#its my first time animating lipsync

[nicooriia]

I had finished this earlier this year but only posted it on youtube. Saw a fellow post their part for the same MAP so I wanted to render mine too!

... why do I insist adding gradients that look like ass in .gif...?

[sirenspells]

I have to tell you something

[mclarenyaoi]

list 5 songs you've been enjoying recently — tysm @albontology for the tag!! apologies in advance for the yapping lol i like my tunes ^^'

"andy, you're a star" by the killers — there are two different interpretations of this song and i enjoy both of them but i enjoy the one where its abt gay yearning WAY MORE

"agnes" by glass animals — how to be a human being is one of my fav albums OF ALL TIME.. anyways agnes is an incredibly sad song but its fantastic and a great ultimate song for the album

"死にたがり" (shinitagari) by 梨本うい (nashimoto ui) feat. hatsune miku — first heard in a homestuck pmv when i was in my homestuck kick a couple years ago but its surpassed that (the pmv is still great tho lets not get it twisted)

"i want you to know that i'm awake/i hope that you're asleep" by car seat headrest — 8 minutes and 43 seconds of realizing i relate a little too much to 2014 will toledo. and like the whole album is good, car seat headrest is good, i <3 csh. honorary mention to my boy, the song of all time (true)

"kitty kat" by megan thee stallion — idk how many of yall watch rupauls drag race but. yeah morphine fucking bodied dawn rip i was rooting for her and more importantly that lipsync reminded me i LIVE for megan thee stallion. loveee body ofc but ive been listening to kitty kat more =^u^= meow

very sorry if anyone im tagging has already been tagged!! no pressure @box-box-blorbos @oscah @solitaire-enthusiast @inchidentally and if YOU are seeing this... consider letting people know about your enjoyed tunes

[stelladrawsfanarts]

Lol i made another shit

But honestly…. i dont like this one…. Its kind of ugly and not like what i normally do 😭

Basically its about puss in boots and Death (again)

But im included since i kind of forced Death to confess his love to puss and he wrote a letter for him (in the letter it said, “puss in boots come to ##### ### ## at 7:00pm *i was the one who told him about this place*, don’t be late, you little shit)

(Puss thought it was a threat)

And i was his delivery gurrlll 🤭 but i when i gave the letter to puss, i didnt tell him who was it from 🤗

Now for puss it was kind of like a blind date 😛😛

This is how it went (i was the waiter in this one)

MOTHERTRUCKER IT WAS SO HARD TO FRACKIN LIP SYNC THISSSS😭😭😭😭

(Fun fact: i forced puss to wear a suit and bowtie 😗😗, another funfact is that i couldnt make death wear suit😢)

(Though he did wear a tie)

HAVE MERCY THIS WAS MY FIRST TIME ANIMATING AND LIPSYNCING, PLS im a noob 🥺

Hashtag this took me 3 hrs (maybe even more) but i actually had fan (notice how i mispelled “fun” wrong)

Ps: deaths tail was wagging when he offered to help because he wanted to “touchy touchy” puss 😏 (lol he just liked the idea of helping

Puss with anything)

Another ps: was that he was angry because i (the waiter in disguise) was too close to puss for his liking😉

Anyways this is in deaths POV:

[hatboyproject]

First, you are a legend. Second, I have finally broken down and started playing thru the ME trilogy thanks to (a) my ability to take a sabbatical, and (b) a friend buying me the legendary edition, and (c) threats of violence from my loved ones should I not play it. I've finished ME2 and I am 100% not booting up ME3 if there's snowball's chance in hell that the LE version of your mod is dropping any time soon.

*sings* you're not our bitch and you're not a machine * I'm a fic writer, I expect nothing. And I know this stuff takes forever and I 1000% expect the answer to be 'no' but the only thing I am inquiring is whether there is an updated ETA for your mod. OR if you have need for a legendary edition beta tester. OR if I can send you cash money to help offset the time being spent on a labor of love. OR if I should say -f- it and get my hands on the original edition of ME3 so the hatboy mod you've already (gloriously) provided us, works.

Also thank you for giving me hope that I will get to play a Shoker option, which makes the most sense thematically and narratively and I am aghast at what bioware chose to do with Joker (and EDI, wtf). You're doing god's work.

Just this week, I got some of the updated synths I've been waiting for, but I'm still waiting on BroShep.

I am still working on HBLE, don't you worry! In between writing fic myself, doing a painting, and a playthrough of ME3 to refamiliarise myself with its pacing, I have been going in and putting some necessary setup stuff in place, which is all very boring and un-exciting and not really showcase-able. Big chunks of the structure have been built, but most of the audio work has to be done, still.

In the OT, a lot of work had been done before I had the ability to read a line to the synth myself and have it transpose the voice directly, which noticeably improves delivery. So much so that it is difficult to use a lot of the previous edition's takes. This has the knock-on effect of the line needing to be re-animated because, of course, the timings of everything are now different with the new audio. There are very few lines whose takes will not be re-done.

Fortunately, however, I have my lipsync automation tools, and I'm much better at animating now than when I started. So it takes a lot less time this go-around... but still time!

Sadly and wonderfully, this is a massive mod and is much more than just a straight port. If it was a straight port, it'd have been done already. I would apologise for that, but I like to think the end result will be worth it, haha!

I am adding new content this time, including an entire conversation about his sister that you can unlock by completing some vanilla dialogues.

I am so glad that you've been enjoying your time with Mass Effect and that my mod is on your list of things to do. In what I am sure is the most shocking statement of the century, I agree that Joker is the most thematically satisfying romance for Shepard. I can't wait to get it to you! I promise, I am doing my best and there's nobody who wants it in your hands more than me.

Regarding testing, it's not quite in a state where it can be tested just yet. A few conversations work (first convo, EDI body convo, EDI discussion, some ambients) but nothing else yet.

Regarding supporting me, I do have a Ko-Fi. You can find a link to it in the pinned post, and donations absolutely do help my creative efforts, and I go a little feral when I see someone has donated. But as always, I want to make it clear; The Hatboy Project is free and will never be gated in any way. Everyone gets the same release at the same time. All you have to do is own a legit copy of the game... Which you already do!

Excitement like yours helps keep me going. Thank you so much.

