#THE ART THE PLOT THE MUSIC THE COMEDY THE EVERYTHING

[nepentheseeker]

me praising Purple hyacinth and Soph and Eph

me when i read the synopsis for purple hyacinth: yo me when i see the art of purple hyacinth: yooooo!! me when i start reading purple hyacinth: yoooooo!! me when the webtoon starts playing *AN ORIGINAL FUCKING SOUNDTRACK*: YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[devouringbodies]

Hiiii I was wondering if you have a fic rec list 👉🏻👈🏻

Omg hi!!! I just went through my bookmarks and found some of my favorites!! Literally I had the hardest time narrowing down, I've got so many I love, also some I can't remember the Exact plot of that I'm sure I absolutely love and have just forgotten. So I definitely have more up my sleeve if anyone wants more. Head the tags for some of these.

The Enticement of Suffering by jonnimir - latest fic I just read, gory and sexy wound fucking coda to dolce. if you're into that it's SO GOOD

Not Quite Charity by @stranded-labyrinth - au first meeting between Will and Hannibal, hannibal leaves his car in a run down area of Baltimore and will, who's homeless, heckles him about it and Hannibal decides to pay him to watch it for him. I love this will sm!! It's a really interesting look at their dynamic, and is super in character and just a fun au study!!

Perda de memória by bleakmidwinter - amnesia!hannibal post fall fic. I'm actually a sucker for amnesia aus and love the angst in this. It adds an element to Will's struggle and decision making that makes his mindset post fall all the more interesting. And I love how much hannibal is still hannibal despite not remembering hardly anything.

Everything casts a shadow by @ghostforwhat - i looooove season 2 Will killing more people. I can't ever get enough of it. It's written so well and believably here, and the way it changes the course of the season is super fascinating. Currently a wip.

Wolf and I by t_pock - so so sooo fucking good. One of my favorites. It also has a Podfic as well and I love Podfics soo much and relisten to it often. Season 1 au that has more elements of horror, creepiness, symbolism and hands down the best, hottest, wildest forest chase sequence I've ever read. This fic feels more like a folk or fairy tale it's so good, especially paired with the beautiful art the podficer made, as well as the music they paired with the Podfic. Can't recommend this one enough.

A night off the record by barcharonte - season 1 au again, where on the way to Minnesota hannibal and will get snowed in and have to take shelter somewhere. Will is still losing time and hallucinating. Hannibal still tries to take advantage of course. Fun times to be had.

Between ease and foresight by devotional_doldrums - season 1 au (can you tell I like these? Lol) where wills and Hannibal's metaphorical conversations get a little too on the nose and Will finds out. SUPER good hannibal pov, I want to eat parts of this fic the writing is so good, and the author's notes are hilarious.

Sings to me nightly, sings to me brightly by serindrana - psychic connection phone sex what more could you want!!

The joy of creation by fkahersweetness - super dark mute!will post fall. I wouldn't say I think this is Actually how a post fall dynamic would be but in the universe of this fic it's so so sooo amazing. I love the surreality and implied shared visions/psychosis connection that will and Hannibal have here. Also the ending layed me tf out for days.

Radon and its daughters by @chaparral-crown - best most believable and realistic abo au ever. Nuff said.

Speaking of abo the one where Will smells like blood to hannibal, so good. I'll probably survive this by saintsavage

Pochée by ellopoppet - season 1 au! Also with a Podfic, Will's away on a case but is still getting closer to hannibal through texts and calls.

Mon chéri by sandyquinn - cracky Addams family au esque one shot. Just super cute and silly. I'm picky about my cute and silly but the Addams family morbidity fits comedy hannigram to a T.

Never let it starve by northern - another Will finds out in season 1, I truly can't get enough of these. Also bonus bug boy will!!!

Let the river rush in by several - Explores an actual psychic connection between the boys, again I'm a huge fan of this trope.

Hyacinth house by bluesyturtle - MY BELOVED!!!! One of my top top faves, season 1 au, cool cases, great relationship dynamic between the boys, and im obsessed with how this fic portrays Will's empathy and how it plays with his gender a bit. Love the story, love the ending. Also with Podfic!

Pattern break by thisbeautifuldrowning - dark Will au season 2 where he doesn't plot with Jack or go back to the fbi and deals with Hannibal himself. LOVE how this one plays out.

Bloodline by xzombiezkittenx - VAMPIRE AU MY LOVEEEEE this fic is an utter joy if you like vamp aus. The world building is great.

A consequence of consumption by ironlotus - straight up hands down my favorite fic in the fandom I think. It's still a wip, but it's one of the best characterizations, writing, plot, and just perfect outstanding everything I've seen in this fandom. It's an au where before all the events of season 1, Will is kidnapped by Eldon stamments and is kept alive and rescued eventually. It's peak "Will's milkshake brings all the serial killers to the yard" trope and the way everything is woven together, the storylines and character motivations, is just crazy good. Also one of my most favorite hannibal pov and characterizations out there.

Ok that was still a lot, I'm sorry if I missed tagging anyone, and hopefully the links all work!

[glitch-pep]

Aight, let's talk about the process behind CJ's creation. First up, concept art!

Second, the full explanation under the cut! 🩵

A few months before CJ was even a thing, I got the idea of a character concept. The concept was basically Charlotte having an older brother who is far more calm, level headed and cautious than she is. I liked the idea of it, but I didn't feel like working on it, I simply didn't feel inspired enough.

A while later, I was trying to figure out Milo's lore, and I thought to myself... "Heh... wouldn't it be really funny if there was a character, who is the complete opposite of Milo, and his only purpose is to piss him off?" and then I thought "Hm. I could reuse the old Charlotte's brother concept for that."

In the poems Obverse and Reverse, the line:

"...the concept was a joke at first I gotta admit,

but I think I've gone too far with the bit."

Is me referring to this. CJ and Milo's whole relationship was based on a joke I thought was funny, but eventually I started to actually take it seriously and it just all went haywire from there.

I still find it slightly funny at times... but of course, this isn't CJ's only purpose anymore.

Anyways, let's get into the rest of his creation.

The first design idea I had for him was more surfer dude and Hawaii inspired, which made ultimately no sense considering that Charlotte and CJ are from Vermont. The one thing I kept from that are the hair and the flower.

His hair was a struggle to figure out, at first I wanted to try to make it curly like Charlotte's, but that didn't feel right. I still don't really know what's going on with it even now, but it has that slightly modern, fluffy and messy look I was going for. I guess it's shawed on the sides? I don't know, let's not think about it too much.

He has a flower hairpin on each side of his head, because when I only put it on one side it looked empty. I was debating about the flower as well. I had the idea to make it into a specific flower that has some sorta meaning but I couldn't find one I liked, I also looked up flowers from Vermont and ended up with the purple flower but I didn't like it. Eventually I just looked through the show, found a scene where there was a flower, and took the flower from it and used it for the hairpins. I made it into a flower because in the show Charlotte is often depicted with them.

I did consider giving him a bow so that he could fit in with Charlotte and Grandma Charlene, but I decided against it for a lore relevant reason that I won't talk about just yet. Besides, I think he still fits in just fine the way he is now.

For his color I just took the colors of the whole family and adjusted the settings until I got this shade. I was considering to make the color lighter but he just looked washed out.

His name was an easy decision, it had to start with a C and I was debating between Cody and CJ but I'm glad I chose CJ, I really like it!

The only thing that's really changed is that he used to be far more music, singing and comedy themed, but I scrapped the idea of it.

Everything else stayed the same most of the time... well, I did scrap two characters during the development process, but CJ was always the same.

At first CJ was only supposed to be Charlotte's cousin, and he had a different sister named Carol. Carol had anxiety, and the interest of botany and gardening used to be her thing. She had an intense fear of fiends. She was supposed to be some sorta yellowish color and had a headscarf with a flower pattern on it as well as long messy hair. I had the plan that she's related to Mr. Milk and that would explain their similarities, but I just ended up scraping her cuz I couldn't find a place for her in the plot that made sense. I do wanna make a character like this but in a different font one day, we'll see.

The second character was named Faith, and she wasn't related to CJ or Charlotte in any way. Her name was supposed to be a nod to the word fiend since they both start with F. She was orange/dark orange and she wore a black headband with some sorta black pattern on it. She also had some really tired eyes with eyebags and too much eyeliner, and a messy bag with a bunch of random papers. She was basically the new girl in town who got there a while after CJ, who developed an intense interest in fiends, with the intense desire to study and understand them. She'd spend hours observing them, writing things down, and conducting experiments. After a while her and CJ would form some sorta alliance and they'd slowly become friends. I ended up scrapping her because I couldn't find a place in the plot for her either. I do like her, but I think she'll fit better in a different universe.

