#and anyway none of that matters because essays are art and art is for making and i REALLY need to learn to make | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gothprentiss · 1 year ago

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people like to say that you need to learn the rules of writing in order to break them which is imo semi-true: on one hand, many people who write quite prolifically would be unbelievably well-served by having to get down to brass tacks with certain features of grammar, style, etc.-- tho this is, i think, largely a product of the fact that good writers are in fact very rare, and really probably most writers would be well-served by regarding writing as an art, and behaving accordingly. on the other hand, though, this is rarely a claim people are making with the assumption of doing an mfa or taking creative writing classes; more often it licenses the kind of overkill you get in, for example, the us high school writing curriculum, often with the expectation that the often very arbitrary writing guides being leveraged at 16 year olds map 1:1 onto the writing that will be expected from them in college. this is of course not the case.

as is often the case, valuable time and effort is sacrificed to The Rules, which are an unevenly wielded set of guidelines set, often quite arbitrarily, by a variety of people who rarely seem to be in communication. you might have 4 different english teachers in high school. you might be taught to write differently in history classes. few students emerge from these conditions able to generalize a set of rules they can apply in academic settings; rather, they're conditioned to expect to be told, every semester, how to write. every semester, not even just when i'm teaching freshman comp, i have students who are still struggling against the expectations of high school: the 5-paragraph essay; how to structure an introduction; specifics on citation when options are offered; whether the first-person is permissible in academic writing; etc. this in addition to the basic problem of how to make a good argument.

anyway my point is that i rarely see a similar claim being made about how to read (*interpret). i don't mean like Basic Media Literacy which is a ludicrous category we're pretending really exists, but i mean like-- most art and media forms have a well-established conventional language. the argument against this is that many artists make their names breaking said conventional language and norms, so teaching this stuff is limiting and inorganic, but you fundamentally deprive people of the ability to see innovation or difference if you treat it as the norm, an organic phenomenon which inheres in the medium or form rather than something accomplished by the work and thought of any number of creators.

this-- much like the Rules of academic writing-- doesn't really matter in a non-academic setting. it's clear that in fandom spaces, for example, a major concern is the validity of any given reading, which is often constructed and sustained on grounds of response and relation. histories of analysis or theory are semi-relevant. there was a post i saw all the time last month that was like "canon, fanon, and headcanon are all equally made up and none of them are better or worse than the others" (claim of specifically moral validity, i think? as opposed to quality) with a very cursory overview of stuart hall's reception theory (which presents encoding and decoding as intended and received meaning, respectively) tacked on by someone other than op. i've been thinking about this post a lot because it really grated me-- the first part is just like, true insofar as it's saying very little and its central point feels oddly buried (fictions shouldn't have an inherent moral hierarchy, esp not one derived from perceived originality). but the second thing is like-- if you cut out all of what hall's work actually is, and the work it's actually doing (e.g. it's not a methodology of reading but an ethnography), then sure, it's how you interact with the intended meaning of a tv show. but like how do you know. this is especially the case with audiovisual media-- a movie or a tv show isn't, despite the enduring presence of the auteur, the product or expression of a single intention. like "i think X is meant to be about Y but due to my positionality i perceive it to be about Z, which is as morally and intellectually acceptable as Y" is certainly a fair statement to make, but surely requires you to have an equally strong sense of how X is about Y-- positioning this as the primary, at least prima facie, form of meaning. like there is a hierarchy proposed here, if only in terms of order-- to negotiate against or oppose the dominant order one must be in conversation with that order, whereas the dominant order has no such order of operations. all of these meanings are equally arbitrary, but the assumption is that there are either knowing departures from the conventional language or actual idiosyncratic misunderstandings, which don't have the same systematic validity.

anyway my point is that like... i think hall is assuming more engagement with conventional codes than said post assumes, as well as a more functionally conventional set of codes. i think a lot of internet talk about reception theory (the bad readings of barthes yk) focuses on the validity of relatively disengaged interpretation, or maybe more specifically on a minimum standard of interpretation under which individual decoding involves a more profound truth claim than encoding. i think a good example of this is the way that people #onhere frequently sort of whack each other over the head with the Media Literacy cudgel rather than providing any amount of formal analysis or commentary-- depriving a work of its typical hegemon doesn't radically democratize processes of reading or allow for new and manifold forms of meaning to emerge, it seems, but rather proliferates new hegemons who are reaching for that same absolute truth status.

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ardentfervour · 1 year ago

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This probably doesn't belong here but twitter have become a dumpster fire and I have followers still I rather leave behind but I can't tell who is who since they all changed their usernames. But anyway. I just had this thought and it's bothering me. I've been drawing all my life, started to really try when I was like 11 and people said I was "talented" when the truth was that I just kept practicing most hours of the day. Even went to an art highschool because people told me it's what I should do with my life, I was miserable the entire time, did not make anything meaningful and came out of it hating it even more. I have been writing just as long, I started both around the same time. Making oc's and lil stories. I never heard anything about it. I happily talked about my stories and people thought it was weird or not original enough. Someone who had a lot of power of me at the time pushed me down so I stopped entirely. I started writing again 2018, having finally started reading fanfiction for the first time in my life (it was seen as something shameful by people I pretended were close in my life), and started writing it as well. It was shitty at first, but I got better. My now spouse was patient and wonderful and helped me through my shitty english, shitty storytelling and what not and encouraged me, said what I did well and was actually someone to tell me my WRITING was good, it was something completely new for me. And at times when I was happy with something, I could actually be like, yeah I did that well, and it made me happy while writing it. I was just trying to draw something, just practice some kissing poses. It made me fucking mizerable. Idk if it's because I people kept pressuring me I should get good enough to live off my art and it lost it's appeal, or because I never have a feeling attached to it, or simply can't convey the feeling I want to. I just genuinely dislike it. Except for a rare few times a year. Since started to writing again I haven't exactly been hiding it, even to irl people. But it's the same shit. Talk about writing, no one cares, no one cares if it makes me happy. Mention ONCE or show some shitty art? Everyone is like woaaah you do this THING you should continue to do this THING! I once had a occupational therapist fucking harrassing me an entire appointment that I should be drawing again. Idk this is like half an essay long and I don't even know what I want to say with it. I am just pissed that writing, at least my writing is continously looked down on, or made lesser than my empty art. I pour my fucking SOUL into my writing. I research and I spend forever wording it exactly right, I plot things and make little artworks with words. And it's still never enough. It will never be enough and I'm just so damn mad. If I didn't have my spouse I would have stopped long ago. Because STILL people who are supposed to care, doesn't care or even sound embarassed. Fuck you all. I found my thing, my hobby that I can do forever and never grow tired of and ya'll just look down on me? I'll continue writing my damn fics, I'll continue practice screen writing and make little attempts of original stories. Maybe one day I'll really get to say fuck you to you all and make something out of it. But likely, none but my beloved will read them anyway. Because apparently my writing doesn't matter. But I don't care, even if I do care. Because me and my spouse will have our little cottage and a shared office and write together with animals cuddled close, and I'll be happy. But it's not fair.

