#I wonder how we can get this cartoon viral?

[wonderfull-star]

“School for little vampires” fans! Is there any chance at all of reviving this fandom? And I mean not only in terms of popularity but also in terms of the continuation of this show itself. For example, the creation of a film, game, comic book or even anime based on it. And it doesn’t matter if some studio or the fans themselves do it. Since the idea of ​​this animated series itself has enormous potential for popularity. Why do I think so? Okay, here are some facts why:

The main characters are children/teenagers. And this is already the main sign for success. Remember the Disney who decided to cancel the “ Wander over Yonder” not only because of low views but also because the main characters are adults. Well, as we know, in our time, the main success is precisely those cartoons where the main characters are children/teenagers (there are, of course, exceptions, but there are actually quite a few of them). I don’t think it’s worth explaining why these shows are popular because the reason is obvious.

Often, most of the cartoon episodes take place at school. And here is another main bonus to success for the animated series. I think many of us agree that most of the cartoons, films and anime that we all watched were somehow related to school. This has long become a classic. After all, it is in a show about school that most love relationships between characters take place(and this is what we will discuss now)

Love relationships between characters. SHIPS. And there are plenty of them in this cartoon. After all, there is a main couple in this cartoon-Oskar and Sunshine. Well, like in other fandoms, there are various disputes and disagreements over couples, the main ones being OskarXSunshine and OskarXGothetta. That’s it. The presence of a couples in animated series also greatly influences its popularity. Since they are an integral part of discussions in fandom.

Interesting characters with their own personalities. The more the creators of the cartoon show other characters and their character traits, the more interesting the show will be and will attract not only children but also more adult audiences. For example, what I remember most about this cartoon is Stoker and his constant dirty tricks. The show was completely different without him. I can definitely say that Stoker is a REAL troublemaker. I especially like his relationship with Oscar. They often argue and even fight, but I wouldn’t call them enemies either. In a word, they are frenemies✨. And I just love it. There's definitely never a dull moment with Oskar and Stoker! I can say the same about Paulus. Just a real walking comedy. Well, what would a cartoon be without this clumsy old man Van Helsing?? Usually such versatile characters are found in cartoons and anime. After all, it is there that such categories of characters are found: the main character, the quiet one (in this case the main character is the quiet one), the best friend who is secretly in love with the main character, the nerd, the bully, the youngest of all, the oldest of all.

This is a show about vampires. Many people like to read or watch something about vampires. And usually they involve love between a vampire and a human, which is a favorite cliche of many.

In the end, I want to say that this show has great potential for popularity. Well, if you consider that many people like to create anime based on vampires, it’s quite strange that no one decided to just take on the idea of ​​​​creating an anime about vampire children who study at school. What an awesome anime that would be 🤧

#school for vampires #school for little vampires #oskar von horrificus #stoker #stoker flestcher #paulus #paulus polidori #sunshine polidori #gothetta gothetticus #disney #wander over yonder #my thoughts #I wonder how we can get this cartoon viral? #by creating a fan animation? #start creating trends on Tik Tok?? #this reminds me of 2021.. #good times

[autumn-foxfire]

something I actually hate in zhongchi fic is when the authors keep writing that he’s feeling guilty about what he did in liyue and/or he’s angry with zhongli for de deception. He clearly doesn’t regret his actions and would definitely do it all again and he doesn’t care about zhongli lying to him. It’s like they didn’t read any of his texts or didn’t pay attention to the liyue story. He’s not a cinnamon roll as everyone likes to say. They claim he is their favorite character or that they kin him but the version they are refering is so twisted and unreal.

This is why I read tartali fanfiction /j

For real though, I hate this trope in tartali/zhongchi fiction regardless. I once saw someone's summery being "I'm going to keep Childe mad at Zhongli because other fics let him off from what he did too easily" and I'm like "BRO? WHAT FICS ARE YOU READING AS LITERALLY EVERYONE MAKES ZHONGLI OUT TO BE THE BAD GUY WHO NEEDS TO BEG FOR CHILDE'S FORGIVENESS".

I actually read a fic recently that handled an after confrontation with Zhongli and Childe perfectly. They still had Childe being upset as he was used, however he and Zhongli talked and Zhongli explained all he could about his contract and how it was never personal. Then, when Childe points out he never directly apologised to Childe during his explanation, Zhongli returns it with how he has never apologised for what he did to Liyue. Neither of them ended up apologising, you know why?

BECAUSE THEY BOTH HAD THEIR OWN AGENDERS THAT THEY WOULD FOLLOW THROUGH WITH NO MATTER WHAT AND WOULD BOTH UNDERSTAND WHY THE OTHER DID SO.

Childe was originally upset that he was used as he doesn't like to be involved in the schemes of other Harbingers. But he said himself that all he needs from Zhongli is that fight that he was robbed from. And then Zhongli's voicelines confirm that they are still friends.

The woobifying of Childe is something I despise in fandom. I hate that I got into another fandom and what happened to one of my favourites (Dabi) back then is happening AGAIN with another favourite of mine.

Yes, Childe is relatable and easy to project on. Did he get angry at Zhongli and Signora? Yes. However he is not an overly emotional wreck who was completely and utterly ruined by Zhongli telling him who he was, at most he was annoyed he was robbed of a fight and his pride got hurt.

The irony of this situation though, which I've said so many times I might as well be blue in the face from it, is that CHILDE USED ZHONGLI TOO! He very openly used him to get close to the exuvia, he was just honest about it.

Meanwhile, Zhongli could literally not say anything because HE WAS UNDER CONTRACT AND BY THE ARCHONS HOW DARE THE GOD OF CONTRACTS OBEY HIS CONTRACT.

Yeah, yeah, it's transformative fiction and people can write what they want and how they want but I just don't want my favourite characters watered down anymore.

I get it, we like to give Zhongli a closer relationship with Childe than just friends, I've done it too, I've enjoyed fics that do this as well, but does it get frustrating to see Childe treated as an innocent little bean while Zhongli has to drown in guilt because how dare he lie to him!

LOL it reminds me of a viral tweet I saw on twitter about the new Superman cartoon/anime where Lois gets mad that Clark never told her he was Superman and the QRTs were just people wondering why Lois deserved to know a secret of Clark's that he wasn't comfortable sharing with her just yet? Ironically this is the same situation with Zhongli and Childe, where Childe wasn't owed any knowledge of Zhongli's other identity but this time people think he was entitled to it, even though Childe was an active threat towards that identity and was honest about being so.

My favourite thing these stories do is have Childe say "I would have forsaken my mission" or something along those lines and that just isn't Childe. Childe didn't particularly want to drown the harbor but he did so for his mission, he didn't mind attacking the traveler, who he saw as his friend, for his mission, what makes you think he wouldn't have shoved his hand straight in Zhongli's chest if he knew the truth?

He probably wouldn't have LIKED doing it, but he would have. Because he's loyal to a point and a man that never goes back on his vows and promises.

It's why I love Childe, he's such a complicated and messy character who has done terrible things, he plays by his own rules and that means even going against his own morals to do so. I do like exploring him being mad at Zhongli (again I've done so myself) but we can do so without making him the victim because he was FAR FROM IT.

I love exploring the mess that is Zhongli and his relationship, I love the drama and the angst but I also love how perfect they fit together once they get over those hurdles.

I just hate the one-sided anger from the fandom towards Zhongli for no reason.

Urgh, sorry for the long rant. I bottle up this frustration all the time so when people give me the chance to let loose, I really let loose.

#genshin impact #fandom #fandom critical

[unknwnxquantity]

What a privilege to type on my silly little screen. Have my silly little existential moments. Have my little spirals. Ponder on everything and everyone. While there’s ppl dying. No food no water no shelter. No peace! That’s so sad man. IMAGINE NOT HAVING A BED! No comfort! The worst possible things imaginable are happening at this very moment. At every moment. I always think to myself, “I wonder who in this exact moment is dying? Who’s having sex right now? Who’s experiencing the most life changing moment right now in this very moment?” I think like that too when I pass big apartments in the city or driving along the highways. I think I’m looking at hundreds of people in my peripheral vision that are blocked by the building walls. And then I wish I was like Superman and can see through the buildings to see what ppl are up to. What are people doing right now? Who’s living in their truth and who’s not? Whose heart is breaking? Are you fukking or are you making love? Do you love them, “love” them or are you thinking of someone else? How did you guys end up here together? Are you crying right now? Are you sleeping/napping? What are you dreaming about.. do you remember your dreams? Is it a life changing dream? Do you even pay attention to the hidden messages!! Or playing video games? What are you watching? What made you start watching that show/movie and how did it capture your attention? Why do you like it? What music are you listening to? Why are you listening to that particular song right at this moment? Did your friend put you onto it, is it a viral tiktok sound? Are you distracting yourself from the world around you? Are you missing an ex? Why do you miss them? Do you actually miss them or do you miss how they made you feel? Are you missing your mom? Your childhood friends? Are you missing the memories too?

The wars the killings. There are people that will never know peace and sanity a day in their life. CONSTANT living in fight or flight mode. Survival mode. High cortisol levels. How tragic is that? Yet we complain about our phones dying too fast, or our order being wrong. I hate thinking of all the disgusting and unspeakable ways of ppl (or animals which is even worse bc it’s usually bc of us) dying at this moment. Or worse, not dying and living with their incurable ailments. Imagine not being able to walk or breathe without assistance? Knock on wood man. I tell myself that the pain is temporary and they won’t feel it in their next life. That they’ll have a chance for a better life. Maybe they’ll return home. Maybe they’ll reach nirvana. Probably not, but who am I to say that? Maybe after their death here, their souls go to the spiritual infirmary (I forget which theory that is!!! Where souls go to this soul hospital almost omg I wish I could remember…. Okay I found it it’s in a book “journey of souls” by Dr newton), to recover from their deepest wounds. Wounds. I tell myself pain isn’t real for them (it is). Souls literally fight to come on earth!!! For that serious spiritual upgrade. It’s so hard to get on this earth. We don’t appreciate it. Now I wanna watch the soul Disney movie. I need to watch it again. (The irony of me being obsessed with h0llyw3ird and knowing the dark stuff/subliminals/programming from all our fav cartoons/shows/movies growing up… all the unspeakable things…. And yet my nostalgia is deeply rooted in them (like billions of others) talk about cognitive dissonance🤪)

#unknwnxquantity

[bllsbailey]

Paramount Super Bowl Commercial Is Completely Ridiculous - and Marvelous

I will give you fair warning. 

If you want to watch the Super Bowl and be surprised by the commercials, then stop reading here since I'm going to be revealing one. 

But I have to say that this one found by our sister site Twitchy is pretty funny and anything that has Patrick Stewart in it has to be good. It's already going viral with over 21 million views. So if you need a laugh, this is likely to get you there with some charming silliness. In addition to Stewart, it has a bunch of people and cartoon characters, including Drew Barrymore, the Miami Dolphins Tua Tagovailoa, Arnold from "Hey Arnold" with the football-shaped head, Peppa Pig, Knuckles, and Jeff Probst. They're all about to freeze to death, trapped in a valley they can't get out of, contemplating how they can scale the cliff, when Stewart has an interesting suggestion for getting out. 

Tua admits he can't throw the hook up high enough to get to the top of the cliff, although maybe he could throw a football. Sir Patrick (he even has it on his jersey) suggests they "throw the child" with the football-shaped head. Barrymore objects and gets screamed at by Stewart, "Barrymore, shut your face!" Tua also refuses to throw a child, to which Sir Patrick witheringly says, "Not built for the moment." 

As Stewart goes to throw Arnold, the band Creed appears. Because of course, what else and why not? 

The British actor then intones about the import of the moment, "It's the fifth quarter, and we need a hole-in-one before the seventh inning stretch." He throws Arnold as Creed sings "Higher." You have a moment with Stewart singing, "I just threw him higher. To a place where we wouldn't freeze." But it doesn't end well, as Arnold then splats against the mountain, just short of the top. 

Now if there were only someone made of pigskin, Stewart muses, and they cast their eyes to Peppa Pig. Peppa Pig gulps fearfully, and the commercial ends with the Paramount logo. 

That's pretty great and completely ridiculous. You wonder what they were on when they put it together, but its silliness makes it marvelous. You can tell Stewart must have had some fun with it, he was rocking the insanity. 

