#i simplified some details for it to be closer to show style
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Fuck it
*adventure times your pyres*
#my art#pyre#adventure time art style#i simplified some details for it to be closer to show style#oh god ill have to tag the whole cast#the vagabond#the moontouched girl#ti'zo#jodariel pyre#rukey greentail#pamitha theyn#hedwyn pyre#sir gilman#big bertrude#oralech#volfred sandalwood#tariq pyre#i liked the sketches i did so i just drew the whole cast in this style lmao#couldve been more creative w bertie and volf but oh well#crossover?#pyre sgg#pyre supergiant#supergiant games#i like hedwyn the most here... and ae and sir gilman i think#but anw tell me which one u like#i did this instead of uni work lmao
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mlp opinions under cut
read a post online that was someone who didn't like g4 but liked g5 mlp and I decided to watch some clips and... woof that was bad.
theres a lot of subjectivity to the mlp style and aesthetics but for me what it boils down to is that the g5 ponies look like someone looked at g4 and made it 3D, as opposed to looking at an actual pony. I've seen people criticize g4 for being too cartoony and not looking enough like horses, but if you look at the development drawings you can tell that a lot of work was put into stylizing them in a specific way.
I kind of feel like g1 had that too, you can see how the ponies are stylized off real ponies, and then g3 has a similar problem to g5 where it feels more based off of the previous cartoons than looking at a real horse.
Anyways, that all isn't inherently a problem, it's a cartoon and highly stylized. I watched the g5 movie when it came out and it was fine, a little boring tbh but the ponies were okay, I like how they have realistic hair and their bodies look fuzzy. I really don't like how skinny they are, like the chibi body + big head was cuter in g4 when it was a 2D cartoon but looks bizarre as a 3D object to me
which segues into my other thing which is... the pony toys from the new generation are the ugliest in all of my little ponydom, and i didnt even like g4's toys much but they were like half a step above. i cannot get over how bad their bodies are.
when i was a kid i took an all-ages art class on how to draw a horse, and the 2 things i took away from it were: you start by drawing a bean shape for the body, and a circle with a rectangle as the face
like 99% of horses boil down to this shape
regardless of other anatomical (leg) errors, this is how g1 looked
this was true of the animation too, you can generally see a divot in their back
are the characters from mlp g4 cartoony? yes, but
despite shrinking both THE BEAN and the nose, its like the same shape, simplified.
every single one of the g5 toys has no bean, their body like... narrows at the waist so much which is so bizarre to me. but its like theyre allergic to giving it a curved shape so its just all flat lines. and i find the hooves so much more disturbing when detailed because none of the rest of it is anatomically accurate so WHY did they add more detail there. its the very epitome of that meme about fetishists drawing extremely detailed feet.
besides that, the head is placed?? ?at the center of the neck?? presumably to help them stand up because their back half is so skinny but it just looks hideous. the eyes are closer together and the face generally flatter so they look more "Anthro" from the front- g4 had them on model from the side instead, so if you looked at the front of the face their eyes would be far apart, but it would be more like how a horse has eyes on the sides of their head:
im not 100% on this but it also looks weirdly like the g5 hair was just put on top of the head, every g5 pony ive seen doesn't have a many, just like a ponytail at the top. the g4 ponies dont have hair all the way down their backs, but its far enough that it falls naturally like a mane.
also i for some reason cannot get this image comparizon out of my head. they dont look that similar, i think its the colors mostly, but once seen i cannot unsee.
anyways i hate these dolls so much, ive stared at them for too long. i was going to complain about how the voice acting in the show is extremelyy rough, the songs are all pop songs, the animation of the mouth is bizarre, the animation of the body is unnaturally fluid and anatomically bizarre, but ive ranted too much already. byeeee
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Aer memories of old review
#Aer memories of old review full#
So I focused on completing the first temple, with the tacit expectation in my head that I’d likely gain some other new ability to aid in my quest by the time I had completed it. A handful had some tablets to read, or ethereal memories of previous inhabitants expelling some kind of thought, but smaller bits of side content? Not so much. More specifically, I spent a bunch of time hopping around between small islands looking for things to do and coming up fairly empty handed. That being said, I still managed to get lost pretty easily for around ten minutes in the beginning of the game while searching for the first temple. These are smart decisions, because honestly a lot of the islands look very samey at a distance. The game at least makes it easy to know where you should go next, and each temple’s front door comes with a clue about the location of its key, and key locations you need to visit are highlighted by narrow pillars of light to help draw your attention. The three primary temples each hold a piece of the ancient artifact you need to banish “The Void,” and each of them requires a key to open which can be gotten from the nearest neighboring secondary temple. Each named area has one primary land mass that guards access to either the primary or secondary temple you need to enter. I’m all for digging into lore in games, but I don’t generally enjoy having to do a lot of extra leg work to get at it.ĪER‘s world map is broken into large areas, each with its own minor variation on terrain or weather the differences are often subtle, but distinct enough that you can mostly tell them apart at a glance. To be fair, there are large stone tablets scattered around the world which tell a lot of the game’s back story and fill in blanks, but only some of them are really “on the way,” and many require you to explore the small islands surrounding your objectives more thoroughly to uncover. The thing is, once you dig in and start progressing, all you really uncover is more mystery without many answers, which stops being less of a mystery and more just a lack of detail. Granted, this isn’t treading any new ground, but there’s a good bit of mystery in the setup, and a strong implication that there’s a lot to be revealed as you go. Auk is a shape-shifter embarking on a pilgrimage to learn the secrets of her people’s past, in hopes of saving the world from the great evil lurking in a distant part of the world. Flying around in Auk’s bird form feels really great, with simplified flight controls that are not terribly demanding and give you a lot of freedom to move how you’d like, navigating in the air is a breeze. However, once you begin bouncing from landmass to landmass and looking closer at what’s around, you discover that the world of AER is more superficial than substantive, and there just isn’t as much to the game as it first lets on.ĪER wisely begins with a healthy dose of spectacle between the action sequences in the first cave and the revelation that your character, Auk, can shape-shift into a flipping bird, the game starts off strong. Once you leave the cave and get your first glimpse of the vast realm of floating islands, you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s a great deal to do in this world.
#Aer memories of old review full#
At first blush it seems you’ll be embarking on an adventure rich with intrigue and dynamic locales full of puzzles and ever-expanding lore. AER: Memories of Old opens promisingly you are treated to a brief exploration experience in a mountain cave that shows off the game’s beautiful flat-shaded, low-poly art style and familiarizes you with the game’s “lite” dungeons.
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With Digimon Ghost Game starting, I thought about how different it is from previous Digimon series, though it's still undoubtedly Digimon... and then I realized all Digimon series are like that. So I wonder, what do you think sets each Digimon series apart from the rest?
I think both Ghost Game but also the reboot have been a wake-up call for people in terms of realizing that likes, dislikes, and tastes are subjective, and I think it's especially important in terms of this fanbase that is so obsessed with this idea you can objectively rank things by quality -- especially when each series is often deliberately trying to have its own identity, so it's arguably apples and oranges -- and forcing this idea of what's Good and Not Good on everyone else (especially when there's a nasty double standard phenomenon where Adventure and often Tamers get to be so impervious to criticism that people conveniently forget they're perfectly capable of being scrutinized for a lot of things they're weaker in). Very frustrating to see everyone who likes less popular series treated as if they have to accept that they like a "badly written series" for some things and everything else is a guilty pleasure, which I find to be incredibly dumb.
The most important take-home here is that the fact each series has its own identity is always going to be the main factor in what makes it "good" or not to you, not some arbitrary bar of comparison that's based on some narrow-minded view of "good writing" (which is usually unreasonably based on Adventure). For instance, the reason why 02 is so important to me is because (see below), to me, it has the highest amount of meaningful, important life lessons and themes that it wanted its audience to remember, to the point that I frankly do not care about where the plot goes in comparison. That may not be the case for everyone else, and that's fine, but should my tastes be called unreasonable for that? I think we're also coming to realize that because of Adventure (and kind of 02)'s precedent, so many people have been judging series purely by how intimate their individual character development style is, but this is unfair because Adventure and 02's ridiculous level of character depth to psychological detail is extremely unusual and unrealistic to expect of others; Adventure and 02 only achieved this by practically considering the plot utterly subservient to its character arcs, and it's arguably why they have some of the weakest "plots" in this franchise. It's so bizarre that I can see character development in other Digimon series that outstrips even most kids' anime on the market, but it's not as much as Adventure's so apparently it's bad. And, moreover, as it turns out, some people have priorities other than characterization; just because Adventure had that as its strength doesn't mean that's the only thing anyone should care about. Is the plot fun? Is there a meaningful message besides characters (also important to me)? Do you vibe with the tone being dark, or being silly? How much do you care about resourceful usage of Digimon lore? That kind of thing. Everyone is different, so that's why everyone has their own priorities. If you’re someone who prefers darker content, you may not realize that writing good and well-timed comedy is actually a very, very difficult task, especially when said comedy simultaneously has meaning (in comparison, it’s surprisingly easy to write “dark” but shallow content).
I think it's fair to like every Digimon series for its own thing, depending on your personal tastes. I can't speak for everyone, but my impressions are that it has to do with the following:
Adventure: Significantly easier to understand than 02 due to its more straightforward plot, and focus on individual character development ("individualism" being a strong point here). In terms of characters, it goes a lot into some very real social problems (the divorce around the Ishida and Takaishi families and the pressures surrounding Jou, for instance) in a very realistic manner. Also, it has that sense of mystique and absurdism to the Digital World that's both whimsical but also mysterious, and while 02 has it too, Adventure's the isekai story that has it the most.
02: The first is its focus on the importance of human relationships and the compelling group dynamic unparalleled in this franchise, and the second is its important themes and life lessons that I think are some of the strongest in said franchise. I have a whole tag for the ridiculous amount of nuance packed into every detail and dialogue line for this series, and I think every time I've rewatched an episode I've learned something new about it because there are so many things that clearly wanted to be said in each line. The entire series is basically an unpacking of the feelings of insidious self-hatred and the crushing feeling of being subject to society's expectations, and ones that are so deep-seated that you often don’t even have a single answer to how to unpack it (for instance, Miyako hardly has a tragic single event in her backstory, but she says and does a lot of things that'll be painfully familiar to those who have experienced chronic anxiety). Almost every plot point can be said to connect to each character arc in some way, and the mantras for appreciating and treasuring your own life and living life the way you will make this, in my opinion, the strongest series in terms of speaking to those who struggle with this kind of existential crisis for reasons of depression or otherwise. (Oops, I think I went too passionate about this; my biases are obvious...)
Tamers: I think it forms an interesting study and unpacking of the kinds of things you take for granted in Digimon or the monster-collecting genre in general, and an examination of how they'd work in a real-world context (although 02 had a focus on daily life, it didn't quite merge the Digimon and the real world factors until very late in the series). Also, probably the second highest on "hard sci-fi" (the only one that outstrips it is probably Appmon, but Appmon has a very different, more simplified take on it).
Frontier: A series that lies somewhere between Adventure's scale of individualism and 02's scale of group dynamic, and one more discussing the feeling of having your heart hardened from being an outcast, and what it takes to accept the idea of opening yourself up to others again. Recommended for those who like transforming hero and magical girl stories, too. From the Digimon perspective, also the one with the most detailed and consistent Digital World mythos.
Savers: I think this is the series that most drives home "life is complicated" (i.e. there isn't a single mastermind behind everything) in the most tasteful manner, because while it drives home the point that you can't just simplify everything into a good side and a bad side, some bad things really are evil (hi, Kurata), and it doesn't change the fact that everyone's responsible for cleaning up the fallout. The portrayal of the evils of government bureaucracy is probably the most realistic out of any of these series.
Xros Wars: For those who like fun, most of all! For those who like seeing Digimon finally get more of the spotlight and individuality since so much of it had been geared and biased towards the humans prior to this. For those who really like worldbuilding, and, after all, this is called Xros Wars, so it's interesting to see shakeups on the usual formulas in the form of the different factions and their priorities. Hunters is very different in tone, but I do think they have some of these aspects in common; that said, it being closer to having single partnerships brings it a bit closer in line to conventional Digimon partnerships, and it also has more of a picture of daily life. Also, as much as Tagiru is probably your-mileage-may-vary since he's not exactly a very nice kid (I get it if you don't vibe with that), which may also rub those hoping for not nice kids to become nice the wrong way, I do have to say I find him to be one of the funniest characters in this entire franchise, and you'd be surprised how hard good comedy is to write.
