#blink books

[egophiliac]

everyone out of the way, this is the only thing I'm going to be thinking about from now on.

(okay, there is one more thing)

[suntails]

reality

[mo-mode]

We’ve all heard of mansplaining. Now get ready for: PJO book purist-splaining. It’s like mansplaining, but every time you even think about liking a change made in the show, they jump down your throat with “ACTUALLY in the books…” because the show is “doing it all wrong” and the change is “so out of character” and “doesn’t even make sense :/”

[weirdlandtv]

How to depict blinking in a comic? Oh hello, by the way. Yes, I'm still alive. I'm fine and how are you and all that but—how to depict blinking in a comic strip? Carl Barks used this method—

The ducks' huge eyes are split in two, with one set of slightly faded pupils in the top half (see image 1), and another of solid black pupils in the lower half, both sets cut off in such a way that the “stacked” pupils don't appear like one large elongated pupil (a thin white horizontal line separates the two states as well); and that, with the added "Blink! Blink!" gets the job done perfectly. Here’s another slightly different blink:

(Now that I'm writing this stuff about top half, bottom half I'm suddenly reminded of a Barks gag I came across: a file cabinet in the background of a panel with one drawer saying TOP SECRET and the one below it saying BOTTOM SECRET.)

Really though, Barks's brilliant stories are en endless source of great ideas, gags, splash pages, twists, visual tricks, pacing, phrasing, suspense building, the whole proverbial "shebang", whatever a shebang is: I've said it before on this blog but any budding artist or writer—heck, even a professional one—could learn a lot from Barks's best work. Fireworks of creativity.

Re-reading some of Barks's stories, as I sometimes do by way of therapy, it struck me that many panels consist of three main elements: a foreground element, a middle section where the action takes place, and a background:

This foreground element can really be anything. It can be a bush, a tree, a rock, even a wave:

It can be a chair, a table, or any other piece of interior:

It can be a character, or just their silhouette:

And of course it's also a good way to hide snooping villains:

In the Gyro Gearloose stories the foreground element is often Little Helper having a kind of silent slapstick adventure of his own (in Dutch here as it’s from my own copy):

…Also, how is this for dark:

[u3pxx]

look into his angeleyes, one look and you're hypnotized he'll take your heart and you must pay the price

[the-apology-dance]

I LIVE FOR BOOK AZIRAPHALE AND CROWLEY

Apparently in the book, Aziraphale and Crowley are implied to be a gay couple MANY TIMES.

A girl at Warlock’s birthday party calls Aziraphale a faggot.

Anathema automatically assumes that Crowley and Aziraphale are a gay couple after Crowley says “Goodnight miss. Get in, Angel.” to Aziraphale

Also, One scene I wish would’ve been acted out as it is in the book is when they both get shot with the paintball guns. How it happens in the book is Aziraphale ends up FALLING BACKWARDS INTO A RHODODENDRON BUSH and Crowley sinks down on a statue.

Crowley believes he is bleeding YELLOW and DYING and instead of, ya know, helping Aziraphale UP AS HIS ANGEL HAS JUST SAUNTERED VAGUELY DOWNWARDS INTO A BUSH, HE JUST CHOOSES TO CRAWL INTO THE BUSH AS WELL, BELIEVING SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH BIOLOGY. Aziraphale tells Crowley it hurt and it hit him under his ribs, which he brushes off TO ASK IF ANGELS BLEED BLUE.

Aziraphale proceeds to the same self examination as Crowley.

Crowley only figures out it is PAINT when he TASTES IT. They conclude it is PAINT.

6000 years on earth, and these idiots don’t know what a paintball gun is.

I LOVE THESE IDIOTS.

(EDIT: how did this post get so many likes???😆)

[garmrheim]

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚢, 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎'𝚜 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛

𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢

𝙳𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚗���� 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚖𝚎....

-

some closeups! drawn back in 2022

this is based off of this scene from the Scriptbook. One of my absolute favorites.

[dreamingthroughwords]

was reminded today about how when everyone is telling xie lian how dangerous and scary hua cheng in the first book and about how menacing his butterflies are and that he set fire to a bunch of temples overnight and then xie lian is like “oh well the butterflies are cute and he actually sounds quite interesting.” not even phased in the slightest. like already not blinking at any of these things hua cheng did cause there’s probably a reason! and oh boy there certainly was.

[blue-eyed-beastie]

A Closer Look at Belle's Book: Part II

In Part I, I went into some detail about the illustration inside Belle's book, but now I want to turn the page, so to speak.

Thanks to the magic of 4K, I was able to zoom in on some details in Beauty and the Beast that I had never noticed before, and this time I wanted to see what story Belle was reading. I've seen theories that it was either foreshadowing Aladdin or referencing Sleeping Beauty, and I myself noticed that it bears some artistic resemblance to Snow White... but it turns out that it has nothing to do with Disney, or its fairy tales.

It's something else entirely, and it's in French!

