#cant believe i havent introduced him properly yet���

[all-yn-oween]

Since I’m done with school, I thought I’d share some art that I did for my classes this year :}

[part 1]

1- my first work this year, for a photoshop class- Blake and Mortimer themed

“Finally alone at last!” “Neither Blake nor Mortimer to stop me!!”

“Hands in the air Olrik! You’re cornered!!”

2- Observation of tomatoes…

3- photography class, with our friend Boeuf Bourguignon!

4- observation again, but objects!

5- Statues from the Louvre Museum now!

6- a one day work with the theme of “Then, I found peace”

7- my comic on Louis and Gustave 1910s AU

{Part 2 is arriving…}

[thisisasupergoodidea]

just watched The Guy Who Didnt Like Musicals a second time. i didnt really process the songs properly the first time and didnt like them but now i can actually hear the tunes as intended and i love this whole thing so much. so im gonna ramble about this musical for a bit. spoilers ahead if u havent watched yet (its on youtube)

ive seen a few of the theories ppl have about the delivery of the musical, and about what happens at the end especially. i think i wanna try my hand at it too because sometimes i enjoy interpreting details. and im a gigantic sucker for reprises that stitch together all the songs we just heard into its own frankenstein song that completely changes in meaning or tone based on all the info we absorbed over the course of the program. and boi the last song of the show sure fuckin delivers

ok well i need to start at the beginning though. some ppl are confused by what the opening lil song and dance is within the context of the musical, because it introduces the main character, but at that point no one is infected yet so it just seems like standard musical stuff in the viewpoint of the audience, who expects this. but the entire plot of this musical is that the characters’ world slowly BECOMES a musical due to alien spores from a meteor infecting everyone to act as a harmonious hive mind. so in this sense its two musicals at the same time: the musical that starkid productions wrote, and the looser ‘musical’ that the alien entity is orchestrating during its antagonism of the main character. i believe that the opener takes place after at least a partially successful domination of the populace, mostly because of the fact that the characters who participate in that song are referring to ‘themselves’ in the third person and are dancing all hunched and menacingly, exactly how the alien spore compels people to dance later on in the plot. that plus a line that i might be recalling correctly about how the main character is their final story to tell, makes me certain that this is the alien telling that story

as for the main character paul’s absence from that song, i really think thats something intended in the musical to introduce what paul is like in the most succinct way possible. the guy just did not like musicals. throughout the plot he is constantly defining himself by his lack of participation, so of course the cheekiest way to set that up is to have him not participate in the opener. i think the confusing part here is when the story actually begins, because if the opener was performed by the future infected characters, when is the line drawn to differentiate between the two musicals that are happening (starkid musical vs alien musical)? or is the whole thing a performance by the alien entity? in which case, everyone on that stage is simply acting out the story as determined by the hive mind. but to whom, if everyone’s infected? i’ll get back to that later

another thing i love about this musical is how gradually tired of paul’s shit the alien entity becomes over the course of the plot, as evidenced by the tone of the songs. it just gets worse and worse. the alien’s songs turn from sickeningly cheerful to enticing, to threatening, to evoking hopelessness, then finally to pressuring paul past his breaking point. some of the songs arent even directed at paul but the change still happens, which goes to show the alien entity’s frustration. and at the end when the infected find emma, the song is happy again. they sing that awesome reprise, a really energetic mashup in which its hard not to feel like the alien plague is unstoppable. inevitable, one might say.

speaking of the end... paul’s confrontation with the meteor (my absolute favorite scene that i would rewatch a hundred times except i dont want to get tired of it too fast) contains good information to understanding what happens afterward. paul tries to blow it up, gets distracted by the appearance of his infected acquaintances, and the longer he stays there the more infected he himself becomes, breathing in such a heavy concentration of those alien spores at the epicenter of its activity. until now, he has rejected actively being the ‘star of the show’ like the alien seems to... want him to be? idk, the point is that his character defies musical protagonist tropes despite how the plot follows him. the story is ABOUT the alien, but paul is the audience’s anchor. until he goes to blow up the meteor. at that point, the alien has him. he can barely fight back against his own body synchronizing with the other infected as they goad him into giving in, but he puts up a damn good struggle considering those impossible circumstances. still, for the first time, he participates. he sings. he hates it, but it brings out some interesting thoughts: does he hate it? did he ever? or is this just the spores talking?

