#start a new series and create the slowest let’s play of all time

[ahappydnp]

#me and cal weighing the pros and cons like we can present the options to dnp at a board meeting #they seemed to have not into texting last year anyway #personally i think one random dapg video a year would be hilarious #start a new series and create the slowest let’s play of all time #amazingdan 3 needs to happen just to balance out the universe

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Animage April 2021 Issue (Part 1)

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This month’s Animage article has more content than usual and mainly covers the music of Hanyō no Yashahime. That being said, I have decided to split the translation into three parts

Part 1: Interview with Kaoru Wada, Satō Teruo, and Nagura Yasushi

Part 2: Interview with NEWS

Part 3: Interview with Ryokuoushoku Shakai

Wrapped in the Warm Demonic Air of Spring!?

The Yashahimes, who reside in the feudal era, are in the midst of fully enjoying the spring event that is so familiar in the modern era. Surrounding those girls isn’t the nice warm air but rather the presence of a dangerous demon… …?

Spring is here! Towa, Setsuna, Moroha, and Takechiyo are blessing Easter under the bright warm weather. On this day, the three girls who carry the blood of the Dog General have turned into easter bunnies Y Setsuna, Moroha, and Takechiyo who grew up in the feudal era are overflowing with curiosity at the vibrant easter eggs Towa paints.

Well, in the illustration the Yashahimes have a warm air about them but in the main story, the girls are truly in the middle of an upheaval. In episode 21, the relationship between Riku and Kirinmaru which was wrapped in mystery up until now has been revealed. Riku himself states that he was abandoned by Kirinmaru.

In addition, in episode 22, Kirinmaru’s older sister, Zero, appears before the three of them, controls Towa’s body, forcefully breaks the seal placed upon Setsuna, and disappears after doing whatever she pleases. Zero is the creator of the cause that separated child Towa and Setsuna. Also, it seems she has a connection to Rin’s slumber. It appears Riku fondly calls Zero “Elder sister” but to Towa and the others, she is a person they need to keep an eye on.

The three girls continue to be exposed to a harsh fate. When will the girls be able to reunite with their families and live out a peaceful life known as “the flower (prime) of youth”?

Character Bios

Takechiyo A cheeky tanuki (racoon dog) demon child who works at the corpse shop. He gets snacks from the modern era when he cooperates with Towa, which pleases him. He is also aiming for the easter eggs!?

Higurashi Towa In order to save Setsuna who had her dreams and sleep stolen, she searches for the Dream Butterfly. Her explosive power when Setsuna is in a crisis is enough to leave a scar on Kirinmaru.

Setsuna She is always cool and calm but in episode 22, Zero released the seal placed on her demonic blood and Setsuna went out of control. It was resealed by Hisui’s older sister, Kin’u.

Moroha She works hard as a bounty hunter to repay her debt to Shikabaneya Jyuubee. In episode 21, she obtained the head of Tōtetsu of the Four Perils and received her first monetary reward in a while.

Spring Has Arrived in Towa’s Heart!?

In episode 21, Towa an Riku approach each other for the first time in a while. While saying there is no meaning in protecting her, Riku defended Towa from Tōtetsu’s attack and Towa told him “I like you!!” and gave him the silver rainbow pearl. Although it is not to the point of love, there certainly seems to be a special feeling budding between the two.

The Rainbow Pearls Are Zero’s Tears

The true nature of the rainbow pearls that Riku and many other demons seek out: they are the transformed tears Zero spilled onto the Shikon Jewel when she grieved the Dog General’s death. Currently, Riku possesses five of the rainbow pearls: green, purple, blue, orange, and silver. Setsuna and Moroha have the other two remaining pearls. When all seven are gathered, what exactly will happen?

The Grim Comet and Kirin-Sensei

The Grim Comet is a comet that nears the earth once every 500 years, bringing calamity with it. Working together to get rid of the comet were the Dog General and Kirinmaru during the Heian era and Sesshōmaru and Inuyasha during the feudal era. And now the modern era. Watching the Grim Comet approach once again was Towa’s middle school English teacher, Kirin Osamu-sensei. What exactly is his true identity?

Coloring the World with Sound

Director: Satō Teruo Music: Wada Kaoru Sound Director: Nagura Yasushi

To commemorate the release of the soundtrack CD, we circled around composer Wada Kaoru for a round-table discussion. We had him talk about the charm of the background music for “Hanyō no Yashahime”.

The Main Theme is the Yashahime’s “Hereafter”

— How did you create the musical composition for “Hanyō no Yashahime”?

Nagura: First, we gathered information from the finished scenarios and I created an at-a-glance music menu. After having director Satō review it, I handed it to Wada-sensei and we got together for meetings. We had Wada-sensei compose in accordance with that music menu but…

Wada: At that stage, we only had a rough direction of the story and the only finished scenarios that had final manuscripts were episodes 7 and 8. Not only did a lot of characters appear but just from reading the script, it was a constant state of “???” from the beginning like “Why are they separated even though they’re twin sisters?” “Where are the parents?” “Why is Moroha alone?”. It was then that (series composition) Sumisawa (Katsuyuki)-san and I had quite a few secret meetings where we cross-examined the information regarding the characters and story. I used that as a base for composing. While talking with Sumisawa-san, we had thoughts like “Even though it isn’t in the music menu, we probably need a song for this character” and as a result, the number songs increased unintentionally (laughs).

Satō: At first, we placed an order for 45 songs which I think is a lot for a 2 cour work. However, from there you created 1 to 5 times as many songs which I truly thank you for. I’d like to use all of them within the story.

— Wada-san, how do you normally go about composing music?

Wada: I don’t really use a piano and I just worry endlessly and have wild ideas. There are times when I think of ideas while walking. I’ve also come up with many ideas during my daily life like sitting at my desk in the office, taking a bath, or going shopping. If there are times where I can only come up with the motif, then there are also times where I can come up with an entire song in an instant. There are a variety of cases. Fundamentally, the melody I think of doesn’t get left in that spot. I consider anything I forget as something not good.

First, I need a starting point like “Let’s make something in this direction” so until I reach that point, I will rethink things over repeatedly. This time too, I had a hard time settling on the main theme that is “Hanyō no Yashahime”. The main theme expresses the world setting of a work, so I wonder how much to depict. This is why my meeting with Sumisawa-san regarding “Where exactly is this story going?” was necessary (laughs). It’s not like the music is the story’s answer checker but the main theme for “Inuyasha”, “Half-Demon Inuyasha”, is an action-adventure kind of music so to speak. Compared to that, it was a little different this time. What will happen to the three Yashahimes from here on was a major key to the motif, so in that sense, without knowing the story, I couldn’t write anything.

By the way, back then I rewrote “Half-Demon Inuyasha” three times before completing it. It was a completely different song at first and after writing and performing the piece as well as rereading the original comic again, I thought "This doesn’t fit”. Every time I��m creating a song, it’s a repetition of going in one direction or another.

Songs From the “Inuyasha” Era Have Been Reborn as A Next Generation Version

— Please tells us the characteristics of the music for “Hanyō no Yashahime”

Wada: For “Inuyasha”, it was work where the feudal era was the setting so the objective at the beginning was to heavily use traditional Japanese instruments like the biwa, shakuhachi, and flute. Rather than making traditional music like in Noh (play) or kabuki, my aim was to add the traditional Japanese instruments into the orchestra without feeling out of place. It went well in “Inuyasha”, so I continued that with “Hanyō no Yashahime”. As a work, “Hanyō no Yashahime” isn’t necessarily a “sequel to “Inuyasha”” but the music is.

Satō: This is something I also ordered. Afterall, I absolutely wanted the “Inuyasha” atmosphere. Nevertheless, this is a new story, so I wanted it to evolve as well.

Nagura: This time, we are using several musical compositions from the time of “Inuyasha”, but we’ve done new recordings of them. This is because roughly 20 years have passed since the songs for “Inuyasha” were first created. We worried that the “Inuyasha” music as it was back then and the newly recorded music for “Hanyō no Yashahime” wouldn’t take on the same color when mixed together. Thus, we had them newly recorded as a “Hanyō no Yashahime” version.

— In terms of “Hanyō no Yashahime” for example, how is the “Inuyasha” version from back then different from the “Hanyō no Yashahime” version?

Wada: The biggest difference is the tempo. I have recorded “Half-demon Inuyasha” several times after its completion but the slowest one was the first version. The tempo then was a quarter note = 120 (beats per minute) (annotation: roughly fast paced (allegro). The second hand of the clock is a quarter note = 60 bpm). At first, I looked at the comics and thought “Is this how it should go?” but when watching the anime, I began wanting to match the tempo of the animation and steadily (the music) changed into something action like. At the end, we had risen the bpm to nearly 140. This time, we can’t really use (the music) if it’s too fast so I generally keep it around 130 bpm.

— Director Satō, Sound Director Nagura, please tell us a scene within the main story where you especially felt the charm of Wada-san’s music.

Nagura: In episode 1 and 7, there’s a scene where Setsuna and Moroha rush to Towa who’s being held captive within Ougigayatsu-Hiiragi mansion, but you see, in episode 1, we didn’t use the main theme, “Hanyō no Yashahime”. This is because episode 1 was imaged as building the bridge between "Inuyasha and Kagome’s era” and “the Yashahime’s era”. During that time, based on the circumstances, we had battle type music set in but with the story having progressed in episode 7, we put in “Hanyō no Yashahime” as “Towa and the others’ music”. We were able to set it in a good way where it truly felt “Yashahimes Gather!”

Satō: We would love for people to pay close attention to that scene. “Hanyō no Yashahime” is my absolute favorite song. When I heard this song, I felt “With this, the world setting of “Hanyō no Yashahime” has been expressed” and I once again realized how amazing Wada-sensei was. For the scene in episode 7 where Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha gather, we not only redid the music but also the acting and recording for the three princesses. At a glance, it’s the same scene as episode 1 but I think it would be fun to view and compare them.

The Cheering Party During Composing

“When I was composing these (songs), there was the broadcasting of ““Inuyasha” Best Episode” on Youtube and events like “Inuyasha Café” and the “Inuyasha Anime Tracing Exhibition” were topics of discussion. That kind of hype up for Inuyasha was a like cheering party that encouraged me. I was truly grateful for it.” (Wada)

The Main Instruments of the Three Princesses

“With the various character themes, I employed an instrument that imaged each character. Towa is the flute type instruments (Japanese woodwinds), Setsuna is a koto, and Moroha is the percussion and flute. Also, Moroha’s theme has the inheritance of her mother’s blood in mind, so it’s a transformed version of the song “Overcoming Time Kagome” back from “Inuyasha””. (Wada)

#yashahime #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime: princess half demon #translation

[scoutception]

Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation review

The original Dragon Quest was an extremely important and influential game that built the foundations to the Japanese role playing game genre, but was an extremely basic game that would end up outclassed by nearly any other RPG on the NES released afterwards that wasn’t completely incompetent, and while Dragon Quest II improved upon the foundation of the original, namely in terms of party progression, it was also a rushed, unbalanced, overly difficult and overall tedious experience. Despite its importance, Dragon Quest’s third installment would have to be a significant step up, and as luck would have it, it was, becoming another of the most legendary and important RPGs ever made, and firmly cementing Dragon Quest as a series that would stay around even to the present day, and how exactly this came to be is what we’ll be looking at today. The version I played was the SNES remake with a fan made English patch, so many of the names in the screenshots won’t match up with official translations. Other options are the Game Boy Color version, which was officially released in English, and even has a bit more exclusive content, namely a very time consuming sidequest and a bonus dungeon related to it, the Ice Cave, and much more recently, the mobile/Switch version, which is also available in English, and is based on the SNES version, minus some of its exclusive content. Be warned, there will be spoilers.

Story: In an unnamed land, geographically similar to the real world, the archfiend Baramos has appeared and unleashed monsters to plague the land, with its people’s woes ranging from groups of bandits robbing kings and kidnapping citizens, to monsters impersonating rulers, to entire towns being wiped out by the forces of Baramos, who ultimately plots to destroy the entire world. A hero from Aliahan, Ortega, once set out on a journey to slay the archfiend, only to fall in combat with a dragon over a volcano. The child of Ortega is thus given the task of slaying Baramos themselves on their 16th birthday, with the help of a group of adventurers recruited from Aliahan’s tavern.

On the surface, it’s still not much more of a plot than the first two games, and for the most part, that is true, but it’s still much more interesting simply because there’s much more going on. Many of the towns you visit are facing some sort of crisis, or have some sort of interesting circumstances around them, such as the immigrant town that slowly changes and expands as the game goes on, making them a lot more fun to discover and explore compared to the towns of the first two games. Additionally, there’s the famous and influential late game twist that strikes after defeating Baramos, namely the reveal of Zoma, Baramos’ superior, and the second world map of Alefgard, the setting of the first Dragon Quest. These two twists are a large part of what made Dragon Quest III so impactful when it came out in 1988, and considering the game presents itself as unrelated to the previous games, and that by the time you defeat Baramos, you’ll have explored the entire world, barring two small locations at most, they hold up fairly well even today. There’s not much more for me to add besides this, however, so it’s time to hop straight to the gameplay.

Gameplay: Dragon Quest III uses the same turn based battle system as the first two games, and besides things like new types of spells and weapons, not too much is changed with the combat itself. The biggest change DQ3 provides is to the party progression system. Instead of the Hero being completely alone like the first game, or gaining two fixed party members in the second, DQ3 allows you to build a party from the ground up, besides the Hero, who’s always required to be in the party, and has the exclusive Hero class, with well balanced stats and unique and useful spells. The party size has been increased to four at a time, and party members can be created and exchanged in Aliahan, with a total of 8 different classes they can be: warriors, slow, yet well equipped physical fighters that act has tanks and heavy hitters, priests, who specialize in healing and support spells and, contrary to most healers in RPGs, actually have decent equipment and offensive options, mages, typical magic attackers with great offensive spells, yet bad physical stats, martial artists, physical attackers with great agility who forgo most equipment and have a higher chance of landing critical hits, merchants, average at best fighters who have supporting abilities like being able to earn extra gold after battle, gadabouts, odd and clownish characters with bad stats besides luck, and a fixed chance to simply goof off and take random actions instead of doing as commanded, thieves, a class exclusive to the remakes, with great agility and several abilities that mainly help with exploration, and sages, who learn nearly every spell in the game, and have a wide selection of equipment options, yet cannot be put in the party to start.

Compared to Final Fantasy I, which had a similar class based party system, and came out only a few months before DQ3, this system actually has quite a few advancements. Most importantly, you’re never simply stuck with the party you start with. As long as you can make it to Aliahan, you can simply make new characters and swap out whoever you’re currently using. Obviously, doing this too much isn’t very practical, considering new members will be behind on EXP, but not being able to permanently lock yourself into an awful party combination is a big improvement alone. Party members who have reached level 20 can also change classes at Alltrades Abbey, resetting their level to 1, and cutting their stats in half, but keeping any learned abilities, meaning, if you were so inclined, you could make a mage with the physical stats of a warrior, a warrior with the speed of a thief, and so forth. Changing classes like this is also the only way to get sages into the party, and even then, only with the use of a Words of Wisdom book, of which only two exist in the game. This lends itself to a lot of creativity, and while I personally didn’t use this mechanic much, only turning my priest into a sage, it’s still an impressive level of complexity for a game this old.

The class balance is also fairly interesting, as beyond the upsides and downsides already listed, classes also level at different rates. Warriors are expensive to equip and very slow, but level the fastest out of the main offensive classes. Martial artists are, by contrast, very cheap, but have the third slowest leveling rate in the game, and the little equipment they do have is usually pretty difficult to get, especially their weapons. Merchants are guaranteed to eventually fall behind if you try to use them, but actually have quite a bit of exclusive, and good, equipment early on, and level the fastest out of everyone. Gadabouts are liabilities, but level second fastest, and can become sages for free once they reach level 20, making them an investment class. Despite how several classes are very obviously inferior in the long run, you actually can get away with some pretty unorthodox party combinations, at least earlier on. Take my party of hero, warrior, martial artist, and priest: very strong physically, but expensive to upkeep, despite the martial artist somewhat balancing it out, and lacking in offensive magic. While switching the priest to sage later on mostly fixed the latter issue, I was still left wishing I had taken a mage with me from the start several times, and yet I was still more than capable of finishing the game. While the difficulty has definitely been lowered compared to the first two games, that’s still a sign of ultimately successful balancing.

For some more combat related changes and improvements, some stats have been added or changed since the first two games. Resilience now determines how many hit points a character can gain when leveling up along with being added to physical defense as before, Wisdom determines a character’s potential magic points, as well as how soon they learn spells, with spells being delayed or expedited by up to three levels, and Luck determines how well a character can avoid debuffs and status ailments inflicted by monsters. Related to these stats, exclusive to the remakes is the personality system, which affects the stat growth of each character, with each party member gaining a personality during character creation or, in the case of the Hero, through a personality quiz given at the start of the game. While this generally doesn’t matter too much for casual play, assuming you aren’t unlucky enough to get the worst personalities on all your party members, it still adds an even greater deal of complexity, either allowing you to try to compensate for a character’s weaknesses, or add to their strengths. You could, for example, give a female warrior the Amazon personality, raising their strength growth, but lowering their agility, wisdom, and luck growth, stats they don’t care about much anyway. You can also change personalities during the course of the game, either temporarily by equipping certain accessories, or permanently by reading certain books scattered throughout the game, which further adds to the depth. It’s a bit overwhelming, but still pretty interesting to see.

