#which A) does not at all sync up with the narration and B) is so distracting it actually makes it HARDER for me to read or listen along

[haledamage]

if there's one thing I hate more than an unnecessary feature, it's one that's impossible to turn off

[fromashescomephoenixes]

Beauty and the Beast?

author’s note: Howdy all! This piece is a very late contribution to Reese’s disney writing challenge! This was in celebration of their achievement of 800 followers, due to their amazing fics.  (find the other submissions here) I am so overjoyed I could have a part in this, and I wanted to say a very special congratulations to them! ( @probably-peeves) In the month it took me to write this, they’re only a couple followers off of 1000! So, go check them out and drop a follow! Without further ado, I present my first ever Remus fic!

word count: ~2000

summary: you’ve spent years admiring Remus from a far, but who could ever learn to love a beast? this fic is loosely based around beauty and the beast

warnings: lil bit angsty and a hint of language. also it switches pov’s every so often so I’ve put in the beginning of each section who’s pov it is :)

•••

(your pov)

“He’s so perfect,” I sighed thinking to myself. I would have told a friend, but- well, they all thought I was a bit odd.

I was currently seated in the great hall, glancing up from my thick book. I had just been traveling to the optimistic world of Anne Shirley, when I had been distracted out of the corner of my eye by Remus pouring himself a steaming mug of tea. I took a sip of my own mug and continued to discreetly peer over its rim towards Remus.

He was sat, as usual, beside Peter Pettigrew. Today he looked a little more tired than usual, but I figured that must have been exam season getting to him.

I returned to my book as I realised that the amount of staring I was doing was reaching a nearly creepy amount.

I was never going to tell Remus I liked him. He was perfect. And me?

I was just a beast.

•••

(Narrator pov)

“She’s so perfect,” Remus sighed for the fourth time so far that breakfast.

“Bloody hell mate, do you need me to ask her out for you?” Sirius smirked as he took a particularly suggestive bite of toast. Remus wrinkled his freckled nose.

“You know exactly why I can’t Sirius,” Remus said quietly. “Look at her!” He gazed steadily towards you, at your end of Ravenclaw’s table.

“She’s perfect, and beautiful, and smart, and-“ Remus looked so miserable in that moment that Sirius, James, and Peter were about three seconds from tackling him in a large group hug. His despair faded to resigned dismay, and he finished.

“I’m just a beast,” he shrugged sadly.

•••

(your pov)

The library cooled my heated forehead just enough to hear my own thoughts for a minute. This full moon was going to be a long one. I hated the way standing outside at this time of night made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Or the way I could smell the scent of Remus’s cologne (which I normally loved) from here- even though he was still in the great hall.

I performed another subtle cooling charm and returned to the detailed essay on the precise wand movements required for jelly leg jinxes.

“Can I take a seat?” A familiar yet unknown voice asked, motioning to a chair. I looked up to see the soft honey gold eyes of Remus gazing into mine. “Your corner of the library is so cool,” he smiled in a tired manner. It was then that I noticed the flushed tone of his cheeks.

“Of course,” I answered softly, incredibly shy around anyone- especially Remus. I swallowed my heart that was trying to escape it’s rightful place, and tried to start conversation. “Long day?” I asked gently. Remus rubbed his temples before responding:

“I guess you could say that,” the small, tired smile was back again. I pulled a small mint leaf out of my tiny container.

“I find mint always calms me down,” I popped a leaf into my own mouth, and handed him one.

I turned back to my work and managed to write another line before I was distracted by a slight rustling noise. Another affect of the full moon... heightened senses. I glanced up to see Remus digging through his satchel bag for something. Triumphant, he pulled out a bar of Honeydukes chocolate.

•••

(Narrator pov)

“Oi, Prongs,” James glanced up as Sirius’s hard elbow hit his side. “He finally got the courage to sit with her!” Sirius had a gleeful grin on his face. James’s face lit up as well and he quickly got  Peter’s attention. Peter let out a soft round of applause and gave a watery smile.

"Well, I ought to go help-" Sirius stood up to go talk to Remus, but James promptly yanked him back by his coller.

"You tosser! You'd make it worse!" James chuckled slightly, and they all resumed their studious work.

•••

(Remus’s pov)

I held up the bar and raised an eyebrow slightly. “Would you like any?” I held the chocolate towards her. As much as I hated sharing my chocolate, it was only kind. Especially after I saw her eyes meet mine again. Anything was worth seeing those eyes again.

She nodded shyly, and I broke off a chunk of the bar and placed it into her palm. She gratefully accepted it, and resumed her rapid writing. Godric, how does anyone write that fast?

About a half hour later, I stood up to take a break. Stretching my back out, I noticed y/n gazing at me. I couldn't tell if she was judging me, or just curious. Her eyes were so focused and clear. The golden yellow eye color suited her so perfectly. She truly was beautiful.

•••

(your pov)

Remus and I had met several more times in the library since then. In the past few weeks his face had brightened up a lot from the tired look I had seen the first time he sat with me.

"Hey Remus!" I nodded as he approached our now usual spot. It was odd how he always happened to be in the library when I was. I suppose we must have similar study habits. My heart began to beat rapidly as it always did when I was nervous. Helga, at this point I should be used to talking with people.

"Good afternoon y/n," He grinned brightly and set his books down. "Any good assignments today?" I bit my lip. Would he really want to hear my raptures on the benefits I had recently discovered of sage? I decided to give it a shot and told him my recent potion experiments.

He held on to every word as I explained. I blushed, realising that for once someone actually wanted to listen to my words instead of calling me a nerd or strange.

"Thanks for letting me talk about that," I let out a small, nervous giggle.

"It's fascinating!" He responded, his eyebrows shot up. He proceeded to ask me multiple questions, and show a bit of his own knowledge by linking it to a specific charm he had read about.

After chatting for a while longer, I focused on my work again. At this point I was simply adding finishing touches to my foot long parchment. Roughly an hour later I noticed Remus's steady gaze trained on me.

"What?" I smiled softly.

"Er-" Remus paused, blushing slightly. "Well, you're-" I smiled a little wider at his stumbling around. Although I couldn't think for the life of me why he couldn't find his words. I noticed his chest rise, as he took a deep breath.

"Would you like to go to a ball with me?" He asked finally. I blushed, and grinned myself this time.

"They're holding a ball?" I hadn't heard any announcement about a ball, but I tended to zone out during meal times anyway.

"Well, you see-" Remus took another deep breath. "It would only be us."

•••

(Remus’s pov)

And that's how, like the fucking idiot I am, I ended up standing outside the room of requirement in a slightly shabby suit. Sirius had kindly advised me that I looked like a slimy salesman, and James had helped me comb my hair before sending me out the portrait hole with a pat on the back.

"You're going to crush it mate, she'll love you." James called. Sirius leaned out after him, and shouted:

"You look hot!" I felt the very tips of my ears turn red, and jogged up to the room of requirement. I glanced behind me as I fleed Sirius's compliments, just to make sure he wasn't following me.

I finally arrieved, slightly out of breath, next to the tapestry. She came around the corner slightly afterwards, and all I could do was smile. She truly was beautiful.

•••

(Your pov)

"Sorry I'm late," I blushed. Remus looked incredibly handsome, and I  I felt like all of my ability to converse had somehow disappeared. Remus kindly took my hand, and smiled. Then, just like that, my power of speech was returned.

"I had to jog here, don't worry." I laughed slightly at his admission. He held out his arm for me to take.

"Shall we?" I accepted his arm and we turned to the golden door together. It spread open right on cue, and we passed through the glowing arch. The warm yellow light reminded me of the sun, a pleasant difference to the harsh light of the moon.

The room had transformed especially for us, into a circular ballroom with high, arching walls. Gold accents and soft, creamy colored walls lit up the space, and the ceiling had tiny slivers of moonlight poking through. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle slightly, and I grasped onto Remus's arm slightly tighter to steady myself. I noticed him pause and stiffen as well, surely because of the way I had just dug my nails into his arm.

The room worked it's magic and closed the gaps in the roof, replacing them with flowery vines. I relaxed, and concentrated on thinking of a nice song to dance to.

The first few notes of a soft piano caught my ear, and I quickly realised the room was playing 'Tale as Old as Time' from Beauty and the Beast. How fitting, I thought. My beautiful Remus is here with me... a beast.

Remus placed one hand upon the small of my back, and took my other palm in his. I rested my free hand on his shoulder and let the music wash over me for a moment.

In sync, we began to glide across the floor to the soft music. I was immediately lost in the flowing and spinning, and the only thing I truly registered was the honey brown of Remus's eyes, steadily trained on my yellow toned- golden eyes. I realised as I stared that his eyes became slightly more yellow as we continued to gaze at each other. I felt my neck hair prickle again, and my cheeks flush as I felt a hint of my moon sickness. It was as if my werewolf tendencies were being amplified by Remus somehow.

My cheeks continued to flush, and we continued to dance in sync. I felt as if I was floating upon a cloud, gliding along in someone else's dream land. I was so close to Remus I could count his constellation of freckles, see the golden flecks in his, see the pinky color of his lips.

"Thank you, Remus," I whispered. I felt frozen in this moment, but I didn't mind at all.

I leaned in slightly and Remus's soft lips caught on to mine. I deepened the kiss before pulling away, the horrible truth causing my brow to furrow.

"Remus, I have to tell you something," I placed my hands on his chest as he held my waist, keeping me close against him.

"What is it my dove?" Remus frowned, and brushed a stray hair from my face.

"You can't love me!" It all became to much, I pulled away and tried to explain it all before the hot tears came streaming down my face. I felt the salty streams dash down my face, and I realised it was too late.

"I'm a werewolf," I sobbed, returning to Remus's arms despite my better judgement.

To my surprise, Remus's warm, husky laughter began to echo off of the arched wall. I weakly hit into his chest, annoyed that he was laughing. He wasn't muggle born, and his father had written a large amount of the anti-werewolf legislation that made my life living hell.

"Me too y/n," He answered, curbing his laughter. I looked into his eyes and felt the slightly woofish sides of my returning again. I hugged him even tighter.

"So we're beast and the beast?" I joked.

"Hm?" Remus's deep voice vibrated against where my forehead was tucked into his chest.

"This whole time I thought that we were Beauty and the Beast," I paused and took a deep breath. "Obviously you were Beauty," I mumbled.

"Perhaps we're both the beauty in our own way?" Remus smiled.

p.s. i’ve got another fic coming in the next few days so keep an eye out!

[wild-battlebond]

Appmon Ep15 Liveblog

The App Drivers try and get Tellermon to predict the locations of the 7 Code Appmon, and Eri and Astora duke it out over whether or not you should believe fortunes 🔮

eri’s moving on up in the world of idol-job opportunities!

eri: “tell me everything you liked about my commercial! don’t skimp on the details :) :) :)” haru: “um. ummmm. you posed good.”

filming the video with the flowers and butterflies took over half an hour... perhaps Astora is allowed a longer amount of time to film on occasion?

we’ve already seen Eri and Astora butt heads before now, but it has more of a focus in this episode (because this episode also kinda resolves that conflict). Eri is the sort to follow fortunes to the letter and let them affect her outlook and mood for the day, while Astora is the sort to take control of his own fate (which makes sense given how his entire arc is about choosing his own way to pursue his dreams)

what did tellermon tell poor tutomon...?!

it does seem like, if data collection (especially the collection of personal data) continues at the rate it currently is, you probably could get pretty accurate predictions by the year 2045...

if you wanna be ~technical~, Astora’s video should still get a lot of views since there’s probably gonna be a ton of entomologists watching his video to see the butterflies. he gets a ton of comments from entomologists asking about the type of flowers he used and stuff.

just like Gatchmon, Tellermon’s abilities are very expansive and powerful but are limited by the reaches of the internet. and in this case, limited by (presumebly) Minerva.

Rei always sounds so overly confident with his plans. “we’ve been tracking down Mienumon so we set a trap and she fell for it because i’m a genius” Rei i’m not sure you did anything, this sequence of events only seems to have happened because of the others

i’m kind of a fan of Mienumon but i don’t really know why... i guess it’s just her personality? i like ditzy-sounding antagonistic characters who are actually incredibly capable, i guess? appmon’s arc antagonists are all really good...

lol at Eri seriously considering following the fortune crowd for a split second

Tellermon’s ability set is another really interesting & cool one. her ability basically forces the predictions to come true by summoning the unlucky stuff, which is similar to how people will often allow fortunes to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

speaking of, Eri instantly lets Tellermon’s negative predictions get her down. but Astora’s refusal to let fortunes run his life re-motivates her... it’s the duality of the two’s personalities and beliefs that make them such good friends

it’s not really clear how Dosukomon’s chip became active... but it seems to have been a matter of Eri and Dosukomon’s hearts being in sync or something? personally, *points at my url* i think that kind of thing is really, really cool.

OK here’s one of the other trust-representing App Fusion I was talking about the other day. from the start, Eri and Astora’s friendship has been kinda rocky — actually, calling it a friendship might even be a bit of a stretch since the only thing they did was pester each other. their attitudes and preferences are completely different, which causes a lot of conflict. which is basically what this episode is about with following fortunes vs. not doing that. and, this episode is also about the two being able to agree to disagree and ultimately gain some respect for each other. Eri gets inspired by Astora’s carefree attitude, so when he asks if he can use Dosukomon’s chip for app linking with Mediamon, she winds up obliging. even though it’s completely off the cuff, she decides to trust Astora’s judgement — if he messes up, she can always just rescue him again. also, Eri specifically says something along the lines of “be careful with Dosukomon” ... like with Rei before, Eri seems aware that she wouldn’t be able to do much of anything if she lost Doka/Dosukomon, which is why handing over the chip is such a sign of trust

friends :)

they start the episode admonishing each other for not respectfully using each other’s names, and then end it by calling each other by nicknames... poetic cinema. & then they also kinda meet halfway on the fortune telling thing b/c they’ve grown to respect each other. Astora’s way of meeting halfway on the issue come across as a bit awkward, but it’s because he seems to have trouble expressing genuine emotions without cracking a joke or similar. if i remember right, the closest he gets to expressing those kinds of emotions earnestly is during the endgame with Musimon. (that’s not to say that Eri is the greatest at being earnest, either.)

one one hand I really like the episode’s theme of forging your own destiny, but on the other hand... they go and point out how it’s mostly women who use the app, so the episode also kinda feels a bit like “heh, check out how lame this thing that women like is”............ probably a c’nest pa deep moment.

Next time: Narrator Haru’s christmas prediction comes true and dramatic things start happening

[cinema-tv-etc]

Review: ‘The Comey Rule’ and What a Fool Believes

Showtime’s political drama is a scattered but searing picture of failed self-righteousness. By James Poniewozik   Sept. 24, 2020

The thing that James Comey will probably like best about “The Comey Rule,” if one believes its characterization of him, is that his name is in the title.

But he is not exactly the hero. He is not even, really, the star.

Comey (Jeff Daniels), the former F.B.I. director, gets more screen time than anyone else in Showtime’s two-night, three-and-a-half-hour special. But the real lead is Donald Trump (Brendan Gleeson), in the same sense that, regardless of its minutes on camera, the true lead of “Jaws” is the shark.

Given how much it rehashes recent events, albeit with a fine cast, I’m not sure what interest “The Comey Rule” will have beyond people whose copies of the Mueller Report are already well thumbed. (There’s more to be learned from “Agents of Chaos,” the chilling Alex Gibney documentary, which premiered on HBO this week, about Russia’s 2016 election influence campaign and its American enablers.)

But if you stick to the end, there is at least a lesson and a warning, if not the one that Comey — either the screen version here or the real-life one who’s become a media figure — intended.

In his book “A Higher Loyalty,” he appears to see his decisions, which very possibly swung the 2016 election and failed to keep the president from interfering in investigations, as noble if tragic acts of principle. As translated by the director and screenwriter Billy Ray, this is instead a slo-mo horror story, in which the worst lack all inhibition while the best are full of fatuous integrity.

The first half, which starts Sunday, is basically a prelude. It walks us through the role of the F.B.I. in 2015 and 2016 when it investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server — with Comey making unusual public statements that damaged her campaign — while also looking, much more quietly, into increasingly disturbing signs that Russian intelligence was out to help Trump.

The first two hours blitz through the timeline and establish key players. So many familiar faces captioned with headline names pop up — Jonathan Banks as James Clapper! Holly Hunter as Sally Yates! — that it plays like a long, stone-cold-sober episode of “Drunk History.”

Daniels is inspired casting. Physically, he resembles the real Comey somewhat in stature (the ex-director still has a few inches on him). But having played figures of high-minded duty in “The Newsroom” and “The Looming Tower,” he captures his character’s starched righteousness wholly.

This time, however, there’s an ironic spin on the character. Comey’s actual rectitude is complicated by his fixation on the appearance of rectitude, his homey decency by smugness.

His precedent-breaking decisions to speak out on Clinton’s email practices were driven by worry over how he and the bureau would look later if — in his view, when — she became president. (He writes in “A Higher Loyalty” that he assumed she’d win.)

His guess proves wrong, but the day after the election he assures his devastated wife, Patrice (Jennifer Ehle), “We’re going to be OK.” True enough for him. He lost his job but wrote a best seller.

With that self-justifying memoir as a source, Ray makes the sharp choice to make Rod Rosenstein (Scoot McNairy), the deputy attorney general who wrote the memo recommending Comey’s 2017 firing, the quasi-narrator. Rosenstein bitterly introduces Comey as a self-righteous “showboat” (though, we discover, Rosenstein has his own blind spots and failings).

This is not, however, a production out to win over MAGA viewers. (At one point, it dramatizes one of the more eye-popping accusations of the Steele dossier.) The first night, we see Donald Trump only as shot from behind, a leering hulk parting the curtain at a Miss Universe pageant and pawing at a contestant’s bikini strap. He’s like the barely glimpsed monster in the first act of a creature feature, a rough beast slouching toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s on Night 2, when President-Elect Trump emerges as a character, that the show really begins. In part, it’s simply that his crew of artless amateurs, relatives and B-list pols make for better TV. Not every portrayal works — Joe Lo Truglio as Jeff Sessions? — but it gives the proceedings a “Burn After Reading” flair.

But mostly, Gleeson kicks the program to life. Strictly as an impression, his performance is mixed. Gleeson, who is Irish, slips occasionally on the accent. But his rendering of Trump’s wandering diction is the best I’ve seen outside a lip-sync. Half his performance is in his bearing, chin jutted forward like the prow of a swollen yacht. 

More important, Gleeson has a thorough idea of his character. His Trump is not the orange-haired clown prince of “S.N.L.” and late-night talk shows. He’s a crass, heavy-breathing mobster (Comey’s comparison, and Gleeson makes the likeness vivid) driven by spite and vanity. A heavy-handed musical score portends menace whenever he turns up.

He, too, is concerned with appearances, but in a more literal way than Comey. His version of “good morning” is “I saw you on TV”; he and his staffers keep referencing his “eye for interior design.” His brassy presence in the halls of power is as much an aesthetic statement as a political one, which Ray underlines by showing a White House staffer serving him a Filet-O-Fish sandwich on a gleaming silver platter.

All the while, it gradually settles on Comey that his new boss may not be an entirely scrupulous man. Their White House dinner — the “honest loyalty” scene, for Comey buffs — takes only a few minutes, but you could imagine it as an entire movie, “Frost/Nixon” style.

It’s like an uncomfortable date with a persistent suitor. Trump, cleaning out his ice-cream dish, pushes and prods on the Russia investigation, pressing his advances. A pained Comey guards and parries, finding ways to say things that resemble what the president wants to hear.

Comey survives that battle but loses the war. “The Comey Rule” is not out to damn him. It strains itself to sympathize with his falling into one impossible position after another, and it suggests that public life might be better if everyone in it were like James Comey.

But it also shows how catastrophically inadequate he was to a world in which not everyone is like James Comey. He becomes a stand-in for an entire class of Trump-era elites who believe that respect for norms will save them. (The president “can’t fire me,” Comey tells an associate. “It’d look horrible.”)

As for Donald Trump, he’s not precisely the villain, in the show’s view. As “The Comey Rule” depicts him, he’s a creature, an appetite. He is what he is. He doesn’t know how to be otherwise.

Comey, on the other hand, is, if not a villain, then a tragic, hubristic dupe, precisely because he believes he knows better, and because he should.

“The Comey Rule” is not good drama; it’s clunky, self-serious and melodramatic. But it makes an unsparing point amid our own election season.

It says that anyone, like its subject, who complacently assumed in 2015 and 2016 that everyone would be fine, who thought that propriety and rules could constrain forces that care about neither, who worried more about appearances than consequences, was a fool.

Then it leaves you to sit with the question: What does that make anyone who still believes that today?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/arts/television/review-comey-rule.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

THE COMEY RULE Trailer (2020)

 Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump

Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleeson star as former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald J. Trump in this two-part event series that tells the story of two powerful men, whose strikingly different ethics and loyalties put them on a collision course. Watch the premiere on September 27 at 9/8c on SHOWTIME. #TheComeyRule #DonaldTrump

Brendan Gleeson portrays Trump as a crass mobster.