Edit: lmao my link is not in my pinned post lol rofl it's hatboyproject.ko-fi.com tho

[ducktracy]

sorry if this has been asked before but you’re a huge inspiration for me! i am just wondering what would you recommend to start animation? like videos or books

THANK YOU!! that is VERY sweet of you to say so!! i’m so glad to hear that!! 🥹🥹🥹

admittedly, i don’t really have a laundry list of resources to give… i taught myself how to animate as a kid with the joys of Flipnote on the DSi! for example, i was a really big fan of Ojamajo Doremi (still am!) and remember looking up videos of their transformations and trying to copy each frame by meticulously pausing and clicking through.. i can’t remember if i’d substitute my own characters in or just copy directly. a mix of both is probably most realistic.

then, once i had access to a personal computer, i’d spend hours making little animations in MS Paint and Windows Maker.. that evolved to Fire Alpaca and WMM as a teen.. and now the most animating i do is in Storyboard Pro for work! i’ve been itching to test out Procreate’s animation feature, though. (i was actually going to do an elaborate looping animation for Daffy’s birthday, but was wiped out by jet lag… some other time)

my best advice i guess would just be to study what’s around you! look up some of your favorite pieces of animation and see what makes it crack—try to copy it, or even slip a different subject in so you can actively apply those principles! muscle memory isn’t to be messed with!

i have Richard Williams’ animation book that everyone hails, but i never actually really applied anything with it… is it sacrilege to say i use it as a stand to prop my laptop up so it can meet the height of my Cintiq for work??? oops.

this is more on the topic of like.. personal approach? but i’ve discovered with my fragmented ADHD brain that jumping around is how i’m most productive nowadays. i’ll illustrate the key poses i can see most clearly in my head first as a sort of layout, and then fill in the missing blanks later. here’s an example of that discombobulation with a WIP i’d been stewing away at for over 2 years now (😬)—stuff like lipsync would all be added later when i had a more fleshed out idea as to how it would look, which is what i did at the very beginning

i’d just say patience, practice, and studying are the key! i’m sure there are a lot of wonderful tutorials out there on YouTube. i don’t animate much for myself, which is something i’d like to change—it was something i used to be really hard on myself about! at the same time, being a storyboard artist (and on a show that’s very reliant on its animatics) i’ve honestly taught myself to animate more and more completely by accident through that work! i’ve done a lot of my best animation work within the past few months… it’ll be a hot minute until i can show it, though 🥲 but once you get into the habit of doing it repeatedly, it’ll come more naturally! references have been super helpful in that regard

[harukirai]

I love the game, i really do, but for me its around 8-9/10.

Warning- This is full of spoilers for FF16! So beware

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Im gonna asterisk all my points cause i want it to be more organized. This is things i wish square would patch into the game, (15's way)

*first thing first, my roomate had a pretty solid point about the terrence dion goodbye scene. We care for dion, they showed us plenty of him, but terrence, not so much. (or their relationship beside that one kiss scene), but not about their pure bond- which i agree, for dion involvment in the ending, he should have more screentime, also with the involvement of the empire in the plot- it shouldve got the witcher 3 approach with the siri segments, show don't tell- i think there should have been a playable section in the bahamut vs odin, to get to know dion and his dynamics better. - that scene wouldve hit so much harder.and like my kiss argument my straight roomate agreed, that if terrence at least went back for a last kiss teary that'll pull the tear gear.

*joshua-oh god they let us play as him when he was a baby, why not just letting us playing as him when the player discover that he is alive, with jote and the undying, even for small section not wanting to reveal the cards too early. I think that should be a part of the game, the base game.

*jill- if it must be a dlc so be it, but at least add some cutscenes to when she talks about the iron kingdom, we as players would be so much more hyped to join her vengeance quest, she have the potential, you showed us the horrors bennedikta went throgh which is why at least i became to love her in the end, why not a main character like Jill, she have so much potential, if not making a palyable iron kingdom section (like before she reunited with clive maybe when she grew a bit)at least add the cutscenes square.

*for god sake make it possible to switch party members like you did in 15, L1+L2 is no combo anyway so patch that thing, it'll be so much more refreshing especially in the first half of the game when the quests are dry and the gameplay loop is repetitive.

*make the ambrosia quest mandatory, so many pple dont even know they can unlock the chocobo, or at least let the player know that the + green quest are important if they want to upgrade their gameplay. This isn't an mmo most single player players will look at that and thing that the + is an extra non important (had an irl talk with a friend who thought that)

*dlc- make it season pass only,one time pay and thats it. the game is 69.99 it shouldn't even need a dlc, but at least do a full on season pass in like 19.99 with like at least a cid dlc(dont yall wanna see his time with the empire, taking small mid otto gav and making the hideaway happen, also, i wanna know who from the boys have a spicy history with cid cause quinten suggested it and some other npcs as well), dion dlc(not only to get a look at the first official not hinted gay character's love life, no not for that-but i think we need a real look into the empire pre and post Annable. what we saw of his dad was tereible, i wanna know why dion is so atrached and looking highly of him, also like ive said in previous post i have to know dion pov on branded), jill dlc(cause bae need a redemption i fucking hate how square treat a strong female character once she's a love interest of the protag)

And a gav dlc, like something happens in the end that if you dont choose gav in the quest you wont know, but gav tells a bit about his past and i think especially since he is our main scout, dlc of him and byron maybe could be cool, after the kanvar event.

*enemies variety- im pissed theres no Cactaur hunt or tonberry. Like really really pissed. You kept the freaking flann but not the cactaur?!please for the love of fucking god patch them as a hunt or something.

*animation fixes- so many quests that had a higebuildup ended looking cheap. Fix that-asap, especially the quinten quest, it could have hit so much harder if the lipsync wasn't so cursed looking while the model was kinda static they had quest with proper cutscense like theo's, why not Quinten since its a freaking end of a huge chain quest. Also, in general fix the freaking lipsync that shit is cursed af.

In conclusion i know pple like shitting on 15 but i thino 16 will only bemefit from the 15 treatment, especially for the proce we as consumers payed.

This game doesnt feel finished, it feels rushed, i think 2 more years in the baking wouldve benefit it, but well its out, so why not patching it. I think it'll boost the sales cause now the game feel bare, and many things feel like placeholders. So i hope the team didnt pop the champagne yet.

I dont blame Yoshi p or the team, i think they did an amazing job, but i do blame square's higher ups tendency to announce and release a teiple A game too early, they need to understand that atech advances, it need and will take more time to develope a game. And if you want to take the money that you are asking for at least make sure that the dough isn't raw.

That's it Haruki's out.

[riisi-puuro]

Christmas 2022 🎄🦌

Christmas came and went, and can't believe it's already the end of January woaw.

Last year I tasked myself with creating a versatile asset bundle, and the plan puffed up like a Christmas pastry haha. Gingerbread house and other wintery props had to be cut out to get the set out in time, but maybe this year!

As an organic modeler, I've often approached all props with the same mindset and workflow. So making assets that don't require rigging and prep for lipsync was a good change of pace. The biggest task was the darn Christmas tree; How do I get it optimized, but still to look good??

The first step was just creating a branch. The best solution was a geonode setup that generated the skin and distributed needles on it, as I extruded vertices in the shape of a spruce branch. Fairly convincing looking, after fiddling a bit.

As the first texture attempt, I created a seamless texture of a wall of spruce branches and AO+normal maps for it. A play-doh tree with the texture wrapped around it honestly looked horrible, so alpha cards it is:

I layered multiple of these branches for a single card and made a transparent render. Alone with alpha cards, I would've had to layer so many of them together to prevent you from seeing through the damn tree, so I used the play-doh mush as a base and placed the cards on top. The tree looked so fluffy!

But for optimization, there had to be an option of no alpha, so the previous seamless tile came in handy as I just layered it underneath. Instead, this now became the default texture, and using the alpha of the rendered card, I created an alpha map as the extra option. Baubles and tinsels came next, and soon there it was with all its glory! Might as well use the same method and props for making a Christmas reef!

