#Abstract Feelings

[yellowmanula]

Turning away from the light

Becoming adult

Turning into myself

I wanted to bite not destroy

To feel her underneath

Turning into the light

[yanagordinart]

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Dimensional Reveal , 2023. —- In the process of working on Abstract Feelings November, I got inspired to create a separate piece to further expand on my processing of a situation. It was interesting to see the blue paint take the form of a snake-like shape when I was done because it was symbolic of what’s been on my mind, and I wasn’t consciously thinking about a snake. Free association working its magic!

[bixels]

It's crazy how Dungeon Meshi's manga can feel more cinematic and emotional than the anime to me, even when they're practically the same. Compared to the anime, this moment is such a heartbreaking gut-drop. The way Kui uses negative space and flat compositions to create a sense of horrific stillness is so key.

The way the text (Senshi's monologue) is sequestered to an empty corner of a panel or huddled away from the edge of its text box is not only a great way of showing Senshi's headspace (fearful, isolated, dissociating), but creates a visual representation of pause, as if you hold your breathe after each line. The first panel puts us directly in Senshi's perspective too (compared to in the anime, which puts us as an outside observer over Senshi's shoulder). The detail of the door and bricks so effectively implies that he stared at it for so long, waiting and hoping, that its image is burned in his memory. The wood grain, the brick arch, the number of rivets. The lack of dialogue in the second panel shows a moment of realization too –– "he's dead" (also a great example of the Kuleshov effect). And it's that pause that creates a beat and sets a great rhythm to his headspace, like a music rest: "He never came back." (oh god.) "I'm all alone." Finally, the third panel's negative space, cropping Senshi, shows how truly alone he feels. Without his family, the world ceases to exists. Under shock, he traps himself in a 1-foot radius, too scared to even perceive a world outside its boundaries; a world that can hurt him, kill him, make him disappear with it. There is only his body, the stone beneath his feet and against his back, his thoughts, and that awful bowl of soup.

Even though they're a series of flat images, there's an implicit reading of silence in Senshi's realization and horror. Kui influences your experience to slow down and take your time.

Compare this to the anime, which fills every shot with dialogue. The pacing is fast; we never get to sit in silence like we do with the manga. The horizontal frame allowed the boarders to add Senshi, turning the composition into an over-the-shoulder shot, which takes us out of Senshi's POV. They also added a zoom-out in shot one, which adds unnecessary energy to a very somber scene. The tightening on Senshi as a close-up reaction shot also dulls the moment. In the original panel, Senshi stares ahead at the empty space to his left as a shadow surrounds his mind. It not only shows how Senshi's senses are dulling and his world is shrinking (setting up panel three), but shows how terrified Senshi is of what's in front of him, how the air itself becomes pitch black and opaque, how Senshi is surrendering himself to fear. The pacing is understandable and necessary; this episode packed a lot of story content together. It's just a shame because it really (imo) deflated one of the most nauseating moments in Dungeon Meshi.

[gorgynei]

λυκάνθρωπος / Μινώταυρος

[katabay]

earlier this year I started writing a comic about the siege perilous-grail quest situation after finally finishing the didot perceval, and it started circling around kay and perceval. kay as gatekeeper, taboo anxiety vs chivalry, and perceval not doing things "correctly," arthur's enduring affection for kay. that general area. also the horror of the grail quest itself.

this is comic is part of that narrative arc, so with THAT in mind: this is an abridged scene of a longer arc revolving around kay associating camelot with a cage, perceval's associations with jewelry and knighthood and the color red, and arthur's relationship with kay.

[some other scene context: perceval has injured his hand and can't participate in the tournaments, so he's craving some kind of fight. kay is disinterested in replying to this challenge, but he's not above reminding perceval of their first meeting. it's just mean enough in a weird-intimate kind of way that perceval's like, ok so we're doing the antagonistic version of court romance rituals. he picks up hunting because kay can't leave the castle.]

on the subtext of jewelry:

Clothes Make the Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, M.D. Amey

on the topic of kay, gatekeeping, and taboo anxiety:

Cei and the Arthurian Legend, Linda Gowans

the whole Red Knight/Perceval Shows Up In A Dead Man's Suit Of Armor transgression-situation (which kay references through red jewelry) mentioned is told in both de Troye's and Wolfram's Perceval narratives :)

anyway! to close out all this out: the transgressions. incredible! what is camelot but a bunch of transgressions stacked on top of each other tbh.

