#and on that note i think i'm gonna archive this blog | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nabwastaken · 2 months

Text

Hatchetfield Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

🧔 timsdaddyhouston Follow

So a couple years after the.. 'accident' I got my car fixed at my buddy's repair shop and now it's talking to me? And telling me she's my dead wife? @tonygreensbodyshop do you know anything about this?

🔧 tonygreensbodyshop Follow

Nope. Nothing. Maybe you could talk to @msretrosofficial about it?

🌟 flemwad69 Follow

OP i suggest you fuck your hot car wife

🤓 hotchocolateboi Follow

OMG RUUTTTHH THAT'S LITERALLY OUR SHOP TEACHER STOP

🧔 timsdaddyhouston Follow

Been there, done that.

🤓 hotchocolateboi Follow

..wait, what now?

42 Notes

🌟 flemwad69 Follow

she's a news anchor. he's also a news anchor. Their 5 year long stint as the co hosts of Morning Cup Of News will change your perception of love.

👨🏻 iamdanreynolds Follow

Uhm, what now?

👩thats-amazing-donna Follow

I second that, what the hell?

🌟 flemwad69 Follow

OH SHIT YOU GUYS HAVE TUMBLR I HAVE TO GO DELETE SO MANY POSTS NOW-

🐿 peanuts-the-hatchetfield-pocket-squirrel

No no OP, you're right. They're really lovey dovey off camera.

🌟 flemwad69 Follow

PEANUTS???

42,690 Notes

😎 steph-lauter-the-mayors-daughter Follow

a test.

👨‍💼 normalman23 Follow

Sure, to our knowledge the Ape Man isn't real and if he was, why would he come to my house? But consider this, dear reader. Peanuts The Hatchetfield Pocket Squirrel is simply too busy and too famous to show up at my, a normal office worker's, house.

Damn I wish I was him.