[jomalley-ferrisbueller-final]

A Closer Look at Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986)

The 1980s was the time of the teen film, with a number of iconic teen films coming out during that decade. One that has become a staple of the classic teen film is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986). Ferris’ legendary day off has become a dream for teens then and now still being quoted today within the halls of high schools around the country.

Bueller didn’t hit the big screen in the summer of 1986 without its fair share of long and tedious production issues. Director John Hughes took a lot of his inspiration from his own life growing up. Raised in Chicago, this city becomes the setting for a majority of his films. In fact, there are even websites that pinpoint exact locations all throughout Illinois where Hughes shot classic movies such as Bueller, The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985), and Home Alone (John Hughes, 1990). Looking at Buller specifically, a lot of aspects of the film reflect John Hughes. Ferris’s bedroom is created to look very similar to how Hughes’ room looked when he was a teenager, scenes for the film were shot in the hallways of his former high school, Glenbrook North and the character Ferris Bueller is actually based one of Hughes’ friends from his childhood with the same name. Edward McNally, a childhood friend of Hughes wrote an article for The Washington Post honoring the late director. As far as being named “the inspiration” for Bueller he is quoted as saying:

“…for years I was relentlessly pursued by a remarkably humorless Glenbrook dean about attendance, pranks and off-campus excursions -- and because my best friend was in fact named Buehler -- I've spent an inordinate amount of my life being unfairly accused of serving among the inspirations for Ferris Bueller.”

Looking at the production of the film, there were many different things that went into its creation. It only took three months to shoot the film between September 9, 1985, and November 22, 1985 which might not seem like a lot compared to how long shows or movies take to shoot today, but since a lot of their filming locations existed within miles of each other it was pretty easy to get everything shot in a short time. During the filming, John Hughes took some inspiration from Ferris on his impressive way to get the impossible done. The parade scene was shot during Chicago’s annual Von Steuben Day Parade. The float that Ferris is on was actually created for the film and was put in the parade route without the parade officials being aware of what was going on. With there being a real parade Hughes was able to get genuine footage of thousands of people enjoying a beautiful day in Chicago. When they needed to shoot more of the parade scene a week later, around 10,000 people showed up for the filming answering the call made on radio stations for extras to appear in a John Hughes film. In this scene, Ferris is featured lip-syncing the famous Beatles song “Twist and Shout” which came with its own set of issues. Paul McCarthy did not like the fact that Hughes had added the brass element to the song to make it seem as though the band was playing it at the parade. When John Hughes insisted on the Beatles song be used in the film, they ended up having to pay EMI $100,000 for the rights and allowance to change the song. While Hughes was adamant about some of the production decisions, they all proved successful in skyrocketing the film to one of the most fondly remembered films today.

The marketing for the film was very straight forward. There were a couple of articles written about the film in both the Daily News and well as The New York Times talking about the movie, giving an unbiased explanation of the film to promote it. There were also several 30-second commercials giving hints at Ferris’ crazy day off. Appealing to the teen audiences that Hughes is trying to relate to, the announcer narrates over scenes of the film saying, “it’s about life, it’s about liberty, it’s about the pursuit of recreation”. This phrasing attracts teenagers to the film because that is what they are looking for – freedom from the norm. 

Looking at the posters for the film it features many different slogans such as “One man’s struggle to take it easy”, “Because life is too beautiful a thing to waste”, “Leisure rules”, “While the rest of us were just thinking about it…Ferris borrowed a Ferrari and did it…all in a day”. Similar to the commercials, these phrases draw the teenager in because that type of thinking is really appealing to them. 

A teenager stuck in the rut of high school wants nothing more than to skip school and live out an amazing day with their best friends. This mentality is what brought teens to the theaters to live through Ferris.

The summer of 1986 saw a lot of hit films. Buller had some tough competition seeing films such as Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy, 1986), and The Karate Kid Part II (John Avildsen, 1986) all hitting theaters in 1986. In the United States and Worldwide Box offices, Bueller placed in the top 10 of both lists sitting in the number 10 spot for all 1986 films. The budget for the film was an estimated $6,000,000 and not only broke even but made money-generating $6,275,647 during their opening weekend of June 15, 1986. Bueller, made nearly all of its money from domestic box offices bringing it $70,136,369 and only $1,469 in international box offices. Looking at the reception of the film it is easy to see how it was in the top 10 films of 1986.

Roger Ebert was one of the top movie reviewers of his time up until his death in 2013 after losing an eleven-year battle with cancer. Writing reviews for The Chicago Sun-Times for over 40 years, he became the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In 1986 he gave a review of Bueller and is quoted as saying “Here is one of the most innocent movies in a long time, a sweet, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help his best friend win some self-respect.” He talks about the plot of the film and ends his review by saying “…the film's heart is in the right place, and "Ferris Bueller" is slight, whimsical and sweet.” With Ebert’s review coming out on June 11, 1986, it’s easy to see that Bueller won over the hearts of teens and adults alike wishing that they were able to have a day off like Ferris did.

The non-critical reviews of this film are all pretty similar, it is regarded as a film of the generation that holds against the test of time. On Rotten Tomatoes, of the 728,405 user ratings, the average audience score is a high 92%. One “super reviewer”, Brendan N. is quoted as saying

“Classic cult film and a must-see for all generations. John Hughes created a lot of the teenage angst or coming of age films in the 80s and Ferris was quite possibly his greatest creation. Watching this on the big screen last night was a dream come true but having a film like this remaining so timeless does not hurt. The film is full of heart and the charm of Matthew Broderick is what elevates this from becoming just your average teenage comedy. I wish they would make more fun and creative films like this; no one tackles such a fun concept without falling into clichés and crude jokes. John Hughes created something truly special here. 12/11/2018.”

Since its release in 1986, Bueller, has remained a pivotal teen film for multiple generations. In 2016, Bueller turned 30 years old and Chicago celebrated the only way they knew how to: with a Ferris Fest. People were able to visit his heavily decorated bedroom, recreate the scene where Ferris pretends to be Sloan’s father picking her up from school, and of course a recreation of the famous parade scene featuring Twist and Shout. While this is more of a high scale remembrance of the 1986 film, you can see other companies paying homage to Bueller. During the 2017 Superbowl, Dominos aired a commercial where they recreated the infamous scene of Ferris racing home to get there before his parents find out he skipped school. Stranger Things (Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, 2016—) actor Joe Keery plays Ferris but this time he is racing home because his Domino’s pizza tracker just sent a notification to his smartwatch informing him that his pizza is about to arrive. When asked about the commercial the executive vice president of creative direction at CP&B said "This being an iconic movie we knew we had to pay homage to it and not deviate, not change it and put our own kind of spin on it outside of using Joe Keery and maybe making it a modern adaptation,".

Below you can see the original scene and then Joe Keery version. 

It can be agreed that this film has been relevant way past its release date. But why is that? Frances Smith looks to understand teen films as a whole and why they become so iconic. In her book Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie: Gender, Genre, and Identity, she explores this question and more. In Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010), the main character Olivia (Emma Stone) struggles to identify with the “hook up culture” happening around her within the high school hallways. She looks to the eighties to fantasize about a better life. 

Whatever happened to chivalry? Did it only exist in Eighties movies? I want John Cusack holding a boom-box outside my window. I want to ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist in the air because he knows he got me just once. I want my life to be like an eighties movie.” (138-139) 

To this Smith says:

This voiceover and the corresponding images reference Say Anything (Cameron Crowe, 1989), Can’t Buy Me Love (Steve Rash, 1987), Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is presented for its musical number. With the exception of Sixteen Candles, all of these films center on male characters who, though cheeky, are portrayed as sexually innocent. The gestures to which Olive refers are particularly telling. Having her life ‘directed by John Hughes’ appears to involve her engaging in ostentatious courtship rituals in which the female partner is the grateful recipient of male affection, however dubious the circumstances in which it is bestowed.

Olivia dreams of having the production that teen heartthrobs would perform for their love interests. This is one reason that Bueller has remained so relevant today. No matter how the culture changes, everyone wants someone who would be willing to show the world how much they love them.

Another reason that this film has remained so relevant today is because of the underlying theme within the film is something that will never go away. The drive to find yourself and get out of your small town to explore is something that will always be a shared feeling among teenagers. In Kimberly M. Miller’s Clueless Times at the Ferris Bueller Club: A Critical Analysis of the Directional Works of Amy Heckerling and John Hughes she says 

A fine example can be found in the response to the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which received criticism for being too similar to Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), as well as “lacking in irony,”10 and yet Ferris has become ingrained in the popular culture—even being ranked number ten on Entertainment Weekly’s “Fifty Best High School Movies” list (2012),11 in addition to being quoted by teens who see Ferris as a role model of “cool” despite the nearly thirty years that have passed since he took his day off.

Teens idolize him for doing what they have always wanted to do so they are able to live through him and his amazing day off.

Overall, Hughes has delivered a number of teen films that lasted well past their release date and will continue to be relatable in the future. Bueller is the perfect example of this because its underlying themes will never go out of style. Everyone wants to be a “righteous dude” and live their lives with the carefree regard for the rules that Ferris showed us back in 1986.

[latetotherant]

Negotiating Remix Culture through Steve Oedekerk’s “Kung Pow” ••• By Lissa Heineman

In “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse”, Stuart Hall explains the three ways we consume media texts: dominant, oppositional, and negotiated modes. The dominant model upholds society’s norms. These works don’t break barriers, and often entertain and reassert hegemonic ideas . The oppositional model, as its name suggests, identifies and critiques the dominant notions. Oliver Moore notes that these readings are often met with hostility from those supportive of the dominant framework. Finally, negotiated works lie between these extremes, allowing consumers to choose to accept or reject elements of a text. This mode employs dominant performances without subscribing to them. Negotiation twists popular notions into something new and subversive, while allowing them to be consumable by those in the dominant sphere.

Steve Oedekerk’s Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002) is one of many pastiches of the kung fu genre. The film follows in the footsteps of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), and the Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1973), films famous for their own remixes (here meaning media that draws inspiration and shape from pre-existing works). Kung Pow opens with a production note: 

This motion picture contains some footage from Hu He Shuang Xing aka “Tiger & Crane Fists,” a motion picture made in Hong Kong in 1976, but the voices and soundtrack were eliminated, and new voices and soundtrack were inserted by the producers of this motion picture.

While a bit clunky, this opening does what it needed to do: the Jimmy Neutron and Barnyard creator acknowledges the work of Jimmy Wang Yu (Tiger & Crane’s director), and prefaces the remix and remediation that Tiger & Crane Fists underwent in this movie.

As described within the production note, Kung Pow is a very literal remix. Oedekerk remastered Tiger & Crane Fists: he successfully took poorly preserved footage and had it saved digitally. He then scrambled this footage, filmed himself in front of a green screen, and reshaped the film around him. The process of remastering an old film is incredibly time-consuming and expensive, and yet he did it. Why? This is emblematic of his own fanboyishness. Oedekerk replaces the hero of a film he evidently loves in a very expensive form of fanfiction. Further, as noted in the movie’s preface, the film employs gag dubbing, a controversial redubbing technique used mainly for comedy. In the film’s commentary, Oedekerk notes that when any new characters or stand-ins were inserted into the remastered Tiger and Crane Fist footage, they wouldn’t record the script’s dialogue. Instead, they’d often be filmed speaking nonsense, and then the film’s audio was post-synced once filming and editing was completed. This ultimately made the film cohesively re-dubbed, with the entire film lacking sly lip-synching. Most films look to hide any issues with editing, and it’s clear Oedekerk’s choice was an intentional part of the film’s final result. This is poignant when one recognizes that the entire process of making Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is reminiscent of the production history of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1954).

Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a heavily re-edited American adaptation, commonly referred to as an Americanization of the 1954 Japanese film Gojira. In the West, the original Gojira had initially only been shown in America in Japanese community theatres, and the re-edited version became the known Godzilla to the Western world. Gojira was a film that was made to cope with the nuclear fallout in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when it was remixed for American and other Western audiences, this plotline was entirely removed. This process is reminiscent of Kung Pow’s removal of Tiger and Crane Fists’ anti-Japanese colonization narrative. Further, this exemplifies a dominant mode of remix. The hegemonic order of American politics at the time would want a film that could create positive relations to Japan through a fun spectacle, the inclusion of an anti-American dialogue was oppositional to that structure and therefore something that was censored as it was brought Westward. One can see then, in turn, how Kung Pow! Enter the Fist intentionally mimicked the style of dubbing, which could then mock Godzilla: King of the Monsters and other re-dubbed works that remove narrative elements from their stories. This American film is often recognized as the original Godzilla, but it was actually a remix of the 1954 Gojira. In this remix, like Kung Pow, a white savior is literally superimposed into the narrative, suggesting to an unknowing Western viewer that he was in Gojira all along. Oedekerk, in Kung Pow, seems to acknowledge this historical remixing of Asian cinema. The film’s apparent self-awareness and its transparency to the audience gives the film the opportunity to be negotiatory pastiche, and, with that, instead of invoking literal meaning through its more stereotypical comedy, we instead might see the more problematic nature of such performances in mainstream media. This being said, there are then two questions: does Oedekerk take advantage of his window to perform pastiche rather than parody? And, further, why would this film’s stereotyping be more excusable than other works?

On the topic of pastiche versus parody, it is most appropriate to look at scenes from Kung Pow! Enter the Fist. The film opens on an original six-minute scene by Oedekerk that sets the tone of the film: a man, known as the Chosen One, and his sentient tongue, Tonguey, seek revenge on Master Pain, the person who murdered his family and attempted to kill him. The scene uses a CGI baby that has a powerful knack for kung-fu and seeming immortality (displayed by not dying while being flung down a steep hill). This scene explicitly presents what is to be anticipated for the rest of the 81 minute movie: this film is absurd, parodic, hyper-masculine, and hyper-violent. The cartoonish exploits paint the comedy of the work, from the CGI Tonguey to the over-the-top redubbing for the main antagonist. The film is obviously ridiculous, and everything about the over-dramatic, cliched narration and equally contrived action demands the audience to recognize that the film is absurd. There’s no denying that it absolutely is an inherently dumb film—the humor is juvenile, and often much closer to straight-up mockery than thoughtful pastiche—yet the film reveals itself as more deliberate than its surface-level silliness. Across the following scene in Kung Pow, country-rock music mixes with moments of flute-playing reminiscent of traditional kung-fu scenes. This transcultural moment highlights how Eastern and Western action cinema influences the other. Looking at Jimmy Wang Yu’s work, as well as other kung fu films and anime, one can see how American rock-n-roll has become embedded as marker of “the Chosen One” archetype; he’s a badass loner. Similarly, the Western genre plays into the same markers of the solitary hero, often with a tragic backstory.

The scene ultimately continues to an abandoned dojo where the Chosen One encounters other adversaries. The actors, all Asian, are dubbed-over in ridiculous American accents, and perform dramatic Kung-fu style moves. The fighting choreography revels in the extreme. At one point, rather than attacking the main pursuer, the Chosen One speedily tears apart a man’s black robe, resulting in the garb resembling a tasseled bikini, which causes the man, mortified, to run away whimpering. Soon after, the Chosen One literally punches a circular hole through one of his attackers’ chest, the camera peering through the maimed body to see Oedekerk’s fist retract from the man-made cavity, and we see the missing-cylindrical bulge of flesh in the background. It’s impossible not to recognize the scene’s cinematic violence and hyper-masculinity. There is contrast between Oedekerk’s clothed body and how the shirtless or stripped villains are put on display. This is one example of how the film notes that many films promote Caucasian masculinity dominating Asian masculinity. 

Narratively, Kung Pow! Enter the Fist does significantly more to perpetuate problematic Asian stereotypes than many other kung fu remixes. However, the films’ genres are considerably different. Oedekerk’s work is well defined by the term “transgressive”, meaning that the film is oppositional and deliberate in its offensiveness. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthmann wrote that “Kung Pow! is the kind of movie that's critic-proof, simply because it aims so low.” Guthmann suggests that the Oedekerk purposefully looked to disgust critics with the film’s exaggerated racism, homophobia, and misogyny. By making it “critic-proof,” Oedekerk reveals the film’s agenda, which is very different from, say, Quentin Tarantino’s art house style of taking lowbrow cinema (self-proclaimed “B-Movies”) and making it tasteful, in his duty as tastemaker. Oedekerk, instead, uses the same kinds of movies but degrades them further, making Kung Pow offensive to the taste of critics.

Despite being reviled by many critics, however, Kung Pow is a quite popular film. Despite coming out close to two decades ago, the film is still engaged by active reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon, and is still commented on in Reddit channels and on Youtube videos. Metacritic reviews from the film’s cult following reveal the movie to be, to some, “silly and creative” and “one of the funniest movies [ever]”. One fan even described the film as “unbelievabl[y] hilarious”, stating that Kung Pow’s absurdity:

“...is something to cherish. It takes masterful skill to create such comedic bliss with this spoofing style...it can be a bit childish, but most of the time, I'm laughing harder than I ever have at film... I can confidently say this was the funniest movie of the decade.” 

It becomes clear, from the film’s status as a new-age cult classic, that while Oedekerk doesn’t undermine racist representations of Asians in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, he does ultimately mock genre and notions of the importance of critical acclaim. Even racist movies many win Oscars, but that was never Oedekerk’s plan. Steve Oedekerk, unlike Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill, didn’t strive to make an art film. Rather, as he notes in film’s commentary, he sought to have fun, and, seemingly, had fulfilled making a “realization of his childhood dream to be in a martial-arts flick.” By taking over director and actor’s Jimmy Wang Yu’s role from Tiger and Crane Fist, Steve Oedekerk fulfills his own dream of being a kung-fu action hero and simultaneously embodying an Asian director. Oedekerk successfully takes over and embodies Jimmy Wang Yu, but then with that power he doesn’t replicate Asian cinema, but rather destroys it in a transgressive act of defiance against the politics of film criticism and connoisseurship. Ultimately, while Oedekerk doesn’t negotiate racist rhetoric, he does do substantial work in creating friction about what it means to be an auteur, and how his cult cinema and others’ art cinema operate deliberately and differently.

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is a screwball cult film. Oedekerk’s film commentary offers insight into the film production, describing the joy and challenges of its creation. The movie ultimately presents itself as a fan-project, rather than an auteurist work. Yet, it is this structure, as described above, that allows for Kung Pow to mimic practices of problematic remix to then develop a subtextual commentary. This commentary doesn’t undermine racist representations of Asians, but rather reveals the immature-comedy-packed film to be intelligent and aware of the history it partakes in, and use this to critique the nature and importance of “critical acclaim”.

[harrisonstories]

First off, the 2018 Mix, Take 5 Instrumental Backing Track, and Esher Demo of Back in the U.S.S.R. are now on Spotify.

Secondly, Rolling Stone just published an article noting the “15 most revelatory moments” by Rob Sheffield, who was lucky enough to be able to listen to the Super Deluxe Edition of The White Album. You can read the full article here. 

[...]  The outtakes defies the conventional wisdom that this is where the band split into four solo artists. “Do you think the perception of the Beatles history has been tainted by their own commentary in the early Seventies?” [Giles] Martin asks. “That’s what I get. I think post-Beatles, when the champagne cork has flown out of the bottle, and they’ve gone their separate ways, they reacted against it. ‘Oh, to be honest we didn’t work well as a group,’ and that sort of thing. Yet they never slowed down creatively. I quite like the idea of them throwing cups of tea at each other in the studio. I’m mildly disappointed not to find it. But what they’re doing is making a record.”

The Deluxe and Super Deluxe Editions finally unveil the Esher demos, which hardcore Beatle freaks have been clamoring to hear for years. In May 1968, just back from India, the group gathered at George’s bungalow in Esher (pronounced “Ee-sher”) to tape unplugged versions of the new songs they’d already stockpiled for the new album. Over the next days, working together or solo, they busked 27 songs. The tapes sat in a suitcase in George’s house for years. Seven tracks came out on Anthology 3; others have never been released in any Beatle version, including John’s “Child of Nature” and George’s “Sour Milk Sea.” The Esher tapes alone make this collection essential, with a fresh homemade intimacy that’s unique. Martin says, “They’re rough takes, but spiritually, the performances stand on their own.”

Here are 15 of the most revelatory moments:

1. “Revolution 1” The legendary Take 18, a nearly 11-minute jam from the first day of the White Album sessions. The other Beatles were surprised to see someone new at John’s side: Yoko Ono, who became a constant presence in the studio. It begins as the version you know from the record: John’s flubbed guitar intro, engineer Geoff Emerick’s “take two,” John’s “okaaay.” But where the original fades out, this one is just getting started. The groove builds as John keeps chanting “all right, all right,” from a low moan to a high scream. Yoko joins the band to add distorted synth feedback, while Paul clangs on piano. She recites prose poetry, fragments of which that ended up in “Revolution 9”: “It’s like being naked…if you become naked.”

The story of this jam has been told many times, usually presented as a grim scene where Yoko barges in, sowing the seeds of discord—the beginning of the end. So it’s a surprise to hear how much fun they’re all having. It ends in a fit of laughter—she nervously asks, “That’s too much?” John tells her it sounds great and Paul agrees: “Yeah, it’s wild!”