Also, random addition that has actually nothing to do with CJ's creation.

I recently went through my sketches when I randomly stumbled upon these, and then I remembered that I actually had a Making Fiends oc idea even before I thought of Milo.

Her name was Megan, she was a sort of dusty blue color, and had long hair that slightly covered her eye. She was literally just Maggie but even more stoic and monotone and instead of poetry her thing was drawing... I thought of her before I watched the show, but after I watched it I immediately gave up on the idea the moment Maggie stepped on screen. I think I tried to make it work with making them best friends? I don't know honestly, very boring idea, dunno why I thought it was a good one.

Figuring out CJ was fairly simple, I took Milo and flipped everything about him on its head, polished it, added new stuff and made it into an actual character and not just Milo but in an opposite au.

Still, CJ and Milo are obviously narrative foils. I tried to make that clear with A LOT of different details. In fact, there's so many of them that I'll have to eventually make a seperate post for it...

No idea when I'll do that since I keep adding parallels to the bunch... I'll probably make a character analysis thing or something one day-

[thewaltcrew]

Chanticleer concept art by Marc Davis

Chanticleer is likely the most famous of all canceled projects at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Although these drawings were done in the early 1960s, the studio had been trying since the late 1930s to develop a feature film based on two French stories: the play Chantecler by Edmond Rostand and the Roman de Renart or Reynard the Fox, a literary cycle first collected in 11th-century Europe. The two stories were initially developed separately. Storymen Ted Sears and Al Perkins were the first to work on them, but they quickly ran into the same problem that would constantly plague Chanticleer for its entire development existence: how to make an arrogant rooster into an appealing protagonist.

Sears: We, or any other cartoon outfit, cannot depict a likable, interesting rooster character. Good animators have told me this, and only some revolutionary change or inspiration would make a rooster character sympathetic.

Development on Reynard also ran into similar problems of having a protagonist with a less-than-admirable personality, as Reynard the Fox is one of the most famous sources that propagated the image of a fox as a sly trickster. By 1945, the idea to combine the two properties came about, likely to help alleviate the problem of Chanticleer’s arrogant character by having a villain for him to play off of. Attempts to develop it again continued on through the 1940s, but nothing ever panned out.

In early 1960, Marc Davis and Ken Anderson, uninterested in any of the films in development at the time, took a trip down to the Animation Research Library to find ideas for a film they could develop on their own. Davis, being a fan of musical theater, wanted to do a big Broadway musical-style animated feature. They came across the old treatments for Chanticleer and jumped on the chance. They disregarded the original source materials (aside from the basic premises) and began to develop their own plot, envisioning it as a satiric comedy.

The story would have been about a rooster named Chanticleer who believes that his crowing makes the sun rise every morning. Everyone else in the village adores Chanticleer because they believe in his power too, and they elect him mayor of the town. However, he becomes an overbearing leader, ordering the hens to lay more and more eggs. The townsfolk come to resent him, and Reynard the fox arrives and takes advantage of the situation, wishing to exploit the village for his own benefit. He entertains the citizens, and the chickens stay up all night, becoming too tired to lay any eggs. An angry Chanticleer orders Reynard to leave, but Reynard announces that he will run for mayor against Chanticleer. Chanticleer finds himself in a duel at dawn against a Spanish rooster who works for Reynard and doesn’t realize that the sun has risen without him. Once he discovers that his crowing does not bring up the sun, he realizes his foolishness and is humbled, allowing the villagers to forgive him. Because although his crowing never made the sun come up, it did awaken the citizens for them to be able to start their days.

Cost cutting is what effectively ended Chanticleer’s chances. Walt was pressured to stop the production of animated feature films moving forward, as their already existing catalogue would have been enough for the company to profit off of during re-releases.

Davis: Walt was about ready to dump animation; then he got to thinking, “I owe these people something,” which he did. So he said, “Hell, these guys know how to make these films without me.” I don’t think the others realized how eager the members of this business gang were to get rid of animation. Everything after Dalmatians was done with a minimum of Walt’s supervision. I think he got spread very thin: he got terribly interested in the Parks, his vision of Epcot, and more.

But as preoccupied as Walt was, he didn’t have it in his heart to shut down animated film production for good. He did, however, reduce the output by setting a schedule of a new film every four years rather than every two. This meant that one of the two films in development at the time, Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone, had to be cut. The decision was obvious, as Chanticleer would have been much more expensive to produce, and The Sword in the Stone was a simpler story with human characters and a cute underdog protagonist.

Davis: We had all the artwork up on the walls, and the money people at the studio came in like it was a funeral. We went all the way through the presentation and met with silence. Then a voice from the back of the room said, “You can’t make a personality out of a chicken!” They all filed out and that was the end of it.

Walt would soon call up Marc Davis to ask him to help out at WED (later called Imagineering), which is where Davis would stay for the remainder of his Disney career (where he would contribute to some of the most beloved Disney attractions of all time), thereby making Chanticleer the very last thing he worked on at the animation studio.

Davis: I had always kind of doubled up: I did story on an awful lot of stuff that was not made, including some damned good things. I think some of the best drawings I ever did for the Studio were for Chanticleer.

Chanticleer has grown a legacy of its own, perhaps solely because of how appealing and well-drawn Davis’ work for the project was. As animator Andreas Deja put it, “Marc designed some of the best-looking characters I’ve ever seen--those drawings want to be moved and used... The designs for Chanticleer show the same level of graphic sophistication as his paintings. When that’s combined with his very thorough knowledge of anatomy and the Disney appeal, the result is outstanding.”

Mel Shaw attempted to rework a new treatment for Chanticleer in 1981, but it was quickly squashed. In 1992, Don Bluth, an ex-Disney animator who, like everyone else, loved Marc Davis’ work on Chanticleer, tried his hand at the story himself with the film Rock-A-Doodle, though to little critical or commercial acclaim.

Although Marc Davis never worked on an animated film again after Chanticleer, some of the designs he created for that film did find their way into his WED project America Sings and later Splash Mountain, when the animatronics from America Sings were repurposed.

research sources from [x][x][x], The Disney That Never Was: The Stories and Art of Five Decades of Unproduced Animation by Charles Solomon, and Marc Davis: Walt Disney’s Renaissance Man, Chanticleer chapter by Charles Solomon photo sources [x][x][x]

[digital-chance]

writeblr intro

hey i'm chance! i've done a writeblr intro recently but i didn't like it, so this is take 2. here's the old one.

─── about me -⋆⋅☆

name : chance

pronouns : they/he

likes : cyberpunk, romance, anime, kpop, music, history, design

age : 20

i tend to swear both on here and in my writing, so if you're sensitive to that, i don't think my blog or work is for you. i also use the word 'queer' a lot since i self-identify as such, when i do choose to self-identify.

i'm interested in so much, which would be impossible to fully state. there are so many new things out there and i love learning about them all!! this blog is mainly for writing but i'm not strict on that.

i also am pretty sure i'm neurodivergent (no diagnosis or anything yet) and tend to delve into hyper-fixations for weeks at a time. if i haven't posted for a while, it's probably because of one of my other hyper-fixations or school.

i'm going to college for my bachelor's in graphic design, which might make my responses during the school year delayed.

i'm always open to ask or tag games!! it might take me a few to respond but i'll respond.

─── writing -⋆⋅☆

you'll find a lot of diverse characters, the found/chosen family trope, romance or rom-com, angst, and references to actual history or historical events within my work. sometimes i throw in a little art fact since i'm an art student. in nearly every one of my works you can find a prominent lgbtq+ character, too.

i write for original works and fanfiction alike. i often alternate what project i'm writing on and tend to leave wips unfinished. there's no one specific fandom that i'm in since i tend to dabble in everything.

i enjoy reading all sorts of stories, but some of the tropes and genres that have a special place in my heart include:

[ genres : romance . action . sci-fi . dystopian . heists . cyberpunk . horror . comedy . mystery ] [ tropes : friends to lovers , enemies to lovers , fake/pretend relationship , college au , coffee shop au , domestic , fluff , angst ]

─── ⋆ looking for ⋆⋅☆

more writers to follow!

good vibes & friends

writing advice & critique buddies (will help critique ur work too)

─── works in progress -⋆⋅☆

nova futurum | original work | #wip: nova futurum

─── ⋆ status : brainstorming

a lgbtq+ mafia cyberpunk story with the working title "Nova Futurum." i've got the general information down and i'm currently working on fleshing out my main characters. for now it's in the very basic stages, but feel free to ask me about it or give any tips!

you still would've been mine | fanfiction | #wip: yswbm

─── ⋆ status : outlining, research, & writing draft 1

Steven "Steve" Rogers wakes up in the 21st century after crashing into the ice in 1942, leaving behind his life as the mascot of the USA along with his childhood in Brooklyn NYC. The Winter Soldier, a man left behind in the war recovers his memories as the man known as James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes after meeting Steve in the modern time. Steve and Bucky recall their childhood and their experience in the war as they recover.

matchbreakers | original work | #wip: match

─── ⋆ status : brainstorming

xavier works at match breakers. instead of setting people up on blind dates, he goes to dates and breaks up the couple. all sorts of people hire him, disapproving parents, jealous ex's, and those scared to see their ex's angry side. what he doesn't expect is falling in love with one of his own clients.

scars of duty | original work | #wip: sod

─── ⋆ status : plotting

Lucian is a hero who protects the city of Haines and the other members of his hero's league. They're a small-name hero just trying to make do with what they've got. A villain new to the city shows up and shakes Lucian’s perception of their own superpowers and the world.