Beyond the combat and classes, there’s still a lot of nice things to see. The bag from DQ6, which can hold an unlimited amount of items which can be taken out at any time, has been added, allowing easy inventory management on the spot. The Zoom spell now lets you return to towns of your choice, rather than the last place you saved your game, and while not every town can be warped to, it’s still a massive time saver. There’s a day night cycle, which gradually changes when traversing the world map and affects the state of the towns, and while it isn’t super prominent, there are a few towns pretty heavily affected by it, and you actually get a few ways to manipulate it later on. There’s also a few minigames added, once again exclusive to the remakes, those being the monster arena, where you can bet on computer controlled monster fights for the chance of winning money, and Treasures n' Trapdoors, which is basically a giant board game one of your party members can traverse, with several very valuable prizes available, both from winning and from landing on certain spots on the boards. Despite being very luck based, it’s creative and rewarding enough that the boards are actually a lot of fun to play, and the Switch version lacking this minigame entirely is a big shame. The remakes also added the Cloudsgate Citadel, a bonus dungeon accessible after defeating the final boss, with a superboss, Xenlon, waiting at the end. Defeating Xenlon within a certain number of turns allows you one wish, such as opening up a new Treasures n’ Trapdoors track, or resurrecting a certain character, and thankfully, you don’t actually need to traverse the entire dungeon again to refight Xenlon for more wishes, as a Zoom location is added only a few rooms away.

The biggest improvement DQ3 makes, however, is just how well the game flows. There’s still grinding to be found, yes, but generally, the game goes by much faster. Characters move quickly, the difficulty, as mentioned before, is much lowered, so you don’t need to grind 5 levels just to walk a bit north, and there’s just a lot of variety that keeps the game fresh all the way through, instead of becoming monotonous like DQ2. The dungeons are also much more reasonably designed compared to the giant, nightmarish mazes of DQ2, and while you do get a ship like in DQ2, it comes quite a bit later, keeping the amount of areas now available to explore from being as overwhelming. The obligatory key item fetch quest, this time collecting the six orbs to hatch the phoenix Ramia, is also much more reasonable to complete, with the orbs either being in locations that NPCs directly talk about, or being acquired by fighting bosses. Speaking of which, there’s also many more bosses than in previous games, and while they’re not as frequent as in most RPGs, they still add a nice bit of variety, along with actually being pretty challenging, in a good way. Overall, Dragon Quest III’s gameplay actually holds up very well, and just makes it a lot of fun to play. Even considering this is a remake with a lot of quality of life improvements, I was amazed that this was originally an NES game.

Graphics: DQ3′s visuals are quite nice, as the SNES version was made with DQ6′s engine. To give a comparison, whereas the games using DQ5′s engine were about comparable to the visuals of Final Fantasy IV and V, the visuals here are comparable to Final Fantasy VI, and considering that’s one of the best looking SNES games out there, that’s a pretty big leap. The character designs come out quite well, and many locations have unique looks to them, both towns and dungeons, with the Pyramid and Baramos’ ghastly castle sticking out the most to me. The enemy battle sprites are still great, and are actually animated whenever they attack, adding a lot of life to them.

Sound: As with the rest of the series, DQ3′s soundtrack was done by Koichi Sugiyama, and it’s once again a great soundtrack, even better than the soundtracks of the previous games. From the peaceful Small Shrine, to the iconic Overture, to the peaceful Heavenly Flight, to the world map theme Adventure, to the great final boss theme, Hero’s Challenge, it’s a soundtrack that’s a joy to listen to. It also gives towns different themes for both day and night, which is one of my favorite things to see in games.

Conclusion: Overall, I would give Dragon Quest III a recommended. It’s aged very, very well, and genuinely feels like it could have been on the SNES to start. Between the much deeper, yet ultimately accessible mechanics that give quite a bit of replay value, to much better overall design gameplay, graphical, and sound design, it makes a fantastic entry point for the series, if you have a liking for classic RPGs. Till next time. -Scout

#dragon quest #snes #game review #long post #rpg #square enix #dragon quest iii #jrpg

[leslieannefusco]

Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace The New Batman Superman Adventures

Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern chase a time-traveling villain to the past, where they team up with the greatest heroes of the Old West.

The Justice League's adventures in time take them to a futuristic Gotham City, where they join forces with that era's Batman and his super team: The Justice League Unlimited.

When the evil Trade Federation plots to take over the peaceful planet of Naboo, Jedi warrior Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi embark on an amazing adventure to save the planet. With them on their journey is the young Queen Amidala, Gungan outcast Jar Jar Binks, and the powerful Captain Panaka, who will all travel to the faraway planets of Tatooine and Coruscant in a futile attempt to save their world from Darth Sidious, leader of the Trade Federation, and Darth Maul, the strongest Dark Lord of the Sith to ever wield a lightsaber.

The evil Trade Federation, led by Nute Gunray is planning to take over the peaceful world of Naboo. Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to confront the leaders. But not everything goes to plan. The two Jedi escape, and along with their new Gungan friend, Jar Jar Binks head to Naboo to warn Queen Amidala, but droids have already started to capture Naboo and the Queen is not safe there. Eventually, they land on Tatooine, where they become friends with a young boy known as Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon is curious about the boy, and sees a bright future for him. The group must now find a way of getting to Coruscant and to finally solve this trade dispute, but there is someone else hiding in the shadows. Are the Sith really extinct? Is the Queen really who she says she is? And what’s so special about this young boy?

I’ve never experienced such delay in cartoons airing on TV as I have with the DC Animated shows. Ever since Superman: The Animated Series massive delays started it, it seems to have spilled over into every DC show since. Batman Beyond had it’s “Unmasked”, Justice League had it’s last half of Season 1 and almost all of Season 2 delayed for what seemed like forever, and now Justice League Unlimited it hitting every bump in the road: schedule changes, generic delays and problems with the episodes themselves, resulting in send-backs to the animation studios. “The Once and Future Thing” has been nearly every fans most anticipated story arc this season, and we’ve been waiting ever since June since the loglines were released. So was it worth the wait and agonizing speculation? Nothing ever is; fans over hype things to the point of exhaustion and by the time the episode airs everything’s been inadvertently spoiled via a careless lack of a spoiler warning. Nothing in this first part of “The Once and Future Thing” surprised me; things that would’ve excited me was the re-appearance of Jonah Hex (not seen since Batman: The Animated Series “Showdown”), Batman Beyond, Future Static and Warhawk’s appearance and the whole “Dad?!” line (I know I read somewhere that was going to happen). The Return of the Joker Jokerz gang did surprise me though, albeit if they are a bit changed (more on that later).

Where was I? “The Once and Future Thing” starts off with our first look at Future Gotham since Static Shock’s “Future Shock” crossover, bringing an already exciting mood to the episode (Batman Beyond is one of my all-time favorites, so I may be biased); we then meet the mastermind behind the episode, Chronos (“David Clinton” for those who are picky since “Chronos” was never directly named in the episode, aside from a quick throwaway comment on his suit). After a humorous scene with his verbally abusive wife, we’re thrown into present where he’s attempting to steal Batman’s utility belt from the Watchtower. The first odd thing in the episode occurs here: if an “intruder” alarm is sounded on the Watchtower, a supposedly impregnable fortress, wouldn’t more than just three heroes run to investigate? Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman bolt right as the alarm sounds, while everyone else in the surrounding lunch room just sits and gabs away. I realize that’s probably an unavoidable hole due to only wanting Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman to be the time travelers, but it’s still a bit odd, none the less. Before you sit down to watch this episode, you have to keep in mind that not all things are going to make sense; it’s time travel and that always manages to screw something up. We have mechanical Pterodactyls and Raptors with Cowboys riding on their back, robots dressed up as Old West Gun Slingers and a main villain who had a six-pistol gun. If you want to make sense of that…be my guest, but it’s really best just to sit and enjoy it as it plays out. Granted, you could justify everything that happened since Tobias just kept jumping into the future and hijacking this stuff back, but…dinosaurs? I don’t see the purpose for those, unless he wanted to scare people into doing his dirty work (ten foot robots and massive guns would do that for me anyway); regardless, they were fun to see, even if they were completely random. Heroes in the episode included El Diablo, Bat Lash, Sheriff Ohiyesa Smith and the aforementioned Jonah Hex. They were all great to see in animated form and I couldn’t help but laugh every time El Diablo talked, as his voice actor (Nestor Carbonell) played “Batmanuel” in the live-action The Tick! series (I think I’m one of few who loved that show). Jonah Hex was awesome to see again and Bat Lash was fun to watch as well.

The Wild West portions had their fare share of camp to them, but they were a fun little romp. Bruce refusing to carry a gun and then using his utility belt as a “Go on, I dare you” type move the cowboys used when reaching for their guns, Diana taking her time in deflecting the bullets (“These are the biggest, slowest bullets I’ve ever seen”) and John’s “Green Lantern” Ghost looked like something pulled from a Scooby Doo episode, were fun to watch. There were some nice character moments in this one, but honestly, I think we’re all just waiting for the second part. Speaking of the second part, we got a nice little teaser end to the episode. Landing in the future after chasing Chronos again, the League come up against the Return of the Joker Jokerz gang; descending immediately is the Future Static, Batman Beyond and Warhawk. Static appears much older than his “Future Shock” appearance and Batman seems to have lost the red on the interior of his wings, but Warhawk remains the same. The episode ends with the clinching “Dad?!” from Warhawk as he looks at Green Lantern, who then looks like he just saw Future Shayera in the shower. It was a great ending and created a session of out loud “I gotta wait a week to see the conclusion!?” cursing. Perhaps the most debated part of this ending was the reappearance of the Return of the Joker Jokerz gang; Bonk died on-screen (in both versions of the film, though one more graphic than the other) in the movie, while everyone else seemed to simply get taken away by the cops. One other thing to point out is Woof’s mechanical arms; definitely not on the original model and Chucko’s new look (different color shirt and is now carrying some sort of round object, similar to Ghoul’s pumpkin bucket), all suggest that the gang may be different. If they aren’t, I refuse to believe that one of the story writers of Return of the Joker and producers of Justice League Unlimited simply glazed over Bonk’s death or forgot; the gangs there for a reason that will have to wait for another week to find out. It’s sort of sad that all of the work that was put into the first twenty plus minutes of this episode are overshadowed by the ten second closer, but it’s to be expected. People have been hungry for more Batman Beyond and now that we’ve got him again, it’s gonna be hard to let go.

That was, bar-none, the most mind-twisting and blowing DCAU episode I’ve seen. It’s not that it was “crazy” or “kooky” or all together “spooky,” but trying to get everything straight with the Matrix code flying across the bat-computer screen and Bruce spouting off stuff about the “space time continuum”…just…ouchie. Confusing nature aside (and that will pass upon a few more viewings, I’m sure), this episode was pretty much what I expected it to be; not in plot points and twists, but just in that we’d get a fun romp through future Gotham City. I’ll be damned if it didn’t seem like time flew while watching it this though; commercial breaks came as soon as they ended and I had a goofy grin on my face the entire time, seeing the Jokerz back and Terry cracking one liners again…it was really was one of the biggest fan-moments I’ve had while watching Unlimited. The story itself, as previously mentioned, was quite the confusing experience. The first time I watched it I was just entertained by everything; by the second time I finally got a grasp on why Hal Jordan was appearing (other than to make everyone’s eyes bug out) and why everyone started to disappear. In the end, this trip to the future also ended up being an “alternate” trip to the future, as in the end everything was switched back to normal, albeit with Batman and Green Lantern only remembering what went on and Chronos stuck in a constant loop with his wife’s abusive language constantly recycling. D.R. Movie Co. threw in some new effects on the future Batman’s jet boots; instead of dissipating right away, they left swirly trails; though you only saw this once it was a great bit of animation. The city looked as dark and futuristic as ever and the Jokerz new designs were great as well. Chucko on a rolling ball, Bonk with a massive mallet, multiplying Dee Dee’s, a mechanical arm-enhanced Woof and a spinning saw blade on Ghoul. Anyone who didn’t get flash backs to Batman Beyond’s “April Moon” episode must’ve been delirious; then again, Chronos said he traveled into the future to get those upgrades, so either the doctor in “April Moon” didn’t exist yet or…ah hell I’m getting confused again. Regardless, it makes me long for more of Batman Beyond…but I’m sure I’ve said that enough by now.

Static was enjoyable as well; I never was one to watch the show much, sans the special appearances of other DCAU heroes, but an adult Static is definitely who I prefer. He’s got the wit of Flash and the strength of John Stewart and it was great to see the two interact as “old friends.” Warhawk’s “I’m shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked…” revelation that he is Shayera and John’s kid and that they may have even gotten married (“Stewart” is his last name; he was named “Rex” after Green Lantern’s childhood friend, Rex Mason / Metamorpho) was nice to see extended upon. Even if we didn’t get much (due to the three Batman’s interrupting) else out of the two, it was fun to see where things progressed (and the look that John gives Shayera at the end of the show). The undisputed and best moment of the episode, however, was the scene with Bruce/Batman/Batman—we get the wise and old Wayne saying hello to his younger self and them both telling Terry to shut up in which Terry emits a “What’d they used to call it? Stereo?” quip. It was the things endless fan fictions are made of where the past meets future… I enjoyed this episode much more than part one; animation was awesome, music fit well with every scene and the characters were all handled nicely, even if there was an over abundance of them. Some may trash McDuffie’s writing, but I’ve enjoyed nearly everything he’s written on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and this was certainly no exception.

Create sci-fi characters with this dress-up game inspired by the Star Wars movies, mostly the original trilogy with Luke, Leia and Han, and also with many items inspired by Padme, Anakin and Obi-wan. There are four themes in the game to approximate outfits from the show, and create new ones: Jedi martial artist, rebel, queen or princess, and slave. Complete her look with weapons, other types of accessories, body customization and a wide hair section. Also, to make the weapons brighter and the image altogether more dramatic, you can play around with the darkness setting!

This game inspired by the Star Wars saga lets you dress up a male counterpart to the original Sci-fi Warrior! Although the woman has more diverse clothes and some alien features, the man is more narrowly focused on the clothing style of Jedi and Siths (and restricted to humans). The religion of the Jedi, and this is reflected in their fashion style, is itself inspired by the Eastern martial arts and monastic orders such as the Shaolin monks, which combine a deep commitment to a spiritual path with the lifelong study of self-defense. While Jedi and Siths alike are warriors trained in combat, the difference between them is their power source: while Siths align with forces of destruction, and derive power from intense emotions especially anger and hatred, the Jedi curb their emotions and do not feel hatred for their enemy. The genius of this philosophy is that it holds the key to ending the cycle of violence: self-defense against an enemy who is not hated.

#Star Of The Universe

[bygosscarmine]

We Who See Thestrals

a post-canon Harry Potter fic

This is one of my oldest, dearest headcanon ideas finally written out. It came to me right after I read Deathly Hallows, soon after it was published, so it’s been a private thought for a long time. But I thought it might make some good pandemic relaxation reading--it certainly made great pandemic stress-writing. 

This series is 10k and finished. Even beta-read! Incredible.

1: Luna Lovegood Gets a Joke-Shop Job

1924 words/10k

"Look," said Ron, "I don't think she'll last here long, either, but with The Quibbler and everything Luna doesn't need money. She just needs something to do. Hermione should be the one asking, but she said she was delegating it to me. So pretend this was a super-persuasive pitch on why an old friend should be given a chance."

George cocked an eyebrow at his brother, more to make him squirm than because he was particularly interested in arguing. Ron was a decent shop clerk and a better trainer, since he liked to get out of doing things but didn't like to see them done wrong. Until their youngest was old enough to go away to school, Ron was the home parent which meant he only could work the slowest hours of the day. George also knew it was good to let his people show some initiative, even if the person was Ron.

They had a lot of young people come and go, since the job wasn't all playing with the products, and George had the bad habit of moving anyone with potential up to R&D (Recreation & Development) or to pop-up sites. Which often turned into managing new stores. Dennis Creevey had been their biggest success so far, though the Hogsmeade location was a no-brainer. Dennis wasn't much of an innovator himself, but he sold all their newest products with the passion of a very small child and the tenacity of a survivor.

They all were survivors, their generation of Hogwarts students. Some of them, like George, had decided that the best thing to create in the world was a time of innocence they couldn't even enter. And that's why so many parents bought so much delightful nonsense from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

"I don't mind having you hire and train her," he said, as if having wrestled with himself, "as long as you make sure she doesn't blow up my shop in vengeance for what you did to her house."

He left Ron sputtering an unformed rebuttal, and went through his vanishing cabinet to the lab.

Luna started the next week. That day George was too busy trying to get the topiary algae to form itself with a longer nose to go down to the shop for niceties. When he heard a whump all the way through the door, through the other vanishing cabinet about five miles away, he decided it was time to check in on the new hire. He carefully finished his notes, told Neville he'd call him back and took out the prototype earplugs he'd made, improving the extendible ears beyond all recognition. They really helped when he needed to trouble-shoot things like recalcitrant botany with friends, so he'd given sets to several of the usual suspects and occasionally owled his spare pairs to others. He took off his slimy gloves and went down to the shop.

There was a glittering purple cloud of smoke pluming into an onion shape in the middle of the floor, with a blast-radius of knocked-over toys about five feet in diameter. Ron had taken cover behind the counter, while a white-blonde head was half-obscured in the cloud. There was no doubting this witch, in purple robes with appliques of cabbages dotted around them, was Luna Lovegood.

"Hallo Looney," said George, "I thought that must be you making a bang. My hearing isn't what it used to be, but I heard it clear in my flat down the road."

"Hello, George," said Luna, unperturbed and sliding out of the cloud sideways, as if it were something she had to sneak away from. "The good news is there are no Snorkaks in your shop. If there were, that is, they'd be dead now."