Appmon: Probably one of the strongest theme narratives besides 02, since it has a very clear and obvious theme about the importance of kindness in a world where technology is dominating and we're almost encouraged to strip the feelings out of everything. (Bonus for more straightforward plot than Adventure or 02 while still retaining a lot of its elements in terms of how to characterize them.) Also the first series to be speculative about the near future instead of taking place around the time it airs, and it's very obvious it wants to provide important and necessary commentary about what we need to do in the incoming era, especially as a lot of what it has to say becomes increasingly relevant.
Reboot: For those who like Digimon mythos and null canon -- this is probably the only series to show it off in this level of detail -- and the kind of cool action fights that would usually be saved for the climax in prior series (and animated in much more intimate detail with battle choreography than prior series would have). There are a lot of people into this franchise who felt like it genuinely was not making enough use of its Digimon roster and its potential because it kept going back to the old standbys (especially Adventure-based ones), so it was a huge relief for that crowd to see attention finally being paid.
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Regis cosplay and the complicated history of a belt buckle
There’s nothing like cosplay to give you a whole new appreciation for the little details that go into a character’s costume.
Take Regis’ belt: if you’ve ever looked closely at the belt buckle and tip, they’re really distinctive—and really pretty.
Not to mention really frustrating to try and source.
Though that sideways-heart-shape is one of the more authentically-medieval details on his outfit, belts like that have been out of fashion for centuries. Even searching for oversized retro 80′s styles turned up nothing like it. The square conchos aren’t too unusual, but the buckle is another story.
Until I started looking on sites that did medieval replica buckles and holy crap, Regis’ buckle was based on an actual medieval replica! That you can actually buy!
This particular buckle is available in both gold and silver (buckle and end sold separately for some reason)—and from multiple different sites, even! (Very handy when the first one I found wouldn’t post to Australia). I’ve used mostly pics of the gold version here, though Regis’ actual belt looks silver in most of the better pics I’ve found of it.
Here, have a close-up comparison to show just how perfect this thing is.
If you look even closer, you may notice they’ve even reproduced the same shapes on the decorations on his satchel.
Some of those sites will go a step further and explain that this particular buckle was based on a real historical design from the 1460′s—specifically from the painting “Portrait of a Lady”, by Rogier van der Weyden.
Though you can certainly see the resemblance, they haven’t copied the painting exactly. In fact, there are far more precise replicas out there based on that same portrait.
More than one, in fact.
You can even get cheap, simplified versions of basically the exact same design!
Seems to be a pretty popular style.
All that said, Regis’ belt is still clearly based on that first replica from the top of this post, not the original portrait or any of the other reproduction buckles. Given that those buckles seem to have been up for sale online since at least a couple months before Blood and Wine came out, I’m assuming it was the devs copying an existing belt buckle design, not replica-buckle makers taking a design from a computer game. (What international copyright law says about this sort of thing I have no idea—I don’t think most clothing is supposed to be copyrightable in the same way other media is but I am not the person to ask. All I can tell you is that this questionably-authorised game-reproduction has already sold one buckle set to at least this one delighted fan—and now that the rest of you know about it, perhaps some more as well.)
With all that established, should we take a moment to enjoy some very mild amusement that what Regis is wearing was based on a lady’s silk belt? (A lady’s belt that he has carefully coordinated to match his bag, no less!) That probably shouldn’t be so surprising given how decorative the thing is, though I’m sure it’d be easy to miss if (perhaps like the devs) you’ve only seen the replica version up for sale with standard leather straps. Most medieval gear sites don’t bother to split their products into male and female categories that way (nor should they).
Not that I can see any of that bothering Regis. And it is, whatever else you may take from it, a very pretty buckle design.
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For the Art Tip thing: How do you keep the line between stylized and realistic? You have a very nice style and it's still rooted in real anatomy
Well, first you wanna learn some anatomy. I mentioned Proko’s anatomy for artists playlist in another ask, so I recommend that for learning more detailed stuff about anatomy. (But again, there’s a lot of anatomical terms that may be confusing and I get that, but at the very least there’s tons of visuals so hopefully it’s not too bad and you can still learn something if the language is too much.)
You don’t need to be a master at anatomy, however, in order to stylize it. Once you get the general vibe down, it’s just a matter of simplifying forms and shapes in a way that’s pleasing to your eye.
Take, for example, my hand.
[ID: A black and white photo of a hand in a vague reaching position with a dark background. The arm is partly visible and a bit hairy. The edge of a sweater sleeve is visible. end ID]
Now I’ve drawn it a few times to show how to simplify it. (the simpler drawings aren’t very good but I do hope they get the point across. if not I’d be happy to redo it)
[ID: A digital sketch of a hand on a white background. It is rendered with soft shading all over, and individual arm hairs have been drawn as well. end ID]
This one is drawn more realistically than I usually draw, helped by the fact that I used the photo as a direct reference the entire time. I started out sketching with basic shapes and slowly refined them until they matched the photo well enough to my liking. Shading was similar. Block out a basic shape of a shadow, then blend and refine.
[ID: A digital sketch of a hand on a white background. It is rendered with limited cell shading, and arm hair is represented with a few horizontal curved lines. end ID]
This one is closer to my usual style. I’ve done basic shapes again, but refined them less and (most importantly!!) I altered them in certain ways that I simply like. I gave the knuckles more definition, I made the thumb have more corners and straighter edges, and same with the wrist. I just like the way that makes it look, it’s fun. For the shading, I just saw where the shadows were darkest and blocked those out a bit for some solid cell shading.
[ID: A digital sketch of a hand. It is in a very simplified style, with rounded shapes and little detail. There is limited soft shading on one side of the arm. end ID]
This one is much less like my usual style, and much more simplified. Only the most basic shapes with just enough detail to tell you “this is a hand”. And really, that’s all you need in the end. As long as you get the point across, the nitty gritty of anatomy doesn’t matter so much.
Here’s another example, feat me trying to figure out how to draw Martin’s arms.
[ID: Three labelled digital drawings of a thick and muscular arm bent at the elbow. The first drawing is the most detailed, with soft shading and defined areas of muscle and fat. It has labels around it, pointing at different areas with arrows. The labels read “more realistic”, “definition”, “softer edges” and “detailed soft-shading”. There is a label beneath the drawing saying “SIMPLIFY” with an arrow pointing to the next drawing. The second drawing is more simplified, with less defined areas and is rendered with only cell shading. Its labels read “simpler shapes”, “more defined edges and corners”, and “cell shading”. There is a label beneath the drawing saying “SIMPLIFY” with an arrow pointing to the next drawing. The last drawing is even more simplified, with round shapes and a single soft shadow. Its labels read “blob” with the letters spaced far apart, “who needs definition”, and “very simple soft shading”. end ID]
These are just a couple ways to simplify shapes, and I could probably have done better about showing you how, but if you have any more questions about it, send em my way!
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hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality
5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:
- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on
- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable
- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there
- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat
- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol
- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift
- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.
- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?
- i have arrived at the point
- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky
- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’
- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth
- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner
- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note
- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there
- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward
- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?
- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out
- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself
- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)
- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent
- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king
- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon
- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’
- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train
- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment
- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump
- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time. and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.
- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??
- however,,,
- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)
- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.
- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show
- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go
#accompanying image has no meaningful organization it's just there to make me look insane. enjoy#riverdale speculation#filmref#but books#adhd has me like. this is Not the post i've been trying to write for weeks but my brain gave me no choice
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Ducktales: Woo-oo! Review! or From the Top
Hello all you happy people! And to those of you just joining this blog, welcome I review ducks, other animated shows and comics... and today’s review is special for me. For a number of reasons. For starters it’s a reminder how far i’ve come. See I always wanted to be a reviewer, ever since high school when a friend showed me a certain online reviewer whose now dead to me, and opened me up to a world of much better reviewers who i’m still fans of to this day, and ones who came after them , and after that and so on and so on. I so badly wanted a community to belong to I struggled to be a youtube reviewer but frankly lacked the talent or self confidence back then to try, so my attempts over the decade were a series of stops and starts. Of me starting to find my niche writing only to stop because I hated myself so much, and still struggle with that, i’d tell myself I could never do it, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t funny enough and no one cared. I kept shutting myself down AGAIN AND AGAIN, for far too long.
But that all changed a year ago next month: I’d long been a fan of the Ducktales Reboot. I was caustiously optimistic when it was announced. The optimism came from a deep abiding love of scrooge as a character despite not having dove into his comics that deep, I didn’t have an easy way at the time, thanks to life and times and what comics I had read, and was excited to see a fresh reboot closer to the comics with my eternal boy Donald Duck back in the main character. The caution.. came from the fact that at the time we’d gotten a string of bad to medicore reboots: Teen Titans GO, Powerpuff Girl, and Ben 10 which started pretty meh but has turned into alirght from some of the later episodes I saw. I wanted to be hyped to all hell but I had no proof this wasn’t going to be another dumbed down reboot. Then comic con came, the first teaser poster dropped, and my skepticism died.
It was perfect: a barksian art style with it’s own twists! Donald full on display! And best of all the triplets FINALLY had not only unique outfits but personalities! I’ve long went on in my reviews about how much that annoyed me and while it worked for the barks comics ever since then it’s just felt like a waste to have three characters there.. and not even the SLIGHTEST difference.
My anticipation only grew with the full trailer, the promo posters as more and more info showed how good this series would be, how unique it’d be, and how much tw as taking what made the comics great, giving us a better distalation of that while still being very much it’s own beast. And once this episode dropped.. that faith was unfounded. Woo-oo! is without hyperbole, one of the best pilots i’ve seen, one that introduced the entire main cast perfectly, gets the series tone and mission statment out just right and in general set the stage for one of the best shows of the 2010′s (and 2020′s, even if it only lasted a year and some change). Wheras Teen Titans GO actively tried to take a dump on it’s source material, they thankfully have stopped that but it dosent’ make those early years any less grating, Ducktales was a breath of fresh air that honored the past while making i’ts own future. I tried talking about it but it was all in other failed attempts at reviewing: solo podcasts, my breif second video review career.. stuff no one rightly cared about and I just couldn’t get the hang of.
So this is where we loop back to last year: I decided to finally try and cover it one more time, not realizing this would be my last chance as it came out anyway, and since I was doing text reviews but my output had slid in the new year, I decided to review Season 3 as it came out. If it bottomed out I could always stop.... and I just never did. I kept going, eventually finding new fans, a patreon (The other one’s an old friend of mine), and not only got paid doing what I love.. but found some peace. I reviewed other shows as they came out, covered things i’d wanted to cover for years like life and times, scott pilgrim and x-men,. I covered other shows as they came out, found people willing to talk over my opinions and found my niche at long last.
So that’s why the long speech folks: After almost a year of reviewing i’m properly covering the start of something that made me happier than I had been in a long time and gave me hope during one of the worst periods of ALL our lives. Something i’ve wanted to cover since I finally got started last year, and something truly amazing. So i’d be honored if you’d join me under the cut as I talk about the genesis of one of the best series Disney has ever put out.
Behind the Scenes Stuff:
Most details I could find were sparse. it took going back to the first month the show came out and looking at a LOT of unrelated questions to finally find out Frank and Matt outright pitched the show. This dosen’t suprise me as both are huge ducktales fans with Matt having drawn his own duck comics as a kid and Frank taking it an extra mile having sang the theme song in his first grade talent show, worked it into his vows and got his first daughter’s first word to be “Woo-oo”. It’s very clear this show as a labor of love for them something they dreamed of Disney made possible.
Otherwise I don’t have much on the genisis of the show: It was in the earliest ideas going to be a revivial but Frank and Matt both decided against it , deciding it’d be unfair to expect kids from 30 years after the original to know the source material, and instead just starting it over outright, which was the right call especailly with Alan Young’s passing.
Design wise I found quite a bit of concept art thanks to one website, and it’s incredibly intresting. This is why i’ve really gotten into art books: I like seeing this early stuff what characters used to be, figuring out or outright hearing from the creators mouths why they changed it that sort of thing.
Starting off we have some early designs for Donald, with him wearing the sailor suit as a kid but his Quackshot outfit as an adult, something I honestly wish they’d kept but get why they changed it: The iconic sailor suit both helps contrast him with della and fits his reluctance to adventure in season 1 more. I still wish that they worked the Quackshot outfit in somewhere, but they worked in so damn much, it’s hard to complain> Though I probably will make a list of “things I wished they’d worked” in at some point and i’d be lying inf I siad my mind wasn’t currently turning the gears to figure out how to work this into a fanfic. Oohhh maybe as Dewey’s outfit as an adult but blue, obviously.
