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sceptilemasterr · 3 years

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Defenders of the Flame (TE Rewrite) Act 3, Scene 8 - The Penderghast Amorelia Day Gala

Title: Defenders of the Flame (A CIU Screenplay)

Main Pairings: Shreya x F!MC, Beckett x F!Atlas

Other Pairings: N/A

Genre: Full Rewrite (The Elementalists, Book 1)

Rating: PG-13 for violence, blood, swearing, alcohol, and sexuality

Summary: Several weeks later, Fiora and her friends enjoy a night of dancing, food, and fun.

Previous Scene: Never Bet Against Fiora

Masterlist: Link

INT. RHUKA HALL - GRAND BALLROOM - NIGHT

Several weeks later, the Amorelia Day Gala has arrived. Penderghast’s Grand Ballroom, located on Rhuka Hall’s top floor, has been fully decorated for the event. The entire room is bathed in a soft blue light, changing and shifting in ways reminiscent of sunlight being filtered through water. Toward the ceiling, multicolored floating umbrellas hang suspended by some kind of Air Stoichi. Beautiful fountains erupt in impossible patterns, shaped by Water Stoichi into figures and patterns that rise and fall in time with the music. A table against the far wall hosts countless dishes of all kinds of food, complete with several multi-layered cakes at the center. A few Penderghast students, along with several professors, are already present as several more trickle in, all dressed for the occasion. Then:

FIORA: Holy... wow! This place is amazing!

SHREYA (smiling): Not half as amazing as moi. Or, for that matter, my lovely date.

Fiora blushes heavily as she and Shreya make their way into the room. Shreya wears a beautiful beige dress with matching circlet, both of which are decorated with a Light-Att technique that makes them sparkle every time she moves. Fiora’s dress, in contrast, is a muted golden color with flowing translucent sleeves. As they enter, Fiora beams at her date.

FIORA: Shreya... this is amazing! Thank you!!

SHREYA: Perhaps I ought to be thanking you for saying “yes.”

FIORA (blushes): Yeah... I’m a bit slow sometimes--

She is interrupted by Shreya pulling her into a quick kiss. They break apart quickly when Shreya spots Zeph, Griffin, and Peter approaching.

SHREYA: Oh! Hi, everyone! So glad you could make it!

ZEPH (laughing): Don’t worry about us. We’re not interrupting anything!

Shreya and Fiora blush furiously.

GRIFFIN: Glad you both could make it! Did either of you see Beckett, by the way?

ZEPH: ...Or Atlas?

Fiora shrugs.

FIORA: They might be going together. I don’t know, Atlas was kinda hesitant about--

BECKETT: Ah, there you are!

Beckett approaches the group, along with an unfamiliar, bland-looking woman they do not recognize. Beckett is dressed in a crisp suit with golden tie, his hair impeccably combed straight back. The woman beside him wears a sparkling navy-blue dress, and Fiora at first doesn’t recognize her. Then, she seems to realize something, and peers closer at Beckett’s companion.

FIORA: ...Atlas?!

ZEPH: Wait, Atlas? Where?

SHREYA: Fiora, what are you--

The woman at Beckett’s side smirks, then waves a hand in front of her face and makes a few quick gestures. The unfamiliar features fall away, replaced with Atlas’s distinctive silver hair and facial features identical to Fiora’s. Zeph lets out a soft gasp.

ATLAS: ...I assume that damn thing works, then?

BECKETT: But of course! None can recognize you now, save those you’ve granted permission to.

ATLAS: Good. ‘Cause I’m leaving this place immediately if there’s any chance of--

ZEPH (laughs): Come on, Atlas! Can’t you just enjoy yourself for five minutes? I promise, nothing crazy’s gonna attack the Gala while we’re here. Okay?

Atlas scowls. Then she relents, smiling slightly at Beckett.

ATLAS: ...Fine. Can’t hurt to be here with someone like him, after all. He’s almost as good with combat stoichi as I am!

BECKETT: I--excuse you, what do you mean, almost?!

ATLAS: Oh, please. As if you even understood half the things I’ve had to...

As Atlas and Beckett continue arguing, the others exchange a look of exasperation.

FIORA: There they go again...

PETER: Uh, Griff, what’s with the disguise? I don’t think most people wear Cloakguises to go to Penderghast dances...

FIORA (shrugs): She’s my twin sister. Long story short, she’s... not supposed to be here.

ZEPH: Also, Beckett’s had a huge crush on her since even before we knew she existed--

BECKETT: I did NOT!

PETER (laughs): Sure he didn’t. Anyway, fair enough. I ain’t about to rat her out to Goeffe if you aren’t.

He glances over at the back of the room, where Dean Goeffe stands, a severe look on her face as she engages Dr. Englund in deep conversation.

SHREYA: Well? Shall we, then?

Shreya tugs Fiora out toward the center of the room, the other Pend Pals following close behind. As they approach the dance floor, Zeph dashes ahead of the others.

ZEPH: Watch this! I’ve been waiting for weeks to show you all this move!

Zeph launches into a full body wave, complete with shoulder shimmy. The others watch, enraptured... most of them, anyway.

BECKETT (huffs): I give that a two out of ten.

ZEPH: Oh, c’mon. That’s at least a seven, isn’t it?

BECKETT: Then show me a “seven.”

Zeph pouts as Shreya pulls Fiora onto the dance floor.

SHREYA: Alright, allow moi to show you a thing or two!

Shreya launches into a complicated dance sequence, complete with handstands, cartwheels, and other flashy moves. After a moment, she grabs Fiora’s hands and draws her in to the dance.

FIORA: Shreya, I don’t--Whoa!

After a few beats of dancing, Shreya grabs Fiora’s arms, holding them outward so that her hands are facing up. Perplexed, Fiora keeps her hands there... only for Shreya to step back, then leap into her hands, using them as a foothold to backflip through the air!

ZEPH: Holy Source!

GRIFFIN: Whooooo!

PETER: Yeah!

ATLAS (shrugs): Not bad.

Shreya lands and strikes a pose beside a still-slightly-bewildered Fiora. The others all applaud.

GRIFFIN: That was amazing! Shreya, where’d you learn that?

Shreya giggles as they step off of the dance floor.

SHREYA: I learned that one at a club in Pennseil!

Everyone besides Fiora gapes at her, impressed. Fiora simply looks confused.

FIORA: Okay, is this one of those Attuned things I just don’t understand, or...?

ATLAS (whispering): Pennseil is the Attuned reflection of... “Paris,” I think it’s called.

Fiora gasps in recognition.

FIORA: Oh! Wow, Shreya, that’s super awesome!

SHREYA: ...Well, Beckett?

BECKETT: Hmph. Well, I suppose that might be worthy of a ten out of ten, if for no other reason than by comparison with the single other entry in this impromptu competition.

ZEPH: Hey!

Atlas bursts out laughing. Shreya smiles and wraps an arm around Fiora.

SHREYA: Well. As if I would ever lose such a contest with you by my side, non?

FIORA: Of course not. That was seriously amazing, Shreya.

PETER: Hang on, I think I just spotted some cake. Can’t miss out on that!

GRIFFIN: Looks delicious! Let’s go!

The two of them dash over to the dessert table, with Fiora and the others following close behind. The group eagerly approaches the huge, multi-colored cakes dominating the center of the dessert display.

FIORA: Wow. Okay, that looks amazing.

She moves forward to take a slice, but Shreya grabs her arm and pulls her back.

FIORA (frowning): Hey!

SHREYA: Don’t worry, darling, you’ll get your chance. I just want to be certain you know what you’re getting into, first.

FIORA: Why? It’s just cake-- (sighs) It’s... not just cake, is it?

SHREYA (laughs): Of course not! The esteemed Chef Liyan Fang would never make something as ordinary as a simple cake, without even a single stoicheal infusion, can you imagine?

FIORA: So this thing has some kind of... effect? If I eat it, it’ll do something?

SHREYA: Just watch.

Peter grabs a slice from the blue tier of the cake, near the center. He takes a bite.

GRIFFIN (laughs): Wait for it...

A few seconds later, Peter lets out a series of musical belches that play perfectly in tune with the music playing overhead! Fiora gasps in surprise, then giggles, as the others all laugh.

FIORA: Ooh! I wanna try!

GRIFFIN: There’s gonna be more than one effect. It all depends on which color tier you take the slice from, plus which part of the cake. Choose wisely!

FIORA: Wait, so, is there a sign or something that says which part does what?

PETER (laughs): Where’s the fun in that? You’ve gotta take a wild guess, be surprised!

FIORA (hesitantly): Oh... I don’t--

She swallows, and her expression changes as she confidently approaches the table. She nods once.

FIORA: You know what? Why not. Here I go!

She takes a slice from the corner of the cake’s yellow tier and cautiously takes a bite. The others look at her expectantly.

