#if youre wondering why these look so different btw its because they were originally drawn about a month apart | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sabugabr · 3 years ago

Text

Why the Clone problem in Star Wars animated media is also a Mandalorian problem, and why we have to talk about it (PART 2)

Hi! I finally finished wrapping this up, so here’s part 2 of what has already become a mini article (you can find Part 1 here, if you like!)

And for this part, it won’t be as much as a critic as part 1 was, but instead I’d like to focus more on what I consider to be a wasted potential regarding the representation of the Clones in the Star Wars animated media, from the first season of The Clone Wars till now, and why I believe it to be an extension of the Mandalorian problem I discussed in part 1 — the good old colonialism.

Sources used, as always, will be linked at the end of this post!

PART 2: THE CLONES

Cody will never know peace

So I’d like to state that I won’t focus as much on the blatantly whitewashing aspect, for I believe it to be very clear by now. If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly recommend you search around tumblr and the internet, there are a lot of interesting articles and posts about it that explain things very didactically and in detail. The only thing you need to know to get this started is that even at the first seasons of Clone Wars (when the troopers still had this somewhat darker skin complexion and all) they were still a whitewashed version of Temuera Morrison (Jango’s actor). And from then, as we all know, they only got whiter and whiter till we get where we are now, in rage.

Look at this very ambiguously non-white but still westernized men fiercely guarding their pin-up space poster

Now look at this still westernized but slightly (sarcasm) whiter men who for some reason now have different tanning levels among them (See how Rex now has a lighter skin tone? WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN KKKKKKK) Anyway you got the idea. So without further ado...

2.1 THE FANTASY METAPHOR

As I mentioned before in Part 1, one thing that has to be very clear if you want to follow my train of thought is that it’s impossible to consume something without attributing cultural meanings to it, or without making cultural associations. This things will naturally happen and it often can improve our connection to certain narratives, especially fantastic ones. Even if a story takes place in a fantastic/sci fi universe, with all fictional species and people and worlds and cultures, they never come from nowhere, and almost always they have some or a lot of basing in real people and cultures. And when done properly, this can help making these stories resonate in a very beautifull, meaningfull way. I actually believe this intrisic cultural associations are the things that make these stories work at all. As the brilliant american speculative/science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin says in the introduction (added in 1976) of her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and that I was not able to chopp much because it’s absolutely genious and i’ll be leaving the link to the full text right here,

“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future — indeed Schrodinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the ‘future,’ on the quantum level, cannot be predicted — but to describe reality, the present world.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.”

[...] “Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Borodino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane —bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.”

[...] “ In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find — if it's a good novel — that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.

The artist whose medium is fiction does this within words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. [...] All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life — science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.

A metaphor for what?” [1]

A metaphor for what indeed. I won’t be going into what Star Wars as a whole is a metaphor for, because I am certain that it varies from person to person, and everyone can and has the total right to take whatever they want from this story, and understand it as they see fit. That’s why it’s called the modern myth. And therefore, all I’ll be saying here is playinly my take not only on what I understand the Clones to be, but what I believe they could have meant.

2.2 SO, BOBA IS A CLONE

I don’t want to get too repetitive, but I wanted to adress it because even though I by no means intend to put Boba and the Clones in the same bag, there is one aspect about them that I find very similar and interesting, that is the persue of individuality. While the Clones have this very intrinsically connected to their narratives, in Boba’s case this appears more in his concept design. As I mentioned in Part 1, one of the things the CW staff had in mind while designing the mandalorians is that they wanted to make Boba seem unique and distinguishable from them, and honestly even in the original trilogy he stands out a lot. He is unique and memorable and that’s one of the things that draws us to him.

And as we all know, both Boba and Jango and the Clones are played by Temuera Morrison — and occasionally by the wonderful Bodie Taylor and Daniel Logan. And Temuera Morrison comes from the Maori people. And differently from the mandalorian case, where we were talking about a whole planet, in this situation we’re talking about portraying one single person, so there’s nowhere to go around his appearance and phenotypes, right? I mean, you are literally representing an actual individual, so there’s no way you could alter their looks, right?

(hahahaha wrong)

And besides that, I think that is in situations like that (when we are talking about individuals) that the actor’s perspective could really have a place to shine (just the same as how Lea was mostly written by Carrie Fisher). In this very heart-warming interview for The New York Times (which you can read full signing up for their 5-free-articles-per-month policy), Temuera Morrison talks a little bit about how he incorporated his cultural background to Boba Fett in The Mandalorian:

“I come from the Maori nation of New Zealand, the Indigenous people — we’re the Down Under Polynesians — and I wanted to bring that kind of spirit and energy, which we call wairua. I’ve been trained in my cultural dance, which we call the haka. I’ve also been trained in some of our weapons, so that’s how I was able to manipulate some of the weapons in my fight scenes and work with the gaffi stick, which my character has.” [2]

The Gaffi stick (or Gaderffii), btw, is the weapon used by the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, and according to oceanic art expert Bruno Claessens it’s design was inspired by wooden Fijian war clubs called totokia. [3]

And I think is very clear how this background can influence one’s performance and approach to a character, and majorly how much more alive this character will feel like. Beyond that, having an actor from your culture to play and add elements to a character will higly improve your sense of connection with them (besides all the impact of seeying yourself on screen, and seeying yourself portrayed with respect). It would only make sense if the cultural elements that the actor brought when giving life to a fictional individual would’ve been kept and even deepened while expanding this role. And if you’re familiar with Star Wars Legends you’ll probably rememeber that in Legends Jango would train and raise all Clone troopers in the Mandalorian culture, so that the Clones would sing traditional war chants before battles, be fluent in Mando’a (Mandalore’s language) and some would proudly take mandalorian names for themselves. So why didn’t Filoni Inc. take that into account when they went to delve into the clones in The Clone Wars?

2.3 THE WHITE MINORITY

First of all I’d like to state that all this is 100% me conjecturing, and by no means at all I’m saying that this is what really happened. But while I was re-watching CW before The Bad Batch premiere, something came to my mind regarding the whitewashing of the Clones, and I’d like to leave that on the table.

So, you know this kind of recent movies and series that depicted like, fairies in this fictional world where fairies were very opressed, but there would be a lot of fairies played by white actors? Just like Bright and Carnival Row. If you’ve watched some of these and have some racial conscience, you’ll probably know where I’m going here. And the issue with it is that often this medias will portray real situations of racism and opression and prejudice, but all applied to white people. Like in Carnival Row, when going to work as a maid in a rich human house, our girl Cara Delevingne had to fight not to have her braids (which held a lot of significance in her culture) cut by her intolerant human mistress, because the braids were not “appropriate”. Got it? hahahaha what a joy

Look at her ethnic braids!!!

One of the reasons this happens might be to relieve a white audience of the burden of watching these stories and feeling what I like to call “white guilt”. Because, as we all know, white people were never very oppressed. Historically speaking, white people have always been in privileged social positions, and in an exploitative relationship between two ethnic groups, white people very usually would be the exploiters — the opressors. So while watching situations (that every minority would know to be very real) of opression in fiction, if these situations were lived by a white actor, there would be no real-life associations, because we have no historical parameter to associate this situation with anything in real life — if you are white. Thus, there is less chance that, when consuming one of these narratives, whoever is watching will question the "truthfulness" of these situations (because it's not "real racism", see, "they're just fairies"). It's easier for a person to watch without having to step out of their comfort zone, or confront the reality of real people who actually go through things like that. There's even a chance that this might diminish empathy for these people.

Once again, not saying this is specifically the case of the Clones, majorly because one of the main feelings you have when watching CW is exactly empathy for the troopers (at least for me, honestly, the galaxy could explode, I just wanted those poor men to be happy for God’s sake). But I’ll talk more about it later.

The thing is, the whole thing with the Clones, if you think about it, it’s not pretty. If you step on little tiny bit outside the bubble of “fictional fantasy”, the concept is very outrageous. They are kept in conditions analogous to slavery, to say the least. To say the more, they were literally made in an on-demand lab to serve a purpose they are personally not a part of, for which they will neither receive any reward nor share any part of the gains. On the contrary, as we saw in The Bad Batch, as soon as the war was over and the clones were no longer useful as cannonballs, they were discarded. In the (wonderful) episode 6 of the third season of (the almost flawless) Rebels, “The Last Battle”, we're even personally introduced to the analogy that there really wasn't much difference in value between clones and droids, something that was pretty clear in Clone Wars but hadn't been said explicitly yet.

In fact, technically the Separatists can be considered to be more human than the Republic. But that's just my opinion.

So, you had this whole army of pretty much slaves. I know this is a heavy term, but these were people who were originally stripped of any sense of humanity or individuality, made literally to go to war and die in it, doing so purely in exchange for food and lodging, under the false pretense that they belonged to a glorious purpose (yes, Loki me taught that term, that was the only thing I absorbed from this series). Doing all this under extremely precarious conditions from which they had no chance of getting out, actually, getting out was tantamount to the death penalty. They were slaves. In milder terms, an oppressed minority. And again, I don't know if that was the case, but I can understand why Filoni Inc would be apprehensive about representing phenotically indigenous people in this situation. Especially since we in theory should see Anakin and Obi-Wan as the good guys.

(and here I’d like to leave a little disclaimer that I believe the whole Anakin-was-a-slave-once plot was HUGELY misused (and honestly just badly done) both in the prequels and in the animeted series — maybe for the best, since he was, you know, white and all that, and I don’t know how the writers would have handled it, but ANYWAY — I believe this could have been further explored, particularly regarding his relationship with the Clones, and how it could have influenced his revolt against the Jedi, and manipulated to add to his anger and all that. I mean, we already HAD the fact that Anakin shared a deeper conection with his troopers than usual)

Yes, Rex, you have common trauma experiences to share. But anyway, backing to my track

As I was saying, we are to see them as good guys, and maybe that could’ve been tricky if we saw them hooping up on slavery practices. Like, idk, a “nice” sugar plantation owner? (I don’t know the correct word for it in english, but in portuguese they were called senhores de engenho) Like this guy from 12 Years a Slave?

You know, the slave owner who was “nice”. IDK, anyway

No one will ever watch Clone Wars and make this association (I believe not, at least), of course not. But if we were to see how CW deepened the clone arcs, and see them as phenotypically indigenous, subjected to certain situations that occur in CW (yes, like Umbara), maybe some kind of association would’ve been easier to make.

I mean, come onnnn I can’t be the only one seeing it

You see, maybe not the whole 12 Years a Slave association one, but I don’t think it’s hard to see there was something there. And maybe this could’ve been even more evident if they looked non-white. Because historically, both black peoples and indigenous peoples went through processes of slavery, from which we as a society are still impacted today. And to slave a people, the first thing you have to do is strip them from their humanity. So it might be easier to see this situation and apply it to real life. And maybe that could lead to a whole lot of other questions regarding the Clones, the Republic, the Jedi, and even how chill Obi-Wan was about all this. We might come out of it, as lady Ursula Le Guin stated in the fragment above, a bit different from what we were before we watch it.

Maybe even unconsciously, Filoni Inc thought we would be more confortable watching if they just looked white (and because of colonialism and all that, but I’m adding thoughts here).

And of course I don’t like the idea of, idk, looking at Obi-Wan and thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch in 12 Years a Slave or something like that. Of course that, if the Clones were to play the same role as they did in the prequels, to obediently serve the Jedi and quietly die for them, that would have been bad, and hurtfull, and pejorative if added to all that I said here. But the thing is that Clone Wars, consciously or not, already solved that. At least to my point of view, they already managed to approach this situation in an incredible competent way, that is giving them agency.

2.4 AGENCY AND INDIVIDUALITY

So, one of the things I love most in Clone Wars is how it really feels like it’s about the Clones. Like, we have the bigger scene of Palpatine taking over, Ahsoka’s growth arc, Anakin’s turn to The Dark Side, the dawn of the Jedi and rise of the Empire and all that, but it also has this idk, vibe, of there’s actually something going on that no one in scene is talking about? And this something is the Clones. We have these episodes spread throughout the seasons, even out of chronological order, which when watched together tell a parallel story to the war, to everything I mentioned. Which is a story about individuals. Clone Wars manages to, in a (at least to me) very touching way, make the Clones be the heros.

Can you really look me in the eye and say that Five’s story didn’t CRASH you like a full-speed train???? He may not have the same amount of screen-time as the protagonists, but his story is just as important as theirs (and to me, it might be the most meaningful one). Because he is the first to break free from the opression cicle all the Clones were trapped into.

His story can be divided into 6 phases.

1 - First, the construction of his individuality, in other words, the reclaiming of his humanity.

2 - Then the assimilation of understanding yourself as an individual of value, and then extending this to all his brothers, not as a unit, but as a set of individuals collectively having this same newly discovered value.

3 - This makes him realize that in the situation they find themselves in, they are not being recognized as such. This makes him question the reality of their situation.

4 - Freed from the illusion of his state, he seeks the truth about it.

5 - This then leads him to seek liberation not just for himself, but for all the Clones (it's basically Plato's Cave, and I'm not exaggerating here).

6 - And finally, precisely because he has assimilated his individuality and sought freedom for himself and his brothers, he is punished for it.

