#doing these to figure out a consistent art style and none of them being exactly the same style ohh ur done. ur as in me. im done

[6okuto]

KACHOW!! @lees-chaotic-brain and samu ^____^

[stagkingswife]

@bau-gremlin, I hope it’s okay that I respond like this, my thoughts are a little too long winded for a standard reply….

I do want to preface this by saying, neither tarot, nor pendulum are my preferred methods of divination, and while I have used them in the past I don’t really use them that much anymore, and I rely more heavily on other methods of communication and divination in my personal practice.

General Divination Tips:

My general advice in regards to divination is to not worry to much about “shoulds” and to focus instead on your actual experience with the tool. Don’t worry about if you should cleanse the tool, if you should go through elaborate bonding rituals, if you should store it one way or the other, none of that really matters when it comes to learning a divination tool. You’ll figure out your own ideas and practices for all of that stuff as you practice and develop your understanding of the tool. What I do think is worth focusing on when you start learn a divination method is consistency and nuance.

You will be the one interpreting all of the divination you do, so you’re free to understand any particular card, rune, or pendulum motion however you want, but you have to be consistent. If you decide that, say, The Tower tarot is less the indicator of impending disaster that it is popularly portrayed as, and more an indicator of rapid change that’s your prerogative. But if you’re wishy-washy about it and go back and forth on what you think The Tower means you’re likely to end up confusing yourself. It’s perfectly natural to have your understanding of things grow, deepen, and change, but as you develop more understanding of your preferred methods you have to be careful, in my opinion, to not fall back on old habits and understandings.

It’s also important to keep the situations and contexts that you’re divining about in mind. No divination or reading happens in a vacuum, no single card is an island, the best diviners remember that and link each aspect of the reading not just to other aspects of the reading, but to the context around them. This may be something that needs a bit of practice, or it may come naturally to you. Either way being able to approach your divination as part of a holistic solution or view into a matter will help you keep the nuance of a situation. In my experience nothing in magic or spirit work is black and white, or two dimensional, keeping that in mind will help you add depth to your readings.

Tarot Tips:

Don’t worry about memorizing card meanings - I’ve been using tarot for almost 20 years and I haven’t memorized anything. Instead try to become familiar with the symbolism of your deck and use the imagery for broad understandings, and the guide book for details.

Some decks have strong personalities - I personally ascribe this to each deck having its own spirit - I’m an animist, everything has a spirit. But that personality may also come from the different art styles and chosen symbolism, and how you as a reader react to that. Some decks may be nice and gentle with their style of communication, others may be a bit spicy.

Tarot doesn’t necessarily predict a garunteed future, as it is often depicted to do. When used to interpret the future it is giving suggestions of what *may* be, what *could* be, not what *will* be. No divination method has a a 100% prediction success rate, so don’t expect exactly what you read to happen. I recommend looking for similarities, themes, and symbolism that line up.

Pendulum Tips:

A pendulum is great for quick divination sessions, but unless you set up some letters or a board it’s primarily a system of “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” There is a lot less nuance I find with a pendulum than with other methods of divination, they don’t really have the capacity for “Yes, but…” or “No, because” type answers. Asking complex questions with a pendulum can take a long time, and those questions, as well as longer form communication may be better suited for a different method.

To build on that, it’s best, in my opinion, to establish what movements mean what answers at the beginning of every session. Start the pendulum swinging and ask it to show you a “yes,” and then pay attention to how the pendulum swings. Do the same for “no.” You can do the same for “maybe,” or I usually interpret anything that is sort of like a “yes” movement but also sort of like a “no” movement as “maybe.”

Be aware of the ideomotor response - this is a psychological phenomenon that causes the human body to make micro-movements unconsciously. It’s the effect that makes Ouija boards/spirit boards work, and it is in effect with pendulums too. Decide how those micro-movements of your might play into your understanding of how the pendulum works, or remove them from the equation entirely by hanging your pendulum from a stand. (It’s very easy to make a pendulum stand from a large glass or jar, a pencil/stick, and your pendulum string or chain.)

I’m going to plug @archives-discord here, as there are so many resources on divination in that server for your reading pleasure, check out the channels on general divination, tarot, and pendulum for e-books on the subject.

[meruz]

Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? 

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha. 

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

<33333333333333333333333333

[scribeofred]

Thanks to @onereyofstarlight for the tag!

 1. What fandoms have you written for?

This is embarrassing but I actually had to look at both FFnet and AO3 because I couldn’t remember all of them. TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Sherlock, Final Fantasy VII and XV and Kingsglaive, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Merlin, Skyrim, and, of course, Thunderbirds. I have a couple other fandoms that crop up in various wips, including a Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover that I really should finish.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

FFnet has 45, and AO3 has 41. There’s also a couple stories lurking on tumblr, notably a final chapter for Reflection.

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on A03 &/or Favs on FFNet?

AO3 dominates in this area, if I can use a word like “dominates” for stories that have less than 125 kudos each haha. Oh well, the numbers don’t matter!

1.     118 kudos on tell the shades apart (my world is black and white)

2.     94 kudos on Reflection

3.     91 kudos on The 43rd Hour

4. Which 3 fics have the least kudos & Favs?

Again on AO3:

1 kudos on I Am You (And You Are Me)

5 kudos on The Dragonborn Chronicles

6 kudos on cynosure

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

Reflection has the most at 29 threads, and I Am You (And You Are Me) has the least at zero.

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

Lodestar, definitely. Sure, it’s for something of a rarepair, but they aren’t that rare, and I just really really like the way the story came together. On the other hand, of course my unfinished Merlin fic has gotten probably the most attention, because that’s just the way it goes, eh?

7. Have you written any crossovers?

None that I’ve published! I have various crossovers lurking in mostly unfinished states, including the aforementioned Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover, and an Assassin’s Creed/Thundeerbirds crossover that is very good and I should also finish. There’s an Expanse/Thunderbirds fic lurking in my brain that I may or may not ever commit to paper, who knows. I’ve also very vaguely toyed with a Batman/Thunderbirds crossover, in the sense that “nebulous” is too strong a word for the kind of toying I’ve been doing.

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

I don’t really write crazy or crack or humor in general, so probably the closest thing to “crazy” is On the Lam, which was the result of wanting to throw Scott and Penelope toward an Egyptian stud farm. It ended up being the host for a bad joke about that, courtesy of one @thebaconsandwichofregret, who consistently gives some of the best dialogue advice I’ve ever encountered.

Actually, the true answer is probably a chapter in Glimpses into a Supernova, maybe the one about blood? It seems bonkers when I think back on it now, but I admittedly haven’t read it in many years. Possibly I am misremembering. Glimpses has some weird ones, though.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

It’s a tossup between The Painting and a place where the water touches the sky. The former deals with a prior off-screen death; the latter is (maybe??) an on-screen death. People seemed upset by it, at any rate. I said it was ambiguous!

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

“Happy” is probably a matter of perspective? Depends on the overall reading experience and the ending within that context. Either septet or Three Towels and a Tracy, they’re both pretty fluffy overall.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

protoinstincts, which I completely forgot I wrote and then rediscovered like a year later and realized “hey, this is actually pretty good” and you know what, despite it not being overly spicy, it is pretty good.

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, per se, but someone left a review on Less Than Nothing saying they “didn’t like” that I “wrote the story as a series of drabbles.” Cool, I didn’t write the story for you, random guest reader, and the back button exists, friend 😂 It didn’t bother me on a personal level because I wrote the fic for an audience of one (incidentally, not myself and rather the recipient of a secret santa event), but I was mad because the reviewer had no way of knowing where I was at as a writer, and I know from longtime observation how that kind of comment can crush less experienced or confident writers.

Don’t leave flames, kids, you don’t understand the power your words have. Don’t like, don’t read.

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

The nicest? Goodness. Hmm. I’d have to go hunting to find the nicest, but in recent memory, @ayzrules sent me a couple passages from Spanish texts she’s been studying that reminded her of my writing, and I was honestly so touched by the fact that she even thought to make such comparisons, much less mention them to me. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s style until you can make comparisons between it and someone else’s work is so much more meaningful to me personally than a basic “Nice story!” or “Loved this!�� type of comment ever could be. <3 Ayz <3

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve never gone looking on any sort of copycat site or whatever either.

15. How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Two. First is The Dragonborn Chronicles, which is a retelling of Skyrim from Lydia’s perspective via her journal, to complement the in-game journal. It’s a slog of a style to write, though, even for someone who loves writing first person and doesn’t really want to write a lot of dialogue, and the outline is huge, and the story will be many times more huge, and just. Some day. Some day.

Second is tell the shades apart (my world is black and white), which has always been unfinished because the outline itself is over seven thousand words and the fully written story would undoubtedly land between 100,000 and 200,000 words, and there’s no way I’m writing that. I’ve always meant to upload the outline, but I got kind of self-conscious about the way I formatted it, and ugh I just haven’t bothered. One day, one day, right?

Moral of the story is I’m intensely a short story writer, and I’ve really found myself settling into that role over the last couple years. Better a clipped, punchy short story than a bloated slog of an epic.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Literally no one knows that. I wrote 95% of the observable entropy of a closed system over five years ago, and then I proceeded to pull it out roughly once a year and write and rewrite various endings until last month, which was when I finally figured out how I wanted to end the story. septet, too, languished for about five years before I finally remembered it existed and managed to wrangle an ending. Endings are hard, man. So are those third plot points. Terrible creatures, those, bog me down every time.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Uh... mm. See. If I were looking forward to finishing any of them, I’d be actively working on them. At this moment, writing fic isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities, but I am also coming off a four-day idle game bender, so I still feel like I haven’t quite reengaged with myself as a living person. Give me another few days and I might have an answer.

(I am always most looking forward to finishing this ridiculous Ignis-drives-the-Audi-R8 fic that’s been languishing in my wips for literal years. As mentioned above, third plot points. Killer, man.)

(oh and also the working-titled the art of murder. Scott and Penny attend a private art auction. Things don’t go to plan. It, too, is stuck at the third plot point. I know, I know I have a problem, shush.)

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Any wip has the potential to be revived—this year and the old wips I’ve unearthed, dusted off, finished, and posted have been proof of that. I don’t intentionally permanently abandon anything for that reason, some stories just probably will remain dusty old wips forever because I didn’t actually need or want to write the full story for one reason or another.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Now that’s an interesting question. Hmm! Honestly? None of them. Once I finish a story, I’m not inclined toward rereading it again any time soon, to the point of years in some cases, and I feel like I’ve moved on from the stories I wrote one, two, five, eight years ago in the actual writing sense. They’re finished stories, and on top of that are relics of their time, which doesn’t mean the stories don’t have any ongoing significance on a reading level—I just don’t have any interest in rewriting those particular stories. I’ve gotten them out of my head, to the point of not remembering at least a third of them on demand anymore, and I don’t have any desire to “retell” those exact stories. I do tend to tighten the wording and fix perceived errors/weaknesses whenever I do end up rereading an old story, and I usually silently update the AO3 version if I make any significant changes because AO3 makes it a breeze to update a posted fic. I might do FFnet too if I’m feeling up to it or have the time.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Once upon a time I would’ve said Holding On, but I honestly find it kind of unbearably melodramatic now. the observable entropy of a closed system is equally melodramatic, as it was written in the same era, but at least it has the excuse of being told in second person and via a style that is a half step away from being poetry. Possibly I will reread it in a few years and find it equally obnoxious and overly dramatic, but it received some shockingly positive comments, which I wasn’t expecting at ALL, and I’ve been honestly blown away by the amount of praise it’s received. <3 to everyone who’s said anything about it!

21. What’s your total published word count?

141,000 on AO3, 160,000 on FFnet, but technically the light of my life SS wrote fifty thousand words of each. It’s too late for math.

 I tag @velkynkarma, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @writtenbyrain, @thebaconsandwichofregret, and anyone else who wants to play!

[sun-daddy-yoriichi]

Kimetsu no Yaiba Role - Reverse AU : Pillar Version

I’m not planning on this being long as all hell but let’s see if it gets out of hand or not :)

Sun Pillar : Yoriichi Tsugikuni

I ALMOST WASN’T GONNA INCLUDE HIM BUT I HAD TO-

My entire account is named after his come on have more faith in me.

Okay but I feel like the twins would get a lot of outside attention

Not because they’re Demon Slayers but because they’re hot as fuck

But that could also just be me

Nobody knows how or when Yoriichi learned Sun Breathing. It hasn’t been used in hundreds of years, and it’s supposed to be incredibly difficult to master, and he’s like twenty-five being able to wield it with complete ease.

Michikatsu thinks his brother is the most annoying thing ever

They spar constantly

Yoriichi thinks that Nezuko and Tanjirou are the cutest things ever, and Nezuko knowing what Dance of the Fire God is, is really only a huge plus.

The twins fight over who gets Nezuko as a tsuguko constantly.

Moon Pillar : Michikatsu Tsugikuni

Everyone’s favourite motherfucker y'know-

Jk we love him

His Moon Breathing is not like his Blood Demon Art at all, really. His Blood Demon Art was a corrupt form of his Breath Style. In actuality, his Breath Style is much finer and more graceful.

If I’ll be honest, his breath style is actually quite beautiful.

Like Breath of the Sun, his Breath of the Moon almost looks like a dance.

Michikatsu and Yoriichi fighting together is a sight to behold, and a force to be reckoned with.

If only Michikatsu could stand to be in the same room as his brother for more than five seconds at a time.

When he goes on missions, he tries to keep it as low-key as possible. He hates having people looking at him

And he’s not the type of person to fail on his missions at all. Which is why it was so surprising for the others to figure out that he had let the Kamado children go.

Mostly because Tanjirou reminded him a lot of Yoriichi, so he couldn’t help himself from sparing them both.

Ice Pillar : Douma

Another favourite, surprisingly. A lot of people like Douma and it’s very confusing.

Other than Rui, he's one of the youngest Pillars (16).

Of course he still uses his fans rather than a Nichirin blade. And effectively, too.

