#Solid design good arc so far

[owlhead650]

Yay. Kanon gets huggies.

Pokemon Rejuvenation Again

[comicaurora]

hi red!! i'm doing an analysis of sun wukong's (and journey to the west in general's) impact on modern culture for my world mythology final, and for some reason i'm having a hard time finding sources. is there anything you can recommend?

The fact that Journey to the West has contributed an enormous number of tropes to modern media is very clear when the media in question is examined, but I don't know of a specific secondary source that's already done that analysis for you. However, this IS a very good excuse for you to plow through a metric buttload of shonen manga, since the lineage is basically Sun Wukong -> Son Goku -> like a solid third of all shonen action heroes written in the last forty years.

Dragon Ball kicks things off:

Started in 1984 and almost unquestionably the most influential manga ever made. Its first arc features the weird super-strong monkey-kid Son Goku - which is just the japanese pronunciation of the characters of Sun Wukong's name - meeting up with a wacky crew of thinly-veiled expys of the Journey to the West crew, with teen inventor Bulma filling the role of Tripitaka, Oolong the pig-man filling Zhu Bajie's role and Yamcha the desert-based bandit as Sha Wujing.

Hijinks ensue, and while the story drifts pretty far from Journey to the West's original plot, it actually stays pretty solidly referential in weirdly unexpected ways. Several the villains of the week are JttW references, and even the later appearance of three more Saiyans lines up with the surprise reveal of three more Wukong-like mystical apes in the original story.

The connection between Dragon Ball and JttW is very unsubtle and a frequent reference in the chapter covers and supplemental art.

Not every subsequent JttW reference is the result of Dragon Ball popularizing it or anything, since it was already enormously popular, but I think it's pretty hard to extricate Dragon Ball's influence on anime and manga from the original influence of Journey to the West itself.

One way that a distinction can be drawn is in the differences in characterization between Goku and Sun Wukong himself. A lot of the next generation of shonen protagonists were kind of Goku-alikes - pure-hearted dumbasses who only care for the three Fs: Food, Fighting and Friendship.

But the original characterization of Sun Wukong is not really all that similar. He's a trickster, sure, but he's far from a young, friendship-motivated goober. He's profoundly intelligent, pretty much the most well-educated entity on the planet, and routinely brings up that he's centuries older than most of his peers. The Goku-alikes from the later decades of shonen anime are tellingly far-removed from that original characterization. So you get characters based on Goku's cheerful idiocy, but it's just a small subset of the broader influence of Journey to the West on the space of literature.

In general, Journey to the West frequently shows up in very small, bite-sized tropes in other stories. It's less "this is wholly based on Journey to the West" and more "oh, I know where they maybe got this idea/aesthetic/power/weapon/villain of the week from." There are way too many to list, but some of the ones that tend to jump out at me are-

Sneaky characters with monkey motifs:

Tricksy, highly mobile characters who fight with a staff:

Characters afflicted with a magical restraint artifact that allows a much weaker character to stop them from misbehaving:

Specific esoteric weapons, eg. magical fans, rakes, gourds, namedropping The Sword of Seven Stars, etc.

Villains with prominent ox or pig design motifs:

Characters whose primary combat strat is just making Shitloads Of Disposable Copies Of Themselves:

Honestly it just keeps going like this. It's kinda everywhere. Finding the JttW in things is my favorite conspiracy theory rabbit hole because it's 100% harmless and more often than not completely correct.

[thewertsearch]

@necrowyrm asked: happy new year!!! enjoy the last little bit of homestuck before act 6! Anonymous asked: You have NO IDEA how much I was looking forward to your reaction to this flash :D @teddy-bearer-of-bad-news asked: a very late congratulations from me for making it this far! i gotta say, saving CASCADE for new year's is probably the smartest thing i've heard all week. may your experience be nothing short of righteous, comrade Anonymous asked: Cascade … Even years latter knowing it almost by heart, every once in a while I will take a little quarter of an hour to rewatch it, Say what you want about Hussie but there is a good reason Homestuck became so iconic. @adeptarcanist asked: The leadup to Cascade was honestly my favorite sequence in Homestuck, and maybe one of my favorites in any media ever? The way the narrative splits apart into all of the different scenes swirling in towards the critical moment, both advancing main plots and finding time to spend a moment of melancholy with characters who’d been left behind (The Jaspers and Nepeta scene :( )… it’s such a strong narrative device, and the tone it generates is impeccable. @calamitascalliope asked: I literally watched the flash again, and it still gives me chills every single time. Welcome to your post-Cascade life. You won't be able to think about anything the same ever again @iris-in-the-dark-world asked: "she looks so cool… but she’s so tragic… but she looks so cool…" has become a brainworm for me. i too love the handmaid's design btw, cascade time has been i think the most anticipated non-personal event of the entire year for me. i'm so excited @publicuniversalworstie asked: I want you to know that I also opened Cascade and started watching with you right after I saw your "oh my god it has chapters" ask, and I finished just as you posted "I will never be the same" !! And I bet lots of other people did too <3 so it's like we all watched it together!!!! Happy New Year and thank you for liveblogging!!!! It's been a pleasure！(and will continue to be) @krixwell asked: I would like you to know that your "Right, we're good to go!" and "oh my god it has chapters" posts were posted right as I was outside watching midnight fireworks ring in 2025 for the Central European timezone. Happy new year! @captorations asked:

hey remember when rose just up and fucking said that. anyway congrats on reaching cascade! it absolutely wrecked me back in the day, i think i stared at those flaming curtains for a solid ten minutes as my brain permanently reconfigured. the first few notes of the track alone still give shivers. getting your reaction to cascade was a wonderful birthday present. (speaking of getting older: aradia 🤝 dulcinea also got that "distressingly short lifespan only to die early anyway" story thread going on. the parallels are paralleling.) anyway happy new year and congrats you are… slightly less than halfway done with homestuck. have fun!

Hey, guys. Cascade was so fucking good.

Like, there's really no competition; this is the best Flash page in the comic thus far. Peak music, peak animation, and absolutely a peak narrative. It tied up mountains of plot threads, providing complete answer to questions we're been asking for literally thousands of pages. It completed over a dozen arcs, both big and small. It made me gasp three times in fourteen minutes. It let Jade become a furry.

11/10, and I'm glad people had as much fun here as I did on New Year's Eve. Happy 2025, and happy Act 6!

@morganwick asked: Sally, predicting Cascade: "I have approximate knowledge of many things." @morganwick asked: "You literally have the whole world in the palm of your hands." -Sally to Jadesprite, December 16, 2024 (You might also want to reread post/770701212350857216 in light of recent developments.)

Hah!

I mean, based on her powerset, it made sense that Jadesprite would do something like this eventually, but it's pretty funny that she did it more or less immediately.

And in the end, CD really was a tricky little bastard. We'll definitely need to keep a closer eye on him, next time around.

Anonymous asked: Take a moment to consider that if anyone were to use the Homestuck website as it stands now instead of the Collection program, Cascade would have been presented in the YouTube player in Standard Definition, artifacted to hell, with a clear boundary showing the dimensions of the video from the very start. Preservation is so important.

Jeez, you're not kidding. The 1080p is fine, I guess, but it certainly doesn't hit like the Flash version does, especially with its lack of moving panels.

I know something had to change when Flash kicked the bucket, but surely there was a better way to preserve the video's soul.