500 notes

🗳️ hatchetfield-confessions Follow

You know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I think Ted Spankoffski is hotter than Dan Reynolds.

~~~

🥴 dans-biggest-fan Follow

Anon I am at your house right now with a gun.

🚬 lex-foster

Omg mom GET OFF TUMBLR

#like srsly wtf? #she literally runs a dan reynolds fan blog you guys #like feed your children omg

23 notes

🍆 spankman69-deactivated20041017

Yo I just found this sick time travelling box what do I do with it

🐐 tick-tock Follow

Perhaps you should try using it to go back in time and fix your mistakes, OP! Hahaha hahaha!

🍆 spankman69-deactivated20041017

Sure thing, doesn't sound risky at all.

390 Notes

🫓msretrosofficial-deactivated20200604

Miss Retro's will temporarily be closed for renovations! Hope to see y'all back when we reopen! <3 <3 <3

👦🏻just-a-social-worker-guy Follow

Just stumbed upon this post and I am wondering, who is OP? And why do I feel such a weird feeling around her?

✨️ holidays-are-over

Wouldn't you like to know..

65 Notes

🌐 hatchetfield-morning-news-official Follow

Good Morning Hatchetfield! Make sure to tune in today at 9:00 am sharp to hear more about Hatchetfield's favorite pocket squirrel!

👨🏻 iamdanreynolds Follow

Updating about this on my main and.. what the fuck?

👩thats-amazing-donna Follow

PEANUTS THE HATCHETFIELD POCKET SQUIRREL IS TALKING!!

👨🏻 iamdanreynolds Follow

HE'S A SENTIENT BEING!

👩thats-amazing-donna Follow

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!

👨🏻 iamdanreynolds Follow

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?!

👩thats-amazing-donna Follow

WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP?!

👨🏻 iamdanreynolds Follow

IS THERE A GOD?!

💥 hatchetfield-disaster-archive

Hatchetfield Disaster Log: Peanuts the Hatchetfield Pocket Squirrel starts talking, and the Hatchetfield News studio is set on fire.

100,069 Notes

#hatchetverse #starkid #team starkid #hatchetfield universe #nerdy prudes must die #fake dashboard #dashboard simulator #nab's comedy hour #also #nab's creative endeavours #<- i guess??#you know i had to shoehorn dangit in there #dan and donna my beloveds #oh and also the names without the follow icon are people youre already following #ruth is dangit's number one fan you can pry this from my cold dead hands #unreality cw

195 notes · View notes

akakumoeteru · 8 months

Text

Just a note.

IDK if this will actually affect anyone here but I wanted to mention it just in case:

Since Twitter is kinda going to shit, I'm trying to shift my MDZS art collection over here. But I have like, almost 3 years worth of doodles and etc. scattered around at this point and it's really unruly to figure out what I've posted already and what I haven't so I'm gonna go through and backdate all my posts to their original Twitter post date to give this blog a slightly more archival quality.

I think this means that new posts won't show up on people's TLs so I'll probably just reblog them so people can see them??? I'll periodically reblog some of my older posts too when I don't have new stuff but yeah. (I'll delete the reblogs at a later point but you can mute the tag "#reblogging cause backdated" if you'd like to avoid them entirely.)

In any case sorry for any spam. U_U

#personal #delete later

65 notes · View notes

im-the-queen-of-stardust · 7 months

Text

Alright people, just got my early access of the Magnus Protocol Premiere. Been thinking about whether I should do a live blog like I did for Magnus Archives. Still not sure but we're just gonna start it and see where it's going. Tbh I've been so out of the loop with the podcast I didn't even know the premiere episode was coming and I have no idea when further episodes are getting released. I thought it would start next year! Anyway, I'm gonna put all my reactions down below under the read more so I'm not accidentally spoiling anyone.

That intro music is amazing. Love it.

So glad they included a transcript, I would've already been lost with all these voices. That's what I loved about tma, never got confused there because the introduction to the characters was so nice and slow

Oh, here we are then! Jumpscared by Alex already. Did not expect him to turn up so soon. I'm certain there's nothing sinister going on here. Not me already theorizing that it's Martin who got stuck in the system or something after Mag200. But that means Jonny is one of the other voices who occasionally reads out the statements, right? Gotta be. So Chester or Augustus, who do you think he is? Putting my money on Augustus I think. Why? Because why not.

First look at the Fears?? Is it the Stranger? That's got to be the Stranger, right?

The transcript has these little stage directions and I gotta say I'm in love with "Lena's office is pristine, sterile and has nothing that might indicate its occupant would be brash enough to have a personality"

Btw don't know the in universe reason for the recording yet but friends, your microphones are shit. Jon's recordings were never as bad! Your voices do that thing where it gets frizzy. Might I suggest using a tape recorder?

Is that more static in the background I'm hearing when Gwen says "I'm not most people." Oh, I kinda missed overanalysing sound cues.

We have great vegetarian sausages in Germany too, Colin. I already like that poor IT guy

Sam I really don't think this is the job if you're "just trying to get back on your feet" There must be more going on there

Damn, had a 50/50 chance and didn't get it. So you're Chester then, Jonny? Really can't decide if I would love it more if these voices had some connection to tma or if there's just no reason at all.

I actually read a fanfic like that before. Immediatly though about it when I heard Alex's voice. Jon was sorta trapped in the tape recorder. All Martin and co had were his recorded statements on tape and at some point Jon got like powerful enough to be able to communicate through the tape recorder I think. Was a really great read. Would be funny if this turns out to be similar

Oh, Magnus Archives ruins!! What are you gonna find there RedCanary?? This is exciting

Of course you've been having trouble uploading the pictures, RedCanary! And I don't think that's you're normal getting paranoid either. Oh, I love this. It's like my old friend, spooky Magnus Institute is back

An Archive, you say?? And it's empty. Interesting.

Side note, the music during this is fantastic. Like loved it from the beginning but right now? Amazing.

"What the hell is that? Are those eyes?" Never thought I'd actually be happy about eyes getting mentioned. But eyes, people!! This statement has everything: Magnus Institute, some poor bugger who's descending into paranoia and madness, weird symbols, an artefact (?), ominous texts ("Canaries should stay above ground", okay obviously a reference to the user name red canary but also do you think that has anything to do with like mining. Weren't birds used to detect gas?), eyes and were those the last few notes of the tma intro in the background music?

Oh, who is listening then? Can't mean me, Colin

The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharer like 4.0 international license

#loved it #especially the statement parts #telling a statement through some forum entrys was honestly amazing #cant wait to see where this is going and whats up with all these little teased mysteries #okay so how do i tag the spoilers now #im sure theres a protocol here to follow #ha protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #tmagp spoilers #tmp spoilers #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp liveblog

35 notes · View notes

jsuika · 1 month

Note

JUST FOUND YOUR BLOG AND I LOVE YOUR ART!!!!

Your line art is so smooth and the colors too! How are u underrated

Thanks :]]

Actually I remember doing thick linearts before to make it look like y2k bubbly styled and I was thinking of going back again since I wanted to make logos or icons like this one:

These ig were just a lil practice if someday I'll be making one (or more of these). Also this is just an example btw, these are artist-made game icons. Imo, if it were me to be commissioned to design one or if I was assigned by a game dev, then most likely its gonna look like something that y'all won't know who did that thing lol.

Besides, I'm pretty sure a lot of people were inspired by my artstyle. 😭 Also in case you guys don't know what these are, I'll show you guys mine. (NOTE: You can still check on archive, I don't mind though-)

Examples of my artworks with thick lineart:

The first one was Hatsune Miku fanart

I kinda remember drawing this back in the day since 2023, the sketch version (on my other sketchpad) was discontinued. Supposed to finish it but, sadly I gave up because the hair was something that reminded me of an Inkling from Splatoon (rarely I noticed the first miku fanart also reminded me too lmao).

I wish I'd do this again hopefully if I could use my artstyle, then yeah. Watch here if you want to see the speedpaint :3 : https://youtu.be/sRE3-snDGkM?si=op3tISbGFTjLCcdB

Next one is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk fanart

Okay LISTEN, I may not be good at anatomy but might as well tried especially RED's head. For the BG, I only duplicated the character + added a screenshot/fakescreenshot/whatever, to make it look related to both y2k & frutiger aero (same applies to Hatsune Miku).

Nothing to say much but I've been thinking of making more character concept arts in the future & maybe work on shoes since they look a bit too complicated much.

Overall, I'd say it isn't bad. I'll just leave as it is for now (until some BRC fan shows up and sees this).

Last but not the least, my very first artist-made album cover

I remembered drawing this for future use if I ever find a music composer either if they can do DnB, game soundtrack or whatever but it slightly depends on them. Also shout out to Lxchee Music! They're the ones who compose music like these. They even commented on my speedpaint video!!! (after using their songs lol).

