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kopw · 10 months

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g1 season is upon us! i'm too lazy to gif every match myself! the world needs gifmakers like you! yes you!

this guide includes: basic gifmaking, actions, how to blur on-screen graphics, coloring tips catered specifically to wrestling footage (mainly aew and njpw), how to add subtitles, what tags to use

what you will need:

photoshop (i currently use cc 2017 for windows which you can grab from this post by birdysources)

kmplayer (for extracting frames)

what you might need depending on what you're looking to gif:

4k video downloader (for downloading videos off youtube)

vkopt (browser extension that lets you download videos off vk)

step 1: getting the footage

if you're directly downloading from a site this step is super easy. just make sure to always go for the highest quality of footage available (for njpw this is nowhere near 1080p, and even aew's 1080p footage is pixelated in places—but don't let this deter you!)

if you plan on giffing something off a ppv, chances are you might need to torrent the event. if you can, look for versions off fite with either web or webrip in the title for the best quality. this applies to weekly television too (fite doesn't have picture-in-picture). always seed your torrents. yes, even that one match from 2012. especially that one

you can also get recent shows off watchprowrestling dot co (previously org) which includes njpw tour shows and indie events as well. check out indy★wrestling★group on vk for smaller promotions and japanese promotions outside of njpw (tjpw, stardom, noah...)

step 2: choosing a clip

wrestling footage quality is not consistent. entrances with too many flashing lights or small particles will have huge quality drops, so unless it's something really special, don't put yourself through that. close-ups are generally your best friend but don't shy away from clips with lots of movement (you do sometimes want to gif the wrestling parts of wrestling too)

step 3: extracting frames

open your video in kmplayer. go to the part that you want to gif (though, i suggest leaving a bit of fodder before and after the actual clip. you can always trim the frames down later and it's better to start off with more). then, press ctrl + g

this should bring up this window:

your settings might be different if it's your first time downloading the app so just copy what you see here

kmplayer automatically captures into its own folder, which you can change if you want, but i just left it as is. i recommend pinning the folder you regularly use to the quick access menu in your file explorer

hit start, start the video, let it capture frames for however long, and then hit stop on both the extractor and the video itself. and now you have a bunch of frames in a folder. cool!

step four: converting frames to layers

open photoshop. this will take ages but open it. go to file -> scripts -> load files into stack...

this will bring up this window:

click browse... and select all the frames you just extracted. depending on the number of frames, this might take you a bit. then hit ok and let your layers load into photoshop. this will take a long time (saying this as someone whose laptop tends to heat up to the temperature of an egg pan at this point in the process)

step five: actions

i use actions (user-built series of recorded commands, meaning you don't have to click everything manually) for everything except coloring. i use a mishmash of like three different actions that i never bothered to organize. these are the two most important ones:

actionpack #1 by giulia (i use the setup and save portions from this one)

squishmoon actions by lildohnut (i use the hd sharpening from here, first layer on 0.3 for close-ups and 0.2 otherwise, and the second layer at the suggested 50%)*

*most sharpening settings you'll find are made for current films and tv shows so you do have to make some adjustment to fit your crunchy wrestling footage

step six: sizing

pick a size for your gif! here is a handy chart:

as for height, it can range anywhere from 300px-540px and beyond. most people go for 350px-450px. 400px is the sweet spot

personal preference: adjust canvas size not image size and fit your footage accordingly. some footage (looking at you aew) can have an odd black bar at the bottom, and manual resizing can help getting rid of it. if you just resize the whole image that will stay there and bother you

additional tip: guidelines

9/10 times you will leave your footage centered. however, there are times when this can look a bit awkward, depending on the framing, in which case i like bringing in a few guidelines. go to view -> new guide layout...

rule of thirds is generally good for drawing the eye to certain places. these settings will divide your canvas into nine squares that help you reposition your main gif layer

optional step: blurring pop-up graphics and banners

so, you have your sharpened, resized gif... but the sharpening made the small text and other unwanted elements on your screen shrivel up like raisins. you can leave it as is, people won't mind, it's a wrestling gif, who cares. but, if you want, you can just blur it out

i'm at least a little bit certain that i'm personally the guy who brought this over from k-pop tumblr (not saying i invented the concept, i just love being a trendsetter) and so i can give you a few reasons as to why people do this. such as:

adding subtitles over pre-existing, burnt subtitles (example: njpw post-match comments off njpwworld and not youtube)

getting rid of elements that might distract people from the focal point of the gif (the hotties... and the moves. mostly the hotties)

it makes your otherwise milquetoast sharpening look a little better in contrast

it's gonna be ugly either way so it's a pick your poison type of situation. if you do want to try the blurring method, you will need a basic knowledge of filters and layer masks

step-by-step blurring process:

duplicate your gif layer

blur the layer on top (i typically go for a 4.0 gaussian blur; for this, go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur...)

apply a layer mask to the blurred layer and make the layer mask black (this will remove the blur effect, don't be scared). to access the layer mask just click on it. you can press alt before clicking to "enter" the layer mask (though you won't see your gif this way)

go in with a soft round brush (or any brush) with white and draw over the bits you want blurred. this is the tedious part

profit?

here's a comparison:

it's really down to personal preference ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و

i convert my base gif layer and the blurred layer into a smart object before moving on with my process because sometimes photoshop likes to do this thing where it only applies the blur to the frame you're on. you can avoid this by combining the layers manually

if you're working with njpw footage and your clip plus coloring combination allows you to, you can also just go over the banner with black and blend it into the background. it's by far the best option but there's so rarely an opportunity to utilize it (i did it in the little header i made... go back and look at how beautiful she is)

step six: coloring

the big one. oh boy. prefacing this with: you can just skip coloring if you want. the sharpening settings i recommended earlier give a nice contrast to the gifs as is, so if it looks fine like that, you don't need any fancy colors. that being said...

my thought process going into coloring is to focus on skin tones and adjust everything around them. i don't tend to use psds, i always just manually color correct based on the actual footage i'm working with (venues differ, lighting differs, hues differ... incredibly hard to plan for all of it in advance). if i plan on making multiple gifsets of the same event/match, i do re-use settings, but sometimes minor adjustments are still needed

to begin coloring, you will need to use adjustment layers. you will pretty much need a basic knowledge of all of them (to the extent of knowing what the sliders and values do)

[1] i always begin with an exposure layer. this will remain above all of your layers (unless you plan on adding subtitles). here are my settings:

again, every layer you add after this will go below your exposure layer

[2] i add a selective color layer to further adjust the blacks. this will vary gif to gif but keep your adjustments small

[3] i add a vibrance layer. wrestling footage has major saturation problems that you can manage early on to make your life easier. take back a tiny bit (usually from -3 to -5) of vibrance before you begin your other color adjustments

[4] this is the big skin tone adjustment step using a curves layer. it does most of the heavy-lifting in my process. here is a video tutorial that explains the technique i use. it works the same with gifs as it does with images. the key differences are:

the image you are color picking off of shouldn't be a limited skin tone chart but rather an image of the wrestler(s) in natural (or as close to natural as you can find) lighting. i just go for renders used on the roster page. fan photography is way too edited to use here

try picking from a darker area of skin (shadows, midtones). it fits better with match lighting

this step will most likely correct color tints, but keep in mind that different promotions/shows/venues have different lighting. here are my personal observations:

aew dynamite and rampage have strong magenta tints

aew collision and roh honor club have strong red tints

njpw has a washed out blue tint

impact has a strong green tint

you can either lean into these (play around with making them really vibrant) or cancel them out using opposites on the color wheel (for example: to get rid of the magenta tint on dynamite, either decrease the magenta slider in your neutrals using selective color or add more green using color balance)

you will almost always have to add more cyan as well (either using color balance or channel mixer; channel mixer can also help you fine-tune skin tones with its blue tab—don't get rid of yellow undertones!)