< tag lists: if you'd like to be added for any project, let me know. i'm not the greatest at remembering the tag list but i will try! >

─── ⋆ more of my socials & my design portfolio

[melancholic-fig]

Guys I think we should stop indulging bad media takes on Helluva boss.

Many of these people are kids not understand basic media literacy. They hate the show because “they are assassins and murder is bad”. Their cartoons were heavily edited to have everything pure and good in them and they don’t get art with bad elements as not an endorsement of the thing. At 1yo I was watching Johnny Bravo (sexist creep gets beaten by women but he’s nice to mom) and Cow and Chicken (which was a butt-filled murder fest with some gay elements). It will take more that 2-3 shows for them to be comfortable with bad things on screen and Helluva Boss is not a show for children anyway. The big warning at the start. Everyone knows this is the horny murder demons show. If people rage that they show condones adultery and violence, they just don’t get it. It’s a bad take, from people who without a platform you would never talk to in a serious manner. Never take criticism from someone you’d never take advice from.

Also, some critical takes are not bad. The character are indeed doing bad things and I TRUST the show to call them out later. We have like 5h of content and around 15 characters everyone wants to see on screen. Along a plot with sense and multiple easy to digest work office comedy side plots. The animation industry is slow because good animation takes a fucking extremely long time and it’s comical people simultaneously accuse the show of abusing its workers (I’d love the energy if it was directed at building an animation union and not just here) and calling it out for releasing too slow. Also hiring more would do jack shit, it’s a “can 9 women make a baby in a month” situation. The show would be faster only if it abused its workers more.

Besides all that, just a reality check.

It is a quirky show which brings homage to Tumblr style and aesthetic sensibilities from early 2010’s and some people will do anything to hate on it just for that.

It is breaking writing rules on purpose because it mixes the vibe of 2000 early morning cartoons with heavy dramatic elements from 2010 tv shows to emphasize a perspective crash between the characters (especially between Imps doing jobs a la Powerpuff girls and the Goetia storyline which is classic family drama). The medium is the message, the comedy murder guys are shown to have trauma and depth and the sulking, depressed guys in forever drama are shown to be not so innocent.

I consider it an amazing show because of the quality of animation, the artstyle that is an elevated, beautiful version of “bad tumblr art”, which is an extremeeely hard thing to do, and the artistic crash, I love it when art is taking risks. It’s bold and daring and rebellious and this is bound to ruffle some feathers. Don’t spend energy explaining to people why there’s artists merit here is people consider art to be classic music I don’t actually listen to and big statue of hot woman in white that was actually painted 2000y ago but whatever.

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group E Round 1: #E8 vs #E1

#E8: Lesbian vampire & human go on road trip to escape the horrors

In a bleak world where music is banned and Vampires have emerged at the top of the food chain, a girl named Momo breaks past the barrier and connects with Fine, queen of the Vampires, and the two journey to find a safe haven where their races can co-exist.

#E1: Modern people transmigrate* to ancient Chinese fantasy world (BL)

People from the modern world transmigrating into the ancient fantasy world has become a common and everyday occurrence that the royal court in the latter has decided to moderate them. If you’re a transmigrator, you must report your existence to Lou Zhu, the master of Best Tower. Once you pass his test and prove that you are indeed a modern person, you can then be assigned to work in different areas of the government and be given a high salary.

Because of this promised benefit, many impostors have showed up before Lou Zhu. And one day, Zuo Yunqi shows up for this test. Is he an impostor, or is he an actual modern person?

But some transmigrators also choose to hide their existence out of distrust in the government. Where are they? And with their knowledge of science and technology, what are they planning in the dark?

*Transmigration = similar to isekai, but the world where the characters get isekai’d to is not always a western fantasy type.

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#E8: Vampire in the Garden

Propaganda:

This anime came out a year ago, but I literally never heard of it until earlier this summer because Netflix had it. You guys are SLEEPING on such a good series—it’s 6 episodes so it’s short, but it feels like a whole single film. The voice acting is so fun, the music slaps, the animation goes HARD during fight scenes, and it’s just so so good. The art style is pretty, and the scenery makes me lose my mind, it’s SO pretty. I need to write an essay one day about how VitG uses music to carry the story because wow that is 🛐🛐🛐 Also there’s a goofy looking dog named Connie that continuously appears and serves no purpose in the plot. Love that

Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Racism, Self-Harm.

Child abuse & emotional abuse for Momo’s complicated relationship with her mother. Also emotional abuse for Fine’s past traumas and current strained relationship with other vampires.

This is a vampire anime, so there’s a lot of blood and fighting. There’s also a drug introduced in ep1 that mutates a vampire horribly.

Racism is human-versus-vampire shenanigans.

Self-harm for a scene where a human attempts to feed a vampire and for drug usage as mentioned above.

#E1: Are You Ok (You Yao)

[Admin: I could not find a single trailer of season 1 w/ English subs, and its OP seems to have been taken down on YouTube since Iqiyi, its producer (?), started their own channel. As such, I’ve cut a small portion of S1E01 instead, featuring the test the transmigrators have to take.]

Propaganda:

This donghua (Chinese anime) is based on a comedy novel with the same title, and the adaptation is just stellar. Instead of showing each character’s story separately like in the novel, the donghua combined everything. Because of this, there’s more focus on the plotty and political mystery aspect—but without losing the heart of the original. The entire show is still just as hilarious.

And for an adaptation with several original characters, for once I actually don’t mind it. I usually find such additions annoying, but in this show they really serve a purpose and also add to the enjoyment.

I also like the choice of animating it in 3D, like the one in video games. It fits the “transmigrate into a fantasy world” setting well. The donghua also plays around a lot. In one episode, they had one character sing and dance like in a musical, with the beginning of the song sounding like “Do you wanna build a snowman?” from Frozen 😂

Moreover, this is a Boys Love story, and with more than one couple, too! The secondary couple (Zhou Rongqi and Li Ke) even gets a very gay ending song that’s all about them. But since this show is from China, where censorship rules are strict, don’t expect anything explicit. Just think of it as another shounen with homoerotic undertones, except the homo is actually canon.

All in all, it’s a very fun show that doesn’t lack in depth. If you’re in the mood for something light but don’t want to miss out on plot, you should definitely watch this. And if you’ve never watched a donghua before, then you’ll definitely find this fresh and intriguing.

Trigger Warnings: None.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

[kaledya]

Hi.

What can I say? At being in front of an statue of Machiavelli in Italy was a message of the universe telling me: "Write the goddamn fanfic"

But now ignoring jokes, I have lots of concepts that I made:

First of all: The fanfic or Constantine will have a total of 15 chapters, 5 for each moment (in his Childhood, in his young adulthood, and in the current day), this to have an structure that I like.

Now, the Executioner himself

Who is Arzel?

You might have some old memories when I show you this picture

Yup, of course he will have a different design for this AU.

But if you want to know what to expect of him im his Villain Arc:

I took inspiration in Ultron (I like that villain) mainly because I think a Villain that wants to change everything in a more wicked way that the protagonist (Charlie) actually fits well, also I admit his hate to Constantine has that as one of it's inspirations.

Sauron (both Lord Of The Rings, Hobbit, and even other books that didn't got it's adaptation), but of course, I use sauron as a reference for him, and another character related to Evil and Eyes (I know Sauron in the Book isn't a giant eye in a tower), let's say Arzel is inspired in Sauron, but Roo is inspired in both Sauron and Morgoth.

