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melloianv2 · 1 month

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Have a Good Night Sleep, Dogday AU

Alternative:

Finally, after an month and an half of month, am finally finished.

Before I start i wanted to take back both things I said in my WIP.

When I said its cartoon world, i actually meant was its mostly take place in the cartoon world. it really an Imagination world, as you'll see what I meant during this post.

What i actually meant about its not a shipping au, its not a shipping au between Dogday and CatNap specifically. well there is no couple pairing of the critters existing, just crushes. but its never important at all (besides it only 2 critters.)

Now there is some things that are related to the bigger bodies however it has nothing to do with bigger bodies dogday nor catnap at all. it just about the cartoon world. So not even worshiping prototype exists here.

and I apologize for any grammar mistake I miss.

Anyway on to the post!

About:

About Have a Good Night Sleep, Dogday or HGNSD AU

In a nutshell, it basically two children created entire storyline about Dogday trying to find a way for CatNap to turn back to normal. At least what Dogday thinks because if there was a way to strengthen Catnap (dark essence bottle), then there has to be a way to get him back to normal.

The previous storyline before the brother came was just smiling critters just doing normal activities.

Originally the au was post to be slightly similar to 2016 stuff, but I think it not really "2016" like anymore. This series is post be animated on youtube only, but i have no idea if i should since i need motivation and still have to practice my animation skills.

Just note, some characters personalities are the same, but just altered a bit or a lot. Then the other altered completely

Anyway lets start with the characters that no one will cares about first!

Welcome to the Yearwoods Family.

Family Photo Link

It was- I mean is a happy family! The family are Christians. The family consists 2 children and a sphynx cat

All names of the family are: Mr. Yearwood, Mrs. Yearwood, Amber Yearwood and Kevin Yearwood. (the parents are nameless)

the cat name is pinky. (its a girl)

Out of the 4, Amber and Kevin are the important ones.

Amber and Kevin

Whenever Amber goes to school, she's bullied. She hates it as it ruins her self esteem. But she claims that she's fine and she don't need any help.

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Amber and Kevin gets along. Though, Kevin likes teasing and playfully making fun of his sister a lot. Amber usually ignores him or just pretty much says its not funny. Overall, they love each other as siblings.

Every day they play with the smiling critters toys before their mom tells them to go to bed. Amber sleeps with catnap toy or sometimes craftycorn.

Amber and Kevin playstyle is different. Though at the end, they're both obviously equally immature.

Amber's Playstyle:

Amber plays a CatNap, not shocking.... She sometimes play as the other critters (most likely CraftyCorn), but she mainly plays CatNap. And i mean main, she doesn't even let her brother play CatNap for once.

Amber is good with crafting an story, but very very bad at power scaling.

usually when she plays the other critters, they act bit more mature. However when she plays a CatNap, she either being serious or being a joke. there is no in-between.

One of the running gags of the Au is CatNap's powers. He keeps gaining new ability every time. Amber is doing that deliberately so she can win, and counter her brother every time. However when her brother starts winning, she gets annoyed and slightly mad when she starting to lose. But its the entire fact she wants CatNap to win entirely. by going as far as weakening the other critters.

She also pull the "nuh uh" or miss despite the attack was obviously undodgeable.

Kevin's Playstyle:

Whatever Kevin plays the critters, its more jokes and being unserious. sometimes he be serious but then its ruined with an joke. He mainly plays Dogday but he do play other critters. He gave Dogday powers because he thinks its more fair to have everyone with powers. Despite Kevin joking a lot, his powers are usually kind of balanced (expect for the fact Dogday is kind of op not as op as Catnap.) Dogday gains powers too but only if he learns something. The brother often wins.

Kevin likes overdramatizing fights, dark scenes and using powers, mostly because he watch too much action tv shows.

Now that's done, let get to the real AU.

Welcome to Sunnyville!

(i literally had to compressed the file omfg, this stupid image lags so hard everytime i open it..)

Here's a better close up version

Sunnyville is the brightest and cheerful town around! This is the main location where the Smiling Critters resides in. The positivity and good vibes came from Smiling Critters themselves.

There's more than one groups as the known ones are Smiling critters, Nega Bratzz, The Quacking Sisters, and The Ordinarys

The town is mostly nice however there are bullies (Nega Bratzz and The Quaking Sisters), but it doesn't quite override the sheer amount of positivity. Smiling Critters has a reputation in this town, often for their upbeat attitude. Outside of the critters group, Dogday is well liked by adults, awhile children thinks KickinChicken is cool. Not all though fine with their upbeat attitude, especially Nega Bratzz.

The houses are altered but Every single Night, Catnap's house changes.

Well not the exterior, But just the interior does.

The interior becomes an nearly endless mansion with whole bunch of halllways and rooms. turning back around doesn't get no better. Once enter his house, the doors are shut tight enough for no one to escape.

The inside of Catnap's house is described as an dream world or illusion world. Once entered here and manage to end up falling asleep or become unconscious, it would be treated as if the critters was dreaming the entire time. That's because when the sunrises, the interior turns back to normal. Any injury is also gone.

example:

The "illusion house" is quite dangerous, due to it being unpredictable unknown danger. Some rooms are safe, awhile others are not. Some could be neutral awhile other could be a trap. The critters will never know.

Aside from catnap's house, DogDay's house been redesigned in this au too.

Smiling Critters Section

Enough explaining everything else but the critters!

The story mostly revolves around Dogday and CatNap. KickinChicken is an major character. The other critters are very important too, but not as much.

Once wholesome positive team, is now a distressed team. Smiling Critters has to work together to solve this mystery of Catnap and the happenings that are caused by him. Awhile they try to solve Catnap awhile balancing their routines.

At day, Smiling critters just do their normal routine, get ready, eat, play, eat... But as soon as its Night, that's the where the real kicker is. Majority of the events that happens in this AU, takes place at night. At the moment, no one but outside of Smiling Critters area knows what's going on with Catnap.

They try to gather clues and research CatNap to get understanding on what their facing.

The Critters acts like their description.......somewhat. its altered a bit.

About the Other form i mentioned on the about, what was the so called form am I talking about? Well its called Enhanced Form. Enhanced forms are magical forms that gives a smiling critter powers. In order for an Smiling Critter to be enhanced, Dogday must enhance them, as he the only one who is able to do it.

Enhanced forms are strong, at least strong enough to fight the CatNap.

In order for an Critter to transform into Enhanced form, Dogday must use his powers to enchant the pendant (on the necklace). Then, the critter can either grabs the pendant tightly or smack it, causing them to transform into enhanced form.

Dogday can change at will, but he does not have enhanced form, but rather just a stronger form. Though, Dogday don't even need to transform, he can still use half of his abilities without it.

When a critter transforms, their pendant changes too.

An Critter can de-transform by either de-transforming willingly or when they become unconscious.

I will now talk about the Smiling critters separately.

Dogday the Guardian of the Sun:

Makes sense to start with the titular character of this AU.

Dogday is the main character of HGNSD.

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

Dogday is an early bird, he tends to wake up everyone to get the day started. Excluding CatNap, He's the last critter to go to sleep.

full content (but also not) of how Dogday gained his powers: Dogday was slammed multiple times by Catnap (due to the fact he rebelled, fight back and took the risk of letting himself be the one getting the punches instead of his friends), before tossing him to a deep pit. The pit had spikes at the very bottom. Despite Dogday was clearly about to die, he still had some hope and determination left...causing gain powers and fly upwards in result.

Dogday is more powerful than any other critters. He can even sometimes surpass Catnap's powers. Dogday's powers deals with the sun aka light. Dogday's powers are 2x stronger at day but at night, its normal strength of the power.

The AU name is post to be ironic (really just an bullying title since dogday cannot even go to sleep properly because of CatNap) but at the same time, its foreshadowing something.

Dogday is traumatized, but he doesn't show it.

He was horrified at the state of Catnap tall self. But after dealing with him for so long, he's desensitized to it. doesn't means that's a good thing though.

Dogday gets insulted a lot, he gets upset a little but it doesn't really effect him completely. The only thing that effects him is the fact his best friend is even like this at all.

Other Critters

Now the main character is out of the way, let's talk about the other critters (expect for Catnap). They will be ordered from most important to the least important.

KickinChicken the Guardian of the Stars:

(i added the bottom beak on purpose)

Let's start with kickin'

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

KickinChicken is most likely the one who defends his friends from bullying.

KickinChicken powers deal with stars and light. He is almost as strong as DogDay.

He often sacrifice himself in order for his friends to escape to find safety. If Dogday is almost there to being killed, he jumps in to prevent it. Because of his sacrifices....he almost had access to change into form at will permanently.

He was able to change into his enhanced form twice without Dogday's assistance. But it happened in two different circumstances. not to mention sudden change, but it was in a necessary moment.

KickinChicken and Dogday works together sometimes.

No matter how much an critter insults KickinChicken, it doesn't bother him. In fact, he will twist the insult into a positive one.

He considers Hoppy Hopscotch his best friend. They both have an friendly rivalry when comes to any game. They get a bit too competitive....almost destructive sometimes. They always doing the "am better than you" attitude. If one of them lost, they take the lost but still cocky.

KickinChicken usually compliments himself and looks at the mirror in his bathroom.

Kickinchicken secretly can sing. He didn't tell anyone because he wanted it to be personal for him only. Until catnap exists and ruins everything. There's concept designs of kickinchicken in his singer outfit design, but i hadn't finalized it.

CRAFTYCORN the Guardian of Colors:

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

More info about her own magic: she has an specific book to learn her own abilities. She tries to learn her own magic, but it pretty much hard for her too. She struggles to use her magic, when it successful, its usually something small. In her enhanced form, she able to use her magic like she trained for years.

Sometimes Craftycorn's magic is successful either under concentration or distress. And sometimes it fails. She also the only critter who can create her own form without Dogday's help. Though it isn't an enhanced form, but rather a different form.

Craftycorn one day wants her art be display in a muesum

In her enhanced form, she has the powers of creation, unicorn magic and color. Making her quite strong. She only has on specific healing ability called Revival. she can only use this on one critter awhile focusing, and if she gets distracted, the progress will fail.

Craftycorn sometimes ends up finding out some stuff before anyone else.

Craftycorn one time was able to beat Catnap without help.

Craftycorn has a crush on Dogday, she didn't at first though. She was saved by Dogday, causing her to gain a crush on him since then (omg its almost like proto-). She been drawing a lot of pictures of him closed doors.

Sometimes she plays chess with Bubba Bubbaphant. She loses mostly.

