Lately when I've gotten excited about a new show/movie, I haven't found anyone to be excited with. 

For example:

Coco

 

Steven Universe the Movie

 

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. 

 

I have friends that have seen them, but they aren't as excited about them as me. So I try to hold myself back (at least some, though that was very hard to do with Coco. I wanted to gush about that movie to everyone XD ).

Hmmm. Maybe that pent-up energy explodes. @_@

Lord of the Flies

Okay, we had to read Lord of the Flies in high school. I loathed it. 

Then someone told me that Lord of the Flies would only work with privileged white males. And a switch flipped in my brain:"Oh, that makes so much more sense now!" 

I still don't want to read it again, but now I find it a little funny.

And here's a grizzly bear XD

Jurassic Park Revisited

My work partner recently rented out a theater. Some places will let you rent out a room for $100, and they let in a set amount of people. So a bunch of us pitched in for the fee, and spread out through the theater to watch Jurassic Park. 

I don't think I've ever seen it on a big screen, so that was fun. And since we all knew each other, we could shout out random comments every now and then. Let me tell you, watching Jurassic Park with a bunch of zoo keepers is pretty hilarious. 

 Okay, this seems off-topic, but it will link in. At the zoo, you get jerks that shout at the animals or pound on the glass. So we have to tell those people to leave the freaking animals in peace. There's a scene in the movie where Dr. Grant and the kids are sleeping at the top of a tree. In the morning, brachiosaurs appear all around them. Dr. Grant makes a bellowing noise to call them over. I shouted, "Sir, please don't call out to the animals!" And everyone started laughing. 

You know something odd that never occurred to me until this last viewing? Jurassic Park is supposed to be a scary movie. Except I've never really considered it that scary. I always just liked watching the dinosaurs. Probably the scariest scene is the kitchen scene, with the velociraptors. It may be because I've seen it so often that I know exactly what happens. But I think this is a more likely explanation: The predators are carnivores. They eat meat and they hunt. It's just what they do. It's not a horror plot - it's just part of nature. Though nature can be pretty crazy sometimes. 

For the movies I grew up with, they have become so much a part of my past that I don't even really think about them when I watch them. This is also because i usually draw or sew or something when I'm watching them. When I do watch one of those old movies with my full attention, sometimes things pop out at me that I never noticed before. 

Example 1: The relationship between Alan Grant and the kids. 

It's obvious from the beginning that Alan  is not a kid person. But this time I really noticed how much Alan, Lex, and Tim bonded. Lex and Tim needed someone to look after them during horrible circumstances. Alan gets them through that in one piece. He's their protector and guide. And you can really see that when they all huddle together to sleep in the tree.

Example 2: Master Windu

Okay, wrong movie. But same guy. I never freaking noticed it was him! To be fair, you never see Mr. Arnold outside of the dark office. And there's a world of difference between a stoic office worker and a Jedi Master.

When I realized it was him, I looked up what other movies he's been in. And it occurred to me that everythigngI've seen him in, he dies. What the heck? (Except The Incredibles. And I only just learned that he was in that too! )

Anyway. Master Windu is one of the characters Fern gets to know, so I'm automatically biased in his favor. I've seen him play as many villains as good guys. And being weird like I am, I pretend to feel betrayed when an actor goes on to do villains. "No, don't turn to the dark side!"

And the Award for the Best Villain Goes To

 You know, I think I may have actually found my favorite villain. I've never had one before. 

Though it's only in the context of the full series. I didn't have much of an opinion of him until we got his back story. From that point, I liked him more and more until the end.

Now knowing his full story,  I can really get into his crazy villain side (Maybe I find it so entertaining because of the crazy times right now. Should I be concerned? ).

Also, if he were a human, I would not love him as much. I'm willing to forgive animals for almost anything. 

Although, does he count as a villain? Considering season 3 of the show?

Research Books

I've looked at many books about different people from around the world. I want to do my best to portray them in my stories. 

But there's something that's bugged me about them, and I finally realized what it was. Most of these books discuss different cultures in such a dry, distant way. It feels like they're reporting a different species. And it feels like they always miss the heart of the culture they're supposed to be studying. 

For example. I picked up what was essentially a small textbook about the American Indians of Yosemite. And it had tons of details about their clothes and their food and stuff. But there was absolutely nothing about what they were like as people.

How can "researchers" learn so much about a culture and then report on those people as if they were observing the rock-collection habits of penguins in Antarctica? I assume that it has to do with scientists being trained not to get attached to the things they study. 

But how can you ever hope to understand something if you only ever look at it coldly from the outside?

(Obligatory zoo photo)

Metal Bending

This is building off of a previous post about renaming the "Magic-Folk." They're now called Aevenn. It got too complicated to weave this topic into that post, so I'll discuss it more here.

