#real problem is how the fuck do i find the resin to build all these bitches now 💀💀💀

[narwhalandchill]

a.... situation has occurred

SJSOSKSKSOSKFK literally. my first time EVER just getting fucked proper and taking that early L of hubris chasing 4* constellations (kuki c2 who else) in this game.

he came in at only 16 pity too 😭😭 yea i had this one coming

im not too mad hdksisk it was early after all and like. i did end up going for baizhu on my alt too when my (successful, unlike the XQ incident 💀) pulls for a c2 beidou took me to 70 pity after furina so i just went fuck it and won the 50-50. and now its happened for the fifth time and on an early too 😭 rigged alt.

anyway point being unlike his early 3.x era i expect cyno to be way less cringe to build and play with both furina and baizhu available for him (im fairly sure ive heard somewhere that furina quickbloom might just straight up be his best team now? but no clue need to look it up) so i can definitely live with this. and ive always loved how much of a banger job alejandro saab did w his chara too!!! But truly a jumpscare of all times

[kay-kaylen]

Genshin Rant

Okay so, I’ve been into Genshin for quite some time. I’m not a seasoned player who’s been around since the Latern Rite (I am furious that I missed that honestly) but I’m doing pretty well for myself. 

But oh man. A few months ago, I joined an unofficial Genshin group and let me tell you, this is something I’ve got to get out of my system because I had such a huge argument with some of the members there that I just left the group because oh my God. I couldn’t take it. It’s probably a controversial topic, and I might get hate for what I say, but if you decide to shit on my words without providing legitimate evidence and being able to have a civil discussion and debate with me, then I’m just blocking you because I don’t need that here.

A lot of complaints about Genshin Impact mainly stem from the Gacha/Wish system, which is a system in which you roll for different weapons and characters. To roll, you need Fates, and you get Fates through Primogems. You can get Primogems by just doing stuff in the game, but it’s slow-going sometimes. If you want to, you can purchase Primogems with real life money.

The BIGGEST complaints I’ve ever seen from Genshin ALWAYS comes from this Wish system and the things that were said during that argument in the group was so ridiculous, I literally can’t.

First off, a lot of people say Mihoyo are scammers, and to be fair, sometimes they’re kind of wonky. Like the Serenitea Pot and Sanctifying Essence which is supposed to give more artifact exp buuut it doesn’t give a lot. That part needs to be worked on, of that I agree. But the wishes?? No. As far as I see it, it’s fair game. In fact, the chances to get a 5* character are NO LOWER than any other gacha game I’ve experienced. I’ve done my maths. Any higher and you’d pretty much always be getting them, which isn’t fair to the makers of the game and defeats the point of a gacha. This is especially true because we’re constantly GETTING new characters. The more characters, the more chances for that 0.6% chance to land on them, and it’s literally just a matter of time. The ONLY reason you’d complain is because you’re salty you didn’t get the character you wanted despite paying. You think that just because you paid them money, Mihoyo would serve the character for you on a silver platter. But they don’t. It’s ALL based on luck and chance, and they GIVE you chances on Banners. And you can ALWAYS try again. There will never NOT be a time where you can’t try. Mihoyo does NOT control what characters you get. You wanna know how I know? Because I rolled once with no fucking expectation and got ZHONGLI of all characters. A 5*. They are NOT trying to screw you over, I am HAPPY with the characters I’ve got. It literally doesn’t matter to me whether I get a 4* or a 5* or just weapons, I am still GETTING stuff.

And yeah, I don’t mind if you wanna keep rolling to get a character or weapon you REALLY want, there is literally nothing wrong with that. But I HATE it when people get salty and take it out on the creators. One of the points the people in the group tried to make is that the game’s teaching kids how to gamble. It. Is. A. Gacha. Game. It is made EXPLICITLY clear that there are in-game purchases that are OPTIONAL. You have to AGREE to the terms and conditions before you play the game. And why is Genshin being treated as this unholy demon? You know how many MORE Gacha games are out there with just as much gambling potential? Cause there’s a lot. But UNLIKE some Gacha games I know of, when they say optional, they MEAN optional. You can play the entire game and build a GOD level team without paying a single damn penny, and Mihoyo doesn’t even shove the gacha wishing system in your face. You literally don’t even get told about its existence when you play and go about the story, you have to FIND where that wishing thing is. The game does NOTHING to tempt you to rolling apart from showcasing their new characters, WHICH THEY DO ANYWAY IN THE STORY ITSELF. If anything, things like character trailers are just lore for the characters to make them interesting and build them for us storylovers.

But the whole point of this whole thing is that Mihoyo does NOTHING that requires you to pay a penny. Literally nothing. They make it clear that it’s on you to pay real life money, and you should KNOW about how Gachas, or even just rolling for chances is like, because it’s basically a capsule machine. YOU are the one rolling, and YOU are the one who CHOSE to fork over your own money. YOU are the one who chose not to stop ‘gambling’. The game does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make you pay genuine money. YOU are the one who made that decision, so YOU deal with the results you got. You know damn well that you’re likely not getting what you want, so stop whining about it.

But just to take a step back, even IF you disregard all these points and just look at the 0.6% chance and say: “Man, that’s low odds.” It HAS to be that way, because Mihoyo NEEDS that money. Yes, I know damn well they have millions of dollars, I did my research, but that is NOT ENOUGH MONEY. People don’t realize just how BIG and AMBITIOUS of a game Genshin Impact is. It isn’t just costly to make, it’s costly to MAINTAIN. It’s not a final released game, they’re still a work-in-progress and that brings LOADS of complications with it, especially since it’s blown up so much and they’ve got MILLIONS of users playing all the time. And just because they’re a Chinese company or WHATEVER excuse you have to bring to the table, doesn’t mean they have any easier of a time.

I know this. Because I have a fucking friend who works in game programming and development. She took one look at Genshin Impact and told me this was a game that makes Final Fantasy and Detroit: Become Human, or whatever huge fucking ass games over the years, look like a JOKE in terms of expenses. 

Mihoyo is CONSTANTLY updating their game, fixing bugs, implementing new things like small events or just fun stuff for players to goof around with, but NONE of these things are easy. THAT’S why they have new characters, THAT’S why they’re constantly doing events, they NEED people’s support to the game and their attention CAN’T wane. It’s pure BUSINESS. They’re not being selfish, that is literally just how it works.

And here’s another thing. Genshin doesn’t have ANY other money spending things EXCEPT for the wishes. They don’t make you pay for Resin, or make you pay to progress the story. No. ALL their income from the game, comes from the Wishing. Where YOU GUYS make that choice to fork over your money.

One of the things people in that group jeered about is Genshin’s shit security, and yes, that is problem that needs serious fixing. The thing is, they’re ALREADY hard at work trying to fix it. You think it’s a walk in the park to stop account hackers? FUCK NO. It needs cooperation from the users AND the company. The company needs to make better firewalls and security measures, and the users need to take precautionary measures to make sure they DON’T get their accounts stolen. It doesn��t matter how high or tough your walls are if you’re the one who just opens the gate yourself. And by all means, they are improving in that aspect, people just don’t announce it to the world. And oh yeah, they DO need money to improve their security. It is NOT free to develop bigger shields.

I had people in that group tell me the game was sooo slow in their development and there was no point in investing money in it, and to that I say. Let me just put this into perspective, okay? Let’s just rundown a list of things that need to be implemented when making a new region. Just one.

*inhales*

The terrain, environment, treasure locations, puzzles, local materials, local recipes, main city, sub towns, npcs, npc dialogues, shops, unique enemies, regional bosses, unique drops, regional characters, books, region lore and history, statues of the seven locations, teleporter locations, domain locations, oculi locations, story quests, world quests, sigils, and the list REALLY does go on.

AND THIS IS FOR ONE REGION.

THERE ARE SEVEN REGIONS IN THE GAME.

MEANING THEY HAVE TO REPEAT THIS PROCESS, FIVE FUCKING TIMES. (Since we already have Liyue and Mondstadt.)

Do. You. UNDERSTAND. HOW MUCH WORK. GOES INTO THIS FUCKING GAME.

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS?? HARDLY A HALF OF WHAT THEY NEED TO KEEP THEIR WORKERS GOING.

AND THEY’RE STILL VERY ACTIVE IN THE COMMUNITY.

So yeah. Genshin only draws money from the Gacha system they have, other income sources come from Mihoyo’s other games. They don’t force you to pay, at all. That decision is all on you. They need lots of money for the game, and still squeeze in time in their development to come up with little tidbit stuff for us to enjoy. They’re doing well, but they need improvements, but they won’t improve without the community’s support and understanding.

[scarheaded-ferret]

25 Days of Drarry: Day 9 ‘Fireplace’

For this one I kind of took a more magical path for the prompt so it’s not as christmas-y but stay with me 

***

Draco had never truly considered the importance of traveling by floo, until the day that all of the magical fireplaces in wizarding Britain stopped functioning properly.

People would floo to the Leaky Cauldron and end up in Fortescue’s. If you called your aunt in London you’d end up on the phone with a very pissed off Goblin in Gringotts. And occasionally one person would dump the powder in the flames, state their destination, and end up walking right back into their own sitting room- or even worse, a muggle’s sitting room.

The ministry was in a flurry, the floo dillema causing many officials unable to get to work, as you couldn’t disapparate within a mile of the building after the second war. The Muggle Worthy Excuse Committee and the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes were both working up storms as a result.

The M.W.E.C. had gone to such extents to heal the alarming rate of wizards popping up in muggle fireplaces, that there were a sundry of muggle news reports about the current outbreak of “real life Santa Clauses” who came down people’s chimneys and then strangely disappeared.

The D.M.A.C was up to its neck in files and paperwork, around 20 floo-related incidents were occurring each weak, and the pressure to find a reason and way to stop them was increasing after each incident.

Draco, after reading of it in the papers, was unaltered by the magical accidents. They must happen to wizard’s with glitches in their magical fields, and he was fine, so surely it would never happen for him, he assured himself. He readied to make the floo into Hogsmeade- he wanted to stay the night there to get some grades done- threw the powder in, opened his mouth to speak, and just as the first syllable came out, Harry Potter tumbled right on top of him.

***

Harry was in a hurry, he had promised to be at Molly’s by five to help set up the house for Sunday night’s dinner- after receiving some scolding for not showing up to the last one. In his defense he had had nearly seven large stacks of tests to grade, but his excuse didn’t save him from Molly’s wrath. Also it was nearly two weeks until Christmas- meaning the house would be full of shopping lists, half-knitted sweaters, and a stressed clan of Weasleys.

He had been in such a hurry to arrive on time, hastily throwing on his clothes after a much needed- but time constricting nap, and racing to the floo. His mind had been so occupied, that he had forgotten the prime subject of all wizarding- and some muggle newspapers.

Which is why he had been so shocked when he entered his own floo and fell out of a fireplace that definitely wasn’t the Weasley’s. The Transfiguration professor looked up at him with an angry snarl, and Harry let out an embarrassing yelp before leaping off of him. Draco stood and brushed small specks of floo powder off of himself, still managing an albeit terrifying glare on his face.

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed harshly before speaking.

“I honestly shouldn’t be too surprised,” he said, irritation evident in his tone.

“Shit, I forgot about the floo-mess ups,” Harry said, rubbing his hand down his face, “Oh fuck, I have to go-” Harry started towards the fireplace once more, but Draco stopped him.

“No- I won’t have this happen again, you’re disapparating,” Draco told him and Harry huffed.

“Molly hates it when someone apparates into the house,” he muttered, “Got a spare broomstick here perchance?” Harry asked, chuckling at Draco’s deadpan.

“Potter, take my arm,” Harry looked at him like he just suggested they rollerblade to the Weasleys.

“Sorry, what?” Harry asked, shaking his head slightly as though he hadn’t heard Draco correctly.

“Bloody- take my arm you knob,” Draco spat and Harry sighed harshly. “The Burrow?” Draco asked. Harry nodded and held one hand onto Draco’s forearm, letting the familiar pull of disapparation transport them.

***

They landed on a dirt path, lightly dusted with snow. Harry turned to him suddenly, he felt the need to repay Draco for apparating him as well as not murdering him for floo-ing right into him.

“You- er, wanna come inside a bit?” He asked tentatively. Draco raised a brow.

“You’re really inviting me- into the Weasley’s?” Draco asked incredulously. Harry shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets awkwardly.

