#i should also do more ghibli paintings but i also say that about other stuff like leyendecker | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

msjarvis · 1 year ago

Text

9 people you’d like to get to know better

thanks for the tag to the amazing and so, so talented @notjustjavierpena ✨💖✨

last song: Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen

color: purple.. in all its nuances, variations, undertones

currently watching: actually nothing. An unfortunate combination of lack of time, lack of motivation and battle with not the best headspace. I have so many titles between movies, series and animes in my "to watch" list that it's kind of embarrassing… 🤦‍♀️ Last things I actively watched (months ago now) was Ted Lasso. Kinda binged it in two days and LOOOVED it!

last movie: I rewatched Up From The Poppy Hill by Gorō Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli movies are my go to when my anxiety kicks really hard)

currently reading: the wonderful works of the stellar authors here on Tumblr. I'm kinda new in the Pedro Pascal / The Last of Us fandom and I am constantly amazed by the absolute talent of the writers. You guys are really all rockstars. In particular I'm slowly reading and rereading the works by: @notjustjavierpena : last amazing author I had the luck to find. Her Husband!Javi series is extraordinary, emotional, superb.. 🥹 @wheresarizona : first author I've found in the fandom. I know, I started with a bang..😃 All her works are absolutely stellar. Her Learning To Live series is breathtaking.. 😍 @kteague : the one who introduced me in the incredible world of Francisco Morales. The day I've found her Because of You series I've thanked the algorithm Deity! 😆 That series is truly one of my happy place.. 🤩 She also has series about Javi and Joel (this last one I still have to read it but I'm sure that it will blow my mind.. 😊) @macfrog : the Queen of cliffhangers and (sometimes) angst. She has a unique way to write about Joel... just unbelievably exceptional! 😌 @undercoverpena : if you are looking for a master author that will make you tear up, cure your soul, put a constant smile on your face and blow your mind with a Javi and/or Francisco story.. well you have found it... 🥹 @softlyspector : her writing is distinctive, special, unmatched... Her Honeyed series is a precious, rare gem.. 🥰 @bageldaddy : she's is the kind of author who manages to transport you to other places and other times with her writing. Her I Know It When I See It series is just astounding. It's more than a fanfic. It's a screenplay of a wonderful movie where while you read you can hear sounds, music, voices, noises, reactions. Just.. wow…🤯 @hier--soir : all her works are exceptional.. and her A Lover's Pinch series?!? Stuff to scream into the pillow for its greatness… 🫨 (and she has a detail of the painting "Narcissuss" by Caravaggio as a header in her blog! How 'effin cool is that!!) @darkroastjoel : stumbled upon her talent for her Javi fics. Her Javier has distinctive and specific "voice" that is just incredible. 🤩 Then I've found out that she also write for Joel.. and she has one series that I still have to read but, just from the summary, I am sure it will rip my heart in two. In a superior way, of course. 😬 @fuckyeahdindjarin : a valuable voice in the fandom who has my gratitude to introduce me in the weirdest world of Dieter Bravo and the magical one of Jack Daniels.. 😍 (still have to read her last installment of her Palomino series. It's just.. I'm not ready.. I'm not strong enough..🥺)

sweet/spicy/savory: erm... I can I say all three?!?!?😂

relationship status: single af

current obsession: is it really an obsession if makes you happy and helps you in the hardest of time?!? 🤔

last thing i googled: synonyms of the word amazing.. 😅 oh the joy to be bilingual (or at lest trying to) and having a brain that farts most of the time.. 😂

currently working on: being present... and happy.

tagging: well.. the ones up there. no pressure at all, of course.

Side note: Just realized that I most likely got the purpose of this tag game wrong. Or, at least, I probably didn't interpret it to the best.😶

I should do a proper fic/author rec list... I need to do a proper fic/author rec list....... I'll do a proper fic/author rec list. 😬

Ok... byyeeeeeeee!!! ✨💖✨

#tag game #or appreciation/rec post #I think I've messed up.. sorry.. 😬#I've actually just tagged the first 10 people that came on top of my head #there are so many authors and so many talented people #if you don't see your name up here is not because I don't appreciate you #it's because I've tried to restrain myself to not go full blown and do a mile long post #or because I've not yet found you #I really have to fucking work on a appreciation/rec post #again... ok.. byyeee.. ✨💖✨

8 notes · View notes

keep-ur-head-low · 4 years ago

Text

Ghost Quartet Animated Movie Concept

So I really fucking love Ghost Quartet and if I had even a scrap of artistic talent I would totally make animatics for it but for now, here are some concepts for a fully animated version of the live album.

In this hypothetical animation, each storylines has its own unique artstyle so that the viewer can distinguish the four storylines just a bit easier. Zero changes are made to the lyrics or song ordering, cuz the album is already perfection and altering it ruins the fun of it yknow

1. The Tale of Rose and Pearl

- This one’s easy. Give it a cool japanese-esque fairytale style, similar to Studio Ghibli’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya. The animation can start off super pretty and colorful and pastel in The Camera Shop, but it gradually gets more and more muted and dark as the album goes on.

- You know that scene in Princess Kaguya when the princess runs out of the palace and the animation style suddenly becomes all intense and unclean to represent her distress? Do that but when Rose goes on her “fuck your books” rant in Bad Men.

- Rose can have her sexy red cloak and a rose in her ear and Pearl can have a cool white dress and a pearly necklace. The Astronomer should have nerdy lil suspenders and The Bear is just a fuckin Bear

- The Telescope should just be the most psychedelic sequence ever, stars transforming into dancing characters and shit

- Not sure if Soldier and Rose would be in the same art style since it doesn’t fit in any other story, but the dancing would admittedly look beautifully somber and melancholy.

2. The House of Usher

- This one absolutely needs to be in black and white. Put in spooky lil glitch effects and a smaller, boxy aspect ratio to replicate being watched on an old television set tape. If not 2d animated, then maybe stop motion????? Corpse Bride or Coraline vibes could be awesome

- I’m thinking every time The Son is in the frame, a little wooden bear carving could be emphasized to visually represent his alternate self as The Bear.

- When Roxie rises from the dead, she flickers between her Roxie self and herself as Rose but in the Japanese fairy tale animation style. Crimson red blood streams down her robes and it’s the only color that ever appears in the Usher plotline.

- This shit needs to be terrifying

3. Arabian Nights

- I’m thinking this could have a geometric animation style like Song of the Sea or The Secret of Kells, but with the same vibe of what one may find in an ancient Islamic painting.

- In Monk, have young Scheherazade and Dunyazad’s dance be a visual parallel to the Soldier and Rose’s dance. Also show The Pianist playing the piano but not what’s behind the door ofc

- In Tango Dancer, when we meet ancient Scheherazade, she could be in a veil that stretches out infinitely and eventually wraps into the sky, with little cartoon stars inscribed into it that all glow when she describes her young and blissful self. Just go full surreal with it. Have the conversation between Rose and Scheherazade be an obvious visual parallel to the camera shop conversation.

- Have Shah Zaman’s room just be covered in bear stuff. Bear rug, bear paintings, bear statues, etc. I don’t know if it’s historically accurate but that’s the last thing Ghost Quartet cares about lmfao

4. The Subway

- This one’s definitely the least figured out for me. Maybe live action?!?!? I really hesitate to say that but basically this storyline needs to have a claustrophobic, indie feel to it that contrasts heavily with the other three. Perhaps a different, more modern cinematic aspect ratio?

- Not sure what The Pusher’s bear visual would be here. Maybe a bear tattoo or grafitti on the wall that appears whenever he’s on screen.

- The Victim’s monologue on the tracks needs to be intercut with Lady Usher’s final moments before Roxie bursts through the door. I have a very strong image in my mind: When she says “I let the train rip through me,” we get a split screen visual of Lady Usher kneeling on the floor in the left and The Victim kneeling on the tracks in the right and the camera zooms in on both until their faces match up.

- The Shop Owner’s outfit would be the outfit that Gelsey wears in the actual production. Maybe the same could go with the other three in this timeline.

- Hero could either be in this style or somehow in all the styles. Have visual train imagery be used constantly throughout so that it becomes all the more poignant when she gets metaphorically run over here.

- Have Midnight be in some random bar, and that’s the same bar where I Don’t Know, Any Kind of Dead Person, Four Friends, and Prayer take place in. These four are just drinking and having a blast, remembering the many lives they’ve gone through in this bittersweet song cycle.

#ghost quartet #dave malloy #musicals #brittain ashford #gelsey bell #brent arnold #my post

72 notes · View notes

fandom-sheep · 4 years ago

Text

Eret 11 MAY 21

Cat and DSMP Part 1/1

Cat! Goose!

Goose my beloved.

Eret’s streaming very late for me again. So I’m not staying the whole time.

Hello Elaina. Enjoy Goose.

Fundy! Kinda...

Fundy hearing the donations. LOL.

Fundy enters a stream and it starts to scuffed. Scuffed just follows Fundy wherever he goes.

A wild my beloved on the cube.

The Drista stairs.

Wait what. Why is the tower gone?

I have missed some lore.

Ah... it’s part of the nightmare thing.

Eret offering Fundy housing like a good almost adoptive parent.

Sneeze? OH WOW SNEEZE.

Sounds like Fundy about lost a lung. Good gracious.

The bargaining between these two.

Cat, Handsome, said cube was massive

You know what that works.

It’s hard to keep the audio right for Eret’s stream for my headphones. It’s either too quiet or the loudest my headphones can go and my family can hear it.

On stream explosions. Noice.

Wow youtooz. Not super cool. Permission is usually a good thing.

Eret keeps on sizzling.

Getting dirt for scaffolding. Going old fashioned Minecraft for this.

“Why is the Cube kinda hot” cue Eret losing faith in her chats sanity.

Cube go poof.

Oh. Red stone. That’s dangerous.

I like this song. Oh klahoma. Gorgeous song.

Love joy is such a fun band. I want to make a plushy of the cat.

It’s kinda sad that Eret can’t see themselves the way chat and their little fandom sees them. Most all of us think they look fabulous.

Not Arson. Just bombing. A bit of anarchy by the king.

Demolition. Now there’s the word.

Controlled ish demolition.

Ah I’ve almost saved enough channel points for water. Nice. I’m not going to redeem it I’m just going to keep hoarding the points.

Flame Arrow. Nice.

Eret cleaning up the SMP eye sours.

Watch me attempt to sleep to Eret here in an hour or so, but keep getting distracted.

Explosion time.

Someone get ready to clip it.

Bye Bye Cube. Let’s go.

Gotta get a song that fits the vibe.

Hayloft. Time to go poof.

Turning up my brightness just to watch this explosion in the best way possible.

Still wearing the red dress I see.

I hope the music isn’t too loud to get this part muted.

Drum roll...

Drum roll continues...

Drum roll still going...

THERE GOES THE CUBE!

That was so smooth and good looking!

Overall a very good explosion.

Just a little bit of a hole in the other building.

Twitch Pr-

Poor being’s so confused with his hair. Someone help them.

Twitch bleep.

Everyone attempting to give hair styling advice. Everyone’s trying to help the being.

That bird is majestic. I remember seeing that tiktok.

Animals just decided Eret was the animal whisperer.

Yes! Disney Princess Eret fanart! Someone make it, I shall reblog all of it.

Likes to hug cute animals and cute animals like being hugged by her. Nice.

It’s alright. Names are difficult. I have to like put name tags on people to learn who they are. That or name tags on their space (like on campers bunks and door decs on dorms)

It does feel very February. But I’m very ready for summer because that means I get to do my favorite job.

Hooray. I hit 15k points.

Eret trying to prove to us a ponytail won’t work. Like we aren’t going to hype them up no matter what.

Gotta heart in the chat. All Eret’s chat does is hearts and encourage. It’s a lovely place.

Oh Eret forgot his cat ear sub goal. It’s alright I know I forgot.

Pride is next month. Nice.

Oh. We’re almost halfway already. Why does the world spin so quickly?

We forgot a dirt tower. Whoops.

I would wear Eret merch. I like it when people release merch around Christmas. Then I can ask for it as a gift.

Oh it wasn’t a dirt tower.

Just looking at Elaina’s stream in the stream selection screen it like very cozy.

All the way up the Drista stairs.

Look it’s the museum!

Eret’s got most of the builds around there. The museum. The fortress. Nice.

Some things are too historical to remove. Somethings are historical because they are being removed.

Oh no. L’sandburg.

It’s taking over the summer home.

Ah the lore is coming. It just seemed to be too early.

Hello unofficial ranboo Raiders.

Foolish making the awesome tall thingy!

Foolish’s builds are so neat. I want to watch Foolish’s streams more. Maybe just in the background but I start wanting to delayed liveblog and that requires attention.

Oh the giant portal turned out well. Sorry that was the lady’s foolish stream I watched.

Shulkers. The forbidden mob.

Eret with just a pit in the desert filled with llamas. Bones. And discus.

The mansion has been finished?

Alright is better than bad. It’s alright to be alright.

Lucky being not getting tired. I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and I was so so tired. I also had just no appetite.

Eret doing an smp tour. And looking at foolish’s builds.

Flickering the switch on the rainbow beacons.

Eret just knowing where everything is.

Kinoko is super pretty. Just for the aesthetic value of the kingdom I appreciate it.

Yeet. Just defenestrated himself out the window.

Oh? Spectator fly over the smp?

That would be really neat to like. Watch in VR. I think I’ve only used VR maybe twice.

Pretty Rainbow beacons.

The nurse who gave me my vaccine hid the needle from me because I mentioned to her that I was afraid of needles. It wasn’t a big deal at all.

30 minutes till I attempt sleep. Woo.

Goose my beloved. Someone make the gif because I’m not quite sure how to make it.

Oh yeah. Goose in Marvel. I hear MCU and think Minecraft cinematic universe. Not marvel.

Ghibli is so nice. It really romanticize small moments of life.

Yeah the characters are all really supportive in Ghibli movies.

Someone subbed for nine months “that’s enough to make a child” -Eret

That mansion is like a maze. I’m so lost already.

Everyone encouraging Eret and telling her she looks pretty. Good.

Eret needs all the hype and encouragement.

Antarctic empties flag. Yeah it does have a similar color pallet.

Michelle! Hello!

Fortress work. Nice.

Do it. I’ll listen the Eret play other games.

I don’t usually watch game play for non Minecraft games. But I’ll listen to it all.

Hbomb and Eret living in the same city feels like two worlds that shouldn’t meet. But it’s awesome that they have.

TOS means against twitches terms of service. Nice. Glad to finally have an explanation of what that means.

Look at our handsome and pretty streamer. All the hype.

I keep turning down the stream to hear the show my mama has on because I’m curious about what happens.

Yeah. Backseat gaming can be annoying. That’s part of why I share my thoughts here just in case I do start backseat gaming.

