#all the work that goes into a movie

[simpingforcys]

His little jiggles.... He's so squishy and bouncy. Most notable on the pants, but also his crown always bouncing on his head, he's just so<33333

[noodles-and-tea]

Back at it with my enchanted merthur shenanigans

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the earliest examples of Leo’s “I’ll do my own thing to accomplish our goal without discussing it with my team first” is in episode one. It’s super, super quick, and ultimately inconsequential, but it subtly sets up a great precedent that I think is very interesting.

When the boys need to grab the medallion from Splinter without Splinter noticing, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie huddle together with Raph taking the lead in trying to devise a plan to get the mystic device. Meanwhile, Leo slinks away and grabs the device by clocking the situation (by knowing his father well enough to predict his actions - something he does with each family member multiple times in the series) and making a move on his own.

It works out perfectly fine, and is ultimately the best move, and it’s honestly okay that he didn’t consult everyone for something so small when it’s such a non issue to get it, but it nicely sets up how this tends to go in the series, including how it goes in the movie.

To be honest episode one is actually really good at setting up a lot of things for each character in the long run, this is just one example that caught my attention, as small and unassuming as it is.

[alfairy]

You dropped this king 👑

[unnonexistence]

hermann thoughts: if i discredit newton and his approach enough, the martial won't give him the equipment for his kaiju drift, and i can protect him from himself. if he despises me for it, so be it. there is little i wouldn't sacrifice to see him safe.

newt thoughts: this is a Best Science competition and i have to Win

[connabeth]

friendly but stern reminder for those of you excited to watch the premiere of the pjo tv show:

DO NOT stream it on disney+ if you have a subscription (& cancel that subscription while you’re at it).

disney has notoriously funded isnotreal’s war crimes and gen*cide in palestine with millions in donations. riordan took a “neutral” stance on the genocide, pledging support for both isnotreal and palestine, which is nonsensical at its core and completely avoids the history and gravity of the issue at hand.

DO NOT give these people your money if you have even an ounce of humanity in you. there are SO many free online p*rating sites, of which i’m sure you all have your favorites—i’ll put some of mine in the tags. episodes will be uploaded onto them almost instantly in HD quality, as they are with any show released on big streaming platforms (even if there was a greater “inconvenience” that came with pirating, it shouldn’t really affect your decision to funnel less of your money to gen*cide because this show is SO trivial in comparison).

anyway, decolonize palestine 🍉

[reddje]

love how we as a fandom just collectively decided that stan and eddie actually didn’t die, and that they’re doing just fine

[sidsinning]

Can I just say I could not fuckin breathe during this whole scene

[kiiborei]

I watched the boy and the heron and was immediately possessed by the urge to make these ! Its been a while since I've busted out the polymer clay so these are my rough little prototypes (and just sealed with mod podge since my gloss glaze has long since dried out rip) hoping to make more in the new year to sell at some local conventions!

[t00thpasteface]

shebbz i just want to say that you are single-handedly convincing me to watch mash... i know nothing about the show but ur chipping away at my brain like a misfolded protein

just make sure you watch it without laugh tracks

[i-really-like-phrogs]

When classes start again and you no longer have time to sit in your room and draw your silly little cartoons all day.

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

i stand with you in the face of a defensive misunderstanding of what critique is.

i think understanding what a critique actually is is a skill that increasingly is not taught. i remember going through freshman art courses feeling the frustration that all negative, nasty, unhelpful, and missed-the-point-entirely feedback is so commonly conflated with critique, and then critique gets a bad name because everyone remembers the time someone said their painting looked like an asshole (true story, altho now i think i would take it as a compliment) instead of the time a teacher or friend or classmate helped them uncover a hurtful bias or think of new ways to explore the same idea or how to connect it to related ideas or how to look up and understand other people's ideas on the same topic.

anyway i think you're great.

ahhh you're so kind to me!! i appreciate your support, and i think you are great also.

