#everything about this from the art style to the concept to the execution

[blindmagdalena]

Seeking writing advice from one of the best. Please, share some of your tips, tricks and general wisdom (if you feel comfortable ofc). :))

you're so sweet! i'm no professional but i'll do my very best to offer something helpful!

the unfortunate reality is there's no one universal trick to writing. you just gatta Do It. and do it frequently! write badly. write out of sequence. write streams of consciousness with no mind for how the sentences read.

the most important thing you can do with your ideas is get them OUT of your head. you can't polish a gem before you've mined it.

don't delete the things you write! if you find a fic or a scene isn't flowing right or just doesn't fit where you've written it, put it aside. there's a good chance it'll come in handy later, or you'll be able to utilize it better at another time with a fresh perspective.

i have a whole doc called "odds and ends" where i hold onto moments or bits of dialogue that i've written but don't have a use for yet.

don't be afraid to seek validation! to paraphrase this tessa barron article, writing is performative. your story isn't finished until someone reads it. you'll never be done with it until it becomes real and complete to someone else. that's just part of the art! we write for ourselves, yes, but we also write to connect with each other.

read!!! in order to write well you must read. learn from authors who have more experience, more mastery over the art of storytelling and structuring their sentences. audiobooks count as reading, btw! it's so important as a creative to imbibe stories. i got back into reading published books around the time i started getting serious about writing again, and the impact it had on my style is SO obvious to me any time i go back and read my older pieces.

writing is fire and reading is fuel. feed your creativity!

PLAGERIZE. now ofc i don't mean this literally. but you absolutely SHOULD be freely taking inspiration from everything and everywhere. the reality is that there's only so many stories and concepts out there. what makes something original is the execution. don't ever be afraid to tell your version of a story you love. ESPECIALLY in fanfic! there's a reason fandoms are rife with stuff like beauty and the beast au's.

i hope that helps! 🖤

[crows-ghost]

2024 art summary !! template is by Papakkapao

2023 art summary, for comparison

For the masterpiece of the year, I never actually posted it (and don't intend to at the moment) but it was my best work of the year by a long shot. The amount of time and detail I put into really stands out for me personally.

The rest of them will be named, talked about and linked under the cut :)

January - Evil art style challenge - I honestly did not draw much at all that month so that is pretty much all I had for January! It is still a work I like, especially for having been on one layer.

February - personal project concept work - Another one I spent a lot of time and detail on and is one of my favourites personally!! I think it was after this though that I made the decision to stop posting these ones (the personal project work, anyway - that's art for me!)

March - Mailcat Ibex Mast fanart - DUDE I REMEMBER THIS ONE. I was struck with such a vivid vision I had to do this and it remains my best work of that month, even with all the iterator drawings I did. Like I love those pieces yes but they do Not match up to this one.

April - Far Shore and Moss Fields - This was another slow month for me in terms of art, and this isn't my favorite piece ever, but I learned some things from it still... so we good with it.

May - Phoenix Iterator drawing - Art that didn't get posted for a while but one of my favorites out of that bunch of drawings. It probably was a debate between the Chasing Wind art and the Phoenix piece but idk I started working on the art summary a while ago and I can't remember lol

June - Pearlcat Ibex fanart - surprise ! An Ibexcord exclusive piece! There was a moment in Ibex's video where he did a jump over a cyan lizard and idk I was taken over by a vision (how does this keep happening)

July - Eden mass attack - This took the most stress out of every piece on here surely. Mostly due to tech issues. But yeah I was fighting for my life trying to get this piece done and posted because of said tech issues. Like I don't think I said it at the time but I had only minutes to get this one off of a permanently dying laptop or else I would have lost the file. ENOUGH ABOUT TECH ISSUES THO what about the actual art. Okay I LOVED HOW THIS TURNED OUT ACTUALLY. The scale and the detail and getting to include so many characters aaaa it's just. probably the best of my mass attacks for the year anyway this has been a paragraph, ONTO THE NEXT ONE

August - Milk - HOW DID THIS BLOW UP SO MUCH ???? It is not only my best work out of August aside from the masterpiece of the year but also my best performing work ever ?? That's so insane to me. But anyway yeah this is another case of being possessed by visions or smtn I don't know, but I was kinda speedrunning it after getting sick lol

September - Loop strawpage art - Oh here it comes. This is the month where the many ISAT arts start loll. I mean I wasn't particularly happy with most of it in this month bc well. I was only starting out. but I COOKED with this one specifically. The concept and execution I lovee this one it's just. YEAH.

October - It's going to be okay - oh man I already said that there's a lot of ISAT arts and man I was doing so well this month, it was so hard to pick one specific piece for this one. Imagine they are all here in spirit PLEASEE there are so many good ones this month -> Around the clock, at the end of everything, Websiffrin, the road of trials, Sweater Forever

November - Hourglass - okay I had my high with the ISAT art, now it slows down a lot. This is probably the best piece for a while, or at least in my head it is. I know I did a lot of Moons and there is other art but this is where I started feeling less satisfied with my art again.

December - Where we started - Yeahhh the art block was strong this month. I had projects I wanted to do but just. could not. It took me a while to get back to a point where I could draw again and be okay with what I was making. I'm still not as satisfied as I'd like to be, but I'm at a point where I can do things, and this piece was one of the better ones.

ANYWAY!! I'd say it's been a good year, art-wise. FIXATION GAINED. and that has resulted in a LOTTT of art lol. Also I worked on my projects a bit (would like to make more progress on them next year though !!)

[patchdotexe]

got asked for advice on ~how to make it big~ and now im ruminating on why i make things in the first place. like i have a surprisingly big youtube following and my streams are more popular than expected but like.. i mean, yall have seen me violently reject the idea of a brand identity. any time someone mentions the algorithm around us we become enraged at the very concept. we used to be so tangled up in popularity and performance and pushing ourselves to do better, and it put a huge strain on ourselves and our friendships

and then one day, way after we'd already decided to reject all that but were struggling with motivation / "whats the point of all this", we just kinda sat down and thought what is something only we can do

and im gonna just. copy paste this chunk from what i said to them:

youre the only person with your art style, youre the only person with your voice, youre the only person with your gameplay style, youre the only person with your editing sensibilities, youre the only person with your comedic timing.

we are the only people that can animate rescue, we are the only people that can record beat the game, we are the only people that can do the project we're working on right now that has been an entire year in development, we are the only people that can do our streams. other people can do similar things, can have similar ideas, but it will never be the way we wouldve made it.

and i think realizing that fixed us. because we are doing things only we can do.

and maybe that wont get us fame or fortune but it makes us happy and people stop by our streams and compliment our art style and like our characters and are excited for whatever we mention working on and sympathize whenever we run into a wall.

i dunno. we're usually not very eloquent about this. but we think about it a lot. other people can write the fic ive been sitting on the outline for but they wont use the phrasing and pacing we would. other people could put together a pmv with that character and that song but it wouldnt be our art style and wouldnt be the audio cut we made ourselves for it (and also basically any time we've made a pmv it's been for weirdly obscure crossovers or aus anyway). other people can take the premise of our ocs but they wont execute it the same way we would. everything we make is so uniquely us.

[rudycomics]

Rudy Recs: Witch Watch (and its bittersweet love story)

I've written in the past before about some of the things I've been reading in shonen jump, You and I are Polar Opposites as an example, and the current generation of manga in their lineup right now has some interesting stuff going on. Somehow, Witch Watch is not one of the manga I hear other people talking about as often as the others and I think that's a real shame!

