#it's history nerd vs fantasy nerd

[stalebagels]

#it's history nerd vs fantasy nerd #stephen colbert #conan o'brien #the late show #the late show with stephen colbert #the colbert report #conan #team coco #conan o'brien needs a friend #conan o'brien must go #meme #incorrect strike force quotes #late night #strike force memes

[bestanimatedmovie]

Choose your favorite!

Time to fly!

Vote in the other polls!

What fans say:

How To Train Your Dragon:

The message was just nice. I have a lot of nostalgia for it. I used to be a huge dragon nerd as a kid and dragons just weren't that prevalent in media here, especially not as friendly figures. I still love HTTYD and it's sequels nowadays.

It was one of my favorite movies as a kid and one of the few movies I watched that wasn't a barbie movie, it's just really cool.

Best movie featuring dragons period. The pure wish fulfillment fantasy of having a highly intelligent fantasy creature companion that can fly and doesn’t mind being ridden like a horse, therefore also the best execution of the dragon rider trope in all of fiction. Extremely funny, adding to the comedy is the fact that only adults have Scottish accents and all the teens have an American accent. So good that even its tv show follow up was decent by extension. The bit where Hiccup is trying to earn Toothless' trust and they start to work together changed me on a fundamental level.

I LOVE IT SO MUCHSHJKBSKHGDK I have a bone dysplasia which causes some bones to be a little bit more hollow and whenever I would feel a pain in my top back, 8 year old me was like ''woah I'm growing wings its my time to fly like toothless'' lol and it was always a dream of mine to fly. Weirdly enough I could relate to toothless because the "not being able to fly but you should be" felt like an allegory to a lot of my life! It gave me hope when he WAS able to after the help of others + the care he always needed + that mechanic wing thing made me feel like with the right ''recipe'' could help me get better too. My favourite scene is the first flight!! I love the animation for it, it makes me feel like im flying through the clouds too! The soundtrack is amazing too, I still cry to the songs.

I could write an entire essay about how much I love this movie, it truly is one of the best films ever made to me. Utterly flawless on both a technical level and a story-telling level. Not to mention the score oh my GOD the score of this movie changed my life. There are too many scenes that are so impactful, but the Forbidden Friendship scene has to be one of the best. Test Drive too.

This is literally my favorite movie of all time. This movie got me through the worst times in my life. It’s about love and friendship and all that lovely goopy stuff and it’s also fucking gorgeous.

THE cinematic masterpiece of our generation. On god.

This movie is an absolute masterpiece, the animation is pretty, the score is perfect, the relationship between Toothless and Hiccup is so sweet, Toothless is absolutely adorable. Definitely one of DreamWork's best films.

It's a beautifully animated movie about an unconventional viking boy named Hiccup finding his place in a world where dragons and vikings are constantly at odds, and how he changes the world around him. The dragon designs are unique and beautiful, and the vikings are larger than life and match the exaggerated setting.

Who on Tumblr DOESN'T want a dragon best friend I ask you. I would kill to have what Hiccup & Toothless have.

It does a brilliant job balancing tropes in a way that subverts and plays into them. There is so much in it for both adults and kids, it doesn't look like other animated films, it feels more grounded and in that realism it becomes so beautiful. The friendship in the film feels very real despite one of the characters being unable to talk! Forbidden Friendship scene is, in my opinion, the greatest scene in the history of cinema. The music, the lighting, the cinematography, the pacing, the emotions, it is practically perfect in every way. I could go on but I think ya get it.

God this movie defined my childhood and it's still so good when I rewatch it now. I'm guessing you'll have had this submitted a good few times bc it goddamn deserves it but. Hiccup is so relatable and !! dragons !! big cute dragons whose animation models are based on cats!! based fr

I have many fond childhood memories of this movie and in particular I loved how my cousin would "talk" for Toothless (cousin was babysitting us when we first watched the movie). Another thing is The SCORE. The music is iconic and awe inspiring to this day. That first time when Hiccup and Toothless fly together and it Works and the score absolutely goes HARD, I loose my breath every time. It's great. Also have you seen Toothless he's an adorable dragon and a badass, what's not to love?

Makes me cry every time because Hiccup and Toothless are such good friends and they love each other and end up as two halves of a boy dragon soulmate sandwich also the music is extremely good who doesn’t like dragons anyway.

It's the story of a beautiful friendship forming between a boy who doesn't fit in and a dragon who is the last of his kind. It's so cute. And it shows positive representation of disability, Hiccup and Toothless become disabled in ways that meaningfully parallel each other. Hiccup makes a prosthetic tail fin! And Toothless is just so cute!

The sound track is amazing

Honestly everything is phenomenal. It has a good use of comedy and an excellent story and character development. There are also countless beautiful and awe-inspiring scenes supported by an amazing score.

Up:

It is a very emotional movie about an old man learning to still enjoy life even though his wife died.

Such a beautiful film about loss

#How To Train Your Dragon #Up #best animated movie #round 2 #tournament poll #tumblr's favorite

[bentosandbox]

The museum collab outfit?

so glad you asked now i can finally dump all the info i gathered for a good reason

during the LNY stream, a few minutes? after they revealed the biker chen skin they dropped this along with my jaw: a collab with the Nanyue King Museum that lasted not even 2 weeks lol (prob because LNY started from the 10th this year aka everything closes)

tl;dr historical museum/mausoleum in guangzhou (the closest china has to HK) with a lot of artifacts, and the collab highlights a few

the original PV for it if you want to hear some guy say how the tiger hook perfectly covers up the broken part of the jade dragon ornament and it looks like theyre fighting like a certain two and that they complement each other

i typed out a transcript so i could tl it and the lin commentary in..due time also here's a vlog from bili to live vicariously through

what lin commentary you ask. incidentally i also saw people asking 'why is Lin even in this the PV just kept mentioning tigers and dragons' well ok remember how her profile mentions she's a Yanese art history nerd enthusiast... there are qr codes on-site you can scan that will being you to a microsite? and they got her CN VA to narrate the descriptions!!! with comments!!!!!! here's a quick TL i did the other day as an example

so yea... she's basically the tour guide 🥹🥹🥹

chenswire and linchen photospots, why did they put swire all by her lonesome at the mausoleum

so. they had a small merch lineup for those who couldnt make it (half/ 3/4 body acrylic stands like the mooncake collab) but there is also a notebook....

