#AND IT IS. mayhem the album that you will be

[allpromarlo]

most of my interests are temporary, but lady gaga is forever

[ancient-qveen]

Ihsahn's ✨pretty✨ hands and nails

-gifs made by me (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)

bonus gifs also made by me. all from this 1994 documentary, which i had seen before but in shit quality until today :D

^my honest reaction to being asked if im obsessed 💀

[graciousdragon]

why is this spanish TMNT Mutant Mayhem ad catered specifically to me and my interests

[sadbeautifutragic]

.

[are-we-really-doing-this]

Father tagz what is your favorite album cover?

These ones, anon. ^^^

In order from top to bottom, left to right they are:

• Soulfly - Primitive

• Rage Against the Machine - Renegades

• System of a Down - Steal this Album

• Twiztid - Electric Lettuce

• Korn - See You on the Other Side

• Limp Bizkit - Significant Other

• Tool - Ænima

• Crazy Town - The Gift of the Game

• Jamiroquai - Synkronized

• Insane Clown Posse - The Mighty Death Pop! Box Set

[lunarraspberries]

Midnights 🤍

@taylorswift @taylornation

[likeimsittinginanairportbar]

“i swear that it was something cause i don’t remember who i was before you painted all my nights a color i have searched for since”

“don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby, look at this godforsaken mess that you made me,, you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else”

[eseomo]

🔗 Bloodberry 2025

🔗The Choire

🔗Seo on Bandcamp

[remma-demma]

Is it just me or does anyone else think Cheribum is a perfect Halloween album

[crue1w0rld]

omg my dad just told me he preordered 1989 aaahhhhh

[deansbeer]

kari yaps. another dean blurb comin' ur way! 'cause i'm having WAY too much fun with writing 'em !!! originally, when this was sitting in my drafts, it was supposed t'be a full fic, but it wasn't coming out like i wanted it to, so i made it a blurb :p

warning(s) fluffy fluff fluff | implied shower sex | dean 'n his lil camera | reading gettin' a lil emotional. ୨୧

📖 JACKLES library.

DEAN WINCHESTER was never really a 'stuff' guy. his life was all about function over form, about practicality, especially when it came to hunting. but one day, on a whim—or maybe because he'd been thinking about it longer than he wanted to admit—he bought a camera. not just any camera, either, but a $5000, top-of-the-line DSLR that he told himself he'd use to take pictures of all the places he and sam traveled to when they were on hunts. you know, a way to document the life he lived beyond the blood and gore, something to look back on that wasn't just a blur of monster and mayhem.

he didn't tell you about it at first. the camera just kind of appeared one day, tucked inside his duffle, and when you asked him about it, he looked a little embarrassed. "just thought it'd be nice to take some pictures of the scenery," he said with a shrug, like it wasn't a big deal. and maybe to him, it wasn't. at least, not in the way you thought.

but instead of snapping pictures of the rundown motels and backroads they traveled for work, dean found himself using the camera for something else entirely.

it wasn't until the two of you went on a mini-vacation, a week-long stay at a beach resort that you'd been talking about for years, that he really started to use it. you love the beach—always have. there's something about the sound of the waves, the feel of the sand beneath your feet, the salty breeze tangling in your hair, that makes you feel calm. and dean, well, he loves seeing you that way. relaxed, happy, at peace. so while you were busy soaking in the sun, or wading into the water, or just staring off into the distance with that little smile on your face, he was busy capturing it all.

you didn't know, of course. dean was sneaky like that. he didn't make a big show of it, didn't tell you to 'pose' or 'smile.' he just… watched you, quietly, through the lens, snapping photos of you when you weren't paying attention. and when you finally did notice him with the camera, he'd flash you that cocky grin of his and say something like, "just taking pictures of the view."

a few days later, after one of those long, lazy showers you and dean sometimes took together (the kind that weren't just about getting clean, if you know what i mean), that you stumbled upon a little secret of his. he stayed back in the bathroom, washing off a little longer, and you were sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling that post-shower glow, when you noticed a small album tucked underneath a pile of clothes in his black duffle.