i have experience with giving and receiving critique as a student myself, and i think it was the best part of my degree! i majored in creative writing in college, and critique was just a generally accepted part of learning to become a writer. i don't even remember people being especially worried about receiving critique on their work. we had guidance on what kind of feedback was useful, but we were still at liberty to give it as we saw fit as like messy 19 year olds. the standard was that we gave it both written on printed copies of the work AND aloud in front of the whole class, and the writer receiving it was not permitted to speak during the critique. understanding how people are perceiving your work is important!

i don't have any particularly negative recollections of the critique process, although once in a high school writing class, the boys in the class told me that my male characters touched each other too gently and real boys are more rough with each other. in particular, they took issue with me writing that one boy nudged another. nudging is too soft. nudging is for girls. that was more than 20 years ago, and i still think about it sometimes because it was such an interesting perspective! i did not take their advice, though.

i should dig up that piece and see if it reads queer in any other ways. i think that's what they were getting at. (actually i once had a non-fiction class tell me i was in love with my roommate after reading an essay i wrote about her)(i did not listen to that advice either, but having 12 acquaintances tell you that you're gay in 2006 before you realize it yourself is Truly Something!)

i think people have conflated criticism and critique and think that being more openly analytical is the same thing as being negative. but analysis is so fun to me! analysis is why i joined fandom in the first place, and it's why i write fic! can we trust each other to be respectful and to speak in good faith even when we're not singing each other's praises? for me fandom would be better if we could.

oh i also want to clarify that i don't think it's impossible to demonstrate that you've thought deeply about a piece of fanwork while remaining completely positive. people do it all the time and do it very well!

i know i sometimes have tunnel vision wrt my own perspective. in a lot of situations, i wish it were more acceptable to be more direct, and i know people sometimes find the way i express myself to be kind of shocking. i know a lot of people like to be spoken to more indirectly than comes natural to me, and i don't mean to imply that my perspective is the only correct one or that there's no good reason to err on the side of gentleness/politeness in our responses to amateur art and writing. i just think that at a certain level of circumspection, it feels like we're all holding each other at arm's length.

i think for people who can't bear to feel exposed, making and sharing art is always going to be painful and difficult, and maybe too painful and difficult to enjoy the process unless they're sure of a soft landing. but like. the rewards of being loved only come after the mortifying ordeal of being known, right?

[greenerteacups]

I’m not sure if you’ve specifically answered this before, but how long did it take you to outline, research, and prepare the foundational meat of Lionheart since it’s such a sprawling saga with threads for so many characters? Did you have it all mapped out before you started writing? What about shorter pieces like The Climb and the latest, delightful The Death Eater Diaries?

The series outline for Lionheart I wrote on one bleary, rabbit-hole of a day in the summer of 2022 when I was definitely supposed to be doing something else, and after that, each book took me between 3 days and 2 weeks to outline completely. The later books have taken longer because of their length and the number of threads — the series has a way of getting wider as well as longer, and for the last two books, I sometimes got a bit grumbly about how many characters pop up in every novel. As for research, most of that will happen before or during the outlining process; I'll have a copy of the book on-hand to check plot details, but for the most part I try to work without flipping back to the text, to avoid copying beats or stylistic choices unless I have a thematic reason to. I also use HP Lexicon and fanwikis while I'm editing for content, though when I'm drafting I make a real effort not to switch out of the tab for any reason, because it breaks flow. I'm sure I have missed some details despite my references, but c'est la vie; JKR had to do continuity edits in subsequent edition releases for several books, so at least I'm not alone.

For The Climb, I wrote the first chapter in the raw, then went through and blocked out the second two in an outline at the bottom of the document. Very very broad strokes there — TC is different from Lionheart because it's a slice-of-life tone piece, so there's not as much plot to be done. It's a novella conceived for the sole purpose of exploring one particular relationship, so the plot came secondary to the things I wanted to highlight about how that dynamic worked. It's a character-forward piece, to borrow culinary terminology, and outlining for character is a lot easier than outlining for plot. (For me.)