Almost to the sub goal. Hooray!

Ooo food.

No no. I see where they are coming from. Eret does give a bit of cat bus vibes. I can’t explain it but the vibes are there.

Creeper causing issues at the fortress.

Ed Sheepran my beloved.

I should draw more ferrets. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll draw us doing stuffs.

Actually I kinda want to make a little animatic of some heels walking across the screen followed by a hoard of ferrets. I think it’ll look cool. But I need the artistic ability and the ability to not scream making that.

Woop. Ad time. Off to the void of where ever the ads game me.

OH THE NEW VOID LOOKS COOL!

Bread. Flowers. Ted. Crown. And of course Eret.

We V O I D and get our streamer bits.

Hush the chat is V O I D and the occasional emoji or emote.

The void being centered looks good. Maybe that’s just the symmetry speaking but it’s good.

Oh. We hear the being. The being in void mode. And spooky mode.

Chat just starts yelling corpse.

Hydration. I try to stay hydrated. But I fail often if I’m not doing something active.

Tree!

Casually makes and snags tree.

Eret does read chat often. It’s strange. And it is weird how often it ends up being you.

You can tell I’m a tumblr peep. I may say stuff in chat but I’m fully not expecting or wanting to be noticed by the streamer.

Others hitting darkness o’clock and saying goodnight.

It’s sleep to the stream hours y’all. Whoop.

I need to visit the parks out west. I’ve only really seen the eastern US ones. But I have been to the Great Smokey Mountain park which is gorgeous.

Eret thinking of his friends triggers when naming his cat.

Eret’s builds are so casually pretty. Not like Foolish’s which are intricately pretty. Not like Phil’s or Sam’s which are complicated pretty. All pretty. Just different breeds of pretty.

Alrighty. It’s sleepy hours for me. As much as I love Eret I want to read some fanfiction and daydream a bit before I head to sleep.

Have a good rest everyone and may all your coming meals be delicious.

Wait no is it our turn with goose?

OUR TURN WITH GOOSE!

Eret honey that’s the ceiling.

Cat stream. Cat stream.

Sleepy kitty. A cat cam would be good.

Yeah. That happens with cats. Especially strays.

Goose captured the computer mouse.

Goose straight up chose Eret and Elaina.

Goose really just chose not to leave.

Oh my stream connection is acting sad. But I want Goose content.

I want to draw Goose now.

Maybe I’ll do water color for Goose. I know I tried to do that with Boots (Fundy’s cat)

Hopefully there will be some Goose face screenshots I can see. Maybe I can see him well in the Tiktok.

Artists just violently refusing payment. Sounds about right. The MCYT artists just kinda go “yeah give credit and we cool”

Cowboy cat. Nice.

I want to paint Goose in the cowboy hat.

Hype train! That we are zooming.

Bucket sponge?

WATER BUCKET FROM WET SPONGE! Tiktok people giving all the cool info.

Go Goose. Catch the computer mouse and the screen mouse.

Just sitting here at 11:30 at night getting screen shots of Goose for painting purposes.

Goose please. Look at the camera babe.

My phone is dying. And I can’t charge it and type.

Alright the camera is off the cat. The cat is also blocking the screen.

But no cat on camera means I’m getting some sleep. If I do any of the projects I’ve mentioned I’ll let y’all know.

Have a good rest everyone.

#eret #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp eret #why must this being stream so late #goose the cat #erets cat #delayed liveblogging

15 notes · View notes

soyouareandrewdobson · 5 years ago

Text

The first comic: Maturity or rather the lack thereoff.

Something I commonly saw within the last decade was people arguing that animation has reached a new peak by the amount of quality in storywriting put into them and some even claiming cartoons have become more mature, particularly compared to shows of the 80s and 90s. Dobson too joined the trend and as such made this little comic in 2015 titled “Mature”, in which he argues that cartoons for children are more mature and handle serious subjects better than any media tagged with an r-rating or not following the format of animation.

While I admit that the comic is not the most offensive and insulting thing Dobson has ever created when soapboxing about nerd/american culture, I do think “Mature” actually in composes quite a good insight in how Dobson does not understand concepts of storytelling and overhypes the achievements and merits of children entertainment to a degree that is hurting the “cause”. Which greatly annoys me as a fan of storytelling and animation in general and paints Dobson as incompetent in the field of work (cartoonist, comic writer/artist) he tries to engage in. And I can bring this lack of understanding by Dobson down by just one simple question:

What exactly counts as a mature subject here?

Dobson randomly accuses any form of fiction that is not a children’s cartoon or comic to have no idea how to approach a “mature” subject, but he can’t even give an example of what he defines by this term.

See, for me a mature subject is e.g. an social, emotional or political issue we as humans can correlate to in the real world. Either as a result of personal experience or a bigger picture in our history and culture (such as racism, poverty, existential dreed, personal/emotional growth, any form of oppression etc.) Something that does not only drive a story forward as a source of conflict or a character’s backstory/arc for the sake of entertainment, but may even make us think afterwards.

And as much as I like cartoons, I do not think this is something children cartoons do most of the time.

And before I get accused of thinking cartoons are only something for kids or that a thoughtful story can not be told via the medium of animation, let me put a few things into perspective.

Unlike Dobson, I do not have an educational background in animation. However, I grew up with a lot of cartoons, animated movies and comics from all over the world and thanks to the wonders of the internet read up here and there on the different ages of animation and certain tidbits in what went into the making of certain works of fiction and why they may have been a huge thing in the time periods they emerged in.

As such I know that the medium of animation can be used to not only create “child appropriate” content, but also movies like Barefoot Gen, Fritz the Cat, Felidae, Animal Farm and so on, which tackled themes of social issues, political worldviews and personal/historical tragedies.

Then there is the fact, that depending on the culture, there are very different interpretations in what can be considered “child appropriate” in certain parts of the world and therefore what themes a cartoon may tackle. Like how in European children cartoons such as Alfred J. Quack there was a story arc resembling the rise of Adolf Hitler in power, to tell about the heroes of the show working in the underground against an obvious fascist regime. Or how in certain Japanese children shows the subject of death can be rather common, while in American cartoons just mentioning the word “die” seems a red flag to some studio executives. Lastly, a lot of early animation, (particularly western animation) did not even start off as something targeted primarily at children. Animation started off as a technique to tell a story through “moving pictures” and some of the first animated shorts ever had a huge fanbase of adults and children. “Snow White”, Disney’s first animated movie back in 1933 was a technical marvel at the time. A movie we nowadays mostly consider a children’s movie with a slightly dull story compared to other Disney outings, was back then a risk that earned Disney multiple Oscars and was appreciated more by adults than it was by children, despite being based on a fairy tale. A type of story mostly considered “appropriate” for kids.

What I am trying to say is, that I am aware of how not all children cartoons are the same and can vary in terms of “maturity”. Something I think Dobson can’t, because he also can’t see that there is a huge variety of “children” cartoons.

Despite his background and claims to consider animation an art, Dobson has shown a huge lack of knowledge or admiration for shows/movies that do not fit into the specific mold of “western animation primarily targeted for children and airing on american television”.

And that is not a claim I make half-heartedly. I have done research on the guy, I know how he likes to brag when he considers he found a great cartoon or something interesting. So I find it telling that aside of nostalgia for certain 80s and 90s cartoons we all know, Dobson’s recommendations and taste in shows seems to be primarily focused on just the most recent stuff everybody else likes/a very small pool of rather generic shows. I am not saying he should be contrarian on principal and e.g. dislike Gravity Falls, but he lacks initiative to look out for new and old stuff himself.

I in fact remember when he asked twitter first if he should give Wander over Yonder, one of the best cartoons of the last decade, a chance, cause it seemed he was too chicken to have an opinion on his own.

Then again, weirdly enough, Dobson actually tends to be contrarian for the sake of it, till someone he respects or sucks up to tends to have a different opinion on a show/movie. For example, while he acts like Frozen is a great movie franchise and defends the second movie to the point he becomes anti-feministic when a woman has a different opinion than him on it, he actually gave the first movie a terrible review on deviantart back in 2014. Accusing it of “same face syndrome” and a shame to the name of Disney. Obviously that was also before the hashtag #GiveElsaaGirlfriend became popular and he went so far as to hint he thinks an incest ship with Anna was great. And Legend of Korra? According to first deviantart posts by him garbage. Which was an opinion swiftly changed the moment Korrasami became popular in the fandom by season 3.

The point I want to make with this digression is, that there are a lot of past actions by him hinting on the fact that Dobson kinda despises animation, when it does not fit within a very narrow niche of things he likes. Further indicated by his disdain for “adult” animated shows or hostility towards foreign animation, except the occasional movie by Studio Ghibli for example.

Because of this lack of a bigger picture, I do not think Dobson is aware how in terms of story, cartoons can heavily vary. And when it comes to mature subjects, you can’t really engage with them if you lack a story carrying them in turn. Let’s look again at the comic. What cartoon characters do you see in it, when Dobson talks about how he believes children cartoons “treat these (non-defined) mature subjects with FAR more respect than the hardest “dark, grim and gritty” stories”?

Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, three main characters of Spongebob, Steven Universe, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Blossom from the Powerpuff Girls and Mickey Mouse. You want my opinion on them? None of them are from any cartoons tackling mature subjects in a huge manner.

However, they are from great shows. (Well, everyone but Steven, but I explain that later.)

See, this is where putting cartoons into perspective within the vast history of animation, comes in handy. Cause looking at them it is undeniable that people put effort into these shows. Effort in the animation and the writing in order to create an entertaining product, decent enough that not only little kids can enjoy it as a mindless distraction, but even older people can find merit in it, thanks to characters with decent personality, good humor, world building and even an engaging story. But all of that doesn’t make these shows or any story necessarily tackle a “mature subject”. Sure, the latest incarnation of My little pony was not as saccharine as its predecessor but rather cartoony as a good 90s show, but that doesn’t mean the new version is the Schindler’s List of animation (excuse the hyperbole). Same for the other cartoons, with Dobson also not acknowledging the fact that Spongebob e.g. had quite some dips in quality over the years (and even made pretty awful jokes about serious subjects such as suicide) or that Steven Universe, while tending to tackle mature subjects for its story (like trauma, war, abuse, self esteem issues, racism, rape and homosexuality) has failed multiple times over its run (even back when this comic was made) to treat these subjects not just as plot and drama points, but also with enough respect within the narrative, to the point a lot of former fans of the show turned their back on it, cause they had enough of the issues they could relate to being simplified and resolved in a cookie cutter manner so Rebeca Sugar could tell a whimsical story about gay space rocks and forgiveness.

Let us not even forget the fact, that while there is a huge number of cartoons with decent writing and value to them (and that those were not only created within the last 10 years or so), there is also just a lot of garbage out there that counts as “kids animation”. Cartoons and movies that were written with not a care in the world and at times outright more mean spirited as some of the stuff Dobson likely hates in life action. Are you telling me those toilet humor driven garbage piles of creativity are mature?

The point I try to make is, Dobson’s GENERAL statement that kids cartoons tackle mature subjects better than other form of media, is factually wrong, because a lot of shows don’t even try to be mature in the first place. Which however does not mean, there aren’t attempts made at being mature or tackle a mature subject.

Growing up with cartoons since the 90s, I saw quite a few cartoons once in a while having episodes with themes to them that were surprisingly “dark”, dramatic or related to issues I and other kids could also see and relate to in the real world. Bullying going out of control, eating disorders, school violence (even school shootings), dealing with the passing of a loved one, to name a few basic ones. Gargoyles and Hey Arnold were two very important cartoons for me in that regard, with Gargoyles showing me how dramatic a good action cartoon could be when compared to other action cartoons at the time (like Ninja Turtles) and Hey Arnold episodes like “Helga on the Couch” giving me a rather somber look into what “therapy” looks like closer to reality, while normally being a show with the slice of life adventures of a kid in the big city.

And I do highly appreciate that nowadays there are more cartoons doing ongoing storyarcs and as a result of actually having more drama to them, adding tension and character development to their plots. Things we did not quite have to the degree we have nowadays back then in the average show. But it is debatable if those things are equal to “mature subjects” such as racism, abuse or trauma. Cause at the end of the day, a lot of kids cartoons tend to only scratch the surface of those things in order to flesh out a plot, instead of making the plot about those issues. Which at times is even for the best if you ask me. Cause we should not forget, these shows and movies are made for kids. And because of their age, a lot of kids lack at times the knowledge and experience in life to properly understand the themes and subjects some people may try to convey with their work. Particularly when you want to tackle subjects such as trauma, abuse and war which lets be honest, a lot of people can’t even comprehend in their complexity as adults. So how are kids supposed to comprehend them? One way, in my opinion, is by simplifying them and turning them into part of a narrative instead of the main focus of the narrative. But that in itself doesn’t always work and can have negative consequences in multiple ways. For example by making the story suddenly non engaging, delivering the subject in such a manner that people can get the wrong message of what you are trying to say or (at worst) simplifying it to such a degree, it becomes outright offensive to others.

A good example that comes to my mind for that would be how Captain Planet back in the 90s tried to tackle the subject of AIDS in one episode. On one hand, considering how the disease was a big deal back then but no one openly talked about it, you kinda have to give credit to Captain Planet to tackle it. On the other hand, is a subject such as a deadly disease that back then was barely researched and killed millions, really something you want to tackle on an overly preachy (but considering whose company produced it, also very hypocritical) kids show, where most of the time the solution to a problem was not even grounded in reality? And spoilers, the episode treated AIDS not even as the big deal it was, but as something the villain would exploit to spread a rumor on the ill kid, because that somehow equaled a chance to pollute the world more. Not really mature, if you ask me.

What all of this ranting is boiling down to, is that Dobson failed to make a case for how kids animation is able to tackle mature subjects, by not putting his opinion in the bigger context of what animation is/can be and what he means by the term “mature theme”. All he did was just indirectly soapbox that he thinks every other form of media is incapable of being about a serious issue, in doing so also insulting the art of storytelling in itself by disregarding anything not expressed in funny pictures specifically made for children or manchildren on tumblr who want to act they are the big boys, cause a cartoon horse made them feel sad.

He did so by making a very weak argument, not being able to present it in a manner that was hard to debunk and by drawing a comic in which everything looks surprisingly lifeless and like the least amount of quality and effort (things I argued can make a great cartoon) was put into it.

Which ironically, is the total opposite, of being mature.

And lastly, can’t believe I have to say that, but Dobson, the Pokemon’s name is Butterfree, not Butterfry. Butterfry is what you get when you make a statue of a Futurama character made out of something you put on your bread.

#comic #my little pony #adobsonartworks #maturity #western animation #steven universe #syac

44 notes · View notes

sam-gibbs · 4 years ago

Text

Animated

Now we are moving onto our animated starting point. Here I will be able to go ahead and look at things such as animated films,tv shows,companies and games.