“Why not,” Harry replied, and Draco made an internal sigh- he could grade exams later, the soft way Harry was looking at him was more demanding of his attention.

“I suppose so, then,” Draco answered curtly, ignoring the small look of surprise on Harry’s face as they continued on the path.

***

Draco hadn’t expected to be greeted as warmly as he was when the front door to the Burrow swung open, yet he couldn’t put it past Molly Weasley, whose warm exterior greeted him with a large hug.

She had beamed at him, ushering them both in with words of “Victoire says you’re one of her favourite teachers, Draco,” and “Why haven’t you been over before now?”

Harry had snorted at Draco’s apprehensive look at the loud and full house. Draco glared and stepped on his food as they walked into the living room, smirking when Harry cursed behind him. The couches were filled with Weasleys. Weasley- well, Ron Weasley’s mouth had gaped so widely in shock at the sight of him, that a chocolate frog could’ve made home there.

“You’ve gone mad?” Draco heard him whisper vehemently to Harry, apparently oblivious to the fact that Draco was barely two feet from them. Harry whispered something back, which caused Weasley to groan and sink back into the couch cushion.

“Tea, dear?” Molly Weasley suddenly beamed up at him from a tray of more tea cups than he expected one to be able to hold.

“Yes, thank you very much,” He said politely, taking one cup from the edge of the tray. He glanced around for somewhere to sit and ignored the blush that resinated when Harry scooted over on one couch to make room for him. He adjusted himself, trying to put as much distance between Harry and himself- but that still left his entire left calf pressed up along Harry’s right.

He sipped his tea and winced- far too bitter for his liking. He glanced around for sugar, his eyes widening when they halted at the sugar bowl that Harry held out for him wordlessly. He nodded a thanks and spooned the right amount in, still ignoring the ever growing heat on his face.

“I can’t believe the floo’s are still down, it’s a bloody nightmare,” Ron said. Draco’s eyes averted to the fireplace, which was now roaring with red and non-magical flames. The source of the problem must’ve come from something unaffected by the victim’s magic- as Harry Potter- the most powerful wizard since Merlin- had managed to become another victim of the incident as well. So if it wasn’t the wizard or witch themselves- and it couldn’t be the flame as it was only manipulated by the magic- thus not having any power itself- then it had to be-

“The powder,” Draco mumbled and everyone stopped their chatter to glance at him. Draco lifted his chin slightly, the heat so prominent now on his face that he could probably blend into a Gryffindor tapestry.

“What was that, Draco?” Harry asked from beside him, orange and red hues from the fire were reflecting in his eyes, making them seem more hazel then- stop. He commanded himself. Draco cleared his throat and continued.

“It must be the powder that’s causing everything- the ministry thought it was the wizard themself- but you proved it wrong,” Draco said. “I think people have been too focused on the wizards and the magic used in the floo powder, rather than the powder itself- perhaps a sort of- potions’ error, if you will,” Draco finished, he awkwardly realized that he had been waving his hands around like a fool, so he returned them to his lap.

“That’s brilliant,” The one with the dragons, Charlie, said. Draco muttered a surprised yet kind thank you. Draco turned to find Harry looking at him in that strange way again. Draco raised a brow and Harry seemed to snap out of whatever daze he had fallen into. He smiled at Draco in a way that made his heart beat faster than he wished it to. Draco smiled back.

Several more hours were spent talking of the floo-dilemma, how Victoire and Teddy were doing in school, and surprisingly- Draco’s mother. He found himself growing quite tired, the warmth of the fireplace, and the slight haze that took over him once they switched from tea to spiked eggnog, all taking their toll on his mind. By now all that was left were he, Harry, Ron, Charlie, Ginny and George. Draco decided that maybe a rest would be alright, no one would notice, so he let his head drop to the side. Harry’s shoulder was very warm, his sweater was very soft and he smelled like pine trees for some reason. Maybe he could even take a nap, and just close his eyes for a moment, that’s all.

***

Harry’s eyes widened when he felt Draco’s head on his shoulder. He turned his own to find himself in a nosefull of soft blonde hair. He chuckled lightly at the sight and unthinkingly draped his arm around the man. Someone choked and Harry looked up to find Ron with eggnog dripping down his chin, eyes wide as dinner plates, Ginny and George who were laughing, and Charlie who looked very amused. Harry blushed deeply and shrugged.

“Are- you’re not- together?” Ron asked exasperatedly.

“No- I don’t think so, I dunno,” Harry replied weakly. Ron huffed a relieved sigh, and Harry focused his attention on the softness of Draco’s winter sweater underneath his fingers. The room grew quiet, and Charlie went up to bed. Ginny was still laughing quietly as she dragged an equally hysterical George upstairs. Ron glanced inquisitively at Harry and Draco.

“Don’t do anything on the couch,” He mumbled before he went up as well. Harry’s blush deepened, and he was thankful that now there was no one to see it. The fireplace continued to burn brightly, and Harry sighed into the comfort of it all. The floo and fireplace ordeal wasn’t really the greatest part of his holidays, but if it landed Draco in his arms as he is now- well, Harry wouldn’t really object.

[upontheshelfreviews]

And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney’s original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it’s one I’m both anticipating and dreading. Fantasia isn’t just one of the crowning jewels in Disney’s canon, a landmark in motion picture animation, and second only to Snow White in terms of influential music and storytelling in the whole medium, it’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Discussing it without sounding like an old history professor, a pretentious internet snob, or a hyper Disney fangirl is one hell of a daunting task.

“Did someone say hyper Disney fangirl?! I LOVE Disney!!”

“I thought you only liked Frozen.”

“Well, DUH, Frozen is my favorite, which makes it, like, the best Disney movie ever! But Disney’s awesome! There’s a bunch of other movies I like that are almost as good!”

“And Fantasia’s one of them?”

“Yeah!!…Which one is that again?”

“The one with Sorcerer Mickey?”

“Ohhhh, you’re talking about the fireworks show where he fights the dragon!”

“No, that’s Fantasmic. I’m referring to Fantasia. Came out the same year as Pinocchio? All done in hand-drawn animation…has the big devil guy at the end?”

“THAT’S where he’s from?! Geez, that’s some old movie. Why haven’t I heard about ’til now?”

“Probably because you spend twelve hours a day searching for more Frozen GIFs to reblog on your Tumblr.”

“Ooh, that reminds me! I need to go post my next batch of theories about the upcoming sequel! Toodles!!”

“Thanks. Another second with her and I would’ve bust a gasket.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Anyway, it’s no surprise Sorcerer Mickey is what people remember the most from Fantasia, and not just because he’s the company mascot. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was the reason we have the movie in the first place. It began as a pet project between Walt Disney and renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski.

“Yep. THAT Leopold.”

However, between the upscale in animation and the use of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the cost grew too high to justify the creation of only one short. Over time more sequences featuring animation set to various pieces of classical music were added in what was initially dubbed “The Concert Feature”. Later it was wisely changed to the more memorable “Fantasia”. It works not only because it’s derived from the word “fantasy”, but because “fantasia” is a term for a musical composition that doesn’t follow any strict form and leans towards improvisation. Combine the two meanings and you get the whole movie in a nutshell.

And this leads us to –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #1: “It’s SOOOOOO boring! Nobody’s talking and nothing ever happens!”

You know, few recall that decades before Warner Brothers was known as that studio that made rushed prequels to beloved fantasy franchises and a hastily cobbled together superhero universe, it had humble origins in the music business; their Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts began as music videos made to sell their records. Disney’s Silly Symphonies followed in the same vein, though they focused more on pushing the envelope in animation technique and character resonance than selling music, as did the lesser known Harman-Ising Happy Harmonies.

And if that’s the case, then Fantasia is the Thriller of animated music videos. It’s the result of years of technological advancement and trial and error, all culminating in the flawless weaving together of visuals and some of the greatest music mankind has created to tell seven stories and elicit an emotional response for each one.

Let me repeat that: FANTASIA. PREDATES. THRILLER.

“And unlike Thriller, Fantasia has the advantage of NOT being directed by a man who literally got away with murder or involving an artist whose pedophilia accusations are still discussed a decade after his passing…at least as far as we know.”

By the way, if you’re watching the current version of Fantasia that’s available, do me a favor and pause the movie to watch the original Deems Taylor intros; while they’re shorter than the ones on the blu-ray, they have Deem’s original voice. All later releases have him dubbed over by Corey Burton because the audio for these parts hasn’t held up as well over time. Now Corey Burton is a phenomenal voice actor who’s done countless work for Disney before, but there’s a problem I have with him taking over these segments: One, he and Deems sound nothing alike, and Two, he makes him sound so dry and dull. Not to mention the longer intros practically spoil everything you’re about to see whereas the cut versions give you just enough to build some intrigue for what’s to follow.

Regardless of whichever one you’re watching, Deems gives us the rundown on what Fantasia is all about and lists the three categories that the sequences fall under.

A concrete story

Clearly defined images with something of a narrative

Music and visuals that exist for its own sake

And the very first of these parts falls directly into the last one.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Johann Sebastian Bach

Some hear this tune and attribute it as stock horror music, but for me it’s the start of a grand, dark, fantastical journey through realms of the imagination. While it is intended as an organ piece, this full orchestration blows me away. Capturing the orchestra in bold hues and shadows with colors specific to certain highlighted instruments was a brilliant move, setting the stage for what’s to come.

And if the previously referenced Bugs Bunny cartoon was any indication, the real Leopold Stokowski is one of the main draws to this segment. Stokowski’s claim to fame was that he ditched the traditional conductor’s baton and used his hands to guide the orchestra. His passion and restraint is plain for all to see, even in silhouette.

Ultimately Stokowski and the orchestra fade away into the animated ether. The idea behind Toccota and Fugue was to show a gradual transformation from the conscious world to the subconscious, providing a literal and figurative representation of what you see and hear with the music. That’s why the first animated images resemble violin bows sweeping over strings. Over time those distinct objects evolve into abstract geometric shapes.

Honestly, no amount of stills can capture what it’s like to watch this sequence play out. It’s a radically unique experience, almost like a dream.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #2: “It’s the world’s first screensaver/musicalizer!”

This is something I hear often from people (ie. the people making the complaints I’ve chosen to highlight). First, read the previous Thing. Second, Toccata is not so much about recreating a story as it is capturing a feeling. And yet a story isn’t out of the question. I always saw at as glimpses of a battle of light versus dark, heaven versus hell, albeit not as overt as the opening of Fantasia 2000. That’s the beauty of this segment. It’s all up for interpretation. You can let the images and sounds wash over you as if you were dreaming it, or attach whatever meaning you find.

And on that note (ha) –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #3: “God, all these animators must have been so fucking high to come up with this shit.”

I tell ya what, if you’re one of those people who think that, take whatever drug is handy, grab some crayons or whatever you feel comfortable doodling with, and when you’re comfortably high, draw one full second of animation. That’s 24 consecutive drawings that need to flow, squash and stretch into each other realistically. It doesn’t have complicated; it can be a ball bouncing, a flower blowing in the wind, an eye blinking, but it has to work.

Not so easy, huh?

Classic Disney animators who lectured at art schools received comments like this all the time. While there were some like Fred Moore who would go for the occasional beer run on breaks, there’s no record of narcotic or alcoholic influence on the animators’ turnout. I’m pretty sure Walt would’ve fired anyone who turned in work produced while high because it’d be awful. Animation was still a fairly new medium at the time, and Disney was constantly experimenting with what it could do, which is why we got things like this, the Pink Elephants, and other delightfully trippy moments throughout the 40’s, not because of drugs. Isn’t that right, classic Disney animator Bill Tytla?

“Of course! I’ve never done drugs, and I never drink…wine.”

The Nutcracker Suite – Pyotr Illich Tchaichovsky

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Yawn. Nutcracker is SO overplayed. Of course Disney had to jump on the bandwagon with their version!”

Ironically, the extended Deems Taylor intro has him mention how nobody performs Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker; in light of its modern seasonal popularity, the sentiment is rendered archaic. True, the ballet wasn’t an initial critical hit and Tchaikovsky himself virtually disowned it, but much of its ubiquity is largely due in part to Disney adapting it for Fantasia. It eschews the title character in favor of a nature ballet portraying the cycle of seasons. Initial planning included the overture and the famous march featuring woodland critters, though they were eventually cut. Walt considered pumping scents into the theater during this part, but was unable to figure out how to do it naturally. If they had Smell-O-Vision that might work, but what scents would you have to scratch off for the other Fantasia segments? Wood resin? Wine? Wet hippo? Brimstone?