curious, you pulled it out, flipping through the pages, and your breath caught in your throat. it wasn't just pictures of random places he'd been on hunts. it was you. photo after photo of you. at the beach, of course, but also in moments you didn't even realize he'd been watching—laughing, lost in thought, maybe even sleeping. and the pictures weren't just good; they were stunning. like, they looked like something out of a magazine, the kind of photos you'd see in a vogue or some fancy travel magazine.

you couldn't believe he'd taken them.

before he could catch you snooping, you quickly put the album back where you found it, heart racing a little, and changed into your pajamas, trying to act like nothing had happened. but the pictures stayed on your mind, even as you and dean curled up in bed and ordered some room service to cap off the night.

after that, you never mentioned it to him. you didn't want to make a big deal out of it, though you kind of wanted to. instead, you found yourself sneaking the camera for your own little adventures. when dean was out or distracted, you'd pull it from his bag and take a few selfies, figuring out how to use the thing. at first, it was a little tricky—those cameras are no joke—but with a little patience, you got the hang of it. you never did anything scandalous, just some cute pictures of yourself, and then you'd put it back in its place before dean could notice it was gone.

and he never did. at least, not until one night in your shared apartment. you were in the kitchen, snacking on some chocolate-covered strawberries dean had picked up on his way home from a hunt (because, in his words, they reminded him of you), and you were nose-deep in a romance novel you'd been dying to read. you heard him walking down the hallway, but you didn't think much of it. you were too wrapped up in your book and your snack, the perfect cozy day in.

what you didn't realize was that dean had found out about your little secret. he'd been going through the camera, checking out some new shots he'd taken, when he stumbled upon your selfies. not just the recent ones, either—he found all of them.

so when he came into the kitchen, camera in hand, he wasn't mad. in fact, he had this look on his face—kind of amused, kind of in awe. "so, you've been stealing my camera, huh?" he asked, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

you looked up at him, mouth full of strawberry, and gave him your cheekiest smile. "maybe," you said.

he didn't mind, though. if anything, he seemed impressed that you'd managed to sneak past him without him noticing. but later that same night, as you were getting ready for bed, you noticed something on his bedside table—a second album, smaller than the one you'd found before.

curiosity piqued again, you opened it up, and what you saw made your heart melt. dean had taken all the photos from the other album and added more—your selfies, the pictures he'd taken of you, everything. but this time, he'd decorated the pages with little stickers and captions in his messy, but endearing, handwriting. things like 'my beautiful girl,' 'my little mermaid,' 'my baby going for a swim.'

tears welled up in your eyes as you flipped through the pages, overwhelmed by how sweet and thoughtful it all was.

before you could even process it fully, you felt dean's arms wrap around you from behind, his bare chest warm against your back. you turned around in his embrace, wrapping your arms around his neck and peppering kisses all over his face. "you really did all this for me?" you asked softly.

he nodded, his expression soft and sincere. "yeah, baby. wanted somethin' to remember you by when i'm out on hunts. somethin' special."

he even told you that he kept one of your selfies in his wallet, and that he loved showing it off to anyone who'd listen—sam, other hunters, whoever. "you're my girl," he said, pride in his voice.

and you couldn't help but smile wide, knowing that, no matter where the road took him, DEAN WINCHESTER was always thinking of you.

… his pretty girl.

[ladyxgaga]

Lady Gaga reveals to Variety her new single from "Mayhem" will debut on February 2nd during the commercial break at the 2025 Grammy Awards

“The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved,” Gaga said in the album announcement, describing the creative process as “reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way.”

The singer will debut the third single and accompanying music video from ‘Mayhem’ on February 2, airing during a commercial break at the 2025 Grammy Awards.  The full tracklist for the album will be revealed at a later date.

“It leaps around genre in a way that’s almost corrupt,” she told the publication. “And it ends with love. That’s the answer to all the chaos in my life is that I find peace with love. Every song that I wrote, I just kept getting kind of swept away in these different dreams I was having about the past — almost like a recollection of all these bad decisions that I made in my life.”

