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utilitycaster · 3 months

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The thing I've realized, in the broader Actual Play space, is that a lot of creators are trying to turn Actual Play shows into TV shows.

You mentioned Kollok in your tags, and the creator of that has mentioned creating Kollok in a way to try to appeal to the Netflix audience.

And I'm all for experimentation, but tbh if I wanted to watch a TV show, I would go watch a TV show. That's not what I'm looking for in an Actual Play and over editing and gimmicks actively turn me off from it.

Folks creating Actual Play seem to put a lot of weight on it, but I don't know if it's that important from an audience perspective.

Hey anon,

Huge same - I've been thinking about this for a while, especially in regards to choices I didn't like (notably on D20, though the Candela split screen in chapter 3, while relatively minor, felt like part of the same trend and I'm really interested in seeing whether they keep it). I actually did mean to write more about this not in the tags of a reblog, so thanks for this ask because it gives me that motivation to do it!

Earlier this year I was at an event and someone who to be totally honest I found kind of annoying was talking about Dimension 20, and I decided to keep quiet and listen to what other people had to say, and another person (whom I respect and specifically know to be like, left-leaning and inclusive and not gatekeeper dudebro type, which is relevant to the next statement) who is solidly in Gen X and has been playing D&D since at least 2e mentioned that he doesn't like Actual Play at all because he is from the era where D&D was frequently played in third person and is somewhat of a purist in that sense. Ie, this guy would say "Gawain pulls out his sword and smites the dragon, with a 24 to hit", rather than "I'm going to pull out my sword and smite the dragon." He described his idea of D&D as being very much collaborative storytelling in the sense of a bunch of third person narrators who happen to be the storytellers for one specific character, not a first-person acted scene.

I happen to like both forms of narration and am not a purist either way, and indeed use both third person and first person myself as a player (as do many actual players; you see this on CR and D20 all the time). But I think this does show just how broad this spectrum is. You have people all the way on the "I am narrating an improvised story, I am the storyteller puppeting my character and I am not trying to be immersed" side and then you have shows that are trying to push this into full immersion...but so long as you have dice rolls, you'll never achieve it.

I prefer something in between: I do love watching people act, but I really like the gears and wires! I love mechanics! I think people who say "I love actual play D&D but I don't really care for combat, only RP" don't actually like actual play D&D! This is a specific format and I do not want people to hide the fact that they are using the rules of a game and are at a table, because they are and we know it.

This came up when I and others talked about the Legend of Vox Machina adaptation: they're probably going to have to find a way to convey the same tragedy and gravity of Scanlan's ninth level counterspell that doesn't require viewers to know the mechanics, because if you watch that scene as actual play the meaning of Sam saying "Nine" is immediately apparent. It hits hard with that one single word, but that won't be the case in an animated adaptation where no one is rolling a D20. Mechanics are in intrinsic part of actual play. You can enjoy actual play without that knowledge, but a solid grounding in those mechanics will only enhance that enjoyment (well, unless you're one of those rules-lawyery weirdos who gets bitter about any GM rule of cool/homebrew that they couldn't predict from the rulebooks but those people will never be happy).

The more general context of "being in a game", not just mechanics, is also in my opinion valuable. Brennan, on a Worlds Beyond Number fireside chat, referred to certain NPCs like Caramelinda as "furious that they are in a D&D game" and it's a funny and true statement. I feel like trying to push actual play into the realm of scripted shows is that: it feels like you're trying to hide the origins, and I think the quality of the show will ultimately suffer when you do that. It feels almost ashamed of what it is, and I don't think you can make something that transforms a medium/genre/thing in between the two without having a profound love and respect for the original, even if you also find it flawed. (This is also, tbh, how I feel about a lot of attempts to divorce D&D from the fact that it is ultimately a game influenced heavily by sword-and-sorcery fantasy, or about attempts to turn high or heroic fantasy into something that neatly affirms all of one's 2024 real world political beliefs, but that's another post).

I also think that the out-of-character element of actual play is a big draw. I have been open about having complicated feelings about the parasocial and projection aspects; but those feelings are "hey, this is still a show that is a source of livelihood, you are not hanging out in someone's living room and getting weird about the fact that the CR cast no longer responds to every tweet is dumb" and "you have not been betrayed by the creators because you didn't get the plot you wanted," and "the fact that two actors sit next to each other is not, in fact, a solid basis for shipping." I am equally opposed to the idea of "the actors do not exist, only the characters do," put forward in that attempt to make actual play Netflix-ready. It's fun to watch the CR cast rib Travis for turning bright red for, as people said, pretend kissing his real wife. It's fun to watch the Intrepid Heroes heckle Brennan when he plays a villain. It's fun to hear Aabria and Erika scream at WBN plot developments and for the McElroys or the NADDPod crew to wheeze with laughter and all of these shows but CR are to a degree edited, and all leave that element in, which I think says something really important about what actual play is understood to be!