His story is all about agency. Agency, according to the Wikipedia page that is the first to appear if you type “agency” on Google, is that agency is “the abstract principle that autonomous beings, agents, are capable of acting by themselves” [4], and this abstract principle can be dissected in 7 segments:

Law - a person acting on behalf of another person

Religious - "the privilege of choice... introduced by God"

Moral - capacity for making moral judgments

Philosophical - the capacity of an autonomous agent to act, relating to action theory in philosophy

Psychological - the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals

Sociological - the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology

Structural - ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution

All of them apply here. And this is just the story of one Clone. We know there are many others throughout the series.

Agency is what can make the world of a difference when you are telling a story about an opressed minority. Because opressed minorities do exist, and opression exists, and if you are insecure about consuming a fictional media about opressed minorities, see if they have agency might be a good place to start. So that’s why I think that everything I said before in 2.3 falls short. Because the solution already existed, and was indeed done. Honestly, making the non-agency representation of the Clones (the one we see in the prequels) to be the one played by Temuera Morrison, and then giving them agency in the version where they appear to be white, just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

And honestly, if they were to make the Clones look like Temuera Morrison, and by that mean, take more inspiration in the Māori culture, maybe they wouldn’t even have to change much of their representation besides their facial features. As I said in part 1, I am not by any means an expert in polynesian cultures, but there was something that really got me while I was researching about it. And is the facial tattoos. More precisely, the tā moko.

2.5 TĀ MOKO

Once again I’ll be using the Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand as source, and you can find the articles used linked at the end of this post.

Etymologically speaking,

“The term moko traditionally applied to male facial tattooing, while kauae referred to moko on the chins of women. There were other specific terms for tattooing on other parts of the body. Eventually ‘moko’ came to be used for Māori tattooing in general.” [5]

So moko is the correct name for the characteristic tattoos we often see when we look for Māori culture.

These ones ^. Please also look this book up, it’s beautiful. It’s written by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist. She’s wonderful.

According to the Tourism NewZealand website,

“In Māori culture, it [moko] reflects the individual's whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history. In earlier times it was an important signifier of social rank, knowledge, skill and eligibility to marry.”

“Traditionally men received moko on their faces, buttocks and thighs. Māori face tattoos are the ultimate expression of Māori identity. Māori believe the head is the most sacred part of the body, so facial tattoos have special significance.”

[...] “The main lines in a Māori tattoo are called manawa, which is the Māori word for heart.” [6]

Therefore, in the Māori culture, there’s this incredibly deep meaning attributed to the (specific of their culture) tattooing of the face. The act of tattooing the body, any part of the body, is incredibly powerful in many cultures around the globe. The adornment of the body can have different meanings for these different cultures, but all of which I've come into contact with do mean a lot. It’s one of the oldest and most beautiful human expressions of individuality and identity.

And in the Star Wars universe, the Clones are the group that has the deeper connection to, and the best narrative regarding, tattoos. In fact, besides Hera’s father, Cham Syndulla, the Clones are the only individuals to have tattooed skin, at least that I can recall of. And they do share a deep connection to it.

For the Clones, the tattoos (added to hairstyles) are the most meaningful way in which they can express themselves. Is what makes them distinguishable from each other to other people. Tattoos are one of the things that represent them as individuals.

And I’m not BY ANY MEANS sayin that the Clones facial tattoos = Moko. That’s not my point. But that’s one of the things I meant when I said earlier about the wasted potential of the representation of the Clones (in my point of view). Because maybe if it were their intention to base the culture of the clones after the polynesian culture, maybe if it were their intention to make the Clones actually look like Temuera Morrison, this could have meant a whole deal. More than it’d appear looking to it from outside this culture. Maybe if there were actual polynesian people in the team that designed the Clones and wrote them (or at least indigenous people, something), who knows what we could’ve had.

Even in Hunter’s design, I noticed that if you take for example this frame of Temuera from the movie River Queen (2005), where we can have a closer look at the design of his tā moko

Speaking purely plastically (because I don’t want to get into the movie itself, just using it as example because then I can use Temuera himself as a comparison), see the lines around the contours of his mouth? Now look at Hunter’s.

I find it interesting that they choose to design this lines coming from around his nose like that. But at this point I am stretching A LOT into plastic and semiotics, so this comparison is just a little thing that got my attention. I know that his tattoo is a skull and etc etc, I’m just poiting this out. And it even makes me a little frustrated, because they could have taken so many interesting paths in the Bad Batch designs. But instead they choose to pay homage to Rambo. And I mean, I like Rambo, I think he’s cool and all that.

Look at him doing Filipino martial arts

But then, as we say in Brasil, they had the knife and the cheese in their hands (all they had to do was cut the cheese, but they didn’t). Istead, it seems like in order to make Hunter look like Rambo, they made him even whiter???

2.6 SO...

Look, I love The Clone Wars. I’m crazy about it. I love the Clones, I love their stories and plots. They are great characters and one of the greatest addings ever made in the Star Wars universe. They even have, in my opinion, the best soundtrack piece to feature in a Star Wars media since John Williams’ wonderful score. It just feels to me as if their narrative core is full of bagage, and meanings, and associations that were just wiped under the carpet when they suddenly became white. It just feels to me as if, once again, they were trying to erase the person behing the trooper mask, and the people they were to represent, and the history they should evoke.

I don’t know why they were whitewashed. Maybe it was just the old due racism and colonialism. Maybe it was meant for us to not question the Jedi, or our good guys, or the real morality of this fictional universe where we were immersed. But then, was it meant for what?

The Clones were a metaphor for what?

(spoiler: the answer still contains colonialism)

Thank you so much for reading !!!! (and congratulations for getting this far, you are a true hero)

SOURCES USED IN THIS:

[1] Ursulla K. Le Guin, 'The Left Hand of Darkness', 14th ACE print run of June, 1977

[2] Dave Itzkoff, 'Being Boba Fett: Temuera Morrison Discusses ‘The Mandalorian’', The New York Times, published Dec. 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/television/the-mandalorian-boba-fett-temuera-morrison.html (accessed 15 September 2021)

[3] Bruno Claessens, 'George Lucas' "Star Wars" and Oceanic art' , Archived from the original on December 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201205114353/http://brunoclaessens.com/2015/07/george-lucas-star-wars-and-oceanic-art/#.YEiJ-p37RhF (accessed 15 September 2021)

[4] Wikipedia contributors, "Agency," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agency&oldid=1037924611 (accessed September 17, 2021)

[5] Rawinia Higgins, 'Tā moko – Māori tattooing - Origins of tā moko', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ta-moko-maori-tattooing/page-1 (accessed 17 September 2021)

[6] Tourism New Zealand, ‘The meaning of tā moko, traditional Māori tattoos’, The Tourism New Zealand website, https://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/ta-moko-maori-tattoo/ (accessed 17 September 2021)

27 notes · View notes

flowermist7432 · 4 years ago

Note

What about bubby is happening???

Hwjhhgggggggg E v e r y ThIng,, its a long one but please read if yah do wanna understand my thoughts tho its long cause i ramble!!

Ismhd okay so i made art a LONG while back that was like, Bubby and Coomer! Right? I love their ship, infact the way they are drawn is so specific and it REMINDED me of..idk..Crowley and Aziraphale.

The logic behind that is how the fandom draws them like Crowley. Little mean with a soft heart, and wears cool black stuff and stylish, TALL AND VERY SKINNY while Coomer is drawn as chubby, lil man who's nice but also a little bastard. So i was like "Hah! Oh man! Reminds me of another ship! Infact i wanna draw em like that! >:0" then i drew them dressed AS them!

Now, i wanted to kinda re draw that piece cause its old and my artskills have MAJORLY improved. But folks loved it! And MONTHS later when ive already forgotten about the post some..person was like "this is so antisemitic to draw Bubby as a literal demon"

Now obviously as someone with RSD i choked, first of all. SECOND of all this person CLEARLY missed the mark that??? Of course i drew him as Crowley thats the part of the joke- COOMER IS AZIRAPHALE it doesn't work the other way around tho maybe for a joke it can cause that would be funny ("Gordon! Im a demon! And i require your soul as debt~❤"). Third, this...this art was made way long before this whole ENTIRE THING WITH him being called jewish suddenly and his new rules.

The reason he's concidered jewish is because Gir used one of the random scientist old man npcs which aparently later on in the games was turned into Dr Kliener? And the name Kliener is a name of jewish origin. And even tho the fandom had decided.

"Okay were separating Half Life from Half Life Vr AI. Cause the two things are so..SO DIFFERENT from eachother at this point its not even funny" the fandom ALSO decided because Gir used that model it intern makes Bubby jewish. And that means Bubby's sharp teeth the fandom did before that or just, aspects of how he might look a BIT monster-ish cause he was canonly made from a tube was gone! No more! You cant cause now everyone decided he's jewish!

I legit had no problem with it cause "oh dang" cause well im not jewish what do i know, i mean if you headcanon that, thats cool! ❤💖❤💞💖 Also im sure folks can live with not drawing him a few fish-like! I mean maybe he just came outta the tube lookin like a regular white old man which is always funny tbh. Also as i said im not jewish so i have no say really it wouldnt be fair >:0. Infact I love the connection but artists getting accused of antisemitism because Bubby was being drawn alittle off like pointy teeth or using the sharp triangle body shape theory kinda sucks cause to me it was clear it had nothing todo with jewish themes and also lets be honest Dr Kliener and Bubby are two seperate entities to me.

But its actually one of the biggest reasons i stopped fandom interacting cause..idk. it got to much with the "Dont draw/write a character like this" and stuff. It was the stick that broke the camel's back with realising this fandom turned great wonderful wholesome headcanons to implimented FACTS of the community and if you are tripped up even alittle unknowingly even before hand yer FUCKED. Which is actually my number one fear so it certainly did the trick! I just..left! I got to scared of doing something wrong or even asking. Cause its a bit feral even if you wanna genuinely ask why. And btw this isnt "UHG STUPID RULES" and more like "oh god oh fuck--"

I..look i'll always have a special place in my heart but im gonna be vulnerable fer' a sec and say so, SO scared of lettin folks down. 😥 i dont wanna be a antisemitism artist! Or a racist or a homophobe or any of this! Its scary and makes me wanna cry even at the very thought someone MIGHT think that even tho i know im certainly not. But its also made me not wanna interact cause..what if i accidentally draw something or say something that came across the wrong way or broke "fandom rules" i was unaware about like god holy shit thats TERRIFYING!!!

So i just, stopped drawing em. I even have poc characters or stuff ive wanted to show to tumblr but im scared of getting facts wrong or someone getting angry i did something so i just hide em all away. Its too intimidating and the chances of having yer ass handed to you by one accident and being shunned for life is so possible in my head and i never wanna risk being a terrible person. Even if that means stop drawing hlvrai and not showing original work in fear of messing up

#theres some fandom rules that are 100% true tho like...just..dont draw them having the 'horizontal mumbo'#like thats a no brainer please dont do that the creators said it makes them UNCOMFY #but im scared of doing anything cause what if i get fuckin attacked at the age of 17 for stuff i didnt realise? was bad?#or even like a simple thing is misinterpreted by the other party?#ismshd idk..#i also dont wanna be seen as a person who crys and whines when they cant be a bad person like UH..#I RAMBLED SO HARD today is a venting day HUH?

4 notes · View notes

munchies-for-thought · 4 years ago

Text

The reason your favorite character is flawed and how it changed how I saw my life

Jun 18, 2020

Context: I’m a huge fan of the anime “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”. (Reading Part 6 pls don’t spoil kthx bai). Don’t worry. You don’t even have to know about anime to get my message. It’s just the example closest to me.

The revelation behind each flaw

Rohan Kishibe is a character that is incredibly talented as a manga artist. He is so obsessed in his craft that he goes to terrifying and ethically questionable extents to get inspiration for his stories. Sometimes a villain, sometimes a hero. His art is everything for him. Well worth risking his or someone else’s life. He is generally a good guy, and wishes good upon the world. He just won’t go out of his way to make it happen. He is also defeated almost immediately after we meet him.

Rohan Kishibe is indeed one of my favorite characters of all times for a multitude of reasons, yet when describing him, he clearly is a flawed character. Yet this is NOT about him. While you read this blog, please think on the coolest fictional character you can think of. Do you have one in mind? Can you answer the following about your favorite character?

Has your favorite character failed?

Has he been hurt badly?

Are some things out of his control?

Do most people in his world generally understand the struggle they go through?

You’ll see when comparing with friends that we mostly agree on these answers even when thinking on different characters. The interesting truth lies in the common factor behind these answers, and learning a bit from the power of good storytelling.

One of the most precious things that I have gained from playing videogames, watching anime and playing Dungeons & Dragons all my life, is the first-hand knowledge of the power of a good story. Although it is in the HOW you make a good story, where I found this revelation that helped me so much.

What I am trying to say might be simple and even obvious when read, but not truly understood. If you bear with me a bit longer, I will attempt not to say, but to explain. I’ll show you the building blocks of how I learned so you truly understand as I did.

Dungeon and Dragons’ Character Backgrounds

The first time I made a new character in Dungeons and Dragons (Drow Elf Bard btw) I was blown away when I found out that whereas you get to pick from options that greatly impact your likelihood of winning, you also had to pick background and personality options that held no significant impact on your success.

You could choose to be a triumphant noble, a devote acolyte, a successful guild merchant or even a lying charlatan. Hell, if you wanted to you could even pick an orphan who had lost it all in the edgiest way known to man!