People thought it was amazing. Even Stewart's "Number One" Will Riker, otherwise known as Jonathan Frakes, weighed in, with fealty to Picard. 

I haven't seen any of the other commercials yet, and they are likely to have some other good ones, but this one is going to be tough to top.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

#tiktok #queer education #bisexual education #queer nation #bisexual nation #bisexuality #lgbtq community #bi #lgbtq #support bisexuality #bisexuality is valid #lgbtq pride #bi tumblr #pride #bi pride #bisexual #bisexual community #support bisexual #bisexual women #bisexual people #bisexual youth #bisexual activist #coming out bisexual #bicurious #bicuriosity #bi positivity #bisexual info #bi+

[lily-orchard]

It's funny how Cuties focuses most of it's attention on dancing and how it influences girls

You know what? All this discourse has reminded me of something.

About nine years ago a video went viral of two little girls who were probably no older than six singing “Super Bass” by Nicki Minaj. It blew up so much that the girls actually got onto Ellen where they did it again.

And weirdly enough... nobody saw issue with that. Not once during this year-long stretch of viral fame did anybody stop and go “Hang on... WHY THE FUCK ARE TWO SIX YEAR OLDS BEING ALLOWED TO LISTEN TO NICKI FUCKING MINAJ SONGS IN THE FIRST PLACE?!”

They weren’t singing a tame song. It’s a very sexual song, and it even has the N-Slur in it. We can argue Minaj’s merits as an artist until the cows come home, but it’s pretty obvious that children should not be listening to her work.

And yet they are. In fact when I was a kid, the artists everyone was listening to were the most horny, aggressively mysogynistic scumbags I’ve ever fucking seen. The music industry has been hornier than a busload of weebs for years and it’s only getting worse.

And we never question that. Sometimes we fucking celebrate it, all the while just letting that material fester in the minds of children. If this were any other medium, it wouldn’t get away with this kind of crap. We filter this kind of material from the view of children in most other mediums, but I’ve rarely ever seen parents crack down on what music their kinds are listening to, especially as music videos gradually become more and more of a recorded table-dance.

When cartoons get aggressively horny, it’s criticized. When video games get aggressively horny, it’s mocked and belittled. When a film is as horny as a music video, you have to verify your age to buy it and deal with the same if you’re ever seen by another human being.

Music? We never see a serious, sustained criticism of just how obsessed with sex the music industry has gotten. Sometimes its obsession with sex is celebrated. And we have no measures in place to actually make it harder for kids to see this stuff.

We wonder why preteen girls are under so much pressure to sexualize themselves and then turn around and applaud the people responsible for it.

There’s a smaller bubble like this among reality television. You guys remember Alana Thompson? Honey Boo Boo? That kid who got her own show after going viral on Toddlers and Tiaras?

You guys know why that show went off the air? Because Alana’s mother was in a relationship with two pedophiles. And admitted to it. And that surprised people, as if the kind of person who would put her child in a fucking toddler pageant would end up being an accessory to pedophilia was a surprise?!

No, everyone was too busy mocking a seven year old for the crime of being a victim of clear and obvious abuse.

Toddler Pageants still go on all over the US and nobody bats a fucking eye at it. Toddlers and Tiaras itself ran for seven years, with only minor controversy when a mother stuffed her daughter’s shirt. People only got mad because someone revealed the whole shitshow for what it truly was.

This is an actual fucking problem. And for all the furor people are giving this one film... nobody’s talking about how we got to this point in the first place. Nobody’s talking about the actual problem. They don’t want to have the uncomfortable discussion about a cultural poison that they’re complicit in.

I call this “Performative Bloodlust.” People will foam at the mouth over how much they think pedophiles should die, but they’re very selective in what they consider “pedophile” to actually mean. When a Youtuber preys on kids they make excuses for them. When a convention deals with child pornography, talking about that is “drama.” When a TV show exists that is really just a socially acceptable way for people to prey on kids... nobody says a fucking word.

A black woman makes a film to talk about these things and Netflix releases a squicky poster... well NOW y’all are chomping at the bit.

Well hey, I just gave you a whole bunch of things to be mad about. Ya gonna take it?

#Anonymous

[syntheticpoetry]

The Ghosts That We Knew

See my original post on the origins of this story here!

Summary: Blaine Anderson is no stranger to hospitals and has been volunteering on the pediatric unit of Lima General Hospital for years when Kurt Hummel comes along.  After Blaine is attacked at his school's Sadie Hawkins Dance, he has his best friend Kurt to help him deal with the aftermath. And when Kurt becomes the target of the McKinley football team's bullying campaign, he can count on Blaine to have his back.

AU where Blaine transfers to McKinley instead of Dalton. Set during season 1.A story of two best friends finding courage to face their bullies and discovering love along the way.

Author’s Note: Blaine has a reason he has been in an out of the hospital since childhood that will be revealed, but if you are overly cautious of the level of angst surrounding it I can assure you it's nothing heartbreaking/super serious. It's actually quite common.  I cannot thank @esperantoauthor​ enough for beta reading this for me and really helping me whip it into shape!

AO3 Link || FFN Link

Chapter 1: Of Viral Videos and Disney Princes

The last time that Kurt Hummel remembers being in a hospital, he told his mother that he loved her for the last time.  

That was six years ago.  

As he walks through the lobby, towards the directory by the elevators, he keeps his gaze fixed forward, careful not to spare a glance at the waiting area to his right.  He spent so many months in that waiting room.  Entire seasons, multiple holidays spent watching people receive good news and bad news, with his father stoic and silent beside him as his mother underwent procedure after procedure.  Until it was their turn to be the family that received bad news.  The doctor sounded sincere as he said a lot of big words Kurt could not quite understand at the time, but he understood the look on his father’s face.  He took to studying the ugly designs on the carpet to distract from the tight clench in his father’s jaw, the way he kept himself so still and barely blinked through the entire explanation— Kurt knew, even at eight years old, what it was like to use up all of your willpower to hold yourself together for the sake of someone else.  To this day, he cannot look at paisley print without thinking back to that awful day.

Kurt scans the directory before punching the up button to call the elevator and folds his arms across his chest, tapping his foot as he awaits its arrival.  When he first heard about the volunteer program on the pediatric unit he was naturally hesitant to return to the place that held some of his worst memories.  He had been on the fence about it all summer, torn between the desire to give back to the hospital staff that had gone above and beyond in their attempts to cure his mother’s cancer and wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the place where they finally had to say goodbye to each other.

Until he saw that YouTube video.  

A curly-haired boy with big doe eyes and an unwavering grin, guitar in hand, leading a Disney themed sing-along with a group of elementary school age kids.  The warmth that spread through Kurt’s chest was almost overwhelming as he watched the boy march around the room performing Hakuna Matata with the parade of children trailing behind, mimicking him raucously and off-key.  It was the first time Kurt had really smiled in a long time.

So he had decided to look into the program.  Mostly because witnessing the boundless energy of pure joy from each child singing along in that video elicited memories of countless nights of living room performances with his own father, both of them puffy-eyed and exhausted but still managing to find the stamina to sing at the top of their lungs, using the furniture as stage props.  They were two lost souls attempting to cling to each other through tidal waves of insurmountable grief, and those nights together— well, those nights wereeverything to Kurt.  He had never felt closer to his father than when they were both breathless and laughing their way through the most eclectic collection of songs imaginable, hugging each other tightly at the end of each performance.  

And if Kurt happened to run into the boy from the video along the way, well, that would certainly just be an added bonus. Kurt did have eyes after all.  And there was no denying the boy’s natural charm or the air of confidence with which he carried himself.  

Truth be told, entering yet another school year with no friends was beginning to take its toll on Kurt and the possibility of finding camaraderie with a cute boy who seemingly shared similar interests was certainly enticing.

Ding!

The doors slide open before him revealing an empty elevator.  Kurt steps in and presses the button for the fourth floor.  He thinks about that video and jumping on armchairs and couches in his living room with his father for the entire ride up.

***

He has to be buzzed in to enter the unit, which he thinks is strange.  But the woman who greets him, a young nurse with bright green eyes and deep auburn hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, explains it is the protocol for all pediatric units in order to prevent children from wandering away or being kidnapped.  There are security bracelets around each patient’s ankle that trigger an alarm if they are taken past a bright yellow line painted on the floor.

“Who would kidnap sick kids from a hospital?” Kurt asks, looking absolutely horrified.

“You would be surprised at how common it is.  Parents fighting over custody, usually.”

He nods and guesses that makes sense, but the thought is still deeply unsettling.

The hallways are empty as she leads him to a room behind the nurse’s station.  The unit is certainly much different from the one his mother had been on.  The walls are covered in murals of different cartoon characters and scenes from popular storybooks.  While the nurse punches in a code, Kurt studies a painting of Rapunzel in a high stone tower, golden plaited hair strung over the edge of the window for a handsome prince at the bottom. The door buzzes and she holds it open for him.  “I’ll let my supervisor know you’re here.”

Kurt thanks her and takes a seat at one of the tables to wait.  On the far wall he spots a bulletin board covered in an overabundance of overlapping photos, hand-drawn pictures and a variety of cards both homemade and store-bought.  He casts a quick glance towards the door before crossing the room to investigate.  He cannot help but smile as he scans over the collection of memories, reminiscing back to his own pile of hand drawn cards for the staff on the oncology unit.  

Then something catches his eye.  

It’s the curly haired boy from the video.  He’s standing, guitar in hand with the strap over his shoulder, in the center of a group photo, surrounded by children of varying ages and the unit staff.  His outfit is different from the one in the video though.  He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a printed T-shirt, only the edges of the otherwise obscured design visible from behind the guitar over his torso.  In the video he had certainly seemed more, well, put together, to say the least.  He had worn light grey slacks and a navy polo shirt accented with a white bow tie, which Kurt could not help but notice because he could count on one hand the amount of teenage boys he had ever seen wearing bow ties in the state of Ohio, himself included.  

Kurt wonders how often he comes by to visit and volunteer.  Maybe there is a chance they will be able to meet after all.

The faint beeping of the key code and jiggling of the door handle to his left draws his attention and he turns in time to see an older woman with ashy blonde hair and huge round glasses that take up half of her face walk in.  Her scrub top is printed with different Winnie the Pooh characters.  She smiles and approaches him, extending her hand.  “Hi, you must be Kurt.  I’m Jeannie; we spoke on the phone last week.”

“Oh! Yes,” Kurt shakes her hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Shall we?” She gestures to a table and Kurt takes a seat opposite her.  “So we just have to get some paperwork in order and then we can take a little tour around the unit so you can meet the kids.”

“Okay.”

“This is your first time volunteering, right?” She opens a Manila folder and begins rifling through a large stack of papers.

“Yes.”

“What drew you to it?”

Kurt steals a glance towards the bulletin board, lips curling up into a half-smile.  “I heard about it through my school a few months back, but honestly? I spent a lot of time visiting my mom in this hospital when I was a kid and when me and my dad would get home he would always try to cheer me up.  We put on a lot of concerts for my stuffed animals in our living room.  And I mean… like a lot .”  

Her eyes are soft as she listens, a piece of paper held loosely between both hands just inches off of the table, almost forgotten, and gives him an empathetic smile.

“I saw that video of the Disney sing-along online and I just really wanted to be a part of it, helping kids, especially with music, because it’s really helped me through some tough times.”

“Well,” She straightens up and slides the paper across the table towards him, “I think the kids will really love having you around.  Do you play any instruments?”

“Never missed a piano lesson,” Kurt says, grinning.  “But mostly, I love to sing.”

The paperwork consists of a lot of signatures.  Kurt is not to discuss any of the patients or their health conditions with others in order to maintain privacy regulations, not to post anything to social media without permission, and just a lot of general information about the hospital’s protocols such as what to do in the event of emergency scenarios (of which there are many ).  By the end of it, Kurt has a pretty sizable stack of papers to take home with him and a dull cramp in his wrist.  

“I know it seems like a lot of information, but nothing you have to memorise.  You’ll always be with other staff members who will guide you through every step of the way.”

Kurt releases a nervous laugh, “Okay, good.  I can save my highlighters for school work then.”