"Good to know. Ron, stop mentally rehearsing your plea to not be fired and clear up this cloud. A simple scouring should take care of it--not using any dark charms, are you, Luna?"

"I don't think so," she said.

"Yes, Scourgify will be fine. Has Ron given you the tour yet?"

George knew himself to be a bit of a ladies' man, so he was mostly unsurprised to find himself grinning winsomely at Luna.

"I believe he was trying," said Luna. "But I'm not always the best at paying attention."

"I see he wasn't giving you the tour properly, then. You don't have to pay attention, just play with everything you think looks fun. Neverstop Pop?"

"Thank you," said Luna, at last looking apprehensive. She glanced at Ron, who didn't even pause in his vanishing wand-waves to say, "You'll taste banana for about six hours, but otherwise harmless."

"Oh, banana!" she said, and took the lolly. Its purple and green swirl of candy was innocent enough, but the stick it was on began smoking a blue color as soon as her tongue touched it.

"I would have pegged you for pink smoke," George noted. "Intriguing."

He showed her around the shop properly. He had really gotten the knack of sales in the early shop days and now around holidays would work the floor himself to keep his hand in. He kept a keen eye on where her eyes fell, and they tested out all the products that he saw some interest in.

Luna may not have been great at paying attention to workplace tours, but she actually had an unusual knack for toys and games. She had blown enough Self-Shaping Bubble Shot to discover that you could somewhat steer the shape by focusing on one of the forms it took, and produced a steady stream of rabbits that were more robust than any bubbles George had seen anyone but Ginny's girl Lily make. He had to gently steer her away to see the sweets area and puzzles. Most adults had disappointingly short attention spans for play, he had found.

But Luna was an adult. Of all his sister's classmates she was the one who had always struck him as a little more childlike than her age, but possibly this was more a determined positivity and self-expression than thoughtless innocence. After all, none of them had gotten this far untouched. Luna had put the Quibbler on the map as the most outspoken political news of the wizarding world, soliciting articles about the need for reform in the Ministry, magical education, and species equity. She had to be made of a springy sort of steel to have done that. It still ran controversial creature features and terrible celebrity gossip, and the tone of the articles was inflammatory in a way that made George think of Rita Skeeter's flair for drama, but it was read.

"Why are you looking for a job?" he asked, only realizing after a second that this was an abrupt question, coming rather late.

"I am not really suited for teaching or ministry work," she answered, unperturbed. "So I need to look around a bit for what to do with my life. My mum was a charms inventor and my dad started a magazine, but I never was very good at keeping track of details the way you do with either of those professions."

"You did good work writing with the Quibbler--why did you retire?"

"I think I did the Quibbler stuff for my friends," she said, gently brushing one of the Pygmy Puffs. "But once I nudged it in the right direction, I found that there were other people who wanted to do it really badly and I just thought it was all right. I was thinking of going out on some research trips to write some articles."

"Yeah? Anything stopping you?"

"Just that I don't particularly want to. Not by myself, anyway."

He tasted blood, for just a second, heard a shrill sound cut in half.

"I don't blame you," he said, trying to blink back the memory.

The light from the high windows was hitting her silver-blonde hair so it glowed, and he noted a very small patch of magenta cloud still caught in her curls. Her lips pursed over the pygmy puff, a soft pink interruption in her somewhat sharp, white face.

"George, I'm going out for a smoke since you're here," said Ron.

George hadn't realized he was having a moment until he felt an instantaneous desire to strangle his younger brother.

"Fine," he said. "We don't need you, anyway."

"I literally just finished cleaning up after Luna," Ron snorted, and stalked away. "You're both welcome!"

Anyway, George had no business noticing the light on his newest employee's hair. He showed her how they fed the pygmy puffs and cleaned the cage, before retreating into his lab the second Ron seemed to be coming back in.

But later that afternoon when Ron had left he went down to see how Luna was faring training with Rhodendra, a cousin of Lee Jordan's who was fresh from Hogwarts and a whiz with the calcu-labe. He foresaw losing her to Gringotts or a newer financial firm. These were making an appearance in the wizard economy as it flourished after the rebuilding. He had seeded money into one of them himself.

School had let out for the day, and some London-local wizarding children had come through The Leaky Cauldron to hang around and play with some of the toys. Luna apparently was getting on with Rhodendra just fine. The two of them were seated on the floor surrounded by these children, playing a fierce round of Incendiary Snap, which was a brilliant idea Ginny had started by accident. It was particularly brilliant because it didn't just add an extra edge to Exploding Snap, with the very real if child-safe fire, but it also eventually charred the cards to the point where they had to be replaced.

The Snap happened. As Rhodendra shrieked, batting away the illusionary fire, Luna Lovegood summoned a Shield Charm with deceptive ease.

"Did I win that round?" she said, mildly surprised.

"Oh, please," said Rhodendra. "You've won every round. My cards are getting too hot to hold."

"Can we play now?" asked one of the nine or ten-year-olds.

"Sure," said Rhodendra, getting up. Luna followed her example, and they handed the "demo" pack over to the kids. During the school year, their main clientele besides parents were the children too young for Hogwarts, especially the ones with parents who didn’t let them play magical games until they were of age.

Rhodendra noticed George observing and hurried to the counter where she began doing inventory busy-work. Luna instead went to the Muggle tricks display where she seemed to be doing a deep study of the card-tricks brochure. He went back up to his lab, satisfied no personality clashes were forming.

He didn't go down into the shop later than noon for the rest of the week. Instead, if he finished work early he went to the pub to make some winning bets on the qualification rounds of the Quidditch World Cup, as everyone listened on the radio. (Occasionally he dreamed of bringing a wizarding form of television to Quidditch fans, but abandoned it. Someone would do it eventually but he preferred to live a little longer in the charmingly medieval world of wizarding technology a little longer.)

He had all but forgotten his new hire when Ron came bursting in from the cabinet.

"George, you have to come see this. I think we should keep Luna on after all!"

George was intrigued, though a bit puzzled. He hadn't realized Luna's status was probationary, though this was very Ron of Ron. Ron had hired himself on probation.

Go to Chapter 2

Graphic’s George image from the @renissance moodboard I posted https://seagod.co.vu/post/168723892062/ 

#We Who See Thestrals #Luna Lovegood x George Weasley #Harry Potter #fanfiction #Luna Lovegood #George Weasley #Ron Weasley #weasleys wizard wheezes

[james-bucky-barnackle]

Frostbite (End)

Requested:  can i request a fic between Y/N and Steve where they’re secret lovers but Y/N chooses team Ironman in Civil War and then fast forward to infinity war she finds out that Steve has moved on with Nat.

Part 6 | Frostbite Masterlist

Pairing: Steve x reader

Warnings: slight angst

Word count: 3.9k

A/N: Thanks for the memories, I love you guys. Thanks to everyone who’s read this mini-series. This chapter was inspired by the song Say it Again by Frances.

Day 74 since Steve’s confession

Y/N feels like she’s young again, being courted. Like the girl in the books she’s read, although she still hasn’t remembered. Though she admired Steve’s dedication to see her whenever he can – which is perhaps every time – she’s decided to run at night. It was her time to think. She knows no one is pressuring her to decide, but seeing Steve’s face every single day, knowing he was anxious to know what she was feeling made her unhappy. She wanted him to be happy, to not wake up every day without an answer.

The street lamps have become silent sanctuaries for her soul when she’s done running, she would always walk back. After the jolt of racing from point a to point b, wanting to get away from the tower as fast as possible, she would be coming back the slowest way she can. In these nights, she would think of Steve’s eyes, and how they sparkle like the stars in the sky; how each time, they’re a constellation to be identified. Steve’s in love with the girl she used to be. She shook her head, no it can’t be. It’s still me, isn’t it?

She was terrified of being alone too, who was she not to understand what Steve must’ve felt all those years?  Was it so wrong to crave for attention and claim one that’s right there, in arm’s reach? There are twenty-two lamp posts before the tower, and it feels as though her steps get slower and slower. There are still people wide awake, with the light on their windows floating in the sea of darkness. Could they be thinking of their lovers too? Maybe even during this one time she could relate with the people in their bedrooms, their lights still on, and their minds on the people who love them. Did she love him? Although he’s been nothing but kind to her, and her feelings have been swayed, there’s still something lacking. Like the last bit of gap between land and air before she could fall into the cliff, into his arms. She’s still on the edge, lacking that one step to fall. That’s what she thought of every night.

She wanted to cast snowfall for the people outside, light enough to make them look and receive something from above, but maybe not tonight. Nine more lamps until she’s back in the tower that had slowly unraveled from its being foreign. It felt like a box of memories, and she still hasn’t found the key. The council has approved for Y/N to be on missions now, and she’ll be on her third one the day after tomorrow. Her task being to monitor them, it was enough, just standing in the shadows. Everyone was still worried about her being on the field, so she was assigned on the sky.

She remembers the day she sat on the quinjet, the first time she’s ever had since forgetting. Her hand felt like it fit perfectly on the control; like they’ve been reunited to a place where they’ve always belonged. It was funny, that her hands knew where they belonged but the rest of her body didn’t. But it was enough, for now. Three more lampposts and she’ll be home. Home is such a strange word. The tower was nothing but a concrete fortress, shouldn’t home be a person? Was Steve hers?

One, she was standing in front of it now, the last lamppost; and behind it the tower stood proudly, although she thought of it coldly, it was the only place she saw herself in. Maybe it was because she really had no other place to go, and maybe it’s true, when you’re lonely, you take what you can get.  Y/N walked back inside, her steps light and quiet. She walked straight to the direction of her room, and once there, she jumped on her bed, on her back and huffed. Looking to her right, was the book. She extended her arm and grabbed it. Her fingers rubbing on the yellow stain on the cover. That night would never be erased from her memories, it was the first time she’s been reminded of something she still hasn’t remembered anything about. Even when her life had been relayed to her like a history book, it’s not the same until you really have gone through it. It was all talk and no show. By now she’s practically read the book too many times to count.

Y/N sighed, put the book on her chest and laid her arms wide on the bed, her knees dangling from the edge. Another night finished, another day still not remembering, another morning to deal with.

---

“Steve,” Y/N greeted, a smile on her lips as she saw Steve in the hallway waiting for her. It was music to his ears, his name escaping from her lips, the only melody he’d let a broken record play.

“Hi,” he whispered back. And although he wanted to hold her hand as they walked to the meeting, he knew that she still wasn’t ready. It was small, but waiting another millennium just to touch her hand would be alright. After all, here she was already greeting him with her lips turned up. “You ready?”

“Yes,” she bit her lip and they started walking. Her hair had grown long, he wanted to tuck it behind her ear.

“Do you want to drop by the bookstore later? Maybe we could find something new to read?” Steve asked. Y/N didn’t want to say it, but there’s only one book she’s interested in. But the look on Steve’s face is too hard to wipe away.

“Yeah, that’d be nice, Steve.” she nodded. Say it again, Steve thought. Say my name again. Steve looked to his side, trying to hide his boyish grin. He too felt like he was the boy back in Brooklyn, the prettiest girl walking with him. He wanted the world to know.

“They’re here. Let’s get started,” Tony declared the moment the two had stepped in.

They all sat round the table, while Steve analyzed the way of the mission and started assigning tasks. It was a rescue mission, and a quick retrieval operation. Something of Hank Pym’s technology was stolen, Hank and his wife have been kept captive, forced to create more. Hope was now part of the team for this mission, Y/N saw the sadness in her eyes, her worry, her not being able to sit still on the chair and wait for tomorrow. Time was ticking, but there wasn’t much of a choice. Hank had signaled that he bugged the replica they were creating, self-destructing the moment it will be turned on. The plan was to rescue him and Janet before the terrorists would activate the device. Their hideout would be obliterated. It was simple.

Y/N nodded as she was tasked with being the main pilot, to drop them off and wait until they’re ready to be picked up. Though her powers have come back and she was able to control it, it was still best for her to not be in combat, with her still recovering from amnesia. It was a risk they couldn’t take. When the meeting had ended, she saw Scott hug Hope, she saw the tears in her eyes, not wanting to lose her parents again and Y/N was more than willing to help Hope to get a piece of herself back.

The afternoon had flown by quickly, Steve had his jacket on and Y/N wore a sweater over her collared blouse. The sun was hiding behind the clouds, the air was cold but it didn’t matter. They both walked on the pavement, his hands in his pockets and hers on the strap of her bag. They were heading to one of the oldest bookstores in the city, a place she’d always went to before. The store had huge windows, and upon entering was the scent of coffee and old books. The mahogany wood floors and the army green wallpaper blending perfectly to look like a literary jungle. Black pendant lamps were hung through the aisles, warm light emitting from the bulbs, the books looking bright and yellow below. The store sold old books as well as new ones, but Y/N always walked past those crisp new copies and went straight to the withering ones. Those were the one that held memories. She would open one and flip through the pages, creases of the folds made by the previous owner, the writings of a blue pen underlining the best lines said, the dedication in front. She loved it.

“Look at this one,” Steve called out, holding a small gray book in his hand. “I used to have this book when I was young.” It was a book by Thomas Hardy. He opened the book revealing the yellowing pages. “After I read it, I started drawing the scenes the way I imagined it in my head. It wasn’t the way I always ended up the picture to be.” He closed it, it was a newer edition, with an illustration on the cover.

“Do you find anything you like?” She asked.

“I have,” he nodded, but not continuing to say what. He pressed his lips together and smiled. Y/N walked to another aisle. As she stood on the opposite side of the shelf, the books creating windows where they could see each other, she spoke.

“Would you like to have coffee after this?” Steve couldn’t hide his delight.

“S-sure, I’d love that.” He looked through the books, at Y/N’s face focused on looking for the perfect novel. She was beautiful, especially under this light. She tied her hair in a low pony tail, a strand of hair falling from her face. Seeing her made his heart melt every time.

After a few more minutes in the store, Y/N decided not to purchase anything at all. She followed Steve to the counter where he paid for his. It was packed in brown paper, and tied with a beige string. Y/N wondered what he got, he didn’t say when they were skimming through the books. But her curiosity would soon be over.

“Here, I got this for you.” Steve handed the brown package to her as they made their way to the café. Y/N’s breath hitched, she looked up at him and smiled.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” He put his hands back in the comfort of his pockets.

“Thank you.” She started to pull the string. And he paused, biting his lip.

“Can you open it later instead?” he asked, gently.

“Why?”

“I think it’s the best time for it.”

“Oh, okay,” she nodded.

Steve was happy he’d ask Bucky about coffee, he didn’t know a place to get the best one. So, when Y/N asked him to have coffee this afternoon, he had an idea of where they should go. It was located just at the edge of the town, before it went south. It was a hidden gem, it was never full of people. It was perfect. They were greeted by one of the staff mopping the black marble floor, gold veins stretched over it. The young man looked at the pair and for a second was in awe, but quickly regained composure and gave them a friendly smile. Steve smiled back, a silent thanks for giving them privacy.

“I never thought there’d be a day where we’d be inside a café,” he said with a light chuckle. Y/N smiled, and looked down, remembering the stories where all she ever drank was water and juice.

“My past self would be shocked,” she replied.

“What would you like?” Steve asked getting up from his chair to order.

“I’d like a hot latte, with a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top.” She intertwined her fingers, and rested her elbows on the round table.

“Coming right up,” Steve gave her a playful salute.

When he was gone, she stared at his gift. Why was there a need for this to be opened later? Why not now? She looked at Steve who’s standing by the counter the barista wide-eyed at the super soldier as she tapped in his order. When she’s moved to the sink to make the drinks, Steve looked back at the table, his eyes locking with Y/N. She flustered, having been caught gawking. He winked, and she shook her head, keeping a laugh in. Every time she looked at him, she was in search of that one thing. And every time he’d catch her looking, her heart would pound so fast, like it’s going to jump out of her chest. When he came back, a tray in hand, she asked him a question that almost had the staff needing to mop the floor again.

“Do you like dancing?”

“Uh w-well, I wasn’t really good at it.” His eyes round, looking at hers, what is it, Y/N?

“But do you like it?” his pulse quickened. Her voice was soft, like fingertips brushing a petal.

“Yes, I d-do,” he breathed, “especially when it’s with the right partner.”

Her eyes looked back into his, and for a moment they were in their own bubble. Steve waited for more, ask me more, Y/N.

“Will you take me dancing when the mission’s over?” he almost died, right then and there. This girl sitting across was the death of him. A sheepish smile cascaded all over his face, like little boy given the biggest present on Christmas morning.

“Of course, it w-would be a dream to.”

Y/N picked her mug and placed it close to her lips, hiding her joy behind it. Steve chewed a piece of his muffin to keep his mouth from smiling so much, but his eyes failed to hide it.

-

“All set and ready for lift off.” Y/N spoke on her lapel, her hands on the controls. Clint sat beside her, her co-pilot. Natasha has been laying low for now, and Y/N felt gloom when she found out she used to be the one who sat beside her. But she knew she was in pain, and maybe one day they can talk about it. For now, everyone was settling themselves on the quinjet. Tony has flown ahead, and when the perimeter has been cleared, they set off. It wasn’t long before they were hovering on top of the building, a huge industrial structure sitting in the middle of the forest. The vines dancing around the cement, greenery has blended into its cold façade.

“You ready?” she heard Scott ask Hope, as they both stood on the edge of the jet. She nodded and put on her helmet. Steve started another rundown of the plan to clear it before they engage.

