#i´ve busy with designing characters in general

[championofsanghelios]

Personal AU Story - “One Last Visit” [Sidlink]

“One Last Visit” | SIDLINK STORY (PERSONAL AU)

Okay so this one is pretty dark, all things considered, but at some point during Link’s path as the Inheritor of Time, he learns (via a clairvoyac insight/seeing into his personal future) that he is going to die. He doesn’t know where or when, only that it’s happening soon and that it’s a fixed point in time, meaning it’s unstoppable.

At this point the Inheritor has been alive for so long that he comes to terms with this inevitability and accepts it. At the end of a “farewell tour” of sorts, he decides the last person he will visit is his life-long love, Sidon...However not as the King of Zorana...but the young, eccentric and at times bombastic Prince that quite literally dropped out of the sky one day...many many years ago...

Side Note | My Link, “The Inheritor” as he is known, has a prosthetic left arm (shiekah in design), the result of a former relationship (pre-Sidon) which ended badly for all parties involved. I’ll upload a full profile of my version of the character later...for now...enjoy the story.

This was written by me, remember. Expect errors, typos and other word bugs (bzz.)

|ONE LAST VISIT|

Link let's out an aged grunt as he drops out of the portal he'd been transiting through. Increasingly as of late it had been getting harder and harder to generate them, to travel. Perhaps it was his age...perhaps it was Time finally catching up with him and taking it's toll. He'd thought long and hard about all of it...and that was before the insights started happening.

He'd had several dreams...clairvoyac insights, into his personal future. There was a fixed point coming, an event that could only be described as an ending. He was going to die. He didn't know how. He didn't know where or when. Or who or what was going to kill him...but it was coming. It was rapidly approaching and that notion terrified him to his core. Not that he'd admit to it.

That was why he was here now...that was why of all the place he chose to come to...this was the last one on the list. He wanted his final moments of freedom before facing his fate to be peaceful, quiet and without incident. He'd taken a massive risk coming here. If the wrong person saw him at the wrong time, the consequences could be absolutely disastrous. He'd given up caring about many things in 20,000 years...but he'd never once stopped worrying or caring about his job. About who he was.

He was the Inheritor. And nothing would stop him from fulfilling his duty to Time and the people who sail it's temporal oceans, only in death would this determination cease....That was coming, it was a few paces behind him. And although he was scared, he was also calm. After such a long and extensive life, he'd come to accept it when it came.

But not before doing a few things...saying a few goodbyes...as one would if they had the chance.

Zora's Domain was bright, brighter than he'd ever remembered it. The Plaza was filled with people, a veritable hive of sellers and buyers, all of them crowding around the Marot Mart, their hands waving bagfuls of rupees in the air. Link wasn't bothered by those people, they were welcome to their haggling. He wasn't here for them.

What he was here for-...Who he was here for...happened to be standing just a few feet from where he's standing, talking to several of the gauardsmen. One of them he recognizes as Bazz, someone he'd never let go of. Bazz was one of the bravest and most loyal warriors the Zoran Race had ever produced. Here he was, so young, so unaware that in 600 years time he'd meet his end during the Battle of Mount Lanayru.

The Others were familiar too. Tarquin and Nimrod. Both of them were very young here, but from when Link last saw them, they were old men, Lords in King Imod's court. It was strange to see them as just a couple of guardsmen, their spears in their hand, ready and game to tackle anything that came their way.

And then there was the person they were speaking too.

Sidon was...something else in this light. A bright red beacon that shone among the dark greys, blues and greens. He was one of the few Zora that were born this color. His scales were immaculate, his dress perfected and his smile, something increasingly more rare on his face in his later life, was infectious. Link couldn't help but smile just seeing it...however it fades as he realizes it's the first time he's done that in far too many years. A pang of unease rests in his stomach...just how lonely has he been? How long was it since-

"Link?"

He snaps out of his thoughtful daze to see Sidon looking directly at him. He finds himself in the rare position of being unable to do anything. He's frozen "like a deer in headlights." One of 'Dorf's old expressions, and one he still didn't quite understand. Was this how it felt? Who cares...he had to say or do something, because-

-suddenly there are large arms around him, and he's practically lifted off the ground. Sidon had moved before he could process it, and was now welcoming him as he always did. Link's arms come up around him, and he rests his head on his chest. The warmth, the sound of his heartbeat beneath his ribs, it was all there.

The Prince let's out a hearty laugh. "Look at you!"

He steps back, his large hands at rest on his shoulders. "You haven't changed a day."

With another laugh, he hugs him again, this time a little less enthusiastically. The bottom of his chin nestling in the short hair atop his head. "I've missed you. Truly."

"Yeah..." Link manages to speak finally, suddenly overwhelmed by a surge of...something within him. "I've been...busy."

"I bet you have." Sidon hums contently, his gills taking in a deep breath. "You smell positively ravashing, I can't wait to hear what adventures you've been on since you left."

Stepping back again, Link almost curses him. He squeezes his eyes closed in some child-like attempt to hide what was happening, but what could cover this up? He hears the Princes' gasp, and before he knows it, he's knelt down on one knee infront of him, his right hand coming off of his left shoulder to rest against his face. "You're crying. Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying." Link shakes his head, his eyes still closed.

"Look at me." Sidon says after a pause. "Link...Open your eyes."

With some effort he manages to do it, but what he sees doesn't help. Sidon had a very special way of looking at him. A way that no matter how hard he tried to resist it, managed to shatter his emotional willpower entirely. He was smiling, but sadly. How was that even possible? He'd seen it in a few people before, but none as real as him.

"Oh my pearl..." he says his thumb wiping away one of the tears on his cheek. "What is weighing down upon you?"

"I'm-..." Link feels the words fill his mouth, bursting to get out, much like the tears that were so dangerously close to escaping his eyes. "....I'm going to-...."

"You're what?" the Prince tilts his head slightly. "What's wrong? You can talk to me..."

Link lowers his gaze, taking in a deep breath. "I-...I've missed you..."

It's his turn to hug, this time he puts his arms around him, hiding his face in his chest. Sidon closes the embrace, staying with him there for a few moment, before he has to ask. "We're a little exposed here...do you want to go somewhere else?"

A brisk nod is all he recieves in response, and with that he stands up, taking his hand and pulling him out of the plaza. There were several people watching on, but most people were aware of their bond...this was Sidon, remember...everyone knew about his love for the Inheritor. He never shut up about it.

...

"You look older..." Sidon says, submerged to just below his shoulders in sleeping pool. Link laying by it's edge, staring up at the ceiling and looking far more at ease and relaxed than he was a short time ago. "...how long as it been for you since you last saw me?"

"Do you want the honest answer?" Link asks in response. Turning his head to look at him. "Because I can give it to you...if you'd believe it."

"I'd believe anything you told me..." Sidon replies with genuine, warm smile. Link couldn't express just how much he'd missed that sight. "It doesn't matter how much time passes, my love. I will always be here for you when you chose to return."

Link feels his mouth twitch slightly at that. He turns his head again looking back up at the ceiling, swallowing the massive lump that threatened to form in his throat. "...It's been...longer than even I can count."

"How long are we talking here?" Sidon asks, his index finger running in slow circles across the Hylian's chest. He'd stripped out of his armor a short while after they returned to his room. He had more scars than he remembered, and his face was scruffier and more worn. But other than that, he still looked identical to how he was last time he was here...Prosthetic Arm and all. "Centuries?"

"No." Link shakes his head.

"Millenia?"

"Possibly." Link replies, making the Princes' hand stop in it's movements. "...Oh what am I saying, probably."

"What kept you away for so long?" Sidon asks. "How old are you now?"

"I stopped caring...or counting a long time ago." Link sighs. "When you live as long as I do, age just becomes another number."

"But how long has it been?" Sidon presses. "Surely you must have an estimate?"

Link turns his head to look at him again. The Prince seems to flinch at the stare.

"Don't look at me like that." he says, shifting in the water.

"Like what?" Link raises an eyebrow.

"Like...you hardly know me." Sidon says, shaking his head. "There's a distance in your eyes...a cavernous distance, that I could never cross, certainly not in my life-time."

He tilts his head some, another a soft sigh parting his lips. "That and...they are old. Your eyes are so old..."

"By my calculations..." Link takes in a deep breath. "20,000 years..."

This time there's not a shift, but a full on flinch in the water. Sidon kicks back from the edge of the pool, righting himself before he goes under completely. "Twe-! Twenty thousand years!?"

Link nods slowly, before sitting up. He groans as he does. Despite having the body of a 24 year old, he had seen his fair share of scrapes and warzones. It wasn't as easy to move now as it was back in the day. "Yes."

"Why?" Sidon asks after a moment of processing that. "Why wait 20,000 years to come back?"

"I've been back before this..." Link says, turning to face him, his legs partially submerging in the water. "...earlier in my time-stream."

"When?"

"You'll find out..." Link shrugs. "I don't remember much about those times...they were so long ago, I hardly retain them-"

"Hardly retain them?" Sidon stares at him, with rapidly mounting concern. "Where am I in the future?"

Link closes his eyes for a second, his head dropping. When he looks up at him and opens them, the same question is asked. "Do you want the honest answer?"

"It pertains to me." Sidon states. "I'm entitled."

Link could only nod, he respected the truth in those words. "...you're dead. You have been for quite a while."

"How long?" Sidon asks next, unphased by that revelation. It was to be expected, given the nature of who Link was. "How long have I been dead for?"

"About as long as I am old..." Link says, his eyes locked on his.

"So that means you're not the Link that left us a few days ago..." Sidon guesses. "You're from the distant future..."

"That's correct." Link nods. "I'm visiting you at the end of my time-stream."

"The end?" Sidon's eyes widen a fraction. "What do you mean the end?"

Link's breathes out through his nose. "...I'm going to die."

"You're what?" the Princes' eyes widen even further. "When?"

"Soon."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"Where?"

Link reaches forwards, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It really doesn't matter for you..."

"It bloody well does!" Sidon suddenly snaps, shifting back to where he'd been. His arms come up out of the water and he grabs a hold of his hands. "You don't die. You can't!"

"We all have our time, Sidon." Link says feeling his mouth twitch again. "Everything ends...even me."

"No." Sidon shakes his head. "Not you. You don't die."

"Yes I do." Link nods. "I'm just as mortal as you..."

"But you're the Inheritor..." Sidon says, looking him over. "You're immune to the laws of time."

"Time, Yes." Link nods and shakes his head in quick succession. "...of nature? No..."

"How do you die?" Sidon asks again, as if he was going to get an answer.

"I honestly don't know."

"When?"

"You've already asked that." Link points out.

"Yes, I have...but I'd like to know when so I can do something about it." Sidon's grip on his hands tighten. "You are not dying before me...let me make that clear right now."

"If it's any consolation..." Link clears his throat awkwardly. "You've already done that..."

Sidon just stares at him for a few moments, the sense of everything hitting him in one big wave. His grip loosens as quickly as it had tightened. His gaze drops to the water in front of him, at his distorted reflection on it's surface. "...Why did you come back to me, now?"

"I wanted to see you one last time..." Link replies, forcing him to look up again. "I wanted to be with you again...to hold you...to be held by you."

"Why?"

"Because of all the people I've known in my many...many...years of travelling." Link pauses mid-sentence to take another breath. "None of them have ever come close to what you were to me. What you are to me, now. I came back because I wanted to be with the person I love most in this horrific world, one last time, before I go off to see my end."

"Link..." Sidon breathes. "I-..."

"I know." Link sighs. "I had really hoped you wouldn't ask these questions...or notice how old I was...or anything like that."