The sequence begins with The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the night a group of fairies dance like fireflies, gracing spring flowers and spiderwebs with delicately timed dewdrops.

“Any of you girls seen Tinkerbell?” “She ditched us to hang out with that obnoxious flyboy.” “Again?! That’s the third time this month!”

The scene is atmospheric with beautifully rendered pastel backgrounds. After the fairies comes The Chinese Dance performed by a group of little mushrooms. It’s a cute number, and just another that was parodied more than a few times in other cartoons – wait do those mushrooms have slant eyes? And they’re prancing around nodding like extras in The Mikado…

You fungi are lucky you’re so darn adorable otherwise I’d sic the self-righteous side of Twitter on you.

Dance of the Reed Flutes follows. Lilies gently float on to the surface of a pond before inverting themselves to resemble twirling dancers with long, flowing skirts. And since I’m not always one to take the easy route, enjoy this niche reference instead of “You Spin Me Right Round”.

A gust of wind blows the spinning lilies over a waterfall into some moody underwater caverns, where a school of unusually sultry goldfish perform the Arabian Dance.

Cleo, does Gepetto know about this?

A novel idea, using the basic swimming motions of a goldfish and their naturally diaphanous tails and fins as veils to resemble exotic dancers, though like other animated characters in a similar vein, this has led to some…”interesting” reactions from certain people.

Right, well, bubbles transition us into the penultimate movement, the Russian Dance. Thistles and orchids resembling dancers clad in traditional Russian peasant clothing spring to life in this brightly colored energetic minute. You’ll be chanting “hey!” along with it.

And finally, the Waltz of the Flowers. As a little girl I would often hold my own “ballets” to this scene, which mainly comprised of me in a ballet costume or fancy nightgown spinning around in circles for family members with this playing in the background. Top that, Baryshnikov.

Fairies similar to the ones from the beginning transform the leaves from fresh summer green to autumn orange, brown and gold. Milkweed seeds blossom forth and float through the air like waltzing ladies. This piece above all else is what really shows the beauty of nature. I feel more emotion watching the leaves pirouette in the wind than any plain live-action drama.

Fall turns into winter, and the fairies, now snow sprites, skate across a pond creating ice swirls while even more spiral down from the sky as snowflakes. The secret of animating these snowflakes was nearly lost to time. Several years ago a notebook by technician Herman Schultheis was rediscovered, revealing how many of the special effects in Disney’s early films – Fantasia in particular – were brought to life. The snowflakes were cels on spools attached to small rails from a train set that were filmed falling in stop motion and black and white, then superimposed on the final picture.

In conclusion, The Nutcracker Suite is a lovely piece of animation and music, and I’ll pop in Fantasia at Christmastime just to watch it. This was my introduction to The Nutcracker, and it’s an excellent and unique one.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Paul Dukas

The symphonic poem of the same name now gets a proper name with Mickey Mouse stepping in the title role. It’s impossible to imagine any other character in his shoes, but for a time there were other considerations.

“Nope. Too wooden.”

“Too angry.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re just too darn loud.”

As we all know, Mickey was given the part since his popularity needed a boost. He doesn’t talk here, and I know those who find his voice grating wholeheartedly embrace that fact, but what we’re given is proof that Mickey works just as well silently as he does speaking. Very few cartoon characters can pull off that kind of versatility.

And while we’re on the topic of sound, Walt was so determined for the sound quality to match what was happening on screen that he devised a system he dubbed “FantaSound”, where it would seem as though the music would move around the the theater instead of just blare out from one speaker.

You read that right. Fantasia is the movie that invented SURROUND SOUND.

But that’s not the only technological leap Fantasia is responsible for – this is the first time we see Mickey with sclera.

That’s the white of the eyes for those who don’t speak science.

Before Fantasia, Mickey had what we refer to today as “pie eyes”, a relic of the era he was created in. As the art of animation progressed, animators found it increasingly difficult to create believable expressions with two little dots. Fred Moore is responsible for the mouse’s welcome redesign. Mickey as the apprentice serves the sorcerer Yen Sid, named after his real world counterpart.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

Mickey’s craving a taste of his master’s power, so he borrows his magical cap after he goes to bed and enchants a broom to finish his work of gathering water. It’s fun and bouncy, though the part where Mickey dreams he can control the cosmos, seas and sky is something to behold.

“The power! The absolute POWER!! The universe is mine to command! To CONTROOOOOOL!!!”

But Mickey is jolted from his dream of ultimate conquest when the broom begins flooding the place. Unfortunately the sorcerer’s hat doesn’t come with a manual so Mickey doesn’t know how to turn it off. He resorts to violently chopping the broom to pieces with an axe. The animation originally called for the massacre to happen on screen, but was altered to showing it through shadows instead. I think it’s much more effective this way. The implied violence is more dramatic than what we could have gotten.

One of my favorite stylistic choices in Fantasia is what follows. The color is sucked out, drained if you will, mirroring Mickey’s exhausted emotional and physical state after committing broomslaughter. But it slowly returns as the broom’s splinters rise up and form an army of bucket-wielding drones. They overpower Mickey and catch him in a whirlpool until Yen Sid returns and parts the waters like a pissed off Moses.

“You! Shall not! SWIM!!!”

Mickey sheepishly returns the hat, and I have to give credit to the animators for the subtle touches on Yen Sid. He appears stern at first glance, but the raised eyebrow borrowed from Walt? The slight smirk at the corner of his mouth? Deep down, he’s amused by his apprentice’s shenanigans. Even the backside slap with the broom, while rendered harshly due to the sudden swell of music, is done less out of malice and more out of playfulness.

The piece ends with Mickey breaking the barriers of reality to congratulate Stokowski on a job well done.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

If you haven’t already guessed, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is easily one of my preferred sequences. It’s energetic, perfectly matches the music, and features my favorite mouse in one of his most iconic roles. I joke about the scene where Mickey controls the waves and the sky due to Disney’s far-reaching acquisitions in the past decade, but within the context of the film it’s one of the most magical moments. Some theorize that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an allegory of Walt’s journey to create Fantasia itself, and there’s some merit to it – Mickey’s always been Walt’s avatar after all, and here he dreams big only to wind up way in over his head. But you don’t need to look for coincidental parallels to enjoy this part.

Rite of Spring – Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is admittedly my least favorite part of Fantasia, though I don’t hate it by all means. Thematically it’s the furthest from the original work’s intent: instead of a pagan ritual involving a virgin sacrifice, we witness the earth’s infancy. I was never really into dinosaurs as a kid (I didn’t even see Jurassic Park until I was in fourth or fifth grade), and the thundering, threatening music put me off. I found it too long (twenty-two minutes is an eternity in child time), uninteresting, and dour compared to the other sequences, with the exception of one moment. I can appreciate it now that I’m older, though.

A solitary oboe echoes through the vast darkness of space. We soar past comets, galaxies, suns, and down into our lonely little planet still in the early stages of formation. Volcanoes cover the earth. They spew toxic gas, but their magma bubbles burst in precision with the music. Once again this is due to Herman Schultheis. He filmed a mixture of oatmeal, coffee grounds, and mud with air pushed up through a vent, and let the animators go to town on it.

The volcanoes erupt simultaneously. Lava flows and the ensuing millennia of cooling form the continents. But deep in the sea, the first protozoan life wriggles, divides, and evolves into multi-cellular organisms. One of them crawls up on to land, and finally we’re back in the time where dinosaurs weren’t just confined to zoos.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Dinosaur inaccuracies…brain melting…”

True, most of the dinosaur and plant species here never shared the same period of existence, but try telling that to the animation studio or John Hammond. They mostly went for whatever looked cool and prehistoric regardless of scientific accuracy. Some of the designs themselves are a bit off, but the animators did their best considering how much we knew about the creatures in the 30’s and 40’s. Heck, we’ve only recently discovered that most dinosaurs were covered with feathers or fur, and I don’t see anyone harping on Jurassic Park for omitting that detail. Thank God Steven Spielberg doesn’t harbor George Lucas’ affinity for reworking his past movies with extra CGI.

Believe it or not, this scene was once considered the height of accurate dinosaur depictions on film, because nobody else had done it before with this level of research and care in animation. Without Rite Of Spring, we wouldn’t have The Land Before Time or Jurassic Park in the first place. Look at Land Before Time’s bleak, orangey atmosphere and the Sharptooth fights and tell me this didn’t influence it in any way.

The dinosaurs themselves have little character and, while fascinating to see how they might have lived, are not particularly engaging. Until…

Yes, when the king of all dinosaurs makes his entrance, bringing a thunderstorm along with him no less, all the others are wise to run and hide from him. I would hide under a quilt but still peek through the holes in awe. He snaps about throwing his weight around, but when it goes toe to toe with a stegosaurus? That’s when things get real.

This battle, by the way, is animated by Woolie Reitherman, who had a knack for bringing gargantuan characters to life. He was responsible for animating Monstro in Pinocchio, and was behind Maleficent’s dragon form in Sleeping Beauty.

Though what follows is far from triumphant. The earth has become a hot, barren wasteland. The dinosaurs trudge through deserts and tar pits, their fruitless search for water turning into a slow death march. Not even the mighty T-Rex can survive this.

California: present day.

Some time later, the dinosaurs are all gone. Only their bones bleaching in the sun remain. Without warning, a massive earthquake hits and the seas flood through, washing away the remains of the old prehistoric world. The sequence comes full circle as the lonely oboe plays over a solar eclipse, which sets on an earth ready to step into the next stage of life.

If Walt had his way, the segment would have continued with the evolution of man and ended on a triumphant note with the discovery of fire, but he was worried about the possible backlash from zealous creationists. And I don’t blame him for wanting to avoid a confrontation with that crowd.

“It’s bad enough he makes a mouse act like a people with his dadgum pencil sorcery, but propagandizin’ evil-loution in mah Saturday mornin’ toon box? That’s just plum un-okkily-dokkily!”

“…You wouldn’t happen to have a dictionary on hand, would you?”

“DICTIONARIES ARE THE DEVIL’S BOOSTER SEAT!!”

Subsequently, those edits made to Stravinsky’s score pissed off the composer so much that he considered suing Disney for tampering with his work. He opted not to, yet the experience turned him off animation for good. A crying shame; Stravinsky, apart from being the only classical composer alive to see his work made part of a Fantasia feature, was excited to work with Walt. The two deeply respected and recognized each other as artists ahead of their time. Who knows what else could have come from their collaboration if things ended better?

With that knowledge, it makes sense that one of Stravinsky’s most famous pieces, the Firebird Suite, was included in Fantasia 2000: perhaps on some level Disney wanted to apologize for how the finale of Rite of Spring was mishandled by making Firebird the grand finale (though knowing Stravinsky he would have hated the little changes made to his music there as well).

Following the intermission, the orchestra reconvenes and has a fun little jam session. Deems Taylor takes a moment to introduce us to the most important – but rarely seen – figure that makes Fantasia and most music in movies possible, The Soundtrack.

Once again, Disney does what it does best and anthropomorphizes what no one thought was possible. Think about it: giving personalities to animals is one thing, but they’ve successfully done the same for plants, planes, houses, hats, and here, sound itself. It may seem silly and out of place, but I think it’s brilliant and charming. The visuals it creates to represent different instruments are perfectly matched; some of them harken back to Toccata and Fugue. This, combined with the improv from the orchestra, is a good way to ease us back into comfort after the harshness of Rite of Spring.

Pastoral Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven

There’s a famous story about Walt Disney while he was pitching this segment. When met with complaints that it wasn’t working, he cried out This’ll MAKE Beethoven!” In a way, he was right. This was the very first piece of Beethoven I ever heard, even before the famous “da da da DUUUUUN” of Symphony #5. And as far as I know, it was for a good many Disney fans too. We still get a romantic depiction of the countryside as was the composer’s intent, but instead of an rural utopia, we see the Fields of Elysium at the foot of Mount Olympus. It’s home to a variety of mythical creatures from the golden age of Greece: fauns, unicorns, cherubs, centaurs and Pegasi.