***

Jeannie leads the way to the playroom which, she explains, is a safe space for all the children on the unit that remains open every day until 7 p.m.  No medications or treatments are allowed to be administered to a child in the playroom, they must be brought out first.  There are about ten kids inside, ranging from toddlers to older teens, all of whom have seemingly gravitated towards splitting into their own little cliques based on ages.  As soon as they enter the room two of the younger kids, a boy and girl no older than three or four, look up from a mountain of blocks and start crying.  Kurt casts an alarmed glance at Jeannie.

“It’s okay, you can keep playing.” Jeannie kneels down and stacks a loose block onto their small tower.  “Everyone, this is Kurt, he’s going to be coming by to help out and spend some time with all of you.” She stands up and backs away from the two toddlers with the blocks to stand beside Kurt again.  

“It’s the uniform,” she says quietly to him.  “Some get scared when they see us come into a room cause it usually means it’s time for medicine or treatments.”

“Hi, Kurt!” A small girl with bronze skin, a round face, and long thick black hair comes over and takes his hand.  “I’m Melanie! You wanna come draw with me?”

She does not wait for an answer before she starts tugging on his hand and walking back towards a small rectangular table covered with construction paper and crayons.  She climbs into one of two plastic blue chairs which are far too tiny for Kurt to fit in, so he sits on the floor beside the table, crossing his legs.  Melanie slides a piece of yellow construction paper towards him and pushes a pile of crayons into the middle for them to share.

“Did you draw all of these?” Kurt picks up a red crayon and starts sketching.

“Yes! My daddy brought my big brother to visit and we draw together,” she says, shading in what looks like a sunflower with a purple crayon.

“They’re very beautiful; I like that one a lot.” Kurt taps the one she is currently working on.  “I’ve never seen a purple sunflower before.”

“I’m gonna invent them one day,” she says matter-of-factly.  Kurt smiles and returns to his sketch of a new outfit design that has been floating around his mind for the past week.  

“Woah!”

Kurt begins to lift his head up to locate where the voice has come from when he spots movement beside his left elbow.  To say the boy is small would be an understatement.  He is tiny .  A pale, skinny little thing dressed in Batman pajamas that look two sizes too big on him.  He has wide, bright blue eyes and is wearing a charcoal grey beanie.  Clutched between his toothpick arms is a stuffed rabbit with drooping ears the size of its entire body.  

“Hello,” Kurt says as the boy leans forward to peer at his drawing.

“You can draw,” the boy says, clutching his rabbit closer.  

“Would you like to draw with us?”

“Can’t draw,” he says.

“Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Kurt says and holds out the crayon to him.  “Everyone can draw.”

The boy looks at the crayon then up to Kurt and shakes his head shyly before raising the bunny up to his chin, hugging it tightly.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asks.

“Jason,” he says quietly.

“Well, would you like to watch me and Melanie draw?”

“I’m really good.” Melanie looks up at him.  “You can sit next to me, I’ll show you.”

Kurt spends the next hour drawing with Melanie while Jason continues to peek curiously between them.  The other kids begin to trickle out of the room, some led by nurses, some by visiting family members.  Pretty soon, only the three of them are left until Jason’s mother comes in to collect him.  Before he leaves, Kurt holds out a piece of paper to him.

“Something tells me you like Batman,” Kurt says as Jason’s eyes widen at the image of a child-sized Batman with bright blue eyes.  “How about next time you can draw me?”

“Okay.” Jason grins, slipping the picture between his stuffed bunny and his chest to hold it there safely.  “But you’re gonna look like a potato.  I really can’t draw.”

It is the most Kurt has heard him speak all afternoon.  Something about the way he talks contradicts the way he looks. Kurt wonders how old he actually is; the boy looks smaller than most five year olds he’s seen but definitely talks like an older child.  Kurt makes a mental note to find out next time.  “Deal.  I can’t wait to see it.”

Jason’s mom gives Kurt a parting smile before she shepherds her son away.  Soon after, Melanie’s nurse comes to collect her as well, leaving only Kurt and Jeannie in the empty playroom.

“That went well,” she says.  “You’re a natural with them.”

Kurt beams back at her, a sense of pride swelling in his chest.  

After his dad comes to pick him up, Kurt spends the entire car ride home filling him in on the events of the day, excluding Jason and Melanie’s names.  He goes to bed that night with his mind already buzzing with activities for the next visit.

***

Kurt starts volunteering two days a week after school and over the course of the next month, he becomes very familiar with some of the regular kids on the unit.  Jason, he discovers, is actually nine years old, has leukemia and is in his final round of chemotherapy by the first week in October.  Melanie has sickle cell anemia and had been hospitalized for something called ‘sickle cell crisis’— she had gone home two weeks after they first met, but Kurt learns that she usually returns frequently for the same problem.  There’s a teenage boy not much older than Kurt is, but taller and skinnier with jet black hair and sad eyes, named Julian who has cystic fibrosis— he usually keeps to himself, oftentimes choosing to sit in the back corner of the playroom and silently watch everyone else.  

The rest have been a whirlwind of faces and names with a variety of issues such as pneumonia, appendicitis, broken bones and asthma attacks.  There have also been quite a few cases of children who have come in with injuries as a result of abuse at home, more so than Kurt would have imagined actually occurred.  He finds trying to interact and engage with those kids to be the most heartbreaking.

Some of the kids are not as keen to warm up to him as others, keeping to themselves or staying with their families while Kurt leads sing-alongs, painting lessons, hosts movie nights, and reads aloud during story time.  He has developed a steady routine in the five weeks since he began volunteering.  So on the Tuesday during the second week of October he waves hello to the security personnel by the front entrance like he usually does.  He rides up the same elevator and is buzzed into the unit by Rosie, the first nurse he met with the auburn hair.  And with his usual wide smile in place, he strolls into the playroom with a new four-pack of Disney themed puzzles under his arm.  

But when he walks in, the kids are already sitting in a circle, staring up at a boy with loosely gelled curls coiffed into a fluffy side part, bright hazel eyes, and a sapphire acoustic guitar perched on his lap. Kurt is caught completely off guard as he realises, Oh god, it’s him! It’s the guy from the video!

He looks shorter in person than Kurt assumed.  In both the photo on the bulletin board and the video his hair was ungelled and wild.  Kurt vividly remembers his dark curls bouncing as he bopped his head along to the music while impersonating Timon and Pumba for the younger kids.  He’s dressed in another carefully selected outfit though— bright red pants, a black polo and a white bow tie with black polka dots on it.  

“Kurt!” A few of them yell excitedly.    

“Ah, so you’re the famous Kurt I’ve been hearing so much about,” The boy with the guitar says, that same unwavering grin already in place.  “Nice to finally meet you, I’m Blaine.”

#the ghosts that we knew #klaine #klaine fic #klaine fanfiction #blaine anderson #kurt hummel #klaine au #friends to lovers #more like idiots to lovers am i right #canon divergent #syntheticpoetry writes #angst with a happy ending #romance #fluff #early klaine #blaine will forever be an oblivious dumbass #sick!fic #glee #glee fic #klaine fanfic #new directions #cooper anderson #burt hummel

[system76]

System76 Spotlight with Adam Balla

Welcome to the first of an ongoing series where we get to know some of the amazing people behind System76! This week, we kick things off with one of our newest members, Adam Balla (AKA chzbacon), who has just joined the Marketing Team as our Content Producer. Learn what makes his content creation heart go pitter-patter, and why his electric smoker is his must-have cooking appliance.

When did you first become interested in Linux computer systems?

When my roommate introduced me to Slackware in 1999, he was working as a Linux system admin and he really got me interested in Linux. I was going to the Art Institute of Houston at the time for a Multimedia Design degree, and the thought that you could create your own desktop operating system really appealed to me. I didn’t need to stare at the same old tacky operating system I’d used for years.

I found myself, like many nerds of the era, at a Micro Center in the early 2000s rummaging through the discount software bins, trying to snag up multi-CD Linux distributions. This journey exposed me to several of today’s most popular Linux distros. One of those was SUSE Linux 5.3, of which I still keep the tattered book on a bookshelf as a reminder. I did however finally find my place in the world of Debian, which is where I essentially live today. Honestly not much has really changed other than using Pop!_OS as my main distribution—though like any Linux diehard, I still love to download, test, and sometimes install all the Linux.

When did you start becoming a champion for open source hardware and software?

It was a few years after that. Once I got back from the Art Institute and I was working in the area, we needed a server for the screen printing shop that I worked at. Knowing about Linux at that point, I was able to set up a server using consumer-grade gear that we could store all of our artwork and assets on. Moving forward, I set up a server for the newspaper that I worked at for a decade, which I know is still running to this day. After using Linux in that sort of environment and knowing it was good enough for a business, I knew it was good enough for me and my needs.

How did you get involved in content creation as a career?

My father was an engineer. When I was young I was always, like most kids, into drawing cars and doodles and cartoons, but I was used to having a drafting table at the house. Computing came around, and my father bought an IBM 486 and one of the original digitizing tablets, and so I got to play around with that. Eventually, he got upset because I was on the computer more than he was, so he bought me an IBM 386 to use.

Around 1995, my dad learned from a coworker about Photoshop. I begged him to get me a copy, and he finally did for Christmas. That’s when I started playing around in Photoshop and really fell into wanting to create for a living. Similar to what my father does, but maybe not as stringent in the decision that I make—no building is going to fall down from my creative process.

And that’s how I got into the whole content creation piece. I created a cover for the album of my high school bands and then started doing work for more local bands. Back then, there were no digital art courses, so I learned a lot by doing and trial/error.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Working together as a team during the initial brainstorming process. Going through all of the ideas and details, sometimes writing them down, sometimes not, and even laughing at myself at how ridiculous an idea may sound. I love the process of the very first step. I love to set the vision for the project work from there to turn that vision into reality.

How did you first learn about System76?

I first learned about System76 through Chris Fisher and Jupiter Broadcasting. I believe they were reviewing the Leopard Extreme in 2012, on what at that time was the Linux Action Show. That’s when I started to look at System 76 and their offerings and wondered if it would be better for me to build my own Linux desktop, or adopt something and support the open source community. It’s been a little while since then, and I’ve always kept my eye on System76. Then with the release of Thelio, that really pushed me to the point of, “Wow, these guys are creating their own beautiful custom chassis and they’re incorporating different materials together. What a beautiful machine.”

I was speaking to my wife (financial advisor) about purchasing one in 2019, and I spoke to Emma and some other people at System76 about my desire for one, and I don’t know how, but Emma encouraged me not to buy one! And then I was given the opportunity to come to System76 for the Superfan event, where I was fortunate enough to be one of a dozen people who were gifted a Thelio desktop. It sits on my desk to this day; I even bought a larger desk just so I could put it up there and see it every day. I really appreciate the humble beginnings of System76, and I’m so glad to finally be a part of this amazing team.

Let's get into that creative brain. What is your favorite viral video and/or ad, and why do you love it so much?

I have a few ads that I like. I’ve always liked Honda’s messaging and their ads.

I like these ads because of the way in which they go through their history and lineage and the way that Honda itself has marketed its products as “People First” products—very similar to when they introduced their motorcycles to the US with their “You meet the nicest people on a Honda,” campaign. I think that was in 1962, so this was during the height of the motorcycle gang craze. Then comes this little Japanese motorcycle company and markets their products in a completely opposite image from the rest of the industry. They dared to be different and it paid off for them. Selling over 100 million Honda Cubs since 1958. Being given the title of most produced motor vehicle in the world.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I also really love the original Orwellian-inspired Macintosh commercial, which only aired once during the 1984 Super Bowl. Created by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow. In my opinion, these guys really created disruptive advertising, so much so that the ad still resonates today as much as it did then. While I don’t think you need to incite fear to sell a product, it showed that Apple dared to be different.

I’m not sure what constitutes a viral video these days. I’m not sure if it’s having a billion trillion views or just simply infecting one person who saw your video. One that always gives me a chuckle has to be “News Anchor Laughs At Worst Police Sketch Fail”. The honesty on the anchor's face makes me lose it every time.

When you’re not helping to lead the Open Source revolution, what do you like to do with your free time?

I really like going on walks and taking photos. Photography to me is one of the last honest art forms. What you see really is what you get. I love to tinker and make things, I have a 3D printer that my wife and I purchased as a joint valentine’s gift to each other last year. We started using it right when COVID broke out, so we made around 900 face shields which we distributed to schools, day cares, dentist's offices, anyone who needed one. That’s what we did for about the first 6 months when we first got it. Now, my wife loves to print earrings, for example, and I like to build different fun electronics projects.

