Beautiful Butterfly

Karen has become a beautiful butterfly during her time in her cocoon shell, and tells her new friends that she remembers The Snail saying that butterflies could lead the Airship home.  With Karen and the other butterflies leading the way, the Airship travels back to Newton’s home, landing is successfully.

After landing and positioning itself the same way it was before it was shrunk to a very small size, Grubby asks Karen to push the green button on the Portable Reducing Machine, which restores the Airship and its occupants to normal size.

And thankfully, it works.  Because most of Gimmick’s inventions don’t. Thank goodness he got this one right!

Goodbyes

Grubby knew it was only an accident that allowed him to be in Karen’s world, and with a tear in his eye, he says goodbye to his love, as she and the other butterflies fly away to fill the summer sky with beauty.

Of course, Tweeg is super unhappy with this turn of events.  Which just means that Teddy, Grubby, and Newton are safe…for now.

You can listen to Honey, I Shrunk Teddy Ruxpin – er, Grubby’s Romance – as it was intended on Lost Bedtime Story Classics.  This channel has a great and extensive (read: almost complete) collection of Teddy Ruxpin stories, among other treats.

Upload via Lost Bedtime Story Classics

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin

As I said, the story appears as an early episode of the television series, but has some extra scenes in the form of a secondary storyline to pad out the run time.  The audio adventures run 16 minutes each, but the television series was 21 minutes without commercials.

The series was mostly serialized, but had connecting plots and story arcs within the same week, including the original stories as well as new stories developed for the television series, greatly expanding on the adventures the trio takes.  The series aired for 65 episodes over two seasons between 1986 and 1987, ending when Worlds of Wonder faced financial difficulties (they later went into bankruptcy in 1988).  Unfortunately, the show ended in a cliffhanger on October 23, 1987 due to this.

Upload via Jack W. Tweeg

The episode had its own videocassette release, which involved the use of the terrifying man-sized suit from the live action Teddy Ruxpin videos.

Upload via redilliop

It’s nice to know the mouth moved on the suit, but man was this frightening!

Takeaways

I loved Teddy Ruxpin, and I don’t really have a personal preference as far as the stories went.  I remember really liking Grubby’s Romance because of the Portable Shrinking Machine, since these plots in cartoons always seemed to fascinate me as a little kid. As an adult, it seems like no cartoon was complete without a main character facing down shrinking.  It is kind of like how science fiction series always have a body switching episode.

Just remember friends, I couldn’t have cared less about the romantic plot line, I liked the shrinking plot line!

But this was a nice story, especially the song Grubby sings about falling in love!  Grubby is an upbeat character, but he always had an Eeyore-sound to his voice, so you kind of rooted for him to fall in love.  Even if it was accidental.

And Now, You!

Do you have a favorite story from the Teddy Ruxpin series, be it the cassettes or the cartoon?  I’d love to know your favorite stories/plots, as well as your memories of Teddy Ruxpin.

In 2016, I wrote about the live action Teddy Ruxpin taking two kids on a trip to help them fall asleep, but I haven’t really done much with Teddy since then.  I feel like I should – there’s so much to explore with the series, with YouTube having plenty to see and hear, probably more than many of us Teddy Ruxpin owners ever heard as kids.

I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day, and may you feel the kind of love that Grubby felt, but hopefully not accidentally.

And hopefully, it isn’t “flighty.”

Have a great rest of the weekend!

    (Accidental) Love is in the air for Grubby, when he, Teddy Ruxpin, and Newton Gimmick are accidentally shrunken and wind up in a village of bugs. Grubby falls in love with one of them. Is this a love that is meant to be? Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

[tomeandflickcorner]

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

So, last week, I revisited Caravan of Courage, a movie I loved as a kid but was re-watching for the first time as an adult.  Now it’s time for the sequel to that TV movie, which aired a year later. Though it’s hard to say if it’s better than the first movie or worse.  At least this one feels like an actual movie, so I guess I’ll give it that.

The movie starts with Cindel, who is now 6, walking through the forest with Wicket while gathering flowers.  They briefly pay a visit to Cindel’s father, Jeremitt, who is working on repairing their crashed star cruiser.  It turns out the repairs are almost complete, meaning the Towani family will get to go home soon.  Also, we see they got a new actor for the role of Jeremitt.  In the first film, he was portrayed by Guy Boyd.  But this time, they got Paul Gleason, the principal from The Breakfast Club.  Don’t know why they swapped actors, though.  Was it a scheduling conflict or did Guy Boyd just not want to come back?

As they make their way back to the Ewok Village with their flowers, Cindel starts to talk to Wicket about how she’ll have to leave the Endor Moon soon.  Especially since she and Mace will have to go back to school.  (Are there organized schools in the Star Wars universe?  Yeah, Luke mentioned wanting to apply to the Academy, but I got the impression that was more of a trade school).  Also, we see that Wicket speaks fluent Basic now. I guess they just wanted to take the easy way out in regards of how Wicket and Cindel would communicate throughout the film.  But this just makes it even more difficult to set the movie before Return of the Jedi.  Because if this took place before Episode 6 as the Wiki article suggests, then Wicket would have been able to actually communicate with Leia and there wouldn’t have been an obvious language barrier in that scene.  Anyway, Cindel suggests that Wicket come with them and go to school with her.  Wicket, however, states that his home and family are there and he can’t leave them. So Cindel promises to come back and visit Wicket often.

However, on the way back to the Ewok Village, Wicket stops Cindel as he smells danger in the air.  Sure enough, the Ewok village is being attacked by a band of these reptilian ape-like Aliens called Sanyassans.  The attack is organized by Terack, the leader of the Sanyassans, and Charal, who is a Nightsister.  I actually do remember the term Nightsister from the days when I read the Young Jedi Knight series.  Basically, the Nightsisters are to the Witches of Dathomir what the Sith are to the Jedi Knights.  Upon seeing what’s going on, Wicket hurries off to help the other Ewoks fight, telling Cindel to stay out of sight.  But Cindel notices one of the lights on her Life Monitor is flickering and realizes it means her mother is mortally wounded.  So she leaves her hiding place and goes searching for her family.  She quickly finds her brother, Mace, doing his best to fight against the Sanyassans, with Catarine lying unresponsive next to him. When he notices Cindel, Mace tells her to get out of there and fetch their father.  Tragically, when Cindel hurries off to get Jeremitt, Mace ends up ducking into an Ewok hut for cover in the ongoing gun battle.  And then he immediately dies when the hut gets blown up. So this movie is going the way of Alien 3, in the sense that it’s kicking things off by killing off the main characters from the previous film.