Vergil (Devil May Cry), you might don't know this one, but the important thing is his Siblings-Rivalry to, he and Constantine aren't brothers, but let's say they get to be close, that before something I ain't gonna spoil because it's in the final act of the Young Adulthood of Constantine.

And here 2 Starwars characters that gave me an idea of it:

Vader, both his relationship with Palpatine and his fall to the darkness are taken note, but I won't copy paste it, do not worry 😅

General Grievous (2003, not the movies version), before this robot was an had asma, and covered his coughing, being a cyborg in a droids ship, he was an Jedi slayer that could handle various numbers of them (and he didn't used his 4 arms until the very own end)

But let's stop talking about my OC!

And let's talk about a the concept of the cult of Evil.

Let's say they're secretly hided, not even Heaven knows it's existence (plot armour? Nah they have magic or something (?)) and they mainly have the typical "Antichrist" role when some of them go to Earth for deals.

Basically in this concept Roo is the actual devil.

This is mainly because Lucifer isn't evil and does not try to take the soul of every human being.

Of course Roo won't appear and say "i'M tHe DeViL >:D"

It's just an similar concept and way of making it.

I'll probably both start with the Hazbin Hotel fanfic before I lose my ideas.

But also continue with Constantine's fanfic.

I hope I can mix both Action, Comedy, Drama and Musical parts in it.

Because I want to keep the essence of both your AU and the OG.

LMAO and Seriously your plan sounds like a great plan! You really divided the periods into chapters beautifully.

An yes! I remember This art! Good old days.

ULTRON!! I'm so glad to hear that ULTRON is one of my favorite villians He gave me Vibe, which reminded me of what would happen if Stark tried to find brutal answers to problems, and it was great that he was similar to Tony in personality.

And seriously, considering the contrast with Charlie, you've really chosen a great inspiration!

--

Sauron is also a great choice, he is a truly fearsome, powerful and intelligent enemy. It's seriously a good choice both visually and in character!

--

Virgil!! I Love devil May cry And I really loved those fights between Dante and Virgil, this is a great inspiration too!

--

Anakin skywalker the fallen Angel.. Darth is a great choice in the future, I think a villain inspired by such quality villains will be great.I can't wait to see it!

-Grevious is also a really good choice, he has always been a dangerous villain.

---

I think it really makes sense that you connect the concept of evil to Roo, it's a smart choice!

-I can't wait to see any fanfiction you write, I really think you're very creative and you'll do wonders!

I'm sure you will do it and I wish you good writing.

----

And if possible, could you describe Arzel to me with references (face, clothes, etc.)

[magnorious]

Hazbin Hotel is the Perfect Musical for People Who Hate Musicals

*Spoiler Free!*

I watched this on recommendation and the pitch was “the cast is filled with Broadway performers, also there’s an aro/ace and he’s amazing”. Broadway is never an enticing detail for me.

I heard the name “Hazbin Hotel” and assumed the plot would be about “has-been” performers staying at the hotel trying to regain relevance through a series of convoluted musical numbers and big dance numbers and boy, was I completely wrong.

Charlie, Lucifer’s daughter, is attempting to redeem souls in Hell so they get a second chance at going to Heaven to save them from extermination by the forces of Heaven, because Hell is becoming overcrowded with sinners. She created the “Hazbin Hotel” as sinner rehab to save her friends.

The show reminds me a lot of Phineas and Ferb in that every single episode features a song and dance, in a show about kids living up their summer vacation building wild and wacky inventions while a pharmacist battles his arch-nemesis platypus in the B-plot. That the show is at all a “musical” is just icing on the cake — not the entire cake.

I might not like Broadway, but I respect it for the art form that it is, and still this show didn’t feel “Broadway”. The songs were explicitly not-meta, no huge cabaret dance and chorus, and except for one single track, no song felt mis-matched to the images on screen (Carmilla’s power ballad felt a little over the top, if great independently).

And, like Phineas and Ferb, everything was so sincere that it went so far into ridiculous and came out the other side wildly entertaining. There was not a single boring character, a single dull voice acting performance, a single scene where I lost interest.

This show is hysterical if you don’t like comedies either, because the dialogue is so fast-paced and witty, throwing insults and slinging dry humor in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments. I have to watch it again just to pause and catch all the background details.

And speaking of details! This show is also a perfect example of why animation is not inferior to live action. It’s so refreshingly un-Disney in its character design and so far removed from attempting to ground its animation. I did have trouble at first distinguishing characters from background elements because their silhouettes are so zany, but that faded fast. Arcane and Spiderverse are beautiful achievements in animation, but this is a cartoon through and through.

Every single character (except Adam, his minion angel, and the English Vee demon) are adorable and every silhouette is unique. For a show that’s four hours long, every major character gets the chance to shine and they pack a ton of characters into four hours. Every single character is sincere in who and what they are, fully marinated in this wacky world that would crumble if any one performance didn’t embrace the craziness.

And among the performances, every time they cursed and sang about wildly inappropriate content, I pictured posh Broadway performers in the recording studio having the time of their lives in a role they could never put on stage in front of mass audiences and it was hilarious.

The main cast is also fantastic. Main character – Charlie – could so easily have gone from endearing to annoying with her optimism but she rides that line perfectly. Characters might find her annoying and her rank as the Devil’s daughter is her shield, but no one who calls her their friend makes fun of her behind her back. They know she cares, and they care about her.

Four hours isn’t enough time for plot contrivances and the show knows it. Anyone else would draw out the “liar revealed” plot line for drama and filler fodder for an entire episode and Hazbin doesn’t. Another show would have the double-agent act do more damage and not get them discovered immediately. Another show would draw out a heroic sacrifice with rousing violins and horns and slow motion — not Hazbin.

The rest of the main cast – Vaggie, Alastor, Nifty, Husker, Angel, Sir Pentious — have incredibly strong personalities in the time they were given to shine and even the side characters aren’t lost in the shuffle. I think Alastor is most everyone’s favorite and he’s mine as well. I liked that, as I said above, he genuinely cares about something he probably shouldn’t with the success of Charlie’s hotel. He’s plotting and scheming in the background but he’s not a liar or a pretender and everyone is aware of those plots and schemes. A lesser show would have made him a shrewd villain. I was rooting for everyone to escape their lots in life and succeed almost the moment they appeared on screen, endeared to the entire main cast in seconds because this is a group of friends that are genuinely friends.

The show is Amazon’s, and with that comes permission for all manner of foul language and mature content and it does get dark but never gratuitously dark like Amazon’s Invincible or The Boys. There’s a very polite and considerate content warning for depictions of assault and while I guessed the character it happened to, I expected a lot worse given the platform I watched it on. It didn’t need to be violent or graphic to get the point across, so kudos for respectful restraint.

Lastly, the musical numbers themselves. I grew up watching the Disney Renaissance movies and I have seen productions of Broadway shows. It’s the culture that bothers me, not the performances. So I never anticipated hating the songs and, save for one sung by a random minor character in Heaven, every single track was a banger with incredible variety. The lines are sharp and witty (and take full advantage of being rated 16+) and insanely catchy.

I already feel late to the party with this review and the season just wrapped up. For anyone else who either looked at the title, or the art style, or heard “it’s a musical” and kept scrolling, Hazbin Hotel will surprise you at every turn with its refreshing sincerity, incredible animation, and endearing characters you can’t wait to see more of in season 2.

[labelfinally]

THE BRAINSTORM

After a couple of intense brainstorming sessions which led to almost nothing, I have finally found my source of inspiration.

One of my all time favorite songs has came up on my playlist, and a sudden idea for my project appeared in my mind. The hero of the occasion is a song called “Lonely Boy” by The Black Keys.

The song, to which I was immensely fond of a couple of years back, has reminded me of that rush of doing something that you love and getting recognition for it, getting praise. I was enlightened when I came to a certain conclusion, based on my own life experiences - whenever you give freedom to aspiring young people in terms of art everything might go to chaos, but it can turn out unexpectedly creative and in some cases it could carry a concrete meaning(or it may just look or sound good, with no necessary meaning)

Based on all my reflections and derivations, I present to you “Label, Finally” - a comedy shot in a format of a mockumentary, telling a story of an eccentric bunch of aspiring musicians finally getting recognition.

The main storyline consists of 5 main characters, who you could call a “basic” band:

Guitarist

Drummer

Bassist

Keyboard

Tambourine/triangle/simple percussion

All the band members will really differ from one another. For example, the drummer will be into classical music (which is not really common), and the tambourine player who will seem to know quite everything in music theory, will be the front man of the group.