WITH CONCEPT ART? OF THE OUTFITS INSIDE... they mention it in the video but they incorporated the artifacts into the design which is so so cool (their outfit silhouettes? are also based on tang-dynasty clothes iirc) BUT ALSO SEE... CHEN WITH PANTS.... i think she could lose one of the twintails but that's not important here so yeah cool historical-fantasy outfit with baggy pants vs cop outfit with funny tied up shirt and skin tight pants... no contest

#arknights #bentoask #legofrans #chenposting #the collab's long over but i still want to visit the museum because i love old shit and they seem to have english descriptions over there

[stranger-rants]

Billy antis loving Gator feels like proof if Billy had been in a any other show, he'd be a fan favorite, and I just can't wrap my head around what exactly makes st different that people are not only instantly willing to jump on Billy but anyone that likes him

Fargo and really any Coen Brothers work or inspired work have always been really character driven, and those characters - good, bad, whatever - interact organically in very human ways. It doesn't operate in false dichotomies of Good vs. Evil. It operates with the understanding that people are victims or circumstances. History echoes across generations. Our fates are decided long before we were born. We can choose to escape it but our natures pull us back. So, do we defy our nature? We're creatures responding to a dynamic world. Your worst enemy has a story to tell. Sometimes that enemy is you. Etc.

Stranger Things is built upon the premise that you're a victim if your interests are outside of the norm and that everyone else is a bully. You are inherently good because you're not them, and everyone who is not you deserves to be punished. It's a power fantasy created by "nerds" who felt persecuted for being nerds. It doesn't inspire empathy. It is mean spirited. Fargo looks at abused people and gives them a complex story of cause and effect regardless of their moral character. Stranger Things divides abused people into Good and Bad. Tells us good people deserve to recover, and bad people deserve to die not because of the tragedy of their circumstances but because they're not nice enough to survive.

Characters die in Fargo for a number of reasons, but they're always a result of a logical cause and effect. It is not because they're not good enough to live in the narrative. It's because their death and the circumstances of their death says something about the character. Whereas someone like Billy can have a meaningful death in the narrative that is then stripped away by the show runners who act like his death didn't speak volumes about him. It's the complete brain rotting hyper consumerism self victimizing extreme fandomization of it all that really ruins Stranger Things.

TL;DR - Stranger Things attracts an audience that views themselves as both the victim and the hero in their own lives. It doesn't encourage critical thought. It purposely sabotages any meaning that is put into the show. Fargo shows us numerous flawed people and goes "We're not so different from them." It is to be experienced. Not turned into a juggernaut for capitalistic gain.

#asks

[doyouwanttoseeabug]

Ok, Lantern reading headcanons:

Hal reads literally everything, he will just go to charity bookshops, grab ten of the cheapest paperbacks available, and earnestly devour The Thursday Murder Club with the same laser focus and critical attention that he devotes to Pale Fire. The only thing he doesn't read is political non-fiction, because he has vague and angry feelings about the government that roughly translate to "dishonourably discharged from the circus, no longer my monkeys." He is TERRIBLE to talk to about books with because he'll be comparing the presentation of love vs class in Trollope and Collins and then he'll somehow transition to ranting about Twilight in a point-by-point takedown with quotations and fucking page numbers. Also to be clear he has no conception of when these books were written/the personality of the author/any context. He has thoughtful comments on both Dickens and Shakespeare but he gets the Elizabethan and Victorian periods mixed up all the time and wouldn't be super clear on the dates.

Guy loves horror. Ghost stories delight him, the spookier the better. He occasionally takes a dip into spatterpunk and can sort of enjoy the nastiness with a grim chuckle but he has to space those out or he ends up getting depressed. He also reads self-help books (derogatory), like he genuinely thinks that shit like The Four-Hour Workweek and The Five AM Club is life-changing good advice instead of Just The Opinions of Some Huckster. He keeps trying to tell John "one weird trick to improve productivity" and John keeps having to dive away.

John obviously loves reading really weird science non-fiction books, like 600 page deep-dives about the history of sand or paper or cancer. He also loves sci-fi, like he's a MASSIVE space opera nerd, and really grimdark fantasy in the vein of Joe Abercrombie. I think he's probably one of those people who conscientiously reads whatever the FT classes as the "politics/business/economics books of the year" in order to be Part of the Conversation, but he frequently finds them extreeemely irritating.

Kyle is.... ok a few days ago I went on a date with a guy and when we were talking about what we were reading he said, "I like to read really strange indie authors no one's ever heard of. Like, do you know Camus?" That (and I say this with love) is Kyle. He also does read a lot of genuinely interesting indie novels and novellas just by virtue of being part of a creative scene. Also obviously a massive manga nerd.