Cuphead:

Cuphead is a game which was made in 2017. The game is an animated run and gun styled game.As you can see the game was inspired by the old styled animation used in the 1930′s, this includes the works of people such as Fleischer Studios and Walt Disney. The visuals and audio of the game were made the same painstakingly way they did in the 1930′s era. By using traditional hand drawn cell animation as well as watercolour backgrounds and original jazz recordings.

Informations taken from:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/268910/Cuphead/

When it comes to Cuphead it must of taken ages to develop and put together the game as everything is drawn and animated through drawings meaning it would of taken a lot more time to animate than it would to animate 3d models. Here is a video I have found which talks about the creators of the game making the game:

youtube

In the video it not until you get about 5 minutes in until they are talking about the actual development of the game. For starters they planned for the game to only be a small game.However after all the feedback they got at events such as E3 in 2015 they then went forwards and decided to take the game further and get more serious with it.Secondly they then start to talk about how they had originally joked at the beginning of making the game about doing the 1930′s style. This was mainly due to one of the creators being the only animator they had at the time. However they went forward and decided to try something else as they felt that they could not efficiently pull of the 1930′s style animation. They talk about how they had thought of having the game art being like going through elementary school, Meaning each level would be arts and crafts.For example a kindergarten level would have a turkey that was made like a painted hand print as well as having cotton balls attached to it. Then they planned about doing stop frame animation with them. However they eventually decided to go back to the 1930′s style animation. WHen it came to animations they talk about how most stuff was done classically so it was all hand drawn on paper instead of digitally drawn as well as the backgrounds being watercolor painted.Even the music is live recorded and wasn't digitally made.They talk about once the character is drawn and animated they would then scan it into the computer which is where they would then go ahead and add the colours to the characters.

Fleischer Studios:

Fleischer Studios are famous for there creation of popular characters such as Koko the clown,Betty boop and Popeye the Sailor. Unlike other studios which mainly focused on making there characters anthropomorphic animals, Fleischer studios most famous characters were actually humans. Compared to their competitor company Walt disney, Fleischer studios went for a different cartoon style. Unlike Walt Disney, there animations were more rough than defined as well as more artistic than commercial.However in a unique way there art was expressed through a culmination of arts and sciences. There approach focused more on surrealism, dark humor, adult psychological elements and sexuality. Another thing was that the environments were grittier and more urban compared to Walt Disney. They would often be set in squalid surroundings to reflect the great depression as well as the German Expressionism.

Why do they wear gloves:

One big question that came to surface is why do the cartoon characters in the Fleischer and Disney animations wear gloves.Here is a video where they ask an animation historian this same question and here are the reasons he gives for the characters wearing gloves.

youtube

One of the most basic theories as to why the characters wear gloves is in order to save time. Drawing detailed intricate hands aren't very easy and take up a lot more time. By having the characters where basic gloves which are a basic shape saves a lot of time when it comes to drawing and animating the characters.As animations went on they tried to make characters with more basic a circular shapes in order to make them easier to draw as well as more child friendly. This was called the Rubber hose and circle design where characters main features such as there head,stomach and palms of there hands would be circles.The all other parts such as arms,fingers and legs would be more of a rubber hose design which made them more spaghetti looking.Here is an example of this process:

The rubber hose and circle process made it so animators could draw arms,legs and heads without having to spend loads of time on them.Here come the piece where the gloves came into play. Now its a good idea to use the rubber hose and circle method however characters hand were black as well as the rest of their body. This meant it was very hard to distinguish where there hands were and what they were doing.It was only until 1929 for the white gloves to come into play on characters.

One other reason given for the gloves was actually written inside of Walt Disney's 1968 biography “The Disney Version” when he talks about mickey mouse having the gloves , it says:

“We didn't want him to have mouse hands,because he was supposed to be more human like.So we gave him gloves”

Unfortunately there is one more reason about why they wear gloves which isn't as nice.The film the Opry House is where Mickey mouse put on a vaudeville show.This film as well a many of the other animations that came before it were closely linked to vaudeville performances and the blackface minstrel shows of the time. A man called Nicholas Sammonds writes in “Birth of an Industry” that many early animated characters such as felix the cat, Bimbo and mickey mouse “weren't just like minstrels, they were minstrels”. Which by the way the definition of a minstrel is someone who has dressed up in black face for a performance on a show for example the Minstrel show. Characters in the Minstrel show would wear white gloves as well. However even as the Minstrel show started to disappear the gloves on the cartoon characters stayed due to it being part of there animation design.

Cuphead and the Racist Spectre of Fleischer animation:

While doing my research I managed to go ahead and find an online article which I decided to go ahead and look into:

https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-spectre-of-fleischer-animation/

In the article it talks about how the creators of cuphead also dredge up the bigotry and prejudice which had a strong influence on early animation.When asked in an interview about how cuphead had an unfortunate associations with the 1930′s era.

Maja Moldenhauer replies:”Its just visuals and that's about it. Anything else happening in that era we are not versed in it”

It talks about how Studio MDHR goes and ignores the context and history behind the aesthetic in which they tried so hard to recreate.I also think that people aren't happy that they sort of idolise this sort of animation style due to its racist context and history behind it and feel like the studios should of took into consideration the history behind it before choosing it as there art style. They then talk about how in many early cartoons, characters were often tricksters,layabouts and thieves. These archetypes were born from the depiction of the lazy slave minstrel shows specialised in. This is brought up due to the fact that at the start of the cuphead game you meet 2 tricksters (cuphead and mugman) who make a deal with the devil ( another trickster) over a gambling debt, an activity often linked in the 1930s cartoons to implied sinfulness and savagery.

Studio Ghibli:

Now we are moving onto studio ghibli which is an animation company for anime films such as spirited away, Howl's moving castle and my neighbour totoro.Studio ghibli is a japanese animation company which was founded in 1985. Like Fleischer studios Studio Ghibli's animation techniques are all very traditional. All there frames are hand drawn before being put together to create movement.Even Though CGI is very popular now the creator Miyazaki prefers to stay away from this and believes that hand drawing is the fundamental of animation. However he doesn't sometimes make small exceptions and allows small bits of CGI in his art in order to help animations with tricky scenes and to speed up the process.

The process:

Everything Begins With an Idea

From script to screen, the idea is developed into a story.

Then, characters and costumes are designed and created. In doing so, also creates the atmosphere and settings the film is

The story is then turned into a storyboard and is used to illustrate the key frames to produce movements.

After the scenes are drawn out, color is added and painted. Note: the backgrounds and characters are drawn separately.

The characters are placed onto the background, which creates a frame. Each frame is shot individually.

Dialogue & audio is added and then the director ensures that everything syncs together naturally.

After the film is developed, it is ready to debut!

All this information was taken from:

https://commons.marymount.edu/leetopic/creation-process/

Animation types:

Now of course when it comes to animation inside of tv, film and video games there are multiple different types of animation people can choose from. The different types are cel animation,2D animation,3D animation and Stop animation.

Cel animation:

Cel animations is the animation style we have already talked about in this post. Cel animations is when you animate on sheets of transparent plastic called cels.The cels are then placed over a background and photographed in sequence. When the photos are played back at either 12 or 24 frames they create the illusion of movement.When it comes to making a drawing on a cel. The inker will transfer a drawing done on paper onto a cel using black ink. Once dried the colourist will the use cel paint onto the artwork. All informations was gotten from:

https://conceptartempire.com/cel-animation/

2D animation:

2d animation is basically the same as cel animation. However it expands more out into the world of digital art where artists and colourists can do all there work on a computer instead of having to do it on cel sheets.

3D animation:

Now unlike 2d animation 3d animation is far more advanced. Instead of drawing out there models. 3d animation is the art of using motion to bring characters as well as vehicles to life inside tv shows,films and video games. 3d animations uses 3d models instead of 2d drawings. When it comes to animating the models you can either rig the model and do it that way or in some cases map them to a person's body and have them act out the motions they wish the character to do.Here is a nice video I found which shows how the process of it somewhat works when it comes to putting scenes together:

youtube

Stop Animation:

Stop motion animation has been around for a very long time and has been used in films such as Coraline,Wallace and gromit and Missing link. The process of stop animation is where they have real life 3d models of their characters, props and vehicles. These models are made out of clay. However although fun to make stop motion is a time staking process. To do stop motion animation the models are moved in small increments frame by frame. Every time the model is moved a picture is taken. Then the film is put together when it goes through the flames at a fast speed in order to make it look like it is moving.Here is a video which talks about how they did the stop motion animation in a film called the missing link.

youtube

The video talks us through the process of how they use rigs for scenes where characters are in the air as well as how for some scenes such as underwater scenes they do need to go ahead and use CGI for those parts of the film. It is not only till you see the sets until you realise how much space is needed to create some of these scenes as well and how much time and effort goes into making some characters in the films.

Bugsnax:

Bugsnax is an animated video games which due to the animation style looks like it is targeted towards kids.With a pegi 7 rating you would be surprised to know what the contents of the game really contain.Here is a video which talks about eh lore that someone has theorized about the game.

youtube

After watching the video all I can say is that I am quite surprised at what some of the hidden context of the game can be. I believe there are hidden messages about drugs in the game and about how addicted someone can be, as well as the fact that it changes a person's body just like how drugs can affect people.

However there is one thing that I think was creative and its the fact that this game really goes off of the phrase we are what we eat.

In summary what I have learnt through my research is that there are of course many different ways to animate in which people can choose from, however each type of animation does come with its pros and cons so depending on how long you have to create a project as well as what sort of scenes you are wanting will affect what sort of animation style will be best to use. other things I have learnt is that animation can have some disturbing history and backstory to them and sometimes aren't always what they seem.

6 notes · View notes

mab1905 · 4 years ago

Text

84 Questions

original:

https://fuckyeahsurveys.tumblr.com/post/61049002526/84-questions

1. Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first 10 songs

Someone New (Hozier)

Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)

Budapest (George Ezra)

And Dream Of Sheep (Kate Bush)

Nancy Mulligan (Ed Sheeran)

And Then She Kissed Me (St. Vincent)

Level of Concern (Twenty One Pilots)

Lovefool (The Cardigans)

Best For Last (Adele)

Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles)

2. If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you?

Japan. I travel a lot and it’s been on my list for a while, I would really want to go to the Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli theme park, if it ever opens that is. I would bring my best friend, Layla. I also would love to go to Amsterdam again.

3. What is your preferred writing implement? (eg. Blue pen, pencil, green pen)

My ink nib cartooning pen (similar to a quill, but without the feather)

4. Favourite month and why?

October, not too hot, not too cold, and of course, Halloween!

5. Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them.

Nope, met several, got to true connections though.

6. Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are.

My iPad, my Leatherman Multitool, my collection of David Bowie postcards.

7. What brand logo is closest to you currently?

The Apple logo

8. Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favourites?

Chess. Card games like Solitaire, Black-Jack, and Castle. A game that I can’t remember the name of but it’s essentially a board-game version of Capture The Flag. Mostly Chess.

9. A musical artist you love that isn’t well known

St. Vincent? I’m not sure if she’s well known or not.

10. A musical artist you love that is well known

David Bowie.

11. What is your desktop background currently?

A picture of Apollo 11 accompanied by the words “It won’t fail because of me”

12. Last person you talked to, and through what you talked to them

My best friend Layla, through the iMessage app.

13. First colour name you can think of that isn’t in the rainbow

Salmon

14. What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in?

My iPad, my computer, my collection of vintage stopwatches

15. What kind of headphones do you use?

Sony, wireless, noise canceling, over-the ear

16. What musical artists have you seen perform live?

Twenty One Pilots, Sylvan Esso

17. Does virginity matter to you?

I guess? I think it’s important, it’s certainly some kind of ‘milestone,’ but I don’t think it should be treated like the scale of a persons ‘purity.’ It’s important because it’s sex, and (hopefully) that means that you’re sharing a consensual, intimate experience that feels fucking great for both (or all, if it’s more then two) participants.

18. What gaming consoles do you or your family own?

Z e r o, although I’m hoping to buy a PS4 at some point so I can play Detroit Become Human.

19. What pets do you have? What are their names?

Juno is my cat, she is an adorable grey tiger-striped shorthair. She’s got little white mitten-paws and it’s absolutely ridiculous.

20. What’s the best job you’ve ever had?

Doing tech at a local theater

21. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Teaching art to little kids (I like kids but it was just exhausting)

22. What magazines do you read, if any?

The New Yorker, and the National Geo if I’m like, waiting in my doctor’s office or something.

23. Inspiration behind your URL?

It’s just my initials and a year from the Edwardian era

24. Inspiration behind your blog title?

It’s just my initials

25. Favourite item of clothing?

My reddish-brown knit sweater vest and my floral bow-tie (often paired together)

26. Are you friends with any exes?

I made a very conscious effort to cut my exe out of my life… we were not happy for a very long time to say the least

27. Name at least one book you loved as a child.

Strega Nona, it’s about an Italian witch that makes great pasta in a magic pasta pot. My dad would read it to me and my sibling in Italian.

28. What’s your native language? If that language has distinct regional variations, which variation? (eg. AU English, US English)

US English

29. What email service do you use?

Gmail

30. Is there anything hanging on the walls of the room you are currently in?

So many things. Here's the list:

A giant David Bowie poster, a plaque that says “David Bowie IS,” five David Bowie postcards, a giant Abbey Road poster, all of my patches from summer camp, polaroids of me, my friends, and my family (including my cat), ticket stubs from concerts and plays, two trail markers that I took off of fallen trees on two important cross-country backpacking trips I went on, playbills from a bunch of broadway shows I’ve seen, a poster that says “Stonewall was a riot,” a DC Comics poster, a Pink Floyd poster, a few paintings of mine, and a painting that I got for free from a street artist I befriended in Rome when I was twelve

31. What’s your favourite number, and why?

16, 24, 21, and 8, some numbers make me uncomfortable, but these are just very soft and light and nice

32. Earliest moment in your life you can remember?

A rocking chair with fruits painted on it sitting in a dark room and my great grandfathers brown leather loafers (I remember early early stuff in just images or stills, not full moments)

33. What did you have for dinner yesterday?

Pasta with shrimp

34. How often do you brush your teeth?

Usually twice a day, but I’ve been waking up later and later and sometimes forget in the mornings

35. What’s your favourite candy/chocolate?

I don’t know the name of it but it’s this chocolate bar that is stuffed with caramel, hot chili flakes, and crunchy bits of baked tortilla. It's one of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted.

36. Have you had other blogs on Tumblr? Do you have any other blogs currently?

I used to have one but I deleted it because I never used it

37. If you were suddenly really hungry, what would you choose to eat?

I would probably walk into the kitchen, realize that too eat something I would have to muster the effort to cook something instead, and then decide to just have a glass of milk instead.