When Cindel reaches the site of her family’s star cruiser, we see that Jeremitt is also in trouble, as the Sanyassans are there, too.  As Cindel watches from the underbrush, Terack and Charal confront Jeremitt, demanding that he give them ‘the power’ as the Sanyassans proceed to tear apart the star cruiser.  Obviously, Jeremitt has no idea what they’re talking about.  But it starts to become clear when one of the Sanyassans pulls out this glass cylinder, which is apparently the star cruiser’s equivalent of a car battery, from a compartment on the side of the star cruiser. Basically, these Sanyassan guys don’t know what technology is and they think this battery cylinder is some kind of magical talisman that has harnessed the power of the stars.  And they want to unlock the magic within the cylinder to become all powerful and stuff.

Jeremitt, when he notices Cindel standing nearby, fights off the Sanyassan standing over him and tries to make a run for it in order to get Cindel away.  But in the process, he gets shot in the back.  (So these Sayassans have blasters, but they don’t know about how star cruisers work?  Well, I guess that kinda makes sense.  They had gunpowder in the 18th century, but I doubt anyone who lived back then would have been able to understand the concept of cars.)

So Jeremitt and Cindel try hiding from the Sayassans in the forest, but because of his injury, Jeremitt isn’t in the condition to continue running.  As such, he tells Cindel that she has to leave him behind and keep on running by reminding her of a bedtime story he used to tell her about a baby bird who learned how to fly.  At first, Cindel resists, considering her father is the only family she has left. Yeah, Cindel does acknowledge Mace and Catarine are dead here, but because this kid’s acting hasn’t improved much since the last movie, she announces it in the most matter-of-fact, deadpan way imaginable.

Anyway, Jeremitt and Cindel run out of time because Charal, who can transform into a raven with a magic ring, discovers their hiding spot and informs the Sanyassans of their location.  Jeremitt hugs Cindel one last time and instructs her to run, telling her that he’ll always be with her.  Cindel, after briefly looking back at her father, complies with his request and runs off, with Jeremitt making one last valiant stand against the attacking Sayassans before he is killed.

Unfortunately, Cindel’s attempt at escaping is all for naught, as Charal effortlessly catches up to her in her raven form and captures her. Cindel is then forced into a prison cart along with a handful of Ewoks that the Sayassans captured, with Wicket being among them.  As they’ve being carted along through the forests towards the Sanyassan stronghold, Cindel mourns the death of her entire family.  Or at least as well as this kid’s clunky acting allows.  It’s more like ‘oh, my whole family is dead, but at least I still have you, Wicket.’  The Ewoks then decide to try and break out of the prison cart by pulling off one of the wooden floor boards, but the hole they create is only big enough for Cindel and Wicket to squeeze though.  So the older Ewoks lower Cindel and Wicket through the hole to help them escape, but two of the Sanyassans spot the pair and proceed to chase Cindel and Wicket up a mountain.  And while the Stormtroopers have a notoriously bad reputation of having terrible aim, these two Sanyassans make them look like skilled marksmen. More than once, Cindel just stops and looks back at them and yet they fail to shoot her.  To escape the Sanyassans, Cindel and Wicket try ducking into a cave too small for their pursuers, but the cave entrance is sealed when the Sanyassans shoot at the opening, resulting in a rocklide.  (This also results in the Sanyassans falling off the mountain path to their deaths.)

Of course, Cindel and Wicket are now trapped in the cave.  But Wicket suggests there might be another way out.  Sure enough, they find the cave’s back door, only to find the cave opening is positioned over a sheer drop with no footpath for them to walk down. By chance, they find a piece of cloth and a bunch of long bones lying around, which Wicket decides to use to build a hang glider.  Because they could use a hang glider to glide down to the forest below.  As Cindel sleeps next to a campfire, Wicket gets to work on building the hang glider.  Though neither of them seem to pick up on the obvious issue of the bones lying about.  Or realize that these bones didn’t just happen to end up there by chance.  Yep, this cave is actually the lair of a carnivorous Condor Dragon.  When the Condor Dragon appears, he briefly attacks Wicket and Cindel before flying off with Cindel in his claws.  So Wicket has to chase after the Condor Dragon with his hang glider in order to save Cindel.   After a brief chase sequence, he forces the Condor Dragon to drop Cindel.  But he failed to recognize the fact that that they were high up in the sky at the time, so he has to perform a quick dive in order to catch her before she hits the ground.  Wicket does manage to catch Cindel in time, but the hang glider is damaged in the process, resulting in a crash landing.  Once they’re sure they’ve lost the Condor Dragon, Wicket and Cindel decide to spend the night inside a hollow tree.

The following morning, they’re woken up abruptly by this derpy looking buck-toothed Alien creature.  This guy is called Teek, and those of you who have been to the Star Tours ride in Disney theme parks prior to the 2011 update might remember seeing him making a cameo appearance in the pre-flight safety video.  Teek initially gets on Wicket’s bad side, as Teek begins playing pranks on the young Ewok with the aid of his super speed. This is apparently Teek’s gimmick. He can run really fast.  Like Marvel’s Quicksilver fast.  However, Cindel prevents Wicket from retaliating against Teek, stating that he might be able to help them.  So Cindel asks Teek if he knows where they could find food. It only makes sense that they’re hungry, considering they probably haven’t eaten anything since lunchtime the day before.  This prompts Teek to lead Wicket and Cindel to this house in the middle of the forest. Cindel, upon entering the house, is quick to observe how the place is a mess, but for some reason, she concludes that the place had been abandoned and that she and Wicket should claim the house as their own.  However, it’s soon revealed that someone does indeed live there.  No, it’s not a clan of dwarfs, but an old man named Noa.  Who is probably the only Star Wars character to date who wears glasses.  He’s played by Wilford Brimley, who has also appeared in films such as John Carpenter’s The Thing and Coccon. (Though some people might recognize him from commercials for Liberty Medical and Quaker Oats.)