Anonymous asked: to give you some of an idea of what homestuck fandom looked like during this time period, im cribbing from a very popular homestuck post: “first, this upd8 was something that we had been waiting for for WEEKS. A literally unprecedented wait period at the time. We were used to suckling at the teat of daily updates, a constant stream of conversation and plot twists and buildup, and as EOA5, we were finally going to figure out what all these countdowns and plot threads and disconnected elements were building up for. And when the progress bar reached 100%, and when the page FINALLY loaded on 10/25/11, it was chaos. This was 2011, a primetime peak point and growth period of Homestuck fan density.” (…) “MSPA crashed, as it had started to during the last few big [S] updates. Hussie had already bought new servers in advance, but even when allegedly thousands of dollars were spent it couldn't handle the accidental DDOS attack of Homestuck fans. People were up all night waiting for this upd8, the curiosity was killing me. I know at some point he was receiving at least 1 million unique visitors per day to his site [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, upwards of 2 million during this time], and even though Hussie had foreseen such traffic and thusly hosted [S] Cascade on Newgrounds, a dedicated video streaming site, Newgrounds was similarly unprepared for the sheer amount of people frantically mashing the play and refresh buttons, and also crashed. Immediately. MSPA and Newgrounds crashed definitively for at least two nights in a row” (…) “Andrew Hussie has gone on record to say this was one of the few times he thought Homestuck wasn’t worth it, because the sheer unbelievable cost (was it $10,000?) [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, it looked like it was going to cost $100,000 to keep [S] Cascade up for several days] of servers and the chaos of no one able to see the upd8 and crashing nearly every site after. He was tweeting during the whole debacle, stating he was reluctant to put it up on Youtube because of all the moving elements of the flash, and style, and how youtube degraded the quality of the file size, and how he tried to scratch out buffer time and pauses by putting periods of silence between each section of the 14 minute upd8, the longest upd8 yet” “So after Newgrounds patooted, he didn’t put it on youtube and instead put up the entire flash file on Megaupload, where it could be downloaded in it’s entirety to be watched. UNFORTUNATELY, Megaupload also crashed very quickly, which Hussie felt much headache over. But before that happened I managed to get the file, since I happened to be up very early that night! Next it was on dropbox, which didn’t crash but had “link unavailable” on and off. ”Spoilers were flying everywhere, people didn’t understand everything that had happened, and by the time the timeline of events in and out of [S] Cascade was all straightened out, people became even MORE hype. Like this whole thing lasted at least four days, and on top of that, the upd8 was good. Fandom exploded.” it is impossible to quantify the experience. The fact hussie was going to have to fork over A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to host it is crazy. I am never going to be over it.

Cascade's complete obliteration of the Flash-hosting internet says a lot about huge Homestuck truly was - but I think an even bigger indicator of the comic's success is the fact that Hussie dropped literally thousands of dollars on server upgrades to host the thing. That's not an investment you make unless you're expecting some serious returns.

[ditzyblues]

Do you have like a guideline/tips for how you draw Casey? I always try to draw her but it comes out wrong 💔

thank you for the question!!! i'm hesitant to answer this one, since casey has gone thru a super long process of like. Redesign. a lot of my casey is self indulgence (but not thoughtless.)

i'm far from her canon design at this point. in fact i don't think i've ever drawn it. but i haven't seen anyone horrifically misinterpret my design for her, so maybe I'm closer than I think.

FACIAL FEATURES:

my touchstones:

upturned, sharp eyes (going for monolid.) i always forget the eyeliner tho dont do that

HOOKED NOSE!!! even the canon forgets abt this.. a damn shame

sharp rectangular jaw

eyebrows that thicken at the end rather the inside

these are the four most important things i think abt while drafting her out... it's tougher to interpret casey's features since she's racially ambiguous, but i think it's safe to say she's east or southeast asian. i operate on the headcanon she's mixed filipina and white (like her voice actress.)

again, even with all these features in mind, her proportions can vary. I'm not even the most consistent with her, just because there's so much room in interpretation.

her cheekbones are pretty high, and i tend to highlight them. her nose is small for a hooked nose, and her lips are usually full enough (not as full as april's tho)

BODY TYPE:

touchstones:

broad shoulders bc of her back and arm mass (pronounced traps too)

buff arms. she lifts you see.

cinched but solid waist

wider hips, but nothing that takes from her shoulder width.

no one HAS to draw her beefy, given she's a stick in canon, but i think it kinda serves an arc. do u think she ate well in the foot clan...? NO! but now that she's free, she can bulk up and develop a good relationship with nutrition. Protein.

also she becomes more synonymous with the Casey Jones name. also stacked, muscular women are awesome and I think we need more. Also her being top heavy contrasts with April's more bottom heavy design. everything i do comes back to capril

MISC NOTES OF VARYING IMPORTANCE:

her haircut genuinely does not matter. as long as its close to her scalp in length and straight, she looks like casey.

red eyeliner certainly helps, but isn't needed. (saying this to cope with the fact i always forget it)

her black lipstick helps a lot. along with her ear cuffs on her left ear.

sticking to her black and red palette is great, but browns, deep blues, whites, pinks, and denims are fun too. have fun.

thinking of her as butch instantly gives her sauce in the drawing process

at this point in drawing her, i'm not thinking of her recognizability as foot recruit. she's evolved into this post canon, beefcake lesbian version of herself that has little pieces of my heart with her. i love her very much if u couldn't tell.

[mamayura]

Official episode names of season 6 + my speculations based on their names:

Climatiqueen: seems self-explanatory. Hopefully Aurore gets to finally matter again. Would be fitting that the akuma that started it all gets to ring in the new story arc

Dessinatriste: Dessinateur means designer or illustrator, and Dessinatrice is the female form. So I think it's more likely a female character.

Sublimation: is the process of anything solid turning into gas without first becoming liquid. I've got no clue in this one. Btw, I checked, and no, Sublimation is not the name of one of the season 5 episodes.

Daddycop: Maybe a reference to Robocop? Possibly a Sabrina episode.

Papys Garous: loups-garous are werewolves in French. So probably a continuation of season 3's Papa Garou (Weredad) with Ronald instead because Papi is French for Grandpa (and Papa is Dad)

Princesse Syren: First instinct is going with a continuation of season 2's Syren, so an Odine and Kim episode.

El Toro De Piedra: El Toro is Spanish for "The Bull" and Piedra is "Stone", so The Bull of Stone / The Stone Bull. Definitely a Spanish character.

Vampigami: Im pretty sure there is no other French word "Vampi" could be referring to besides vampires. But I wouldn't necessarily say it refers to Kagami. We thought the same about Optigami, too, and the it referred to origami. Who knows, maybe it's also the word "Pig" and "ami" (French for friend) we were supposed to pick up on? Maybe something with Rose? Her French hero name is Pigella too?

Monsieur Agreste: probably a continuation from "Gabriel Agreste" and lively further backstory.

Le Château Noir: considering that Monsieur Agreste and Le Château Noir are episodes 9 and 10, and therefore an episode pair, it's possible that the Noir part is referring to Adrichat. But in French Darkblade was named Le Chevalier Noir and Dark Owl is named Le Hibou Noir. So the new episode being names The black/dark Castle doesn't need to necessarily refer to Adrichat.

Revelator: im gonna go with continuation of Cerise's season 5 episode "Revelation"

Psyconductrice: Psyco likely has the same meaning as it had with Psycomedian. Conductrice seems to be some kind of female driver of a transportation machine.