The Death Eater Diaries emerged almost fully-formed from a Tumblr post I made joking about the sort of ludicrously awful decade Narcissa experiences. The hardest part of outlining was nailing down canonical dates. Stuff like how old Andromeda was when she got pregnant, when Bellatrix got married, when the members of the previous generation died, all that's unspecified — but it's also all functionally constrained to a narrow window of time, if you take in where the characters are at certain other parts of the story, so you can't just say anything. It was very fun to write, though. Doing so also stressed how hilariously short the timeline on the Black family collapse actually is. Between 1971 and 1981, they go from a two-branch family with an heir, a spare, and three healthy daughters -> completely extinct in the male line, two of its descendants disinherited, two imprisoned, one missing, presumed dead, and Draco Malfoy's mom.

[bugsbenefit]

Mike's state of mind and the basement in s4

Mike's basement has been one of the most important and reoccurring locations on the show. it's one of the few places that shows up in Every season, even the one Mike is out of town for. as it's a consistent location it also has very consistent set design throughout the seasons.

so it's interesting looking at it in s4 because for the first time in 4 whole seasons it looks different. and these changes raise some questions. (also a prime example of set design telling it's own story which hasn't been verbally highlighted to the viewer, which is super fun)

1.) the basement is a Mess

like, I'm serious it's BAD

games are lying everywhere, on the table, under the table (something must have changed about the "games are for kids and we're not kids anymore" mindset ig), toys and figures are also just next to the table on the floor. the desk Max is writing on is so cluttered she barely has room to write. there's also food wrappers everywhere. not "real food" as the show calls it but instead mostly sweets. there's even a full box of applejacks and poptarts laying about (poptarts which we also see Mike throw in the toaster in e1, got to love the consistency). on the drawer next to the couch is at least a hint to someone eating "real" food down here in the form of an empty plate with cutlery in it.

so. looks like someone's been spending a lot of time down here. but this isn't bad per se. Messy teenage boy behaviour. Max has been distant from the party, Lucas joined a new club, Hellfire replaced Mike's basement DND sessions, so the overall visiting rate must have decreased significantly over the 6 month time skip. if it's just Mike hanging out here on his own, is it really weird that it's messy?

well, the same season rightfully goes out of it's way to introduce the very real practice of comparing a person's behviour to their previous behavior to determine if it's unusual.

so let's do that. what IS normal for the basement?

here's the basement 6 months earlier in s3:

and, well. it looks perfect. no plates, no wrappers, all games are stored away. the same Simon game we see strewn on the table in s4 is neatly placed next to the drawer. the only remnants of food we see are the cocoa puffs Lucas is actively eating and the sodas on the table they're appearing to be drinking right now. and there's also no crumpled blankets lying everywhere and over every seat either.

the s3 basement looks how the basement has looked in all prior season. neat and cozy. in s4 that has now subtly changed. the basement is a mess now.

it's surface level, not too in your face, but it's there, constantly in the background. Max has to write around all the litter on the table. it's both in your face and completely in the background - and without comparing it to previous renditions of the basement we've seen we wouldn't question it. (very similar to Mike's room in s4. it's an absolute mess, closet open, bed messed up, clothes on the floor, he even ends up just grabbing a worn floor shirt when he leaves. which in itself isn't too weird. "teenage boy behaviour". unless you look at Mike's room in any of the previous seasons which is Very tidy and neat)

the mess is out of character for Mike judging by everything we've previously seen of him.

but if we're already comparing the basement of different seasons, there's also the next point

2.) Mike has also probably been sleeping down here at least a few times

the blanket we've seen folded up in previous seasons is now strewn over the couch and a bed-pillow is restricting Lucas' movement.

if we want to compare again. bellow are the normal couch pillows in previous seasons (screenshot from s1 where you can see all of them the neatest). there is no pillow used for beds in the basement until s4. and then there's also a picture of the comforter hanging over the couch in s3, a loosely knit blanket. which is replaced by the Actual blanket in s4 that was unused in all the previous seasons.

the fact that Lucas constantly bumps into the pillow also makes it clearly thought out set design because it's actively restricting the actors and wouldn't be placed there without reason.

but there is also something general to be noticed when comparing the basement of s4 to it's previous renditions:

3.) the basement lost it's comforting light. it's dark as shit down here now

this is something i haven't seen anyone talk about directly before but it's so jarring. the basement is always shot as a pretty cozy place. but season 4 gets a bit silly and goofy. we see the s4 basement during the day so lets compare that with s3 where we also get an equally long sequence in the day-basement:

this is what we're used to in s3. the basement is actually a very open area. multiple windows, a windowed door leading out to ground level, big enough to have an adjacent bathroom. the basement is a big open space. there's lights on everywhere you can see all corners of the room very well and the light brown colour of the walls makes the room feel warm. but light is also coming through the slightly open curtains and big door-window. you have warm artificial light but also natural sunlight. it's the main hub of the party and feels cozy.

now look at s4:

the basement is dark as shit. it's daytime during both these scenes but they have an entirely different feeling. if you didn't know it was daytime you could also just assume it's night. we never once even catch a glimpse of the door with the giant window, it's kept out of shot deliberately. we only have one angle with a window even in frame and in it the curtain is now completely closed, the plant previously on the window sill is also not visible anymore.

the bathroom and under-the-stairs area is so dark it's almost impossible to make anything out back there. the shadows in this scene are absurd when compared to s3. there are no warm shadows in corners and cozy walls anymore, there's just dark behind and between the characters and you can't even tell the colour the wall has near the bathroom door in s4. the white lamp in the background also becomes a primary light source for once this season, by being center frame constantly + the added lack of sunlight in the scenes, which makes it feel even more uncomfortable and cold.

and if the shadows and odd lighting choices aren't enough. the entire space feels much heavier now. the dark shadows shrink the room away, the hidden windows and door make the room feel closed off and Actually underground, and on top of that, clutter is Everywhere which closes the already tight space even more.

Max is sitting far back in the darkness (because she's cursed and emotionally distanced from the others) so the gloomy lighting of the basement is clearly intentional here and not just a fuck up from the lighting crew. the basement is supposed to feel dark here.

-> somehow the basement lost it's calming open nature between s3 and s4. it's still the hub of the party but it feels less cozy than it once did, it feels closer to suffocating now.

4.) and characters are giving dialogue nudges to that change too

the general change of the basement, both in appearance and vibes is so apparent, but what if it's just supposed to be a fun background detail that we shouldn't pay closer attention to? - well, first of all, you should be paying attention to the sets of ST 100% of the time after what we know they hid before. the set designers really love their job there apparently since they keep putting their whole setussies into these backgrounds (sorry). but also secondly, both Max and Nancy actively comment on it and suddenly it's not only the set design but even the dialogue that vaguely gesticulates in the direction of what the sets are already telling us:

Max, despite having no problem with Mike's basement prior, now calls it an armpit. and Nancy goes out of her way to jab at Mike's (now) messy room by telling everyone it's looked worse before than the absolutely wrecked cabin.

the basement is in an absolute state in s4. both from the way it looks all the way to how the camera work and lighting portrays it. and even later dialogue points out Mike's messy state of living (both his room And the basement are a mess).

Mike's basement has been the central heart of operations since the first seasons and a has been a place of comfort and consistency all throughout. in season 4 it still serves that purpose, however, it's starting to look worse for wear now. it's function is unchanged, but you're able to see that something is different now if you actually pay attention or compare it with what's normal for it. (as s4 kindly tells us to do)

the set design on this show is absolutely amazing but this is really such a cool case of telling a story in the background. even without getting direct dialogue in s4 we can infer that Mike has been spending a lot of time in the basement, presumably also at night, doesn't bother to tidy it up along with his room, and that the general atmosphere of the basement has lowered.

Mike's general off-ness and state of mind are left unaddressed by the end of s4 despite the many nudges in it's direction we get both verbally and non verbally. and the basement is just another part of massive character work done entirely through set design and camera angles/ lighting choices.

[severalowls]

No sorry I'm still equal parts baffled and entertained that people are actually upset and/or pissed off that the minecraft movie is a zany comedy movie for kids and not some deep drama about survival and isolation and self discovery? The movie based on a game predominantly marketed and developed for kids???

You know you can watch movies that are not based on video games? Like you can just watch The Summit of the Gods, which already exists.

[vyeoh]

Not to sound incredibly pretentious but I am genuinely concerned with how "strong visual aesthetic" is becoming conflated automatically with "good movie". Like the nightmare scenario is that movies just look pretty while saying absolutely nothing