"You're the most important thing in my life." Sidon shrugs, his shoulders sending ripples across the water. "How could I not notice?"

With that, Link slips into the water, his arms reaching up around his shoulders and behind his neck. He kisses him on the mouth, something that they'd done so many times before. It was the same as it always was, soft and tender, warm and light. It made his scales ripple with anticipation. But before he can return it, Link pulls back. His hands shifting around to his shoulders.

"You don't need to worry, Husband..." Link says, not ignorant to the flinch that the Prince has when he says that last word. "You will see me again, very soon..."

He smiles, hell he even grins in the moment. "...and that's when the real fun begins."

Sidon watches him as he turns in the water and pulls himself out of the water.

The next few moments are a blur, they happen so quickly and Sidon is numb to the world throughout them all. When he finally does come around, Link is long gone. He'd suited up, and taken off just as quickly as he always did. The only thing that was left behind was a small ring that sat atop his writing desk. It wasn't one he'd seen before, but it obviously belonged to Link.

He walks over to it, picking it up and inspecting the design. Then he seems to catch up with what had just happened and he rushes from the room. "Link!"

Making his way out onto the plaza, and down the steps to the bottom floor, he finds no sign of his beloved...until...

-WHOOSH-

Turning around to face the shrine beneath the central platform, he sees Link appear via his Shiekah Teleport. He quickly comes up the steps, all smiles and laughs. "Wow, this thing actually works!"

He meets his eyes and let's out a laugh. "Hey there! I had to show you this new interface 'Dorf installed on my arm! It's amazing!"

Sidon stares at him, unsure of what to say or do. Link stops before him, eyeing him with an element of curiosity. "Sidon? Everything okay?"

"You were just-" Sidon gestures to him. "I-...I don't-"

"I was just what?" Link asks, tilting his head.

"Nevermind." Sidon shakes his head. "Sorry...I'm lost in thought at the moment."

"You're doing that increasingly." Link raises an eyebrow at him, but quickly returns to showing him his arms new interface. "This thing is amazing by the way! 'Dorf is a genius!"

...

TL:DR NOTES |

LINK IS GOING TO DIE, HE DECIDES TO GO BACK AND VISIT SIDON SHORTLY AFTER THEY ORIGINALLY MET. THE LINK THAT APPEARS AT THE END OF THE STORY IS FROM MUCH EARLIER IN HIS TIME STREAM. ...TIME TRAVEL IS CONFUSING AF, I KNOW. (O.O)

"'DORF" IS LINKS NICKNAME FOR GANONDORF, MOST OF THE CHARACTERS FROM THIS AU CALL HIM THAT (TO HIS GREAT CHAGRIN AT TIMES.)

THE RING LINK LEAVES BEHIND IS THE SAME RING HE LATER RECIEVES WHEN SIDON IS CROWNED KING OF ZORANA.

THIS IS FROM A PERSONAL AU/MASH-UP STORY SERIES CREATED BY ERISHDISCORDIA AND MYSELF OVER THE SPRING/SUMMER OF 2020...

[leafy-wings]

artfight party people im up there as catastrophyte and im on steampunk

im not gonna upload all of my wof ocs, i have a general loose toyhouse link character here https://artfight.net/character/550690.the-rest-of-them 

and let me point you in the direction of some of my choice wof ocs; NOTE all of the art included is just bad im not very good at drawing dragons

https://toyhou.se/5507850.jewel hivewing/fantribe that i thiiink was seawing/silkwing basically. his arts pretty old. i imagine his stature and body as like pudgy/small but lanky. characterized as a timid paranoid hypochondriac shut in with a surprising repressed hunger for violence

https://toyhou.se/1715769.kismet + https://toyhou.se/2177913.weed ahh the refuge and rogues girls. kismets a rain/nightwing with power feeling powers that have left her jaded and closed off from her fellow dragons, she has trouble accepting how many dragons can be so rude or aggressive. her scales are premanently red/green, but her moon silver scales can change colors. shes gfs with weed, the ditzy rain/sandwing. i like imagining her rainwing frills lead down her neck into her sandwing frills and her eyes are mostly pupil from sandwing dark eyes

https://toyhou.se/9141113.boohoo wof version of my sona. timid and neurotic, hes a little boy in a very big world haunted by the ghost of a darkstalker wannabe and pushed into murder and crimes and whatnot

https://toyhou.se/9485074.whirlywhoo whirlywhoo showed up in my dreams so im in love with her. insanely flexible design and personality because shes from my dreams

https://toyhou.se/2505358.rouge speaking of refuge and rogues.. this guy never got a comprehensive ref and all of his art is pretty bad, just know hes a skywing with dark horns and wiry jewelry around his horns and neck. he appears immature and childish but is really not well put together and stressed from the responsibility of being a runaway animus. maybe draw him with his friend rose an animus with blood moon foresight who freaked out so bad about her potential evil that she asked him to take away his powers and he was like ahhh noooo and just made her forget about her fear but at that point it was so suffocating and all encompassing to her character that shes just forgotten how to be rose and barely knows how to like. speak anymore. so he takes care of her when he can

 https://toyhou.se/6580645.poison-ivy nothing special to say on this guy. former criminal turned former assassin turned normal sweet guy crime informant. he lived a rough life and has evil leafspeak that kills plants and eventually got well embroiled in crime life like. actively poisons himself to build tolerance because he is a target to be assassinated and keeps files on everyone and notes about their schedules and how hard they are to kill kinda embroiled in crime. but i like to think that hes gotten a hold of himself and now seeks to live a normal life and turns bad dragons over to the authorities instead of dealing with it all himself

https://toyhou.se/7355688.petrichor i really like petrichor, theyre basically a baby rainwing that was like Im fucking evil now. like i use him for roleplays a lot so i ha ve to pretend theyre not evil but this guys literally like im going to act so so so fucking stupid that no one figures out im evil. but theyre like petty cartoon sidekick evil. this kid will push you down the stairs

caddis; wing removed for ref purposes, both of his horns are cracked and hes missing his left eye. hes a pirate.. cowboy. when he was younger his bff and him went gambling and they super fucked up and got into more debt than their cash could pay and so they were told to kill one of the other as penance and so his friend couldnt kill him but certainly tried, taking his horns and eye as trophy/proof and since then caddis has been hunting him down. to the death!!!!! hes a chill guy otherwise and is always minding his own got damn business EDIT hes a rain/seawing and he has the glow scales i just totally forgot to put them on there. his glow scales are icy blue

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor, director, author, poet, composer, and singer. Mitchum rose to prominence for starring roles in several classic films noirs, and his acting is generally considered a forerunner of the antiheroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s. His best-known films include Out of the Past (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Cape Fear (1962), and El Dorado (1966). Mitchum was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). He is also known for his television role as U.S. Navy Captain Victor “Pug” Henry in the epic miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and sequel War and Remembrance (1988).

Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male stars of Classic American Cinema.

Robert Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on August 6, 1917, into a Norwegian-Irish Methodist family. His mother, Ann Harriet Gunderson, was a Norwegian immigrant and sea captain's daughter; his father, James Thomas Mitchum, was a shipyard and railroad worker of Irish descent.[3] His older sister, Annette (known as Julie Mitchum during her acting career), was born in 1914. Their father, James Mitchum, was crushed to death in a railyard accident in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1919. Robert was one year old, and Annette was not yet five. Their mother was awarded a government pension, and soon realized she was pregnant. Her third child, John, was born in September of that year. Ann married again to Major Hugh Cunningham Morris, a former Royal Naval Reserve officer. Ann and Morris had a daughter together, Carol Morris, born July 1927, on the family farm in Delaware. When all of the children were old enough to attend school, Ann found employment as a linotype operator for the Bridgeport Post.

As a child, Mitchum was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent him to live with her parents in Felton, Delaware; the boy was promptly expelled from middle school for scuffling with the principal. A year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister Annette, in New York's Hell's Kitchen. After being expelled from Haaren High School, he left his sister and traveled throughout the country, hopping on railroad cars, taking a number of jobs, including ditch-digging for the Civilian Conservation Corps and professional boxing. At age 14 in Savannah, Georgia, he said he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang. By Mitchum's own account, he escaped and returned to his family in Delaware. During this time, while recovering from injuries that nearly cost him a leg, he met Dorothy Spence, whom he would later marry. He soon went back on the road, eventually "riding the rails" to California.

Mitchum arrived in Long Beach, California, in 1936, staying again with his sister, now going by the name of Julie. She had moved to the West Coast in the hope of acting in movies, and the rest of the Mitchum family soon joined them. During this time, Mitchum worked as a ghostwriter for astrologer Carroll Righter. Julie convinced him to join the local theater guild with her. At The Players Guild of Long Beach, Mitchum worked as a stagehand and occasional bit-player in company productions. He also wrote several short pieces which were performed by the guild. According to Lee Server's biography (Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care), Mitchum put his talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics and monologues for Julie's nightclub performances.

In 1940, he returned to Delaware to marry Dorothy Spence, and they moved back to California. He gave up his artistic pursuits at the birth of their first child James, nicknamed Josh, and two more children, Chris and Petrine, followed. Mitchum found steady employment as a machine operator during wartime era WWII, with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, but the noise of the machinery damaged his hearing. He also suffered a nervous breakdown (which resulted in temporary blindness), due to job-related stress. He then sought work as a film actor, performing initially as an extra and in small speaking parts. His agent got him an interview with Harry Sherman, the producer of Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy western film series, which starred William Boyd; Mitchum was hired to play minor villainous roles in several films in the series during 1942 and 1943. He went uncredited as a soldier in the Mickey Rooney 1943 film The Human Comedy. Also in 1943 he and Randolph Scott were soldiers in the Pacific Island war film Gung Ho.

Mitchum continued to find work as an extra and supporting actor in numerous productions for various studios. After impressing director Mervyn LeRoy during the making of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Mitchum signed a seven-year contract with RKO Radio Pictures. He was groomed for B-Western stardom in a series of Zane Grey adaptations.

Following the moderately successful Western Nevada, RKO lent Mitchum to United Artists for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). In the film, he portrayed war-weary officer Bill Walker (based on Captain Henry T. Waskow), who remains resolute despite the troubles he faces. The film, which followed the life of an ordinary soldier through the eyes of journalist Ernie Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith), became an instant critical and commercial success. Shortly after filming, Mitchum was drafted into the United States Army, serving at Fort MacArthur, California, as a medic. At the 1946 Academy Awards, The Story of G.I. Joe was nominated for four Oscars, including Mitchum's only nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He finished the year with a Western (West of the Pecos) and a story of returning Marine veterans (Till the End of Time), before filming in a genre that came to define Mitchum's career and screen persona: film noir.

Mitchum was initially known for his work in film noir. His first foray into the genre was a supporting role in the 1944 B-movie When Strangers Marry, about newlyweds and a New York City serial killer. Undercurrent, another of Mitchum's early noir films, featured him as a troubled, sensitive man entangled in the affairs of his brother (Robert Taylor) and his brother's suspicious wife (Katharine Hepburn). John Brahm's The Locket (1946) featured Mitchum as bitter ex-boyfriend to Laraine Day's femme fatale. Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947) combined Western and noir styles, with Mitchum's character attempting to recall his past and find those responsible for killing his family. Crossfire (also 1947) featured Mitchum as a member of a group of World War II soldiers, one of whom kills a Jewish man. It featured themes of anti-Semitism and the failings of military training. The film, directed by Edward Dmytryk, earned five Academy Award nominations.