38. What fandoms would you consider yourself a part of?

Downton Abbey (primarily Thommy)

Chernobyl HBO (as well as the Leonid Toptunov/Sasha Akimov subfandom)

Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit (books and movies)

CrankGamePlays

Buzzfeed Unsolved

Star Trek TOS

Philosophy Tube

The Dark Crystal and The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance

39. If you could study anything, what would it be?

If I had the energy to fully wrench my life in a completely different direction I would like to become a professional scuba diver and study the ocean. I already am a scuba diver, but it’s a hobby and not something I’m able to do very often at all.

40. Do you use anything on your lips? (eg. Chapstick, gloss, balm, lipstick)

I’ll wear chapstick if I have a cold

41. How would you describe your sense of humour?

Intellectual and dry

42. What things annoy you more than anything else?

People who think they’re better than everyone else and people who recognize a fault in themselves and then refuse to work to change it

43. What kind of position are you in at the moment?

I’m laying on my bed, hunched over my laptop

44. Do you wear much jewellery?

Occasionally I’ll wear a necklace or a few rings. I have a lot of non-traditional bracelets (I literally just have pieces of canvas and industrial tie-line wrapped around my wrist). I’m a gay guy and I like to sort-a walk the line between feminine and masculine (often leaning more towards the masc side), so it really depends on my mood.

45. Who is the leader of your country, currently? Any other levels of government with leaders? (State, region, province, county, district, municipality, etc)

A cheese-pizza flavored pringle is currently POTUS and every day the thought of that tears away at a piece of my soul.

46. Last 3 blogs on your dashboard, not including any of your own

@shochmonster @velvet-of-the-night @panicsheerbloodypanic

47. What do you carry your money in?

My pocket, I have a wallet and I don’t use it

48. Do you enjoy driving? Why or why not?

It’s fine, don’t love it don’t hate it

49. Longest drive you have ever been on?

Three days

50. Furthest away from home you have ever been?

Went on a trip to Switzerland to visit family, I think that’s the farthest but I’m not entirely sure.

51. How many times have you moved house?

Twice

52. What is on the floor of the room you’re currently in, not including furniture?

Five paintings, stacks and stacks of books, boxes filled with stuff (mostly more books), plates, glasses, cutlery, clothes

53. How many devices do you own which can access the internet?

2, and iPad and a computer

54. Is there is anything that is guaranteed to always make you happy?

Listening to music

55. Is there anything that always makes you sad?

Thinking about my past for too long

56. What programs do you currently have open?

Google drive, I’m writing

57. What do you associate the colour red with?

Blood and fire

58. Last strong smell you can remember smelling?

Shrimp and butter

59. Last healthy thing you ate?

Three green olives and a handful of bean sprouts

60. Do you drink tea or coffee, and how much per day?

Used to drink coffee like it was life support (which it essentially was), now I’ll have the occasional cup of tea.

61. What do you associate the colour blue with?

Birds and rain

62. How long is the closest ruler you can find?

I don’t think I own one

63. What colour pants/skirt/etc are you currently wearing?

I am wearing olive green corduroy slacks

64. When was the last time you drank water?

30 minutes ago?

65. How often do you clear your browser history?

Never

66. Do you believe nude photos can be artistic, rather than erotic?

Nude anything can be artistic, it can also just be normal, eroticism is in the eye of the beholder.

67. Ever written fanfiction for anything?

Yes dear god so much fanfiction.

68. Last formal event you attended

I genuinely can’t remember, I am have extreme social anxiety and don’t go to events like that unless I absolutely have too

69. If you had to move your birthday to another date, which one would you choose and why?

I don’t care about birthdays

70. Would you prefer to be at a beach or in the countryside?

Beach, I love to swim, I’m also a surfer

71. Roughly how many people live in your town?

Uhm… eight times the number of people who live in the state of Montana and that doesn’t count daily commuters and tourists (New York City is essentially just a tin of sardines, except inside are 8.399 million sardines)

72. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you?

No, but three of my friends were born on the day just after my birthday.

73. Favourite place to shop? Can be a certain store or a place where there are multiple stores

The Strand Bookstore, L Train Vintage, any antique shops in the town of Hudson, New York

74. Do you have a smartphone? What kind? If you don’t, do you want one?

I used to have an iPhone 5SE but then it stopped working after a few weeks of quarantine and I haven’t gotten a new one (I’ve had it for about 5-6 years so it makes sense)

75. What is your least favourite colour, and why?

I don’t have a least favorite color, but my favorite color is prussian blue

76. How do you spell grey/gray?

Grey

77. Go to your dashboard and describe the image shown in the radar section (below the “Find blogs” link)

It’s anime fanart for a show I’ve never heard of

78. What difference is there between how many followers you have, and the number of blogs you follow?

79. How many posts do you have?

219

80. How many posts have you liked?

619

81. Do you post mainly reblogs, or your own content?

Mostly reblogs but I do my own content as well

82. Do you track any tags?

No, just blogs

83. What time is it currently?

10:39

84. Is there anything you should be doing right now?

writing

I’m not quite sure who to tag so it’s just open to anyone I guess?

#i love questionaires #they're so much fun

7 notes · View notes

flying-elliska · 5 years ago

Text

evening stars - Elu drabble

For the ask “ Could you pretty please write something where eliott has a tough day at work and lucas takes care of him? Like basically makes a burrito eliott and feeds him lots of nice food, cuddles him and tells him how much he loves him and how proud he is? “

VENDREDI 20:49

Eliott’s had mostly good days ever since he started his job. He thought he would be overwhelmed, juggling all the change in his life - the newness of university, and now this job, not to mention more perpetual challenges like his mental health, without sacrificing his friendships or most importantly, his relationship. Also, to be quite honest - he loves movies, but it was everything else he was unsure about being able to deal with, like the clients or the administrative aspects.

A lot of his anxieties have revealed themselves to be unfounded. A lot of that is due to his boss, David, being chill personnified. He is pretty easy going when it comes to organization or timing. He hired Eliott because he recognized the same passion in him that he had himself, despite his lack of experience. According to him, there are very few stores of this type left, with how everything moved online. So people who come here aren’t here to just get a movie and leave, often they want the human part of it, they want to be recommended stuff and they want to talk to people who talk, breathe and live movies. Which Eliott totally recognizes himself in. He lucked out, really, and it’s already happened two times that they closed up late because they had gotten involved in a really passionate discussion about visual storytelling or old Japanese movies.

But of course, it can’t all be sunny days. One of the big lessons life seems to want to impart to him.

He was already stressed up about today before it started : David had to leave for the afternoon and left him alone in the store for the first time. At breakfast, he had been snappy for no reason to Lucas and Lucas had been even worse ; in fact he had been grumpy all week, convinced he had flunked his last math exam. So they’d started the day in a very much less than ideal state, even if they had made up and apologized by text later. Then he had had a weird rush in early afternoon that had left him frazzled. Followed by an asshole who had been very insistant on his opinion on Lars von Trier movies, and when he’d ventured the idea that maybe all the brutalized naked women thing was maybe a little misogynistic, the man had reacted almost violently, drilling Eliott about a lot of obscure movie details before declaring him a fake, throwing out some vaguely homophobic insults about ‘political correctness’, and leaving. To crown it all, Eliott had messed up a pile of old DVDs David had been cataloguing, and had to figure out if he had lost one of them or if it had been stolen. And on top of that - he still hasn’t started the essay he needs to turn in on Monday.

In short, it had been an avalanche of little crappy things, and it had pushed him from feeling cranky into feeling completely miserable. It’s moments like these that leave him feeling so embarassed at his lack of capacity to cope with little setbacks. Intellectually he knows that it’s not the end of the world. But his brain is already making up all sorts of vicious scenarios about how David is going to fire him, how he’s never going to be able to keep a job, or talk to people properly, or finish university, how he is a fraud that doesn’t really know movies and his opinions are all childish and pathetic, how Lucas is going to leave him and he is going to end up living under a bridge. He’s completely spiraling so when he gets out of the metro to walk to their appartment, he sends a short text to Lucas to warn him, something like fuck life sucks then today then bad mood i’m sorry. So maybe Lucas knows how to avoid him if he doesn’t feel like dealing with his shit tonight.

He climbs the stairs in their elevator-less building to the fourth floor feeling heavier than ever, thinking of just plopping into bed clothes with the hope his misery somehow would evaporate during the night.

However, when he opens the door, Lucas is waiting for him. In their little entrance, leaning against the wall.

He just says, “Hey,” before Eliott drops his bag on the ground and rushes into his arms. Lucas gets on his tiptoes and wraps himself around him as best he can.

“I’m so sorry.” he whispers into his boyfriend’s neck.

“What for ?”

“I don’t know...I had such a bad day, I feel like a fucking failure...totally horrible and like it’s contagious.”

“Yeah that’s so weird I’ve never heard of a job sucking before.”

Suddenly, Eliott feels like he wants to cry. He doesn’t know why he is like this, it’s ridiculous, and he wants to disentangle himself and disappear, but Lucas doesn’t let him. Instead he kisses him, mouth and then cheeks, and then takes him by the hand and leads him to their couch.

It’s the biggest item in their living room, a gift from Eliott’s parents and the most comfortable item of furniture he’s ever known. Sitting down on it automatically makes it difficult to get up again, and it’s perfect for when their friends come over to play video games. In this very moment, however, it feels like a beacon of safety to Eliott.

Lucas pushes him into the couch.

“Okay, how about you just stay there this evening, okay ? And let me take care of you. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Lucas...I have stuff to do, don’t you ?”

“Yes, right now, you have to commune with the couch. Be at one with the couch. Be the couch.” He says stubbornly before going to their room. Then he comes back - with a mountain of pillows and their bedcovers, as well as their pijamas, the matching ones with little dots. When they’ve changed clothes, he then starts wrapping Eliott in them until he looks like a burrito, and buries him in pillows, just his head peeking out. Eliott feels a little ridiculous, and like he can’t move, but mostly he feels warm, and held. When Lucas disappears again and comes back with the hot water bottle, he can’t help but laugh a little.

“I’m not sick, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, I just like having an excuse to do this.” He puts the thing next to Eliott’s feet, then dims the light. “How about we play a game. The outside world is cancelled. We’re going to order some food, and then watch a movie, or whatever we want, and talk, and I’m going to kiss you, and then...just whatever we want for as long as we want, okay ?”

Eliott squints at him from beneath pillows.

“Isn’t that like always ?”

“Yes but tonight we are doing it extremely on purpose.”

Lucas orders for them - their favorite comfort food, from the italian place nearby, lasagna and ravioli with cannoli for dessert, feeding each other bits of their respective dishes. Eliott tells Lucas all about his asshole customer, and delights in the creativity of Lucas’s insults.They watch one of Eliott’s favorite Ghibli movie, Kiki’s Delivery Service, after which Eliott sighs about wanting to run away and leave in the forest to paint. Lucas says he’ll just have to become a lumberjack, then, which is definitely not the Ghibli vibe, but he can’t help but think his boyfriend would look good in plaid.

After that, they turn all the lights except one - Lucas’s new galaxy lamp, which projects scattered little dots of light all over their walls and ceiling - and just sit. Eliott’s found his place sitting between Lucas’s legs, all envelopped and warm, and all his sorrows feel a lot more distant. He still feels...harried, and extremely tired, but the tension has drained away. That’s often how he feels around Lucas nowadays. The exciting newness of their relationship has faded a bit, but it’s been replaced by a deep sense of comfort and home that being together brings them. Eliott still can’t believe it, some days, that this is his life, that he gets to have this.

Lucas bends forward a little, and starts kissing him - on his forehead, cheeks, lips, so haphazardly it makes Eliott giggle a little. Then he brings Eliott’s hand to his mouth, and his forearm, and Eliott gets it - he’s trying to catch the stars with his mouth, kissing everywhere a little pinprick of light touches Eliott’s skin. He shivers. His boyfriend is so sneakily romantic when he really wants to be, it keeps surprising him.

“It’s the world that should be sorry for making you feel bad.” Lucas whispers in his ear. Kisses him again. “I’m so proud of how you’re handling all of this.” Another kiss, a little more heated the last. “They’re lucky to have you. That moron will feel so stupid when you’re a famous movie director.” He nuzzles into Eliott’s neck and sighs.

Look, Eliott know it’s important for him to take charge of his emotions and work on his mental health, and all that. But god, it feels so good to have someone who is just wholly, entirely on his side. With whom he can be as soft or as wild as he needs, and never makes him feel like a burden.

His lucky guiding star really came through for him, huh.

He turns around and kisses his boyfriend - he’ll never get tired of thinking about him his way, his boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend - and they melt into each other, whispering sweet nothings until they drift off into sleep, and misery is but a distant memory.

#skam france #elu drabble #my fic #am i taking prompts now lmao i guess i am

45 notes · View notes

rockethorse · 5 years ago

Text

I was tagged to do this meme by @roguebotanist ! Sorry it took me so long!

1. If you could travel one place in the world where would you travel?

Probably be to the USA to visit all my friends there, and my partner's extended family! I'm planning to go to Japan again soon with my partner, too, but because Australia is closer to Japan, that's a lot more attainable than visiting the states. So if I had magic-genie-travel-vouchers, I'd definitely pick the US. Just... maybe not for a few years, lol. It's a dream of mine to be able to take the two of us on a kind of foodie driving tour down through different American states, visiting a bunch of people we know, and tasting all the stuff we see on Instagram, LOL.

2. What do you do in your free time away from Sims?

I draw, cook, dabble in writing (I'm not very good but I really enjoy it), translate/subtitle videos from Japanese and close caption videos/podcasts in English, and work on eventual-someday comic ideas. I also keep meaning to get into gardening and sewing - I have all the equipment, but the attention... not so much.

3. What other games do you play besides The Sims?

Animal Crossing, Pokemon (even though I still haven't finished SWSH), Stardew Valley, a little bit of Slime Rancher (highly recommend, I think a lot of y'all would really like it), and the Ace Attorney series though I haven't played much beyond the original trilogy even though I really like it. Since we got our Switch I started playing Zelda BoTW too, which is my first real "gamer" game and I really, really liked it, so I'm sort of dabbling in more games of those kinds of genres that I used to be intimidated by.

4. How tall are you?

5'11"/180cm, last time I measured.

5. One random interest of yours?

I collect/love to pore over retro cook books with really terrible photography. I have a small collection of them. Some of them are genuinely good and others are hilariously bizarre. I daydream about starting a YouTube channel some day and I think about making a week's worth of breakfast/lunch/dinners from these old books and recording the process. My current favourite is all about what you're supposed to like to eat based on your star sign, from the 1990s. There's a lot of the word "moist".