[5] here is where i start fiddling around with manual adjustments that i seriously can't help you with... just add layers and change colors until you think it feels right. don't be afraid to start over if needed

[6] finishing touches! if you're like me you will have overcolored in the previous step. don't be afraid to add a saturation layer and decrease specifically the saturation of the reds (this will affect the skin tone; if you feel like you're on the right track but it's just too orange-looking, it's a saturation issue)

i also tend to add a black & white layer below the exposure layer up top set to soft light and lowered to 10% opacity. this gives you a bit of additional contrast that pulls the final gif together in my opinion

optional step: adding subtitles and watermarks

always add text layers above your coloring!

[1] subtitles

the font i use for subtitles is arial rounded mt bold, which you can download for free here. the point of subtitles is for them to be readable, so feel free to use any other font as long as it can be read with ease (nothing too thin or too blocky). if you plan on using the font i use, make sure to set it on faux bold and faux italics

font size differs based on the size of your gif, but it should normally be between 17pt and 23pt. i like to keep my tracking (letter-spacing) the same as my font size (so for 21pt subtitles i would have the tracking also at 21). i keep leading (the space between multiple lines of text) 3pt or 4pt

if there are two people speaking, i like setting the second speaker's text color to #ffd300. this is a generic yellow caption color that is still easy to read

after you have your basic text done, right click on your layer to add blending options. adding a stroke and a drop shadow can further help bring your text to the foreground. I keep my stroke (hah) at a simple 1px black. here are my drop shadow settings:

here is a more detailed guide about subtitles by clubgif

as for placement i add a horizontal guide at 95% and put my text on top of the line (while also keeping it centered vertically)

[2] watermarks

i personally don't use watermarks because i just don't care to, but if you want to add one, the same general ideas apply. just lower the opacity of your text layer at the end (if you want... again, a watermark is personalized)

step seven: timing

this is where you'll have to convert your video timeline back to a frame animation!

delete the frames that you don't need and then set a consistent timing (click on your first frame and shift + click on your last one to select all of your frames before adjusting). i like my gifs at 0.04, but depending on the footage you can go for 0.03 (newer bte episodes) or 0.05 (this also works if you don't have enough frames and want your gif a bit slower)

step eight: exporting

go to file -> export -> save for web (legacy)...

here are my export settings:

make sure to keep your gif under 10mb! if your file exceeds 10mb, you can't upload it to tumblr. you either have to cut some more frames or add compression to your gif (something i would never do, i always just cut frames)

additional tip: tagging

you have your gif! but how do you get people to actually look at it?

i always tag wrestlers* (full name, for both searchability and tag filtering purposes), promotions (initialisms like #aew over #all elite wrestling; if it's a more generic promotion name i.e. impact, go for #impact wrestling), tracked edit tags (#aewedit, #njpwedit; this not only helps source blogs find your posts and give them a bigger reach but it lets you browse other people's works). if you want to go the extra mile you can also include which event/video the gifset is from somewhere in your tags (if it's not already in the caption)

*even if you feel like it personally hurts you to tag that one wrestler you can't stand who happens to be in a match with your fave: do try tagging all wrestlers involved for ease of filtering, especially if you don't add image descriptions to your gifsets (tumblr's post content filtering system picks up on those)

general tumblr etiquette but don't cross-tag (i.e. tag a wwe gifset as #aew). no one likes cross-taggers. crossover events are exempt from this rule of course (forbidden door, multiverse united...)

additional tip: accessibility

don't use gradient text in your captions. screen readers can't read them!

if you can, include an image description. no matter how basic. this not only helps people with screen readers but the alt text of your gif is what's going to be displayed in case the gif isn't loading properly. here's a guide on how to caption gifsets by shangs

and you're done! all that's left to do is get silly with it. once you have the basics down you can virtually do anything. you can make those pretty graphics with blending. you can gif every single match of your fave in chronological order. sky's the limit

don't be discouraged if your gifs are not "perfect" from the get-go. this is a hobby just like any other hobby, and with time you'll get better at it. don't compare yourself to others and don't put your efforts down. only you can make the exact gifs you want to see

#aewedit #njpwedit #i spent all day on this... i hope it's at least a little bit helpful 🙏

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necroangelz · 5 months

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under the sign of the WINX !!

day 1 of @lavendergalactic's event

“ an edit from your childhood show/game/movie/etc. ”

MUSA & STELLA GRAPHICS! open them for better quality! the photos may be a bit crunchy, so i apologize.... tao lang ako guys ........

art credits: chibimica.art

rambling + alt versions of the graphics and an extra Stella graphic under the cut.

like and rb please!!!!! i like attention!!!!!!!!!!!1 credits are appreciated but not forced, don't claim as your own. you have to credit the artist though!

NOW PLAYING: Harmonix from Winx Club !!

Harmonix is my fav transformation song <3

first time doing an event omg

Winx club was a foundational basis of my childhood, and musa and Stella were my favorite characters! Musa turned out to be one of my fictionkintypes, and well, Stella can do no wrong if you ask me. although they did her personality so dirty in some of the seasons...

i intended to make just Musa graphics but i was like FUCK IT let's make Stella graphics too. idrk how i feel about the masks i use on the Stella graphics on the left and right? but whatever! it's done now and I'm ok with it.

here's the extras <3 the ones with the square frames but without the blur and lens flare, and another Stella graphic!

omg what else was i going to say. whatever

i edited these icons while cleaning the house

i can't wait to get attention for doing this now. /j

#lavender100 #winx club #stella winx club #musa winx club #graphics #rentry #winx club edit #winx club icon #decor #👁️‍🗨️﹕ from the archives 𝜗𝜚 ︵#Spotify

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nameless-and-joymaking · 9 months

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which andrew do you prefer as prior walter? i've seen the version with a.garfield in its entirety but a few clips on yt i saw of andrew scott were much more compelling to me tho i kinda liked the borderline campiness of the other andrew. thinking

this is a great question omg,,,

i prefer scott, with the caveat that it's almost unfair to compare the two bc i so intensely dislike the direction of garfield's production.

i appreciate the campiness of garfields performance. both scott and garfield are doing capital-F Fag Acting, but scott's is ahem. a bit more authentic. i also think it's more consistent (garfield should have picked a number 1-10 on how swishy prior is and had someone spray him with water like a cat every time he deviated from that number.) garfield also goes hard on Dying Acting, and it adds up to being a Lot at times, like he's playing a series of qualities more than actual, actionable human drives.