The movie will be shot based on inspirations from various films/shows of a similar format: The Office, This is Spinal Tap, What We Do In The Shadows and Cunk on Earth. I would really like to give this project a feel of a sitcom comedy mixed with unserious interviews and upbeat characters.

I am still to do in-depth research in terms of the genre of comedy, however I have already noted out important distinctions of this genre. Dynamic camera movements and easy-to-get humor have to be present in order to create a fun to watch and in some way, relatable, experience for the viewers.

A mind map including the main plot, the setting and the research which I did when brainstorming my idea.

[journalsouppe]

This is a repost with better images (and the original was posted to my main blog not here)

Uncensored version and close ups below!!

Also apologies for the small and crazy writing, I went insane playing this game and had a lot to say about it LMAO

Stickers are from NoodlesandTeaShop on etsy!!

Rating: 10/10 Played: Su 2022 Port: N. Switch Favorite? Y Replayable: Y Recommended? Y

Comments

my first ace attorney game!!

omg the little anime scenes are so cool

The twist endings/court conclusions are so well made

oh my god I'm in love with Kazuma <3 his theme T-T

each character has such a distinct personality esp from just their animation

I love the [sholmes/iris/ryuu] forhead thing

yeah I'm also in love with Ryuu T-T

the logic and reasoning spectaculars are my favorite thing they're so fun and stupid

Sholmes and Iris are the cutest dad and daughter duo

FIREWORKS? IN THE COURTROOM??

I am so stressed about the Hounds of the Baskerville case O_o

British Ryuu jumpscare

CHUUNOSUKE ON RYUU'S SHOULDER T-T

I like Gina's new job and personality

Ayy Gregsy is back

ohh the great departed soul is both Susato and Kazuma omg

AMNESIA? T^T

Ryuu is scared of everything and I adore it [me too Ryuu]

PLAGUE DOCTOR WANTS TO CUT ME UP??

The wax museum is horrifying wtf

case 8 [2-3] is an all time favorite

HOLY FUCK

[Phonograph sticker] looks just like Barok's

Love goofy Herlock clothes

Case 2-4 specific comments

THE PARALLELS ARE CRAZY

give me your damn sword Kazuma you don't need two of them

KAZUMA'S NEW THEME????

KAZUIMA'S FATHER?

DEAD?

I love how confident, sure, and determined Ryuu is now

bullying Ryu to pay the vendors T-T

is this a fake trial??

Beppo!!!

STOP FLIRTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A TRIAL

Was the will the note sent to Kazuma?

Finishing each others sentences

love [prison warders and a prosecutor, reborn] 10/10 music

Case 2-5 specific comments

FUCK NOT STRONGHART

Kazuma [eye roll]

JIGOKU???

The girls are FIGHTING [kazuma and barok]

IM MIKOTOBA OMG OMG INVESTIGATION

Elementary my dear Mikotoba T^T

TAP DANCING

Was the sword broken from Genshin? NVM LOL [im dumb]

Gregson in the luggage is so fucked

They're all family T-T brother Ryuu

Kazuma's theme is both intimidating but assuring

HOLOGRAM??

THE DANCE????

Iris Van Zieks... IRIS SHOLMES

THE CREDITS, I'm not okay

Game Dev notes

Masterfully done music, esp reinvented themes for change

incredible animations, gives each character so much personality

great story telling - best visual novel for length, story, interest, etc

chronicles has its own achievements - encourages replayability

great pacing and saving - east to pick up and set down

amazing foreshadowing - whole series planned together

incredible balance of comedy and tragedy

takes preexisting stories and tropes and masterfully retells them

Summary:

I'm afraid I won't have enough room to describe how much I love this game. I don't even know where to start :'). This game is a masterpiece of masterpieces. Easily comparable to FMAB in terms of incredible storytelling, foreshadowing, mystery, tragedy, comedy, score, design, you name it. I have never genuinely been so shocked by the surprises in this game, but they were all so well made and fit in the story seamlessly. The tragedy and comedy, the two most important aspects of a story to me, were not only very well balanced, but were used as expert emotional devices throughout the game. The character design is incredible. Small details such as Ryuu's arm brace or Enoch's mechanisms or Iris's dolls add such character and personality even if some of these details aren't plot relevant. Each character has a unique body type, face shape, facial features, etc that it is easy to identify each character without their hair or clothes. The deigns are also so brilliant that it even taught me how to not only draw older people and children, but to be able to distinguish between teenagers and 20-30 year olds in my art (instead of all looking the same age). The animations are beautiful and so ridiculous. I always looked forward to interacting with Herlock and the witnesses. These games also have one of my favorite scores, especially the way they are able to turn established themes on their heads. The music does an amazing job at establishing setting, character, tension, emotion, you name it. Now for the story telling. Holy fucking shit. Holy shit. You don't even realize how important every small is until it hits you in the face. This is a story that will rival my 1st place spot of FMAB [in terms of all media]. It is so beautifully designed and thought over that I can only say the writers at Capcom are true geniuses to make this story. It doesn't hold back any punches but also comforts you. It toys with your emotions and is smth almost evil, but it also gives you hope and confidence and lifts you up so that you can scream to the world. The key to this is Ryuu. He's no avatar like Link but you and him share a strong bond through shared experience. It was an ingenious move to have the first story be Ryuu accused of murder, you learn the hardest way possible how to become a defense attorney of true integrity. His relations to others is this game is incredible too. The betrayal, the longing, the tenderness. Him and Susato have an incredible "sibling" bond to where I truly felt anxious without her. Not to mention Kazuma. A human through and through. Once thought to be the righteous angel, he had later fallen from heaven just to learn the truth of who he and his father really are. Even as the game has ended, I still sit and contemplate on these characters. Although it was the right decision for Kazuma to stay, I am still in pain from their separation. I really wish I could say more but it's also hard to put into words all my feelings with so little space. If I could forget this game just to experience it again, I would. An outstanding work of art. I highly recommend. My new favorite game.

[artpunk-intl]

“OFF BOOK WITH BRENDAN WELLS”

ArtpunkINTL interviews BRENDAN WELLS (Uranium Club, Brendan Wells Plant Music, NERV) about Art, inspiration, chess, and the joy of not having the answer.

Interview by Lucas Rose for ArtpunkINTL, 2022

[FULL INTERVIEW TEXT BELOW]

As a unique mode of Art performance and creation, what does The Uranium Club mean to you? How does it allow you to express yourself in ways that other projects don’t? Please be as abstract as you can.

BW: For my involvement with it, the goal is as much communication as possible. I want an album to encourage someone to spend time with it, the type of thing you take into the bathroom to read and look over. I want to approach things with an intent to express ideas everywhere we can: in lyrics, on the center label, the clothes we wear, the things said on stage in between songs, on the album spine, anywhere we can find. I'd like our choices to be conscientious over automatic (are we doing something a certain way because that's how it's done or do we choose it because it will serve us?), and while other times we can be spontaneous then hopefully that spontaneity can be another weapon or resource for ideas, maybe something to reverse engineer into a reference or plot point to inform what we do next. 

The way I view art, everything you do as an artist says something, whether it's process, medium, message, product etc. I don't know that everyone sees that, that when you make an unthoughtful choice it can communicate that you aren't paying attention to what you're doing. Are you invested in me as an audience member? I think in ways I'd also equate unthoughtfulness with insincerity, which is maybe a big jump, but maybe at least a lack of sincerity, and when sincerity isn't present that's just as obvious (and it is obvious!) as insincerity. You can be sincere and make something terrible but at least it won't be boring, I think. There is a lot of filler in products. And I get that, it's easier that way. 

In that sense I think Uranium Club chooses to be difficult, and sometimes it's a difficult or slow or frustrating process for us, to be honest. But the filler concept reminds me of a promo video for Steve Martin's master class on stand up comedy where he says a big mistake people make is to walk out on stage and say something to an audience like "Hi, how is everyone doing tonight?" It's a mistake because you have missed an opportunity to make a joke. Everything is an opportunity to make a joke. Take out the filler and you might only be left with a little bit after that but now maybe you've stumbled into the power of minimalism. 

There’s something about the Uranium Club that feels medical. Songs often come across as stories from the medical or psychiatric fields, telling tales of altered personalities, hidden selves, sickness, sudden traumatic change, proximity to death, and morbid comedy. What motivates the band’s songwriting? What sort of thing could cause a member of the Club to stop and think “I should make a song out of that?”