ATLAS: ...Well?

FIORA: I don’t feel any-- Whoa!

Fiora stumbles back in shock, and the camera shifts to her perspective. She (and the camera) look around at each of the others, and we see shining auras surrounding each of them. Shreya’s aura is a flickering reddish-orange; Griffin’s, a shifting earth tone; Beckett’s is stiff and silvery; Peter’s is wispy and fleeting; Zeph’s is bluish-green; and Atlas’s resembles Zeph’s, but much stronger, with an overlay of crackling yellow lines rushing throughout.

SHREYA: Fiora? Are you okay?

FIORA: Yeah, I... I think I’m seeing your stoichi! It’s surrounding everyone, like a glow, or...

BECKETT: Ah! Your vision must have been enhanced so as to better make out our stoicheal auras!

SHREYA: You actually can see them normally, if you try hard enough. Though here, surrounded by so many Attuned, it’s hard to notice... they’re fairly faint most of the time.

FIORA: Whoa. This is trippy. I--

Fiora’s (and the camera’s) vision pans to the left, toward Dean Goeffe and Dr. Englund... and we hear Fiora gasp. Dr. Englund’s aura is a stronger version of Griffin’s, but Dean Goeffe’s is a swirling mass of darkness, engulfing her to the point that we are barely able to see the dean herself through the thick aura.

FIORA (quietly): Dean Goeffe... her aura, it’s...

Atlas glances over at the dean. She frowns.

ATLAS (quietly): I don’t see anything. What is it?

FIORA: It’s black. And... it looks angry. It’s so thick, I can barely see her. What is that?

GRIFFIN (curiously): I don’t see anything. She looks like a normal Metal-Att to me.

FIORA: No, I--

The aura effect fades away.

FIORA: Darn. It’s gone! Hang on, give me some more of that cake!

The camera returns to a normal perspective as Fiora reaches forward, grabbing another piece of the cake. This time, she takes from the side of the yellow tier instead of the corner. After taking a big bite... She suddenly starts levitating in the air, wisps of Air Stoichi circling around her feet!

FIORA: Whoa! Okay, I did not expect that.

Everyone laughs.

SHREYA: The location of the slice matters too, remember? Wow, I absolutely must try one now.

As Shreya and the others all start taking their own slices of cake, all of whom end up with a wide variety of stoicheal effects, Fiora frowns, looking back at where the dean and Dr. Englund had been. Dr. Englund is now standing near the wall, gazing out at the crowd... and the dean is nowhere to be seen.

FIORA (to herself): That... something’s wrong...

After a brief moment, Atlas comes up to Fiora. Her hands and wrists are covered with shimmering red scales that are slowly fading away.

FIORA: What’s with the scales?

ATLAS: Damn cake.

FIORA (laughs): Should’ve known! Anyway, what’s up?

ATLAS (shrugs): Dunno. I just wanted to say... thanks. For keeping me around all that time, even though you barely knew me...

FIORA: Aw, Atlas, you don’t have to--

Atlas holds up a hand, and Fiora stops talking.

ATLAS: Seriously. You could’ve kicked me out at any time, or reported me to someone. Couldn’t blame you, with how suspicious I was being of your friends. But you put up with me. Not only that, when things were going south at the birthday party... you really stepped up. And now... well, I’m glad I’m here. With your friends.

FIORA (knowingly): By ‘friends,’ d’you mean... ‘Beckett,’ specifically?

ATLAS: Now you’re pushing it.

FIORA: Sorry.

ATLAS: But seriously. Thanks. I’m starting to see why everyone made such a big deal about this party. It’s... fun.

FIORA (smiles): If anyone deserves to have fun, it’s you, Atlas. I can’t imagine there were many parties in the Between.

ATLAS (laughs): If Raife’s evil cultists were having any parties, I sure as hell wasn’t invited. ‘Sides, at least here, I know I’ve got people to watch my back.

FIORA: Really?

ATLAS: There’s nobody I’d rather have at my side in a pinch than my sister. And... just between you and me, I don’t entirely mind that Beckett guy. He’s... competent.

FIORA (knowingly): “Competent.” Right. He’s definitely... that.

ATLAS (awkwardly): Right. Whatever, enough with all that sentimental crap. Catch you later.

Atlas disappears into the crowd. Fiora looks around, bewildered, until Shreya appears and pulls her into a twirl.

FIORA: Whoa! Hey there, Shreya.

SHREYA: Fiora! Just the good-looking and absolutely breathtaking Light-Att I wanted to see. Come dance with me!

Fiora smiles at her date.

FIORA: I thought you’d never ask! I’d love to.

Shreya leads Fiora out onto the dance floor as the music shifts to a slow waltz. They start to dance perfectly in time with one another, moving slowly around the dance floor.

SHREYA: This is lovely. Why don’t we dance together more often?

FIORA: Dunno. Guess we’ve been too busy with school... and fighting off random shadow monsters... and discovering my secret twin... y’know, usual stuff.

SHREYA (laughs): Ah, yes. Things are never dull with you around, are they? I am so glad we ended up roommates. It was clearly meant to be.

Fiora smiles warmly at Shreya.

FIORA: We were clearly meant to be, I’d say.

SHREYA: Oh, I agree. Everything is simply so... beautiful. Don’t you think?

FIORA: Yeah. Beautiful...

Fiora leans in and kisses Shreya.

SHREYA: Well! That’s certainly something the Fiora of a few months ago never would have done!

FIORA: Why, are you complaining?

SHREYA: Perish the thought!

They resume their dance as the music shifts into something more upbeat. After a few moments, Atlas and Beckett join them, followed closely by Griffin and Peter. They all dance together for a brief moment, until finally the song ends, to be replaced with another. The six of them all head toward the edge of the dance floor, where Zeph is waiting, eating from a heaping plate of some type of glowing Attuned snack.

SHREYA: This had best be important. I really was enjoying myself!

Atlas gives her a meaningful nod, then jerks her head in the direction of the ballroom’s entrance. Shreya and the others follow her gesture to see...

FIORA (astonished): Dr. Swan?!

SHREYA: She’s back? But... I don’t... that cannot--

BECKETT (frowning): Rather suspicious, isn’t it? That she should vanish for so long... only to reappear now? And without even speaking to Fiora or Shreya?

ATLAS: Took the words right out of my mouth. Something’s wrong.

FIORA: Let me talk to her. Maybe she knows something.

Fiora starts walking toward Dr. Swan, when suddenly, the booming voice of Dean Goeffe, amplified by telepathy, echoes through everyone’s minds.

DEAN GOEFFE (echoing): ATTENTION. THIS IS AN OFFICIAL PENDERGHAST ANNOUNCEMENT FROM DEAN GOEFFE. THIS CAMPUS IS CURRENTLY IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY. ALL STUDENTS ARE INSTRUCTED TO RETURN TO THEIR DORMITORIES IMMEDIATELY, AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTION.

As the students around them start panicking, Fiora and her friends look around with suspicion.

ATLAS: Okay. I can’t be the only one who finds this suspicious, right?

GRIFFIN: Right. Something’s wrong...

DEAN GOEFFE (echoing): ALL PENDERGHAST PROFESSORS ARE TO REPORT TO MIRROR STORAGE AT THIS TIME. I REPEAT: THIS CAMPUS IS CURRENTLY IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY. ALL STUDENTS...

The Pend Pals watch as Dr. Swan and Dr. Englund both immediately head toward the ballroom’s entrance, disappearing through its double doors. Fiora looks around at her friends, then at Atlas.

FIORA: Something’s not right. We need to follow them.

ATLAS: Agreed.

Amidst the throng of confused and terrified students, seven students make their way toward the exit, following the professors toward the Mirror Storage room...

_______________________

Notes: And so the climax begins... let's hope our heroes are strong enough to handle whatever comes next for them!

Timeline: The Amorelia Day Gala takes place on March 17th, 2018.