Next we have Donald settled more into his final apperance as well as the boy’s first outfits. As you can tell from both of these the show originally went more with the classic art style before getting the one we’re familiar with now, one I love by the way and was made to combine a classic cartoon style with the visual of the comics. Donald originally had his classic outfit before they transitioned to the more barks style one, a good call.
The interesting bit though is obviously the boys original outfits which i’m honestly bummed didn’t make it for Huey and Louie, not so much Dewey minus the visor. I do get the changes though: The hoodie Dewey had fit WAY beter on Louie, and the lumberjack shirt didn’t quite fit the nerdier huey. Still look nice. Dewey’s is okay, but only the visor is something I really gregret them removing same with louie’s fedora. It would’ve been neat ot keep the hat thing, but have each hat be unique. Likely they simplified things to make animation easier and simply removed the hats for some reason, but it’s nice ot see these more detailed original drafts and it is VERY interesting to find that differentiating the triplets was something planned from the earliest concept art. Though given Matt and Frank said in interviews they wanted a more natural family feel, it’s not a huge surprise.
Scrooge like everyone BUT the boys thus far, naturally also had his original outfit at first, but like he ended up doing in the series rotated a bit, if not as much in the final product. We also see a protoype for his final design, the old coat but with a jacket over it in the last image. I also notice Donald seemed a lot more like his old comics self in the concept art with quackshot!donald.
Like everyone else, Webby and Launchapd were originally their 87 deisgns, though Launchpad’s slightly diffrent jacket and green scarf were changed from the start. Webby is the closest to her 87 design, and as shown in the previous Lena concept art from my “Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime” double feature, she still had her new personality. More on that in a bit.
Finally we have Flintheart, whose design is a bit diffrent from 87: He was a chub from day one it appears, though they’d exagerate it, and his beard was a bit longer at first like his other incarnations.
Beakly is largely unchanged form 87, only given a coat, which would gradually be mofidied, much liekt he boys into her current outfit.
As you can tell Beakly, Webby and Launchpad were all there from day one as they wanted them from the original ducktales just updated.
Production wise they wanted to go handrawn, chose the style they did to have something close to the comics that felt classicly aniamteda t the same time, I feel they succeeded and wanted a show that felt like the original. I do think this show has it’s own feel but it does feel ducktales. I badly hope for an artbook at some point though as this show probably hada LOT more intresting concept art. Seriously Disney I will PAY YOU to look at your neat art. Please.
So they created a fully formed world and put the characters in it, wanting it to feel like the world had existed before and had throughly been explored and letting our young heroes be the watson to Donald and Scrooge’s holmes.
Finally Della was indeed part of the initial pitch and a core idea from day one as every family has secrets and Della felt like one that had been lurking around the fringes of the story for 80 years. The rest of the production stuff i’ll weave in as we go but first one last stop, the STELLAR voice cast, none of whom outsideo f Tony i’ve talked about before sooooo...
The All Star Cast
The casting was outstanding here, with Matt admitting the cast brought a LOT to the characters, especially Ben Schwartz whose taken on Dewey was so unique and intresting they actually rewrote some of his dialouge for the pilot to fit this version better. This is far and away one of the best casts in western animation, most coming from comedy backgrounds and one or two coming from a voice acting background, but all bringing their absolute best. And since our main 8 are all in the pilot let’s run them down along with Keith Ferguson shall we?
Playing everyone’s faviorite billionare scotsman and one of the very few to ever do so, we have David Fucking Tennant. David was their “First and only choice” and for good reason: David is a talented actor with a MASSIVE amount of stage, tv and audio drama credits. His biggest and best known role is playing the 10th Doctor on Doctor Who, which while not my faviorite (That’d be matt smith, as he’s both the one I came in on and hte one who got me hooked) he’s still VERY close second and damn talented and I need to watch more of his tenure. Outside of that just to condense it to his ongoing roles on stuff and bigger roles: Filmwise he’s had starring roles in the Fright Night remake, You, Me and Him, Fish Without Bicycles and Bad Samartains, and is set to do a voice for the upcoming Loud House Movie, which excites me to no end.
TV wise where most of his roles have been he got his first big starring role on the Telly with the BBC Mini series Taking Over the Asylum in the late 90′s. He’d go on to make a career out of doing mini’s for a while, also taking part in He Knew He Was Right, The Quatermass Experiment Remake, Casanova, Secret Smile.. and Blackpool. I saved Blackpool for last before we move into the Who era as if you’ve never heard of it.. it’s REALY fucking weird. It’s a jukebox musical about a man who wants to make Blackpool, a real city, into the new vegas and Tennat plays a cop investigating a case around the guy and also trying to get with his wife because they used to date and because our lead is philandering jackass. That’s already kinda nuts.. but then you get to the fact the songs are sung OVER the original songs instead of making a new version of them. It’s surreal to be sure but if you can find it it’s worth it for the handful of good numbers and how weird it looks and you can find clips of the songs on youtube if your intrested. Here’s a starter.
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Your also welcome. He’d go on to play Detective Alec Hardy in Broadchurch to critical aclaim as well as be a part of it’s short lived american remake, would play the Fugitoid in tmnt 2007, Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, one of his few post who roles i’ve seen or heard besides Scrooge and easily some of his best work he NAILS that purple bastard perfectly, would make his own show Staged about a fictional version of himself putting on a Stage play that’s still ongoing, and is currently , along with Ducktales as it wraps up, the voice of Lord Commander on Final Space, with the character returning this season judging by the trailers to fan delight and terror. He’s a VERY talented actor and voice actor and I do hope he goes on to do more and more voice work in years to come as, with his background in radio, he was born for it.
He was also born for this roll, playing Scrooge perfectly and easily matching Alan Young in quality, not a small feat and i’ts VERY obvious why he was their one and only choice.
Next up is another legend, Tony Anselmo who we’ve talked about before when I covered legend of the Three Cablleros: He’s been Donald’s voice since shortly before Ducktales, hasn’t done much else but given he’s THE voice for the character and this show let him show off one hell of a range with teh voice, he dosen’t really need other credits. The man is a treasure and I fear loosing him one day and fear for whoever replaces him as they have a LOT to live up to.
Getting into the triplets, we’re going by age so starting off we have Huey, voiced by Danny Pudi. Like most of this cast aside from Toks Ogladyve and Beck Bennet (Who I probably HAD seen on SNL but didn’t really know or look out for him on there till after Ducktales), I not only knew Danny but was a huge fan of his going in. This is due to his breakout role on the glorious sitcom Community, which sadly only had a handful of i’ts cast show up on this show. I mean you got Lin Manuel Miranda I’m sure Donald Glover would’ve said yes too. He grew up with Ducktales. Regardless his role as meta guy Abed was easily the best of the cast on that show, with Glover as troy a very close second and the two working at their best as a duo. Outside of that he’s had a few roles being a regular on Powerless, which I forgot existed and currently on Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. And given his performance as huey was one of the best parts of this show he REALLY, REALLY SHOULD. Please Danny. He’s also a loving husband, father and surprisingly a marathon runner. Never would’ve guessed.
Next up is SNL Alumn of 9 years, Bobby Monynihan. Bobby is naturally best known for that, my faviorite role of his being Ass Dan. That’s right bitch you know he’s going to live fore..
ASS DAN 1981-2021
He’ll be back. Outside of SNL he’s done a bunch of minor roles. He’s currently on the tragically mediocre sitcom Mr. Mayor, and voiced Panda on We Bare Bears. Hopefully he keeps up the good work as he deserves better than he’s gotten and Ducktales proves it.
Finally for the triplets we have a rising star in voice acting, Ben Schrwartz. At the time Ducktales launched, I was a fan of his from his roll on parks and Rec as Jen Ralphio, aka older scummier Dewey.
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Outside of his historic recurring role here he played a main role on House of Lies, a show I need to go back to, and has done other live action rolls but has REALLY hit his stride in voice acting. He started with voicing Randy Cunningham in Randy Cunningham 9th grade ninja and since then has hit the ground running: He was Rutabega on Bojack, Josh on Bob’s Burgers, and went on to complete the trifecta of blue nostalgic characters after voicing dewey by voicing Leo in Rise of the TMNT (and having one of the most unique and intresting versions of the character to play) and reprised the roll for the upcoming film. And of course he hit it HUGE by playing Sonic in the suprsingly fantastic Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and will do so again for the sequel and might even take up the roll for the games now Roger Craig Smith has retired. We shall see. Point is this guy’s at the top of his game and Dewey is part of that. Like with his brothers I can’t picture anyone else playing him.
Rounding out the kids is Webby, played by the wonderous Kate Micucci. Kate is a lovely talented woman who mostly showed up in smaller parts, was part of the musical duo garfunkel and oates which even got their own tv show, and is currently a fairly prolific voice actor with this being her best known roll. I also had a bit of a crush on her once can you tell? Regardless besides absolutely nailing it as Webby she’s voiced Julie Kane in the crimnally short and even more crimnally not on Disney+ Motorcity, “Irma” in the 2012 TMNT cartoon, and the fact that “Irma” is in quotes should tell you how big a waste I felt it was having her NOT actually be Irma, despite Kate’s massive talent, the fact that Irma hadn’t been in anything since the 87 cartoon, and the fact that for added “Fuck you audience points” her krang form was voiced by Gilbert Godfried, who I love but whose casting feels like they wanted to make the twist as grating as possible. Good job there.
Anyways her second biggest voice gig was as Sadie on Steven Universe, which took WAY too long to show off her absolutely tremendous singing voice. She started voicing Velma Dinkley in the mid-2010′s and has since, voiced Milo’s sister Sarah on Milo Murphy’s Law, Dr. Fox on Unikitty, and most recently voiced a sentient present on close enough who did this.
So yeah quite the career and like Ben she probably has a long and storied career in Voice Acting ahead.
Next up is Beck Bennet as everyone’s friend Launchpad where he excels. He’s best known as a castmember on SNL outside of this, and shockingly hasn’t done a ton of voice work. The only other time i’ve caught him is in the same season of Close Enough as Luc, aka dude-bro satan. But like eveyrone else here who hasn’t done a lot of voice work so far or has been more selective I defintely hope he keeps going with it as he’s amazing. He and Ben will be co-starring on MODOK in May so i’m excited for that.
Last up for the main cast is Beakly, voiced by Toks Olagundoye, who I hadn’t heard of before this show and hasn’t done a lot outside of the two season sitcom the neighbors, the aliens one not the really terrible looking one, and a stint on Castle, but like everyone here deserves much more and if Beakly is any indication, really should stick with voice acting.
Last up is Keith Ferguson as only he could as FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, whose a staple in the voice acting community ever since 2000, and has had a TON of roles some of which I was unaware with him. Given Frank worked with him on Wonder Over Yonder, where he voiced Lord Hater to perfection, the two clearly have a close working relationship. He also has a close working relationship with Wonder creator Craig McCracken and has worked on all of his post-powerpuff girls show, voicing Bloo as his first major role, something I never would’ve guessed, and currently voicing Papa G on Kid Cosmic.
Outside of Craig and Frank, he played both Karate Kid and Nemisis Kid on Legion of Super Heroes (Which really needs to come to HBO Max), Deputy Durland on Gravity Falls, and Thunderbolt Ross on Avengers Earth’s Mighteist Heroes. He’s damn good and deserves the world for Glomgold alone and i’m glad Craig rung him up again as so far through my watch of Kid Cosmic he’s great.
So with our cast in place, our past in place and you all likely ready to get on with it already let’s dive into the episode:
THE EPISODE: Part one Woo-Ooo!
We begin with a shot of a seagull flying overseagulls, a nice way to establish how this world works and how it bends expectations. They’d have to wait till season 3 to get a duck next to ducks but given that gag is one of the best of the series, it was worth it.
Inside a house boat we meet Donald, Huey and Louie and get a sense of their personalities: Donald is panicked trying to get to a job interview and insists the boys wear life vests, showing his overprotectiveness and responsibility exclusive to this version. Louie stresses that Donald wear a suit instead of his normal clothes to properly impress the interviewer, showing his skill at people reading and manipulation, and Huey is making a nice, if messy, breakfast with a heartwarming message showing his heart and dedication. After finding out said Babysitter was sent to the wrong address, the boys TRY to hustle him out to stay alone.. only for Dewey to blow the scheme by starting the boat too early, letting Donald know he’s been had. Huey’s attempt to lie about it is of course the classic “Who’s Dewey?” Dewey’s caught wiring the boat and Donald throws them in the car, with Donald livid and the boys upset as their chafing at his constant overprotectiveness.