BW: Speaking for myself as one of three writers in the band, I'm a curious person, lots of Wikipedia and using the interlibrary loan service to spontaneously request books on subjects and artists that pop up on my radar. I jump around between a lot of different interests and thoughts so if something sticks in my brain and keeps my attention then I'll start to ask myself if it could become a song. It has to be something that keeps inviting questions and thoughts beyond what sparked interest in the first place. Even better, I like when even after making a song about something I feel like I could keep writing on the subject because every new angle I view it from invites more investigation. Subjects that involve a moral grey area do that for me, partially because something that makes me laugh is to hear a strong, one-sided opinion on a subject. 

One of the funniest characters is one who is confident and wrong. I think subjects around medicine, psychiatry, etc are meaty because of the complicated relationship between science/fact and the personal experience behind/around it. Science has connotations of being right about things, of perfection and rules and infallibility, but what about when things get complicated, when you invite in questions of morality and suffering and the times it turns out you've been wrong for years about something? That's confusing, and I think a lot of my expression comes out of exploring confusion. 

Digging around, it’s not hard to find references to an unreleased Uranium Club short film. From my own understanding, the cover art for The Cosmo Cleaners is a relic of this film. What can you recall about that film? Was it ever finished? Was it ever real? If so, are there any future plans for it?

BW: The band members do love Film, and sometimes we try to watch the same movies to be on something of the same page. But one of my favorite ways of taking in Art is through photos of Performance Art. Do you ever hear something about a book or a movie that gets you excited but then the real thing doesn't quite capture what you wanted? That's how I feel about most B-movies; I don't watch them, I get bored. There's a performance piece I love by a Chinese artist Song Dong called Stamping the Water where he is standing in a lake with a large printing block with the symbol for water on it and he slaps it against the water. I feel like I also saw a video of the performance and the video took the magic out of the action for me. The most compelling version of the piece I think is just one photo accompanied by the title. 

Titles are really important, I think. It's like a secret lyric that changes the way you hear the song. It expands the narrative, like this weekend when I saw the house of some kids I went to school with who I thought were rich but now the house is abandoned and boarded up. I asked my mom and she told me it's because the parents got divorced and their dad accidentally killed someone while driving a speedboat drunk. 

But then holding back some information is compelling too, like how my mom said the dad is dead now too, but didn't say why, so I'm left with questions. I do think movies are great, though, and watching a movie can be more inspiring for me than any other way of taking in Art, even though I have trouble sometimes allowing myself to watch a movie because I worry it's not time well spent if I'm not sick or tired. 

Has anybody followed the instructions on the Two Things At Once 7”?

BW: Maybe once, I think. One of the most flattering things I can experience is when somebody lets me know they were listening and they remember what I said. It might be too much to say that I make art or music because I never felt listened to when I was a kid, but if I want to believe what I've learned in the years of therapy I've had then maybe I can admit that. It's vulnerable to express yourself but on the part of the audience I think it also takes vulnerability to participate—to choose to answer someone's question instead of letting it hang as rhetorical. It's a transformative choice, kind of like a magic spell you help complete. It makes the outcome less certain, more charged, more in the moment. 

There's this great concept called going "off book" in chess that fits for that. At some point in the world of chess they started keeping a record of every move ever made in tournament play. During a game of chess, every move made makes it a little less like every game played before it, but you can still play an entire game of chess and know that the same choices in the same order have been made before. It is increasingly rare as more games are played and more data is created through that, but if you make a choice that has never been recorded before, the game is now "off book." It's not safe to do that, but it can mean the difference in whether or not there ends up being a Wikipedia article about that chess match. Despite the connotations you might make for words like creativity and Art, a lot of experiences with Art and Music are "on book." If somebody asks you to do something for the sake of Art—clap, answer a question, whatever—I think you should do it because that is a step in the direction of making the experience a little bit less like every experience that came before it. 

NERV was explosive, abrasive, and aggressive, a wonderful combination of Powerviolence and original flavor Hardcore Punk. What did you learn with NERV that stuck with you? 

BW: I learned to err on the side of spontaneity when it comes to performance. So many times I came up with an idea beforehand, like jumping at a certain moment (or especially with anything I thought would be funny to do or say) and it would turn out so lifeless. It's like giving birth and a wet potato coming out instead of a baby. I'd expect laughter and there would be none and I would feel so stupid, or I would do something and realize I was forcing it into the wrong moment. There are comedians who will work so hard to make their thoughts seem spontaneous when they've actually been delivering the same lines for years, and that can make for a good joke and speak to the mastery of their performance, but that joke can be matched or exceeded if it turns out you have to fart at the exact moment it would be funny to fart. For me to feel right about it I need to be in the moment and respond to it. If you respond, you create communication; if you force it, you might poop your pants.

Bands like NERV almost always end up with one or two good stories from the road. Any come to mind?

BW: The one that I usually tell is about NERV playing a show on tour in Pittsburgh in 2011. It was a grind show we got added to along with Wild Child, a band from Minneapolis we were friends with that included Harry from Uranium Club. Wild Child was incredibly late to the show because that morning they got stranded on the road with a flat tire and then after it got replaced they were in standstill traffic for hours because of a giant traffic accident. They finally showed up after all the other bands had played and were super stressed out and tired and had to play immediately to a pretty small and apathetic audience. They asked if we were down to just relax and watch a movie because they had bought Bruno on DVD at a gas station a few days before and hadn't gotten a chance to watch it. The guy who booked the show invited us to stay at his place and it sounded good—a spare room with beds because bands stayed there all the time, he said he'd make us spaghetti and salad, and the only thing to really deal with was his fiancé was moving in so there would be her cat and his two dogs who were loud but harmless. 

We get back to the guy's place and it's gnarly—his dogs are these two giant rottweilers who are barking and lunging and making us uncomfortable. He shows us where we can sleep and it's this room with horror movie posters and flyers for grind shows and a pile of very stained mattresses. It's gross but there's a big TV and an Xbox so we can start up Bruno and he goes to the kitchen to cook stuff and we make the best of it. There's eight of us so I'm sitting on the floor next to the couch and Bruno was really funny. The dogs come thundering into the room whipping around a toy or stuffed animal and run over me and get slobber all over my arm and drop the toy next to Antoine from Wild Child and they chase each other around and run out again. We decompress from that but Antoine jumps up and yells "Holy shit!" and "It's a fucking cat, dude!" I turn around and realize it wasn't a stuffed animal the dogs were playing with, they'd killed the guy's fiancé's cat. I check my arm and see it isn't dog slobber, my arms covered in blood. 

We all start standing up and freaking out and the guy walks into the room from the kitchen, sees the dead cat, and loses it. "Holy shit, that's my fiancé's fucking cat. She's gonna fucking leave me, man. They're gonna put my dogs to sleep. FUCK. I'm so FUCKED." Then for some reason he turns on us and starts yelling at us. "Why didn't you guys do anything? That's my fiancé's fucking cat!" 

The guy stops and puts his face in his hands and starts crying. We're all just standing there looking at each other and not knowing what is going on and half watching Bruno, which is still playing, while the guy cries. After a while he tries to straighten up and bring things back to a level of normalcy. 

"Well," he says, "the spaghetti's done."

With Brendan Wells Plant Music, Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods and Mort Garson’s Plantasia seem like the obvious points of inspiration (based off nothing more than assumption), but it’s got a lot more going on too. What points of influence do you take for your quieter explorations of sound (other than plants)? 

BW: The start of the project came out of a very anxious time in my life—I had tried moving to San Francisco to help run the magazine Maximum Rocknroll and it fucked my life up and was even making it hard to listen to punk for awhile. I was trying to search out classical music I could connect with but was gravitating more towards things that felt simplistic or minimal and natural. I was wanting to make music like Steve Reich, Terry Reilly, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but like most things it's been filtered through my limitations. I don't know how to "play piano" necessarily but I can run a keyboard through guitar pedals and hold down some of the keys and try different things until I discover something I find compelling. Or I might not have the patience to systematically compose something like Steve Reich that explores overlapping themes and frequencies but I will record two separate tracks that ignore structure and meter and play them both at the same time to see what comes out of it. I also find something incredibly transcendent can come out of music without percussion or drums, or something that doesn't use those devices but still creates rhythm and forward motion. It's more tied with a spiritual pursuit than other things I might make.

In your opinion, how’s the Twin Cities scene doing these days? Anybody that’s been catching your eye that you feel hasn’t gotten their praise? Does the scene feel alive?

BW: I would say that it's healthy, it's fine, it's existing. I would not say that my experience today is a heyday, but as long as things are happening then that means things in the future can be nurtured and artists have a place to grow instead of having to start from nothing. I think though that there are things going on that I'm not in touch with that are happening, just not exactly in the scene I've been attached to. 

