#like its going to the direction i wanted

[suntails]

love will truly live

[teh-inggris]

pvp civ nation...... this aint much but pls take my contribution for this series bc im going insane i love hate this man so much get him out of my head

[tizzymcwizzy]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! i have another marichat holiday themed piece for y'all :D (imagine this is stuffed in ur stocking or smth (along with some tiny candy canes))

[sabertoothwalrus]

so I’ve been gaining a lot of insight into the animation industry recently, especially in regards to pitching & the creation of new shows. There’s a few ways to go about it.

First, there’s pitching to a studio. When you pitch, it has to be SHORT and CONCISE. You may write a lovingly detailed pitch bible that perfectly breaks down episodes and characterizations, and it might barely even get read. First impressions, first impressions, first impressions!

Most peoples’ first projects don’t get picked up. I’ve heard a few stories from directors that said they tried pitching a story they’d had for years, which got rejected, to then spend a week or even several hours in their car coming up with a new idea, only for that to get greenlit.

But that’s not the end of it. Just because a show gets greenlit, doesn’t mean it will ever get finished. There’s lots of things that can happen. Sometimes, unexpected major world events (like… a global pandemic) can cause projects to get chopped. Sometimes, a CEO change or studio merge means a single person can decide a project “no longer fits with the company’s brand.” Sometimes, the one producer that was rooting for your project gets laid off, and no one else cares enough, so it gets shelved. Sometimes, a streaming service decides to create an animation department, and then they decide they don’t want it anymore. Sometimes, the studio will be simultaneously be developing another project that was too similar to yours and they just didn’t think to tell you until they decide yours is the one with less potential.

On top of that, almost everyone in the industry is saying that “studios just don’t pick up original content anymore.” Studios want something they can franchise, something that will bring in money. New content is risky. Established fanbases are safer.

However! Studios can still be a very good thing. They can be unionized. They can provide better benefits and resources. They can have connections and infrastructure and a larger volume of workers. At a studio, you can divide the labor and produce more in less time. Longer episodes, longer seasons, more consistency in quality.

But this comes with all of the disadvantages of having more in the kitchen.

The alternative is indie animation.

With indie animation, you have total freedom. Full artistic control. It doesn’t even matter if your idea sucks ass, because there’s no one to tell you you can’t make it. You could make it anyway, and you can make it whatever you wanted.

The thing is, making animation is hard. In my production class last semester, the average maximum animation one person could make in that timeframe was 30-60 seconds, and that’s not even counting background design, sound design, or cleanup/color. To make a 5 minute animated short, you should probably have at least 5 people.

And it is CRUCIAL you have a production manager. Ideally someone who’s not already doing art for the project. Most projects without a production manager will fall apart pretty quickly. Once the adrenaline and impulse-fueled motivation wears off, you need someone to hold you accountable and enforce deadlines and proper time management.

Speaking of time, that’s also hard to get. The more people you have, the more likely schedules won’t line up. Most people will have school, or other jobs.

And it costs MONEY!!!!!! You either have everyone work for free and volunteer their time & energy, or you establish a business as a proper indie studio, with people who may or may not have experience on how to handle paying someone else’s salary. And the money has to come from somewhere, so you have to rely on crowdfunding like patreon or kickstarter. (This, by the way, is why I could never fault an indie animation for releasing merch with their pilot.)

And like, maybe you wanna do a series, and all your friends agree to volunteer their labor and time to make the first episode, but it was unanimously not sustainable. Deciding not to produce a second episode until you can raise enough money is not being suddenly greedy, it’s attempting to compensate people rather than expecting them to be continuously taken advantage of.

You have to consider your output as well. There are some outliers like Worthikids, who afaik does all his animation himself, and afaik can work on it full-time thanks to his patreon subscribers. And he still has only produced a total of 30 minutes of animation (for Big Top Burger specifically) in the past 4 years. This is an IMPRESSIVE feat and this is with using a lot of 3D as part of his pipeline!!