If there was ever a Disney world I wanted to spend a day in, this would be it. It’s so innocent, laidback and colorful; it takes me right back to my childhood. A great portion of this sequence was used in my favorite music video in the Simply Mad About the Mouse anthology album, “Zip A Dee Doo Dah” sung by Ric Ocasek from The Cars. Whether that was my favorite because it featured Pastoral Symphony or Pastoral Symphony was my favorite because it was featured in the video I don’t know. There’s nothing that could ever destroy it for –

Oh son of a…

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #5: “RACIST. FUCKING. CENTAUR. EQUALS. RACIST. DISNEY… RACIST!!!”

Yes ladies and gents, that image is real. Meet Sunflower (or Otika, I’m not sure which one she is) one of the the censored centaurettes (for very obvious reasons). I’m of two minds when it comes to their inclusion. First off, yes, they’re crude and demeaning blackface caricatures that have no place in a Disney movie, let alone one of the best ones and in one of my favorite sequences. But my inner art/film historian that despises censorship feels that erasing these depictions is the same as pretending they and other prejudices of the time never existed.

Thank you, Warner Bros.

As time and the civil rights movement marched on, all traces of the Sunflower squad were removed from later releases of Fantasia. The downside to that was editing techniques at the time weren’t as high-tech as they are today; I was lucky to see a film print of Fantasia at the Museum of Modern Art in 2015 that must have dated as far back as the ’60s because she wasn’t there, but the cuts were very noticeable. Sad to say the amazing remastered tracks done by Irwin Kostal in the 80’s used a similar print because the shift in the music is very jarring at points in this segment. It wasn’t until Fantasia’s 50th anniversary that they were able to zoom in and crop the scenes that had Sunflower in them while recycling other pieces of animation over parts where they couldn’t get rid of her, eventually managing to digitally erase her from some of the film entirely (look carefully at the part where the red carpet is being rolled out for Bacchus on the blu-ray. Unless he got it from the Cave of Wonders, carpets normally don’t roll themselves…)

I completely understand the reasoning behind Sunflower’s removal, but can also see why animation aficionados would try to pressure Disney into bringing her back with each new re-release for Fantasia, possibly with one of those great Leonard Maltin intros putting everything into context like in the tragically out-of-print Disney Treasures dvds – though the chances of that happening are as likely as Song of the South being made public again (the Disney+ promo should have made that clearer when they claimed Disney’s entire back catalogue would be available for streaming, but I doubt the tag line “We have everything except Song of the South” would hook people). It’s an issue I’m very torn on. So if there was ever a chance that a version of Fantasia with a restored Sunflower was possible, either through Disney themselves or fan edits, my thoughts on it would be a very resounding…

The first movement of the symphony is “Awakening of Pleasant Feelings upon Arriving in the Country”, and this part does just that. As the sun rises and we get our first glimpse of the technicolor fantasyland. Pan flute-playing fauns and unicorns frolic with each other while a herd of Pegasi take to the sky. Again, going back to other notable movies taking cues from Fantasia, Ray Harryhausen carefully studied the movement of the Pegasi here when creating his stop-motion Pegasus for Clash of the Titans. They canter through the air as they would on land, but in the water they move with the grace of a swan.

And look at the little baby ones, they’re just too cute!

The second movement, “Scene by the Brook”, takes place exactly where you think it does. A group of female centaurs, named “centaurettes” by the animators, doll themselves up with the help of some cupids (and the aforementioned Sunflower) in preparation for mating season.

“”I used to like the centaurettes not just because they were pretty but because each of them having different colors could be interpreted as women of all colors hanging out together and finding love. But no, having Sunflower there confirms that they’re all supposed to be lighter-skinned ladies. Racism given context makes it no less of a pain in the ass.”

The male centaurs arrive and hook up with their conveniently color-matching counterparts. The cherubs help set the mood for their flirting interludes until they discover two shy, lonely centaurs (Brudus and Melinda, because I’m that big of a Disney nerd that I know their actual names) who haven’t found each other yet. They lure them to a grove with some flute music a la The Pied Piper and it’s love at first sight.

One of my favorite details throughout the Pastoral Symphony is that we keep coming back to Brudus and Melinda. They’re a cute couple, one of the closest things we have to main characters in this sequence, and it’s nice to follow them.

Our third movement is “Peasants’ Merrymaking”. The centaur brigade prepare an overflowing vat of wine for Bacchus, god of booze and merrymaking. Bacchus, forever tipsy, arrives backed up by some black zebra centaurettes serving him. Maybe they were considered attractive enough to avoid being censored.

The bacchanalia is in full swing with everyone dancing and getting loaded. But Zeus, who appears more sinister than Laurence Olivier or his future Disney counterpart, crashes the party with a big thunderstorm. I used to think he was a jerk for endangering his subjects just for kicks, but in light of recent revelations maybe he had ulterior motives.

“Feel the wrath of the thunder god, you fucking racists!”

“Come on, dad, you used to be fun! Where’s the Zeus turns into a cow to pick up chicks?!”

“He grew up. Maybe you should too, son. Now EAT LIGHNING!”

“The Storm”, our fourth movement, provides some stunning imagery against the torrential backdrop, from the centaurs being called to shelter to the pegasus mother braving the gale to rescue her baby.

Ultimately Zeus grows tired and turns in for the night, ending the storm. Iris, goddess of the rainbow, emerges and leaves her technicolor trail across the sky. The creatures revel in the effects it has on their surroundings, then gather on a hill to watch the sunset, driven by Apollo and his chariot. Everyone settles in to sleep, and Artemis, hunting goddess of the moon, shoots an comet across the sky like an arrow that fills the sky with twinkling stars.

Pastoral Symphony was the one part of Fantasia that always received the most derision from critics, but racist characters aside I simply don’t get the hate for it. It may be longer than Rite of Spring but feels nowhere near as drawn out. I love the colors, characters, and the calm, bucolic fantasy world it creates. This was my first exposure to Beethoven and the world of Greek mythology and I still hold plenty of nostalgia for it. I admit it’s not perfect, and not just for the reason you think. Out of all the Fantasia pieces, this is the one whose quality is closest to an original Disney short than a theatrical feature. It’s a bit more cartoony and there’s some notable errors, particularly when the baby Pegasi dive into the water and emerge different colors. Also, Deems and the animators flip between using the gods’ Greek and Roman names, and the stickler in me wants them to pick a mythos and stick with it. But for all it’s flaws it’s still among my very favorite Fantasia pieces and nothing can change that.

  The Dance of the Hours from the Opera “La Giaconda” – Amilcare Ponichelli

Like I said before, Disney was a master of the art of anthropomorphism. And nowhere is this more true than Dance of the Hours. Animals portray dancers symbolizing morning, noon, dusk and evening – only they’re the most unlikely ones for the job. The characters of our penultimate act are as cartoony as any you’d see in a Disney short from the era, but what puts the animation above it is the right balance of elasticity and realism. The exaggeration is on point, but there’s enough heft and weight to the animals that I can buy them being grounded in (some semblance of) reality. The animators studied professional dancers and incorporated their moves and elegance flawlessly. Half of the comedy derives from this.

The other half comes from how seriously the mock ballet is treated. We’re never informed who the dancers will be, leading anyone who hasn’t seen this before to assume they’re people. The ballet itself is a parody of the traditional pageant, but the performers carry on with the utmost sincerity. It doubles the laughs when it comes to moments such as Ben Ali Gator trying to catch Hyacinth Hippo in a dramatic pas de deux or an elephant getting a foot stuck in one of her own bubbles as she prances around. The familiar lighthearted refrain of the dance provides wonderful contrast to the caricatures on screen, particularly if you recall its other most famous iteration beyond Fantasia.

No one ever told me Camp Grenada was this Arcadian or zoological.

Morning begins with a troupe of uppity ostriches in ballet gear waking up, exercising and helping themselves to a cornucopia of fruit for breakfast. They fight over some grapes only to lose them in a pool. Something bubbles up from beneath and the ostriches run away in terror, but it’s only the prima ballerina of the piece, Hyacinth Hippo. She prepares for the day with help from her handmaidens and dances around a bit. Then she lies down for a nap, but no sooner do her ladies in waiting leave than some playful elephants come out of hiding and dance around Hyacinth unawares.

Elephants blowing bubbles in a Disney feature…nah, it’ll never catch on.

The elephants are blown away by a gust of wind (must be a really strong breeze), and with the coming of night a sinister band of crocodiles sneak up on Hyacinth. They scatter at the sudden arrival of their leader, Prince Ben Ali Gator, who immediately falls in love with Hyacinth. Surprisingly, the feeling is mutual.

I’m calling it – first body positivity romance in a Disney flick.

The climax of the piece has the crocodiles returning to wreak havoc on the palace and pulling the ostriches, elephants, and hippos back into a frenzied dance which brings down the house.

No bones about it, Dance of the Hours is a comic masterpiece and one of Fantasia’s crowning jewels. And the moment it ended was always the signal for younger me to stop the tape and rewind it to the beginning, due to what follows making a complete and terrifying 180…

Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky / Ave Maria – Franz Schubert

At last we come to our final part, two radically different classical works that blend perfectly into each other. And brother, what a note to end on.

Composer Modest Mussorgsky passed away before completing his masterwork “Night on the Bare Mountain”, a tonal poem depicting a witches’ sabbath from Slavic mythology. His friend, the great Rimsky-Korsakov, finished it for him while adding his own personal touch. The result is some of the most iconic and terrifying music ever created, and the accompanying animation, with the exception of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is the most faithful to its source material.

The scene takes place on Walpurgis Night, which is the closest thing Europe has to a real-life Summerween (those lucky so-and-so’s), on the titular mountain. The mountain’s peak opens up revealing Chernabog, the Slavic deity of darkness.

Chernabog is a masterclass in design and form. It’s easy to mistake him for Satan himself – Walt Disney and Deems Taylor both refer to him as such – though considering he’s technically Slavic Satan, there’s not too big a distinction. Chernabog radiates power, terror and pure darkness from his intro alone. You can imagine him influencing all other Disney villains to do his will, essentially filling in the horned one’s hooves. Chernabog was skillfully handled by Bill Tylta, an early Disney animator with enough talent to create characters as diverse as Stromboli and Dumbo. Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula, posed for reference pictures in the early design stages, though Tylta ultimately discarded them in favor of some different inspiration – sequence director Wilfred Jackson as model, and Tytla’s own Czech heritage. He grew up with folktales of Chernabog, which served him well during the production.

“Soon, master. The one known as Jackson shall take up your mantle and we shall feast upon humanity yet again.”

Chernabog unleashes his might on to the sleeping village below and raises the dead from the cemetery. A cabal of witches, wraiths and demons gallop on the wind and take part in his infernal revelry. Yet they are but playthings to the evil being. He transforms the creatures into alluring sirens and wretched beasts, sics harpies on them, condemns them to the flames, and lustfully embraces the hellish blaze. It’s an in your face pageantry of pure malevolence that you can’t look away from

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #6: “This is too scary for kids!! What the hell were they thinking?!”

I think it’s time we made one thing clear: Fantasia was NOT made for children – or to be more accurate, not EXCLUSIVELY for children. While Disney movies are made to be enjoyed by both kids and adults, Fantasia is the only one who dared to appeal to a more mature audience, and Night on Bald Mountain is proof of that. It had the audacity to explore some of the most darkest, ancient depictions of evil in a way that no Disney feature has before or since. Most importantly, it’s not done for shock value like any random horror movie you could name. It’s meant to show the juxtaposition between the darkest depravity and purest good; combined with Ave Maria it makes for the perfect symbolic climax to Fantasia. Light versus darkness, chaos versus order, life versus death, profane versus sacred, and the quest to master them all are the themes that unify the seemingly disparate sequences, and this finale is the apotheosis of that.

I stated in my Mickey’s Christmas Carol review that Bald Mountain was one of my first introductions to the concept of eternal damnation at the tender age of…I wanna say four, five? It was easily one of the most petrifying things from my childhood, but at least I could avoid some exposure to it thanks to its position at the very end. Though now I adore Night on Bald Mountain for how bold and striking it is. Tytla’s animation, Kay Nielsen’s stunning demon designs, and Schultheis’ effects culminate in harmonious diabolical artwork that’s impossible to extricate from the music. It’s a shame Schultheis left the studio after Fantasia. He met a mysterious, tragic end in Guatemala, right around the time Bill Tytla left too as a matter of fact…

“He knew too much…about the secrets of animation, I mean. Nothing at all about das vampyr walking the earth. No sir.”