Yaksi Gozen: Definitely a Tomoe episode. Her first form was Ikari Gozen and then Ikari Dozen. Though I'm not sure what exactly Yaksi is supposed to refer to. Gozen means Lady as far as I know. Tomoe's name is a reference to a Japanese legend of a female warrior named Tomoe Gozen (Lady Tomoe). Ikari means rage. But all I kind find for Yaksi is a Buddhist goddess. Not unlikely since the Miraculous are supposed to be from China, but maybe I'm just missing something here?

Couchorak: not gonna lie, I'm lost on this one.

La Redresseuse: hmmm. Le redresseur is "rectifier" in French. So something with electricity and its definitely a female character.

Noe: I've got no idea.

La Fée De Beaux Rêves: The fairy of beautiful dreams. Maybe we get some backstory on Marinette's Knitting Fairy childhood dream? Or something else connecting to the childhood dream theme going on?

Les Cassetastrophes: Cassettes now mostly are connected to video tapes, right? And the name uses plural for whoever those catastrophes are. Maybe backstory on André's movie with Emilie and Tomoe? Cause in season 4, we saw that Tomoe was apparently of it too when she was younger and she looked exactly like Kagami

Riginarazione: hmm. I think another episode diving into Cerise's character. Razione is a (food) portion, and Rigi is a famous mountain in Switzerland that's called the Queen of mountains. In Italien, Queen in regina. Combining Rigi and Regina you get Rigina and then you add razione. Cause Lila was Cerise's Italien identity and I'm pretty sure that in the story board version of the season 5 Cerise in the end applied for school in an identity from Switzerland.

Renverse-cœurs: I think here renverse (NOT reverse) means something like fallen? So fallen hearts? Love square, you good?

Les Titans Chaînes: the titan chains? That sounds ominous

Lady Chaos: let's prey we'll finally get a fucking Ladybug akuma. Still think they wasted the name Miracle Queen, but Lady Chaos would fit well too.

Tristanansi: probably Alya's big sister being reakumatized into Anansi, and of course the Triste part meaning sad. So Alya episode.

La Reine de Frayeurville: The Queen of + ville means town/ city and frayeur means fright (and similar words). So the Queen of Frighttown? A Halloween episode?

Protocole Secret: im pretty sure that's self-explanatory.

And, Nemesis: not just a word for someone's arch-enemy, but also the name of the Greek Goddess of Retribution.

[championoftheoppressed]

Uglies - Movie Thoughts

On a whim, I decided to start re-reading the Uglies series a couple months ago -- so imagine my surprise when I found out it was getting a movie! Said movie is now out, and it was interesting to watch with the book being so fresh in my head.

Overall, it's... eh. It's not a complete train wreck, the way most critics seem to want you to think, but it is fairly bland and uninspired. It's a very watered down version of the book. It also has the misfortune of feeling like yet another a Hunger Games wannabe, despite the original book pre-dating that series by several years.

Spoilers for everything under the cut.

What I Liked

Based on reviews, I seem to be in the minority here, but I thought the cast was pretty good. People seem to hate Joey King as Tally, but I thought she was fine. Brianne Tju is easily the best in the cast, stealing the whole damn movie as Shay. Laverne Cox also gives an excellent performance as Cable, though I do think she should not have been given that role for other reasons (which I'll get into later).

I've also seen complaints that the characters aren't ugly enough. They talk about how ugly they are and point out their specific ugly features, when they don't actually appear that ugly. And I think everyone complaining about that is completely missing the point. The "Uglies" aren't actually ugly -- they're just normal people, who've been conditioned to think their imperfect features are hideous.

I was honestly unsure how the Pretties would be visualized -- in fact, I wondered if the book would just be fundamentally unadaptable because of it -- but they did a fairly good job. I think leaning on CGI and unnatural affectations was the right way to go. All the Pretties have this uncanny quality to them that suits the story perfectly.

The overall production design was solid as well. I like how Uglyville is all gray concrete and muted tones, while New Pretty Town is shimmering golds. Then upon reaching the Smoke, all the colors of nature finally come through. I do think that could have pushed that last one a little bit more, but it still works well.

Apart from that, I don't really have much to shout out. It's competently written, well-performed, well put together. I know it doesn't sound like I have much praise, but it is a competent movie.

What I'm Mixed On

By far the biggest change from the book is Peris becoming a Special. And I'm torn on it. On the one hand, it does make him a bigger part of the story -- he's honestly not much more than an inciting incident in the book. It gives him and Tally a unique arc that's probably the strongest through-line in the story. On the other hand, the Specials as a concept are so under-cooked (more on that later) and the actor is so bland that it still doesn't quite land the way it's supposed to.

What I Didn't Like

The pacing of this movie is by far its worst issue. We are flying through this plot. There is no time for anything to breathe, for characters to develop meaningful connections, for the bigger moments to feel earned. Some things do make sense to condense -- Tally's journey to the Smoke would have been incredibly boring without her internal monologue, so condensing most of that into a montage makes sense. But I do feel we lost too much. That's where a lot of Tally's characterization comes out, where we can see her bravery and ingenuity -- none of that comes across in the movie.

A lot of important beats are rushed. Tally agreeing to help Dr. Cable is over in a flash. It feels like Tally's in the Smoke for all of fifteen minutes. Tally and David barely interact, so their relationship has no real stake. Everyone is kidnapped by Special Circumstances, and then rescued immediately after. I almost think a 5-6 episode mini-series would have worked better -- but that might have introduced the opposite problem, where everything takes too long.

The movie also has frequent montages that don't really work. It seems like they were trying to show the passage of time, but it just makes everything feel even shorter.

The beginning of the movie has an exposition problem, as well. It opens with a montage explaining the entire setting... before leading into several scenes that also explain the setting through dialogue. We get fed the same details about the surgery and the Rusties and the flowers at least three times at the start, and it gets grating.

As already mentioned, Tally is pretty severely underwritten. In the book, she has a distinct personality and a unique presence. In the movie, she's just the main character because she happens to be the main character. Her intelligence and resourcefulness are pretty much gone.

I also think changing her motivation for going to the Smoke did her a disservice. In the book, Tally goes to the Smoke so she can have her surgery, and because she's convinced herself that Shay needs her help. In the movie, Dr. Cable tells her that the Smokies have a weapon, and she will be saving lives by helping to find them. I think giving her a more selfless motivation robs her of her character arc. She always comes across as someone trying to help, who wants to best for other people, rather than someone who had to consciously learn that.

The Specials are barely even a presence. I'm not sure they were even directly called Specials. People who hadn't read the book would never realize that there was an entire separate status of person here. You never see their disturbingly beautiful faces or their terrifying strength. Considering how pivotal the Specials are to the overall story, especially in the later books, it's really odd not to see them properly established here.

Like I said, Laverne Cox gives an excellent performance as Dr. Cable... but I think they should have thought twice before casting a trans woman. It's not necessarily that there's a trans woman in the villainous role, but that there's a trans woman in the villainous role who specifically wants to force people to have surgeries to brainwash them. Like... did the optics of that really not occur to anyone? At all? I think Cox could have played David's mother, instead.

[amarioe]

Welcome to....

The insane ramblings of a mad man! (Me)

AKA

Animator Swap AU!

Note: Most of the drawings in the second image sadly are no longer canon to the au, but i did draw a few new ones you'll probably be seeing a few paragraphs down :D

Long post incoming, do be warned 💀

So, the basic idea of this au is..fairly simple, actually-- as much as i struggled thinking of a good, solid concept for it :'D

As the name suggests, the biggest change is that Alan and Grace are swapped, but, well- not quite..