Douma is one of the fastest Pillars out of them, aside from maybe Yoriichi and Michikatsu.

Obviously, Ice Breathing is descended from Water Breathing. Rather than flowing attacks, however, most of them have more strength added to them, in order to pack quite a punch.

He’s a bastard and we all know it.

Usually, Douma is given missions that are difficult even for a Pillar’s standards, but still out of the way of civilisation.

Because his breath technique is DESTRUCTIVE.

He’s basically the same as his demon counterpart, except he doesn’t eat humans.

But he’s still a damn sociopath

We all love him though

Soryu Pillar : Akaza

Haha I didn’t know what else to put for him-

His fighting style is strongly based around the Soryu Style he was taught before he became a Demon Slayer. He ends up using hand-to-hand combat a lot more than he uses his Nichirin blade.

Which means he rarely has to commission a new blade if his breaks, because he only uses it slay the demon near the very end of their fight. Nothing more.

He’s a very respectful opponent. Unlike other Demon Slayers, he won’t goad or insult his opponent. He doesn’t hate demons, like some Pillars do.

Because his fianceé was turned into a demon, and he would want to respect her if he ever ran into her during one of his missions.

Thus, all of his missions are ended quickly, and with great respect. Any demon that’s run into him and lived to tell the tale always holds him in such high regards (for a Demon Slayer, at least).

His main job is to keep Douma and Enmu in check, though.

Urami Pillar : Hantengu

Can you tell that I have no inspiration for some of these names

Urami means 'resentment' which makes sense for Hantengu since he hates demons for killing his family and deforming his face.

Despite visiting several doctors, the appearance of the pair of horns on his head remains a mystery.

Some Demon Slayers think he's got demon blood in him, but nothing has been confirmed.

He doesn't have a designated Breath style at all.

Rather, you could call his technique 'Universal Breathing'. If he's had enough training with a certain Breath style, he can use it. Which means he can basically learn all of them if he wants.

He's mastered two : Wind and Flame. He knows bits and pieces of others, but usually wimps out before he can continue training.

His sword gets broken a lot for no reason at all. His swordsmith hates his guts, but always pulls through with a new blade.

His crow is old and cranky, but they get along just fine.

Water Pillar : Gyokko

I mean that’s basically what he is-

He's fabulous

And he'll make sure everyone knows it right after they meet him.

(Nezuko lowkey hates him)

Most of the time, he's not given as many missions as his teammates. He's left to his own devices.

Which means that his territory to patrol - perhaps just around the capitol - is very well protected.

His tsuguko, Sabito, is cute as all hell, but will kick your ass if he needs to. He looks up to Gyokko, and thinks really highly of him.

Most of the other Pillars think there's something wrong with Sabito-

But he's a strong Demon Slayer, so they don't question Gyokko's teaching methods.

Blood Pillar : Gyuutarou

Irritable as all hell

But he loves his sister and would do anything for her.

Rather than use swords, he uses sickles

Yes yes very dramatic thank you Gyuutarou-

He gets cold easily (being so skinny and all), so he stays bundled up often

Daki gets mad at him if he’s not careful, so they often get into fights with one another

Which ends up with Akaza pulling them apart and putting them in time-out

Missions that he’s sent on are often ended quickly and precisely. He’s usually paired up with Rui or Daki, since both of those two Pillars are incredibly good at long-ranged combat, while Gyuutarou is more adept at short/mid-ranged combat

Blood Breathing is derived from Water Breathing, but Gyuutarou also equips the use of the poison that Daki makes in order to get the upper hand on his opponents.

He’s had a tsugukos before, but his training was so harsh that they quit on him. He hasn’t taken another one after that.

Silk Pillar : Daki

Designated medic in the Demon Slayer Corps.

She’s very skilled at not only making antidotes but making poisons out of wisteria. Other Pillars, like Enmu and Gyuutarou, use them in combat. She’s just making them to pass the time.

Rather than use a blade, she uses special sillks made specially from Crimson Iron Sand and Rui’s spider silk. They’re soft and heat-insulated, and Daki wears them over her Demon Slayer uniform.

However, much like Rui’s spider threads, she can manipulate them with ease, allowing them to become as sharp as a blade.

Honest to God nobody knows how she and Rui do it. Perhaps it’s brute, strength, or their Breathing techniques.

Either way, it’s quite a new experience to be on the receiving end of her silks. Daki is fast, and agile. She can get from one point to another in a matter of seconds. The only person faster from her at all is Douma, and even then it’s by seconds at a time, maybe not even that.

Daki doesn’t care to sympathise with demons. She’s never thought of it. Usually, her missions consist of her yelling insults at her target while she battles them.

Biwa Pillar : Nakime

Pretty girl pretty girl

With two eyes this time

She doesn’t often use a sword at all. She has one, but it’s only used for worst-case scenarios.

And when you are Nakime, you don’t get to the point where you can consider something a ‘worst-case scenario’.

Her Biwa is her main weapon, and she has the special ability to create music that harms demons.

The strings are crafted specially from spider silk (courtesy of Rui) and Scarlet Crimson Ore, but they’re also infused with Wisteria incense (courtesy of Enmu) in order to ward demons off.

She’s a master at her craft, and at her best, she is a force to he reckoned with.

She is often paired up with other Pillars on difficult missions, or if there’s more than one Demon in a certain area. Nakime’s music travels a lot farther than a sword does, after all. But a demon has to be within fifty feet of her to actually die from it.

She doesn’t exactly use a Breathing technique for her Biwa. But her base Breathing technique is Water Breathing, so she practices using her sword often so her skills stay sharp.

Dream Pillar : Enmu

I’ll start this off by saying that no, it’s not quite the same as his original Blood Demon Art. But it does use illusion in order to confuse his target.

Enmu is, to say the least, a sadist.

(Nobody likes him)

He toys with his prey and usually ends up taking a long time in order to complete a single mission because he loses track of time.

The Corps wouldn’t like that if they ever found out, but it’s not like they can just stop him.

However, his technique is extremely effective if they ever have the opportunity to gain information from a demon with a high rank.

Which is probably the only time the Corps would let him do as he pleases.

He doesn’t really have a reason for joining the Demon Slayer Corps. He had no family or loves ones to worry about, and he was good at killing demons. What more could he say?

(That’s probably even more depressing than his family dying or smth)

His Dream Breathing is descended from Flame Breathing, because honestly anything destructive is a plus to Enmu.

He uses a Nichirin blade, but he also uses poison on occasion. Not the type that Shinobu uses to kill them, since that’s not the kind of person he is. He uses hallucinogens to make his Breath style more effective.

Spider Pillar : Rui

A surprising amount of people like him, but I can’t say I don’t know why.

Rui’s one goal when he became a Demon Slayer was simple : protect his family.

None of them are actually blood related, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t fight tooth and nail in order to protect his siblings.

It’s not fake like it would be if he were a demon. Rui deeply cares for those that he sees as his family.

His Spider Breathing is descended from Wind Breathing, and is very unpredictable.

Rather than use a traditional Nichirin blade, Rui opted for a more experimental approach : threads.

To the touch, it’s fine and hard to miss. But when he uses it in battle, alongside his Breath Style, it’s hard as diamonds. And Rui controls is expertly, though there’s not really any way to just cut a demon’s head off.

He usually ends up slicing them into tiny bits and pieces, but that does the job as well.

Listen

CAN and WILL adopt any lone child that he sees

That's all for him lmao

Demon Slayer Corps Leader : Muzan Kibutsuji

He's So Done with everything and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Bedridden or not, he’ll beat someone’s ass. On more than one occasion, he’s somehow chased after Daki and Gyuutarou for fighting.

But don’t worry, he’s a very good leader. He’s just temperamental at times, is all.

However, he is a strategic genius. He does everything for a reason. Nothing is done without purpose.

He does know how to wield a sword, but he can’t do it often. His body wouldn’t be able to sustain that kind of physical strain.

The Pillars are incredibly protective of him. They respect him deeply, even if he can be quite stingy and a little aggressive at times. It’s just how he is. He’s never angry just to be angry.

Despises demons. They’re the reason that his body is as weak as it is, so he can’t help but hate them for everything they’ve done.

[bush-viper-cutie]

Pretending

Pairing: Snape x fem!reader

Word Count: 2,223

Rating: E for Everyone

Plot:  Severus is forced to attend Lucius’ party. The plan is simple, get rejected enough times, have Lucius think he’s a helpless cause, and go back to Hogwarts to continue reading his book. 

Warnings: None

A/N: For Snape Appreciation Month, prompt 9: Snape is a pureblood. @snapeloveposts​

Posted: 6/20/20

Masterlist

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Severus tried twisting his arm out of Lucius’ grip as he was dragged down the Malfoy Manor entrance hall and through two rococo style double doors into their dancing hall. A live band played in the center as dozens of families gathered and talked or danced around the room.

“You’ve come all this way, so just go talk to people!” Luscious let go of his hand and straightened his coat. “If you haven’t found someone to share your life with – ”

Severus groaned.

“So help me I will set you up with Narcissa’s great aunt!” Lucius stormed away.

Severus scoffed and dusted off his sleeve. “Why did I agree to go to this. I’m perfectly fine reading in my office,” he grumbled.

He would have to make a show of looking. He knew that by the way Lucius was staring him down from across the room. The plan was simple. He would just have to talk to people that would NEVER give him a second of their time, and after a couple of rejections he would see it was pointless and he could be back in his office reading before the clock chimed at twelve.

He glanced at several dancing figured and then at the small groups of people talking and laughing. He spotted several targets of interest. He walked up to an elaborately dressed man with lavender purple tails and a matching gem broach and nodded politely.

The man looked him up and down and walked away. He could admit it stung, but not as much as the inconvenience of being here. He looked over at Lucius who was sipping at his wine while observing him and continued onto the next victim.

This time he offered a polite “Hello” but the man simply copied him and turned back to his partner. Alright I didn’t really expect to simply show up and be turned down… he huffed and walked away, turning his sights on a group of women laughing by the band and a less wealthy group on the other side.

He didn’t feel like immediate rejection and figured the less showy group would let him speak at least a few more words but he was sorely mistaken. They closed of any spaces and huddled closer as they saw him approach with intent.

“Lucius, I swear – ” he pinched the bridge of his nose and walked over to the wealthiest looking group, hoping it would be the last rejection of the night before he could walk back defeated and be allowed to leave and spend his Saturday night in peace reading Kybelen’s new book Forbidden Potion Recipes Lost to Time and Law.

This group consisted of several women with sparkly jewels and gems adorning their long-layered gowns. Two more with braided up-dos with exotic feathers while the other two wore their hair down with a glass hair piece reflecting colorful light all around.

He cleared his throat as he approached, and they looked back at him. He noticed their eyes trailing over his attire and could see their eyes rolling. He regretted wearing the outfit Lucius had sent him, even if it was fancy-looking, everyone could tell he didn’t belong in it.

“Hello,” one of the women greeted him in and stepped aside, making room for him to join.

He stepped into the little circle and greeted everyone. Relieved, his mission now was simple. Open his mouth, get rejected, go home, and finish reading before his NEWT class on Monday.

“Evening,” Severus gave a small bow.

“We were discussing Kybelen’s new book,” the girl closest him smiled.

Severus turned to face her, surprised. She had long flowing hair and a glass bow on her head and in her white gloved hands was the very book.

“Indeed,” he breathed out. “What exactly?”

The other woman sighed, “I think those ‘uncovered’ recipes should have stayed buried in ‘time’. It’s absolutely irresponsible to publish them. I mean, what happens if people try to actually brew them? If the Ministry forbids it for our safety, then why tell the world?” she huffed, completely flustered.

Severus turned back to the girl with the book in her hand and saw she was rolling her eyes.

“See, Mr…”

“Snape.”

The group narrowed their eyes at him, as if trying to puzzle together what kind of family name it was, however the woman with the book payed no attention and continued.

“Mr. Snape, I believe it is right and fair we were given back the knowledge that was stolen from us by the Ministry. These recipes were discovered and perfect and then stolen and burned and hidden for fear of Muggles and their hatred of us and our fear of them. I’ve counted over eleven forgotten techniques in this book that could revolutionize how we brew potions today, and I’m not even finished with it yet.”

Another woman, clearly amused by the argument laughed, “Mr. Snape. What, may I ask, is your opinion on this controversial new book?”

Severus cleared his throat, excited to talk about it, “Well, I agree with Miss,” he turned to the glass bow woman.

She smiled, enthused to have someone on her side, “Marigold Demar-Dor.”

“I agree with Miss Demar-Dor. Already several journals have been released theorizing about the possible changes and effects certain potions will have with these new techniques,” he noticed her smiling at him and continued, “And I personally don’t find it wrong to learn and have knowledge of them. Just because we now know them does not mean they should become legal to brew.”

Marigold nodded, “Well said, Mr. Snape. And please, call me Marigold.”

“Severus, then.” He smiled back at her and noticed she stepped closer to him.

“Yes, but what if some Muggle-born or Half-blood decide to try the one to do with giving a muggle temporary magic on a squib, or worse on a Muggle.”

Marigold laughed, “It was never proven and that’s not how magic works. Obviously back then they received some sort of result that made Muggles appear to have magic. I’m sure half the potions we brew now would give similar effects should we feed them to Muggles.”

“The cure for Flame Breath makes Muggles levitate several inches in their sleep but not wizards. The Ministry manages to keep Wizards from giving it to muggles and I see no reason why it should not be the same for these,” Severus smiled back at the look Marigold was giving him.

“Yes, well true Purebloods would not be keen on the thought of that potion circulating society once more.”

“The Demar-Dors haven’t had a drop of Muggle blood in a century and I see no problem with it,” Marigold folded her arms.

“Mr. Snape, what about you?”

Severus swallowed. This was his chance to escape but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin his night just yet. He was glad to hear her thoughts and opinions on a book he knew no one else cared about, and he didn’t mind in the least the smile she gave him.