6. Current favourite bands/artists?

“Current” is hard to say because if I actually manage to get attached enough to an artist/group to specifically like them, they become my favourite for a loooooonnnnggg time. So I would have to say my "current" favourites are exist†trace, Go-Bang’s, BARBEE BOYS, and Yes.

7. Something you’re looking forward to?

I'm looking forward to getting my life back together now that I've finally been able to finish a really stressful irl project, lmao. I'm looking forward to having enough money saved up to hopefully travel to Japan as early as next year and surprise my friends there. I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow and painting my nails :9

8. Current favourite films?

I have the same problem with this as I do music, LMAO. I really liked Birds of Prey! The most recent new-to-me film I saw that left an impression on me which I can remember was the Ghibli film "Only Yesterday". If you're a little older and a bit stressed about the pressures of adult life then this movie is a real treat. Also saw Big Eden for the first time semi-recently with my partner and was really sweet and pretty funny. Now that I think about it, it had a lot in common with my cook books.

9. What food could you not live without?

I was thinking of all the foods I love and would hate to go without, like tofu (for real), but I'm actually watching my diet right now and as it turns out I can apparently live without a lot of stuff, LOL. But I'm trying to eat "healthier" not just change weight and the only thing that's really tripped me up is the idea of forgoing sugar-free drinks. I knoowwww Pepsi Max probably isn't """good""" for me or """a substance human beings should consume""" but I grew up on it, I drink a sugar-free energy drink every second day (used to be every day but my heart said don't do that), and I like black coffee but even that has its limit. So I guess the answer here is "terrible, bad, laboratory-constructed soda", lmao. Can’t live without it, questionable if I can live with it.

10. Favourite series (book or movie)?

If I'm allowed to pick a TV series then this is where I slide in and say the 2003-4 Sailor Moon live action series (shoutout to Lady Bane for making excellently niche Sims 2 content for it, too). If not, I'm stuck again with not really knowing and not wanting to say Harry Potter since I haven't really engaged with it for a million years. Hey! Maybe you guys should recommend a new book or movie series to me! Especially if the book is available as an audiobook, because I have more patience/attention for them than reading these days.

I don’t know who to tag because I don’t know who’s already done it - let’s start with @afro-sims-for-you, @didilysims and uhhhhh @katatty-main ? Plus anyone else who follows me and wants to do it! Tag me back so I can read ‘em :0

#nonsims #roguebotanist

7 notes · View notes

miramizar · 5 years ago

Text

11 questions tag

I was tagged by @achenlove, @milky-waee, @conqueredthemagic and @notasiren21! Haha this took such a long time to do and I know I’m terribly late but thank you for tagging me! I had lots of fun, even if answering all these combined took both time and energy haha~ 💕

Rules:

Post the rules Answer the questions given to you by the tagger. Write 11 questions of your own Tag 11 people

My Questions:

1) Sunny days or rainy days?

2) It’s saturday morning, you’ve slept in and you are free the entire day. What do you do?

3) If a book/tv-series you love doesn’t end happily, will you get angry and never read/watch it again?

4) You get to fill a bag with whatever candy you like from your local supermarket! What do you fill it with?

5) Have you ever played an instrument? (Singing also counts~)

6) What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see the word “happiness”?

7) Recommend me a book!

8) If you were to start a new hobby, what would you do?

9) Do you have any favourite words? (doesn’t matter which language you choose!)

10) Tell me your favourite movie from Disney, Pixar and Studio Ghibli~

11) What encouraging words do you need to hear right now?

I’d like to tag @xiuminscheeks, @ladyliliah, @youngk-hun, @qtpie1098, @suhosmilitarywife, @cottonhyun, @iyeolie, @bloomingyouths and whoever wants to do this! 💞

My answers are under the cut if you want to read them! (^_^)💗

1. What´s a hidden talent of yours?

Um, can shake my eyes and move my nostrils?

2. What makes you really really angry?

Whenever things don’t go the way I want to (and I get angry at myself) and when people are being rude

3. If you got one wish, what would you wish for?

For everybody to be happy~

4. Tell us the reason your bias is your bias!

I just love everything about Junmyeon - his dorkiness, his big heart, how adorable he is, how thoughtful and stubborn he is, his beautiful smile... Everything really 💖 Jinki is so natural and warm and soft... Leo is a sweetheart, so kind and humble and open with his thoughts, and his smile is so beautiful my heart hurts 💘 for Mark, it’s how cute and hard-working he is, and how easy he finds things interesting and funny~ and Leeteuk is just a big, pretty ball of weird who manages to make me laugh at any time~ 💕

5. If you only could listen to one song for the rest of your life, what song would you choose?

Oh my goodness I can’t answer that (>_<;)

6. If you were able to go on a date with your bias, what would you do and why?

Something calm, like visiting a café or a bookshop would be lovely~ (>///<)💘

7. What makes you happy?

Seeing the people I love being happy and dorky 💖

8. Name 5 things you wouldn´t be able to live without!

My family, music, books, candy and nature 💚

9. You´ve just won 1 million dollars, what do you do with them?

Probably pay off my family’s loans, use a little of it to buy myself books and cute things and such, and then give the rest to charity~

10. Tell us 3 things your followers doesn´t know about you!

Ahh, well I just started painting with watercolours (I’m truly a beginner but it’s fun so far~), I know enough japanese to understand what’s going on in un-subbed shows, and I really like planning things out but actually doing them is hard (>w<)❣️

11. What is your dream, your goal in life?

I don’t really know... I want to make people happy, of course... I haven’t thought beyond that really, maybe I should do that...

~Next set of questions!~

1 RANDOM QUESTION BUT: what would you name your dog if you had one??? (I need suggestions)

Ahah I do have one and his name is Picasso!

2 Favourite pic/gif/MEME of your bias?

adhgfaoad I love all pictures of my biases but I love these a lot!!

3 what would you say to your bias if you had the chance to talk to them (like, you meet them while they’re drinking a coffee and you just pass by and you exchange a few words)

I would say thank you for working so hard and for always thinking of us fans, and that I treasure them a lot 💕

4 Chen’s “Ah waeeeee” or Xiumin’s “marshmallow~ marshmallow~”?

They’re both cute!! In different ways! But I guess “marshmallow~”? (>^<)💞

5 “Yo, nice skirt” or “up and down like a rollercoaster”?

up and down like a rollercoaster 🎶

6.Do you like pineapple on your pizza? Please be honest.

Yup! 🍍❤️ 🍕~

7 What’s your favourite girl group?

I don’t really like that many girl groups but I’m currently looking into Mamamoo and Brown Eyed Girls~

8 would you let Pcy punch you in the face killing you instantly? (this is important)

Um, If he has to? But preferably not :>

9 You’re in Baek’s room and he’s asleep next to Mongryong. He looks like an angel.Would you rather fall asleep next to him hugging him or steal Mongryong and start running as fast as you can? :=))))

Sleep next to him, definitely!

10 What’s your favourite MV??

I really like Overdose, For life and Universe~

11 It’s 3 am and you hear strange noises from the apartment in front of yours: it’s Suho dancing to Red Velvet’s Red Flavor. Would you join him or throw a shoe at him?

Join him!! ❤️

~Next set of questions!~

1. Original bias in your ult group?

Junmyeon~

2. How did you get into kpop?

My youngest sister is into dancing and she found some cool videos on youtube one day, showed me and the rest is history 💫

3. What’s the best way kpop has changed your life?

It gave me friends, let me grow closer to my sisters and inspired me in an otherwise very grey reality 💕

4. If you could start your own group, what concept would you have and what position would you hold?

I’d probably be the exasperated leader (I took a quiz recently so I got proof) for a group that makes music that is both soft and happy, and a bit dark and upbeat~ ❣️ Maybe a little like VIXX’s style?

5. Fave look of your bias? (Era wise)

This.

6. Fave pet of the members?

All of them! 💓

7. Fave mv of your ultimate group?

I already answered this, but they’re all really nice so it’s hard to just pick one... Maybe Universe, since it’s so aesthetically pleasing and also pretty deep? :>

8. Favorite fanfic??

That’s something for another post haha but oh well, I really love “Got hands like the ocean” by apaixono, it has me squealing and laughing and crying and everything in between~ 💕

9. Have you seen your bias group live?

Nope - even though they were really close to me when they were in Germany, I didn’t have enough money to go :<

10. Favorite EXO blogs and why?

uh... I think they’re all great? I mean, both the ones creating stuff and those who reblog things... we’re all important to the fandom ❣️

1. Describe yourself with 3 words

Kind, creative, insecure

2. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My self-confidence... if I had more of it I think I would be happier...

3. What do you do to make yourself happy when you´re sad?

Look at fun things that my favourite kpop-groups do, Gaki no Tsukai, Yoon Siyoon, reading and being creative (when it works out, if it doesn’t I just get more sad 💘), being with my family and pets~

4. If you could meet your 5-year old self, what would you say to her/him?

You’re great just the way you are, don’t ever forget that 💝

5. What is you biggest fear?

Ending up alone... and accidentally hurting people :<

6. When did you start listen to kpop?

In the spring of 2016 I think?

7. If you could meet your bias for a minute, what would you say to him/ her?

Thank you for everything you do and for thinking about your fans, I'm so happy to know you 💓

8. Name 3 people you admire

Apart from all the amazing kpop people ahah (>w<) Well, Itzhak Perlman, Aki (manga artist) and the crown princess of Sweden~

9. What´s the sound you like the most?

The wind blowing through things; like trees and grass and wind chimes~

10. If you got one wish, what would you wish for?

Everybody’s happiness~

11. What would you do if you were invisible for a day?

Read somewhere in a corner I guess... maybe check out some stores, some are so crowded that I just feel like I’m being in the way if I go inside so I don’t, but if I were invisible I could actually do it... I don’t really know haha 💕

~Next set of questions!~

1. Who is your favourite EXO-CBX member and why?

They’re all amazing, but I choose Xiumin - because he’s so soft and full of surprises! 💜

2. Who in your bias group would you like to be your best friend?

Oh... well I’m very similar to D.O so maybe D.O? (>v<)💖

3. Who is your NCT bias (if you have one)?

Mark~

4. What is your favourite food?

Steak with potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam~ ❤️

5. Favourite thing about your bias -personality wise?

All of my biases try really hard, they’re very kind and spontaneous and aren’t afraid of being dorky~ 💗

6. What’s your favourite body part of your bias?

Okay this is really embarrassing (/▽＼*)｡o○♡ I’m not really one to like specific body parts but I kind of love Jinki’s thighs because they look healthy? ajfdaihfba

7. Favourite colour?

Soft and bright ones, like white, light blue and light purple~

8. Who has the best humour in your bias group?

Suho is the funniest in EXO, period. (>w<)💕 but yeah, I find all my biases the most fun in all of my favourite groups~

9. What’s your favourite animal?

Cats ✨

10. Would you rather go on an ice cream date or a coffee-shop date with your bias?

I’m happy to do either, as long as I get to be with my bias (>///<)❣️

11. How do you feel about beans?

...not really a fan. Hide it in other food and I’ll eat it, otherwise I won’t eat it.

~Next set of questions!~

1) Your favorite quote that grounds you to being yourself?

Oh, that’s a good question... maybe “You doubt your value. Don’t run from who you are.” It’s a quote from the Narnia books that I really like, and since I struggle a lot with self-loathing it is very important to me since it makes me remember that I am valuable~ 💫

2) Ultimate ship you’re fond of and love?

This is pretty much impossible to answer because I have wayyyyy to many ships and I can’t choose just one of them adjfbnaidfad

3) Favorite soulmate AU type? (I.e. name on wrist, heterocrhomia eyes of your other half’s, seeing color for the first time)

I like all of them but I haven’t heard of the heterochromia one, that sounds really beautiful!

4) Favorite show of yours that you love that’s not in your first language?

Merlin. I like a lot of shows but Merlin is the one I keep coming back to. ✨

5) Your white noise show? (Go to show you can rewatch countless times and tune in and out of)

SCRUBS. Definitely. It’s such a great show, perfectly balanced between humour and seriousness and almost every episode works well on it’s own so no matter when you decide to watch you’ll have a nice time~

6) Fictional character you wish was real to validate your unnecessary crush?

Oh, I don’t really fall in love with fictional characters? I just ship them with people from their own universe haha (^^;)

7) A weird phobia you have that you can’t explain?

I have phobias, but I don’t know if they’re un-explainable... like my fear of insects can be explained by me getting stung by a bee when I was little...

8) Sweets or Sours?

I like both, but I’’ll say sweets! 🍬

9) Are you an artist, writer, musician, or part of the adoring audience who supports them?

...I’m a bit of them all? I play the violin so I am a musician, and I like to write and I always support other artists 💗

10) Favorite band?

I love a lot of Kpop groups, and apart from that... musically or personality-wise? Because musically I’d say any group made by Alexander Bard, but personality-wise... Westlife? Maybe??

Congratulations for reading all of those messy answers! (>W<) You’re amazing~ Have a nice day! 💖

#aoudgögbadoga finally done!!#oh my goodness this was so hard #but I had a lot of fun too~#💞💗💓#thank you for tagging me!#and of course you don't have to do it if you don't want to~#my answers

5 notes · View notes

serendipitous-magic · 5 years ago

Note

for the quarantine asks: numbers 1, 14, and 40

1) Animated character that was your gay awakening?

Not exactly animated, but

Kira from The Dark Crystal!! I liked her a lot when I was a little kid. Because look at her! She was so smol and had such pretty silver hair and she had a very pretty singing voice and she could talk to animals!! Itty bitty baby lesbian Gwen was enchanted.

Also, Princess Mononoke from, well, Princess Mononoke.

So mysterious and ~dangerous~! That first fight scene she appears in, where she first appears standing on the roof silhouetted in flames, and goes absolutely FERAL and takes on an entire village worth of fighters? And then when she’s saved by the main character man she holds a knife to his throat and tells him she’ll murder him in cold blood? And she wears a wolfskin and has cool-ass war paint and teeth jewelry and she was raised by actual wolves??? She was the most badass person 7-year-old Gwen could think of.

And speaking of Ghibli movies, oh my god Nausicaa.

She could FLY on her hovercraft thing?? And she was incredibly brave and a fierce warrior AND incredibly kind and selfless at the same time?? And she had red hair and weird little squirrel-fox pet?? And the red hair! Her boots! Her cool-ass flight suit! Yeah, I liked her.

I was also a big fan of Zipporah from Prince of Egypt

Strong! Brave! Smart! Sassy! Beautiful!

And let’s not forget Kida from Atlantis.

As a little kid I reeeeaaaally wanted to save her from the glowy crystal magic stuff. Like really wanted to. Like as a little kid I daydreamed about saving her.