Such a shame that I am limited to drawing only however, I wish I also was a composer of this whooooooole album then everyone's gonna listen to my bangers. One time I used to make music in Beepbox.co (a website where you can compose there).

There are some music-composing softwares that most people use for their game making & also songs. I wish I'd even use FL studio or other music-composing. Reminds me, I also have one friend who makes music (unrelated to dnb or any genre) using accordian & any other instruments that he uses. I swear, he is so good in composing Nintendo Orchestra-music related I can tell.

Conclusion

No worries though, I didn't say I hate using thick lineart but its sometimes too much for the anatomy still and might not fit pretty well. I can still do another one hopefully just to focus on more y2k aesthetic. But if it were me to learn anatomy, might as well use thin lineart and just increase to make it look like there is perspective on it.

Anyways, ig this might be a long one but I do hope you understand what I mean-

#thanks for asking #jgz ask #y2k #fanart #oc #hatsune miku #fanarts #y2k artist #y2kcore

10 notes · View notes

the-reverse-mermaid · 1 year

Note

I'm in fact willing accept the love of varigo in my heart if only I knew where to find content

BRO BRO BRO BRO BRO BRO BRO BRO BRO idk if you're serious or not but im gonna pretend like you are. HERE IS MY POWERPOINT:

Varian is the fan favorite side character of "Tangled the series"/ "Rapunzel's Tangled adventure", where he featured as a villain in season 1 (at age 14, a prodigy you might say), and then is brought back as a redeemed character in season 3. He loves alchemy (science), and is voiced by Jeremy Jordan so his voice is angelic. If you haven't watched the show, I'd recommend these compilations to get up to speed:

youtube

After the series ends, we got two of the storyboard artists from the show, Kay and Anna, pitching a spin-off series focused on Varian a few years later setting off on his own adventure, known as Varian and the 7 Kingdoms. Here are the character sheets they made for that:

This show was not picked up by disney because they're idiots ("if rapunzel isn't in it, who would want to watch it?" idiots), but the fans collectively said hold my beer. Kay and Anna released the two or so pages of notes they had as a rough outline for the series, and like the Goncharov fandom years later, we took off.

Here is my favorite collection of animatics based on the plot/character interactions by some talented artists:

Here are some INCREDIBLY TALENTED songs written by @daniellekeyer to follow to plot as a musical:

And here is THE FIC, "Varian's Tangled Trials" by @i-found-you-justine-time and @theartistswings, written extremely thoughtfully and skillfully to mirror the style of the Tangled tv show and based on the story notes bestowed on us by Kay and Anna. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356191/chapters/58734247

...And those are the basics for me personally, but i will MORE THAN GLADLY help you find and consume the many incredible varigo fics (or you can look at the AO3 tag "Hugo/Varian" in the Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure fanfic archive) in the fandom, as well as the beautiful art you are welcome to look through on tumblr by searching the varigo tag.

Lmk if you want some recommendations of blogs to follow as well <3 I think this will get you started.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND HAPPY VARIGO-ING

#varigo #vat7k #tangled the series #tts varian #vat7k hugo #always happy to indoctrinate #im the reverse gatekeeper i will sit you down and force u to enjoy my interests #other varigo homies feel free to reblog and add more Essentials (TM)

108 notes · View notes

fanficsimp7 · 4 months

Text

Dramione

So now that i'm finally back and continuing this blog, I'm gonna start off with Dramione. tbh i rlly don't ship it anymore, but I'm doing this bc i wanted to try and keep this archive in a bit of a chronological order. i wanna look back at my early fanfic days i guess.

wow i never realized how many fanfics i read by the same author (cleotheo) but shoutout to them! i used to love their stories! but now, like i've said before, my tastes have changed A LOT. it was still fun to look back and remember my younger self and how excited i'd get when reading these types of fics. but these are the only Dramione fics i wrote down in my notes. (even tho i've definitely read a ton more, i just can't remember any names.)

i've ALWAYS been such a sucker for secret relationships, and in the HP world, for accidentally switching ties. omg i love those tropes sooo much. but i went from shipping Dramione to shipping Drarry lol. i've also read some Drarry fics with similar plots, but it started off with Dramione and eventually progressed to my beloved Drarry.

anyways, i think this is the last post linking straight ships... from here on out its all gay lmao

#dramione #fanfic #fanfiction #secret relationship #tie swap

6 notes · View notes

decepti-thots · 7 months

Note

7. 💯A fic that makes you think #writergoals please

okay so i'm gonna do two, because one of these isn't TF and therefore will not be of interest to 99% of the folks following this blog, and i want people to. read these lol. so.

a tf one:

this is one of my favourite TF fics and definitely my favourite aligned fic. (and it is aligned, not just TFP-the-show; it does actually interesting stuff with the weird, fits-basically-nowhere Orion backstory from the Covenant, which i dig!) it's the sort of ship fic i read and realise i am at least as interested in for gen reasons as i am ship reasons, which i love. it has body horror! alien norms about what counts as body horror! alien cultural worldbuilding! perfect reinterpretation of aligned megop in a way that especially makes optimus so much more interesting than canon without feeling non canon! a Vibe i struggle to express but which is so Vibe-y! that last one is really my favourite thing about this fic and what i really envy. i wish i could write vibes that good. it's not quite horror but it feels like it's constantly brushing up against horror existing somewhere within it. i love it soooo much. <3

the non tf one is a death note one:

basically i just read this fic after i had my regrettable and ongoing descent into the "second death note phase in my thirties for some Fucking reason" lifestyle and was like. ah! someone has written the One death note fic that really needed to exist. i can be at peace now. it's a story that takes a source material that i personally find very unserious and makes me take it seriously, without ever feeling like either a) the author does not themselves respect the canon/source material or b) the author is taking said canon too seriously. this is an extremely hard balance to walk for a canon like this. the fic itself is so tonally distinct from the actual canon and yet never feels like it couldn't be one possible bucket-of-ice-water-over-the-head resolution to it. also it's upsetting! i love upsetting things (as opposed to sad things). writer goals for SURE.

#ask meme

17 notes · View notes

shpadoinkle-day · 1 year

Note

hi again!! its 1st time cannibal the musical watcher again- i might start signing my asks or somethin cus i keep wanting to talk but like you're always sharing such obscure random stuff.. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE THING YOU'VE DISCOVERED OR FOUND?? specific quote of an interview or a particular photo you've found ???

hiii anon lovely to see you back! feel free to tag yourself if you prefer that way, but either way you're much appreciated 🥰

I have so much stuff I found (I'd say it more like... was lucky to run into while researching 😵‍💫) that I love, but to name a few...

"My lovely wife Matt Stone" aka Trey's BOM speech from Feb 25 2013 at the first west end preview. How I found this: So, sometimes when I'm bored I'll pick a random mattrey blog that's been active for a long time, open an old post from their archive, see if there's old inactive mattrey blogs in the notes, and look through their archive to see if there's any posts I could make resurface that had stopped circulating, right? The funny thing is I'll go on reblog sprees, so I actually hadn't listened to the audio when I reblogged it. I was only informed of what it said when I saw others freak out about it.

Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. Why it's my fav? Well, aside from being adorable and iconic, it landed my youtube channel in the lost media wiki! How I found it is actually quite easy, when you look up fansites on the web archive you can do specific search for the files the web archive has saved from it. Turns out sometimes quicktime files work! Four parts were in canniballovers and one in dtisfu if I remember correctly, I just edited them together and posted it. Still wish someone could find it in better quality though. 😔

I'm gonna list a bunch of pictures now... because there's many. 😭 But my absolute N1 is probably the Halloween Robert Smith Trey picture. How I found it is simple, just looking up random words on facebook. Probably "trey parker", nothing special. This and this from the Ron Jeremy website on the web archive, though I think maybe the second one had already been circulating I'm not exactly sure. Showgirl Halloween Trey. The kiss pictures. Pink haired Trey!! This NATPE (?) picture. These older Trey pics where he's serving absolute cunt. This Lapdance/Sundance (?) pic. And these too. This reverse cap one altho this was from twitter I don't think I was the first to come across it tbh. These three from the "A Million Laughs" fb page... Bowl hat... Trey with the blue umbrella full pic... tho I wouldn't say I "found it" only that I got to it first the day it was posted... Trey in the matching christmas pajama from 2018... I'm gonna stop but my heart is pretty big and I like all pics...

These measly 7 secs of SDCC footage only because of the first mattrey pic included because that pose from Trey is everythinggg.

This oscars clip because Trey does such a graceful hair flip 😭

Le Petit Package pics though all I did was waltz into the lost media thread and see they had been posted...