#hal jordan #guy gardner #john stewart #kyle rayner #hal is EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL as long as he's doing one thing at a time #if he reads a book he's going to be the best at reading that book

[shuttershocky]

I find it hilarious that Narita and Sanda care way more about type-moon lore than Nasu himself does. Nasu will just change his mind willy-nilly and make exceptions whenever whereas the other two spend entire light novel series picking out and referencing the most obscure bits of lore from 20 years ago and double checking with Nasu to make sure everything they add is okayed

I wouldn't say it's not an issue of "caring" more than it is a fundamental difference in creative approaches. I think Nasu cares a lot about his creations, but for him, what is important (what he considers to be the true lore) are the emotional arcs and themes of what characters represent rather than the details of a setting.

Nasu always wrote his lore to act as a Loose Guide for Cool Fantasy Shit rather than as a rigid setting. It's not so important to know the exact details about how every facet of society works over knowing what tools you have at your disposal to make your supernatural look cool or scary: There are mages, there are monsters, and there are Christians.

However, you DO have to keep in mind the ideas your characters and their relationships represent. One of the things to come out with the Tsukihime Remake was Nasu's notes from rereading the original Arcueid route. While most of the notes were basically "haha wow this did not age well" or "I was so inexperienced back then!" there were notes about how important it was to keep the feeling of the mutual danger Arcueid and Shiki posed to each other, how the route was built on the horror foundation of basic predatory instinct vs higher reasoning (Arcueid wants to eat Shiki, Shiki wants to kill Arcueid, and how these subconscious feelings grow as their relationship grows) and how important this was to keep for the Remake even as the characters themselves would be greatly rewritten.

The result was that the general consensus over the Remake Arcueid route was that it was the exact same as the original only with better art and one vampire changed out. But while people's memories of the original Tsukihime are fuzzy, mine is not. There are SO many improvements in the writing, the world, and especially in how Arcueid is given far more agency and competence in just the first vampire fight of the Remake and how even when her raw strength is gone, her experience in hunting monsters is almost unrivaled.

But the thing is, it DOES feel the same. It feels ridiculously faithful, even if the route has been expanded so much that by the time you finish reading the original Arc route, you're only in Day 5 in the Remake and even if there's like 8 new characters that weren't there before. That's because Nasu spent so much time putting into words what the original made you FEEL, and making sure that would be perfectly preserved.

How the audience engaged with his stories, what they took away with them even as the specific details fade from memory, THAT'S the lore Nasu cares a lot about and works so hard to preserve. He's always talking about people's reactions to works or characters in his interviews because those interactions are how he defines his own works. He even has Shirou say exactly this at the end of the Fate route when he and Rin are walking to school, and Rin asks him how he's holding up now that Saber's gone, and Shirou says

Narita and Sanda on the other hand, are the Classic Lore Nerd type that write wikis because nobody is getting the info right and all the talent for rote memorization and recall that probably should have gone to history class went into things they love instead. They're the type of creators that are GREAT for hiring to work on worlds that are not their own, specifically because they can be trusted they'd never irreversibly blow up your setting because they'd rather die than write something that isn't lore-compliant (no matter how hard Nasu tries to encourage them to do so).

These two were single-handedly keeping Tsukihime alive in Type-Moon during the 12 years the series went without a single update and for that alone I'm eternally grateful. You can tell Nasu trusts them with handling any of the original Type-Moon cast too, as Sanda wrote in El Melloi Adventures 2 what an honor it was that he was allowed to use Kokutou Mikiya when he's considered a "sacred cow" within Type-Moon, and both of them are able to use Rin within Strange Fake and El-Melloi Adventures.

#Type-Moon

[zedecksiew]

D&D's Obsession With Taxonomy

Like virtually everybody else in the TTRPG space I downloaded One D&D's playtest document to see what the fuss was.

One of the eyebrow-raising bits in that document is the boxed text titled "Children Of Different Humanoid Kinds":

"For example, folk who have a human parent and an orc or an elf parent are particularly common. Many other combinations are possible ... Finally, determine the average of the two options’ Life Span traits to figure out how long your character might live. For example, a child of a halfling and a gnome has an average life span of 288 years."

Many people have problems with this passage. I can see why. But when I read it I laughed.

Of course D&D would handle this thing this way.

"Determine the average of the two options' Life Span traits to figure out how long your character might live"; the ludicrous math precision of "288 years"?

These bits are quintessential D&D.

+

"D&D is racist!" discourse returns again and again, like a pair of annoying missionaries.

(I've used this metaphor before. I'm pleased with it. I will repeat it as often as people repeat "D&D is racist!" discourse online.)

But a conversation that Flo began on Discord about the thoul has given me a way to talk about "D&D is racist!" in a way that doesn't bore me.

+

What is a thoul?

"Thouls are magical crosses between ghouls, hobgoblins, and trolls. In spite of their ghoulish blood, they are living creatures, not undead."

Gus points out that "thoul" is likely a typo -- "transcription error (first use of thouls replaces 'toads' as entry above 'ghouls' on table transferred from Monsters and a treasure to ready ref sheets)"

(Here's a fun link about the thoul's possible origins.)

The Discord conversation descends into laughter.

Flo: "I think D&D does not need as many humanoids as it has."

+

Here's my thought:

D&D is racist is really: D&D is obsessed with taxonomy which is really: Nerds are obsessed with taxonomy

+

People arguing over the differences between a wyvern and a dragon; or

People insisting that Tolkien made a categorical distinction between orcs and goblins (no, he did not, go read "Lord of the Rings" again); or

People arguing about whether "Star Wars" is science fiction or science fantasy, and then arguing about the boundaries of science fantasy; or

What Are The Differences Between High Fantasy And Low Fantasy

Etc, etc, etc.

All of the above cliche-nerd-arguments are about more-or-less arbitrary distinctions. The utility of these categories tend to be vastly overblown.

+

Categories are useful.