#kingy posts #personal #writing #drawing #I just needed to vent this bullshit I suppose #screaming into the void clearly #as per usual

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britcision · 8 months ago

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And by the way, if this seems incredibly overwhelming and makes creating seem like a very intimidating and arduous process, allow me to reassure you

I have been writing for 20 years

I have over a million words on AO3 and beat NaNoWriMo

I know of which I speak

There is nothing wrong with deciding when and where you want to put your intentional symbolism, with where you set scene and tone and mood with care and intentionality, and where you don’t

Sometimes you’re going to put hours of thought in and carefully select symbols, and change out the curtains to perfectly fit your mood

And sometimes you’re going to look at the curtains that are already there and say “yeah those’ll work”, because the thing that makes the highlights highlights and the deep moments more impactful is contrast

If every single scene is deep and intentional and intricately described it will feel flat

Sprinkling little drops of foreshadowing through is about as satisfying as it gets when payoff time comes and people lose their fucking minds, but on the whole… not all your scenes are made to be Oscar bait

Some are just going to be bridging, or rising action, or getting you through from one dramatic scene to the next in a way that actually makes sense and doesn’t feel rushed, and it will not matter if you choose precise and intricate symbols or not

And frankly, not all art needs to be deep and complex and heavily symbolic to be worthwhile

Sometimes the curtains are blue because you needed a colour to finish the description and blue is one of them

Sometimes you’re writing crack, or fluff, or making a silly little piece to make people laugh, and you will not get Bad Marks At Art for not making it deeply symbolic (you can if you like tho)

The person who gets to decide if the colours in your work are symbolic and meaningful is you, and “no they’re not” is an acceptable answer

People might read deeper meaning into it anyway and ascribe subconscious symbology like they said above and that sounds incredibly cool and I’d really be fascinated by what that said about any of my stuff

You can’t stop them from doing this but you don’t have to care or worry about it because trying to control any readers’ interpretation is a losing battle and stressing over people somehow reading it wrong will keep you from writing at all

The thing that matters is that you, the artist, make the choice about how shallow or deep the meaning has to be behind your decisions

When you want deep impact you reach into the symbolism bucket, and hooboy it is so much cooler if you can lightly sprinkle hints and foreshadowing back through everything that came before

Maybe there’s one pop of blue in every panel, something tiny like a beetle, then a flower, and the pop of blue gets bigger and bigger as you build to the climax and the blue curtains surround your character in a melancholy that seems almost inevitable

Maybe you just needed to finish colouring the panel and blue fit the colour scheme in a way that doesn’t detract from the parts which are important

Not every choice needs an essay or a deeper meaning, but if none of your choices have that meaning there’s a limit to the depth your story can reach… and that’s fine as long as it’s what you want

Create silly, meaningless art just because it brings you joy

Splash blue around because it looks pretty with green and purple, or contrasts with orange (reinvent SasuNaru)

It is very possible to paralyze yourself by overanalyzing your work

I’d sure as hell never have written as much as I have if I worried about every piece of scenery…

But then again my process tends to look less like “decide to create a piece of art and make a plan and a structure and think about appropriate symbols” and more like being temporarily and violently possessed by characters and three hours later there’s a 15k story about it

I don’t even do the “decide to create art” step half the time, it just happens, and I have created things which have brought others and myself a lot of joy like that

(This makes my homebrew world building very exciting)

The most irritating comment in this whole discussion I ever saw is “if the colour doesn’t matter don’t describe it”, but that’s a personal pet peeve because I physically cannot visualize and believe you me describing things so that positioning stays relative and action makes sense is a skill and the balance is a bitch

And I genuinely do not know how much I need to describe a scene for all y’all folks that do visualize, so that’s my latest learning adventure

(Like. When do you need to know how many chairs are in a room? Does the size of the bed matter before the character falls into it? If the room is dark and the characters can’t see shit when do I tell the audience? I can’t see shit why do you have to?)

I think the thing about "The curtains were just blue" thinking is that, when you consume a lot of art and never make any, you tend to view it as something that just arose from nothing fully formed. Like, you're aware that someone wrote it and/or drew it or shot it, but you're not really aware of the sheer number of choices you have to make when you're creating something out of nothing.

Like, I grew up loving movies and TV and watching making of documentaries, but when I eventually went to film school I was still kind of overwhelmed by how you have to make a decision about EVERY SINGLE THING that's on the screen and if you or someone else working with you doesn't think about the choice that they're making when they make that decision, your movie is gonna be shit.

If you're shooting a movie, the curtains are never "just blue" because you have to go buy the curtains! Even if you're gonna shoot on location in a real house, you have to choose the house and if they have curtains, you might still have to change them because you're trying to stick within a certain color palette or your character wouldn't have those curtains or maybe you're doing a period piece and those curtains hadn't been invented yet or maybe they have Pikachu on them and you can't afford the rights to Pikachu, what are you, made of money? And most importantly, you want to make sure that the curtains evoke the feeling that you're trying to convey to the viewer. Because if you don't do that, then they'll detract from the experience and make your movie shitty. You don't get to opt out of any choices.

And prose is even worse! Because at least in live action film you're usually more limited in your options. But in prose (or animation or comics), your only limit is your imagination, but all those same decisions still have to be made and they're still just as important.

And that's what makes art great! Everything is infused with meaning because everything was a choice that a person made.

#writing #art #symbolism #sometimes the curtains are just blue #but the important thing is that that is still a choice the creator makes #and that you get to pick when to whip out the symbolism to best effect #the best art is the art you create #not the art that stays stuck in only your head because you get bogged down in details #aphantasia #sometimes the curtains are blue because the character is red

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entropieogchaos · 2 years ago

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All of the points you make in your essay-like answer, however much use they hold, really aren't helped by tagging that post as # all artists steal. Appreciating that people have put work into making ai art generators is one thing, and a completely fair point, but when it comes at the expense of artists? Artists who don't steal, y'know? Ai developers could've used stock images, or worked alongside artists who fully agree for their stuff to be used (an example of this not happening was when Deviant Art opted everyone in for their stuff to be used in AI art, instead of letting people choose from the get go), and that would be perfectly fine! I'd be way more comfortable using an ai like that. Sadly, that isn't quite what happened (yet!). Maybe, one day, we'll get an ai trained to only use art that artists are ok with using, instead of just using anything on the net.

Also, about ai artists putting a lot of work into their stuff (I'll try not to go on too much). Say, a coder takes four months (basing this from looking it up) to create an ai art program to generate images. That's a lot of effort and time put into this project, that I can agree with. But, assuming the programme doesn't have some sort of crippling bug, you could hypothetically create near to or unlimited images from it, at a fast rate. Compare that to a human artist, who in their lifetime would never be able to make nearly as close as many images as the ai, and perhaps it is apparent why this is being seen as an issue. Not to mention that ai is getting more human like all the time.

I shouldn't bother answering, but I'm a masochist, so here goes .... They DID train with stock images. And public domain images. And images from artists without permission. They used any and everything they could get their hands on. And all artists DO steal. If you learned how to draw or paint by looking at other people's drawings and paintings, do you pay them a royalty check for that? Nope! Why is it so different when a person directs a machine to do the same thing? And how would it not be the same thing? A photo is "stealing" (we call it "taking a photo" for good reason). A person drawing a tree they saw in real life is "stealing." All this emphasis on the ownership of intellectual property is frankly boring and lame. And this connection of work and effort to "value" is boring and lame. Using legal instruments like copyright to define whether something is "art" is boring and lame. These are the kind of discussions kids might have when they're first learning about the philosophy of art in a degenerate capitalist society, but I'm way past that point in my life and I've come to the conclusion that none of this shit about stealing or effort or originality matters, but what does matter is people being personally attacked and bullied over something that is so stupidly insignificant. Seriously, get the fuck over it and make some fucking art. The machines aren't stopping you from doing a goddamn thing, they're not stealing food from your mouth or making you homeless, so just ignore it if you don't like it. No artists are suddenly being impoverished because of this - they were impoverished anyway! Living with your parents and making maybe a few hundred $ a month on "commissions" making shitty anime ripoff portraits and unoriginal fan art isn't having a career in art. Sorry, not sorry.

#anonymous comments are cowardly #ai art

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hxlyhead-harpies · 4 years ago

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Congratulations Weasley

Hi everyone!! This is for the lovely @heloisedaphnebrightmore ‘s 1k celebration! Congrats!! you totally deserve it! I really like this fic and i hope you all like it as well!