Bubba Bubbaphant the Guardian of Intelligence:

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

Bubba Bubbaphant has the power of vision, intelligence and detection. He is able to rewind to able to see an vision from the past. Since he most likely using his powers for investigating, making clues and ideas for any sign for an cure.

When bubba bubbaphant is targeted, he sometimes gets it the worst than Dogday, simply because "he's smart". For example, everyone else will get tied up in one way, but bubba bubbaphant will have 15 different ways of being tied and caged to make sure he doesn't try to strategize to escape at all.

Bubbe Bubbaphant pacifism caused injuries. He never try to switch sides, he's still standing his ways.

When Dogday first gain his powers, He went to Bubba Bubbphant to figure things out. Though Bubba Bubbaphant obviously could not answer how to deal with his powers. So instead he tries to study both Dogday's and Catnap's powers.

Bubba Bubbphant had try to to keep up with Catnap's powers, but he clearly wants to give up at this point because its way too much. Its stressing him out

Hoppy Hopscotch the Guardian of Energy:

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

Hoppy Hopscotch powers are lighting, super speed, super jump and energy. She can charge herself by simply running.

Hoppy and KickinChicken are friendly rivals mostly competitive in games. Though Hoppy is usually the one ends up making it more destructive then it originally is. She usually try to win, by doing things faster. She also view kickinchicken as her best friend.

Extension of the trained fighter: When using her fighting skills, she usual attacks fast. Awhile Hoppy was teaching Dogday, she accidentally gives him bruises in the beginning...

She can be just as cocky as kickinchicken sometimes without using the better than you phrase.

When she is being insulted, she usually insult back.

Even when its fighting with Catnap, she still wants an challenge.

Here an example of one of her sports form

Bobby Bearhug the Guardian of Love:

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

Bobby Bearhug have the powers of healing, enchantment and love. She is able to heal multiple critters at once or strengthen them. Her attacking ability is life drain. She discover this by accident.

Due to Bobby Bearhug's pacifism, she gets injured too but not as bad as Bubba Bubbaphant.

She's has been bullied a lot, despite it all she still wants to show love. She don't really judge anyone, despite people judge her.

She does care about Dogday's situation, at the same time she just feel sympathy for Catnap.

Bobby Bearhug can cook, she mostly bakes though. Her food is delicious.

PickyPiggy the Guardian of Food:

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

PickPiggy have the power of food and mixing. That's it. She's considered the weakest critter out of all the powers. At least she can create certain foods that isn't possible.

She is not a cooker at all, despite having cooking related powers. Instead, she just be the first one at the table when the food ready. Getting large portions of foods....no wonder there's no leftovers in the fridge. (no she doesn't eat the ENTIRE cooked meal, she does let her friends get a plate too.)

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CATNAP SECTION

Now....Catnap.. well now you saw how everyone views catnap or at least treat him. Its only right to finally show him now, yes?

He needs his own separate section.

Catnap is the main antagonist of the story.

Catnap....:

Other things that I didn't add due to space?:

Truly everyone is guessing what happened to Catnap, cause no one has no clue.

Catnap powers are either the most strongest or the most weakest... I cannot pick, blame the kids. Catnap has so many powers, even god give up. His powers are the negative versions of dark, psychic, moon, and dreams. He also can send more smokes in his nightmare form, which is from his spores that's on his back. The advantage he has over everyone, his powers at night are 10x stronger....so he can take down all the critters. However the massive downgrade, at daytime, all of his powers goes bye bye, he cannot even turn forms either. He stuck back to just Catnap. Only power he can use is transporting from dark areas. So when the sunrises, he slowly turns back to normal size.

Lunar/Third Quarter Form is usually what he changes into the most, its a mix between the regular form and Nightmare's powers but not having all of its powers. This form is somewhat comic relief. This is where most the jokes be, in this form.

Nightmare form is the most strongest, as he usually do not talk in form. He either wants to put fear or he was extremely angry to change into this form.

Out of all the critters, he believes bobby bearhug is the most insane, ironic.

Catnap at first hated the boot like socks in Lunar form, but ends up being fine with it because it was comfortable.

Unlike the canon og Catnap, catnap committing evil is a complete mystery...or the fact the kids never planned one. who knows.

He has the able to put critters inside a cocoon-like substance, to make them live inside their own nightmare. The victim actually has to find the way to break out of it..somehow

He got the name Boogeyman due to teleporting underneath hoppy's bed and kidnapping her.

Catnap likes pretending to be an magician.

Past Catnap usually likes being around areas that was calm and peaceful. any interruption would startle him.

Past Catnap used go to Bobby to talk about private stuff. Not things that between Dogday and Him though.

He's the only critter in the smiling critters group to not have an enhanced form

Catnap can change his eyes at will. but nightmare form he cannot.

He owns the Lair, which the lair only appears at night. its no where to be seen at day. He got an lair later in the story because he wanted to craft his plans far away from the smiling critters sometimes.

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Now for last one its relationship between Dogday and Catnap (also my last picture i can even post i reach my limit :()

Other things that I didn't add due to space:

Catnap equally insults Dogday, calling Dogday "DogStupid" because he believes that Dogday is actually stupid. Catnap actually insulted Dogday first.

Rarely, Catnap doesn't attack Dogday on certain days, as he sometimes target someone else.

Every since Dogday gained powers, Catnap been obsessed with trying to gain his powers. Mostly because he wants to torture him so that Dogday wouldn't be able to defend himself or enhance anyone no more.

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End !! now for the extras and Concepts! sorry no images.

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Concepts/Removed:

Originally there was going be humans in the cartoon world. Because how care bears and the old MLP had humans. There was 2 humans that was along with the Smiling Critters, Oliver and Maxwell. Oilver would have blond hair pigtails and pink overalls and Maxwell had brown hair. Oliver was the confident feminine girl awhile Maxwell was a curious boy. She and Maxwell would've helped the smiling critters. Oliver would've try to fight Catnap but Catnap wouldn't even attack her, but rather put her somewhere safe.

In continuation of the humans concept, there was going be a castle way up in the sky, as the only way to access it is through a magic beanstalk. The castle had a princess named princess balloobow. She is a human with powers. She would've attempted to cure Catnap's evil but it would failed. She also would've been the one who taught Dogday on how to use his powers properly.

lastly of the human concept, in some epsiodes, The smiling critters would've travel all over the world to find the cure. having an adventure and meeting new people or critters. Catnap still would've been a villain during those adventures. They would've have got clues about the cure, the origins of Dogday's abilities, an hint about what happen to Catnap and the mystery of the current Catnap. However during those travels, Catnap would've slowly become stronger...due to collecting stuff. Dogday would've also become stronger, from looking at the ancient stuff. Sometimes in their travel, they would help people or other critters.

Catnap would've an fourth form called Disenchant form, being the opposite of enhanced form.

The original name of this au was called Nighttime with Catnap. it was also called Smiling Critters and Shenanigans.

Dogday and Current Catnap was originally considered frenemies.

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Origin of this AU

This start off as an one-off joke where Dogday staying up all night playing videogames with Kickinchicken. Dogday was trying to keep himself awake until he fall asleep. As soon he woke up he was chained up on his own bed, just to find Catnap smiling at him. Catnap says he's about to punish him because he surpass his healthy sleeping schedule and decides to punish him by forcing him to watch Megamind 2. Dogday beg for mercy but Catnap turns it on, causing Dogday try to struggle to escape and scream.

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Extras

Pickypig is the only character to even question why don't they just attack Catnap at daytime because he's basically weak. (the reason is because the smiling critters do not want to cause commotion and attract large attention from the people in the town)

Possessed Dogday exists in this au, but ill talk about it on another post. Just so you know, He did not get his body controlled in the same way the bigger bodies Dogday was.

Amber first ever toy was the poppy playtime doll. every single smiling critters came out, she abandoned her, but she still in her room.

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End of the actual post ! ! this took too long, and i might forget to add certain details as usual. anyway i hope you enjoy the post, see ya

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starry-mist · 3 months

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S4e12 thoughts:

This is my favourite episode of the season (and one of my top ten overall.) It's also the hardest one for me to watch. I had to watch it twice to really formulate my thoughts.

We have my favourite trope of Charlie and Sarah stuck/isolated somewhere. Avalon Island. Dreamy. Quiet. Remote.

I'll get some of the non-Charah details out of the way first.

Kevin Hanchard and Maurice Dean Wint play off each other so well. They really shine in their scenes together.

I hadn't seen Murdoch Mysteries yet at this point, so didn't know who Thomas Craig was but I enjoyed him greatly in this episode.

The script is solid. Taf Diallo I believe has only written two episodes so far and I've loved both.

I love the overall feel of this episode. Shoutout to the addition of the bagpipes to some of the show's usual musical themes, it really worked.

Rex and the sheep. Rex taking home the toy sheep. I headcanon that Sarah has one too.

Shoutout to the nod to Mayko Nguyen's seasickness with that "at least the boat ride wasn't so bad" line. (Note how we never see her on the boat itself.)

Same actor, different character: We last saw Paul Warford in s2 as the dead food scientist in Finger Foodie. Now we have Gordo. Long live Gordo.

Sadly I did not have a chance to visit Brigus South when I was in Newfoundland last summer. Will definitely have it on the list for a future visit. It looks gorgeous.

Okay, so, Charah time:

First of all, I remember the show's social accounts posting the almost-kiss scene as "a moment many of you have been waiting for," and um, NO, that was NOT the moment.

So, we have Sarah still keeping Michael at literal arms' length outside the bullpen when he wants to go in for a kiss. And Charlie sort of half-pretending he doesn't have his back up at the other man's presence outside the bullpen. Way to set the scene for some tension.

The almost-kiss. If there were ever a blatant sign that Charlie is Not Okay, it’s that scene. Dude has been cheated on. That he would even consider kissing Sarah who by all accounts is "happy" in her relationship...huge red flag.

Charlie can’t stop staring at Sarah's cheek the first time they interview the kid who was shot. The second time, Sarah can't stop touching her cheek/lip. Yeah, we get it, they're distracted by their "moment."

Sarah asking Charlie if he's considering getting a quiet place for him and Rex, and Charlie's "you have to grow old with someone"...Charlie, you do realize dogs don't live forever, right? But yeah I think we're supposed to take this as Charlie resigning himself to forever being alone...sigh.

Charlie, get your shit together.