The materials and textures stayed versatile, so I had fun creating the prefabs and many looks in Unity. Done!

I also wanted to nail down my workflow for LOD creation! LOD groups are rarely used in vr maps since you either see the high-detail mesh or don't render it off-screen, but I wanted to keep vr and quest limits in mind, so in this case the LODs are there so people can choose the proper 'Level Of Detail' for their environment. All the bigger assets have several groups.

Also at some point I just ended up making a reindeer. Honestly it was supposed to be a cute tiny prop at first but then my avi modelling brain took over and then there was a fully rigged and animated reindeer. oops.

[missjessefantastico]

An animator’s insight about the current Thomas situation

Quick explanation since I don’t see many people talking about it: the last Storytime madlibs video was animated by fans, each of them was paid around 1.80usd per second and the credit was not given until after the animators asked the team to have their links included.

I asked my friend @siriwesen​, who is a freelance animator from Germany, for her opinion in the matter. Here’s what she had to say, everybody say “Thank you Siri” because she spent a lot of her time checking every detail with me in order to give me a good perspective.

Disclaimer: all of this information is based on a freelance self-employed base for the central european market, it may vary by country.

tldr: the animators did an amazing job but were grossly unpaid, even for a passion project/beginner gig.

First, I gave her an hypotetical about a job offering to pay 25usd for 19 seconds of animation

I wouldn't even type a response for that. For 25 USD I'm not even turning on my pc. Or I'd do a nitty grity break down explaining how long animation takes by the hour with a past work example. I am always saddened with people selling their work at under 20.

When I gave her a rough explanation of the situation, specifically about Alex’s situation

So just as an idea. Even when working on a frame saving project like I did til yesterday, where you have a lot of still images and hold in between several frames. 5 frames can take 1-2hours depending on complexity, if you have a line test to follow, etc, not to forget lipsync. Lipsync takes forever. I'd expect 1.80 per frame not per sec. Like if they need 15 min for a full coloured frame, at 4 drawings they should get an hourly wage done. So 20-40 USD, and 20 is the utter lowest you should go.  20 sounds much as an hourly wage but it is not when you have to pay insurance and retirement savings.

After I showed her the madibs video

From what I can tell everyone hat freedom in what to do and how to do their scene, that means they spent time on design and thinking the scene.

Some of these movements are really flowy and smooth

Like either they pay one fixed budget to one animator or a team of animators, which would still be scummy but a beginning artist would usually not depend on the money for rent  as they usually have other jobs and get a good portfolio piece out of it.

However with so many people on this... In order to get the video done in time I assume... This is outrageous. Because some artists will have just gotten bad luck on their scene and not have had the inspiration etc to create cool fucking showreel shit, so the got barely paid.

I'm gonna say some of those are relatively simple. Like you can make them within 4h, but it's still not enough pay. Motion graphics people make 30-40 an hour minimum.

I remember one time I ended up applying for a story time channel as editor and they wanted to pay editors 10usd per hour, which is absurd. If you can't afford animation, don't trick people into doing it. But be clear from the get go that this is a passion project. If its a sponsored video you better get the money for the animation.

Generally id say you could pay all the animators easily, if you have a well paid sponsorship/ product placement on the video.

Also, Im impressed they have partly fully animated clips there? Like the artists clearly went all out.

Her opinion on how to pay when you have a low budget

It's a fun video but if you wanna make it collaborative you either say: hey this is not being paid or you say: I'm sorry I have a set budget for this video and this is it so you would work underpaid, I can only offer you letters/reviews of recommendation for further work applications on real jobs, but be transparent and let the artists know, that's all im asking. They need to have the choice.

There will always be people who stay for the sake of the project because the love the channel or sth, but let people know you can't afford a proper pay for them but that you will do what you can to rectify or validate their work.

Give them shout outs, feature them at the end of the video, share them on insta tiktok and so on.

I feel like reducing the staff to 10, and paying each 100-200 would have been still a better "beginner" gig...

About the way the animators were credited

The description is the worst place to put them. Obviously they should be there but no one reads the description, especially when the vid gets embedded. Shout out your artists ffs.

About the project in general

It's just really a shit situation and I think their choice to make this such a large body of people working on it also doesn't necessarily help.

I just want to stress, that my estimates are based on a freelance self-employed base for the central european market, the prices for US Market may be different,but from what i know it is still common to pay 20+ upwards to your animators.

In Korea/Japan and other countries it is popular to pay animators per drawing,Idon't know the exact amounts but it's peanuts less than a dollar per drawing, but this is first off part of why people criticise the outsourcing in animation, because many times it is bad labor practises at bad wages to the point that animators have to have 1-2 other jobs in order to afford animating.

I dont know how things have improved over the past years but I reckon not much.

Also you can lower prices, when the major creative decisions, such as character design, colour palettes, background design, and storyboarding / timing has been pre done by other people/staff in the production, aka you just draw the characters. or you just colour them. that's how you can manage a feasible rate of drawings per day because you do a single task in a pipeline.

I can't tell how strict or coordinated and split their production pipeline was, but I think it is counter intuitive to pay young artists really bad wages because it discourages them from further engaging with the art/craft.

About hiring fans

This is a very double sided edge. I've seen people in a former fandom of mine being heavily disappointed in finally getting to work on the actual show,also the creator - fan dynamic is often an unfair one, because it is an uneven power-balance in which the creator/idol does not only hold the financial power over the fan, but also an emotional one. it's a predisposition for an unhealthy relationship, which the one with the power has to make the active effort to break it even and remove the worship-aspect and make clear to the artist,, that they're on a job-relationship playing field.

I also think it's important to figure out if any minors were contracted. Depending on countries, it may be, that they were technically not be legal to employ, there are places where you can only set up your own business aka freelance, once you hit the legal age.

Advice for new animators

Generally speaking, I'd also give the advice to never! start work without a contract.

Also if you can avoid it, never give out a custom demo example work or custom sample tailored to the project you're applying to, if you can help it, UNLESS you get compensation for the demo. I've wasted so many hours on providing potential clients with customised demo animation/drawing design and never heard back from them.

Only do this when you really trust your client and have worked with them previously, or if this is a specific pitch for project platform (which does basically work on this basis).

About working on passion projects

The job I completed yesterday, was definitely underpaid, but the director did basically show me his financing for this passion project, he got finance and funding, but it was still more a small drop in the pit of money you usually use.

I went on board with the project because he did take the time to reply to me, explain the project details, shared history on the project, and because he has ties to animation studios and work areas that I'm interested in. I got some really amazing character animation shots out of the project which I am allowed to use in my showreel/portfolio, I got some shout outs and minor cloud due to social media and in the end I WAS PAYED (around 1500 Euros to be precise). It's not as much as it would be for the work usually, but it's still a decent amount and,at the time I took the job, my livelihood did not depend on this money.

Even though this project i took was technically "underpaid" the conditions and favours i got out of it were absolutely fine. (also got 2 switch games out of it as a compensation for late hour work, lol).

Maybe this put it into perspective of what type of "underpaid" beginner jobs are good and which ones are not.