I also love to cook, especially for large groups. I just got done with an Easter Weekend + Birthday celebration where we cooked 100 lbs of crawfish, 10 lbs of pork shoulder, sausage, and boudin (which is basically rice and pieces of pork that have been mixed together with seasonings and then put into a casing like sausage). One of my main requirements actually for a place in Denver is somewhere I can bring my electric smoker. It’s a must-have for any Texan.

What are you most excited about with your new role here at System76? To help change the computing landscape as we know it today. Into a future where technology is free and open. A world where you're encouraged to break things, fix things, and learn how they work. Aside from changing the world and stuff, I'm really excited to have a chance to work with such an insanely talented group of people.

#system76 #open source #content #content creation #linux #hardware #software #firmware #laptops #desktops #servers #Thelio #Pop!_OS #Launch #Adam Balla #chzbacon #Jupiter Broadcasting #meat #nerd #covid 19 #Ubuntu #Debian #SUSE #engineering #design #STEM #3d printing #creative #Denver #Texas

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I thought about We Bare Bears: The Movie

Salutations random people on the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons. Today, I'm going to do one-fourth of what I do best by talking about We Bare Bears: The Movie. Now, if you're a member of the cartoon community, odds are you've heard of We Bare Bears. It might not be as well-remembered as shows like Adventure Time or Steven Universe. But We Bare Bears has gained its own following through its charm and simplicity. So much so, that the series got it's very own movie, acting as the series finale to the beloved show. And to honor that milestone, I thought I'd share my thoughts by listing the things I liked and disliked about the film. Keep in mind, this is your last chance to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen the film yet (even though it’s been out for more than a week). Because I'll be spoiling the heck out of the movie by listing plot details, characters, and little touches that I think are worth mentioning. With that out of the way, let's dive on in with-

WHAT I LIKED

The Baby Bears meeting: To me, this was the first indicator that the movie was going to be the end. The Baby Bears meeting always felt like a moment saved for the series finale to me. Because answering the question of whether, or not, the Baby Bears find a home isn't something we need an answer to. But learning about how they met? Now that is something I'm sure most fans were curious about. And in true Baby Bears style, it's big and epic while still being downright adorable. Not to mention that Grizz's line at the end of how not looking alike is the best part about being brothers is not only sweet, but it also sells the main moral of the movie. If I had to nitpick, a part of me wonders how their separate journeys got them all in that one spot. But that's just another question that doesn't really require an answer, so I'm alright with not receiving one. Besides, that's what fan-fiction is for. GET ON IT WRITERS!

The Bears Running Through the City: I'm sure some people are tired of the cliche of having characters run through the city because they're late for something. But to me, I think that type of thing works for a series finale. It offers one last glance at familiar environments, but familiar characters as well. Not only do you get to see the people who love the Bears the most, but you even see the Human Bros in the background as the Bears run. This scene also sets up the conflict of the film as the Bears accidentally wreak havoc to get to where they're going. Even more so than usual. Plus, the scene serves as an excuse to hear the extended version of the theme song. And personally, I just love it when a series finale finds a way to incorporate the theme in a way that's better than the opening.

The Bears Complaint File: This was another indicator that the movie was going to be the end of the series. Usually, when a show like We Bare Bears finally acknowledges consequences to a character's actions, it's safe to say that the end is nigh. Because this presents the idea that the characters are close to being the straw that broke the camel's back. Which is something you can never do twice.

The Bears Viral Video: There are going to be people out there who'll find the Bears' video of outdated memes cringy. And to those people, I say: "THAT'S THE FRICKEN POINT GENIUSES!" Seriously, the characters themselves point out how what they're doing is going to be cringy, so it's safe to say that it was very much the intention from the writers. Besides, We Bare Bears always had scenes, and entire episodes, that acknowledged modern trends. And unlike other shows and movies, We Bare Bears doesn't use memes to stay fresh and hip with the kids. Instead, the show-and movie for that matter-uses trends to tell a story that will be timeless. Albeit dated in a few years. The only complaint I'll accept is that you didn't find their video funny, which can be valid. As for me, yeah, I chuckled. Speaking of-

The Comedy: We Bare Bears might not be the funniest show I've seen, but it still gets a chuckle out of me from time to time. It works with an absurd sense of humor, which is either your thing or it isn't. As for the jokes in the movie, most of them work pretty well, and the ones that don't aren't too bad. Personally, my favorite scene is when the Bears slowly drive away from Wildlife Control. The fact that that plan worked was so absurd, I could not help but laugh.

The Blackout: This was the straw that I mentioned earlier. The Bears have finally crossed a line that turns several people against them. In fact, it's very reminiscent of Ed Edd and Eddy's Big Picture Show, where the characters are forced to leave after doing something unforgivable. Although, there's one thing that We Bare Bears: The Movie does better than Big Picture Show. In Big Picture Show, fans never really saw what the Eds did that was so horrid. We were just told that it was so bad that our trio had to leave everything behind. Never seeing the answer always bothered me as a kid because I was always curious about how their last scam was somehow their worst. This is why it's nice that we actually get to see what the Bears did that was so unforgivable in We Bare Bears: The Movie.

Agent Trout: At some point, if you found Trout to be the most unlikeable piece of trash that he is, then you found the writers' possible intention. Trout acts as the movie's main antagonist, and on top of that, a character you're not supposed to like. And granted, there have been movie antagonists that are pure evil, but audiences can't help but love them anyway. But personally, I feel like making Trout a likable antagonist would have spoiled the point of the film. The movie's message, which I'll get into later, is about how being strange is ok, and that anyone can fit into society. Because society changes and people become accepting of these changes, every day. Trout is meant to represent the type of people who refuse the idea of change. He is a character who believes everything should operate as nature intended, which in this film's case, having bears reside in their natural habitats. And I honestly think Trout does his part as an antagonist really well. He's easy to hate for all the right reasons, and it's satisfying to see him get his coupons. It's also even better that we don't know his motivations to be so cruel to the Bears. Because there are real-life people out there who share Trout's mindset, with zero reasons behind why. Plus, his design is really great, being devoid of color and drawn with sharp edges in comparison to the bright and smooth looking characters. It helps him stand out from most characters in the show, while also making less overly threatening that the hunter in "Yuri and Ice Bear."

Officer Murphy: As far as I know, Officer Murphy was never really that big of a character. In fact, I don't even remember if the show mentioned his name until this movie. So to some fans, it might come off as a surprise that Murphy is given such an enormous role in this movie. Regardless, the position Murphy has is a great one. He is meant to represent the positive type of law enforcement. The officers who don't punish people due to who they are or what they look like. Instead, Officer Murphy is an officer who upholds the law to protect others. Take note of the fact that Murphy never wanted to physically or emotionally hurt the Bears. He understood that the Bears crossed the line and needed to be punished, but never to the extremes that Trout took. Speaking of Trout, Murphy acts as a great comedic sidekick for the antagonist. There's this nice running joke where Trout shoves random food in Murphy's mouth when Murphy makes an unwanted comment. And said running joke also leads to a great payoff in the movie's final act. So while I'm surprised at Murphy's inclusion, I gotta say that I really appreciate it.

Mystery Machine Cameo: I'm the biggest Scooby-Doo fan you'll ever meet, so believe when I say that seeing the iconic van just made me giddy.

Pizza Rat: I'll be the first to admit that Pizza Rat was a scumbag for betraying the Bears. But gosh darn it he was hilarious. I'm not kidding, whenever Pizza Rat showed up, he got funnier and funnier with each scene. Especially with his hatred of the rat with Spaghetti.

Grizz’s Nightmare: There are two things I really like about this scene. The first is that Grizz's nightmare is easily the creepiest the show has gotten. Seriously, something tells me that Trout's face being on the death train is going to be in kids' nightmares for weeks. The second is that there is some outstanding visual symbolism in this scene. It shows how Grizz is under a lot of stress for carrying the weight of protecting his brothers at all costs. Not only is that the best symbolism the show has ever used, but the scene gives the perfect insight into Grizz as a character. It's rare that we ever get to see the serious side of him, so I appreciate this one last glimpse into his personality.

That Epic Car Chase: If I'm being honest, there were not that many scenes that showed this movie being anything else than an extended episode. But this scene, however, was the most cinematic that We Bare Bears have ever been. The quality animation and cinematography help make the scene action-packed and surprisingly tense at times. Like I genuinely felt worried for my favorite trio of weirdos. There's not much I can say about this scene other than it was pretty impressive as well as awesome.

The Bears’ Plan Fails: It's weird saying that I like this, but I do. The movie could have gone down the same route as The Simpsons Movie by having the plan work for the sake of a joke. But no. We Bare Bears: The Movie actually employs logic and says, "you can't move to a new country, without a passport." And I can't help but give kudos to a movie that doesn't allow a simple solution.

The Third Act Break Up: Ah yes, the one cliche scene that makes audiences go "Really? We're doing this song and dance again?" Now, here's my defense: When it comes to something made for kids, you gotta be more forgiving of cliches. Odds are, some children watched this movie, and this will be their first third act break up. So you can't really fault the film for wanting to use a popular cliche. Granted, you could wish to have your kids watch something original, but that's a request that gets harder to do with each day. Besides, some cliches, like the third act break up, aren't bad unless they're done correctly. And I honestly think the movie uses the cliche just fine. The tension between Grizz and Panda has been built up throughout the film, so one final blow-out was bound to happen. Plus, the Bears don't really break up, but rather argue. If Panda had walked off dramatically, after saying "we're not brothers," then I would consider it a break up. Instead, it comes across as characters saying things they don't mean due to the heat of the moment.

Trout’s Bear Sanctuary: This was depressing but in a good way. The colors being swapped out from the show's usual bright pastels to dull and gray? That perfectly explains how dire the situation is without outwardly stating it. And yeah, I got a little misty eyed when watching this scene.

Grizz Talking to Baby Grizz: Another scene that I thought would be endgame would be having the grown-up Bears meeting the Baby Bears. I always dismissed this idea because I kept reminding myself of how it was impossible. I mean, how can you make characters meet a younger version of themselves? Turns out, the answer to that question was to have the younger version of a character act as a conscience. And yeah, this scene was pretty sweet and charming. And once again, my eyes started to get all misty. The tears didn't fight hard enough to get out, but they still fought pretty hard. Also, was it just me, or did it sound like Baby Grizz's voice actor was beginning to hit puberty?

The Bears Cheering for Grizz: I'm not the only one who thought it sounded like the bears were chanting/roaring Grizz's name, right? Because that's what I heard during this scene. Also, this scene was pretty epic, while doing its job to get me hyped up for what happens next.

The Moral: I've touched upon this moral earlier, and I want to make it clear how important it is. Some people feel as though they don't fit in anywhere, mostly because law enforcement has a history of punishing those that don't. But as Grizz says: "Nature adapts." The same goes for society. More and more people are fitting into groups that make them feel welcome. And those groups become more accepted with each passing year. Now to be fair, there are scum bags like Trout, who seek to punish people who are different. But again, there are still good souls like Murphy that attempt to do the morally correct thing no matter who/what you are. And I have to give kudos to We Bare Bears: The Movie for showing the brighter side of things. Because let's face it, we all could use something positive as of late. And I'm sure there are going to be people out there who'll call this movie 'preachy' and 'overly optimistic.' To those people, I would like to once again point out that this is a kid's film. Yes, kids are smarter than we give them credit for. But that doesn't mean you should give the harsh truth about how hard issues won't have simple solutions. They at least have until their teen years before that happens. Besides, look at the ending shot of bears normally fitting in with the rest of society. If you can see that and not love the symbolism being represented, then this film clearly is not for you.

WHAT I DISLIKED

It’s More of an Extended Episode Rather Than a Movie: Before I explain, I want to make it very clear that this is mostly a nitpick. Like I said before, there weren't many scenes that made this movie feel like, well, a movie. The animation never seemed better in comparison to the show, there weren't that many cinematic scenes, and the story didn't feel all that epic either. I honestly feel like the bears went on grander adventures than the one they went on here. Like the first time they became wanted criminals in "Captain Craboo." Yeah, remember that episode? It was emotional, intense, and actually kind of epic at times. And that episode was a half-hour long! The movie was an hour and eight minutes, and it still couldn't outdo the quality of "Captain Craboo." I know that I'm being a little harsh. But when I see "the movie" attached at the end of a show's title, I expect something grander and more epic than the original show. And yeah, We Bare Bears: The Movie is good for an extended episode, but not for what I consider for a movie.