You see! Their personalities remain more or less the same, but the stickfigures they made are swapped- go simple enough visual representation!

Basically, the idea is: "What if Alan made Mitsi and Grace made the Hollowheads?"

To explain this further: Alan would have treated Mitsi primarily the way he treated Victim and Chosen.

Grace, on the other hand, would have treated the hollowheads far better than Alan did in canon, leading to an entirely different outcome for their character arcs! (Although i'm thinking of having Victim and Grace have a rocky start for,, reasons, but i'll expand on that in a different post, probably)

Anyway, as a result, Mitsi would probably look something like this at the time of her escape:

Alt/ slightly rendered ver.

Also, i'd send in an image of the hollowheads too but uh...they don't really have designs or any art yet lol...rip :')

I was planning on explaining far more thoroughly, but i got a little sidetracked and didn't have time to expand this too much.

To at least somewhat make up for my messy ass brain, here are some ideas i'm planning (key word) to solidify into the canon aswell!

-After Mitsi escapes the PC, Alan doesn't draw/animate another stickman for years after. Then i'm thinking he either draws Purple or the guy just kind of,, shows up on his PC one day and after a tentative truce makes the minecraft village there instead of on the Mac (which could potentially lead to the cg meeting Alan aswell?)

-Victim leaves the PC before or recently after Chosen is created, accidentally ending up in the village from his canon backstory and becoming a farmer there.

-Chosen is mute, and i'm thinking he later becomes a sign language interpreter :D (i'm thinking they'll all get regular or semi regular professions since they'd actually get to grow up properly and have childhood and stuff,,, and absolutely no one has any cursor induced trauma whatsoever! Victim? Haha, who's Victim?)

-I was originally thinking of making Dark a Gordon Ramsey style chef, but i feel like i should make him a programmer/hacker of some kind instead LOL

-Orange helps Grace out with her animations in this au aswell! He also has a lot of independent projects of his own :]

-Orange and the cg still eventually end up being the only permanent residents on Grace's pc, with Dark and Chosen visiting fairly often while Victim visits more scarcely. For some reason, he seems a little bit anxious around Grace.. (also yes they're all probably gonna have different names, excluding the animators)

-I'm thinking of calling Mitsi either Mayday or Malice!

-I'm thinking Mitsi crashes/escapes to the village where Victim is. Victim befriends Mitsi pretty fast. They let her stay at their farm and Mitsi helps out pn the farm in return.

-Agent and the mercs will probably be in this au aswell!! I'm just not sure when and how to include them yet.

[ethosiab]

🖊️ 👀

hi royyyyy :3 at the moment my favourite little guy is actually just my sona... ive been playing last life with irl friends over the past few weeks (we've called it low price last life, i've posted a little about it in the #lpll tag) and have been able to lean into the roleplay/character arc more heavily than ive done before and its so much fun !!!

this is my guy!! phoenix (he/she)!! he's a totally definitely normal player, but you will never catch him without those goggles. don't worry about what he's hiding under there, it's nothing important. totally. he has eyes.

on the main server i play on, we've got origins running, and he's a breezeborn (i made the datapack myself)! i haven't yet decided on what her design is really like on that server yet, or whether it connects to my life series lore, but that's mostly because i've been rotating her lpll character a lot more sfdklfdsj.

in last life at least, a lot of his arc so far has been trying to grapple what little control he has in the games back. she doesn't like being restricted. like the universe hates her or something, she gets boogeyman every session she could. her kills go from cowardly plays to get rid of the curse through any means necessary, to betraying a member of her main alliance because she was told to and she could. the one session she doesn't get boogeyman, she still feels as restless and bloodthirsty. the lack of the curse doesnt stop her from killing on yellow anymore, apparently*. she was bound to go red when that's how she acts. when she does fall onto her last life, she's mostly just overwhelmingly happy. she's got freedoms now. no pressure to kill, but nothing restricting her from doing so, she gets to decide. and it feels so good.

* i may have pulled a tango and placed a solid block under someone falling into water. in my defence, i have spent this entire time as a liar and a killer i do not know why he trusted me. sorry mal haha

ask game for context

[shalomniscient]

feel like you are the only person i have seen love mauvika, all i see are her haters mostly when i search her up

rghgsrhkgksh yeah it's a little rough out here in mavulover territory ,,,, i will admit there are fair reasons to dislike mavuika, most notably in her design and animations. it's certainly not the best hoyo could've come up with, and i've seen a few redesigns that i honestly like better than the design we've gotten for her.

that being said, i think she's a pretty solid character from a narrative perspective. i highly enjoy many of the themes and traits of her character (perseverance, determination, a horrendous martyr complex and a deeply loving heart) and i think she plays her role in the story quite well. there are certain parts i wish hoyo touched on more, especially in her story quest (specifically i had hoped we could see mavu break a little, after being strong so long, and having the words from her companions and xbalanque be what puts her back together and a newfound desire to live instead of marching to what used to be her inevitable death) but overall, she's not as bad of a character as people have made her out to be. and honestly, i think this goes for much of the natlan cast, with chasca getting the worst of it. i'll be frank and say i truly do not like chasca's design, but after playing through the archon quest i'll admit i do like her as a character. i enjoyed her arc, and the way she processed and dealt with her grief. the substance is there to be found, definitely.

i'm kind of rambling but tldr my thesis of it all is that you can dislike an aspect of a piece of media without denying any of the good qualities present either. also people seem to be far too comfortable jumping the gun on calling media "bad" when they've never even personally engaged with it before (i could get into a whole other thing about zzz but that horse is long dead dhlfsjhdf). mandatory disclaimer this is all just imo ofc

[twig-tea]

Cherry Magic Thailand Exceeded My Wildest Dreams

This series really surpassed all expectations I had for it. I've already yelled a few weeks ago about how this series righted years-long wrongs both with TayNew and with the Japanese adaptation, and encouraged everyone to watch this show. I'm so happy that the finale didn't let me down, ending its run as a near-perfect series!

The series as a whole did so many things right and only really stumbled slightly on one of the mid-series filler episodes that didn't affect the arc of the main characters or the story overall, so it was forgivable. Everything else in this series is a joy.

Cherry Magic Thailand has perfect character arcs, with relationships that all champion communication all the way through. There's a reason why Kurosawa and Adachi experienced the penultimate episode breakup in the Japanese adaptation but Karan and Achi did not; Karan and Achi worked so hard for this relationship all the way through this series, and that makes them feel so solid that a breakup would not have felt believable or true to them.

I loved how quickly and fully Karan embraced Achi's magic, and used it to be as embarrassing as possible about his feelings. This worked so well in the Thai version; For a man who is not super worried about homophobia, and is not as worried about being seen as less than perfect (the way the Japanese version's Kurosawa was), but who instead is mostly certain that he's Too Much, finding out that his every thought has been heard by the man he loves and that he fell in love with Karan because of those thoughts must have been the hugest relief. Karan's energy after the confession scene is consistently: I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have this.

And that's why it's so critical that Achi already has a ring in his pocket in this finale when Karan proposes. There are of course the reasons why this works as an ending to Achi's arc; The story starts in a way that feels like Karan is leagues ahead of Achi; Achi struggles with feelings of inferiority at the beginning of the series, just like he did in the Japanese version.

I already wrote in a response to @lurkingshan's ep 11 post about how Achi's arc on this was so good, he managed to gain enough self-confidence to build a workplace friend group, move forward in his career, and proactively move forward his relationship. For Achi, proposing is a perfect end to his arc of coming into himself.