For a long time, I've been thinking of creating a new race of Aevenn. I have the earth magic people, but their magic is mostly rock. And it never sat right with me how metal magic was included with rock magic. After all, rock and metal are extremely different chemically. It always seemed odd that they were lumped together in some elemental systems. 

I've been fretting over this for both the Aevenn, and also the earth dragons. I've already drawn and organized all of my dragon species, and I don't even have any ideas for another design of dragon. Unless I just made it similar to the existing earth dragons. 

And since I never wanted to design a metal dragon, it held me back from making a metal race of Aevenn. But also, you don't usually find big chunks of metal out in the world. It always seems to be in veins, or nuggets. It's not nearly as plentiful as rock. So maybe there are just fewer of the metal people. 

Anyway, I finally made a race of metal people. I don't know if I'll ever do the same with dragons, and it will probably continue to bug me about whether or not I should.

And on a different part of that same topic, what about storm magic? I have the storm dragons that can spit lightning. But some of them can also work with the wind too. Wind and lightning certainly go together with the theme of storms, but again they are very different from each other.

So I also wonder if I should split the storm dragon into two species - one for wind and one for lightning. 

(I doubt I'll make lightning humans though)

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Okay, I just watched the last episode, and now I have to rethink the whole post. Which is hard because I'm crying.

I'll return tomorrow (because it's late and I have to work tomorrow. I'm the kind of adult that stays up late and watches cartoons that make me cry)


Okay, I'm back! I want to write this before I watch any Youtube videos that analyze the show. Also, I've only seen this show once, so I may have missed a few things. I need to watch it again.

So, Nicole recommended a series to me: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts


Spoilers

I love Kipo. She's one of those characters that can make friends even with the must unlikely people. Like Steven Universe, or even Natsume Takashi.
I always like characters like that. Steven and Kipo show us that violence never solves the problem.
Plus, she's a jaguar. Since my animals is a clouded leopard, we match XD. Her jaguar arms are awesome.

 

 Also, we share a birthday!

I also love Wolf.
She had me crying some, but that's not why I was crying last night TT^TT

Kipo and Wolf are two of my favorites. Along with the character I'll discuss at the end.

As you may have gathered, there are very few romances in fiction that I like. And I have this really strange (and probably really annoying) way of laughing very hard when I'm watching a romance that I think is cute. Fortunately this has always been when I'm alone, so no one has had to witness it. But Benson and Troy triggered that.
I'll share an embarrassing moment. During the show, Kipo says that she likes Benson. And he says that he's gay. I started laughing so hard that someone literally looked into my room to ask what was happening. All I could do was gasp, "I'm watching cartoons!" Why was I laughing so hard? Because that same thing happened to me! Except it took me several years to find out XD

Benson also really has Kipo's back. He goes so above and beyond to get Wolf to forgive Kipo for keeping that secret in season 1. I was really confused when the TheaOtters said that Benson was a coward. I mean, look at how he's first introduced!

I really like Lio and Song too. And their whole family's relationship.
Seeing Lio mind-controlled is the worst :(   It's bad for Song too, but we don't know that it's her for the first chunk of the series, so it doesn't hurt as much. 

It's interesting seeing Kipo protect her dad. Part of me thinks "Dad, you're supposed to protect your daughter!" But Scarlemagne was trying to take him apart. And he wouldn't have had any trouble doing so. The other part of me is like, "Yeah, Kipo! Protect your dad!"

Before I get to what will be the longest part of my post, just a couple little things to comment on.
The show has some weird stuff that I could do without, but the rest made it well worth it.
I guess they never found a cure for the "cured mutes." I always assumed they'd be able to get Yumyan and the others back, so I didn't really mourn them properly. So we definitely get a lot more bittersweet to the ending.
We also never found out where the mutes originally came from.
It was also never really explained why Doctor Emilia attacked Kipo's burrow. I guess she was just looking for Kipo to destroy her?
I love how much faith Jamack has that Kipo is going to rescue him and the other prisoners from the doctor.
Okay, I know the narwhals are a parody. But it's really strange to see a buff narwhal.
I'm not sure how all the little bits of old technology still work. Like Benson's tape deck. I had some cassettes of the Harry Potter books from when I was kid and they just degraded over a decade. Let alone 200 years. But little stuff like that isn't as important to me as characters.
Dude, Song spent months with a hand covered in gold. How?
Also, when we first met Fun Gus, he had bones hidden in him. Wouldn't that hint that he'll end up digesting Emilia?
And Emilia is a very bad scientist. Even Lio and Song point it out. She's giving poor Hugo three formulas a day. How does she expect to figure out what triggers the mutation when there are literally thousands of formulas he's taken? 

Where is Mandu's family? Pigs keep their babies close when they're little (random thought from an animal nerd).  

