#hope to post another one tomorrow

[chateaunoirsims]

❦ What a FACE ❦

⤬ I think I did my big one with Iris. I thought to myself - I need a character that embodies a siren and Iris was like “don’t worry.. I gotchu 😌”

Something is dropping tomorrow and after that the casting call video drops and we officially are in Resonance series territory!

Dissonance has 2 more episodes left which I have started working on so do not fear dissonance fans ! Genevieve is still the OG 🫶🏾

[xxplastic-cubexx]

oh noooo or whatever

bonus aka The Real Motive Behind This:

SURPRISE double bonus. textless ver of the first pic under the cut

[sweetandglovelyart]

Another Kirby OC Ask Game!

Thought I’d make another one of these since everyone liked the first one so much! Here are some more Kirby OC asks. You can send a number or an emoji, whichever is easier.

1. 🎶: What is a song that you associate with your OC, and why do you associate it with them?

2. 🗣️: Does your OC speak more than one language? If they do, what languages do they speak and how did they learn them?

3. 🪐: Has your OC ever left their home planet? If so, what other planets have they visited?

4. 💖: Has your OC met Kirby? If they have, what is their relationship with him like?

5. 📚: What kinds of books would your OC like to read? Do they have a favorite genre?

6. 💼: Does your OC have a job? If they do, what is their job and do they enjoy it?

7. 🧙‍♂️: If your OC had armor and a weapon themed after them for Super Kirby Clash, which of the roles (Sword Hero, Hammer Lord, Doctor Healmore, or Beam Mage) would the armor and weapon be for and what would it look like?

8. 🦄: Is your OC the only one of their kind, or are there others like them?

9. 🪞: Does your OC have a mirror counterpart? If so, what is their mirror counterpart like?

10. 🫂: Is your OC a forgiving person, or do they tend to hold grudges?

11. 🐾: If there was a Forgotten Land copy ability upgrade themed after your OC, which ability would it be for? What would the hat for it look like and how would it upgrade the base ability?

12. 😢: Is your OC open with their emotions, or do they tend to keep their feelings bottled up inside?

13. 😱: What is one thing that your OC is afraid of, and why are they afraid of it?

14. 💍: Does your OC wear any jewelry? If so, is there any significant meaning behind their jewelry?

15. 🫶: Are there any canon characters that your OC ships/that your OC thinks would be a good couple? If so, has your OC ever tried to play matchmaker and set these characters up?

16. 📺: If the anime got a reboot or if there was another Kirby TV show, do you have any ideas for episodes that your OC could appear in? What would the plot be and what role would your OC play?

17. 🪦: Has your OC lost any family members/friends/anyone else that they were close to?

18. 🎬: Are there any characters from any cartoons/TV shows/movies/games/other media that remind you of your OC or that helped inspire you to make your OC? If so, what qualities do they share with your OC?

19. 💫: What is your OC’s favorite place to visit on Popstar?

20. 🥀: What is your OC’s favorite kind of flower/plant?

21. ⏳: How old is your OC? If they don’t have a specific numerical age, feel free to just give an age range instead (child, teen, young adult, older adult, etc.)

22. 👻: Has your OC ever been possessed or mind controlled? If yes, how did it happen?

23. 👊: What would a boss fight against your OC look like? What attacks would they use and why would they be fighting Kirby?

24. 😴: If your OC could pick one of the Star Allies Dream Friends to go on an adventure with them, who would they pick and why?

25. ⭐️: If your OC could pick a final weapon from any game to use (such as the Star Rod, Crystal Gun, Triple Star Cane, etc.) which one would they choose and why?

[aueua]

!

[to-illustrate-the-stars]

happy birthday to the cat lover ever of all time... my worstie matoba seiji 🐈‍⬛🐈

[coquelicoq]

justice of toren collecting songs and one esk/breq constantly humming/singing them is such a good detail and ann leckie does so much with it. an incomplete list:

justice of toren's eager collection of songs is part and parcel of its violent destruction of cultures: these songs are cultural artifacts that it only learns because of its presence on those worlds during their conquest, and in many cases breq is the only one to remember them because their people have died out due to that violence. JoT preserves cultural artifacts for its own use at the same time it directly contributes to the need for that preservation in the first place.

the matter-of-fact way in which this is narrated to us gives us information about JoT's stance on respect and imperialism - that is, contrasted with other characters who look down on the conquered cultures, JoT does actually seem to appreciate their value. and yet it communicates to us no sense of remorse over its role in their genocide.