“When you get Hank and Janet, Y/N will be ready to pick you up. Vision and I will retrieve the tech, the others will block the gates. The moment we’ve gotten that we all clear the building, before they could activate the double. Okay?” They nod and Y/N started her way to get everyone in their places. Steve looked at her before he jumped off. With one look they could already speak without words. She’d know that Steve wanted her to be safe and that she wanted him to be the same.

The moment she’s left by herself she was already anxious for the to get back. She watched as Bruce, Tony and Thor fought the soldiers from the outside. Clint was shooting arrows with finesse, his targets oblivious to the man in the trees. There she was with this four men in her view, with half of the team taking care of the dangers inside, the tall walls blocking her from them, making her more curious to what’s happening. She could only ever hear their voices on her earpiece, the commands they’re spewing out, and the corridors they’ve cleared. Everyone was moving so fast, but time felt like it was too slow.

“I’ve got Janet!” I hear Scott on the wire. “But Hank’s not here.”

“I see three men with the double, Hank’s not on this floor either.” Sam reported.

“We have five minutes ‘til they power up the decoy. Exit the building, take Janet to the quinjet.” Steve’s voice rung through the earpiece.

“Where are you going?” I hear Bucky.

“To get Hank.”

“I’m going with you,” Hope beeped in.

Y/N quickly flew the quinjet to the rooftop, where she saw a beautiful gray haired woman in Scott’s arms. The soldiers outside seem to be coming from different directions, but the team has been fighting them with ease. Three minutes, there still wasn’t any sign from Hope or Steve. Janet is worried sick about her daughter and her husband, whenever one of them is safe, two will always be in danger. Two, Tony has started flying around the perimeter, Bruce has held Bucky, keeping him from coming in the building when they’ve only had a few seconds left. Even though Bucky knew he wouldn’t get to help Steve in time, it was better than waiting. But Bruce knew better than to risk one more life. One, the three hasn’t still been heard of. Where could they be? Time was ticking, Janet looked like she was dying, Y/N’s hands was shaking, but she willed herself to be strong as she held them all up in the air. The ladder swinging idly. Thirty seconds, they heard Tony shout, Hank was on the rooftop, his arm draped around Hope as they trudged towards the quinjet.

“Where’s Steve?!” Bucky screamed.

“They were too many, I-I lost him ins-side,” Hope looked ashamed for getting out without him.

“Steve!” Tony called out, but static only replied.

“Come on, come on, come on.” Y/N whispered as she shook her head.

Nine seconds, eight, seven – Y/N’s heart was racing, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t fathom losing another piece of her past.

“You have to speed off Y/N,” she heard Tony command. “The impact of the explosion is vertical, you have to get off the roof.”

“But, Steve-“

“I’ll get him,”

“Tony, I-“

“Go!” the force in his voice was frightening. Y/N flicked the switch and there they were lifting off the ground. The moment Clint sat beside her on the cockpit, she unbuckled her seat belt and ran behind to look at the structure, looking for any sign of Steve. Clint looked back at her, sorrow in his eyes. Three, two, one. Dust started spiraling out of the building, fire and smoke all together, concrete crumbling. And that’s when her breath paused for the longest time. Her eyes grew wide. In that moment, she saw the kid in her arms, the child she couldn’t save who was standing just five feet away from her. The dust floating in the wind, the cement pressing on her leg, the gravel scattered all around her; the red stain growing bigger on his polo. She was looking ahead, at the building that had just crumbled before her. She saw her body covered in ash, when she wiped it off there weren’t any. She remembered the hours she was stuck underneath, the child still in her arms, lifeless, and her eyes red from the endless streak of tears.

Her head felt like she hit a wall; she was seeing visions of Steve’s shield hit on Tony’s suit. The look on Steve’s face, his blue eyes pleading. Y/N put a palm on her head, where a scar has healed.

“Ah!” she screamed, stammering, Thor caught her. She felt blood streaming from her head but when she reached to touch it there was nothing.

“I h-hate how I-I still love you even though you’ve hurt me so much,” it echoed through her ears, suddenly it was all coming back to her. He was the one she told this to.

“Steve. It’s Steve. I love him, it’s him” she pulled herself away from Thor. “Let me out, I need to save him.” Clint looked on, not knowing what to do. The building’s already broken down, gray as covered the sky.  

“I know, Steve.” She blinked, her tears now coming rapidly, “I-I kn-know even if you can’t s-say it.”

“Clint, open the damn door.” She hissed, her head still aching.

“Y/N, it’s not safe out there,”

“Please,” she stared into Clint’s eyes. Without waiting for his reponse, she shot a shard of ice hitting the controls perfectly, the door opening, the wind rushing violently. She jumped off and her powers surged through her. She raised her arms in front and her feet landed on a mountain of ice, tall enough to touch the sky. She knew the risk of using too much of her powers, but she didn’t care. She slid faster than she’s ever did. Her heart was raising, “come on, Y/N.” she scolded herself for being too slow even when she’s almost as fast as Pietro ever was. Her tears froze and dropped heavy like bullets.

The moment her feet landed on the remnants of the building, her heart pounded harder. Where could he be? She ran all around, clenching her fists as a roar of wind made a path for her, clearing the stone and anything that could cover anything.

“Steve?!” she cried out. “Please! Come back to me, please.” Her last words, almost a whisper. She was whimpering, she didn’t want to lose hope even when the whole world would tell her to.

She saw something glimmer under the ashes, blue and red. Her breath hitched, it was his shield. “Steve!” she ran towards it, dug it out of the rubble and there he was. His face covered in black powder, his suit in muck. Her heart leaped out of her chest, she grabbed his body and hugged him tight, rocking him slowly. “Wake up, please wake up.”

She pulled his hand and put it on her cheek, “It’s me, Y/N. I remember you now. Please, come back to me.” Tears are falling on his suit like rain. “It’s me, Steve. Me.” She repeated her words as if her identity is the antidote to bring him back to life. She was losing hope. She put his body down, raised her hands as the gravel around him flew off, giving him space. She was desperate, she pressed on his chest and started pumping. Her hands were shaking, and she hated herself for being so feeble at a time like this. “Stay with me, I won’t ever forget you. I promise, just wake up.”

He eyes were still closed. She was panicking, her palms on his chest became fists. She was hitting him hard, desperate. “Steve!” she growled, “Don’t leave me My heart was only ever yours to break.” She was huffing. “Help!” she shouted into the distance, her fists hitting Steve’s chest. She hit him again, nothing; and again- nothing. And agai---.

He coughed, “Y/N,” the first words that escaped his lips. She pulled him close, his head on her chest, the sudden contact stunning Steve.

“Oh my god.” She breathed.

“I’m okay, don’t cry.” He spoke, his breath tickling her neck.

“I love you, Steve.” Steve couldn’t believe it. Was he dead? This was too good to be true.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.” A tear shed from his eye as he heard her say that. 

“I wished I could’ve done that sooner.”

“What?”

“Almost die.”

She hugged him closer, an audible squirm from her lips. Steve let out a laugh even when they’re covered in dirt, he was home. She was home.

“I still have a beautiful woman to take out dancing.”

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[just-another-winchester]

My Supernatural Origin Story!

I know it’s getting close to the time where everyone goes to bed, so I wanna send you all goodnight messages in thanks.

I had no clue when I started watching Supernatural that I would meet so many wonderful people. I want to explain to you what happened, if you are interested, read on! If no, then that’s fine, there are thanks beneath the cut as well.

I will honestly be amazed if you guys don’t get bored reading this.

I am a strong advocate of sharing the love. And that is something I haven’t come in contact with a lot.

My family is not physically loving people, I am a person who enjoys physical love. And no, I do not mean sex, I mean hugs, cuddles, kisses. Stuff like that, and my family, they don’t do that, especially now that I am an adult, they think I shouldn’t need it.

I got my first job when I was 17. I was hired as a Crew Member at McDonalds. I worked from 11 am to 4 pm most days, the only day I always had off was Sunday.

I loved my job, I got along well with my co workers mostly, and the customers were generally not that bad. I was very new to the world since I had been home schooled most of my life, so I generally had a positive opinion of everything, even when I dealt with a rude or mean customer, I shrugged it off and thought, ‘oh well’

When winter came around I switched my hours to full time because I wasn’t willing to walk in the cold.I worked 6 am to 2 pm. I slowly became more and more exhausted, less willing to do things. Before I knew it winter was over, but I liked my paycheck, so I kept the hours.

The job and the people slowly began to weigh me down, I was always exhausted, and I didn’t want to do anything.

Finally, in March of 2016, my grandmother passed away while I was at work. I have never experienced a worse feeling than when my brother, who was working there as well at the time, came up to me and told me that my grandmother was gone.

My grandma was my rock, she was my happy place, when I went to her house, all was well with the world, I was allowed to be a child, I goofed off and had fun. It was grandma’s house, but it was home.

When she passed, that was when my world came crashing down. Anxiety and depression set it, something I had never dealt with before. I was always a cheerful kid, while my brother and cousins had a song that my grandma would sing to them, I had my own special song, You Are My Sunshine, because I was always happy.

After I lost her, that song was a bitter reminder of what I wasn’t anymore.

I finally ended up leaving the job on good terms after a panic attack. My GM had anxiety issues as well so she was very kind and understanding.

I began looking for a job after a few months, and it was a struggle to find one, no one was hiring, but I couldn’t go back to McDonalds. It was just too much stress, I needed to ease into something, not go back to what caused a lot of problems in the first place.

Finally, I came to a book bindary that had employed my older brother over the summer for the past three years as summer help for college kids.

I wasn’t in college, but I was hired on full time as a processor. Ya know the stickers, bar codes and such you see on library books? That’s what I did. Seems easy right? It was, for the most part.

The problem was speed. We had a quota, and for me, someone who needs to take her time otherwise I’ll screw up everything, that was problematic.

Is was here though, that I found friends. Good friends. I had my first ever girls night out with a couple of the women from this job.

This was the start of Supernatural for me.

I saw one of my coworkers wearing a shirt with the words Carry On My Wayward Son, and a sillhouette of Sam and Dean. I didn’t know about Kansas, but I had heard the song before, so I asked if that was the band.

Then, low and behold, the community gathered around! Okay, so it was only three people at the time. But it still counts!

They said it was a shirt for this show called Supernatural. I’ve always been interested in creepy sorts of stuff, so I asked what it was about.

After it was explained to me, I decided it sounded interesting. I was curious, and wanted to know more. 

I had been in the middle of watching Prison Break, and decided when I was finished with that, Supernatural was next on my list, because I was needing something to watch anyway.

A couple weeks later, I was fired. Unfairly by my opinion, and the opinion of all of my co workers.

They all found it unfair, my co worker Teresa, she trained me, she had told me for a fact that I was not the slowest person there, and the problem was, I was fired because they said I was just too slow.

I had been happy while at this job. But when I was fired, the depression set back in, I was sad, and discouraged.

Then I remembered Supernatural. I decided, I had plenty of free time, let’s check it out!!

I looked up a trailer for the first season, and... I loved it. I don’t remember my original thoughts or feelings exactly, I just thought it looked interesting. So I said Yes to the dress!

I found the first episode, and watched it, and before I knew it the seasons were flying by.

I’m a lot like Sam, but I’m more of a Dean girl, because there is nothing I love more than a big brother. Dean’s entire personality made me wanna cling to him.

I cried, I laughed, I got angry, I got happy. The show was my solace in a way, it made me happy, it made me forget the crap that was happening.

I had already been on a writing site, and as I was finishing the first season, I decided I wanted to roleplay. I created a character, that I, to this day, am very proud of. Her name was Hali.

Through this character I got out all my feelings, all my bad negative thoughts and emotions. I worked them through her, I became Hali when I was alone, I turned myself into her and used her to work my way through my struggles, through my hurt.

My first encounter with a member of the supernatural family was @blue-heaven-winchestergirl83. I roleplayed with her where my character was Hali, and hers was a nephilim named Kass, who was easily incredible.

I rped through the rest of my time watching, right up until the season 13 premiere, and I loved it. Carmine was and is my friend. She guided me through the beginning of my love of Supernatural.

There wasn’t too much love for the show there however. I wanted to read more! Especially, Dean smut. Cause I mean... come on, this guy.

And so, I searched on google for some links to fanfiction, it always led me to tumblr when I was interested in 5sos or 1d fics, but I had never been interested in tumblr, it was just... confusing to me. I didn’t understand it, and I am not fond of new things.

Finally, I read through all of @theinsandoutsofcastiel masterlist. OH MY GOD I loved it all, so I finally decided to start using it.

I had already created a tumblr previously, but hardly used it because I wasn’t much into what I had created it for.

I logged on, and we were in business.

I wrote a fic, that was honestly so many kinds of bad that I am probably going to end up taking it down and rewriting it. But with that, spawned something.

The first memorable encounter I had was with @impala-dreamer, I started following her cause I liked that she said Castiel was her patronous, I thought she was funny. Then I got through her masterlist and I decided she was also pretty damn cool.

I loved her and her work, so, one day I sent an ask, wondering if she would review one of my fics, and she did, and it gave me hope.

She helped me through a lot of things, she was patient with me, and kind to me. Even though I know I annoyed the crap out of her, because I annoy the crap out of myself.

With Beka, I learned a lot about tumblr, I became more comfortable with it. I joined a couple challenges, and that got me more likes and followers. She reblogged my fic, I believe it was about removing plastic from a turkey. 

I made a post, telling her about how grateful I was to her. And from that, came Amanda.

I don’t even remember how @amanda-teaches and I fully began talking, unsure which of us started it, but it doesn’t matter, cause Amanda, she’s my people. She is a constant ray of sunshine and I love her with all my tiny little heart.

She beta’s my fics, she helps me through them, she lets me rant at her about ideas, and she’s just so incredibly patient with me. She is still, and hopefully always will be, one of my closest friends.

@queen-of-deans-booty is another one I don’t fully remember meeting, I remember loving her so much, she was so sweet and I just loved her writing. I left her an anon ask, I was getting down on myself, and she was kind and patient with me, she told me it was safe to come off anon, and then, she allowed me to put her on my Dream Team, or forevers list.

She reblogged and commented on the first chapter of my series You’re Not Alone. I still read that on bad days, to remind me that I can still do good.

With that, came a flood of love. It spiked me to more followers, more likes, more reblogs. I was more noticed.

I don’t remember how I came to know @katymacsupernatural, but I will never deny it was one of the best things ever. Undeniable Heat was what I found of hers. I loved it, with all my heart, it was incredible and I immediately wanted in. Her story inspired me to write my imaginary world where Jensen and Jared are my honorary brothers, where Dani and Gen are my best friends, and where Misha is just a constant goof of a great friend.

I love writing it, even though Im not comfortable sharing it yet. Her inspiration to write it aided me a lot, she was so incredible, and then one night, she opened her inbox, and I pulled a full frontal attack.

I bombarded her with stupid little poems, goofy things and just me being a dork. I told her I was kidnapping the Winchesters, and for the next few weeks that was just our thing. It made me so happy. She was the first person I was comfortable not doing anon with, because she played along, and made me happy.

And thus struck up that friendship, which, wow... has done more for me than I can say. She and Amanda are what I call my butter pumpkins. And let me tell you, that it the highest honor.

Katy, you are constant and wonderful.

Since then, I have gained more than 200 followers, at this moment I have 243.

I was lucky enough to meet @becs-bunker, @sillesworldofwriting in a way through my fic called Just A Touch, which was a fic I wasn’t even proud of. I got such a roar of feedback from that fic, and it was at a time where I needed it most.

After that I met @thing-you-do-with-that-thing, and I love her to pieces because I see her and I see a strong, and brave person. She reminded me that you don’t have to take crap. She showed me how to stand up for someone, and for myself.

I don’t think I can say enough about the people who have helped me on this site. But to all of you who I have tagged, and will tag.

I’m sorry if I don’t have much to say about you, but you all mean more to me than I can say. Thank you for sharing the love, thank you for being there.

Thank you for helping me feel like family.

The #spnfamily, it’s one of the best things that’s happened to me. Through all the hate I have recieved today, I laugh at it, because I know I have all of you. So thank you.

@manawhaat @polina-93 @cassieraider @dizwinchester @babypieandwhiskey @nightlyinsomnious @cass-trash @ladywinchester1967

And anyone else I may have forgotten. I love you, your support is keeping me going everyday.

You will never know, how much it means.

#not spn #personal stuff #kinda my origins #thanks for reading

[studiobowesart]

Music, Time and Long-Term Thinking: Brian Eno Expands the Vocabulary of Human Feeling

Brian Eno’s creative activities defy categorization. Widely known as a musician and producer, Eno has expanded the frontiers of audio and visual art for decades, and posited new ways of approaching creativity in general. He is a thinker and speaker, activist and eccentric. He formulated the idea of the Big Here and Long Now—a central conceptual underpinning of The Long Now Foundation, which he helped found with Stewart Brand and Danny Hillis in 01996. Eno’s artistic career has often dealt closely with concepts of time, scale, and, as he puts it in the liner notes to Apollo“expanding the vocabulary of human feeling.”

Ambient and Generative Art

Brian Eno coined the term ‘ambient music’ to describe a kind of music meant to influence an ambience without necessarily demanding the listener’s full attention. The notes accompanying his 01978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports differentiate it from the commercial music produced specifically for background listening by companies such as Muzak, Inc. in the mid-01900s. Eno explains that ambient music should enhance — not blanket — an environment’s acoustic and atmospheric characteristics, to calming and thought-inducing effect. It has to accommodate various levels of listening engagement, and therefore “must be as ignorable as it is interesting” (Eno 296).