Noa is not happy to see Cindel and Wicket inside his house, which is understandable as these two kids have entered his home without his knowledge or permission and messed around with his stuff.  After scolding Teek for bringing them there, he gruffly sends Cindel and Wicket away.  Though Noa never seems to question why this little girl and her Ewok friend are this deep in the woods.  You’d think he’d be wondering where Cindel’s parents were.  He does state at some point that there must be somebody missing them, but he never questions Cindel and Wicket on the matter.  One would think that would have been his first question.

Anyway, after sending Cindel and Wicket away, Noa notices there’s a pot of soup on the stove, as well as muffins baking in the oven.  Because Cindel and Wicket were in the process of making themselves some breakfast when Noa returned home.  He proceeds to serve himself and Teek the food.  Which seems like a bit of a jerk movie at first, considering Cindel and Wicket clearly were the ones who made the food, so why should Noa get to eat it? But then it starts to become evident that Noa’s surly attitude is just for show.  He looks sternly at Teek, telling him that he’s going back to the stove to get more soup and that he better not bring any food out to Cindel and Wicket while his back is turned.  But when Teek utilizes his super speed to defy Noa’s order, we see Noa discreetly watching from the nearby window.  Meaning he secretly had wanted Teek to bring them food, but just didn’t want to let that on.

Later on, Noa ends up allowing Cindel and Wicket to sleep inside the house, under the guise of him just not wanting them to set the forest on fire with their little campfire.  When night falls, however, Cindel ends up having a nightmare about the Sanyassans attacking Noa’s house.  Which is a rather nice addition to the film, as it does suggest that Cindel is indeed having a psychological reaction to the death of her whole family. (Keep in mind that we haven’t even seen her crying over it.)  Cindel wakes up from her nightmare and cries out for Wicket, waking up Noa in the process. Taking pity on the little girl, Noa allows her to use his bed for the night.  In the morning, however, Noa announces that Cindel and Wicket should be on their way, as there must be someone who is missing them.  And no, he still doesn’t question what happened to their parents, nor does Cindel and Wicket actually tell him that their families are dead or, in Wicket’s case, captured.  Regardless, Noa heads off into the woods, making it clear that Cindel and Wicket better be gone when he gets back.  So Cindel and Wicket decide that the only thing they can do now is try and find out where the other Ewoks were taken, with Wicket announcing that his family needs him.

Hours later, Noa returns to the house to find the place deserted, apart from Teek.  So it looks as if Cindel and Wicket left as Noa requested.  And he’s all ‘well, good riddance.  We didn’t want those two vagrants around here anyway.  Oh, guess what, Teek?  I figured it’s about time you got a new bed, so here’s two new ones for you to choose from. No, I didn’t make these two new beds for the kid and the little Ewok.  Not a chance.’

But then, Cindel and Wicket return to the house, carrying baskets full of flowers, with Cindel announcing that they can bake some pies now. Okay, first of all, whoever heard of baking flowers into a pie? Second, and most importantly, what motivated them to decide to bake pies in the first place?  In the last scene with these two, Wicket was announcing his desire to find the other Ewoks in order to free them.  As far as Wicket knows, his family and friends are all being tortured and killed somewhere.  And he’s now sitting around baking pies?  Neither Cindel nor Wicket seem to be grasping the magnitude of their situations. Cindel, barring her earlier nightmare, has barely shown any reaction to the fact that her brother and parents were all brutally murdered.  And Wicket, despite knowing the Sanyassans are doing who knows what to his parents, brothers and little sister, is contently off baking pies.   Does anyone in this movie have a believable reaction to anything?

Around this point, we get a quick scene with Charal trying to activate the star cruiser’s battery cylinder with some kind of ritual.  But she is unsuccessful on account of the fact that the battery cylinder isn’t actually a magical artifact.  Of course, nobody seems to pick up on this fact, though Terak is growing increasingly frustrated with Charal’s continued inability to activate the magic within the battery cylinder.  When Charal suggests that Cindel might know the secret, as it had been her family that they took the cylinder from, Terak demands that Charal find the child.

The following morning, Cindel and Wicket seem to have forgotten all about the captured Ewoks and have apparently decided to simply settle into Noa’s home.  Noa appears to be on board with this now, and he gives them a list of chores to do around the house while he once again heads off into the forest. However, Cindel and Wicket grow curious about where Noa is heading off to, so they decide to follow him, despite Teek frantically shaking his head ‘no.’ As such, they follow after Noa, right to the site of another downed star cruiser.  (Props to the movie here, though, as they actually have a callback to Wicket remembering the story Cindel told him about her family’s star cruiser crashing in the last movie.)

Anyway, Noa ends up discovering Cindel and Wicket had followed him when Wicket gets caught in a booby trap.  Initially, he’s not pleased that they followed him, stating that not even Teek is allowed near there.  But Noa ends up telling Cindel and Wicket the story behind this star cruiser. Noa explains that, during his prime, he and his best friend, Salek, were both pilots/star cartographers.  But when they went on their first mission together, most likely a few years before the events of Attack of the Clones, they ended up crash landing on the Moon of Endor, much like how the Towani family did.   Because their battery cylinder had been damaged in the crash, Salek headed out to try and find a replacement part while Noa worked on additional repairs. However, Salek never returned, and henceforth, Noa has been living in isolation ever since.  At least until he met Teek.