But Karan was already self-actualized. If anything, his fear in this relationship has been that Achi would never love him the way Karan loves Achi. Before they ever get together, Karan organizes his day at the office to Achi's schedule, making sure to reduce minor inconveniences and discomforts without ever expecting to be noticed, never mind reciprocated. Karan lies to Achi all the time about how far out of his way he went to do things for Achi (from buying drinks to braving Songkran crowds to bring him medicine). When they first start dating Karan over-plans their first date, and Achi has to remind him that small moments are also good. During the dreaded episode 8 confrontation with their boss, Karan takes the responsibility of their relationship on himself alone. When they were preparing for Achi to be leaving for a month, Achi straight out told Karan he was worried about Karan's ability to handle the separation. He hung out outside Achi's house secretly, and designed a new krathong for them to release at Loy Krathong, but was willing to let go of their Loy Krathong date at the first sign Achi might have to skip it.

This is the first time Achi really steps up in their relationship, but it's still following Karan's lead--he knew celebrating Loy Krathong was important to Karan, so he prepared a surprise for a different day so that they could still celebrate together. While Achi is on his work secondment, they both prioritize staying in touch, but Karan takes a surprise trip out to see Achi before the month is over. And they have sex, and so Achi can no longer hear Karan's thoughts.

This means Karan is able to keep secrets from him again, like a proposal. And so Karan buys a ring, retaining what he thinks is his position as the one who does the work to move their relationship forward. But Achi surprises him by asking him to meet his parents as soon as he comes back from his secondment. And then he overhears Achi tell Karan's mother that he is making sure Karan isn't the only one putting effort into their relationship.

And then Karan is so overwhelmed with happiness that he can't hold back and asks Achi to marry him, and because he's Karan he has the ring already and is carrying it with him. And Achi tells him yes.

And this is the critical bit: Achi then tells Karan that he was also planning to propose to Karan, and proves it by pulling out his own ring. This is physical evidence that Karan is not alone with the intensity of his feelings; that Achi is doing what he told Karan's mother he would, and is putting effort into their relationship himself outside of steer from Karan; that Karan is allowed to love as hard as he does and he will be met halfway by a partner who is a partner in every sense of the word. When Karan says to Achi "I really love you, you know?" And Achi says "I do", it's not just about Achi knowing the depth of Karan's feelings intellectually, but about him knowing the depth of Karan's feelings by reciprocating them. It's about Karan knowing that Achi won't just coast on Karan's love, but will make sure Karan is being taken care of too.

[The part that breaks my heart about that is that Achi's kindness is the thing that attracted Karan to him in the first place; but Karan is so used to not being taken care of that he never expected Achi to turn his caretaking skills on Karan, even after they started dating. Quietly devastating, nbd]

Let's talk about happier parts of this last episode I noticed instead. The parallels in this last episode are so stacked on top of one another that I find it almost overwhelming; We have the two Karan/Achi bench scenes in CMT, from when they become a couple and when they get engaged; there's the proposals between Karan and Achi and between Jinta and Min, and how complete opposites they are (in the contrast between each individually having planned rings and having them on their person even for a mutually unplanned proposal, and how that contrasts to using a pen to draw on an engagement ring because neither of them had prepared at all); there's the use of pens as a proposal tool in Jinta and Min's story and in the Japanese adaptation's Kurosawa and Adachi's story; the perfect reverse parallel between the heat levels of the couples in the Japanese adaptation and the Thai adaptation--I love that Thailand flipped this rather than keeping them both moving faster, it makes the universe feel more balanced somehow--and (as @liyazaki illustrated in her post) that final fake-out parallel that ends the Thai and Japanese versions.

Love the decision to honour the Japanese adaptation while keeping to the manga on which it's based by giving Pai a story that has a clear aroace read while building the foundation for a start to a relationship with Rock that is believable and one I can root for.

I can't talk about Jinta, Min, Rock, and Pai without talking about how much I love these ride-or-die friends that Karan and Achi have acquired. The way Pai drops everything to get Achi to the airport; the way Rock kidnaps Karan without knowing why; the way Jinta and Achi talk to one another using their powers; the way Jinta looks at Achi and Karan when they have dinner together. All of these things warm my heart so much. The way Duj is the most intense busybody in the office but it comes from a place of caring.

And I cannot end a post about this show without talking about just how funny it is. Karan's internal scream, Jinta being able to hear the cat's internal voice, Pai's shipping constantly being misinterpreted by Achi and Rock, these jokes landed every time.

This post got out of hand, again. TL;DR I LOVED THIS SHOW. I loved the humour, the friendships, the relationships, the character arcs, and the scenery. I loved seeing Tay and New absolutely slay on my screen again, I loved seeing another adaptation of this stellar source material, and I loved watching something so well put together week to week. It's been such a good run of shows!

[pruneunfair]

"my feelings on" part 6: Actually I was the real one and why deviating too far from the og novel can sully a good story.

I think next to who made me a princess and death is the only ending for a villainess, this one is one of the most recognizable manhwas/webnovels. I haven't been able to read the full novel since the only translated site I could find had limited chapters but in short, what i did read felt like a separate story from the manhwa because whoever wrote the manhwa basically said "screw the original plot, I want fanservice." Which is why I consider it on the fanfiction side given how severe the changes were. Like if this was a Netflix original of a hardcopy book or something it would've been flamed for its lack of coherencey.

The plot centers around Keira Parvis and her desire to avoid death and get revenge on her half sister Cosette for making her life a living hell in the previous timeline. Sounds solid and good we love a revenge story. So you'd think this would be a tough but overall satisfying goal because Cosette was a world destorying level threat and therfore should be a formidable opponent right?

Well..

I think that they forgot that Cosette is actually a demon wearing a dead girls body because she is such a joke for a villian. Always getting her ass handed to her in near nonsensical ways. There are times when some changes eventually make sense such as Ludwig for some reason not trusting her as much as he did previously and then it being revealed he also regressed after Cosette began a demon/human war. But everything else just falls apart immediately. Everyone hates her except for 1 maid who gets deported and implied to be lashed, and Keira can easily trick her into falling into her traps. It's not fun anymore to see Keira and Cosette fight cause you know it's gonna end quickly with Keira being the victor.

They think this makes Keira more progressive because she can hit strong and be beloved but here's the thing: Keira was already progressive to begin with but they still managed to mess that up.

In the original source material: Keira had no love interests, Joseph was a friend who had great respect for her and Erez was a platonic relationship. In the manhwa, there's a goddamn love triangle.

Objectively I don't mind either ships since they aren't really problematic but it made no sense to make such a drastic change. Especially to a FL in a historical story that never had the need for romance to begin with.

what really got annoying was the fact that family members were pushed to the side for more filler arcs of Keira and her love triangle. Her little brother Zeke played a much larger role than he does in the manhwa and the best way to describe him in the adaptation is the type of character designed for selling marketable plushes if you know what I mean.

There were a few things I did personally like but plot wise, it wouldn't make sense. For example another change in the manhwa is that Cosette is still alive wheras in the novel she's dead. As much as I love Cosette and want to see a normal sister relationship with her and Keira it causes the title to be defunct. It's called "actually I was the real one" because the entire point was that Keira was the only living daughter of Ludwig and Cosette (who is actually a demon named Ragibach) is the fake one. So Cosette still being alive means that she is also the real one and the title no longer makes sense.

While this all stands, the manhwa itself is okay if you don't mind the inaccuracies or if you never read the webnovel. The magic system stays consistent which is nice and the characters while one note are for the most part enjoyable to follow.