The forbidden mattrey slides which we may never see... these were all from worthpoint, which is just a website that archives past ebay bids.

Annual Diversity Awards for the Trey serve ofc.

And finally, I'm very partial to "Matt's a cock".

As to how I come across anything... it's lots of free time. Like I'm talking hours daily just picking a random lead and following it. It may be a website you think hasn't been thoroughly searched (I've tried fb, ig, twitter, worthpoint, ebay, wordpress, tripod, weebly, various fansites on webarchive, footage.net, bilibili/baidu, vimeo, dailymotion, flickr, a load of sketchy other websites I don't remember anymore... basically trey parker has brought me to places I wouldn't go with a gun...) a combination of words, a new search engine that may give u different results (I've tried the ones listed in the lost media wiki guide, my favorite is startpage). Using targeted searching like "word" or site:x "word" or "word combo" before:year, basically trying to make google your bitch. I also use gettyimages like a visual wiki of events Trey's been to+the date, it's quite useful... ik you didn't ask the "how" part but aaaa I like talking about it 😭 I have a lot of fun. Even though sometimes I just come up empty handed even after hours of research. More often than not tbh. Also I'm an obsessed weirdo who checks the words "trey parker" daily on twitter, tumblr, ig, fb, yt, web archive and ebay. 🫠

And also the concept of finding is weird because it has happened to me that I thought I had found something and then it actually had been circulating already, so I tried really hard to answer you by only listing stuff I was fairly sure hadn't been circulating before I got to it, but I mean... it doesn't really matter! I'm here to serve, I just like sharing whatever stuff I run into, it'll happen that it's new to me but it really isn't. 😵‍💫 I try...

I like this too also but I didn't find it, it was pretty available already fjdkg you know Jack Shih was at that dodgeball event?

Favorite funfact that I haven't had a chance to share yet, so now you know!

#trey parker #matt stone #web archive #ask #hope this reply doesnt come across like i like the smell of my own farts LMAO im not claiming any of these are mine!!!!! like #i dont want credit and shit. go forth my children #these r my favs tho!!!!!! im obsessed with them

23 notes · View notes

subukunojess · 9 months

Text

DJTober 2023: A Monthly Fan Creation Challenge

Introducing, a new Fan Art/Fan Fiction Challenge for the Month of October 2023!

Links: Archive of Our Own and Spotify Playlist.

I always like monthly fanfiction and fan art challenges in certain months that create new work and get the creative flow going. So I decided I wanted to make my own challenge that anyone could join.

Information and Text version of Prompts under the cut:

So what is DJTober? It is a challenge where you can draw or write based on random songs and verses as the daily prompts. I picked the name because it was different and I think Songtober was already taken. You can either post fan art or write fanfic or create a gif or anything that you feel like creating! Will this be a thing? Who knows? Will I make a side blog for this? It depends. Either way, I'm going to try this challenge myself and share it with others.

A couple of things to note:

In order for me to see your work on your platform (either Tumblr or AO3), please use the tags: #DJTober and #DJTober2023.

You can write a one-shot or multiple chapters, one fandom or multiple, and dark/whump/NSFW are allowed as well. Just make sure to tag appropriately and be mindful of triggers/content warnings.

Having said that, I do not allow things like pedophilia or similar in the works. I will immediately remove it and/or take drastic measures if need be.

Your fic can either be inspired by the song itself or by the suggested verse in the picture, or a different lyric of your choice. You can even have someone say the lyric in a quote. Your fic does not have to be a songfic.

You do not have to go in order of the list and you can start as early or late as you want. Just be aware that the collection that is opened now will remain unmoderated until the end of the first week of November.

Without further ado, here are the prompts:

Life's no fun without a good scare. (This Is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas)

2) All of your time spent keeps us alive. (Larger Than Life by Backstreet Boys)

3) Think of it as my desire for you. (Chant from Hadestown)

4) Tell me you love me in private. (Montero (Call Me By Your Name) by Lil Nas X)

5) I'm wearing my heart like a crown, pretending that you're still around. (The Great Pretender by The Platters)

6) I'm far renowned in the underground and you can't take that from me. (Land of the Dead by Voltaire)

7) Because you're mine. (I Put A Spell On You, either Screamin' Jay Hawkins or the Hocus Pocus version)

8) No one else takes care of me. (Independent Women, pt 1 by Destiny's Child)

9) Just what to do. Help them to help you. (The Pitiful Children from Be More Chill)

10) Talk so pretty, but your heart got teeth. (Teeth by 5 Seconds of Summer)

11) Go ahead and kick it up a notch if your life is at a level too low. (Kick It Up A Notch from Starkid's Starship)

12) Don't have the heart to live in the fast lane. (Worthless from The Brave Little Toaster)

13) And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike. (Thriller by Michael Jackson)

14) May your feet serve you well and the rest be sent to Hell. (Let's Kill Tonight by Panic! At The Disco)

15) This plant is talking to you. (Sominex/Suppertime II from Little Shop of Horrors)

16) Your beauty never ever scared me. (Mary on a Cross by Ghost)

17) Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa. Don't fall in love. (Copacabana by Barry Manilow)

18) Part of life's eternal rhyme. (Mother Earth and Father Time from Charlotte's Web)

19) You can't reason with a headless man. (The Headless Horseman, any version)

20) With a taste of poison paradise. (Toxic by Britney Spears)

21) Ain't it the sweetest noises in town, that beautiful sound? (That Beautiful Sound from Beetlejuice the Musical)

22) What you gon' do when there's blood in the water? (Blood // Water by grandson)

23) Because a caricature is all they know. (Candle Queen by Ghost and Pals)

24) If you stay close to me in my dreams tonight. (Dreams to Dream from American Tail: Fieval Goes West)

25) Don't ever laugh as a hearse goes by. (The Hearse Song, any version)

26) We're hand to hand, chest to chest, and now, we're face to face. (Don't Stop the Music by Rihanna)

27) Would you please send directions on how I can get where you are? (T.E.A.M./The Baseball Game from You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown)

28) Sip the gossip, drink til you choke. (Gossip by Maneskin)

29) So sweet. So cold. So fair. (St. James Infirmary by Cab Calloway)

30) Every day, I'll take you higher and I'll never let you fall. (Let Me Be Your Wings from Thumbelina)

31) Writer's Choice/Request/Free Space (You can either choose a favorite song of your own, request a song on your blog for others to suggest, or use this as a free space/day to write whatever you want).

If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact me. Please reblog to spread the word!

#DJTober #DJTober2023 #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 #fan art #challenge #song #music #verse #prompt #october #I jut noticed now that I spelled notch wrong oops #I already picked a song for my free space #it's on the playlist #I'm hoping to add to the playlist for all other choice songs someone comes up with #please reblog and spread the word #more detailed rules are on the AO3 collection #if you have questions please ask me

12 notes · View notes

gb-patch · 2 years

Note

How the Baxter DLC will work? If is not you who's gonna write it there's a risk it'll not be as good as the other ones

Well, I'm glad you think I'm a good writer, haha. But having other writers help out is always how the game has worked. The first step is that I fully draft what every scene will be and note all the different choices/alterations. But then sometimes I'm the one to properly write that draft into a script while other times another person turns my draft into a script. Then I edit each part that someone else wrote to make sure it fits with my own scripts.

There are some Moments in the game where I scripted one part, a different writer scripted a part, and then another writer scripted a part. I'm not sure if people would be able to guess where my scripted sections end and when it switched to scenes drafted/edited by me but written by someone else.

FAQ

Ask Archive

Update Only Side Blog

#our life #our life beginning and always #ask #gb patch games #gb patch

130 notes · View notes

nobodyspecialhereblog · 1 month

Text

Base Blog Info

Art Tag - Commissions - Linktree Sketches Blog - Reblog and Random Comments Blog TLDR; don't expect posts, don't expect reblogs, likes, follows- don't expect activity in general, don't expect anythin from me, I'm just going with the flow and my current vibes. :) energy levels vary a lot.

Feels like I should state this at some point and leave it pinned. Nobodyspecialhereblog was originally intended to be a normal tumblr blog after the original iteration of it got deleted due to personal reasons. However due to my horrendous habit of keeping up with things, this is more of an archive of my art so I have something to look back on now. :) Maybe I'll do SOME reblogs and stuff again but I kinda ended up getting myself a lotta social anxiety again :( so for now it's MOSTLY for art. I dunno if I'll be doing reblogging and such. Probably not. It's more of just an art archive, a way to browse things, and indulge in my self interests. I might draw random fanart, check on my friends, check on other creators or blogs, and likely do a little of it all every once and awhile. Depends on whether or not I remember. :P I am doing AT LEAST yearly posts but it's mostly for the whole art archive thing. Y'know?