Yet at the height of his power, one thing stops Chernabog cold – the sound of church bells. Disney historian John Culhane saw Fantasia during its original theatrical run (lucky so and so…) and he recalled how much having FantaSound affected his screening: when the bells rang, he could hear them coming from the back of the theater and slowly course their way up front as their power grew. It was an awe-inspiring moment that took the Bald Mountain experience one step further into reality.

The bells and the rising sun drive Chernabog and his minions back into the mountain and the restless spirits return to their graves. In the misty morning a procession of pilgrims glides through the woods like a parade of tiny lights, and thus the Ave Maria begins. It’s one of the rare times Disney has gone overtly Christian. Maybe Walt wanted to get back into the God-fearing American public’s good graces after the sorcery, paganism, devil worship and evolution theory we’ve witnessed in the past hour and fifty minutes. It does relieve the tension from the previous turn of events.

The first pitch had the march enter a cathedral, but Walt didn’t believe recreating something people can already see in Europe. So instead they move through a forest with trees and natural rock formations resembling the Gothic architecture of a cathedral. It’s the stronger choice in my opinion. The implication speaks greater volumes than a specific location, subtly connecting nature to the divine. It’s difficult to make out most of the hymn’s words, but regardless it sounds beautiful, especially those final triumphant notes as the sky lights up over a view of the verdant hilltops.

“When the sun hits that ridge just right, these hills sing.”

And with that, Fantasia comes to a close.

Really, what else can I say about it at this point. I keep forgetting this movie came out in 1940. It’s virtually timeless, and a must-see for anyone who loves animation and classic film and wants to jump into either one.

Fantasia was a critical and box office success…sort of. Despite the praise and high box office returns for the time, it sadly wasn’t enough to make up for the cost of putting it all together. Like Pinocchio before it, the war cut off any foreign revenue. And not every theater was willing or able to shell out for that nifty surround sound so the effects were lost on most people. Then there’s the audience response, which is the most depressing of all. The casual moviegoers still viewed Walt as the guy behind those wacky mouse cartoons and called him out for being a pretentious snob, while the highbrow intellectuals accused Walt of debasing classical music by shackling it to animation. The poor guy just couldn’t win.

Fantasia marked the end of an era. Never again would Walt attempt a feature so ambitious. His plans of making Fantasia a recurring series, with old segments regularly swapped out for new ones, would not be seen in his lifetime. There’s been the occasional copycat (Allegra non troppo), a handful of spiritual successors (Make Mine Music, Yellow Submarine), and of course the sequel which I’m sure I’ll get to eventually, but through it all, there is only one Fantasia. And no amount of my ramblings can hope to measure up to it. Fantasia is one of those movies you simply have to experience for yourself, preferably on the biggest screen available with a top of the line sound system. I know it’s a cliche for Internet critics to name this as their favorite animated Disney movie, but…yes, it’s mine too. It opened a door to a world of culture and art at a young age. The power of animation is on full display, and it’s affected the way I look at the medium forever. Fantasia was, and still is, a film ahead of its time.

Thank you for reading. I hope you can understand why this review took me nearly three months! If you enjoyed this, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patreon supporters get perks such as extra votes and adding movies of their choice to the Shelf. If I can get to $100, I can go back to making weekly tv show reviews. Right now I’m halfway there! Special thanks to Amelia Jones and Gordhan Ranaj for their contributions.

You can vote for whatever movie you want me to look at next by leaving it in the comments or emailing me at upontheshelfshow@gmail.com. Remember, unless you’re a Patreon supporter, you can only vote once a month. The list of movies available to vote for are under “What’s On the Shelf”.

Artwork by Charles Moss. Certain screencaps courtesy of animationscreencaps.com.

To learn more about Fantasia, I highly recommend both John Culhane’s perennial book on the film and The Lost Notebook by John Canemaker, which reveals the long-lost special effects secrets which made Fantasia look so magical.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be spending the rest of the month with my handy dandy garlic, stake and crucifix and pray Bill Tytla doesn’t visit me this Walpurgis Night. I suggest you do the same.

March Review: Fantasia (1940) And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney's original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it's one I'm both anticipating and dreading.

[das-boog]

I had an idea for a battle-monster setting where instead of being divided up by an elemental type (fire, water, dragon, etc) monsters were categorized by genre. B-movies have an advantage over Modern Scifi due to their solid rubber bodies being hardier than CGI, whereas Fantasy creatures get a fascination effect against Art Flick Metaphor Puppets. Wrote a drabble for it below.

———

When I was told I’d be conducting an interview with the local MonsTactics champion, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Certainly not the woman I’d been handed a photo of; tiny Anzu Goda, in a prim pantsuit, all professional smiles as she held up a tournament trophy alongside two other well known monster breeders clapping politely. Besides the artificial-plastic-orange hair she looked like she could be any other professional athlete, a far cry from the bombastic personae she had in the arena.

That was to be expected though; most breeders prestigious enough to have their own dojo were expected to be larger-than-life personalities. A career MonsTactician had a lot of expenses, and winning battles could often come a far second to selling merchandise. Ms. Goda was known to be more committed to the keyfabe of her profession than most, and I hoped for the chance to crack through that gaudy, vaudeville exterior to show people the REAL Anzu.

Driving up to her dojo, however, I felt the hubris of that expectation settle on me like a lead blanket. Ms. Goda’s flagship dojo, Milktooth Hall, is an imposing edifice miles into the mountains outside of town. Formerly an asylum, Milktooth’s imposing bulk of gothic architecture, wrought iron and apparently unfinished renovations did not exactly give off a welcoming, homey vibe. While the main building looked largely livable, from the road I could see shattered windows and missing shingles on the upper floor, and another house on the grounds that looked like it had suffered a recent fire. Even already knowing her reputation, the structure was intimidating, and I felt it was nearly instinct that made me check my phone’s reception and my pocket for mace before stepping out of the car.

So braced was I for some sort of danger that it was almost a relief when, at my touch, the door creaked open on its own to pitch blackness. It was too blatant for me to keep taking seriously, she had to be messing with me. Repeating that to myself until it was convincing, I walked into the house.

The foyer opened into a largely unaltered reception area for the asylum. Wooden benches had been replaced with plastic seats bolted to the ground and the floors replaced with linoleum the color of curdled milk. Lights seemed broken or flickering at random. I was the only person there. This was all, again, expected decor for the famed MonsTactician Goda, but I was surprised that I was the only person in the room. Had she been told I was coming? Image was one thing, but certainly Milktooth Hall had to have other staff? Battlers being trained, monster wranglers, classes, accountants, clerks, something? Even Black Jacobs, who raised monsters found at the unexplored sections of maps, kept local offices in his port of call to handle business. But besides the buzz of the neon lights and the odd distant creak or snap of the building settling there was nothing. After a few minutes alone and confused I made up my mind to search the building and opened the first door to my right.

This is how I met her, standing stock-still just behind the door, not showing so much as a flicker of shock when I shrieked in surprise an inch from her face. The beloved, bellicose, Bloodsplatter Tactician, Anzu Goda.

She was wearing the costume she had on in all the major tournament photo-ops, faux-leather strips and resin-faked metal scraps covered in fake bloodstains and artistically draped rags. The outfit was ramshackle mess faked perfectly around superhero sleekness. I was briefly disappointed. If she was meeting me the same way she met her battle opponents, then this might be just another promotion opportunity.

“You are… From the magazine.” She giggled, true to her stage presence as ever. Unblinking, mad grin, movements just a little bit too fluid. A performance cultivated by a slew of dance instructors, acting trainers and psychologists whose careers Anzu had made very, very prestigious. I tried not to let my judgment show.

“Yes. Ms. Goda, MonTactics Monthly. I’m Ezra, Ezra Goodfellow? I believe I spoke to your agent on the phone?”

“Yes I… Recall.” She froze and then whirled away from me, fake metal pieces clattering in my face as she made a 540 degree turn away from me. “This way, to down the hall! Everything will be clear there!” She giggled again, “We’re going to have so much FUN!”

I followed and tried not to audibly groan. Ms. Goda skipped ahead, pixielike, in my own opinion probably a bit too much so for a woman just entering her thirties. Lights began to click off at random. “This way, this way!” Another flash of the mad grin and a ballet twirl around a bend, out of my sight. “We’re almost to my favorite place! My favorite place in the whole building!”

Her voice was still echoing, like from the bottom of a well, when I rounded the corner and found her gone.

I was understandably frustrated; I’d naively hoped my status as a professional would’ve spared me this funhouse nonsense and, to be honest, the whole thing was getting to me. Not the building itself, although it certainly didn’t help; As we’d gone deeper in rusted pipes began to drip unidentifiable brown-red substances down the walls, tiling was missing, and the lights just seemed to get worse and worse as I went. It was how clearly manufactured it all was. The hokiness of the whole thing, right down to the dye in her hair. Something glass, a small bottle or vial, cracked under my foot and I cursed. I’d be lucky to leave this place without tetanus.

I have no idea how long I wandered, but it was more than long enough for my irritation to take root and ferment into a constant low-grade tension. The whole first floor of the building seemed like an endless maze of crisscrossing halls, and more than once I turned back toward what I was CERTAIN should be the lobby just to find more carefully-ruined medical offices and creatively stained wards. Eventually at intersections I would just turn the first way I heard a sound down, a distant giggle or a scratch. I briefly considered calling my editor for help but, true to form, my phone had already died.

It was in this high-strung, exhausted mood that I met Anzu Goda again, standing backlit in front of the door to what appeared to be an administrative office. “Ms. Goda!” Decorum long forgotten, I broke into a half-jog. “Ms. Goda please, I-I get it, we just-“

“Do you know what you are here for, Ezra… Goodfellow.” Sillouetted in the doorframe I couldn’t see her expression, but even so it felt like her gaze bore right through me. An air duct banged and dented overhead, something crawling inside!

“Yes the- the INTERVIEW dammit just let me do my fucking job-!” Professionalism abandoned, I broke into a sprint. My shirt had come untucked. Sweat stained my collar. I was grabbing her arms, shouting, shaking,  “Just let me know where we can actually sit DOWN and-!” The vent banged again. Something in it. I looked up at the vent. Wrong! Too late! Something screaming from BELOW me, bursting out of the tiles (loose, shitty linoleum, easily peeled up.) I feel back, flailing, screaming, crying-!

And… So did Ms. Goda. Some pale, bruised, almost translucent-fleshed THING had burst from the ground and was standing over her, shrieking, and tears were running down her face. Just two, around a wide mouth that stretched and contorted her cheeks so the tears ran zigzags. Her scream lasted longer than mine. It lasted longer than the monsters… And slowly faded to peals of laughter as she threw her arms around our assailant.

“Oh that was WONDERFUL Humphrey! Oh who’s my jumpy boy, who’s my loud jumpy BOY!” The creature- soft, eyeless, its fishbelly flesh mottled with random oozing bruises- made another small shriek followed by heavy wheezing and panting as it’s tongue lolled over its almost-human teeth, flopping randomly like a slug exploring. It had hooks for hands, and clammy skin pulled tight over bestial musculature and bones. At its full height it came up to Ms. Goda’s chest, and walked with a pronounced hunch. It headbutted her shoulder twice in catlike affection. Ms. Goda turned to me with another of her signature grins. “All the vents, pipes, secret passages and crawlspaces in the building intersect here, so this is the spot I picked for my office. Any of my rowdy little guys can come surprise me at any time. It’s my favorite place in the whole building!”

The office was comparatively more brightly lit, although I noticed there was still a slight flickering problem. I was soon sipping tea in a large comfortable chair while Ms. Goda ushered a few more Monsters into the room, casually pointing out where I could charge my phone (Humphrey had, out of a desire to “play” with me, apparently drained the battery. “He was probably stalking you about a half an hour,” She added conversationally). Her creatures (or, as she referred to them, “rowdy boys”) mostly kept on a large, thick shag carpet where they would stalk the perimeter, groom themselves with their tongues or rusted-looking blades, or get into brief and terrifying scuffles while we were at the other end of the room. The sole exception was a gaunt creature with what appeared to be a metal cylinder for a head, which set down a large butcher knife to crawl across the room and lay its not-head in my hosts lap. She patted it absentmindedly as we spoke.