Summary: Fred Weasley has been completely insufferable and mean since third year. Unfortunately the reader still feels for him even after he takes his teasing too far

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: Angst with a happy end

You didn’t mean to blow up on him like that. You didn’t mean to be blinded by unadulterated rage and let those words leave your lips. But if you were being honest with yourself, he thoroughly deserved it. After years and years of letting his words carve chinks into your armor, you were through. You simply couldn’t handle it anymore.

You had sat in the common room in your favorite skirt, hands folded neatly in your lap. You kept reaching up to smooth your hair, attempting to look your best. Cormac was supposed to meet you in the common room at noon. He was supposed to escort you to Hogsmeade where you’d eat at Madame Pudifoot’s. It was supposed to be romantic.

You were excited; it was your first date after all. You didn’t quite know if you fancied Cormac. He was brash and occasionally rude, but the feeling of being wanted to outweigh his flaws. It was rare that a boy would give you attention, so when Cormac had suavely asked you out, you couldn’t help but become giddy.

Angelina and Katie had helped you pick out an outfit. It was simple- a black skirt and a simple sweater- but you felt pretty nonetheless.

So you sat and waited. And waited. And waited. For hours you sat on the same sofa in the same position, slowly letting your resolve disappear.

You didn’t know what you had expected. Cormac was known to be an arsehole. Yet, the sting of rejection still affected you, causing you to push back tears.

Around three in the afternoon, Katie and Angelina stepped through the portrait hole. They were laughing about something, smiling wide. But when they caught sight of you, their smiles dropped.

“(Y/n)?” Angelina said, furrowing her brow. She shrugged off her jacket and made her way towards you.

“What are you still doing here?” Katie asked. You just shrugged.

“Still waiting for Cormac I suppose,” was your response. Angelina and Katie shared a look of pity. You blinked back tears. Angelina sat down on the couch next to you and rubbed your shoulder.

“He never showed?” she asked softly. You shook your head. Katie sat on your other side and laid her head on your shoulder.

“Well, he’s an absolute git then,” she began, “Can’t see how great you are.” You smiled softly at her words.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

“I can’t believe he would do this,” Angelina said with a hint of anger lacing her voice.

“I can,” you said with a sniffle.

At that moment, the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan stumbled through the portrait hole. You felt yourself stiffen. You had been friends with Lee and George since first year when you had spilled pumpkin juice on Lee one morning. The two of them were great; always joking with you and always making you feel welcome. But Fred was a whole other story. You had been friends with him in your early years of schooling as well, with you developing a small crush on him in the process. It was a puppy love kind of crush. The kind that had you giggling with your girlfriends at thirteen.

But in fourth year something had shifted. While your feelings for him only become stronger, he seemed to develop a strong dislike for you. The usual playful teasing turned into something genuinely meant to sting. His words no longer carried a playful tone, but only one with venom. You weren’t sure what had caused him to hate you, but all you knew was that you couldn’t hate him.

The three of them stepped into the common room, cheeks still flushed from the late autumn chill. The boys had wide smiles on their faces, which only dropped when they saw you. Lee and George immediately took notice of the tear tracks that ran down your face and concern filled their eyes.

“(Y/n)?” George questioned, taking a step towards you. You simply shot him a weak smile. The boys made their way over to the sofa.

“Are you alright?” Lee asked softly. You opened your mouth to answer but Fred interrupted you.

“Oh what is it this time?” he asked with an eye roll. Your eyebrows shot up. You were not in the mood for his insults.

“Fred…” Angelina hissed in a low warning tone. Fred ignored her.

“You’re always so dramatic, crying at the drop of a hat,” he complained. George gave him a swift elbow to the ribs.

“George!” he cried, touching the now tender area.

“Well Fred, I’ll have you know that she has every right to be upset,” Katie said, glaring at him. Fred scoffed.

“I doubt it,” he said in a low tone before flopping into the armchair across from you.

“What was it this time? You didn’t get top marks on a potions essay?” he guessed, “oh wait no! I bet you snapped a quill. What a tragedy!”

“Shove off Fred,” you said in a low voice. He just sent you a glare.

“So what happened?” George asked with genuine concern. You looked down at your hands as you felt the tears begin to rise again.

“McLaggen stood her up,” Katie explained.

“What an arsehole,” Lee exclaimed, shaking his head. George and Lee tried their very best to comfort you, offering to get back at Cormac for you. Their ideas of how to prank him made you laugh, slightly alleviating your sadness.

“Well, I don’t know what you expected,” Fred said, interrupting his friends. You turned to him, frowning.

“Please stop Fred,” you said, “I’m not in the mood today.”

“Well, I mean why would he want to go out with you?” he continued anyway. Your mouth dropped open in shock.

“Fred quit it,” George whispered to his twin. Fred just waved him off.

“I mean come on, McLaggen goes out with loads of girl but even he isn’t that desperate,” he said, gesturing towards you. You felt your cheeks grow warmer with rage.

“Shut up,” you said quietly, but he pushed on.

“I’m happy for him,” Fred said with a smile. Angelina squeezed your shoulder.

“Fred stop it,” she said defensively.

“He dodged a bullet,” Fred said, leaning back with a smirk. You stood up suddenly, rage flowing through your veins.

“Fred Weasley what is wrong with you,” you shouted. Fred froze. You had never fought back before.

“Do you really hate me so much?” you questioned, “so much that you feel the need to spend every minute of your existence trying to make me feel miserable?” Your hot tears were flowing freely at this point. Fred just gaped at you, his mouth opening and closing as if attempting to force out a response.

“Because if that was your goal? Congratulations Weasley, you’ve accomplished it,” you said, glaring at him. You turned to storm up to the dormitory. He stood up now too, seemingly regaining her senses.

“(Y/n) wait!” he shouted after you. You turned around and looked at him.

“I wish I never met you,” you yelled back at him. And with that, you turned and ran from him, leaving your shocked friends behind you.

~~~~~

“I hate him,” you said, laying on your back and staring up at the canopy above your bed. You felt the bed dip as Angelina sat down beside you.

“Me too,” she said, giving you a look that let you know that she didn’t believe you. You groaned and hit her with your pillow. Katie flopped down on your other side.

“I don’t know Angie, I don’t care how long she’s fancied him. I’d hate him too after what he just said,” Katie added, agreeing with you. Angelina shook her head.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” she said. You flipped over so you were now on your stomach and stared at her.

“Angelina you say that every time he says things like this. I don’t think I believe you anymore,” you said. Angelina just shook her head.

“I swear! Fred isn’t mean. He wouldn’t purposely hurt you,” she explained.

“Yeah, he’s not mean to you,” you huffed. Angelina just shrugged.

“Maybe he’ll apologize this time,” Katie speculated. As usual, she was looking on the bright side.

“I doubt it,” you scoffed, “Fred never apologizes.”

“He actually seemed pretty upset after you left,” Katie explained. Angelina nodded.

“Yeah he kept pacing and looking towards the stairs like he was waiting for you to come back down,” she added.

“I don’t care what he did after I left. Do you think an apology could fix this?” you questioned. Your friends looked down at your quilt, knowing that you were right. Even after years of hurtful teasing, Fred had never said anything quite like this before. You were finally fed up with his insults and digs at you. Even if your heart still slightly ached for him, you couldn’t allow yourself to keep hurting. You sat up suddenly and surely and held your head high.

“I am done with him. From this moment on I am getting over Fred Weasley.”

~~~~~

For weeks you avoided him. You left the Great Hall when he would arrive. You’d sit as far from him as possible in lessons, and if he was with your friends, you’d leave or pretend that he wasn’t there. You weren’t quite sure if it even mattered though. He hadn’t attempted to make another dig at you since that day in the common room. Angelina and Katie were impressed with you. They had not expected you to stay away from him for so long. In the past, if he had made fun of you you’d usually brushed it off and continue to grin and bear it. But it was your last year and you were determined to enjoy your remaining time at school. And that meant staying away from Fred.