2. “Sexy Sadie” As the band warms up, George playfully sings a hook from Sgt. Pepper: “It’s getting better all the tiiiime!” John snorts. “Is it, right?” Take 3 is an acerbic version of “Sexy Sadie,” with Paul doodling on the organ. Yet despite the nasty wit, the band sounds totally in sync. When George asks, “How fast, John?,” he responds, “However you feel it.”

3. “Long, Long, Long” George’s hushed hymn has always been underrated—partly because it’s mastered way too quiet. In the fantastic Take 44, “Long, Long, Long” comes alive as a duet between George and Ringo, with the drums crashing in dialogue with the whispery vocals. Giles Martin explains, “I suppose, as is documented here, George was Ringo’s best friend, as he says. That song is kind of the two of them.” George starts freestyling at the end: “Gathering, gesturing, glimmering, glittering, happening, hovering, humoring, hammering, laquering, lecturing, laboring, lumbering, mirroring…” It closes with the spooky death-rattle chord, originally the sound of a wine bottle vibrating on Paul’s amp. “It still gives you the fear when it comes.”

4. “Good Night” Of all the alternate takes, “Good Night” is the one that will leave most listeners baffled why this wasn’t the version that made the album. Instead of lush strings, it has John’s finger-picking guitar and the whole group harmonizing on the “good night, sleep tight” chorus. It’s rare to hear all four singing together at this stage, and it’s breathtaking in its warmth. “I do prefer this version to the record,” Martin admits. (He won’t be the last to say this.)

John plays the same guitar pattern as “Dear Prudence” and “Julia.” That’s one of the distinctive sonic features of the White Album—the Beatles had their acoustic chops in peak condition, since there had been nothing else to do for kicks in Rishikesh. In India, their fellow pilgrim Donovan taught them the finger-picking style of London folkies like Davey Graham. “Donovan taught him this guitar part. John was like ‘great!,’ and then in classic Beatle style, went and wrote three songs using the same guitar part.”

The other “Good Night” takes are closer to the original’s cornball lullaby spirit. In one, Ringo croons over George Martin’s spare piano; in another, he does a spoken-word introduction. “Come on now, put all those toys away—it’s time to jump into bed. Go off into dreamland. Yes, Daddy will sing a song for you.” By the end, he quips, “Ringo’s gone a bit crazy.”

5. “Helter Skelter” This Paul song inspired endless studio jams, lurching into proto-headbang noise—they started it the day after the Yellow Submarine premiere, so maybe they just craved the opposite extreme. This take is 13 minutes of primal thud—remarkably close to Black Sabbath, around the time Sabbath were still in Birmingham inventing their sound.

6. “Blackbird” Paul plays around with the song—“Dark black, dark black, dark black night”—trying to nail the vibe. It isn’t there yet. He tells George Martin, “See, if we’re ever to reach it, I’ll be able to tell you when I’ve just done it. It just needs forgetting about it. It’s a decision which voice to use.” He thinks his way through the song, his then-girlfriend Francie audible in the background. “It’s all in his timing,” Martin says. “There’s two separate things, a great guitarist and a great singer—he’s managed to disconnect and put them back together. He’s trying to work out where they meet.”

7. “Dear Prudence” Of all the Esher demos, “Dear Prudence” might be the one that best shows off their rowdy humor. John ends his childlike reverie by cracking up his bandmates, narrating the tale of Prudence Farrow that inspired the song. “A meditation course in Rishikesh, India,” he declares. “She was to go completely berserk under the care of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Everybody around was very worried about the girl, because she was going insaaaane. So we sang to her.”

8. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” There’s an early acoustic demo, but Take 27, recorded over a month later, rocks harder than the album version—John on organ, Paul on piano, lead guitar from special guest Eric Clapton. (George invited his friend to come play, partly because he knew the others would behave themselves around Clapton.) The groove only falls part when George tries to hit a Smokey Robinson-style high note and totally flubs it. “It’s okay,” George says. “I tried to do a Smokey, and I just aren’t Smokey.”

9. “Hey Jude” Recorded in the midst of the sessions, but planned for a one-off single, Paul’s ballad is still in raw shape, but even in this first take, it’s already designed as a 7-minute epic, with Paul singing the na-na-na outro himself. Another gem on this box: an early attempt at “Let It Be,” with Paul’s original lyric showing his explicit link to American R&B: “When I find myself in times of trouble / Brother Malcolm comes to me.”

10. “Child of Nature” Another treasure from Esher. “Child of Nature” is a gentle ballad John wrote about the retreat to India: “On the road to Rishikesh / I was dreaming more or less.” He scrapped it for the album, but dug it back out a few years later, wrote new words, and turned it into one of his most famous solo tunes: “Jealous Guy.”

11. “JULIA” One of John’s most intimate confessions—the only Beatle track where he’s performing all by himself. You can hear his nerves as he sits with his guitar and asks George Martin, in a jokey Scouse accent, “Is it better standing up, do you think? It’s very hard to sing this, you know.” The producer reassures him. “It’s a very hard song, John.” “‘Julia’ was one of my dad’s favorites,” Giles says. “When I began playing guitar in my teens, he told me to learn that one.”

12. “Can You Take Me Back?” The snippet on Side Four that serves as an eerie transition into the abstract sound-collage chaos of “Revolution 9.” Paul toys with it for a couple of minutes, trying to flesh it out into a bit of country blues—“I ain’t happy here, my honey, are you happy here?”

13. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” Paul spent a week driving the band through this ditty, until John finally stormed out of the studio. He returned a few hours later, stoned out of his mind, then banged on the piano in a rage, coming up with the jingle-jangle intro that gets the riff going. This early version is pleasant but overly smooth—it shows why the song really did need that nasty edge. A perfect example of the Beatle collaborative spirit: John might loathe the song, Paul might resent John’s sabotage, but both care too deeply about the music not to get it right.

14. “Sour Milk Sea” A great George highlight from the Esher tapes—“Sour Milk Sea” didn’t make the cut for the album, but he gave it to Liverpool pal Jackie Lomax who scored a one-shot hit with it. (It definitely deserved to rank ahead of “Piggies,” which remains the weakest track on any version of this album.) “Not Guilty” and “Circles” are other George demos that fell into limbo—“Not Guilty” sounds ready to go at Esher, yet in the studio, it was doomed to over a hundred fruitless takes.

15. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” A tricky experiment they learned together in the studio, with John toying with the structure and his mock doo-wop falsetto. “Is anybody finding it easier?” he asks. “It seems a little easier—it’s just no fun, but it’s easier.” George pipes in. “Easier and fun.” John replies, “Oh, all right, if you insist.” It’s a moment that sums up all the surprising discoveries on this White Album edition: a moment where the Beatles find themselves at the edge of the unknown, with no one to count on except each other. But that’s when they inspire each other to charge ahead and greet the brand new day.

[studiousbees]

[App Review]—Beelinguapp

Is this more of an app review or a book review? Today I bring you a review of Beelinguapp, an audiobooks app for language learners.

Sometimes studying can be a boring drag and you just want to do something a little less tedious than drilling grammar or a ton of vocab flashcards. Maybe you want to get into reading books in your language of choice, but you’re worried that it might be too hard to just pick up a book written in your chosen language and read it without guidance. In that case, I could recommend this app to you!

As I already said, this is an audiobook app. There are free stories and paid ones both available to choose from. There are stories of all different types and difficulties, including classics and even sciency stuff, as you can see in the above image! The cool thing is that when you choose a story, you can also choose which languages to download it in! So far, I’ve downloaded all of my stories in English, Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. When you go to listen to a story, you can choose what you want your learning language to be and what your reference language is. When you listen to the book, it will be read and displayed to you in the learning language, and you can do split screen so the learning language is on top and the reference language is on bottom. You can mix and match languages, so you could even have two learning languages up at once!

There are a lot of things you can play with as you read. As I already mentioned, there’s the split screen option, and there is a night mode, text magnifier, voice speed control, and text highlight that follows the reader. The text highlight sometimes isn’t timed correctly, however, and of course if the languages you have set as your learning and reference have different word order or other major grammatical differences, you won’t be able to really use the highlight to, for example, match words you don’t know. Still, the highlight does make it easier to follow where the speaker is in the text with your eyes even if the timing is a little off.

As for the actual audio quality, I’ve found it to be passable in all the stories and different languages I’ve tested so far, though some aren’t the absolute best quality. That isn’t to say the audio is bad, just that you can expect to hear some noise in some recordings. I’m assuming that the audio quality will be better with stories that you have to pay to download, but I’m too cheap so I haven’t tried any of those yet :B Anyway, in all of the stories I’ve listened to so far, the narrators speak at reasonable storytelling speeds, and if you aren’t super picky about audio quality, there should be no big problem.

The major downfall of this app is, in my opinion, the lack of a dictionary function. You can long-press words to add them to your own dictionary in the app... but then you have to add a meaning for the word yourself, which is obviously not too helpful at all if you don’t already know what the word means! Sure, maybe you could take a look at the reference language text to see what the word means, but these stories aren’t translated word-for-word and sometimes matching up words between different versions of the same text could be hard. What I think this app really needs is an easy-access dictionary that, if you long-press a word, it pulls up a dictionary entry for that word. Of course, since there are so many stories in so many languages on this app, providing dictionaries for all of them might be hard...

Verdict:

Ultimately, I think this is a pretty good app with a few flaws that, if fixed, would make this a really excellent language-learning tool!

PROS:

Multiple languages available

Can read along as you listen to the story

Can choose your display languages so you can even study more than one new language at once

Lots of little options to play with to optimize your experience

CONS:

No integrated dictionary :<

Audio quality is decent but a little lacking

Text highlighting sometimes isn’t synced properly

As always, happy studying <3

[seeksstaronmewni]

Saving the Day before Bedtime in Style: The Powerpuff Girls Then vs. Now

THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE!

I remember growing up a little with The Powerpuff Girls, namely the pre-2002 episodes on CN and a promo for the show on my VHS of Animaniacs: Wakko’s Wish. That show is a part of my childhood. My sister had an Easy-Bake Powerpuff Girls “Cookie Makin’ Bake Set” and a Burger King 2002 figure of Bubbles. The length of the series’ run is now 20 years old, though the franchise as a whole is over 25 years old, if you count A Sticky Situation.

In the past, I watched little of PPG because I neither understood nor appreciated action at a very young age; the same went for Samurai Jack & Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003), though I did watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), which included a former PPG writer, Brian Larsen. Now, “Cartoon Cartoons” like @crackmccraigen‘s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Dexter’s Laboratory, Grim & Evil, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Ed Edd ‘n Eddy, Chowder... I grew up on those. I remember little about 2 Stupid Dogs (now officially available on MOD Disc DVD) and Captain Planet. I didn’t see the PPG marathon in 2009 with the final McCracken-produced episode so far, The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!! (my sister watched it, though). I began to return to PPG as I saw excerpts from the show on Netflix in late 2015, prior to the reboot. Tara Strong’s tweet of dismay, I think, was how I heard of the new PPG episodes.

The first time “Painbow” was encored (that is 2nd airing), during like 6 in the morning, I began to love Ms. Keane, their teacher, who’s voiced by Jennifer Hale (I knew her best for voicing Gladys, Billy’s Mom, in Grim & Evil / The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, whose voice is nearly identical to Keane’s). What I love about Keane is that she’s sweet, somewhat perky but usually mellow, and kind, in addition to her voice, big blue eyes, and hair style, that I find to be attractive, but ultimately she is very nurturing to her students, like a mommy. Ms. Keane is why, in 2016, I became really into The Powerpuff Girls... and, including regard for the former CN Studios team, hyped for the return of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack (season 5, which featured Craig Kellman and other familiar creatives). However, though The Powerpuff Girls is my personal favorite of Craig McCracken and I grew up somewhat more on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, I do feel that Wander Over Yonder is Craig’s greatest achievement as it excels at not only humor--both slapstick and... well... “modern”--but also some very important life lessons and ultimately the heart.

Now, many PPG fans were upset with the new episodes for many reasons that were, in my opinion, nostalgically incorrect. Personally, like many fans, I mostly prefer the former art styles of the series (specifically the 2002 movie and episodes, as well as the following designs by art director Paul Stec and character designers Carey Yost & Stef Choi) but I also highly admire @cheyennecurtisart for adding more defining details to our favorite crime-fighting and now ex-kindergarten students (and also for designing my other favorite woman, Star Butterfly, whose title show @crackmccraigen, creator of The Powerpuff Girls, wanted to produce for CN). The main reason for the hate is apparently that the new actresses replaced the former ones for the title characters. They are fairly good voices, but I still prefer the former, namely Tara Strong as Bubbles (No offense, Kristin Li, but, to me, it feels impossible to turn down Tara’s acting). Natalie Palamides as Buttercup is probably the closest-resembling to the original voices, but she still stands out differently; likewise Ms. Keane’s voice, though akin to the voice direction of Jennifer Hale by Craig McCracken and later Colette Sunderman, also has an accent that stands out, while Tom Kane is generally true to the nature of Utonium’s voice. Of course, once the casting and/or voice direction changes, maybe Cavadini, Daily and Strong will return. Also, E.G. Daily said in an interview that Cavadini, Daily & Strong originally did record for, I believe, Escape from Monster Island, until someone else replaced them; if bonus features exist on future season releases of the Jennings-Boyle PPG episodes, then an original dialogue recording track for the episode should totally be on it.

WHAT LOOKS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE POWERPUFF GIRLS?

Another reason for dislike from PPG fans is all about the art direction. Although @eusong Lee worked with Craig Kellman on Storybots and current art director Roman Laney designed and painted backgrounds for Craig McCracken’s Wander Over Yonder, their art direction resembles that of a more streamline, smooth, round, futuristic, not-so-cartoony look contrasting with the simplistic, storybook-like art direction of Craig Kellman, the cartoony but simple art direction of @donshank​, and the defining and Hanna-Babera like art direction of Mike Moon, Paul Stec and Sue Mondt. The buildings in the Jennings-Boyle episodes are more straight, detailed and lineless, whereas the former designs were more extreme and exaggerated with building shapes.

Comparing the designs above of Andy Bialk & Stef Choi (whose designs were of many shapes and sizes; former monsters had sometimes simple but also very wild designs)...

...with those of Alan Stewart & Steve Lambe and Dean Heezen & Carlos Nunez reveals great contrast. The character design of current Townies, like the backgrounds, are more round-edged and of more simplistic, specific shapes and sizes. The monsters are different too; props are more realistic and explosions usually look simpler and more streamlined, round-edged, etc. Also, character & prop outlines aren’t really thick, which many CN/H-B cartoons are know for having. As the current designs from Memory Lane of Pain show, the Mayor and Robin Schneider are seen, along with an elderly woman who looks similar to the usual one in former episodes and a kid who somewhat resembles Mitch; next to those 2, there’s also a big guy whose model appears... shrunk for some reason.

Now, some Season 8-9 designs look a little more familiar, like the disguise character of an alien in Never Been Blissed, Locan Logan. He looks fairly akin to the works of Craig McCracken. Could the alien be disguising himself as Mac (from Foster’s) at an older age?

Not belittling @cheyennecurtisart‘s contributions, character designs developed for The Powerpuff Girls Movie are some of the finest ever done for the series, lead by Carey Yost; these designs were eventually implemented into the series, supervised by @andybialk and Chris Reccardi and designed by Stef Choi. Ultimately, though, @cheyennecurtisart and Carey Yost plus Andy Bialk (2002-2004 only for the latter two), did my favorites.

As you can see here, Man Up 2: Still Man-ing was the one of the few current episodes where the Mayor’s mouth is visible... but it wasn’t the first time. Paul Rudish storyboarded the Mayor with his mouth for transition in Boogie Frights; some official models of him (as well as a comic book cover) show the mouth as well. It’s unorthodox, but honestly I’m not hating on the new creatives for that. In most of the episodes excluding Man Up 2, it’s probably a mistake, since in those episodes he also does the mustache lip-sync thing he tends to do.

On the bright side regarding nostalgically correct art direction, the Pokey Oaks flashback in The Wrinklegruff Gals (art direction by Eusong Lee) was very true to that of Paul Stec (I’d think that Ms. Keane’s in the first shot, but these shots are 1.78:1 and not “letterbox” widescreen like the DVD covers of most CN shows in the last decade claim them to be in). They included students Mitch Mitchelson, Elmer Sglue, Robin Schneider, Harry Pitt, Suzie Jenkins, and Clara (the African girl in purple dress, called by Ms. Keane in ’Twas the Fight Before Christmas; in other episodes Jennifer Hale voiced her and the other dark-skinned girl in a pink dress). The new art creatives were so good at that, that I wondered if they’d contribute to season 5 of Samurai Jack. Speaking of that, the series finale of Samurai Jack, EPISODE CI (as did EPISODE II and Comic Issue 19), referenced The City of Townsville with the city of dogs that Jack saved! I also recently noticed a background from The Powerpuff Girls Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, cleverly called “Powerpuff Mall” (tweeted here), and the episode “Universal Remonster” features a PPG with a mohawk on a Spring Break Cancun shirt!

Also, there’s the reference to Abracadaver in Memory Lane of Pain, where Blossom realizes how different she looked then and a re-orchestration of the PPG’s theme plays in the background, as in the new intro itself. The shot in reference is a digitally traced, cleaned-up version of a shot with models by Andy Bialk & Chris Battle.

Relatively, former character designer @chrisbattleart​ designed for the PPGs in the Teen Titans GO! episode “TTG vs PPG” which were true to the improved designs of @cheyennecurtisart​...

...though they sometimes resemble the pre-2002 models, which he reflected in the last Craig McCracken-produced episode, The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!! As with both specials, the PPGs have thick outlines & black-colored mouths and are in model-rigged or “puppet-ed” animation.

Also relatively, Wander Over Yonder, which referenced both PPGs & Samurai Jack, featured @lambebeardo, who storyboarded the PPG-referencing episode The Boy Wander, who did some character design on season 8 PPG episodes.

The new theme song implements the general PPG theme within, as I said before, but there’s more nostalgia than that: the extended version of the current intro/theme song, “Who’s Got the Power?”, opens up like the original intro, with the original Tom Kenny narration, score and certain sounds. “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl, but Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction...” Yes, except that Utonium didn’t break the bottle of CHEMICAL X by throwing his fist in success, though; Mojo rammed him into it. That is an error of continuity, which some episodes have, namely The Power of Four (regarding a rival of Utonium, Netronium, creating the perfect little boy)... though there is one thing that that episode did right...

TV PUPPET PALS PUPPETS! These character originally appeared in a few episodes like Mommy Fearest, and were created by either Genndy Tartakovsky and/or @crackmccraigen for The Justice Friends, whose pilot was about TV Puppet Pals. Once again, some nostalgia is preserved; thanks to Prop Designer Nathan Alexander Rico (and/or the act’s character designers/storyboard artists)!

In case no one noticed: I refer to the current seasons of The Powerpuff Girls, produced and directed by Nick Jennings & Bob Boyle, as the 7th, 8th, and 9th seasons, since, to me, it’s still the same show; despite different art direction and other styles. The other reason is that some episodes did call back to former events, like I said about Memory Lane of Pain.

Another thing that seems to be lacking in The Powerpuff Girls is the visually cartoony stuff. Memory Lane of Pain is the only episode to use a “pow” cloud as the Rubber Bandit streaks out of a shot. This was common in earlier episodes, often accented visually with words like “POW”, “ZIP”, etc. In most current episodes, characters run out of a shot more realistically.

WHAT’S WITH THE ANIMATION?

Additionally, most of the animation direction, though still with Robert Alvarez, Randy Myers and Richard Collado, is pervasively slow-paced, compared to the pre-2016 episodes, namely those of seasons 5-6 and, of course, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, on which Genndy Tartakovsky was the main animation director. Unlike most current CN Studios programs, however, Samurai Jack season 5 did its “sheet timing” very well, particularly in EPISODE XCVIII and its scene of Ashi owning a whole army of orcs (Sheet Timing by Rob Renzetti & Robert Alvarez; storyboarded & written by Bryan Andrews & Genndy Tartakovsky).

As with that and most CN Studios programs, both Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff Girls have animation that is checked by CN’s Sandy & Julie Benenati. Speaking of creatives still involved, there’re at least 25 people still working on The Powerpuff Girls just as they did decades ago... including @joltumblingart​, a former BG/Prop designer! At least us nostalgia-craving fans can appreciate that! (By the way, if you crave classic CN Studios projects, you can watch the ENTIRE series of Samurai Jack here!)

WHAT OF THE NEW GIRLS AND GUYS ON THE SHOW?