singing can be a communal activity. this allows us to feel the difference between one esk's multiple bodies singing together in harmony/in a round vs. breq singing alone. this has emotional weight, is an evocative image, and illustrates quite nicely some of the logistic considerations of having one vs. multiple bodies.

the constant humming/singing is extremely notable and idiosyncratic according to other characters, which is a dangerous combination for someone who's supposed to be undercover, so it adds a lil bit of fun suspense for us.

the fact that no one ever figures out breq's identity despite this giveaway tells us something about the other characters' attitudes towards artificial intelligences (though see below about seivarden).

the fact that it's so idiosyncratic also tells us something about the ability of individual AIs to have personalities that distinguish them from other AIs, and the fact that one esk sings constantly but two esk doesn't tells us something about the ability of different ancillary decades that are all part of the same AI to have distinguishing characteristics. this is very relevant to, and illustrative of, the series' thematic throughlines around identity, personality, continuity, etc.

the fact that breq personally has a bad voice also serves multiple purposes. because breq and seivarden both believe that the medic could have chosen a body with a good voice if she had wanted to, we can infer something about how ancillary bodies work, how much the AI (and, by extension, its medics) knows about the individual capabilities of those bodies while they're in suspension, and what kinds of things the AI can and can't control once it has unfrozen and taken over a body.

we can also draw conclusions about the medic that chose that body and about intracrew relations on that ship.

breq's bad voice creates moments of humor and irony in the narrative, such as when breq's constant singing - aka the most obvious clue that she is one esk - is precisely what makes seivarden so sure that breq can't be one esk, because no esk medic would use a body with a bad voice for an ancillary.

constant singing/humming imposes itself on the shared soundscape, meaning other people can't easily avoid it and it has the potential to annoy them, especially if the voice itself has annoying qualities. the reactions of other characters to the frequency and/or quality of this verbal tic tells us something about the level of affection those characters have for one esk or breq.

because singing involves words, the meaning of the lyrics being sung can be used to advance the plot, communicate things about specific characters, create irony in juxtaposition with what's happening on the page, etc.

i especially like what's done with the lyric "it all goes around". it's woven throughout the story in such a way as to manifest its own meaning (the repetition of "it all goes around" is, itself, an example of something going around). by repeating the lyric, breq is the one making it true, and i would argue that her repetition of this particular lyric about things orbiting other things contributes to, and/or is a sign of, her growing understanding of the necessity/reality of interdependence and her place in that framework/her role in constructing it, or in other words, the extent of her own agency and the rights and obligations it confers upon her.

because the singing/humming is a constant, background, automatic action, it only ceases when breq is experiencing a strong emotion. from this we are able to infer things about the emotional state of our famously-omits-details-about-her-emotional-state narrator based on other characters' comments about whether or not she is currently doing this thing.

we also aren't even aware that breq is doing it constantly until another character says so. on a narrative level, this serves the dual purpose of making sure we know about how much she hums AND of reminding us that she's not telling us everything.

the humming is not mentioned constantly even though it is happening constantly - this helps us forget in between mentions that it's going on while also simultaneously reinforcing just how constant it must be, so constant that to mention it every time it happens would be like narrating every time she breathes in or out. whenever someone brings it up, we are reminded anew that something has been happening all along that we forgot about. this means that ann leckie is able, by leaving information out, to hammer home to us how much we are not being told.

through this one character trait, ann leckie efficiently and elegantly communicates not just aspects of character but also of setting, plot, tone, theme, and narrative. there's no extraneous exposition just to tell us about the song collection or singing; everything that tells us about it is serving other functions in the narrative as well. the ways in which she manifests this one character trait in the universe and in the narrative contribute to and exemplify both the story itself and the method of its telling.

[azaracyy]

to the next stage of our adventure! digimon survive week 2024 day 7: post-game / future personal thoughts under the cut - less about the artwork and more about shuuji and lopmon themselves. a long rambling containing major spoilers and heavy topics. will cause whiplash. proceed with caution.