So I've done a little research into Fogo Island and damn, a weekend away there would not come cheap. Hitting that plot point does sort of underscore the "maybe Sarah's thinking about taking things with Michael a bit more seriously" idea. But her bringing it up right after Charlie expresses his doubts about growing old with someone...there's a ton of subtext there. And in case we didn't quite catch it, Charlie then stops the golf cart thing they're driving and says his "there's no manual for this" line, echoing Sarah's earlier line about there being no manual for a relationship. This whole exchange is them talking about their feelings for each other without actually talking about their feelings for each other.

Red flags. Red flags everywhere.

Though how much did I need them to miss their boat and get stuck at the B&B? A girl can dream...

(Shoutout to wardrobe for putting them in matching sweaters, BTW.)

So at what point does Sarah decide that she needs to give things with Michael a real chance? I would say it's when Charlie talks about his house full of motorcycle parts, and they cut to her expression, and damn, is Mayko ever good at reacting. The last time (that we've seen on screen, so let's go with it) she was at his house was Dark Web. My logic goes with that being the reason she kind of pulls away by the end of the episode and goes off to see where things go with Michael. It's overly simplistic, but it works. I think she's also realising how very not okay Charlie is, and doesn't know how to express her concern, but that's a topic for later in the season.

Charlie, Sarah, really, get your collective shit together.

The ending scene crushes me every time, even though I know it's coming. The heartbreak, the lies they tell each other, the look on Charlie's face as he watches Sarah walk away.

Gah. I love it. It's so perfectly angsty.

Stellar episode, 10/10, will always have a special place in my heart.

#hudson & rex #charah #charlie hudson x sarah truong

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watching-pictures-move · 5 months

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Movie Review | Superbad (Mottola, 2007)

This actually came out when I was in high school and was a pretty big hit, so the ideal time to have watched this would probably have been then. But in part because I wasn't going to the movies regularly at the time, in part because I didn't (and still probably don't) have much affection for the overarching comedic sensibilities of the era, and in part because this is one of those movies that some of the more annoying people I knew adopted as their personality, I didn't get around to it. But as I've seen two of Greg Mottola's movies over the past few days, I figured now would be as good a time as any to close this blind spot. It was unlikely I would ever again be in the same Mottola Movie Mood.

Now, this will be a shock to nobody except me, but given that I'm so so at best on a lot of beloved comedies from the era, I actually enjoyed this. Speaking from experience, this movie fundamentally understands the angst of being a loser in high school. It understands that losers don't want to be losers but are maybe a little more attached to their identities than they realize. It understands that there are different tiers of losers, and the losers in the higher tiers, perhaps due to their insecurities, will look down on the losers in the lower tiers, but are still closer to each other than with the rest of the population. And it understands that when you've internalized being a loser for a certain amount of time, it can be hard to read signals from those outside your social strata. The particulars of my exact experience are different (quite frankly, these guys are smoother than I was; McLovin at least told the girl what time it was, I would have just avoided eye contact and walked away without saying anything), but the overall sentiment rings true.

And most refreshingly, the movie is surprisingly gentle. The friendship between the heroes is well realized and acted with a certain amount of texture. The movie does not hold its female characters in contempt, and actually fleshes them out as individuals to the extent possible when filtered through the heroes' perspectives. There's a buildup near the end when one of the heroes prepares to hook up with the girl he desires that leads you to expect a cruel pull of the rug, but to the movie's credit, it does not play things that way. The results are raunchy but not mean-spirited. And most surprisingly, for a movie that came out before #MeToo, it's surprisingly sensitive around matters of consent.

You can compare this to something like Revenge of the Nerds, which is probably the '80s equivalent of something like this. Both movies have arguably lovable nerds, but the earlier movie frames the proceedings through a snobs vs slobs conflict and paints clear enemies, while this presents a story of introspection and self growth without many overt villains. And more importantly, the earlier movie is more cavalier about violating consent and has you root for its heroes as they commit straight up sex crimes. This one realizes that sex crimes are bad. That said, I must confess I enjoy the earlier movie more, in part because of the better rounded cast, in part because of the musical number, and in part because I prefer '80s boner comedy sheen to 2000s boner comedy sheen. So I'm afraid I'm on the wrong side of history with this one.

Anyway, I remember people had McLovin fever when this came out, and even I admitted that the bits in the trailer were pretty funny. But seeing the movie now, the extent to which he's transparently pushed as a breakout character felt a little clumsy. And while Mottola in general likes to structure his movies around detours from what I've been seeing, I think the scenes with McLovin and the cops grind the movie to a halt. The rest of the movie has moments of exaggeration (one of the heroes getting into a fight with Kevin Corrigan thanks to an incriminating menstrual bloodstain on their pants), but these scenes totally break the reality of the movie and feel like something out an SNL sketch. They are not free of laughs, but feel much too broad for the overall tone of the movie.

#film #movie review #superbad #greg mottola

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randomvarious · 2 months

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youtube

Fiction Factory - "(Feels Like) Heaven" Steve Masters Presents: A Trip Back to the 80's Song released in 1983. Compilation released in 1995. Synthpop / New Wave

For a pretty brief moment there in the mid-80s, right in the middle of the whole synthpop boom, the Scottish group of Fiction Factory really appeared to be onto something that was quite good. And the funny thing about them was that they actually, at first, had no intention of being a band themselves. Members had tried that in the past and had grown weary of having to play too many concerts, so when the group was officially formed, what they really wanted more than anything else was to be one of those behind-the-scenes songwriting outfits who could work on and make music for other people. In fact, that idea is what had inspired their whole name in the first place: they would be ardent songwriters, whose constant output would resemble that of a factory, but the notion that they were an actual band would be pure fiction.

However, once CBS Records heard their demo, that dream of relative anonymity had been dashed. Despite Fiction Factory's protestations to the contrary, the label saw a band in front of them that could potentially make it. And so the trio of Kevin Patterson, Eddie Jordan, and Chic Medley ultimately relented and decided to enlist two more members in order to fill out their ranks: a bassist named Graham McGregor and a former drummer from the already pretty successful Simple Minds—although "Don't You (Forget About Me)" had yet to drop—Mike Ogletree.

And things ended up starting out okay for them. Fiction Factory would make their debut in 1983 with a single called "Ghost of Love," which would manage to chart at #64 in the UK and #49 in Germany. But then directly after that, they caught lightning in a bottle with "(Feels Like) Heaven," an absolute feelgood, nostalgia-inducing, sweet and sentimental-sounding, middle-of-the-road, massive, and classic 80s triumph that they had actually crafted in the span of about 36 hours.

youtube

Now, if you're an American, chances are that you may have never heard of Fiction Factory before, because despite "(Feels Like) Heaven" earning itself some burn on both US radio stations—tastemaking San Francisco DJ Steve Masters was a huge proponent of it, especially—and MTV, nothing that this band ever made sold all that well Stateside, and as a result, they never charted here in any capacity.

But over in the UK, and also throughout parts of Europe, "(Feels Like) Heaven" fared extremely well: it was #2 in Switzerland, #4 in Ireland, #6 in the UK, and #10 in both Belgium and West Germany too.

And it's just such a tasty little morsel of unbeatably dreamy 80s synthpop, driven by a perpetually fluffy string synth backdrop that gets some simple, lovely, catchy, chiming keyboard melodies that attempt to emulate the sound of a music box to float atop it; and Kevin Patterson offsets his deep vocal tone on the verses with very different falsetto choruses too.

But while this song's overall vibe might leave you thinking that it'd be a perfect fit for any sort of 80s coming-of-age scene where the typically shy teenage boy main character finally gets up enough courage at the prom in order to ask his crush for a dance, "(Feels Like) Heaven" is actually one of those songs whose lyrics tell a completely different story. It may give off an appearance that it's about being comfortably and deeply in love with someone, but a more careful scan of the lyrics actually reveals the song's subject matter to be the exact opposite. What it's really about is that exhilarating feeling of liberation that one might get after a bad relationship has finally come to a close.

Twisting the bones until they snap I scream but no one knows You say I'm familiar, cold to touch And then you turn and go, 'Feels like heaven'

And I don't know how many people have actually picked up on the winking irony that's within this song, but you can apparently find it on a whole bunch of comps that claim to be comprised exclusively of love songs. And I bet some wedding couples have chosen it for their first dance too 😅.

Unfortunately, Fiction Factory weren't able to really succeed with anything that came after this bop, though; no other song on their 1984 debut album really seemed to sound like "(Feels) Like Heaven" itself, and because of that, I think people who'd bought it were a bit turned off. And CBS were also probably left unsure of how to market them successfully too. The group would return the following year with Another Story, but neither it nor its corresponding trio of singles were able to chart anywhere, and in 1987, they decided to go their separate ways.

Synthpop bands were about as prevalent as oxygen throughout the entirety of the 80s, and while Fiction Factory probably aren't the ones who first come to mind when you think of that era's top groups, there's no doubt that, for a whole lot of Europeans, "(Feels Like) Heaven" is still one of the genre's most fondly remembered hits, overall. And while Fiction Factory may not have had much longevity as a group, this one big hit of theirs still seems to land them pretty healthy residual checks to this very day, which is probably a whole lot more than most other bands of their ilk can continue to say.

Listen to it on Spotify too:

#synthpop #synth pop #pop #new wave #music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music #classic pop #Youtube #Spotify

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ncisfranchise-source · 22 days

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It’s almost hard to believe, but the NCISverse reaches quite the milestone with the April 15 episode of the mothership, and to celebrate that, Entertainment Tonight put together NCISverse: The First 1,000.

The special both looks back at the very beginnings of NCIS—introduced as a two-parter on JAG—as well as the spinoffs that already exist, and ahead to the 1,000th episode itself and the two new shows still to come (the prequel Origins and the not-yet-titled Tony and Ziva series set in Europe). NCIS is currently in its 21st season and Hawai’i its third. Sydney is coming back for a second. Los Angeles aired 14 seasons, while New Orleans ended after seven.

Below, we’ve rounded up all the fun reveals from the special.

Cast’s Most Shocking Moments

Over the years and across the shows, there have been some unbelievable moments, from deaths to big relationship steps to major returns. And just like fans, the stars have the ones that surprised them the most.

Both Sean Murray (McGee) and Brian Dietzen (Dr. Palmer) name Kate’s (Sasha Alexander) death at the end of Season 2. “No one saw it coming—except if you go back and you look at the actual footage, you see Michael Weatherly [flinch] before she gets shot because he knows a burst of blood is about to hit his face,” Dietzen adds.