Indie animation also has the complication of being more accessible for fandoms. When you’re posting your Official Canon Content on youtube, it doesn’t look a lot different than the fandom-created video essay in the sidebar next to it. What’s canon vs what’s fanon becomes less distinguishable. The boundaries are blurrier. When the creator is just some guy you follow on twitter, it’s easier to prod them for info regarding ships and theories and word-of-god confirmation. They don’t have a PR team or entire international tv networks to appeal to. And this is when creators get frustrated that their fans snowball and turn their creation into something they don’t recognize (and no longer enjoy) anymore.

So it’s tricky.

Thankfully, the threshold to learn animation is fairly low nowadays!! There are TONS of resources online to learn it on your own without forking over a couple hundred thousand to a private art college. There are conventions and discord servers and events where you can network, if you know where to look.

I know it can seem discouraging in the face of capitalism, but I think that’s all the more reason why it’s so important to BE DETERMINED about animation!! We’re already starting to see the beginning of an indie animation boom, and I think it’s a testament to humanity’s desire to tell stories and create art. Even if there’s no financial gain, we do whatever it takes to tell our stories anyway.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[skunkes]

micro comic with no real point or punchline i just have conversations i wanna draw out sometimes

[serotonin-dose]

AsaDen x Metaphor Re:Fantazio

[mage-ical-character-person]

Why does he tell the player this. AND NOT HIS BIZZZYBOYS?? His boys are so scared…

Spoilers. And rambling

Shouldn’t it be the other way around if he wants us to “leave it to the professionals”? Wouldn’t it be better if he let us be afraid and not his boys?

Why does he tell the Godpoke at all? Isn’t sowing seeds of doubt and distrust the whole point of what he’s doing? He wants the player to stay out of his way and telling them stuff like this seems counterproductive. He could’ve not told us that without looking suspicious, he’s definitely got the plausible deniability on this one. No one’s seen Cobigail in years. Even she doesn’t remember for certain if she eats people or not.

SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER! Gosh, just… her genuine self-doubt over this. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t eat people… but what if they’re right, what if she is a monster? This bit breaks my heart, poor Cobi

I wonder if having her question herself that way was part of the plan.

ANYWAY! Inspekta could’ve easily told the player he doesn’t know if the blood sacrifice stuff is true or not, but considering the other letters it’s probably part of “King’s” plan, and that he and his boys are looking into it and the Godpoke should stay out of it until they know things are safe.

Again. Cobigail is not doing herself any favors. And again, Inspekta has the plausible deniability, and isn’t creating distrust towards the other gods the whole point of his plan?

She is NOT helping her case.

MA’AM!! I love you so much but you are making yourself look very guilty as far as the whole blood sacrifice thing goes. I AM TRYING TO CLEAR YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW MA’AM AND. YOU’RE REALLY NOT HELPING

Like

She even says it’s an understandable mistake to make. (After all the trouble that lie caused her… Cobi, how are you so sweet and understanding?) Inspekta could’ve played dumb. I guess his pride wouldn’t allow that, and he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make King look bad.

Or maybe a part of him recognized that he went a little too far with that one. Cobigail isn’t really a threat to him the way he perceives the other gods to be. And accusing her of blood sacrifice when she’s already been isolated for 20 years is disproportionately harsh compared to like… forging a breakup letter and sabotaging a roundabout love confession. (If you could even call it that. Those two probably would've went at least another century without admitting their feelings without Inspekta's meddling prompting the Godpoke to slap Clicky in the face with it)

Anyway now I’m imagining Hector apologizing to her after the events of the game and her responding with a similar “I can see how you would get that confused” and uh Hector saying like, “No, Cobbie, I new yew we-aren’t a blood drink-her. I lied ‘bout yew”

and Cobigail just going like: Oh…. Oh! That was a good one, then! You even had me going for a bit there! and then she does her scary face at him and tells him to never do that again or she’ll barbecue him. And then she says she’s just messing around but seriously dial it back next time.

And I dunno something like how she responds to you throwing her own jumpscare prank back at her.

Wanna draw that now. But alas I have other projects on my plate at the moment

[lemongogo]

sry i dont know what 2 draw anymore T_T . elendira portrait #999

[piecesofchess]

Tartarus is still a little broken and that's Fun !

[dxxtruction]

Louis' "You're boring!" Could mean so many things, but I think what's most apparent about that line is that Armand takes no initiative just for himself. He's not really anybody, because he never goes out and finds himself or gets attached to anyone but Louis. Without Louis as his guide he's literally just sitting on a couch picking lint! That's the thing.