After zooming in and studying each frame, I managed to make out the following text:

une languissante sirene! Enfin, il sera bientôt heureux, si c'est là ce qui doit causer son bonheur. Je sais que je suis agréable à regarder, puisque j'y ai du plaisir moi-même, et de ce plaisir je ne priverai pas mon mari, au contraire. Je ne sais si je l'aimerai, je l'espère; mais je veux qu'il m'aime lui, et je ferai pour lui plaire tout ce qui lui plaira. Ah! chère Adélaïde, je suis pleine de rêves absurdes et de pensées contradictoires! Je songe à des choses qui me semblent à la fois douces et vilaines, et j'ai des imaginations qui me font rougir en même temps que pleurer! Au moins, je ne m'ennuie pas. Je vis plus en une heure de ces journées que l'an passé je ne vécus en toute l'année. Chaque heure me renouvelle, me grandit et m'épanouit. Je me semble un rosier qui fleur rirait à vue d’œil, je suis fraîche et parfumée; je suis légère et forte: j'attends le bonheur. Paul est plus beau que je ne l'avais encore jamais tu. Il est pâle avec de grands yeux pleins de fièvre et d'amour. Je le trouve sublime quand il s'agenouille près de moi pour me regarder comme en prière. J'ai envie de le prière aussi, parfois, et de coucher ma joue sur ses genoux, mais quand j'ai cette envie-la, je me fâché contre moi-meme et je boude Paul.

Which, roughly translated into English, means:

a languid siren! Finally, he will soon be happy, if that is what will make him happy. I know that I am pleasant to look at, since I take pleasure in it myself, and of this pleasure I will not deprive my husband, on the contrary. I do not know if I will love him, I hope so; but I want him to love me, and I will do whatever he pleases to please him. Ah! dear Adelaide, I am full of absurd dreams and contradictory thoughts! I think of things that seem to me both sweet and ugly, and I have fantasies that make me blush and cry at the same time! At least, I am not bored. I live more in one hour of these days than I lived in the whole year last year. Each hour renews me, makes me grow and blossom. I seem to myself a rosebush that blooms laughing before my eyes, I am fresh and fragrant; I am light and strong: I await happiness. Paul is more handsome than I have ever seen him before. He is pale with big eyes full of fever and love. I find him sublime when he kneels down next to me to look at me as if in prayer. I want to pray to him too, sometimes, and to lay my cheek on his knees, but when I have this desire, I get angry with myself and I sulk at Paul.

By the way, there is one more sentence (maybe even two) at the bottom of the page that is partially obscured by Belle's shoulder and right hand. It may or may not be important to the rest of the excerpt, but for completion's sake, I'll share it here:

Il est ... maintenir un homme dans les ...

Which translates to:

He is ... to keep a man in the ...

Intriguing, isn't it? What was she trying to say?

Overall, the author appears to be an unwed woman dreaming of her future marriage to a man named Paul. Her confidante is someone named Adelaide, but I suspect she is actually writing to herself. Regardless, she is either betrothed to Paul or she longs to be, since she calls him her husband. Perhaps it is an arranged marriage? She goes on to dwell upon his handsomeness, and how she longs to be close to him, but then she gets angry at herself for feeling this way. The last line of the passage is incomplete, but my best guess is that the author is saying that Paul is not to blame for her sulking, so it is not right to keep a man in the dark, i.e. ignorant. I could be wrong, though. In any case, she is conflicted about her feelings on the matter. You could even say that her feelings are "new, and a bit alarming".

I can see why the filmmakers chose this passage for Belle's book.

It may not be a fairy tale, but it certainly has elements from the film. There are references to beauty, roses, imagination, and eyes filled with love, and passion.

Belle:

"Oh, isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because—you’ll see Here's where she meets Prince Charming But she won't discover that it's him 'til Chapter Three!"

Do the lyrics match the story hinted at on the page itself? No, but I really respect the filmmakers for going out of their way to include this kind of detail in the film. They could have taken the easy way out, by writing out something like "Once upon a time" to echo the opening narration, or used "Lorem ipsem" Latin filler, or even meaningless brush strokes just to fill the page... but they didn't. They chose something in French that Belle herself might have liked to read. And I think that's really cool.

[doverstar]

was today years old when discovering that the eleventh doctor wears leather trousers. his trousers are made of black leather. Black leather with the ends rolled up and I. have no idea what to think-

[cheezitofthevalley]

bookish blinkies

[sleep-deprived-luka]

Gog au niigo for tonights doodle

[suntails]

duality

[valewritessss]

Listen I can take a joke or two but if multiple people are questioning whether your editor has a piss kink, you definitely did something questionable

[mitamicah]

Sorry I didn't get along to boop people - I was busy trying to get myself to finish this in time for Halloween (and failed :'D xD)

[goodgrammaritan]

Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it.

"The Sea and Little Fishes," A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction by Terry Pratchett