Is Adventure Time Set In A Post-Apocalyptic World?

My head is spinning here, so I will just confess to how I decide what to watch. I click on the most visually appealing poster. If the main character is holding a sword, I expect an action-packed adventure. If holding a ledger or a plow, then probably a tensei slow-life drama. This is my advanced system of classifying Anime.

Set along the Mississippi River during the pre-Civil War years in the Southern states, the story opens in the slave state of Missouri. The journey of Huck Finn down the Mississippi River on a raft with run away slave Jim is a perilous one, as their travels take them through the heart of slave holding territory. Constantly worried about being discovered by another boat or by the residents of a town, Jim’s freedom is hard to come by. The book isn’t just pretty and scenic. Many of the island scenes are safety for a time but often the shore presents danger. Grangerford, which seems to be a peaceful enough scene is turned into a bloodbath as Twain portrays the culture of Southern honor. The river flows and the scenes of Huck and Jim travel down the river providing and exploration of much of the American experience – good and bad.

Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock series

The title of the final book, The Last Kids on Earth and the Forbidden Fortress, sets up the ending to the series. The kids storm the last, seemingly impenssible, fortress to try and survive one final night. But their intention to try and survive isn’t the whole of it. The final volume is all about them trying to put an end to this monster of a threat once and for all. The pacing in the final book is very fast and sets up a series of challenges for the main characters, with the last challenge being their most desperate yet.

I'm nitpicking here for a setting that feels lived-in and all that, and 'School Bus Graveyard' mostly meets my criteria. The representations of the old buses are realistic as well. Their warped roofs from years of exposure to the sun, their upholstery having rotted away to reveal the padding, and their exterior panels eaten away at the seams due to moisture, all ring true. Representing the salvage culture of the buses is also done correctly. There are no engines, electronics have been ripped out, and tires have been scavenged. This is because the parts of the buses have scrap value. How long a group of buses would remain untouched in such a location is also represented somewhat realistically. While in real life it is unlikely that a group of buses would remain untouched for so long, in many cases the buses are eventually removed by the landowner, municipality, or even a scrapper while in a state of legal limbo. The little details to how hazardous the area is were good too, like the creaky floorboards, exposed nails and oil slicks. I appreciated that the story went for atmosphere over exposition though there was a lot that wasn’t detailed like the amount of time it took for the authorities or a salvage yard to come and clear the place. I got to read a very engaging story while still appreciating all the little details the artist came up with to make the space feel abandoned and slightly dangerous to explore. It’s a good read that makes you ponder the decay of things and how it tells a story, leaving you with a lasting image of rows and rows of old, silent buses left to rot in time.

For the fans, the end of Journal 3’s special edition is rich with closure as well as with all sorts of little goodies, including faint whispers from Bill Cipher in the margins, and coordinates to further whackiness in other tales. The ending is also a powerful and poignant note from Ford to trust in others after a lifetime of solitary grudge-holding. And then there’s Dipper’s afterword, a promise to guard this journal as he grew up with, a promise of continuation, of more stories in this special world of Gravity Falls, messy and real and endearing as all things here.

I'm pretty sure that reality TV production plants these sorts of memes through the cast members' accounts in order to gauge the audience's reaction to a particular scene or season. A meme highlighting a certain scene from the show will prompt people to stream that episode. It's free and subtle marketing. The meme itself is just a vehicle. I'm far more interested in the analytics that memify a joke and discovers what demographic it reaches and whether it can increase show mentions.

From my outside vantage point, this develops much like a virus might. Typically, the origin of the leakage begins with a private message or even a closed group. Rumors on the gossip blogger front have speculated that this package of photos was pulled from a hacked iCloud backup. First sightings of this “stuff” were reportedly posted up on a notorious celebrity hacking forum – Celeb Jihad or something similar to that title. That site contains numerous sections – “Celeb” as well as “Internet Personality” – in which uploads are proudly shared by these often-anonymous leakers. (They even bury metadata and full-blown claims as to the photos’ origin within said posts, only to be regurgitated by Twitter and Reddit aggregators in due course). A sordid trail of breadcrumb notifications, originating from the very worst of the online world.

This type of fanfic always finds a way to express Kimberly’s development even after the breakup through the smallest of details. In these scenarios, she can suddenly stop going to Tommy’s favorite sushi place or start wearing her hair down instead of in a ponytail, as preferred by Tommy. ‘Pink Resilience’ is a great example of how she can modify her Power Rangers Armor in order to finally wield a dagger, showing off her newfound independence. Mostly, however, readers want to see Kimberly learn to once again work as a team with her other Rangers. Such development is not shown in loud scenes, but in the quietest of moments – as in the scene where Kimberly, for the first time in her life, gets to pilot the Pterodactyl Zord.

Gravity Falls is a limited series from start to finish. Disney never cancelled it. Alex Hirsch had a very specific, exacting vision and brought it to a perfect close. While there’s always a chance for a spin-off or revival (it is Hollywood after all), it seems like Hirsch has moved on to other projects, like Inside Job. The Gravity Falls fandom is dedicated and continues to celebrate the series through costumes, fan fiction and even yearly petitions for a third season. But for now, fans are left to adore the near perfect series as it is.