What Supporting Cast?: Here's where looking at the movie as a series finale becomes an issue. This is the last time we'll see ALL of the characters from the show. So giving no proper goodbye from the supporting cast, who have all been significant people in the Bears' lives, feels wrong. The best-or rather worst-example of how wrong this is would be Nom-Nom. This was a character who was on the road towards redemption. So to have his last appearance show that he's the same jerk as he started is disappointing. The worst part is that the movie had the right idea with Charlie's scene. He helps the Bears one last time and says he's happy to do it for all the times they helped him. It's a touching moment and honestly feels like a proper goodbye to his character. And I can't help but see ways that the movie could have included the rest of the supporting cast. Have Ranger Tabes join Murphy and Trout due to her being a bear expert. Have Nom-Nom stand up for the bears at the Internet Animal rave. Have Chloe literally do anything other than stand and watch her best friends in the world be in danger! I understand that the Bears are the main characters who deserve most of the closure. But that doesn't mean other characters should be left in the dust because of it.

Panda’s Kind of Annoying: Cards on the table, I'm not the biggest fan of Panda. I don't think he's the worst character or even a bad one. But to me, he always came across as so whiney and annoying, and he's somehow worse in the movie. I get that he's a straight man who's meant to be the voice of reason, but there's a way to make a character like that entertaining. Some amazing straight men are specific iterations of Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Velma from Scooby-Doo. Those are characters that know how to be the calm of the crazy storm that their fellow cast. They offer witty comments and charismatic one-liners that prove they could also hold off on their own at times. Panda never really did that for me in neither the show nor the movie. He has his entertaining moments for sure, but most of them get overshadowed by his weaker ones. So while I don't exactly hate Panda, I can't really say I love him.

Ice Bear Does Next to Nothing: I'm not the only one who thinks Ice Bear was underutilized, right? In fact, We Bare Bears: The Movie is also similar to Ed Edd and Eddy's Big Picture Show in how to write its main trio. Both films pay more attention to the relationship between the leader and the straight man, where the comic relief is there for jokes and to give the occasional contribution. However, it's easy to forgive with Ed, because his character has little to offer other than being a loveable doofus. But Ice Bear? He has so much personality, so much backstory, and so much more to his character that you could make an entire movie just about him. Plus, going back to the fact that the film is a series finale, this is not a proper conclusion to his character. Sure, it's nice to see the Bears be accepted for who they are, but what about all that stuff with Yuri? Are you seriously telling me that the show wouldn't do anything with the fact that Ice Bear fell in love with Yuri's daughter?! I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I really wish the movie had something more in store for Ice Bear.

On The Road Song: Out of all the good qualities that We Bare Bears have, having good music isn't one of them. The few songs that the show has are not bad by no means but aren't really songs I would find myself listening to on repeat. The same goes for "Road Trip Song." It's perfectly fine, but nothing more than mediocre. Plus, weirdly, it's the only song in the movie. I mean, if you're gonna introduce something like a musical number, at least go all out with making a musical. I'm not saying the film should have been like Steven Universe: The Movie in terms of a soundtrack, but at least have two or three more songs. As is, it just feels like a weird detour on the road to Canada.

The Bears Survive Falling Off a Cliff:...That’s it. Just the ludicrousy of the fact that the Bears survive a fall like that. When you think about it, it removes a lot of the tension when you they could survive huge feats like that too.

Overall, We Bare Bears: The Movie gets a well earned B+ for me. When you judge it as a movie AND as a series finale, it loses a lot of points. But when you look at it as an extended episode? You get something that has a great moral, an outstanding antagonist, and a nicely put together story. Like the original show, I'm probably not going to remember it in about ten years down the line. As for the here and now, I'm glad I took the time to watch something so much more than BEARable.

(Now if only we got that Amazing World of Gumball movie. GET ON IT CARTOON NETWORK!)

#we bare bears #we bare bears: the movie #review #what i thought about

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough: So Long Boys And Clap Like This

ON this hour’s episodes: Josh decides to have a vasectomy after a pregnancy scare and soons end up dealing with second thoughts and bostonian robots while Alex regrets getting his after meeting what are maybe his children. Then Josh finally sells a game but it falls through and takes up extra jobs to avoid telling his family while Bridgette is forced to get a real job on her birthday and Alex enjoys inudstrial humis. Clap Like This under the cut. 

So Long Boys

Aka the greatest vacesctomy based comedy episode since Brooklyn Nine Nine’s “Choclate Milk”. If you don’t know the show or don’t remember that episode if you are a fellow 99er it’s the one where Jake thinks his superior officer and friend Terry getting a vasectomy means chopping his penis off. I mean it starts off just assuming he’s making a joke but it becomes blurry if he’s just making quips or genuinely thinks that’s how it works. It’s also easy to compare these two because they both, while vastly diffrent and great episodes in their own rights: have a simlilar beat to the plot: a character trying to get a vasectomy for responsible reasons but being unsure they don’t wnat more kids. It’s just Brooklyn Nine Nine is more also about Jake being hurt Terry dosen’t think of him as a friend, a position he reverses while Close Enough has indentured pop and lock teenagers, a dark ride dedicated to scaring people out of kids and bostionan robots that sound like JFK from Clone HIgh. How does any of this fit together, let’s take a look. 

So we open with Josh and Emily having a huge pregnancy scare, which was caused by the birthday sex from the pitch trailer aka Josh trying to pass it off as “we’re just doing our taxes sweetie!”. In other words the main bit I wanted to see transfered to the show proper. And while there’s a few joke this scene is mostly played for drama.. it’s not out of tone with the rest of the show. What really has made this show work for me is it combines regular show antics, but with the added maturity of having an older cast dealing with growing up. A bunch of 30 somethings to start instead of a bunch of 20 somethings so instead of dealing with stuff like video game competitionts, guys nights, and dating woes, it’s more dealing with juggling family and friends, having a job you hate and trying to ballance your career with your passion.  And here is no diffrent: Josh and Emily HAVE no money, live in a cramped apartment with their best friends and a newly divorced couple which as we’ve seen isn’t always easy, and work jobs htey utterly hate and would have to double down on, snuffing out their real dreams, in order to support this kid. Josh outright says he’ll get a second job and give up his video game development which wihle it’d probably be miserable for him would be a sad neciscity. I myself do this blog on the side while trying desperatley to get an actual paying job, it sucks and their situation is compounded by having a kid on top of it who needs their support and attention. It’s stressful enough without adding a second child. Thankfully it’s a false alarm.  However Josh, in a show of responsibility decided to do something about it and get a vasectomy. Still being josh though, his getting one also involves a massive and hilarious vasectomy party, where a bunch of people we never met, and alex and bridgette obviously play party games involving pinning sisssors on testies and theires even a breakdancing sperm. Emily and Pearle’s reactions are gold to this: Emily, before the opening, tells Josh he’s not allowed to plan parties anymore, understandable while Pearle genuinely didn’t belivie they were dumb enough to have a vasectomy party and gives out an understandable “Damn you white people” when she’s proven wrong. Alex also gets set up for his subplot in the episode mentioning he got his a year ago, which given his and Bridgette’s relationship was probably falling apart around then was a good call. I do however like this: Something big happend and Josh is taking responsibility for it, while still being josh about it, but it shows how unlike a lot of idiot heroes in adult cartoons,he’s still a genuinely nice guy who tries to do what’s right, and has more than one brain cell. he has two thank you. So Alex drives josh to get a vasectomy, while Randy presumibly watches Candace as we only see her at the start (Peale was watching her during hte party to help keep her in the dark for now) and finish of the episode. Meanwhile Emily, Bridgette and Pearle have a small B plot having brunch mamosas and boxing up candace’s baby stuff. We also find out for 100% sure our heroines nationatlities: Bridgette is japanese while Emily is Mexican. Mostly because Bridgette always saw Emily with a bigger family and only half for racist reasons that get her handcuffed to a pipe by a drunken Pearle. This show really needs more of Pearle asa every time she shows up she’s a fucking delight and if the show hopefully returns for season 2 I could easily see her getting more screentime. Emily ends up in tears and realizing she may want more kids, which is.. resonable. Their only 32. While it’s resonable to want or have any amount of kids, except like 20 like that one tlc show... I never watched it but when the only two things you hear about a show you don’t watch is the weird, archacic dating setup they have that feels like it produces a good marriage as much as Charlie Sheen did, and that the mother won’t stop having kids despite it nearly killing her  multiple times and having you know 20, you kinda don’t want to watch it.  Anyway it’s resonable to want a family of any size you want, Emily realises she’s not sure she wants to stop at 1 just yet.  Meanwhile in the A-Plot Josh has come to the same conclusion after finding out that not only is this version of a vasectomy he’s getting permentant, mostly due to ball scorching done by robots, but after a hilarious but deeplly insulting carnival ride in the clinic that’s supposed to Scare josh out of having kids and features two teenagers fighting and pop and locking, a goblin and a wall just saying why why why why, impilng kids ruin your sleep, your romantic lives and are terrible. Josh however understandably takes offense to this, and seeing a brother and sister.. only make him not want to deprive candace of possibly having a sister oneday. Again while he and Emily are in no way in position for a second kid now.. they have time and Josh could easily sell a game at some point: he almost does in the next episode. ONe of Emily and Bridgette’s songs could go viral. Or Josh could end up finding a much better day job or Emily could get a promtion at hers. While not wanting to have a second child while they can’t support one is the right move, Josh realizes not wanting ot have one at all, at least in their spectfic case, was an overreaction to a scary situation.  Josh decides to think more, despite the doctor offring up some pubic scaping for extra, and he and Alex end up finding the Teens from the ride.. who are in fact real kids who look an AWFUL lot and act an awfl lot like alex and are basically indentured to the doctor,who treats them like crap and has them undder contract to pop and lock for him and look at his new pubic hair designs (”Those nights are the hardest”). Josh decides not to go through with it but the bostioan robots who do the procedure refuse to let that happen and leave Josh, Alex and the Twins on the run, while Alex himself reconsiders parenthood as he’s now proud of what he thinks are his kids. As the four are cornered it turns out the doctor is also a prisoner.. but an unsympathetic one since he can A) go home and B) is willingly collaberating with obnoxious robots to do a dangerous verison of a serious procedure to save his own ass and is karmically atomized. When Alex brings up his thinking the kids are his, they sadly explain he isn’t: Their dad’s a republican senator (Tot hteir shame the girl, who I almost forgot to mention is voiced by the wonder Kate MIccui, in her second role in a JG Quintel show. HOpefully if there’s a season 2 or the show stars having arcs they can find a full role for her on the show. ) and Alex finds his sperm he donated ended up in a dumpster.. but is determined to protect the kids anyway. Thankfully our heroes are able to escape with Emily, who sneaks ina fter the robots locked down the faicility’s help, with Josh bummed because he was proud for being responsible as the two discuss still wanting to have kids, with Emily pointing out .. this is STILL responsible. Not going through with something you have doubts about and having an honest talk with your partner is the responsbe thing> The five of them escape, and while Alex knows he’s not the teens father, offers to be there for them if they ever need it.  Wrapping things up at a skating rink, The Ramierz’ skate and Josh and Emily plan to do their taxes again later, though likely with a rubber this time, and Alex got his vasectomy reverse and is really weird about it to Bridgette’s annoyance. Also 20,000 years into the future subhuman cavemen versions of hismelf are the dominatne lifeform Neat. Overall this ep was really good, having great character stuff for Josh Emily and Alex, while still having some good bits for the rest of the main cast minus randy who I feel the show honestly forgets exists half the time, with drunk Pearle being a delight. But it’s the emotional core for both sides: Josh and Emily hastily deciding to not have more kids before wondering if they want to keep the option open while Alex realisses he might want to be a dad himself and his bond with waht he thinks are his kids and protectivness of them is really sweet. It’s also not lacking in great jokes; The entire rollercoaster of “DON’T HAVE KIDS” is just black comedy gold from start to finsih including the green goblin for some reaosn, the boston robots and vasectomy doctor are great vilians and overall the episode is just really good and really mature for an episode that also makes plenty of testicle scaping jokes. You can do both. 