This ends up becoming a bonding moment between Noa and Cindel, who finally admits to Noa that she lost her family, so she therefore knows how it feels to lose somebody close to you.  She states that thinking about her dead family makes her feel sad, so Noa suggests that Cindel try to remember the happy memories involving her family, saying that as long as she remembers the things her family told her, then they’ll never really be gone.  Long story short, this leads to Cindel singing a lullaby her mother used to sing to her, ‘My Star.’  (Obviously, she cannot sing, but that’s to be expected since she’s just a little kid.)  Unfortunately, it’s then revealed to the audience that Charal has tracked them down and had been eavesdropping on this whole moment in her raven form.  

Early the next morning, probably around dawn, Cindel wakes up when she hears a woman calling her name.  For some reason, she thinks it’s her mother calling for her, especially when the voice starts to sing the lullaby ‘My Star.’  So she gets up and follows the voice deep into the woods.  There, she comes across a beautiful woman dressed all in white. There’s even a white horse standing nearby.  Honestly, I’m half surprised they didn’t make the white horse a unicorn to drive the image home, but I guess they managed to remember this was supposed to be a Star Wars movie and not a straight-up fantasy film.   When Cindel approaches the Woman in White, she asks the little girl to fetch her robe, which is lying nearby.  The moment Cindel does so, the Woman in White reveals herself to be Charal in disguise.  Meanwhile, Wicket had woken up back at Noa’s house, and upon seeing Cindel wasn’t in her bed, he quickly wakes up Noa, with the pair immediately going out to look for her. However, they don’t arrive in time to save Cindel and can only watch as Charal carries her off.   So they quickly set off after them to rescue the little girl, with Teek following after them.

At the Sanyassan stronghold, Cindel is brought before Terak.  Right away, Cindel shows she does have some guts as she demands to know what Terak did to the Ewoks.  (Because NOW she remembers the Ewoks were all enslaved by these guys).  Terak insists that the Ewoks are his ‘guests,’ but tells Cindel that if she wants the Ewoks to remain unharmed, then she had better share her secrets and help them activate the magic within the battery cylinder they took from her family’s star cruiser.  Cindel tries to tell them that she doesn’t have magic and that the battery cylinder is just a piece of technology, not a magical talisman.  Of course, nobody believes her, and Terak states that Cindel has until tomorrow to change her mind and agree to assist them. Until then, he has Cindel thrown into the dungeons where the other Ewoks are being held.  However, he also has Charal placed into the dungeons for reasons I’m not entirely certain of.  Maybe it’s just one of those ‘no loyalty among villains’ kind of deal.  To ensure Charal doesn’t try and escape, Terak confiscates her magic ring.

While they’re in the dungeons, Charal instructs Cindel to stop playing around and just give Terak what he wants, only for Cindel to once again state that the battery cylinder is just something that powers the star cruiser and it has no magical properties.  Charal then reveals how Terak first found out about ‘the power.’ Apparently, when Noa’s friend, Salek, went looking for a replacement battery cylinder, he was discovered by Terak who misunderstood the nature of what Salak was looking for and ended up killing him over the right to possess ‘the power.’  The movie was even bold enough to show Salek’s skeleton, which was still sitting shackled to the wall near Cindel and Charal’s cells.  That was surprisingly dark for a kid’s film. They’re heavily implying that Salek was chained up and left to slowly die of starvation.  But during this scene, Charal learns that there are two crashed star cruisers on the forest moon- the Towani family’s cruiser and the one that belongs to Noa.

Speaking of Noa, he has arrived at the Sanyassan stronghold with Wicket and Teek. Upon arriving, Noa prevents Wicket from simply swimming across the castle moat, revealing that there’s some kind of monster living in the moat that will attack anything that touches the water.  They infiltrate the castle with a grappling hook and carefully make their way down to the dungeons, with Wicket leading the way as he can smell the presence of his Ewok brethren.  At one point, the three of them disguise themselves as a robed figure to sneak past Terak’s crowded throne room.  Upon reaching the dungeons, they find their way blocked by two Sanyassan guards, apparently playing a game of Sabacc.  Fortunately, Teek manages to find a way to get past them and tricks the two guards into shooting each other dead by utilizing his super speed and hiding a game card up the sleeve of one of the guards, making it look as if he was cheating.  Once the two guards are dead, they are able to take the keys and proceed to free Cindel and the Ewoks.  However, when Cindel sees Wicket going to free Charal as well, she interferes and throws the key down a nearby drain grate, stating that Charal is evil.

When everyone is trying to find a way to get out of the castle, however, they are spotted by more Sanyassan guards who, despite Wicket’s best efforts, manage to sound the alarm, alerting Terak of the escape. Fortunately, Noa manages to blast a hole into the side of the castle wall and uses a second grappling hook to make an improvised zipline so everyone can propel themselves down to safety. Before they leave the castle, Cindel informs Noa of what she learned about Salek and his fate.  Because I guess she felt that Noa deserved to know what had happened to his friend.  She also reclaims the battery cylinder, which had been left with her in the dungeons, turning a deaf ear to Charal’s protests.  

The Ewoks all manage to escape with Noa, Cindel and Teek, despite the Sanyassans shooting at them, and they all run off back towards the forest.  Which obviously angers Terak.   From her cell, Charal begs Terak to let her out, telling him about the other star cruiser and stating that she can help him find it.  I guess they think that if they had two battery cylinders, they would be twice as powerful.  Terak ends up freeing her, giving Charal back her magic ring to allow her to transform into a raven again.  But when Raven Charal starts to fly off, Terak takes back the ring, which effectively traps Charal in the form of a raven.

With Raven Charal leading the way, Terak and the rest of the Sanyassans proceed to follow after the Ewoks, who decide to make their final stand at the site of Noa’s crashed star cruiser.  What follows is a prolonged action sequence with the Ewoks fighting the Sanyassans with the same kind of techniques they utilized in Return of the Jedi, while also utilizing a catapult Noa designed at some point.  Once Noa gets his ship working again upon installing the battery cylinder from the Towani family’s star cruiser, he starts to aid the Ewoks in the fight with the ship’s gun turret.