Though this didn’t stop you from missing him occasionally. Sometimes as you fell asleep you envisioned his fiery red locks and his distinctive smokey scent. The scent that you had smelled in your amortentia in fifth year. You envisioned him apologizing to you and trying to right his wrongs. But it was just a fantasy.

~~~~~

You were sitting in the library, your defense against the dark arts assignment in front of you. You were focused, your eyes scanning your textbook when someone sat across from you. You looked up and met eyes with none other than Cormac McLaggen. You narrowed your eyes. He hadn’t spoken to you since the day he stood you up.

“Hey (Y/n),” he said with a smirk.

“What do you want McLaggen?” you asked.

“Ouch. I thought we were on a first-name basis,” he said with mock offense. You rolled your eyes.

“No. You lost that privilege when you left me waiting for you in the common room instead of taking me out on our date,” you responded. McLaggen just laughed.

“Didn’t I apologize for that? I’m pretty sure I did,” he said. You scoffed.

“You didn’t. And even if you did apologize I wouldn’t be interested,” you answered. He just pouted at you in response.

“Come on, why don’t we give it another go? You and me at the black lake after dinner,” he said. You groaned.

“No. Now please leave me alone,” you answered. He furrowed his brows.

“Oh don’t be so whiny. Just meet me there after dinner,” he said, appearing frustrated. You opened your mouth to respond but were cut off by another voice.

“She said no mate.” You turned around to see none other than Fred Weasley. McLaggen scowled at him.

“This isn’t any of your business Weasley,” he said. Fred sat down in the chair next to you.

“She’s my friend so I reckon that it is my business,” he answered defensively. McLaggen stiffened.

“You heard him,” you piped up, “leave me alone.” And with that, McLaggen stood up and walked away.

“You’re not getting another chance,” he said over his shoulder. You rolled your eyes.

“Good,” you retorted. After he had left you turned to Fred.

“Thank you,” you said curtly. He just nodded but made no move to leave the table. After a moment of silence, you began to hurriedly pack your things, determined to continue avoiding him.

“(Y/n), please,” he said, reaching for your arm. You scoffed and pulled it away.

“What do you want Weasley?” you asked. Fred flinched at your use of his last name.

“I just want to talk,” he answered. You continued to shove your things in your bag.

“I’m not interested in talking to you,” you responded. He let out a frustrated huff.

“I can tell. All you’ve done is avoid me,” he said. You paused and looked at him.

“Do you really think I’d be interested in seeing you after what you said to me? After all you’ve said to me?” you huffed. Fred looked down and gulped ashamedly.

“No,” was his response. You just shook your head and stalked out of the library.

~~~~~

After the library incident, Fred seemed to be on a mission. What his plan was, you weren’t sure, but you were on your guard. He timed his mornings so he could force himself beside you at the breakfast table. He would pour you your orange juice himself. During free time, he’d sit near you in the common room and attempt to make you laugh, telling over the top jokes. And the insults had stopped, the factor that had surprised you the most. Suddenly there was a new version of Fred in your life. Or rather, an old version that you hadn’t seen since third year. It confused you and you weren’t sure what his end game was.

One night you were sitting alone in the common room. Angelina and Katie had gone upstairs already but you continued to work on your potions essay beside the fire. You heard the portrait hole open and you turned to see the twins stumble through. It was well past curfew and you were certain the Filch was hot on their tail. George spotted you and waved before heading towards the boy’s dorms. Fred shot you a small smile but lingered in the center of the room. You sent him a curious gaze before returning to your assignment. After a moment you felt the sofa dip and saw that Fred had sat down beside you.

“Can we talk?” he asked. It was the same question that he had asked you weeks before in the library. You sighed.

“Fred I told you that I wasn’t interested in talking to you,” you replied, rubbing your temples.

“Please (Y/n),” he said, his eyes pleading with you.

“Fine,” you responded, “what do you have to say.” Fred looked down at his lap.

“I am so so sorry (Y/n). For what I said that day and for everything I said before,” he said. You scoffed.

“Do you really expect sorry to be enough?” you asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I never meant to hurt you,” was all he said. You felt yourself become angry again.

“Never meant to hurt me? What a load of rubbish! How did you think I would feel every time you insulted me?” you asked with a huff. Fred grabbed your hands.

“You seemed like you had a thick skin and I was stupid-” his voice was thick with emotion as you pulled your hands away and cut him off.

“None of that is a good enough excuse,” you said.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured once again. You gathered your things and made a move to get up. Fred made no attempt to stop you. You turned to head towards your room but hesitated.

“Fred I just need to ask you one thing,” you said as you slowly turned to face him. He looked at you with wide and hopeful eyes.

“Ask me anything. Anything at all,” he answered.

“Why. Why did you spend years being so terrible to me,” you asked, hoping for an answer to the questioned you had tortured yourself with for years.

“Because I’m in love with you,” he answered without a beat. Your mouth dropped open.

“What?” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

“I was in love with you and I knew you would never feel the same. It felt better to distance myself than to pine,” he continued. You felt as if your heart had dropped into your stomach. The words that you had wanted to hear for years had finally been spoken but all they did was cause you pain.

“I never thought about how it would affect you,” he said honestly, “I was selfish.” You just gaped at him, unsure of what to say. You almost didn’t trust yourself to say anything. You were afraid that if you spoke you would just drop into his arms and let your resolve crumble, allowing yourself to say the same words back. But you knew that you couldn’t do that. Not when the pain of his words still stung like a fresh wound.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” you said after what felt like hours of silence.

“Well I had hoped that you felt the same,” he said, “but I expected you to slap me and storm off.” You almost smiled at his weak attempt at a joke.

“Fred I-” you started.

“It’s okay you don’t need to say anything,” he said, cutting you off. He stood up and made his way towards the stairs.

“I really am sorry,” he said once more before he began to ascend. You watched him leave.

“Fred wait!” you called after him. He turned to look at you. “I admit that I feel something for you,” you said. Fred began to smile.

“(Y/n) that’s-” you held your hand up to cut him off.

“But I can’t just allow myself to be with you. To just pretend that you never hurt me,” you said, “I’m worth more than that.” Fred nodded.

“You are. But I swear, I will spend every minute trying to prove to you that I love you. And I hope that someday you’ll give me a chance,” he said earnestly. You gave him a small smile.

“Good luck then,” you said, before turning around and scurrying up the stairs.

~~~~~

Fred kept true to his word and tried his best to win you over. He followed you around like a lost puppy, giving you small gifts and compliments. You always thanked him but never let your guard down as he doted on you. You were always afraid that things would go back to how they used to. But they never did. You began to look forward to classes when he would pass you short notes with jokes on them or when he would try to make you laugh from the other side of the room. You began to enjoy it when he would come to bother you in the library when you tried to study. He would try to distract you by playing with our hair or dramatically laying across the table. You started to look forward to his interruptions. Slowly your guard began to fall, but you were still careful with yourself and with your heart. But it seemed that Fred was as well.

~~~~~

The seasons began to change and so did your feelings for Fred. You found yourself daydreaming about him more often than before. And somewhere deep in the back of your mind, you allowed yourself to play with the idea of being with him. He was slowly repairing the heart that he had broken. After the Easter holidays, you found yourself alone with him by the black lake. You leaned under a tree with a book in your hand and he laid beside you.

“(Y/n),” he whined, “I’m bored.” You rolled your eyes at him.

“You could go find George or Lee and do something. No one’s forcing you to be out here,” you said with a smile. He sat up and smiled at you.

“But you’re out here. Where else would I want to be,” he said. You felt your face heat up as you shoved his shoulder.

“Oi! What was that for woman!” He yelled, playing throwing a handful of grass at you.

“Freddie!” you squealed, not realizing that you’d let his nickname slip past your lips. He froze.