It does not escape me that the seasons/shows using heavier camera edits have often, in my opinion, sacrificed story quality for a visual style I don't even care for. I do watch prestige television, and one of the more striking cinematographic choices I've seen lately are the extremely long single take shots used on both Succession's final season (Connor's Wedding, 4x03) and The Bear's first season (Review, 1x07). Prestige TV is not doing the glitchy Neverafter stuff. Hell, I liked Sagas of Sundry: Dread and never finished Madness before it went offline and haven't made an effort to seek it out specifically because the black box theater feel of Dread felt fun and new but not too removed from actual play vibes, whereas the higher production values of Madness, ironically, made it feel too artificial and stilted to keep my interest.

Actual play is its own beast, and in trying to appeal to a new audience you're probably going to lose a lot of the one you have. A big part of why I haven't been motivated to check out Kollok is that everything I hear about it, even positive reviews, makes it sound like it's missing the things I like from actual play and doesn't achieve the level of scripted shows. Honestly I think the REAL answer here is that if you want to find a space between a Netflix drama and an Actual Play show, ditch the rules and make stuff like Midst, which is as discussed inspired by ttrpg/actual play spaces, but is broadly plotted out in advance. I think that approach can combine the best of both worlds, whereas I feel as though attempting to be a Netflix show will usually spend so much time trying to hide the fact that there's a table there that it will detract from the actual story.

#answered #Anonymous #i should probably watch an ep of kollok before passing full judgment #but like...god. everything i hear about it makes me go oh god they massacred my boy #long post #on actual play

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thequeenofthewinter · 3 months

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Work-in-Progress Wednesday

Today, a letter from Rikke to Galmar because why not?

Tagging, but as always, you are under no obligation: @oblivions-dawn @dirty-bosmer @bougainvillea-and-saltwater @tallmatcha @skyrim-forever @bostoniangirl21 @vivifriend @umbracirrus @sylvienerevarine @stormbeyondreality @fallen-chances @ladytanithia

Galmar,

I hope this letter finds you well and that everything is going to plan back in Windhelm as I can certainly tell you things have changed in Cyrodiil. While I know that we all knew what was coming, I don’t think anyone could have prepared us for what I have seen here—and what we will see in the future. I’ll try to keep things as brief as possible in the interest of time and possible Thalmor spies.

They’re here, and they’re everywhere, but that isn’t something you don’t already know. Don’t roll your eyes at me. I can see you doing that through this parchment clear as day. What I mean to say is that they are here in a manner which are so engrained into normal life that in some ways you wouldn’t expect it: a merchant walking down the street wearing the newest Summerset trends all trimmed in fanciful needlework, a couple sitting on a park bench in Talos Plaza enjoying highly-tariffed imported confections, or even the gravedigger with neatly-manicured fingernails.

No one does those things anymore.

Then, there are the ways you do expect. The puppet Elder Council all handpicked and placed there by Alinor. The air of oppression that is here here—a thick fog which would have Ulfric tossing and turning in his bed at night if he could feel it. I, for one, am glad he is not here. He should not have to experience this again.

Everything feels exactly as it did before Red Ring, where the air is so dense that I can barely breathe. As if something is coming, waiting to break over us at any second and with one false move everything will come tumbling down. I know it. You’d know it too if you were here. This is exactly what the Empire was trying to avoid in the first place, but perhaps it was already here just hiding under the surface. Divines know I am tired of asking myself this same question every night.

However, not everything is negative. Do you know what else there is? Hope. That same small shining beacon of determination which led us to hold the city all those years ago. It’s still here, burning bright as dragon fire. I have spoken to some of those who remain here. Our mission was successful. There are people here—regular, normal, everyday people who are ready to fight…and there are also some old contacts who are ready to take arms. What other option is there when we know what is coming? We were the ones there the first time, and we are the only ones who know that they’re capable of. I don’t know about you, but over my dead body will I allow this to happen again. There was too much carnage and too much loss. For better or worse with Ulfric in charge, I will finish what we started or see you in Sovngarde.

Take care and take caution. As I said, everything appears to be calm and stable on the outside, but the Aldmeri Dominion’s specialty is patience…and distraction. I don’t know when they’ll strike or when I’ll be coming home, but what I do know is that I’ll be waiting for you.

Yours,

Rikke

#skyrim #skyrim fanfiction #legate rikke #galmar stone fist #ulfric stormcloak #in the background but he's always there who are we kidding?#winter writes #wip Wednesday

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citadelofmythoughts · 3 months

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Fandoms of media long since finished are still thriving. Some grow slow and then pick up speed. Here on tumblr nbc Hannibal still trends despite the show having ended ten years ago. It’s sad. I wanted to cry at work today because despite the bad parts RT was part of my life since I was 15. I had my first relationship because of it. I’ve come across so many talented and passionate fans bc of rwby (you being one of them). So I’m sad. Not just about the state of the show but for all the people who Clearly didn’t know this was going to happen. Like they were just talking about the new camp camp season and rwby beyond and the stinky dragon puppet show. So many people have lost their jobs with no warning and that sucks so bad. But as for us? We have each other. I’ll probably see if I can buy the blue rays of the show bc online media loves to be nuked from the internet. But we are passionate and we have love for the show and crwby and something ending in production doesn’t mean all that we gained and grew and loved goes away.

I’m sad today. But I’m grateful to have been there for it. And I’m wishing so much that everyone finds a job that respects them and treats them fairly.