She added, “But it ends in this very happy place.”

Read more at Variety

[tolerateit]

i can't believe so much has happened since midnights. i swear we freaked out about the surprise 3am tracks drop last week. everybody screaming about the funeral sketch in the anti-hero mv. weighing scale discourse. that interview in the revenge dress. midnights mayhem with me. karma track reveal. surprise album announcement at the vmas itself. haylor posts in this economy (thank you question...?). waiting for the bonus track for 80 thousand months. possibility of tour. lavender haze mv soup gifs. the tiktoks. the photoshoot. long live playing at the end of the bejeweled music video is supposed to hint at speak now tv (which isn't out yet). i came up with 8 theory yesterday. what the fuck

[justwinginglife]

High Score

Based off of the song "Good Graces" from Sabrina Carpenter's new album Short n Sweet (I told yall I was obsessed with it).

“It is literally not that hard to keep a girl happy.” 

After going on three different dates with three different Defense Force Officers, you’d huffed and puffed to Okonogi, to Mina, to Nakanoshima, to anyone who would listen, all morning about how men had no game, how they were disappointing, how they couldn’t keep a relationship alive if they had a gun to their heads. And you’d honestly considered holding your gun to their heads; you wondered if drilling the barrel through their temples would spur some semblance of romance from their dumb asses. 

The first man you’d gone out with had tried to compliment your date attire and failed miserably. He’d said that you should wear that dress more often because it made you look less fat than your usual officer’s uniform. You didn’t even sit down at the table, you were out the door in two seconds flat. 

The second man was great. His demeanor was pleasant, his humor was entertaining, and he was easy on the eyes. But about 25 minutes into the date, his girlfriend discovered his infidelity and came storming into the restaurant, murder and mayhem in her eyes. You’d almost rooted for her when she’d slapped him so hard she broke the sound barrier, and when she left him reeling in the shock of it all, you followed her right out the door. You even had drinks with her afterwards, enjoying -and encouraging- her furious ranting in between bitter shots. 

The third man made it a whole hour into the date before asking when you were going to stop being a tease and let him take you home. At this point in your dating career, you expected nothing but disappointment, so when he finally blurted out his demands, you were more amused than anything that he’d been silently suffering for a whole hour. And of course, you had your fun with him; you felt you were owed at least a good time if not a good date. For wasting your night, you repaid him by edging him on for another hour, coaxing his lust out with pretty words, purred in his ear, with your foot teasing its way up his leg, until he was engorged to the point of excruciating pain, then you left him alone with nothing more than his agony for company. 

It’d become well known among the men that you were hard to date, and well known among the women that the men of the Defense Force were hard to love. At least the ones you went out with. Every disastrous date turned into a word of warning for the women, and they eagerly awaited your updates, curious to know which men to avoid. The men began noticing their dwindling romantic prospects and, their pride on the line, they set out to prove you wrong. 

Soon, a line of suitors filed through your door, every man puffing out their chest, every man arrogantly claiming they could do better than the last. You hadn’t expected such a reception, but your amusement got the better of you, and one by one you agreed to go out with each man. Then, one by one, they all failed. 

Most made it a day or two, some a couple days, some a couple weeks; each one making mistake after mistake, each one more disappointing than the last. One man made it a whole 2 months and then he forgot your birthday and did little to make up for forgetting. You wondered if you should resign yourself to a life alone. You wondered if men were even capable of treating a girl right.

Then the buzz of your dating life reached the ears of the First Division’s Captain. And to your surprise, Gen Narumi, the man who hated to leave the cozy confines of his office, the man who was infamously uninterested in anything besides the latest video games, the man who was aloof, who was blunt, who was sometimes downright unpleasant, had decided to throw his hat into the ring. You were more fascinating than his electronics; the prize of your approval more enticing than any game. 