“My family has been Purebloods for generations, and I too side with Marigold,” he noticed her arm was now brushing against his.

They had clearly won the argument as the opposing woman looked away in anger.

“Severus, will you dance with me?” Marigold looped her arm in his and turned him towards her.

Severus smiled and led them out of the group, taking her copy and placing it in his pocket. He took her hand and placed his other on her waist and began dancing. Marigold slid her free hand from his arm and up to his shoulder.

She smiled at him and played with his hair as they danced. The song changed and slowed, and she took up his invitation at a second dance. She placed her head on his shoulder and twirled alongside him. After the slow dance she took his arm and guided him through the crowd into the entrance hall and out the back glass-paneled doors.

“You dance wonderfully, Severus,” she looped her arm back through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “How do you know Lucius?”

“School friends. We both went to Hogwarts.”

“He’s never mentioned you,” she looked up at him.

He looked away, knowing Lucius wasn’t the type to bring up any Half-blood friends he might have to any of his wealthier, more pure friends.

She kissed his cheek and stepped back, “There’s a fountain in the garden, would you like to find it with me?”

“I know where it is,” Severus held out his elbow, but she took his hand instead, waiting for him to lead.

They walked in the bright moonlight through the rose bushes and he couldn’t help but feel like a prince from a fairytale. The night had turned lovely, but he couldn’t allow himself to feel anything real. He lied about his status and by the time the clock strikes twelve the party would be over, and he would be back at Hogwarts, reading his book.

Marigold pulled him up the steps and sat them down at the fountain’s edge. Almost like a dream, the fountain lights turned on and the pink-tinted water started pouring out. Marigold leaned into him and planted a gentle kiss on his lips.

“Tell me about yourself, Severus,” Marigold kissed his lips one last time before letting him speak.

“I teach potions at Hogwarts.”

Marigold’s eyes lit up instantly, “Potions was my favorite subject! Now I wish I had gone to Hogwarts, although we might not have been in the same year,” she laughed.

Severus smiled and looked away. His guilt was starting to eat at him and began to mix with dread and sadness. She was beautiful and clearly had the same passion for potions as he did, she even carried the book with her much like he had wanted to do.

He felt her soft glove brush his fingers before she placed her hand on his. He turned back and she kissed his lips once more, filling him with warmth and longing. She looked, talked, and acted like a princess and he wanted to treat her like one for more than just one night.

“Any other subjects you enjoyed?”

Marigold blushed and looked away, “I might have enjoyed… the Dark Arts class.”

Perfect. She’s perfect. His heart broke at the inevitable loss he’d endure tonight. He wondered what she was really like, away from Lucius’ house, away from her friends, just on her own, in a more normal setting. Would she like his personality?

They kissed once more and he heard a distant clock chime, marking the end of the day and the start of a new one. She pulled away from him and brushed her thumb on his cheek. He sighed and looked away, staying still even as she stood.

“Severus?”

“Marigold… You should go on. It was nice meeting you,” Severus hung his head and let his hair fall forward. He crossed his arms, resting them over his knees.

She sat back down and placed a hand over his shoulder, “I’d like to see you again.”

Severus rolled his eyes, “No. You wouldn’t. I’m not a – ” his nails dug into his palms as he squeezed his hands into tighter fists. “I’m not a Pureblood,” he hissed. Disgusted at the words coming out of his mouth. “I’m a bloody Half-blood,” he spat on the ground beside him, loathing how he felt. Ashamed.

She placed her hand on his cheek and pulled his attention towards her. He frowned, confused at her continued affection and was about to speak when she kissed him suddenly.

Her lips were warm and sweet, and her nose pressed against his cheek, heating them up to what he knew would be an obvious pink blush. He closed his eyes and leaned into her kiss, parting his lips with hers and placing his hand on her arm.

“You don’t have to pretend to be a Pureblood around me, Severus. Being one doesn’t make you better,” she pulled on his lip with hers and made him smile. “Obviously it doesn’t make you better considering I’ve rejected several Purebloods at this party and yet decided to dance with you.” She tilted her head and pecked at his lips, “You are far more interesting, and far cuter than any man here,” she kissed his cheek and stood up, offering him her hand.

He took it, “Then you still want to see me again?”

“What were you planning on doing after this party?”

Severus felt very on the spot. He didn’t want to assume where her question was leading and yet he didn’t want to lie. If there was ever a time to use Legilimency on anyone he would use it on her now. He held his hand behind his back and fidgeted, trying to decide on an answer.

“I was going to go back to Hogwarts and read the book. Nothing-else,” he winced at how dull he sounded.

“Then, why don’t you come back to mine and read it there,” she wrapped her arms around his neck, “Afterall, I do have a copy,” she stood on her toes and kissed him.

“But if I’m reading… what will you be doing?”

She winked at him and pressed her lips to his. He chuckled and nodded, letting her apparate them away.

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

[takadanobaba]

Jin Norizuki’s Birthday PriZoom 7/18/2021

Oh the things I do for Jin Norizuki

That was SUCH an experience. I had a lot of fun!! 

Main takeaway is that I am now acutely aware of when to YO in a song

(Okay so this is my first time attending a prizoom (or even any kinpri screening outside of Luna’s sss rabbit sessions!) so this is all entirely new to me and I can’t really compare it to much, but I figured that it’d be good to write up a report of sorts to fill in for Luna in a way!)

The prizooms are also accessible to everyone and don’t require any Japanese info confirmation!! If you’re interested in attending please go and support kinpri!!!

(Note: I think about Jin wayyyy too much and interpret them as nonbinary, so I use they/them pronouns for Jin. It’s just automatic for me at this point and feels weird otherwise haha so I’ll be doing that in this)

Jin is my all time favorite character and love of my life who I’m extremely delusional about so when a prizoom was announced for their birthday I went INSANE because I didn’t expect Jin’s birthday to be acknowledged AT ALL given how they’re usually excluded/treated like a side character (+ kinpri’s been putting out little to no content lately anyways....haha....). I was waiting in anticipation ever since it was announced (around June 6th) and even put in a time-off request for my work the day of its announcement just so I could attend!!!! ........ You can imagine my frustration at kinpri waiting until the very last minute to put out details about Jin’s prizoom ^^;

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

Also!! I’m a complete ~ foreigner ~ and managed to get tickets perfectly fine with my American credit card (and putting in some very obviously Not-An-Actual-Resident-Of-Japan address info...)! So if anyone’s curious about attending a prizoom but worried about region-locking, it’s possible! Very possible! If you’re interested in it, please go! You don’t need to have a Japanese phone number/credit card/address/etc. to purchase PriZoom tickets on RakutenTicket! It’s such an experience! If you need any help buying tickets then I’d be more than happy to assist!! Please support the PriZoom screenings and help increase the demand for more kinpri content!!!!!!!!!!!! I will personally become a living prizoom advertisement

(Also if any kinpri staff find this: I’m sorry for not respecting rules this time but I just wanted to provide a detailed account of the prizoom event and encourage participation for other foreign fans! I won’t do this again!!!)

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

I only attended the first and third showings (consisting of the first movie and Over the Sunshine!) because I wanted to see the new/not currently archived content (the second/pride the hero showing’s bonus was just Jin’s birthday video by Joji which I already revisit little too much ahaha). I also went to the chat-only rooms because I wasn’t very confident that I wouldn’t be awkward with my nonexistent cheering experience and intent to just observe what its like (despite knowing that the cheering rooms are more fun based on what Luna said haha). That, and I was planning on using the EXTREMELY OBNOXIOUS soundboard of ABSOLUTE CHAOS for everything since I have issues with voice dysphoria and figured it’d be good to stick to the room with that normalized as the one and only cheering method so participating would be a little less annoying to others, since we’d all have the same idea ^^;

I’m more active on twitter and follow/am mutuals with pretty much anybody who likes Jin enough to post about them, so it was cool seeing almost everyone there! At least half of them tweeted about this being their first prizoom haha. Jin’s birthday was also promoted as a good introduction to prizooms since the first showing was set at a price point of 718 yen instead of the usual 1,760 yen? So, lots of first timers attending! I guess most people had the same thought process as me about the whole insecure-about-not-being-used-to-proper-cheering/using-their-mic thing? Because most of my twitter following ended up in the chat-only rooms with me! Fun!

Also interesting how most people chose the male voice option for the cheering soundboard feature since there’s actually only 2 men who love Jin like that (I’m included in that number!!) in the Jin-obsessed twitter circle. I guess it was because it sounds kinda Joji-ish? and therefore fitting for an event dedicated to Jin! What with them being meant for each other and all.... Plus being Joji is just a fun way to play off having issues about using your own voice (I... project onto Joji a lot.)

👆 👆 👆

Okay I actually typed up all of the above during the second showing (since I wasn’t occupied attending that one) and everyone had the same train of thought and was definitely being Joji. You know that one “song” in Over the Sunshine- Glorious Schwarz- consisting of Joji just going wild infodumping for 3.5 minutes? Yeah EVERYONE who selected the male voice option was spamming 「おれもー！」/ “ME TOO!!!” during that (including me!). So it was like:

“I weighed 4646 grams at birth! ☆” 

“MMMMEMEEMEMMT MEE ME MEEE EMME ME   ME TOO M M ME TOO”

SO OBNOXIOUS. I LOVE IT. EVERYONE SHARING THE SAME BRAINCELL. THE JOJI BRAINCELL.

💙

The highlight of the prizoom  (in my opinion) was when some guy repeatedly hit よっ！/ YO! to the music in the first movie, which then led to everyone having a collective ~ Realization ~ 

After that happened, everybody joined in and started YO!-ing along in the other lives. Beautiful.

(Blurred recording of Dramatic Love and Showcase Night just so YO!u can see what I mean.)

(I only did those two to test screen recording after failing to archive the first Jin bonus while using the soundboard feature in the first showing, initially I didn’t intend to record anything but the bonuses and will not be doing that anymore. If you attend, don’t be like me or worse!!!! Please!! I’ll delete these if needed/after a few weeks. Also just wanted to mention that Koi no Royal Straight Flush is up there in Kinpri’s Most YO!-able songs)

I love this soundboard feature. Sounds like hell. Prizooms are truely a new form of art because of it. Amazing how cheering screenings have evolved over a pandemic. Music feels empty to me without the YO!s now. After this I ended up listening to the entire kinpri discography so I could determine the YO!ability of each song. Not sure if every prizoom is like that? But I really want to go to more showings just for the community experience! I’m morbidly curious as to how many people would try to YO! to Platonic Sword. I considered going to Rei’s because they’re showing Shiny Rose Stars, but I probably won’t though since money and sleep are things (They really should make tickets no more than 1,000 yen.... they’re zoom meetings with audio problems....THE AUDIO ISSUES ARE FUN THOUGH! YOU CAN SPAM “GANBATTE” WITH EVERYONE!!) Plus while I do like every kinpri character, none of the street boys are really my favorites and going to every showing regardless of character would be a lot. I assumed that I was only going to try attending Joji’s until they announced that they were gonna do something for Jin!! So if you want to see what it’s like PLEASE get tickets and experience it for yourself!! It’s so much more fun participating !!!! Relying on 1-2 people to post event summaries isn’t exactly consistent coverage of every prizoom either!

\ よっ！/      \ よっ！/      \ よっ！/

So much of this is a community experience that you just have to see for yourself! It’s really cool seeing people go all out for their favorites and just going wild. Notable participants include:

- Two separate people just working out the entire time (one of them doing “Prism Exercise” meaning very high effort full-body cheering and dancing? It was really impressive seeing them go all-out for such a long time!)

- Two (2!) Ai cosplayers!!! One attending the prizoom with a Jin cosplayer!!

- The lady who cosplayed Jin in their cute green pre-retirement prism star outfit WITH A HUGE JIN PUPPET IN THE SAME STYLE AS THE SHUFFLE PUPPETS IN THE STAGEPLAY!!!

- That one person who just had a Minato fish head on the entire time (?!)

- A Victoria cosplayer who showed off a really nice!! drawing of Jin they did during the participant showcase at the end of the screenings

- The person with a REALLY CUTE!!!!! homemade Jin plushie!!

- Two people who attended with 3D/vtuber style models of the Go Go Glorious! (YMT29 subunit) members: Noel Tokyo and Mikado Shibuya (who also had a model of Ai!)

- A really cute Joji vtuber model!

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙

The bonuses were Jin’s birthday video from 2016 and a birthday message of sorts from Jin!

I actually didn’t manage to properly archive the first one as intended because things went horribly wrong so I ended up with nothing but just a terrible (said affectionately) little recording of the soundboard I linked earlier. But whatever I shouldn’t be doing that anyways. Hopefully kinpri includes that and the other prizoom bonuses in something later.... the thought of any content being stuck as lost media terrifies me. I don’t have a good enough memory or a high enough Japanese proficiency level to type it out but it wasn’t particularly analyzable or anything (telling that to myself to make me feel better about losing it). Just the usual Jin being dramatic and going on an evil monologue. Jin being evil ASMR. I lovingly burned another one of Jin’s evil laughs into my mind too so there’s that.

For the 3rd showing bonus however I did not fail though it’s arguably the less interesting bonus of the two since it’s unvoiced. I really love Jin’s voice. Big sexy. Actual dialogue is pretty similar to each other from what I’ve gathered (ending with one of Jin’s cute little アーーーッハッハッハッ！！！！！’s (the text effect for the unvoiced bonus was an appreciated detail!). 

(I’m not very confident in my ability to provide a good translation so I’ll just not embarrass myself)

“ AAAaAAaHAHAAHAAa ~ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! “

💙

Yes Jin I’ll support you in the future-!!! ヾ(>▽ <、 )

I’ll never not be obsessed but it’d still be nice to have more substantial content to gush about and do that with.... Kinpri come back and release an anime continuation.... give me the Jin plot development....kinpri come back my happiness is a little too reliant on you

After the showings you get an email asking for feedback which is cool! I’ve been waiting to complain about how 法月 is written as Noriduki instead of Norizuki for the longest time but I never had a chance until now haha. Makes it so painful for me to buy Jin merch. Also begged for an anime continuation. I wonder how much they take into account feedback? I guess I’ll see when/if they start writing Jin’s name how it’s supposed to be.