“Sorry about all that… you seem pretty wiped out!” Her voice remained just as chirpy and sing-song as it had been when I first encountered her but I was starting to believe that might just naturally be who she was, ellipses and all. “That might’ve got a little out of hand. I was hoping to show off the unique… charm, I guess? Charm and beauty of my lil’ guys here.”

“I mean they made an impression. Humphrey was… Very intimidating. I’m sure he’s a terror in the arena.” I mentally went over the recent tournaments Anzu Goda had been in. I might’ve seen Humphrey deployed in the Hugo Arena in Heorot, exactly once, but I wasn’t sure.

“Hm? Oh sure that too, he’s an Aughts Greenscreen, little bit MacFarlene Slasher and Western Jumper mix. TECHNICALLY a vampire. See the hooks?”

“Yes, I remember now, he used those to bring down a Kelpie being fielded by the Heorot champion, Liana Monteblanc. Would you say then that that was your reason for using a mutt rather than a purebred-“

“Would you like to pet him?”

I froze. For most of these interviews a Tactician would parade out a few of their most prized or crowd-pleasing creatures for some photo ops, I’d never been encouraged to actually interact with one beyond throwing a target for it to chase or cajoling it into roaring for the camera. Besides a tank of Slithy Toves I’d kept when I was little and my mother’s loud, squawking Phoenix I’d always been more of a dog person.

“Would that be alright?”

“Humphrey! Come here!” The creature shambled up obediently at Ms. Goda’s beckoning, the one in her lap already shuffling away in some territorial submission display to Humphrey (Ms. Goda seemed displeased by this, but I didn’t really notice until later).

I slowly, tentatively reached out my hand, and Humphrey jerked to bite down on my wrist. I gasped and looked away, but the pain never came, and when I looked back the monster was holding my hand gently, but firmly, between its teeth. Its fat tongue squirmed between my fingers.

“Humphrey no!” Laughing, Ms. Goda placed one hand on the beasts flat face and shoved it away, making it release my hand with a wet scrape. “You’re going to want to reach out more forcefully,” she explained, demonstrating. She patted its head like a three year old would pat the head of a dog, a clumsy pantomime of affection, “Anxiety, fear, tentativeness, they zero in on that really closely. They’re incredibly empathetic creatures, even compared to most other monsters. If you seem doubtful about what you’re doing for even a moment they can tell, and the only way they know how to react to fear is to exaggerate it. Here, try again.” I did, this time imitating her rough handling, and was rewarded this time by Humphrey nuzzling my hand. Pretty soon the creature was hunched next to my chair, my arm reaching down to pat it occasionally. It felt cool and smooth, like leather with a thin layer of silly putty over it.

“Isn’t that nicer?”

“It is,” I had to admit it. I’d never seen a MonsTactician’s creatures behave so… intimately. Like something kept as someone’s pet rather than some grand incarnation of raw power. I’d stood beneath the bellies of dragons while their handlers pointed out the patterns of their scales, I’d seen pixies twinkle toxic or wish-granting glitters inches from my eyes, but casually patting the flank of this bleating, oozing horror I was cowed. My prepared questions fled me. “Do you… Do anything to get them like this? Some socialization training?”

“Oh most tacticians I’ve met are like this with their monsters in private. Some not,” Ms. Goda shrugged, “But for the most part you really cant work with any animal without some degree of empathic connection or affection, monsters are no different. I’m not surprised you cant really get at that side of them though, I didn’t really agree to this for the same reasons.” Her laugh twinkled, “I’m already rich, I don’t need to do favors for publicity.”

That rankled me a little. “That’s a little strange to hear, Ma’am. With all due respect, it seems odd that someone who doesn’t need publicity would go to the trouble of this whole performance.”

“Hm?”

“You know… Your whole battlefield schtick.” I was beginning to get frustrated again. “The abandoned haunted house, the costume, your whole mistress of horror act.”

“What?” She threw another mad giggle into the conversation, the way a card shark throws down a winning hand, “Ezra, what about this do you think is behavior that I wouldn’t exhibit anyway?”

“Ms. Goda,” I was getting a little sick of being condescended to, not that I wasn’t earning it. “It’s well known that every inch of this building, down to the rusted clasps on your costume and the passages in the walls, are the product of teams of set designers, acting coaches, fashion designers-“

“Oh pfft yeah everyone knows THAT Ezra, god,” she waved me to silence, still laughing, “Because I want to do the thing I would do anyway WELL.” She must’ve noticed my confused expression, because she continued, “I LIKE doing this Mx. Goodfellow. There’s no ‘’trouble’ involved. I LIKE playing the mistress of horror, and I don’t hide that I’m acting.” Her hand gently massaged the base of the metal-headed monster’s neck, eliciting a thrumming tinny purr. “I mean holy smokes man, my door opened by itself like something from an October B-movie. You KNOW who I am.”

I was heartbroken. I wanted to get to the real Anzu, and she was essentially telling me that there wasn’t one. That the woman WAS a fabrication, and lived as one, and liked it that way. She grinned at me leaning back in her chair across from me, fang-caps on her teeth sharp and obvious, streaks in her thick black mascara from when she’d been crying just ten minutes ago tracing drips and zigzags down to her jaw like they’d been painted on. Maybe they had been. I sighed and got into the boilerplate questions; if she wanted this to be rote, I could do it rote and leave.

“Most famous MonsTacticians pick a genre of monster to raise, sort of as their bit. Is that why you chose Horrors, to play into this fantasy?”

“Sort of a chicken or the egg thing really. The truth is that when I first got into raising these guys I hated the idea of ever making them fight.”

“Ah, but most monsters need some degree of violence, conflict or intrigue. Even something as docile as a sphinx needs chances to ask riddles and gamble on the outcome,” I pointed out, “We’re not talking about a pet bird or a normal animal, we’re talking about something with flesh wounds for eyes and rusted fishhooks for hands. A lot of monsters are innately aggressive and need an outlet.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. No monster is innately aggressive.” Briefly, Ms. Goda’s smile took on a frozen edge. A simian display of teeth. “Monsters are reflections of us, of humans. WE’RE innately aggressive and need an outlet. We’re innately dangerous, loving, curious, most HUMANS need some degree of violence, conflict or intrigue. And monsters follow us to them. Do you want me to finish answering your question?”

“I’m sorry, do continue.”

“To fall back on stereotypes, I never really got along with other kids when I was small. My parents had a big house with a property that extended into the woods behind it, and I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time by myself.” She sat back and gripped her mug of tea in both hands, delicately, that soft thrumming anger I’d only barely glimpsed fading to reminiscence. “I was homeschooled for a long while, so I only started spending much time around other children in middle school.” She grimaced, “Bad place to start with humans, really. I honestly think we should raise the age where you’re allowed to take care of monsters a little higher than thirteen, after they stop being monsters themselves. It’s like a feedback loop. But that’s not what you’re here for.” She sipped the tea once, one hand at her jaw to preserve her makeup. “I didn’t really understand them, and they didn’t want to understand me… It felt like the results of every interaction I had with people was completely divorced from my actions. I’d tell a joke, I’d get stared at. The next time I did they laughed. The time after that someone called me an idiot. Eventually I was just… doing random things to see how they’d react. Throwing behavior at a wall to see what would stick.”

 “My parents noticed this and would try to get me to break out of my shell. They’d ask me about my classmates, invite the ones they thought I might like to our house for playdates and birthday parties and we’d go romping around the woods, but it still didn’t really click. They liked my toys, they liked my big house and big yard, but I was still an incomprehendable foreign being. The best I could do was mimic them.” She laughed again, twinkling, “Honestly by then it was probably a self fulfilling prophecy. I already assumed nothing I did to make real friends would work.”

“These days, a child with a monster or two can be afforded a lot of freedom. We’d go rollicking deep into the woods, with a couple kids and their monsters keeping watch for anything wild. I remember one of them had a dragon, a big fat goofy eighties-barbera lump of scales and tiny, agile wings, while the other one had some big floppy puppet of a brute that has parents had gotten to teach him his numbers and ABCs when he was little. Supposedly, they would be able to smell any other monsters coming and hustle us home if something were to go wrong.”

“So, when the other kids didn’t see what was following us, I assumed I wasn’t supposed to either and ignored it.” I remember when she got to this part I double checked that the recorder was working. There is a page in my pocket notebook where I distinctly recall writing the words ‘dark backstory???’ and circling it.

“Every glance I got of it was moving slowly, deliberately through the trees above us, gentle enough to be mistaken for just branches moving in the breeze, but it seemed to have no trouble keeping pace with four rambunctious children and their caretakers. Maybe one of the kids had brought a third monster? I heard some fae were supposed to be shy. Or maybe it was something mundane, like some… big monkey. I was twelve.” Ms. Goda chuckled, “It made sense to me.”

“We hadn’t really DECIDED we were going to the creek, Shifat just said he saw a deer there and we just sort of wandered in that direction.  Susan hated the woods though; the dragon was hers, and riding on its back had gotten her hair caught in hanging branches here and there.                “As she ran up to the waterfront to check her curls in her reflection, I saw the thing in the trees above us speed up, to keep pace with her. I almost raised my voice to shout a warning, but back then I didn’t really have the nerve.”

“I waited with this kind of dread you only experience with social anxiety as like, the look on her face went from preening to frozen fear and confusion, when she saw whatever was waiting above her reflected in the running water. And it was new to me because for once I felt like I could predict how she was reacting. Like, I knew she was about to freak out, because I understood what was prompting this.”

I tried not to salivate and wrote over ‘dark backstory???’, capitalizing it.

“It dropped from above, slower than gravity should allow. Its flesh was mottled hues of dirty pink and green, solid and warty like an armadillos shell. Its face was a cluster of human molars. Its twelve legs ended in delicate, ladylike hands that reached out to brace against the surface of the water, like it might float away without the surface tension to latch on to, with steepled fingers as it lurched its bulk, mouth first, toward Susan.”

I circled ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’ a few more times, excitedly. Ms. Goda did not appear to notice.

“We all screamed. That’s… Kind of the main point I remember. If I focus I could tell you about how her dragon pulled her back with a wheezing burble before horking a wad of flame at the thing, or about Shifat’s Puppet sweeping all of us into its hairy arms and booking it for my house. Or about Aaron’s snotty panicked face a few inches from mine or the clacking howling of the creature behind us but what really stuck with me was that… Scream. It was the first time in forever I’d done anything around anyone else that I hadn’t overthought or tried to control. I just let loose and let what I was feeling come out and everyone else did too, at the same time.”

I underlined ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’ frantically.

“I’d never really felt like I was doing something WITH others before.”

… I thought for a moment, and then crossed out ‘DARK BACKSTORY???’

“I was… Really, really used to not really being in-sync with other children. I didn’t react the same way as them… to bad news, to surprises, to new experiences or enjoyment. Everything I did around my school friends was really carefully analyzed or rehearsed in my head first because I was worried about humiliating myself, or driving people off. But I just reacted instinctively, on the same level as the other kids, without a moment of thought. And afterwards I felt great! Feeling so pent up all the time wasn’t exactly good for a preteen, one good long scream did more for my mood than all the therapy my parents could pay for.”

“I’ve heard some say fear is more of an instinct than an emotion, a defense mechanism.” I offered, “You had trouble connecting empathically, but something so basic-“

“I mean sure maybe,” Goda shook her head and took another sip of her tea, “The point was that I finally had a starting point. Fear. Surprise. Shock. There was a… a Control group that I could start from for understanding other people.”

“So what was the next step?”

“Immediately after? For a couple weeks I was in the habit of hiding in closets and cupboards and jumping out to scare my parents. So when they got fed up with that I got sent along to a new therapist, who figured that I was trying to work through my traumatic incident with the creature in the woods.”

“Something of a swing and a miss.”

“I mean hell, he wasn’t completely wrong. Just whiffed the follow-through. His first idea was exposure therapy, had me play with small therapy monsters they kept that were similar. He had a tooth fairy and a boggart that he thought would be similar. Real couple of cuties, but … Kind of missing the point. The next step was him showing me the articles about how they, y’know like, captured and relocated the thing from the woods that attacked Susan, and that DID catch my eye. Apparently it was a Bandersnatch that had been feeding off ectoplasm runoff from a local prison. When it got big enough to divide, it split into this and a few other ghoulies. It’s really fascinating, like when a Bandersnatch or a Jabberwocky or anything else of the Wunderlander family take in enough external thematic elements they just kind of swell up and SPLIT into new monsters, it’s why there’s so many-“ The topic seemed to be working Ms. Goda up and I was worried we’d lose the plot, so I tried to bring the subject of our chat back to her.