that whole production, by virtue of nathan lane being there, and marianne elliott's general sensibility, goes for every single possible joke on the page-- and it's a sign of a good actor to find all those jokes! but it's the director's job to say 'ok let's lose two of those as to not sacrifice the tone of this scene'. i rewatched both of their bench scenes (the 'ks, baby' one) and the action is never allowed to play out. letting the audience off the hook with a quick laugh, i Hated how quickly the lighting cue comes in at the end, etc. there were also some very basic mistakes in that production that either the actors or elliott should have caught-- if someone says "don't yell" halfway thru a scene the actors should not both have been yelling for the past four minutes. like cmon.

scott makes these lovely counterintuitive acting choices that i'm very partial to-- he does this in every role he's in. think his little smile in his hamlet's soliloquy. fwiw i also think scott perceived the structure of the bench scene just a tinyyyy bit better-- as a viewer, you feel the connection between the parallel threads of talking about death and talking about the cat so seamlessly. scott also thrives on being a little alienating, which is a new flavor for prior, who's usually such a straightforwardly lovable/relatable character. (ftr i don't think that's right or wrong, i think that's a matter of taste) the accent is a liiiiitttle umm. crunchy. but i famously do not care when theatre actor have wonky accents (kelli ohara italian my beloved)

#you didnt ask for all this detail but here we are #theatre

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prism-stone-planet · 9 months

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Ok so here’s my long ramble-y thoughts about Idol Land Pripara after playing it for a bit. I’m just gonna write what pops into my head first lol so anyway:

Coordes

I really love pretty much all the new coordes I’ve seen, they’re all very cute and pretty and very Pripara esque imo however the only downside is that some of them cost real money and are pretty expensive, even the non new ones and the ones that cost silver Idollars can be quite expensive too

It also sucks that some coordes are locked behind the paid gacha and it’s rates aren’t the best (1.5% or something chance of getting a Premium Pripara Rare so good luck getting Amari’s Cyalume) and there’s no spark system. If you get doubles you get points that contribute to your gacha meter that can get you Silver Idollars, Promise Tickets, Exchange Tickets or Gacha Tickets but you’re mostly gonna get Silver Idollars and Promise Tickets which idk doesn’t feel like a fair exchange.

I do like the Coorde sorting system compared to the Switch game tho

Silver Idollars

One decision I’m baffled by is how Silver Idollars expire at the end of the month. I thought it was because Silver and Gold Idollars were the same except Gold are paid and they didn’t want people saving their Silver so they’d never need to pay for Gold but there’s some stuff you can only buy with Gold and some you can only buy with Silver and you can’t buy Silver Idollars or (to my knowledge) exchange Gold into Silver so why does Silver expire???

Live Promises and Songs

Live Promises are fine enough, it plays pretty much like the Switch game and I like that you can just tap anywhere on the screen to play and not the button. I also appreciate the screenshot button but idk it feels too small to me, I keep missing it when I try to click it. I also find my phone gets really hot when playing Live’s and a lot of Making Dramas aren’t in E.g Baby Monster just gives you After School Heart Dash or whatever it’s called

There’s a small selection of songs rn which is a shame especially since a lot cost money but I hope they add more soon especially ones not on the switch.

It’s nice you can pretty much play Pripara as much as you want by doing other people’s Promises but you get so little Idollars and Likes compared to doing one you created. I’ve also found that a lot of times when I go to join a promise, it’s already full. The promise list also loads slowly. It’d also be nice if it asked if you wanted to change your Coorde before doing a Promise.

Also this is a nitpick but only Lala’s voice plays with the new Welcome to Idol Land making drama and not mychara voices. Also found a glitch where mychara voices get put as Genki even though I set mine at Ootori or whatever it’s called.

It also sucks with Live Promises you can only play as anime characters if you do official promises that have them and even then you can’t change their Coorde.

Snapshot Promises

I really enjoyed doing these in PriChan but it’s a shame that they give less Likes than Lives (at least I’ve found) and you can only take one pose pic of your character and the rest are other players characters. Like, I don’t really wanna take pics of random strangers characters lol

Photo Studio and Photos

This one’s kind of a let down. I think it’s paid only via the Monthly Pass but I forgot to check before I bought it. There’s only a handful of poses and pre-existing backgrounds and the photo quality is so crunchy?? Also speaking of photos, I kinda hate that I have to upload it to Pristagram if I want to save it in good quality to my phone. I’ve found it takes forever to upload and it doesn’t even indicate to you that it’s uploading because the screen just freezes and I had to try and upload pics twice today because it wouldn’t work the first time

Anime

Talked about it a lot before so won’t talk about it a lot here but I’m still disappointed they didn’t decided to release official English subs for the anime especially after subbing Primagi and making the game region free.

But I think the anime is the best thing to come out of the game, Amari is a great character, new songs are great and the animation is great

Other

Nitpick but it’s a shame the rank system is different now. Now it’s just rank 1 or rank 2 instead of like “Fledgling Idol” or “Kami Idol”. Also the lovely Coorde change jingle glitch that plays even if you’re not wearing a lovely Coorde that’s from the Switch still exists :/

I think that’s all I can think of rn. Overall the game could definitely be improved especially with how it took 3 years of delays to release like this. I also hope we get more character parts soon especially the fluffy pigtails because I wanna make my character Dia. Sorry this is so long lol, if you made it this far then thanks for reading

#pripara #idol land pripara #shadows thoughts

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borbersk · 4 months

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Ok. I know you motherfuckers are going to have some options here, so I decided to share with you one of my favourite recipes: shit noodles (also known as scrap noodles, white noodles, or chow mein)

One thing that's important to note is that I generally try to use as few utensils for this as possible, so if you like the idea then all you're allowed to use is a pot, a pan, a pot lid to drain, and some chopsticks or a fork. Use the same utensils you used to cook with to eat with

So, it's basically just fried noodles and some filler, so let's start with the filler. I'm using scallions, garlic, and whatever scraps of meat I could find, but you coukd use spinach, bok choy, mushrooms, peppers, or whatever else you feel like. I generally wouldn't use cured meat but if you want to experiment, feel free

I chop all of that as fine as I can (this is personal preference because of sensory shit. Do whatever you feel like) and then start boiling the noodles. You could boil the noodles while you do this, but I've found it's better to have this ready because it takes a while to chop

Also, if you chose chopsticks earlier you can place them across your pan and they'll stop it from boiling over assuming they're wood

They need boiling because they're freeze-dried but if you use higher quality noodles they'll be all noodly already and not hard and crunchy, so this isn't necessary. Of course, at that point you risk losing the vibe of this being a quick, cheap college meal and becoming actual dinner

I generally use two blocks of instant noodles for this and eat it all, but this time I used three and saved some for later. Actually, after my first bowl I tried to go back for the rest thinking I was hungrier than I was and saved what I couldn't eat for today

Anyway. Boil those until they're softer, but still good and wavy. If they get too soft in the pot then they'll get even softer in the pan and might not be the texture you're looking for. Experiment with what works best for you

Also, I use the flavour packet. It's not the only flavouring I use as you'll see, but I find that it doesn't hurt

Next, drain the noodles and throw all the other ingredients in a wok, skillet or frying pan with either sesame oil or butter. If you do use oil, only use a little bit. You'll be using butter later. I also put the veg in before the meat since that's already been cooked, but you do you. I also put in some salt, a lot of pepper, and a little ginger powder since I didn't have fresh ginger

Fry all of that to your heart's content, and then dump in your noodles. Try and probably fail to combine the finicky little bits with the giant mass that you just covered them with, and throw in as much soy sauce as you're comfortable with, and a metric fucktonne (that's a little bit for imperial users. A smidgen. A nip) of butter. If you missed the salt and pepper before you could do it here but it feels wrong. Stir fry and toss in your wok to feel cool until everything is combined and the noodles dry out a little bit, and then serve

This makes enough for it to be a one a day kind of meal, so I generally make it at 2am when I haven't had breakfast yet. Today I was feeling fancy though, so I poured a small glass of my friend's insane pear mead that I'll never publicly admit is better than mine, and sat down to unwind.

