#Main Ave

[thorsenmark]

Exploring Durango! by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While walking the streets of Durango and taking in the sights of the city with the storefronts around. I captured this while waiting at an intersection crossing and a view looking to the northeast. My thought in composing this image was to have this urban setting filled with people walking about and cars (or other type vehicles) filling in those “empty” spaces in between the stores along the sidewalk and streets.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Rolin Jones on IWTV s3 (going forward) and POVs:

"Everybody’s free to judge the rest of it. If all goes right, we’ll have six or seven more seasons to work on you coming around to that, or the redemption of that. [In season one,] the audience wants to kill Lestat along with Louis and Claudia. But we had to sit on it for a year and a half. So it’s okay for people to think that we made a supervillain out of Lestat and then to come around to a fuller portrait. In season three, [Lestat is] front and center, and Jacob takes a supporting role. And it’s not all about point of view. We got 80 to 85-percent of Lestat pretty solid. Retribution is easy, right? It’s being contrite. [There’s] the idea that forgiveness should be part of this cycle, too. That’s something I think we’re trying to sell." "So, what am I interested in? I’ll be less interested in point of view and memory as much. The challenge of the books is that there’s not a lot of forward story. I don’t think that you can probably mine the arcs of those for origin story after origin story after origin story. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take the same material and in very inventive, exciting ways move it forward."

And:

“The big difference moving forward is Lestat will be front and center telling the story, so it should feel like this show has been taken hostage by Lestat,” Jones says. “Aesthetically, it is going to feel different. It is not going to feel like two old guys in a room trying to figure out what brought them together. It is going to be over the shoulder of Lestat de Lioncourt, of whom you have probably seen about an 80%-accurate version of who he is — on fire and reckless. So it should be fun and dangerous.”

[flamebearrel]

“But Kris, if I wanted to watch Anim vs. with all the different series how should I even go about it??”

It largely depends on the topics and cast you’re interested in seeing. The show is split into three subseries as well as the occasional standalone episode/miniseries: Animator vs. Animation (the original created in 2006-7 by Alan Becker alone), Animation vs. Minecraft (the longest and most popular, shorts stemming off a standalone from 2015), and Animation vs. Education (the newest from 2023, visualizing high-level STEM concepts)

Personally, I think core AvA is required reading for anyone who has appreciation for past eras of the internet, UI, or principles and genres of animation. AvM and AvE are equal in quality but honestly you won’t appreciate them as much if you aren’t familiar with the topics they cover. Alan and his team do try to visually introduce things step by step, though, so you can at least get a general idea of what you’re looking at

Besides that, core AvA specifically follows the Hollow-Heads, hand-drawn stick figures created by the Animator, “noogai”/Alan. In particular you have The Chosen One (shortened to Chosen, Cho or TCO) and The Second Coming (aka Second, Sec, TSC or Orange). TSC is the de facto main character and the only one appearing in all three series, while TCO and the Animator are exclusive to the original.

The SticksFight squad - the four sticks originating from sticksfight.com and named after their colors - have developed distinct personalities as the main cast of AvM, but only take a collective side role in main AvA (Yellow has a slightly larger role than the others). Here’s a summary of their individual personalities so you know what to look for in their smaller appearances

Red - Impulsive and energetic, always the first to jump into action and with a soft heart for creatures and beasties. He’s a little simple when it comes to technical things, but excels with reading the people around him, then building off of their quirks. Since the rest of the group babies him a bit, he puts in extra physical work to prove he can hold his own. Red also tends to play around with new or out-of-the-box solutions - knowledge that extends to his pranks. Most ready to fight with his fists or use heavy-hitters like maces and clubs. (Good intro/focus eps: The Rediscovery, Texture Pack, Monster School, The Prank)

Blue - A mellow fellow! Blue is one with nature and focuses on farming, cooking, and potionology. Due to her pacifistic tendencies, Blue prefers to reason things out or find other solutions rather than fighting, but will throw herself into the face of danger for others. Otherwise she takes up ranged weapons like guns and bows. She’s detail- and aesthetic-oriented as well as graceful, but doesn’t often step outside what she knows. A bit of an addiction to nether wart, which is somewhere between an unusual snack and a drug. (Good intro/focus eps: Potions, The Piglin War, The Chef, Blue’s New Superpower)

Yellow - She loves more than anything to get down to the root of things, and that makes her the group’s engineer! …And a bit of a troublemaker, paying more attention to the thrill of a discovery than the consequences. Yellow tries to find fairness and justice for friend and foe alike. While they have a reliable, supportive demeanor, they’re also very peppy, excitable and tough with how they stand strong in dire situations. Often her fighting style takes place behind the scenes, using things like explosives or a command-casting staff. (Good intro/focus eps: The Roller Coaster, Command Blocks, Lucky Blocks, AvArcade Games)