CBS

Rocky Carroll (Vance) says his character’s wife being killed off, while Noah Mills (Jesse) points to Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) getting her arm broken in the Hawai’i Season 2 finale.

For Diona Reasonover (Kasie), hers is probably the same as many fans’: Ziva’s (Cote de Pablo) return in the Season 16 finale after she’d been presumed dead. “They didn’t tell me. I found out with America, and boy was I surprised,” Reasonover recalls. “I literally pulled the script up on my phone and was like, ‘That’s not supposed to happen.’”

Mark Harmon Made It All Possible

ET‘s Kevin Frazier, who hosts the special notes, “None of it would have been possible without the distinguished service of this man, who seemed to know right from the start just where the series was going.”

Gary Cole, whose Parker has taken as team leader following Harmon’s Gibbs retiring to Alaska, says, “He’s the reason the show got on the air, pure and simple. Solid movie career going. He was a go-to series lead actor.”

Weatherly (Tony) recalls the first thing Harmon said to him: “‘You eat lunch with the crew.’ And it wasn’t a question.”

In a 2003 interview, shown during the special, Harmon said, “This show will work as a team or go down as a team, and that’s how I’ve always looked at it.” (We’ve seen how true that is over the years with the various cast changes.)

NCIS‘ Early Days, Starting With JAG

Weatherly notes that he did over 300 episodes of the mothership (he’ll be returning in the upcoming Paramount+ spinoff about Tony and Ziva) and what stuck with him from his first day on set. “In the middle of my first paragraph, [creator] Don Bellisario walked onto the set and said, ‘What are you doing, modeling? Don’t just stand there. Surprise me! Entertain me!’ and I just changed my simple thing, which was I didn’t care who found me entertaining. I just entertained myself, and I’ve been doing that ever since.”

Two JAG Season 8 episodes introduced the characters of Gibbs, Tony, Ducky (the late David McCallum), and Abby (Pauley Perrette), who would go on to be part of NCIS. They were joined by Robyn Lively as Vivian Blackadder, who didn’t make it to NCIS—and is the role that Jennifer Aniston had been considered for. (Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, Andrew McCarthy, and Patrick Swayze‘s names were all brought up to possibly play Gibbs.)

Harmon reveals that his character almost had a different name. “I read Leroy Jethro Gibbs and I said, ‘Wow, I like that name.’ Then for a brief second when I’d decided I really liked the idea and the project, the name changed. All of a sudden it was Bob Johnson or something like that,” he shares. “I just went, ‘What? No, it’s gotta be Leroy Jethro Gibbs,’ and the creator said, ‘No, you can’t play a guy named Leroy Jethro Gibbs.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ Then it went back, so I was happy about that.”

Originally, NCIS was pitched as Law & Order in the navy, half case and half courtroom, according to Frazier. But the investigation part tested best with audiences, who were also impressed with Harmon.

“Because it was two episodes of JAG, it wasn’t really a proper pilot,” says Weatherly. “And even when we started airing, they called it Navy NCIS, which is Navy Naval Criminal Investigative Service. You can’t make that up.”

Remembering David McCallum

NCIS Season 21 paid tribute to McCallum and his character with its second episode, which saw a surprise return from Weatherly, reprising his role as Tony. “That was a very emotional day, seeing everybody,” Weatherly says. “Not a dry eye on that set.”

According to Carroll, “David McCallum was 70 years old when the series started, 21 years ago. And the story goes he told his wife, ‘I’m 70 years old. What if this show goes seven years? That’s a long time.’ And he ended up being with the show for 20 seasons.”

What’s to Come in Episode 1,000, Prequel Origins & Tiva Spinoff

First of all, the good thing about the ever-growing franchise is that characters from shows that ended could easily come back; LA‘s LL COOL J is currently recurring in Hawai’i Season 3. Eric Christian Olsen (Deeks on LA) does point out in the special, “I’ve always said that Marty Deeks ain’t dead. I think there’s plenty of room for these characters to come back.” And Harmon acknowledges that he’s asked “a lot” about returning.

Harmon is returning to the franchise, in a way—as narrator and executive producer on the prequel Origins, following Gibbs beginning in 1991 as he starts his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NIS Camp Pendleton office where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks.

“I think seeing Gibbs coming up as a young guy is going to be fantastic,” says Murray. Weatherly suggests, “maybe Mark Harmon can play Gibbs’ father.”

As for the Tony and Ziva spinoff coming to Paramount+, they’ve been raising their daughter, Tali, together. When Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, try to figure out who is after them, and maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.

“Cote de Pablo and I are also getting ready. Moving to Budapest for the summer of 2024, and it is Tony and Ziva now trying to raise their tween daughter and save the world. What could go wrong?” Weatherly asks. “We’re incredibly happy to be making something for the streaming platform because it gives you a little bit more latitude and shooting overseas.”

But first, there’s the 1,000th episode of the franchise, NCIS‘ “A Thousand Yards,” NCIS comes under attack by a mysterious enemy from the past. Also, Vance tries to mend fences with his estranged son by explaining why, despite the ongoing dangers of his job, he still chooses to stay at NCIS.

“All of NCIS is suddenly put under attack, so now you get to see NCIS: Hawai’i, NCIS: LA, NCIS: Sydney coming in to help,” teases Katrina Law (Knight). We already know Lachey and LA‘s Daniela Ruah (Kensi) are guest starring.

#ncis #ncis la #ncis hawaii

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wherevenusholdssomeofficespace · 9 months

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Part 2

In Hamster and Gretel, the dynamic between Kevin Grant-Gomez and his little sister, Gretel, is easily the heart of the show. Kevin and Gretel have a large age gap, and so Kevin takes on a caretaker role to his little sister, often taking her to and from places. The show often explores feelings that result from that, Kevin's frustrations at her not listening to him, and feeling overlooked for her, as well as Gretel's desire for his attention, and her obliviousness to his feelings of inadequacy. But while that is the central relationship, the relationships across the entire Grant-Gomez family are important.

Fred is Kevin's classmate and best friend, but their relationship really is one that is best defined as cousins. This dynamic helps make Fred's relationship with Kevin feel fresh. She's Kevin's best friend of course, but they're family too. They've been together for their whole lives, and "forced" together in a way that even many childhood friends aren't. Fred doesn’t like people, and would probably never make a friend on her own, but she didn’t MAKE friends with Kevin. While she's Kevin's best friend, she's still Gretel's cousin too and she often acts as a neutral third party to her and Kevin's conflicts. While she doesn't take as much responsibility for Gretel as Kevin, she does care deeply for both of them and is someone both can count on for help without question and has an established place in the extended family dynamic beyond Kevin and Gretel.

Kevin and Gretel's parents, Dave and Carolina are also active characters, sometimes facilitating the plot (grounding Gretel, dragging Kevin to shows). But they have their own subplots and also get episodes that focus on their relationship with their children, each other, and other friends and family members.

Fred's mom and Dave's sister only shows up in one episode so far, an episode that focuses on her and Fred's relationship, but it also helps us to understand her relationship with the rest of the family. Carolina's younger sister, and mother also both have an episode or two featuring them and showing who they are and hinting at how they fit into the family, and Abuelita in general has some interactions with Fred, showing a glimpse into how the two sides of the family perceive each other. Other members of the family, particularly on Dave's side have been mentioned, although not showcased yet. And this is after 23, 20 min, episodes.

In addition many episodes develop the family more generally, with the "Ropa Vieja" episode being about family traditions, and family game night showing off how competitive the whole family is. It's also worth mentioning the Gomez side of the family is Venezuelan, and this heritage underlies many plotlines interactions on that side of the family. For instance, Carolina is implied to not speak English natively and Kevin correcting her English (and her not having it) is a recurring gag.

Of course if you're looking for nontraditional, undefinable family dynamics Hamster, Gretel's pet Hamster is the other titular character and being a talking pet definitely means he fits in a unconventional family role. As Gretel's loyal pet, but not really Kevin's, and Hamster and Kevin's growing bond is another strong part of the show. And of course, Churro, the other family pet is also a beloved member of the family even if he's just a normal (if very stupid) dog. And despite both being pets they both hold different places in the family dynamic, both before and after Hamster learned to talk. Hamster is more of Gretel’s pet than the family pet. And Hamster being smarter than Churro, sometimes has to look after him too despite both being pets. Hamster's not a sibling or a weird uncle. He's just the pet Hamster. Who just so happens to be able to talk, and play piano, and paint. And fly.

All in all the Grant-Gomez family is the heart of Hamster and Gretel and the show explores this family across generations, their traditions, values, similarities and differences.

But it's not the only family dynamic to play a key role. Lauren and Lyle are clearly meant to foil Kevin and Gretel, with more mature older sibling to dumb(or at least reckless), muscle younger sibling. The Destructress and Fistpuncher often are at odds with each other, but Lauren will still rescue Lyle "from himself", and despite their conflict still willingly work as a team.

And the very first villain we were introduced to, turned out to have a family of his own. Whereas Kevin learns to have faith in Gretel in the very first episode, when we meet Nordle, its because Professor Exclamation is putting him down for not being as smart as he had hoped. Where Professor Exclamation wants to be evil with his son, who rejects him in the name of having friends, Gretel and Kevin DO fight evil together and eventually get Bailey in on it too. While the superhero/villain activities cause a strain in both their lives, Nordle is working against his dad, while Gretel works with her family. Without a doubt Exclamation loves Nordle, but he's not really thinking of what's best for Nordle.

Even minor villains have mentioned family, like La Sombrerona and her 5 dead husbands, the Rat Burglar and her son, the Ear Worm and his judgmental family of overachievers, and El Luchador,.

But the omnipresence of familial dynamics isn't surprising at all when we consider that this is by a creator of Phineas and Ferb.

#hamster and gretel #h&g

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bluegrowlmon · 8 months

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I am about to be intensely negative about the film The Outwaters (2022), so if you like it, shield your eyes and look away.

(Both these movies have middling scores on IMBD by the way, which I find hilarious. Seem to be equally polarizing!)

Okay. That being said, I'm going to transcribe the messages I sent a friend about my feelings about The Outwaters (2022) and how it compares to Skinamarink (2022). Spoilers for both movies below.

puts on film critic hat

At their hearts, Skinamarink and The Outwaters invite a lot of comparisons: both came from nascent horror directors, had small budgets, told their stories using a nontraditional format, and are about their main characters dealing with a strange, unknown entity.

Where the difference comes in, and where I feel that The Outwaters fails, is in their executions.