Kenta Shinohara has 2 award winning manga under his belt and even though his concepts don't have this really intense fantastical hook and his art isn't clamoring for attention in the ways things like Chainsaw Man or Dandadan do, I think Witch Watch has incredible range. It's part romance, part slapstick comedy/gag manga, and part shonen battle manga all together, bouncing back and forth between these different styles each chapter.

I always felt like it was just really solidly put together and consistently entertaining (except for when the story focuses on some side characters writing fan doujinshi which bores me to DEATH), but the thing that made me feel like I needed to write about it was the way the series handles the romance between the two main characters, Nico, the witch given a prophesized control over every type of magic, and Morihito, her childhood friend and chosen protector because he happens to be one of the last Ogres in the world.

I'm going to be talking spoilers for things that happened in recent chapters, so be warned!

I will put a warning when I get to it, but I like writing about these things because I personally think getting someone to gush about specific instances of well executed craft gets me more interested in checking out new things than anything else.

The basic setup to their romance is that Nico has a crush on Morihito (which she calls Moi and I'll use this nickname for convenience) and she begins living with him as her mother received a prophecy that some evil force will try to use Nico and her unnatural powers for evil purposes that will ultimately bring her harm in the process. Moi is chosen to be Nico's familiar to protect her from whatever this vague danger may end up being, but we see their personalities clash right away. She's very aware of him and he seems very stone-walled and closed off, despite their being some sort of connection between them from childhood.

The two get into a lot of wacky situations as Nico attends school and continuously uses her powers to try to help classmates with their personal troubles and they make some new friends along the way with their own special powers. The household of just the two of them grows into a house of 4 boys and Nico, with two other girls making frequent appearances. We learn about all these characters and their quirks and see how they are all invested in helping Nico try to form a relationship with Moi. It's not until a good handful of chapters later that we learn that in typical Nico fashion, she had somehow ended up putting a curse on Moi when they were children that locked Moi into being "best friends forever" with Nico, essentially kneecapping any romantic growth from sprouting from Moi.

It's not that important to what I wanted to talk about, but I do think this is such a fun story device because it completely fits in line with everything we've learned about Nico and what every wacky situation stems from in this series: Nico somehow uses her magic in ways that challenge the intuitive way the powers would seem to work and creating unintended effects on top of what the power is supposed to do. Nico's bond with Moi ever since they were children has also become the reason that nothing will ever happen between them.

EXCEPT... All of their new friends have sussed the situation out and form a plan to break through the curse and free Moi to accept the feelings that are actually blocked off inside his heart that they all know are there. They even have this fun visual metaphor of a heart with a valve leaking romantic feelings that gets repeated all through this arc.

They try some things to get Moi to over flow with feelings faster than the curse can repress them which is fun but ultimately fruitless, only for Moi to accidentally being able to listen in to Nico tell everyone that she loves him because of all his flaws that are center to his insecurities that make him close up. It's a beautiful moment that caps it off with using that visual metaphor again to really push emotion to the reader and I thought this was so effective!

From here on, I think what I want to talk about is spoilery enough that I should put a marker here for people that don't want to see anymore before reading:

**SPOILER WARNING!!**

The two both have feelings for each other at this point and Moi wants to confess to Nico now, but tragedy strikes as the big bad makes his move to attack Nico and friends which ends up costing Moi his life as he gets shot in the chest with a gun. Nico uses her powers to heal him at the cost of something of her own and what she ends up giving up is her time, which includes her memories, and turns back into a 5 year old.

The group find out that Nico can be restored to her natural state by collecting these magic butterflies that escaped from her body during her spell, and here is where I think this series does something that really grabbed me.

I read a LOT of manga. Like, scouring for new stuff to read every day. Comics are my primary source of entertainment and I read a LOT of romance stories. One of the things that I feel like authors have to consider when writing compelling romance is how to get readers to connect with characters enough to also want to see those characters get into a relationship. In general, I think a lot of this connection buildup happens AFTER characters get together and you have to just get accept the weak initial romantic beginning (like Galaxy Next Door for example), OR the story spends its whole lifetime creating their bonds slowly and ends right as they get together which annoys me, personally (hoping this one doesn't do that, but we will have to see).

What I think Witch Watch does here is so striking and unique; Nico and the gang put in so much effort in between their escapades to get these two characters together so that they can be happy. Right when things lock into place, it all comes to a halt and resets, but what doesn't get reset is the readers' understanding and connections to these characters. We're already invested in Nico and Moi and we get a second chance to see these characters form a loving connection in a really unique way that feels unpredictable as Nico slowly regains her age and memories back. It's got a bittersweet tone to it as Moi doesn't get to express his love in the way that he wants to, but we get to see such a complex form of love develop as he takes the role of a caretaker for little Nico. Love is more than romance or attraction and getting a chance to put that trope away for a bit to do something different is so refreshing. It really builds out something so much more complete and more befitting of a seinen maybe, rather than a shonen with fight scenes and mythical characters.

This current arc is the beginning of part 2 of Witch Watch, with the big bad leaving the group alone because Nico is useless to him as a child with no control over magic. We know this peace will come to an end when Nico is restored to her proper age, but we get to see the characters all get up to their silly antics again with child Nico in the mix now. It's a really cool shakeup that adds new life to the slapstick comedy bits that make up most of the story, putting the action in the back seat again for now. This is the most recent chapter at the time of me writing this (chapter 133), and seeing Moi's perspective as the point of view in contrast to Nico's experiences so far is really gripping to me. This final page of the chapter is what did it for me:

It hurts, but it's love. The pain is temporary, all for the goal of being together when it's all over, with a connection deeper than anything that they would have formed otherwise.

Please go give Witch Watch a read! It's really fun!!

[biganimal92]

okay I mentioned it before and @bhreac said she wanted to hear more of my thoughts so here is why i still dont know if i like this game

my initial impression was that it was a good *idea* for a game that wasn't executed very well due to the incredibly short length and because of how much of it's short length consists of the hallucination sequences which felt like the game was relying on its visuals rather than anything else. the game is also really backloaded with these visuals and it feels like the game spends too much of its time just trying to look impressive without providing any sort of substantially meaningful experience. like by the time i reached the end i was actually getting tired of it and i wanted it to be over, i think it was the part with the pony express demon on the ceiling, and i really think that this sort of thing would have been a lot more engaging if either there was less of it, or if the game had been longer so it could be more spread out and so it could have more of a meaning to me. the short length also makes it feel like it's almost a proof of concept in a way but the game feels like the creator had the idea of the kind of story they wanted to tell but didn't have the means of giving it the kind of length something like that deserved so you get like a bite-sized example of what they could have made if capitalism didn't deprive us of our ability to create art

i think that as strong as the writing currently is, it would have seriously benefited from having us spend more time with the characters in terms of building up our attachments and understanding of them as well as having a deeper connection with jimmy by the time he starts to spiral and we learn what he did before the crash happened etc, because as it currently is it feels like we're just watching a short film especially because the actual gameplay is kind of nonexistent

but with that being said I do think the themes are handled excellently and I love how much nuance there is to everything and how complex the morality of the game is while also showing us the depths that someone like Jimmy can reach. I like his inability to deal with the grief of what he did and how his instability creates this huge victim complex while also nurturing this obsessive need to fix everything unrelated to him because he can't properly deal with his own issues in a healthy and supportive environment. I like curly and his enabling of jimmys behavior, I love anyas seemingly infinite patience and forgiveness and understanding until she sees it's reached a point of no return, and how this is ultimately the fault of a neglectful corporation who literally doesn't care about the lives of its employees and I love how all of this and more is explored in such a short runtime

also while I think the style for the game is interesting, i will be nitpicking and say that I don't like indie games that try to aim for ps1 graphics styles but are way too high of a resolution and opt for a grainy filter over everything to try to make it look like it's on a crt. stop gentrifying and commodifying the ps1 awsthetic you cowards

i have more that I could say but phones are making it impossible for you to be able.to type on them and my hands actually hurt from how many times.ive had to correct typos and autocorrections