“You haven’t called me that since third year,” he said quietly. You smiled.

“Well you haven’t been this nice to me since third year,” you answered teasingly. Fred ducked his head. The two of you sat in comfortable silence for a few moments. You allowed yourself to stare at him unashamedly. His cheeks were flushed from the warm spring weather as he played with the grass on his robes. His hair was tousled and unkempt and you felt yourself reach out to fix it. He looked up at you with his jaw slacked as you ran your fingers through his hair.

“There,” you said, “all better.” He grinned at you, making you flush. You moved your hand from his hair and moved it to rest on his cheek. Fred placed his hand over yours as he leaned into your touch.

“I love you,” he murmured softly, too enamored with you to even realize that he said it. Your smile only widened.

“I love you too,” you responded softly. Fred’s eyes widened as he realized what you had said. His smile stretched impossibly wide.

“Did I hear that right? Did you just say that you loved me?” he asked teasingly. You rolled your eyes with a smile.

“Yes. I love you, idiot,” you replied. He immediately tackled you with a hug, causing you to squeal with laughter. He leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. It was a clunky first kiss. A first kiss interrupted by lovesick smiles and laughter.

“You love me!” he exclaimed loudly causing you to giggle. You just leaned up and gave him a quick peck.

“Congratulations Weasley,” you said, “You’ve accomplished your goal.”

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kittycomet · 2 years ago

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obligatory forgotten land ramble post

GOD. mind if i ramble about kirby and the forgotten lands ending. because holY SHIT. i know i beat the game like in march when the game came out but that doesnt matter. in this essay i will

incoming ramble, plus obvious katfl spoilers lol

now let me just say, i came into this game thinking that maybe the ending would be less insane, yknow, cause new game, new beginning n stuff, may wanna take it easy a little, NOPE. not at ALL WHAT HAPPENS. and honestly? i am sO glad they took this route dude.

during the lab discovera elevator scene i was literally trembling, just.. i KNEW this id-f86 creature was gonna be some horrific eldrich abomination we were gonna have to fight and i was TERRIFIED. like, the genuine terror they created in this scene is fucking immaculate. and the jaunty happy little elevator remix of the main theme just adds to it, just makes the scene all the more unsettling, and i fucking loved every last second of it.

then when i walk into the ominous glowing door i am greeted with THIS son of a bitch:

this thing struck genuine fear into my heart and what made this even SCARIER for me was because I didn't see that elfilin was safely locked away in another container right next to forgo, so i thought this thing was a horribly mutated fucked up elfilin. yeah

honestly i kind of wondered what it would be like if that were the case, because the idea of the cute happy little big eared creature you've spent most of your adventure with being mutated into this fetus-like abomination would have been absolutely HORRIFYING.

oh yeah, and about that! WHY DID HAL PUT A LITERAL FETUS IN THEIR GAME HOLY SHIT

honestly ive found fetus imagery in a horror context is just. YES. so good. i LOVE kirby's horror side just as much as the cute cuddly happy side, best of both worlds, but i digress

side note: unpopular opinion but leon's battle theme actually SLAPS its seriously underrated and for what

anyways back on track, i LOVE the emotion leongar's voice actor put into his voice clips, like he genuinely sounds like hes in EXTREME amounts of pain with his attacks, especially in the first phase, and. AUGHGHGH THIS GAME /POS

oh yeah. none of this fucking COMPARES to the cutscene after all this. and just. the fact that forgo is so angry with you it doesnt even care about its plan anymore. it just wants to kill kirby at that point. so it talks THROUGH LEONS BODY (i headcanon this wasn't even leongar's voice, it was just flat out forgo's voice) and just. the way forgo talks is also terrifying like. holy fuck

and the DETAIL they put into its eyes, it really just adds to it all, like it looks so realistic and horrifying. i know kirby games get dark, i've been a longtime fan but holy SHIT this entire ending is comparable to zero ripping its fucking eye out.

oh and the flesh wall. ooooOOOOOOHOHOOOOOOHOO BOY DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THE FLESH WALL.

call me a piss baby all you want, but this was the first time a kirby game EVER made me feel GENUINE fear

like. the more you look at it the more terrifying it gets, and just. the two tongues it has, the heads of all the enemies you've encountered throughout the game, just. GOD yes

OH YEAH!!! AND HERE'S A FUN LITTLE DETAIL I HAVEN'T SEEN TOO MANY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT

at some point during the forgo chase theme, there's a segment where you can hear a series of terrified animal yelps. thats right. fucking ANIMAL yelps. the creatures absorbed by forgo aren't just dead! THEY ARE STILL ALIVE AND ARE TERRIFIED AND ARE PROBABLY IN HORRIFIC AMOUNTS OF PAIN. HOLY FUCK HAL ARE YALL OKAY OVER THERE

honestly, i'm NOT complaining about what we got at all, but dude, just iMAGINE how much scarier this could have been. imagine if there were alarms n shit setting off because forgo escaped, and the pre-recorded voice of the tour lady echoing through the hallway, and if it touches you, youll die instantly or if the boss was just harder, just. GOD i love this ending so much

imagine for when we see the concept art for forgotten land, GOD i cant wait for hal to drop the concept art for it to see if they had any even more horrifying ideas

im tired its like 8 am im gonna wrap this very long post up and ill write a sequel to it sometime lmao

#kirby #katfl spoilers #kirby spoilers #kirby and the forgotten land #fecto elfilis #leongar #fecto forgo #elfilin

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marimopeace · 3 years ago

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there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

#isekai #mother's basement #inuyasha #digimon #fushigi yugi #.hack//legend of the twilight #log horizon #overlord #the saint's magic power is omnipotent #the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap #a returner's magic should be special #adonis #the lady and the beast #light and shadow #kumo desu ga nani ka #her majesty's swarm #fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess #death is the only ending for a villainess #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #save me princess #the beginning after the end #the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion #trash of the count's family #this time i will definitely be happy!#silver diamond #see i normally put the raw titles for everything but the tiny korean/japanese part of my brain is so tired bc my english brain went off #the princess imprints a traitor #manga #manhwa #donghua

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mk-wizard · 4 years ago

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Big Hero 6 The Series: It could have been better

Hello, friends. Today, I will be analyzing a TV series based on a movie that I fell in love with for its colourful themes, deep plot, compelling characters, great CGI and memorable messages. Before I get into it, I want to take a moment to say that I have quit doing videos. They are too big of a pain in the petunia to make and I write better than I speak, so I will stick to writing essays, reviews and more. Anyway, onto the analysis.

All I can say about Big Hero 6 the series is that it had a great concept, it presented some great ideas and tried hard to be a cartoon of the times, but it could have and should have been a lot better. The show’s downfall all centers around trying too hard to be kid friendly which makes the shame sting all the more because Big Hero 6 was already kid friendly even with its dark themes, sharp edges and intelligent writing. If anything, even the brightest kid friendly cartoons (Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc.) had those things and actually benefitted from them. By needlessly trying too hard, character development got scrapped, the edges were all smoothed out, storytelling was subpar, the humour was too silly and the executive meddling in the end produced a dismal final season. However, I don’t want this analysis to be one lengthy negative rant about how awful the series was because in its defense, awful is an unfair word. It did have potential and ideas which are worth carrying over to a reboot that I hope will be done someday in the future. Also, we should root for a reboot because Big Hero 6 would not be the first story that needs it before striking gold. Just look at how many times Spider-Man was rebooted in film before MCU found the version that worked. Anyway, I will list all the things in Big Hero 6 that could have been better in my opinion;

1- Go easy on the laughs and be more generous with the action. - I love adding comedy to my own writing because I think a good sense of humour makes everything better, but Big Hero 6 is not a stand up comedy routine. It is a superhero story where we expect action, suspense and life or death situations that are to be taken seriously first. The comedy should be for relief and with the right timing. Also, the chibi cutscenes and having characters act like fools aren’t funny. Ren and Stimpy are the exception not the standard and their way of making you laugh doesn’t fit an action series. In a show as big as Big Hero 6, real life physics and danger matters.