I’m also wishing for the death of monolithic corporations and for smaller studios in the arts to thrive again so that many more people can work their passions without fear of being swallowed and then discarded again

(Not saying early RT was peefect this last bit is just about big companies in German since RT is far from the last place to do sudden massive layoffs)

I hope all those who are losing their jobs have soft landings and I can't thank CRWBY enough for the magic that is RWBY.

I've seen more than one person say that it's changed their life and I'm no different. It's inspired me, uplifted me. It's been a refuge when the world was horrible. I've become a much better writer because I wanted to play in the sandbox they gave us.

I'm not without hope. Hope sustains us. RWBY is built around the concept. So, someday, hopefully not too far in the distant future it might return.

Until then, I'm still gonna play in the fertile fields that Monty planted for us.

And Warner Brothers can rot in hell. I'm never touching a single one of their properties ever again.

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elexuscal · 7 months

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i love all the Ratatouille posts and parodies we've been having for the last couple of years

and i think they're so funny as a trend cuz like

you watch family tv shows and films as a kid right? and you have no basis for what's realistic and what's not realistic, not really. you only learned what 'ambulances' were last week. and as you get older you get more of a sense that fiction is made up, that these stories not only didn't happen, but probably (probably) can't happen.

but here's the thing; while children's media is often fantastical, it's a predictable type of fantastical. what if a young kid (just like you!) was selected to go on a dangerous quest? what if there were monsters that only you could defeat? what if you and your fellow kids were going on secret adventures that your parents had no idea about? what if animals could actually talk, and their stories taught you lessons about what it means to be a person? like, that last one especially is an ancient human tradition.

so as a kid you watch this film. Ratatouille. it's about a Normal Human Guy who needs help as a restaurant chef. okay. it's also about a talking rat. okay! and the rat loves to cook so he can help the human with that! yes this all makes sense!

and their combined solution is "the rat will hide under the guy's hat and control him like a giant human puppet".

and as a kid you're like: sure why not. this is exactly as weird (or not weird) as talking toasters and friendly dragons and dancing lions.

and then you grow up

and you think about it

and you go

what the actual fuck.

#ratatouille

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saltminerising · 1 year

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Submitting some activities for while the blog is paused! (If this is allowed. If not, feel free to delete it, mins!)

Redo or fancy up your bios with one of the many tools in Dragon Bio Resources: Comprehensive (or the plethora of other linked resources)

Express your salt in collage form using newspaper/magazine/etc clippings and a gluestick

No seriously when was the last time you did arts and crafts. get silly with it have fun. I'm listing more arts and crafts now.

Make Bead Lizards that match your beloved dragons

I had no idea this was a tiktok trend because I don't use that but make paper puppets of your dragons

Be cringe and free. Make up themed recipes for your dragons, whether it be little picrew drinks or tea blends or whatnot.

Idk have fun. it's a salt blog going down for a rules update it's not a big deal. let the mins rest and take their time updating things

#art tag 🏷#submission

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bonesandthebees · 1 year

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So Roses. First of all I love me some royalty au’s. Especially, with succession struggles. So when you do get around to writing it, it will eat that shit up. That’s also what instantly hooked me on Stars royalty + space.

Anyway, you are once again creating an speaking story simply by flipping the overdone dynamics around. I can’t speak for Techno or Tommy, but so far none of SBI are royalty. It’s very fun to see Phil as the royal advisor (who definitely has his own agenda with all the secret messages). I do think he has a lot more power than you would think. He got his way very easily with Sam. Like he basically got permission to make the decision.

I’m gonna be honest, I was expecting Phil to try and push Wilbur as a potential heir, but I think he’s more trying to set up a puppet king situation. Like he wants Quackity at the palace because if he does become heir he’s more likely to take Wilbur as his advisor if he already knows him. Also I feel like the tnt duo is going to be off the charts in this story. It feels like it’s going to be childhood friends/rivals maybe both.

And then there’s Sam. Sam who doesn’t want to get married because he has Ponk, even if he could get married and keep him. I do think that’s very sweet, but that action has consequences. We’ll enjoy the fallout.

-🌲

YEAHHH ngl spruce I was excited to post this partially bc i knew you were gonna be so game for it lmao

oh yeah phil's definitely got way more power than you'd think he would. the inspo for sandduo in this au came from house of the dragon actually, and while this won't make sense if you haven't seen it, at one point I was like "man what if Otto Hightower wasn't a total dick to Alicent and she was actually into his scheming and the two worked together when she was younger they'd be a very powerful father daughter duo" and then the idea of 'advisor to the king phil who has so many schemes of his own going on + wilbur his son working with him and learning from him' popped into my head. (that's where the inspo ends tho bc like. there aren't gonna be any marriage manipulation plots in this fic lol)

sam is not really a... forceful king to be honest. he relies a lot on phil for his advice, and the Consil's role also includes taking over for the king if he's sick or unavailable at a certain time. so the Consil is essentially the second most powerful person in the kingdom. also related to what you said at the end, he doesn't want to get married because he has ponk yes, but it's going to cause a lot of fallout. he doesn't really care though. when it comes to running the kingdom, he's more than happy to let phil do the hard stuff for him. but he has one line and he's gonna draw it there, succession crisis be damned

the thing is, wilbur as a potential heir would never work. because this is based (albeit loosely) off medieval royalty politics, which were all about blood. wilbur and phil don't have any blood ties to the royal family. wilbur could never be an heir because he's not blood-related to sam, unlike niki who is sam's cousin, and quackity who is his nephew. so yeah, that's off the table so what's phil gonna go for instead? second best option :)

ohhhh the tntduo is gonna be so fun in this fic. the main wilbur relationships I think I'm gonna focus on are (in no particular order): rainduo, crimeboys, tntduo, and sandduo (with a healthy dose of sweaterduo too)

you guys have no idea how much I've been brainrotting this I spent a ridiculous amount of time the other day figuring out what historical fashion trends are gonna be present in this hand wavy alternate universe medieval but not medieval era. I'm in DEEP