[kyouka-supremacy]

heyy!

for the character ask game, would you mind doing odasaku? 🤭♥️

Of course!!! <333

Favorite thing about them: He's normal. He's plain and uneventful and almost supposed to go unnoticed. Which makes him the perfect common man and character who's the easiest to relate to and see oneself into. He's the bridge between the extraordinary, superpowers world and our ordinary reality. The author loves to delve into the theme of “ordinary��, “avarege”, “uninteresting” men (x) (x) (also see: Sigma's whole character), and I think they're very good at executing it, and it really shows in the composition of Oda. It's a very compelling concept!

Least favorite thing about them: Well. Not his fault. But if I had to be honest the whole oda/zai fandom drama is, politely, quite tiring... I used to have my perplexions about Oda's moral code the first time I watched the anime, but I've long come to terms with the fact that bsd's worldviews are simply different from mine, so I don't really have issues with it anymore. I sincerely enjoyed his character during the anime rewatch of the Dark Era arc.

Favorite line: I guess “people live to save themselves” hits quite hard. I may disagree with bsd's morals, but I suppose a poignant line is still a poignant line.

brOTP: Buraiha trio,,,,,, Oda and his orphans,,,,,,, Also, I know they didn't have much space to interact in canon, but Oda and Akutagawa. It's kinda sweet how Oda stepped up to go to Akutagawa's rescue.

OTP: I like odazai a lot :) Buraiha trio too as a whole, probably.

nOTP: Oda/ngo; not because I take any issue with it (I ship pretty much everything), and I'm sure they care about each other a lot, but every single time without exception I've been exposed to fancontent of them it always framed them as “Dazai's parents”, which I personally find extremely distasteful. Personally, I perceive it as infantilizing Dazai, and it bothers me in particular in the way it clashes with the image of the Buraiha trio I have of people who respect each other and consider each other equals and on the same level despite their rank.. So, y'know.

Random headcanon: Right now I can't take off my mind this headcanon that Oda wears bracelets made for him by his orphans.

Unpopular opinion: He's the author's self-insert lmao. From the way he's the only writer character, to how Asagiri has him as their profile picture on their socials, to how he haunts the narrative but isn't directly part of it, it's really clear as the light of day for me. Which makes Dazai's reverence for and idolization of him a little funny pffttt.

Song i associate with them: I heavily associate Lovers' Suicide Oblivion by OPA to odazai. For some reason, another song that makes me think of Oda is Servant of Evil by mothy, with Oda as Allen and Dazai as Riliane. You know, I suppose. Deeply loving someone despite their being inherently evil due to being able to see the childish, genuine side of them no one else can see. Dying in front of them as the ultimate act of selfless love and their death prompting the other's redemption. One looking over the other after their death and guiding / protecting them. Yeah, I think it fits them.

Favorite picture of them:

Favourite illustration:

Favourite illustration in the anime art style:

Favourite Mayoi card:

Send me a character?

[hidingoutbackstage]

Okay I’m STILL procrastinating watching s15 bc I’m SCARED so here’s my extremely biased ratings/opinions on the episodes of s14 to help me procrastinate (episodes which are multiple parts of a single story will be condensed into one slot)

Room Zero: SO cute and good, I LOVED the animation style, it was simple and short but really well done with great colors, fun alien designs, and fluid animation, and I just like seeing the guys go on missions like that. It's a shame that the animated show never got picked up bc I would've adored seeing more of it. 10/10

From Stumbled Beginnings: Very cute and funny origin story for Simmons and Grif, and I love that they were p much always together since they enlisted lmao makes their dynamic rlly good and the humor actually got a couple laughs out of me. 8/10

Fifty Shades of Red: Sarge's humor never quite landed with me like is has for some people (my boyfriend lmao I literally have to pause episodes sometimes so he can stop laughing. Anyway) but it was a very humorous and in character origin for him as well. 5/10

Why They’re Here: Less interesting than the previous two, obviously just meant to fill in plot "holes" and to also show us the origins of the other characters. Also I am completely ignoring that one line from Tucker in the interview, just gonna chalk it up to the "edgy" humor it does not exist to me. 4/10

The Brick Gulch Chronicles: WONDERFUL stop motion, very fun and cute and entertaining, very wholesome and still in the vibe with what the show itself is. I appreciate the willingness to do stop motion for most of it. 10/10

Red Army Unit FH57’s Adventure: It was kinda interesting and kinda funny but I found myself kinda tuning it out cuz it just felt kinda whatever. The combo of the different animation styles was cool though and I thought the ship misunderstanding them was funny. 5/10

Locus and Felix: Okay I'm gonna be a black sheep for a second and say that I rlly don't care that much about Locus and Felix. I don't think Felix is a secretly deep sadboi whom I'm gonna spend an unnecessary amount of time thinking about, I don't think Locus as secretly good all along, and I don't care that much about their partnership and what they were like before Chorus. That being said, the animation here is absolutely gorgeous, this is probably my favorite animated story in the whole season, it looks awesome. The plot is nothing special but who cares like I said it's beautiful, 6/10

Fight the Good Fight!: VERY funny and well-executed propaganda video, short and sweet and nothing more to it. It does its job. 5/10

Meta vs. Carolina: Dawn of Awesome: Another one I really don't care for because literally everything leading UP to the fight between Meta and Carolina is a waste of time. Maybe some people really care about their weapons and stats, but I don't. And even then, you kinda know Carolina is gonna win the fight, the question is just how. 4/10

Grey vs. Gray: I don't know or care about the Game Grumps and the entire thing felt like a short gag that went on for way too long with a predictable ending. 2/10

Caboose's Guide to Making Friends: Again, ADORABLE art style and very cute having a story be told from Caboose's perspective. 7/10

Head Cannon: Kinda funny I guess. I wish we'd gotten it spread out more equally among the heads Omega jumped into. Ik he didn't spend equal time in there but who cares. Whatever, still funny. 5/10

Get Bent: I LAUGHED PROBABLY THE HARDEST AT THIS ONE AND THAT'S MOSTLY BC OF LESBIAN DONUT IT CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD AND IT WAS HILARIOUS (also hello, bisexual church?) 9/10

Red vs. Blue: The Musical: it was fine. it was creative. The dancing was well animated. Enjoyable. 5/10

Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue: I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs but Kaikaina was in this which automatically boosts it to a 8/10 (I also like that they have movie nights it's cute)

RvB Throwdown: Fine but mostly forgettable. 3/10

The Triplets Story: REALLY interesting concept (y'all know I love the freelancers) that felt like it dragged on too long and only gave Ohio something to do. 4/10

Immersion: The Warthog Flip: I loved the costumes and the actual Warthog and it got a couple laughs out of me. 5/10

Red vs. Blue vs. Rooster Teeth: This was made for the fans/themselves. As someone who is neither, none of it was funny and I just kinda waited for it to be over. At least the animation of the armor irl looked rlly good

[idleglowingpixels]

XXY Chapter 9 Update!