In no time at all, Narumi had claimed the highest score- you’d been his girlfriend for a whole 3 months, and it was the longest anyone had ever kept you. He’d spoil you with his salary, butter you up with compliments (it wasn’t hard; you kept pace with him on the battlefield well, he had much to praise), and tear the breath straight from your lungs with his devastating kisses. You wondered if this was the moment you would finally fall in love. He’d planned to keep his winning streak going, but then his old habits began slinking their way back into the relationship. He’d promise to take you out for dinner and then his games would consume him and he’d forget your existence. On joint missions, you’d advise him on the best course of action, and he’d blatantly ignore you, thoroughly embarrassing you in front of the whole division as he recklessly went off on his own yet again. You gave him time to clean up his act, still clinging to the first semblance of a good relationship you’d had in awhile. But then you couldn’t take it anymore- you dumped him when month 4 came around.

Vice Captain Hoshina, who had been more than entertained just watching this whole game play out, who had been more than content just watching from the sidelines, suddenly felt the urge to try his hand at your heart. He’d always found you interesting, found your spunk refreshing, found your skills impressive, found your looks enticing, but he was just never in the mood for a relationship. Watching your increasing frustration and Narumi’s increasing stupidity made him realize he wasn’t satisfied with his position on the bench anymore. He’d show Narumi, show all the other men, show the world how it was done. You deserved better and he was the best. 

When he first expressed interest in dating you, part of you was skeptical and reserved. You thought he might just be using you to piss off Narumi. You didn’t completely mind if he was, because you could admit that you’d used many men to get free food and free gifts, knowing it wasn’t going to last, but some part of you couldn’t bear the thought of that happening with him. You greatly respected him as your Vice Captain, and more than that, you enjoyed his company as a friend. You couldn’t stand it if your relationship with him went up in flames, if you had to stop looking for him in hallways, eager for your next training session, if you had to stop saving jokes for him that you thought he’d love, if you had to stop sharing earpods on the transport, listening to your favorite album together on the way to your next mission. 

But your caution quickly turned into curiosity, and before you knew it, you were dating the Vice Captain. You thought to yourself that even if he was just using you to get under Narumi’s skin, you were okay with that, as his little schemes amused you greatly. Once, you’d been out on a date at the mall when Hoshina spotted Narumi a couple aisles away. Of course, Hoshina remembered that Narumi would complain that all you would do was kiss him and nothing else, so Hoshina got it in his head that when Narumi finally turned around to find you on a date with him, he should be holding up lingerie for you to try. Narumi almost blew a gasket demanding to know why Hoshina was allowed to get to homebase with you within the first week of dating when it took him almost a month to even be allowed to hold your hand. Hoshina had looked at you, interested to hear your response, and he was extremely impressed (and amused) by your quick wit, when you simply shrugged, said Hoshina was bigger and walked up to checkout with the lingerie Hoshina had scrambled to find, not even bothering to check if he’d grabbed your size or not. Narumi was fuming the rest of the week and his Vice Captain even went so far as pleading with you to stop pissing him off because it was causing the First Division a lot of trouble. If Hoshina was amused before, now he was thoroughly entertained. 

The two of you got into all sorts of trouble together and it was the most fun you’d had in your entire life. You didn’t even have time to wonder if it was possible to fall for him, you were both in love before you knew it. 

And he always pulled out all the stops for you. 

If someone brought you a flower bouquet, Hoshina would fill your entire living room with them. If someone took you out to a nice dinner, Hoshina would reserve the entire restaurant for the two of you to enjoy. If someone complimented you, Hoshina would leave love letters and sticky notes all around your house for you to find, with things he loved about you written all over them. There was no end to his devotion and adoration of you. If you asked for the sun, you were sure he’d bring the moon and all the stars along with it. 

You’d fallen so in love with him, so quickly, so deeply, so desperately, that you were sure you could excuse any mistake he could ever or would ever make. If he stole something, you’d drive the getaway car. If he killed someone, you’d bring the shovel. Wherever he went, you’d follow. If he wanted to vacation in Hell, you’d bring ice packs and a fan. 