The book was also quite good at giving you specific quirks that brought that character to life. All of this happened because D&D is focused on group storytelling. Everyone wants your character to be interesting so their adventure gets 10x cooler when their complex characters interact with yours in intriguing and unexpected ways.

For example:

The secret beauty behind flaws

I was just a tad... confused. I had to chose a flaw? Why would I want to do this? All of these options look just like ugly parts of your character’s personality and could easily affect them negatively within the story.

Was this a balancing feature? A rule simply put there to make you less awesome, so no one is too overpowered? I just could NOT wrap my head around it. I couldn’t understand how this could make things fun. They were ruining my character.

It was until I started maturing as an individual and learned more about game design and storytelling that I started to appreciate how genius that was. No one cares for the story of perfect, bland, basic individuals who always succeed and have never made mistakes before. Because that is not real, it doesn’t work for an interesting story if there’s no sadness. If there’s no pain, you can just simply look away.

It was to be expected of the game designers of the best roleplaying game in the world to know that having flaws, failures, challenges, weaknesses, mistakes, all of them are ESSENTIAL for a great story to be told!

Was there a moment in your favorite character’s story where his failures and his pain made you love them on a whole new level? Aren’t those failures what drives your characters to become who they are? Would it be a better story if they had always succeeded?

So who is this Rohan Kishibe and, as an artist, what is his take on good storytelling?

Rohan’s Philosophy

Not only is Rohan a good example of a flawed character, but he also has a very interesting philosophy. He is a famous and wealthy manga artist. You’ve got to understand that, to Rohan, his craft is EVERYTHING. It is the thing he does best and what defines him.

Let me just show you one quote of his, so you understand his artistic philosophy:

“Reality is the energy that breathes life into a piece of work, and reality itself is entertainment. People often think that manga are drawn from imagination and fantasy, but that’s not actually true! For me, drawing something that i’ve experienced, or something that has moved me, is what makes it interesting!”

His pursuit for inspiration is so great, that he constantly goes to insane lengths to gain inspiration. This unrelenting desire is why he was originally a villain. Yet even when the protagonist defeated him, all Rohan could think of was of how this set of unfortunate and unlucky events was within itself a hell of a REAL story to use as inspiration. He saw value even in his misfortune as long as it was honest, untapped, unadulterated and pure reality. That’s his trade secret as a famous and successful storyteller.

Understanding reality, storytelling and our identity

Warning: We’re about to get metaphysical. You might wanna take that bong hit right now. You’ve been warned.

Talking about reality is like opening Pandora’s box. It is such a massively complex topic that before we can even get to the nitty-gritty of it, let’s just agree on the following for the sake of this conversation:

Depending on how skeptic you are, reality could be mostly subjective or arbitrarily objective. So just follow my lead on this one and match your understanding with mine at least while you read this blog.

NO ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES OR REALITIES

Fate is merely the belief that there is a predestined way things will happen no matter what. Since its only requirement is also its only consequence, (which is also impossible to prove) then even thinking on fate is pointless or even harmful to an individual as it removes agency from himself and turns him into a bystander in his own life.

Facts are limited to the provable physical world. If you can’t prove it, you don’t KNOW it is real, but you could still believe it to be real.

Our understanding of ourselves, comes partly from how others perceive us and their own subjective view of reality.

As mere humans we don’t completely control reality, but we control how it affects us.

Your own experiences and passions have a gargantuan influence on your interpretation of reality.

Storytelling could be simplified as “the way in which reality is described”.

Changing how you tell a story doesn’t change the facts.

That last one sounds a bit anticlimactic doesn’t it? Specially since we’ve talked so much about storytelling just to find out it can’t change reality. You might even wonder if its uses are only limited to art?

Fret not! This is where it all starts coming together.

My story

Before you disregard storytelling as just an art form, or an overglorified logbook, let’s think outside of the box and take a few leaps with me. Let me show you when was it that it clicked for me:

“Just when the COVID-19 lockdown was about to begin, I was at one of my lowest. I’ve always been someone very adamant on living life as he sees best. Even when friends or family wouldn’t understand my decision, I would still pursue my own path. I was proud of this and felt it made me immune to what other people thought. Yet, years of failed relationships were starting to make me doubt myself.

After an emotional breakdown at Denny’s after being stood-up (Great story for another day) I started worrying that the problem might be me. I’ve always been open to feedback as long as it makes sense to me in a logical way, but I had built so much thought behind who I was, that I didn’t even consider that maybe, I was more flawed than what I had originally assessed.

Maybe if all these bad things kept happening to me, there was a constant behind it all. Judging by the fact that these happened throughout the span of years and with different people, it was only reasonable to assume I was the only constant. Maybe my relationships, both in love and in friendship, were failing not because of individual and complex reasons, but because I was involved in all of them.

Maybe I just won’t build close friends or a family, but I guess I can still find a way to enjoy life. It’s just a lonely life, a very lonely life, but it’s best to face reality head on. That’s what I have always taught myself, right? It would be foolish not to do so when the answer is an inconvenient one. It’s still reality. Better get used to it I guess.”

Wow, that went to a very dark place didn’t it? It’s crazy looking at it in retrospective, but while it happened, it really felt like that was just the facts. I sucked at friends and love. That was just the cold hard reality to me. I mused:

“It’s like if I was a D&D character with low charisma doomed to suck at social encounters... “

and then a sudden realization froze me to the core...

Even if by mere accident, I ended up thinking of myself as a D&D character. Remember all that talk about flawed characters? Well, what if I would see myself as a flawed character? We already agreed that the best characters fail, struggle, suffer, cry, rage, and they make mistakes!

It’s like I had opened a whole new dimension that brought new light into who I was. Those weren’t horrible memories of things that broke me down and I wish no one would ever find out anymore. Those were just wild chapters on the bizarre adventure that is my life. These are badges of honor of what my very own story is!

Storytellers are already influencing your reality

I won’t stand here and tell you that everything bad happens for a good reason. Please be careful not to take the wrong message out of this. That wasn’t what I realized at that moment. I finally was able to see that there were two storytellers that had been affecting me all my life, and I hadn’t really seen their influence before!

Let me unmask these two powerful beings that through their storytelling, had changed my reality.

Powerful Storyteller #1 - Those close to you

Did you notice how the story that I was listening from my friends and love interests was sounding aggressively negative towards my self-value? I thought I didn’t care but I was indeed interpreting my life through their stories.

Since we already understand that we each have our own interpretation of life, good and wrong, then it’s not that hard for us to understand that we will never fully agree on what’s cool. Some of us love things that most people don’t even understand. So when they talk to you, they are inadvertently telling you a story about how you’re weird, instead of fascinating.

If only you could have friends or people who DID understand you, then maybe the stories about you would be seen in a much more positive light. It’s not your friends fault for not understanding, you were just asking something unreasonable from them.

Get yourself surrounded by those who are weird like you. You’ll notice that for the right crowd, you’re just the coolest person just for being who you are. That feeling is just invigorating in every sense.

Powerful Storyteller #2 - Yourself

Back in my story, you can see how I took a lot of my own “interpretations” as “facts” or even “reality” when I told myself my own story. You could have just as well told my same story but in a different way with a much more positive light:

“My relationships did fail, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect on my self-worth. I can continuously fail but love the fact that I’m the type of character that is still hopeful and positive even after repeatedly failing and suffering pain each time.”

It’s important you understand what makes you cool as a character. Because it is your job to tell yourself the story of who you are, what you’ve done, and who you will be. You have already been doing so for as long as you can remember, so you don’t even notice it anymore. You are STILL, to this day, re-telling yourself your story and changing how you feel about some parts of it.

What can we do about it?

So if you already are in charge of such a crucial and delicate task, why don’t you apply what we’ve learned so far? Can’t you see how you as the audience (from your own storytelling) would feel when seeing your main character in emotional pain? Don’t you feel empathy and love towards it because of all it has struggled?

You have the power to choose whether or not you will tell your story as the sad log of things you suck at, or as the crazy adventures of someone who’s just trying to do their best. Someone who is AWESOME because you do understand why he gets so excited when talking about that thing, and why he is so disappointed that that other thing didn’t work out again.

Those dark painful memories are beautiful crystallizations of true art! You already have what Rohan Kishibe is willing to kill to get. You already have an amazing REAL story, you now just have to use your storytelling skills to make yourself some justice, and talk about yourself like the amazing character you are when you tell that story to yourself next time you go to sleep.

At least when it comes to my story, well, the only reason why I would ever even think of writing a blog this long, is because I’ve changed the way I tell my story. I firmly believe that most people will never even have the opportunity to read this, but I have also seen value in these thoughts even if there’s no one besides myself who will listen to my story. If anything, at least I hope my story helps you love your character a bit more, just how I have learned to truly appreciate mine.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to my story. I would always love to hear yours.

16 notes · View notes

etherealellaelf · 5 years ago

Text

Disney Remakes: they’re not all bad.

I submit that some of the disney live action remakes are, regrettably, a bit off. But not all of them. A lot of them are really good. Here’s why.

-Lion King did really put me off with the lack of expressions. I’m not sure if I have much to say about it, lol I’ll have to see it and let you know. Honestly though I don’t think I can because I love the original Lion King so flipping much, it’s a masterful movie and part of its mastery is the beautiful hand drawn animation and its expressive characters. I can’t think I can watch a bunch of real lions just talking. Who knows? I’ll keep you posted.

-Alice in Wonderland, one of the first of them, had some really good feminist moments. I love the Hatter and Alice’s love for each other, I guess he’s like the only human in Wonderland so it makes sense. But I get some weird ideas because the denizens of Wonderland are supposed to mirror the characters in Alice’s real life, and since the only redhead in Alice’s life is Hamish, that weirdo who asks her to marry him and he’s a total jerk.... and the Hatter is a redhead too.... idk it’s weird. Also it’s weird if he represents her dad because number one he’s dead and number two it’s incest, but the Hatter does say a few things that her dad said at the beginning....hmmm... fishy. However I feel like I can rest assured because this might just be the case of “Johnny Depp came to shoot today in a homemade cosplay and nobody can stop him because he’s just a mad genius”, in which case why do they keep letting him do that??? I don’t mind the hatter’s design, but can you imagine Just Plain Old Johnny Depp In All His Sexy Glory as a mad hatter? It would have been fine. They had to give him a gap between his teeth, CGI enlarged eyes, crazy red hair, white and pink makeup... oh well, whatever, it’s fine. I like how Underland looks a bit more like Narnia than like a Tim Burton land; I honestly don’t know if they gave him complete creative control when it came to the CGI set design. It might’ve been cool to see that.

-Cinderella was wonderful, I thought. I really love how Cinderella and the Prince interacted a lot more, falling in love over a long period of time. In fact, I feel like it was a spiritual remake of Ella Enchanted(which, in my opinion, Disney really botched up because the book was just so amazing), so they did really good in my book. My brother, however, hates that at the end she just twirls in her tower and doesn’t do anything to save herself, when in the original she tried to escape. He thinks it’s really unfeminist and he doesn’t want his daughter to act like that. I agree on that mark, but I’ll let everyone watch it. Also they threw a little bit of the Beauty and the Beast original fairy tale in there when her dad, a merchant, asks what she wants and Cinderella asks for the branch that brushes his arm or whatever; similar to a single rose, when her sisters ask for riches. I also liked the handling of Lady Tremaine; it really humanized her and I felt for her. The stepsisters were silly as per the usual. The King went from a bumbling psychopath(the cartoon) to a very melancholy, concerned father, and I cried at his death scene. Bravo, Kenneth Branagh, bravo.

-I really like all of Beauty and the Beast, although I do think that they made Lumiere & friends a little bit too important in this movie. I needed more moments between Belle and the Beast that were in the animation! Evermore was breathtaking though, let’s be honest. Although let’s be honest, I REALLY REALLY wanted to see a shirtless Dan Stevens emerge from a wall of rose petals because that sounds absolutely magical and super HOT. I’m so mad they had to redo it. Also I like the subtle crush Lefou has on Gaston; I’ve always wondered if he liked him. I do wish that Josh Gad had toned it down with his fabulousness though, because although I love fabulousness I wonder if it was slightly offensive. I really liked Gaston, and I feel like he could have gone a little bigger and with more bravado, could have been from slightly comedic to VERY comedic, but I think that’s alright. He did a great job. And as for everyone complaining about the villagers being really nasty and openly evil towards Belle, I actually liked it. It’s clear in the cartoon that the villagers whisper behind Belle’s back, but I feel like she just has a small smidgeon of an idea that they think she’s weird. In this, they freaking ATTACK her. They’re like ‘We can’t have smart bicc’s in our town! Get out me town!” It is a bit on the nose sometimes but I think it works because it helps Beast and her relate to feeling like outsiders. I do think the Beast knowing how to read kind of gave them something in common as well, but I disliked how he scoffed at her favorite book, Romeo and Juliet. I wish he had been more understanding like, “There’s this poor girl whose library is like, seven books, and amongst those seven books, one of which is probably the freaking bible because they belong to a pastor, her favorite is basically a romance. She’s not well read; I’m going to show her the classics.” Which back then was probably, like, idk, Voltaire? Too soon? Eh I’m not sure when it takes place. I do wish he’d gifted the library to her though, that was a nice gift for her in the previous movie. (Here’s the thing; the Beauty and the Beast cartoon is basically a perfect movie and I don’t think anything can live up to it, but this one was good too. It wasn’t better, but nothing can be better than that movie. Except maybe the Princess Bride or the first Pirates of the Caribbean or the stage production of Phantom of the Opera. No, not even then.)