Chapter 9 is finally here! You can go read Hyacinth over on AO3!

I am totally normal about this chapter. EEEEEEEEEE!

Anyway I'm gonna have my really late dinner now lol

Author's Note below the Keep reading! SPOILERS AHEAD!

Launch Notes - January 7th, 2025

You all have NO. IDEA. how long I've been waiting to share this chapter. Like, oh my god. This one and the last one were so satisfying to post.

First, yay, another Bubbles chapter! I really love her a lot, and I hope that was reflected in my writing of her. I know we got some Bubbles & Buttercup interaction without Blossom back in Chapter 3, but I couldn't help myself with writing them together again. Also, Blues shenanigans! I love writing her POV of their relationship. She's such a sweetie pie UGH I wish I could write more for her! I know she has a mini-story-arc going on in the upcoming couple of chapter batches, but I don't know exactly how far out that is just yet...

Now, I know some of you are wondering, "Who this doctor guy at the end of the chapter? Is he an OC?"

WELL, ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO DR. RICHARD PACHT, THIS AU'S VERSION OF PACKRAT. YEAH, THE PACKRAT FROM THE 2016 REBOOT. OvO

I'm a HUGE TMNT fan and I know there was that one spider mutant scientist lady in the reboot at some point, but I don't care enough to add her to the fic, so I took her concept and incorporated it to Packrat! I noticed in his very boring canon design that he had a lanyard and it just made me think "AHA MUTANT SCIENTIST RAT MAN!" I also loved the idea of him being a rodent hater with his eventual karma being dealt through one of the rats he was experimenting on. Hope you noticed a certain detail about it!

There's something oddly satisfying to me that comes with reinventing the reboot-only recurring antagonists. Obviously, I'm not including ALL of them, just the ones I either A) actually like (I love this one episode with Bianca in it in an ironic way 'cause I can't take that show seriously, but also she's so fugly in that show's art style it's fucking hilarious), or B) see great potential in, with meh to mediocre execution in canon (like Packrat...And well basically all of them but DEFINITELY characters like Packrat).

Sorry I didn't include much of the Normie Trio (Mike, Robin & Mitch) in this chapter! They'll come back soon, though, trust me.

Okay I think that's everything I wanted to yap about with this chapter lol! Thanks for all the things, including hits, likes, comments and kudos! I love to get feedback from you all. Stay hydrated and have a wonderful day or night! <3

[pebblysand]

[BOOKS READ IN 2024]

hello, hello! i hope you’re all doing well. 

‘tis the season again. the season of the wildly unrelatable here’s 150 books i read this year blog posts and articles and tiktok and youtube videos. if you, like me, feel very behind and inadequate (lol), here is a wrap-up of the seven (7) books i read this year. 

.

bad blood by john carreyrou (️3.5/5 ⭐): this was my only non-fiction read of the year. it retraces the story of elizabeth holmes aka the woman behind the theranos scam. it was gifted to me by a friend for my birthday after i’d mentioned listening to the podcast to him. i gave this a 3.5/5 because objectively, as far as non-fiction books go, it was a 3/5. there was a lot of unnecessary length and details, and the writing wasn’t particularly noteworthy. i however did add an extra half-point for the journalistic quality of carreyrou’s work (which is really incredible) and the subject matter, which i found fascinating. i just felt like the book wasn’t as riveting as the story itself should have made it. 

.

this is how you remember it by catherine prasifka (5/5 ⭐️): i’ve already gone on and on about this book on tumblr and on the podcast but i cannot possibly stress enough how much i ADORED this. it’s one of those reads that will haunt me for years to come. this book had everything i love to see in literary fiction: violence against women, coming of age, the internet, a very interesting style (the book is written second-person)... i had already loved catherine prasifka’s debut (none of this is serious) but this one was just out-of-this-world. i think she (unfairly) gets compared to sally rooney a lot because she’s her sister in law (catherine’s brother is sally’s partner) but i think catherine is an excellent writer in her own right. the themes of this story, which in part deals with the realities of falling prey to predatory/abusive relationships in your teens, really connected with me as i was writing chapter 22 of castles, and this quote in particular really inspired me. 

You think over the events of your life, the way you’ve been treated, the way you’ve allowed yourself to be treated. You want so badly to recognise them as wrong, as perverse, as abusive, but it’s so hard to recognise it when you didn’t feel it at the time. It will be a long time before you’re able to process these feelings.

i remember reading this and thinking: this is exactly what i wanted to get across with ginny, and i needed to put into 32,000 words what she so beautifully put in one sentence. i’m in awe and i love her so much. 

.

room by emma donoghue (2.5/5 ⭐️): lani (@copper-dust) kept banging on about this book so much on the podcast that i decided to read it. i’m sorry (i really am), but it didn’t land with me. i found the POV (the book is told from the POV of a five year old child) simply unbearable. i did give the book a 2.5/5 because i suppose i did finish it (which earns you a ⅖ in my book) and i have to admit the concept is original and well-enough executed, which gave it another half-point. but LORD was this a bore and the few little nuggets that were interesting were buried in so much bullshit about what toys the kid was interested in and how much time it was taking him to go up and down the stairs that honestly i could barely get through it.

.

son odeur après la pluie by cédric sapin-dufour (4/5 ⭐️): this is my only french read of the year (oops 😬) but a very good one. if you are french, chances are you have heard of this; i think it got a lot of prizes and was promoted a lot, but it’s definitely very deserved. son odeur après la pluie (which translates as his smell after the rain) is probably one of the most beautiful works of art i’ve ever seen made about dogs, and our relationships with them. every moment, every behaviour, every aspect of ubac (the dog)’s life is so on point and so truthful and so beautifully described and written. there is so much love in this book, and it made me cry all the tears in my eyes. the problem with books about dogs is that you always know how they end, but i felt like death here was handled so subtly and intelligently and lovingly that it brought beauty and poetry to a very sad moment. i would HIGHLY recommend this to every dog lover. one bit that i particularly loved/made me laugh is where he adopts ubac and brings him home for the first time, and reads all these books about how he should make the dog eat after him and sleep outside his room and all and then… does the total opposite. we’ve all been there ^^. 

the only reason this got a ⅘ and not a 5 was that i felt the style was a bit too lyrical and hard to read at times - it’s obviously intentionally peculiar, but i felt sometimes it was almost trying too hard. that said, i will caveat this by saying i very rarely read in french these days, so my feelings about it may also have been impacted by my lack of fluency in the language. 

.

small things like these by claire keegan (4/5 ⭐️): i spoke about this one quickly on the pod - it had been on my TBR for ages, then the film happened and i finally decided to give it a go. it’s a very quick read (120 pages) and is a historical fiction story about the magdalene laundries. i found it very moving, very interesting and well-written (god, the head nun is terrifying), and sometimes even a bit funny in that way that irish people have to make light of dark things. i thought the writing was gorgeous, although i would definitely warn people that it’s very irish in its phraseology and dialect, which may be a bit unsettling/hard to understand if you’re not used to it. that said, the prose is very delicate/understated, in an absolutely mesmerising way. this bit, for instance, really stuck out to me: 

‘Are you done with this tea or will I pour you another?’ ‘We may as well finish it, Mother,’ he persisted, holding out the cup.  The hand that poured was steady.  ‘Were your sailors in town this week?’  ‘They’re not my sailors but we had a load come in on the quay there, aye.’ ‘You don’t mind bringing the foreigners in.’ ‘Hasn’t everyone to be born somewhere,’ Furlong said. ‘Sure, wasn’t Jesus was born in Bethlehem.’

the only reason this got a ⅘ and not a 5 was that honestly, i felt like it was a bit too short. this is obviously my personal preference but i thought there was more to say to this story than she did. which is why, as i said on the pod, i liked the film version better. i felt like it suited this story better.