Enjoy, my friends. And enjoy telling me how wrong my cooking is. I've seen some real crimes and know that god has bigger worries than my survival

#cooking #easy meals

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mahiiimahiiii · 2 months

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Hello dear! I saw your post about bg3 matchups and it sounded like fun, if you have the time! My name is Lucy; I’m 23 and an INFP (yay rhymes!). I love history and old things, as well as horror stories. My biggest pet peeve is people being pretentious or arrogant, and sports bore me to tears. My favorite physical feature about myself if probably my hair, which has nice waves and is several different shades of blonde. I’m about 5’6” and on the heavier side, with very pale skin and green-blue eyes. On a non-physical level, I really like my ingenuity and problem-solving skills. I’m a straight woman, and my favorite color is definitely green. My favorite food is without a doubt southern fried catfish. A song is more difficult, but I think I’ll go with Bitter Water by The Oh Hellos! My hobbies include historical costuming, baking, and coming up with things to terrify my friends with in the campaign I DM. Thank you so much for this, I’m excited to read what you write! All the best to you friend :)

Hello! Apologies on the pause on getting this out I wanted to stave off burnout!

Your was a difficult decision to make but I think I finally got it. That awnser was very simple when I finally saw it!

Wyll! Pride of the gate :))

For scents, jasmine flower and a crisp oolong tea.

Sure he's not handy with a needle but he enjoys you talking about your work, peering in now and again to offer praise or perhaps a snack of apples and cheese.

He definitely enjoys hearing your storytelling, it's something to see most. Your passion and creativity! They are admirable qualities to have

Taste wise I would say a bottom seared dumpling. So the bottom is a bit crunchy but the inside is soft and gooey.

Date wise I'd say a thread date, wyll takes intrigue in his partners activities, so he'd insist that you teach him how to sew a bit!

Hed find silly embroidery patterns, and sooner or later you'd be finding small designs on the hems of your clothes.

Hope that was ok!!

#bg3 #baulders gate 3 #bg3 ask #bg3 pairings #wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll #baldurs gate wyll #ask game #ask #awnsered

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ahorseofeverycolor · 2 years

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Have you heard of Zuru five surprise unicorn squad/fariry unicorn squad? If so, what are your thoughts on them? I’ve started collecting a few myself and they’re actually pretty decent by surprise toy standards.

I had not heard of it! But now...I've looked it up to see what it's all about. Zuru is really interesting as a brand, because of its quite low price point but then apparent quality. I had seen plenty of the Zuru Sparkle Girlz unicorns at Walmart (they're unpackaged, and just have a tag on the collar to buy them at about 2 or 3 dollars each) and then more recently the larger ones with movable legs appearing at Big Lots. I guess they're technically 'pony fakies' at their little size, but they're CLEARLY better quality than any of the G4 (late) and G5 stuff. They have 4 rows of hair for the mane, plus bangs, plus a 'rim' of hair around the face to give them a dolly hairline. The hair is also nylon that feels quality, not that crunchy, stiff, cheap-as-possible junk Hasbro's been using and then charging like 4x more for recently on everything. How is Zuru doing it? Great colors, obviously tons of 'characters', big toys and like...ultra-low pricing? As for the 5 Surprise, I'm not surprised at all that they are quality and variety. They've gone from 'ugly fake barbie doll in a cone' to a real contender with their variety of fairies and unicorns that they are actually putting effort into. Movable limbs, brushable hair, accessories, and special paint for 'surprise-bag' toys is good, however they seem to run about 10 dollars each which is high for something you don't know what you'll get. Opinion time: I probably won't get these, as they're not quite 'pony like' enough with their forward facing eyes (better than G5 but still) and the noses look like a tube on a balloon. It's too separate from the face/maybe going for that 'puppy dog' look. It makes an ok toy that is fine to like, but it is not a type that I will like enough to collect. If they molded the 5Surprise like the medium ones, I might be tempted. Their Zuru regular ones seem to go for a bit of the G2 look (good for fans of that) with taller heads, but their nose/mouth is unified with the head as it would be on a horse, which has more appeal (to me). If I find any Zuru anything at thrift of yard sale, it would likely appear as a TTT here though. (Thank you for letting me know about these!)

#zuru #unicorns #surprise bag #5 surprise #ponies

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0illipheist · 2 years

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Hi! I noticed for the first time today that you usually have a sort of "noise" filter on your art. I think it looks cool, adds a sort of polaroid-y quality to the piece yk? I was just wondering what you liked about it, and why it's so consistently featured? :) (Truly an art process question--hope it doesn't come off oddly!) Thanks!

oke SO:

-I like it bc it makes my stuff look a little 'crunchy' (not sure what other word to use) bc I'm not great with the more oil paint style of colouring, mine is more hard shading so I think it just adds a bit of nice texture.

-It's pretty constant bc I like it so much ^^' the only time I don't use it is when I've done pin design commissions and character sheets bc it's just not practical

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kubrik-was-a-c-nt · 2 years

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I have a bit of a dissenting opinion on the issues surrounding the Mario movie, but I feel like a few things have to be said.

There are certain types of movie that are notorious for not doing well at the box office, two of those are musicals, and video game movies. When a studio decides to tackle one of these things, they will often cast big names in acting to star in order to bring in as many ticket sales as possible. For example, people wouldnt have been as interested in seeing the Les Miserables movie if they heard that Norm Lewis would be playing Javert (as hes completely unknown to mainstream audiences), but the fact that they cast Russell Crowe in a role that required him to sing all his lines made people curious.

This is a big reason why professional voice actors are often passed over for movie roles: if they arent a mainstream actor, production companies believe that they wont bring in audience numbers like live action actors do. If the average person cant immediately recall seeing another movie that person was in, they're not worth putting in a movie. That's why Scarlett Johansson was in a lot of movies in a short amount of time, because she was in a few big hits recently and was likely to bring in more audience members who didnt even care about what the movie was about, they just wanted to see her. She got Ghost in the Shell for this exact reason, despite there being a ton of Asian actresses who could have been the lead, her face was everywhere and would bring the best numbers.

Chris Pratt has done a lot of recognizable work and is now a well recognized actor, so it makes sense that in order to put a lot of star power into the movie the executives at Illumination put him in as the top billing. They're trying to cast a wide net to bring in audience members who dont even know anything about Mario to watch it.

That's the issue with movies like that, marketing is a HUGE factor for the opening weekend and big names need to be put to a project. I bet you most people on this website didnt know Charles Martinet's name until the voice casting was announced for this movie. And that's also true for most voice actors, they're job is so sound different for every character so you're not supposed to recognize then (unless you're Vic McNuggets). Its natural that no one thinks about how the animated Joker has the same voice as Fire Lord Ozai, or how Timmy Turner is also Harley Quinn.