I will say tho, I think I've come pretty far since I first joined tumblr and the first time I made this blog. Even comparing now to the start of the second version of this blog, I've changed a lot and I'm proud of myself. :)

I'll put some latest notes here if I ever remember to bother to... Y'know... Update. Or check my tumblr. Or honestly Imma probably forget about this post ahaha. Update Count Since Post: 6

Latest News: (Last Updated 5/22/2024) Daily sketches blog is a thing, i have a reblog blog, and this blog is gonna be used for detailed art stuff and as a center point/hub ig. I won't delete/organize anything i already posted/reblogged/ect but it's a nice place :)

2 notes · View notes

kosmicpowers · 9 months

Text

Hi, Hey there!

I've had this blog up for a few weeks so I figured I'd introduce myself. Not gonna reveal my actual name for security reasons but just call me Kosmic.

I currently live in the USA (Unfortunately). I'm genderfluid and really don't care what pronouns I am referred to with as long as they're not it/it's. I'm also an aspiring writer but for now I mostly just write fanfiction. Mostly Saint Seiya related obviously though I've been working on other stuff.

You can find my AO3 account here:

I've also been working on art but I'm still a beginner.

I try to be a nice person. (Though I'm not sure if I'm good at it because I can't stop swearing.) I don't accept racism, ableism, bullying, kin exclusionists or gatekeeping, misogyny, homophobia or anything anti-lgbt...

Yeah, Just don't be a dick. It's not hard.

Also don't be a sicko, no pedophila or zoophilia.

Some other stuff about me in case you care:

I'm a minor, don't be a creep.

I have ADHD, tend to hyperfixate on weird stuff. Then again a lot of people on this website do. Just saying I'm not one to judge people when I think about my interests.

I'm agnostic but I'm not going to crap on anyone for having a religion, as long as you're not a Jehovah's Witness. Screw those abusive idiots.

My hobbies are reading, writing, drawing, playing retro games, creating OCs, watching documentaries, and staying up at three AM regretting all of my life's choices

My favorite shows are: Saint Seiya (1986), Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, Ronin Warriors, Ranma 1/2, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, Astro Boy, Jetter Mars, Sonic Prime, Sonic X, Beastars, Thundercats (both 1986 and 2011), Futurama, Kimba the White Lion, Cowboy Bebop, To Kai Watch, Captain Scarlet, Black Jack, Samurai Jack, Ampanman, The Amazing World of Gumball, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, Danger Mouse, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai (AKA Power Rangers)

My favorite movies: the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, AKIRA, the Barbie movie (don't judge), Godzilla, Plague Dogs, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Saint Seiya: Legend of the Crimson Youth, Chirin's Bell, The amazing Spider-Man, Toy Story 3, The Iron Giant, Into the Spiderverse, also as of now gotta add the FNAF movie

Favorite video games: Sonic the Hedgehog series, Phantasy Star 4, Columns, Panel De Pon, Mega Man, PulseMan, Mario Kart 8, Pokemon: Legends Arceus, Animal Crossing, Earthbound, Poyo Poyo/Mean Bean Machine, Sin and Punishment, Harvest Moon, Star Fox

Favorite Bands/Musical Artists: Jack Stauber, Daft Punk, Lemon Demon, Caravan Palace, Tally Hall, Miura Ayme, Rammstein, The Living Tombstone, Rare Americans, Nirvana, Rammstein, Witchfinder General, Gorillaz

Favorite books: The Golden Compass, The Most Dangerous Game, Magnus Chase, Heros of Olympus (or basically anything by Rick Riordan), Death Note, Beastars (manga), Inuyasha, The Lovely Bones (I fucking cried so hard), MAUS (Made me cry harder), City of Ember, Journey to the West, Most classic creepypastas mainly "Abandoned by Disney" (YES. I know they're not books), Cells at Work, AKIRA (Manga)

So... Um... Yeah.

I like to talk with people about my interests so don't be afraid to give me a message. (As long as it doesn't promise "hot singles" in my area, I'm not that stupid.)

Updates:

I have a discord under the name robotic carnival and a side blog Tezuka Brainrot.

I am fictokin of: Cobalt from Astro Boy mainly.

Partially:

Mars from Jetter Mars.

Jibanyan from Yo Kai Watch

Rika from Phantasy Star.

Akane Tendo and Ryoga Hibbikki from Ranma 1/2

Cygnus Hyoga, Pegasus Seiya, and Aquarius Camus from Saint Seiya.

And the flag on my profile picture is ADHD flag.

Cringe and proud. ♥️

My husbandos are Doctor Yamanoue and Doctor Kawashimo from Jetter Mars, Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya, James/Kojiro from Pokemon, and Rune from Phantasy Star.

I can't beat Zio PLZ someone tell me how.

I am pro Palestine and I will accept no support of genocide.

I am neutral on the Joe Hawley situation as he has done terrible things yet does not deserve to be hacked or harassed.

Also ship discourse and fanfiction censorship discourse is dumb I don't care anymore. And regret my past actions. Don't harass over stuff you don't like but also tag your shit. You can't complain about people judging you if you are irresponsible about keeping it where it belongs.

#intro post #too long

12 notes · View notes

kafkaoftherubble · 8 months

Text

芥见下下你这熊孩子，这星期葫芦里卖的到底是什么药？！

Note: MANGA SPOILER for JUJUTSU KAISEN. The length of this ramble should also spot a warning.

---

Two things happened this week within the same damn hour on that very storied Wednesday.

One, my Tumblr account got terminated for no fucking reason. It just happened. Shits that had been on it--saved for those archived by reblogs--were gone. One could almost say my blog got an off-screen death.

Two, Gojo Satoru got terminated, not for no-fucking-reason, but done in such a contrived way it was bordering on a colonoscopy procedure. All the build-ups from previous chapters seem to be for nothing. One could definitely say it's an off-screen death.

Now that I'm making a new account (because I really need an outlet for my garrulous ass; I think the people in my physical vicinity are getting sick of me), the first entry in this new garden is gonna be about my opinion on Chapter 236, based on the unofficial fan-translated chapter.

Look, I get it. Satoru needs to be taken out one way or another so that the rest of the cast, especially Yuji, "has something to do." I completely support having Satoru out of the game for the good of the story and its characters, and yes, death is one of the ways to take him out... and many other ways, you know? Fatigue. Grievous injuries. Complete Curse Energy exhaustion. Side-effects of his risky plays. Gets suckerpunched by Yorozu's gift. Suckerpunched by Sukuna's hidden technique(s). Kenjaku's intervention. Completion of the merger ("Ahaha! That battle was me using Sukuna to stall your time, after all, Gojo Satoru!" said Kenjaku calmly). The ways to do it are just so, so plenty.

And even if death is the one you want, there are many ways to execute it. Begin Round 3 of the battle and have Sukuna deliver pressure to Satoru again. Show Sukuna gradually testing out his new epiphany once or twice while masking it with his "real techniques" (there isn't any real indication that Cleave and Dismantle are not his "real" techniques; his possessing other techniques aside from those two is a very reasonable bet though). At the same time, Satoru realizes this is some new and very dangerous shit he might not have any counter for. Have Satoru scrambling for a new plan to counter Sukuna's "real techniques" or even Yorozu's gift. Then, at that moment, POW! Sucker-punch Satoru with a successful execution of Nuh-Uh Take This Space-Slicing Cut, Bitch! technique.

You can even slice him on his waist again! "I didn't know I would be successful this time, or I would have aimed for the head!" said Sukuna calmly.

That was just me cooking... And I can't cook shit. I suck at it. But if there's any meager understanding I have regarding story-writing, it's this: you do not show a guy as "the strongest," with quick reflexes and thinking, incredible battle intelligence and creativity, and a purpose larger than himself--just to unceremoniously kill him off-screen and regal us with an "afterlife" dream that is also riddled with unsatisfaction (more on that later), and then tell us "yep no Sukuna is better all along."

You don't create a character shown with a plethora of jujutsu tour de force, who has an important connection to many of its characters and events, plus an outsized, established significance to the setting of your story like "modern jujutsu society's honored one" and "his birth forced the world to change"... just to execute his end like he was a side-character who has a day in the limelight for a fight that is ultimately "just filler," because not much has been achieved after all.

.-. . … -

Many have already pointed out the power-scaling issues. There's this glaring problem of how Sukuna—greatly weakened and significantly punished—managed to one-shot Satoru, whose stats were basically refreshed from his consecutive Black Flash + possessing an insane ocular gift in the form of the Six Eyes.

If Sukuna's coup de grace was a fucking reality cut (he would have cut our manga pages and bitch-slap us if he could) such that not even the space-manipulating ability of Neutral Limitless could win, then how is anyone else going to do anything? How are they gonna jujutsu their kaisen?

Previously, we could at least point to Sukuna being significantly weakened by Satoru as a boon for the rest of the cast. Perhaps the only way to win this is a battle of attrition, gradually wearing Sukuna down or even forcing him to reveal his cards until it was Yuji who faced him. But how can "a weakened Sukuna" even be a gained advantage, if Sukuna still managed to kill Satoru (with refreshed stats!) in that very state? It means Nuh-Uh Take This Space-Slicing Cut, Bitch! technique is neither dependent on Sukuna's stats nor Sukuna's bodily fatigue. It means a 6 Eyes user as adept as Satoru can't even avoid that cut. It means even with refreshed stats and displayed insane reflexes, Satoru couldn't dodge this shit.

This isn't just OP—it's story-breaking.