During the battle, Cindel, who had been watching the proceedings through the ship’s monitor, spots Wicket getting into trouble when the little Ewok gets his foot caught in a snare.  She immediately runs out into the fray to help him, but she needn’t have bothered as Wicket’s father, Deej, was able to get it sorted before Cindel arrived on the scene.  Although, this does result in Cindel once again getting captured.  This time by Terak, who approaches Noa and demands he surrender ‘the power’ to him, in exchange for Cindel’s safe return.  When Noa meets with Terak to make the trade, he demands that Terak release Cindel first and then places the battery cylinder on the ground in front of him.  When Terak lets go of Cindel and moves to pick it up, Noa initiates a duel with Terak, with Noa’s staff against Terak’s sword.  Folks, this is as close as these movies get to an actual lightsaber duel.

During the fight, Terak briefly gets the upper hand over Noa, but before he could make a killing blow, Teek jumps into action, latching onto Terak’s back in an effort to defend his friend.  Of course, this just ends up with Terak throwing Teek into a nearby tree, which ends up breaking Teek’s arm.  In desperation, Cindel begs Wicket to do something, so Wicket pulls out his slingshot and fires off a small stone at Terak.  While this might seem like a fruitless endeavor, the stone ends up hitting Charal’s magic ring, which Terak had been wearing around his neck.  This apparently causes the ring to crack, resulting in a magical backlash that turns Terak to stone.  And Raven Charal, who had been watching from a nearby tree, flies off with a mournful cry because she realizes that, with her ring destroyed, she’s forever trapped as a raven.

In the aftermath of the battle, Noa is able to get his star cruiser fully operational again, which allows him to finally leave the Endor Moon.  And Cindel is to go with him.  Though the movie doesn’t really explain why Cindel is leaving with Noa and why she didn’t simply get adopted by the Ewoks.  While it is true her initial plan was to return home with her parents and brother, now that they’re dead, she really doesn’t have anyone waiting for her. Unless she has an aunt, uncle or grandparent out there somewhere.  I guess the implication is that Noa is unofficially adopting her.  Either way, Noa’s probably going to get quite the shock when he returns to whatever planet he’s from, considering he’s been stranded on the Endor Moon for the duration of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War. It’s a safe bet that he’s got a lot of catching up to do.  Before they leave, Cindel and Noa bid their goodbyes to Wicket, Teek (whose arm is now in a sling) and the other Ewoks.  As Cindel says goodbye to Wicket, she announces that he’s her very best friend, and that she will come back to visit him as soon as she can.  And it’s only now that we finally see her crying. While I get that it’s probably hard for her to say goodbye to her friend, she didn’t shed a single tear when her parents and brother died.  So it’s a bit surreal that she’s crying now.

And so, the movie ends with Noa and Cindel flying away in the star cruiser.  And Wicket and Teek, in a similar manner to Disney’s Pocahontas, run up to the top of a large cliff to wave goodbye as the star cruiser leaves the atmosphere.  With that, I’m finally done with the made-for-TV Ewok movies.  In some ways, this movie was an improvement from Caravan of Courage, as there were no magical happenings that didn’t make sense, and it actually felt like an actual movie with a concrete plot.  But at the same time, our star players, Cindel and Wicket, seemed to have the attention span of a pair of goldfish.  Cindel barely shows any emotion when her family gets killed off and Wicket, when his people are imprisoned with the Sanyassans doing who knows what to them, doesn’t seem to care in the slightest and contents himself with playing house with Cindel and baking flower pies.  It’s almost as if Cindel and Wicket care more about each other than their own families. And that’s a bit disturbing when you think about it.  If it weren’t for the fact that Cindel is only 6 and Wicket is, from what I can tell, roughly the same age in Ewok years, I might have thought the movie was going for some whole romantic subtext.  But again, these two characters are both kids, so that can’t be the case.   (At least, I hope not.)

Thankfully, I can now get back to the main Star Wars films. Namely the first two installments of the New Trilogy.  Though, from what I’ve seen from certain fandom responses, the New Trilogy has caused a serious divide among the Star Wars fandom.  Whether or not I’ll actively discuss the controversy, I haven’t decided yet.

(Click here to go back to the directory)

[kuuderekun]

Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question.

Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question. 