I guarantee you that if they cast everyone with regular voice actors, the box office wouldn't be as big as casting everyone with recognizable stars. Ticket sales would primarily be children and gamers, which aren't the biggest audiences to shill to.

I also feel like people are giving this movie the same treatment as the Aladdin live action movie did, they saw one picture of Genie and freaked out. Little did they know that Will Smith would carry that whole movie. I'm not saying Chris Pratt is going to be fantastic and you're all being mean, but we've heard very little of him as Mario as of yet. He does deserve the criticism of being a shit person, that's a completely different matter. And Illumination should have thought twice before casting him considering some recent controversies involving him.

But I do want to state that I am aware of the issues voice actors face, particularly the stunt Crunchy Roll pulled. They do not receive the credit (or pay) they deserve and need to be taken more seriously than they are. Voice acting can be a make or break part of a movie/TV show/video game/whatever, and all that hangs on these peoples shoulders. If companies want to make a quality product, they need to treat the voice actors who work with them with respect.

Tl;dr, hollywood casts big names to make money, chris pratt might make an ok mario but hes still a jerk, voice actors need to be paid more

Also Jack Black was so good as Bowser, i wouldn't have recognized his voice if i didnt know ahead of time!

#chris pratt #mario bros #mario mario

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pinerdj · 2 years

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Wooden nickel fort wayne reverb lp

Tensioned up head and added string spikes. I happily play this all day and rest my Eagle n Deluxe. But there’s always something better sounding, but probably not at this price imo. Less suitable for chords n play n sing stuff imo. It’s big n loud, with fast attack and decay. Historic exchange rates / currency converter Sound Submitted by Bunyip ( see all reviews from this person) on While we're comparing, the Hatfield is also a great sound, but is much more finicky, and the Twanger makes my RK-80 sound like rubber bands.įor your main gigging workhorse banjo, you can't do better, and it's more than good enough to be your studio axe. The neck is not as good as my Hatfield (hard to compete with the hand-carved) but it's comfortable, smooth, not the least bit clubby. Every note comes loud and even, and it has let me ratchet up my banjo game. Now the Twanger plays and sounds better than some of my friends' Hubers and Gibsons. Every bridge I tried sounded pretty good, and then I found one that was perfect. I can't recommend this banjo enough, IF you go just a little beyond the out-of-the-box setup and find the strings and bridge that work for you. It might be fixable with a recut nut so far it only bothers me during "Fireball Mail" and "Dill Pickle Rag." 1st string pulloffs at the second fret bring the string off the edge and give you a pfft note if you're not careful. One minor issue - the neck is just a hair narrow at the nut. Swap out strings and bridge (you'd do that with almost any new banjo). That's been the extent of my dealings with the company. This is my main gigging banjo now, and I have no reservations. That's huge - banjos are very fussy, they go out of whack with the weather, parts shift or come loose. I've gigged with this banjo constantly since February, and it sounds the same every time I pick it up. Resonator doesn't sit perfectly, typical for a cheaper instrument. Clearly a factory nitro finish, which is ok. But that's all I've changed - tailpiece is good (has that little bit of felt that cuts overtones just a hair), and I have not had to mess with the head tension or the neck at all. I'd say it didn't come into its own until I put light strings on, and found a Sullivan FF bridge that was the perfect height and gave it the sound I was looking for. It came with very heavy strings, and a pretty good Snuffy bridge. Capoing up the neck doesn't reduce the oomph either, and the sound is good all the way to fret 22. The no-hole tone ring is an unusual choice, but it gives a very crisp, crunchy note, with plenty of depth, character, and volume. You don't have to play hard, but when you do, the Twanger will roar. Really surprising from what I had always considered a lower-end manufacturer. It is extremely responsive, notes clear and true all over the neck, and now that I have the right setup, it is, no exaggeration, the best playing-and-sounding banjo I have ever played. Submitted by BEEFUS ( see all reviews from this person) on I think this banjo hits the sweet spot between value for money. I think the quality is there, and it has a great sound to it. The OB-150 is a great entry level banjo that one could be content with for many many years to come. These have a transferrable lifetime warranty, which was appealing.Ĭomponents seem very high quality, and I think that it is only sounding better with age. I like that, for the price, it a good amount of inlay work and embellishments, especially compared to the RK-35/36 like. I did mess with the action a bit, and just recently tightened the tuners as one string seemed to fall out of tune pretty easily (however, weather was particularly hot and humid, which might have played a factor). It's worth noting that the 36 is mahogany while the 150 is maple. Both had a nice tone, but the OB-150 seems particularly well suited for bluegrass. The OB-150 was a little "sharper and crisper" to my ears. The RK-36 was much warmer in tone, it sounded good. I can compare it pretty closely to the Recording King RK-36, which is in the same price range, and which I played for about a week before getting the OB-150. Cactus – Houston, TX // Central Square– Santa Rosa Beach, FL // Darkside Records – Poughkeepsie, NY // Dearborn Music – Dearborn, MI // Easy Street – Seattle, WA // Electric Fetus – Minneapolis, MN // Euclid Records – St.Submitted by jallen9339 ( see all reviews from this person) on

#Wooden nickel fort wayne reverb lp

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liugeaux · 2 years

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The Most Definitive Butt Rock Albums of All Time (Part 3)

Woohoo, it’s time for the top 10! To anyone still here for this, thanks for sticking around. There are some doozies left. Might I say, some of the most iconic albums of the genre. Let’s not waste time with any more adieu and get right to it. Click these for Part 1 and Part 2.

#10 Nickelback - All the Right Reasons (2005)

Nickelback, arguably the international face of Butt Rock, earn the number 10 spot with their seminal work All the Right Reasons. With songs like “Rockstar”, “Photograph”, “Savin’ Me”, “Animals” and “Far Away” in the mid 2000s, this album was EVERYWHERE. I’m sure these 4 Canadian dudes didn’t sign up to be the face of Rock Music for the better part of a decade, and they definitely didn’t sign up for the backlash that came with it. In the years since it’s release the public has loosened its hate-grip and instead meme’d the hell out of it. If that’s where public opinion ends up keeping this one, Nickelback should count themselves lucky.

#9 Fuel - Sunburn (1998)

I almost feel bad for including Fuel’s Sunburn. As a pillar of the post-grunge scene, Sunburn was exactly what straight-forward rock music sounded like in 1998. Unlike a lot of the older albums on the this list, Sunburn holds up wonderfully. You should really give it a listen. With that said, throwing them into this category of music seems backhanded and mean. However, the success of bands like this was directly responsible for the Butt Rock explosion of the mid-00′s. So, call it a Butt Rock precursor or a proto-Butt-Rockian blueprint, but it belongs here. The conciliation can be the relatively low Butt Rocky-ness score.

#8 Puddle of Mudd - Come Clean (2001)

As dark as this may be, I’ve always argued that if Wes Scanlon died in 2002, Come Clean would be hailed as a monumental album of its time. Somehow it refused to stray from its post-grunge premise, while still feeling modern (for the time) and achieved mainstream success. It was a post-grunge unicorn and helped establish a Butt Rock formula. Scanlon is alive and through his many publicly drunken follies, and an alarmingly quick downward spiral in quality, Puddle of Mudd has turned into a turn-of-the-century joke. For a brief moment they were the future, and instead of them living that truth, so many other bands stepped up and lived it for them.