Ambient music can have a timeless quality to it. The absence of a traditional structure of musical development withholds a clear beginning or end or middle, tapping into a sense of deeper, slower processes. It lets you “settle into time a little bit,” as Eno said in the first of Long Now’s SALT talks. As TimeMagazine writes, “the theme of time, foreshortened or elongated, is a defining feature of Eno’s musical and visual adventures. But it takes a long lens, pointing back, to bring into focus the ways in which his influence has seeped into the mainstream.”

Eno’s use of the term ‘ambient’ was, however, a product of a long process of musical development. He had been thinking specifically about this kind of music for several years already, and the influence of minimalist artists such as Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass had long shaped his musical ideas and techniques. He also drew on many other genres, including Krautrockbands such as Tangerine Dream and Can, whose music was contemporaneous and influential in Eno’s early collaborations with Robert Fripp, e.g. (No Pussyfooting). While their music might not necessarily fall into the genre ‘ambient,’ David Sheppard notes that “Eno and Fripp’s lengthy essays shared with Krautrock a disavowal of verse/chorus orthodoxy and instead relied on an essentially static musical core with only gradual internal harmonic developments” (142). In his autobiography, Eno also points to developments in audio technology as key in the development of the genre, as well as one particularly insightful experience he had while bedridden after an accident:

New sound-shaping and space-making devices appeared on the market weekly (and still do), synthesizers made their clumsy but crucial debut, and people like me just sat at home night after night fiddling around with all this stuff, amazed at what was now possible, immersed in the new sonic worlds we could create.

And immersion was really the point: we were making music to swim in, to float in, to get lost inside.

This became clear to me when I was confined to bed, immobilized by an accident in early 01975. My friend Judy Nylon had visited, and brought with her a record of 17th-century harp music. I asked her to put it on as she left, which she did, but it wasn’t until she’d gone that I realized that the hi-fi was much too quiet and one of the speakers had given up anyway. It was raining hard outside, and I could hardly hear the music above the rain — just the loudest notes, like little crystals, sonic icebergs rising out of the storm. I couldn’t get up and change it, so I just lay there waiting for my next visitor to come and sort it out, and gradually I was seduced by this listening experience. I realized that this was what I wanted music to be — a place, a feeling, an all-around tint to my sonic environment.

It was not long after this realization that Eno released the album Discreet Music, which he considers to be an ambient work, mentioning a conceptual likeness to Erik Satie’s Furniture Music. One of the premises behind its creation was that it would be background for Robert Fripp to play over in concerts, and the title track is about half an hour long — as much time as was available to Eno on one side of a record.

It is also an early example in his discography of what later became another genre closely associated with Eno and with ambient: generative music. In the liner notes — which include the story of the broken speaker epiphany — he writes:

Since I have always preferred making plans to executing them, I have gravitated towards situations and systems that, once set into operation, could create music with little or no intervention on my part.

That is to say, I tend towards the roles of planner and programmer, and then become an audience to the results.

This notion of creating a system that generates an output is an idea that artists had considered previously. In fact, in the 18th century even Mozart and others experimented with a ‘musical dice game’ in which the numerical results of rolling dice ‘generated’ a song. More relevant to Brian Eno’s use of generative systems, however, was the influence of 20th century composers such as John Cage. David Sheppard’s biography of Brian Eno describes how Tom Phillips — a teacher at Ipswich School of Art where Eno studied painting in the mid 01960s — introduced him to the musical avant garde scene with the works of Cage, Cornelius Cardew, and the previously mentioned minimalists Reich, Glass and Riley (Sheppard 35–41). These and other artists exposed Eno to ideas such as aleatory and minimalist music, tape experimentation, and performance or process-based musical concepts.

Eno notes Steve Reich’s influence on his generative music, acknowledging that “indeed a lot of my interest was directly inspired by Steve Reich’s sixties tape pieces such as Come Out) and It’s Gonna Rain” (Eno 332). And looking back on a 01970 performance by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Royal College of Art, Brian Eno highlights its impact on him:

This was one of the most extraordinary musical experiences of my life — sound made completely physical and as dense as concrete by sheer volume and repetition. For me it was like a viscous bath of pure, thick energy. Though he was at that time described as a minimalist, this was actually one of the most detailed musics I’d ever heard. It was all intricacy and exotic harmonics. (Sheppard 63–64)

The relationship between minimalism and intricacy, in a sense, is what underlies the concept of generative music. The artist designs a system with inputs which, when compared to the plethora of outputs, appear quite simple. Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain is, in fact, simply a single 1.8 second recording of a preacher shouting “It’s gonna rain!” played simultaneously on two tape recorders. Due to the inconsistencies in the two devices’ hardware, however, the recordings play at slightly different speeds, producing over 17 minutes of phasing in which the relationship between the two recordings constantly changes.

Brian Eno has taken this capacity for generative music to create complexity out of simplicity much further. Discreet Music (01975) used a similar approach, but started with recordings of different lengths, used an echo system, and altered timbre over time. The sonic possibilities opened by adding just a few more variables are vast.

This experimental approach to creativity is just one of many that Eno explored, including some non-musical means of prompting unexpected outputs. The same year that Discreet Music was released, he collaborated with painter Peter Schmidt to produce Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas.

The work is a set of cards, each one with an aphorism designed to help people think differently or to approach a problem from a different angle. These include phrases such as “Honour thy error as a hidden intention,” “Work at a different speed,” and “Use an old idea.” Schmidt had created something a few years earlier along the same lines that he called ‘Thoughts Behind the Thoughts.’ There was also inspiration to be drawn from John Cage’s use of the I Ching to direct his musical compositions and George Brecht’s 01963 Water Yam Box. Like a generative system, the Oblique Strategies provides a guiding rule or principle that is specific enough to focus creativity but general enough to yield an unknown outcome, dependent on a multitude of variables interacting within the framework of the strategy.

Three decades later, generative systems remained a central inspiration for Eno and a source of interesting cross-disciplinary collaboration. In 02006, he discussed them with Will Wright, creator of popular video game series The Sims, at a Long Now SALT talk:

Wright observed that science is all about compressing reality to minimal rule sets, but generative creation goes the opposite direction. You look for a combination of the fewest rules that can generate a whole complex world that will always surprise you, yet within a framework that stays recognizable. “It’s not engineering and design,” he said, “so much as it is gardening. You plant seeds. Richard Dawkins says that a willow seed has only about 800K of data in it.” — Stewart Brand

Brian Eno has always been interested in this explosion of possibilities, and has in recent years created generative art that incorporates both audio and visuals. He notes that his work 77 Million Paintings would take about 10,000 years to run through all of its possibilities — at its slowest setting. Long Now produced the North American premiere of 77 Million Paintings at Yerba Buena center for the Arts in 02007, and members were treated to a surprise visit from Mr. Eno who spoke about his work and Long Now.

Eno also designed an art installation for The Interval, Long Now’s cafe-bar-museum venue in San Francisco. “Ambient Painting #1” is the only example of Brian’s generative light work in America, and the only ambient painting of his that is currently on permanent public display anywhere.

Ambient Painting #1, by Brian Eno. Photo by Gary Wilson.

Another generative work called Bloom, created with Peter Chilvers, is available as an app.

Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations. — Generativemusic.com

Eno’s interest in time and scale (among other things) was shared by Long Now co-founder Stewart Brand, and they were in close correspondence in the years leading up to the creation of The Long Now Foundation. Eno’s 01995 diary, published in part in his autobiography, describes that correspondence in its introduction:

My conversation with Stewart Brand is primarily a written one — in the form of e-mail that I routinely save, and which in 1995 alone came to about 100,000 words. Often I discuss things with him in much greater detail than I would write about them for my own benefit in the diary, and occasionally I’ve excerpted from that correspondence. — Eno, ix

Out of Eno’s involvement with the establishment of The Long Now Foundation emerged in his essay “The Big Here and Long Now”, which describes his experiences with small-scale perspectives and the need for larger ones, as well as the artist’s role in social change.

This imaginative process can be seeded and nurtured by artists and designers, for, since the beginning of the 20th century, artists have been moving away from an idea of art as something finished, perfect, definitive and unchanging towards a view of artworks as processes or the seeds for processes — things that exist and change in time, things that are never finished. Sometimes this is quite explicit — as in Walter de Maria’s “Lightning Field,” a huge grid of metal poles designed to attract lightning. Many musical compositions don’t have one form, but change unrepeatingly over time — many of my own pieces and Jem Finer’s Artangel installation “LongPlayer” are like this. Artworks in general are increasingly regarded as seeds — seeds for processes that need a viewer’s (or a whole culture’s) active mind in which to develop. Increasingly working with time, culture-makers see themselves as people who start things, not finish them.

And what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life. We become our new selves first in simulacrum, through style and fashion and art, our deliberate immersions in virtual worlds. Through them we sense what it would be like to be another kind of person with other kinds of values. We rehearse new feelings and sensitivities. We imagine other ways of thinking about our world and its future.

[…] In this, the 21st century, we may need icons more than ever before. Our conversation about time and the future must necessarily be global, so it needs to be inspired and consolidated by images that can transcend language and geography. As artists and culture-makers begin making time, change and continuity their subject-matter, they will legitimise and make emotionally attractive a new and important conversation.

The Chime Generator and January 07003

Brian Eno’s involvement with Long Now began through his discussions with Stewart Brand about time and long-term thinking, and the need for a carefully crafted sonic experience to help The Clock evoke deep time for its visitors posed a challenge Eno was uniquely suited to take on.

From its earliest conception, the imagined visit to the 10,000-Year Clock has had aural experience at its core. One of Danny Hillis’ earliest refrains about The Clock evokes this:

It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium. —Danny Hillis

In the years of brainstorming and design that have molded this vision into a tangible object, a much more detailed and complicated picture has come into focus, but sound has remained central; one of the largest components of the 10,000-Year Clock will be its Chime Generator.

Rather than a bong per century, visitors to the Clock will have the opportunity to hear it chime 10 bells in a unique sequence each day at noon. The story of how this came to be is told by Mr. Eno himself in the liner notes of January 07003: Bell Studies for The Clock of the Long Now, a collection of musical experiments he synthesized and recorded in 02003:

When we started thinking about The Clock of the Long Now, we naturally wondered what kind of sound it could make to announce the passage of time. Bells have stood the test of time in their relationship to clocks, and the technology of making them is highly evolved and still evolving. I began reading about bells, discovering the physics of their sounds, and became interested in thinking about what other sorts of bells might exist. My speculations quickly took me out of the bounds of current physical and material possibilities, but I considered some license allowable since the project was conceived in a time scale of thousands of years, and I might therefore imagine bells with quite different physical properties from those we now know (Eno 3).

Bells have a long history of marking time, so their inclusion in The Clock is a natural fit. Throughout this long history, they’ve also commonly been used in churches, meditation halls and yoga studios to offer a resonant ambiance in which to contemplate a connection to something bigger, much as The Clock’s vibrations will help inspire an awareness of one’s place in deep time. Furthermore, bells were central to some early forms of generative music. While learning about their history, Eno found a vast literature on the ways bells had been used in Britain to explore the combinatorial possibilities afforded by following a few simple rules:

Stated briefly, change-ringing is the art (or, to many practitioners, the science) of ringing a given number of bells such that all possible sequences are used without any being repeated. The mathematics of this idea are fairly simple: n bells will yield n! sequences or changes. The ! is not an expression of surprise but the sign for a factorial: a direction to multiply the number by all those lower than it. So 3 bells will yield 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 changes, while 4 bells will yield 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24 changes. The ! process does become rather surprising as you continue it for higher values of n: 5! = 120, and 6! = 720 — and you watch the number of changes increasing dramatically with the number of bells. — Eno 4

Eno noticed that 10 bells in this context will provide 3,628,800 sequences. Ring one of those each day and you’ll be occupied for almost exactly 10,000 years, the proposed lifespan of The Clock.

Following this line of thinking, he imagined using the patterns played by the bells as a method of encoding the amount of time that had elapsed since The Clock had started ringing them. Writing in 02003, he says:

I wanted to hear the bells of the month of January, 07003 — approximately halfway through the life of the Clock.

I had no idea how to generate this series, but I had a good idea who would.

I wrote to Danny Hillis asking whether he could come up with an algorithm for the job. Yes, he wrote back, and in fact he could come up with an algorithm for generating all the possible algorithms for that job. Not having the storage space for a lot of extra algorithms in my studio, I decided to settle for just the one. — Eno 6

And so, the pattern The Clock’s bells will ring was set. Using a start point (02003 in this case), one can extrapolate the order in which the Bells will ring for a given day in the future. The title track of the album features the synthesized bells played in each of the 31 sequences for the month of January in the year 07003. Other tracks on the album use different algorithms or different bells to explore alternative possibilities; taken together, the album is distinctly “ambient” in Eno’s tradition, but also unique within his work for its minimalism and procedurality.

The procedures guiding the composition are strict enough that they can be written in computer code. A Long Now Member named Sean Burke was kind enough to create a webpage that illustrates how this works. The site allows visitors to enter a future date and receive a MIDI file of the chimes from that day. You can also download the algorithm itself in the form of a Perl script or just grab the MIDI data for all 10,000 years and synthesize your own bells.

If the bell ringing algorithm is a seed, in what soil can it be planted and expected to live its full life? Compact disks, Perl scripts and MIDI files have their uses, of course, but The Clock has to really last in a physical, functional sense for many thousands of years. To serve this purpose, the Chime Generator manifests the algorithm in stainless steel Geneva wheels rotating on bearings of silicon nitride.

Eno’s Chime Generator prototype. Photo by Because We Can

One of the first prototypes for this mechanism resides at The Interval. In its operation, one can see that the Geneva wheels rotate at different intervals because of their varying numbers of slots. Together, the Geneva wheels represent the ringing algorithm and sequentially engage the hammers in all 3.6 million permutations. For this prototype, the hammers strike Tibetan Bowl Gongs to sound the notes, but any type of bell can be used.

The full scale Chime Generator will be vertically suspended in the Clock shaft within the mountain. The Geneva wheels will be about 8 feet in diameter, with the full mechanism standing over seventy feet in height.

The bells for the full scale Chime Generator won’t be Tibetan Bowl Gongs like in the smaller prototype above. Though testing has been done within the Clock chamber to find its resonant frequency, the exact tuning and design of the Clock’s bells will be left until the chamber is finished and most of the Clock is installed in order to maximize their ability to resonate within the space.

Like much of Brian Eno’s work, the chimes in the 10,000-Year Clock draw together far-flung traditions, high and low tech, and science and art to create a meditative experience, unique in a given moment, but expansive in scale and scope. They encourage the listener to live and to be present in the moment, the “now,” but to feel that moment expanding forward and backward through time, literally to experience the “Long Now.”

Written by Austin Brown and Alex Mensing. Edited and updated by Ahmed Kabil.

Works Cited & Where to Learn More

Autobiography

Eno, Brian. A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary.London: Faber and Faber, 01996.

Biography

Sheppard, David. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno.London: Orion Books, 02008.

Talks

Talk on Generative Music for In Motion Magazine. June 01996.

“The Long Now,” Long Now SALT talk, November 02003.

“Playing With Time,” Long Now SALT talk with Will Wright, June 02006.

Brian Eno speaks in Moscow, 02011. via Austin Kleon.

“The Long Now, Now”, Long Now SALT talk, January 02014.

Articles

“The Big Here and Long Now” by Brian Eno for The Long Now Foundation. 01996.

“Light Years into the Future” by Michael Brunton for Time Magazine. November 02006.

“New Eno Music Gets ‘Generative’” by Noah Shachtman for Wired. October 02001.

New Yorker article on Long Now board member David Eagleman, including an experiment with Brian Eno on time & rhythm perception

01979 interview with Brian Eno by Lester Bangs

History and description of generative music, excerpted from dissertation by Norbert Herber.

“Brian Eno designs Sound and Light Art for The Interval at Long Now” by mikl em for Long Now blog. July 16, 02013.

This is the first of a series of articles, “Music, Time and Long-Term Thinking,” in which we will discuss music and musicians who have engaged various aspects of long-term thinking, both historically and in the contemporary scene.

from The Long Now Blog http://ift.tt/2ikIAgZ

#Feedly

[taetortotss]

stay  → min yoongi (1/?)

helloooo, marianne’s back with her angst and i decided to try something new. this is a series of stories revolving around the members of bangtan sonyeondan (featuring members of other groups too heh), a terror crisis, and you.

every story (note: not chapter!!) is connected, and this is the main story that’ll the whole series will revolve around. hope you enjoy this series! :)

loosely based on a dream that my friend had

stay → min yoongi (1/?) main story ; NON-CANON au angst

word count: 2.3k

Min Yoongi was infamously known as the school’s asshole. He was rude; he talked back to teachers, spoke rudely to others, usually flipping people off. He also had a potty mouth, slurs of curse words would be spewing out of his dirty mouth even for the smallest of things.

And he always seemed to be notoriously talked about by the entire school. You’d walk past the group of queen bees and they’d be talking about how good he was in bed (more specifically, how good his tongue was, but you’ll never let anyone know that you heard). You’d walk past the group of plain Janes, and they’ll be talking about how “cute” or how “handsome” he was. You’d walk past the group of nerds during lunch, and they’d be adoring his intelligence and dote on how “incredibly smart” he is.

With boys too, it seemed. The jocks usually complimented (or rather bitched about) his skills on the field.

Min Yoongi was always on the centre of attention.

But you, Y/L/N Y/N didn’t give two damns about him. Yes, you’ve heard countless gossips and rumours about the school’s heart-throbing asshole, but you couldn’t care less about the deeds he committed.

Unfortunately, even in your little group of friends, Min Yoongi was often a topic of discussion. Mainly because he broke your friend’s - called Nayeon - heart.