Both sides aren’t wrong. tThe boys DID do something reckless, putting an old woman in the desert and risking their home just to go on a joyride. What they did was wrong.. but the boys AREN’T wrong for getting annoyed that he won’t let them DO anything and overly hovering over them when they CAN handle themselves as we’ll see. WE now know why: he lost their mother and his sister to her and scrooge’s recklesness. While he got therapy for his anger it’s clear he never properly got help about Della, and thus overcompensates by trying to keep what he has left of her alive. He means well.. but to them it comes off as him being manically overprotective with no good reason. They get into trouble because it’s the only way to DO anything away from him. He’s trying so hard not to loose them he almost has by the time hte series starts, and it’s telling that when they get context in Last Crash, they appricate him more from then on. They do love him, but their frustration is understandable even if what their doing is pretty damn stupid. But their also 10 and Donald’s the grown adult in therapy who should’ve dealt with this or tried to at least by now.
So with no other options Donald sets a course for McDuck manor which excites the boys who have heard of Scrooge McDuck and his exploits, each rattling off something they heard him do that fits their personality (Dewey picks him fighting a stone monster, Huey picks him uncovering a hoax and Louie picks his swimming in money. ) As Donald tries to get them to simmer down, they wonder what he’s up to
He’s up toooo.. depression. He’s in a room with his board, watching them with utter hate and sadness as they talk about cutting the invention and aviation departments. This scene plays ENTIRELY differently after the final two episodes of the season. Before it still plays well as Scrooge clearly resenting being stuck in a boring board meeting, having lost everything that made him him and just having lost his passion for life. Now? It plays as a man utterly disdainful of the men who made him give up on his daughter. While as far as he knows they did it to save his employees from his company collapsing, we know better now... and seriously where IS the rest of the board they just vanished after the Season 3 premiere.
I don’t mind only one being fleshed out, unlike the triplets we only NEED the one I mind that they just never explained it and still haven’t. Hopefully the finale will.
But back on the plot, it now plays as Scooge just full of hatred for them, knowing they had to do what they did, even if they weren’t emebzlling but still hating them and himself. He’s likely not even paying attention anymore because he just dosen’t CARE: he has all the money int he world.. and it couldn’t bring him his daughter back. As he sadly puts the coins he was fiddling with back and says see you tommorow he can’t even close the vault without a struggle. As we’ll see later the strength never left, it’s not like he stopped execrising.. but he has nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to care about. He could adventure agian so far.. but without Della or Donald, as we’d learn two seasons later the reason he enjoyed it again... what’s the point? He has nothing left except his money.
This is also a nice parallel to the final Chapter of LIfe and Times. I always felt the first half of woo-ooo was a spiritual adaptation of chapter 12 of that: Scrooge meets the boys for the first time and with their help, and Donalds in the story< Webby and Launchpad here, he regains his passion and more importantly his family after driving them away> The how is very different: he did in life and times due to sinking to his lowest point morally, then cruelly dismissing his family when they tried to welcome him home and bury the hatchet despite what he’d done. Here.. he made a HORRIBLE mistake, one that wasn’t entirely on him but still cost him everything and spent the decade instead of stewing or making more money trying desperately to undo it. The end result is the same, a dried out husk of a man with nothing left to loose and no will to gain anything.
This husk has launchpad though whose introduced as his driver and while good with subs and planes.. isn’t great on the road. After that though Donald pulls up hoping to drop the kids off before Scrooge arrives. Naturally this being a cartoon and Donald having tempted fate with that Scrooge shows up telling him to jettison that Jallopy at once. And finding out who it is, apart from asking how Donald is and Donald doing the same, dosen’t sway him. The boys however freak out after finding out Scrooge is Donald’s and there uncle, with my faivriote bit of that being Dewey exiting the car via a window and rolling across the roof back in. Amazing bit of animation. Wish I had a gif of that.
Donald makes the situation plane and angry and asks “Can you do that without LOOSING THEM”. And scrooge is so painfully disarmed by his reminder of his past mistakes and the fact his surrogate son still resents him, that he agrees before realizing “Shit I have to watch children now don’t I” as Donald drives off. As you probably guessed, this is another scene that plays differently in hindsight, if not by much: It still plays as two men too stubborn and bitter to reconcile.. but now we know the why behind both their rages it feels even sadder. They both lost the person they cared about most but as it sadly happens in real life both have dug in their heels to reconcile, both feeling their right when neither completely is. While Donald was right to be upset at scrooge and della for what happened, and is mostly taking it out on scrooge because he’s the one left... he’s held onto his anger for 10 years instead of going to help when he’s unemployed, living in a dilapidated houseboat and trying ot raise three children alone and could’ve used what help scrooge would give. Scrooge is right to be upset that Donald is just selectively ignoring everything he’s done to save Della, but is too stubborn and prideful to apologize for what he DID do wrong and feels that’s enough to make up for it when , while it is enough that donald should forgive him, still dosen’t mean he dosen’t have a lot to apologize for. Both are just too angry and too much alike, as much as it woudln’t seem so, to settle with each other and see too much of what they lost.
So the kids follow Scrooge.. who forgets to open the door, and Beakly lets them in. It’s a nice subtle bit. After some silence, Bentina TRIES to get her old friend and now employer to talk to them, but he naturally refuses and they do the talking, asking tons of questions.. and Dewey ends the conversation by accidently pressing the “imply he USED to be something rather than is something right now “ button
So Scrooge throws them in the twins old room, and Beakly gives them some marbles. You will give them b ack they will be counted. But another subtle touch I missed the first time is there... her sad look. She clearly doesn’t want to do this, but she has to play this carefully or else he might get mad and fire her on the spur of the moment. He’d obviously hire her back, where else is he going to get an ex spy who will both clean for him AND be his bodyguard and security. It’s a very small pool. Mostly because Beakly probably killed most of the other people who’d of fit that description during her spy days.
Scrooge meanwhile is still rattled by Dewey’s statment, wondering if he really is a “used to be” instead of a “never left”. The fire is starting to spark again.. he just needs more kindling. And more kin.
Meanwhile Louie and Huey marvel at Dewey’s “Brilliant’ breakout plan: hit the door knob with the sack of marbles til lit breaks. To be fair, they’ve known dewey as long as they’ve been alive and even by season 3 after he’s taken several levels in badass and cunning.. he still crashed a plane because his brother well-meaningly called him basic, and thought being nearly sacrificed the most times was an accomplishment. This is the best he could do and you all know it. It also works, so they can’t fault him for that... though he’s quickly kidnapped as are they. They wake up after the commerical break in a room with pure darkness, hung from the celing with a mystery person asking who they are and who they work for before Louie calls out for “uncle scrooge”... so she claps the lights back on and..
Well close. But it is Webby, who cuts them down, fangirls over meeting the nephews and asks who the evil triplet is. They all point to Louie who shrugs it off. I mean it was funny enough the first time but at this point I know he’s running several fradulent charites, almost all scamming his uncle. He’s earned that title. Webby puts them on the big board and then when asked they find out she’s Webby, her granny Beakly is housekeeper. She then asks the big questons
“Are we friends now?”
“If we say yes will you let us live?”
“Ha good one new best friend”
She then explains she dosen’t get to leave or anything even eat a hamburger. The boys are moved by this and Louie asks what she does for fun. She leads them to the vents and while Huey and Louie are a bit relcutant, Dewey naturally goes first pointing out it’s better than the marble room. They agree and are on their way.
Okay unpinning that pin, the crew conciously updated Webby and Beakly as neither really had a lot of purpose in the original. It was also to conciously add more actiony females to the main family lineup, as both creators, both being fathers, preferred someone their daughters could look up to and would enjoy watching. Not someone perfect but someone intresting instead of someone who often got Kidnapped and whose main charactrisitcs were “Sweet and GIRL STEROTYPE” So cleverly they KEPT her being girly, having a skirt, liking ponies. .but also gave her all the training and skill of one Cassandra Cain, a sheltered background and an adorable personality that kept the sweetness but added her probably having killed a man at some point. It worked as Webby is one of the best parts of the show.
Likewise Beakly was upgraded from fuddy duddy housekeeper, to badass former secret agent whose also a housekeeper, and bodyguard and confidant to scrooge. Demonstrated by her talk with him as he tries to put on his diving suit and go after the jewel of atlantis, having spotted the signs to go after it in the paper.. and wanting to prove a child wrong. Beakly points out the flaws in this, and tries to get him to connect to his family. Having lost hers, it’s easy to see why.. though the how’s a mystery.. for now i’m guess. We’ll see in the finale. But she’s Scrooge’s concisence and the one who can easiest reign him in, to the point two episodes directly have our heroes have to NOT call her or else the plot was end, but have that worked into the plot so it works. She’s the calm in his storm and hte one person he needs more than anyone else even if he dosen’t always realize it. He calls family “nothing but trouble” just as Dewey passes overhead.
So naturally as Webby shows off Scrooge’s old treasures in a mysterious room, while the other Siblings are rightfully impressed, Dewey dismisses it as “fake” because he’s being a little shit, and they agree after seeing Donald, not knowing his reputation. The cutaway to him struggling with a stapler does not help> it’s only when Webby accidnetly uneleashes Captain Peghook, a vengeful ghost after scrooge, who gets his hand on a ghostly sword do they realize this time the monsters are real. Huey also accidently wakes up Manny, the headless manhorse!
Things somehow get WORSE as Scrooge finds them.. but is in no state to argue and as our heroes duck and Huey tries to divise a plan.. Scrooge get’s his spark back once agian.. it’s starting to become an ember now... and he charges in despite Dewey’s cries of “No come back your old!”. It then gets VERY badass
Scrooge: Oi! Beastie! What's it gonna take to shuffle you off to the afterlife?
Captain Peg-Hook: The head of Scrooge McDuck!
Scrooge: [cracks his neck, flips his cane around to wield like a sword] Would you settle for his hat?
Now that is how you show how badass Scrooge is in a few lines and gestures. HE proceeds to take both out, as they’ve now teamed up, easily, tricking peghook into cutting off the head of a statue of him in the area, throwinng it at him and finsihing the ghosts buisnesss (”I should’ve been more specifiiiicccccc”) and then giving Manny the head, earning him a loyal employee for life. So our days saved, the kids have faith.. and Scrooge is still pissed. He also reveals this isn’t a treasure room but the garage in what’s easily the best gag of the first half, possibly the whole special but one iconic moment is very close in that one. Webby concedes what about the stack of old magazines or the hose or.. okay he’s probably right. He berates them only for the kids to fire back, pointing out he threw them in a room, they just wanted to spend time with him... but it’s only Dewey throwing his words back in his face that pisses him off. Scrooge bellows at them to get out, clearly having internalized everything with donald into rage and trying to justify pushing eveyrone away instead of working at it... but this dosen’t have time to actually work, nor would Beakly actually throw three children out on the curb, as he hits a mystic gong.. the third time it’s been hit. And after realizing it’s already been hit twice Scrooge is faced with Pixu, the gold hutning dragon! And guess who has a giant bin of it wanting to snack on? Scrooge naturally climbs on the thing and the kids naturally want to follow, with Webby getting her first development by proudly announcing “I’m going to eat a hamburger” then explains the metaphor. They just need a pilto.. and as Launchpad has been saying but I forgot to add in “I’m a pilot”
So we get a GORGEOUS bit of Scrooge riding the dragon over the city, getting banged up as he does before finally being thrown off.. only for the kids to catch him with the planes help and try and come up with a plan. Scrooge overcomes his anger at them not staying put, especailly since Webby brings up the right weakness: as a wise man once said...
So they need some.. like say the Medusa Gauntlet Scrooge had in the garage.. that Louie naturally stole. Huey and Webby eyeroll him but they have what they need.. and Huey brought the hose and quickly comes up with a plan, tying scrooge in, and swinging him to Pixu. The kids hold on tight, Dewey calls his family awesome and our heroes win the day as Scrooge turns the dragon to stone, slips and falls.. and then GRACEFULLY dives into hte bin, showing off his diving skills and his badassery. The day is saved, the gauntlet and the dragon go in the bin for safe keeping and Scrooge calls the kids trouble.. and chuckles fondly.