Now, I can say that some of the new creatives could serve The Powerpuff Girls well:

Character designer @cheyennecurtisart did designs for Star vs. the Forces of Evil; the show’s art direction (namely season 1/Joshua & Justin Parpan, but also including Israel Sanchez, who all worked on Wander Over Yonder) is similar to the works of @crackmccraigen and closer to the Mike Moon / Paul Stec styles I prefer, specifically elements of background/location design and character design. Some designs of Princess Bluebelle in the Emmy-winning episode Once Upon a Townsville seem to resemble the looks of Star Butterfly. Also, SvTFOE location designer Larry Murphy did background design for PPG episodes “Save Mojo” and “Substitute Creature”. A number of creatives from SvTFOE should work on current PPGs too, regarding art direction/design/storyboarding action, in addition to former creatives involved with Samurai Jack (including season 5) and Paul Rudish’s Mickey Mouse, including clean-up artist king Robert Lacko. Relatively, SvTFOE location designer @peteremmerich served as the art director on Netflix’s Harvey Street Kids, whose background design is very much like the PPG locations under Paul Stec’s art direction.

Character designer @lambebeardo did storyboards for Disney’s Wander Over Yonder, created and executively produced by @crackmccraigen, as mentioned before, including “The Boy Wander”, which ends ala “The Day is Saved!” segment. There’re 2 specific creatives for a season 7 (or, in reboot terms, season 1) PPG episode...

Power Up Puff features storyboard artist Roque Ballesteros, who storyboards for Star Wars: Forces of Destiny and did animation/layout on CN’s Enter Mode 5 at Ghostbot. One could compare that to Bryan Andrews who did storyboards for Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003-2005) at Cartoon Network Studios, where Power Up Puff was produced; Brian Larsen, who worked with Bryan Andrews, also did storyboards for PPG and Samurai Jack, as well as (the non-Cartoon Network Studios) Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2019)...

...and then there’s animation director Shaun Cashman, who did animation/sheet timing for another CN Studios original, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Sym-Bionic Titan. Cashman also supervised the timing on Disney’s Star vs. the Forces of Evil and produced Grim & Evil AKA The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy for CN. I think that there’s some good animation timing in Power Up Puff, which’s rare due to the way CN Studios and SMIP do the animation these days.

One episode I intend to note here is Save the Date, which’s about Ms. Keane, as was Keen on Keane. A few aspects on design are covered below. One is about the title cards as shown above (which uses props/characters to reflect the episode’s subject/theme) and below.

These cards swipe to the right, rather than having the PPGs beam by and then reveal the storyboard artist/writer and art director. Originally the text was still, until after the movie and they’d zoom in slowly, not italicized and even glowing the tiniest bit. Also, some of the writers aren’t storyboarding, and the art director’s listed on the credits.

Lastly, of course, every single episode is directed just by Nick Jennings and Bob Boyle, aside from a supervising director. Can’t someone from Samurai Jack, Wander Over Yonder, Star vs. the Forces of Evil direct instead? Often, an animation director like Robert Alvarez or Randy Myers would direct The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Grim & Evil, etc. For that matter, someone on the show should get, like, Genndy Tartakovsky (currently at Sony Pictures Animation) to direct. High-octane action and slapstick are a big part of his direction.

Since the Season 7 episode People Pleaser, @deanheezen is the main character designer, in place of @cheyennecurtisart​; @carlosluisnunez​ still contributes, but usually Dean Heezen or Gordon Hammond (and sometimes Steve Lambe and Alan Lambe) are the only designers for an episode. From the episode Save the Date onward, Ms. Keane has only one bang, when she usually has 2, though there is one shot in Keen on Keane where she has one bang, (in various shots of the episode, she has 3 bangs).

In Save the Date, Ms. Keane’s fashion is different from hers in Keen on Keane, which was modified in Octi-Gone. Also, Keane didn’t walk well in high heels in Save the Date, unlike Keen on Keane.

Pertaining to certain fashion, like Keen on Keane, more of Ms. Keane’s body shape is exercised, namely on her legs. Unlike Keen on Keane Ms. Keane’s calves aren’t as obvious if [one of] her legs are straight. Usually, her legs appear shorter as well... kind of stubby, which I think is cute. In some shots in Save the Date, Ms. Keane’s hands are sharper-looking, as were the designs by Carey Yost and Stef Choi.

Relative to both animation and design, compare Ms. Keane fighting the giant, radioactive ant in Save the Date with the aforementioned sequences in Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII:

Now, in these 2 shots, you can see more detail to the design/form of the legs in action. If Carey Yost did the designs of Ms. Keane like those they did in Keen on Keane, the look and form to Keane’s legs in action would appear maybe somewhat stylized, but far more realistic.

In the fight in Save the Date, there’re a few pieces of fast-paced animation, but only a few as, like I said before, animation in CN shows these days are usually slow-paced. In Samurai Jack, of course, there’s much balance between both fast and slow-paced animation which helps convey more realistic (and intense) action. Robert Alvarez was an animation director with Sherri Wheeler (supervising) & Randy Myers for Save the Date and did sheet timing with Rob Renzetti for Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII.

Now, like Samurai Jack, Ms. Keane here shows good form in an action pose. The lines in the PPG shot are similar to the shot of a falling catapulted rock in Samurai Jack EPISODE III, too.

Relative to Samurai Jack EPISODE XCVIII, the Dexter’s Laboratory episode Dexter Dodgeball has a very nice sequence of well-timed, balanced traditional animation including much fast-paced animation; Dexter’s hair animates somewhat as well. In addition to being filmed and animated with cels, the timing/animation direction gives to moments of this scene movie-level quality of traditional animation. “Additional Animation Direction” is claimed to be done by Robert Alvarez, @crackmccraigen and Rob Renzetti.

Ms. Keane’s homes vary in the series: Dave Dunnet designed 74A in Keen on Keane and another house in ‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas, while Santino Lascano & Clark Snyder revealed a much bigger home for her in Save the Date.

Speaking of location, current episodes have new places like The Snooty Rose and Penguin Pete’s...

...but what about Pete’s-a Pizza, Malph’s and La Donut King Donut?

One interesting thing to note about Save the Date is a matter of size (this’s also the first time in the entire series that sweet Ms. Keane cries). Of course, she’s not the only one with concerns of size.

The PPGs themselves were made to be giant by Mojo Jojo, too, in What’s the Big Idea?, one of the last McCracken-produced episodes (and starring @donshank as a protest leader. He’s the Townie in that fallen building).

The other thing notable about this episode... “WHAT ABOUT THE GIANT ANT” in Bubblevision? Of course, that was a different ant that looked more realistic and just gnawed on stuff at random, but I like that more. The giant radioactive ant in Save the Date was only pushed back by the heat ray of the PPGs, but in Bubblevision the giant ant totally burned up.

One thing I don’t like about the credits--aside from lacking BiS’s popular hit, The Super Secret City of Soundsville Song, which’s the PPGs’ End Title [Theme] Song--is that they don’t specify the voice of the episode’s lesser characters (such as “Todd”, who kind of sounds like Tom Kenny... just a hint of Commander Peepers in his voice). Of course, Samurai Jack season 5 sometimes did this too. Typically, they don’t credit sound designers or foley artists/recordists, either; at least The Powerpuff Girls Movie gave credit to Joel Valentine and his team for Sound Creation and Design and foley.

Now, there’re approaches to character design in current episode that I do enjoy. In this shot from Buttercup vs. Math, Blossom recoils from intense emotion with a very funny yet simple face.

Prior to that, of course, the former emotions are also very wild and creative...

...but that doesn’t mean that Andy Bialk, Carey Yost & @chrisbattleart​ didn’t do that either (though rarely), as this shot from A Very Special Blossom proves. Art Director @donshank​ and Models guy Carey Yost, like many great CN Studios creatives, were formerly involved with Spumco, particularly on The Ren & Stimpy Show, which could account for this wild, somewhat detailed design.

Unlike most of Craig McCracken’s former works, except for Wander Over Yonder, character reactions in design weren’t usually as exaggerated as they are in the new PPG episodes. Such design extremes tend not to apply to Ms. Keane as she’s rather mellow and more realistic with emotional reactions, and usually not in grave danger or needful otherwise, compared to another woman designed by Cheyenne Curtis, Star Butterfly, who tends to be highly poignant with emotion (in most ways I love her more than Ms. Keane because Star’s been through a lot, needful and emotional).

In very rare cases, though, like these shots in Keen on Keane and Speed Demon, Ms. Keane shows catchlights in a closeup, which may contribute to either intensely poignant emotion and/or close-up detail (including lighting). Her look in Keen on Keane (Carey Yost) does suggest a needful emotion, but not too exaggerated.

As I said before, I don’t care for the current art direction as much, except for @cheyennecurtisart‘s part; eventually Dean Heezen took over until Gordon Hammond started doing all of the character design, which aren’t really much different. Some others don’t like the designs currently with The Powerpuff Girls, including one artist who decided to re-design and re-animate the promoted scene from Man Up. The designs of the PPGs look very much like the SSN 1-4 models, and the rest vary; some resemble Andy Bialk/Stef Choi or Stephanie Ramirez. The backgrounds are very detailed but similar to the original art direction.

Tom Kenny’s famous, lovable narration that began and ended all pre-2016 episodes has been absent in most current PPG episodes (except for a few, like Painbow, Little Octi Lost, and Fashion Forward). Even worse is a talking snowman voiced by Maurice LaMarche narrating instead--and on-screen--which is one of the major crimes to The Powerpuff Girls in their second Christmas episode, You’re a Good Man, Mojo Jojo. “I BEGIN AND END EACH EPISODE OF POWERPUFF GIRLS, ME, THE NARRATOR!” he claimed at the end of Los Dos Mojos. Next to Scaramouche, Spongebob and Commander Peepers, his narration on The Powerpuff Girls is one of his finest and most memorable roles.

Also missing are more familiar and specific Townies like the Chief of Police, the Pokey Oaks students (excluding the flashback scene), Floyd & Llyod... Also, since Chuck McCann died, I wonder who’d voice the Amoeba Boys now. Perhaps former creative Lou Romano could, since he was their original voice in the pilot/Craig’s student film A Sticky Situation. Some creatives and production staff on the show made cameos, namely @donshank (voiced first by Tom Kenny and then Shank himself), who, himself, served as a supportive character in What’s The Big Idea? leading a protestant group against the PPGs. This Easter egg is rare in cartoons these days (though a recent Teen Titans Go! episode put @chrisbattleart and other creatives in a city crowd), but the episode Electric Buttercup implemented creatives like @cheyennecurtisart, Nick Jennings & Bob Boyle, Kyle Neswald, and others in “THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF SHAME”.

In general, the approach to sound design on the show is a bit quieter but uses more Disney sound effects and other typical Hacienda Post sound design, as well as aural gags thematically associated with noting a certain subject (e.g. a cash register opening and ringing accents a thematic element pertaining to the Monopoly-esq game in Rainy Day, as money is a relative/thematic element). Although Hacienda Post (namely the team) has always been involved with the series since 1998, the original “Sound Creation and Design”, debuting on the episode Crime 101, was by Joel Valentine (Samurai Jack, Big City Greens, Wander Over Yonder), one of my favorite sound designers, who was only credited on The Powerpuff Girls Movie; episode credits would mention only Twenty-First Century Entertainment, Inc. for “Sound Editing”, though they obviously did sound design and foley too. Whether or Joel or all Hacienda, foley members are usually uncredited on the show, yet they bring our favorite Townies to aural life. Joel used his funny little castanet sound to accent many emotions, and the “SINGLE MAGIC WAND HIT” among other sfx to accent the PPGs beaming away. The classic H-B/Universal explosion often accented big feet, impacts and explosions, as well as the original title reveal in the intro; Joel would use some more tweaked variants of that sound too, and, next to Skywalker Sound, Joel is the only one whose consistent use of that sound excuses the general cheesy nature of that sound. Of course, in my opinion “ROCKET LAND SPEEDER: START AND AWAY”, which often accented the PPGs flying (usually for relatively fast/increasing speeds), seemed particularly exaggerated, but Hacienda Post seems to avoid overusing that.

Also, the music style often is more pervasive compared to former episodes, and Mike Reagan did some very nice cartoon-y music, like in the beginning of Rainy Day, though the style feels different from that of Thomas Chase & Steve Rucker in episodes like Pet Feud. The stylized sound of horn sections and strong techno beats in the score by James L. Venable (AKA “DJ Avalanche”) are very cool but aren’t so common in the current episodes, though respectively the action doesn’t live up as well as former episodes, like Live and Let Dynamo.

Near the end of this post, I note that I found great value in The Ren & Stimpy Show as many creatives on it/at Spumco worked on The Powerpuff Girls, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Samurai Jack, Spongebob Squarepants, The Iron Giant, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and many other great animation, including a gem of a Cartoon Network “Minisode”, Buy One, Get One Free*. My love for the work of John Kricfalusi/Spumco boosted with [adult swim]’s airing of the Yogi Bear/Ranger Smith episode “Boo Boo Runs Wild” on August 13th, 2016 A.D.

To conclude: The Powerpuff Girls is an iconic show that deserves to still have some design that feels signature to it, over 25 years after the pilot, @crackmccraigen​‘s CalArts student film A Sticky Situation (originally with a mildly profane name for the trio, though Paul Rudish came up with their official name). In my honest opinion, there’re 5 original people whom I wish and pray would contribute to The Powerpuff Girls again: Carey Yost (with or without @chrisbattleart​), Tara Strong, Dave Dunnet (with or without @shinypinkbottle​), and at least Joel Valentine. Honestly, regarding Star vs. the Forces of Evil, I hope and pray that Joel Valentine, Genndy Tartakovsky’s band of excellent writers/storyboard artists, and even @crackmccraigen​ could/would contribute to that franchise’s future media. Additionally, the new creatives in season 5 of Samurai Jack, like Dustin d’Arnault, David Krentz, @stephendestefano and Amanda Qian Li, should contribute to these shows too. Again, I also suggest that the former voice of The Amoeba Boys, Lou Romano (in A Sticky Situation), should replace the late Chuck McCann. While Craig’s first words to me suggest that he may not return, more or less, to PPGs, still at least members of his team deserve to, and who wouldn’t want to come back? Meanwhile, at least Craig’s working on new stuff to be announced, including Kid Cosmic for Netflix.

I leave you with not only a petition image to suggest ways to bring nostalgia back to our favorite kindergarten crime-fighters, but also IMDb lists of appropriate creatives for future media of PPG, future media of Dexter’s Laboratory, and even future media of Samurai Jack (pre-Season 5 events to fill a more or less “50-year” story gap). Spread the petition (and/or IMDb lists), and perhaps our childhood days will be saved--thanks to fans like you! GO, POWERPUFF! [z, z, z-z-z-zuuu...] *cue H-B swirling star* (also a Tumblr post)

[erhiem]

It is all too easy to take some misconceptions for the simple fact that we have long held them, whether or not they are based on reality, or more accurately, simply shrouded in “common sense”. For many people, sticking to certain ideas is easier than challenging them. After all, challenging them can distract from everything they’ve been taught to believe from a young age. Questioning these ideas in the said presence of better people, will eventually force us to accept that our current ideas are not working, that they no longer have a place in society, which is a realization that, to many people are not able to reach. But even though we haven’t yet reached the point where we’re ready to replace our views with more knowledgeable ones, there are many women pursuing this level of humility. Thanks to them, so many generalized ideas are being shaken and questioned. And even though we have a long way to go, these courageous individuals are leading the way for change, even for those who are reluctant to support it. Here are five Egyptian women who are educating and inspiring our society to see what’s right in front of them.

saba khodiri

Saba Khodir, author and women’s rights activist, is challenging social norms in Egypt before they were modern. She is the co-founder of EndQuote, a collaborative arts platform for Middle Eastern artists and one of the leading voices in the campaign against sexual harassment in Egypt. It is not only Khodir’s fierceness that enables her to influence her audience to reevaluate her views, but the way she so eloquently structures her ideas as to push new ones. Despite being attacked by so many people who are uncomfortable with the views he holds, Khodir is grounded and authentic in pushing for much-needed change in a society that opposes it. Her core ideas revolve around women reclaiming their space and feeling safe and comfortable enough to do so. She does this through empathizing with women from her own experiences, as she says, “I’m kinder to myself because I know other women are watching, and I wish they could, too. Be kind to me.” Khodir has dedicated her life to supporting women who are suffering from all forms of abuse. Her own experiences with abuse have enabled her to help others by giving her voice rather than silencing that pain. His noise on social media has led to many revolutionary changes. What sets Khodir apart from other fighters for change is his sensitivity, his intimate narration of his experiences that have made other women feel safe enough to share their own. Khodir’s platform has reached out to many people over the past two years, spending most of their time educating and provoking the dangerous ideas that are heavily sheltered in our society.

Maryam Naum

Screenwriter of ‘Khali Belak Main Zizi’ and ‘Leh La 2’, Naum is considered a leading social and feminist screenwriter and her work addresses the challenges faced by those who are social and social, with a special focus on women’s issues. are financially marginalised. Through adopting dramatic screenwriting, he is able to reflect on our society by expressing powerful emotions on screen that are otherwise difficult to portray through writing. Her script focuses on the oppression of women in society, such as female genital mutilation, early marriage, sexual harassment and violence against women. Her latest film ‘Between Two Seas’, which was a joint collaboration between the National Council for Women in Egypt and the United Nations Women, sheds light on the many traumatic experiences of Egyptian women.

Ghadir Ahmed

Egyptian feminist, and author of “Abortion Tales,” Ghadeer Ahmed, shares the stories of women who have had abortions. She states that “[she] Decided not to collect these stories just to document, or change public opinion on the question of the legal status of abortion in Egypt, and even the voices of these women by decision-makers. so that they understand how women seeking abortion suffer from the criminalization of it… but writing these stories for women to know that they are not the only ones going through this experience, And whatever she feels is real, that she has a right to feel that way and that’s all she owns. Ahmed’s sympathetic approach has proved successful in influencing the opinion of his audience. She also sarcastically tackles social “norms” so that it is far from normal. In her most recent video someone confronted a comment demeaning her for showing off her bra, and how a woman shouldn’t be stereotyped to fit a certain standard of “respectable.” Her self-confidence and relentless mastery over her ideas is what gives other women the same confidence in their thoughts and decisions.

the woman behind it is the mother

After following This Is Mother Being for some time, it became shocking to see the number of wrong ideas many of her followers believe. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with being uneducated, but simply highlighting the fact that she is participating in bridging knowledge deserves attention. This is Mother Being “Leading the Sexual and Reproductive Health Awareness Movement in the MENA Region.” Although offering a variety of Arabic online classes for women about issues ranging from menstrual health to preparing for birth, Mother Being had taught more than 1,000 women about their bodies and their rights. His work is distinctive in the way he tackles a very wide range of issues. She is shameless in her approach and creates a space in which it is okay to talk about sexual and body-related issues. And by inspiring women to feel more about their bodies, she’s giving them the courage to respect their needs and not belittle them to anyone.

Nadine Ashraf: Attack Police

None other than the Revolutionary Assault Police, which has been instrumental in exposing several sexual abusers over the past year. She constantly worked hard to create a platform in which women could share their stories anonymously. Assault Police fights sexual violence in all its forms and continues to point out wrongdoings that many people are afraid to point out themselves. She is giving space to so many women to call someone out when their limits are being crossed. She repeatedly educates women about their rights. And it is this very shared space in which women can relate to each other and help propel each other up the ladder of empowerment, with individuals like Nadeen Ashraf making a lasting difference.

via NY Times

We said it: Don’t miss it… In light of International Breastfeeding Week: What are its pros and cons!

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[talabib]

The Formula Of True Happiness.

Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X, was at the top of his career. Financially well off, with a job many would kill for and a loving family. And yet, despite all this, he wasn’t happy. Why?

Like many others before him, Gawdat grappled with this question for years and, when suddenly losing his 21 year old son during a routine procedure at a hospital in 2014, it deepened into a quest to discover what truly constitutes human happiness and how to stave off disappointment in life. By applying his analytical mind to the problem, and examining key ideas from many of the world’s religions, Gawdat finally arrived at his own happiness formula.

This post lays out Gawdat’s ideas on happiness; the illusions standing in the way of it, the many blind spots of your mind that cloud your vision from what life is really like, and the ultimate truths that will bring real joy and happiness into your life.

Happiness is the absence of unhappiness, caused by the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of reality.

We’ve all heard that money can’t buy you happiness, though many people are still driven to pursue financial success as their primary goal. It’s no wonder, then, that they find themselves unhappy even when they appear to have everything. But what can be done about it? This is the question Gawdat grappled with himself, so he decided to apply his engineer’s mind to figuring out a formula for achieving happiness

Let’s start by trying to understand what happiness is. Look at the semi-permanent joy of small children and toddlers and you could see that it is, in fact, our default state. Sure, it’s not all roses, but as long as they aren’t hungry or in pain, kids are generally happy. You could say that happiness is merely a lack of unhappiness.

But where does unhappiness come from? According to Gawdat, it comes about when life doesn’t behave the way you expect it to. Here’s the formula that he came up with:

“Your happiness is equal to or greater than your perception of events minus your expectations of life”

This means that when you regard life’s events as the same or better than your expectations, then you’ll be happy because the twists and turns of life don’t frustrate you. But if your expectations are greater than the reality, they’ll subtract from your capacity for happiness.

Naturally, it’s not as clear-cut as this. You’re much more complicated than just happy or sad! Depending on the thoughts you allow to determine your expectations, your state of mind can range from total confusion to negativity and suffering, to positivity and happiness, all the way to absolute joy. The goal is to make that journey from the bottom to the top.

