#visual cues

[tenebroux]

Why so much foreshadowing between Charlie and Alastor?

It's important to explain the significance of visual cues in media. These cues serve as storytelling tools, subtly conveying emotions, themes, and foreshadowing key events that will eventually take place later in the story. For example, as discussed in this post, I talk about how Tim Burton frequently uses visual symbolism to enhance the romantic and psychological depth of his narratives. Foreshadowing through imagery is particularly crucial, as it allows artists to hint at future developments, creating a sense of deeper engagement with the story.

Here are a couple of examples of heart symbolism in shows like South Park and Fallout. These hints can serve as a hidden narrative, and usually shippers tend to notice these key visuals because they add an unspoken layer of meaning to the characters they're most interested in. To clarify, Cartman and Kyle [first image] are a very popular ship, often mistaken as a couple, and speculated to be in love by many fans. Having full hearts indirectly on display between the two works as a silent visual cue; a letter from the artist to the audience; yes, you are noticing the unspoken chemistry between them. While the Ghoul [second image] sews Lucy's finger onto his own hand, creating a heart shape from the threads, which hints to fans that their hostile relationship will eventually soften. Both connect the two through a simple shape, and yet it's such a powerful storytelling device.

Similarly, Vivziepop is no stranger to the use of visual imagery in order to convey romance between certain characters. Often, you will notice couples like Stolas & Blitzo and Moxxie & Millie rely on symbolic motifs, body language, and colour schemes to enhance their onscreen attraction. Brandon Rogers confirms this here. "Everything is drawn intentionally."

Apology Tour is a great source of these sorts. A giant broken heart to represent the pain Blitzo caused Verosika? An arrow through the heart to represent Blitzo and Stolas' heart-piercing emotional pain they're going through? Three pierced hearts to foreshadow a love triangle?

This type of imagery carries over into Hazbin Hotel, where several unexpected characters have been marked as potential subjects of romantic foreshadowing. Vox lights Valentino's cigarette with his power, forming a heart of electricity. Knowing the nature of StaticMoth's relationship, this one isn't too surprising, but a nice confirmation that they do have love for each other.

You might recall the recurring gag involving the hotel wall being repeatedly broken. In the pilot, Sir Pentious blasted a hole in the wall, and in the series, he did it again, this time joined by Cherri Bomb, who also left her mark. Notably, both of the holes they created were heart-shaped, subtly foreshadowing their eventual relationship.

I find it even more impactful when you notice these details in an animated show compared to live action. In live action, actors may not always have complete control over their facial expressions, and small framing mistakes can occur. While framing errors can happen in animation as well, every scene is intentionally drawn and carefully reviewed with the specific question in mind: "What does this convey?"

With that being said, is it intentional or coincidence these two characters have an abundance of interestingly framed scenes and romantic cues between them?

Not just the famous heart pillow scene, either. Albeit, this scene was riping with symbolism. What do snakes and apples symbolise other than Temptation? How convenient it takes place on Charlie's bed.

In the first image below, Vox warns of the dangers if Alastor strikes a deal with Charlie, and how the two are becoming closer. He says this while looking down at three images: two hearts connecting the photo of Charlie and the photo of Alastor. In the second image, Angel Dust's heart is almost perfectly aligned to Alastor's neck, with Charlie next to him in full view. This short frame occurs just as Sir Pentious says "sex before marriage".

Whether it's on the nose or indirect, there's always hearts somewhere between these two.

This one is a little sneaky. When Charlie and Alastor first enter Rosie's place, the framing is deliberately set up so that the crook of Rosie's arm is directly opposite the pointed dip by the side of the door. Due to the semi-rounded shapes of the doorframe, this creates a heartshape. Which two of the main characters are placed within the heart? I traced the shape in a separate layer to outline the heart.

Reader, I implore you. Should you think I am pulling your leg, take a closer look at Sir Pentious and Cherri's heart explosions. They're subtle clues for those willing to look for them.