“Curse me kilts how i’ve missed trouble”
He’s impressed: Huey’s quick thinking, Louie’s pickpocketing, Dewey’s drive, and Webby’s magical knowledge all saved them. For once. .he’s happy again. And for the second time in life it took his family to remind him why he does this and show him the true fun of adventure: Getting to share it with those he love. And he finally has people to love again. He has family back, kids who look up to him and want to learn from him again, a REASON to adventure. Money and treasure and eveyrthig couldn’t bring della back.. but he at least sees now that whiel they certianly couldn’t.. they can bring him closely with what he has left. She’s gone, for now.. but she left behind three great kids who could use a mentor and Beakly brought him a fourth. And he just found out he has a pilot. The ember.. is now a raging flame. Scrooge is back. Because i’ts not the money or the glory.. it’s the thrill of it, the discovery.. and the family that makes adventuring worth while and he’s learned that lesson again. So he calls Beakly to clear his schedule.. forgetting she you know PUT A FUCKING PIN INTHE WALL the last time he asked her to play scretary and the onlyr eason she dind’t drive over the choke him to death, is that she’s probably happy he’s back on track.
Back at the interview Donald is stapled to the wall and gets the job.. not as an accountant mind but his employer needs a sailor.. and his employer is FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Oh boy.
Part 2: Escape To/From Atlantis
First the last bit of background I saved: Originally, Fenton and Gyro were supposed to show up here, starting a gag of Fenton showing up but not being named until “Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!”, setting up the sub. But the crew decided this took too much away from the focus on the duck family. The not naming him gag was also dropped, and I have two reasons why: Their given reason, which is it’d take up too much time and a logistical reason: While they gave a heartfelt pitch to Lin-Manuel Miranda, as frank wanted a strong Latino superhero to combat the lack of them on film, Frank and Matt probably thought they woudln’t get such a huge name or at least prepared for it.. and were delightfully suprised when Lin happily and tearfully agreed. So they likely scrapped it so they could properly promote the biggest name in their voice cast. Honestly it was for the best and they still go to do the idea with Drake in “The Duck Knight Returns!”, where it worked much better than it probably would have with Fenton.
We open with the Glomgold Industries Employee Training Video! Encourging IP Theft, making things cheaper and general scumbaggery, and claming your the world’s most beloved scottish billionare. IN short the perfect introduction to everyone’s favorite insane, fake-scottish, scheming, egotistical , short sighted billionaire. As i’ve made transparent before, I fucking love the reboot version of Glomgold and he’s easily one of my favorite parts of the reboot. They clearly needded to find a new place for Glomgold in the grand scheme of things as the show was more about globetrotting adventure and family and less about getting contracts or bets about whose bigger money and more about family. While they DID do a classic bet storyline with season 2, it’s clear the old glomgold was just a bit too stiff to properly fit into this new zanier and deeper universe.
So they instead remolded him as a half insane, knockoff scrooge, someone who PURPOSFULLY modeled himself after the guy to try and one up him, and instead of being a fairly low pitched schemer, was a bombastic idiot whose schemes were half baked, whose name was on everything he made, and whose only thing bigger than scrooge was his glorious ego. In short he was perfect for this series and perfect to show up way more often as a bumbling thorn in Scrooge’s side.. but one who COULD be effective in the right circumstances, as to not make him completely pointless. Keith was likewise the only person I could see in the roll now as with Hater he had a history of playing bombastic, egosticial morons, and made Glomgold into the enjoyable ball of ego, bombs, sharks and shouting we know and love. Some people didn’t take to this version after a while... I’m not one of those. I loved him here, I love him now, and he’s every bit as good in season 3 as he was at the start. He’s also wearing a kilt mcduck A KILT. A bit that’st STILL funny four years and 70 some episodes later.
So we meet Gabby McStabberson and the Smashnikovs as they and Donald file in, though Donald is busy wrapping up a call with Scrooge, who assures them he has a low key day planned.. while in the sub getting ready to go to atlantis. And nearly drowning when Dewey tells Launchpad to dive while he and Scrooge are still up top. Cue credits.
So on the sub we get our setup for the two main plots for the episode: While the main thrust of everything is Scrooge taking them to Atlantis, each leads to a diffrent plot. Louie talks to Donald and lies entirely about their day, worrying Webby.. who then reveals she just didn’t tell Beakly she took off or where she was going and encourages her to call and lie. To save time, i’m going to cover this subplot now minus the conclusion as it’s pretty simple and this review is already a day behind. Louie wants her to lie so she dosen’t worry, which is oddly sweet.. still a bit greasy, but it’s clear he means well and it shows in his own way the boy cares about Donald: Sure he’ll lie to the guy, and set up a fradulent charity to scam him.. but he also knows not to worry his dad-uncle and kows Donald is better off thinking their safe than knowing the truth. Granted it also prevents consequences for Louie.. but he’s not playing here here. He gets nothing out of Beakly not knowing the truth or helping some girl he just met, he’s just being NICE in his own twisty way. It’s a nice show of his depths: While louie will lie, cheat and steal Eddie Gurrero style, he does have a caring side underneath hit. He can read people well and while he primarily uses it to manipulate people, we’ll see time and time again that he can use it for good too and to help those he cares about. He’s nothing but supportive the whole plot, and even when he says “you can’t back that up” it’s more worrying about her and having a bit of crack than actually being a dick.
So Webby tries lying, but is about as good as Huey is at it, saying “I’m at a friends house nothing, then makes up a clearly fake name, then says their only talking in swedish for a grandpa. Launchpad DOES help, but only by accident and snake venom. We’ll get to that. As I said this wasn’t the most complex plot.
The main plot is our focus episode for dewey. In theory each of the kids was supposed to have one in the first five episodes: Dewey here, Webby in Daytrip of Doom, Louie in Great Dime Chase and Huey in Impossible Summit of Mt. Nevverest!. Given the last one was horribly delayed, he instead got Terror of the Terra Firmians, which in hindsight wasn’t the best spotlight episode for him. But it’s a good system; Introduce them all in the first half of the pilot then slowly focus on each one.
So now Idoloizing Scrooge, Dewey is desperate to be his sidekick and be seen as an equal and is in deep denial as scrooge instead has them all buckle up for a 17 hour ride and when Dewey questions the route, which skips the direct path.. but is clearly marked with monsters, Scrooge just snaps at him and shuts him down and disapoints the boy who only wants to prove himself to Scrooge.
Naturally though, telling someone with that kind of need for attention and validation to wait goes poorly as he redirects the map while Launchapd is distracted.. and we find out WHY the trip is 17 hours as the direct route nearly gets them killed by mer-ducks, krakens and some sort of storm elemental. Dewey is bummed it didn’t work and annoyed to realize he’s just lumping them all together like Huey pointed out earlier. Huey is also delightful here, having brought travel bingo and sea shanties, clearly used to trips with his other uncle. And adorably taking after him.
But Dewey’s deversion has done more than make him even MORE determined to prove himself to Scrooge whose just trying to NOT loose the son of the daughter he lost...
The Merducks have taken up residence in the bathroom, so they have to make a pitstop. Scrooge, CLEARLY forgetting how to take a trip with children, wasn’t prepared for this but they find a frieghter and make a stop. Naturally it’s GLOMGOLD’S freighter, where his sub took off from, and he and his minons including Donald find Scrooge using the bathroom.. and the boys to Donald’s rage. Unfortunately saying ‘I’ll kill him” to a raging sociopath who takes that as a sign to kill ALL of them, isn’t a smart move.
So while Donald tries to plan to keep his family alive, said family arrives in Atlantis with a great bit of Scrooge trying to give a big speech only for them to see it first and ooh and ah. They touch down in the city.. which is flip turned upside down. Scrooge notes hti is odd but is able to read the hieroglypchs even upside downa nd notes there’s tones of deadly traps and that they shoudl stay back and..
Huey: Dewey ran in as soon as you said traps.
So while Scrooge tries to prevent dewey loosing his head, Donald prevents launchpad loosing his and makes up an excuse about “if their dead now we can’t tourture them later” to cover his ass. Glomgold is impressed.
Dewey is Dewcipointed that the traps are upside down, though he does trigger some snakes that get launchpad. He’s fine just delirious. And possibly slowly dying but the fact he’s lived this long is a miracle. Maybe that’s why he’s missing for most of season 3 part 2, the snake venom caught up to him and drake and fenton need to find the cure. Anyways the rest of the party stays behind while Scrooge chases after Dewey, who naturally runs ahead AGAIN.
Donald ducks out to use the bathroom, as Dewey tries the old dance through the laser grid routine.. but forgets the part where your supposed to actually avoid it, leaving it to an unseen Donald to stop the fire traps from barbqueing his boy. IT’s a really awesome sequence that shows off Donald’s still got it even if he dosen’t want it. Scrooge naturally works smarter not harder and simply ziplines above like a badass and berates Dewey when he tells him he took “The easy way”
“Why would you want to take the hard way?”
The argument that’s been brewing all episode bubbles up and once again both sides have a point: Scrooge rightfully points out Dewey’s being reckless, has no experince and needs to listen to Scrooge and learn something. Dewey claps back that Scrooge isn’t TEACHING them, just teling them to get behind him while he does things instead of trying to actively mentor them. He outright told them he was going to teach them so while Dewey’s been a wee bit overbearing, he’s right in being disappointed that Scrooge instead just wants them to be safe. I see it as his subconscious acting up: He wants and needs the kids along and is right ot keep them safe.. but is too scared to properly mentor them after what happened to Della and is just trying not to loose anybody. His methods have been right, to keep them safe.. he’s just been so determined to save them, he can’t properly TEACH them so he won’t have to forever or explain WHY. And given the First Adventure shows that while protective he did eventually let Della and Donald pull their weight.. but here he lost so much between adventures.. he just can’e bear loosing them. Dewey also rightfully points out he just lumps them together which in any other version wouldn’t be an issue, until the reboot I had no idea which one was which here? They have distinct outfits and personalities and you had 17 hours to actually get to know them. Probably less given the shortcut but still, several hours at a minimum. It’s things like this that make the series work: while there’s plenty of internal conflicts, at their best their nuanced ones, where if one character is clearly in the wrong they have a reason, and if both are right both are also a bit wrong, versus the original where it’d be scrooge or the boys grabbing the asshole ball at times (Not always mind you but when they did it was insufferable.
However they don’t have time to argue as the bridge goes out and Glomgold finds donald.. and another way around as a result and gets to the treasure first. Scrooge notices they have donald but once again Dewey charges in
“Unhand my uncle”
“No”
“Okay wasn’t prepared for that”
Naturally both sides are a bit livid, Donald for dragging his boys into danger after being part of the reason his sister is on the moon right now, and Scrooge for working with one of his greatest eneimies.. though Scrooge has less ground to stand on because as Donald points out “I can’t keep track of ALL of your sworn enemies” I mean he has lived like .. 200 years. That’s a long enemies list and Glomgold, while the most persistent, isn’t exactly the most dangerous they probably encountered. Given the guy’s an artist with Bombs and Sharks that does say a lot about how badass Scrooge is.. and how incompitent glomgold usually is. He’s just having an on day today I guess.
Glomgold naturally holds Donald hostage, takes what is suppsidley the jewel and leaves them to drown to death, hitting a wall to let it start leaking. HIs minons run into the rest of the heroes and a fight breaks out while naturally Donald, after even more naturally getting his ass stuck in a hole, literally, rails out at Scrooge for doing this telling him “I knew I couldn’t trust you and”
“This is the spear of selene all over again”
Scrooge’s only response is “I was not responsible for the Spear of Selene!”
Dude you still paid for the rocket. While Della shoulders most of the blame, SHE choose to take an untested rocket, SHE choose not to come back during the turbulence YOU still built it and hid it from donald and didn’t make sure she couldn’t just take off in it. Your both to blame. And as I mentioned earlier to the least extent but still an extent, so was Donald telling his grown, adult sister whose as stubborn as she is what she could and couldn’t do. He had the right idea and was the only person trying to be an adult here in this situation.. but he still took the wrong approach with stopping her. Still he got far more ground to stand on than Scrooge, who also took his nephews out. Dewey stops both by pointing out that while yes Scrooge took them on an adventure he’s been doing NTOHING but keeping him safe and most of it was his fault which disarms donald a bit. Though Dewey is quickly distracted.. but for once by an obersvation: the gem glowing above thaem that glowed when they entered... and since the city got flipped turned upside down.. THAT’S the real jewel. Dewey asks Donald ot let it flood so they can get it and begs his uncle to trust him despite his doubts which he does. They get it and everyone’s okay and even more when they reunite with the others they find they’ve handily beaten them. To me this is where donalds walls go down a bit: he realizes he’s been smothering the kids, and that while he may hate his uncle for good reason... he’s not going to make the same mistake with them and while he lied.. Don probably realized if Scrooge had been honest Donald would never have let them go. He can trust him.. and he can trust his kids will be alright without him.