but what part, exactly, does he hate? in a musical, the singing and dancing act is usually the method of delivery for whatever the character is truly feeling. it is an opportunity for the audience to connect emotionally with the person who is singing. but we dont have that with paul for almost the entire show. he doesnt participate. and he’s established in the beginning as selfish, kind of a dick, and not available to anyone (except emma who is the only person he even slightly opens up to. he tries to be more friendly somewhat with bill, i think, but even then that couldve just been to get him to snap out of it and escape the school). he said himself that people singing and dancing makes him uncomfortable. so all this is to say that, on a deeper level, i think the aspect of the singing and dancing that he hates, that he fights to resist, is the vulnerability. you can witness the madness and shame for yourself as he sings more and more, letting out his worries, unsure if his feelings are his anymore. but hey, he ends that scene with a statement reaffirming the self he walked in with (which is to say, a guy who hates musicals) and finally pulls his grenade. so its cool that he was able to resist that but. guys. if the spores didnt get him. that grenade absolutely did. he didnt even bother to throw it away from himself, he flung it down right in front of him. theres no way he didnt get blown to bloody chunks, fully intending for that to be his final act of defiance

but i think it was too late by then. he’d already breathed in so many spores, and we were shown earlier on that death is not an impediment to becoming infected. i think after he exploded, he was still absorbed into the collective and reformed as a new addition to the hive mind. his explosives might not have been enough to fully destroy the meteor. and thats why, at the very end, i believe that - despite his admittedly suspicious face journey during the song - he isnt faking it. because if he was, wouldnt the hive mind know that it doesnt contain him within it? not only that, but in the opening song emma is clearly part of the group. given that she is the only one who is undoubtedly not infected in the last song, we have to assume that she will be sometime after the finale of the musical.

and now im left with my unexplored questions: is this a musical played straight, or a ‘musical’ put on by the alien entity after it wins? and who is the ‘musical’ intended for? its fun to speculate but im not sure these are questions that can be answered by watching it a bunch of times. theyre aimed too much outside of the zone of operation, if that makes sense. its like, you cant ever look at your own eyeballs normally. you need a mirror or for someone to describe them to you. these questions exist outside of the limitations of the musical format, so we wouldnt direct them at the video, we would ask them of the creators. or not. its cool to not have all the questions answered too

ah i wrote a flippin essay, huh? i guess i wanted to prove to myself that my brain still works

[flower-of-the-desert]

So I just finished s01 of Shadowhunters and I have some thinky thoughts about it. I’m putting it under the cut because it’s not all positive (well, most of it isnt really) and if you are a die-hard malec shipper, you should probably skip this.

Overall, I think my opinion so far can be summed up as this show has a lot of potential to be really good and interesting and nobody seems to want to do anything about it. I mean the set up is great - demons threatening the world? Awesome. A secret society of warriors whose purpose is to protect the world? Nice. Magic? Warlocks? AU worlds? Perfect. Class issues between the races? Homophobia? Relevant and important concepts to tackle. So in theory everything is great. But in practice? Not so much.

I think the two main issues this season has are 1) thngs happening way too fast and not enough time and focus given to certain topics and characters in order to understand their motivations and the worldbuilding of this universe and 2) the problem with show, dont tell - that is to say we keep being told things but almost never shown anything to actually back up these claims.

Now I know there are time limits and you cant fit everything into a single episode or even a single season and you shouldnt have to. I’m not saying they should have crammed everything into 13 episodes. That is not the issue. The problem is that when topics that should be given due focus and time within the specific episode arent, things get confusing. For example, why did Alec decide to marry Lydia? We find out in the next episode that he’s decided to restore the family honor on his own terms after finding out about his parents’ past. Which is great. We have Alec’s motivation. But in the episode itself where he proposed everything was set up for him to follow his heart. That was the theme of the episode and Alec through the entire thing kept agreeing with Magnus and whoever else was telling him to do what he wants. Only for him to turn around simingly out of nowhere in the literal last minute of the episode and decide to get married. Dont get me wrong, I dont have a problem with him NOT choosing to follow his heart given the situation but there wasnt enough focus on his struggle between the two during the episode in order to make his last-minute turn seem less weird. And that doesnt even cover Lydia’s side of thngs. Why did she decide to get married to a literal stranger after meeting him like yesterday? And this is not an exxageration - Alec proposes literally 2 or 3 days max after Lydia shows up. Is she that desperate to run an institute? Wouldnt she be allowed to have the position if she’s not married? Why does it even matter - doesnt it make more sense to give her the position based on her skills and results on the job? We dont know. But these are the sort of worldbuilding questions you might want to answer.