You knew about how his charisma and “dazzling” personality managed to sway your friend. You knew about how they started dating, and all the cute shit they did. And you also knew the downfall of their relationship, and how the relationship shattered into dozens of tiny smithereens.

This led to your perspective of him being negative. You thought of him as a player, a heartbreaker. But still, you couldn’t care less about him.

He probably doesn’t even acknowledge your existence, despite being in the same class as him.

He never disturbed you, thus, you had no reason to disturb him.

—

“Y/N, he’s staring again.”

Recently, according to Nayeon, Min Yoongi has been staring at you. She’s warned you multiple times not to let him get to you (as if, right?), but you’ve always convinced her that he was simply just looking past me. You’re nobody to him, remember?

Darting your eyes to his direction, your eyes met for a second, but he was quick to turn away and face his friends. He was accompanied by his two best friends, Kim Namjoon and Jung Hoseok. They might not be as talked about as Min Yoongi, both have had their equal share of rumours and stories.

Heck, Kim Namjoon even dated one of your friends before. It ended very badly.

Before your friends could press on further, the teacher entered the classroom, hands filled with an extremely thick stack of worksheets and everyone had to make their way to their designated seats.

—

Throughout the entire lesson, you felt a chill on your spine. Y’know, that instinct when you suspect someone is staring or watching you. And you had a pretty good guess who it was.

Min Yoongi sat a few seats vertically behind you. He has been caught (by your friends) looking at you.

You quickly turned your back when the teacher was writing some information on the board, and jackpot! Both of you shared awkward eye contact before Yoongi turned his eyes away.

His eyes were filled with something that didn’t scream ‘asshole’.

It was filled with fear.

—

Today was the day that completely changed the lives of you, and the thirty classmates that you’ve grown to appreciate (well, maybe except Min Yoongi). Funny, how it seemed like a perfectly average day. Average temperature, average classes, full attendance.

Your class, was the only class in the entire cohort, that had to stay back for extra classes. Being an advanced class, this was quite common, and not a surprise. Though it was quite troublesome and exhaustive, your class persevered, always wanting to excel in the upcoming examinations.

In the midst of doing mathematical questions, the teacher, Mr Park, was called out for some “business”. He picked up his phone, and went outside to answer a seemingly urgent call.

And that was when it began.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Initially, everyone didn’t think much of it at first. Majority of the class thought it was some immature student creating those sounds or being extremely inconsiderate by playing a video at an extreme volume. Even Min Yoongi called out something to the loud noises, thinking it was funny.

Then the intercom cracked up.

There was pin-drop silence.

“I wouldn’t find it funny if I were all of you,” the voice crackled. The voice was deep, and raspy, and had a hint of amusement lying beneath the rough exterior.

“The school’s on lockdown, and you’re the only thirty students left in this school.” You turned to face Nayeon, whose face was contorted into one of pure fear. Her eyes were wide, in disbelief to what her ears were hearing. You reached out your hand to grasp hers in an attempt to provide some comfort. Her hands were shaking.

The once serious, and quite relaxed atmosphere of the class has morphed into one of terror and fright. No one expected any of this. Some have left their seats to go to their friends, gripping each other in a weak attempt to grasp the situation.

Min Yoongi, who you expected to look smug, had his lips pressed in a thin line.

The intercom cracked up again.

“If you all want a higher chance at survival, you have to listen to every single thing that I say. Keep in mind that I can see everything that you are doing, so no acting funny.”

Your eyes darted to the security cameras - of course.

“My first instruction is fairly simple. Run. Leave the classroom.”

The voice on the intercom had this calm and relaxed layer to it, which made it all the more frightening.

And chaos erupted.

Everyone was rushing out of the classroom, not giving a second thought to their belongings and were running in circles. The more athletic ones were first, while the less athletic ones were trying.

There was pushing and pulling, and people tripping. Shouts filled the air, mostly shouts of frustration. If you were paying attention, you would’ve noticed the body of Mr Park lying on the floor, a gunshot wound in his chest and blood leaking from his mouth.

There was a countdown, to which you presumed was the amount of time your class had to leave the classroom.

You were one of the last few to leave the classroom, and you noticed how the slowest person in your class, was rooted to the ground. She was like a deer in headlights, she was petrified.

Some of your classmates were shouting out at her, but she seemed to be frozen.

You turned back to the classroom, with the aim of wanting to help her, but the countdown reached ‘1’.

This was the kind of scene you’d expect to see in a movie cinema, in an action movie, but right now, you were wishing that this was just some dream, some movie.

You never expected to see your classmate die right in front of your eyes.

There was the sound of the gunshot, and right before you knew it, her body crumpled to the ground and a pool of blood started to form around her body.

“Twenty-nine.”

—

Most of you (at least half of you) were huddled around the school’s assembly area. Some of your classmates had fled, to God knows where - probably into hiding -.

Looking around, you noticed that the school was on actual lockdown. The metal shutters leading to the school’s exit and entrance was down, meaning that escape was impossible.

The pin-drop silence was still in the air.

Some were crying, some looked completely terrified, others had a straight face as if they were trying or unable to process the situation that was unfolding.

Nayeon was sobbing, her face against your shoulders. Your shirt was getting soaked from her tears, and you were busy rubbing circles on your back.

Suddenly, the dreaded intercom came to life.

“Congratulations! Twenty nine of you have followed my instructions and are now still alive. Now, there are guns hidden everyone in the school compound. It’s kill or be killed.”

The moment the announcement ended, the once quiet mood that surrounded the twenty nine of you, has broken out into full discord and disarray.

Some immediately fled. Kim Taehyung and his boyfriend Jeon Jungkook were seen running towards the nearest staircase. The girl clique was seen running to the school cafeteria.

And in the corner of your eye, you saw it.

“Jinyoung has a gun!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Nayeon was suddenly separated from you; she ran off, leaving you.

“I am not dying, you fucking hear me? I am not dying!” an animalistic growl escaped Jinyoung’s lips and he proceeded to press the trigger again. Park Jinyoung has cracked under the situation and has broken.

You grabbed Kim Yugyeom, and ran away, not wanting to die in the hands of the crazed Park Jinyoung.

“Twenty-four.”

—

Kim Yugyeom was known as the class’ clown. He was funny, playful, boisterous, and a whole lot of other things. He liked to make people laugh, he liked to annoy his best friends, and did not deserve what he had coming.

Despite the life-or-death situation that the remaining twenty plus of you were facing, Yugyeom was still trying to make light of the situation and was trying to make the mood less heavy.

“It could be just a large scale prank.”

“I went to the zoo one day, and it was empty, except for one dog. It was a Shih Tzu.”

“Y/N,” he would drag your name, “it’s alright.”

You appreciated his efforts in trying to make you feel less terrified, but trying to think that there was no crisis wouldn’t get rid of the crisis at all.

Passing by the block of classrooms, your eagle eye noticed that one of the fire hose reel containers seemed to have been tampered with.

“Yugyeom, wait.”

Flipping open the opening of the container, both you and Yugyeom gasped in horror at what was planted in the container.

In its full monstrosity, the black metal was placed so intelligently in a place where only those with sharp eyes would’ve noticed.

“I’m not touching it, Yugyeom, let’s go,” you started to walk ahead, but Yugyeom stood in his place, staring at the sleek, black metal that could ruin one’s life in a heartbeat.

“Yugyeom,” you started, but he interrupted.

“That guy said that there were guns placed all around the school, and that we have to kill or be killed. What if we have to kill if we come across one? Would we die if we don’t shoot?”

You stood in silence, heart racing.

“Y/N, I don’t want to die,” he looked you in the eye in an extremely serious manner.

Suddenly, you wished he was sprouting out lame jokes.

He pointed the trigger at your head.

“Yugyeom,” you tried again.

“Kim Yugyeom, shoot. If you don’t, we’ll shoot you instead.”

Tears sprang in his eyes; he looked like a lost child, not knowing what he was doing. He was shaking, his hands were unsteady.

“Kim Yugyeom, last chance.”

His lips were trembling, you could hear how heavy his breathing was.

“Y/N? What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef,” he let out a forced laugh, put down the gun and flashed you a small smile.

Simultaneously, the gunshot came and, boom!

“Twenty-three.”

You were all alone now.

—

The numbers slowly continued to dwindle and it was now at “twenty”. Somehow you were still alive, walking aimlessly around the fourth level of the school compound. You wondered how many of your friends were still alive, what their state of mind, where they are.

But also, being alone, you wondered who was still alive, how such an average day turned a complete 360 degree turn and became such a terror event, how some of your bubbly, wonderful classmates, have turned into murderers within the hour.

Min Yoongi came to mind a couple of times, you wondered where he could be.

Or who was the mastermind behind that dreadful intercom.

Your mind was full of unanswered questions, and scenarios that could possibly happen, that you were starting to lose awareness of your surroundings. You thought of going back to your classroom, and getting some of your items that could be of use in this situation.

Your mind was so deep in thought that you couldn’t hear the echoing footsteps behind you, making his or her way closer and closer to your unsuspecting being.

You didn’t notice, until it hit you. In the stomach.

The tumultuous, deafening, echo of the shot brought you back to your senses. And it was in your state of shock that you didn’t feel anything.

Until you looked down.

A blood spot was forming on your once neat, and ironed uniform and did it hurt like a gigantic bitch.

Was this the end? Are you dying? Who was it?

Your vision started to blur, and everything was starting to get hazy and dizzy. The world around you was spinning.

The last thing you heard, before crumpling on the ground was a bunch of curse words, and heavy footsteps running towards you.

“You stupid fucker!”

Another gunshot. Boom!

“Y/N? Y/N!”

Your eyes started to close. You felt pressure on your wound, as if someone was trying to stop the blood flow.

“Y/L/N Y/N, stay with me, stay with me!”

That was the first time Min Yoongi asked you to stay.

#bts angst #bangtan #bts #bangtan angst #bangtan fic #bangtan fanfic #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #suga #min yoongi #yoongi angst #suga angst #non canon au #suga fanfic #yoongi fanfic #bts scenario #bangtan scenario #bangtan sonyeondan

[writingsofawanderingwonderer]

Fixing “Genius Jerk” Characters

This is a follow up to this previous article I wrote.

Okay, so I've been seeing several articles, academic thesis essays, Twitter threads, and thought-pieces on the idea that TV geniuses in stories these days are smart, and use this as an excuse to act like a jerk. Works like BBC Sherlock, House MD, and Rick and Morty were mentioned.

What's disappointed me quite a bit is that I haven't really come across a piece that suggests solutions to this growing cliche. There's been (really good and thoughtful) explorations on why it started and why it's problematic, but nothing along the lines of, "Dear writers, this is how you avoid this writing pitfall."

So since a lot of great writers have covered the other aspects, I'll try to delve into this particular area.

First, some ground rules on my perspective on which genius-type characters fit into this trope, and where. Think of it like a spectrum or greys, rather than black-and-white:

- I can't judge House MD properly. I tried watching the series, but I couldn't get into in. It's super-weird to see Hugh Laurie play an American when I'm soooo used to seeing him in Jeeves & Wooster and A Bit of Fry & Laurie.

- I still stand by my idea that Sherlock is more of a grump than a jerk. He's anti-social, and I think the world needs such people. Grumps are honest. Brutally-honest. No one likes to be the first one to yell, "The Emperor has no clothes!" * but the grumps of the world do it for us.

*(Or in this case, "The police are useless!")

To me, Sherlock's case is not so much like "being stuck in line at the cashier w/ someone using a check," so much as "watching a healthy person throw their health away (and burn their money away) by smoking. Also, they're smoking next to a 'no smoking' sign, a baby carriage, a puppy, a person using a medical breathing apparatus, and seriously, why is no one else but the grump pointing out thatthere'ssomethingwrongwiththis?"

Is it a feeling of superiority? Yes, but it's a feeling placed on a character that should know better. Not a character who is "just not a genius."

Maybe it's also because I find Sherlock's comments funny, so I give it a pass (I'm pretty sure everyone in the audience laughed when he shouted at the police, "Where is her case?! Did she eat it?"). I like to think there's more to it than that, however.

As an example of what I mean, look at his interactions in an early scene in the first episode:

- Calls Sergant Donovan out on her unprofessional behaviour.

- Also, she calls Sherlock names first. In front of Watson. After being told that Lestrade (her boss) that Sherlock was called in to help her.

- Sherlock gets frustrated that the police are acting incompetent. It is, after all, their job to solve mysteries. Sherlock volunteers and is not paid by them.

When your police are these guys, there's a problem.

I don't think Sherlock ever crosses the line into being a jerk rather than an honest grump, but that might just be me.

- Rick crosses the line. He's a jerk just to be a jerk. He believes that being nice is what "less-smart people do to hedge their bets." If anything, Rick's attitude hinders him because (if you think about this logically) if you're nice to a person, they'll likely want to help you back. If you're rude to the person, they'll try to actively brick-wall you (like, you know when someone rudely asks you for directions, so instead of giving directions to them at your normal speed, you try to explain the directions in the slowest, most complicated way possible in the hopes that they'll be late for whatever they're trying to get to, and then they hopefully learn their lesson and ask for directions more politely next time? It's like that).

I'm getting a wee bit off-track. Moving on...

- Henry (from The Book of Henry) also crosses the line. Folded Ideas did a great postmortem video that touches upon why Henry comes off as unlikable in the film, even though the film tries to establish that he's popular at his school.

Okay, now that that's outta the way, I can give some suggestions on how to avoid this trope.

Actually, I'll have to quickly give some reasons why this trope exists, and why it feels recent.

A long time ago--we're talkin', fairytale-era of storytelling here--physical strength was seen as a more obvious strength. So to teach children/the audience that strengths of intelligence, the hero of a story would be a trickster who used their intelligence to get out of a dangerous situation and/or solve the main conflict.

However, with the Internet and modern-conveniences, it's now actually reversed: Being smart is seen as more important than having muscle. Even action films tend to have the hero save the day through some sort of "trick," using a plan, improvising a plan, or exercising intellectual strategy.

So, how would a writer remedy this? Well, having social skills is also very important, so instead of making the hero "smart by physically weak," make them "smart but socially-awkward."

However, this became a problem when people started to see social awkwardness as endearing and likeable. Even to other characters. Adorkable, you might say. I think the breaking-point for audiences across the globe was Bella Swan’s clumsiness being framed as her main flaw. Being awkward became a strength rather than a weakness.

So, what were writers' solution to this new problem? What was the next step in the evolution of the archetypal genius?

Make them smart, but also a jerk.

Ah. Here we are now.

"I am not good at people skills, but I'm smart and that should be rewarded."

Oh dear.

Now, some writers have gotten around this by implying that the hero will become less selfish and more selfless as the story progresses. It's their character arc. Rick and Morty and BBC Dirk Gently are examples of this, but it raises a possible problem: What will their weakness be if they lose this flaw? Will they turn into a flawless--and therefore, less deep--character?

But until I see these character arcs fully come into fruition (and since BBC Dirk Gently was cancelled, that seems unlikely), we won't know if they'll feel flawless and boring.

With genius jerks, there's also this sense of theme. Something like, "Everyone else is a sheep. I dance to the beat of a different drum, so I'm better than them." Which is something that, as I grow older, I find less and less... charming. (It's also a mindset that I'll hopefully explore more deeply in my upcoming detective games.)

I get why it's a popular idea. And I get why I loved it so much when I was a lot younger...

When you're in school, you feel different from other students because you all have different tastes and are forced to stay in close proximity to one another for several years. You feel like the only outsider because you feel like everyone else is hanging out with everyone else. "Everyone else is a sheep."

But as you get older, you realise that just about everyone else was feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time. It now becomes, "There's no such thing as a 'normal, average' human. We all have a story."

There are still jerks and idiots out there, but you'll find that just because you didn't see a stranger as eccentric or outstanding, that doesn't make them a sheep.

Oh, by the way, the above is also linked to a cliche I'm getting rather sick of where a writer/character automatically thinks that if they wear a kooky/colourful outfit, that automatically makes them an eccentric character. I'm sorry, but just trying to copy the Fourth Doctor's outfit does not make your character have a personality like him too. It's the equivalent of designers who think that just sticking some gears on something will automatically make it Steampunk. As Sir Terry Pratchett put it, "It takes more than heavy mascara and a pale complexion to cross the divide."

The Fourth Doctor. Not just a colourful scarf.

Okay, okay, I'll try to stay on-topic...

Ahem.

Another problem is that the detective/scientist/genius/etc can only be as smart as their writer. That's why you end up with episodes of 2016 MacGyver solving problems in really dumb illogical ways: The writers probably don't have a bachelor's degree in physics and chemistry.

You know, that thing MacGyver is supposed to have?

I really need to write a review for 2016 MacGyver, it was so disappointing compared to 1985 MacGyver.

Oh, right. Back to genius jerks.

So let's sum up the problems of writing genius jerks:

- It can make the character insufferably unlikable.

- It creates the theme, "I am not good at people skills, but I'm smart and that should be rewarded," into the story.

- It creates the theme, "Everyone else is a sheep."

- It's becoming overdone.

These are the reasons why it's hard to avoid the genius jerk trope:

- If they're a genius, them need to have a flaw to counter-balance that.

- Being socially-awkward (rather than a jerk) is no longer seen as a true character flaw.

- Fully-removing the "jerk" aspect from the character (through a character arc) makes them flawless (boring).

And now, for the writers out there, here are some ways to solve this problem:

- Go back to making the genius hero's flaw being not physically-strong:

-- The problem with this is that their foil character (read as: their partner) is usually the physically-strong one. So having the genius become physically-strong can wreck their relationship dynamic. They are meant to complete each other.