_______________________

Next: Into the Between

CIU Tag List: @brightpinkpeppercorn @endlesshero1122 @bbaba-yagaa @acidsugar0 @shaylan211 @griselda1121 @acanthisorbis @marmolady @choicesbabie

DotF/Elementalists Tag List:

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eldritch-elrics · 4 years

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the untamed: in which things get WORSE and the show gets BETTER

i’m fucking losing it

alright let’s start from the beginning and be thorough about it

this is gonna be long sorry but SO MANY THOUGHTS HEAD FULL

1. wei wuxian keeps doing this thing where he enters an Important Meeting extremely late, says something either cryptic or disruptive, and then fucking leaves. he’s done this at LEAST five times. he needs to stop. please bro

ALSO the number of people who have gone “wei wuxian please use your sword and not evil magic” and he’s just like “no <3” and leaves. this man thinks a dramatic exit solves everything. god

i am just LOVING the rising tension. even when it feels like everything’s okay, even when there’s a lull in the action, there’s still shit that’s bad and you can feel it

the way you can feel the characters changing. wwx doubling down and getting more stubborn and irritating but often for all the right reasons. lwj beginning to question his clan’s rigid good/evil dichotomy. fucking brilliant

wwx: hey yanli why do people like each other? no i don’t have a crush why do you ask

sibling moments. they’re good.

very excited to see the archery competition! i was wondering where that went

wwx fucking flexing his archery this man gives zero shits ever

he’s also a fucking CHEATER

not to agree with jin zixun on something but this is an archery competition he needs to stop cheating with dark magic

(he also needs to stop wandering off and getting drunk like i love you bro but please. please you’re stressing your brother out so much already)

“i once thought of you as my lifelong confidant” “i still am” gay people.

okay listen jin zixuan isn’t even that bad. he’s just super awkward and really bad at saying what he means!! the scene where he’s squirming over telling yanli that he invited her was really cute tbh

that scene was so fucking intense bro like

YANLI SAVAGE MOMENTS...

she really went OFF

the drama of it all!!!!!! god it’s like embarrassing to watch

poor jiang cheng. holy shit

the scene where wwx and wen qing meet in the middle of the street? PURE cinema. i’m sorry for insulting this show’s editing that had me screaming

lwj wants to take “someone” back to cloud recesses and hide him there huh??

okay legit this whole sequence is the reason why the plot and pacing of the untamed is so much better than the donghua. like you actually SEE how wwx got where he is. the progression. the rising tension. it’s fucking beautiful

“do you know a person called wen ning” i gasped

the banquet? wwx’s dramatic entrance? he was about to fucking murder jin zixun? i was on the edge of my seat this ENTIRE episode

the tension is so well done all of these scenes are VISCERALLY uncomfortable and you can feel the peace wearing thin.....

i swear i’m not just saying this because wen ning is my favorite character but that episode was absolutely one of the best ones yet. top fucking tier

the transition from the super fancy clean banquet to the mucky rainy camp...

searching for wen ning!! questioning the guards!! they really milked this scene for all it’s worth... the pacing was so good ughhhh

when wen ning crashes in. oh man

LWJ AND HIS UMBRELLA

the emotions.

“you don’t see them as people”

when wen ning screams and the rain stops...

the donghua scene was nice and dramatic and all that but here is an example of a scene that is MUCH better in the drama

saving wen ning is the point of no return for wei wuxian and i love that so much

we can see how everything’s been wearing him down and finally he snaps and he’s like fuck the rules. fuck “orthodoxy” if it’s gonna be like THIS

the way this show just.... calls out how the true evil is those who hurt innocent people

wwx is like hell yeah i’ll be the bad guy if it means i can save the people i care about

i love him and i love his character arc

i’m so excited to see more

#the untamed #mdzs #my post #long post #i have so many emotions. i will not apologize for the extremely long post #finn watches the gay flute necromancy shows

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radramblog · 3 years

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Dreamworks Tier List

It’s a low effort post time!

I asked for a random tier list to do and this is what was handed to me. I can work with this. Time to ruin some people’s opinions of me.

Aight lets get this out of the way.

I’d consider watching some of these- Prince of Egypt and How to train your dragon 2/3 are apparently pretty good, and I’d watch The Croods for Nic Cage alone. But I think the bottom tier are just inexcusable, based off what I’ve seen and heard of trailers and opinions and reviews since their release. And Antz and Sinbad are movies I’ve definitely seen as like, a 5 year old, but I don’t know shit so I might as well not have.

Shit Tier

If you’ve seen the trailer for Madagascar 3, where Marty does the whole “da-da-dadadada-da-dada circus” for way to long, you’ve seen Madagascar 3. The rest of the movie is just as obnoxious and unfunny.

Similarly, Monsters vs Aliens is just devoid of anything resembling humour or intrigue. The most I remember is the scene of the President trying to communicate with the aliens by…playing Axel F? I remember it because at the time I was like holy shit a Crazy Frog reference, but that’s not something I like to acknowledge being a fan of these days.

Shark Tale is an abomination unto god, and that’s even before we get to how fucking weird it looks. It’s an entire fucking story built around the “liar revealed” plot, which is easily one of the most aggravating plot archetypes ever devised. Somehow it’s not the worst cinema Will Smith has been in, a fact that is frankly mind-boggling- but After Earth and the second half of Hancock still exist, so.

Bad Tier

Over the Edge was something I found entertaining as a kid, but I’m not sure why. It does have the climax sequence I did like, but that one blatant reference got a lot less funny when I realized it wasn’t original. For the life of me I don’t remember what the reference is to, but it’s some anime, you know.

Bee Movie is the source of some of the greatest memes of all time, and for that alone it gets a rescue from shit tier. But it’s so, so awful. I really don’t know who signed off this plot.

Madagascar was a series that only got worse as it went on. It didn’t start that good. At least this one has Moto Moto.

Shrek the Third is the worst Shrek, and it’s nooooot particularly close. I don’t remember a huge amount from it, but what I do remember wasn’t good. Why did they make Donkey fuck the dragon?

OK tier

Madagascar 1 was the best Madagascar, and in a surprising reversal of how this normally goes, managed to be significantly better than it’s Disney (?!) ripoff, Into the Wild. The one with the most genuine emotional moments, and the first one before they started shoving the Penguins and King Julien down everyone’s throat. Sidenote, did you know Julien is voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen??

Shrek Forever After somehow managed to be less bad than Shrek the Third, but it’s not like it was particularly good. It’s a wonderful life but it’s Shrek is more compelling than I would have expected, seeing as it does mean you have to have him actually acknowledge the development of his character. The framing of this, and the “comedy” therein, do not land.

Good Tier

For what it’s worth, I think Shrek is overrated. This doesn’t mean I think it’s bad, obviously, quite the opposite. It’s a parody that thankfully doesn’t rely too heavily on reference and gross-out humour, but manages to have the comedy actually land in a way I don’t think anyone at the time expected. But it’s really overshadowed by the sequel.

I basically don’t remember anything from How to Train your Dragon, but I’m pretty sure I’d get my throat slit if I put it any lower than this, so. It’s aight? Probably need to rewatch it, but you’d have to force me to do it.

I genuinely forgot the Wallace and Gromit movie, along with the other Aardman Animations films, ended up under the Dreamworks umbrella. I’d argue Curse of the Were-Rabbit is weaker than the original shorts, but considering how perfectly charming those are, that isn’t actually saying that much. Now that I think of it, have I ever watched this all the way through? It might be up here by pedigree alone.

Speaking of Aardman, Flushed Away is genuinely excellent comedy, and would probably be substantially higher if the main characters’ design didn’t weird me out. They’re a little too anthropomorphized.

Kung Fu Panda is best described by the Chinese film producer who said, “Why did we never make this film?” While I find Po somewhat obnoxious, the rest of the movie more than compensates.

Holy shit I need to go rewatch Megamind, that movie was so fucking good but I haven’t seen it since it came out. Somehow I remember a review of the Wii game in some magazine (34ish % iirc) better than I do that film, and that’s a genuine tragedy. I didn’t even realise that meme of the villain from like last year or so was actually from Megamind, aaarrgh.

Top Tier

Shrek 2 is a perfect sequel. It innovates on the parody elements, continues the story in an interesting way, and has genuinely good emotional moments with a frankly iconic climax. I’m not sure I have a single bad thing to say about it. It’s really, really good.

Chicken Run is another one where it’s hard to gush about. It’s just excellent Aardman Brothers animation combined with a solid premise and surprisingly dark elements, and all of those come together to make a genuinely top tier movie. One of the best animated films ever made? Maybe.

But El Dorado is better. What El Dorado feels like to me is the secret 5th member of that period where Disney was just putting out off-beat but excellent animated films- from when we got Lilo and Stitch, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Atlantis. The last glorious breaths of American 2D animation. It’s a peerless adventure film, on a similar stage as the better Indiana Jones films or the aforementioned Atlantis, while managing to be engaging for those of all ages. It’s got witty dialogue for days, and astonishing visuals and music. I don’t think Dreamworks has made a better movie than this, and I don’t think they ever will.

That image this list is using for it looks fucking awful though, holy shit.

#ramble #film

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mortyandcarlsbespokesalvage · 4 years

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Day 1 Sequence 3

It was the pain that woke Raven. Absent the adrenaline and endorphins generated by life threatening danger, his body had been given time to realize the extent of the beating it had recently taken. His muscles hurt and his arms felt like lead. He could still feel the soreness in his chest from where the Walker Engineer had shoved him. And all that was compounded by untold bruises that he must have sustained when the water carried him away down the drain. He became aware that he was lying down, and tried to sit up, but his body declined to obey.