About working for exposure

I remember back in uni, we had a lot of industry speakers who had reputable careers in british animation, and there always was this thing about "is it okay to take unpaid jobs / jobs for exposure"and the answer always was either "never unpaid" or "it depends." and i think this is pretty much the best way to answer.

There were people who did amazing music videos in the 80s and who basically got only 100 pounds from it but that kickstarted their career,but it was high risk, it's a gamble and 80 percent of the time "exposure" gigs are useless.

Thanks again to Siri for providing all this insightful information, let’s hope @thatsthat24​ @thejoanglebook and the rest of the team not only adress the issue, but also take the time to pay the animators correctly. They are artists and animation enthusiasts, they should know better than doing this.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Ayyyyyyyy Guess Who Just Finished Watching Angel's Friends

Me. I did.

So yeah, the start of this post is going to be a spoiler-less review-recommendation kinda thingy and then I'll put all of my other thoughts which include spoilers under the cut

Also, I would like to mention that Im only talking about the cartoon here, I have not read either the comics or the books at this point (I didnt even know that there were books before checking wikipedia to make sure that I actually watched every episode of the show lol)

Lets go babey!

This series is very not-good, but it has some interesting concepts and scratches some of my itches, so I like it. But before we get into that in detail, heres a summary of the basic plot, taken from wikipedia:

"Four Angels (Raf, Uri, Sweet and Miki) and four Devils/Demons (Sulfus, Cabiria, Kabale and Gas) are sent to Earth, in an unused area of the Golden School, where they learn everything they need to become Guardian Angels and Guardian Devils. The Angels and Devils are required to form pairs as part of their education, each of which will have to deal with a human being, known as Earthly Ones, and help them choose between the right and wrong way in life without being discovered. Angels and Devils cannot operate at the same time, so they decide, clashing in the Challenge Room, who will work first. Moreover, they are subject to the V.E.T.O. (Vetoed from Exposing, Touching or Obstructing/Overhearing in the comic – Italian: Vietato Esporsi, Toccare, Ostacolare/Origliare)."

Something that isnt mentioned here is the romance between Raf, the protagonist, and Sulfus, her devil rival, but its a pretty important part of the story that I'll talk about in more detail.

First, the animation is fine. Its kinda clunky and the posing is pretty unnatural at times, you can tell that the budget wasnt that high. The lipsyncing for the english dub is pretty abysmal in the first season but it gets better in the movie and in the second season.

Second, the voice acting is... something. It has that very not-good anime dub quality, which makes sense considering Angel's Friends is already very anime, even more so when youre watching it in italian (with subtitles bc you dont understand italian) and they randomly yell english phrases like "Think Fly!" or "Angel's Friends! Together forever!" or, my personal favourite, "Devil's Enemies! Supreme Temptation!" when transforming or using their powers. The dub is decent enough, Ive only watched the movie in italien and their voices seem mostly the same, with the exception of Sulfus, who sounds just awful in the dub im sorry. I hate listening to him talk, which is pretty bad considering hes the love interest. I mean, he makes up for it by having a great personality but man, what I wouldnt give to have him sound like he does in italian.... But the worst thing has to be the..... moaning, that the voice actors inexplicably do. Its very uncomfortable, I have no idea who is responsible for this but they have stuff to atone for

Third, the characters are pretty good, I like them a lot. Theyre not that deep, but theyre likable and pretty fun. Raf is a pretty nice and likable protagonist without being bland, although I kinda hate her subplot/backstory-thingy. I can ignore that for the most part though, so I dont really mind. Honestly, I think I would've liked Sulfus as a protagonist a bit better, but that might just be my bias towards edgy and pathetic (affectionate) guys coming through lmao. We mainly focus on Raf and her angel friends and their friendship is really cute. I kinda wish they paid more attention to the intragroup-friendships, if you know what I mean? Like, Raf and Urie were best friends and Miki and Sweet were kindof a duo, but thats kinda it and I really wish we explored some other dynamics a bit more. I wouldve also liked them to focus a bit more on Sulfus' friends, but at the same time, I get why they didnt. When it comes to stories where romance is incredibly important, I personally prefer it when the two characters in the main couple are both the protagonists, or when one of them is more like the deutergonist as opposed to just the love interest, but it works well enough here I guess

I also like the little background-plots (?? idk if thats the right word) that the humans get, theyre pretty charming and its fun to watch the angels n devils influence them

Speaking of the protagonist and the love interest, I absolutely adore the romance between Raf and Sulfus. Theyre soooooooo cute together its insane <3 Its gonna be kinda hard to explain why I love them so much as a couple without spoilery examples, but I'll try

Their dynamic is a fairly basic Good Girl/Bad Boy kinda thing (because of course it is) but like, in a way that I dont find absolutely loathesome lol. I usually really hate that dynamic because it feels like writers tend to use the fact that the guy is a 'Bad Boy' to make him toxic and insufferable for some reason while making the 'Good Girl' into a pushover who cant call him out on it, and then the whole thing is inexplicably framed as romantic?? And yea, I cannot vibe with that Im sorry. Fortunately, Raf n Sulfus arent like that :D Their relationship is pretty healthy and most of the drama between them either stems from external stuff or from the fact that their love is yknow, forbidden and no one really wants it to prosper (I think??? Idk honestly the storytelling isnt particularly clear here, I'll get into it later)

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that Raf enforces her boundaries and Sulfus respects them despite their mutual interests, do you know what I mean? Like, okay, another thing that I love about their relationship is that they actually find out about each others feelings pretty early on and actually communicate about them; From Raf's perspective, the issue isnt "Oh no! Im in love with a devil who will never love an angel like me back :'(", its "Oh no! Im in love with a devil and he loves me back, but we cant be together because its forbidden :'(". And she basically tells Sulfus just that, and he goes "Well, rules were meant to be broken but fine, I get it I respect your decision pls tell me when you change ur mind tho" and I think thats neat

The fact that they know about each other feelings and are able to actually talk without turning into mushy flustered messes around each other is soooooooo incredibly refreshing. Like, I was comparing them to the Love Square from Miraculous in my head, since thats the last romance-centric Magical Girl show I watched and its literally so much better, I refuse to believe anyone actually likes it when the main couple doesnt communicate and dont get together until the last episode. And to be fair, Raf and Sulfus dont actually officially get together either (it looks like the series was cancelled prematurely and they were saving that for a potential third season), but they talk, they compliment each other and confess their feelings to each other and its just so nice, yknow?