He orbits constantly around what would make Louis happy, and never really fully going what would make me happy? Ultimately that drive to please Louis is what drives him to torturing Daniel, not so much that he'd care to just do it. Ultimately, not giving proper care to Louis is just a way to make sure Louis knows he has to orbit around him as well, with shoving Lestat onto him just that other nail on the coffin. So, even if he fails to figure out how to make Louis happy with him, he still knows what Armand is good for, and better than.

That dependency is what drives Armand's abuse. It really just comes down to that. Armand doesn't even realize how suffocated he is by his own dependency. This is just how life is to him. (It shouldn't be lost either that dependency is a theme considering this episode also deals with addiction).

Daniel's fascinating because he's just so driven to be somebody. He's largely independent, he seeks things because he wants them. It's his drug to poke and prod at all the things that he shouldn't. Daniel's exciting because he lets Louis in to something different, lets him in to all this potential in another person that he can also do the same with for himself. It's a real connection. A two way street. It's easy to tell how Armand can be smothering then because he's never introducing him to anything really new, and most the ways both of them connect are all painful and traumatic. It's never just fun because there's always that layer of that pain. Fun died with Claudia.

50 years on they've gotten to a lot better place, both of them, but it's still that same shit. No seriously, "How is this any different from last time, Louis?"

Well... Because Armand's going to be, at the very least, making one [1] decision only for himself - and that's to hold power over Daniel's life. Fucking sick foreshadowing.

They aren't driving each other to the brink anymore but "The vampire is bored" STILL. Maybe it's even worse, despite being in better places, because Louis' sort of just been defeated by it. (I mean, can he even really leave this either?). He's accepting the dependancy cause he kind of has to. He'd literally ended up letting all the enjoyment be up where he can't reach [The book shelves]. Armand so desperately wants Louis happiness but what really ends up happening is that Louis ends up having to give Armand all his own. He's got no one or anything else to get it from. But like an iPad and an over the top eating ritual. Two extremes of what's just more lint picking.

This whole relationship is one I find just tragic inside and out. You have to just pity it, really. There's ways in which you can find yourself feeling bad for both of them. But you can only really be mad at Armand for any of it. Armand, who isn't even 'free' in any sense, having so little concept of his own independence, but is at the same time so controlling over other's. It's a tragic cycle. It's an infuriating one.

Louis at least has the mind to know when enough is enough. If just needing that extra push to get there. Armand's too scared of it being over to even try.

[unforth]

ngl I've been increasingly struggling with the use of feminizing language and "but make them women" stuff in my main fandoms, all of which are about queer Asian men. It's always bothered me but I feel like it's bothering me even more now, and I'm not sure if that's because it's become more prevalent or if I'm getting more sensitive to it. I just can't help but want to point out, like...

1. If yall want women and lesbians... you know there are fandoms... with women and lesbians... right? Women and lesbians are great! I'm begging you to go read stories that actually are about them.

2. Like seriously if you want stories about women why are you in the gay guy bl fandom

3. White fans please unpack why you think that lithe Asian gay man needs to be a woman, needs to be pregnant, why you are calling him breedable, or babygirl, or malewife. Like I am begging people who do this to spend five minutes considering why they do, why you think it's okay, why it's maybe different than saying even the same things about white people, like yall just collectively forgetting decades of racist feminizing language weaponized against Asian men.

I'm not saying anything I haven't said before but it's just been really A Lot recently if I have to see one more post about any MXTX character needing to be a breedable malewife maid I'm going to scream.

Note: this is NOT about trans head canons or trans stuff. I love trans masc and trans fem stuff. Don't stop.

(Disclaimer: I am also white.)

Also note like... this isn't about any specific fan having a preference. People like mpreg. People like gender swaps. That's great! I support an individual's preferences! But just because behavior is okay on an individual level, that doesn't mean it doesn't start to get a little awkward at a collective fandom level. And idk, it's hard to divorce my personal discomfort with some of these things from an assessment of if it's actually ~a problem~ so maybe I'm just not recognizing my own issues here, but... yeah. I keep starting to write more then deleting it so I guess I'll shut up now.

