#i took screenshots of other characters i intend to draw but since i was just idly sketching i was like why not

[creatediana]

"The Duke of Somerset" - an extremely simple no. 2 pencil drawing done 1/08/2024, of actor Brian Deacon in Henry VI, Part 2 (1983) directed by Jane Howell for the BBC Television Shakespeare, done in about 10 minutes. Would've been more detailed but my sister said "I'm bored and hungry, come eat with me" and that sounded pretty compelling.

[perfectwitchcrown]

Allusions in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love

So far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love there’s been a lot of allusions to various texts. I thought it might be fun to compile all the ones people have noticed so far as far as I've seen. Some of these are more speculative than others and I will update as I go along. Also, I read Ekuoto as free first read chapters on Mangaplus so unfortunately I can’t go back and check much so this is largely through memory, so if anyone has anything else to add I would greatly appreciate it! All I’ve got is a few screenshots and a dream. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me! I’ve organized this in order of allusions I’m confident about to allusions I’m less so confident about.

CW: reference to sexual violence

Dante's Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova: Dante Alighieri

This one is pretty obvious since there are characters directly named after the characters figured in Dante’s Inferno. It’s been a long time since I read it, but other details are also taken from the text, such as the frozen center of hell where Satan is located.

Lmao Leah from the Bible (who is probably Leah’s namesake) also shows up in Dante’s Divine Comedy apparently in Purgatorio.

Ok also super important to Dante retellings r Beatrice, who’s used as a symbol of divine love and is instrumental to Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, so of course Ekuoto Dante advises Priest to fall in love lmao. So far though there hasn’t been a direct Beatrice in narrative (which there might never be one since the text has already made the Dante-Virgil connection an active choice of Virgilius's to reference the Divine Comedy rather than just an allusion by the author).

To be so real though I figure that Vergilius is probably also intended to be the Beatrice in this narrative.

The points I would draw attention in support of this would be these: 1. Beatrice is the woman who Dante has been in love with since early childhood but unable to ever be with because they both married others. Ekuoto Virgilius and Dante have known each other since childhood, and have something going on. 2. Beatrice is, like Virgil, one of Dante’s guides (through part of purgatorio and paradiso) 3. We still don’t know what Virgilius’s name was before he took that one on. Beatrice does not have a masculine form in current use and I tried finding some sort of nickname that would work and was unable to do so. However. Beatrice’s name is rendered in Japanese as ベアトリーチェ, and Beato is at least a surname. Then again, I’m not sure anyone has both a first name and last name except for Imuri so far???

"Book of Tobit"

I wasn’t familiar w this one so I didn’t notice it until I saw posts pointing it out, but the Asmodeus flashback was a retelling of the book of Tobit. Other people have already done analysis of this so I’d recommend checking other’s out. Unfortunately I failed to save the link to any of them so I can’t pass any along :’) Belfagor arcidiavolo: Machiavelli

Another one that I wasn’t familiar with but have seen people referencing. As above, I recommend checking out other’s analysis. "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas": Ursula K. Le Guin

The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ok major spoilers and I also highly recommend this book, but also, its super long so I don’t blame anyone who chooses not to read. This book is about the most disgusting father alive and his three, maybe four, sons: Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and maybe Smerdyakov (rumored to be an illegitimate son). Most of the action follows Alyosha, who is the youngest and probably the most idealistic character in the novel, at least in the beginning. Alyosha starts out as a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery under the purview of Father Zossima, an elder who really emphasizes love in religious practice. There's a series of chapters that cover a theological debate between Ivan and Alyosha.

In this theological debate, Ivan is arguing not that God doesn’t exist, but that the foundation of the world as understood by Christianity is something he fundamentally rejects.

Quotations from the Signet Classics edition:

“I don’t accept this world of God’s. Although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept” (Dostoevsky 266) - “If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it?....I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their father’s crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension” (Dostoevsky 276)

“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (This quotation, although from a different translation, is the one that inspired Omelas - I think the bowling alley theological discussion between Virgilius and Priest bears some similarities to this conversation. Its not a debate about the existence of god, but rather a debate whether or not the world envisioned by Christianity is inherently unjust or not. Demian: Hermann Hesse

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas”

Potential references but tbh they’re a bit of a stretch:

“Book of Martha”: Octavia Butler

"Book of Martha" is an Octavia Butler short story in the Bloodchild collection about an ordinary woman who is visited by god one day who tells her to choose one thing to change about people to try and make the world a better place. It’s a very short read and I’d recommend reading it before you read the next sentence where I’ll spoil the end.

She eventually decides that the thing to focus on is people’s dreams. Specifically, to give them the things they desire most within their dreams, in the hope that people will be less violent to each other in real life. A stretch, but Octavia Butler comes from similar recommendation circles as Ursula K. Le Guin (feminist science fiction authors with overlapping periods of activity) so I don’t think it’s impossible for the most recent chapters' use of dreams to hold some sort of inspiration from this short story. Again, this one is a pretty big stretch, as the idea of dreams to escape reality is pretty common.

The Monk: Matthew Lewis

Ok! So! Demon seduces a person is like not at all an original story (The Daemon Lover, Cazotte’s The Devil in Love, etc etc). BUT! The Monk is specifically a story that’s like. What if there was this extremely virtuous young man who has never lived in the outside world ever because he was raised in the church as an orphan and then the devil sent a demon girl to seduce him.

I have not finished the book yet so I can’t comment in depth on it other than to say the concept is similar but the execution so far is very different (It's a fairly misogynistic text. Ambrosio turns evil in ways that I doubt Priest will because thematically they’d go completely against the story. Also, The Monk is veryyy lurid in terms of Lust is Evil!!! And will turn you into a murdering maniac!!!! Because evil women are out there seducing you!!! Whereas so far sexual desire in Ekuoto has been handled as a perfectly natural thing, but complicated by religion, patriarchy, trauma, etc.)

This is all I have so far but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas!

[dunktape]

can you genuinely, i mean so genuinely not copy a creator who's already been through and is going through rough shit? i thought you were an alt of chocoperrito's, i saw you were "heavily inspired", same style and similar intro, this is plain disrespectful and cruel to do to an artist who's already stated they're not okay with that.

i hope you can find it in your heart to at least apologize to hym.

hey , saw this and genuinely wanted to address it as my intentions are genuinely not to copy anyone , let alone cause harm . summary is all the way down under the cut ( last paragraph )

first of all , i'm sorry to hear that reki isn't doing well . i hope hy'll get better soon , but i couldn't have known he wasn't in a well mental state because i don't want to and can't interact with hys blog . i've been blocked quite a while ago , just after the first post i made on this blog . what happened will stay private as requested , but ive apologised and as far as i know , we made up . hy doesn't want to interact with me and i respect his boundaries .

talking of boundaries , i did not know hy was uncomfortable with people getting inspired by his art style . it is true that i took inspiration from hym , but to be fair all i took inspiration from was the shape of fur . my colour theory was fully taught to me by ashenoranges , round shapes have been inspired by another artist who does not want to be named , the way i draw hands along with cartoon-ish ( and also the round shapes ) by an artist on tiktok whose name i forgot ( but did a lot of utau / fell art , something along the lines of pupbiteez ) and the eyes i've just always drawn that way because i adapted it from when i just started getting into animation memes , but i tend to add tearducts too ( which i've adapted from p0ny.world ) . also , i love the chalky way calciumdreams's and yokoneko's art looks which i'm trying to work on getting into my art . i also mentioned some other artists in a previous ask about my artstyle , those artists also provide me references for when i'm trying to draw animals that stand on all fours .

asked one of my friends if they had any art of reki saved , for comparison . i guess i can see the similarities ?

the thing is that i use several outlines and lots of rendering on top of it and use a shade between green and orange always - when reki uses one line-art layer , has highlights instead of shadows in the hair , usually a blue shade and overall has thinner line-art where parts between similar parts of clothing and / or fur gets coloured differently in line-art .

i'm not saying my and reki's styles do not look extremely similar or that he never said anything about not liking inspiration , but i did not copy ( or at least INTEND to copy ) hym , neither did i ( key word , i ) ever read he was uncomfortable with inspiration . if you would like to provide proof then i'd love to have you dm it to me /gen

my intro post had taken me quite a few months to come up with , going through a few things to get inspiration from . however , i can see why you think i copied him , especially with how i provided my links . asked a friend of mine to provide a screenshot of reki's blog to compare them after you sent this ask . to clarify - i actually got inspo for my graphic and the stars between links from a friend of mine , who used to make simple transparent background graphics and used the 𓈒 symbol in between links instead . since i'm a pretty big fan of stars , i used stars instead . went through tags to find introduction posts that i could take inspo from , which mostly used different colours , and since i usually use orange or green shades in my art ( since they're my favourite colours ) i thought i'd apply that to highlight parts i thought were important . just talked a bit about me , connected a link to my identity in case you want to get to know me better , provided a link to my toy house in case you wanted to see my characters , then talked a bit about asks because i barely really got any before . it looked a bit empty at that point , so i thought i'd largen up something , but doing that at the top of the post seemed like it went from big to small and i didn't like that . moved the links to the bottom , largened them up and that seemed pretty good . but now it was a bit empty on top of the page , so after messing around with the graphic i realised that maybe i should add something that would devide the graphic from the text - a divider . now everything looked tidy , while not being too little nor too much . a link to stuff that went more into detail ,, perfect right ? but ;

i can totally see why you think they look familiar : same colours , same link stuff , separate part about the inbox , divider between texts and images , but i don't have access to reki's blog so i wouldn't have known . even if i did before , i wouldn't have remembered that in the past 2 months where i was much more busy with other stuff than remembering what someone else's , who didn't want to interact with me , intropost looked like .

HOWEVER ! i do acknowledge that my EMOTE art looks incredibly - extremely , almost completely identical to hys . hand shapes , eye shapes , body shapes , even the yellow body and line-art , the SHADING - all of that . i guess that comes with having similar artstyles , then also worrying about whether or not your art looks ok . i actually asked a friend of mine what i could change about my art so other people would maybe like or use it more , and they said that i only ever use harsh - thick lines , so i should keep the line-art simple and try airbrushing stuff . this is basically what reki did , and so i did use one of hys emotes from a server i'm in as a reference - i really liked the result , and posted it not thinking about how familiar they looked despite literally having his emotes and mine side by side for comparison .

they're extremely similar , especially the little closed eyes and blush . they both have that little red eyelid bit above their eyes and shaded cheeks + hands . i admit this is my fault for not having realised earlier how i basically copied hys style , and i'll try to make it more into my own style next time . i'm unsure of how to yet , but i'll figure something out .

also , besides all that , i'm not really copying his appearances , sonas , other stuff hy might have made . the yellow guy is pretty popular after all since it doesn't have an actual appearance or anything that would relate to identity and can be interpreted as anyone . sure , there's blogs like k9emotes who make white sillies instead of yellow , but i prefer using yellow and i'm also going to use these emotes . not saying i won't change how i'll draw them , this is just a reason , but that's why my and hys emotes look so similar — they're exactly what i and my friends would like emotes to look like if we're going to use them frequently .

all of this is not an excuse but simply an explanation so i hope everything is more clear . as stupid as it may sound , the intro post was truly a coincidence . my art looks similar to hys ( but not that much ) because he was an inspiration , but not my only inspiration and definitely not my biggest but the hair / fur is something i do use the most . i deeply apologise for any harm i have done and crossing unknown boundaries , but i'm afraid i can't directly apologise to reki as he doesn't want to interact with me , boundaries are boundaries .

long story short — yes i got inspired by the fur , the intro post was purely coincidental , unconsciously took too much inspo from emotes , i apologise for what i did but can't apologise directly bc im blocked .

[princesslocket]

slides in. slides you a venti TCG card. so uhh. you wana tell me some things about genshin Locket 👀 her design....vewy pwetty

\\\qwq/// It sparkles and glitters and shines! I MUST HAVE HIM FOR MY DECK!!! Lol well I've got a few things and by a few I mean a lot sjkhgugslkjf

So for starters, her outfit was inspired by Beidou, Xiangling, and Mona's clothing!