With that being said, I encourage you to investigate yourself. Maybe posts like this were not so coincidental after all.

"But Viv hates Charlastor!"

Whatever the outcome may be, I can guarantee you that no creator is under any obligation to reveal their characters' true intentions to you directly. If you truly love those characters, and if you truly love the work of the artist, then look for the clues she lays out for you within the final product. What you see on screen is what's canon.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Autism and Phonecalls

The Autistic Teacher

[fromcanarytostarsick]

Six Idiots Acting Masterclass: wine red and plum purple

In BBC Ghosts S1E5 and 6, wine red is everywhere. It's on Alison and Mike. It's on Kitty and Humphrey, who gets a body shot to an extent we haven't gotten to see before, because his body is actually sitting down. Whatever that neighbor guy's name is and Bunny are wearing it. The dining room is carpeted with it. In E6, Fiona's hair is an unnatural maroon. When Alison and Mike go to see other houses for sale, their color schemes are totally different. But when they return, they both have the color again. So what kind of messages are we being sent here?

These shades represent opulence, but Alison is clearly wearing it in a way that doesn't suit her when she hosts her dinner party. Mike's dress shirt doesn't suit him, either. The color in the dining room is dusty and pulls the entire setup into shadow. Mike and Alison are playing at the idea of richness, but every time they try, it fails. The pheasant burns. The stew burns. The fancy wine gets broken and then the cheap stuff runs out fast. They're not fancy people. Conversely, their terrible neighbors are swimming in money and are used to it, wearing this wine color in cozy textures (Bunny's cardigan and the guy's sweater vest). Bunny is literally drinking this color. But they're caricatures of shallow rich people. Money doesn't make class. And red can portray a warning, which proved true in the attempt to win the property rights with a card game.

So if Mike and Alison really aren't old money or comfortable pretending to be Money, then why are their characters wearing this color so clearly in their costuming? Well, at the end of E6, that color looks red inside the house but outside it clearly has a different tone. Now it's plum.

Purple designates royalty, creativity, and tranquility. Once Alison's clothes shift from uncomfortable wine red to a soft sweater in purple, we know the Coopers are here to stay. They're going to figure out how to make the house their own, and how to make money from it. More importantly, Alison decides to choose the Ghosts, as they've chosen her. As Joel McHale famously said, "I now declare you a community."

[scaridaedae]

Loving to talk but being awful as calls is an awful curse to have bcz I can never tell when it’s my turn to talk and I end up talking over ppl so much😭😭 I promise I don’t do it on purpose I’m not rude on purpose I just genuinely cannot tell

[lycorogue]

Canonically, When Does the NY Special Take Place?

So, in today’s episode of “LycoRogue way overanalyzes things”, I think ZagToon has actually given us some pretty decent evidence to more-or-less lock-in when this special takes place.

The key to narrowing it all down relies on this quick shot that the Miraculous team deemed worthy to grace us with:

This is Adrien’s bodyguard starting up a meditation app just as the flight from Paris to NYC is about to take off. This, plus the sunset showcased in the next few scenes, will help us start to narrow it all down.

So, let’s actually start with their flight. Based on a quick Google search for “fights from Paris to NYC” I got this list of potentials in November (yes, just about all of them will then give you a pop-up stating that flights are restricted to/from US because of COVID, but we’ll ignore that right now).

The airline the animators created for the special has a design that seems to mimic Air France.

So, we’ll go with Air France’s listed nonstop flight - given that Alya mentions the “looooong” flight, we don’t see or hear anything about layovers, and everyone passes out, we’ll presume it’s a nonstop flight - and say that the class was on that plane for 8hrs and 40mins, more-or-less.