-Dumbo? I haven’t seen it yet, I’ll have to and update this.

-Okay so Aladdin is really good. I entered the film with the meme cringe in my mind, totally expecting it to look weird and bad, but honestly Will Smith was such a great actor! And I actually freaking cried so many times because number one: the genie was aladdin’s father figure that he never had! He taught him how to date! Number two: the genie got his true love as well, and you see her and their kids at the beginning of the movie! SPOILERS btw. Sorry. Also Number three: they picked Will Smith to play the genie because he’s HITCH of course! The matchmaker extraordinaire! (I just love Will Smith. I wish he would run for president; it wouldn’t be the first time we had an actor in the white house. Just kidding, I don’t want to burden him that way, and there are really smart candidates this year to choose from. I just am urging everyone to go vote, and no more harambe crap!!!!) Also Jasmine had a nice new empowering role in this movie. I just sort of wish Jafar had been more menacing and villainous. But his actor was fine, just a bit soft-spoken.

-Lady and the Tramp- I started it on Disney+, I need to finish it. I’m halfway there.

-Christopher Robin is a gift; it’s both simple and complex. It has a lot of nice metaphors and I could feel my heart hurting for much of the film. Seriously good aesthetics as well, Director of Photography!!!

-The Jungle Book is a really good remake! So much excitement, and I could totally see Bill Murray in Baloo. (I think it’s equal in terms of story to the movie Mowgli, although Mowgli had that nasty little surprise at the end, I’m still hurt about it.)(also in comparing, the CGI is similarly good, but Mowgli wanted to do a really ambitious face capture thingy and I’m not sure if it worked,(uncanny) but it was interesting! It was also a lot darker. I think they’re both good.) Ben Kingsley was superb, of course, as Bagheera, as always, and he has a really fatherly voice(I thought Christian Bale did well as Bagheera as well, but he was more of an action figure in that movie, less of a father/teacher figure). And John Favreau, as always, went the extra mile to bring the action, the writing, and the moral through, and made it super good for children at the same time!(the same cannot be said about Mowgli, as there were some violence/action things that go beyond ‘peril’, hence it’s PG-13 rating) My one discrepancy was the voice of Kaa. Scarlet did fine, but I always thought of Kaa as a boy. I think they could have found a slithery voice actor for Kaa. Benedict Cumberbatch did really well as Smaug, hissing and growling, and he could have done well. I also think that Tom Hiddleston could have done a great job; he has a really gentle and pliant voice that can turn menacing in the matter of seconds, and if it’s about the snake being sexy as Scarlet Johanssen(haha what??), I think that Hiddles can bring it.(I’m not quite sure what I’m talking about at this point so I’ll shut up now.) I do feel like Mowgli started shooting way before The Jungle Book was even a glimmer in John Favreau’s eye, and that kind of makes me want to root for Mowgli because I’m sure that different movie houses have people working in both, probably swapping stories with their friends, and I’m sure it wasn’t an exact copy, but I can totally see Bill Murray in Baloo’s face and that can’t be by accident. Just saying. Not calling Disney out or anything, but I’m sure they can take it, they have like a trillion dollars. Anyway. Still a good one.

-Haven’t seen Pete’s Dragon.

-101 Dalmations, I know this shouldn’t count but it just does. I loved watching this as a child. I’m so happy they didn’t make the dogs talk? Haha it usually works when they do, but it gave a lot of room for Doctor House and Mister Weasley to interact. Also Glenn Close is great. I think this movie’s a good example of a career woman who decides to get domesticated and her sista is like, “Girl, you can’t do this! We have to be strong women! You have to come back to work!” But Anita is all, “Girl, respect my decisions! Feminism isn’t forcing your girl to be exactly like you, it’s giving me the respect to make my own decisions. If I want to have a baby with my husband, that’s fine. I want to be a mom!” I feel like the “new” 101 dalmatians remake they’re gonna make, will have a different opinion. Similar to wicked and maleficent, it’s going to humanize Cruella, but I just hope that they’re nice to Anita. She’s such a smol soft bird and if she wants 2 billion dogs and one baby, that’s fine... ugh, that’s gotta be like so much dog poop in her house... anita what are you doing...

-Maleficent. Obviously I love it. I love how those arguing fairies are super incompetent at raising Aurora because they’re too busy fighting, so Maleficent has to swoop in and rescue the princess. I like how Maleficent is a fae and it’s so sad how there’s like this rape metaphor when Stefan cuts off her wings, and that would be reason to curse his baby, especially because they were in love and he betrayed her! Stole her wings! Married someone else! T^T Maleficent, you poor misunderstood fairy! I love her motherly relationship with Aurora. I love that she’s the one who kisses her forehead to wake her up because Philip met her just that day. However, I don’t like how they just shove Philip out of the way, because Sleeping Beauty is honestly so romantic, and I love how they dance together and everything. I also like the raven boi. I ship him and Maleficent so hard and I hope he doesn’t die in the sequel, I haven’t seen it yet.

-So technically the Parent Trap is a remake. It’s awesome. It gave my childhood so much romance and prank ideas. It’s much better than its predecessor, especially because the mom in the old one is, like, urged to look prettier by her butler(wtf?!?! YOu’re FIrEd?!?). I’m so glad we’ve come so far.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Are the remakes better? In some cases they are. I think Cinderella is better than its predecessor. I think the original Alice is very good, as a nonsense movie, and I feel like the remake is equally good, but they’re different movies with different motives and plots. The original Beauty and the Beast is my favorite and it’s perfect, so the new one isn’t better, but it is really great and I love it, too. Anyway, that’s all.

38 notes · View notes

asteraegis · 5 years ago

Text

i dont know what to say for myself honestly.

for the love of god take heed of the tags before beginning. i really fucked edward up and ive written a smut specifically about choking him out.

its from edward’s POV btw

Tags: Deimos! Alexios/ANGST/mild to moderate violence/assault TW/choking/slapping/M|M/blowjob/cream pie/rimjob/spanking/biting/breathplay/aggressive dom/masochism/sadism/forced submission/rawing/knifeplay/top dom! Alexios/bottom sub! Edward

6122 words.

I felt his stare burning into my skin. Why was he so interested in me?

I had just introduced myself to him as one should to new recruits, that’s all. He had nodded in response, looking down on me with those dark eyes I’ve learned to fear. If I had known Alexios’ past beforehand, well, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so casual when greeting him. This man, he was a murderer of hundreds of people, if not thousands. I mean, I know I’m not one to judge seeing as I was a pirate, but the people I killed then were mainly by canons on a ship, not with my hands. And now I’ve had this brooding shadow looming over me every day since I met him, his glare following me everywhere I go. I’m usually one to confront this sort of behavior, but with the rumors of his temper…

Needless to say, this Alexios fellow would not let me out of his sight. Even in my own room at night with the door locked and curtains drawn I felt his intensity. Had I done something to anger him? Why can’t I shake this brute from me?

However, this night was something different. It had been lashing down rain all day and with dusk approaching the weather still wasn’t letting up. I had been stuck at one of my usual haunts since the afternoon, stopping in originally for a couple quick drinks afore heading home. But being holed up in a pub for so long causes barflies to swarm around you. A couple rough looking gents with scars to suggest they’re naturals at picking fights had been looking me up and down for the past hour and it was beginning to get on my nerves. Figures, I can’t go anywhere without some kind of nasty look tossed my way. I turned my head to look out the tavern’s window at the rain. It had lightened up slightly but that wasn’t saying much. But seeing as I left my phone back at my apartment there really was no reason for me to pissed about being soaked during the walk home. I sighed and handed the bartender a tip.

“Don’t seem like it’s letting up any time soon, mate, I’ll just suffer through it,” I muttered, finishing my third drink of the evening.

“Aye, just don’t drown, Kenway,” he nodded and with that I left the bar.

I had only gone about a block before I heard gruff voices call out and heavyset footsteps approaching with haste. Blast it, those codgers are lookin’ for a brawl, I thought as I looked over my shoulder to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, the two men from the pub that were glaring at me were chasing after me. I began to run, not in the mood to fight them in a storm and hoping me speeding my pace would cause them to give up. Unfortunately, they didn’t give up and began cackling behind me.

“Where you goin’ blondie?” I heard one of them holler. “We just want to chat!”

I stepped wrong while running and it sent a surge of pain up my left leg, making me stumble a little. I hadn’t fallen, but the mistake did hurt quite a bit. I tried to bare the feeling long enough to turn the next block’s corner into a secluded road only about a block from my apartment. Once I reached the dirt path, I hurried behind a dumpster and massaged my knee. It must have popped from a bad foot placement. A slick sidewalk is never good running conditions, and it doesn’t help that I was wearing sandals. I slowed my breathing, expecting that the men would’ve just ran past this road. That is until one of the blokes took a fistful of my hair and dragged me from behind the dumpster in front of their partner. With his boot pushing me into the sludge I just wanted to slap myself for thinking they wouldn’t see the muddy foot prints I had left behind while I ran for cover.

The one that had caught me kneeled down over my back, lifting my head up to look at the other while restraining my arms. “Well, what d'ya think, man?”

His friend grinned, unbuckling his belt. “Yeah, this punk’ll do just fine.”

Ah. So, it wasn’t a fight they wanted. I writhed under the man and managed to buck him off, only for his accomplice to quickly grab me by the throat and pin me against the wall. He had a sick grin on his face and the sinister aura of it was only heightened by his grey eyes and the rain dripping down his cheeks. The other one punched me in the jaw while grey eyes held me still. I grunted, the hand on my throat flexing.

“Thought you could just run off again, sweetheart?” grey eyes sneered, leaning into my face in a way I’m assuming was meant to intimidate me. “Why don’t you just play along and we’ll let you go when we’re done, eh?”

Now, spitting in those pretty eyes of his probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done, but shit, it’s what I did. He grimaced and I managed to knee him in the crotch. He let go of my neck and I began to run off again but his pal tackled me to the ground. He held my face in the mud to stifle my yelp while grey eyes stomped on my ribcage.

“You ugly son of a whore!” he snapped. “We tried to play nice but now I’m gonna kill you and set your body ablaze in that dumpster once we’re finished!”

My head was lifted from the ground so I could look at him. I spat mud out of my mouth and smirked, knowing it’d only piss grey eyes off more. “Like you and your buddy have the stones for that.”

I wonder if he felt strong when he kicked my cheek. It’ll leave a bruise yes but I think me biting his cock off when he tries to force it down my throat will hurt him worse. I regrettably never got to enact my revenge on him though.

“Get off him,” a rough voice demanded through the rain.

I don’t remember much of what happened next. Grey eyes ordered his friend to knock me out so I wouldn’t run off while they dealt with the man. Shame. I would’ve loved to watch the fight.

When I opened my eyes next, I was at my apartment in my bath tub. The curtain was open and a man was standing in jeans and a white tank top. Red splotches dotted and splattered his clothes. He was rinsing his hands in my sink, blood washing off them, his knuckles raw. My eyes explored up his scarred arms to his face and that’s when my heart dropped. Alexios was in my bathroom. Why was he here? Why was I naked? Why was he covered in blood? How had he got in here? I must’ve made some sort of noise trying to figure out what to do about this situation because he looked at me in the mirror. I sunk down in the water, afraid of his plans with me.

“Hmph. You’re awake,” he huffed.

I recognized the voice. He was the man in the alley that intervened. That only brought up more questions in my head. “Why–”

“I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in while you were out–”

“Why am I naked?” I blurted out.

He looked confused about me interrupting him at first, but a snide smile spread on his face. “You were covered in mud, Edward.”

“How’d we get in here?”

“You’ve got keys, don’t you?”

I bit my lip and glared at him. Sass, huh? I studied his shirt again and noticed dirt down his right shoulder. He must have carried me here after giving those blighters what for. Still, I wasn’t sure how I felt about him stripping me while I was out cold. He lifted off his tank top and tossed it in my hamper, using one of my towels to wipe the smudges off his arm. It was my first time seeing him without something over his torso and all I could think was that he was chiseled like a damn statue. He put that rag in the hamper, too, then turned his attention to me.

“You could at least thank me for saving your skin and washing you, boy,” he said, a blank expression I couldn’t decipher on his face.

My ears got hot. He washed me? Just thinking of his hands rubbing down my body… Jaysus… “Uh, right. Thanks.”

He nodded and moved over to stand over me. “You’ve been soaking long enough; I think it’s time we got you out and dried you off.”

Alexios reached down to lift me out of the tub but I squirmed out of the way. “I-I can stand myself, mate. Just… can you fetch me some trousers?”

He huffed, almost seeming disappointed in my competence. After he left the room I stood and dried myself off with a towel. I wrapped it around my waist, bending over to drain the tub. I flinched when I heard the floorboards creak outside the bathroom door. I knew he was standing there but he wasn’t saying anything, just watching me with those shadowy eyes. When I turned around, he handed me some bottoms—a pair of white swim trunks that wouldn’t even reach mid-thigh. I sighed but took them from him regardless.