“The creature that attacked you, where was it relocated to?”

“… Uhh, a shelter.” Goda got quiet. “According to the article it was, um, slated to be destroyed.”

“Oh.”

“I guess I understood? It had attacked a child. But I feel like a lot of problems could have been avoided if they’d just moved it to the right habitat. A sunken ship or an abandoned laboratory, someone puts up a sign, maybe get a behavioral specialist in there…”

“A specialist… Like you are now?”

“A bit, yeah.” Anzu grinned, “You know, horrors are the only breed of monster whose primary means of defense or offense requires forming an empathic connection?”

“You mean like Humphrey here did earlier?” I raised an eyebrow and patted the creature with a damp ‘slap,’ “Oh yes, we bonded.” The creature wheezed and, in spite of myself, I rubbed the top of its head and cooed to it. “I’d hardly call screaming and leaping an empathic connection, Ms. Goda.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” There was that stiff, toothy smile again. The woman had some sort of direct access to the lizard-brain prey instincts of whoever she was speaking too. Her pupils pinned me to my chair like a moth to a board. I felt like I’d made myself look extraordinarily stupid to her again. “An abrupt scream can, without language, communicate intent and elicit a reaction that requires an understanding of the recipient and what they’re concerned about, but let’s disregard that. You used Humphrey as an example. Maybe you didn’t feel so close to him, but over the course of the entire time he was hunting you he had to figure out how attentive you were, how much noise he could get away with making in the vents to put you on edge without making you run for it, when to drain your phone’s battery so that you’d feel isolated, and when to bring it all home so that you’d be at your most panicked when he jumped out.”

I looked down at the monster incredulously. It was resting its head on its ankle in an awkward, folded up heap, tongue darting out to lick a scab every so often.

“He played you like a fiddle, Ezra. The instincts that make dogs play fetch are the same ones that they’d use to hunt squirrels. In the wild, the part where you were screaming, flailing and confused would have been where he’d brought the hooks out.”

Humphrey chewed on one toe. I could not find it in myself to describe the action as thoughtfully.

“The more I studied up on horrors, the better I understood what people found offputting. Did you know that there are celtic horrors, a breed of fae called The Gentry, that can completely fake a conversation with a human? They’re no more sapient than any other monster, but can give an impression of complete power with only vague, instinctive answers and precise body language? 50 people a year make bargains with them to grant wishes, and the backfire from the wishes are the Gentry’s feeding apparatus. There’s also the Eastern Haunt which, in addition to constantly emitting anxiety-inducing infrasounds, floods its prey’s den with a gas that suppresses the fight or flight response, but not the desire to act on one of them?”

“So you argue that, what, horrors understand human behavior better than other monsters?”

“I mean, I don’t want to disparage the work of my colleagues.” Ms. Goda grinned and chuckled again, hands fidgeting with each other as she spoke. I got the impression that she would, in fact, LOVE to disparage the work of her colleagues but that isn’t really my role as a journalist. Her fingers interlaced and broke away from each other quickly, like fighting crabs. “Black Jacobs once told me he sees man’s wonder for exploration reflected in the eyes of his favorite sea serpent, I’ve got no reason to disbelieve him. Rational Rick Redcliffe, the Paradox Tactician, says that his Rokos Basilisks and Laplace’s Demon make better company than most people he knows, but I kinda think that’s just because he’s really, really bad with people. I certainly do think Horrors are trying harder.”

“To understand us?”

“To empathize with us. Horror relies on emotion. Connection with an audience where you know exactly how uncomfortable to make them, and what kind of discomfort they need or want.” Anzu shrugged. “That’s what I learned from studying them, anyway. The more I learned about how Horror monsters defended themselves, the better I got at defending myself from humanity. What buttons are okay to push or lean on a bit, which ones to avoid because they’d provoke too much blowback.”

“So that’s all this then?” I gestured to the artfully delapitated building around us, “You do this to push people’s buttons.”

“Swing and a miss, Goodfellow.” Her grin was back, lightly infuriating. “I don’t do this FOR anyone. I just accepted that I’m going to push people’s buttons anyway. So I might as well pick the ones that we both get something out of.”

“Can you elaborate?”

 “I didn’t need to pull back from people, Ezra, I needed to throw myself at them with fuller force! Monsters just need presence, the chance to exist as a force upon events. PEOPLE need drama, Ezra. They need the things that they think monsters need. Violence, intrigue, they need to feel like sometimes things have high stakes! Instead of holding myself back, I let myself go off the rails. I got in people’s faces, laughed at my own jokes if nobody else was going to… I let myself be as loud and abrupt and as frantic as I needed to be, with just enough awareness and control of where I was sending things to avoid the stuff that would really hurt people. It didn’t matter if I staggered too far into discomfort as long as I veered out again right after. A good scare is followed by closure. A mess can be therapeutic, as long as it’s cleaned up. After people scream it all out, endorphins flood into the space left behind and they laugh!”

“And this got other children to like you?”

“Oh no they HATED it,” Ms. Goda gave another cackle, “For the most part. But there’s more place in a social group for an oddity than there is for someone trying and failing to fit in. I found people that appreciated who I was naturally rather than having a role in their life that needed filling. Or, maybe they just needed the role I filled naturally? Either way, things picked up.”

“It sounds like this is where you really started to come into yourself. Where the Bloodsplatter Tactician began. What did your parents think of the change?”

“They were glad I was happier, but were worried that my new habits would make life harder for me. Got me tested for aspergers syndrome, fussed over whether I’d be able to hold a job or find a husband.”

“Those sound like the sort of concerns most would buckle against.”

“I never really thought about it enough to have an opinion? My ex-wife thought it was funny as hell though.” I perked up here; Anzu’s personal life was the subject of much gossip and speculation, and there had been a rumor that her five year cohabitation with the troll-rearer Liana Monteblanc had been something more.

“I suppose you may have had some trouble getting close to others, what with your larger than life personality-“ I was rewarded by another peal of frantic, chirping laughter.

“Sure thing Ezra, that’s why so many leads in romance stories play such passive, subdued characters,” That grin was back, toothy and playful, “People need intrigue, remember? They need to be regularly overwhelmed and awed and released. That’s part of what attracts people to monsters in the first place, and it gives monsters a chance to be provided what they need.”

“I thought you said monsters don’t need violence?”

“I’m not talking about violence Ezra, I’m talking about presence. Look at Grendel, or Medusa, or Polyphemous. What they need is to be massive, to have an impact that bends circumstance around it. It reflects on humans that the best ways we can ever think about expressing that is violence. Not that it can’t work in context, but it’s part of what I want to address in my own career. Hence today’s interview.”

“It sounds like your opposition is to the very concept of Monster Battling, Ms. Goda.”

“I’m opposed to ONLY monster battling, Mx. Goodfellow, because it results in drastic misunderstanding of beautiful creatures that have been our companions at least as long as the dog, if not longer. Like look, take in Jiji here.” At this Anzu chucked the cylinder-headed monster under its, lets say chin, and ran her knuckles down its back roughly. I leaned in to peer at the creature, noting the flutelike oozing perforations on its arms and legs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you employ this one in the arena, Ms. Goda.”

            “And you won’t, he’s a rescue.”

            “Where from?”

            “My last batch of classes.”

            “Pardon?”

            “Milktooth hall is a battler dojo Ezra, I DO train people here.” Anzu giggled, a high-pitched rattling of pleasure, “A few people wanting to get into the Montactics industry sign up for classes on raising and battling monsters every year. You have to be committed, of course, we’re something of a remote locale, but for people that want it badly enough…”

            “I see.”

            “Jiji was being kept in a steel locker the trainer had bought at an auction for a dilapidated school, chosen simply for rusted aesthetic without even the slightest attention to who the prior owner had been or whether or not it had been used for any sort of sinister disappearance. The ectoplasm he was being fed was scraped entirely off of vengeance fantasies and suppressed fetishes. Jiji here was weak, malnourished, aggressive, and showed signs of wanton abuse.”

            “I mean, it is a horror Ms. Goda, I would expect that-“

            “Hence WANTON, Ezra!” Anzu launched forward out of her chair at me, Humphrey and Jiji scattering away with a spray of scabs and soft, flailing limbs. The Bloodsplatter Tactician’s arms reached out to either side of my chair and, instinctively, I tried to recoil and hide deeper in the cushions.

            The light was behind her head, casting all of her into a silhouette. Stick-thin limbs interrupted by the jagged offshoots of her costume. All I could make out were here eyes and teeth, gleaming above me.

            “Horrors aren’t just a collection of Bad Things you can funnel human grossness into and get a result, Mx. Goodfellow!” Spittle flecked my face with every other word, blowback from the unknowable world of her open and enraged maw, “Each one of these creatures is, in and of themselves, an ECOSYSTEM of emotion, experience, texture, and instinct that has to be kept BALANCED! A monster needs to be able to bend the world around it, to have presence solid enough to keep itself impacting its environment! Jiji was forced to sleep in a box, Ezra! An ugly, unhaunted box, without a scrap of history for it to soak! Forced to choke down and guzzle scraps of teenage agony without the rich nutritional value needed to develop a thematic target! How could it empathize with its prey enough to victimize it without any personal qualities of its own? What archetype is it supposed to break when it’s only disruption is good taste?! I do not train people that don’t aspire higher than running some slasher-mill to keep the new owners of the Native Animosity stocked up on disposeable ghouls!”

            She was breathing heavily. Her breath was fogging my glasses, but I almost saw a new trail making its way down the mascara on her cheek.

            I clicked my pen, awkwardly, “So you… Took Jiji?” Anzu blinked and stepped back.

            “Ezra that would be illegal as hell.”

            “I mean, you just sounded very passionate about-“

            “Could you imagine if it got out that a major MonsTactician was just stealing monsters from people that came to her for training? My career would be over.”

            “Well that’s very-“

            “I took her aside, expressed my concerns and explained to her that I was worried that she couldn’t provide what this creature needs. I told her what needed to change, and if that was too difficult I offered to take the creature off her hands and compensate her for it.”

            “Okay well that makes more-“

            “Then she got institutionalized and I cut a deal with her family instead.”

            “What?”

            “Uuuugh it was so stupid,” Ms. Goda flopped back in her chair, head rolling back like a frustrated teenager. “The girl heard what I said about history and tried to hook Jiji up directly to a psychoactive pump funneled directly off of a set of violent crime news blogs. If it had worked, her failure to dilute it with adequate metaphor could have taken years off Jiji’s lifespan, but instead the pump sprung a leak and doused her with the raw ectoplasm.”

            “Oh my god.” Anzu nodded.

            “Stage 3 Cthonic Genre Awareness. They had her taken away to St. Pratchetts, screaming about being a background character in a piece of short genre metafiction.”

            “That’s horrible!”

            “It is… But I suppose it works out for Jiji here.”

            “Cold comfort, I suppose.”

            “Is it?”

            “You don’t think so? The girl wanted to make a change, she came to you hoping to gain understanding. The fact that your advice was so misunderstood, or went so catastrophically wrong in its execution, doesn’t strike you as a little tragic?”

            “I mean, yes, of course.” Anzu’s hand fluttered and grasped, spiderlike, to the back of Jiji’s neck to resume petting. “Honestly, that might be part of what she might’ve misunderstood in the first place.”

            “How do you mean?”

            “There’s a temptation, in horror, to contextualize it as something that only happens to bad people. That we can feed them vengeance fantasies and gifts from exes and personal, unbreakable judgement,” Anzu pulled Jiji further into her lap, where it began to emit that metallic ringing purr. As she stroked its back, spines dripping some sort of green ichor rose and fell along its vertebre, careful to point away from its masters fingertips.

            “I think that’s something people do in real life a lot, too. Contextualize horrors as things that only happen to people who made some kind of moral or tactical mistake,” I hadn’t noticed it at first, but the sound of the monsters playing on the carpet had stopped. A creature like a ball of tar with nails sticking out had paused mid-wrestling with something not unlike a fanged barnacle. Both had turned their heads to stare at me.

            Humphrey had too, for that matter. When I reached out to pat his bald eyeless head again he pulled back, with a warning hiss.