Following Crossfire, Mitchum starred in Out of the Past (also called Build My Gallows High), directed by Jacques Tourneur and featuring the cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca. Mitchum played Jeff Markham, a small-town gas-station owner and former investigator, whose unfinished business with gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) and femme fatale Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer) comes back to haunt him.

On September 1, 1948, after a string of successful films for RKO, Mitchum and actress Lila Leeds were arrested for possession of marijuana.[10] The arrest was the result of a sting operation designed to capture other Hollywood partiers as well, but Mitchum and Leeds did not receive the tipoff. After serving a week at the county jail (he described the experience to a reporter as being "like Palm Springs, but without the riff-raff"), Mitchum spent 43 days (February 16 to March 30) at a Castaic, California, prison farm. Life photographers were permitted to take photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform. The arrest inspired the exploitation film She Shoulda Said No! (1949), which starred Leeds. The conviction was later overturned by the Los Angeles court and district attorney's office on January 31, 1951, after being exposed as a setup.

Despite, or because of, Mitchum's troubles with the law and his studio, his films released immediately after his arrest were box-office hits. Rachel and the Stranger (1948) featured Mitchum in a supporting role as a mountain man competing for the hand of Loretta Young, the indentured servant and wife of William Holden. In the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella The Red Pony (1949), he appeared as a trusted cowhand to a ranching family. He returned to film noir in The Big Steal (also 1949), where he reunited with Jane Greer in an early Don Siegel film.

In Where Danger Lives (1950), Mitchum played a doctor who comes between a mentally unbalanced Faith Domergue and cuckolded Claude Rains. The Racket was a noir remake of the early crime drama of the same name and featured Mitchum as a police captain fighting corruption in his precinct. The Josef von Sternberg film, Macao (1952), had Mitchum as a victim of mistaken identity at an exotic resort casino, playing opposite Jane Russell. Otto Preminger's Angel Face was the first of three collaborations between Mitchum and British stage actress Jean Simmons. In this film, she played an insane heiress who plans to use young ambulance driver Mitchum to kill for her.

Mitchum was fired from Blood Alley (1955), due to his conduct, reportedly having thrown the film's transportation manager into San Francisco Bay. According to Sam O'Steen's memoir Cut to the Chase, Mitchum showed up on-set after a night of drinking and tore apart a studio office when they did not have a car ready for him. Mitchum walked off the set of the third day of filming Blood Alley, claiming he could not work with the director. Because Mitchum was showing up late and behaving erratically, producer John Wayne, after failing to obtain Humphrey Bogart as a replacement, took over the role himself.

Following a series of conventional Westerns and films noirs, as well as the Marilyn Monroe vehicle River of No Return (1954), Mitchum appeared in Charles Laughton's only film as director: The Night of the Hunter (1955). Based on a novel by Davis Grubb, the thriller starred Mitchum as a monstrous criminal posing as a preacher to find money hidden by his cellmate in the cellmate's home. His performance as Reverend Harry Powell is considered by many to be one of the best of his career.[15][16] Stanley Kramer's melodrama Not as a Stranger, also released in 1955, was a box-office hit. The film starred Mitchum against type, as an idealistic young doctor, who marries an older nurse (Olivia de Havilland), only to question his morality many years later. However, the film was not well received, with most critics pointing out that Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, and Lee Marvin were all too old for their characters. Olivia de Havilland received top billing over Mitchum and Sinatra.

On March 8, 1955, Mitchum formed DRM (Dorothy and Robert Mitchum) Productions to produce five films for United Artists; four films were produced. The first film was Bandido (1956). Following a succession of average Westerns and the poorly received Foreign Intrigue (1956), Mitchum starred in the first of three films with Deborah Kerr. The John Huston war drama Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, starred Mitchum as a Marine corporal shipwrecked on a Pacific Island with a nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), as his sole companion. In this character study, they struggle to resist the elements and the invading Japanese army. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. For his role, Mitchum was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor. In the WWII submarine classic The Enemy Below (1956), Mitchum gave a strong performance as U.S. Naval Lieutenant Commander Murrell, the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer who matches wits with a German U-boat captain Curt Jurgens, who starred with Mitchum again in the legendary 1962 movie The Longest Day. The film won an Oscar for Special Effects.

Thunder Road (1958), the second DRM Production, was loosely based on an incident in which a driver transporting moonshine was said to have fatally crashed on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee, somewhere between Bearden Hill and Morrell Road. According to Metro Pulse writer Jack Renfro, the incident occurred in 1952 and may have been witnessed by James Agee, who passed the story on to Mitchum. He starred in the movie, produced, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the film. It costars his son James, as his on screen brother, in a role originally intended for Elvis Presley. Mitchum also co-wrote (with Don Raye) the theme song, "The Ballad of Thunder Road".

He returned to Mexico for The Wonderful Country (1959) and Ireland for A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters for the last of his DRM Productions.

Mitchum and Kerr reunited for the Fred Zinnemann film, The Sundowners (1960), where they played husband and wife struggling in Depression-era Australia. Opposite Mitchum, Kerr was nominated for yet another Academy Award for Best Actress, while the film was nominated for a total of five Oscars. Mitchum was awarded that year's National Board of Review award for Best Actor for his performance. The award also recognized his superior performance in the Vincente Minnelli Western drama Home from the Hill (also 1960). He was teamed with former leading ladies Kerr and Simmons, as well as Cary Grant, for the Stanley Donen comedy The Grass Is Greener the same year.

Mitchum's performance as the menacing rapist Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962) brought him further renown for playing cold, predatory characters. The 1960s were marked by a number of lesser films and missed opportunities. Among the films Mitchum passed on during the decade were John Huston's The Misfits (the last film of its stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe), the Academy Award–winning Patton, and Dirty Harry. The most notable of his films in the decade included the war epics The Longest Day (1962) and Anzio (1968), the Shirley MacLaine comedy-musical What a Way to Go! (1964), and the Howard Hawks Western El Dorado (1967), a remake of Rio Bravo (1959), in which Mitchum took over Dean Martin's role of the drunk who comes to the aid of John Wayne. He teamed with Martin for the 1968 Western 5 Card Stud, playing a homicidal preacher.

One of the lesser-known aspects of Mitchum's career was his foray into music as a singer. Critic Greg Adams writes, "Unlike most celebrity vocalists, Robert Mitchum actually had musical talent." Mitchum's voice was often used instead of that of a professional singer when his character sang in his films. Notable productions featuring Mitchum's own singing voice included Rachel and the Stranger, River of No Return, and The Night of the Hunter. After hearing traditional calypso music and meeting artists such as Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader while filming Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison in the Caribbean islands of Tobago, he recorded Calypso – is like so ... in March 1957. On the album, released through Capitol Records, he emulated the calypso sound and style, even adopting the style's unique pronunciations and slang. A year later, he recorded a song he had written for Thunder Road, titled "The Ballad of Thunder Road". The country-style song became a modest hit for Mitchum, reaching number 69 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. The song was included as a bonus track on a successful reissue of Calypso ... and helped market the film to a wider audience.

Although Mitchum continued to use his singing voice in his film work, he waited until 1967 to record his follow-up record, That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings. The album, released by Nashville-based Monument Records, took him further into country music, and featured songs similar to "The Ballad of Thunder Road". "Little Old Wine Drinker Me", the first single, was a top-10 hit at country radio, reaching number nine there, and crossed over onto mainstream radio, where it peaked at number 96. Its follow-up, "You Deserve Each Other", also charted on the Billboard Country Singles chart. He sang the title song to the Western Young Billy Young, made in 1969.

Mitchum made a departure from his typical screen persona with the 1970 David Lean film Ryan's Daughter, in which he starred as Charles Shaughnessy, a mild-mannered schoolmaster in World War I–era Ireland. At the time of filming, Mitchum was going through a personal crisis and planned to commit suicide. Aside from a personal crisis, his recent films had been critical and commercial flops. Screenwriter Robert Bolt told him that he could commit suicide after the film was finished and that he would personally pay for his burial. Though the film was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning two) and Mitchum was much publicized as a contender for a Best Actor nomination, he was not nominated. George C. Scott won the award for his performance in Patton, a project Mitchum had rejected for Ryan's Daughter.

The 1970s featured Mitchum in a number of well-received crime dramas. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) had the actor playing an aging Boston hoodlum caught between the Feds and his criminal friends. Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza (1974) transplanted the typical film noir story arc to the Japanese underworld. He also appeared in 1976's Midway about an epic 1942 World War II battle. Mitchum's stint as an aging Philip Marlowe in the Raymond Chandler adaptation Farewell, My Lovely (1975) was sufficiently well received by audiences and critics for him to reprise the role in 1978's The Big Sleep.

In 1982, Mitchum played Coach Delaney in the film adaptation of playwright/actor Jason Miller's 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning play That Championship Season.

At the premiere for That Championship Season, Mitchum, while intoxicated, assaulted a female reporter and threw a basketball that he was holding (a prop from the film) at a female photographer from Time magazine, injuring her neck and knocking out two of her teeth. She sued him for $30 million for damages. The suit eventually "cost him his salary from the film."

That Championship Season may have indirectly led to another debacle for Mitchum several months later. In a February 1983 Esquire interview, he made several racist, anti-Semitic and sexist statements, including, when asked if the Holocaust occurred, responded "so the Jews say." Following the widespread negative response, he apologized a month later, saying that his statements were "prankish" and "foreign to my principle." He claimed that the problem had begun when he recited a racist monologue from his role in That Championship Season, the writer believing the words to be his own. Mitchum, who claimed that he had only reluctantly agreed to the interview, then decided to "string... along" the writer with even more incendiary statements.

Mitchum expanded to television work with the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War. The big-budget Herman Wouk story aired on ABC, starring Mitchum as naval officer "Pug" Henry and Victoria Tennant as Pamela Tudsbury, and examined the events leading up to America's involvement in World War II. He returned to the role in 1988's War and Remembrance, which continued the story through the end of the war.

In 1984, Mitchum entered the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs, California for treatment of a drinking problem.

He played George Hazard's father-in-law in the 1985 miniseries North and South, which also aired on ABC.

Mitchum starred opposite Wilford Brimley in the 1986 made-for-TV movie Thompson's Run. A hardened con (Mitchum), being transferred from a federal penitentiary to a Texas institution to finish a life sentence as a habitual criminal, is freed at gunpoint by his niece (played by Kathleen York). The cop (Brimley) who was transferring him, and has been the con's lifelong friend and adversary for over 30 years, vows to catch the twosome.

In 1987, Mitchum was the guest-host on Saturday Night Live, where he played private eye Philip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show ran a short comedy film he made (written and directed by his daughter, Trina) called Out of Gas, a mock sequel to Out of the Past. (Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.) He also was in Bill Murray's 1988 comedy film, Scrooged.

In 1991, Mitchum was given a lifetime achievement award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, in the same year he received the Telegatto award and in 1992 the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globe Awards.

Mitchum continued to act in films until the mid-1990s, such as in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, and he narrated the Western Tombstone. He also appeared, in contrast to his role as the antagonist in the original, as a protagonist police detective in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear, but the actor gradually slowed his workload. His last film appearance was a small but pivotal role in the television biopic, James Dean: Race with Destiny, playing Giant director George Stevens. His last starring role was in the 1995 Norwegian movie Pakten.

A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in Santa Barbara, California, due to complications of lung cancer and emphysema. He was about five weeks shy of his 80th birthday. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea, though there is a plot marker in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Delaware. He was survived by his wife of 57 years, Dorothy Mitchum (May 2, 1919 – April 12, 2014, Santa Barbara, California, aged 94); his sons, actors James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum; and his daughter, writer Petrine Day Mitchum. His grandchildren, Bentley Mitchum and Carrie Mitchum, are actors, as was his younger brother, John, who died in 2001. Another grandson, Kian, is a successful model.