ANYWAYS

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A PRIZOOM, DO IT!

Prism shows really are best experienced with a community!!! If you like kinpri it’s a GREAT OPPORTUNITY to experience what a cheering screening is like with the Japanese fanbase from the comfort of your very own home which is most likely nowhere near Japan!! Everyone should experience prism shows!!!! I have no regrets and I’m still so hyped from the prism sparkle!!!

ANYBODY CAN ATTEND AND BUY TICKETS EVEN WITHOUT JAPANESE INFORMATION!!!

 \\   GLORIOUS SCHWARZ!   //

[maraudererasmut]

what kinds of things did you do when you were first practicing digital drawing? did you use reference images? where did you find them? anything you would recommend to a baby drawer with a short attention span for instructions?

Well, first and foremost, I’m gonna take a moment to do a little fangirl wiggle, because I’m a huge fan of your work! Thank you for messaging me! 

I’m gonna include a lot of info here, so bear with me! I’ll try to break it down so that it’s easy to understand, but if anyone ha any questions, feel free to ask!

The absolute most important thing for starting out drawing is practice. 

You’re going to hear it from everyone, everywhere, but it’s so very true. When I first started digital drawing, I made sure to use my tablet every single day. Now, that doesn’t mean I spend three hours each day trying to do something amazing; some days I only had a few minutes here and there, but I’d try to sketch something rough, something loose, maybe just a doodle. Maybe it’s a face one day, maybe it’s just a bunch of swirls and stars the next. It doesn’t matter what you draw, as long as you are developing the habit of drawing! No matter what it is you are doing, you’re learning! Playing with brushes to see how they feel on your new drawing program? Learning! Trying to see if one way of colouring is better than another? Learning! Drawing the same nose over and over and over again until you like what you see? Also learning!

Another key step to learning to draw is to identify what you like!

What does that mean? Well, look at other artists who inspire you! Why does their work appeal to you? What is it about their drawings that you LOVE? Once you realize what it is that makes something beautiful to you, you know what to practice and how to learn to adopt that into your own style!

@burdge is an excellent example for illustrating this. They are a fandom artist that has been around for so long, nearly every fandom artist I know has been inspired by them in one way or another!

So what is it about Burdge’s art that I love? I love the closeness that’s portrayed, and the softness. But those are very arbitrary things that are difficult to identify and even more challenging to implement. I love the noses. I love the proportions. I love the hairlines! I love the body movement! Those are things that are a bit easier to pick out and start practicing!

This leads so well into my next point:

It is okay to copy someone else’s work if it’s for practice!

Let’s break this one down, just to ensure that nobody accidentally misinterprets what I’m saying: It is okay to copy someone else’s work if it’s for practice. It is NOT okay to copy someone else’s work and post it, claiming it as your own! If you use a reference picture, generally speaking, most artists will post which reference they use, but I know that I often forget to do that as well! But using a reference picture is different than copying. 

When you copy someone’s work, what you’re really doing is working on identifying what you love about it. You’re practicing drawing in their style! And that’s totally fine! When you’re first starting out, it’s actually really helpful to be able to use someone else’ expertise and practice to guide you to draw something you love! A lot of people have it in their heads that copying = bad. And sometimes it does. But I think it’s important for new artists to get rid of that notion in their heads. Practice is practice. When you practice cooking, you copy other people’s recipes! You’re not going to post those recipes online and say you created them, but you CAN feed them to your friends and you CAN eat them yourself! And if you do post pictures of your food? You can say whose recipe you used and thank them for a great meal! 

We were all starting at one point, and every artist I know started by copying something. 

Use reference pictures! Use them liberally! References are helpful!

Yes, some artists are so good that they do not need reference pictures. That’s fine. Good for them! I’m very proud of them!

When you’re first starting out, you don’t have to worry about that! Don’t get into your own head and tell yourself “Real artists do XYZ, blah blah blah, etc.” None of that is helpful. Use whatever is available to help you improve!

Now the question is what actually makes good reference pictures? Well, everyone uses something a little different. Some people use faces of famous actors, some people use stock photos, some people use other people’s drawings that are specifically made for references! 

What do I do? I save every single photo I come across that inspires me into a folder. I have tons of folders labeled “Reference: Pose” or “Reference: Remus” or “Reference: Gay”. (That one is smut references. :3 )

I use blogs like @posereference and @fantasyartistreference, which I follow on here! I’ve gone through their content and saved photos that I think will inspire me in the future. Sometimes I don’t do anything with them. Sometimes I use them! 

I also take advantage of stock photos. That includes ones that adobe puts onto the internet as well as ones that other artists put! Senshi Stock on Deviant art is an excellent resource that has made a TON of photos available to artists to use for FREE! 

Google is also my friend! I like to google terms like “Couple Pose Reference” or “Couple Kissing”. If you include search terms like “pose reference” you often find that you get things specifically created for artists to use to help with poses!

Look at all the helpful poses! 

Now, this leads us to my next point:

How to use reference images

Everyone does this part differently, too! I’m going to show a few different examples. Let’s use this amazing reference sheet by @kibbi as our example!

Some people like to have their reference photo beside their drawing space, to use for them to look at, simply as a guide:

Some people like to have their pose reference in a layer beneath their actual drawing on a lower opacity so that they can trace right over it:

Often times, what you end up doing is using your traced sketch as your base for your drawing, with your actual drawing over top of it. Essentially, you’re using this time to identify what you DO like about the reference pose and what you DON’T like about it, and changing it!

See how different it’s looking already? I put my own style over top of it, but I used the pose as a reference because I really liked it!

((EDIT: I JUST REALIZED THAT I GAVE SIRIUS THREE ARMS. I AM SO SORRY, GUYS!!!!))

Side by side comparison for the curious:

Eventually, a time will come where you can do simple poses like this without the use of a reference. That’s amazing! You will be so proud of yourself! But if you still need to use references for complicated poses or foreshortening, remember not to beat yourself up about it. It is OKAY to use reference poses, and it is OKAY to take advantage of resources that are available to you! Just try to remember to cite your sources, just like we all did in school! :P

Practice Anatomy

Try doing things like figure drawing! Use sites like Quick Poses to give yourself a timed figure drawing session, if you’re up for it! The more you practice bodies and anatomy, the better you will get at drawing them! Don’t focus too much on anything being perfect; remember to say loose and just aim for general shapes and general proportions.

This isn’t the greatest example, because I didn’t do any dynamic poses, but here are some rough figure sketches:

See how loose I was? See how little I cared about it looking nice? That’s the best way to start a sketch! Just with loose scribbles!

The same thing can apply to faces:

Learn the rules, and then learn when to break them!

Just like writing, where you have “rules” for writing an essay, in drawing, you have rules for anatomy! But… I don’t always love to follow those rules. It’s important to understand human anatomy (if you plan to draw humans), and then figure out where you want things to be exaggerated in order to create your own style! Here’s an example:

The same rules apply to musculature! It’s important to understand what muscles go where and how they move in order to properly draw them consistently! However! That is something a bit more complicated that we can go into another time! I don’t think that would be included in my simple break-down of drawing!

And… last but not least…

Have fun!

You’d think this one would go without saying, but I’m going to specify it anyway. If you are NO LONGER enjoying drawing what you’re drawing, STOP. Don’t just draw humans because I told you to practice anatomy! If you’re not having fun, you’re going to grow to resent it, and we don’t want that! Draw whatever it is that you want! If you want to draw the same two men hugging over and over and over and over and over (Case in point: my entire blog), you do that! Ignore everything I said about knowing anatomy and about reference pictures and about anything! Just do exactly what makes you happy, nothing more and nothing less. Practicing should be fun, and the moment it’s no longer fun, you’ll begin to lose your passion. So… move on to something else that’s fun! Tired of drawing Wolfstar? (Pfff, that’s impossible, but okay). Move on to Drarry! Or to Linny! Or to a different fandom! Or to flowers! Or to still life! Or to whatever you think will bring back that spark!

Because that’s what drawing is all about. It’s just another form of expression and another way to have fun!

ANYWAY! I know this was SUPER long! I hope it was at least somewhat helpful! I’m not an expert, not by any means, but I enjoy doing this, and I am still working on improving! If anyone has any more questions, shoot me a message!

[nattikay]

Sooooo I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in actually reading something like this, but I was looking through some of my older Miraculous art and seeing how the designs of my future AU characters have subtly evolved over time, so I wanted to make a post about designing these characters and how/why I made the decisions that I did! 

So first off, the birth order! I was originally intending to have the kids born in the order that they’re listed in the Stormy Weather episode:

...unfortunately, instead of actually looking at the episode to be sure, I just went off memory; I remembered Emma being the second but accidentally mixed up Hugo and Louis. By the time I realized this, the characters were already too cemented in my head to switch them back. ^^” Oh well.

In addition to the above, in my ~10 years of experience with next gen fics/art/OCs (I know, I have a problem), I’ve noticed that a pretty large fraction of the time folks opt for their OTP’s firstborn to be a daughter over a son. Nothing wrong with this, of course (heck, I’m a firstborn daughter myself haha), it’s just so disproportionately common that I thought making Hugo the firstborn instead of Emma might make my version stand out a bit more. ^^

Now with the siblings’ order decided, on to the designs! Starting with our oldest, 

Hugo!

Black hair and green eyes seems to be the most popular design for an Adrienette kid, and for good reason! It’s an appealing combo on its own in addition to using traits from both parents for the most notable genetic features in characters: hair and eyes. 

I also wanted to give Hugo some of his own flair though. I think the best next gen characters are recognizable as their parents’ offspring BUT can still stand on their own as unique individuals. One way to help do this is, when available, to draw on extended family rather than only their parents. 

Hugo’s strongest example of this (at least as a kid) is his slicked-back hairstyle, which was somewhat inspired by Gabriel’s. The slicked-back style seemed to fit his nerdy personality, but because he is a child and not nearly as uptight as his grandfather, Hugo’s hair is much messier than Gabriel’s, and he often has pieces falling out in the front. 

Admittedly I’m not super great at conveying the slicked idea from the front view, but you can see it a bit better in profile:

Hugo more than either of his siblings also takes after the Dupain side of the family, which isn’t super noticeable as a kid but becomes much more so as he grows up and develops the broad shoulders and strong upper body of Tom and Rolland. He’s not quite as enormous as Tom but is easily the strongest sibling (Louis, meanwhile, is a lanky little noodle like Adrien and Gabriel).

Going along with that, Hugo’s personality has loosened up a bit over time. While I do still draw him in his tucked-in button-up, I’ve also started drawing him in looser styles a bit more, because after all, he is just a goofy kid! This has included anything from using shorts instead of long pants to sometimes wearing just regular ol’ t-shirts instead of his nice button up (on which I rarely actually draw the plaid pattern I initially designed him with because wow it takes forever).

Funnily enough, this is a bit of the opposite of what happened to Adrien. My first sketches of adult!Adrien from this AU all have his shirt untucked, even whilst teaching, but now I almost always draw it neatly tucked in:

...interesting, interesting.

Anyways, while Hugo is still very much a little nerd who does quite well in school and LOVES learning about space and astronomy, he’s also a little more goofy and active than he was when I first created him. He’s probably the most athletic of his siblings (though really none of them are exactly jocks) and while he’s not particularly interested in organized competitive sports, he loves a good game of catch or tag. :)

While people in real life obvious wear any color they want, with my OCs I tend to pick a general palette and stick to it though all (or at least most) outfits, for consistency and easy recognizability. Hugo’s palette is mostly greens (for Chat Noir of course! ;) ), dark blues, and warm browns.

Now, onwards to 

Emma!

I decided to make my version of Emma blonde for two reasons: one, it appears to be so in the screencap shown at the beginning of the post, and while Marinette’s imaginations do not necessarily have to dictate how you design your versions of the kiddos, I liked having the consistency.

...plus then some years later Frozer rolled around and showed a blonde (imaginary) Emma again, so like 

...validation ;)

(by complete coincidence they’re even accurate to the color schemes I use kashdfgjsddsafjdf)

And the second is just that, again, most (not all, of course, but a lot) of the other Emmas I’ve seen in the fandom have been dark-haired, so again I thought it’d help mine stand out a bit.

So now with hair color established, it’s time for eye color. Most of the blond-haired Adrienette kids you see have blue eyes, for the same reason that a lot of dark-haired ones have green. Which, as said with Hugo, makes sense, since it’s the hair color of one parent and the eye color of the other. So why didn’t I make Emma’s eyes blue, then?

Well, it’s a bit of a silly reason tbh, but the blond-hair-blue-eyes combo reminded me a little too much of Chloe. ^^” Not that it would cause any parentage concerns, of course, since obviously Marinette is the one who gave birth to her, but the visual similarities still made me go like...eh ^^”

So green eyes it was! Which, of course, made her look a heck of a whole lot like her father.

But of course, it’s fine to favor one side of the family, but she’s gotta have SOMETHING from Marinette, right? So what other visual could she inherit to show at least some of her mother’s genes?

✧・ﾟ:* F R E C K L E S ! *:・ﾟ✧

And since Marinette’s freckles are so subtle, I decided to make Emma’s a bit more prominent and easily visible.

Actually her freckles have multiplied quite a bit over the years. She’s always had more than Marinette but it used to be confined to just a few on her cheeks and shoulders. Now drawing her is more like DOTS! DOTS EVERYWHERE! with freckles all over her face, down her neck and arms, and even a few on her legs! It is very much her Thing at this point haha

Freckles everywhere!

As for her hairstyle, the default is a simple headband, but she also sometimes wears it just plain down with no accessories at all (usually when in PJs), or up in pigtails like Marinette’s!