I wanted to reuse the outfit(s) from her old pokemon showcase artworks at first but they really weren't really genshin enough so I just took the colors from them instead ewe

Normally Locket would've been put in some kind of dress with fluffy/bouncy elements but I wanted to try something different this time around and thus THE POWERPUFF GIRL WAS BORN XD

In a way she still kind of retains some of those bouncy elements so not too much changed in that department

((Enjoy a 2016 MS Paint Screenshot Edit for reference))

Her signature weapon on the other hand definitely got switched up though!

Locket's go-to weapon has ALWAYS been a bow & arrow for years

It's only changed to a polearm now that I've recently started to separate her from my own personal preferences ksjhfshfjkhk

She was always intended to be an archon in this au too! I just didn't know if she + some other OCs should literally take the place of preexisting characters or have them be in their own parallel world

In the end I've decided that she + the others all live in a parallel world to one we all know and is a free roaming spirit, much like Venti

In this universe, Locket never has to truly run away from home- She simply changes her form every couple decades or so to avoid drawing any suspicion of her true nature as an archon

She lives in the Whispering Woods btw! Her home remains hidden to all (especially her fellow archons) though. Only one other person has ever managed to visit her humble abode and that person... is her stuffed animal named Horsey lol

Locket also makes her own windgliders

Since she's the god of anemo she technically doesn't need a windglider but a girls gotta keep up appearances so she using them to fit in

I feel like she visits Angel a lot too (and gets zapped for her impromptu visits too =x=///)

Out of all the archons, these two are the closest-

Side Notes that aren't exactly Locket related:

Silas - Geo Archon

Angel - Electro Archon

Blossom - Dendro Archon

TBA - Hydro Archon

Ceris - Pyro Archon

Hideko - Cryo Archon

In this universe there is no traveler to solve the nations problems. Everyone just kind of lives normal lives. It's the height of luxury for Locket really. She's got no big responsibilities or worries

Everything is fine~ Until it's not....

[tepperz]

sorry it took me a bit to reply, this weekend went by so fast!

So in a way you already do have references organized and at hand! You must remember where certain significant scenes are in a series so you can flip there and find it quickly :3c  It’d be very cool to see an examination of comics from an art perspective since most reviews focus on the story and characters… Ah but yeah, it’s a looot of work making videos! @@

You know, thats true!! 8U

Haha that’s fair, especially regarding Sugisaki’s writing. Plus it drives me up a wall how inconsistent her locations and left/right hand placements are from panel-to-panel! Right beside each other!!! Even so, reading the pages does feel so… smooth. It all flows impressively well. I don’t even know how one begins capturing that. I’ll have to look now and see how infrequently she draws feet and shoes because I do have trouble thinking of more than a couple moments loool

Very true. I've analyzed her panels and she just has such a grasp on page flow that makes things feel so natural and fun to read. A lot of varied panels and artwork that points to the next spot to read. She's also very good at page cliffhangers, which is a thing where there is the question at the end of the page that makes you want to turn it to get an answer. It can be a dialogue stated question or an unsaid question that raises a mystery or intrigue. She might not answer a lot of questions but she sure asks them a lot in her story! But yeah feet and backgrounds are not her favorite thigs. If she can replace her backgrounds with screentones or effects then she will xD Still, it does take a certain mastery in order to put so many screentones and still have them fit so well. She does randomly place characters wherever and mixes up the left and right a lot from panel to panel, but I'd also say that's usually intentional to help with her flow. I wonder who she studied under? Hmmmm. Sorry if this rambeling doesn't make sense, i have a bit of brain fog!

Ey if others’ artworks have unique value then yours do as well~

Pikachu face. I guess thats true, but its hard to see it for yourself!

agree that sharing processes are interesting too~ The “history” adds more depth in a way! (And I’m curious how other artists make their stuff~)

That's true, I'd love to see other processes too. I watch speeddraws and stuff but that's not really the same as knowing about their decision making process!

I wish I had more processes to share. I’ll try to take a screenshot of my references all together while I’m working on my next pieces!

I'd like that! :D Its cool to see inside your brain ooooh 👻

I swear the strong winds are a coincidence in this case because I drew the lines long before I had a color scheme in mind…! They look extra similar though, can’t deny. xD

How interesting!! I wonder if part of the reason you subliminally chose the reference picture is because of that vibrant wind feeling?

It’s pretty hard to get the right colors yeah, so a lot of my pieces turn out lighter than I wanted.

Ohhhh that makes sense. Yeah, that's the rough thing with watercolors... do you ever color correct on the computer after? I end up sometimes make my digital pieces lighter then I intend and end up color correcting myself. I think this is a good example

The left is the before and the right is the after darkening it a bit. It's a subtle thing but it adds something. Luckily I've been getting better at picking what color I want the first time but I'm still happy that I can turn to color corrections if I need to.

Like you showed in your blue gouache below, when I try to do darker washes, there’s a huuuge risk of it looking streaky too (and that’s why I ended up covering one of my paintings in gouache because the dark watercolors just did not work out orz)  But I’ve been trying to incorporate them more anyway. Paper quality definitely affects watercolor’s forgiveness ;;;;  BUT I’ve been going wild with dark pieces digitally and it’s so much fun!

I think that's great! It's cool to hear about the struggles of the medium from someone so experienced with watercolors. Dark colored pieces can be so satisfying, right? Man, paper quality... yeah. What sort of paper do you like to use? Lately Ive just been using canson mixed media sketchbooks because I like that they can take a beating. My third eye opened recently because I realized that I could probably paint the top of my sketchbook if I wanted. Ive never done anything like that before :0

Right right, I feel the same about his videos! It’s like I need to just digest or put that one lesson into practice before I can even think about what he’s going to cover next. I love his passion for the subject. He drew yugioh cards?? Good taste, OP. :3c I honestly didn’t know anything about his career so it’s cool to learn he has all this experience! He’s brilliant anyway but still~

Yes! I wish I could put him on in the background as I draw more but since he speaks japanese I have to really pay attention and watch the subtitles when I enjoy his videos. Did you see his channel take-down a while ago? I feel so bad for him, having to start up his channel all over again. All that lost knowledge, too. ): But I'm so glad he still had a few essential videos of his ready for reupload! And he's still going strong too with creating for his new channel. What a determined guy! And he still tries to be so cheerful for his audience. I look up to him.

Yes, thank you!! I can always use more color theory tutorials. I need to read things worded several different ways before it sticks, apparently orz  Oh dang too bad about the creator… But yeah, that doesn’t change whether the lesson itself is helpful. So that’s what’s in the psd file! I’ll have to open that up ASAP. Kwacy has a gorgeous style so I’ll love seeing it broken down. Phew, I’m glad I added the book after all. And I hope the rest can be useful somehow too! Thanks for sharing even your  paywall materials. ;v; I feel the same about artists lifting each other up. I have Fowkes’ “How to Paint Landscapes Quickly and Beautifully in Watercolor and Gouache” and “Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light”. The first has process shots on his paintings and how he works from and alters his references/plein air views. It’s also a pretty artbook lol. The second was a collaboration with several other artists and is basically a textbook. A heavy, colorful textbook that has lots of light science in it~ I like to flip through it when I feel like I’m missing something but not sure what.

I have gratefully downloaded all of your tutorial files! Thank you so much again for sending them my way, there is SO much good information, and I haven't seen the bulk of it anywhere before! Really great for references. Ohhh those books you have sound amazing. I will have to look into trying to get those myself. An artbook that is also sort of a textbook sounds SUPER useful. And yeah np if i run into any other cool tutorial stuff i will send them my way, let me know if anything was especially useful to you and Ill see if I can find anything similar.

As much as I fight with gouache sometimes I also adore it. Love those flat, solid colors so much. I think the hardest part is getting used to the long “ugly stage” my gouache pieces have because watercolor doesn’t really do that (not that it can’t look ugly too, but it’s so transparent that the plot is never lost along the way, I guess?) Right, I feel you there. And once water’s added to gouache, it can look like it’s going down smooth but when it dries… betrayal. It’s a delicate balance of wet vs. dry orz Ooh your gouache pieces are nice with it watered down like that! Ye, a a single color can look quite different from one end of the gradient to the other. (Love the dancing cat things btw. They have so much personality~)

Yeah, no, i get you with that. Even if watercolor goes down messily or there is a mistake, the texture of watercolor still tends to make something look beautiful, I think. Plus a few dabs of water and you're a lot further on correcting it! Do you always seal your paintings ad sketches when you're done? I don't really do that as much as I should. I think out of all my sketchbooks I've only properly sealed maybe one. Apparently good hairspray can do sealing well too. (!?)

Grandmas have all these hidden talents that they just whip out of nowhere like “okay quick before you go let me just impart 60 years of rug-making secrets onto you”~ But yeah, I enjoyed learning from her. And exactly! Oil’s drying time, the solvents, the smell, the CLEANUP– I absolutely get the appeal because mixing them is something special but I’ll leave that to someone with more patience~ An oil painting of Kirby sounds so fancy! Good use of the medium =v=

Haha so true! The wisdom! The good vibes!! Oh yeah, oils are not only messy, but the cleanup.... oi vey. Yeah. Not to mention getting oils out of brushes just feel like such a chore... I like just being able to run my brush under water and being done!! gap! You like mixing them???? I absolutely do not like that part at all xDDD I feel like it's never mixed properly!! But I love seeing people mix oils, because it can be satisfying to watch. But yeah they take SOOOO long to dry. I will share my kirby once it's dry!!!! In a million years xD Pus not only are oils stink though, and messy, but if you have animals it's a disaster. I have to hide away kirby inside a ice cooler in order for my cats not to walk on him!

Uh oh talking watercolors could make this long message actually endless~ I use a bunch of different brands nowadays but I started out with Sakura Koi and White Nights.

thats ok i really like hearing about your experiences. Oh, I have some sakura koi! I have not tried them yet though. I haven't heard of white nights! ohhh but they look so pretty on amazon.

Still have a lot left from the latter though if I need a new color I usually get M. Graham (honey-based so it’s gentle on my brushes but also messy) and Holbein (super smooth, not much granulation).

HONEY BASED??????? Omg i want some that sounds awesome. (looking them up) They look so VIBRANT. Ohh and ive seen holbein around but i wasn't sure about them! Good to know they have your approval. I know whats going on my christmas wish list xD

Tubes aren’t cheap, very true… they last forever at least!! I pour mine into little pans and let them dry so they’re portable.

that. is. adorable. Handy! Makes sense! But so cute. You can just whip it out!!! Makes sense!

OH one more: from May to August I only used my Meiliang watercolors… They’re a student grade of the Paul Rubens brand so they’re cheap yet very good quality.

ohhhhhhh.... tbh those look exactly up my ally. I don't know what it is about student grade high quality watercolors that makes me wag my tail, but those look great. I will for sure try those once I get a chance. What do you find is the difference between student grade and professional grade when it comes to application, for you?

Do you like Winsor and Newton even if you prefer the ovals? I only have a couple colors from them but they seem like a solid brand. (And props to you for having the patience for the super super cheap paints because they’re another challenge altogether!)

Okay so I was wrong! Apparently what I've been using recently IS the koi! But I also used a bit of winsor newton too. And, you know... I have no idea if what I'm about to say is controversial or not (because my experience with talking to watercolor enthusiasts are limited) but so far the professional grade watercolors seem... lighter? I don't know if its because the little half pans I use for the professional grade, I use less paint because I'm scared of using them up, or....? You know, now that im thinking about it, maybe its because I don't use the tubes? I buy pans and half pans and maybe that has something to do with it. Regardless my prang ovals really do it for me for some reason. Heres what i mean

These are some sketches from the zoo of a monkey. I did tree different watercolors at the bottom, and the bottom is the prang. Reusing them again made me really remember how much i love them. I put about the same amount of time into all of the colors. So weird xD I wonder how you'd find the derpy prang paints!