So Glomgold naturally leaves his minions to die, but our heroes manage to make it to the sub, and Gabby asks if they can bum a ride. Not wanting to do any murders they agree. On the surface Glomgold is showing off his jewel, only for Scrooge to upstage him second’s later with the real jewel, and point out his is “nice but defintly cursed”... and right on cue Glomgold gets dragged off with an octopus and let’s off his first “Curse you mcduck!”. Scrooge offers clean water and power thorugh it, for a price because of course he does, and has offically made his grand comeback.
We get back to Webby’s subplot, as she’s confronted by Beakly.. who naturally being a former spy easily figured it out immieditely but is only upset her grandaughter lied to her. And even at that she dosen’t raise her voice or anything about the matter, knowing it’d only make her feel worse and getting that her grandaughter needs to see the world and that much like donald, she walled her up to prevent loosing what little she had left. And since being with Scrooge is safe as with her, she can go with him anytime just tell her first kay? They hug. Awwww.
Donald likewise apologizes, admitting that whatever has passed, he misjudged his uncle here and while not forgiving him yet, is at least willing to let him back into his life and into the boys.. on holidays and stuff at least. But fate forces his hand.. or rather his 10 year old nephew-son having left the engine on and neither having turned it off, meaning his boat goes boom and is in no liveable condition. But Scrooge has the space in his heart and mansion for them.
So as we close the kids help move the artifacts all around the house instead of just the garage while Launchapd drops the boat. While clearing out Dewey notices the painting from earlier.. and finds part of it was flipped over...
“Mom?!”
Now keep in mind, while nowadays Della’s inclusion in the show is one of the most famous and treasured parts of the show.. back then this was a fucking shock. Disney never really cared about the boys mother and outside of one comics story never really went into what happened. So the fact she was not only an actual important part of the plot but we’d find out was a HUGE wham moment and left my jaw dropped after seeing the episode. Like I would with the finales I had read no spoilers and had no idea this was coming but damn was it a huge and welcome suprise and how far they’d take it and how much they’d flesh her out was an even bigger one. Easily one of the best big reveals i’ve ever seen. The only better one I can think of from this series itself... is the end of season 2. But that’s for another time.
Final Thoughts on Woo-Ooo!:
This two parter/hour long special.. is still one of the episodes best and easily one of the best pilots. It does slow down a bit in pacing in the second half, but otherwise is just an immaculate , beautiful pilot movie that introduces and fleshes out all 8 main characters, maybe Launchpad the least but enough to still work, gives us some big mysteries to work out, and even throws in Glomgold’s first apperance. It sets the tone, reverent and adventuerous but also with it’s own weird and wacky sense of humor and world building, and universe perfectly. I .. don’t have much else to say really it’s just THAT good and really worth checking out. If you somehow haven’t seen it go watch it and if you haven’t seen it in a while might be worth a rewatch before the finale. The absolutely perfect start to an amazing ride.
Next on the Della Arc: Dewey and Webby try to figure out where Della is while Louie learns a valuable life lesson and pisses off a killer robot along the way.
Next on the Blog: Amphibia Season 2 is back!
Until then if you liked this review follow for more and if you could please support me on patreon. Even a buck a month helps and juicy stretch goals give you na incentive to contirbute. We’re 5 bucks away from 20 dollars a month which means a review of super ducktales and a Darkwing Duck review EVERY. MONTH. So contribute now! Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure.
#ducktales#wooooo#woo-ooo#scrooge mcduck#webby vanderquack#donald duck#dewey duck#louie duck#huey duck#bentina beakley#launchpad mcquack#flintheart glomgold#della duck#disney channel#disney xd#disney plus#ducks
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Some nights, Andrea would pick Jairo up from Inferno. Jairo would be fresh out of the shower, his hair still dripping, and the smell of his soap would fill the car as Andrea leaned over to press a soft kiss to his face. He never really aimed, and the kiss would always land on his temple or cheek or forehead, making Jairo smile before leaning back in to kiss his mouth gently.
Sometimes Jairo would keep his hand placed on Andrea’s knee as they drove home, his thumb brushing back and forth, leaving sparks in its trail over Andrea’s skin if his jeans happened to be ripped. The rides home were mostly quiet, Andrea not taking his eyes off the road to watch Jairo sign to him. They would talk when they get home, lounging on the sofa with dinner Andrea made or ordered. Jairo would tell Andrea about anything that had happened at Inferno.
Andrea liked watching him talk about Inferno. He’d never been, never watched them perform, and wasn’t quite ready to, but he enjoyed hearing what costumes they wore, what the theme was that night. Sometimes Jairo would text him a selfie, a picture with whatever hat or mask he wore that night. (Andrea saved all of them. He even had a separate album for them. They made him smile.) Sometimes Jairo would complain about women who had watched him and the others dance if they didn’t respect them, if they acted like the dancers were for their consumption. Andrea learned that private parties were the worst, that Jairo hated them. Jairo would complain about Ivan taking rehearsal too seriously, or about Hugo showing up late. He would giggle silently before signing that he was a little late too. A smile would crawl across Andrea’s face as he remembered dropping Jairo off in front of Inferno, a drop-off that took a few minutes too long because he didn’t want to stop peppering kisses all over Jairo’s face.
Since Andrea began to learn to sign, some nights were almost completely silent, the only sounds being the crashes of waves against the beach and passing cars, and sometimes Andrea asking how to say something he couldn’t sign. Instead of signing it, Jairo would lean across their tangled legs and move Andrea’s hands himself, not passing up any excuse to touch him.
While Andrea talked, telling Jairo about his day, what he had done, how therapy had gone, he would hold Jairo’s hands in his own, cradling them gently like they could break. He would run his fingertips down Jairo’s fingers, sometimes talking so quietly Jairo would have to lean closer to listen to him. Andrea would gently touch Jairo’s rings, twisting them, watching his reflection and the reflections of the ceiling and walls around them distort like a portal to another universe. Sometimes he would stop talking, gazing at the tattoos spreading across the backs of Jairo’s hands and forearms. It was like he forgot he was talking, forgot he was in the middle of a conversation, as he stared, eyes slowly moving across the ink and skin, his fingertips absentmindedly grazing the skin, tracing the art. Jairo would watch his face, watch the small smile that stayed there, a smile so small it almost wasn’t there at all, was only there if you looked for it or already knew it was there, like the Mona Lisa.
Jairo would put a hand out of Andrea’s grip and would gently push back his bright blue fringe, allowing Jairo to see his eyes. When Jairo’s palm finally pressed to Andrea’s cheek, the way it always did, Andrea’s eyes would drift shut like he was falling asleep, and his face would turn into Jairo’s hand, his other hand still clutched between Andrea’s. Andrea would move his legs, wrapping them around Jairo’s waist, pulling Jairo closer to himself, hold their hands between them. Sometimes they would fall asleep there, limbs tangled and chests pressed together like two halves of a heart, their pulses syncing, their breaths aligning.
~
Some nights Andrea was tired. When they were both at home, Andrea would change into his pajamas, not saying a word, and lay on the sofa or in bed, waiting for Jairo. Jairo would shower if he needed to, would put away the food or groceries, would change before climbing in next to him, careful not to touch him in case he needed space.
Sometimes Andrea did need space, and he would make no move to touch him. Jairo would grab a laptop or turn on the television, turn on a movie or show he knew Andrea liked. He would watch the screen, glancing at Andrea to see him smile at funny parts, the light from the screen glinting in his eyes. Sometimes after a while Andrea would crawl closer to Jairo, drawing him arm around himself, and could curl up, his head pressed against Jairo’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. He would close his eyes when he felt Jairo’s fingers in his hair, gently scratching his scalp, would sigh when Jairo dropped his own head on top of his.
~
Even though there were nights where Andrea couldn’t be touched, nights where he would curl into a ball and bury himself under blankets, blocking out light and sound, until he was just okay enough to be with Jairo, there were nights where he couldn’t keep his hands off him. Nights where he would wrap himself around Jairo, sliding his hands across his chest, down his arms, over his shoulders, over the buzzed hair on the back of his head, until his fingers were tangled in his hair, which Andrea had taken down from its knot as soon as he could. (He’d discovered how much he liked to play with Jairo’s hair, some nights braiding it as Jairo lay in his lap.)
Jairo’s arms would wrap around Andrea’s waist, his hands would run down his legs, press against the small of his back, pulling him closer until their chests were pressed together. He would slide a hand up to hold the back of Andrea’s neck, touching his hair, tugging it.
Andrea would kiss him. He liked kissing him, liked biting and sucking on his lips, liked breathing into his mouth. He liked kissing across his cheek, liked feeling Jairo’s stubble scratch his lips. Sometimes, when it was especially late at night and all they could hear was the white noise of the ocean, when the dark covered them like a blanket and the stars shined bright in the sky (if they cared to look), Andrea liked kissing down Jairo’s neck, liked leaving gentle marks on the soft skin, liked hearing how Jairo’s breathing shuddered when Andrea mouthed around his earring. Sometimes he would pull his hands from Jairo’s hair and tenderly pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal his tattoo. Andrea would run his fingertips over it, oblivious to how Jairo watched him, his eyes smiling, Andrea would lean down, skimming his lips over the ink, his eyes closed, until he would turn and nestle his face in the side of Jairo’s neck. Then Jairo would really smile.
Jairo would carry Andrea to bed, and Andrea would tuck his hands between himself and Jairo’s chest, sighing, until Jairo gently placed him on the bed. Andrea loved how gentle Jairo was with him, every time he touched him, pushed his hair back, kissed him, or held him. It made Andrea feel loved.
They hadn’t said it yet, hadn’t said “I love you,” or asked each other if they were each other’s boyfriends. Though, neither of them really had to. It was unspoken, it was said in every movement, every glance. Every quirk of their eyebrows that read Are you okay? and every subtle nod that read I’m here. Every second spent waiting for the other to buckle up before driving off, every gentle squeeze of a knee, every soft kiss over closed, sleeping eyes, every sign b Andrea that wasn’t quite right but showed he was trying, every deep breath by Jairo in an attempt to calm Andrea. Every time Jairo sat next to Andrea, not reaching for him, not touching him, and waited for Andrea to tell him what he needed at that moment. Every time Jairo left the flat because Andrea needed space. Every time Andrea refilled an ice bag as he grabbed a ready one for Jairo’s shoulder or knee, every time he gently massaged his soreness away.
~
Sometimes Andrea would talk about therapy. He’d begun seeing someone in town, a woman named Sandra. One night he whispered, “Do you want to know what my therapist said today?” and Jairo nodded smiling softly. Andrea told him about how Sandra compared his feelings and emotions to clouds, always shifting, fleeting, moving, and Jairo listened, his eyes closed, feeling Andrea’s soft breath against his neck, feeling Andrea’s fingers move deftly over his, tracing his tattoos and running over his rings.
Sometimes when Andrea wasn’t okay, Jairo would what Sandra said. He would sign They’re just like clouds with one hand as Andrea held the other, Andrea’s grip stronger than his own. Blow my hair out of my face, after tugging his hair out of its bun, bending down further to look into Andrea’s eyes. Andrea would try, exhaling in Jairo’s direction, and although his hair barely moved, it managed to calm his breathing, forcing him to take deep breaths. I’ve got you, as he rubbed a thumb back and forth over the back of Andrea’s hand, as he leaned forward so their foreheads pressed together and he could feel Andrea’s breath on his face.
Sometimes Andrea would draw Jairo. His style was cartoonish, like the anime movies he loved to watch, that Jairo was beginning to love as well, and Jairo loved it. Loved watching Andrea’s face contort with focus, his eyebrows furrowing together, his eyes narrowing, the tip of his tongue peeking out from between his lips. (If Jairo could draw, he decided, he would only ever draw Andrea.) Andrea captured everything in his drawings, even if they did make Jairo looks smoother than he felt. Andrea drew his facial hair, the divet in his hair at his temple, his rings, his tattoos, which he managed to simplify and still keep detailed, and his earring, which Jairo knew he loved. One night, Andrea grabbed Jairo’s hand and looked at it, gazing, analyzing, memorizing, until he put it on his lap as he drew, glancing back and forth as he drew the snake on the back of his hand. Andrea gave most of his drawings to Jairo, keeping a few of them for himself, and Jairo kept every single one, even the ones Andrea hated. The ones he’d colored, the ones he’d gone over with ink, the ones that were wrinkled from erasing the paper too many times, the ones with stains and smudges from being left on the kitchen counter after Jairo had cooked. There was one that was so wrinkled it almost kept its shape after Andre had crushed it into a ball and thrown it away. Jairo kept them all, most of them pinned to his locker door at Inferno, one in his wallet, one tucked away a book. Andrea didn’t have to know.