When you finally did get married to him, Hoshina sent Narumi a wedding invite with the words “Looks like I’ve got the high score now” written on the top and you fell in love with him all over again.

[canmom]

Animation Night 189: Nonphotorealistic

There is a funny trend in animation-related terminology to define things by what they aren't. Animation is any technique for creating film that isn't live action. Limited animation is any style of 2D animation that doesn't follow the conventions of Disney's 'full animation' on 1s and 2s - a category that includes a wildly diverse range of approaches and techniques, as this wonderful history by Animation Obsessive describes.

In 3DCG circles, there is a similar term: nonphotorealistic. Which describes, naturally, anything that isn't trying to look like a photograph of a real scene. There has been a real boom in this of late, and just like the other terms, it really doesn't narrow it down very much. Other terms like 'hybrid animation' add a bit more hints.

Of course, if you've been anywhere near animation in the last few years, you'll probably know another term: 'Spiderverse style'.

There is no denying that Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) by Sony Pictures Animation was an absolute landmark for animation. (I wrote about it way back on AN21, focusing more on the cultural angle.) The ludicrously stylish film pretty much set the direction for animation in the 2020s - making a bunch of money and awards and thus finally throwing open the door to 3DCG animation that doesn't look like the style set by Pixar/Dreamworks in the 2000s. Its sequel, Across the Spiderverse (2023), was even more ambitious and successful (despite a troubled production involving a lot of needless crunch). We'll be showing that soon in a Spiderverse double bill so look forward to it!

So perhaps not surprising that when people see the use of graphical styles, 2D elements, limited framerates and the like in 3DCG these days, Spiderverse comes to mind. In its wake have come various films and series that apply these and related techniques: 3DCG animation is more varied than ever, and it's cool.

It isn't really a style, tho.

Here I'm indebted to youtuber Camwing who has made a nice video overview breaking down the animation of recent movies in this vaguely defined paradigm. Among them we have The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021, also Sony), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022, Dreamworks), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023, animated at the French/Canadian studio Mikros animation), and of course over on Netflix you got the wildly popular League of Legends spinoff series Arcane (2021, Fortiche Productions), and the romance film Entergalactic (2022, DNEG), tying in with an album of the same name.

None of these films has exactly the same style, but they all pull from a related bag of tricks. The core techniques are animating on reduced framerates for a 'snappy', high-clarity feeling, the combination of 2D and 3D elements in some fashion, and taking inspiration from traditional media such as paintings or comic books.

For example, Arcane and Entergalactic both use the trick of 2D backgrounds/projecting paintings onto 3D geometry, inhabited by 3D characters with a stylised shader. Arcane is dripping with 2D visual effects. Puss in Boots drops the framerate during its action scenes - the opposite of the old paradigm of full animation, where fast actions would get more frames. Spiderverse draws 2D expressions onto its 3D models to push them further, and is full of all kinds of colourful stylised rendering - screentone effects, kirby dots, outlines, the works.

It's tempting to link this to 2D-in-3D animation, and certainly many of these films apply this technique - this is the major niche where Blender has found its way into industry pipelines. But using 2D isn't mandatory to count here. For example, TMNT Mutant Mayhem has an incredibly striking storybook-painting style, accomplished largely by clever shader work and a strong sense of graphic design. Genndy Tartakovsky's canned 2014 Popeye project was planning to use a ton of 2D-style posing and squash-and-stretch, accomplished largely with rigged 3D models. There are many paths to take!

And mind you, I haven't even covered one of the biggest angles here. Search for nonphotorealistic 3DCG on Youtube and what you'll probably find most is information about cel-shading - aka 'anime style'. This has also advanced considerably in the last few years, with the techniques pioneered by Arc System Works in Guilty Gear such as editing the normals of characters for more precise control over shading, and minute adjustments to break up the mechanical feeling of 3D, becoming widely copied in both games and films. (And particularly, animated porn.)