.

intermezzo by sally rooney (5/5 ⭐️): i’ve gone on about this at length on different forums so i won’t go on about it too much but i obviously adored this. as a sally rooney stan, i think this is one of her best. i’ve said this before but i think she has a very particular talent in portraying depression in a way that really speaks to me, and i so connected with this book. the one thing i will say about it is that i thought it was an interesting choice not to include naomi’s POV. i think this is intentional but she does come off as a bit of a manic-pixie-dream-girl (which i think is meant to highlight how little peter actually knows her and how much he idealises her) and i was a bit surprised that sally didn’t quite close that loop in the end. but again, i think this is a bit intentional, the same way that i maintain the end of normal people isn’t meant to be the happy/hopeful ending everyone else seems to think it is. but if you’ve read this, i’d be interested to have your thoughts. 

(that said, when it comes to intermezzo i texted one of my friends that i absolutely adored the end, before realising that in a way, it kind of ends on the same note as castles, so of course i loved the end 🤣.)

.

the running grave by robert galbraith (a.k.a JK Rowling) (4/5 ⭐️): i hesitated even mentioning i’d read this because i don’t want to get death threats again (🙄), but also this is 947 (!!) pages, so it hurt my soul for it not to count towards my reading year lmao. i’m not going to explain why i read this (and why i still read JKR’s books) - again, i don’t think the internet is a place of sensible discussion here but just know that i have my reasons - but i will give those who are interested in it, an objective review. 

overall, i’m very split about this book. on the one hand, i think her writing keeps getting worse, and she is in dire(!!!) need of an editor. like, we could have done without at least two to three hundred pages of this book without me noticing. literally every conversation and every thought is painstakingly spelled out in a way that grown adults honestly do not need to endure. 

on the other hand, i really enjoyed the theme of this. the investigation happens within a cult, and i don’t know if it was because of the cult thing, or the violence against women thing, but i found it a lot darker than the other books, and honestly way more interesting. it felt like she - for the first time in her career - gave herself the permission to go Very Dark, and i really enjoyed it. the last three or four hundred pages were definitely page-turners. i will also note that this particular book had nothing to do with transgender people/rights at all, so i suppose she can let go of her hateful hyperfixation sometimes.

on a character-level, i’m getting a bit tired of the will-they-won’t-they, but i feel like – maybe – given the end of the book, we might finally be getting somewhere? (although, i’ve felt like that in many-a-strike-books before and we never did go anywhere). i found (spoilers ahead) that charlotte’s suicide was weirdly anti-climactic and underexploited. i got what she was trying to do with it (i.e. making the point that perhaps suicide isn’t always a tragedy) but i felt like the “resolution” also wasn’t getting to the bottom of it. for such a painstakingly long book, it got very little airtime. 

so, idk, onwards and forwards with the next one, i guess. 

.

currently reading: 

finally, i’m not expecting to finish any of these by the end of the year, but here’s what i’m currently reading/have up-next: 

l’élégance du hérisson by muriel barbery (the elegance of the hedgehog in its english version): this has been in my bathroom by the bathtub for about six months. i read ten pages at a time sometimes when i’m in the bath. it’s not bad. i just feel like i’m always forcing myself to read in french, and i’m very very slow.

blood on her name by B. Nacole: i’m about two pages into this on my kindle. i don’t know, i felt like reading another crime book after the strike one i just finished, but we’ll see if i like it. i also downloaded daisy jones and the six, so perhaps i will go with that first. 

the woman in the purple skirt by natsuko imamura: this is my next physical book read but i opened it on the plane, read a paragraph, then decided to finish the strike book instead. so, we’ll see when i get to it lol. 

if you want more reading content, you can follow me on storygraph, also @pebblysand 🥰.

[olivegardenfurryaccount]

I will only say one thing about the Minecraft movie, and never speak of it again, only because constantly keeping track of everything makes me more tired than it's worth

The people making this movie do not know how to make a movie look good, but they do have very permissive access to several very expensive tools meant to make films look better, and they clearly think that using all of those tools as much as they can will make the film magically look beautiful.

They have a super expensive volume set, so they shot every shot of the actors on that, that's why the lighting is fucked up and everyone's backlit and the scale is consistently wrong

They have a whole team of professional cgi artists, so they made as many expensive renders as they could, using the most powerful technology, and it sucks ass because this AI adjacent art style with all the hyper realistic details doesn't work at all with Minecraft as a concept because it's already so stylized

The acting is stale and flat not because any of the actors are bad at their jobs, far from it, it's because they put no effort into the script, so the actors have practically nothing to work with

And worse than all of that, is that the apparent plot is built around the fancy technology

Why is this movie about 4 real world people wandering into Minecraft? Because they had the expensive volume set, and decided to put their actors in a fully cgi environment

This movie will undoubtedly be terrible, it will look, act and sound like some kids in middle school made a Minecraft movie in their backyard, and then it was adapted beat for beat into a billion dollar movie

all of the problems with this are sourced directly from the first part of the execution, this is not the sonic movie where you can just complain about the character designs and the end product will be great, the problem is with the movie itself

Honestly, I don't have a satisfying solution here, the best we can possibly hope for is that they announce that they're starting over completely and releasing this version of the movie for free to acknowledge their mistakes

[xenosaurus]

NO OKAY BUT THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THIS CHANCE BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS ALWAYS (and this ask will immediately identify me to anyone who knows me bc im literally the only person in the world who cares) but please never read N.K. Jemisin's "The City We Became." She's won three hugos in a row and thats very impressive, nothing but love and respect to my sister who has Made It and Paved the Way for more of us to go forward. I haven't actually read her hugo winners and i'd like to, but unfortunately i started with The City We Became and now i hold a Grudge.

Why:

on the surface this book is a Cool Woke Twist on lovecraftian horror set in new york city. the basic premise is fun: the avatars of the boroughs of new york forming together to help their city become a fully fledged cosmic entity of a sort. the villain here is the literal spirit of gentrification, and while theres a lot of good things that could come from that set up, the actual execution makes it an absolute agony to get through. everything is so hamfisted and somehow smug about recognizing the most basic ideas. its too smug and condescending to appeal to anyone in the center, its ideas too juvenile to appeal to anyone in the left, and its weird flat characterization of the villains as The Most Cartoonishly Evil Cops/N*zis You Can Think Of kind of makes the conflict feel... empty. It's hard to explain without experiencing it, but i cannot recommend anyone actually read it. or maybe u should just so i can finally talk to other people about this, maybe im insane for feeling this way.

some favorite moments of mine, in no particular order:

-the multiple instances of a side character being introduced, having their race and tragic backstory exposited in one sentence, and then they vanish, never to appear in the narrative again

-white supremacists attack the indie art museum on twitter. thankfully they start a counter hashtag and the entire situation wraps up in under 24 hours. they go from "we have to fire all of you bc of pressure from these assholes" to "actually its fine" bc of twitter. i dont even think its supposed to be part of the magic of the city or whatever. its an incredible sequence.

-"he shot out of the pool like a child fired from a hot buttered child cannon"

-theres a bit where the author sets up a neat fight between a character who does a cool transformation and a REALLY neat monster. u will not see that fight play out. that scene isnt in the book. just the leadup and the aftermath. why even bother.