To prevent yourself from becoming confused and unhappy due to the gap between your expectations and reality, you’ll first need to discard the six grand illusions that leave you misinformed, which we’ll unmask this shortly

You are not the voice in your head, but the observer of your life.

In the 1999 sci-fi film The Matrix, the main character, Neo, suddenly breaks through the illusion of the world around him and sees it as it really is – long green columns of ones and zeros – and is able to take control of himself and his environment. Like Neo, if you can see past the illusions, then you too can take control of yourself and your happiness.

Start by shattering the first illusion which is that the voice in your head – the one that questions your actions and intentions – is the real you. In the 1930s, a Russian psychologist named Lev Vygotsky noted small muscular movements in the larynx accompanying inner thought, and suggested that the internal narrator was actually just the internalization of speech – a hypothesis confirmed by neuroscientists in the 1990s, when they found that parts of the brain active while talking are also active during inner thought. So the voice in your head is actually your brain talking to you as it tries to understand the world around you and make the best possible decisions. But it isn’t you.

So when listening to your negative thoughts, remember that rather than being what you feel, they’re just the brain throwing out possibilities as it tries to understand the world. And here’s the thing – you don’t have to listen. Instead, try to minimize the chatter in your head. If you spend more time recognizing when it’s there, you can start to push back – swapping your negative thoughts for positive ones!

So if the voice in your head isn’t you, then who are you? People spend their lives building physical identities and egos, trying to answer this question, and this is the second illusion. But because these masks aren’t real, they can bring about unhappiness due to unrealistic expectations; as with our happiness formula. These can also shift and change over time, yet the fundamental “you” remains. So who is that?

To find out, you should mentally strip away all the things that change over time. This includes everything you can observe; your possessions, your family and even your body! What’s left at the very bottom? The real you is the observer of the world, who sees life but can’t be seen.

Instead of trying to fabricate an identity to affirm your place in the world, accept your position as the observer and focus on that as your identity. If you expect nothing more from yourself than this, you’ll soon be surrounded by people who love you for who you are, and you won’t even need to pretend to be something else.

It’s important to understand that you really know nothing, and that time is, in fact, a human invention.

In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton laid out his laws of motion and completely changed the way people saw the world. After much debate, they were eventually proven and accepted to be true – held up as indisputable and forming the basis of much scientific thought for centuries. However, since the nineteenth century, a string of discoveries have shown that Newton wasn’t right about everything after all.

We tend to think that we reached a definitive and final conclusion about something, but this is the third illusion, and in reality, there are probably many things we don’t know yet. In fact, it might be safer to presume that you know nothing! Your idea of the world could very easily be incomplete, and that’s something you need to be ready for. If you accept your ignorance, then you’ll always be searching for, and open to, the truth.

One idea of Newton’s that has since been disproved was his definition of time. Newton believed that it existed independently of any observation and was an unshakable part of reality, but this is actually the fourth illusion. Not only has Einstein shown that Newton’s idea of time was incorrect, we also have a greater understanding today of time as a human invention that has been gradually refined throughout history. From observing the position of the sun in the sky, to measuring the time of day, to the “leap second” that’s needed every four years to keep clocks in sync, the concept of time has grown more and more sophisticated.

But if time is just a human invention, maybe we’d be better off without it? The thoughts and emotions that cause suffering tend to have an attachment to the past or the future, such as grief and shame over the past or anxiety and pessimism for the future, while thoughts in the present tend to be positive, such as amusement or relaxation. Time, and its sequence of events, is the root cause of the drama in our perceptions and therefore suffering, while the present moment simply is what it is. Imagine being unhappy because all the potential partners you meet turn out to be unsuited and worrying you might end up alone in life. The actual worry is based on a fear about the future rather than anything actually happening right now.

Instead of being a slave to time, you should strive to ignore the past and future and focus yourself on the present moment instead.

You don’t actually have much control over your life, and your fears are often unfounded.

In his book The Black Swan, Lebanese-American scholar and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains how seemingly unlikely events such as 9/11 and WWI are much more common than we’d like to think.

Meanwhile, the meteorologist Edward Lorenz has coined the concept, Butterfly Effect – based on the idea that even the tiniest event can end up having major consequences far away – such as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil causing a hurricane in Florida.

If you combine these ideas, then you undermine the fifth illusion of having control of your life, and instead have an unpredictable and unstable world where anything could happen at any time.

Instead of hopelessly trying to maintain the illusion of control, shift your attitude to deal with what actually does happen. Take the astronauts in the film Apollo 13: when their spacecraft suddenly faces catastrophe, Tom Hanks’ character calmly assesses the situation, engineering their safe return to Earth. Gawdat once attended a training course on change management which consisted solely of a viewing of this film. When events change beyond your control – and they will – keep control of yourself so that you too can move forward calmly.

It’s also worth seeing through the sixth and final illusion, and remembering that most fears don’t run as deep as you might think. In fact, many fears are learned in childhood and developed individually. In 1920, behaviour psychologist John B. Watson conditioned a fear of rats into a small baby. At first the baby was quite calm around them, but by Watson making a loud noise every time he presented one, soon the baby began to cry at just the sight of them. The good news is that, if your fears can be learned this way, they can also be unlearned.

But even if your fears are mostly irrational, they’re still real. To deal with them properly means admitting to them. Rather than sticking your chest out like a puffer fish, remember that they only inflate like that when they’re afraid. If you can face your fear, you can begin to conquer it.

Gawdat wanted what was best for his family and feared losing money and being unable to provide for them. When he nearly lost everything after a mistaken investment, he learned that they actually needed much less from him and his fear was unjustified. He hasn’t feared losing it since.

When you understand what your fears are and where they’re coming from, you can face and defeat them, preventing them from limiting your existence in the present.

Now that we’ve uncovered the six grand illusions, let’s take a look at the seven blind spots in the way your brain processes information.

Our brains tend to see the negative side of things, applying too many filters, assumptions and predictions.

Do you ever feel like you have a tendency to expect the worst in every situation? Rest assured, you’re not alone. That’s because your brain is essentially out-of-date technology, built for a very different world than the one we live in today.

In prehistoric times, survival was key – our early ancestors’ aim was to find food and not get killed, and if you were lucky, reproduce. As a result, our brain makes quick judgments with an inclination to assume the worst and see the downside in everything, since it’s better to be wrong than dead. For example, the University of Texas asked students to record their thoughts over a two week period, and found that between 60 and 70 percent of them were negative.

Imagine your brain as a very thorough lawyer, drawing up an enormous contract of potential threats to make sure you’re covered for any and every possible eventuality. In the modern world, these quick and often negative judgments can get in the way of you seeing things as they really are. To survive today, you need to be aware of the blind spots leading you toward these negative thoughts so you can counteract them with more positive thoughts.

First are the filters. There’s so much information to take in from your surroundings that you simply couldn’t cope if you tried to process it all, so a lot of it gets filtered out. Imagine going to the cinema – at first, you can’t help but notice the other people, the smells and the lights, but once the film begins everything except the movie screen disappears. But if you’re not always seeing everything around you, how much of the world might you be missing?

Next are assumptions. If you can’t see the whole picture, your brain fills in the blanks. These could easily be false, however, as they’re simply there to form a “complete” narrative. Let’s say you notice that your boss has missed her sales target for the month. As a result you might assume she’s threatened by your better numbers and is out to get you – but what is that really founded on?

Tied to this is the third blind spot: predictions. Say you’ve predicted your partner is going to cheat on you. You give them the cold shoulder, pushing them away, and so they cheat. Does this mean you were right? A prediction is something that has yet to happen, so why act as if it has? Now let’s press on and look at the four other blind spots...

We tend to elaborate our memories, apply too many labels, succumb to our emotions and exaggerate things.

Imagine you’re on a romantic getaway with your partner on a beautiful tropical island, but you have an enormous fight while you’re there, spoiling the trip. You’ll remember the island as a sad place, and if you go back there it will contaminate your perception of it, potentially building another sad memory.

This is a classic case of the fourth blind spot: memories. When you remember something, it’s not necessarily the truth but your own personal record of it. Your partner, for instance, might remember your time on the island in a completely different way.

Next are labels. To make sense of things, we tend to put them in “boxes” we can easily understand based on preexisting associations – but without any actual context, they may not be true at all. Think of how quickly people might label wet weather as miserable or a tanned, thin woman as rich. If you were somewhere in Africa, rain could be a blessing, while a rich woman is more likely to have a fuller figure and lighter skin since they wouldn’t be out working in the sun so much. Labels don’t take context into account, often bypassing the truth.

Then you have emotions. While you may believe you are a rational human being, you’re still completely at the mercy of your emotions. People often act on their emotions first and look for logical reasons to back them up later. Watching the speech of an opposing political party for example – your opinion is emotionally predetermined to dislike what is being said, and you will be actively looking for flaws in the speech as a result.

The seventh and final blind spot is that you might also exaggerate. If you inflate your ideas of reality and imagine the worst case scenario, then you lose sight of the genuine truth. Take humans’ fear of sharks, terrorism or plane crashes – statistically, these things will almost certainly never endanger you, and yet many are more afraid of these than they are of traffic accidents, despite them being much more likely to cause harm. If there’s a definite risk, the brain often exaggerates the probability.

All of these blind spots aren’t going to be cleared up overnight, but what’s important is that you’re aware of your brain’s limitations. With that in mind, let’s now look at the five ultimate truths.

Modern life is overly concerned with action and speed, but a calm awareness of the present moment will keep you happy.

In a study of over 15,000 participants, Matt Killingsworth from trackyourhappiness.org pieced together more than 650,000 reports of how people felt during certain activities and at different times. He found that it did not matter who they were, where they were or what they were doing, people were happier when they focused on the present, while those thinking of anything else were much less happy. This is the first ultimate truth.

This connects to what we said earlier about the illusion of time, and how emotions felt in the present are generally positive, while those in the past or in the future tend to be negative. So how can you focus on the present moment in your life? The answer is by developing awareness.

This sounds easier than it is. To live as a human you have to find the balance between being and doing, but in the modern world, everyone’s overly occupied with doing – whether it’s going for coffee, incessant meetings or exercising. Yet, all these activities ignore the potential of stopping and becoming aware of the moment and the possibilities of doing nothing and simply being.

This can be found in the Taoist idea known as wu wei: where doing nothing can be the best course of action. Imagine someone is growing a plant – they allow it sun, water and fertilizer, and nothing more. Any more intervention would get in the way!

So how can you develop awareness in your day-to-day life? You might not have the time or the surroundings to meditate like many practices suggest, but you could start by simply trying to notice specific things in your environment – the different types of trees you encounter or how much water you drink a day. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for, so long as you’re paying attention.

You could also try to limit the distractions around you, most notably technologies like smartphones, TV and computers, or just enjoying an activity without any clocks around at least once a week. Whether it’s going for a walk or being in a quiet room, enjoy a bit of space and freedom from the constant ticking of time.

The important thing is to focus: when you have to do something, make sure you only do one thing at a time and fix your attention on it so that you do it well.

Things are and always will be changing, so relinquish your sense of control and go with the flow.

The world is always shifting, and in ways you can’t predict. Like Forrest Gump – who let himself get carried away regardless of what life’s box of chocolates threw at him – you need to open yourself up to the potential of change, and this is the second ultimate truth. Remember, it’s not about controlling your surroundings but controlling yourself. But how can you achieve this?

Rather than trying to control every tiny variable in your life, step back and allow each event to find its own natural balance. The Chinese philosophical idea of yin and yang is a well-publicised image, where two seemingly opposite forces are in balance and bound to one another. The same idea can be applied to your life.

If you focus too much on work, you’ll cease to enjoy living. But if you focus too much on trivial activities, you might feel like you’re worthless. Instead, try and balance the two: enough work to feel like you’re doing something, but enough freedom to make it all worthwhile. The upside of this is that should things change, such as losing your job, you won’t be overly committed to one specific thing. Rather than hopelessly resisting, move with it and allow things to find their balance.

Also, learn to focus on yourself and what you have, rather than comparing yourself to others. As things find their balance, you may see someone else as having something you don’t have, but it’s likely that you’ll also have something they do not. Before suffering the envy of something else, focus instead on what you do have. As things continue to find their balance, change may at any time cause you to lose it, or perhaps even find something more!

Unconditional love is the most important emotion, as it has no expectations, and therefore no disappointments.

The Beatles sang it. You probably already know it. And according to Gawdat, it’s the third ultimate truth: all you need is love. So how can you make sure you’re getting it?

Let’s start by understanding that we’re talking about unconditional love. Unlike the popular image of love that you might see in a film – where people love because of something and get hurt when those reasons change – unconditional love simply is. It exists with no expectations and no conditions, hence its name. If you apply this to the happiness formula, there are no expectations to offset the reality – meaning it always leads to happiness!

Most other emotions are based on a thought of some kind. Whether it’s envy based – the thought that someone else has something you don’t – or conditional love, based on the thought that someone takes care of you, the emotion comes after the thought. If the thought changes – you no longer want what the person has or that special someone doesn’t look after you anymore – so does the emotion. On the other hand, unconditional love, like a mother’s love for her child, is the only emotion that exists independently of your thoughts. It’s simply a sensation of connection, affection and appreciation.

So how do you fill your life with it? Well, it turns out that the more love you give, the more you get back, so it’s important to do loving things for others whenever you can. A Harvard Business School study found that when a selection of people were given money and told to either spend it on themselves or someone else, those who spent it on others felt happier by the end of the day than those who had spent it on themselves.

As long as you keep love flowing, it will flourish. Think of it like a river compared to a still pond: the first is full of fresh and lively water, the other is stale and stagnant. Which would you rather be a part of?

Death is a fundamental part of existence. Acceptance rather than fear will allow you to properly embrace life.

In much of the Western world today, death is something rarely talked about. Instead, it is feared, and a cause for tremendous sadness. But if you look at other parts of the world, there are often grand celebrations and parties in its honor.

In Rajasthan, Northern India, after an initial twelve days of mourning, parties are thrown for the dead. Meanwhile, Sufis, who are Islamic mystics, throw parties on the anniversary of someone’s death. Is there something to be learned from all this?

The biggest lesson, and the fourth ultimate truth, is that you can’t hide from death – from the day you’re born, you die a little each day. For example, all 25 trillion red blood cells currently in your system will die in the next four months. Take that analogy into the food chain: to sustain the life of one thing, something else must die. Death brings life, and in turn, life dies to make way for the new. Think of how new plant life blooms in graveyards, taking nutrients from decaying bodies.

Instead of hiding from it, we should accept death’s place in all our lives. As with all the other illusions, if you pretend that you have control over your life, death will eventually diminish it and lead you to unhappiness.

Sadly, this is a lesson the Gawdat had to learn the hard way after the sudden death of his son, Ali. During a routine procedure, a few small medical errors led to the loss of this bright and promising 21-year-old. Despite the tragedy, Gawdat was able to look at Ali’s life and realize that he had embraced it, lived it to the fullest despite its all-too-brief span. Understanding the limitations of your life will allow you to make the most of it while you can.

Gawdat found that by keeping life in focus instead of worrying about his final rest, he could instead learn to live in peace.

In the absence of proof and the surprisingly overwhelming odds, perhaps there is a design to the Universe…

Do you believe in a God? It’s a big question, one with many opinions and no conclusive answers. Gawdat, having applied his analytical mind to the question, feels that the fifth and final ultimate truth is that it might make sense that there is a higher power, one which we’ll refer to as the designer.

Let’s begin with the idea of proof: it’s easy to prove that something exists, you just need the evidence. You know that monkeys exist, for example – you’ve probably seen them at the zoo, or pictures and film of them on TV. But can you prove that something doesn’t exist?

Well, no. You’d have to know absolutely everything to know that something doesn’t exist somewhere, and as we saw earlier, our knowledge is limited. Imagine, for instance, that someone claims there’s an imaginary creature known as the plunkey: you’ve never seen one, but you haven’t seen the entire Universe either – so maybe it does exist. Similarly, despite the odds being stacked against it, you can’t prove that the designer doesn’t exist.

Which brings us to the idea of probability: Imagine trying to roll one die and scoring a six: your chances are a simple one-in-six. But for each die you add, the odds get squared. Try rolling ten dice and the odds of getting ten sixes rocket up to 1-in-60 million!

Looking at the huge variety of complex life in the world, you may wonder about the odds of it all developing naturally. According to evolutionary theory, there are approximately 8.74 million different species on Earth, developed by random mutations over time to reach the point they’re at now. Entirely probable given enough time, but since life only began on Earth roughly 3.7 billion years ago, the likelihood of this happening actually gets a lot smaller.

So if it’s a question of probability, the odds are actually in favor of some sort of intelligent design. If you, like the author, accept the design of the Universe, you can become aware of the complex and amazing marvel that it truly is and find happiness in the beauty of existence.

Happiness is much easier to achieve than people generally think. All it takes is understanding and honoring the truth about the world and ourselves. As long as you keep in mind the six grand illusions and the seven blind spots, and the ways that they can distort your reality, you can remove unfair expectations and therefore unhappiness from your life. Proceed to follow the five ultimate truths – whether you take the author’s or find your own – and pursue them to retain your happiness, living a life of simplicity and joy.

Action plan: Ask yourself if it’s true.

Whenever you look at the things you take for granted or come up against a new piece of knowledge, don’t unquestioningly accept it as true. Instead, ask the most important question about it before allowing it to govern your thinking. As long as your expectations are founded on truth, you can be sure to stay happy.

[throwingideasatthewall]

Clone Wars      Episode 2

         Rising Malevolence

 Starting off I really like the title which implies things are going to get a little heated

  Title scene sequence still the same

   Nice

   Ok this time’s quote is a little bullshit

  Belief is not the matter of choice          But conviction

   Conviction is literally how much energy      you put into a choice 

   Little worried considering last episode’s good quote     left with an okay episode

   Okay, whoa, whoa, got a lot of things, at once

   Firstly, Ahsoka  

   Her face looks lumpy?

   The narrator...sounds kinda - bored

    Lot of things happening at once

                         Not really tied together

                       It’s-

                    Someone’s really                            abusing                       the jump cut

                   It literally gave me nausea looking at it

                      Not cool                           dude

   Then again    I guess they’re going for        Fast thrown together war footage

   But seriously       chill dude      On the jump      cuts

  And     nothing   seems    to     match   up

 If      I   can   actually    remember   what     happened       from   this   jump   cutted   mess     I   would   make     a   joke   about   the     off     piece            /    paced      sync        Up     But     for       the     sake       of     me       I        can’t    (And     I’m      Not      Back       rewatching)

(I     Tried...)

 Oh   here’s    one;    Growing     Fear          The   enablers      Just   Standing   around    Mate,         I   don’t   give      a   shit   about   them    (And   those     words   don’t   match)

The       Pictures

Still    recovering...    from    seasickness

So   excuse   my   scrawl     not   being    on   point

            I’m sorry, I was sea sick           Something about menace  

              Not happening again  

           Fear  

            Of the thing they enabled 

         I have, no idea, what is going on.          And I’m too afraid, of the editors, to go back

     Whatever, things are - moving -forward

     ‘parently

     Red sun like planet

      Ships heading towards it

      Little stabilized

     Person

    Plo Koon           Standing         In Front

    Oh good         We get to       see what the other enablers are up to

    That’s nice

    Would be thrilled

    If the jump cut abuse         Hadn’t left me           In a state of not being willing       to handle the enablers-

   We’re not jumping straight into that     Right?            Like,        this            is          a       quick         photo       shot?

   Okay never mind we are

   Fuck me up episode

Someone-  

 Realizes-    

Tracking-       That’s not so bad

 Hahaha

 Okay, giant ship in front of the Sun, Why!!?

 I am no longer hung over

 I’m good

What the frick?

 It looks like a shark

 It looks deadly       what the heck    is going on?

   Why is the boss music playing?

   I mean it’s thematically appropriate and more than we got in the last episode

    Just wasn’t expecting music

         Or Obvious Villain

        Before I think about it too much

        Detail

       “Oh my Red!”

        That is a lotta Red.

       I don’t think you could get much Red

   “We are tracking republic cruisers”

    Okay wait, We were on Plo’s     ship

     Now we’re on Dooku’s

 “Ships in the area...

  I’m assuming they’re going to      intersect

  And is Dooku -       Is Grievous  Dooku’s apprentice?          I guess that would make sense         Given           That last episode             We learned                  Of Yoda’s and Dooku’s              Connection            Learning            more about the villain isn’t such a          bad idea

       No more jump cuts please though

       “-Do”

      “Jam their transmissions,”

       Alright, straight to the evil      no hesitation           Possibly ending in murder?               What? It says ‘Rising Malevolence’!?               Murder would do that!

       The Fleet is holding it’s position sir

      Why?

     “I think it’s wise to report our position before we attack,”

      Good plan

      ‘Skywalker’s fleet is nearby’

      A teenager, you’re trusting this to a teenager?