            “They figure they’ll never be poor, or assaulted, or lonely, not because of any external factor but because they consider themselves ‘good’ in some abstract, unaddressed definition of the term. Pious or rational or charitable or successful or kind.” Jiji’s lower body still knelt on the floor. Anzu Goda, the Bloodsplatter Tactician, wrapped one leg around it possessively and clutched it in her arms like a child with an oversized toy. She glared at me over the top of its head, her voice trancelike.

            My phone was still charging on the desk, five feet away. It felt like a mile. I remembered what Anzu had said about monsters not needing to be violent. I also remembered that the one she’d encountered in the woods in her youth, that she had so much sympathy for, had attempted to seize a child.

            “The fact of the matter is that horror, that real meat-hook sensation you feel behind the ribs to drag out a scream, works best when you acknowledge that a perfectly good person can do everything right and still be the next…” I heard a low, rumbling wheeze from Humphrey, “… Victim.”

            Why would a reclusive celebrity agree to her first interview in years, gush about how much more closely she connected with the most aggressive breed of monster than she does with humans, and then cop to giving advice that might have gotten one of her trainees sent to an insane asylum?

            I looked down to organize my notes. My hands felt clammy and I remember hoping, briefly, that they didn’t smudge my ink. Breaking eye contact was a mistake. “W-well Ms. Goda, you’re clearly passionate about your work, I s-suppose I should ask if you have any further thoughts for our readers before-“

            Anzu Goda let out an earpiercing HOWL, and Jiji launched itself from her lap. Before it reached me my world turned sideways; some part of me that wasn’t screaming registered that Humphrey had slammed into my chair from the side. I pressed back into the cushions to keep from banging my head on the linoleum and tumbled across the floor, coming to a rest by the desk.

My phone. It should be charged by now. I scrambled to my feet, still lurching and dizzy, and grasped for my canister of mace. It took another three seconds of panicked fumbling, staring down the approaching monsters and the back of Ms. Goda’s seat, before another all-important detail bubbled to the surface of my thoughts.

            “… Did you just yell ‘Boo!’?”

            Laughter erupted from the other side of the seat. Anzu clambered up to sprawl over the back of her chair. In spite of myself, I began to laugh too. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect Humphrey to get in on it, that was way out of hand, but that was AMAZING. Are you alright?”

            “Possibly a little bruised,” I admitted, still chuckling (I wouldn’t notice until later, in my car, two perforations in my neck just below the jaw. They were healed by the time I’d gotten home, and at the time of writing this I’m pleased to observe no noticeable signs of tetanus). I hated to admit it, but Anzu had a point about how you felt after a fright. My muscles felt loose, my heart was pumping, I was incredibly relaxed. If she could bottle a good rush of fear endorphins I suspected Anzu Goda would never have to work again. Not that she’d ever willingly retire.

            “If anything aches I have ibuprofen in the top drawer of that desk and tequila in the bottom one. I hope that wasn’t too much Ezra, I’m supposed to keep them under better control than that.” Jiji and Humphrey had marched back to either side of her chair, and at this remark she reached down and pressed their heads into a lower bow with a ‘tsk’. “You two say you’re sorry, I have to go give Mx. Goodfellow the rest of their tour.”

            “You asked me for a closing statement, Ezra,” Ms. Goda went on, escorting me out of the office and locking the door behind her (I heard the sound of some of the creatures clambering back into the buildings air ducts, others scratching and whining on the other side of the wall). “Do you mind if we handle the photos the Monthly wanted while I think of a good one?”

            “You mean that whole display wasn’t it?” Anzu gave another cackle and reached up to throw an arm around my shoulders. It felt like being hugged by a rubber Halloween skeleton.

            “Mx. Goodfellow, I have to invite you over again sometime. You’re exactly my kind of stick in the mud.”

            “A perfect victim, you mean.”

            “That too. But really, I don’t think you appreciate how much you’re helping me today.” Her tone softened in a way I hadn’t heard previously. “Horrors are the most frequently misunderstood genre of monsters. I agreed to this interview to sort of… Un-demonize them in the eyes of the public, I guess? Help them get more popular, and into good homes.”

            “You un-demonized them by having them chase me around an abandoned asylum?”             “I mean I’m not magic. They demonize themselves a little.” She winked, and I noticed some of her remaining makeup clotting at the corner of her eye. “But some folks need a few demons, right?”

            The interview portion of my visit was a difficult act to follow, so Ms. Goda elected not to try. Or maybe she took showing me around the actual functionality of Milktooth Hall too seriously to ham up. Regardless, I finally got to meet some of the battlers Anzu had trained, working in the nurseries and pens for her creatures. They were a varied bunch. A man of forty with a long goatee and tattoos on his palms delicately removed a Xenophormous creature from the chest cavity of a pig and gently placed the writhing, mewling monster pup aside as he moved to the next hanging incubator. His name was Marv. He’d gotten into raising horrors as something to do after his daughter left the house. Anzu was giving him the pick of this litter for volunteering, after they’d been weaned and eaten the obligatory runt.             I also got to witness the feeding of her latest addition, an attempt at Genty/Greater Vampire crossbreeding, with the assistance of a gaggle of teenagers from one of her classes. They were taking turns swinging a ballistic gel dummy wrapped in a Kevlar vest winched to a cable at the ceiling (which Ms. Goda assured me was a standard enrichment toy most battlers gave to their monsters) into range of the things claws where it would rake the gel body to pieces, babbling gothic nonsense in iambic pentameter. Every successful strike resulted in peals of laughter from the youngsters, followed by dares to swing the next pass closer. It was actually while I was lining up the photo of the group I eventually chose to accompany this article that Anzu settled on a closing statement.

            “So far, Mx. Goodfellow, I’ve been threatened with closure seventeen times.”

            She simply dropped the sentence into the silence of me setting up my tripod so neatly, like a seltzer tablet into a glass of water, that you could mistake it for your own thought. Words bubbled forward without disturbing the surface as I lined up my shot. She spoke evenly and quietly, not looking in my direction.

            “Three times were concerned citizen groups. Two were former students. One was due to a city ordinance that, abruptly, qualified my dojo as an unlicensed slaughterhouse. Once was Rational Rick Redcliffe, although I think it was just because he wanted to prove one of his tedious ‘points.’ I don’t totally remember the others. And most don’t surprise me. I’m in the business of making people uncomfortable. 

“People have every good reason to be repelled by horror, Ezra. I don’t deny that. That same immune response that lets people recognize other people as untrustworthy is the one that leads them to the conclusion that me, my creatures, and my work doesn’t belong in the public eye or should be subject to strict, codified limits.”

            The teenagers smiles had begun to freeze. I didn’t dare take the picture. If the click of my camera interrupted Anzu I’d never forgive myself.

            “Monsters are reflections of US though, Ezra. Denying or limiting the myriad forms they can take is to deny our own nature. Being disgusted by one is like a dog looking in a mirror and getting angry at this other, similar dog. Locking these sorts of things away or shoving them into the dark parts of the world we don’t look at… That doesn’t HELP a lot of people. Some need to understand that discomfort. Some need to experience that horror in order to get their release. Some need to find their way to empathy just by this… groundwork, followed by process of elimination. Raising or handling horrors can often provide those things safely, so long as the owner can be trusted to recognize what they are.             “My hope is that these breeds will become more popular with the general populance. Not just battlers, but ordinary people that need this kind of companionship. I want to see more slasher mills shut down, I want to see more Haunts and Psychopomps go to good homes instead of ending up as scared and sickly as Jiji was when I found him. I sincerely implore your readership to look into their hearts and ask themselves… ‘do I need a good scare?’”

            Anzu Goda finally glanced in my direction and winked, grin returning like a crack in a cartoon earthquake. “How’s that for a closing statement, Mx. Goodfellow?”

            “Sounds like good press, Ms. Goda.” I replied, and took the photo.

            -Last Professional publication of Ezra Goodfellow before leaving Montactics Monthly. Present whereabouts unknown.

[frozenartscapes]

I’m going to vent so if you want to ignore this you can.

I’m pissed right now. And stressed out. And depressed. And just...ugh.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I plan to spend the summer working on building portfolio-quality work in both drawing/graphic design and photography. I’m going to be building a new blog for just that, possibly a website, and I’m signing up to Patreon as a hopeful way of making some money. The trouble is: I’m not sure I will. I have a feeling I’m not going to take off very quickly with the type of artwork I do - it’s not fanart, and at this point I’m having difficulty deciding what the style’s even going to be so I’ve just been attempting different things I used to like and nothing feels good enough to post. The photography has been turning out better but it’s taking me forever to go through the images and edit the ones I want. I know I have to do that, and I know it’s unprofessional to wait so long between shoot and post. But I just...can’t. I don’t know why but I burn out so quickly now. In the moment of the shoot I’m actually kind of excited and happy but the second I get home nothing really speaks to me and it all feels like crap. I feel like I’m lying to myself that I’ll ever make anything out of this and the longer I wait the worse I feel and then the longer I want to put it off.

I don’t want another crappy part time job. But the longer I go, with every time I need to go out and get groceries, or some kind of expense comes up, or I have to pay bills, or even taking the bus because it’s not free for students in the summer and Ottawa’s transit system is stupidly overpriced, the more worried I get. I have a lot saved up, but when I pay tuition for my next term that’s going to eat a good chunk of it. I need to buy a tripod because I don’t have one yet, and any one that’s going to actually last me is $200+. I want to go outside the city to the local small towns and provincial parks to get some shots but that means either taking the train, taking a bus, or renting a car - all of which I can’t really afford to do a lot either. And it just became clear to me that my father who lives barely 45 minutes away isn’t even willing to come pick me up to take me back to his place for the weekend so I can forget about asking him for anything. (To be clear, my mother lived about two hours away and was willing to come up to get me and then drive me home in the same day. So if she can do that I don’t see why he can’t.)

I don’t like this. At all. I feel stupid that I’m even trying this. I feel like I should just give up and see if I can find a crappy job with a stable income for the summer instead, because god knows how long it’s going to take before I even get likes from people on my non-fandom stuff. I barely get notes on my actual fandom stuff. Why should I think my original stuff will fair any better?

And the thing is: I just know I could probably be good at this if my life just wasn’t where it was right now. But I don’t have the money to change that, nor the time. Not yet. But I still need to do something this summer, and if I go back to another food service job I’m going to go fucking crazy. The two things I can see that would immediately fix my problems are: I need a car, and I need a larger place to live. Car, because I’m stuck. Trapped. I can’t leave the useless, ugly, boring as fuck suburbs of a city people only know for government and urban sprawl. I can go as far as the stupid buses take me, and any further will cost me and be entirely dependant on schedules. And apartment because, well, I sleep in my work space. My bed is about seven feet from my desk, and is actually only separated from my stove by a wall with a two-part door in it - a door I can’t use because of my bed, might I add. I barely have the space to even have my desk set up, and as a result I’ve had to sacrifice having a non-work/non-sleeping space. So all those tips about not doing work in your bed? Yeah, if I want a slightly more comfortable place besides my desk, it’s gonna be my bed. And because of the close proximity between food and sleep, I can’t use anywhere near as many art products as I used to. I used to paint, dabble with found objects sculpture, and just before we moved out of our house I was discovering resin. I would love to be able to do real art again, because as much as I love drawing painting was so much better. I miss the fumes and being able to throw paint at a canvas and not having to worry about leaving something out because my cat might walk all over it. One time I tried to stretch and gesso a canvas in here and my cat woke up from his nap to (I believe purposely) walk right across that freshly coated canvas that had no other place to be besides the floor.

I feel like I’m just being a baby. I’m sure a lot of people started out with crap like this. But whenever I try to be productive it all just goes away so fast. I think I might need to schedule a visit with my doctor, maybe get a reevaluation from the last time I was there about my depression. Because things don’t seem to be changing despite not having to worry about a shitty job. The only problem is my doctor is back in my hometown, and now my mom has moved out from there as well. I had thought initially that I’d ask my dad to drive me down and I’d crash at my sister’s for the night but now I’m not sure. It looks like another expensive ticket I really can’t afford. And I can try to find someone here but it’d be weird talking to a total stranger about my problems.

Sorry to anyone who’s actually stuck around this long. After texting with my dad my mood went from kinda-ok and almost happy with the work I did today to shit.

I’ll let you guys know when I start posting stuff online. Technically things are set up but I don’t have any images yet. Here’s hoping that will be soon. If I can get my lazy ass in gear.