This is just one example of how things are going way too fast and there’s not enough time given to explain the characters and universe properly. There are more but if I keep going, we’ll be here tomorrow too. I’m not even gonna bother to cover all the scenes that just flat out do not make sense cause then we’ll never leave.

The other thing bothers me even more - there are sooo many things we are TOLD but never really SHOWN - Alec has been in love with Jace for I dont know how many years, Alec is repressed, the SH society is homophobic (admittedly we are not told this in canon, I dont believe? but that is at least the implication made), Magnus is in love with Alec and Alec feels the same, Magnus is a centuries-old warlock, one of the most powerful people in the world, Ragnor is even more powerful, etc etc. But. Where is the evidence? If Alec has spent so long being in love with Jace and repressed, wouldnt it have been more difficult for Magnus to get him to agree to a date than one half-assed phone call? Wouldnt Alec be struggling even more with accepting that Magnus is interested and panicking about what to do, denying everything with all his might? Shouldnt there be more struggle here?

So far I havent seen any signs of anyone in the Institute being homophobic. Maybe that changes in s02 but so far? Nope. Even Alec’s parents whom fandom for some reason has decided to demonize as some kind of terrible scumbags are not homophobic and actually hella decent people all things considered. Lydia is not homophobic. The goddamn Silent Brother seemed more interested in the kissing scene than anything else.

Warlocks are supposed to be hella powerful yet Magnus needed Alec’s help to fight off ONE circle member and Ragnor got killed by a TINY demon thingy that even Clary can handle. We were told Magnus cares so much about that necklace he’d risk his life to get it back yet 5mins later just casually gives it away to Izzy and doesnt mention it again. 

Clary and co LOVE to make these passionate speeches about how they’re the new generation of shadowhunters who respect the downworlders and believe everyone is their equal and the Clave is wrong - yet the moment a downworlder refuses to help them, they have no problem blackmailing, focing, lying and going behind their back to get what they want. And this is admittedly not a bad thing to show that these people despite their good intentions cant just change over night, if the narrative at least acknowledged their hypocrisy as a sign they need to grow some more but it doesnt.

Again, I an keep going but I wont. And finally there’s Malec. By all accounts I think this is the thng that disaapointed me the most. It could have been so awesome if developed properly! Like again we have a great set up - two people from opposite sides of the war, leaders to their respective groups, meeting and falling in love against all odds - it’s basically every enemies to friends to lovers fic ever and it’s AWESOME. Except not really because the way they play it in canon is just what even? So they meet and Magnus is obviously sexually attracted to Alec and wants to pursue that. Cool. Alec is... feeling whatever it is he’s feeling, I honestly cant even tell if he was interested from the start or just happy someone was paying attention to him. I suppose that stuttering scene when Magnus introduces himself is supposed to show he’s interested. Or something. Then Magnus calls to ask him on a date which yay, makes sense with how eager he was when they met. And then Alec agrees. And this is where things start going wonky for me.  Why does he agree so easily? Isnt he supposed to be in love with Jace? Isnt he supposed to be terrified of anyone finding out he’s gay? Next scene after they heal Luke, Magnus goes you’ve unlocked something in me and I go was it your dick? Because this line for all its romantic vibe and whatnot in the context we’ve been presented so far makes no sense. Because now the show wants me to believe that Magnus fell in love at first sight. Except this is not how they played it - what I saw was Magnus being really fricking horny. I did not see any grand revelations of omg, I just fell in love for the first time in over a century with this hot piece of shadowhunting ass I just met. Now I’m supposed to believe Malec has had enough development and enough scenes together to warrant such a strong emotional reaction from Magnus two episode after meeting Alec and after like 2? 3? scenes interacting with him. Insert the sure jan gif here.

Fast forward to the wedding - awesome scene really. Kiss and all (such a hot kiss and I ask why arent they kissing like that in s02 instead of these we’ve been married for 50years and cant wait for one of us to die already pecks?). But again, it only works if you ignore the context and take it as a stand alone scene. Because otherwise the emotional depth that it’s supposed to have? Goes out the window to stand besides all the emotional and mental development that was needed between them in order to make the scene really work and resonate on a deep level. And dont even get me started on how wrong Magnus acted at the beginning of the episode.

I can buy - at a push, a big big BIG push - that Magnus fell in love from the start but I absolutely do not believe Alec did as well. Honestly, I dont believe he loves Magnus even now in s02 (I havent watched it yet but I have enough context about some of their key scenes to say this, there is no way I man in love would tell his boyfriend not to take a treath to his life PERSONALLY, amongst other things). And that is just sad. Because this could have been a great love story, all the fire and passion and fireworkd like we keep getting told there is but what we see is something different.