I went to slide the shorts on but his stare not breaking from me caused my hands to hesitate. “Do you mind, mate?”

“No,” he said, still not breaking eye contact with my skin.

I blushed and positioned myself away from him, but even with my face away from his I could still feel his gaze. I attempted to wriggle into the trunks while I had the towel around my waist but right before I could pull them all the way up it fell to the floor. I hastily tugged the shorts on, now more than ever unable to look Alex in the eye, though based off the low snicker behind me he enjoyed my mishap. Figures. I shifted to have my face toward him but still wouldn’t look at his face. He seemed able to detect that I was unsure of him. From the mirror I was able to spy his grin as his own gaze met mine in the reflection. Against my own wishes my eyes instinctively darted away to the floor and he laughed louder.

“Tell me, blondie,” his voice sounded like a wolf’s growl as he approached me slowly. “do you fear me?”

I didn’t answer him. Both because I couldn’t find the courage to say no and even if I said so I’m sure he could detect I was lying. Now standing inches from me I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I’ve never felt so terrified and I’ve had swords to my throat, been beaten half to death, and survived multiple shipwrecks. I’m not sure what I was expecting him to do to me, but grab my pony tail and wrench my hair down so my neck was straining to look at him wasn’t it. He looked livid with me. I pushed away from him but he shoved me against the wall, the back of my head slamming up against the tiles. I yelped but Alexios slapped me across the face with the back of his hand and grabbed my jaw to keep my eyes focused on him, his fingers digging into my skin.

“When I ask you a question, answer me,” he snarled. “Got that?”

I tried to speak when he asked; I really did. But my body was trembling and it didn’t help when he shook me. I could feel that there was water in my eyes but I couldn’t tell if I actually had started crying when he shook me the second time, I just started shouting out an answer. My voice felt like a foreign object in my mouth, I couldn’t control anything I said to him. “Yes! All right? I am afraid of you mate! And why shouldn’t I be? I’ve heard plenty of stories on how ruthless you are and now I’m pinned to my own wall half naked being shouted at by you, you fucking knave! Now either kill me too or let go of me!”

Alexios stood like a brick wall when I attempted yet again to push him off me. There was nothing in his expression. He was just, watching. His grip on my face didn’t change for what felt like hours so I stared back at him, wondering if he could crush my jaw in his hand. From this close to him, mere breaths away, I studied him as he always did me. Alexios’ eyes were intense, but I could feel there was something behind them, something that almost felt like innocence broken by misplaced trust. He had a scar on his left cheek that cut through the top of his eyebrow. There was sleeplessness under his eyes creating dark circles. With all this mutual observing I wondered if he felt anything looking at me. After an eternity he at last blinked a few times and his hands dropped to my shoulders. His visage softened and I realized I still had my hands pushing against him. When I began to take them away, he suddenly wrapped his arms around me in a hard embrace. My face was pressed into his neck while he held me, his head against mine. I could feel his heart beating against my chest as he made an effort to pull me as close to him as possible. I was baffled. This man just slapped and shouted at me, I just admitted I feared him, I can still feel his fingers and palm’s sting on my face, and now he’s hugging me?

“I… I am sorry, Edward,” he mumbled into my hair. His voice seemed to crack for a moment and I heard him sniffle. Was he crying? “I didn’t mean to harm you, I just… I—I can’t control myself.”

If I was puzzled before I was utterly lost now. “Alex—”

“I needed to know how I made you feel, whether or not you trust me, if you feared my presence. And here I stand, with you shuddering in my grasps. I never wanted you to feel this way, Edward. I—I never wanted you to—I never—”

He was crying, choking on his words like I had before. Was this a confession? I blinked off any tears my fear might have brought in and pushed back from him to look him in the eye. He held his head down but I could still see a tear stream down over his scar. He spoke of me quaking in his arms but nothing compares to the quiver when I took his head in my hands to make him look at me. He appeared so distraught by his own actions. When I moved my hands to his broad shoulders, he slumped against me, something I’ll admit I wasn’t quite ready for. He wasn’t that much larger than me, I’ll admit, but I wasn’t prepared to support his weight and we fell to the floor, half in the hallway and half in the loo. He laid on top of me and I wormed around but it seems his revelation exhausted the man. Sighing, I settled into the floor, pondering how long I’d be stuck there under Alexios. His cheeks had dried from his fit of emotion and his breathing had slowed to a normal pace. I endeavored to run my fingers through his hair, but his dreads were too thick to comfort this brooding baby in that way. I stared at the ceiling with my arms stretched out over my head, questioning why I was even still laying here, I’ve moved men heavier than him off me before. Was I just afraid to wake him? I looked at him sleeping on me. For once I didn’t feel fear from his presence, in fact I pitied him. He clearly needed something like this, though if all he wanted from me was to relax on my body, I felt bad for avoiding him for so long.

I think I may have drifted off a little while we laid on the floor. When I woke up it was significantly darker in the apartment, the only light being the bathroom’s. I must have made some sort of noise or shifted slightly because Alexios suddenly groaned and lifted his chest off me. He had his hands planted on either side of my shoulders and my arms were still reaching above my head on the wood. While we slept our legs had also joined in on this compromising position, my thighs resting over his with his groin against me. We blushed when our eyes met and Alex sat back on his heels to let me sit up as well.

“Sorry about that, Edward,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

“No worries mate, I didn’t mind it at all!” I laughed, trying to break the tension between us.

Alexios raised an eyebrow at me and cocked his head. “At all?”

“Not in the slightest!” I need to stop talking without thinking.

“Is that so?”

“Yep!” Oh my god.

He seemed to have this queer plan forming in his head. I wanted to bite my tongue off. Considering how he reacted when I was naked earlier, I’m sure me saying I was completely comfortable having him pressing on top of me was only adding insult to injury. He looked me up and down with an inquisitive nature, almost debating his next move. I gulped when I noticed his lips form a smirk. I stayed on the floor while he got to his feet, my body stuck in this pose looking up at him like I was a submitting dog. That snide mien returned to him when he stood over me. I tried to smile at him in the friendliest manner I could, though I think he misunderstood what kind of friend I was trying to come off as.

“Well, in that case, blondie,” he lifted me into his arms in a fisherman’s carry and marched me into my room after turning off the bathroom light. I was dropped on my back in my sheets and watched Alexios hold his belt buckle. “You wouldn’t mind getting to know each other better, now would you?”

I think I put the most thought into this answer of any I said all day. I felt my stare glued to his hands on that buckle and my tongue pushed itself against the roof of my mouth. For the first time since the day I met him I gave him a genuine smile. “No, I certainly wouldn’t.”

He returned me with a satisfied leer, quickly getting to unbuckling his pants, whipping his belt off so swiftly it made a whooping noise. Alexios grabbed me by my ankles and pulled me to the foot of the bed, putting the belt on around my neck like a collar and leash. He didn’t secure the buckle so it felt more like a noose, but regardless I felt ready to melt into anything he put me in, be it this leather strap or a rope. He tugged on the belt and it tightened around my throat, causing me to groan. He sat on the bed next to me and patted his lap for me to rest my head over. I was on my stomach and he placed a hand over my ass whilst his other took his cock out in front of me. He began stroking it to get it fully erect with me watching through a hungry gaze, biting my lip as his fist rubbed down the veiny shaft, his knuckles still raw from his brawl. Once hard, Alexios took the belt to yank me towards his dick and I immediately got to work, my lips kissing his tip before licking it in a circular motion. My tongue traced down his skin then back up to the head and I heard him sigh as I moved my mouth down around his cock. I went slow at first, going straight to the base and from his light muttered swear I could tell he wasn’t expecting I could deepthroat him. I got cocky and began sucking him with more force, moving my head back and forth down him. My showing off seemed to be working for Alex as his hand became snugger on my ass. I moved my left hand down to go to town on my own member, but he noticed me rubbing myself and spanked my ass with the same force he slapped me with earlier. I whimpered and instinctively withdrew my hand, him amused by my retreat.

“Good boy, you’ve been trained well,” he whispered to me.

He’s right, I’ve learned to be wont to being used like this. He spanked me again, and he appeared to enjoy my muffled yelps as he did it again, and again, and again. My skin felt numb and my cock was begging me to stroke it. I decided that if he was just going to continuing slapping me like this I might as well try to rub myself once more, just to see if he was willing to let me. I quickly learned he wasn’t, as when I started moving my hand down once more, he grabbed the back of my head and choked me with his cock, my lips pressed to the base of his groin. I attempted to push my head back so I could breathe but his hold was far stronger than my neck. I began gagging, wondering if he was going to let me breathe any time soon. Perhaps he liked how it felt to have his cock in my throat while I choked. He switched up his hands so he no longer was holding my ass but unfortunately for me he grabbed the belt with his other. Alex pulled it skintight, compressing my throat and I felt tears forming in my eyes. I moved my hands to hold his thigh, digging my nails into him as if to ask him if he was trying to kill me already. There was a low chuckle when I struggled to pull away from him, like he was enjoying my scriking. I was becoming more desperate to move off of him, but it was too difficult with him being so much stronger than me.

“Scared, are we?” He leaned in over me, yanking my head back so I could look into his glare. “Next time don’t touch yourself without my permission, understand?”

I moaned in response to him, hoping he’d finally let me catch my breath. He patted my head and finally released me, my body moving on its own to get away from him, gasping for air while I backed up against the wall on the other end of the bed. Alexios had a wicked grin on his face, grabbing the belt to pull me back to him.

“Aw, I really did frighten you. You’ve got your mascara running down your cheeks like a scared little whore,” he said while wiping my face with his thumb.

I was still winded and with my panic subsiding I began to see red. “You… what the fuck were you trying to do? Suffocate me?”

He frowned, clearly able to detect my irritation with him. “Sorry, I had gotten ahead of myself.”

Alexios was looking down at the floor like a guilty dog and I rolled my eyes, kicking him in the side. “Well shit mate, don’t stop, just give me a damn warning next time.”

I saw his entire body perk up and he shifted around, taking the ‘leash’ in his hand and tugging me closer to him. He noticed me wince from how taut the belt was around my neck and loosened it slightly for me which made me groan again. Honestly, either be rough with me or play nice, don’t keep switching up. I lurched forward and shoved him down on the sheets, kissing him and smiling against his lips at the startled noise he made. I grinded my pelvis over his cock, his hands slapping down on my ass to jerk me into him. I felt his fingers caressing the seam on my trunks but I shrugged it off, not realizing he was looking for the best place to grab a hold of so he could rip open my shorts. It was one quick tear and it’s fair to say I wasn’t ready for it. Alexios grabbed my flesh, toying with it in his palms while I rocked back and forth on him. He kissed me back as he rolled over on top of me, but only for a short time as he soon moved his mouth down to kiss my jaw, my neck, and then my shoulder. At my shoulder, he bit me and I yelped, my hands and legs wrapping around him while he tore my skin. He lapped at the blood from my fresh wound like he was a wolf.

Alexios’ eyes shot me a harsh glance, though before I could think about what that look meant he answered my question with his cock up my ass. I cried out, wishing he gave me more of a warning than just a simple stare before going in raw, but I guess he wasn’t used to being accommodating. He continued this trend of being unaccommodating while he fucked me, his strokes inside me being ruthless and deep. I couldn’t control my voice; I was just a whining mess at his mercy. Alex shook my arms off his back and pinned my arms down next to my head, his weight being pressed into my wrists. My legs tightened around his waist in response to the way he was dominating me, still aching to touch myself but knowing there was no way he’d let that happen. He seemed to love my wailing; his grunts tainted by low laughs. I see his life as Deimos has made him have a fetish for causing pain in others. Hmph, schadenfreude.

I continued trying to free myself, but damn was this guy strong. I couldn’t even manage to lift my pinned wrists, and that’s with the added adrenaline of my ass feeling like it was being torn to shreds by his lack of empathy. Alexios didn’t once seem to want to slow down with me. He just wanted things done his way and couldn’t careless about how much pain I was in. Perhaps I gave him the impression I could take a beating and that’s why he’s been eyeing me the way he has. I could hear his grunts deepening; he must have really been feeling this semi-torture session. His love of completely dominating me made me wonder if he just viewed me as prey, a toy for him to use and then he’d throw me away. The idea of that must’ve turned me on quite a bit as I felt precum from my cock drip onto my pelvis. I’m not surprised I was into being used; I just wish I had standards for how I was treated in bed. Honestly, I wish I wasn’t wincing through this dealing so I could keep my eyes open long enough to properly see the expression on Alexios’ face. What I’d give to be able to watch this beast fuck me before my eyes…

Alex’s speed somehow went faster and his grip on my wrists turned into an almost crushing feeling “Oh god Edward…” I heard him moan.

I swear I was about to bite a hole in my lip. I had bit myself to stifle an actual scream from the pain, but luckily for me after Alexios came I only had to suffer through a few more rough pumps. After those he slowed to a halt, both of us catching our breaths for the moment. I finally got a good look at him, sweat soaking his brow and his cheeks red. He pulled out of me and I felt his cum dripping out of me as he did. He finally moved off from holding my wrists and sat back, looking at the clear hard on in my shorts and the mess he made of my rear. I tried to give him a little simper so he’d know I enjoyed it, but he just kept staring at my bottom with the same gaze I was giving his cock earlier. I gulped, knowing he still wasn’t finished with me.

“Roll over,” he demanded and I obliged with haste.