Skinamarink is about two very young children, Kaylee and Kevin, who wake up one night to find their parents gone and that the doors and windows have also vanished. They try calling 911, but the phones don't work either.

they go about their lives. They eat cereal and milk and watch old VHS tapes, and every night, whatever entity is in their house becomes more and more apparent, moving objects, speaking to them, and eventually directly interacting with them.

Skinamarink does not work for every horror fan, and that's fine! it is very slow, has no soundtrack, and uses a lot of dread and ambient sound to create its tension. One of my friends watched it after me and was incredibly bored and unaffected by the whole thing, making me feel a bit silly in comparison.

BC I, on the other hand, was absolutely terrified and left about halfway through the movie theater showing.

Part of what affected me was just the core concept of the film. children being in danger messed me up more than i thought it would. the entity is never fully seen or known, but it behaves with internal logic, so its actions are predictable; it does whatever it has to to keep the kids in the house and 'play' with them, whether that means making the toilet disappear or telling the boy to stick a knife in his eye. which he does (offscreen).

despite the obscure storytelling method, the story itself is clear, and every scare and tension-building maneuver is used to tell this story and communicate the entity's intentions

It makes sense.

(btw - the part of the movie that messed me up hardest wasn't even a scare - it was the older sister, kaylee, who had to be like 6 or 7, trying her best to take care of her little brother, getting him food, and walking him to the bathroom. at one point they are going to sleep and Kevin says "l love you", and she responds, "i love you too." small moment, but incredibly effective at showing children trying to cling to each other and normalcy in a hellish situation)

((ok i lied, the part that messed me up hardest was kaylee without a face))

MEANWHILE, YOU HAVE OUTWATERS

where do i even start with this trainwreck

So the movie is about these 4 adults, 2 brothers, and 2 women who know them somehow, going out to the deserts of LA to make a music video

It's found footage btw

The movie is very slow to start with lots of buildup and sprinklings of character detail: one character learned an eerie lullaby from her deceased mother she sings for the video, and she's still torn up about the loss; one brother is estranged from his mother for reasons that the other brother doesn't know, things like that.

LITERALLy none of that is important. It doesn't influence the characters, how they react to the situation, or how they react to each other. You could start the movie when they get to the desert, skip the first 30 minutes and Nothing Changes

(I clearly Did Not Like the movie. If it turns out there were reasons for the buildup, awesome! I still think that the buildup was not well done enough to be apparent on a first viewing, meaning it loses points in my eyes)

The scares and inexplicable happenings can be scary - like the flashing light, the flesh worm thing, and the bloody guy in the desert - but the lack of internal cohesion stops it from ever being truly scary or impactful to me. There are weird worms that look like living intestines, the earth hums and makes weird shrieks into their microphones, there's time travel, donkeys that stare judgementally (, all this stuff, but it never builds to anything and conveys any real momentum. The 1 camera guy just stumbles from thing to thing.

The first serious scare is also the only one I liked (and notably it occurs before all the Weird Random BS starts happening)

The main camera guy is wandering through the desert at night away from the tent bc he heard a noise or something (side note: i would love even a tenth of the confidence of a white man in a horror movie)

he stumbles through the dark, and a blurry man covered in blood holding an axe runs up to him, and you hear a heavy impact. some blood falls. the camera guy makes a groaning kind of sound and stumbles back to the tent. He kneels by his brother, who has his back to him. 'my head is raining' the camera guy says. His brother doesn't move, or show he's heard, a microcosm of how he's acted the whole trip. 'my head is raining.' the camera guy says again. he touches his brother and gets blood on his shirt.

Most of the movie is camera guy, stumbling from strange happening to strange happening alone. I believe these kinds of horror stories work best when someone is trying to comprehend or interact with or escape the unknowable horror. if you experience it, and barely comprehend it, and don't really react to it, does it even count? then you're just like a dog in a movie theater. you experience huge awesome sensations about concetpts you barely comprehend but it just placidly slides off your brain.

the only attempt at some kind of though line is when camera guy stumbles upon a government 'stay out hazardous area' sign, implying some power knew this place was bad? but honestly that could have been for anything

So yeah, TL:DR, there's a very good reason people make skinamarink OCs and, as far as I know, no one has made an outwaters OC

Of course i could check tumblr or twitter and be proven wrong in an instant

takes off movie critic hat

#skinamarink #skinamarink spoilers #the outwaters spoilers #not every film is for everyone! if you like outwaters and hated skinamarink thats fantastic #no shade to you #i sent this to a friend ages ago and they have not replied since i think i scared them off #edit; they replied and said 'cool speech lol'

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bookgeekgrrl · 1 year

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My media this week (26 Mar-1 Apr 2023)

ᵉⁿᵗᶦʳᵉˡʸ ᵗʰᵉ ᵐᵒᵒᵈ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵉᵉᵏ

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😍👂‍Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries #4) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍👂‍Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries #6) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍👂‍Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries #5) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😊Spun like Sugar (Neyasochi) - 66K, sheith modern AU, very light sugar daddy vibe to start but mostly just a warm & fluffy low-angst relationship fic

🥰Lima Charlie (One-EyedBossman (desert000rose), SecretFandomStories) - 71K, Differently Okay Local Idiots #9, modern no-powers stucky - next episode of this fantastic series of two really damaged people figuring out how their jagged edges fit together - i just love it a whole lot

🥰just say you do (not playing a part #1) (biblionerd07) - 173K, shrinkyclinks modern AU, arranged marriage - reread; love this fic! lots of juicy angst & pining, great supporting cast

💖💖 +351K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

The Spirit and the Letter series (lightgetsin) - The Dresden Files: Dresden/Marcone, 4 works, 55K total - very good series that explores Harry & John's developing relationship, best summed up by this summary from the 2nd fic: "It was like playing chicken with intimacy, both of us pushing and pushing and waiting to see who blinked first." (first fic does feature a sexswap to start)

Life or Something Like It (AidaRonan) - Stranger Things: steddie, 9K - San Junipero AU!

Your last chance to trust the man with the star (burning_brighter art (burning_brighter), chaosmanor) - MCU: stucky, 30K, arranged marriage fic - I really loved Steve's character in this + the wedding outfits were amazing - would kill for some art of them

I have a lot of regrets about that (HairMetal666) - Stranger Things: steddie, 4.7K - cute & mildly angsty musician exes AU

bullet in a gun (but in the end, my time will come) (voxofthevoid) - MCU: stucky, 25K - canon divergent post-Endgame with Bucky getting railed by several different multiverse versions of Steve - reread, forever fave, hot AF

second hand unwinding (greatunironic) - Stranger Things: steddie, 23K - satisfying post canon divergent with some bonus prophecy stuff

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Maine Cabin Masters - s7, e13

Poker Face - s1, e9

Schitt's Creek - s2, e7

Leverage - s2, e14

Staged - s3, e1

Ted Lasso - s3, e3 [2x]

LACKADAISY - Pilot

Murdoch Mysteries - s15, e1-2

Hot Ones - Florence Pugh Sweats From Her Eyebrows While Eating Spicy Wings

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Into It - Andy Warhol, Black Eyed Peas, and Unicorn Poop

⭐The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Great Balls of Twine with the Places Team

Vibe Check - In Case of Emergency - Break Glass

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - A Delicious Mission with Cheuk Kwan

99% Invisible #530 - The Panopticon Effect

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Wild Chocolate with Rowan Jacobsen

Ologies with Alie Ward - Chickenology (HENS & ROOSTERS) Part 1 with Tove Danovich

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Beat Museum

Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein - Suzi Ruffell

Hit Parade Plus - The Bridge: Still a Rock Star

Into It - Are We Into the Gwyneth Paltrow Trial, Questlove's Disney Project, and Remaking 'The Bachelor'?

⭐ Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 185: Florence Pugh

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

The Essential Kenny Loggins [Kenny Loggins] {2002}

Shiny, Happy Pick-Me-Ups

lots and lots of various 'white noise'

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kariachi · 2 years

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Hot Take!

Argit definitely should've been a 3rd Protagonist in Omniverse alongside Ben and Rook

Just hear me out, Argit's character bounces off so well against Ben and Rook's characters

He is a PERFECT foil to Rook.

-Both are Aliens who live on Earth but while Rook is clearly a Fish out of Water, Argit already seems to know well about Earth Culture and blends right into it

-Rook is a "By-the-Book" Cop who has a very Black and White sense of Morality, while Argit is a Sleezy Conman and is in the Grey Area of Morality (granted it's a rather dark shade of Grey but it's still Grey nonetheless)

-Rook is an Alien based on Cats and other Felines while Argit is an Alien based on Rats and other Rodents

Ben could be a perfect balance between the two. While Ben is a Hero, he is also kinda a dick tbh.

Rook and Argit could play roles like being the Angel and Devil on Ben's shoulders.

And I just think Argit and Ben's interactions are funny lol

Anon I am gonna agree with you for the following reasons-

I've been saying for a while that the story overall would've been improved if he'd been the one to join Team Tennyson rather then Kevin. You'd have to make him a lighter shade of morally grey (personally I'd do it by leaning more into the sort've characterization we got in the Rooters Arc, where he's shown as more loyal and courageous even if the bar is low) but it would avoid the rushing of Kevin's change to a 'good' character while still allowing him to be in the show, remove what I still hold is a poorly done romantic subplot or at least force it to be done differently, add an alien to the cast earlier without having to go 'everything is aliens so technically', and as you said, at least halfway, his interactions with the Tennysons are still plenty amusing and leave room for some interesting dynamics.

The fact Argit and Rook aren't played against each other more pains me. Because as you said they could be made into good foils but also the 'new immigrant to a strange land and established immigrant to that land' dynamic could be so good. Plus you get the option of the more inexperienced Rook as compared to the more worldly Argit (Rook went from a backwoods planet where his connection with the rest of the galaxy was via radio to the Academy and then to Earth, meanwhile what we see of Argit starts out in the Null Void, travels the galaxy with Kevin, and then comes to Earth (which also is 100% why he's better with Earth stuff than Rook- he had years travelling with an Earth native and then a few years living on Earth before OV starts, while Rook has nothing but Ben's file and whatever info the ethernet has on the planet to go off at OV start)). This stuff could be very well played with.

Plus, a point of the foil scale you didn't mention- Argit's belief that you shouldn't try to make your partner someone they're not (including just accepting sudden changes in behavior just because they fit what you want them to be) as compared to Rook's desire in early OV for Ben to meet his expectations, to the extent that when Ben is swapped with he ignores the red flags because 'Ben' is acting more like what Rook wanted him to be. Could be interesting to have that as a running thing in the background, Rook's disappointment vs Argit's acceptance, before it comes to a head in that episode.