Conclusion: the manhwa adaptation of Actually I was the real one is a prime example of the unnecessary meddling of an already perfectly fine story. The goal is to make girlboss empowerment stories except when that does happen in a reasonable way, the adaptations still add in love interests and even alter the characters personalities to varying levels to fulfill a fantasy which would be normal if you were just making a fanfic to post on Ao3 or wattpad, but when it's supposed to be an adaptation.. it feels straight up disrespectful.

Sorry this one's a little shorter, I really didn't have that much to discuss other then the inaccuracies since the plot alone is okay.

[hplonesomeart]

Heya, HP!

I’m asking this anonymously because I don’t want reassurance if you find out it’s me, but I’m wondering if you have any tips for drawing/animating characters. I’ve seen how you draw and animate and it’s made me feel amazed by your work, but also ashamed that I can’t draw as good as you (DO NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT, PLEASE, YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT AND IT’S NOT JUST YOU!)

I’ve been drawing for about 5 years now and have had no progress in my art. Every time I try something different, it ends up looking like shit. I guess I’m also asking this ask because I’ve been lacking self confidence for about half a month

I’m sorry if this is selfish, I’m not trying to make it about myself

But yeah…do you have any tips?

OH GEE UH—first off there’s no shame in using anonymous and you shouldn’t feel pressured to justify it! It’s an accessible option precisely for moments like this; it’s far more important to feel safe when asking vulnerable questions then to have additional unneeded stress. I do appreciate having some background information for your thought processes behind it tho, thank you for being willing to share your feelings and experiences. Art is definitely something that can bring on insecurity—I also have artists I often envy/admire the skills of lol. All part of being human. Your not selfish at all for it :)

For the art tips uhh….bear with me because I’m not too good at formulating constructive tips? This is all coming from someone who started drawing solely because of a colorful 2000’s cartoon pony show LMFAO. I learned how to draw quadrupeds before ever drawing humans, so the development of my skills isn’t as easy for me to track linearly. I’m still learning to this day that there’s things I need to practice on (cough cough backgrounds & correct muscle anatomy/realism)

My tips will be listed below under the ‘keep reading’ point (because I don’t wanna directly flood peoples dashes with massive amounts of text)!

1) FIRST ADVICE: CONSUMING ART CONTENT & REFERENCING OTHERS!! >:D

Honestly I think that’s the best place to start. With the content you consume. People who watch a lot of anime tend to gravitate to drawing exaggerated detailed eyes, angular chins, more human features (of course this is a generalization and doesn’t always apply to everyone. It’s just my personal observation is all). Meanwhile those who watch something more like Looney Tunes may adapt to using stretchy flexible shapes, unrealistic proportions, maybe even more anthropomorphic character designs.

Point being: we get influenced by the environment around us without even realizing it. Even when we’re not consciously aware, our minds absorb information and try to apply it in our own lives. My advice is to become AWARE of this. Be able to think critically about shows you enjoy and pinpoint the choices the artist uses to make it moment feel meaningful (sorry this is gonna start focusing mostly on animation tips & visual storytelling lol). I watch a lot of video essays breaking down camera movements, writing character arcs, learning how the lighting or colors change the mood. You could play around with that in your art too! Does the character emotion come from the eyes, the body posture, or the colors? Figure out where the emphasis should be and keep practicing at it :)

For example (oh boy I’m gonna out myself here) an artist I admire on YouTube is SAD-IST! I think she’s got a very solid understanding of how to invest the viewer/audience’s attention into a story. So I look at some of the techniques she uses:

The usage of comic panels to focus in on a singular object/expression/action. Something that I wanted to try doing with my own stuff :))

Or using a subtle motion blur for objects moving quickly in the background. If it doesn’t need to be the focus of the story then make it out of focus lol!

I think it’s mostly about finding an artistic language you vibe with and can draw inspiration from. Analyze what made the artist you admire so successful—what do you love about it so much in the first place? (which hey I guess you’re kinda already doing that right now, so your on the right track lol!). This applies not only to artists but musicians as well! There’s been plenty of times when a musician remixed a pre-existing song, parodied or outright sampled the melody of another, or aligned lyrics to match messages! My favorite musicians (Vylet Pony, AJR, and a plethora of Broadway musicals that have reoccurring motifs/themes) often follow those types of patterns. I think there’s too much of a taboo on social media about what you can and can’t do with art. I don’t think it’s wrong to share similarities with artists you admire. It only helps strengthen your understanding of them

2) UHHH DRAW FOR YOURSELF!! (I’m making this shit up as I go I have no idea what I’m saying lmfao)

When I started out drawing, it was purely for self indulgent reasons. I would spend my time at recess making up fanmade My Little Pony comics. SO. MANY. COMICS. Did it matter that anyone besides me couldn’t read the dialogue? No! Did it matter that the characters looked weird? No! Did it matter that the story wasn’t even planned ahead of time? No because I didn’t care! I was a kid who wasn’t caught up on comparing myself with others. I did it for me and me alone because I loved cartoons and I had made up stories. As long as you take the initiative to create then you’re making something special regardless of the quality. If you deny yourself the ability to draw because you’re waiting for your skills to get better then you’ll waste so much time that could’ve been used making what you love. You’ll never improve if you don’t accept failure as part of it. If that makes any sense…?

I hope that doesn’t come across rude. I understand you’ve been trying to be happy with your art and simply can’t. I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t be upset about it. It’s okay to be upset when it doesn’t look like how you wanted. I’m just saying that mental perception is a huge factor of how we view ourselves, our art, and others around us. Be cautious about what internal voices you listen to. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the child inside who didn’t care about impressing others as much. Do it for you—and if not for you then make it for your younger self <3

Here is a video where I try to reinforce this point by using examples of my own life experiences (yes it’s very disorganized and chaotic):

………uh…..UH….yea I’m sorry those are the only two main tips I can think of from the top of my mind right now. I wish I had more to offer 😭

It’s probably glaringly obvious by now that I’m a self-taught artist. Although I have taken Art of Film & video production classes in high school (actually my favorite ever I recommend those if you like movies/storytelling) along with scriptwriting, 2D animation, and those typical traditional art classes…a lot of it still boils down to self-taught behavior. I think it could still be beneficial to sit in a class and have the information taught in the educational way, but for me usually the key learning is done outside of school. Especially those traditionally structured art classes ohhhh those did not process well with my brain. Helped me understand graphite shading and that’s pretty much it <<

Anyways sorry for taking up so much of your time with chunks of writing—although you probably already knew that was coming haha. I appreciate being someone that you look up to!! Thanks for your question and I hope a few parts of this rambling helped. Take care and I wish you best with your art. You’ll be okay :)

[mad-serotonin]

Who's your favourite black clover character and why?

My favorite Black Clover character

💚 Is absolutely Finral 💚

More than that he is actually my favorite anime character in general.

He’s been close to my heart ever since starting the series in 2019 and he’s not once been dethroned from his spot as my favorite. There’s a lot about him that makes him so special for me.

This is going to be a bit of an essay but I got a lot to say about him HAHA

First off he is my fav archetype done right, and done the best:

I have a personal preference for the characters that are hopelessly flirty guys with confidence issues and emotional baggage. it’s just a trend for me. Most of my favs are this character archetype but done in different ways. I absolutely love Tabata’s approach to how he wrote Finral. He has such a wonderful way of bringing him in as a very simplistic character and building upon his personality and how he became who he was at the start, and continuously finding ways to beautifully motivate his development in such a very real way. The arcs where you see him slowly build himself up while fighting alongside Asta and Vanessa specifically are SO good for creating a new depth and feeling behind his tropes that make him so fresh and unique.