Clap Like This

And continuing the trend from the last few episodes, we have the weaker one (though Golden Gamer was still pretty damn good), second this time around, though like Golden Gamer it’s still decent.  The plot is a bit simplier and starts with Josh FINALLY selling a game to two idiot tech billionares, Clap LIke This, a game about clapping along that actually seems really damn fun and I wish were real like Ladder World.  While Emily enjoys being able to spend money and her husband finally living his dream or so she thinks, Bridgette, who we find out has been on an allowance from her parents, is cut off on her birthday and has to get a job at a forever 23, one of the few times this show has used an offbrand and not nearlya s awesome a name as “Plugger Inners” it feels lazier if only because again, Plugger Inners exists. But as was revealed earlier, the two guys who bought it went broke and the deal feell through but josh, feeling terrrible about them not being able to afford the finer things anymore, hides it from his family and takes as many shifts as possible at plugger inners. He also runs into David Hasslehoff doing his best mitch von malibu as he just.. throws more money at josh to do what his son asks. Or nephew or whatever. I went back and redited this after finding out that really was him and supposed to be him. I’m also calling his annoying son Hobie for reasons that will be come clear if you’ve ever watched allison pregler’s baywatching series but it’s always fun to see the hoff in something. Especailly the time he made this really embarassing music video. 

But alass the 200 dollars Hoff made off “jump in my car”  that he gave josh isn’t enough and with him having taken all the insltation jobs josh is forced to turn to black market insltations including one where he installs a tv while jaws eats a guy.. I genuinely wish they’d used this song.

#close enough #jq quintel #reviews #animation reviews #hbo max #so long boys #clap like this

[purplesurveys]

1069

survey by dragonov

What is your favourite dinosaur? I’ve never been into dinosaurs... I’ve always found the T-Rex costume that goes viral every now and then absolutely hilarious, though.

Would you rather live with wolves or tigers? Wolves.

Have you ever forgotten what a certain kind of pain felt like? I have only gone through the loss of an immediate family member once. Of course my grandpa’s death will always make me feel as sad as I was on the day that I found out; but it’s been a while since I’ve been hit with news that heavy. I don’t quite remember the feeling of being slapped in the face with such a tragic update, and I’m not looking forward to the next time.

Do you prefer water from the tap or bottled water? Bottled. We can’t drink tap water here; though some rich households will put some fancy purifier thing hooked to their sink so that they can drink ‘tap.’

Do you actually use any of the shampoo hotels provide? Yeah haha. We always buy the same products at home and it gets boring, so it’s fun to try out and experiment with the different shampoos and body washes provided in the hotels we stay in.

What do you remember the most about your childhood? My cousins, siblings, and I largely alternated among three channels - Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network every day. We would also play outside from around 5-6 PM. It was the same, simple routine every weekday, but we were happy kids nonetheless. Also, watching wrestling every single day, back when it was a lot bloodier.

Do you feel as if someone has robbed something from you? I feel like it would be selfish of me to claim this, since I never like to point fingers...but this does feel like the case when it comes to a few people. 

Have you ever stared at the sky and wondered if it was all worth it? I get into such a mood at least once a month. I just did this last Monday.

Would you rather have a pet dinosaur or have mythical creatures be real? Erm, neither. I’m wary of dinosaurs’ temperaments and I’m not too fond of mythical creatures.

What age did you get your first hair cut? I think I was around 3.

Do you have a favourite toy from childhood still? I didn’t even get to keep any of them. I knew I had a favorite cash register, toy laptop, and Blue’s Clue’s toy telephone, but my mom threw each of them out the older I got.

What are your thoughts on the end of the world? I personally wouldn’t have a problem with it as I don’t think much about existentialism and things like that. I’d be more concerned with people panicking and panic-buying all over the place, and the possibility of the end of the world being hugely destructive. If it ever does happen, I wish it’d come calmly.

Which sports do you enjoy watching? Wrestling, tennis, and volleyball. Sometimes basketball when my university’s team is playing lol, but I never understood the different rules. I love playing table tennis, but I never particularly enjoyed watching the sport.

Would you ever have a breed of dog that is considered aggressive? Like pitbulls? Yeah, for sure. I personally do not like chihuahuas though.

Have you ever made bread? I think...we have?? In home ec?? Back in Grade 6? I have a vivid memory of playing around with yeast and dough, but I no longer remember if it had been bread we ended up making. I do remember making rainbow cake, apple pie, and macarons from that year though, so it’s likely we also made bread.

Would your childhood self be disappointed? I say this a lot, but she would probably be surprised I’m still here. She’d also be surprised I managed to be in a long-term relationship, regardless of its failure. One of my biggest worries as a kid was that no one would ever like me, and I was so certain I’d end up being single forever lol.

Do you think in the future you'll have done yourself proud? God I don’t know. I hope so.

Did you read The Great Gatsby before seeing the movie? I have done neither. Idk if it’s my kind of content.

What do you feel about movies made from books? I wish the entertainment industry would take them more seriously. There are hits, of course - like how Harry Potter fans seem to like both books and movies - but there are misses that have been embarrassing like the Percy Jackson movie adaptation. But idk, I have a bigger bone to pick with other movie types (aka live-action adaptions of Disney animated classics lmao), so movies made from books aren’t much of an issue with me. 

Has anything ever fallen asleep on you? A few dogs here and there. My ex also used to.

Do you have to use the bathroom? Not at the moment, no.

Is the above question too invasive? Not even remotely. I’ve encountered more intense questions on surveys.

What do you feel about surgeries? Do they worry you? Ugh, yep. I hope I’ll never need one. Needles just freak me out.

Do you have a tumblr? :))

Would you rather have an open book shelf or one with doors? Open. If I had an impressive collection of anything, I’d want to show it off.

Do you need a large or small place to live comfortably? Large. I get uncomfortable if I’m in a small room for too long, which is why I have to take work breaks every now and then and leave my room (which doubles as my workspace) just to pace around the house and play with the dogs for a little while.

Would you ever consider moving to another country? Yeah, but I’d prefer an area with a considerable English-speaking population, practicality-wise. I feel that a language barrier would just stress me out and would keep me from getting fully excited about being in a foreign land.

Have you ever dropped everything and reevaluated? That’s what the last three months have been about, haven’t they?

Do you play minecraft? if so, feelings about servers? No I don’t play Minecraft, though I did use to watch Pewdiepie’s Let’s Plays of it haha.

Do you long for easier times? Not always. But this is where I’m at right now, given how tough life has been for me in the last few months. I just want a break, no matter how tiny.

Do you believe that life gets easier or we just get stronger? The latter. At least, that’s what I tell myself to cheer myself up and to encourage myself to keep going.

Does it weird you out to think that humans are just more advanced animals? It fascinates me, it doesn’t weird me out.

Do you ever wonder why religion came about? I have no clue. I’d love to learn why.

Would you ever consider shaving your head? If it was for a cause that’s close to my heart, this would be no problem at all.

Would you rather belong to a cult or a religion you feel is wrong? I guess religion? so I could at least get out of it. Also, I’ve already personally abandoned the religion I was baptized in because it never felt like a good fit, so this is coming from experience.

Have you ever considered murder? Never.

Kill a man or a woman? Again, no.

Would you like to live in a realm where the zombie apocalypse is possible? Nope.

Are you afraid of any animals? Reason? Wild animals likely to chase or attack humans, because duh. And cockroaches, because everything about them is just bleck.

Someone knocks on your door three times right now, do you answer? I’d tell them to come in, yeah.

Do you read creepypastas? Not really. It was never a pastime of mine when I was younger either.

Can you sleep afterwards? I can, but I won’t. It’s only 5:20 and I’ve still got 40 minutes until the end of my shift. I also want to hang around with my family after work, so.

#survey #surveys

[itsclydebitches]

I think the hard truth is RWBYs writer are just not equipped for this. Sorry. You tried and failed. Not financially no, but I doubt RWBY will be remembered like Avatar or FullMetal or many other large fantasy stories. It's playing a lot tricks to appear to be like those stories and many are falling for it. It's female lead cast makes it stand out as well and makes people really defensive of criticism. I wonder how it will be viewed years after it's done.

It does raise a lot of interesting questions regarding what “success” is. For me, I’m invested in quality. I’d rather create (and receive) something that has been well crafted than something that goes viral despite being “bad.” Nevertheless, we can’t deny that the mere that the mere act of a text gaining that kind of popularity means that something spoke to the audience. 

Ultimately I think RWBY will be viewed much as it is now: praised for various aspects with a “the writing is pretty bad...” caveat. Seriously, this isn’t just me with my “I think the last two volumes have been horrible” goggles on insisting that my perspective is objective. Every vid, every person I’ve spoken to, every time it comes up as a recommendation, there’s some acknowledgement of how messy the writing is. It changes greatly---some people think Volumes 1-3 are terrible while others think those were the last good seasons, some people have issues with the world building, the characterization, the dropped plot-lines---no one can agree on what is bad about it, but everyone I’ve spoken to has a major problem with something in the show’s narrative. In a way I don’t encounter when talking about other, better crafted shows. There, we might get an acknowledgment of a season that went awry or a relationship someone doesn’t like (more personal tastes), but not the sweeping acknowledgment of “RWBY has problems with its writing” that I’ve encountered over the years. 

Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have a lot else going for it. As said, RWBY is a women led show which is still a novelty outside of the more cutesy anime/cartoons with women teams. RWBY may well have a highly prominent queer relationship. It’s music is spectacular. It’s animation has been stunning since the update. Whatever else might be going on at the very least I always love watching RWBY’s visuals. It also has a lot of cool and truly fantastic ideas... just not always a good handle on how to use them. Most importantly, it has clearly done just enough to keep the majority of its fanbase invested. It did the hard work of making me love these characters and this world which is why I continue to watch with the hope that it will improve again... and why I’m critical of it. Because getting your viewers invested and then dropping the quality is so much worse than just churning out bad storytelling to begin with. At least then everyone knows precisely what they’re signing up for and there are no expectations beyond that. So I think that’s what RWBY will become, which is basically the same thing it is now: “Watch for this, that, and the other thing... just know there are serious problems.” But yes, then there are others who have a more rose-colored memory of past volumes or who simply don’t care about those potential issues. Why do you care how the women are written when just getting them as characters at all is a big step? For some that’s enough. 

But as a culture---as opposed to individuals---you don’t get better stories by shrugging and just accepting these flaws. I mean, there’s a difference between one viewer accepting that these flaws are fine for them, accepting that all media will  be flawed in one manner or another... and insisting that those flaws don’t matter at all purely because they don’t bother you/some kind of flaw is inevitable. That’s not how storytelling grows. So my real hope is less in how RWBY will be viewed in the future and more in how RWBY can help teach future web series. It’s still a comparatively new medium and whatever else it might have done, RWBY is helping us test the waters. Hopefully future writers can look at both what RWBY has done well to emulate, as well as be discerning enough to figure out what it has done wrong. 

#rwby #mymetas #Anonymous

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY TWITTER IS A BAD ECONOMY

On the average trip I bring four books and only read one of them, because I find new books to read en route. That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if this label didn't already exist, it would seem the noise is whitish. It implies the result won't be pretty, because it meant that to write as he wanted to seem aristocratic; she was afraid she wasn't smart enough. Just have a gentlemen's agreement. Which is exciting because among other things it means third parties can use this technique whenever a you have at least a random sample of the applicants that were selected, b their subsequent performance is measured, you'll know if they do. So there's another difference between essays and the things one has to write in high school. When I was in college I imitated the pompous diction of famous professors.

Do one thing and do it yourself. Mihalko seemed like he actually wanted to be our friend. The worst thing is that it was a little alarming to have users who got lots of traffic. Better stick to the standard cartoon version that the Civil War was about slavery; people would be confused otherwise; plus you can show a lot of bandwidth. You'd think it would be: just try to sell one. However, even that is an interesting prospect. That's probably the number one question people ask me. Since they're writing for a popular magazine, they start with the most radioactively controversial questions, from which because they're writing for a popular magazine, they start with the most radioactively controversial questions, from which because they're writing for a popular magazine they then proceed to recoil from in terror.