He tried to take stock of his surroundings. He was dry, at least. That was good. He seemed to be lying on a musty couch in front of a hot electric radiator. He was still in his armor, but his helmet, chest plate, and air tank had been removed. Raven turned his head and spotted them all resting on a chair next to him. For a hot second, he considered putting them on. Almost as soon as the thought formed, his nerves flared fiercely with pain. The armor would make him safer, but his body simply couldn’t take it now. He’d have to go without for the moment. It would probably be fine, he rationalized. If there were any real danger, whoever took his gear off probably wouldn’t have left it within easy reach.

He took inventory. Raven’s body was a mass of aches and pains, but as far as he could tell, nothing was broken. Slowly, he eased himself upright and checked his gear. Even above ground, his radio spat nothing more than static. Optimism still made him want to blame storm interference, but logically, he could admit it was almost definitely broken. His air tank was nearly depleted, he assessed grimly, and his helmet was cracked in at least two places with the largest running across the visor. Considering, it was surprising it was still in one piece. Raven couldn’t begin to tell which close call was responsible for that. Could it be repaired? He felt a pang at the thought of losing a piece of his father’s armor.

The rest of it - the chest plate, wrist and shin guards, etc - were all dented to hell and back. But he was relieved to see that it was nothing that couldn’t be buffed out when he got back to the barracks. He was less optimistic about his right shoulderguard, crumpled where the Walker had grabbed him at the vault door. Still. Let Cortez laugh about his armor now!

Cortez… he hoped the crusty old sweeper would be okay.

Altogether, everything was accounted for, except for his axe. A hot flood of panic and grief swept through Raven at the thought of having lost it. It was like losing his father again in miniature. He was alive, though. His dad always focused on the good, and Raven followed that example as best he could. He was alive, his armor was mostly okay, and he would be able to tell the Sanitation Corps about everything he’d seen. He could not push away the pang of deep grief however. His father’s axe was gone.

Lacking anything else to do, Raven decided to try his luck standing, and then walking. He tested his legs and circled the apartment, examining it as he went. It was cluttered, but Raven could tell there was an order to it. What caught his eye first were the two shelves. They were made of wood, an incongruous display of wealth in such a small space. They hung over a desk covered in stacks of journals and maps, and were full of artifacts.

Raven recognized a few of them - sextants, a record player, a small gyroscope - but there was more he didn’t know. He was curious about the journals, too, but that was a degree of snooping he was uncomfortable with. This person had saved him, after all. It wouldn’t do to be rude.

Besides the desk, and the chairs that circled the radiator, the rest of the living area was dominated by a workbench. The items here were much more familiar to Raven, who’d spent unknowable hours in Abby’s workshop. There were a few tools Raven thought she’d happily break approximately all of the laws to get her hands on. A narrow hall led deeper into the apartment; a bedroom and bathroom, and a dark open door. A closet, Raven assumed. And attached to the living area but a step up was a modest kitchen.

Raven’s stomach gave a thunderous growl at the thought of food. It would probably be a good idea to find his mysterious benefactor now. Before he ate them out of house and home.

There was only one obvious exit from the apartment. It led through a heavy metal door out to the brick walkway along a drainage tunnel which Raven recognized as the same one he had been pulled from. He passed through the entryway and out into the light of day. Raven’s eyes burned in the daylight. It was the first he had seen of the surface in near to 24 hours. As he looked out of the drainage tunnel he saw the expanse of the Emerald Sea spread before him, boats in the distance. It was the first time he had seen the ocean.

It was so much bigger and more open than anything he had experienced. It had the expanse of the chasm beneath the Barrier Wall, but the sky seemed to go on forever. It was so different than the sky he was used to on the surface within the inner ring of the city, framed by the overhanging buildings and elevated crosswalks, and often broken apart by their long shadows. It took Raven’s breath away.

As he stepped blearily out onto the walkway along the seawall, drawn to the waters’ edge, he heard the unmistakable sound of music. Electro-swing unless he was mistaken (Raven preferred the sound of Big Band). It wafted from above and behind, and he came to realize that he stood upon a lower tier of the seawall. A little further down was a stairway leading to the top of the wall. More stairs, he thought bleakly, but he climbed. At the top, Raven took one more look out at the water.

It was an impressive sight, but he had things to do. Raven turned back towards the island and continued following the sound. He saw the coastal road along the seawall stretching into the distance. Across it was the high fenced edge of a massive yard, filled with towering mountains of scrap. As he followed the edge of the fence to the music’s source, he saw signs marking it as Yard 3. He was momentarily hopeful; if he could navigate through the third yard, he could find his way back to the Precinct and the barracks.

This hope quickly faded however. Yard 3 was expansive and Raven had no idea of which of the miles of labyrinthine, junkyard paths would lead him back to the precinct. At last, he came upon the entrance to a smaller gated subdivision of the massive yard. Over the gate was a sign:

“Morty and Carl’s Bespoke Salvage.”

“Hello?” Raven called out warily as he stepped through the gate. The music was coming from somewhere within, but there were stacks piled high on either side of the path, blocking his view of anything beyond them. There was no choice but to follow the path and hope there was a friendly face at the end. He paid careful attention to his surroundings as he ventured into the yard. Raven would be the first to admit he didn’t have an eye for the junk that made up Artisan. Even after a few years as a Trash-man, he struggled to tell scrap from artifact unless someone told him. But even he could see that the quality of the stuff here was more...complete than the usual junk heap.

Just before a turn in the path, Raven heard voices over the music. Well, one voice and a gurgle with inflection. They seemed to be arguing.

“No, I don’t care how easy it would have been to dispose of the body.”

“…”

“He wasn’t dead! Listen, when you’re the one buying the groceries, you can argue about the cost of meat.”

“...”

“Yes I do! For the past three months, which one of us has been going to market? Me, that’s who! Besides, it’s a moot point. He’s wearing Sweeper armor, ergo he is a sweeper. We do not eat Sweepers.”

“…”

“Since always. That’s been a rule since always.”

“Um, hello?” Raven thought it was a testament to how stressful his day had been that a conversation about eating his corpse caused him only mild concern. “Hi there. Uh, I’m Raven, Raven Daniels. Is that your apartment I woke up in?”

An older man sat on a brightly colored folding chair under a large umbrella. Next to him on a folding reclining chair sat a massive, black shelled Rock Lobster. Yes. That was what it was. Just a rock lobster. It was larger than any number of street dogs he had seen in his life, but it was unmistakably a lobster.

The older man did not answer immediately, taking a moment to look over Raven. “I was expecting that you’d come up the stairs.” He gestured a thumb over his shoulder to an open doorway in a box like office behind them. Apparently the door at the end of the dark hallway had not been a closet.

“The name’s Carlos. Carlos Desocrates. This is Morty.” A gurgle came from the crustacean and it raised a clawed arm. Seeming to wave hello.

Carlos Desocrates was shorter than Raven at about 6’ tall, with sharp black hair that bristled out from under a red bandanna that matched his shirt. He thought he could see streaks of gray in Carlos’ hair and stubble. A sharp scar cut from the corner of his jaw up the side of his cheek. His burly arms had tattoos on his copper skin that were incomprehensible to Raven. He was muscular but with a bit of a paunch, and wore a pair of pants and matching vest that seemed to Raven to be entirely made of pockets. A sawed off shotgun and machete were holstered at his hip, which caused Raven some momentary consternation. Raven could not place his age, since he seemed grizzled in a way that was only familiar to him from knowing Chief Hobbs. Raven could not tell if it was age or mileage that he saw on the older man’s weathered face.

“Well, um, thank you for your help. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t gotten me out of the, the seagate? Thing? But I’ve, um, I’ve had a very busy night and I really need to report in. I,uh, I think they might think I’m dead,” Raven said with some surprise. He hadn’t thought of that before. But the fact was his squad had last seen him trapped with a few dozen Walkers. People generally didn’t come back from that alive. He presumed at least. It had been a surprising day. “If you could just tell me how to get back to the Third Precinct, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Kid. You are about to fall over. Take a seat,” the man said, and pulled another folding chair from behind him. It was more an order than an offer, Raven realized.

“I took the liberty of shelling you of that armor to pump the water out of your lungs. Figured I didn’t know you well enough to take off more than that. This is yours, by the way.”

Carlos reached down and unfolded a long towel on the ground next to his chair. Raven’s heart skipped a beat as Carlos picked up the axe and held it out to him. “Seemed like a good idea to keep this out of reach in case you woke up twitchy. You already soaked my couch, and I don’t need you making any more of a mess than that.”

Raven stared agog at the axe. His axe. His fathers’ axe. The axe he’d thought lost forever. That axe. Raven promptly burst into tears.