-one of the main characters has a tumblr but its obvious the author hasnt like... used tumblr. this isnt a major sin but it is funny

-really have to state again that theres a line in this book that reads "hot buttered child cannon." this also isnt a sin, this is maybe poetry.

-its labeled as adult fiction, it feels like its trying to go for grit and gore and sex in places, but its also weirdly shy about engaging directly with a lot of that stuff. this one might (MIGHT) actually be a style thing, admittedly most of my nitpicks surround one specific character who has a reason to be Like That, but i also have issues with her as a whole that i do not have space 2 get into here. regardless, a lot of this book feels like ya somehow, but the concepts its playing with and some of the scenes DO also make it feel too adult to really suit that either. its... weird.

its kind of a mess in a lot of places, and honest to god it sort of drags in the middle. if you DO pick it up, i recommend the audiobook. the narrator does a fantastic job, and they do some fun sound design in a few places. unfortunately the story itself is kind of hollow. it has a lot of diversity, but the way so many of those diverse characters are tossed out for brownie points and discarded, the way so many characters go into these preachy little rants about VERY basic ideas like "white supremacy bad" its just...

im sure that the author meant well. this book wouldve raised the bar for its representation in like... 2014. maybe thats when she started writing it, idk. unfortunately it came out in 2020 and i think it just feels Dated in a very strange way.

u dont have 2 publish any of this also ofc, im just always here to Unrecommend this book. unfortunately theres a sequel and some part of me is holding out hope that the author fixed some of the things i took issue with in the intervening years, so im bound to this series via curse. even if i hate this one, i know theres gonna be at least one more, and maybe *that* one will fix it-

do not be like me.

This ask was a ride from start to finish. I feel like I was shot out of a hot buttered child cannon.

[showtoonzfan]

Read some of your posts and though I do understand you're here for critique, I'm interested to know: what is the BEST part of HB/HH for you? What makes that part of the show excel while other parts don't? It can be a character, or an event or piece of worldbuilding or whatever. They don't have to be extraordinarily done by any means but something that's actually decent compared to everything else

I really like the art style, mainly….at times. Everyone who says “modern adult shows today have the same style and look so ugly”- are right, because Viv’s style is at least a breath of fresh air from that, even if it’s hard to watch in animation form and her designs and colors are all over the place and busy. Those are her strengths, the art (sometimes) and her ideas. Like I said, the whole reason why I’m watching Hazbin is because I do love the concept and I’m interested in most of the characters and of course, where the story will go. I think Viv is good at creating some character concepts and ideas just…not really executing them. We’ll have to see though. Meanwhile with Helluva, I don’t really see anything of value, at least not anymore. The pilot within itself was heavily flawed but the potential was there and that’s why it caught my eye at first. It should have been what the actual show was like, an edgy raunchy comedy about demon assassins going to earth, but then it turned to a messy yaoi soap opera + all the other issues I’ve discussed on this blog so that’s why I’m not watching Helluva anymore. However I will say Hazbin has its strengths, it’s got a good concept and loads of potential, I’m just afraid that potential has already been yeeted out the window but again, we’ll have to see.

[a-s-levynn]

3-7 for the art asks please 😁

Hey there, thank you so much for dropping by! I hope you have a beautiful day today! 🫶🏻😚

Is 3-7 seven mean 3 and 7 or 3 to 7? 😱 I'm going with the latter, just to be safe.

3. What ideas come from when you were little

Fhuh not exactly ideas, but there has been a lot of mention on Misha's part before -and absolutely rightly so- that my stuff looks remisiscent of the style older fantasy books used for illustrations. So in the sense of style i think a lot has roots in there, because fantasy was what i read the most. Also looked at pictures in a lot of tabletop rpg rulebooks because i loved the creatures. I drew a lot of creatures when i was little.. so yeah i don't think many ideas are coming from back than but the the things i loved definitely shine through in a way.

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

Water. Specifically high waves. I know i just included them in a "how i do stuff" post but i still have not fully figured out a way to execute how i want them to look. But i'll keep you posted when it finally happens. Also hands. I don't do weird or fun stuff with them (yet) but i love drawing them. But they are hard. Also hair. It's tedious at best but i love it so much. I should do it more. Oh yeah and ivy. I mean the plant. I love it but man.. my love for details makes me to do individual leaves. Every. Single. Time. Uhhh.

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

95 : 5 ratio sounds about right. Currently i share almost everything i do because it's either a small offerings, tiny token or something sleep token related but i have a thing or two that i've yet to share which are unrelated to ST. They'll come sooner or later.

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

There has to be a lot of things probably but that's the magic of the subconscious. You are not conscious about it. (And i'm not sure the question is phrased in the best manner because i think getting inspired by something is vastly different from having stylistic influences.)

So stylistically -besides the aformentioned old school fantasy style- to be honest, i'm not entirely sure. Probably the last thing i've seen in any given time somehow get's reflected, even if not always overtly.

As for inspiration, i usually find much more inspiration behind ideas and concepts rather than other art currently. Or small details that spark an idea which will spiral into some other idea, etc.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

Basically everything. I love art in all it's forms. There is really no medium i can't appreaciate in some ways.

But as for a specific medium i'll never touch is charcoal. I love it. Probably one of the best looking things come from it. I just.. i can't do it. Nope. Never. Also collages. I never really had the eye for it. But. I love them. I even have one on my wall back at home. But i can't do them justice.

[legionofpotatoes]

curious if you have seen (and if so what are your thoughts on) across the spider-verse what with it being such a love letter to illo/animation?

I have... a complicated relationship with that movie

Here are my thoughts on it straight out the cinema. It was all very heat-of-the-moment and I softened up a fair bit up since then, but I still have the same fundamental gripes with its story sense and tenacious excess in visual fidelity.

I know how dumb it sounds but it feels how it feels to me. Like watching it felt like playing a triple-A videogame. It was less intentional artistry and more kitchen sink clutter that had crunch written all over it. Definitely partially a me-problem but also the reports that followed kinda confirmed those suspicions and that sucked?

I know feature animation in hollywood pretty much universally sucks for every ground-level artist involved rn, but I definitely became privy to too much concrete bs to keep viewing this specific project as something championing the medium. The incessant fiddling from lord and miller, the firings and uncredited workers, the fact that much of their visual identity stems from alberto mielgo's work whom I just cannot stand. A lot of this is personal, and I can't ignore that.

But beyond all of my baggage, objectively speaking, I did love everything in the film that had to do with Gwen. Art direction included. That was a real flex both in audio-visual cues and a strong, dramatic character arc. But everything else felt like a mess. I said it before but walking out of this movie confused and bummed out was the first telltale sign for me, whereas ITSV left me elated and humming with joy. And it felt intentional. Question is, why?

And it's all tied up in taste and tone of course and I'm not here to police anyone's preferences in dramatic clarity or storytelling styles. But this type of half-a-movie that is all setups and cliffhangers pointing excitedly at a nebulous sequel is not my cup of tea at all. And I guess knowing how messy it was behind the scenes simply exacerbated that feeling.

ITSV had so much catharsis. So much progression of drama and payoff and big, sweeping moments that were visual, musical, and meaningful on a story level all at once. It was pure storytelling. ATSV had good stuff for Gwen, but otherwise was mostly just. Plot, it felt like. One thing after another and after another, leading to this weird, confusing, emotional rugpull of an ending that certainly had. Spice to it, but I wouldn't call it fulfilling.