How did you learn to draw so well? Like was it from classes or a book on fundamentals or just trial and error?

//// thanks for the kind question!

I guarantee you I would have improved faster if I’d taken a class, but I hope some of the materials I’ve used over the years can be of use to you too:

Andrew Loomis’ books - I never made it past the first chapters, but those had some great advice.

Youtube - Proko’s bean method. Figure drawing references will greatly improve anatomy and “drawing what you see”. It’s boring imo, so doing just 5-10 minutes a day can keep one from burning out while still seeing improvement. Speed painting videos are a nice way to relax and study.

Will Terrell’s People Drawing series - He’s a humble man with personal advice for artists. I watch his videos when I feel discouraged or lost.

Art, art, art - Whenever I see an artwork that I like, I figure out exactly what pleases me: line thickness, nose shape, finger positions, composition, the way the hair bends in the wind, etc. Then I try to incorporate that specific characteristic into my own art.

I have growing folders of (I’m a bit embarrassed) almost 8,000 pictures, organized by characteristics, for the sole purpose of studying their prettiness. Sometimes we don’t need a tutorial to spell everything out, just an example can help us envision our own works’ potential. Also, staring at pictures is a relaxing way to study too!

And of course, trial and error~ I don’t post my sad, failed paintings or all the weird sketches I make, but they exist and teach a lot!

[sporesgalaxy]

ok I DO have ONE hot tip.

So. You're like me. You have ideas and you want to see characters move around in sync with some audio. But also you need to cut as many corners as possible. BUT ALSO you really want it to feel good to watch to justify the effort.

My tip is this: use tweens but as few as humanly possible.

To explain: so we got these key poses we wanna use while somebody says something

That's 3 drawings!

If you draw out a whole scene at this rate, you'll get the point across! This totally works! You can have all kinds of cool poses and expressions and it will still be an unreasonably large number of drawings, and an impressive feat to finish!

BUT since we're already here....why not trick everyone into thinking it's "smooth" by making THEIR brain do HALF the work, at LEAST.

^ That right there is only 3 additional drawings!

Tween Type 1: bridging the gap

so the difference between these 2 frames is huge, and as a consequence playing one right after the other feels choppy.

Now I haven't explained the second kind of tween yet, but the way we decide between them is by asking ourselves, "how controlled is this movement, and where is it fastest?"

This guy is unfolding their arms and then placing a hand on their hip. This is a more controlled motion, because the limb stays close to the body at all times, where there's not much room to swing around.

Also, if you do this in real life to test it, the two slowest parts are separating your arms at the beginning, and then resting your arm on your hip. Between those two parts, it's mostly just your arm swinging into place relatively fast.

The fastest part will be easier for your brain to fill in for us, so the tweens are only added to the slow parts.

The arm starting to unfold, and the arm slowing down to rest on the hip.

The second screenshot, depicting the "end" of the movement, is overlaid onto the NEXT frame rather than the previous, because it will need to look very close to that for your brain to process the new pose properly.

These 2 new drawings have created just enough of a bridge for your brain to register it as a movement rather than two separate images.

Tween Type 2: overshooting

This kind of tween is used for faster, less controlled movements, or anything that "squishes." Here I use it for the guy bringing his arm up, and his eyebrow moving.

Once again overlaid onto the frame AFTER this tween, so you can see the "overshoot" effect.

Since the arm is out in the open air, it will swing with the momentum it took to raise it, and the guy's musclea will need to squeeze it back into the place they intended to hold it at. So it moves past the final resting pose (overshoots it), because it is too fast to slow down before it.

Overshoot is kind of the opposite of bridging the gap. Where bridging the gap shows you something starting to move, and then slowing down; overshoot shows you something winding up (omitted for this chill guy, but it's a frame "pulling back" on the pre-movement pose where the frame I did add is "pushing" on the post-movement pose), and then struggling to come to a complete stop.

But just like bridging the gap, you don't have to draw he middle because the movement is fast, so your brain wouldn't have paid attention to it anyways.

So yeah thats how I play tricks on people's minds without REALLY animating! Go nuts!

Since the tweens are onscreen for much shorter times, don't be afraid to let them be messy, so that you can try out a few different variations to see which looks right. I redrew that arm coming to rest on the guys hip 2 or 3 times, and it was originally supposed to be an overshoot, but the bridge ended up looking better!

[thejustmaiden]

So out of nowhere I was tagged and quoted by a SR shipper for a blog of mine posted in August of last year. Talk about throwback but, hey, gotta appreciate that level of snooping. 😉

Back in the day I actually used to encourage discourse amongst Inuyasha fans- both shippers and antis alike- but I've since realized that it's a lost cause. But for you, @feministmetalgreymon , I'll grant this exception. Just 'cause it's been a while so why the hell not. haha

I want to assure you, however, that nothing you say will ever convince me that Sesshomaru and Rin are meant to be together romantically or that the story intended it so. Nor will you find any validation here. You can ship them for all I care, but please for all that is good and holy while I have your attention try- I mean really try- to understand why it is so many of us Inuyasha fans are so against this pairing in the first place (newsflash: it's not about ship wars), and why we believe a romance between the two of them is completely and utterly out of character.

For those of you interested in reading this, the blog of mine in question that the above shipper mentions in their counter-argument is here for reference. It's titled "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'm also making no such promises. After all, I'm not exactly known for my brevity. haha Now let's get crackin'!

Like you, feministmetalgreymon, did for your recent blog here where you took screenshots of mine to address certain parts, I will be doing the same and dissecting yours accordingly.

[Snippet 1]

I worked with kids for many years as a teacher, and many people in my family have too or still do. Two of them happen to be just over 5 feet which is quite short for the average adult woman living here. I've also worked alongside many a women of short stature, and never did I hear any of them complaining of issues with their students having difficulty differentiating them from their own peers just because they were short as well. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous. Kids are quite smart and pick up on a lot more than you seem to give them credit for. Height is not the only characteristic they look at to determine who's an adult and who's not, and it's foolish to suggest otherwise. So unless you're a babysitter who's still in their teens and/or who has very childlike features or behavior then I'm afraid what you're getting at is total hogwash. This is just another example of how you shippers offer nothing of real substance to your reasoning, it's only ever cherry-picking or strawmanning from you guys. Stop deflecting from the real issues please, because this certainly isn't one and only winds up being a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

[Snippet 2]

Okay, calm down now. I wasn't insinuating that relationships between parents and children can't change over time in terms of how they get along. Of course that's possible, as all families experience their fair share of estrangement and abuse. What I was speaking about was in reference to the overall dynamic between the two. Because a bad mother or father can still be viewed as a parental figure to their child even if say they're not in said child's life anymore. Since Sesshomaru and Rin share a healthy bond- and just a friendly reminder that in my blog I even said that he doesn't have to necessarily be labeled her father but that a romantic relationship later would still be inappropriate- I didn't deem it necessary to address what you brought up. Plus, it kinda, umm, misses the point?? Please, let's stay on topic. And it's not captured in the screenshot, but stop acting like there isn't a small part of them that idolizes their parents at some point during childhood. Just like you mention later on how it's normal for kids to have innocent crushes on adults that they eventually grow out of? Well, guess what, the same concept applies here. Kids eventually learn that their parents are far from perfect and make mistakes too. Rin is so damn young in the OG series though that we never even get to see her reach that maturity level.

[Snippet 3]

LOL! Alright, okay, so the "unbreakable bond" bit you're mentioning was actually me quoting you sessrinners. Did you not catch that? I literally spelled it out. *sigh* The whole point I was making is that shippers like yourself make hypocritical and contradictory statements all.the.goddamn.time. One moment you guys claim that Sesshomaru and Rin were essentially strangers and meant very little to each other, only to say in the same breath a few seconds later that they were destined to be together and their bond is like no other. I agree, their bond is special, but why must that mean they're going to fall in love?

That is the root of the matter here. Too many animes/mangas have romanticized this older adult man & young girl growing up falling in love trope that it's become way too normalized and widely accepted across the world- and yes, in some cultures more than others. Sadly, you lack the awareness to recognize how this all works. You know how we know that? When we see that you shippers are so desensitized to sexualized images of girls in the media that you share posts like this one below which *subtly* imply a future romance although one half of that pairing is still just a child in the pic and then try and pass it off as cute. That's like super fucking problematic and it scares me that you can't see that (or deny you do). 🤢

After all that's said and done, Sesshomaru leaving Rin in the village with Kaede is to me the strongest indicator more than pretty much anything else he's done for Rin that proves he is her adoptive father. It's so funny to me how you somehow see the exact opposite though. 🤔 What I think is happening is that you got yourself on some squeaky clean ass shipper goggles fresh out of your little echo chamber. Because I hate to tell you, but what you're fantasizing is what you want to see and not what's actually there on screen or was written into the story. I'm strictly talking about Inuyasha and the manga of course. [For the TL; DR version skip to the last paragraph.]

Parents looking after their kids is what parents are supposed to do. A good parent will do anything to keep their child safe and ensure they are cared for, so what he did for her by leaving her there was in her best interests clearly. Besides, as a babysitter, you more than most people should understand that parents aren't always able to be there for their kids so sometimes others gotta step in to help. Haven't you heard of the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?" Which in Rin's case is literally true! 😂 Sometimes kids are even sent off to stay with grandparents and that's who raises them instead. Or maybe they have to temporarily live with an aunt or uncle because their single parent's job requires they work out of town 4-5 days of the week so they're hardly home. But that doesn't mean that the parents care or love their kids any less, and it's foolish to assume that Sesshomaru must have thought very little of Rin simply due to the fact that he made the decision to leave her in the village. Come on, y'all are acting like he abandoned her there!!

It's just given the circumstances Sesshomaru finally came to learn that Rin traveling with him was no longer safe. I also like to think it's because he wished for her to live a more normal life and to learn how to fully trust humans again. Plus, continuing to travel with him as young as she was would have proven dangerous and unwise. Now for you to know all this and still manage to turn his past actions towards her while she was just a child into a romantic gesture is what boggles my mind. Regardless of how you look at it, from my perspective or your own, Sesshomaru is in the wrong. Either he's a father figure who impregnates his daughter at the young age of approximately 14. OR he's this man she used to travel with who maybe isn't a father to her but who nonetheless basically rapes her since kids her age can't consent to sex with an adult. Idk about you but it sounds to me like nobody here wins with either scenario we're given. In other words, you should be just as mad as we are. If only one side didn't choose to forsake their morals they know we both have in common for the sake of a ship. Welp. 🤷‍♀️

I agree, incest is disgusting but that's not the only problem we have with this pairing. A romantic bond forming between Sesshomaru and Rin would also constitute as grooming.

You realize that over the years he visited her in the village that he brought her gifts too and essentially watched her grow up right before his very eyes, right? I mean, I know you do, but I really shouldn't have to explain further why pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with each other is plain and simple wrong. And before you say it's not because he didn't have any malintent, please understand that considering their history and power dynamic up to then that yes this is still considered grooming even if Rin supposedly "wanted it" or "made the first move." Whether you consider him her father or not, as the adult who took on a role resembling that of a caretaker in her early life- a critical developmental time for a child- Sesshomaru is obligated to turn down any advances by Rin and most definitely should not initiate any himself. As the first close adult figure she's had in her life since her parents died, it's unfathomable to imagine how Sesshomaru could go through with taking advantage of this young girl who was under his care and supervision since they met. To think he could be capable of betraying that trust sickens me to the core.

This. Now THIS is how a parent/guardian or a similar adult caretaker (babysitter, teacher, etc.) talks to a child. And, in turn, this is how some young children talk to adults. You'd be insane and delusional to deny it! We see it in our everyday lives, do we not? From where else do you think our stories draw most of their inspiration? Yes, obviously these fictional universes have aspects of fantasy that don't exist in the real world, but so how then do you suppose we're able to relate to them? The reason for that being is because these stories are written by people for people, so naturally there are going to be real life aspects embedded throughout. Sure, a little escapism doesn't hurt as we don't need to take everything so seriously, but ultimately we all need to recognize that the messages in the stories we tell matter. Most stories possess a combination of both light and dark themes, but when it specifically comes to the latter we gotta be careful with how we tackle this in children's media since kids are far more impressionable.