Okay. So we have the flight taking off at 15:55 (3:55pm). It is roughly an 8hr and 40 minute flight. This brings the class to 00:35 (12:35am) their time. At the latest, if we go with the 8hr 55min flight listed above, they’re arriving at 00:50 (12:50am). Add in the roughly 30min drive from JFK international airport in Queens to where they’re staying somewhere presumably around midtown Manhattan, and it’s past 1am their time. No wonder Ms. Mendeleiev wants them to go directly to bed when they get to their rooms!

Anyway, back on track. So, if they’re landing somewhere between 12:35am and 12:50am their time, that means it’s between 6:35pm (18:35) and 6:50pm (18:50) Eastern Time.

Now, we won’t get into things like “how the heck did they see the sunset on the plane and it was still happening as they drove into Manhattan when it probably takes an hour to make it through disembarking and Customs and weaving through a crowded JFK alone” because there are superheroes for friggen everything in this universe canon, so we can pretend 9/11 never happened and airport chaos isn’t as bad.

Plus, the “sunset” Adrien and Marinette watched was still mostly above the cloud line, so it was closer to “golden hour”.

Now, the attack on the plane from an American supervillain and the quick capture by the main NYC/East Coast superhero team pinpoints the flight as nearing its end. They’re probably only a couple of miles out from the coast. Especially since Majestia welcomes their arrival, the flight is probably close enough to being over American soil.

Further proof: the flight is making its decent into JFK as TechnoPirate is handed over to the authorities. Since the superhero team was flying faster than the plane’s cruising speed, it shouldn’t have taken them long to land and hand him over to the probably already awaiting SWAT team.

Okay, so we have established that the plane is probably coming into JFK International between 6:35pm and 6:50pm ET, and that they are in the Golden Hour leading to the official sunset as the plane descends. Which is also why the sun isn’t close enough to the horizon for an official “sunset” quite yet as they drive through what is presumably Broadway.

I mean, it’s not crucial that it’s Broadway, but it looks like they’re aiming for it to be...

Although this one marquee says “Roadway Musical”, so....

BACK ON TOPIC!

Okay, so it’s closing in on 7pm ET - or is closer to 7:20pm if you go with the 6:50 arrival and add in the 35min drive - and it’s the Golden Hour. Based on where the sun is, I’d maybe peg the sun to be officially setting (as in, touching the horizon and sinking below it) between 7:15 and 7:45pm (19:15 and 19:45).

Plug THAT information into timeanddate.com set for Manhattan, and you’re looking at the first week of September or even the last week of August. 

Alternatively, you could argue that it could also be the last week of March/first week of April.

HOWEVER, when the class arrives at the hotel and Marinette and Adrien are first trapped by the dreaded Automatic Doors, we do see this shop sign in the background sporting a jack-o-lantern design. Halloween-themed stores like this are usually seasonal and don’t open until the end of August/start of September. Spirit, the largest Halloween-themed company in the US, has its “pop-up” stores open late-August through early-November. So we’re probably looking at those September dates over the March ones.

Especially since we also get this establishing shot of the class pulling up to the museum and the second show of Adrienette vs Automatic Doors where we clearly see that some of the trees are already changing color. This solidifies that the French-American Friendship Week is indeed during autumn. 

Based on that evidence, the first week of September does seem a bit early. First of all, leaves don’t start changing in NY until the last week of September/1st two weeks of October, depending on how dry/cold the weather has been. So, what if we take the dialogue at face value and ignore that “sunset” is when the sun touches the horizon? What if we take it as “the start of Golden Hour when the sky becomes more of that orange hue”? In that case, we’re going back to the projected arrival time and using THOSE times against that one website.

The US premiere - which ended up being the world premiere - of this special was on September 25, which had a sunset time of 6:47pm. It could be a nice, neat way to have the air date be the canon date of this special and the class’s arrival within NYC. We can even bump it to the premiere on Disney Channel France and have it be Saturday, September 26th, with a sunset time of 6:45pm ET. This way it makes sense that Marinette wouldn’t already be with her class leading up to the bus departure, since it would be a Saturday and non-school day, as well as why Luka would be available to give her that ride at about 3pm (15:00) instead of being in school/just getting out of school himself.