#ask #spruce anon #the roses of childhood

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babylonbirdmeat · 6 months

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People always assume if you use TikTok you know anything about the trends and I do NOT

We've curated our feed to a blend of weird horror, goths, dragon puppets, genuine science educators, and ear-slaughtering music I cannot tell you what the new dance is, I've seen people tell dragon stories set to Crystal Castles songs that were DEEP FUCKING CUTS in 2012 tho

#hare.pdf

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aminaascericworld · 8 months

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ammonitetheseaserpent · 8 months

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Hello I’ve recently discovered a new topic that’s begun to pull me in

And that is

Paper dragon puppets (I don’t use tiktok at all but this is my favorite trend no contest)

And I’d like to ask: what kinds of paper would be best for making them?

Cause I’m thinking stuff along the lines of, like… cardstock, construction paper - how good are those for making dragons?

#art question #art questions #random snippets of my day #arts and crafts

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carnival-core · 1 year

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Not my demo of internet trends so I don't go out of my way to watch em but can I say that paper dragon trend I see kids on like yt shorts doing is genuinely rlly cool . It's fun seeing puppetry amd puppet making come back in a way thats accessible to a lot of younger ppl and able to let em be like rlly creative

#behind the tent #idk where the trend even came from #Despite prob being too old the temptation to make one is there honestly

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brn1029 · 2 years

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Time for your Rock Report

Elton John and ABBA recently shared an incredible mash-up of "Chiquitita" and "Bennie and the Jets" on TikTok.

"Heard about this little mashup of Bennie and the Jets with @ABBA and had to get involved," Elton captioned the video, adding the hashtags "#piano #bennieandthejets #abba #eltonjohn #remix #pop #chiquitita"

ABBA's official TikTok account also shows the video with the caption, "Heard that 'Chiquitita' was trending again…with @Elton John!" The clip shows Benny Andersson playing the iconic intro to ABBA's 1979 hit "Chiquitita" on a black grand piano in what appears to be a studio. Elton then appears onscreen, sitting at a brown piano and launching into the intro to his 1973 hit "Bennie and the Jets" before flashing a wide grin.

Metallica have teamed up with "Stranger Things<" to launch a new line of "Hellfire Club"-themed merchandise.

The metal icons' 1986 track "Master Of Puppets" soundtracked a scene in the finale of the Netflix show's fourth season. In the final episode of the 4th season, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) plays the song on guitar to distract hundreds of demonic bats as his friends attack the villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).

Munson is the leader of the "Hellfire Club," a Dungeons & Dragons group at Hawkins High.

"Eddie, this one's for you," Metallica wrote to announce the new merch line. "We're having the most metal meeting ever of The Hellfire Club so we're scouting out 'lost sheep' and outsiders to join. Do you think you have what it takes? Then suit up."

Poison frontman Bret Michaels has revealed that the band aren't likely to embark on another tour until 2025. However, he also teased his fans about an upcoming solo tour. Speaking to radio host Eddie Trunk for his SiriusXM show, "Trunk Nation," Michaels said, "I'm just saying '25 is probably when Poison will put a humongous world tour together and go back out and be incredible. And it'll be awesome." Poison are currently part of the The Stadium Tour, a co-headlining North American tour by British rock band Def Leppard and American rock band Mötley Crüe. The tour is set to conclude in September this year. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are also part of the tour. The Stadium Tour was announced on December 4, 2019, and was set to take place in the summer of 2020. It was later announced that the tour would be rescheduled for 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tour was once again pushed back to 2022 due to the same circumstances.

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halo20601 · 2 years

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"Luz, the Warlock" (Yet, another "The Owl House" AU my brain cooked up.)

So, I have been thinking about this since the “The Collector possessing Luz” theory started trending. Instead of The Collector straight-up taking over Luz’s body and using her as a meat puppet, what if they make a mutually beneficial pact. Like what Warlocks do with demons and other ancient eldritch beings in “Dungeon & Dragons.”

The Collector will allow Luz to use their power, and in return, Luz must do something for them. So long as they grant her permission, Luz could cast magic like any witch or demon on the Boiling Isles. Or even more potent given how ancient The Collector appears to be. Also, I imagine their relationship being like Eddie Brock and Venom or Steven Grant and Marc Spector. Whenever Luz is in over her head, The Collector can take over to protect her and themselves with Luz's permission. And imagine the comedic writing since Luz is the only one who can hear The Collector.