Anyway yup those are a few that I liked a lot when I was like 4-10 years old (and clearly I never got over most of them lmaooo)

14) Favorite mug you own

This one! (Have an old snapchat to demonstrate)

It says “No drama” and then there’s a picture of a sleepy llama 🥰

40) Where do you sit in the living room (we all have a preferred spot, and you know it)?

I don’t leave my home office lmao. I’m at this desk 24/7 unless I’m sleeping. However, when I do venture out into the Larger World (read: the living room), if I’m alone I sit on the left side of the couch in front of the TV, but if I’m with other people I sit on the right side. It’s Tradition (TM). (... I should go outside more, huh? No wonder I feel depressed, I haven’t gotten any Vitamin D in months.)

#asks #ask game #anon #this mostly turned into Gwen Talks About her Childhood Crushes lmao

5 notes · View notes

voltageotome · 7 years ago

Text

Voltage Inc. Developer Interview – Pt. 2

Pt. 2 of our interview with the incredible M-san is here!

Ever wondered how they came up with the SCM’s gods’ names? Curious to find out where she got her inspiration for the game?!

Well, look no further!

Click Keep Reading!

Pt. 1 can be found HERE

What was your inspiration for Star-Crossed Myth?

Inspiration? Hmm... Well, when it came to the world-building, I have this favorite phrase, ‘I wish something good would happen today.’ And, you know, while I was saying that to myself, I got to thinking ‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be great if some magical god or something could grant me any wish?’ Like ‘Hey, I want a million dollars. Here ya’ go!’ or ‘I want hot men to rain from the sky’ or whatever.’

Anyway, when my life’s getting a little bit dull, I find myself saying and wishing that. So that’s really where it all started.

Plus, when you’re wishing for something good, I feel like most people look to the stars. So imagine you’re wishing on a star, and then poof, there’s this beautiful man who’s here to make all your dreams come true! And I thought ‘Wow, that would be... amazing.’

So I drew inspiration from that romantic element as well.

Also – oh, be warned, this is about to get into philosophical territory here... Gods and princes have such a magical, beautiful quality about them, but the [gods in SCM are] besmirched with sin and wrongdoing – this dark, horrible thing. I think the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the ugly is just so fascinating. These gorgeous beings have marks of sin and have fallen from grace. They’re heavenly visions that cast very long, very dark shadows.

That’s where my main inspiration came from.

So, you were just on the train one morning, wishing for something good to happen, and then it hit you – ‘Oh, this is it. This is our next title’?

Kinda. Haha. I thought ‘Hey, how would you normally wish for something?’ Oh you’d wish on the stars, of course. And I was always interested in constellations and stuff. I was also really inspired by Christian Lassen and KAGAYA, who make these beautiful, otherworldly paintings I’ve always been fascinated with... Plus I love ancient myths.

I’d just watched Kaguya Hime [from Ghibli] before making this story as well. I liked the idea of giving this beautiful creature an awful sin. Seeing that movie really struck a chord with me.

I drew inspiration from a LOT of places, but that’s how it always works. Stories never come one from one source; they’re born from a collection of different ideas.

What sort of research did you during, or even before you started, the project?

So much. Oh so much. We looked up lots of Grecian and Celtic myths. Plus myths and stories about the constellations... We also did a LOT of research when it came to their names. We looked at Latin, and so many different spellings and languages. We played around with all of those names, trying to make them a) easy to read and b) immediately recognizable as their constellation. There was a lot of wrestling with the names, trying to get them just right. I mean, Dui nearly became Geminee.

Wait, really? Geminee? ...What other names did you come up with?

Oh man... an uncountable number, really. For Leon we were afraid it was TOO on-the-nose, plus it’s the title of a very famous movie. In the end we just went for it because we appreciated its simplicity. Wow, this brings back so many memories... I just loved making this game. It was such a fun time in my life.

We researched French, Spanish, German, Greek, Russian, Hindi... Ichthys actually came from Hindi and Greek. The star sign Gemini in both English and Latin is Gemini, or something very close anyway, but in Greek it’s Didymoi, which is where we got the inspiration for Dui.

Karno was really interesting. In every language Cancer is pronounced totally differently, so his name ended up becoming a hybrid of a bunch of languages.

We even researched all of the constellations’ scientific names. We were thorough.

We were also really careful to make sure their names didn’t mean anything in any of the target languages... I mean, we wouldn’t name a character Cancer, that’s just crazy.

Oh, right... Zyglavis and Tauxolouve. We felt that the ‘lavis’ and ‘louve’ endings gave their names a Grecian flare. Obviously, we couldn’t call all the gods ‘something-louve’ or ‘whatever-lavis,’ so we tried to strike a balance with their names, making them easy to read and understandable while at the same time sounding mystical.

Dui was definitely the hardest one for us to come up with. We debated forever whether to make his name ‘Dui’ based or ‘Gemini’ based. In the end we thought ‘Ugh, Geminee is way too cute. Not happening.’

Do you prefer to write fantasy-based scenarios or ones based on everyday life?

I like writing both, but... we talked about this a little before, but I like my romances to be really profound, not just cutesy moments with some arm-candy. I prefer stories with lots of ups and downs, with a love that’s intense. Everyday stories are fine, but my preference tends to skew more fantasy, I guess.

It’s not every day we’re dealing with problems like ‘If I love you I may actually die.’ Haha. I enjoy getting deep into stories and exploring the concept of love. You can do that in a “slice of life” story, but it’s easier to do in fantasy.

Which god would you personally like to date?

If I were being realistic...? Karno. He’d come straight home after work, he’d be waiting for you with a kind word or two. Huedhaut would be nice too. He’s smart, he’s stable, he’s incredibly faithful – he’d never ever cheat... But I’d still choose Leon.

Karno and Hue would make me happy, sure, whatever... but I want to date Leon.

There are some characters who would be tough to date... I can imagine Scorpio being difficult. It would be the biggest headache dating him. Haha!

How do you come up with character designs? Do you give specific directions to the artists? Or do you give them free rein, more or less?

We need the characters’ designs to match their personalities. With SCM, for example, Leon is a proud god and super sexy, so we asked the artist to put him in a pose that would reflect that. His sexiness can be seen in his open collar; he’s got his neck exposed a bit. That’s really important when making characters... One look and you should be able to see their personalities, more or less. For Huedhaut, we gave him a little bolero tie to make him look like a gentleman, but his hair is wavy and almost covers his eyes, which we thought helped hint at his darker past...

We make the characters’ personalities in house, and then offer those notes to the artists. We literally give them free rein over how they draw; we want them to be inspired so they can come up with something amazing. ...We give them notes, of course. Like ‘He’s gonna have red hair’ or whatever, but we try to give them hints rather than full-blown direction. Once we have the first drafts then we give more specific notes, but otherwise, it’s all the artist.

And that’s all for part two! Look forward to part three, coming soon!

#star crossed myth #leon #karno #dui #scm #huedhaut #hue #zyglavis #tauxolouve #scorpio #voltage inc #voltage otome #ikemen

331 notes · View notes

scrawnydutchman · 7 years ago

Text

How to Get Started in Animation

Hello dear readers, and Merry Christmas! I hope all who celebrate Christmas or any other holiday this time to year find joy and bliss and a comforting break from the daily grind.

Now that seasons greetings are out of the way, I thought I’d type up an article all about getting started in animation. This will tell you everything I know about the things you’ll have to learn, how you can learn it, what you’ll need in order to get hired and what possible routes you can take should you want to start a career in this wonderful artform of moving pictures. It will also link you to some valuable tools you can use to your advantage as you build up your animation prowess, and everything I say here should be applicable to any form of animation be it 2D traditional, 2D character rigged animation, 3D, Stop Motion or everything inbetween. I decided to talk about this because in reality, I actually get a TON of requests for advice about this sort of thing, despite me very much being a beginner like many other people. But that said, who am I exactly? And what do I know about starting an animation career? Below is a brief synopsis:

ABOUT ME:

I have been animating for over 3 years. While I have no college education in the field, I learned how to do everything I know today via internet tutorials as well as attending a local charity driven animation school in my city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I am proficient in many different software used for animation including Harmony, Animate CC, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects, and I have experience in every step of the creative process in creating an animation. I’ve done work for all sorts of different clients including independent film makers, online entertainers/personalities, theater directors, animation studios and both local and online businesses alike. I regularly volunteer as both a member of the board at Calgary’s Quickdraw Animation Society and am an admin for the Animator Study Group facebook page. I am currently eligable for applying for studio work and have done a multitude of animation tests sent to me by potential employers. Below are links to my portfolio and social networks:

Portfolio: www.Thomasjvankampen.wix.com/tjvk

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TomboTime

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomJvanK

Now with the introduction out of the way, let’s go ahead and talk about how to get started in animation, step by step!

1. Get Educated

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Do you need a college education to get your animation career started? The answer, I’m happy to say, is NO. I mentioned before that I never went to college, but through my own means of finding the facts and doing what I can to learn in spite of not being able to attend college, I managed to get a pretty promising start in the game. You can too! Now that doesn’t necessarily mean college is a waste of time. If you’ve got a dream school, you can afford it and you enjoy the college experience, then by all means go for it. Get trained by some of the best in the field and have a ball. But if you can’t go to college, don’t think that’s a dead end. There are plenty of ways to find out what you need to know. In fact, in this age of a widely accessible and expansive internet it is now more easy to learn anything than ever before. Here are some recommendations of some of my favorite animation tutorials on the web:

a.) Happy Harry’s HuHa 2 How To’s

youtube

Harry Partridge easily ranks high as one of the greatest animators to ever hit the internet and is my personal inspiration for taking this road. You may know him for such cartoons as Saturday Morning Watchman, With Animation You Can, Starbarians and my personal all-time favorite Irving the Socially Awkward Bee. His 12 part animation tutorial series all about building a cartoon from the ground up and covering some of the most absolute essentials has revealed to me just how accessible the animation world really is. It’s informative, easy to understand, and is also goddamn hilarious. Definitely a great place to start learning. And don’t worry about what software you need to know in order to follow along: the lessons he teaches are applicable to every kind of animation you can do. That said, each episode is anywhere between 20-30 minutes long, so if you’d like a more straightforward, short and sweet kind of tutorial series, here’s another great resource for you:

b.) 12 Principles of Animation (by Alan Becker)

youtube

The 12 principles of animation are something you ABSOLUTELY have to learn if you plan on being an animator known for how fluid and lifelike your motion is. This series all about the 12 principles was made by Alan Becker, whom you may know for creating the utterly fantastic and endlessly creative Animator vs. Animation series. His series is simple, to the point and a very useful tool when it comes to quick reminders on what the most essential principles are. But if you want some long form, everyday educational content all about animation, consider the following:

c.) Draw With Jazza (on Youtube)

https://www.youtube.com/user/DrawWithJazza

Much like Partridge and Becker, Jazza is a Newgrounds animator who took to Youtube to make frequent content all about teaching his viewers every little thing they’d possibly like to know about creating a cartoon. If you have a very specific question about animation, particularly Adobe Flash/Animate, chances are Jazza has answered it already. Definitely check him out.

Now all that is well and good, but the internet is not the only place you can look for learning how to animate. If you’d like some hands on education in creating something with a professional teaching you along the way, I’d recommend looking to see if there’s some sort of organization in your local town that teaches you animation for cheap. That’s what I did, and they’ve been such a massive help for me in getting started that I regularly volunteer for them now. If there are any Calgary based readers, I must recommend the Quickdraw Animation Society.

http://quickdrawanimation.ca/

QAS offers top notch 12 week courses in the basics of animation as well as specific softwares like Harmony and After Effects, for less than 400 bucks a piece. Along with the course itself for that price you also get a years membership, which means for a whole year you can go in and access their equipment whenever they’re open. You can also do volunteer work for credits, which you can use for renting out equipment like light tables and tablets. If you’re an aspiring animator in Calgary, there is no reason NOT to go through these guys, and if you decide to check it out maybe I’ll be around the building and say hello :). For those outside of Calgary, Quickdraw also throws the GIRAF animation festival every year, which you can submit your films to so consider that as well.

There are also online courses you can take like Animation Mentor if you want to do 3D. Or Lynda.com. There are also great animation books that every animator on the planet will recommend to you like Richard Williams’ Animator Survival Kit and The Illusion of Life . Also watch as many animated movies as you can and look into classics you may not have seen yet. I could go on and on but the point is, do what you’ve got to do to get educated. This is just the tip of the iceberg of how many resources are there for you.

2. Get some Equipment

Aside from the big debate about whether or not you go to college, this can often be the most intimidating part. Make no mistake; getting equipment can be VERY expensive. A good computer, a state of the art software, a tablet, a good package of stuff from Adobe like Premiere and After Effects. Of course not everybody has infinitely steep wallets, so I’ll get to some cheaper options for you in a bit. For now, here’s what you should know about the standard equipment for this field.

The most frequently used softwares in film and television for 2D are: Harmony, Animate CC and TV PAINT. You’ll be having entire discussions with other artists about the pros and cons of these softwares as everybody has their preferences. It’s more than likely some people will disagree with me on this assessment, but the way I see it is: Harmony has the most utility, Animate is the easiest to learn and TV PAINT is the best for Hand Drawn frame by frame animation. I personally use Harmony just because Toon Boom is what i’ve been using since the beginning of my career and so I know it best. When it comes to choosing which software to use, I would probably say just go with the Adobe Creative Cloud in all honesty, because now that most businesses use an annual subscription basis anyway you’d be getting access to all of Adobe’s products including Animate, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects for as long as you stay subscribed. Knowing Photoshop and After Effects especially will play an instrumental role in your animation career, but you should also take the time to learn other softwares if you can possibly find a way. When it comes to 3D animation, Maya is the prime tool.

But let’s say that, like most people, you don’t just have hundreds of dollars to casually spend every year. Fret not; you can still create with some pretty top notch open source options out there. Open source means absolutely free to download and fully customizable, and finding plenty of options should take no more than a quick google search. If you wanna learn 2D, I recommend OpenToonz:

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/

Opentoonz was used to make some top notch Studio Ghibli movies like Princess Mononoke. If you want to learn 3D, definitely check out Blender.

https://www.blender.org/

Now, technically speaking you CAN animate and draw using nothing but a computer mouse if you so desire. But i’ll tell you right now: a tablet is DEFINITELY worth investing in. The primary distributor of these tablets is Wacom, and while they can get admittedly pretty pricey, if you’re serious about animation they will be an absolutely worthwhile investment. If you get a cheap tablet in the beginning, hances are you’ll use it for a good 2 or 3 years, maybe even longer if you keep it in good shape. But if you’re looking for a good deal, here’s what I recommend:

https://www.monoprice.com/category?c_id=108&cp_id=10841&cs_id=1084101#QA

Monoprice offers some good quality graphic and display tablets for SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than Wacom does. I got a 22 inch display tablet for 400 bucks (trust me, it’s a huge bargain). For some reason the link to the tablet I bought isn’t there anymore, but chances are you’ll find something you like.