2- Make the villains menacing and gritty. - I admit that after having a movie villain like Yokai who was the stuff of nightmares, it is going to be a challenging act to follow, but it was obvious that the writers were trying especially with some villains who could have easily gone into some dark relatable territory. For example, Mr. Sparkles (the gentleman in the photo above) embodies social media and Internet personalities. Right off the bat, you have a long list of things which embody the dark side of that like scams, fraud, using social media to dox or harass, driving people to suicide, online predators, the Internet personalities being very depressed people in real life, and much more horrifying things. When you stop and look at it, Mr. Sparkles even looks like the Joker which hints how dark and scary he could have been if the stops were removed. The same goes for enemies like Hardlight who embodies online gaming, Liv with cloning, Obake an amoral and insane scientist, and Trina and Noodle Burger Boy (more on him later) being evil robots. Globby especially should have been painted and written in much darker colours rather being played off for laughs because he has many parallels with Clay Face. The only two villains who I can say were supposed to be campy, charming and comical were Baron Von Steamer and Supersonic Sue because they were a satire of the Adam West style villains.

The rest of them needed to be dark and threatening including Mr. Sparkles. In fact, I would love a rebooted version of Mr. Sparkles who gives me the heebie-jeebies. Going back to Noodle Burger Boy, I must confess that I was actually excited when I heard that he was going to be the main villain of the final season because I thought he was going to fulfill his master’s final wish and as a reminder, Noodle Burger Boy was based on a super robot for military purposes.

It would have been fantastic if Noodle Burger Boy was upgraded into a full military war machine with a new threatening look. For that, I think all of the villains deserve to be rebooted and have their full potential unlocked for better or for worse.

3- A show about geniuses merits genius level art quality. - I am usually forgiving towards art styles, but in the case of Big Hero 6, the oversimplified style with minimal details and lack of textures did not suit the show. The characters blend in with the background which makes them look flat and the special effects were extremely dulled down. I also know for a fact that Disney can do a lot better than this because I saw how superbly Tangled the Series was drawn.

You can see and almost feel the difference in quality, the number of layers and level of detail between the two styles. I think there was no excuse Big Hero 6 was not done in the same style and at the same level if not better as Tangled.

3- Don’t dumb down or flanderize amazing characters. - I absolutely detest it when characters are flanderized because it makes them one dimensional and grating. For example, Go Go is tough as nails and extremely calm, but she is not cold or hesitant towards helping her friends. She doesn’t require very special episodes for us to know that. If anything, the movie version of Go Go reminded me a lot of Garnet in how she deconstructed the broody character. She isn’t cold or emotionless. Just calm and mature. Another good example was how Honey Lemon was rewritten to be overly positive to the point of toxicity, naïve and oblivious with a juvenile obsession with stickers. Then you have poor Fred who was rewritten to be an incompetent fool. The spark that makes Big Hero 6 shine is that they are a team of geniuses meaning they are all intelligent. Even Fred is genius in his own way just not a scientific one. He has a vivid imagination, he is resourceful and can get himself out of tight spots. Please, don’t turn characters into dummies especially if their intelligence is a part of them. It doesn’t make them better or funnier. It ruins them.

4- Tadashi needs closure and honour. - I am all for Hiro making peace with the loss of his brother, but Tadashi is to the Big Hero 6 team what Uncle Ben was to Spider-Man. His loss was the catalyst if not the reason. He should never be forgotten. Moreover, there was never any true closure to him especially with the possibility that he may still be alive up in the air. After all, like Callaghan, his body was never found and it turned out that Callaghan was still alive.

With that said, who is to say that Tadashi was not secretly still alive and just hiding or being hidden? This is something that Disney really needed to clear up if not for the fans, then at least as a service to such an important character. Never just forget about them.

5- The format can only be episodic with a deep plots, continuity and character development. - Random episodes with a mere monster of the day is an outdated format which doesn’t fit Big Hero 6′s modern and bright setting. In seasons 1 and 2, when the episodes were plot heavy with character development, the series shined brightest. It also helped move the story along, but with the final season, plot was removed, closure was abandoned or poorly written if any was given, and characters were disallowed from growing. A good example at how plot and character development could have made this series and its characters better was the relationship between Hiro and Megan. Would it have truly survived or would they have broken up?

Would Richardson Mole have eventually lost interest in his obsession with besting and bullying Fred or would his obsession consume him compelling him to become a super villain? I do see quite a few similarities between Mole and Reverse Flash.

Then you have Karmi who is in my opinion, the biggest wild card of the bunch. She was intentionally introduced as an arrogant, prickly and unlikable yet complex character who rivaled Hiro bitterly.

Yet had a huge crush on his alter ego and as time went on, started to grow up and even form a friendship with Hiro. What would have happened further down the road with her? Would she have become a super hero herself? Or maybe even another love interest for Hiro kind of like how Black Cat is for Spider-Man?

Is Obake really gone?

What does the future hold Diana (Liv’s clone), Liv herself or the Sycorax the genetics company?

Is Alistair Krei going to become an ally to Big Hero 6 or an antagonist? There is also the issue at how little we know about the other Big Hero 6 characters other than Fred, Hiro and Baymax. What are Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Go Go’s backstories? These questions matter and while not every mystery can be solved, leaving none of them solved is lazy writing.

6- Executives, kindly stay out of the writing and any other part of the creative process. - I’m sorry, execs, but there is no nice way to say it. History itself proves that every time executives got involved in the creative process of any media, it got worse not better. Leave the writing to the creative team and the execs should only handle the legal stuff. Please. We understand that TV is a business, but writing itself is not. It is an art which you just don’t have a talent for. Let the creative people do their thing with the freedom necessary and you do your thing, deal? Deal.

7- Focus on Hiro and Baymax. - The are the main characters so keep them at the heart of the series no matter what happens around them. That is all I can say.

And that sums up all the things that could have made Big Hero 6 the series better, but this is all just my opinion. What is yours?

PS: I am well aware that the Big Hero 6 series is being retconned because a new series called Baymax is in the works as well as the long awaited sequel to the first movie. I am looking forward to both with an open mind. PPS: I also am aware that some people liked this show the way it was including the art style and I am cool with that. An analysis for art that includes cartoons is never right or wrong. It is solely based on opinion. I may have thought this series could have been better, but there are people who make arguments that it could have been worse.

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fabdante · 4 years ago

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Ok, last one. The Kat and Artemisia post. Incase you missed them, this is part of a trio of posts on Baroque art and the DmC reboot trio and a separate post on the DmC reboot and the Baroque as an art movement.

The other posts if you want to check them out: Dante and Caravaggio, Vergil and Benini, DmC and the Baroque

Today for the final installment in this little mini series, we’ll be discussing the artist who won the Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi, and her painting Judith Slaying Holofernes, featured below.

Analysis of this painting, why it’s such a bop, Kat, and the devil may cry reboot below the cut!

Content Warning: discussion of abuse as it relates to Kat.

I guess we start with the beginning and the beginning is who Judith is.

Judith is a biblical character. Upon impending invasion, she is unsatisfied with the response of her people and decides to infiltrate the enemy camp with her maid, intent to stop the enemy army. After gaining the trust of the people there, she eventually seduces general Holofernes and is invited to his tent. Then she beheads him with what I am left to assume is his sword. I suppose given the painting that part’s a little spoiled.

A lot of paintings focus on the beheading or Judith posing with the decapitated head in victory. But a lot of them don’t have the impact of Artemisias, as seen above.