This also ties into my theory on Oracle Magic in the show. Since we know little about it, I theorize that the witch or demon must make a pact with a metaphysical being to tap into the magic. The “healthier” the agreement is, and considering the being’s innate power, the stronger the magic. Selene, the “Moon Girl,” summoned a spirit to fight against Willow off-screen in “The First Day.” Meanwhile, Odalia Blight only seems to be capable of telepathy. (Okay, so I'm wrong about Odalia only having telepathy, but I still think the pacts made affect the strength of the Oracle.)

Between Bipper and Darcy, it would be refreshing to see a mutually beneficial relationship between the possessor and the possessed. This became more of a ramble, and less of an AU, but it was something I wanted to share.

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autobots-and-their-crazy-kids · 3 years

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SAD VENGEFUL TIME TRAVELER RID STARSCREAM HEADCANONS:

For those that don’t know; VENGEFUL TIME TRAVELER RID STARSCREAM AU was a trend on tumblr (although some of the posts from other accounts got deleted) about RID Starscream going crazy and traveling back in time to get revenge on everyone in TFP, sometimes teaming up with TFP Starscream... although TFP Star later leaves (after RID Star’s craziness becomes to much to handle), to either join the Autobots or create his own team with Knockout and Breakdown...

*RID Star has tons of mental health issues, including insanity, bipolar disorder and PTSD (although he will angrily deny the PSTD)...

*After escaping from prison and before time traveling when he created the machine, RID Star has trained for countless years by killing giant organic lifeforms (including dragons that look similar to Predaking) to make himself stronger as well as conquering his past fears...

*After Unicron’s corruption and the time traveling, RID Star hates EVERYTHING and blames EVERYONE for his suffering in the previous timeline, while refusing to accept his share of the responsibility for how horribly things went for him or that he truly has no right to take his anger out on two worlds... he believes that his past mistakes were how weak, cowardly and sometimes stupid he was back then... he honestly doesn’t see his cruelty as a mistake...

*TFP Star and Unicron are the only ones that RID Star likes (in a dark and twisted way), RID views his past self as a weak and pathetic child that needs his advice, guidance and protection (although ironically enough, this leads to TFP deciding to take a different heroic path, so he doesn’t end up like RID)... while with Unicron, they both want the same goals (to destroy Cybertron and Earth) so Unicron doesn’t need to control RID all that much...

*When the Autobots learn about who RID Star truly is from TFP Star (who joins them), they all feel guilty in some way (especially Optimus Prime) because if their alternate timeline selves had given RID Star a true chance... and showed him the compassion that Megatron never did... then he probably wouldn’t have ended up Unicron’s willing puppet...

*RID Star goes absolutely berserk whenever somebody (even TFP Star) compares him to Megatron or says that he’s worse then the Warlord...

*RID Star secretly hates himself and is jealous/confused that TFP Star got a chance to have a better life, when he never did in his original previous timeline...

#starscream #megatron #Unicron #optimus #bumblebee #tfp #rid #Transformers Prime #robots in disguise #autobot starscream #predaking

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the-broken-truth · 3 years

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Introducing: The 4 Protective Children of the Village Lords/The Young Lords

Broken Truth: Once again, @snowflakestree has outdone themself with the art of the Four Protective Children of the Village Lords. It's obvious everyone likes them so I think it would be best to make it a series and to do that, I shall give them names! Please welcome:

Snowwy's Art of the 4 Young Lords & Their Parents: Link

Eliza Dimitrescu: Daughter of Alcina Dimitrescu

Following the 'A-B-C-D-E' Trend that Alcina started. Eliza is the youngest of the Dimitrescu Daughters - dark brown hair & emerald green eyes, along with a golden necklace with a sapphire blue gem. At infancy, she was implanted with a fragment of the Cadou that Mother Miranda used on Alcina, giving her the same ability as the castle's owner - The Dragon's Claws; but her version looks just like a dragon's claw instead of insanely long blades. Unlike her sisters - she doesn't turn into flies and can stand freezing temperatures, but that doesn't stop her sisters from making sure she's dressed in her heavy winter cloak and her scar before going outside. During her travels, she will hear of people disrespecting her mother and sisters - she will not hesitate to sever their heads from their bodies.

Diedre Beneviento: Daughter of Donna Beneviento

A perfect carbon copy of the Head of House Beneviento with her long black hair, black eyes, pale skins, and love for dolls; or in her case, puppets, seeing as she sees herself as a puppeteer. Just like her mother can control the environment around a person with her pollen and Cadou presence, Diedre has an ability of her own: The Puppeteer's Strings - Red Mental Link lines comes from the tips of her fingers and connect to a person's head, hands, and feet, allowing her to control them completely as if they were a wooden puppet. Diedre would sometimes hear her mother crying over her appearance and words of the villagers so one day - she took her mother's veil and Angie to pose as her to hear these words for herself and when she did, she removed the veil and smiled like a madwoman at the people. "So, you all have chosen death." was what she said before she strung up the first person she saw with strings and made everyone watch as she twisted their limbs in horrible ways. She made her little project - little raven and crow puppets to scavenger the village to catch anyone speaking badly about her mother.