Also, because you know how people are with narrative foils, the chaos that would erupt between Rook/Argit fans (you know they'd happen) vs Rook/Ben fans (which already fucking happened). Actually thinking about it it'd probably be more Ben/Argit fans circling the tags opposite Rook/Ben fans, because this fandom puts shipping Tennysons above any other ship in existence, but the three options would dominate and be a complete mess. I dread and yearn for the shipping maps people would come up with.

-Seriously, it opens so many options there that the fandom would've gone absolutely ass over tits wild. It'd have been total anarchy. We got a bit of a mess when it was Gwevin and Benlie vs Bevin, can you imagine this?

Then you get the opening for more Argit background, which more background for characters is always a good thing, and since OV was bigger into worldbuilding we'd have probably gotten more info on his species. You can even get episodes contrasting him and Rook and how they got to the places they are in life (the farmboy from a strict conservative culture who heard stories of heroics and decided to leave home to pursue them, becoming a cop due to his hero's association and probably also because his upbringing made the cop thing seem like a Good vs the homeless and family-less child who presumably first turns to crime due to lack of options and then grows to fit that mold due to his young age at start). (even if Argit had anything pre-Rooters, he sure as fuck only had Kevin after, and Kevin we know is in that position) (and hey opening for more about their relationship)

And of course you get the interactions as a trio, as you said Rook being the Lawful Good influence and Argit the Neutral Evil (probably working towards true neutral) influence to Ben's Neutral Good. Plus, you also get the Sliding Scale of Alien Knowledge- from Argit's 'I am an alien and I've been living among a wide variety species if not my whole life than for over half a decade' to Ben's 'I have canonically about three/four years experience becoming and fighting a wide variety of species' to Rook's 'I am an alien and have been living among a wide variety of alien species for maybe a year, probably a matter of months'. Group arguments, group agreements (sometimes of the most unlikely sort), two guys ganging up to tease the third, a running gag of Argit lamenting that Ben and Rook are wasting themselves on fucking law enforcement. An episode where Argit and Rook both have fleas and spend it arguing about who gave them to who. And episode where they both confront Ben on his tendency towards speciest comments and that get handled. The fucking Rooters arc and what changes there. And the appearance of Argit 10 in the multiverse episodes would take on an entirely new common view (closer to my own because come on Paradox was only bringing them to Good Bens), he may have even joined the group there.

Just, it could've been very fun and very interesting. But no, we can't have joy in our lives.

#achi rambles #i think this deserves the tag don't you?#the show would've been better with argit as a lead i've said it and will continue to say it #argit 10 for morally neutral at worst

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tranquilspot · 10 months

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[S] John: Play haunting piano refrain.

[tell me if the track doesn't work]

Released August 9, 2009 by Kevin Regamey and Malcolm Brown The first ~50 seconds were used for this flash. Well that was a nice interlude. Showtime is such a memorable song, it appears later in different tracks, making it John's theme. Thanks to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, some tracks even have the artist commentary! That's great, I'll be able to comment on it. Also, piano fingers go weeee~

Kevin Regamey: To be honest, I've fallen off the MSPA train pretty hard. This has undoubtedly been the busiest year (or two) of my life, and I am only now returning to reacquaint myself with what the heck is up.

Maaan if only I got more curious, I could have discover Homestuck way earlier. That wouldn't have change the fact that it already ended (or was about to) by the time I discovered Undertale first (back in 2016). Must have been wild to have experienced MSPA during its inception and golden age. That thing huge, so I understand it can be hard to keep up especially when you get off the train a while ago.

Malcolm wrote the chiptune version of Showtime first. I heard it, dug it, and created a piano arrangement just for the hell of it. Like Malcolm has said - earlier on, we didn't necessarily know what we were writing for, so we just wrote whatever spoke to us.

Creative process can be so various and unique from one person to another. They didn't really know in which direction or for what they were writing, but they did anyway. And the chiptune version came first! Crazy.

Tell me your secret guys, please 🥺

I had posted a "Work in progress" version to the music boards, and I received some positive feedback. Positive enough for me to elaborate it into a full piece.

Fuck yeah, MSPA really did sound awesome! Too bad it closed. I mean we've got MSPFA, but I bet for veterans it doesn't feel the same. Is there a similar platform currently existing? Like you post a wip and you got feedbacks then it motivated you to post the full work? No no I'm not talking about Deviantart, been there, done that. Twice. Twitter doesn't showcase art properly, and Tumblr isn't much for like and positive feedbacks, if any feedback really ToT I have put some of my fan art here, but how to get people interacting with it? That'd always been a mystery to me.

As luck would have it, Andrew was finishing up the first playable page of Homestuck just as I posted the full version. As such, I was lucky enough to have the honour of first musical appearance in Homestuck,

Giga chad energy, what a winner!

but most of the credit should certainly go to Malcolm - for defining John musically at such an early stage of the game, and for being the sole inspiration behind this track.

Man, don't discredit yourself! You still did great, you're on the podium even if you're not first place. Yeah, having the skill and honor of defining a character theme is on a different level. But horizontally I would say. There's pride on both. If the chiptune version is well-known and catchy, the piano one is an iconic powerful track, mixing nostalgia, aimless yearning and tenderness. So much emotion that left a mark in each of us. Later to be magnified by the organ pipe version, by da man, James Roach.

Oh, side note: My midi keyboard was misbehaving when I wrote this, so every note of the piece was clicked into a sequencer. D:

I'm not familiar with such programs, but putting them one by one sounds like hell. Rip x) —>

#homestuck #act 1 #homestuck reread #reread blog #john egbert #s flash #Bandcamp #artist commentary #commentary on commentary #kevin regamey #malcolm brown

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agentnico · 11 months

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The Flash (2023) Review

“You wanna get nuts? Lets get nuts!”

Plot: Worlds collide when the Flash uses his superpowers to travel back in time to change the events of the past. However, when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, he becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation. With no other superheroes to turn to, the Flash looks to coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian - albeit not the one he's looking for.

The Flash is finally out. After nearly a decade of delays, changes in directors and script rewrites, we’ve finally reached the point where the movie has actually graced our cinema screens. So yep, not as bad as Avatar, but this movie is pretty late to the party so to speak. It comes at a time when Warner Bros. had just merged with Discovery and the DCEU is being disbanded to create the new DC Studios helmed by James Gunn and Peter Safran. As a result The Flash now acts as an unofficial finale to what has come thus far, with additionally also introducing the multiverse due to multiverses being so hot right now with all things movies and superheroes. So yep, no Henry Cavill’s Superman here, no Dwayne “Black Adam” Johnson changing any hierarchies, yet there are just maybe a couple of different Batmen and the director of those It movies is on board. And in the middle of it all a big elephant named Ezra.

We need to talk about Kevin. Or more-so Ezra. Is it weird seeing them front and centre in the titular role of this movie following all those news stories of them strangling folks and getting arrested on multiple occasions? Yes it’s weird! And moreover there’s not one, but in fact two Barry’s in this film, which means Ezra’s face is all over the screen. I must say personally with hearing about their real life misconducts, seeing Ezra in the film was very distracting, and quite difficult to care for his character when his psychotic eyes are constantly just there. Also, the way Miller plays the character comes off very annoying, so I cannot even defend them from a performance standpoint. For a maddo at the very least they could have at least tried to convincingly play a good guy. I’m hearing that Warner Bros. is considering sequel options if this film performs well at the box office, however personally I believe they should cut ties with Ezra Miller right away, or at least until we see real progress from their recovery.

As for the rest of the film, ever since this film was hyped up by critics after its CinemaCon screening a few months back, there was this expectation that this movie was something special. However upon seeing it I must admit it was simply okay. Not by any means terrible, but nowhere close to being great. The central narrative of Barry’s struggles of wanting to get his parents back is solid, however all the multiversal fan-service feels more so like a walkthrough of DC’s greatest hits. Especially in the final third where we get certain expected cameos, they feel very forced and very much a “look at all these lovely chums!”. Even Michael Keaton’s return as Batman, though his action sequences were fun, the actual character was given little to nothing to do. And in terms of dialogue, all of Keaton’s lines are mainly what I’d call ‘trailer lines’ - lines that work perfectly in the trailer to sell the movie but in context of the film are just there to have the character say something cool for the sake of it. You know the “you wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts” line from the trailer? Yep, Keaton does say it in the movie but it feels very awkward in the moment and forced. I’m all for fan-service if its done well, like in No Way Home and Across the Spider-Verse where in both the fan service was used to benefit the story and the momentum of the scenes. In The Flash it all felt really disjointed.

Visually the opening sequence where we first see Barry go into superspeed is done really really well, however at the same time in a lot of other moments the CGI looks really fake. Especially when there are two Barry’s on-screen, you could always tell which one was the double that had a CGI’d Ezra face tacked on. For a movie that has a $200+ budget you’d expect the special effects to be smoother. Again though, I don’t want to bash on the director, I do feel Andy Muschietti brings a lot of comic-book flair and does try to provide an exciting action romp, and overall the movie is fun if forgettable and messy.

In terms of the cast, already mentioned Ezra Miller’s creepy notions, and Michael Keaton is a delight if very much a “show me the money” type of performance. Ben Affleck’s Batman is only in a couple of scenes, however just reminded me of how solid he was a Batman and its a shame we’ve never seen an actual proper Batman film with his character. Michael Shannon as Zod looks visibly bored and confused, which is very much in line with what the actor said to the press where he had no clue what the hell was going but wished everyone to have fun anyway. Oh the lovely Michael Shannon! Sasha Calle as Supergirl was actually really good! She donned the suit well and even though wasn’t in the movie long, she still managed to leave an impression. And as for the cameos, there are some fun ones but overall because of the abundance the surprise factor simply was not there.

Overall, The Flash is a passable superhero flick that will surely please fans of these characters, however the messy script, the over-reliance on multiversal cameos, the mediocre CGI and a creepy Ezra taking the scene, I expect this movie to be forgotten much sooner than it took this film to come out from development hell. I am aware I am in the minority on this, but unfortunately I just didn’t go nuts for this one.

Overall score: 5/10

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rhinozilla · 1 year

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how do you come up with the names for your OCs in detroit 07? You have so many good fleshed-out characters and I’m just curious how they become a character :D

Thank you! I love creating new characters for Detroit 07.