Green - Originally the weakest on the team, but has since come into his own after a lot of reflex training (read: getting tossed around). Green has great adaptability to learning new techniques and getting creative, particularly with styles of music and architecture. He loves the spotlight and usually competes with the others or takes the chance to show off; however, he also cares deeply about welcoming in those he meets. Dashes and zips around all the time during battle, usually via fishing rod-grappling hook. (Good intro/focus eps: AvYouTube, Note Blocks, PvP, The Dolphin Kingdom)

If you’re just gonna watch the REQUIRED ones this is what I recommend:

AvA s1 (1-4, previously I-IV)

AvMinecraft (original)

AvYouTube

AvA s2 (5-8, previously “shorts” combining into V)

AvMath

AvA s3 (9-ongoing)

That way you get the introduction of both subseries, with how each establishes the cast/direction, as well as one standalone. I put vs. YT here since it best fits the theme imo but you could go with vs. Pokémon or vs. Arcade Games if you prefer

If you’re willing to take on AvM/the rest of the series this is pretty much the order of the timeline:

AvA s1

AvM (original)

AvYouTube

AvM shorts s1 (1-14)

AvLeague of Legends (required for an AvM character’s development)

AvM shorts s2 (15-19)

AvA s2

Other standalones (Blue’s New Superpower + vs. ___)

AvM shorts s3 (20-30)

AvE (ongoing)

AvA s3 (ongoing)

AvM shorts s4 (ongoing)

Influencer Arc (1-3 + some interactive videos on the Greenzilla4 channel)

Or just follow my playlist!!!

[satirn]

nyan genesis evantigreon

[shaanks]

okay listen here are my long ass unprompted two cents:

The popular fandom concurrence that Luffy doesn't bathe often, and only usually when he's dragged in there or in a group setting, is correct.

The popular fandom concurrence that this is because he's a dumb stinky baby that doesn't understand hygiene and scratches his ass and sniffs it in public, is categorically false. (and also annoys me and feels in line with other ways that the fandom tends to infantilize Lu and downplay his intelligence, but that's gonna have to be a post for another day.)

Think about That One Thing that happened to you when you were a little kid. Maybe you fell down and broke your arm. Maybe you got stung by a wasp. Maybe, just maybe, you fell into a pool and almost drowned.

Bad things that happen to us in childhood will stick with us well into adulthood, and likely for the rest of our lives. Fears and traumas from our formative years shape the way we think, and require a ton of effort and, often times, professional intervention to unlearn the coping mechanisms for.

Luffy had a ton of really traumatic shit happen to him as a child, and a LOT of those things revolved around a consistent series of near-drownings. With the bandits when Shanks had to come save him, which involved nearly drowning AND, as a result of that deeply frightening, very painful event, the witnessing of his mentor and father figure getting his fucking arm bitten off saving him.

Then, over and over and over again, in the jungle with Ace and Sabo. The first few times he really did nearly die, because the boys didn't realize he couldn't swim, and just stood up there, jeering and laughing at him until the bubbles stopped coming up and they realized something was wrong.

Every time they went over a bridge or fought some animal or had run-ins with dangerous adults, the chance that Luffy would have a near-drowning event was ever-present and always non-zero.

It's shown in canon that, during the rare times they came back to Dadan's hideout for baths, Luffy was hesitant to join in, not because he enjoyed being dirty, but because he was visibly frightened to get into the water barrel, and needed support to do that.

Even into his adult life, this problem has persisted, and it doesn't matter how strong he gets or how many techniques he learns, there is nothing he can do but hope someone saw him fall if he ends up in the water again.

Getting water in your nose and lungs hurts. Getting it in your eyes hurts. It can take ages to run out of your ears, it can make you sick, we're not built to have water outside of its designated metabolic areas.

It's the only real weakness he has, and nearly every non-beverage run-in he's had with water in his entire life, since the age of like 5, has been some level of dangerous and traumatic. The kind of mental fortitude involved in pulling his Water Luffy stunt in Alabasta is, for him, just as much a show of the ferocity of his loyalty as anything else, despite how objectively silly it looks (and how comically angry it makes Crocodile).

Luffy doesn't bathe often, not because he's stupid, not because he's lazy, not because he doesn't "get soap" or whatever nonsense reasons are floating around, but because water scares the shit out of him, and he's not very good at articulating that emotion, nor the need for support that fear entails.

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

[delicateartisantrash]

comic fanfic scene W.I.P.