Sebastian Moreau: Son of Salvatore Moreau

Red Hair- with pale skin including random spots where patches of blue scales rested on his body, mainly seen on his face, forearms, and shins - eyes of crimson, same as his hair. This boy loves his father more than life itself and would do anything to please his father. When Sebastian was 13, Salvatore told him the truth of his birth - about how he saved a baby thrown into his reservoir by horrible humans and gave the baby his blood so that the baby would live; all that did was make the boy love his father more. When Sebastian turned 17, his father gave him a rather baggy handmade cloak to keep him warm when he was walking around the village with the crest of House Moreau on the back; Sebastian wears that cloak with pride and will not hesitate to dissolve anyone who speaks down upon his father. After all - he did almost kill his uncle when he called his father a freak & made it clear he would do it and lose a wink of sleep after the deed was done.

Kaleb Heisenberg: Son of Karl Heisenberg

A true copy of the 4th lord - Long grey hair that he keeps tied in a back ponytail, brown eyes, scars riddling his face and arms from working in the factory with his father since and young age, brown button-up shirt with a bright red tie with the sleeves round-up to show the scars on his arms with black jeans and boots; what's more, he wears a hat and long trench coat jacket just like his father but prefers to wear his over his shoulders like a cape of some kind. Oh, and he's a cocky asshole as well. He will instantly agree with his father, regardless of the topic, he's loud and rowdy to point the other Young Lords don't like being around him cause he makes their ears hurt, but he is their cousin and family everything.

#resident evil 8 #alcina dimitrescu #donna beneviento #salvatore moreau #karl heisenberg #The Four Protective Children of the Lords #The Young Lords

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Blurring the Line.

As a new Space Jam film beams down to Earth, Kambole Campbell argues that a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium is what it takes to make a great live-action/animation hybrid.

The live-action and animation hybrid movie is something of a dicey prospect. It’s tricky to create believable interaction between what’s real and what’s drawn, puppeteered or rendered—and blending the live and the animated has so far resulted in wild swings in quality. It is a highly specific and technically demanding niche, one with only a select few major hits, though plenty of cult oddities. So what makes a good live-action/animation hybrid?

To borrow words from Hayao Miyazaki, “live action is becoming part of that whole soup called animation”. Characters distinct from the humans they interact with, but rendered as though they were real creatures (or ghosts), are everywhere lately; in Paddington, in Scooby Doo, in David Lowery’s (wonderful) update of Pete’s Dragon.

The original ‘Pete’s Dragon’ (1977) alongside the 2016 remake.

Lowery’s dragon is realized with highly realistic lighting and visual-effects work. By comparison, the cartoon-like characters in the 1977 Pete’s Dragon—along with other films listed in Louise’s handy compendium of Disney’s live-action animation—are far more exaggerated. That said, there’s still the occasional holdout for the classical version of these crossovers: this year’s Tom and Jerry replicating the look of 2D through 3D/CGI animation, specifically harkens back to the shorts of the 1940s and ’50s.

One type of live-action/animation hybrid focuses on seamless immersion, the other is interested in exploring the seams themselves. Elf (2003) uses the aberration of stop-motion animals to represent the eponymous character as a fish out of water. Ninjababy, a Letterboxd favorite from this year’s SXSW Festival, employs an animated doodle as a representation of the protagonist’s state of mind while she processes her unplanned pregnancy.

Meanwhile, every Muppets film ever literally tears at the seams until we’re in stitches, but, for the sake of simplicity, puppets are not invited to this particular party. What we are concerned with here is the overlap between hand-drawn animation and live-action scenes (with honorable mentions of equally valid stop-motion work), and the ways in which these hybrids have moved from whimsical confections to nod-and-wink blockbusters across a century of cinema.

Betty Boop and Koko the clown in a 1938 instalment of the Fleischer brothers’ ‘Out of the Inkwell’ series.

Early crossovers often involve animators playing with their characters, in scenarios such as the inventive Out of the Inkwell series of shorts from Rotoscope inventor Max Fleischer and his director brother Dave. Things get even more interactive mid-century, when Gene Kelly holds hands with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh.

The 1960s and ’70s deliver ever more delightful family fare involving human actors entering cartoon worlds, notably in the Robert Stevenson-directed Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Chuck Jones’ puntastic The Phantom Tollbooth.

Jerry and Gene dance off their worries in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ (1945).

Mary Poppins is one of the highest-rated live-action/animation hybrids on Letterboxd for good reason. Its sense of control in how it engages with its animated creations makes it—still!—an incredibly engaging watch. It is simply far less evil than the singin’, dancin’ glorification of slavery in Disney’s Song of the South (1946), and far more engaging than Victory Through Air Power (1943), a war-propaganda film about the benefits of long-range bombing in the fight against Hitler. The studio’s The Reluctant Dragon (1941) also serves a propagandistic function, as a behind-the-scenes studio tour made when the studio’s animators were striking.

By comparison, Mary Poppins’ excursions into the painted world—replicated in Rob Marshall’s belated, underrated 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns—are full of magical whimsicality. “Films have added the gimmick of making animation and live characters interact countless times, but paradoxically none as pristine-looking as this creation,” writes Edgar in this review. “This is a visual landmark, a watershed… the effect of making everything float magically, to the detail of when a drawing should appear in front or the back of [Dick] Van Dyke is a creation beyond my comprehension.” (For Van Dyke, who played dual roles as Bert and Mr Dawes Senior, the experience sparked a lifelong love of animation and visual effects.)

Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and penguins, in ‘Mary Poppins’ (1964).

Generally speaking, and the Mary Poppins sequel aside, more contemporary efforts seek to subvert this feeling of harmony and control, instead embracing the chaos of two worlds colliding, the cartoons there to shock rather than sing. Henry Selick’s frequently nightmarish James and the Giant Peach (1996) leans into this crossover as something uncanny and macabre by combining live action with stop motion, as its young protagonist eats his way into another world, meeting mechanical sharks and man-eating rhinos. Sally Jane Black describes it as “riding the Burton-esque wave of mid-’90s mall goth trends and blending with the differently demonic Dahl story”.

Science-classroom staple Osmosis Jones (2001) finds that within the human body, the internal organs serve as cities full of drawn white-blood-cell cops. The late Stephen Hillenburg’s The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004) turns its real-life humans into living cartoons themselves, particularly in a bonkers sequence featuring David Hasselhoff basically turning into a speedboat.

David Hasselhoff picks up speed in ‘The Spongebob Squarepants Movie’ (2004).

The absurdity behind the collision of the drawn and the real is never better embodied than in another of our highest-rated live/animated hybrids. Released in 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit shows off a deep understanding—narratively and aesthetically—of the material that it’s parodying, seeking out the impeccable craftsmanship of legends such as director of animation Richard Williams (1993’s The Thief and the Cobbler), and his close collaborator Roy Naisbitt. The forced perspectives of Naisbitt’s mind-bending layouts provide much of the rocket fuel driving the film’s madcap cartoon opening.

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Roger Rabbit utilizes the Disney stable of characters as well as the Looney Tunes cast to harken back to America’s golden age of animation. It continues a familiar scenario where the ’toons themselves are autonomous actors (as also seen in Friz Freleng’s 1940 short You Ought to Be in Pictures, in which Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to try his acting luck in the big studios).

Daffy Duck plots his rise up the acting ranks in ‘You Ought to Be in Pictures’ (1940).

Through this conceit, Zemeckis is able to celebrate the craft of animation, while pastiching both Chinatown, the noir genre, and the mercenary nature of the film industry (“the best part is… they work for peanuts!” a studio exec says of the cast of Fantasia). As Eddie Valiant, Bob Hoskins’ skepticism and disdain towards “toons” is a giant parody of Disney’s more traditional approach to matching humans and drawings.

Adult audiences are catered for with plenty of euphemistic humor and in-jokes about the history of the medium. It’s both hilarious (“they… dropped a piano on him,” one character solemnly notes of his son) and just the beginning of Hollywood toying with feature-length stories in which people co-exist with cartoons, rather than dipping in and out of fantasy sequences. It’s not just about how the cartoons appear on the screen, but how the human world reacts to them, and Zemeckis gets a lot of mileage out of applying ’toon lunacy to our world.

Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ (1988).

The groundbreaking optical effects and compositing are excellent (and Hoskins’ amazing performance should also be credited for holding all of it together), but what makes Roger Rabbit such a hit is that sense of controlled chaos and a clever tonal weaving of violence and noirish seediness (“I’m not bad… I’m just drawn that way”) through the cartoony feel. And it is simply very, very funny.

It could be said that, with Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis unlocked the formula for how to modernize the live-action and animation hybrid, by leaning into a winking parody of what came before. It worked so perfectly well that it helped kickstart the ‘Disney renaissance' era of animation. Roger Rabbit has influenced every well-known live-action/animation hybrid produced since, proving that there is success and fun to be had by completely upending Mary Poppins-esque quirks. Even Disney’s delightful 2007 rom-com Enchanted makes comedy out of the idea of cartoons crossing that boundary.

When a cartoon character meets real-world obstacles.

Even when done well, though, hybrids are not an automatic hit. Sitting at a 2.8-star average, Joe Dante’s stealthily great Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) is considered by the righteous to be the superior live-action/animated Looney Tunes hybrid, harkening back to the world of Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin. SilentDawn states that the film deserves the nostalgic reverence reserved for Space Jam: “From gag to gag, set piece to set piece, Back in Action is utterly bonkers in its logic-free plotting and the constant manipulation of busy frames.”

With its Tinseltown parody, Back in Action pulls from the same bag of tricks as Roger Rabbit; here, the Looney Tunes characters are famous, self-entitled actors. Dante cranks the meta comedy up to eleven, opening the film with Matthew Lillard being accosted by Shaggy for his performance in the aforementioned Scooby Doo movie (and early on throwing in backhanded jokes about the practice of films like itself as one character yells, “I was brought in to leverage your synergy!”).

Daffy Duck with more non-stop banter in ‘Looney Tunes: Back in Action’ (2003).

Back in Action is even more technically complex than Roger Rabbit, seamlessly bringing Looney Tunes physics and visual language into the real world. Don’t forget that Dante had been here before, when he had Anthony banish Ethel into a cartoon-populated television show in his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Another key to this seamlessness is star Brendan Fraser, at the height of his powers here as “Brendan Fraser’s stunt double”.