So if at the center of a story we have two of the main protagonists whose mom is basically their same age and to top it off she knew their dad when she was just a girl and who just so happened to help raise her, wouldn't you say that's beyond fucked up or at the very least so fucking weird? Like why would we think it's even remotely okay for our children to watch this garbage?? Really think about it. Try and be objective for once and think about how it would sound explaining this storyline to an outsider who's never watched IY or HNY. Well, antis have tried this before many times and we always get the same reaction: Ewww!

Like I said earlier, if you wanna ship it then fine, but 1) please stop seeking our approval or trying to change our minds - your ship wish came true didn't it, so why do you need us to validate it? 2) even though it's not canon, respect that we don't support this sequel portraying pedophilia in a positive light. It's harmful af to not only allow but glorify the continuation of sexualized images of young girls everywhere. And I shouldn't have to say this, but just because this trope is popular as you say does not make it right. Lolicon themes in the media have been an issue forever and it needs to stop. Yes, even some people in Japan or "the East" would agree. Shocker!

We're pissed off and rightfully so because Yashahime's TV rating is 14, not to mention it airs at the prime time kids in Japan watch TV after getting home from school. That's Towa and Setsuna's age, true, but if Rin being the mom when she's like only a year older than them (please don't argue w/ me about the math- antis have so far been right every time with it) is straight-up disgusting and not something we should be supporting or endorsing. Rin's a whole ass child!! Please don't start with the "but times were different then so her having kids at 15 is acceptable" argument either, because we've already debunked that and every other single excuse you guys throw at us. Besides, how or why would you expect young viewers to know these historical "facts" anyway, especially if as you suggest fiction doesn't affect reality so what does it matter? Yet here we are, arguing over a fictional show in real life almost a year and a half into the "Sesshomaru fucks?" sequel being announced. My ass, your ass, hell all our asses fiction doesn't affect reality!

Look, I do apologize if the tone of this blog came off as snippy or condescending at times. I do not wish you any ill will, it's just I'm not really sure what you expected to get out of all this besides maybe getting on my nerves perhaps. haha A lot of you shippers have been desperately scrambling to interact with us, lurking in our tags, jumping onto our posts screaming canon and getting so defensive even though you sought us out first. We've been sticking to our tags, so how about you stay in your lane too. By the way since we're on the topic, have you seen Twitter or Reddit?! SR shippers there are the actual worst and many Inuyasha fans (not just antis) have complained of not feeling welcomed to engage in fandom spaces anymore. Shippers swarm them and scare them off simply because fans don't like your ship and refuse to accept it. It's pathetic, really. No one should ever be bullied or harassed just because they don't like something you might. We're all fans of Inuyasha, aren't we? So let's act like it. Yashahime on the other hand, you guys are welcome to that pungent heap of trash. Fans have a right to criticize it too, but if you like it then good for you, so keep on liking it and don't mind us.

I'm almost done, but real quick back to Jaken! Let's not forget about how the official Yashahime website- which came out after my blog, mind you- described Jaken. This translation isn't the best one available but it's the only version a fellow anti friend could track down. They do recall a better one done by a native Japanese speaker who was also an anti, and that member confirmed that Jaken is indeed called Rin's babysitter. So you see, I was right in my interpretation. In the original post I did compare Jaken to a brother, but after talking to others (some comments can be found under said post) I did acknowledge that he's more of a reluctant babysitter who's not related. And if he's not at least a brother to Rin, then he's definitely not her father.

At the end of the day, the creator Rumiko Takahashi has the final word. Which is guess what? Hogosha. 💖 Probably should've just started out with that and saved us all the trouble, huh? Good day/night to you.

Papamaru bids you adieu now. 🤞

[shining-magically]

so I’ve wondered this since the trailer came out years and years ago and Chloe defended the movie - was the red shoes teaser written by the same team that made the movie? were they forced to market it like that, was that based on an earlier draft, etc?? not sure if you know but you seem like the leading expert!

Sorry, this is gonna be an absolute novel because you know I’m an animation fan and the history and production of Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is SO interesting and insane. Like, Tangled levels of insane. Thanks for calling me an expert, no one else was gonna do it so I just kind of took up the helm lol.

Here’s the low-down... The timeline of the movie’s production is an absolute mess and kind of an extremely wild ride. It was in production for ten years, went through a lot of different crew members, and went through at least two other major versions of the story before landing on the final version.

Since there’s not a ton of info on the movie’s production, a lot of this is pieced together from different interviews and context clues, and also a lot of what I’ve read and what I am quoting has been translated from Korean, sometimes pretty roughly. But yeah.

Here’s the story of why the Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs teasers and poster were so, so bad and fatshame-y and the actual movie was so, so good and body-positive. (With pictures and production artwork!)

(This is a beast of a post so I’m putting it under a cut.)

All right, so. After its conception originally as a short story by the South Korean studio Locus Creative in 2009-2010-ish, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs was being worked on and was set to come out in Summer 2017, as evidenced by this poster at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, featuring a different logo and very different character designs for most of the dwarfs.

In early-mid 2016, the first teaser (in which we see Snow White undress and then two dwarfs recoil in horror at her fatness when she takes her magic shoes off) was released, after the film had kind of been slowly chugging along for 6 or so years. (I am having such trouble pinpointing when the second teaser was released (in which one of the dwarfs basically attacks Snow while she is sleeping to steal her shoes), but I believe it was around the same time.) The teasers didn’t get that much traction because this was a small film from a small indie studio in South Korea.

None of the final actors had been cast yet. At this point in the production, the story was different, one of the many versions that the movie went through. As in the final movie, the dwarfs were actually cursed knights/princes and Snow White switched back and forth between two body types due to her magic shoes, but in this version, the dwarfs needed to steal the shoes from her in order to break their curse (rather than needing “a kiss from the most beautiful woman in the world” like in the final movie).

The weird thing is, I believe they had JUST changed the movie’s story when the teaser came out. I’m almost positive it was released more as a proof of concept than as an actual trailer for the movie. They had just recently combined two separate characters (seen above), a typical pretty, skinny princess character (Snow White) and a cute chubby girl character (’Bonnie’), into one single character that switches back and forth between the two appearances when she wears the magic shoes (also they had just dropped literally half of the movie taking place in the real world, with a magic mirror portal, it was a whole thing). 

They didn’t have the details of this aspect of the new story hammered out yet, and the first pass at presenting Snow’s magically changing body type, was, yeah, not good and super offensive. This was a really inexperienced indie studio making their first film on a low budget, so even the animation and voice acting wasn’t great. I think they just wanted to get SOMETHING out there because it had been 6 years and they wanted to have something to show for it.

But here’s the thing. Despite how the teasers make it seem, this was always supposed to be a movie about body positivity, letting go of appearance-based prejudices, and loving yourself and others for who you are and for who they are, which we see in the final film.

I like to think of our film as a kindhearted one. Our intentions are nice.

- Director Sung-ho Hong

It’s important to keep in mind that this movie was made in South Korea by a 99% Korean crew, and, as I understand it anyway, in Korean culture, ‘fatshaming’ is not really a thing that is seen as overtly offensive. Also, children’s media there seems to have more adult things in it than in the US, which probably accounts for the more risque parts of the teasers. That said, I really believe that at this point in the timeline, the movie was on-track to be bad (or at least not very good) when it was released, and it would have ended up bad IF a few key players hadn’t signed on (which I’ll get to in a moment).

Interestingly, the movie’s producer, Sujin Hwang, said in a 2017 interview:

“[Both teasers] were solely produced to induce curiosity. They’re completely irrelevant to the actual story.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

I think what she was trying to convey was that neither one is a scene in the actual movie, because while the teasers didn’t reflect the revamped story as it existed in summer 2017 (the time of the interview), they DID reflect the earlier version of the story where the dwarfs wanted her shoes, which is what the story was at the time they were made.

Now that we’re in post-teaser 2016, HERE’S where things start to turn around. After the teasers were released, my guy Disney veteran and native Korean Jin Kim joined the project. He and Red Shoes director Sung-ho Hong had been buddies for about eight years and Sung-ho had been trying to get Jin to come to Seoul and work with him at Locus for a long time, and he finally succeeded.

Jin and his twenty years of Disney experience as an animator and senior designer on films like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana, had a HUGE HUGE HUGE influence on the movie. He redesigned almost all the characters, oversaw all the visual development from the moment he signed on, and heavily (HEAVILY) supervised the animation, literally going frame-by-frame through preliminary animations and drawing over them, teaching the inexperienced animators at Locus everything he knew. (Literally almost everyone except him either only had TV experience or had no professional experience because they just gotten out of school.)

From an outsider’s perspective, it really seems as though Jin joining the project (and his gargantuan effort) made the quality SKYROCKET. Not just in character design and animation, but also in things like effects animation, story, etc. After he joined, Locus really started pushing HARD to make a good, high-quality movie, and his influence and experience from being a prominent figure at Disney was absolutely key. The studio also began to really study Disney films and other well-made animated films from other studios to really try and pinpoint what the DNA of a good animated movie really is.

I don’t have any solid evidence, but I’m pretty sure that Tony Bancroft (an animator and the co-director of Mulan) then joined the project because he’s good friends with Jin Kim. He is only credited as the voice director (the movie was recorded in English and the characters were animated to the English dialogue), but I am SURE that he probably also had a pretty big influence on the movie, because like... How could he not? I really really think there was more to his role than his title would have you believe, even though there’s almost no info out there about it.

So now the movie goes through a gigantic metamorphosis. Character designs, visual development, and animation quality are all rapidly improving, the story is tightening, and the themes of the movie (which, again, were always the same and intended to be positive) are being presented in a more sincere way. The movie is becoming the sweet, self-love-encouraging and body-positive movie that was eventually released.

I’m putting a gif from the credits of the final movie here. As we move into 2017, when the giant eruption of backlash occurred, please keep in mind that the story was finalized at this point and that THIS was the movie people were so mad about:

Chloe Grace Moretz accepted the role of Snow White immediately after she read the script and she recorded her lines (I think) in early-ish 2017. Her co-star Sam Claflin also immediately accepted the role of the romantic interest, Merlin, after reading the script and recorded his lines in (I believe) July 2017.

In the summer of 2017, the story and script were more or less the same as in the final movie. Promotional images from that time show that most of dwarfs had been completely redesigned by this point and didn’t have their teaser designs anymore.

They also released a few screenshots that look exactly like the final film. The movie was advertised as coming out in ‘2018′ at this point. Here’s a promo image from 2017 that is MUCH more tactfully worded than the infamous Cannes poster:

So now we’re in summer 2017. The Cannes Film Festival. The movie’s script and story have been basically nailed down, animation is underway, and the Korean film company Finecut is beginning to market and sell the movie to worldwide audiences. They are planning on showing some footage to potential buyers at the festival, and they make a poster to advertise the film there.

Unfortunately, it’s THIS POSTER:

Now here’s where there are some unknowns. By this point, the movie is basically in its final form, which is an adorable, body-positive story about loving people for who they are, loving yourself for who YOU are, and that provides commentary on society’s standards of beauty and how they affect how people are treated/viewed. So why this poster??? All I can really tell is that someone (I think Finecut) really, REALLY messed up and either horribly mistranslated the tagline, or didn’t do enough research to know that this kind of thing is REALLY NOT OKAY in western culture.

The above picture is shared and the internet backlash begins, fueled by tweets from prominent body-positivity activists like Tess Holliday. Even Chloe Grace Moretz speaks out against it, because she of all people KNOWS that that’s not what the movie is about. The internet then finds the old teasers from before the movie was revamped and it makes things worse. Producer Sujin Hwang profusely apologizes and says that that is NOT the message of the movie. Locus pulls the advertising campaign, and takes down the two old teasers.

“Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

Voice director Tony Bancroft also tried to explain the situation:

“The truth is the film has a body-positive message as its core theme–it’s the opposite of what reports are saying. The problem is one poorly translated movie poster that has been taken dramatically out of context.” 

- Voice Director Tony Bancroft

And then... There was nothing for a while. The movie didn’t come out in 2018 and was delayed. From what I can tell, I DON’T believe this delay was related to the Cannes backlash. I think it was mostly due to Locus’s limited budget and resources, because as we know, animation is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and easy to do badly but hard to do well. Also, probably with Jin Kim and Tony Bancroft’s influence, they REALLY wanted to make sure to do a good job with the animation because they now had a great story and they really wanted the movie to be a quality, worldwide hit that would kind of put South Korean feature animation on the map. Just take a look at how nice the final animation was:

The movie was released in South Korea on July 25th, 2019. Unfortunately, the damage was done in the English-speaking markets and it was not released to an English-speaking audience until June 22, 2020, when it was released digitally in the UK. At the time of this post, there is no set US release date, but the distribution rights were recently bought by Lionsgate and the MPAA gave the film an official PG rating.

So who’s to blame? There’s no good answer. You could blame Locus for making those old teasers. You could blame Finecut for the competely tonedeaf Cannes poster. You could even blame cancel culture for raging against the movie based on one poster and two old teaser trailers without researching what the movie was actually about.

All I know is, it’s a damn shame.

[bkdkology]

Food for thought

Howdy, I’m currently fighting 20mg of melatonin in my system to pose a question, and a half assed answer. Spoiler: it’s bkdk and mostly fanon. (Yes, this is an expansion of my previous post that’s right under this one.)

Katsuki Bakugou is an enigma to both the side of the fandom that adores him, and the side that despises him.

But why is he such a polarized character?

He certainly wins the hearts of most of the fandom, as he’s been consistently taking first place in the popularity polls. But there’s the presence of a very strong backlash against him because of his past as a bully, and what separates Katsuki from the rest as a character is: those who are against him, have refused to let go of the past. While nobody really excuses or romanticizes his behavior, most are able to understand that it’s a part of him that is absolutely essential to his character.

Personally, he’s my favorite character. There’s something about the way Horikoshi tells his story that makes me want to cheer for him.

So, what the fuck does that have to do with bkdk?

I realized that this stupid comment I made:

Is true. And not just true, it took me deeper than I intended.

I strongly believe that Katsuki isn’t particularly physically attractive. He’s strong, has amazing arms because of his quirk, and is well built as an obvious consequence of being an active student in the hero course.

Go to this post for screenshots and whatnot.

As I was reading the second light novel, I came across a few excerpts when the girls of 1-A and 1-B were talking about boys at a slumber party. And a few things stood out: (Keep in mind light novels are considered canon, written by Anri Yoshi who works with Horikoshi to sketch some scenes out.)

1. The girls think that while Kaminari is a womanizer, he’d make a loyal boyfriend

2. The girls also seem to unanimously believe that Monoma and Todoroki are the hot guys of the hero course.

3. They think Izuku is maybe too much of a fanboy

4. They whole heartedly believe Iida wouldn’t hold hands before marriage

5. Bakugou’s outstanding characteristic is his intelligence, not his looks.

Why am I making this a point? If you haven’t noticed, Katsuki has one of the biggest ‘simpnations’ in the fandom, in which a shit ton of people find him attractive. While it is just the way Horikoshi draws him that garners so much attention, it’s pretty much canon that most in story characters don’t find his looks as jaw dropping as some people have made them seem (me, I’m calling myself out here, since I feel like the only one who thinks this boy could walk on water).

What is extremely ironic about this is that a lot of fans completely overlook the fact that Katsuki is ridiculously smart, especially the fans that hate him. It’s a characteristic about him that is constantly reiterated time and time again but forgotten at the same rate. (i.e Katsuki placing 1st in the entrance exam, ranking 3rd in the class, sports festival analysis in which even Kiri has overlooked his smarts.)

The point I’m trying to make here is: since the story is told in Izuku’s perspective, what if it’s not just Katsuki’s looks that Izuku tells us about in a biased way, but Katsuki himself?

If you’re caught up, you have most likely seen the beautiful way that Katsuki’s character has developed. And if you’re like me, you probably guessed that Katsuki’s story was heading this way long before this chapter. But how? If to some, he’s just a kid who told a vulnerable Izuku to take a swan dive off the roof.

In 284-285, in the middle of war Katsuki is having heavy flashbacks from his past with Izuku as far back as middle school, even before the sludge incident that took place in chapter 1. He’s harboring overwhelming feelings of guilt.

Katsuki has never really dealt well with feelings, especially expressing those feelings. So what does he do? He uses his power to help Izuku control his, despite them being rivals.

Here’s the kicker, this chapter confirms that Izuku has never held anything against Katsuki. He doesn’t see the training as atonement the way Katsuki intended, because Izuku feels like there’s absolutely nothing to apologize for. But even before this chapter, Izuku simply gave off these same exact vibes by painting Katsuki in a good light.

I was in love with Katsuki from the moment I met him, how could a character so vile in his mannerisms and reckless in his treatment of others make me so happy and so sad when I looked at him?

For me, the answer lies within the protagonist, who’s wanted us to see him that way from the beginning. The people who hate Katsuki and refuse to acknowledge his growth have also failed to let go of the past the way Izuku did . That despite his ugly traits and his funny looking face, he is somebody complex and amazing inside.

He is beautiful.

[firelxdykatara]

Touching Zuko’s Scar

It’s entirely possible that someone has written meta on this before, and possibly done it better/more eloquently than I’m about to. However, I have Things To Say and I’m going to say them, and hopefully my point comes across! This post is largely spurred on by a few posts I’ve seen in the tags lately which have... rather baffling takes on the whole ‘who touches Zuko’s scar and why’ situation, particularly in regards to feeling the need, for some reason, to diminish the scene in which Katara touches his scar and the importance of that moment for both of them.

From what I can tell, this was done in an attempt to prop up Maiko, which I suppose makes some amount of sense since that is a ship which can barely stand on its own without tremendous amounts of headcanoning to fill in the gaping holes left by the fact that the entirety of their relationship development happened off-screen (and the glimpse we do get into it in the ‘going home’ midquel comic leaves a lot to be desired in terms of why Zuko would even want to be with her, but that’s another discussion entirely). But it still doesn’t quite fit, because the scenes with Katara and with Song are so much more meaningful, both in terms of Zuko’s arc and the way the girls relate to him (and it also ties into Katara feeling so hurt by Zuko’s betrayal, and needing more than any of the others before she can forgive and accept him into the gaang).

Now, that out of the way, I do want to say up front that the intention here is not to be particularly anti Maiko, but to examine the situations in which Zuko’s scar is touched (or almost touched), and the similarities two of these scenes have which are not shared by the third (at which point, you’re obviously free to draw your own conclusions).

Also, please bear with me--I can’t take screenshots or anything, so I’ll reference scenes and the episodes they come from but there won’t be images.

Under a cut bc this got long

To start off, there are three moments in the entire series where a character touches, or tries to touch, Zuko’s scar with her hand. (I say ‘her’ because all three instances occur with girls near Zuko’s own age.) The first moment is in The Cave of Two Lovers, the second episode of book two--this is the moment where Song sees Zuko’s scar, recognizes it for the intentional burn from a firebender that it is, and reaches for it.

Song: Can I join you? I know what you’ve been through. We’ve all been through it. [looks at Zuko’s scar] The Fire Nation has hurt you. [she slowly reaches for his scar, but before she can touch it, Zuko grabs her wrist and stops her; she puts her hand back in her lap] It’s ok. They’ve hurt me too. [pulls up the leg of her pants to reveal the burn scars there]

The second moment comes at the end of book 2, in The Crossroads of Destiny, in a moment that is a deliberate parallel of Zuko’s connection with Song--but this time, he lets Katara touch him.

Katara: [she holds up a vial] This is water from the spirit oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I’ve been saving it for something important. [moves closer to Zuko, standing in front of him] I don’t know if it would work, but... [Zuko closes his eyes, and Katara’s fingers touch his scar; the scene holds there as the music swells, before they’re interrupted]

Like Song did, Katara felt a connection to Zuko via a similar trauma he suffered. However, unlike Song, Katara knew who Zuko was--the banished prince of the Fire Nation, and someone who had been her enemy for most of the past several months. However, she still feels compassion and empathy for him, and it is for this reason that she takes his subsequent choice harder than anyone else in the gaang does (and why it takes more for him to earn her forgiveness).

Now, the third moment is... rather incongruous. There is neither compassion nor understanding involved in touching his scar, there is no real emotional connection, and it comes right on the heels of his girlfriend--someone we’re supposed to believe cares about him and his emotional wellbeing, since they’re in a relationship (which happened off-screen, but I digress)--shutting down his attempt to talk about his feelings, something that will present a conflict in their relationship later on.

Mai: [yawns] I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story. [she moves forward, smirking, and then chuckles, putting one arm around his neck and pulling his face towards her with her other hand] Stop worrying. [they kiss, and then Mai walks away, leaving Zuko to stare out at the horizon again; the wiki transcript says he looks relieved, but to me he looks resigned more than anything]

What’s interesting about this moment is, for one thing, it’s unclear if Mai is even supposed to be touching his scar at all. Giancarlo Volpe, the director for this episode, put the original storyboards for the scene up on his DeviantArt, and in them, it seems he was fairly careful to make sure Mai was not touching Zuko’s scar. This would make sense, considering that touching Zuko’s scar was presented as a very big deal--he specifically prevented a girl from touching his scar in the beginning of book 2, and at the end, he allowed another girl to touch him, showcasing vulnerability and trust in that moment. It is the culmination of one small part of his character arc, and that makes the moment that Katara touches his scar even more meaningful.

Of course, I can’t say definitively that it was an animation mistake or something that was deliberately changed during production (which, considering there is a moment later in the book where Bryke mandated a change, isn’t outside the realm of possibility), but it does present interesting implications.

However, even if you take the scene at face value and assume that Mai was intended to be touching his scar....it’s still presented in an entirely different framework than the previous two scenes, despite occurring almost immediately after Zuko’s moment with Katara in the caves (at least as far as episode count).

The different framework being, of course, the fact that it.... doesn’t mean anything at all.

In the first two scenes, Zuko’s scar and his pain--as well as the pain of the girls who are forging an empathic connection with him based on understanding each other’s trauma--is the focus. Touching, or attempting to touch, Zuko’s scar is the point--it is very deliberate, and there’s no way to argue against it because the writing is very explicit, and nothing else would make sense for those scenes. On the other hand, you could take out the moment where Mai touches Zuko’s scar and lose absolutely nothing--because the focus is not on Zuko, but rather on the fact that he was attempting to open up emotionally to his girlfriend (and note that this is the first indication we get in the show that they are together--take out the kiss completely and no one would even know they’re dating, let alone supposedly like one another even as friends), and was shut down with a sarcastic quip, ostensibly because Mai simply didn’t want to hear it. (This is in keeping with her later characterization, where she would much rather distract him and keep him from actually talking about any of his problems, but @araeph goes into the nature of Mai and Zuko’s emotional intimacy [or lack thereof] in much greater detail in this essay, so I won’t get too deep into it here.)

Mai touching Zuko’s scar doesn’t mean anything to the audience because it doesn’t mean anything to Zuko. He doesn’t react to or acknowledge it in any way, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice it happening (perhaps because it wasn’t supposed to? but again that’s speculation), and nothing in the scene would change if it didn’t. It simply doesn’t matter. On the other hand, Song nearly touching Zuko’s scar and then Katara actually touching his scar? They matter to him--and to the show, and therefore the audience--very much. Both moments are incredibly important to Zuko’s overall arc, because together, they show how far he had come in his own emotional journey over the course of the book.