[stitchedhart]

A Sunday in my Life

For the past months since that unfateful day of losing my better half, ive evaded all the things that are sweet and cheesy. Never touched my kindle reader, i just confined myself to feasting my eyes with dragons, gladiators, vampires, werewolves, gods, dungeons and lotsa crime movies. My choice of books are far from unicorns, flowers and rainbow themes, rather im picking up Dan Brown, John Grisham, or George Martin. I even bought a Stephen King (the first in my stock of books). FYI, none of which was finished yet. Point here is, its hard to go back to the usual life i had before April 24.

My life had a complete 360° turn 16 months ago. I cant go back to the old normal life, i cant wear the same shoes and i cant walk the same path. Not that i don't wanna remember the good things, but because i don't wanna jump in a sea of memories where i would be catching up my breath. For i might not be able to float back on the surface and continue life.

Up to now i havent read any book from my favorite romance author but i still buy her latest releases over amazon..its just that after the purchase, it sleeps in my kindle. 😉

Though people around me seemed to have moved on already, my feelings somehow havent yet. I still miss him. I know some people and friends may say that im becoming overly melodramatic, but i dont care. They cant judge me..no one can judge my feelings. I still believe that you can never tell/describe the intensity of pain until you exeprience it first-hand.

Today, i unexpectedly meet my hubby's first degree cousin on my way back home. I was trying to take a snap of snoopy and peanuts in Snoopy's World when our eyes met. Its our first time to see each other. We weren't even introduced properly before when i became an official family member. We only became friends thru facebook. But when we saw each other we were like long time friends already. As expected we talked about my late husband, how good and close he was to them. All the good things they knew about him. I was in a brim of shedding tears but i tried not to (hubby hates crying everytime). We shared random stories while waiting for her friends then we striked a pose for a photo souvenir and we parted ways.

On the way home, my heart constricted and i felt a pang of sadness. My mobile phone buzz and then i saw my daughter's photo message. It was them visiting the grave of their Pa. I know in my heart of hearts that they miss their father too. It added up to the sadness that ive felt. They're too young to be fatherless.

I just pray to God that they will grow up to be good people, just like their father wanted them to be.

Anyhow, today is a Sunday well spent. I was able to hear the mass, have met a friend, taken a few snaps of the clouds, i had my usual cup of coffee and shared a few laughs with my high school classmates on that little chatroom we created online.

Im still a lucky woman! To God be the glory!

[creekycoffee]