If you just can’t afford any of this, consider looking into whether or not your city offers a service where you can rent out equipment such as tablets or softwares, either with credit you obtained for doing volunteer work or by a money based system.

*Side Note: Getting educated and getting equipment kind of go hand-in-hand, so take both 1 and 2 as like a general first step.

3. Build a Portfolio

Now comes the fun part. You got your tech and you’ve acquired some knowledge. It’s time to make a cartoon. It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t going to be hired right out the gate if you have nothing to show for your skill, so there’s no point in worrying about that right now. I would take this as an opportunity to just make whatever the hell you want. If you’ve got an awesome idea for an intense beautiful drama or a funny joke or a shit-your-pants scary monster, go for it. Once you decide what you’re going to make,

STICK. TO. IT. NO. MATTER. WHAT.

I won’t sugarcoat it; animation is a long and tedious process in which you have to develop a TON of patience and willpower to see projects through to the end. Sometimes you might get bored, or frustrated, or you may even lose your passion for a project and just want to never see it again. You also might see your inadequacy start to seep in as you obviously won’t be the best animator around in the beginning. But FINISH IT ANYWAY. No matter how bad it may seem as you go about making it, no matter how long it takes you, see it to the end. The world’s shittiest cartoon in your repertoire is better than no cartoon at all. And don’t be so hard on yourself; even the best in the field had humble beginnings. Just to make you have a little more self esteem, here’s one of the very first things I ever made:

youtube

This piece of shit took me over a month to make and I drew it all with a mouse. It’s poorly drawn, choppy as hell, inconsistent, some assets simply drop out of frame, I recorded the dialogue on my phone and the video compression is all wrong. But I made it, released it, and beyond my comprehension some people actually liked it. And trust me; I’ve gotten WAY better since then. This is a fact about learning anything; you have to own up to your flaws and mistakes before you can improve upon them. So make your shitty cartoon, take whatever pride you can from it, figure out how you can be better and move on to the next thing. Guess what? You’re building your portfolio.

But let’s say you can’t think of anything you want to make. That’s fine. You can make some shots for a demo reel. A demo reel is a 1-2 minute montage (no longer than 2 minutes, no shorter than 1), featuring the best animation you can do. You’ll need to make one of these eventually anyway. This is the most crucial thing in finding animated work and the thing you will be sharing with employers when you apply for jobs, so it’s imperative you make it good. If there’s an animated shot in your reel you aren’t 100% certain is the best you can do, DON’T PUT IT IN. Your demo reel is the representation of your current skill level. Being that it represents your current skill, you’ll want to update your reel at least once a year as you keep improving. Overtime it’ll become easier and easier to make because your portfolio will be getting bigger and bigger, and chances are you’ll have paid work you can feature in your reel too. But for now, because you have next to nothing, You’ll have to settle with making unique shots for a one minute reel. You can make your reels longer further down the road if you want (i highly recommend always keeping it within a minute and a half) but for now just keep it at a minute long. Employers will want to hire you based on how many things you can do, so make your reel nice and diverse will all sorts of stuff. Have a shot with good lip sync, have a run and a walk cycle, show some people fighting if you’re into that, show some face animation, have a bit about one thing morphing into something else. Since this will feature some of your earliest work, maybe do some typical animation exercises like a bouncing ball or flour sac animation. Be creative with what you put in there but make sure you have your bases covered. Try not to make your reel too monotonous; an employer doesn’t need a one minute montage just to find out you can make a guy walk and that’s it. For an example of my point, below is my latest Demo Reel:

youtube

*VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure to mark each demo reel you make with your name, what kind of reel it is (more on that in a bit) and what year the reel was made. Also end your demo reel with your professional email address for business inquiries and a link to your portfolio website so employers can see your work individually all in one place. More on that later.*

Notice how I included a multitude of different skills, as well as my process in making my animations. This is the reel that got me some of the best paying work. Additionally, you may want to consider making multiple reels at once for different categories of animation. Maybe make one for 2D and one for 3D. Maybe make one for character animation and one for element animation. Stuff like this is important to consider as different jobs will require you to be able to do different things, and a thriving animator acts as a “Jack-of-all-trades” who can take on different kinds of projects as they come along. You can do that as you choose as your portfolio expands, but for now I’d focus on just making one. It’s a great way to practice a variety of different kinds of stuff that you’ll need to master in order to thrive, and makes a good substitute if you can’t think of any kind of animation you’d rather make at this time. I can’t stress this enough: your demo reel is the most essential piece in getting work and in some rare cases will be all you have to show your employer in order to get the job. This matters more than whether or not you have a college education EVERY TIME. True story: One of my earliest jobs was making animated backgrounds for a stageplay and when it came time to do my phone interview my employer personally thanked me for being the only applicant who included a reel. I didn’t show her anything besides that and got the job.

Now, as important as reels are, they aren’t the only thing you’ll ever need. You’ll also need more typical stuff like an animation resume (specifying things about you like past experience, education, references, skillset, etc.) and you should get into the habit of typing up meaningful cover letters for every place you apply (take it from me; copy/pasting the same cover letter to everyone and switching out the names of the studio doesn’t help). You should also seriously consider building a website portfolio. While not every animator out there has one, it can be really handy as a place to show your employer all the content you have in one place. You can build one for free using services like Wix or Squarespace. I personally use Wix for my website so I can vouch for it.

You should also consider getting business cards. Might seem like an outdated idea, but you NEVER know when the opportunity will come where you have to hand somebody your info in person, especially if you spend a good amount of time building connections anyway. Speaking of which . . .

4. Build some connections

Having a great portfolio of work will be super useful, but it won’t mean anything if you don’t know who to show it to. My biggest recommendation is to see if there’s some sort of animation community in your town whom you can make good friends with and put in the effort to get involved with them. That’s what I did with the Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary and I consider it the most crucial move in my career thus far. They’re a huge reason as to why I got so much of my earliest and finest opportunities for work. If you’re as lucky as I was, there will be something like Quickdraw there for you. But you should also look into some online communities. Artella.com is a good choice to put your work up. There’s also my personal favorite: Newgrounds!

https://www.newgrounds.com/

Newgrounds has been a hub for animators and game creators since the early 2000s and has contributed to the rise of some of the best animators on the web like the previously mentioned Harry Partridge, Alan Becker and Jazza, as well as Max Gilardi, Arin Hanson, Adam Phillips, Edd Gould (R.I.P), Zach Hadel, Chris O’Neill, Will Stamper, Zach Hadel, Mick Lauer and MANY MANY MORE. It’s not quite as prestigious as it once was but it’s a place where you can upload your creations, get more views then you would on either Youtube or Vimeo and get well informed feedback on how you can improve. And hey, if you’re lucky some people might even reach out to you asking if you want to collab. Beyond that, there’s also study groups you can follow on facebook such as the Animator’s Study Group (with one of the admins being yours truly, link below):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/animstudygroup/

If you make your connections strong enough, it’ll make spreading the word about your work much easier. In fact, people might hear about you at a rate you aren’t expecting. That’s why you should also consider being more active on social media like Twitter and that. It’s like the saying goes: It helps to have friends in high places. And if there’s no such animation community in your town, why not make one yourself? You might be surprised how many people in your city are longing for the same thing.

5. Know what you’re worth

Now this part is sort of multifaceted. It’s both covering a financial and physical meaning of self worth and a more spiritual, artistic sense of self worth. If your career is anything like mine, chances are you will start as a freelancer before anything else. That’s fine. Freelancing isn’t guaranteed to be a stable living, but it makes a great portfolio builder. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be good enough at it to start doing freelance animation for life. But with the beginning of freelancing comes a pretty daunting question: how much should you charge for your work? If you’re of a good nature, you want to be firm but fair. The first thing you should know is you should never feel like you HAVE to work for free. If you want to do it go ahead, but don’t think your work is worth nothing. You’re putting in hours to deliver a service of which somebody else will profit from; you deserve to be compensated. Don’t ever fall for the “exposure” line some employers may give you. If all you wanted was exposure you’d just make things for yourself and share the absolute crap out of it, and exposure doesn’t put bread on the table. As for how much you charge, there’s a couple of ways you can go about it. You can see if your employer offers you a wage first and see if it sounds reasonable to you. But if you have to figure it out yourself, you can do a “per second” model where your animated short is a set amount of dollars per second of the shorts length. You can also charge based on how many weeks or even months it takes you to complete it. This is a pretty broad subject that has a crazy amount of variables to it (a lot of which having to do with what exactly is it that they are asking you to make and how complex is it) so I would give this a lot of serious thought and research as to how you work it out, but it’s one of those things you learn with trial and error a lot of times.

Let’s end this with a more philosophical bit of information. Sometimes you’re going to feel like you can’t do it. Maybe you aren’t as skilled as you thought you were, maybe you put out a bunch of applications but nobody has called you back yet, maybe you failed a few animation tests that you’ve gotten. A hard part of any path to doing what you love is taking the rejection and failure. But if you’re serious about wanting to do animation and you have undeniable skill, patience and reliability in it, you owe it to yourself to keep going. A good successful mindset is to always think about what you CAN do, not what you can’t. If you can’t go to college, maybe you can find cheaper training or train yourself. If you can’t afford equipment, maybe you can get an open source software or put in volunteer hours to rent out the things you need. If you can’t find an animation community in your town, maybe you can either find one online or start one yourself. It may seem difficult, but it’s easier to pursue a career in this medium now than it ever was before. If you have the wherewithal to see this choice through, you will find success. Trust me.

#film #animation #cartoons #how-to #howto #animator #career advice #career-advice #success

9 notes · View notes

owlaholic68 · 7 years ago

Text

Fic Writing

Since I’ve just (almost) finished writing chapter 9 of Au-Dela/Beyond the Stars, I thought I’d do a lovely little retrospective of my writing and translating experience!

The most obvious thing is that my writing speed in French has improved dramatically. I just busted out over 1000 words today, which is not bad compared to my English writing speed, and is way better than it was when I started.

My random thoughts on chapters I’ve written:

Chapter 1: there’s apparently an “entertainment officer” on Lucky and I have no idea why their job is important enough to be mentioned.

Chapter 2: I literally forgot that Lily was in this fic for some reason, don’t worry, she’ll be back. Also, I imagine Arcade’s lab to be like a Studio Ghibli greenhouse/science room.

Chapter 3: I literally don’t remember coming up with the plot for this chapter, it just happened. Also, Julie is very good friends with both Christine and Veronica, I hope that was clear.

Chapter 4: This was like the Bachelor, but less dumb and also less romantic? Also, Arcade was supposed to be in this somewhere, I don’t know where he went.

Chapter 5: This is where Arcade went. Sorry, man, your job sucks. Also the king does...literally nothing ever... Oh right, my big reveal! I’m not sure why I tacked it on to this chapter, but I hope it was a nice cliffhanger!

Chapter 6: This is like the Boy who Cried Wolf with all these darn fake medical emergency messages. Also, almost kissing, ugh my weakness.

Chapter 7: This chapter was supposed to almost 4000 words long, I don’t have any idea how that happened, so I split it two bc i’m back in school next week.

Chapter 7 part two (Chapter 8): Oooh this isn’t up yet, but it’s a lot of fun! Veronica’s in there, Christine’s in there, Dmitri gets some time in. I also wrote this to the angstiest songs for some reason?? Also, not to spoil anything, but some scenes go better when I just knock Arcade unconscious. I just like giving the man head wounds. It happened in She Packed No Star (in the last chapter he got a concussion), Silver Stars (knocked himself out while teleporting to Julie’s temple), and this chapter too! Sometimes I get stuck writing, then I knock him out and everything goes great!!!!! Sorry!!!!!

Chapter 9 (just mostly written): I learned a lot about old Moroccan (Marrakech specifically) ruins and architectural elements. It was a lot of fun. That’s all I’ll say.

Sometimes I forget what words I’ve used, and I always have my previous chapters open. Recent example: the word “stretcher” has two different words in French, and I just jumped back to Chapter 1 to find exactly which one I’d used. I have a weirdly good memory for exact times that I’ve used certain words or phrases.

Oh, the agony of decisions concerning formality of language...Christine just started using “tu” with Lynn and I’ve just been screaming internally the whole time I’ve been writing.

WHY do I use the present participle so much?????

THANK GOODNESS I made a stylistic decision a long time ago to write in present tense, because this would have been a lot harder if I would have had to write in passé simple or in another past tense.

Forgot the spelling of the word “emperor” in french, jotted it down in English on my document, went to go look up the word and forgot how to spell it in English, had to go back to what I’d written. I should’ve just looked at my other chapters. It was in chapter One. It would have taken half as much time.

*word* *looks up French/English equivalent* *while page is loading, I think of the right word in French/English, now I just have the dictionary page open for no reason*

“La main” or “le main”? I’ve used the word for “hand” about 30 times a chapter, still second-guess myself on the gender of the noun.

*writes romance interlude* *interlude is longer than my normal chapters* *interlude also contains important plot elements, so it’s basically just another chapter*

I actually have to set aside specific time for romantic interactions, bc sometimes I just forget...that that’s one of my main plot elements...Also (for example) bc of plot restraints, Veronica often can’t be a big part of the other chapters (yet), so she needs a little bit of designated Lynn Interaction Time. And since this is my first time writing a poly thing, that little bit of extra relaxed time will come in handy later.

While translating into English, I go to look up a phrase. After reading the dictionary definition, I don’t like it. Then I somehow remember the exact phrase that I had wanted to say while writing it originally in French.

Translation is great bc I know EXACTLY what the author was trying to convey, because I AM the author.

Finds errors in my French version while translating it into English.

WHY aren’t there as many descriptive words for saying things different ways in French? Ughhhhhh there’s basically no difference between scream/yell/shout/say loudly/squeal/squeak, they’re all just “crier/hurler”

WHY do I have all these weird sentences that are just “she stood up.” Why did I feel like I needed to write these in French?

stuff that sounds better in French

stuff that sounds better in English

stuff that doesn’t sound good in either

I have to translate right at the end, bc otherwise I’ll change/add things in my French draft that I then have to go change/add in my English one and it’s a huge pain

PRONOUNS. Example: Technically Dmitri should use the feminine “elle” because the word for plant is feminine, but he of course uses “il” which I’m not sure exactly conveys that Arcade is saying “he” not “it”???? Also Arcade uses “tu” with Dmitri, fyi.

Also PRONOUNS between all these women are killing me.

Speaking of Dmitri, I have no idea why I picked that name. I think I looked up French nature-related names, and something similar to that came up? I just really like the name.