Of course, it isn’t enough to keep him from choosing to side with Azula, because his journey was far from complete--but the fact that he was able to show such trust and vulnerability to a girl who had been his enemy not very long ago? That was huge. Because Zuko didn’t just let Katara touch his scar--he closed his eyes. She could have hurt him in that moment, but he trusted that she wouldn’t. He trusted that she was willing to use special water she’d been saving for something important--and he trusted that, in that moment, he was important to her.

It wasn’t just Zuko showing trust either, though--Katara showed trust in him. She trusted, after a few minutes of conversation and learning about the loss of his mother (and, specifically, the fact that the Fire Nation was responsible for the loss of his mother, just as it was responsible for the loss of hers), that he had changed--that he was different, and she could trust him. She was willing to use the spirit water she’d been carrying around for months on someone who had recently been so much an enemy that she fled from the tea shop, convinced that he’d somehow infiltrated the city and was planning something.

The fact that she trusted him in that moment is exactly why she took his next choice so hard, but it is also why their relationship cemented itself so solidly after The Southern Raiders, giving them quite possibly the strongest relationship in the gaang outside of Katara and Sokka.

Anyway, that was a lot of words for what essentially amounts to this: Song attempting to touch Zuko’s scar in the beginning of book 2 is explicitly paralleled by Katara being allowed to touch his scar at the end of it, and both moments occur during scenes where Zuko’s pain and trauma are acknowledged and validated, and where the person he’s speaking with feels a connection to him because of that shared trauma--because they understand what he has been through. It’s likewise important to note that while Song didn’t actually entirely understand, because she didn’t know who Zuko was or what being traumatized by the Fire Nation actually meant to him, Katara did--and she still was able to feel for him, connect to him, and want to help him.

By contrast, the moment with Mai occurs in a scene where Zuko’s pain and trauma are invalidated and dismissed, where his girlfriend attempts to distract him rather than help him through what is clearly a moment of great emotional turmoil. No, she shouldn’t have to be his therapist, but emotional support is vital in any relationship--especially when one party is traumatized and desperately needs support and love--and it is notably lacking from Maiko, starting from their very first romantic scene together.

Make of that what you will.

[aceredshirt13]

I have a feeling I’m going to see that newspaper article about Ace Attorney used as supposed proof of the canonicity of Narumitsu just as much as people tried and still try to use the “based on gay manga” video as evidence of the same. This is no hate to Narumitsu or its shippers, to be clear - when taking events and character interactions from the game, it’s not hard for someone inclined to the ship to see love as a natural next step. But unless the new head writer of AA7 takes an *incredibly* different direction with the game, insisting the game is deliberately gay-coded or hoping for canon queer representation among lead characters is likely giving yourself false hope, and gives the toxic members on the shipping circuit (who are certainly a minority, but a distressingly loud one at times) reason to harass people who don’t like the ship by accusing them of homophobia when it was “what the writers intended.” Even if the games did make the ship canon in the future? It certainly wasn’t the original intent, and for this article to treat it as such is incorrect as well as misleading and unfair to the fans that enjoy this ship.

First of all, the article title is already misleading. All the other games they mention, like Hades and The Last of Us and Life Is Strange, do fit the title’s description- recent video games that have queer representation. But Ace Attorney, especially the one they took the screenshot from, is not a recent game at all. The original game hit its 20th anniversary this year. That’s blatantly false information and feels uncomfortably clickbaity to draw in Ace Attorney fans to read the article. For an article whose entire premise is to discuss queer representation, putting Ace Attorney in at all feels almost like queerbaiting its fans - especially since the author spends over half the article talking about AA despite listing the caveat that it is in no way canon. Why is the majority of your article about queer rep in games about a game that doesn’t even have canon queer rep??

Second of all, please understand that this article gives Capcom far, FAR too much credit, especially by attempting to compare it with examples of canon queer characters relationships - whom you may also note are entirely in Western games. I love a lot of Japanese game series, but it is not hard to see that they don’t exactly have the greatest queer representation in media. Ace Attorney has fewer canon queer characters than other Japanese game series, like Danganronpa and Persona, and for many reasons I still absolutely would not say that those games are paragons of positive representation. This is true of Ace Attorney as well. For example, the only AA character that has been mentioned by developers to be canonically gay is Jean Armstrong, who is a terrible stereotype as well as a lousy person and consummate liar. The only other AA character who is heavily implied to be queer is Aura Blackquill, with lines like “that wasn’t all I wanted” when told that Metis liked her suggesting that she probably had feelings for her. However, though I like Aura, she is a seriously flawed character who takes out her grief by abusing her robots, blames a traumatized child for Metis’s death, and kidnaps Trucy, with Trucy never being seen again in the bad ending where you lose the case. It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of morally gray characters in the franchise (I draw a lot of comparisons between Aura and Godot since they both make increasingly poor choices in an attempt to avenge people they loved), so I doubt it is a clear demonization of the queer community, per se. But in a series that already barely talks about romance onscreen, queer or otherwise, and a series where the only two canon or near-canon queer characters are morally gray criminals, AND a series where Takumi has been quoted as saying that he designed Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship to represent the long-term power of friendship and didn’t understand or anticipate why many members of the fanbase saw it as more than that, saying that it was intended to be canon or could someday be canon is quite a stretch.

Finally, a lot of the so-called evidence for canonicity is rather flimsy. For example, how is the fact that Edgeworth is present in Phoenix’s life during his disbarment incontrovertible evidence that they’re going to date someday? Is being there for someone you care about something only lovers and blood family do? Because if so, that’s a terribly depressing way to look at the world, especially since moving heaven and earth for people you care about, for better or for worse, is a very common AA series trope regardless of the gender of the characters - look at Blackquill taking false charges to protect Athena, for example, or Phoenix trying to cross a burning bridge to help Maya, or Edgeworth going as far as laying down his badge in order to protect Kay. Unless you see any form of care as romantic, there is no possible way every single one of these actions were out of romantic love, so why is Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship singled out as intentionally romantic? Why is the joke where Phoenix calls Edgeworth “Daddy” definitive proof of romance, when Edgeworth’s hard stance against ever wanting to get married in the game immediately following it isn’t even analyzed or considered as evidence one way or another? Yes, you could suggest that Edgeworth is opposed to getting married because he only equates marriage with heterosexuality and is thus uninterested (an argument I actually use in a theory about a Persona character), but you could just as easily argue that Edgeworth is aromantic and has no interest in romance at all. Why was it not even brought up?

It just pisses me off because this article claims to be and should have been analyzing games with actual canon representation, but only barely does so. Why are Achilles and Patroclus from Hades a mere footnote in comparison to Narumitsu speculation? (The article claims that AA would bring queer rep into the mainstream but??? Hades has a very large fanbase and won several awards?? Is that not mainstream?) Why do popular games like Undertale and Night In The Woods and Stardew Valley remain entirely unmentioned, when all are significantly more recent than the beginning of the AA series? This isn’t supposed to be an fandom article about what you want to happen, because there are a lot of things fandom may or may not want to happen in various game series. But in turning the focus to what they wish to be true in future Ace Attorney installments, they leave games that put in the effort for actual LGBT representation in the dust.

[saevus-brutalis]

Vincent’s Glow Up

tagged by: @smilepal​

finally got a hold of my PC so i get to do this :^) been waiting for a whole ass week to be able to make this post

i don’t know how i feel about showing you guys my first early drawings of him from February since i was just starting to learn how to draw people and not just some animals, but let me tell you this man was  u g l y 😭

it’s gonna be a long post, so buckle up or just have fun looking at the pretty pictures

December 24th, 2020

I don’t have any screenshots of his first design other than those two photos I’ve taken of my screen to show my friends. When I tell you I was so proud of this man and thought that I made him look so good. 🤢 Yikes, not any more babes, look at you, disgust.

So at this stage, before the whole “V craze” (affectionately) started, and before I too became more invested in him and putting some effort into his lore, etc, he looked like an emo version of the V from the Cyberpunk 2077 trailers. Basically, I took the pre-made face setting, didn’t mess with them too much, and just changed his hair color to black, and for some reason got rid of the beard bc I thought the stubble would be more visible? Added some scars and tats and gave him inverted black and white cat eyes. Why did I think it was a good idea, I don’t know.

In conclusion:

basic 

no flavor 

kinda boring, not so good looking in the actual game

February 4th, 2021

I had to crop the image here bc it’s would be a crime for me to show you his face. 😭 Basically he’s a skinny-ass twink here. I don’t remember whether it was my initial intention (probably not, I think I just couldn’t draw more bulkier, muscular bodies quite right yet). Wanted him to have sleeve tattoos, but I was too lazy to actually design them so I just took some off google and pasted them over his arms 🤢 literal CRIMe, like what- 

At first, I envisioned him to be wearing tight vinyl lace-up pants (the same lace-up detail that Alt has). As for now I really don’t see him wearing any PVC clothing.

He still rocks his Valentinos “V” neck tattoo and it was really hard to draw, so I’m glad I changed that later.

Also, buzzcuts are so fricking hard to draw without making the character look bald. 🤡

February 16th, 2021

I managed to find some gifs of him that I made. I changed his eyes from the cat ones to those with white irises and stuck with them for a while. Changed his body tattoo for a snake. Mods weren’t really that popular and I didn’t know how to mod the game so I just did what I could with the pre-set options.

April, 2021

Here we fucking go. The first actual art piece/reference of him that I posted that still doesn’t look half bad even after all this time (and that’s saying something). This was how I imagined him to actually look, but I couldn’t really recreate that vision in the Cyberpunk character creator. The face (especially the jaw) is not perfect now that I look at it, but he still looks much better than the first sketches of him.

Added the steel jaw plates that I saw on one of the NPC in Lizzie’s Bar.

Changed his tattoo to this abstract design and got rid of his sleeve tattoos.

Here you can see he has a neck cyberware. Initially, it was supposed to be a voice-box regulator since he was writing and singing his own songs in his youth, so when he had enough money got this as his first cyberware, bc at that time he believed he’d make a career out of it. He didn’t, obvi, look at him killing people for fun money.

Added some scars on him, freckles, and beauty marks. The ones on his forehead arrange into a Serpens constellation. I don’t tend to draw them anymore bc they’re super annoying to place, I don’t ever remember where to put them so I just ignore them lol.

Made his hair a tad bit longer, just so they’d be easier for me to draw. 

But this haircut wasn’t really cutting it (no put intended) and sometimes he just looked like-  🤡

Also here you can also see three spikes on his upper cartilage - i got rid of those piercings bc I kept forgetting to draw them

May, 2021

Now, it was when my V got quite a bit of attention. It’s my most liked (i think) art of him with over 100 likes which was so fucking crazy for me at that time (and still is! Thank you!)

Redesigned his eyebrows, made them more thicker and pronounced - now they’re a key element of his design I always have to get the right shape of them, which tends to be quite a hassle at times, but I think I got used to drawing them now. Gave him some more piercings - a vertical labret, nose ring, and a stud.

I grew out his hair and swooped them back in a “swirly” manner idk. He kinda has a side part but it’s not visible most of the time. 

Here were some hairstyle alternatives for him, but now I just stick to the one on the left.

The cyber stitching on his forehead that can be seen in his earlier designs are actually from a hair transplant so his natural hair color isn’t actually black.

His natural hair color is red and on the far left, you can see me trying to design his old teen self and on the far right how he’d look in the future.

Below I tried messing with the Cyberpunk creator again for the sake of it. The picture on the right is the current version of him in the game and I hope the CDPR devs will add in an option for us to change our character’s appearance bc I really want to change his hair and beard but I don’t feel like completing the game for the 6th time lol.

July, 2021

And that leaves us with his current most recent design that I’m very happy with. Added shit ton of new piercings on his whole body (in total 40+). Got him some more face tatts and changed the arrangement of his ear piercings.

If you’ve read this far I love you and I want ot kiss you.