Mitchum is regarded by some critics as one of the finest actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Roger Ebert called him "the soul of film noir." Mitchum, however, was self-effacing; in an interview with Barry Norman for the BBC about his contribution to cinema, Mitchum stopped Norman in mid flow and in his typical nonchalant style, said, "Look, I have two kinds of acting. One on a horse and one off a horse. That's it." He had also succeeded in annoying some of his fellow actors by voicing his puzzlement at those who viewed the profession as challenging and hard work. He is quoted as having said in the Barry Norman interview that acting was actually very simple and that his job was to "show up on time, know his lines, hit his marks, and go home". Mitchum had a habit of marking most of his appearances in the script with the letters "n.a.r.", which meant "no action required", which critic Dirk Baecker has construed as Mitchum's way of reminding himself to experience the world of the story without acting upon it.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars lists Mitchum as the 23rd-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema. AFI also recognized his performance as the menacing rapist Max Cady and Reverend Harry Powell as the 28th and 29th greatest screen villains, respectively, of all time as part of AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains. He provided the voice of the famous American Beef Council commercials that touted "Beef ... it's what's for dinner", from 1992 until his death.

A "Mitchum's Steakhouse" is in Trappe, Maryland, where Mitchum and his family lived from 1959 to 1965.

[coolgirl]

Jason expert rate Jason’s designs

sorry for being late i was busy with school but now i’m free so to celebrate. jason indulgence.

pre-crisis not robin

very cute. i like that it has a lil more of flair to it? the collar and the lines on the gloves and the shorter cape.. also love it has pants. king rlly king. wonder if they already knew he was gonna be robin anyways or if they were still considering nightbird. anyways, 8/10 bc its cute

pre & post-crisis robin (bc its basically the same)

i mean its a classic.. however it reminds me jason was the only robin who was simply given dick’s clothes rather than like. have an unique look? which sucks. 7/10 middle child syndrome is REAL

post-crisis robin (winter edition)

OKAY NOW THIS. i absolutely love. is it tacky? oh yes without a doubt. i still love the pants and the sleeves. finally winter clothes for this child, especially considering his new titans scene where he was bitching about the costume not being snow proof. he got what he wanted! 9/10

new 52/rebirth costume by

EPIC. IDC I LOVE IT.the circles on his arms and his boots.. the lines on his legs.. i just love it. i love the red mask too… it feels.. not more unique, but feels more jason-y than the other costume. 10/10

NOW. onto older stuff

hush

as u can see im VERY confusion about the pouches and the straps?? why??? whats the purpose.. generally its fine. the white strand moved a nation and i think the chest piece is cool, but everything else.. uglee. like the long as hell jacket and him looking 40 years old like why r u 19 looking like fifty? ugly white man. 5/10

winicks/utrh version

LITERALLY A CLASSIC. i love this costume sooo much. like jason obviously grew out of it, as in it wouldnt make sense for him anymore to go with something like this as his main costume because i feel like this fit the utrh mood (him not veing a vigilante/hero/villain whatver but trying to be a mob boss n shit) and it just. fucks. i love the helmet just being plain with no stupid mouth or nose shape. i simply love it. 10/10

nigthwing

its just. its just the nightwing costume. didnt even try he just stole that from dick. he still rocks it and looks better than dick, and u gotta give him points for accessorizing with his dagger. 7/10

red robin 

im not. a big fan of this costume.. i think the cowl is ugly, it just does not work for someone as big as jason… however i do like why he took this mantle and what it meant.. 6/10 no words head empty. 

oh brother. furryman

ITS SUCH AN UGLY COSTUME. muzzle batman walked so muzzle red hood could run. its just. ugly like ugly. i dont like the ears or again the muzzle or whatever the hell is going on in the arms.. its just so edgy. 5/10

WANNA KNOW WHAT A SEXY EVIL BATMAN COSTUME LOOK LIKE?

Injustice 2 batman

I2 HAD IT IN THE BAG BABY. i like that its like classic batman costume but again! with some jason touches! the red eyes, the electric tiddies making a comeback.. epic genuinely epic. 10/10

and if ur not into evil jason

100% dad ‘i have my life figured out’ batman jason 

just like the nightwing costume this is just. batman costume. nothing special or different from it so its like did u even try? BUT in this scenario it actually means smth that he stuck to bruces costume.. sweet.. but boring. 7/10

speaking of. evil ugly designs. ugh i hate this.

this motherfucker

ive never. ever. felt as humiliated by a costume than thetime jason wore this. like MORTIFYING RLLY. its DISGUSTINGGG. the helmet shape. the fucking WHITE. the SKULL PLEASE WHO DESIGNED THIS WHO HATES ME IN PARTICULAR SO MUCH??? THIS MAN DOES NOT FUCK! HES UGLY! HE STINKS!!!! the red guns are epic that much i can say. LOOK AT THOSE PANS GOD ITS SO HUMILLIATING. 0/10 WORST COSTUME EVER.

HOWEVER. winick and the artist spun GOLD from it, because next time jason wore possibly my favorite costume to date

this motherfucker…2!

like look how much better it looks with a little of swag.. the helmet without eyes.. the belts.. the fucking leather jacket.. keeping the red guns/gloves.. like seriously i dont know a better man. the skull is still awful and i wouldve replaced the white for black and MWAH best costume. like the black part at the top make it all red and the white make it black.. god this jason fucks massively i love him. 11/10 my favorite by a landslide perhaps

new 52/rebirth red hood

OKAY I KNOW theyre slightly different (rebirth has shorter sleeves and a more padded look) but to me its like. same thing. okay i think its.. fine. its not phenomenal but its not ugly.. i like the brown jacket more than the black jacket i have to admit, its more distinctive and i simply like the color more, however i do not.. like jason having the bat symbol.. but thats also a me thing about how badly written this is. anyways. the helmet with the mouth disgusts me and everytime its drawn like that its humilliating. like. 7/10. maybe 7+. when it has the mouth or like nose ANY FACIAL EXPRESSION RLLY its a 5. 

wingman

oh i absolutely despise that helmet. he looks like fucking. terminator. its the ugliest shape ive ever seen and the visor is.. huge. i dont like the shoulder pads either idk what the fuck its going on with the thing around his neck either.. like hes. knockout batman and i HATEEE IT. damians costume slaps tho. i just… its… ugly. like.. 3/10. 

get damian back arc red hood costume

oh im a HUGE fan of this design.i love how his costume is designed in a way thats like. if jason was a dnd character he absolutely would be a tank. the padding, the red undertones everywhere, i just.. love it. i like how all the costumes were done to reflect their personalities you know.. i like this robin red hood hybrid. 9/10 would even say 10/10 bc i just enjoy how gleason draws jason.

red hood/arsenal costume

its like. i dont hate it completely (i love the way the hood+helmet looks) and thats.. yeah thats pretty much all i like about it. i HATEEEE the vest i hate it fr.i hate how huge the sumbol is and idk this costume just does not spark joy. 5/10

outlaw costume

okay this one. this one drives me insane. because like. okay i dig parts of it. i like the lack of sleeves. i like the gloves thingies. i like the hood. i could get aboard him ditching the helmet - it breaks all the damn time anyways. i like the stripes on his pants in the boots. ALL SEPARATE? NEAT. now i hate. hate. the muzzle. like WHY IT LOOKS SO UGLYYY LIKE SO UGLY like unless the artist GETS IT and is SEXY it looks awful. look at this

AWFUL. also like it made sense for when he was on the run and he had to make do and assemble a costume from what he had but like now hes sponsored by lex, get that man a goddamn new suit already please. anyways. 6/10.. like i said i like many elements from it but its still.. kinda ugly all together and depends A LOT on the artist.

three jokers

im torn on this one.. i think its a bit boring.. i dont rlly like the top part, it reminds me SOO much of that one tt issue where he beat the fuck out of tim while wearing a robin costume like i understad the implications of him wearing a costume thats similar to the robin blouse but im not a big fan.. also i prefer the brown leather jacket. its like not his worst costume by far but not the best.. like pretty basic?  i would say 6/10

NOW SOME AUS.

tiny titans & lil gotham

okay these two are like. pretty much the canon versions of robin and red hood HOWEVER they both have details that are different from the original version and DESERVE a mention. the curls on robin jason and jasons red gloves/belt are ICONIC. whoever designed them knew what they were about, so 10/10 best bapy jason.

arkham knight

does the person who designed this know how much theyve done for the lgbt community? i hope they do. i love.. a lot about this costume. i love the ears, i love how techno it is, i love the layers to it.. im.. not a big fan of the whole military thingy but i have to admit that applying it to the design itself is kind of neat.. i love the colors too and how.. practical it is while being. well. kinda dramatic? the whole bat aesthetic.. yeah. i love it. 9/10

arkham red hood

this one.. when u think about it the outlaw version is VEEERY similar to this one: the pants, the hood, the jacket eve. however i like this helmet so much more, i have a weakness for eyeless (??) helmets.. i like the little details of it as well, i remember that pic going around of it being held together with like. fuckign stitches and bandaids. legendary. i love this look, i would say 9+/10

injustice 2 jason

okay gonna go ahead and say it: not a big fan of the helmet. it looks like.. a bug? the lenses do not spark joy. this bitch has many styles and like toners etc and i will no rate them all. i think its a pretty basic design, not the best but not the worst either. like if it was an exam i would make them pass but make faces at what im reading like eeehhhgh. 7/10.

hag jason

middle one is like literally, on the outside and superficial level, just. his usual costume. the jacket and the grey kevlar and the bat. now the gloves are sexy as hell.. and in the whit ebackground one u can appreciate the under costume better and i really like it?? i just.. like the design. I HATE HOWEVER the bat helmet. WHY IS IT HOLLOW?? BITCH HELLO?? AND THE BATMAN SYMBOL DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! and i like things making sense!!!. we will not talk about jason in this book. like.. 8/10. maybe 9 if im feeling it.

hag jason 2: the hagger and the furious

hes just.. a little old man.. he cannot change this.. i like this design. i like seeing jason grow old. wish it wasnt in this context. my father rlly. 8/10

—-

am i forgetting any jays.. i wont do all animated robins because they all look the same and the one that doesnt i do not like. SO HERES my thoughts..

[esthermorrismedia]

Hi my name is Esther and I’’ve made the decision to study A-Level media. I chose to study media at A-Level because I really enjoyed learning about it for GCSE and want to further my understanding of the subject. I’d like to be able to use media in the future in whatever job I have later in life. In todays society I feel as though media can be a broad subject that can be out into any work place environment in some way or another.

My favourite film is probably anything Disney because I find it interesting how over the many years the graphics for the films have become exceedingly more life like and realistic even though its still a cartoon. A good example of this the 2017 release of Coco. I love this film because of the little details that were included such as Alebrijes which are whimsical carvings depicting animals.

My favourite tv show at the moment is Glee, I’ve watched it since I was about 6 minutes (probably not the most appropriate for a 6 year old to be watching I know). I started watching it because of the songs and dancing but as I got older found that is was more interested in the storylines throughout the show, such as American teens leaving high school and going to collage, teen pregnancy, bullying and etc. I don’t particularly think I have any favourite adverts and mostly just find them irritating so choose to watch tv on demand such as Netflix, Disney+ and others like that.