The external drama between them doesnt feel contrived either. They straight-up have one of those stupid moments where the love interest appears to do something bad bc of some Outside Influence, like cheating or smth, and the protagonist gets mad and yells at the love interest while the love interest is like "no! wait!! I can explain!!!" but keeps getting interrupted except it didnt feel stupid at all, I was actually really invested in the drama rather than thinking "man, this is so dumb" like I usually do when this kind of stuff happens in stories.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the story and the storytelling. Its pretty alright. I appreciate the structure of the two seasons with both of them starting out with a string of small, mostly unrelated, personal problems (that are mainly the angels and devils trying to make things better or worse for their human charges) while the villains are doing stuff in the background with the good guys being almost completely unaware until they achieve their first Real Victory and then the rest of the season is all the important characters banding together to actually stop them from achieving their World Destroying Final Goal. Theres a good amount of potential and set up to explore interesting themes about morality, free will, maybe love too idk, but the series is far too immature to really delve into any of it. Like, this isnt Winx Club Seasons 1-3, this is more like Winx Club Season 4 or maybe 5 idk I havent watched those season in a while. I would LOVE an animated She-ra (2018)-style reboot of this show because oughhhhhhhh theres so much good shit here but aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Also idk if this is the right place to put this, but the unsubtle and honestly pretty clunky dialogue really isnt helping lol

The biggest issue I have with this series is definitely the pacing. Im gonna be honest, I dont think I truly understood what people who critize media meant when they were talking about The Pacing before watching Angel's Friends and. i sure do now. The first few episodes especially feel like they tried to put 22 minutes worth of story into an 11 minute episode and like, I wouldnt call the experience of watching those episodes dreadful, mainly because they go by pretty quickly but, it sure isnt great. It gets a bit better, I think??? I honestly couldnt really tell you if actually gets better or if you just get used to it. I wasnt too bothered by it once I got used to not always looking at another screen while watching something because I have a pretty low attention span and tend to feel understimulated while watching TV shows, so the fast pace actually helped me in some weird way lol. As a kinda-writer, it was still really noticeable though and not in a good way

Another issue that I have is the fact that Raf and Sulfus' friends dont really seem to have an opinion on their love?? Or rather, its not really explained how much who knows and they dont really touch on it, which I think is kinda important for stories revolving around a Forbidden Love but, oh well.

So yea, thats about it for the non-spoilery stuff I think. I would definitely recommend to check Angel's Friends out, if only for some of the good ideas and the lovely kinda-subversive-in-a-way romance.

Alright, time to talk about what I liked, what I disliked and some missed opportunities in more detail (Apologies in advance if this next part is kinda disjointed lol)

The finales were my least favorite part, hands down. I especially didnt like the second season's finale, which is a shame because I really liked everything until they get to the Libra of the Veto and fight Cassidy and her cringe fail kinda-husband (forgot his name sry). Like, I loved the relationship drama between Raf n Sulfus and all the stuff with the clone and I thought Blue was really intriguing and the like, heist arc(?) were they infiltrate Angi Town and Match City respectively was sooooo much fun, but then the finale was just. eh. I think it might be because thats when I realized that oh, no theyre not really going to expand on all this interesting stuff that I would like them to expand on, are they. And yea, they didnt.

I was especially disappointed that we didnt really find out what Blue's deal was. I get that they were going to do that in a third season, but since we didnt get that, its just. Idk, disappointing, I guess?? Like, I predicted her being someone outside of the angel/devil binary basically in the scene she was introduced and I was theorizing about what exactly she was and where she came from and hyping myself up about her and then it was just.... nothing. Shes connected to Reina, but, how?? I personally thought she was a fallen angel given her primarily devilish features, but lack of horns or a halo and the weird shape of her wings. Maybe they elaborate on her in the books but i dont even know if those follow the same continuity as the show sooooo yea

The episode that truly made me like this show as much as I do was probably season 1 episode 26, where they kiss but it wasnt just the kiss, it was the whole build-up to it. Like, I feel like it couldve been so easy to mess up and make Sulfus come across as really unlikable or frame it like Raf was in the wrong for being upset when she wasnt, but I think they did it really well. And then ougggggggh the actual kiss...... I just really wish their lips didnt look so weird and ugly while they kissed lol

I kinda already mentioned this earlier but I like it happens so early in the series too. Ngl I initially didnt like that their relationship progressed so quickly (yea, the main couple having their kiss by episode 26 is pretty normal but remember that the episodes here are 11 minutes long) but theyre just so sweet together and I kinda realized that I actually prefer this to the usual way of writing 'slowburn' romance where theyre in mutual love but cant communicate at all for bullshit reasons lmao

The only thing that kinda pisses me off about this episode in hindsight are Sulfus healing powers which NEVER come up again. Like !!!! BRO how are you gonna give one of your main characters healing powers and never have him use them??!?! And its not like there werent opportunities!! Like, during the season 2 finale when Raf was injured and unconscious and everyone was telling them to go rest before their battle against those generals I was going "oh! Sulfus is gonna use those healing powers that he has but hasnt used for the entire rest of the series for some reason" but NO

Like, okay, in order to further explain why that sucks Im gonna go into another thing that really bothers me and thats the lack of gray morality

So, the angels as a whole are Good, the devils as a whole are Bad but in like, an emo school bully kinda way and anyone who threatens both angels and devils at the same time is Bad but in like, an actually evil way. Thats honestly perfectly fine in the first season, where we have the angels, the devils and Reina whos outside the binary and threatening to eradicate the existence of both angels and devils at the same time. When the devils are tempting humans into doing The Wrong Thing in the first season, I remember it always being unambigiously bad/selfish (in a bad way), while the angels are always in the right and theres never any doubts about that ever. The second season has these moments(?) that seem to call that into question but with absolutely no payoff

The most obvious is example is Sarah Jane, specifically her little plot about wanting to go to the mall with her friends but her mom not allowing her to because she wants her daughter to practice for a concert thats 3 months away. Thats unfair and her mom is obviously being shitty here and iirc even Urie and the other angels are like "thats unfair" but they dont wanna let the devils win so they convince Sarah Jane to just invite her friends to her practice instead of going to the mall and thats like. fine, I guess. I just think it sucks that the morality of the angels was only questioned for a brief moment and then tossed away because they found an adequate comprise, yknow?? I feel like they couldve had an interesting conversation about how its maybe not always wrong to be selfish (if youve watched Sanders Sides, basically the whole Selfishness vs Selflessness stuff but w/ angels and devils)

Also, it feels weird that no one really calls attention to Cassidy?? Yknow, that angel that was evil and wanted to incite a war?? That wanted it so much that she willingly worked with a devil??? But also, the War Of A Thousand Centuries was seemingly not considered to be bad itself, but rather the fact that Cassidy and her cringe fail kinda-husband tried to re-incite it after there war a law/truce put in place preventing them from fighting. And Im noticing thats kind of a theme in the series as Im writing it down here, where the Morally Wrong Thing tends to be the thing that makes you break a rule or disobey someone. And like, even beyond my own personal issues with that philosophy, that just makes for some pretty boring storytelling

And then theres the fact that. Okay, how do I explain this. It seems like theyre trying to make Raf a bit more 'diabolical' while making Sulfus more 'angelic' even more so in the second season, which, on paper, is a good way to approach their romance. But like, theyre not really doing that?? At least I feel like they arent. Its a bit hard to explain, but let me get back to those powers they gained right before they kissed. Raf uses her fireball powers quite a bit, she is (symbolically) being diabolical throughout the series, while Sulfus only uses his healing powers once, do you get what Im trying to say here??

Idk man, I was originally gonna write some more but ive been writing this post for hours andmy brain is running out of juice so yea. Hope you liked this

[canmom]

Animation Night 89 - Don Hertzfeldt

Good evening, my friends! Tonight I moved out of my house of the last three years, but that’s no reason not to hold an Animation Night, the most important occasion in the world.

...

...