Carlos wore an expression half way between compassionate pity and unimpressed disapproval. From somewhere, Morty produced a handkerchief.

“... Anyway.” Carlos coughed, still holding Raven’s axe. Raven took it from him with trembling hands and clutched it close. With a few wet sniffles, he reined in the last of his tears. This had been the longest day, he thought again, and cradled the axe in his lap.

“I’m good now,” Raven said, though his choked up voice belied how light his grip was on his emotions. Carlos made the executive decision to carry on anyway.

“As for getting back to your Precinct, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. South Gate through the wall is sealed and it ain’t gonna open up again until tomorrow morning. Pretty routine after a monster storm like what we had last night. So, you may as well relax and rest up awhile.” Carlos took a long drought from a large flask at his hip, but did not offer Raven any of whatever it contained.

“What? No.” Raven protested. “What about through the third yard? I need to get back as soon as possible.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow. “Kid,” he said flatly. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are in no shape to trek through Wrecker territory.” He cocked his head to gesture to Yard 3 in the distance. “ASEC doesn’t take particular care of the outer yard, and the locals ain’t real friendly.”

“I can do it,” Raven insisted. “I have to. I saw something in the pipes, something big. ASEC needs to know about it as soon as possible!”

Carlos stood and leveled a flat, unimpressed look at the young man, then squatted low to bring himself to eye level with Raven and leaned forward. He raised a finger to Raven’s face. Raven stared for a moment cross eyed before Carlos pointed, and proceeded to poke him squarely in the middle of his forehead. Raven immediately lost his balance and toppled backwards, falling out of his chair onto the ground.

“...ow,” Raven mewled in a small, sad voice.

“...” Morty gurgled.

“Fine,” Carlos said, rolling his eyes, but relenting to his crustacean companion. “Kid, why don’t you tell us what’s going on. If it’s actually important and not ‘tHey’rE goNNa firE mE ‘CAuse i diD soMEthinG sTuPID’ important, maybe, MAYBE, we’ll see what we can do about getting a message inland.” Carlos returned to his chair. “So. Indulge us.”

Raven struggled to right himself and the chair, failed, and rolled to sit up on the ground cross legged. He looked at Carlos with watery eyes. “Do you really mean it?”

“We’ll see,” Carlos repeated firmly.

“...” Morty gurgled encouragingly.

Raven recounted the story in as much detail as he could. Finally, Carlos held up a hand and interjected: “Ok, stop. STOP. We get it. You climbed a lot of stairs.”

“But you understand now, right? I have to get back to my Precinct and tell them! If we work fast, we can catch that weird old man, and bring him to justice before anyone else gets hurt!”

Carlos looked decidedly nonplussed. “Justice, huh?

The older man sat thoughtfully for a moment.

“Not to snuff your flare, kiddo. But ASEC has a hurricane to clean up after. That is gonna be priority one. AND if you sealed him off in the deep shafts like you say, then I don’t imagine that they’re gonna drop everything for a manhunt, through the uncharted depths, trying to follow a tram line, that nobody knew existed until this morning, with only your word that this guy is a threat.”

“You don’t think this is important?” Raven asked, feeling inexplicably hurt.

“I think you’re gonna have a hard time convincing the people in charge that you didn’t just hit your head real hard.”

Raven was incensed enough to climb to his feet, though he leaned on his axe to do it. “But he can command Walkers! The whole city could be in danger!”

“Kid. The whole city is always in danger. You’re a Sweeper, you oughta know this. Anyway, there’s a couple hundred more of you taking care of things inside. They can keep a handle on the city until we get lunch. C’mon”

Raven wanted to argue more, but his stomach growled loud enough to drown out the music. The old man was right, he could save the city after lunch… Was it lunchtime? How long had he been unconscious?

They returned to Carlos’ apartment long enough for Raven to put on his armor. It was heavy, and Raven was tender, but he’d rather face exhaustion than risk losing a single piece of it through carelessness. And wearing it felt a lot lighter and less awkward than carrying it. Morty stayed behind to watch the yard and the two men took off along the seaside walkway to the heart of the Southport District.

The neighborhood reminded Raven of his own borough; the bustle of people at work, the market trading, the variety of shops, the sheer camaraderie of people greeting each other and helping one another as they made repairs to their town. It made Raven a touch homesick. Silly of him, he thought, since it hadn’t even been a full 24 hours since he was last home.

Nevertheless, he struggled not to wave when people stared at Carlos and himself. No one knew him here. He’d just be a weirdly friendly Sweeper… above ground… outside the wall… on his way to lunch, following a trip by storm drain to the coast. Reports of that sort of behavior wouldn’t help convince his superiors he wasn’t concussed.

Carlos led him to a restaurant near the water. Above the door hung a sign with a ship’s wheel that read ‘Fortuna’s Tavern’. Raven could smell bread and meat on the air surrounding the building and he very nearly swooned.

“Don’t fall over just yet,” Carlos groused without turning, then opened the door.

The aroma intensified, and was joined by coffee and syrup and was that cinnamon he smelled? Raven nearly knocked over Carlos in his eagerness to get inside. He felt as if he could feel the stares, but his attention was on the display case next to the bar. There were pies and quiches and scones. He was going to eat them all.

“Hey there, Carl,” came a cheerful voice from behind the bar. A pretty woman with gold tanned skin, short, wiry rust colored hair, and a warm smile was wiping down the counter. “I was wondering if you were going to grace us with your presence this morning or if I’d have to send someone to your yard to get you.”

Carlos nodded his head at the woman. “Marie,” he said by way of greeting. “Got work for me?”

“Just a few tow jobs. If you have the time. Which I know you do.” The woman, Marie, smiled winningly at Carlos. Her gold eyes seemed to flash in the light. Raven thought something was striking about them. He could not place it at first, but as he looked closer he could see that the whites of her eyes were slighter, and darker, and her too large irises were a striking, shimmering gold. Something about her sharp gaze, and her wry smile reminded him of Captain Mendoza’s obsidian glare and predatory grin full of too sharp teeth. Carlos glowered at her for a couple heart beats, but even Raven, distracted as he was by hunger, could tell the older man wouldn’t argue. “Glad that’s settled,” Marie said, though as far as Raven could tell nothing had been settled. Who needed a tow? Why did she expect Carlos to do it? Why did Carlos listen to her? Did she serve waffles?

“And who’s this strapping young man you’ve brought to my door?” She rounded on Raven with a smile that made him want to double check his weapons, even without the carnivorous sharpness of his Captain’s grin. “The name’s Marie Fortuna, hon! This is my place. What’s a nice boy like you doing with this curmudgeon?”

Raven opened his mouth to reply, but Carlos cut him off. “This is Raven. Fished him out of the storm drain this morning. He got washed out with the last of the debris from the surge. Listen, I’ve gotta make a few calls. Can you feed this kid? My tab.” He turned to exit, then doubled back to add, “Nothing fancy!”

Marie saluted his departing figure, but agreed to nothing. Raven didn’t even think to say “bye” or ask what constituted fancy until the door was closed. Then, in the sudden quiet, Raven’s stomach gave another aggravated rumble.

“Why don’t you have a seat, kiddo?” Marie’s voice was a good deal gentler than it had been, though Raven hadn’t thought she was brusque before. He pulled up the nearest stool and sat. “Don’t worry about that grump. He’s got more credit here than he lets on. And he’ll be back as soon as he finishes his calls... If he can even make them, that is” she said in a quiet, wry aside. “Anyway, what can I get for ya?”

“... Waffles?”

She hisses through her teeth, an apologetic sound. “No waffles, I’m afraid. The griddle broke yesterday and with the storm damage, no one has time to fix it right now. Pancakes okay?”

“Pancakes are fine,” he said, but he could hear his own disappointment.

It wasn’t just the lack of waffles that had gotten him down, though that was the icing on his sad, fluffy but not crispy cake. With a late but welcome breakfast in reach and no clear course of action beyond it, he’d suddenly felt the weight of everything that had gone wrong. Cortez was hurt, and his gear damaged. He’d discovered that city was in danger, but his credibility was uncertain. Meanwhile, his only help was an old man with a lobster who wanted to eat him. And everyone kept calling him a kid.

“I’m not a kid,” Raven said, sulking into his chest.

“Of course you’re not,” Marie said consolingly. “Are you worried about Carlos? You shouldn’t be. He’s probably just sore about you making him get up early. Strawberry or chocolate, honey?”

“Strawberry, thanks,” said Raven. Marie placed a large glass of strawberry milk in front of him with a twisty straw. A moment later, she slid a ten-stack of fluffy banana pancakes under his nose, a whipped cream smiley face drawn on top and a couple sparklers stuck in the heaping scoop of Neapolitan ice cream on the side. “Thank you, ma’am,” Raven said and dug in. Would this be considered fancy? He tried and failed to restrain himself, then fell upon the breakfast with ravenous hunger. As he ate and drank, he felt a slight tingle, like static in the air around his food. He tasted a spark. Were the sparklers really necessary?