For the second week in a row Magical Girl Site is the only show I really want to comment on.  But I'm still enjoying all the shows I'm currently watching. I mentioned in my Astolfo post how I don't use the term "Trap" to describe characters who are actually Trasngender.  The only problem with making that hard distinction is Japanese media doesn't always use the same terminology we use in the west, so it's not always clear what the writers are going for.  For example I'm still not sure what we're supposed to think of Ruka in Steins;Gate, I like that in the new series they seem more comfortable with their gender identity, but I'm still unsure what it's supposed to be. Episode 7 of Magical Girl Site introduced the character of Kiyoharu Suirenji.  Going off what we see in this episode alone I would have to conclude she is a Transwoman and not merely a Crossdresser because of her using the girl's bathroom and that being an issue.  I don't think a CisMale Crossdresser would use the girl's bathroom.  However her seemingly not objecting to others calling her a boy complicates the matter, but it could be she's just someone who doesn't want to get confrontational about it.  But I also could have missed something there since I'm watching it Subbed because there is no Dub. In the episode's MAL forum one user who's read the Manga says the character is definitely a Transwoman.  That user is defending using the proper terminology to refer to her.  However there is at least one user there being very blatantly Transphobic. Most of what we see of the character in the episode I like.  However we are given a glimpse of the character having a dark side, with her saying she'll get revenge in the distant future.  Now this is a Dark Magical girl show where most characters have something dark about them.  But I'm still recovering from the disappointment of my favorite Western TV show of all time, Pretty Little Liars blowing it with it's handling of this issue. People sometimes ask whether bad representation is better then no representation.  It is interesting that if this show had never brought the issue up I would probably have never singled it out to criticize for lack of Trans representation.  But as soon as they provide some representation it doesn't take long for me to start being on edge about her being mishandled.  I'd been praising the show for it's unsanitized depiction of Bullying, I should then be thrilled to see that theme expand to showing the bullying Trans Women endure.  But instead I'm worried about the implications of this character either turning evil or dying. But I now realize that, yeah, I should be criticizing Magical Girl shows for failing to include trans representation (and even Sailor Moon fails to include any true Trans representation, the Starlights were simply a gender bending gimmick).  They frequently try to have very diverse casts allowing many different kinds of girls to be magical girls, representing many different forms of the adolescent female experience in Japan.  I think we're long overdue for a Trans Magical Girl and it's unfortunate that the Dark Magical Girl Genre people are back lashing against now was the first to do it. This subject happened to be on my mind already before I saw episode 7.   You may have noticed I posted about a Batman movie that features The Riddler yesterday.  Well Batman and The Riddler being on my mind reminded me that back when I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kinds of Batman films I'd make I had came up with a concept that re-imagined The Riddler as a Trans Woman.  But then decided that I wasn't comfortable casting a Trans character as a villain in our current climate. Homosexual representation in media has reached the point where you can have Gay villains without it automatically reinforcing the same harmful stereotypes that used to keep Gays only as villains or victims in American fiction.  But Trans representation, especially for Trans Women, has not, as clearly shown by what happened with Pretty Little Liars.  I absolutely believe the writers of that show had the best of intentions, they wanted to say Transphobia is the ultimate cause of the tragedy, but regardless Charlotte being the only Trans representation the show had left the LGBT community who at one point loved the show deeply offended. Ironically this Trans Woman Riddler idea had developed in my mind before season 6 of PLL happened.  And yet my vision for The Riddler was influenced by PLL before the Trans Woman aspect was a part of it.  PLL started airing back when Batfans were still hoping The Riddler would be in the third Nolan Batfilm.  And I from day one immediately felt how -A operated on PLL was a good reference point for how to "Nolanize" The Riddler. So in hindsight Charlotte DiLaurentis kind of resembles the Trans Woman Riddler concept I'd been thinking of.  And how that whole controversy helped shape how I think about this issue is probably a factor in why I dropped the idea.  Still my envisioned backstory for her (which I don't entirely remember) was far from identical.  And of course I also regardless of the character's gender or ethnic identity prefer The Riddler to not be a murderer.  It would be admittedly hard to keep that in tact when making The Riddler the main antagonist of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, but I do think it's workable. So in that sense my Riddler was closer to Mona then Charlotte. But now I can't help but wonder if outright abandoning it was simply the Cowards way out (Realistically I'll probably never get to make a Batman film anyway, but this is hypothetical).  For example if I have good guys in the movie who are also Trans that could certainly help make it salvageable. Part of what was so harmful about the Charlotte story-line was caused by the need for it to be a twist, that the character who turned out to be "Charles" had been posing as a Cis Woman.  And that's the main problem with my initial concept here.  The starting premise before any Gender issues factored into it was allowing a Batman movie that's actually a Mystery/Detective story by having us not know who The Riddler is.  But I now realize that the concept can be reworked so that whatever name She is using before the reveal she can still be openly Trans.  The thing is I'm kind of killing that mystery aspect for future use by giving it all away publicly now.  Only way it could work for someone who'd read this post is if multiple Trans Women are in it.  Oh wait, that happens to also help fix keep her from being the only representation. The YouTube Channel FilmJoy did a video last year called The Batman Question which I watched today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c&t It was about the idea of allowing more then just CisHet White Men to play Batman and other major Batman characters.  Janelle Monae was a choice brought up a lot, and she responded that she'd rather play The Joker. And that reminded me how members of Batman's Rouges Gallery are Pop Culture Icons and that almost every Actor wants an opportunity to play one.  And I personally would cast an actual Trans Woman to play the role (The Pedantic Romantic could make a good Riddler).  So perhaps we shouldn't exclude the Trans Community from being able to play those roles out of fear of how it can go wrong. The Riddler is often viewed as Batman's smarted nemesis, his greatest intellectual threat. After all Eartha Kitt wasn't counterproductive for Black Women.   KyleKallgrenBHH in his recent video on The Watermelon Woman talks about how for a long time Black Women weren't allowed to be Sex Symbols in America.  So in that context one getting to play the greatest Sex Symbol of American Pop Culture was downright revolutionary.  And so in today's climate maybe Catwoman should be the first Bat Rouge to consider allowing to be a Transwoman? You may ask, why was it that my mind went there for The Riddler first? Another question you may ask is, how would I handle naming this Transwoman reinterpretation of Edward Nygma? Well the answers to those questions are kind of the same. When I starting of thinking about what I'd do for a Nolanesque Riddler story.  I first decided "The Riddler" should be a name given to them.   They would identify themselves in their messages as simply -?  Again influenced by -A on PLL. Then I first started thinking about the character's Gender as I was playing around with the inherent pun of E. Nygma, and the idea entered my head to use the name..... ....... Annie Nygma...................... And from there I thought first just of making The Riddler a woman, an idea which technically had done before at least by Cosplayers.  But I also thought about having her use multiple names and for the sake of Nolan style realism not having any Nygma name be her birth name.  Then I heard of this Edward Nashton name that had emerged as an alternate name for The Riddler, I don't know who used it first but I heard of it via The Riddler Blogs, a fan film project derivative of The Joker Blogs. And then I thought about how Transmen and Transwomen naturally tend to change their names from what they were given at birth.  And so the idea popped in there to have Edward Nashton be the name assigned at birth, and Annie Nygma the name she chose when she accepted her Gender Identity, because she was into Riddles and Puzzles. I'm not Trans, I can't actually relate to these issues.  So I simply don't know what the right answer is.  Perhaps it's a good idea for me to put this experience out there and let someone who is Trans use it for their own Fanwork if they see value in it. Part of the reason I was ashamed of this for awhile is it didn't originate much from a place of caring about representation.  I've always been a believer in Trans rights, but it was in recent years I've become much more sensitive to this and other Social Justice issues. The more recent ideas I've come up with for characters who are Trans have been making them heroes.  Like the idea of the Vordenberg who Carmilla had a romance with being a Transwoman.  Or my desire to tell a story about Lancelot as a Transwoman (using the name Lanzelet), as well as Perceval as a Transman.  And my idea for a fictionalized French Revolution shared cinematic universe innovated using Chevalier d'Éon in the Captain America/Wonder Woman/King Kong role as the one who's origin story film is set in a previous era.  And interpreting d'Eon as a Noble Honorable and Heroic Transwoman, not doing weirder ideas like the Anime about her and Fate Grand Order do.  The only Fantastical aspect will be keeping the character young in the 1790s.