And another animal nerd thought - baby Hugo makes chimpanzee noises. Wrong primate XD  (Everyone uses chimp noises for monkey noises though @_@ )

Dave's story of the fan war felt really weird. Benson became the last of his people because of a fan? Are we supposed to take that story literally?

Why does Wolf let Kipo call her Wolf? She hates wolves! 

I like all the ways they introduce the "KIPO" logo at the beginning of each episode. 

I love how they draw the night sky.


And now on to the main thing. Did you see it coming?
Scarlemagne.
Oooh, I love that name. I'll probably switch between the names Scarlemagne and Hugo, to fit the context. 

I love how his theme song is so menacing at first. But then it also has the gentler versions, for when he's younger (And also at the end).

He only appears once in the first seven episodes. Though we hear plenty of rumors about him.
When we found out that Lio knew Scarlemagne, I knew that he was going to have some sort of tragic backstory.
I also knew that I would fall for it. After all, I am a huge sucker for animal-like people. Especially if they have tragic backstories. And this sort of backstory in particular gets to me (It dates all the way back to the first Pokemon movie.)
I also understand why a non-human might want to destroy humans, considering what bad humans are capable of.

That being said, I fell for his backstory far harder than I expected.
After all, there's a family of mandrills at the zoo. I've been watching the baby mandrill grow up. He's so entertaining. And such a little stinker!
Here he is, being goofy

And now he has a baby sister too!
Mandrills are also a really good animals if you want something intimidating. They're the largest monkey in the world. I've never been close to one, and it's hard to judge sizes of animals from a distance. But I would not want a mandrill angry at me! Look at these fangs! These are from the dad mandrill at the zoo.

And Scarlemagne is far larger than this guy. He's like the size of a gorilla. Probably bigger, actually. 

His design seems like Beast, from the Beauty and the Beast animated movie. Did they do that on purpose? Because I think his voice actor is the same guy that did Beast in the live action version. Either way, the voice actor does an awesome job. The crazy laughs, the threats, the different tones, and of course the sweet little Hugo.

Young Hugo was so precious. He immediately reminded me of Paddington from the movies XD 

In the piano song he plays for himself, he says he can't play music because he might get found out. But he keeps playing anyway. I guess he's caught up in his fantasy and forgets where he is. And as he says, he's very bored. Of course he is. A smart little guy locked in a room and having to hide his smarts from all but two people. His song about not playing the piano gets him caught.

And it's true - Lio didn't even try to find Hugo when they ran. I get it. Lio has a new baby, and those parental instincts are strong. But it's still so sad. I like to think that Song was going to go back for him. Except she obviously wasn't able to. 

How old was Hugo supposed to be then? If he were an ordinary mandrill, he'd be about four or five. But he turned into a mute. So who knows?

Kipo, thank you so much for hugging Scarlemagne after hearing his story. I also wanted to hug him.

I bristled a bit when Scarlemagne called out against zoos. But he has no way of knowing that zoos are an attempt to protect injured or endangered animals. And maybe the zoo at Las Vistas wasn't one of the good zoos. 

When Scarlemagne tried to flee the stadium and got knocked out, I was relieved when Lio went back for him. He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, even after everything Scarlamagne did. Go Lio!

At the end of season 2, I kept thinking that Kipo would work on befriending Scarlemagne. So when season 3 started, I was shocked to find that he'd been kept in an empty little glass box for months. They didn't even give him a piano! Not until a lot later, anyway.
Yeah, yeah, I know. He'd just tried to kill everyone and broke Kipo's trust and everything. 

But his prison is shockingly similar to the little box he was kept in as a kid - when he was forced to run on the treadmill. And he slept alone, curled up on the floor. They'd better bring him blankets or something at night (A great twist that Emilia ended up in that box, if only briefly. Though I was surprised that no one else protested that Scarlamagne suddenly had free reign when the box was destroyed). 

He didn't even care at first whether or not he got "the cure."

My favorite part was when he wasn't really evil anymore, but he was still such a little a**hole. Breaking everyone's stuff, and running away with that crazy laugh of his.
(It's like Regina, from Once Upon a Time, where she wasn't the villain anymore but she was still a snarky jerk) Anyway, I love it!
And it's even better because Scarlemagne couldn't stand up to a little kitten. I guess he can't handle crying children.

So I liked him more and more through season 3.
During the last episode when he said farewell, I got super upset. I kept telling myself that they'd save him at the last minute, or something.
But they didn't. And he sacrificed himself to save his baby sister.
And that's why I was crying.

And I get it. As a storyteller, I really get it. After all, I killed one of my favorite characters in the story I'm working on. I had to.
But I still wanted little Hugo to have a happier ending TT^TT

I just watched that scene again to help me write this post. And I'm crying even harder this time around. Oh jeez.
Okay, I've gone through a couple tissues, and now I'm ready to edit this. Now that I'm all emotional again.