Marie let him eat in peace for a while. She busied herself with the other customers, brewing more coffee, and cleaning the griddle for the next order. Raven watched as she directed several young servers to handle different tables. He caught two of the young women smiling in his direction as he stuffed a forkful of pancake into his mouth, and whispering to one another. He paused and waved sheepishly. When Raven had made a sizeable dent in the pancakes, and slowed his pace enough that she could see him chew before swallowing, she came back to him and asked, “So what’s your story, hon? You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind, and as an official, certified bartender, I can assure you telling me your troubles will make them easier.”

Raven’s eyes flicked from her to his pancakes and back again, considering. At last, he swallowed and began to tell her an abridged story of the morning.

“So, um, as you might’ve guessed, I’m a Sweeper,” he began, and gestured vaguely the armor he was wearing. “My squad was out last night, well, this morning, doing a retrieval from the pipes. There was another team down there, and an excavation crew, and- Anyway. Something happened down there. Something bad. My team went down to help, but we got caught up in it instead. I made it out. I think my team did too. I hope they did,” he said in a quiet aside. “After we got separated, I saw some stuff. Important, the-city-may-be-in-danger stuff,” he said intensely. “I’m the only one who knows about it. But I shouldn’t be. My captain needs to know. The commanders at ASEC definitely need to know. But my radio is broken and the gates are closed and I can’t get in touch with any of them!”

By that point, Raven had nearly worked himself into a frenzy, catching concerned stares from other patrons. But just as quickly he seemed to deflate before Marie’s hawk-like eyes. “I told that old guy about it, but I’m not sure if he believed me. When I said it out loud I guess it sounds unbelievable. The further away I get from it, I’m starting to think ‘maybe I did just hallucinate all that’.” Marie watched as his lower lip trembled a smidge. The smile slid off her face.

“You might be surprised what people will believe, hon. Especially around here.” She laid a hand on top of his. “And don’t you fret about Carlos. If he thought you weren’t worth listening to, he would have taken you to some other bar.” She winked and slid him another strawberry milk. Raven hadn’t even seen her make it. “Don’t let Carlos hear you calling him old though.” She said with a smirk.

Marie kept Raven company in between brewing coffees, making breakfasts, and directing her small squad of servers to attend to the stream of people who came through. Nearly all of them were sailors, or technicians, or machinists of some kind, and they all bore circles under their eyes of varying darkness. Raven wasn’t the only one who’d had a long night, it seemed.

A half hour later, Carlos returned.

Marie handed him a stein of coffee and he sat next to Raven. “Bad news, kid. Lines to the inner ring are down. I couldn’t get through to ASEC. Storm Damage I expect.”

Raven would not be deterred. He pushed back from the bar and stood. “Then I can’t waste time. I need to get back as soon as possible.”

Marie just shook her head and pushed down on his shoulder. “Sit and finish your pancakes, hon.” Raven looked down, surprised to see his stack was less than halfway eaten. He’d missed her sliding more onto his plate. “The City Gate isn’t gonna open until tomorrow for damage assessment. And that’s at the earliest.”

Raven looked between her and Carlos in honest surprise. “Wait,” he said. “You don’t mean to tell me they just leave all of you cut off when storms hit?” When neither of the two contradicted him, his face contorted in a grimace of appalled shock. “That’s terrible! I had no idea.”

Marie just shrugged and snuck a hand pie onto his plate. Raven didn’t even notice when he began to eat it. “Well, it’s not like it’s totally malicious. The Barrier Wall makes it hard to support the outer ring. We take care of each other, though.”

Raven thought of all the friendly people he’d passed on his way to the tavern and found himself agreeing. He’d opened his mouth to ask more questions - he had so many! - when Marie and Carlos both held up hands for silence. At this signal, the whole tavern had gone quiet, the other patrons looking at the pair nervously.

Raven didn’t understand what was happening, but he watched them, too. He saw them look at each other in alarm, then shout, “DOWN!”

Not a moment later, the tavern shook and the air thundered as artillery exploded outside.

---

#arpage #children of the storm #hi carlos!#hi marie!#hi morty!#Raven Daniels #Carlos Desocrates #Marie Fortuna #Morty the Lobster

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thenichibro · 7 years

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Winter 2017 Anime First Impressions