X

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

This is the last ask ill send because im honestly tired of this whole thing

I dont know why you brought up the anon hate you got when that’s no part of the discussion. Even if it isnt your intention, you’re making yourself out of to be the victim when you arent. You say you want to get better but each time something gets pointed out you get on the defensive. I dont know why you decided to bring it up, but now that you have: Piama is indeed whitewashed on your drawing. “Warm lighting” doesnt change peoples undertones like that. Compare it to Piama’s last two cgs if you really don’t believe me.

Even if you aren’t affected, you need to be able to recognize it without poc having to tell you in order to be a good ally. I wouldn’t want a straight friend that lets people make homophobic comments about me in their presence and then hear them say “it doesn’t affect me so i couldnt tell it was homophobic so thats why i didnt defend you”. If you aren’t able to recognize it then you’ll inevitably repeat the same rhetoric. Racist rhetoric is everywhere and spewed every single day so you cant expect poc to be with you all the time and take you by the hand to tell you whats racist or not. Those are the reasons why you need to learn how to identify it by yourself, be listening to poc, by developing critical thinking skills, by not surrounding yourself with only white people. If not there’ll be more unchallenged asks such as one i saw recently that pinned poc that complained about yet another white route “stupid because they dont get that lovestruck releases routes by demand”. As if we have no concept of nuance.

No one is obliged to accept an apology, especially after what happened. I dont know where you got that idea from, especially when it concerns something that hurts people this deeply. And I didn’t point it out what happened just to be petty, I pointed it out because it isn’t an isolated event but a pattern of behavior of unchecked racist comments. That was simply the worst case: It was handled poorly, considering mod viv herself never apologized and again, swept it under the rug. The apology I saw from mod wrath was vague, didnt address the situation directly, was posted on this blog so no one knew what was going on, and was later deleted. So yeah she can apologize ten times and it still doesn’t mean we have to accept it. Especially if it’s that catastrophic because it looks like its more about saving face rather than feeling remorse, even if she did feel bad. You’re too eager to call it just “a mistake” and pin me as the unreasonable one.

And I want to ask you, have you truly seen with your own eyes an interaction where someone said to the other “if you like vinca you’re racist” and was completely serious?Or have you heard it from someone else saying that they were told that? Because considering that other anon watering down a woc’s criticism of lovestruck as “she doesnt like white people or this blog” then yeah i wouldn’t trust anything else coming from their mouths. People are getting too pressed over the millionth white woman in the app. Hell even if it happened, it’s probably what, one, two people? But you’re lumping all of us together as if its been a wave of saying that. The valid criticism surrounding Vinca is interconnected with Nahara’s release (one of the few dark-skinned women in the app) considering people kept saying they’d rather have a Vinca route when Nahara’s was announced. They’re not even willing to support it just because they want Vinca’s and that sends a message to voltage. So it simply doesnt boil down to “well its a difference in personalities”. Im gonna go as far as to say that if a woc had the same attitude as Vinca, people wouldnt be frothing at the mouth for her or they’d delve into the realm of fetishizing (as some people are bordering the line with Piama). But thats a whole other topic. And since people want to act stupid: all of the white characters in lovestruck are white because voltage made them that way. They could’ve quite easily made them a poc, but they rarely do. Think about what that means then, if youre really trying to defend yourself by saying “well they put out whats popular”

Lastly, you should really evaluate the content and beliefs you put out when racist people are still comfortable following and interacting with you. This is why i want this discussion to be public: your followers need to read this and apply it to themselves. Because considering the amount of anon hate you said you got yesterday towards the other blogger, theres a bunch of your followers who need to get off their phones and learn to care about other people and stop being racist assholes.

Believe me, I’m tired of it as well.

I brought up the anon hate because I didn’t want you to wonder why I was posting your asks in this form.

And no. Piama is not whitewashed. I took a dropper tool and took the color directly from her sprite, and if you’d looked at my blog, you would’ve seen that I sent screenshots as proof in response to that ask. But you obviously didn’t, so I’ll send them here again. (1. Without lighting. 2. With Lighting.)

If you still don’t believe me, you’re welcome to call me on Discord and I’ll share my screen and show you the entire process. And as an artist: You’d be fucking surprised what lighting does to colors.

Well, yes, I need to be able to recognize it indeed. The thing is: I can’t always. I try my best on this, and there will be moments and issues that will come up, mistakes I will make because I’m not perfect and not a machine. And in those moments, I’d love to have a friend that affectionately slaps me and says “JD, that was shit.” So I can apologize and notice it the next time. I have had multiple friends be transphobic to me in certain ways. I’ve informed them about it. They apologized and haven’t done it since. We’re still friends to this day. I do try to educate myself on racism and put in some work. I don’t expect POC to do all the work for me and explain to me how to be an ally correctly, and still - I hope they help me just as I help my cis friends with trans stuff. I can’t magically change all my behaviors and overcome internalized societal racism with the snap of a finger. If I could, I fucking would have already done it multiple times. The way it is, I’m working on it. Again - I’m sorry I didn’t point out the racist comment in the ask. I should’ve done that, and I’ll make sure to do it in the future.

You’re right no one is obliged to accept an apology. You’re right this hurts people deeply. And as I said - Mod Wrath apologized three times, including one on her personal blog which was a lot less vague. Mod Viv also apologized - to the person in question, in private. Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And the thing is - if you refuse to accept her apology, that’s one thing and fully your right. And the thing is: If an apology is not going to make you forgive her, if ten are not, what do you need in order to forgive? Will you never forgive? Will you always argue it’s going to be an apology to save face when you don’t know the fact she does feel remorse? How will you see that she does?

I did hear the Vinca thing from a friend of mine. Whom I trust. Because seriously, why would you make things like that up? Who would even get the idea? I’m against the idea of believing my friends would lie to me for attention or whatever. And yeah, the criticism of that anon was unfitting - I’ve visited the blog they claimed was doing that and I found nothing of the sorts, so that comment was unfitting unless I missed something. I never intended to say that it’s all of you saying that. I intended to say that some people are handling the issue wrong. I’m sorry it came off that way. I do believe though that it’s people’s full right to say they’d have preferred Vinca over Nahara. I would’ve preferred Vinca. I still read Nahara tho. However, it’s not yours to dictate which routes other people have to support and which not. I will however agree with you that people should give Nahara a chance - it’s quite the sweet story. And I for my part would enjoy a POC Vinca just as much as a white one. (Also, side note, you’re making it appear as if everyone would either fetishize or rage over her, which is very much putting all of the “white” fanbase into the same bag, the same thing you critizised me for earlier. It’s understandable from a psychological point of view, tho, so I’m not gonna comment further.)

Yeah, Voltage makes the characters white, and that’s an issue people can only fix by demanding more POC in the ask posts and comments. Which many do, btw. They put out what is popular indeed, they put out what is demanded, and I fucking demand more POC. I want it. They could’ve made so many LIs POC and they haven’t and I’m fucking unhappy about it too! I’m not even trying to say anything else.

Yes, making this public to arouse thinking is a good policy. The followers need to read this indeed. And we didn’t get anon hate for the other blogger. We got anon hate towards us. Tons. Comments that went as far as telling mods to kill themselves. And while I agree with lots of the things you say - some of the ways you’re acting actively spark this type of hate. There is being loud about the issues you face, and then there is calling people racist assholes based on a comment they made instead of talking to them personally and telling them that’s not okay, giving them the chance to improve themselves instead of always having them stamped as a racist. Just because you’re the one who’s hurt, the one who’s morally correct, does not mean anything you say or do is good behavior. 

You told me I whitewashed Piama when you, with a minute of research, could’ve found proof I didn’t. You obviously wanted the internet to see, maybe hoped I’d get exposed? Could I get an apology for that? And I promise, I’ll accept it because I’m willing to believe you’re a good person.

Summary of everything:

You’re right with lots of things.

I behaved wrong and I’m sorry.

Lovestruck has an issue with racism that we need to change together. 

Together. Without toxic behavior from any side.

- Mod JD

[rainbowoftamaran]

Check out my rainbow of friends!

"So, yes, I made all these awesome friends, and I realized that I have a full rainbow! Obviously, that's really amazing and perfect and I just have to show it to anyone who cares!

Nisha - @chainxdancer - is just really cool! She's strong and can fight and she's... I forgot what exactly she is but she's not human and has a tail and horns and she doesn't mind sharing her money or food with me, and if things go as planned I might be able to join her on her adventures soon to earn my own money!

Moonshot - @warriorfortamaran - uh... look. I needed to fill the orange slot, and I do know him. He's a meanie though, typical tamaranean with a side of extra-grumpy. Best you avoid him.

Yuko - @rosecoloredmuses - was so very nice to me! Despite having quite clearly caught me attempting to steal from her, she offered me some of her candies, and oh are those great! Definitely worth our encounter! We didn't have that much time together, since she had to go soon enough, but, it was really cool to meet her and I do consider us friends after this - I mean, you don't give non-friends just free food, right? - and just, I love her sweets and am absolutely convinced that she's a great person to meet!

Sirise - @siriseen - and I met on some other planet. It was really nice to have company during that exploration, and she knows so much! She's also really good at medicine and these things, so like, definitely someone that I'm glad to know! Still not quite sure what that Starfleet is that she belongs to, but, yeah, it's been really fun with her and I do hope that we'll meet again!

Minato - @dxfiedfxte - actually is not dyeing his hair, as he told me! I never thought humans had such a variety in hair-color! It does seem to be a unique thing for him, too, so I probably thought right. It's very awesome to know someone else who has a rather unique hair-color of their species! He's also been really nice to me so far and it's fun to hang out with him!

Perrine - @flusenimkopf - has helped me before with giving that karrn'k Moonshot a bit of what he deserves, even before we got to know one another! She's also not human either, and I think she doesn't know all about where she's from just like how I don't! It's just really cool to hang out with her, and I'm glad we're having some things in common! I'm also very happy to have someone that I can complain about Moonshot to and do stuff to him together with, that's really something I needed.

So yeah, they are all really amazing and awesome to know, so I absolutely suggest that you consider enriching your life by knowing them, too!"

[[This all has been presented to you by Starlight, found on this blog, @rainbowoftamaran . Below the cut you can find some OOC-stuff like credits and the likes.]]

Hello! If you do reach the cut, thank you for checking the OOC blabber behind the post, too! I've been working on this thing for a little bit now. I'm not entirely happy with it, but content enough to post it, as some sort of promo I guess. Please feel no obligation to reblog this, whether you are in this or not, I just had to do something "for Starlight" upon realizing she had the full rainbow together. (Obviously, not saying that friends are something to collect, or anything ridiculous like that, but I'm hopeful that no one of you will understand this wrongly!)

Moonshot is my own blog, as is Starlight, you can find a link to my mainblog and to my other blogs on each of these blogs' pages.

I sorta-copied the rainbow-waterfall-thingie from a copyrighted picture on some of these websites. I didn't use and just erase the watermark, I only took it as example and created my own thing based on it. I do hope that I don't need to credit for that, then - though during my search I found on these pages also pics with watermarks of others so they probably are in no place to call me out for using their pic as base.

In the next paragraph you find info of the pictures, and a little message to each mun in smaller in brackets behind the stuff.