There is a distinction between performance art and the performing arts because they arise from separate traditions; ditto the many strains of music genre.

But these are useful precisely because they communicate a history of people exercising agency -- creators choosing to define themselves in relation to history / tradition / peers, letting those things define their work.

Categories are subjective actions, not objective facts.

+

What the nerd approach to taxonomy ("a dragon is NOT a wyvern!!!") does well is make a field of knowledge / phenomena predictable, quantifiable: "This is the way the world is."

Therefore fully understandable: "I know the world."

Therefore possible to act on: "I know what do with the world."

You can solve it, apply best practices to it, optimise it, own it, possess it.

Definitive taxonomies like "goblin / hobgoblin / bugbear" is better for you because then you can shorthand these creatures into three separate and discrete scripts.

Instead of: "goblin people come in a lot of different sizes -- some are big, some are puny, some are kind, some are not -- it all depends. You got to just pay attention to each one."

Which makes things messier, more unpredictable, meaning you have to pay attention, exercise discretion / empathy more, possibly accommodate new perspectives.

"I know the bugbear better than it knows itself, I got this." vs "Okay so how do I get to know Ms Goblin better?"

+

When I posted these thoughts to Discord, Marcia observed:

"The connection between taxonomy and power, that nerds find it empowering to possess an abstract knowledge which they impose onto things, seems related to what has been identified as phallic desire ..."

(Meaning that this blogpost should really be titled D&D's Obsession With Phallic Desire , for maximum clickbait -- but this is Marcia's thought, don't wanna steal her thunder!)

+

One advantage to quantifiable, objective, abstracted taxonomies in games:

It helps with logistics in play.

The mental load for players in TTRPGs is already so high -- at least it is for me, weak-brained nerd as I am; I need some shorthand just to help my imagination along.

BUT!

If helping with mental load was the purpose for D&D obsessive taxonomy -- it'd be way simpler than it now is???

Tracking all the split hairs between D&D FINAL EDITION's ten thousand different Conditions is empathically not making play easier.

+

Back to the thoul. Gus again:

"Thouls - my take is they are interesting as a set of mechanics - but incoherent as a creature. The need to justify their abilities via existing monsters makes then nonsensical- better just to have them be some sort of manifestation of goblin magic or science ... That D&D chose instead to taxonomize them says something about D&D."

+

The thoul's "part ghoul, part troll, part hobgoblin" thing is much like the "half-dradkin half-celestial ranger 5 / paladin 7" NPCs you see in mainstream RPG adventure-path-type books.

Which is much like: "determine the average of the two options’ Life Span traits" and "288 years".

Aesthetically and ethically incoherent; mechanically convoluted -- but absolutely sensical if your purpose is to safeguard access to a highly taxonomised "objective" worldview.

Nerds don't mind figuring out complicated fractions of abstract objective absolutes. Because this means you can still ultimately sort reality into absolutes.

You can still grasp (in all senses of the word) the world.

That thought is safer / more advantageous than: "yeah you just gotta deal with things being a messy soup, people are not lines of code, you gotta pay attention to everything in its own context."

+

This is turning out to be a post assisted by Discord chorus.

Re: the drive for taxonomy-based worldbuilding -- and concurrent to thoughts about how Non-Diegetic Objective Maps Are Naff Actually -- Ava:

"the whole "fantasy worldbuilding, with its concrete ontologies and god's eye histories and maps replicates + reifies colonial epistemology" was the whole deal of my thesis."

(Ava you need to write a blogpost about this thesis!)

Re: literal scientific taxonomy -- Dan:

"D&D's obsession with taxonomy is weirder to me than normal taxonomic obsessions because of how hard it tries to ape natural sciences and then leaves out every possible interesting thing actually studying ecology could lead to."

Which sparked a discussion about the politics of binomial nomenclature, how there's a great deal of re-classification going on in scientific fields.

Syd:

"there’s actually been a lot of big reshuffles that have come out of the fact that people realized certain classifications had been from phenotypical similarities (physical characteristics) but not genotípicas relationships. And even when it isn’t political in the sense of changing names that we’re given as honorifics there’s actually a huge pushback just from people who think it shouldn’t change bc that’s historically how it was, even if it doesn’t fit our current models of what taxonomy is actually useful for in ecology and biology."

Something something, categories are subjective actions, not objective facts, something something.

Flo, with the final word:

"It's the same thing that gives the Internet sandwich discourse. 'Is x a sandwich?' A sandwich is not an objective fact. A sandwich is an idea. A sandwich is a category we choose to make."

+

( Image source: https://dmdavid.com/tag/the-strange-mystery-of-the-dd-monster-called-a-thoul/ )

#fantasies #rpgs #d&d #racism #taxonomies #discord #discourse #monsters #nerds

[myhotel-year]

TONIGHT'S MOVIE: Ready Player One

this is a series where i am watching a movie and want to tell people things out loud but i'm alone or told to shut up irl

THOUGHTS:

very my dad coded, "the 80s were peak in all human history and time" and i'm suspect of that, but they all seem harmless

you can WIN by knowing TRIVIA this man was autistic

he is also autistic coded and it's a bit obvious but i love him

i refuse to ever believe the true nerds would ever EVER work w the bad guys

just because they're corporate. one thing men learned to do in the 80s was to "stick it to the man"

secretary lady said "sir these are children. grow up" and she was RIGHT lmao ur nemesis is 11

i would have loved this at 12 years old /affectionate

Artemis is a GOD

omfG THEY KEPT H'S CHARACTER

my fellow nerds!! we must unionise to to keep our nerd-dom free and equal

i need Fred voice man to secretly switch sides

i was always a fantasy mythology latin theater arts nerd autistic growing up not the scifi star wars star trek science math boy nerd autistic

but i see you, i understand

ok maybe making a religion out of your game and having a singular popular voted leader is more of a "democracy wins" rather than communism but it's going in the right direction

ong they're playing a game while evil secretary is like "i can just kill these children irl, then they die in the game"

ok maybe i'm just attracted to Nerd Freaks,

AND the fact that the kids are fighting where dying in game doesn't mean dying irl

but the corporate bad guys are going the kill irl to kill in game method, it's really telling