Judith, as painted by Artemisia, is full of rage. She is not serene or delicate. She is not posing or unsure. She is angry, certain, and out for blood. Everything in her expression and her movements is full of force and intent. It’s the little details like his hair between her knuckles from where she’s gripping it and the forceful twist of her wrist on his sword that she’s taken. To her rolled sleeves in her incredibly fancy dress. And it’s not afraid to be gory to. Perhaps this is tame by modern standards of blood and gore but for the time it’s very bloody and violent. Supposedly the violence was too much for the first owner who kept it hidden for some time (allegedly). I think it’s important that while the focus is Judith doing the act, her maid is not passive in the violence. She’s holding him down with just as much force as Judith. And unwavering to, despite how we can see how Holofernes was trying to throw her off before he died, his hands still limply in the air. The maids full of as much determination as Judith is. Judith’s dressed up for this to, in a fine gown with her hair done up. This is likely part of the ruse Judith set up before she got Holofernes alone, but I like the detail none the less. That she’s dressed up for this murder.

The key to why this painting fits Kat so much to me is how it is not only full of anger and femininity and violence but how in Artemisias hands, the image feels like a bloody catharsis. There’s something personal in Judith's glare, in her rage. Something kind of interesting to in how she’s forced Holofernes to look away from her, like he hasn’t earned the right to see her victory even if by this point he is surely dead (I mean, the sword is nearly through his neck). Or like she doesn’t want to look at him at all, like he’s not worth looking at.

Likewise, for Kat, hunting demons is personal. The Order is personal. Why she’s here doing this is personal.

It’s personal because Kat killed her abusive foster father. I don’t think how impressive this is truly gets conveyed. It’s almost a throw away statement. It’s just that one line, ‘I killed the bastard’, and that’s that. Like it was easy or something. In the reboot universe, though, she’s not even in the same dimension as her foster father. We don’t get a lot of information about how much a demons human form impacts their demon form. We are told Mundus is fused to his human form, but we’re also told this is because he’s been in it so long and also there’s the matter of his relationship to the hell gate. We’re not even told how long he’s been in this form. Has it been years, decades, centuries? How long is so long that it led to this fusion? So, I don’t think we can base the average demon to this. As far as we know in canon, it’s Kat against a being in another dimension. A dimension she cannot engage with physically and to which he can escape to at any time.

And yet she kills him anyway.

She is the only human we know of in canon who’s done this, to. To be fair, she is the only human mentioned at all in the reboot canon but by how Dante positions himself as human savior and by how certain Vergil seems to be that humans cannot take care of themselves, this must be rare.

I cannot express enough how important it is that Kat is the one who kills him to. It’s not Vergil. She doesn’t say it was Vergil. It’s also not her and Vergil, she doesn’t say that either, she doesn’t say ‘we killed the bastard’. Kat says explicitly that she killed him, ‘I killed the bastard’. It’s Kats kill. No matter how much Vergil helped her, she did it. She killed her abuser despite the odds against her.

I can’t imagine the sort of catharsis Kat must have felt in that moment. We don’t know how she killed him, she never says. The greatest crime of the comics, in my opinion, are how they take this kill away from Kat and give it to Vergil instead. Which means no further elaboration there on what went down. But I can imagine her in that moment after, unsure how to feel with the rush of adrenaline and power and newfound safety. She’s done it. She’s done something she must have thought was impossible. And she tells us in game how this made her feel emboldened to handle the rest of demon kind. She doesn’t tell us in that many words, I suppose, but she says that she wants to deal with them all because she killed her foster father.

To Kat, this is personal. To Kat, mankind is something worth saving that she is willing to do everything to save. We don’t see her violence in game, but we know she’s willing to kill for this freedom. We know she’s willing to die for it to, given the aftermath of the Orders fall. It’s personal. And Kat sees it as something far bigger then her.

Often Kat I think is written off as someone who is naïve and weak and in need of saving. I’ve complained at length how I feel about her being called naïve. In game we see a very interesting, complex person in Kat I think. I’ve said before that it’s kind of fun to just watch her in scenes. Like really watch her. She has very deliberate body language that often betrays this calm she’s fighting to display, particularly around Dante for the first half of the game or so. It’s little things like how she physically contains herself after the ‘I like it rough’ comment, shutting her eyes and taking in a deep breath, but things that are there. She’s someone who, despite everything, is fighting to be a softer, kinder person even if she’s still got a lot of anger (Vergil does compare her and Dante, after all).

And being soft and kind does not make someone weak. Existing in a world where you are at a disadvantage to the things that aim to hurt you is not weak. Entering into your enemies tent armed with nothing but an elaborate gown and your anger, waiting until you spot a sword and an opportunity is not weak either.

I think something about Kat that is so often forgotten in the drama of the twins and everything else (because lets face it, no matter the media, female characters tend to get side lined for...everything else really), is without her the twins would have failed. It’s Kat who gets Dante and safely brings him to the Order. It’s Kat’s spells that bridge the human world to Limbo. It’s Kat who saves Vergil in the server room by way of bringing Dante to him. It’s Kat who ultimately gives the twins the final plan to get to Mundus. It was her. Dante says so at the end, to. The game recognizes that without Kat, the boys have nothing. And it's still Kat at the end who saves Vergil, and saves Dante from the guilt of killing him.

With Kat taking so much into her own hands despite her disadvantage, despite just being human, despite her softness, despite this rage boiling under her skin (or perhaps because of it), she is so much of why the world is free from demons.

I mean Artemisia herself got that treatment, largely left out of artistic canon until very recently despite her success during her time. I also debated for a very, very long time across the many, many iteration of this essay on how much I talk about Artemisia’s personal life. I suppose if you made it this far you’ve seen that I’ve chosen not to, despite how it could be relevant to this discussion. But I think her work stands on it’s own without me having to justify the anger Artemisia may have personally felt and conveyed here without bringing up her personal life in depth. Though, if you want to know, I assure you that pretty much any information you look up on Artemisia will go into detail on her personal traumas and how that might impact her work. And it could definitely be relevant angle in discussing Kat and Artemisia, I just felt it overall did not add to this essay.

I often wonder, if she was in a different game or a different medium or a different story, if Kat might get more love. So often she’s called weak for the crime of not having a big weapon and a trail of dead demons behind her. So often she’s reduced to a love interest or a damsel despite how she is really the thing that saved the day, despite the fact her relationship with both twins is much more then ‘potential love interest’. And how many times have you guys seen a post on your dash about wishing a character picked to enact revenge on an abuser? How they fought to be soft despite their trauma and pain? But I suppose, as is often the case with women in any story, she might have gotten this treatment anyway.

So, here’s to Kat. The brain cell, the Nephilim baby sitter, the girl who wanted to throw Vergil off a cliff, the hero Limbo city got who will never get enough credit, and forever the girl who deserved more.

Those of us who love you will love you enough for the whole fandom, it’s alright.

#dmc devil may cry #dmc reboot #devil may cry reboot #dmc kat #devil may cry kat #kat devil may cry #kat dmc #dmc: devil may cry #devil may cry reboot kat #tw decapitation #fab talks meta

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peaceoutofthepieces · 4 years ago

Text

Tracing Time

Again a tiny mention of the hate crime in the first few paragraphs here, just as Sander is thinking of the last clip.

Thursday, 12:03

Song: Agnes Obel - Island of Doom

“Oh my god, Gilles, can you please just stop for five minutes?”

Sander’s not sure where the outburst comes from; he regrets it instantly. He feels better today, after the shit-show that was last night. He’s stopped thinking about punches and bruises and pain and lies and Robbe curled up on the ground. Or at least, he’s stopped thinking about it enough that he can breathe easier again. He had never even really noticed the weight, until he’d spoken to Jens the other night. Until then, it had been about Robbe. Robbe being okay, Robbe feeling safe and not missing out, Robbe not hating himself for loving Sander. Robbe moving on. Recovering, healing. Forgetting.