- Make the genius' flaw being a coward:

-- Wheatley's portrayal in "Blue Sky" (Portal 2) is a brilliant example of this. He's not the brightest bulb, but he can hack terminals very well and knows the workings of the lab facility better than Portal 2's protagonist, Chell. He's so cowardly, he tries to leave Chell to die near the beginning of the plot. But by the end, he becomes willing to give up everything for her. 

-- Johnny Powell (The Darkness II) is also a good example. He's an expert in darkness relics (magical objects you collect throughout the game so that he can identify them), but he's very meek (one of the early missions requires you to rescue him). However, near the end of the game, he actually gets to save you instead.

- Make the genius book-smart, but not street-smart:

-- Maybe they've studied in an academy in a safe, secluded part of the story's world, away from the main conflict of the plot. Maybe they're young and inexperienced, but have self-taught themselves some very useful knowledge. Either way, the genius is lacking in experience, so even though they're smart, they're not quiet cut-out for the dangerous situations they'll need to face.

- They're smart and nice, but evil-aligned:

-- You know how I've said that grumpy doesn't equal being a jerk? Well, being nice and polite doesn't equal being good.

-- Raven from my favourite noir film, This Gun For Hire is an example of this. He's a rare example of a noir protagonist who doesn't start out as a detective. He's a gun-for-hire assassin. He's introduced by shooting a man to steal documents for someone (who turns out to be a baddie). However, we also see Raven stop to help a little girl retrieve her toy ball before he leaves (which is very nice of him, considering that the police are coming and he has to get out of the building fast). He eventually not only brings justice by solving the mystery, but he also decided to switch to the good side.

Anything I’m missing? Let me know!

#series #films #animation

[recentanimenews]

Fate/Stay Night's Cooler, Edgier Brother You've Never Watched

  A frail girl in a white dress walks to the edge of a tall building. Soothing music plays over ethereal vocals as grainy images of a butterfly appear. Another cut back to the girl, this time lying dead on the sidewalk. This is the sequence that plays during the opening credits to the first Garden of Sinners movie. It’s a strange way to introduce a story, but a perfect glimpse into what The Garden of Sinners is going to be like. Across its eight movies and two OVAs, The Garden of Sinners is dark, beautiful, challenging, dense, confusing, thoughtful, and heavy, sometimes all at once. It’s by no means an easy series to watch, but it’s also a one-of-a-kind experience that shouldn’t be missed.

  Though The Garden of Sinners itself isn’t very well known, its creator has made quite a name in the anime world: Kinoko Nasu. Before he wrote Fate/Stay Night, which has since spawned a massive franchise, Nasu wrote and self-published The Garden of Sinners (known in Japan as Kara no Kyokai) as a series of novels, which Ufotable (a studio now known for its adaptations of Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero) later adapted into a movie series with a soundtrack by the legendary Yuki Kajiura. The Garden of Sinners has an all-star team behind it, no doubt, and they were clearly giving it their all across the board.

This background is, in part, what makes The Garden of Sinners so unique. Every aspect of The Garden of Sinners — the animation, the art, the music, the writing — is excellent on its own. But combined, they’re something else. The Garden of Sinners is an incredibly dense story. It’s very dialogue-heavy, the characters are intentionally difficult to figure out at first, and the plot is told out of order. In spite of that, its haunting atmosphere and quiet beauty keep the story anchored, creating an otherworldly feeling that makes its stranger aspects feel more natural. It’s as though you’re wandering through a dream, a world where everything is just slightly skewed, but one that you can’t help but be drawn into. A dream where supernatural forces wander just below the surface, where a person’s psychological state can have very real impacts on the world. Sudden bursts of violence break up the beauty, but it retains that pull that promises answers right around the corner. It’s this feeling that gives even the story’s slowest moments a kind of haunting beauty that keeps you fully engaged.

  You’ll notice that I’ve avoided talking about what the story is actually about, and that’s because a proper synopsis would practically take a whole article on its own and would almost have to include spoilers. At a basic level, The Garden of Sinners is about a girl named Shiki — who has the ability to see and activate lines of death that represent the concept of death inherent in everything — and Kokutou, a perfectly ordinary boy who’s nonetheless drawn to something in Shiki. Each film is a seemingly stand-alone story, but it’s only when viewed together that you start to see how the puzzle fits together. Offhanded comments in early films come back as crucial plot points in later ones, and the overall themes of the story only become apparent at the end.

The Garden of Sinners isn’t an easy anime to watch by any means; it’s not the sort of series you can have on in the background while you’re doing something else. It demands every ounce of thought and focus its audience has, but gives something wonderful in exchange. I loved it the first time I saw it, but it’s only on rewatching it (several times) that I found myself appreciating the subtle details that I overlooked at first. Virtually every line of dialogue and every shot has some sort of meaning behind it, whether hidden plot information or extra details about the characters that add to your understanding of who they actually are. This is doubly important because Garden of Sinners is intentionally coy with its cast, keeping them emotionally distant until the seventh film, which also concludes the main plot.

The seventh movie, titled Murder Speculation Part B (...not nothing heart.), forces Shiki and Kokutou both to confront something that’s existed as an undercurrent from the very beginning: Shiki’s desire to kill. Kokutou, like any decent person, abhors murder but also loves Shiki, someone who’s obsessed with the idea. Everything about the film’s plot exists to emphasize their differences and the strain it puts on both. It’s an emotionally raw experience, full of unfulfilled feelings, frustrations, and shocking bursts of violence. It’s here that the series makes its mark, that it turns around and gives you the answers the other films have kept hidden. Everything about the film is cathartic to the extreme, a perfect capstone to The Garden of Sinners’ main arc.

  But that’s not all it has to offer. If you’ve seen any of the Fate adaptations, you’re probably familiar with Nasu’s fondness for digging into his characters’ psyches and using them to make broader philosophical points, a habit that’s front and center here. Each film has something meaningful to say, whether it’s about gender or how identities are constructed or what makes people connect. The Garden of Sinners was written in the late ‘90s, years before Fate/Stay Night, and showcases Nasu at his rawest. All of his idiosyncrasies are on display here: his formalistic dialogue, his complex magical systems, his fondness for philosophizing, and even some prototypes of characters who show up in Tsukihime and Fate. Though The Garden of Sinners is a radically different sort of story, it has a lot of the same fundamentals that Fate fans love (and even a few references to concepts that show up in Fate), so it’s perfect for fans craving more of Nasu’s work. Looking for supernatural action? No shortage of that here. Craving some character-driven philosophy? The Garden of Sinners has got you covered. Everything that makes Nasu such a great writer is present here, making it a perfect series for long-time fans and newcomers alike.

In spite of its quality, The Garden of Sinners hasn’t gotten the same level of recognition as Fate, partially because of limited availability in the US. But now that’s changed! The entire series is available for streaming right here on Crunchyroll, so now’s the perfect time to watch it! It’s a beautiful story presented with gorgeous animation and one of the best soundtracks from one of the best composers working in anime; everything about the series is fantastic across the board. Even if you’re just now getting into to Kinoko Nasu’s work, you owe it to yourself to check out The Garden of Sinners! You won’t be disappointed.

  Interested in watching The Garden of Sinners? Give it a watch and let me know what you think in the comments!

      Skyler loves writing and chatting about anime, and is always ready to gush about the latest One Piece chapter. Read more of his work at his blog apieceofanime.com and follow him on Twitter at Videogamep3.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[freegames66-blog1]

Run 3 Review

🔰 Information About Game Run 3 Unblocked.

Run 3 is the finale of endless runner game series - a series game very, very popular in the world. This game developed by Joseph Cloutier, with art, animation by Alex Ostroff and music by Jesse Valentine. It was published on June 5, 2014 and now run 3 has currently more than 20 playable side tunnels, 306 levels with 298 levels which are published and playable.

Same as run 1 and run 2, your mission in run 3 is to move your alien to dodge or jump over the holes in space and get to the end of the level safely. However, different from run 1 and run 2, there are some new features in the game run 3 I think you need to know:

·         Galaxy map: Shows your location in space compared to Earth.

·         Explore mode: A regular mode for beginners.

·         Infinite mode: A harder mode where you can collect power cells scattered throughout the roads.

·         Shop: A place where you can buy 11 different aliens’ items (some can be unlocked by clearing specific stages), and unlock other features.

·         Being able to login to Facebook, Twitter to save your score in infinite mode.

·         8 achievements for you to accomplish and receive power cells.

·         In the levels, there are grey cracked tiles which break away upon touch alongside every other grey cracked tiles that attached to it.

🎮 How To Play Run 3 Game

With the newbie, how to play run 3 or how to beat run 3 are the frequent question. Let’s me tell you, it is quiet very easy!

Using button left or right to move, space to jump, P to pause the game and R to reset the game. Also, you can change the game control keys by clicking on it.

🏅 Achievements

Achievements are an optional challenge in Run 3 and which make this game become so funny.

There are 75 achievements in Run 3 and You will receive them when finishing the mission. While the amount provided differs from one achievement to another, it is always between 50 and 1000 power cells, depending on the achievement's difficulty. And you can use the achievements you received to unlock new characters or using them for the next mission.

·         List of some achievements: A Breath of Fresh Nothing, A Bumpy Ride, A Destructive Loop, A Glimpse of New Places, A Journey of 1000 Light-Years, Angled Surface Enthusiast, Boldly Gone, Bunny Hop, Clever Bunny, Coming Full Circle, Crumbling Bridge, Dark Is Not Evil, Dizzy, Dodge the Squares, Duplicator's Lucky Number, Falling Grey Objects Ahead, Falling to Pieces, Figure Skater, Follow the Gray Brick Road, Frictionless, Frozen Bridge, Frozen Creek, Galactic Vandalism, Good Eye, Gotta Go Slow, Hasty, Hat Trick, I Found The Pattern, I Would Bounce 500 More, I'm Not Blue (Da Ba Dee), In a Hurry, Isn't That Cheating? Just Being Thorough, Keep It Simple, Landlubber, Light Is Not Good, Little Ramps, Living Superball, Memory Test, Narrow Focus, Painstaking, Planning Makes Perfect, Precise Jumper, Ramping Up, Rickety Scaffolding, Right Back Into the Air, Right Is Wrong, Saved by His Noodly Light, Slipping and Sliding to Victory, Snakes and Ladders, Stepping Stone Stepper, Stick the Landing, Straight Forward, Surgical, Tetrahedron Enthusiast, The Conscientious Lagomorph, The Conscientious Lizard, The Lazy Way, This Side Up, Thoroughly Lost, Too Lazy to Aim, Topaz Bridge, Topaz Snake, Unlimited Endurance, Variety Pack, Violation of Common Sense, Watch Your Antennae, We Will Survive, Well Grounded, What's Inside? Where the Power Cells Are, Widdershins, Wind Sailor (achievement), Wrecking Ball

:3 The Characters In Run 3

Unlike the first two game, there are ten playable characters in run 3: The Runner, The Skater, The Gentlemen, The Duplicater, The Child, The Pastafarian, The Student, The Angel, The Lizard, and The Bunny; with each character, it has own personalities and abilities.

1: The Runner:

The Runner is the default character in the game, she has no special abilities but her speed, jump height and maneuverability are slightly higher than average. She can beat at every level if you know how to use her properly.

In terms of costumes, The Runner has two types of costumes: the winter costumes and Halloween costumes.

Winter Costumes can be unlocked by defeating the Winter game or buying in the shop by 500 power cells; Halloween costumes are unlocked by defeating the low power tunnel or buying at the store by 750 power cells

2: The Skater:

Skate is a challenging character in the game; To unlock him, you need to beat level 10 or buy in the store with 300 power cells. Skate is one of the fastest running characters in the game - 21m / s; His jump’s ability is lower than normal but the jump far’s ability is great.

In costumes, Skate has a winter costume and it will be unlocked by defeating winter games or buying in the store with 500 power cells.

3: The Lizard:

Lizard is a character who does not understand the language in run 3 and you can unlock it by defeating level 40 or buying it in the store with 600 power cells. It is quite lazy but its jump’s ability is very high. Lizard's speed is very slow, at only 9m / s - which makes it become the slowest character in the game. As mentioned above, Lizard is a lazy character, if it fails a level multiple times in a row, it will give up and go to sleep.

4: The Child:

The Child is the son of Duplicate; he often appears with his father but occasionally he also likes to sneak track alone. To unlock the Child, you need to defeat the low-power tunnel or buy him in the shop with 2000 power cells.

With light weight combined with his balloon, the Child can run on ruined brickwork without shaking them. However, the speed of child is quite slow, only 10m / s; Low maneuverability makes him move difficulty.

5: The Bunny:

Bunny is described as a hyperactive creature in the universe. Like Lizard, it does not understand the language and is not capable of communicating. You can unlock the Bunny by achieving 8 achievements or buying it in the store with 2000 power cells. Bunny has the best speed, jump and maneuverability in the game, but it never stops jumping and this can make you hard to control it.

6: The Gentleman:

The Gentleman is known as a collector of eccentric power cells. You can unlock Gentleman with 2000 power cells.

7: The Duplicater:

Duplicater is a suspicious character, he only believes his son and animals. The Duplacater can only be unlocked by purchasing him in the shop with 6000 power cells. He can create his own copy in seconds (up to 6 copies) and the copies will mimic his actions.

8: The Pastafarian:

The Pastafarian is a priest of the church. She can only be unlocked by buying in the store with 6000 power cells on web or 25000 in Mobile. The Pastafarian's ability is that she can run on the light bridges very fast. Her normal speed is 9m / s, but when running on the light bridge, she can reach a speed of 12m / s.

In costume, the Pastafarian has an unlockable outfit, a pirate costume.

9: The Student:

The Student is one of the main characters in the game run 3. She can flip gravity while jumping. She also can run a maximum of 9-10m / s, jump up to a maximum of 13,3m. You cannot unlock the student by passing the levels, just only by buying her in the shop with 10000 power cells

10: The Angel:

The Angel is an engineer and he works in the factory. His ability is to jump in the air to speed up. The maximum speed of the angel is 19.5 m / s, the highest jumping ability is 3.6 m. You can control him easily. Usually, he works like a runner, he can run fast and have moderate maneuverability.

🛤 The tunnel InGame Run 3

Tunnels are long tubes formed from bricks and boxes, man-made or naturally formed. As mentioned before, there are more than 20 playable side tunnels in run 3, including main tunnel and several tunnels that even branch out of side tunnels.

The Main Tunnel

consists of 65 levels, starting from the planet. The levels inside the tunnel are named from level 1 to level 65.This is the longest tunnel in the game and it leads to eight branch tunnels.

The branch tunnels are A- tunnel, B-tunnel, New tunnel, Low-power tunnel, U-Tunnel, Memory Evaluation, Winter Games, …

·         The Winter Gameis a tunnel branch off of the main tunnel, appearing at level 15. This tunnel consists of 20 levels. It has two branches: The Way Back and the W-tunnel, both at part 9. However, The Way Back tunnel is only unlocked after completing the Going home check list.

·         The Low – Power tunnel is a branch off of the main tunnel too, appearing at level 28. It has 25 levels and includes two sub-branch: The Memory Evaluation in Part 4 and the New Tunnel in Part 15

·         The Way Back is a tunnel that leads to the planet and has 16 levels. The characters that can play in this tunnel are Duplicator (at every level), Angel, Bunny, Child, Pastafarian (Levels 1-7 only)

·         The Memory Evaluation is a branch off of the Low-power tunnel, shown in Part 4. It only appears after you have completed the Bridge Building and Angel Mission. The tunnel consists of seven levels and all of them are only played by The Gentleman

·         The New tunnel is a branch off of the Low-power tunnel, appears in part 15. Before unlocking this tunnel, you have to get the Duplicator and Child.

·         The U-Tunnel is a side tunnel that branch of the main tunnel, appearing at level 40. This tunnel leads to the Crystal Gallery; it is not too difficult to beat, so every character can play.

🔑 Run 3 Tips and Tricks

1.      When you run on another lane, that lane will turn into a floor.

2.      You can pause / resume / restart, switch aliens and turn on the music, turn on / off the sound in the pause menu.

3.      Never use Duplicator at level 78 because his copy can also push bricks, which make you hard to avoid the Crumbling tiles. At this level, you should use the Runner or Student.

4.      Using the Bunny, Duplicator or Child to beat Plan A part 16.

5.      Using Runner, Child or Bunny to beat level 65 of the main tunnel.

6.      How to beat level I-5: You should use Runner or Student to beat this level. Besides that, do not jump high when you are near the platforms because which make you cross them. You should adjust your jump’s lengths based on the distance between the platforms.

7.      Some ice skating at level W-3 may be pointing out to nothing, so don’t be tricked running on them

8.      To defeat level T-7 – one of the hardest level in the game, you should use the Bunny, Student or Duplicator.

9.      To defeat level T-4, Runner, Duplicator or Child are recommended.

10. To beat level L-1, you should use Runner or Lizard. If you use the Runner, you ought to use small jump and don’t skip the platforms. If you use the Lizard, you should use high jump and skip the platforms.

11. To defeat level L-2, you should use Lizard, Runner or Pastafarian. A tip to beat this level that you should run to the side of the path, then make a high jump to get to the next path.

12. The student is the best character for tunnel T-4

13. To defeat level L-3, the Runner and Child are recommended. You should use small jump to go over small gaps to beat this level.

🔰 Some Frequently Asked Questions

How many levels are there in run 3?

There are total 298 levels in run 3 which be published before May 5, 2018; including several extra levels like winter game, B, N and L. In the main tunnel, there are 65 levels which you have to finish.

Which level is the most difficult in run 3?