THE IRON GIANT AND THE 80S VOLTRON

as a transgender person, i recognize a love for the customization of characters that videogames give

prostate cancer medicine ad

(side note all the bad side effects literally describe most of my chronic pain wow cancer sucks)

fuck my new cart hits so hard

IT'S NOT ABOUT WINNING IT'S ABOUT PLAYING

fuck i hate bad guys, they're so hateable

i really son't understand the mechanics of how moving/hitting works in this videogame vs real life shit

hank green's book did it better

HA BOSS GUY GOT KICKED IN THE BALLS

this is what you get for making weird sex toys out of cool vr stuff

THE QUARTER I AM SOBBING

maybe everything i watch is good because i'm high not the other way around

either way i am having more fun consuming media than i ever have this makes me so happy

NINJAS DON'T HUG

i love that he's aware of the real world and the videogame at the same time

stick it to the karens these days

the first easter egg ever in video game history 😭

mans doxxing himself to get irl help, THAT is reaching out to your community

the nerds being happy

being completely poor again to get the prize, the american dream

also the orphan inheriting from the Wise Old Man, MUAH an underappreciated trope

the final test and the MOST AUTISTIC MAN I'VE EVER SEEN I LOVE HIM

YES THE MOB SHOULD KILL HIM

a true mob would never be intimidated by force

oh man jeeze that guy is my dad (the autistic one)

THE GAMERS WOULD NEVER BOW TO THE POLICE WTF

MR MAGORIUMS MAGIC EMPORIUM that's what it reminds me of

bro, i will join the punk rock rebellion in a minute, first i have to kiss a girl

oh man H is my fucking fav can i kiss u

technically she's a lesbian in canon but it's purely out of Respect

awwww they created a democratic government for the videogame

"there's no rule against losing a bet to a cheeky kid"

tuesdays and thursdays are for making out with girlfriends

CONCLUSION:

maybe Spielberg movies are for those kids who went to video game unreality when i went to book unreality, it hits the right buttons

#just some #key ideas for you #lmao #ready player one #steven spielberg #silly time #tonight's movie

[kozykricket]

some ramblings, appreciating deltarunes "layers" of story/lore

I might have already written something about this before, but something that I really love about deltarune is that it's a game that (from what we can tell) has several different layers to the story that are all enjoyable, for different... levels of players to enjoy! Like, you have the upfront stuff, about oh, dark worlds, the knight, and kris' soul (protagonist vs player and such) but its mostly just some young teenagers goofing off going to fantasy worlds and learning some self improvement then you go a tad bit deeper, still things most people may ask and you have... well what the hecks up with dark worlds logistically, why is ralsei, and what dark worlds represent (escapism woah), and for some, secret bosses expanding on the whole free will + kris' soul shenanigans thats where it may end for most people, and i think thats great, that if you arent someone in extreme brainrot about the history of gaster then... i think the game will be very enjoyable without having to think about meta elements! and of course, as good writing tends to be, hints about one "level above" are slowly dropped to those who are below, to help them understand, but you get what im saying, right? its like, big nerds get thinking about the gaster shit earlier, before the game really is gonna start probably hammering in like hey whats up with that voice at the beginning

I do question whether dess will end up being about as secret as like, jevil is, or as secret as the man behind the tree and the mystery of the eggs is. but i feel like shes also a realy good opportunity for being a mystery thats almost entirely deltarune, without needing prior-context of who a random vaguely mentioned character in ut is. still, a lot of vague info is hidden in the files, so perhaps... hmm, well, there was that one abc_123 file where toby was like "don't share stuff from the files, thanks. you cant have secrets nowadays" and then.. i feel like when he changed it to just be laughter, that was his way of saying "alright, i see the game you want to play. ill play along" and thats why... for some people, hes playing the game of hiding mysterious stuff in the code. he knows what hes doing, of course. he knows people love looking in the games code, so hes trying to make it interesting even if people do that overall though i just like how theres different levels of enjoyment of the story so far. im sure the game will end up telling everyone about dess and gaster and such, in some way, but... for most people? itll be a game about the fun gang and their friends learning to become better people, and having some fun wacky adventures on the way there! tldr toby fox does "having different layers to your story" in a fairly interesting, enjoyable way. EDIT: yeah, ill make a v2 of this post. i more specifically am amazed at how you dont NEED to know the deeper layers than you want to, and its. cool !!

#deltarune ramblings #deltarune #i couldve worded this better #and i probably will try to later #jake ramblings

[reckless-rider]

A list no one asked for! Anyway a list of all the Wilhelm Screams found in media according to IMDB Part 1.

Happy Family

1000 Ways to Die

16 Blocks

2.0

21 Jump Street

22 Jump Street

30 Days of Night 

Lost  (S5.E6) 

51

6:66 PM

A Christmas Story Christmas 

A Day to Die

A Dog’s Way Home

A Goofy Movie

A Simple Request

Simpsons (S32.E10)

A Star Is Born

Abominable 

Accepted 

Agent Cody Banks

Ainoat oikeat

Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin (1992)

Alex Cross

Dexter: Early Cuts (S1.E2)

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (S1.E14) 

Aloha

Always

American Hero

Manipulated by Fingers

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy 

The Angry Birds Movie

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

Animator vs. Animation V

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (S3.E8)

Arctic Dogs 

Are We Done Yet?