[thing-you-do-with-that-thing]

Backfire

Pairing: Jensen x Reader

Warnings: Porcelain Dolls - so ended up regretting that freaking prompt! Hate ‘em!!   

Word Count: 776

A/N: This is written for @torn-and-frayed’s Halloween with Dean Challenge and I wrote Jensen cause I am a rebel :P And I think I managed to scar myself for life here!

Thanks to @like-a-bag-of-potatoes for betaing this for me.

***My fics are not to be saved nor posted on any other sites without my express written permission.***

You should have known your revenge would backfire on you. Jensen always managed to scare you on Halloween. Either with some stupid gimmick with skeletons popping from closets, giant freaking plastic spiders in your bathroom or by dressing up himself as the grim reaper or a zombie, jumping out in front of you at the most unexpected of moments. Last year had been the drop that had made the cup spill over. The jerk had decided to wear his make-up home as he came stumbling in collapsing straight into your arms. You had actually started crying and begging for him not to leave you before the asshole started laughing. Needless to say Jensen spent the next two nights on the couch but you had still been dead set on getting your revenge this year.

The perfect idea had hit you when you by chance had chatted with your best friend Ida about weird crap you had collected as kids. Ida mentioned the giant box of creepy porcelain dolls she had sitting in her attic and you had instantly commandeered it promising you would get rid of them for her. But not before you scared the holy hell out of your husband with the thing he hated the most in the world.

With a little help from Misha and Jared you had managed to keep Jensen from noticing your arrival on set in Vancouver, as they had kept him from entering his trailer all day while you were working on your surprise for him. You had set the dolls up so his air condition hit them just right, causing their eyes to blink open and closed on their own volition. You had disabled all lights in his trailer but the ones directly above the shelves where you had placed the freaky fuckers. The only flaw in your plan was that you were just as, if not more, creeped out by the damn things as Jensen was.

Chills were running down your spine when time came to stay alone with them in the dark trailer for a good 30 minutes, and scenes from the movie Chucky kept playing over and over in your head, causing you to jump with the slightest of sounds.

Finally Jensen had arrived in his trailer, cussing when the light by the door hadn’t worked and it took all your willpower to not burst out laughing before he reached the jack on the back wall flicking the switch. The shelves across the room from him lit up, showcasing the small army of blinking dolls and the most unmanly of screams had fallen from Jensen’s lips filling the trailer, seconds before Jared and Misha’s roaring laughter had sounded outside the door and you had showed yourself practically rolling on the floor with laughter.

Everything had went according to plan and you had loved teasing your fake grumpy husband all night. He acted like he was pissed at you and his two childish friends, but actually you knew he was impressed that you had finally gotten him back. Jensen was hard to piss off and a prank most certainly never caused him any anger.

See the problem wasn’t your husband was mad at you. His facade had dropped the moment you were alone and he couldn’t keep his hands off you any longer. Long distance wasn’t easy and making up for lost time had trumped pretending to be upset with you. The trouble was the damn dolls. You had no way of getting rid of them until tomorrow and even though you couldn’t see them from his bed, you knew they were there. Waiting for you to fall asleep and murder both of you… okay you had watched too many horror flicks this fall but the fact remained you couldn’t sleep.

“You’re still awake too huh?” Jensen turned to look at you, rolling his eyes dramatically. “What were you thinking Y/N/N?”

“I was thinking you were a jerk that deserved to get a good scare,” you fake glared at him, making Jensen laugh.

“Well now neither of us are getting any sleep, not with those fucking dolls in the trailer,” Jensen grumped, falling back onto his back not noticing the smirk on your lips before you were straddling him with a mischievous glimmer in your eyes.

“Well if we aren’t gonna sleep…” you spoke suggestively, his shirt you were wearing slowly moving down your shoulders before squealing in surprise as Jensen wrapped his arm around your waist, throwing you back down on the bed, rolling on top of you with a boyish grin on his face.

“That’s the best idea you had all day sweetheart…”

Jensen Tag Team

@mysupernaturalfics @blacktithe7 @percywinchester27 @torn-and-frayed @docharleythegeekqueen @deanxfuckingadorablexwinchester @feelmyroarrrr @starswirlblitz @akshi8278 @jpadjackles @crushing83 @flufy07 @quiddy-writes @d-s-winchester @lenaabs @jpadjackles @petrovadixon @blanketmadeofstar @arryn-nyxx @winchesters-flannels @winchester-writes @ruprecht0420 @tas898 @emilywritesaboutdean @mogaruke @emoryhemsworth @tennesseewhiskey-and-pie @supernatural-jackles  @jojo-nz @riakie @jayankles @mouselovesmusic @jensenackesl @ivvitm1109 @sinbadcat83 @winchestdiaries @thebunkerismyhome @iwriteaboutdean @winchesterprincessbride @captainradicalpassion @redunicorn10 @brooke-supernatural16 @atc74 @becauseimawinchester @deansbaekaz2y5 @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @spn-fan-girl-173 @be-amaziing @sandlee44 @bringmesomepie56 @gecko9596 @impala-dreamer @jensen-jarpad @deansleather @yoursmilemakesmeloveyou @phoenixia67 @chaos-and-the-calm67 @brihughes4 @aiaranradnay @angelsdeadromance @katarinfrost @castiels-broken-fool @bemyqueenofdarkness @moonstar86 @ashleydivine @winter-hunter @smoothdogsgirl @niamandthings @wayward-marvel-sommer1196 @alicat-life @4401lnc @mcdaring @im-a-light-child @soulslaststand @itsmyeffingstory @maui137 @molleighs24 @itsbubbaog @roxyspearing @gemini75eeyore @moonstar86 @devilgirlsarah @plaid-lover-bay25 @iamabeautifulperson18 @blushingdean @like-a-bag-of-potatoes @deansgirl215 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester

[holytheoristtastemaker]

We are gathered here today….