Those are just the main ones though...really she can do pretty much whatever ^^

Emma’s outfit palette took a bit more consideration than her brothers’, since I needed it to match the yellow hair (whereas black, as a neutral, can go with just about anything. So I took a minute looking at her established colors--bright green eyes and golden-blonde hair--trying to think of what theme I could used. 

The grassy green and sunshine yellow ended up reminding me of warm weather, like a spring or summer morning. The easiest color for that would’ve been green, but I was already using greens for Hugo and didn’t want their schemes to look too similar. Ultimately I decided on pinks, because the pink outfit with the yellow hair reminded me of some nice fresh lemonade! Some bright whites and warm creams/off-whites then added to the cheery, springy theme. ^^

Her original outfit design included some small dots on her collar and pant cuffs, not unlike the inside of Marinette’s jacket, but I don’t really include that detail much anymore for the same reason I rarely draw Hugo in his original plaid.

Lastly but not leastly, onwards to 

Louis!

Thus far we’ve had Hugo, who’s a pretty good visual mix of his parents, and Emma, who takes more after her dad. As such, I figured that it’d only be fair if the third and final kid took more after his mom!

So in many ways Louis looks a lot like a mini male Marinette, right down to the subtle freckles. If Hugo has the most Dupain genes and Emma has the most Agreste genes, Louis probably has the most Cheng genes and has the easiest time convincing people that yes, he is actually 1/4 Chinese (absolutely no one believes Emma when she says this lol...she has to show pictures of her family haha).

We can’t completely ignore the Agreste side of the family though, and in Louis’s case is manifests mostly in his hairstyle which is very similar to Adrien’s, as well as his lean and lanky body type as an adult, very similar to Adrien’s and Gabriel’s (unlike Hugo who, again, is stockier like a less-extreme Tom).

His outfit color scheme is light blues and grays with splashes of red. The blues and grays work well for his shyer, more reserved demeanor, while the splashes of red like the t-shirt hidden under his sweater are like his big imagination! (Like his mother and grandfather, Louis is very much into art and design, though his interest tends to be geared more towards characters and stories than fashion).

Not as much to say about him tbh...he’s “evolved” the least from his original concept and is mostly just the cute baby brother ^^”

So yeah, there you have it! That was roughly my thought process for creating/designing my little kiddos ^^ 

Hopefully some of you found this interesting; I enjoy talking about my ideas and stuff so if you ever want to know more or about something else that I do/make, feel free to ask! ^^

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

The Sims 4 Moschino Stuff - Early Access Build/Buy Review

Huge thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play Moschino Stuff early!

Ever since I saw the trailer for Moschino Stuff, I knew the Build/Buy content was going to be the part of this pack that I was the most excited for and interested in and for the most part I absolutely love a lot of it. But, like CAS, Build/Buy is not without it’s issues.

As always, if you have any questions about the pack, feel free to send me an ask!

See a preview of all the new Build/Buy items here

👗The Buy

I pretty much love all of the Buy Mode objects. The couches come in some very cool patterns as well as solids, the funky pop art mirror is fun, and I love that the end table is much lower than most end tables we have so it sits nice and flush at the same height as the couches and coffee table.

But my favourite things are probably, as always, the decorative stuff. More specifically the LiBEARian (the books with the bear book ends, get it!), the Simsational Style Stack (the magazine pile) and the Amp Stack (they’re all in the pics above). Even though the Amp Stack is purely decorative, it looks very cool sitting next to a guitar and adds a lot of character to any musician’s house!

I also really like the Repurposed Gear Chest (the trunk with stickers on it) that’s essentially a coffee table and looks very cool and retro, and the Tastefully Empty Bookcase which... is not empty at all? lol I do wish the bookcase came in different heights and widths as well, but at least this time it’s a short one, unlike the bookcases that came with Seasons and StrangerVille that I love but never get to use because they’re too tall for short walls.

Something that’s bothered me pretty much since base game released is that there’s no consistent colour palette for all build/buy objects. I get that each pack has specific themes and there might be colours that fit that theme better than others but I would love to see a consistent palette used throughout every pack — say like black and white obviously, 5 different wood tones, 5 solid neutrals and 5 solid “standard” colours (blue, red, yellow etc) — and have every single item that gets added to the game made in those colours, then if a new pack has specific colours for it’s theme they can be added on top of the standard palette. I like the colour palette that was chosen for the items in this pack but I found it really hard to find anything from other packs that matched it. It bothers me so much that nothing ever matches from pack to pack, half the time objects in the same pack don’t even match! And even now that the 350 new swatches were added to base game doors... they still don’t match anything else!

Sorry, I know I’m ranting and this has very little to do with Moschino Stuff but it just really bothers me that nothing ever matches because whenever I build I spend hours trying to find a floor to match the trim around the bottom of the wall I’ve chosen, then none of the doors match the floor and trim so I have to change it all, then none of the windows match the doors, floor and trim, and on and on until I’ve completely forgotten what I originally wanted the build to look like!

I really like the new frames we got for photos too, and the fact that they can now be placed on tables BUT I’ve had a couple of issues with them. First of all, it’s not possible to turn the frames placed on tables using the alt key, so you can only turn them in 45 degree increments and I hate that. I like to have all my photo frames slightly askew at different angles and it bothers me that these ones can only be places either facing straight forwards or angled by 45 degrees.

The second issue I have with the frames is actually more of a technical one but I’m not entirely sure if it’s the frames themselves, the photos, or the photography skill; I haven’t been able to work that out yet. When I have a sim take photos using the new tripod and camera everything is fine, but the second I exit out of the photography UI my FPS drops drastically.

I thought it was just my computer being stupid at first, until other Game Changers started reporting the same issue. I suspect it might be the photos and frames — specifically the new collage frame — because as soon as I remove the frames from the lot, the FPS goes back to normal. My game normally runs at a steady 60 FPS at all times but as you can see here, it drops down to 8-12 whenever there are framed photos on the lot and shoots back up when I delete them.

NOTE: This was with my game 100% CC and Mod free.

All of the new photography gear is so cool too! The fact that most of the items (like the tripod, camera, and tape markers) can be picked up in your sims inventory is so handy; your sim can just grab their equipment and head out into the world to take photos of other sims, landscapes, pets, and themselves literally anywhere they can plop the tripod down! And the backdrops have some really cool backgrounds for you to take photos in front of... or maybe... some other... uses 😈

👗The Build

I think the thing most people were looking forward to in this pack were the beautiful windows and doors; I’m definitely one of those people lol They are definitely gorgeous but as seems to happen every single time we get new windows and doors, the selection is limit in many different ways.

Every single colourway for both the windows and the doors is either white, black, red, or some combination of those colours. There are no colourways that match any of the other colours used on the furniture for the set (like blue, pink and yellow) and absolutely zero wood or neutral tones.

There are also no other heights for both the door and window other than for the shortest wall height, which absolutely baffles me because they’re clearly a set made to be used in lofts and converted warehouse type builds... builds that are generally made with either the medium or tallest wall height. They also didn’t bother to make single tile versions of any of the windows and doors, or even a closed version for the smaller window!

But what’s even more baffling (at least to me) is the way the door was made. I literally spent a full 30 minutes just sitting here in front of my computer, staring at this door, trying to figure out what could possibly have been going through the head of whoever made it when they decided that not only would it be shorter on one side, therefore also shorter than the windows, but also that it wouldn’t take up the full two tiles it was allocated and therefore wouldn’t sit flush up against the windows it was made to go with!

I saw a tweet by one of the Gurus that basically said “It’s the right height on the outside, just flip it around” but... that still leaves you with one side shorter than the windows, it’s just now on the other side, and there’s still gaps at the side! Why you would go to all the trouble to make the windows fit beautifully together like that and then not make the door exactly the same height and width! It bothers me way more than it probably should but I just don’t understand!

On the plus side, there are some base game doors that fit in with the windows (kind of) that I will probably use instead of the Moschino door... at least until someone makes a build add-on for them anyway lol

👗The Verdict

Overall, while I have issues with some of the build/buy stuff, this is where this pack makes up for the lack of CAS stuff in my opinion and what would make me want to fork over the $10 for the pack. To be completely honest, I’d pay $10 just for the LiBEARian though 🤣

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. I am not paid by EA to “hype” their games; I am given the opportunity to review their games early in exchange for an honest review.

Click here for my Create-A-Sim Review

Gameplay Review coming soon

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Pandora Hearts, Episodes 1-3

And so we begin! In which I consider the issues of a particular era of anime, but the fundamentals are all in place, and a rather interesting tale begins unspooling.

Perils of Hindsight

Anime has gone through a lot of artistic evolution throughout the years. From the 80s OVA era to the 90s experimental era to our current era of seasonal moe, there have been so many different styles that define their period of anime. All these styles have their own strengths and weaknesses, and there are plenty of classics and disasters that define each of these eras. But if there’s one era of anime I’ve always struggled with more than most, it’s the particular aesthetics of a certain stripe of mid-2000s anime. I’m talking Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, even stuff I like such as Higurashi. These are the shows that exist in the awkward period between the cell-shaded olden days and the modern demands of digital processing, at a time when anime was starting to leave behind a certain set of artistic tools and take its first fumbling steps into a new one. And like all transitional periods, there was a lot of stumbling about in the worst of both worlds while everyone figured out the shape anime was going to take moving forward. To put it bluntly, these are shows that really don’t look good. Some of them managed to use that ugliness to their benefit- Higurashi weaponized its limited resources for some genuinely fantastic horror- but none of these are shows you remember for the artistry that brought them to life.

Pandora Hearts isn’t exactly from the mid-2000s era; it was released in 2009, well into the period that the modern age of anime was taking shape. But despite coming out in the same season as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, it feels like a show straight out of 2005. The animation is incredibly still and limited, with chunky character designs that move with all the grace of a tractor stuck in mud. The color design is murky and muted, and every hue feels like it was passed through a brown-tinted filter. The actual background art is very nice and painterly, but the events taking place upon that background art don’t feel lived-in at all. And the cinematography is equally weak, consisting mostly of dull panning shots, still shots, characters standing around talking, and the occasional speed lines and faster cuts when the action scenes kick up. It’s a damn good thing they’ve got Yuki Kajiura doing her patented “fiddling all the violins at high frequency” hype-building technique, because her soundtrack provides the only real character this show’s aesthetics have. These aren’t insurmountable issues if the story’s good, but they definitely raise a much higher bar for the rest of the show to clear. If Pandora Hearts wants to keep my attention despite being so unappealing to me on a visual level, it better damn well know what it’s doing.

And thankfully, it looks like Pandora Hearts damn well knows what it’s doing.

Spin Me a Story

I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for the kind of pulpy fantasy this show indulges in. The modern anime market is so saturated in isekai, most of it bad, that there’s something charming about a show that just takes place in a fantasy world, with magic and lords and nobles and princes and swordfights and grand adventure. Pandora Hearts isn’t re-inventing the wheel, and it’s got a handful of obvious Exposition(tm) moments in the first couple episodes to explain the details, but it’s got the basics down pat. Oscar, Gilbert and Ada are all very fun characters, and their camaraderie early in the show endears you to their goofy neuroses (”I heard you were deathly afraid of cats!”) You get a sense of how much Oscar values his freedom over the stuffy trappings of nobility- it seems like he’s only just been inducted into this family to be its heir, which is very interesting- and it’s charming to watch him effortlessly overturn his boyfriend servant Gilbert’s anxieties about being his companion despite being an orphan ( ”I kept quiet so I could see you panic.” Is that flirting I see). So when things go south and Gilbert’s taken over by a body-snatcher, you feel like there’s genuinely something to lose. And boy howdy was there something to lose. I have no idea if Gilbert’s dead for good, but I hope he isn’t, because my boy’s suffered too much to exit the playing field so quickly. But it certainly raises the stakes as the villain’s plot is spring into motion, and watching Oscar climb his way back up through the Abyss, climaxing with him finding the strength to save Alice from the evil baby monster and seize his chance to return home, makes for an incredibly satisfying third-episode climax to bring us into the plot proper (”You can’t die on me when I still owe you my life!”). This is all very basic stuff, to be sure, but it works. It’s the kind of simple, straightforward character work that works best when the world it exists in is this bizarre and complicated right from the get-go. Once you’re invested in their struggles, you’ll follow them down whatever road the show takes you.

Oscar in Wonderland

Speaking of that world, while the poor aesthetics certainly don’t do Pandora Hearts any favors, there’s a certain charm to the broad strokes it paints in. I’ve always enjoyed the kind of story where the heroes, living ordinary lives, stumble over the secret to some epic mystery right in their backyard. There’s a very Kingdom Hearts edge to the inter-dimensional Victorian sensibilities, and I haven’t even played Kingdom Hearts, so that’s how clear the influence is. The Alice in Wonderland aesthetic of the Abyss makes for an enjoyably bonkers locale, and the nightmarish baby dolls and marionettes that populate it are straight out of Markiplier’s nightmares. Alice herself is a very fun character (”Yours?” “I decided that just now.”), and her full-power Rabbit Stand form really is a sight to behold. Establishing a strong dynamic between her and Oscar was the critical component in making these episodes work; they’ve got a great push-and-pull relationship going on already, and I can’t wait to see how her using his body as a vessel to escape into the real world develops. Meanwhile, there’s a whole buttload of unanswered questions waiting in the wings: there’s a big fat prophecy waiting in the background, clock imagery abounds, Oscar’s somehow tied to a big disaster that happened in the past, his estranged father may have been one of the mysterious hooded men who dragged him into the abyss, and Alice may have an alter ego hanging around somewhere who wants Oscar dead. Will the answers be satisfying? That remains to be seen; honestly, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this show ends up going to shit by the end. But for now, Pandora Hearts has earned my investment. Let’s see what else it has in store.

Odds and Ends

-”Dina!” He’s trained the cat. I’m sorry, Gilbert, this is your life now.

-”He’s definitely lying...” kjhdksd rip Gilbert

-”She’s younger than me?” NO CUT THAT HET SHIT OUT OSCAR YOUR BOYFRIEND NEEDS YOU RIGHT NOW

-Lol, you are nowhere near as smooth as you think you are.