other than the fact this may be boring and long-winded, cw and tw: there will be mentions of self-harm and suicide. if these topics make you uncomfortable, please step back. if you're sure, then alright. i'm aware this is a weird place to ramble about shuuji and lopmon considering the notorious highlight of their story would match the themes of day 5 (villains) and day 6 (dark & loss) better. unfortunately (ironically?) i never planned to feature them for those days, so... pretty sure i'm not the only one feeling this, but when i discovered that a good part of the fandom seems to loathe shuuji with utmost passion, even after they claimed to have completed the game, i was confused. the way his death happened and (understanding) the cause made me uncomfortable for a while, but never drove me to the point of hate... once i recovered from the initial shock, what i felt towards him was more pity, then respect (on truthful route). i feel shuuji should have been one of the most appreciated characters in survive. yet it was the opposite that happened. (between you and me though, knowing there was this discourse with the fact digimon survive is a visual novel, i'm not that surprised it turned out this way...) from my point of view, lopmon evolving into wendimon then killing shuuji symbolizes suicide, the act of taking one's own life. it was the climax of shuuji's mental breakdown, leading him to basically self-destruct, causing damage to everyone around him and ultimately himself. lopmon evolved, just like he hoped. but failed to do it like other kemonogami partners (maintaining control of themselves and fending off enemies). the next and final outcome was death, through his own partner actually eating him alive too. it reminds me how when someone thought they have prepared well for something important yet it failed spectacularly, the devastation and frustration would eat them in the same way from inside. and they probably would for one second think, "i'm better off dead". the more i pondered about it, the more it hit home, so of course, the last thing i could do is hate him, when his struggles sound similar to my own - having to rely on consistent achievements to prove your value, to feel you are worth living and not a waste of resources. the part where shuuji went all abusive on lopmon felt like the equivalent of pushing yourself to the extreme to reach your goal, to the point of neglecting your own needs. it's like a student so absorbed in their study, sacrificing food and sleep, until their body eventually snaps and shuts down for good (...this in fact happened to one of the students at my previous workplace. she was in her last year of high school. life was just about to truly start for her when her classmate informed us of her sudden death). even in truthful route where shuuji and lopmon survive that point, things aren't immediately nice and easy for him. you can see that he still has self-doubts, and what i think is impostor's syndrome. he could be making a great contribution to the team and still put himself down for having done "nothing". i have found it interesting that artists and writers tend to be especially fond of shuuji. so perhaps it's not just the matter of one's upbringing - whether you were raised in a harsh, competitive environment and/or with family with (unreasonably) high standards so you can relate more easily to him - but also whether one can see just what every struggle shuuji and lopmon went through symbolizes shuuji's mental state. out of all survive characters, i think shuuji and lopmon pulled off this thing called "surviving" the hardest, no joke. which is why i almost always gravitate to drawing them happy because that's what they deserve :') after all this, what i also would like to say is, it's okay if a character makes you uncomfortable. it's okay if you hate a character. but never, ever bring down the character to people who like them or even consider them their favorite or comfort character. if you must, do it in your own space and only with like-minded people.

[harbingersecho]

happy new year

[marshmallowgoop]

Otakon's AMV contest allowed VHS submissions, and I knew I just had to submit the collab I edited with @astravis this way.

I hope it's clear why!

(It uses a lot of actual VHS footage.)

And I loved putting AMVs on tape so much that I quickly ordered a bunch of blank tapes online to compile all of my anime music videos this way.

(Short reel of a few of them.)

And, like, it's definitely far from perfect. My computer doesn't have an HDMI port, so I have to use a converter for that, and it's horrible quality. While that does add to the VHS aesthetic, it also makes some of the subtitles nigh impossible to read (as especially evident in the "First Time" video above). My digitization process also isn't exactly ideal, either.

But popping in a VHS tape of my videos and seeing that on the TV? Absolutely amazing. There is no other way I want to physically compile my AMVs. 10/10. MarshmallowGoop/MarshmallowGoop.

Would like to improve my process someday, but if anyone else is curious about how to make VHS tapes out of videos on your computer, I mostly followed this guide here!

[defiledtomb]

4 other applicants have come in clutch for the apartment I'm hunting. If I'm still eligible I'll know tomorrow, but only to be called for a showing, if the others in the queue accept and have better conditions than me, I'll lose it. But my agent is still hopeful. Fingers crossed.

[esaari]

honk

[crazymecjc]

shuake week day 2 - new game plus

plus, bonus!

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

that Arab Christian post reminded me:

my dad is living a year in Saudi Arabia for work and we’re requesting prayer that he’ll be able to get in touch with our denomination’s missionaries over there (whose locations/identities are secret for obvious reasons)

[cashweasel]

Blorbo shenanigans

Unfortunately he does things like that all the time and I think kiara should get him back for it every time 💀😂

@night-triumphantt 😘🥰

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

another weekend, another job rejection!

[slugpup2]

another lil drawing for inktober day 5, referencing that one time ezra drew a map of the city in distortion detective