#7 3 Doors Down - A Better Life (2000)

3 Doors Down’s entire career has been a surprise. If rock music was an animal, 3 Doors Down would be a neutered, toothless, ferret. Despite them having nothing special to offer, their grandmother-friendly version of rock earned them a sizable collection of legitimate hits. The Better Life is the most milk-toast album of the year 2000, whose “heavier” tracks sound like a bar band of frat boys trying to prove they’re edgy. It hasn’t aged well, and in retrospect, the entire 3 Doors Down experience is rather boring. Somehow though, they got their hooks in me and the public and consequently we will be hearing “Kryptonite” and “Be Like That” in grocery stores until our dying days, and I’m kinda ok with that.

#6 Three Days Grace - One X (2006)

I still hold Three Days Grace’s prime (with Adam Gontier) in very high regard. Yes, it’s Butt Rock to it’s core, but there was a artfulness to the lyrics and how they weaved in and out of the power chords. One X is peak Three Days Grace. They had finally picked up a second guitarist and had things to say. Fuel, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, and Staind built the playground, and Three Days Grace showed up to play. They also flirt with the category of catchy-Tool, but their guitars are a bit too straightforward and crunchy to pull it off. They’re probably the only band on this list where being derivative might actually be a strength.

#5 Creed - My Own Prison (1997)

Another proto-Butt Rock King, My Own Prison, started as an underground phenomenon long before “With Arms Wide Open” flung Creed into worldwide stardom. At the time, this album felt edgy in a way other albums didn’t. Sure, it was just Christian-seasoned rock in a post-grudge package, but there was a heft to the production. A stadium-rock quality that the raw punk-influenced grunge had deliberately ignored. It hasn’t aged well and it’s probably good that most of the members of Creed went on to form the more grounded Alter Bridge, but for a brief shining moment in 1998 no rock band was cooler than Creed, and that’s a fact all of us have to deal with.

#4 Shinedown - The Sound of Madness (2008)

Shinedown’s continued success following this album has propelled them into the spotlight as kind of the un-official Butt Rock Kings. With 18 #1 hits on the Mainstream Rock charts, and a staggering 8 in a row, Shinedown is singlehandedly proving how obsolete the Billboard charts have become. The Sound of Madness was the perfect album for the perfect time. “Second Chance” and “If You Only Knew” proved rock could still have an impact on the pop scene, and the album itself served as the buzzer beater of the Butt Rock wave of popularity. 2008 was kind of the end of this music’s prominence in mainstream culture. To this day, I stand by the quality of this album and despite Shinedown slowing turning into the new-Nickelback of rock music, the band will always have my attention.

#3 Daughtry - Daughtry (2006)

The biggest underdog on this list is by-far Daughtry and their first album. The widespread popularity of this gem was mind-boggling at the time and to this day, is still unbelievable. The first real “rocker” on American Idol successfully dodged the baggage that came with being featured on the show and seamlessly transitioned into a touring, legitimate, rock artist. Rock bands around the world pray they can cobble together an album half as good as Daughtry’s debut. Chris Daughtry himself wrote most of the tracks, and upon release, the album was received in the mainstream rock world surprisingly well. Daughtry’s popularity isn’t what it once was, but the impact of that album cannot be ignored. Surprisingly, the name Daughtry doesn’t illicit the same violent eyeroll as the name Taylor Hicks does.

#2 Seether - Disclaimer (2002)

We’re almost there! Seether is great. Their only real flaw is that at times they are a carbon copy rip-off of Nirvana. They haven’t really shied away form this fact, as they’ve performed Nirvana covers in concert for years. If you can get past an influence that teeters on theft, Seether might just be the band for you. In the Butt Rock department Seether checks a lot of boxes, but it’s not their Butt-Rocky-ness that puts them so high on this list. It’s actually the raw quality of that debut album. I wholeheartedly stand behind Disclaimer as a great collection of tracks and Seether has been one of the most consistently great bands of the last 20 years. “Fine Again”, “Gasoline”, “Broken”, “Driven Under” - all of these songs are genre defining, and with them, Disclaimer became one of the flagship albums of the Butt Rock wave.

#1 Breaking Benjamin - Phobia (2006)

Full-transparency, Breaking Benjamin is one of my favorite bands of all time, and Phobia is one of my favorite albums of all time. I know what your thinking, “doesn’t that taint the results?” That’s a fair question. Let me throw this out there. As an unapologetic fan of the Butt Rock genre, I’d say my favorite should also be the most definitive. Who else’s favorite would even qualify? Let’s not focus on that aspect of this review because Phobia deserves all the attention we are about to give it. Coming off the successful sophomore effort We Are Not Alone, BB had giant shoes to fill. Through infectious ear-worms like “Evil Angel”, “Dance With the Devil” and “Until the End” and the on-brand mid-tempo rockers “Topless”, “Diary of Jane” and “Had Enough”, Phobia is the quintessential Breaking Benjamin album. They’ve always fallen into the same category as bands like 10 Years, Chevelle, and Three Days Grace, as Tool wanna-bees, but their Butt Rock cred is top tier. The thing about this album and this band that makes it so perfect for this spot on this list, is its ability to thread the genre-needle so precisely. Do you like Butt Rock? If so, Phobia will profoundly resonate with you. If you don’t, you simply won’t get it. Some songs will be catchy and you might even concede that its good, but you won’t be immersed in the attitude and earnestness that Butt Rock is so good at. The only difference between #’s 1 and 2 on this list is the AllMusic score. I don’t even know how to take that, but it helps justify the inclusion of the 3rd party numbers.

That’s It! I’m sure, at times I sounded like a madman, but it was worth it. Thanks for reading.

#breaking benjamin #seether #shinedown #daughtry #creed #3 doors down #three days grace #puddle of mudd #fuel #nickelback

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mannatea · 3 years

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gilbert... no, gustave.... 👀

patricia is hte death knight? mmmmaybe? hmmmmm

love that fleche the spy is still just hanging around

loved killing my old pals my old chums

annette went up and crit the shit out of edelgard though so that was cool

dimitri u got le stabbed because u are le dumb

oh cool

“they all died and left me behind” yeah and this man will too. it’s cause ur mediocre

“fuck off boi nobody died for you” lol

i’m like -_- about rodrigue because honestly like...kiiinda assumed he’d kick the bucket since he wasn’t fully recruitable to my knowledge and uhhh dimitri had to slow down his feral slobbering or i was gonna have to put him down myself, so. love it when characters die to calm down other characters that’s super fun. almost as fun as when they die to motivate them. /sarcasm

look at that, the man took a nap

his almost complete switch of personality is unsettling af

anyway everyone all “but what about rhea” i mean i get it but like...it’s been five years. what’s another couple months at this rate lol

oh hey felix called dimitri by name whoa wild

felix doesn’t seem that torn up about his dad’s death

i guess he

lol

died like a true knight

fINALLY sylvain is like, “i don’t know if i can forget the stuff dimitri did tho” cause like jfc was nobody gonna say that??