Tonight, then! We’re going to watch some films of American animator Don Hertzfeldt!

Hertzfeldt is best known of course for his short film Rejected (2001), which you may well have witnessed a good two decades ago on Youtube. Drawn and shot singlehandedly by Hertzfeldt using markers and a 35mm rostrum camera, the film relies on a blend of very 2000s ‘random’ humour, but frames it through a device that makes it a joke on the character of the animator, who allegedly submitted these increasingly edgy shorts to advertising agencies. Eventually his mind decays entirely from the repeated rejections, resulting in the paper world collapsing and slaughtering the cartoons.

But ultimately the focus is mostly on the jokes themselves: each one a short self-contained setup and punchline (often violence), with uncomfortable, bulging eyes stick figures screaming their lines (“My spoon is too big!”); gradually they start to build on each other and iterate on the jokes. The visual style is relatively simple since Hertzfeldt would have had to redraw every frame in Gertie the Dinosaur fashion, with the slight inconsistencies from frame to frame creating an inevitable ‘boiling lines’ effect that adds to the uncomfortable atmosphere.

You can watch a remaster here:

And this unsettling atmosphere and tight absurdist comic timing made it a massive hit, inspiring who even knows how many Flash cartoons (see how many films follow its idiom in animation night 10 and animation night 48) and earning Hertzfeldt a wide reputation.

So where did it come from? Hertzfeldt began animating in university at 17, with Ah, L’Amour (1995), featuring heterosexual male frustrations that’s quite literally cartoonishly misogynist at face value, but at least has some amusement in seeing the guy get guroed repeatedly for his trouble. The next year he followed it with Genre (1996), leaning on a ‘lack of ideas’ joke, but this allowed him to experiment with new styles such as pixilation. By this point he was evidently already stepping into his comedic style, and the film is a series of amusing violent skits on various genres, definitely anticipating Rejected.

Although these two films introduced many elements of his style - the rough paper texture, the boiling lines, the styles of expression, textured pen drawing and violence, Lily and Jim (1997) (youtube) was the first to start zeroing in on the tone. This was the first to introduce lipsynced dialogue, featuring two extremely insecure people on a blind date, and it’s mostly a character animation exercise, expressing the two characters’ immense awkwardness and self-sabotage through body language, glances, etc. In contrast to Ah, L’Amour, this one presents the date with total symmetry; the male character complaining that ‘women don’t under stand him’ is now evidently blustering to cover his own inability to connect.

His final student film was Billy’s Balloon (1998) (youtube), which really started to approach the unsettling tone he was known for, as a bug-eyed child is devoured by a balloon monster. This one has a number of nice direction decisions, and it’s an effective cute horror piece. Before long, this caught attention at animation festivals and on MTV, back when the channel was frequently home to experimental animation.

In the wake of this, Hertzfeldt really was approached by advertising agencies, and though he turned them down (and has generally expressing an appropriate disgust towards advertising, once calling them “nothing but lies”), this inspired the frame story of Rejected. Ironically, the style of his shorts would later be ripped off in a series of Pop Tarts ads. After a while, though, the wave broke... and well, the world mostly moved on! Hertzfeldt’s style was no longer as novel in a post-Newgrounds world, and in any case he was pretty much done with absurdist comedy. Which is not to say his subsequent work didn’t get attention - indeed, it has received almost universal acclaim from those who’ve seen it - but it tended to be back in the narrower domain of arthouse animation circles.

Following Rejected, then, Hertzfeldt spent some years working on his next film, The Meaning of Life (2005), which presents a massive long durée story of evolution from the origins of life to the far future, with the same patterns playing out over and over at different times. Alongside this, Hertzfeldt released a timelapse process video, showing the process of drawing frames, flipping, and animation tests at various stages all with intense silent concentration. The effect is evidently to try and convey something the spiritual experience of animation - at least in my interpretation, since Hertzfeldt himself does not wish to speak.

During this time, he collaborated with Mike Judge to run an animation anthology show, later joined by other independent short film animators like Joanna Quinn and Bill Plympton. For these, Hertzfeld made a handful of shorts to introduce and close out the show.

After The Meaning of Life found success, Hertzfeldt embarked on one of his longest projects: a trilogy of short films which he would subsequently edit together into a feature-length film called It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) (the first two chapters being Everything Will Be OK and I’m So Proud Of You). The films, widely praised for being unreasonably emotionally affecting, concern a man named Bill gradually experiencing a mental breakdown which disrupts his sense of temporality and causes him to suffer various hallucinations.

Alongside these films, he produced a short called Wisdom Teeth screened by surprise at the Ottawa Animation Festival. This one returns to the gore and absurdist humour of Rejected. A man comes out of a wisdom teeth removal operation, and his friend - both speaking in a kind of German-inflected simlish - pulls out his stitches, ultimately pulling out something like his inner child.

By this point, Don Hertzfeldt definitely had a presence in the animation industry as a kind of beloved weirdo, and The Simpsons approached him for a couch gag. Hertzfeldt returned to the themes of The Meaning of Life, transporting the characters into a distant future where their forms have dissolved and relationships fallen apart but still they play their roles.

Despite the rather satirical angle on what the show had become, the showrunners seemed to appreciate it, and the weirdness of the animation left a broader impression. Hertzfeldt, meanwhile, returned to his familiar ground: spending years and years creating another series of short films, this one titled World of Tomorrow, in which Hertzfeldt’s own four-year-old niece was recorded interacting with illustrator Julia Pott performing as her clone from hundreds of years in the future. This builds into an increasingly elaborate plot in which dozens of Emily clones continue to manifest, laying out an apocalyptic timeline. The first episode was released 2015, and the last in 2020, so you can imagine the amount of work piled in. In a break from Hertzfeldt’s previous strictly pen-on-paper films, this time the animation is tradigital, but maintains his minimalist style.

So then, tonight! Since none of his films are very long, we’re gonna marathon the entire Don Hertzfeldt filmography. I admit, I’ve slept on Hertzfeldt’s later films - I just had him in my head as the Rejected guy - but it sounds like he has found an increasing emotional depth in his minimalist style and it will go to some really fascinating places. I also respect him for sticking to his guns on making art films that fit his own desires instead of playing to his audience, and definitely his hatred of advertising, even if I disagree with his stance on free film distribution and I’ve heard rumours about litigiousness against other people who draw stick figures that make me raise an eyebrow a little. (Of course, it’s America, it’s not like there’s a lot of arts council funding the way there is for short animated films in Europe! So I imagine that has an effect.)

I think this is going to be one of those Animation nights, like the ‘annecycore’ night a few weeks ago, where I’m going to come back thinking that this writeup won’t do any sort of justice to their subject. But that’s why we watch the films! So, if you will join me in about half an hour, we’ll enjoy some weird posthuman scifi and discover what unrecognised possibilities the stick figure holds.

Animation Night 89 will start at about 22:45-23:00 UK time at twitch.tv/canmom. Apologies for the late start, I started writing this up once I got out of the car and I gotta eat. We should be back to normal next week!