Side note: Yes, its OPness is comparable to Neutral Limitless, where no one can get close to Satoru physically. The thing that marks the difference, though, is that pre-awakened Satoru could get progressively worn out when he activated it without rest. Post-awakened Satoru no longer suffers from that because he learned how to keep his brain fresh with Reversed Curse Technique, 24/7. That's a gained skill and one he practiced after his awakening (albeit the manga did not show us a training montage). Sukuna's Nuh-Uh Take This Space-Slicing Cut, Bitch! existed between Chapter 235 and Chapter 236. The next time we come back to the fight, he's already executed it successfully and killed Satoru off-screen.

.-. . … -

Oh, but power-scaling isn't the one I wanted to talk about the most. All the other brains who give a damn about these things have articulated and explained their puzzlement and displeasure in more clarity and detail than I could ever, and I'm sure more are to come unless Gege's next chapter retroactively makes CH236 make sense (I'm doubtful on this one; Kashimo is already flying in for the fight).

The one I want to talk about is how this poor execution has fumbled the character—this specific dissatisfaction is less addressed at the time of this writing.

.-. . … -

I didn't like Gojo at first. I thought he was as shallow and cocky as the memes made him out to be. I thought he was beloved because he's gorgeous, has a VA with known fanbase, and he's the OP motherfucker setting the ceiling. I love watching people simp for him because it's fun, but I thought he just wasn't someone I wanted to pay attention to. I gleefully partook in Gojo Slanders, especially since I always thought it's fun to riff on characters who are cocky as fuck.

What changed my perception was two things:

I rewatched JJK with my non-anime-watching best friend this March. She needed someone to explain things to her (since she has no prior anime knowledge and trope to help her, and JJK can be a bit hard to get sometimes), so I did. As I explained, I noticed and understood more about the story and Gojo himself, and my tone likely changed without my own awareness. It was noticeable enough that she asked, nonplussed, "Why the hell do you hate Gojo so much? You two share similar beliefs and even some traits!"

Satoru vs Sukuna in the manga. I got into the manga side once I heard he's been released from the Prison Realm; I was soon treated with THIS. And Satoru was just... amazing. The things he pulled off were so cool and shrewd and clever and fun, that it didn't matter when Gege sometimes fumbled and Picasso'd his good looks--he just looked better and better in my eyes.

Both these things combined made me look at him differently. I started reading up on his character analyses—which delighted me because there are so many Gojo analysts out there—and everything I know about him just made me like him more. Just like that, he became my favorite character in JJK, overtaking even Yuta and Nobara and Megumi and Yuji.

I've become completely invested in this motherfucker's character arc and the themes he represented. Most of all, though, I adore him the most when he's acting human. I have a glaring weakness against the Human Alien (the other white-haired character very high on my adoration meter would be To Your Eternity's Fushi), especially when their humanity is one of the focal points.

This means CH236 should have appealed to me. And it really could have. Satoru is being human! He's being vulnerable to his friends! He's even deprecating himself, which is (reasonably) decried as a massive case of OOC—and yet I didn't hate that at all. I always suspect that Satoru is wiser than he pretends to be and that he knows himself better than we were let on. He's cocky because he knows himself that well--and because he knows himself that well, he's secretly not cocky. He knows he always loses at the most important battles. He knows his strength doesn't translate to his goals being met, or his things going his way.

I think Satoru tries to do things he's not expected to do—teach as an educator; save folks, be it sorcerers or normies; protect the weak (one example: look at what he did prior to being sealed. Glorious!); try to be a reformist instead of just leading a coup; tries not to kill anyone who disagrees with him (he let those higher-ups live for quite a while)—because all the things he went through allowed him to know himself, including how little him being good at fighting can achieve. If he doesn't, then he really had no reason to do anything other than fight for the kick of it, right? He would have believed he could achieve anything via pure strength. So him doubting himself? I find it believable. It's nice to see Satoru finally letting his hair down and freely admitting this. It's... well, endearing. Cute, even. /...slaps my own face

Him doubting himself after all the demonstrated feats against Sukuna?! Get the fuck out of here. The fuck is he saying?! Sukuna was the one under pressure the moment they both lost the ability to perform Domain Expansion. Sure, he was banking on Ten Shadows to help him and so he employed risky tactics. Doesn't negate Satoru's tour de force in the slightest, though!

Had it been written more like an uphill battle—instead of Satoru delivering Sukuna's ass so hard the dude had to be denigrated into King of Frauds with Malefunctioning Shrine who repeats the "Mahoraga come oonnnnnnnnn!" tactic for weeks—then few of us other than the most stubborn stans would dispute Satoru for saying something like this. But that wasn't the case. Satoru's "voltage kept rising" even when he felt nervous at one point. If Sukuna had been holding back, and that was why he was so constantly on the verge of defeat, then all it really means is that these two really were equal. NOT one of them being "weaker" than the other. Why would someone who's shown to be enlightened on both his strengths and weaknesses, and is known for being a good judge of character and skills, suddenly be this wrong?

.-. . … -

Then there's the implication, mentioned by Haibara, that Satoru never had any loftier goal than to fight for kicks. Nani the fuck is that?! If that's really all he wanted, then man really went all that unnecessary steps just to do the simplest shit. The fuck is he wasting his time as a teacher? Why did he give a damn about saving normal folks back in Shibuya, instead of just going Unlimited Void and killing all of them, cursed spirits, transfigured humans, and normal people alike? Why did he set his duel with Sukuna at a later date and follow that schedule, instead of, you know—jumping at him right away when Sukuna was only at 15 fingers' strength? Why the need for an unknown-but-months-long preparation?

And of course, why did he call the Principal out in his "afterlife"? Because the latter once mentioned how jujutsu sorcerers all die with regrets? Is Satoru implying that he had no regrets? 'Cause I find it hard to buy.

Is the failure to save Megumi, your adopted son in all but name, NOT a regret?

Is the inability to properly bury Suguru and mourn him NOT a regret?

Is the inability to witness your students becoming stronger and better-than-the-old NOT a regret?

Is the inability to see a reformed jujutsu society—or a world—that has drastically progressed beyond the shadow of the traditionalist and conservative establishment, NOT a regret?

Is the fact that you're leaving an unbeatable monster, who now learned how to cut reality (gee, thanks, Gojo sensei), in the world where your students and surviving colleagues + friends are, NOT a regret?

你满足个锤子啊你 What's there to be satisfied about？！

The reason why I couldn't love the afterlife fluff, despite how appealing Satoru's humanization is to me, is because so many little things in it go against what I know about this character and his progress. What is being said is clashing with what has been shown to us. I just can't wrap my head around it. Suddenly all of those things I thought I knew were wrong or didn't matter. I suddenly find many of the story beats and themes JJK presents transfigured, and I no longer recognize or understand what's being explored here.

Have I been admiring a Gojo Satoru that never existed? Or is CH236's Gojo Satoru the pretender? Is this the sort of effect Mahito's transfiguration inspires in his victims? Because I think I know how it feels now.

---

If I were allowed to cook...

Yuki's dream comes to fruition, and Curse Energy is no more. Satoru's personal ending would be him losing all of his Cursed Energy and techniques along with everyone else. He can keep his eyes, but they sparkle no more.

He can no longer keep things and people at a distance from himself, but it also means that the gap between him and other people has never been smaller. He has experienced being insufficient when it comes to fulfilling his goals, but now he experiences the actual weakness of being "a normal guy". What then is his strength? What will he be good at? Spinning pens? Becoming an idol? Does he already know what his strengths—apart from his now-gone-jujutsu—really are? Or is this the self-deprecating moment he's supposed to have? "Ya know, now that I'm not the strongest, maybe I've got nothin' after all. Heh!"

And it will be up to us readers to judge if he's right.

...

......

...Well, good thing I'm not the cook, because I don't think I did a good job at all, haha! But hey! This isn't my job or my story.

And that's why I'm not hating on Gege.

Maybe the next chapter justifies this chapter. Maybe the future chapters retroactively make this chapter a step in the right direction. Maybe Satoru isn't even dead—maybe he's just temporarily taken out (oh, I've got a lot of copium). Maybe we're gonna witness another Satoru awakening, which I'll enjoy yes, but! Maybe it's Yuta's awakening! Or Yuji's awakening! Why wouldn't it be? These are two of the most selfless characters in JJK. And dude, these two awakenings will be so dope. Wouldn't it be cool if Yuta were the one who awakened so hard he healed his sensei from being 2.5jo Satoru back to 5jo Satoru? Wouldn't it be cool if Yuji awakened so hard that he... became the King of Black Flashes!