My favourite music video is Bohemian Rapsody and I’m aware of how generic it sounds but it was a monumental time for music videos at the time. Along with the music video the song is iconic. It’s one of those songs where no matter what you’re doing, if the song comes on you will start singing and it just gives off such positive energy and vibes. The music video which premiered in 1975 is considered the first ever promotional music video of its time which kickstarted a promotional strategy soon to become industry standard. I like it because its very visually appealing to watch due to the symmetrical visualisations.

One particular film trailer I like is from The Greatest Showman. I feel like the producers have done a great job on introducing what the film was about without giving away the storyline too much but still managing to establish the characters with a breif summary to keep the audience hooked and wanting to watch the actual film. The soundtrack also makes an appearance in the trailer therefore being not only advertisement for the film but also for the songs in it.

One advert that isn’t necessarily my favourite but is a good example of good media skills is the Go Compare adverts, especially the one with the bridesmaids at the wedding. I think the producers and company behind the advert did an amazing job at making it rememberable and made sure that the advert would be stuck in peoples’ heads across the nation for days at a time. The annoying yet catchy jingle/song perfectly shows that if you can make something stick in the public’s head for days on end the they have successfully achieved their goal for marketing, consequently gaining new customers and keeping the already existing ones.

My most used media website is probably The Gardian,its easy to use design makes it simple for absolutely anyone to use. The design is simple yet effective due to it being straight to the point. The website designer clearly achieved the goal and has made the website’s layout useable for any generation which in todays society is needed due to the hard copy newspaper business will no doubt be dying out. I like The Gardian website the most because I feel like I can leave the website more knowledgeable and educated on the topic I went searching for.

Bohemian Rhapsody- https://youtu.be/wBqMbefDgys

https://youtu.be/wBqMbefDgys

The Greatest Showman-https://youtu.be/AXCTMGYUg9A

Go Compare-https://youtu.be/NKlEXzVbzq0

The Gardian- http://www.theguardian.com/uk/media

[fly-pow-bye]

ThunderCats Roar - “Warrior Maiden Invasion“

Co-Executive Producer: Victor Courtright

Supervising Producer: Nate Cash

Producer: Marly Halpern-Graser

Story by: Joan Ford

Teleplay by: Molly Knox Ostertag

Directed by: Angelo Hatgistavrou

Where the ThunderCats get roared.

The episode begins with a game of hide and seek. No, this isn’t a metaphor for the ThunderCats having to hide from some sort of monster, I mean an actual game of hide and seek. Specifically, it's a variation where the hiders can go to a safe zone to be immune to tagging, so there's more stakes involved. Wilykit and Wilykat are the seekers, but their sibling differences are getting in the way. I really do mean differences, too; this is one episode where they are very much distinct. There won't be a lot of "Thunderkittens" here, that's for sure.

Wilykat is focused on going by the rules, doing a proper countdown before seeking the hiders. Wilykit gets bored and goes out prematurely, quickly ending the countdown before anyone could find a good hiding spot. Wilykat wants to sneak around, not alerting the hiders to their existence. Wilykit smashes stuff, because, hey, they might be in there! Gallant shares his apple with his friends. Goofus eats the apple and says "forget you, I got mine". I think one might get the point here.

Of course, all of this smashing is not helping Wilykit with his seeking, as he gets distracted long enough for everyone else to run away. When Panthro decides to hide in the ThunderTank, something he would be around even if he wasn’t playing hide and seek, he manages to slip away because Wilykit broke something. Even Tygra, whose best idea was to hide in a pan with Lion-O because he couldn’t find a good hiding spot, manages to slip away because Wilykit broke something. Essentially, the same scene repeats three times in a row; they couldn't even be bothered to have her be distracting in a different way.

It is sort of noteworthy that it's the girl that's doing everything to sabotage the game and the boy being the sensible one; cartoons, and fiction in general, usually have it the other way around. I can't say this show is sticking to the cliches. Of course, there's a reason why it's the girl; the title should be a slight hint to that.

They end up losing the game of hide and seek, as the rest of the ThunderCats make it into the safe zone without the Thunderkittens ever tagging them. Tygra leans in and tells WilyKit that she should learn things from her brother. They do justify why this game was such a big deal: because hide and seek is a valuable training exercise. Even WilyKat doesn't buy it, though he would have preferred if they were able to tag one guy without WilyKit's sudden obsession with smashing things.

WilyKit: I am not obsessed with smashing! Hyah! (smashes chair)

See, the joke is that she seems to be obsessed with smashing, despite saying she isn't obsessed with smashing. Aren’t our expectations subverted? I don't remember WilyKit ever being this destructive. There was the time she was destroying things in Driller, but that was an episode where everyone was doing that sans Panthro and Tygra so Panthro can be slightly peeved. Here, it's just so she can be the kind-of sort-of bad guy of the episode. There's not enough time to think about this, because an alarm sounds just as soon as she breaks the chair, and she immediately says that she didn't do it. Eh, I'll give them that.

But no, it's not because of some meaningless chair abuse, it's a by some definitely bad guys. I mean, why wouldn't they be bad guys? They set fire to the Troll Village, they're using locusts to attack the Berbils, they're throwing boulders at a peaceful looking cottage, and they're bullying the Mole Master. They specifically point out the Mole Master as someone Lion-O knows nothing about, but they don't explain the Troll Village. We never even get to see one.

Tygra assumes that the mutants must be behind this, but Cheetara then sees them take off their hoods. Apparently, they needed to wear them just so Tygra can assume they're mutants.

Turns out, it's not the mutants, but the Warrior Maidens. They are so not the mutants that they even have giant text saying that they are Not Mutants. It's even made out of cracked rock to show how brute they are. Right from the get go, WilyKit gets excited to see muscular women, rapidly pushing one of the buttons and giggling with a three-frame animation that I decided to spare anyone reading this with. There are some episodes that really show off that even with these designs, they can have some impressive looking animation. This isn't one of them. They can't all be winners, but can they at least have decent characters in their place?

That is far from the end of the text, as they end up smashing through one of the walls and beating the tar out of the ThunderCats just for being near them, showing off their ultra crushing grasp, super prism refracted laser cage, and their you ain't goin' nowhere grip! It almost feels like a toy commercial, though ThunderCats Roar designs don't look like they would translate well into action figures. I feel like that would be kind of a problem for a ThunderCats revival, but that's another story.

None of this stops the fangirling from looking at these warrior women with awe. As we all know from this episode and seemingly only this episode, WilyKit likes to smash things, and they like to smash things! Who cares if those things are her teammates, they must be the coolest people ever! Even when Willa picks her up and roars at her, she's still motioning to her brother to check them out.

Willa looks like this in Roar, by the way. She even has the added character trait of only speaking in roars, having the other Warrior Maidens doing the talking for her. No bow and arrow or any semblance of a personality besides "HULK SMASH" here, that's for sure. Admittedly, I've never actually seen an original episode with one of the original Maidens, so I can't judge based on comparisons, but what I can say is that there's not much here other than that.

They tell Willa to throw these flea-bitten felines into some sort of jail for their crime of attempting to stop them from breaking and entering into their home. They need them in "jail" so they can check out all of that alien technology that's in the lair, and by check I mostly mean "smash". Smash smash smash, that's all they do. They happen to find a location, and it's very convenient for them and the plot.

They end up in their very own Thunder Brig, which is specifically designed to disable their powers and their gadgets! Lion-O tries to do the "ThunderCats Ho", and the Eye of Thundara turns into a frowny face. I would argue what a ThunderCats Roar would even do when they're all here. Cheetara tries to run out of the room with her super speed, but the Brig sapped her speed. Even Snarf has been deactivated by the magical Brig! Dun dun dun duuun! I should have brought that up ages ago: ThunderCats Roar uses that one musical cue so much that it may as well be its equivalent to Johnny Test's infamous whip crack. (EDIT: From what I've heard, the overuse of this one cue is intentional, parodying how much the original ThunderCats used this same cue. If one doesn't know, the musical cues are taken straight from the original. My ignorance should not be used as a criticism against this show, though I could see people who aren't familiar with that could get annoyed.)

The first question anyone's going to think isn't how they're going to get out of there, but why would they even have something that seemingly only affects them in their own lair? They even bring it up only to have Tygra say that he thought it was a good idea at the time. No hint on why he would remotely think that; it may as well be no reason whatsoever. "How to learn to fight without weapons or superpowers" would have at least been a decent excuse to have it.

Here’s the real reason: it’s so the...adults? Are they really adults? Maybe Tygra, but even that is pushing it in this episode. It’s so the not-so-kids can be taken out of the plot and essentially become damsels in distress, as Kit and Kat are the only people who can fit through the ventilator. Before they leave, Tygra tells Wilykat that he’s in charge. I mean, he might have won that all important game of hide and seek if it wasn't for that meddling sister and her sudden urge to break things!

Wilykit and Wilykit make it out of the Damsel Room, under orders to find the button that unlocks the door to the Thunder Brig. They have to use their best stealth to get past these Warrior Maidens, as even Panthro's super strength was nothing to them. And by they, I mean WilyKat, as most of her plans boil down to things like this:

WilyKit: (flexes her not-nearly-as-big-as-the-Maiden’s muscles) Okay, I'll challenge them to an arm wrestling match, and when I beat them...

That is one of the few lines that made me smirk in this episode. There's at least some variety in the ways Wilykat deals with the maidens. We get an admittedly far too long scene of him trying to decide what smoke bomb to use, only leading to a joke where he just yells "chamomile tea" with a title card with him in a monocle appearing, and Wilykit admits that it's cool seemingly as a way to justify it. Kind of like a fistbump joke, though without the fistbump.

He also uses rope to swing a table where two of the maidens were arm wrestling, making them fall and bump their heads, knocking them out. The rest of the scenes are essentially him sneaking around and saying "sneak sneak sneak" while doing it, which is kind of going against the whole stealth angle.

After Wilykat gets through with his masterful sneak sneak sneaking, with a few "dun dun dun duuns" in the way, they make it to the room where the button is, which is also the room with all of the monitors showing all of the calamities we saw earlier. This leads to the big plot twist of the episode: they're actually using all of that alien technology to stop those calamities from earlier. It makes...kind of a bit of sense?

It turns out, they were actually fighting the locusts, and the Mole Master turned out to be a villainous king, just as he was in the original. Driller was a villain in the original and became more of a misunderstood neutral guy in Roar, so it wasn't like knowing that would spoil this episode. As for the cottage...just guess. One might even guess who was in that cottage, too. Was he doing anything in that cottage? That is just as explained as what started the Troll Village fire. I didn't forget about that one, but if I didn't mention it, would anyone really notice?

With this proving that they were good guys after all, Wilykit's way of referring to them, not mine, Wilykat decides that maybe they would be convinced if he just politely tells them that they're heroes like they are.

Needless to say, that doesn’t work, as Willa decides to grab him and roar at him some more. Her translator tells him he's going to go into a different cage; one a slippery mutant wouldn't get out of. Can you believe being compared to the mutants was the straw that broke the camel's back?

Well, you kind of shouldn't, but it does look like she gets angry at this, which makes the Warrior Maidens very pleased! Turns out, they just needed to be talked to in the language they can understand: property damage!

WilyKit started the episode recklessly destroying everything she touches, including things that probably wouldn't be her property, idolizes people who destroy things that are definitely not her property, never changes her mind throughout the entire episode despite people seemingly smarter than her suggesting otherwise, and she ends up saving the day in the end. She had to learn absolutely nothing!

To make a long story short, she ends up pushing the button. Maybe it's because she uses a chair to do it, despite WilyKat suggesting to use her fingers, so she can keep her smashing mood. Hey, if these guys have this amazing little girl that destroys property, they must be good guys!