-Nnnnope. Don’t like that neck cracking sound. Don’t like it one bit.

-Oh shit, I didn’t think they’d be the good guys. But I’m not gonna complain about Kana Hanazawa and Akira Ishida teaming up.

-Okay, accidentally crushing himself under a big rock was a nice touch.

-”A mere Trump like you needs to be put in your place!” #ThisChick2020

-”You’re that pervy dominatrix!” askdjksdjakdsja

-”No, just thick-headed.” I mean, you’re not wrong.

And with that, we’re on our way! This is gonna be an interesting ride. See you next time!

[biansella]

This December, Bergen County natives The Front Bottoms will be throwing their annual ‘Champagne Jam’ in Asbury Park’s historic Convention Hall for the fifth year in a row after a successful co-headlining tour with beloved indie band Manchester Orchestra. The Front Bottoms are a band that just won’t stop from their humble D.I.Y. beginning on Bar/None Records to their cult-icon status on Fueled By Ramen. Their last major release was the Ann EP, the second in their grandmother series, which sparked a tour where they would play both the EP and Going Greyfront-to-back.

 This tour, they’re taking things even looser with an entire bar setup on stage and more crowd interaction than thought possible for a band that signed to a major label. I got the chance to catch up with lead singer Brian Sella and talk about new beginnings, the artistic process and what home means to him.

How are you liking tour so far?

 So far, so good, you know? All the shows so far have been pretty fantastic, so it’s been a nice feeling…To be able to come out here and, you know, play the music, and it’s like, “Oh, wow, people are rockin’, rollin’ and having a good time.” So, it’s really incredible.

You guys are originally from New Jersey. I am too, so I know it must be nice to get away from it for a bit, right?

 [Laughs] Yeah you know it. Jersey is a nice place to come home to. A nice place to leave, a nice place to come home to.

Lots of great bands and musicians are from New Jersey, like Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, My Chemical Romance and The Misfits. What do you think it is about New Jersey that inspires great art?

 Well, really, I’m not sure. I think it’s probably the tone or the atmosphere of it all. It’s just kind of, like, you could live close to Manhattan, but you don’t live in the city. You live close to Philadelphia, but you’re not from Pennsylvania. You could go to the beach, it’s on the coastline. You could also shoot up to Boston. I think the fact that there’s access to so many different styles makes its own style. I think that’s kind of why so many people from Jersey end up being total freakin’ nutjobs. [Laughs] Just kidding.

Your music seems to be heading towards a more polished, pop sound with each release. Was this the goal of your art from the beginning, but you now have the skills and label power to complete it?

 I think the goal from the beginning was to just play shows. My life for the past eight to 10 years has been going on tour and playing shows every single day for months at a time, going to a different city and playing in front of different people. And the recording process for me? That lasts, like, two weeks. That’s such a quick blip in terms of the artistic experience. So I would never say that that was a goal to make the recording sounds the way that they sound. It was just part of the discovery of the art. I was just trying my best, and when all of a sudden you’re in a room with amazing equipment, and your friends are there and all the time it’s like, “Let’s try to make this sound a little bit better.”

 But really the process for me is just one of discovery. It’s not like a projected path, I’m not thinking, “Oh, when I was playing a basement in New Jersey,” or “Oh, I wish this sounded like a Katy Perry song.” Each day happens and it unfolds and you roll with the punches. I think the most important thing is hindsight and looking back and saying, “Okay, that happened. So what did I like? What don’t I like? What do I want to change?” And really every single step and every single part of the process is you just figuring it out.

 So, I don’t know the next album in terms of the discovery of myself through the art. It might be a country album or a D.I.Y.-sorta basement style recording. I can just kind of discover [myself] through the music and everybody can listen to it.

 To answer your question, it definitely wasn’t a plan to have things turn out this way. I feel like that’s why things happened so positively; because it was never a plan. Everything was awesome and any little experience or accomplishment was the biggest thing that had ever happened to us, even if it was just a tiny, little thing. We just kinda roll with the punches all the way through. I think it would be unfair to give myself the credit of saying this was all a plan.

You kind of built your way up from the bottom — you played D.I.Y. shows and you and the audience were on a peer level where you could have a beer with all eight members of your early shows. Now, you’re selling out large venues and people are tattooing your face on their body. How does it feel like to have gained a cult following?

 [Laughs] It’s strange, it’s a strange world. I think that’s part of the whole thing that we were saying — there was no plan, you kinda let the audience decide the plan. That’s why I always take requests on stage, because I’m not up here for myself, I’m not up here for my plan. This is whatever people want.

 Like, back in the day, when there would be 10 people at the show, I could drink a beer with every single one of these people and a lot of these people got my face tattooed on them. It’s crazy, it’s a weird experience. I’m still so fucking lucky and I just try and stay naive about the whole thing and just excited about every little step.

I think that’s the best way to do it.

 I think so. You can’t plan anything, really, and it’s a bummer, but sometimes it works out. In this particular situation it worked out. It was years of time that I think people would consider it not working out. The six or seven years of time where there was only 10 people coming to the shows. And my family was like, “Okay, what are you doing? You’re still living in the van with Mat…” But for me, I was so happy and so pumped, this was amazing.

 So, I think that naiveté of it all was very important. If I had listened to anybody else talk, I wouldn’t be where I am now. You gotta stay positive and do what you want to do. I know it’s hard to be like, “Oh, just stay positive and everything will work out,” but really that’s kinda what happened. Me and Mat just stayed positive and remembered that we were having fun, and how lucky we were to not have to go work at a landscaping job or at a grocery store or something like that. That was the best feeling in the fucking world. You know, like with your writing it’s the same thing, you write articles and people read them. That’s a form of art. That’s incredible.

Thanks. Yeah, it’s nice for people to see what you produce.

 Exactly! One time this girl was like, “I want to go around the country and read my poetry to people.” And in a very negative way I was like, “That doesn’t exist, that’s not a real thing.” And she said, “That’s what you do.” And it really hit me like, “Oh my gosh, that is what I do.” And it was like this crazy awakening of, yeah, I shouldn’t be telling people, “That doesn’t exist, that doesn’t happen,” because that’s what everybody was saying to me when I was trying to “read my poetry” around the country.

Now that you’ve been signed to Fueled By Ramen, you guys have been able to add more touring members and build a more elaborate stage setup. You, Mat and Tom are familiar faces on tour, but Jennifer, Roshan and Eric are now a part of the ensemble. What made you choose them?

 Basically, Mat. First of all, the people in the band: Roshan, Eric and Jen, are unbelievable musicians. They’re fantastic. They are actual musicians. They are the reason it sounds incredible on stage.

Oh, I agree, it sounds great.

 Thank you very much, that means a lot. It’s an experiment, like I was sayin’, we’re trying to figure it out. It’s all over the place, everyone has their style and we’re just trying to put on a good performance.

 But basically, Rosh[an] is in a bunch of bands, he played keyboard in a band Mat was good friends with. Mat’s girlfriend was somehow involved. I met Ro[shan] at a bar one night, he was playing bass, and he had come highly recommended from Mat. And then Jen was in a band called River City Extension that we have quite a history with. We���ve known those guys a really long time, and I really wanted a violin player, I thought that would add a lot. And then Eric, we met at the studio. He was a studio rat, just always there, and I was making demos and stuff with him and it turns out he’s really incredible at bass. So we had him play bass and moved Tom over to electric guitar. And he loves to play electric guitar, so he was all about that.

 And that’s always how it all comes together. Same with how I met Tom. I met Tom through [former guitarist] Ciaran, eight years ago. He just showed up at my house and Ciaran was like, “This guy plays bass, he’s amazing,” and we heard him play bass and we told him, “Dude, you should be in the band!”. That’s always the way that it’s been. We always try to keep it loosey goosey like that.

Sounds like a good deal. By the way, ‘Champagne Jam’ is taking place where you live: Asbury Park, one of many coastal New Jersey beach towns [like where I’m from]. In your latest single “End of Summer,” and also “Vacation Town” off of Going Grey, you capture the melancholy that comes with the passing of another season. Was that inspired by Asbury [Park]?

 Absolutely inspired by Asbury Park. My girlfriend and I, we’re living there right now, so it’s definitely full circle. I wrote a lot of those songs when I was living there. That vibe of the summer time going into the winter time, it is definitely an energy that inspired those songs, absolutely.

Do you feel like that sort of parallels your life? Like you’re entering a new season, or new chapter?

 Everything is very personal with my art, even if it’s about somebody else. I’m always drawing from my little perspective in there, especially as a songwriter, I gotta do that. I do feel like maybe it is a new chapter. Like I was saying, I’ve been on tour for fuckin’ nine years. Not consistently, but I’ve been hustling for nine years and it’s been a fucking grind for sure. And we have this tour, we do the ‘Champagne Jam’ and then in the new year we’re planning to just write a lot. I’m going to try to write as much as I can.

 So I do think that it’s kind of like a chapter sort of ending and also sort of starting again. You need that refresher for art. You need to go get new inspiration. That’s where I’m at. I’m taking it year-to-year in Asbury, and you know, I like it. You’re always looking for the next thing and this is the first time in my life that I’m like, “Okay, I guess I can just chill”.

[minicoopdetat]

Hey is that [GREGG SULKIN]? No, that’s just [AUGUST COOPER]. They’re [TWENTY-THREE], and have spent [THREE MONTHS] in Dayton. I hear that they’re kind of [OPTIMISTIC], but also [OBNOXIOUS]. Did you hear their vices are [PARTYING & SEXTING]? Can’t wait to see [HE/HIM] at the next party! 

full name: august levi cooper 

nickname: cooper. mini coop. coop de tat

age: twenty-three

date of birth: april 2

place of birth: dayton, ca

zodiac: aries

gender: cis-male

nationality: american

sexual orientation: heterosexual

romantic orientation: heteromantic

relationship status: single *

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES.

height: 5’10

weight: 166 lbs

hair color: brunette

eye color: hazel

need glasses/contacts? yes

tattoos: he has seven ‘dragon balls’ in various places ( 1:inner wrist, 2: inner wrist, 3: shoulder blade, 4: hip , 5: behind his ear, 6: back of neck 7:ass); nightwing symbol (ankle); squirtle squad shades ( coming soon )

distinguishing marks: scar on his right leg from crashing his moped 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION.

hometown: salinas, ca

current residence: dayton, ca

past residences: salinas, ca

living arrangement: family home; phaedra’s old place

spoken languages: english, japanese, vulgar words in various languages 

financial status: loaded by proxy

education level: high school, college ( BA biological science )

occupation: vet tech

FAMILIAL INFORMATION.

father: maxwell cooper

mother: elizabeth cooper

siblings: maxwell cooper jr (36), summer cooper (34; heartborn), dawn cooper (32), buzz cooper (30; heartborn), willow cooper (28), skye cooper (26; heartborn)

children: none

pets? Satoshi; “foster” dog

other: phaedra cooper; grandmother

PERSONALITY.

positive traits: loyal. optimistic. passionate. outgoing. confident

negative traits: loud. tactless. gullible. dramatic. reckless 

likes: nightwing, late nights. martial arts. dbz. music. animals ( all kinds ). parties. soccer. hockey. movies. sex. pokemon. learning new things. tarot. philosophy. sunny days. tiger king ( joe exotic ). social media. tik tok. family gatherings. sexting. 

dislikes: waiting. twitter. strategy games. opera. reading. bullies. people who go out of their way to make someone else feel stupid. injustice ( the video game...and the other thing he guesses ). seeing other people treated like shit. sad sacks. clutter. messy landscaping. carol fucking baskin. animal abuse. 

quirks: knows karate and aikido. Has a 3rd degree black belt and used to teach in college. owns and drives a moped. loves to record himself ( mtv cribs style ). is really great with kids. surprisingly organized, his place is pretty spotless. doesnt wear shoes unless absolutely necessary. has a skin care regiment. 

moral alignment: neutral good

THE RUN DOWN.

CHILDHOOD; 

Cooper was born August Levi Cooper to Elizabeth and Maxwell Cooper on April 2nd twenty-three years ago in Salinas, CA.

His siblings like to refer to him as the family’s April fools surprise.

One reason being is he was very much an accident. The plan was always 3 biological and 3 adopted children. A large loving family blended with those born from blood and those from the heart.

While Cooper was unexpected, he never felt it growing up. A family consisting of nine different personalities is bound to have disputes and there have been a lot over the years, but they’ve always loved each other deeply. Family was important, a top priority always, and Coop grew up surrounded by love.

As a kid, he was always going a mile a minute. Always jabbering on, always into something. His mother, Elizabeth, never seemed to mind. If anything she embraced it using a somewhat free range approach to raising her children. She let them do as they pleased as long as they practiced reflection and responsibility after. The consequences were theirs whatever decisions were made.

So if he wanted to take apart the toaster, fine. He had to put it back together. If not? He would be working to pay for a new one. Want to stay up all night watching anime? Fine. If he fell asleep and failed his quiz the next day? The tv was gone.

It was a process for Cooper, who multiple teachers recommended that he take some form of medication for his outbursts and inability to follow directions without being distracted or derailing the entire class. His mother refused, but she did begin to focus on helping him regulate and make better choices.

Did it work? Eh. But he managed to scrape by.

But where he lacked impulse control, Cooper made up in kindness. He always the first to volunteer to help, whether it involved the teacher or another student. He’d give away  his lunch money to someone he thought needed it or sit with the kids that seemed alone, talking their heads off about the latest thing he saw on late night tv. 

He was the kind of kid you dreaded and loved all at once and if you ask him, he’ll tell you his childhood was a wonderful thing.

Some highlights include, starting Karate at age 5. Martial arts was one, if not the only way, to really get Cooper to slow down and focus. It was and still is a passion for him. He earned his black belt by age 9, his second degree by 11, and his 3rd by 14, making him one of the youngest in the county to have a 3rd degree blackbelt.

Began learning Japanese at age seven. It started as self teaching, but eventually his parents brought in a tutor. 