I had originally been on my hands and knees but Alexios knocked me down to my elbows afore grabbing my thighs. He bit my inner thigh before licking up my leg to my ass where he bit me again. I winced, this guy really liked using teeth, huh? I felt him lick the bite, stinging my flesh before his tongue traced to the rim of my ass. Is… is he going to eat me out?

Well, it wasn’t a question for long. Sure enough, Alexios started lapping away despite having just came inside me. My stomach fluttered, he just kept surprising me. My cock was twitching uncontrollably, I was moments away from climaxing myself. And then he stopped, grabbing my hair by the pony tail, wrenching my body backwards. The back of my head laid on his lap, his gaze meeting min. Alexios wiped his mouth and shot me a jeering leer, sending a shiver down my spine. My heart was beating quickly as his stare moved down my body.

“Look at you, dripping like a girl would,” he taunted, flicking my cock’s head. I yelped which he seemed to like. “Let me guess, you want to cum, don’t you?”

I nodded. I’d want nothing more than to finally finish. He’s been toying with me for so long I felt numb. Usually I’d feel happier about lasting longer than my partner but this was just too much, I was losing my mind.

Alexios took my wrists in his fingers, those rough hands pinning my arms against the sheets. “Beg for it, blondie.”

I didn’t even try to fight him. I just bit my tongue and swallowed any remaining pride I had. “Please, Alex,” my voice was quivering as I spoke but who could blame me, I was desperate. “I want to cum, I need to, please let me, mate, it’s driving me mad. I need it, Alex, I feel numb. Please, please, please, let me—”

Alexios had grinned right before he slapped me across the face. Judging by the laughter, I must’ve done something right. Even so, my skin was left with yet another one of his handprints on it and I only wished he’d stop playing these games and just cut me the least bit of slack so I could just—

A knife pressed up against my throat. Alexios had pulled a switchblade from his pocket while I was recovering from his palm’s burn. My breathing changed to become shorter and more rapid. I could feel the edge grazing my skin. One slip of his fingers and my throat would be cut, be it on accident or purpose, I wouldn’t be able to tell with him. All I had to go on was that same old snide smile. His other hand stoked my hair, twirling strands around. He used the blade to tilt my chin back so I had to look down my nose at him. His thumb graced my cheek in a soothing way, almost making me forget all about the weapon in his other hand.

“You may touch yourself now, sweetheart, but keep those blue eyes of yours shut,” he whispered to me.

My heart rate was still speeding but, somehow, I managed to calm myself enough to shut my eyes and move my hands down to my groin without moving my neck, a feat harder than someone who’s never had a blade against their throat might think. My cock was peeking out the waistband of my trunks so I just finished pulling down the shorts so I could rub myself. The feeling of my fingers finally touching me was pure ecstasy. I bit my lip while I finished myself off, Alex still petting the side of my head. While I couldn’t see his face right now, I knew he was grinning from watching my spray myself with my own semen. As soon as the blade moved from my neck, I began panting like a thirsty dog to catch my breath. He swiped the blade over my abdomen carefully so he wouldn’t slice me while I breathed, though at this point I don’t think I’d have cared if he did.

Alexios patted the side of my head. “Open your eyes, my little puppy, and stick out your tongue. I’ve got a treat for you.”

I opened my eyes slowly, still panting but now with my tongue out I really felt like his mutt. In front of my face he held his switchblade, it glazed with my cum. He wiped the blade over my tongue.

“Good boy. Now, swallow.”

I did, even opening my mouth to show him, which he seemed to get a kick out of. He chuckled, rustling my hair. I smirked back at him; glad to see I had done a good job for him. He leaned back against my pillows and I rolled over on top of him, moving up his body so I could lay on his chest rather than his legs. He looked overjoyed, his forearm over his eyes while he shined a grand smile.

“Hey, Alex,” I said, trying to get his attention without success. I flicked his arm, though he didn’t even flinch. Pouting, I grabbed his jaw and pulled him to face me. “Oi, Alex.”

He looked a little surprised that I had suddenly grabbed him, but he was still grinning. “What, Goldilocks?”

Goldilocks, oh how many times I’ve heard that. “’Fraid I don’t fear you no more, mate.”

Alexios’ fingers brushed through my hair. “Aw, what a shame. Guess I’ll need to reinstate that later, huh?”

I knew I was dancing with a devil at this point, but still I gave him a cheeky smile. “I’d like to see you try.”

He and I shared a fit of giggling banter before falling asleep. When I woke up, the side of the bed he had slept on was empty. I frowned for a moment before hearing clanking coming from the kitchen and him groaning. I snickered, shaking my head. Can’t believe I was scared of him just hours ago. When I stood to go help him out with breakfast, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Torn shorts with cum staining the fabric, bruises dotted my skin alongside a few bitemarks. The worst of these marks were the bruises wrapping around my neck and my swollen ass. The shiner from the kick in the face I took yesterday wasn’t nothing either, but judging by the amount of blood Alex’s shirt was drenched with I couldn’t really complain. I changed my pants to some clean striped boxer briefs before heading into my kitchen where I found Alexios running his hand under water.

I grinned while watching him, walking towards him silently. Once behind him I slapped his ass, making the brute jump and swear. I laughed at his reaction, leaning my body up against his shoulder while he covered his face in embarrassment.

“Come to help me then, blondie?” he sighed.

I pressed my head against his shoulder and wrapped my arm around his waist. “Shit, if you’re really struggling that much to fry a couple eggs.”

He groaned at my snark, though I helped him anyway, not wanting him to burn himself making scrambled eggs again, even though his brief incompetence was kind of cute. The eggs weren’t that bad, just a tad burnt. We parted ways about an hour later, though the next day I saw him those dark eyes looked more afraid of my ability to bounce back from his beating than anything else. At last, it was my stare burning his skin, not his on mine. I grinned at him and his eyes darted away from me. He was scared of me.

Good.

#alexward #alexios #edward #assassins creed #i write #its 5:47am #im so sorry my dear sweet boy #if youre lucky i'll write a smut of you fucking arno instead of the one i want to write where roberts #ya know #tortures you senselessly #yall reading this like 'shit at least it isnt noncon'#acod #ac4

15 notes · View notes

flipflopflying · 6 years ago

Text

CARIBOU DELUXE (EDICIÓN DE LUJO)

This drawing is called Caribou Deluxe. The other images in this post make it the edición de lujo, the deluxe edition; kinda like when a band does a special version of their new album. I wanted to do a drawing that was more than "a" drawing. I wanted to do something that could be explored, something that was more than just a series of close-up details of the main drawing. So the main drawing is kinda like the cover of a magazine, showing you what is inside.

CONTENTS

1. Caribou Deluxe. The actual drawing.

2. The initial quick notebook sketch.

3. Another sketch done a couple of days later, after the digital process had begun and the general idea became clearer in my head.

4. Top view.

5. Three new Minipops and two redrawn Minipops. The new Minipops: No. 1,380 - Beastie Boys (Fight for Your Right). No. 1,381 - Elijah Wood, Seth Rogen, and Danny McBride as the Beastie Boys. No. 1,382 - Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Jack Black as the Beastie Boys. The redrawn Minipops: No. 38b - Beastie Boys (Intergalactic), originally drawn in 1999. No. 1,383 - Beastie Boys (Ch-Check It Out). The latter was done for a client (MTV Europe) in 2004, and was never given a Minipop number at the time, thus it being No. 1,383. I, as you may well imagine, am slightly irritated by this chronological mess-up.

6. Beastie Dots: No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Data visualisation of who raps what on the song.

7. Beastie Boys album timeline.

8. One pixel Beastie Boys sleeves. Plus previous one pixel sleeves by the Beatles and Depeche Mode.

9. A full version of the Berliner Fernsehturm that is reflected in copper-coloured mirror glass windows at the top of the octagon "head."

10. All the graffiti on the pyramid.

ABOUT CARIBOU DELUXE

A brief explanation: I wanted to draw something that relates to where my brain is at right now, in January 2019.

The Fernsehturm reflected in the brown windows (inspired by the old Palast der Republik) is there because Berlin will always be in my head. It's the place where I've spent the most time in my adult life, and the place that feels closest to a home town (even though I wasn't born here).

The pyramid base is a Mesoamerican thing, and that—combined with the food stalls and the rooftop laundry cages—is for Mexico, the other place that feels like home, the place where my heart is.

I'm trying to be a better person as I get older, and trying to get rid of elements of grumpiness, bad moods, etc. Trying not to be a person that automatically assumes young people aren't doing life the right way. That's where the graffiti comes in. For quite a while I thought of it purely as vandalism, but something clicked in my brain recently: it is a part of every city—specifically the cities I love—and it's not gonna ever go away. I covered the pyramid in graffiti to remind myself of that. (The graffiti names, btw, are either random words that came into my head, or are related to things or people in my life. I also wanted to show the range of graffiti styles I see around Berlin every day. If I have used a real graffiti artist's name here, it is purely a coincidence. Indeed, after finishing the pixel graffiti, I saw some graffiti in my neighbourhood that said "Queso." Apologies to the real-life Queso for borrowing his/her name.)

I've been listening to the Beastie Boys quite a bit recently and thinking about how they are only a few years older than me. I was a teenager when the tabloids were getting the vapours about their behaviour when they were touring in the UK for the first time. I remember every Volkswagen car in my (actual) home town suddenly missing its badge. A band getting older, changing as people and artistically, seemed to fit with the whole idea of examining my own life. Plus, y'know, people (friends, artists, musicians...) can do wonderful things, but life isn't always wonderful. Sometimes people you love die.

There are four separate parts to the Beastie Boys stuff here. The coloured dots in the centre of the top and bottom thirds of the octagonal head represent the lyrics of No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Each dot is a word. The colours of the dots show who rapped the words: red dots are Ad-Rock, blue dots are Mike D, green dots are MCA. Above the eyes there's a timeline of their studio albums, showing the year of release, and the height shows the US chart peak positions. The eight little squares beneath the blue eye (each of the eyes are the colour of the members of the band, and the ring around the eyes acts as a key to aforementioned No Sleep Till Brooklyn dots) are the colours one gets when the sleeves of the albums are resized to be one pixel in size.

You may be wondering why I've drawn Minipops of the Fight for Your Right version of the Beastie Boys and the coloured dots are for No Sleep Till Brooklyn. The drawing is because I wanted to draw the other two versions of the band played by actors in Fight for Your Right Revisited. I liked the idea of drawing them three times, as I'd already included three versions of me in the drawing (a younger version of me on the left balcony at the top, a version from a couple of years ago on the roof, and the current me spraying graffiti on the pyramid which, it should be noted, is the closest I will ever get to actually doing any graffiti). Plus, I already did a graphic for Fight for Your Right in 2012 (look for "Beastie Dots" on flipflopflyin.com), and wanted to do something new for this piece.

Another thing that I should probably note is the unrealistic-ness of certain parts. The sky hints at the sun setting behind the structure, yet the reflection of the Fernsehturm (and the way shadows fall on other things) mean that the sun would be over the left shoulder of you, the viewer. Similarly, there's no reflection of the structure and bushes on the water. I have done 14 drawings in this vein over the last year, with pyramid-y or octagonal structures on the shore of a lagoon, and have yet to do a proper reflection in the water. I always think I should try it, and I did try it with this drawing, but it didn't look "right". I'm okay with this unrealistic element contributing to the fantasy of the landscapes. I'm similarly okay with drawing things that aren't correct while striving for getting other parts, other details as accurate as possible. I kinda like that it reenforces that this is MY landscape, not a drawing of a specific place.

As a whole, I had a desire to do something cool with pixels, to draw things that are a challenge, fun, and packed full of details. And to represent all of the shit that floats around my brain. To bring together different things I like doing: putting Minipops in non-Minipop-themed pixel drawings, and making the organisation of information (that would normally only occur as infographics) a part of something bigger. I hope you enjoy it x

16 notes · View notes

uniformbravo · 6 years ago

Text

me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

haha

hoooo oo o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

#this started out so boring like a tutorial (but made by someone who doesn't know what the fuck theyre talking abt)#& then things derail Real Quick #that's why this is the ''buildup ver.''#retag later #talkin bout stuff #today posts #rieley's wips #(me: i can't mention this youtuber by name in case my post shows up in search #me: *adds a link to the post rendering that effort for naught*#me: *leaves it anyway bc it's funny*)#pls listen to the outro musi c it's rly good & tunmgmldnr wouldnt let me embed the video & idk how to do it thru html & too lazy to look it #up :(

2 notes · View notes

reactingtosomething · 8 years ago

Text

Reacting to Insecure: The Pilot

Lean Back and High Five Her and Say “GURL I KNOW!”

The Setup: Marchae has eagerly anticipated, seen, and adored the first season of HBO’s Insecure. Miri has been meaning to since it came out and now has finally seen the pilot. We really like positive peer pressure, apparently.

All four of us discussed the preceding web series Awkward Black Girl in a class at DePaul University.

As always, after the fact notes are in italics, gifs are not ours, and you can look forward to another reaction on Thursday! Up next: the 2011 rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love.

MARCHAE: K! Let's go

How many episodes did you get to watch?