even felix is like surprisingly nice, though kinda pissed at the idea of people knowing that he feels that his dad woulda been glad to die if he could see how much it helped dimitri. bet that stings a bit, eh lad?

oh god so many supports...

catherine x dimitri C = “look at that young maiden wielding a giant lance! how adorable!” “i was thrown off by your haircut!” please tell me it was a bowl cut. but seriously that was a nice lil support

dedue x dimitri B = hhhhh goddamn this is the good stuff this is the delicious lord/vassal shit we love to see

ashe x dimitri B = it’s okay, good to see ashe’s heart being acknowledged as pure, especially by dimitri

mercedes x dimitri B = “teach me to sew!” lol ok i’d think this was cute but it’s mostly like...kinda eh to me. he’ll be a king he won’t need to know how to mend anything. i feel like this is just fluff without much thought in it, even if it’s pretty wholesome.

ingrid x dimitri B = “glenn truly loved you” damn boi right out the gate. also yikes at the shit ingrid is saying... i bet she’d have loved chatting it up with her former future father-in-law because they both really out there like “he died a true knight” i mean whatever brings you peace but JEEZ... stay away from felix. at least dimitri also thinks it’s fucked up LOL. but then ingrid immediately contradicts what rodrigue said when he died which is “glenn gave his life for you” HAHAHA geez. this conversation is mega cringe. finally though, ingrid is the one who is kinda messed up. honey ur living in a fantasy land even though you scolded ashe already that legends aren’t reality. :U

flayn x dimitri C = “there were a few suspiciously crunchy bits here and there” god it’s true then...dimitri doesn’t give a shit what he eats he has NO bar for food quality. son...do you not have tastebuds. this was cute tho. feels REAL fuckin weird after the timeskip tho.

dimitri x sylvain B = DIMITRI HIDING IN SYLVAIN’S ROOM LOL. okay sure. “it’s a what” “does she have a dagger, dimitri” “nobody’s ever accused you of being funny” goddamn sylvain i didn’t give you permission to bully dimitri but i guess it’s fair.

speaking of daggers are we gonna loot that from edelgard’s corpse later? that’d be fucked up

annette x dimitri B = okay but i want to hear the stories about how they were as littles

dimitri x gilbert c = was okay, not really that exciting if i’m being honest.

dimitri x felix B = that was weird, but thanks for the free sword lmfaoooo. i feel like this is at least going somewhere

annette x gilbert C = gOD okay they’re just gonna come right out and tell us gilbert has been pretending all this time he didn’t know her like WTF that’s so upsetting. “yet i am no father” cool now shut up and accept grace. “APOLOGIZE TO MOTHER” yeah seriously. gilbert, you’re an idiot.

god the sheer amount of supports is just overwhelming. and like. frustrating. just the tIME it takes to get through them. LOL

#manna plays fe3h

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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It's 2007 and somehow, miraculously, Supernatural survives yet another rocky (?) season of mediocre ratings to come back for a third season, or at least, half season, but that season starts out with a real bang! Like, just a real solid trio of an opener for season three. It reminds me of all the things I love about SPN and also it reminds us of all the things that frustrate the hell out of me on SPN. So where did we leave things off?

First up, there’s Dean, who sold his soul to the devil in order to bring Sam back from the dead. Sam, you’ll remember, was part of some overly complicated ponzi scheme to find the perfect vessel to open a door - yep, open a door - and lost to Aldous Hodge who just straight up murders Sam in the season finale. So Dean get’s Sammy back, but in exchange, he’s only got one year left before he permanently moves down south. Oh! And even though they got Sam back and Sam kills Aldous Hodge (RIP pal), they neglected to keep the door from opening. The door to Hell, that is, and now they’ve allowed a shiz ton of demons out to freely roam the earth. Way to go, boys, you lost again! They are two for two on these season finales guys!

OH but they DO kill the Yellow Eyed Demon, so that’s a plus, but not before he plants the most perfect seed of doubt in Dean’s mind - “How do you know what you brought back is all Sammy?” Like, ugh, UGH, ugh!!!! What a way to drive the knife in deeper! What a way to make the heart of this show slowly start to crumble! C’est Magnifique!! *chef's kissy fingers*

So with all that emotional baggage weighing us down, how do we start season 3? How else - with a threesome of course! And also some technicolor grading, it’s wild guys.

Oh boy guys, let’s talk about this opener for a hot sec. I got into it a little bit last season, but as much as I love Dean, you HAVE to admit that that boy is gross. Just like...he’s a little gross. I’m also old enough now to see exactly how many red flags he’s raising through the last 45 episodes. Like, sorry Little Me, but he is not boyfriend material. Not to mention that all this debauchery is 1,000% him distracting himself from the consequences of his own actions, but we’ll get into that later.

Meanwhile, Sam is doing something constructive and trying to figure out how to reverse the curse and save Dean’s soul. And here we have the culmination of two seasons worth of character development - faced with the imminent demise of Dean Samuel Winchester, Sam tries to step up and take care of his brother for once in his life; Dean parties like it’s 1999. There were two things I thought of during this episode - 1) isn’t this not unlike the sort of behavior you see in suicidal people who have finally decided to take their own life? Which is just, like, further held up by the fact that Dean’s big monologue at the end literally has the line “Truth is I’m tired, Sam. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” and like...dude, you are NOT ok! Why isn't??? ANYONE??? ADDRESSING THIS????? And 2) Dean is sharing a lot of similarities with the demons in this episode.

Because MEANwhile, there’s demons! So many demons! Specifically, the Seven Deadly Sins ones, but also, spoiler alert, Ruby, who is gettin’ reeeeealll into that ketchup.

All these baddies just really taking advantage of their time topside cuz Hell is, as they so artfully put it, it’s like Hell, so they’re just livin’ it up while they still can ~almost like foreshadowing or something~?!?!?

Real talk though, it being a real long time since I’ve watched this season, it’s these kinds of details that I’m impressed with this time around. There is so much character work that goes into this show and it’s something I definitely connected with the first time around, but not on conscious level. Now I can look at it through time and experience and articulate what I’m seeing, which makes this re-watch infinitely more enjoyable.

Episode 1 of this season continues what they started in season 2 and just keeps building out that Hunter Community. Like, there really is a whole Community out there that keeps in contact and works together and makes sure everyone’s up to date on the latest hot goss, and it all makes John Winchester come off like a real creepy splinter cell lone gunman type. And that in turn makes the Winchester sons look like total, unprofessional boneheads who managed to open a portal to Hell. “UGH Great Jorb Guys, but can we blame them? They’re John’s kids,” is a conversation between hunters that I am headcannoning, but also 100% support.

Honestly, I love the idea of the Winchesters being just these real, like, b-grade, Walmart Brand Hunters that other Hunters are just SO done with. We kind of see a little bit of that with Isaac and Tamara, but by the end of the episode, the Winchesters prove that they’re...better Hunters? I hope somewhere in the next 12 seasons I get an episode that is told from another Hunter’s POV who is legitimately better/more emotionally balanced than the Winchesters and the whole episode is them just, like, cleaning up a bunch of Winchester messes like, SONuvabitch, these two ASSholes. I think we see a fair amount of episodes from the POV of people who are less qualified than the Winchesters who end up being mentored by them, but I’d be stoked for them to run into just a group of people who hate them for totally legitimate, professional vs amature reasons.