ADOLESCENCE; 

As he hit his preteen years, Cooper began to play sports. Soccer was his poison of choice and he was good...but some of the other kids found him to be odd. He was the youngest of seven, so there were always jokes made about the rag tag crew or about how he spent more time talking about japanese cartoons, comics and superheroes than he did the sport or the usual topics. Small, he was picked at, but Cooper? He never really noticed.

He was the butt end of jokes, but always the first to laugh. He was confident, even then, that the things his ‘friends’ did were often in good fun and never to take advantage of him or be malicious. Even when his trips to the principal's office became more frequent and his detentions began to pile up, he insisted things were fine. He was loyal and they just had different ways of showing their friendship to him.

He was sixteen when a new kid moved to town and his friends turned their attention to him. Coop thought they were looking to welcome him into the fold, he was a bit quiet, always reading, kinda awkward, but the more time they spent with him, the more Cooper started to notice the shit way they were treating him. The jokes they had used on Cooper, they were funny to him, but this kid? Not so much. It didn’t take long before he began to see their relationship with this kid and their relationship with him? They weren’t harmless and in one very explosive day, Cooper not only stood up for the kid, but may have broken his best friend’s jaw.

He was ousted from the soccer team. Fine. He needed new friends. Fine. He had one and that was fine with him. He took it all in stride. Stayed confident and though he had a nasty mark on his record, his parents were proud he finally stood up for himself and someone else. In the end, his dad able to make it go away, but still.

That summer, on a mission to be his own man and less of a sheep, he began frequenting the local game shop. He’d play in the pokemon league, try out various boardgames and chill. It became a home away from home and where he met Callum ‘Goodie’ Goodrich, the closest person to a little brother he’s ever had. 

They started as rivals, which some might consider odd considering the age difference, but Coop respected the kid and his skill. It was never an angry or aggressive thing. Goodie had a sense of humor and Coop was too easy going and before long they were exchanging tips and just hanging out for the sake of hanging out.

When things began to get rough for Goodie, Cooper didn’t ask. It wasn’t his business, but he began to notice a change...so he began inviting Goodie home for dinners, hang out sessions, etc. His family didn’t mind, if anything they enjoyed having him around and soon Goodie became an honorary Cooper.

In the three years that followed, Cooper juggled a lot of different things. He began helping at his dojo as well as the local animal shelter and his partying streak started up.

At eighteen, he was granted access to the ‘family ranch’, his parents attempting to let their children get whatever they needed out of their system. Rather than sneak around and drink or smoke or fuck, the ranch was available. It was a risk, especially for his father, a judge, but as loving and great as his family was? Their moral code wasn’t quite in line with the rest of society. His father had no qualms as long as they had some common sense. Were there hiccups? Yes. But they managed. There were six before him, so by the time Cooper came around, they knew what guidelines to lay down.

It was wild year, definitely one of the most fun he’d ever had. His grades though? They suffered. School wasn’t exactly top priority and to him, that was fine. Why did a bunch of numbers have to dictate his life?

It wasn’t until he decided he wanted to help animals for a living did he realize good grades were probably a good thing. But by then it was too late to get in anywhere prestigious. Which was fine. He made his bed and he was quick to figure something else out.

He decided on taking a gap year so he doubled down on volunteering and started learning aikido while continuing his partying and hanging with Goodie.

Or at least until he disappeared. One day he just...stopped coming in. Cooper figured he was sick or just rough off, but when he couldn’t get in touch with him, he genuinely began to worry. He even went as far to check the news...and saw the headline. It hit him hard and his dad, despite being in the court system, had no info. That whole summer, he had to just, keep checking out the shop and hope he’d run into him. But as the days went on, it became clear his friend was gone… hopefully to some situation that was much better.

Cooper finished up the summer and went off to school the next August.

TWENTIES; 

Not that he went far. He spent four years at a college between his home town and Dayton, CA. Phaedra, his grandmother, and his grandfather helped him pay for his schooling so he began visiting Dayton during the summer. He spent most of it in Salinas but he’d spend a few weeks in Dayton.

His time in Dayton was mostly spent helping Phaedra or working at the local shelter. But by the time he hit 21, partying was added to that roster.

One bachelor’s degree and a certificate later and here he is. Vet school is something he’s thought about but his grandfather passed away last year and Phaedra needed some assistance with the house. 

So while she’s off jet setting to ease the pain, Cooper’s taking responsibility for the upkeep of her Dayton home. He has no clue about home repair, but he’s more than happy to squat, make sure she’s not robbed and start work in a town that’s always kept him hype.

[goron-king-darunia]

Annon-Guy: What was it like for you when you saw Emil, Marta and Richter in DotNW for the first time?

Unlike some ToS fans, I wasn’t aware a sequel was coming until I saw it on store shelves while doing some shopping. Christmas was coming up, so it had been out for a little bit by the time I discovered it. Recognized it as a sequel to ToS, asked my mom if I could get it, and we got it. My first impressions came from the box art. 

This box art specifically. I remember wondering for a long time if Emil was a boy or a girl. It came down to eyelashes and lack of obvious breasts that it was a safe bet he was, in fact, a boy. Ah, the struggles of anime-style where everyone has a very cute face. To be fair, Emil’s “Tube Dress” was also part of the problem. But I remember thinking “I really like the design of these two, I wonder if they’re related to Lloyd and Colette at all.” I remember Richter being on the back cover and thinking “Again, not sure how to clock this person. I think they’re a man but... man or woman or whatever else, I bet I’m going to like them. They better not be the bad guy.” Surprise. He’s not a bad person but he’s the antagonist so close enough. Oddly, I didn’t end up liking Richter until the sidequests and bonus material.  Regarding their first appearances in the game? Well, immediately the cutscene in the beginning with the Blood Purge? I was like “Yo, what the heck? There’s no way Lloyd is doing any of this. Even if he went this crazy his friends wouldn’t let him do this. That is a fake Lloyd, what the fuck is going on?!” Then we get our first shots of Emil and Marta. Emil in Luin being so timid made me soft on him immediately. And then Marta showed up and was like “Come on, you’re a man! Speak up!” And my brain was immediately making the Harrison Ford Meme in my head.

Like, how dare she critique this baby boy’s character?! His family was just killed and he is a smol and soft kitten. Be nice to him! Of course, when Richter showed up, I was like “Ah, he is a man. And he is a nice enough man.” And then he went full murder mode on Marta and I was like “Dude, I don’t like her either but threatening to kill a kid is harsh.” Figuring out what Richter’s deal was made me like him more, but he wasn’t a favorite. I liked Emil best. It wasn’t until I found out there were sidequests where he was very nice with Emil that I started liking him more and it wasn’t until I started deeply exploring that I realized how much I liked him as a character. And then the Onshuu no Richter Manga came out and I’ve never been the same because holy fuck, he’s such a sympathetic antagonist, holy hell, if the story was a little different he would be the hero for sure. Like, if Ratatosk really WAS a genocidal maniac? Richter would be the world's unluckiest and most noble hero. The only reason he’s a bad guy is that he couldn’t be assed to take a breather from revenge and actually assess things enough to realize that if Ratatosk had the power to destroy the world, he would have done it already. With some minor changes, he could have been working WITH Marta And Emil to save the world. I’ve always liked Emil, and exploring ways he could have grown with Richter through fanfic is one of the things that makes me continue loving him. Liking Richter more made me like the Ratatosk part of Emil a lot less but I’m learning to like him again. Marta I waffled on a lot. I will always like her design, and she had some good moments, but the fact that none of her changes or character developments actually stick through the whole story bugged me. Coupled with the fact that she has a very “nice girl” vibe. Like, she acts nice, but sometimes that seems to be exactly that, an ACT. It’s partly the short temper and partly how in the early game she tries to manipulate Emil into being her prince when he's obviously uncomfortable with that.  So, long story, short recap: Their aesthetics were immediately gripping, even if they were all cutesy enough to pass as female in the right circumstances. I have always liked and will always like Emil though my enjoyment of Ratatosk has had ups and downs. Richter piqued my interest early, but the canon interactions leave much to be desired unless you do the sidequests, making him a very flat character unless you explore his past (Even Decus and Alice get more canon development when you avoid their sidequests. You only unlock the interesting lore for Richter through his sidequests.) Marta had a very engaging design but a very icky intro for me (putting Emil down for not being the man she expected right off the bat and then hating on everyone’s favorite woobie Colette.) And every time I thought Marta was going to get some good development, they shunted her back to being just as bad as she was two chapters ago until her next development and it was never consistent enough to strike me as “growth” and struck me much more as “acting right so Emil will like me.” Disappointed with how canon handled Marta, and how easily missable Richter’s finer moments are. Emil’s development as a person and a protagonist was my favorite part of the story, and it’s still my second favorite reason now (Richter, of course, winning my heart with the juicy side material that makes him so sympathetic.) Before game: Emil is cute babby. Must protecc. Richter is mysterious pretty man. Must learn more. Marta is cute, but kinda bitchy. I want to see her learn and grow! After game: Emil is babby with good growth and “evil twin” Must continue protecc. Richter is a pineapple man. Prickly outsides, juicy secret insides. Must now protecc. Marta is a poisonous flower. Very pretty, good potential, potential squandered by bad writing.

[arecomicsevengood]

Quarantine Movies, Part 3

OLD BOYFRIENDS (1979) dir. Joan Tewkesbury

Not often I watch a movie and feel like “What the fuck is happening?” but I did with this one, written by Paul Schrader and directed by the screenwriter of Nashville. Talia Shire stars as a woman getting back in touch with her old boyfriends. She’s… recovering from a nervous breakdown? Sort of out for revenge? One ex hooks up with her again, and then, once abandoned, hires a private detective to track her down. A little boring at first, and then becomes baffling for most of its middle. John Belushi’s in it, playing a kind of pathetic schlub that feels convincingly like “the real Belushi” to me in the sense of me finding it uncomfortable to watch. I think maybe the film can be understood as a take on feminine psychosis in contrast to the masculine psychosis found in Schrader’s Taxi Driver screenplay. The psychosis here being this lack of self-knowledge that leads to manipulating people ostensibly towards the end of finding love.

KLUTE (1971) dir. Alan Pakula

Feel like I got the impression this movie was a joke from somewhere? Some Murphy Brown reference or something, playing to consensus of losers. (Edit: The joke’s in Wet Hot American Summer, but doesn’t really contain a value judgment about the movie.) It’s not great by any means but it’s not particularly tawdry given the subject matter. It is confusing that the movie is mostly about Jane Fonda’s call girl character, but the movie is named after Donald Sutherland’s character, who’s a detective. Maybe the joke was always just that people thought Jane Fonda played Klute. Movie digs into the sex worker’s psychology in a way that feels contemporary, except contemporary discourse doesn’t really allow for psychological insight, in favor of empty gestures towards representation. Sutherland’s out to solve a mystery, Fonda falls in love with him: I really did think this was smart in depicting a relationship where person was uncomfortable with the act of falling in love as running counter to their techniques of emotional distancing, except, I guess, for the fact that this is depicted in scenes of Fonda talking to her therapist that spell out what’s happening rather than depict this in a more organic way. But that it feels sort of shoehorned in is cool because the movie then largely has this mystery narrative it’s about. It is a little dull and could stand to be shorter, though the musical score does some nice grooves with dissonant elements on top, vaguely Morricone-style, though of course he’s got a deep body of work.

EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978) dir. Irvin Kershner

Criterion’s description of this chracterizes it as an “American giallo,” which seems about right. About a woman (Faye Dunaway) who takes violent/erotic photographs (shot by Helmut Newton) that coexist in both advertising and art gallery contexts. She starts having psychic visions of murder, the police are investigating her because some murders seem modeled after her photos, although that is not the case with any of the murders she has visions of, which then start to involve people she knows. So, like a giallo, there’s a lot happening, an interest in lurid style, and a disinterest in internal consistency as things ratchet up, and the twist ending (that the cop she started dating has multiple personality disorder) falls within that pattern as well. Not as good as the best Italian giallo, (which would I guess be Argento’s TENEBRE) or for that matter, the slasher movie HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, which is an American movie insane enough to exist in the same conversation.

THE GETAWAY (1972) dir. Sam Peckinpah

Steve McQueen gets out of prison and is immediately set up by the prison official, who his girlfriend (Ali MacGraw) slept with, to rob a bank. He gets double-crossed, and then goes on the lam with his girlfriend. While in the past I sometimes feel like I am listing the names of the actors as endorsements, I’m not really doing this with the cast of this movie or Old Boyfriends. Good action sequences and suspenseful moments. Feel like the iconic images in this are McQueen with a shotgun, blowing up cop cars. Peckinpah directs from a Walter Hill screenplay adapting a Jim Thompson novel. This predates Walter Hill directing movies for himself, but it’s interesting how much more flash there is to the action here than there is in The Driver, you can sort of detect certain elements as being Hill’s interest (like the suspense of being pursued) and other stuff being Peckinpah, like the baroque explosions of violence. I like all of it.

KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016) dir. Robert Greene

This isn’t very good. One half adaptation of the Christine Chubbuck story with a documentary about Kate Lyn Sheil. Sheil’s good in other things, this feels like a failed experiment. Weirdly this came out at pretty much exactly the same time as a movie about Chubbuck starring Rebecca Hall? The Rebecca Hall movie’s pretty great, and is an interesting performance, I would be interested in watching a conversation between the two actresses.

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1998) dir. Martin Scorses

A rewatch. Nicolas Cage plays an ambulance driver, Scorsese directs from a Paul Schrader screenplay. I like Nicolas Cage a lot, I like the cinematography in this one. I knew I would enjoy this, didn’t remember John Goodman being in it, Mary Beth Hurt is really good in it, mentioned her being good in Light Sleeper too, didn’t realize she’s Paul Schrader’s wife. Insanely hectic energy, shot through with hallucinatory holy light. Patricia Arquette is probably the weakest link in the cast, though it is her different energy that enables her to seem like a potentially redemptive figure for Nicolas Cage.