And even if Gege did none of that and the whole story moved on from the death of Gojo like it's just another Wednesday or something, and even if JJK just kinda nosedive from there... It's still his story. He can fuck things up in the end and it still won't change the fact that he was the one who created Satoru and those characters we care a shit ton about. I had a lot of fun and brain farts from this series for years, which is even why CH236 is capable of making me feel genuinely disappointed. I'm pretty damn grateful that Gege created this story in the first place!

But that is that, and this is this. I don't want to defend terrible execution in story-writing, and I don't want to rationalize shit as having more depth than it really is. I don't wanna partake in any "why this subversion of expectation is actually genius and you're just too stupid to get it" change-the-narrative campaign. I really don't like how it was executed.

It's not that the character I like died. It's the way it happened.

Thank you for reading my ramble.

#damn this length #I have always been wordy but this is the longest ever yet!#after a night sleep I finally feel like this post needs a bit editing #jjk #jjk spoilers #manga spoilers #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk 236

6 notes · View notes

historyhermann · 1 year

Text

The erasure of records, digitization, and 1990s Hollywood films

Gif of one of the scenes from Hackers (1995)

In the past week, I've watched a number of 1990s Hollywood films, such as Sneakers (1992), Hackers (1995), The Net (1995), and My Fellow Americans (1996), where the "everything's on the computer" state of records, as stated in passing in The Andromeda Strain (1971), has been reached. All of these films share a similar theme: the erasure and change of records (mostly digital), which has an increased relevance as archival institutions continue to digitize more and more of their records, although not everything, as I noted in my post about challenges of archival digitization in late April.

Reprinted from post on my History Hermann WordPress blog and Wayback Machine. Originally posted on May 19, 2019.

Looking at the 1990s films

Let's start with The Net, since it was the first of these films that I watched, computer with bulky hand-held phones and dial-up computers. In this film, Sandra Bullock plays an isolated middle-age White woman (Angela Bassett) who is a "program systems analyst from Los Angeles" who lives most of her life online, talking on chat rooms and ordering pizza. That all changes when she takes a trip to Cessna (before which there is a computer malfunction which screws with flights), Mexico, meets a man who basically seduces her in order to get control of a virus which is on a floppy disk, of all things. This plan fails, however, as she realizes, after literally sleeping with him for some reason, that he wants to kill her, so she gets away in a dingy that crashes on rocks, knocking her unconscious. She wakes up three days later in a hospital and the disk has been destroyed. As she is about to go back into the country, after a record was changed that checked her out of the hotel, she is told to sign a temporary visa document which states that her name is Ruth Marx.

As the movie goes from here, she realizes that her identity has been stolen by an imposter, with the change of records by the villains who want to make profits off their security technology and gain access to every system possible. With this, the movie is a bit of warning that it is very easy for someone to be digitally erased with so much of our lives online, with which you don't even have to spoil the ending. Clearly there are inept secondary characters (police officers, nurses, and jailers), many of whom, like sole archivist Madame Nu in Attack of the Clones think that records are inviolable and cannot be changed. The partially inept villains are even able to kill a few people, like the Undersecretary of Defense by falsifying a report saying he has AIDS and a friend of Bullock's character. At one point, she says that "our whole lives are on the computer, and they knew that I could be vanished. They knew that nobody would care and it wouldn't matter." Later she adds to the inept court-appointed lawyer, who believes in the inviolability of the records in that they cannot be tampered with, to defend her from false charges:

Just think about it. Our whole world is sitting there on a computer. It's in the computer. Everything. Your DMV records, your Social Security... your credit cards, your medical history. It's all right there. Everyone is stored. And there's this little electronic shadow on each of us... just begging for somebody to screw with. They've done it to me, and they're gonna do it to you...I'm not Ruth Marx. They invented her. They put her on your computer with my thumbprint.

There were some similar themes in the 1992 film, Sneakers, which starred Robert Redford. The film focuses around attempts to create a black box which would crack American codes, allowing access to any American security system. In the process, a team tries to steal the box back and one of the characters purchases blueprints from the county recorders office for $50.00, leading the movie to be cited as an example of "the use and portrayal of records in film." [1] With the information from the county recorder's office, and their own observations, they are able to break-in to the company of the villain and get the box, but before it is handed to the NSA of the characters removes the main processing chip.

There is more than that. Redford's character is basically a hacker, as was his friend Cosmo (who is the film's villain) who was arrested and thrown into prison for computer crimes. The black box has a similar power to malicious code in The Net. Again, the focus is that records can easily be changed, or in the case of this movie, mimicked, to certain ends. Like the previously mentioned film, the cast is mostly White, but a bit more diverse in that they have a former Black CIA agent on the team of the "heroes."

There's one other film which has similar themes: Hackers, which features Angelina Jolie in a starring role. It focuses on a group of teen hackers who work to take down a villain who wants to sink a few oil tankers while getting wealthy in the process. In this "cult classic" film, as some places call it, there are computers running on dial-up (like in The Net), huge portable phones, people in some of the nerdiest clothes ever, and moving of information around on...floppy disks! In fact, the virus itself is on a floppy disk.

The altering of records is a key part of this film as well, as the villain alters criminal records of the male protagonist and his mother to list them as criminals, blackmailing him to give up the floppy disk. In the end, this group of hackers, all men except Angelina Jolie's character, and all White except one kid with dreadlocks, sets out to take down the servers of the villain's mega-corporation, succeeding thanks to help from two Japanese hackers and their subsequent "electronic army" of hackers. Somehow they basically get off from their prison sentence thanks to a television broadcast from one of the hackers, which seems strange as he could be utterly lying. As with most movies of this nature, the plot doesn't always completely add up.

Finally, there is a bit of an outlier: the 1996 film, My Fellow Americans. This is perhaps the most hokey film of all, although archives is a main part of this film. Ex-Presidents, played by James Garner and Jack Lemmon, discover a scandal in the current administration. Lemmon discovers that conspirators have altered his official records, at his presidential library archival vault, in order to "erase traces of a meeting." At another time, Mark Lowethal's character goes to the National Archives, finding that the presidential appointment log does not show this meeting. [2] It turns out the culprit behind these changes is the current sitting present, the former vice-president, with his chief of staff being the one whom "doctored the Archives log and the log in Kramer's library."

In this case, the film does not involve the changing of a digital record but only the changing of a paper record. Still, this has a similar theme to the other three movies in that records can be doctored, manipulated, and changed to the benefit of certain individuals. Although, this can be, at times, easier to do with digital records than with paper records. I would also say the theme that records can be changed, erased, or rewritten follows through the Halt and Catch Fire series, along with shows like Mr. Robot, going into its last season this coming fall.

Why do these films matter?

"If I could take all the things that I am, all the feelings I have, all the things that I want, and somehow get them on a computer card, you would be the answer. I don't know why or how you've come along at this particular point in my life. See, that's the magic part. I'm not gonna let you go."- Dr. Sidney Schaefer talks to his girlfriend (who ends up being one of the people who is spying on him) in The President's Analyst, a 1967 film

They matter because more and more of the records held by archival institutions are digital, specifically "born-digital" (like tweets, Facebook posts). Of course, they are a bit dated, as they came out between 1992 and 1996. However, the point that records can be changed and manipulated should be considered. There should be measures in place to make sure that the records, especially digital records, are not tampered with. Perhaps this would require fixity checks, but also could necessitate rules on the usage of records themselves.

At the same time, the archives themselves should not be like the dark and haunting Thatcher Memorial Library in Citizen Kane, which has what some have described as having one of the world's meanest archivists, played by Georgia Backus, with hair up in a bun "and an intimidating stare on her face, a real dragon lady at the gates of knowledge." This is not the type of archives you want to go to! This is not the image which should be projected. [3]