Also, if Adrien still has the same schedule he did back in “Copycat”, he has fencing practices on Fridays.

We know that post-practice, Adrien tells Kagami that his class is going to NYC “tomorrow”, which would seem to confirm that the class is flying out Saturday afternoon. Kagami’s “I’ll see you tomorrow” and mention of "give us more time to practice” doesn’t necessarily mean fencing class and instead probably explains what they do for “dates” in this awkward “are we dating now?” limbo they’re in.

So, what do you think? Is their NYC trip from Saturday, September 26th through Monday, September 28th? Should we give more attention to the actual sunset times and have the trip be the first week of September? 

Regardless of how we time the sunset, this trip IS in autumn, but it’s also after everything that’s happened in the first 3 seasons, which most likely means this is the start of a new school year. How do we feel about the entire class lucking into being in Miss Bustier’s class again; no new students and not losing anyone to a different class? What about the fact that Marinette and Adrien have officially been Ladybug and Chat Noir for a full year, and that Paris has been surviving Hawk Moth attacks apparently daily for that year? What about the fact that Adrien’s birthday is probably right around the corner again? You think they’ll do another episode focusing on that and how it differs from his birthday in “The Bubbler”?

What’s your theory on everything? Do you have more evidence to lock this date down further?

[carolrwhite-62]

August 2019. 22.8.19. @carolrwhite-62

[autism-asks]

Iiaat to hate talking to people in the dark or when you can't see their face? Whenever I work backstage & I want to talk to someone I have to find some light because when its pitch black & I can't see them I get kinda confused & freeze up a little.

Without knowing what your reason is for this, it’s hard to say for sure whether it’s an autism thing or not.

After some discussion among the mods, one possible explanation that we’ve come up with is that you may have auditory processing difficulties and be relying on visual cues such as lipreading to understand people (even if you don’t realize you’re doing this).  If this is the case, trying to communicate with people when you can’t see them would be confusing and difficult because it’s harder to understand what they’re saying.  Auditory processing difficulties would be an autism thing.

-Liz

[8stepsoffthebeatenpath]

Ever notice how movies use visual cues to inform you of character’s roles, position and emotion state?

Take a look at the scene above. Kaoru is framed in a bright, fierce ray of light around her, while Jin-e is shrouded in darkness. If a movie opened with a shot like this, you’d immediately know who’s the bad guy in the scenario, even without showing us Kaoru’s bound hands, as we’ve been conditioned to know light = good, shadows = bad. 

But this lighting device also serves a double meaning in the scene above, to inform us of Kaoru’s weight and position in both the film and Kenshin’s life. In a lot of ways, by this point in the movie, Kaoru is the light in Kenshin’s darkness. She’s the idealistic one who always sees the best in people, who can forget and forgive someone’s past when they can’t bring themselves to do so. She is the one who allows Kenshin to break through his darkness and become the man he had always wanted to be but feared he can’t become. The person who gives him a reason to stay and, sometimes, to fight. Not in the way he was made to fight before, but in his way, with his belief system in play. 

That’s why she is bathed in light, almost obscured by it. She is the light, at least for Kenshin. For some other characters, too.  

In comes Kenshin. Two things to note here; the Fire in the peripheral of the shot, and the smoke effect. First, it represents Kenshin RAGE. Do you need Kenshin to tell Jin-e that he has gone too far? No, you don’t. The fire is Kenshin’s emotional state. Raging, uncontrolled, untamed. 

But again, we have a double effect. The smoke from the fire makes the shot unfocused. Kenshin’s figure cannot be seen clearly through it. Why? Because, again, this is how Kenshin feels. With Kaoru kidnapped, he can’t think properly and clearly. His rage distorts him, reverts him back to the time in his life that he would like to forget. 

In a mostly silent minute of screen time, you can get so much information. Isn’t it fabulous? 

Okay, framing & lightning appreciation post over!