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

i saw your thing about storyboards vs animatics vs animations vs pmvs, and as someone who is (supposedly, i have 3 drawings left and need to finish) making what would be classified as one of the latter, but calling it an animatic, my two cents on the whole thing is: in this community, people use animatics to refer to everything. if i call it an animatic, people will know what i mean and will be interested, vs being confused and not as interested in a "PMV". I think its quite interesting, tbh.

Yeah, I get that! I totally get that. A lot of it really is just semantics, but it’s kind of just the general peeve of having a fandom misunderstand a word and then having that misinterpreted definition get too widespread to change it. 

I mean, I remember being in the fandom when the very first animatics were popping up (since there weren’t really any until the L’manburg War, y’know? like nobody was going around making animations about the Disc War, really), and there wasn’t really the need for that much of a distinction because for the most part, people WERE making animatics. 

I think it’s just that as time’s gone on and people have started upping the quality on their videos as the fandom’s own standards have risen and fanart’s become more of a thing, they’ve started going past the animatic stage without entirely realizing it? And I don’t really think the term does justice to the videos that ARE complete animations, I suppose. There’s so much effort that goes into that and having the distinction right on the video title is just, idk, nice? 

Which is why I’m so happy that once Sad-ist started doing full-on animations with lipsync and everything for DSMP, she labelled those videos as animations. Because they are, they’re incredibly well-animated and have SO many drawings put into them that it’d just be a disservice to that work to call it an animatic.

 I think it helps because she’s such a well-known presence in the community, ccs see that and go “yes, that’s animation.” And the artists who get inspired by her see that and see that it’s animation as well. 

It’s just a matter of, like, there shouldn’t be this general fandom “standard” of animatics looking so polished and finished when they don’t have to be, I guess? It’s not like an end-of-the-world problem or whatnot, just something that’s been on my mind lol

[tiktaaliker]

everything everything's my computer has been stuck in my head ever since i first heard it so im dusting off my old animation cap and doing a fun lil thing with two of my older robot characters. both of them got fresh coats of paint p recently and i love them both so much

still need to work on some of the movements + fix up the timing on a few parts for the lipsync but yknow. so far so good. this is also prob the most lipsync ive ever had to do for a single animation, and its also def the fastest ive attempted!

original file corrupted completely so i had to remake this from scratch. honestly tho im liking how this is turning out a bit better than the original one sooooo

[rc-dragons]

@aaxooli gave me permission to tag them in some of my cat!dsmp artwork, which quickly made me realise that i havent posted hardly any of it lmao

so ill go in order of finished pieces, to concept art/sketches, to animations/animatics!

first up is finished works:

"The House Always Wins", featuring Quackity!

"And Icarus Fell", featuring Philza! This is depicting when he lost his wings protecting someone (I believe it was Wilbur) from the explosion at L'manburg

"Allium Glen"; I drew this back when Ranboo was doing a ton of heavy lore and I thought c!ranboo deserved a break from all the angst to ske a nap in a field of his favorite flower.

next is sketches/concept art!

heres captain puffy! super thick, curly fur, with a marbled taby pattern in a honey color. I don't know if ill keep the bell or not, but i do think its quite cute :3

this is ponk's design; after the unfortunate events that transpired between him and sam recently I figured he needed a full design sketched out. I thought tortoiseshell would fit his head thing on his skin well :)

foolish! my friend zibs (@dr.zibs on tiktok) was the one to come up with him having the shark features + the sphinx-like neckpiece, and i sketched out this design with those ideas in mind.

philza! featuring his clothes (that techno, who can be seen in the top right of the screen, totally didnt help him make it, why would he ever do that /s) that help keep his desert-cat build warm up in the tundra.

corrupted!ranboo design! this was an idea zibs and i had came up with, where, somehow, ranboo's enderwalk state became permanent, and he lost much of what he was. this was actually tied into something with karl, the in between, and the other side, but that would take Wayy too long to explain and is rather convoluted lol

1/2-2/3 of the cast of the dsmp has designs, but I only felt comfortable uploading art that had been done by me, so theres plenty of designs that are missing. i really recommend checking zibs out; their art is absolutely incredible and theyre a joy to work with!

next up is animations/animatics!

this was a lipsync practice animation i did with awesam; took i think 2 hours??? i spent a long time fighting w/ the program so idk how much time was actually spent drawing

i also have a very cute video of ranboo + michael, but tumblr wont let me post more than one video in the post. alas 😔

zibs and i mainly work together on animatics, which can all be seen on their tiktok!

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeyedwSS/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeye2W9d/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeyeFULB/

on all of these, i did most/all of the sketching, dr. zibs did all the linework (a godsend, truly), i did all the backgrounds, colors, and lighting, and zibs did all the editing and audio work!

this post got. Long but i think its a pretty nice compilation of my work relating to cat!dsmp stuff!

also one final shoutout to @drzibs (@dr.zibs on tiktok) hey are AWESOME to work with and have incredible ideas and incredible artwork ily

[chookity-dookity]

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN...

Can I really say that this episode was a disappointment when I wasn’t expecting it to be that great in the first place?

Listen. I’ve been here since S1. I remember the way Olan hyped up Chapter 8, an episode I don’t actually like all that much. And I remember all the promises of improvement and course-correction that were made during the hiatus, only to be disappointed by a relatively mediocre S2. So I’m not at all surprised that this episode didn’t live up to some people’s expectations. Swept up in the fervor of the moment, the showrunners and the fandom set the bar unrealistically high.

This is Final Space. It’s dumb, it’s zany, it makes absolutely no goddamn sense. It’s always been a bit hit-or-miss, with more misses in the early season and more hits towards the end. And it’s a show that wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s earnest in a way that so few works of fiction are. That raw emotional honesty is what makes its best episodes so great, achieving heights that are rarely reached by other shows. But on the flip side, some episodes are just cringe-inducing hot messes.

This is an episode that falls into the latter category.

THE PACING The pacing is by far the biggest problem with this episode. Too many things happen too quickly, with no time to process them in-between. AVA dies before the opening credits even roll and then is promptly forgotten about. Nightfall’s sacrifice, so crucial to the S2 finale, is never even mentioned at all. Half a dozen new plot threads are introduced and then immediately dropped.

In all fairness, I fully expect that these plotlines will be picked up again in later episodes. And I can appreciate the impulse to lay out the foundations for the rest of the season in the premiere. But it’s just too much. Cramming so much stuff into a 21-minute episode robbed everything of the emotional weight it deserved.

THE JOKES Tonally, they just didn’t work. This is supposed to be the super-serious horror season, but here we are getting hit with S2-style grossout humor. It’s not even that they’re terrible as jokes. They just don’t fit in with the atmosphere of the rest of the episode.

And then, of course, there’s the whole “feel the friendship” bit. It felt like it came straight outta one of Olan’s old YouTube videos. Out-of-context, it’s hilarious. In-context, it’s excruciating. To start with, the whole telepathy thing feels like an unnecessary addition to an already complicated mythology. How seriously were we supposed to take this bit? In the future, should we expect more communication to be happening telepathically? Or was this like... a one-off funny thing we’re not supposed to read too much into?