The first season we’re really feeling the effects of more anime simulcast services. Yellow subs, torrents not being under the CR/Funi umbrella - dark times. Due to the fact I can only DDL at college, I am choosing not to watch LWA or Onihei because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. I’m definitely going back to LWA after the season’s over though. Regardless, this season has the usual ups and downs, but initially I’m seeing a lot of ups - Maidragon is fantastic, Demi-chan and Urara are cute as hell, and Scum’s Wish is almost emotionally draining to watch, it’s so enthralling. Here’s what I’m watching, with MAL links: Fuuka (MAL) Starting off, we have an ecchi almost-harem manga that I didn't like. Great. Fuuka has the original plot elements of a shut-in guy that popular on the internet, who also has a super-popular girl as his childhood friend and soon gets to know another cute girl. Also his three sisters never wear clothes. Cool. Fuuka wasn't really that shit until the truck-to-the-face level plot twist that occurred in the manga, which I hope they will reach in the anime just for the reactions to how bullshit it is. Other than that, Fuuka is a less-than-stellar sort of harem about a whiny, bland main character. Fuuka even falls on the MC twice in the first episode for good measure. Oh, I guess also the plot involves playing music, but that's basically just a way for more random good things to happen to an unlikable character. OP and ED are nothing special, either. If anything, Diomedia's art style is usually good. Otherwise, avoid. Masamune-kun no Revenge (MAL) A story of a fat kid who got ripped and now wants to get revenge on his former crush. It's something new, for sure. The completely worthless perfect-in-everything trope is now supplied by both the female AND male leads. What a show. At the very least, Masamune-kun tempers the trope by giving both mains embarrassing reasons to keep up airs. The girls we've met aren't half bad, and I for one support a peppy class rep rather than the standard strict, megane type. The princess-complex is so tiring every time it happens, so lets hope that the show moves more toward Makabe/Aki in their real selves rather than putting on airs. Masamune-kun's plot actually strikes me as similar to Last Game, if anyone's read that manga. While I doubt this show will carry far enough into the future to deal with marriage, the story of a guy trying to ruin/outdo a girl and falling for her is definitely there. I have no strong feelings one way or another about this show, at least not yet. That will probably depend on how much princess Aki vs. normal Aki we see. Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu (MAL) I thought Long Riders was last season? Anyway, here we have a slice of life about a girl in a biking club. Relaxing enough premise, for sure. First impressions are that this show takes it pretty slow, judging from the fact that it takes 14 minutes before the main characters get to school at all. That is not a complaint, just an observation. Another is how different the landscape art is from the character art. The show opens with some amazing nature stills, while the character art is, for lack of a better term, "old." As in, it almost has the feel of an earlier 2000s show. I did wonder how much into biking the show would get, like Long Riders did, and the end of episode 1 answered that for me. The last two minutes or so are a live action segment where two of the seiyuu learn about getting into biking by talking to a guy running a bike shop. While the super serious stuff is what kind of made Long Riders fall flat for me, maybe it won't be as serious. We’ll see. Nyanko Days (MAL) I guess since I can't get my Teekyuu fix, I'll have to find a different two-minute show. Nyanko Days is about Tomoko, a girl who has three personified cats. For a two-minute show, that's about how far episode 1 got. She was depressed about being lonely, but cheers up upon arriving home to her three cats, Maa, Shii, and Rou. For a show this short the animation is surprisingly clean, and the 30sec ED was suitably full of "nya" and various words combined with it. It's cute, and it's two minutes long, so why not? Seiren (MAL) I came into this show knowing little more than it was a school romantic comedy, and overall I think it benefited my first impressions. The show focuses on three main girls and their relations with the male MC, and dedicates a few episodes to each of them out of the 12-episode cour. I'm immediately wary of this, only because it gives me flashbacks (read: PTSD) to Photokano, where they focused on a different girl each few episodes and then reset time the next section. I do enjoy the lack of the transfer student trope, at least for the MC. The first moments successfully give you the sense that there is already a school community, something I prefer over having to sort out relationships individually following a transfer. Overall, the MC is pretty standard and the current girl has a tiring personality. As long as this show stays far from resembling trash like Photokano, I think this show will be defined by the personality of the current girl, whether you like that or not. Chaos;Child (MAL) Because we needed more of the Chaos;Head storyline. I don't remember much about Chaos;Head, other than the incredibly shit voice of the main character and the incredibly shit everything else. I watched the first episode in a 1-hour combination with "Episode 0," which is a recap of Head. If you get the HorribleSubs release, that's what the file will be. Anyway, Child itself takes place six years after Head, in which the main character of that show causes some event or something. The recap doesn't help at all. Child follows a school's newspaper club investigating murders similar in strangeness to those during Head. Initially, Takuru seems like a person interested in the depravity and bizaare level of the murders, but that personality gets completely dropped when he tries investigating the newest murder - he completely loses all cool after seeing a body. While that otherwise may be a fairly normal reaction, it goes at odds with the Takuru that had looked at pictures of previous murders and called them "juicy" and interesting. He also regains the first personality after the event is over. Just seems way too abrupt. I will say Itou Kanako returns as she does for everything semi-colon related, and her voice is as good as ever in the OP/ED. I'm thankful for the lack of the otaku protag, but otherwise this seems just as nonsensical as Chaos;Head but with better art. Not looking forward to more. One Room (MAL) The second short show of the season, from famed artist Kantoku. That's the only reason I'm watching this, anyway. This show makes the initially strange choice of being shot in POV, with a voiceless male protagonist. The first episode sees him meet his new high-school girl neighbor, then grow close enough to her that she asks him to help her study. The show is billed as series of shorts focusing on three girls, so I would expect something like four episodes for each one. The most noticeable part of the show is the art, and damn does it look good. Closeups of the girl, fluttering cherry petals, everything is beautiful as a still and smooth when in motion. The POV part is less of a problem for me as I see it as similar to a visual novel, and with the girls being cute and the art being great, this will be an enjoyable watch each week. Kemono Friends (MAL) An all-CG mobile-game show, and a full 24 minutes at that. Why am I watching this? One of the things that stood out immediately was the grating sound of the first two characters's voices. Kemono Friends involves Japari Park, in which anthropomorphized animal girls live and have to deal with aliens called Ceruleans. While the show is clearly projecting a light-hearted tone, it was strange to hear heavy techno during a battle with a big Cerulean. This show looks like no more than a walk around the different areas to see different animal girls. I'd be satisfied with that if it wasn’t just so boring. The OP is suitably bouncy, but even if this show doesn’t get serious, 24 minutes of bad animation is a serious slog. Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (MAL) Ah Kyoani, the true saviors of anime. Kyoto Animation's production budget meets the artstyle and writing of Danna ga Nani's creator. I'm on board. A working adult who drunkenly invites a dragon-girl to be her maid. A unique premise, to be sure. Right off the bat, the contrast between the Tohru's unfazed optimism and Kobayashi being done with her shit all the time made me laugh my ass off. The sequence with Tohru getting more scared of humans when Kobayashi and Takiya are drunk was also top-tier. Art-wise the show looks great, animation is smooth, and Tohru is cute as hell. Always a plus. In addition, I think Kobayashi is a grounded character with a few weird tastes, which is somewhat more relatable than a totally “normal” person, if I'm being honest. Regarding the OP/ED, I will do anything for more fhana, and Maidragon's OP does not disappoint. No ED in episode 1. Overall, I was surprised at how much I liked a show with such an ostensibly strange premise, but I am wholeheartedly excited for the next episode. Kuzu no Honkai (MAL) I was immediately drawn in by the brutally emotional premise of Kuzu no Honkai, or Scum's Wish. Two students dating, only using the other as a physical replacement for an impossible emotional love. Wow. I was almost shocked when the episode ended, because I had been enthralled the entire time. Even through the intimate scenes, there was a heavy air, one punctuated by wells of emotion that kept me breathless. Something has to be said for the sound design too - the crescendos of music match Hana's emotional ups and downs to a T. Flawless. Likewise, the art throughout, especially with the black watercolors clouding white paper, the choices of camera angles during the intimate scene - it brings out the regretful and simultaneously indulgent feelings that the scene evokes. The fact that sexual encounters in anime are almost always moments for comedy rather than real emotion just makes Kuzu no Honkai's scenes more unique. Just the very idea of feelings so strong that two lonely people would come together to physically try to stave them off is both depressing and greatly intriguing at the same time. Even the general atmosphere of episode 1 enriched the painful introspective Hana was going through, culminating in the titular wish. With the courage to take a darker look at high-school romance, I want to see more. Watch this show. Demi-chan wa Kataritai (MAL) I didn't think I had a thing for something as specific as "blonde vampires," but there you go. Man, does this show make me feel good. A world where racism towards demi-humans has calmed down to the point where it's a normal part of life. No serious, overbearing issues, just a fun, light-hearted look at the concept of a demi-human living a modern life. I think I find the epitome of that in Takahashi, who doesn't really want much more than to just know more about demi-humans - he has a genuine desire to get to know the subtleties of their lives. Soft-spoken and laid back, he is the perfect foil for the quirky, bubbly Hikari, the aforementioned blonde vampire. Funny exchanges with a few heartwarming moments combine to form one hell of a great first episode. The ED fits the relatively calm tone perfectly, but I'm partial to the OP by TrySail after they caught my eye doing Classroom Crisis' OP. Give it a listen. While there are some noticeably harem-esque undertones, if this show stays relatively away from Monster Musume ecchi and carves its own niche, I will enjoy it to the fullest. Urara Meirochou (MAL) [To get this out of the way first, FUCK Anime Network - who the hell thinks yellow subs, and hardsubs at that, still look fine? At least with the CR/Funi deal I would think we would have some consistency for once, damn.] I saved this for last because it looked like the most healing show this season. That, and midriffs. I'm a sucker for the traditional Japanese style (Mushishi, Katanagatari, Uchouten Kazoku), and Meirochou's art and architecture do not disappoint. Thus far, this is a heartwarming tale of four girls working to find themselves through their style of fortune-telling. The four girls are quite cute, even if Nono's voice is pitched just a bit too high. Also, midriffs. I hope that stays. I also like Chiya's wild-person-new-to-society personality, and I think it meshes interestingly with three other girls that, while adjusted to society outside of Meirochou, are otherwise just as new. Overall, this is a show that takes an interesting setting and premise and aims to tell a story through four cute girls. What's not to love?

#fuuka #masamune-kun no revenge #minami kamakura koukou joshi jitensha-bu #nyanko days #seiren #chaos;child #one room #kemono friends #kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon #kuzu no honkai #demi-chan wa kataritai #urara meirochou #winter 2017 anime #my anime reviews

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(Via: Hacker News)

By Altexsoft.

For most businesses, machine learning seems close to rocket science, appearing expensive and talent demanding. And, if you’re aiming at building another Netflix recommendation system, it really is. But the trend of making everything-as-a-service has affected this sophisticated sphere, too. You can jump-start an ML initiative without much investment, which would be the right move if you are new to data science and just want to grab the low hanging fruit.

One of Machine Learning most inspiring stories is the one about a Japanese farmer who decided to sort cucumbers automatically to help his parents with this painstaking operation. Unlike the stories that abound about large enterprises, the guy had neither expertise in machine learning, nor a big budget. But he did manage to get familiar with TensorFlow and employed deep learning to recognize different classes of cucumbers.

By using machine-learning cloud services, you can start building your first working models, yielding valuable insights from predictions with a relatively small team. We’ve already discussed machine learning strategy. Now let’s have a look at the best machine learning platforms on the market and consider some of the infrastructural decisions to be made.

What is machine learning as a service

Machine learning as a service (MLaaS) is an umbrella definition of automated and semi-automated cloud platforms that cover most infrastructure issues such as data pre-processing, model training, and model evaluation, with further prediction. Prediction results can be bridged with your internal IT infrastructure through REST APIs.

Amazon Machine Learning services, Azure Machine Learning, and Google Cloud AI are three leading cloud MLaaS services that allow for fast model training and deployment with little to no data science expertise. These should be considered first if you assemble a homegrown data science team out of available software engineers. Have a look at our data science team structures story to have a better idea of roles distribution.

Within this article, we’ll first give an overview of the main machine-learning-as-a-service platforms by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, and will follow it by comparing machine learning APIs that these vendors support. Please note that this overview isn’t intended to provide exhaustive instructions on when and how to use these platforms, but rather what to look for before you start reading through their documentation.

Machine learning services for custom predictive analytics tasks

Predictive analytics with Amazon ML

Amazon Machine Learning services are available on two levels: predictive analytics with Amazon ML and the SageMaker tool for data scientists.

Amazon Machine Learning for predictive analytics is one of the most automated solutions on the market and the best fit for deadline-sensitive operations. The service can load data from multiple sources, including Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, CSV files, etc. All data preprocessing operations are performed automatically: The service identifies which fields are categorical and which are numerical, and it doesn’t ask a user to choose the methods of further data preprocessing (dimensionality reduction and whitening).