Assignment to Kill

Astro Boy

Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potions

Atomic Blonde

Avatar 

Avengers: Infinity War

April and the Extraordinary World 

Game of Thrones (S1.E9)

Leap!

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2

Barbie in the Pink Shoes

Batman Returns

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Battle Creek Brawl

Baywatch 

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Money Heist (S2.E6)

Ben 10: Race Against Time 

Beta Test

Clarence (S3.E12)

Bionicle: The Legend Reborn

Black Sheep

Mythbusters (S9.E6)

Family Guy (S6.E1)

Bolt

House (S7.E15)

Bon Bini Holland

Borrowed Time

Bounty Killer

Brainstorming 

Bratz

Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend

Captain America: The First Avenger 

Cars

Cars 2

Lupin (S2.E5)

Stars Wars: Clone Wars (S2.E7)

Stars Wars: Clone Wars (S3.E4)

The Book of Boba Fett (S1.E7)

Chisum

Stars Wars: Clone Wars (S3.E20)

Clash of the Titans

Clifford the Big Red Dog 

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Colin 

Fast & Furious Spy Racers (S2.E4)

Amphibia (S3.E11)

Blindspot (S2.E5)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Corto Maltese (S1.E1)

Community (S3.E18)

Cowboys & Aliens

Cradle 2 the Grave 

Crawlspace

Fantasy Island (S4.E8)

Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales (S1.E2)

Community (S2.E18)

Dragon Wars: D-War

DOA: Dead or Alive

Daddy’s Home

Daddy’s Perfect Little Girl 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (S7.E7)

Dante’s Peak

Agency of Vengeance: Dark Rising 

Date Movie

Day & Night

De film van Dylan Haegens

Deadpool 2

Lego Star Wars: All-Stars (S1.E3)

Death Proof

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (S2.E20)

Two Is a Family

Despicable Me

Despicable Me 2

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days 

The Goldfish 

Die Hard with a Vengeance 

DieRy

Dinocroc vs. Supergator

Dinoshark

Drawn Together (S1.E6)

Distant Drums

District 9

Django Unchained 

Community (S3.E8)

Doom

Littlest Pet Shop (S1.E23)

Down by the Riverside 

Due Date 

Galavant (S1.E6)

Blizzards of Souls

Maverick (S3.E10)

Ein Rabe namens Poe

Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas

Encanto

Enchanted 

Star Trek Phase II (S1.E6)

Enthiran

Community (S2.E6)

Toren C (S2.E2)

Maverick (S2.E6)

Evening Class

Ever After High: Dragon Games

Everything Wrong with… (S9.E100)

Everything Wrong with… (S10.E105)

Everything Wrong with… (S4.E24)

Regular Show (S4.E1)

Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales (S1.E1)

Explorers 

Extinct

Outlander (S3.E13)

F9: The Fast Saga 

Face Eater 

Fantastic Four

Feast 

Feels Good Man

Doom Patrol (S2.E5)

Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales (S1.E4)

Flushed Away 

Regular Show (S6.E16)

Freddy vs. Ghostbusters

Free Guy

Fresh 

The Simpsons (S28.E2)

The Loud House (S1.E2)

Community (S5.E5)

Getaway

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 

Ghost Rock

Ghosted 

God of War

God of War III

Golden Dreams

Grabbers

CSI: NY (S1.E4)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Grey Eyes

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

SMG4 (S6.E36)

Guns Akimbo

Family Guy (S20.E14)

Hacksaw Ridge 

Halo Wars

Hancock

Hardcore Henry 

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Harper 

Hellboy 

Star Wars: Rebels (S3.E5)

Hercules 

The Boys (S3.E6)

Schnitzel Paradise 

Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party 

Epic Rap Battles of History (S3.E1)

Hitman: Agent 47

Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu (S1.E2)

Home Team

Masters of Horror (S1.E6)

Homefront

How 13 Props are Made for Movies and TV

How It Should Have Ended (S9.E2)

How It Should Have Ended (S8.E18)

Howard the Duck

A Frozen Rooster

I Am David

Impasse

In a Valley of Violence

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Inglourious Basterds 

Injustice 

Inspector Gadget (S2.E26)

Community (S2.E17)

Ultimate Spider-Man (S2.E12)

Jason and the Argonauts

Jiu Jitsu 

Jumanji: The Next Level

Juno

Just Visiting 

Justice 

Katy Perry: Roar

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (S3.E10)

Keeping Up with the Joneses

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Cyanide and Happiness Shorts (S1.E140)

Kill Possible 

Nostalgia Critic (S12.E28)

King Kong

Kingdom of Heaven

Klitschko

Knight Rider (S1.E3)

Steven Universe (S4.E2)

Knowing

From Up on Poppy Hill

Kung Fu Panda

Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation 

Dogmatix and the Indomitables (S1.E15)

Land of the Pharaohs

Tad: The Lost Explorer

The Legend of Hallowaiian

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return

Legion of Iron

Lego Beyond Worlds

Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum Overload

Lego the Lord of the Rings: The Video Game

Leprechaun 6: Back 2 Tha Hood

Lethal Weapon 2

Lethal Weapon 4

License to Wed

#another list besties #but I hit the limit so it has to be in parts oops #theres all sorts of media from shows to video games to yt vids to movies lmao

[scifri666]

Why The Great Wall (2016) is great

Preamble

It might be exaggerated to say that this movie set me on the path I’m on today, but it is not entirely untrue. I first watched in the tiny cinema in the town I went to school in, when it was released. I had free admission because I wrote critiques for the local newspaper, which at that time cooperated with our school newspaper. (Between us: I wasn’t even a member of the school newspaper). I watched The Great Wall all alone in the movie theatre, and I enjoyed it a lot. I then send my critique to the newspaper and didn’t think about the movie again, until I applied to university two years later. Wanting to impress I included the critique I wrote about The Great Wall in my application, because in it I discussed the costumes and now wanted to study textile culture. My application reached the department’s film nerd, who furthermore was passionate about Asian cinema (though I won't go so far as to say that The Great Wall can be counted as Asian movie, it's a Chinese-American movie, or an American movie with chinese influence). I got accepted as a student. My critique of The Great Wall probably was only a small part of why I was accepted, but I keep rewatching it and still enjoy it almost seven years later.