~
Sometimes Andrea would be waiting for Jairo at the door, late at night. He would be sitting with his chest to the back of the sofa, facing the front door, his chin resting on his forearms crossed in front of him. His hair would be tousled from trying to sleep. “But I couldn’t sleep without you,” he would say quietly, so quietly it almost got lost between them, after a light scolding from Jairo that he should be in bed by now. He would wait on the sofa patiently until Jairo was ready for bed, when he came and picked him up playfully, exactly how Andrea loved, and fell onto the bed with him. They would gaze at each other through the dark for a while (Jairo would sign Beautiful) before falling asleep in each other’s arms, Andrea’s head tucked under Jairo’s chin, Jairo’s arms wrapped around him, Andrea’s hands curled against his chest.
Safe.
#someone let me know if the link doesnt work#please and thank you#toy boy#jairo x andrea#jairo and andrea#andrea and jairo#andrea x jairo#andrea medina#jairo#idk his last name sorry#toy boy fic
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@cfmanymuses sent - 💘💞🔍😊 ( No No’s & Yes Yes! - Accepting! )
Send 💘 for your policy on shipping with your muse(s)
I like to keep an open mind with shipping, I love having the chance for Ryuji to develop all kinds of ships, not just romantic ones. I don’t really have any policies for friendships since I feel like those come about pretty organically and don’t really need any guidelines or policies to them - if someone wants to talk about developing a closer friendship or making them best friends, I’d also be down with that.
In regards to more complex relationships like having them be siblings or enemies or romantically linked, my only real requirement would be that they have at least some interactions to go off. I feel like chemistry is key in building a strong foundation for a ship and leaping right into a ship without really knowing how they would mesh would be a big mistake, so with these more complex relationships, I do think a certain degree of thought and care and discussion is important in order to make sure we’re on the same page with them.
Send 💞 for your policy on pre-established relationships with your muse(s).
I feel like a lot of this can be related to what I said in the latter half, up there - I’m more than okay with writing pre-established relationships but before I leap right into it, I want to at least establish some backstory and have some established interactions so we can see just how well they would mesh together - like how believable they’d be as childhood friends or high school sweethearts. Some relationships require more care than others like lifelong enemies or a long-term romantic relationship but again with care and discussion, it could really work!
Send 🔍 for something you look for on other’s blogs.
I try to look at someone’s threads with others and get a sense of their writing style and see if it would be compatible with my own. I don’t really have any particular requirements in mind but sometimes you take into account things like their general post length, how they word things, do they describe things in a simplified way or go into explicit detail? Stuff like that helps me get a good sense of their writing style and how we’d get on in a thread together.
Send 😊 for likable quality for a role play mun to have.
Muns who initiate interactions with people a lot - whether that’s through sending memes to people they don’t really know or reblogging promos from people, I just think it’s awesome and I think it shows their willingness to leap right in and interact with others, removes a lot of the initial nervousness in my opinion.
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Hello! I hope it's okay to ask this if no one has before: What tips would you have for balancing or integrating proper anatomy and physics into flexable/outlandish/unrealistic art styles? I wish to have a fluid and dynamic, kinda "cartoony" art style, but I need to get a grip on anatomy and such to make it all work. The problem is I'm having a hard time combining the two. I either feel the need to draw super anatomically correct or have structureless, floaty half-baked-cartoon doodles.
What a great question! This is going to get a little long, so I hope you don’t mind the wild ride!
The first thing you need to understand is that cartoony limbs being ‘balanced’ against anatomy is kind of… a lie. The truth is, not everything has to be balanced. It helps if it’s readable! But whether or not it’s balanced well has nothing to do with how good stylistic integration works.
I’ll talk about this later, though. First, I want to present some extra cool examples of cartoonishness that will come up later in this post.
Classic Disney Mickey-Mouse cartoonish-ness!
(see also: looney toons)
This style is built for exaggeration. The parts which we are meant to pay most attention to are embiggened. The face is large, the eyes and nose are simplified and also larger to make it easy for us to see what is happening. The hands and feet are also extra big to make sure we can follow all of the movements without there being any misunderstanding about what the character is doing.
The animation for this type of cartoon tends to also favor clarity of the silhouette over realistic movement. Here, Mickey’s arm is coming way up out of his head. The length of it is unexplained, as is the placement, but we are too busy paying attention to how CLEAR it is that he’s holding the jar to really care about either of those details.
Powerpuff Girl cartoonish-ness.
There’s plenty of other examples I can use, but I’ll go with PPG because it’s such a classic and I love it. This style abandons realistic proportions and limb physics with even more bravado. The characters don’t even have fingers! Their eye physics make little to no sense, they lack noses altogether (unless it’s suddenly necessary for them to have them, a gag which has been done throughout the show).
This style is also built for ease of viewing expressions, but the animation here doesn’t stretch the limbs much. There’s no exaggerated movements here. The characters are meant to be cute and stylistic. Their proportions seldom change - and in fact, those proportions are often played for a gag in show itself (iirc Bubbles is shown not being able to reach something because her head is in the way of her significantly shorter arms.)
Hey Arnold! Cartoonish-ness
These characters are arguably way closer to human proportions than the previous two examples. Their limbs are more or less human. They have believable body sizes and shapes, except for their heads and faces, which are (surprise surprise!) exaggerated in order to make it easier to show/read their expressions. Their eyes are large in order to see where the pupil is going, their mouths are stretched to make the expression more visible.
Anime Cartoonishness
In comparison to other cartoon styles, more recent styles of anime are certainly much closer to realistic human proportions (except for depicting people in age-appropriate body shapes, but that’s a discussion for another time.) They usually have five fingers, a more realistic head-to-body ratio and they are drawn with head shapes that you can (usually) imagine the skull of.
(Anime have proportion gags too, but it’s usually depicted in a separate ‘scene’ that breaks from the reality of the rest of what is shown and is almost always MEANT as an exaggeration of events, not what is actually happening.)
So, at this point it’s time to ask: WHY are these styles still believable even though they’re outrageous? The answer may surprise you.
One of the biggest reasons is… because we’ve simply gotten used to them!
This might be odd, but many people who have NEVER watched anime before and are unfamiliar with the stylization of the characters often DON’T read anime styles well. They don’t follow the gags, they have trouble understanding micro expressions.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
So why do we? BECAUSE WE’RE USED TO IT!
We all consume(d) similar media and are RAISED on cartoony styles. This - for the lack of a better word - trains us, from birth, to understand the language of cartoons.
Actually, this is something that EVERY style hinges on, in the long run. You kind of have to trust your audience to understand what you are representing, because every time you are not doing photorealistic art, you are, essentially, using similes and metaphors and hyperboles in your own drawing. They’re kind of like literary devices - and people who are not familiar with that type of stylization will often NOT be able to simply take stylization at face value.
So, now with that out of the way, let’s actually talk about what DOES make a style cartoony without losing the integrity of realistic-ness?
1. Make some rules!
The first thing I can confidently say is - even as crazy as these styles all are, they each have a well-defined set of RULES that they follow within their own universe.
For example, no matter how cartoony these styles are, they each keep to their OWN cartoonishness and rarely venture into another type of cartoonishness (although they certainly could, for a gag!)
Let’s look at Adventure Time’s Finn:
This might not be exactly what you’re going for, but it’s good to study anyway. Finn is VERY noodly - I couldn’t tell you where his elbows and knees are at any given time. BUT he is still relatively believable because he follows his own rules.
For example, his arms and legs are always approximately the same width. His body only bends in the direction a proper human body does. His torso and head are always consistently conjoined and have a LIMITED range of movement, even for a cartoon.
Basically, there are established RULES for what Finn CAN and CAN’T do as a cartoon. There’s lots of feats he’s capable of which are not anatomically possible for realistic styles. BUT there are lines the animators don’t cross.
For example, Finn almost never stretches his limbs for exaggerated effects. He isn’t rubbery like a looney toon. It’s believable because we know what we can expect his character to look like in any given animated scenario. By watching these consistencies, we become attuned to these unwritten rules and accept them for that style.
2. Establish Landmarks!
This point kind of merges with the other one about having rules, but instead of just having things your character CAN’T do, try to also establish specific reference points that are always within your style. Most anime-ish styles will have a consistent way to draw features. For example, in avatar, all people have anime-like eyes and mouths that are drawn in a pretty similar way.
In Steven Universe, the character’s heights are not clearly defined, but they are consistent with OTHER character’s heights. For example, Garnet is always taller than Pearl, who is taller than Amethyst and Steven.
In my own style, I I keep several cartoony features always the same - for example, I always draw the nose on people as a sort of cross-hairs, and I always make the mouth a single line and almost never define lips.
I don’t change much else - in fact, if you want to have a semi-realistic style, you will always want to aim for making only a PART of your art cartoony.
Usually people go for the eyes and mouth because when you’re trying to give something expression, you need those features to be the most flexible in order to give your character’s face the most POP.
Alternatively, if you’re looking to make MOVEMENT bigger, you’ll want to only exaggerate features that need to move most. For example, even in anime, the character’s limbs sometimes stretch to give focus to their velocity.
You know what you DON’T want to do?
Don’t break rules that DON’T need to be broken. (If cartooning a limb or a features serves no purpose, don’t do it.)
What I’m talking about is things that will always read as ‘errors’ instead of style. These are really strange things that we don’t think about but really matter to us recognizing things as human.
For example, don’t make the forearm and upper arm different lengths if you haven’t set a precedent for it, or aren’t trying to achieve an effect. Even if the limbs are noodly! It creates a sense of distortion more than style. DON’T make feet really tiny unless there’s a reason for it. The PowerPuff girls would look really strange with realistic feet, but since their arms are also nubs, it ends up working like a consistency.
3. Translate!
This is possibly the most important part, but it’s also the one you’re going to be most annoyed hearing about.
It’s… you guessed it… PRACTICE!
A specific type of practice, mind you. I will call it ‘translating’ for the sake of this exercise.
You probably saw some style challenges going around, right? They mostly ask that you take a character and then try to imitate various styles while keeping that character recognizable.
This type of thing is fun and an easy way to explore various styles in order to see what you can snag from them.
Another thing I recommend is trying to create a gradient from your most ‘realistic’ style to the most ‘cartoony’ style.
Which might be difficult at first, but if you’re able to experiment with a lot of different levels of style, you will naturally settle into the one you find most comfortable!
Good luck!
- Mod Chekhov (Ko-Fi)
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Holy FUCKING SHIT Hades is a good FUCKING GAME
It's got a STUNNING sense of art and style
The levels design is some of the best ice ever seen like it all feels so ALIVE for being set in the kingdom of death. There's so much depth to the backdrops especially in Tartarus the beginning level where there's crumbling layers of Greek architecture and you can see further back to giant sculptures of monsters you've never seen before.
The music in this game is phenomenal. It lends itself to the environments so perfectly most of the time I forget to listen to it adidst the spirit beating but thankfully it's on Spotify (and an ingame jukebox in the form of Orpheus' music stand which helps to highlight the seperate tracks (and don't get me started on Supergiant's knack of putting beautifully sung songs in their game cos this one's got two!! (maybe more I havent 100%ed it yet)))
I didn't even notice that our big bearded freind on the left there had 1 eye for the first 10 runs and when I looked closer I was amazed at the detail cos it looks 3d and the fact that it's painted and fits so cleanly in the 3d environments is SUCH a testament to the artists!!
The character design is so unique and something I've only seen elsewhere in say indie boardgames with the same amount of sense of style. The way the characters talk and interact as if it were a dating sim lends itself INCREDIBLY well to showing off their designs without simplifying them down into 3dmodels aside from the few that you do fight, and even then they're very well represented ingame. The designs for the gods and mythic creatures are so incredibly creative and thought out down to little details I can't even begin to list them just look up the pictures. Not to mention the insane amount of voice work that went into this, each run provides more and more story and dialogue and I have yet to find a repeated line. This is a rougelike. This doesn't need to happen. This is incredible stroy telling, world building, and character development.