Multiverse stuff is weird, right? but ITSV used that as just another tool in its storytelling bag. The other spiders came in with satellite arcs and enriched Miles' story in a very organic way. A story about fear and great expectations, executed to a T, ending with a triumph. Yet here we see ATSV using the multiverse as an entire framing device that its story optics are now beholden to. It feels wrong, somehow, and makes it harder to parse what all of this is about.

Bringing the concept of canon into the text, creating a story about storytelling itself, is always very very very tricky and difficult to pull off, and often even meaningless writ large. It makes the story they're telling here infinitely less interesting to me. and hey, I am curious to see what they do with Beyond, I'm not pretending to know more than I do here. I welcome being wrong! But it is what it is for now.

Thankfully Nimona came out soon after and was beautiful and elegant and meaningful and wholesome in all the ways I love, to the point that I decided everything was going to be okay after all :D Anyway I hope this answers your question and sorry I get so wordy!!!

[ggoatz]

Special Operations Original Art Concepts & Thumbnails!

Since it's been over a year since Special Operations was first ever uploaded, I thought I should celebrate and make a proper masterlist of everything I've compiled throughout the year. I will also go ahead and link the official designs down below!

Quick disclaimer: Special Operations is MY fanfic, but I obviously don't own the characters! As always, thank you to Spoon & double-thank you to the fanartists and for 1,000 hits on the fanfic!!! Thank you thank you!

This post will get pretty long, so I'm gonna go ahead and make a cut below if you're interested in seeing more/reading my rambles!

Here are the very first ever art I did about a year and a half ago, before I even started writing the fic:

God damn, has my art come far. I don't want to get too sentimental, so let's move on the redesigns of these designs & my thoughts on these:

This was Donnie's first ever concept design (after the original designs) - I always knew I wanted to have him have a gas mask or mask of some kind - his ultimate design really changed there at the end! It's really cool to see how far my art has come since this last year LOL.

-

This was Mikey's original design concept for this au, once I reworked the original one above. I wasn't really happy with it, or any of the designs, for that fact... I didn't really have anything directly in mind over than the fact that knowing his brothers were mad overprotective of him would mean he's covered in clothes. I wanted a mask for him as well and really took inspiration from his design from the show, and tried to include the aspects from that. below here is a few mask concepts I tried out, and a sneak peak of Raph's design/doodle I did.

Even though these other mask concepts were cute, I just couldn't resist going with the first and original design I had. I took the inspiration off of that for the stickers/paints on his shell from the show. Below is an additional drawing of Mikey! Not much changed in his final design other than the fact that he has no shoes, really.

-

Here's Leo's first ever intial design. I am glad Spoon convinced me to change it, because while it's cool, I don't think it really fits Leo's flashy and show style. He is a fighter who works beautifully with his skills, so while stealth was obviously the #1 thing to be considered on the list, I ultimately just kind of handed his design to Spoon to decide how he should look LOL. This was such a starch contrast to the first drafts...

-

I've always struggled at drawing Raph, so I don't really have any photos of him saved ): / to show off. Sorry Raph lovers, but Spoon did him JUSTICE and I will forever be grateful for them for that <3<3

Below are the final designs, done by Spoon through nearly a year of us talking about the designs!

Spoon does not have a Tumblr, but they do have a Twitter, which you can find here: @Hydratedturtle! Without them, these designs would have never been finished/completed. It was so beyond crazy to see the very first drafts by me and the finished concepts executed beautifully by Spoon and making my ideas coming to life.

Below are all of the thumbnails of Special Operations that I've done, and the improvement is obvious! These are done through the year of 2023!

Annnd, finally, here's a sketch I did of Donnie back in November/December with his more updated design!

And that's all for now!!! <3

[kaile-hultner]

THE SPECTACULAR LEVIATHAN

an essay about criticism and culture

ed sheeran doesn't need music critics

Rolling Stone published an article of cut content from a recent Ed Sheeran feature, in which the pop musician said, "Why do you need to read a review? Listen to it. It’s freely available! Make up your own mind. I would never read an album review and go, ‘I’m not gonna listen to that now.'"

And to some degree, Sheeran is right. Streaming services make music readily available and conjure the illusion that it's also freely given to us. We don't "need" cultural gatekeepers - such as, ironically, Rolling Stone - to tell us whether or not the newest song by Ed Sheeran is bad (that's just a deeply felt sense we hold in our bones, which Spotify or Apple Music can help us confirm at our leisure).

But like most criticism-of-criticism in this vein, Sheeran's point misses the forest for the trees. We absolutely don't need critics to tell us whether "thing good" or "thing bad," but that's not necessarily why critics even exist in the first place. In addition to that sort of mere qualitative statement, critics exist to help us understand context, like how financially deleterious the very existence of streaming services is to the artists themselves, for example, or how subscribing to a streaming service means that your music collection is never actually yours and can be revoked by the record companies at any time. Critics can help to place Sheeran in his historical context as a contemporary singer and songwriter, or offer more palatable, lesser-known alternatives to his vapid art. Critics could, if they wanted, try to situate Sheeran's songs in a political context, though I could not tell you how that would shake out to save my life.

Sheeran is not the only person to make that mistake, by any means. The idea that critics are unnecessary today except as objects of derision or agreement is popular, and the idea that criticism is only there to tell you whether "thing good" or "thing bad" is even upheld by people responsible for making sure criticism gets published to a broad audience, like IGN's executive editor of reviews.

Critics ourselves are often pushed into this narrow view of our field whether we like it or not, not necessarily out of malice but out of the harsh realities of business in the media industry. We watch as our friends and colleagues get fired from their "sure thing" jobs regularly, as outlets shutter and downsize to focus only on that which can get the greatest algorithmic return-on-investment.

Even with service journalism, the underpaid and undervalued field where writers put out dozens of how-to guides on everything from "How do I beat this level in Final Fantasy VII Remake" to "Where can I find the latest blockbuster on streaming," writers' jobs are being threatened by the looming mistake of Large Language Model (LLM)-generated content. Why pay someone to write an accurate, carefully considered guide that actually feels like a person wrote them - you know, the appeal of old chestnuts like GameFAQs guides - when you can just get a chatbot (and by extension, forced labor in Kenya) to do the work instead? At a certain level of bullshit jobs-style upper management, what's considered "efficient" is directly antithetical to human life.

But this isn't Ed Sheeran's fault, per se, nor is it really his problem. He's a point on a graph of a much broader trend.

anti-criticism in the age of disney adults

Poet laureate Karl Shapiro identified the concept of "anti-criticism" in a series of lectures delivered from October to December, 1949.1 He saw "[arguments] against criticism [as] related to a wider and more dangerous anti-intellectualism that in poetics leads to the primacy of the second-rate, and in literary politics may lead to official and controlled art." In his ensuing Poetry article, "What is Anti-Criticism?" Shapiro briefly examines the history of 18th and 19th century poetry and how it was analyzed, carefully demonstrating the values such structural and interpretive analysis upheld and how they were incompatible with contemporary 20th century poetry - and indeed, its critical apparatus.

The anti-critic takes for his quarry not only the modern symbolist poets but also the old symbolist poets like Blake; not only the modern metaphysical poets but also the old metaphysical poets; and in addition to these the polylingual poets; those who practice typographical or grammatical experiments, past or present; those who use one rhetorical figure at the expense of the other- those who are too abstract and those who are too concrete. The contemporary poet may not be tolerant of all these kinds of poetry himself, but the anti-critic would like to get rid of the lot. His measure, as I said before, is the prose semantic, and any violation of this central canon he regards as a threat to intelligibility and sanity. To the anti-critic any departure from the immediate area of the paraphrasable meaning is, moreover, a sign of wilful obscurantism. [...] A highly paraphrasable poetry is equivalent to a highly representational art, and both, in a period like ours, are liable to degenerate into escapist art.