[cuubism]

i feel like dream in human aus is usually characterized as being more stoic and stern while hob is more easygoing, but i think it would be funny to have a university au where hob is the professor who's like "no work is deserving of 100%. find 27 more sources and do it again" while dream is just like "they put their dreams into it, hob 🥺 A+! A+! A+! A+!"

[gen-toon]

[monstersovka]

you're not defective ✶

[magentasnail]

being an artist

[oil-eclipse]

Antony Gormley, selections from the “Cosmic” series.

[bloobydabloob]

Playing Ratchet & Clank

[mimilllion]

happiness has to be fought for

[shimmershy]

I've been longing for Daisies to push through the floor And I wish plant life would grow all around me So I won't feel dead anymore

[mettywiththenotes]

Noticing that Jax hasn't gotten to do what he wants for 2 episodes (at least not fully, he's usually held back by the others to a frustrating degree) and at the end of both he is forced to see right before his eyes that the people in the circus care about one another and he noticeably brushes off or avoids that fact

I just think these expressions are very interesting

[journey-to-the-attic]

uh oh

[transmutationisms]

how do i know what’s right?

i feel like i have zero critical thinking skills ;-;

a lot of the time when someone poses an idea or a theory they think they’re right, and so they use language that enforces that. but then someone refutes it, and uses language affirming what they believe and i see the point in their argument. and then it gets refuted again and again and again and im just confused.

hi great question. i would love it if there were a single easy litmus test to figure out who's 'right' and whose info i should trust! unfortunately things are rarely this easy, and it's actually completely normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of information being produced and shared, especially when it comes to topics you haven't researched/lived/etc. for most of us, this will be most topics!

i'd preface this by saying that i think your overall attitude here is actually a good one. you're framing it in a pretty self-deprecating way—but actually, imo this type of openness to discussion and disagreement is a really good place to start, esp when dealing with topics that are new to you. nobody enters a contentious debate with a fully fledged, defensible viewpoint. you might feel like you're just treading water here, making no progress toward being able to evaluate arguments for yourself, but i highly doubt that's true.

all of that said: while i again cannot give you a single litmus test for figuring out what's 'right', there are four pretty basic sets of questions that i automatically run through when encountering a new idea, source, topic, or argument: we can call these origin, purpose, value, and limitations.

origin: who's the author? do they have any institutional affiliations? who pays their salary? is this argument or paper funded in any way? is the argument dependent upon the author's social position or status (race, class, etc) and if so, are those factors being discussed clearly? does the author have ties to a particular nation-state or stakes in defending such a nation-state? what's the class character of the author and the argument? what's the social, economic, and intellectual context that gave rise to this argument or source?

purpose: why is this source or person disseminating this information or making this argument? are they trying to sell you anything? are their funders? are they trying to persuade you of a particular political viewpoint? keeping in mind the answers to the 'origin' questions, are there particular ideological positions you would expect to find in this source or argument, and are they present? what are the stakes for the author or source? what about for those who cite the source or further disseminate or publish it?

value: what does this source or argument accomplish well? what aspects of the argument are new to you and strike you as insightful? are there linkages being made that you haven't encountered elsewhere, and that you think are effectively and sufficiently defended? are there statistics or empirical data that might be useful to you in forming your own argument, even if you disagree with how this source or author is interpreting them? what does this argument or source tell you about the types of debates being had, and the rules of those debates?

limitations: where does this argument or source fail you or fall apart? are there obvious rhetorical fallacies you can identify? is the author forgetting or overlooking some piece of information that you know of from elsewhere? which viewpoints may be omitted? keeping in mind the answers to the 'purpose' questions, if this source is defending a particular ideology or political position, is that one you agree with? is it only defensible so long as the author omits or distorts certain pieces of information? are there points where the argument jumps from evidence to a conclusion that the evidence can't fully support? are there alternative explanations for the evidence?

over time you will often find that it becomes more and more automatic to ask yourself these questions. you will also find that the more you read/hear about a particular topic, the faster you can determine whether someone is presenting all of the evidence, presenting it fairly, and using it to fully defend the argument they ultimately want to make. and you will probably also find that at some point, you're able to synthesise your own argument by pulling the strong parts from multiple other people's viewpoints, combining them with your own thinking, and fitting them together in a way that adequately explains and materially analyses the issue at hand.