When I brainstorm for names for these characters, I either have names that I already like floating around in my head just waiting to be assigned to a character (like Ogden, Gwen, Apollo, and Zeke) or I do some haphazard googling to find names with meanings that would suit a character that I already have in mind (like Coda, Nova, Calder).

I agonized over what to name Coda and Calder. I had entirely different non-C names in the wings for both of them forever until it came time to actually name them. 'Coda' had a nice sound to it, and I like the connection of it to music and the Comfort Algorithm. I knew I wanted Sixty's name to be abrasive or to have an abrasive meaning. 'Calder' just works so well for him I think.

I do have some names that I put in there for giggles, like my only two PC200s are Apollo and Zeke (I wanted to use the first and last letters of the alphabet, since their personalities are so opposite of each other). Any firefighter androids that I've made have fire-related pun names: Ember, Ashley, Cindy (because I'm hilarious). And before I realized how deep of a character she was going to be, I liked the "Penny Nichols" pun of Penny's name. Pretty sure early on she even jokes that she has a sister named Kash.

'Ogden' I literally got off a street sign during a long drive somewhere. 'Oswin' came from Doctor Who, although my character Oswin has nothing else in common with that, I just liked the sound of it. 'Nova' just sounded so ethereal that that's what I had to name the first non-Cyberlife android.

'Julia' is kind of a play on Juliet, since I knew she was going to be Connor's love interest in some capacity. And I like the nickname 'Jules.'

'Polly' and 'Bonny' are just really cute names, and I knew Polly was going to be a ray of sunshine and Bonny was going to be a bubbly little friend in Connor's life.

Something about the magnificent RK900 named Coda being best friends with a lumberjack of a man named 'Bert' was too charming to pass up.

Not gonna lie, I'm a little sad sometimes that I gave such a bomb ass name like 'Hiram Kess' to a background character who shows up only once in a blue moon XD And 'Kevin' is such a wonderfully average name to give a Celine Dion-obsessed eccentric technician.

So yeah. I am a very sophisticated writer with very sophisticated methods of naming my characters.

#detroit 07

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sohemotional · 2 years

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Which Glee characters would you like to see as siblings?

Rachel and Santana as siblings is one of my favourite dynamics to write about/think about. For some reason they fit very well into that dynamic, maybe because they have a lot of similarities (Rachel and Santana are like two sides of the same coin - they're both really intense, socially awkward girls who want to be loved but don't know how to get what they want) and I love the idea of protective big sister Santana who bickers with Rachel but would beat up anyone who hurt her little sister.

Same with Finn and Santana. I like the idea of goofy big brother Finn and Santana the little sister who sasses him but they still care about each other. It's very pure and funny to imagine that family dynamic. Especially since Cory and Naya basically were like a brother and sister irl (confirmed by N herself and by Cory's mom) and they kind of played them that way in the series whenever they could. Not to mention Kevin who was one of N's best friends said C and N were like the male and female version of each other and I can see that too with Finntana. Santana had this rivalry with Finn that reminded me of a sibling rivalry. Their characters had lots of parallels and they both shared a brain cell and they were both picking fights with people all the time - all of which lends itself very nicely to Finntana siblings. One of my favourite moments between them was when Santana called in Finn to beat up Brody. It was peak ridiculous Finn and Santana.

I can't really see anyone else being siblings in the series, or at least never thought about it but I should because Glee desperately needed more platonic relationship development. They say Brittany has a younger sister and a lot of fanfics make Brittany and Sam siblings or even twins. If things were different, I guess Britt and Sam or Puck and Santana as siblings (maybe even Rachel and Blaine?) could have been interesting storylines but at the moment I really only like Finn and Santana or Rachel and Santana as sibling dynamics.

#Santana Lopez #Rachel Berry #Finn Hudson #Glee #Finn and Santana #Rachel and Santana #platonic pezberry #platonic finntana #pezberry siblings #finntana siblings

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greatwyrmgold · 1 year

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Community College Hero: Trial By Fire

...is a video game I played for four and a half hours back in January 2017. It's an "interactive novel" wherein You get a scholarship to superhero college and do stuff.

The Steam page talks about romancing one of six characters, investigating a new villain, property damage liability, and character customization. It also lists two different word counts (168,000 and 176,000), which makes me wonder how you count words for this kind of narrative in the first place.

I don't remember much about it, but I decided to replay it and write up some thoughts.

Conclusion

A lot of this post is rambly and stream-of-consciousness, so I figured I should put this first.

There are absolutely parts I like, particularly the characters. None of them are deep, but as a supporting cast, they work well enough. I could see myself liking them if they were in a better context. But their context is a text adventure with slow pacing and a poor attention span.

I just can't find any angle to enjoy this from. The plot progresses too slowly for me to get invested in it. The character-conversation scenes are short and shallow, and at least in the early game it splits its focus between about a dozen characters instead of focusing on a smaller cast you can spend more time with. And neither the world nor prose are good enough to enjoy just soaking in the superhero community college atmosphere.

Gameplay

It's a very basic game, more complicated than a CYOA book but less complicated than many visual novels. It's told almost entirely through text, with the occasional piece of art. There's zero audio, not even a looping royalty-free track from Kevin MacCleod or something. (It's probably an engine limitation, because boy is this engine limited.)

The publisher has an extensive library of such games, the earliest being Choice of the Dragon. I feel like the format fits a freemium mobile game better than a $5 Steam title, but I bought CCH, so what do I know.

The game has stats, but unlike most crunchier visual novels, it doesn't do much to convey what affects them or what effects they have. It doesn't help that the stats are named things like "Thud" and "Yay" and "Hmmm"—defense, popularity, and awareness, respectively. There's a list explaining what the stats mean at the bottom of your character sheet, but it's not particularly near your stat list. Also: If you realize the character sheet needs to remind players which stat is what, you should rename at least some of the stats.

And balance seems off; at one point in the early game, I glanced at my character sheet and noticed that I had inflated Yay to 23 when the other seven summed to 19. I wasn't trying to be super-popular at the expense of everything else, I just kept being a nice/cool guy and stumbled into obscene popularity.

Relationships with various characters are tracked, but it's not always clear what raises or lowers them. Unlike the stats, you can usually take an educated guess; agreeing with your classmate makes them like you more, criticizing a teacher's lesson plan and general approach to teaching makes them like you less, even if you're obviously right. But sometimes, I would just have no clue. Why does Professor Downfall hate me more than the teachers who I've ignored or criticized when the worst I've done in her class is get beaten up?

Choice

In this kind of game, layer choice and expression is the most important aspect of the game. And while there are some positives, I found the game rather restrictive.

First, some positives. When you pick your gender, you can pick "neither" as well as male/female, and you can independently pick your sexuality (with "bi "both" and "neither" as options). It's no 2064: Read Only Memories, but it's pretty solid.

The game also gives you a bit of flexibility in how you develop relationships with other characters. You might need to remind the game that you're trying to be friendly two or three times in a row, but being friendly doesn't lock you into any particular romance, which is nice.

However, the game occasionally just decides to have you do stuff. If I was given the option, I'd have gladly volunteered at the children's hospital with my paper classmate, but the game didn't give me the option. Stuff like that makes the design feel less polished than it should, considering that the game is 99% text.

It doesn't help that some dialogue options are very bluntly playing into four superhero personality archetypes—Brooder, Charmer, Jokester, Traditionalist. The game doesn't encourage you to pick one "alignment" and stick with it, but there's a certain...lack of nuance in the options. For instance: When one of your classmates suggests a rather ineffective-sounding study plan of "look at clouds and ask quiz questions," your options are to call it dumb, say it sounds nice, or go along with it silently.

And even if it's not a "What kind of hero are you?" question, there are still times when you're provided with two extreme, specific options without any kind of middle ground. Lots of games with a focus on that sort of choice run into this problem. It's still annoying.

It's also more prominent, because most games offer this kind of question when you need to do or say something. CCH:TBF, on the other hand, sometimes asks what you think about something another character says, absent such action. There might be multiple options which involve caring about it for various reasons, but "I don't have a strong opinion" is often not an option. And again, sometimes the options are very specific.

Though on the bright side, when you're asked about your intentions, you are allowed to lie.

Structure/Pacing

After character creation, you go into a long section that's literally just conversations with other characters, meant to establish their character traits (and possibly figure out what romance you're angling for). Most good visual novels would try to mix these in with some form of exposition or plot advancement; if they couldn't do multiple things per scene, they'd at least alternate between different kinds of scene, or make you pick a couple characters to talk to, or something.

It doesn't help that the pacing of the main plot is extremely slow, bogged down by all these aimless scholastic vignettes. If you want to see how that in medias res opening goes down, or what's going on with the Contrarian, or see how the protagonist's background comes to bite him, you need to wade through hours of fluff for crumbs of plot.

And even if you like visual novel fluff, you're liable to walk away disappointed. The scenes tend to be short and low on detail, with many conversations reduced to a few key lines and a summary. And worse, it's impossible to focus on the parts you like. If you get a couple scenes with characters you like in a row, they'll be followed by characters you don't have an opinion of, classwork, crumbs of plot, a meeting with the Dean, etc.

I tried to give CCH the best chance it could have. Tried to meet it on its own terms. One of us failed, and I'm inclined to blame the game. I can't see why it would be appealing to sit down and play.

Maybe the problem is that I was sitting down to play it on my PC. Maybe it would work better if I was playing a scene at a time on my phone or something. But this game was sold on Steam. The new platform should have been considered when designing the game.

Saves

There aren't really any. You can close the game or turn off your PC and progress will be saved, but you boot up right on the "page" where you left off, no menu or anything. You can't maintain multiple saves, or save right before a dialogue choice in case the writer wrote you saying something unexpected, or undo a transition if you accidentally skip past an entire page, or anything. Your only options are to continue or restart, erasing all your progress.

It's a very basic system that works well for games you can complete in a couple hours, but less well for games where you're still in the prologue by then.

Worldbuilding

Zeeple

This world's term for metahumans is "Z-person," which is dumb in a way that would be charming if it didn't also feel kinda lazy. But it's not as bad as it sounds; they're named after Zenith Shields, which are a...unique origin for metahumans.

Basically, SDI worked in this universe, resulting in nine of the USA's biggest cities getting shields that "purportedly protected [them] from nuclear strikes". Apparently those nine cities hold 20% of the population, which sounds wrong (NYC has <5%, and it's way bigger than most cities), but I convinced myself not to crunch the numbers. Especially since there's a bigger problem.