I either write a whole paragraph without looking up a single word, or I have to look up every word in a single sentence. The former results in fast writing of quick-action scenes that I go back and edit, the latter makes for some lovely poetic descriptions.

Lynn is always hesitating for some reason. She’s also making lots of eye contact too. Julie is always smiling. Christine is always showing lots of nonverbal affection. Arcade always has something in his hands.

Speaking of Christine, I did toy with the idea of making her unable to speak, but ultimately forgot about it and dropped the idea within 0.5 seconds of writing Christine dialogue. I don’t regret it one bit.

The king was supposed to be House?? And now he’s not, but he still kind of is?? Oh well I don’t care about him anymore...

I had the first story arc mapped out pretty detailed, this second one is going to be about 95% done on the fly, I pretty much just know what’s going to happen at the end. It’s going to be very character driven. There’s going to be an overarching plot with Star-Trek-style episodes thrown in.

I can’t decide what the ship’s hierarchy is?? Definitely (in order): the king, Lynn, Julie, and then I think Christine and Boone, then Fantastic and Reyes, then other minor officers?

Somehow tropes from Silver Stars (Greek Mythology AU) are trying to creep into this story. One Big One is coming in Chapter 9 that I kept bc it still feels right, but I realized halfway through that this particular story element is kind of familiar. There’s also a lot of mentions of stars and the night sky that I don’t know why I’m still using in this fic, but it does still paint a very lovely picture.

I’m definitely describing a lot more in french, but also describing things less in some ways. Sometimes I go to translate certain parts, and I’m shocked by how little time I spent describing scenery. But other times, I realize that I’ve gone into detail about the diplomatic structure of peace treaties in my AU.

Uhhhhh a lot of times I write fic on my phone, and I just can’t do that with this, because I always need at least one dictionary tab open, and usually another couple tabs with music or research. However, it’s easier for me to edit my French drafts on my phone because I have a french keyboard option, which I can’t get a handle on on my desktop.

I try to listen to French music when I write in French, but anything’s fair game when I’m translating. I always come up with ideas when I’m in my car listening to either Bob Dylan songs or Woodie Guthrie protest/pro-union anthems.

I can’t believe I’ve written so much, and I’m still probably just under halfway through (if even). Also, I can’t believe that I’ve actually have consistent updates of decent lengths, every single week! This fic has been so much fun to write and translate, and has definitely been the slowest burn romance I’ve ever written!

I hope that everyone reading has enjoyed reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing!

#fallout #meta #fic writing #courier lynn #au-dela au #francais #fnv #space au

1 note · View note

tuchimuchibrainvomit · 7 years ago

Text

EPISODE 1:

Aloha, fellow Sakuga Seedlings!

Welcome to my case study series, Brain Vomit.

Name’s

Tuchimuchi Yoshinori – or just Tuchi...

And I enjoy animation. Especially animation from the eastern archipelago of Japan, also called “Anime”

In this series, right here, I’ll be exploring Japanese Animation Production and enlightening this growing community and myself to the power they have in this expansive animated medium.

In this episode, we will focus on Defining Anime, Production Roles that go into creating anime and more!!

I welcome you all to join me on this exploration into Anime.

Without a moment’s hesitation, let’s start with the crust and make our way downward!!

What is Anime?

Anime (アニメ) the word, is moniker for Japanese Animation.

Anime, the art form, is a style of Limited Animation that came into prominence during the rise of Disney in the 1960’s, although Japanese animation dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. The most prominent and well known anime began from Osamu Tezuka -- known for Astro Boy, Black Jack and Kimba the White Lion -- creating new techniques after being inspired to simplify Disney’s rigorous animation aesthetics.

As manga began to be noticed as the popular thing in the 70s, anime began to shift from a Disney imitation to a new style of its own.

Sakuga (作画) is a catch-all term in Anime, where a certain scene or event’s production value and animation quality exceed the usual fare. It’s often these moments that enraptured our eyes to anime and got us interested. This can be anything from effects, to characters to background animation! Sakuga is limitless in it’s potential EPICNESS!!

Here are some awesome examples by Web Animator’s Yotsube and Bahi JD!

I know, it’s pretty damn cool. And Sakuga, there is actually a word for it! Literally translated from “Creating Pictures”. The name for this community that I call “Sakuga Seedlings” comes from the pun of “Saku” also being read as “to Bloom”.

(Source)

Some of the most famous anime were created by the world renowned Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki.

But other important, often forgotten legends are:

Hideaki Anno, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai.

If you haven’t heard of these guys, check them out. I’ve linked to their wikipedia articles in their names, so feel free to click on them and get a basic gist of what these guys are about.

In a future episode I plan to go over each and every one of them!

Next, I know you all saw that word “Limited Animation”...

Q: What is Japanese Limited Animation?

Unlike most Disney animation -- or Full Animation, where every frame is painstakingly drawn to create an almost true to life smooth motion -- Limited Animation is a style that takes advantage of the limited frames, partial frame changing and movement to create visually stimulating works. This is a much cheaper method and can be used to varying results.

Most Western TV cartoons and pretty much all anime is Limited Animation.

Full Animation is In an environment in which redraws most every frame are MANDATORY to create as realistic/fluid as possible movement. Unlike it though, limited animation often breaks traditional norms by keeping redraws to a restriction (often by getting creative with animation styles and shortcuts), but allowing for a more dynamic visual spectrum, as they are, ironically, not limited by realistic standards of full movement.

Many techniques of Limited Animation can be incorporated into more Western Full-Animation as well.

Limited animation is not limited to Japanese Animation, but because that is the focus, I want to focus my attention there.

(source) (source) (source)

So let’s, compare them!

Q: Compare Limited vs Full Animation

Let us compare Disney’s Full Animation and Limited Animation.

For this example,

Compare to Disney, which has very realistic perceptions of movement to Limited Animation.

Limited Animation often MUST exaggerate movements, repeat frames and manipulate the camera far beyond to get the sense of movement without frequent redraws.

It takes advantage of the mind’s magnificent ability to fill in movement on it’s own.

Note this: All of this is considered Sakuga. Pretty cool, right?

This type of animation still on paper before colored and composited is called “Genga” (原画).

No, not the Pokemon, Gengar! Nix the “R”!!

(Thank god, for now Tumblr gives have the sources -- so I can save time on listing them. As the series goes on, I’ll be grabbing actual clips and editing them in my own way, so those sources will have to be better defined...)

Q: OK. Back to Anime, How is Anime Produced?

Using the anime Shirobako as a fantastic launchpad, as well as other studies, Anime Production is built upon multiple roles and hierarchies.

(If you are at all curious about Japanese Anime Production, watch this series; It’s on Crunchyroll for free. I’m not being sponsored, but I recommend it. Linked above.)

(I will also be leaving Executives, Producers, Writers, Voice Actors and Sound Crews out of this list, which have a different important roles. But I would like to give this focus eventually along with Marketing Techniques, etc.)

For now, I’ll use basic definitions to keep things simple, but the most common roles in any anime production are:

Director: The individual in charge of keeping production staff on task and keeping the overall visual aesthetic. For Example: Akiyuki Shinbou of SHAFT fame.

Animation Director: This is the head person in charge and oversees all of the individual animation production. They are ALWAYS talented Key Animators with years of experience and have the last say on EVERY FRAME USED THE FINAL PRODUCTION. They have other responsibilities such as as Redraws and Correction.

Character Designer: The person who either creates or adapts designs for TV animation. This is Episode 2’s main message in a nutshell. But to sum it up here, it is not uncommon for Animation Directors and Character Designers to either be the same person, or a pair who have worked together on a lot of stuff.

Key Animator: The people in charge of drawing key poses (important movements and poses). There can be very few or very many depending on the production staff. We’ll get into that at a later time. These can often be Freelance Animators as well, which is very important as Studios often Freelance and can get different feels because of it.

In-Between Animator: The people who draw in-betweens to keys, connecting them all together and clean-up. These people refer to the Key Animators, while Key Animators refer to the Animation Directors.

Color Artists: Pretty straight forward, depending on whether traditionally or digitally animated, add color and shade to the basic animation. During the days of Cel-Shading, these were hand-painted, but with technology, tools like Photoshop, Toonboom and After Effects are more commonly used.

Check Artist: This person reviews each frame and checks for inconsistencies. They help the central aesthetic, style and models are on point. If not, a frame may have to be redone. When these guys mess up, we get things like this. These also can be Animation Directors themselves. Many roles can bleed into one another, if that wasn’t obvious enough. (Show example of animation error)

Background Artist: These guys design the backgrounds, whether 2D or 3D. We’ll get into this more later as well. My 3D knowledge is very limited, so I’ll do my own homework on more information on that.

Compositor: This group puts everything together, can take care of digital effects and edits such as atmospheric lighting and weather, depending on the production company. These guys create the crisp polish you’ll see in Ufotable Productions.

I know you must be thinking, these are very similar to Western Production Studios, and you’d be right.

They are very similar, as each piece is needed to produce like a well oiled machine. But there are many VERY important differences. If you know Animation History, Anime production was based on and eventually deviated from Disney’s original model.

Now that you have most of the basic pieces to understand we can begin digging in the differences from the ground up, work to each role and it’s importance and how that all comes together.

Now we can start to looking into the question of,

Q: What is different about Japanese and Western styles of animation production?

Not in the aesthetic choices, but in the setup and philosophy of animation.

It all comes down to the production at hand, but the main basic philosophy is something I like to call “Western Order and Eastern Individuality”.

This is a good start and the start of some of my liberal take on defining different parts of anime and animation -- A main point of this series was to break down and find a way of defining little things like this in a more digestible method:

So, what is the Western idea of “Order Animation”.

Well, how staff is put together is what dictates it.

If you look at any Disney frame, what do you see? Animation that is completely kept on model and shows the visions of the Director and Animation Leads based on strict values of Order and Perfection.

This is often formed by having teams for every character and aesthetic throughout the entire picture remaining as physically consistent as possible.

It’s very impressive that they can get this group of people so on point! I admire it, even if it isn’t the philosophy I prefer in my own tastes in animation and production.

Then, there is the Eastern idea of -- what I like to call -- “Individuality Animation”. This is just another way the production team is staffed and ordered. Most Key Animators have what are called Cuts -- specific scenes in each production that they are in charge of animating. Think about a Cut like cutting a camera in a film to a new scene. Many film making techniques are used in animation, this should always be kept in mind constantly.

Once again, this goes more onto which you find better in your opinion, but I tend to find these definitions slightly ironic based on their respective cultures, but there is a lot of truth to them.

Q: Now, why does this Individuality Animation interest me?

Because, it allows for every Key Animator and In-Betweener to add their own spice and flair to a scene, to the point where based on the animation, you can tell which individual worked on it.

-- AND THIS IS WHAT I LOVE!

LOOKING AT A PIECE OF ANIMATION AND BASED ON STYLISTIC AND AESTHETICAL TROPES, YOU CAN POINT OUT A SPECIFIC ANIMATOR OR ANIMATORS INSPIRED BY ONE ANOTHER!!

I believe Order Animation tries to represent a company as a whole, which is great in its own right.

While Individual Animation tries to represent the identities of those who worked on it. Which I am much more in support of and interested in. If you’ve ever met me, I am the type that remembers faces and personalities more than names and the bigger picture. With how I work and how I love to meet new people, Individuality Animation allows me to really get to the heart of an animator.

Ahem, I lost my composure there! Haha!

Next on the chopping block:

Q: Digital Animation vs Traditional Animation...

How are they addressed?

Simply, are Keyframes and In-betweens hand-drawn on paper and then scanned for clean-up and color?

Or are they drawn on digital tablet or are they 3D models?

Traditional Animation is still very common in Japanese Animation production, and most every anime you’ve seen started as hand drawn on paper.

Digital Animation uses programs such as Photoshop, Flash, ToonBoom and etc. to draw everything. Animators that focus on this medium are lovingly called Web Generation Animators. Believe it or not, one of the eldest animation studios, Tatsunoko has evolved to include many web generation animators.

youtube

(From the Studio Tatsunoko produced “Yoru no Yatterman”, hosting a wide array of web generation animation talent!)

In a later episode, I will do a more complete diegesis on Digital Animation Programs as it’s one of my favorite topics.

3D Animation is a new sensation that started an arise in anime at the start of the 2010’s. All of these anime are produced in 3D animation softwares, but are produced using techniques descended from Limited Animation. Look as series like Guilty Gear Xrd and Black Rock Shooter for some amazing examples of this.

youtube

(Guilty Gear Xrd belongs to Arc System Works. It is on PS3, PS4 and Steam PC, Go play it! The GDC also produced this great video on how the 3D Cel-Shaded style was used to imitate sprite anime form the previous entries! It’s about an hour long, but super informative!!)

Mixed Media is often used, where anime can be produced using all three methods for different reasons, be it backgrounds or the animator had a preferred way of animating. Most modern anime uses a form of mixed media from Pokemon XYZ’s 3D Camera to To Aru Majutsu no Index’s 3D Background design. It’s more common than you’d think.

(Most noticeable at 0:39 and 0:58. Look how the ground around Ash’s feet is swiveling in a new way. Or how the camera follows Pikachu to Pangoro and Honedge. Fun Fact: Quick Attack is ineffective on Honedge, it’s a Ghost type!)

youtube

(Pokemon XY belongs to OLM, Game Freak, Nintendo and Creatures Inc., OLM actually means Oriental Light and Magic, inspired from Industrial Light and Magic, known for Cinematic VFX.)

But these can be used in a myriad of creative ways to make each cut feel distinct depending on which animators are behind the wheel.

Since I’m focusing on Japanese Animation Philosophy, as it’s what I know better and prefer, I will focus on that through most of my future studies.

However, you are free to use whichever method you want!

The great thing about art and animation is that you have a choice in how you go about doing it. I wholeheartedly believe in having whatever style interests you and making the most of your creativity.

If I can help bring in a new interest or skill set into your work, or just entertain you with my geekiness about anime, then it will all be worth it.

Who knows, you may be surprised at what we discuss!

I’ll call this episode a wrap for now! Next time we’ll be discussing the basic principles of animation.

If you haven’t gotten a copy of the Animator’s Survival Guide, I highly recommend finding a copy of it! It’s a must-have for animators of all skill levels, even amateur ones like me.

I’ll see you all next time!!

ON THE NEXT BRAIN VOMIT!!

EPISODE 2: ANIMATION PRINCIPLES ARE THE MOON PRINCESSES?!!

STAY TUNED NEXT SATURDAY AT 7PM EST FOR NEXT EXPEDITION INTO SAKUGA GOODNESS!!

DON’T MISS IT, OR I’LL HAVE TO PUNISH YOU!!

Remember: Always bloom proudly,

– TUCHI OUT!!!

15 notes · View notes