Shapiro describes phenomena that would likely be familiar to anyone who has lived through the last decade of critical discourse around any kind of art you can imagine, from the indiscriminate uplifting of mediocre yet broadly popular "cultural products" to the bashing of art that resists easy interpretation and a sneering attitude toward the critics who attempt to analyze said art anyway. Through Shapiro we see anti-critics in those who endlessly repeat "Let People Enjoy Things" at anyone who doesn't like a superhero movie, in the throngs of gamers (and the reviewers who enabled them) who refused to let a little systemic transphobia get in the way of their Hogwarts Legacy run, and in Ed Sheeran's throwaway jab at the critics forced to listen to his pablum for less money than they should be getting for their troubles.

The anti-critic has surely evolved in other important ways away from what Shapiro observed in the first few years after World War II, just as the corporate media/art space has evolved. We see the "enthusiast" subsume more formal critics and critical outlets all the time, coincidentally as a monoculture forms around a few massive entertainment and technology corporations. In one particularly blunt example, critic B.D. McClay notes that a writer for IGN was replaced as the reviewer for the Disney+/Marvel series Loki after a single less-than-glowing review of the show. In a more recent example, replies to longtime film critic Robert Daniels's tweet panning The Super Mario Bros. Movie ranged from indifferent to derisive, with one reply telling him, "I’ll trust the reviews from people who actual [sic] play the game," together with a screenshot of IGN's 8/10 review synopsis.

We might revisit that IGN article that contends the purpose of criticism is to determine whether "thing good" or "thing bad," as it actually contends something worse: that the wide majority of things even worth talking about in IGN's eyes are broadly "good" along a sliding scale of quality from "mediocre" to "superlative." In this case, the criticism isn't even merely qualitative; it's meant to be singularly supportive or at worst ambivalent about a given cultural product. It is itself anti-criticism.

McClay (more charitably than I suspect Shapiro would have been) identifies the tendency for largely positive anti-critical writing about mass media as "a world of appreciation," not necessarily unadulterated fandom, but "essentially, a fan culture." In this dynamic, there is only people who like the thing, and the thing itself. If negativity in this world of appreciation exists, McClay explains, it does so as part of a binary: "the rave and the takedown."

an endless content™ jubilee

I remember when I first got into games criticism I heard everyone joke about the "discourse wheel" and how if you spent enough time in the industry you'd eventually find yourself back at the beginning, older, not necessarily wiser, yet experiencing many of the same arguments about a particular game or design concept yet again. The obvious punchline was someone yelling "LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE" and watching everyone in the discord server duck under their desks like an air raid alarm had gone off.

Since then, The Last of Us has gotten a sequel, a PC remaster, a full remake of the first game, and a whole-ass television show with a second season on the way. The discourse around that media franchise has happened in front of me not once, not twice, but like four times at this point. As Autumn Wright wrote, "there’s a new AAA catastrophe that’s weird about trans people and also The Last of Us is relevant again."

This is perhaps not the worst or wildest example of monoculture forming around us in a suffocating cloud, though. That dubious distinction goes to Disney and Microsoft, probably, as the companies attempting to gather up as much culture as they can to homogenize it, with the former going as far as digitizing actors' voices for use long after they retire in new portrayals of characters those actors first performed more than 40 years ago. Hell, it's not even the worst example in the games industry. What iteration number is Call of Duty on? Or Assassin's Creed? Or fucking Mario? Hell, we're already two deep into the reboot of God of War.

It's hardly worth saying at this point that nostalgia fuels so much of the media that we're given to consume. It's increasingly difficult to find new art or ideas in a media landscape that puts so much value on callbacks to old forms. If something isn't another superhero origin story, it's referencing a meme from 12 years ago. And it's nearly impossible to resist the ever-present pull of this strictly iterative culture: I can't lie and say I didn't thoroughly enjoy both of the above examples.

But we still need to try and cut through the overwhelm for a moment. Disney isn't a poison to the culture simply because it owns Marvel Studios or Lucasfilm. The reason for its negative impact is because of the absolute crushing presence it has in the film and television industries at large, having bought out major competitors like 20th Century Fox and nearly completely snowed out smaller film studios at the theaters. It doesn't help that the industry is consolidating in other ways with its move to streaming platforms. As Adam Conover said in a recent video about two different mergers (Live Nation and Ticket Master in the 90s and Warner Media with Discovery late last year), "one man's whims and preferences dictate which stories artists get to tell and what hundreds of millions of people get to watch."

The idea that a few rich dudes are in full control of every piece of media we consume and that the number of rich dudes who do so is actively getting smaller all the timesucks, not just for criticism's purposes but simply as someone who Consumes Content™. To my knowledge, no one has ever been explicitly asked if we want the same shit, year in and year out, only More. Nobody from Game Freak or Ubisoft ever sends out a survey like "hey are y'all tired of Pokémon or Rainbow Six: Siege seasons?" Instead, they just push them out, and let the resulting economic data do the talking: "People want more of this thing because a lot of them bought the thing when it came out." There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, especially when we're less likely (or able) to say no in the first place.

In this light, doesn't it make just too much sense that Ed Sheeran has a whole mini documentary series coming out on Disney Plus?

towards a guerrilla criticism

So what's to be done here? Aside from maybe the 🏴 most 🔥🍾 obvious 💣 (and unlikely) answers with regards to the most egregious monopolies, how can critics - who are, as a reminder, less institutionally supported than ever - or criticism even contend with Content™ backed by the most well-funded mega corps on earth and supported by hegemonically anti-critical fanbases?

Here is where I disagree most heavily with thinkers like Shapiro, who believed in retaining an elevated critical class and poetic movement with remove from the masses, and critics like McClay, who said "Opinions will become both more binary and more homogenous, and about fewer and fewer things. [...] things will get worse, whether or not they ever get better." I don't think our options necessarily have to be "remove ourselves to an academic ivory tower" or "accept that things are the way they are." We don't need to dutifully fall into line along the "rave" or "takedown" axis as McClay described.

The kind of criticism I am imagining is a criticism that is inherently and radically skeptical of (especially corporate-backed) nostalgia; a criticism that is not necessarily hostile to fans but antagonistic toward fandom as a system which undergirds larger structures of power; a criticism that is as transgressive and playful in the forms it takes as it is with the words that fill those forms. I believe we are capable of performing criticism that disappoints everyone in delightful ways.

Criticism as a weapon is not a new idea, of course. Marx is famously quoted as saying "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." More modern philosophers and theorists, like the Situationists and Bruno Latour, have written about the decline and possible weaponization of criticism as well. To a degree, that worries me. Talk doesn't just become action because the talker wishes for it real hard. There's a real possibility, no, a near-certainty, that anything that comes out of this will result in next to nothing changing. If everything is part of the cycle of discourse, including conversations on how to break the discourse, what hope do we have?

The alternative to facing the leviathan and losing at the moment seems to be more or less doing nothing, which to me is more unbearable than all the pranks of all the cringe-ass culture jammers of the 90s and 2000s combined. At what point does quiet dissent simply morph into complicity?

***

Shapiro, Karl. “What Is Anti-Criticism?” Poetry, vol. 75, no. 6, 1950, pp. 339–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20591169. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023.