@scenikeight I'm just going to copy it onto here. Because I know I'll lose the link. Thank you so much for the comic recs. X-MEN Because the X-Men have been around for so. so fucking long. theres like a billion series. so I'm just gonna tell you to skip "The Original X-Men era" and go straight to X-Men: First Class. FC is a series of standalones that follows the original X-Men. You're already familiar with the X-Men so you don't need to start at the start for characters anyway, but FC will help to establish these characters in the comics universe for you. It's from the mid 2000s I think. If you want stories that introduce extra characters like Gambit and explain stuff like The Phoenix, read Chris Clairemont's Uncanny X-Men series. It's from the 70s-90s, I think. Theres like a million issues but it's worth reading (and it helps to piss you off in regards to movie interpretation lol). Also I think Wolverine was introduced here. Go from the Uncanny X-Men to the New Mutants books from the 90s (i think from the 90s.) Like the title says, there's new mutants. lots of em. this is where Deadpool is from. (ill get back to that) From there, you might want to go into solo series of the actual X-Men. I don't know that much about the older ones...i really only know about a few wolverine books like Wolverines which is a more current one Astonishing X-Men is another really good book, I think from the mid 2000s. Unlike most other comics in that time period it wasnt a part of any fucking crossover events which makes it MUCH easier to read. Theyre launching X-Men Gold/Blue and a few solo series this year which I'd keep your eye out for too. ...I really dont know that much about the X-Men comics to recommend anything else, all I know is that there's A TONNE of books about the mutants being wiped out. it's like every second story. House of M is one of these I think???? it's pretty well regarded I'd read that...but it's part of the Civil War II storyline i think so you might be a bit lost. I hate american comics so much fdkjhdfjk DEADPOOL OKAY here's where we get into shit i know heaps about. hes only been around for 25 years so it makes it much easier to find books. but dont let this fool you. these books are evil. in the space of a quarter century the character has been fucked so hard by the writers im not even sure if he has a characterisation anymore. nobody can make up their mind on who he is. god its hard to follow New Mutants #95 (i THINK, you might wanna check the number) is his first introduction and it's part of the Deadpool v1 collection. I don't...love...v1, I don't think anyone does...but you sort of should read it. Start at this issue, even if you don't read the rest of the New Mutants, then read the Circle Chase and Sins of the Past miniseries (in that order). These books don't establish..much..in the way of character but they do help to explain other shit from this era. The movie is partially based on this version. Deadpool v2 is the first actual SERIES and definitely better than v1, although it's pretty big. I haven't read all that much of it but it's a nicer interpretation than v1's DP is. Skippable, though. The movie is also partially based on this. Cable & Deadpool is the first series I can properly recommend for establishment. The writers have realised Wade's character by this point and his relationship with Cable and the rest of the X-Force is set up in this book pretty well. It's actually a good read although it can be fucking confusing at times. I'm pretty sure it has ties to v1, not v2, though, which is why you should read v1. it also has ties, i believe, to the civil war event. i didn't have any trouble reading it although i didnt bother with the civil war event so idk v3 is one of the most beloved interpretations of the character. I don't like it personally but the art is nice and it introduces the boxes (the voices in his head) which is cool. If you like the humour in the game you'll like this, its written by the same person. It's not my style but people like it for a reason. If you don't want to read it you can get info on this version of him from the game and skip it. I haven't read that much past this in terms of major series, but I'd recommend series like The Mercs for Money off of what I've heard about them. X-Force is probably a good bet too, although it doesn't focus on him he's a reoccuring character. Overall I think the latest series, the current one (and the one before it) is the best one to read. It has a few spinoff books too, like Mrs Deadpool and the Howling Commandos, which arent required reading but are still pretty fun series. For mini series, read the three Deadpool Kills... books. I think the order is Deadpool Killustrated, Deadpool Kills...The Marvel Universe, and then Deadpool Kills...Deadpool. For the last one you might want to read the Prelude To/Deadpool Corps series (even though they aren't that good and the art is revolting in some places.) You can skip it but if you like the corps concept you'll probably not hate the books. Cable & Deadpool: Split Second Infinite is a book I've been MEANING to read that I also recommend from word of mouth. It came out last year I think? Not necessarily tied to the original series. Spiderman and Deadpool. Holy shit Spiderman and Deadpool is a fucking good book. Its been going for like a year now and there's filler issues sometimes but it's definitely a good read. Read Spiderman and Deadpool. You don't really need any info on these versions of the characters, you'll pick it up as you go along. AVENGERS full disclaimer. i am not well versed in the avengers. what i DO know, however, is that the avengers are really fucking different in the comics than in the mcu. the mcu lied to you. Same deal with the X-Men, don't bother with the original series. There's too fucking many of them. If you didn't know already though, the great majority of current avengers books are fucking tie in series with other shit like the fourteen hundred civil war events theres been. god i hate the civil war events. it makes reading them ridiculously hard. i'm gonna recommend the 2012 onwards avengers/new avengers series. they lead into, yet, another, event...but you're probably going to want to read the event that follows onto it as part of the deadpool canon anyway bc it was part of the series before the current one i think. who knows. comics are hard. the series is pretty dark so you'll probably enjoy it. just be warned its hard to read, don't start reading comics with these series. i cant really recommend any other ones bc i know so little about them im afraid SPIDERMAN spiderman is fucking popular. therefore there are actually a billion spiderman books. everyone loves spiderman. god i fucking dont because there are so many books. like so many. its ridiculous how many books there are. its pretty hard to pinpoint..where...to...start but im going to say, start at The Death of Gwen Stacy. its an earlier one, i believe, but it's pretty fucking paramount to everything spiderman. read the books written by todd mcfarlane. how many arre there? god i dont fucking know. mans a living legend. just read them read them all. Amazing Spiderman Vol 1-4. this is everything else paramount to everything spiderman. its about him and mj, aunt may learning that hes spidey and all that good stuff. good book. dont pass on this book. Marvel Knights Spiderman. not overly familiar with the whole series but its good super good characterisation. Superior Spiderman. a series i havent read personally but I'm pretty sure it sets up the whole current spidey and parker industries stuff. spoiler hes like a young tony stark now. i guess. and thats my awful guide on the things you asked for. id find reading guides on reddit and stuff for further information.