The Main Part

Some of you will now ask why I keep rewatching it, because at best it’s a mediocre fantasy-history-action film and at worst it’s a prime example of a stupid plot with a cherry of white savorism on top (that topic requires a different kind of brainpower than I have available right now) . I hear you and you’re not wrong, except that there is more to the movie:

The costume design is striking. The colours, the flow of the cloaks, the animals worked into the individual units’ uniforms. Furthermore, the characters clothing is used for storytelling and consistent within the world. Matt Damon’s character William for example starts the movie in a worn down, roughly woven shawl, which General Lin Mae (played by Jing Tian) removes, revealing the soldier’s uniform underneath. In this moment Williams lie of being a lost merchant is revealed by his clothing. As for world consistent clothing, Williams wears the same undershirt for the entirety of the movie. At one point it gets washed, but it is never changed, even at the end, when he wears an archer’s armour of the Nameless Order over it. This seems like a basic thing for a million dollar production to get right, but once you start paying attention to it you realise it not.

Though not very subtly the movie makes a good point of discussing themes of greed and individualism vs. loyalty and collectivism. William’s motivation at the beginning of the movie is to get as much black powder as possible and get rich by selling it. Once he encounters it and is helplessly trapped in the explosions black powder weapons cause, he realises that black powder is powerful weapon and needs to be used only in the direst circumstances. The Nameless Order keeps the secret of black powder to protect the world from the destruction careless use of black powder would entail. The conceptualise Black Powder not as a commodity, but a necessary evil. Furthermore the members of the Nameless Order are never unnecessarily cruel or violent, not even towards their prisoners. This negotiation of necessary violence vs. violence to establish dominance (as often seen in other American Action movies) is one that I greatly enjoy.

Connected to the last point: ✨TEAM WORK✨. Everybody in the Nameless Order has an individual skill and they work together to help each other. It’s nice to see, because there isn’t one leader that always calls the shots and everybody’s expertise is respected and used. There is a whole division of female soldiers, whose smaller stature and lighter body weight, allows for them to kamikaze dive down the wall and kill Tao Tei in a truely athlectic way.

Zhang Yimou (the director) had clear vision and he executed it. Scenes mirror each other and they connect the Tao Tei story line to that of the captive westerners trying to steal black powder and escape with it. In one scene you see the tunnel the Tao Tei dug through the wall, the following scene opens with a shot of a hole in a wall where Sir Ballard stashed his stolen black powder for his escape. Again this is not necessarily subtle, but it is well made and consistent throughout the movie.

The sets are cleverly used. I’m sure the same corner staircase was used in three different scenes, but I can’t be sure, because every time the camera angle is different, so the space looks unique very time.

The score is amazing. It was composed by Ramin Djawadi, the same guy that did the sound track for Game of Thrones and Pacific Rim (that’s an amazing movie too, go watch it after you listened to the sound track of The Great Wall). There are some amazing choir sequences in the score and a lot of the melodies is played by a cello, which is a highly underrated instrument. There is also bombastic orchestra drumming and mandarin singing. I love it and it makes every grocery store trip epic.

Also there is a dude in full armour doing the dishes. Baby.

The End

#the great wall #ranting about a movie only I seem to like because it is problematic but also a lot of fun and well made #the great wall the movie about the building

[notenoughmuses]

Okay but.. modern AU headcannons.

Rhaegar: Eldest son and child. Somehow organized mess. Aesthetic is def academia aesthetic (dark+autumn+musical(

Viserys: Second to last. What some would call a rainbow baby. Is tired of being compared to the golden boy over-achiever brother that he does the opposite if he can. Aesthetic: Golden hour, medieval fantasy (he's a dragon nerd I cannon he's a medieval and fantasy nerd in modern au. He thought dragons were real until 10 years party animal/ stoner aesthetic

Dany: the sole daughter, the youngest child. More like Rhaegar, perfect but not, succeeds well in school and is the popular girl and hangs out in a mixed group of outcasts and popular kids. Suprises teachers for her "good-girl" behavior due to association with Viserys as recent student. Aesthecamp core, bohemian, cottagecore, campcore, that girl

Vacations and camping is chaotic and they didn't go camping until Rhaegar got custody of his siblings and they both enjoyed it. They all graduated school, viserys barley despite him being smart and capable enough, he started to get better grades (F-D to D-C+). Dany takes community College courses in specific courses like ancient history, POC culture/history and women's studies. Rhaegar has a BA, Major in English and Minor in music. He wrote a long essay about the fall and rise of people when dealing with prophecy, like Alexander vs Nero nad the effects on those people, history during ans after and how we should treat those cautionary tales.

Dany convinced Vis to do Van Life and go backpacking in Essos for two years. Rhaegar did not like it but Elia insisted he let his siblings go, learn, and grow outside of their home.