Prediction capacities of Amazon ML are limited to three options: binary classification, multiclass classification, and regression. That said, this Amazon ML service doesn’t support any unsupervised learning methods, and a user must select a target variable to label it in a training set. Also, a user isn’t required to know any machine learning methods because Amazon chooses them automatically after looking at the provided data.

This high automation level acts both as an advantage and disadvantage for Amazon ML use. If you need a fully automated yet limited solution, the service can match your expectations. If not, there’s SageMaker.

Amazon SageMaker and frameworks-based services

SageMaker is a machine learning environment that’s supposed to simplify the work of a fellow data scientist by providing tools for quick model building and deployment. For instance, it provides Jupyter, an authoring notebook, to simplify data exploration and analysis without server management hassle. Amazon also has built-in algorithms that are optimized for large datasets and computations in distributed systems. These include:

Linear learner, a supervised method for classification and regression

Factorization machines for classification and regression designed for sparse datasets

XGBoost is a supervised boosted trees algorithm that increases prediction accuracy in classification, regression, and ranking by combining the predictions of simpler algorithms

Image classification based on ResNet, which can also be applied for transfer learning

Seq2seq is a supervised algorithm for predicting sequences (e.g. translating sentences, converting strings of words into shorter ones as a summary, etc.)

K-means is an unsupervised learning method for clustering tasks

Principal component analysis used for dimensionality reduction

Latent Dirichlet allocation is an unsupervised method used for finding categories in documents

Neural topic model (NTM) is an unsupervised method that explores documents, reveals top ranking words, and defines the topics (users can’t predefine topics, but they can set the expected number of them)

Built-in SageMaker methods largely intersect with the ML APIs that Amazon suggests, but here it allows data scientists to play with them and use their own datasets.

If you don’t want to use these, you can add your own methods and run models via SageMaker leveraging its deployment features. Or you can integrate SageMaker with TensorFlow and MXNet, deep learning libraries.

Generally, Amazon machine learning services provide enough freedom for both experienced data scientists and those who just need things done without digging deeper into dataset preparations and modeling. This would be a solid choice for companies that already use Amazon environment and don’t plan to transition to another cloud provider.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio

Azure Machine Learning is aimed at setting a powerful playground both for newcomers and experienced data scientists. The roster of ML products from Microsoft is similar to the ones from Amazon, but Azure, as of today, seems more flexible in terms of out-of-the-box algorithms.

Services from Azure can be divided into two main categories: Azure Machine Learning Studio and Bot Service. Let’s find out what’s under the hood of Azure ML Studio. We’ll return to Bot Service in the section dedicated to specific APIs and tools.

ML Studio is the main MLaaS package to look at. Almost all operations in Azure ML Studio must be completed manually. This includes data exploration, preprocessing, choosing methods, and validating modeling results.

Approaching machine learning with Azure entails some learning curve. But it eventually leads to a deeper understanding of all major techniques in the field. On the other hand, Azure ML supports graphical interface to visualize each step within the workflow. Perhaps the main benefit of using Azure is the variety of algorithms available to play with. The Studio supports around 100 methods that address classification (binary+multiclass), anomaly detection, regression, recommendation, and text analysis. It’s worth mentioning that the platform has one clustering algorithm (K-means).

Another big part of Azure ML is Cortana Intelligence Gallery. It’s a collection of machine learning solutions provided by the community to be explored and reused by data scientists. The Azure product is a powerful tool for starting with machine learning and introducing its capabilities to new employees.

Google Prediction API

Google provides AI services on two levels: a machine learning engine for savvy data scientists and highly automated Google Prediction API. Unfortunately, Google Prediction API has been deprecated recently and Google is pulling the plug on April 30, 2018.

The doomed Predicion API resembles Amazon ML. Its minimalistic approach narrows down to solving two main issues: classification (both binary and multiclass) and regression. Trained models can be deployed through the REST API interface.

Google doesn’t disclose exactly which algorithms were utilized for drawing predictions and didn’t allow engineers to customize models. On the other hand, Google’s environment was the best fit for running machine learning within tight deadlines and the early launch of the ML initiative. But it seems that the product wasn’t nearly as popular as Google expected. It’s a shame that those who were using Prediction API will have to “recreate existing models” using other platforms as the end-of-life FAQ suggests.

So, what’s coming instead?

Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine

High automation of Prediction API was available at the cost of flexibility. Google ML Engine is the direct opposite. It caters to experienced data scientists, it’s very flexible, and it suggests using cloud infrastructure with TensorFlow as a machine learning driver. So, ML Engine is pretty similar to SageMaker in principle.

TensorFlow is another Google product, which is an open source machine learning library of various data science tools rather than ML-as-a-service. It doesn’t have visual interface and the learning curve for TensorFlow would be quite steep. However, the library is also targeted at software engineers that plan transitioning to data science. TensorFlow is quite powerful, but aimed mostly at deep neural network tasks.

Basically, the combination of TensorFlow and Google Cloud service suggests infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service solutions according to the three-tier model of cloud services. We talked about this concept in our whitepaper on digital transformation. Have a look, if you aren’t familiar with it.

To wrap up machine-learning-as-a-service platforms, it seems that Azure currently has the most versatile toolset on the MLaaS market. It covers most ML-related tasks, provides a visualization interface for building custom models, and has a solid set of APIs for those who don’t want to nail data science with their bare hands. However, it still lacks automation capacities available at Amazon.

Machine learning APIs from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google comparison

Besides full-blown platforms, you can use high-level APIs. These are the services with trained models under the hood that you can feed your data into and get results. APIs don’t require machine learning expertise at all. Currently, the APIs from these three vendors can be broadly divided into three large groups:

1) text recognition, translation, and textual analysis

2) image + video recognition and related analysis

3) other, that includes specific uncategorized services

Speech and text processing APIs: Amazon

Amazon provides multiple APIs that aim at popular tasks within text analysis. These are also highly automated in terms of machine learning and just need proper integration to work.

Amazon Lex. The Lex API is created to embed chatbots in your applications as it contains automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) capacities. These are based on deep learning models. The API can recognize written and spoken text and the Lex interface allows you to hook the recognized inputs to various back-end solutions. Obviously, Amazon encourages use of its Lambda cloud environment. So, prior to subscribing to Lex, get acquainted with Lambda as well. Besides standalone apps, Lex currently supports deploying chatbots for Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Twilio.

Amazon Transcribe. While Lex is a complex chatbot-oriented tool, Transcribe is created solely for recognizing spoken text. The tool can recognize multiple speakers and works with low-quality telephony audio. This makes the API a go-to solution for cataloging audio archives or a good support for the further text analysis of call-center data.

Amazon Polly. The Polly service is kind of a reverse of Lex. It turns text into speech, which will allow your chatbots to respond with voice. It’s not going to compose the text though, just make the text sound close to human. If you’ve ever tried Alexa, you’ve got the idea. Currently, it supports both female and male voices for 25 languages, mostly English and Western European ones. Some languages have multiple female and male voices, so there’s even a variety to choose from. Like Lex, Polly is recommended for use with Lambda.

Amazon Comprehend. Comprehend is another NLP set of APIs that, unlike Lex and Transcribe, aim at different text analysis tasks. Currently, Comprehend supports:

Entities extraction (recognizing names, dates, organizations, etc.)

Key phrase detection

Language recognition

Sentiment analysis (how positive, neutral, or negative a text is)

Topic modeling (defining dominant topics by analyzing keywords)

This service will help you analyze social media responses, comments, and other big textual data that’s not amenable to manual analysis, e.g. the combo of Comprehend and Transcribe will help analyze sentiment in your telephony-driven customer service.

Amazon Translate. As the name states, the Translate service translates texts. Amazon claims that it uses neural networks which – compared to rule-based translation approaches – provides better translation quality. Unfortunately, the current version supports translation from only six languages into English and from English into those six. The languages are Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Speech and text processing APIs: Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services

Just like Amazon, Microsoft suggests high-level APIs, Cognitive Services, that can be integrated with your infrastructure and perform tasks with no data science expertise needed.

Speech. The speech set contains four APIs that apply different types of natural language processing (NLP) techniques for natural speech recognition and other operations:

Translator Speech API

Bing Speech API to convert text into speech and speech into text

Speaker Recognition API for voice verification tasks

Custom Speech Service to apply Azure NLP capacities using own data and models

Language. The language group of APIs focuses on textual analysis similar to Amazon Comprehend:

Language Understanding Intelligent Service is an API that analyzes intentions in text to be recognized as commands (e.g. “run YouTube app” or “turn on the living room lights”)

Text Analysis API for sentiment analysis and defining topics

Bing Spell Check

Translator Text API

Web Language Model API that estimates probabilities of words combinations and supports word autocompletion

Linguistic Analysis API used for sentence separation, tagging the parts of speech, and dividing texts into labeled phrases

#IFTTT #Feedly

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