[suntails]

adrift

[silently-standingstill]

TEAM8s is not a team that did nothing, but rather a team that suffered from unused potential

This is an analysis of Team8s in TPOT 1-2, and (most) characters on the team. This is what I believe to be how an arc for Team8s could've been portrayed if their team had something going on before the merge. This analysis takes into consideration their experiences in BFDIA and BFB, and how it could've affected TPOT and their team.

Team8s is a team that is full of potential, it was formed through Coiny wanting to have woah bunch reunited, and Saw and Gaty wanting to team with Barf Bag over having zig zags, it is also a team made up of close duos (+ Needle), and 5/8 of the members having leader qualities. This is a team that has so much potential because of how much conflict could have arisen, even before the team was officially formed, Coiny, Gaty and Pin were arguing over the team's name, over something so trivial too! This interaction shows how strong they are with their wants and beliefs, and rooted in why the team was formed, that it should be named after why they're in the team, instead of making something united together. The characters joined for different reasons and it's interesting seeing right off the bat how strong each of their presences are. For potential, I believe Pin and Coiny's conflict with their experiences in BFDIA could've made for something interesting, especially since two of the characters were dragged into the team because of that. BFDIA is something Coiny wishes to relive and want that experience to be ongoing, but it isn't and he cannot move on from the past, contrasting with Pin's distaste for the season because of her treatment, experiences, even becoming disabled in the season and nobody caring other than Coiny. They have extremely different views of the season that brought them together despite being so close, and with this team, I believe it would have given them the chance to show their frustrations about the season, and have the ability to communicate more in depth about why it left such an impact on both of them, and also how they can move on from it and enjoy the future outside of that season. That being said, the characters outside of that duo can push that potential arc forward, BFDIA being a season that some characters weren't there for, or didn't impact them overall. Donut being the first eliminated, the game itself wouldn't have much importance to him, and due to his early elimination, he grew as a character due to that. If his previous characterization was referenced by Coiny or any other character, either Barf Bag or pin could remarked that he isn't the same person, he still retains his irritable nature but he now is more considerate and thoughtful, a person who is a leader and rational. The past is not the present and he's very different from his beginnings. Speaking of leaders, Needle is able to speak her mind, if something like this did happen, she would be able to put him in his place and tell him to move on, similar to how she did in BFB with Firey and Leafys arguing, and same with Gaty! However, most of her interactions with him are negative, but arguably, most of them do have to do with BFDIA, she would be seeing this from an outside view and possibly confront Coiny about his attachment to that previous season (though narratively, Needle would be a better pick for that role considering their past, Gaty would be better to further the conflict and cause him to realize that there is an issue). There could be a rift between the characters in the team, similar to Bleh, but not as unattached from reality that book caused her team to be. The conflict could affect the teams overall performance, especially with so many characters who fit the leader role, it would cause no single direction that challenges go, many of the duos/groups splitting off to do their own thing. There's many ideas and directions, and nobody cooperating. Once Gaty, who was on a team with conflict previously, and possibly Donut, someone who is able to keep his team together, they realize they cannot function as a team if this keeps on going. They'd be the characters to cause the other characters to resolve the conflict and ultimately have the arc come to a close.... and this is just a single idea! The team overall has so much potential and wasn't used despite there being so much going on for all the characters! They aren't a team that did nothing, but a team that was forgotten about.

[ocularose]

ill never shut up about transandrophobia. i dont care about being labelled as 'annoying' or a 'mra' when the posts i share essentially boils down to asking- if not demanding or even begging- to be given basic human decency as trans men; instead of being othered, bullied/(sexually) harrassed, or abused all because of our harmless gender identity.

'but some of those posts call out (trans) women' women are people. i would call out anyone of any gender if they think people like me should be detransitioned or even should die just because they dont like men. im more quiet abt it because trans men are demonized enough as it is, but i did see harmful things from other transmascs and i call it out too. anyone of any gender can hold bigoted ideals. but 'men deserve respect' is not one of them. again, thats basic human decency.

[delicatepointofview]

gonna have to deal with people missing the point of louis singing 1d songs in festivals... don't get me started on the other covers