Things have changed a lot since I first visited Minneapolis in 2008. Punks aren't as smelly. Fewer dreadlocks. Those things weren't my niche necessarily but it had an exciting identity. But in Minneapolis I think there is always an audience. When a new warehouse venue opens up people will be there and excited. The people here are very supportive and want to see music. The music I'm most excited about in town is pretty new and hasn't been recorded yet so there are things to look forward to but not a lot I can easily share right now except for a few live videos.

[Brendan provides the following links:]

Pig in the City : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3ji81yq4Y

Psychic Sports : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtcKe1mMC4Q

Egg Girl Girl : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiGXUMOnuHY

Which release(s) do you find yourself most proud of for each of your projects? Do you have a favorite song or songs from your own body of work?

BW: I think the first vinyl release for any of the projects I've been a part of is a big deal to me. Growing up and loving bands and music and never thinking that would be something I'd ever participate in myself, having something on vinyl feels like tangible validation for me of participation in a part of culture that I have looked up to so much. Making a tape with Plant Music was also a big deal. It was the first time i'd recorded and released music without playing in a band and again isn't something I thought I could do. In a lot of ways I have low self esteem so these things have been life changing. 

One of the things I'm most proud of is a short-lived band from 2017 I was in called Ozone 120's. I played guitar, which I hadn't done in a band since 9th grade, and that helped change the way I talk about playing music because I would say "Well, technically I CAN play guitar, but I don't know how to 'play the guitar'" because I only knew how to play power chords and that didn't seem good enough to me. Now in my mind if you're able to make sounds you like with an instrument then I don't see that as illegitimate or something that should keep you from thinking you're not a musician or something. 

What do you see when you look at the current world of Art? What is plentiful? What is lacking?

BW: Working in the limitations of your means is what is going to lead to authentic / unique / individual expression and I think that is increasingly rare. That's why musicians from different cities and different experiences with different resources will sound different and to me that's what makes Art exciting: that there's more of it out there to experience. There's something sterile about doing things the "right" way. That can end up meaning a focus on recreation rather than something I'd call a creation and I don't often find much credibility in that. I know there's an easy argument to that, that there's nothing unique or creative about bands who play guitars or even all art period but to say something like "Nothing is original so why should it matter?" is going to lead to a lot of product that I find lifeless. I don't think there's any excuse for boring Art. 

I also think pun names have to go (Joanna Gruesome, Ringo Deathstarr, Olivia Neutron-John). That's an excuse for an idea. It's like having the opposite of an identity unless you're a Grind band or something because they're the only ones who do it right and with a worthwhile sense of humor.

[acmoorereadsandwrites]

Some things that have helped me (so far) on my journey to writing a novel

Caveat that I am not agented and am still writing. I'm just sharing what is helping me in case it might help someone else.

Writing a query after 10k. Nothing sucks more than getting 40k in and realizing that you don't actually have stakes. Or character motivations. Or a throughline. Or worse, all three are missing. If you are a pantster/gardener like me, it really pays to write until you've had a bit of time to get to know the world, plot, and characters and figure out what they are and what they are doing and then write a query. If you struggle to write it, you might need to pivot, especially if you realize all you have is events and characters passively doing things.

Be willing to let projects marinate. I'm not gonna talk about how many WIPs I have because that's a really embarrassing number. The amount of ideas marinating in the back of my head is even longer. When a project is just not working and you cannot force it, set it aside and give it more time. Come back to it when you're ready to tackle it; maybe you'll have new ideas and better ways to handle the subject matter or characters.

Writing short stories can be a great way to try things out. Want to improve your descriptions or combat scenes? Or maybe you really just want to get a better grasp on word choice and sentence variety. Maybe that idea can be developed further or maybe it's only meant to be a short story. Either way, the idea has been exorcised and you have a new project to develop your editing skills on on top of having worked on your other skills.

Do a reverse outline as you go. If you are not a plotter/architect, the idea of the outline can either be really scary or it can be counterproductive. If I write an outline before the work, I feel as if I've written it. The journey matters more to me than the destination and I lose all motivation if I have a finished, developed outline. Instead, I write a chapter and then jot down what the audience learns, what the characters learn/are revealed to have known, and the contents of the chapter. I also keep notes in a spreadsheet on characters, motifs, potential changes, themes, and worldbuilding details.

This is to my fellow pantsters: do not let yourself become too inspired by your New Favorite Thing when it comes to the WIP. Do not do it. Do not let the themes of infertility in the Witcher invade your retelliing of Snow White if you never had plans for it to be there without seriously thinking it over. Make a note, let it sit, and decide later when you are no longer as inspired. Sometimes it really can work and is the right choice. Other times...no. Mermaids do not belong in every project no matter much you love The Little Mermaid. Save yourself the grief of taking hard pivots you have to undo at a later date.

Not keeping everything in my head and writing it down. Things still in your brain are beautiful and perfect and are still so very malleable. You cannot possibly keep track of every aspect of your WIPs if it's only in your head and, worse yet, if you're anything like me, you cannot edit what you cannot physical see on the page. When it's on the page, then you can do the real work of figuring out if it actually works.

Regularly consume media from a variety of cultures, genres, and voices. Netflix has an incredible catalogue of works ranging from a Nigerian legal drama to a South African conspiracy teen drama to an Irish comedy about the Troubles and life under normalized violence to a South Korean historical zombie horror series. For books, there is a growing wealth of translated works from many different cultures and a sharp rise in diverse authors. Australia has it's own literary movements as does Japan and Brazil. There are more and more books by and for Queer and neurodivergent people. Even listening to music can help. It's important to see what groups outside of your own are doing in media and art, how they represent themselves and their identity/culture/history, and the kinds of stories they want to see and make. It might inspire you, but it's also a great chance to learn and help uplift other voices.

Reading. This is tied to number 7, but reading really cannot be understated. Read the age category and genre you want to write in. Read short stories professionally published online. If you do better with audiobooks, listen to audiobooks. Thankfully, more and more authors seem to be getting them.

Resources:

[a-slut-for-smut]

*years later* thanks so much for the tag @lovelybeautifulpretty!! cant recall if i warned u before but i tend to go buckwild with these, sorry and your welcome :D

Here are top 10 fav films and surprise surprise, im just a hot mess of eclectic tastes 🤷‍♀️ in no particular order:

Robocop

This 80s masterpiece is a smart political satire/social commentary disguised as a comic book/action revenge movie that interweaves hilarious dark humor, ultraviolence and science fiction in a simple yet seamless plot. It will honestly SHOCK you just how much it has to say on American evolutions in capitalism, media influence, desensitization to violence, gentrification, and our perception of heroes, each in service of a greater conversation about identity and culture.

Atonement

I consider this film the pinnacle of an angsty/doomed romance executed perfectly on-screen: the performances, the cinematography, the music, EVERYTHING!! Funny story, me & the girlfriends went to see this in theaters expecting a typical period romance; left completely snot-dripping, bawling our eyes out. I shit you not, i felt the utter devastation from this film for WEEKS

Amelie

If there was a film to define the term "whimsy" then this is it!! Its so creatively rich, with such a fun and sweet art style in the characters, the way its filmed, the music, the romance- it'll make your heart ache for days.

Inglorious Basterds

I'm a big whore for Tarantino ever since Reservoir Dogs, but I consider film his ABSOLUTE masterpiece. The comedically distinct characters, the sharpness of dialogue, how he builds up the tension of scenes to the point of explosion with just a simple conversation- *CHEFS KISS*

Children of Men

This dystopian sci fi drama was made in 2005 but with all the social commentary woven into the background of the story, it is eerily topical in today's tumultuous political & social climate (which is very telling about us as a society I suppose). The director Alfonso Cuaron is a master at "show don't tell" filmmaking and it SHOWS. Also the tracking long shots in this film are something to witnessed, beheld even. Masterpiece.