[elbiotipo]

tumblr is the place where I post most about my nerd bullshit, but it's not even a quarter of it, if that. Someday I'll tell you about my exploits in the alternate history communities, the ancient star trek vs. star wars wars, my widely aclaimmed fanfics for several fandoms, my adventures in 4chan, all those obscure sci-fi and fantasy worldbuilding websites that rotted my brain, all my other worldbuilding projects, and so much more

#cosas mias

[stranger-rants]

Actually, to contextualize racism in the United States for Stranger Things fans, you all should read about the Newark Riots which happened in the late 60s.

My family is white. My parents are white. They grew up in New Jersey at this time, in an ethnically diverse neighborhood where the majority of their school classmates were black. Poverty rates were high, and whites with money had already fled those areas. The riots happened due to the extreme disenfranchisement of black people in the United States. Not wanting poor whites to organize and support black people protesting their conditions, white politicians intentionally sewed discord among poor white people and poor black people. So, it became an us vs. them situation. My parents did have friends outside of their race, but they also experienced a lot of violence that negatively impacted their perception of race. That’s something growing up that I had to grapple with and I had a lot to learn and unlearn, including understanding that prejudice against a white minority in this context is not the same thing as systemic racism.

This system made it easier for affluent whites to avoid criticism for their own racist actions, where their contribution to systemic racism was in the voting booth and in the pockets of racist politicians instead of on the streets. So, they could maintain their clean appearance while being responsible for the extreme disenfranchisement of black people. This is what racism in the north looked like, and in areas perceived as more progressive like California. This context is important to understand when you think individual characters are stand ins for systemic racism when it’s quiet clear, politically, that the existence of Hawkins and its white majority are a result of decades of white flight to that area, redlining in cities preventing black people from moving, and WASP conservatism. It’s no accident that the Sinclairs are one of the few black families in Hawkins.

I don’t think The Duffers intended to represent this. I think this is a result of white men who grew up in a largely white community, recreating the nostalgia of their childhood which was… a white fantasy. It’s why they say they wanted to deal with racism by bringing Billy onto the scene, and it’s easy to get upset at Billy pushing Lucas, even going to the extreme of arguing he was going to kill him (which he wasn’t), because it’s so visible, but Billy is one person and racism is systemic. At the same time, they’re seemingly unwilling to address or maybe just ignorant to the fact that Hawkins really is a racist town. The uncritical Reagan signs in the Wheeler’s front yard are 80s nostalgia decoration, not meant to call into question the kind of political environment the Wheeler children are being raised into - because they’re the heroes, they can’t be racist! That’s bad!

The problem with decontextualizing racism in Hawkins by making Billy the scapegoat for it becomes clearer in the last season when Billy is no longer around. Whether they intended to or not, they show how racist Hawkins actually is with how easily they form a lynch mob against children. While they shift their focus onto the D&D nerds (because they just have to victimize themselves through their stand in characters), Lucas and Erica become the primary target of that lynch mob in scenes that graphically evoke racist lynch mobs in American history. The narrative doesn’t address this in any way as evidence that Hawkins in racist, even going on to sanitize Hawkins in the wake of Eddie’s death by showing everyone coming together after a tragedy - a tragedy they contributed to. The end result is that many fans with no understanding of racism in America completely miss the racist undertones within the 80s nostalgia the Duffers created.

Long story short, we can talk about the racism of individual characters but it is a systemic issue and it is present in Hawkins. It’s never a good idea to decontextualize racism or any other systemic issue to blame it on individual “bad people” while promoting the white fantasy of the respectable suburb full of good white people who turned to violence because they just didn’t understand what was happening and those kids were “acting suspicious.” Nope. They’re racist, too. It’s just packaged nicer.

#stranger things #st critical #racism tw

[alistonjdrake]

Since you're writing a [Fantasy!]Historical project, I wanted to ask how you navigate writing fantasy!historical texts and any advice you may have for people wanting to do the same? I've seen it in books a lot and have been curious about doing it myself, but have been struggling to... make it feel like a real historical text one could find if only the world was real... if that makes sense? Please teach me your ways!

Hello anon!

I think it helps that I'm a huge nerd and I spend most of my free time reading historical nonfiction so I frame a lot of the "documents" in No Importance with that context (something that's either being used as a source for another historian or something that has been translated) and I think that has helped reframe some parts of the story as looking more "historic" since there are several voices pouring over it with you and telling you that this happened a long time ago. I also chose to be annoying and have used a varying degree of archaic words/older spellings in order to convey when something is older/from the perspective of a "historic" character vs whatever version of modern I'm working with. I guess it helps that I'm using a lot of real documents and events to help when I'm trying to figure out how the people in this world would record these events and what they would say about them. But also, of course, how they would say them. Writing a book from the viewpoint that this is already history gives me a lot of room to inherently make everything the characters say/do seem outdated, so I have the historian character point out how ideals or opinions on any given subject have since changed or for them to examine why a reaction or thought made sense at the time given the cultural context of the "period" that's being studied. There's a lot of potential creative wiggle room when writing history and historical documents because it's so easy to conveniently leave holes and contradicting perspectives.

I guess I don't know how I make it feel like a real document otherwise? I just try to think of ways that readers can get information and what people would keep that others would find. So I have some letters, a land deed, I'm writing a will, diaries, court reports, and it's been a lot of fun to find out how to frame events outside the main characters' perspectives in this way.

It's important to know when writing these documents (for me) whose side of the story I'm trying to tell, who they expect to see it (if anyone at all), and how they want themselves to look. Or what purpose this document serves/what it's being made for.

#june trash #anon ask #I hope anything I said was helpful/made sense #the gist is just that I'm a nerd and I'm writing this no different than most historical nonfic I read just with narrative inserts

[desertg]

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#ornament #super powers #lab safety #etsy