Bobby does not count because Bobby signed up to be their Dad and so he agreed to take care of their messes when he took that job.

And then we get to “The Kids Are Alright” which showcases one of my fav changes for this season - BRIGHTLY! LIT! HIGH! SATURATION!!!! And of course, by fav, I mean, Most Hilarious.

I do walk a fine line on this one truth be told. Like, season 1 was definitely going for A Look. It’s super gritty and high contrasty and stylized. Now, I got what they were going for but I wasn’t always crazy about it, mostly because the quality on the DVD’s was terrible. Quick tip for everyone: in order to get 2+ hours worth of content on a DVD, you have to compress the final edit of the program to a pretty small bitrate. When we drop videos onto DVD’s at my work (it isn’t often, thank goodness), the discs themselves only hold, like, 2GB worth of content and that is NOT A LOT when it comes to video files. The more compressed a video file is, the less detail you’re gonna get in the visuals. Watching episodes on Netflix (where everything’s probably at a higher bitrate and therefore is a better quality visual), it’s not bad, but on my DVDs, the compression is so heavy that we get SUPER hot highlights and SUPER crunchy shadows - what a lot of people would called “crushed blacks” because you’ve lost all the detail in the shadows and you’re left with a grainy, noisy, black hole on the screen. Like I lost so much detail in the pilot episode guys, I could not make out this guy’s face.

A rough approximation of my DVD quality. Still recommend it over Netflix for the Accurate Soundtrack tho.

Season 2 SPN toned that Look down a lot, like, a lot a lot. Enough that you still got the general vibe they were going for but not enough that you couldn’t make out faces anymore. But through this whole process, the CW execs kept pushing for the show to look lighter, more colorful, less film noir more...well, CW. And in season 3 it finally happened!!!

I get what those execs were going for, but also, I feel like the colorists on these first few episodes just REALLY went wild out of spite. Lookit this shot from “Magnificent Seven” right before Envy causes some rando innocent bystander to beat a girl to death for her shoes -

GREEN GREEN GREEN GREEN!!!! I WONDER WHICH SIN THIS GUY IS????

Then in “The Kids Are Alright” the birthday party looks like everything is coated in day-glow neon.

The Winchester Bros look like they just got back from 3 weeks in Aruba - LOOK at the saturation levels in these skin tones! LOOK AT THEM!!

My screencap ability aside, only in SPN can a cemetery at night have brighter lighting than a diner in the middle of the afternoon.

This is definitely a thing I will be tracking the rest of the season because I have a distinct memory of a future episode where the brothers have been magically gifted completely different lives where they were never Hunters, they know nothing of Hunting, and they’re completely normal until the end when everything gets snapped back and the episode literally changes colors. V. Excited to see just how saturated this season stays through the end.

But maybe more importantly in “The Kids Are Alright” we learn that Dean does NOT, in fact, have a son. Not that he would be a good father...well...maybe? I mean, this Dean, this season 3, definitely-suicidal, completely-reckless, can’t-keep-it-together Dean, is not good Dad material. Later seasons Dean? Probably fine? Earlier seasons Dean might ALSO be fine? And if he’d found out that Ben was his legitimate kid, it could have made a WORLD of difference, who knows. I know he ultimately does become father-like to Ben and that gives me a lot of feelings. But this Dean is not in a good place to take care of anyone, including himself and really, someone ought to do something about that.

I gotta say, this is an actual bummer. I can’t remember if, in the later seasons, they do any clarifying on this or not, but I am legitimately bummed that Ben is not Dean’s kid and that as far as we know, Dean has no natural children floating around out there with surly attitudes and soft hearts. Dean’s motivation from Day 1 has always been family and despite what comments he may make in early seasons, Dean’s secret desire is to have the wife and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence. And honestly, we’re only 3 seasons in and I just want Dean to have nice things!!

And then guys, we come to “Bad Day at Black Rock,” and I just...WHAT a masterpiece. I had almost NO memory of ever watching this episode before and I don't understand why. What a glorious masterpiece this episode is. Let’s make a list -

More Hunters™, who should be really annoying but were actually kinda charming in a Marx Brothers kind of way

Gordon’s in jail, where he belongs, but also is masterminding a coup against the Winchesters which is A+ spooky stuff

Slapstick comedy that I didn’t know I was missing from my life

Bela F*cking Talbot

Guys, I think this is my fav episode so far purely because I felt, while watching it, that the last 10 years of my life were not in vain and that I had in fact grown as a human person. I remembered hating Bela Talbot. Like, I DID. NOT. LIKE. HER. To the point that I questioned if her British accent was even real. It is, her mother is from the UK and she lived there for a time, but like, honestly, the audacity of Little Me.

This time around? Oh she’s defs my new fav. Just everything about her is like, A+, Great Job, Why-Did-We-Cancel-Her??? Like, oh yeah, probably because somewhere in here they try to shoehorn a romantic side plot with Dean. I don’t actually mind rioting over shoehorned romance, but also, if they’d let this play out for a season or two and then got the two of them to bone? I’m on board. I’m 100% on board.

Maybe it’s just that she is unapologetically out for herself, maybe it’s the fact that she is definitely a match for the Winchesters in a non-murdery way, probably it is both of those things. She's smart, she’s crooked, she has impeccable taste, she’s honestly a helluva lot of fun and I am so excited to see more of her and so BUMMED that she will not make it past this season.

Despite the fact that I absolutely adore all three of these episodes, they also bring up the problem that I was starting to see in season 2 - WHO is this show about? Isn’t it supposed to be about the Brothers as a whole? But the majority of these first three lean pretty heavily on Dean’s emotional arc. Granted, it makes sense. I mean, of COURSE Dean’s demon deal is gonna be the BIG thing in a season where he is literally staring down the barrel, but knowing that there’s a side plot about Is Sam Evil?? seems like...something we should really explore more? I believe it comes up in season 4, or at least, Sam’s demon-blood powers become a bigger deal in season 4, but I would have enjoyed seeing Sam have a more active stake in this season. I can see planting some weird new ticks being planted for Alive-Again Sam that just get weirder and darker and then a mid-season finale or a run up episode to the end of the season where Dean (finally) decides he needs to stop his demon deal because he needs to stick around so he can keep Sam from going completely off the rails. As much as I love Dean 5ever, I do think the show works best when the emotional weight of the season is distributed equally is all. And to be fair to the writers this season, there could have been a bigger plan for something like that but they ran out of time - their season was cut by about a third due to the Writer’s Strike.

Still, all in all, a solid opening to the third season. I want to say that these episodes feel like Classic SPN, but then I remember that this is season three out of fifteen. These ARE Classic SPN. Mostly self contained with enough emotional drama to remind us of the overarching plot. Maybe a little heavy on the emotional drama, but Dean’s only got a year to live and the show’s only got 16 episodes to resolve that crisis, so it’s fine.

#Supernatural #Supernatural rewatch #Season 3 #Magnificent Seven #The Kids are Alright #bad day at black rock #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bela Talbot #Hunters #Sam and Dean #Writer's Strike #TV #TV History #Bela talbot is maybe great #and I should say it

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