Vtubers in particular have really run with this technique, generally speaking using cel-shaded models with edited normals, inverted eyes, etc. etc. to try and get the feeling of an anime character come to life. [You can see a lot of these state of the art techniques if you download Pixiv's free VRoid Studio software and import the model into Blender using the VRM plugin.]

Naturally this kind of cel-shaded approach has found a particular home in Japan. In anime, the biggest champions of it are certainly Studio Orange, whose hybrid approach involves planning out shots with 2D animation before matching them with the rigs. We've covered their adaptation of Houseki no Kuni in great detail on Animation Night 97; their Trigun reboot was perhaps even more popular. But cel-shaded techniques, 3D previs and the like have also made their way into big films like Eva 3.0+1.0 (AN66).

Although this type of rendering aims to recreate the look and feel of 2D animation as much as possible, it always ends up being something new: character models that would be too complex to draw, an ease to 3D movements and camerawork that would be challenging in 2D, and generally a new hybrid style. This is good! 2D animation is already very good at being 2D animation - it's fascinating to see what 3DCG becomes with that inspiration.

So with that brief overview, where does that take us tonight?

I'm not quite ready to do a Spiderverse double bill tonight, so instead the plan is to check out a couple of recent American franchise films that are taking on the new suite of techniques. I've mentioned them up above, but let me introduce them more fully here.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a sequel to a fairly unpopular spinoff about a side character of the Shrek franchise (AN75). Not, on its face, very promising - which is why it is all the more striking that I was told on all sorts of sides that I must watch this movie. I'm finally going to make good on that.

The title character is a kind of feline musketeer type, now facing the end of his swashbuckling career as he's lost 8 of his 9 lives. Not wanting to hang up his hat, he goes on a quest to restore them. What makes it stand out its the action scenes, which go all in on the anime-influenced, extreme perspective and lighting, limited framerate style that we're discussing above. Apparently it looks sick as shit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh reboot of the venerable TMNT franchise, which pretty much describes itself in the title: four turtles (named after Renaissance painters, of course!) live in a sewer as ninjas, led by their aging master who is a rat. Starting as a comic book, it became one of the iconic toyline-driven TV shows of the 80s - but it's still going! Indeed, Turtles has been on a roll of late (at least going by animator scuttlebutt), with Australian studio Flying Bark Productions turning a lot of heads with their neo-Kanada School style (and for really stretching the definition of 'storyboard').

This new film takes a different approach to the bombastic action of Rise. It focuses on a new origin story for the turtles, telling a kind of coming of age story - but what makes it unique is the animation style and cinematography. Cinéma vérité is not a phrase you really expect to be associated with ninja turtles, but the film seems to really go all out in a way you wouldn't really expect from a franchise movie, shooting the young turtles in a handheld style and focus heavily on character. Marcel Reinhard's shader work, allowing the animators to isolate lights to specific objects and characters and introducing graphical elements of cross-hatching, stippling, etc. etc. to the lighting, gives it a uniquely painting-like feeling, augmented by a lot of 2D creativity in lighting and effects.

Turtles has never really been my thing, but this film looks unique enough that I really want to see it - and I hear it's a good film too.

So that's our bill for tonight! Puss and Turtles. Let's see what the big studios have been cooking of late...

Animation Night 189 will be starting around 10pm UK time (roughly three hours hence) and carrying on til about 2-3am same! We'll be on twitch.tv/canmom as usual. Hope to see you there!

[ladygagaqueenedit]

Lady Gaga anuncia su nuevo album "Mayhem", que llega el próximo 7 de marzo. Lista de canciones:

1 - Disease 2 - Abracadabra 3 - Garden of Eden 4 - Perfect Celebrity 5 - Vanish Into You 6 - Killah (feat. Gesaffelstein) 7 - Zombieboy 8 - Lovedrug 9 - How Bad Do I Want 10 - Don't Call Tonight 11 - Shadow of a Man 12 - The Beast 13 - Blade of Grass 14 - Die With a Smile (feat. Bruno Mars) 15- ?