MIRI: Only the pilot, I’m afraid

😟

But I have left it queued up in another window because I might be in love with it

And may finish it by like Tuesday

MARCHAE: YAY

I am obsessed with it and took this as an opportunity to binge it for a second time

MIRI: That’s amazing

Ok, so general thoughts:

Issa Rae is just adorable

MARCHAE: God she is charming and it makes me ill!!!!! (In a good way)

MIRI: Like, her face is just great. She really sells the awkwardness and the asshole moments and you forgive her

I really liked that you can tell the some of the things she does are not condoned by the show

MARCHAE: Explain why don't you...

MIRI: Well, I think sometimes people want to play with bad behavior because it’s fun/interesting/dark/whatever but do so without having a clear opinion

So then it basically reads as the show endorsing whatever shitty behavior the characters have

Issa’s rap was mean. (It was amazing! but it was mean.) It was cruel to her friend and also kind of misogynistic

But it’s also shown to be kind of not ok

We’re not left wondering if that’s how Issa the character feels or how Issa Rae the creator feels. It’s clear

without being preachy/pedantic about it

I think sometimes wrtier/creator shows where the protagonist is a version of the creator have to be more aware of that line, and Insecure does it really well

MARCHAE: Yeah knowing the backstory of how hard she fought to maintain the original creative aesthetic of the show as it related to webseries I think makes that clear

MIRI: YES

MARCHAE: There were certain things she wasn't going to give up

MIRI: I also think it’s interesting how it has evolved from the web series. She’s at a different place in her life, so some of the elements have changed. (And not just the production value!!!) But the core of the show is still so there

MARCHAE: And she fought to keep. I don't think we are always supposed to "like" Issa but we are always supposed to "relate" to her so I can agree w you there for sure. she has to keep a lot of the elements from before to make sure this show didn't turn into a "glossy" remnant of what it was originally intended to be

How do you feel about her and Mollys relationship?

MIRI: Yes! I love a show that trusts the character and the audience enough to let the character be a bit of a dick sometimes. We’re already on Issa’s side and they’ve got that beautiful last little scene to show us why we should put up with her dick moments to get to the good again

MARCHAE: I've been dying to talk to you about that but someone only watched the pilot *wags finger....then still loves you**

MIRI: hahahahahahah that’s fair and I accept it

I really like their relationship!

MARCHAE: I mean legit I was on her side the moment they said ISSA’S GOT A SHOW EVERYONE!!!

MIRI: I think it felt very lived in. They have some built up issues, but also a lot of built up love and trust

I also really liked the VO with Issa comparing herself and Molly earlier in the episode

I like the VO in general

It’s so bad when it’s done poorly, but when voice over is done well it works SO well

Especially with such an interior character as Issa

MARCHAE: We also get a lot from her rap sequences

(Which by the way are everything)

MIRI: 100% agreed

MARCHAE: And in that pilot when she's trying on the make up

MIRI: On both scores

Another really great sequence!

That’s interesting--some of the best moments are Issa by herself, or surrounded by people but only talking to/with herself in one way or another

MARCHAE: I feel like she as a writer knows how to really milk it

MIRI: Definitely

MARCHAE: But I have to say it I think it's also because she's a dynamic writer

MIRI: What do you mean by that?

MARCHAE: Sorry actor* who knows how to use her face and body to communicate as well

MIRI: Ahhhhhhhhh

Gotcha

Yes, she is doing so much in the performance

MARCHAE: I think the character is also incredibly nuanced and complicated

MIRI: btw, I was just on her imdb and I did not realize how much other acting she has done

And a ton of producing

MARCHAE: (And as an aside I am glad little girls will now grow up in a world where Issa is a household name)

Yeah she's had a dynamic career actually she wrote her first script I think in high school her... first feature

I think ABG is what gained her recognition

MIRI: Yeah, that sounds right

I’d love to talk about the differences in title and tone between Awkward Black Girl and Insecure

MARCHAE: YES

And I'm not sure I love the change

MIRI: Interesting. Why?

MARCHAE: I think they have very different connotations

MIRI: I do--or at least I like the tone change. I feel like Insecure (the tone of the show, not necessarily the title) has more understanding of WHY Issa is so awkward

She’s not just baseline awkward about everything. She’s very competent in a lot of ways! But she’s insecure and that shows itself as a lot of awkwardness

But I do like Awkward Black Girl better as a title

MARCHAE: I think especially as a black woman there is lots to be "insecure" about

MIRI: It’s so distinctive, and it very deliberately tells you that this is a story about a version of a black woman that you haven’t seen before on tv

(ABG, I mean)

MARCHAE: But there are far more daily scenarios in which s*** is just awkward for so many reasons

MIRI: Ohhhhh that’s interesting

MARCHAE: And for no good reason be it people's ignorance(like the legit definition)... be it just random things that happen like people touching your hair... invading your space.... the list goes on

MIRI: Yes, she’s insecure about plenty, but the amount of awkward situations the world creates way trumps the amount of weirdness she creates through her own insecurities?

(Not that insecurities aren’t often pushed onto people by the outside world)

MARCHAE: So they don't force you to be insecure which is a whollllleeeee separate conversation so much as that awkward start and stop that happens daily on life

MIRI: That makes a lot of sense

youtube

MARCHAE: Right so when it was ABG it was more about those awkward moments and that's fine and funny ok! But insecure and I want to be clear in my opinion takes a much more cerebral tone if you have lived through some of the themes she touches on through the season

MIRI: Right, I obviously have not seen the whole season to comment

Nor have I lived life as a black woman

So I’m going to defer to you on how much each title works thematically!

MARCHAE: (*Texting too fast .. my opinion is that I love the show... both shows)

MIRI: I’m sorry! I’m a youth who texts fast. Feel free to mock me

MARCHAE: LOL

I'm really trying to keep up also my thumbs get on the way

MIRI: Marchae is falsely convinced convinced that she has “man thumbs”

MIRI: I can’t buy a house because of all the avocado toast, I’m killing the diamond industry, etc, etc

KRIS: But also, fuck the diamond industry (although there was that one classical piece of music that De Beers, I want to say?, used in its commercials for awhile, and my 8th grade orchestra teacher brought it in, and I was annoyed when most of the class couldn’t get it, and a classmate rightly called me out for being a dick about it, and the teacher just kind of chuckled to herself, and where were we?)

Also I’m doing this on my laptop, which is way faster

Ok, back to the show--one thing I always loved about the web series and continue to love about the HBO show is that it is extremely relatable

And it does that not through staying super vague and broad, but by going really specific

MARCHAE: Ok keep going I want to know more more more

MIRI: Well I think anything I have to say will be a poor retelling of what the amazing Jessica King covered in our web series class

but if you try to keep a character vague and applicable to everyone, no one will ever really identify with them

But Issa is so specific and clearly drawn. She and I are very different, but the specifics help to create moments that are universal

MARCHAE: That's incredibly true but this show does it with ALL of them

And it's so good even Molly!

MIRI: Very true! It’s so easy to just talk about Issa, but it’s true across the board from what little I’ve seen

I’ve never had a class of students call me out about about my hair, but I’ve felt awkward as fuck talking to a large group of people, or realizing I was supposed to be in charge but didn’t feel like it

MARCHAE: Miri you have to finish because you've already touched on things that will come up later

MIRI: I promise I will!

And we’ve all had that friend who fits in across different groups and you kind of hate them a little bit because you feel like you barely fit anywhere

MARCHAE: Now see I legitimately HAVE BEEN ISSA

MIRI: But also you love them, obviously

MARCHAE: Yup

MIRI: Tell me more

MARCHAE: Well for one I work at a non profit for kids

They question everything about your life, clothing choices etc to the point you question your own life choice... simultaneously I've also been in that awkward position of having to tell people to stop telling black/brown children what they *need* to be doing or going

The hair thing is a constant struggle and I even had a boss call my locs "those things" and try to touch

So it's real

MIRI: THAT IS NOT OK

MARCHAE: I do appreciate that she allows for a bit of levity and you feel almost compelled to lean back and high five her and say "GURL I KNOW!"

MIRI: There is merit in using humor to address real and difficult shit

MARCHAE: I was typing something similar

But it also allows for dialogue

To be open about why things are

MIRI: Because the people who already know about it both need to see themselves and to not have to slog through the mud emotionally to do so

And it makes it easier for people who haven’t lived that kind of experience to be opening to hearing it

MARCHAE: It is a great primer

MIRI: Which is obviously not Issa Rae or anyone’s job, but can be the most effective

MARCHAE: THANK YOU!!!

It becomes emotionally taxing at times

there is also Molly who tackles the notion of the black woman never getting married

The more educated she is

The show really picks at a lot of the stereotypes and things women go through

But as you've said she manages to make it universal

And allows you to feel like you can ask questions or be empowered to learn about where we are

Sorry I feel like me and my thumbs have highjacked your reaction

MIRI: Hahahahahah it’s both of our reaction!

Also it’s a half hour show that I have only seen the pilot of so far, so I can’t actually speak to a lot of what they’re clearly laying the groundwork for

yet

But I will!

I’m looking forward to seeing how much through line there is here

It doesn’t feel like a classic sitcom where it’ll just be the story of the week every week

But I don’t know if that means it’ll be very serialized or not

MARCHAE: It definitely has a serial element

And definitely builds

MIRI: oh good

MARCHAE: Yeah

MIRI: Also just in terms of production values I’m looking forward to seeing more of it--I’ve seen some gifs and it’s a beautiful looking show

MARCHAE: MIRI

MIRI: WHAT

MARCHAE: It is so pretty to watch and the cool things they do with lighting to juxtapose Issa and Molly

I freaking gasp

(Internally)

KRIS: This is a pretty long lighting digression, and it’s only loosely connected to this particular point about Insecure, but I think it’s pretty important. From an interview with John Cho:

"There's an eye, and it's not a malicious eye, which is a way that the people working the camera and behind the scenes view [Asian actors]. And then they process it and they put it on film. And it's not quite human. Whereas Asian films, they are considered fully human. Fully heroic, fully comic, fully lovely, fully sad, whatever it is. And it's this combination of lighting, makeup, and costume.

"If you don't think of a person as fully human, you sort of stop short and go, That’s good enough. Do you remember Doug Liman’s film Go? I remember Taye Diggs in that movie, and he was charcoal black. I was surprised to see him in How Stella Got Her Groove Back — I realized that Go was not an accurate representation of his skin tone whatsoever. And I've met him. He was carelessly lit. Why is that? Why is one carelessly lit? The white people were carefully lit."

MIRI: Yay! Looking forward to it

MARCHAE: I mean you see it in the pilot too though

Mollys job is bright and shiny

MIRI: Right, I mean looking forward to continuing to see more of it

MARCHAE: Issa's home is really dark

MIRI: Yes! Issa’s job is very industrial lighting

MARCHAE: (Oh my bad)

MIRI: (No, I wasn’t clear!)

MARCHAE: Then the classroom even has a very different kind of gritty aesthetic

I also want to pay a nod to the way Issa chooses to express herself through the hip hop lens

And you mentioned it briefly earlier in a different context

I honestly think it is empowering to see her rap -and even though mean- "broken pussy" in many ways is kind of the inciting incident for the rest of the series

MIRI: Oh, totally! From what I can tell from the pilot it’s both a moment of empowerment--I can do this! I can be amazing at this!--and a reminder that living for yourself doesn’t mean stepping on others to do so

So there’s a lot of journey set up there

Also she’s just a really good rapper and I look forward to getting to hear her do more

MARCHAE: RIGHT

I mean I rap at myself but she's like good ... I am not

MIRI: (btw if you really want the people to understand the ways in which you ARE Issa, we should include video of you rapping to Hamilton)

Wait you rap like you make up your own raps?

HOW HAVE I NOT EXPERIENCED THIS???

MARCHAE: I do and I do not write them down

It's not a thing

MIRI: It clearly is a thing

MARCHAE: I mean not really and it's usually just like chants

MIRI: A thing that has been hidden from me for three years

I’m very excited about this

MARCHAE: So on that way I am like Issa like words that rhyme come out of my mouth

MIRI: What is the tone/subject matter of your rap?

MARCHAE: See it's not rap

It's like empowerment chants

MIRI: Cool! That sounds very affirmational, which we could all use

MARCHAE: Like: you got this get it, get it ...they caint mess wit it...wit it

See that's different than a rap

LOL

MIRI: I mean it’s on the way to being rap

MARCHAE: NOooooo

I would never do it in public

Or in front of others and Hamilton is like rap-lite

I mean we all rap to Hamilton

MIRI: It’s the one thing that can unite everyone

KRIS: ...We’re going to have a Hamilton-related Reaction at some point, aren’t we

MIRI: Obviously

MARCHAE: Also true!

I really can't wait for you to watch the rest of the show

I'd love to dig deeper with you about the Molly/Issa dynamic as it evolves in terms of how women relate

MIRI: Ok, well we will just have to do another once I’ve finished the season

And when does season two drop? I know they’re already filming

MARCHAE: What other reactions did you have to the pilot (also I feel like KM does a way better job of asking good questions)

I thinkkkk July

MIRI: My immediate reaction was “That’s SO far away!” and then I realized it is not and omg we’re already nearly halfway through the year

MARCHAE: HA!!

youtube

You can watch the pilot of Insecure for free on Issa Rae’s YouTube channel

MIRI: Ok, other pilot reactions:

I am always a sucker for junk food/good food as shorthand for women bonding and being themselves

I know it’s done a lot, but it’s still so rare to see women actually eat on tv that it gets me every time

MARCHAE: Oh yeah I forgot about that!