We do get a little more backstory, including the factoid that the translator happens to be Roar's version of Nayda, but it all boils down to; we existed, we were cool, Mumm-Ra happened, we had to disappear until Mumm-Ra was defeated. Lion-O proclaims that they were the ones that defeated Mumm-Ra in an attempt to get them to be impressed, and that attempt actually works...though they assume WilyKit did it. Because she breaks stuff!

Super Best Friends Forever Fist-Bump!

That is a fist bump, though not really a fist bump joke. Lion-O pretends he doesn't care that they decided to give Wilykit all the credit, but he clearly does and he's jealous about it.

And yeah, that's pretty much it. If there's any other positive I can say, it's that this episode does continue something I miss from today's cartoon. Why can't we have The End cards anymore? Why has it become passe to not have cartoons end abruptly?

Granted, I really don't know why "it's over" with a childish doodle of Lion-O has any relation to this episode. It could represent Lion-O's expression when he realizes these Warrior Maidens aren't going to appear again for a while.

How does it stack up?

Yeah, I didn't like this one at all. It doesn't even have a good animation part to distract from any of this. This is the first time I have to give out this rating.

Next, Lion-O loses the Sword of Omens! Oh no!

← Panthro Plagarized! 🐈 Lost Sword →

[loisgordon]

Major Project Idea Generation - Idea 2

Interactive Story Book

Overview

The idea is an interactive story which would be read to a child accompained by an adult. The story book would come with a pack of characters and cards that help unlock/reveal parts of the story. The story would link to each object and it would be adults responsibility to place or post the objects in the correct place at the correct timing to the story. A guide to this would be provided with the pack.

Location based triggers could be included in the story and it would be a task for the user/reader to get to the location of the NFC trigger, for example, it could be attached to the front door and be triggered by going outside. It depends on the storyline where this kind of trigger would fit it.

Other triggers could be on the characters themselves, where the user/reader would have to hold their device toward the correct character/find the character where the adult has hidden them and clues would be revealed through the post provided on cards.

Additional narrative content on near field communication (NFC) tags could be part of the story too, it makes the story more of an adventure than just sitting and just reading.

There could also be opportunities to interact with characters to influence the storyline and develop the characters further. Developing the characters would lead to popular merch and creating a main character.

Storyline ideas include:

An animal escaping from the zoo, different animals ask for the readers help to find their missing friend. The goal is tracking down the evidence of the missing animal through the clues etc - the message of the story could include how animals are becoming endangered & extinct

A character who goes on adventures and the book tells the story of one of their adventures. The user/reader has to find the key/different objects to help the adventurer along their journey.

Other ideas could stem around, animals, space, pirates and adventures with a main character. I would like to focus on something that is suitable for an young audience

Pros

Illustration is one of my strong points, I want to show that in my Major Project so this idea is a good way to put that to use.

Print design/layout is something I have experience in

If I create an Ebook, I have some experience with with motion design (the basics of After Effects/animating illustrations) and some animation could be added to it

Cons

I've never made any plush toys or plastic figures, so these would have to be outsourced and could be expensive

Story writing is something I have minimal experience in, so could be challenging

Only vaguely familiar with target audience, would require deeper thought and research into what children are interested in & enjoy

How might we build it?

Using print design I could design and print the book

I could create an ebook (this gives the book more possibilites)

Or there could be both - an ebook & printed book

NFC chips placed in the book itself, characters & objects

Who's it for?

The target audience would be families with a child/children between the ages of 3 and 6

The target sales audience would be the parents and the children, the adults are the buyers

What's the business model?

1 time purchase for the book & character/card pack

possibly an expansion pack for additional characters/unlock more chapters

[ask-namibia]

Hallo! How are you? Also- I’m curious- what holidays do you celebrate? And out of all of them- do you have a favorite?

Hallo! I’m doing absolutely great! Ja…

As for the holidays… 

The first holiday we celebrate is New Year’s Day. The other southern African nations and I gather to drink and tell our resolutions (that we’ll never achieve but like to brag about). At this time as well, I get to tell all the stories that happened during the year! Everyone loves my story-telling! 

Ja… 21 March… My independence. Where to begin on this glorious day? I guess I should start with the parades. In my country, we have parades and other celebratory events! Some of these include performances of different people group such as the Oshiwambo. I always love what my people have to offer; they make me happy! Oh! And then there´s my friends! They would bring such wonderful gifts, and we get to celebrate! Best part of it all, no work! I can just have fun with my people and friends! Truly, this is life at its greatest.

Ooh! Good Friday and Easter is next! I´m actually a Protestant Christian so what I like to do is go to church for one. I then go have a little Easter egg scavenger hunt with my friends! Let me tell you right now: decorating the eggs is my favorite pasttime around this time. They´re relaxing to paint and I get to design it however I like! Well, I paint it along side Lesotho so I also have some company too so that´s a bonus!

And we begin May with Workers´ Day! Generally, schools and businesses are closed so I really sit back and watch tv or go on facebook for a long time. I do not care. I don´t have work that day so why not relax and indulge yourself in temptation?

//Listen, I won´t have Namibia say anything on this part. The Cassinga Massacre is a more recent tragedy and I do not want to disrespect anyone who has been affected by this event by inserting my character in such a sensitive topic. Moreover, I just want to answer your question of what holidays are in Namibia, so that´s the main focus. Moving on, as you´ve just read, this was a massacre that took place in 4 May, 1978. Unfortunately, more than 600 people were killed that day, many being women and children. Ceremonies are held for the lives lost that day every year and in addition, a national park was created to honor them in 2002. I seriously don´t want to discuss this furthermore because it´s upsetting and I don´t think I´m qualified to talk about it here on this blog. But I would like to end this part by saying to the victims and to the everyone else who were affected by this that you´re in my thoughts and prayers.

25th of May… Africa Day… Ah, yes. Stop listening to the media who spew only negative light on us Africans! We are proud people of our respective countries and cultures! 

Another holiday my people celebrate is Ascension Day which is on the 30th of May for this year. On this day, I would go to a local church and pray. This religion is important to me. And because so, I treat it with such respect!

Leaping a couple of months and we celebrate Heroes Day on 26th of August. On this day we celebrate and honour the National Heroes of Namibia, all the soldiers who fought for Namibia´s independence, and other respected individuals in Namibian history. It´s a time of remembrance.

At the 10th of December, we celebrate Human Rights Day/Women´s Day. We also have parades and smaller celebrations, but most of these are usually backed by speeches about human rights and women´s rights in my country.

Then we finally end the year with my favourite holidays: Christmas and Family Day! On these days, I spend them all with my fellow southern Africans. We absolutely adore Christmas and the joy it brings to children and us! We love decorating trees and looking at all the Christmas lights! It´s our own African Christmas wonderland! Then Family Day is just spending time with your family. In my case, I spend it with friends! We do so many different activities!

[poppyknitt]

A Real Eye-Opener- A JSE Egos Fanfic

*Minor trigger warning! Beware the end of this story if you’re triggered by things that suggest suicide or violence in general!

——————————————————

Previous fic

Next fic

[September 30th, 2018]

Seán was busy practicing some of the life-based spells he had learned during he and Marvin’s most recent training session, boredly trying to pass the time, when he noticed something green flash by out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t really been focusing his magic on a specific target like he was supposed to, so the possibility of him accidentally giving life to one of the inanimate objects within his flat wasn’t entirely outlandish. He turned to look and see what it could have been, however, he found that whatever it was had already moved somewhere out of his field of vision. Weird.

He turned his head to focus back on practicing his spells, when he noticed that one of the smaller Septic Sam plushies was missing. He didn’t think much of it, though, since he and Signe did have a slight habit of misplacing them from time to time.

His stomach growled, and he immediately realized that he had barely eaten all day, so, he got up, and went to the kitchen for some snacks. When he heard a loud crash coming from the hallway, he put what he was holding down, and walked to the source of the noise, only to freeze in place when he saw what caused it.

There, on the ground before him, was a living, breathing Septic Sam- And he knew exactly how it got there.

...

....

.....

Seán had attempted to make friends with the little green eye, however, it seemed to just be contempt with following him around everywhere, and didn’t respond too well to his approaches. It was almost as though it had sensed something was wrong, however, since it couldn’t really emote or speak very well, given that it’s an eye and all, he had absolutely no idea what it was trying to let him know about the world around him, or even just about him. He had also yet to find out what it eats, assuming it can even do that at all in the first place.