Today I write in memory of Adobe Flash (née Macromedia), something that a bunch of people are actually too young to remember. I write this with love, longing, and a palpable sense of relief that it’s all over. I have come to praise Flash, to curse it, and finally to bury it.

We’ve been hearing about the death of Flash for a long time. We know it’s coming. December 2020 has been announced as the official timeframe for removal, but let’s be real about this: it’s dead. It’s super-dead. It’s people-are-selling-Flash-game-archives-on-Steam dead.

That last bit actually makes me happy, because Flash games were a huge part of my childhood, and the archives must be preserved. Before I’d ever heard of video cards, frames per second, and “git gud”, I was whiling away many an hour on disney.com, cartoonnetwork.com, MiniClip, Kongregate, and other sites, looking for games.

I think we’ve established in my previous work that even as a missionary kid, I did not have a social life.

The Internet itself gave me a way to reach out and see beyond my house, my city, and my world, and it was wonderful. Flash was a part of that era when the Internet felt new, fresh, and loaded with potential. Flash never sent anyone abuse, or death threats. Flash was for silly animations, and games that my parent’s computer could just barely handle, after half an hour of downloading.

I even built my first animated navigation menus in Flash, because I didn’t know any better. At all. But those menus looked exactly like the ones I’d designed in Photoshop, so that’s what mattered to me, young as I was.

That was a part of Flash’s charm, really.

What Flash Got Right

Flash Brought Online Multimedia into the Mainstream

Funny story, JavaScript was only about a year old when Flash was released. While HTML5 and JS are the de-facto technologies for getting things done now, Flash was, for many, the better option at launch. JS had inconsistent support across browsers, and didn’t come with a handy application that would let you draw and animate whatever you wanted.

It was (in part) Flash that opened up a world of online business possibilities, that made people realize the Internet had potential rivalling that of television. It brought a wave of financial and social investment that wouldn’t be seen again until the advent of mainstream social networks like MySpace.

The Internet was already big business, but Flash design became an industry unto itself.

Flash Was Responsive

Yeah, Flash websites could be reliably responsive (and still fancy!) before purely HTML-based sites pulled it off. Of course, it was called by other names back then, names like “Liquid Design”, or “Flex Design”. But you could reliably build a website in Flash, and you knew it would look good on everything from 800×600 monitors, to the devastatingly huge 1024×768 screens.

You know, before those darned kids with their “wide screens” took over. Even then, Flash still looked good, even if a bunch of people suddenly had to stop making their sites with a square-ish aspect ratio.

Flash Was Browser-Agnostic

On top of being pseudo-responsive, the plugin-based Flash player was almost guaranteed to work the same in every major browser. Back in a time when Netscape and Internet Explorer didn’t have anything that remotely resembled feature parity, the ability to guarantee a consistent website experience was to be treasured. When FireFox and Chrome came out, with IE lagging further behind, that didn’t change.

While the CSS Working Group and others fought long and hard for the web to become something usable, Flash skated by on its sheer convenience. If your site was built in Flash, you didn’t have to care which browsers supported the <marquee> tag, or whatever other ill-conceived gimmick was new and trendy.

Flash Popularized Streaming Video

Remember when YouTube had a Flash-based video player? Long before YouTube, pretty much every site with video was using Flash to play videos online. It started with some sites I probably shouldn’t mention around the kids, and then everyone was doing it.

Some of my fondest memories are of watching cartoon clips as a teenager. I’d never gotten to watch Gargoyles or Batman: The Animated Series as a young kid, those experience came via the Internet, and yes… Flash. Flash video players brought me Avatar: The Last Airbender, which never ever had a live action adaptation.

Anyway, my point: Flash made online video streaming happen. If you’ve ever loved a Netflix or Prime original show (bring back The Tick!), you can thank Macromedia.

What Flash Got Wrong

Obviously, not everything was rosy and golden. If it was, we’d have never moved on to bigger, better things. Flash had problems that ultimately killed it, giving me the chance, nay, the responsibility of eulogizing one of the Internet’s most important formative technologies.

Firstly, it was buggy and insecure: This is not necessarily a deal-breaker in the tech world, and Microsoft is doing just fine, thank you. Still, as Flash matured and the code-base expanded, the bugs became more pronounced. The fact that it was prone to myriad security issues made it a hard sell to any company that wanted to make money.

Which is, you know, all of them.

Secondly, it was SEO-unfriendly: Here was a more serious problem, sales-wise. While we’re mostly past the era when everyone and their dog was running a shady SEO company, search engines are still the lifeblood of most online businesses. Having a site that Google can’t index is just a no-go. By the time Google had managed to index SWF files, it was already too late.

Thirdly, its performance steadily got worse: With an expanding set of features and code, the Flash plugin just took more and more resources to run. Pair it with Chrome during that browser’s worst RAM-devouring days, and you have a problem.

Then, while desktops were getting more and more powerful just (I assume) to keep up with Flash, Apple went and introduced the iPhone. Flash. Sucked. On. Mobile. Even the vendors that went out of their way to include a Flash implementation on their smartphones almost never did it well.

It was so much of a hassle that when Apple officially dropped Flash support, the entire world said, “Okay, yeah, that’s fair.”

Side note: Flash always sucked on Linux. I’m just saying.

Ashes To Ashes…

Flash was, for its time, a good thing for the Internet as a whole. We’ve outgrown it now, but it would be reckless of us to ignore the good things it brought to the world. Like the creativity of a million amateur animators, and especially that one cartoon called “End of Ze World”.

Goodbye Flash, you sucked. And you were great. Rest in peace. Rest in pieces. Good riddance. I’ll miss you.