       I mean they have to obey orders          You’re trusting a teenager that Obi-Wan order programmed?         A less developed version of Obi wan?          I know Yoda has a seat at the head of the garbage fire council

       But Obi-Wan has a seat there for a reason

       - note I’m pretty sure this is true for all continuities             so I’m not calling out movie Obi-Wan specifically  

           All of his continuities                 Garbage fire

            Which doesn’t have to be a bad thing...

             Logic sin

            “Perhaps he can reinforce us,”

             Teenagers can’t reinforce shit

             But they can pick you up

              Like a taxi service

            “ From what I hear Skywalker’s always looking for a fight,”                      Great, Obi wan ordered him to give only aggressive answers and self destructive orders                                    /answers

               Kid’s going to get killed                    If any adult sets their mind to it

               * Which seeing as you set him to ‘attack attack attack’

  Well, someone to be preparing his gravestone

              Good job, Obi wan                  Dumpster fire

              I do not regret it

             “So I’ve heard,”

               And enabled!

               Trash Fire Council, everyone

               “~~~~, Master Ploon,”

              “~~~~, Ahsoka,”

              Oh they share a language 

               Interesting

            “how’s the hunt for the mystery weapon going?”

              They actually tell him things?                    Instead of just yelling orders at him?

              Also, so that’s what they were doing

I     was   spinning

            “We’ve tracked it to the outer Greknow (excuse spelling) system,”

               “I need reinforcements”

               Wait, need?

               Earlier, it was a “ it would be nice,”

               Now you need the teenager to hold your hand while you confront the other adult in your stupid war?

               “ I have to ask the council Mr. plo I was given strict orders,”

                 Translation; I need to ask Obi-Wan                                  Also; this, this is how you write teenagers

              A little bit too much energy

              But this is how one would react

               If confronted with an order and ordered to give that response

               Good job, writers, you used your experience ( and knowledge) as a human being, to create a realistic human being

                Get a cookie for that

                Carry on

              Breaking up

              Signal jammed

          Oh yeah clearly shows that Ahsoka is asking “what’s wrong?”                Immediately move out the general area     also is someone not monitoring interference?          Shouldn’t alarms be going off?

   “ what’s wrong with the transmission,”

     A) you’re the leader you should figure that out

    B) asking a in superior isn’t going to help

       - if it’s their chosen thing then just let them do it without          leaning on them

   Nothing ever got better from micromanage

  “There’s too much interference, sir”

  Run

  We’ve lost them

  “You heard Master Ploon, he needs her support, we need to go help him,”

       Good job writers, that is how a teenager would react, you even got the stunted - robotlike speech down - and energy level

       Another cookie for you

      “We’ve got to go help him,”

       A bit of energy there but still good

     “We have to see what the Council says first,”

      Anakin, Perfect, 10/10, you know how to write children,            Perfect monotone

Fantastic     Job   writers

  *And          Actors

            The logic was pretty sound to

              “This is an important meeting, Ahsoka”

              Perfect

 I’ll   stop   gushing   about     that

         “Speak only when spoken to,”

          Perfect

        “Don’t I always”

         Okay,            little noticeable breach               there

         Little             too            much            energy                       Children               Don’t               Have            Person               alities-                Still           Developing-

        Nor          Attitude

       This       mystery        weapon            has            Strucken                a         dozen        systems             And     disappeared       without           a         trace,”

      That           Sounds         Really             Severe

      Only             Wish            I’d             Know             What              It            Does

      We       cannot       afford            to        lose        any       more       ships       my     phone

   “Oh,”

   How -         One           Of       you         had          to      order       him

    The          Chancellor         must       not       of     been     there

 “The    Enemy       ship       is   closing”

 Well      it      makes   sense    that    they   aren’t       running

  As   contacting    others     with     their   location     and   getting   reinforcements      was   something        that        they     were     supposed       to      do     and    ‘would      be         nice’      respectively

  And         they     did     both

    * Technically

   “General Greivous,”           Oh so now we get to learn of the relationship         Or what Dooku claims it to be

    “This will be            a suitable test              for        our new weapon,”

          Oh, or that

         They             have              the           weapon

       Interesting

       Also             a             great           excuse            to          show             Plo          Koon        suddenly         getting            his           shit         recked

   “Yes        My         lord,”

   [Oh       wait       now         I    remember        he’s       Ventress’s       master

   General            Term             Is            Lord]

      Does             he        have           a        button?

     “A       large        energy      reading       from        the      target,         sir,”

  Run!

 “Open       Fire,”

  Then       Get       Out          Of       Range

  “Fire!”

 “Brace       For      Impact!”

  Wait         You had Three whole ships   and you decide to clump them all together            Approaching from the same direction               Towards a giant space hole?                  You...               You got what you deserved

      “We’re losing all our power,”

      No duh         Space wave          * Shock wave

  Energy field , defenseless

      No duh

   “ Their shields are down         Full cannons,”                “they’re tearing us apart, one by one”

     Uh, Space                         pods?

         “[Ship explodes]

           Well I hope they got to the escape pod

           Quickly, into the pods!

         [ Plo being Captain Obvious]

        Well one fricker hit debris and exploded

       Really stable pods

      Well shit               It was just a ship        At least everyone      who wasn’t an idiot       is alive

   “ that was a successful test wouldn’t you say, Count?,”

   That’s        surprisingly normal given the side is supposed to be the  overinvolved                                                                                                    negative

      I’m surprise he isn’t abusing his in superiors by now

      Then again his ‘abuse’ style, based on name, is tech   

       Which isn’t an abuse style  

       Or negative thing

       “Maul”

        Is either a weapon or to chew something         savagely

     Sidious           Is        just        this     version’s     Absolute      evil   (Human,   Sentient   version)

Dooku      .....     I         have    no   idea

He’s   clearly   meant      to      be   conflict       in   general       But       The      Name       ....       I   have     no   idea

Sorry   went      on     a   name   rant

    “ I       want           all           of      those        life       pods        destroyed,”

   Brutal

   What       was           the        deal        with         the       sound     Greivous        was      making?            And         why           is        that       droid      laughing?

     We’ve         had         no       further       contact         with       General           Plo                Koon 

     And        nobody         is     panicking

    Then    everyone         else         is      enablers         so         I’m        not     surprised

    They       knew       what         they            were   getting      into     with     this    stupid    war

 “The   absence     of   distress   beacons        indicates      that      his     fleet     was,”

 Destroyed       killed

   Also     there’s       no      beacon         or      way         to      signal      for       help      in     those   light     pods   

The         Galaxy’s    huge

“-was”  A   bit   too   much   hesitation     there

           I’ll                accept              a            slight              bit             that             Anakin                was          ordered              not               to                talk            about                   death               in             front                   of              Ahsoka

         But              a             bit             too           much          emotion

         & personality

       And it isn’t overrided by one of his elders,            Obi wan specifically

       Or Understood by          the others

      We’re about to     launch a    rescue     mission

  Hasn’t clone intelligence reported this weapon     never leaves any survivors?

   But not that they had a giant stab wound through the   chest?

 Enablers, man

 Again, children don’t care about them

   They haven’t even developed a personality

   Nevermind the ability to form and remember      healthy preferred relationships

     With individuals

     Of their own age group

     When they’re Adults

      This ‘everyone’s afraid to say ‘die’ in front of Ahsoka Is bullshit

      Even      the              expression           doesn’t             feel             natural

       They are tidy they don’t want any witnesses

         See, that’s even acknowledging that they know some foul play is about

     ‘They’ is not the weapon

     It’s a person 

    “ these losses are tragic,”

      Not enough to stop the stupid war and             stop enabling

        What great friends      Plo Koon has      

      “ prevent more, we must,”

        You aren’t doing   shit

       Capsule

The Music      just      give       me       the     feeling       that      they’re      sitting      around     playing      cards

  “The power grid is burned out”

   Okay and that took out this whole life pod   functionality?

    Like are these not for emergencies?

   Shouldn’t have multiple backup power sources?

    Or some rudimentary fuel  

     Also, the force,

      Like with it you can exactly   have any moments of tension

       Like   normal humans

        Like            if you want to get out of the situation     there’s like 10 options

   Humans are space orcs

   Like just use the force to       paddle to safety

   Or power the ships

    This is   definitely   not as bad as a situation   as they’re going to make it out to be

 “Life support recharge.”

  Well good thing none of you is dying

   Oh did they mean     oxygen recycling?

   My bad

 So we’ll just sit here

   And hold our breath

  Snarking doesn’t really help it

  “someone will come looking for us, right?”

  Generally speaking, yes

  You clearly sent out    communications

  And abided by all the   rules        But you signed up with the enabler’s United Toxic Foundation, while everyone did sign up for a basic war - Palpatine’s things that one kid in the E for for everyone Minecraft let’s play role-play that insists everyone be allowed to swear

Like yeah everyone agreed not to do that       But you still don’t kick him

And the second you avoid accountability   things were on rocky basis

  You can kick him to a higher level of accountability

     (Or lower)

   But not accountability

   I don’t think that’s coming back from levels this   tox

 And     Everyone knew      it

   Including      this      guy

  “ let’s get the power restored     , so we’re here to be found”

    REASSURING

    Also if you could do them   why were you wasting time?

I know the address they’re assholes who don’t care about their own        life

But still dude

 Logic sin

  [not storytelling]

 Holding a bit too long on his face   for a jump cut

Ships

“ All our battle convoys will be sent to guard our   supply lines,”

 Meanwhile them selling them out

 Including yours   Skywalker

  Nice friends      you have there,       Plo Koon

 “i’m sorry we can’t risk any more ships with the rescue mission”

 Any more

   Meaning you sent some

   “wait just because there hasn’t been any survivors...”

    Dude

   Bit too animated

   Like holding on the thin string of     orders

  And      still it should be                                stunted

Even     under the order of                                         ‘feel sad’       their eyes would still be moving around like they don’t know what                                        they’re doing

“ doesn’t mean they won’t be any this time,”

  Animation...a little choppy

 Like beforehand the stiff moment really worked with the fact that they were children

        That I thought it was   intentional

  This little awkward bit of moment   doesn’t

 Maybe it’s the     overall movement of an of Ashoka as a   character

   It doesn’t work

  “ boldly spoken for one so young,”

    And almost unrealistically     so

    If not for the string of   orders

  I could possibly be reasoned by   Plo    issuing an overriding effect

 Assuming he was her first     and longest caretaker

  His order    if I’m in danger do this      Might still be   in system

But    it   wouldn’t   cause     an   outburst     like     that

  Not     that     loud

  Or   emotional        at    least

 Just     monotonously      Repeat         ing          the      line

 Which   would    still    get    the   same   reaction

Working          better       with          the       military        child      soldier      theme

  “ Yes she is learning from Anakin,”

      They’re child soldiers

          They’re both still operating under your    orders

 Anakin likely taking her up under   your orders

[If Common sense is      to be       believed]

   If anything ‘she sounds like   Plo Koon,’ would be a better   option and highlight the   his-tory, they have   together as well as makes sense why   she would be   sent 

 “ Excuse my Padawan,”

  Excuse that     bullshit

    [I have a thing against        un child like          behavior]

   “ I will deploy as   instructed     master,”

  Ahsoka      [turns her back and     leaves]

   I swear     if this leads   into a fight

And     one     with     them          not    talking             like         robots

Are   emoting

I’m    calling     bullshit

  If they’re not just repeating orders at each other

“Ahsoka,”

    How long do you think Anakin heard that tone of   voice?

    [Because he’s not doing it on his own]

  Little more     disappointed computer    needed   Too much   vitriol         But     Still     valid

  “if   anyone   could   survive,”

Stunted     tone     good

  Few    jumps     in   logic

And   conclusions      that     don’t     think     they   could’ve    ordered

 But   overall   serviceable

 “I don’t   understand,”

 “what you don’t   understand,”

Well there are remarkedly   a few bumps here and   there,     This does play out     The way two   assumed authority   kids     would    play out

 Good job writers,   actors   and   animators,     you     did     a   good   job

  “....Jedi protocol,”

   Know your place       My Padawan

   “Know your place,”

    Too          much         Energy

   “Admiral,”

     Anakin  

      Has too           much energy  

      And perso          -nality

      Never    mind             it’s fine

        “ isn’t that              risky?”

           No, approaching/confronting an enemy from only one Direction when you know they have an unpredictable weapon, is risky

                And stupid

                This is a patrol                and as such                   it’s a relatively good move

           “ The mystery weapon out there,”

            No, Plo Koon       wouldn’t have found himself             in that situation         had he done this

     Also are you mouthing off       to      a superior

   Fair       enough          you’re             older            and            have          nothing             to            fear            from               a             child

          But       you              agreed             to              serve                  under              said                child

           Stop            breaking           immersion

     I       like       the      fact      that      they   immediately      show      that    Anakin‘s   superiors       are   abusive        to        him

 While    it’s     true   Anakin     broke     code       by   addressing   someone       of      lower        rank

  This    dude      is     lower    than     him   

(And       older)    And   still   gives   back   toxicity

(No ne    Reflect   ed)     Too

 “It might be,”

 “But I know you     won’t argue my orders,”

Wow,        Not a really good picture of    Obi-Wan    we’re painting

 He possibly   (very often)    compared   Skywalker     to his       in superiors    Derogatorily            Or   at least gave him     an order     to do   so

 Yikes!

 Come     on       Snips      

   Come on          [Pet name]

    Bit       too      much   personality

    But     Still     managed      a     lot

“The      air         in      here            is   getting          a         bit          stale,”

    Then        stop         using           it             up

       And           focus              on             fixing

       “Don’t           look             at             me                it’s             Boost               sir,”

             Tox

*also       no one keeps a plant      on them?

    “He only takes a bath when    he’s        on      leave,”

   Dude seriously not cool   throwing someone under the bus     like that

      “ save it work on fixing the   pod,”

   Yeah you’re running out of air    and this seems to be the only dude that doesn’t wanna die

   “ Not your jokes,”

  They’re toxic anyway

So the air quality isn’t getting much   better

“ Do you think we’ve got a chance,            General?”

You have several   chances  

You have a   Jedi     on board

You could      doggy       paddle      to     the   nearest   station

“I know if we walk together we will stay alive,”

 No, you’ll run out oyour oxygen, and die

Also the rest of you are doing       nothing

Lay down      And save some oxygen

If you’re not going to be   helpful

Someone will find us

  Yeah, God

Or, in this case, hell

   If you believe in      that sort of thing

         And                Not          secure       nothingness

“ With      all      due respect,”

Strategically        it   doesn’t     make     sense       for   someone          to      come       look        for        us

  Yeah     you’re       all     enablers       no        one      has        more   inherent     worth      than      the     other

   If I was in command I’d be hunting that weapon down

 Humans are more important than weapons

    Our decisions decide       whether our time together          Will be pleasant          Or        non-       pleasant

 I value your life 

   Involved in this war that will likely take it

   “-more than finding that weapon”

As   noted   that’s       a   valid   thing

But   doesn’t    have    much      value       in       an    enabling         war       and         a         poisoned    generation

   “Sir,      there’s        another       pod           out        there,”

    No      duh

   You    launched      from      the     same     place

  The            only        people     dead       are       the      ones         that       ran       into       that      debris

   And   exploded         On    contact

 There     was         a       gulf      of     flame

 Likely     from      the     impact       of      the      ship

  But     no   indication     that   anyone      else          died

 (Not       like      he   could’ve     just   willed      them     out      of     the     way     with     the   force        Or     not   splurged      on        the   exploding   escape    pods)

 “If only if we had power we could contact them,”

  Again you should be working on that

 Also what would that do?

 You’re both

 ‘helpless’

   In the    pods    how   about      we just wave   Hello   when the viewfinder   comes back around?

Because that implies it will   rotate

 *Waves hand*          See?

  Completely      preventable

   Can     get out of this situation     at any time

   How?

  Like that glass is supposed to be   surprisingly strong

  Like plastic

I’m calling   bullshit

“They’re dead,”

One-hand    that extremely sucks        (The loss of life is a     terrible       thing)     Then again     completely     preventable

“ Someone         busted their pod       wide open,”

    Oh,         that’s clever         writers

      But      that looks shattered        from the impact

     That glass       is some           weird            stuff

       Really           I’m           just        sinning            the           fact               that           they         would          have         glass       anywhere           on            this      supposed           to          be         very       durable        space        pod

     Like        that        shit’s             a      safety         risk    regardless       of   where         it      is

 Time      to ravage their ship for any supplies  

  What, they’re dead?

They       won’t      be     using       it

  And         this         is   supposed       to       be        a      ‘life        or         death     simulation,’!

  “ We’re        not         alone        out            here!”

   Really?!

   Also       this        is      why         it’s         a      good       idea       to      get       down,    fix        the           ship       And     Get     Out

  (Why      you    even      have      a     window      when   cameras    would   suffice         ...)

 “ Set those coordinates,           R2,”

    Cool

  “ I should tell you why       I spoke up    before,”

    That     would      be     nice

But     if it’s Overinvolvement of Plo Koon       in your          upbringing

    A few things should be         more   obvious

    “You don’t have to explain,”

      Anakin        was taught not to question                                         things

       Including dedication to            previous scouts

    Oh, the deadpan

Ahsoka             is having a bit too much   reaction

But ot’s justified    in      confusing          orders

   Good start

 Oooh 

 That’s      a lot of Ships

   Nice music

   Very uppity

   With a sense of     authority

    Our ships    are in defensive formation          sir

 “Oh Obi-wan,”

 “Alright commander     I’ll check on Anakin’s progress,”

  ASSUMED  A U T    HORITY!

 “Admiral,”

 You’re not     supposed to be here

 “How       goes        escort,”

He looks    terrified      of him

  Convoys     Are     preceding on schedule general

The   fact    he’s   used    to     answering     to   him    says   something

“No          sign of enemy                           activity,”

Liar

 “and      where’s        Skywalker,”

    Susp.ic

     “The         general felt the redeployment of this fleet would increase our defensive perimeter,”

        Dude’s            really on his case on respecting the            Council’s orders

       “I see        thank you            Admiral       that will be all,”

    Nice       chat

  Problem         Sir

“Anakin     has       just   redeployed    himself,”

  How        is     that     sus?

  Didn’t          You       Give           Him        Orders?

   Someone had to have given him some orders       that got missconstrued

    Again

   Then    someone       else      gave      him    orders?!

Weird

Rt,     set up the     scanner

Mystery Weapons    

No Rt,   tune the scanner     for life forms     Highest sensitivity

Interesting    Anakin was given more   orders      To value human   life          over objects/      The   Mission

Interesting enough   this could’ve been     what they referred to   as any more ships

As an      Anakin   and     Ahsoka    had   already    been   assigned

And   given   specific   orders   by someone   who spends more time with Anakin therefore has more authority   to ignore the other orders

My   moneys     on   the     chancellor

He’s    supposed   to be   grooming   Anakin

And     it makes sense     he could get away     with     a    “no other Jedi” order       without including       himself

Not to mention     get more time       with Anakin   to justify     the authority   override

I would   also   make     sense

Given   Obi-Wan’s    -bluff-?      (Whether      you   believe       he      did       or      did      not         know     about      the       order)           That        he          was     surprised         that       Anakin         wasn’t       responding          to           his         seniority*

 *Face   Value

“ Why   would     we      Scan     for   lifeforms      to     find      an   enemy   weapon?”

 Too     much        energy

Droids

“The Abogado system”

Too     much    amazement

   More    ‘statement’       needed

   Smirk

     Do you know normally I would        criticize this        but it has the perfect          half           assed         energy

      So           good job everyone involved         that took  skill

    “ so it’s fine when you don’t follow what the council      says,”

  Ooh       that’s a          miss

Doing   what    the   Jedi   Council   says   that’s   one  thing

 How     we     go   about      it,      that’s   another     thing

 That could possibly count for double   answers

  And does count for   misconstrued orders

Considering a lot of orders can be fit into a          lifetime

Some do contradict and mix   to form up     interesting   combinations

And results

“that’s what I’m trying to teach you   my young Padawan,”

Good   answer

“So   you   always   meant      to    come    out   here    for   survivors,”

Better      Read

“Live are in danger of     Ahsoka,”

“We just     can’t turn   our backs   on them,”

“That’s       what        I,”          No        good       try      that’s       too      much     emotion

   Tip         toeing        into   emotion   adult

  Watch it

   “ I know              But        the        way        you         said         it          was       wrong,”

     Now Anakin’s following

     Got to watch that        realistic tone

     It’s hard      not to write   emotional characters

   But it makes   the moments when they are   all the more sweeter

I’m really looking for that   ‘I realized my life was a lie’ moment

“We haven’t got much     time-”

  How?

“No           that’s not it-”

   Time for the   idiots!

     Well honestly the time with our Villains - enablers               - are just as       entertaining

it’s slow burn            But decently so

“We       don’t   want      to       make     things         worse,”

  “How      can       we        make     things     worse?”

 Death isn’t fun

“ When        you      ask       for      trouble,        you      should        not           be   surprised      when        it      finds        you,”

    OK      Boomer

    Who        has        never         helped          at         any          point             in          this        procedure              (And             is              the             big                g               est               enabler              of           anyone              here)                *Tox

“ I think trouble already found us, sir”

   Good job!