What I have said so far is only scratching the surface. These 1990s movies have standing importance because born-digital files which are entering archives across the world, like some in New Zealand, include "photos, radio broadcasts and documents," requiring appropriate workflows. Margot Note, a prolific writer in this field, described that as a former lone arranger who directed all archival management at an organization she launched a project to digitize a set of records, creating digital surrogates of 2,000 of the collection's best images, adding that such surrogates are superior to past formats like microfilm since they can be delivered through networks "offering enhanced access to simultaneous users around the world." In the same article she advocated the importance of digital collections, saying they grant "valuable remote access to the information contained within the original records" if they are created within the appropriate archival infrastructure, with metadata and search functionality, indexing. She adds that digital collections of archival records can not only provide for "multiple points of access and enhanced image details" but it can allow for more in-depth study than analog originals, increase interest in items which have often been ignored,and it can also act as "an advocacy tool for an archives." She also argues that different types of digital surrogates of records can be created, either for web display, storage, or print reproduction. She ends by saying that while "electronic copies suffer no degradation through the duplication process," a copy of a digital photograph is "indistinguishable from its source" meaning that the "original" loses its meaning, and that with digitized images, "researchers risk losing information that enables them to understand how the image was accessed and how its physicality changed over time." As such, there should be efforts to limit or eliminate such a loss.

But there is another aspect to archival records. Librarian Carrie Wade argued back in December 2018 that information is political with information loss affected by federal funding decisions of research repositories ruining the work of professionals. Similarly in the case of archivists, they should not be completely neutral not only because who "we elect impacts our ability to do our jobs well and the access that people have to information," as she argues, but they literally cannot be neutral as they are human beings with viewpoints, emotions, and thoughts of their own. Building upon this, there are clear archival silences or "gaps in the archival record," with these silences "created and enforced within archives" as a result of practices that are "central to the work of archivists." Digital records, whether born-digital, like social media posts, or digitized paper records, can help bridge this gap. After all, paper or analog records can be digitized in ways that allows access to them through online channels while originals are restricted.

All of this is relevant to the 1990s films I referenced in the first half of this post, as it requires having effective records management programs. The policies regarding records not only in Hackers and The Net, or even My Fellow Americans and Attack of the Clones were clearly outdated, and should be taken as a warning to have correct policies. This also requires taking into account challenges with capturing resources that are born-digital and making it available, effectively curating this information for the user. Furthermore this is important as a major trend in libraries is collection of data to prove their value even though this has its downsides especially when it comes to ethical concerns with data mining and big data, even though this can be useful. At the same time, how material is defined for easy access is a challenge "to every content owner," as is choosing the right metadata, with "important detail work" in this process. The same is the case for finding more "accessible ways for people to find and scan content" and ways to share these "images with your target audience." [4]

Concluding words

All of this ties back, of course, to the classic animated sitcom, Futurama, with its mentions of "technical support," CDs, CD players/CD racks, and floppy disks (some of which are 15-inch). In fact, in one episode, "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" (season 2, episode 15), the last half of the episode is about going into the central bureaucracy to get back a disk with Bender's brain on it, which is floppy disk. Others mention existing government records, databases, a record vault (safe box) and an arrest record. In one episode Fry even declares to Bender that "I'm not a robot like you! I don't like having disks crammed into me" while in another he downloads "a celebrity from the Internet" from a parody of Napster, which is kidnapping celebrities and illegally copying them, with the "backup disk" being a floppy disk. Others focus on big data and concentration of information, digital cameras and operating systems.

I mention all of this because it shows the relevance of record erasure, digital archives, digitization, and the changing digital environment. This requires of course that you don't have "unauthorized data access" like Fry accessing the computer connected to the brain spawn. In the end, while these 1990s Hollywood movies are dated in various ways and problematic in others, they still have relevance connected to present developments of archival institutions in response to new technologies and making records more accessible to online users.

Notes

[1] Kyle Neill, Senior Archivist of the Peel Art Gallery Museum & Archives also argues that there are archival themes in The Dark Knight (2008), The Avengers (1998), Chinatown (1974), and Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (2011).

[2] This reminds me of a major plot point in Thrill Seekers, a 1999 TV movie, where the protagonist finds out that there are people who travel in time (from the future) to disasters and serve as tourists, disgustingly watching people die. In the process, the researcher on staff at a local newspaper, a bit like a records clerk, has databases of newspapers on her computer, which he searches to find information, which she lets him use even though she just met him (not good records management). Ultimately she says that she will go to the National Archives to find the original images, proving that he was not lying about the time travelers. Later, the protagonist goes back and time and saves her. But, I thought I'd just mention this, as the fact she is a bit of a records clerk brings in line with the records clerks in Erin Brocovitch (2000) and Chinatown (1974). The former has a clerk who flirts with a law firm filing clerk (Erin Brocovitch) who uncovers wrongdoings of a water utility company on her three visits to the records office of the Regional Water Board, letting her into "a records storage area, piled high with files, papers and binders, where she proceeds to copy water records," allowing her to complete her work. The latter has a sullen young man who does not like his job, grudgingly providing assistance, with Jack Nicholson's character "tearing out part of a page from a record book by covering the noise with a cough" after he is told he cannot check out the volume.This clerk, as one reviewer puts it, has "a well crafted scene presenting a stereotypical records keeper" with the clerk/archivist as "an impatient, unhelpful civil servant guarding over his records domain who treats the public as trespassers" while the "records are in long aisles in bound volumes." Some have compared Erin Brocovitch to another film with records as central, specifically A Civil Action (1998).

[3] The same goes for Hollywood images of old archivists like in Vampires (1998) where the church archivist is introduced, a "slight, bearded man with glasses" whom is sent along on a quest," in They Might Be Giants (1971) where a wealthy lawyer, who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes, teams up with a psychiatrist "to try to rid the world of evil" and in the process, one person plays an aged archivist who, despite his problems, "does come across as the sanest person in the movie and he finds clues to track down Moriarity," or in Amityville II: The Possession (1982) when a father uses a local archives to find out about a hosue causing trouble for his family, and in the process he is helped by an elderly archivist, a person who says "I've worked here for 25 years." There are other mentions of archives, but without archivists in Arlington Road (1998), Batman Begins (2005), Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), Broken Lullaby (1994), GoldenEye (1995), Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (aka Doppelganger) (1969), L.A. Confidential (1997), Message in a Bottle (1999), Ninth Gate (1999), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2017), Secret Nation (1991) [Canadian film], Shooting the Past (1999), Smila's Sense of Snow (1997), The Dark Knight (2008), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Phantom (1996), and The Shadow (1994). Also, there are said to be flirtatious archivists in Carolina Skeletons (1991) and Just Cause (1995), along with helpful ones (either initially or ultimately) in Cloud Atlas (2012), Deceived (1991), Quatermass and the Pitt (1967), The Fugitive (1993), and The Mask of Dimitrios (1944). There are also a number of films which have archivists in the background: Charlton-Brown of the F.O. (1959), Macaroni (1986), Red (2010), Ridicule (1996), Rollerball (1975), and The Age of Stupid (2009), and those that are said to have nasty or mean archivists: Blade (1998), In the Name of the Father (1993), Scream 3 (2000), The Nasty Girl [Das Schreckliche Madchen] (1990), and The Watermelon Woman (1996). Please, do not constitute this as an endorsement of any of these films, as likely they are mostly terrible.

[4] Also see articles about how libraries lead with digital skills and a cryptic finding aid.

#sneakers #hackers #the net #my fellow americans #the andromeda strain #libraries #archives #pop culture #floppy disc #halt and catch fire #mr. robot

44 notes · View notes