RIots broke out in unprotected cities and the economy stalled for over a decade. In addition, those living in shielded cities were physically unable to leave (emphasis mine). Z-Cities were arguably safe from nuclear attacks, but they were prisons.

How does this work?? Putting aside questions of why the Zenith Shields can't be lowered when there's no imminent danger of attack, how do these cities function? To date, humanity has not built a single city which can fulfill all its needs using only facilities within city limits. Food alone would be an impossible challenge with modern tech, unless we urban-renewal'd Manhattan. Do the Zenith Shields cordon off the tri-county area? (Is that how they cover 20% of the population?)

Anyways, the Cold War lasted until 1996, by which time a whole generation of city kids had grown up absorbing Zenith Shield radiation. Starting in 1997, the media noticed that some of those people developed "unique abilities"; these became known as Zenith People, Z-People, Zeniths, or Z's. In my opinion, they should've lead with Zeniths and dropped Z-People and maybe Z's.

The game obviously never calls Zenith People zeeple, but I will, because I think it's funny to do so.

Anyways, the Zeniths have an official Power Grade system, which I think is kinda goofy. Each grade is about twice as powerful as the last; Grade 1 is presumed capable of defeating five "standard humans," with each grade thereafter doubling that. Grade-2 zeeple can defeat 10 people each, Grade-3 20, Grade-5 80, Grade-10 a bit over 2,500. Grade-10 zeeple are considered global threats.

Now, "defeat X standard humans" is a pretty wibbly-wobbly kind of power level. But I think most people would agree that a "global threat" should be able to defeat at least half a division of ordinary soldiers, and it doesn't sound like that's necessarily the case.

This is just a very silly power level system, one where the provided details make things sillier.

Cape Institutions

Prestige University for Heroes was founded in 1997, right after people learned zeeple were a thing. Apparently Mega Cat (one of the first famous zeeple) worked to found it, along with "federal and state agencies".

PUH trains and educates heroes, and also "has worked with the government to test Zeniths and objectively measure their power levels". I assume PUH started as a research institution and became a hero training facility once there were more heroes who needed training, but that's 100% benefit of the doubt.

There are two other hero programs noted. Savior School in San Fransisco, like PUH, offers a four-year hero degree. But this isn't Ivy League Hero, this is Community College Hero. Speck Community College (in unremarkable Speck, Nebraska) offers a four-semester program that will give you an Associate in Arts degree and prepare you for a potential transfer to PUH or SS.

The different hero degree programs have different requirements. For instance, Savior School won't accept any applicants below Grade 3, and most of their "advanced students" are Grade-4. PUH requires Grade 5, while SCC will accept anyone of at least Grade-1. Good luck transferring out with that kind of score, though.

Savior School's founders, Booksmart and Streetsmart, founded their school about seven years ago, with two stated motivations. First, they want to broaden the range of students accepted to hero training programs, both in terms of power levels and in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. Second, they want there to be multiple hero training programs; previously, Mega Cat and PUH had a monopoly that Booksmart and Streetsmart want to break. (It also sounds like Streetsmart thinks Mega Cat is a wimp.)

There's also the Diabolical Dozen, "the world's premier group of villains based somewhere in southern Florida" (of course). They also have a minimum Grade requirement of 8, which means they could potentially be defeated by a small crowd if they attacked a high school graduation. Well, the text says they could defeat an entire division of over 15,000 soldiers, but I assume that most of that comes from the more powerful members, like Lady Ash (who I assume is the Siberian to the D12's Slaughterhouse Nine).

The Dozen haven't been super active recently, but the in medias res opening has the main character fighting three members, so that won't last long.

Cape Culture

The application process for Speck Community College's hero program is pretty impractical. You're not allowed to give them identifying information like name or address, meaning that just submitting an application requires a bunch of spy movie bullplop. I can only imagine how bad the big universities are. Anyways, this continues when you actually start attending classes; you're required to wear your costume basically whenever you aren't alone.

Characters

%charname

The second-person main character (who i will herein call Yuu, after P4's similarly blank slate) is a zerson geek. That's the one personality trait the game assigns you, and it's a pretty extreme one. Victoria Dallon and Izuku Midoriya think he should tone it down.

Yuu isn't a zerson; they're the one normal human in the SCC hero course. But that's not the only unique thing about them; they were raised by a petty supervillain! A fact that the game doesn't dwell on.

You are given a wide variety of character customization options, though many of the choices are a bit...limited. You can type in whatever you like for your names, but you're limited in most other details to options the developers picked.

My %charname

A marksman with an anarchist streak, named Marxman. In his civilian identity, he's a Japanese kid named Hei Yuu, because I like dumb puns. He tries to present as a classical superhero, clad in red/white/blue spandex with a half-mask. He's still intensely distrustful of most formal authorities, though. Marxman tries to be cordial with all of his peers who aren't asshats, hoping to befriend them.

In my head, he's hoping to start a superhero team with his classmates who aren't accepted to PUH or Savior School—a team which will ultimately be open to anyone with a good heart and strong arm, including ones left out by even the SCC program. But obviously this isn't gonna come up in the game.

This section was mostly an excuse to share a couple terrible puns. Though while I'm here, I might as well share other details.

The weapon Marxman was given is a slingshot. I guess Hawkeye and Green Arrow were a bit too obviously murder-capable for the kind of stories they wanted to tell.

He did well at his law midterm, but got Ds in the others due to varying combinations of being a shitty close-quarters fighter and refusing to accept the premise of the tests.

Fellow Students

There are a bunch of them, and the game doesn't do much to help you remember which is which.

Tress is not a death octopus in a prosthetic body. She's a chipper redhead who can control her hair and make it grow. Like the other Tress, her powers are useful in the capture-the-flag teambuilding exercise her group goes through.

There's also a character named Rain, who I mention here because that's also a Breakthrough name. This Rain is a girl with water powers.

Dirty Girl seems like she'd have an interesting character design if this was an actual visual novel with...art. Anyways, her powers make big clouds of smoke. She has a pragmatic streak and little respect for authority, so I feel like she makes a good teammate for Marxman. One represents the philosophical, reasoned kind of anarchy; the other represents the primal, emotional kind.

Stunner is a big gold-armored guy who makes shockwaves. The first impression he left was when he got mad that we tried to console Tress about losing capture-the-flag instead of apologizing for our lackluster performance. Part of that lackluster performance is that Marxman's weapons are a bit too injurious for a lighthearted training exercise, but that didn't stop Stunner from going all-out. I don't like him much. He's paragon enough to refuse to spy on his classmates for a grade, though.

Origami is one of the younger students (19 instead of the early 20's most students claim to be), and the one who volunteers at the children's hospital. She's optimistic and kindhearted in a remarkably generic manner. I can't tell if the game is intending to frame her as someone who drags her classmates to charitable volunteer activities or if that's just a side effect of the rough game design; it would provide her some much-needed texture.

Stoic is a seemingly emotionless girl. Her power seems to be a force-field-based invulnerability, reminiscent of Victoria Dallon, if it didn't turn off and also made her immobile. Stunner hates fighting her, which he has to do amusingly often.

Combat Wombat is a dork in impractically large power armor. Which resembles a turtle more than a wombat; it stands for Wondrously Original Mobile Brute with Advanced Tech. The bulk and clumsiness of the armor is frequently the butt of jokes, which...fair. But he's also the butt of a few jokes for being a video-game-playing nerd, which feels like a weird shot to make.

SCC Educators & Faculty

Professor Sandy McCormick is a mundane lawyer. She's the no-nonsense professor, who doesn't approve of having a bunch of untrained zeeple Zeniths running around on municipal property. Imagine the potential liability lawsuits! Her first class starts with a big PowerPoint slide reading "Welcome to HELL (Hero & Enemy Law & Liability)", so she can't be all bad.

Professor Downfall, like most of the SCC hero teachers, is a superhero. She wears paramilitary gear and has a spartan attitude to match. As far as she's concerned, the most important thing for a superhero to learn is how to break people and things.

Professor Hedonist (who looks like a well-dressed marble statue) takes the polar opposite point. He seems kinda sleazy, but serves as a philosophical counterpoint to Downfall. The professors do a pretty good job in that regard (aside from Nil). Anyways, he's a transfer from Savior School who teaches "Basics of Defense".

Professor Nil is mysterious. That's his whole deal. His class is all about protecting and uncovering secrets. He's annoying—partly because he's such a nothing character, partly because what bits of personality he shows aren't great.

Nil tells the class that his class involves trying to learn other students' secrets, and then mocks anyone who steps forward when he asks if they'll try to learn other students' secrets. ("Who will trust you now?") So he's mocking you for saying you'll actually do assignments in his stupid class. Also: Basically his entire class is built around digging up your classmates secrets, which is both psychotic and clashes with the fact that students aren't supposed to even let their classmates see their face.

The Dean, Meg Tolly, had intense "wants to be the cool teacher" vibes during orientation. She mostly sticks to those overcompensatingly cheery vibes, but gets serious when the circumstances dictate. Like when telling her new students not to investigate the dangerous new supervillain (who the plot dictates we investigate).

The worst thing I can say about Meg Tolly is that she puts up with Nil's lesson plans. And possibly Hedonist's conduct? It's not clear whether the writers think he's being subtle about it or not.

Villains

Doctor Stench is a backstory villain—specifically, Yuu's father. He was a perfume scientist who became obsessed with the emergence of zeeple. His villainous actions are variely-defined, but he apparently used weird-smelling chemicals and had a nose-themed costume. I'm not sure whether this is a universal feature or a side effect of my choices for why Yuu admired him, but Doctor Stench's villain philosophy had a distinctly anti-capitalist streak, explicitly telling his child that the capitalists are the real supervillains.

The description of his crime reminds me of Mouse Protector. The local "high-wage earners" started getting defenses not to protect themselves, per se, but because being victimized by this nosy dork with a stench ray was embarrassing. Eventually, Stench was captured, at which point he promptly tattled on every crook and villain he'd ever worked with. Including a few scraps of information on the infamous DIabolical Dozen, which lead to him getting stabbed twelve times in jail.

The Contrarian comes off as someone who couldn't decide whether she wanted to be The Joker or The Riddler, without having the talent or charisma to pull either off. You know what she does have, though? Pipe bombs. Also spray paint. Her first attack (during SCC hero orientation) hit a fast food joint and came with graffiti'd anti-consumerist-sounding word salad, her second hit a church and came with some teen-atheist-sounding word salad. ("Just pray to a pie!") She comes off as a faux-nihilist/faux-anarchist sort of troublemaker.

#video games #choice of games #community college hero

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