As a result of the poll which was organized by wiki last November, the hardest level in the game run 3 is plan A part 16 (58,17%). At this level, you have to jump over different platforms, most of which have only one big block, that make jumping extremely difficult. There are even boxes that can hinder your jump. Your tip for this level is using the Bunny, Duplicator or the Child.

Besides, there are several levels which player believe that they are really hard. For example, level I-5, T-4, T-7, L-1, L-2, …  

Where to play run 3 unblocked?

If you are looking for a website that offers run 3 unblocked games, Congratulation! You are at the right place because Freegames66 provide game run 3 unblocked. Here, we give you a nice and user-friendly game’s interface - all for free.

If you have any question or recommend about the game run 3, share us your ideal and we will discuss together.

Now, it is the time to play the game, Let’s start!

Click here to play: https://www.freegames66.com/running/run-3/

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-funny-saturday-night-live/

Jonah Hill joins the Five-Timers Club on a uniformly funny Saturday Night Live

Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Candice Bergen, Drew BarrymoreScreenshot: Saturday Night Live

“I guess the worst part of the play was their confidence in it.”

“I’m not an actor, I’m a [movie, Netflix, directing] star!

It’s be nice to think that Jonah Hill has fully stepped out of his pigeonhole at this point. A couple of Oscar nominations, co-lead in an hit Netflix series, writer-director of a promising new coming-of-age movie, Hill has emerged from the Apatow star factory still straddling the line between serious artist and broad comedy movie star. (Sort of like James Franco, except that people actually seem to like Hill’s directorial debut and no one—as of this writing—has accused Hill of being a sex creep.)

That dichotomy showed up in Hill’s monologue, as SNL legend Tina Fey ushered new Five-Timers Club member Hill into the selective lounge set, where fellow FTC members Candice Bergen and Drew Barrymore celebrated his entry by showing an old sketch where Hill’s character admits to doing some serious damage to a toilet. Protesting that he does more than toilet humor now (“But that’s where you shined!,” enthuses Bergen), the disappointed Hill can only endure an all-ladies Five-Timers welcome, since, according to Fey, Bergen, and Barrymore, all the male members have turned out to be, well, sex creeps. (Steve Martin will just play his banjo “without consent.”)

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Saturday Night LiveSeason 44

Fitted with the coveted FTC smoking jacket, Hill is disappointed to find that the new female leadership has refashioned it into something like a kicky boldero number. It’s a neat little way to incorporate Hill’s evolving comic persona while still trading on the downtrodden victim vibe he carries with him, especially once Kenan pops in to remind everyone that his record-breaking seniority carries its own privileges. “This is my show. I let you in here sometimes,” he responds to Hill questioning his presence in the Five-Timers lounge.

Over at Vulture, AV Clubber Jesse Hassenger recently did a ranking of the relatively rare phenomenon of SNL hosts’ recurring characters, and placed Hill’s Borscht Belt six-year-old Adam Grossman near the top. I get it. For one, the field isn’t exactly littered with gold (glad I’m not the only one sick of the Omletteville guy), with most of the bits weathering even faster than those done by the actual cast. But Grossman keeps working as well as he does because of a character throughline, as the garrulous little guy keeps tossing out his inexplicable Catskills schtick to his unlikely Benihana co-diners alongside a series of guardians indicating the unstable family life that’s somehow spawned such a weird creature. Here it’s forbearing nanny Leslie Jones, sighing deeply as she weathers Adam’s insult comic “I’m just kidding” one-liners as Grossman attempts to puncture any tension his borderline racist material generates by proclaiming his age (complete with specific and funny awkward hand gestures). It’s never been my favorite sketch, but Hill (who created the bit alongside Bill Hader and Seth Meyers, based on a bafflingly tracksuited child diner Hader once sat with) is into it, and he suggests the merest hints of the defensive mechanisms that are powering Adam’s transformation into a hacky joke machine, which always lends just enough shadings to the idea. Leslie kept breaking, but, then again, so did I.

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Weekend Update update

There was a certain elegance to the way SNL kept weaving themes through its political material tonight, with jokes about Trump’s “caravan of scary brown people” terror tactics, and the importance of voting on Tuesday reinforcing each other throughout. Jost and Che were on, each landing their material confidently. On the caravan (of desperate asylum seekers that are a thousand miles away), Jost noted how Trump’s sweatily named “Operation Faithful Patriot” (where American troops are needlessly stringing barbed wire for a piece of election eve fear-mongering theater) sounds like a company that makes “reverse mortgages and catheters.” (Fox News commercial viewers get that.) Che followed up on the race-baiting scare tactics by urging that the old white people being hyped about the looming but nonexistent threat should be more worried about the less-easily-scapegoated specter of their grandkids stealing their pain pills.

On the election front, Che continued his role as Update’s resident “slow your roll” skeptic, confessing that, while he does intend to vote (on Tuesday, November 6, kids), he’s not going to buy into any “final notice for democracy” panic. Joking that, if final notices were actually final, his college debts would actually be paid, Che, as ever, positions himself for the long view, an edgy place to be in a time of national crisis (see, there’s that panic), but one consistent with his stance as a (black) guy who’s been living in a dangerous situation his entire life. For Jost (white guy), the jokes were less pointed, but not bad, as he noted that things are pretty dire when ice cream is taking a side, and that it has to be a complicated feeling when Oprah knocks on your door, only to present you with a pamphlet about Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams instead of a new car.

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Pete Davidson has become such a strange star on SNL, his very public statements about his battles with mental health and substance abuse and the recent ongoing saga of his tabloid-fodder relationship with now-ex Ariana Grande have made Davidson more of a personality star than anyone I can think of in SNL history. Pete’s never been the most polished sketch guy (although he’s improved), and his Update pieces as himself have always been his best showcase, especially since he’s sharpened up his material beyond the adorable stoner little brother schtick he started out with. Here, with newly-dyed hair and the elephant of his recent, much-publicized breakup hanging over his head, Davidson delivered a solid series of political takedowns in advance of the Tuesday midterm elections. Sure, they were all cheeky appearance smack (NY Republican Peter King looks like “a cigar came to life,” Florida candidate Rick Scott looks like “if someone tried to whittle Bruce Willis out of a penis”), but, for a young comic staking out political material for the first time in his life, it’s funny stuff. And since SNL has made hay all season long about Davidson’s rising media profile, his genuinely sweet and decent-sounding appraisal of ex Grande was both de rigeur and unexpectedly touching.

Melissa Villaseñor made the leap to the main cast this year, but hasn’t had much opportunity to show off her mimicry skills or her comic chops much on the young season. So, taking a page out of Heidi Gardner’s playbook, she debuted a specifically targeted character piece on Update, with her “Every Teen Girl Murder Suspect on Law & Order.” Honestly, it’s such a specific Gardner niche at this point that I was surprised to see Villaseñor in the chair, but Melissa did fine, as her Brittany—ostensibly there to talk about young adult literature—squirmed and equivocated about what happened to her friend Logan at that “big alcohol party.” Not to harp on the comparison, but Brittany wasn’t as immediately memorable as any of Gardner’s similar turns, even if Villaseñor delivered on the premise with a uniformly strong performance.

Just when I think I’m tired of Kenan Thompson’s Big Papi, he pulls me back in. It helps that there’s a reason for his appearance tonight, as, you know, the Red Sox won the World Series again. (That’s, like, what, four in 15 years, right? Huh. Cool.) Petty sports partisanship aside, Kenan’s performance as retired and beloved Boston slugger David Ortiz has never been the problem. Kenan’s Ortiz, with his nonsensical endorsements, gap-toothed ebullience, and food obsession, is an all-time belly laugh, his infectious enthusiasm for baseball, food, his spokesman deal for the concept of spokes, and simply being Big Papi is impossible to hate. (Presumably even for Yankees fans, whose team got clobbered in the ALDS 3-1, including a humiliating 61-1 loss on their home diamond.) But the jokes don’t change much (as in, at all). Thankfully, it’s been a while, the Sox won the series, and it was nice to see the big lug again. Mofongo all around.

Best/worst sketch of the night

Look, some of you are going to clamor for a “worst” tag on Kate McKinnon’s teacher sketch. You’ll point to both its unexplained weirdness and its languorous pace, and how it never quite announces its authority as something that should appear as early in the show as it did. Well, shush. This was great stuff, not as much for the sketch itself (it really could have used more writing punch to match McKinnon’s performance), as for how it represents the sort of oddball conceptual idea Saturday Night Live desperately needs to encourage. The premise of someone acting weird while other people comment on it is hardly new SNL territory, but, as McKinnon’s overly dramatic drivers ed teacher sprawls on the classroom floor and rambles on about her predicament and its meaning, it was like a cool drink to realize that the sketch wasn’t going to go out of its way to hammer the premise home with explanations for the slowest possible viewer. It was just weird for weird’s sake, and McKinnon, accusing her charges at laughing at her “like this was some episode of Friend,” worked within the framework of the sketch to craft an enigmatically loopy character whose comic integrity isn’t over-explained. There is room on SNL for a lot more shades of humor than its current template generally allows.

This week’s branded content sketch, on the other hand, was pretty unnecessary, even if some of the performances livened it up a little, as another NBC property got some free advertising. Not watching interminably long-running televised talent shows as a rule, I’m not particularly invested in how the celebrity judges were impersonated here (although Kyle Mooney’s perpetually amazed Howie Mandel got a laugh). But at least the joke that there are only a very few possible narratives to every contestant’s journey on such shows took the piss a bit, and Cecily Strong, Kenan and Leslie, and Jonah Hill all sang their hearts out as the contestants who are probably terrible—but then are shockingly not terrible!

Also not terrible but not that surprising was the newscast sketch, where Cecily Strong’s weatherperson is nonplussed by boyfriend Hill’s decidedly unwelcome on-air proposal. Hill manages to create a nicely realized character is his unimpressive suitor, unwisely wearing a green shirt in front of Strong’s green screen and even more unwisely busting out a proposal rap. And the bit even has a decent turn, when Strong reveals that her refusal was only because she’d planned an elaborate on-air proposal of her own. I kept waiting for the reveal that Strong’s too-perfect twist was only in the downtrodden Hill’s head, but the sketch decided to let the improbable duo have their happy ending, so that’s nice.

“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report

Adam Grossman, Big Papi.

“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report

With SNL’s resident guest Trump Alec Baldwin otherwise occupied (and pointedly joked about), the show opened with the always more-profitable tack of doing Trump without Trump. With Kate McKinnon adding Fox News talking head and smirking white supremacist Laura Ingraham’s glint-eyed provocation to her long list of current right-wing a-holes (“No, you’re an a-hole,” McKinnon’s Ingraham responds to her viewer mail), the sketch ran through the usual roster of weekly outrages. Finding ways to satirize the news at this point is a thankless task since reality is so far beyond satire that our pals at The Onion can essentially just transcribe stuff. Here, the jokes leant on hyperbole to make comedy out of Fox and friends’ (and Fox And Friends’) daily klaxon blare of racist bullshit designed to make white parents vote against their self-interest. Like Trump’s ginned-up, racist, Hail Mary, pre-midterms caravan, which Cecily Strong’s appropriately wild-eyed Jeanine Pirro’s claims contains such terrifying, non-white figures as “Guatemalans, Mexicans, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos, and several Babadooks.” Similarly, Kenan Thompson’s cowboy-hat-wearing disgraced former Sheriff David Clarke showed footage of the caravan in the form of a swarm of migrating crabs. “And those are humans?,” gently presses McKinnon’s Ingraham, to which Clarke replies, “Basically, yeah.”

Unlike Baldwin’s uninspired Trump, which serves as a crutch for some very one-dimensional writing as a rule, the satire here is more layered. There are the performances, which are uniformly great. (McKinnon and Strong don’t need more praise at this point, but they are both outstanding, nuanced comic actresses). And the sketch casts a wider net, encompassing Ingraham’s fleeing sponsors (and the reason why), leaving her thanking warm ice cream, nurse’s sneakers, and White Castle. (“A castle for whites? Yes please.”) And, divorced for now by Baldwin/Trump’s absence, the cold open works to lay the groundwork for some recurring satirical themes for the rest of the show. There’s GOP voter suppression, here prodded along by Ingraham giving non-white voters the wrong advice. There’s Fox’s feverish efforts to mock the very idea that Donald Trump is a bigot. (“Except for his words and actions throughout his life how is he racist?”) And there’s the transparent propaganda of Trump’s latest “brown people are coming at you from below” propaganda, with McKinnon claiming that Trump’s try-hard gung-ho operation is actually named “Operation Eagle With A Huge Dong” and bragging that there will be “five armed soldiers for every shoeless immigrant child.”

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Hey, there’s a midterm election coming up on Tuesday, so vote in that. Pete Davidson ended his amiably goofy Update stint by urging everyone to vote, as did musical guest Maggie Rogers (via T-shirt), and, in the Vote Blue campaign ad, so did a roster of very fucking nervous Democrats. While polling shows that maybe, perhaps, enough Americans are motivated, pissed, and goddamned terrified enough to actually go out and vote on Tuesday (yes, this coming Tuesday, you) to put some checks in place against Donald Trump and his GOP accomplices in dismantling democratic norms, environmental regulations, and civil rights of any kind, well, we’ve seen sweaty Democratic overconfidence explode in our faces before. That’s the message here, as the person-on-the-street interviews parroting optimistic election messages all veer into a series of forced grins, shaking hands, binge-drinking, eyes-averted mumbling, and, in the case of Heidi Gardner’s tremble-voiced suburban mom, hair-trigger panic. “Get inside until Tuesday!,” she snaps at her frolicking children, while Hill’s anxious doctor tries to take comfort in the fact that Nancy Pelosi predicted a big victory on Colbert, and Leslie Jones grits her teeth in her stated faith that “white women are going to the right thing this time.” Pitch perfect stuff, right down to Aidy Bryant hauling off to slap teenaged son Pete Davidson when he jokes about forgetting when Election Day is. (It’s Tuesday. November 6. Check here for all the necessary info you need to vote. On Tuesday.)

“HuckaPM” continued SNL’s baffling comedy position that literally every woman involved in the Trump administration is secretly ashamed of her role in, well, every shitty thing Trump and the Republican Party does. You know, despite the fact that there is no evidence to that in the public or private actions of any of them, including (or especially) the sketch’s target, White House Press Secretary and sneering daily mouthpiece for whatever bigoted nonsense dribbles out of Trump’s Twitter account in the middle of the night, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Still, this sketch works because of Aidy. Good god, is Aidy Bryant great at physical comedy. Even if one can’t follow the show’s premise that there is some glimmer of humanity in Sanders’ soul somewhere, Aidy sells the hell out of the idea that only a sleeping pill loaded with quaaludes and “what Michael Jackson’s doctor called ‘one-and-dones’” can knock Sanders out after a day of claiming that “CNN spelled backward is ISIS” and that Trump’s caravan boogeymen includes ravenous chupacabras with a trio of outstandingly timed and committed falls. Sometimes performance overcomes everything else.

The off-Broadway show short film trafficked in a sort of joke that never doesn’t work on me, so I’m going to allow myself to be pandered to. The main joke—that an actor-written topical revue is not very well written—is fine. (I loved how at least two of the numbers shamelessly aped Hamilton). But I’m just a sucker for jokes where scathing review blurbs are read out as if they’re raves by an enthusiastic voice-over guy, and these had me laughing. “This is helping no one,” and “Whose parents paid for this?” were good, but the New York Times critic’s economical “Jesus Christ!” got me out loud.

I am hip to the musics of today

Maggie Rogers came out flat in her SNL debut. Like, vocally, very flat for her first song of lilting, pretty pop. It was the sort of wobbly beginning that could knock a fledgeling performer right off her pins, but, to her credit, Rogers came back stronger in the second number. It helped that that song was more uptempo and didn’t highlight a delicate introductory vocal, but, still, props to Rogers for pulling it together. As Adam Grossman might bellow, “Redemption song!”

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Most/Least Valuable (Not Ready For Prime Time) Player

Ego Nwodim got a line. Keep plugging, new kid.

Otherwise, in an exceptionally strong night for the female cast, Kate wins it by a whisker, edging out Cecily and Aidy.

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“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report

While it’s no “Whiskers R We,” “Wigs For Pugs” ably carried on the ten-to-one tradition of doing adorably weird stuff with animals, as Hill and Cecily Strong played a couple of clearly mobbed-up entrepreneurs whose pug toupee business is in no way “a front for something.” Mainly, it’s just pugs in wigs, with a succession of very chill pugs getting carried out in their hairy finery, but sometimes that’s enough. And Hill, Strong, Aidy, Mooney, and Kenan (as a guy making pug beards) are thoroughly committed to their characters in a broad yet deadpan way that adds another level to the premise. Pugs in wigs. What more do you need, people?

Stray observations

Kenan’s Clarke cites his caravan sources as “the crows from Dumbo,” echoing Clarke’s description of his current state as “unpopular with my own people.”

McKinnon’s Ingraham refers to Baldwin as “disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin” and shows a clip from “Canteen Boy” to explain.

Che claims that the country would be doing better if red state parents would stop “sending all their liberal kids to coastal cities to do improv.”

Pete Davidson, addressing his new blue hair, claims he looks like “a guy who makes vape juice in a bathtub,” and “a Dr. Seuss character who went to prison.”

Melissa Villaseñor’s teen suspect finally breaks down, telling Jost that she only stabbed her dead friend as a joke, “but Logan took it the wrong way and started bleeding.”

Big Papi for Apple Watch: “You gotta watch your apples or a monkey’s gonna steal them, man!”

Vote on Tuesday.

The Red Sox won the World Series.

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Source: https://tv.avclub.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-fu-1830206395