What if we connect these two     wires right here

It’s an     electrical   puzzle game

 I thought   something   was   actually   broken

“ I’m     getting        something,”

 Great

There are 14 minutes left

What goes wrong?

Despite     maybe a   fight

 Oof

 They managed to figure   it �� out   quicker

Now we get to listen to someone dying

In       extreme      detail 

  “That signal is weak, it must be close by,”

    Uh, what?

     I think          he might’ve        misspoke

       What?!

      That’s            a         giant         Crane!

       I        don’t        know          what         to        expect

   But      that      was      not         it!

   Go          Get         ‘Um          Boys

    They’re        Normal         Droids

   “Pod—”

   “The       Droids          Are      Cutting      Behind        Us,”

Cutting.   through

   They      just      sat       by and watched as their friends die

  And we know    

Plo Koon can move   the   ship

Brutal

“ Things got a lot worse,”

 And you watched    it happen

 Soco       -paths

 “The Scanners are practically useless “

   How?!

   The Ship left

Shouldn’t the jamming signal   be gone too?

“ Got anything    on the emergency channel    R2?”

How   do you not?

Also   

please save those guys

Like they’re enablers

But I’m a fan of   accountability

Not       death

You   can’t   hold   dead     people      accountable

“ We   might    find   something    you   don’t   want    to   find,”

“ he’s     one      of     my   oldest   friends,”

 That      is     the   perfect    tone   good    job

-everyone

“It was Master Plo   Koon Who found me   and brought me to the temple   where I belonged,”

Oh yeah   that doesn’t   smell of indoctrination!

HaHaHa

(help!)

“ I think someone noticed     We’re gone,”

Too much Emotion!

“Anakin,      where      are     you,”

Conflicting     orders

 “ we are making a quick stop      in the Avogadro system,”

  On point

   “A rescue mission I suppose,”

   “You had other       orders, you know,”

    I don’t like that someone else is      ordering you around       And has   higher   authority       Then      Me

“ it   was    my   idea   Master   Obi-Wan,”     

Too    Much     Argh-

“ oh I’m sure,”

You’re both child soldiers    

but I’m going to blame the   oldest

Despite   all orders

“ Well, have you found any survivors?”

 “No,”

 That is an “order to be sad’    Eye flicker

Good job

“ all the more reason for you to join the defensive   escorts,”

Adding   pressure to break   authority

“You’re      Going       to     Miss   the       rendezvous      With       The      Fleet         If      You     Don’t     Hurry,”

    I     want   you     to      be      my    back      up      escape     not         Plo’s

“We’re      on     our       way,”

   So   whoever    gave    him    this   order   didn’t   give      him     an   order    that   would   contradict   joining      the   fleet   afterwards?

“ i’m sorry         Ahsoka,”

  Wait,     what?

  He’s   getting   over   written?

  By    that?

*Squeaking*

  “R2-ooie        Thinks              He’s          Got        Something              On             The           Emer           gency,”

      Please-          Stop          calling          him              R2-ooie

      “Can he trace it?”

        Hopefully

      “Let’s get going,”

        Too-

“ I think they see us,”

Wait,       what  “Uh       -oh,”

   There’s     another        pod         over        there

    The      droids        got            a         lot        less        cute

  “Dadada,”

  Ominous

     Also         the         droids         are            so           cute          for

    Genocidal            Manics

    “It        is        time        to         go,”

   “Go?”

  Yeah your boss has essentially been letting you die this entire time

   “Outside, to destroy the enemy,”

    Again, could’ve done that anytime

   “ I can withstand the pressure for a   brief time,”

      Oh, that’s the     excuse

      To be fair I don’t think humans can be   either

      Not without seriously draining...

      I will give him that   notion

    Not, however,  not moving the     ship

    To safety

In fact all of this is just       badassery Like he could’ve easily rescued those guys and stop the, from the safety of the inside of his pod and without wasting the probably be limited oxygen       By going outside

   But         enablers

    “ Put         your            helmets          on,”

       I’m        about               to suck               all the oxygen             out of this                 damn                     thing

                “If                       you                        say                       so                       sir,”

                  ‘I’m                    willing                        to                         die                         for                         this,”

                   That                       one                       sane                       guy’s                        like

                    “ This                           is                           a                             difficult                      situation,”

                       Y’all                             making                             it

“ There remains a possibility we will   survive,”

 Great!

That’s good enough for     me

Everyone besides that one dude is     down     for   death

Love   how   that   one   dude’s    just   staring    at   them

“Kick    their    ass,”

Also you waited till they were right on top of you

‘Wolf   keep   the   communication   signal   alive’

I mean is the oxygen on, is the   electricity?

Like you could do more than just     fight?

“It’s   our     only   chance   someone   will   find   us,”

Bull

“ Let’s just hope someone’s looking for us,”

This is enabling   hell

“ Are    we still   picking up   that   signal,”

“ but    why    aren’t     we     finding   anybody,”

 Are   you   following   the   signal?

“ I don’t know,”

I don’t know either

“ what’s           a       Jedi        doing       out     here?”

 Real question     what’s a random person   doing out here?

Like   are    these    droids   Plo Koon        fanboys?

*Shoves*

Weak

If is anyone out there,        This is Ahsoka Tano,”

Seriously, you weren’t trying the transmissions   before?

 Oh so those guys had blasters?

And can stick to the roof

But     those   other   two   just   got   blown   out

Didn’t   want     to   fight

Accepted     Death

“I can’t get a clear shot,”

How?

“ Time to put the squeeze on them,”

   What?

“ is there anyone out there?”

Dude not paying attention

 You had                    One Job

“ It’s Ahsoka,” Just press buttons

He can’t hear you   he’s outside in space

“ keep the signal   alive   commander,”

What-

He has   a point

Dude’s    been   slacking

 “Boost       the     reception”

“Argh,”  - - -

“We’re        Losing       The     Signal,”

He   just     threw      a   fricker

Seriously

 That’s all        it   took?

Death   seekers

“Uh-Oh”

 Karma

“ Sir,       we have lost contact with the     Pod hunter,”

 Only    one?

Also yeah, after multiple people died     Plo Koon     finally decide to do something

“ Perhaps some survivors are putting up a fight,”

Big leap 

 More likely your   robots      fell off    something

“ that is something we   cannot   allow,”

Cut        To the   Senate

Okay...

We must find a way to destroy     this mystery weapon

Don’t fly right into it

‘end this war,”

Not gonna   happen

“Dooku     always   seems,”

“Tell     me,!”

Oof

Looks    proper    creepy

“Master Plo       koon     Or         his    fleet,”

“No,   we must fear     the worse,”

After we did nothing to stop it

Go, enablers!

Survivors

On whose   authority?

“His own   I’m afraid”

Bullshit

Someone     gave him an      order

 ‘His own’     only means you don’t know      Or are lying

But I’m going with     face value   for   Obi-Wan

With       His   flight     out   of   position

You trusted a teenager with a fleet

This is your own fault

Oh never mind   his fleet is fine

So Windu     was complaining out of his ass

And his Padawan

so whoever gave the order is fine with him having his Padawan

Oh yeah that does leave   Yoda sus

Twice the trouble     they have become

You gave them the order!     Abusive     old man

A reckless decision,        skywalker          has         made

   Teenagers             can’t              make            decisions

         “ Let                   us               hope                it                is                 not                   a                 costly               one

   “Well general another fine mess we’ve got ourselves into”

   The tox level is getting pretty   high

“ your sense       of humor       is improving,”

   No his ability to be a dick     is

   Well technically it was always there

    He’s just really utilizing it

Right now

  Toxic bastard

“ I don’t mean to say I told you so,”

Dude even a slight bit of accountability is acceptable   around now

Also wouldn’t the com’s guy be more accurate?

Pretty sure     he was the one     trying to guide everyone   away from death

“ I never believed anyone would come looking for us,”

Enablers

“ Anakin, the council was furious”

I decided we couldn’t just give up on Master Plo Koon

Bullshit

“But     the council    feels,”

Please     listen to me     Anakin

Return       at   once

Okay here I’m a little conflicted

It could be literally anyone

“ Yes, Excellency,”

Nevermind

It is him

Good job   writers

“ we have         to        stay,”

Note I’m assuming the vision is a metaphor an action   order

         Because Visions     just no

         Too much emotion

          “Ahsoka,”

He   allows   her   to     do   this

“ sergeant why are you so certain no one is coming,”

Because they’re enablers

And he’s     particularly     negative

He’s       a     person   that’s     his   choice

(That       you’re     enabling)

He     still     toxic

“ We’re just clones,sir,”

That’s          a     good       excuse

 The past trauma doesn’t justify     creating present trauma

You’ll be     held       accountable         the       same

“ we’re meant to be expendable,”

Yeah,   doesn’t justify this bullshit

“ Not to me,”

Bullshit

You       were       

instrumental

In what occurred to     them

You enabled them

* This        Situation

 This      is       like      a       boomer     comforting         a     millennial     abuse       victim!

You       were       instrumental       in     what     happened       to     them

Point       being;          If       you    actually     cared     what       was       happening       you       would’ve       stopped     it       before     it       began!

Now       everyone’s     an       enabler

‘Light’,         assumed to be heroic     turns           into         actual       light

Okay, good

Was worried there. for         a second

Ready tow         cable

 Why wouldn’t -

Okay,       they’re moving him     towards the     door

Good        They        were          running        out       of       oxygen.                  Sometime                            There                       were                      no                       real                      stakes      

           “ Come on                     hurry!”

What’s the rush?

They’re fine

“ are you ok,     master Plo,”

All this work and build up      and he’s dead

“ there’s         someone          in           the        pod,”

That       poor           guy

Pretty       sure        he       was           the       one       who       least         wanted       to      die

“argh,       argh,”

Oh       now       there’s       health       problems

Now     that       they’ve         been       rescued

Was     talking      fine       just           a        few           minutes       ago

Sudden        medical     droid

When     both         Anakin         and           Ahsoka           should            know           how         to          do           first          aid

   Will          they          be          alright?

      Not               at                that                pace               they             won’t

And     with        that         acting 

 “The         pressure       suits       provide          some     protection”

   Some?            They              were       completely         fine           up           to            this        point

  “ but           they         require           a     medical       frigate,”

  Why....

 Did they bother...?

Bringing you?

   “I         will     stabilize      them        sir,”

  How?

             Pics                      or                         it                       didn’t                 happen

            “Your                     men                      are                      safe                    now,”

                Dude                        he’s                   sleeping

“were      there       any       survivors,”

IDK, Mister      I′m gonna.   sit-around       while-     people-      Die!

       Probably          would’ve                 killed               them                 himself

 This        was         his     favorite        unit

 Hahaha

*Fake         Guilt*

 After        he       caused           and           let           all           of          it       happen

‘Hunters’

    You          let           it     happen

    And          them

But      mostly         you

    Authority        -claimer

“ I’m           sorry,”

   Not        her         fault

   That.                This         Dude       Is                 An          Asshole

  So          Heading        to           the       big          battle

  Not.             A             word

*Plo’s      voice  

   *No             Plo*

Behind both of them??

Telling this story, why??

To a teenager??

Also       see        he’s fine

“ an ion cannon,”

Standing in front of it     surprisingly didn’t help

“An ion canon,”

 Some thing neither Plo                                                 nor                                                    the Jedi Academy apparently covered

“ neutralizing all power to our ships”

                  ‘Wow, if you knew all about it then why didn’t you make some.                           defenses to prevent from knocking you out’

                     ‘Shh, I’m sacrificing my men!’

                      “ Defenseless,”

                         ‘ yeah we obviously shouldn’t                                     alert the council            right now,’

“ massive vessel approaching,”

Run!

“ shut down the power systems,”

Okay,      Boomer

It’s not like we could contact the council

    While running!

“The droid”

R2-D2

Nearly         gets       everyone       killed

“Sorry       Little     guy,”

Don’t       get         down         or         anything

“ That’s           one            big          cruiser            crusher,”

     Yes            and          this              idiot             went           right            into            it!

*Intense       noises *

   Dude, they’re not going to see them

Yeah       it’s             big

“there’s still no signal from the pod- hunter,”

  That’s - repetitive

  Did you think it         would be 

   Like it’d           suddenly                come back online??

     This stupid quest for            someone else                  would end?

“Reactivate your scanners,”

   Turn it back off and       on           again

    “ We will find who is responsible,”

     Who could be no one

     Or left the system

“ hey what’s         with the lights,”

    “Power’s gone out,”

 Five minutes in         and already complaining

        Also shouldn’t you guys     be asleep

      After the cold vacuum of       space?!

 What did the robot         put you on??

“ Maybe the         ship has returned,”

   Now He’s          panting??

     Like dude,            didn’t even fight!

      We didn’t even            hear or see him get hurt                   at all

       (Only                squeezed!)

           What                 The-

Faker!

*Getting         Caught*.                 “You          are          too       weak,”

Suddenly           and       only       now

 Would           make           more             sense             for            one           of           the         soldier-

              For                      Him-

The             Injur-

Also         doctor,               Maybe                  help              him   To              The           Location,           Summon                   Some               One               Or         Bring          him              to                 Bed

“ Let             me           go           see       what       is     wrong,”

Close

  Uncomfortable                  close                  up                on           face

     Two           soldier            guys        Jump       Ing            Up             -            But            Like           -

 The...         Roles    should               Be                 Reversed

   You.      Should          Be        Him

    You.               Received                More          Damage...

  Anyway!

*Mischief          Music*

  Still             Looking                at         the              ship

While          their             Ship                Hurdles             (Dangerously)          Close               To             a            Star      “We’re            Picking            up            a                    faint               signal         from          a         droid,”

Seriously,        That            was            Five         minutes            ago

 That                  Long?

 Catches                 a                signal?

 Also,           yeah,          so         what?

“One             of             ours,             they’re             right             behind        us,”

 So?

“Move.                        Us                   Into             Attack         Position,”

 Dude,

  1 to 10

   Real              Quickly

  Like he doesn’t even know     anyone’s on there

The ship he’s about to shoot   resembles          A       Wreck

      And              Could         Very         Well               Be                  One

    With         Only         a        droid          On           It

      Like                 Dude            is          Just        Down           To          Blow              Stuff             Up !

     They’re         Coming             Back

      “Are            All           Systems...”

    AHHHHH!

  I paused      At the

  Exactly...

      Wrong

       Time

Five Nights       at Freddy’s         Bullshit

  Anyway,                     After        That        Bull-     terror-        Fuel

 Yeah       Shit’s       fuck     ed

“Is there       A Pro       Blem -s      -ir?”

  “You       for-”

  Seriously,

   That       Dude         Had         One       Use,        Not         Even         Why?

  Power       Back        On

  Which       You    should’ve        done      from       the   beginning!

You’re    smaller         And     faster  

 RUN!

 “Can               I          Be          of      Assistance?”

 NIGHTMARE              FUEL!

*Who-        ever         Tho     ught       This         Thing          Would          Be            Com         Fort            ing?!            !

    That             Is            My         Programming         Sir

    Ah!

“General           I         Don’t        Want       Any       Wit     ness        es,”

 How?

Your   ship      Is   so   big   And     Difficult       To    Maneuver

How?!

 Any     scout      ship   could     out     maneuver!

“En    -er       -gize,”

Still       It         Only       Points         One        Dire       -ction        And        Moves          Like             A           Barrel             Ing            Ox!

   “Program           the          Navi        computer,”

  You- “You             We turned        Off!”                    Forgot                    Him

                        Appreciated but                                Still too                                   Much                                       Sass

    Aww, nice

   He was        gentle

    “ ~~~         Droid,”

   I’m going           to assume       “You nearly               Fucked               Every          Thing             Up,”             Is           What               That            Means

       “ Target             range            almost              locked,               sir,”

         SWIRVE

         They’re                   Not               Gonna                Make                     It               If              They              Don’t            Move             Slightly                To                The              Left!

    “Program             a      Hyper-drive,”                   What?!!

     “Any where!”

       ???

     “Enemy          ship          target            ed          Gen             er              al,”

   Going         to            the       Prometheus       School            of       running         away          from           things

      (You           Can           Literally             See              The            Ed              ges)...

      Master...

       This              Was             Your              Plan

  Good job     *Turns)

  We’re        Clear

  Plo       Koon         Not      Sitting      Down

   “Errr”

  Possessive

    Like        How        Does             He             Know??

    Now         the       republic         will        learn         of        our        ion       cannon

             ???

            Then don’t-

      Like        a scout-

                     I just                              Don’t                         Think                         They                          Cared

                      Dooku                           Quiet

                      ‘Sidious                                Is                            going                                 To                              Beat                             Our                              Ass

                     “Your                           Failure                           is                           most                      unfortunate,”

   Correction;         *Yours

       “ I will              have              to            discuss               this               with              my                master,”

     “Rawr!”

     Get Back             To            Work’

        There’s                 That           Abuse                 Of              in superiors,              I was                    Looking              For

     ‘Roger,          Roger’

  *Grievous            Head       Pressed           To        That           Board,”

     Ship             Brig            ade

      Impress            Ive

        Dock            ed          Sur            Prised

      “Thanks               for               getting             us              out            of          there            in            one           piece,”

      ‘It’s           More          Than           Master           Koon             Would             ‘ve           done!”

        Even                if              you           have              no         choice          since         you’re          just              a        compilation             of          orders !

      Too             Much        Personality           Also         Didn’t         Happen

“General Plo said someone would come for us,” nobody said in the most enabling way and seemed to imply enablers

   Also, again, child soldier

Skywalker it’s time to give our report to the council

    “Right-”

    That            Just       Doesn’t-           Hit            Right

      Too          Much           Person-          Ality

  “C’mon      Ahsoka,”

  “You       Want        Me      There,”

  He needs you   there

    The       Council           Pret       -ty            Much          Ordered         Him            To            Take          Care                  Of             You           (If we’re          follow-ing           non-stupid              logic?)

     “ I figure           because            of                before,”

      He HAS TOO

      “Ahsoka,”

       ‘I was ordered to            by a bunch of Deranged sociopaths             who think child soldiers             was a good idea,”

        “You did              A              Great job,”

         [Sigh]

        Line work,            Wasn’t so            Good, near              the end

     “ but if I’m getting in trouble              for this,              You           share            the       blame         too,”

        I             feel           like          there        was          a        tortured         attempt            to       connect            it          back          to       Dooku          and     grievous        but         that         only      works   because        they’re       adults         capable          of        Malician,”

  “ Right       besides          you       Sky Guy,”

                           Alright

                        First off; 

                   Misleading title

                   Nothing really                  escalates

             (Nothing really rises                Except for               the Introductory                sec                            Which                    will                   make                  you                    feel                       like                  you’re                    in                high tides

               Before                    Red                     Please                       For                    the                    Love                       of                      You,                      Skip                        to                          the                         Red)

             As we            don’t really           have a scale

       Enablers do things

       It’s not really a scale of an            intensity

       Nothing basic yet

     The plot I feel was on the     weaker side

     Finding a weapon from     out of nowhere

     ‘ oh wait we know everything it does,’

      Didn’t really come to a conclusion

    But assuming they might follow it   up

    As for now I feel that    they really could’ve gone for a       Fight ending

  Really hyping   up this weapon

  In Master Koon’s       Return

 Only for     us     to see nothing

  In      terms of    an equal battle

  But, hey, maybe that comes in to play later

         The one thing I can say really improved

   Or was just better/ Good to see

                  Was the better writing                          Of the                      Child                           Characters

             Although

          There were     a few       minor           Slip          Ups         Here        And       There         Especially         Near          The             End

         Where there was a line

          “ You did a great                                         job!”

          That sounded...

         Well it sounded like something from one of those cheap         TV shows

        Or commercials

     * hopefully not too harsh

I don’t    hold    Any    grud      ges

        It was just an awfully recorded line

        Any way next is; Shadows of Maleviolence

[din-skywalker]

Wiki

Hey hey hey @i-am-a-fan 8i finally wrote the thing for your boy!!! Sorry if it's not as good or long as the others... I'm a bit tired and a just a whee buzzed. But I did it!!! So here it is and I hope you like it!!!

Google hadn't been expecting Dark to step into his work room while he was, well, working on some new parts for his upgraded model. He hadn't been expecting the Host to be slowly trailing behind what the android could only believe to be a demon, quietly muttering to himself the proper narrations. The Host currently looks to be trying to shrink as small as he could be, chin tucked down with his chin ducking into the collar of his overcoat, arms wrapped around his stomach loosely. He normally looked similar to this, like a turtle trying to fit into a small shell when around Dark, terrified of the presumed demon. It did make since as far as Google knew, though. The rumor was that Dark had stolen the Host’s eyes to keep his power in check. If that were true, then the Host’s fear would be justified. Well, more so than normal because what normal human would not be terrified of the demon?

“Google,” Dark said and the android perks up, noise indicating that he is prepared to listen to any and all orders. Dark motions to the stuttering Host who pauses, probably trying to take in the situation best he can. “Fuse with the Host.”