Like Hoskins before him, Fraser brings a wholehearted commitment to playing the fed-up straight man amidst cartoon zaniness. Fraser also brought that dedication to Henry Selick's Monkeybone (2001), a Roger Rabbit-inspired sex comedy that deploys a combo of stop-motion animation and live acting in a premise amusingly close to that of 1992’s Cool World (but more on that cult anomaly shortly). A commercial flop, Back in Action was the last cinematic outing for the Looney Tunes for some time.

Nowadays, when we think of live-action animation, it’s hard not to jump straight to an image of Michael Jordan’s arm stretching to do a half-court dunk to save the Looney Tunes from slavery. There’s not a lot that can be fully rationalized about the 1996 box-office smash, Space Jam. It is a bewildering cartoon advert for Michael Jordan’s baseball career, dreamed up off the back of his basketball retirement, while also mashing together different American icons. Never forget that the soundtrack—one that, according to Benjamin, “makes you have to throw ass”—includes a song with B-Real, Coolio, Method Man and LL Cool J.

Michael Jordan and teammates in ‘Space Jam’ (1996).

Space Jam is a film inherently born to sell something, predicated on the existing success of a Nike commercial rather than any obvious passion for experimentation. But its pure strangeness, a growing nostalgia for the nineties, and meticulous compositing work from visual-effects supervisor Ed Jones and the film’s animation team (a number of whom also worked on both Roger Rabbit and Back in Action), have all kept it in the cultural memory.

The films is backwards, writes Jesse, in that it wants to distance itself from the very cartoons it leverages: “This really almost feels like a follow-up to Looney Tunes: Back in Action, rather than a predecessor, because it feels like someone watched the later movie, decided these Looney Tunes characters were a problem, and asked someone to make sure they were as secondary as possible.” That attempt to place all the agency in Jordan’s hands was a point of contention for Chuck Jones, the legendary Warner Bros cartoonist. He hated the film, stating that Bugs would never ask for help and would have dealt with the aliens in seven minutes.

Space Jam has its moments, however. Guy proclaims “there is nothing that Deadpool as a character will ever have to offer that isn’t done infinitely better by a good Bugs Bunny bit”. For some, its problems are a bit more straightforward, for others it’s a matter of safety in sport. But the overriding sentiments surrounding the film point to a sort of morbid fascination with the brazenness of its concept.

Holli Would (voiced by Kim Basinger) and Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) blur the lines in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Existing in the same demented… space… as Space Jam, Paramount Pictures bought the idea for Cool World from Ralph Bakshi as it sought to have its own Roger Rabbit. While Brad Pitt described it as “Roger Rabbit on acid” ahead of release, Cool World itself looks like a nightmare version of Toontown. The film was universally panned at the time, caught awkwardly between being far too adult for children but too lacking in any real substance for adults (there’s something of a connective thread between Jessica Rabbit, Lola Bunny and Holli Would).

Ralph Bakshi’s risqué and calamitously horny formal experiment builds on the animator’s fascination with the relationship between the medium and the human body. Of course, he would go from the immensely detailed rotoscoping of Fire and Ice (1983) to clashing hand-drawn characters with real ones, something he had already touched upon in the seventies with Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, whose animated characters were drawn into real locations. But no one besides Bakshi quite knew what to do with the perverse concept of Brad Pitt as a noir detective trying to stop Gabriel Byrne’s cartoonist from having sex with a character that he drew—an animated Kim Basinger.

Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) attempts to cross over to Hollie Would in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Cool World’s awkwardness can be attributed to stilted interactions between Byrne, Pitt and the animated world, as well as studio meddling. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr (who was on the film due to his father running Paramount) demanded that the film be reworked into something PG-rated, against Bakshi’s wishes (he envisioned an R-rated horror), and the script was rewritten in secret. It went badly, so much so that Bakshi eventually punched Mancuso Jr in the face.

While Cool World averages two stars on Letterboxd, there are some enthusiastic holdouts. There are the people impressed by the insanity of it all, those who just love them a horny toon, and then there is Andrew, a five-star Cool World fan: “On the surface, it’s a Lovecraftian horror with Betty Boop as the villain, featuring a more impressive cityscape than Blade Runner and Dick Tracy combined, and multidimensional effects that make In the Mouth of Madness look like trash. The true star, however, proves to be the condensed surplus of unrelated gags clogging the arteries of the screen—in every corner is some of the silliest cel animation that will likely ever be created.”

There are even those who enjoy its “clear response to Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, with David writing that “the film presents a similar concept through the lens of the darkly comic, perverted world of the underground cartoonists”, though also noting that without Bakshi’s original script, the film is “a series of half steps and never really commits like it could”. Cool World feels both completely deranged and strangely low-energy, caught between different ideas as to how best to mix the two mediums. But it did give us a David Bowie jam.

‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ is in cinemas and on HBO Max now.

Craft is of course important, but generally speaking, maybe nowadays a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium’s history is the thing that makes successful live-action/animation hybrids click. It’s an idea that doesn’t lend itself to being too cool, or even entirely palatable. The trick is to be as fully dotty as Mary Poppins, or steer into the gaucheness of the concept, à la Roger Rabbit and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

It’s quite a tightrope to walk between good meta-comedy and a parade of references to intellectual property. The winningest strategy is to weave the characters into the tapestry of the plot and let the gags grow from there, rather than hoping their very inclusion is its own reward. Wait, you said what is coming out this week?