Nisha's pic is taken from here, which was a commission as you can read in the post I linked. (-- I would've liked to not cut her body off quite as early, but these pics were the first I found on your blog outside of that one in your about and liked for this thing, and since they weren't going any further than this I had to cut it there! I do hope you like my choice of picture here and aren't disappointed or something that I didn't show more of Nisha!) Moonshot's pic is an edit, like the 2 other pictures I have of him, of a picture from Touda from Shounen Onmyouji. Yuko's pic is taken from an official picture, as far as I know, simply made transparent. (-- I do hope the picture is one that you like to see of her!) Sirise's pic is an edit of a screenshot showing Poison Ivy from that recent Harley Quinn show. (-- I gotta add that I was like so lucky that you actually mentioned a FC for Sirise of all your muses when I asked you that "random" question! I really wanted to include her but kinda didn't really want to add one actor among anime/cartoon/drawn characters, and when you then mentioned Ivy and I found a fitting appearance, I was so happy to have found a way to include her without mixing RL and animated characters! This thing here is also the reason I made this edit in the first place, but it was cool that I could kinda ask for your opinion on it beforehand through our talks xD) Minato's pic is, as far as I know, from an official source, and again just made transparent so it worked for my thing. (-- I really really tried to find the pic you're having as background in your theme, it looks pretty cool and I was intending to use that, but I couldn't locate it anywhere! So I kept searching, I first had a different pic chosen where he's like, very light blue all over - not in skin or the likes but I mean hair and suit - but that was a little too one-color for me in the end so I chose this one even though I prefer a bit more color! I do hope it's a 'normal' outfit of his and that you like my choice!) Perrine's pic is from here, which is art of the mun of the blog. I wish I could draw so well! (-- Your art is amazing and I'm glad you were alright with someone using it for a thing as long as you still are mentioned!)

Starlight's pic too is an edit, of an official art thingie of Rika Jougasaki from iDOLM@STER (I hope I wrote that right). And yes, she's supposed to be sitting on that cloud.

So, yes, I think this is all I have to say to it! I'm very glad that y'all are interacting with my little rainbow here (and perhaps my other blogs too), you're very awesome and it's an honor and delight to be your mutual and interaction-partner! Thank you!

[lookbluesoup]

Hey Wyn! I Just read all of your Blue Soup series! I love it all!!! Every word of it is fantastic! I've been wanting to start writing Fanfiction for Fallout for a long time, but I've always been intimidated by the prospect of writing already-established characters and "ruining them" (especially characters like Piper, Preston and Nick, who I plan to make main characters in my story). Do you have any advice on dealing with this?

Hi Anon! Thanks so much for your kind words! ;w; I’m certainly no expert and know this fear personally, but I’ll ramble here about my process and how I try to think about things. Hopefully it can encourage you, too! :D I’ll add the disclaimer that this is what works for me, and what works for me might not work for others, that’s ok! 

First off - writing is for fun. Wanting to do justice to the characters and capture their essence is a great goal, and also a learning process. You don’t have to do it perfectly, nor should you try. Perfection implies there’s nothing more to learn or grow over, which is one, unachievable, and two, the death of innovation. Just do the best you can with what you know, and let your passion for the characters guide the process. And be gentle with yourself. 

Our own experiences and preferences will effect how we write these characters, what traits of theirs stand out to us, how we define their shape, at least in small ways, and that’s not inherently bad. Just like many different artists can draw a character in 100 different styles and that character is still recognizable and familiar (and enjoyable!), writers can emphasize 100 different facets of that character, too. If you’re putting your heart into it, you won’t ruin them. Saw a beautiful LotR post the other day about that, talking about how the movies are different from the books, but the love for the story and characters shows because the people who made those movies were passionate about it, and they’re worthy adaptations of the stories’ spirit. It’s the same for fanfiction.

It’s personally more fun for me to think about the writing process like I’m exploring a character rather than making a statement about a character, which are two very distinct mindsets for me. Exploring is fun, engaging, its ok to change your mind and edit or alter your story as you get new information. It’s like a puzzle, thinking through a character’s motivation, finding ways to incorporate that into a story. Making a statement is more 'fixed’, and implies pushing a narrative as the correct one, which adds a lot of pressure. Personally? I don’t like pressure hahaha 

Still - it’s hard not to feel obligated to do something to a certain standard for one reason or another. My anxiety likes to tell me lots of little lies, and it can be very convincing. When it strikes, working through my nerves is often harder than actually writing LOL

When I first started writing Fallout fanfic, I didn’t post it anywhere. That took a LOT of the pressure off, knowing that none of this needed to, or was even intended to be, shared with others who might judge. These stories were just between me and the characters. It was safe. I could work at my own pace and enjoy the process in my little tide pool. Since deciding to share them, I’ve been really grateful for the support readers have given! It feels good, I’m glad I found the courage to post them.

As for working out that puzzle of what seems most likely for a character, how to capture the heart of them, I love voice lines! Codex entries! Compilations! The best way to get to know a character is to spend time with them. I take Piper everywhere with me, I want to know what she thinks about everything, her character really struck a chord with me and, well, cue hyperfixation hahaha I use the Windows 10 Game Bar to record audio clips and have a massive archive of her voice lines. Flipping through these is a useful tool for me to get back into her “pattern” of speaking. All the Companions have distinct voices and tendencies, which is another neat aspect to writing them. I feel more confident knowing I had access to the source material. Also I just. Like listening to her voice sometimes. Shhh

Other great resources for this are the wiki (which has text files of most, if not all, each character’s dialogue lines and conversation trees) and youtube companion reaction comps - this SOUNDS like a lot of work. But for me at least I love it, it doesn’t feel like work because I’ll be excited looking for specific lines a la “how does she talk when she’s angry”, “what does she have to say about mirelurks”, you don’t have to keep everything about each character in your head memorized - these audio and text files are great archives to find what’s relevant to a scene quickly.

When I got into Fallout, I also got interested in 1950s movies, music, and even radio shows like Johnny Dollar and Green Hornet. This gave me context around the characters, too. For example, Piper’s kickass reporter vibes throw back to a lot of old sleuthing reporter tropes, and interpreting her actions through some of those filters felt more authentic to me than applying her behavior to a modern day setting or my own inclinations. I guess along with that I’d also say, take notes! Have an observation? Write it down in a notes file, or a google doc, somewhere you can sync between your devices and add to whenever you think about it. What stuff sticks out to you as important or defining for these characters, what trends do you notice? If you have bullet points written down, these also make great quick references. Here’s a few screenshots from the terror that is my notes docs:

You can see they’re just short notes or scribbled down thoughts that I can quickly reference if I’m wondering how she might act in a certain scene at a certain time! For me getting into a character’s headspace is often more of a feeling than any kind of scientific research, having easy access to these pointers helps put me in the right state of mind to jump into the creative pool and swim around and get soaked in - character goo - okay bad metaphor. Anyway,

None of these are rules that you have to follow or things that you have to do to get the characters “right”, they’re just potential tools that can help you find information to build off of, and hopefully feel more confident. Maybe something else is more useful to you with organizing or keeping your head clear for writing, it’s cool to experiment and find out what works for you!

[gtavicecityapp]

GTA Vice City Review: A Classic Never Goes Out Of Style

Parachute pants, big hair, and pale sports jackets may not be the height of style nowadays, but gamers were in the middle of a digital resurrection ten years ago. Grand Theft Auto Vice City rode about the enormous (and pleasant ) victory of GTAIII using a new setting, a much more character-driven narrative, and an elegant sandbox universe, which makes it a string popular even now. People who wish to relive the glory days of the 1980s (and 2002) may download the game on Google Play for only five dollars.

Can Vice City live up to expectations? Well, no and yes. The technical facets of the game, and Rockstar's ambitious dedication to the sandbox design, have not aged well. If you have played GTA-style games in recent years, Vice City will appear simplistic and laborious. The game's comparative absence of sophistication works nicely in the brand new mobile form factor on the flip side. People who are burnt out to the "everything to everybody" design of Grand Theft Auto IV (guy dates, anybody?) Will enjoy the simplicity. And as an interface, Vice City excels on high-powered hardware.

Crime Pays Pretty Well, Really

The narrative begins with Tommy Vercetti, a mafia guy. He has just been released from prison and delegated to emerging criminal possessions in Vice "no, it is not Miami, we swear" City. Players can build a criminal empire by stealing automobiles, busting drug prices, intimidating less elastic sellers, and even killing lots and lots of individuals. The narrative is amazingly coherent and plays out like a love letter to Scarface. Voice acting is strong - really, the actors and actresses much outclass their electronic avatars' capacity to express them.

Compared with the elderly Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City includes a lot of depth, even though it isn't immediately evident. A broader selection of weapons and automobiles (like bicycles and helicopters) will be the icing on a remarkably profound system of property and money laundering. Play about half the game, and you will have the ability to get and upgrade land, subsequently making you money. It's possible to invest this money in more and better hideouts and improved equipment. Coupled with more collectibles and side assignments than you can shake a 12-gauge at, Vice City provides about 30 hours of playtime directly through and at least 70 hours for completionists.

But moving straight through assignments in this sort of game is practically missing the point. You'll end up hard-pressed to withstand the desire to crash automobiles, race tanks, try out numerous challenges, and normally create the Vice City Police Department to make their cash. At times, the subtle and, sometimes, a not-so-subtle comedy that endures through the game should delight the twelve-year-old in you (also create the adult in you feel guilty). It goes without mentioning that this game isn't intended for children and should not be played with them between the picture representation of criminal behavior and novelty.

They Do Not Make' Em As They Used To

To a technical degree, Vice City is somewhat behind the times. Textures are flat and dull; draw space is almost zero, and also, the individual versions particularly seem like something from a 90s game. All these were forgivable back to the PlayStation because of the sheer extent of this game. Still, past an increase to a resolution that's thankfully flexible from the settings menu, there are not any improvements. To put it bluntly, the game is ugly, but that should make it much easier for older hardware to join in the fun. The screenshots in this review have been shot on a Transformer Prime, with settings maxed out.

On the plus side, this comparatively low degree of graphical elegance makes the game run amazingly well on Android. Vice City is quicker and more straightforward in my tablet computer than it had been in my own dusty old Xbox, also. As mentioned above, people who demand a little additional oomph in their hardware ought to have the ability to correct the digital resolution of this game to match. More annoying are the marginally older gambling conventions present: both the planning and leaping mechanics are annoying at best and utterly ruinous at worst. The simple fact your character dies almost immediately in water at a game consisting almost exclusively of islands remains incredibly annoying. These issues are not specific to the Android variant, but it is a slight bummer that Rockstar did not address them at the translation.

The highlight of this game's demonstration, today as then, is your sound. Total voice acting was uncommon back in the afternoon, and also professional, devoted focus on the figures was less. Combine this with Vice City's full complement of period-correct radio channels (and, of course, exceptionally entertaining faux chat channels ), and you would do yourself a disservice if you did not hear this game on a fantastic set of headphones.

Catch A Controller

This is generally the stage in the review in which I lament a game's touch-based controllers, and really, Vice City leaves a lot to be desired in this section. You can fix the camera by sliding in the center of the display, but what else is accomplished by onscreen buttons - lots of these. It is a complex game and demands many excellent controllers, particularly in these sections where you are working guns or flying vehicles.

The controls are responsive and quick, for the most part. I can not fault the designers for the intricacy of the game because simplifying the controllers will need gutting a lot of actual gameplay. If you are patient and well-coordinated, you should not find the touch controls a significant barrier to your enjoyment of this name.

Grand Theft Auto is supposed to be played with a gamepad. Recognizing that, Rockstar programmed complete gamepad support (such as the PowerA Moga, for all those who took advantage of this current free advertising ). After hammering in my Logitech gamepad, the digital controls automatically vanish, and the layout yields. There are a couple of hiccups; for instance, there's no visual indication regarding what to press to take a telephone call. But overall, it is a virtually perfect emulation of the classic gameplay. Throw in an HDMI adapter, and suddenly you are back in 2002 - with high-definition images to boot.

Conclusion

There are many slight issues with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the majority of which have already been with the game since its first edition. Meaning that it is challenging to play with no control, and it'll punish gamers used to more pliable, contemporary mobile games. However, for those willing to check beyond its flaws, the game is delightful and engaging as it had been a decade ago.

More than this, it is a beautiful price. While five dollars is on the other side for Android games, many games at the Play Store do not have the breadth and scope of Vice City, and they will not keep you going for months on end. If you are a casual fan of Grand Theft Auto or sandbox games, Vice City is essential. Otherwise, await the game to go on sale (it probably will at some stage ) and snag it afterward. You will not regret it.