They’ll never forget it entirely, he knows that. But he sees it in Robbe, and he can see it in himself now, those times when it leaves them for a moment. When the universe shrinks back down, and centers them in its orbit, and blocks out the rest of the world. They can forget, for more and more moments.

Once they admit that they haven’t, it becomes easier to try. Ignoring it hasn’t given it less power; it only makes the memory scarier when it pops up unexpectedly.

He’s allowed to curse it. To hate faces he doesn’t even remember. It’s all that anger, that spark of spite, that lights a fire in him and allows him to grow bigger than it. He should have known, with how long Agathe has been ingraining the thought process in him. Giving voice to it, letting his words be carried away on the air, shifts the concrete away to prod at the core, which is only as heavy as damp, rotting leaves. If he speaks at the right moment, the wind will be strong enough to sweep them out.

Maybe the right moment should have happened before last night. Maybe it should have come a year ago. But he’d woken up this morning with such an unexpected sense of light and relief, and he thinks that should count for something, no matter the time.

Then he’d gone to class, and the usual restless-and-bored feeling kicked in, and then he’d settled himself down at one of the picnic benches outside. Now, he’s still there, with the addition of his friends, and the good mood he’d woken up in is dissipating quickly the longer he tries to work on this assignment.

And the longer Gilles keeps distracting him from it.

They’re looking at Sander now from right next to him like he’d just slapped them across the face, and the regret deepens, twists itself into something gnarled and jagged that hooks and tugs at his ribs. Thomas and Emilie have gone silent and, effectively, so has Gilles. They open their mouth only once and quickly snap it shut again.

“I’m sorry,” Sander says quickly. “I honestly didn’t mean it. It’s just—“ he gestures to his laptop “—this fucking assignment.”

Gilles wipes the surprise away and forces a smile, giving a tiny nod. “Yeah, I know. I get it. I can keep it down. Actually, I think I’m gonna go get something to eat, anyway.”

They begin to rise from the bench as they speak, and Sander quickly latches onto their arm and gives a pleading tug. “No. Gilles, I’m sorry. Please, don’t be upset.”

“I’m not,” Gilles waves him off. At Sander’s unconvinced look, they insist, “I’m not.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Sander tries. “Don’t leave.”

Gilles just shakes their head. “I’ll come back. Compromise, yeah? You asked for five minutes.”

Sander slowly lets his hand fall, feeling lost. He can’t just keep apologising, but he doesn’t know what to actually say to make it better. He’s hopeless in such situations. He glances at Thomas and Emilie for help, but they both seem disappointed, too.

“Sander.” Gilles sets a hand on the back of his neck as they finally stand and gives a gentle squeeze. “I get it. It’s fine. I’ll...try to actually help you, or just be quiet whenever I get back, okay? Whichever you want.” They duck down and press a firm kiss to his cheek, and he barely has time to lean towards them before they hoist up their bag and walk off.

Sander wants to call out, but he still can’t find the words, and Gilles won’t be dragged back if they want to go. Instead his mouth opens and closes as helplessly as a fish’s, and Thomas slowly packs up his things and stands instead.

“I’m gonna go…” He juts his thumb over his shoulder, hovering by the table hesitantly. “I’m sure it’s fine, but, you know. But it’ll be fine, Sander.”

Sander’s shoulders slump, but he nods, and Thomas smiles at him before running to catch up to Gilles. Sander pushes his laptop back far enough that he can plant his elbows on the table and drop his head into his hands with a sigh.

“Hey,” Emilie breaks through his thoughts, voice soft. “Gilles is a big boy. They’ll get over it quickly. They really know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It was still shitty,” Sander sighs.

Emilie gives him a sympathetic smile and slides across the seat to sit directly across from him, where Thomas had been a moment ago. “What’s going on?”

Sander huffs. “You mean why am I being a dick?”

She ignores him. “The assignment can’t be that bad. Maybe give yourself a break from it, get something to eat as well. Come back to it with a clearer head.”

“It’s not that easy,” Sander says, frustrated. “Just because you can pass all this stuff without even trying, doesn’t mean it’s the same for all of us.”

“Okay, wow, you really do have a stick up your ass today.”

Sander shrinks back, effectively admonished. He, again, didn’t mean to be so harsh. He probably should just stop speaking altogether. Which means he probably should stop writing this essay, too, at least for a moment, until he gets his head under control again. Chances are it will be more strongly worded than he intends if he continues at this rate. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

Emilie stares him down for a moment, then sighs. She reaches out and carefully pushes his laptop aside, and Sander doesn’t even attempt to muster the energy for a protest. Emilie lays her hands over his and doesn’t hold them, but massages the pressure points between each thumb and forefinger as she speaks.

“You know, it would take me a full month to do the kind of art you can pull off in like, a day. And I’m no smarter than Tom. It’s not just easy for me, Sander. I work my ass off to be here as much as anyone else.”

Sander curls in on himself a little more, nodding. He could mumble another apology, but he doesn’t quite see the point. He knows it’s not what she’s looking for. “I know,” he says instead. “I didn’t mean to discredit you.”

“I know.” She gives his hands a squeeze and sighs, leaning in closer to catch his eye. “And I would never discredit you, either, because I know none of us would be here if we didn’t deserve it. It’s not supposed to be easy. But we can do it. That’s the whole point.”

Is that true? It’s something Sander would like to believe, certainly, but at times like this...he doubts his abilities and his choices. What if he’s just not meant for study? In that case, what is he supposed to do?

“And you know it’s okay,” Emilie continues softly, “to ask for help when you feel like you can’t do it.”

Of course she sees right through him. He smiles weakly and works one of his hands free to draw his laptop backs towards him, angling it towards Emilie. “Will you help me?”

She huffs now, but smiles. “If only you’d had to ask one of us that last week. But when it comes to practicals you’re a pro. Otherwise we would’ve realised you’d gotten mixed up.”

“Are you saying,” Sander asks slowly, “that I messed up because I’m too good?”

She grins at him. “Exactly.”

“Cute. Just say you want help with your piece too and be done with it.”

“I want help with my piece, too.”

“At your service,” Sander smirks.

He feels only mildly anxious as she quickly skims through what he has already done, and relieved when her first response is a question that unexpectedly prompts him onwards. He’s typing away again within moments, ignoring the girl’s smug smile as he flicks between tabs and documents and his own thoughts.

When he’s completed another, rather lengthy paragraph, Gilles and Thomas return.

Sander is surprised enough to stop immediately; he hadn’t actually expected the two to come back. But Gilles perches next to him again with only the slightest hesitance and passes him a small, white paper bag with two croques tucked inside.

Sander instantly wraps an arm around their waist and leans into them in a hug, mumbling another apology. It’s all it takes to have Gilles beaming and pressing a kiss to his temple.

“You’re both so easy,” Thomas muses. “Remember this, Em. Just give Sander food and Gilles affection and they’re fine.”

“Or the other way around,” Gilles offers, to which Sander immediately nods.

“Both,” he agrees. “Both is good.”

They’re all halfway through their food when Sander remembers the other thing he wanted to talk to them about, and a smile is stretching his lips before he actually speaks. “So, what did you guys think of Luca? She’s pretty fun, right?”

Gilles and Emilie choke on the same bite, with Gilles falling into a dramatic coughing fit and Emilie just politely clearing her throat with the back of her hand pressed to her lips. Thomas’s sandwich is held halfway up to his mouth as he freezes and examines the scene, the top rim of his glasses cutting his eyes in half as he widens them at Sander. Sander simply laughs, shaking his head at the two culprits and remarking on all their old comments about him being the one lacking subtlety.

As if.

~^~

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#wtfock #sander driesen #sander season #tracing time #gilles visser #emilie de vries #thomas aarden #one clip left now

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