Simping AND Kinning:

Straight up required to say I’m just simply in love with him?????? He’s literally perfection for me. I think he has the most genuine kindness and pure personality I’ve seen written. I love how his fear and weakness transform through the series into a strength and determination to prove himself and protect the people around him.

And he’s so relatable for me. I genuinely sympathize with a lot of his story. His issues with feeling like he belongs and becoming someone he himself can be proud of hits home. Watching him grow throughout the series was a experience that I hold very close to my heart and it makes me SO HAPPY to see how far he’s come and knowing there’s more to come just keeps me going.

Sweetest Angel ever (Angel symbolism AWOOGA):

He’s just so nice, literally cares so much about his team and his friends. And don’t get me STARTED on his unending love and support for Langris despite all that’s happened. He just sees the best in his brother and doesn’t despise him for things out of their control and truly puts in the time and effort to build a healthier relationship with him. He is a simple man who wants to love and be loved. And this applies to his squad, his family, and his pursuits for love and I think he deserves to find that love and be happy in all areas.

Designs and magic wise the angelic symbolism alone and in contrast to Langris was such a beautiful and amazing choice. Tabata was COOKING with that. He truly does see himself as a “fallen angel” his story literally having him fall from “grace” if you look at it as grace being nobility. I just think there is so much symbolism and potential in expanding his magic using this connection and I personally love thinking about it myself.

He Pretty:

Overall I think he just has a pleasing design. I adore his hair over everything else. I love how it changes through the series both in style and color. As someone who changes their hair a lot I completely vibe with his reasonings for changing it too. Like yeah please add that color to give yourself a reinvigorated spirit and confidence for success. His hair looks so fluffy and I wanna feel it. (Personally love myself most when I dye my hair with green tips I love matching him it’s so nice hehe)

Outfit design wise I LOVEEEEEE IT the full color scheming is nice but the overall very Elven vibe with leaf motifs and the pointed boots is just MWAH 💋👌🏻. He just has a solid iconic look and it suits his vibes perfectly.

As an artist I love the experience of drawing him too. He’s so fun to draw and he’s got so much potential for expanding on his design outside of canon. (Drawing scars from the Langris fight is my fav thing to do) and at this point I’m so sure I’ve drawn him more than any other character EVER and I will not be stopping any time soon.

All in all I LOVE HIM. and he means the world to me. That’s my man and I will always be in his corner as the series progresses. I hope he continues to get moments to shine and I hope others will continue to enjoy him like I do.

Thank you for sending in this ask! I’m happy to have gotten to rant about him a lil bit. : D

Bonus hehe:

[phantasmiafxndom]

Out of all the animes you’ve watch what ones are your favorites

...you know what, you get the serious answer. I used to track my anime watching, so out of the 450+ completed ones on my list, here are some of my top recommendations! (In terms of quality, more so than what I've spent the most time dwelling on.)

. . .

One Piece — I haven't technically watched all of this one, but after falling back into the fandom after an 8-ish year break, I really can't understate the quality. One Piece's story is amazing, and I'm consistently impressed by the author's characters/worldbuilding.

Dominion Tank Police (1988) — I have FEELINGS about the villain in this one... Overall, 80s sci-fi vibes mix with themes of ethical responsibility and societal peacekeeping, and the "don't you just want to go apeshit? :)" protagonist (who's also extremely aromantic-coded) is a hilarious, yet wonderfully earnest little menace!

Kyousougiga — I've been rewatching this one recently, and the sheer detail in every scene is STUNNING. I keep having to pause to mentally scream about the symbolism, and tbh, knowing the plot from my original watch is only improving the experience.

Tekkon Kinkreet — This one's a movie, not a series, but SKLJKHS IT HAUNTS ME. Absolutely chilling, by the time the big plot twists roll around... Beyond that, the overall aesthetic/vibe is impeccable, and the exaggerated, messy art style only adds to that.

Kemonozume — Monster/human forbidden romance with stunning art and a great soundtrack. The plot started out a bit confusing, but all of the scattered story elements came together nicely in the end!

The Tatami Galaxy — The "get your shit together and start enjoying your life" anime. It's plenty good as just a story, but I got some excellent life lessons out of it too. Solid mix of comedy, drama, and charismatic-yet-extremely-bizarre characters interacting.

Monster — Excellent slow-paced, psychological horror packed with ethical dilemmas, traumatic backstories, and so many Extremely Depressed Men. In other words, there's a very good reason why Johan Liebert used to end up on so many "best anime villains" lists.

Paranoia Agent — I have nothing but praise for Satoshi Kon's work, in general, and Paranoia Agent has been my favorite of the ones I've seen so far. Compared to his movies, it really benefits from the extra space for plot development, and the big emotional twist hits hard.

Revolutionary Girl Utena — A true classic. <3 There are enough tumblr essays about this tragic yuri masterpiece that I won't go into detail myself, but yes, it's every bit as good as you've heard.

Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail — The entire Black Lagoon series is excellent, but Roberta is my special girl. Unfortunately, the OAV adaption compresses the manga's version of her arc pretty heavily (and the altered ending is kind of dumb), but I still have to recommend it. Babygirl's breakdown is a REAL mess kjshghs

Claymore — Excellent pseudo-medieval fantasy with badass female characters, lots of body horror, and top-tier monster design. The manga is MUCH better than the anime after a certain point, however.

Kuuchuu Buranko — An episodic series about an eccentric psychiatrist interacting with his troubled patients. The mixed-media animation style and bizarre characters are what sold it for me, along with the exploration of mental health through storytelling tropes.

Cannon Fodder — An artistic short movie that's twenty minutes of aesthetic experience and fascinating worldbuilding implications. I love the vibe, and the "one, long horizontal frame" style is neat.

Flowers of Evil — The art style. The VIBES. The whole thing is incredibly eerie and off-putting, with a plot that's pretty much: "congrats! two shitty teenagers are tearing each other's lives apart!".

[twicearoundthebend]

Just got back from watching War of the Rohirrim and ooooh do I have thoughts

Firstly! Did I drive an hour to my closest amc theater just for the popcorn bucket? Yes. Was it worth it? Also yes! Look at how ridiculous this thing is, I love it

And fun fact! The hands pieces come apart and fit inside the bucket part for easy storage :)

I really wasn’t sure what to expect, I was excited to have a new lotr movie in theaters, and an animated one at that! But I didn’t have massively high hopes with what’s come out recently. Was pleasantly surprised though! Stays pretty true to the books, music is amazing, and the character design is v cool (in love with all of Hera’s outfits), solid like 7/10 imo

spoilery thoughts under cut

As much as I loved the character design, the animation was a little choppy. That one forest sequence esp was just… not it. The backgrounds were beautiful, but the melding of 3-d background and 2-d characters was far from seamless. Anytime they included 3-d elements it looked so bad😭

The character motives and arcs were also kinda weak. Like- Wulf and Hera both felt really one dimensional. I did love Wulf’s general Targg, and Olwyn- absolute badass love her sm

I thought they did a good job keeping to Tolkiens story and embellishing to make it a full length film without drastically altering anything. They included literally everything from the story into the movie- honestly impressive. And the way they explained how some of the legend was passed down and some of the story was forgotten was a really smart way of explaining why we know so little of what happened

HATED the Gandalf shoe in at the end. Sauramon makes sense to be there, he’s in the story, but Gandalf??? What are you doing here sir? And asking about rings??? Literally makes no sense with the timeline but go off

Highlight was def Hama. New fave lil guy spotted. They can’t put a little botw link lookalike twink boy in a movie and expect him not to be my favorite- like obviously I’m obsessed, look at him!