It also plays into some, dare I say, misogynistic tropes. I’m a little sick of media telling me that the bond between bros (no homo) is closer and more intimate than the relationship between a man and his romantic partner. The writers tried hanging a lampshade on it with a few funny lines from Quinn, but that doesn’t really make it better. It would be one thing if this was building up to a Gary/Quinn breakup further down the line, or if I thought polyspace was seriously on the table, but everything Olan has been saying outside of canon seems to indicate that’s not the case. So this joke is just left feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

THE ANIMATION Would you believe, I even found things to dislike about the animation. The direction in this episode just felt a little bit off. There were some moments where the lipsyncing was a bit weird, one moment where the lighting was very weird, and a particularly interesting cut from a shot of Bolo punching a planet to... very nearly the same shot of Bolo punching a planet. It makes me wonder if this episode went through some major changes in post-production.

All that being said--that Titan fight was cool as hell and one of the highlights not just of this episode, but the entire show. The imagery was spectacular. The Lovecraftian cosmic horror stuff has always been one of my favorite things about Final Space, and it looks like S3 is really going to lean in on that. Despite everything, I’m still excited to see where this season will go.

Overall, I felt this was a weak episode but not a totally awful one. It reminded me of The Toro Regatta in a lot of ways. I’m beginning to sense that premieres are a distinct weakness for the writers, who seem to start out seasons with a really spectacular finale in mind, but have no real idea of how to get there. S1 suffered from having too few episodes to get to its designated endpoint; S2 had far too many for its relatively meager plot. Here’s to hoping that S3 manages to strike a better balance.

[neatokat]

Neato’s Favorite September Tracks!!

Howdy all, starting a new thing with my monthly favorites playlist where I share my favorite tracks for the month! I think it’ll be cool to compare the changes from month to month so it’s mostly for me, but I love sharing music so posting here if you care to listen. This month I have about 13 tracks that I’ll rank from least to most favorite :)

Here’s a link to my favorite tracks playlist and another to my September 2021 playlist if you care to listen :D

13) Figure It Out by A-Wall

I found this song from looking into the artist who wrote Loverboy, which was a popular TikTok sound on my fyp for a good bit this month. My favorite TikToks from that trend were the ones with animals and other sweet things happening to people and here’s my favorite one if you care to watch :). When I was looking into the artist I found this song and I thought the vibe was really chill,, perfect for my walks to school early in the morning. The lyrics however aren’t as chill and I feel like that is representative of myself, as I tend to appear calm and collected on the surface level even though I may be really stressed and anxious internally. (Still makes it perfect for my morning walks though as my first class is psychological statistics and it’s a really hard class lmao).

12) Festival Grrrl by Ivy Mono

I actually first came across this song in the recommended songs list of my August 2021 playlist. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the song then and usually skipped it if I happened to run through my entire August playlist and it was playing recommended songs. However, as it kept coming up, I grew to like it more ( that’s the mere exposure effect at play boys 😎). I ended up adding it when it was recommended for my September playlist.

11) Yarn by McCafferty

I love me a good angry song and I earlier in the month I had added Beachboy by the same artist. However, I was kind of bored with all the music I had on my playlist at the time because it was a bit of a repeat of last month. I like to hear a variety of things so I ended up going through each artist I had in the playlist to see if they had any other good songs. I came across this song along with a couple of others. It’s not as angry as Beachboy, but I did like it’s general vibe (mostly the guitar and drums in bsckground). Very catchy song 👍

10) WasteUrTime by Kevin Walkman

I’m pretty sure I added this song through the recommended list on my September playlist. Overall it’s just a really funky song that makes my head go brrrrrrrrr with the backtrack and with every “time/mind”. I absolutely love this song.

9) Keep Two-Stepping by Pretoria

This song has a really chill vibe,, I love to listen to it if I’m feeling anxious or to wind down before I go to sleep. I’m listening to it right now and it’s making me a bit sleepy (I can’t tell if I accidentally conditioned that response or I’m just tired lmao). Sometimes when I listen to this song I think about the really sweet candle guy, and I hope he’s doing okay (we still talk every so often but he’s stressed with a new job so I try not to bug him). Good song 👍

8) Turtleneck Sweater by marinelli

This was another song I found in my September recommended. When I first came across it I looped it for about a day straight. Another really chill song, and I love to listen to it on the bus home.

7) Missing Poster by Budman.

I actually found this one song on TikTok, and though thinking too hard about the general theme of the song makes me uncomfortable sometimes it’s just really catchy and gets stuck in my head all the time. Still a good song 👍

6) Sunkissed by khai dreams

This is the #1 most popular track by khai dreams right now and for good reason. It’s such a lovely song (pun intended). Whenever I listen to this song I’m reminded of the time I was singing this on the elevator and the doors opened suddenly and two girls walked in on me. Hella embarrassing lmao. It also makes me think of this one girl who helps to take care of the cats that live under one of the buildings near my Tuesday/Thursday classes. She’s really sweet and I enjoy the little time I get to spend with her between my classes those days.

5) Choker by Beach Goons

I found this song through the candle guy. Whenever we were first getting to know each other, he would ask me about my island picks (if you had to pick one [fill in the blank] to take to an abandoned island, what would you chose?). To his dismay, I’m pretty indifferent to everything, so when he asked what album I would choose as my island pick, I said I didn’t have one lmao. His island pick is called Hoodratscumbags and despite the sort of off-putting name it’s actually a really good album and I couldn’t recommend it more. They give off a really cool San Diego vibe and honestly all their music slaps. This song is another one by them, and it’s my favorite one by far. Its the kind of song you want to jump and headbang to, and I can’t help but tap my foot whenever I’m listening to it in public.

4) Fairhaven Station by tanner.

This was yet another song I found in my recommended for my September playlist. Just like Turtleneck Sweater, the first day I heard it I looped it for about a day straight. It’s a really good traveling song and a fun one to walk to across campus between classes.

3) Was It Something I Said by MyKey ft. Cavetown

This yet another song I found in the recommended section for my September playlist. I saw that Cavetown was a featuring artist on the song and I was sold. The fakeout at beginning of the song is absolutely fantastic and the backtrack of this song is literally so pleasing to the ear that I could probably listen to it on loop for days on end and I still wouldn’t be tired of it.

2) OhNo! by Kevin Walkman and Mickey Darling

Yet another song I found in my recommended for September (can you tell this is my main method of finding new music lmao). I love a good upbeat song as much as the next guy. In addition to the song just being a good vibe in general I absolutely love the cover art. One of my favorite songs ever just by vibe alone 👍

1) Mawce by Everybody’s Worried About Owen

This is another song I found through TikTok, and honestly it’s one of my favorite trends to go through LGBT+ TikTok. If you scroll through the sound you’ll find people lipsyncing to the line “so I’ll give myself a name, something stupid and pretentious like moss spelled with a C” while showing off their own chosen names and sharing where they pulled inspiration for their name. It’s overall just a silly and wholesome trend and I can’t help but smile when one comes up on my fyp. This trend actually inspired me to actually pick out my own name, something I had been too scared to do before because I didn’t know how to find a name that meant something to me. After seeing how other people came up with their own names (their favorite childhood tv shows and movies, something inspired from nature, video game characters, etc.) I realized it didn’t have to be serious if I didn’t want it to