It wasn’t until he realized how lightheaded he felt that he realized why Sam was being so clingy, but by then, it was too late to stop his motor functions from failing once again. Once he hit the ground, his vision began fading, and the last thing he saw before blacking out was Sam looking him dead in the face, very clearly in a panic.

~~~~

He shot up, gasping for breath, in yet another repeat of how he awoke from that nightmare he’d had a few days ago. He coughed a bit, thinking the incident with Sam was just another weird dream, until he realized he was in the exact place he had been in when he fell, and his head hurt like hell. He looked around, in confusion, wondering where the little eye had gone off to now, only to find it closely snuggled up next to him. He held back a laugh.

Aw! Man, that’s adorable. Freakishly adorable, but still adorable. He thought, smiling at the little eye. It blinked open, and became visibly excited when it saw that he was awake. Then, in a sudden, unexpected motion, it swiftly grabbed his wrist with its tail, and its pupil started glowing. Panicked by the sudden movements and bright light, Seán attempted to jerk away and scream, but he soon found that he was frozen, as his vision was taken entirely over by memories.

Whose memories were they? Why were they surrounding a bunch of characters who looked sorta like him? It wasn’t until he started hearing them too that he realized they were his memories.

Jack! Oh man! It’s so awesome to see you again! Mark’s voice, from all the way back in 2015, before he went dark.

Ack! Vhat is it zhat you two idiots are doing?! I zhought ve specifically told you that ve do not vant you practicing your stupid parlor tricks on our zhings! Hey, it was Henrik! And, look! He was with Marvin, practicing magic! But their hair was dyed some shade of green?

Hey! Dad! Uncle Seán! Watch this! He heard a young boy’s voice call out to him, as he saw a guy that looked like him, but with his hair dyed a yellowish-green color, excitedly waiting for someone to do something, though, he couldn’t see the kid, nor what was happening.

Hey, dude! Check out how fast I can run! A guy in a red, hooded jumpsuit said, and then promptly zipped out of view, only to zip back in a couple seconds later.

He struggled to process everything as all the memories of the interactions he’d had with these people he’d neglected to really even remember much of or about prior to his coma flashed by his eyes. It all slowly calmed down, until they were finally moving at probably like 50-75% the speed of what they probably originally happened in. When that happened, he finally saw the faces of the people he was hearing.

Marvin wore a neat little Japanese cat mask thing, which looked to be decorated with marker, though, Seán still knew it was him, since his hair still had the cool looking gradient purple design to it. Henrik was basically the same as he was now, aside from the green hair, and the unnamed dad was laughing and messing around with the others. The man in the red suit had a mask on, but he was actually removing it. Seán realized he’d seen him in the hospital before- it was Simon, the dude who apparently got crushed by some rubble in the crossfires of a superhero fight! Man, that must be cool! The dude had freakin’ superpowers!

He scanned what he could see in this final memory, and realized they were all celebrating his 27th birthday. Wow. They were all his friends before he fell into that coma, weren’t they? God, he felt terrible now! Imagine how it felt for them to realize he couldn’t remember any of them anymore!

He squeezed his eyes shit when the memory changed via a bright, blinding light, reopening them once it was gone, only this time, the room had gone red, and as he looked at everyone in the room, he saw their names flashing into his vision, each being accompanied by horrifying sounds and images.

Marvin. His hearing was overtaken by white noise and incoherent, angry yelling as the image of the magnificent magican casting some sort of inprisonment spell on Seán overtook his vision.

Chase. All he could hear was more incoherent yelling and screaming, but this time it was of emotional pain, and instead of white noise, the background was filled with the sounds of crying, laughing, and screaming children, while at the same time, he saw the image of the unnamed dad character allegedly shooting himself in the head with an unseen gun.

Henrik. A large slamming sound, followed by someone yelling and calling something “Cursed”, as the sounds of life support equipment could be heard loudly screaming at the doctor, even though all he could see was a very glitchy looking Henrik hanging from the ceiling by a green string.

And finally...

Jackie. His was the worst. There lay the once-great hero, his body broken and beaten until almost every inch was covered in blood, and several of his bones very clearly being misaligned, as the incoherent sound of Marvin and Chase yelling at someone to stay with them blocked out his hearing.

He felt himself being released, and he fell to the ground, hyperventilating as he tried to take this all in. He looked around, and realized Sam was gone. He shakily stood up, and followed what he thought was the sound of someone’s footsteps running down a hallway. He turned to look down said hallway, and to his surprise, saw Signe jumping out the window with Sam on her shoulder.

And yet, as he realized what just went down, only one thought went through his head.

Did she put Sam up to this?

——————————————————

Part Two of

The Unraveling

(A very big chapter in a slightly darker version of the Jacksepticeye & Markiplier Egoverse)

Part Three

@antis-loyal-puppet

@chaoticcrimsonrose

@septic-dr-schneep

[nullset2]

Society is Evolving in a very Strange Manner

We live in very bizarre times. It seems that more and more, more activities in the world are taking place behind the screen. It's starting to eerily feel like the matrix and it seems that people not only voted for it, but actually WANT it actively, because it's easy and nice.

Now, I've mentioned before that I like the network and I like the Plethora (notice the uppercase letter there, see what I did?) of things that it enables people to do. Sophistication and progress are the degree to which we can perform things in the world without having to think about them, so I will not be a naysayer of the network. I'm not a luddite.

But at the same time, I think that the fact that the network enables such a convenient lifestyle and such an easy way to communicate is actually estranging people away from each other... and this is just no good.

We are just not designed to be click a button and receive free food. To have all of our interactions transpire with little beeps and boops on a 5 inch OLED screen. To have everything and anything be schematized and moderated. It's degenerate.

Now, I love the tech that powers all of that, again, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Tech allows you to educate yourself massively and endlessly, and it connects people all over the world, but the fact that these beeps and boops provide such convenient and easy rushes of dopamine, in my opinion, is getting the best of people right now, and it has to change fast. It can not and will not hold. It must stop, and soon.

Just imagine if you live in a city like Seattle, where it rains four months out of the year, then you have massively alarming health crises on top. It's like people have actual justification now to stay indoors all the time, whereas before it was just play Seasonal Affective Disorder. Can the awkwardness and inherent effort of socializing ever even aspire to be as compelling as a 4K stream of imagery for entertainment? It's just not, not even remotely, a fair fight.

I literally spent the whole year without seeing anyone in person except for very rare occasions. But in reality a big chunk of it is the feeling of depression pervasive in everyone's minds out of the fact that it's scary to go out if the circumstances are shaky and uncertain. But let's be frank, another part is the fact that it's just easier and nicer to stay home in your jammies listening to podcasts, trying to weather it all out. It's just you staying in the domain of order instead of chaos, something which every reasonable entity ever would choose.

But hear me out just here... I think all of it is starting to get a bit too extreme for my tastes.

We live in the culture of the now (or the Now-Now, rather) and things are getting too vicious because it seems that the focus is just how the network enables you to move faster and faster. To maximize convenience, safety, pleasure and security, perhaps. The network is blazing fast so it enables things to scale infinitely, both in terms of business and communication

And I think that the ultimate consequence of this is... and sorry to be crass, that people are replacing relationships and intimacy with social networks and porn, exactly in that order.

It sounds horrible and it is horrible but think about it... it makes perfect logical sense...

For exsample, imagine you're living alone in a city and there's a virus out there, not only you can't go out, but you must not go out lest you'll be seen as a defficient human being. It's just the right thing to do, and what will you do with your time? Well, it's not like you have a social circle in the city, and you are connected to the network, so...

And this applies to everything: from the pleasant, anxiety inducing bottomless feeds of drivel that encompass our social media (again, Instagram has become the fucking shopping channel), to the infinity of videos available for endless entertainment, generated en-masse, to the endless masses of podcasts being produced daily...

And I think this is why trends like the recent current of stoicism and "No-Nut November" have arised. People just know in the back of their heads that something is just not adding up. Something is seriously fucked up here. Something is amiss: the richness of deliberate content, of a classic book, full of rich stories and characters, and the nicencess of speaking one to one with a friend, face to face, and the comfort of true intimacy with a partner. People are starting to get fed up with the highly saccharine, artificial, engineered equivalents of those which are being offered, at a price, to satiate those hunger pangs.

Those efforts to lower down your screen time and rate of consumption have a reason, thus: to rekindle people's humanity. To teach them that there's more to life than cumshots and seeking of the next high, to show it who's boss. That the tender embrace of a caring partner who actually wants to talk to them is incomparable to crude pornography as much as people would have it that way. That sex and pleasure, as good as they may be, are not, and will never be a replacement for affection and being genuine.

Another one: Truth is non-existent anymore, there's only what gets the most likes. Deliberatism and well thought out content is just not there --instead, it's been replaced by a 24/7 stream of imagery which may not even be good for people, prioritizing spectacle and shock value above all. Everything is designed for maximum dopaminic release and maximization of screen time.

And then this gets co-opted by politicians and propaganda machines, and the results are horrific.

And I think what we need to do is to setup an scheme in place to shut down the commercial, social network driven Internet on Sundays, very much like "Ready Player One". No escapism, sit down and have coffee with your friends and catch up. Don't look at a screen, just relax. Don't think about money or pleasure or sex, just relax.

But maybe this is but a dreamer's wish. Huxley, in "Brave New World", wrote that an ultra-modernized society would become a society of beloved chains, and maybe people love their Instagram shopping network with its endless stream of scantily clad women, and it's machine-produced youtube videos, and its endless harem of new women. I just hope that this changes soon because last time I checked this is not the concensus. People really love their pornhub.

[toonatic92]

Bride Character Profile

Character profiles! I had this one saved up. I chose Bride this time because I've been doing some character development for them recently.

(TW/CW: This profile contains graphic descriptions of injuries caused by a fire and one implied mention of death.)

Full Name: Bride Niamh McGuire Pronunciation of their name: Br-eye-d Nee-ve Muh-gwy-er Title: Mx. Nickname(s): Bridie, Bridie Beag ('Little Bridget'), Lucky Bridie

Gender: Genderflora (they/them, fleur/fleurs/fleurself) Race: Mixed race (Romani/Irish Traveller) Species: Mutant human Sexuality: Bellusromantic Asexual

Height: 5’1”/1.55m Weight: 6st 0lbs/38.1kg Age: 15

Eye colour(s): Unnaturally bright green Contacts?: No Glasses?: No

Face shape: Heart-shaped, narrows towards the chin, pointed chin, widest at the temples, round cheeks, freckles, one side of face heavily scarred Describe their eyes: Down-turned, large, sparse eyelashes, dark circles, tapered eyebrows, one eye prosthetic, one eyebrow heavily scarred with sparse hair Describe their nose: Big, round tip, broad, small nostrils Describe their lips: Small mouth, full lips Ears: Small, pointed, attached lobes, one ear deformed and scarred

Body build: Short, thin, small proportioned, banana-shaped, shoulders wider than hips, AAA-cup breasts, long arms and legs, small hands and feet Disabilities: Tricuspid atresia, scoliosis, missing eye, autism, anxiety Extra body parts: Prosthetic right eye, antenna implant in right temple, robotic shunt in heart, robotic brace in spine

Hair colour(s): Dark ginger/Auburn Hair length: Very short Hair style: Shaved

Skin/fur colour(s): Light brown Complexion: Tan, normal skin, prone to freckling Patterns/designs: None Scars: Severe burn scarring on right side of face Birthmarks: None Tattoos: None Piercings: None

Personality snapshot: Painfully shy teenage revolutionary Most prominent personality trait: Shy Best traits of their personality: Kind, just, moral, curious, intelligent, gentle, creative, imaginative, dutiful Worst traits of their personality: Passive, anxious, cautious, cowardly, fatalistic, prone to anger, resentful, stubborn, impetuous

Current faith: Catholicism/Romani beliefs

Alignment: Neutral Good

Marital status: Single

Occupation: Florist’s shop assistant/Secondary school student

Good habits: Hard working, kind, moral, just, dutiful, responsible Bad habits: Passive, cowardly, impatient, inflexible thinking, prone to anger, resentful

Powers: Chlorokinesis (plant creation and manipulation) Skills: Plant care specialist, encyclopedic knowledge of plants and animals, can draw, can budget and run a shop Hobbies: Plant care, studying plants and animals, growing fruit, caring for insects, drawing, reading

Random facts:

Bride has been through quite a lot in their short life. Born with a twisted spine and heart defects, most of their early life was spent in surgery. Because their parents were poor and resources are limited in post-WW3 Britain (unless you’re rich), their implants aren’t brilliant and are prone to suddenly failing, which is less serious if it's their spine brace, but deadly if it's the shunt that keeps their heart working.

Bride’s parents come from a large mixed Romani/Irish Traveller family that has been forced to give up their nomadic traditions because travel is no longer free or easy now everyone lives in glass domes under the sea. They’ve owned a flower shop in the Outer Ring of New London for as long as the city has existed, but business isn’t good since the President’s new policies started killing what little plant life that remains. Bride and their brother Sean dutifully run the shop since their parents disappeared, but they barely make enough money to feed themselves.