(And the movie has my beloved Phillipa Boyens working on it, so I knew it’d turn out alright :)

[tbshorts]

The Best Panels of One Piece, Orange Town arc (chapter 8-15)

Full video scripts below the cut

Chapter 8:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 8 is the introduction of Nami, and what an introduction it is. Oda pulls a clever move narratively, separating Luffy and Zoro. Zoro, and thus the audience, learn from some pirates he picks up that Nami is a devious swindler, but Luffy encounters her separately and doesn't know that, which means we as an audience are predisposed to distrust her, but Luffy can meet her with no prejudice. This allows him to demonstrate his honest nature to her, which will become important to their relationship.

But the best panel in the chapter, right. It's not a chapter with obvious bangers, I think. The introduction of Buggy's ship is a quiet little technical masterpiece of character design, but doesn't really relate to the story that much.

No, I think it's this one, with Nami trying to strike up a partnership with Luffy after using him to take care of her pursuers. It's a great bit of compositionional storytelling, with her perched above him, literally looking down on him, as she gears up to try and use him once again. She's in a position of power, which makes it hard to trust her, and it sets up a dynamic between her and Luffy that won't be resolved until over 70 chapters later.

Chapter 9:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 9 finally sees the introduction of Buggy, who is a massive improvements as a villain design over Axe Hand Morgan. He has a gimmick, he has a solid consistent theme, clowns and pirates kinda work together and by the way anyone who says he doesn't deserve to be an Emperor of the Sea is dumb and wrong, Buggy is the best.

But here this perfect idiot is being introduced as one of the first major villains, which means we need to build up his menace. So we get his introduction, manspreading on a throne whose crown looks like the top of a circus tent, all gangster energy and dressed in an opulent fur-lined coat, and that does do a pretty good job making him look cool.

But the menace happens on the next page, here. As he walks away from the explosion of his cannon, blasting one of his own crewmates to cinders, he's illuminated in stark black and white shadows, giving his face a horribly evil look while his form is hidden in the deep shadow of that cape. He may be a clown, but here, for just a second, he looks truly demonic. Buggy might turn out to be an ineffective idiot, but this panel sells him as a villain.

Chapter 10:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Well Chapter 10 is honestly full of bangers on that account. We've got a classic Oda pirate party scene - these are just always some of THE most fun to look at, absolutely bursting with life. Then we have wild technical masterpieces like the blast from the Buggy Ball, folding an entire row of houses up like paper - like, I can't overstate how impressive it is to do this kind of creatively distorted technical artwork. It's hard! And then there's Nami literally scorching her own hands to save the life of someone she insists out loud she hates and doesn't care about, which is a fantastic character moment for her.

But no, the best panel, by far the most striking is this Buggy face. Oda crosshatches all these ominous shadows onto him, making him look like he's lit from below, and there's such a striking contrast between the cheerful clown makeup trying to drag his face into a smile, and that murderous, contemptuous, cruel grimace, all the folds and lines of his face converging to communicate the reality of the situation. It's a loyalty test. Either Nami kills Luffy, or Buggy kills Nami.

Chapter 11:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 11 features a cavalcade of truly excellent Buggy faces - his clown makeup and nose work together so naturally with Oda's hyper-exaggerated style, and I find them all so charming.

But no, there's not contention for the best panel of the chapter. It's this. It's Zoro doing what he will always do for the Strawhat Crew: shouldering the burden, even at the cost of his own life. This panel really encapsulates everything of what Zoro is: his incredible feats of strength, his utter dependability, the total trust between him and Luffy, and his propensity for self-sacrifice. There is no pain Zoro will not take on for his friends, there is no hurt he won't go through. And if his guts spill out of his stomach for doing it, he'll just shove them back in again. That's the kind of vice-captain he is.

Chapter 12:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 13 only really has two contenders. The first is Luffy confronting Mohji after he has burned down Chouchou's store. Luffy opens with his trademark big goofy grin and maintains that attitude while swinging Richie around… and then he drops the mask, and we see the genuinely frightening person he becomes when he is confronted by injustice. It's the first time in the series we see this side of Luffy, and it hits, although, again, translators, please stop covering up the art with sound effects, oh my god.

Speaking of which, the actual best panel in the chapter. Oda and his team worked really hard to render the stark awfulness of Chouchou's store burning down, but gotta have that big "fwoosh!" on there I guess. But this is a good rendition of heartbreak, this tiny dog way too close to the fire, lit up by its glow, just barking out its anger and pain at the flames. A tiny little thing, powerless against the tragedy that's been done to it. If you don't engage with Chouchou's story, obviously it rings hollow. But if you do… ow.

Chapter 13:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 12 is another exposition dump. The plot beat of these chapters is all about developing Luffy and Zoro's relationship with Nami, showing her that piracy isn't just a means to abuse people but a means to claim freedom, which is important to her. And this is done partly through Chouchou, the silly looking ultra-loyal dog protecting his beloved master's pet food store. Visually the big impactful panels go to Mohji and Richie, with Oda having a lot of fun over-rendering the lion, but… honestly I think it might be these two. Chouchou grabbing the key to Luffy's cage and eating it.

It's such an out-of-left field ridiculous moment. It's so silly and dumb, and it is done so matter-of-factly by this very silly looking dog. Chouchou eats the key because he's actually literally starving himself staying by the store, of course, but it's such a blindsiding comedy moment. All the drama and danger of escaping Buggy's crew and Nami stealing the key and then the dog just goes chomp and it's gone.

Not that it matters, Mohji gets Luffy out anyway, it's just Oda gleefully trolling the reader, and I do respect that.

Chapter 14:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 14 is another exposition dump, all about establishing the stakes for the mayor, and giving the audience a reason to care about the town and its buildings. It's all worldbuilding, establishing the very real danger and menace that pirates pose to ordinary people. Nami doesn't hate them for no reason, and we kinda need this perspective to see things from her point of view and understand why she instinctively hates Luffy so much.

And for my money the best panel here is this one, with the mayor's face in profile and a montage of moments from the building of the town arranged in floating images. It does a fantastic job of visually showing him gazing into the past, remembering all these moments from his life so vividly that they come to life. Flashbacks and exposition is hard to do in an engaging way, and here Oda gets the whole thing out of the way in a single page so we can get back to the action, and he does it by using good visual shorthand like this.

Chapter 15:

What are the best panels in One Piece?

Chapter 15 is the lead-up to the big fight with Buggy, and this chapter is all about setting the stage. It introduces Cabaji, who will be fighting Zoro, it reminds us of Buggy's powers and his cruelty and establishes his ideological position. Buggy believes that the only treasure worth caring about is gold and jewels, that only money and power matters, while the Mayor stands for the idea that anything can be a treasure if it means something to you, which is also Luffy's position. That's why he has the straw hat after all.

But we're also still establishing Luffy's character, so Oda has him crack an old man's head into a wall, because if he was conscious he would just get in the way and this is the most straightforward way to keep him safe. And this is the best panel, because it does establish something about Luffy's character, and how brutal he can be, even when he's technically trying to do a kindhearted thing. Luffy does not feel bad about doing this, at all, as with everything else in life, he acts violently towards his friends when he thinks it’s the right thing to do.