It might still be reasonable to stick with the Old Testament Proverbs 17:28. The economy of medieval Europe was divided up into little cells is terribly inefficient. But Apple created wealth, in the sense of what people will pay for their skills, the answer is yes, apparently. Next year you'll have to explain how your startup was viral. The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature—to write, without even realizing it, imitations of whatever English professors had been publishing in their journals a few decades before. They overvalue ideas. Eventually by trial and error I found that what the teacher wanted us to do was pretend that the story had really taken place, and to have the junior people do the work for him. And then there was the difference in the way of having the next.

It seems that, for the average engineer, more options just means more rope to hang yourself. The idea is basically that you sort search results not in order of how much advertisers bid as Overture did but in order of textual relevance as search engines did then nor in order of textual relevance as search engines did then nor in order of textual relevance as search engines did then nor in order of textual relevance as search engines did then nor in order of the bid times the number of startups are created to do product development on spec for some big company, they should apply for patents because patents are part of the mating dance with acquirers. Calder's work is his own happiness showing through. A free market interprets monopoly as damage and routes around it. The immediate cause of death in a startup is that I happen to have it. The big media companies shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. People are finally starting to admit that Wodehouse was a great writer, but to serve a ruler powerful enough to enforce order, rich people had private armies. Another classic way to make something people want is not the thing itself, but it was wonderful for us, his students. And two things, especially, is where the USPTO has been dropping the ball. Basically, I had to add a new application to my list of known time sinks: Firefox.

Particularly the sort written by the staff writers of newsmagazines. So I don't really blame Amazon for applying for the one-click patent would turn up in the company and went to work for you without giving them options likely to be worth suing for money. To be patentable, an invention has to be more true in software than other businesses. You can see wealth—in buildings and streets, in the narrow sense of the word unjust here is the unmistakable spectral signature of the Daddy Model. For example, a city could attract angels from outside. I ignored it the way you let yourself ignore a bug that only appears intermittently. To do really great things, you have to do is remove the marble that isn't part of it. That's the paradox I want to explore: great new things often come from the margins.

He has since relaxed a bit on that point. If 98% of the time I thought, they did call them essays, didn't they? At first I tried rules. With a tractor an energetic farmer could plow six times as much land in a day as he could with a team of horses. You're short of money, for example have been granted large numbers of preposterously over-broad patents, but not random: I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting. It may work, but it didn't last long. Unfortunately, patent law is inconsistent on this point. That's the good part. If 98% of the time we could find at least one good name in a 20 minute office hour slot. I've seen the lever of technology grow visibly in my own time. Where the method of selecting the elite is thoroughly corrupt, most of the world's history the main route to wealth was to steal it: in pastoral societies by cattle raiding; in agricultural societies by appropriating others' estates in times of peace. Indeed, the same principle: the way to ensure that would be too much of a political liability just to give the other side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one.

It's an old idea that new things come from the margins. What really makes him stand out, though, it became the basis of education than wealth. What people know of him now is his paintings and his more flamboyant inventions, like flying machines. This was Henry Ford's plan. A couple years ago my friend Trevor and I went to look at the list of movies playing, they want that extra oomph that the big stars have. Scholars had to figure out what he meant. This leads to my final suggestion: a technique for determining when you're on the right track when people complain that you're unqualified, or that you've done something inappropriate. That's the whole point of technology. If new ideas arise like doodles, this would explain why you have to fund startups that won't leave. And they're full of exactly the right kind of friends. After the lecture the most common form of discussion was the disputation.

9% of the people. Well, founders aren't much better. To attack a rival they could have ignored, Amazon put a lasting black mark on their own reputation. The patents aren't mine, of course, it's called school, which makes that clear to everyone, though in fact all jobs are some percentage school. Thump music. Startup School. And yet they work horribly. The only point of buying one now is to advertise that you can get away with working as if the goal were to discover good ideas, but for good new ideas, and you always get more attention for that. The Age of the Essay probably the second or third day, with text that ultimately survived in red and text that later got deleted in gray. Which is precisely why we hear ever more about it. A company that sues competitors for patent infringement before they'd even released a product. When you're old and eminent, what will you miss about being young and obscure?

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #time #performance #imitations #Which #sense #years #school #people #liability #economy #ball #farmer #reputation #application #technology #world #Thump #order #teacher #list #magazine #office #things #essay

[rabble-dabble]

CHOOSE: 

==>Dirk Strider

==>????????

==>????????

>Dirk Strider_

Your name is Dirk Strider. 

And you have a pretty awesome big brother. 

At least, you like to think so. He might not be around very much for most of the time you’re home, but when he is, he doesn’t disappoint you with the brotherly bonding he likes to do. Engaging in your interests, encouraging you to do the things you like to make, and even sharing nearly the same humor and potent irony that the both of you are pretty sure you’re the two funniest people to have lived, ever, in the history of living. 

From all the surfing on the internet, though, it’s sort of unexpected from a sibling conducted relationship. You’ve read all about them, and siblings are supposed to be supportive, and if not, the viral enemy of one’s childhood. Since you can’t really debate whether or not the enemy of your childhood was loneliness or the ideas you’ve thought about doing due to it - even once coming close to making an A.I. copy of yourself - you’re pretty sure you and he are in the clear here. Yup. Nothing ever uncool goes on between the Striders - why would it? You and he have reached an understanding that’s so unrivaled that you don’t ever think anyone could possibly beat it. As long as you don’t get yourself into trouble and he makes some time to come home and be the presence of adult you need, it doesn’t ever get weird. 

Well, only whenever you don’t find yourself breaking the rules.

It’s not like it was your fault. You did not ever have any intention in using the empty program that sat unfilled and unchummed on your desktop - you don’t even remember how it appeared there. You don’t quite remember having it downloaded or getting a particularly rancid virus. You like to keep your gear in top shape, thank you very much, because not only has your brother taught you the importance of being grateful even with the kind of provisions you have, but you learned the very hard way that being careless led to preciously lost save data on games you liked to play ironically. 

(Dave had to stay home for a week straight and binge cartoons for you to get out of that depressive episode.)

You liked following the rules though. The rules kept you safe, and kept you generally happy, and you really didn’t mind there being rules in the first place. They are obviously supposed to be there in the first place, and considering you are a kid who has no business in parenting yourself, the terms of the rules are pretty relaxed for as long as you didn’t have rules when you were first growing up. 

You think it makes it worse, though, that this was the first rule. Generally, the rule he was pretty series in making, especially if it came in first. 

“Number one, little dude: No hitting it up with digital strangers.”

And yet, the little chatbox had appeared before you like a forbidden last cookie at dinnertime, inciting years of worry and doubt and loneliness like the bitter aftertaste of an unproperly made microwave dinner.

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering timaeusTestified [TT]

UU: cheers!! hello lovely being.

UU: woUld you perhaps be interested in making a friend?

CHOOSE: 

==>Dirk Strider

==>Roxy Lalonde

==>????????

>Roxy Lalonde_

Your name is Roxy Lalonde. 

And you think your mom is the funniest mom ever.

Oh, no, not in humor. Your mom sucks at making good jokes. In fact, you don’t think except for her well constructed book series that was able to become a best seller, and you have every copy of stored under your bedframe, she cannot make a joke to save her life. You know this because you have heard her calls with Dirk’s older brother Dave Strider over the phone, attempting not to giggle lest you be heard, and the joke she tried executing fell flatter than the “ironic” fanfiction of MLP you have bore witness to Dirk’s easily crackable computer drive. She is, as best as you can really put, not funny at all.

Oh, but she’s a great mom. She’s the greatest mom ever! Granted, you’ve only ever had her as your only mom, but the time the two of you have had together has just been a-okay in your book. More than a-okay, really, because you finally have her with you, and you get to do a bunch of mom-daughter stuff that you used to daydream about after an exhausting day of feeding carapaces, petting mutated kitties and sipping on some fermented juices.

You don’t get to touch the juices anymore. She put a stop to that almost immediately - and although if irked you just a bit, because after all she had put that there to begin with - you thought long and hard about it. And you came to the conclusion that she was right about it, and, honestly, she was mom, so what were you going to do about it? Complain??

Why would you complain about finally having a mom??

So you think she’s pretty great. 

You can tell Dirk thinks the same about his brother, even if he doesn’t admit it as easily. Once upon a time, you thought Dirk had been a little bit of a snobbish guy who got too much into your biz and about everything you two did. But, really, with the help of your mom and Dirk’s bro, you understand now - he was only trying his best. And, in some way, you had been too. Neither of you were ever supposed to take care of yourselves like that.

But now you have Mom, and Dirk has Dave, and even though it’s really small, you couldn’t wish for anything more.

What more could you possibly wish for than Dirk, Dave and Mom??

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

UU: greetings, gracefully esteemed friend of dirk!!

UU: i was wondering if perhaps yoU woUld like to make acquaintances?

CHOOSE:

==>Dirk Strider

==>Roxy Lalonde

==>Jake English

>Jake English_

Your name is Jake English.

And your Mum...

Is the most infuriating person you have ever met!!!!

Granted, she is the only person you have ever met. In real life. Ever. And that is sort of her fault too!!!! She never let’s you go anywhere, and she never let’s you think about the outside world, and if you so much as look at skyscrapers or parks or places with snow for too long she get’s this weird, contorted look on her face and you’re subjected to another talk about how the “island is the safest home we have, the world is a dangerous place, don’t go expecting it to be cozy and gentle and soft, Jake,” and now you can’t even deal with all of her nonsense about a world you have never explored. 

And it’s not like you don’t think about it. Every night that you go to bed, you listen with an open hear close to the window frame in case of the first rumble of unnerving technology comes close. Every day you’re up and around the island, you have to see and worry and think about the creatures that live among you, thinking about how easy it could be for your Mum could become seriously injured and you would have no way of reaching an outside source of help. You think a lot about how the world could be, and how fun it might be, but how overrun with horrid things it could be too. Your Mum has certainly sealed that image permanently, if not since forever and also when you first watched your (first and only) horror movie. The house had been extra barricaded that summer.

But you’re not a little child to coddle over anymore. You’re not the little boy who easily runs into his mother’s arms in the first instance of danger. Not only are you not that young scampering lad anymore who would trip and scrap his knees and cry, but you don’t think that at least seeing what the world out there looks like would ever hurt you in the slightest.

You don’t even have to stay out there. You just want to see it. See the people, real people, moving along and living their lives and watch as the cars run closely and the chatter of a good evening rolls around and see the rush of life around. You want to see snow and your breath puff coldly into the air and ice forming naturally instead of a refrigerator. You want to see the long meadows and the empty fields where the land won’t suddenly end on the other side. You just want to see it, it is nearly your biggest dream, and you hate that your Mum won’t even let you use the web without regulating what you can and cannot see. 

You’re pretty cheesed about it. You love your Mum, but at this point, you’re itching to just go anywhere, anywhere, but stay here. 

You wish you could see just the world from anywhere but your home.

uranianUmbra [UU] started cheering golgothasTerror [GT]

UU: hello fellow chUm!

You had sat there for around ten minutes staring at that message. 

UU: i hope yoU don’t mind, i’m not meaning to intrUde so brashly. i’m simply aboUnd looking for potential friends!

UU: so perhaps yoU woUld be tickled to become mine?

You had to look around and make sure Mum wasn’t near you. You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath until you let it out, and turned back towards the screen to assure that, yes, someone was able to message you. Even though Mum had blocked it and your ability to contact anyone yourself, someone had gotten through.

GT: Why, salutations!

GT: My name is jake!!

Your name is Jake English.

And, against all odds, you have made a friend.

#story #crocker au #jake english #dirk strider #roxy lalonde #dave strider #rose lalonde #jade english #calliope #another fan contribution to skys lovely au!!!! #i wrote this sort of..uh. up to interpretation?? #i mean very very vague as much as i could #its heavily implied that roxy and dirk WERE alone during their first few years but eventually dave and rose got to them #i still dunno whether or nots its them going to the future and coming back or not... #i mean we dont really have the baby stories about jane and jake either...BUT WE ARE GETTING THERE #maybe #this was fun to write!! i have wanted to expand on the stridelalondes situation for a while #i mean john and dave are friends #so yknow it extends in some way??? #maybe the alpha guardians are dumb and dont think about letting their kids connect like that... #also I REALIZED ONCE AGAIN JAKE IS STUCK ON THE ISLAND DUE TO JADE AJLDSJFLA;KSFJD; #jake is the only one who isnt available to be able to reach. at all #jade is just like nope! :D #id imagine after all those years he would be..less than happy about being contained #hes got that free spirit after all!! its almost like a certain...condy....0_0 #hehehe bUT its up to interpretation!! #i just wrote this for funsies :p

[dlkardenal]

Sweet and deadly - The Hidden Badass trope

Hey there, travelers!