He knows it's an order. He knows he's not supposed to refuse orders. Yet, here he is, questioning it. “Sorry?” He asked, eyebrows scrunching up to show his confusion. Sure it could make sense of why Dark would want to fuse with the Host or Google separately, but it is odd that he wants them to fuse on their own. It does not make any sense. Yet, here his legs are, stretching and pushing him towards the Host to follow the order out.

“You two will be a strong fusion,” Dark is saying mostly to himself as the Host stops in his muttering, untenses as Google lightly grabs his hands, delicately beginning to lead the slightly shorter ego. The android has always handled the Host with care when he's had to; the ego just appears to be so fragile with his outwards appearance, even if he could probably kill everyone with a simple word. “I could use your strength. Both of you must follow my commands so if course you’ll listen to me.”

The Host goes light in Google’s careful hold, allowing the android to pull him along and lead the slow dance. His bandages around his eyes shift slightly as they move, being brushed by the small breeze as he's pulled along. Google searches his databases, bringing up the fact that the Host heavily prefers slow dances. He recalls one type of slow dance that everyone knows and is very simple: the Waltz.

He slows his steps, moves one of his hands to the Host’s hip. The Host, catching one, raises one of his hands to Google’s shoulder, wrapping his fingers around the upper hand. They become in sync as both remember and recognize the dance, twirling and twisting when needed. The Host smiles as he's dipped at one point and Google has to as well. He hardly ever sees the Host smile, or be happy for that matter. So it's a nice thing to see.

The sudden feeling of burning warmth fills his stomach, slowly through his body as he draws closer to his dance partner. He can feel the Host drawing in closer as well, pressing their bodies together as they bring the dance to a close: Google wrapping his arms around the Host’s body to his own just as the explosion of light occurs, mixing them together.

Dark shields his eyes as this occurs, never having really enjoyed bright lights himself. Yet he grins in triumph as he sees the figure of an entirely new person standing where the two had been prior. They appear to be the perfect fusion because, well, of course they are.

Their hair is a golden, blocking their right as they straighten yet Dark can still see the red and blue wires that hang from the tips, twisting at the ends. Their other eye, a bright brown, is wide and glistened with… tears? The Host’s coat is still in place over their shoulders though on one a bandage is wrapped tightly around the forearm. Beneath the jacket is a deep blue, almost dark turquoise colored shirt, a light blue g in the center. When their one eye peeking from their hair lands on Dark it widens comically and a few tears slip from the corners.

Oh god.

Dark is about to speak when the fusion rushes over, grabbing one of the manifestation’s in their own, looking Dark up and down and now Dark can see one of their eyes is missing, only the wires fill the socket. They bite down on their lip which trembles and a thumb runs along his knuckles. “Oh M- Master Dark, we s- see everything now!” They stammer and suddenly pull him into a hug. A crushing hug and his face is pressed uncomfortably on a metal hard chest. A hand runs through his hair and he's so shocked he doesn't even try to push away yet. “We u- understand now!”

It takes a moment but Dark regains himself and is able to push the fusion away, looking hem up and down as he tries to straighten himself out, tries to get some dignity back. “What the hell-”

“O- oh n- no!” the fusion cried and they still have the god awful stutter to their voice. Their voice sounds like an enhanced version of the Host’s with the constant glitching Google carries. “I- I'm so s-sorry, M- Master Dark! W- i for- forgot you d- don't like huh- hugs!”

“Oh my god shut the hell up,” Dark gritted out and the fusion frowns, more tears only seeming to leak even faster. “Okay, you know what? This was a bad idea. Please unfuse.”

“B- but M- Master Dark!” they exclaim but he's already turning away, ignoring their glitching form. “W- we just- aand y- you're gone.”

They look down at their hands, blinking their one eye to try and clear their tears from it, rubbing at it in frustration. Of course Dark wasn't impressed. But, oh no, he would be. They would not unfuse. They would stay fused and impress him.

Once they figure out how, anyway.

“Cuh- come on, thuh- think,” they mutter to themself angrily, rubbing at their eye and pulling at the wires hanging from their socket. All they can think of is a name… “I mean… I gu- guess we- we could be cah- called Wiki…”

They grin at the name and look at the door Dark had exited out of, running through it to find him. They would impress him somehow.

----

I like to think that Wiki has this really cute stutter that he can't help. Like, the more excited or scared he gets the worse his stutter becomes and it's just really cute

And don't worry, Dark lightens up to them... eventually

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Arsenic and Old Lace (44, C+/B-)

How does one react to a project that is so determined to be strange, and hilarious, and morbid, all at the same time, and yet winds up being none of those things through the sheer effort of trying to accomplish it? That was the thought running through my head for a good portion of Arsenic and Old Lace, which features a pretty game cast burdened by a director who doesn’t seem to be in sync with his own material. There’s a surprisingly hefty amount of plot and characters running around, filling in its two hour run time absolutely fine, but almost none of it feels like it’s in the right key. In fact, the film is given a pretty straightforward, straight-faced treatment by director Frank Capra as he asks Cary Grant to contort his face, voice, and body into so many odd and strange positions and registers. The sheer range of sounds and movements, anxious tics and nervous screams Grant is asked to perform is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in film, fascinating to witness but also excruciating to watch, and who knows how laborious it was for him. His central performance is symptomatic of the film’s worst problems, stretching for effect when the material is potent enough to work with a little less obvious effort. And yet, it’s also a sign of the film’s most compelling efforts, the sheer spectacle of itself and willingness to go that far into comedic overplaying. It’s an interesting lark, constantly threading the needle between an inspired concept and a palpably miserved execution.

So what is this mad plot, you may be asking. Well, the sell line that got me to look into the film is that a man learns that his aunts have been serially slaughtering random, lonely old men as a giddy hobby to save each man’s poor, unfortunate souls. What we also have to contend with is the newly-married wife of that man, shoved out of his life as soon as he learns what his aunts have been doing. This man also has one brother who believes he’s Teddy Roosevelt, and another who’s a career criminal partnered with a plastic surgeon, both on the lamb with a bunch of body parts. There’s also two bumbling cops running around the neighborhood, though they aren’t smart enough to pick up on much. Cary Grant’s character is also named Mortimer Brewster, in case you wanted to know for a fact that this was written in the 1940’s, and his marriage is ever-so-slightly controversial because he’s written multiple books on the bounteous beauty of bachelorhood and the mundane monstrosity of marriage.

But, like his wife, this basically becomes an unnecessary add-on to an already busy film. Second-billed Priscilla Lane’s entire part is seemingly built of the character demanding attention not just from new hubby Mortimer but from Arsenic and Old Lace itself, popping in at random and trying to get her new hubby to remember she exists. This gag reaches its nadir after Lane is nearly killed by the criminal brother, who mistakes her for a burglar, and we are forced to watch her scream about her near-fatal encounter to Grant as he ignores her completely during a phone call he started just after she began her speech. She storms out in fury, and he looks up to wonder what’s got her in a fuss.

Then again, a lot of the film’s scenes feel as though they’re in poor taste, if not just poorly staged. Scenes like Mortimer’s discussion with a sanitarium director who requests if his brother could think he’s Napoleon instead of Teddy Roosevelt given the surplus of Roosevelts they already have, two separate metafilmic instances of characters describing plays that act as narrations of someone trying to kill them, every aforementioned moment with Lane, and a running joke about the second brother’s new face greatly resembling Boris Karloff, all feel like they’ve missed the landing by a good few feet, though some more than others. In fairness, the Karloff joke comes from the original Broadway run starring Karloff in the role as an in-joke, but that doesn’t mean it works quite as well here. Hell, what made it work then? Director Frank Capra’s biggest issue frankly seems to be a lack of shaping of the film’s morbid humor, even as the actors have all been encouraged to do the absolute most they possibly can. Grant’s mugging should work better than it does, but his triumphant, anxious giggle and jump after realizing brother Boris knows about a new body where an old one had been is also the only moment this film ever made me laugh out loud. Josephine Hull, as one of the murderous aunts, is a visible exception to this demand with her casual tendencies, body moments, and line readings, a contrast made even stronger by the permanent grin and upper-register voice work of Jean Adair as the other Brewster sister. Everyone else in the cast falls under the umbrella that Capra’s direction has egged them into, doing fine work in limited parts without challenging or doing much with them.

And yet, for all my palpable misgivings about the film, I wouldn’t call it a bad one at all. The missed opportunities can’t impede that, at its base, this is a strange and fleetly edited object. If I’m not that excited about it, I can’t say that I feel any strong hatred for it, or regret my time with it, even if I don’t plan on watching it again. You could do a lot better when it comes to finding weird, morbid shit from the 40’s, but as far as a selling hook you really can’t beat Arsenic and Old Lace’s “Cary Grant finds out his aunts are serial killers” line, and that arc is certainly the film’s most interesting. In fact, even if some overall narratives were easy to predict, one a scene-by-scene basis the film felt pretty unpredictable, doing its own weird thing whether you liked it or not. The Boris Karloff brother doesn’t even make his introduction until an hour into the film, and does so with absolutely no warning that he’ll be showing up. It’s moving at its own pace, and whatever that pace may be, it’s certainly commendable for doing so.

[enterinit]

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17728 released

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17728 released. You love your phone. So does your PC. Coming soon, we’re bringing the first set of features to Your Phone app for Windows Insiders with an Android device. Snap a pic on your Android, see it on your PC. You can finally stop emailing yourself photos. With Your Phone app, your Android’s most recent photos sync to your PC automatically. Need to add a photo to your presentation? Want to spruce up that selfie with some Windows Ink action? Just drag and drop. And rolling out in the coming weeks, Android users might also start to notice a desktop pin taking you directly to Your Phone app – for quicker access to your phone’s content. To light up this experience, open Your Phone app. You will receive an app from Microsoft which you must download to your mobile phone and follow the setup prompts. Android 7.0 and above are compatible with Your Phone app. For PCs tied to the China region, Your Phone app services will be enabled in the future. For iPhone users, Your Phone app helps you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your computer to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen. With a linked phone, continuing on your PC is one share away. Narrator Improvements We have made the following changes and improvements: Reliability: We have made improvements in Narrator reliability. Scan Mode: Reading and navigating while in Scan Mode has been improved. Selecting text in Scan Mode has also been improved. Selecting forward in Edge has some known issues that we are actively investigating. QuickStart: The link in settings to relaunch the QuickStart should now reliably be working and will launch from the very first Welcome page. The QuickStart should also more reliably take focus when Narrator is launched, which means Narrator should start reading it automatically. Providing Feedback: The keystroke to provide feedback has changed. The new keystroke is Narrator + Alt + F. This will work both in the Standard and Legacy layouts. Note: The Legacy layout also allows you to use Narrator + E to send us feedback. Move Next, Move Previous, and Change View: When changing Narrator’s view to either characters, words, lines or paragraphs the Read Current Item command will read the text of that specific view type more reliably. Keyboard command changes: The keystroke to Move to beginning of text has changed to Narrator + B (was Narrator + Control + B), Move to end of text has changed to Narrator + E (was Narrator + Control + E). Braille: Improved usage of Braille commanding when using the Narrator key from the braille display. General changes, improvements, and fixes We fixed the issue resulting in the Clock & Calendar flyout sometimes not appearing until you clicked Start or the Action Center. This same issue impacted both notifications and the taskbar jump lists appearing. Thank you to all the Windows Insiders who gave feedback on this issue. We fixed an issue resulting minimized apps having squished thumbnails in Task View. We fixed an issue where when open Task View would crash if you pressed Alt+F4 and Timeline was enabled. We fixed an issue where Timeline’s scrollbar didn’t work with touch. We fixed an issue where the top border of UWP apps would still be accent colored even if having an accent colored border was disabled in Settings. We fixed an issue resulting in the tops of apps in tablet mode being clipped (i.e. missing pixels). We fixed an issue where the taskbar would stay on top of full-screened apps if you had previously hovered over any grouped taskbar icon to bring up the extended list of previews, but then clicked elsewhere to dismiss it. As some keen eye’d Insiders noticed, we’ve been working on our scaling logic and you should find apps resize better now after monitor DPI changes. As always, we appreciate feedback in this space, so let us know if you have any issues. We fixed an issue where Find on Page in Microsoft Edge would stop working for open PDFs once the PDF had been refreshed. We fixed an issue where Ctrl-based keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+C, Ctrl+A) didn’t work in editable fields for PDFs opened in Microsoft Edge. We fixed an issue where the icons in the Microsoft Edge extension pane were drawing unexpectedly close to the toggles. We fixed an issue where the enabled/disabled state of Fast Startup would be reset to default after upgrading. After upgrading off of this build your preferred state will persist. We fixed an issue where the Windows Security icon in the taskbar notification area (systray) would become a little bit blurrier every time there was a resolution change. We fixed an issue where the USERNAME environment variable was returning SYSTEM when queried from an un-elevated Command Prompt in recent builds. We fixed the issue where if the Narrator key is set to just Insert, sending a Narrator command from a braille display should now function as designed regardless if the Caps Lock key is a part of the Narrator key mapping. We fixed the issue in Narrator’s automatic dialog reading where the title of the dialog is being spoken more than once. We fixed the issue where Narrator won’t read combo boxes until Alt + down arrow is pressed. Known issues We’re progressing in our work on adding dark theme in File Explorer and the Common File Dialog – you’ll notice improvements in this build, although we still have a few things left to do. You may see some unexpectedly light colors in these surfaces when in dark mode and/or dark on dark text. There is an issue impacting WDAG, Remote Desktop and Hyper-V. Remote Desktop Client (mstsc.exe) users will see a misleading error dialog complaining about low virtual memory when a connection is being established. As a workaround, they can ignore that error dialog by just leaving it there. If they dismiss the error dialog, the connection will be severed. And users won’t be able to use enhanced session in Virtual Machine Connection (vmconnect.exe). As a workaround, they can stick with the non-enhanced session. When you upgrade to this build you’ll find that the taskbar flyouts (network, volume, etc) no longer have an acrylic background. When you use the Ease of Access Make Text bigger setting, you might see text clipping issues, or find that text is not increasing in size everywhere. When you set up Microsoft Edge as your kiosk app and configure the start/new tab page URL from assigned access Settings, Microsoft Edge may not get launched with the configured URL. The fix for this issue should be included in the next flight. On Build 17723 (but not Build 18204), you may see the notification count icon overlapping with the extension icon in the Microsoft Edge toolbar when an extension has unread notifications. On Windows 10 in S Mode, launching Office from the Store may fail to launch with an error about a .dll not being designed to run on Windows. The error message is that a .dll “is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again…” Some people have been able to work around this by uninstalling and reinstalling Office from the Store. When using Narrator Scan mode you may experience multiple stops for a single control. An example of this is if you have an image that is also a link. This is something we are actively working on. When using Narrator Scan mode Shift + Selection commands in Edge, the text does not get selected properly. We’re investigating a potential increase in Start reliability and performance issues in this build. After setting up a Windows Mixed Reality headset for the first time on this build with motion controllers, the controllers may need to be re-paired a second time before appearing in the headset. When using a Windows Mixed Reality immersive app, saying “Flashlight on,” may fail to activate the flashlight feature even though the status appears as active on the Start menu. Known issues for Developers If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring – optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings. Read the full article

[mpare5]

Enter darkened room…

Sit, face an eerie grass green iridescent set

Does it hint at where dead bunny will lay beneath?

For tis below the surface he arises

Hence the mayhem begins…

Opinionated Review

A cast so talented (and multi-charactered) they would be met with success from every school in the country – familiar with My Dead Bunny. A production so in-sync, so tight, so well-rehearsed there would be repeat theatre goers. The depth of talent is one well appreciated within the intimacy of such a personal space.

Director Timothy Wynn and Illustrator James Foley

Before the mayhem begins

From book to Play in Ipswich

Archie Horneman-Wren, as the boy, has a voice and a talent which will be noticed as he progresses within this career path. If he’s not noticed, then they be deaf and blind.

Left: Timothy Wynn (director), Archie (the boy) with bunny, and James Foley (Illustrator)

His Mum, Keziah Dos Santos (Zombie Trio/Joan/Fluffy) and his Dad, Will Boyd (Roadkill Bill/Willard the Worm/Samuel), spot on, as the overprotective parents who don’t believe their son’s concerns. They soon do, and hence you are instantly journeying with the trio. His sister, Indigo Macrokanis (Stan/Zombie Trio/Bellboy), fabulous, as one of those annoying, eye-rolling sisters who don’t give their brothers the time of day – until it is too late for her. Then she played Stan, one of the boy’s best friends, who later tangled with her zombie pet cat, Fluffy. I reiterate again, behold the depth of a multi-talented cast.

The infamous Bunny Brad as Gary Farmer-Trickett (Weyland the Worm) was so convincing that a young boy was sent crying – for alas his cute cuddly bunny had been replaced with a 6 foot grubby white, grass stained zombie bunny. I wasn’t far behind, but held onto my seat for it was threatening to leave without me. Jermia Turner (Zombie Trio/Doctor/Connie) as Billy, one of the boy’s best friends had a pet before becoming Roxanne, the zombie dog. And Narrator, Bradley Chapman, was the thread that pulled the front of stage seamlessly together.

The ‘behind the scenes’ creative talenteds have deftly adapted this book as a play. Playwrights Timothy Wynn (Director and Producer) and Cassandra Ramsay (Creative Producer) with music and lyrics by Lizzie Flynn are the stainless nut and bolts who have lifted the words from the page onto the stage. Further adding to their success is Assistant Director and Make-Up artist, Nick Smith, Stage Manager, Courtney Mayhew for without them the performers and stage would be a blank screen. Hence, Production Designer, Raymond Milner and Choreographer, Mara Glass have brought the set and characters to life. And without the Sound Designer, MSG and Instruments arranged and played by Alex Neil – you would hear nought.

It premiered at the Story Arts Festival Ipswich (SAFI) on 9 September, 2017.

This production is based on the book by Sigi Cohen and illustrator by James Foley. Adapted for the stage by playwrights Cassandra Ramsay and Timothy Wynn with music and lyrics by Lizzie Flynn. 

It was a pleasure to see the cast and crew with illustrator James Foley as their opportunity for a shared camaraderie.

* I have added the information below for I believe it is not the last you will see of this talented cast, production team and crew.

By That Production Company

MY DEAD BUNNY A brand new hare-raising musical adventure!

Artistic Director Timothy Wynn

After his pet bunny Brad perishes in an electrifying accident, a young Boy struggles to say goodbye, but following a bizarre chain of events, it would seem that Bunny Brad’s journey isn’t quite over.

Odd odours, eerie earthworms, and strange shadows can only mean one thing – there’s an undead bunny going bump in the night. But with a cast of eccentric doctors, bizarre besties, creepy crawlies, peculiar parents, silly sisters, and ghoulish guests… defeating the undead may be a little tricky.

Delight in this new hare-raising musical adventure for the whole family bringing the creepy and hilarious picture book by Sigi Cohen and James Foley to life (in a deliciously zombie kind of way).

Created by THAT Production Company, the team behind the stage adaptations of The Tuckshop Kid and Eric Vale Epic Fail, this new premiere will thrill audiences of all ages.

You’ll be hopping mad if you miss out on this zombie rabbit tale – book now.

EVENT DETAILS Dates & Times: 7.30pm nightly + 11am & 2pm Sat 9 Sep Venue: Studio 188 (188 Brisbane St, Ipswich) Tickets: Adults $30, Concession/Youth (under30) $27, Child $20 Support THAT Pro Co and purchase a TPC Supporter Ticket: $100, includes cast recording & print program

Presented by THAT Production Company Premiering as part of the Story Arts Festival Ipswich (SAFI)Based on the book by Sigi Cohen and illustrated by James Foley published by Walker Books Australia Pty. Ltd Adapted for the stage by Cassandra Ramsay and Timothy Wynn with music and lyrics by Lizzie FlynnTHE CREATIVE TEAM: Follow us on Facebook to meet them all in the coming weeks!

CAST

The Boy – Archie Horneman-Wren Sister/Stan/Zombie Trio/Bellboy – Indigo Macrokanis Dad/Roadkill Bill/Willard the Worm/Samuel – Will Boyd Mum/Zombie Trio/Joan/Fluffy – Keziah Dos Santos Billy/Zombie Trio/Doctor/Connie – Jermia Turner Bunny Brad/Weyland the Worm – Gary Farmer-Trickett The Narrator – Bradley Chapman

CREATIVES

Director / Producer / Playwright: Timothy Wynn Creative Producer / Playwright: Cassandra Ramsay Assistant Director / Make-Up: Nick Smith Stage Manager: Courtney Mayhew Production Designer: Raymond Milner Choreographer: Mara Glass Sound Designer: MSG Songs and Lyrics by: Lizzie Flynn Instruments arranged and played by: Alex Neil

SUPPORTERS

Cast recording supported by the The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF), a partnership between Queensland Government and Ipswich City Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.

This production has received financial support via a community donation from Cr Andrew Antoniolli.

THAT Production Company would also like to thank the support of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd.

Illustration by James Foley

Kid Friendly (not sure about this – for one child exited stage left distraught that cute, cuddly Bunny Brad was no longer – thus transformed into a… )

Over My Dead Bunny Enter darkened room... Sit, face an eerie grass green iridescent set Does it hint at where dead bunny will lay beneath?