And it's not a carrot stick or single cheese cube

MIRI: No! Fake cheese powder or bust

MARCHAE: HA

MIRI: (Seriously, though I love every example of this kind of thing--Supergirl, Agent Carter, One Day at a Time)

I didn’t have much interested in the boyfriend that she sort of dumps, but I don’t really think I was supposed to

MARCHAE: (It also reminds me of family and home like you eat with those people you're living with related to comfortably and unapologetically)

MIRI KEEP WATCHING

MIRI: WAIT DOES HE COME BACK AND HAVE REAL STORY?

MARCHAE: you will develop interest I'm trying hard not to spoil

GIRL you have no clue

MIRI: You are definitely spoiling that things happen, if not how or what exactly happens

But I’m ok with it

MARCHAE: (Also I may include a few books to read with this post)

MIRI: You can add all the links you want

Or tell me and I’ll add them

MARCHAE: Oh shoot I really don't need to be doing this LOL

I don't love her guy I will say that and not because he does anything I think more or less I want to know what they were like before and I'm afraid I'll never know that

Because good writers start the storylines where the action starts

And I'm also the only person who always wants to tell the story of how we got here

MIRI: I think there can be merit in both

Depending on the story

And how we got here is a different sequence of action, but it can be action nonetheless

MARCHAE: True but here I know in my heart it's less important (right now this season)

Season 1*

MIRI: Anyway, I think that’s what I have to say for the pilot. I’m really looking forward to seeing more and being able to talk about the season arcs next time!!!

For now, it’s a really fun, very watchable show. You can get a lot from it without it feeling heavy to watch or anything like that. Issa is a super likable character who is clearly going to make some bad choices and some good ones and I am super excited to watch that play out

MARCHAE: Same!!! This has been fun and we WILL check back in!!!

MIRI: Woo!

Marchae’s Recommended Reading

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl - Issa Rae (Atria, 2016)

How to Be Black - Baratunde Thurston (Harper, 2012) *The audio version is preferred

For more a cerebral understanding of some of the thematic references in the show:

Is Marriage for White People?: How The African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone - Ralph Richard Banks (Plume, 2011)

Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America - Eugene Robinson, (Doubleday, 2010)

youtube

#insecure #issa rae #awkward black girl #broken pussy #hbo #Marchae #Miri #tv #pilot #Kris after the fact #feminism #poc #woc #reaction

10 notes · View notes

newgeekcity · 8 years ago

Text

New Geek City is Live Blogging MST3k The Return

Once a upon a time there was a bored kid. He just moved to a new place where he didn’t know anyone. Hair was coming in weird places. His face looked like it came from a rare Garbage Pail Kid card.

Other things were changing for the kid, namely his tastes. To him everything started to be so childlike. His books, Full House, even Saturday morning cartoons. There wasn’t anything that really appealed to him anymore.

Except for Batman the Animated Series, that was still awesome.

So one day while trying to avoid the Smurfs or some shit, the kid flipped on Comedy Central. Gamera was on. Everything sucked, but he wasn’t too big for Toho movie monsters.

Just look at it...

And see those guys on the bottom? They were cracking jokes, making astute observations. Then they would do silly musical numbers. It was the best, and for years after, no matter what, the kid would tune in to see what crazy schlock the boys of MST3k would do next.

And yeah yeah, the boy was me. Twist ending, M. Night Shyamalan style. Blah blah.

Since MST3k came into my life so early, sometimes I wonder where it started and I begin in the soup of neurons and my memories. Am I sarcastic and love terrible movies because it brings me back to my safe space? Or am I drawn to MST3k because I am sarcastic and I love 1960s Godzilla movies.

I don’t think there’s a real answer to that question. However, after a long long departure. MST3k is back and on Netflix... so lets dive into the first episode which is called... episode 1? Seriously guys? Way to be descriptive.

We got movie sign after the jump

00:00 - Hold on I need more coffee.

00:00 - Alright, back. Lets see what’s up. I’m really curious about the opening. If I remember right the opening song was sung by Mike Nelson. So lets see how this stacks up.

I’m not looking for a perfect recreation, but something in the same spirit.

1:39 - People? There’s other people in this universe? I thought there was like 10 tops in the entire world in the original series. Then there’s Wil fucking Wheaton. I don’t mind the people, but I do mind Wil Wheaton, that fucking guy. The DIY effects and models are really great though.

In what looks like the Gizmonic mission control, the staff are puppets. I love that.

Wait I know that lady... She’s Erin Gray. Colonel Deering from Buck Rogers. When I was 5 I wasn’t sure if I was going to marry her or Princess Leia.

Hey it could have happened, I was a cute kid.

But seriously, Fuck. Wil. Wheaton.

2:00 - I have to admit, I’m sort of liking Jonah. He has the same affable quality as Joel and Mike.

4:30 - Gypsy could talk? Like for reals? Weird.

I also did like the opening sequence, a lot. Its different. It feels like that’s what the sequence should have been for the movie. But I really liked it. Great work Joel.

8:00 - Invention exchange is back. Patton Oswalt is perfect as TV’s son of TV’s Frank. Although I was doubting Felicia Day, I have to admit she is charming here.

The movie doors are different, you could tell they used a computer for this one. Not sure if I like that, But whatevs its minor.

The bots voices are actually pretty good too. Crow sounds like Crow. Tom sort of sounds like Tom. I do have to get used to Jonah though.

9:00 - Its not skin, its beef. Just saying.

Delicious ground beef.

10:30 - Tom can fly! He can fly!!

13:15 - We have Super Dragon reference! Also one of the best MST3k songs

14:00 - “You know an aquarium is just a pet store that doesn’t sell anything.” Made me lol.

14:41 - Gypsy showed up and made a quip. I already forgot what it was. I wonder if it’ll be a thing.

16:35 - I’m hoping the movie picks up. I doubt it because its MST3k. But they did a “commercial break” just now. They repeated the name of the movie and showed I guess would be the Deep 13 House Band.

I think a skit would have worked better. Its not like they have to fit in actual commercials. But they’re probably trying to keep as close to the original format as possible.

18:30 - Scientist 1: “I envy that young man.”

Scientist 2: “He will be busy now.”

Me: Yeah with your daughters, you Dane weirdo.

20:00 - Who just keeps an electric eel in a tank in a hallway? Nothing is gonna go wrong there. Nothing at all....ARRRRRGHG

22:00 - I’m having a really hard time picking up who’s speaking. Particularly with Tom / Jonah.

But Jonah’s Monster Mash / Reptilicus cover was definitely out of the Joel Robinson playbook.

25:00 - Can someone tell me if that Dane blonde, scientist daughter has a single daughter along the R line? And that wound looks like pudding. Just saying it looks like delicious reptile pudding.

27:00 - Ok the skit break is this kaiju monster rap. The bots, particularly crow are more animated. He’s able to move his arms around now.

The song itself is way different from the original series. Which I’m giving it a thumbs up. It fits well into the original ethos. Its catchy, fun. Its a good update. Nice work modern MST3k writers.

32:00 - One thing I’ve noticed is the actual filmic quality of the movie. In the old MST3k’s you could still see the scratches and dust, and the warping. It looks like that this is a restored film.

Its not awful or really a distraction. But its just something I noticed as a long time fan.

35:00 - Dickweed. It makes me laugh every time.

36:00 - Of course the goofus stuck his hand in the electric eel tank. You know comedy. It had to happen. Like the sun rising, and the rain falling in the amazon.

38:00 - I wish netflix would have some way that it counts up instead of down. It would make my life easier here.

Another “commercial break” I was wrong, in the new series its Moon 13 and Patton Oswalt gave a fun fact about the doors. The house band is playing at the same time. Its very Svengoolie.

39:00 - Xanadu reference. Not sure how many youngin’s would get it. I barely do because my dad had a bootleg VHS tape.

It was awful.

41:00 - I was about to say a lot of the jokes are falling flat, but when that scientist “screamed” and one of the guys dubbed it with Opera, that was brilliant.

43:00 - I get that MST3k was never really about plot when it came to the host and bots. But they seemed to jump into the riffing really quick. I was expecting some sort of intro for Jonah, like he’d ask questions about why he’s there throughout the movie and the bots would fill him in and he’d grow into the host role.

I think it would have added some sort of dimension to it. But I would get why they would just jump right into it.

45:00 - Also I’d expect the Mads would show up more by now. Maybe in the next skit sequence?

47:00 - No Mads, but the cloning of Tom Servo in the “genesis tank that’s conveniently off camera” was real classic MST3k.

So far, Jonah I would say earned his spot. He nailed it.

Crow, yup classic Crow.

Tom, well. He’s not awful. He’s funny but I just can’t get past the voice. Kevin Murphy really owned the character. I hope its just matter of getting used to it. Like when Kevin originally took over in Season 2 (I think) of MST3k.

51:00 - Hold on I need a gif of that.. give me a few minutes.

Ok, I couldn’t get a gif. I’ll have to check into that. BUT I did grab a screenshot.

Single handedly this is my most favorite special effect ever.

54:30 - Although another stray observation, when the people are in frame, the film is alright. Like no scratches (for the most part) but when the monster is up it looks like someone went through it with sandpaper.

Which lazy bastard only did half a restoration?

55:00 - It feels like Tom should have had that ability to fly all along. His bottom always reminded me of a hovercraft.

56:00 - Yup the commercial breaks definitely is reminiscent of Svengoolie, Paton Oswalt should just show up on that set one day as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank.

It would be some great cross promotion.

BTW, go watch Svengoolie. Its not as funny as MST3k, but it’s really charming and fun.

Occasionally they show a good movie. Which I guess defeats the point, but whatever.

60:00 - We’re about at the halfway point. So far, I will admit the new MST3k is... I don’t want to say a worthy successor but Joel Hodgson really did something special. This definitely feels in place with the originals. Almost like it never went away.

I do want more Mads for this episode. Where are they?

62:00 - How did they get letters? This is like the first episode in almost 20 years. How many 8 year olds could sit still long enough to watch reruns? Aren’t they making methlabs and sexting?

63:00 - Just a note, I know nothing about modern children.

71:00 - Have you ever wondered why Kaiju are impervious to tank shells? Think about it, they’re designed to punch through concrete, steel plating, etc. I don’t think they’d have a problem with reptile skin, prehistoric or otherwise.

74:00 - Another thing I noticed is that the guy and the bots are more animated compared to the originals. They’ll move around, fly by, bring in barrels to interact with the screen.

I know the originals did similar, but it seems to be more frequent here. Its not unwelcome. Its actually nice.

77:00 - Another commercial break. Its a TV seal of quality with the Moon 13 house band. I’m still liking them.

Patton talked about how Kinga established some TV group, probably to make profit.

Its not so much how the joke was clever, I just liked how they used that to add some background of the world of MST3k. Because we really don’t know much about it, besides the SOL and Deep 13 and such.

I never thought it was missing, but now that I’ve seen some glimpses into the surrounding world I am interested in learning more. Does the world know about the Forresters? Have they always run in secret? Or they make their intentions known and the government is powerless to stop them. Who is the government there anyway?

Are they considered brilliant or total fuck ups? Are they part of something bigger? Like SMERSH or the illuminati or something?

78:00 - They’re freaking out about getting a gallon of some sort of lizard knock out drug. Do Danes know how much a gallon is? It’s not that much, if it was like an oil drum’s worth then you got problems.

80:00 - The gallon is really just a beaker. So I guess Danes don’t get the imperial system after all.

83:00 - Seriously the guy playing Crow is really good. If I close my eyes I’d have a hard time telling the difference between him and Trace Beaulieu.

Although I noticed the mouth movement on Crow isn’t as pronounced as it was in the originals. Its a little detail, but it went a long way in figuring out who was talking.

85:00 - Monster’s dead, yay I guess.

86:00 - “Push the button Max” doesn’t have the same cachet as “Push the button Frank.” But I’m glad they brought that back.

87:00 - The end credit song sounds like it was made with a real orchestra. It gives it some gravitas. Its rather lovely.

88:00 - They’re repeating the monster rap. Not bad, still cute.

89:00 - Wait, in the end credits, They gave the proper name for the Moon 13 House Band, they’re called “The Skeleton Crew.”

I like Moon 13 house band better.

90:00 - Nice touch--

And of course--

The end tag. Its nice to see some old standbys come back.

Final Thoughts -

I suppose if you really wanted to you could say its worse or better than the originals. I guess its like how you wanted to fight over Joel vs Mike.

They’re different. They had their own styles, and they were very funny in their own way.

MST3k The Return is a lot like that. There’s enough elements of the originals that it feels familiar, but stylistically its been updated. I personally think its a good thing.

With the bigger budget, and more modern delivery I feel a lot of the fun, DIY, anarchic, lo-fi qualities that was so mind blowing about the original show is very much here.

I like the new cast, except for Wil Wheaton (fuck you Wesley Crusher), and I think they’re as charming and clever as the previous casts. Just... different.

So if you loved the originals as much as I did, I definitely think its worth binging with your kids. Personally I plan to make this a Saturday morning thing like I did way back when.

One last last thing. From what I saw of the preview for the next episode it looks like Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy are visiting. Hopefully Mike shows up too.

I. Can’t. Wait.

1 note · View note