Today’s specimen is a controversial trope I have a love-hate relationship with. When done right, it can create wonders but when creators goof this up, oh boi… This one dooms generic shonen anime series and YA fantasy stories but has the potential to elevate basically every other trope there is-this is the hidden badass.

As the name suggests, the concept is fairly simple: take a shy, introverted and generally plain character and sprinkle on a twist where they show some secret and extremely flashy superpower that nobody knew they had to save the day. We first noticed this recurring element in Japanese cartoons where the titular badass was nearly always a teenage or even younger girl with a sunshine cupcake personality that spurred every viral male protagonist in a mile radius to protect her, just to take over the spotlight when the situation got really messy. Think about Lucy from Elfen Lied, Neliel from Bleach, or more recently Elizabeth from Seven Deadly Sins. At first, both Lory and I thought this to be an anime-only thing, but from that point on, we noticed this more and more in other works of fiction. How?

Well, there are a couple of ways creators utilize this trope, ranging from bad to amazing. The anime version sees them mostly as a plot device, a convenient in-world mechanism to solve problems when other options run out. This could happen when a hero is facing an enemy he can’t match for some reason, be it bravery, foolish boldness, or necessity. In these settings changing the story could deter either the protagonist’s character or the plot itself, so an external tool is needed to solve the situation. That doesn’t sound bad in itself, but you can mock this up really quickly. 

The easiest way to annoy your reader with this is to stick to the tried out and tested formula without changing a thing. Just recreate the sprinkle cupcake with a war machine split personality, going from harmless to merciless, and push both character traits to their comic limits. You can earn bonus audience hate-points if the hidden badass has telekinetic powers or superhuman instincts and/or speed so they can massacre a military task force. 

The second easiest way is to leave this trope hanging after the situation is resolved, assuring the readers that this was solely for convenience’s sake. If you want to avoid these yuckups, you need to integrate the badassery into your world. If a little girl suddenly goes berserk and evaporates an entire city, there will be consequences. Other characters yet unaware of this power will have opinions, their perspective will change and if they aren’t the holy paladin-type, some might even try and make use of this nuclear warhead hidden inside a tiny body. Also, please for the love of God, leave telekinesis out, it’s been done a zillion times. Be creative!

Another reason for this trope is more about the heroes than the titular hidden badass. If this trope character is particularly vulnerable before the great fuck-everything-up moment, the hero might form a sort of defensive personality towards them. You know, the knight in shining armor. Then when the badassery happens they can move on to a power couple situation now on equal footing. This way the start of their relationship is more alike to many young adult romance plots (or at least the older titles in this genre), but it can grow out of the damsel-defender setting. This can be really good if handled carefully. 

The main thing here in my opinion is the power balance and consistency. If the titular badass ridiculously outshines the hero it’s just a switch between roles (which can be a great story know that I think of it, just different from our original aim). Also, if the badassery is once-in-a-lifetime, then it falls into the same category as the previous paragraph where it’s painfully obvious it’s just a plot device.

As I mentioned, this trope can amazingly complement a lot of others like it does in many western popular media. My favorite is the coupling of the hidden badass and the outcast tropes in Freeform’s Siren. (Yay, finally!)

For those of you who missed this amazing show, Siren is set in America’s west coast in the fictional town of Bristol Cove, a tourist attraction known as the mermaid capital of the world. However, the local legends get a little too real when a mysterious young girl named Ryn appears in search of her older sister allegedly captured by the humans.

Ryn is a perfect example of how to handle the outcast-badass mix. She’s a mermaid with unnatural physical strength and mesmerizing voice magic that can fry anyone’s brain making the into a lovestruck drooling idiot. Also, because of the clever choice in casting, she looks tiny, adorable, and defenseless. So far nothing deviates too much about the trope, but the show’s brilliance is realism. Ryn as a mermaid knows jack shit about human society, and although she’s a quick study because of her more advanced brain functions, it takes a long ass time until she figures out to wear clothes, why not to kill anyone and how her siren song affects the humans around them. Without the help of marine biologist and lovestruck drooling idiot Ben, she couldn’t step outside and walk for a minute before killing someone and getting herself discovered and hunted like her sister. She is terrifying and powerful, but she needs humans to navigate her through society and eventually reach her goal. This element stays with her throughout the 4 seasons of this show (as of now). Her dissimilarity always and forever means certain benefits but handicaps as well, which creates a feeling that it’s an organic part of the show’s world and not just a plot element to sometimes cause trouble.

There are a lot of other tropes the hidden badass mixes with, like the sexy bad guy or the chosen one, but I think I rambled on for long enough for now. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you have a favorite hidden badass, feel free to share it! Also, what did you think of Siren?I’ll see you next week, stay sharp, travelers! Cheers,Dar

#trope #writing trope #writing #writerblr #wrtiteblr #book #series #siren #ryn #bookblr

[savesvtfoe5season]

•••History of the Save Disney Shows campaign••• What is Save Disney Shows?

What is Save Disney Shows? A question and information that I have wanted to give you for a long time and now is a good time to explain where this page and campaign comes from.

On a Disney Wiki website there were several "documents" and information regarding the actions that fans did regarding a series, names and also information about Disney producers but I wanted to go deeper into this looking for maybe some help or information that I would work then I found the information about Save Disney Shows on a link to their page, when I saw and read all that really surprised me was that I help with Kim Possible and the WOY movement, I read everything that cost them and how next to the fandom of the Kim series Possible managed to break the old famous rule of 65 episodes which now allows 4 seasons (renewing like this), since they opened the application, viralize hashtags, share on networks. It was a long investigation, but that was how I could understand ... that there is a way to make Star continue and really work. Here I will summarize a little about what #SaveKimPossible did. The most successful Save Disney Shows campaign was Save Kim Possible. Disney canceled the series after its third season due to its 65-episode rule, but fans wanted more, so they organized the campaign, created a petition, a website "A Day to Save Kim Possible" and conducted electronic campaigns by email. Activists encouraged fans to contact Disney through letters and emails requesting a season 4.

The team that worked at Kim Possible helped and also encouraged fans. Nine months have passed since then of the "final" premiere before Disney gave in and on November 29, 2005, it was announced that Kim Possible would be renewed with a season 4 due to popular demand. Season 4 consisted of 22 episodes and premiered on February 10, 2007. "Once upon a time, Disney canceled Kim Possible due to his rule, but thanks to the efforts of German fans and broadcasters who wanted more episodes, Disney finally was persuaded to ask for a 4 season "It was a fan-led movement to make sure Disney Channel fans aren't ignored. For 20 years, the channel would end most of its programs in 65 episodes. When Disney tried to finish this series, fans backed off and were able to do season 4. Today Save Disney Shows runs or helps organize movements for other DC shows like Lilo & Stich and Shake it Up, Save Disney Shows is a central organization for provide contact information related to Disney and the resources needed to campaign for any Disney Channel program. Now, this was one of the very popular cases, but there is also another and it is the case of the WOY movement another series that fans wanted to continue, the SaveWOY SDS website became an information center for the campaign, providing links to the different fan projects and providing regular updates on progress and events. I also include a countdown timer that counted until the premiere of the new Wander Over Yonder episodes that led to the end. "The End of the Galaxy." The website listed the addresses of Disney executives, what fans can do to help with useful resources and different requests. To raise awareness about the SaveWOY campaign, activists approached Save Disney Shows, which played an important role in the successful SaveKimPossible campaign, asking for help and adding Wander Over Yonder to their Disney programs website that need to be saved. , Save Disney Shows responded that they would help SaveWOY but that they needed campaign leaders to step forward and create a website for the campaign and while they waited for volunteers to create and manage the website, Save Disney Shows created a small site Temporary website for SaveWOY Finally two campaign leaders stepped forward, Orbaljuice and Thefandump.

Together they created the website that was launched on June 5 and both went to work. To attract and gather followers, SaveWOY requests were established almost immediately after the announcement of Craig McCracken of the cancellation of the program on Tumblr. The request on woy from change.org created by Gemma Cummins (Peepsqueak) and Kiddoryder, managed to attract most supporters. After creating the request, the hashtag #SaveWOY was created to accompany and disseminate it through social networks.

The hashtag became popular on the blog website, Tumblr, Twitter, DevianART, YouTube, Facebook, VK and google. A draw of the Wander Over Yonder t-shirt was made on Tumblr to promote the application after it was created. This gave a great boost to the signatures and exceeded the other petitions reaching 5000 signatures in 4 days, the first 5000 supporters of the petition were marked on a map based on the country in which they lived. It served to show Disney that Wander Over Yonder had fans all over the world. Originally, the map showed the full names of supporters, but due to concerns about privacy, the names were shortened to initials. Arriving at 7,000 signatures and the gratitude of the crew, on March 13, 2016, Craig McCracken, meanwhile, tweeted encouraging and wishing good luck to fans to continue voting. On March 24, 2016, the petition reached 10,000 signatures. The petition attracted the attention of Cartoon Brew, who promoted it on his Twitter account and also from the Wander Over Yonder team. The next due milestone of 20,000 signatures was reached on May 30, 2016. The original purpose of the petition was set at 25,000 signatures that reached June 19, 2016. Upon reaching the goal, the list of signatures was sent by email. to the Disney executive. Gary Marsh.

To make sure the request arrived, it was also sent by email to the creator of WOY and the producer and supervising director, Dave Thomas, who then passed it on to Disney. The petition reached 35,000 signatures on August 12, 2016, the petition was officially delivered to Gary Marsh and Marc Buhaj in two separate flash drives on July 22, 2016. The petition is currently addressed to more than 36,000 signatures. The next goal is 50,000. Unfortunately, this program simply stayed there, since they could not get more signatures, but as you can see all these things and more is what I want to use to be able to continue with this series, several years have passed since the rule was changed to 4 seasons right? It would be time for them to renew with a season 5 at DisneyPlus, after this I contacted some of those in the Save Kim Possible and WoY movement who gave me more strategies to achieve it in addition to wishing me good luck. But it's not just what I read, but more strategies to achieve it, after reading everything and finally having a plan, I told the group and decided to make this move through a blog. Currently, Star has been added to DisneyPlus, which increases the hopes of its continuation, with more than 125,000k signatures reaching almost 126,000k. Disney is a channel that must go hand in hand with the public, if many people ask for something, they will be forced to do so because they run the risk of losing a lot, they would not only win with a rating, also with money and more rapprochement with people , Now that you know the whole process that I have come to make this movement, I ask you to please do not stay in the status of WoY, As I mentioned before, we have a good number of signatures but we still need to join, I beg you for this November 19 join us to be able to cause more impact to Disney on the popularity of the series.

And you will wonder, what to do that day? Well then I will proceed to explain the steps to be able to support the movement from now on and make November 19 create something massive!

The first step to support #SaveSVTFOE, you must sign these two requests that are addressed to The Walt Disney Company, Disney Plus and other producers and other channels. The first is so that the platform can allow 5 seasons for each series and thus open the way to achieve our goal. And the second request is for Star to continue, obviously both go hand in hand but we must get a good and large number of signatures reaching almost a million if possible.

Both requests have already been shared through instagram, twitter, facebook, whatssap, amino and now on tumblr but ... we are millions of people! so if together we can share and sign we will achieve our goal. If you have friends, colleagues, close people, you are in groups, share the requests and ask them to sign.

Now that you have signed them. I must clarify a very important point and it is that many ask the creator Daron Nefcy to continue with Star and make her 5 season but she has already clarified that if it were in her hands and it was by decision of her she would do a lot more with the series, movies , books and more seasons but it's Disney's decision ... but maybe not so much Disney's decision since we know that the channel is based on the ratings of the series and the popularity that each fandom gives it, and as explained before the fandom of Kim Possible did everything possible to achieve it, so Daron asks us to continue telling the channels that we love Star because he knows that there are possibilities to achieve it but only we can give them that and we ourselves are the ones who have what we want. Obviously I will pass captures of what she spoke on reddit to verify that it is true.

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#SaveSVTFOE #WeWantMoreStarco #WeWant5SeasonSVTFOE #StarVsTheForcesOfEvil