Bridget Jones' Diary

My absolute FAV romantic comedy, i totally relate to this bumbling, epic disaster of a woman, even more so now that i'm 30+ like her. Fun fact, the plot is heavily inspired by Pride & Prejudice which is probably why i love it so much. Also Colin Firth 🥵 (which leads me to another fun fact- he was cast as Mark Darcy mainly due to the author's crush on him from his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1996 BBC miniseries which put him on the map, and rightly so. I know the film adaption is super popular, but any P&P fan NEEDS to watch this version, so so good)

Chicago

This musical ruined all theater musicals for me forever- the film adaptation is THAT good!!! The spectacle, the numbers, the PERFORMANCES- Catherine Zeta Jones slayed as Velma Kelly (also my ovaries), i love it so much that i watched it 3 times back to back on a flight i honestly couldnt get enough lol

Kung Fu Hustle

This film is Stephen Chow's magnum opus- an action comedy that blends kung-fu and all sorts of historical chinese references and homages of the directors favorite films, you can tell the passion and the fun that went into making this film and it really REALLY shows. I consider this a perfect execution of what a live-action anime could be, this film is an absolute blast and classic

Annihilation

I've got a bit of a cosmic/existential horror kink (where a form of media makes you question the world/life as we know it or triggers an existential crisis) and this film gets it RIGHT. It's a philosophical sci-fi thriller but is so much more with its themes of pain and identity, exploration of humanity's disposition for self destruction but also its unsettling visuals and soundtrack. Funny story, the sound design is so alien/unsettling that it spooked my cat from her nap and got her staring at the screen with wide eyes and an arched back trying to figure out what the eff was going on (me as well).

Also love how its an all female cast but its never mentioned in-film; just a bunch of capable women going to take care of business (i didnt even notice until my 2nd watch)- im a fan of this approach as it in effect "normalizes" this scenario whereas calling it out as if its special just highlights how it's an exception...anyway, its a horrifically beautiful film.

Sicario

Denis Villeneuve can do no wrong in my eyes (nor cinematographer Roger Deakins), a beautifully shot thriller that serves as a social commentary on how laws are meant to be broken, lines are drawn and then erased when convenient, as long as it serves a so-called greater purpose, that keeping a moral code is a futile effort. Brilliant performed and written, nuanced characters, glorious cinematography and a killer soundtrack (RIP Johan Johansson), A+++++

alright sorry for the long rambling post, cant help myself! Tagging a bunch a folks that seem alive per my notifs, no pressure of course!!!

@writebecauseyoucannotbreathe @nuri148 @your-lavender-dreams @warbarbie @levi4mikasa @onigiri-dorkk @helena-thessaloniki @misplacedgamer @lovely-apparitions @ally147writes @stalactice @vero-icon @mylienated @hellhorsedotjpg @magicalanchordestiny

[silvertsundere]

Silver Talks AniManga (16/06/24)

new serialization round baby let's gooooo there's nothing too fancy on it but I'm curious about the series that will start in 3 weeks since I read the author's previous manga years ago when it came out, until it got axed, so I wanna see how much they improved since then

green - new series/new to me blue - finale/completed

Anime

Dungeon Meshi Ep24 (Finale)

there really isn't anything else I could've given it. trigger absolutely killed it the whole way through and thank GOD someone convinced the shitflix execs to make this a weekly release instead of the shitty binge model which would've killed the show dead instantly.

but yeah, I haven't read the manga (yet) but I'd seen tons of spoilers before and even more during the show airing ( 😔 ) and it's an incredible adaptation. a lot of people complain about certain scenes not hitting as hard as in the manga for this reason or another but I feel like most (not all) of those complaints are just nitpicking and trying to give off a sense of superiority cause they read the manga beforehand

anyway, great animation the whole way through, like always above average and with a lot of sakuga sprinkled all throughout. we even got unorthodox animation like that one with the siblings or all the scenes made in the classic trigger style instead of this more "mainstream" look they used for the show everything else is stellar too, I loved the whole seiyuu cast and their performances and the music was great as well

also ryoko kui is an incredible author so it was just a treat to see all the thought that went into the world, dungeon and otherwise, tho I already knew that before the anime was even announced

anyway, TL;DR: incredible adaptation and what everyone should dream of getting for their series. can't WAIT for S2 coming TBA, surprised they announced it already cause they have a panel at AX next month so I figured they'd do it there

Manga

Youkai Buster Murakami Ch1

I went into this not expecting much since I read the author's previous work, shugomaru, which while not terrible was also nothing to write home about. I was pleasantly surprised by this tho, I actually liked it a lot more than shugomaru. I was doubtful at first cause "oh boy here comes another exorcist series" until I was told who the author was. as expected it's a comedy series like their previous work. the gimmick is that the main girl is an exorcist and it's her job to seal all these youkais that are being ressurected but she's a huge coward so she brings her, completely normal, friend along to help her and he defeats the youkai by poking holes into it's story like you can see in the pic below I can totally see this being a fun series that I wouldn't mind having stick around for a while if every chap is at least this good. even being a shorter debut of 30 pages it felt like it dragged a bit too long but it should be fine with normal lenght chaps. we'll see how it goes in the coming weeks

Dear Anemone Ch17 (Finale)

man where do I even start with this. first of, I'd thought about giving it a 2 instead of a 1 cause the art is really good but this final chap was so bad it made me change my mind. that spread I picked below is a compilation of stuff that never actually happened in the manga. I guess it was stuff the author had planned but it got axed so yeah. from chap 1 I said the art was good but way too gory for wsj and that stayed true the whole way, it was just way too much for the magazine it was in. impressive that the author managed to keep up the quality in a weekly serialization tho. that's all this manga had tho, the art. everything else was terrible. the story was confused and moving all over the place and the bad ratings made it even worse with the author trying to rush and give reveals and twists constantly which never felt satisfying cause there was no build up to it. the characters didn't felt like characters either and they were just getting pulled along the plot. I went into this not expecting much and still came out disappointed. author is gonna have to put a LOT of effort into their writting if they want do to another serialization or at least they should team up with someone else since again the art was actually really good

[cosmicjoke]

Amazing finale to “Vinland Saga”, keeping with the stellar, incredible quality of this entire series.  I especially loved the ending sequence, with Thorfinn seeing his younger self asking where to go if you want to run away from here, and Thors appearing and telling him he already knows the answer.  Once again, I feel the anime improves on the manga in small, but key ways, adding just enough extra weight and drama to certain scenes to really drive this story to greatness.  I hope to continue to see this as the series goes on, which I assume it will, to see them sort of cut out some of the more glaring and out of place elements from the manga and retain that more serious tone that was established early on in it.  The final, quiet interaction we see between Thorfinn and his sister  was really moving too, after the more comical interactions between them earlier in the episode,  And that’s alright to have comic relief, (Helga after all is a comedic character and has been since the beginning) as long as it doesn’t undercut the drama, which is a minor criticism I have of the manga at times (not to rag on the manga at all, it’s absolutely stellar in its own right, and of course, the art is second to none).  But they made sure to pull the comedy back here to a touching and poignant moment between brother and sister, also eliminating the continuing comedy with her cutting Thorfinm’s hair and giving him a bowl cut.  I always felt like those moments in the manga detracted from the overall tone and weight of the story, and it feels like the creators working on the anime agree.  Although they kept some of the comedy for this last episode, it wasn’t overwhelming or distracting like I felt it was in the manga.  And of course, the reunion between Thorfinn and his mother was beautiful and heartbreaking.  The manga has gotten more serious again in its most recent arcs, and that makes me happy.  I’ll be interested to see how they handle certain things going forward, like with Halfdan, and his relationship with Thorfinn and his role in funding their expedition to Vinland.  The manga’s, I guess the word is forgiveness, of Halfdan always struck me as a bit jarring, given the earlier characterization of him as a brutal and uncompromising slave owner.  I have a feeling there isn’t really a work around for that, though, unless they simply cut Halfdan from the story entirely, or change the nature of his relationship with Thorfinn, which I also don’t really see a work around for, given his and his son’s heavy involvement in the plot moving forward.  Either way, I’m sure they’ll handle it with the same grace and care and seriousness that they’ve handled everything else in this anime with.  What’s really struck me about this adaptation has been the creator’s understanding of where the story needs improvement, where it needs to be toned down and taken more seriously, deviating at times from the manga in order to achieve that, but still obviously respecting the source material.  It really is one of the best anime’s I’ve ever had the true pleasure of experiencing.  Thorfinn’s journey, and watching it unfold the way it has here, with the magnificent direction, animation, voice acting, music, etc... has been nothing short of deeply moving and extraordinary, and I’m sure it will retain that quality moving forward.  MAPPA is absolutely destroying it with their output these last, few years.  Between Attack on Titan, this and JJK, there isn’t another studio I can think of which has put out such incredible work so consistently and continuously.  So thank you MAPPA for bringing this, and the other deserving stories to such astonishing life.  Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait too long for season 3.  I want to continue watching Thorfinn grow and journey to fulfill his purpose and dream.  For anyone who hasn’t read the manga yet, there are some truly incredible arcs coming up which absolutely have to be animated.  This is, after all, called “Vinland Saga”, and it won’t be complete until Thorfinn arrives there.