RAGING BULL (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese

This one’s a classic, but I didn’t like it the first time I saw it, over fifteen years ago, I think on account of being hungry at the time. Still, probably not my favorite Scorsese. The dialogue is interesting, due to De Niro’s character having a high level of aggression and paranoia, where pretty much everything that gets said to him he responds “Why do you say that?” which lends short scenes this circular quality. This reveals his character, in an efficient way, even though it makes the scenes feel insane and somewhat circular.

HOPSCOTCH (1980) dir. Ronald Neame

I liked this one a lot when I saw it years ago, didn’t really know the director’s pedigree came from doing Alec Guiness comedies. I don’t normally rewatch movie but my memories of this were very pleasant in a way suggesting it would be comforting. Walter Matthau plays a spy who is retiring but who gets everyone mad at him, which makes this kind of Prisoner-adjacent. He runs around, being the smartest guy in the room, having fun at being able to outsmart intelligent agencies. All of the globe-trotting of a James Bond kind of thing, but with none of the bloodshed. No one dies in this, uptight people just get mad at Walter Matthau being cool.

NIGHTFALL (1956) dir. Jacques Tourneur

Tourneur directed the original Cat People, which I love, and Out Of The Past, a classic noir I was not fond of when I saw it in college. This one’s good too, adapting a David Goodis novel. I know Goodis from a piece in Jesse Pearson’s magazine Apology, that makes the case he’s the best writer of crime fiction, on a sentence level. The dialogue’s good in this, but there’s also a cool structure: Following different characters, with it being fairly unclear what their relationship is to one another for a while, some flashbacks reveal things. The characters in this are pretty likable, Anne Bancroft is the female lead and the romance is believable. She plays a model, it’sf ascinating to watch movies made by a studio and realize they have the same woman designing gowns for all of them. Like they have the glamour provided in-house because it’s recognized that’s part of what people go to the movies for, but the the films don’t become ads for the designer or anything, like the way Jean Paul Gaultier’s designs function in The Fifth Element or something. Theme song is sung by Al Hibbler, who cut a LP with Roland Kirk.

5 AGAINST THE HOUSE (1955) dir. Phil Karlson

Criterion Channel has a collection of noir films Columbia put out, this is one of them, with a pretty good-sounding premise: Kim Novak is a part of a group of college friends that set out to rob a casino, but one of the group’s PTSD sabotages it. It ends up not really working as a heist film, for a number of reasons, one is that the “perfect crime” they engineer is not that intricate, the other, more important element is the characters are unbearably smug in a way that makes them really hard to deal with. Novak’s good in it, but no one else is: While the men are supposed to be funny, but aren’t, Novak sort of just has to be beautiful. She sings songs in this, and maybe there’s a voice double, but it seems she has a good singing voice. You can probably skip this one.

THE BIG HEAT (1953) dir. Fritz Lang

Not as masterful as the films Lang made in Germany, but still really good. A cop investigating a murder quickly gathers that a conspiracy is afoot, people make mysterious phone calls immediately after he interviews them, he gets his life destroyed, but keeps going. Gloria Grahame (who’s also in Nicholas Ray’s amazing In A Lonely Place) is great as a gangster’s party-girl-who-loves-money girlfriend who has her beauty and then her life taken away from her. There is an element of feeling like you’re seeing cliches be run through their paces, but I don’t mind, given the pacing. It’s mean enough you don’t know how dark it’s going to get. Jocelyn Brando, Marlon’s sister who also appears in Nightfall, gets a nice role in this.

MURDER BY CONTRACT (1958) dir. Irving Lerner

Oh, this one rules! Although I knew none of the people involved in it, everybody’s great. It feels slow as you watch it, it’s deliberately paced and seems to appreciate every scene on its own terms as a point of interest, rather than rushing through a plot. The score seems like it’s very close to just one instrumental piece, being used over and over again. About a dude, (who’s also in Kubrick’s The Killing, it turns out) becoming a professional hitman, and then flying out to California for a bigger job, where he has two people minding him. The hitman’s psychosis is not over the top, he just seems very self-contained, in a way that gets a lot of (almost) comedic mileage out of his interaction with other people

INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION (1958) dir. Marel Zeman

This movie looks REAL weird and I have no idea how they got the effect? The degree of artificiality is highly distracting, in a way I don’t have a problem with in Guy Maddin or whoever. The whole thing sort of looks like the portraits of people that run in The Wall Street Journal? There are lines on EVERYTHING, like the sets are being made in this patterned way to replace color values. Everything looks artificial, but also collaged together. “Freely adapted” from Jules Verne, this involves boats, explosions, heists, etc. but all done in this sort of deep-focus theatrical staging that seems to combine animation and live action but in a way I can’t work out but also isn’t enveloping or convincing.

MAY FOOLS (1980) dir. Louis Malle.

I like a lot of Louis Malle, this seems vaguely like a deep cut, as I believe it’s unavailable on DVD. It takes place in France during the May ’68 protests, but is about a family getting together for a funeral/reading of a will. It’s suffused with weird free-flowing sexual energy, like everyone’s down to commit incest? Sort of in the name of revolution, but understandable as a movie in terms of being very french, and maybe something of a light comedy. (While Murmur Of The Heart also has incest in it, and is not a comedy, it’s very French.) People flirt with each other a lot, this is a pleasant watch if you are under quarantine and are fantasizing about casual sex or the overthrowing of the political class.

MON ONCLE D’AMERIQUE (1980) dir. Alain Resnais

This, too, is very French. The spine of the movie is Henri Laborit lecturing, lending the film an essayistic aspect, illustrated with footage of lab rats, but also footage of people wearing mouse heads and human clothes, the best parts. The guy’s theories seem agreeable to me but I don’t know what other people think about them. They’re illustrated by the fictional life stories of three characters, whose lives intersect eventually in their adulthood, though the film starts with them as children. Resnais is interesting, I’ve seen very few of his films but they’re all radically unique, though united by this intellectual edge.

FUGITIVE KIND (1960) dir. Sidney Lumet

Lumet also had a long and varied career, but I essentially view him as a highly-skilled journeyman, I guess due to snobbish bias gleaned from secondhand takes. I’ll watch pretty much any of his movies though, and so I watched this Tennessee Williams adaptation. Not sure I’d seen Marlon Brando in anything before, though I thought it was funny to say I possessed “the raw sexuality of a young Marlon Brando” in college. This whole movie is about how hot Brando is, and how all women want to fuck him and how all the men resent him. You would think the heterosexual male default would be to not notice how hot a dude is, but Brando is both physically ripped but with a feminine face that makes me “get it.” There’s a poetry to his sensitivity, but also an element of threat to how basically everyone who gets along with him is at odds with the racist, patriarchal, and parochial attitudes of the small towns he travels through.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) dir. Sidney Lumer

This is an Agatha Christie adaptation, where Hercule Poirot is played by Albert Finney, amongst a large cast of huge stars who are both hamming it up and not really doing anything. After watching two movies with Natasha Richardson, was nice to see her mom Vanessa Redgrave in something, though it’s a small part. The ending, where the detective works out that everyone schemed to commit the murder together and then decides that he will let them all get away with it, is fun, though by and large the “comedy” here feels a bit dated. This kinda feels like something that you would’ve seen already after having caught bits and pieces of it on basic cable growing up.

[elyvorg]

How (not) to draw Kaito in left profile view: A Kaito Fanartist's Lament

If you're familiar with my blog, you'll know that I've drawn Kaito a lot. And contrary to apparently a large proportion of this fandom, I actually enjoy drawing his ridiculous hair! Usually. From a lot of the more commonly-used angles, it has a very distinctive shape to it which I find fun to get down.

But from certain angles? Not so much. In particular, it is not a coincidence that none of the drawings I've done of Kaito have ever been composed such that he's in a left profile view. Because I am not at all comfortable with drawing his spiky fringe from that angle. The rest of his hair is still fine - it is always very UP, just draw a lot of spikes going UP and you can't go too far wrong - but his fringe, from this angle, is a Problem. Here is a chronicle of my adventures in trying to figure this problem out.

First, let's look at some sprites of Kaito from the angles that give his hair its most distinctive shapes, in order to get a sense of the shape his fringe is "supposed" to be.

Front:

Pretty straightforward, and pretty consistent between the sprites and various illustrations drawn from that angle, give or take a spike or two. Kinda downwards, about as far as his nose or mouth for the longest spikes, and also pointing about 45 degrees to his left.

Right 3/4 view:

Also pretty straightforward and consistent between different depictions. I personally consider this the most distinctive and iconic shape of Kaito's hair, so if any angle should be considered "correct" and the thing to use for reference in case of inconsistencies, I think it should be this one. Note how from this angle we can see more than we could from the front that his fringe spikes not only point to his left but also outwards from his face at least a bit. They do not fold back around to the left side of his face towards his left ear.

Right profile view:

This still seems fairly consistent with the other sprites we've looked at so far, at least as far as one can tell considering that his fringe spikes are partially hidden behind his face and pointing away from the camera. All of them are fine to look at, because any awkwardness in foreshortening of the spikes is mitigated by the fact that they're pointing away anyway, and they're not getting in the way of his face from this angle. There are however slight inconsistencies here between the different depictions of this angle, in exactly how far outwards from his face his fringe spikes are angled, and how long they are.

I personally like drawing Kaito from this angle a lot and have done it a bunch of times. It's pretty surprising to me to realise that the official artists almost never have (this was basically all I could find; that third one is some merch something or other from the wiki using what should be his opposing Debate Scrum sprite but for some reason the actual one they use in the game is a mirrored version of his left profile view, grumble grumble).

Left 3/4 view:

Now we're getting into possibly being a liiiittle more inconsistent with the other angles. At this point his fringe spikes should probably be pointing a little less downwards and to the left and generally more towards the camera than they actually are. Not that I blame the artists for not drawing it that way, though, because foreshortening is hard, probably especially when it's spikes. Nonetheless, these are still all quite consistent between different depictions of him from this angle, so getting his hair to look right from this angle is still fairly simple as you just need to copy this basic shape.

(The arrows are pointing out something else of note, namely the only downwards-pointing spikes in Kaito's hair that aren't on his fringe, which are only found on the left side of his head. Illustrations of Kaito from an angle that should have these spikes visible are incredibly inconsistent on whether they even exist or not, so while I personally choose to include them in my depictions of Kaito's hair whenever relevant, I think it can be considered equally correct not to do so).

But now for the left profile view, which for some reason has been used in official drawings way more than the right profile view despite the fact that even the official artists clearly don't have a clue how to keep it consistent, as we are about to see. There are a few different approaches they can take.

The Too Backwards:

On its own, aesthetically, this looks fine. But that's not the angle that his fringe spikes go at at all! This is incredibly inconsistent with his hair as seen from most other angles, particularly the right 3/4 view, in which clearly those spikes are not going to end up anywhere near behind his left ear. The spikes are very straight and should not be bending around his forehead to point backwards like this.

The Too Short:

This time, the spikes are probably angled about right; mostly downwards, maybe a bit forwards, any “leftwards” would be pointing into the camera from here and so not visible, and not doing any kind of wrapping backwards around behind his ear. But if you look at any of his regular sprites, the spikes are meant to be long enough to be down about as far as his nose or mouth. These barely go down past his eyes... which has the incidental benefit of keeping his eye unobscured. As it happens, the Too Backwards approach also incidentally results in mostly not getting in the way of his eye. Hmm. Starting to sense a pattern here.

The Too Forwards:

Now this is a novel idea! Only one regular illustration in the whole game uses this approach, such that I had to dig into the closing arguments (which I otherwise left out of this because their art style is a bit different anyway) to find another similar example. This overlaps with the Too Short approach a lot in terms of angle, but these spikes are longer while still not blocking his eye from view. But maybe in doing so they've ended up pointing just a little more forwards than they really should be? The one on the left here, while seeming closer to correct than the rest we've seen, still looks a little off to me. (Maybe it’s just that there isn’t even attempt to foreshorten and imply they’re pointing into the camera.)

So if none of these are quite correct and consistent with the shape of Kaito's hair as seen from other angles, what should it look like? The best way to be sure is to take an image of Kaito from the right profile view, flip it, and then redraw the hair spikes to be on the near side of his face while keeping the silhouette the same, since that should be the same from either side. So I went and did this both by tracing one of the official right-profile sprites, and then with one of my own drawings of Kaito from a right profile view, and...

look at this ridiculous doofus how does he even manage to see anything that's approximately 45 degrees to his left (he probably doesn't)

...here we have the problem. The shape that Kaito's fringe is probably supposed to make from this angle blocks his eyes to varying degrees depending on exactly how you're angling it within the realistic bounds that it could be at. The Too Forwards approach kind of has the right idea but is probably exaggerating the forwardsness just slightly to avoid having that happen. I suppose it depends on which right profile image you use for reference, since they're all slightly inconsistent between the tiny handful of official ones that even exist.

I can try and do the anime artstyle cheat of having the eyes be visible through the hair anyway, but that's usually only forgivable because the fringe of hair blocking the view is probably thin enough that you'd be able to kind of see their eyes through it regardless. Here, though, there's such a large volume of foreshortened spikes in the way that I don't think one can reasonably get away with this. If the point of an art piece were to obscure Kaito's eyes and therefore his expression, then this particular angle would be great and incredibly useful. But otherwise, if he's supposed to be expressive? Eeehhhhhhh.

Leaving us with a conundrum of either drawing Kaito's hair correctly and how it should look from that angle but awkwardly obscuring his face in the process, or drawing something that leaves his face perfectly visible and readable but very clearly isn't consistent with what his hair is doing when he's seen from any other angle. This is also not even getting into the part where foreshortening is hard and I'm not sure how well I managed to do that when trying to draw the spikes "correctly"; they still don't look like they're pointing into the camera as much as they probably should, but how do you even???

So, to sum up, and to give the advice that I myself have been following all this time: how best to draw Kaito in left profile view?

Don't.