Still working on drawing how I imagine the design for Starscream’s Holo’ Av’ in one of the stories I’m writing.

[sushisocks]

And with that, the final chapter and epilogue of Attentive Vigor is finally posted!

I have -- so many feelings about this. I'm nervous, and grateful, and thrilled, and sad, and all the feelings in the world, over this being my final update. 300k words, and almost a full two years later. This work has been so precious to me, it has pushed and challenged me, and been such an anchoring point in my life, ever since I started posting it.

I hope everyone who has been following this story over the course of all this time enjoy the final ending. It'll stand as proof of my love and devotion to this game, and how much it has mattered to me, since I first played it.

I'll be taking a break, working on some smaller stuff on the side, and working through my woefully neglected askbox, in the coming weeks. I'm excited to eventually delve into the ideas and works I've been keeping on the backburner for a while now, but I think a proper break from ficwriting is highly deserved. Thank you all :) <3<3<3

[istherewifiinhell]

reading a single tf comedy fic will confront u with the authors viewpoints on: heads of military, heads of state, stance on revolutionary politics, reporters, freedom of the press, cops, class stigmatized labour, civilian liberties, criminalized... miscreantism? blows big breath kicks can down the road... minorities?

[sparrow-in-the-field]

I am too sleepy to write fr but just sleepy enough to feel uninhibited in sharing a silly idea for the Cormorant fic I had

Basically Chuck writes Roger a letter after they get to the jorty(tm) cabin in Oregon and since Bobby hasn't written yet, Roger decides to share the letter with Joe and Joyce so they can have an update too

Joe reads it out loud so Joyce can hear and most of it is just about the train journey and how they were so excited to see Stub and Shorty, etc.

Joe, in the zone of reading aloud, continues, "I miss you already, Rodge. I'm not sure what our sleeping arrangements are going to be tonight, but if I find time alone I will think of you as I--" Joe stops reading out loud, but his eyes continue to scan the page. "Oh my god."

Roger clears his throat, grabbing the letter from Joe. "Oh yeah, that last part's just for me, sorry."

"There's like a whole page left!"

Roger smirks, although his cheeks are also flushed. "Yeah."

"You guys hadn't even been apart a full twenty four hours yet when he wrote this!"

"I know," Roger sighs wistfully, looking down at the letter he is carefully folding to return to his pocket. "I miss him so much."

[avsandflyboys]

Alex Newhook is my james bond!!! He is my mcdreamy!!! He is my james dean!! He is the moment!!

[thorsenmark]

Main Ave in Durango by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While walking the streets of Durango and taking in the sights of the city with the storefronts around and mountains as a backdrop. In order to capture this image and align myself with the streets and store fronts, I was able to stand in the center turn lane at an intersection. I mulled over the idea of waiting until cars passed by but then I figured that they added to the setting with urban exploration in exploring this city in southeastern Colorado. The rest was metering the image to not blow any of the highlights on this bright, sunny afternoon, while still being able to pull the more shadowed areas later on in post-production. I used the perspective tool in DxO PhotoLab 7 to straighten out any distortions with the wider angle capture.

[eiders]

close encounter with a chestnut-sided warbler

[swagrum76]

more hashtags

#mewtwo #pokken #pokemon #mewtwooc #why

[shaanks]

we have GOT to bring back the lost art of identifying when something isn't for you and scrolling past it. writers on this site are not service workers that you get to mistreat or make demands of for not catering to whatever your vague and nebulous preferences and requirements are.

if you get into, say, an x reader fic, and you don't like the characterization or description or amount or lack thereof of the projection slate? That fic isn't for you.

If you look at the tags and don't like what you see? That fic isn't for you.

If you like something a writer wrote, go to their masterlist, and find mostly writing for other characters that aren't your favorites? Those fics aren't for you.

Writers, on this site, on AO3, on whatever site you happen to be perusing, have been gracious enough to share the fruits of their labor with the greater internet community at large, mostly for free.

You not wanting to read something or not liking the subject matter or wanting the people involved to be different is a problem for you, not for the person who had a cool idea and did the work necessary to turn that into written word.

Be nice or scroll past! Nobody is asking for your critique and it's entirely inappropriate to leave nasty comments or send shitty asks or flood tags with posts complaining that you're not personally being catered to.

You'd like a secret third option? Write your own fic! If you want to see a certain character written more for, or a certain type of reader with a specific level of personality, or certain tags that are your favorite...you do it! That'd be amazing!

But badgering strangers for not psychically intuiting your needs and then making their whole creative process about you, a stranger, is so crappy and it's gotta stop.

[leviathangourmet]

am I the weird one for not remembering directions by street names but just landmarks and images in my mind??