The music is not only thematic but also insanely detailed like the rest of the game. The zones have what you generally expect for them instrumentally wise, the Greek temples having lutes playing as their instrumental hooks, the firey lava pits having tonnes of heavy guitars and bass (the bass work in this game is stunning but thats a whole nuther post) the whole OST is catchy and great to just listen to each track, but the boss music is where it truly shines, I'll use the Fury's music, 'The Painful Way' as an example. It starts with purcussion and a droning chord for when you're talking to them but instantly picks up once you're done, throwing you into combat and there's no mistake about it, that lute (or whatever the actual instrument is called I feel bad for ksug trivialising it as a lute) you've been hearing all game so far has started plucking again with an intense low bass line powering it along, oh and now there's not just the lute but a singing voice too, ah this is going to be intense isn't it? These instruments are layered by more of them almost becoming a chorus but not quite. This quick paced battle theme matches the scorn thrown at you from Megara and the way she fights you hit that's not all. The longer you fight, and the more damage you do, the more she changes her moves she hurls at you, and so does the music to match. I don't know if the music changes in the last phase or if it's simply used for another sister but the music gets much more intense to match the Fury's, well, fury. The lute (or lyre?? Is that what I'm looking for) is replaced with a guitar which hammers out the same melody this time accompanied with backing riffing guitars ampimg up thay heat for the fight. The lead is then free to go fucking wild making tbr strings screech in the back of the track sounding almost like a scram. The bass joins in with the riffing guitars hammering down the energy as the song draws to a close and the lead starts to settle down.
It's a good song.
Almost every song is themed and builds in such an intellectual way and such a fucking sick way it's so amazing. This soundtrack is being used if I ever get back into DMing dnd games becuade the pacing is so good.
The gameay I could probably make another post if anyone wants to hear my take on its incredibly indepth and broad take on one of my favourite genres, the rougelike.
But two last things that make it a 10/10,
Fishing game
You can pet the dog
Gif credit to @miyku
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Review: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is 'you're safe with me'- that's intimacy.”
Book: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
My Rating: ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ (5 Stars)
Read: September 22, 2020
Synopsis: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.
When she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
My Review:
There is only one word I can come up with to describe this book- mesmerizing! It grabbed me by the heart and enchanted me in every way possible! I thought this read was going to be mainly romance but it had everything- romance, mystery, suspense....you name it! I have literally never read a book that had everything I have ever wanted in one single novel and this book did just that! Safe to say I will be reading Reid’s other books, sooner rather than later because this one was by far one of the best I have ever read and I don’t say that lightly!
To begin with, truthfully I wasn’t completely in love with this book until closer to the very end of the novel. The reason for this was because I wanted to dislike the main character Evelyn so much, I really did, but after going on her whole life journey I couldn’t deny the fact that she was clearly and very plainly relatable to anyone. All of her life trials, seeing how they changed her into the person she became as a result, they made you hate and love her at the same time. Nothing was simple about this heroine and she’s as complicated as they come and yet I don’t think I’ve related to a character more in a very long time. All the characterization, for both of the main heroines was superb and I found myself sad when the story ended because it was like having to leave two close friends after you find out everything about them and what made they who they are in the first place.
Further on, I loved how the book was written with Evelyn, at the very end of her life, telling her life story to Monique, even the bad parts, I think that made for the most exciting read because it revealed a little bit at a time and kept me interested to find out what really makes her tick and how she got to be where she did in life. Also, this is where the suspense came in, something I did not expect from this novel whatsoever, because there were countless mysteries tied into the plot and we got some answers with almost each chapter, which made it hard to put the book down and lose interest. I think this book would make for a very good movie or even a show.
Also, the writing style was top-notch, precise and to the point without being too over simplified, where important details are sacrificed. The chapters were the perfect length and the content in each chapter was just what it should be, what a masterpiece. I really can’t say enough good things about this book because it was exceptional.
All in all, this book was something otherworldly, in the best way. It has something for everyone, that you can be certain off and even all the key themes and messages about life are masterfully interwoven to make a tale that will undoubtedly remain for a long time to mesmerize future readers and make massive impressions on them!
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@ky-the-squiddy replied to your post “I enjoy The Property of Hate a lot but am I the only one who finds the...”
Admittedly, my partner does have the same issue at times, but the problem only seems to be with pages done in the last year or so. Mod's tendinitis issues have been steadily getting worse over the years, and because of that her art style has gotten a bit more chaotic/similar to her base sketches in order to help reduce the amount of work she has to do on each page. While it can definitely be a problem to make things easier to read at time, there are reasons behind it.
I do hear that and of course health has to come first. On the other hand like I said in the post, the messier style in and of itself isn’t the main issue. Messier style just means you need to give each drawing more room and/or make sure it’s still clear. So for example in this image:
I think it may have helped to a) draw the teeth in a more teeth-like color (though the color on its own isn’t terrible), b) add just a couple more with a distinct shape, and c) the most important change, get rid of some or all the words.
Here I just did b and c. (Excuse the somewhat shitty edit). The words that were covering up the action were removed. This makes the biggest difference. Then I tried to change a couple of the closer teeth to have a more distinct shape, and even added one.
This one I tested how it would look if the teeth were more teeth colored (they need to be darker to be visible against the bright background, though.) Not as necessary but it does make it even clearer.
Here’s another I took a stab at “cleaning up” so to speak.
Original:
Simplified:
idk exactly what the extra detail is; maybe the rest of the tree in the background? but if we are focusing on one wing opening it’s totally reasonable to just show one wing. We can see a clear curve now. You could also change the background color of the panel to be the same color as the second; theyre both supposed to be in the sky and it would help with consistency.
And none of this is any harder, except arguably the more distinct shapes on the teeth. In many cases its adding less not more.
If it’s true that they’ve had to adjust to a less clean art, maybe part of that needs to be not trying to pack the same amount of detail in.
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Free Online Program.
Is Devops Challenging? Please Note
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Content
ÄHnliche JobsuchezurüCkweiter.
Easy Ways To Be A Reliable Software Program Tester.
An Aim To The Future Of Software Application Testing.
User Interface Designer.
Leading 10 Software Application Testing Courses.
ÄHnliche JobsuchezurüCkweiter.
Which type of software testing is in demand?
Yes, of course, you can learn Selenium without knowing Java. Selenium IDE is a GUI based tool but it works only in Mozilla Firefox. However, if you want to create test cases using Selenium WebDriver, you should know one programming language out of - Java, C#, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP.
A subreddit for those with concerns about operating in the tech market or in a computer-science-related job. I feel that in Workflow as well as QA you can easily 'burn-out' because of the lengthy hrs and repetitive job. For me development tends to be one of the most 'fun' and also therefore lowers the stress degrees. I don't recognize how difficult QA job is as I've never done it.
Easy Ways To Be An Efficient Software Tester.
Is DevOps easy to learn?
Java language and programming for Selenium
Java is a vast language. However, You don't need to learn full features of Java as that's not required for selenium automation testing. You only need to learn a selected portion of Java language. That's a good news.
Experience shows that the optimum length of a test instance is between 3-8 steps. Then you will do every person on your team a huge favor, if you write clean and also thorough insect records. It's great technique to keep every one of your important communication in one place. You will require to take another look at information traded in between you and participants of your group. You will certainly do your future self a support by making it available.
How long does it take to learn software testing?
Many employers look for software tester candidates with a bachelor's degree in computer science, math or engineering, although it's not always required. If you've got a lot of experience, a stable work history and solid references or letters of recommendation, it's possible to land a job without a college degree.
and also new ones are still being produced, one should note that roughly 90% of the concepts one learns in a specific language are likewise suitable to totally different languages. When opleiding java testers knows with the core essentials, establishing comparable skills with another language just boils down to understanding the syntactical nuances. creating or coding automation script, I am expanding a lot more burnt out. # 13) Find out more books, short articles, attend testing meetup and also seminars.
Constantly think of what you can do today to relocate closer to that goal and also act appropriately. Testers are extremely passionate at the start of their professions. But when the discovering curve is filled they start feeling bored. They promptly obtain tired of writing the exact same Pest reports and performing the same test situations repeatedly.
An Aim To The Future Of Software Program Testing.
When you develop an arranged framework to store all of your important information you have the ability to collect the appropriate information and form your testing approach for that task. If you do not have a method to keep this details, after that you will certainly miss vital details.
So, quick responses, supported by smart test automation systems, is going to be essential.
A lot more software is being developed, with a lower obstacle to entry, and faster time to market.
At the very same time, testing will certainly continue to become native to the island across other components of the software program lifecycle process, with fast-evolving devices bringing tests within the reach of a lot more staff member.
While they are frequently still the unsung heroes, the work that QA professionals do is significantly acknowledged for its contributions to DevOps.
You will certainly get advice on real-world software program testing, QA, monitoring, test automation, and also advancement proficiency in a wide variety of software growth firms varying from little to large scale.
You and also the developer need to be honored and also satisfied that what has simply been launched is pest totally free (" ish"), not just you. Eventually, as others have claimed, it's a different sort of anxiety. As QA, I was continuously worried that I missed bugs I should have caught. As a programmer, my anxiety comes from feeling like I should understand how to do something already as well as I don't. That stated, it is completely possible that my anxiety degrees in a dev function are not as high because I. still do not make a great deal of huge decisions.
How can I be good tester?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA):
Advances in software and AI world have paved the way for Robotic Process Automation (RPA). It is the most recent technology which has the capability to re-invent the business process management landscape. To know more about RPA's role in the software testing industry.
It is important in this regard to look for some advice and real-world assistance from gamers who have some experience in the field, as well as whose insights can aid you when making that critical pre-development decision. to script code, over time, differences will certainly emerge in between the languages. Consequently, activities that operate well in a specific language could be counter and repetitive user-friendly in a various one.
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Interface Designer.
Growth can be rather difficult during crunch time when you're required to make style concessions as well as provided no time to clean up your work. But it can be a lot of enjoyable, also, which is in fact more frequently the situation for me. It's a GREAT DEAL easier to handle the job anxiety when you recognize the work and also your coworkers. Much easier to reduce, yes, equally as simple to outsource as development is however. QA is only demanding in that you have much less job safety and security than a dev.
I will collaborate with various other devs on my group if I'm unsure concerning a specific means of doing something, or the pros and cons of 2 things that, to me, appear similarly good/bad. I angle speak for QA given that my experience is in dev however from my interactions with them, it definitely does not appear like a cinch. As soon as you begin surrounding deadlines, everybody in the process feels the warm. I've done both, and also I've been burnt out by numerous aspects of each of them.
When your goals as a tester straighten with the goals of the app, you will certainly have the ability to provide significant outcomes. A tester's mindset can indicate the distinction in between discovering the most important insect in the app and finding absolutely nothing. You simply need to choose which response makes the a lot of sense once you comprehend what the inquiry is. You are provided an application, and also you should decide what must be evaluated, what the result should be, and apply a testing technique. You raise the possibility of somebody on your team falling short to carry out a job when you include more actions to an examination situation.
Discuss what they are doing, what they have actually developed, what situations they have taken into consideration, is there anything you can contribute to help them recognize the product much better. # 7) Collaborate with the QA groups from various other projects also.
Leading 10 Software Application Testing Courses.
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Consistency provided by the WebDriver API across languages, simplifies the procedure of porting examination expertise of one language to one more. Examination engineers come to be better assets to their organizations as they can be transferred to any kind of internet project, created in any programs language, and also still have the ability to produce tests for it instantaneously.
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My timeline poster iterations
In my first iteration; I simplified the outer-circle work names. This was done to make my timeline feel more streamlined. I took my circular text style from my second poster concept since I thought that it would better portray the typographical skills that Catherine Griffiths is known for. I put an image of Catherine Griffiths in the centre bigger circle as a reference for observers, as a result it looks like the smaller circles detailing her work is what makes Catherine up; which is what she is primarily known for.
In my second iteration; I put the images of all relevant pieces of Catherine's work against the names of her work. Adding a visual guide for people to understand the names, year the work was made and a photo of what the work looks like. I moved the layout to be closer together - I felt that the connecting lines felt a little random and discredited the professionalism of my work. I think that in a further iteration I'd bring back the lines connecting the years as the theory of progression (described in my concept) would still be well used.
In my final iteration; I went for a more streamlined approach by adding a clipping mask over the work's name that directly shows Catherine's work. I think it directly presents and communicates the work to the observer however the lack of typographical features makes it difficult to ascertain that Catherine is a typographer to the common Joe; therefore in a further development I'd add some typographical features.
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