Bride lost their eye in a house fire that happened when they were 11. A generator designed to provide their neighbourhood with heat and electricity malfunctioned and the resulting fire spread to other houses on the street because of the flammable cheap building materials and the houses close proximity to each other. The whole neighbourhood was ablaze before anyone had time to react. Bride and Sean were crushed by a large chunk of burning rubble while trying to escape. While they were trapped and unconscious, the fire burned Bride’s face and melted their eye and charred Sean’s arm and burned most of his body. After they were rescued, their lost body parts had to be replaced, but they were unable to afford even the cheapest prosthetics. A family friend created their eye and arm from spare parts. Bride’s cyber eye is functionally useless unless they want to see things in infra-red and far too large to fit comfortably in their eye socket, but it’s the best they can get on such a tight budget.

Bride has grown up around plants, learning plant knowledge from their parents and finding that they have a green thumb by working with the plants in their parent’s shop. Bride loves plants because they are easier to talk to than people and wants to be a horticulturist. They care for many plants and study them avidly, finding out their properties and breeding them with each other to see what happens. They spend their time reading books about plants, especially the books written by their favourite author, celebrated naturalist Jim Cobbrey. Jim is Bride’s idol and they want to be like him most of all.

Bride’s other idol is Calleigh Campbell, the current President of New Britain. Calleigh cultivates her reputation as a beneficial mother figure to the entire country, and anyone who doesn’t pay attention to what she’s actually doing believes that. Her image is everywhere, on television, on people’s phones, in adverts and in a popular children’s cartoon that Bride watches. Because of this subtle brainwashing, and despite her parents’ radical activism, Bride looks up to Calleigh as a strong and moral female role model and holds onto this belief despite their day-to-day life making Calleigh’s corruption increasingly difficult to ignore.

Soundtrack:

People Are People - Depeche Mode

Run This Town - Jay-Z ft. Kanye West & Rihanna

All of the Lights - Kanye West ft. Rihanna

Walking Down Madison - Kirsty MacColl ft. Aniff Cousins

21st Century Breakdown - Green Day

[notesonfilm1]

  Gabin as he is in La Marie du Port (right), and the much more youthful portrait the poster advertises (left). The image the poster sells harks back to his thirties films, perhaps hoping to appeal to his pre-war popularity and regain it. But it´s also an image that somewhat contradicts one of the film´s main themes, which is about inter-generational love. The film itself I´ve now seen twice and it gets better each time:

The film is based on the novel by Georges Simenon (see above) and tells the story of Henri Châtelard (Jean Gabin), a well-to-do owner of a restaurant and cinema in Cherbourg, the biggest town in the region, who accompanies his mistress Odile (Blanchette Brunoy) to her father´s funeral in the small village of Port-en-Bessin in Normandy, only to fall in love with her sister, Marie (Nicole Courcel).  There are several obstacles to the union of Châtelard and Marie: Marie is seeing a young local boy Marcel (Claude Romain), crazy in love with her and threatening suicide; she´s Odile´s sister; there´s a considerable difference in age (one of the things the poster for the film is trying to obscure); Marie doesn´t want to be a mistress like her sister, living the good life but shunned by ´respectable’ people — she wants a ring.

At the beginning of the film Henri and Odile are driving to the funeral of Odile´s father. They get a puncture and arrive late. These first few scenes paint a powerful picture of small town life and mentality. The house is so small, mourners and well-wishers remain outside, on the street. Inside, Marie is feeding the family. Odile and Marie have three younger siblings, which now have to be distributed amongst the aunts and uncles to be brought up. We get a sense of a subsistence culture –whether the children can earn their keep is part of the discussion of how and to whom they will be distributed –and that  children will most likely be used as slave labour until they come of age. Odile has escaped this by becoming Châtelard´s mistress. But at a price. She doesn´t really love him, or at least no longer. She´s stuck in Cherbourg where she really want to be in Paris. And she´s being shunned by the village folk she grew up with. Carné well indicates the community´s opprobium towards her by the expression in some of the mourner´s faces as she arrives to her father´s house (below right), something that reminded me of the scene with the nuns at the hospital in Almodóvar´s  Live Flesh (below right) and how a series of expressions can not only evoke character but a whole structure of feeling.

Marie is hard-working, dour, conscientious, honest, and Châtelard is smitten from the first moment he sees her (below left), an image significantly rhymed the first time Marcel sees her with Châtelard: interestingly, one is on the inside looking out, the other outside looking in.

Carné surrounds himself and this production with some of the greatest talents the French cinema of the period had to offer: Jacques Prévert worked on the screenplay (Louis Chavance and Geroges Ribemont-Dessaignes are the writers credited); there is beautiful work by Herni Alekan as cinematographer, the legendary Alexandre Trauner is with Auguste Capelier credited for the production design. And the way Carne orchestrates the various elements they contribute tells you all the story you need to know and more, as you can see in the lovely image below, where Claude, in the image that follows the one above right, sees Châtelard and Marie, clearly in love because, as you can see below, in that busy café, surrounded by people, and with Marcel´s own father propped at the bar anticipating the scene to come, the light seems to envelop them alone, a couple, even if they themselves don´t yet know it.

One of the things that´s striking about the film is the presentation of a freewheeling, guilt-free, pragmatic and easy sex-life to almost all of its characters. Marie and Marcel are the exceptions: she too puritanical and serious, he over-excited and dangerously romantic. But they´re young and they will learn.

The clip above is preceded by a scene in which a party leaves Châtelard´s restaurant because their table has been handed over to the local football team who´ve just won a match. The party leave in a huff except for the young woman who goest to the cinema next door. Châtelard has gone there too to eat his lunch and get some peace and quiet. But before the newsreel is over, they´ve agreed to spend the night together. It´s a scene that luxuriates in the cinema itself,  letting us see it in wide shots, with the projector throwing a beam of light in the darkness, and the screen itself creating a glow in the space. Note the partial lighting of the characters, allowing us to see their expressions but evoking the covert by the surrounding darkness. Note too the adventurous (at sea) playful (the cat), the structured (army manouvres) the explosive (the guns going off), and the brief that´s indicated in the newsreel being shown but that is also commenting on the action we see.

Another scene that I also found unusual in its attitude to sex is the one where Châtelard and Marie, find Odile (Châtelard´s mistress and Marie´s sister) in bed with Marcel (Marie´s boyfriend).  Marie and Châtelard have had a fight, he goes to find Marcel and when he opens the door he sees Odile and Marcel in bed together. Instead of being angry he finds it a joke, laughs, and won´t hold it against them later. It´s a scene unimaginable in American cinema of the period.

What I also found intriguing about the scene is that we´re shown the action through a relay of close-ups that indicate each of the principals´reaction but tellingly we´re never shown a two-shot or a medium shot in which Odile and Marcel are in the frame together, as if the idea really is too incongruous.

When Marie descends the stairs it´s photographed so as to evoke a feeling of hopes plummeting. But it´s not what Châtelard suspects: ‘If you only knew how little I care  about Marcel, even if he is with someone else, and even if it´s with my sister’. When Marie admits that she had really come for him, that she hadn´t wanted to say it but it´s true, the camera pans to a little girl, dressed poorly, with a milk can on one hand and a loaf of bread under her other arm,  behind a barred and locked gate that casts shadows inside (Châtelard here calls his house a cage). On one level the little girl is there as a narrative device to demonstrate the intrusion of the public on a private and sentimental moment. On a more metaphoric level, it´s clearly a commentary on Marie herself. But what exactly? It´s a moment that´s given considerable weight. It comes just after Châtelard says ‘Oh, so it´s for me that you´ve come’, at which point Châtelard looks left, and a pan follows his gaze to show us the little girl. Does that mean that there will be another young woman after Marie? Is it meant to signify a younger Marie. And does it mean that her choosing to go with Châtelard will be a kind of prison? I´m not sure but it´s an image that raises these and more questions and thus lingers in the mind (see above).

Carné is clearly in love with cinema and the cinema setting allows him to express it to us. Gabin is filmed against cannisters in his office, we see the projection system, posters, the cinema itself and clips from several films. The cinema also affords a nice contrast to the life and world Marie comes from.

La Marie du Port has two scenes set in Châtelard´s cinema. The first is the easy pick-up I discussed earlier on. The second takes place amidst a screening of F.W Murnau´s Tabu. Châtelard speaks of getting old, of time passing. Odile is off to Paris. Marcel to the cruise ships to become a lady´s hairdresser. Maybe he too will go away, in that boat he´s been fixing in the village. Besides one isn´t alone when one travels he muses. Marie comments that he doesn´t have to be alone. But he replies that, as she can see in the film,  there are girls in every port, ones that don´t impose conditions: rings, marriage. This is an interesting rhyming scene with the first scene in the cinema: the newsreel, vs Murnau´s romantic and luscious Tabu; they´re alone instead of part of the crowd as in the earlier scene, and more importantly, Marie walks out on him. She´s not that kind of girl. And he will chase after her, offer her the keys to his business, and make jokes about how at the wedding he´ll tell the officals she´s his daughter doing her first communion.

Seeing  La Marie du port again I was struck by how queer it seems to me now and not just becaause Carné was gay and he met his long term partner Roland Lessaffre , the sailor next to Gabin above, on the film : Chatelard, unmarried in his fifties, the open relationship he´s established with Odile, the easy pickups in cinemas, the older/younger pairings and the switch the narrative delivers, the dream of escape to the big city, the dream to be a lady´s hairdresser, the homage to Murnau, the identification with the prostitutes and the lowlife, the handsome sailors, the hypersensitive youth who attempts suicide. It evokes a ´structure of feeling´´or a ´’gay sensibility´of another time without anything being mentioned. I read the book yesterday to see if it was just me projecting: it isn´t. The film follows the book quite closely and is a page turner, more ‘exciting’ than the film, but without the depth or any queer connotations. Claude Viau, Marie´s young lover, takes up less space in the novel whereas Carné gives him a whole set of recurring scenes, his own struggle and dream, plus the way he´s visualised. The other question is, if this is so glaring to me now, why did I not notice it upon first viewing in Bologna where the main topic of conversation seemed to be the discrepancy in ages between Chaterlard/Gabin and Marie/Nicole Courcel, understandable as it´s one of the film´s main themes  (in the novel he´s meant to be 37 to her ‘six months short of 18).

La Marie du port was shown as part of the Gabin mini-retrospective at Bologna and he´s glorious in it, understated but alive at every, and in every film he´s got a moment of expression that brings a character alive. The moment below is characteristic.  The scene is really about Marcel and his father (Julienne Carette, the poacher in Renoir´s Rules of the Game).  Gabin´s just responding. But look at how he responds; his expression evoking a whole lifetime experience of dealing and humouring drunks, completely relaxed and at ease, yet indicating a strength capable of dealing with every situation.: a man who knows how to handle himself.  It´s wonderful.

  As is the film. It´s a great film that hasn´t yet gotten it´s due, possibly because Carné and Gabin, separately and together, have so many other more famous masterpieces in their filmography. Don´t let that deter you.

José Arroyo

        La Marie du Port (Marcel Carné, France, 1950) Gabin as he is in La Marie du Port (right), and the much more youthful portrait the poster advertises (left).

[nherringart]

Reflective Portfolio Visit - Two

Chris Howker

Feedback

For my second portfolio review I contacted Chris Howker Illustrator from Manchester he is a character designer so he is perfect to do this review as my work is character based and this is the possible career I would like to do.

I first contacted Chris for a general chat then asking if he could do a review face to face but it just didn’t work out with timing and he was so busy with freelance work which is understandable so I emailed him my PDF portfolio and asked if he could give me some feedback when he could a couple of weeks later he did and I am really happy with it.  

His feedback was amazing and it’s just what I needed to hear I wanted the honesty I need to know what’s working and what’s not but I also need to figure this out on my own but the advice is good just take it on the chin and roll with it.   

Chris gave me mainly comments about the contents and presentation layout of my portfolio and this is something that has come up a lot when showing my portfolio to people.

He gave me this information based off his own experiences and if I take them on board is totally up to me and was happy to answer any further questions if I needed to.

Telling me what is working and what wasn’t and telling me to do more of certain things really gave my confidence a lift, he was liking my newer work my drawing is counting to improve and I can see this looking back at my work over the three years.

My abstract pieces for open spaces project are getting really good feedback people seems to love them and I need to do more background stuff like that for my work, I ve always enjoyed collage why I am not doing more of this.  

Presentation of how my work displayed is a big thing I need to work on when updating my portfolio, I have front cover and book pages I need to put these into templates showing what they would look like, mock it up like it is a real book. Do some research have a look at how books are being displayed.

From the feedback Chris said to ask yourself does this need this and I am going to take this and question myself when I am being undeceive about what to put on a page. Don’t be afraid to play with text and colour I am going to take this advice and go forward with it don’t be scared. I have the work I just need to display it correctly.

Overall I think having Chris look at my portfolio was interesting I didn’t know what to expect from him and he didn’t disappoint, my favourite feedback was on my fox character sheet telling me to show more development put more on the page with different designs show my best work.